FILE , I cnpv National ~ Left·Wing Movement Islington Poland NUM Middle East ::.;:~:;:;:;:;::::::::::::::::::::::::::~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:;:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~::::::::;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:;:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:~:;:;~~~~~: THE HEALTH

Smash,the anti-union laws. Al.-MOST FIVE MONTHS after workers against the Tories. Miners, Bill 't~e designed to destroy. Effective he firSt stoppage during the dockers and, of cour,se, tile Fleet St. working class action is ,to be made totally illegal by the Tories. Suc­ ealth dispute, the TUC has at electricians, hBve. all '$taged solidarity stoppages. But the TUC leaders have cessful action in support of the health last named the date for a Day of been running scared of a showdown workers must bring the organised Action, by all its ~embers, in with the Tories. Even now, when the working class into a collision with the battle could have threatened to spear­ the health workers and on strength­ support of the health workers. TUC is eventually forced into supp­ law. The Tories will not hesitate to head a struggle against the Tories ening their anti-union legal machinery They have asked all workers to orti ng action, because neither the use that law if they think they can throughout the public sector. But with yet another round of anti- get away with it. Victory in this in­ stop work for at least an hour in Tories nor the workers will budge, the prospect of such struggles terrifies union legislation aimed at making they refuse to issue any clear call for stance is sure to embolden them in the TUC leaders. Each time they have secret ballots for union officials and in solidarity on Septemller 22nd. strike action which would break the future. That is why they will only worked like demons to defuse the industrial action compulsory. Already the NUM and the GM Prior's Employment Act. The pathetic be beaten by action that will secure conflict. They stabbed both the steel The course they are set on is one WU have committed themselves Albert Spanswick, of COHSE, is still full victory for the healthworkers and workers and ASLEF in the back, It of inflicting a lasting defeat on the to action. It is down to militants on record as saying he would prefer and consign all of their anti-union is, therefore, vital that the organisation organisations, services and Iivi ng laws to the dustbin. everywhere to make sure that the unions to get their members. out for the 22nd of September is not standards of the working class. To­ with an unofficial, "nod and a wink" This is not the first time that the left in the hands of the TUC leaders day the NHS workers are in the September 22nd. becomes a one so as not to break the Tory laws working class has found itself on the and that the TUC plans to organise firing line. Tomorrow other public day general strike - and it will against "secondary action". verge of a generalised offensive it as only a one-off day of protest sector workers will be faci ng the be the work of the militants, not The entire course of the health against this Tory government. In must be spiked. It must become the same intransigent government. Private the TUC leaders, that ensures the dispute has proved the need for org· 1980, the steelworkers stood poised launching pad for an onslaught on the sector workers have, and will again, anised solidarity stoppages, blacking to be joined by a general strike in that the day is a success. Tories. suffer the blight of low wages and un­ and picketing in orderto beat the South Wales that could have turned Delegate action committees of employment thanks to the Tories' Throughout the dispute there has Tories. It is, however, precisely the tide against the Tories. Early this health workers and representatives of policies. For these reasons Septem­ been ample evidence of mass rank and these working class weapons that the this summer ASLEF action, if it had all workers due to take action must ber 22nd must be the beginning of and file support for the health Prior anti-union law and Tebbitt's been linked to the healthworkers be formed in each locality. They a class-wide offensive against the should organise the sol idarity pickets Tories. Solidarity strike action from f9r the 22nd, recognising that effect­ unions, such as the miners, along- ive solidarity with the health workers side all-out strike action by the means breaking the Tory law. They health workers, are the goals that should remain in operation after the militants fighting for mobilisations Boycott Foot's register 22nd - the law will not be beaten on the 22nd must set for themselves. and the health workers will not win As the fining of Geraghty shows, THIS YEAR'S LABOUR party as recruiting sergeants for Margaret increasingly mindful of an impending in one day. Rank and file organisa­ however, the health dispute has high­ conference promises to register Thatcher's imperialist war against ' election and doubtless aware of Foot's tions of militants in the localities lighted the class-wide implications Argentina, there is not one resolution potential as an electoral albatross, must be held together to carry on ' of the Tories' laws. So, the 22nd the g~ins that the Labour Right that so much as attemjrts to cell the victories for the Right ,at conference the fight that the leaders are, in fact, must become not only the starting has made over the last year. The NEC and the PLP to account. This could, well be followed up by a drive seeking to limit. point for real solidarity action to last twelve months have Ilorne makes a mockery of the claims of the to install a new hard right leader atop Po;;sibly the Tories, or an indi­ win the health strike but also a out all too clearly Workers' Left that their constitutional vic­ a rightist NEC. Murray and the TUC vidual employer, will invoke the GENERAL STRIKE aimed at tories put them in a position to con­ General Cou,ncil manouevred desper­ Employment Act before the 22nd. smashing the Tories' anti-union laws, Power's judgement that the 1981 The TUC, and each individual union the existing ones and the ones being conference represented, "a de­ trol the PLP. ately before the TUC conference to All the evidence suggests that it refer back the AUEW Construction must Qe forced to state now that they pushed through Parliament by Tory cisive victory for the anti-reform, is now the right who are making the Section's bid to tie the TUC to opp­ will declare all strikes in defiance hit-man Norman Tebbitt. anti-Benn forces" (WP 26). The running. Not only have they pushed osing all incomes policies in whatever of court orders to be official and re­ No effort must be spared to guar­ Right, in conjunction with the the register through the N EC. They guise. The TUC tops and the Labour fuse to squander one penny of union antee that the 22nd September is a are well placed this year to act on Right still hold out the hope of funds on paying fines for their mem­ day of ALL OUT STRIKE. Leaflets, main trade union leaders, are out bers. No recognition of the Tory law bulletins and work-time meetings to cap their gains with confer.;. their carefiJlly leaked 'hit list' and to taking a purged Labour Party to shift the N EC further to the rig lit. triumph at the polls on a platform of in any form -that must be the must be organised to put the case ence acceptance of the NEC's Huckfield seems set to be replaced by incomes policy, import controls and battlecry of all organised worker •. across. But militants must have no witch hunt proposal for a'Reg­ Foot's nominee, Evans. At present the national reconciliation. The Econo­ Succ,essful action on September illusions. Only an indefinite general gossip column reports of bureau­ mist is correct when it reports that 22nd, however, will not send the strike will destroy the plans of the ister of non-affiliated groups'. Tories into immeaiate retreat. They government.. It is symptomatic of the weak­ cratic bar-room preparations to oust the Right in the Labour Party and TU have ~ak~ thei~ future on breaking ness of Labour's left that the prin­ Foot seem premature. But Foot has TUC now, "hope they can put the cipal resolutions they have managed always been a 'caretaker' candidate horrors of the last three years behind to place on the conference agenda for the Right during the period in them." are of an entirely defensive character. which they groomed a new candidate The ,determination of the Right and They primarily concentrate on trying and organised to re-assert their grip on and its not so 'soft left' allies of the to stop the NEC's witchunting plans. on the party. , All out Sept 22nd Despite the Labour front bench's role With the trade union bureaucrats CONTINUED ON PAGE 2

• PAGE 3 - "Islington Council should draw up a~.!'tailed assessment of how much extra' money' we 'Will need "from th"e Government to c-rry out the manifesto commitments without pbcing extra uurdenJ; on Is· linyton tenents and ratepayers. We should',then go Oi{t ,and publicise the facts in a mas~ive ca"mpaign , among tenents. council workers,and community ~­ aspect of the 'Socialist Republic~~~ p1a/) hi.nges:on tJie "';$\, ',-in intranSigent gd'vernment make funds available. In our). The victory was significant not only ue­ outcome of the next general election. fact workers are being asked to fight for jam tomor- cause it went against the national trend at the This approach is a variation on the 'municipal , ~ row. Whatever the intentions of the Socialist Organ- socialist' theme that has already had disastrous res- . iser; this is a redpe for a potential defeat. It is a back height of the Falklands war, lJut also uecause ults for the working class in Lambeth and Lothian. It to front approach. Real communist councillors the campaign was conducted a\lainst the old fails to take as its starting point the need to mobilise of public funds. Over 10.000 substandard homes. would immediately. in the words of the Communist Lauour Party machine which had defected to workers in Islington now in preparation for the in. 15.000 people waiting for houses. and 21 % of the pop- International's 1920 directives: form the first SDP Local Authority only 6 evitable conflict with Thatcher. Next year Thatcher ulation (18.260 in June) unemployed. Action on these "aiel the poorer sections of the population in every intends cutting cash limits for local government by points would give Islington workers something worth possible way ...... launch a determined cam- months jJreviously. up to 20%. the intention being to prune a further 120.000defending. paign to spread revolutionary propaganda. even if it Labour's victory at the polls, therefore, meant or so local authority jobs by 1983/4. After years of Labour Party cuts a massive scheme leads to conflict with the state power:' that the power fell to a younger, more radical It won't be long before Thatcher and Heseltine of public works is essential now. Facilities for the While these directives were meant for communist Labour Party and one that was largely untested. decide to attack the Islington Council. With this in very old and young. housebuilding. road improvements councils with a majority. they also indicate what a The Labour Group was indeed something of an mind the right-wing in the council are already hinting environmental and recreational facilities would restore minority of communist councillors would be duty at the need for a 42% rate rise. faith in the council and satisfy some of the burning bound to fight for. unknown quantity, a mix of moderate caree- While such a solution is politically unattractive needs. FUlrthermore the council should meet. the national The signs that the Socialist Organiser supporters r:st elements, community activists, representati­ in the wake of the Lambeth debacle. it does reflect wage claims of its employees in full without waiting are likely to take heed of our advice are not encour- ves of minority groups, overwhelmingly Bennite the dilemma of 'municipal socialism'. How can a coun- for a national agreement. aging. In a response to criticisms from the SWP. Nick and including four supporters of the left-wing cil honour its manifesto without incurring the legal This was done in Camden in 1979. It can be done Barstow defended Islington council adding: wrilth of the government? again in Islington. The council's offer of 'support' for "But Socialist Worker seems content to sit on Socialist Orgi:niser Alliance. According to the manifesto. this dilemma can be the national claims is just not good enough _ it could the sidelines and passively predict that it will all go Expectations of the Council among Islington wor­ overcome by rallying the 'community' to the coun- allow them.to payout less than that full claim when rotten. You may in the end be proved right. Ilut nq. kers and party activists ran high. Lenin's bust was cil's defence by the watchwords 'particillBtion' and a settlement is eventually made. one will thank you for it unless you join in the :ish plactld prominently outside the Council Chamber ·decentralisation·. In their own words "In facing the Of course the cry will go uP. where is the money that's going on now instead of setting up straw m~ (he was a one-time resident of the boro-.Jgh).) The attack of the Tory Government the Council will to come from?The fact is that a determined council (SO 98) Red Flag was sung in the Chamber and hoisted over need the support of the people of Islington. This means could find the money at a stroke without so much as This is a defence of Islinton council's curren the Town Hall of • Fortress Islington'. The Gutter that decision-making must be based on discussion adding a penny to rents or rates. Last year Islington reformist strategy. The job of revolutionaries is not Press. a local 'independent socialist' monthly. pro­ across the Borough.... .'