So& Wloirkdersa’ Lirbeirtty y No 279 20 March 2013 30p/80p www.workersliberty.org For a workers’ government

SWP: time to The threat from The origins of the rethink Golden Dawn ‘united front’ page 5 pages 6-7 pages 9-10

SECTION 75: TORIES TRY TO Se e PRIVATISE BY BACK DOOR page 3 Public health, not private profit! LOBBY : HOUSE OF LORDS, TUESDAY 26TH MARCH 2 NEWS

What is the Alliance for Anti-cuts councillors meet

Workers’ Liberty? By Tom Vickers The role of the unions has on the council are clearly so far been contradictory. agitated. It was agreed that Today one class, the working class, lives by selling its labour power to Around 60 activists and another, the capitalist class, which owns the means of On the one hand unions are the councillors should con - production. Society is shaped by the capitalists’ councillors met in Birm - helping to run local cam - tinue to share their experi - relentless drive to increase their wealth. Capitalism ingham on 16 March to paigns, but nationally their ences and work with local causes poverty, unemployment, the blighting of lives discuss the Councillors leaderships are advising campaigns. The conference by overwork, imperialism, the destruction of the Against Cuts campaign. union-backed counillors to also agreed on the impor - environment and much else. The event had four ses - vote for the cuts or failing to tance of not splitting local Against the accumulated wealth and power of the sions: defend them, other then for - anti-cuts campaigns by in - capitalists, the working class has one weapon: solidarity. • Supporting unions and mally, when they face disci - sisting they stand candi - The Alliance for Workers’ Liberty aims to build solidarity through campaigns fighting against plinary procedures for dates against Labour. struggle so that the working class can overthrow capitalism. We want the cuts this year voting against them. speak to meetings in their socialist revolution: collective ownership of industry and services, EXCLUDE • Defending Labour community, to local govern - workers’ control and a democracy much fuller than the present system, PRESSURE ment union branches, and These discussions imme - with elected representatives recallable at any time and an end to councillors fighting against It was agreed that we diately split campaigns the cuts from victimisation local Labour Parties. bureaucrats’ and managers’ privileges. should continue to put Some activists thought it and exclude not only We fight for the labour movement to break with “social partnership” • Winning the arguments pressure on unions, espe - was highly likely council - Labour Party activists but and assert working-class interests militantly against the bosses. over the coming years, cially those affiliated to lors could be expelled, in anyone not persuaded of Our priority is to work in the workplaces and trade unions, building a united labour Labour, to defend the the case for running in supporting workers’ struggles, producing workplace bulletins, helping movement campaign to which case they should just councillors who have continue to act as Labour elections. organise rank-and-file groups. stop further cuts and to re - voted against cuts and to councillors regardless. Gary Our campaigns should be We are also active among students and in many campaigns and verse those already enacted. raise their opposition to stressed that he would do built on organising direct alliances. Each of these was accom - councils voting through this and he felt that, with action against the cuts and - panied by short statements cuts budgets. We stand for: for voting, which all passed. enough support and a real defending councillors who ● Independent working-class representation in politics. The level of the debate was Josh Jones, a councillor fight being waged inside have voted against the ● A workers’ government, based on and accountable to the labour good and focused on the from Birmingham (who ab - the Labour Party, it was whip. Within Labour Party movement. role of the Labour Party, the stained on his council’s cuts possible to avoid expulsion selection contests, we ● A workers’ charter of trade union rights — to organise, to strike, to affiliated unions, and where budget) also highlighted the from either the Labour should back candidates picket effectively, and to take solidarity action. the campaign can go next. need for a strong campaign Party and also, hopefully, who pledge to vote against ● Taxation of the rich to fund decent public services, homes, education to push councillors into de - the Labour group on the cuts. Various speakers ob - We need to politicise and jobs for all. fying the whip and educat - council. served that the cuts haven’t both our local Labour ● A workers’ movement that fights all forms of oppression. Full ing them politically on the The poisonous atmos - hit everyone yet. The ques - Parties and anti-cuts equality for women and social provision to free women from the burden importance of the fight phere facing many council - of housework. Free abortion on request. Full equality for lesbian, gay, tion was asked: despite the campaigns to think about overwhelming majority of against cuts. lors was discussed. In Hull, bisexual and transgender people. Black and white workers’ unity portfolio holders flooded what we need from against racism. councils passing on the Gary Wareing from Hull one CLP meeting to argue elected representatives. ● Open borders. cuts, where do we go from spoke about the importance ● Global solidarity against global capital — workers everywhere have here as even tougher cuts of getting councillors who against the “Defend the more in common with each other than with their capitalist or Stalinist come through? have defied the whip to Hull Three” motion. The • councillorsagainstcuts.org rulers. leaders of the Labour group ● Democracy at every level of society, from the smallest workplace or community to global social organisation. ● Working-class solidarity in international politics: equal rights for all “One Barnet” on trial Defend Don MacDonald nations, against imperialists and predators big and small. ● Maximum left unity in action, and openness in debate. By Ed Whitby and kept him in custody ● If you agree with us, please take some copies of Solidarity to sell — on will be cut even more se - for four hours; a friend and join us! verely than at present. On Saturday 16 Febru - had to be contacted to Her fears have received ary Michael (Don) Mac - look after Don’s son. vindication in the last Donald took part in the The charge was reduced month as the Council has Contact us: 1,500-strong anti-cuts to Section 5 of public had to step in to bail out ● 020 7394 8923 ● [email protected] march in Newcastle. order act (causing alarm “Your Choice Barnet”, the The editor (Cathy Nugent), 20e Tower Workshops, Riley Don has been a key ac - or distress). Don agreed to Road, London, SE1 3DG. arms-length organisation set up to provide care and tivist in organising this pay a fixed penalty fine as ● Printed by Trinity Mirror support services for dis - and other protests oppos - he wanted to get home to abled adults. YCB was sup - ing the £100 million his young son. posed to make a surplus, a budget cut to services. He Don as a youth worker repugnant idea in itself! In is a local resident and a doesn’t believe he should Get Solidarity every week! fact, it has operated at a loss youth worker, facing have such a “crime” on his record, and has de - ● Trial sub, 6 issues £5 p By Vicki Morris and now needs £1 million 100% cut to youth and from the Council. play services. cided contest the charge. ● 22 issues (six months). £18 waged p A campaign has been “One Barnet”, Barnet To - The management are try - At the end of the launched to demand the £9 unwaged p ries’ plan to privatise ing to impose drastic cuts demonstration at the rally charge is dropped and ● 44 issues (year). £35 waged p most of Barnet Council on the pay and conditions point in the city centre, of the workers, and reduce the Council Leader Nick that activists, residents £17 unwaged p services (probably in two contracts worth up to £1 service levels, in order to Forbes walked past and and workers are not vic - ● European rate: 28 euros (22 issues) p billion to Capita), is being balance the books. YCB was Don approached him to timised for fighting the or 50 euros (44 issues) p scrutinised in the High set up under the auspices of challenge him on what he cuts or publicly criticising One Barnet. local councillors. Tick as appropriate above and send your money to: Court this week. thought about the cuts. An open letter in sup - On Saturday 23 March we Nick Forbes and his part - port of Don has already 20e Tower Workshops, Riley Road, London, SE1 3DG Disabled resident Maria are holding our “Barnet ner threatened to call the been signed by many Cheques (£) to “AWL”. Nash has made an applica - Spring” march to protest police saying they knew trade unionists and tion for a Judicial Review. against One Barnet and the who Don was and where Or make £ and euro payments at workersliberty.org/sub. labour movement ac - Day one on Tuesday 19 cuts. Assemble: 11am, he worked. The incident tivists including John March involved her barris - Finchley Central tube; lasted less than a minute, Name ...... McDonnell MP, and RMT ter, Nigel Giffin, outlining march sets off at noon to and Don was not angry or the lack of consultation of general secretary Bob Friern Barnet Community threatening. Address ...... residents over the plan. Crow. Library. Six hours later as Don Maria is also bringing her There is a bus available was at home with his six ...... case because she worries for those who prefer not year old son asleep in bed, • defencecampaign.word - that if One Barnet fails to to walk. I enclose £ ...... the police came and ar - press.com deliver promised savings, rested him under Section • Online petition: council services she relies • More: barnetalliance.org 4 of the Public Order Act, bit.ly/Wy6xmR 3 NEWS Public health, not private profit! Reporting rape

