So& Wloirkdersa’ Lirbeirtty y No 243 25 April 2012 30p/80p www.workersliberty.org For a workers’ government

Strikes in Fighting the Tower Hamlets Burma Tories: what next? school strike page 3 pages 6-7 page 11 Hollande: will “amend” EU cuts plan Fight to

“They are reassuring the markets, but what reverse about us?” French protest against austerity measures See page Euro-cuts! 5 Rally the European left to defeat far-right nationalists NEWS What is the Alliance Missed chances in 3 May polls? for Workers’ Liberty?

Today one class, the working class, lives by selling By Colin Foster Labour stronghold, looks oral campaign “poor” or its to another, the capitalist class, in danger of being cap - “awful”. which owns the means of production. Society Tory MP Nadine Dorries tured by the Scottish Na - George Galloway’s Re - is shaped by the capitalists’ relentless drive to said it: the Government tional Party, which for spect group has been increase their wealth. Capitalism causes is led by “two arrogant many has more credibility boosted by his Bradford poverty, unemployment, the blighting of lives by posh boys who show no as a representative of “old- West by-election victory on overwork, imperialism, the destruction of the remorse, no contrition, Labour”-type reformism 29 March. It was previ - environment and much else. and no passion to want than Labour currently has. ously on the verge of shut - Against the accumulated wealth and power of the to understand the lives In October 2011 an anx - ting up shop, but will now capitalists, the working class has one weapon: solidarity. of others”. ious Labour Party hierar - hold a national conference chy sent officials to in June. At short notice it The Alliance for Workers’ Liberty aims to build solidarity As council elections and manipulate the selection of Livingstone is losing the has been able to muster 12 through struggle so that the working class can overthrow referenda on whether cities council candidates, and the charisma battle candidates for the 30 coun - capitalism. We want socialist revolution: collective ownership want elected mayors ap - officials deselected 16 cil wards in Bradford, but of industry and services, workers’ control and a democracy proach on 3 May, Labour councillors with a total of of mayoral candidate Ken in Birmingham, where it much fuller than the present system, with elected has at last begun to pull 190 years on the council. Livingstone have become a once had a number of representatives recallable at any time and an end to ahead in the polls, leading Deselected Labour coun - handicap rather than an councillors, it proposes a bureaucrats’ and managers’ privileges. the Tories by a margin var - cillors have formed a electoral asset: he lags be - vote for the Greens. We fight for the labour movement to break with “social iously estimated between group called “Glasgow hind the Tories’ Boris John - The Trade Unionist and partnership” and assert working-class interests militantly 7% and 13%. First”, which will stand 22 son in polls, by a margin Socialist Coalition (a group It would be much more against the bosses. candidates on 3 May, prob - varying from 6% to 2%. run by the if Labour’s leaders cam - Our priority is to work in the workplaces and trade unions, ably taking votes from Although only 14% of with some leaders of the paigned properly against supporting workers’ struggles, producing workplace bulletins, Labour, and two other des - people polled think John - RMT rail union) is running the Tory cuts and against helping organise rank-and-file groups. elected Labour representa - son is “in touch with the in the list section in Lon - those whom Ed Miliband We are also active among students and in many campaigns tives will stand as concerns of ordinary peo - don (not the constituency rightly calls “the preda - and alliances. independents. ple”, he has outdone Liv - section, and not the may - tors”. But for 3 May For the Greater London ingstone in the “colourful oral contest. Labour council candidates A YouGov poll shows it We stand for: Assembly election, Labour maverick” act. 50% say are saying they will com - scoring 0%, but such Independent working-class representation in politics. has an opinion-poll lead of Johnson has “charisma”, G ply with Government cuts, polls may be very inac - 9% in the constituency sec - and only 15% will say the G A workers’ government, based on and accountable to the only softening them. curate for smaller par - tion and 11% in the list sec - same for Livingstone. 38% labour movement. As a result, Glasgow ties. tion. The individual quirks judge Livingstone’s may - G A workers’ charter of rights — to organise, to City Council, long a strike, to picket effectively, and to take solidarity action. G Taxation of the rich to fund decent public services, homes, Woodford, Essex. education and jobs for all. with a pregnancy. We need blocked the rush hour traf - G A workers’ movement that fights all forms of oppression. A group calling them - to remember why women fic. Full equality for women and social provision to free women selves the “Helpers of fought for the legalisation Many of those on the from the burden of housework. Free abortion on request. Full God's Precious Infants” at - of“aBbeofrotiroent. he 1967 Abor - protest were workers at equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. tempted to stop women tion Act women were the centres; some were Black and white workers’ unity against racism. from attending their ap - forced to resort to dan - scared of being seen on the G Open borders. pointment at the clinic. gerous methods of ter - protest but all had been G Global solidarity against global capital — workers They held up images of mination. Today 1 in 8 collecting petitions and everywhere have more in common with each other than with foetuses and blocked one women die undergoing joining with parents to op - their capitalist or Stalinist rulers. side of the road, handing unsafe backstreet abor - pose the cuts to jobs and G Democracy at every level of society, from the smallest out flyers which claimed tions in places where it services. workplace or community to global social organisation. that abortion will “damage is still illegal.” Many of the workers G Working-class solidarity in international politics: equal your maternal instinct and said they were Unison rights for all nations, against imperialists and predators big Stop ... bonding process with Feminist Fightback members and that there www.feministfightback.org.uk had been no meetings to and small. any other children you let them know what was G Maximum left unity in action, and openness in debate. anti-choice have” and can lead to “al - cohol, drug abuse and eat - happening. G If you agree with us, please take some copies of Solidarity harassment! Consultation meetings to sell — and join us! ing disorders.” When feminist activists will take place at each cen - 020 7394 8923 [email protected] On Saturday 21 April attempted to intervene to tre — parents and workers Feminist Fightback and stop this harassment they will attend all of those 20e Tower Workshops, Riley Road, other pro-choice ac - were met with aggression. meetings making their op - London, SE1 3DG. tivists tried to prevent One pro-choice activist position clear. anti-abortion extremists was head butted by a par - We now need union from marching to a ticularly zealous “pro- meetings to organise bal - Marie Stopes clinic in lifer.” lots for action and a co-or - Soon after reaching the dinated ongoing GET SOLIDARITY clinic Feminist Fightback Save Sure coMmemrusenyitsyidcaemWpoamigenn. Anti-fascist decided to leave in order Against the Cuts and to reduce disruption for Start! Liverpool Against the EVERY WEEK! success service users. Cuts will be helping with Special offers Such extremist tactics, On Thursday 19 April a that co-ordination. Anti-fascists in imported from the United colourful and noisy G Trial sub, 6 issues £5  Brighton succeeded in States, have been on the protest of 250 women, Jayne Edwards massively outnumber - rise in the UK in recent children and men, plus G 22 issues (six months). £18 waged  £9 unwaged  ing and disrupting the months. Another abortion teddy bears and bal - Alfie annual far-right clinic in Bloomsbury, Lon - 44 issues (year). £35 waged £17 unwaged loons took place in op - G   “March for England” don was targeted through - position to cuts in Sure Meadows on Sunday 22 April. out the whole of March by G European rate: 28 euros (22 issues) or 50 euros (44 issues) Start nursery care provi -   the 40 Days for Life cam - Nationalists were re - sion in Liverpool. On 18 April a jury failed paign, which used similar duced to a curtailed to reach a verdict on Tick as appropriate above and send your money to: tactics of intimidation and The council is planning march and tiny rally in - whether Alfie Meadows, harassment. to cut close 10 of 26 Sure 20e Tower Workshops, Riley Road, London, SE1 3DG side a police cordon, the student activist Feminists and the pro- Start centres. This will Cheques (£) to “AWL”. well away from their nearly beaten to death choice movement are now mean job cuts as well as planned route. by a policeman on a Or make £ and euro payments at workersliberty.org/sub. stepping up to take on this the devastation of child - The success is a vindi - demonstration in 2010, kind of harassment. One of care services people rely cation for direct-action was in fact guilty of vio - these activists, Katie Cruz on. anti-fascism, as against lent disorder. Name ...... from Feminist Fightback, Private nurseries are the let’s-have-a-festival- comments that “these ex - over subscribed so many Colin Goff, Vishnu two-miles-up-the-road- tremists are not simply ex - parent are worried they Wood and Jack Locke were Address ...... from-where-the-fascists- pressing their opinion. cannot continue to work or found not guilty of violent are approach to combat - They are preventing study. disorder, but Locke was ...... ing the far-right. • More from women from accessing The protest took place at found guilty of arson. The Brighton Anti-Fascists health services and the consultation meeting jury also failed to reach a ...... and Schnews at: spreading dangerous mis - called by Liverpool council veArdlfiicet’sonreZtraicaKl iisngu.nlikely bit.ly/IlUvmR information. It is a — 100 people went inside I enclose £ ...... to take place before Oc - woman’s right to choose to present a petition while tober 2012. whether or not to continue the rest stayed outside and

2 SOLIDARITY INTERNATIONAL Myanmar: workers begin to move Billionaires out of media! Tories out of office! By Rhodri Evans the government. Public works were done by forced “What the West must re - labour, a system which By Gerry Bates could excuse the emails alize is that in today’s continues despite being of - geopolitical situation, only by saying that he was ficially abolished in 2000. Evidence on 24 April at “not sure they were accu - particularly given the rise Agriculture remained in the Leveson Inquiry has of China, it needs Myan - rate”. private hands, but the state shown Tory Culture Min - In December 2011, also mar”, declared a top offi - became the sole buyer of ister Jeremy Hunt as act - cial of Myanmar’s at the Inquiry, he dealt agricultural produce; those ing almost as a Murdoch with evidence of an email (Burma’s) military dicta - small industrial and com - employee. torship in a recent article to him which had detailed mercial farms which re - the phone-hacking which for the Washington Post . This, while he was sup - mained were under strict he said he had been un - government control and posedly in charge of im - The military regime has aware of by claiming that regulation. partial government been rebalancing away Strike at Tai-Yi footwear factory in Rangoon he hadn’t read the email — More than 50% of the scrutiny of the Murdoch from its long-time ally, though he had replied to public budget is still spent empire’s bid to take full China, and trying to draw still rests with the mili - ally representing the work - it! on the military, the coun - ownership of BSkyB, and in Western aid and invest - tary’s 11-member National ers”. The Murdoch empire try’s public health services whether it was admissible ment — in the first place, to Defence and Security Yet the hold of the mili - eventually dropped its are reckoned the second- under the laws about get EU and US sanctions Council. tary is weakening. BSkyB bid, because in the worst in the world, and media ownership. lifted. Deeper down in Burmese meantime the News of the HISTORY only half Burma’s children Labour has called for It has been spurred on by society, however, the work - World phone-hacking scan - It took power through a complete even primary Hunt to resign; the Tory prospects of revenues from ing class is beginning to dal had exploded. It con - coup by nationalist army school. Daily Telegraph tips him as offshore gas fields and move. Strikes and unions tinues to explode. officers in 1962, fourteen The Militant tendency in “the next minister to go”, clothing exports. In Janu - had been banned since the Much has come out years after Burma won Britain, forerunner of ahead now of Health Min - ary 2011, the Indian-based 1962 military coup; but in about close links between independence from today’s Socialist Party and ister Andrew Lansley. Burmese newsletter February 2012 workers at the Murdochs and top To - Britain. Socialist Appeal, was so Emails produced in evi - Mizzima reported that the the Chinese-owned Tai Yi ries, including David thrilled by the nationalisa - dence showed a Murdoch number of clothing facto - slipper factory struck for Cameron. News Interna - The officers established tions that it declared aide reporting that he had ries in Burma had in - higher pay, and eventually tional has made out-of- a more-or-less complete Burma to have become a information, “although ab - creased from 120 to more won gains through an arbi - court payments to settle 50 “Stalinist” structure from “workers’ state”, albeit solutely illegal”, on what than 200 over the previous tration court decision. claims of phone-hacking above, by purely military “deformed”. Hunt would tell Parlia - six months. The military government so far; 46 new ones are un - methods. The military turned ment the next day; that To help Western in - has announced a new derway; another 200 in the They outlawed all politi - Burma’s economy inwards, Hunt wanted the Murdoch vestors think they can deal labour law legalising months ahead; and the cal opposition, banned limiting trade. From being aide to work with civil ser - with a minimally pre - unions and (conditional on Metropolitan Police now unions, took over the direct one of the less poor ex- vants on an official state - dictable and open regime, notice to the bosses, and estimates there may be management of most edu - colonies, Burma declined ment on the bid; and that the military dictatorship outside “essential serv - 4,791 victims. The Met it - cational and cultural organ - by the late 1990s to one- Hunt and Murdoch’s peo - has been easing up. On 1 ices”) strikes. Pro-worker self has been tainted by ev - isations, and established an eighth of the average in - ple had a common “plan” April it called a by-election lawyer Phoe Phyu told The idence of being in cahoots official single governing come per head of which would lead to for 45 vacant seats in the Irrawaddy magazine that with Murdoch. party with ancillary mass neighbouring Thailand. “game over for the opposi - Parliament, and let Aung the law is inadequate even Billionaires like the Mur - organisations. They nation - In 1988, the people of tion”. Suu Kyi’s opposition Na - compared to old British dochs are not fit people to alised external and internal Burma rose up, led by stu - David Cameron put tional League for Democ - colonial labour law, be - control public information. trade, and large sectors of dents and Buddhist monks. Hunt in charge of the The labour movement racy win 43 of them. cause it gave no protection manufacturing. The military eventually should campaign to re - to workers against being quelled the revolt and scrutiny in December 2010, On 23 April the new Private capitalists were taking the job away from move Cameron and Hunt NLD MPs refused to take sacked for union activities, forced out, not so much be - staged a coup-within- from office, and to take and that a clause which the-coup, reshaping mili - Lib-Dem minister Vince their seats in Parliament cause they were capitalists Cable, who was reported the assets of the big unless the parliamentary says that strikes must have as because they were al - tary rule but, in the media chains into public prior approval from a yet- following years, gradually to be hostile to Murdoch. oath was redrafted and the most all Indian or Pak - James Murdoch, son of ownership, allocating the government signalled that to-be-established “Labour istani. All sizeable unwinding Stalinist resources democrati - Federation” would “make rigours and opening up Rupert Murdoch and chair it would probably concede. industrial and commercial until November 2011 of the cally with guarantees of The military still controls a sure that future labour enterprises became mili - the economy to the world access and right of reply unions will be boss-repre - market. holding company for the huge majority in Parlia - tary-run. Prices were set by Murdoch papers in Britain, for minorities. ment, and decisive power sentative, rather than actu - Greece: the threat from the far right

