So& Wloirkdersa’ Lirbeirtty y No 232 1 February 2012 30p/80p www.workersliberty.org For a workers’ government

War on Iran? How to be a Who is Yvette page 5 troublemaker Cooper? centre pages page 8 Resisting EU/IMF/European Central Bank cuts SEE Greek PAGE 3 workers rebel NEWS What is the Alliance Students plan week of action

for Workers’ Liberty? By Ed Maltby a week of action (7-16 elected national committee, delegates as they voted and Today one class, the working class, lives by selling March) against the govern - and organised a demon - Socialist Action activists The national conference its labour power to another, the capitalist class, ment’s privatisation stration on 9 November heckled two chairs in suc - of the National Campaign which owns the means of production. Society agenda in higher educa - 2011 demo in the face of cession to the point where Against Fees and Cuts tion, the HE White Paper. opposition from the NUS they were forced to leave is shaped by the capitalists’ relentless drive to took place in Liverpool increase their wealth. Capitalism causes We will also be mobilis - and sectarian left groups. the stage. University Guild of Stu - ing students to support fur - The NCAFC’s consistent However, most inde - poverty, unemployment, the blighting of lives by dents on the weekend of ther strikes by lecturers democracy and orientation pendent student activists overwork, imperialism, the destruction of the 28-29 January. over pensions and launch - to class struggle has won it saw these attempt to dis - environment and much else. ing a major campaign over a reputation as a frame - rupt for what it was: a cyni - Around 150 activists Against the accumulated wealth and power of the democratic structures in work within which local in - cal political manoeuvre and from colleges across the UK capitalists, the working class has one weapon: solidarity. student unions. dependent activist groups an indictment of the irra - attended, including repre - The Alliance for Workers’ Liberty aims to build solidarity The conference also man - can co-ordinate usefully. tional sect politics which sentatives from the North - through struggle so that the working class can overthrow dated the committee to However, the emergence put the prestige of “the ern Ireland Student capitalism. We want socialist revolution: collective ownership make solidarity with stu - of an independent, demo - party” above any consider - Assembly and the Galway of industry and services, workers’ control and a democracy dents in Iran, against both cratic student organisation, ation of democracy or the branch of the Irish cam - much fuller than the present system, with elected war and the Islamic which contests NUS elec - logic of the struggle. paign Free Education for representatives recallable at any time and an end to regime. tions in its own name and The conference set a Everyone (FEE). bureaucrats’ and managers’ privileges. The conference gave a organises action independ - benchmark for trans - The conference was an good reflection of the state ently of the NUS, has parency and democracy in We fight for the labour movement to break with “social impressive organisational of the current student alarmed sectarian left a student movement, and partnership” and assert working-class interests militantly effort. Activists from movement, and of the groups such as the SWP made stronger ties between against the bosses. Merseyside Network NCAFC. and the shadowy Stalinist a local campaign groups, Our priority is to work in the workplaces and trade unions, Against Fees and Cuts sect Socialist Action. They which will allow us to capi - supporting workers’ struggles, producing workplace bulletins, played a special role in CAMPUS view the grassroots initia - talise on the government’s helping organise rank-and-file groups. housing students on floors Most attending were del - tives of the NCAFC as vio - withdrawal of the pro-pri - We are also active among students and in many campaigns and sofas. egates sent from local lations of their monopoly vatisation Higher Educa - and alliances. The Conference elected a campus groups which on student politics. tion Bill. new National Committee The NCAFC is calling have grown in the last These groups organised and an eleven-strong on all student activists to We stand for: two years of struggles. an intervention at this con - Women’s Committee. support a demonstration G Independent working-class representation in politics. ference, seeking to disrupt The Women’s Commit - The NCAFC in early on 15 February at Birm - G A workers’ government, based on and accountable to the motions debates, prevent tee now has a mandate to 2010, with a view to co-or - ingham University, labour movement. the NCAFC from organis - develop a charter of de - dinating these groups on a against management G A workers’ charter of trade union rights — to organise, to ing action and embarrass mands for women in edu - democratic basis. Since brutality and crackdowns strike, to picket effectively, and to take solidarity action. the AWL. The result was cation. then it has played a leading on the right to protest. G Taxation of the rich to fund decent public services, homes, some bad-tempered mo - The National Committee role in the student move - education and jobs for all. tions debates on the second was instructed to work on ment, developed demo - G A workers’ movement that fights all forms of oppression. cratic structures and an day; SWP activists filmed • More: anticuts.com Full equality for women and social provision to free women from the burden of housework. Free abortion on request. Full equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. Pensions: end the waiting game! Black and white workers’ unity against racism. G Open borders. G Global solidarity against global capital — workers By Gerry Bates quences. By refusing to ing, on the streets and in everywhere have more in common with each other than with come in on the plans by the meetings, that unions their capitalist or Stalinist rulers. Ealing and Kirklees are lecturers’ union UCU for a “name the date” for further G Democracy at every level of society, from the smallest among the latest local strike on 1 March, it gave action on pensions. workplace or community to global social organisation. government branches of leverage to UCU general The SPers in the PCS G Working-class solidarity in international politics: equal the public-services union secretary Sally Hunt, who leadership, however — the rights for all nations, against imperialists and predators big Unison to demand a spe - opposes UCU’s strike deci - SPers who could actually WORKING- and small. cial local government sion, to try to reverse it. “name the date” — have G Maximum left unity in action, and openness in debate. conference of the union UCU Exec meets again on not responded to the SP’s CLASS G If you agree with us, please take some copies of Solidarity on pensions, and Oxford - 10 February. Meanwhile, public demand! to sell — and join us! shire Health branch is balloting in its general sec - The January/ February pushing for a special retary election opens on 6 issue of the PCS union POLITICS 020 7394 8923 [email protected] health conference. February. magazine, View , does not And the National Union even hint at further indus - 20e Tower Workshops, Riley Road, In local government, AND of Teachers (NUT) Execu - trial action for pensions. Unison and GMB have tive the next day, 26 Janu - The most militant thing it London, SE1 3DG. signed joint “principles” ary, decided to wait on the says is: “unions now have ANARCHISM with the employers to im - next “rejectionist” summit, to make a decision of enor - plement the Government’s and the thin hope that mous significance — accept plans for worse public sec - A new pamphlet waiting could bring the the government’s propos - tor pensions. Unite is dis - GET SOLIDARITY second-biggest teachers’ als on pension age, contri - from Workers’ senting only passively. union, NASUWT, in on fur - butions and the value of “Final proposals” on “ini - ther action. pensions or demand real Liberty tial design” of the new EVERY WEEK! negotiations on the real is - (worse) pension scheme are DELAY sues”. Including articles by Ira Special offers due by 8 February. “Final Every further delay Real joint action will be Berkovic, Martin Thomas, proposals” for “future G Trial sub, 6 issues £5 makes it more difficult to best achieved by unions  scheme management” are North London Solidarity organise a continuing moving quickly, taking the due by 7 March. 12 March Federation, Iain McKay G 22 issues (six months). £18 waged  £9 unwaged  campaign with a good initiative, naming definite to 20 April is the timeslot chance of extracting real days, making definite pro - (Editor, Anarchist FAQ), G 44 issues (year). £35 waged £17 unwaged allocated for “union con -   concessions from the posals — and responding Yves Coleman ( Ni Patrie, sultation”, before it all goes Government. to proposals from others Ni Frontières ), Bob G European rate: 28 euros (22 issues)  or 50 euros (44 issues)  to the Government for legal with support, not quibbling drafting, on 23 April. The civil service union Sutton and more. Tick as appropriate above and send your money to: PCS gained credit by being and delay. TALKS the only union (apart from Even an 11th-hour token 20e Tower Workshops, Riley Road, London, SE1 3DG Talks are also proceeding NIPSA) to reject the Gov - protest just before the Gov - Available to buy for Cheques (£) to “AWL”. in the Health Service, ernment terms immedi - ernment’s contributions in - where Unison, the creases come in, even one £5.00 from Or make £ and euro payments at workersliberty.org/sub. ately and unequivocally on biggest union, has also 19/20 December. PCS lead - called by only a few http://bit.ly/waH9nu agreed a (bad) frame - ers have said repeatedly unions, or only one union, Name ...... work, but no document that they believe unions would be better than noth - which could be signed should strike again for pen - ingB. ut the unions can and yet exists. sions. should go for much more: • What workers will Address ...... Understandably, other a strike in good time, fol - Activists in Unison will have deducted from their unions are inclined to look lowed by a rapid cam - be much helped by a move wages, as increased pen - ...... to PCS for a lead. But wait - paign of rolling and for action from the unions sion contributions, from ing for PCS can be a snare. selective action, organ - which have rejected the April: The PCS leadership is ised with rank-and-file ...... Government’s terms. But NHS: bit.ly/AaYBmd dominated by a would-be control, assisted by strike the first “rejectionist” Teachers: bit.ly/x2wyPb Marxist group, the Socialist levies, and with activity I enclose £ ...... union summit, on 25 Janu - Civil service: Party, which since 19 De - every week. ary, had adverse conse - bit.ly/xMlbQy cember has been demand - 2 SOLIDARITY EUROZONE CRISIS Writing Four million refuse to pay in Greece