By Gerry Bates

The government is con - and police lies tinuing its attempts to formally privatise the Na - By Charlotte Zalens questions at all stages of tional Health Service by the process; a victim- stealth. “Police Sapphire teams blaming culture means It was forced into a strongly encourage women are questioned on climb-down on implement - women to drop rape their clothing, how much cases... Police failed to they had to drink, their ing Section 75 of the 2012 believe victims”, re - sexuality, behaviour, past Health and Social Care Act, ported the BBC news at relationships and many which would have forced the end of February. other things. “commissioners” to open As socialists we have up every aspect of health - The report was linked to the case of a woman many reasons to distrust care provision to tender by the bourgeois courts, and Marching to stop the cuts at Whittington Hospital, north London, 16 March who reported a rape to private companies. But Southwark police but was given the accounts of the widespread opposition, in - encouraged to drop the experience many women cluding from Labour MPs, charges, the man later reporting rape have had lobby follows the must be fought on its own having blind faith that the at the hands of the police, forced the government to Lewisham campaign’s suc - terms and on the basis of Labour Party, run by peo - went on to murder his redraft the law. two children. it is understandable why cessful “Born in clear, winnable demands, ple just as committed to many choose not to report But the new version, due Lewisham” event on as well as linking up across cuts as the Tories and Lib A truly shocking case, but the many other times it. Reporting rape to the to come into force on 1 Saturday 16 March. cities and regionally. Dems (only “slower” and police should always be April, is described by the rape cases get dropped The day also saw Unions should call a na - “shallower” cuts), will and police fail to believe the choice of the person Save Lewisham Hospital thousands of people march tional demonstration in de - undo the damage. involved. However we It means letting the victims do not make it campaign as “the same in north London against fend of public healthcare, can’t stand aside from the Labour Party, which re - into the mainstream news. wrecking ideas spruced up, massive cuts at which opposes the Coali - issues involved here. We tains the affiliation of the It is a reality which cowardly repackaged.” Whittington Hospital in tion’s attacks and demands should have something to biggest trade unions, won’t be unfamiliar to Shadow Health Secretary Archway. The Whittington that Labour reverses them many women who have say. We recognise that the know that its government Andy Burnham hailed the faces reduced maternity if it wins the next election. experienced reporting treatment of rape cases in will face industrial and the criminal justice system redrafting as a “U-turn”, services, ward closures, Activists from local rape cases to the police, or civil direct action if it affects those who have but the changes are cos - fewer beds for the elderly, Labour Parties and unions who have supported does not challenge the suffered from rape and re - metic. The government’s 570 job cuts, and no on-site will attend a meeting called those who have. It is well Tory agenda. documented that only flect broader issues. attempt to impose the law accommodation for nursing by the NHS Unity Network The questions that have without any Parliamentary staff. Recent months have on Saturday 23 March at about a third of reported rape cases are considered been put to complainants scrutiny is also, even by the also seen action against the headquarters of Unite by the Crown Prosecution in rape cases reflect a very government’s low stan - hospital cuts and closures to discuss how the fight for •savelewishamhospital.co Service, only 20% make it deeply ingrained vein of dards, deeply undemocra - in Ealing, west London, public healthcare and m (Save Lewisham Hospi - to court and of only 6% of discrimination, not only tic. and Bolton in Lancashire. against PFI can be taken up tal campaign) all reported cases end in a against women but of The Save Lewisham Hos - A coalition of campaign - inside the labour move - • dwhc.org.uk (Defend the guilty verdict. class, race and sexuality. pital campaign and Unite ing groups has called a ment. Whittington Hospital These statistics have I have been unable to find data about rape bro - are organising a lobby of London-wide demonstra - Demanding Labour Coalition) been the subject of femi - tion for Saturday 18 May. fights for the NHS does not • NHS Unity Network nist attention for a long ken down by ethnicity but Parliament at 12pm on the CPS data on violence Tuesday 26 March. The Each local campaign mean waiting until 2015 or meeting: on.fb.me/15YfqXs time. In the Southwark case against women shows the media concentrated on that of domestic violence Gove’s got to go Labour backs up Tory the second crime, even cases that made it to court though as we know the 92.7% of these involved odds were against the white women, with 7.1% rape case getting to court being Black and Minority By an East London teacher unpaid labour scheme Ethnic women. anyway. It was as if there We do know that On Wednesday 13 March, NUT ere no other issues in - when women have spo - members marched to the Depart - By Gerry Bates being made in future, in volved apart from police ken out about their ex - ment for Education to tell Gove order to “protect the na - efficiency. perience about police However, the case also he’s “got to go”. Labour MPs helped get tional economy”. attitudes to rape reports raised some worrying the coalition off the hook Most Labour MPs ab - they say that if they did - Around 600 education workers trends in police attitudes over the “workfare” scan - stained in the vote on the n’t fit the category of a battled blizzards to be there and were joined by members to detection. The Inde - dal that saw three appeal law (57 voted against). The white, middle class of PCS who left their department offices in solidarity. pendent Police Com - court judges rule that the Shadow Work and Pen - woman their claims are Teachers gathered to protest against the privatisation of plaints Commission work-for-free-or-lose- sions Secretary, Liam dismissed. the education system, the fixing of exam results, the pro - looking into the case your-benefits schemes to Byrne, has attacked govern - posed changes to the curriculum and attacks on our terms claimed that “Southwark which over 200,000 un - ment “incompetence” over • Editor’s note. The CPS and conditions. Sapphire unit in south employed workers have workfare, but not opposed have recently produced a These changes are felt as cynical attacks on teachers and London ‘encouraged’ vic - been subjected are un - the schemes on principle. report that shows false al - the comprehensive state education system so many us are tims to withdraw allega - lawful. Boycott Workfare, the legations of rape are very proud to work in. tions to boost detection grassroots direct action net - rare. Another already Chants of “Gove must go” progressed into a vocal de - The February ruling rates”. work whose regular high- well-known but undere - mand for strike action. While the demonstration brought meant that the government The implied scenario is street demonstrations have ported reality. people together from across London to make our voices could have had to pay £130 that the police select the shamed some firms into The CPS are now indi - heard, it is not one man we are fighting but a whole ideol - million in benefits rebates cases most likely to get to pulling out of the schemes, cating that they will be - ogy. Isolated protest actions that will not win what we to up to 231,000 people, but court and get a conviction called the move “unbeliev - come more robust at want. a new law, rushed through in a bid to apparently im - We need a fast moving campaign of activities that ably disgusting”. prosecuting rape cases. Parliament on Tuesday 19 prove detection statistics. has a serious programme of escalating industrial ac - But will they? We wel - March, overturns the ap - Already women face tion at its centre. • More: come discussion on this peal court’s decision and probing and unnecessary boycottworkfare.org.uk issue. prevents similar appeals 4 COMMENT

Make solidarity Don’t exaggerate the UKIP threat proposition to Hampshire voters than the Tories. And while the Liberal Democrats did win in Eastleigh, on May Day Nick Clegg will be well aware that UKIP regularly place third Would you like to build sup - Dave Osler in nationwide opinion polls, ahead of his party. Even Ed port for your dispute or cam - Miliband must be mindful that it has shown itself able to se - paign? Why not send a British parliamentary contests are described as first past cure backing from a layer of former Labour supporters. message to trade union and the post for a reason, and the reason is that coming sec - In many ways, UKIP is a classic rightwing populist proj - socialist activists by placing a ond does not get you a seat at Westminster. ect, articulating the anger of “the people” and pitting it against an out of touch “elite”, without specifying the class May Day message in Solidar - Yet somehow UKIP is basking in a spectacular degree of composition of either set of parameters. All that is missing is ity ? On Wednesday 1 May we favourable publicity through the simple expedient of losing a charismatic leader, with Farage selling himself on his reg - will be publishing the May the Eastleigh by-election. ular blokeishness rather than outstanding oratorical skills. Day issue of our paper. One factor at work is that many rightwing pundits have a Untainted by direct fascist association, and seemingly sin - vested interest in bigging up UKIP’s “triumph” — if one We hope you would like to cere in its determination to forestall far-right entryism, it has wishes to call it that — by way of a weapon in what they see see your trade union logo and the capacity to act as a focal point for nationalist sentiment. as a war to recapture the Conservative Party for Conser - message printed there, amongst Precisely because it is constitutionally opposed to racial vatism. those of a variety of other trade union and campaigning discrimination, and because it has fielded black and Asian The parallel that immediately springs to mind is Roy organisations. electoral candidates, its opposition to immigration can be Jenkin’s not-quite-good-enough campaign in Warrington in Our prices and instructions: passed off as respectable. 1981, likewise hyped up by commentators determined to see 2 columns — £15 (78mm x 84 mm, 10-30 words) Its platform does have undeniable appeal to a fair old Labour step back from its radicalism of the period. 3 columns — £25 (78mm x 174mm, 50-70 words) chunk of the electorate, as the 2.7 million votes it picked up If I were Nigel Farage, I wouldn’t find the analogy too com - Please do not send us artwork but a copy of your logo in the 2004 Euro attest, or even its 900,000 tally in the 2010, forting. After all, 32 years ago the Gang of Four were boast - or graphic you would like to use (preferably electroni - surely illustrates. None of the myriad recent electoral chal - ing that the SDP would “break the mould”; in the event, the cally, or camera-ready) and the text of your lenges to Labour have even been able to dream of getting into show was all over just seven years later. greetings/message. The deadline for this issue is Mon - such territory. day 29 April. While the UKIP leader is similarly predicting an earth - In short, UKIP may pick up a handful of seats in 2015, The funds will go directly to the Workers’ Liberty /Sol - quake at the next general election, all we have seen so far is or it may not. Either way, the mainstream party leaders idarity fund appeal. We want to raise money to expand a tremor that objectively comes in towards the lower reaches would be foolish to start basing entire manifestoes on a our activities and publish new books in 2013. of the Richter Scale. UKIP remains an MP-free zone, and perceived threat that isn’t there. there is no guarantee that it will supersede this status in 2015. Help us raise £15,000 by May Day 2013. You can Remember that even though the space between liberalism contribute in the following ways: and the place where authoritarian imperialist rightism gives ● Taking out a monthly standing order using the form way to overt fascism is vast, Tory hegemony within it has not below or at www.workersliberty.org/resources. Please been subject to any sustained challenge since the Conserva - tive Party emerged in modern form around 180 years ago. po●st completed forms to us at the AWL address below. Making a donation by cheque, payable to “AWL”, or For UKIP to carve out a permanent niche in this territory would represent an unprecedented achievement. do●nating online at www.workersliberty.org/donate. Organising a fundraising event. That said, just because something has never been done be - ● fore does not mean it cannot be done. Where once David ● Taking copies of Solidarity to sell. Get in touch to discuss joining the AWL. More infor - Cameron was able casually to dismiss UKIP as “fruitcakes, mation: 07796 690874 / [email protected] / AWL, loonies and closet racists”, this collection of misfits, oddballs 20E Tower Workshops, 58 Riley Road, London SE1 3DG. and space cadets has now shown itself a more attractive

