So& Wloirkdersa’ Lirbeirtty y No 270 16 January 2013 30p/80p www.workersliberty.org For a workers’ government

SWP in Avi Shlaim: Django crisis reappraising Israel Unchained page 5 pages 6-7 page 8 FROM THE CRADLE TO THE GRAVE.... How private companies are taking over public

Private companies like Serco and Capita now have a vast portfolio of outsourced public services and government functions, services driven forward by NHS reforms and spending cuts. Campaign to reverse these privatisations! see page 3 2 NEWS What is the Alliance for Can the Lagarde list topple Samaras? Workers’ Liberty? By Theodora Polenta Today one class, the working class, lives by selling its labour power to another, the capitalist class, which owns the means of production. Society is shaped by the capitalists’ “The reason is simple”, relentless drive to increase their wealth. Capitalism says Greek journalist causes poverty, unemployment, the blighting of lives Costas Vaxevanis. “The by overwork, imperialism, the destruction of the Lagarde list is the whole environment and much else. economic policy system Against the accumulated wealth and power of the that governs the country. capitalists, the working class has one weapon: solidarity. This corrupt elite speaks The Alliance for Workers’ Liberty aims to build solidarity through in the name of the Repub - struggle so that the working class can overthrow capitalism. We want lic and Democracy with socialist revolution: collective ownership of industry and services, the same ease it cancels workers’ control and a democracy much fuller than the present system, democracy. Media with elected representatives recallable at any time and an end to barons, ministers with off - bureaucrats’ and managers’ privileges. shore companies, We fight for the labour movement to break with “social partnership” bankers, prime ministers and assert working-class interests militantly against the bosses. and friends representa - Our priority is to work in the workplaces and trade unions, tives of ‘black econ - supporting workers’ struggles, producing workplace bulletins, helping omy’...” Former Greek Finance Minister George Papakonstantinou — a scapegoat? organise rank-and-file groups. We are also active among students and in many campaigns and The list, of 2,000 Greeks chief John Kapeleri to check on personal data”. tem which cannot be alliances. with deposits totalling more the 20 largest depositors. Now the Lagarde list “cleansed”, but its revolu - than 1.5 billion euros in Why hadn’t he given give could initiate a major politi - tionary overthrow! The left We stand for: Swiss banks, and what has the whole list to Kapeleri? cal crisis, and maybe the needs to work in that direc - ● Independent working-class representation in politics. happened to it since 2010, is Papakostantinou says overthrow of the three- ● A workers’ government, based on and accountable to the labour tion. high on the political agenda SDOE had “difficulty in - party coalition government. The operations of the in - movement. in Greece. ● A workers’ charter of trade union rights — to organise, to strike, to vestigating such cases”. The coalition leaders hope ternational and European The list was originally the Kapeleri says that Pa - to wriggle out by sacrificing banking system, the move - picket effectively, and to take solidarity action. “Falciani list”. Hervé Fal - ● Taxation of the rich to fund decent public services, homes, education pakonstantinou did not say one of their own, George ments of capital, the tax ciani was working at the and jobs for all. anything about the list and Papakonstantinou, who havens, the gambits by big ● A workers’ movement that fights all forms of oppression. Full Geneva branch of the HSBC only gave him a list of ten when finance minister plun - business to avoid taxes, equality for women and social provision to free women from the burden bank, and stole the names names, without asking him dered public wealth and may be legal or illegal, but of housework. Free abortion on request. Full equality for lesbian, gay, of 80,000 depositors. He officially to check upon squeezed workers’ incomes. are all expressions of the bisexual and transgender people. Black and white workers’ unity tried to sell the list to gov - them. Diotis confirms Pa - It is reckoned that total same neoliberal vision and against racism. ernments. The French au - pakostantinou handed him Greek-owned deposits in strategy, all options of a ● Open borders. thorities raided his home in the memory stick — but Swiss banks come to as system currently immersed ● Global solidarity against global capital — workers everywhere have 2009, jailed him, and without telling him that it much as 600 billion euros. in crisis and attempting to more in common with each other than with their capitalist or Stalinist handed the list to the was the Lagarde list. There is not one Lagarde overcoming it on the back rulers. French Treasury. Among Current Pasok leader list, but hundreds of them. of the working class. ● Democracy at every level of society, from the smallest workplace or the 80,000 names were 2000 Evangelos Venizelos says One has come out. Samaras and his political community to global social organisation. Greeks. that when he became fi - acolytes have tried to regain ● Working-class solidarity in international politics: equal rights for all In October 2010 Christine nance minister he got the CLASS grounds by politically at - nations, against imperialists and predators big and small. Lagarde, then French fi - memory stick from Diotis in Successive Greek govern - tacking Syriza on invented ● Maximum left unity in action, and openness in debate. nance minister, sent that list August 2011, and then it re - ments have repeatedly law and order issues — the ● If you agree with us, please take some copies of Solidarity to sell — of 2000 on a CD to then mained in his drawer for a taken rapid action against question of “terrorism”, the and join us! Greek finance minister year. Why didn’t he investi - the income of workers. Villa Amalia squatters (an - George Papakonstantinou. gate it? Venizelos blames archists evicted by police in Papakonstantinou copied Just recently the current Contact us: Papakonstantinou and Dio - December 2012 from an old the list onto a memory stick. tis. Diotis blames Venizelos government has voted extra ● 020 7394 8923 ● [email protected] As for the CD, he now says: taxes on the working class high school building in for not explicitly instructing Athens), etc. The editor (Cathy Nugent), 20e Tower Workshops, Riley “I gave it for safekeeping in him to investigate. of 2.5 billion euros for 2013. Road, London, SE1 3DG. my office, and now I do not Their class nature shows up Syriza must avoid this In October 2012, as ru - trap. Syriza must seize on ● Printed by Trinity Mirror know where it is”. When mours spread, for Venizelos in how long it takes them to Papakostantinou trans - investigate the suspected the list to reveal the class delivered the memory stick mechanism of the Memo - ferred to the Ministry of En - to current prime minister cases of tax evasion and vironment in June 2011, he concealment of large in - randum, highlighting the Antonis Samaras. role of economic power and delivered the memory stick In late October 2012 jour - comes indicated by the La - Get Solidarity every week! to the then head of Finan - garde list. not just political manage - o nalist Costas Vaxevanis ment, targeting Samaras as ● Trial sub, 6 issues £5 cial Crime (SDOE), John Di - published the list — and Greece is not in crisis for o otis, and claimed he had the “selected few” . Greek the leader of the memoran - ● 22 issues (six months). £18 waged was instantly arrested “for dum neoliberal strategy. o instructed previous SDOE flagrant violation of the law people are definitely “all in £9 unwaged it together”. Wealth is trans - Syriza must now raise its ● 44 issues (year). £35 waged o ferred out of the country, alternative proposal: £17 unwaged o Bob Carnegie campaign legally or illegally, into tax • To overthrow the gov - havens, or converted into ernment — elections now. ● European rate: 28 euros (22 issues) o • Instead of austerity, Emma Kerin, the Commu - direct action campaign expensive real estate in Eu - or 50 euros (44 issues) o ropean capitals. And most heavy taxation of capital. nications Coordinator of network that organised Tick as appropriate above and send your money to: of it is not taxed. In Greece • Nationalisation of the Australia’s National pickets and solidarity ac - banks under workers’ con - 20e Tower Workshops, Riley Road, London, SE1 3DG Union of Workers (NUW), only 51 people declare a tions in support of work - personal annual income trol and control the move - Cheques (£) to “AWL”. has contacted the Bob ers’ struggles. ment of capital. Carnegie Defence Cam - above 900,000 euros. Or make £ and euro payments at workersliberty.org/sub. Around 2,000 new It is the duty of the left, if • Break with the neolib - paign to offer NUW sup - leaflets promoting the it can get into government, eral strategy — unilateral port. Name ...... campaign have been cir - to use this wealth for the rejection of the memoran - She wrote: “What has benefit of the vast majority. dum. Default on the debt. happened to Bob is partic - culated to trade union ac - We need a workers’ Address ...... To do that it will need to ularly close to my heart tivists in the UK. To order government, which would block the exit of wealth after growing up through copies, please email be based on workers’ ...... from the country and pre - the years of Union Soli - [email protected] democracy, workers’ and vent the uncontrolled I enclose £ ...... darity here in Mel - or visit social control self organi - movement of capital. bourne.” Union Solidarity bobcarnegiedefence. sation and management The Lagarde list calls not and workers’ militias. was a labour-movement wordpress.com for the “cleansing” of a sys - 3 NEWS How profit is trashing public services