treaties By Theodora Polenta portant for the neighbour - hood community move - As the German govern - ments to strengthen their ment proposes that the links with the trade union - while EU and ECB should insist ists and the organised on an external “commis - working class movement. sioner” running Greece’s A united front of the budget, it has been re - neighbourhood movement, Europe vealed that four million the Genop-Dei trade union, bills for the new regres - and the council workers sive property tax, im - has already recorded some burns posed as part of the victories against the regres - Greek government’s cuts sive property tax. By Chris Reynolds programme, have not A united front between been paid. the workers and the com - On 30 January, European According to the power munity movement can do Union leaders met in workers’ Genop-Dei, 1.5 Greek protest against last month’s visit by IMF and EU officials more: coordinate and or - Brussels to fix the new million bills have passed ganise local neighbour - “budget discipline” their expiry date, and ity with non-payers, and they were not backed up non-payment activists. hood activities so as to treaty decided on 9 De - 250,000 have gone beyond generalise the political con - cember. under the social pressure by the councillors’ active Genop-Dei has published the 80-day threshold after of the non-payment move - support for the households on the internet the details frontation against the gov - The British government which the government ment a lot of private sector that have not paid the re - of every private company ernment. made itself a minority of sends orders for cutting off subcontractors have re - gressive property tax. hired by the government the electricity supply. In REGRESSIVE one on 9 December in try - fused the disgraceful An equivalent to the for cut-offs. On Friday 27 January, ing to block the treaty, but order to increase the pres - “business” of cut-offs. Of British anti-poll-tax move - People who have ap - sure to pay, the govern - people protested outside has subsequently quietly course there will still be a ment of 1989-91 is spread - pealed to justice to declare the parliament against ment has made the new tax lot of subcontractors who ing all around Greece with illegal the threat of cutting assented to the treaty in - the regressive property payable as a part of elec - will not resist the profit to thousands of people refus - off their electricity have volving EU institutions in tax, stating that they enforcing its constraints on tricity bills. be made from cut-offs. ing en masse to pay the tax won. 173 citizens of would carry on their eurozone member states The state power com - and organising their resist - Petrupoli, supported by struggle until the govern - who sign up for it. pany DEI has issued 50,000 NEIGHBOURHOOD ance. The non-payment the KKE-dominated coun - ment withdraws the re - However, on the one orders for cutting off elec - It is very important for movement reintroduces in cil, have won their court hand, the treaty's loop - tricity supply to house - the non-payment move - every neighbourhood the cases against the govern - gressive property tax and holes through which gov - holds. But the Genop-Dei ment to organise in each concept of solidarity and ment orders. other imposed taxes. ernments can claim trade union has asked neighbourhood a first-aid the potential of collective team of electricians who INTENSIFY They make clear that exemption from its budget every worker instructed to resistance and struggle, they will carry on their take part in cutting off a will reconnect people’s The non-payment move - rules have become large which are the only tools struggle to the defeat of the household’s electricity sup - electricity supply. Such that the people have in ment should intensify enough that the European coalition government that ply to ignore the orders teams have already been order to defeat the govern - and escalate its action. Central Bank has publicly is leading Greece to ever- said it is unsatisfactory. and actively obstruct the organised in some areas. ment. The imposition of the re - increasing poverty. Repre - On the other hand, to the subcontractors. Open meetings are tak - gressive property tax is The movement is sentatives from local extent that the treaty has 20,000 cutting-off orders ing place in every neigh - equivalent to robbery stronger, and the number neighbourhood move - any bite, it will push gov - have been passed to pri - bourhood. Neighbourhood from the majority of of people that have refused ments and from networks ernments towards drastic vate subcontractors. How - activists organise protests working people. to pay is bigger, in neigh - of solidarity movements, cuts which will make the ever, the government, bourhoods where the and sit-ins outside their And the tax and the economic crisis worse. under pressure from the local DEI offices and out - and trade unionists from movement has the active other austerity measures Syriza and Antarsya were Wolfgang Münchau of the massive non-payment support of the council. side the subcontractors’ of - cannot save Greece from Financial Times writes: movement, has decided re - fices were the orders for present. For example in Nea bankruptcy. On the con - • No house with no elec - “The new European fiscal luctantly to freeze the cut - Ionia, which has a left- cut-offs are being received. trary, they are bankrupting tricity. Enough is enough! pact [is] quite mad... I have ting-off orders. Only 100 wing council, the council - A few months ago the the people of Greece. We do not owe even a yet to meet anybody who households have had elec - lors issued a statement in government gave explicit The revenues go to feed penny to the government, can explain what good the tricity cut off. which they asked the peo - orders to DEI to accept the black hole of the Greek treaty will do.” The government and ple to refuse to pay the re - payment of electricity bills debt, while the people get the bankers, the EU, and EU leaders are trying to DEI bosses have refused to gressive property tax and only alongside the pay - poorer. One million are un - the IMF impose ruinous further publish the figures. offered legal support and ment of the regressive employed; and 30% living • We are not paying re - cuts on Greece in the run- However, the govern - technical back-up and property tax. As a result of below the poverty line. But gressive taxes. We are not up to large repayments on ment’s temporary climb - guarantees of reconnection the non-payment move - the debt increases, as the paying for their crisis. We its debt which Greece has down of the government to every household that ment protests, some local shrinkage of economic ac - are not paying for their to make on 20 March, and should not make the non- had its electricity cut off. DEIs (Khfhsia, Keratsini) tivity pushes down gov - debts for which it needs further payment movement com - 2500 people in Nea Ionia have backed down and ernment revenues faster • Nationalise all public credit from the EU. It was placent. Working-class refused to pay their tax. have accepted people pay - than the new taxes can utility companies under revealed on 27 January people should organise in Other councils, under ing only the electricity part raise them. workers’ control that the German govern - every neighbourhood; call the pressure of the neigh - of the bill and not the re - The coordination of all • For a united front of ment is proposing that, as general meetings; and or - bourhood committees and gressive property tax. the multiple forms of ac - trade unionists, neighbour - a condition of further ganise self-defence teams general open meetings, The private company tions and different types of hood activists, and left- credit, the EU should re - Geroh Ltd, which had been and support for house - have been forced to make political and social com - wiUnngicteodu,nwcilelocras n over - quire that the Greek gov - assigned the cut-off orders holds threatened with cut- statements against the im - munity movements that throw the coalition gov - ernment commit to for the whole of Athens, off. position of the regressive are developing in every ernment and the political making debt payments be - A lot of private sector property tax. Some of those was forced to shut down neighbourhood of Greece fore it spends anything on its “business” after an oc - establishment that sup - electricians’ unions have is - statements have proven is of paramount impor - ports it. running Greece, and ac - sued statements of solidar - empty promises because cupation of its offices by tance. Furthermore it is im - cept a European commis - sioner as dictator over its budget decisions. Even Greek finance min - Bail-out serves the banks ister Evangelos Venizelos has flatly rejected such im - By Theodora Polenta owned Greek government compensation for their par - debt will be 120% of the enforce the whole payment positions, similar to what bonds will bring Greek ticipation in the 50% hair - GDP in 2020, which was its of the debt with the threat European powers did to The Greek government pension funds to bank - cut on the Greek debt. level in the end of 2009 of repossessing Greek pub - countries like Egypt and claims that the current ruptcy. The pension funds Another €39 billion will be when it was considered es - lic property and Greek Turkey in the era of high talks on “private sector own €26 billion in Greek given to the Greek banks to sential for Greece to seek public resources and involvement” (PSI) in the imIptaelryiailsisbmo. bbing along government bonds. It is es - recapitalise them, and €14 external aid. Current IMF weIfalGthre. ece is expelled EU-ECB-IMF bail-out will just the right side of debt timated that the pension billion to Greek bondhold - predictions are for Greek from the eurozone and is bring relief for the people disaster; Spain's levels funds already lost €4.5 bil - ers, for Greek bonds that debt of around 150% of the forced to return to its na - of Greece. But: of slump and unemploy - lion in 2011 from reduced are expiring this March. GDP in 2020. tional currency workers' contributions and The people of Greece will •Finally, a precondition ment are soaring; Portu - • First of all, the PSI (drachma), the Greek forced early retirements. pay, with a 30 year auster - for the acceptance of the gal is having to pay talks and the second debt instead of being ad - • Thirdly, the bailout ity program. 50% haircut by the private higher and higher bailout fund of €130 bil - justed into drachmas, money is going directly to • Fourthly, Greek gov - sector is for the new Greek charges to borrow in lion will be linked to a new under Greek law, would the bankers and predators. ernment debt will still not debt to be governed by global markets, and is “memorandum” of anti- remain in euros, and be - €30 billion will be directly be viable after the PSI deal English law. This hand lurching towards Greek- working-class measures. come even more un - given to the banks, hedge and the bail-out. On the over all power to the credi - scale debt crisis. •Secondly, the 50% payable. funds, etc. as a form of best-case scenarios, the tors. They will be able to “haircut” on privately-

SOLIDARITY 3 DEBATE Long live free Georgia!

In 1921, the Red Army invaded — probably at the instiga - was little left of the Georgian Mensheviks in their homeland. tion of Stalin, and without the knowledge of Trotsky. The new Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic was the kind The Mensheviks were quickly routed and many of their of place where psychopath like Lavrenty Beria could rise to leaders fled to exile in western Europe. power. Beria was so successful in brutally terrorising the From there they continued a long struggle to delegitimise local population that Stalin eventually promoted him to Eric Lee the Russian occupation of their country. A large part of the head the secret police throughout the Soviet empire. struggle took place within the international socialist move - Though the Mensheviks died off one by one in exile, the ment. memory of Georgian independence never did. Georgia re - It’s the final moments of a fictional 1927 silent film. The Leading socialists from across Europe travelled to Geor - mained for decades a centre of anti-Soviet activism, culmi - hero is being tortured, and those paying close attention gia in its final months, the most prominent of these being nating in mass street protests in the 1980s. will see that the torturers are Russians. (The dials on Karl Kautsky. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the Georgians pro - their machines have Cyrillic characters.) Kautsky wrote a book praising the Menshevik success in claimed independence and chose as their symbol the flag of The hero breaks free, rescues the girl, and flies off to free - Georgia, citing it as an example of a democratic socialist al - the short-lived Menshevik republic. They made the date of dom. His last words, which appear as a title card, are “Long ternative to Bolshevism. He contrasted the multi-party sys - the Menshevik’s declaration of independence their national live free Georgia!” tem, free press and independent trade unions of Georgia holiday. And for a few years at least, the constitution of the My guess is that Michel Hazanavicius, director of The with repressive regime in Soviet Russia. Menshevik republic was back in force. Artist , in which the fictional film appears, was looking for Trotsky countered with a vitriolic attack on the man for - But the 1990s were to prove a turbulent time in Georgia, something that would seem authentic in the 1920s, some - merly known as “the pope of Marxism” and defended what with civil wars and a series of failed leaders. thing sufficiently obscure that it would have an air of being turned out to be the first successful Soviet invasion of a The country is currently ruled by the right-wing genuine. To have the hero of this adventure fighting for neighbouring country (others were to follow). Saakashvili regime, whose record on workers’ rights has at - Georgia is about as obscure as you can get. In Britain, the cause of Georgia was so well-known and tracted the attention of the international trade union move - I’m sure audiences in the USA are convinced that it must widely discussed that the TUC eventually sent a trade union ment. have something to do with the state of Georgia. delegation to investigate. For years the Georgian social de - One of the first things Saakashvili got rid of when coming But we know better. mocrats in exile participated as honoured members of inter - to power was the hated crimson flag of the Mensheviks. In the 1920s, the plight of the formerly independent Geor - national socialist congresses. To Michel Hazanavicius, the slogan “Long live free Geor - gian republic was very much in public view. And this was Just three years after the Red Army seized Tbilisi, the gia!” must have seemed as obscure as it gets, a historical cu - particularly true on the left. Georgians rose up in a violent insurrection against Soviet rioBuustittyo, ssoomceiathliisntgs,t“hfartewe oGuelodragpiap”eiasl aonrleymtointdrievriaofbaufhfsis. - Georgia, which had been a province of the tsarist empire, rule. Leaders of the Menshevik People’s Guard led the upris - torical tragedy. declared independence in 1918 and was led by Mensheviks. ing, but it was eventually crushed. Within a decade there

