So& Wloirkdersa’ Lirbeirtty y No 245 9 May 30p/80p www.workersliberty.org For a workers’ government

Quebec: Tories sag in Callum Macrae student strike the polls on Sri Lanka page 2 page 3 page 8 Make 10 May a new start, not a swansong RELAUNCH

Demonstration, 30 November 2011, when many unions struck against attacks on THE pensions PENSIONS See FIGHT! page 5 QUICK, TARGETED STRIKES CAN WIN NEWS What is the Alliance Quebec: three months of student strike for Workers’ Liberty? By Hugo Pouliot Francis Grenier, nearly lost contribution” to save the of free education from Today one class, the working class, lives by selling the use of his eye. Students education system and re - nursery to university. its labour power to another, the capitalist class, On 13 February 2012 an and supporters were en - balance public finances! This demand is defended which owns the means of production. Society indefinite student general raged and the movement This is revolting, coming vigorously by ASSE (Asso - is shaped by the capitalists’ relentless drive to strike in Quebec against was galvanised. from a government which ciation pour une solidarité increase their wealth. Capitalism causes an increase in tuition fees On Sunday 18 March I at - has had many scandals and syndicale étudiante), a poverty, unemployment, the blighting of lives by began. This now involves tended a family demonstra - does not hesitate to lavish combative student union overwork, imperialism, the destruction of the nearly 200,000 students tion with 30,000 people in gifts upon big businesses, which is in large part the environment and much else. from universities and Montreal. Thousands of while imposing austerity instigator of the current Against the accumulated wealth and power of the CEGEP (“collège others marched in Quebec measures on the working strike movement. In order capitalists, the working class has one weapon: solidarity. d’études générales et and Sherbrooke. class! to unify the the student The Alliance for Workers’ Liberty aims to build solidarity professionnelles”, an in - On 22 March more than In Quebec the struggle movement ASSE has set up through struggle so that the working class can overthrow termediary level of edu - 200,000 participated in a for access to education has CLASSE (Coalition large de capitalism. We want socialist revolution: collective ownership cation between national demonstration in always been an integral l’Association pour une soli - of industry and services, workers’ control and a democracy secondary school and Montreal — one of the part of the struggle against darité syndicale étudiante – much fuller than the present system, with elected university). biggest political demon - national oppression — e.g. broad coalition of ASSE.) strations in the history of during the “Peaceful Revo - Free education at all lev - representatives recallable at any time and an end to A fee rise of $1,625 over Quebec and even of lution” of the 1960s which els is a fundamental de - bureaucrats’ and managers’ privileges. five years is planned — a Canada! saw the modernisation of mand for every socialist We fight for the labour movement to break with “social phenomenal increase on Quebecois society. The and democrat. Under so - partnership” and assert working-class interests militantly the current $2168 per year. SPRING under-education of the cialism, the right to accessi - against the bosses. The stated intention is to 14 April saw the “Quebec French-Canadian people al - ble and free education will Our priority is to work in the workplaces and trade unions, raise fees to the Canadian Spring” demonstration. lowed Anglo-Saxon capital - be guaranteed to allow supporting workers’ struggles, producing workplace bulletins, average of $4,000 per year. ists to create an everyone to learn in a man - Quebec currently has the There were then a succes - helping organise rank-and-file groups. easily-exploited reserve of ner convenient to them and lowest tuition fees in North sion of demonstrations and We are also active among students and in many campaigns cheap labour. to constantly perfect their America. diverse actions: blockades and alliances. To conserve social peace knowledge and skills. The fee hike was part of of bridges, roads, occupa - The struggle of the the Quebecois political the Liberal government’s tions of ministries, and so Quebecois students is an We stand for: class, from the the national - 2010 budget which in - on. integral part of the strug - G Independent working-class representation in politics. ist Parti Québécois to the cluded measures aimed at On 26 April a demonstra - gle for social justice and G A workers’ government, based on and accountable to the federalist Parti Libéral, destroying, step-by-step tion which I was part of for the creation of an al - labour movement. kept university tuition fees the social conquests of the was declared “illegal” by ternative to the cuts G A workers’ charter of trade union rights — to organise, to frozen between 1994 and Quebecois working class, Montreal police. Neverthe - agenda and austerity strike, to picket effectively, and to take solidarity action. 2007 and before that, from such as increases in charges less thousands continued budget imposed by the the 1960s until 1990. With G Taxation of the rich to fund decent public services, homes, for electricity, and a health their march, braving the or - bosses and their political economic crisis, the liberal education and jobs for all. tax of $200 per person, irre - ders of the police and win - parties. government has decided to G A workers’ movement that fights all forms of oppression. spective of their income. ning an important symbolic go onto the offensive. Full equality for women and social provision to free women The student movement victory. The two principal left - • Demonstrate outside the from the burden of housework. Free abortion on request. Full has developed rapidly with The government turns a wing parties in Quebec, Canadian High Commis - equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. demonstrations growing in deaf ear to student de - Québec Solidaire and the sion to denounce police at - Black and white workers’ unity against racism. size, some of which ended mands and projects dema - new independence party tacks on Quebecois G Open borders. in confrontation with the gogic, profoundly Option Nationale, gave students! 5.30-7pm 16 May, Global solidarity against global capital — workers police. dishonest propaganda G their support to the student Canada House, Trafalgar everywhere have more in common with each other than with On 7 March one student, about students who do not struggle and are in favour Square, London. their capitalist or Stalinist rulers. want to make their “fair G Democracy at every level of society, from the smallest workplace or community to global social organisation. G Working-class solidarity in international politics: equal rights for all nations, against imperialists and predators big Syria “Peace Plan” — a and small. G Maximum left unity in action, and openness in debate. G If you agree with us, please take some copies of Solidarity cover for murder and torture to sell — and join us! 020 7394 8923 [email protected] 20e Tower Workshops, Riley Road, By Dan Katz main achievement is to lost half of its value, falling have taken Syria out of to 100 to the US dollar London, SE1 3DG. On 3 May a spokesper - western news programmes. (compared with 48 when son for Kofi Annan, bro - The main beneficiary of the the uprising began). The ker of the 12 April Syria ceasefire has been Bashar Central Bank’s reserves peace plan, claimed, Assad and his one party have fallen from $22 billion GET SOLIDARITY “The Annan plan is on state. at the beginning of the cri - EDL thugs track… [although] there On Monday 7 May Assad sis to about $10 billion are no big signs of com - staged a fake election with today. attack EVERY WEEK! pliance on the ground.” the aim of persuading the The price of rice and eggs gullible that he intends real has tripled over the past Annan’s six-point plan socialists, Special offers reform. The election was year and cooking oil has includes a ceasefire, de - boycotted by the main op - doubled. Blackouts hit Trial sub, 6 issues £5 ployment of observers and beat up G  position groups, and the even middle class neigh - free access for journalists BBC quoted a student in bourhoods not involved in G 22 issues (six months). £18 waged  £9 unwaged  and humanitarian aid. The pensioner Damascus as saying “the the struggle for up to 12 number of UN observer polling stations are empty.” hours a day. On 28 April, English G 44 issues (year). £35 waged  £17 unwaged  personnel has risen to 70, The regime is hemmed in Defence League thugs with 300 expected by the G European rate: 28 euros (22 issues) or 50 euros (44 issues) INCONCEIVABLE by sanctions. The EU’s de - attacked a socialist stall in   end of May. Although the opposition cision to stop importing Lewisham, south east But at the same time that — in particular the armed Syrian crude oil has so far London. Tick as appropriate above and send your money to: Annan’s assistant was opposition — has taken a cost the state $3 billion in The gang smashed up speaking to the press, secu - 20e Tower Workshops, Riley Road, London, SE1 3DG battering in the last two revenue. the Socialist Workers Party rity forces and pro-govern - Muhanad, from the Cheques (£) to “AWL”. months it is now incon - stall, and assaulted the ment thugs were attacking Sunni capitalist class in ceivable that simple, bru - SWP members around it, Or make £ and euro payments at workersliberty.org/sub. anti-regime protesters at Aleppo, put the matter tal repression will work headbutting 69 year old Aleppo university, killing quite clearly: “The busi - for Assad. Andrew Smith and severely four and detaining 200. ness class supported injuring him. Name ...... On 4 May at least ten The Free Syrian Army President Assad for Smith has a possible more civilians were killed has large organisations in maintaining the country’s fractured sinus and torn across Syria. State terror many Syrian towns and, economic, political and Address ...... retina. continues in Idlib province, for example, was capable of social stability. But if Lewisham NUT has in north west Syria, where killing 20 soldiers in a se - these are gone, why ...... called a protest against the the opposition Free Syrian ries of attacks on 2 May. should we support a EDL, against racism and Army has been routed and Meanwhile, the economy president who wants against cuts: ...... loyal troops are rounding continues to deteriorate, taxes but offers nothing 11.30am, 12 May, up “oppositionists” in shrinking by 3.4% in 2011, in return, not even pro - Lewisham Clock Tower, I enclose £ ...... towns and country villages. and forecast to contract by tecting the national cur - Lewisham High Street In fact Kofi Annan’s a further 5.9% in 2012. rency?” The Syrian pound has 2 SOLIDARITY NEWS Scottish Tory support begins to crumble gains for Labour gained 823 coun - brunt of the coalition’s dif - in its opposition role. 38% for mayor of Liverpool. cil seats in the 3 May ficulties. of a 32% turnout is only Peter Smith of the Demo - 2012 local elections. The Recently it is as if some - 12% of the electorate. cratic Labour Party, a long- Tories lost 405, and the SNP and thing has snapped, or at The “more work” which standing Walsall group led Lib Dems 336. least frayed. Relatively Labour and trade union ac - by former leaders of the UKIP and Greens scored minor things, like the tivists need to see from local Labour Party, won Labour fairly well, but made no “pasty tax”, and potentially Miliband is some substance back the council seat he breakthrough: the Greens huge issues, like the Mur - to his talk against “preda - held from 2007-2011. gained 11 new seats, UKIP doch connection, have un - tors”, an audible campaign TUSC did poorly in its By Dale Street gained no new seats. The dermined the Tories. against the social cuts and main campaign, for the list BNP lost all the seats it con - Labour leader Ed marketisation of the NHS, section of the London As - Labour and the SNP were tested. Miliband, however, was an opening-up of Labour sembly election — getting the winners in last week’s Up to and including being no more than pru - democracy — and a firm 0.8%, with no other left-of- Scottish council elec - George Osborne’s 21 March dent when he responded to rebuff to the diehard Labour lists taking votes tions. Lib-Dems and To - 2012 budget, the Tories had the 3 May results by say - Blairites who have become from its pool of potential ries were the losers. ing: “We have more work increasingly assertive in retained their base much support. Labour won an extra 58 better than a party in their to do”. Labour’s top ranks. TUSC is the electoral The turnout on 3 May The councils newly seats, giving it a total of 394 position — ramming Miliband. Much more work to front set up as a sequel to was exceptionally low even brought under Labour con - in Scotland as a whole. The through unpopular cuts do! the 2009 No2EU operation SNP won an extra 57 seats, while failing to get eco - for local government polls, trol on 3 May are all set to by the Socialist Party and reflecting widespread disil - execute the Tory-imposed giving it a total of 424. The nomic revival — might ex - munities against those cuts. some leaders of the RMT Lib-Dems lost over half pect. lusion. Labour’s share of cuts: socialists and trade Although Labour beat rail union. It was used as a the vote was 38%, not good union activists will de - their seats, slumping to 71. Still, they had remained the Tories by 41% to 32% in label by SWP candidates for a party which faces an mand that they instead op - The Tories lost 16 seats, only marginally behind the list section of the Lon - other than Lavalette. unpopular government pose, defy, and mobilise leaving them with 115. Labour in the polls. The Lib don Assembly elections, 0.8% is poor even com - and has little competition local working-class com - Labour failed to make in - Dems took the electoral Labour candidate Ken Liv - pared with the 0.9% got in roads into the SNP vote — ingstone lost the mayoral 2008 by the SWP’s Left List most of their gains were election to the Tories' Boris campaign, universally ad - from the Lib-Dems — and The view from TUSC Johnson. mitted to have done poorly. the SNP did win some seats Since 2008 he had run a And in 2008 the Left List from Labour. sort of mini-popular front had to compete with Re - Pete McLaren, independ - formance in local elections of TUSC votes to Labour. SNP results were no re - campaign, Progressive spect, which got 2.4%. ent socialist representa - for a long time for a far Last year it was 1:10, this peat of last year’s Holy - London, designed to secure In 2000 the London So - rood elections, and they tive on the TUSC left/ socialist year 1:9. A modest im - him support beyond cialist Alliance, on its first came nowhere near win - National Steering Com - party/coalition. provement, but much Labour ranks for the may - outing, won an average ning control of Glasgow mittee and 2012 candidate TUSC gained two coun - more marked in areas oralty in 2012. 2.9% in the constituency City Council. in Rugby, says TUSC has cilors — Michael Lavalette TUSC had developed a The effort failed spectac - polls and 1.6% in the list The “Glasgow First” can - made modest gains. in Preston and Pete Smith local campaigning branch. ularly. Johnson evidently section — despite being didates — a breakaway in Walsall. Sadly Dave In my own town of TUSC’s election results outdid Livingstone in the jostled by the Campaign from Labour after the de- Nellist lost his Coventry St Rugby, for example, the were a modest improve - "colourful maverick" act. Against Tube Privatisation selection of a number of Michael’s seat by just 204 ratio was 1:3 — one TUSC ment on last year. (More on Livingstone, page (run by RMT activists) with councillors — won one seat votes, nearly wiping out a vote for every three 4). 1.0%, a list led by Peter but otherwise failed to Standing mostly as Labour majority of 1,200 Labour votes. In fact, Apart from the Greens’ Tatchell with 1.4%, and the make an impact. Trade Unionists and So - two years ago. St Rugby TUSC doubled its modest gains, other leftish Socialist Labour Party with cialists Against Cuts, Michael’s is a very tran - votes, averaging 10% over anti-Tory forces outside 0.8%. PACT TUSC stood a total of 133 sient ward with an annual 8 wards, an increase of In Glasgow a non-ag - Labour made little show - TUSC suffered from the candidates in England and population turnover of up 2.8%. gression pact had been ing. toxic combination of being Wales on 3 May, standing to 30%. The Socialist Party Building campaigning agreed. Five of the twelve candi - politically dull and mini - in 132 wards in 40 coun - had done well to have TUSC branches is the way dates standing for George mal and organisationally cils, proportionally a held on to it for so long. forward, along with mak - The Scottish Socialist Galloway’s Respect group narrow. Politically, its mes - higher number of candi - TUSC averaged 0.8% in ing TUSC accountable and Party (SSP) did a deal with in Bradford won seats on sage was limited to being dates than last year. In ad - the GLA elections, compa - acceptable to the left who the Scottish Anti-Cuts Al - the back of Galloway’s 29 against cuts and identify - dition TUSC stood in the rable to past regional and don’t believe Labour is, or liance (SACA ), consisting March parliamentary by- ing in a general way with Liverpool Mayoral contest national results — the So - can be, a workers' party. of the Socialist Party Scot - election victory in Bradford trade unions. Organisation - and for the GLA. In total cialist Alliance averaged We need to start build - land (SPS), the SWP, and West. ally it was a consortium of these candidates polled 0.98% at its highpoint ing TUSC into a party, Solidarity (the Sheridan-led Michael Lavalette won two small ideological 43,671 votes. when it stood 98 candi - uniting the left in the breakaway from the SSP). back the Preston council groupings, the SP and the In the council elections dates in the 2001 General process, campaigning The eight SSP candidates seat which he held for the CPB-ish (but not actually TUSC averaged 6.2%, up Election. under that name on every averaged a score of just Socialist Alliance and then on last year’s 5.2%. The in - Tony Mulhearn did well issue affecting the work - CPB) strand in the RMT under a hundred first-pref - for Respect from 2003 to crease was even greater in in Liverpool, coming fifth ing class to build its pro - aroTuhnedTBUoSbCCcroawnd. idates erence votes. The nine 2011. He stood as an “inde - the 74 wards where there out of 12 with 4.86%, beat - file and develop deeper had all the disadvantages SACA candidates scored an pendent”, apparently be - had also been a TUSC can - ing the Tories, UKIP and roots within communi - of being “propaganda average of 60. cause he decided to stand For Solidarity, Gail Sheri - didate in 2011 — an aver - the BNP, and finishing less tiesS. tanding in elections candidates”, and almost age of 6.8% compared to than 4% off 2nd place. too late to complete the for - none of the advantages dan picked up 472 votes — is just part of that malities to stand as TUSC. the name still counts for 5.4%. The overall average Another measure for process. — clear cut and compre - of 6.2% is the best per - our supporters is the ratio Tony Mulhearn got a re - hensive political answers. something — but their spectable 4.86% in the poll other two candidates got under a hundred. SSP and SACA candidates standing A socialist programme for housing elsewhere than in Glasgow did no better. By Pete Gilman The only exception was many areas this means The Tory-imposed cap on Labour is sadly lacking. 3. A substantial increase sitting SSP councillor Jim rents increasing to £350-400 housing benefit will see We need a socialist hous - in the building of new so - Bollan’s re-election in West The Tory attack on the a week. many driven out of their ing programme which cial housing, with the em - welfare state is ideologi - Dumbartonshire. Iain Duncan Smith's as - homes to find cheaper ac - would include: phasis on council housing. The SSP and SACA both cal, it is not about tack - sertion that Tory policy will commodation elsewhere . 1. Every year for the last 4. A cap to be imposed on ling debt. In housing this argued that their candi - reduce private sector rents The Tories talk about the thirty years rents have risen all private sector rents. dates, if elected, would op - is combined with sheer flies in the face of all reality high cost of housing benefit substantially faster than the 5. The full restoration of greed. pose all cuts. But the SSP is and the experience of pri - but this has been caused by rate of inflation. As a pro - all housing benefits. seen as a “busted flush” vate sector tenants whose the high rent policies of portion of income, rents in 6. Additional help for the Housing is a basic need. after the 2006 split, while rents are soaring. successive governments. Britain are the highest in first time home buyer. to the Tories it is a com - SACA lacked any kind of The interplay of market The Tory plans have led the EU. We need a two year 7. Many people buying or modity to be used for maxi - profile — it was not the forces means social housing to the beginning of an “eth - rent freeze, After this rent renting in the private sector mum profit. “political wing” of a broad rent increases drive up pri - nic cleansing” of working increases for all social hous - are being ruthlessly ripped In the 1980s Thatcher vir - anti-cuts movement but vate sector rents. This is class people from parts of ing, both council and hous - off. We need a special body, tually abolished building simply (another) flag of very good for landlord London and the south east. ing association, should with legal powers of en - social housing, creating convenience for the SPS companies and estate It is not enough to con - never to go above the rate forcement, to investigate huge shortages and simul - and the SWP. agents who are raking in demn the Tories and their of inflation. and curtail the blatant prof - These elections were taneously driving vast millions as a consequence, Lib Dem poodles. We need 2. Protection of tenure for iteering of landlord compa - almost “apolitical”, in the numbers into the private — just look at the price of positive policies from all those in social housing, nies and estate agents. sense that neither Labour sector. The Tories now want This programme could lettings in any estate agent Labour. Unfortunately and increased security for nor the SNP offered a to increase rents to market reverse the government’s window — but very bad for housing is another issue on those in private rented ac - strategy for fighting the levels for council and hous - attack on social housing. tenants. which any vision from commodation . Tory cuts. ing association tenants. In SOLIDARITY 3 REGULARS Livingstone: goodbye and good riddance