Total raised so far: £8,266 Can’t place demands on M5S We raised £165 this week from 266 sales of literature (thanks to Shef - £8, feild AWL) and an anonymous do - sation and for rather more leftwing mayors in Milan, Naples nation. and Palermo in May-June 2011 — did pull a large section of the younger generation, particularly in the large urban cen - Letters tres, to the left and counteract years of conditioning by Berlusconi’s television channels. Standing order authority I was puzzled, and indeed rather shocked, by Hugh Ed - In contrast, Grillo only uses the web in a top down fash - wards’ concluding paragraphs in his article “What is the ion, using his blog to issue virtual fatwas. He is not interested To: ...... (your bank) 5 Star Movement” ( Solidarity 277, 6 March) in which in negative feedback and ignored the clamour on the net for Hugh argues: “M5S has to widen its demands, political, M5S to make a deal with the PD on a programmatic basis ...... (its address) economic and social”. around Bersani’s “eight points” all of which are in M5S’s own ...... This makes the assumption that M5S is broadly analogous programme and most of which are supportable, particularly to a social democratic formation or perhaps a heavily bureau - the points about dealing with the “conflict of interests” Account name: ...... cratised trade union; in short, a body rooted in the workers’ (Berlusconi’s combination of a media monopoly with a major movement on which we can place demands either in the political role) and the need for a new, more serious, anti-cor - Account no: ...... hope of pushing it further left or, perhaps, in order to expose ruption law. its leaders in the eyes of their own rank and file. Obviously the left needs to appeal to sections of M5S’s elec - Sort code: ...... In the Italian context this tactic might be legitimate in rela - torate , particularly workers, students and the unemployed, Please make payments to the debit of my tion to the CGIL, Rivoluzione Civile, SEL and, perhaps, even and it may well be that some of Grillo’s parliamentarians will to the PD. M5S is not such a phenomenon. break with him — the rebellion of about a dozen, mainly Si - account: Payee: Alliance for Workers’ Liberty, Indeed Martin Thomas in “Another new mood” ( Solidarity cilian and Southern, M5S senators who refused to take a neu - account no. 20047674 at the Unity Trust Bank, 277) brackets it with the reactionary Islamists arguing “dem - tral stance when faced with a stark choice between the former 9 Brindley Place, Birmingham B1 2HB (08-60-01) agogic hyping-up of miscellaneous ‘new moods of anger’ — anti-Mafia magistrate Pietro Grasso and Berlusconi’s former Hamas, Hezbollah, Muslim Brotherhood, Grillo, you name Justice Minister Renato Schifani (a Sicilian who has on occa - sions been the object of judicial investigations into alleged Amount: £ ...... to be paid on the ...... day it — is no service to working-class politics”. The dominance of M5S’s two leading figures, millionaire Mafia connections) for the Presidency of the Senate is a hope - of ...... (month) 20 ...... comedian Beppe Grillo and the rather mysterious business - ful sign. Grillo has talked about expelling them but seems to (year) and thereafter monthly until this order is retreating from doing so. man Gianroberto Casaleggio, who have been accused by the However, to engage with M5S in the way Hugh sug - cancelled by me in writing. This order cancels Italian news magazine Espresso of having links with off shore gests reminds me of the KPD at its very worst — any previous orders to the same payee. companies in the manner of Berlusconi and neither of whom episodes like the Schlageter line, the Berlin transport are remotely left wing, make a nonsense of M5S’s horizon - strike or the “red” referendum against the Social Demo - Date ...... talist pretensions. cratic government of Prussia in 1932. “After Grillo, us” is M5S has exploited a climate in which other more horizon - not the way to go. Signature ...... talist social media-based phenomena — such as Popolo Viola and the campaigns against nuclear power and water privati - Toby Abse, south London 5 WHAT WE SAY How not to argue

Some ridiculous things have been said during what tained no criticism of the regime, nor support for the strug - passes for debate inside the now much-degraded and gles of workers, women, or students inside Iran. The AWL damaged Socialist Workers Party (SWP). proposed an amendment to the motion that added a clause For example, in their drive to crush internal opponents, the supporting democratic and working-class opposition to the leadership denounced them as “feminists”. The opposition Iranian regime. Our amendment did not alter the motion’s have, apparently, been “contaminated” with ideas from the opposition to war and sanctions, and we made it plain in our movement around them, including nasty feminism. speeches that we opposed a American, British, or Israeli at - From a distance, the AWL has watched supporters of the tack on Iran. SWP Central Committee argue something along the lines of: We won the argument and the amendment was accepted “I used to be a feminist, but then I realised the SWP was right, by the conference. But the SWP then voted against the sub - and what we really need is a socialist revolution”. How stu - stantive motion, because, they said, the AWL supported a pid is that? As stupid as, say, “I used to be a militant trade war against Iran and the inclusion of our amendment made unionist, but I’ve junked all that because I realised the SWP the motion pro-war. This, despite the text, the speeches we’d was right, and what we really need is a socialist revolution”. made, and a headline in the issue of the paper we were sell - On the face of it, the SWP’s world is a place where two ideas ing at the conference which read: “Iran: no to war and sanc - can’t complement or supplement each other. tions”. But it is not quite as simple as that. These are political peo - “We used to be feminists, but now we only serve a party- ple who haven’t chosen to fight against their opponents’ sanctioned idea of the socialist revolution”... ORGANISATION BEFORE POLITICS “feminism” for no reason. The demonisation of feminism is There are several issues here. One: the SWP actually an attempt to answer — or at least to have something to say lowing paragraph: supports Iran against the west but isn’t brave enough to back against — the charge facing the leadership, that they “We … thought it was important to be clear that the dis - say so openly for fear of losing potential recruits (organ - have not taken seriously an allegation of rape made by a putes committee doesn’t exist to police bourgeois morality, isation trumps political honesty and clarity). so we agreed that issues that weren’t relevant to us were young woman against one of their leaders. “Object to that, Two: even if the SWP was right to support Iran against the do you? You nasty little feminists, standing outside our tra - whether the comrade was monogamous, whether they were having an affair [and] the age differences in their relation - west, it would be wrong to stop criticising its anti-working dition, putting yourself outside our ranks...” class government and supporting its working-class oppo - The SWP leaders’ attempt to kick into the long grass an in - ship, because as revolutionaries we didn’t consider that should be our remit to consider issues such as those.” nents. convenient allegation of rape is just another example — albeit Third: the SWP machine would be a lot less likely to get of an unusual type — of the SWP subordinating political Buried in the report here is an oblique reference to a central away with this sort of nonsense if the SWP students had, for principle (or indeed human decency) to the practical organ - issue: an SWP leader, close to 50 years of age, had been ac - example, thoroughly educated themselves in the Trotskyist isational needs of their party. cused of rape by a party member who, it turns out, was of tradition many of them now say they want to renew. And we The shoddyness, and crudeness, of the leaders’ drive school age. Seemingly everywhere we turn — the Liberal De - don’t mean Cliff’s opinion of what Trotsky would have said against their opponents is a measure of the weakness of their mocrats, the Savile scandal, Chetham’s School of Music in if Trotsky had been as unprincipled as Cliff, but Trotsky him - case. It is also an indication of a habitual distrust of opposi - Manchester — there are older men using positions of author - self, and others. tion by a bureaucratic regime with a complete disdain for ac - ity and power to abuse women. According to the SWP ma - SWP students might do well to read Trotsky on the rise of countability. It also underlines the point we’ve made chine, to believe this abuse of power is disturbing and wrong German fascism and try to think about how that squares with countless times to the SWP over decades: an organisation is “bourgeois”. the politics and practice of UAF; or Trotsky on the united built in this bureaucratic way will, in the end, self-destruct; If it is, good for the bourgeoisie1 The left can probably front and think about the way SWP members behave in the certainly it has the wrong specifications to do the job of fight - learn from the best practice of bourgeois institutions which ing for socialism. have rules and structures in place to obstruct opportunistic unions; or Trotsky on Palestine and square that with what Bureaucratic administration of the machine, above political and predatory sexual behaviour. the SWP says on Israel-Palestine. Just because Trotsky said principle, runs counter to what revolutionary socialists are Dismissing “bourgeois morality” in this way is cynical, and something doesn’t necessarily make it right, but SWP mem - about — winning the battle of ideas. Members of left groups evasive. It is demagogy which aims to shut people up. bers and ex-SWP members whose education in Marxism has must be able to learn to think and argue freely, test ideas, People in the SWP opposition have just been put through consisted in reading Marxist ideas of Marx, Lenin, Trotsky speak our minds. If we are constrained by petty rules, intim - the SWP grinder. They have found themselves lied about and and others as filtered through the work of Cliff, Harman, and idated into silence, battered, trained to subordinate princi - the victims of abuse and bureaucratic tricks. Maybe the shock Callinicos would do well to do some independent self-edu - ples to organisational needs, we undermine our ability to act might help them rethink the ways in which they themselves cation and reading of the real thing. as effective socialists inside the workers’ movement. have behaved in the past. For instance, towards the AWL! Recent ex-SWPers have been part of a party that has, for Take another shameful example of how not to argue — the One example from last year — the SWP supported a mo - example, regularly called AWL racists, Muslim haters, “Is - SWP’s disputes committee (which dealt with the rape allega - tion to the student National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts lamaphobes”. Why? Superficially, because we opposed tion) wrote a report to the their January conference the fol - conference which opposed war against Iran. The motion con - boosting the conservative right-wing of the Muslim commu - nity (as the SWP did through its alliance with the Muslim As - sociation of Britain in the Stop the War Coalition and Respect), because we advocate a two-states settlement in the Israel-Palestine conflict, and because we oppose the Muslim The rank-and-file alternative Brotherhood in places like Egypt. Many comrades leaving the SWP are students; but Services campaign and set up its own front, losing many The hatred generated towards us — regularly denouncing many are trade union activists, and as time passes, members as a result. us as “Zionists” — has an organisational function, shoring more will be. The alternative is shown, in rudimentary form at least, by up a sect and sealing young SWPers off from us. Their break from the SWP is a chance to rethink the neg - what is being done by left and rank-and-file activists in the It is impossible to deal rationally with people who simply ative aspects of the SWP’s work in the labour movement, National Union of Teachers (NUT) — who have created the assert that we hate Palestinians, or that we are “pro-imperi - and think about how to do something better. Local Associations National Action Campaign (LANAC), a alist”. But let’s suppose a two-states position does imply a The SWP’s approach has been to create fronts such as network of branches and school groups organising around reactionary attitude towards the Palestinians (and ignoring Unite the Resistance and Right to Work, with no real struc - the key issues facing teachers independently of and in op - the fact that the majority of Palestinians themselves favour tures or independent life, through which they can establish position to the NUT's “left” leadership. The SWP has stood two states), then the linkage has to be argued , not simply as - a relationship with some of the more left-wing union bu - aside from this new organisation and in part defended the serted. Shouting “racists” across a room doesn’t make a case, reaucrats. Far from putting pressure on these bureaucrats NUT leaders against it. it simply makes the person doing it look deranged, and pre - from the left, the effect is to pull the SWP to the right and At a time when working-class anger is running high but vents a rational exchange of views. prevent it from making adequately sharp criticisms. At working-class confidence is low, there are no easy answers Those oppositionists now leaving the SWP have been on times SWP members on national executives have been to how socialists can rebuild and renew the labour move - the receiving end of the same method. Hopefully they will sucked into siding with their union leadership (in the case ment. But the question cannot even be thought about with - abandon it in their own politics. of the CWU’s Jane Loftus even leaving the SWP as a result). out a different approach from the SWP’s — one which We want to discuss with others on the left, including the Despite the good work done by many SWP members in focuses on rank-and-file organisation, develops unity in fragments of the SWP, because without such an open ex - their workplaces and unions, the organisation is fundamen - struggle and is militantly independent of all factions of the change of ideas it will be impossible to rejuvenate our move - union bureaucracy. ment and make Marxism a mass force again. We say that the tally a disorienting, disorganising force. We urge ex-SWP comrades to change course and movement needs to read, think, educate, and debate clearly, Fronts such as Unite the Resistance also serve to divide work with the AWL and other socialist trade unionists openly, and honestly. There is an opportunity to do that now. and weaken the broad anti-cuts movement. In Lambeth, for to develop this approach. Let’s call an end to politics which serve party ma - instance, the SWP repeatedly tried to split the Save Our chines. 6-7 Left and unions must un