nascent bureaucracy. forms of workers’ self-rule from unravelling” is just the self- The mitigation or suspension of Bolshevik party rule deception that comes with the orthodoxy, that questioning would lead eventually to White counter-revolution. Bolshevik infallibility means surrendering the whole legacy There is no other possible lineage and revolutionary tradi - ofWOectodboenr’. t have to make that choice. Luxemburg was Letters tion other than the Bolsheviks and to “existentially” aban - absolutely correct when she wrote that freedom is al - don the Bolsheviks is to abandon October root and branch. ways freedom for the one who thinks differently — “the The Bolsheviks were the highest form of “human mate - historical task is to replace bourgeois democracy by rial” yet seen on the stage of history and we the AWL stand proletarian democracy, not to abolish all democracy” — in that tradition, accept their pre-eminence, and fundamen - the victory of the bureaucracy is secured in the aboli - What does Kronstadt tally repudiate any critique that diminishes them to any sig - tion of liberty and the substitution of the central com - nificant extent before the beginnings of the bureaucratic mittee for the working class and its manifold counter-revolution in 1923-1924. Hence how important it is emancipation. mean? to never surrender our subjection to the myth that the Bol - sheviks were October (against Tsarism), that they were ut - Martyn Hudson, Middlesborough The debate in Solidarity about Kronstadt has been be - terly infallible (destroying Kronstadt in order to defend tween those who utterly condemn the suppression and October against white restorationism), and that “rivers of see it as the beginning of the Stalinist Thermidor and the blood” separate the Bolshevik and Stalinist traditions. United front or class end of workers’ self rule in Russia; those who absolutely Moralising about Kronstadt doesn’t really achieve much defend the suppression and see it as guaranteeing the now, and of course that was not Serge’s intention. But, and collaboration? survival of the workers’ revolution for a little longer; and it’s a big but, working-class liberation is best served by hon - those who see it as a tragic mistake and in retrospect esty and a commitment to admit that what happened was It was with some surprise that I found myself accused of the first signs of an “emergent totalitarianism” whilst not just unfortunate but incorrect and murderous, in 1921, in a “too sweeping attack” on the the Italian trade union still defending the good intentions of the Bolsheviks and 1937, and now and we should say that. leadership, specifically that of CGIL ( Solidarity 231). Ac - asserting their fallibility. Victor Serge was in the latter All contributors have accepted that the negotiations with cording to Toby Abse it was only due to the latter that camp. the Whites was a fabrication and that what happened was a the united action with the CISL and UIL leadership took tragedy. They should now say that the very suppression of place. Paul Hampton ( Solidarity 230) is correct to point out that Kronstadt was emblematic of a libertarian Bolshevik tradi - Even if it were true, the point of the article was to under - Serge’s emphasis changed. He originally supported the sup - tion eradicated for the best part of a century and was the true line the covert agreement between them that there would be pression. Later he said Kronstadt was the beginning of the beginning of the Thermidor that would wipe the old Bolshe - no more action if Monti made the right gestures — which he victory of the party bureaucracy over working class self rule. viks off the face of the earth. This is very far from the idea promptly did! And the ensuing “social peace” has delighted As Hannah Thompson has noted ( Solidarity 229) the Kron - that the best gains of October were sustained by the suppres - the markets, with spreads on Italian bonds diminishing con - stadt sailors’ opposition to one party rule was an anti-Bol - sion. shevik but not an anti-October demand — after the siderably. A case, I think, of Toby not seeing the woods for suppression of the uprising, on what democratic basis does ONE-PARTY the trees. the Bolshevik party then rule? The Bolsheviks created the The bureaucracy was born of the one-party state. Its ori - While he correctly, if far, far too weakly, reproaches the context for their own elimination. gins lie with the Tsaritsyn circle and the opposition to CGIL leadership for its far from principled support for the According to the orthodoxy, the party had already substi - Trotsky and his use of ex-Tsarist military specialists. metalworkers of FIOM in the most crucial and critical battle for the future of the workers’ movement in Italy against the tuted itself for an atomised working class. If only we could Cronyist Stalinism begins with the horror of the idea of FIAT bosses, he states that the same leadership’s resistance hold out for revolution in the west it mattered little that the Trotsky as Thermidorian and Bonaparte, and it recruited cell against labour reform should not be so “cavalierly dis - working class of Russia was being smashed. The party by cell on the basis of opposition to Trotsky and his clique, missed”. But the point I wanted to make was that workers would survive and become subsequently rejuvenated by the including many who objected to his disdain for workers’ should put little trust in the rhetoric of leaders like Sussanna German revolution. democracy and perceived him as a Menshevik parvenu. It Camusso. On 28 June with the other federation leaders, Ca - This is true as far as it goes but only half-true. Simon Pi - was only after 1924 that many of the old Bolsheviks flocked musso signed a pact with Confindustria — “a pact for Italy” rani’s work has pointed to working class self-assertion dur - to the beginnings of the Opposition and the standard that to “save” the country from economic collapse! ing this period both politically and economically. Trotsky would henceforth, with some reservations, fly for Serious opposition to labour law reform should begin Martin Thomas ( Solidarity 229) castigates me for backcast - democracy and liberty against the embryonic dictatorship. from a principled rejection of negotiations premised on class ing a fetish for democracy into the dark days of 1921. Mar - But the new Stalinist clique didn’t have to learn anything collaborationist assumptions. That is just saying what is. tin says the Bolsheviks “had become convinced in the course anew — the party had been delivered to them already by This not “dismissing” the CGIL members and their capac - of 1917 that the only realisable form of radical democ - Lenin and Trotsky and their suspension of anything looking ity to mobilise, to pressurise and force the leadership to fight. racy...was soviet rule, workers democracy”. Absolutely. The like working class self-emancipation. The furious forced col - It represents much of what is progressive in Italian working- radical libertarianism of the Bolsheviks forged in the pris - lectivization of the USSR was the implementation of a Trot - class history but, nevertheless, it has been led in the past ons of the Tsarist autocracy was the lifeblood of revolution. skyist programme by the bureaucrats, leading whole ranks mainly by bureaucrats associated with the former Commu - Yet how easy it was to suspend these principles in the con - of Left Oppositionists to desert Trotsky because Stalin nist Party, and today the ex-Stalinists of the Democratic text of a period when workers’ rule threatened to overcome seemed to be about to take on and destroy what they consid - Party. the one-party state. ered to be the true Thermidorian faction around Bukharin Toby is correct to say that to counterpose “abstract rank I imagine the majority of AWL comrades view this suspen - and Rykov. and filism” in the present situation is useless. But to propose sion of soviet legality, basic principles of workers’ democ - But how could emancipation operate where the working a tactic of the United Front of the trade unions and workers’ racy, freedom of expression and so on and the development class has been atomized or eliminated? Well we can see its movement against the government and bosses attacks is ab - of the apparatus of the unlawful and unaccountable state agency on the streets of the Kronstadt garrison, in the facto - solutely central now. terror of the Cheka as justified for the following reasons. ries of Moscow, in the Red Army, in the variety of opposi - Such a perspective fought for with, and within unions, Only the Bolsheviks truly represented the incarnation of tions, in the meanderings of the Mensheviks, in the talk and communities, the radical left etc; the key political issues the spirit of October even over and against working-class debate within the Bolshevik party itself while free expres - and programmatic demands of revolutionary strategy — power and self-emancipation (or crucially if somehow the sion lasted for a few months longer. this is increasingly more and more meaningful in a con - working class was absent). Paul Hampton’s contention in Solidarity 228 that the very text of deepening and sharpening class struggle. Only the Bolshevik party stood as the bastion against the suppression of Kronstadt did “prevent even the tenuous Hugh Edwards, Italy 4 SOLIDARITY WHAT WE SAY No to war! Help the AWL to No to Iranian bomb! raise £20,000 The AWL is growing. We now publish Solidarity weekly, Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency setting up new branches and expanding all areas of our (IAEA) are now visiting Iran. In November 2011 the activity. If we are going to continue this, we also need to agency reported that Iran had conducted tests “relevant expand our sources of funds. That’s why we’re launch - to the development of a nuclear explosive device”. ing an appeal to raise £20,000 by the end of August. A It was also concerned about medium-level uranium en - donation from you, or a regular standing order, will help. richment at Iran’s Fordo plant near Qom in northern Iran. We need money to: Technology which enables higher level enrichment of ura - 1. Continue publishing Solidarity as a weekly; nium is a prerequisite for developing nuclear weapons. That 2. Establish a fund for publishing high quality books and is why uranium enrichment has been a "red line" for the US, pamphlets; the EU, Israel, the Gulf States and others. The IAEA report 3. Improve our website; triggered a ratching up of a decade-long conflict. 4. Organise events such as our New Unionism dayschool In late November the US, UK and Canada announced fur - next month, and our Ideas for Freedom summer school; ther bilateral sanctions on Iran. The sanctions were said to be 5. Organise study courses; targetted on the military purchases, trade and financial 6. Build on our work as one of the main forces fighting for transactions carried out by the Islamic Revolutionary Ahmadinejad admires Fordo nuclear plant rank-and-file democracy and control in the labour move - Guards Corps, which controls the nuclear program and ment; owns large parts of the economy. ian regime when it says its nuclear programme is only about 7. Build on our work in developing a broad, democratic In the same month Israel tested a long-range ballistic mis - modernising the economy or "diversifying" its energy sup - student movement against fees and cuts; sile. The test came after a week of speculation in the Israeli ply. 8. Pay the rent on and finance the staffing of our office to press about whether their government had decided to attack It wil be good if Iran backs down on nuclear enrichment. make all of the above and more possible. Iran’s nuclear complexes. Yet socialists cannot endorse the latest economic sanctions. We have no big money backers. We rely on contributions On 11 January an Iranian nuclear scientist was blown up They increase the risk of war, especially at a time of vicious froGm workers and students like you! So please consider: by a car bomb in Tehran. It was the fourth such attack in two factional conflict between two “conservative” wings of Taking out a monthly standing order to the AWL. There years. Iranian officials blamed the US and Israel. Iran’s clerical-fascist state over next month’s (highly rigged) is a form at www.workersliberty.org/resources and on this In January the EU announced sanctions which (from July) elections. Ahmedinejad and the “civilian” government ma - paGge. (Even a few pounds a month really does help.) will prohibit the import, purchase and transport of Iranian chine are pitted against the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Making a donation. You can send it to us at the address crude oil and petroleum products and related finance and Khamenei and and his personally-appointed religious hier - below (cheques payable to “AWL”) or do it online at insurance to EU countries. archy on the other. wwGw.workersliberty.org/donate. By this point Iran had already threatened to close off the There are no “smart sanctions”, ones that will just hit G Organising a fundraising event. Strait of Hormuz — the transit route for around one-fifth of Iran’s powerful, any more than there were against Iraq in Taking copies of Solidarity to sell at your workplace, the oil traded globally. In response the US had said its Fifth 1991-2003. In an grossly unequal society like Iran, working- unGiversity/college or campaign group. Fleet based in nearby Bahrain would defend the shipping class people will suffer, sooner or later, from an economic Getting in touch to discuss joining the AWL. route and, if necessary, retaliate militarily against Iran. fall out; jobs will be lost, and basic food prices will go up, For more information on any of the above, contact us: tel. All sides are still sending out mixed messages. On 26 Jan - while the regime and the capitalists will preserve their in - 07796 690 874 / [email protected] / AWL, 20E Tower uary a report by (the US Congress financed) Institute for Sci - terests. Workshops, 58 Riley Road, SE1 3DG. ence and International Security said, “Iran is unlikely to Sanctions will help the regime whip up nationalist sup - decide to dash toward making nuclear weapons as long as port in its defence (including from the “green” opposition). its uranium enrichment capability remains as limited as it is We are against the sanctions and war drive and we are res - Total raised so far: £7,115. today”. On the same day President Mahmoud Ahmadine - olutely with the Iranian working class against the Iranian jad said he was ready for talks on uranium enrichment. regime. In the “soft” outcome, Iran will resume the talks on nu - To prepare the correct “moral tone” for the forthcoming We raised another excellent clear enrichment which collapsed last year. What if it does - elections the regime has begun the new year by executing £1,085 this week in donations n’t? three people a day. Whom are they killing? Iranian Afghans. and new standing orders. WAR Kurdish activists, political people, and people they call Thanks to John, Jason, The big powers, on the evidence, do not want war; but “heretics” (secular minded liberals they don’t like). We stand Dave, Boyd, their actions drift towards a situation where events in solidarity with prisoners whose lives are on the line. Andrew and could easily spiral out of control and into a war which We stand in solidarity with Iranian workers who still pe - Rebecca! would set the whole region alight, as Iran uses proxy ac - riodically strike even as they face mass sackings (and Comrades are worse), and struggle against conditions where they have no 115 tion by Hamas and Hezbollah to fight back. , beginning to make labour rights. Their organisations are precarious, and pre - £7 fundraising plans; War would be extremely unpopular in the US, but the US cious. We oppose the drift towards war in the name of that please send in could still stumble into war. Israel has softened its stance re - so•lidNaorityo war! • No to the Islamic Republic! • Solidarity reports. cently, but many “hawks” are pressing for an Israeli military with Iranian workers! strike. Some accounts of the conflict, such as Pepe Escobar’s on Al Jazeera, argue it is "all about the oil". Iran's trading al - No solidarity liances with China, Pakistan etc., are an increasing threat to At the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts con - Standing order authority US interests in the Middle East. ference in Liverpool on Sunday 29 January, student Others speculate that the Obama administration has members of the Socialist Workers Party, Counterfire and adopted the same “regime change” line on Iran which Bush Socialist Action voted against a motion opposing US To: ...... (your bank) had on Iraq and Afghanistan. But these analyses slot the sanctions or military action against Iran! Why? Because events into a frame which doesn’t fit. it expressed the idea of solidarity with the workers, ...... (its address in full) China is not committed to Iran. It has pushed Iran to ne - women and oppressed peoples of Iran and criticised the gotiate. Iran is not getting inexorably stronger. Its major ally, Iranian state...... the Assad regime in Syria, is weakened. Bush’s strategists thought that a “short sharp” military at - • www.workersliberty.org/swp-iran-tea-party Account name: ...... tack would trigger regime change in Iraq, and had success - fully triggered regime change in Afghanistan. Today US ...... (your name) strategists know that regime change cannot realistically be imposed on Iran by military action from outside, especially “The Treason of the Account no...... since the Iranian regime’s crushing of internal opposition in Sort code: ...... 2009. Intellectuals, and other This conflict is still, and mostly, about the potential of an Please make payments to the debit of my account: Iranian nuclear bomb. Stopping “nuclear proliferation” — more bombs in both new territories and old — is the focus political verse” by Sean Payee: Alliance for Workers’ Liberty, account no. here. The possession of a nuclear bomb would make Iran 20047674 at the Unity Trust Bank, 9 Brindley more aggressive in its foreign policy, expressed mostly Matgamna through its support for groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. Place, Birmingham B1 2HB (08-60-01) Ahmadinejad’s frequent declarations that “the Zionist en - A collection including items previously Amount: £ ...... to be paid on the ...... day of tity” will “disappear” and “go to hell”, and the religious fer - vour of the regime, indicates that a nuclear-armed Iran really published in Solidarity and forerunner ...... (month) 20 ...... (year) and there - might use its nuclear weapons against Israel. publications over the last 25 years. after monthly until this order is cancelled by me in The prospect of Iran having a bomb is alarming. To an - writing. This order cancels any previous orders to swer “ Israel's got the bomb, why shouldn't Iran?” is eva - Buy from bit.ly/wLMj5D or for £9.99 post free from AWL, sive. 20E Tower Workshops, Riley Rd, London SE1 3DG (order at the same payee. Of course we are against Israel — or the US, or Britain — www.workersliberty.org/donate) having nuclear weapons. But Iran is a clerical-fascist regime Date ...... explicitly committed to making another state in its region All proceeds go to the AWL fundraising drive Signature ...... (Israel) “disappear”. And we certainly cannot trust the Iran -