in their heads their backroom posts fitted somehow into some strategy for socialism, would be more energetic than routine careerists. There is no evidence that he was influenced by the ideas The Left of Socialist Action, or regarded their strategic fantasies with By Colin Foster anything other than contempt. Oddly, the one “left” group which seems really to have impressed Livingstone was the Conceding defeat in the contest for London mayor, on 3 most corrupt of those he dealt with: Gerry Healy’s Workers’ May, Ken Livingstone said: “This is my last election”. Revolutionary Party. He acted as a “front man” for Healy’s Labour Party paper, Labour Herald , between 1981 and 1985. As with many things Livingstone says, it’s not true. Liv - At a guess, what impressed him about the WRP was ex - ingstone is a candidate on the “centre-left” list in Labour’s actly what made honest leftists abhor it: its ability to sustain a large political machine (its own daily paper as well as the National Executive this year. Though many of those who While London mayor, Livingstone promoted the Islamist cleric, “non-attributable” Labour Herald , extensive property and have nominated him will confirm privately that Livingstone Yusuf al Qaradawi is utterly unreliable on the Executive, they think they have staff, lavish rallies) with the help of money got from no choice but to have him on the list, because he’s a poten - ture, and openly announced his rallying to Neil Kinnock and Qaddafi, Saddam Hussein, and the PLO in return for “ex - tial winner and a reliable right-winger might replace him. the Labour Party leadership. Trying to disarm critics by ef - posing” Jews in British public life, monitoring Iraqi dissi - But in the mayoral contest Livingstone won much less frontery, he wrote in Tribune : “I’m for manipulative politics... dents, printing praise of tyrants, etc. The mentality, I guess, than the Labour vote, despite his efforts since 2008 to con - the cynical soft-sell”. was the same as that of the naive cynics in the 1930s who en - struct a mini-popular-front, Progressive London, to get him - Livingstone could not get the front-bench post with Kin - joyed collaborating with the Stalinist machine while openly self a vote broader than Labour’s. He is 67 years old next nock that he wanted, or not at the right price, so, becoming acknowledging its misdeeds, and who would later be nostal - month. So May 2012 just might be his last high-profile pub - an MP in 1987, he tacked carefully so as to retain backing on gic for Stalin. lic election. the left as well as keeping his options open on the right. According to the recently-published autobiography of Voters on 3 May could see nothing left-wing in Living - The tacking was what was special about him. Many other Alex Mitchell, who edited Healy’s daily paper in that pe - stone’s pitch, and only gimcrackery in his attempts to dis - former Labour local government leftists moved right as their riod: “Livingstone began [around 1981] attending private play himself as a maverick. Sadly, that lucidity led to London career hopes increased, and no comment was necessary on meetings in Healy’s tiny sitting room above a carpet shop in being handed to right-wing Tory Boris Johnson; and the left David Blunkett or Margaret Hodge other than that it was an Clapham High Street... ‘Red Ken’ Livingstone relished dis - has not yet become as lucid about Livingstone as the broad old, old story. cussion on philosophy, political theory, and history. Healy London electorate. His departure from the public scene can quickly developed a keen rapport with Livingstone and sug - only help the left sort itself out. MEDDLE gested a list of books he should read to establish a ground - Ken Livingstone was once a left-winger. As a Lambeth, Livingstone, even when for example declaring himself ing in Marxism... Healy enjoyed Livingstone’s lively sense of Camden, and GLC councillor in the 1970s he had a good “95% Blairite” in his effort to get the Labour nomination humour and he often broke longstanding engagements just record. He always differed from the revolutionary socialist for mayor of London, in 2000, continued to meddle with to spend time talking to him” ( Come the Revolution , p393). left, arguing that council rate (property-tax) rises to offset the left. As late as March 1994 — long after the WRP had exploded the Thatcher cuts were positively progressive rather than an in 1985, Healy had been thoroughly exposed by his disillu - evasion; but at the time that position seemed more honest In the early 1990s he got a column in the Sun and used it sioned former comrades, and no career advantage could be than the general soft-left pitch, that rate rises were undesir - to pursue a faction-fight against the SWP and the Anti-Nazi got from saying anything good about Healy — Livingstone able but necessary to “gain time”. League, for the benefit of the rival Anti-Racist Alliance. wrote a puff for a laudatory biography of Healy by diehard Livingstone was energetic, talented, and willing to collab - In July 1998, helping some allies in the student movement, loyalists: “The split in the WRP during 1985 was the work of orate with Socialist Organiser (forerunner of Solidarity ). He he told a student meeting that the conflicts between himself MI5 agents. It was a privilege to have worked with Gerry collaborated even after a whole faction of Socialist Organiser and Sean Matgamna of Socialist Organiser and Solidarity Healy” (Foreword to Gerry Healy: a revolutionary life , by people peeled away on the rate-rise issue. should be explained by the alleged fact that Matgamna was Corinna Lotz and Paul Feldman). “mad” and “most probably an MI5 agent”. As the left revives, it will learn to shun those who Later, in an autobiography, Livingstone would claim to abuse it. There will be future Ken Livingstones of a sort, have initiated that split. The duplicity was typical. By 1985 From 2000, as mayor of London, he hired members of a secretive ex-Trotskyist group, Socialist Action, to City Hall because, until we have changed society comprehen - Livingstone had done his dash. He settled the Greater Lon - sively, there will always be cynics and shameless ca - don Council, which he had led since 1981, in a “safe” pos - jobs. Livingstone probably saw it in terms of “using” assis - tants who could safeguard his left flank, and who, because reerists. But the left will spurn them.