· At the same time "It is also Council paid over £58 million in debt charges. The to defend such a strategy even though we will de- claimed the Socialist Republicl And there,. was no vital that the cOuncil secures the active support of lion's share of this sum is interest payments to various fend intransigently pro-working class actions that dearth of Labour Councillors ready to defy the Gov­ its Staff. Steps muSt be taken to open up policy- creditors. If the council refused to pay these crippling may form part of that strategy. No our job is to en- ernment and prepare for Thatcher's defeat. As Coun­ making to all staff and to improve relations with the bills it would be in a good position to meet some of ter the fight with our own strategy and thrQUgh cillor Keith Veness put it in the June issue oJ London Trade Unions:' the urgent needs of the Islington working class. and in joint struggle. but under a communist banner. win Labour Briefing. in language typical of these heady days These objectives are to be attained through decen- a position to call on their support when the bankers and reformist workers and councillors to our alter- "The Left must prepare carefully for the next few tralising services to neighbOUrhood offices. while all government retaliate. native. Socialist Organiser's strategy. on the other months. The leadership of London is now ours - and interested parties are consulted by a variety of means. The likely consequences of such an action would hand. relegates them to the position of "miJrxist" we must see this is used to bring an end to this Gov­ Thereis nothing particularly new in any of this and need to be spelled out in a campaign reaching all those apologists for left reformists.• ernment once and for all'" After three months in nothing intrinsically socialist either. Both Labour and workers who live and work in the borough. drawing office how has the fighting talk been translated into Liberal local authorities have used this approach in support from further afield too. Arguments supporting by Dave Jenkins action? the past with varying degrees 'of failure. Hardly a the Council's stand would need to be taken into the To begin with. the emphasis has not so much been formula for success. this pink herring is a potential workplaces. At shop stewards committees. factory on preparing the fight against Thatcher but carrying distraction which at worst can weaken trade union gate meetings and on the estates these workers must be through some of the most visible electoral promises. organisation and divide the Council and its employees. won to strike action to defend services. An action Many of the cuts made by the previous SDP admini­ It does not approach the conflict with the Tories from committee of delegates from workplaces. community stration have been reversed and services restored. The the standpoint of the class struggle. The ·community·. groups and of housewives must be built to conduct Fight the town hall boss most closely identified with the cuts the 'people' are complete abstractions. Who 'are they? the action. Such ac;tion is a real class struggle alter- 'has been allowed to go: The invidious policy of What are their fighting organisations7rhe task of a'real native to the blind alley of 'municipal socialism'. selling empty Council homes has been stopped as has socialist council would be to base itself on the mobil- In Islington. communists. whether on the council the practice of bed and breakfast for homeless fami­ isation of the fighting organisations of the working or not. would be duty bound to fight for such an lies. Council trade unions can now meet in work time class - the trade unions and shop stewards committees approach. The ostensible 'marxists' around Social- and there have been a number of other changes. in Islington. which would lea'd real working class com- ist Organiser. however. have not elaborated such a To put this into perspective it has to be said that the munity groups - tenants associations. etc. behind them. strategy. SASA BAKHTAURA - A popular Punja;'" manifesto itself'A Socialist Programme for Islington Their power can provide a crucial starting point in ex­ singer - is the latest victim of the racist immlgra­ 1982' .s a modest one indeed and. in the best tradi­ tending the fight to defend one borough into a national The Socialist Organiser supporters on the coun­ tion laws. He has lost an appeal against depor­ tion of Labour Manifestoes. is 'open-ended': much conflict wi'th the Tories. cil appear to recognise the need to prepare for a con­ of its promise - on housing. social services. employ­ To really secure such support the council would flict with the Tories. They were the only people on tation at Wolverhampton Crown Court. ment etc - is medium/long term and is. in any case. have to start not from any budgetary considerations the council to put forward a set of proposals design­ The case of Baba Bakhtaura is similar to that predicated on an increased supply of Central Govern­ necessarily limited by the preceding council. the ed to lay the basis for, a fight with the government. of many other victims of the immigration laws. ment funding. For example on Housing "Labour will central government etc. It would have to start by im­ The proposals. which were accepted by the leader­ After being here 3 years his application to exten plementing a programme of action based on the im­ ship of the council. aim to ensure that manifesto restore all the building programmes as soon as central his stay was refused. He instructed his solicitors government increases the amount of money the Coun­ mediate needs of workers.And Islington. while by no commitments are honoured by forcing the govern· cil is allowed to spend:' means a special case. is in need of a massive injection ment to give the council f'\1ore money: to appeal on his behalf but they failed to do so within the prescribed time limit. He was arrestee and sent to prison for two months by an Oldbur weakness of the Left that they have magistrate who recommended him for deportat­ not been able to present a slate in ion. Owing to wrong advice from counsel he CONTINUED FROM FRONT PAGE • • • • ... . Foot's register the N EC elections which commits it­ pleaded guilty to knowingly overstaying his self to these two elementary measures Kinnock stripe must have been streng­ say to local parties. 'Don't worry. strategy to fight the witchunt. in defence of Labour Party demo­ leave to be here under the immigration laws. thened by the response of the Bennite we've been through it all before it's While the LCC initially welcomed cracy. Instead large sections of the Baba Bakhtaura is well known and loved in the Left. and its 'broad Left' foot soldiers. never worked before and it won't the register the CLPD. itself initially Left have tended to cry. 'Foull' - Sikh community. But countless other deportations to the witch hunt proposals. Firstly. work this time. and we should stick opposed to the registration plan. has with the CLPD howling that the are taking place with only a small circ!3 of family and the Left has failed to take advantage to the policies in which we believe:' now decided that the only. 'realistic' Right has upset the 'new sense of friends to weep over the brutal separation. 18 people of their much-heralded gains in order (Quoted in Labour Herald) strategy is to put forward an 'alter­ unity' achieved at Bishops Stortford, are threa,tened with deportation in Bradford. at presen' to stand a candidate against the witch­ Benn evades issuing a call. or even native register' which embraces most But it was Bishops Stortford and 30 families in Oldham have lost relatives as a result hunting. union jack-waving leadership a recommendation. for non-registration. of the N EC's, conditions for member­ Benn's agreement to back pedal on the of deportations. It is vital that the Labour Movement of the discredited Michael Foot. Benn And he consoles those who face pot­ ship and a few more besides I For party reforms that opened the door organises now to stop the deportations: delivered a quiet. "No thank you" ential expulsion with the warming their pains and ingenuity the Right for the latest confident offensive of Since the successful case of'Anwar Ditta. there to polite recommendations from his prospect that they will get back into has rewarded them well. Their the Right wing. has been a tendency to campaign against deportations 'hard' Socialist Organiser supporters the party - sometime I 'realistic' alternative has been ruled The crucial task facing the Left on the basis of individual campaigns in the communi­ that he should stand against Foot. If the Labour Right. and their out of order. in the Labour Party, in the face of the ties from which the detainees come. This is attractive Now. as has always been the case in TUC backers. could take comfort The witch hunt can only be de­ ascendancy of the TUC and PLP because the campaigns usually meet with a positive Labour's history. the Left's weakness from such statements they could feated if the Right know that they Right is to win the unions against the response in the communities. But as the Home Office is underlined by its refusal to break hardly have been scared by the re­ will face intransigent opposition. This purge of the Left. This means fighting and the magistrates turn on the screws it is becoming with and destroy the Right. The sponse of the 'hard lefts·. The start­ means winnino the commitment nf as to take the block vote out of the ever more necessary to unite the struggles of individ­ Right can play the 'Unity' card ing point of any campaign against the many constituency Labour Parties as hands of the general secretaries and ual deportees within a unified campaign against the against the Left to keep their front­ witch hunt must be a refusal to possible to refuse to comply with the putting them in ',he hands of the rank deportations and the racist laws that make them pos­ man in position until they judge it register and a commitment to boy­ registration procedures. It means and file membership. Every betrayal sible. the right moment to push forward cott the registration machinery. Any showing the NEC that the pursuit of and defeat that the trade union During the massive agitation mounted by black harder against the Left. other approach concedes to the the witch hunt will mean expelling a leaders are allowed to get away with - organisations ag>'!nst the 'Nationality Bill' the Labour Similarly. 'Tiger' Benn has refused Labour leaders that they have the large number of constituency parties. like the defeat of ASLEF and the and Trade Union leaders were conspicuously absent. to put himself at the head of a right to decide which newspapers. It means organising to coordinate the NUR- strengthens the right wing The campaign within the rank and file of the Labour struggle to defy the register. He may opinions and resolutions can be cir­ struggle of the CLP's who are comm­ movement was weak. If the wave of deportations is well die an unregistered socialist - culated in the Labour Party. But the itted to a boycott. block in the TUC and Labour Party. to be stopped it is necessary to organise now to take but no one is asking him to register I editor of the Militant. Peter Taaffe The witch hunters are also out to The struggle around the healthworkers this question into every Labour Party ward. shop stew­ His response to the NEC decision to was quick to declare that Militant destroy the re-selection procedures as workers' pay claim and the massive ards committee and Trade Union branch: And we must was prepared to accommodate' to solidarity being shown by the rank endorse the Haywood/Hughes report a mechanism for rendering individual ensure that a united campaign against deportations and the NEC on the question of the and file of the trade unions allows on Militant and its 'recommendations members of the PLP accountable to the immigration laws bases itself on working class actio register. While Militant has called for revolutionaries to draw the links as was a classic example of evading a the rank and file. All constituencies so that the particular communities and families are not fight. "There are hundreds of groups opposition to the register their must declare that. as well as boy­ to who are the real splitters and de­ mobilisers of the fight against the left to fight alone. in the Labour Party. I don't know if paper has carefully avoided giving cotting the register. they commit Thatcher government. The Left must A defence committee has been formed to fight the they will register or not. LlUt all I know any commitment to organising a boy­ themselves to standing democratically build on this struggle to sabotage the case of Baba Bakhtaura for further information on the know is that if anybody is expelled, cott of it should it be passed by elected candidates - Tatchell in plans of the right wing witch - case contact: and that is the intention. it is going conference. The September 11 th con ~ Bermondsey for example- whatever hunters. to be an awful waste of time and ference that it is sponsoring seems the views of the NEC on the legit­ Baba Bakhtaura Defence Committee. ~y will be re-admitted anyway ... set to be a classic Militant-staged imacy of the candidates. dOYCOTT THE REGISTER I 19A Birmingham St .