ff'.· ~- " , .! i .~

WE WON'T BE THATCHER'S SLAVES

MASS UNEMPLOYMENT IS central wage rates and push up profitabil­ to the TOries' plans to restructure Ity. It Is youth In particular who the labour market. They are using have to pay the price for the cal­ It to undermine the strength of the lous policies of the Tories. eking trade unions In order to push down out their lives on miserable benefits. Now the Tories are set to turn the screws even tighter on the young unemployed. In April the Monthly paper of the Workers Power group NO.91 March 1987 ISSN 0263-1121 30p/10p strikers government will introduce the Job Training Scheme (jTS) aimed In particular at 18-25 year olds who have been unemployed for 6-12 months. It Is clearly a form of slave labour. It Is one step nearer the 'work for your benefits' system operated in several states of the USA. The youth will receive mini­ mal 'training' - In theory six hours a week - in exchange for a worth­ less certlfic;:ate guaranteed never to be any use In getting them a real job, and six months slave labour for the employers. The JTS is not simply another device to help the Tories launder the unemployment figures In elec­ tion year. It Is part of a system­ atic attack on the already paltry rights and meagre benefits of the unemployed. It coincides with the laughably named Restart scheme. FAKE SCHEME

Under this scheme claimants communism in Britain one Front candidate. Klnnock blamed the defeat on by~lectlon tactical voting. The Lab­ Party. In addition, a 'platform for bit. f The RCP's programme for the our right blamed the result on Delrdre Wood and the 'lunatic' left. working class u ity' has been Red Front shows that its sectarian­ The response of the softer left has been to blame It all on the At the most basic level your adopted as the R d Front's plat­ proposals are in conformity with ism coexists, quite happily, with press smear campaign, while the harder left has blamed Klnnock's form. the 'front' style politiCS that have rank- opportunism. In . place of a bland politiCS for losing votes. All of these explanatlons~ which are In TNS (23.1.87) Frank communist answer to the crisis and become your sectarian trademark. Richards, chairman of the RCP, being trumped up to bash factional opponents, are unconvincing. The Red Front is an RCP front the bosses' offensive in the form Of course the bosses' media, by skill fully using the opinion published an open letter ~o all of an action programme that would and we advise workers not to be left wing groups and individuals", polls, can produce swings to Labour's enemies. But they are able taken in by it. Why else would you . guide workers in struggle we get to do this for a number of reasons. Firstly the labour movement, appealing for forcef other than the a bland collection of proposed publish a pamphlet in the name of RCP to join the ~ed Front. These both Party and unions, has long abandoned any serious attempt to this supposed non-RCP dominated reforms. There is no mention of develop Its own mass press or Independently use other media. In thoughts of chair ~ an Frank reveal socialism, let alone the need for Red Front, which your covering in a graphic form the errors and addition, the media unions, ·bllnded by economlstlc short-slghted­ a revolution in this programme. letter describes as: flaws of the RCP's politics. Printed ness, have failed to take up a real fight against the hate propa­ "the new updated programme Given that in the election workers here is our own open letter reply­ will be choosing a government, the ganda directed at the labour movement that is the staple diet of of the RCP". ing to the RCP's proposals. the yellow press. Kinnock's wlngelng about the media is meaning­ If the pamphlet is your programme lack of answers from the Red less and self-defeating - it just makes him look like a bad loser why give it the name of your Front on the range of questions as did his complaints about the Tories' attacks on Glenys. supposed non-RCP dominated 'elec­ "-'~f!f:~-"--iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii~ that would confront a government Those who attack tactical voting must answer the question of toral bloc'? r really committed to the working who Is to blame if a large slice of the electorate Is dominated Moreover, since you are ob­ class, Is amazing. For example more by a desire to avoid something they dislike than by any viously unfamiliar with the norms would a Red Front government positive espousal of a cause? A large majority (between 50-60%) of workers' democracy we would renationalise privatised companies of the electorate do not want the Tories in. Nobody knows what like to point out that 'blocs' - a question of some Import for on earth the Alliance stands for. As for Labour, the press and normally decide their 'minimum' millions of workers? We are left television all put over the message that it has been taken over by programme at conferences of the guessing, as the platform keeps quiet on this. However, the real "the loony left". participants. You, however, put clue to the RCP's attitude to such Labour's right wing powerfully confirm this story In many forward what you regard as the 'basic demands' needed and then questions Is given in the Red Front voters' minds with their constant releases to the press of any dirt pamphlet. With typical petit-bour­ they can find out about the left. Vincent Hannah revealed that the demand: "Anybody who Is committed to geois disdain for the real li fe original source of all the smears against Delrdre Wood was the economic questions that workers London Labour right's campaign to baulk her selection in the first the interests of the working class should support It." (TNS need answers to the RCP declares: place. "The RCP has no economic Kinnock's present strategy is somewhat different to that of the 23.1.87) Anyone who is serious about build­ poliCies to offer." right. It is to cover over left poliCies, either at national or local ing a real bloc ought not to decide Any thinking worker should treat government level, in a welter of words and visual glmmlckery. In its poliCies In advance. this non-class approach to issues the final analysis his promo-job politics are totally vacuous. Like of vital importance with total con­ The freedom you generously ..J....IIL..OoI_..... __ ~ tempt. an empty vessel he makes a lot of noise; but it doesn't take the grant non-RCP participants to Tory media to plant in most people's heads the suspicion that he of office in front of the millions The RCP's excuse for this "campaign in a way that is consis­ of workers who are placing their agnosticism on key issues Is that is a man of no substance - a windbag. tent with their own politics" (TNS l-lis low, or no promise, profile whkh he thinks wllI allay the hopes in a Labour ~overnment. they are not interested in forming 23.1.87) and to put forward their The stock reply of the sectarian a government. This Red Front media-induced fears of loony leftism does nothing of the sort. At own programme as well, does best it convinces people that Labour's policies are as vague and to this is that Lab ur has been put palaver is merely designed to: nothing to alter the fact that the to the test and exposed before. "rally a core of activists around Wishy-washy as those of the Alliance. election circus you are hoping to Why bother again? Exposed to a platform that can lead the This approach erodes Labour's vote at both ends. The fickle w\ll stage will have chairman Frank as whom, comrades? To us, certainly, struggle against the capitalist prefer first hand Alliance policies from Alliance candidates as a the ringmaster. That freedom Is but to the masses of workers? Not system." safer prospect altogether. On the other hand the unemployed, the meaningless outside of the context even the Red Front's script writers This is no excuse at all. A plat­ youth on slave labour schemes, the low paid, the council tenants of participants themselves deciding can work that assertion Into their form with such pretensions is In decaying estates w\ll not be attracted to go out and vote by their basic poliCies. scenario. The Red Front pamphlet obliged to be specific, concrete and Klnnock's "I'm realistic, I'm making no promises" patter. Even if the Red Front was not admits: act as a coherent route map the property of the RCP, its whole "The opinion polls suggest that towards the seizure of power. approach to the election is faulty Labour has won back much of The RCP's platform on the TOTAL SUBORDINATION in the extreme. It manages to the working class support It lost other hand is: combine, like its Stalinist 'Third In 1983." "simply the minimum which the But If the old right and the Klnnocklte centre both, contribute Period' predecessor, an ultra-left As against the RCP's sterile working class can afford to to softening up the Labour vote, the official Labour left - the hard and sectarian position on social propaganda exerc'se, the task campaign on". (TNS 23.1.87) left in the constituencies - have for three years been contributing democracy with an opportunist revolutionaries rea Iy face is to It is a minimum that says not one to this. The total subordination of their politics to a Labour victory stance on questions of platform and exploit the contr iction between word about what forms of action on whatever policies and under whatever leadership has proven programme. the needs and hope of the workers the working class must take to win disastrous. Delrdre Wood is an example. She was a left. She had We'll begin by looking at what and rotten re for ist policies of the things it calls for - like work you tell us about the Labour Kinnock. At the m ment, given our or full pay. It rejec'ts "all forms a decent record of support for left causes. But her campaign was Party: completely in the hands of the Labour leadership's media machine. inability, due to ou small size and of militarism" - but what about ". • • whichever of the major influence, to prese~t a real alter­ proletarian militarism, workers' Thus her victory over the right In the local party came to nothing. parties comes out on toP. the This Is a mkrocosm of the whole Labour left's dilemma. native to Labour at the polls, the defense guards and the like? It consequences are Inevitable." best way of exploi Ing that contra­ Since they dare not and will not fight to take control of the "rejects the Aids panic" but says Further on in similar vein you diction is through the tactic of nothing about what sort of health party whenever an election looms they are, more or less w\llingly, assert: critical support vote Labour, dragooned into electoral campaigns whose content and terms are service we need to find a cure for "The mainstream parties only formulate and fig t for demands the disease and treat its victims. set by the right. All that remains is the leftist past of some offer a choice among different that can force L bour to act in It expresses goodwill with liberation candidates. This in turn can be treated by the media as a skeleton varieties of pro-capltalist the interests of th working class, movements everywhere, but Instead in the cupboard to be taken out and rattled in front of the parties." and organise to fight against of saying what needs to be done, electorate at the crucial moment. So concerned are you to project Labour's inevitable etrayals. particularly in Ireland, it says: Despite all their efforts the left has not been able to make the an anti-Labour image that you The value of this tactic as "We place a particular priority party as a whole or any constituencies really organise, campaign make the fundamental mistake of against the RCP's electoral clown­ on supporting the fight for and win mass support from working class voters for demands that suggesting that there is no real ing, is that It pi ces revolution­ freedom In Ireland." really and obviously meet their needs. difference between the 'major' or aries alongside th mass of real What has happened to the two 'mainstream' parties. These terms The crushing defeat at the start of the election campaign workers in Britain and enables us basic anti-imperialist demands of like your repeated use of the term means that the right will go on the offensive again. The announced to engage in a dial gue with them. Troops Out Now and Self-Deter­ formation of "Londoners for t:abour" signals a new attack on the 'establishment', are not Marxist terms. Marxism analyses parties The value of the CP's tactic was mination? The answer is they have already enfeebled left in the capital. Unlike the left, the right are highlighted at Sr enwich. Despite been dropped for fear of excluding on a class basis. In this respect not at all abashed about what damage their campaign will do in their media con lous campaign from the Red Front, organisations we, unlike you, recognise that the election year. In fact the hard right - the majority of Labour MPs that bought their general secre­ who have not got an antt-lmperlal- and many union leaders - would probably regard a third election loyulty of the muJorlty of the tary, Kate Marsh 11, a fair few 1st position on Ireland. loss as a price worth paying If it would actually serve to mobilise working class to the Labour Party column inches In e Guardian and The working class has no need the forces in the unions to get rid of the left altogether. Accord­ means that it is not simply a The Independent, they mustered of such empty and vague policies. .Ing to the hard and soft lefts' predictions a successful electoral bosses' party, but, to use Lenin's only 91 votes - 3 fewer that the Better to fight Kinnock over phrase, a "bourgoeis workers' showing for Labour will seriously weaken the hard right in the loony, beer and kitties Rainbow policies and open up the potential party". The attitude of millions of PLP. An election disaster would stop this. Alliance! Qf actually breaking workers from workers towards the Labour Party A particularly pernicious ele­ reform ism, than to posture as the The reformist left however are stili holding onto their tried and - and not a belief that our job in trusted tactic of super (and self-destructive) loyalty. They fear that ment of the RP's Red Front already eXisting alternative but life is to change the Labour Party stunt, Is its effec Ive endorsement with no alternative programme to if they openly stick up for pro-working class policies and criticise from within - determines the tac­ the milk and water, gas-bag "socialism" of the official campaign of the view that 't will be better offer the working class. tics real revolutionary communists for the working cl ss if the Tories they w\ll be blamed for any defeat. They forget that they will be Workers Power regards the will utilise In the coming election. get in. In rejecti the argument Greenwich result as Indicative of blamed for It anyhow. What Is more by not using the election In the absence of a mass revo­ that Labour is the lesser evil, the what the Red Front will achieve period to win the support of ordinary working class Labour voters, lutionary alternative our task is RCP pamphlet decl res: in the election. Indeed, if it goes by putting forward policies that meet their needs, they will confirm to break millions of workers from "In another se Labour Is an Into the election on the basis of to many workers the picture the right presents of them as behind reform ism. Do we do this by even greater evil than the the useless and vague policies the scenes conspirators concerned at best only with the interests waging a campaign with these Tories. A Kin ock government embodied in Its literature to date, of minorities. workers - by calling for a Labour pursuing pro-c pltalist policies then its candidates will not simply The working class - the great majority in Britain - needs a vote - or by standing aside from could have a d vastating Impact trail behind the joke candidates - fighting action programme to totally reverse the Tory vandalism them as the Red Front proposes. on the workln class... with they will be the joke candidates. of the Thatcher years and to launch an offensive against capitalism We have no doubts on this. We Thatcher In po er, people know that can mobilise millions not just to vote but to take up the will fight for a Labour victory to what to ex and can get Workers Power struggle for socialism for themselves.D put the Labour leaders to the test ready to resis. With KInnock 28.2.87 published 'by Workers Power BCM 7750, London WC1!'! 3XX printed by Spider Web Offset 14-16 Sussex Way. London N7 Workers Power 91 March 1987 3