By Ira Berkovic 2012, G4S guards at Cedars its back-office staff lose (a UKBA “Pre-Departure their jobs. When the cost- Private companies are Accommodation” centre cutting and profit-making is being given access to near Gatwick for asylum the main motivation in ever greater swathes of seekers facing deportation) service provision, workers public services, buying were found to have used are disposable resources. the right to run for profit “non-approved techniques” There is nothing innately what ought to be socially on detainees, including progressive about state provided to meet human physically abusing a preg - ownership. A totalitarian need. nant woman in a wheel - state that rigidly and vio - chair. Two years lently controls economic life The Tories’ “Big Society” previously, G4S guards is no better than an entirely scheme was supposed to be were alleged to have beaten unregulated free market. privatisation with a Angolan deportee Jimmy But the welfare state, public friendly, local face — public Mubenga to death. education, and the National services being run by local Perhaps the best symbol Health Services were con - businesses and third-sector for the Tories’ aspiration to cessions British capitalism organisations as well as unleash “the dynamism of was forced to make in re - larger companies. In reality, the market” on public serv - sponse to working-class only the big have prevailed ices is Capita, the company pressure, or out of fear of in the “Big Society”; a hand - to whom the running of an worse upheaval. The Tories’ ful of multinational capital - entire north London bor - fire sale of public services is ist firms dominate the ough council was effec - part of a concerted attempt provision of privatised pub - “Banks responsible for some of the worst consumer mis-selling scandals of the past decade tively handed in December to recoup the losses suf - lic services. will be invited into schools to help teach financial education” Financial Times, 4 January 2012. fered by the British ruling- Serco, a global corpora - Barnet Borough Council class over the past six tion with revenue of over £2 is a flagship for the Tories. decades – with interest. To stop privatisation, billion (to June 2012), has a private company. The same oppressive they drive work - military to step in), it It has been a laboratory for we need strong commu - vast portfolio of outsourced month, it took over the run - ers to suicide) employ more earned £150 million for pro - their experiments in private nity campaigns backed up public contracts. ning of cleaning, catering, people. Its half-year viding security for the 2012 provision of public services, by workers’ organisation They run everything from housekeeping, and staff ac - turnover for 2012 was London Olympic Games. and the £320 million deal in both public and private GP services to railways to commodation services in nearly £4 billion, and de - It operates six prisons in which saw Capita take over sector. Our alternative is prisons. East Kent hospitals for 10 spite the well-publicised the UK and, like Serco, also the running of almost all public ownership with years. The contract was controversy over staff short - runs services for the UK the council’s back-office democratic control. ABUSE worth £140 million. ages (which required the Borders Agency. In October functions could see 70% of Their operation of these There is an Orwellian contracts has been edge to the reality a private dogged by constant scan - company that provides schools, are now Acade - £100,000 — and to “execu - dal and criticism, e.g. public healthcare also run - Privatising schools mies, directly funded by tives” (six Academy chains guards at the asylum ning prisons and providing central government, ex - bosses on at least £200,000 seeker detention centres electronic tagging devices empt from national agree - last year). A report on 10 January they run have been ac - for offenders and asylum By Colin Foster error in 2012-3 will not be ments on staff pay and cused of abusing de - seekers. Serco has no core clawed back. conditions. by a commission headed tainees. business — its business is A mistake to your advan - The overpayment, an av - Bright Blue, a Tory gin - by former Ofsted chief winning outsourced public tage in your benefit pay - erage of £100,000 per Acad - ger group, is calling on the inspector Christine In March 2012, Serco won contracts. ments? It can happen, emy, came from Tories to move to allowing Gilbert found that “acad - the contract to provide al - Crawley-based G4S is the but it quickly gets clawed miscalculation. state-financed schools to be emies are finding meth - most all community health world’s third-largest pri - back. There are now twelve run for profit. ods to select covertly”, services for NHS Suffolk. vate-sector employer — But £174 million extra times as many Academies At present the fruits of thus placing children of 1,000 workers who had pre - as in 2010. Over half of all only union-busters-in-chief which the Government Academies’ “market” suc - better-off parents in viously been NHS employ - secondary schools in Eng - Walmart, and Foxconn (the paid out to Academies in cess go to head teachers — extra-funded schools. ees suddenly found company with managers so land, and many primary one in ten paid above themselves employed by a Ukip: keeping Britain bigoted? The EU: Cameron’s gambit By Rhodri Evans

The anti-EU United King - By Gerry Bates some extent (unclear); get the mild worker rights ne - settlement with Europe and dom Independence Party exemption from EU worker- gotiated in the EU, give the then that settlement being (Ukip) is at 12% in the On 8 January a raft of rights clauses, such as the anti-EUers fervour. put to fresh consent..” Working Time Direction Jeremy Warner, in the polls, ahead of the Lib capitalist bigwigs pub - In other words, he hopes lished a letter in the Fi - and the Agency Workers’ right-wing Daily Telegraph , Dems, in surveys pub - to negotiate a new deal and lished on 14 and 15 Janu - nancial Times. Directive; and then stage a put it neatly: “It is in the na - then hold a yes/no referen - ary. referendum of some sort. ture of big companies that Richard Branson and oth - A big chunk of the Tory they like big markets, and dum on that deal. By 17 De - ers warned prime minister But Ukip’s sacking on 2 party and of smaller capital - they don’t particularly cember he had swayed January of the chair of its David Cameron against ists flatly want out of the mind rules and regula - towards the anti-EU gang: youth wing, Olly Neville, seeking “a wholesale rene - EU. Short of a catastrophic tions.” he didn’t want an “ immedi - should help protest voters gotiation of our EU mem - crisis trashing international Cameron is balancing be - see the right-wing nature bership, which would ate in-out referendum”. capitalist integration, tween the different pres - Socialists have no brief of the party. almost certainly be re - bers, but cites a turnout of Britain outside the EU sures. In October 2012 he Neville was sacked for jected”. The fall-out “would for the current EU struc - only 117 voters, giving him would be something like said: “I don’t want an stating, in a radio inter - be to put our membership tures — and less for a na - a 62% majority. Norway, locked into all the in/out referendum because view, a personal opinion in He was sacked by an of the EU at risk”. main EU economic regula - I’m not happy with us leav - tionalist drive to seek an favour of same-sex mar - email from Ukip chair On Friday 18 January tions and with no say in ing the European Union, illusory national inde - riage rights. He says he Stephen Crowther, sent Cameron will announce his their design. But nationalist but I’m not happy with the pendence and scrap even was democratically elected on the authority of the response, in a speech in sentiment, and the hope of status quo either. I think modest worker-rights by the party’s young mem - executive. Amsterdam. Cameron making Britain an offshore what the vast majority of regulations. wants to renegotiate to base for capital free from this country wants is a new 4 COMMENT Fighting to keep probation public

tion service. Building on and responding to people’s anger is My Life at Work vital to organising an effective fight back. What are your bosses like? Is there a problem with bul - By Brendan Milton lying and harassment by bosses? There are cases of this, yes. I’ve worked in plenty of pri - vate, non-unionised companies and it’s safe to say bullying, Tell us a little bit about the work you do. harassment and victimisation is a bigger problem there. I work for London Probation Trust as an administrator. However, as job insecurity grows, so does the problem of The role entails giving clerical support to Probation Officers. I management bullying. Managers know jobs are no longer am also a trade union activist in our Unison branch. safe and they use this to exploit workers fears by piling extra workloads onto us and expect we’ll be too afraid too speak Do you and your workmates get the pay and conditions up. you deserve? Is there a union in your workplace, and does it do a good No. We’ve had a pay freeze for two years. With the price of job? Learn from everything going up, in real terms we’re taking a pay cut, year in year out. Our conditions aren’t bad in comparison to There are three recognised unions in the London Proba - some other workplaces, however this is now at risk with the tion. NAPO (National Association of Probation Officers), looming privatisation. Unison and GMB. Unison, my union, do a good job at branch Spanish health level. We represent clerical workers, receptionists and some How have recent moves towards privatisation affected officers. Our resources are limited and our biggest obstacle is your work? a large-ish but fairly inactive branch (500 members). workers The government are looking to privatise 70% of the service We dispute all proposed restructures that lead to job losses to private or voluntary organisations, although I suspect it and we’re currently preparing a fightback against privatisa - will be exclusively private companies. Serco have already tion. How this fightback will look, we don’t yet know. I Letters taken over Community Payback and, as a result, our union would say our branch is effective in winning disputes. branch has lost around 70 members. NAPO, while doing an okay job at our workplace on some is - Serco have already cut jobs and London Probation did a sues, still have that old craft union or staff association atti - In summer 2011 I was on holiday in Barcelona with my round of voluntary redundancies to minimise compulsory tude. partner when I got a stomach bug. Unable to access redundancies before the takeover. I predict a lot more job For example, when the bosses proposed all workers move a doctor, I decided to go into the local hospital. losses if 70% of the service gets broken up and flogged off. to a 37.5 hour working week from 35, NAPO didn’t dispute this on the basis that Probation Officers already did a 37.5 The area we were staying, Nou Baris, is a working class Workers are angry and the sense of insecurity is staggering. hour week. They were trying to level workers down and I’ve suburb of Barcelona with a high number of Latin Ameri - We simply don’t know what the service will look like in the never forgiven them for that. GMB are the management can migrant workers and a traveller population. Walking future, and a lot of us feel disheartened and undervalued. branch, so we seldom communicate with them. up to the hospital we noticed that there were banners What do people talk about in your workplace? draped out of the local flats and shops, all opposing the If you could change one thing about your work, what closure of the hospital. On arrival at the hospital we saw Pay, job security, and privatisation. Union meetings are would it be? that there were some tents outside and a stall with several getting bigger and there’s a growing sense of anger amongst To keep it public! people doing a petition, giving out leaflets, chatting to the workers. The problem I face as a union activist is that too passersby. many people are scared of being victimised for getting in - • For more in the My Life At Work series, see Inside, the hospital was equally covered with political volved in the branch, so galvanising workers is challenging. http://bit.ly/uT0dSE propaganda, but not merely anti-cuts posters, there were I try to educate people as to what’s happening to the proba - political economy cartoons on the walls and longer polit - ical pamphlets left in the waiting rooms. The staff had anti-cuts posters pinned on the back of Independent Left, a rank-and-file network Workers’ Lib - their uniforms and the petition against the closure was at erty is involved in, plans to stand candidates. the reception. The atmosphere in the hospital was some - Revolutionaries The health workers’ fraction discussed the difficulties of how one of camaraderie. While I was there staff members agitating for radical industrial action in the main health went outside in their breaks to participate in a sit down union Unison, which is dominated by a conservative bu - in the road. They seemed to do this without fear and in a at work reaucracy. An activist who attended the fraction said: way that had clearly become routine. “The priorities of AWL activists are to concentrate on pa - Campaigning to keep the hospital open was something tient educational work in our workplaces in the attempt to that the staff did at work, it wasn’t a private thing that rebuild a culture of working-class solidarity. We have been they had to keep quiet. Their political opposition was AWL news inspired by the example of the Chicago teachers, the fledg - open and integrated into their work. ling cleaners’ movement in the UK, and other approaches The hospital moved a nurse who spoke some English that seek to build a different form of trade unionism based from another ward to treat me so I was able to discuss Three of Workers’ Liberty’s on collective struggle. what was happening. She told me that the land the hospi - industrial and trade union “Even as the immediate future looks likely to bring de - tal was on was owned by a private developer who had “fractions” met on the feats, there is important work to be done to develop a new been massively increasing the rent of the hospital. weekend of 12-13 January generation of activists committed to this kind of class-strug - The government could no longer afford to pay the rent — our school worker and gle trade unionism. Where struggles do look likely, as in on the hospital and so were trying to close it down. She health worker fractions Lewisham Hospital, we orient our efforts to organising and said that all the staff were opposed to it and ready to fight met, as did our Public and agitating for victory. till the end. The local community were totally behind AWL industrial and union Commercial Services “As the government swings the axe at the NHS it is them and very involved. bulletins union (PCS) fraction. highly likely that some health workers somewhere will Several things were remarkable about the hospital in begin to resist. As orders come down from on high to close Spain. Firstly, the campaign had communicated the mes - “Fractions” are groups of Workers’ Liberty members and supporters who work in the services, patients will be put at risk. We call for health sage far and wide, the whole community was clearly in - workers to stand by their patients, refuse to comply with formed about the closure. Secondly, the level of political same industry or who are active the same union. any instructions that put patients at risk and collectively analysis of the situation by the workers was high. Thirdly, The school workers’ fraction mainly discussed Workers’ defy the managers and accountants who are making these the level of care in this workplace, where there was al - Liberty’s activity in LANAC (the Local Associations for Na - dangerous decisions. It is a modest demand for clinical in - ready some amount of workers’ control, was exemplary. tional Action network), the rank-and-file caucus of school tegrity but if it is taken up throughout the NHS it will mean As we campaign to stop the closure of the A and E, Mater - workers that Workers’ Liberty members were central to nity and other wards at Lewisham Hospital discussions founding in 2012 (see page 11 for more). a radically transform the movement to save the NHS and The PCS fraction, which mainly includes civil service put workers’ control back on the agenda.” about occupations might seem far fetched to some. AWL’s industrial fractions produce workplace, indus - Looking to Spain, where the occupation movement workers but also workers from other industrial sectors or - trial, and union bulletins, and are supported by a na - of hospitals is growing rapidly, planning to occupy ganised by PCS, discussed the fight against job cuts in the seems both obvious and possible. Department for Work and Pensions, and a battle over pen - tional industrial committee. To get in touch with AWL members in your industry or union, email Rebecca Galbraith, south London sions cuts by air traffic controllers at Heathrow. It also dis - cussed upcoming union elections in PCS, where [email protected]. 5 WHAT WE SAY

