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e could be entering the final its do not exactly help as well. changed out of virtually all recogni- lap of the imperialist-driven Unhelpfully - though with an element tion. The ignoble collapse of the ‘so- W‘peace’ process in Northern of black humour - Gerry Adams was cialist bloc’ left only one superpower Ireland. George Mitchell, the United stopped at an army checkpoint on his on the map - US imperialism. Natu- States senator and chair of the way to the Stormont talks meeting on rally, the vastly increased clout of Stormont talks, insists at the time of Friday. American imperialism narrowed the writing that the Thursday deadline for All this intensive diplomatic toing- scope for manoeuvre for national lib- completion of the talks can still be met. and-froing - and British army crass- eration movements. Hence the defeat It is almost beyond question that some ness - demonstrates of course the or - usually - the integration of revo- sort of settlement is imminent. The In- fragile and complex nature of the im- lutionary nationalist organisations dependent, for one, certainly thinks perialists’ peace negotiations. It re- (ANC, PLO, etc) into the imperialist so and can hardly wait for the signa- quires some very deft manoeuvring framework. Nelson Mandela and tures to hit the paper: “We suspect on behalf of the British and Irish gov- Yasser Arafat are now loyal accom- that the momentum and will for peace ernments. Just one clumsy move there, plices to the imperialists’ plans and are now too great to be defeated”. It one awkward or badly formulated schemes. went on to implore that, this time, all phrase here, and perhaps … Crucially, at Sunningdale the para- the parties involved make “the peace But bit by bit, talk by talk, deal by military forces were on the outside, process a peace settlement” (Edito- deal, the forces of revolutionary na- frowning and scowling in. Now they rial April 4). tionalism - and those of are talking from the inside. In addi- For anyone who doubts the imperi- counterrevolutionary loyalism - are tion, Ian Paisley’s intransigent Demo- alist sincerity of the British govern- being drawn into the diplomatic net. cratic Unionist Party has been ment, just take a stroll around the castle After years of hardship and frustra- effectively sidelined by the Ulster buildings at Stormont or the govern- tion, the carrot being dangled by Democratic Party and the Progressive ment quarters in Dublin. British and Mitchell and his backers might prove Unionist Party - at least for the time Irish officials are burning the midnight too hard to refuse. Lord Alderdice of being anyway. oil. The current level of diplomatic the ‘nonsectarian’, pro-union Alli- The differences between then and activity has been described as “fever- ance Party summed up the collective now were also apparent to The Inde- ish”. For the first time in 21 months all desires of the pro-imperialist bourgeoi- pendent. Discussing Sunningdale, it the respective parties attended the sie in Northern Ireland: “Not only are confidently claimed: “This settlement Stormont talks on Sunday. According most of the outline agreed, most of will be superior. It will, through the to one of the delegates: “More work the detail is too. We are looking to get twin referendum on both sides of the has been done in the past week than there. It’s looking good”. Even David border, be more legitimate” (April 4). in the previous umpteen months”. Trimble sounded upbeat and positive: The sticking point remains as ever Tony Blair is now in Belfast to help “I think the difficulties can be over- on cross-border institutions. The loy- IRA fought heroically for 30 years to the hearts of Sinn Fein or moderate the final push for ‘peace’. come if people are sensible in their ap- alists want to make sure that any such against the might of British imperial- unionists - but not too much dismay The obvious question remains. Will proach to the negotiations.” bodies have no executive power. But ism - with its death squads, assassi- either. As part of the overall imperial- both the loyalists and the national- Under the aegis of Mitchell, three they might concede that if they are to nations, internment, intimidation, ist package, a snap referendum will be ists swallow, compromise and accept strands are being negotiated simulta- have executive-powers, then they repressive laws, etc. The Crown forces held on April 23 both north and south, Mitchell’s terms? neously: the powers and functions of should be enshrined in legislation at were unable to defeat PIRA. The peace with elections to the assembly this It has not been an easy ride for a Northern Ireland assembly; the Westminster rather than deriving from talks are a recognition of this fact. summer. The Blairite passion for rule Mitchell or the forces of imperialism. scope of cross-border institutions; the proposed northern assembly. Na- But communists understand that by referendum - ie, from above - con- The ‘peace’ process is inherently and the relationship between Dublin, tionalists, whether constitutional or PIRA - and, for that matter, Continu- tinues. volatile. Crisis, setbacks and delays Belfast and London and the Scottish revolutionary, maintain that the north- ity IRA - are not proletarian revolu- Mitchell was very concerned that can surface at any time. This is clear. and Welsh assemblies. SDLP wants a ern assembly - Stormont II, if you like tionaries. As a petty bourgeois the settlement details were kept se- Hardly surprisingly, the US senator power sharing executive, which will - will have de facto executive powers. nationalist movement it is inevitably cret for as long as possible. “Lives has been less than happy with the have some 90 members, with each It will have an “inbuilt dynamic to pulled between the rock of guerillaism and deaths are at stake here. It would conduct over recent days of Blair and community having a veto over all de- grow” executive powers, was how one and the hard place of secretive, back- be incredible and deeply disturbing Bertie Ahern, the Irish prime minister. cisions. The loyalists want a commit- Sinn Fein delegate delicately put it. handed diplomacy with the imperial- for anyone in this process to engage Last Friday, Mitchell was asked right tee-style assembly to run Northern There is also the ever thorny ques- ists - with the oppressed masses in that for short term advantage when at the last minute to withhold his 65- Ireland’s six departments. tion of policing and (the release of) acting as pawns. we are so close to a conclusion,” he page document, which was on the Many are dubbing the current ne- prisoners. Mitchell proposes a north-south announced. He also told journalists verge of being released. Blair wanted gotiations ‘Sunningdale II’. Indeed, Sinn Fein/IRA might well acquiesce ministerial council, drawing its repre- he believed it better that the ‘settle- to consult with David Trimble, Ulster Seamus Mallon, the SDLP’s deputy to an imperialist-driven deal. The pres- sentatives from the northern assem- ment papers’ be delivered late and Unionist Party leader and Ahern with leader, has called the new deal taking sure is immense. If it does, it is impor- bly and the Dail, with up to 14 right, then on time but wrong. Sinn Fein (in other words, the SF and shape in Stormont “Sunningdale for tant to stress that we are not implementation bodies operating un- Whatever deal is made - or not made UUP leaders are almost certainly ne- slow learners”. However, the differ- witnessing a resounding defeat for the der a council of ministers - trade; tour- - this week, the oppressed in the north gotiating directly through the two ences far outnumber the similarities. forces of revolutionary republicanism ism; transport; health; culture and the of Ireland remain undefeated l prime ministers). Old oppressive hab- The general world situation has in Northern Ireland. The Provisional arts, etc. This fudge will not bring joy Page April 9 1998 etters

How can LRCI say now that it is possi- Party notes ble to have a bourgeois state that can L expropriate the bourgeoisie and that a workers’ state can perfect the bourgeois In his letter (Weekly Worker, April 2), J state? Reilly uses two quotes from the Red 5. WP justified its clandestine methods Action initiated open invitation to all as being imposed by the needs of Bol- new anti-racist guidance. Blair has wel- working class militants, as follows: shevik homogenisation. However, its line comed the task force’s report, saying: “I “According to Open Polemic, ‘ad- is entirely erratic. They decided to have am proud of the multi-cultural society we Participants judged the Party school on the USSR over the week- dressing the contemporary problems of closed discussions because they are in- live in, proud to lead a government that end of April 4-5 a success and one of the most useful we have the working class’ or even attempting capable of debating them in front of the believes nobody should be shut out of organised in recent years. It was a pity that a series of unavoidable ‘to provide progressive working class class and even their readers? If Brenner society’s mainstream”. circumstances kept the numbers attending low, but the presence of thinking with a strategical and theoreti- is so proud of the LRCI’s lively internal Jack Straw is also doing his anti-racist comrades from other trends greatly enriched the debate. In particu- cal cutting edge’ is certainly counter-pro- life, why does he totally ignore its dissi- bit. He has told black MPs that com- lar, I would highlight the contributions of Phil Sharpe as consist- ductive if not counter-revolutionary. dents? In the 1940s the Fourth Interna- plaints about the treatment of black pris- ently challenging and useful. Have you ever heard such errant non- tional invited the Schactmanite and Poum oners can be raised directly with him. Over the two days, a great deal of material was analysed, many sense?”. splinters to discussions with their own Straw’s directive follows the outcry over important theoretical questions aired. In this week’s report how- It is really Reilly who is indulging in papers and internal conferences. How- the comments by Richard Tilt, head of ever, I want to look at a recurring theme of the school - the question errant nonsense because Open Polemic ever, the LRCI threatens its dissidents. the prison service. Tilt gave a TV inter- of method, theoretical development and definition. is addressing the problems and attempt- In fact, one of the reasons why Brenner view last month in which he made the Opponents on the revolutionary left often accuse our organisa- ing to provide a cutting edge. is so keen in writing in the Weekly Worker much criticised and derided claim that tion of being ‘agnostic’, or even ‘philistine’ concerning the key Reilly even claims that Open Polemic is because this paper has served as a black people were more likely to suffo- political question of the 20th century - the nature of the Soviet argues that “until they (the working tribune for the LRCI’s dissidents. How- cate being restrained than whites be- Union. The latest - and amongst the crudest - has been comrade class) come to their senses they should ever, the LRCI has decided to consider cause they were “physiologically Richard Brenner of Workers Power who tells our readers of “the be ignored”. all of them as non-persons. They never different”. CPGB’s insistence that there is something ‘bureaucratic’ or ‘sect- As members of the working class we reply directly to them. From reading some left papers you like’ about an organisation deciding on its policy after internal de- are far from ignoring it. In fact, our re- would get the distinct impression that bate, and then requiring its members to fight publicly for the majority sponse to the open invitation stated Birmingham this is all part of a diabolical racist position” (Weekly Worker April 2). that: masterplan by Blair and the bourgeoisie. With a dishonest - and laughably clumsy - sleight of hand, the “While we agree with Red Action’s This is pure self-deception. When our comrade makes the profoundly complex and pivotal question of the statement that the battle for hearts and bold prime minister talks about “stamp- nature of the Soviet Union a matter of binding “policy”, like per- minds must begin with the battle of ideas, ing out racial abuse” at football matches, haps our attitude to action around a particular demo, election or we fervently disagree with it and other he really means extending social con- picket. It would be difficult for me to provide more conclusive evi- anarcho-communist trends that the bat- I was chastened to read, in the Weekly trol by the state. dence of the ‘sect-like’ nature of WP than comrade Brenner gives tle of ideas begins with the undifferenti- Worker (March 26) that not only am I Though it likes to think so, the left does us every time he writes. ated class, ie, the mass of the class. On “fond of