EDWINA CURRIE AND lames maceutical research is organised Anderton are, by and large, good not on the basis of scientific col­ for nothIng. But both of theIr laboration, but on the hasis of recent outbursts about AIDS were capitalist competition. Information tImely IndIcations of the ruling is kept secret, not pooled. More­ class's real attitude to the disease. over, countries desperately in need Despite Its concern to stop the of an AIDS vaccine, like a number spread of AIDS, It stlll vIews the of central and eastern African dIsease as eIther a "gay plague" states, will not be able to afford or as god's punIshment to people any drug or vaccine that some who have sex wIth more than one imperialist corporation has discov­ partner. ered. These corporations are only Anderton's view of gay men as Interested in marketing drugs for .belng In a "cesspit of their own profits, not to help people. It Is making", Is an extreme version of significant that one thing Thatcher the official government line on did encourage was a meeting of AIl)S. The recent spate of adverts, drug company executives to discuss for example, reassure "people" the value of private Industry com­ (namely heterosexuals), In a subtle peting in the search for a cure! way, that so far AIDS Is a gay plague. Its victims are "relatively small groups of people". This seem­ Ingly coy description in fact leaves ANSWER people In no doubt that so far AIDS is stili mainly affecting gays The communist answer to the - let's keep it that way is the AIDS question is therefore based Tories' real message. on a fight to force capitalism to Of course the threat of the provide a health service that can spread of AIDS amongst hetero­ article in the New Scientist pointed least £60 million for AIDS patient are rightly suspicious of the sexuals has led the Tories to take out: care by the beginning of 1989. Tories' morality. The Sunday tackle the combined problems of the disease more seriously, despl te "If the world had not Ignored The question Is, why has the Today, the paper of one of That­ research for a cure and provision opposition by Thatcher in the the dIscovery of the AIDS advertising industry In AIDS enjoy­ cher's favourite capitalists, Eddie of the requisite patient care facili­ cabinet to any publicity campaigns. vIrus, researchers mIght now ed a boom while the hard cash Shah, fumed: ties. These requirements cannot be However, their attitude, nurtured be a year ahead In theIr fight available for fI ndlng a cure "BritaIn's carefree youngsters met If the Tories pursue their' and strengthened by the gutter to cure victIms of AIDS." remains totally Insufficient? The are Ignoring the warnIngs about present policy in the NHS in press, Is defined by a reactionary ( 12/2/87) answer Is that the government Is AIDS." (1/3/87) general and the AIDS research moralism. By 1986, however, cases of using AIDS to further a reactionary Or to put It another way "Just establishments speci fically. This When AIDS emerged on a wide AIDS amongst heterosexuals began moral crusade which has been ex­ seven per cent have bothered to policy of cuts, closure and privati­ scale In the USA amongst the male to cause alarm. Cases amongst panded from an attack on gay sex gIve up one-night stands". In other sation is incompatible with a health gay community, the capitalist press drug users had been recorded but to an attack on all sex. The AIDS words the drive against sex, rather service that meets people's needs. stigmatised It as a "gay plague", ignored. When "normal" people Issue Is being used to reinforce the than the drive against AIDS, has To facilitate the finding of a cure utilising the absurd but deeply contracted the disease the govern­ "Victorian values" so beloved of not yet convinced the youth. for AIDS in the short term we reactionary arguments from the ment finally began to respond to Thatcher and Tebblt, at the moral This Sickening campaign against fight for: Moral Majority, that the curse of the medical pressure that was level. sex must be fought. Of course we ~ A massive expansion of the NHS god (or for the more secular bigots building up for something to be One look at the government favour an explicit, factual cam­ as part of a plan of puhlic the curse of nature) was being done. sponsored campaigns proves its paign that simply explains the works under workers' control. visited upon those who had chal­ reactionary anti-sex nature. It nature of the disease, AIDS, the For a massive expansion of the lenged his sexual norms. The recommends the use of condoms methods by which It can be con­ AIDS research and patient care capitalist state In the US was con­ ADVERTISING for everyone - once again proving tracted and the precautions that budget. tent to accept the fundamental that capitalism incessantly writes can be taken to lessen the risk tenet of this reactionary outlook. lesbian sexuality out of existence. Irrespective of the number of ~ The ending of all privatisation It was a "gay plague" so leave It Accordingly the government However, at the same time it bans sexual partners a person has. Inside the hospitals and NI IS. to the gays to cope with It. spent £20 million on AIDS. But as any publicity about condoms on TV Additionally we a re in favour of The ending of all private prac­ Research into the nature of the an "Action for AIDS" leaflet or in the papers! Safer sex videos positive sex education courses in tice Inside the NHS. The aboli­ disease, let alone finding a cure stated: from the US, such as Chance In schools. Sexual pleasure should not tion of the private health sec­ tor altogether and the seizure for It, was systematically under­ "Our government's recent AIDS a Lifetime are banned in this be a taboo subject. funded. The attitude that the allocation of £20 mIllion Is country. And, underpinning the We are for a massive educa­ of their resources for the NHS. disease should be regarded as Intended maInly for advertisIng whole of the campaign is the mes­ tional campaign on AIDS and other ~ The nationalisation of the pro­ either a curse or a subject for gay and preventative health educa­ sage, do not have sex with more sexually transmitted diseases, fi­ fiteerlng drug companies with baiting jokes was encouraged. In tion; thIs leaves the major part than one partner. This theme Is nanced by the government, but no compensation and under wor­ the context of the ca pi talist crisis of AIDS-related work stili now being hammered into people under the control of workers kers' control. Research for a the disease was a handy weapon grossly underfunded." in the leaflets, adverts and publi­ (especially those worldng in liaison cure, not for profi ts. for the ruling class enabling them In other words most of the money city stunts that the government with medical experts, In the NHS, ~ A massive educational pro- to scapegoat gay men. has gone Into the coffers of has authorised. In particular the In the schools and in the media) gramme under union control, As the disease developed In advertising sharks like Saatchl and youth have been targetted and the and representatlver:; of the lesbian to acquaint health workers with Britain, from 1982 onwards, the Saatchl. message ~pewed out at them Is - and gay organisatiqns. the nature of A")S and to dis­ moral right copied the anti-gay The main hospitals that are se)( Is bad for your health, don't Aut we rejecV the idea that pel all myths. campaign of their red-necl< dealing with AIDS testing, counsel­ do it. Tl,ls was the undisguised there Is such a thing as "safe sex" counterparts In the US. And the ling and caring are under major theme of the television spectacular or that the r sponsibility for ~ Opposition to any moves by the fact that 88% of the people who strain. At the Middlesex Hospital First Aids. It used various youth countering AIDS lies with Indivi­ state to introduce compulsory have contracted AIDS since 1982 in London the AIDS laboratory con­ oriented entertainers to plug the duals. Of course precautions can testing. were male homosexuals fuelled sists of a temporary portacabin motto safe se)( means no sex be taken but no 9?ntagious disease ~ For free condoms on demand these reactionary arguments. For stuck on the roof of the Sexually (except, perhaps, In marriages has ever been erapicated either by and for free sterile needles for a period of four years the Tories Transmitted Disease (STD) clinic. blesed by the church!). education campaig,ns or individuals drug users with confidentiality were Indiferent to what they NUPr:: has estimated that it costs The government campalsn Is observing self-denying ordinances. guaranteed. regarded as a gay-only disease. It £20,000 to care for each patient getting back-up from the hypo­ They are eradicated by cures, by was left to voluntary organisations with AIDS and given that as many critical press. The same press that the discovery of immunising vac­ A fight for these demands can help like the Terence Higglns Trust to as 3,000 may develop the syndrome dally serves up lurid tales of a clnes and so on. The process of tackle AIDS and counter the moral try and cope with the mounting over the next two years the gov­ seemingly sex-crazed society Is now discovering a curel ls hampered by backlash that the government Is danger the disease posed. An ernment will need to allocate at busy attacking Britain's youth who the fact that m dlcal and phar- sponsoring.•

SHEFFIELD WORKERS WILL soon I election who will stand on the be paying for the failure of Blun­ ~ basis of the DLP's anti-working kett's labour council to resIst the class attempt to get a 'balanced TorIes' rate-capplng attacks. As budget' (i.e. make cuts). a council letter Budget News sent The opposition of Labour Party to all Its employees says: "It Is branches and the council itself to Itkely to be Inevitable that there SHEFFIELD BUDGE- rate-capping is based on an opposi­ will be cuts In some services" to for more cash from hard-nosed in the local elections stand on labelled 'unconstit tional' . by offi­ tion to' Tory cuts in already Inade­ "protect essential ones such as Tory, Ridley. a platform which exposes the cers from Sheffie d Central Con­ quate services. Our opposition those for the elderly and Infirm". Blunkett has demanded no oppo­ council's plans and pledges suI'­ stituency Labour f arty. One ward, should continue even when cuts are In fact the building of special sitional politics to the council's port to all those who will be Netherthorpe, whl< h had voted to dressed up in the name of pre­ facilities such as access ramps to backdown. In effect this means no resisting the cuts, and fighting take such action as been threat­ election 'realism' or compliance houses for the elderly and disabled opposition to around .!; 15 million for an increase in the provision ened wltn disaffl iation, disband­ with constltulonal rules and carried has already stopped. Many vacan­ of cuts this financial year. Workers of services. ment and if neces~ary the Imposi­ by a 'socialist' council.. . cies In council jobs will be left Power supporters in Sheffield have This last call has already been tion of candidate for the. local by Stuart Crossthwaite unfilled, reducing the overall num­ fought for opposition to these cuts ber of jobs and further cutting the around a programme including such already Inadequate level of ser­ elements as: vices. And in the meantime accor­ I> ding to Budget News, "all employ­ building links between Labour ANOTHER RACIST POLICE MURDER Party wards opposed to any ees are asked to look at ways to ONCE AGAIN RACIST poUce In force In the town centre 8 March and all community and work more efficiently". Also, rents cuts and those council trade are tryIng to get away with with riot shield: and snatch labour movement groups are to for council tenants are to be in­ unions and tenants' associations murder. On Friday 23 February squads, arrestln! 21 black be contacted. All socialists creased In April by 10%. who are likely to be attacked. CUnton McCurbln died after youth. First re IOrts claimed should support the demonstration Resistance to these measures I> arguing for rank and file inter­ being forcibly arrested by two that CUnton dle( of a heart on Saturday 8 March and has been weak within the Sheffield union organisation to prevent poUcemen In Wolverhampton. attack and was pn drugs. By support the calls to: Labour Party. Only five of all Dis­ manual and non-manual council When word got round a number the Tuesday Inqu~t they had • Release the youth! trict Labour Party (DLP) delegates workers being divided by the of the local youth, both black to drop thIs Une nd argue that voted against Blunkett's cuts council and local union bureau­ and white. took to the streets It was a rumour not put out • Drop all charges! budget and the council itself can cracy. to protest wIth the result that by them! • For a workers and black only offer the prospect of pleading I> arguing that Labour candidates more arrests were made. On A national demonstration community Inquiry Into the Saturday, the poUce were out has been called for Saturday death of CUnton McCurbln! _4____ ~------VVRP ______Workers Power 91 March 1987 HOW OPEN AC EREN lE? The Editor, the re founding of a Leninlst Trot­ this is no differe* to the SWP(US) NAHUEL MORENO, A leadIng The WRP (Workers Press) call for pOSition, the IWL just looks to Workers Press an International "open conference" skylst International! For a new figure In the International Workers of groups claiming to be Trotskylst world party of socialist revolution!' different 'left' forces for its Inter­ League (Fourth International), died Dear- Comrades, looks like It Is turning Into an We certainly do not think that national. Yet you are willing to of a heart attack on 25 January exclusive event. We print below the Fourth International still exists to accept their full participation at the age of 62. He Joined the As you know the Movement for a a letter we have sent to Workers either organisationally or in terms on their supposed acceptance of Trotskylst movement In the early Hevolutionary Communist Internat­ Press registering our opposition to of programmatic continuity. Its the 'Ten Points'? If you think you 1940s, being a founder member of ional (MRCI) responded positively any attempts to exclude any revolutionary continuity was broke~ are going to persuade them during the Partido Obrero de la Revo­ and promptly to your declaration tendencies that regard themselves in 1951, when a world congress full partlclpatlon In the conference luclon Soclallsta (PORS) which for an open conference (see MHCI as Trotskylsts from an open adopted general and systematic period why not us and other tend­ fused a number of Trotskylst statement of 28th January publish­ conference. reVISIOns of Trotskyism on all the el)cles as well? groups In Argentina In 1941. ed in Workers Power 90). We major elements o( the programme. Moreno was to remain a leading offered to contribute resources to exclusive as pre-conditions for an Its organisational existence as the figure among groups claiming alleg­ building the conference and to par­ international conference aimed at 'world party of SOCialist revolut­ IN COMMON Iance to Trotskyism In Argentina ticipate in its organising committee the task your organisation set it, ion' was shattered in 1953. The IC for the next four decades. The PST on the basis of working for a dem­ they are certainly inadequate as played an equally culpable role in The reason call only be that the (later MAS) was to be the ocratically run conference. a basis to define genuine Trotsky­ shattering the organisational unity WRP leadership thinks it has more dominant force within the Inter­ Along with members of a numb­ ism against centrism, to, as you and, whilst it offered a number of in common politically with the IWL national current with which Moreno er of international tendencies, the put it, 're-organise the Fourth partially correct 'left' criticisms (and others who can agree to the was most recently associated; the International Workers League (IWL) International' upon. Your character­ of Pablo and Mandel, never took 'Ten Points') than with those who Bolshevik Faction, which later and Lutte Ouvriere, members of isation of Stalinism for instance, these to the level of a revolution­ are excluded from full participat­ became the International Workers the MRCI sections attended a rec­ as 'counter-revolutionary through ary restoration and then further ion. The 'Ten Points' in this case League - IWL(FI). We express our ent meeting called by the WRP on and through' is as one sided and development of the transitional wlll have become the first step sympathy to his family, friends and the International Conference. At undialectical an analysis as the programme. towards a political fusion. Indeed comrades. However we have this meeting comrade ~ob Archer, 'dual nature' one you correcty rej­ We wish to restore and develop this was precisely the method nothing to praise In the overall speaking we understand for the ect. Historically within the IC Trotsky's program me and Trotsky's adopted by the IWL (then the Bol­ political content of his life's work. Central Comittee of the WRP, tradition it has led to a different­ world party of socialist revolution. shevik Faction under the leadership The politicS of the groups In declared that the conference was ial hostility to Stalinism as against Whether this re-founded internat­ of the PST of Argentina) In 1979. which Nahuel Moreno was a promi­ now being organised on the basis social democracy, and an adaption ional will call itself the Fourth or They, with the Lambert grouping, nent leader reflected in every way of acceptance of the 'Ten POints' to the latter (Healy in the Labour the Fifth is for us a question to called for an ope n conference of the poll tlcal crisis and centrist put forward by the WRP being a Party, Lambert in the French Soc­ be decided in a struggle with the 'the world Trotskyist movement', degeneration of Trotsky's Fourth pre-condition for full participation ialist Party). Do you characterise centrism which masquerades as which would involve a 'democratic­ International after 1951. Early in the organising committee and the Labour Party too as 'counter-­ Trotskyism and which has torn into ally organised and exhaustive dis­ Argentine Trotskylsm was riven the conference itself. revolutionary through and through'? pieces the banner of Trotsky's FI. cussion'. We and other groups, like with splits and divisions. Many of This seems to us to be a dra­ I f so you ignore the contradiction In any case the question of the the Workers Socialist League, were these stemmed from disagreements matic change from the concept of involved between the working class number, separated from principled rapidly excluded and, as you know, over how revolutionaries should the conference as previously out­ base of both these parties and questions of an actual existing pol­ the conference took place as a relate to 'anti-Imperialist' move­ lined to us by WRP members. You their Stalinist and reformist lead­ itical and organisational continuity, closed fusion conference of the ments of both bourgeois and petlt- had originally called for a 'world ers. This is a contradiction which we leave to the political confusion­ Bolshevik Faction and the OCRFI bourgeois nationalist origin conference of Trotskyist organisat­ leads at various points to t.he lead­ ists,. people with something to a fusion which lasted less than principally, by the mid-1940s Its ions'. Its aim was to clarify 'many ers being forced to take actions hide. Here we find your talk of a year. Is this the road the WRP attitude to the bourgeoiS nation­ of the key historical and political which revolutionaries might sup­ the 'continuity' as contradictory is being taken down? We hope not. alist Peronlst movement. issues which have confronted the port, and opens the possibility of - as either double talk or double We therefore call on the WRP (Fourth International) movement a united front with these parties think. If there has been a revolut­ to put forward its 'Ten Points' not for decades.' It was 'to begin the within which the communists would ionary continuity over the last 35 as pre-conditions for full particip­ SELF CRITICISM task of elaborating a programme attack the vacillations, retreats and years, you must say who ,defended ation, but as a basis for discussion. ba$ed on the transitional prog­ outright sabotage of the leaders. it and against whom they defended We intend to put forward our own ramme'. How, we would ask, do Such tactics would not be possible it. The IC as a whole, Healy and set of points which we think wlll While Moreno's organisation at you intend to clari fy any of these if these parties were 'counter rev­ the WRP, Lambert, Moreno? The be a starting point for defining a first vigorously attacked Peronlsm, questions if you begin by excluding olutionary through and through'. Moreno current as you well know communist position against the by the 1950s the POR, as his the overwhelming majority of for­ Of course we would and do char­ was not struggling 'against revis­ centrist distorlti0n of Trotsky's organisation was then called, con­ ces claiming to be Trotskyist bef­ actt::rise both parties as counter ionism' in the 1960's but capitulat­ programmme. We expect other ducted a "self-criticism" and groups would wish to do likewise. ore you start? As we pointed out revolutionary in their practice, ing to it. The SLL-WRP committed started the course which has since All who are willing to support and in a previous letter to you, If the their programme and their leader­ revisions of theory and practice been the hallmark of "Morenolsm" build for the con ference, circulate 'Ten Points' are pre-conditions, ship. But they remain parties with as well as outright crimes which In Latin America a chronic its documents internally and open they immediately rule out, for an organised proletarian base and make a mockery of any claim that opportunist adaptlon to both bour­ their press to the debates should example, the Mandelite wing of the thus bourgeois workers parties. it represents a line of continuity. geois and petit-bourgeois national­ USFI, as well as other large tend­ You cannot point to an unbroken be allowed full participation, in the Ism. encies like that of Lutte Ouvriere series of programmatic documents, organising comittee and the cOIMer­ As one of the leaders of the and theses representing defence and ence itself. The aim should not be POR at the time, Ezequlel Reyes, in France. You might reply, 'We ANONYMOUS THRUST a 'talking shop' but a serious do not want Ernest Mandel and his extension of Trotsky's work or to has put It "we were opponents of a national organisation or grouping attempt to clarify political posit­ organisations anyway' but if you the Peronlsta government, Implac-. that has continuously fought for ions and thus take forward the really want to challenge and debate In your recently added 'point able adversaries, until 1954 • • • " the rt::volutionary programme in the struggle to re-elaborate a Trotsky­ In this year the POR dissolved It­ out the political mistakes which two' you declare the necessity of class struggle. Your notion of a ist program me for the current per­ self to join the newly formed led to the political crisis and org­ building the Fourth International in opposition to all those who pro­ contradictory continuity is not a iod and to rebuild a revolutionary Partido Sociallsta de la Revoluclon, anisational disintegration of the FI dialectical but a vulgar, logical leadership of the world working Nacional (PSRN) which was a surely you should be challenging nounce it dead or proclaim the the USFI and other tendencies to need for a new international. Who contradiction. class. pro-Peronlst party, having split attend, to agree to circulate all do you aim this anonymous thrust Whatever the outcome of this We recognise t is letter is long­ from the Partido Soclallsta because the documents and resolutions at? The inSignificant and almost struggle to build a revolutionary er than you norm Ily ask for. But of Its anti-Peronlst stance. within their organisations, to par­ non-existent Banda grouping? They international we clearly stand for given the importa ce of the Inter­ Ay this time Moreno's POR was ticpate fully in the conference. do not call for a Fifth Internation­ the building of a Trotskyist intern­ national Conferen e and the fact an Inactive section of the Inactive Perhaps the leadership of the USFI al to our knowledge. The SWP(US) ational. Yet you are willing to that you have not received or pub­ International Committee (lC) of the lished any resp nse in Workers will not want to.but if so why give still support the ~ United Secretariat exchlde us from full partiCipation, Fourth International while the them an excuse? Especially when of the Fourth International while from the organising committee. At Press to your call, we hope you 'Pablolte' wing, the International we know there are minorities who advertising themselves as willing the same time you do include the will publish it in full as, perhaps, Secretariat (IS), was represented a start of the pe-conference dis­ disagree with important aspects of to take part in a 'broader' new International Workers League in the In Argentina by J. Posadas and his the current USFI line, on Nicaragua International with the Sandinista's committee. This organisation openly cussion process. organisation, the Partido Obrera. for instance, minorities who surely and Castroites. Or do you perhaps says it is aiming to build a non-­ Yours in comradeship Moreno's "struggle against Pab­ anyone seeking to recreate a Trot­ think you have struck the MRCI Trotskyist international, one where lolsm" outside of his rivalry with Trotskyists would be In a minority, Stuart King Posadas added nothing to the skyist international would want to with this formulation? Comrades Secretary, MRCI reach and win? we do not hold any of these posit­ that is one whose programme will meagre output of the le. While the 'Ten Points' are too ions. Our slogans are 'Forward to not be a Trotskyist one! In essence '2 th February 1987 When Peron was overthrown In 1955 and the PSRN declared Illegal, Moreno's group continued to work with the Peronlsts pro­ duel ng a paper Palabra Obrero which declared Itself an "organ of left. In Leicester, not known as a revo- Revolutionary Workers' Peronism" We send comradely greetings lutionary hotspot until recently! produced "under the discipline of PENN to Phll, Sandra and their daughter The members ip having been General Peron and the Peronlst and wlll ensure that this case Is offered a "subs ntlal" pay rise, Supreme Council". The paper was made known as an example of were In fact off ed a rise of less linked to a group of 'left' Peronlst We learnt from the WRP (Workers Healylte thuggery Into which such than 5%. The nlon decided a trade union leaders called the "62 Press) of the jailing of Phll Penn sections of the FI degenerated. ballot was needed organisations" which acted as the following a disgraceful provocation I contacted t 0 SWP members transmission belt for maintaining by sellers of the Newsllne. We In comradeship, to see If they would co-operate the hold of Peronlsm - bourgeois print here the letter of solidarity on a joint lea fie adviSing a vote nationalism - over the Argentinian with Phll that we sent to the Workers Power for action. They aid no, explaining trade unions. Political Committee. WRP. WRITE TO: that there was n militancy within By 1964 Moreno's group had, the membership. along with the SWP(US), re-unified Dear comrades The Editor Workers Power with the IS to form the United BCM 1750 London WC1N 3XX On 9 Januar a ballot was taken. 25,000 pi s voted and the Secretariat of the Fourth Inter­ We are saddened and angered to national (USFI). So much for any hear of the Imprisonment of com­ LEICESTER HOSIERY margin of defea for action was just 281. So h for "no mlll- claim that Moreno represented, rade Phll Penn last week. Alongside even In a "contradictory fashion", been able to conduct open debates tancy"! the rest of the left and the labour WORKERS BALLOT a struggle against Pablolsm. Quite within the labour movement and After this e ouraglng vote I movement we condemn the actions simply, like the SWP(US) he have frequently resorted to the use wlll approach th SWP to ask If of the Newsllne group both for Dear comrudcs surrendered to Mandel and co. The of violence, Intimidation and If they will co-oper te on a monthly provoking a fight with the comrade key to this reunlflcatlon was un­ and then for Utilising the bourgeois these methods failed using the Being a 'militant' hosiery worker journal for hosier workers. police and state to silence their In the National Union of Hosiery critical support for the Castroltes courts to Intervene on their behalf. You s In comradeship, In Cuba. The "recognition" that a The Healy-Torrance group, both opponents for them. Such antics and Knitwear Workers (NUHKW) Leices er hosiery worker must be condemned by all on the can be a little depressing especially "blunt Instrument" was sufficient now and In the past, have never to achieve a socinlist revolution. Workers Power 91 March 1987 5

