So& Wloirkdersa’ Lirbeirtty y No 242 18 April 2012 30p/80p www.workersliberty.org For a workers’ government

Gove and French left on Trotskyists in the edubusiness Mélenchon Spanish revolution page 3 pages 8-9 pages 13-14 Government policies widen wealth gap but don’t cure slump Inequality Gateway Family Services, working with poor families in Edgbaston, Birmingham, recently revealed they are providing food parcels to pregnant women, some of whom are going a week without crisis a proper meal G Handouts to banks G Social cuts G Wages pushed down – see page 5 NEWS

What is the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty? The fight for secularism Today one class, the working class, lives by selling Andrew Copson, Chief Ex - If you choose to address its labour power to another, the capitalist class, ecutive of the British Hu - these as problems than one which owns the means of production. Society manist Association, spoke possible basis for doing so is shaped by the capitalists’ relentless drive to to Ira Berkovic. is that they spring from a increase their wealth. Capitalism causes false idea and so I don’t poverty, unemployment, the blighting of lives by What’s behind the resur - gence in self-confidence think that an emphasis on overwork, imperialism, the destruction of the on the part of organised the lack of a foundation for environment and much else. religion? religious belief in reality is Against the accumulated wealth and power of the a wrong-headed approach. capitalists, the working class has one weapon: solidarity. In many ways the appar - I have met many people The Alliance for Workers’ Liberty aims to build solidarity ent resurgence is only ap - in the course of my work through struggle so that the working class can overthrow parent and not as real as it who have had their reli - capitalism. We want socialist revolution: collective ownership seems. The situation is that gious opinions changed by of industry and services, workers’ control and a democracy of a diminishing group of Richard’s books. If you much fuller than the present system, with elected individuals shouting Praying outside an abortion clinic. Why are political acts by want to address the other representatives recallable at any time and an end to louder rather, than a grow - religious groups on the increase? motivations that people bureaucrats’ and managers’ privileges. ing group speaking up have for religious identities We fight for the labour movement to break with “social with increasing confidence. — those other than sincere How can we develop a partnership” and assert working-class interests militantly However, it is certainly dence becomes available. belief — I suppose you critique of that which de - against the bosses. true that in the absence of need strategies that will other easily identifiable fends the idea of a multi - One of me criticisms of provide those things that Our priority is to work in the workplaces and trade unions, and self-promoting group - cultural society but e.g. Dawkins would be religious people get from supporting workers’ struggles, producing workplace bulletins, ings, politicians are increas - critiques this establish - that he seems to con - religion, like community helping organise rank-and-file groups. ingly turning to ment multiculturalism? ceive of religious belief and meaning. We are also active among students and in many campaigns ready-made religious as merely a stupid, wrong and alliances. It’s a major problem. In - idea and that if everyone What can progressive groups whose leaders, even atheists, secularists and though they are often self- creasingly, the Government was an Oxbridge intellec - is offering strong encour - tual like him then the humanists most usefully We stand for: appointed, can present do in the current climate G Independent working-class representation in politics. themselves as speaking for agement to religious world would be fine. How groups to take on a role in can we develop critiques to reassert basic ideas G A workers’ government, based on and accountable to the a large group. Perhaps this and values against an ap - labour movement. is a failure of politics. local communities and to of religion and religious local government to wel - ideas that also under - parent resurgence of or - G A workers’ charter of trade union rights — to organise, to In the context of the ganised religion and strike, to picket effectively, and to take solidarity action. come such religious groups stand them in their mate - growth of the far-right, as “partners”. rial, social context and religious ideas? G Taxation of the rich to fund decent public services, homes, and its “anti-Islamic” or Insofar as these arrange - education and jobs for all. understand the reasons The purpose of the “anti-Muslim” edge, how ments are no more than why people turn to such G A workers’ movement that fights all forms of oppression. can anti-racist secular - British Humanist Associa - what would be offered to ideas? tion is to give support to Full equality for women and social provision to free women ists create a political any local group with strong from the burden of housework. Free abortion on request. Full space that allows for Most people who iden - those with non-religious links with the local com - beliefs and to counter reli - equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. secularist, atheist and munity, they might be ac - tify themselves as a mem - Black and white workers’ unity against racism. humanist criticism of ber of a religious group do gious privilege and dis - ceptable. crimination. I think that G Open borders. Islam (and all religions) so for reasons other than a Religious groups and non-religious people (who Global solidarity against global capital — workers while rejecting/opposing sincere doctrinal convic - G communities have been in the UK tend to have everywhere have more in common with each other than with anti-Muslim racism? singled out by Government tion. There is even evidence to suggest that most people views that we could call their capitalist or Stalinist rulers. It is important to point as having a special impor - humanist) need to be more G Democracy at every level of society, from the smallest tance and being in need of who practice a religion are out that many religious similarly without profound self-confident in seeing workplace or community to global social organisation. people are secularists — special attention and assis - their own worldview as co - G Working-class solidarity in international politics: equal tance, mostly in isolation belief. that is, they believe that the The comfortable habit of herent and respectable, rich rights for all nations, against imperialists and predators big shared political life of a di - from other communities in values and in ways of and small. and almost always to the worship and observance, verse community needs to the solidarity of a commu - maI kthiningkmtehaantisnegciunlalirfeis.ts Maximum left unity in action, and openness in debate. exclusion of the non-reli - G be governed in a way that nity — both real and imag - — religious and non-reli - G If you agree with us, please take some copies of Solidarity does not disadvantage or gious. This is harmful for two reasons. ined, the cultural loyalties gious — need to be ro - to sell — and join us! privilege people on that generates, the yearning bust in making the case grounds of their religion or Firstly because it wastes 020 7394 8923 [email protected] the opportunity of social for a better life to come or a for a politics that treats belief. bigger story of which we us all as equal citizens of Religious people benefit cohesion and other com - 20e Tower Workshops, Riley Road, munity initiatives fo - can be part: all these are a single community from that as it is what gives just as important in the ad - rather than as members London, SE1 3DG. them the freedom to be - cussing on the contribution that all individuals and herence of individuals to of groups, privileging reli - lieve, worship and dissent religious identities. gious categories. as they wish — a freedom groups in the community that does not exist in non- can make and generating GET SOLIDARITY secular states. cohesion that way. Atheist critiques of theis - Secondly, because it en - Workers rally against EDL tic religions focus on the courages separatism and EVERY WEEK! fact they are not true, and communalist politics. If we By Luke Atterton this is very important, but move the focus from Special offers it may not be very impor - groups towards individuals The far-right, racist English Defence League demon - tant in political terms. and society as a whole then strated outside the Home Office in central London G Trial sub, 6 issues £5  Humanist critiques of re - I think we can cut through on 17 April. ligions focus — as well on this. G 22 issues (six months). £18 waged £9 unwaged The protest was formally against the government’s   the question of truth — on Some of the criticism of failure to deport Islamist ideologue Abu Qatada (though the negative social, cultural the most high-profile G 44 issues (year). £35 waged  £17 unwaged  the Guardian reported on the same day that the govern - and political effects of reli - secularists, atheists and ment has in fact arrested Qatada and is making fresh at - European rate: 28 euros (22 issues) or 50 euros (44 issues) gions. I think this is helpful humanists — most G   tempts to deport him). in distinguishing humanist prominently Richard In reality the EDL action was, predictably, a bile-filled critiques of religious belief, Dawkins — claims he’s Tick as appropriate above and send your money to: demonstration of anti-Muslim hatred, with sieg heils and religious organisations and just as “fanatical” as his death threats against counter-protesters. 20e Tower Workshops, Riley Road, London, SE1 3DG their effects from preju - opponents. How do you The Unite Against Fascism campaign, with the sup - diced stances that use criti - see people like Dawkins Cheques (£) to “AWL”. port of the PCS union, which organises thousands of cism of religion as an and others in the so- Or make £ and euro payments at workersliberty.org/sub. Home Office staff, organised the counter-demonstration avatar for racism. called “New Atheist” movement? against the EDL. It was made up mostly of PCS reps and How much of a problem activists, with some student support (both groups in - Name ...... is “official” or establish - “Fanatic” suggests a per - cluding AWL members). Despite the short notice, there ment multiculturalism — son who sticks to their pet were about 40 anti-EDL demonstrators, against 30 Address ...... i.e. the doctrine of boxing theories and prejudices at EDLers. Unfortunately, because the EDL members ar - off ethno-cultural groups all costs and in the face of rived late and the counter-demo dispersed first, at one into rigid categories, overwhelming evidence to poTinhte t hceayll sw merae dine am my asjormitey. UAF spokespeople for ...... each presided over by the contrary. It seems im - state bans on EDL actions were also unhelpful; we some self-appointed possible to me to apply the should rely on labour-movement self-defence and ...... “community leader” who word to people whose be - community organisation to keep the EDL off the will invariably represent a liefs are by definition pro - street, not the police force. I enclose £ ...... less-than-progressive in - visional and open to stitution or organisation? correction when new evi -

2 SOLIDARITY NEWS “Edubusiness” vultures circle

By Pat Yarker Public spending cuts ditional powers under the will enforce “partnership” Education Act rushed Miliband’s This week owners and with private capital. Job- through Parliament soon administrators of private losses, pay cuts and at - after the Election. He can - gaffe capital will assemble in tacks on working not yet mandate school - London to share ideas conditions will drive down ing-for-profit in the state about how state educa - operating costs, and “sur - sector because the Liberal- By Rhodri Evans tion can be further plus government proper - Democrats oppose such a It’s time for another opened up to their insur - ties” may be handed over policy. But for how long? political initiative, so gency. as sites for profit-making Will the policy appear in Ed Miliband’s advisers schools. Among those ad - the next Tory manifesto? Education Investor maga - seem to have told him. dressing the conference are Hedge-funds and private zine (yes, it does exist) is the Chief Executive Officer equity companies have hosting a conference to A follow-up on the of the Alpha Plus Group, been manoeuvring for bring together established NHS to Miliband’s dec - conference. Agilitas’s web - over the course of its ten- the Managing Director of some time to push for it. edubusinesses such as laration a short while site argues that money can year contract. Private capi - Serco Learning, the Vice- Their spokespeople al - Pearson (owners of the ago that we have “three be made these days by in - tal already runs chains of Chancellor of London Met - ready claim that a focus on “awarding body” or exam- months to save the vesting in businesses Academies, and funds in - ropolitan University, and profit will raise standards board Edexcel), academy- Health Service”? No, the which will benefit from dependent schools. former New Labour Edu - in the classroom and re- sponsors (including sharp-suited wonks “favourable political Such capital must ex - cation Secretary Charles knit the bond between Balfour Beatty and ARK), have decided that is bor - trends”. Such as extending pand, and find new mar - Clarke. school and community. and representatives of pri - ing. the opportunity to set up kets. Perhaps this Like the NHS, state edu - vate equity companies, So, on 15 April, for-profit schools, per - prompted the donations ACOLYTES cation is set to become “a some of whom have given Miliband called for haps? made to Gove not only by Gove won’t be present, big opportunity for the for- large amounts of money to change on... political- Other private equity the founder of Agilitas but but his acolytes will be. profit sector”, as a Prime Education Secretary party funding. firms are also looking to also by representatives of a Ministerial advisor told Michael Gove in recent Confirmed attendees in - It looks as if Miliband, get involved. They sense company owned by Sover - private equity executives years. clude members of Policy or the wonks, think this the Tories want to widen eign Capital, who finance Exchange, the right-wing in the US last year. It too is “clever”. Labour gains DONATIONS the extent of for-profit the Alpha Plus Group of think-tank which Gove will be shown “no mercy”. the high ground by call - According to material schooling, as in Sweden, independent schools, and helped found, and the Shadow Education Secre - ing for a ban on dona - published by the GMB one of the models for by Aurum Fund Manage - New Schools Network, tary Stephen Twigg tions above £5,000 union, Gove has received Gove’s “free school” proj - ment, who put money into which does the donkey- pledged his opposition to (while defending union almost £650,000 in dona - ect. Currently it is possible ARK? work for companies or in - for-profit state-schools at political-levy contribu - tions, sponsorship and for profit to be made out of dividuals setting up “free the NASUWT Conference. tions), the loss in state-funded schools, but SPONSORING Holding Labour to this remuneration, the bulk of Sovereign Capital is schools”. unions’ above-levy do - only via various forms of pledge is a vital first step it in the last four years. sponsoring workshops NSN likes to style itself nations is manageable, contracting-out and in an education charity and in Uanltyim fiagthetlbya, cthk.o ugh, and the Tories won’t The biggest individual at this week’s confer - compliance with complex not part of government. such a fightback re - take it up anyway. contribution came in 2009 ence. EU procurement rules. Yet it is run by an ex-advi - quires a reckoning with In fact it is dangerous. as a cash-donation of However, the charitable Information about the sor to Gove and Boris the private investors be - The Tories have pre - £150,000 from Martin trust which oversees a sessions indicates what lies Johnson. hind Gove. dictably counter-at - Calderbank, a founder of “free school” in Brandon, in store for English state Trustees of Policy Ex - tacked on union private equity group Stir - on the Suffolk/Norfolk education if private capital change also serve as political levies, propos - ling Square Capital Part - border, has recently called gets its wish. trustees or staff at NSN. In • GMB report on funding ing that the law be ners. In 2010 Mr in a Swedish for-profit A further drastic reduc - 2010, without advertising to Michael Gove: changed so that union Calderbank set up Agilitas company to run the insti - tion of the role of local au - it or putting it out to ten - bit.ly/HOdQKp members have to “opt Partners, and someone tution. This company will thorities in education will der, Gove awarded a grant • Education Investor confer - in” to pay political from Agilitas will attend be able to siphon off any help pave the way for of £500k to NSN. ence website: levies, rather than “opt - the Education Investor “surplus” state-funding schooling-for-profit. Gove took scores of ad - bit.ly/gSWgNK ing out” if they don’t want to. Miliband’s proposal The campaign which fights for student democracy also compromises a principle. Unions should be able to make large political donations: that Edd Bauer, from the Na - “The next period is one platform is to lead the stu - is one of the few ways in tional Campaign Against in which issues of student dent movement in a fight which working-class Fees and Cuts, is standing union autonomy, ability to to defend the NHS. He ex - people, individually un - for the position of Vice act and democracy will be plained the situation as he able to fund expensive President Welfare in elec - raised by radical new stu - saw it: operations, can act col - tions at the forthcoming dent union executive “The discontent over the lectively to reduce the conference of the National teams.” NHS is a ticking time bomb advantages of wealth in Union of Students (24-26 Edd explained the situa - that could explode at any politics. April). Ed Maltby spoke to tion this new generation of moment, if student organi - On Tuesday 17th, him about the issues. student union activists will sations or the NUS take the Miliband’s “clever” idea have to face up to. The “This conference will not Edd Bauer was arrested (and jailed) for dropping this banner backfired further, with democratic structures of lead on this. be facing any new at Lib-Dem conference, then suspended from his position in millionaire Labour most student unions have “If we start seeing a se - choices. It’s the same the student union — by his university’s management! ries of innovative and effec - donor Assem Allam pro - fight along the same been subverted and under - tive actions, like posing that “parties lines. But this year there mined by the increasing in - agement try to crack down ultra vires legislation of occupations, demonstra - should be funded by ‘in - is a real, serious chal - fluence of general dependent’ individuals on protest. 2006 that made student tions, and other forms of lenge from the left, an al - managers, external trustees such as himself who (often local capitalists are The ball is in NUS’s court union non-exempt chari - direct action at the level of ternative vision, with — will the NUS, as a stu - ties; it needs to reverse the would only gain tax re - candidates who look like chosen to sit on the all- hospitals and local trust, lief if they gave to more powerful trustee boards of dent organisation which is legislation that stops stu - then it is likely that student they could win it. not controlled by the Char - dent from pronouncing on than one party” ( Finan - student unions) and corpo - activist groups across the ity Commission, unlike stu - broader political issues; it cial Times , 17 April). “There is a groundswell rate structures. UK will move themselves The FT recalls: “On of support for free educa - “During the lull in stu - dent unions, use its powers needs to reverse the to support student union process of giving managers on this issue. March 10 Mr Miliband tion and a national demon - dent activism in the 2000s, “Student activists should appeared in the chair - stration in the first term. when New Labour activists who are falling a greater role in running victim to the structures of the student union; it needs keep on the look out, watch man’s [Allam’s] box for The movement has consoli - changed student unions the news, and be prepared a [Hull City football] dated itself and captured into charities limited by their own unions? It’s hap - to win back the right to pened to me, but it’s hap - give money to political to go out on a limb and match against Ipswich formal structures.” guarantee, they became un - Town, having said he pened to a lot of others causes; it needs to get a tak“eT hacet iNoUn. S should show “It is true that left - recognisable as unions — was too ill to attend a wingers and NCAFC sup - with bosses and [other cap - too*. more secure funding than a the trade unions that they “The NUS needs to be on block grant which college rally against govern - porters have had major italist “worthies”] on stu - are capable of taking ac - ment health reforms in victories in student union dent union boards of hand to condemn un - authorities can withhold — tion on a mass level, in elected boards and student that money should come the morning. elections at UCL and Edin - trustees. the street, and show our “[Miliband] had ac - managers who are running directly to the student cepted a lift in Mr burgh, where they now ef - “Now that the student allies that we are capable the unions behind closed union from the govern - Allam’s Rolls Royce fectively politically lead the movement has kicked off of mobilising to support union. The is true at Birm - again these structures have doors as their own petty ment, not via the univer - Phantom from his fiefdoms. sity.” any movement in defence Doncaster con - ingham Uni and several been put to the test as of the NHS.” other colleges as well. trustee boards and man - “We need to reverse the Part of Edd’s election stituency”.