By Theodora Polenta February 2012 protests” left-wingers and right- They are attacking 15.5%, and New Democ - the fascists of Xrisi Aygi in (against the government wingers, between support - refugees and immigrants as racy, 21.6%. isolated “military-type” ac - Citizen Protection minis - voting for the second cuts ers of democracy and the most vulnerable and It will be bad if KKE and tions detached from the ter Michalis Chriso - memorandum). fascists, between bosses unprotected sections of the do not act in time majority of the Greek soci - choidis claims that by Nikos Michaloliakos, and workers, between neo- working class. But their against the fascist and ety are ineffective and being “tough” on “illegal” leader of Xrisi Aygi, was liberals and socialists, be - main enemy is the workers, racist threat. Just recently counter-productive. immigrants he will mar - imprisoned in 1976 for vio - tween progressives and the students, and the KKE has started to open up In the early 30s a lot of ginalise the far-right Xrisi lently attacking journalists conservatives, between neighbourhood community a front against Xrisi Aygi heroic members of the Ger - Aygi (Golden Dawn). who covered the funeral of capitalists and proletari - movement that has been their newspaper. The politi - man Communist Party a military junta torturer. In ans…Xrisi Aygi draws the fighting the government cal consequences are yet to were killed in fights with The results are the exact 1978 Michaloliakos was line between Greek citi - and the Troika. be drawn by KKE. the Nazis. But because of opposite. In 12 polls be - convicted for placing zens, who are our social A robust and combative the refusal of their leader - tween 18 and 20 April, Xrisi bombs at cinemas. In Janu - body, and the others, the LEFT RESPONSE working class movement ship to cooperate and unify Aygi averaged 5.4%, way ary 2011, as an elected foreigners”. Both of the two main left- that leads the struggle with the majority of the up on its 0.29% in 2009. member of a council, he It calls for an escalation wing parties seemed until against austerity can German working class, the If Xrisi Aygi wins seats in gave a Nazi salute during a of militarisation of Greece... recently to be distracted strengthen the unity of the German communists’ the 6 May election it will council meeting. “Massively increase de - by the increase of their working class and thus has heroic actions did not stop get a wider audience and Yet now Xrisi Aygi is at - fence spending”, “Liberate electoral percentages. the potential to defeat the the strengthening of fas - significantly improve their tracting votes of discontent the North of Epirus [i.e. fascists. But it absolutely cism. finances. KKE [the diehard-Stalin - against so-called “main - southern Albania] and necessary to also building The fight against fascism For over 15 years Xrisi ist Greek Communist stream politics and corrupt unify it with mother up a specific political front and racism is not a private Aygi has been regarded as Party] was dreaming of politicians”. Greece”, “Liberate Occu - against the fascist and affair of the anti-capitalist a marginal Nazi gang of further building up the It uses slogans like “Xrisi pied Cyprus” — and other racist threat. left. It can only become ef - criminals. Today they are party in isolation from Aygi will cleanse the dirt ultra-nationalist Big Ideas The anti-capitalist revo - fective with the broadest playing the card of “anti- other left-wing movements, from Greece” and “Greece that end up as Big Catastro - lutionary left should take and most massive appeal. memorandum patriotism”. and Syriza [a coalition cen - belongs to the Greeks”. It phes. the initiative to organise It should involve the whole Xrisi Aygi members have tred on the former Euro - hides in some so-called No worker, young per - against the fascists. In the of the working class. said they “will be utilising communists], of a We can only defeat fas - neighbourhood committees son, or unemployed person struggle against the re- their experience so that progressive government cism if we form a robust and offers “concrete help” should be fooled. Whatever emergence of fascism, they can enforce law and with the left at its centre. united front of all working to the elderly, “protecting the neo-Nazis of Xrisi Aygi numbers matter. order when the police is In 12 polls between 18 class organisations, all them” against the “threat” say, their enemy is not the The heroic teams of anar - failing to do so, such as and 20 April, KKE has av - left parties, of all trade from immigrants. capitalists and the “corrupt chists who regard it as their during the student move - eraged 9.6%, Syriza 10.6%, unions and organisations It states: “Xrisi Aygi does MPs”. Their enemies are all personal and ethical re - ment of December 2008 or and the and youth movements. not divide Greeks between of us . sponsibility to deal with more recently during the 12 8.0%. Pasok averaged