I met Dave in the late 70s in Coventry. I was a very young ing to reason. And as he saw the machine responses, the Trotskyite and he led lots of discussion groups on the slurs and half-truths, Dave’s eyebrows raised and a look of finer points of the proletarian struggle and such. disbelief appeared on his face. We lost the argument, we I do remember him with deep affection. He was a lovely were expelled. Letters man with some deeply personal struggles and big intellect Dave in Coventry Workers’ Fight always attracted some and understanding that needed satiating. very decent and experienced working class activists. They I left Coventry in 1980 — I was 19 — when it really was a were very much working class sages. And I always think ghost town. By which time I had had political dialogue and they were attracted to the group by Dave’s personality. involvement with Dave in a range of struggles — the call for Later, when I did meet him he was always friendly al - democracy within the Labour Party, meeting reps form the though I think he had me down as a Matgamna hack. He Remembering political wing of the IRA, Zanu and Zapu and Cosatu. didn’t approve, nor did he really understand the political And of course we had been deeply involved in the anti-fascist activity and local issues, especially housing, “street-fighting” that a small Marxist group has to do. I think and CND. I often think about Dave. it was all too reminiscent of his early days in the Socialist Labour League which determined his overwhelming desire Dave Spencer Judith Bonner to be against the “sectarians”. I think he always wanted a too simple solution to that Dave recruited me to Workers’ Action in the late 70s. but there is no denying that he was sincere and genuine in that desire. And he continued to fight. Dave and I were comrades together in the proto-AWL Dave was always ready to discuss any ideas that a new prior to a split in 1984, when Dave left with a group of comrade wanted to sound off about and never made you Pete Radcliff people around Alan Thornett who he didn’t agree with feel unable to speak out. A rare gift on the left as we know it politically. now. He spent a lot of his time after that complaining in various He was a very open, unassuming, friendly giant, until the left publications about the “bureaucratism” of the split. Then he became quite bitter. Netherlands “Matgamna sect.” He also did the rounds of various left Despite that, when he met me one day he could see that I groups looking for a political home he never found. was in a bad way. I was being bullied at work by an ex - I think Martin Thomas’ take on the political situation in I liked Dave and despite this later political trajectory, tremely sexist man. Dave’s response was immediate. He the Netherlands ( Solidarity 244) is basically right. I choose to remember his early days and the positive wanted to wait for the sexist at the works gate and have a go contribution he made to the struggle. at him. One caveat: I don’t think the Socialist Party (SP) is quite as This wasn’t macho bravado, it was support for a com - narrowly nationalistic as suggested. Jim Denham rade in trouble. A good bloke. Its Euro MP, Dennis de Jong, has been making headway in I got to know Dave Spencer in the 1970s when he re - Jean Lane putting forward initiatives at European level, for minimum cruited me to what was then, I think, Workers’ Action. corporate tax levels, for example. And I think the SP’s posi - I got to know Dave when we were both in the process of tion on Greece has been pretty good, opposing the prevail - He almost blew it when he told me, a keen if naive anti- being expelled from the International Socialism group Vietnam-war activist, that the Vietcong was a Stalinist outfit. ing Greek-bashing and opposing the bailouts purely on the (IS) in 1971. I was a sympathiser of the Trotskyist Ten - grounds that they’re really bailouts for French and German After this stuttering start, we had many thoroughly enjoy - dency (TT), later Workers Fight. able as well as politically rich meetings in Dave’s front room banks and impose unacceptable suffering on working with some wonderful comrades he brought together. I met Dave briefly before he was required to speak on be - Greeks. Dave was funny and engaging and had lots of curiosity half of the TT at the Birmingham IS meeting. I was the only And the SP is less bad than the so-called Green Left, which into human foibles — including, alas, my own. I never quite TT person there, 19 years old in a large branch of 80 people backs the current austerity package, or even the Labour understood why Dave got so hot under the collar about the with some serious IS heavies, Dave Hughes, later leader of Party, which has major qualms about its opposition. split in the mid-1980s but in the early days he was a fine Workers Power but leading Cliff loyalist then, Roger Rose - SP leader Roemer has warned that the austerity package coImwradnet tforrethgeisptreortom-Ay WsoLr.row at Dave’s death and send wall, IS Industrial Organiser (later trade union witch-hunter should be sent to Brussels stamped “good only until 12 Sep - my condolences to his family. for the right-wing Economic League). tember” (the date of the next elections) — probably an The image I have of Dave in that meeting is, in a very typ - empty threat, sadly, but a justified one. Robert Fine ical pose, his shoulders raised, his arms outstretched appeal - Peter Drucker, Amsterdam 4 SOLIDARITY WHAT WE SAY Help the AWL Relaunch the raise £20,000 The labour movement in Barnet and Camden cele - brated last week as Tory Brian Coleman lost his Lon - don Assembly seat. If incoming London Mayor Boris Johnson has any sense he will also remove Coleman pensions fight! from the London Fire and Emergency Planning Au - thority, cheering up the Fire Brigades Union as well. Coleman, self-styled “King of Bling”, is notorious for On 10 May the PCS civil service union is striking against To make 10 May a relaunch, and not just a swansong, PCS his rudeness to residents and even fellow Conservative the government’s “work longer, pay more, get less” needs to genuinely place itself on a “war footing”: politicians, for his greed at public expense — exorbitant changes to public-sector pensions. G taxi fares a speciality — and for his right-wing policies: G vigorous recruiting of new members; a levy to help fund paid selective action; he once boasted there was nothing he wouldn’t privatise. The lecturers’ union UCU is also striking, in further edu - G But Coleman is only the unacceptable face of current cation colleges and post-1992 universities. Members of the the development of a meaningful plan to hurt the em - ployer, through the use of national, selective and other ac - Tory policies and of the rottenness of the bourgeois polit - Unite union in the health service will be staging protests and ical system. The Labour candidate, Andrew Dismore, who industrial action. tion on a rapid tempo. PCS must combine more frequent national strike action beat him, supports Royal Mail privatisation. There is talk of a further strike, maybe involving the teach - We need to transform the labour movement to fight for ers’ union NUT, in late June. with paid selective action and rolling regional action. We must seek to hit the government hard and often. We need socialism and real working class political representation. action to win the dispute — not just to force the Government ToIfdyootuhatth,ionrkgaynoiusactiaonnshesulpchusas...the AWL need funds. into “genuine consultation” as the PCS leaders say. G PCS, as the only large union to reject the government’s 19 Take out a monthly standing order. There is a form December terms unambiguously and immediately, must de - at www.workersliberty.org/resources and below. Please velop its own strategy for winning the civil service pension poGst to us at the AWL address below. dispute. It should build a wider cross-union fightback, but Make a donation. You can send it to us at the ad - not wait for the other unions. dress below (cheques payable to “AWL”) or do it online If the PCS leaders do not do that, they place the fate of atGwww.workersliberty.org/donate. their members in the hands of the least-militant leaders of G Organise a fundraising event. other unions. Take copies of Solidarity to sell at your workplace, The same goes for other unions which reject the terms: unGiversity/college or campaign group. NUT, Unite, UCU. They should not wait for PCS, either. Get in touch to discuss joining the AWL. NUT leaders should follow the instruction of their union More information: 07796 690 874 / conference, at Easter, which mandated them not to wait for [email protected] / AWL, 20E agreement from the leaders of the other big teachers’ union, Tower Workshops, 58 Riley Road, NASUWT, before striking again. SE1 3DG. In all the unions, the dispute has been entirely in the Total raised so hands of the union leaders. Everyone agrees that a dispute of this importance cannot be won by a series of one-day 48 far: £12,848 strikes separated by months of inactivity (June 2011, Novem - 2,8 We only raised £55 last ber 2011, and now May 2012). No democratic discussion de - £1 week. We will raise our A weekend of socialist discussion and cided to go for that approach. We need democratic debate, £20,000 target by Septem - debate hosted by Workers’ Liberty and a changed strategy. ber — but only if we return The pensions dispute is the first national clash of the pub - to previous weeks’ better to - lic sector unions with a Tory-led coalition intent on making tals. Thanks to Dan and Vicki for donations. Friday 29 June –Sunday 1 July the working class pay for the financial crisis ripping through the capitalist world. If the unions win, the confidence of Highgate Newtown Community trade union members will grow. If the unions lose, the Tories will renew their attacks. Standing order authority Momentum has been lost since the strike in November Centre, London N19 5DQ 2011, over five months ago. We cannot afford another long lull. Trade-unionists need to build on the 10 May strike and To: ...... (your bank) Weekend tickets: £24 (waged), rebAuftiledr m10omMeanyt,utmhe. next possible turning points are the £16 (low-waged/HE student), “group” (sector) conferences, and then the national ...... (its address) conference, of PCS in the week starting 21 May, and the £6 (unwaged/FE student) teachers’ unofficial “Local Association for Action on ...... Pensions” conference in Liverpool on 16 June. UCU Book now at: workersliberty.org/ideas congress is 8-10 June in Manchester...... G bit.ly/16-june Account name: ...... Workers’ Liberty showed me how to be active Account no.: ...... Sort code: ...... I thought NUS conference was good by way of left-wing motions (free education and a national demonstration are Please make payments to the debit of my the ones that stand out for me) and getting one lefty elected as a full-time position, so I’m pleased with that. At the time account: Payee: Alliance for Workers’ Liberty, the left all seemed to work fairly well together, although I’ve account no. 20047674 at the Unity Trust AWL since heard stories that this was not the case. I think there were problems with accessibility at the con - Bank, 9 Brindley Place, Birmingham B1 2HB ference — the timing is bad for further education students. (08-60-01) Demaine Boocock was a delegate from a Southport sixth But changing it to the holidays would marginalise interna - form college to the 2012 conference of the National Union tional students. Also, the conference wasn’t long enough and of Students. She explains how she got politically active. important motions dropped off the agenda — i.e. anti-fas - Amount: £ ...... to be paid on the I thought the student protests in 2010-2011 were cool cist /anti-racist motion. and supported them, but I was never involved. People I think the left-wing motions on further students — free ...... day of talked about it at my high school and were pissed off at education and supporting walkouts and EMA — are great tuition fees but that was the extent of my knowledge. and could potentially really work. However, the leadership ...... (month) I only got involved in student politics through getting in - could be slack on this unless people really pressure NUS. 20 ...... (year) and thereafter monthly volved with Workers’ Liberty and subsequently NCAFC. I’m very excited at the prospect of walkouts and a national Our student union is more like a student council. It’s not demo. Having the NUS behind you really does help with until this order is cancelled by me in writing. a political body and the vast majority of students aren’t in - wary students, teachers, parents and student councils; it volved. They organise school dances, charity stuff and deal gives it a degree of legitimacy and a wider scope. At the This order cancels any previous orders to the with a few complaints but that seems to be about it. same time, though, it’s clear that NUS has been rubbish in same payee. I found out about NUS conference through Workers’ Lib - the past by the fact that hardly anybody at my college is in - erty and NCAFC, not NUS. It’s what I said in my speech to volved and a lot don’t even realise that it is the national Date ...... conference, and it’s true! I got myself delegated through union of students, representing their interests and able to sending a lot of emails to the student council and following maFkoerpeoxlaitmicpallec,hoangeeg. uy told me he thought NUS was ...... it up by asking at meetings. I just kept at it so eventually I Signature just about “make-believe”, which I think says a lot. got the information. It wasn’t a very democratic procedure. SOLIDARITY 5 EUROPE Four program