This Instrument could be either Soclallsta (the PST's paper) on 8 Presumably 'Trotskylsm' would at Castrolsm or petit-bourgeois November 1972, went on to com­ a later stage permeate and trans­ natlonallsm, as, supposedly, the ment on Peron's imminent return: form this mass reformist party Into fLN In Algeria had shown. "Why Is Peron coming? Hope­ a revolutionary one. However this This revision of Marxism added fully It will be to Impose fight­ project aimed entirely at the elec­ that guerilla struggle based on the ing workers candidates and not tions was poorly rewarded - the peasantry was to "play a decisive to make deals with the olig­ masses preferred the traditional role". It was therefore no surprise archy." parties or the Peronists and the that Moreno's group fused with an Some hope! MAS received only 50,000 votes openly Castrolte current (FRIP) In In the last period of Peron's instead of the 500,000 confidently 1964 to form the Partido Revolu­ government the PST became a predicted by Moreno. clonarlo de Trabajadores (PRT). craven defender of "Institutionalisa­ Recently Moreno has claimed From then until 1968 Moreno was tion", that Is of the existing bourg­ that Visconti was all along a mem­ at one with the pollcy of the USFI eois democratic system. In March ber of the PST, a long term politi­ leaders, supporting the 'guerlllaist' 1974, In a situation of Increasing cal collaborator and that the MAS turn, being a fervent supporter of right-wing killings and left wing Is a Trotskyist party. This the Castro backed OLAS movement guerilla activity, the PST was double-talk and double-think Is which was described in the PRT's drawn Into an accord with six typical of a centrism without journals as "the only organisational bourgeois parties and the CP, in strategy or principles. vehicle for power". the presence of General Peron (the However the actual formation PST represented by CoraI), whlc\1 of a guerilla wing, the ERP, of the promised to adhere to "the Institu­ PRT, caused Moreno to draw back. tional process", that Is to renounce PEOPLE'S FRONT A split In 1968 saw Moreno's PRT revolutionary struggle. It took (Verdad) named after their Avanzada Soclallsta three months, journal - llne up with the SWP(US) under pressure from the Inter­ Over the last year the MAS has In the Lenlnlst Trotskylst Faction national Majority Tendency, to been assiduously courting the to oppose the International Majority announce both that this was a Stalinlsts of the Argentinian Com­ Tendency's (IMT) llne on mistake (!) and that they had in munist Party. A recent letter of greeting to the CP Congress refers guerlllalsm. fact not signed it! to "the great tool we are building This belated rejection of the ::;Igned or not, their agreement Moreno worst excesses of the USFI's disas­ to this perspective was clear. together: the People's Front". This trous guerilla adventure, which led After one (of many) meetings In out In theit own way what the Fourth International In Nicaragua 'people's front' is indeed a bloc to the annihilation of the cadres the Governmental Palace, juan popular wave of anti-govern­ Is a complete fraud. of all classes on a reformist pro­ of the PRT/ERP in the 1970s, did Carlos Coral Is quoted as saying ment discontent was unable to The Simon l30livar 8rigade's gramme. not herald any change in Moreno's to Isabel Peron, then president fol­ do because of the defection of (S813) declaration that It was An article by Lutte Ouvriere opportunist politics. Like the lowing the death of juan Peron: its leadership." (Camblo No.l) "under the leaciershlp of the militants who were working In the SWP(US) It represented an elect­ "The PST declares its categor­ What could this mean other t1;an Sandlnlsta Front" meant not only MAS (Class Struggle No.l july 1986) reveals that In the November orallst, rightist reaction to Ical opposition to a coup d'etat that the dictatorship of Videla was under Its military discipline. The 1985 congressional elections, the adventurlsm not a revolutionary and the violence In the form progressl ve! open letter for Its establlshment "People's Front" (FREPU) lists were critique of It. of terrorism and guerilla activ­ declared that the "only program­ 8y 1972 Moreno had found a Ity which although with differ­ matic point of the SBB is to sup­ headed by the 'rank and file' or new, Social Democratic, group to ent motives are equal In pro­ ADAPTION port the struggle of the Sandinlsta 'combative' Peronist grouplets, fuse with led by a long time voking coups and thus stand In people" (our emphasis). Their call splits from the main Peronlst reformist, juan Carlos Coral of the opposition the democratic for a ''Sandinista government with­ Parties. One Is obliged to ask what Soclallst Party of Argentina (PSA). demands of the masses. We The history of Moreno's cur­ out capitalists" could only mean sort of Trotskyislll Is it that The fusion programme of what have no lIIuslon that we can rent, which proceeded to suffer the - In the absence of a call for a repeatedly and systematically became the PST, was printed in change the policy of the same terrible repression as the rest workers' and peasants' government espouses popular fronts with bour­ the 13 November 1972 Inter­ government by speeches but of the left under the military and the struggle for the expropria­ geois and petit-bourgeois nationalist continental Press. In an accom­ surely you Senora Presidente dictatorship, was one of chronic tion of the capitalists, cancellation forces? On an International level the panying Interview Moreno and your ministers have taken adapt Ion to bourgeois nationalism of the foreign debt, land to the optimistically described the new note of some of our observa­ combined with electoral cretinism. tillers and so forth - a call for a IWL(FI) pursues an identical course, searching for "revolutionary fronts party as "95% Trotskylst". In fact tlons." (15 October 1974 While any group or party can make government of the FSLN, commit­ on a national and International It put forward a democratic rather Avanzada Soclallsta) mistakes, and in the last years of ted as It was to defending "mixed scale". The fact that ..... rotskylsts than a transitional programme, This scandalous equating of the his life Nahuel Moreno made a vir­ economy" capitalism. dressed up In revolutionary ver­ 'left' Peronlst and ERr> guerilla tue out of plaintively admitting The call for a Sandinlsta will surely be a minority In this International does not bother us biage. It rejected any outside forces with the right wing death some of them, these were not government was of course accom- control or direction - from the squads was only equalled by the Isolated mistakes. They were panied by references to the at all" (Manifesto of the IWL(FI) 1985). Indeed why should It? If It LJSFI - It called for the "Demo­ PST's response to Videla's coup systematic errors, codified Into a "glorious years of Castrolsm" is possible to repeat on a world cratisation of the armed forces" when It actually came on 24 March method - a rotten centrist method. (whenever they were!) and the call scale the rotten blocs, centrist and the end of "their use In the 1976 - a coup that was to lead to By 1976 Moreno had parted with for "a federation of Nicaragua and combinations ond popular fronts service of capital". Was this 30,000 dead and 'disappeared' his erstwhlle allies In the LTT, the Cuba". Certainly the SBB clashed constructed by Moreno's party In wretched formulation part of the Argentinians. SWP(US), following differences over quickly with the Sandlnlstas. \3ut Argentina so much the better. 95% Trotskylsm or part of the 5% "We are In the presence of the the Portuguese revolution. He this said more about the fSLN's something else? It called for the: most democratic mllltary formed the Bolshevik Tendency reaction to independent trade union "building of a great socialist government In Latin America. which later became the Bolshevik organisation on he Atlantic coast party. a revolutionary workers' It was Impossibie to wait for Faction. The events In Nicaragua where the SB8 were organising, EXAGGERATION party deeply rooted · In the another nine months In this In 1979 were finally to lead to a than about the SBl3's "intransi­ realities of the nation in solida­ situation of nightmare until the break between Moreno's current gence". rity with the socialist move­ election took place. The whole and the LJSFI (See Workers Power In Britain today certain leaders ment (unspecified) of Latin peopie were crying out against No.11 December 1979 for an analy­ of the WRP are hailing Nahuel America and the World." the government (of Isabel Peron sis of the split). Moreno as someone who built a Far from being a revolutionary - WP). The eruption of the 24th Although on the question of ILL-FrTED party with tens of thousands of workers' party the PST was to March (Videla's coup - WP) can defence of the need to build a workers. It is certainly true, leav­ distinguish Itself by Its fawning be traced to these causes. section of the Fourth International Since the formation of the ing aside the chronic exaggerations opportunism towards Peronlsm, Despite the principled objections In Nicaragua the Bolshevik faction IWL(FI) after tl1e [3olshevik fac­ that the Argentinian PST /MAS is which was on the verge of Its that any healthy democratic appeared to take a 'left' position, tion's short IiJed and ill-fated prone to, that In the conditions of 'second coming'. Having partici­ person would raise against mlll­ in practice the polltical basis of fusion with f ierre Lamhert's Argentina, and indeed In many pated in the Grand National Accord tary coups or any concrete Its Intervention In Nicaragua was OCRfl (see Workers Power Nos.22 countries of the crisis .vracked of General Lannusse, which aimed Judgement of the measures of Its same old adaptlonlst poll t ics. and 29 for analh ls of this sorry Latin American continent, it is at a carefully controlled return to the present government It Is Their claim to have raised the saga) its major s