SOLIDARITY 3 REGULARS Help the AWL Mail revives its murky past

On 10 July 1933, the paper’s proprietor Lord Rothermere raise £20,000 wrote: “I urge all British young men and women to study closely Press Watch the progress of the Nazi regime in Germany. They must not Support our May Day Appeal. By Pat Murphy be misled by the misrepresentations of its opponents. They have started a clamorous campaign of denunciation against Would you like to build support for your dispute or The Daily Mail , like the Tory Party, has been trying for what they call ‘Nazi atrocities’ which, as anyone who visits campaign? Why not send a message to trade union and years to rebrand itself on the issue of race. It professes Germany quickly discovers for himself, consists merely of a socialist activists by placing a May Day message in Soli - to be at the very least liberal and tolerant and, in better few isolated acts of violence such as are inevitable among a darity ? moments, a champion of racial equality. nation half as big again as ours, but which have been gener - Send a very short text (10-20 words) to us before Friday alized, multiplied and exaggerated to give the impression 28 April, and we will print it in the following week’s May Maverick editor Paul Dacre invested considerable energy that Nazi rule is a bloodthirsty tyranny.” Day issue. It costs £15 for a one-column advert and £30 in pursuing the murderers of Stephen Lawrence, in large The Mail’s support was much appreciated by Hitler, who for two columns. part to demonstrate the Mail ’s modern identity. Given the wrote to Rothermere in 1933 to thank him. Please also send us an electronic copy of the logo or consistently right-wing attitudes promoted in the paper and The paper is much less likely to go in for the nostalgic re - graphic you would like to use to: its peculiar obsession with an outdated and mythical pre- porting of historic editions than many others. It is a history [email protected]. 1960s Britain of all-white, monarchy-respecting, nuclear they would rather we all forgot. Which makes the paper’s 20 Other ways you can help families this is slightly odd. April edition an interesting read. G In part the desire to parade its equal opportunities creden - On the last day before the first round of the French presi - Taking out a monthly standing order. There is a tials has a commercial logic — the paper competes in a di - dential election the Mail ran a commentary piece on the form at www.workersliberty.org/resources and below verse market which includes a sizeable black middle class. choices facing the electorate. The headline was unambigu - PleGase post to us at the AWL address below. But for the Mail there is also a matter of “living down” its ous: “Despite her flaws, the only responsible vote in France Making a donation. You can send it to us at the ad - history, its promotion of British fascism in the 1930s. The next Sunday is one for ”. dress below (cheques payable to “AWL”) or do it online paper’s most infamous front page was published on 8 July So the Daily Mail has returned to the business of support - atGwww.workersliberty.org/donate 1934. The headline “Hurrah for the Blackshirts” accompa - ing the rise of fascism in Europe. The author of this piece, G Organising a fundraising event nied a piece on Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists Richard Waghorne, promotes the French National Front on Taking copies of Solidarity to sell at your workplace, (BUF) that read: “If the Blackshirts movement had any need the basis that it is the only party “advancing the case for an unGiversity/college or campaign group. of justification, the Red Hooligans who savagely and sys - exit from the Euro” and for Le Pen’s “defence of French na - Get in touch to discuss joining the AWL. tematically tried to wreck Sir Oswald Mosley’s huge and tional identity in the country with Europe’s most numerous More information: 07796 690 874 / magnificently successful meeting at Olympia... would have Muslim minority”. [email protected] / AWL, 20E Tower Workshops, supplied it.” As Waghorne sets the tone for the Mail’s attitude to Euro - 58 Riley Rd, SE1 3DG. On 15 January 1934 the BUF was described as “a well or - pean fascism the same paper was fighting unsuccessfully to ganised party of the right ready to take over responsibility control its rage about the failure of Theresa May to deport re - for national affairs with the same directness of purpose and ligAiosuesvfaesrciwstitAhbtuhiQsartadga, .it’s the colour of the fascist’s Total raised so far: energy of method as Hitler and Mussolini have displayed”. skin that seems to matter, not the poisonous and reac - The Nazis were described as “Europe's guardians against £12,113 tionary nature of their politics. the Communist danger”. We raised just £111 in the last week through dona - 13 tions and sales of fundrais - ‘intervened’ in and absorbed them.” 2,1 ing merchandise. This “has led to junking the ‘old’ programme, and replac - £1 ing it by no programme at all, beyond a vocal and militant tone on ‘left’ causes as defined by broad public opinion, rather than by a carefully-analysed revision in light of new Letters conditions.” Now Martin Thomas is careful in weighing his words, but others are no doubt much less inclined. We know what this means: liquidation of the programme! Uses of religion Capitulation to Stalinism! Pabloism! In reality the Gauche Unitaire has undergone an evolution Standing order authority While it was good to read the interview with Andrew followed by important sections of the European far-left, Copson of the British Humanist Association ( Solidarity democratic socialists, and parts of the remaining Commu - To: ...... (your bank) 242), it was disappointing to see Ira Berkovic falling into nist Parties. the trap of a formulaic denunciation of Richard Dawkins’ This is towards a deeply democratic social republicanism ...... (its address) supposed views on religion. — the political vehicle of a renewed socialist programme. The Gauche Unitaire has no programme? Read the mag - Dawkins does not “conceive of religious belief as merely nificent Front de gauche’s “L’Humain d’abord”. It is one of ...... a stupid, wrong idea”. As he explains in The God Delusion , theRmeaodstthadevGaanucecdheprUongirtamirem’sesEo-Mn athilenEeuwroslpeetatenr.leNfto. pro - the ubiquity of religion strongly suggests that it either has gramme? Please… ...... survival value or, his preferred theory, it is linked to psycho - logical propensities that have survival value. In other words, Andrew Coates, from tendancecoatesy.wordpress.com Account name: ...... religious beliefs are a by-product of things that have survival value. He gives as an example of such a by-product the tendency Blaming EU and Germany Account no.: ...... of moths to fly into a flame. Moths have evolved in a world We need to tackle those with economic power, but that where for hundreds of millions of years the only light at is not the intention of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s Left Front. Sort code: ...... night has been the Moon, by which they can navigate. Can - dle flames, a recent phenomenon, are brighter and nearer, At most its economists (some of them coming from the So - Please make payments to the debit of my overwhelming the moth’s navigational sense. cialist Party) adopt the language of the alternative-globalisa - account: Payee: Alliance for Workers’ Liberty, Dawkins thinks that religions may have spread through tion movement and denounce “financial” capitalism, the valuable tendency of children to obey their parents and “neo-liberal globalisation”, and stock-market speculation. account no. 20047674 at the Unity Trust elders, thus avoiding many dangerous situations. Why the It’s the same old story of imagining a fair capitalism, a be - elders would believe many untrue things about the world nign alternative capitalism, a capitalism that will simultane - Bank, 9 Brindley Place, Birmingham B1 2HB also needs explanation, and Dawkins and others have come ously exhaust fewer resources and submit to capital’s laws (08-60-01) upNwoiwthhesorem,ehpolwauesvibelre, dsuogegsesDtiaownsk. ins suggest that reli - of reproduction, a kinder capitalism... gious beliefs are “merely a stupid, wrong idea”. The crit - It is a nationalist and protectionist perspective which the Amount: £ ...... to be paid on the icism of Dawkins and other high-profile atheists on Left Front proposes (and the Communist Party too, but that these incorrect grounds suggests that many religious is not new): ...... day of leaders are rattled by his actual arguments. • Denunciation of the European Union, blamed for all the workers’ woes... and supposed to have produced “a new to - ...... (month) Les Hearn talitarianism” headed by “Lady Ashton and her 5,000 bu - 20 ...... (year) and thereafter monthly reaucrats of the European foreign office”... Front de Gauche’s programme • Denunciation of Germany. In his programmatic book, until this order is cancelled by me in writing. They should all go! , Mélenchon recycles some old prejudices: [Solidarity 242 discussed] the impact the rise of the “The relations of the Germans with their neighbours are not This order cancels any previous orders to the Front de gauche and Jean-Luc Melenchon’s electoral definitively harmonised... It was a mistake to agree that the same payee. campaign has had on the French far-left. Germans should be more numerous in the European Parlia - meNnot tdhoaunbtthtehFisrelnacnhg.u..”age pleases some sections of the [Martin Thomas writes] “Look at what has happened to CP, long nourished on the poison of nationalism. It re - Date ...... the previous (smaller) minority which quit the NPA in 2009, mains a fact that to suggest to workers that they could the Gauche Unitaire led by Christian Picquet. Picquet now have national interests rather than class interests is to Signature ...... chairs Mélenchon’s campaign staff. The GU are not inter - sustain a demagogy also used by the far right... vening in the Mélenchon campaign to advance revolution - ary socialist politics. The Mélenchon campaign has www.quilemportera.net 4 SOLIDARITY WHAT WE SAY Hollande set to win French Presidency: fight to reverse Euro-cuts! François Hollande — the Socialist Party [PS]’s candi - 0.5% of GDP. For 2010 the average deficit of the EU 27 was But his approach is not intended to challenge the rule of date for French president — has made policy commit - 4.7%. How much of that is “structural” is guesswork. Only capital, not even slightly! It offers a more social-democratic ments with implications for the future of economic Estonia and Sweden were below 0.5%. management of capitalism and maybe some Keynesian at - policy throughout the Eurozone and Europe more Hollande’s policy commitment of taxing incomes over tempts to limit the slump. widely. one million euros at 75% is popular with voters, as is his The response of socialists in France, the UK, Spain, Italy promise to create more jobs in education, and spend more They have helped him to do better than the PS candidates and everywhere in Europe should be to work for unity of on housing. the labour movement across Europe. Unity around a com - in 2002 and 2007 and to beat the incumbent, President Hollande says austerity is threatening economic growth mon programme, not of tinkering with the institutions of Sarkozy, into second place in the first round of the 2012 elec - and prosperity rather than nurturing it, in France and tion. throughout Europe. Many people, even in the ruling classes, European austerity but of making the bankers and bosses Hollande wants to renegotiate the Fiscal Treaty decided know that, and so a Hollande victory could shift the eco - paAy fporrotghreairmcmriseis.that gives a clear answer to the far- by the EU in December and signed by all the EU states ex - nomic approach of Europe and particularly of the Eurozone right nationalist demagogues feeding on the crisis, like cept the UK and the Czech Republic. as a whole away from right-wing fiscal austerity. Le Pen in France and Xrisi Aygi in Greece, and Wilders The Treaty — which still requires ratification by 12 stattes The collapse on 23 April of the strongly pro-cuts Dutch in the Netherlands. A programme that aims instead to to come into force, and faces a referendum in Ireland — re - government, unable even to meet a target of cutting its reshape a united and more democratic Europe. quires states to limit their “structural” budget deficits to budget deficit to 3%, strengthens that possibility. The and the election

François Hollande scored 28.6% in the first round of the Mélenchon’s 11.1% seems to have included many young French Presidential election. The second round, on 6 voters. It signifies that a large chunk of the electorate voted May, will be a run-off between Hollande and the right- for full reimbursement (rather than partial, under France’s wing outgoing president, . “social insurance” system) of health charges, renationalisa - Marine Le Pen, of the neo-fascist, anti-immigrant National tion of public services, a return to full pension rights at age Front, scored an alarming 18.0%. 60, an increase in the minimum wage, etc., all summed up On the left, Jean-Luc Mélenchon got 11.1% on the first under the slogans of “a citizens’ revolution” and “a Sixth round — less than the 17% he got on some opinion polls, Republic”. This represents a constituency of great impor - but way ahead of the 5% which polls gave him at the start tance for the left of the campaign. DOWNSIDE Philippe Poutou of the NPA (New Anti-Capitalist Party) There is a downside, however. The total vote to the left got 1.2%, and of Lutte Ouvrière (LO), of the Socialist Party seems to be up a bit compared to 0.6%. These are poor results compared to the scores of the 2007 (total 9%), but down on 2002 (13.9%) and 1995 revolutionary left in 2002 and 2007. (14%). Almost all of Mélenchon’s voters will go for Hollande in Mélenchon called for “citizens’ revolution” the second round. According to polls, most of Le Pen’s vot - It’s difficult to be precise on this, for example because it’s ers will back Sarkozy in the second round, but many will difficult to tell whether we should count Green votes (low in was as unknown as Poutou this time. LO has worked hard abstain; the 9% who voted for the centre-right candidate 2012 and 2007, but 5.3% in 2002) as to the left of the SP. But since 2007 to establish Natalie Arthaud as the successor to François Bayrou will divide fairly evenly. These transfers the gist is that the increased vote for Mélenchon, compared Laguiller, and on the face of it Arthaud should be better able look like giving Hollande victory on 6 May. to recent CP candidates, had as flipside a decreased vote for to gather votes than the 72-year-old Laguiller. Jean-Luc Mélenchon is a former Socialist Party left- clearly revolutionary socialist candidates. There is a big risk of a very destructive split in the NPA, winger, a minister in the last SP-led government, who split This probably doesn’t mean that the same people who voted successor to the LCR (Revolutionary Communist League), away from the SP in 2009 to form his own splinter group, LO or NPA in 2007 and 2002 voted Mélenchon this time. Re - with a big minority splitting off into the Mélenchon camp, the Parti de Gauche (PdG, Left Party). search has shown that a lot of the “far left” vote in France is maybe joining the PdG. The PdG is small, but Mélenchon was the candidate not fairly unstable — many people vote “far left” as a one-off LO is better geared to resist adversity. It has been telling just of the PdG but of the Front de Gauche, or Left Front, an protest — and many Mélenchon voters were young. How - its members at least since the 2007 election that they should alliance of the PdG and smaller groups with the reduced but ever, the “far left” dropped back and Mélenchon/CP ad - face up to the fact that France is going through a period of still large French Communist Party. vanced. working-class depression and they must buckle down and In the last presidential election, the CP got a dismal vote The drop in LO and LCR/NPA votes cannot plausibly be defend unpopular principles through times of adversity. (1.9%) for the perfunctory candidature of a CP apparatchik, attributed to them running new people this time in place of Arthaud based her campaign not on current political agita - Marie-George Buffet. This time not only CP members but their candidates in 2002 and 2007, Arlette Laguiller from LO tion but on being “the only communist candidate”, a pitch the still-large periphery of people influenced by or sympa - and from LCR. Besancenot at the start which LO will have known to be unlikely to draw support thetic to the CP were mobilised for Mélenchon. of his 2002 campaign, when he did a bit better than in 2007, except from a declining constituency of diehard CP sympa - thisers. Still, the 0.6% score certainly won’t help LO grow. In ongoing political activity, the main product of Mélen - chon’s score looks like being a small revival of the Commu - The danger from the far right nist Party and a boost for the PdG. The CP is still a shadow of what it was at the end of the 1970s (600,000 members), but it has stabilised at around 130,000 since the referendum The National Front/FN vote, though not as high as some Their election promises and themes included: in 2005 on the draft EU constitution, when the CP was able opinion polls suggested, was high: 6.4 million people, G Leaving the euro to play a big part in the “no” campaign. 17.9% of the vote — the fascist party’s highest score in G Scrapping the Common Agricultural Policy The CP has grown, though not spectacularly, from the a presidential election. They seem to have done well G Leaving the Schengen zone and reducing legal immi - Mélenchon campaign, signing up 2,500 new members since among working-class and among young voters. 1 January as against 1,200 in the same period last year. grGation to just 10,000 people a year In 2002 the former leader Jean-Marie Le Pen caused shock Protecting and re-building industry and privileging Mélenchon’s PdG, whose members had a high profile in waves when he won through to the second round with “native-born” [white French] people for new jobs created his campaign while the CP prudently remained relatively 16.9% of the vote. 2002 saw a relatively low turnout for the A poll suggests that Le Pen’s voters will split in the second back-stage, has grown from 6,500 members in autumn 2011 first round of 79.1%: 4.8 million people voted for him in the round roughly half to Sarkozy and 25% to Hollande. to 10,000 today. Although it is a left social-democratic party first round, 5.5 million in the second round where he was Going into the second round, Sarkozy will have to win a (and, of course, an electoral party, rather than an activist one trounced by Jacques Chirac winning the votes of almost large proportion of those who voted for the National like NPA or LO), a number of revolutionary Marxist group - everyone else on the political spectrum. Front/FN. He set out his stall the day after the first round, ings operate (and are allowed to operate) within it. The FN was knocked back after that, although in the 2007 declaring on Monday 23 April that he would organise a fes - It may have been inevitable that, in conditions generally election they still managed to win 3.8 million votes (10.4%). tival for “real work” in central Paris on 1 May, to rival the still marked by working-class defeats, the revolutionary so - One thing that has changed since then is the character of traditional trade union celebrations of workers’ day. This cialist left could not solidify more than a fraction of the large the main right-wing party, the UMP (the party is itself a throwing down the gauntlet to the workers’ movement protest vote it got in 1995, 2002, and 2007. It may have been merger of predecessor parties). Chirac, particularly in the should be countered vigorously. inevitable that as soon as a plausible candidate from the CP- second round in 2002, standing as Rassemblement pour la Some of the FN’s increased vote may be attributed to a ish spectrum emerged, they would take most of the protest République/Rally for the Republic, presented himself as a more presentable candidate. Marine Le Pen, replacing her vote. president for all French people. Sarkozy is a far more abra - father Jean-Marie Le Pen, gave her campaign a smoother, In any case the blame for the disarray of the revolutionary sive politician, showily patriotic, anti-immigration and anti- less visibly fascistic, tone. socialist left cannot reasonably be put on Mélenchon. That immigrant, hostile to “les banlieues” (poorer suburbs), and As with the rise of the far-right Xrisi Aygi (Golden Dawn) LO has responded to the difficulties by sullen retrenchment, rude about the people who live there. in Greece, the FN score shows that popular anger against anTdhtehefuNtuPrAebdyefplaeknidnsg oapnahrto,wis tdhoewrnevto ltuhteiomn. ary social - Against this general hardening of the stance of the right in the crisis can be channelled in far-right and nationalist as ist left manages to deal with its current setbacks, re - France, the 2012 vote represents an advance for the FN. Dur - weTlhl aesfalerf-tr-iwghintgcandbientuenrdnaetricountaalinstdddireefcetaiotnesd. only by an group, and win over sizeable numbers of those who voted for Mélenchon. ing the election campaign they posed as the true choice of effective left. right-wing voters. SOLIDARITY 5 POLICY Fighting the Tor