Help us raise £15,000

Facing a revolt over its handling of an allegation of rape against one of its leaders, the SWP can no longer enforce its prohibition on open criticism. Above: attendees at a future AWL film showing

On Sunday 27 January. North East London AWL will SWP: the case isn’t closed host a showing of Ken Loach’s film Land and Free - dom as a social and fundraiser for Workers’ Liberty. The Socialist Workers’ Party (SWP) should arrange a fur - complainant had brought less serious complaints against Film showings can be a more accessible way of having ther investigation into the charges brought by a woman Smith two years ago, and the CC sidelined them without for - political discussions than more traditional or formal member of rape by its former national secretary, and still mal procedure. meetings. Although Loach’s film is far from perfect po - leading organiser, Martin Smith. According to Richard Seymour, at the SWP conference two litically, it is a good jumping off for a discussion about It should do that in the interests of justice, of justice being years ago: the Spanish Revolution and Civil War. seen to be done, and of restoring the credibility of the left. “Members were told that the accused [Smith] was exoner - A film showing is also a somewhat more congenial way The SWP should tell her, and another SWP woman who ated, that the verdict had been accepted by the complainant, of raising funds than standing on a street corner rattling has raised lesser complaints, that the SWP will cooperate and that he had been at most a bit foolish. Some members a tin. It doesn’t take much – a space, a screen, and some with them taking the case to bourgeois justice; or, if they heard that there had been a witch hunt against the poor fel - food and drink. don’t want to do that, as they may not, set up an inquiry run low. And all were reminded of his great achievements as an Your local AWL branch may be organising similar according to the best standards of bourgeois justice, done by organiser, which — irrespective of how true or false the alle - events: email [email protected] to get in touch. legally-trained people outside the SWP and without personal gations are — are considerable. The accused, it has to be said, The North East London event takes place from 3:30pm connections to either party in the case. played up to this. An ovation was orchestrated, with some in Betty Brunker Hall, Mora Street, Islington, EC1V 8EH. The SWP Central Committee (CC) protests that the charges stamping their feet”. It costs £8/£4 (waged/unwaged), including food and The CC now concedes that it made a mistake two years drink. See http://on.fb.me/10w8wdd for more. were investigated by its Disputes Committee; the Disputes There are many other ways you can support AWL’s ago, and prides itself on its decision for a formal Disputes Committee found Smith innocent; the SWP conference on 4- drive to raise £15,000 by May Day 2013: 6 January accepted the Disputes Committee report; and so Committee investigation this time. Somehow it couldn’t see ● the matter is closed. that the new investigation would have to be completely inde - Taking out a monthly standing order using the form However, visibly it hasn’t been closed for a large chunk of pendent of the CC. below or at www.workersliberty.org/resources. Please the SWP’s active membership. The 50.4% vote at the SWP Over the course of the two years and a bit in which com - po●st completed forms to us at the AWL address below. conference, after a very hurried debate chaired by a member plaints have emerged against Smith (not only from the Making a donation by cheque, payable to “AWL”, or of the Disputes Committee, does not carry authority. woman who now charges rape), the CC has removed Smith do●nating online at www.workersliberty.org/donate. Some prominent SWPers have quit, notably Socialist Worker from being national secretary, and now from the CC alto - ● Organising a fundraising event. journalist Tom Walker. Other well-known SWPers, notably gether; or it has accepted his resignation from those positions ● Taking copies of Solidarity to sell. writers Richard Seymour and China Miéville, are defying the without advertising that it wants him to return to them. Why, Get in touch to discuss joining the AWL. More infor - CC’s instruction to members to shut down debate on the if the case is “closed” on all charges against Smith, and he mation: 07796 690874 / [email protected] / AWL, issue and polemicising on the web against the CC. has been found blameless? 20E Tower Workshops, 58 Riley Road, London SE1 3DG. In the broader labour movement, outside the SWP, the matter is even further from being closed. There, the Disputes SIDESTEP Committee carries no authority at all. Since Smith is not only The CC’s response at every turn has been to make the Total raised so far: £6,856 a backroom official for the SWP, but also a public figure for most limited sidestep it can, and as soon as possible to We raised £110 this week from it, dealing with non-SWP anti-fascist activists in Unite declare the matter closed. Now it has instructed mem - 6 new subscriptions to various Against Fascism and non-SWP trade unionists as a trade- bers to cease debate on it. The instruction is obviously ,85 Workers’ Liberty industrial bul - union organiser, the SWP needs an investigation which car - unenforceable. £6 letins. Thanks to the comrades in - ries wider authority. The CC’s approach here is not an aberration generated by volved. anxiety. It is the SWP CC’s standard method. LEFT The SWP has a rule binding all CC members to pretend So does the broader left. Newspapers like the Independ - unanimity on every CC decision. SWP full-time organisers Standing order authority ent and the Daily Mail are using this case to discredit the outside the CC are also obliged, as a condition of employ - whole of the left, although there is no reason to believe ment, always to argue the latest CC line. To: ...... (your bank) that similar trouble in the Independent’s or the Mail’s of - There is no regular forum of internal debate. Tendencies fice would be dealt with better than in the SWP office. and factions are permitted only for a short period before each ...... (its address)

The rest of the left needs to persuade the SWP to drop its SWP annual conference, and must shut down afterwards...... untenable “case closed” stance; or at least we need to go on They are strictly regulated: four SWP members were expelled public record as advocating a different stance. in the run-up to the latest SWP conference for no greater sin Account name: ...... We do not know whether all the criticisms of the Disputes that some dissident talk among themselves on Facebook. Committee investigation made inside the SWP are right. The SWP members can grumble — and do. They can probably Account no: ...... Disputes Committee may have tried sincerely to reach the dissent and discuss in the confines of their local branch meet - truth. We don’t assume it didn’t. Smith should, like all ac - ing. Political initiative within the SWP at large, independent Sort code: ...... cused people, be considered innocent until proven guilty. We of the CC, is almost impossible. Please make payments to the debit of my have contempt for the Independent ’s and the Mail ’s sneering Discussion becomes largely a monologue from the CC, description of the Disputes Committee as a “socialist sharia with only reservations, quibbles, and strictly-limited single- account: Payee: Alliance for Workers’ Liberty, court”. issue dissent audible from the ranks. Even where almost account no. 20047674 at the Unity Trust Bank, everyone in the SWP knows that the CC majority made a All that still leaves the Disputes Committee without au - 9 Brindley Place, Birmingham B1 2HB (08-60-01) thority. The SWP leadership has blustered about the impos - blunder — as on the SWP’s alliance with George Galloway in sibility of justice in the bourgeois courts. But the SWP did Respect, in 2004-7 — there is no mechanism for discussing Amount: £ ...... to be paid on the ...... day not, and could not, construct at will an island of superior pro - the lessons to be learned. Discussion is drowned out by bel - letarian justice. In fact the Disputes Committee fell short of lowed invocation of the latest campaign or initiative or stunt, of ...... (month) 20 ...... the better criteria of bourgeois justice. There may be a lesson and warnings that only sectarian quibblers analyse the past. (year) and thereafter monthly until this order is here for the whole of the left: our AWL Disputes Committee, “If the bicycle wobbles”, so the SWP adage runs, “then pedal cancelled by me in writing. This order cancels faster”. too, would have lacked the resources and expertise for such The method derives from poor politics, and leads to any previous orders to the same payee. a case. even poorer politics, as we argued in Solidarity 269. The All the members of the Disputes Committee (inevitably, CC has become used to getting away with that: enough Date ...... since all were longstanding SWPers) knew Smith well. Two people have been willing to shrug at a foolish slogan or of the members of the Disputes Committee were also mem - ploy. Not this time. Signature ...... bers of the CC. The CC was implicated in the case since the 6-7 Right wing gains Reading th