By Theodora Polenta More recent restrictions have been placed on citizenship law. To qualify for citizenship, children’s parents must have Racism is a key component of Greece’s three party coali - been resisdent for eight years (up from five). They must also tion government. This was emphatically confirmed when have successfully attended school for nine years (up from last summer the Minister of Public Order, Nikos Dendias, six). Children who acquire citizenship now have to choose launched a fierce attack in Parliament on “illegal immi - between their Greek citizenship and that of their home coun - grants”. try when they become adults. The same goes for adults ap - He claimed that “an incredibly large number of immi - plying for naturalisation. Adults now have to be resident for grants are involved in serious crime”. He forgot to say that 10 years (up from seven) before applying for citizenship. the vast majority of “foreign immigrants” are EU citizens, not 84 members of New Democracy tried to celebrate the re - “illegal”, and that the overall involvement of “Greeks” in turn to the “law of blood” by submitting a Parliamentary crime has increased rapidly since 2010, due to widespread amendment which denied the right of membership in the po - impoverishment. lice and military academies to “allogeneic [genetically-differ - Dendias promised to accelerate the construction of the ent, transplanted] Greeks”. The amendment had to be fence in Evros (along the Greek-Turkish border) and (temporarily) withdrawn after public and political outcry, es - strengthen Frontex (the EU’s border management agency). pecially after it was revealed that the idea had originated As with his predecessors, he has prioritised construction of with Golden Dawn. new refugee concentration camps which he has elegantly Dealing with racism must be an urgent priority for the left. called “reception centres for illegal immigrants”. Every neighbourhood needs anti-fascist and anti-racist com - Upon becoming prime minister, one of Antonis Samaras’s mittees that can confront Golden Dawn. priorities has been taking away citizenship rights from chil - Immigrants are an integral part of the Greek working class, dren of immigrants and restricting political rights to a very not a risk or threat. Either the left organises our fight in a small number of immigrants. united front to crush fascism or we will allow it to continue to grow with incalculable consequences. Golden Dawn is not an ephemeral phenomenon. It is not CITIZENSHIP There is a poisonous interrelation between state racism going to disappear by wishful thinking or passive calls for At the same time, the “Independent Greeks”, and the against immigrants and the growth of the far right neo-Nazi “Golden Dawn”, submitted bills for the repeal democracy. Fascism, in all its forms across Europe, is fuelled of the laws which grant some immigrants citizenship. by deep crises, the impoverishment of wide layers of society, and by the inability of the left to face up to the threat. Yet only 7,000 immigrant adults or minors have acquired going on the offensvie against the left wing and coinciding Greek citizenship since 2010 when this law came in because with a re-introduction of the “theory of the two extremes” SYRIZA (where the far left is equivalent to the far right). of racist conditions and restrictions of the law. Although the leadership of Syriza refer to the need for “Xenios Zeus” was conducted at a unique moment — Despite governmental assurances that Golden Dawn anti-fascist action in texts and leaflets, overall it has not when the economic and political crisis was dangerously out would be marginalised in Parliament, 41 MPs voted a Golden taken any organised initiative on the formation of an anti- of hand, the capitalist oligarchy lacked any serious support in Dawn MP into the position of the seventh Vice President in fascist front. Parliament, although Golden Dawn has just 18 MPs. The the population for its programme, and thus the only weapon ultra-right MPs of New Democracy, essentially Greek Tories, left to the government was the disorientation and the divi - Syriza’s anti-fascist actions have been initiated by Syriza’s must have been responsible. sion of workers. Immigrants were the perfect scapegoat. components (mainly the youth of factions within Syriza such From mid-July until late August 2012 there were more than “Xenios Zeus” rested on a particular ideological founda - as Synaspismos, Kokkino, DEA, Akoa, and Roza). 100 attacks on migrants, with serious injuries, and a handful tion. The “excuse” was not just “law and order”, but many In Antarsya, a left-wing political coalition outside Syriza, it of murders. It was an escalation of already serious racist vi - other fascist beliefs. Samaras, Dendias, and the media have is mainly SEK, the Greek sister group of the British SWP, and olence (500 were seriously injured from January-June 2012). backed up the “Xenios Zeus” project by calling for “reoccu - OKDE Spartakos (the Greek section of the Fourth Interna - This violence has been complemented by increasing racist pation of our cities from foreign invaders” and saying “immi - tional) that make anti-fascist initiatives. But SEK does this in and fascist commentary in the media. Golden Dawn is wel - gration is the bomb at the foundation of society, the state, and a sectarian way against other forces of the left. In some neigh - come on all the TV channels. In supposedly objective jour - our culture.”. borhoods and cities (such as Kallithea, Zografou, Thessa - nalism, the media promotes and advertises their ideas and The attack was also well coordinated. It started with im - loniki, and Volos) anti-fascist initiatives have been created, actions. migrants, but quickly moved onto Syriza and the left. mainly by left activists, including anarchists. The outbreak of racist violence in August followed the gov - “Xenios Zeus” began with the “cleaning” of central Athens Emphasising physical or “military” confrontation against ernment-orchestrated police operation “Xenios Zeus.” “Xe - and a few other cities, concentrating in Athens on arresting Golden Dawn squads is a political dead end. The fascists are nios Zeus” initiated a more authoritarian form of governing, immigrants who collect the recyclables from the trash. They not just a gang of thugs, but an obscurantist and barbaric did not touch the tourist areas, which continued to be filled movement, aiming at destroying the working-class move - with “black slaves” in hotels and other tourism businesses. ment, the left, and the unions. Golden Dawn in numbers Golden Dawn has run campaigns which have comple - On the other hand, we cannot effectively confront Golden mented the state’s violence against immigrants. It started a Dawn by legalism and putting our faith in parliamentary • Vote in last election (17 June 2012): noisy campaign against the so-called “dragon of Paros” (a democracy or allowing the police force to “do its job” — be - 426,025 Pakistani man accused of sexual assault) and passed quickly cause that “job” is rounding up immigrants. Neither can we (6.92%) on to a campaign against the provisional detention of undoc - form “democratic fronts” with enlightened or progressive • MPs: 18 umented immigrants in the buildings of the Police Academy bourgeois politicans. So we should not downplay the neces - • Number of local offices: 28 in Komotini. They mobilied around a similar issue in Corinth sity of confronting Golden Dawn thugs in the streets. • Current support (in an opinion poll conducted and ended with a “show of strength” demonstration at a Syriza’s proposals for “social welfare homes” that offer on 22 February 2013): “Spartan” mounment in Thermopylae at the end of August. legal assistance, basic medical care, free tuition to needy stu - 12.3%. • Estimated support amongst the Athens police In Parliament, the Interior Minister Stylianidis responded dents, etc., although positive, cannot in themselves be the an - swer to the fascists nor the response to the crisis. Syriza does in the May and June 2012 elections: to the racist question of Golden Dawn MP Panayiotaros 20-30% about the number of immigrant babies and toddlers that “oc - not have the resources to fill the void created by the disman - • Approval rating for the leader of Golden Dawn, cupy” places in free council run kindergardens. Stylianidis tling of the welfare state. Nikolaos Michaloliakos: 15% dutifully rushed to demand municipalities release data for Our response to the fascist threat should comprise of three such children, implying that priority should be given to things. Firstly, organise the left and unions to lead mass Greek babies and toddlers! struggles to address the critical problems of ordinary people: GREECE nite to fight racism