portraying” myself as “the very not have a monopoly on anti-racism. This But what of this charge of ‘agnosticism’? In fact, our school the contrary, life dictates that it begins model of the sensible Marxist”, but I even must be the case - just look at the ex- made clear that we are striving for a collective view of this phenom- with the most advanced sections, those personify an especially iniquitous trend Tory MP, David Mellor. As chair of the enon. We do want the Communist Party to be characterised by an already engaged in some form of revolu- in the labour movement - “sensible Bob Football Task Force he has already come understanding of the nature of the USSR and the reasons for its tionary activity. Until we, the revolution- Pitt types”. I mean, we can’t have the far up with 40 different sets of ideas for tack- failure. After all, this awareness will hopefully inform - though it ary section of the class, are united in the left going around being sensible, can we? ling racism. Like Blair, he fulminates that need not be explicitly present in - our programmatic approach to the nucleus of a party, we can offer little but It is reassuring to know that the Weekly there “must be zero tolerance to racism. task of working class state power. The key question of the 20th pious rhetoric to the class as a whole”. Worker will be maintaining its resolute Our main concern is to propose practical century cannot be met with a shrug. However, unlike a sect, we will stand against this particular ideological measures to stamp out racism wherever not make such an understanding a requirement of membership of West London deviation. it occurs”. the revolutionary party. Is he kidding? I do not think so. The two major alternative theories confronting us at the school North West London were that of ‘orthodox’ Trotskyism - represented by the Marxist Hull Bulletin - and the variant of state capitalism held by comrades of the Revolutionary Democratic Group and the Worker Communist Party of Iraq. Our essential criticism of these currents is of their Last week I read comrade Richard Bren- flawed, atrophied method. Take for example the way that Trotsky- ner’s fourth contribution in the Weekly ism has laid hold of the man’s partial, unfinished definitions and Worker. However, it shocked me how Racism is everywhere. You cannot move categories and frozen them into vacuum-packed dogmas. A defi- Workers Power could completely ignore for racists. No section of society is im- After an Oldham school was daubed ex- nition is a brief, logical description of a thing, stating what is per- many crucial arguments which were mune from this terrible social evil. Some- tensively with swastika stickers - a situ- ceived of as the essential distinctive properties determining its pointed out many months ago by differ- thing must be done. ation aggravated by comments in the content and parameters. Definitions are thus indispensable tools ent comrades in this paper. If he would Yes, welcome to New Britain - which local press that the majority of attacks in for humanity’s comprehension of the world and the fight to change like to deserve some respect he should does not allow for ‘old’ racism. Anti-rac- the area were on whites by coloureds - it. answer the following questions: ism is the official ideology of the bour- the Anti-Nazi League made a hasty re- However, they are conditional understandings, circumscribed by 1. When will WP, Trotskyist Interna- geois state. For liberal - or even not so sponse. cultural levels, the data available and the stage the phenomenon tional or any other League for a Revolu- liberal - anti-racists this presents no It set up a stall in Oldham town centre being studied has reached in its process of development. Social tionary Communist International problem or dilemma. Surely, at the end of last Saturday to carry out petitioning and phenomena therefore have no ‘fixed’ or ‘eternal’ elements or char- publication carry a critique from one of the day, only racists could object to the paper sales. One of the volunteers told acter but are subject to constant change. A definition can fix the the many comrades who wrote for the state passing what it terms ‘anti-racist’ me that the atmosphere was not encour- superficial attributes of a thing at any given moment or period, and Weekly Worker, or inform/debate with legislation? aging and that “people on the street thus transform these attributes into something permanent and un- their readers about the prolific discus- But in the real world of class society openly used racist language”. This, changing. sions which have evolved in this paper? and class struggle, ‘official’ anti-racism however, did not prepare these comrades Definitions are rendered further contingent through the very na- In fact, the small letters section in their divides the working class. For all its fine for an open physical attack upon them. ture of human cognition of a world characterised by flux and change. press is in danger of becoming extinct. talk, ‘official’ anti-racism actually ends In a hit-and-run operation ten fascists Lenin thus writes that “the representation of movement by means 2. Comrade Brenner said that WP’s U- up dividing the working class along ‘ra- overturned the stall, severely kicking and of thought always makes coarse, kills - and not only by means of turns on Scotland and Eastern Europe cial’ lines - not uniting them. To get your punching the volunteers. Workers at a thought, but also by means of perception, and not only movement showed a healthy internal life. However, grant from the council, you have to fulfil nearby Boots store gave assistance, de- but every concept” (VI Lenin CW Vol 38, pp259-60). WP never acknowledge the fact that its quotas - lo and behold one ‘race’ com- spite objections from their management Trotsky’s provisional categories represent enormously profound other currents (like the LCMRCI, the LTT, petes with another for scarce resources. at becoming involved in ‘gang warfare’. attempts by a Marxist of genius to develop an understanding of a the CPGB, etc.) previously hammered Instead of uniting and fighting, there is There are serious questions raised by unique, totally unprecedented social phenomenon in the very WP’s opposition against Scottish self- division in the fight for favours. this event. It is well known that the Brit- course of its birth and consolidation. Trotsky’s problems were ex- determination and its insistence (until The latest target for the state’s anti- ish National Party has a base in the acerbated by his conditions of exile and the extreme pressure from August 1997) that all the countries east racist crusade is football. Or rather, foot- nearby town of Rochdale. The supposed Stalin. But despite lapses, his thinking on the USSR continued to of Germany were workers’ states. Why ball spectators and fans. The nice, ‘mobilisation’ of the SWP only extended show flexibility and development. Hillel Ticktin considers that “logi- do they not recognise the influence of civilised and impeccably anti-racist Blair- to those areas where the Anti-Nazi cally, he was on a trajectory of gradually admitting the reality of the their own dissidents and other currents ite team are going to sort out those League has influence. No other left or formation” of a system that could not be subsumed under the defi- in their political shifts? ‘orrible, racist yobs who attend football local community groups were ap- nition of ‘degenerated workers’ state’ ” (H Ticktin and M Cox The 3. The fact that an organisation has so matches. Hence the The Independent’s proached. The actions of those who para- ideas of Leon Trotsky London 1995, p77). many different lines is not synonymous approving headline, “Blair moves to kick chuted into this area may leave locals in Such a judgement has a degree of historical speculation to it, of with internal democracy. It could show a racism into touch” (March 31). a worse position. course. Yet there is surely no excuse for those of us who have high degree of confusion and that it is a Tony Banks presented last Monday The failure to defend this event will before us the beginning, the middle and end of the phenomenon bureaucratic flock around a despotic rul- the first report by the government’s only give strength to the fascists and that was the USSR and thus are able to stand on the shoulders of ing and eclectic clique. When will WP Football Task Force. This was set up in their periphery support. The ANL has giants such as Trotsky. explain how they mouth the most unten- July 1997 under the chair of David Mellor. endangered its supporters in what can Yet the vast bulk of the revolutionary left have viewed the col- able contradictions? How they voted Banks revealed that the current legisla- only be considered an irresponsible man- lapse of the USSR and bureaucratic regimes of eastern Europe sim- Labour for 23 years of existence and pro- tion in the Football Offences Act would ner. ply as bland confirmations of their own particular theoretical moted a ‘revolutionary tendency in it be amended to enable criminal charges It is not the job of the left in general to shibboleths, whatever the facts scream at them. We believe that it while they do not do the slightest work to be brought against individual specta- defend other organisations’ paper sales is perhaps the key theoretical task of Marxism to account for the in Labour’s ranks? tors who chant racial abuse. We could - that is up to them. But no one can be horrors that the first attempt to build a workers’ society produced. 4. In relation to the LRCI’s new line on soon have scenes on television of po- oblivious to the fact that the fascists are Despite the sanguine nature of the left, almost all conceptual mod- the character of the “workers’ states”. lice anti-racist snatch squads diving into trying to spread their ideas, organisation els that have attempted to explain this unique social formation have What happened in August 1997 which football crowds. and terrorism in Manchester. This threat proved either one-sided, or simply wrong. caused the LRCI to decide that hence- The Football Task Force has also pro- needs to be met in a united, planned and We must surely use the empirical raw material now available to us forth the most prosperous eight Eastern posed that anti-racist pledges should be military style manner. to grasp its fundamental laws of motion. Any investigation which European states had crossed the put in the contracts of players and man- starts with the a priori method of simply hammering the available Rubicon and become bourgeois states? agers - even referees should be given Manchester evidence into an existing definition is not simply useless to the working class; it is positively reactionary l l l l l April 9 1998 Page

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n his was an upbeat and posi- tive meeting. It brought to- April 20: The state remade T gether supporters and Blair’s project aims to consolidate the members from a range of left groups UK state within a wider European - the Socialist Labour Party (albeit context. His entire project is only in an unofficial capacity), Socialist possible because the class struggle is Democracy Group, Socialist Out- moribund. He can loosen the bolts of look, Socialist Party and the Com- the state only while there is nothing munist Party of Great Britain. There rumbling underneath. Therein lies his was also a representative from the danger and our opportunity. Commu- London Federation of Green Parties. nists must fight for change while the The meeting reflected the mood meeting. The comrade sympathised lips of the left nowadays - we have This gloomy mindset appeared to state is in flux. of anger mounting against Blair’s with the comments of comrade to recognise that it is “inevitable” have gripped the SP comrades. On May 4 and May 18: The minimum anti-democratic, arrogant rule. His Driver, however, despite her oppo- that most Londoners will vote for the other hand, comrade Bridge em- wage and The reserve army of labour rigged, take-it-or-leave-it referen- sition to Blair’s plans, she could not Blair’s proposals. Indeed, said the phasised, the recent decision of Short term contracts, job insecurity, dum on May 7 in London is typi- see the wisdom of a boycott. In the comrade, it “does not make much dif- London SLP to boycott the refer- attacks on welfare provision, etc - all cally New Labour - a dictatorial view of comrade Donovan “there ference what we do”. endum shows courage - and the po- made enforceable by high unemploy- device which aims to gain the ac- was a lack of mood” for a boycott. It In which case, as various speak- tential for an effective and ment and new production techniques. ceptance of Londoners to the ab- was just “not possible to organise a ers pointed out, why bother stand- determined left opposition to New The introduction of a minimum wage sence of democracy under the guise mass boycott”. She also stated that ing in elections? Also, if