By Harry Glass

strength in Israel Discussion of Israel-Palestine is often hampered by his - torical illiteracy. A few trite phrases denouncing “Zion - By Sacha Ismail tine continues apace, with a constant expansion of settle - ism” is the best many on the left can do. ments. A further problem is finding coherent interpretations of At the end of December, two separate opinion polls It is hard to deny Avnery's conclusion about what Israel's history. For both these reasons, Avi Shlaim’s Israel and Pales - found that two-thirds of Israelis would support a peace failure to offer the slightest measure of justice to the Pales - tine: Reappraisals, Revisions, and Refutations deserves special deal with the Palestinians involving a Palestinian state tinians could mean: attention. on the 1967 borders, with Jerusalem as a shared capi - “In the coming four years, the official annexation of the Shlaim is an engaging commentator on the Israeli-Palestin - tal. West Bank to Israel may become a fact. Palestinians may be ian conflict. He is one of the Israeli “new historians”, who That includes 57 percent of those supporting incumbent confined to small enclaves, the West Bank may be filled challenged the official Zionist rendition of events. Other au - right-wing party Likud, and 47 percent of those backing the with many more settlements, a violent intifada may break thors include Simha Flapan, Benny Morris and Ilan Pappé, even more right-wing opposition party Jewish Home. out, Israel may be isolated in the world, even the crucial although their politics are far from homogenous. Morris rad - Yet almost no one in official Israeli politics advocates any - American support may weaken. ically changed his views following the second intifada in thing like such a solution, or even serious negotiations with “If the government continues on its present course, this 2000, retreating to the traditional Zionist orthodoxy he had the Palestinians. All the polls suggest that, in the general will lead to certain disaster – the entire country between the previously done so much to critique. By contrast, Pappé election on 22 January, a big majority of Israelis will vote Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River will become one lurched to become the darling of the one-state, BDS left. In - for right-wing parties, with an even stronger contingent of unit under Israeli rule. This Greater Israel will contain an stead Shlaim argues that “the only fair and reasonable solu - far-right MPs than before. Netanyahu, now running on a Arab majority and a shrinking Jewish minority, turning it tion is the partition of Palestine, in other words, a two-state merged electoral list between Likud and the radical right inevitably into an apartheid state, plagued by a permanent solution”. Shlaim also rejects the BDS movement, arguing Yisrael Beteinu, looks certain to be returned as prime min - civil war and shunned by the world. that “an academic boycott is an oxymoron: you do not have ister. “This is so obvious, so inevitable, that one needs an iron a boycott on dialogue, debate, or the free circulation of The “rising star” of the elections is Naftali Bennett, the will not to think about it. It seems that all major parties in ideas”. He is “strongly opposed to a selective boycott pre - software tycoon who is leader of the religious-nationalist these elections have this will. Speaking about peace, they cisely because it would violate the freedom of Israeli academ - Jewish Home. In addition to his militant opposition to gay believe, is poison. Giving back the West Bank and East ics”. Jerusalem for peace? God forbid even thinking about it.” rights and to the trade unions, Bennett is opposed even in RATIONAL words to the creation of any sort of Palestinian state, advo - OPPRESSION Shlaim’s work has much to offer a rational Marxist left, cating the annexation of 60 percent of the West Bank and Meanwhile Israel's oppression of the Palestinians poi - despite starting from different premises. the enclosure of its Palestinian inhabitants in a series of en - sons both Palestinian and Israeli society. claves with “autonomy [sic] under the supervision of the In particular, his framing of the Israel-Palestine question, IDF and Shin Bet” (the Israeli secret police). Jewish Home In Israel, the poison of nationalism and racism is running his understanding of history, of Israel’s relations with the US has doubled in the opinion polls, to about 12 percent. strong at every level: from mob attacks on African migrants and his assessment of the peace process, he writes as a con - in the streets to state-level attacks on democratic rights sistent democrat. Given the poor quality of discussion on the FUTURE (laws criminalising boycotts of the settlements; attempts to left, this is a considerable step forward. The Israeli socialist Adam Keller comments: “It thus disqualify Arab politicians from elections). Shlaim rightly frames the Arab-Israeli conflict is “a clash seems that somewhere in the misty future, the citizens Despite the skewing of politics to the right and the between two national movements: the Palestinian national of Israel might vote overwhelmingly in favour of a peace growth of racist reaction, Israel remains a democracy, with movement and the Jewish national movement, or Zionism”. agreement with the Palestinians. a functioning labour movement and an organised political There are “two peoples, two distinct ethnic communities, and “But in the here and now, at the general elections due to left. Hadash, a non-Zionist, joint Israeli-Jewish and Arab one land; hence the conflict”. He believes that the creation of take place in Israel two and a half weeks from now, the cit - party, has four seats in the Knesset, and is running a list Israel “involved a terrible injustice to the Palestinians”, but he izens... seem likely to give a clear Knesset majority to the headed by party leader Mohammed Barakeh. fully accepts “the legitimacy of the State of Israel within its parties which strongly oppose such an agreement... they are The Organisation for Democratic Action (Da’am) is a left- pre-1967 borders”. He argues that “the root problem today about to fill Knesset seats with dozens of extreme right wing (although still Stalinist) split from the official Israeli is the Jewish state's continuing occupation of most of the members as well as those from the even more extreme right, Communist Party (which is active in Hadash). Its members Palestinian territories that it captured in June 1967”. who are completely opposed to even the most petty and were integral to the setting up of the Workers ‘ Advice Cen - The historical debate is particularly sharp over different as - cosmetic of concessions. tre (WAC-M’aan), a radical trade union centre that has led sessments of 1948. Many Palestinians regard Israelis as the “The fact is that most of the Israeli public completely be - organising initiatives amongst both Israeli-Jewish and conquerors and themselves as the true victims of the first lieve what they had been repeatedly told over the past Palestinian-Arab workers. Da’am was active in the social Arab-Israeli war, which they call “al-Nakba” (the disaster). twelve years: there is no partner, the Palestinians do not justice protests of 2011, and is the only Israeli political party Meanwhile, many Israelis regard 1948 as the War of Inde - want peace, there is no chance for peace, and all talk of to be led by an Arab woman — Asma Agbarieh. pendence. peace is a pipe dream.” The Israeli Supreme Court overturned the disqualifica - Shlaim provides a sharp critique of one of the most serious Veteran Israeli leftist Uri Avnery describes the elections tion from the elections of Haneen Zoabi, a candidate of Palestinian interpretations of 1948 to date: Nur Masalha’s Ex - like this: Arab nationalist party Balad. The Central Elections Com - pulsion of the Palestinians: The Concept of “Transfer” in Zionist “Faced with at least three grave dangers, they report, Is - mittee wanted Zoabi disqualified because of comments, in - Political Thought, 1882-1948 . “Transfer” is a euphemism for raeli parties and voters just ignored them. As if joined in a cluding about Iran, which they claimed “undermined the the expulsion or organised removal of the indigenous popu - conspiracy, they tacitly agreed among themselves not to state of Israel”. Although a small act in itself, Zoabi’s rein - lation of Palestine to the neighbouring Arab countries, what talk about them. Instead, they bickered and quarreled about statement into the election shows that there is conflict even is now called “ethnic cleansing”. totally insignificant and irrelevant issues.” within the Israeli state, and that the far-right can’t have it all In reply, Shlaim quotes from Benny Morris’ (pre-2000) The three dangers Avnery sees are massive attacks on the their own way. path-breaking work, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Prob - living standards of the Israeli working class, through tax The working-class, socialist left is weak and still largely lem, 1947-1949 . Morris described the flight of the Palestinians rises and cuts to services; attacks on democratic rights and tied to the Stalinist tradition from which it comes. Da’am is and gave examples of expulsion by force. But he found no even the independence of the judiciary (because the right likely to poll very poorly, although Hadash may retain its evidence of a Jewish master plan or of a systematic policy MKs. In general, things do not look good. dictated from above for the expulsion of the Palestinians. He regards judges' timid opposition to some government We should make the maximum possible solidarity therefore rejects both the “Jewish robber state” and the “Arab measures as left-wing treason); and the Palestinian issue it - with the Palestinians and the Israeli left, both belea - order” explanations. Morris’ concluded that “The Palestin - self. He argues that much of the political elite has stopped guered, to demand the only solution which can prevent ian refugee problem was born of war, not by design, Jewish even making much effort to use the alleged Palestinian Avnery's nightmare scenario: independence for the or Arab”. “threat” to gain votes. Meanwhile the annexation of Pales - Palestinians and two states. Masalha’s account is wrong because, in the first place, he ISRAEL-PALESTINE he history of Israel-Palestine

and brought to power the most aggressively right-wing gov - ernment in Israel's history”. Shlaim however suggests that the basic reason for the fail - ure of Oslo was that “Israel reneged on its side of the deal”. The fundamental cause was “the Israeli policy of expanding settlements on the West Bank which carried on under Labour as well as Likud”. But under Barak “settlement activity gath - ered pace: more houses were constructed, more Arab land was confiscated, and more access roads were built to isolated Jewish settlements”. This policy “precluded the emergence of a viable Palestinian state without which there can be no end to the conflict”. Shlaim also criticises Hamas as a terrorist organisation, be - cause “its attacks are mainly directed against Israeli civilians on Israeli territory”. He defines Hamas as “essentially an in - digenous movement with its own agenda of creating an Is - lamic state in the whole of Palestine”. Discussing the Gaza war in 2008-09 (which he opposed), Shlaim argues that “the damage caused by these primitive rockets is minimal but the psychological impact is immense, The Zionist newspaper Palestine Post announces the foundation of the state of Israel in 1948 prompting the public to demand protection from its govern - ment”. In the circumstances, “Israel had the right to act in “focuses very narrowly on only one aspect of Zionist think - is an “Israel-first” school, which supports a special relation - self-defence but its response to the pinpricks of rocket attacks ing and neglects the broader political context in which this ship with the Jewish state. However there is also an “even - was totally disproportionate”. thinking crystallised”. handed” school, which believes America's most vital Shlaim’s work cannot be appropriated uncritically. He is Secondly, he portrays the Zionist movement as “mono - interests lie in the oil-producing Arabian Gulf and is reluctant too soft on the Hashemite monarchy in Jordan. His realist lithic and single-minded in its support for transfer, ignoring to jeopardise those interests by being too close to Israel. theory of international relations, whilst divining important the reservations, the doubts, the internal debates and the op - Shlaim argues that the Americans have “the capacity to bring relationships between ruling classes and their states, has lit - position”. Thirdly, Masalha “presents transfer as the corner - effective pressure to bear on Israel”, given the $3 billion a tle to say on class struggles and conflicts within states. stone of Zionist strategy when it was in fact only one of the year subsidy. The most significant criticism of his work concerns agency. alternatives under consideration at various junctures in the The book contains useful essays on the peace process from Shlaim believes that “the asymmetry in power between Is - conflict over Palestine”. Fourthly, while sharply critical of the the 1990s. Shlaim is candid about his own mistakes, writing rael and the Palestinians is such that a voluntary agreement Zionist design and of the means by which it was achieved, that from today’s vantage point, “it is indisputable that I was between the parties is simply unattainable”. Instead, “a third Masalha “completely ignores the part played by the Pales - wrong and Edward Said was right in his analysis of the na - party is needed to push Israel into a settlement, and that third tinians themselves in the disaster that eventually over - ture and limitations of the Oslo Accord”. party can only be the United States”. whelmed them or the part played by their leader, Hajj Amin He is fulsome in his praise for Yitzhak Rabin, though less Although an agreement from above cannot be ruled out, al-Husayni”. so of Shimon Peres. Shlaim is scathing about Netanyahu’s this perspective misses altogether the “third camp” within first government for waging “an economic and political war both Israeli and Palestinian societies, particularly among SIMPLISTIC of attrition against the Palestinians in order to lower their ex - workers, that could become the force for peace. The third camp in Israel-Palestine today is not a major The end result of Masalha's “selective use and tenden - pectations”. force. But the labour movement is the best place to con - tious interpretation of the evidence” is a rather simplis - He also blames Hamas, whose suicide bombings “had the struct such an axis, not only to resolve the national ques - tic account which “posits a straightforward Zionist policy effect of shifting public opinion against the Labour-led gov - tion on a consistently democratic basis, but also to of transfer and lays all the blame for the flight of the ernment and the peace process and in favour of right-wing coalesce the forces for socialism. Palestinians in 1948 at the door of the wicked Zionists”. politicians like Netanyahu”. Masalha goes way beyond what his evidence can sustain CAMP DAVID and “ends up with a mono-causal explanation which ab - • Shlaim’s website contains a number of useful essays Shlaim is lucid about the Camp David talks in July 2000. solves everybody but the Zionists”. These points are highly http://bit.ly/TXW1lA/ Ehud Barak envisaged an independent Palestinian state apposite, and have wider applicability. over the whole of the Gaza Strip and most of the West Shlaim provides an important assessment of US-Israeli re - Bank, but with the large settlement blocs next to the lations. Much of the left regards Israel as simply America’s 1967 border being annexed to Israel. watchdog in the Middle East. After Israel's military victory in the June 1967 war, the US government did come to regard Is - The Jordan Valley would eventually be turned over to ex - rael as “a strategic asset”, which “served to check the influ - clusive Palestinian sovereignty. Altogether 20.5% of the West ence of the Soviet Union and of the radical Arab regimes Bank was to remain in Israel’s hands: 10.5% to be annexed allied to Moscow”. Shlaim quotes a study, which calculated outright and 10% to be under Israeli military occupation for that between 1948 and 1991, the US subsidised Israel to the twenty years. Barak agreed to the return of Palestinian tune of $53 billion. refugees but only in the context of family reunification in - However this is not the whole story. Shlaim argues that volving 500 people a year. “with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the orphaning of On Jerusalem, his offer “fell well short of the Palestinian its Arab clients, Israel was no longer needed to safeguard demand for exclusive sovereignty over all of the city’s Arab American interests in the Middle East, if that is what it had suburbs and over Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount”. been doing”. During the first war with Iraq, the US wanted Shlaim argues that no Palestinian leadership could accept Israel to “sit tight, keep a low profile and do nothing”. The the proposals at Camp David. However Arafat displayed US voted for UN Resolution 681, which condemned Israel’s “neither courage nor statesmanship”. His real mistake was treatment of the Palestinians in the occupied territories. not to reject the much-vaunted offer but “to encourage, or at From the Israeli side, the relationship is not perceived least to tolerate, the resort to violence from his side following merely as that of a client. Israeli general Moshe Dayan is the collapse of the Oslo peace process”. The Palestinian re - quoted to sum up the Israeli view: “Our American friends sort to violence in the al-Aqsa intifada “had disastrous con - Is a solution that acknowledges the rights of both the give us money, arms and advice. We take the money, we take sequences. It came close to destroying the peace camp in Palestinians and the Israeli Jews possible? the arms, but we decline the advice”. From the US side, there Israel, convinced the public that there is no partner for peace 8 FEATURE Reinventing the Western