• (021-552-6121 ) ~ I'm sorry about it. but I would rally with little or no debate on the It is further evidence of the DEFEAT- THE WITCHUNTERS ! Oldbury. West Midlands \ '" ORKERS POWER No.35 SEPTEMBER 1982 \ j1j1jmm1m1m~jmm1jmtm1m1j1mmm1j1~ The NUM: Part 1 The strike began on January 9th amidst a torrent of cocky predictions by the Fleet Street rags, that the miners were waging a doomed battle. The passivity of the official leadership seemed to confirm this view. Wh, had not been taken into account was the determination of a rank and file, bitter about the gradual lowering The rise of the of its living standards that had preceeded the strike. The miners were solid from the word go. The fly' ing picket, pioneered by the Yorkshire militants in the strikes of 1969 and 1970, and the mass picket came into their own, as miners travelled far from the coal· fields to stop coal movements. Because rank and file miners did not sit at home and wait for an outcome to the dispute, the running of the strike became an ex· Broad Left: 1967-74 ample for all workers to follow. Rank and file min· ers ran the strike, picketing where and when they were needed and organising solidarity from other workers. WITH JOE GORMLEY now having departed to militants. To rise in the NUM Scargill had to base him- The tactics which brought victory were epitomised by join the "vermin in ermine" in the House of Lor­ self on organising the rank and file. the success of the miners, together with 10,000 strik· However, once Scargill had secured his leadership ing Birmingham workers, in closing down the Saltley ds, many militants inside the NUM and through­ of the official machine, then his 'rank and file' group Coke Depot on February 10th 1972. That victory was out the trade union movement are looking to was gradually reduced to nothing. After a long period effectively the signal for the victory of the entire strike, his successor Arthur Scargill, to spearhead an of desultory existence in 1976, it disappeared alto- and significantly Scargill was at the head of the Saltley onslaught on the Tory government. The min- get her. operation. The hastily assembled Wilberforce Enquiry ers' wage claim of 31% and Scargill's much This was consistent with Scargill's view that the im- met for three days and recommended rises of £4.50 - £6 portant thing was to control the leading positions in for the miners. The Tory government's pay policy was publicised opposition to the NCB's secret pit the union. Even here Scargill was at pains to point out in tatters - the miners were triumphant and their vic- closure programme provides the ingredients that this did not mean building an organisation which tory heralded a new mood of militancy throughout the for a potentially explosive struQ:Jle this Autumn would struggle to oust the right wing from its posit- whole working class. UCS, the Pentonville dockers, and ions. In an interview with Socialist Challenge in 1978 he a host of other struggles had Heath's government on Arthur Scargill represents two things. On the one argued: "I don't want it going into Socialist Challenge the run throughout 1972. hand he is the symbol of the miners' rank and file mil­ that Scargill says 'Erect an alternative leadership which Following the 1972 strike there was a further swing itancy at its peak. A key organiser of the Saltley Gate is alternative to that which already exists'. I'm talk- to the left in the election of full-time officials of the victory when the coke depot was shut down by mass ing about a leadership being created which will be ready NUM. This was exactly in line with the perspective of picketing, Scargill is remembered by militants as a to replace the present leadership when that leader· the left-wing. Scargill was elected to the NEC in Sep- strident rank and file leader of the 1972 strike. ship goes. tember 1972 and was Yorkshire Area President by Jan. He also represents the politics of the Broad Left I'm not talking about a caucus within the union. 1973. Briscoe became Area General Secretary by 1973. inside the NUM, politics which have shaped, limited __ because that would tend in my opinion to even fur- From being a right-wing dominated area, Yorkshire and at key moments dissipated the militancy of the ~ ther fmgment the trade union movement and that became a left-wing one by 1973. McGahey was elected rank and file. Scargill is now the figurehead of an alli- * would be disastrous." (Socialist Challenge No.70, 2nd Vice President of the NUM in July 1973 and by the end --""):e comprising left labour miners like Emlyn Will- .. November 1978). of that year the NEC 'left' was getting within striking drns of South Wales and Communist Party veterans ~ His rank and file origins have left their stamp on distance of commanding a majority on the NEC; it now like Michael McGahey. For these reasons Scargill and ~ Scargill, but his strategy is clearly not centered on had 11 out of 26 on that body. Within the apparatus his supporters in the NUM do appear to be very dif- ~ building an organisation of the rank and file. of th9 NUM the 'left' were numerically in a stronger ferent from other "Iefts" within the trade union move- Ql The 1969 strikes errupted over an issue under dis- position than ever before. ment. By comparison,Moss Evans appears a model pute throughout the 60s - working hours for surface This 'left advance' however, was marked by a de- moderate when measured against Scargill. However workers. A demand for reduced hours was lodged to- cline in the organisation of the rank and file. It was fror the history, not merely of other "Iefts" corrupted by get her with a pay claim of 27s.6d. South Wales, under this point on that the Barnsley Miners' Forum was high office, but of the recent history of the NUM pressure from its rank and file, pushed for some sort of wound down by Scargill. For its part the CP attacked left itself should serve as a cautionary reminder to mil­ action on the issue in 1969. At the same time a cam- the various 'unofficial' committees that lad sprung up itants to put no blind trust in 'King Arthur' in the pos­ paign for stri ke action was building up in Doncaster in 1972 on the grounds that the official union was now sible struggles ahead. and Barnsley where militants felt that the wage claim 'open' to the left. The strategy was clear. Capture At the beginning of the 1970s the miners emer­ wages agreement. The full import of this development was too low. The attitu de of the 'left' at that time the official positions, and by this means steer the union ged as the most militant and well-organised section became apparent in 1972. was very revealing. Daly, who had been elected on a left. The other side of this strategy, however, nec- of workers in the trade union movement. As a res· Against the background of these developments a platform of industrial action including 'guerrilla stri- essarily means collaborating with the right in defence of ult of the 1972 and 1974 miners' strikes they gained a number of left-wing miners came together in 1967 in kes' to win better pay and conditions was dealing with the 'official' procedures in all instances where the rank reputation as being the only group of workers capa­ Sheffield to discuss finding a successor to Will Paynter. the issue through the conciliation machinery, and the and file stepped outside of them. Only by these means ble of taking on and defeating governments. Many Prior to this there had been virtually no unity between rest of the 'Iefts' felt there was insufficient support could the left 'prove' their loyalty to the union appara- workers naturally looked to the miners to smash in­ the left-wing areas of the NUM. The cold-war had cre­ or determination for strike action. On this they were tus and thier 'r~sponsibility'. The disastrous results of comes policies or set the leading norm for wage ne­ ated wide and often bitter divisions between CPers and absolutely wrongl In October 1969 every pit but one in this strategy were fil',$t seen in 1974 and were to really gotiations. Few other groups of workers in struggle the Labour Left. Added to that was the existence of Yorkshire came out on unofficial strike with the Don- take their toll on the militancy of the miners during the have evoked the same measure of sympathy for their local chauvinism, even amongst the left. caster Panel organising flying picketing of the coal- years of the Labo.ur Government. cause, or the recognition as the vanguard of the Bri· In Sheffield this meeting therefore marked the field. The strike was chaotic and spontaneous and ended The 1974 strike, the strike that 'brought down the tish working class movement. The close solidarity beginning of a more coherent and unified left-wing in with the thin promise of an inquiry, but it had great Tories', was very different from 1972. It began as an of the mining community. hred from the dangerous the NUM than had hitherto existed. The composition significance for the miners. overtime ban. McGahey had argued for such a tactic in - 'ature of mining work and the long traaition of of the meeting prefigured oJery accurately the political It broke the fatalism and passivity that had existed the following terms: "let us start thinking in terms of arsh struggle against employers and governments, and social character of the left wing from that mom­ amongst miners on a national scale. Also it was a straw various forms of industrial action". goes a long way in explaining the important role the ent on: a Broad Left amalgam of CP and left Labour in the wind for militants. Daly, the blue-eyed boy of the For Gormley this was heaven·sent. He was able to ca miners have played in the labour movement. But Party members, who were predominantly full-time left, had opposed the strike and had even appeared on an overtime ban, with full support from the left in Nov. there were other specific factors behind the emerg­ officials of the union. TV to appeal for a return to work. The signs for the 1973, and use it as an alternative to strike action. In ence of the miners' militancy in the early 1970s, fac­ From the Scottish Area there was General Secre- future were clear. The militancy of the miners was being the meantime he worked overtime himself, trying to tors which also explain the relative quiescence since tary Lawrence Daly and Vice President Michael Mc­ rekindled. Their leaders were out to stifle that mili- negotiate, often in secret, a deal with Heath that could the miners' strike in 1974. Gahey; Daly was on the Labour Left, McGahey a lead­ tancy. avert a strike. Heath's obduracy was due to the fact that Between 1947, after the nationalisation of the min­ ing CPer. From the Kent area came Jack Dunn, Gener- The 1970 pay claim saw a new mood amongst min- with his pay policy in ruins and his general reputation es, and the late 1960s, the NUM was dominated by a al secretary and CP member. From South Wales Dai ers. Conference called for a £5 a week increase, only low, he wanted to use a dispute with the miners to try fierecely anti-communist, right-wing National Execu- Francis, General Secretary and CP, Emlyn Williarns, to be met by a £2.10s offer from the NCB. Daly, keen and cash in on a 'who rules Britain' election. Thus, de- tive Committee. The union's leaders, Arthur Horner Area Vice President and Labour Left. From Yorkshire, to keep control of the situation called a ballot and cam- spite Gormley's efforts, the NUM was rushed towards and then Will Paynter were both in the CP. Yet both two CP members, Jock Kane, Financial Secretary and paigned for a strike. The 55% vote in favour of a re- a strike.. were voluntary prisoners of the right-wing. Having won Sammy Taylor, Area Compensation Agent, plus two jection was not the two thirds majority required before When the strike came in 1974 it was under the tight their position - no mean feat in the cold-war years- working miners from Doncaster. Kent provided the more a strike could be called'llnd the NEC duly refused to control of the bureaucracy. Scargill had set the tone by these CPers ware determined to hold onto them even moderate Herbert Parkin, Secretary, and Tom Swain make any further moves. The militants, bristling with condemning several Yorkshire pits that implemented though their policie:> were constantly thwarted by the MP. (See "The Militancy of the British Miners" - V. L. confidence after 1969 - despite the meagre results of the overtime ban before the official starting day. right-wing. Allen,p.118-135.) that strike - moved into action once again. In Septem- McGahey, reeling from a massive anti-communist press This right-wing complied with the NCB's drastic These men did not set their sights on building an ber 197050,000 of Yorkshire's 70,000 miners were campaign, was at pains to prove his respectability. The run down of the industry. In 1967 this NUM leader­ organisation with deep roots in the rank and file which on strike. In South Wales and Sc~nd as well, there result was that unlike 1972 there was little or no active ship was enmeshed in the "I CB's biggest ever closure could defeat the right-wingers and their policies. Rather were wide-spread strikes. During this unofficial strike large scale picketing and practically no rank and file in- programme when 34,300 miners were affected by clos­ they aimed at two things. First to get Lawrence Daly the rank and file Yorkshire miners, under the leader- volvement in the running of the strike. Symbolically ures and 12,900 were made redundant. Miners who cal­ elected as General Secretary of the whole NUM and se­ ship of the Doncaster Panel and the rising star Scar- at Saltley Coke Depot lorries were able to load up led for resistance had continuously been told by the condly to win official control of the right-wing domin­ gill, used the flying picket to bring out the whole coal- absolutely unimpeded. Despite this, however, the NUM NCB that strikes would be ruinous to the industry and ated, but militant, Yorkshire region. The mould was set field. were able to secure the blacking of most coal and rela- convinced by their union leadership that militant ac­ for a Broad Left vote gathering machine which aimed As in 1969 once this unofficial action was under- ted products, by a TUC edict. A deal between the TUC, tion would not acheive anything in face of the inevi­ at capturing control of key positions' of the union way, it met with bitter opposition from both the right furious at Heath's introduction of the three-day week- table. Years of passive acceptance of redundancies had machinery, rather than organising a militant rank and and the left. Daly, ever more the responsible bureau- a panic measure rather than an economic necessity- gone a long way to undermining the morale of the work­ file movement which would have set out to transform crat announced: "We appeal to those branches on strike collaborated with the NUM to make the strike solid and force reduced from a 1955 level of 700,000 to a late the union organisationally and politically to enable it to return to normal working." . defeat Heath. While this sealed the miners victory and 1960s level of 270,000. to defeat the bosses plans for the industry. When the NCB's offer came up to voting at the lost Heath the ensuing election, it also contained the But by the late 1960s economic changes were tak­ The campaign around Daly did enable him to cap­ executive, three leading CP members voted for the seeds of the future demobilisation of the militants. Bur- ing place which gradually undermined the basis of this ture the General Secretaryship against his then right­ offer - in effect a vote against the strikers. The only eaucratic control of the strike ensured bureaucratic class collaboration. Unemployment began to increase wing rival (but later firm colleague) Joe Gormley, in leading CPer to play a significant role in the strike was control after the strike and the incomes policy that the throughout the economy, thus cutting off a potential December 1968. The first test for this great hope of Dai Francis from South Wales. The end result was sim- miners had fought under Heath was to be successfully avenue of escape for many disaffected miners. This the left was quick to develop. In 1969 a spontaneous ilar to 1969. Faced with right-wing sabotage by the foisted upon them in the years of the TUC and Labou r would increasingly mean that these miners would have strike wave exploded in the Yorkshire area. likes of Sydney Schofield in Yorkshire, and no lead Government's Social Contract. to look to making improvements within their own in­ Not only was Yorkshire one of the biggest NUM