SP is so Labour. is not neutral in this process. When of ‘bringing democracy’. Those who “most people do not care” about the against boycotts, why did it not Mark Fischer, also from the CPGB, union leaders argue for a low minimum attended , whatever their view on referendum - there is an “apathetic come in force to the meeting and get cited the example of Scotland and in order to maintain differentials they actually how to vote come May 7, mood” in general. the LSA to adopt a ‘yes’ (critical or SML. By advocating what they behave like merchants thinking only were all united in opposition to Those that can motivate them- otherwise) position - we are told it thought was a clever-clever ‘yes, of what they can bargain for, not of Blair’s ‘strong’, US-style mayor and selves to vote on May 7, suggested still has some 30-40 activists in the yes’ vote, SML virtually disappeared the use values required for the a weak assembly. As said by a the comrade, will see the London London area. It would not be wild from sight during the referendum reproduction of labour power both number of comrades during the dis- mayor and GLA as a “small step for- speculation to see this unwilling- campaign. No doubt they thought physically and socially. For Marx the cussion, the proposed puppet ward”. She strongly implied that so- ness to mobilise as evidence of they were being ‘with the masses’. differential between skilled and mayor represents the further cialists should always ‘be with the faultlines in the ranks of SP over the But look where it got them - no- unskilled wages lies only in their Blairisation of British politics and masses’, by which she means the referendum question. where. In terms of publicity and gen- relative productivity - depress one society - ie, the appearance of de- majority - a hopelessly tailist per- Comrades from Socialist Outlook eral media impact, the CPGB and its and the other necessarily falls. mocracy but the actual rule of capi- spective. The task of socialists, as in their turn argued for a ‘no’ vote. boycott campaign made far more of For more details contact Steve Riley tal. the comrade put it, is not to get ex- Using the SP formula - but in reverse an impression than SML - precisely 0161-798 6417 The mood among the local SAs is cited about the referendum as such - they argued with undeniable logic because it was principled and thus undoubtedly swinging towards a but to highlight what she that Blair’s mayor/GLA will indeed stood out. Unfortunately, it looks n boycottist position. Brent SA has economistically called the “real is- be a “stepping stone” - but to some- like the ‘English’ SP is in danger of The CPGB now has forms available for adopted this position. Lewisham SA sues” - transport, jobs, defence of thing worse. By voting ‘yes’ on May repeating the same mistake as SML. you to include the Party and the is asking voters to spoil their ballot the emergency services, etc. 7, the SO comrades thought, “We Comrade John Bulaitis of the So- struggle for communism in your will. paper by writing on it, ‘Bring back For all this, the comrade left it dan- will be giving credibility to Blair”. cialist Democracy Group agreed that Write for details. the GLC’. Other organisations, not gling in the air as to what exactly is Post-referendum, “life will be more SP was “avoiding the big question”. least the CPGB and the London SLP, the position of the SP come May 7. difficult for socialists”, not easier, How are we going to “make our n have adopted a boycottist stance - Surely a very concrete situation de- as the SP comrades seems to imag- voice heard”, asked the comrade? demanding a democratic assembly serves concrete answers. A comrade ine. Do not let Blair “get away with By presenting what he termed the Election rally. and a republic. from Socialist Outlook interjected at it” in London, was how one SO com- “third view” - ie, a boycott position Sunday May 3 - 2pm, Conway Hall, Ex-SLPer Ian Driver gave a mili- this point: “So, how is SP going to rade put it. as opposed to ‘yes’ or ‘no’ - the left Red Lion Square, EC!. Speakers tant speech decrying Blair’s “sham” vote on May 7?” It therefore followed for the com- can potentially gain access to the include Hugh Kerr MEP. referendum. In comrade Driver’s After much squirming, comrade rades that a boycott can only feed media. If the left is bold, then it opinion the old GLC, for all its faults, Donovan finally admitted, “Well, apathy, not combat it. “Always” tell- makes its mark on society. n did “act as a redistributive mecha- the GLA will not be a quango - as ing workers to boycott “generates Comrade Bulitus, like other com- To get involved contact Brent SA, nism”. The same could certainly not such”. The comrade went on to say apathy”. Hence an “active boycott” rades, wanted to be clear that a boy- Galaxy News Box 100, 37 Walm Lane, be said about the proposed GLA and she would be voting ‘yes’ - some- is a contradiction in terms said one cott was only - at the end of the day NW2 4QU. Tel: 0181-451 0616. mayor - which will be working hand thing being better than nothing. SO comrade. Unfortunately the com- - a tactic. in glove with big business. “There Later, after some good-humoured rades never really explained how A comrade from the SLP - there as n will be no genuine democracy,” said taunting, she blurted out the classic voting ‘no’ with the pro-status quo an unofficial observer - reinforced Election meeting. the comrade. ‘lesser of two evils’ view that Blair’s sections of the Tory Party was go- the view that a boycott campaign Friday April 17 - 7.30pm, Calabash Indeed, continued comrade Driver, assembly will represent “some sort ing to activate the working class or could help to unite the left. The SLP Centre, George Lane, SE13. All the whole process leading up to the of advance”. As we know this was present an absolutely distinct posi- - encouraging - has adopted a boy- socialist and community campaign May 7 referendum has been a text- the stageist argument used by Scot- tion. The fact that there will be left cott campaign. This puts it to the candidates have been invited. book example of Blairite authoritari- tish Militant Labour to vote ‘yes, candidates standing in the local elec- left of SP and has to be applauded. anism. Last year’s London yes’ in the September 11 Scottish tions on the same day was also It also shows that there is fluidity n conference of Labour Party members referendum. (Interestingly, comrade swept under the carpet by the SO on the left - even in the supposedly Election rally. - intended explicitly to discuss the Donovan’s views were strongly comrades. It somewhat spoils their ‘dead’ SLP. An effective boycott Sunday April 26 - 4pm, The Brix, St whole referendum question - was echoed by the Green representative, thesis that the CPGB in particular is campaign, said the comrade, has the Matthews Peace Gardens, Brixton Hill, ‘mysteriously’ cancelled at the last who maintained on behalf of her or- developing a boycottist mania. chance to “connect with a layer of SW2. 0181-671 8036 for details. minute. In other words, suggested ganisation that “any authority is John Bridge of the CPGB force- activists”. comrade Driver, Blair got wind that better than no authority” and that a fully outlined the boycott position. Seeing how London SLP has a n the majority of local Labour activ- boycott is not “constructive” - that The London referendum is all part “radical position” - so should the To get involved, contact PO Box 980, ists did not want a mayor. Therefore, we “must engage in the process” of and parcel of Blair’s project to sta- LSA. The comrade made the case Glasgow G14 9QQ or ring 0141-552 purely in the interests of democracy politics,” not step aside from it, de- bilise Britain from above - to make that adopting a boycott position 6773. of course, no more conference … spite that she personally would be the workers “identify” with the in- enables the LSA to become a “party Given these conditions, comrade voting ‘no’). stitutions of the state. But for all of protest” and offer a “positive al- n Driver said there was no way he We were told by comrade Dono- Blair’s intentions, the referendum ternative”. Fellow SLP member, could vote ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on May 7. van that the SP has prepared a leaf- offers an opportunity for the left to Stuart Goodman - also at the meet- To vote ‘yes’ would be to endorse let that will “explain” to Londoners “make a mass impact”, said the com- ing in an unofficial capacity - en- The Hillingdon strikers in west the Blairite project. To vote ‘no’ what sort of authority they need. rade. To vote either ‘yes’ or ‘no’ is dorsed this sentiment. The left must London, deserted by Unison, still would be tantamount to saying the Hopefully, it will also clarify the SP’s to actually make ourselves “inar- engage in a “constructive boycott”. need your support. Send donations status quo is satisfactory. There was position, which remains delphic. ticulate”. In his summation. Comrade Driver urgently, payable to Hillingdon only one option left - spoil the bal- The leaflet, said the comrade, out- Seeing how a “window of oppor- admitted that there was “tactical di- Strikers Support Campaign, c/o 27 lot papers in protest. lines how the SP favours a “large tunity” was opening up before our vergence” on the referendum ques- Townsend Way, Northwood, Middle- Comrade Driver was keen to stress assembly with tax-varying powers”. eyes, maintained comrade Bridge, tion. This is only to be expected, sex UB8 1JD. that any boycott campaign should It will also demand that there should “we need a clear and distinctive ar- given that the Alliance represents a be viewed as a positive step. That be three separate questions on the gument”. The left can make a differ- very broad spectrum of left opinion. n is why it was vital that there was a ballot paper: ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to a mayor, ence - if it draws clear demarcation But, without doubt, there was “ab- left slate for the the assembly if it a London assembly and a London lines. For instance, Ken Livingstone solute unanimity” that Blair’s pro- To support the 350 sacked Magnet happens - and to stand ‘anti-mayor’ assembly with tax-varying powers. is railing Blair’s proposals. But at the posals are “flawed, corrupt and workers and for more information candidates in the local elections In her final assessment the com- end of the day he will vote ‘yes’ any- wrong”. Like other speakers, com- contact the strike committee on 01325- which are to be held on the same rade sounded distinctly downbeat - way. The left must not ‘do a rade Driver thought that we now 282389. day. In the elections, the left should if not miserabalist. Directly quoting Livingstone’ and merge into the have a “unique opportunity to get campaign for a ‘peoples assembly’ from John Bridge’s discussion pa- Blairite/establishment camp. the left together and strengthen the n - on a programme of local taxation. per - submitted to the LSA on be- Standing left candidates in the lo- position of the Alliance”. Tax the rich and big companies that half of the CPGB - about concrete cal elections shows something posi- The meeting ended with a deci- will be ‘sponsoring’ the mayor and circumstances and tactical options. tive. Comrade Bridge thought it sive indicative vote in favour of Downing Street picket - first Sunday assembly. On this basis she attempted to jus- crucial to counter the almost instinc- spoiling the referendum ballot pa- of every month, 12 noon to 1.30pm. The other platform speaker was tify her claim that there was “no pos- tive pessimism of the left, which per and against the idea of a ‘no’ Release the prisoners! For more comrade Julie Donovan from the So- sibility of a mass, active boycott”. seems to think that they are “auto- campaign. It also voted unani- details contact: Fuascailt, PO Box cialist Party. Significantly she was In the spirit of “accepting reality” - matically irrelevant” - so why bother mously for the London authority to 3923, London NW5 1RA. Tel: 0181-985 the only SP member to attend the a phrase we hear so often from the doing anything bold or imaginative? be made “more democratic” l 8250 or 0956-919 871. Page April 9 1998