management from interference by the party and state authorities on matters of funding, access to raw materials and marketing of the CHINA produce. The factory director re­ linism's sponsibility system now operates THERE ARE MOUNTING signs that led, the family is free to grow in over 27,000 enterprises, one ownership were made legal in foreign-investment steering com­ the process of economic reform whatever it wants and sell It on third of the entire state-owned 1982. In the first half of 1986, the mission was created. Some of the embarked on by the Chinese eight private markets. In some rural industrial and transport sectors. number of private enterprises measures included the remitted years ago Is provoking ever sharper areas, there is no longer even a The director's job was now to registered with China's State profits and full tax refunds on confUcts within the bureaucracy. state quota. administer enterprises which were Administration for Industry and profits reinvested for not less than The overall direction of the re­ The family responsibility system to be responsible for all their Commerce (SAIC) grew from 2.6 5 years, and the lowering of in­ form has been to promote market has benefited the rich peasants profits and losses. Just as In the million to 11.34 million. This is come tax paid by export enter­ relations in agriculture and eco­ most as they can afford the in­ agricultural sector the mechanisms still numerically smali. In cities prises in the special economic nomic seif sufficiency for indus­ vestments needed for higher yields. of the market were to be markedly the number of privately employed zones and other specially desig­ trial enterprises. Yet this In turn It has also led to the neglect of strengthened. Chinese management workers make up only 1% of nated zones from 15% to 10%. It has weakened the politicai rule of large scale projects like hydro was to be forced to emulate many China's 476 million work force. gave the foreign investors the the central party apparatus. As the schemes which generally benefit of the features of the capitalist However they provide essential freedom to hire and fire, to problems engendered by the re­ poorer peasants. Rich peasants are market economy. services mainly il tertiary Indus­ determine salaries, make. planning forms have accumulated so key said to have had Income increases Reports in the Chinese media tries such as reta I sales, catering decisions, raise funds, and to trade sections of the bureaucracy are of up to 13.7% in the last five about the Kaifeng Electrical and transport. foreign exchange among them­ moving to reverse eiements of the years. There has been a mounting Machinery state-owned enterprise In order to c dify the impact selves. reforms and reassert their sociai, gap in incomes between resource shows how the new system works. of the various e onomlc reforms The Seventh Five Year Plan for political and ideological grip. rich and resource poor regions. Pay and bonuses are now linked last year's National People's Con­ the years 1986-90, passed by the The present crisis in China has The changes in agriculture have with work and piecework was in­ gress adopted a basic legal frame­ National People's Congress In 1986, its roots in the fundamental con­ caused sharply fluctuating demand troduced. There was an overall work regulating internal and exter­ has as Its theme "Drive to tradictions that exist between the and supply in certain commodities reduction of the number of nal economic relationships. One Modernisation". The Plan deletes politicai rule of the parasitic such as grain. Peasants have workers. There were wage cuts of third of the articles were devoted any previous reference to "socialist bureaucracy and the economic changed over from grain growing 20-40% for elderly, weak, sick and to defining the legal status of dif­ modernisation" and replaces It In­ mechanisms that it has encouraged (In spite of a subsidy in grain disabled workers. The Kalfeng ferent economic entities and their stead with a "socialist commodity in the light of its inability to sus­ price) to cash and industrial crops Electrical Machinery Enterprise property rights. economy based on public owner­ tain the development of Chinese which fetch higher prices. The made 2 million Reminbei (Rmb) ship". The Plan envisages most agriculture and industry. Under the 60,000 free markets now sell more profit In 1985. Private ownership of the means Chinese enterprises to be eco­ ieadershlp of Deng Xiaoplng, food than the state stores. In order to strengthen manage­ of production is protected by law nomically independent entitles structurai economic reforms were In the industrial sector the ment authorfty new labour laws and may not arbitrarily be seized responsible for their own profits begun in the countryside in 1979. Central Committee approved were promulgated in October 1986. or Interfered with by any person and losses by the end of the five In the hope of boosting agricultural measures in 1984 which under the The new labour contract system, or organisation. State and collect­ year period. They will be given production the People's Communes director responsibility system re­ which covers 80% of all new state ive enterprises are conferred the more autonomy so that they can were decoliectivlsed and the land moved the direct control of plant employees allows mobility of right to manage state property and "accumulate funds, update their divided under a family responsibil­ party secretaries and party com­ labour, especially skilled labour, to liquidate that enterprise should technology and raise productivity". ity system. Under that system each mittees. The Party secretary's between enterprises and localities. It prove unprofitable. There will be price reforms and family is allocated an annual con­ responsibilities were limited to the The new ' laws systematised the The country's financial institu­ a shift of the government's role tract to produce a state quota. sphere of "ideological and political procedure for recruitment and dis­ tions have also undergone a major from one of direct to indirect As long as the quota is fulfil- work". The scheme freed industrial missal as well as establishing a restructuring. In 1983 the handling control in various economic fronts. new unemployment and retirement of circulating capital was taken The Plan merely confirmed the line Insurance system to sweeten the out of the hands of government taken by Deng's faction in the pill. Most important of all they departments. The monopoly on bureaucracy in the last 5 years. give management the right to hire foreign exchange was taken from and fire. the state bank and into the hands of regional and special banks in a bid to encourage competitive COUNTERPART banking and the money market. POOR ATTITUDE 80% of the capital investment in The Ideological counterpart of state enterprises used to come Deng's course was to be seen In There is now a specified list from the state budget. Now enter­ the relative relaxation of the of dismissable offences, for prises are encouraged to raise party's ideological control parti­ example, having a poor attitude funds on the credit market. The cularly over the intelligentsia. to service. Previously the state Peking Economic DaJly reported Deng's designated party general Personnel and Labour departments that as a result of these measures secretary, Hu Yaobang, sanctioned allocated people to work In units, enterprises and government depart­ a party line that openly argued at usually for life. There is now a ments in 1985 held their own funds times that Marxism was outmoded labour market based on supply of 140 Rmb, equivalent to 80% of and In need of "enrichment". Mao and demand. It allows management the entire budgeted state revenue. had also made mistakes while other to deal with 'over manning', i.e. As well as strengthening previously unrecognised sources of to make redundancies. capitalist mechanisms internally the Inspiration including, quite consis­ For the workers, there has not Chinese bureaucracy has also being tently, Bukharln were now acknow­ been such a signi ficant rise in pursuing an 'open door' policy to ledged. their standard of living as in the foreign capital. This too was in­ The package of economiC, poli­ rural areas. In urban areas in­ troduced as a means of modernising tical and ideological reforms was creased agricultural prices and the the Chinese economy. As recently by Its very nature charged with free market have meant a higher as Octoher 1986 this tendency was contradictions. It significantly un­ cost of living and inflation, said still being strengthened. At this dermined the political base of the to be In double figures, higher time measures to reduce bureau­ very party bureaucracy that in­ rents and increased unemployment, cratic control and guarantee stigated it as market mechanisms particularly for youth. managerial autonomy for all foreign Increasingly replaced party and DengXiaopingandHu Yaobang Private enterprise and private investors were I announced. A state dictat. It had a similar

of the ability to direct planning This emphasiS on self-criticism was to work ciearing out his opponents towards socialist reconstruction. the result of a vici tory prior to the from key pOSitions at all leveis. The bureaucratic caste has Congress of the an Linh faction. The party dally Nhan Dan reported directed the planned economy The 'old guard' ollowed Stalin's in February that 190,000 members VI towards maximiSing its own privi­ model of the late 1920s and 1930s, had been expelled over the last ten leges and its own arbitrary power. of forced cOllec ~sation (In the years, but that this was not LATE LAST YFAR the Sixth the statified economy, and like Aut this parasitism has thrown the South) and, via So iet aid totalling enough! [t set a ten week time­ Congress of the Vietnamese Com­ Gorbachev call for more openess already weak and war ravaged between I to 2 illion dollars a table of struggle against 'negative munist Party (VCP) saw a major and accountability. [n no way do economy into deeper and deeper year, the rapid development of phenomena' namely all those in the change over In the top leadership. these elements challenge the rule crises. The VCP reformists wish heavy industry. :JilIS faction was party who had: No iess than seven members of the of the bureaucracy itself however. to ameliorate these contradictions based in the N0rt~L and was rooted tt ••• taken advantage of their polltlcai bureau 'retired' at the The bureaucracy came to power without actually abandoning the In the military an in the leader­ authority and positions to congress. Three of the VCP's long­ in the North in 1954 and in the rule of the bureaucracy. Just as ship of the VCP established prior confer special perogatives and standing leaders, Truong Chlnh, South twenty one years later. It Gorbachev has done, they have had to the 1975 victor • Indeed one of privtleges and to oppress the Pham Van Dong and Le Duc Tho did so by leading the masses in the to launch an attack on the the casualties of the Sixth Con­ massestt• were among those who retired. national independence wars against elements of the bureaucracy most gress was a leadin military figure, The paper roundly condemned the These leaders of the 'old guard' French and then United States associated with corruption, privilege General Van Tien ung. old leadership for failing to keep were replaced by a rival faction Imperialism. These victories led to and tyrannical excesses. To appeal Since 1976 the Southern leaders theory abreast of practice - a led by Nguyen Van Linh rooted the flight and expropriation of the to a section of the working class have been workln hard to take clear attack on the 'heavy in­ primarily in the southern part of weak Vietnamese bourgeoisie and and the intelligentsia the 'prag­ control of the C ngress and the dustry' brigade in the bureaucracy. the country. the local agents of the Imperialist matists', as the western press calls party by strengt ening the rep­ Criticism was followed up with This faction has a programme corporations. The VCP however did them, have launched a campaign resentation of t e middle level action. Twelve former ministers of extensive economic reform and not lead the masses to the con­ for the Vietnamese equivalent to cadres such as p rty secretaries, were dismissed from the Council fought under the slogan: "The serous overthrow of capitalism and 'glaznost' - open public criticism economic adviser and adminis- of Ministers, including the present North won the war. The South its replacement by a state based - especially or rather exclusivelly trlltors - people ho confront the leader of the 'old guard' Pham must manage the economy". It has on the democracy of workers' and of the much weakened 'old guard'. practical side of mplementlng the Hung. clearly been influenced by the peasants' counclls. Rather it seized plan. A measure f their success triumph of the Gorbachev faction total political power for itself first Is that since 19 6 representation in Moscow. Rut it is primarily a of all and demobilised and atomised OUTGOING of this layer at e Congress has CRISIS product of Vietnam's internal eco­ the workers' and peasants' move­ soared from 11 % 0 46%. Whereas nomic difficulties. ment. Then, against its original The elderly outgoing leader the Hanoi based bureaucracy has The hand of the 'reformers' has These problems are of course intentions and proclaimed pro- Truong Chinh, in a speech that was seen its represen ation cut from been strengthened by the mounting partly the product of the US In­ gramme, it carried out the broadcast live to the whole nation, 74% (in 1960) to 46% today. The crisis of the bureaucratically plan­ spired economic blockade of the nationalisation of trade and in­ declared at the Congress that military are dow from 16% in ned economy itself. The massive the country that cut It off from dustry and its centralisation into serious errors in economic policy 1976 to 8% today. The conservative amounts of Soviet aid in energy foreign loans, trade and even the a planned economy. It did this had to be openly criticised. More­ central bureaucr cy and the projects and heavy industry have aid and relief agencies. Aut the under the pressures of internal and over, that criticism had to be military high com and still remain not produced any tangible results. crises and dislocations of the plan­ external counter-revoiution. Thus levelled against himself and the a powerful facto however. Van Indeed it Is now offcially admitted ned economy are not solely to be - despite the historic gains of the old leadership: Linh does not ye have the room that this aid has been 'frittered laid at the door of the US. Now expUlsion of Imperialism, the ex­ ttResponslblllty for these short­ to manoeuvre that Gorbachev has. away'. Inflation is rampant, running a faction of the VCP has been propriation of the bourgeoisie and comings and mistakes rests first However, he is In a stronger currently at 700%, but having obliged to identify an important the creation of a planned economy, of all with the party Central position than eve before to In­ reached 1000% last year when a cause of the crisis in the rampant the Vietnamese proletariat and Committee, Political Bureau, troduce his progra me of economic currency reform engineered by an corruption and mismanagement of poor were robbed of workers' Secretariat and with the reform. old guard leader, To Huu (now the bureaucratiC caste that runs democracy and consequently robbed Cabinet." Since the Con ress he has set retired) went disastrously wrong. Workers Power 91 March 1987 7