the spread of unemployment and the dismantling of the wel - fare state. Golden Dawn’s racist terror We need to stubbornly impose at the centre of political life issues of poverty and unemployment of workers, pushing The recent history of the rise of Golden Dawn is a aside so-called “illegal immigration” and crime. and playgrounds where immigrant mothers and toddlers record of terror against migrant communities, the left, Secondly, we need immediate relief for victims of the cri - are playing. and the labour movement. sis via social networks of solidarity. Anti-fascist groups • Attacking small shops and market stalls run by migrants. should link up with neighbourhood community movements In June 2012, Golden Dawn thugs carried out murderous • Assisting old ladies in the streets, organising food i and left councillors to organise soup kitchens and other mu - attacks on immigrants in Messinia. They also broken into kitchens and food distribution for “Greeks only”, in areas tual and social aid for working-class people, regardless of the house of some Egyptian immigrants in Perama and at - where the left is traditionally strong. (This phenomenon is their nationality or immigration status. tacked them with wooden and metal sticks. The perpetra - not new. In the American south in the 1920s, the Klu Klux Thirdly, we need mass, militant, anti-fascist mobilisations tors were arrested, but released on bail. An anti-fascist Klan combined pogroms against blacks with assistance pro - to paralyse the fascist bullies and isolate loose supporters of demonstration in Perama in response mobilised 1,000 peo - grammes to poor whites.) fascists from the hardcore. ple. • Launching “Greek-only” job agencies, mainly in central A robust and combative working-class movement that Golden Dawn members distributed homophobic leaflets Greece, bringing workers to local factories; in Pieria, recruit - leads the struggle against austerity measures, poverty, and at the Athens Pride march. In Veria, Golden Dawn mem - ing farm labourers. unemployment also enforces and strengthens the unity of the bers, including Parliamentary candidate Ioannis Sahinidis, • Performing regular visits to workplaces to check on the working class against racist prejudices and has the potential stormed a coffee shop associated with the left, attacking racial purity and immigration status of all workers and the to stop the growth of the fascists. But it is a mistake for some customers and the owner. The police arrested eight Golden compliancy of workers to the demands of the capitalist sections of the left to underestimate the necessity of building Dawn thugs, but also the coffee shop owner! bosses, i.e. staying ununionised. up a specific political front against the fascist and racist In summer 2012, a YouTube video was released showing • Organising mobile blood donation units that will only take donations from, and donate to, Greeks. threat. Golden Dawn thugs stabbing an immigrant in the metro at • Organising “Sunday schools” and “cultural events” This kind of logic can lead to abstention from any political Attiki Square. The station security guard watched from a for primary school children in deprived areas, indoc - fight to defend the refugees against specific racist attacks or distance. There was no arrest. trinating them at a very early age with ideas about to stop the fascists from parading and spreading their racist In October, Golden Dawn organised alongside Christian racism, fascism, and racial purity. poison in our streets. Euqally, the heroic, “military”-type ef - fundamentalists to harrass actors, crew, and audience at the forts of anarchists, who regard it as their personal and ethi - Athens premier of Terrence McNally’s play Corpus Christi, cal responsibility to deal with the fascists, are ineffective and which Golden Dawn claimed was an affront to “Christian counterproductive, isolating them from the mass of society. Orthodox” values. In the same month, they ransacked a They are portrayed by the mainstream media as fights be - Tanzanian community centre. tween two extreme sections in the margins. In December 2012, Golden Dawn members attacked We should learn from the refusal of the German Commu - Syriza MP Dimitris Stratoulis at a football match. In January nist Party leadership to co-operate with the Social Democ - 2013, a Pakistani immigrant was murdered as he cycled to racy and mobilise the majority of the organised German work. When two men were brought to trial for the crime, working class in the 1930s against the rise of Hitler. When the judge refused to describe the murder as racially moti - confronting fascists, numbers — big numbers — matter. This vated. fight should involve the whole of the working class. We can In February 2013, Golden Dawn members attacked a only defeat fascism if we form a robust united front of all prominent member of the PAMA trade union because they working-class organisations, of all left parties, of all trade were “annoyed” by the “subversive” music he was listen - unions, and youth movements — independent of their lead - ing to in his car. erships if necessary. Other Golden Dawn activity has included: The actions of the revolutionary left now will determine • Protesting against uninsured “illegal” immigrants receiv - whether the crisis is going to open up the road for the ing medical treatment, and organising mobs to enter hospi - overthrow of the capitalist system that carries with it tals and threaten to kick out all immigrants. Greek footballer Giorgos Katidis’ Nazi salute showed fascist economic crisis, poverty, racism, wars and fascism, or if • Targetting kindergartens attended by immigrant toddlers ideas and images are penetrating the mainstream of Greek it is going to lead society back into the darkest parts of in working-class areas, sometimes even targetting parks society. the history. 8 FEATURE Seventy England’s first Marxist?

However, against the percent advocates of physical force, such as O’Connor Our Movement — the son of a member of By Micheál MacEoin Wolfe Tone’s United probation Irishmen, whose outlook was shaped by the Irish George Julian Harney (1817-1897) was a radical Chartist revolutionary traditions leader who became a pioneer of English revolutionary — Harney and William privatisation socialism. Bronterre O’Brien com - Born in Deptford, Harney decided against following his bined a fascination with the French revolutionary legacy of father’s maritime career and became a shop-boy for Henry Gracchus Babeuf with an increasing appreciation of the Hetherington, editor of the Poor Man’s Guardian . Hethering - growing English workers’ movement. plan ton, whose paper advocated the “cause of the rabble… the Along with O’Connor, Harney became a founder of the poor, the suffering, the industrious, the productive classes,” openly republican East London Democratic Association and By Gayle Heaney refused to pay the 4d. stamp duty on each paper sold. In the became convinced of William Benbow’s argument that a early 1830s, twenty-five of his forty paper sellers went to Grand National Holiday, or general strike, was the means to The government plans to privatise 70% of the entire prison for selling the unstamped publication. change the political system. At the Chartist Convention in national probation service by 2015, leaving just “high- One of those arrested was Harney, and his imprisonment the summer of 1839, Harney and Benbow convinced the del - risk offender management” to public probation trusts. had a radicalising impact. Harney was a member of the Lon - egates of this and toured the country to attempt to persuade don Working Men’s Association but became impatient at its workers to join in the strike. The proposals are not evidence-based; there is not a sin - failure to achieve universal suffrage. He became influenced Harney was arrested and charged with sedition, and the gle shred of evidence to suggest the service will be more by the more militant ideas of Fergus O’Connor who advo - strike was called off. He moved to Scotland and married effective with a privatised, payment-by-results system. cated physical force, to the horror of more moderate Chartists Mary Cameron, but before long was back in England as the The probation service has in fact been successful in reduc - such as Hetherington and William Lovett. Chartist organiser in Sheffield. ing re-offending rates year on year, so there is simply no On 28 January 1839 Harney argued that: ”You will get During the strikes of 1842, Harney was one of the fifty- reasonable argument to privatise. It’s purely ideological. nothing from your tyrants but what you can take, and you eight Chartists arrested and tried at Lancaster in March 1843. In my office, many workers of all grades are no longer can take nothing unless you are properly prepared to do so. After his conviction was overturned on appeal, Harney be - content with their position within the service, and many In the words of a good man, then, I say ‘Arm for peace, arm came a journalist at O’Connor’s Northern Star and within two people are talking about leaving because they are sick of for liberty, arm for justice, arm for the rights of all, and the years became the editor. He became increasingly interested the constant threat of redundancy. I’ve spoken to plenty of tyrants will no longer laugh at your petitions’. Remember in the international struggle for universal suffrage and workers over the last few years, and the same themes keep that.” founded the Society of Fraternal Democrats in 1845, devel - coming up: “We’re getting sold to Serco aren't we?” “I oping closer links with Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. might just take redundancy and get another job some - where else.” LABOUR It's plainly obvious that people are angry and fed up, In 1848 Harney explained the ideals behind the Society: but these emotions are not resulting in greater organisa - Ideas for Freedom “I appeal to the oppressed classes in every country to tion or the desire to stand up and fight for jobs and con - unite for the common cause... the cause of labour, of ditions. There’s a growing sense of despair, and many labour enslaved and exploited. people seem almost ready to pack up and find somewhere 2013 “Do not the workers of all nations have the same reasons else to work. for complaint and the same causes of distress? Have they not, UNIONS therefore, the same just cause?” The National Association of Probation Officers (NAPO) Harney persuaded Marx and Engels to write for the North - and Unison are the two main unions within the serv - Marxist ideas ern Star , and when the revolutions broke out across Europe ice, both officially recognised by all probation trusts. in 1848, he travelled to Paris to meet members of the revolu - tionary Provisional Government. At London Probation there isn’t a lot of unity between to turn the tide By now a socialist, Harney’s political beliefs strained his the unions and they often have very separate agendas. For relationship with O’Connor, who persuaded him to stand example, NAPO are still very much a craft union, openly down as editor of the newspaper. He founded his own paper, priding themselves on being a “professional association”. Friday 21 — Sunday 23 June the Red Republican , with the help of Ernest Jones, and at - NAPO runs a national “Public protection not private tempted to educate his working-class readership about so - profit” campaign, which has seen an Early Day Motion University of London Union, Malet cialist ideas. It was in this paper that the first English edition (essentially a petition of MPs) against privatisation and of the Communist Manifesto was published in 1850, prompting monthly campaign bulletins distributed to members. Street, London WC1E 7HY a London Times leader of September 2, 1851 on “Literature For NAPO has demonstrated and lobbied at Parliament in The Poor” to worry about the “evil teachings” in Chartist support of its EDM. newspapers. The Unison probation branch in London has a better In 1851 Harney joined with Marx, Engels and French fol - general approach to trade unionism, and opposes com - lowers of August Blanqui to found the Universal Society of pulsory redundancies, but the branch leadership seems Communist Revolutionaries. However, the defeat of the 1848 preoccupied with picking bizarre fights with management revolutions and the stabilisation of the economy in the 1850s on side-issues that most members couldn’t care less about. took their toll on Chartism. Harney’s paper was not a com - I remember the two branch secretaries of Unison spending mercial success and soon folded. Demoralised, Harney found an entire morning disputing the title of a single advertised himself politically isolated after having fallen out with Jones job and communicating this to members, while NAPO and Marx, and suffered a further blow when his wife died in were preparing placards for a demo outside Parliament! I 1853. wish the Unison branch could see the bigger picture some - In 1863, Harney moved to America and worked as a clerk. times. His only contact with politics was writing articles for the Unison nationally is opposed to the privatisation, but Newcastle Weekly Chronicle . When he returned to England in there’s not a lot coming from head office regarding an ef - 1881, unlike many old Chartists Harney did not join Henry fective fightback. There’s talk of a national NAPO strike — Hyndman’s Social Democratic Federation (SDF), though he for any action to be effective, Unison and NAPO need to A weekend of socialist debate, did send messages of support to the striking dockers in 1889 link forces and ensure workers of all grades take part. and attended the May Day demonstration in 1890. Community Payback was privatised last year and one discussion, and education According to Terry Liddle’s pamphlet Deptford’s Red unit privatised is one unit too many. The key here is turn - Republican , “shortly before his death Harney was inter - ing workers’ despair into something bolder. organised by the Alliance for viewed for the SDF's Social Democrat by Edward Avel - A public probation service is an integral part of both Workers’ Liberty. More info on ing. Aveling wrote: ‘I see in this old man a link between the welfare state and the justice system, and we can - the years and the years. I know that long after the rest of not sit back and allow this disgrace of a government workersliberty.org soon. us are forgotten the name George Julian Harney will be to take that away. remembered with thankfulness and tears’”. 9 FEATURE How German revolutionary workers wrote the “united front”