he post-World War I economic on wages and the 44 hour week, and and have consistently opposed ef- boom soon turned to slump. for rejection of the Dawes plan for forts towards amalgamation compels T Unemployment increased rap- German war reparations. the active workers to band together idly - from 250,000 in autumn 1920 to 2 Ramsay MacDonald’s minority La- and to take the initiative in formulat- million by June 1921. Trade union bour government fell in October 1924. ing programmes and policies. Hence membership plummeted and the rul- During the subsequent election cam- the formation of the Minority Move- ing class launched an offensive on paign, the Foreign Office published ment”. wages and conditions in the name of ist leadership and towards an under- within the existing organisations of the infamous forgery, the ‘Zinoviev A brief summary was given of the national recovery. On March 31 1921 standing of revolutionary principles the workers for the purpose of fight- letter’, in which the president of the work being done by the miners’, the the miners were locked out when they ... From the outset, however, it made ing for the adoption of the programme Comintern was said to have explained transport workers’ and the metal work- refused to accept swingeing pay cuts clear that it did not stand for the split- of the National Minority Movement, the crucial importance of ers’ Minority Movements in pursu- and an end to national bargaining. ting of the trade unions, however re- and against the present tendency to- MacDonald’s ratification of the Brit- ing the objective of ‘industrial They appealed for solidarity strike actionary the leadership might be, but wards a false social peace and class ish-Russian trade treaties in the prepa- unionism’, ie, the formation of one un- action to their associates in the Triple for a fight against reformism and class collaboration and the delusion of a ration of communist revolution in ion per industry. The importance of Alliance - the railway and transport conciliation inside the official trade peaceful transition from capitalism to Britain. Although Labour’s vote once factory committees as a unifying force unions. Lloyd George’s government union movement”, (ibid p110). socialism. again increased, the Liberal vote col- and as the basic unit of industrial un- prepared for a showdown by invok- He goes on to say that this approach 3. To unite the workers in their every- lapsed in a middle class rush to the ions was stressed. The need for a par- ing the Emergency Powers Act, which was changed, under the guidance of day struggles against capitalism and Tories, who secured an overwhelm- allel, geographical organisation of the had been enacted in autumn 1920 af- Pollitt, such that the Bureau became to at all times advance the watchword ing majority. At its next meeting, the working class was asserted in describ- ter it had been forced to drop its plan less concerned with general propa- of the united front of the workers executive committee of the NMM ad- ing the movement’s policy on reor- for war against Soviet Russia by the ganda, “which was the job of the Com- against the exploiters. judged the time right to publish a pam- ganisation of trades councils. threat of a general strike. munist Party”, and began to fight for 4. To maintain the closest relations phlet, entitled What the Minority Not only should trades councils se- Troops were dispatched to the coal a militant line of struggle within the with the RILU and to work for the unity Movement stands for. cure the affiliation of trade union fields. The leaders of the railway and British trade unions, to fight to stop of the international trade union move- In the foreword a warning was given branches, but their constitutions transport unions crumbled. On Black the retreat, for effective action on is- ment. of a forthcoming capitalist offensive should be altered to permit the affilia- Friday, April 15 1921, JH Thomas, sues of wages, hours, and factory con- The conference also adopted a on wages, working hours and living tion of all bona fide working class leader of the National Union of Rail- ditions, to campaign for trade union manifesto addressed to the TUC conditions. This offensive had been organisations - industrial, political, waymen, announced that there would amalgamation, for solidarity between which proposed the following de- immeasurably assisted by the election cooperative and social. The work- be no triple alliance strike. The miners unions and to explain the general aim mands - of the Conservative government, place committees should also affiliate were left to fight alone, but surren- of industrial unions. Wages. An increase of £1 per week, which had signified “the consolida- to the trades councils, and trades dered after 11 weeks. With the miners As the official trade union leader- and a minimum wage of £4 per week. tion of all the reactionary forces in the councils should work to encourage down, one section after another fol- ship went from retreat to retreat, the Hours. A 44 hour working week, and country”. Turning to the international the formation of workplace commit- lowed. By the end of 1921 6 million Bureau began to emerge as a rallying abolition of overtime. situation, it stated that “the imperial- tees in all the industrial undertakings workers had suffered pay cuts, aver- ground for militant resistance to the Nationalisation. Nationalisation of ist policy of British capitalism is be- in their constituencies, with the aim aging 6 shillings a week. capitalist offensive. It held many meet- mines, minerals, banks, land and rail- ing pursued more relentlessly than that these committees would ultimately J Klugmann - the ‘official commu- ings in the industrial centres and took ways without compensation, and with ever” and explained that the danger become the basic organisational units nist’ historian - suggests, “It was the over the newspaper of the Glasgow workers’ control. of new wars was growing. Workers of the trades councils. right wing domination of the trade Shop Stewards’ movement, The Housing. Carrying out of an adequate struggling to free themselves from Workingmen’s clubs should come union leadership that ... led to so dis- Worker. housing scheme and the requisition- British rule in the colonies were being under the trades councils’ jurisdic- astrous a retreat before the employ- In June 1922, the National Admin- ing of all empty houses, large and brutally suppressed. Germany had tion and workers’ representatives on ers’ offensive. The reformist policy istrative Council of the Shop Stewards small, and the rationing of available been virtually colonised by the Dawes the municipal bodies should be sub- within the trade unions was class con- movement decided to merge the or- rooms for the workers until the new plan, as a result of which the German ject to trades councils’ discipline. “In ciliation, arbitration, acceptance of the ganisation with the British Bureau of houses are built. workers were suffering low wages, every way - in every phase of work- state as a neutral body above classes RILU. Towards the end of 1922, the Unemployment. The application of long hours, high prices and increas- ing class life - the trades councils that could play an ‘impartial’ role in Bureau initiated the development of a the demands of the six point charter, ing unemployment, although there should be the true, local guardians of arbitration, avoidance of conflict, re- number of rank and file organisations, as agreed upon by the general coun- was “fierce resistance from many sec- all working class interests, pressing treat before attack, rejection of class in the mining, engineering and ship- cil of the TUC and the National Un- tions of the German working class”. forward industrially, politically and solidarity within nations and on an in- building unions, which were called employed Workers’ Committee At the same time, a new attack on So- cooperatively to the conquest of all ternational scale”, (J Klugmann His- Minority Movements. movement. viet Russia was being prepared. local power”. tory of the Communist Party of Great During the early months of 1924, the Foreign policy. Explaining that the working class This was effectively a plan for the Britain Vol 1, London 1969, p108). rank and file Minority Movement or- 1. The repudiation of the Dawes re- can only defeat the capitalists when construction of soviets. Whether the Klugmann goes on to suggest that ganisations put down roots in trans- port. they can fight as a class, and not as a NMM was also attempting to pre- such a policy was reflected, on a world port, building and vehicle building. As 2.Ratification of the Anglo-Soviet number of subdivided craft and sec- scribe the construction of a ‘central scale, in the leadership of the Amster- a result at the 6th congress of the Treaty. tional unions, the pamphlet called for executive committee of the soviets’ is dam based International Federation of CPGB, in May 1924, the following reso- 3. The establishment of closer rela- redoubled efforts to forge national and a question that might be asked, in Trade Unions. Responding to this situ- lution was passed, “The Communist tions with all workers in the colonies international trade union unity. The studying the next section of the pam- ation the Communist International ini- Party welcomes these Minority Move- and dependencies. manifesto adopted by the inaugural phlet, entitled ‘Central power in the tiated the establishment, in 1920, of ments as the sign of the awakening of Organisational. conference of the NMM was then re- general council’. This proposed “the the Provisional International Council the workers. The CP will throw itself 1. Formation of workshop committees, produced as the ‘Workers’ Charter’, concentration of working class power of Trade and Industrial Unions, with wholeheartedly into the struggle of the members of which are to be guar- with an appeal that all workers urge in the general council of the TUC, so the aim of building an alternative, revo- the Minority Movements and will do anteed from victimisation. their organisations to demand that the that for common programmes and on lutionary international union centre, all in its power to assist them in their 2. The reorganisation of the trades joint council of the Labour Party and all matters of vital importance to the and of winning the trade union move- struggles. The Communist Party, how- councils. the TUC call a special congress to dis- workers such as questions of war or ment from reformist class collabora- ever, declares unhesitatingly to all the 3. Affiliation of the Unemployed Work- cuss the charter. peace, the whole of the forces of our tion. workers that the various Minority ers Committee movement and the The next section of the pamphlet, movement can be immediately mobi- A number of prominent British trade Movements cannot realise their full trades councils to the Trades Union headed ‘What is the minority move- lised”. The general council would unionists, including AA Purcell, and power so long as they remain sec- Congress, and representatives on the ment?’, explained that “it is a move- have the power to call a general strike Robert Williams of the Transport tional, separate and limited in their general council. ment of active workers in the working and to take such other action as is Workers Federation, associated them- scope and character. The many 4. Creation of a general council with class movement, anxious that the in- necessary. It should also have the au- selves with the project. In January streams of the rising forces of the full powers to direct the activities of terests of the workers as a class shall thority to discipline the trade union 1921 the PICTIU published a ‘Mani- workers must be gathered together in the unions, and under obligation to come before all other interests, either movement. festo to the Organised Workers of one powerful mass movement”. the Trades Union Congress to use individual or sectional. The purpose After giving examples of the activi- Britain’, which called on British trade A need for a national coordinating that power. of the Minority Movement is to gather ties of the Minority Movement, includ- unions to withdraw from the Amster- centre that would have a deeper base 5. The unification of the international these active workers together, to or- ing agitation for the economic dam International, to support PICTIU, in the mass movement than the Brit- trade union movement, and the bring- ganise them, so that they can decide demands of workers, contesting all and to elect delegates to a world con- ish Bureau of RILU was recognised ing of the world’s workers under a sin- upon common programmes and poli- trade union office elections with gress of trade unions. The congress and, on August 23-24 1924 the con- gle fighting leadership.” cies, and to actively agitate and pur- NMM supporters, solidarity action - took place in June-July 1921 and re- ference which founded the National An executive committee, based sue (these) in their respective both on the national and international solved to establish the Red Interna- Minority Movement was held. It was upon representatives from the differ- organisations”. levels, and propaganda work through tional of Labour Unions. In January attended by 270 delegates, from or- ent sections of the Minority Move- It was stressed that the NMM was literature and meetings, the pamphlet 1921, the Communist Party of Great ganisations representing 200,000 ment was elected, and this in turn not a separatist movement, but that, ends with a ringing proclamation of Britain initiated the setting up of a workers. appointed Tom Mann as president, on the contrary, it actively opposed the revolutionary