from the Broad Left, the strike petered out without When Labour came to power an 'interim' deal was dustry. Also, what later proved to be most significant areas it was also one of the most militant. Despite the acheiving a major improvement on the pay offer. quickly struck. Despite countless protestations from was the change in wage bargaining structures between right-wing Area leadership, locar'panels' made up of However it did supplement the 'old guard' of the the left that the full claim had to be met, this deal was the NUM and the NeB. In 1966 the old piece system regularly elected delegates in the localities were res­ Broad Left with a new layer of militants with closer ties £4 short of the claim for underground workers (with was abolished in favour of a nationally negotiated day ponsible for conducting hundreds of local strikes. In to the rank and file. In particular the strikes in York- the exception of face workers) and £3 short for surface rate system of lP!By - the National Power Loading Agree­ 1952, for example, Yorkshire had witnessed over 630 shire established men like Tait, Miller, Scargill, Rigby workers. ment (NPLA). The immediate effect of this was to de­ strikes, 28 being held in one pit. The Doncaster Panel and Briscoe as serious contenders for power in the The 1974 strike was a watershed. It represented the press wages: While in 1956 miners had been among the was particularly militant and, together with young min­ area, and a force to be reckoned with at a national enormous militancy of the miners that had built up highest paid workers in Britain, by 1970 they were well ers 'like Arthur Scargill, it was proving to be a thorn level. Furthermore, the 1'969 and 1970 strikes togeth- since the late 19605. It earned miners the respect of the down the list, and this despite the fact that productivi­ in the side of the area leadership. er revealed an unprecedented'dis satifcation with the whole working class as Heath tumbled from office. But tiy had steadily risen. A further factor elevating the im­ At that time Scargill, unlike the others in the Broad class-collaborationist policies which the NUM leaders it also revealed the bureaucracy's ability to control that portance of the wages issue was the steadily increasing Left, was involved in a 'rank and file' body, the Bar­ had been pursuing throughout the 1~60s. The rank militancy, thanks largely to the strategy of the Broad rate of inflation which really began to take off after nsley Miners Forum. This met regularly to listen to and file miners"however uncoordinated and uneven their Left. It marked the end of a stormy era and the begin­ 1910. left-wing lectures and enabled Scargill to organise a actions, were overcoming their past inertia and demo- . ning of a calm one. For the next six years, despite the But the abolition of piece-work did, paradoxically base of support. The reasons for his taking this initia­ ralisation, and this was a crucial stepping stone towards presence of Scargill, McGahey and others on the NEC, have a positive effect. The mining union was traditionally tive can be seen from his later attitude to the Forum. the great struggles of 1972 and 1974. Gormley was very much in command. To a large ex- a highly federative body. It had only been formed on a In the late 60s and early 70s, Scargill was a working min­ The pressure of the rank and file was reflected in tent he had the political strategy of his opponents to national basis in 1944. The piece-work system made er and an ex-CPer. Unlike the leading Labour left-wingers the claim submitted by the 1971 NUM conference. It thank for this. the wages issue a purely regional affair and reinforced he did not have a powerful union machine behind him. called for £5-£9 increases, the largest ever called for, TO BE CONTINUED old loyalties and old area divisions. The NPLA changed Nor, like the CPers, did he have the party with its only to be met by an NCB offer of £1.60. The scene that giving all miners a common interest in the national relatively powerful industrial machine and network of was set for the 1972 stri ke. by Mike Rooke

WORKERS POWER No.35 SEPTEMBER 1982 PAGE 3

~, , . Communists and the Labour Party IN A PERIOD when the leadership of the Lab- our Party is once again settintj out on its well trodd­ en course of "cleansing" the Lauour Party of "Marxists and Trotsky;sts" it is highly appr >- priate to look at the very first 'witch' hunt in the Party's history. During the 1920's the right EXPE~LING' THE wing set out to drive the Communists from the Party. Not only were the Communist, members of the Par­ ty excluded,but also whole constituency labour parties which refused to carry out these decisions,leading to the formation of a body which finally constituted it· self as the "National Left lIVing Movement" in Septem' ber 1926. LEFT An analysis of this period is important for the les­ sons that can be learnt for today, when militants face a Labour leadership determined to rid itself of its left wing. l:3ut it is also important i..;ecause the victory over the left in the 1920's marked a watershed in the deve­ lopment of the Labour Party through the consolidation of the leadership's bureaucratic stranglehold over the Party. The bans, proscriptions expulsions and witch­ hunts which have punctuated the history of the Labour Party right down to the present indeed flow from the "principles" laid down in the struggle with the Com­ munists. The lessons· of A further reason for examining this period of the Labour Party's history is that previous attempts by "Trotskyists", most notably i3rian Pearce's "The Com­ munist Party and the Labour Left"(Essays in History of Communism in Britain- Woodhouse illld Pearce), have ueen absolutely uncritical of the Communist Par- ty's tactics in pursuing the fiuht up to the ultra-left turn of 1928. The reason is not hard to find in the case of Pearce. Writing in 1957 flr the Socialist Labour Lea­ the.' 1920's gue,which had a rotten history of adaption to left re­ Party. Neither should the Comintern's advice be taken tuencies. In the 1922 yeneral election Shapurji Saklat­ ist I nternational itself at this time was begin : ' i .l~ formists such as Bevan and the Braddocks in the lab­ to mean that revolutionaries should attempt to enter vala, a Communist, was elected as the official Labour cumb to opportunist vaccilation under the I~ our Party via "Socialist Outlook" and later "Tribune", an;) remain in the Labour Party at any cost and for all member for North Battersea, while Walton Newbold of Zinoviev. The formation of the Anglo-Ru Pearce could only view the National Left Wing through time. The affiliation tactic was advanced as a means of won Motherwell as a Communist candidate with local mittee (early 1925), reflecting the leftward m I.. he SLL's opportunist spectacles. l:3ut there have been exposing the reformists in political battle inside their Labour Party support. At the 1923 Labour Party con­ the _:Btitish Trade unions, led to Zinoviev, alre;: no serious attempts to challenge Pearce's account. For party as part of the struggle to build a mass working ference the Executive was forced to retreat on banni ng searching for short cuts to build a "mass Comml far too long the history of the National Left Wing Move­ class cadre around the small nucleus of the British CP members as delegates. This reflected the growing Party" in Britain,to declare, "We do not know e ment has been mythologised by those who consider Communist Party, confidence of the working class after the defeats of when the communist mass party of England will themselves to be Trotskyists as a means of legitimising It was armed with this analysis and tactic that the 1921. And although the call for CP affiliation was ag­ whether only through the Stewart- McManus do their own particular opportunist practices inside the CPGB applied for membership of the Labour Party in ain defeated by 2,880,000 to 366,000 this did not re­ (ooth leading CPGB figures) or through some ot Laoour Party. August 1920. Although formal affiliation was refused flect the true support for the Communists. The miners door"(Zinoviev Speech to 5th Congress of Cl) by the Labour NEC, in practice the bulk of Commun­ and the Railmen had cast their 1.1 million bloc vot es Zinoviev was openly courting other roads to ists Party members were already openly members of only by the narrowest of maj:Jrities - itself a tribute to party in this period . .Impatient with the small CF THE AFFILIATION QUESTION the Labour Party, either by virtue of having alway;; be­ the work of the Red International of Labour Union potential "other doors" included not only the le The whole question of the Communist Party's affi­ ing so via the BSP or through bei ng delegated to lab­ (precursor to the Minority Movement) in these unions. the trade unions - Purcell, Swales, Hicks and Co, liation to.and exclusion from,the Labour Party arose our Party bodies and conferences through their affiliat­ also the left in the Labour Party itself - for exarr out of the peculiar structure and history of that Party. ed trade unions. While the decision was effectively en­ THE PRESSURE OF LABOUR ISM Kirkwood, Maxton and Lansbury. Formed as the Labour Representation Committee only dorsed at the 1921 Labour Party conference Such successes had its dangers for a young and We have dealt el sewhere with how the growir in 1900 the Party was in fact a federation of the affi­ by 4,115,000 to 224,000 the Executive was initially ength of the StalinlBukharin faction of the CPSI liated trade unions and socialist groupings. By 1920 small CP. The victory for the Labour Party in 1923, unwilling to risk any offensive action against the CP. (it became the second largest Party in Parliament and to the Anglo-Russian Committee developing intc when the Communist Party of Great Britain was form' with the British trade union leaders - a factor wh ed its major component in terms of membership, the formed the first Labour Government) led to what Rad­ disarmed the young British Communist Party an. British Socialist Party (BSP), was in fact an affiliated ef< described as a "reformist epidemic" in the 8ritish ority Movement in the build up to the General S group in the Labour Party. The formation of the Com­ Party. "Worker~''Weekly'' the CP's newspaper, hailed it THE RIGHT WING OFFENSIVE (See Marxism and the Trade Unions Workers Pm munist Party fro l~' a fusion of the dSP and the Social­ as a "victory for the working class" and urged the lab­ Journal 7/8). This tendency was urgently warnec ist Labour Party (SLP) and Silvia Pankurst's Workers T~e right wing offensive was launched in 1922 after our Party to form a "workers' Government". Palme ainst by Trotsky in his writings on Britain. Not s' Socialist Federation (WSF), (.the latter two being both the defeats of the working class following "Black Fri­ Dutt, normally an incurable leftist,warned workers, prisingly this policy was to have similar disastroll outside and hostile to joining the Labour Party), posed day". At the Edi nburgh conference of that year the "A Labour Government in a minority cannot be ex­ suits on the Party's work in the Labour Party. quite sharply the question of affiliation to the Labour Executive moved that delegates from affiliated bodies pected to show easy successful action or immediate Party. must not come from organisations which stood candi­ results straight away. That must be recognised and The question was finally settled largely through the dates for parliament or local authorities unless endors­ there will be understanding on the part of the work­ NO CP CRITICISM OF LEFTS intervention and influence of the Communist Internat­ ed by the Labour Party. Frank Hodges of the Miners ers".(Quoted in LJ MacFarlane "The l:3ritish CP" p104) In March 1925 the " Sunday Worker" was lau ional and in particular of Lenin. Lenin's position em­ Federation of Great Britain, summed up the Executives This right wing lurch in the application of the unit­ at the initiative of the CP and largely financed b~ bodied in "Left Wing Communism" and adopted in re­ "case" against the Communists when he described ed front tactic, which undoubtedly reflected the grow­ However the Sunday Worker was to be a non-par solution form at the Second Congress argued for the them as,"the intellectual slaves of Moscow - taking or­ ing pressure of Labourism on the British Party, was paper, indeed it s"t itself the task of becoming, '. Communist Party to affiliate to the Labour Party. It ders from the Asiatic mind". quickly corrected by the Communist International in organ of the left wing of the Labour movement .. was clear to both the Cl and the majority of the newly . Such fulminations however were insufficient to a conference with representatives of the British Party itot only express the left wing but aid it to conso formed Communist Party that the Labour Party, which stop the "yellow peril" from spreading in the consti- in Moscow in February 1924. However the Commun- itself."(Sunday Worker No.1 15.3.1925)While pa had only been opened to individual membership in 19- LEFT: MacDonald taking power as the first Labour Prime Minister, January 22nd, 1924 17, had been growing apace since the First World War. The war had produced an elemen.t .. 1 upheaval in the BELOW: Left and Right of the Labour Party step out in fraternal harmony. life of the working class and shaken it out of the old J. H. Thomas and John Wheatley. ways and habits which had tied it to Liberalism. Where­ as in 1910 Labour candidates received only half a mil­ lion votes by 1918 the total stood at two and a quarter million. By 1924 this figure was to rise to nearly five and a half million- one third of the total votes. While this dramatic growth of the reformist party would not alone have justified a tactic of affiliation it was combined with an exceptional structure which ;1- lowed revolutionaries virtual freedom of action. A stru­ cture which,as Lenin pointed out, " .... allows the British Socialist Party to remain in its ranks, allows it to have its own organ of the press in which members of this very Labour Party can freely and openly declare that the leaders of the Party are Social Traitors.... This is a very peculiar situation in which a Party which unites an enormous mass of wor­ kers, and which is a political party, is never theless ob­ liged to allow its members complete liberty,"(Speech to Second Congress of Cl) This did not mean for a moment however that the Com­ intern had revised its political characterisation of this Party of the Second International. In taking to task William McLaine and the BSP, Lenin put forward the classic definition of the British Labour Party," .... the LaDour Party is not a political workers' party but a thoroughly bourgeois party, because although it con­ sists of workers, it is led by reactionaries, and the worst reactionaries at that, who lead it in the spirit of the bourgeoisie and w'ith the aid of the British Noskes and Scheidemanns, they systematically deceive the workers.(Speech to Second Congress) Neither did it mean that the Comintern was oppos­ ed to the existence of an independent revolutionary communist party or that it was advocating that the youn'Q CP could succeed in transforming the Labour Party into the party that the working class needed. The Comintern was'advancing a tactic to take the fight against Labourism into the heart of the party at a time when the party's bureaucratic structures had not yet gelled and when the real face of Labourism was not yet apparent to millions of workers. Affiliation was not a tactic simply aimed at 'getting inSide' the Labour