By Daniel Randall and Martin Thomas Percent tivist left groups such as SWP and SP expressed a distinct view chiefly through proposing that the actions promised Bankers’ and bosses’ pay and bonuses, share prices, or planned by the leaders (30 June, 30 November, etc.) be and profits have recovered nicely since the sudden thought of in more radical terms (as a “one-day public sector crash of 2008-9. ”), or thought of as leading straight into more radical action (“two-day general strike” or “all out, stay This semi-recovery for the bourgeoisie does not come with out”), or thought of as likely to bring down the government. any economic recovery for the working class. Real wages are The major outcome to build on now is the beginnings of a going down, and set to go down further. Unemployment is rank-and-file network of school workers, with the confer - high and not falling. The Government plans even heavier ence on 16 June called by the Local Associations for Action cuts for the next few years than it has made in 2010-2. on Pensions as follow-up to their large fringe meetings at The economic picture globally (with a slowdown in China the Easter conference of the National Union of Teachers. and high oil prices) and in Europe determines that the For AWL, building on the modest recent increase in our prospect is at best for a long period of economic depression, number of workplace and industrial-sector bulletins is a pri - or possibly for fresh shocks which will crash even the super - The rate of profit in the UK between 2005 and 2011 ority. Such bulletins are an indispensable tool if information ficial semi-recovery (for the bourgeoisie only) and the lim - and debate about strategy are to reach beyond the limits of ited revival of private-sector jobs. earshot of key activists. Capitalist slumps coming after a period of relatively low The pensions dispute, paradoxically, has encouraged de - Over the next years and decades, we should conceptualise working-class activity and confidence usually, in the first cline for the local anti-cuts committees which mushroomed our work in the unions not just as mobilising the rank and place, push down activity and confidence further. The mili - from late 2010. Committees were swivelled towards focus - file against the top leaders. It is also a matter of helping to tant working-class expression of the anger, disillusionment, ing on “the next big thing” (26 March, 30 June, 30 Novem - develop, and working with, a new generation of younger and enforced rethinking generated by the slump usually ber), and then left limp after the “big thing”; or undercut by union activists, with the aid of the best of the experienced comes not in the midst of the slump, but in the subsequent the focusing of activist energies on the pensions issue, on which, given the unions’ complete lack in practice of a polit - older activists. economic recovery or general semi-recovery. The average age of a workplace rep in the British trade That is the general (though not invariable) rule, and it is ical campaign to accompany their , the anti- cuts committees had little traction. In most though not all union movement was in the late 40s on the most recent com - no surprise that things have, broadly, worked that way so areas those local anti-cuts committees are significantly re - prehensive figures (2004) and will be older now. In other far in this crisis. duced. words, the average union rep is someone who probably Even so, it matters a great deal whether the setbacks in liv - came into activity around the time of the 1984-5 miners’ ing standards, working conditions, organisation, confidence, LESSONS strike. and class cohesion suffered in the slump are limited or large. We must learn lessons from the shortcomings of the The number of workplace reps across the economy has, It matters whether partial victories, and limited initiatives pensions campaign: according to best guesses, dwindled from 335,000 in 1984 to to rebuild, can be established in the slump, or not. It matters G Almost total lack of debate in the unions about strategy; maybe 150,000 in 2004-9 — faster than union membership whether the socialists can recruit the individuals pushed by has declined. On the best guesses available, the proportion slump times into re-thinking, and educate them, train them, indeed almost total lack of honest communication from union leaders to their members during the campaign. of paid union full-time officials to members has increased integrate them. G Bad effects of a trade-union approach which, amidst a somewhat, though the total number of paid full-time offi - The 30 June and 30 November strikes made the organised cials remains small, perhaps 3,000 across the whole move - working class a visible social force in a way not seen in a vast welter of attacks by government and bosses on workers’ conditions, handed down from above a focus on one hoped- ment. On the latest available figures, 81% of paid union generation. The great many young workers who struck for full-time officials are over 40. the first time on 30 June or 30 November will have learned for “making-a-breach” issue (pensions) and a series of one- off protests on that issue. Today’s older union reps who started activity in the 1980s about the power of organised labour. G Lack of a public political campaign, linking the issues of are, in many ways, the best of their generation. They stuck PROBLEM public-sector pensions with those of private-sector pensions with the movement while others fell away. The problem with the pensions dispute has not been and the state pension. Yet many of them — on the evidence of the pensions dis - G that workers were unwilling to move. Bad effects of a trade-union culture which has come to pute, a majority of them — have suffered an erosion of spirit, see strikes as one-off protests to strengthen union officials’ even if they are still nominally left-wing or revolutionary- The 30 June and 30 November strikes, and even the 28 hands in subsequent negotiations, rather than as continuous minded. For twenty or thirty years they have been trained in March strike (confined to London, and called as a “sop” by action to force concessions. There has been a habit of seeing union activity as damage-limitation — as primarily an ef - union leaders who had already overruled union member - strikes, when they happened, as “about” pensions, rather fort by assiduous union negotiators to get a passable out - ship surveys calling for a national strike), got good re - than for specific demands. come on individual grievances or on redeployments sponses. The demonstrations on those strike days brought This culture also sees ballots on strikes more as gambits following job cuts. The predominance of older reps often out large numbers of workers, especially young workers. in negotiations than as instructions by the members to union means that younger reps are hegemonised by, and take their There is every reason to suppose that if the union leaders leaders. model of union activity from, the older ones. G had allowed more honest and open communications, and The paralysing ef - real debate, then large suppressed resources of creativity, fect of a doctrine, pro - imagination, criticism, and militancy among the rank and claimed most vocally file would have been released. by the PCS leaders, But the pensions dispute is now ailing, on life support that unions cannot with the 10 May day of action and vague talk of something hope to achieve any - more in late June. This is a significant setback. The union thing even on the details leaders have been found wanting; and, in certain ways, the of their own members’ movement as a whole has been found wanting too. pay, jobs, and conditions , UK unemployment unless they get other ILO measure (million) unions to strike along - side them. G Weakness of the major “left” or “rank and file” groups in all the unions involved — STA and CDFU in the NUT, Left Unity in PCS, Unison United Left, Unite United Left — which failed to sug - gest strategies different from the top leaders’ and to promote debate. G Even hard-core ac - 6 SOLIDARITY ries: what next?

