No. 36, October, 1981
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,iJ No 36 October 1981 20p BRITAIN Time runs out for 'p , I.. The massive strike in the nal tic ports last August brought Polish workers before a histor ic choice: with the bankruptCJ of Stalinist rule draaat1cally deaonstrated, it would be either the path of bloody counterrev olution in league with imperi alism, or the path of rian pol,j;.t;4.~..ol,4RMIiIi.",,~t> GdaGa&.Acc:ords.act tM ~ cut (,f last year's ge.:;, r al strike, produced a situa'tion of cold dual po.rer, This preca rious condition could DOt last long, as _e .. rote A.c4_ time has run out, With its first national con gress in early September, decis ive elements of Solidarity are now pushing a programme of open coun terrevolution, The appeal for 'free trade unions' within the SOViet bloc, long a fight ing slogan for Cold War anti Communism, was a deliberate provocation of Moscow. Behind the call for 'free elections' to the Sejm (parliament) stands the programme of 'western-style democracy' ,that is, capi talist - ,\~! :'~~~~~~ restoration under the guise of Recent Solidarity congress (Lech Walesa, centre) votes for counterrevolution with Pope's blessing. • parliamentary government. And now leading Polish 'dissident' Jacek Kuron, an short of a 'commie dupe' and even condemned moving to take over the basic economic and pol influential adviser of Solidarity, and a member Nixon as soft on Russia! itical aspects of Polish life. NOW, writing in of the Second International, has issued a call Over and above the formal actions of the Con Solidarity's newsletter, Niezaleznosc, Poland's for a counterrevolutionary regime to take power. gress, the whole activity and spirit of Solidar most prominent social democrat, Jacek Kuron, has To underscore their ties to the 'free world', ity is that of an organisation making a bid for called for a new government based on a 'council Solidarity's leaders have invited Lane Kirkland, power. A few weeks before the Congress the top of national salvation' consisting of Solidarity, the Catholic Church and 'moderate' Communist of the hard-line Cold Warrior who heads up the leader, Lech Walesa, told printers who were American AFL-CIO, to attend the second session striking government newspapers: ficials. 'The moment the council is formed, it would suspend operation of all authorities, in of the congress scheduled for late September. 'I believe that confrontation is unavoidable. This top labour lieutenant of US imperialism, a The next confrontation will be a total cluding the government', Kuron added (UPI dis man deeply involved in Washington's anti-Soviet confrontation .... patch, 16 September 19Si). The sophisticated representatives of western war drive, has announced he will be there to 'We see more clearly that without political imperialism, such as the New York Times, and ap wave the 'free world' banner in Poland. Accom solutions nothing can be achieved. The whole parently the Kremlin Stalinists as well, under panying Kirkland is Irving Brown, the sinister war will be won by us'. (Los Angeles Times, stand that Solidarity has now crossed the Rubi AFL-CIO 'European representative' whose 'labour' 21 August) con. Top American officials have been quoted in cover is an invaluable part of his years-long When asked what would happen if the Sejm refused European papers saying that Poland today is the role as top ~IA provocateur against the European to act on Solidarity's programme for self most excitin~ and important opportunity for the labour movement. In turn Solidarity has opened a managed enterprises, Bogdan Lis, regarded as the West since 1945. And this is from an administra US office in the premises of teachers' union organisation's number two, replied smartly, tion that begins to salivate as soon as it hears leader Albert Shanker, a notorious right-wing 'Maybe we'll dissolve it' (New York Times, 13 social democrat whose party newspaper, New September). When the 900 delegates left the Con the word 'roll-back', Hoscow has issued its America, denounced George McGovern as little gress, they understood that the organisation was continued n page 10 • 'Hands- off Russia!' Benn and Brighton ... p3 British labour and the - -- Spartacist League, Wars of Intervention 1918-21 ... p8 Commuoist Faction fuse ... P4 ---------------------eddo~lnores Aquestion of leadershi With virtually the whole of the 'far left' general strike around demands that could unite following Tony Benn's every word as the 'social the whole of the working class: to bury the ist' hope for Thatcher's Britain, Ken Loach's anti-union laws and victimisations, to reverse documentary film on the great steel strike of the social service cuts, to fight the redun 1980, which appeared on ATV 13 August, was a danCies through work sharing on full pay and a valuable reminder of a time not so long ago when sliding scale of wages -- and to get the hated Thatcher was under the gun of a class-struggle Iron Lady! Such a general strike could have ,,',)allenge ... and Benn said not a word. 