SOLIDARITY 5 ORGANISING How to be a Trou

Kim Moody is a writer and activist in the labour move - ment. His books include Workers In a Lean World and US Labor in Trouble and Transition . In 1979, he helped found Labor Notes , an independent trade union magazine that has gone on to become one of the most important focuses for rank-and-file organising in the American trade union movement. Now based in Britain, Kim is involved in Trade Union Solidarity magazine. He spoke to us about the Labor Notes publication The Troublemaker’s Hand - book , a guide to militant organising at work. On Saturday 18 February, Kim will lead a workshop on using the Hand - book at the AWL event “New Unionism: How workers can fight back.” (See box.) There are two Troublemaker’s Handbooks (TMH), the first published in 1991, the more recent one in 2005. The first TMH was the result of a “Workplace Strategies School” which Labor Notes (LN) held in 1989. This was based mainly on union members relating experiences of using tac - tics or ways of organising that worked — i.e., won. There were about 100 workers from a variety of unions and indus - tries at the weekend-long school, and about 25 workshops on different issues, but mostly focused on the workplace. The “stories” were so great that we had the idea of pulling them together in a book. We (LN) hired Dan La Botz, an ex - perienced socialist, activist and writer, to do this. As he worked on it, he ran across even more “stories” and ideas Some unions, like the United Electrical Workers (whose members in Local 1110, above, staged the successful sit-down strike at about workplace struggle. So the first TMH ended up being Republic Windows and Doors in Chicago in 2008), have used the Troublemakers’ Handbook in their official training. quite long. COLLECTIVE ences, drawing up to a thousand union activists, and five groups of militants, or local unions that use it. The first ver - Although Dan edited it, it involved dozens of rank-and- weekend schools dealing with lean production and new sion sold about 15,000 copies, the second probably more. file union activists, helping to solidify the network we management methods. So the experience was even richer. Its success inspired LN to organise “Troublemakers’ always hoped to build. The LN staff also helped out, so TMH is used mainly by workplace activists, stewards, Schools”. These are one-day schools that have been held in it was a very collective effort. and reps, but it also serves as an educational tool for many about 20 cities in the last couple of years. LN staff initiate union locals [branches]. A few “official” unions have used them, but it is local people who put them together, select I think it did help a number of the workers involved see it in their training programs, such as the Oil, Chemical and the workshop leaders, etc. These schools, too, have helped the bigger class picture, because it involved people from all Atomic Workers (before merging several times with other, to create a growing (admittedly very loose) network of kinds of jobs facing similar problem and using collective more conservative, unions); the United Electrical Workers; workplace activists across the country. One result was that means to fight back. sometimes the Communications Workers of America. Vari - the last LN conference in 2010 drew 1,200 people — the The second version of the TMH was edited by LN staffer ous labour education programmes or individual union tu - biggest yet. Jane Slaughter, and involved the same collective process. By tors in the US use it, typically by reproducing pages or These conferences are not one-day rallies, but weekend the time we did the newer one, LN had held several confer - chapters of it. Mostly, though, it is individual activists, educational events with about 50 workshops and a number of plenary sessions. People are encouraged to use the week - end to make links with others or even to form rank-and-file networks in their own unions. They typically draw about New Unionism: how workers can fight back 100 immigrant workers and many international partici - pants. Saturday 18 February, 11.30-5.30 at REFORM TMH has been used by reform groups [rank-and-file Highgate Newtown Community Centre, London N19 5DQ campaigns for democratic reform within particular Book tickets (£15/£8/£4) online: workersliberty.org/newunionism unions or union branches] such as Teamsters for a Democratic Union, New Directions in the Transport In the late 1880s, workers — often unskilled or semi-skilled, often migrants or Workers Union Local 100, and many smaller, local ones. working in casualised environments — organised militant industrial unions to fight It brings people with diverse views on many questions their bosses. After 40 years of limited struggles, this movement put working-class together and teaches them how to look at their problem col - power back onto the political agenda. Can we build a New Unionism for the 21st century that transforms and lectively in an era when the powers-that-be want us to think revolutionises the modern labour movement? in individual terms. It allow reformers, militants, and radi - Speakers and sessions: cals to bring more conservatively-minded workers together • Louise Raw (author of Striking A Light ) and Jill Mountford (Workers’ Liberty) : to get a bigger view of what conflict at work is really about, From the Bryant & May matchwomen’s strike to the Cradley Heath Chainmakers’ strike — how women organised and to see things across the entire working class. It’s politi - • Colin Waugh (Editorial Board, Post-16 Educator, and author of a pamphlet on the Plebs League) on the movement for working-class self-education cal in that it deals with a wide variety of issues, including • Reading The Troublemakers’ Handbook : the Labor Notes guide to organising at work today, with Labor Notes race, gender, and international connections, but puts them founder Kim Moody in a class context and proposes collective ways to fight back. • Finding a political voice: from New Unionism to Labour Representation, with Sam Greenwood and Martin Struggle is the force that overcomes conservative views, and Thomas (Workers’ Liberty) TMH provides practical ways to conduct struggle. • How socialists organised: the life of Tom Mann, with Charlie McDonald (Hackney DWP PCS, pc) and Cathy TMH can do this in part because it and LN are viewed as Nugent (Editor, Solidarity ) being independent of both the union bureaucracy and of • Ruth Cashman (Lambeth Unison, pc), Mick Duncan (Unite organiser, pc), Nadine Houghton (GMB organiser, any particular political group, even though some of the staff pc) and others (tbc) discuss “organising the unorganised today”. and close supporters are known socialists. • What came next: The Great Unrest , with socialist activist and historian Edd Mustill Despite being embedded in the US (and, to a lesser ex - • Closing plenary: New Unionism 2012? A panel discussion with working-class activists, including Eamonn tent, Canadian) industrial relations systems, which are quite Lynch (RMT, tube driver victimised for union activity and reinstated following a militant campaign), Jean Lane different from the UK, I think TMH is particularly relevant (Tower Hamlets Unison, pc), and an activist from the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) Cleaners’ Branch today because you now have a situation here where stew - ards and activists are buried alive in “casework”; i.e., indi - Creche • cheap food • bookstalls vidual grievances, tribunals, etc. Since that has long been the case in the US, TMH attempts 6 SOLIDARITY ublemaker

Troublemakers’ Schools are coming to London!

Rank-and-file trade union activists who want to adapt the Labor Notes /Troublemaker’s Handbook approach to organising at work and apply it in the UK will be meeting, to address this by finding ways to turn individual grievances work that could provide some continuity. It would provide into collective actions whenever possible. access to various strategies and tactics, a network of work - initially in London, for mini “Trou - Here in the UK, we are in a situation where most of our place reps and activists to spread these kind of ideas and, blemakers’ Schools”. We’ll be shar - high-level leaders, even the most left-wing of them, can’t when possible, organise for them. We hope the re-launched seem to think beyond one-day strikes. For its part, too much Trade Union Solidarity magazine can play this role. ing experiences from work, looking of the revolutionary left sees union activity in terms of run - Of course, it takes time to build up a network across union at what tactics have succeeded, ning for high office, as though that was a shortcut to mobil - lines. A UK TMH is a great idea, one that Sheila Cohen of and discussing how we can use the isation and grassroots organisation. Changing things or Trade Union Solidarity [and author of Ramparts of Resistance ] tactics in TMH to fight back. reviving our unions involves more than ritualistic calls for a haIst biseeanbsiuggpgreosjteincgt,fhoor wsoemvert.iLmike.e the first one we did in general strike or running for places on National Executives. the US, you need to build up the “stories” and tactics by It means building from the base in the workplace or on-the- extending and deepening the network. Perhaps some For more info, including details on job, activating people collectively, and expanding conscious - “schools”, where people tell what kind of tactics worked the first meeting and how to get in - ness through struggle. TMH is one of many tools for doing for them, would be a way to start. that. volved, watch this space or contact One-day strikes are just not effective in most cases. A prob - G Labor Notes — labornotes.org Kim Moody and Sheila Cohen at lem here, of course, is that to strike legally there must be a G ballot beforehand, which means it’s harder to catch the em - Troublemaker’s Handbook 2 — [email protected] labornotes.org/troublemakershandbook2 ployer off-balance. However, once the ballot has been taken G the union can decide when and where to strike, so rolling, Trade Union Solidarity magazine — selective and repetitive strikes are possibilities. There are also solidaritymagazine.wordpress.com various “inside strategies”, like work-to-rule or additional harassment tactics like “quickie” stoppages on the job, mass grievances, everyone coming to work late by a few minutes, Capturing the wisdom etc. This kind of thing is in both editions of TMH. In the final analysis, however, the open-ended [indefinite] strike is workers’ most powerful weapon if well-prepared and con - Martin Donohue reviews the Troublemaker’s Handbook. [for us]. Organising is not something that needs to be done ducted. This means various efforts at activating and mobil - This review first appeared in Solidarity 154, 25 June 2009. for us by “professionals”; it is the means by which the rank ising members before the strike, again using some of the and file can struggle to win back power in the workplace. tactics you can find in TMH. Founded in the USA in 1979, Labor Notes is a rank- and-file union organising project and best known for Chapters include: shop floor and creative tactics, reform - DEFIED its monthly newsletter. It also organises conferences ing your branch, and bringing immigrants into the move - It’s also worth keeping mind that several groups of attracting over 1,000 rank-and-file union stewards, and ment. There is a wealth of bitterly won, first-hand workers have simply defied the law in the last few years publishes pamphlets and books. experience here. Don’t reinvent the wheel! Read it, and and gotten away with it. give yourself and your union brothers and sisters and a The continued survival and success of such a demo - head start over management. So much of rank-and-file For the government to come down hard on a large, strate - cratic, living and vibrant project in the belly of world cap - union wisdom is oral, and often lost to the wind. This book gically important, group like the engineering construction italism holds up an unflattering mirror to our experience in provides an invaluable service to the movement in captur - workers is somewhat risky. So, they turn the other way and the UK. Since the demise of the excellent Trade Union News ing and collecting this information and presenting it in an pretend nothing happened. This wouldn’t necessarily work we have had nothing remotely similar. inspiring way. for all workers, but if enough people did it, it might bring The Troublemaker’s Handbook (TMH) is simply essential. Hopefully by now you’ve already decided to buy the aspects of the anti-union laws into public debate. Every union rep and activist should have a copy of this TMH (or better, to get your union branch to buy a few In fact, it’s already in public debate. The Tories want to book, and it is invaluable as an exciting and involving copies), so I can safely add a word of warning. This is a make it harder to strike at all. A little “civil disobedience” primer for younger socialists with less experience of book written from the American experience, so there are might well be in order. unions. differences of terminology and more. For example some lo - I think something like LN, adapted to British conditions, The TMH contains page after page of first hand accounts cals (branches) in the States have tens of thousands of would be extremely useful for getting the trade union move - of genuinely organising in the workplace. “Organising”, members, so sections on running your “local” read a little ment going again. We have a problem with turning points or the “organising agenda”, has replaced partnership as difTfehrisensthforoumldonnoet wderittrtaecnthfreorem. the book, but highlights that don’t turn. There’s a big strike or occupation, but no fol - the buzzword/cliché within the union movement. But “or - the lack of a similar book made specific to UK reali - low-up. ganising” means all things to all people. This book serves ties. A UK version of LN could help build a cross-union net - as a welcome reminder of what organising should mean SOLIDARITY 7 DISCUSSION Countering Cooper