UK real wages: annual rate of increase — or, since 2008, prospects for working-class struggle in the next year or so. more than tiny differentials in the short run, and is happy to decrease In working-class history it has often happened that what establish the principle and then have the differentials widen looked in advance like the “main” issue passed with rela - gradually over time. tively little action; and then an issue which seems secondary Second, in some sectors localised pay may be a bigger or off-centre sparked revolt. danger than regional pay. There are plenty of issues coming up: service cuts, pay In health, different foundation trusts could pay different freezes, radical marketisation of the Health Service, benefit rates. In further education, many colleges already vary the cuts, “new standards” in schools... And there is plenty of national wage rates. In schools, basic national pay rates discontent to supply the raw material for mobilisation. could be held down, and teachers could be pushed into hav - The Tories are already following up on the pensions dis - ing to look to bonuses paid by academies (in exchange for pute with further attacks: G worse conditions and longer hours) as the way to improve the continuing social cuts, as detailed above; G pay. continued cuts in real wages in the public sector. The As of 1 April 2012 there are 1,776 academies open in Eng - current two-year pay freeze will be followed by a one per land. The total of state schools is about 3,000 secondary and cent limit on pay rises from 2013-4; G 17,000 primary. Since most academies are secondary schools, plans to “regionalise” public sector pay; G this means that around half of all secondary schools are now privatisation and marketisation in the health service academies. There were 203 academies in September 2010. and in education; G School workers’ unions should turn towards organising The winning of union facility time, from the 1970s on - possible moves in the public sector to cut union facility within academies; developing structures which allow rank- wards, was a trade-union gain, linked with legal guarantees time, or even in some places to de-recognise unions. and-file control over union activity across academy chains of rights of union representation to workers with grievances. The threat of new anti-union laws also remains on their (like combine committees); and pattern-bargaining-type ap - We should defend facility time against the attacks being desk, though currently dormant. proaches to defending and improving terms and conditions made by employers and government. Regional pay will be hard to push through on a large in academies. scale. If the average public-sector pay rise is to be limited to How far from that we are as yet is indicated by the fact DOUBLE-EDGED one per cent, then it will be hard to open up large differen - that the National Union of Teachers does not even have a re - However, we should also recognise that facility time has tials between regions without actually cutting nominal liable count of how many academies it has union recogni - been a double-edged gain, providing a basis for a sort wages in the regions destined for lower pay, and historically tion in. of “bureaucratisation at rank-and-file level”. We must workers resist cuts in nominal wages much more fiercely The Health and Social Care Act opens the door to full mar - drill down below the layer of long-standing facility-time than cuts in real wages brought about by price inflation. ketisation of health care, and opens a path to the imposition trade-unionists to a wider range of workers. Economist Richard Disney, a former IMF adviser who has of charges for health care with the government only provid - been called in as an adviser by the Government and who We should strive constantly to draw newer, younger ing subsidies to limit those charges. (The Spanish govern - says that regional pay is in general “a good idea”, declares: workers into facility-time activity, and to combat assump - ment is already moving towards such charges). “If you were to do it, you should do it when people are get - tions that once older workers get facility-time posts, they ting 3 or 4 per cent increases and someone should have had OPPORTUNITIES more-or-less automatically keep them until retirement. the courage to recommend it a few years ago. I don’t really However, from opening the door to the process to com - We should work wherever possible to generalise individ - know how you do it now”. pleting it is a long and cumbersome process, and one in ual grievances into collective ones, rather than letting work - which there will be many opportunities for resistance. place union activity become an aggregate of atomised Employment individual casework. We should insist on accurate, speedy, One of the reasons why many Tories seriously proposed and full communication by facility-time reps to the mem - Cumulative change in employment since dropping the Health and Social Care Bill was that they bers they represent, and well-organised and democratic 2008 Q1 (000) feared such wildfire resistance, and thought it better to dam - meetings to decide policy and monitor their work. age the Health Service more stealthily and piecemeal, with - That “trade union activist” usually connotes someone at out a high-profile focus for resistance. least middle-aged is not iron law. Hospitals will close “unprofitable” sections — or be forced The French union movement collects statistics which give not to close them . Hospitals will divert resources to pulling in us a picture. At the Amiens congress of the CGT in 1906, the more private patients — or be forced not to . Hospitals and average age of delegates was 36. Victor Griffuelhes became other NHS operations will be taken over by the likes of Serco general secretary of the whole union confederation at the or Virgin — or kept by popular protest within public administra - age of 27; Léon Jouhaux succeeded him at the age of 30; even tion . GPs will hand over commissioning to Serco-type com - after World War Two, the crusty Stalinist Georges Séguy be - panies, or agree to be accountable to their patients . came secretary of the CGT railworkers at 22, and secretary Politically, Ed Miliband’s talk against “predators” remains of the whole confederation at the age of 40. Around 1961 the unsubstantiated by any more-than-piffling content, and average age of CGT congress delegates was 38. The average there is as yet no union pressure to make him substantiate it. became markedly younger from 1968 through to 1978, and Ed Balls and Ed Miliband quickly followed the unions’ then rose again. By 2006 it was 48. December 2011 climbdown on pensions by shifting Labour’s A rejuvenation of the corps of union activists is not only stance on cuts from an already-weak “opposing these cuts, possible in the coming years, but necessary. The current gen - though we concede there should be slower and smaller eration will move on whatever we do. More and more of the cuts” to “accepting the broad sweep of the cuts, but criticis - existing activists will move into retirement, early retirement, Excluding effect of transferring ing the details and the scale”. or ill-health financial corporations from private to Miliband has sought to “rebalance” slightly by declaiming public ownership in 2007-08 RADICALISATION against the Health and Social Care Bill and having health spokesperson Andy Burnham promise to reverse the Tories’ So far, new young activists roused up by the “new anti- damage in the NHS (while Labour has studiously refused capitalism”, by environmental activism, or by the big to commit to reversing Tory damage in any other social anti-war mobilisations have not flowed on into union ac - Even modest union mobilisations (and political mobilisa - sphere). But the die-hard Blairites have been gathering tivism in anything like the way the student and youth tions by a Labour Party demagogically using the regional- vigour and influence. radicalisation of the late 1960s and early 70s flowed on. pay plan to try to regain support in areas like Wales) have a Although the 2011 Labour Party conference had more good chance of defeating any large extensions of regional spirit and dissent on the floor than any other conference for Some activists have moved into the NGO world, and oth - pay. In PCS, the Government’s regional-pay plans could be a long time, the organised Labour left remains very weak. ers straight or almost straight from university into being used as a spur to relaunch a rank and file based campaign Labour is now much more dependent on trade-union full-time union officials. for national pay, uniting pay rates not only between regions money than in the Blair years. We must fight for consis - Some have remained active in miscellaneous campaigns but between the civil service’s different negotiating units tent political self-assertion by the unions — against while relying for income on casual and short-term jobs (currently about 200 in number). diplomacy with the Labour leaders as a substitute for where they don’t do union organising. Yet there must be a We should look out for two dangers. confrontation — and against the idea that progress can larger potential for developing new young union activists First, union leaders may claim a regional pay system with be better made by breaking the Labour-union link, and than has been realised so far. only tiny differentials between regions as pretty much a vic - thus dodging a fight with the Labour leaders, than by The defeat over pensions does not at all wipe out the tory, when in fact the Government has no serious plans for tackling them.

SOLIDARITY 7 POLITICS Blairite party- Discontent in Irish Labour within-a-party is a By Neil Warner structural obstacle The annual conference of the Irish Labour Party, (13-15 April) was the party’s first conference as a party of gov - ernment in fifteen years, and the conference of a party to Labour’s revival founded exactly one hundred years ago by, among oth - ers, the two great heroes of Irish ; James Con - nolly and . By Jon Lansman Some of us on the left, or even simply the cynical, wing of the party noted what an ignominious marker this really was, In the face of defeat in Bradford, Ed Miliband has recog - highlighting both how mundane the party’s accomplish - nised that Labour needs “real, deep, genuine change” ments have been and how far it has drifted from the princi - to reconnect with the five million voters lost under New ples of its founders. Labour. Last February Labour achieved its best result ever and be - came Ireland’s second largest party. This followed the col - At the same time, Labour right-wingers like Luke Ake - lapse of the dominant conservative-nationalist and populist hurst express “disgust” that other Labour members can put Fianna Fáil. Labour’s leadership subsequently agreed a aside loyalty to their party to express solidarity not only grand coalition with the conservative Fine Gael. That was with the voters of Bradford West who rejected Labour but approved by about 90% of the party membership in a show Michael D Higgins even with Respect leader Salma Yaqoob. They fail to recog - of hands after a heavily manipulated debate. nise that what prevents others feeling the tribal loyalty they In light of Labour’s success and genuinely excellent elec - Labour principles. espouse is the very same barrier that is preventing Labour tion of the party candidate Michael D Higgins to the largely On the Friday evening, a suggestion from the standing or - breaking through to regain the support of its lost core vot - symbolic position of President of Ireland last October, much ders committee to move motions relating to internal party ers. And it is Blairism. of the media reported on the conference with headlines of matters to the end of Sunday afternoon was quietly slipped At the heart of the ideology which is the legacy of Blair “triumphant Labour “, outlining how “all is rosy” in the through. On Sunday afternoon it was announced that there (and underpins the party-within-a-party, Progress, which party. was no more time for the remainder of motions, including he created to sustain it) is a rejection of the politics of class For a hint of the real and very different context beyond one to reconsider the party’s place in government at a spe - and equality, and of the organisations of labour that created the self-adulation of the main speeches at conference there cial delegate conference next year. They were all “referred Labour to promote them. Blairism has no interest in the re - was need only to look outside the front door of the venue. back”. distribution of wealth and power; the removal of reference Protesters on a sundry range of issues broke through barri - Discontent was seen on two issues. The first was over the to redistribution in Clause IV was not symbolic. Its loyalty cades and surrounded the conference. As delegates found election of the anti-establishment figure of Colm Keaveney is to those who own and manage business, and its practice themselves trapped inside the hall for a number of hours, as party chair. Keaveney has been one of the more critical is managerial. outside police were using pepper spray against protesters voices in the parliamentary party and his candidacy was The only equality to which Blairism pays lipservice is for the first time at an Irish political event (unquestioned by generally opposed by the party establishment. Keaveney’s equality of opportunity, that false hope that cannot be deliv - most of the party). election got the support of the unions, and others who dis - ered without a much deeper equality. Blairism offers the sent from the party’s current approach. The unions are a politics of the American dream, the politics of “I want to be AUSTERITY much smaller proportion of the conference vote in the Irish a Millionaire”. Labour has overseen a policy of fiscal austerity and Labour Party than in the UK Labour Party. But their block This is not true of the traditional Labour right. They share ultra-conservative economics that led devastatingly re - vote makes them a powerful voice when united with other the centre-left’s understanding of class inequality. They sup - gressive first budget in December 2011. This budget groups. It is hoped that in his position Keaveney will be less port the redistribution of wealth and power. They under - was just as regressive as those of this government’s amenable to manipulation of conference than outgoing chair stand the need for trade unions and solidarity, for collective predecessor, or even more so. Brian O’Shea. decision-making and action. The division between the traditional Labour right and the It included a raft of cuts — reductions in support in areas DISCONTENT varying from education allowances to benefits for part-time Blairites is roughly the division between Labour First and More significant was the discontent shown over voting workers. Tax increases in the budget were also very regres - Progress, though many individuals operate in denial of the on motions and resistance to the clear attempts by the sive while still including some tax reliefs for multinational underlying differences. New Labour habits die hard. And party leadership to override internal democracy. This executives. Yet aside from acknowledging this as a failure, many traditional right-wingers undoubtedly see the alliance culminated at one stage in a predominantly sponta - the party leadership has boasted about maintaining Ire - of Labour First and Progress as necessary to restrain the neous revolt from the floor during economic motions. party from a shift to the left. land’s comparatively low income tax, even for higher earn - What all those who share social democratic values, left ers. Brendan Howlin, Minister for Public Spending and Re - and right, should understand is that demonstrating a com - In the meantime the government has shown little interest form, proposed that a series of progressive motions be re - mitment to class equality and to solidarity, and to making a in political or constitutional reform. It has engaged in lack - ferred back. A recommendation to refer back a motion from total break with Blairism, is absolutely essential to winning lustre negotiation with the ECB-EFSF-IMF “Troika” from Unite, rejecting austerity and calling for expansionary fiscal back those five million voters. It may be hard for those who which Ireland began to receive funds following the sover - policy, resulted in an extremely close vote. Brian O’Shea re - remain grateful to Blair for the victories over which he eign debt crisis of November 2010. fused to count the vote and declared the reference back presided as leader, or who suffer the cognitive dissonance Labour’s defence is that the “Troika” is forcing them to do passed. Uproar followed — a wave of booing, shouting and resulting from their own involvement in his government. everything they do, that Fine Gael is the larger party and jeers from the floor as people interrupted the voting on sub - But unless we make that break, we will not breakthrough to will get its way on most issues and that there is no viable al - sequent motions to condemn the process of references back. ternative to compliance with the dictates of Frankfurt and Members made impromptu speeches from their seats while wiAnn. d they should also understand that the reason so fiscal austerity that hits the poor hardest and. others made them from the lectern in defiance of the chair. many of those who have social democratic values are But there is a good degree more possible leeway with the When the next reference back was proposed — on a mo - so unsympathetic towards Progress is not so much the “Troika”, and the way to get more is not to be a “good tion opposing all privatisation of semi-state assets — tellers money and the influence bought, not the lack of open - boy”that does what they are told without objection. A good were finally called to count the vote and the reference back ness, internal democracy and transparency — we have place to start for Labour would be to actually disagree with was defeated by six votes. The announcement was greeted grown used to these things under New Labour — it is Fine Gael’s general approach. Countless economists and with enormous cheers. that they see the values of Blairism, and Blair himself, commentators have outlined alternatives to current govern - Yet more farce followed when the substantive motion as alien to social democracy. ment policies. needed to be voted on. Briefly consulting a visibly frustrated The party’s position has become increasingly difficult to Howlin, O’Shea declared “motion falls” to a disbelieving • From leftfutures.org defend, at least to progressive elements in society. A poll on conference, without even putting it to a vote. In the wake of the Friday after the conference was the latest in a series to more outrage, O’Shea decided to be generous enough to put show Labour Party placed fifth nationally, behind Fine Gael, to the motion to vote. In the face of overwhelming support The wearin’ of the green, the Sinn Féin, Fianna Fáil and “independents/others”. for the motion, O’Shea again declared that the motion fell, The intriguing aspects of the weekend for me, as a partic - before further roars of objection led him to retake the vote courtin’ of the Queen ipant, were matters internal to the conference itself in which and admit that it had passed! much of the media showed little interest: the cynical manip - Membership resistance to the leadership position should By Ruben Lomas ulation of the democratic processes of the conference to not be exaggerated. But the elements of resistance were en - favour the government and, on a more encouraging note, couraging considering that no particularly strong or organ - Sinn Fein members on Belfast City Council will be sup - brewing discontent among the party grassroots. ised opposition to government policies had developed porting celebrations for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee The primary tactic employed by the leadership was to rec - within the party in the lead-up to conference. due to take place in the city in June. ommend that any motion slightly critical of government pol - In spite of a well-attended Labour members’ forum in Jan - icy be “referred back” to the party’s central council — a Quoted in the local paper News Letter in February, Sinn uary organised around dissatisfaction with the the govern - mechanism for putting it to sleep rather than killing it, and ment, and worthy examples of opposition to government Fein councillor Conor Maskey said: “We took this decision for this leadership of an ostensibly left-wing party to avoid not just as an act of generosity but to show that we are con - policy from TDs (MPs) such a Patrick Nulty and Tommy the embarrassment of having to oppose. Broughan, such opposition remains disorganised. Few co - scious of how important the Jubilee is to the unionist com - In a structure designed to stifle excessive debate, a series munity.” herent groups have joined Unite and Labour Youth, the only of motions within a certain category were proposed before two major organisations to oppose Labour going into gov - The anti-sectarian sentiment is indeed admirable and, respondents would speak in series. A government minister ernUmnietneti.s a smaller union in Ireland than in the UK. With as a bourgeois party entirely within the framework of “or - with responsibility for the area in question then gave his or larger affiliated unions such as IMPACT and SIPTU, po - dinary” bourgeois politics, why wouldn’t Sinn Fein sup - her personal recommendation on each motion followed by tential for open opposition is mitigated by a government poBrtutthneacïevleeb“rsaoticoinasli?sts” who think Sinn Fein are some voting, again in series. agreement not to impose further public sector pay cuts kind of genuinely radical or progressive force have The structure made coherent debate much more difficult or lay-offs. They have not yet come out strongly against had another illusion shattered. and most references back were passed with an overwhelm - government policy. ing majority, even where they contradicted traditional 8 SOLIDARITY EUROPE Economists debate Europe