'A ques thrown the bourgeoisie on to the defensive, Lion of Leadership' brought together. union of placed the proletariat in a far stronger posi tlcials, strike militants and one or two osteris tion, and impelled the growth of a revolutionary ible revolutionaries -- most notably Alan Thorn vanguard and opened up the road to the struggle ett, Workers Socialist League (WSL) leader and for a revolutionary workers government. deputy convenor at the BL Cowley Assembly plant The receptivity to our propaganda from unaf in Oxford. filiated steel militants around the country, the Militant steelmen described how they organ spontaneous chants of general strike which broke ised their strike, and the savagery they faced out in any sizeable demonstration, were, baro from 'Haggie Thatcher's boot boys' at the scab meters of what a revolutionary organisation with ~lants of Hadfields and Sheerness. And they ex even a modest base of authoritative communist : res sed their bitter resentment at the betrayal militants within the trade unions could have and obstruction from national and local bureau done to turn that strike around. But across the crats: 'Every time we scored a g0!il, you awarded board, the fake revolutionaries opposed this two penalties to the other side.' Only the pro perspective in practice: some, like the Social crastination of the Wales TUC prevented a Welsh ist Workers Party, explicitly and openly fight general strike; BL bureaucrats sat on a 2-1 ing against the general strike call; some, like strike vote until the steel strike was over; the International Marxist Group and the WSL, 8000 Sheffield engineers striking in solidarity In an article published immediately before raising a half-hearted and belated call premised were ordered back to work by the Con fed 29 Dis this historic sellout, we wrote: on good faith in the TUC bureaucrats and linked trict Committee. And even as the dockers were 'A general strike is not pie-in-the-sky. It to a perspective of returning Labour to the voting for a national strike after the Liverpool is the road to victory. And it is posed more Treasury benches in the next elections. And all ~pn had walked out in solidarity with the steel sharply as a concrete opportunity today, even of them demonstrated a nauseating capacity to men, the ISTC bureaucracy under Bill Sirs was in the eleventh hour of Sirs' sellout at approve or apologise for scabbing and the cross simultaneously and consciously voting up the tempts, than it has been at any point in the ing of steel workers' picket lines, which posed sellout to be shoved down the throats of thou last thirteen weeks of class war. Steel a concrete method of spreading the strike and sands of embittered, angry strikers. Liverpool workers: Stay out and win!' (Spartacist forcing the TUC to call a general strike. dockers' leader Dennis Kelly captured some sense Britain no 20, April 1980) So it came as no surprise that Thornett, the of the proportions of this act of class treason: Nor was it simply a question of stopping the 'great workers leader' and self-styled Trotsky 'There was a recall docks delegate conference movement of steel, important as that was. What ist militant, with an opportunity to address which you knew about .... We were demanding a was necessary to win the steel strike was pre millions of workers, could only drivel unintel full stoppage of every port in the country. cisely to make it more than a steel strike, by ligibly about economics and gripe about how the And we won it! ... We came out of the meeting, broadening the programmatic basis of the strike. Oxford bureaucrats sat on the BL strike deCision. and what do we get met with? You actually The Thatcher government had consciously prepared When steel workers picketted Thornett's Cowley voted to go back in, when every port in the to face down the steel workers as a lesson to plant, did he mobilise his ~~~~o§ed b • d •• count!y was going to be stopped so there the whole working class. A &e,Der~+"f~J~_h~*~i ,t,1Ioa? Did he ao JaUCh _ stdd OD tbeir picket b2s' •.• eO R 1~--'" , c,\str-l" be no .\iteel moved in or our···· WhE.l!\t _ the air 1"~ .-~ ••~~c:.~ .. _ r ~ ey s!ltHere~ past the victory was in your grasp, after thirteen - our propagairda, in leaflets distributed to ~- picket lines into work. Trotskyists are supposed weeks, you turned round and swallowed it. sands of steel workers, car workers, miners and continued on page 15 Good Christ!' dockers -- we emphasised that perspective, of a Remember: 'Down with the shah! Down with the mullahs!' US SWP still hails Khomeini butchery to a well-de_rved deatll -- eyen if it is only to variety of counterrevolutionary -- the monar Every day's news from Khomeini's Iran brings chists, the liberals, and the US imperialists fresh evidence of the reality of Islamic reac proaote fo~r Islaaic ruler 8ani-Sadr -- we can themsel ves.