By Martin Thomas Labour Party standards. Currently shadow Home Secretary, she opened her speech to the 2011 Labour Party conference Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls’s sharp rightward shift on by praising herself for being the first Labour Home Secre - cuts in mid-January — endorsing a public-sector pay tary or shadow to invite a Police Federation representative freeze for indefinite years to come, and saying that all to address Labour conference, lengthily praising the cops, the Tory cuts would stay under a Labour government — and criticising the Tories for “cutting police powers”. When was connected with factional manoeuvrings within she attacked the Tories, it was not for being right-wing, but Labour’s top ranks. on the grounds that they were “just wrong” or “reckless” or “didn’t get it”. According to insiders, Balls’s statement was made with - She made the now-obligatory gesture of differentiating out prior agreement with Labour leader Ed Miliband. It from Blairism, by saying that 90-day and 42-day detention went further than Miliband wanted, but Miliband then, had been wrong, but was careful to balance that criticism of weakly, felt cornered, and backed Balls. the New Labour government “from the left” with one “from The background is manoeuvring by Balls and by diehard- the right”, saying that New Labour should have taken up Blairites to discredit and oust Ed Miliband, and to replace its option under EU law to delay free entry for Polish and him as Labour leader by Balls’s wife Yvette Cooper. A difference did open up in 2009-10, with “Brownites” other East European workers. John Rentoul, who describes himself as a “Blairite ultra” like Cooper, then Chief Secretary to the Treasury, adopting She is said to have fought, and won, a number of internal and wrote an admiring biography of Tony Blair (though in a “Keynesian” response to the economic crisis — “You can’t battles with shadow Justice minister Sadiq Khan, no leftist, another era he wrote a useful demolition of Thatcherism, cut your way out of recession; you have to grow your way over Khan’s push for a more liberal stance on sentencing. The Rich Get Richer [1987]), puffed Cooper for leader in the out of recession” — and diehard Blairites like Mandelson Independent on 3 January. and Alistair Darling insisting on cuts. BACKGROUND Dan Hodges, a former Labour Party official who describes That adds an odd dimension to the current shifts. On the Like many New Labour politicians, Cooper has no back - himself as “a Blairite cuckoo in the Miliband nest”, has also “Keynesian” issue, Ed Balls was not only a “Brownite”, he ground in rank-and-file labour movement activity. Her been promoting Cooper, through the Daily Telegraph. was the “Brownite”. He not only recited the standard slo - father was a trade union official, but for (successively) “Yvette’s the next leader of the party”, said one shadow cabinet gans, but (unusually for a politician, especially a New IPCS, EMA, and Prospect, all conservative unions source. “The only question is whether it’s before the election or Labour politician) theorised about them, giving academic mainly for managers and engineers. after”. lectures that were well received by the minority but signif - She went to a comprehensive school in Hampshire, and DRAFT icant slice of bourgeois economic thought that dissents from then to Oxford University, Harvard, and LSE. She was in the The other main voice in the “draft Cooper” campaign the coalition government’s cuts strategy, for example the student Labour Club at Oxford, but on her own account in - is, oddly, the very Tory Daily Mail . On 30 January the economic commentators of the Financial Times . active. Mail reported that at New Year “Mr Balls cooked In the Labour leadership contest of 2010, Balls ran a She went from university straight into the top ranks of lasagne for more than 30 of their [Balls’s and Cooper’s] stronger anti-cuts line (or a less weak one, anyway) than the politics, working as a backroom person for, successively, closest political allies”, in an effort to cohere a faction. other candidates. John Smith (then Shadow Chancellor), Bill Clinton, and Cooper is also a trained economist, with more academic Harriet Harman (when a Treasury minister). She was out of The Mail speculates: “A bizarre Labour plot would see al - background than Balls. Like all New Labour politicians, she work for a year with ME; had a brief spell as economics cor - lies of Tony Blair backing Shadow Home Secretary Yvette affects a robotic, soundbite-structured, always-on-message respondent for the Independent ; got a safe Labour seat for Cooper for leader if Ed Miliband is forced to step down... public persona, but even New Labour politicians must the 1997 general election, and was a minister by 1999. She “The conspirators are reportedly supporting Ms Cooper, sometimes, somewhere below their shiny surfaces, think . married Ed Balls (whose background is similar) in 1998. not because they think she will win the next General Elec - The probability must be that both Cooper and Balls know The manoeuvres are opaque. One thing is clear, though: tion, but because they are convinced Labour will lose. They the issues on economic policy and care about them, believe despite Ed Miliband’s statement to the 2011 Labour confer - are ready to use her in a bid to finish off Ed Miliband and the “Keynesian” line, and know that the coalition govern - ence that he “is not Tony Blair”, and the conference’s enthu - pave the way for his brother David to take over if Ms ment’s poor economic record resoundingly vindicates their siastic applause for it, the diehard Blairites have great clout Cooper loses to David Cameron in 2015” (7 January). arguments of 2009-10 against big and fast cuts. in Labour’s top circles. Through its 13 years in office, the New Labour leadership That makes Balls’s shift on cuts perplexing. It is normal They have it in large part because the unions and the left was famously divided into “Blairites” and “Brownites”. for Labour politicians in opposition, and certainly when, as have mounted so little counter-pressure. The job of activists Cooper, like Balls, was a “Brownite”. Mostly it was impos - now, they are safely distant from having to deliver in office, is to mobilise the unions and the left to create that counter- sible to see what separated the “Blairites” and “Brownites” to talk more “left” than they really think, but Balls is doing pressure. beyond personal rivalries and competing networks of pa - the opposite. The obvious speculation is that truth may be One first step would be to start rallying support for a tronage. The one visible political difference — on British dear to him and Cooper, but career is dearer; and they have left-winger — the obvious choice is John McDonnell entry to the euro, which Blair favoured more than Brown done a deal to get diehard-Blairite backing. MP — as the prospective successor to Ed Miliband as did — was not a left-vs-right one. In general, Cooper is clearly right-wing by any traditional leader. Who’s to blame for the crisis? The disabled!

past ten years.” and exhaustion, make for bit of easy dog-whistle politics to “I think we should all pretend to be disabled for a month label sufferers no more than lazy. or so, claim benefits and hope this persuades the authori - Underneath the inhumane bile, however, is political and ties to sort out the mess.” economic illiteracy. Press Watch “It has become easier to claim those benefits, partly as a There is no examination of any of the reasons why dis - By Pat Murphy consequence of the disablement charities who, out of their ability might have doubled, such as the overall increase in own self-interest, insist that an ever-greater proportion of population or the fact that people are living longer or the the population is disabled.” attack on health and safety at work. The political atmosphere is so dominated by the preju - It is customary for hate-mongers like Liddle to be hailed There is no attempt to consider how much the banking dices and norms of the right that it always a surprise by their co-thinkers as boldly “saying the unsayable”. Ex - collapse, the Eurozone crisis or the austerity programme when someone expresses even the most basic of so - cept Liddle lacks the courage to admit his own poisonous may have contributed to “the financial mess we’re in” when cialist or egalitarian ideas in the mainstream media. bigotry. He was, he later claimed, only attacking a group he compared to “exaggerated disability”. Liddle doesn’t even Hence it was a joy to see Mark Steel tell it like it is on called “the pretend disabled”. The “real disabled” he had attempt a calculation on this front. Question Time on 26 January. When the panel were asked no problem with. In fact, so goes the truly tired excuse now, Delingpole does dabble in hard figures. “A report last about the proposals to cap benefits he said “This is what [the these exposures of the “sham disabled” (or poor, sick etc) year from the Taxpayers’ Alliance showed that in 2007/8 Tories] do all the time — make the poor pay for the mess are the best means of championing the genuinely vulnera - over £37 million of our money was spent on our behalf,” he created by the rich”. ble. claims. That does seem like quite a lot but can he be sure Pointing out that there are only 67,000 households receiv - This defence was repeated in the Telegraph by self-styled this has been spent on the “pretend disabled”? It turns out ing housing benefit and that the areas where most is paid (and immensely self-important) libertarian James Deling - that this figure, quoted in a very short article about disabil - are simply those where rent is highest, he identified the per - pole. If you took the trouble to read Liddle’s article, as he ity fraud, has nothing whatever to do with benefit claims nicious political agenda. “The real danger here,” he said, “is had, you could see that his point was well-made. And this but, it is alleged, was paid by the government to “hard-left that all the different people being hammered are made to point was? “There really are far, far too many people spong - organisations like Friends Of The Earth and the New Eco - squabble amongst each other about which of them are to ing off the taxpayer right now ... and they’re one of the rea - nomics Foundation”. What is the link with disability bene - blame while the rich get away with it.” It’s one of the great - sons we’re in the financial mess we’re in.” “One of”, he adds fits? Perhaps they are linked in Delingpole’s mind because est indictments of the Labour Party that we rely on left-wing defensively. they “campaign for more encroachment in our lives by the stand-up comics to popularise such ideas. Liddle’s claim that he was only having a go at fakers is overweening state”. Earlier in the same day, however, the most widely read just a tad undermined by his reference to ME and fibromyal - Delingpole is the author of a number of books, among newspaper in the country contained a particularly vile ex - gia. them 365 Ways to Drive a Liberal Crazy and Welcome to Oba - ample of the “blame-the-poor” method. In his Sun column Dr Charles Shepherd, the medical spokesperson for the maland . In fact while his third-rate public school-boy at - Rod Liddle decided to do the brave and challenging job of ME Association, said: “This is a disgusting and inaccurate tempts at controversy will leave most “liberals” yawning, attacking the disabled. attack on people with ME Rod Liddle should get his facts the poison spread by the likes of him and Liddle serve the “My New Year’s resolution for 2012 was to become dis - right. The condition is recognised by the World Health Or - essTehnetiyalepnucropuorsaegseo“sthhaerpwlyorskkienwgeproedorb”y(wMhaorkreStaelelyl.exist abled. Nothing too serious, maybe just a bit of a bad back or ganisation after first being described in the Lancet in 1955.” and are really poor) to blame the unemployed and dis - one of those newly invented illnesses which make you a bit And fibromyalgia is a medical disorder characterised by abled for an economic crisis caused by the rich and peaky for decades — fibromyalgia, or ME.” chronic widespread pain and a heightened and painful re - powerful. And Liddle, Delingpole and their ilk serve the “And being disabled is incredibly fashionable. The num - sponse to pressure. Both conditions are routine targets for rich and powerful for their miserable living. ber of people who claim to be disabled has doubled in the people like Liddle because the symptoms of severe fatigue 8 SOLIDARITY ARCHIVE Karl Radek on Kronstadt