SOLIDARITY 3 REGULARS Why I changed my name to seem more Muslim

SWP student leader Mark Bergfeld got up and told the conference AWL students had proposed the amendment be - Put Respect on cause the AWL supports war on Iran! But our amendment didn't remove a single word from the original motion. It so happened that the back page of our paper that week also in - the spot? Letters cluded a headline: “No to war and sanctions” — pretty clear The AWL is right to be sceptical about George Gal - evidence of our position, you would think. loway but is wrong to imply that the Respect victory is Recently someone I know told me a prominent student SLANDER of no significance. SWP had claimed (to my acquaintance) that I changed The point is that members of the SWP, rather than de - my name to Sacha Ismail in order to sound more Mus - bating their real differences with opponents on the left, Whilst not a TUSC supporter it is incorrect to say that lim: the implication being that I was seeking to cover up particularly the AWL, regularly slander them. In the case TUSC is the same as Respect. Galloway is a shameless self- or mitigate the AWL’s supposedly “Islamophobic” — in of the Iran debate, presumably they felt under particu - publicist who uses his undoubted talents to good effect. fact secularist, anti-racist — politics. And that my orig - lar pressure to lie because their position was so em - Galloway is a self-professed Catholic so whether he ac - inal name was John Smith. barrassing. tually has sympathy for Islam or whether he simply just plays the card is difficult to determine. He is anti-abortion (Just to be clear, Sacha Ismail is my real name. My father If SWPers made arguments along the lines of: “We think and his views on homosexuality seem to be unclear. is Bangladeshi and my full name is Alexander Salim Ismail. the AWL's opposition to war on Iran is unreliable… in the Respect's victory in Bradford [cannot] be explained Sacha is a diminutive for Alexander). past they published an article saying Israel had good rea - away by Galloway’s charisma or political manoeuvring . Ordinarily not worth mentioning in print, but is now son to strike Iran's nuclear program, Is that a record we can Galloway wasn't just voted in by a cabal of Pakistani Brad - worth doing so because it seems almost emblematic of the trust?” — that would be wrong, but at least a respect-wor - ford elders. He was voted in by young Pakistanis many of surreal torrent of lies which gets poured out against the thy attempt to debate us. Why don’t they do that? I think whom had never voted before and received considerable AWL by some others on the left, particularly the SWP, and partly because many of them are not very confident in their support from white working class people. particularly in the weird world of student politics. arguments, and partly because slandering opponents is in - In your article ( Solidarity 241) you explain why Respect Unfortunately, most of these lies are more significant than creasingly part of their political DNA. was successful. How else do you explain the massive the fantasy about me changing my name. Some other them We also experienced this kind of nonsense in the election swing? If anything it is the Labour Party that has and did are: for University of London Union Vice President. AWL mem - rely on traditional communalist politics that was caught • AWL supports the presence of Israeli troops in the Oc - ber Daniel Lemberger Cooper, who won the election, was napping. I think Galloway himself was taken by surprise cupied Territories; ridiculously accused by SWPers of being a racist and a sex - by the vote in his favour. Also in fairness to Galloway he • we support an Israeli attack on Iran; ist. has always described himself as “traditional” or “old” • we think Islam is worse than other religions... I’m not sure why this kind of dishonesty and sectarian - Labour. He is no revolutionary but then he has never I have even been told, on Facebook, that we “drag” Mus - ism is worse in the student movement than the labour claimed to be. If Miliband were to ring him up tomorrow lim people into bars in order to thrown them out (that was movement. It may be because people stay in the student who knows? Remember Ken? from the same person who said my name is John Smith). movement for relatively brief periods of time. In the labour Galloway is probably preferable to the miserable New Another example which is clear and instructive: at the Na - movement, where people often work together for many Labour candidate who refused to have a single debate tional Campaign Against Fees and Cuts conference, there years, there is a built-in tendency against this sort of behav - with Galloway. But more importantly the vote for Respect was a motion proposed by members of various left groups iouTrh. e willingness of the SWP and others on the left to in Bradford (ignoring Galloway's idiosyncrasies ) does re - to oppose war and sanctions on Iran. The AWL proposed a tell lies about their opponents poisons the political at - flect a protest and a temporary move to the left. Whether four-line amendment to insert solidarity with the struggles mosphere. Cut it out, comrades! Let's debate our dif - thiVso wteil fl olar stth ies sao dcifiafel rdeenmt qoucersattiosn in. and put them on the of students, workers, women and national minorities in ferences openly and honestly instead. spot seems to fit with Respect. Iran. The motion passed. But the SWP, Counterfire and oth - ers who had originally proposed the motion voted against Sacha Ismail, south London John Grimshaw, from website it!

Afghanistan and Iraq. Many said they watched him on has a long history, since the 1990s, of promoting himself on the Press TV, the English language Iranian-controlled chan - back of political operations paid for by despotic elites (Pakistan, nel...” Many were aggrieved by the, so to speak, sub-com - the Emirates, Saudi Arabia). His campaigning over Iraq was heav - munalism of the local Labour Party, controlled by “a small ily financed by money funnelled to it through a colleague, Fawaz The Left Zureikat, who in turn got the cash from Saddam Hussein. Voters number of Pakistanis who came from Mirpur, a small town in Bradford will not have known this shady history, or may have By Gerry Bates in Kashmir, who had carved up the most important Labour known it but reckoned (thinking all politicians are shady anyway) party positions between them over the years”. The Labour that it wasn't decisive. candidate, an unimpressive lawyer, was a Mirpuri. Galloway went for Muslim votes, but his victory cannot A Galloway spring? be explained exclusively by that. “‘All praise to Allah!’ he Workers’ Power splits yelled [at his victory rally, so the sympathetic Helen Pidd About 15 members of the British Workers Power Many on the left have seized on George Galloway's reports] to jubilant cries of ‘Allah Allah!’ And on it went. group, a third of the organisation, have resigned, along startling by-election victory in Bradford West (29 'Long live Iraq! Long live Palestine!'” But his main election with some others in the WP-linked international ten - March) as proof that the recently-slowing trickle of leaflet promoted him as the “ real Labour” candidate, op - dency. left-of-Labour electioneering can now become a posing NHS cuts and tuition fees. surge. The British resigners are mostly workers and students in The going-over to Galloway of Labour's election agent their 20s — essentially the leadership of the new layer of in Bradford may have been important. It has to be doubt - Socialist Worker (14 April) suggested: “The Galloway ef - WP members who expelled the group’s trade unionist old ful whether the “Bradford effect” is transferable — even fect could now ripple across the country. Imagine if on 3 guard in 2006. They have developed similar conclusions to by Galloway himself, let alone by groups like the SWP and May Respect won council seats in Bradford while else - those they helped to expel, now constituted as Permanent SP, who have been openly disgusted with him in recent where radical left candidates such as Michael Lavalette Revolution. years and only now swivel round to praise him. [SWP] and Dave Nellist [Socialist Party] won their seats. They have produced a document, A simple proposal for a This would provide a platform for the left as whole to re - TUSC new anti-capitalist left , in which they propose a regroup - group and create a serious left of Labour alternative”. In the May local elections the Trade Unionist and So - ment of socialists and radical activists around “revolution - The first difficulty with this scenario is that the SWP (and cialist Coalition (TUSC: an operation run by the SP with ary”, “anti-capitalist” but not explicitly the Socialist Party) had no part in the “Galloway effect” — some activists from the RMT union and some minor “Leninist-Trotskyist” principles. they did not even have articles in their papers backing him involvement from the SWP) is running 115 candidates. Part of the reason this group left Workers Power is its sti - before polling day — and on all evidence Galloway wants fling regime, in which public unanimity was required. nothing to do with SWP and SP. TUSC is also running for the “list” part of the Greater Those resigning no longer believe disagreements should London Assembly election (not in the “constituency” part be hidden from public view, which is progress. However, FRAGILITY or the mayoral contest) and for mayor of Liverpool. In Galloway's victory certainly shows the fragility of they seem — it is not clear — to be also rejecting the whole Coventry, where in the past it has had councillors, SP is Labour's base, even at a time when Labour now leads idea of seeking to work out and fight for a clear political running as “Socialist Alternative”, not TUSC. the Tories in the polls by 10%, and the widespread line. Galloway's Respect party, which before Bradford had working-class resentment at Ed Miliband's feebleness. Moreover they have not constituted themselves as an or - been on the verge of shutting down, with almost all its ganisation, creating the possibility of an apolitical clique But many left-group candidates have discovered that re - council seats lost, has been given a new boost, and will run held together by their former experience in WP and the sentment and disillusion do not necessarily rally voters to a slate in Bradford's council election. fetish of a new “anticapitalist organisation”. them. There has been a general trend since about 2005 for TUSC's pitch for the London poll — a woodenly-ex - They show no sign of reassessing WP’s disastrous legacy left-of-Labour election scores to shrink, and even at times pressed “anti-cuts” declaration and identification with on issues like Stalinism, imperialism and Israel-Palestine. when Labour was in government and extremely unpopu - “trade unions”, with no positive content of socialism or If anything, their statement that they still believe the work - lar. Galloway himself failed electorally in 2011 in Glasgow, working-class political representation beyond the bare ing class is “ a crucial agent of revolutionary change, winning only 3.3%. word “socialist” — seems unlikely to catch on in the way though ...” (our emphasis) suggests a drift away from class that the practised “real Labour” demagogy of the well- AWL was not active on the ground in Bradford, any poBliutitc st.h e problem with WP is not too much class pol - known Galloway did in Bradford. And what will be more than SWP or SP were, and we do not know exactly itics! A tradition which maintains that North Korea is a achieved if it does catch on, other than obvious benefits for how he pulled off his victory. Helen Pidd of the Guardian , “workers’ state”, and which in 2003-4 supported “no the SP? There is no channel from TUSC successes, if they who was the only national newspaper journalist to report platforming” reformist Iraqi trade unionists while pro - should happen, to a revitalisation of the labour movement the by-election on the spot, estimated: moting the fascistic Iraqi “resistance”, is precisely or the left. “Those who voted for Galloway... were either a first-time But we shall see. lacking an independent working-class focus. voter or a disaffected Labourite, and all wanted to congrat - ulate him on his robust stance against the wars in • Why didn't Solidarity welcome George Galloway's victory? He

4 SOLIDARITY WHAT WE SAY Help the AWL raise £20,000

Support our May Day Appeal Would you like to build support for your dispute or campaign? Why not send a message to trade union and socialist activists by placing a May Day message in Soli - darity ? Send a very short text (10-20 words) to us before Friday 28 April, and we will print it in the following week’s May Day issue. It costs £15 for a one-column advert and £30 for two columns. Please also send us an electronic copy of the logo or graphic you would like to use to: [email protected]. Other ways you can help G Taking out a monthly standing order. There is a form at www.workersliberty.org/resources and below PleGase post to us at the AWL address below. London Stock Exchange. People who own lots of shares are still doing well. Making a donation. You can send it to us at the ad - dress below (cheques payable to “AWL”) or do it online at Gwww.workersliberty.org/donate G Organising a fundraising event Taking copies of Solidarity to sell at your workplace, unGiversity/college or campaign group. Get in touch to discuss joining the AWL. How the Tories fuel the More information: 07796 690 874 / [email protected] / AWL, 20E Tower Workshops, 58 Riley Rd, SE1 3DG. inequality crisis Total raised so far: £12,002 We raised £577 this week On 27 April Barclays Bank bosses will face protests 2 from donations, new from shareholders at their annual general meeting. They ,00 standing orders and for will question the bank’s decision to pay a £5.7 million £12 May Day adverts. Thanks extra to boss Bob Diamond last year in the guise of a to AWL Australia, Tim, “tax equalisation payment”, and the total £17.7 million Liam Aidan, Chris and a paid out to him. reader in Sheffield. Another two bosses, Jerry del Missier and Rich Ricci, are being paid £6.7 million and £6.5 million. The labour movement should not leave protest to well- heeled shareholders. We should be raising an outcry against such pay-outs, and demanding that the big banks, already dependent on public subsidies, be put under democratic Standing order authority control and run with limited top-wage levels, with their wealth directed to improving social provision rather than boosting bonuses. To: ...... (your bank) Real wages have fallen in recent years, and the Govern - ment’s plan, with its public-sector pay freeze, is to push ...... (its address) them down further. Benefit and service cuts have reduced the “social wage”, and will reduce it more. Yet the rich are ...... back to the levels of income and wealth they had before the crisis. Account name: ...... Capitalist slumps increase poverty, but usually , in statisti - cal terms, they reduce inequality. The rich lose too, with their businesses going bust or their shareholdings losing Account no.: ...... value, and they have further to fall. Inequality fell in the have plenty of cash to pay themselves with. 1930s, and it probably fell a bit in 2009, too. Directors of the top 100 companies had a 49% rise in av - Sort code: ...... Yet in this crisis, since 2010 anyway, inequality has risen. erage earnings in 2010-1, to almost £2.7 million each, while In the UK as in the USA, the slice of income taken by the top average gross earnings for full-time workers fell 5.9% in real Please make payments to the debit of my ac - one per cent has more than doubled since the 1970s. That terms between April 2007 and November 2011. long-term trend had a momentary hiccup in 2009, but on The Government’s and the bosses’ drive to push down count: Payee: Alliance for Workers’ Liberty, the available evidence (no comprehensive surveys have wages and “social wages” is not just, or even mainly, a mat - account no. 20047674 at the Unity Trust been completed yet), it has got right back on course since ter of healing deficits. It is a drive to use the crisis in order then. to impose a shift in the balance of class forces — to set a Bank, 9 Brindley Place, Birmingham B1 2HB lower baseline for workers’ attempts to recoup standards (08-60-01) PUMPED UP whenever a general economic recovery comes, and to en - Banks and the financial markets surrounding them have sure that this recovery starts with a lush profit rate from day been pumped up by vast public subsidies. Large pay - one. Amount: £ ...... to be paid on the outs and credit guarantees were given to the banks at So far the Tories are getting away with it. George Os - ...... day of the peak of the crisis in 2008, to stop them going bust borne’s move in the Budget to cut the top tax rate from 50% — and that continues. to 45% shows their smugness...... (month) 20 But they are getting away with it only because the labour The European Central Bank has lent one trillion euros to ...... (year) and thereafter monthly until banks, for the next three years, at ultra-low interest rates. movement is not mobilising the great pool of resentment Unless the banks choose completely wrong when using that which exists in the working class against the people whom this order is cancelled by me in writing. This cash to buy bonds and shares, the ECB operation amounts Ed Miliband last year called the “predators”. (Remember to a public subsidy to the banks of some tens of billions. that, Ed Miliband? What about some more like that? And order cancels any previous orders to the “Quantitative easing”, done in Britain by the Bank of Eng - with some practical campaigning conclusions this time?) land, amounts to another subsidy to banks — giving them Bonuses in high finance and in other industries totalled same payee. hard cash in return for dodgy assets. When the banks are £22 billion in 2011. The Coalition government’s planned cuts cashed up, that tends to have a positive effect on all finan - for 2011-2015 total £18 billion from benefits, and £16 billion Date ...... cial markets. from education and other local services. They are big cuts. Thus, despite the fact that total output has been pretty But the amounts going to the wealthy — £22 billion in Signature ...... stagnant, and prospects are bleak, share prices on the Lon - bonuses for a single year, £137 billion gain in wealth by the don stock exchange have recovered sizeably since 2009. Peo - topT hoen er ethsouusracneds oavrer tah seirneg.l eIt ydeeapr e—n darse omnu wchh ibcihgg celra. ss ple who own lots of shares are doing well, and top bosses fights hardest for its slice.