By Martin Thomas that “it is fine if wages in Germany currently rise faster than in other EU countries”. The election results in France and Greece (6 May), and At an angle to the range from Schäuble to Syriza are two the forced resignation of militantly neo-liberal Dutch other approaches: the national-Keynesian and the revolution - prime minister Mark Rutte (23 April), have thrown eco - ary socialist. nomic policy in the eurozone into flux. Far-right groups like the Front National in France push the most popular version of the national-Keynesian approach: There are four main distinct approaches in play. The de - quit the euro, import controls, reindustrialise, more govern - bate between them has scarcely started in the British labour ment regulation of the economy and the banks. The FN up - movement, where even the would-be Marxist left has so far holds the interests of smaller-scale French capitalist mostly limited itself to a sort of conservative syndicalism: op - businesses who orient primarily to France’s internal market posing cuts in Britain, advocating more militant tactics, ap - and are indifferent or hostile to France being a “safe place to plauding resistance elsewhere in Europe, and commenting invest” for global capital. that the EU leaders are making a mess of things. A FN government would block migration; scapegoat and There is debate in Britain among economists. Jonathan harass the immigrant workers already in France; and enforce Hollande: Portes, head of the National Institute of Economic and Social “government regulation” in the shape of crushing the labour Research, former Chief Economist at the Cabinet Office, and movement and democratic rights. an “establishment” economist if ever there was one, re - There is a left-wing version of the national-Keynesian ap - sponded to the French and Greek elections by declaring that proach, similar to the “Alternative Economic Strategy” pop - “the idiots in Brussels”, “the austerity crowd”, had “lost the already ular in Britain’s Labour left in the 1970s and 80s. Groups like arguments”, and economic life should now be boosted by a the KKE in Greece suggest that if countries quit the EU, reim - big and concerted programme of public spending on infra - pose controls on trade and capital movements, and use gov - structure (roads, rail, schools, hospitals, housing, other pub - ernment to promote domestic industry, then the labour lic facilities). movement can win better conditions in the national frame - backtracking The Marxist left should break from its defensive, hunkered- work than in a wider one. down stance, and take the debate into the labour movement. Until now neo-liberal policy has dominated. It proposes REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM By Ed Maltby that governments which cannot borrow on open global finan - Revolutionary socialists agree that no national labour cial markets, or have difficulty doing so, must mend their po - movement should wait for a cross-European movement. Francois Hollande, the centre-left Parti Socialiste sition by huge social cuts. President of France, has swiftly backtracked on the It advocates strict budget-balancing even for the better-off A workers’ government in a single country, emerging in left-wing rhetoric of his campaign, in an attempt to countries like Germany and the Netherlands; and, indeed, advance of a large cross-Europe revolutionary working-class calm down the financial markets. constitutional amendments across Europe to make balanced movement, would have no choice but to defy EU rulings and budgets compulsory except in extremes. To demands for face exclusion from the EU. It would have to use economic Hollande had campaigned on a pledge to end austerity, “growth” it responds that the only way is via “labour market border controls to sustain, as best it could, an economy within creating 150,000 public sector jobs, hiring 60,000 teachers reforms”, in other words smashing up workers’ rights, mak - that country dominated by workers’ control and economic and lowering the retirement age for some groups of ing labour markets ultra-flexible for the bosses, cutting social equalisation, and to navigate within the world market. workers. He also proposed a 75% tax on the wealthiest overhead costs. An isolated workers’ government could only be a tempo - individuals in society. Like George Osborne’s policy in Britain, it is above all a rary makeshift. The workers’ revolution would have to His election was presented as a blow to the Franco-Ger - policy for the bosses and bankers to “use” the economic cri - spread to other areas quickly, or collapse. Over 150 years ago, man drive for European austerity that Sarkozy had engi - sis to their advantage, in shifting the balance of class forces in the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels wrote that neered alongside Merkel. further against the working class (and, they hope, perma - “united action, of the leading civilised countries at least, is But his election caused consternation in the financial nently) — rather than a policy to ease the crisis. one of the first conditions for the emancipation of the prole - markets. The Euro dropped against the dollar, and the Its priority, as Angela Merkel put it in December 2011, is to tariat”, and the international intertwining of the forces of pro - Asian markets fell even further, and Barclays Bank issued “show [footloose global capital] that Europe is a safe place to duction has increased hugely since then, especially in Europe. a note expressing concern about France’s new relation - invest”. We therefore advance, in the first place, a cross-Europe pro - ship with Germany. It is an arrogant policy which risks provoking serious na - gramme, with these main points: Hollande has been riding high on anti-austerity senti - tionalist backlashes against the slowly-evolved reduction of • Tax the rich, Europe-wide. ment among the French working class. But now he has barriers within Europe. It means unelected European Union • Expropriate the banks and the big corporations, Europe- got to reel his rhetoric back in, to reassure the people to officials monitoring each elected government’s budget each wide. Put them under workers’ and democratic control. Gear whom he sees himself as being really accountable — year and vetoing it unless it includes enough cuts and mar - their resources to the reconstruction of public services, de - French and international capitalists. His close advisor ketisations. cent jobs, and social welfare. Michel Sapin has told journalists, “No-one can expect us • Thorough-going democracy across Europe. Social level - to arrive and give everyone handouts… Joy... gives way EURO-KEYNESIAN ling-up across the continent, to the best level of workers’ very, very quickly to responsibility.” There is a Euro-Keynesian approach. It advocates easing rights and conditions won in any part of it. Reuters comments, “While Sarkozy clashed head on the credit difficulties of the Greek and other govern - • Win workers’ governments across Europe, and join them with France’s powerful unions, the Socialists’ closer ties ments by lending on easy terms from the European Cen - in a democratic federation. with them — particularly the moderate CFDT — may tral Bank, or by the issuing of Eurobonds guaranteed by Too extreme? Unrealistic? Leon Trotsky met similar objec - allow them to accomplish bolder reforms.” the collective creditworthiness of the eurozone. tions in the 1930s. “The masses do not come to us because Hollande plans to balance the budget by 2017 and ac - our ideas are too complicated and our slogans too advanced. It favours a wealth tax to raise revenue, but opposes rapid cepts that this means making public spending cuts. In It is therefore necessary to simplify our program, water down deficit reduction through social cuts, and says that better-off particular, he plans to further reform the French public our slogans — in short, to throw out some ballast”. countries positively should be running large government pensions system in the autumn — an ominous promise. He responded: “Basically, this means: Our slogans must budget deficits so as to boost market demand across Europe. Hollande recently remarked, “The final months of a correspond not to the objective situation, not to the relation of It calls for audits of government debt, and repudiation of campaign generally cost a lot to the public purse when classes, analysed by the Marxist method, but to subjective as - parts of it. you take into account the promises made which often sessments (extremely superficial and inadequate ones) of It demands a big expansion of the budget of the European mean big spending”. what the ‘masses’ can or cannot accept. But what masses? Union itself (as distinct from member states), and EU-fi - The New Anticapitalist Party, the biggest left group in The mass is not homogeneous. It develops. It feels the pres - nanced investment projects in the worse-off countries. France, commented: “Having promised to not make us sure of events. It will accept tomorrow what it will not accept Many left-wing economists advocate the full Euro-Keyne - any promises, he now says that after 7 May he will erase today. Our cadres will blaze the trail with increasing success sian package. Left social-democrats, notably Syriza in Greece, all the promises he didn’t make”. for our ideas and slogans, which will be shown to be correct, advocate versions of it. Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the left social- Hollande’s promise on 60,000 new teaching posts is because they are confirmed by the march of events and not by democrat candidate in the French presidential election, said also not what it might at first seem: his lieutenant Sapin subjective and personal assessments”. that the European Central Bank must be placed “under dem - has helpfully clarified: “Increasing the number of state Trotsky also argued that where the revolutionary socialists ocratic control to allow it to lend at low — or even nil — rates, employees in public education has never meant increas - were a small minority, they should not limit themselves to directly to the states, and to buy public debt”. ing the overall number of people employed by the state”. reciting their programme and waiting for support to arrive, Shreds of Euro-Keynesianism can be found right across the Translation: we’ll make cuts elsewhere. but should also seek leverage in the debates and battles It is up to the French left and labour movement to mainstream political spectrum, through François Hollande opened up by the inadequate programmes of bigger forces. extract concessions from Hollande and make sure to the fiercely-cutting “technocrat” Italian prime minister The French and Greek elections, and the Dutch govern - his election really does push back euro-austerity. Mario Monti and the IMF, and even in the recent statement ment crisis, which have showed that the capitalist classes’ Eu - by neo-liberal German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble 6 SOLIDARITY mmes for Euro-crisis

A right-wing national Keynesianism is advocated by Marine Le Pen of Front National, a left-wing and more Euro-oriented Keynesianism by Jean-Luc Mélenchon

ropean strategy is in trouble, have also showed that the rev - proposed “appropriation of real values”, or “Sachwerterfas - into the false position of advocating the rebuilding of barri - olutionary left is still small (1.2% for Antarsya in Greece, 1.8% sung”: the government should tax capital by taking a 20% ers between nations as a desirable first step (rather than as a for NPA and Lutte Ouvrière in France), and that so far the share in all businesses. That would both help the government temporary expedient maybe necessary if one national labour shift to the left is a shift to left social democracy (Syriza in guide the shattered economy and bring in real income. movement moves far ahead of others). Greece, SP in Netherlands, Mélenchon in France). The government never implemented the idea, but it gained We cannot endorse the Euro-Keynesian programmes as a In 1934, for example, Trotsky polemicised with his Belgian popularity in a working class angry that pay-as-you-go taxes “first step”, because they beg the question of how to deal comrades when they wanted to respond to an economic on their wages were the only taxes being collected effectively. with the banks’ resistance; they dodge the issue of “labour- “labour plan”, of a vaguely state-capitalist sort, proposed by The Social Democratic-led unions took it up, demanding a market reform” (in fact, the more mainstream versions the big social-democratic party, just by scorning it. 25% share. openly support “labour movement reform” and cuts in cur - Trotsky agreed that “it would be more correct to call it: the In November 1921 the Communist Party decided to pick rent social spending, arguing only that those cuts should be plan to deceive the toilers”. He agreed that, as such, it was up on the demand for “appropriation of real values”, pro - offset by public investment spending); and in general they are only “a new, or a renovated instrument of bourgeois-demo - posing it at a rate of 51% to allow public control of the econ - advice to the ruling classes rather than mobilisation plans for cratic (or even semi-democratic) conservatism”. In fact, the omy. the working class. author of the Plan, social-democratic leader Henri de Man, Through to 1923, “Sachwerterfassung” became a major We can take many elements in the Euro-Keynesian pro - would become a collaborator with the Nazi occupation in theme of CP advocacy, soon linked with the call for a “work - grammes — cancellation of debt (at least partial); increased World War Two. ers’ government” (a joint Communist-Social Democrat gov - social spending (at least on investment projects); democratic Told by his Belgian comrades that “the working masses are ernment which would carry out a specified series of radical coInntrtohlaotfwthaeyEoCuBr —criatincdissmhawrpilelnnoant dinbcureiladsoenptahsesmiv. ity — absolutely indifferent to the Labor Plan and are in general in measures, such as the “appropriation of real values” and by suggesting that nothing but a uniform shade of grey a state of depression”, Trotsky said he didn’t know, but ac - workers’ control over production). is possible until everyone first rallies round the revolu - cepted there might well be “a certain nervous exhaustion and The left national Keynesian programmes cannot be used for tionary socialist minority — but make the most of all the passivity of the workers”. leverage in this way, because trying to do that would pull us divisions and disputes within the system. Yet he insisted that “our task is twofold”, and not just one of expounding and scorning. “First, to explain to the ad - vanced workers the political meaning of the ‘plan’, that is, decipher the manoeuvres of the social-democracy at all stages; secondly, to show in practice to possibly wider circles Greece: need for a new voice of workers that insofar as the bourgeoisie tries to put obsta - cles to the realisation of the plan we fight hand in hand with the workers to help them make this experiment. Paulin, an activist from the Greek left group OKDE, tarsya [the main far-left coalition]. Even anarchists voted “We share the difficulties of the struggle but not the illu - spoke to Solidarity after Greece’s 6 May election, which Syriza. People voted massively for Syriza to stop the main sions. Our criticism of the illusions must, however, not increase resulted in a parliament where, so far, no party has been two parties [ND and Pasok]. the passivity of the workers and give it a pseudo-theoretic justifica - able to form a government: The 7% score for Golden Dawn [the neo-Nazi party] is tion but on the contrary push the workers forward . Under these Syriza, after the announcement of the results, said not such a surprise if you look at the background. conditions, the inevitable disappointment with the ‘Labor they will try to form “a left government”. But it is very Right-wing voters used to be represented by the big right Plan’ will not spell the deepening of passivity but, on the difficult because the KKE has said that they will not or centre-right parties like New Democracy or Laos. After contrary, the going over of the workers to the revolutionary participate in any government. Also the Democratic the destruction of those two parties, a lot of voters went to road” (emphasis added). Left, a split from Syriza last year, will not participate in the fascist group. government. The votes for Golden Dawn were radical, anti-system GERMAN EXAMPLE votes against all political parties and the whole system. The A similar approach had been taken by the German Com - Syriza changed its face before the election and accepted danger is obvious. But I do not think, personally, that this munist Party in 1921-3, increasing its mass support, and ex-members of PASOK into what it called a “Syriza United group has a social weight matching its votes. putting it on the brink of a revolutionary situation in Oc - Social Front”. Many PASOK voters went over to Syriza. Syriza, too, has gained a large number of votes but you tober 1923 (which, however, under Stalin’s malign guid - The programme of Syriza is not clear, it is changing all cannot see them winning more people, organising more ance from Moscow, the Communist Party then botched). the time. peTohpeleriandtoictahleleirftpianrtgye. neral has different points of view We participated in the election for the first time in our Rapid inflation in Germany meant that the bosses could, on the situation. We will have to wait and see. There is history and got a small vote, around 2,000 votes. by delaying tax payments, make them nominal. Deprived of a great need for a new revolutionary organisation in The bulk of the left vote went to Syriza in this election revenues, the government had to print money to keep going, Greece. We are fighting for that goal. and that is responsible for the low score for OKDE and An - which in turn produced more rapid inflation: a vicious circle. In May 1921 the Social Democrat minister Robert Schmidt SOLIDARITY 7 FILM Callum Macrae: witness to atrocity