Clive Bradley reviews Django Unchained piece Tarantino gore fest (as you would expect, both bloody and played for jokes). And you want him to blow these evil Quentin Tarantino’s last film, Inglorious Basterds , walked motherfuckers away. You root for the massacre. It’s exhilarat - a precarious line. Set in World War Two Europe, it dealt ing. with very serious matters — the genocide of the Jews — I don’t think, here, it’s as successful as the massacre in In - but in Tarantino’s inimitable way: at least as much about glorious Basterds (where the Nazi leadership is taken out) — movies as about history, very violent, very funny. which (for me, anyway) makes you reflect on your own It could have been a distasteful monstrosity. But to my bloodthirsty emotions; but it’s not, either, as purely ridicu - mind it was a brilliant tour de force, with a delirious and un - lous and jokey as the bloodfest in Kill Bill I . expected climax that in fact was very thought-provoking. But I don’t see that it trivialises anything. It is extremely Django Unchained sets out to pull off the same trick but this entertaining — but how is it a valid criticism of a film maker time about slavery in America. Does it succeed? that his film is too enjoyable? It’s not very sophisticated — Django (Jamie Foxx) is a black slave sort-of-freed by a Ger - Django is the good guy, the slave owners are the bad guys... man bounty hunter, Dr Schulz (Christopher Waltz, the mar - But that’s how Westerns work; it’s pretty much the point of vellous villain from Inglorious Basterds). Shulz — who is Westerns, except in the classic Western, Good is signified by essentially a decent bloke — agrees to help Django rescue his Jamie Foxx plays an avenging angel white (hats, usually), and Bad by black... wife, Broomhilde (Kerry Washington) from the most notori - Tarantino has said, rightly, that there’s nothing in Django ous and terrifying plantation in Mississippi, owned by Calvin Unchained that’s remotely as violent as slavery was itself. And Candle (Leonardo DiCaprio). track, many of its events, are comments on the genre itself – it includes some marvellous — though very bloody — Much tension, and then, inevitably, much violence and which was once immensely popular, but died out in the dramatisations of what slavery actually meant: a runaway gore ensues. Along the way there’s a brilliant turn by Samuel 1970s or before (with occasional revivals, of course, like the torn apart by dogs; slaves forced to pummel each other to L Jackson as Stephen, Candle’s apparently-sweet but actu - recent remake of True Grit ). death for their owners’ enjoyment. ally-terrifying Uncle Tom servant. But what a comment. Westerns, as a genre, rarely (I think There is, I’m sure, a great film yet to be made about the ex - Some — notably Spike Lee (though apparently he refuses it might be never, but maybe some Western fan can correct perience of slavery in the US. Jonathan Demme’s Beloved , actually to see the film) have objected to the movie, and in - me) have slaves in them at all, never mind as central charac - based on Toni Morrison’s novel, was leaden and dull; Spiel - deed to the very idea of Tarantino addressing this subject. He ters. (There are black characters, occasionally – comedy buf - berg’s Amistad was simply untruthful about the abolition of trivialises slavery, they say, and the African American expe - foons with wide eyes and shuffling feet — but not, I think, slavery. Django Unchained is not that film. But it’s a tall order rience. Much of this objection seems to be against Tarantino acknowledged to be slaves). for any film maker — to make the definitive statement about himself — a geeky white boy who verges, sometimes, on the Westerns certainly never have slaves or ex-slaves as he - a vast historical experience. I think we should cut Tarantino some slack. He has “wigger”, a film obsessive rather than a historian, steeped in roes, riding horses, shooting guns, and exacting terrible many imitators. Django shows why they are only imita - B movies, trash culture, (horror of horrors) genre. vengeance on plantation owners. tors. It’s exciting, compelling, inventive, and there are And indeed, as you would expect, Django Unchained is as Foxx’s Django is an avenging angel. There is — not quite some terrific performances. much about Westerns as about slavery. Its colours, its sound - the climax of the movie, but towards it — the inevitable set- Hurrah for Zhukov?

By Colin Foster dare say that the countries for which all those soldiers fight have engaged in just and progressive wars?... On 2 February, a lavish “Victory at Stalingrad 70th An - “Because the Russian soldiers fight well, does that in any niversary Night” is being organised by Philosophy Foot - way change the fact that Stalin is one of the bloodiest dicta - ball (an enterprise run by former Communist Party tors of modern history, that he is the grave-digger of the activist Mark Perryman) and the Hope Not Hate anti-fas - Russian Revolution and the aborter of many other revolu - cist group. tions? Does that change the fact that he is the murderer of the The keynote speaker will be Seumas Milne, associate edi - Old Bolsheviks... that he has enslaved the Russian workers, tor of the Guardian and former business manager of the that he has deprived them of every possible liberty and dem - Straight Left , a Stalinist splinter publication. ocratic right?” The Battle of Stalingrad, between August 1942 and Febru - As Beevor states: “The newspaper reports which claimed ary 1943, was a turning point of World War Two. So were that frontoviki eagerly discussed the heroic leadership of some British victories in North Africa, and US victories in the Comrade Stalin in their trenches, and went into the attack Pacific, around the same period. with the battle cry ‘Za Stalina!’ (‘For Stalin’) were pure prop - More those other victories, Stalingrad is still used to cast aganda. Yury Belash, a soldier poet, once wrote a verse: credit on the political leaders of the winning side, and on “To be honest about it — Stalin’s marshal Georgi Zhukov. in the trenches the last thing we thought about At the time, as Antony Beevor reports in his book Stalin - was Stalin”. grad : “The triumph of the Red Army boosted the status of the Until later, maybe. The Russian command’s enforcement [Communist] Party member and attracted fellow-travellers was brutal — it executed about 13,500 troops during the bat - in droves. Even conservatives could not avoid praising the tle, for indiscipline — but at the height the soldiers’ life ex - heroism of the Red Army. In Britain, King George VI com - pectancy was so low, and their acceptance that they had to missioned a Sword of Stalingrad to be forged for presenta - fight the anti-Slav racist Nazi-commanded army so full, that tion to the city”. many reckoned they had little to lose. The Trotskyists of the Workers’ Party USA wrote ( Labor Ac - “For a young Soviet citizen [newly conscripted to Stalin - tion RIP Vic Turner, one of the , 1 February 1943): “Many minds have lost their balance grad]. the most shocking experience was... the frank speaking and many eyes have acquired an unusual degree of starri - of frontoviki on political subjects. Many expressed them - ness as a result of the recent Russian military victories. Peo - selves in a way that prompted new arrivals to glance over “Pentonville Five” ple who had clearly seen, or had begun to see, the tyrannical their shoulders in alarm. They declared that life after the war and anti-labour character of the Stalin regime... are now al - should be different. The terrible existence for those who Vic Turner, one of five east London dock workers jailed lowing themselves to be hypnotised into passive acceptance for trade union activity in 1972, died in December of the Stalinist dictatorship, because the Russian soldiers worked on collective farms and in factories must be im - fight with ability and heroism... proved, and the privileges of the nomenklatura restricted” 2012. Read the story of how working-class militancy (Beevor, p.288). “It is not the Russian soldiers alone who have displayed The Stalingrad victory, however, helped Stalin stabilise not only freed Vic and his comrades but helped bring heroism and enthusiasm. It is a depressing fact, but a fact his regime, and soon to extend its model to the countries down a Tory government — http://bit.ly/VYk4Bp nevertheless, that on many occasions the German soldiers of Eastern Europe which came under the control of the have displayed the same qualities. And the Greeks, and the Russian army as it pushed the German army into retreat. British, and the Americans, and many others. Yet who would 9 FEATURE What were the Communist Parties?