SOLIDARITY 5 INTERNATIONAL International news Greece: defy election blackmail! in brief

had participated in the By Theodora Polenta should not be under nego - years of struggle blue - Pakistan: march. Guellali said the tiation if the Greek people prints of workers’ control The Greek government is clashes appeared to mark want to safeguard Greece’s were evident — during the about to announce Par - Islamists fight a new level of conflict be - position in the Eurozone. refuse workers’ and liamentary elections for tween the government For various reasons, in - GENOP-DEH workers 6 May. against and the secular left. “Peo - cluding the political weak - struggles, and the Office ness of the left, these of the National Statistics ple went down to the Av - All the mainstream po - elections will not raise the workers’ occupations. women’s enue Bourguiba with the litical parties are trying to issue of a workers’ govern - The demand for direct spirit of a showdown shift the political agenda ment. However, they could democracy and self-gover - with the government,” from austerity measures to rights lay the foundation for the nance was expressed albeit she said. “There was a racist and xenophobic hys - abolishment and further in a confused and incom - Islamist parties have feeling of: ‘We are going teria and law and order pushing back of the mem - plete way during last taken to the streets to to defy this ban just as we policies, with promises to orandum parties. That year’s indignant square oppose the ratification did during Ben Ali’s spend money on building would create better condi - movement. of a law which would rule.’” concentration camps for all tions for the resurgence of What is needed: penalise domestic vio - The ban on assembling “illegal immigrants”. Then a more militant, compact 1. Uncompromising lence in Pakistan. in the Avenue Bourguiba an individual’s symbolic working-class movement. class struggle and class — symbolic centre of the suicide spectacularly ru - Ultimately the class confrontation against the Women’s rights cam - uprising against Ben Ali’s ined their plans. struggle will be decisive, Troika, financial specula - paigners confronted the dictatorship last year — The political suicide of but these elections could tors, capitalist asset strip - bigots outside parliament was imposed after 28 retired pharmacist Dim - lay the seeds in determin - pers and imperialism. last week. March, when a group of itris Xristoulas on 4 April Angry notes at a memorial ing whether Greece will be Any middle of the road The Islamists’ argu - secular artists and ultra- sent a clear political mes - for Dimitris Xristoulas. His a “guinea pig” of counter - solution, e.g. a call for a ments against the legisla - conservative Islamists sage to the politicians that political suicide has focused revolution or a prototype “progressive government tion include: preventing both staged marches their “memorandum poli - people, once more, on of class struggle of resist - with the radical left at its domestic violence is there. Fighting took place cies” are leading the ma - resisting the Greek austerity ance and the revolutionary centre” is an illusion and “Western”; and that the after the Islamists at - jority of the Greek drive overthrow of the capitalist will ultimately betray the Bill is a copy of Indian tacked the artists. population to poverty, des - The Tunisian General matically increased. In system. working class struggle. legislation. titution and despair. This Labour Union (UGTT) Athens over 25,000 people Our struggle, our strikes, Whichever government is A spokesperson for is what is at stake in the has declared that the 1 are homeless. our civil disobedience elected on 6 May election, Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam election: all of us and our May celebrations will Babies are being handed movements are the deci - it should be confronted not Fazl said, “We will not let needs against them and be held in Avenue Bour - to care homes and charities sive weapon of the work - with the usual 24 hours these senseless women, their profits. guiba and signalled its as families cannot afford to ing class in the struggles to strikes but with an escala - who depend on Ameri - The upcoming elections intention to break the look after them. Children come. tion of our struggle until can dollars, to work are the most critical since government’s protest without enough to eat However the power of we can organise a general against the Constitution the formation of the Greek ban. faint in schools. our voting should not be political strike to get rid of and Islamic Shariah,” state. The people will not 27.7% of the population underestimated. The rejec - the memorandum and all The anti-violence Bill, be voting to elect a govern - live under the poverty line tion of the pro memoran - pro memorandum parties. first introduced in 2009, ment or a political party UK/Congo: Pensioners’ income too dum parties involves not 2. Self organisation and advocates jail terms for but to take revenge against is far below the poverty only the two coalition gov - direct action of the work - those found guilty of vio - all pro-memorandum par - line. ernment partners of Pasok ers’ rank-and-file move - lence against women, Justice for ties, their policies and the The minimum wage has and ND but all the ment within each children and domestic effects of those policies : been reduced by 22% acolytes and splinters that workplace, neighbour - workers. Daniel preposterous interest rates; In violation of the consti - are willing to be part of a hood, college, outside of Farzana Bari, a women drastic decline in living tution 150,000 public sec - coalition government after the constraints of the trade rights activist, com - standards and working Ngonga tor workers are expected the elections. union bureaucracy. mented: “This is a very conditions. They take place to lose their jobs by 2015. 3. A program of action soft bill, it gives a mini - just before the June imple - FASCISTS mum punishment of Nsevelo! 400,000 shops have closed. connected to transitional mentation of a new pack - Special attention should three months and maxi - In 2011 450 people com - demands, demands linked Congolese asylum age of anti-working class be given to the political mum of three years, but it mitted suicide and 600 to our strategic struggle seeker Daniel Ngonga measures of 15 billion. isolation of the openly is important that it is people attempted suicide for the revolutionary over - Nsevelo was assaulted Nazi and fascist party of throw of capitalism and paVssioelde,n” ce against TROIKA — up 45% on the previous by private security Xrisi Aygi. the establishment of social - women in Pakistan is The previous Pasok gov - year. guards working for the ism. widespread. The ernment and the current This is the experiment The formation of a broad UK Border Agency dur - 4. The restructuring and Human Rights Commis - coalition, in cooperation the Eurozone leaders in - political united front to ing a failed attempt to resynthesising of the sion of Pakistan states with the EU-IMF-ECB tend to replicate in the rest confront and smash the deport him. workers’ movement for that 943 women were Troika, have systemati - of southern and then grad - fascists in the streets and the building of a new revo - the victims of honour Daniel, a friend of An - cally attacked wages, ually to the very centre of in the elections is incredi - lutionary party which will killings in 2011. golan asylum seeker pensions, benefits, pen - the Eurozone. bly urgent. No space Jimmy Mubenga, who sion funds. The whole of the politi - should be given to the fas - attract the rank and file of was murdered by G4S se - cal establishment, along - cists, they should be politi - both KKE and Syriza, and They have dramatically curity guards, has been side the Troika, cally exposed. It needs to the most advanced of the increased direct and indi - Tunisian on hunger strike for determinedly tried to post - be explained that the fas - Pasok workers, but most rect taxation on workers nearly a month in protest pone the elections and pro - cists are not part of the importantly the most van - while decreasing taxation union defies at his treatment. He is long the stay of anti-memorandum spec - guard and militant sec - of the capitalists and the fi - being detained at the Papademos government. trum as the mainstream tions of workers and youth nancial speculators. ban Colnbrook Bypass centre The two mainstream po - media try to claim. If Xrisi that are emerging from the Unemployment has near Heathrow Airport. litical parties (Pasok and Aygi enter parliament it escalation of the class reached one million. Riot police enforcing Daniel has been as - New Democracy) are in - will be a terrible, historical struggle against the anti- Bit by bit, the welfare the ruling Islamist saulted three times over creasingly worried about turning point. austerity movements. state is being destroyed. party’s ban on protests the course of nine sepa - their political survival — The strikes, occupations, 5. Internationalist coor - Schools and hospitals are in central Tunis, used rate deportation at - in all polls they are regis - demonstrations, and civil dination of our struggle being stretched by an in - tear gas and batons tempts. tering under 40%, half of disobedience movements with all workers across Eu - Sign the petition to crease in demand and un - against thousands of their electoral appeal dur - have to be expressed on rope and across the world demand his release at derfunding. Continuous union-organised pro - ing the 2009 elections election day with electoral for a world wide socialist bit.ly/ITuy0E increases in electricity and testers on Monday 10 (77.4% together). Their support for the left — that revolution. We do not fight water bills and transporta - April. current combined percent - is the only consistent and to establish socialism in tion tickets make even ages question even their politically valid anti mem - one small Balkan country The workers had as - basic necessities a luxury. ability to form a coalition orandum vote. isolated from the rest of sembled to protest Many workers have not government. It is the duty of the left theO wuro fruldtu. re lies neither against a police attack on been paid. They resort to blackmail - to raise the issue of work - in the EU nor in national an unemployed workers People are partially, tem - ing with the “communist ers’ government, workers’ isolation, but in the coor - march. porarily or flexibly em - threat” — that the non-for - power, workers’ control — dination of our class There are 700,000 un - ployed, with no rights and mation of a Pasok/ND socialism in the here and struggle with all the employed workers in no collective negotiating coalition will open the now, not postponed to the workers in Europe for Tunisia. powers. doors to chaos, the return distant future. Within the the destruction from Amna Guellali, a re - A massive emigration of to the drachma, the bank - context of this worst his - below of imperialist EU searcher for Human young people is taking ruptcy of Greece. We are torical crisis, there is no institutions and the es - Rights Watch, said the place, for the first time continuously told the type time to wait until the rul - tablishment of the united police had beaten some after the Second World of government (coalition ing class, the Troika and socialist states of Eu - members of the con - Injury on Daniel’s arm War. government with Pasok the fascists bury us. rope. stituent assembly who Homelessness has dra - and ND at its centre) During the last two 6 SOLIDARITY FEATURE An appeal to the NPA: don’t split!

Pictures left to right: Myriam Martin; Jean-Luc Mélenchon; Philippe Poutou (centre) with Olivier Besancenot (right) and Christine Poupin (left)

By Martin Thomas damage of a split. not only and not mainly by what it is against, but by what “Every great action begins with a statement of what is”, as it is for . For the French Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste (New Anti- Lassalle put it. The overthrow of capitalism, and the victory To define the left we want as demarcated only by opposi - capitalist Party — NPA), and the ex-LCR (Ligue Com - of working-class self-emancipation, begins with the creation tion to the SP leaves the SP leaders, rather than us, to define muniste Revolutionnaire) core of the NPA, to split now of an organised political force which reliably advocates and the parameters; and leads both to sectarianism towards the would be a great setback not only for activists in France fights for the working class to become the ruling class and workers who back the SP, and to political vapidity. but for all of us who fight for working-class self-eman - to secure democratic collective ownership of the means of Look at what has happened to the previous (smaller) mi - cipation, all across Europe. production. nority which quit the NPA in 2009, the Gauche Unitaire led A million tactical questions then remain. But they are all by Christian Picquet. Picquet now chairs Mélenchon’s cam - Reports from France point to a “cold split” already, and an contingent on, and secondary to the creation and consolida - paign staff. The GU are not intervening in the Mélenchon open split after the legislative assembly elections in June. At tion of that class-struggle-socialist political force. campaign to advance revolutionary socialist politics. The the end of March, tensions exploded in a public battle over Unity is not a fetish. The future mass working-class revo - Mélenchon campaign has “intervened” in and absorbed who would get the government subsidy due to the heirs of lutionary party will emerge not in a straight line, but only them. the LCR, under French law, on the basis of the LCR’s score through a zigzag of splits and mergers. Sometimes revolu - Myriam Martin, a leader of the current minority, has been in the 2007 election. The LCR minority, as we understand it, tionary socialists have no choice but to split on tactical ques - quoted as saying: “We had different interpretations of the proposed that only 57% of the cash go to the NPA treasury, tions. initial project [of the NPA]. There were things not teased out the other 43% going to the minority and to another group But for a split to be justified, its rationale must be such enough over these last two years”. which left the LCR in 2009. that it can be explained to the activist working-class public This seems true. The move to create the NPA came after We are glad to read that the prospect of the dispute being that the alternative would be enervating compromise or many years of debate in the LCR about piecing together a decided in the bourgeois courts has been avoided for now, paralysis. “new anti-capitalist force” — from splinters of the SP and but it seems not to have been settled. For revolutionary socialists to have different opinions on the CP, and so on — into which the LCR could then merge. Leaders of the minority have publicly expressed their tactics in an election is normal. To split over such an episodic Negotiations repeatedly yielded nothing, and finally the view that the NPA would do better to support Jean-Luc Mé - issue is wrong. LCR decided to launch a “new anti-capitalist party” by di - lenchon, the candidate backed by the French Communist AWL and our forerunners have always had differences rect appeal of the LCR to individual activists. Party and other forces clustered round Mélenchon’s own with the NPA and the LCR. But we have always sought di - There was much talk about the “new party” nevertheless Left Party (a splinter from the Socialist Party), in the French alogue and cooperation, too. not being just a rebranded and expanded LCR. But, as we presidential election (22 April/6 May) than to continue with The LCR and the NPA — like the AWL, but, unfortu - said when we attended the LCR congress which decided on its own candidate, Philippe Poutou. nately, like very few other organisations of the radical left — the drive for the NPA, no-one should have expected a mir - That is their right. They have also gone further, publicly has had a regime of open and democratic debate, with a acle to ensure that. The NPA would be a group with broadly committing themselves, in activity, to Mélenchon’s cam - drive to develop a clear collective political line but with the the same politics as LCR, but a broader reach — and a good paign, i.e. creating an active split as well as a difference of right for minorities to dissent openly without anathemas thing too. opinion. and expulsions. Even when the LCR and the NPA have been The NPA at first launch drew about 9,000 members, com - The majority refers publicly to the minority as a group grievously in error, they have had a political culture which pared to the LCR’s 3,000. Perhaps inevitably given political which “is both inside and outside the NPA”. allowed for self-correction. conditions, perhaps in part because of errors (we don’t This is no small division. The minority claims to represent That political culture has made the existence of the LCR know), there has been much shake-out since then. When the 40% of the NPA membership and leadership. Its prominent and the NPA, as organisations of some weight and profile, NPA held local congresses in preparation for its June 2011 people, such as Pierre-Francois Grond and Myriam Martin, an asset to activists like ourselves all across Europe. conference, the total voting was only 3,100. were central figures in the LCR before it dissolved itself, in 2009, into the larger NPA. ALLOWANCES DISARRAY Different views on the presidential election are no basis In appealing against a split, we address ourselves The shake-out has caused more disarray than it needed for a split. mainly to the NPA minority, since, as far as we can see to because many LCR and NPA people hoped for some - There are reasonable arguments for the NPA presenting from here, the NPA majority has been liberal in its al - thing miraculous — hoped that the shift from the LCR Poutou. Only with a candidate of its own can a party pres - lowances for minority rights. format to the NPA format would somehow enable them ent itself in the electoral arena as a distinct political alterna - to jump over the problem that revolutionary socialist tive rather than just a force for criticism and pressure, and The minority’s statements suggest movement towards, ideas as yet convince only a small minority (although a thus the general rule is that a party with sufficient resources not just a tactic of backing Mélenchon the better to get trac - bigger minority in France than in Britain). and profile should stand a candidate where it can. tion for distinct revolutionary socialist ideas, but a virtual If it has built a political profile by standing candidates — political identification with Mélenchon. They propose as fu - There was much talk about “new epoch, new programme, as the LCR did before the NPA — then there is a reasonable ture organisation an “anti-crises left”, demarcated by com - new party”. But to desire new thinking, as a generally good argument for sustaining a continued profile, and emphasis - mitment not to join a Hollande-led government and not thing, is not the same as producing it. ing what is permanent and fundamental about the politics, much more. Too often, in practice, the desire for a “new programme” by still contesting elections even when the score on a partic - It seems incongruous for activists in Britain to remind ac - has led to junking the “old” programme, and replacing it by ular occasion looks poor. (Poutou is currently at 0.5% in the tivists in France of this, but to oppose social-democracy is no programme at all, beyond a vocal and militant tone on opinion polls, though the LCR candidate Olivier Besancenot not enough. For many decades the French Communist Party “left” causes as defined by broad public opinion, rather than got 4.1% in 2007 and 4.25% in 2002). has been somewhat to the left of social-democracy on ques - by a carefully-analysed revision in light of new conditions. tions of French politics. In the past the CP scored higher One strand of that evolution which we have particularly REASONABLE than Mélenchon does now (21% in the 1969 presidential noticed has been on Israel and Palestine. The LCR would A reasonable argument can also be made for backing election). Today the CP is the backbone of Mélenchon’s cam - explain (sometimes more clearly, sometimes less so) that Mélenchon. He has rallied support far beyond the ambit paign. “two states appears to be the only way to open, eventually, of the CP and the Left Party. From 5% in the polls in Oc - But the LCR and the NPA have existed precisely because the road to a federal or confederal solution for the two tober 2011, he has risen to 16% today, and he has the CP, even if “leftish”, has been a force for corruption, bu - groups occupying the same land” (bit.ly/lcrisrael). The drawn huge crowds. reaucratisation, and miseducation, not for enlightenment, NPA only echoes “broad” anti-Israel indignation, in militant in the working class. tones implying a desire to see Israel destroyed, with no hint The NPA, despite being the strongest force of the revolu - The CP was to the right of social democracy on many in - of an independent approach geared to uniting Arab and tionary socialist left in Europe, is still a small group of a few ternational issues, notably workers’ rights in the Stalinist Jewish workers. thousands. Maybe it would gain more political traction by states, and today’s CP has escaped the old Moscow control? A similar evolution on other questions has led to debate integrating itself into crowds of the Mélenchon campaign Yes, but even today’s CP is rotten on international issues, in the NPA being narrowed down, more and more, to and seeking leverage to explain to the Mélenchon crowds and it was not just the CP’s line on international issues squabbles over electoral tactics. That, combined with impa - how clear working-class politics would serve their interests which made us argue that a better party was necessary. tient desires magically to escape the irritations of revolu - better. The minority has criticised the CP for indicating that it tionary socialism still for now being a small-minority cause, The wrong line on such tactical issues can be damaging. would join a Hollande-led government given the chance? has led to a danger of split. But they are tactical issues. The election is only an episode. We appeal to all NPA activists to rally against the split. Yes, but an adequate working-class political force is defined The damage of a wrong tactic here is much less than the SOLIDARITY 7 FRANCE Different “lefts” in France’s election