Film-maker Callum Macrae has made two influential films has so far failed. It remains to be seen whether it will also about Sri Lanka. He has been nominated for the 2012 fail in retrospectively achieving justice. Nobel Peace Prize. He spoke to Solidarity . It was always clear that the Sri Lankan government were Under the guise of rehabilitation and reconstruction the determined to remove potential international witnesses and Sri Lankan government is attempting a Sinhalisation of critics. They forced the UN to withdraw from the area, they the north of the country — an attempt to destroy the prevented any international media from getting anywhere Tamil community. near and they silenced their own internal critics. At the start of the final offensive in January 2009 the edi - Thousands of Tamils remain displaced while Tamil prop - tor of the Sunday Leader , Lasantha Wickrematunga, a vocal erty is taken over and given to the military. critic of the government including over its treatment of its The army is opening hotels in the north. You can go whale Tamil minority, was gunned down and killed by forces un - spotting with the Sri Lankan navy. You cannot go to the east, known. It was just one incident, but a warning to critics that where the final battles took place [in the 2008-9 war]. The they should remain silent. But the government hadn’t al - army is taking over Tamil farms and shops. This has the very lowed for new technology. There were witnesses, and these sinister effect of destroying the Tamil community’s ability to witnesses were both the victims and the perpetrators. They rebuild itself. had small cameras, mobile phones and access to the inter - Civilian no-fire zone shelled by the Sri Lankan army Soldiers in the overwhelmingly Sinhalese army are paid a net. So the evidence was there and now can be seen [in - bonus if they have a third child; in the north and east the in - cluded in Macrae’s first film, Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields ]. centive to have a third child is especially strong. [The same He said foreign-imposed solutions were rarely effective. As Some of the material came from Sinhala sources, some processes] are going on nationally: the militarisation of the we revealed in our film, that speech was written for him by from Tamil sources. Some of the execution and atrocity whole of Sri Lankan society along with the re-inforcing of the western consultancy firm Bell Pottinger. footage was filmed by the perpetrators themselves. Some of the pro-Mahinda-Rajapaksa [President] element of the army. The claim that Sri Lanka is an independent developing it was filmed by Tamil civilians, some of it was filmed by Part of that is the jailing of the former general, Sarath Fon - sovereign nation being bullied by the West is preposterous. Tiger camera operators, who had no doubt expected to film seka, who stood as an opponent of the government in the It is a fake, pseudo-anti-imperialist smokescreen for their re - the heroic exploits of their fighters but instead ended up 2010 elections. pression. recording the misery of the civilians — a misery in which All this is illustrated by the attitude of the regime to the The UN and the international community failed cata - the Tigers were themselves partly complicit through their Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commissions. The LLRC strophically for a complex variety of reasons. Partly it was to use of civilians and human shields. called for the military to withdraw from certain elements of do with the rhetoric of the global war on terror, used to jus - civilian administration; the Ministry of Defence was tify Rajapaksa’s war against the LTTE. Partly it was to do PROCESS awarded huge contracts for construction work. You even see with the almost universal unpopularity of the LTTE. Channel 4 News began running some of the footage that — ironic given the recent England cricket tour there — the In India’s case it was largely to do with the Tigers’ execu - was emerging and began the process that eventually led handing over of one each of the main Sri Lanka cricket tion of Rajiv Gandhi, and because the Indian government to my two films. grounds to the Sri Lankan army, navy and air force. Partially had no wish to encourage nationalist sentiment among One initial short extract showed the execution of naked, this is a reflection of the corruption of the Sri Lankan cricket India’s 46 million-strong Tamil population (mostly concen - bound prisoners; that was supplied by an organisation board, but also the contempt of the Rajapaksa regime for the trated in Tamil Nadu). called Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS, an or - civilian administration and for world opinion. Western regimes, especially the US, UK, France, Norway ganisation of exiled Sinhala and Tamil journalists and media ABSURD and others, were constantly protesting but never did, and Perhaps most absurd of all, the Sri Lankan Ministry of workers). perhaps never intended to, intervene seriously to stop what The Sri Lankan government said the evidence is faked, Defence is now called the Ministry of Defence and was going on. Urban Development! which is isn’t. They claim the execution footage is faked. It The UN’s tactic throughout was to not do anything which is not. We have had it independently assessed by teams of This is an ultra-nationalist Sinhalese regime which will tol - would cause it to be expelled from Sri Lanka altogether. But video technicians and even a forensic pathologist to examine erate no attempt by the Tamils to campaign for their rights. the consequence was that it did not publish figures on civil - the nature of the wounds. They have all concluded that there The regime obfuscates on their obligation to grant devolu - ian deaths. Many within the UN argue that by not exposing is no evidence of manipulation or faking, and their assess - tion to the Tamil areas. what it knew was happening, was in effect allowing the ment has been confirmed by a separate set of experts from Sri Lanka has the fourth-worst record in the world for in - atrocity to continue. the UN. vestigating the murder of journalists. Literally dozens of UN SLOW The Sri Lankan government knows this footage is gen - journalists in Sri Lanka have been murdered, disappeared The UN took a very long time to do anything after the uine. In this footage and the many stills from the end of the or exiled. There has been a sinister increase in the use of war as well. Astonishingly, in the immediate aftermath of war you can see soldiers filming in almost every photograph what’s called “white van abductions”, where critics are ab - the war, the UN Human Rights Committee congratulated and film. The Sri Lankan government should have gathered ducted and disappeared by anonymous men driving white Sri Lanka on the victory. all that footage in, and investigated what was going on. They vans. haven’t. That they have not done so speaks volumes because The regime is trying to have its cake and eat it. Through - That appalling episode was somewhat redeemed two all the evidence is that these events were orchestrated and out the war the regime was enthusiastic in its endorsement months ago when the Human Rights Council voted by a rea - approved at the highest levels of the Sri Lankan government. of the rhetoric of the Global War on Terror. It used that rhet - sonable majority for a resolution — in fact very soft — call - The regime has also claimed that we are apologists for the oric to justify its offensive, ostensibly on the LTTE [Tamil ing on Sri Lanka to investigate war crimes and crimes LTTE, a bizarre claim given that in the films we clearly ac - Tigers] but also on civilians. against humanity and report back to the UN. It was just a cuse the LTTE of war crimes and crimes against humanity — The rest of the world effectively closed its eyes, hoped it symbolic resolution, but important. The Sri Lankan govern - asTwheelyl acslathime g, oevveernnmmeonrtefoprrceeps.osterously that we have would all end as soon as possible and that there would not ment lobbied energetically to stop it being passed. been funded by the LTTE, a claim that seems to have Sri be too many dead, doing nothing to stop the genocidal be - It’s fair to say that the revelations in my second film [ been born of desperation. They have launched an inter - Lanka’s Killing Fields: War Crimes haviour of Sri Lankan forces in the north east. ] played an important role in national propaganda campaign, hiring Western PR com - Having achieved their aim, the regime changed its tune. In raising awareness and convincing the Human Rights Coun - panies, producing glossy documents and even an a 2010 speech to the UN Rajapaksa warned the rest of the cil to vote for the resolution. hour-long documentary in an attempt to discredit us. world to back off. He said that Sri Lanka had to find its own If the UN is an organisation whose primary function is to mechanisms and its own culturally-appropriate solutions. prevent these kind of atrocities on an international scale, it • outsidertv.wordpress.com/callum-macrae The Olympics and social cleansing

The second of three articles on the lege London has said it will build a new campus on the site and 2016 Olympic games. On 22 January São Paulo, one of forthcoming Olympics, by Dan Rawnsley currently occupied by Carpenters Estate, the largest hous - the host cities for the World Cup, saw an estimated 6,000 ing estate neighbouring the Olympic site. people evicted from the Pinheirinho favela by the military In 2010 David Cameron claimed he wanted “the Hackney residents began expressing concern for Hackney police of São Paulo. Olympics legacy [to] lift East London from being one of Marshes as early as 2003. In July 2003 Neale Coleman, an ad - The 1988 Seoul Games saw 720,000 people displaced, the the poorest parts of the country to one that shares fully visor to the London Mayor, informed a meeting set up by 1992 Barcelona games saw 2,500 evictions, the 1996 Atlanta in the capital’s growth and prosperity.” the Hackney Environment Forum that there was “no ques - Games saw 30,000 evictions, 2,700 were evicted for Athens tion of permanent or temporary facilities on any part of 2004 and 1.5 million for the Beijing 2008 games. There were It is claimed the Olympic “legacy” will help regenerate Hackney Marshes”. no reported evictions for the 2000 Sydney Olympics, but five east London boroughs. The reality for working class res - A condition had been attached to planning applications house prices more than doubled between 1996 and 2003 in idents is very different: displacement, gentrification and in that the developing agency must provide land in exchange the city with rents increasing by 40% between 1993 and 1998. the words of housing association chief executive officer Gill for common land and open space taken up by the Olympic Between 1988 and 2008 the Olympic Games have caused Brown, “social cleansing”. developments. However, in 2005 Guy Nicholson, the Hack - the eviction and displacement of more than two million peo - In Newham the “9,000 new homes, many affordable for ney Council Cabinet Member for Regeneration, informed ple. local people” promised by Lord Coe have not materialised. residents that planners were defaulting on their obligation. How many will be added to this rising total by the 2012 Instead, the local council wrote to Brighter Futures housing The London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Bill London Olympics? In the midst of a housing crisis the association in Stoke-on-Trent offering them the opportunity was altered to remove the imperative to provide land in ex - labour movement should demand that the energy and re - to house 500 families. change. Part of the Marshes will be tarmacked over to build sources being put into “developing” the Olympic boroughs Newham council says it cannot house people in private a coach park. Another promise has been made that the land (i.e. pricing out working class residents) should be poured in rental property because the housing market is starting to will be restored. toAanndattieonna-wntisd’egprrooujepcst rtoesciosntisntgruecvt iscotcioianlshomuussintgb.e given “overheat” due to the “buoyant young professionals mar - The picture of turn-a-profit development and broken the full support of left-wing activists. ket”. promises is a familiar element of many so-called “mega- G Jumping on the regeneration bandwagon, University Col - events”. Brazil is now preparing to host the 2014 World Cup http://www.facebook.com/carpvoice 8 SOLIDARITY SYMPOSIUM The heart of the “third camp”