PAGE 4 WORKERS POWER No.35 SEPTEMBER 1982 policies, publically inviting any "scab" party that may have been established by the reactionaries to form a united front with it on a real socialist programme. When the "scab" party refuses - as it surely will - the workers can judge of its value to themselves."(The Left Wing and Its Programme 1925) However such a tactic could not last forever. A large number of parties had been effectively expelled - along with the bulk of the Communists. The right in the Trade Union's had been strengthened after the de­ feat of the General Strike, a defeat which they had engineered, and they were now launching a vicious witch-hunt in the unions against the Minority Movement At the time that the affiliation tactic had been in­ itiated members of the CP had liberty within the Party to argue fQr the Plrty's programme and strategy. These conditions no longer existed. In these circum­ stances a revolutionary Communist Party would have seized the opportunity to caste the blame for the split in the Labour Party where it lay - with the Labour leaders and immediate!'/ proceeded to fight to win the Left Wing and its rank and file to a mass Commu­ nist Party affiliated to the Third International. This was the tactic that the revolutionary Comintern had operated in 1920 when they won the :.,ass base of the USPD in Germany to form the United Communist Party. But the Bri:ish CP was no longer led by a revolu­ tionary International. Stalin and Bukharin were now firmly in control and still pursuing their bloc with the British 'left' trade union leaders, despite their role in the General Strike. This was only to be broken by the British trade union leaders themselves in September 1927. To split from the Labour Party and the 'Left' leaders who would surely denounce such a step was unthinkable. And so the National Left Wing ·Move­ ment continued to exist, its dynamic central force being t'1e Communist Party, as neither a political Par­ ty nor really a united front. Its programme was largely the CP's action pro­ gramme for the Labour Party - including opposition to capitalist war credits, in favour of assistance to Workers Governments against imperialist aggression, for the dismantling of the British Empire, for the nat­ J. T. Murphy speaking at a rally against the Labour Government's prosecution of Workers Weekly Editor J. R. Campell, 1924. ionalisation of all basic industries under workers con­ trol without compensation, for a workers defence ? patioll in such a venture would not have been of itself was quick to reply. Lansbury blamed the CP for This wishful thinking of an ultra-left, the Labour corps etc. Yet this "revolutionary" programme had opportunist, had the CP (which had its own indepen­ criticising MacDonald and thus producing "such a re- . Party vote as Dutt himself. pointed out had gone up b, nothing to say on the question of Government - above dent press as well) put clearly its own positions and its action in favour of the ~xecutive that, even reasonable a million votes in 1924, led Dutt to virtually ignore tht. all on a Labour Government. Formally the movement differences and criticism of the "Iefts". This was not to criticism had no chance. I do not believe the British left wing rank and file in the Labour Party as an area was committed by resolution to the CP's line,"That be the case. Labour movement will ever give up its autonomy and of struggle. But it also led him to point to many of the this conferenc9 considers that future Labour Prime In the very first issue for instance an unsigned and allow itself to be instructed as to ~actics and policy on CPGB's crucial weaknesses,"The CP must conduct all Ministers and cabinets should be elected and controll- presumably editorial article on the upcoming Indepen­ internal affairs by any international, Moscow or Ams­ increaSing ideological warfare with the left, ..... posmg "d by the Labour Party Executive Committee." dent Labour Party (I LP) Conference declared the I LP terdam" (Sunday Worker 4.10.15) Frank Horrabin from the outset every expression that betrays confu- An Executive Commlt,Jee which by 1928 had d isaffi- to be, "a really magnificient machine.... possesses some for the Plebs League called on the Communists to dis­ sion ambiguity... opposition to actual struggle and pra- liated 26 Labour Parties (16 in London) and 10 o~ the finest socialist raw material to be found. The band the Communist Party and join the Labour Party ctical subjection to the right wing" «Cl No.8) women's sections for opposing bans and proscriptionsl ILP has a noble past. Toe tradition of Keir Hardieis so as to change it from within. It is revealing that in the reolies to Dutt, from Marty- The increasing confusion evident in the CP as to not dead .... provided the left fights to keep its end up Others drew a different conclusion from the liver­ nov (Cl no.8)and trom oJ I Murphv ICI No.lJ) both OT what it was doing with the National Left Wing Move- the I LP might return to the real van of the workers pool events. The Sunday Worker had to reply Editor­ them attack this last point vehemently. Murphyatter ment was "solved" uy the sudden lurch to the left in movement."(Sunday Worker No.1) ially to a number Cif letters it had received calling for a dismissing Dutt's phantasies about a 'decomposing" the Comintern in 1928. By the end of 1928 the sup- Leaving aside the fact that this "magnificient mach­ new Socialist Party'to be formed. This was not the LabourParty, says of the left in the L3bour Party, porters of the "new line" in the CPGB were in full cry ine" was under the control of the likes of Ramsey Mac­ conclusion of the Sunday Worker(je the CPl. Accord­ "Shall we help these masses to effectively challenge against the danger from the right as represented in the Donald and Snowden and was being used to hound the ing to the Sunday Worker the problem was that the the leadership (of the LP) which they resent 10r shall "mistaket' of the old Central Committee in relation to Communists, the implication that a return to the pd- the Left:'have not come to a working allreement on a we vigorously attack the prominent leaders who are the Labour Party. The supporters of the new line Dutt, ~ '.S of Keir Hardie would provide a real leadership few big points. ... Once that agreement has been reach~ typical of the movement, drive them further from us Pollitt etc couldn't wait to rid themselves of the Nat- _ the working class was astouDding. Keir Hardie had and a left wing bloc is formed the Liberals can be shif­ in the hope of a direct appeal to the rank and file to ional Left Wing Movement. On the 3rdMarch 1929 the always ~een at pains to point out that,"The propadan­ ted .... ollr duty to the workers demands that we must jOin us proving successful.... There appears to me only National Committee of the Left Wing dissolved it- da of class hatred is not one which can ever take root renew our efforts and transform the Labour Party into one course to take and that is the first. If we vigorous- self without consulting the membership, the decision in this country",'after the "Marxist" Social Democratic a Labour Party" (Sunday Worker 11.10.1925 Emphasis Iy attack the "left wing leaders" we attack the mass being announced in the Sunday Worker. Muted ap- SDF had left Labour Representation Committee; and in original) with a similar outlook and Jrive them away from the peals through the columns of the Sunday Worker from again in 1904,"That socialism is revolutionar.y is not Party." (How a mass CP will come in Britain CINo.9 the Birmingham Left Wing and Bethnal Green for a in dispute, but that it can only be won by a violent 1925) Here is the method of the Anglo-Russian Com- conference to be called fell on deaf ears. In Novem- outbreak is no sense true. I can imagine one reform af­ TACTIC OF AFFILIATION DISTORTED mittee applied to the Labour Party! ber 1929 the S.Jnday Worker itself was shut down. ter another being won until in the end socialism itself Murphy does however make one self-c"iticism causes no more excitement than did the extinction of Already in 1925 it is possible to see the beginning which heralded the impending attempt of the CP to landlordism in Ireland a year ago" This was the "noble of the distortion of the tactic of affiliation as worked build the National Left Wing Movement."[We have] THE IMPORTANT LESSONS tradition" that the CP was suggesting the I LP could be out by the Second Congress under lenin's guidance. talked to the Clyde Group (Maxton et all in Parlia­ For all its opportunist errors the National Left Wing rearmed with! Lenin had been quite clear that the condition for the ment etc, wrote encouragingly about them and so on, Movement holds important lessons for the present stru­ The Sunday Worker provided a platform for the tactic was that the Labour Party allowed its members but done nothing to bring together those rank and ggle inside the Labour Party. It rallied the largest num­ "Left Wing~'. Long articles by Cook, Purcell,Swales on "complete liberty". The resolutions passect by the file forces of the Labour Party which have supported ber of forces against the class collaborationist leader­ Internatf )n.al Trade Union Unity ane' by Ellen Wilkin­ Executive, with the acquiescence of the 'Left', laid the issues we have raised" (Murphy Cl No.9) ship of the Labour Party yet seen, and demonstrated son MP,.Wheatley, Lansbury etc, were published vir­ the basis for the ending of that liberty. The question Sure enough at the entl of 1925 a conference was the chronic weakness of the 'Left' leaders when it tually without criticism from the CP. Indeed the col­ was, could they carry out the expUlsions and could the called of local Labour Parties unwilling to implement came to really challenging the right wing. For Commu­ umns were declared open to anyone: who is on the rank and file of the Labour Party be rallied to defeat the Liverpool decisions in London - the stronghold of nists it showed both the potential of winning reform­ side of the workers in the class struggle and is prepared them? Lenin was quite clear that such a tactic was un­ the CP in the Labour Party. A further conference ist workers from the Labour Party through a joint to stay on that side to the bitter end."(Sunday Wor- likely to last for long, given the nature and tactics of re;Jresenting 53 borough and division Labour Parties struggle and the dangers of tying such a movement to ker No.1) the f"formist leaders. While making every effort to in Greater London in January 1926 adopted a pro­ the coat tails of the lefts in the hope of "transform­ fight expUlsion, the,struggle in itself would be impor­ gramme and elected a London committee. A similar ing" the Labour Party. tant in exposing the reformist leadersas the splitters, conferece was held in Manchester. In Rhondda the THE SUNDA Y WOR KER SOWS ILLUSIONS However the most important lesson for modern re­ "Let Messrs Thomas and the other social-traitors, borough LabourParty voted 15,000 to 4,000 to accept What the CP failed to warn the working class, both volutionaries is that the precondition of tactical fle){i­ whom you call social-traitors, expel you. This will have affiliation of t,he local Communist Party. in the Sunday Worker, its own press and in the press an excellent effect upon the mass of the British work­ bility in pursuit of a united fron with reformist work­ of the Minority Movement, was that these 'Left' lead­ ers." I ndeed," If the British Communist Party starts out ers is absolute programmatic clarity and independence ers had to be watched precisely because they would by acting in a revolutionary manner in the Labour LABOUR LEADERS CARRY ON ATTACK on the part of revolutionaries in the Labour Party. We notnecessarily stay on the side of the workers to the Party and if Messrs Henderson are obliged to expel this The Left Wing was organising but only under the fetishise no particular tactical avenue to reach workers "bitter erid". The Sunday Worker in fact sowed illu­ party, it will be a great Victory for the Communist and blows of a witch-hunt. The defeat of the Gen- who look to the Labour Party. As long as the Labour sions in these leaders instead of mobilising the rank Labour movement in England."