What follows is part one of an article by the Bolshevik rev - In the Communist press and in Communist meetings, it olutionary Karl Radek about the Kronstadt sailors’ upris - was openly said that over the course of long years of strug - ing. It was published in Bulletin Communiste , the organ of gle the organism of the Soviets had developed a parasitic, the French section of the Communist International, on 1 bureaucratic tendency. April 1921. As a contemporary account and analysis of the One often heard talk of the necessity of purging the Com - uprising, it represents a not-often-heard dimension. We munist Party of all its careerist elements. Kronstadt had publish it to inform the debate that has taken place in the heard all that, and their essentially peasant psychology (al - pages of this paper on the uprising and the record of the beit transformed by the conditions of life as sailors) con - Bolshevik government. The article was translated from the ceived of these problems as being inherent in Soviet Russia. French by Ed Maltby. In this general conception, there is a mixture of anarchism A great joy seized White Guards all over the world when which rejects all bureaucracy and centralisation, of SR-ism, on the 2 March, news reached the outside world that and a syndicalism which affirms that the worker, like the that the sailors of Kronstadt had risen up against the So - peasant, should be master of what he himself makes. All viets. these tendencies are summed up in the demand for the re- election of the Soviets, re-election which would free them “I have made you, and I shall kill you” — that was the from the influence of the Communist Party in general. The caption below a cartoon that appeared in a big broadsheet in syndicalist side has seduced a part of the workers of Kron - Paris, showing a tall, lanky sailor pointing his revolver at stadt, for whom the direct domination of the proletariat over Trotsky. “The odious sailors of Kronstadt, who brought rev - all factories is the same as the appropriation by the worker olution into every corner of Russia, the maniacal enemies of of the product of his work; the legal right to relieve his the bourgeoisie, have broken from the Soviet government. poverty through the sale of the instruments of his work and, Upon whom will the government support itself now?” eventually, of the produce of his labour as well. That is what was repeated by all the possible, imaginable Furthermore, the people at Kronstadt were isolated. They organs of the Russian counter-revolution. And more than had heard talk of peasant movements about which exagger - one was already banking on the end of the Soviet govern - ated tales were being spread (they received White newspa - ment. But things didn’t work out as they had expected. The pers from Finland); they had heard of the poverty and the Kronstadt uprising, just as they proudly declared it, fled into strikes which gripped Petrograd, among workers who had the land of Canaan, into Finland, where grass had just begun hoped that with the end of the war would come an improve - to grow on the graves of 30,000 proletarians murdered by ment in their situation. the Finnish Whites. They abandoned the sailors to the revo - lutionary tribunals of Soviet Russia. The Kronstadt sailors’ declaration, including their demands CLANDESTINE Nevertheless, the crushing of this mutiny by military force for new elections In this atmosphere, the clandestine organisations of did not erase its significance. The real character of the Kro - Right SRs and Left SRs, of anarchists, of Mensheviks organisation in Petrograd has been badly weakened by the and, in the background and unbeknownst to the sailors, nstadt uprising does not only cast light on the current situ - departure of tens of thousands of members going to literally ation in Russia, it also illuminates at the same time one of the Monarchist counter-revolutionary conspiracy of the guard the Revolution in all corners of Russia, we can under - artillery commander Kozlovski, all acted efficiently. the most important problems of the world revolution in gen - stand that the work of politically educating the sailors had eral: the problem of the relationship between the Commu - greatly suffered. The sailors did not think to rise up, they assembled in nist Party and the mass of the proletariat and the form of the Finally, we must say that the Kronstadt sailors had a very stormy meetings where they met with the commissar of the dictatorship: dictatorship of the Party or dictatorship of the clear idea of their own strength. They were still bathed in fleet Kouzmin, much-respected by them, and Zinoviev. class (to employ the customary expression, which is in any the halo of their revolutionary past; they guarded the gates On the very day of the uprising, Kalinin, president of the case inexact). of Petrograd; their little isle is like the Heligoland of revolu - Executive Central Committee, to which they accorded great THE UPRISING tionary Russia. Such are the local particularities which made weight and importance, spoke to them in Anchor Square, in The Kronstadt uprising was not a local event, although the Kronstadt uprising possible and which gave it its origi - Kronstadt. At mid-day, the sailors’ delegates met to discuss it naturally bore numerous local characteristics. The lat - nal colour. the re-election of the Soviet. During the discussion, news ar - ter consisted first of all in the fact that it was not pro - In a general sense and in the first instance, it is the discon - rived that great detachments of soldiers were marching voked by a very high level of material deprivation. tent of the peasant and the Ukrainian peasant which is ex - against them. This was nothing but a provocation, the means pressed in this mutiny. After the liquidation of the fronts, the chosen by the SRs or even the Monarchists to transform the The sailors of Kronstadt live better than the rest of the majority of sailors were off on leave at home. They had conflict into an armed confrontation. In order to guarantee army or the working class, they are well dressed and their heard everywhere that there was no longer any danger from themselves against any surprise, the sailors established pa - other material conditions of life are without a doubt better the Whites, and they had been struck by complaints about trols, it was insinuated to them that these would be useless, than the average of those experienced by the rest of the Russ - food requisitioning. that the Petrograd Soviet would attack anyway, as the Com - ian proletariat. munists did not want to concede the re-election; they had to, The local discontent of the sailors was directed first and MAKHNO so the sailors were told, take some hostages in order to as - In the Ukraine, people spoke of the merciless struggle foremost against the discipline and order established by the sure the re-election, i.e. arresting all the Communists and in waged by the Soviet government against the bands Soviet government. That is expressly confirmed by the cen - preventing people from Petrograd from coming to Kron - which pillaged, burned and cut the rail-roads under the tral organ of the Whites, Les Dernières Nouvelles of Milyukov, stadt. Anarchist flag of Makhno. who writes, according to a refugee sailor, that the discontent The sailors placed an embargo on Petrograd and arrested had already manifested itself the year before and that it had More than one sailor never returned at all from leave, and the Communists. The struggle was provoked. The Soviet been stirred up by the radical measures taken by the Soviet some went over to Makhno’s side. In an article that a fugitive government naturally could not tolerate the arrest of its rep - government in order to arrest the degeneration of the fleet. sailor wrote in Milyukov’s newspaper, to characterise the resentatives, the seizure of the fortress which guarded the Everywhere, but especially in Russia, sailors have always uprising at Kronstadt, he frankly recognised that Makhno’s approaches to Petrograd. The radio-telegraphic station of the been a particularly ill-disciplined element and given to ex - calls to pillage pleased the sailors a lot and in any case dreadnought Petropavlovsk sent coded telegrams to Reval cess. It is a fatal consequence of their life and of the union played on their natures (17 March 1921). A characteristic fact and to Finland. It is clear that there was in Kronstadt a mil - which they form with their ship: once they come ashore, is that four members of the “revolutionary committee” of itary staff for which the re-election of the soviets was merely they run riot. Kronstadt are the children of Ukrainian peasants and that a pretext, and which is capable of turning Kronstadt over to As a result of this undisciplined spirit and of the great the more influential amongst them, Petritchenko, had been the Entente. The Finnish Whites hurried to make contact number of highly qualified workers among their ranks, the nicknamed “Petlioura” by his friends. with Kronstadt. Kronstadt sailors played an eminent role in the revolutions The peasant believes that he has nothing more to fear from The Soviet government ordered the sailors to lay down of both 1905 and 1917 as agents of the destruction of the feudal land-owners. He now demands of the Soviet govern - their arms, but they hoped that their example would be fol - bourgeois state. These highly qualified workers acted as a ment to reduce the demands placed upon him. The same lowed in Petrograd and Moscow. Their leaders promised moral cement, transforming the indiscipline of the mass into tendency has had an impact on the little island of Kronstadt. them that in a few days the government would be obliged to a revolutionary factor. The son of the peasant, held there on a ship under a rigid hold new general elections which would end with a Soviet But these revolutionary proletarian elements have been discipline, saw in the Communists in the fleet people who government without a party, a Soviet government which singularly weakened during the last three years. The former were demanding from him submission to discipline, when would put everything right and satisfy everyone. The peas - crews of Kronstadt have given the Soviet government thou - no more Entente squadrons were to be seen. And the Com - ant would no longer have to give over his produce, and the sands upon thousands of fighters, who, in all the armies, in munists who were demanding this discipline of him were worker would no longer be hungry. Finally the sailors were all the services, have played the most glorious role in the de - the same who were demanding the peasant give up his persuaded that after rising up against the government they fence and the reconstruction of Soviet Russia. Only an in - grain. would be held to account for their actions, and they stiffened significant number of these former militants have remained At the same time the Kronstadt sailor feels himself to be a their resistance. at Kronstadt and all of these now occupy command posi - born revolutionary; he does not have the slightest intention The government could wait any longer. It could not, for tions. They constitute the Communist apparatus of the fleet of aiding the capitalist, the Tsarist general or the fat landlord the simple reason that when the debacle spread across the and it is against them that the new crews have rebelled. to regain their dominion. His protest against the demands gulf of Finland and the Neva, the counter-revolutionaries Where have these new crews of the fleet been recruited placed on the peasant as well as against revolutionary disci - would be able to push the sailors into an assault on Petro - from? Finland and the Baltic provinces no longer belonging pline and order, is not in his opinion an expression of a grad. And fate followed its course. to Russia, there only remains Southern Russia and the coasts counter-revolutionary tendency; on the contrary, this protest The Gordian knot had to be cut by the sword. Troops of the Black Sea. In the main, the fleet is now composed of his, he thinks, surely an extension of the October Revolution. brought from the front, led by the attack battalion of trainee peasant elements from the Ukraine. “We made the revolution, we proclaimed Soviet power; but Red Army officers and delegates from the Party Congress, Before, specialist sailors were principally metalworkers; who exercises power now? The Communist Party. It’s the set out one night over the ice of the Gulf of Finland which is the necessity of keeping the latter in war industries meant Soviets who should hold and exercise power, it is the masses. alr“eIandfaynbteryginhnaisngnetovebrrebaekfourpe. or since fought warships that many young bourgeois who had had to interrupt their We must found a real Soviet power.” This tendency had been on ice”, proclaimed the soldiers of the Red Army. studies as a result either of the war or the revolution, were determined by the public discussions over all the questions attracted into the fleet by the relatively good conditions that which had accumulated over three years of war within the it offered them. If we add to this the fact that the Communist Communist Party. Continued on page 10 SOLIDARITY 9 FEATURE SWP’s one-eighty on independence, and the return of the prodigal son