In Solidarity 242, we began publishing a series of recollec - revolutions in the world, America retained its democracy. It tions and reflections from activists who had been involved had not moved closer to fascism, which actually was in re - with the “third camp” left in the United States — those treat. The idea that a small group of dedicated socialists could “unorthodox” Trotskyists who believed that the Soviet become a vanguard party leading the workers to power was Union was not a “workers’ state” (albeit a “degenerated” obviously a dream. The change from “party” to “league” was one), but an exploitative form of class rule to be as opposed a simple recognition of reality. There was no soul-searching as much as capitalism. They organised under the slogan discussion of the profound implications of that change in “neither Washington nor Moscow.” name. We drifted into it. The guiding thought was that the The assessment of the “third camp” tradition by the ma - ISL would be not a party but a “tendency” to keep alive the jority of the modern-day revolutionary left is bound up idea of socialism (as we envisaged it) for future generations. with the continuing holy terror of that “original sin”; many The ISL remained a sect, not only in size but in conception. Trotskyist groups still see the remaining Stalinist states as Ideologically we still drew inspiration from Leninism and the some form of working-class rule, and even those that for - Russian Revolution. We could hold two clashing idea simul - mally do not (such as the British SWP and its international taneously: accept the reality that the notion of a vanguard satellites) have superimposed the template of Cold War Herman Benson (centre) at a “Eugene Debs Day” dinner, leading the revolution was irrelevant in practice, and still be - “my-enemy’s-enemy-is-my-friend”-ism onto the modern Chicago, 1960 lieve in it as a principle for the indefinite, bright, future. world and see such forces as political Islam as progressive At the time, Ernie Erber proposed that we identify our - potential allies against the dominant (US) imperialism. the United States, still capitalist, and the Soviet Union, still selves as a “small mass party,” which would have implied Retrospective assessment of the third camp tradition is under Stalin. some leading coordinated participation in the social battles of also coloured by legitimate contempt for the political sui - With the socialist revolution now a distant objective, the the day. No one took that seriously. It seemed unrealistic. By cide of its most prominent theoretician and sometime-fig - slogan of Third Camp lost its rallying, revolutionary, social - that time our youth was vanishing. No more professional urehead, Max Shachtman, who eventually became an ist, proletarian quality and became diffuse and shifting. revolutionaries. Most WPers became parents with children apologist for US imperialism. The Third Camp could no longer be presented as a work - to support. They went back to school, got their degrees, be - Workers’ Liberty has, over a number of decades, at - ers’ revolutionary alternative to capitalism and Stalinism, came professionals and academics. Some shifted to careers tempted to rediscover and re-examine the tradition of and so its proponents sought policies and programs of action as union leaders. (My own main interest turned toward “third camp” socialism, and to attempt to learn from it. This in opposition to the aims of the two main powers. They union democracy) Actually, our time as a distinctive ten - symposium brings together the reflections of activists from looked for a Third Camp in various regimes or social move - dency was up. both the “first generation” of third camp organisations — ments that tried to maintain a neutral role independent of the the Workers Party, which split from the American SWP in two: movements for the end of colonialism, Yugoslavia, SECURE Looking back, it is obvious to me that those who stayed 1940 and became the Independent Socialist League in 1949, India, etc. Nevertheless, the slogan of Third Camp could still with Cannon in the SWP felt more secure with a strict before entering the reformist Socialist Party of America in have resonance: Neither Washington nor Moscow! It was the adherence with the accepted canon, and felt nervous 1957 and dissolving — and the “second generation” — the same slogan, but serving a new purpose. over any heretical deviation. Independent Socialist Clubs of America (founded in 1967 But the world changed. A new period opened with the col - as a federation of loose third camp groupings on various lapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the cold war: inter - nal battles in newly liberated countries, rise of China, Arab Those who went with Shachtman into the WP were more college campuses which were founded some years earlier), Spring, terrorism.... Third Camp? Third? Against which two open to new ideas. (Only relatively more open. We retained and later the International Socialists (founded in 1968). is the third now counterposed? In our new world, it seems to our own ideological limits on what we felt were basics.) We This week, we publish contributions from Herman Ben - me, the notion of a Third Camp, having lost its revolution - were younger. More of us were students and semi-skilled son, one of the last surviving founder members of the ary socialist soul, has become less a program of action and would-be intellectuals. 1939/40 Workers Party and former industrial editor of its more a kind of mystical consolation for its adherents, a reas - In the new WP, our line for members during the war was paper Labor Action , and Gabe Gabrielsky, who was a mem - surance that somehow, somewhere, out there is a powerful “into the factories and unions” where we became active in ber of the Young People’s Socialist League and later the In - social force that will turn our ideals of a just, democratic, the campaign against the wartime no-strike pledge. More of ternational Socialists. peaceful society from a dream into a reality. the SWPers were already in unions. The SWP original guid - Longer versions of the contributions will be available to ance for members was to lie low and “preserve the cadres,” read online, at tinyurl.com/thirdcampsymposium. COMPLEX presumably to make sure they were still around when that Daniel Randall What is involved here transcends clarification or defini - great day dawned after the war. We ridiculed that line, as did By Herman Benson tion of Third Camp in the complex period in which live Trotsky shortly before he was murdered. and in which we seek to remain true to our ideals of so - For a few short years in the mid-50s, there was a spasm of The “Third Camp” originated with the Workers’ Party cial justice. renewed hope with the Khrushchev Revelations, the revul - (“Shachtmanites”) in response to the outbreak of World sion against the invasion of Hungary, the beginning of the War Two. Not a worked-out program or policy, it was es - For me, once the Third Camp is stripped of its revolution - disintegration of the CP and the rise of the John Gates group sentially a slogan. ary proletarian heart, the discussion recalls what Leon Trot - in the CP. With the CP out of the way, its members presum - sky wrote in the early days of World War Two, not long As such, it was intended to put as sharply and as thought- ably adrift, there was widespread discussion over the possi - before he was murdered: bility of a new socialist realignment, discussions which provoking as possible our opposition to what we denounced “The second world war.... subjects the proletariat to a new as the two warring imperialist camps. But it took on double involved AJ Muste, Gates, Shachtman/WP, and (I think) the and perhaps decisive test. If this war provokes, as we firmly Cochranites (by then out of the SWP.) [The “Cochranites” significance. It made clear, in the context of world war, our believe, a proletarian revolution, it must inevitably lead to clear opposition to the two rival social systems: capitalism were a faction around Bert Cochran who had supported the overthrow of the bureaucracy in USSR and regeneration Michel Pablo in his dispute with James Cannon in the early versus the new social order of bureaucratic collectivism as of Soviet democracy on a far higher economic and cultural represented by the Soviet Union under Stalin. 1950s. They were expelled from the SWP in 1954.] basis than in 1918.... If, however, it is conceded that the pres - For most of us in the WP, the Socialist Party seemed as the I should modify that statement slightly. Even before the ent war will provoke not revolution but a decline of the pro - Workers’ Party finally reached a consensus on bureaucratic natural arena for drawing all these various tendencies to - letariat, then there remains another alternative: the further gether to build a broad, multi-tendency, influential, renewed collectivism as a social system, we agreed that, however you decay of monopoly capitalism, its further fusion with the defined the Soviet Union, its invasion of Poland and the socialist party modelled on the pre-First World War party of state and the replacement of democracy wherever it still re - Debs. And so, the ISL dissolved to allow its members to join Baltic states and its attack on Finland were oppressive impe - mained by a totalitarian regime... the eclipse of civilisation….. rialist acts that we denounced, just as we denounced the im - the SP and take part in the anticipated realignment. (For a “If the world proletariat should actually prove incapable short time after ISLers joined the SP, I was a member of its perialist acts of the capitalist powers. of fulfilling the mission placed upon it by the course of devel - And so, the slogan of Third Camp clearly distinguished us national committee. Among those who rejected the move was opment, nothing else would remain except only to recognize Hal Draper. He and a few supporters joined together in the from Leon Trotsky, who still characterised the Soviet Union that the socialist program based on the internal contradic - as a “workers’ state”, and saw its invasion into small capital - International Socialists to remain true to their original revo - tions of capitalist society ended as a Utopia.” (From: ‘The lutionary principles.) ist countries as giving a bureaucratic impulse to the socialist USSR in War’ in In Defence of Marxism , 25 September 1939) revolution. And it distinguished us from the Socialist Work - Hopes for rejuvenation through the SP proved illusory. Obviously, the alternatives projected by Trotsky did not Disillusioned CPers never turned toward the SP; they mostly ers’ Party [USA, no relation to the modern-day British group materialise. There was no proletarian revolution, nor was of the same name] whose Jim Cannon advised crudely that dropped out of organised politics or filtered into one or an - there “the eclipse of civilisation” in the form of a dominant other limited social movement. The SP split. Mike Harrington social revolutionaries should consider themselves the best authoritarian bureaucracy. But for Trotsky, the failure of the soldiers in the Red Army. led a left-wing minority out of the party, later to form the proletariat to take power after this war could pose the ques - Democratic Socialists of America. The right-wing majority As originally put forward by the Workers’ Party, there was tion of whether the proletariat was capable of fulfilling its no ambiguity or evasion in the concept of Third Camp. changed its name to Social Democrats, and finally disap - “mission” and therefore whether the socialist program had peared. With the name orphaned and available for adoption, Against the two warring camps and against the two ex - proven to be a Utopia. ploitive social systems was the third proletarian camp of so - a tiny group of well-meaning but ineffectual former mem - For Trotsky, the socialist programme and Marxism were in - bers picked it up. All those discussions and manoeuvrings cialist revolution. separably linked. Marxism sees the achievement of socialism over a new beginning for a broad socialist movement drib - In 1939/40, Leon Trotsky, the WP, and the SWP shared one dependent upon the elevation of the proletariat into a ruling bled away. prognosis for the years to come. We were all certain that, just class. Trotsky’s line of thought could bring Marxism, but not Finally, Max Shachtman found his own abortive “solution” as in the aftermath of World War One, World War Two would necessarily socialism, into question as a Utopia. The “social - to the issues posed at the war’s end. be followed be a powerful wave of revolution; proletarian, ist programme,” however conceived, is not necessarily iden - Some ask whether Shachtman’s degeneration was the in - social revolution. At one point, in the debate between Trotsky tical with proletarian revolution. Socialism as an ideology or evitable end-point of the politics he began developing in the and the WP, Trotsky even suggested that the outcome of the programme preceded Marxism. The question remains: Is so - 1930s. The very question recalls the mood in the Cannonite war and the coming revolutions might test the potential of cialism sans proletarian power a Utopia? SWP at the time: depart from the bible, and you go down the the proletariat as a ruling class and the validity of Marxian so - I was involved in the “transforming” of the WP into the slippery slope to hell. Shachtman’s distinctive “politics” of cialism as a program. ISL. In fact, at the time, I was the organiser of the WP branch the late 1930s condemned Soviet Union’s role in the war and But hopes for workers’ revolution proved illusory. The war in New York City. In practice, by the time we changed our ended with a clear victory for the Allied camp, followed by name, it was less a transformation than a relabeling. Without the long period of cold war between the two former allies: Continues on page 10 SOLIDARITY 9 SYMPOSIUM Finding my way to the third camp left