4 Mike Wood has spent some years researching the evolution transitional slogans are left hanging in mid air.” of the Workers Party, the group formed by Max Shachtman A substantial minority opposed this slogan in the WP, in - and his comrades after the 1940 split in the US Trotskyist cluding Al Glotzer, Hal Draper, Manny Garrett and Irving movement. This is a second article reporting the results of Howe. They argued that the CP was not a workers’ party, his research, following a first published in Solidarity 267, which the NC majority did not dispute, and concluded that 5 December 2012. socialists could not call for the CP to be put into government. Whether or not the CP could then take sole power in the One area of discussion in the Workers’ Party in the 1940s state, it would still have additional influence and use it to the which ran slightly aslant the other disputes was on the detriment of the working class. If the government proposed nature of the official “Communist”, i.e. Stalinist, parties by the majority were to happen, then: “the difficulties and outside the USSR. the hazards of revolutionary operation would most certainly Most discussion in the Workers’ Party in the 1940s was increase”. The CP would be able to use its increased govern - dominated by the dispute with a minority faction led by C L mental power to gain more influence over the workers, the R James, which held that immediate socialist revolution was opposite effect from that desired. bursting out all over at the end of World War Two, and that Garrett elaborated in a discussion article for the WP mag - the USSR was state-capitalist. azine New International in April 1946. Bureaucratic collec - The majority of the WP held it was “bureaucratic-collec - tivism in the USSR was not able to survive in isolation. In tivist”, meaning that it was an exploitative system but dis - order to ensure its survival the ruling class of Russia would tinctly not capitalist. They argued that proletarian revolution use the CPs to put pressure on governments. This would in Europe could not happen without a period of re-composi - generally mean a policy of class peace; but where both capi - tion and political rejuvenation of the labour movement, but talism and the workers’ movement were weak the CPs 5 that all the objective social and economic ingredients for such would seek power in their own right. a revolution were present. They predicted a “democratic in - C L R James and his minority accepted the slogan for a CP- terlude” that would be followed by revolution. SP-CGT government in France, but with a different set of 6 The debate on the Communist Parties cut across the lines premises. They maintained that the CPs were like the social- of that major dispute, though it had connections with it. democratic parties. Far from attempting to establish systems The WP considered the CP of Russia to be not a workers’ like the USSR where they gained control, the CPs were coop - party of any sort, but the vehicle of a ruling class. But what erating with capitalism to ensure the survival of private about CPs which did not hold power? property. James wrote of the: “Anglo-American-Russian plan 7 As early as August 1945 Shachtman, as editor of the New for defending property and privilege”. International , wrote that: For Shachtman and his co-thinkers, a great deal more am - “It is increasingly clear that the Stalinists are not merely the American Communist Party poster from 1947 biguity was present. The NC majority resolution on France agents of the bureaucratic ruling class of Russia. That con - presented the CP leadership as an agent of the ruling class of ception is proving to be too narrow. The Stalinist bureaucracy the USSR, despite Shachtman’s earlier article suggesting that conditions facilitate not only such overthrow but also phys - in the capitalist countries has ambitions of its own. It dreams 2 CP leaderships would seek Stalinist power in their own right, of one day taking power, and establishing itself as rule of ical control by the Kremlin.” independently of the USSR. substantially the same bureaucratic despotism that its Russ - In January 1946 the Workers Party National Committee Joe Carter analysed the contradictions and ambiguities of 1 ian colleagues enjoy.” [emphasis in original] voted to take up the call in France for a joint government of the majority position in May 1946: In one of his very last articles before being assassinated in the Socialist Party, the Communist Party, and the CGT (the “Does the NC majority hold that the formation of a coali - August 1940, Trotsky had written: major French trade-union confederation, by then dominated tion government of a counter revolutionary anti-working class “The predominating type among the present ‘Communist’ by the CP). France was then ruled by a three-way coalition of party (the CP) with a reformist workers party (the SP) would bureaucrats is the political careerist, and in consequence the the CP and SP with the openly bourgeois MRP, with the con - be, what it calls, ‘the first step’ towards the ‘class independ - 8 polar opposite of the revolutionist. Their ideal is to attain in servative Charles De Gaulle as president and arbiter (until 20 ence of the French proletariat’?” [emphasis in original] their own country the same position that the Kremlin oli - January 1946); but the CP and the SP alone had won a major - In his critique Carter recalled previously being alone in ar - garchy gained in the USSR. They are not the revolutionary ity (282 out of 522 seats) in the Constituent Assembly elec - guing on the WP Political Committee that the goal of CPs leaders of the proletariat but aspirants to totalitarian rule. tions of October 1945. outside of Russia was to establish state power in a form sim - They dream of gaining success with the aid of this same So - Now, if Shachtman claimed that the CP was intent, even ilar to that in the Soviet Union. The leadership’s rejection of viet bureaucracy and its GPU...” in France, on establishing “bureaucratic despotism”, then this was consistent with the January resolution, wrote Carter, However, Trotsky also saw the Communist Parties as even how could the Trotskyists call for them to be placed in gov - but was not consistent with Shachtman’s new assessment, 9 more fragile and likely to be swept aside by events than the ernment? which Shachtman repeated in an article of May 1947. USSR bureaucracy, which he thought almost certain to be SLOGANS In Shachtman’s book The Fight for Socialism , published ousted in the course of World War Two by foreign conquest, April 1946, the Communist Parties were described as the The Workers Party National Committee resolution ac - 10 capitalist restoration, or a new workers’ revolution. The dom - “most reactionary” force in the labour movement. After the cepted Shachtman’s analysis that the CP was not like the inant image among Trotskyists of the Communist Parties was Second World War the Workers Party decided to make a gen - SP, and also argued that the CP was not a workers’ party as ineffective and capitulatory groups which unfortunately eral rule of backing reformists in the labour movement but simply a party based largely on the working class. retained a large working-class base but would not fight cap - against CP opponents, and criticised the “orthodox Trotsky - italism. The Transitional Programme adopted by the Trotsky - Nevertheless, they argued that the CP would be unable to ists”, the SWP, for not doing the same. ist movement in 1938 spoke of “the definite passing over of take power if it were in a government also with the SP and When, in December 1940, Max Shachtman first came to the Comintern [the international association of Communist CGT, and as such there was no risk of it using government argue that the Soviet Union was no longer a “degenerated Parties] to the side of bourgeois order, its cynically counter- power against the working class. In the words of the resolu - workers’ state”, he had accepted that it was economically still revolutionary role throughout the world”, and declared that tion: progressive compared to capitalism. How could agents of a “the Comintern has set out to follow the path of Social “The slogan is not the same, adapted to French conditions, system more progressive than capitalism be the “most reac - Democracy...” as that put forward by the Bolsheviks in Russia in 1917 in ad - tionary” forces in a labour movement which contained pro- In the end most Communist Parties would indeed mutate vocating a coalition government of the Menshevik and So - capitalist forces? into variant social-democratic parties and then collapse. But cial Revolutionary parties... In France today, there is The estimation of the global class struggle was another fac - between times, in Yugoslavia (1945), North Korea (1948), involved, as far as the Stalinist party is concerned, not a dem - tor in these disputes. One reason the NC majority claimed in China (1949), North Vietnam (1954), etc., Communist Parties ocratic but a totalitarian party operating as an instrument of January 1946 that the CP functioned only as an agent of the did “attain in their own country the same position that the the Kremlin and the GPU. Hence we oppose any slogan Stalinist bureaucracy of the USSR in France and would not Kremlin oligarchy gained in the USSR”, and mostly by their which means lifting this counter-revolutionary totalitarian seek power independently was that it believed that, despite own efforts rather than by Russian intervention putting them instrument into the position of state power in any country... the “democratic interlude”, despite the need for a period of in office. where there is the clear threat of its use of the state police re-composition of the labour movement, in basic social and Shachtman had moved on in October 1943, when he had power for the extermination of the independent working economic terms working-class revolution was close at hand. 3 written that where possible the Stalinists tried to oppose both class.” Stalinism could not establish power without the strength of capitalism and socialism and establish their own rule. The The slogan, for the NC majority, was the consequence of the Red Army to directly back it. CP would only prop up capitalism, he argued, as a lesser evil calling for an end to the coalition with outright bourgeois However: “If, contrary to this analysis, the Stalinists should where its own power was not assured. In 1943, however, parties. Any drive for working-class political independence now be on the verge of taking state power in France in their Shachtman also held that in order for a CP to take power in meant a drive to throw the outright bourgeois parties out of its own right it would need not only to be facing a weak pro - government. Without a slogan for the outright bourgeois letariat and bourgeoisie but to exist: “where geographical politicians to be removed from government: “all the other Continued on page 10 10 FEATURE How I was expelled from the SWP (IS)