By Martin Thomas The Euro-memo group’s focus on seeking shifts in EU ing classes half-aware of that — then that implies that strong policy contrasts with the arguments made by Costas La - workers’ struggles, even initially without much coordina - Current European Union policies will produce “Great pavitsas and the “Research on Money and Finance” (RMF) tion, even initially in only a few countries, could shift the Depression conditions for a decade” in southern Eu - group of economists, who say that there is no scope for options. rope, predicts economist Engelbert Stockhammer. budging policy EU-wide, and the only way to get ameliora - Some findings reported at the conference point to class in - tions (again, of a broadly Keynesian type) is for Greece, and terests behind the EU policy. An increase in German wage Stockhammer was the opening speaker in an economists’ presumably other hard-hit states, to quit the eurozone. costs would hurt German exports. Germany sells a smaller conference about the crisis in Europe on 19 April at They point to the example of Argentina after its default proportion of its exports within the eurozone, and a much Kingston University, in London. Many of the other speakers in December 2001 as showing that there would be more bigger proportion of exports to China, than other central eu - were, like Stockhammer, members of the “Euro-memo” net - scope for beneficial economic change outside the eurozone. rozone states; and it is much more dependent on exports work of leftish economists from across Europe. Lamentably, I think, most of the revolutionary socialist than other large eurozone states. Euro-memo produces briefings each year arguing against left has ignored this debate, focusing only on country-by- That helps explain why Germany takes the lead on neo- the neo-liberal direction of EU policy and (on a broadly Key - country tactics to resist country-by-country cuts. AWL has liberal policies. The core interest, not specifically German, nesian basis, though some Euro-memo members are Marx - argued that the activist left across Europe should advance may be best explained by a comment in December 2011 by ists) for alternative policies. transitional demands on a European scale — expropriation German chancellor Angela Merkel. The priority, she said, is Trevor Evans from the Berlin School of Economics sum - of the banks, social levelling-up. We should also examine “to show Europe is a safe place to invest”, i.e. to attune pub - marised the current Euro-memo proposals: the European whether it is in fact true that euro-exit would allow more lic policy to the interests of footloose global capital. Central Bank should backstop bond issues by eurozone scope for limited workers’ struggles to win limited gains That means using the crisis to smash wage and social- states, so they can use the collective creditworthiness of the and thus to have better chances of escalating, or whether overhead costs and to restructure labour markets; and keep - whole eurozone; a coordinated fiscal policy across the eu - even limited struggles have better chances of forcing con - ing up the euro’s exchange-rate. rozone, focused on expanding market demand in the richer cessions and of escalating if focused on the European level. Yet the ruling classes want to keep the euro; and are not EU states rather than on shrinking expenditure in the poorer committed by iron law to any precise level of cost-cutting states; an audit of the government debt of hard-hit states STRATEGIC in the crisis. like Greece, and cancellation of layers of it; a wealth tax and Although some members of the RMF group were at the The working classes of the worst-hit countries have more a wage policy aimed at “levelling up”... 19 April conference, Costas Lapavitsas was not, and scope within the eurozone to begin to claw back ground, not John Grahl from Middlesex University described the cur - there was no open debate on the strategic issue. Trevor less, and euro-exit should therefore not be a first-line policy. rent EU policy as “surveillance without coordination” and Evans declared that “leaving the euro would be cata - Labour movements in the worst-hit countries cannot, of “a frontal assault on the social models”. He explained how, strophic for Greece”, and the statement went unchal - course, accept the conditions currently imposed by the EU. as from 2011, each year the EU runs a cycle (“the European lenged. They must therefore defy the blackmail and stand firm if EU Semester”) under which each member state submits its leaders force default and euro-exit rather than by conced - budget and economic “reform” plans and has them ap - There was, however, debate about whether the current EU ing on demands for EU-wide change. proved (i.e. declared neo-liberal enough) or disapproved by policies are simply “stupid” or express substantial if de - That is a different matter from setting euro-exit as the the European Commission. A state which sticks to plans structive capitalist interests, and that is relevant. left’s own first objective, and correspondingly posing im - reckoned not neo-liberal enough faces a fine by the EU, Several economists at the conference thought the policies mediate demands in terms primarily of national policy. though this punishment procedure has yet to be tested. simply stupid. It is not necessary to go that far. If the poli - Both principle and realistic assessment indicate a Grahl, however, argued that even EU leaders are aware cies are, as John Weeks (SOAS) put it, “a conspiracy carried focus on Europe-wide demands and Europe-wide they are floundering. Especially “if Hollande wins” the out stupidly” — shaped by class interests, but shaped blun - working-class solidarity. French presidency, “the fiscal pact will change... There will deringly and short-sightedly, and with elements in the rul - • More: euromemo.eu, researchonmoneyandfinance.org be an effort to retreat”. Italy’s Northern League implodes

By Hugh Edwards ploded. The revelations of systematic and massive corruption In 1992 Italy was engulfed by the corruption scandal have unmasked this gang of ruthless, lying and murderous “Tangentopoli” (bribesville). That, Italy’s most serious charlatans. The millions who voted for them, bought into post-war political crisis, saw the end of the First Repub - their cynically manufactured fantasies, echoed their homo - lic and all its major political parties. phobic and sexist ravings, saluted their racist laws, cheered along with them as boatloads of immigrants littered the bed Leading the mass protests outside and inside parliament of the Mediterranean, are now deserting them. was the Lega Nord, led by the populist figure of Umberto The coming administrative elections may give the first in - Bossi. He encapsulated the radical mood and spirit of his dications. Meanwhile former Minister of the Interior Ma - party’s programme by waving a noose and bellowing roni has taken over the reins of power in the League. Maroni “Roma ladrona” at the ranks of cowering politicians who On the way out? is as guilty as all the others, and the crazed Bossi support - were only too aware that their game was up. Tremonti — a sympathiser of the League — it has presided ers are gunning for him, as, too other local chiefs in other Twenty years later the party that defined itself as “anti over the the systematic and wholesale devastation of the regions seek to save their neck and their power. system” has revealed itself a model of that most character - public school system, health and welfare, as billions are istic feature of Italian bourgeois politics — the so pious and sucked from the local state coffers to pay interest to banks BALKANISATION venerated Italian “family” on the take on a massive scale. and finance houses. It has overseen billions being funnelled A process of “Balkanisation” might ensue, especially if From the odious Bossi — ex Minister of Institutional Re - to the schools and colleges of the Catholic Church and other Bossi is forced out — though without him it may be im - form! — his wife and even more cretinous sons, a picture unscrupulous tin-pot outfits. possible to maintain the integral topographical sense has emerged of a vast squalid network of nepotism and Ironically, at the point of its maximum success with the of the “unity” of “Padania” that has defined the party’s cronyism, involving billions of public funds. Not only funds victory of the last Berlusconi government , when it extended reactionary essence. paid to the political parties by the state but widespread in - its power to the regions of Piedmont and Veneto, the onset volvement in money-laundering, recycling and illegal in - Maroni knows that if it survives, other alliances with the of the financial and economic crisis signalled the beginning vestment in a series of dodgy schemes both in Italy and left-centre parties may be on the agenda, while the former of the League’s decline. abroad. fascist Tosi in Verona is already stoking the fires of more ex - It could not have been otherwise, as this party has been a INDUSTRIAL treme racism and chauvinism to hold on to the poisonous decisive constituent part of bourgeois political rule in the The north and northeast industrial base had suffered as base of that region, especially among the young. Second Republic. Without its support Berlusconi would Italy lost out to the ruthless competitive dynamic of The dynamic at work is impossible to predict but what is have been unable to form any of his three governments in globalisation . absolutely clear is that the crisis of the League is a precious the last 20 years. Notwithstanding its never-ending lying, opportunity to expose, before the masses and young hege - populist self-references as “radical”, voicing and champi - Unemployment began to rise in the heartlands of the monised by it, its fundamentally anti-working class, racist oning the grievances of the “people of Padania” (a pure fig - League. Berlusconi and Bossi continued to deny there was nature and its role as a criminal accomplice to the putres - ment), Bossi and co. have voted for and sustained every a crisis, as they sought to protect their bases of support by cent capitalist order of contemporary Italy. anti-working-class measure demanded by the bosses. channeling resources their way. The rise to power of the League reflected its capacity to For example in 1992/3, in “opposition”, it supported the The arrival of the technocrat Monti and his government exploit, in the most poisonously mystificatory way, genuine destruction of la Scala mobile — a rising scale of wages to further deepened the problems for the party. Monti’s emer - anger and suffering among the masses of the north. That it protect against inflation — won by the mass struggles of the gency budgets have savagely diminished the redistribution could do that underscores the complete bankruptcy of the late 60s and 70s. of resources from the centre to the regions and communi - left-wing parties and movements, along with the trade As part of a centre left coalition in 1995 it supported the ties, where the effective political and administrative control union movement, whose leadership is today the instrument first reactionary reform of the welfare and pension system. of the League had orchestrated a gigantic machine of pa - embracing and advocating class collaboration among the With Berlusconi it has been central to the emergence of tronage, especially among the small business world. woTrokirnegvmolaustsioesn. aries falls the task of turning anger flexible labour — more than 40 types of contracts! — agreed So, the last of Bossi and Maroni’s stunts to keep their sup - against real enemies, those whose system must be to by the very confederal unions who now claim to be so port happy — fiscal federalism — has gone up in smoke. challenged politically and practically at every point, to concerned about the welfare of the victims of those condi - The internal contradictions, everywhere present in the or - be finally overthrown if we are to be rid of creatures like tions. ganisation of cliques grouped around the authoritarian Bossi and his party forever. And with Berlusconi and his Economics Minister, “cell” of the political parliamentary leadership, have im - SOLIDARITY 9 SOCIALISM The tragedy of Spanish