ist past (and present)? There appear to be two reasons for the SWP’s embrace of independence for Scotland. One is the ongoing collapse of the SWP into a crude and Scotland classless “anti-imperialism”, in which a class perspective is By Dale Street subordinated to supporting any movement or demand, no matter how reactionary, which is deemed to be in conflict with “imperialism”. Thus, Scottish independence is a ‘good The Socialist Workers Party (SWP) is calling for a yes thing’ because it weakens British imperialism. vote in the referendum on Scotland’s constitutional sta - The second reason for the SWP flipping is accommodation tus which is due to be held in 2014. to prevailing left orthodoxy. According to recent issues of its paper: On the Scottish far left support for independence is now “(We) back independence for Scotland. The UK is an im - mainstream. The SSP and the Socialist Party (Scotland) have perialist power that pillages the world’s resources. A yes been consistently pro-independence. The International So - vote in the referendum would weaken the British state…. cialist Group (Scotland), which broke away from the SWP The break up of our ‘kingdom’ would be one small victory lasFtayreeaar,shieasr faolsrothjoeinSeWd Pthteordanrikftswofitthhitshcishopirro. -independ - against its rotten record.” ( Socialist Worker 2285) ence current than to try to promote political clarity (es - “Britain is a major imperialist power that still wants to be pecially given its own deficiencies in that department). able to invade and rob other countries across the globe. A clear yes vote for independence would weaken the British state and undermine its ability to engage in future wars.” (SW 2286) Oppose Sheridan speaking Problem number one, for the SWP, with this position: Its argument for a yes vote is a “timeless” one. Britain has been ban, but no hero’s an imperialist power for centuries. So why is it only now that the SWP has decided that Scottish independence would be SNP leader Alex Salmond: unconscious anti-imperialist? welcome! a “good thing”? In the past the SWP has been vigorously anti-independ - Tommy Sheridan — one-time leader of the Scottish So - ence. When it briefly joined the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) and robbing other countries”, socialists should presumably cialist Party, one-time leader of “Solidarity — Scotland’s in 2001, for example, one of the sticking points was its re - have opposed the reunification of Germany in 1990. (Some Socialist Movement”, and then a convicted perjurer — fusal to share the SSP’s unconditional support for Scottish socialists actually did so — but their arguments were largely was released from prison on Monday 30 January. independence. What has changed since then? based on emotional revulsion against German identity: “Nie In 2006 Sheridan won a libel case against the News of the Problem number two with this argument: It is a “univer - wieder Deutschland”.) World concerning allegations about his private life. In Janu - sal” one. If the break-up of Britain along national lines is a In fact, why does the SWP not take its argument to its log - ary of last year he was sentenced to three years in prison for ‘good thing’ because of Britain’s imperialist history, then, ical conclusion and advocate the break-up of the European having committed perjury during the libel trial. logically, the break-up of any and all imperialist states along Union? Anyone serving a prison sentence of less than four years national lines would equally be a ‘good thing’. True, that would throw European history back by over is entitled to automatic release after the half-way point in So, should the Alaskan Independence Party ever achieve half a century and recreate a patchwork of warring states. their sentence, and the six months prior to their release can its goal of a multi-question referendum on the state’s consti - But it would certainly weaken capitalism at a continental be spent on a home detention curfew. tutional status, the SWP would call for a vote for independ - level – not just at the level of one state – and doubtless con - Hence Sheridan’s release from prison after just a year. ence? Independence for Alaska might not be a fatal blow to stitute “one small victory against its rotten record.” But stringent conditions have been attached to Sheridan US imperialism, but it would certainly be a setback. Although the SWP’s pro-independence articles stress that for the next six months: he has been banned by the Scottish On the other hand, given Germany’s record of “invading the key divide in the world is class, that workers need unity Prison Service from speaking in public. in a struggle against their rulers, and that “our class unity This means that he will have no chance to intervene in will continue to be our greatest strength”, they fail to explain campaigning around this May’s local government elections, Radek on Kronstadt how Scottish independence relates to such basic socialist or to intervene in the early stages of the referendum cam - ideas. paign (in which Sheridan, when allowed to do so, will be They fail to do so because independence for Scotland is at calling for support for independence). Continued from page 9 odds with such ideas. Socialists generally favour the creation Sheridan’s lawyer, Aamer Anwar, has described the ban The example of Voroshilov, of Zatonsky and of Boubnov of larger political units and breaking down existing state bar - as an attempt to “gag” his client and as “unprecedented and and so on, the example of the students of the military riers where they exist as this provides the most fruitful absolutely draconian, denying my client the right to earn a colleges, led the troops on, and by daybreak they were ground for creating working-class unity. living.” on the firm ground of Kronstadt in the fire of the street- In fact, the very articles which advocate Scottish inde - Socialists should oppose the ban on Sheridan speaking in fighting against the insurgents. pendence admit that in an independent Scotland “Scottish public. Apart from the legal arguments about the imposition rulers will still exploit Scottish workers… Scottish workers The resistance was bloody, but not as much as it could of the ban, there is a more fundamental democratic argu - will still need to fight their bosses … and workers in Scot - have been given the weapons that Kronstadt had at its dis - ment that the ban represents an infringement of Sheridan’s land, Wales and England and beyond will still need unity in posal. During the final days the faith of victory had been rights. struggle against our rulers.” shaken among the sailors and most likely even faith in the Banning Sheridan from speaking in public also denies Nowhere do the articles even attempt to explain how the justice of their cause. people the right to call him to account in public. creation of a new national boundary and a new national unit This was above all because the counter-revolution, at first Sheridan has served a prison sentence for his perjury. But of capital accumulation will facilitate “unity in struggle hidden in the background, acted more and more openly. The he still has to answer to the left for his bogus allegations against our rulers.” SR Tchernov imposed on the sailors the demand for the against socialists, wild claims about conspiracies and Constituent Assembly. From Finland arrived, as represen - CIRCUMSTANCES vendettas supposedly targeted against him, and his style of tatives of the Red Cross, authentic Russian Whites, with the The SWP’s current argument for a yes vote is different questioning female witnesses in the libel and perjury trials. captain of the vessel, Wilkins, at their head, whom the old from previous arguments advanced by the SWP in which But the protests of Aamer Anwar (and, speaking through sailors knew as a military tyrant and who had only been it described circumstances where, supposedly, social - his lawyer, of Sheridan himself) about the “gag” imposed on able to escape their vengeance in 1917 by fleeing abroad. All ists might support a vote for independence. Sheridan also reek of hypocrisy. this enlightened the masses and sapped confidence in the With a fine sense of timing, Sheridan’s release from prison correctness of their cause. According to former SWP guru Chris Bambery, for exam - coincided almost to the day with the (delayed) release of Kozlovsky’s people demanded more and more obedience ple, speaking at a debate with the SSP in 1999: “We would Gregor Gall’s book, Tommy Sheridan: From Hero to Zero? to their orders, because without discipline the defence of the have no problem in voting for a referendum which posed The book’s appearance was delayed by attempts by positions could not be assured. Their spies in Petrograd in - separation as a vote of confidence in the Blair government. Aamer Anwar, acting on behalf of Sheridan, to prevent its formed them that their uprising had not only failed to bring We’d have to judge on the concrete terms.” publication. As the Scotsman reported last March: the mass of the workers along with it, but on the contrary Similarly, in an article published in Socialist Worker in 2006, “(Sheridan) has instructed his solicitor to threaten Profes - had singularly repulsed them, such that the factories where Neil Davidson argued: “Britain is an imperialist state at war. sor Gregor Gall, and the academic’s employer, the Univer - dissension and ferment had been strongest, had now gone … A referendum in these circumstances would effectively sity of Hertfordshire, with legal action over the publication be a judgement on Britain’s role in the New World Order, of Gall’s book.” baTckhutoswwoarsk hKarvoingsthaedatrdsttohremcaendn.oTnhferomdeKadronwsetardet. still and New Labour’s record more generally.” “We will use every legal challenge to stop it from being being buried when White newspapers arrived from This is consistent with what Davidson wrote in his above- published,” promised Anwar. Sheridan’s solicitor de - Paris, Berlin and Prague, and it was seen then just how quoted article in International Socialism : “Support (by social - manded to know what financial support had been provided well the Soviet government was right to not consider ists) for separation should always depend on the concrete to Gall, questioned whether the book was really an academic the insurrection as the beginning of a third revolution circumstances in which the issue is posed and its impact on work, and accused Gall of research misconduct. but to brand it simply as a new counter-revolutionary Eight months later a university investigation con - the wider struggle against capitalism.” attack. cluded that the allegations were “without any merit or So, again, if in 1999, 2006 and 2007 (and many other years foundation.” Double standards from Tommy Sheridan? as well), support for independence was justified only in a • Surely not! Part two next week set of narrowly defined circumstances, why now can it be justified on the basis of generalities about Britain’s imperial - 10 SOLIDARITY REPORTS Tube workers’ Olympics fight: UCU one workforce, one bonus! strike By a Tubeworker or 3am. On stations, mov - which evoked sympathy vote supporter ing shifts has created gaps for RBS banker Stephen that take some stations Hester, who was “pres - London Underground below minimum numbers. sured” into giving up his staff were gobsmacked They need us to do over - £1 million bonus (a bonus on by the pathetic £15 per time to keep stations open. for doing what, exactly?), shift Olympic bonus Meanwhile, drivers are tube workers were accused offer, which has now not happy they are being of “greed” just for de - been upped to £20. RMT bribed £500 to break their manding a proportionate edge train operators’ agreement lion from the Olympics — and they haven’t been has knocked both offers pay increase for a huge in - (by working overtime and Authority. The Games will offered a penny! Cleaning back. crease in workload! Even making extra trips in a earn them extra revenue. staff are calling for extra Standard It is attendance-based, so shift). Drivers in the RMT They are giving them - staff and extra pay. Noth - the itself accepts By a UCU activist that we’ll be dealing with if you’re sick or take sum - and some in ASLEF have selves an Olympic reward, ing has been offered yet, The remarkable turn - hundreds of thousands of mer annual leave for child - told management they rather than rewarding but more members are around which saw the extra passengers each day. care, you won’t get it all. won’t do it, refusing to their staff. joining the RMT, so hope - We are one workforce. University and College LU even cheekily re- throw away hard-won On London Overground fully cleaning companies All we want is a decent Union (UCU) name 1 branded quarter 2 of our conditions for a one-off and DLR, unions have will offer something soon. bonus for workers in all March as the day for existing bonus scheme as bribe. It’s good that some reached an agreement; the The London press’s re - companies on London further action in the part of the Olympics pack - ASLEF members have re - DLR deal is worth £2,500. porting of the negotiations Transport, without man - Teachers Pension age. jected what their ASLEF On TfL, travel information has been typically mali - agement eroding our Scheme dispute (TPS, LU wants a lot from its officials negotiated. LU is staff have been banned cious. In the same edition terms and conditions. which covers workers staff. We’ll be working til 2 pocketing around £17 mil - from booking annual leave of the Evening Standard in “post-92” universi - ties and FE colleges) was won by the UCU National Executive Sparks gear up for Reinstate Alberto Committee in the face of stern opposition from UCU General Balfour Beatty strike Durango! Secretary Sally Hunt. In response, Hunt is now ascending to the daily by other staff. The moral high ground via a By Siteworker are all serious. rumble on through Febru - same month, IWW negoti - phoney consultation Unite has drafted Kevin ary and past March if the ated an agreement with with branches and indi - On 2 February we should Coyne in to head up the BESNA 7 dig their heels in. the cleaning contractor vidual members. Eamon have the BBES [Balfour campaign, assisted by We may have to change LCC that there would be de Valera only had to Beatty Engineering Serv - Bernard McAuley. We now our tactics slightly. This no compulsory redundan - look into his own heart ices] ballot result. know that another official, needs to be discussed at cies and any staff reduc - to know the will of the Sharon Graham, has been the recalled national Rank- tions would be by Irish people; Hunt only A yes vote is vital, and assigned to help with or - and-File meeting in Birm - transfers to alternative has to invite emails from any legal challenge should ganising. ingham (4 February, posts. A new contractor every member to know be met with ultimate force We appreciate this, but 1-4pm, Carrs Lane Centre, has taken over at Heron her own will. These re - by Unite, and ignored by will be watching closely. Carrs Lane). We need to Tower who have not peated attempts at rule responding in the only We remember that Coyne, get a plan together for the By an IWW activist recognised this agreement by anti-democratic “con - way we know, with a call as an appointed official actions to be taken the fol - which continues under sultations” render her for “all out”, no matter back in 2008, ran against lowing week throughout The Industrial Workers TUPE, Incentive have sin - unfit for office. Fortu - what. Derek Simpson on a right- the UK. of the World Cleaners gled out Alberto for re - nately the General Secre - Come on Unite; no more If anyone needs assis - wing ticket for General and Allied Grades dundancy without any tary election is almost Mr Nice Guy! The rank tance with travel costs to Secretary, finishing behind Branch Secretary Al - objective justification. upon us. and file have led the way Birmingham please let us both Simpson and Jerry berto Durango has been Cushman & Wake - The challenger, Mark since know as soon as possi - Hicks. Has he now moved sacked from his job at field’s, the company Campbell of the SWP- August last year and ble. Email: over to the left due to the the Heron Tower in Lon - which manages Heron dominated UCU Left will continue to fight, [email protected] rank and file’s tremendous don by the contractor Tower, also manages Ex - caucus, is severely lim - but now Unite must show actions in recent months? Incentive FM Group Ltd. change Tower where IWW ited politically. Never - the BESNA [the new col - We would love a big yes • Adapted from has a campaign for the theless, he should be lective agreement unilater - vote, and a swift victory. http://bit.ly/xrnNtM It is an act of victimisa - London Living Wage. This supported as the candi - ally proposed by However, the dispute may tion of a leading union ac - company had taken an date standing against contractors] seven that we tivist well known for aggressive stance against Hunt’s attempted sell campaigning to defend IWW and our members, out on pensions. HMRC strike pushes tax deadline and improve the condi - preventing leaflets being If further inter-union tions of workers in the distributed and threaten - talks can bring about a cleaning industry. ing IWW members with joint UCU-PCS-NUT By Darren Bedford The trials are due to by HMRC bosses. In August 2011 IWW se - investigations. date for action in March, begin in February, and the Only PCS members who cured a significant success We call on all workers that would give the dis - HM Revenue and Cus - Public and Commercial work in Personal Tax Op - on the London Living to show their solidarity pute an enormous shot toms workers will strike Services union (PCS) erations (PTOps) have Wage for cleaners at with the Cleaners Branch in the arm. on 31 January. warns that they could been balloted to take part Heron Tower and in de - Secretary and demand the A 31 January special open to door to further pri - in the action. fence of victimised staff. immediate reinstatement The strike is in opposi - However, the union is conference of UCU vatisation within HMRC. Since the then there have if Alberto Durango and no tion to the appointment of encouraging other branches in “pre-92” The strike was timed to been those seeking re - compulsory redundancies. private companies (Sitel HMRC members to sup - For details of a universities, where coincide with the deadline venge against Alberto and and Teleperformance) to port the strike by donat - demonstration in sup - members are in the Uni - for self-assessment tax re - the IWW. run call-handling trials in ing to the strike fund and port of Alberto on Friday versities Superannuation turns, the busiest day in In November 2011, Al - HMRC contact centres in refusing to cover work 10 February, see Scheme and are not cov - HMRC’s calendar, and has berto was suspended for Cumbria and Bathgate not being done by strik - http://on.fb.me/zqABV9 ered by the 1 March led to an effective two-day using a service lift used (Scotland). ing members. strike, voted (by 66-41) extension of the deadline to endorse Hunt’s sus - pension of action. Essex have also voted for But a solid strike by Strikes at Barnet Council, Newsquest, Remploy industrial action. UCU members in FE Remploy workers at post-92 — even better, branch will take their contactus@ work-to-rule and will take sites in Chesterfield and alongside NUT and fourth one-day strike on barnetunison.org.uk and three days strike action on Glasgow struck on Thurs - PCS members — Thursday 9 February In brief follow the branch on Twit - 13-15 February. They are day 26 January against a would be a focus for against mass privatisa - ter: @barnet_unison. protesting against a pay two-tier workforce plan. organising even for tion at the council. For more on the Rem - workers in unions Members of Barnet Uni - NUJ members in the freeze and standardised — ploy strikes, see Newsquest South Essex delayed — pay review where a sell-out is al - son local government Please send messages of http://bit.ly/yNm4KR. ready a reality. support to the strikers to chapel have started a date. Newsquest North