In Increase In aggregate 'demand anti-capitalist" spirit recently supply and demand of the mar­ for foreign exchange for capital described by Ernest Mandel (Inter­ ket, and such regulation Is Investment and the import of raw national Viewpoint 9.2.87). 'blind'. Plannlng Is the main materials and components. In­ That this Is the case Is high­ foundation of macroscopIc con­ isis in Asia creased earnings, particularly In lighted by the nature of the poli­ trol. Only with good macro­ the countrYSide, boosted demands tics of Fang Lt ~ hl, vice president scopic control •••• can the for Imported consumer products of the University of Science and economy be active but not such as TVs, cars, calculators and Technology In Hefel, Anhul, and chaotic." (October Review cassettes. hero of disaffected students Vol.12 No.l!) The foreign exchange problem throughout China. He was dismissed Peng also argued for a return was compounded by a slide In 011 from his post by the CCP Central to the system of Party control and prices. 011 made up 28% of foreign Committee and expelled from the bureaucratic planning of the I 950s. earnings In 1985. Some joint -ven­ Communist Party for promoting The views of Chen and Peng are tures were put Into jeopardy westernisation. He supported the popular with party cadres In the because of a lack of foreign fund­ students' demand to nominate their bureaucracy because Deng's eco­ ing, e.g. the US jeep plant In own candidates dot in the "social­ nomic reforms took control from Peking had to be rescued by Ist, egalitarian and anti-capitalist" them and threaten to undercut special funding from the state. The spirit, but because he Is an elitist. their power and privileges. bureaucracy Is faced with the Fang has been a prominent ad­ Since the student demonstrat­ choice of letting market forces vocate of graater Intellectual ions in December and January, control funding supply and excess freedom. In an interview with Peng and Chen have added their Investment though it would make Shanghai World Economic Herald weight to the criticisms and denun­ many state enterprises bankrupt. In November, th main thrust of ciations of "spiritual pollution" In July 1986 the Reminbel was his remarks was that Intellectuals which Is seen as being the result sharply devalued overnight from In China have failed to achieve of bourgeois liberalisation and the US$I : 3.19Rmb to US$I 3.69 their proper status: opening up to western Influence. Rmb - a fall of 13.6%, In the "In society today, knowledge and Peng, echoing Mao's first shot in latest effort to ease Information represent the most the Cultural Revolution, said in a foreign-exchange problems. advanced productive forces • • • New Year speech that In addition to crisis on the eco­ since these forces are controlled "our Intellectuals, Including our nomic front late 1986 saw a re­ by Intellectuafs, It Is natural literary and art workers, should vival of Chinese student mobill­ that Intellectuals should be the serve the people and socialism." satlons doubtless in part because leading force In society." (Far Eastern Economic Review of the relaxation of party control His opposition to the Four Basic - FEER - 12.2.87) over literary and academic debate. Principles - the leadership of the This was a coded attack on bour­ In all probability elements within CCP - Is not based on opposition geois liberalisation though he was the bureaucracy were prepared to to their bureaucratic rule but based careful not to rule out completely encourage and tolerate the demon­ on the assumption of Intellectual the open door policy. strations for their own ends. superiority of academics. "We must stick to the policy In the big character posters put of opening up to the outside up during December and January, world (despite) casting aside the there were demands for a multi­ REPLACEM ENT capitalist system which upholds party system. This was raised exploitation and oppression." against the Four Basic Principles (FEER 5.2.87) that the CP saw as being the The heightened factional stress Since the ousting of Hu Yao­ limits to dissent (to uphold the within the bureaucracy was high­ bang the more conservative ele­ socialist road, the democratic lighted by the unceremonious oust­ ments within the bureaucracy have dictatorship of the people, the Ing of Deng's General Secretary become increaSingly confident. Peng leadership of the CP and Marxlsm­ Hu Yaobang and his replacement Zhen has been calling for a return Leninism-Mao Tsetung thought). It by Zhao Zlyang. Both Hu and Zhao to more orthodox Marxist guide­ was as a challenge to the right of were appointed to their positions lines while President Lt Xiannlan the CP to nominate the candidates In 1978 as proteges of the twlce­ has pointed to dangers that the to the Anhul provincial party con­ purged Deng Xlao Ping when he open door will mean that "our gress that the first student returned to power after the down­ Industry will not grow". The agric­ demonstration took place In Hefel. fall of the Gang of Four. Premier ultural reforms have also come Other demands were more Zhao Is the architect of the eco­ under attack with Peoples Dally general e.g. for freedom - freedom nomic reforms currently sweeping worrying openly that the new rural of press and association, freedom through China. Slchuan, where he wealth is being squandered rather of demonstration. The students was Party Secretary, was where than Invested. As It put It recently copies ofthe Peoples Daily during the New Year student demonstration were Inspired by the overthrow of the agricultural responsibility sys­ "farmers have spent a lot of Marcos and the Philippines and the tem was first Ini tiated. money building new homes and effect on the ideological front central government control. It French student movement. Students Ranged against Deng Is a strong where the party leadership's mono­ occurred despite leadership poliCies many of them even used their and Intellectuals are the elite of coalition headed by such old guard hard earned money to build poly of wisdom was undermined. and regulations designed to hold Chinese society. Though most of Stallnlsts as Chen Yun and Peng temples and tombs and carry Moreover the economic reforms Industrial growth down to manage­ the students are the children of Zhen, 81 and 84 years old respect­ out superstitious activities." created severe dlsproportionalltles able levels. prlviJIged CP cadres and officials, Ively. In the Party National Con­ (Financial Times 23.2.87) within the internal economy and Foreign capital proved that It the new mandarIns, they do have ference In 1985, Chen was Under this pressure Deng and alarming results from the 'open had no Interest In Investing In the grelvances such as unemployment outspoken In his criticism of Zhalo Zlyang have been forced to door' honeymoon with foreign ro.unded development of the after graduation If they wish to Deng's reform mf.asures for their endorse a campaign against 'bour­ capital. Chinese economy. 1985 saw a stay In the cIties or being allo­ lack of central pi nnlng and exces­ geois liberalisation'. Deng Is no By allowing a degree of the drastic deficit on visible trade of cated to posts in distant rural sive reliance n the market stranger to repression. His return market economy to operate In 114.9 billion US dollars. This was areas; high registration fees, Insuf­ mechanism In the economy. He to power was secured during the China the bureaucracy has un­ equivalent to more than half the ficient grant and no Independent pointed out that Chinese Spring of 1979-81 when leashed a form of boom-slump total value of exports last year. student unions. However not all the "regulation by L the market I.e. the anti-bureaucratic democracy cycle. 1985 saw an Investment 1986 also saw a foreign exchange demonstrators were In the "dis­ no planning, ~eans production movement flourished. Once in com- boom that took place outside crisis as the hyper growth resulted tinctly SOCialist, egalitarian and according to the changes of continued on page 8 ...

The current foreign debt of 6 Neither of these options can decentralisation can overcome the by an Increasin willingness by Decentralisation, the profit motive, billion dollars has doubled since break the cycle of crises that disparity that still exists between Vietnam to seek a deal on Kam­ small scale capitalism and piece­ 1981. While rice production has characterise the economies of the North and South. The North, In his puchea with t e pro-Imperialist work are concessions to capitalism Increased since the crop failures workers' states. Neither have ever perspective, will be compelled to states of the re ion. Vietnam will not steps forward to socialism. of 1979, it Is still not reaching a been able to raise the productivity emulate the South's entrepreneurial consider a com romise with Im­ The weakening of the economy level that can guarantee sufficient of labour to a consistent level any­ traditions. perialism that it believes will will not be reversed by these food for the Vietnamese masses. thing like that necessary to effect The key elements of Van Linh's guarantee its 0 n security. The measures, though temporary gains The regime's leading economic the transition to socialism. Indeed programme are a turn away from Vietnamese statnists are not may strengthen the prestige of the spokesman and chairman of the both centralised coercion and large scale heavy industry and the strategically com itted to keeping Van Linh faction. But a return to State Planning CommiSSion, Vo Van market mechanisms tend to under­ collectivisation of agriculture and Kampuchea a w rkers' state. This the old guard's bureaucratic cen­ Kiet summed up Vietnam's plight mine the bureaucracy. The first a turn to food and consumer goods much Is clear fr m the willingness tralism is no answer either. Its In fairly bleak terms: turns It Into a rigid monolithic production carried through by state of the VCP to egotlate with all mismanagement of the economy ". • • the economic situation caste whose privileges are the enterprises with autonomous elements of the ppositlon coalition has left the country In Its present In our country Is stlll rife with object of justifiable Indignation and managers or by small private 'except the Pol ot clique' - that mess. difficulties such as unemploy­ whose rule and repression are hated enterprises. The latter are to be Is except Pol ot and his im­ The best elements of the Viet­ ment, waste of materials, short­ by the masses. The alternative encouraged via the system of mediate supporter. namese proletariat must chart a ages of raw materials and 'market socialism' course, lays the Khoan pioneered by Van Ltnh In course in<1.ependent of either the serious economic phenomena". economy open to capitalist res­ the South In 1981. This is basic­ 'old guard' or the reformers and The 'phenomena' of course, are the toratlonist tendencies which are ally an incentive scheme whereby must win the poor peasants to this chronic shortages of food and con­ enormously strengthened by decen­ private farmers or enterprises sell This means t ey are prepared course. They must demand more sumer goods. tralisation drives. The bureaucracy a quarter of their produce to the to talk to Prince Sihanouk and the than open criticism and an end to The increasingly dominant re­ Itself tends to become fragmented state at a fixed price and are then openly pro-Imperi list elements In corruption and privilege. They must forming wing In the VCP couch as the central planning authority allowed to sell the remainder of alliance with h m. The recent demand workers' democracy and their programme in terms deliber­ weakens. their produce on the open market border clashes wi h China however accountability which' will make ately designed to enlist the support at prices determined in the demonstrate that Vietnam Is no privilege and bureaucratic arbitrari­ of the masses. They declare their market, not by the state. pushover on this uestlon. The VCP ness impossible. Only with the chief enemy to be, in Van Ltnh's OSCILLATION Applied within state Industry knows full well t at their military conscious participation of the words "the bureaucratlsm and cen­ this policy will translate itself Into dominance in In ochina needs to masses in a democratically decided tralised mechanisms". Their chief The Van Linh faction represents a piece-work system that would be maintained to deter any future upon but centrally directed plan task, again using Van Ltnh's own an oscillation towards decentral­ facilitate the creation of a labour Kampuchean gov rnment from re­ can the forces of capitalism In words Is a "complete and radical isation. The specific impulse in aristocratic stratum that could peating the 197 war. But they Vietnam be controlled and de­ renovation". But what Is the con­ Vietnam towards a more 'com­ serve as a social base for the would be prepare to do a deal on feated. To bring this massive tent of this programme? Experience petitive' economy is the disparity bureaucracy. Van Linh favourably Kampuchea if t ir security con­ change about a political revolution in various degenerated workers' between the Nortq, a degenerate describes these measures as ditions can be et. Additionally that will deprive the bureaucracy states has been of oscillations workers' state since 1955, and the "socialist cost-accounting" combined the Van Linh fac on know that the of Its usurped power is necessary. between tight centralised manage­ South where a . relatively well with "business activities". The costs of the occ pat ion cannot be The bloodily severed traditions of ment of the economy - producing developed capitalist economy exist­ combination Is meant to solve the maintained Indefi itely, and In the Trotskyism, once a powerful force crises of disproportlonallty between ed until 1976. Though now In­ economic crisis. For good measure absence of a sta le social base for in Vietnam, must be restored by different sectors of Industry, and tegrated into the planned economy, he Is also proposing breaking the the pro-Vietna Heng Samrin the creation of a new party dedi­ alienating a work force coerced into Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) has state monopoly of foreign trade regime they mig t be obliged to cated to the political revolution meeting unrealistic plan targets - many of the features of the eco­ by giving provinces the right to go for another op ion. and to the expansion of the social and decentralisation the en­ nomy as it existed prior to 1976, import and export goods as they To the extent that the reform­ revolution into capitalist South­ couragement of market competition particularly at the level of small see fit. er's are successf I the gains won East Asia. The possibility Is again and even the Introduction of small scale private enterprises. The Van Not surprisingly these 'reform­ In the long str ggle against im­ raised by the crisis of Stalinism scale private enterprise ventures. Ltnh faction believe that only ing' policies at home are matched perialism will al be jeopardised. In Vietnam. by Mark Hoskisson 8 Workers Power 91 March 1987