In this second part of a review article looking at the themes sky, Zinoviev, Radek, Bukharin) on 20 November 1922 and of John Riddell’s new book of documents* from the early concluded in favour of Thalheimer’s proposal. Bukharin was communist movement, Paul Hampton discusses the con - given the unenviable task of moving a resolution at the Con - cepts of transitional demands and the united front. gress against the perspective he had himself taken just two days previously. The resolution vindicated the use of transi - The first three congresses of the post-Russian revolu - tional slogans and was adopted unanimously. It stated: tion Communist International (Comintern) had not elab - “3. The programmes of the national sections must motivate orated a programme of demands, although they had clearly and decisively the need to struggle for transitional de - issued manifestos and declarations. mands, with the appropriate proviso that these demands are Previous Marxist programmes had included the Commu - derived from the specific conditions of place and time; nist Manifesto (1848), the Erfurt Programme (1891), various “4. The overall programme must definitely provide a the - versions of the Russian Social Democratic programme, and oretical framework for all transitional and immediate de - the Spartacus programme (1918). A weakness of previous mands. At the same time, the Fourth Congress strongly German revolutionaries such as Paul Levi helped develop the programmes was elaborating a link between the minimum, condemns efforts to portray as opportunism the inclusion of revolutionary movement’s understanding of working-class immediate demands for reform and the maximum goal of so - transitional demands in the programme”. power and how to fight for it cialism — that is to say, a lack of “transitional” demands. But this conception was never further developed within The debate was particularly important in Germany, where the Comintern. Although Thalheimer continued to defend the German communists (the KPD) sought to grapple with transitional demands, Bukharin had had his way by the time ate a wider movement for united working class action. its strategic responsibilities. For example, as the Marxist his - of the sixth congress in 1928. The programme adopted at that Paul Levi and Radek drafted an open letter, published 8 torian Pierre Broué has pointed out, transitional slogans were congress eschewed the transitional approach. January 1921. The demands were: a favourite idea of KPD leader Heinrich Brandler. In mid- It was Leon Trotsky who rooted out this crucial flaw in the 1. United wage struggles to defend all workers and em - 1922, the Comintern executive began to develop a pro - Stalinised Comintern’s programme and went on to develop ployees. gramme for the International. However disagreements the conception, notably in his Action Programme for France 2. Increased pensions. emerged about what should be included. At the Third Con - (1934) and the Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the 3. Reorganisation and increases in unemployment al - gress in 1921, the resolution “On Tactics” summed up what Fourth International (1938). Despite the misuse of transitional lowances. became the conception of transitional demands: demands by many post-Trotsky Trotskyists, it is part of a 4. Government provision of food ration cards at reduced “In place of the minimum programme of the reformists priceless heritage from the early Comintern which, applied cost. and centrists, the Communist International proposes a strug - and adapted to current realities, retains its vitality for our 5. Seizure of housing space for the homeless. gle for the concrete needs of the proletariat, for a system of politics. 6. Measures to provide food and other necessities under demands that, in their totality, undermine the power of the the control of factory councils. bourgeoisie, organise the proletariat, and mark out stages in UNITED FRONT 7. Disarmament and dissolution of armed bourgeois de - the struggle for its dictatorship; each of these demands gives The united front is one of the most common expressions tachments and formation of workers’ self-defence organisa - expression to the needs of the broadest masses, even if they in the Marxist lexicon today. It concerns the way in which tions. do not yet consciously set the goal of proletarian dictator - revolutionary socialists work with and alongside re - 8. Amnesty for political prisoners. ship.” formist workers for action around specific goals. 9. Immediate establishment of trade and diplomatic rela - tions with Soviet Russia. DIFFERENCES It is premised on the fact that revolutionaries are in the mi - Although the KPD initiative was rebuffed by the SPD and nority, but can fight for reforms alongside other workers in Although the Fourth Congress did not adopt a formal USPD, the idea was further developed at the Third Congress order to develop the class struggle in a socialist direction. programme and all sides agreed it was premature to do of the Comintern in 1921. The Fourth Comintern Congress was the largest meeting so, the discussion revealed important differences of in - The resolution “On Tactics” stated: “At the present mo - to discuss how to implement the united front tactic. How - terpretation. ment the most important task of the Communist Interna - ever, the idea of the united front did not originate with the tional is to win a dominant influence over the majority of the The main reporter, Bukharin, disagreed with having tacti - Comintern. It was the product of the actual experience of rev - working class and involve the more active workers in direct cal issues in the programme. He said: “Questions and slo - olutionary workers, particularly in Germany, working out struggle”— a strategy summed up in the slogan, “To the gans like the united front of the workers’ government or the how to operate in the post-war circumstances. masses”. seizure of material assets are slogans founded on a very fluid The once million-strong German Social Democratic Party At the end of November 1921, the Bolshevik Party’s polit - basis, one of a certain decline in the workers’ movement.” On (SPD), which had once contained all socialist tendencies be - ical bureau decided to support the extension of the German 18 November he warned: “I will fight against that in every fore 1914, had shattered under pressure from the war. In 1916 united-action policy to the Comintern as a whole. possible way. We will never permit such concepts to be built the left and centre formed the Independent USPD. After the On 4 December 1921, a Comintern executive (ECCI) for - in to the programme”. creation of workers’ councils, the SPD and USPD formed a mally adopted the united front as policy. Riddell argues that He was opposed by Thalheimer from the German party, government in November 1918. The Spartacus group around the theses bore the mark of Zinoviev’s thinking, motivating who along with Brandler had been utilising transitional de - Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht and Leo Jogiches formed the united front on the basis of the current conjuncture — “an mands to build united fronts between the KPD and other the KPD. However, the party was severely repressed and unusual transitional period” — marked by worsening capi - workers’ organisations. Thalheimer confessed that he had “a many of its leaders killed. talist economic crisis, a shift to the left among the masses and sharp disagreement with Comrade Bukharin... [over] the In November 1920, KPD activists in Stuttgart, notably in - “a spontaneous striving for unity” among workers. The the - question of transitional demands, demands for stages, and cluding Clara Zetkin, decided to launch a campaign for ses proposed that the Communist parties “strive everywhere the minimum programme”. He said that “the specific dis - workers’ unity in action. They proposed in a local metal to achieve unity…in practical action” and “take the initiative agreement between us and the reform-socialists is not the fact workers’ union that the union should petition their national on this question”. that we put demands for reforms, demands for a stage, [but leadership and other unions for united action. The Stuttgart A slogan focused on the idea of a “workers’ government” that we have] demands and slogans very tightly [linked] metal workers adopted five demands reflecting workers’ [a projected outcome of the united front tactic] was endorsed, with our principles and goals. This linkage is, of course, no most urgent needs: reduce prices for necessities of life; pro - although only for Germany. The discussion also included a guarantee in itself, any more than having a good map guar - duce at full capacity and increase unemployment benefits; debate on whether transitional demands should be included antees that I will not lose my way”. reduce taxes paid by workers and raise taxes on the great pri - in the Comintern programme between Radek (yes) and The matter was discussed at a meeting of five Russian vate fortunes; establish workers’ control of supply and distri - Bukharin (no). Communist party central committee members (Lenin, Trot - bution of raw materials and foodstuffs; and disarm The new policy continued to provoke debate. And Russ - reactionary gangs and arm the workers. Karl Radek’s com - ian communists continued their discussion at a party confer - ment on the initiative: “If I had been in Moscow, the idea * Toward the United Front: Proceedings of the Fourth Congress of would not even have crossed my mind”. Continued on page 10 the Communist International (Haymarket, 2012) On 29 December 1920 the KPD leadership decided to initi - 10 FEATURE