The first round of the French presidential elections is on the European institutions which are European in name only 22 April, with the run-off between the top two candi - and which are all political tools for the exclusive benefit of dates on 6 May. capitalists and bankers. The latest opinion polls put right-wing president Nicolas For the Left Front to play a useful role in the coming pe - Sarkozy, Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), on 26-27% riod, it needs to orient its programme in a clearly anti-capi - and François Hollande, candidate of the Socialist Party (PS, talist direction. It is the responsibility of all those who similar to the British Labour Party), on 28%-30%. These will support anti-capitalism and real socialism to work to this almost certainly be the top two candidates in the run-off. end. Here, Hollande is a full 10% ahead of Sarkozy in the polls. This is why Le Militant is proposing to all to create a rev - Marine Le Pen, the candidate of the fascist Front National olutionary current within the Left Front, pushing for the (FN — National Front) has also been polling well. adoption of an adequate programme to meet the crisis of the A debate has opened up on the far left about the Jean-Luc capitalists and aid the political and social mobilisation at all Mélenchon candidacy, currently on 16-17% in the polls. Mé - lev2e0l1s.2 has not yet finished surprising us! lenchon split from the Socialist Party in 2008 to form the Parti de gauche (PdG — Left Party). The PdG, the (post-Stal - inist) French Communist Party and some smaller fragments Organise the mistrust! together make up the Front de Gauche (FdG — Left Front) for the 2012 election. By Yvan Lemaître, NPA Paris The Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste (NPA — New Anti-cap - italist Party), France’s biggest non-Stalinist far-left group, is “Philippe Poutou storms in!” wrote Le Monde the day running auto worker Philippe Poutou. Lutte Ouvrière (LO before one of the main TV broadcasts of the presiden - — Workers’ Fight), another sizeable Trotskyist party, is run - tial election campaign in France. ning Nathalie Arthaud. LO and the NPA’s predecessor or - Effectively, in a very difficult context, the NPA campaign ganisation, the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire — has seen a turning point ten days before the election of 22 Revolutionary Communist League, have in the past scored April. Its candidate, Ford car factory worker Philippe around 5% in presidential polls. Poutou, has met with a lot of sympathy in sticking to a lan - This time, however, Poutou and Arthaud’s projected votes guage of breaking with the accepted game of institutional are nowhere near the 10% the LCR and LO achieved be - François Hollande, the Socialist Party presidential candidate leaders and parties, the routine of language which is hollow tween them in 2002. and alien to the preoccupations of the population. Some on the French revolutionary left are backing Mélen - workers who have suffered successive defeats since 2002, It is very difficult to tell at the moment of writing whether chon. Others stick with Poutou and Arthaud. Below, we notably in the strikes of 2003 and 2010, giving a political that will translate into electoral support. Up until now, the print views from French comrades, translated by Ed Maltby. opening to the majority rejection of the European Constitu - two anti-capitalist candidates, Natalie Arthaud for LO and tional Treaty in 2005. This did not signify a nationalist rejec - Philippe Poutou for the NPA, are scoring between 0.5% and Create revolutionary current in tion, but a refusal of the constitutional freedom given to 1% in the polls. These scores do not correspond to those of Left Front bosses and to the markets to do what they wanted without Arlette Laguiller for LO and Olivier Besancenot in the last social restraint. presidential elections of 2002 and 2007, where together they By Le Militant , a socialist journal An anecdote: at the start of the electoral campaign, the won around 10% of the vote. leaflets distributed by the PS were blue, the colour that CONTEXT In Le Militant , we said in June 2011 that Jean-Luc Mé - Sarkozy’s UMP uses a lot. Now, PS leaflets are red — the The context is one of the explanations for this. Today, lenchon could come out in the lead in the first round. same colour the Left Front uses. for the majority of voters, it is no longer a matter of pun - Not because of our illusions, or enthusiasm, but by cold Mass rallies at Bastille on 18 March (120,000 people), at ishing the “institutional” [reformist, parliamentary] left, analysis, which is this: the relations between classes. Toulouse (70,000 people), Lille, and Marseille (100,000) have when the Communist Party is falling apart, Marie expressed the need for a clearly left-wing campaign to beat We are keeping a cool head: whether it will succeed or not, Georges Buffet [the Communist Party candidate] hav - Sarkozy. Activists at these rallies will not be satisfied just ing got less than 2% in 2007. the movement aims to undo Sarkozy and confront the with voting but want to mobilise beyond the ballot box to regime of the 5th Republic and the boss class. We are aiming stop cuts and impose measures which favour the working The priority is to beat Sarkozy while hoping that Hol - for that confrontation. If Mélenchon is in the lead then the population. lande, the PS candidate, will alleviate the effects of the pol - confrontation will come faster and stronger, and if not it will itics of austerity. Even if everyone knows full well that the still advance. In any case, we must organise. In the Left Front MAJORITY elections will not change a great deal, they hope that the Beyond the presidential election, the left as a whole in particular, the question is posed of the organisation of the elections will allow the left — broadly speaking — to come must fight to win a large parliamentary majority, in thousands who are mobilised. to power and that this will mean protection in the short which the Left Front has substantial weight. That is why Le Militant is taking part actively in the cam - term. The responses of anti-capitalists win sympathy but do paign for a Mélenchon vote, and is raising the need for a There too, nothing is inevitable. If Hollande is elected, he not appear credible at the electoral level: “Okay, you are democratic government which repudiates the so-called will want to limit the influence of the Left Front by asserting right, but you can’t do it today”. “public” debt and breaks with the 5th Republic. PS supremacy in the future parliamentary majority, or by This context also explains the second new fact of this cam - What is at stake in this election for millions of workers is looking for alliances with the centre, or by trying to buy the paign after the likely increase in abstention: the dynamic kicking out Sarkozy, while the candidate that the media entry of Left Front ministers into his own government. around Jean-Luc Mélenchon and the Left Front. The Left presents as the only one capable of achieving this, François For now, given that Hollande intends to apply a pro - Front is a regroupment of a small party, the Left Party Hollande, does nothing to lead a mobilisation with a pro - gramme of managing the debt crisis, there can be no ques - founded by Mélenchon, former minister under [PS Prime gramme which responds to the needs of the working popu - tion of entering such a government. That would certainly be Minister] Jospin, after his split with the PS in 2009, shortly lation. the first key test of the longevity of the Left Front after the after the foundation of the NPA, the Communist Party (the The media and the political establishment want give the elections. activist force in the regroupment), and a number of small impression that: In any case, with the debt crisis and the “deficits”, and the groups of the radical left. • Hollande is the only one who can beat Sarkozy, with predictable policy of Hollande for managing the crisis in the Mélenchon has succeeded in creating a dynamic around votes from the centre; same way as Zapatero (Spain) or Papandreou (Greece), so - this regroupment by combining a critique of the PS with the • François Bayrou, candidate of the “centrist” Democratic cial tension will not let up. There is no possible half-way perspective of “citizens’ revolution” — that is, change Movement, with his electoral capital is important and must choice: either managing the debt at the expense of the work - through the ballot box, within the framework of existing in - be addressed; ers and those relying on the welfare state, by means of pri - stitutions, through a game of parliamentary alliances. Mé - • that abstention will remain at a high level because work - vatisations, sackings and cutting wages, or the lenchon has a talent for playing on his ambiguities and ing-class and poor voters do not know who to vote for; reconstruction of public services and worker’ rights through succeeding in remobilising the apparatus of the Communist • that blue collar workers who are victims of the crisis can measures aimed against capitalists. Either ratification of the Party while making anti-capitalist postures. only vote for the National Front. Sarkozy-Merkel treaty, or repudiation of the debt: no half He currently has between 13% and 15% in the polls, a suc - That is why the campaign by the Left Front and Mélen - measures are possible! cess which expresses a desire to get rid of Sarkozy and his chon has usefully confronted Le Pen and put her on the de - Furthermore it is important to note that this is the first gang, without trusting Hollande, but which remains inside fensive, and shown that there is nothing inevitable about time that a left-wing electoral campaign has put the need to the electoral, institutional framework. leaving the political space open to her, by exposing her chau - finish with the 5th Republic front-and-centre, and the need No-one can say today where the Mélenchon adventure vinistic and racist demagogy. to return to a real parliamentary regime by calling a con - will go, partially because we do not know to what extent the By building a dynamic campaign that directly challenges stituent assembly. This radical democratic demand is very current projections reflect the real results which will come Sarkozy, the president for the rich, Mélenchon has created bad news for all institutions created over the last thirty years out of the polls on 22 April. And above all, we cannot know an enthusiasm responding to the needs of the millions of through decentralisation and regionalisation, likewise for all what the social and economic situation will be after the elec - 8 SOLIDARITY FRANCE Different “lefts” in France’s election

Phillipe Poutou, candidate of the Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste Nathalie Arthaud, candidate of Lutte Ouvrière (Workers’ Fight) Jean-Luc Mélenchon, candidate of the Front de Gauche

tions. tion”… you might well ask who will really benefit! tween revolutionaries and the Left Front lies. They call for One thing is certain: it is urgently necessary to give an or - This is a simple example of a two-faced politics: one poli - revolution… via the ballot box. ganised and reliable form to the mistrust, or rather the total tics for the bosses (that is, the politics that he would really The fact remains that this campaign has succeeded in at - lack of illusions, concerning the PS and Hollande. That form support) and another for the workers. tracting many workers and many youth, with whom the rev - must be capable of following through the critique of the dic - On the question of job losses though, Mélenchon only has olutionaries have an interest in discussing. But then two tatorship of the markets to advance a programme of defend - one face. He prefers to play the French nationalist card by problems arise: how to explain, despite (or because of) these ing workers and the poor by refusing to pay interest on the supporting different protectionist measures against out - limits, the popularity and dynamic of the Mélenchon cam - debt, with a view to cancelling it; to work for a democratic sourcing businesses abroad… goodbye to the slogan for paign? How can revolutionaries approach the problem of and popular government which can rely on the support of “outlawing redundancies” [a widespread, established far- talking to the workers and youth drawn into the campaign? mass mobilisations; to nationalise the banks within the left demand in France], a slogan which would allow work - framework of a public service finance sector under the con - ers, if they raised it in struggle, to defend themselves and POSITIONING In Mélenchon’s success, there is at the same time the trol of the population. unite against the bosses whatever their nationality. It is actu - political positioning of the man, and his talent as a trib - From this point of view, the campaign of the NPA candi - ally difficult for Jean-Luc Mélenchon to not use the word une, which is recognised by the PS candidate, Hollande date, Phillippe Poutou, is a staging post to re-launch the dy - “France” in every sentence, whose “universal interests” he himself, who sketches the division of labour which has namic of the NPA, while the demagogy and the ambiguities, lauds. We’re dealing with an imperialist language here, arisen between the two men: “Mélenchon functions as including the patriotism, that Mélenchon is pushing will scarcely dressed up with “left-wing” values. a tribune, but my objective is to become President”. crash into the reality of the balance of forces and the estab - lishment. FERVENT Poutou’s campaign is a staging post to pursue the re - Because on international questions, Mélenchon is clear: He capitalises on leftwing votes, which will go to Hol - groupment of anti-capitalists, while working for the he is the fervent defender of the interests of France, or lande for the second round. These are votes which would unity of all the forces who refuse austerity from left or to put it another way, of the French boss class. otherwise disappear into abstentions, or go to other candi - right. dates, even to the far-right Marine Le Pen, who has not hes - The last example to date is the praise from the arms boss itated to present herself as a workers’ candidate. Serge Dassault and the support he has given to the sale of The rise of Mélenchon relies in any case very heavily on Mélenchon is two-faced Rafale fighter jets to India. When he was invited on to France the mobilisation of the Communist Party and its local appa - Inter public radio lately, the journalist asked him the follow - ratus, which has taken on a new vigour. And likewise, it By comrades in L’Etincelle, a faction of the NPA ing question: “Can one support disarmament, and also cheer owes a lot to the mobilisation of the sections of union appa - on the sale of fighter jets?” ratuses (in particular the CGT, the General Confederation of Rating at over 13% in the polls and drawing some Mélenchon’s response: “Let the Russians and the Ameri - Labour) which explicitly support him. It is the CP and a sec - 100,000 people to the Bastille, the Left Front candidate cans disarm first, and then we’ll talk. France does not tion of CGT members which provide Mélenchon’s activist Jean-Luc Mélenchon has a real dynamic. threaten anyone!” (He forgot to mention that France is at war forces. It is they who are doing the lion’s share of the work in Afghanistan, in Libya, that her army has brought the new of mobilising (by coach) for the rallies and the big public This dynamic is all the more interesting because the press President to power in Ivory Coast, etc.). And he continues meetings in provincial towns. presents him sometimes as a “revolutionary” leader. But is to express his sympathy for Serge Dassault, the head of the The rallies have met with real success, which revolution - that really what he is? firm of the same name and the sixth richest man in France… aries have to face up to at the same time as presenting their Mélenchon is not new to politics. Joining the Socialist Another, slightly older, example is his insistence in affirm - own candidates and programme, especially by taking part in Party (PS) in 1976, he became a member of its leading com - ing his solidarity with French imperialism in the context of more discussions with the milieu which is looking to the Left mittee in 1983 (at the same time as his current rival Francois the rigged election of Ali Bongo in 2009, the son of Omar Front, including in workplaces. It is a very good thing for us Hollande). Under Mitterrand he progressed within the PS Bongo, dictator of Gabon who was supported by French im - to be able to discuss “reform or revolution” — or, more con - apparatus. He was elected as a PS senator in 1986, and be - perialism. An election which assured the continuation of cretely and immediately, the objectives of the struggles came a minister in the last left government, in charge of vo - French imperialism and its businesses (Total, Bouygues, Bol - which we must engage in once the election is over. cational education from 2000 to 2002. The career, then, of a loré, Axa, BNP) in this former French colony. But to face up to the challenge, the most efficient method PS careerist. So, what’s left that’s revolutionary in the Mélenchon cam - remains to present a candidate ourselves, a revolutionary In his programme, there are certain social demands, of paign? candidate who affirms the objectives of these struggles of which some appear radical, so long as you don’t look too I am radical, he suggests, but I remain within the capital - the working class. In this campaign, Nathalie Arthaud from closely. For example, the demand for a minimum salary of ist system! Hence his cleverly-chosen phrases about the “cit - Lutte Ouvrière and Philippe Poutou from the NPA, who we €1,700 a month for all, but, watch out, €1,700 “gross” (in izens’ revolution” and the “civic insurrection”, which stick are supporting, support these objectives. fact €1,350 net — the demand of the far left, LO and NPA, is This candidacy allows us to raise our programme, for contradictory words together. On one side, apparently rad - the short period of the election, in front of millions of for €1,700 net as a minimum immediately), having taken ical measures, on the other, words which lead to an parlia - care to spell out in an interview in a bosses’ newspaper that people. It is a chance that we are taking to popularise mentary and electoralist highway. our ideas and develop our political implantation. it would rise to €1,700 “at the end of the parliament” and And it is exactly there that the principal difference be - only for “activities not exposed to international competi -

SOLIDARITY 9 REVIEW Abolish money without class struggle?