(Speech to Second Con­ eral Strike in March 1926 fortified the Labour leader­ leaders hold that their party "represents" the whole and file militants of the Left Wing to prepare to'rely gress of Cl). The task was to build a revolutionary ship to carry on its attack. By the Margate Labour working class we demand the right of all working class on their own strength. The rank and file was to pay Communist Party not to "transform the Labour Party Party conference (October 1926) 14 constituency or­ organisations to affiliate to the party and fight to ex­ dearly for this when these same leaders sold out the iDto a Labour Party" a formu lation designed not to ganisations had been expelled for refusing to operate ercise that right and defend others who do so. To t'1at General Strike. scare Dff the' Lefts'. the ban on Communists. When the first National Left extent the affiliation struggles of the CPGB still have The real mettle of the CP's "Left Wing" allies in the A deiJate on these questions was already taking Wing Movement conference was convened in Septem­ enormous relevance even though the conditions inside Labour Party and Trade Unions was in fact apparent place within the Communist Party before the liver- ber 1926, London alone reported the disaffiliation of the Labour Party have changed considerably from well before the General Strike. At the Liverpool Con­ pool conference. It was left to the sectarian Palme Dutt, Battersea, Bethnal Green, Chelsea, Westminster, Hol­ those that prevailed in the 1920's. But even in the ference of the Labour Party in 1925 the Executive ag­ who was to come into his own during the ultra-left born, East Lewisham and West Ham. Fifty two borou­ fight for affiliation the CPGB was.at all times,presen­ ain went on the offensive. The CP's new found confi­ third period of the Comintern, to raise some of the gh and local Labour Parties or Trades and Labour ted with the need to raise its independent party ban­ dence based on a serie~ of articles in Sunday Worker problems of the CPGB's tactics in the Labour Party. Councils were represented "officially" and 40 minorit~ ner and seek to recruit to it,while finding the means of by leading 'Lefts' in favour of CP affiliation was quick­ Dutt's major cirticism was that the Communist Party Left Wing groups were represented. By 1927 the Sec­ organising the supporters of the CP who remained in ly dashed. As the Executive proposals to declare mem­ was not putting itself forward sufficiently as an inde­ ond Conference represented 54 local Labour Parties the party as a revolutionary tendency fighting the re­ bers of the CP ineligible to remain members of a pendent leadership of the working class, and that con­ representing 150,000 members, the bulk froi., disaffi­ formist leaders in their own party. The !;(!!uandered op­ local Labour Party and the reimposition of a ban on sequently it was in danger of sinking into the left wing liated parties. The NC reported 90 Left Wing groups portunities of the CPGB flow not simply from the Par­ Communist delegates was pushed through the confl!r­ of the Labour Party. Jumping from the "objective con­ in existence and five large district conferences held. ty's tactical inflexibility or sectarianism as latter Trot­ ence the 'Lefts' remained silent. The I LP stars of the ditions" of the crisis of British imperialism, and impo­ The tactic adopted was-to keep the disaffiliated skyists entrists insist, but rather from the programma­ Sunday Workers were struck dumb,as were nearly all ssibility of a reformist party being able to fulfill even parties in existence - London outlined the methods tic weaknesses of the CPGB during each of its series of the 'Left' trade union leaders. This debacle led even the minimal demands of the workers, Dutt declares used to the first C9nference,"Several of the disaffi­ turns. It was the programmatic oponrtunism of the the CP to break its silence on the Left Wing's weak­ the Labour Party to have "proved itself a broken instru­ liated jJarties have initiated big campaigns tojncrease CPGB towards the Labour Lefts, compounded in its ness. Harry Pollitt, a leading CP member declared in ment" to be in a process of "decomposition". Indeed their membership with magnificent results.... if in par· mirror reflection in the third period, that sealed the hurt surprise,"But where was the Left Wing? .. Not a the"epitaph of the Labour Party as the leader of the ticular wards reactionaries may predominate and cap­ isolation of the CPGB from the mass of reformist single left winger on the E.C, dared to burn his boats workers was written in the election campaign" ("The ture portions of the machinery they must not be al­ workers by the early 1930's. and Ularn the "hero worshippers" where MacDonaldism British Working Class after the Election"Communist lowed an undisputed field. (The local party)must car­ was leading to." (Sunday Worker 4.10.25) The 'Left' International No.8 1925) ry on intensive propaganda and put forward bold local by STUART KING WORKERS POWER No.35 SEPTEMBER 1982 PAGE 5 WITH COLD AND ruthless efficiency the Jaru­ suppliers or buyers for its output. Enterprises shall economy and a Parliament in the degenerate workers' zelski regime has drowned yet more workers' be able to operate freely on the internal market, except states. The task of the working class is to use the non­ in fields where a license is compulso,y. International capitalist property relations in such states as the meani demonstrations in blood. At least 3 workers trade must be made accesible to all enterprises." (Labour to constrOct socialism, not to lend itself and its organ­ were shot and countless others injured when the Focus vol 5, nos.1-2) and: "It is necessary to isations to those working to strengthen the forces of Polish military authorities unleashed their crack use surplus stocks of materials, machinery and plant capitalism once again. Zomo thug squads against demonstrations mar­ making it easier' for them to be sold abroad and selling Jaruzelski's coup was clear evidence that the burea­ king the second anniversary of Polish stalinism's them to private enterprises within Poland. Present cracy itself was aware of the irreformability of its own restrictions on the activity of such enterprises must be system even if the Solidarnosc leadership was not. Thil 'recognition' of Solidarnosc. lifted." (ibid.) was further underlined onJuly 21st when Jaruselski Around 4000 were arrested and a dawn to In tendency, this programme - which was linked with addressed the Polish parliament. The concessions that dusk curfew was reimposed in at least four pro­ the creation of a sovereign Polish parliament - was Bujak had counselled caution to secure failed to mater aimed at dismantling the planned economy, opening ialise. Two thirds of the internees were released but ov vinces. In the copper mining town of Lublin the road to the accumulation of private capital in Poland 2,000 have been jailed for martial law offences. Over demonstrations and street fighting continued and, through the destruction of the monopoly of 600 internees remained in Jaruzelski's camps. Military after the 'anniversary' was celebrated by Zomo foreign trade, opening the floodgates to foreign capital. law was to remain in force at least until the end of shooting at least two of the town's workers. To In order to smooth the way for the gradual imple­ this year. In addition the authorities began to brace themselves for a savage display of force against Solidar follow up this physical repression, the blood­ mentation of this programme its architects - for exam­ ple Jacek Kuron - counselled caution and that the wor­ nosc's supporters. soaked regime has declared that it is preparing kers should not take actions that could lead to breaking Jaruzelski's speech seems to have provoked a seriou a show trial of 4 KOR internees and two exiles the agreements struck between the Stalinists, Solidar­ crisis in the ranks of Solidarnosc's underground leeder­ 'in absentia'. nosc and the Catholic heirarchy. ship. On 2nd August a temporary co-ordinating com­ Ranged against this were not only those forces who mittee comprised of Bujak, Frasyriik, Hardek, Bogdan There is ample evidence that the Polish working shared broadly similar aims but wished to adopt more Lis and Szumiejko issued a call for demonstrations up class hates the military regime and continues to iden­ militant tactics - Bujak in Warsaw and Rulewski from to and on August 31st. Declaring that Jaruzelski's tify with the traditions represented by the Solidarnosc Bydgoszcz for example. There were also significant ten· speech showed that he had 'discarded hope of sociai union. Thousands took to the streets on August 31 st dencies based particularly in Lodz around Kowalewski accord' they called for the formation of a resistance - despite clear and unequivocal warnings from the and also around 'the Lublin group' that were opposed movement aimed at ending military rule, releasing all regime that they were preparing a decisive show of to plans for the reintroduction of untrammeled market internees and political prisoners, reviving Solidarnosc force to break up demonstrations. Jaruzelski had an­ mechanisms and voiced some opposition at the last part and acheiving a self-governing republic as a long-term nouced in advance that 'brawlers have no chances', of the Solidarnosc pra-coup conference to the parlia­ goal. In the underground bulletin Tygodnik Mazowsze Earlier in the month ten thousand took to the streets mentary programme of the predominant tendencies in Bujak issued a call for demonstrations on August 31 st of Gdansk and braved the tear gas and riot police to the Solidarnosc leadership. It was Lodz Solidarnosc even if this meant that there would be 'victims' as a mark the second anniversary of the foundation of the and 'the Lublin group' that were attempting to organise result. He called for the formation of 'organised group MKS - the inter-factory committee. In May in Szc­ a 'national Congress of Workers Councils' at the tirne of demonstrators' whose task was to be the prevention zecin and June in Wroclaw demonstrators waged pitch of the coup despite opposition from the Solidarnosc of police dispersal units. He claimed that such offensivt battles with the heavily armed Zomo squads, leadership. Zbigniew Bujak tactics had enabled a Wroclaw demonstr"tion on June that are maintained in pampered seclusion to do the It was among these forces that the potential for devel­ 13th to force a Zomo unit into retreat. But the perspe bidding of the StaliniSt regime. oping a left-wing within Solidarnosc was strongest. Sol­ tive offered by Bujak was one that reflected a serious Jacek Kuron, in material that will doubtless be trum­ While the desire of the Polish workers to destroy idarnosc's mass working class base ensured that any left crisis of direction on the part of the underground peted by some latterday Vyshinsky when the show trial this regime can be in no doubt, the fighting strength in the union would gain an increased hearing shOUld leaders: "The course of the marches on the August gets underway, argued for more militant tactics. With of the Polish working class has been seriously sap­ the logic of Solidarnosc's political programme have anniversary will, to a significant extent, decide the stark inconsistency Kuron argued that decisive action ped since Jaruzelski's coup. Not only does the Polish ever been realised in 'practice with all that this would strategy which we adopt in the forthcoming period. If was necessary for forcing the authorities to compro­ working class find itself confronted by the techni­ have implied for the jobs and living standards of Polish it turns out that the people are not afraid and organise mise - "we have to acknowledge that violence only cally superior armed force of the military regime and workers. retreats in front of violence." (Tygodnik Mazowsze no. themselves so as to prevent any attempts to break up the knowledge that the regime can turn to the reserve The crystallisation of these crucial differences was the demonstrations, that will mean the continuation of batallions of the Warsaw Pact should its own armed 13, 12.5.82, in International Viewpoint no.9). He has brutally interrupted by General Jaruzelski 's coup d'etat. called for agitation amongst the soldiers and police. But a radical policy ofpressure on the authorities. In a rela­ force begin to crumble. But the working class has also But major differences have continued to be discussed tively short time. the government will be forced to talk suffered from a series of crippling illusions on the part the purpose of decisive and even violent action remains, both within the internment camps of the Polish stal­ for Kuron, to force the authorities to compromise. with the church and the union. of its leadership that have served to divide and demor­ inists and within the illegal underground leadership of If, on the other hand, the authorities succeed in alise significant sections of workers. The present "Everything is significant since it adds morale to Solidarnosc. Ostensibly these differences still remain the nation as well as exerting continuous pressure on dealing with the demonstrations, that would mean tl round of struggles against the regime is characterised we are not capable of undertaking any radical form ot centered on tactical questions. The prinicipal under­ those in power who might possibly support moves to­ by an acute crisis of leadership within the ranks of resistence and that we must abandon our actions. Then ground leader - Zbigniew Bujak - once renowned for wards compromise. The final means of such pressure, the Polish working class. all that would remain for us would be long-term resis­ his advocacy of workers' defence squads in Warsaw­ and the final chance for compromise, will be a general At the time of Jaruselski's coup there were serious tance." (International Herald Tribune) swung to a perspective of 'positional struggle.' He strike." (Labour Focusvol5 nos.3-4) divisions opening within the ranks of the Solidarnosc In other words either the August demonstrations initially opposed the formation of a centralised under­ The time scale presented by Kuron was extremely leadership. While these differences were often expressed would serve to win recognition or the perspective was ground: "I support a decidedly decentralised move­ short: "But if we stay put with such activities and the in tactical terms they were, in essence, political. As can a bleak one of long-term work in anticipation of ment, adopting different methods of action. Only such government compromisers keep silent, we then face be seen from the programme submitted to the last later concessions. a diffuse and varied movement will be elusive and diffi­ a disaster..... That is why the movement's leaders must part of the Solidarnosc conference the dominant ten­ It is the latter perspective that the Catholic heir­ cult to suppress. Its unity will be guaranteed by the prepare the nation for the most extreme concessions in dency among Solidarnosc's leaders and advisors was set archy has been using its sermons and pastoral letters to t common objectives: lifting of martial law, release of seeking to compromise with the rulers, and for the on a utopian social-democratic project. It intended to propagate. Cardinal Glemp openly declared against the the interned and the arrested, restoration of the rights rapid cessation of the occupation through a common reform the existing system - in partnership with the of unions and associations" (Labour Focus vol 5 nos. August demonstrations. The Solidarnosc leader closest l regime and thechurch· in the direction of a capitalist demonstration against it. I think such a demonstration to the heirarchy - Lech Walesa - is reported to have told 3-4). Even this movement to recreate the status quo may take the form of a simultaneous attack against