SOLIDARITY 11 Syria: fighting draws closer to S&oWloirkdersa’ Lirbeirtty y Damascus

By Dan Katz Significantly the east - ern and northern suburbs The Arab League has of the capital, Damascus, suspended its monitor - are becoming no-go areas ing operation in Syria. for the state. Last week - end fighting a few miles It has effectively ac - from the centre of Dam - cepted that the initiative ascus claimed dozens of — which should have lives. seen political prisoners Despite the wishes of released, the army move many opponents of the away from urban areas, regime the general tone and a dialogue open with of the opposition seems the opposition — has to becoming more sectar - failed. The one-party Syr - ian. Alawites run every ian state has continued to elite unit of the armed butcher its own citizens forces; most Alawite fam - under the noses of the ilies have a family mem - Arab League’s observers. ber in the security system The Arab League’s fail - and increasingly they ure has pushed more Syr - seem to believe they are ian oppositionists all fighting for their lives. towards the view that they will have to fight WILL THE REGIME with guns in hand to FALL? overthrow the narrowly- Joshua Landis, the based state of Bashar well-informed US aca - Assad. Assad’s rule rests demic and Syria analyst on the Alawite commu - believes the downfall of nity, a Shia sect which is the regime is now cer - about 10% of the Syrian tain, but will be much population. 75% of the more drawn out than country is Sunni Muslim. many believe. More and more towns Pensions: make unions and villages seem to be He cites three main rea - freeing themselves from sons: the strength (mili - the central state – at least tary and political) of the for short periods, until regime as against the op - the government rolls position; the disorganisa - back in using heavy tion and fragmented commit to action now! weapons and tanks. Local nature of the opposition; militias area being the unwillingness of for - formed, made up of army eign powers to intervene. By Martin Thomas deserters and activists, He states that “Assad leaders may in some will meet again (8 Febru - tion, with activity every under the general banner family has prepared for weeks' or months' time ary, we believe), and there week, financed by strike of the “Syrian Free Unions which have not this moment of popular, proclaim new activities. is a vague agreement that levies; Army”, although often accepted the Govern - Sunni revolt for 40 The “rejectionist” unions the next meeting will talk • a priority for specific with little direct control ment’s so-called “final” yeTarhse.”regime will not met on 25 January. That about a strike in late demands which could be from the Turkey-based formula for public-sector fall easily. was slow — PCS, the main March. won even at this stage, FSA leadership. pensions are talking union to reject the Govern - Despite the time lost such as widening the about a further strike on ment formula immediately since 19 December, much range of pay levels exempt the issue in late March, and clearly, had been talk - more is still possible. The from contribution rises and more action beyond ing about a meeting since moves by Unilever and and extending the time of that. 20 December — but it was Shell to scrap two of the the exemption, or drasti - progress. last defined-benefit pen - cally reducing the loss of But activists in those A lot of unions attended, sion schemes in the private pension which workers re - unions, and especially in most sending general sec - sector, as soon as it became tiring earlier than the in - the officially “left-wing” retaries. That's good, but it clear that many of the pub - creased full pension ages unions, will have to fight had a downside. Unions lic-sector unions were fold - will suffer. hard: Such specific demands which might otherwise ing, have dramatised the • to make sure the fur - do not cut across esca - have taken an initiative are issues, and the Unilever ther strike happens; lating to full demolition now inclined to wait for a workers' fightback will • that it is energetically of the Government plans, hypothetical great day have encouraged many organised, and not just a or indeed for a levelling- when all the “rejectionist” public-sector workers. limp token protest; up improvement of cur - unions, or a lot of them, Activists in every union • and that “more action” rent pension terms, if the concur on action; and, if should press for: means a genuine ongoing continuing campaign de - we leave things to the gen - • clear rejection of the 19 campaign of rolling and velops solidly; but they eral secretaries, that great December formula; selective action, with activ - are probably necessary day may never come. • taking the initiative to ity every week, rather than to restart the campaign The 25 January meeting name the date for a further advice to workers to wait at this late stage. decided no action, and strike; Seize the bankers’ loot! after the one-day protest made no public statement. • an ongoing campaign on a promise that union The “rejectionist” unions of rolling and selective ac - • More: page 2 By Rhodri Evans other RBS chiefs this year, some of them much Look at the graph: higher than Hester's mil - Partial victory for Palestinian quarry workers bonus payouts in bank - lion. He hopes the fuss ing and finance totalled will have died down by By Ira Berkovic £14 billion in 2011. the time other banks an - gaged in a prolonged bat - independent workers’ http://bit.ly/zn5CJm nounce their bonuses. Most of these bonuses tle, which included a centre which organises • For more on the cam - If those amounts were The struggle of the Salit go to a top few. The gov - three-month strike in workers (Israeli-Jewish, Is - paign to unionise truck redirected to social spend - quarry workers, in the ernment-owned Royal summer 2011, against an raeli-Arab and Palestin - drivers, see ing, they would be way occupied West Bank Bank of Scotland paid out exploitative management ian) in sectors and http://bit.ly/rIagit more than enough to re - (Palestine), has con - £1 billion in 2011, when it which used the quarry’s industries often over - verse all the Govern - cluded in a partial vic - had made a thumping location in an occupied looked by Israel’s main - India strikes ment's cuts. Benefit cuts tory, with workers loss, and plans to pay out territory to register their stream trade union to 2015: £18 billion. Cuts winning a financial set - £0.5 billion this year. Hav - business as “foreign”, and fedWeAraCti-oMn,at’haenHisisatalsdo rut. in education and local tlement but not securing Up to 100 million ing persuaded top RBS thus avoid having to pay currently involved in a services: £16 billion. a commitment from workers could partici - The labour movement the national insurance campaign to organise boss Simon Hester to contractors taking over pate in a general strike should demand that the contributions required of truck drivers in Israel. waive his £1 million work at the quarry to re- them by Israeli law. in India on 28 February. bonus, prime minister next Labour govern - employ them. The workers were or - David Cameron now says ment expropriate the ganised by the Workers’ • For more on the Salit For more, see he “will not micro-man - banks and high finance. Workers had been en - Advice Centre (Ma’an), an struggle, see http://bit.ly/yCV1MP age” the bonuses paid to