Janet Burstall reviews Life without money: building fair and exchange of goods between communities would be re - and sustainable communities , edited by Anitra Nelson and duced to a minimum. Essentials would be produced as lo - Frans Timmerman cally as possible. The only purposes proposed for complex This book argues that abolition of “the market” is the industrial production are electronic communications and key to replacing capitalism. The medium of the market minimal cargo transport. is money, so abolition of money is the way to “non-mar - This economy would hold down production, deliberately ket socialism, a moneyless, wageless, classless, state - reduce personal consumption, and pull back from global in - less world”. terchanges of raw materials, goods and services, in order to reduce overall consumption of resources and to achieve After the poisonous decades of Stalinism and the failure greater equality. It is much more rural and less urban. of social-democracy to challenge capitalism, it is welcome Measure this vision against the failure of Stalinism. The to find socialists looking for a different vision of socialism. Agents of socialism? authors attribute the initial failure of the Russian revolution The vision in this edited collection is based on examples to the retention of money. If only money had been abol - of people managing to live more or less without money, i.e. Unavoidably this makes the book utopian in the sense ished, Stalin would not have triumphed in Russia and the outside of but parallel to capitalism. that Marx described. It is both highly critical of existing so - Cuban revolution would have been pure, they argue. These people — rural, indigenous, peasant and domestic ciety and in that way useful, but because it lacks a sense of The account of debates about money amongst the Bolshe - workers who are unwaged; squatters; work refusers; com - “historically created conditions of emancipation” it is in ef - viks and the Cubans is interesting, and a socialist govern - mune dwellers — are seen as the agency that can create the fect a fantasy, personal invention without connection to ac - ment would have to make decisions about the role of new non-market socialism. Several of the authors and the tual historical forces. money. But these were not the critical decisions which led to editors of this book claim to base their arguments on aspects Any vision of the future carries within it the seeds of dic - the conquest of Russia and the Communist International by of Marxist theory, especially Marx’s critique of money and tatorship rather than democracy, unless it is able to mobilise Stalin. Decades later the Russian and allied economies col - commodities. Yet none of them explains why they have desire for its fundamentals, desire that is expressed, formu - lapsed not because they still used money (more for account - ditched and contradicted most of Marx’s analysis, particu - lated for and taken up by a mass democratic collective. ing purposes than as a symbol of real value), but because larly on the role of the working class. they were so economically stagnant and unproductive. “The market” is not what defines capitalism. Capitalist CLASS An alternative to capitalism will not be supported in a relations differ critically from pre-capitalist market relations The working class is the only class that organises itself democratic society unless it can better develop productive in that they are based on a new commodity, a new market, against capital, with more or less independence and forces, and build on what is progressive in capitalism. This the labour market that was constructed as recently as 200 democracy, depending on the time and place. means that production will need to be dynamic, evolving, years ago. This created the working class, whose members able to produce a higher standard of living with less labour. must enter the labour market, to receive a wage, to have No other social force has shown this potential, yet Life This doesn’t necessarily mean consuming more natural re - money, to be able to buy the necessities of life. without money shows no interest in the politics and develop - sources. The editors of Life without money recognise the need to re - ment of the labour movement. A society with democratic control of production would organise production. But their preferred agency, non-wage The conclusion of the book reads like a fantasy that could be able to redefine a good standard of living away from con - labour, has no concretely imaginable historical role in doing only be achieved by conquest of the rich “north” by an al - sumption of commodities or things, towards experience and so. Failing to employ a Marxist analysis of history and class liance of the poor meta-industrials of the “south”, and work free time to do as one wants. refusing, squatting allies in the “north”, to enforce a “con - But the extensive interchange of goods and services relations, to explain the origin of current conditions, there is on a global scale, and complex industrial production no understanding of the current motives and desires of tract and converge” strategy leading to more equal con - sumption, lower in the north, and higher in the south. will be necessary and desirable parts of that future, labour and capital, no picture of how interests and actions which Life without money tries to imagine away. in the present could unfold and lead to socialism. Local communities would be as self-sufficient as possible, Learning about our tradition

Mike Wood reviews the new online archive of the first se - had been a highly regarded publication in the international ries of the New Politics journal Trotskyist movement since 1934, and its closure along with The American website UNZ has recently made available the ISL in 1958 left many former ISL members concerned the entire run of the first volume of New Politics jour - about the hole it might leave in the American left wing nal, from 1960 to 1978. This is a valuable resource for scene. The Jacobsons sought to create a broad, anti-Stalinist, rev - Mick Shaw those interested in the history of the socialist move - ment and should ensure a wider readership for a tradi - olutionary, journal of socialist thought. The initial editorial tion of thought that has largely been forgotten by the board was broad, and included Hal Draper; the leader of Mick Shaw’s death robs the labour movement of one left today. the left wing of the ISL that had opposed Shachtman’s move of its finest representatives. He was a socialist, in - to the right. The Jacobsons approached Shachtman himself ternationalist and trade unionist who devoted his New Politics was started by Julius and Phyllis Jacobson in about being involved, but he declined. whole life to the working class and the left. 1960, following the collapse of the Independent Socialist Until now, New Politics has only been available in a few League in 1958. The right wing of the ISL, led by Max University libraries and private collections. Despite this, Mick was best known as a firefighter and Fire Brigades Shachtman, had negotiated to take the ISL into the loosely some articles here will be well known, for example Draper’s Union member, where he rose to become the national reformist Socialist Party. Julius Jacobson had been the editor 1966 version of “The Two Souls of Socialism”. Other pieces president. His work in the FBU started with the 1977 fire - of the ISL’s theoretical journal, The New International . This are only now widely available thanks to the UNZ archive, fighters strike and finished with picket duty during the such as the debate following the publication of the “Two London strikes in 2010. He was the London representa - Souls” between Draper and Max Nomad. Anyone interested tive on the FBU executive for a decade and was a percep - in Draper’s idea of socialism from below should read this tive, critical voice during the 2002-03 pay strikes. He was Working class politics exchange in the Spring, Summer, and Fall 1966 issues, in proud to have been on a regular firefighter’s wage which he clarifies many of his views. throughout his time as a union official. Other less well known works that I think deserve a wider Mick was rightly well regarded for his wider labour and anarchism audience include the transcript of a debate in the Winter movement work too. He took part in dozens of cam - 1965 issue between Draper and Nathan Glazer, a Berkeley paigns. He was an avid reader of the left and bourgeois academic, on the subject of the Berkeley Free Speech Move - press and had a keen understanding of socialist debates. How do the revolutionary ment. The FSM was one of the first significant movements He was well informed and always willing to discuss pol - anti-capitalist traditions of that can be clearly defined as part of the “New Left”. The itics. Even when we disagreed about Cuba and other in - Marxism and anarchism relate New Politics current was unusual in regarding and engag - ternational and national questions, I always learned to each other? What are the dif - ing with the New Left sympathetically whilst maintaining something new from the engagement with him. ferences, and where are the com - strong ties to the “Old Left” of the 1930s and 1940s. There is Mick was a force for culture in the labour movement. monalities? also a lengthy symposium on the New Left in the Fall 1965 He was an articulate speaker who enjoyed both theory This pamphlet brings together issue, including a contribution from Mario Savio, the most and strategy. He devoted countless hours to organising articles, debates and exchanges and activism. He was a gifted chair who could hold any prNomewin ePnotl ilteiacds erre opfr ethsee nFtSsM a. n important part of the anti- between members of the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty meeting with calm authority. He was the sort of person Stalinist revolutionary tradition that Workers’ Liberty and various anarchist writers and activists. Many ap - you would want to be alongside in a struggle — solid, identifies with. Anyone interested in learning more peared in Solidarity newspaper during 2011. dependable and cool under pressure. about that tradition will find this archive very helpful. He has influenced thousands of workers and his £5 online at http://alturl.com/fh5j6 or post a cheque contribution was valued by everyone who knew him. to “AWL” to AWL, 20E Tower Workshops, Riley Road, London SE1 3DG. • Visit the archive at: unz.org/pub/newpolitics Paul Hampton 10 SOLIDARITY BACKGROUND Why I became a third-camp socialist, and what I’ve done

In this week’s Solidarity we begin a serialisation of a sym - That meant that we tended to neglect those members who industry and in unions, stayed with the IS. Recognising how posium on the “third-camp” left in America — the organ - hadn’t carried out the strategy and continued to be students, Draper’s resignation might demoralise the group, Weir isations which opposed both Stalinism and western or to work as teachers or social workers. Some former mem - toured the United States speaking to our branches and en - capitalism, focusing on the tradition originating with the bers later told me that they felt rejected, or even that they couraging us to continue on the path to the working class Workers’ Party led by Max Shachtman, which split from were told by some IS leader or other that that they were not that we had adopted. the “orthodox Trotskyist” Socialist Workers’ Party (no re - longer wanted and were driven out of the group at that Draper’s position attracted few followers among our lation to the British group of the same name) in 1939/40. time. I think there were very few cases of that. young members who were either working on the staff of our We have interviewed activists from a range of back - After 1970 or so, our discussions focused on strikes, con - organisation or getting jobs in industry. They had already grounds, most still active on the left, about their recollec - tract negotiations, and union elections at the local union and made their commitment to a certain course. tions of involvement in or around the Workers’ Party and national level, and we turned away from most other topics, We IS members in the Teamsters’ union worked with its successor organisations — the Independent Socialist with the exception of work on African American criminal rank-and-file activists to create a democratic and militant League, and later, the Independent Socialists and the In - justice issues (particularly the Gary Tyler case). We also con - union reform organisation. We succeeded in inspiring ternational Socialists (IS). tinued to analyse and discuss the developments in Southern protest demonstrations around the National Master Freight We begin the serialisation with a piece from Dan La Europe and in Angola, Mozambique and South Africa. We Agreement in 1975, forced the union to call a national strike, Botz, which discusses the debates in IS about “industrial - attempted to make our branches habitable to the few work - and then some of us led wildcat strikes in freight and at UPS isation”, and around questions of organisation. Further ers who we now invited to our meetings, which meant fo - in some cities. Based on that work we founded Teamsters contributions will appear in future issues. cusing on the labour topics where they as workers were for a Democratic Union. I later wrote a book, Rank-and-File often more knowledgeable than us, at least about local is - Rebellion: Teamsters for a Democratic Union , about the move - By Dan La Botz sues. ment. Once industrialised, our strategy was to find allies in the The recessions of 1973-75 and 1979-81 took the wind out I grew up in a working-class neigh - unions — usually the dissidents who had been fighting of the Teamster rank-and-file rebellion of that era, just as bourhood on the South Side of against the companies and also against the union bureau - auto plant closings and steel mill shutdowns stifled activism Chicago. My family’s politics as I crats. Sometimes those were organised groups, sometimes in those unions for years. When its perspective collapsed, grew up, however, were anti-capi - not. the IS splintered into three groups which became the IS, talist, anti-Stalinist, pro-socialist, Workers Power, and the International Socialist Organization and staunchly pro-union. My RANK-AND-FILE (ISO). The split was partly manufactured by Tony Cliff and mother Betty, a grocery clerk, was We did not organise socialist groups in the union, but the British Socialist Workers Party. I remained loyal to the IS, fiercely loyal to her union, the Re - rather rank-and-file groups open to all. These rank-and- but had many friends in Workers Power, both third-camp tail Clerks. file groups generally published a newsletter in the work - organisations. place or a newspaper for the union. While still a junior high school student, then living in the Unable to continue with its earlier party building strat - small town of Imperial Beach, California, on the U.S.-Mex - Most of us identified ourselves as socialists to our closest egy, in 1979 IS members who wanted to continue rank-and- ico border, in 1958 or so, my father bought me a subscription coworkers and some of us sold the IS newspaper Workers file industrial organising had created Labor Notes , first a to Liberation magazine which had a third-camp perspective. Power in the workplace. IS members often sold Workers newspaper and later also an educational centre. I wrote for I first became aware of actual national politics during the Power outside of plants and workplaces, both those where Labor Notes and I also wrote the very popular organising Civil Rights era, but I did not become an activist until I grad - we worked and others in the same industries or unions, or manual, The Troublemaker’s Handbook . uated from college in 1968, when I began to participate in in other industries or unions. In 1986, the IS re-merged with Workers Power and also anti-war activities. I became a member of Students for a In the auto industry, our original idea was to join the joined with former Socialist Workers Party members to cre - Democratic Society (SDS) while studying literature in grad - Black Power movement in the plants — the Dodge Revolu - ate Solidarity, a multi-tendency organisation, amongst uate school at the University of California at San Diego. tionary Union Movement (DRUM) and the other groupings. which were many third-camp socialists like myself. Teaching English literature for a year at Humboldt State But by the time we got jobs in the plants, that movement As the American left began to revive with the “Battle of College in northern California, I joined a local socialist dis - had been partly crushed and partly co-opted, and no longer Seattle” in 1999, I subsequently took a more active role in cussion group, and most of us then joined the International existed. So our auto workers formed an alliance with a Solidarity, joined the editorial board of New Politics , and in Socialists (IS), a third-camp socialist organisation. I was re - group of older (white) Trotskyists who had been in the 2010 while remaining a Solidarity member ran as the Social - cruited to the IS by Walt Sheasby and by two pamphlets he skilled trades for decades. In the telephone industry, our ist Party USA candidate from Ohio for the US Senate. In gave me: The Two Souls of Socialism by Hal Draper and The members found allies among various other leftists and ac - 2011, when Occupy Wall Street appeared, I joined the Oc - New Era of Labor Revolt by Stan Weir. I felt that the IS’s third- tivists. cupy movement in Cincinnati. camp slogans summed up my views: “Neither Washington Hal Draper, the long time socialist activist who had been Capitalism has grown more powerful (if more crisis rid - nor Moscow!” “The ‘Free World’ is not free and the ‘Com - the intellectual leader at the centre of the IS during its first den) during my lifetime, but Stalinism, in both its remaining munist World’ is not communist!” “For democratic, inter - couple of years, came to disagree with the IS’s self-concep - state systems and in various political parties in many coun - national, revolutionary socialism”. tion and organisational strategy. triTesh, er etmhiaridn-sc aa tmhrpe apto toli ttihcea lf uptruirnec oipf ldeesm oofc roaptipco ssoictiiaolnis mto . In 1968, the IS began a new debate on the question of how He felt that the IS, like other groups of the era (Fidelista or capitalism and bureaucratic collectivism, the under - to take socialist ideas into the working class. There were Guevarista, Maoist or neo-Stalinists), was on its way to be - standing of the centrality of the idea of democracy, and many different ideas about this, influenced by European ex - coming what he called a “micro-sect”. Draper left the group the vision of a revolutionary transformation to a demo - perience, past American experience, and by our own efforts with a few other members to create the intellectual and pub - cratic socialist society remain central to my life and ac - in the few cities where we existed. lishing centre which he saw as more consistent with the Bol - tion. shevik tradition. UNIONS Draper’s resignation — the loss of our senior intellectual Dan La Botz is an American labour movement activist, journal - Once the idea was raised of attempting to get jobs in — was a serious blow to our young group. Draper’s long- ist and writer. He is a member of the Solidarity group. This is an certain industries in order to be involved in certain time comrade, Stan Weir, who had decades of experience in abridged version of his contribution to the symposium. The unions, then the question of the nature of the unions unabridged version can be read online at tinyurl.com/labotzpiece was raised. Once again, there were a wide variety of ideas — from one comrade who thought the unions were reactionary in - stitutions that needed to be “smashed”, to others who “The Treason of the thought it possible to work within union structures. Even - tually, most of the group was won to the position that we should seek jobs as rank-and-file workers, become union Intellectuals, and other members and attempt to influence the unions and workers that way. We arrived at the conclusion by the early 1970s that we would build rank-and-file groups in the unions as political verse” by Sean Matgamna a way of building a revolutionary party. Within a year, the group had arrived at a strategic idea of A collection including items previously published targeted “industrialisation”. This involved moving to se - lected cities, going into certain industries, and attempting in Solidarity and forerunner publications over the to become members of key union locals [branches]. The group persuaded and encouraged members to carry out this last 25 years. plan. In some cases pressure was applied, but we could not and did not force anyone to do it. I became convinced that Available at bit.ly/treasonof, or for £9.99 (inc. the IS strategy made sense, dropped out of graduate school at UCSD, and moved to Chicago in 1971. I worked as a li - p&p) from AWL, 20E Tower Workshops, Riley Rd, brarian, a social worker, a steel worker, and finally a truck London SE1 3DG (order at driver. Over the first few years, as the group industrialised, we www.workersliberty.org/donate) turned attention in our meetings and conventions to the work of those comrades who were carrying out this indus - trialisation strategy. This was both to offer them moral sup - ALL PROCEEDS GO TO THE AWL FUNDRAISING DRIVE port and to provide political guidance. SOLIDARITY 11 HISTORY A mass paper of the labour movement