Liam McNulty concludes his article on the Trotskyists in the Spanish revolution of 1936/7. The first part appeared in Solidarity 242. In December 1936 the POUM was ejected from the Catalan Generalitat (provincial government) on the or - ders of the Soviet consul in Barcelona, Vladimir Antonov-Ovseyenko (the man who led the Bolsheviks’ assault on the Winter Palace in 1917). At a party conference in February 1937 the POUM belat - edly drew some of the same conclusions as Trotsky on the Popular Front. The POUM resolved to call for the formation of revolutionary workers’ democracy to consolidate the rev - olution and argued that to “maintain the bourgeois parlia - ment is an anachronism that could be fatal.” However, they underestimated the extent to which revo - lutionary democracy had already been destroyed and held illusions in a “peaceful” transfer of power. Moreover, there was no change in their relationship with the Bolshevik-Leninists. According to Bortenstein, Trotsky - ist militants in the POUM’s militias were expelled from the ranks before the conference was convened. Less than three months later the revolution was dealt a Leaders of the POUM. Nin is second from the right. final death blow. During the “May Days”, the PSUC (Stalin - ist)-controlled Assault Guards seized the Telephone Ex - flesh.” ganisation worked out by Marxist socialists. People like change in the centre of Barcelona from the anarchists. This On the night of 22 June, an armed group of German Inter - Luxemburg, Lenin, Trotsky and many others had shaped sparked the final act of revolutionary drama; barricades national Brigadiers posing as “Nazi agents” sought to “res - and clarified these principles in the course of momentous went up and the most militant workers in Barcelona fought cue” Nin and took him away. The rescuers had been revolutionary struggles. Unity in action, freedom in politi - a doomed rearguard action to save what was left of the pre - selected by Alexander Orlov, the Stalinist secret police, cal debate and absolute commitment to clarifying political vious summer’s conquests. NKVD’s man in Spain, and led by Stalinist gangster Vitto - ideas and testing those ideas in struggle was the basis of As the CNT and POUM leaderships hesitated, many of rio Vidali, who was later involved in the failed assassina - those principles. their militants fought bravely on the barricades, joined by tion attempt on Trotsky in May 1940 in Mexico City. Nin Because it lacked such a political “background” the the Bolshevik-Leninists and the Friends of Durruti (a group died at the hands of these Stalinist thugs without once be - POUM consistently denied genuine factional rights to Trot - on the left of the CNT, named after the martyred anarchist traying his comrades. skyists groups. Because it could not see the point of work - leader Buenaventura Durruti). With the Friends of Durruti, Trotsky wrote of his old comrade: “When Andrés Nin, the ing at political clarification it cut off all real contact with the the Bolshevik-Leninists drew up a programme for insurrec - leader of the the POUM, was arrested in Barcelona, there Trotskyists abroad. tion which called for a revolutionary front of the POUM- could not be the slightest doubt that the agents of the GPU CNT-FAI. Their collective defeat brought down the curtain would not let him out alive... The members of the POUM INSULARITY on the revolution. fought heroically against the fascists on all fronts in Spain. Some of this can be traced back to the insularity of the Nin is an old and incorruptible revolutionary. He defended Nin’s group criticised by Trotsky in the early years; the THE FATE OF ANDRÉS NIN rest is due to the peculiar centrist character of Maurin’s On 16 June 1937 the POUM’s executive met in the interests of the Soviet and Catalan peoples against the BOC. Barcelona to discuss the upcoming party conference. agents of the Soviet bureaucracy. That was why the GPU got After the meeting, a comrade from the party headquar - rid of him...” Without the freedom to debate and criticise, and for mi - ters warned the group that the police had orders to ar - At the same time Trotsky had words for comrades who nority opinions to be allowed to work towards becoming rest the party executive. uncritically supported in the POUM. It was, he wrote in the the majority, differences of opinion become entrenched and aftermath of the May Days, “at this crucial moment that the push towards organisational splits. In Spain many talented Minutes later, at one in the afternoon and in the full light Vereeckens, the Sneevliets, the Victor Serges have placed militants found themselves isolated, outside any substan - of day, a car filled with police arrived and arrested Nin. their cudgels between the spokes... The CNT and the POUM tial revolutionary organisation. Their advice and experience More arrests of senior POUM members followed, carried have done just about everything to assure the victory of the was ignored; that had disastrous and preventable conse - out by the Stalinist-controlled Madrid secret police. Stalinists, that is, of the counter-revolution. And Vereecken, quences. By now the Stalinists, in collaboration with Juan Négrin, Sneevliet, and Victor Serge have done everything to support Yet the proper mechanisms for debate are especially im - were suppressing all genuine revolutionaries. They used the POUM on the road to ruin.” portant in a revolutionary situation, when discussions about slander, denouncing revolutionaries as “traitors”, “fascists” tactics and strategy are literally a matter of life and death. As and “spies”, torture, and even murder in a network of un - BETRAYED Trotsky wrote in Lessons of October : “No better test of view - derground prisons. Now the Stalinists came after the remaining Bolshevik- points concerning revolution exists than the verification of Nin was slandered as a fascist collaborator. Graffiti in Leninists. Munis, Carlini and others were betrayed by a how they worked out during the revolution itself...” Barcelona asked “Where is Nin?”, to which the Stalinists Stalinist double-agent, a German political commissar in Tragically, brave and talented militants were to be found replied, “In Salamanca or Berlin”. Nin was in fact being held the International Brigades who operated under the within all the revolutionary organisations but they never in Alcalá de Henares, outside Madrid, where he suffered pseudonym “Max Joan”. found the “unity in action and openness in debate” neces - beatings and torture at the hands of the Stalinist thugs. They were accused of murdering International Brigade sary to develop stronger Marxist ideas, still less to reach out According to former Communist Jesús Hernández: “Nin captain Léon Narvitch and put on trial for terrorism. The and win a mass following. That course was a possibility (the did not capitulate. He resisted, to their dismay. His tortur - trial was eventually scheduled for 26 January 1939, but with extent of which we will never know), but it blocked, in part, ers grew impatient. They decided to abandon the ‘dry’ tragic irony, this was the date Franco’s forces entered by the substitution of bureaucratic methods for political de - method. Now came the living blood, the rended flesh, the Barcelona and the trial never took place. bate. twisted muscles, which would put to the test the man’s in - Carlini escaped to France and later became a member of The selfless heroism of the Spanish Revolution is an ex - tegrity and capacity for physical resistance. the Italian Trotskyist movement. Munis fled to Mexico, ample of the best traditions of our class but the ceaseless “Nin bore up under the cruelty of the torment and the where he met with Trotsky, before getting involved with the squabbles about the tone of inter-party criticism, while big pain of refined torture. At the end of a few days his human international Trotskyist movement. He later became disillu - issues of policy were at stake, should stand as a lesson for shape had been turned into a formless mass of swollen sioned with “orthodox” Trotskyism. todMaoy.re than anything Spain demonstrated the dead Like the German Revolution of 1918-23, the Spanish Rev - weight of Stalinism on the working-class movement. It olution shows a combination of very favourable objective contrasts sharply with the rational, principled and rev - conditions with a monumental failure to construct a revolu - olutionary Marxism which faces outwardly towards the Working-class politics tionary Marxist party capable of leading the working-class whole class in order to fight the battle for socialism. to victory. The revolutionaries in the POUM and the small Trotsky - and anarchism ist movement had to deal with immense issues: they had to Selected reading compete with other ideological currents with much deeper • Victor Alba and Stephen Schwartz, Spanish Marxism Ver - How do the revolutionary roots in the Spanish labour movement; the conditions of the sus Soviet : A History of the POUM in The Spanish anti-capitalist traditions of Civil War made conducting political work incredibly diffi - Civil War (Transaction Publishers). Marxism and anarchism relate cult; the Stalinists were particularly efficient and ruthless • David Cotterill (ed.), The Serge-Trotsky Papers (Pluto Press). to each other? What are the dif - cadres of the counter-revolution. • Paul Heywood, Marxism and the Failure of Organised Social - ferences, and where are the com - The “subjective” factor, the role of the revolutionary party, ism in Spain, 1879-1936 (Cambridge University Press). monalities? is remains a vitally important discussion. • Felix Morrow, Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Spain This pamphlet brings together Speaking of the revolutionary party, Antonio Gramsci’s (Pathfinder Press). articles, debates and exchanges wrote: “The decisive element in every situation is the per - • Al Richardson (ed.), The Spanish Civil War: The View From between members of the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty manently organised and long-prepared force which can be the Left (Merlin Press). and various anarchist writers and activists. Many ap - put into the field when it is judged that a situation is • Leon Trotsky, The Spanish Revolution (1931-1939) peared in Solidarity newspaper during 2011. favourable (and it can be favourable only in so far as such a (Pathfinder Press). £5 online at http://alturl.com/fh5j6 or post a cheque force exists, and is full of fighting spirit).” • Workers’ Liberty No. 26, “The Spanish Revolution” to “AWL” to AWL, 20E Tower Workshops, Riley Road, Such a decisive force was lacking in the Spanish Revolu - • Pierre Broué and Emile Temime, The Revolution and the London SE1 3DG. tion. The POUM did not subscribe to the principles of or - Civil War in Spain