By Gabe Gabrielsky ence, but at the same time SDS was becoming more publicly When the ISCA was first started, the so-called “clipping visible, as was student opposition to the war in Vietnam. I book” had been out about a year, The official name of the In 1958, the third camp Independent Socialist League was instrumental in organising an independent left student clipping book was An Introduction to Independent Socialism (ISL) dissolved, and most of its members went into the group at the Rutgers campus in Camden, New Jersey. and it was a collection of all the May pamphlet issues of social-democratic Socialist Party. Several months later I ran across someone trying to place Labor Action that had been published during the 50s. They quantities of ASOC’s magazine in a leftish book store in really delineated what Independent Socialism was all about. The youth organisation of the ISL, the Young Socialist Philadelphia, and I ended up bookending my affiliation with The clipping book was a very limited edition of 300 copies, League, followed suit and its members joined the youth ASOC, attending its dissolution convention in New York Perhaps most important was the specially written introduc - group of the Socialist Party, the Young People’s Socialist that Easter weekend. League (YPSL). tion in which Draper argues that Independent Socialism was Affiliates were urged to organise local third camp social - At the time, the Cuban Revolution was brand new and an entirely new synthesis of socialist thought and ideas, ist clubs, and in short order we had formed a loose federa - what it was all about was of considerable moment to college something which, Draper argued, had happened very sel - tion with the Berkeley Independent Socialist Club, called the aged liberals and radicals. In 1963, when I was 20, I got into dom in socialist history. Independent Socialist Clubs of America (ISCA). Meanwhile, a discussion at a party with a young YPSL member about Nearly everyone in the ISCA was aware of the history of SDS was growing by leaps and bounds. Many Independent Cuba. I was so unused to thinking in terms of social move - the ISL, the Workers’ Party and its split from the SWP. That Socialist Clubs were so small that they really were not in ments and the idea of ordinary people being historical was one change between the ISCA and the IS, as I think much of a position to do much independently, and so many agents that I found his arguments all but incomprehensible. when the IS started we recruited a lot of ex SDSers who were independent socialists became active in SDS. I helped to or - He sold me a copy of New Politics , a third camp theoretical not as familiar with ISL history as were the ISCAers, most ganise an ISC in Washington DC, and was involved in sev - journal, that had a symposium on Cuba — but if anything, of whom had come out of the YPSL and many of whom had the written arguments were even more incomprehensible to eral SDS chapters in DC as well. been in the YSL, the youth group of the ISL. me than had been my conversation. There were also copies of Shachtman’s pamphlet, The Fight SDS for Socialism , around. This had been published by the WP I spent some time trying to locate the Socialist Party, SDS collapsed in 1969. Most of its members were liber - shortly after the war and was a good example of how the which, unbeknownst to me, in the winter of 1964, was in the alish kids who were lost to politics because of the fac - WP tried to be a small mass party. It was basically an expo - midst of a faction fight. I attended a Communist Party tion fight that ensued, but a handful of SDS chapters sition of classical Marxist and third camp ideas written at forum, and a forum organised by the then pro-Stalinist had third camp politics and significant minorities in sev - about an 8th grade level in an effort to attract blue collar Monthly Review . I was put off by the pro-Soviet politics and eral other SDS chapters were third campers. could make neither head nor tail of the sectlets leafleting out - workers with limited educations. At the other end of the side. I also attended a forum of the orthodox Trotskyist So - These folks came together with the ISCA (I think it was in spectrum the WP also published The Struggle for the New cialist Workers’ Party. Ann Arbor, though it may have been in Madison. I can’t re - Course , probably Shachtman’s best written work and an his - At the time I was working as a billing clerk for a major call, as we had conventions in both places), and they formed torical explanation of the rise of Stalinism in Russia. We also music publisher in Manhattan. I eventually found the YPSL the International Socialists or IS. pushed stuff from Britain such as Tony Cliff’s State Capital - through serendipity. The guy sitting at the desk behind me My own historically forgotten contribution to this was my ism in Russia and stuff from the Libertarian Book Club, was a YPSLer, though it took several weeks of circumspect opposition to the change of the name of the organisation which was an anarcho-syndicalist British outfit. small talk to figure that out. Once I did, I was ready to join, from Independent Socialist to International Socialists. It is I was one of the first people to “industrialise”, not out of but things were a mess in the SP and the YPSL. It was an most certainly not that I was opposed to it politically, but I any ideological commitment, but because I was a college election year and the Party divided on the question of did think it was sectarian. It was one thing for a British drop-out who needed the best paying job he could find. The whether to support Lyndon Johnson’s Presidential cam - group, coming out of a culture of a mass labour party, to industrialisation experience was one of the things that drove paign against Barry Goldwater. The left wing majority of the openly characterise itself as “international”. It was quite an - me away from the IS. Party was propagandistically for a labour party, though other, I thought, for Americans just coming out of the Mc - I worked in an auto parts plant in New Jersey, a kind of Party notables like Norman Thomas, Bayard Rustin, A. Carthy era, to adopt such a moniker. backwater local. Every Friday I would drive into Manhattan Philip Randolph and Michael Harrington were busy barn - At the time, as the name choosing was supposed to be fun to attend an IS meeting and their discussions of the Ameri - storming for Johnson. and the last event at a long and tiring convention, Mike can working class seemed like a fantasy to me having little That is the swamp I walked into. This was at the same Parker viewed my opposition as a disruptive attempt to to do with my day-to-day work experience. time that these same personalities were involved in a famous keep people from going home in a timely way, though it was That said, I tend to agree with Draper’s assessment that conflict with SDS, then the youth wing of the social demo - inconsequential enough that Mike has no memory of it. I had Independent Socialism was a new synthesis. Even in Jersey, cratic League for Industrial Democracy. At the time, despite tremendous respect for the intellectual heavies of the IS, peo - I had discussions with other young workers who were in a the turmoil that it was going though, YPSL was still signifi - ple like Kim Moody, Mike Parker, Joel Geier, Sy Landy and variety of radical sects and our discussions seemed to bear cantly larger than SDS. Joanne Landy. They always treated me as a comrade though very little relationship to what we had to do every day on I moved into a left wing YPSL commune on the lower East I never felt their intellectual equal. This never stopped me the job. There was a kind of Cold War political backward - Side, where I got a very intense socialist education in very from taking exception to them when I disagreed but I was ness among older workers that fortunately disappeared as short order, which included reading the first edition of Hal constantly getting the shit kicked out of me intellectually. my own generation came of age and began to take the reins Draper’s classic pamphlet, The Two Souls of Socialism . After that convention I relocated to central New Jersey ofWleahdeenrsDhirpapinerthelelfatbothuer mISo,vemmyenpto. litical mentor and Over the summer of 1964, I got a summer job out of town where my wife was attending graduate school at Rutgers. Draper’s peer Stan Weir barnstormed the country trying and lost contact with YPSL. When I returned to Manhattan Hard on the heels of that convention was a strike at General to keep the organisation together, though I think and went to Socialist Party headquarters I learned that the Motors. A strike school was being conducted at the Rutgers Draper’s predictions were essentially correct; in fairly leadership of YPSL had been suspended and its files confis - Labor Center, where the Shachtmanite leadership there was short order, the IS became more and more sectarian to cated by the Party, presumably because the youth were too open to trying to create a dialogue between auto worker mil - the point where only a couple of years later Stan more radical. Meanwhile, out in California, the Free Speech Move - itants and student radicals. Out of this we recruited several or less threw in the towel and gradually withdrew from ment was erupting on the Berkeley campus of the University young United Auto Workers (UAW) militants. We had an IS activity in the organisation. of California. branch in central Jersey, which included several Rutgers stu - G Jobless, I moved back with my parents in southern New dents and young UAW militants. Gabe Gabrielsky was a member of the YPSL and later Jersey and that Christmas holiday the remnants of YPSL met I think that there was a real distinction between the ISCA the IS, leaving the organisation in 1973. Since then he has in Philadelphia and organised itself into a formation called and the IS which hardly ever gets mentioned. I certainly felt been active in various trade union and political struggles, the American Socialist Organizing Committee (ASOC). I it at the time of the “name change”, which I always viewed including supporting Green Party electoral campaigns. He promptly lost contact with ASOC after its founding confer - as something considerably more than a mere name change. has also been active in Occupy Wall Street.

Heart of “third camp” tariat as the key force for social change. But he considered Union remained a workers’ state, “degenerated”, but a work - himself a “realist.” The failure of socialist revolution and the ers’ state, as long as property was nationalised. (At one point, challenge from totalitarianism convinced him that the prole - as I remember, he was convinced that any attempt to restore From page 9 tarian force was to be found not in the world of imagination, private property would be massively resisted by the Russian but in powerful, tangible, institutions. The quest for a revo - workers.) We replied that no property form guaranteed questioned its character as a “workers’ state”. Shachtman’s lutionary proletarian vanguard proved to be illusory. The power to workers, who could exert their power only through views were shared by others: Hal Draper, Joe Carter, Irving proletariat as a third camp clearly opposed to the others democracy. This idea stayed with me and resounded through Howe, Manny Garrett (Geltman), Stanley Plastrick (Judd), never materialised, and turned into a kind of mystical hope. the years. I took the idea one step further. I became convinced Julie Jacobson, and others (including, later, Mike Harrington) And so, in what he saw as the real world, he found the pro - that, as far as one could see into the future, no change in the who all broke with Shachtman and “inevitably” went their letariat existing as a real force and with real power in the ex - form of property ownership will erase the conflict among own individual, disparate ways. isting mass labour organisations. contending social groups. As far as we can see, the need will Actually, the idea that Russia was a new bureaucratic col - In practice, as he saw it, that power was wielded by the de - continue to defend people below from the administrators, lectivist society was first advanced by Carter and Garrett, in pendably stable labour bureaucracy. Even though my per - bureaucrats, and privileged strata above. From that stand - opposition to Shachtman, who came around later. sonal relations with Shachtman remained cordial, he was point, the test is not property forms but democracy, which Shachtman shifted course and developed the politics re - cold to my preoccupation with union democracy, which prAovnidd,eisnththeemceoansteoxftthoafttdheisfednicsec.ussion, the position of jected by the left only after the end of World War Two and meant a defence of democratic rights of insurgents against those who look toward authoritarian Russia and China, the failure of socialist revolution to develop. His left-wing labour leaders. He saw the proletariat, embodied in the exist - and the like, as “progressive” allies in the battle for... critics have measured the late Shachtman against the ac - ing workers’ organisations as a key force in resisting what he what?... is not only wrong, it is directly counter to what I cepted orthodoxy (which was his orthodoxy) of yesterday felt was the “dominant” danger of the time: Stalinist totalitar - believe, and is repellent to me. without ever subjecting their own orthodoxy to the test of ianism. No more third camp. So Shachtman evolved after the G world events of the last 150 years or more. end of World War Two. Herman Benson joined the Socialist Party’s Young Peo - (I should say that what follows is not based upon substan - I see a policy analogous to Shachtman’s, but on the left, in ple’s Socialist League (YPSL) in 1930 aged 15. He was a tive discussions with Shachtman, but on impressions I gath - those who, looking for a substitute for the proletariat, find it founding member of the Workers Party, a member of its Na - ered during many informal personal meetings with him.) in “progressive” forces, like the Russian and Chinese auto - tional Committee and labour editor of its paper, Labor Action . To the very end, Shachtman considered himself a Marxist crats, who oppose the “dominant” imperialism. He was a founder of the Association for Union Democracy and never abandoned the Marxian conception of the prole - In the debates of 1939/40, Trotsky argued that the Soviet [www.uniondemocracy.org] and its first Executive Director.