GREECE HAS BEEN shaken by this year. Even the new GSSE four general strikes since Andreas leaders have been forced to sup­ Papandreou's government Imposed port token stoppages for fear of an austerity package last October. losing all credibility In comparison There have been three general WORKERS FIG with the KKE and ex-PASOK trade unionists. Aut the GSSE leaders are appointees of Papandreou and only act In order to take the teeth out ~!:~~~:~:g~if:~~;I:~~~f:n:ii~Ing class battles the bosses and ~~SOK"S of any opposition to his govern­ international bankers are firmly ment. They are PASOK's loyal behindit is vitalPapandreou. that the Against energy themand ______... ______stooges. Their treacherous calls for one day strikes threaten to exhaust anger of the workers is not frit­ the workers who are largely en­ tered away in rounds of one day crossed Papandreou's path. BeSides stand up to the EEC and NATO piled up so Papandreou unleashed couraged to sit out the action at actions that never bring the Papandreou only one member of and Improve living standards at a stark austerity package on the home. struggle to a head. the 1981 government remains In home. The chickens have come Greek working class after a second While the ex-PASOK and KKE Papandreou's Panhellenlc Social­ office - the actress Mellna Mer- home to roost for PASOK as world electoral victory In 1985. In Oct­ unions talk of stronger stuff they ist Movement (PASOK) came to courl. 011 prices dropped, as the damaging ober 1986 he Imposed a two year are still hoping these actions will power In 1981 after decades of All of these factors Indicate effects of F.EC membership on wage freeze and announced the persuade Papandreou to return to right-wing government ancl a mili­ the specific nature of PASOK as Greek agriculture became clearer termination of the cost of living the 'true' PASOK path or, In the tary dictatorship. It was formed a party. Despite having a and as Greece's indebtedness In­ sliding scale agrl'ement. A temp­ KKE's case, help get them Into a by a group around Papandreou in social-democratic wing within It, creased. Its popullsm proved as thin orary price freez was terminated left coalition government. the pre-dictatorship Centre Union It Is not a social-democratic party as Ecevit's did, In the crisis that on 2 February. Having regained Once again the parallels with Party of his father. It grew at the like, say, the Labour Party or the wracked Turkey In 1979-80, when power on a platf rm of opposition Turkey are striking and alarming. expense of the liberal centre party German SPD. It Is far closer In the vote-buying reforms were to monetarism PASOK unleashed The Turkish Stallnlsts, the TKP, (EDHK) in the late 1970s. Its character to Ecevlt's former ditched In favour of a massive monetarism against the working pinned their hopes on a left co­ electoral base was not to be found Republican People's Party In austerity drive. class. Crack mi li tarised police - alition with progressive elements among the central core of the Turkey or Garcla's Aprista party Initially the PASOK government the MAT - were sent In to break in Ecevit's RPP right up to the Greek industrial working class who In Peru. In other words It Is a did Introduce reforms. In November student occupations and demon­ day the Turkish military seized were and remain prinCipally organ­ petit-bourgeois populist party, not 1981 a sliding scale of wages was strations resulting In the death of power and set about crushing the ised by the pro-Moscow Greek a reformist workers' party. The legislated for to protect wage one young demon l~trator on Exar­ workers' organisations. In Greece Communist Party (KKE-Exterlor, reformist party that bases Itself levels from erosion at the hands cheion Square In ""thens last Nov­ today the KKE (Exterior), despite as opposed to the smaller Euro­ In the central core of the Greek of Inflation. Some small scale ember. the recent militant muscle flexing, communist KKE-Interior). PASOK's Industrial proletariat Is the KKE natlonallsatlons were effected In hold to a similar popular frontlst votes came primarily from the (Exterior). the construction Industry and of strategy that risks leading the extremely large Greek petit bour­ Niarchos Shipbuilding. Legislation working class In Greece to a geoisie of small shopkeepers, Papandreou's government In- was passed for sex equality and terrible defeat. artisans, lower ranking state em­ herited an underdeveloped capital­ civil marriage rights. Yet as the ployees and small farmers. Ism which had just joined the EEC. bonanza days for Greek capitalism Greek agriculture Is still over­ failed to materialise so the pace NO PATH whelmingly dominated by small of concessions was at first slowed NATIONALIST family units. In the sphere of down and then reversed. manufacture large scale enterprises None of the leaderships within are relatively few compared with the union federations offer a path the preponderance of small family PASOK's politiCS in the 1977 BUTRESSED of decisive organised action for an units. Of Its economically active all out general strike to defend and 1981 elections combined citizens only 45% or 3 million are workers' living standards and force promises to aid agricultural actually wage earners. While the The first two years of PASOK The defender of 'Greece for the the bosses and the rich to pay for co-operati ves and to extend economy grew In the 1960s and government were butressed by Greeks' also did a sharp about turn the credits by securing a sliding nationalisation with a nationalist 1970s at 5-6% annually after an campaign for 'Greece to the mounting foreign debts to the tune on foreign policy. In January 1987 scale of wages and an end to the Influx of foreign capital, the World of $15 billion. EEC membership at Papandreou announced that Greece Greeks'. Its nationalist demagogy Rank stili places Greece In the wage freeze. was laced with anti-Turkish chauvin­ the same time was having a disas­ was staying in NATO and would There are real dangers that 'Intermediate Income' category trous effect on Greece's small negotiate the continuation of US ism and promises to withdraw from along with Brazil and the Phlli­ under such leadership the militancy scale agricultural sector. Rather bases as long as Greece stood to NATO and negotiate the closure plnnes. of the working class will be dis­ of US bases in Greece. than opening an anticipated lucrat­ benefit. The threat of a Turkish sipltated. And this In turn will As a party PASOK has remained Anticipating prosperity as Ive market for Greek agricultural Invasion was given as the excuse pave the way for the Greek right very much the personal property brokers with the 011 rich Middle produce In Western Europe, pre­ for requiring American protection! and the forces of repression to be of Papandreou himself. Not only East, PASOK presumed that Greek cisely the opposite happened. The The Greek working class has unleashed against the workers. Last have left-wingers such as the Rrit­ capitalism could afford reforms to agricultural trading balance went shown its determined opposition to October's local elections saw a ish Militant's counterpc1rt around raise living standards and that It from surplus to a deficit of $3 the austerity package and forced collapse in PASOK's vote. This the paper Xekinema been expelled. required a degree of limited pro­ billion. Inflation leapt to 25% per its leaders to act. Since 1983 the strengthened the hand of the So too has every major politician tective nationalisation. Hence the annum. major trade union federation - the right-wing New Democracy and the or trade union leader who has popular appeal of Its promises to As Greek capitalism's ailments Confederation of Greek Workers fascist National Front, with New (GSSE) - has been led by -PASOK Democracy taking the three major who had 26 places on Its 45 seat cities of Salonlca, Athens and council corn pared wl th the 17 Piraeus. While the KKE (Exterior) places held by the KKE (Exterior). gained votes and 25% registered The KKE also maintains its own blank ballots In the compulsory trade union federation and controls voting the right will be Immeasur­ Athens Trades Council. [n Novem­ ably strengthened if the workers' ber a majority of the GSSE movement goes Into retreat In the (Including several PASOK members) face of Papandreou. voted for a general strike against austerity which Greece's two and a half million organised workers backed unanimously. Taxi drivers WAGE FREEZE joined in, In many areas troops refused to carry o~t strike breaking At present the Greek bosses and International banks are backing activities and tht student move­ ment rallied to th workers. Papandreou so long as he can give The trade unl n leaders were them a legal wage freeze and so not prepared to d ploy the massive long as they need the P ASOK show of strength to force Papan­ machine to tame the working dreou to drop his lans. They never class. But should Papandreou fall, intended any more than a two day or should they no longer need show of opposition which Papan­ PASOK's popullsm as a disguise for dreou was easily able to sit out. their austerity programme, then Immediately afterwards the they will reach for their tradition­ pro-strike PASOI} trade union al right-wing party and the forces leaders were summarily expelled of repression that they control. from his party. T~e courts and the Papandreou likes to talk of the Ministry of Labou imposed a new 'Turkish threat'. In reality the set of pro-Gover ment leaders on 'Turkish threat' facing Greek the GSSE. The e -PASOK leaders workers and students Is that if found themselves, like the KKE, they do not mobilise for victory with their own fed ration. against Papandreou and the bosses Papandreou's f ilure to budge they will be at the receiving end and the Increasing burden of hard­ of the same bloody repression as their class brothers and sisters In Demonstration during January general strike ship for the w rklng class has forced three mor general strikes Turkey.. by Dave Hughes

,.. continued from page 7 Isatlon will be limited to within strength by million, and his pected that .there will be Increas­ economic Isolation and the old the Party and that It reluctance to modernise the army's Ingly footdragging in the Implemen­ style planning may succeed In "should not be linked to the outdated equipment. Also, the eco­ tation of some 0 the "economic­ strengthening bureaucratic rule ,)Iete control, he Immediately poliCies of economIc reform, monlc reforms In the rural areas reforms" particul- rly the factory temporarily but It will not solve turned and removed the "Four rural policies, scientific and made previously prestigious army director responsll) IIty system, a the problems of China's economic Great Freedoms" - the freedom of technical research, exploration positions less attractive. The return to more ce tral control and development. However the prospect speech, publication and demonstra­ in literary and artistic styles Liberation Army Daily Insisted that moves to limit c nsumer spending of serious divisions In the bureau­ tion from the constitution and jail­ and techniques, nor the daily "the whole army corps should also and use of foreign exchange. cracy and attacks on the job ed activists of the movement. He life of the people." (FEER participate" in the campaign The current crisis In the security of Chinese workers opens too, denounced the anarchism of 12.2.87) against bourgeois liberalisation In Chinese bureaucr y Is one that up the prospect of sharp conflicts the students In January. At least The balance of power between the spite of Zhao's instructions. cannot go unnotltd amongst the within Chinese society. In those Initially, the proclaimed target of factions will largely depend on the Stallnlst bureauc acles of the battles the Chinese workers must the crack down was to be 'bour­ stance taken by the People's Liber­ world. The Chin se bureaucracy organise as an Independent force geoiS liberalism' within the party ation army. SHOWDOWN looked to forelg ' capitalism and with an Independent revolutionary Itself. The bureaucracy Is deeply The army, though personally the Internal mar t to solve the party to overthrow the parasitic mindful of the danger of Its own loyal to Deng, is critical of the There seems to be a stalemate accumulating pr blems of Its bureaucracy through political revo­ mternal feuds mobilising forces "economic reforms". It thought Hu at the moment but It Is expected bureaucratically panned economy. lution. Only that can open the way outside Its control and unleashing was over zealous In the de-bunking that there will be a showdown at Now It finds that these self same to a democratically centralised deeper social and political conflict. of Mao and excessive In the In­ Fifth Plenary session of the Sixth 'remedies' are ndercuttlng Its planned road of economic develop­ Zhao gave assurances that the dictment of Mao's errors. It re­ National People's Congress In political rule and sharpening the ment for Chlna.1!! present campaign against IIberal- sented Deng's reduction of troop March. Meanwhile It Is to be ex- conflicts in Its ra ks. A return to byDinWong ______IRI~ ELECTIO~ ______W_o_~_ers_P_ow_~ _9_1_M_~_C_h_19_87___ 9 POLITICAL STAL~ FEBRUARY WITNESSED a to break it from class collaboration. general election in the Irish Thus it never raised the call to Republic, after four years of force Labour out of coalition in the mounting cuts in wages, jobs past four years. and social services under a The Irish Workers Group alone coalition of the big-bourgeois argued the tactical need to 'Vote Fine Gael party and the small Labour' in the elections as a means trade union based Labour of breaking workers from the Party. With the opposition pop­ capitalist parties and to gain the ear ulist Fianna Fail party poised to of the class-conscious minority of reap a majority from the anti­ workers in the unions who, with government feeling, the bitterness for its recent record, still coalition partners staged a see it as their party and even break-up in January and gave believe in reforming it. Few though themselves the longest possible they be, no other party of the campaign period in which to working class, sadly, commands whittle down the commanding the support of a larger fraction, and lead of Charles Haughey. certainly no other reformist party Faced with extinction, Labour has the kind of explicit relation to was compelled to declare its future the unions which might allow a 'independence' in the next par­ mobilised working class to effect­ liament (Dail) and its opposition to ively place demands on Labour austerity. Garret Fitzgerald's Fine which would either make it fight or Gael spelt out its austerity plans Sinn F~in on the campaign trail remove it as the obstacle to building and even challenged Haughey to openly left-wing figures. The Their few small concentrations of of cuts without having to sacrifice a party of revolutionary class struggle. examine the finance books and chronic parliamentary cretinism of votes were as much in the rural the party divisions which maximise The purpose of revolutionaries in justify his expansionary rhetoric. the Workers Party over the past 4 Border areas as in urban working their social dominance, their such an electoral united front with Fine Gael claimed to be the only years of golden opportunities in class communities. control over privileges and their Labour, as argued by the IWG trustworthy accountant for the opposition, resulted in their gaining Left independents Gregory and overwhelming dominance of all nation's finances and succeeded only a tiny increase - from 3.4% to Kemmy were quickly joined by the elections. statement, is to fight to mobilise eventually in whittling down Fian­ Workers Party foursome in calling Yet those claiming to be of the workers in the unions around an 3.9%, adding two new deputies to action programme of resistance to na Fail's credibility in the eyes of their previous two. Labour's more on Labour for a parliamentary revolutionary left have repeatedly the middle class. alliance which would co-ordinate failed to tackle the twin tasks of the offensive of the ruling class - in favourable translation of twice as the economy, in oppressing many votes into three times as its brokerage so as to exact con­ winning workers from illusions in cessions from Haughey while Fianna Fail and of mobilising them women, and in supporting British many seats, compared with WP, is imperialism in the north. Such a MARGINAL due to of transfers from Fine Gael, making it possible for him to in the trade unions to place govern. Labour ignored this call, demands on the Labour Party to programme would necessarily under the single transferrable vote place demands on Labour and the system of proportional repres­ not because of any aversion to which the majority of the unions is The result leaves Fianna Fail just wheeler-dealing with the ruling affiliated - and to call to account union leaders who cover for the entation, based on past class treachery of that party time and short of a majority, with 81 of the class, but for two opportunist also the other 'left' deputies. The collaboration. The results hides again. 166 seats in the Dail. Fine Gael lost somewhat the severity of Labour's reasons. 'far left' groups ignore these 19 seats, down from 70 to 51. There defeat in terms of votes, and the It fears to concede any important tactical questions. They was a marginal swing to Haughey gains for the 'left' have strength­ recognition to the external chal­ prefer to welcome the continuing in working class and small farm­ ened their belief in a Labour revival lengers on the left by co-operating decline of Labour as justified TINY FRACTION ing areas but the party failed to in the future. with them. It regards itself as the punishment, and even welcome the gain the confidence of the middle only viable party of the working refurbishing of reformism in the class.The one-year-old Progressive Nevertheless, whereas Labour class. Secondly, it recognises that growth of the Workers' Party. The Of course, these tactics still only Democrats Party (four 'monetarist' alone gained 17% nationally in there is little chance in any case of Socialist Workers Movement (link­ relate to a tiny fraction of the defectors from Fianna Fail and one 1969, the total ostensible working prising any real policy concessions ed to the SWP) advocated a vote working class at election times. from Fine Gael) retained their seats class vote today was under 13%. out of a Haughey government for the Workers' Party as a wel­ There is repeated evidence, how­ at Haughey's expense. But they This includes Workers Party and which has already publicly been come and 'undoubted shift to the ever, of a strong sentiment for a inflicted far greater damage upon 'left' independents, community offered parliamentary support for left'. fighting opposition of socialists and Fine Gael by taking an additional 9 activist Gregory in Dublin, and its toughest measures by Fitzgerald With complete disregard for any genuine representatives of the seats at Fitzgerald's expense, 'Democratic Socialist' Kemmy in 'in the national interest'. Thus, for method of relating tactically to working class movement to make a returning with 14 seats as the third Limerick who both played the role opportunist reasons, Labour plans parties with an organic base in the stand in the Dail and break the party, the clearest exponent of. in the past of supporting Haughey to take the formally principled road working class, they and the USFI mould of Irish politics along class middle class interests. or Fitzgerald in power. Haughey is of opposing all other nominees for section (Peoples Democracy) called lines. The immediate post-election They failed, however, in their faced with courting them again for TaoiseachlPrime Minister and for votes for the cross-class Sinn talk of a united left opposition in dream of decisively breaking the similar purposes. Although he can putting up its own leader, Dick Fein party. This was despite Sinn parliament caught the imagination historic political division of the bank on the support of the ex­ Spring, for the post. As for the Fein's lack of /iny organic con­ of many, but it quickly showed all ruling class between two parties, a Labour independent, Sean Treacy 'strengthened left' in the Labour nection with the Southern working the signs of being an opportunist division which has seriously obst­ (who was too catholic to support group, when they put up an class (confirmed ,n the results) and manoeuvre. Labour's meagre reforms on ructed the capitalist austerity drive internal opponent to their present despite its op~m disavowal of The union bureaucracy, secretly since 1979. The PDs may yet divorce and contraception) and of -right-wing leader, they could not revolutionary a tion against the preferring to deal with Fianna Fail, remain, however, a potential Donegal nationalist Blaney, that even get a seconder! Southern state. ·le critical elect­ is already openly boasting its still leaves him one short of a catalyst for a Grand Coalition in Now more than ever, organised oral support of S nn Fein is correct commitment to a process of working majority. the period ahead if Haughey workers need to be able to control in the Six Coun . es in the present 'national understanding' which flounders. Sinn Fein will play no role in the the reformist politicians who claim conditions, the all for votes for would certainly ensure that work­ The Labour Party vote collapsed power brokerage, for their dismal to represent them. The co­ Sinn Fein in thi way in the South ers will pay for the crisis. Clearly, from 9.4% to 6.4% but they performance of 1.9% nationally operation of these reformists will can only help cr te a new obstacle the aspiration for working class returned with 12 seats compared to was no better now than in 1982 be crucial for the capitalist parties in the working lass - a renewed political unity will remain the play­ 14 outgoing, and these include two despite ditching abstentionism. to push through their programme faith in the d of cross-class thing of charlatans unless an action populism which enabled Fianna programme of real struggle is spelt Fail in the 1920 to establish the out as its basis. The perilous hegemony that p sists till today. conditions of capitalism in semi­ Militant Tend ncy, which fully colonial, debt-ridden southern ____ SYRIA ______~------supported Labo r in the election Ireland will demand open class canvass, was n more principled, struggle by workers in the period for it fails to use its base in Labour ahead if workers, women and all and the unions to argue for the who resist are not to pay a savage DEFEND THE ~ALESTINIANS mobilisation of workers on an price to save this rotten system. action program e which would by a member ofthe Irish Workers Group openly place de ands on the party ON SUNDAY 22 February, 3,000 prevent the PLO being able to take Imperialism wants to see the Syrian troops moved Into West up their struggle against the Israeli Palestinians removed as a potential Beirut with the supposed mission state. force In the Middle East. The current issu of of "restoring order" to the ravaged Assad has no Interest whatso­ For socialists and democrats, Lebanese capitaL ever In seeing the Palestinians the crucial Immediate task must CLASS ST UGGLE Walld Jumblatt's Druze militia succeed In their struggle for be to defend the Palestinian people Oournal of the In have been attempting to prevent national liberation. The existing against what could well become the Amal achieving total dominance system, created by the Imperialist a pogrom by the Amal Shl'ltes In Beirut, while the Amal have powers and Israel which Balkanlzes aided, overtly or covertly, by the Includes an anal sis of the been doing President Assad of the region and creates and sustains Syrian army. The root cause of the political situation ne year Syria's dirty work for nearly four murderous communal antagonlsms conflict In the Middle East Is In after the Anglo-Ir h deal months by besieging the 45,000 within Lebanon, also Is the basis the consistent denial, since 1947, Palestinians In the refugee camps. which sustains the squalid Baathlst of the right of the Palestinian The Syrians' motive both In regimes In Syria and Iraq. That Is people to nationhood. Any demo­ using Amal and In Intervening why they are partners with crat must support the Palestinian directly Is to prevent the Pales­ Imperialism and the Zionists In the people's right to self-determination tinian camps again becoming a base game of playing first one and and must mobilise to prevent a for Arafat's PLO fighters. Assad then another faction off against massacre in the camps in Lebanon. has two motives. Firstly to make the rest. sure no faction achieves such After having been the epitome • Solidarity with the PLO fighters dominance within Lebanon that his of evil In 1986 and the Inspirer of against Imperialism, Zionism and Send cheques! stal orders for 70p own Influence and role as arbiter International terrorism the West Arab reaction! payable to Work rs Power amongst the warring communities Is now hailing Assad as the • Self-determination for the Is weakened and secondly to restorer of 'order' In Beirut. Palestinian people! F