causes, “The eman- British Bureau of the PICTIU. Follow- The following aims and objects and Harry Pollitt as general secretary. any attempts to split the trade unions, cipation of the working class must be ing the world congress, this became were adopted: Within two months, it had organised or to establish an alternative TUC - the work of the workers themselves. the British Bureau of the RILU, with 1. To organise the working masses of district conferences in Glasgow, Arthur Scargill take note. It continued, Join with us in our struggle to over- Tom Mann as chairman and Nat Great Britain for the overthrow of capi- Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, Manches- “In all the great trade unions there has throw capitalism and to conquer all Watkins as secretary. Harry Pollitt later talism, the emancipation of the work- ter, Newcastle, Sheffield, and other in- developed a central bureaucracy power for the working class”. took over as secretary. ers from their oppressors and dustrial centres. New sections taking which frequently acts as a barrier to This, the programme of the Minor- Klugmann argues that, in its early exploiters, and the establishment of in distributive workers, dockers, sea- swift and conscious action on the part ity Movement, is surely a wonderful days, the British Bureau’s work was the socialist commonwealth. men and railway workers were formed. of the workers. This bureaucracy is challenge to those left groups today primarily of a propagandist nature, 2. To carry on a wide agitation and On October 10 1924 the NMM organ- often under capitalist influence .... The who insist that any mass movement “concerned with winning trade union- propaganda for the principles of revo- ised a rally in Trafalgar Square, at- very fact that the trade union leaders can only be built by confining itself ists away from reformism and reform- lutionary class struggle, and to work tended by 10,000, around its demands and officials ... have refused to lead within the existing consciousness of April 9 1998 Page

the working class. History of the Communist Party of render, and that the mine owners had per entitled Workers Press was pro- The miners were forced back to work The solid growth of the NMM was Great Britain, Vol 2, London 1969, already started locking miners out, the duced in the second week. defeated, after six months of brave evidenced by the attendance at its p49). The same resolution pledged the TUC general council found itself the In Sheffield, the trades council was struggle. Shortly afterwards, in Janu- unity conference, on January 25 1925, TUC’s support for the building of reluctant general staff of a general reluctant to constitute a council of ary 1927, the government enacted the of 630 representatives from bodies workshop committees. Resolutions strike. action, instead forming its existing in- Trades Disputes and Trade Union with a membership totalling 600,000 reflecting NMM positions on the On May 2, the eve of the strike, the dustrial section into a central dispute Act, which made all sympathetic workers. A fraternal message from AJ Dawes plan, on international trade headquarters of the NMM sent out committee. It refused an offer of co- strikes, mass picketing and “intimida- Cook, the leftwing general secretary union unity, and on the right of self- instructions to all its sections on the operation from the Communist Party. tion” illegal. There had been a signifi- of the Miners’ Federation, who was determination for the colonies were creation and operation of councils of CPGB members holding union posi- cant shift in the balance of class forces. not a Communist Party member, stated all carried. action. The councils should ensure tions nevertheless fully cooperated The implications of this defeat for the his pride at being “a disciple of Karl But, on those concrete questions that all places of work were continu- with the official committee, whilst a whole working class were to be pro- Marx and a humble follower of Lenin”, pertaining to preparation for the im- ously picketed, reporting failures and parallel unofficial strike committee was found. The forces of class collabora- and ended with the warning, “We are pending battle, the bureaucrats oper- gaps to the appropriate union. They organised by the CPGB and the Mi- tion in the trade unions were given a in danger. A united enemy is knock- ated true to form. The bureaucracy should help to carry out all the deci- nority Movement. This produced a great boost. They soon opened up a ing at the gate ... My slogan is be pre- clearly had no intention of matching sions for the struggle of the general daily bulletin of around 10,000 cop- new drive to witch hunt communists. pared”. the preparatory work being done by council and the union executives, but ies, until the duplicator was seized by The TUC congress in September Cook was right and, as so often in the ruling class. A motion proposing should not, in any circumstances, take police after five days. A sixth edition 1926 had already resolved, by a large the history of the class struggle in Brit- reaffiliation of trades councils to the over the work of the unions them- nevertheless appeared, printed at dif- majority, that affiliation of trades ain, the miners - who were then one TUC was ruled out of order. The issue selves. They should elect press and ferent premises, until these too were councils to the Minority Movement sixth of the male workforce, and nearly of the powers of the general council propaganda bodies to counteract the raided by police the following day. was “not consistent with the policy one fifth of all trade unionists - were was referred to the general council it- lies of the capitalist press. They On the first day of the strike, the of the congress and the general coun- first in the capitalists’ firing line. On self. The newly elected general coun- should also set up workers’ defence London Trades Council called a meet- cil”. In February 1927, the executive June 30 1925, the mineowners issued cil showed a turn to the right. squads to protect union offices, print- ing of union district committees and committee of the General and Munici- a demand for an increase in the seven Harry Pollitt noted, “the reluctance ing presses, mass meetings, pickets set up a formal central strike commit- pal Workers Union decided that no hour day to eight hours, for wage cuts, of the leftwing of the general council and trade union officials holding im- tee. Here too, CPGB and Minority member of the Communist Party or the and for abolition of the minimum wage. to come out openly and fight the right- portant positions, and to maintain Movement members also worked to Minority Movement could hold any The miners immediately appealed to wing on every possible occasion, for peace and order, preventing the ef- set up local councils of action. Fif- union position, and branches were the TUC for support in defending their there could be no doubt that the right- forts of government and employers’ teen such councils existed by May 8, prohibited from sending delegates to hard won gains. The same day, the wing leaders, as represented by agents provocateurs. The command- and 70 by the end of the strike. Minority Movement conferences. TUC general council responded by Messrs Thomas, Clynes and Cramp, ers of the defence squads should be Rudiments of dual power began to In December 1927, the general sec- calling an embargo on the movement had very effectively marshalled their trade union officials. develop in some areas, especially in retary of the TUC, Walter Citrine, of all coal. The following day, Red Fri- forces and were organised to take up Four hundred or so councils of ac- the matter of movements of transport. launched an attack on the Minority day, Baldwin’s government made a the battle whenever an opportunity tion were formed. The level of organi- Klugmann reports on officially recog- Movement in the pages of the maga- humiliating climbdown. It announced presented itself” (Harry Pollitt ‘The sation varied. Klugmann describes the nised permit systems operating in zine, Labour. His series of articles was the establishment of a royal commis- Scarborough Conference’ Labour work of the council at Methil, in the Edinburgh, Ashton-under-Lyne, and, later reproduced in a pamphlet enti- sion of inquiry into the coal industry Monthly October 1925). Clynes had Fife coalfield, one of the Communist most notably, throughout the North- tled Democracy or disruption. Citrine and granted subsidies to the coal stated the position of the bureaucracy Party’s strongest areas, “Everything umberland and Durham region, (ibid argued that the future line of devel- owners for a period of nine months. perfectly when, during the debate on was stopped - even the railway lines pp159-162). opment of the trade union movement Although some have sought to ex- the powers of the general council, he were picketed. The council had a cou- The general strike was remarkably should be “in the direction of making plain the TUC’s determination to had stated, “I am not in fear of the rier service second to none in Britain, solid. When the TUC general council workers’ organisations an integral part stand firm against the government, on capitalist class. The only class I fear with three motor cars, ... 100 motor called it off, on the ninth day, it was of the economic machinery of soci- this occasion, by referring to the is our own”, (J Klugmann History of cycles, and as many push bikes as not through any fear of failure, but ety”. To allow the trade unions to be changed composition of the general the Communist Party of Great Brit- were necessary. They covered the rather because of their fear of success. used as instruments of social up- council - Thomas and other ain Vol 2, London 1969, p49). whole of Fife, taking out information They abhorred the working class self heaval would be “fatal to our hopes rightwingers had been replaced by left The ‘lefts’ were again conspicuous and bringing in reports, sending out activity they had seen. The ‘lefts’ on of ordered progress”. From its incep- reformists such as Swales, Hicks and by their silence at the Labour Party speakers everywhere, as far north as the TUC general council played a cra- tion, he said, the aim of the Minority Purcell, the true reason is to be found conference two weeks later, when an Perth ... After police charges on mass ven role. All of them voted to call off Movement had been “to set the rank in the organisational strength which executive committee recommendation pickets, the Defence Corps, which 150 the strike unconditionally. The Minor- and file of the working class move- the Minority Movement had built. that communists be barred from indi- workers had joined at the outset, was ity Movement had failed to clearly ment in bitter opposition to its elected Under the NMM’s leadership, the vidual membership of the Labour Party, reorganised. Its numbers rose to 700, explain to the working class that the and responsible representatives”. working class had decided, enough and that unions be urged to refrain of whom 400, commanded by workers right and left bureaucracy were merely Citrine’s signal was soon acknowl- was enough on wage cuts and was from electing communists as their del- who had been NCOs during the war, two sides of the same coin. The slo- edged. During 1928, bans on commu- ready for a united fight. Without the egates to Labour Party bodies, was marched in military formation through gan of ‘All power to the general coun- nists holding union office, and on TUC’s action, Ernest Bevin feared carried. The bourgeois press, led by the town to protect the picket. The cil of the TUC’ had been exposed as a branches associating with the Minor- “unofficial fighting in all parts of the The Times, had campaigned vigor- police did not interfere again ... A daily serious and culpable mistake. ity Movement, were adopted by a country” and “anarchy” (A Hutt The ously for such a decision, and the bulletin was issued by the council of Jack Conrad rightly notes that “The large number of union executives. The post-war history of the British work- bourgeoisie no doubt perceived the action, which took over the coopera- TUC did and does represent collec- outlawing of the Minority Movement ing class London 1937, p134). Ramsay result as a green light. Just two weeks tive hall as its headquarters”, (Ibid tive sectionalism. Unless it is led by was confirmed at the TUC congress MacDonald, too, thought that, “Had later, police raided the offices of the p155). communists there is not the remotest in September 1928. no general strike been declared indus- Communist Party, the Young Commu- In Glasgow, contrarily, the official chance of it representing the interests That the movement was consider- try would have been almost as much nist League and the National Minor- central strike committee was inactive, of the working class as a whole”. Fur- ably resilient to these attacks, was evi- paralysed by unauthorised strikes”, ity