By Edd Mustill Movement and Minority Movement. Herald staff joined the general strike in 1926, but many “’Let the landlord go hang for his rent, I am sending it to regular writers contributed to the TUC’s strike sheet, the you.’ Would this be done for a Liberal newspaper? Would it British Worker . After the strike, despite the editorship of left- be done for a Tory newspaper? Not likely.” winger William Mellor, the paper’s praise of official Labour Daily Herald , 26 October 1912 leaders and criticism of Communists became more overt. It became loyally supportive of Ramsay MacDonald’s 1929 “The marvel is that the paper was ever produced at all.” government. Huw Richards argues this late-1920s period George Lansbury, The Miracle of Fleet Street marked a key shift in the Herald ’s politics. In 1930 the TUC sold 51% of the paper to Odhams Press, 15 April will mark the centenary of the founding of the Daily Herald . The Herald was first founded as an ad hoc publisher of, among others, the nationalist magazine John news sheet by striking print workers in 1911. After it Bull . folded, discussions began in labour movement circles The Herald remained a Labour paper, but the importance about the possibility of bringing it back as a daily. of political news was once again downgraded. It was start - ing to look more like a normal mass-circulation paper. The The idea of a daily labour movement paper had been Odhams Herald broke the one million circulation mark and around for some time. The existing left-wing press was Lansbury’s dream of a northern edition was finally realised. deemed inadequate by many. The Social Democratic Feder - Victory in a fierce circulation war with the Express made the ation’s national organ, Justice , was at the centre of a long- Daily Herald front page of 1919, criticising the government for Herald the world’s biggest-selling daily for a time in the economic sanctions on Austria in pursuit of war reparations running dispute within the organisation. Although a “party mid-1930s. But it was a somewhat pyrrhic victory, pushing paper”, it was actually owned privately by party leader up the costs of publication to unsustainable amounts. Henry Hyndman. Similarly, the most popular paper associ - Post-war, the Herald began to lose readers to the more ated with the Independent Labour Party, the Clarion , was the Citizen’s , it outlasted its moderate brother. The Citizen plain-spoken Labour-supporting Daily Mirror . Circulation privately owned and run by maverick socialist Robert folded in 1915, suffering from a lack of political will to keep dropped below two million in 1951, the year Labour was Blatchford. it going on the part of the trade union leaders. voted out of office. Loyalty was still the watchword; the The first decade of the century saw the emergence of the During the First World War, the Herald went weekly, and paper supported Gaitskell against Bevan, and rallied back to modern tabloid press, popular newspapers with a mass cir - managed to survive a time when left-wing papers like the the leadership after a brief flirtation with the anti-bomb culation. Some of the papers set up in the decade before the Glasgow Forward and the SLP’s Socialist were being shut Herald appeared, like the Mail and Express , are unfortunately down under the Defence of the Realm Act. movement. still with us. These are the dailies the Herald would be di - Its attitude followed that of most radical socialists; al - Without strong politics, neither a tabloid nor a broadsheet, rectly competing with, rather than political weeklies or though anti-war, it did not speak out with the same forceful the Herald struggled to carve out a purpose for itself in the monthly magazines like the New Statesman , launched in voice that had supported the strikes of the Great Unrest. In - post-war market and entered into terminal decline. It did 1913. stead, it concentrated its efforts on exposing how class divi - not last to see Labour returned to power. The final issue ap - sions in society were deepened by the war. One Herald peared just a month before Wilson won the 1964 election. EARLY YEARS journalist was dispatched to the Ritz just before food ra - Its successor, the Sun , also struggled until it was bought by The Herald ’s first big story was on the sinking of the Ti - tioning was introduced, to expose the continuing decadent Rupert Murdoch in 1969. tanic, which happened as the first issue went to press. lifestyle of the rich in the face of Germany’s submarine Under the headline “Women and Children last”, the blockade. WHAT WAS THE HERALD ? paper covered the disproportionate death rate among During the Russian Revolution of 1917, which gave a If the Herald ended its life as an ordinary newspaper, it third class passengers and slammed the White Star huge new impetus to anti-war and socialist activity, the Her - certainly did not begin as one. Line. ald resumed its role as the movement’s debate chamber. All With just £300 of capital, it seemed unlikely to ever get off sorts of views on the pro- and anti-Bolshevik spectrum were Soon afterwards, the paper’s questions around the Mar - the ground. Even in its more successful periods, the paper given column inches. coni corruption scandal would prompt Lloyd George to de - had problems getting advertising income because of its po - The paper also resumed its activism, sponsoring public scribe it as “the limit.” litical stance. It was only ever sustained by the loyalty of its After a quick succession of early editors, popular social - meetings on the revolution and co-organising the Leeds Conference at which the labour movement re-emerged as a readership and their own sacrifices. Lansbury called the ist George Lansbury was convinced by dockers’ leader Ben paper “one of the finest achievements of the rank and file Tillett to take charge, naming the publishing company after political force. The paper’s lengthy report of the conference covered all the speeches in detail, including Ramsay Mac - of our Movement,” although he would always complain Lloyd George’s remark. that people never gave enough. In these years, the Herald ’s organisation and finances were Donald’s uncharacteristic call for workers’ councils. Circulation reached new heights in 1919, as another strike Political newspapers are always in precarious positions. chaotic. Sometimes last minute appeals resulted in one-off In the early years, circulation always rose and fell with class donations which kept the paper going for a few more days. wave rocked the country, and the pull of huge international Herald struggle. Strike waves and elections saw spikes in reader - Lansbury once left London to speak at a meeting in Crewe, events sent journalists like H N Brailsford across Eu - ship. At other times, cuts were made. The Herald was not a having agreed with the committee to wind the paper up. rope in search of stories. In 1920, a year when Lansbury vis - co-operative, still less a venture run by workers’ control. It The next day he was sold a copy of the Herald outside his ited revolutionary Russia, the paper threw itself into supporting the anti-intervention Hands Off Russia move - hotel: did not by any means pay equal salaries to its employees, ment. “Some of the workmen, knowing we were likely to stop, and it did sack staff. It wavered between financial stability looked round the paper store and found some part-reels of OFFICIALDOM and political independence, arguably achieving the former by sacrificing the latter. paper and some old out-size reels... The paper for this par - Back home, the paper’s anger at union officialdom re - ticular day was all sorts of shapes and sizes, but we did not mained. The paper’s leader after Black Friday, when the But although the politics got dampened down by official care.” Triple Alliance of powerful unions fell apart, described TUC control, were Lansbury and co. wrong to want a paper On another occasion Lansbury, Tillett, and Robert the fiasco as “the heaviest defeat that has befallen the owned by the movement? This is a question worth consid - Williams blocked the door of the office to keep out bailiffs Movement within the memory of man.” ering. It is difficult to think of the Herald ’s modern-day suc - while some money was found. There were rich sympathis - cessor or equivalent. ers who donated, including soap magnate Joseph Fels, but Predictably, lots of coverage was given to the Poplar rates Which party papers or union websites provide the social - the paper’s policy was to not let money dictate content. struggle, during which not only Lansbury but also Herald ist movement with, as Lansbury put it, “the stimulus which Most individual donations came from working-class peo - journalist John Scurr went to prison. independent thought and expression alone can give”? ple, responding to Lansbury’s constant call-outs for money. As class struggle receded, financial problems worsened. Where can activists engage in genuine debate about politi - An organisation, the Herald League, was founded to pop - An open debate about whether to accept Russian money cal tactics and ideas? Indymedia? UnionNews? Socialist ularise the paper and raise funds. It developed into a polit - (which was eventually brought into the country in the form Worker ? Solidarity ? ical network which many syndicalists and trade unionists of pearls hidden in a box of chocolates) drew predictable de - None have anywhere near the mass appeal that the Her - rision from the right. Lansbury was fiercely resistant to the joined during the Great Unrest. ald managed. “No paper,” Herald historian Huw Richards idea of selling the paper to a new private owner, preferring During the Dublin Lockout, the League helped organise argued, “was more consistent in offering a voice to those the idea of a labour movement buy-out — which was large public meetings across England at which James Con - who are excluded, derided or both by the bulk of the mass- achieved, after much wrangling, with the help of Arthur nolly and James Larkin spoke. Lansbury successfully resis - circulation press.” ted demands from some in the League that it should assume Henderson. From 1922 the paper was the property of the movement, On the Herald ’s birthday, it might be worth asking our - control of the paper’s editorial policy. selves whether the socialist movement is capable of launch - Herald but of its leadership, the TUC General Council and the One of the points of the early was to provide a na - ing a successful multi-platform media outlet. Are we too tional forum where the key issues in the Labour movement Labour Party NEC. Henry Hamilton Fyfe was appointed hampered by sectarianism and a lack of resources? Would could be debated. Syndicalists, Guild Socialists, Christian editor. He was left-wing, but more journalist than activist. the politics of the project descend into a Counterfire-esque Socialists like Lansbury, industrial unionists as well as mod - Fyfe told his journalists to keep comment out of news erates all found space in its pages. Lansbury spoke of the pieces. The paper was rebranded from May Day 1923, at - mesh of incoherent ideas? Would it be doomed to eventual paper’s “anti-official” policy, but still wanted the Herald to tempting to broaden its content from politics in order to get transformation into something like Murdoch’s Sun , or the be a paper for the whole movement. a larger readership. ignominious end suffered by the News on Sunday in the Will Dyson’s cartoons brought the Herald ’s free, rebellious During the 1923 dock strike, which was a result of dock - 19W80ist?h the Herald ’s history in mind, perhaps these are spirit to life. “A Fantasy (Labour Leaders at their Devo - ers rejecting an agreement that their union had signed, Her - questions we can revisit. tions)” shows Labour Party leaders bowing down to a huge ald coverage was at best ambivalent. One leader compared top hat. “Peace and Future Cannon Fodder” from 1919 unofficial strikers to scabs, because they were breaking shows the allies celebrating their Versailles Treaty while a union discipline. In 1925, Lansbury left the paper to start his Further reading child labeled “Class of 1940” weeps in the corner. own, Lansbury’s Labour Weekly , but this folded by 1927. The miracle of Fleet Street , George Lansbury All this made the paper a more interesting read than the While the paper had lost its radical edge, it still supported The rise and fall of the Daily Herald, Rajani Palme Dutt TUC’s official Daily Citizen which was set up later in the the movement’s left-wing, giving favourable coverage to the The Bloody Circus: The Daily Herald and the Left , Huw same year. Although the Herald ’s circulation rarely topped ILP and Communist-led National Unemployed Workers’ Richards 12 SOLIDARITY SOCIALISM Trotskyism and Spain

“There is nothing so destructive as illusion, whereas noth - ing can be of greater use to the revolution than naked truth.” Rosa Luxemburg, The Spartacus Programme By Liam McNulty

The Spanish Revolution was the last great confronta - tion in the Europe-wide class war sparked by the tri - umph of the Russian Revolution in 1917. It inspired workers from all over the world and its tragic defeat was a source of controversy for decades after the events. The debates between the Spanish left, Leon Trotsky, other “Trotskyists” and writers such as Victor Serge are worth revisiting. They highlight important les - sons about Marxist organisation. The debates of Trotsky and others centred on assessments of the different political tendencies in the Spanish workers’ movement: the anarchists, the reformist socialists and the communists. Until the period following the First World War, the Span - ish labour movement was relatively weak. Although anar - chism had deep roots in Spain by the turn of the twentieth century it was faltering under the weight of severe state re - pression. After a failed general strike in 1902, union membership in Barcelona fell from 45,000 to just 7,000 by 1909. The anar - cho-syndicalist Confederacion Nacional de Trabajo (CNT) was formed in 1910, shaped by working-class alienation from the state following the massacre of an anti-colonialist rebellion in Catalonia in 1909. But initially it was small, with no more than 50,000 members. Spain’s neutrality in the First World War reaped substan - tial war profits for Spanish capitalism, causing a boom and a subsequent slump. The anarchists who reaped the whirl - wind, attracting the most militant workers with promises of immediate and direct action. Repression of the CNT fol - lowed a general strike in August 1917 — yet it grew from 107,096 members at the end of 1918 to 345,000 a year later in Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista (POUM), founded in 1935 Catalonia alone. They were also beginning to make inroads in traditional Socialist areas such as Asturias and Vizcaya. to adhere to “Twenty One Conditions” for membership of UGT needed to fend off a resurgent anarchist movement, The fortunes of the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) and the the new, Third International, set up after the Russian Revo - Largo Caballero shifted to the left, adopting bellicose revo - socialist-led union federation, the Unión General de Traba - lution. The left-wing left to form the Spanish Communist lutionary rhetoric. After 1935, when the Spanish Stalinists jadores (UGT), offer a stark contrast. Spanish social democ - Party (PCE). The remaining leadership of PSOE began to adopted the Comintern’s popular front policy of allying racy had long flinched from action which would bring it collaborate with Primo de Rivera, and the trade union bu - with reformist socialists and bourgeois democrats, they into conflict with the state. For instance, the Madrid-based reaucrat Francisco Largo Caballero even joined the dicta - crowned Caballero the “Spanish Lenin”. PSOE-UGT leadership, led by the moderate reformist Pablo tor’s Council of Ministers in return for the UGT being A left tendency around Luís Araquistain in the PSOE Iglesias, had opposed turning an important miners’ strike allowed to take part in state arbitration committees de - emerged. of 1913 (Rio Tinto) into a general strike and ceded much signed to mitigate industrial disputes. The PSOE’s stance Araquistain had worked with Caballero on the land ques - ground to the new CNT in Catalonia. The party’s combina - only changed when living standards began to decline in the tion before becoming Spain’s ambassador to Germany. With tion of revolutionary rhetoric and conciliatory actions could second half of the 1920s. Hitler in power (after 1933) Araquistain helped evacuate not even be explained by a desire — like that of the German After the 1931 elections the PSOE became the largest party Jews and leftists from certain death. Social Democratic Party leaders — to preserve a large party in the Cortes. Araquistain’s journal Leviatán (founded May 1934) be - apparatus at all costs. Against the wishes of Besteiro and others, it decided to came a vehicle for relentless ideological attacks on Besteiro. share power with the Spanish republicans and the centre- The journal contained articles by Italian, German, Austrian PSOE right Radicals. Largo Caballero became the Minister of and Portuguese socialists in exile and gave space to Leon The PSOE was weak, registering only 45,000 votes in Labour, charged with tackling the problem of the highly in - Trotsky’s analysis of fascism. 1910. efficient Spanish agriculture, characterised by starvation Arguments about the bankruptcy of the Comintern’s pop - wages and seasonal unemployment. ular front strategy also found a voice in Leviatán through Spanish social democracy had always been also ideolog - Caballero’s mild-1932 Agrarian Reform Law created a contributions from the Workers’ and Peasants’ Bloc (BOC) ically weak — it did not take part in any of the controversies Land Registry, and laid the basis for the compulsory pur - (led by Joaquin Maurín), and Izquierda Comunista Es - over political strategy within the socialist Second Interna - chase of large estates. The Law of Municipal Boundaries pañola (ICE), (led by Andrés Nin). Maurín and Nin founded tional at the turn of the century. It made few attempts to re - hindered landowners’ ability to import labour from one mu - the Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista (POUM) in late Marxist theory to Spanish realities, and its leading nicipality to another in order to depress wages in times of 1935. theorist Julian Besteiro, a former liberal republican and Pro - regional unemployment. Maurin developed the idea of working-class united fronts fessor of Logic in the Universidad Central de Madrid, was The agrarian question was at the centre of left-right polit - called Alianzas Obreras (Workers’ Alliances). Such projects an extreme example of “vulgar Marxist” dogmatism. ical polarisation during the Second Spanish Republic. did get off the ground and were to played a role in the Oc - Besteiro’s analysis of Spain was highly deterministic: he Agrarian reforms met stubborn resistance from landowners tober 1934 rising in Asturias. However the PSOE would be thought that the country was in a semi-feudal condition; because they cut into already low profit rates. They were mainly interested in using them to promote their own hege - that the Second Spanish Republic declared in April 1931 rep - often delayed by unsympathetic officials on the ground. The mony in the workers’ movement and, with the exception of resented a stage of the bourgeois-democratic revolution; right mobilised pious Catholic smallholders against the ap - Asturias, the CNT remained aloof. and that PSOE should step aside and allow the liberal re - parent threats to private property. publicans to govern alone. He advocated abstentionism OPPOSITION from the 1930 Pact of San Sebastián (a coalition of republi - PROGRESS The ICE was the Spanish Section of the Left Opposition. cans and socialists agreeing to overthrow the Primo de In December 1933, the right came to power in Navarre, Formed originally as the Oposición Comunista Es - Rivera dictatorship and declare a republic). promising to halt progress on the agrarian question; pañala (OCE) by a group of Spanish exiles in Belgium The revolutionary general strike of August 1917, vividly they initiated harsh repression against the working- on 28 February 1930, it was eventually led by Nín. captured in Victor Serge’s semi-autobiographical novel Birth class. Nin was an experienced revolutionary. As secretary of the of Our Power , had been the beginning of a wave of militant Stalled and obstructed on land reform, sections of the national committee of the CNT, he had travelled to Moscow class struggle which ended in defeat for the workers and the PSOE-UGT shifted to the left. The Federación Nacional de in 1921 for the founding conference of the Profintern, the in - dictatorship of Primo de Rivera in 1923. Primo’s dictator - Trabajadores de la Tierra (FNTT), the agricultural section of ternational organisation to co-ordinate communist trade ship was a cold winter for the working-class movement. The the UGT, grew rapidly. Founded in April 1930, it had 275 union work. In Moscow he first met Victor Serge and the anarchist movement was outlawed, and driven under - sections of 36,639 members two months later. Two years French syndicalist leader Alfred Rosmer. Unable to return ground , precipitating a split in 1927 between the more mod - later it had 392,953 members and made up 38% of UGT to Spain until 1931 because he was wrongly linked to the erate and syndicalist wing around Angel Pestana, and the membership. The UGT has been transformed from a union murder of the Spanish prime minister Eduardo Dato, he re - more ideologically pure anarchists such as Buenaventura of skilled craftsmen to one with a large base of landless solved to stay in Moscow to assist the work of the Profin - Durruti who formed the Federación Anarquista Ibérica labourers. tern. He became an ally of Leon Trotsky, joining the Left (FAI). Alert to rank-and-file radicalisation, and knowing that the At the same time the PSOE split over the whether or not Continues on page 14 SOLIDARITY 13 SOCIALISM