10 Workers Power 91 March 1987 BLACK WOMEN ORGANISE WHE~ BLACK WOMEN WORKERS In to 47% of white workers. Increasingly organising within SEVENTY YEARS AGO this month Britain have repeatedly demon­ In addition, black workers have caucuses to fight racism in the women workers from the Vyborg strated a capacity to struggle for often taken the lead in major workplace and the indifferences of district of Petrograd marched out their rights. Many of the most struggles; for trade union recog­ union officials. These bodies, such of their factories demanding famous women's strikes In the past nition in the 690 day dispute at as the black workers group in "Bread!". Five days later the work­ decade have been led by black Grunwicks In 1977, which was led NALGO, are vital stepping stones ers and soldiers had led an insur­ women Grunwlcks, Imperial by Asian women; and against raCist to drawing black women Into the rection which forced the Tsar to Typewriters and Chlx are only the employers in the Imperial Type­ unions. This Is often a difficult abdicate. The Petrograd women most well known examples. writer dispute In Leicester in 1974. task given the large number of workers celebration of International The background to such strug­ Despite this It Is all too com­ black women working In sweatshops Womens Day had unleashed the gles is the super-exploitation black mon for black people to find trade or as homeworkers. The unions February revolution. women face at the hands of the union structures alienating, fellow have made little or no efforts to International Women's Day was bosses. Under the Tories this · workers racist and official leaders organise these sectors to date. As first adopted as a holiday for super-exploitation bas been Inten­ Indifferent or hostile to them and a result black women trade union­ proletarian women by the leaders tiifled through policies designed to the problems they encounter as a Ists who have come to the fore GI.'Ullune'K of the Second International's force down wages and trample on result of the racism In British recently have been mainly In white Socialist Women's Movement. Clara employment rights. society. The fact that only 4% of collar unions. Zetkln proposed to the Inter­ The abolition of the Wages black members hold union posts at Recent moves by the TGWU to IIslltlng' national women's meeting In 1910 Councils for example, inadequate any level, compared with 11% of start an organising drive amongst that a day be declared for prole­ as they were In Improving wages white members, Is Indicative of sectors where large numbers of tarian women, similar to the May has allowed more and more em­ this. This low level of participation black women are concentrated has Day workers' holiday. The date ployers to pay rates well below any reflects the real obstacles still not been prompted by the union eventually agreed was 8 March - mlntmum acceptable wage. The facing black union members. The leadership's concern for black commemorating a day on which Institute of Directors agreed that West Midlands Regional TUC women and other unorganised thousands of women workers In abolition would allow further reported In Trade Unionism and workers. It has far more to do New York had demonstrated super-exploitation of black workers: Race (1984): with stemming the dramatic col­ against appalling conditions in the "A statutory minimum wage "Black members see unions as lapse of their membership levels needle workers Industry. discourages employers from white organisations which are (down by almost one million since The holiday was taken up In taking on blacks, who for a either indifferent or hostile to 1979). Russia from 1913 onwards. Because number of soclo-economlc the concerns of black people. Resolutions at the TUC of the old calendar in pre-revolu­ reasons have a lower marginal There is a lack of confidence Women's Conference In 1985 and tionary Russia the equivalant date productivity than whites." in the ways in which unions 1986 have centered in particular was 23 February. In 1913 planned (Wages Councils: The Case for represent their black members. on: youth unemployment, the chances demonstrations were cracked down Abolition December 1984) Grievances are not taken "the unemployment suffered by of young black women finding work on by the police and only leaflets In addi tion by privatising domestic seriously, officials will not ethnic minority women and the remains slim. The burning task now and papers were issued In the end. work In the NHS the Tories have challenge management over need for special measures to is launching a serious fightback The BolsheViks, under the Instiga­ given the bosses the same oppor­ issues of race." assist them In employment; the against unemployme nt, cuts in tion of Konkordiya Samollova and tunities to force down wages and Black women who have taken the need for trade unions to reflect services and provision, etc. Aut if Inessa Armand, produced several the special needs of ethnic attack conditions in the public initiative in getting organised have special measures to assist black articles In their paper Pravda In minority women; ways of en­ sector. Private contractors have faced obstruction and betrayal from women workers are to lay the the weeks before 23 February undercut in-house tenders by cut­ the union bureaucrats. couraging more black women culminating in a special Issue to Into trade unions and to become basis for the active participation ting wages, employing fewer Black women face additional of thousands of black women, then celebrate the day itself. The workers, and undermining conditions problems trying to organise and stewards and full-time officials; articles outlined the reality of life ways In which the TUC could simply an increased number of such as employment protection and struggle. They are met by the black female full-time officials Is for working women In Russia and assist through Its poliCies and holidays. This sector of the health racism and sexism within the union not the solution. argued the need for them to be service is one where many black hierarchies and within their family education courses." organised alongside men in fighting Certainly the trade union move­ Only out of rank and file strug­ women are employed and have and community whenever they try gles will a genuinely representative organisations of the class. suffered badly as a result of these to establish their rights as women ment needs to be made conscious of the plight of black workers In layer of militant black women poliCies. to actively take part in a strike. capable of assuming leadership in In organising collectively against As Grunwick strike leader J ayaben Britain. In a situation of mass unemployment and particularly the unions be forged. The first step these intensified attacks many Desai was to comment at the end towards this Is the organisation of RESPONSE black workers, men and women, of the strike: black women In the unions Into have joined trade unions. This has "My husband gave me every caucuses to fight for the specl fic The response from working partly contributed to the higher help, but few husbands treated demands of black women workers women to these Pravda articles density of unionisation among black their wives like that, all too and rally all workers against the was so overwhelming that there workers. The findings of the Policy often husbands actually prevent­ inaction, the bureaucracy and, in was not enough room in the pages Studies Institute In Its survey Black ed their wives from coming to many instances, the racism of the of the paper for all the letters and White Britain (1984) found that the picket lines." trade union leadership •• received. This prompted Samoilova 56% of all Asian and West Indian In order to overcome these to urge the exiled Lenin and Kru()­ workers were In unions compared problems black trade unionists are by Laura Williams skaya to produce a special paper directed at working class women. Inessa Armand, who herself had been arrested and had fled to campaign. Rates have slipped by exile, was Instrumental In persuad­ 30% since 1979 and the general ing them to agree to this Idea. feeling of union mFmbers Is that Krupskaya raised it on the exiled 1987 must be the year to begin Bulahevlk Central CUlIIlIllttee whldl SCPS victory the fightback. agreed to the production of Having a key section of workers Rabotnltsa (Woman Worker) with CIVIL SERVANTS working In DHSS Blackpool joined the action In early strikers. Aut the treasury - which on the battlefield In the run-up to the launch to be around Inter­ computer centres up and down the February and selected workers In foots the bill for civil service pay strike ballots In j ther branches national Women's Day 1914. country have struck: a major blow the giant computer project at was unhappy at the level of could provide a maj r boost to the These developments within the against the government's plans to Newcastle were balloted over payments being made and could confidence of all orkers to take Bolshevik party occured In response on HMG over pay. he government Introduce regional and merit pay action and voted to strike. have used a defeat for the DHSS to a renewed wave of militant Into public sector wage bargaining. It had been said by the SCPS strike as an excuse to reduce or could not afford t is and needed class struggle In Russia between Computer programmers, technical that the allowance given to Auto­ even scrap the supplements else­ to settle the c mputer strike 1912 and 1914. Women workers support staff and supervisors faced matic Data Processing (ADP) staff where, or just keep them In quickly even at t e expense of were an increasingly important their demands for smashing an attempt to Impose discretionary to tempt them to stay In the Civil reserve for use as merit pay. force in the Russian working class. national wage agree wnts. control over allowances paid to Service was totally Inadequate. A At the start of the strike, After the 1905 revolution the em­ computer staff. They resisted and claim was lodged for a substantial DHSS management refused to ployers deliberately recruited forced the employers to retreat. Increase In the rate to over £2,500 negotiate 'under duress' and offered NOILLU IONS women in preference to men In Fifty SCPS members at the pa. The government responded by a management-only review of ADP many industries. As the bosses' own DHSS computer center In Reading raising the maximum allowance pay, but on condition that the The lesson for a I civil servants factory Inspectorate noted in 1907: walked out on strike at the end payable to £2,000 pa, but kept a strike action was called off. This is clear. Our emp oyers are not "The reasons for this (recruit­ of January In opposition to the portion of It back by saying that was rejected completely by the Invincible. The co nputer victory ment of women - WP) are as payment of discretionary supple­ up to £800 of this would be dis­ strikers and management were left has shown this. We must build on before: their greater Industry, ments. They were angry at the cretionary according to regional to sweat with a computer network that now in fig ting for the attentiveness and abstinence decision by the DHSS management or local recruitment circumstances which was slowly falling to pieces. national pay claim. Aut we should (they do not drink or smoke), to make the payments only to a and the skills of the staff in- Eventually the pressure became be under no Illusio s. The govern­ their compllance and greater volved. . selected minority of the staff In too great for the management and, ment will be back ith attacks on reasonableness In respect of Reading. For DHSS management, this following a meeting between the National Pay Scale' and we will pay." DHSS and Treasury offiCials, an meant drawing a line across the need to be prepared to defend our­ country at Watford and writing off offer was made to the SCPS. The selves again. ANGERED collapse of the bosses' resolve was everything north of It! They also The union ce is holding WORKFORCE decided to further sub-divide the dramatic. Not only did they drop meetings throughout March to can­ Management also decided not Reading work force by offering their demands for regional and vass members' view on a 1987 pay to make any payments to staff merit payments, but they Improved payment to only a select few who, campaign. That pa campaign has By 1914 women made up 25.7% of outside Reading and London and on the payments made to executive they thought, were in most demand already started wit the computer the industrial work force in Russia this angered workers In other DHSS officers by redUCing the qualifying locally. workers scoring th first victory. and were becoming increasingly computer sites around the country. time for the allowance. If 1987 is to be th year when the militant, making all political groups 30 workers at the Livlngston site Not surprisingly the strikers tide is really turne , workers need take notice of them. The bourgeois near J:dinburgh joined the dispute voted overwhelmingly to accept the to attend their meetings and feminists, the Bolsheviks and the to win payments for themselves REGIONAL offer and hailed it as a major demand full suppor for the pay Menshevlks all made special efforts and, following a meeting In the victory. This Is undoubtedly true, claim. Members mu t demllnd that to organise working women In this computer centre at Lytham St It is no coincidence that the but why should the government the union executive link the pay period. DHSS management tried this on. Annes which was addressed by have shifted Its position so quickly? claim with the fight against Despite all but one woman on The government wants to see the strikers from Reading, action was The 1987 pay settlement for regional division an argue for an the Editorial Board in Russia being taken there and key sections of scrapping of national pay scales all civil servants is due on I April all out national st ike in support arrested, Rabotnltsa was produced computer workers struck from early in favour of regional settlements and an alliance of four unions, In­ of the full settleme t. for 23 February. It quickly sold out February. in the public sector. This could cluding the SCPS, has submitted as did the other 5 issues which The Society of Civil and Public then pave the way for private a claim for 15% or £20 per week • Bulld joint com Ittees of clvll were distributed. It was widely Servants (SCPS) made the strike industry to follow suit. minimum across the service. The service unions at office level! read in the factories and groups official as It was In support of Ironically, most other govern­ alliance has also agreed a plan of • For the nationa pay claim ~n of women organised around It, national union policy 'against the ment departments are already pay­ industrial action if the treasury full! many joining the Party as a result. Introduction of discretionary and ing their computer staff across the refuses the deal. There has been The outbreak of war In August regional payments. Groups of work­ board supplements. This only served no fight on pay in the civil service • All out for total victory: halted the production of Rabotnlsa ers elsewhere In Reading and In to Increase the anger of the since the defeat of the 1981 pay by a Reading strike mmittee member but the foundations laid then made Workers Power 91 March 1987 11 WOMEN SET RUSSIA E future work by the Bolsheviks Bolshevik, Menshevlks and_ the several illegal meetings were held The demonstrators from the among women workers much easier Mezhralonka group (an Inter-district In textile factories In the Vyborg Vyborg district were determined to establish. group of socialists committed to District around the theme "War, to reach the governmental centre The mobilisation of soldiers and neither the Bolsheviks or the high prices and the situation of the of Petrograd, b~t the police production for the war effort led Menshevlks) planned propaganda and women worker!" Anger boiled over blocked their way l at one of the to enormous deprivation in the educational meetings for the day. at these meetings. One by one they bridges. Eventually the demonstra­ cities and villages of Russia. As In the Vyborg District on 20 voted to strike, but did not leave tors began crossing the Ice of the early as April 1915 there were February some workers called for their protest at that. Taking to the frozen river Neva. However the riots by women demanding bread, a strike, but all the socialist streets in their thousands the police stili managed to contain and these continued sporadically organisations argued that the class women marched to nearby fac­ them, albeit with difficulty. A pol­ right through to 1917. The specific was not ready for a mass strike tories, shouting for the workers, Ice report of the day explained: role of women workers In the because of Inadequate political women and men, to join them. The "At 4.40pm crowds of approx­ Februrary revolution occured preparation or contact with the flying picket was dramatically Imately 1,000 people, predomin­ because of the very acute way the soldiers. V Kayurov, a local effective, by lOam ten factories antly women and youths, war had affected them. Between Bolshevik leader, met representa­ where shut with 27,000 workers on approached Ka1:an Bridge on 1914 and 1917 the number of tives from women workers on the strike. By noon It was 21 plants Nevskll prospekt from the women employed In the factories eve of Women's Day and urged with 50,000 strikers! Many accounts direction of MlkhaJlovskala increased still further because of them to: report the women entering fac­ Street, singing and shouting the conscription of men to the "act exclusively according to tories, banging on the gates, 'Give us bread'." front line. In the country as a the Instruction of the party throwing snowballs at windows to The demonstrations were not con­ whole the percentage of women committee". get workers out. It seems that fined to those who went on strike Increased from 26.6.% to 43.2%. where, factories did not Immedi­ - women queuelng for bread quickly These women workers were on the ately 'respond to the call to Join joined in the action. One manager whole, new to the cities and the the action, more direct methods reported coming out from his working class. were used. Flying rocks and pieces bakery shop to announce that there of Iron were persuasively used at was no more bread. some plants. In the Vyborg District "No sooner had this announce­ CONCENTRATED there were 59,800 men and women ment been made than the crowd on strike by the end of the day smashed the Windows, broke Into - 61 % of all the factory workers. the store and knocked down Kollontai In Petrograd itself the number Rank and file Bolsheviks played everything In sight." of women working in factories a leading role In pulling plants out Such acts were widespread, reflect­ day, living wages and municipalis­ doubled, rising by 68,200 during the alongside the women workers, but Ing the anger and desperation ation of the laundries. The strike, war to 129,800. There were many of the leaders were far more mainly of women and youths. The in May 1917, lasted 6 weeks and thousands of women workers con­ reluctant. Bolsheviks argued against 'vandal­ '(ollontal was sent In by the centrated in large factories - up Ism' and tried to direct the Bolsheviks to work alongside the to 10,000 women in one plant - protests by organising meetings and women. The Bolsheviks had quickly with less than three years experi­ INDIGNATION by calling for a three day general responded to the militancy of ence by 1917. Often their hus­ strike plus intensified propaganda women In 1917 and set up a bands, sons and brothers had been towards soldiers. Women's Bureau led by Vera conscripted for the war. Minimal The Vyborg leader Kayurov Slutskaya. This relaunched Rabot­ food rations were often available WORKERS wrote later: nltsa and built up support In the only by queuelng for up to 4 hours If••• to my surprise and Indig­ INCREASED factories, among soldier's wives and a day - sometimes even then the nation • • • we learned... of led large demonstrations against the strike In some textile food ran out. Women earned about HISTORY In the following days the num­ the war. factories and of the arrival of The role of women workers In half the wages of men, were con­ ber of workers on strike Increased a number of delegates from the the Russian revolution was magnifi­ centrated in textiles and chemical steadily. The government sent women workers who announced cent, and taught the revolutionary industries where hours were long The action was Intended to be police and troops In to disperse the (that they were going on leadership much. Rut their very and conditions poor. They often limited to factory meetings In demonstrators by any means neces­ strike). I was extremely Indig­ spontaneity meant that they were suffered physical and sexual harras­ order to make propaganda. The sary, but the revolutionary wave nant about the behaviour of the not always In the revolutionary sment from the bosses and their socialist groups all underestimated was able to meet this challenge strikers, both because they had vanguard throughout 1917. They lackey foremen. the mood of the women workers by winning Cossacks over and blatantly Ignored the decision The Intensity of the oppression In the factories. However the lack eventually whole regiments Joined struck, demonstrated and rioted of these women led to explosive of control by the political leaders of the district committee of the Insurgents. By 27 February because of the intensity of the the party, and also because they rebellions. In general the strikes over these women did not mean most soldiers In Pe ~ rograd had 'gone oppression, but this also reflected had gone on strike after I had ;'""olviu~ predominantly women th.. t rhe actlon was totally unpre­ over to the side of the Insurgents. their lack of organisation, their appealed to them only the night workers had economic aIms, where­ pared as some Bolsheviks seemed Workers were arming themselves newness to political and trade before to keep cool and diSCip­ as by late 1916 more of the to think. In their militia, and It was women union activities. This is often true strikes In the male dominated '7he largely female staff of the lined." workers who played a vital role of working class women - their engineering and metalworking Vasllesky Island trolley-park, Despite such Indignation the In breaking the troops from the role within the work force as a Bolsheviks were able to overcome Industries were for political ends. sensing general unrest a few regime. As Trotsky's account 'peripheral' element, poorly paid. these feelings and seize the oppor­ This reflected the longer tradition days before February 23rd, sent reveals: shifted in and out of work depend­ tunity offered to them. Agreeing of organisation of the male a woman to the neighbouring "A great role Is played by Ing on the fortunes and needs of to build the strike they gave polit­ workers, some with Bolshevik and encampment of the 180th Infan­ women workers In the relation capitalism - leads to them being Ical leadership by raising the Menshevik organisers long establish­ try Reg(ment to ask the between workers and soldiers. generally poorly organised In unions slogans "Down with the Autocracy! ed within their ranks. soldiers whether they would They go up to the cordons more and political parties. Even where Down with the War! Give us membership of unions Is high, By February 1917 the class shoot at them or not. The boldly than men, take hold of bread!" women are rarely active in the struggle was intensifying. But answer was no, and on the the rifles, beseech, almost In other districts of the city although there were many strikes twenty-third, the trolley-car command: 'Put /lown your bayo­ leadership because of their oppres­ strikes that day were less exten­ In Petrograd during January and workers joined the demonstra­ nets - join us! , The soldiers are sion which denies them time. due sive, but no less militant. Over the to domestic commitments, and February, none of them sparked tlon." (Stites, The Women's excited, ashatped, exchange whole city between 20 and 30'Yo obstruction by male leaders. the whole city In the way the Liberation Movement In RUSSia, anxious gl~ waver; some­ women were to do. In preparation pg 20) of the workers struck, with over one make up hili mind first, and for the Women's Day celebrations On the morning of the 23rd 80 factories shut. the bayonets riSe guiltily above the shoulders $the advancing CONTRADICTORY crowd. The bier Is opened, a joyous 'Hurr " shakes the This lack of traditional organ­ air. The soldiers are surrounded. Isation has contradictory results Everywhere ar~uments, repro­ - on the one hand women can be, aches, appeals - the revolution as the February revolution makes another forward step. " shows, the most militant fighters (Trotsky, Histor of the Russian because they are unfettered by the Revolution) conservatism which so often occurs with union organisation. But on the other hand it makes women easy ABDIC TION targets for propaganda which may be anti-working class. In the weeks after the February Revolution The development 0 that revolution thousands of working class women and the abdlcatlo of the Tsar were mobilised by liberal bourgeois opened up a whole new period for feminists to demonstrate for the Russian work ng class. The women's suffrage and continuation Provisional Gov rnment that of the war! The Bolsheviks were emerged from the February revo­ able to establish a mass base lution was staffe by bourgeois among women by mld-1917 which polltlclans and In a 1 unstable posi­ led them once again to demons­ tion, balanced as I was alongside trate against the war, but this took the organs of a d fferent kind of special efforts at organisation and power, the Soviets f Workers' and propaganda. Soldiers' Deputies Within the The lessons we can learn from factories workers ere emboldened the Bolsheviks and working women - the factory co mlttees sprang In this period are rich Indeed. The up, control was de anded over pay revolution, as Lenin was to point and conditions. The workers' militia out years later, would never have conflicted with th weaker civil succeeded without the mobilisation militias of the gove nment. of the women. Revolutionaries Women workers continued to must never underestimate the play an important oleo They were centrality of relating to women the most determl ed to win an workers. Special forms of propa­ eight-hour day, the sought decent ganda and organisation are needed wages and support d demands for to win them to the side of the equal political rlgh including suf­ revolutionary Party, but once won, frage. Indeed the fI st major strike they will be the most brave and against the Provlsi nal Government militant fighters for they have so was of 3000 omen laundry much to gain!O Women workers march, Petrograd 1917. The banner reads "Comrades, workers and soldiers, support our demands" workers who struck for the 8-hour by Helen Ward ..