Movement. Twelve leading and to compensate for this, CPGB and thermore the comrade argues that the denced by the attendance of delegates (J Klugmann ‘Marxism, reformism and communists, including NMM secre- Minority Movement members set up Party’s slogans were woefully cen- from 287 union branches and 19 trades the general strike’ in J Skelley (ed) The tary Harry Pollitt, were arrested on 15 local councils. Following the rather trist. “The ‘All power’ slogan, not only councils at its annual conference in general strike: 1926 London 1976, charges of seditious libel and incite- lamentable failure of the CPGB nation- smacked of an artificial transplanta- August 1928, hardly less than the pre- p99). ment of the armed forces to mutiny. ally to make contingency arrange- tion of the Russian slogan, ‘All power vious year. One year later however, The ruling class had decided to buy The defendants were convicted and ments for publication of a Workers to the soviets’, but totally misunder- the number of branches and trades time, and the government set about sentenced to between six and 12 Daily throughout the strike, publicity stood the real content of Bolshevism councils attending the NMM confer- its preparations for the deferred at- months imprisonment. in Glasgow was handled by a joint … There was also a distinct whiff of ence was less than half of that in 1928. tack. Along with detailed contingency The royal commission report, re- committee of the Party and the Mi- conservatism in the Party’s call for a By then, the Comintern had made plans for deployment of police, army, leased on March 6 1926, unsur- nority Movement. During the first Labour government ... The Commu- an opportunist turn, categorising re- navy, and civil service, the govern- prisingly supported the coal owners week, 18,000 copies of an emergency nist Party should have reformulated formist working class organisations as ment gave behind the scenes backing case that - to restore the profitability edition of Workers Weekly was the slogan it employed in the early ‘social fascist’ - that admirably served to the Organisation for the Mainte- of the industry - heavy wage cuts and printed. After the police picked up the 1920s, ‘All power to the workers’…. the internal purposes of JV Stalin who nance of Supplies, which had been set an end to national agreements would night shift team, 6,000 copies of a pa- The general strike was the moment to had just launched his socially coun- up by a group of retired army and navy be required. The NMM called a spe- concretise it with the call for a con- terrevolutionary ‘second revolution’, officers with the intention of forming cial conference on March 21 1926. It stituent assembly and linking that ie the first five year plan. Deep splits an army of strikebreakers. was attended by 883 delegates, from transitional demand to the perspec- opened up amongst Party members The second annual conference of 547 organisations, representing tive of a workers’ government based active in the NMM. The 1929 confer- the National Minority Movement took around 957,000 workers, almost a fifth on the new mass organisations of the ence adopted a radical change of ap- place on August 29-30 1925. In his of the number affiliated to the TUC. workers, ie ‘All power to the councils proach. It was no longer deemed presidential address, Tom Mann called The conference issued a call to all of action’ to bring it about” (J Conrad desirable to recruit unorganised work- for the preparation of councils of ac- trades councils “to constitute ‘Essays on the general strike’ part IV ers into existing unions and the prin- tion for the coming battle, stressing council(s) of action by mobilising all Weekly Worker May 2 1996). ciple of “independent leadership” was the role trades councils could play in the forces of the working class in its The third annual conference of the to be applied, whereby strikes were to this respect. He also stressed the im- locality (the trade union branches, the Movement was held at the end of be led by committees of action unit- portant role of the National Unem- organised unemployed, the coopera- August 1926, attended by 802 del- ing organised and unorganised work- ployed Workers’ Committee tive guilds, and the workers’ political egates from bodies representing ers. movement in preventing strikebreak- organisations)”. It also urged the gen- 956,000 workers. The conference ap- The NMM did not survive this ing, and warned of the need to be ready eral council of the TUC to convene a proved an ‘open letter’ to delegates disorientation and was wound up as to respond to the potential danger of national congress of action. to the forthcoming TUC congress, a national organisation soon after- the growing fascist organisations. The general council’s initial reac- appealing for them to “insist on the wards. During its short existence how- The annual TUC congress met at tion to the royal commission report miners’ fight being discussed ... Send ever, it had been a highly successful Scarborough just over a week later. was, however, to urge the miners to out a call to the workers of Britain and and dynamic revolutionary rank and The agenda items reflected the influ- use it as a basis for negotiation. After the world for an embargo on coal, and file movement, which had laid the ba- ence of the Minority Movement. A the miners rejected the report un- a levy on wages. Stand by the min- sis for the self organisation of the resolution moved by Harry Pollitt stat- equivocally, the general council even- ers”, (J Klugmann, History of the working class during the general ing, “This Congress declares that the tually called a meeting of union Communist Party of Great Britain Vol strike. Important lessons, which are trade union movement must organise executives on April 29. Still its efforts 2, p251). However, the efforts of the relevant to the contemporary tasks of to prepare the trade unions, in con- were concentrated on seeking to se- NMM influenced TUC delegates were communists, can be learned by study- junction with the Party of the work- cure a negotiated settlement with the Reprint of 1924 NMM to no avail at a congress during which ing the experience of the Minority ers, to struggle for the overthrow of government. When it became clear miners’ leader AJ Cook himself spoke Movement, and the successes and capitalism,” was carried by a majority that Baldwin was not playing this pamphlet. £1 (inc p+p) from against debating the general council’s errors of its Communist Party of more than two to one (J Klugmann game, but required unconditional sur- the CPGB address action of calling off the general strike. leadership l Page April 9 1998

Simon Harvey of the SLP Frustration grows in SLP A speech by Lenin esignation continues to other’ approach and believe that clusively run ‘clever tactics’ demo- Whether comrade Long was indulg- plague the Socialist Labour comrades who are already in the SLP cratic opposition prior to the last ing in a little wishful thinking or had The following is a summary of a R Party. The tone and orienta- should maintain their party cards congress. His heads-down, do not merely forgotten that other SLP demo- speech made by Lenin at the sitting tion of Nick Long’s letter of resigna- while pursuing activity in the SAs. pre-empt any splits, keep-it-all-in- crats remain within the party’s ranks, of the All-Russia Congress of Sovi- tion (see below) letter is indicative Comrade Long - now a supporter the-family approach evaporated on I do not know. What is significant ets: of a certain mood amongst a layer of of the eclectic soft-left Socialist De- January 10 at a meeting of the Demo- still is the fact that, although the SLP Comparing the Soviet govern- democratic party activists, current mocracy Group - himself points to cratic Platform when he advocated a is not reformable into a mass demo- ment with the Paris Commune of and former. The debacle of the last the fact that the SLP project is not moralistic walk-out of the SLP. cratic workers’ party, it retains a de- 1871, he pointed out that the former party congress, failure of the party over. While grasping that it is not Socialist Perspectives was estab- gree of party culture which is lacking had profited by the experience of the to grow and a general frustration at the answer (which has been the case lished to work in the Socialist Alli- in the Socialist Alliances. The SAs latter and constituted itself exclu- the lack of any mass movement since the first congress), he none- ances and other areas. Scargill did are today, at best, a united front for sively on the authority of the work- against Blair’s ongoing attacks has theless fails to convince it is dead in not even notice it and sent comrade socialist propaganda. In many cases, ers and poorer peasantry, to the led to a degree of demoralisation and the water. He states: “It is possible Wicks a letter after his resignation they are yet to develop any coherent exclusion of capitalists and imperi- lack of clear direction. that the SLP will gain members in the calling on him to desist his work in identity. alists. Comrade Long - former activist in coming period and establish itself as the Socialist Alliances. It was not I still maintain that comrades The way the peasantry had Lewisham and Greenwich SLP - be- a significant influence in a number even an expulsion letter. I think this should hold on to their SLP cards, grasped the meaning of the regime gins by announcing that he has “de- of industrial trade unions”. The suc- shows what little real impact the walk- struggle for democracy within the was remarkable. They had now be- cided to leave the SLP and have cess of the recent SLP-organised out had. party and work with the Socialist Al- come the most faithful friends and decided to concentrate all my efforts Reclaim Our Rights conference adds There is an important error to cor- liances. To cohere this position falls allies of the working class, because in building the Socialist Alliance”. It significant weight to this claim. In rect in comrade Long’s letter. He to those comrades around the Demo- they realised that the socialisation later continues: “Sadly, many social- such a case, it seems premature to states: “Those comrades who had cratic Platform. While a layer of demo- of the land would only be brought ists have left the party and the Stalin- tear up one’s party card, no matter been leading the calls for greater de- crats remains active in the party, it is about in conjunction with the na- ist regime [sic] and sectarianism of what the current regime. In fact, com- mocracy in the party have decided yet to define its tasks. tionalisation of the banks and the the party leadership seems to be rade Long has been openly operat- to leave and work to build Socialist This lack of clarity is visible in the establishment of working class con- gaining strength”. ing within the Socialist Alliances for Alliances”. It is true that there have recent Democratic Platform bulletin trol over production. On the surface of things, this some time without his party member- been many resignations by soft-left (March 1998). The bulletin is merely a During the protracted period of seems to be decisive action in the ship being threatened. Surely this democrats since the December con- collection of recent articles published transition that must necessarily face of the outrageous and unsus- points to a certain degree of manoeu- gress. Many have gone on to under- by elements of the SLP left combined elapse between capitalism and so- tainable character of the internal life vre possible within the SLP despite take SA work. However it must be with a number of NEC election state- cialism the proletariat must exercise of the party. Unfortunately, this is (or perhaps because of) Arthur’s remembered that the Democratic Plat- ments from December, Terry Burns’s a dictatorship. Socialism could not not the case. Comrade Long argues 3,000 back-pocket block vote. form received almost a third of CSLP general election platform, and a state- however be forced on the peasantry, that Scargill was and is correct to Another pointer to the relative votes at the December congress. The ment from the SLP Wales regional ex- and it was necessary to do what call for a new socialist party, but room-to-manoeuvre in the SLP and January 10 meeting of the DP was ecutive on the December congress. they were doing - namely, educat- maintains that the SLP is not up to the failed perspective of merely walk- split down the middle over whether The merit of the bulletin is that the ing the peasants in socialist theo- the job. Hence his orientation to the ing out is the recent letter Arthur to stay in the SLP or leave. Apart from editor has acted in publishing some- ries and practice. Socialist Alliances. While I whole- Scargill sent to now-Socialist Per- the Marxist Bulletin, the remainder thing in the absence of any substan- He pointed with satisfaction to the heartedly support work in the Social- spectives