By Martin Thomas members by then, I had joined it as a member of IS convinced by its arguments. What could “de-merger” mean to us? Ex - I was expelled from the Socialist Workers Party (SWP, pulsion. then called IS) on 4 December 1971. IS then was differ - Some people in IS argued that we should instead duck and ent from, and more open than, the SWP today. But there weave. We should formally dissolve Workers’ Fight, seek are links between then and now. continue as individual IS members, explain that there was IS (SWP) had deliberately promoted itself as democratic now nothing to “de-fuse”, and maybe form a new caucus and open since 1957-8, as a riposte to the bigger and more ac - when the squall had died down. tive, but tightly-controlled, SLL led by Gerry Healy (only tiny We argued that it was not just a squall. The leadership was shreds from which continue today: it collapsed in 1985). saying that there could be no “permanent” or “generalised” IS really was more open. There was debate in its press. In opposition groupings inside IS, only short-term caucuses on December 1968, it accepted a merger with the small Trotsky - limited issues. ist group Workers’ Fight, forerunner of the AWL, which said It was a while before a whole new set of rules was formally explicitly that it had big disagreements with the whole IS tra - established, but we were right. The IS leaders had to have a dition and would continue to argue its case inside the special conference to expel (“de-fuse”) us. Little more than a merger. The IS was more open than the SWP is today, but it always put year later, in April 1973, they were able to expel another op - Yet IS was never as democratic as it seemed to be. Then as organisational calculation before political clarity position grouping by a simple National Committee vote, on now, its leaders reckoned that building the organisation was the grounds that its political ideas were too far from IS ma - more important than sharpness of political ideas. In those right-wingers opposed entry). jority parameters. (The IS leaders also made a lot of the fact days, they explained it as a matter of IS’s job being to link to - IS’s slogan had been “In or out [of the EU], the fight goes that the grouping was a “secret faction”, i.e. not declared as gether the different fragments of rank-and-file trade-union on”. This put it at odds with the flow of the broad trade- such). militancy. union left. The IS leaders didn’t like that. The Easter 1971 con - In 1974, yet another group was expelled for refusing to dis - The multi-coloured eclectic variety of the IS membership ference reaffirmed the old position. In June 1971 Tony Cliff solve as a faction after IS conference; in 1975, two groups, also of the late 1960s looked different from the pretend-unanim - and Chris Harman proposed to the IS National Committee for refusing to dissolve as factions. ity of the SWP today. But its political culture disparaged po - what they said was only a tactical modification: IS should still By now the SWP expels people with no more due process litical clarity, and made socialist theory (on which IS prided argue the old position, but in vote-outs in union branches be - than a letter from the SWP office. If someone on the SWP CC itself: it had many academics and writers) a mandarin affair tween “support entry” and “keep Britain out”, IS should disagrees with your expulsion, they are compelled as a con - largely uncoupled from day-to-day agitation. With that cul - “vote with the left”. dition of employment to pretend to agree with it. ture, the very variety lent itself to the organisation being eas - The National Committee accepted that, with dissent not It was not well along in the 1980s that the current SWP ily manipulated, not so much by a bureaucracy (there wasn’t only from Workers’ Fight but also from such well-known fig - regime finally congealed (the change of name to SWP came much), as by a sort of extended family around the main ures as Jim Higgins and Paul Foot. Without any further for - in 1976-7), but the essential framework had been set by the leader, Tony Cliff. mal change, that NC vote was used as licence to turn Socialist mid-70s. By 1971 IS was probably bigger in terms of real activity Worker to strident campaigning to “keep Britain out” and The Democratic Opposition faction, set up in the SWP be - than it is today. 880 members at Easter 1970, and 2350 at later to “get Britain out”. fore its 4-6 January conference, started to call for the regime Easter 1972: the definition of membership was loose, but all Foot soon stepped into line, and Higgins didn’t fight on to be liquefied again. Since 4-6 January all factions in the SWP those members would have been active adherents of IS on the issue. Workers’ Fight did. It campaigned for a special con - are formally dissolved, but there is a visible and broad op - one level or another, unlike the 7000 “members” the SWP ference to call the NC to order for illegitimately overturning position calling for democratic reform. claims today, most of whom don’t pay dues, don’t sell or the Easter conference decision. The campaign won the consti - Issues are bubbling up such as the removal of the rule of even read Socialist Worker , and quite often don’t even know tutionally-required number of branches to requisition a con - pretend-unanimity for CC members and full-timers; full and they are reckoned to be members. ference. The IS leadership disputed one branch vote, and timely information for members on SWP affairs and debates; The organisation was beginning to recruit some trade- then short-circuited the argument by calling a special confer - a mode of election for the CC which allows for piecemeal union activists, on the basis of the pitch about linking frag - ence — but one to expel Workers’ Fight. Or rather to “de- change, rather than forcing SWP conference into a yes-or-no ments of rank-and-file trade union militancy. fuse”, to reverse the merger of 1968. vote on a complete, unamendable slate from the outgoing It ran up against political problems. The Tory government The merger hadn’t worked, they said. The stroppy pres - CC; a broader leadership committee which has real ability to was taking Britain into the European Union, then called ence of Workers’ Fight made discussion difficult. Get rid of call to account the necessarily small-sized day-to-day steer - Common Market. The Communist Party, then a big force, de - Workers’ Fight, and IS could return to its old, easy-going, ing group; having public debate as customary alongside dis - ciplined unity in action. ployed nationalist arguments to “keep Britain out”. The civilised democracy. They are all important. But behind them lies the vital Labour left and most union leaders had a similar stance. I was by then a member of the Workers’ Fight grouping in debate: on what a revolutionary socialist organisation is Many Labour right-wingers backed EU entry (and some Tory IS, called the Trotskyist Tendency. Like the majority of TT really for, and the centrality of political clarity.

to be necessary, suggesting that if the Stalinist parties proved Notes capable of taking power it would prove that history had 1 Editorial ‘Notes of the Month’ in New International 11:5, August 14 What were the “been deflected from its natural course”. Garrett also 1945, p.136 claimed that Stalinism was not simply a product of the Russ - 2. Shachtman, M. ‘The program of Stalinist Imperialism’ in Fate of the Russian Revolution ian counter-revolution, but was a product of capitalism. A ed. Matgamna, S. (London: Phoenix Press, 1998) p. 336 Communist Parties? stratum of labour bureaucrats, intellectuals, and profession - 3.Ibid, p. 3 als attached themselves to the Communist Parties as they 4.Ibid, p.2 saw the possibility of office under a planned but anti-demo - 5. Garrett, E. ‘Class Nature of the Stalinist Parties’ in New Interna - cratic economy. Garrett and Carter designated the CPs as tional 12:4, April 1946 Continued from page 9 parties with a base in the working class, but not working- 6. Johnson Minority: ‘Statement by the Johnson Minority on the Ori - 15 class parties. gin, Character and Perspectives of the Johnson Faction’ in Workers In 1941 Shachtman and his co-thinkers had largely ac - Party Bulletin, 24 May 1946, p. 26-33 own name... the Fourth International would have to... revise 7. James, CLR: ‘The Lesson of Germany’, in New International 11:4, fundamentally not only its whole European and international cepted Trotsky’s theory that the Soviet bureaucracy was a 11 transitory phenomenon soon to be buried by the coming pro - May 1945 perspective, but also the whole character of our epoch.” 8. Carter , J. ‘For unconditional opposition to Stalinism! Against the Maintaining that revolution was a likely medium term letarian revolution. They saw the CPs as agents of that bu - slogan of an “SP-CP-CGT Government”!’ in Workers Party Bulletin, prospect was connected, for the majority of the WP, with an reaucracy, but not ones that could on their own take power. 15 May 1946, p.5 analysis of Stalinism as a transitory and isolated phenome - Bureaucratic collectivism was for them the result of a freak 9. Shachtman, M. ‘Stalinism and the Marxist Tradition’ The Bureau - non, the product of the peculiar nature of the counter-revo - peculiarity of Russian class struggle, not a natural offshoot cratic Revolution ed. Shachtman (New York: The Donald Press, 1962), lution in the USSR. Trotsky had suggested in 1939 that of capitalism. By late 1947 that analysis of the CPs was slip - originally written 1947 admitting another class society than socialism was possible ping. 10. Shachtman, M. The Fight for Socialism, written April 1946, avail - after capitalism would mean seeing that society as the wave Bureaucratic collectivist trends existed in capitalist soci - able at www.marxists.org/archive/shachtma/1946/ffs/index.htm 12 of the future. The WP majority avoided that conclusion by eties, independent of intervention by the USSR. It was im - 11. Workers Party National Committee: ‘Statement on the Slogan of “Socialist Party-Communist Party-CGT Government in France”‘, in casting bureaucratic collectivism as transitory and acciden - possible to maintain that bureaucratic collectivism was Workers Party Bulletin, 22 March 1946 p.3-4 tal. Carter responded to the NC: merely a unique and momentary aberration in Russia. By adding piecemeal to his analysis of Stalinism 12 Trotsky, L. The USSR in War written September 1939 available at “Because we may have to revaluate our program if and Shachtman slowly changed his underlying theories and www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1939/09/ussr-war.htm when we are confronted by the ‘reality’ of a completely Stal - dropped more and more of Trotsky’s 1936 Revolution Be - 13. Carter , op.cit. p.6-7 inised Europe does not contradict the view that such a Eu - 14. Garrett, E. ‘Class Nature of the Stalinist Parties’ in New Interna - 13 trayed analysis. rope is a real possibility.” tional 12:4, April 1946, p.127-8 Garrett had already argued such a revaluation might prove 15. Ibid, and Carter, op. cit. 11 REPORTS Teachers’ pay: “fight later” won’t do “Union should be led