". continued from front page Restart and for Labour to pledge in particular - and refuse to be itself to a plan of public works to treated as second class citizens. put all the unemployed back to They must mak their branches work at the average national wage. centres of cam aigning for the We must fight to force the unemployed to 111 k up with each entire labour movement to ensure other as the bas's for an Unem­ that for mIllions of young people ployed Workers' Movement. Hand there is an alternative to slave In hand with employed trade union labour In the Tories' work camps. activists and Labour Party activists Not only does the alternative mean they must fight for a union boy.,. allowing the unemployed to suffer cott of JTS and for councIls not continual Indignity and harassment, to take on JTS placements. They it means opening even further the must fight for a trade union and gulf between organised labour and Labour Party campaign to abolIsh the ranks of the unemployed.

THIS MONTH IS the second breach In the union" without anniversary of the end of the stating clearly his opposition to the miners' great strike of 1984-5. The FOR THE SACKED - scab-herding leadership of the UDM strike In February of 3,000 miners and commitment to never let the In the Selby complex superplt In likes of Lynk back Into the NUM. Yorkshire, revealed that the spirit And despite being formally In of that strike has not been extin­ favour of the reinstatement of the guished. sacked men at a meeting at The week long strike was In Hatfleld Main he said "the sacked protest against the management's miners' Issue was lost the day the stopping of bonus payments. They VOTE GEORGE LIPPltT strike finished." A vote for halted payments after a walk-out Thompson therefore, wIll not turn three weeks prior to the week the tide In favour of rank and fIle strike, when a top British Coal control In the NUM. manager visited the Selby complex. There Is no doubting the fact that the NUM's defeat has led to RANK AND FILE management gains since 1985. They have ridden roughshod over count­ less local agreements. They have attempted to Impose a far sharper The fourth candidate, E:rlc disciplIne within pits. Llppltt, a sacked miner from the More Importantly over 100,000 Midlands Area, Is standing openly jobs have been lost In the mines as a candidate of the rank and and 59 pits closed over the last file, a candidate of opposition to two years. But a spirit of milItancy those In the leadership who are sttll exists amongst an Important back-pedalling, and a defender of section of rank and file miners. the traditions of the Great Strike. Indeed, the Selby strike Is only I-Ie Is for the reinstatement of all the latest In a series of smaller sacked men and the release of all protest strikes which have occured miners Imprisoned as a result of at pits such as Hatfleld Main and their activities In the strike. He Silverwood In South Yorkshire, regarded the Executive's refusal Durham and South Wales. But this to give a recommendation on how spirit of milItancy will need to be _ to vote to the delegate conference built upon If the continued attacks t: that ended the strike as an abdl~ by 13ritlsh Coal are to be resisted. :5. cation of leadership. He Is In ~ favour of a campaign to rebuild - the union's strength through a fight "D for the full wage claim. He Is for JOBS AXED ~ demanding of a Labour government B the repeal of all the anti-union V'J laws, for retrospective legislation to reimburse all the NUM funds The British Coal bosses, have .§ ~ lost In the strike. Llppltt Is also earmarked a further 45,000 jobs In favour of waging a gilllD.311l.n to be axed In the Industry. In agalnSt we l.JDM, anCl argues that response to the NUM pay claim be stopped then the VVheeler patlon at all levels, with demo­ Given Clarke's politicS many they must be kept out of concilia­ of £8.65 across the board, Haslam Report must be totally rejected cracy and accountablllty In our militants are saying that Thompson tion bodies. He Is for resistance has said that the Board will not by the NUM. Also, while holding unions-" should be voted for. Yorkshire, to the pit closure programme. negotiate on pay until a new con­ out for their full pay claim miners He went on to call for a more Kent, Notts and Derbyshire have In many ways Eric Llppltt's cilIation scheme Is adopted. The must oppose the management's representative annual delegate all lined up behind him. The feeling candidature reflects the militancy new scheme will mean that Arltlsh conditions on conciliation. The conference. The question of who Is that despite Thompson's past and determination which stili exists Coal will recognise the UDM's scab NUM, not Lynk's scab UDM Is the to vote for In the coming election activities - such as his role In amongst a significant minority of outfit and not the NUM in areas only miners union. ' Opposition to should be based on assessment of blocking effective picketing at NuM members. We In Workers where they have the majority of all redundancies and pit closures which candidate can further such Orgreave for many weeks prior to Power are cal\lng for a vote for members. must be linked to a struggle for moves towards rank and file the major battle and for his Llppltt as the candidate who Is I3ritish Coal's Wheeler Report, the reinstatement of the sacked control of the union. attitude to the Kent miners who most clearly committed to the which embodies Its long term and victimised men and the release Four candidates are standing carried on picketing In Yorkshire need to rally rank and file miners strategy will, I f Implemented, mean of all jailed miners. It Is these for the post. ]Im Dowllng, the at the end of th~ Great Strike - for a f1ghtback In the traditions reducing the workforce in indivi­ basic and Immediate demands which Power Group general secretary, Is he Is at least a "Scarglll man". of the Great Strike. dual pits by up to 20% under­ all NUM members need to put to an open right-winger and no miner In fact, Is nothing In The dominance of regional based ground, and 25% on the surface. the fore In the period leading up should give him a vote. E:rlc Clarke Thompson's te' suggest electoral machines In the NUM are It also aims to prIvatise large to the vice-presidential elections and Sammy Thompson the Scottish that he does for anything weighting the votes In favour of sections of the industry. For on 19 March. and Yorkshire general secretaries different from His princ- the two front runners. But rank example, in the new Selby complex .respectively are the clear front ipal theme Is Importance and file militants need to stand out of a projected total of 700 runners In the election campaign. of having a reman on the firm for principles and firm against new jobs, 480 will go to private E:rlc Clarke Is both a loyal executive. This 1st approach the rightist drift of the majority contractors. For the new £90 WHICH CANDIDATE? supporter of Nell l