comrade, Martin Wicks. of Democratic Platform comrades re- tial contributions. It shows that alliance between the Bolsheviks and ist Alliances, I reject that this Comrade Wicks had become the de- main within the party. Many are also despite comrade Wicks’s disappear- the left Revolutionary Socialists be- necessitates an ‘either one or the facto self-appointed leader of the ex- active in Socialist Alliances. ing act and comrade Long’s wishful coming more intimate every day. Re- thinking, there are still democrats ac- ferring to the reproaches of the right tive within the SLP. section of the congress against the Nevertheless, from the nature of establishment of a dictatorship and the Democratic Platform bulletin, it is the use of force, he exclaimed that it clear that some thinking and was a mistake for anyone to imag- regrouping needs to be done. What ine that socialism would ever be is the general line of attack for SLP brought them on a platter. Never in democrats? How oppressive is the history have the questions at issue I current internal regime? How easy/ in the struggles between classes difficult is it to operate as an opposi- been solved in any other way than tionist? What of the necessity of by violent methods. When it was a working in the Socialist Alliances? question of suppressing the exploit- What programmatic debates should ers in the interests of the exploited we be pursuing in the SLP? Should classes, he frankly confessed he the Democratic Platform bulletin be a was all for violence ... limited discussion paper? Is a sepa- The new regime would create a rate open publication required? What new socialist Red Army, able to se- articles are being written for Social- cure the triumph of socialism both ist News? All these questions need at home and abroad - the Russian addressing. Federal Republic would then be in- It remains a frustrating period in vincible. There would be many dif- general. Despite the plethora of pre- ficulties in the way. They might have dictions that the election of a Labour to fight the bourgeoisie of foreign government would produce a crisis countries, such as England and of expectations nearly one year down France, who had not permitted a sin- the line, this has failed to materialise. gle Bolshevik paper to enter their The promised mass movement against country during the whole time of the Blair remains imaginary. This is not Revolution. surprising, especially as many left ac- But the workers of those coun- tivists passively assumed it would tries would come to their assistance. happen automatically with Blair’s elec- In due course he was confident the tion and just fall into their laps. The Revolution would spread to other mini-rebellion by MPs around single- countries, which would learn by the parent cuts, the expulsion of MEPs Russian experience. The Russian Kerr and Coates and the election of Socialist Republic of Soviets would Livingstone over Mandelson to the be a standing torch for international Labour Party NEC point to the fact socialism, and what the Russians that there are rumblings of discontent had begun would be completed by behind the spin doctoring. Yet they the German, French and British remain mere rumbles. The Labour ‘left’ peoples l is completely marginal. Ken Livingstone lacks the courage to stand for London mayor unless picked by Millbank. The Socialist Alliances, while con- taining much promise in the wake of 1918 failed expectations around Scargill’s regroupment project, remain immature in their development. To be walking Russian Revolution out of the SLP in such a climate this week 80 years ago smacks more of individual frustration than a serious political orientation l April 9 1998 Page What we fight for l Our central aim is to reforge the Communist Party of Great Britain. Without this Party the working class is nothing; with it, it is everything. l The Communist Party serves the interests of the working class. We fight all forms of oppor- tunism and revisionism in the workers’ move- political equivalent of a bar on a even sections of the Old Labour right ment because they endanger those interests. We insist on open ideological struggle in order to moonlit Caribbean beach serving end- and the trade union bureaucracy? fight out the correct way forward for our class. less supplies of half-price 10-year-old The convention in political journal- l Marxism-Leninism is powerful because it is single malts. ism is to use initial capitals only when true. Communists relate theory to practice. We Accordingly, the SLP was not a last referring to specific parties. Yes, in are materialists; we hold that ideas are determined mass socialist party, hegem- chance opportunity, simply a missed the scientific sense of the term, we by social reality and not the other way round. onic over an even larger net- opportunity. Think where the far left need a reforged communist party. But l We believe in the highest level of unity among Awork of industrial militants. could be now if the SLP had chosen we need a reforged Communist Party workers. We fight for the unity of the working Pulling wildcats in key sectors, or- to go down the road of recomposi- like Boris Yeltsin needs another block- class of all countries and subordinate the struggle ganising non-unionised workplaces, tion. Yet if anything, the tide of opin- buster hangover tomorrow morning. in Britain to the world revolution itself. The and widely held responsible for a dra- ion for a broad-based party is Let us remember that the CPGB’s liberation of humanity can only be achieved matic upsurge of coronary thrombo- stronger than two years ago. It now revolutionary period was short and through world communism. sis among law-abiding general takes in the Socialist Alliances, So- not particularly sweet. A drift to- l The working class in Britain needs to strike as secretaries. cialist Democracy and at least some wards centrism was evident as early a fist. This means all communists should be Revolutionary elected representa- comrades in the Socialist Party, So- as the general strike of 1926. In organised into a single Party. We oppose all tives at all levels, exploiting their po- cialist Outlook and Socialist Perspec- Trotsky’s assessment, the parties of forms of separatism, which weakens our class. sitions as tribunes of the oppressed. tives. Next year’s likely campaigns by the Third International were ‘dead for l Socialism can never come through parliament. The capitalist class will never peacefully allow A newspaper with a six-figure - maybe two (or possibly more) rebel Labour revolution’ by 1933. Granted, the their system to be abolished. Socialism will only even seven figure - circulation, daily Euro-MPs also point in this direction. track record of British Trotskyism has succeed through working class revolution and the breaking scandals that rock the es- Even the Scargillites might be forced been if anything yet more abysmal. replacement of the dictatorship of the capitalists tablishment. Pro-party intellectuals to play ball. But then, no one is seriously arguing with the dictatorship of the working class. Social- exerting wide influence in public life. Lastly, I have explicitly rejected all for a reforged Workers Revolution- ism lays the basis for the conscious planning of An uncontrollable youth wing, suggestion of historical necessity: “It ary Party. human affairs: ie, communism. deeply committed to Marxism, ram- would be the crudest determinism to In short, the British far left doesn’t l We support the right of nations to self- pant promiscuity and sustained drug suggest that a British party of recom- need to reforge anything. We need determination. In Britain today this means the abuse, but not necessarily in that or- position is in some sense inevitable to create something we have until struggle for Irish freedom should be given full der. or unavoidable. But it remains possi- now never had, namely a sizeable support by the British working class. That is the vision. Now the ques- ble, perhaps likely, and healthy from broad church Marxist-centred forma- l Communists are champions of the oppressed. tions start. How do we get there? the standpoint of Marxism informed tion with a serious implantation in the We fight for the liberation of women, the ending Should our new party be a reforged by praxis”. (‘Recomposition and the working class. of racism, bigotry and all other forms of chauvin- ism. Oppression is a direct result of class society Communist Party or a party of recom- British left’ What’s Next? No6). Let me concede Blum’s contention and will only finally be eradicated by the ending position? What do the two terms Blum argues that continental par- that I have had a long political career of class society. mean, anyway? Are they incompat- ties of recomposition are in reality ‘inside Labourism and failed sects’. l War and peace, pollution and the environment ible? Why not a revolutionary social- parties of decomposition, the prod- At least I have learned one or two are class questions. No solution to the world’s ist tendency inside a larger class uct of crises in ‘official communism’ things from the experience. First, problems can be found within capitalism. Its struggle leftwing formation? and social democracy. Up to a point, while the Labour Party remains a ceaseless drive for profit puts the world at risk. The remarks on the subject made undeniable. It is through just such a bourgeois workers’ party, there is The future of humanity depends on the triumph in comrade Martin Blum’s recent dis- process that a British party of recom- now no case for serious entry work. of communism. cussion of the Socialist Labour Party position is likely to emerge. Moreo- Second, for most of the last 17 (Weekly Worker ‘Balance of failure’ ver, anyone following recent years, I publicly supported the view March 26) seriously misrepresent the developments in Izquierda Unida will that the USSR was a degenerated politics of socialist recomposition. know that all is not sweetness and workers’ state, while privately hav- Blum lambasts “those who viewed the light inside such formations. ing reached a bureaucratic collectivist SLP as the ‘last chance saloon’. A Yet Blum’s is a woefully one-sided position. It was a useful firsthand ex- now or never opportunity. This ap- assessment, possibly clouded by re- perience in doublethink. Now the proach came from comrades who sidual Stalinist nostalgia for the mass question is settled by history, even if have had long political careers either are no last chance saloons in social- continental CPs of old. From a revo- - incredibly enough - some numbskull inside Labourism or failed sects. The ist politics. So long as capitalism ex- lutionary viewpoint, parties of recom- orthodox Trotskyists still can’t get most ‘theorised’ version came from ists, there will be class struggle. It will position are politically superior to their heads around the reality of capi- comrades such as Dave Osler and take on different organisational ex- former communist parties, which de- talist restoration. Roland Wood who maintain that pressions in different countries, times spite their mass character, were for But the rethinking has to be a two- some sort of social democratic or cen- and circumstances, but it will persist the bulk of their existence reduced to way process. It’s drop the dead trist regroupment is a necessary pre- until the revolutionary abolition of acting largely as reformist adjuncts dogma time for the entire thinking left. determined stage between now and a classes themselves. Doubtless of Kremlin foreign policy. Let today’s CPGB come to terms with future revolutionary party.” Roland and I will be forced to drink in Their forced turn to multi-tendency its own past, starting with a re-evalu- In that immortal expression of many more downmarket spit and saw- democracy has enabled revolution- ation of the basic questions of Trot- Alastair Campbell, “crap”. First, there dust boozers before we reach the ary socialists - primarily but not ex- skyism versus Stalinism. clusively of Trotskyist origin and I am told that one or two Trotsky- affiliated to the United Secretariat - ists have joined the CPGB before, but to break through their historic isola- were not successfully integrated into tion from key sections of politicised the party. Let us have an explanation r workers. of why this is so. If the CPGB genu- All of this takes me to the heart of inely seeks to be an inclusive revolu- the argument, which is the pro- tionary organisation - by implication, foundly ambiguous nature of the call incorporating many militants from a r for a ‘reforged Communist Party’ it- Trotskyist background - there is self. What meaningful content can it clearly a need for political clarity on possibly have, if not a party of revo- this point. If only in the name of Serious work lutionary recomposition, in which the regroupment or ‘communist rap- bulk of the cadres will come from the prochement’, perhaps the not-yet- Trotskyist tradition? How can