10 SOLIDARITY REPORTS East London school workers strike against cuts

By a Tower Hamlets Bosses claim they have Chair of the Board of Gov - members of staff attend - unions will exercise a level education worker to make these cuts because ernors also argued that the ing. By taking a stand, and of workers’ control over the school’s budget is in cuts were necessary to running a campaign that’s the running of revision Teachers and support deficit. The deficit is be - allow the school to “com - allowed workers to get ac - classes and exams them - staff at Central Founda - cause the school is a Pri - pete in the context of a tive, CFGS unions have selves. Teachers are dis - tion Girls School in East vate Finance Initiative deregulated education sys - galvanised workers and cussing with union reps One would not be London will strike on (PFI) school; every year it tem”. That gives the strike brought them together. how to run essential revi - pleased Wednesday 25 April as has to pay huge bills to a much wider significance. When industrial disputes sion classes without un - part of a battle to resist private companies for run - As Tory plans to increase are run actively, democrat - dermining industrial redundancies and pay ning the PFI scheme the number of Academies, ically, and led by members action, and union reps are BBC cuts. Trust Schools and Free they can foster enormous helping some teachers PRIVATISATION Schools continue, the solidarity and unity. make arrangements to run The school’s manage - The scheme itself is in CFGS cuts show how all revision classes off prem - strike ment announced a restruc - deficit, so the school has education workers – even PICKETS ises in order to avoid ture in January 2012 that to make it up. those working at schools A mass meeting will fol - breaking the strike. involves job losses and pay low Wednesday’s pick - could hit Staff are paying with that remain within com - If the cuts at CFGS go cuts of up to 10% for some ets, which will set the their jobs and wages for munity or Local Education ahead, it will give the support staff, and an in - next strike date. mismanagement and fi - Authority control – suffer green light to similar cuts crease in teachers’ work - jubilee nancial incompetence of from deregulation and The strike is being led at other schools across load. Current National private companies. marketisation. and controlled by those in - Tower Hamlets. But if the Union of Teachers policy The cuts are also about The CFGS strike also volved in it, not by unac - workers win, it will inspire coverage recommends an 80-20 bal - taking on the unions, shows the effect fighting countable officials from enormous confidence for ance between contact time which are relatively well- back can have on working- Unison or the National other education workers By Clarke Benitez and non-contact time, but organised at CFGS. Man - class confidence. A few Union of Teachers. Work - facTihneg swimoriklaprlastcreugsgolleisd.ar - CFGS management wants agement feel that if they weeks ago morale in the ers plan to take a series of ity and channels of Trade unions organis - to reduce the time teachers can beat the unions now, school was absolutely one-day strikes in the grassroots control that ing at the BBC have have to do marking and they will be able to carry rock-bottom; now it’s sky exam period, and all-out have already begun to announced they will admin work. The pay cuts out future cuts with little high. There have been action once exams are develop at CFGS will be ballot members for for support staff will have opposition. mass meetings to discuss over. essential if that victory is strike action to win a a knock-on effect on pen - A recent letter from the the strike with up to 100 During the exam period, to be achieved. pay increase in line sions. with inflation. A joint statement from 550 jobs on the line the National Union of Pressure for strikes mounts Journalists, Unite and at British Gas the Broadcasting, Enter - in tanker drivers’ battle tainment, Cinemato - graph and Theatre By Padraig O’Brien “with a view to avoiding Union (BECTU) on By Darren Bedford something it had been re - forthcoming from the compulsory redundan - Thursday 19 April de - luctant to do since drivers union. 550 workers could lose cies”, and has lamely scribed BBC bosses’ cur - A conference of oil voted for action. In a Unite officials claim their jobs as British Gas pointed out that workers rent pay offer — a 1% tanker driver trade union nervy anticipation of a “some progress” has been plans to close its “will need significant assis - increase — as “de - reps has overwhelmingly legal challenge, it has even made in talks. The details Southampton centre. tance from the company risory”. voted to reject the deal begun re-balloting drivers of the offer have not been given the dire state of the Unions also criticised offered by fuel haulage at one company (Hoyer), made public. The company says it Workers are demand - economy if this plan goes the BBC management bosses in an attempt to meaning those workers needs to “reduce costs” ing cross-industry mini - ahTehade.”union should im - decision to write to avert a potential strike cannot take part in any and than an increase in on - mum standards on pay mediately state its oppo - workers individually over safety and mini - strike action until their line custom means fewer and health and safety, sition to any job losses, announcing an intention mum standards. second ballot is com - call-centre workers are and the creation of a demand that the workers to introduce the pay rise pleted. needed. Although the drivers’ cross-industry forum to are retrained if it is gen - two months earlier than As Solidarity went to Rather than committing union, Unite, resumed guarantee union over - uinely the case that there first planned. Unions press, Unite’s strike ballot to oppose the plans, the talks at conciliation serv - sight of whether stan - is insufficient demand for believe this is a deliber - mandate was due to ex - trade union Unison – ice ACAS, the decision dards are being their current roles, and ate ploy to bribe work - pire, with no announce - which organises some piled pressure on the enforced. organise a strategy to re - ers not to take strike ment of strike dates as yet British Gas workers – has union to name strike days, said only that it will “ex - sist the closure and im - action by putting extra amine the company’s busi - pose their demands. money in their pockets ness case” for the closures, sooner than expected. Make 10 May strike real. Make it big! If BBC workers strike, coverage of the Queen’s By Stewart Ward Train drivers’ pensions strike diamond jubilee celebra - tions will be severely The precise extent of the By Darren Bedford their pensions. disrupted, as would public sector pensions coverage of the Euro EMT bosses want to re - strike on 10 May remains 2012 football tourna - Members of the train duce employer contribu - unclear, as some unions ment and the London drivers’ union ASLEF tion to the scheme. are pushing the day as a working for East Mid - ASLEF has scheduled Olympic games. BECTU mere “day of action”, lands Trains have voted strikes a series of one- general secretary Gerry while others emphasise by 76.4% to take strike day strikes through May, Morrissey said unions walkouts and pickets. Liaison Group National frontation with the Tories. action in defence of on the 1st, 3rd, 8th, 10th, would “wipe out as Union of Teachers officials Trade union members, par - 15th and 17th. much of [the jubilee cov - Unite promises “rallies said NUT members would ticularly in Unite and PCS, erage] as possible” in and demos” as well as not be taking action on 10 should push for more open order to win a decent “pickets” by its members May, and Unite officials and public communication Union busting in the new NHS pay deal. in NHS, while the Public were unclear on what their from their unions to make Unions are demand - and Commercial Services 10 May action will be. the strike real, accessible ing an increase of 2% union (PCS) promises a The broader and more and owned by the mem - By Ira Berkovic union, amounting to an ef - above inflation, with a strike. According to a re - solid the action on 10 May, beMrshemip.bers of unions not fective de-recognition. minimum increase of port to the Unison Execu - the more positive a role it taking part should dis - Private contracting giant Serco has run help desk £1,000 for every em - tive by Unison general can play in galvanising cuss how to deliver ef - Serco has unilaterally services, ward housekeep - ployee. secretary Dave Prentis, at working-class confidence fective solidarity. broken off relations with ing, patient and staff cater - Balloting will being the TUC Public Services for ongoing industrial con - the GMB union at Ply - ing, portering, and on 30 April, and the re - mouth’s Derriford hospi - cleaning at the hospital sult will be announced since 1999. tal. Companies like Serco onA2n1oMrgay. of pro- Marxism and trade unions: a will have much greater GMB members em - monarchist syco - opportunity to bid for ployed by Serco have been phancy being service contracts in the new AWL study course campaigning for nearly a disrupted by strike ac - Tories’ new NHS. The year against the threat of tion really would be struggle in Plymouth cuts to terms and condi - something to cele - A 6-part educational series, available to shows that privatisation tions. Now their employer brate. download now from workersliberty.org/study leads to union busting. is refusing to talk to their SOLIDARITY 11 Tube Lines S&oWloirkdersa’ Lirbeirtty y strike for equality!

Immigrants attacked By Ira Berkovic coming fights across Lon - don’s underground net - Tube Lines workers, work. Cleaners employed who do maintenance on by contractors Initial and London Underground ISS are already in dispute lines, are striking on 24- over pay, conditions and in run up to 27 April. Olympic payments. Their demand for pen - London Underground sions equality has a more Service Control staff are “offensive” character than balloting for strike action other disputes on the over long-standing issues, Tube (or indeed in other including potential re - Greek elections industries or sectors). structuring and job losses. Workers are striking to Telent and MJ Quinns win a positive demand workers, who maintain By Theodora Polenta sistance will be split and (pensions equality and the fire equipment on sta - weakened. parity of travel privileges tions, have balloted for Citizen Protection minis - Local councils are being for Tube Lines workers, to strike action over inade - ter Michalis Chriso - economically strangled bring them in line with quate pay, bullying by choidis, a member of and cutting down on serv - other Transport for Lon - management and being Pasok (rough equivalent ices. The government is don employees) rather denied annual leave over of the Labour Party), is bribing them with money than taking token action the Olympics. leading an anti-refugee if they accept the building to express displeasure at drive in the run-up to of refugee concentration some imminent or al - STRATEGIC Greece’s parliamentary Foreground: racist poster from far-right group Xrisi Aygi camps, and trying to per - ready-passed action of the And Travel Information election on 6 May. (Golden Dawn) suade citizens who, for bosses. And they are tak - Centre workers are in various contradictory rea - dispute because TfL The last act of the Pa - ing 72 hours of strike ac - vigorate and reconstruct” As German finance min - sons, resist the building have ordered no annual pademos coalition govern - tion, rather than the more the centre of , ister Wolfgang Schäuble the refugee camps in their leave during the ment was to pass common 24-hour protest which translates to police has said, bondholders are areas by promising them legislation for the con - strike. They will begin by Olympics. stormings into immigrant worried that “the Greek jobs. struction of 31 concentra - downing tools and walk - areas with the aim of de - politicians are incapable of Anti-racists will demon - Tube activists must tion camps (in former ing out mid-shift, not just porting the maximum governing and the Greek strate in Athens against the fight for strategic coordi - military facilities) for ille - by not booking on. number of refugees before people do not wish to be refugee concentration nation of these disputes; gal immigrants, identified Without Tube Lines election day. Antonis governed”. camps and police racism this may not necessarily in the election campaign as Samaras and New Democ - workers on the job, essen - REDIRECT onTThueesddeamyo2n4sAtrpartiilo. n is tial maintenance and re - mean bringing all work - threat number 1. racy have also emphasised ers out at once, but plan - Health minister Andreas their commitment to a The capitalists’ answer? supported by the Net - pair work will go undone, Redirect people’s anger work in Defence of Po - and the Emergency Re - ning rolling and ongoing Loverdos, also Pasok, says drive against “illegal im - strike action to apply the that illegal immigrants against the weakest, litical and Social Rights, sponse Unit – which deals migrants”. maximum possible pres - should be put in separate most vulnerable, and the Union of African with, amongst other This is a concentrated ef - sure over the longest pos - units in the hospitals and most deprived layers of Women, the Union of things, platform suicides fort by Pasok and ND to sible period. kept in isolation because Greek society. Refugee and Immigrant – will be out of action. It shift the political agenda If the Tube Lines work - they pose a health threat. Workers, the Movement will therefore be unsafe from the uncomfortable By diverting popular All immigrants from coun - against Racism and Fas - for other grades of work - ers win, and if their rela - economic sphere, where anger towards illegal im - tries where certain dis - cism, the Pakistani com - ers to do their jobs, and tive industrial strength there is no positive narra - migrants, the capitalists eases are rife should be put munity movement, the Tube union RMT will sup - can be wielded in coordi - tive on offer and every - hope the parties support - in quarantine. Iranian political refugees, port its members in sta - nation with other Tube thing has been signed and ing the EU/ ECB/ IMF Giorgos Kaminis, mayor Antarsya, Syriza, and tions and trains grades workers, it will be a mas - agreed before hand with memorandum will get of Athens, with the bless - many other organisa - who refuse to work on sivIne bthoeosct.oming months, the EU/ ECB/ IMF Troika, through at this election ing of Papademos, has tions. safety grounds. This, towards the scapegoating and the movement of re - all transport workers in starting a drive to “rein - of immigrants. along with the length of London face a common the strike, means that struggle not to have Tube Lines can maximise their hard-won rights the pressure they apply to torn up as the capital’s Ideas for Freedom 2012 bosses. bosses seek the maxi - The course of this dis - mum possible profit out pute could set the tone for of the Olympic Games. What is capitalism, and can it last? the other ongoing and up - Friday 29 June - Sunday 1 July Highgate Newtown Community Centre, London N19 3DG NHS cuts: “much

Sessions include: Ideas for Freedom will open on Friday 29 June with a meeting to celebrate the massive workers' struggles more than closing which convulsed Britain in 1972. • How do we make socialism a force again? A panel discussion with Owen Jones (author of the odd ward” Chavs ), Rosie Woods (health worker activist and • The NHS we had, the one we have and the The official NHS regula - Workers' Liberty member) and more tbc • Is one we want • Understanding the Eurozone cri - greater number of expen - tory body, Monitor, has Greece in a pre-revolutionary situation? • 33 Rev - sis • Iranian socialists on war and class struggle sive treatments; so these sent a letter to NHS in Iran • The Marxism of CLR James • Is boy - cuts are huge. olutions Per Minute: author Dorian Lynskey and hospital managers (17 cotting Israel a good way to help the Palestini - The Department of hip-hop artist/spoken-word poet The Ruby Kid April), saying that they ans? Michael Chessum, NUS national executive, Health wants the NHS to on protest songs • Activists from the New Anti - need to cut budgets by cut about £50 billion over capitalist Party's L'Etincelle (Spark) faction on the debates Sacha Ismail of Workers' Liberty 7 per cent a year from the next decade. What’s • Introduction to Marxism sessions. 2013-4 onwards. changing shape of France's far left • Mike Farrar, chief exec - wrong with con - Book your ticket online now at utive of the NHS Confed - spiracy theories? A typical NHS hospital workersliberty.org/ideas with an annual turnover eration, said that “the with Jack Fergu - of £300 million will need hospital sector should be son of the Scot - Weekend tickets are £22 waged, £14 low-waged/HE to cut £21 million. helped to downsize, and tish Socialist students, £6 unwaged/FE/school students, before the Health care costs gener - it would be more than Party end of April, then £24/ £16/ £6. Day tickets also ally increase faster than “clHoesincgaltlehde ofodrdawsahrdift”.to • Roma commu - available. Send cheques payable to “AWL” to 20E Tower costs generally, because of (cheaper) “primary and nities and the rise Workshops, Riley Road, London SE1 3DG. More: an ageing population, community care”. longer survival by sick of the far right [email protected] or 07796 690 874 elderly people, and a •More: healthalarm1159. across Europe wordpress.com