Continued from page 9

ence. Zinoviev and Bukharin presented united front pol - icy as short term and stressed its role in exposing social A moment of possibility democratic parties. Trotsky, however, warned against “fatalistic concep - tions” that Europe was experiencing the final run-up to Tom Harris reviews Zi - munists in disguise” and the “Moscow knout”, demonstrated the establishment of workers’ rule. noviev and Martov: their real anxiety — fear of the revolution they claimed for - Within the Comintern, the French and Italian parties op - Head to Head in Halle , mally to be fighting for. posed the united front policy and the Norwegian major - edited and translated by Martov argues that the Russian revolution is “sick and can - ity believed it did not apply to their country. In Ben Lewis and Lars T not be cured by its own means”. It is isolated by hostile states, Czechoslovakia and Germany significant minorities resis - Lih, devastated by war and famine, and creaking beneath the con - ted the policy. tradictions involved in trying to develop a workers’ democ - The Comintern executive did not force member parties In 1920, the German workers’ movement racy in the midst of an underdeveloped peasant mass. These to apply the policy. However, through a succession of dis - pressures, he says, have led the Bolsheviks to rule arbitrarily cussions and experiences in the national sections, accept - stood at a crossroads. The Independent Social and brutally, clamping down too harshly on dissent in a bid ance of the united front policy was widened. to stave off counter-revolution. As such, the leadership of a At the Fourth Congress, debate focused on how , not Democratic Party of Germany (USPD) had new international should not be at Russia’s initiative, but whether , to apply it. Zinoviev explained the meanting of from “Marxist tendencies of the worker parties of Western the united front in his executive report at the beginning split from the pro-war Europe”. of the congress. He said that “the united front is estab - SPD in 1917. Even in 1920 there was some truth in Martov’s critique. lished by the overall situation of capitalism, by its eco - In 1918 a revolutionary With the benefit of hindsight we see that the Russian state nomic and world political situation, and by the situation upsurge of workers, sol - did soon degenerate under the pressure of a bureaucratic inside the workers’ movement”. The united front tactic diers, and sailors forced The Halle Congress of the USPD counter-revolution; the prominence of the Stalinised Russian was “the most effective means to win this majority of the German surrender, the was Grigori Zinoviev’s “finest party in the international did have a distorting and reac - working class. It must be stated clearly that the united deposing of the Kaiser hour” front tactic is no mere episode in our struggle. It is a tac - and the end of the war. tionary effect on class struggle throughout the world. tic that will endure for an entire period, perhaps an entire Radicalised by this struggle, and disgusted by a leadership But 1920 was not 1924, let alone 1928 or 1936. Zinoviev’s epoch”. He added: “We are against reformism, but not which had sided with the ruling class to save capitalism, even retorts win out. Though immensely serious problems existed against bettering the lives of the working class… We can to the extent of having revolutionaries Rosa Luxemburg and in Soviet Russia, the Russian working class still ruled, only organise the working class if we fight for its partial Karl Liebknecht murdered, thousands streamed into the through the Bolshevik party. This was not yet anything like demands”. ranks of the USPD. the totalitarian nightmare of Stalinism. It remained the posi - The left of the USPD took inspiration from the revolution tion of the Bolsheviks that the only salvation for the Russian UNITE in Russia, and favoured affiliating to the new, revolutionary revolution was for the revolution to spread and break its iso - Radek argued that workers must “unite at least for the Communist International (Comintern). The right of the party lation — and revolutionary struggles in Germany were at the struggle for bare existence, for a crust of bread”. preferred a reformist course, to become a more palatable ver - centre of their perspectives. sion of the SPD. Others wavered, were not quite reformist, Communists should “conduct a struggle around ques - REALIGNMENT tions that have the greatest immediate relevance to the not quite revolutionary. The critical necessity was for the organisation of a radi - broad working masses: questions of wages, hours of The question of how to relate to the question of revolution work, housing, defence against white danger, against the in general, and the Comintern specifically, was to be decided cal, sincerely revolutionary realignment in the workers’ war danger, and all the issues of working people’s daily at the party conference in Halle. Grigori Zinoviev, the Bol - movements of the world. Working for that goal, as Zi - life... Only by broadening, deepening and heightening shevik chair of the Communist International, was to address noviev was, was the best guarantee of a revivial of so - these struggles will a struggle for [proletarian] dictator - the conference in favour of affiliation. Julius Martov, the old cialist democracy in Russia. ship arise”. (left) Menshevik opponent of the Bolsheviks, was to speak When the congress voted two to one in favour of affilia - But Bordiga continued to oppose the tactic, arguing that against. tion, 400,000 workers — as well as a minority but substantial “the danger exists of the united front degenerating into a REMARKABLE layer of parliamentary deputies, journalists, union officials Communist revisionism”. and so on — joined the previously tiny Communist Party Edwin Hoernle compared the united front with “a nar - Zinoviev and Martov is a fascinating examination of a re - markable moment in the history of revolutionary social - (KPD), which had earlier split from the USPD. The revolu - row mountain ridge”: it is “slippery and the way is nar - tionary Marxist left was now a major force in German poli - row”. But “when we stay put, merely philosophising as ism. Here are the speeches of both Zinoviev and Martov, commentaries describing the historical context, and a tics. to whether we have reservations or run risks, we do not In 1919, workers and soldiers had revolted en masse, but advance. In order to learn anything at all about applying diary entry from Zinoviev describing his “twelve days in Germany”. the number of socialists arguing and agitating consciously the united-front tactic, we must take steps”. for revolution (as opposed to the reformism of the SPD) was Radek also explained what it meant in practice. He told The diary entry not only gives the reader a feel for the in - still small. With the leadership of the SPD holding the deci - the congress that the Communist Party of Great Britain tense public interest and government suspicion toward the sive sway in the battle of the ideas, the ruling class was able would apply its united front tactic by seeking to affiliate conference, but is also funny. to demobilise and turn back the revolution. With the merger to the Labour Party, and in the next election: “Vote for it For example, the captain of the boat carrying the Bolshe - of the USPD into the Communist Party, things were now, po - and prepare for struggle against it”. vik delegation was mystified to discover that 75 passengers tentially at least, radically different. The next time a revolu - Zinoviev warned that the desire for unity had great at - had boarded a vessel designed to carry 30. It was soon re - tractive power in the ranks of the working class because alised that this was down to the enormous number of spies tionary moment occurred, the chances of success were “the working masses need unity as we need the air”. who had crowded on board. “There were at least 40 spies, an greatly improved. However, he warned against an attitude of “the more the average of five to each communist!”, Zinoviev remarks. Zinoviev’s role in the German movement was not always better” in any situation, on the wrong demands and with - “Since spying on us could not occupy the whole of their time, so constructive. Indeed it would prove disastrous at decisive out action, which turned unity into a fetish and an idol. they resorted to spying on each other.” turning points. Today, when the number of Marxists is tiny and largely The speeches themselves are remarkable. Zinoviev’s, In 1921, the new KPD tried to artificially provoke a revolu - in small groups, it would be aridly sectarian to refuse to which stretched to four hours, were conducted in a language tion in an abortive uprising known as the “March Action” — work alongside other workers and in specific campaigns that was not his own, and, thanks to questions from hecklers, with the encouragement of Zinoviev, among other where action can be organised around clear but limited almost completely improvised. Comintern leaders. It was a dismal failure, and many KPD goals. The united front is not a trick or a deception: it is an Lewis points out that Zinoviev has come in for a very bad cadres were arrested or killed. Then, as the crisis deepened, honest attempt to tackle the problem of heterogeneity press from history — executed as a conspirator by the Stalin - and revolutionary crisis gripped Germany again in 1923, Ger - within the working class. The activity of Marxists is vital ist bureacracy, disliked by the Left Opposition for his earlier man workers streamed into and around the Communist to galvanising and directing these struggles, as a lever bloc with Stalin, and widely portrayed as an arrogant and Party. That crisis was again bungled, and a revolutionary op - seeking to transform the wider organised labour move - opportunistic figure. portunity missed. Again, ironically given his “left” stance in ment. In this speech, however, he shines. As each shouted ques - 1921, with Zinoviev’s involvement. After these failures, the This “minimal” application of the method of the united tion is thrown at him from the right wing, he counters it in Stalinist bureaucracy consolidated itself, going on to stran - front applies to the trade union movement, on the politi - detail, and to great applause. gle the Russian workers’ state and the Comintern. Later still cal front and in specific campaigns around feminism, cli - Zinoviev argues that the utter bankruptcy of the old social- the Stalinist leadership fatally hamstrung the KPD in its fight mate change, wars and international solidarity. democratic international necessitates a new one, committed But we should not deny the ambition of the early against the rise of fascism. to the spread of the revolution and a principled working- Yet the decisions made at the Halle Congress created Comintern — as long as class-conscious Marxists do class politics. In response to hysteria generated about his ar - a mass revolutionary organisation. This book is inspiring not have the support of a majority of workers, the rival, he claims the vehemence with which the right of the in the way it captures a moment when an alternative out - united front is a burning necessity. USPD had denounced the left, as well as the readiness with come to the struggles of an entire period were tantalis - which they slipped into the conservative vernacular of “com - ingly possible. 11 REPORTS Barbican cleaners strike Teachers’ summer By Ira Berkovic £8.55 an hour. They are Barbican cleaner Alex Vi - currently paid £6.19 an sotsky said: “We are fight - Cleaners at the Barbican hour. ing for our right to be in the City of London will The City of London’s respected and to live and strikes strike on Thursday 21 “City Cash” account holds work with dignity and a March, the day the anti - over £1 billion, and Mitie’s Living Wage. By Darren Bedford quated body which runs own profits were at £52.9 “Mitie says they don't the City of London Cor - million at the end of 2012. have enough money to in - The National Union of poration (which owns the As well as low pay, Bar - crease our salary from a Teachers (NUT) and the Barbican) elects its bican cleaners face bullying poverty wage to a Living National Association of “Court of Common Coun - and harassment from man - Wage but they do have Schoolmasters/Union cil”. agers. Their union, the In - enough money to pay their of Women Teachers The Corporation has a dustrial Workers of Great managers big salaries in (NASUWT) have an - London Living Wage pol - Britain (IWGB), is pursuing order to watch over us and nounced a programme icy, but has staggered its an Employment Tribunal treat us badly.” of rolling strikes begin - introduction across various on behalf of one pregnant Cleaners will mount ning on 27 June and contracts. It has told clean - cleaner who was so badly pickets at the Barbican continuing after the ers at the Barbican, who are treated that she was found from 5.30am on Thursday summer break. bleeding in the work toilets 21 March. employed by Mitie, that For more information, after collapsing, and The strikes, which are they must wait until 2014 see iwgb.org.uk rushed to hospital. over pay, pensions, and to get the Living Wage of workload, will begin in the northwest of Eng - Bureaucrats block land and will include a one-day national strike Fire cuts fight steps up some time in the autumn grassroots challenge term. By Jack Horner to advance his own ambi - firefighters to take to the The unions are de - tions as a tax-cutter. But to streets. Johnson has been manding that Education The campaign to halt the do so means slashing vital tripped up twice by the Although many members Secretary Michael Gove cuts to 12 fire stations, services in the capital. fire authority, with requested the standard “responds positively” to 18 appliances, and over The campaign is already Labour, Lib Dems and practice of holding elec - their demands. 