By Patrick Murphy, quibbles and caveats might will mainly support their from workplace” NUT Executive (pc) be thrown at this evidence union’s call but they will it demonstrates a much see that we are not serious. sticks to that. They’re out greater sense of urgency The Tory government They will be even more to slash jobs by building and determination than can plans to abolish national sceptical having gone “super boxes” that amal - be seen from either of the pay scales for teachers. through the experience of gamate signalling boxes union leaderships. the pensions campaign across entire regions into The first thing the unions Our members have al - (two isolated days of action a central box. Thousands need to do is to get a ready voted overwhelm - which left the appalling of jobs are at risk, and I proper grip on the gravity ingly for strikes to defend proposals intact). of the attack. So far they Peter Pinkney was honestly don’t know how pay as part of our ballot Of course we would be in haven’t done this. The na - elected national presi - we can respond to that. last summer. a stronger position if the dent of the Rail, Mar - tional officers’ report on The scheme is already un - At the December Execu - two largest teachers’ itime, and Transport pay in December talked of derway. tive some of us had re - unions acted together. It is workers union (RMT) in militancy being dampened We have a signallers’ ceived huge numbers of now clear, however, that December 2012. Workers’ by Heads promising to con - motions or statements from conference in February NASUWT currently have Liberty members in RMT tinue as before. It described school groups calling for which will discuss the ments as to whether mem - no intention of striking to supported his election the fight to defend national bers are ready it’s actually decisive and urgent action issue, and I’ll be taking defend national pay. Our bid. Peter spoke to Soli - pay as a long-term battle more important to ensure on pay. my lead from there. choice is whether to em - darity in a personal ca - and, tellingly, one of the that they are. I don’t believe the Exec - bark on a plan of action by pacity. strategies listed was to de - And what evidence we NECESSARY utive and the national of - NUT members, while velop new action guide - have suggests strongly Does this “prove” that I stood on a platform of ficers should be having working to involve the NA - lines to persuade schools that, given leadership, enough members are wanting to minimise the the final say about indus - not to ration pay. There is NUT members are pre - ready for the sort of ac - SUWT and other unions at distance between the trial strategy and dis - every sign that, apart from pared to take action to de - tion necessary to win? every stage, or to admit de - leadership of the union putes. I think the feat. We know that the de - rank-and-file voice should a possible token strike this fend national pay. No, but it does suggest and the members at a cision by NASUWT and be listened to. term, the National Union of Immediately after Gove that given a serious lead workplace and branch other unions to strike on 30 Teachers (NUT) Executive announced his proposals and direction from the level. STAFFING is planning for a strategy of November 2011 was taken and before any campaign - Union we can mobilise the So my priority will be I do believe we’re in a closing lots of individual because the NUT gave a ing work could be done the vast bulk of members for a getting out to workplaces position to go on the of - stable doors after the horse lead by striking on 30 June. NUT carried out a selective serious plan of action. The most effective, in - and talking to people. I fensive about staffing has well and truly bolted. survey of members. Not And that is the other cru - deed the only, way to want to base the initia - levels on stations. Time is not on our side. surprisingly there was cial part of the equation. If make NASUWT to rethink tives I take as President Management will be We do not have the luxury overwhelming opposition the most that we can do is their position is for the on what members at a trying to push through of a long-term battle before to the proposals but the re - announce a one-day strike NUT to call action and rank-and-file level want. driver-only trains on the which we carefully choose sponse to questions on ac - sometime late in this term make it a success in as There’s a fear of redun - the best time to fight. The mainline, and driverless tion was very encouraging. with no clear plan for any many schools as possi - dancy. My own job is consultation on these pro - trains on London Under - 84% indicated that they be - further action declared in ble. under threat; I may not posals is over and Gove lieved members would take advance then very many have a signal box to go ground, so we need an of - now intends to legislate so action alongside NASUWT, members will conclude that back to work in when my fensive campaign that that the new system is in but an impressive 79% said they are being asked not to • Abridged from the bul - term of office ends in makes the positive case place from 1 September they would support such defeat these proposals but letin of the Local Associa - three years’ time. not only to defend the sta - 2013. While it’s important, action if it was only the to express some token tions Network — There’s also a great deal tus quo but increase of course, to make judge - NUT involved. Whatever anger at them. Members www.nutlan.org.uk of concern about the con - staffing levels. sequences of reductions in The union’s political staffing levels. Guards are strategy needs to be DWP jobs worried about the possi - widened beyond the cur - Action for jobs and safety on the Tube ble introduction of driver- rent support for TUSC, saved? only trains, and station which I believe is too ex - By Ollie Moore (RMT and ASLEF, the staff and train despatchers clusive and doesn’t in - drivers’ union) refused to By Darren Bedford are very worried about clude a wide enough Tube workers employed take trains into sidings the implications of cross-section of the left. by the Trainpeople and depots until they had A strike by workers in staffing levels for passen - Ultimately what we need agency demonstrated personally checked that all the Department for ger safety. The incident at is a British version of outside Transport for passengers were clear. Work and Pensions Liverpool James Street, Syriza, which can unite London headquarters on The move is a protest against job losses, where a woman was the political left and radi - Tuesday 15 January, de - against cuts to station scheduled for 21 Janu - killed boarding a train cal social movements. manding jobs and jus - staffing levels. An RMT ary, is unlikely to go and the guard has been Such an initiative would tice. statement explained that, ahead. given five years in prison, hopefully take a section of The workers, some of before staffing cuts, “all The ballot, in response has worried a lot of peo - Labour MPs with it, as whom have worked on carriages would be to the announcement of ple. If staffing levels keep well as winning support the Bakerloo Line for five checked by station staff 43 compulsory redundan - being reduced, there’ll from unions. staff were already fully years, found themselves before moving into sidings cies, returned a vote in only be one person re - We need to train reps trained for and had al - facing the dole queue at Queens Park, Stone - favour strikes, but it now sponsible for despatching and activists to build ready been working in. when 19 new directly-em - bridge Park and Harrow looks as though manage - the trains and that sort of grassroots strength. When They set up a soup ployed staff were taken on & Wealdstone depots, but ment might back down accident will increase. we recruit, that has to be kitchen outside TfL’s to fill roles that the agency the new procedure only from that. PCS union It’s not just about de - on the basis of engaging headquarters on Broad - requires a driver to make leaders say talks with fending jobs now, it’s workers with the issues More industrial news way, St. James’s Park, to an announcement, flash management have been about defending staffing they’re most concerned online highlight the poverty they the car lights on and off, “very positive”. levels so workers in the about in the workplace face being thrown into if shut the doors and go. As we go to presss, the future will have jobs to go and making the union an Honda job cuts, bosses push ahead with “The result has been exact detail of the talks is into. accessible for them to construction workers’ the sackings. RMT is now an alarming increase in unknown. Members Where I work, on Net - fight around those issues. safety strike, rail moving to a strike ballot over-carrying on the The union should be should decide on the fu - work Rail, the RMT has signallers’ strike, of Trainpeople members. Bakerloo in the last year led from the workplace ture of the dispute. already negotiated the blacklisting fight, & more: Drivers on the Bakerloo — some 3,362 incidents If the jobs have in - PT&R deal (Promotions, level up. Line also took action on 15 compared with just 94 deed been saved, that is Transfers, and Redundan - bit.ly/W4XtAa January, as members of on all other lines put to - a significant victory. cies). There’s a fight to gether.” • Abridged from both main Tube unions make sure Network Rail http://bit.ly/V6F1w7 So& Wloirkdersa’ Lirbeirtty y

Save Lewisham hospital, Their Europe save the NHS! and ours A WORKERS’ LIBERTY DAYSCHOOL By Jill Mountford angry opposition from tens attacks on the NHS when other being education, that of thousands of people in you are Tory Secretary of can mobilise people to de - Saturday 16 February, 11.30-6pm, Matthew Kershaw, the Lewisham and the fury State for Health and fend it. All over the country Special Administrator many clinicians and hospi - charged with the job of “Save our Hospital” cam - ULU, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HY brought in to reorganise tal workers; despite Jeremy abolishing the NHS. paigns are springing up. We NHS services after South Hunt saying “[hospital] re - In 2005 Hunt and Gove, urgently need to find ways 14 November saw Europe’s first-ever cross-borders London Healthcare Trust organisations are not al - among others co-authored of co-ordinating these local general strike, with strikes in Spain, Portugal, Italy, went bust, has made his ways the panacea they are Direct Democracy in which campaigns in a nationwide and Greece. final recommendations. made out to be” while they state “Our ambition movement. Elsewhere in Europe we face a situation of high claiming that saving his should be to break down There are no surprises. working-class anger but low working-class local hospital from closure the barriers between private He recommends SLHT be CAMPAIGN confidence and sluggish and bureaucratised labour as his proudest political and public provision, in ef - dissolved, with services The Save Lewisham Hos - movements. Are there lessons from Greece achievement, it’s hard to see fect denationalising the pro - being taken over by other pital campaign is an ener - applicable in countries like Britain? how Hunt will not imple - vision of healthcare in Trusts, and that Lewisham getic and vigorous Join us, and speakers from across Europe, to ment Kershaw’s recommen - Britain”. Hospital’s A & E and mater - community campaign discuss how we can develop European working- dations. The proposals for south nity units be axed. with collective experi - class unity and a Europe-wide fightback, and what London hospitals are as ir - He offers no answers on ence, determination and Marxist ideas can contribute to that fight. TESTING rational for taking care of how 125,000 annual patient resolve to carry on fight - Discussions will include: Many people, including the sick and vulnerable as visits to Lewisham A&E ing no matter how long it health experts, see Ker - capitalism itself. They re - n What is a revolutionary situation? Is there will be accommodated or takes (and it may take shaw’s proposals for flect the ideology of a gov - how the 4,365 births in years). now one in Greece? SLHT and Lewisham Hos - ernment who want to break Lewisham maternity unit pital as being a testing up the NHS, sell it off, or Health workers within n Who are Syriza? will be adequately sup - ground for the govern - give it away to private prof - the hospital campus need to n How Leon Trotsky’s ideas can help us ported. Three quarters of ment for changes in iteers. Reducing the NHS to take confidence from the million people will be left understand the crisis healthcare across Eng - little more than a logo, the campaign. with one A & E. Kershaw’s n Should we want the EU to break up? land. service is being parceled up Hampered by a local Uni - cuts will cost lives. and privatised to move to - son bureaucracy concerned n Facing and beating the threat from The report estimates 140 It’s one thing fighting to wards a US-style healthcare with little more than de - Golden Dawn jobs will be cut but others save your local hospital as system. fending its own position, estimate this figure to be an opposition Tory MP n Solidarity without borders: migrants’ The NHS is perhaps one union membership in the much greater. under a Labour govern - of the last two strands of the hospital is low. Workers on struggles Kershaw’s accountants ment; it’s quite another to backdown over ideological post-war welfare state, the the hospital campus need to n Women across Europe fight back estimate the changes will get organised to control cost a staggering £1.093 bil - over their union, pursuing a lion to implement. It will vigorous membership drive Free creche and accommodation. Book online cost £195 million over a recruiting porters, cleaners, at workersliberty.org/europeanrevolution two-three year period (up nurses and admin staff and to 2015-16) to close down running an open and demo - services at Lewisham. And cratic campaign to defend Kershaw’s report has just the hospital. cost taxpayers £5 million to Discussing with and edu - produce, most of which cating members on ways to went to line the already One law for the rich... fight the cuts and closures well-lined pockets of man - must be a priority. Prepar - The Government has cut future pensions for public agement consultants. ing for a work-in to keep sector workers by saying that entitlements will be up - Less than two years ago services going, arguing for graded for inflation only by the consumer price index £12 million was spent the A and convincing other work - (CPI) instead of the retail price index (RPI). The appar - & E at Lewisham. Kershaw ently fiddly adjustment will lose some pensioners also recommends that £207 ers of the need for solidarity 20% or more of the value of their pensions. million of debt accumulated action, building up rank since SLHT was established MARCH TO SAVE and file support to defend The same indexing problem applies to £294 billion in 2009 should be written the NHS are all necessary if worth of index-linked government bonds. A regular gov - off. The DoH will fork out LEWISHAM HOSPITAL! we want to win this fight. ernment bond of £1000 running for, say, ten years, entitles an extra £25 million a year If Hunt does back Ker - you to £1000 in ten years’ time plus twice-yearly interest shaw’s recommendations to help continue to pay for payments. An index-linked bond pays back £1000 plus With only days to go before Hunt makes his then we have to match his PFI deals. Naturally, ten years’ inflation. But inflation calculated how? commitment to wreck the nowhere does Kershaw rec - decision on the fate south London Hospitals A recent announcement by the Office for National Sta - NHS with our need and de - ommend PFI debts be can - we will be marching to save Lewisham tistics means that the bond pay-outs, unlike the pensions, sire to maintain, build on celled. Jeremy Hunt will continue to be upgraded by RPI. A change had been Hospital. and improve it. (Secretary of State for Saturday 26 January – midday. Assemble on Any victory along the expected to upgrading by RPIJ, another index, closer to Health) will make the final way would rebuild confi - CPI than RPI, and that would have saved the Government decision on the proposals the grassy knoll opposite Lewisham DLR dence in the labour move - £3 billion a year. on 1 February (though he is station, marching to Mountsfield Park for a ment that has the Taking £3 billion a year from the rich is, however, for not required to make his de - rally, music, hot food and a 100-foot petition. potential to go beyond the Government, a completely different matter from cision public). defending the NHS. taking billions from the worse-off. Despite a groundswell of