10 SOLIDARITY REPORTS

Southampton unions must make Reinstate Dayna Labour keep its promises Nembhard! By a Tubeworker By Darren Bedford rank-and-file control of the delivered their verdict that ‘normal’ Conservative-run supporter direction of the strike. cuts do not work and sent council. It has become a Trade unions have de - Despite the action, the the party addicted to aus - council in which Royston Tube worker Dayna scribed the electoral council’s attempt to impose terity packing. Smith has, in effect, taken wipeout of the Tories Nembhard was racially new, worse, contracts on its “The campaign to rid this on the role of elected from Southampton City abused in a branch of staff was ultimately suc - city of the cuts scourge was mayor. All the decisions he fast-food outlet KFC Council as “the chickens cessful and unions settled a success because working coming home to roost”. makes have one objective – after a shift at work on into a months-long trench people and their unions to help the Conservative re - London Underground. The Tory council, under warfare with council bosses joined forces to unseat a main in political control She defended herself, involving ongoing actions council leadership that was the leadership of Royston and to advance his political was arrested but later short of strikes. out of touch with the needs Smith, pursued an aggres - career.” released without sive cuts agenda, targeting Unite and Unison both of Southampton. The Labour Party made charge. Dayna Nembhard both local services and pay have close links with the “We urge Labour to now pre-election commit - Nonetheless her boss Jerome’s tribunal. Her and conditions for council Labour Party locally and work with the workforce ments to council unions demanded CCTV footage white manager then put employees. The cuts saw voting out the Tory and their unions to begin to begin a phased rever - from the KFC and took in a grievance, accusing sparked a high-profile in - leadership of the council as the urgent duty of deliver - sal of the Tories’ pay witness statements. her — a black woman — dustrial battle which saw a key political step towards ing ... strong public serv - cuts. If they are to be Dayna has since been of racially harassing him! workers take months’ breaking the industrial ices, fairness at work and held to that promise, sacked. This treatment eventually worth of strike action. The deadlock. thriving communities.” continued trade-union Dayna was not at work cost Elaine her job. Unite regional secretary Prior to the election, a campaign had an unusu - pressure will be essen - when the incident took In 2008, RMT discov - John Rowse said: statement from Unison ally high-levels of grass - tial. place, and not in uniform; ered LU was paying out roots participation and “Southampton voters have said: “Southampton is not a and the “incident” con - an average of £4,000 a day sisted of Dayna defending in employment tribunal Tilbury dock herself against racial settlements. That shows Support East London school strike! abuse. Yet London Under - that LU was systemati - workers ground have seen fit to cally discriminating Workers at the Central dismiss her. against and mistreating Negotiations between .sch.uk and NUT rep Sheila Foundation Girls School Dayna’s union, the workers, paying out com - strike unions, the school manage - McGregor at smcgregor in East London are set to RMT is demanding rein - pensation as if it was a ment and the local author - @central.towerhamlets.sch.uk. 45 workers at the En - strike again on Friday 11 statement, not just com - “business cost”. ity over the budget cuts terprise Distribution May as they fight job pensation. LU will expect Dayna’s behind the attacks have • Tower Hamlets Class Strug - Centre, which unloads losses, pay cuts and LU makes much of its case to go to employment been ongoing, and staff gle , the AWL industrial bul - paper reels from in - workload increases. reputation as a diverse tribunal. They will be coming vessels at the will meet on Wednesday to letin for education workers employer, but its record happy to pay out compen - Following a solid strike discuss the latest proposals. in the London borough of Tilbury docks in Essex, leaves much to be desired. satRioMnT. activists are on 25 April, members of • Messages of solidarity Tower Hamlets, can be read struck on Monday 7 LU was found guilty of planning a campaign, up Unison and the National should be sent to Unison and downloaded at May, marking the first racial discrimination by to and including strike Union of Teachers are gear - rep Jean Lane at tinyurl.com/thbulletin4. walkout at the docks an employment tribunal action, to tell LU bosses ing up for another walkout. [email protected] since 1989. for sacking Jerome Bowes that they will not get off the Bakerloo Line in away with paying Dayna The workers, who are 2008. RMT rep Elaine Hol - members of Unite, are off. They must reinstate ness, spoke out about her. striking against the arbi - Remploy workers fight job cuts LU’s discrimination at trary imposition of new contracts which could see them lose up to £2,500. By a GMB member of closures, over 1,500 are Employment Services busi - Unite official Jane Jef - disabled. Trade unions fear ne“sIst. is outrageous that More action in Tube Lines Remploy workers will fery said: “Members are that the remaining 18 sites the government can take mobilise for national annoyed at the complete are already earmarked for away the jobs of disabled By an RMT member ployees. They are also de - protests and a parliamen - lack of negotiation and closure and will follow in a workers ... to carry out an manding equal travel privi - tary lobby on 9 May as consultation. Since the second wave soon after. ideologically motivated Tube Lines workers, who leges. their campaign to save ballot for strike action, Phil Davies, national sec - privatisation.” provide maintenance and The RMT estimates that their jobs continues. we have had no formal retary of the GMB union, emergency services up to 50 trains were can - communication with the said: “This lobby of Parlia - The government plans to across London Under - celled as a result of the company. ment and the demonstra - • Workers will protest out - close 36 of the 54 Remploy ground, will begin an April strike. Only two “We want to hold tions around the country side Department for Work sites, leading to nearly overtime ban on Wednes - trained Emergency Re - meaningful and genuine are a measure of the mas - and Pensions (DWP) of - 2,000 compulsory job day 9 May. sponse Unit personnel talks with the manage - sive public support for con - fices on Tothill Street losses. were on site to attend to a ment on this issue. This is tinued funding of the (London SW1H 9NA) from The action follows their Remploy was established collapsed tunnel on the a 24-hour strike — the Remploy factories. 10.30am before assem - three-day strike from April by the post-war Labour Bakerloo Line. first by the dockers in 23 “It is now clear that this bling for a march in Old 24-27, and is part of a fight The overtime ban is government to provide years. government will use the Palace Yard, Westminster. to win pensions equality. due to continue until 23 “More strikes could protected employment for money that was earmarked A lobby of MPs will be Tube Lines workers want May, but union reps will be on the cards, if there disabled people. Of the to support the direct em - conducted from 2.30-4pm. their pensions to be raised meet on 16 May to dis - is no movement in this 1,752 workers set to lose ployment of disabled peo - Labour MP Ian Lavery is to the same level of other cuss extending the action dispute.” their jobs in the first wave ple to privatise its sponsoring the lobby. Transport for London em - beyond an overtime ban. Serco, privatisation, and Alex Salmond’s SNP

and-sundry public sector contracts, both in Britain and terms and conditions in CalMac (the David MacBrayne abroad: railways, prisons, health services, schools, speed subsidiary which runs the services at the moment). cameras, and Royal Navy and RAF contracts. Last year the SNP delayed announcing the outcome of Northlink staff will transfer to Serco under TUPE legis - the tendering process for the Gourock-Dunoon ferry Scotland lation but tha provides only limited protection for the service until after the Holyrood elections had been held. terms and conditions of employment of staff who trans - Although CalMac won the tender, their bid involved By Dale Street fer from one company to another. replacing car ferries by foot-passenger ones, closing the As an article in the Argyll News has put it: ticket offices in both ports, and substantial redundancies The SNP government in Holyrood has announced the “If the Serco proposal is to save the taxpayer money amongst the workforce. privatising of ferry services connecting the Orkney and return a profit for its shareholders, something has to This year the SNP sat on their announcement about and Shetland islands with the mainland. give. Its business plan cannot but impact on staffing lev - privatisation the Northern Isles ferry services until the els at some later stage after the TUPE transfer.” day after the local authority elections had been held. The services are currently run by Northlink, a sub - For certain, other ferry services will now be put out to (They claim, unconvincingly, that the announcement sidiary of the state-owned David MacBrayne Ltd. From tender. Despite opposition from the unions the SNP gov - was delayed because civil servants had to go into “pur - July onwards the services will be run by Serco. The con - ernment is pressing ahead with plans to put the Clyde dah” because of the elections.) tract, worth £243 million, will run for six years. Revelations about chummying up with News Inter - and Hebridean ferry services out to tender — a much Serco has experience of running just one other ferry national’s Rupert Murdoch one week. Privatising a bigger contract than the Northern Isles one. crossing — the Woolwich Free Ferry across the River publicly owned service the next. Welcome to the real The unions will need to combine ongoing campaigning Thames. face of Alex Salmond’s SNP. against the SNP’s Ferries Review and defending jobs and But it has a well-established record of bidding for all- SOLIDARITY 11 NHS plc: the shape of things S&oWloirkdersa’ Lirbeirtty y to come By Sam Ruby gesting that very severe cuts will be needed to meet Under its contract with this target, the report said. Stop the banks strangling Europe! the NHS, Circle Health - Circle are talking up the care, the private firm “efficiency” savings they which runs Hinching - plan to make. They say the brooke Hospital in Hunt - number of patients staying ingdon, Cambridgeshire, in hospital for more than 10 is allowed to claim the days has dropped. But, first £2 million of any an - says Tracy Lambert of Uni - French and Greek nual surplus, plus a per - son, Hinchingbrooke, these centage of any further figures are misleading — surplus (a quarter of the the hospital has fewer long- remaining surplus be - stay patients than others in tween £2-6 million, and a the county. third of that between £6- Circle began its 10-year elections show current 10 million). management franchise in The Health Service Journal February in what is seen as (HSJ ) has published a re - a potential model for other port (3 May) saying the hospitals across the coun - hospital will need to make try. policy is dead-end surpluses of at least £70 This private company is million over the next beginning to organise the decade if it is to clear its hospital to get, in the long- debts and meet Circle’s terTmh,ealtalbeaosutrsmomoe vpermofeitn.t By Gerry Bates Greeks, also scored well, contracted share. needs to monitor and re - like the far-right Front Na - Yet in the past decade, sist measures that under - Labour movements tional in France’s poll. the hospital has never mine the interests of across Europe should The election result in made an annual surplus of patients. more than £600,000, sug - mobilise to demand that France, where incoming EU leaders drop the dras - president François Hol - tic cuts programme im - lande has promised to posed on Greece. Results Health Alarm from Greece’s election on amend the EU’s fiscal 11:59 6 May have shown that treaty, and the forced resig - Mobilise to save the NHS the cuts are untenable. nation of militantly neo-lib - eral Dutch prime minister There had been much ag - Mark Rutte (23 April), have itation trying to blackmail thrown economic policy in Greeks into voting for New the eurozone further into PROTEST AGAINST Democracy (Tories) or flux. Pasok, or else face expul - Alexis Tsipras, leader of left-wing Syriza, who got 17% As well as supporting sion from the eurozone. defensive battles against CARE UK Those two parties, which 2009; Pasok, 13%, down The destructiveness of cuts, the left across Eu - had accepted the from 44% in 2009. the cuts imposed by the rope should formulate a Private profiteers in the NHS EU/ECB/IMF cuts pack - The left-wing coalition EU, ECB, and IMF is shown programme of its own, ages and sustained the Syriza, which rejects the by the rise of the neo-Nazi and intervene in the Wednesday 30 May, 5-6.30pm “technocrat” government cuts, does not advocate Golden Dawn party, which labour movement to de - of Lucas Papademos, previ - quitting the eurozone, but won 7% of the poll after velop mobilisations and St Vincent’s House, 21 Great ously dominated Greek advocates calling the EU scoring only a token vote in debates on the Euro-wide politics. Yet they got only leaders’ bluff, more than 2009. The right-wing na - issues Winchester Street, EC2N 2JA 32% between them. ND got tripled its vote from 4.6% tionalist anti-cuts split-off G 19%, down from 34% in in 2009 to 17% this time. from ND, Independent More: centre pages Cameron is still in hock to the Murdochs

By Pat Murphy self-abasing and craven Murdoch. In the aftermath Shortly after we go to press about it. of that report Cameron both Andy Coulson and It’s no surprise that the To some extent the other and other cabinet members Rebekah Brooks are due to Tories are taking most of main parties have escaped were under pressure to appear before the Inquiry. the political heat from blame by luck. Miliband is state whether they thought Brooks has promised to the revelations surround - a new leader who can put Murdoch was a fit person show Leveson dozens of ing News International. some distance between to run a major British text messages and emails himself and his predeces - paper. They studiously re - between herself and The fact that ex-News of sors. Clegg took over a fused. Cameron from the time the World editor Andy party that never had much The News of the World when the crisis first broke. Coulson was Cameron’s chance of winning the sup - James Murdoch and David Cameron may have closed and the Whatever Coulson says adviser and the constant port of NI papers. The Lib BSkyB deal collapsed, but on his appearance, days of reminders that Rebekah Dems are also protected by had actually been made the final political kick to News International still ex - media discussion of the Brooks and Elizabeth Mur - the Daily Telegraph ’s secret easier by Gordon Brown’s the News International ists and owns the Sun , the links between News Inter - doch are neighbours and taping of Business Secre - public fallout with the cor - corporation in Britain, it biggest selling daily and national and the Tories will close social friends of the tary, Vince Cable, saying poration. isn’t morality or loyalty. most widely-read paper in follow. Both Brooks and Camerons (in the Chipping he would do what he What is less obvious is Ye they are clearly not Britain, together with the Coulson know where the Norton set) all fix the Tory- could to prevent Murdoch why the Tory leadership ready to break the umbili - influential Times and Sun - bodies are buried. Fearing Murdoch mutual- taking over BSkyB. The has made no clear attempt cal cord. The refusal of day Times . The Tories have that they will reveal too backscratching link in the tape lost Cable his job, but to distance themselves de - Tory MPs on the Culture their support and don’t much, Cameron has asked public mind. it also saved his reputa - cisively from Murdoch and and Media Select Commit - want to lose it. Neither do Leveson to let ministers But Cameron will be tion. the continuing political tee to agree on a verdict they want to risk being on see their written evidence frustrated that the other damage which has fol - that Murdoch was not a fit Labour’s immunity from the wrong end of future inTahdevaTnocrey. dilemma was parties are not taking their lowed. This is, after all, a and proper person to run a the Leveson fallout is also exposures, scandals or pol - neatly summed up by share of the blame. After party renowned for its major media outlet is the down to some decision- icy parodies as they seek Nick Cohen in last all New Labour courted ruthlessness, summed up latest evidence of that. making. As soon as the re-election in 2015. Perhaps week’s Observer : “We Murdoch if anything more in the brutal dispatch of Whatever the procedural phone-hacking scandal they hope for some poison are in the absurd posi - three-time election-win - argument put by Louise shamelessly. In fact the his - broke Miliband publicly to be thrown in Labour’s tion where the Conserva - ning Thatcher from the Mensch (that the judge - toric and more natural ten - condemned it and made it direction when the dust tives dare not stop leadership in 1990 and cap - ment was outside the dency of News clear he would he was settles and the Sun , in par - fawning over Murdoch tured dramatically in the Committee’s remit) the im - International to support breaking from past Labour ticular, re-establishes itself. now for fear that he will 1980s TV drama House of pression conveyed is that the Tories required Labour, dalliances with News In - Not only is News Inter - reveal how they fawned Cards. Whatever prevents the Tories remain in hock if they wanted to win ternational. Applauded as national not finished, nei - over him in the past”. tabloid support, to be more brave at the time, this shift Cameron from delivering to and in the service of ther is the Leveson Inquiry.