market economy. The central planning mechanisms his wife that he was against workers taking to the street prior to Jaruzelski's coup was envisaged as a long pro­ all ruling and information centres in the country. It t were to be severely weakened. Plants were to be given cess of pressure and protest "It is not the path of and for peaceful protest. As the bureaucracy prepared virtual autonomy and relations between them were to be is necessary to make the authorities understand that to physically smash the August demonstrations Cardi­ fast and spectacular success but of long and strenuous they have a limited time to reach a settlement." (ibid.) regulated by the laws of the market. The programme work, demanding the participation of a large section nal Glemp was sermonising, about "the normalization explicitly advocated self-management of the enter- of society". As late as the early summer Bujak was Kuron, then, has been advocating militant work­ being gradually introduced in our country" and calling prises by managers, workers and experts as a means calling for caution - in th_e aftermath of fighting in ing class action and organisation, but as a means of for the authorities to show their goodwill byannoun­ of decentralising the economy and strengthening mar­ Gdansk and Wroclaw - so as to give the authorities the forcing the 'liberals' and compromisers within the cing their 'intention' to release the internees and end ket forces: "The central organs of economic admini­ opportunity to liberalise their regime and recommence stalinist bureaucracy to strike a new deal with martial law. stration should not limit enterprise activity or prescribe negotiations with Solidarnosc. Solidarnosc. According to the International Herald Tribune of Both strategies can only serve to demoralise and August 20th, the underground Solidarnosc leadership divert the militant Polish workers. The Stalinist bureauc­ even sent a delegation to the Polish bishops complain­ racy cannot co-exist permanently with independent ing of the Church's role in deterring its faithfull from organisations of the working class. Ruling in the name backing Solidarnosc's call to action. of 'socialism', and resting on property relations that The events of August 31st will doubtless provoke are no longer primarily governed by the laws of cap­ serious debate not only amongst the leaders of Soli­ italism, the bureaucracies of all such states can only darnosc but also amongst its mass working class base. hold onto power through repression and force. They The sheer brutality of the Zomo operation will serve have to keep the scale of their privileges and the work­ to strengthen the voice of those elements who counsel ings of their economy and political machinery well caution and compromise. That is the logic, at least, of away from the scrutiny of the working class. The Bujak's position for example. But amongst young bureaucracy k.nows of no way to legitimise its para­ workers in particular there is growing evidence that sitism and corruption in the eyes of the mass of wor' the dashed hopes of reform and the evident disarray kers. Its 'liberal' spokesman- Polish deputy prime­ amongst the Solidarnosc leaders are pushing sections minister Rakowski for example - are themselves tied towards terrorism and towards the right wing nation­ root and branch to the preservation of the power and alism of the Confederation for an Independent Poland privileges of the central bureaucracy. Events in Poland (KPN). Kuron highlighted this danger when he argued: have repeatedly shown that a Stalinist bureaucracy "No appeals for calm can divert the young and will only make concessions to the workers' right to or­ hot-headed. They can only force them into terrorism ganise to the extent that it is forced to, and then only if they are prevented from other forms of struggle". until it can regroup its forces sufficiently to be able to hi Gdansk and Szczecin in the last months, it has destroy the workers' gains. Both Bujak and Kuron been young workers in particular who have been pre­ therefore - despite their tactical differences - are set pared to contront the armed might of the Polish on a bankrupt perspective of compromise with forces Stalinists. They have nothing to lose. The "insurrect that can brook no compromise. ion ism" of the KPN which calls for action to smash Similarly bankrupt is the end for which Kuron issues the Stalinists stands as a positive pole of attraction his call for mass working class action. The purpose of to these layers. working class action against the Stalinist bureaucr

PAGE 6 WORKERS POWER No.35 SEPTEMBER 1982

____ .:::I~~"""--____.... - __-- ______.---J/II .#. f§rnjrnrnrnrnrn~§mmMmMm@jMrn§1 ~iddleEa~ tt@@llilli@5ttW@Wlli@@@5tW@55M@ Zionism scores a bloody victory

THE DEFIANT AND dignified retreat of the occupation of South Lebanon just as they did in the represents no more than an attempt by US imperialism Palestinian fighters from Beirut represents a occupied Gaza and West Bank after the 1967 war. Two to pacify the Arab bourgeoisies after the event of Palestinian camps-have been broken up. New roads Israeli aggression. The Pentagon actually stepped up serious defeat for the 4million Palestinian have been laid to Israeli specifications, signs cilanged arms sales to Israel in the months leading up to the people. Since June 4th at least 17,825 people to Hebrew, winter clothing drafted in for the troops. invasion and has, in practice, blocked any attempts have ueen killed and 30, 103 injured as a result How long will it be before the Jewish settlements be­ to moderate the carnage. On July 29th the US refused of the Israeli invasion. At least 5,515 have been begin announcing yet another process of de-facto to vote for a UN resolution merely calling on Israel to annexation? killed in Beirut alone. This is the latest round lift the food and water blockade of West Beirut. On The disignation of Gemayel as Lebanese Presi· August 2nd - the day after an Israeli tank attack on of human misery inflicted by Zionism to dent elect shows just how strong Israel's grip on Leb­ PLO positions which Reagan criticised - the US vetoed preserve and extend its rule. anon has become. He and his falangist para-militaries a Security Council resolution calling for arms sanc­ Begin and Sharon's Blitzkrieg produced its can be relied on to fight and destroy the self·defence tions against Israel. Habib's shuttle diplomacy was desired result. Unrelieved genocide gradually militias of the West Beirut Muslims and terrorise the essentially aimed at negotiating the finer details of 350,000 Palestinians who remain in the Lebanon. As lowered the resistance of the heroic Palestinian the PLO's retreat. the last PLO fighters left Beirut so the Lebanese army The US desired the military defeat of the PLO as defence. As of July 1st the PLO were insisting and police commenced their brIttle to re-occupy West much as Israel and even more thao the humiliating that they would only leave Bierut if they kelJt Beirut. blow suffered by the USSR's key Arab ally, Syria. all their weapons, if they kept an HQ in Beirut, By its very nature Israel is an expansionist state. That there were occasional public dressings down of if Israel withdrew 6 miles and if the US recog­ As in 1948, 1967 and 1973 so 1982 proves that,the Israel reflected little more than the US's desire to nised the·PLO. But Arafat's horizons lowered very existence of the Zionist state depends on expan- maintain cordial ties with the Arab states. That they . sion. That the present events will not be the last of were infrequent and muted reflects the pathetic do­ especially as it became clearer that neither the this kind, nor necessarily the worst, can be seen in nothing stance of the Arab states which put so little Kremlin bureaucracy nor the Arab states were Sharon'sstatement of December 1981 in Tel Aviv pressure on the US administration. It is only now prepared to lift a finger to give military aid to whele he admitted that Israel's strategic interests: that the Palestinian vanguard has been defeated and the PLO. Even Arafat's eventual de:facto recog­ "are not limited to the Arab countries in t~e Middle divided up into eight managable portions to be shipped off, disarmed and caged in camps by fearful Arab nition of Israel was insufficient to abate Sharon East, the Mediterranean, the Red Sea ... for reasons of security in the 80s they must be broadened to include bourgeoisies, that a 'new' political initiative emerges and Begin's bloodlust. countries such as Turkey, Iran, Pakistan; regions such from the Arab states and is echoed iJy the White As the Lebanese go·between in the negotiations, as the Persian Gulf and Africa, particularly the coun· House. Egypt's Mubarak has crawled out of the wood· ex-PM Salam reco;Jnised, 'Thay have dropped the con' tries of North and Central Africa." work to call for 'meaningful autonomy' on the West ditions. The more they drop, however, the more Shar· Israel's current war aims have not yeen confined Bank and Gaza in the 'spirit of the Camp David agree­ on asks. Sharon is totally intent on his military plan. to the Lebanon. On the occupied West ;, ducting a military war. We are conducting a political In its turn the US initiative rules out consideration Eventually surrounded by 85,000 troops the PLO one." of a Palestinian state, rather, in Shultz's words "the announced a surrender on August 8th in the PLO's Under the cover of the invasion Israel has hastened main point is that the Palestinian people have a voice paper Filistin al Thawra: "We have taken a decision its project of annexing the West Bank and Gaza Strip in determining the conditions under which they're for military withdrawal from Beirut because the des· to add to the Golan Heights annexed last December. governed." Unless a revolutionary nucleus is formed to appeal truction of Beirut over the heads of half a million The defeats suffered by the PLO in Beirut obviously Both Mubarak and Reagan hope that the recent to these young militants, there is a serious danger Moslems is not a mere possibility but has uecome a had a demoralising effect upon the 725,000 Palest­ defeat of the PLO will serve to force sections of its that a generation of young workers who have learned reality." inians in the West Bank. For example, the pro-PLO leadership to abandon their claimes to a state, expli­ from bitter experience that the social-democratic in­ The strategic goal of Israel was, and remains, the West Bank leaders called a two day General Strike for citly recognise Israel and settle for 'meaningful auton­ telligentsia is bankrupt will fall prey to the most total removal of all Palestinians and Syrian forces from July ,.· th which received only patchy support and the omy' on the West Bank. They also hope that dispersal reactionary and pernicious elements within Solidar­ Lebanon and the creation of a Christian Lebanese demonstrations did not reach the size and militancy will serve to undermine the fragile unity of the PLO. nosc. state under the Falangist Gemayel depending on Israel of last spring. On the 9th July the pro-PLO Mayor of The pro-Moscow DFLP has been dispatched to South The crisis and disarray within Solidarnosc is a for support. During the evacuation fortnight Israeli Gaza was dismissed by Israel, joining those of Dura and Yemen, and George Habash's PF LP has taken refuge crisis of political direction and political programme. forces moved 20 miles up the coast from Beirut to Jenin on the West Bank who have been dismissed since in 'hard-line' Syria. The mainstream El Fatah of Arafat Whatever tactical gloss is put on it, the present leader· Jubail from where they can strike at Tripoli and moo the invasion. Six mayors have been dismissed since the will set up office in the rightist Arab state of Tunisia. ship of Solidarnosc, consciously or unconsciously, is ved east and north to the mountain village of Luq­ spring. Meanwhile Jewish settlements have continued There will be considerable pressure on each of these locked in a blind alley of seeking compromise with long, which overlooks Syria's Bekaa Valley base, and to be planted and Begin budgeted more funds for groups to reflect the specific nationalist interests of the stalinists as a means of opening the door for the from where Syria's capital Damascus can be bom­ this expansionism in late August. their host states. gradual restoration of capitalism. All their tactical barded. Against this background the latest Reagan-Schultz Despite this wavering and sabotage Israel is refu­ mistakes flow from this. As a result they have serious­ At present the Zionists are consolidating their peace plan - dubbed Camp David Plus - is a farce. It sing to make meaningful concessions to the Arab ly misled the Polish working class over the last two states. The Camp David accords on autonomy on the years. West Bank were left deliberately vague. Inevitably, the We will not leave it to the Stalinist to solve the precise shape that 'autonomy' took would be decided crisis of leadership that faces the Polish working class. by the fortunes of Israeli power after 1978. Zionism The Stalinists are preparing a grisly re-run of their is in a stronger position now, especially after the war. -i- r mU-worked show trial routine. Kuron, Michnik, For Begin and Sharon there is now no question of ;', tytjnski and Wujek face charges of planning the granting Palestinian autonomy. Sharon put it, bluntly ~~r ~ rc~ful overthrow of the Political system. The exil­ in August : "And I tell you we shall never permit ~ CId Lipski and Chojecki will be tried in absentia and another Palestinian state. Never. Because the solution ..doubtless arraigned as agents of 'foreign powers'. that all of you aim at (ie. autonomy) is a second Pal· Their claim to be defending 'socialism' is a revolting estinian state, a second Palestine. And, according to lie, as they prove by gunning down the only force such a solution, this second Palestine should be placed that can guarantee and develop socialism - the in Judlia and Samara, what you call the West Bank. To working class itself. this, I answer, we Israelis answer, it will hot happen. The Stalinists will try these dissidents because Judea and Samara will not be touched. Nor Gaza. they constitute a threat to their privileges and power Forget it." not because they present a threat to socialism. That The new round of initiatives is doomed to failure. is why we deny the right of the Jaruzelski regime to As before, they will founder on the need for imper­ try Kuron and Michnik despite our political opposit­ ialism to continue to underwrite Israel's existence as ion to the programme that Kuron has fought for. And a buffer against a united Arab world and Kremlin inter­ that is why the Polish workers should continue to ference. As long as this patronage exists, then perman· fight for their release from Jaruzelski's jails. ent reconciliation between Israel ~md the Arab states Stalinist spokesman Jer:!y Urban has confidently and the Palestinians is utopian. The very nature of declared that the August demonstrations marked " Israel requires constant revision of the status quo in "the funeral march of Solidarity extremists". The its favour. No progressive solution is possible except next period will see whether a revolutionary nucleus one which unites the Palestinian workers, particularly can be constructed that can challenge the Solidar­ in the West Bank, in alliance with the poor peasants, nose leaders, gain the confidence of the Polish work­ behind a revolutionary party set on the destruction ers and lead an organised struggle for workers' power of the Zionist state and the creation on its ruins of in the face of the nationalist KPN and the reformists. Carrying ou,t Israel's bidding, Lebanese Christian troops move in on a Beirut Moslem militia-man. Zionist a secular workers'state of all Palestine.