500 firefighter jobs in spreading. Two days Greens tions at the branch AGM on Rank-and-file activists London stepped up with before the Clapham demo, waking up to oppose the 8 March, where attendance in the teaching unions, a day of action on Satur - a public meeting was held cuts. No closures can take and participation could be particularly in the Local day 16 March. on the threatened West - place this year, so there is maximised, the Greater Associations National minster fire station. Fur - time to build a grassroots London Unison regional of - Action Campaign Despite miserable (LANAC), will be build - weather, several hundred ther public meetings campaign with solid fice insisted on organising a planned — around Belsize labour movement support. postal ballot. ing to make sure strikes people marched to are as solid as possible. Clapham fire station, one fire station at Hampstead This battle symbolises Either through incompe - Town Hall on 26 March the Tory arrogance that tence or malice on the part But they are also organ - of the stations under threat By Will Greene ising for an alternative and where probably the and for Downham fire sta - any service, however es - of the region, there were se - tion on 22 April. sential for working-class rious problems in the way strategy. Regional strikes best campaign has been or - Unison activists at the in June and a possible ganised so far. Every threatened fire communities, can be done University of London are the postal ballot was car - station needs a campaign away with. It is also a ried out. Dozens of out - national strike in Sep - The demonstration was discussing the way for - tember is far too little, far organised as the 12-week group, with twinning winnable battle, because ward after serious delays sourced workers were arrangements with other no one wants to lose a fire disenfranchised when, de - too late. By the time of consultation on the Lon - in releasing the results of any national strike, the don fire safety plan began local fire stations and links station from their neigh - this year’s branch com - spite many requests, they to other local anti-cuts bourhood. did not receive ballots be - new proposals for per - this month. London mayor Socialists should join mittee election. campaigns. The FBU in fore the deadline. This was formance-related pay Boris Johnson wants to the campaign and argue London is supporting This is the latest episode compounded by the region could already be in shave some money off for militant tactics that in an ongoing attempt by place. these steps, providing erroneously sending out LANAC members are council tax bills – mainly can win. the Unison bureaucracy to leaflets and mobilising two different coloured bal - fighting for national clamp down on the cam - lots, and issuing the ballots strikes to be brought paign of outsourced work - in English only when forward. Ambulance workers strike against derecognition ers at the University of around half the branch do London for sick pay, holi - not speak English as a first day, and pensions – the “3 language. Many members • More: nutlan.org.uk By Ira Berkovic Although the majority strike could have a much Cosas” campaign, which is turned up to the most lively union, Unison, has not wider impact. Unite members will run by Unison members AGM in recent memory, Ambulance workers in fought the cuts plan, many also impose a continuous but, sadly, without the sup - only to be turned away Yorkshire will strike on Unison members have overtime ban from Tues - port of the branch. when officials told them Tuesday 2 April after vowed not to cross Unite day 26 March. Late last year there was that they were not mem - Unite was derecognised picket lines, meaning the an attempt by the region bers of the union. in the service. and some members of the The region has cited Unite, which is a minor - existing branch committee members’ complaints as the ity union in Yorkshire Am - Tube workers fight two-tier workforce to set up a parallel to the 3 reason for the announce - bulance Service NHS Trust, Cosas campaign in order to ment of results being de - Tube workers face a two-tier workforce after London opposed a £46 million cuts remove initiative and con - layed (it was not Underground bosses announced that reintegrated Tube Lines plan and found itself dere - trol from the membership. announced at the AGM, or staff will not be allowed to join the Transport for London cognised by Trust bosses. The outsourced workers by the new deadline of 15 pensions fund. The plan included propos - and sympathetic University March). A “statement re - 700 Tube Lines clerical staff are set to be fully als to have Emergency Care of London staff ran in the garding the outcome” is reintegrated into direct employment by London Underground Assistants, with only six branch committee elections promised next week. Limited, but barred from joining the same TfL pensions Meanwhile, 3 Cosas weeks’ training, work in on a platform of greater scheme as their colleagues. continues its campaign sensitive roles alongside union democracy and A statement from Tube union RMT said: “These attacks with a protest at Senate more highly-trained para - workplace representation, will be resisted using industrial action if necessary.” House on 10 April. For medics. Unite raised con - reinvigorating interest in more, see cernsabout the implications the union throughout their on.fb.me/11dJDmA for patient safety. campaign. Leveson drama glosses over the S&o Wlorikdersa’ Libreirtty y real scandal By Colin Foster Civil servants to strike on Budget Day The drama about the last-minute deal between Labour, Lib-Dems, and Tories over measures in re - sponse to the Leveson report on the phone-hacking scandal obscures the main issues in the scandal. By controlling such a large part of the means of com - munication, through sheer wealth, Rupert Murdoch and Taking action against his cronies play a large part in the public life of the country. They observe no social responsibility or ac - countability. The police and Government advisers, if not ministers, were shown to be in cahoots with the Murdoch empire. All that has been glossed over. Ed Miliband and the cuts to pay and pensions Labour leadership did decide that Labour had been slavish to Murdoch for too long. They did speak out. But they never proposed anything that would really call By a civil servant that will attest to this. They Murdoch to account. were issued compulsory re - The deal is as follows: Working-class people dundancy notices over • A “Recognition Panel” will be set up to supervise can expect further at - Christmas. DWP members and approve a new regulatory body, a souped-up ver - tacks in George Os - voted for group-wide strike sion of the current Press Complaints Commission, borne’s 20 March budget action, and the notices were which in turn was a souped-up version (from 1991) of in the form of cuts to withdrawn. This may look the previous Press Council. benefits and a continued like a small victory but it is • The new regulator will be set up by a Royal Charter, pay freeze for public sec - not insignificant to those 43 with a proviso that the terms of the Charter cannot be tor workers. workers that faced redun - changed except by a two-thirds majority in Parliament. dancy. (However, there is no absolute obstacle to a future par - However, the strike by liament changing that proviso). PCS members across the Had the PCS leadership accepted earlier that it was • The new regulatory body will be able to “direct” civil service on Budget Day newspapers to make apologies, not merely “require” — over pay, pensions, and possible for PCS to fight on its own, the union could them. The nuance is said to make its legal position terms and conditions — stronger. have done the necessary should help raise our spir - • The press code of conduct will be written by a com - preparation work to ensure its! mittee consisting of one-third newspaper editors, one- a more convincing ballot The government’s poli - third journalists and one-third lay people. result (the vote for the 20 cies of pay restraint and • Newspaper bosses will choose one member to sit on pay freezes have seriously March strike was 61% on a the appointments panel for the regulatory body and eaten into the living stan - 28% turnout, low for the loses its right of veto over regulator membership. dards of the lowest paid PCS), particularly around The Leveson recommendation that newspaper pub - civil servants over the past the issue of pay. lishers who refuse to join the regulatory body (like Soli - years. They face another The Independent Left darity and other radical publications) may be subject to hike in pension contribu - grouping in PCS, in which exemplary damages in libel cases will be implemented. tions this April with a fur - Workers’ Liberty members Already, the British libel law enables rich media com - month overtime ban. Re - been slow to move into bat - ther, final increase in April are involved, will be argu - panies to abuse with impunity poor people who cannot gional and selective action tle, with its leaders arguing 2014. ing on the 20 March picket afford to bring libel cases, and rich people with a taste is also due to take place be - for months that it could not The 20 March strike was lines that a voluntary levy for it to go to law to suppress criticism of themselves. tween national strikes. act without the support of announced as the begin - of all members is now nec - The big media groups are not happy about aspects of This is a significant step other unions. essary. This could fund the deal e.g. the ability of the new regulatory body to ning of a programme of ac - forward from PCS’s previ - But it is possible to take sustained strikes. “direct” newspapers to make apologies and having tion over the next three ous “strategy” of occa - on the government on your Around clear industrial “outsiders” draw up the code of conduct. months. PCS members will sional one-day strikes own and win. There are 43 demands such strike ac - The labour movement should demand that the as - walk out again from 1pm punctuated by months of staff in the Department of tion could force the gov - sets of the big media companies be taken into pub - on Friday 5 April, as well inactivity. But PCS has Work and Pensions (DWP) ernment to back down. lic ownership, under democratic control, and access as implementing a three- to them be guaranteed for all currents of opinion above a certain minimum of support, with strong Tories test water on strike bans provisos for rights of reply and minority opinions. By Ira Berkovic The strike ban would also set a hugely dangerous prece - dent for the labour movement. Which essential public On 18 March Parliament began debating a new bill service workers are next in line? Firefighters? Health which could remove the right to strike for some civil workers? Teachers? servants. Left-wing Labour MP John McDonnell proposed an The Crime and Courts Bill would prevent staff em - amendment to the Bill at the Parliamentary Committee ployed by the National Crime Agency (NCA) from strik - stage to remove the ban. He said: “This is an unnecessary ing. The ban would affect 3,500 members of the civil and unwelcome political device that is being used by the service union PCS. government to test the water around their future policies Many of the workers affected are immigration and cus - on trade union and employment rights in this country. toms officers, people whose work frequently involves state “If the clauses are accepted by the House — and cer - violence against immigrants and asylum seekers. Their tainly if they are accepted by my party — on this occasion, jobs are ones which socialists want to see radically re - this will be used as an example in other areas.” formed and repurposed entirely. But their right to with - Labour MPs on the Committee shamefully abstained, rather than opposing the ban on the right to strike. draw their labour is what creates the potential for such Affiliated trade unions must demand that Labour transformations; to remove it will only entrench these MPs vote against this Bill, and any other attempts to workers further into a self-conception as state functionar - attack workers’ rights to take industrial action. ies equivalent to police or soldiers.