it take party’s leading theoreticians could This is a very busy time for the left. ing all candidates standing on a place outside a wider regroupment of produce a formalised set of theses on Or, at least, so it should be. On May principled left slate - weather they class struggle forces, bringing to- Trotskyism, to which the Trotskyist 7 we have the local elections in be from the Socialist Party, the So- gether reformists, Marxists of all left could then respond, rather than England and Wales and Blair’s cialist Labour Party, etc. shades, probably anarchists and an- continually attempting to nail the take-it-or-leave it London referen- Being communists - who treat archo-syndicalists, and just possibly Weekly Worker’s jelly to the ceiling l dum. Do we want a big-shot, mafia- electoral work seriously - we also type ‘business’ mayor (and a fight at the same time to sustain powerless London authority) or and build the circulation of the the status quo? Frankly, we do not Weekly Worker. That is where our want either. monthly fighting fund comes in. Therefore it is very important Last month we fell just short of that the left intervenes. We must our monthly target of £500. Given not allow Blair to have it all his own the importance of the month ahead, way. The voices of those champi- we cannot afford to do so again. oning the interests of the working Amongst others, thanks go this using Hal Draper’s ‘Karl Marx’s class must be heard. During the week to MW from Exeter (£15), GH theory of revolution: state and bureaucracy’ as a next month the dreaded ‘d’ word from North London (£15), AJ from study guide. must enter the arena - ie, democ- Macclesfield (£5), PA from Suffolk racy. (£5), AD from Bexley (£5) and JA using Hal The CPGB will be standing can- from South London (£20). This gets Draper’s ‘Karl Marx’s theory of revolution: the didates within the Socialist Alli- us off to a start of £105. Let us try dictatorship of the proletariat’ as a study guide. ances, and energetically working and double - at least - that figure for the other SA candidates. Natu- for next week l rally, we will be critically support- Printed by and published by: November Publications Ltd (0181-459 7146). Registered as a newspaper by Royal Mail. ISSN 1351-0150. © April 1998 weekly

fter five weeks on strike instatement was not guaranteed. per has come out, with striking jour- Morning Star journalists re- Mike Ambrose reported that “tight- nalists saying that they refuse to Aturned to work victorious on lipped management representatives be gagged.” Management the morning of Monday April 6, with heard the decision in silence and ‘Kingsland’s Diary’ - renamed sacked editor John Haylett rein- made no immediate moves to end from the usual ‘Ardleigh’s Diary’ in stated. The Committee to Save the the injustice” (ibid). response to management’s accusa- Morning Star, initiated by the strik- The NUJ Morning Star chapel, tion of “passing off” TWMS as the unrepentant ers, is continuing its campaign for a “unanimously welcomed the deci- Morning Star itself, contained a special general meeting of share- sion,” which “raised questions over couple of noteworthy items. “The holders of the Peoples Press Print- management’s competence.” They Campaign for Diversity and Plural- n April 7 the first Morning Star proper ing Society, the cooperative which called for “Mary Rosser and her ism has been strangely silent about Oafter the strike carried the full statement owns the Morning Star, to remove sidekick Bob Newland to resign for management attempts to gag TWMS of recommendations of the “appellate body “unhealthy elements” from the man- having created a situation which by threatening our printers. This on the dismissal of John Haylett” along- agement committee. had silenced the paper for five could be because the campaign is side the points of view of both the strikers Sixty supporters marched the half weeks and threatened its very ex- being organised by Anni Marjoram, and management. Both sides describe the mile from the Kingsland Road strike istence”. Deputy father of chapel a management committee member dispute in terms of a meaningless industrial office back to the Ardleigh Road, Chris Kasrils urged management to and a close political ally of Labour conflict devoid of any comprehensible Hackney, Morning Star building, “end its vendetta and allow a return MP Ken Livingstone.” cause. fronted by a Scottish bagpiper and to work under the proper editor” Kingsland’s other point concerns Neither connects the dispute to the strug- the National Union of Journalists’ (ibid). the Kim Jong-ilist New Communist gle in the CPB, and the CPB itself does not banner, complete with new poles for Management’s acceptance of de- Party’s paper, “which once took a avail itself of the opportunity of the reap- the occasion. John Haylett thanked feat, however, only became evident principled stand on major issues” pearance of what is, to all intents and pur- everyone for their solidarity, and at the Acas talks on April 2, during (sic). The New Worker “has been poses, its own paper, to explain its position. spoke of “the vital role of the Star which the terms of victory were ne- critical of TWMS, with leading mem- A report of the CPB political committee’s in giving guidance to the labour gotiated. The strike could only be bers alleging that it has links with deliberations appears on page 7, welcom- movement”. In the absence of “the declared over when the return to Straight Left. That’s a funny excuse ing “communist advances in the Ukraine,” usual preparatory work”, he rallied work terms were endorsed by the for not backing workers in struggle, calling for “extensive support” for the April the journalists to use the enthusi- NUJ Morning Star chapel on the especially as, for many years, The 18 meeting of the Liaison Committee for the asm of victory to “get the paper out morning of Friday April 3. New Worker ran a Malcolm Airley Defence of Trade Unions, but keeping mum tomorrow.” With the bagpipes play- Management agreed to pay the column, written by the first person on the matter of greatest importance to it- ing, he was carried into the building difference between the strike pay to edit Straight Left.” self. on the shoulders of Gary Davis and and normal wage of each striker, so Kingsland highlights the hypoc- Perhaps this is what John Haylett meant Stan Keable. there was no loss of earnings. The risy of The New Worker, but he when he called for a “return to normality”. Suspended on January 24 on journalists agreed to cease publica- should think again about its one- What are we to make of his declaration in “trumped up charges” as part of the tion of The Workers’ Morning Star, time “principled stand”. This is the the editorial that “The Morning Star will longstanding factional struggle but insisted on their right to cam- paper you could once buy in continue to put forward its clear and dis- within the leadership of the so-called paign. So they are free to pursue, Prague, Kabul or Addis Ababa - or tinctive political line, while providing a fo- Communist Party of Britain, Haylett for example, the removal of un- any other state which would buy a rum for different points of view within the was formally sacked the day after wanted management committee few hundred copies of an English labour movement”? Fine words, but the CPB the official NUJ strike began on members through a special PPPS language ‘communist’ newspaper even conceals its own point of view! February 25. This Murdoch-style shareholders meeting - or any other willing to act as its mouthpiece. Under the headline, ‘Practising what we decision was taken by Mary Rosser campaigning they wish to take part More like principled prostitution ... have preached,’ Chris Kasrils, deputy fa- and her pitiful dupe Bob Newland, in. Management also agreed to drop but then there is the question of the ther of the NUJ chapel, justifies the strike. overplaying their hand as the re- its threat of legal action against the Soviet order for the Morning Star, He argues, quite rightly, that “Morning Star maining two members of the disci- printers of The Workers’ Morning and how that affected the political journalists would not have been taken seri- plinary subcommittee appointed for Star. line of the Morning Star and the ously by the rest of the movement if they the case, after Institute of Employ- Before the return to work march, ‘official’ CPGB. As for Straight Left, had failed to react against what we saw as a ment Rights director and manage- as supporters gathered in the fact that its first editor could get fit-up against John Haylett. When we write ment committee member Carolyne Kingsland Road, a gift box together a column in the paper of the living of workers’ rights and trade union or politi- Jones resigned in disgust. Newland with the following letter to each dead gives us a clue to its nature. A cal principles in future, the movement will is not a management committee striker from the CPGB Provisional modest prize awaits the first reader know that we practice what we preach.” member, merely a Star employee. Central Committee was gracefully to send me an example of its con- Only by implication does he hint that there Rosser is appointed by the manage- received. structive criticism - indeed, any criti- must have been more to it. “Management ment committee as PPPS chief ex- cism - of any state it regards as gave every impression of having made its ecutive and secretary. socialist. mind up from the start that it wanted John On February 28 the management Last point on TWMS. No5 carried sacked. All that it lacked was any credible committee majority around Rosser an advertisement which the Morn- charge to lay against him.” Yet political jour- retreated in disarray, conceding ing Star proper cannot carry be- nalism, Chris, requires that we uncover the their own incompetence to hear n cause of the management committee political causes behind things. Haylett’s appeal by agreeing to ban on our organisation : “CPGB Mary Rosser, unrepentant, declares that pass the job to an “independent Provisional Central Committee - management “did not agree with the rec- appellate body” of three to be The fifth and final issue of TWMS, Weekly Worker - for the politics be- ommendations of the appellate body, but agreed by both sides. At the same dated April 4, led with the following hind the strike”. Clearly, such an ad- accepts them” in order to meet the “deep- time, they delegated responsibility front page statement: “To the man- vertisement is not a problem for the est desire” of the Star readership to “get for handling the dispute to their of- agers of the Morning Star: This is journalists. Can we look forward to the paper back on the road.” She also casts ficers - Mary Rosser, chairman not your paper. It is the strike bulle- the lifting of this ban, along with aspersions on the fairness of the appeal George Wake and vicechair Pat tin of the National Union of Jour- the opening of the columns of ‘the hearing. Alf Parrish was appointed chair- Hicks. Subsequently, management’s nalists Morning Star chapel. We paper of the left’ to all shades of person of the appeal tribunal on the recom- chosen representative on the appeal demand that you stop trying to gag opinion on the left? l mendation of media union GPMU, which tribunal “could not be contacted”. our union during an official dispute not only has members employed at the Star Acas supplied a replacement, a Mr and call your lawyers off our print- who were campaigning against the strike, N Cowan, who regularly appears for ers at once. Your actions, at first dis- l Saturday April 25, 7.30pm-1.00am, but is the power base of Mary’s husband, the employers’ side in such tribu- graceful, have now descended £5/£3: A night of music for the Cam- ousted CPB general secretary Mike Hicks. nals. further - to the lowest tactics of gut- paign to Save the Morning Star and It is with dismay, therefore, that she com- After only a single sitting on April ter management.” the Morning Star NUJ Strike Com- plains how management “did not realise” 1, the tribunal unanimously “ruled The Star management, Mike mittee, City University Student Un- that Parrish “is a member of the board of against the procedure that led to the Ambrose wrote in his lead article ion, Northampton Square, Spencer Tribune, a paper with a record of hostility dismissal and the charges them- ‘Cleared on all counts’, had “suc- Street, London EC2 (Angel tube). to the Morning Star management.” I recall selves” (The Workers’ Morning cessfully threatened one printer and l Save the Morning Star Commit- that paranoia was one of the complaints Star No5, April 4). Haylett had no unsuccessfully tried to stop the tee, 422 Kingsland Road, London E8 which led to the downfall of Hicks and case to answer - but since the tribu- present printer from producing 4AA. Tel 0171 254 5000, Fax 0171 Rosser in the CPB executive l nal decision was not binding, his re- TWMS. Despite the threats, the pa- 254 5151