• military chief Eitan demanded the disbandment of the militias and declared the largest, Morabitoun, to be As August's bloodshed showed unless such a party is by Keith Hassell built, the alternative for the Polish working class is "no different from any other terrorist organisation as far as Israel is concerned." indeed a stark and bleak one at the hands of the Stalinist regime .• by Dave Hughes Statement on the Iran/Iraq war A JOINT CONFERENCE of the Irish WHEN IRAQ INVADED Iran in September 1980 with Khomeini's forces we never offered him, or his for the crimes of its rulers. Likewise any attempt to Workers Group, the Gruppe Arbeitermacht Workers Power argued that it was the duty of regime the slightest political S'Jpport. We defended export the 'Islamic Revolution' will be reactionary. the gains of the Iranian revolution despite Khomeini, The mullahs have no interest in exporting the pro­ (West Germany) and Workers Power, held revolutionaries to work for the military defence not because of him. We continued to argue for his gressive side of that revolution - a real mass struggle in July passed joint theses on Poland. The of Iran. We argued this because it was clear that overthrow throughout the war, but added that we against imperialism, the satisfaction of burning mat­ discussions were part of a scheduled prog­ an Iraqi victory would result in two things: would not make that a condition of our defence of erial needs of the masses, the involvement of the Iran. masses in political life. On the contrary the mullahs ramme agreed l.Jy the three groups which a) the crushing of remaining gains of the Iranian rev­ After the fall of Korramshar in May/June 1982 merely wish to export their own counter-revolution aims at establishing fraternal relations olution by an external counter-revolution, and the the war began to change its character. The two against those gains in the shape of the Islamic between us as a means of forging an Inter­ probable imposition of a pro-lraqi reactionary threats that we had pointed to as reasons for a policy Republic. regime in Iran; national Tendency committed to building of defencism were receding into the background. When, For these reasons we now argue that, in the face a new revolutionary International standing b) a decisive victory for imperialism in the area. Iran in June, Iraq announced a ceasefire and withdrew its of Khomeini's invasion of Iraq, revolutionaries should would have'been stabilised in a manner that would troops from Iranian territory, it was clear that in stand for the strictest revolutionary defeatism in in the tradition of Marx, Engels, Lenin be to imperialism's advantage. This was why the these circumstances the main threat to the Iranian and Trotsky. both Iran and Iraq. The character of the war on Iran's imperialists backed Iraq (the French directly, the masses and their hard won gains of 1978/9 was no side has now changed. So must our policy. A victory US via Jordan and Saudi Arabia). A victory for longer Saddam; furthermore the direct threat from Copies of the theses can be obtained from for either side in the present circumstances would Iraq would have opened the way to the successful imperialism together with its ability to execute its represent a severe defeat for the toil ing masses of the us for 25p (plus 15p postage) at the establishment of a counter-revolutionary and pro­ reactionary plans for the Gulf had receded. Of cou- whole region. Our new slogans should be: following address: imperialist alliance of Gulf states, with Iraq able rse if the war, continued on Iraqi soil, rallied the forces • IRANIAN TROOPS OUT OF IRAQ - DOWN WITH to play the role of new gendarme of the Gulf. of imperialism to the defence of Iraq, then Iran would THE REACTIONARY WARI Workers Power Our opposition to Iraq and our recognition that once again be under threat and we would support it • DOWN WITH SADDAM,DOWN WITH KHOMEINI­ BCM Box 7750 defence of Iran's borders was a legitimate revolution­ against imperialism. However in the present circum­ THE MAIN ENEMY IS AT HOMEI London ary policy was based on the existence of the above stances it is clear that Iran is continuing the war into • WORKERS AND PEASANTS MUST RULE IN WC1N 3XX threats. We never opposed Iraq because we supported Iraq for reactionary purposes. Its cali for indemnities IRAN AND IRAQI Khomeini, or thought he was a better ruler than Saddam and the possibility that it will try for annexations Hussein. While we argued for a military united front are reactionary attempts to make the Iraqi people pay Workers Power National Committee 18.7.82.

WORKERS POWER No.35 SEPTEMBER 1982 PAGE 7

~------Health workers ers s uan • • mll anc

AT A MASS rally in Sheffield on Edinburgh. Faced with the offer of for an improved offer -eds) that he 12% is the minimum needed for be linked together. They must org­ July 21st, striking health workers solidarity action he refuses to offer a does not have a chance." them to regain living standards. The anise to replace the TUC committee were informed by COHSE leader lead, "Unofficial things will happen Spanswick likewise made clear that dispute can be won, but the lessons 'of with a democratically elected national outside the control of individual a deal for less than 12% was on the the last period need to be learnt. delegate strike committee, based on, Aluert Spanswick that, "some unions though we must not organise cards, " If we halt at all, it will only The existing leadership is bank­ and accountable to, the local strike strikes uo fail'~ Many at tile it." be when members of this committee rupt, It is not sat on winning. It committees. This way all-out strike meeting, which dwindled fr\lm Conveniently for this gutless (TUC Health Services Committee - must be replaced. Militants must org­ action can be fought for on a national 3,000 at the start of Spanswick's wonder this means he will not have to eds) are satisfied that there is more anise nationally, and in every locality, basis. to fight the bureaucratic misleaders. ->ratory to 100 at the end, must support anyone taking such action money on the table." By building such a movement, either. NUPE has been no better, de­ More money - not the 12% - is They must embark on a campaign of pitted against the compromising and have thou~ht that, with leaders spite of its supposed 'Left' leadership. sufficient to send Spanswick and co. leaflets and meetings to win the rank cowardly bureaucratic leaders, mili­ like Spanswick, it is a wonder By refusing strike pay to strikers in scurrying back to the negotiating and file to their side. By transforming tants could lay the basis for a success­ that any strikes succeed. Rotherham they acted, deliberately, to table with Fowler. the Joint Shop Stewards' Committees ful all-out strike. A strike in which deter other areas from taking all-out The fact that the dispute has con­ that exist in many areas into active, the strike committees themselves Under the IlIIJdership of Spanswick, action. tinued for so long is testimony to the open strike committees the nucleus would decide whether and when emer­ Bickerstaffe of NUPE and other re­ *" As far as the fear of alienating the determination of the health workers of a new rank and file leadership can gency cover should be given. Tied to presetatives of the 11 unions on the publiG is concerned, the union leaders to win. With 40% of them getting be built. a campaign to win solidarity action TUC Health Services Committee, the are playing into the hands of the wages that put them only slightly Such leadership must avoid isolated from other workers, such a perspective health dispute has been turned into a Tories. The public that counts in above the poverty line, and with most action. Rotherham, Edinburgh and can win the 12% and turn the tide a long drawn out saga. The first terms of supporting the health work­ workers having experienced a 9% re­ Leeds were all picked off by the against the service cutting Tories .• action against the government's strin­ ers is the rest of the working class. duction in their real wages in 1980/81, bureaucrats. The militant areas must gent public sector pay limit took place Will they be alienated by the health back in January when 4,000 nurses workers taking determined action? marched against the 4%. Then, two Frank Chapple might be, put his weeks after the April 1st. settlement EETPU rank and file members are date, the first one hour stoppage was not and after all, unlike Frank, a called. Since then there have been no defender of a union-financed pri­ less than twelve days of action, with vate health scheme, his members another planned for September 22nd. actually use the NHS. Likewise the Most of these days of action have miners, printers, seamen, council - been staged at lengthy intervals. workers and many other sections have This, "war of attrition" strategy shown willing when appealed to to is the one that the leaders are indiss­ take stri ke action alongside the olubly tied to. On COHSE's exec­ health workers. In June, Cardiff utive, for example, Spanswick comm­ saw a 20,000 strong demo in SiJpport ands 18 of the 26 votes, against any of the strike. This October will see the publicat­ call for all-out action. The failure to capitalise upon this ion of "The Degenerated Revolution: The leadership's justifications for support by mobilising it in action is The Origins and Nature of the Stalinist this strategy are that the rank and file criminal. By dragging out the dispute States" by Workers Power and the Irish are, "not ready" for an all-out stri ke as they are doing the union leaders Workers Group. This book is an attempt and that such action might alienate are giving succour to the penny-dread­ to utilise and develop Leon Trotsky's public support. Both claims are en­ ful merchants on the Sun and the analysis of the Soviet Union in order to tirely spurious. Star. These reptiles will work over­ eXplain the survival of Stalinism after The rank and file have shown time time to wear down the support with the second world war and the creation and again that they are willing to take tales of children's deaths at the hands of states, with economies identical to action. By June 17th., 700 hospitals of indifferent ambulancemen and that of the USSR, by stalinist parties. were reduced to emergency ad­ porters. By a determined, all-out Against the many developing theo­ missions only. Three areas, Edbburgh, fight and a campaign for maximum ries that explain the USSR as a 'new Rotherham and Leeds, came out on solidai'i ~y working class support could class' or 'state capitalist' society, this and mistakes of previous attempts to all-out strike after the first one day become an active factor in winning book asserts the validity of Trotsky's analyse this process from the claimants strike in May. The NUPE conference the strike. designation of the USSR as a degenerat­ of Trotsky's heritage - from Ernest Man­ voted overwhelmingly for an all-out As in most cases, the tactics of ed workers' state. del's 'orthodox revisionism' - to Tim strike. On the 23rd. June, a one day the union leaders are directly related The book deals with the degener­ Wolforth's theory of 'structural assi­ strike hit 1800 hospitals and in to their strategy. Wars of attrition , ation of the Russian Revolution and the milation'. August, and since, the signs are that involve gradual advances - not decisive Left Opposition's analysis of that pro­ workers are more than ready to come offensives. The union leaders are cas., and goes on to examine the post­ The Degenerated Revolution repre­ out. The involvement of ambulance­ usi ng the support for the popular 12% war expansion of Stalinism in Eastern sents a comprehensive att8ll1pt to come men in Scotland, Derbyshire and claim as a bargaining counter for an Europe, Asia and Cuba. It demonstra­ to grips with a question which was fun­ Leeds provides ample evidence of this improved offer from the government tes how these bureaucratic revolutions damental to the degeneration and di,. willingness. that may be well short of the 12%. confirm Trotsky's analysis of Stalinism integration of the post-war Fourth In­ The leadership's response to these Bickerstaffe signalled that if some as counter-revolutionary. ternational. Its publication in a period Price £2 available from: militants, who, unlike the leaders ~f improvement in the offer was forth­ As well as dealing with the impli­ of heightened cold-war tension provi­ Workers Power COHSE, will have lost up to £150 coming then NUPE would consider cations of these revolutions, which pre­ des the basis to arm Marxists with a BCM Box 7750 through their partici pation in the discussions about a long term deal vented the working class from exerci­ revolutionary strategy for the defence days of action, has been a disgrace. with the government, stating in re­ sing political power, for the Marxist of the Soviet Union and for the over­ London Spanswick instructed his members sponse to Fowler's request for such a theory of the state, The Degenereted throw of the bureaucratic caste which WC1N 3XX England to cross a NUPE picket line in deal, ~ , That does not mean (the call Revolution examines the weaknesses dominates it. \ printed by SPIDER WEB OFFSET. 14-16 Sussex way. London N7 published by WORKERS POWER. BCM Box 7750, London WC1N 3XX