From page 13 sion talks: “There were no problems. Nin had officially bro - power could be laid aside. But if you look at reality, you ken relations with Trotsky and I was persuaded that Nin was must recognise the necessity for destroying the bourgeois Opposition and spending time in Stalin’s prisons for his ef - sincere and did not seek infiltration in the classic Bolshevik state and replacing it with a new organ that has nothing in forts in fighting the growing Soviet bureaucracy after manner. The central topic was: international independence, common with the state of the exploiters.” Lenin’s death. no contact with Trotsky. Nin assented.” “International inde - Members of the POUM in Lleida also opposed entry into The problems and shortcomings of the Spanish Left Oppo - pendence” meant in practice, membership of the centrist the Generalitat and Nín led a government delegation to per - sition are discussed in Trotsky’s correspondence with figures “London Bureau” which was the international grouping in - suade them to support the decrees. As Alba admits, “this such as Nin and Victor Serge, and in the Internal Bulletin of cluding the British Independent Labour Party. was, unquestionably, a low point for the party... On 16 No - the Left Opposition. The early POUM made some good noises, criticising the vember, with all resistance now vanquished... the Generali - The disagreements centred around two issues. disastrous Stalinist “Third Period” policy, adopted a posi - tat decreed the suppression of 3,000 official posts in First, Trotsky thought the Spanish section was too insular. tion on the Spanish Revolution similar to Trotsky’s theory of committees, people’s tribunals, commissions, etc., the ma - It was, he said, not participating fully in the debates within permanent revolution, and called for a united front of work - jority of them held by workers. The structure of working- the International Left Opposition. Its leaders “have persist - ers against fascism. They did not, however, remain stead - class power was thus eliminated.” ently kept their organisation away from the internal life and fast. The Munis group of Trotskyists, who stayed with the In - the internal struggles of the other sections, and thereby have In the elections of February 1936 the POUM’s executive ternational Left Opposition, were joined by around 100 for - shut it off from access to an irreplaceable international ex - committee decided to join the Popular Front electoral list eign Bolshevik-Leninists who volunteered to fight in the perience.” with the republican parties. Convincing itself that it was a civil war. Jean Rous, sent by the ILO in August 1936 warned Second, Trotsky questioned Nin’s relationship with Mau - circumstantial electoral pact, the POUM were spreading il - the POUM, to no avail, about the consequences of liquidat - rín and his followers. In September 1931 Trotsky had written lusions in the merits of the Popular Front by their very par - ing the revolutionary committees in Catalonia. to the Spanish Left Opposition opposing moves to enter ticipation in it. After this, the Bolshevik-Leninists constituted themselves Maurin’s BOC on the grounds that the Opposition interna - They had signed up to a programme which was described as the official section of the International Left Opposition tionally had not yet given up on reforming the existing offi - by EH Carr as a “mild and anodyne document, evidently and published their own paper, La Voz Leninista. The group cial Communist Parties. In December 1932 Trotsky held an designed to rally a wide coalition of divergent interests and lost many militants in the defence of Madrid in the autumn informal meeting in Copenhagen with several sections of the sections of opinion, united only in their commitment to the of 1936. In the “anti-Trotskyist” purges carried out by the Opposition. The Spanish section was unable to attend so republic and to some form of democratic government.” In Stalinists and the government of the right-wing PSOE pre - Trotsky concluded they had let “friendly personal relations” fact, parts of it were anything but anodyne, committing the mier Juan Négrin after May 1937, many Bolshevik-Leninists with Maurín take the place of “principled struggle against parties to support for the League of Nations, previously at - disappeared, including Erwin Wolf, who was the secretary petty-bourgeois nationalism and thereby put a break on the tacked by the POUM as “the united front of the imperial - to Trotsky during his exile, and Hans Freund (alias Moulin). development of the Left Opposition in the most decisive pe - ists”, and rejecting any radical solutions to the agrarian After the arrest of Munis in 1938, Mieczyslaw Bortenstein, riod.” question. a Polish member of the French Communist League, led the The situation for the Left Opposition changed after Hitler It was almost impossible for the POUM to argue for their Spanish Trotskyists. He served in the CNT militia from the came to power in Germany in 1933. As the Nazi power grew formal position of a workers’ united front without spreading very beginning of the Civil War, and helped to edit La Voz the Comintern pursed a policy of attacking social democrats confusion; yet at this time spontaneous land seizures and Leninista. Later he managed to escape from Spain, only to be as “social fascists”; the Trotskyists called for a united front of factory occupations were spreading through Spain. Later, later arrested in France and to die in the Auschwitz death workers’ parties against the real fascism. The communists when civil war began after right wing generals staged a coup camp. refused. Trotsky gave up hope of reforming the Stalinist par - on 17 July 1936, the POUM joined a bourgeois coalition anti- Writing a political memoir as “M Casanova”, Bortenstein ties and proclaimed the need for a political regrouping, a coup government in Catalonia. recounts how the Spanish Trotskyists applied to join the Fourth International. After the fusion Trotsky accused his former ICE comrades POUM in November 1936, promising to respect party disci - The historian of the POUM, Victor Alba, sees these events of the “debasement and prostitution of Marxism” for forging pline in return for factional rights. Nin, speaking on behalf as a vindication of Nín’s policy of joining the BOC as a fac - “a political alliance with the leaders of a reformist party on of the POUM’s Central Committee, told them he required “a tion, especially as the PCE barely existed in Catalonia. It is the basis of a deliberately dishonest program serving to condemnation of the campaigns of the so-called Fourth In - reasonable to have some sympathy with this position; Trot - dupe the masses and cover up for the bourgeoisie.” ternational” among other things; suspected sympathisers of sky’s subsequent volte-face, combined with his distance The polemics created disquiet in the Dutch and Belgian the Fourth International were later expelled for “deviating from Spain, weighs against his position on the Spanish Com - sections of the Trotskyist movement. The respected Dutch from the political line of the party.” munists. revolutionary Hendricus Sneevliet, in the name of the cen - Another Trotskyist group, led by the Italian Nicola di Bar - Nevertheless, the BOC political programme was weak. tral committee of his party, criticised Trotsky’s attacks on the tolomeo (alias “Fosco”), was aligned with the short-lived The BOC shared the Stalinists’ “two stage theory” — “every POUM as exaggerated and overly sharp. Trotsky’s criticisms French International Workers Party (POI) of Raymond revolution has two stages: the democratic and the Socialist led to a lengthy correspondence with Victor Serge and oth - Molinier and Pierre Frank and did initially work inside the revolution”. ers. Alfred Rosmer and Serge accused Trotsky of being “sec - POUM. This group published El Soviet and was very critical Alba admits that the BOC had little implantation in the tarian”, to which Trotsky replied, “If it is sectarianism, then of the Bolshevik-Leninists for their alleged “sectarianism”. working-class; its main success was among white-collar all of Marxism only sectarianism, since it is a doctrine of the Di Bartolemeo, along with another Italian, Virginia Ger - workers in Barcelona. Trotsky’s warnings proved correct. Bit class struggle and not of class collaboration.” vasini, was given the task of registering foreign militants for by bit, the Catalan BOC’s anti-Trotskyism came to the fore Alba writes that the “official Trotskyists wasted more ink the POUM when they arrived in Spain. within POUM. and saliva attacking the POUM than they did the official In the POI’s bulletin in 1938, di Bartolomeo condemned In France, too, the social democratic party, the Section Communist Party”. This is untrue but also misses the point. the official section for proposing to distribute a letter from Française de l’Internationale Ouvrière (SFIO), was shifting to Whereas the PCE were following the orders of the Trotsky in the summer of 1936, although he admitted it con - the left in response to the threat of fascism, opening up a counter-revolutionary Kremlin bureaucracy, the POUM tained correct criticisms of the POUM’s policy on the Popu - new arena of struggle. In June 1934, Trotsky proposed to the were sincere if mistaken revolutionaries, potentially open to lar Front. He blamed the leadership of the ILO, and French section of the Left Opposition, the Communist persuasion. That was Trotsky’s view when he wrote to Serge especially Rous, for a sectarian policy which repulsed the League, that they work inside the SFIO (the “French Turn”). that “if Nin today were to pull himself together...if he should Trotskyist sympathisers within the POUM. He recommended a similar policy in Spain. Nin opposed draw all the necessary conclusions, then we would help him the “French Turn” and in September 1934, his group, now as a comrade”. Trotsky never underestimated the individual NUANCES called the ICE, broke with Trotsky. Talented militants such as bravery of POUM militants, he wrote to French comrades, 75 years on it is difficult to disentangle the nuances of Esteban Bilbao and Manuel Fernández y Grandizo (known “it is precisely their battle and their sacrifice that forces us to the disagreements between the Trotskyists inside and as “Munis”) left the ICE; Munis joined the PSOE. The left of tell the truth and nothing but the truth.” It was a matter of outside the POUM. the PSOE, especially the youth movement, led by the future helping the Spanish comrades to work out the best possible PCE leader Santiago Carillo, were increasingly receptive to Marxist political line for the situation they found themselves Di Bartolomeo had a contradictory position — agreeing Trotsky’s ideas. Carillo wrote to the BOC’s La Batalla , invit - in. with the Bolshevik-Leninists entering the POUM as a fac - ing them to join the PSOE to fight the party’s right, as a step But Nin did not listen to advice. The July 1936 military tion, but unwilling to work with them because he disagreed to creating a revolutionary party to fight fascism. Maurín, coup was followed by a revolutionary explosion. Workers with their leadership outside Spain. concerned about losing influence, refused. occupied factories and peasants invaded large estates; work - Di Bartolemeo’s 1938 polemic does not address Borten - The Socialist youth movement eventually fused with the ers’ control in industry was established in large parts of stein’s belief that Nin set impossible conditions for the entry youth wing of the Stalinist PCE, making it much more diffi - Spain; the Republic’s governmental institutions existed only of the Bolshevik-Leninists into the POUM in November cult to win over that generation of militant young socialists on paper. Meanwhile, the armed workers who had success - 1936. According to a first-hand account by the Italian Trot - to genuine revolutionary socialism. fully repelled the military in Spain’s major cities ruled the skyist, Dominico Sedran (alias “Adolfo Carlini”), di Bar - streets. Dual power was a reality, especially in Catalonia — tolomeo told the Bolshevik-Leninist volunteers on their FORMATION OF THE POUM bourgeois government and workers’ organisation existed in arrival in August 1936 that the POUM had refused their re - In March 1935, the BOC brought together the ICE, the parallel. quest for factional rights. After a spell on the Huesca front in official Communists, the Catalan section of the PSOE, Now the Catalan premier, Luís Companys offered power Aragon and after suffering casualties , the group returned to and some other minor Catalan leftist parties to discuss to the CNT. In reality it was power that he no longer had to Barcelona, and was again refused by Nin on the grounds Marxist unity. offer, yet the CNT persuaded Companys to stay on, resusci - that the ILO leadership had “slandered” the POUM. Only Nin and Maurín were interested. The others later tating bourgeois legality as it lay on its death bed. In side- Sherry Mangan from the Socialist Workers Party (USA) forming the basis of the United Socialist Party of Catalonia stepping the question of political power and failing to face was sent to Perpignan in 1939 to interview revolutionary ex - (PSUC) which acted as a de facto branch of the Stalinist PCE. up to the need to construct the basis of a workers’ state, the iles escaping across the frontier to France. His article is a The International Left Opposition (ILO) initially approved CNT opened the way to the counter-revolution. gripping account of the escape of the surviving POUM talks with the BOC, as long as the ICE could remain a faction The POUM followed the CNT into the re-organised Cata - members and Bolshevik-Leninists from the wreckage of inside any new party. Jean Rous, the ILO Secretariat member lan regional government, the Generalitat, in October 1936. Barcelona, now captured, having been left to rot in Stalinist sent to Spain in the summer of 1935, was initially optimistic. Then the Stalinists, acting alongside the bourgeois republi - prisons to await the arrival of Franco’s troops. Mangan re - The ICE promised to re-establish links with the Munis group cans, placed the collectivised factories under the control of counts: inside the PSOE; this would open up the possibility of a fac - the bourgeois state, paving the way for the eventual re-estab - “Fourth Internationalists have grave political differences tion inside a new open Marxist party in Catalonia, and en - lishment of private property. Nin, as Minister of Justice, with the centrists of the POUM; but when they are ruthlessly tryist work inside the PSOE in areas where the ICE and BOC oversaw the dissolution of the revolutionary workers’ com - hunted by the bloodhounds of French imperialism at the were both weaker. mittees and the re-establishment of the old municipal gov - very time it is making friends with the butcher Franco, it is However, the BOC was not prepared to tolerate factions. ernment. not these political differences, but our class solidarity which In a letter to the French historian Pierre Broué in the 1970s, An opposition in the Barcelona POUM, the “Cell 72” is Iufp poenrlmy otsht einy ohuar dm inmdasn.” aged to reach a workable Maurín summed it up: “The only concession the BOC made group led by José Rebull, fought the collaborationist policy. arrangement when the civil war and the Spanish revolu - to the ICE was the change in the name of the party.” They said, “we do not accept the reformist position accord - tion were still winnable in the summer of 1936. Maurín later recounted to Victor Alba the course of the fu - ing to which the social overturn can take place by the ‘con - quest’ of the bourgeois state. In this case the problem of dual Article continues next week 14 SOLIDARITY REPORTS Tube Nottingham teachers fight Lines: strike for five-term year plan pensions

By Tom Unterrainer, changing to a four week completely different holi - President, summer break, young peo - day patterns. Not only justice Nottingham City NUT ple in the city will have the that, but teachers who shortest summer break in happen to be parents could By a Tubeworker (pc) the world bar South Korea. end up seeing very little of supporter South Korea has the high - their children! Nottingham teachers est recorded child suicide Despite significant pres - Workers employed by struck for a second day rate in the world. sure from the local press, Tube Lines, the com - on 17 March in their the unions and building pany which provides campaign of industrial DIRECT pressure from the local essential maintenance action against the Local In addition, the change community, Nottingham and repair work across Authority. would only affect city council has so far re - London Underground, nors have rejected the and young people. Neces - schools under direct Inspired by Michael plan. Nottingham city Na - sary for teachers because fused to budge. Council - will strike for three control of the city coun - lors and local education days from Tuesday 24 Gove's plans to change tional Union of Teachers they need time to recover cil. school holiday patterns, balloted its members for and recuperate from an officials seem determined April. to go it alone, using Gove's the Labour-controlled strike action after an over - emotionally, intellectually This means the majority The workers are fight - council has attempted to whelming response from and physically exhausting of secondary schools — Tory proposals as a politi - cal tool to whack teachers, ing to win a levelling-up force through a change to a ordinary teachers. NA - academic year. Necessary Foundation, Voluntary of pensions rights and five term year in Notting - SUWT and other school for young people for ex - Aided and Academy children and their families over the head. travel concessions. Tube ham city schools. based unions are yet to act, actly the same reason. Ad - schools — will retain a dif - Lines was a private con - Implementation of the although there are some ditionally, the NUT argues ferent holiday pattern to The NUT has a third day of industrial action sortium formed to take five term year will mean a signs that they could join that young people need the majority of city primar - up maintenance of the shortening of the six week action shortly. time away from school, ies. Additionally, schools planned and may well take further action in the short Piccadilly, Northern and summer holiday to four The NUT's opposition time to play, time to inter - in the county, some of Jubilee Lines (as well as weeks and a regular pat - and the subsequent indus - act with others in a non-ac - them across the road from term to see off these pro - posals. emergency response tern of eight week terms. trial action are not simply ademic setting and time to neighbouring city schools, This is a fight not just services across the whole Members of all teaching a response to the shorten - learn and experience the will retain the traditional for teachers but for the network) as part of the unions — including a ma - ing of the summer holiday. things that school cannot holiday patterns. This in well-being, mental and disastrous Public-Private jority of head teachers in The union does argue that teach. turn means that brothers physical health of the Partnership scheme the city — and the body a long summer holiday is If Nottingham Labour and sisters attending dif - young people they teach. which the Labour gov - representing school gover - necessary for both teachers councillors succeed in ferent schools could have ernment imposed in 2003. Following the col - lapse of PPP, TfL brought Tanker drivers’ ballot First BMW strike in 28 years looming Tube Lines back in- house in 2010, giving its shareholders, Ferrovial extended as By Stewart Ward hours. Since the ballot, workforce works 11 hour and Bechtel, a £310 mil - BMW bosses have offered shifts, and more and more lion payout. talks continue Workers at BMW’s Ox - further talks. While “wel - productivity demands are Workers who have ford plant have voted by coming” the talks, Unite being made by BMW. The been working for Tube 97% to oppose manage - has said it will press on union never closed the Lines since before the ment’s latest pay offer. By Darren Bedford seven days notice). with plans to move to a door on talks and we are PPP sell-off have the full ballot for industrial happy to get back around Drivers are fighting to The consultative ballot, same pension and travel action to win a better deal. the table but we are also Unite officials and fuel impose minimum stan - which was conducted by rights as all other di - Unite officer Roger making preparations to industry bosses have ne - dards on safety, pay, terms the Unite union, polled rectly-employed London Maddison said: “There are ballot our members for gotiated a deal to extend and conditions across an 2,000 employees. Underground workers, more strings to this deal strike action.” the legal validity of a industry fragmented by The pay deal included a If strike action was to but Tube Lines staff em - than a puppet show and drivers’ strike ballot until sub-contracting and out - basic increase of 2.21%, of take place, it would be ployed since then have the workers at BMW will Friday 20 April as talks sourcing. Haulage and fuel which nearly 2% was con - the first at the plant worse conditions. Their not accept it. continue. company bosses have tingent on working extra since 1984. union, the RMT, has scoffed at their demands, “The majority of the been making renewed Peter Harwood, “Chief claiming that they are demands for conditions Conciliator” at arbitration equivalent to asking Tesco, to be levelled-up since service ACAS, has told the Sainsbury’s and Asda to Unilever pensions fight ends in the PPP ended, but press that “the intention is Bullying guarantee across-the-board bosses have been intran - that no industrial action minimum conditions for investigation at sigent. will be called in that pe - “bitter disappointment” their check-out staff (an One excuse from man - riod”. The period in which Swindon eminently sensible de - agement has been that Unite would have had to By Clarke Benitez mand that the labour hospital they can not grant the announce industrial action movement should fight for union’s demands until in order to keep the ballot Members of Unite and when it becomes better-or - By a GMB activist the future ownership of live was due to expire at USDAW at Unilever have ganised in the supermarket Tube Lines is determined 4pm on Monday 16 April. accepted a new pen - An enquiry into endemic later this year. This is a retRaeilp sreecstoern).tatives of the Under the new agree - sions offer from bosses, bullying and harass - clear signal that TfL in - management of six of the ment, Unite could call a with members of the ment of workers at a tends to re-privatise it, seven companies in - strike any time from 21 GMB currently balloting. hospital in Swindon — the most likely new volved in the dispute April to 27 April (they are which has led so far to owner being Amey required to give at least have attended talks. If the deal is accepted it 18 days of strike action would end the long-run - (owned by Ferrovial), — is set to conclude on which was kept on to ning battle over the closure 27 April. of the company’s final be subjected to full prior help run Tube Lines salary pensions scheme consultation with trade Over 100 workers em - when it was brought into Mobilise to reject the deal! which saw Unilever work - unions before being an - ployed by Carillion as public ownership. The ers take unprecedented in - nounced. auxiliary staff at Swindon prospect of re-privatisa - By a healthworker come for workers and dustrial action. Ultimately, the deal rep - General Hospital have tion is even more reason should be rejected. The new deal does not resents a mitigated defeat been interviewed as part for Tube Lines workers NHS members of public to fight on this issue Red Pill , an industrial reverse the closure but forU wSDorAkWer so. fficial David of the investigation, sector union Unison are now. bulletin for healthwork - make what Unite claims Johnson said: “While we which was one of the currently voting on Workers voted by 81% ers produced by members are “significant improve - have achieved some im - strike demands of the whether to accept the to take strike action, and and friends of Workers’ ments” to the new career- portant improvements to woTrhkee rGs’M uBni ohna,s t hsea iGd MB. government’s deal for by 90% to take industrial Liberty working in the average scheme which will the replacement scheme, that if the investigation reforming their pension action short of a strike. NHS, is campaigning for replace the existing final- our members remain does not result in satis - A walkout by Tube scheme. rejTeoct dioonw. nload the lat - salary scheme. The deal angry and bitterly disap - factory measures for Lines workers could also commits Unilever to cause widespread dis - Despite the 30 Novem - est bulletin to distribute pointed by Unilever's de - dealing with and pre - not making any further ruption, as it could ber strike action, the deal in your workplace, visit cision to close the venting future manage - changes to the pensions make large parts of the remains a “work longer, tinyurl.com/ final-salary pension ment bullying, further scheme until 2018, and that network unsafe to use. pay more, get less” out - redpillaprilmay scheme.” strike action is likely. any future changes must SOLIDARITY 15 “Greek youth will arm themselves”

S&o Wloirkdersa’ Lirbeirtty y By Theodora Polenta nated the social media and internet and was On Wednesday 4 April a passed from mouth to 77 year old pensioner, mouth. The gathering Dimitris Xristoulas, quickly became hundreds committed public sui - and thousands as the day cide in Syntagma went on. The citizens of Square, Athens. He left his neighbourhood com - Syria: killing continues a militant political note munity movement called denouncing his “mur - for a demonstration and derers”. protest on 7 April, the day of his funeral, with His murderers are the slogan “Let’s trans - those who have robbed form our anger into or - as ceasefire falters the pensions and salaries ganised collective of Greek workers, who political struggle”. have dismantled and de - But on 7 April the po - By Dan Katz at least 41 people, mostly working. He again advo - on deals before, and if he stroyed public services lice forces, including riot civilians, were reported cated arming the opposi - carries out this agreement who have indebted police, encircled Syn - Following significant killed. tion fighters of the Free to the letter (and despite Greece until at least 2020 tagma square in order to diplomatic pressure, and Syria has signed up to Syrian Army. Qatar and the fact that it formally through an austerity pro - stop the mobilisation. faced with the possibility remove its tanks, weapons Saudi Arabia are the most leaves open the question of gram. A heavily-armed force, of losing Russian and and troops from urban cen - prominent and powerful of government) he will in fact Xristoulas' note reads: using as an excuse minor Chinese backing, the tres — but it has failed to the Arab Sunni states in be relinquishing power. “The traitors’ government attacks by anarchist Syrian government do so. And the army was open opposition to the Syr - Russia has been central of Tsolakoglou (refering forces, suffocated the pro - signed up to a UN cease - shelling Homs, and fight - ian leadership. They are no to forcing the regime to ac - to the first Prime Minister testers (among them a lot fire plan. ing the armed opposition democrats, but are looking cept the Annan deal. They of a Greek collabora - of elderly people) with in Idlib, on Monday. Assad to shift power in the region — together with the West - tionist government, dur - For now, in some re - gas, injured a female jour - knows if he removes the and deal a blow to Syria’s ern powers — are eager for ing the Axis Occupation gions, there is an uneasy nalist, and arrested at army the opposition will backer, Iran. some sort of settlement. in 1941-1942) has taken peace. In other areas the They fear all the more least 10 of the protesters. take over many Syrian Scepticism about the away ... my right of a de - truce has collapsed already. likely futures facing Syria A murderous attack was cities. prospects for the Annan cent pension and a decent Between the “ceasefire” — full scale civil war with made on photographers’ The emir of Qatar said plan is also common survival although I have formally coming into force the possibility of a rapid trade union leader, Mar - he believed there was little among anti-regime ac - been paying for my pen - on Thursday 13 April and growth of an Islamist in - ios Lolos, bashed on the chance of the plan, bro - tivists — and with good sion during 35 years of the arrival of the first UN surgency. the back of his head by kered by Kofi Annan, reason: Assad has reneged hard work. observers four days later, the police. KALASHNIKOV The pro-austerity forces “My old age does not can only govern by the give me the opportunity power of fear and at - Ideas for Freedom 2012 of militant resistance tempting to silence those (without excluding the who can tell the truth fact that if one Greek about what they are person was armed with doing. What is capitalism, a Kalashnikov I would be the first to join). CONFRONT The working-class and can it last? “I cannot find another movement needs to solution apart from giv - confront both the politi - ing a decent ending to my cal measures of the 29 June — 1 July, Highgate life before I was forced to government and the A solid strike could help rebuild labour movement confidence search at the dustbin for state being employed to Newtown Community Centre, my food. enforce them; it needs “I believe that the to embolden its strug - London N19 5DQ young people with no fu - gle and politically anni - ture one day will arm hilate Pasok, New themselves and will hang Democracy, and all their Sessions include: Strike on at Syntagma Square the acolytes and misleading nation’s traitors, in the political “alternatives”. same way that the Italian • How do we make socialism a The mainstream politi - people hanged Mussolini force again? A panel discussion cians could not hide their in 1943.“ with Owen Jones (author of frustration about Xris - Chavs ), Rosie Woods (health 10 May! The 77 year old pen - toulas' suicide because it sioner was neither de - worker activist and Workers' Lib - spoiled their electoral feated nor intimidated by erty member) and more tbc • Is plans (set for 6 May). the barbarism of the capi - Greece in a pre-revolutionary situation? • 33 Revolu - They excelled them - By Ira Berkovic labour movement confi - talist system. He did not tions Per Minute: author Dorian Lynskey and hip- selves in dishonouring dence. overdose in the privacy of hop artist/spoken-word poet The Ruby Kid on his memory by trying to The National Executive of The strike should be fo - his room or jump off his protest songs • Activists from the New Anticapitalist downplay the political the Public and Commer - cused around specific in - balcony. He chose to put Party's L'Etincelle (Spark) faction on the changing character of his act. Pasok cial Services union (PCS) dustrial demands (rather an end to his life at Syn - shape of France's far left • What’s wrong with con - spokesman Panos Beglitis has voted to strike on 10 than a tokenistic expression tagma square, where last spiracy theories? with Jack Ferguson of the Scottish made the preposterous May in the battle against of displeasure at what the summer masses of people Socialist Party • Roma communities and the rise of statement: “We do not government pensions re - government is doing), and gathered every day de - the far right across Europe • The NHS we had, the know who has misspent form. situated in a wider, ongo - fending their right to one we have and the one we want • Understanding ing programme of action the deceased's money, his Its decision follows the struggle and to direct par - the Eurozone crisis • Iranian socialists on war and that includes rolling, selec - kids or the victim him - announcement of the ticipatory democracy. class struggle in Iran • The Marxism of CLR James • tive and escalating action self”. Outraged people in health section of the Unite The response of his Is boycotting Israel a good way to help the Palestini - to keep up a constant level his neighbourhood de - union to “aim for” a strike daughter confirmed the ans? Michael Chessum, NUS national executive, de - of pressure on the employ - stroyed Beglitis’ political on that date. Unite now meaning and symbolic bates Sacha Ismail of Workers' Liberty ers. office. The cynicism of all says its 100,000 NHS mem - status of Xristoulas' • Introduction to Marxism sessions. Activists in all public sec - mainstream politicians is bers will be “staging stance: “For the people of tor unions should push for another proof of their de - protests and industrial ac - his generation … the Book your ticket online now at the maximum action on 10 tachment from the wants tion” on that date. The Ex - stubborn kids of the left May — that is, an all-out and beliefs of the whole workersliberty.org/ideas ecutive of the University … during the current po - strike, rather than simply of Tthee Gbreesetk w soacyi ettoy .p ay and College Union (UCU) litical and economic cli - Weekend tickets brought before the end of April are £22 “protests” which may in - tribute to Dimitris Xris - meets next week to decide mate, the act of suicide is waged, £14 low-waged/HE students, £6 clude “industrial action” — toulas’s memory is to on its participation. The considered not an act of unwaged/FE/school students. Day tickets also available. and for a comprehensive respond to his call and National Union of Teachers escapism but as an act to Send cheques payable to “AWL” to 20E Tower Workshops, programme of ongoing ac - make reality the cause (NUT) Executive also spark and re-invigorate Riley Road, London SE1 3DG. tion around specific de - for which he has given meets next week, and will the resistance … it is a cry For more information, email [email protected] or mands. Unions should also up his life — the over - discuss further action. for everybody to join the ring 07796 690 874 set up strike levies to fi - throw of capitalism and Although this strike struggle and overthrow nance sustained action. the establishment of a comes long after many of A one-day token strike the coalition govern - socialist society. Ideas for Freedom will open on Friday 29 June with a the government’s reforms is only a protest; to claw ment”. meeting to celebrate the massive workers' struggles will already have been in - anything back from this Immediately a sponta - which convulsed Britain in 1972. troduced, a solid action on government, a sustained neous call to gather at • More on the Greek elec - 10 May could help rebuild fight will be necessary. Syntagma square domi - tion, see page 6