SolFor isociadl ownershaip of the rbanks iand itndustryy No 388 6 January 2016 50p/£1 Inside: Syria: sectarian split grows

Syria is separating out along sectar - ian lines. UN-negotiated evacuations have taken 126 Sunni rebel fighters and civilians from Zabadani, north west of Damascus, which was the last major rebel enclave along the SAVE Lebanon border. See page 3

Gallipoli: savage, bloody, pointless

Janine Booth describes what hap - pened at the battle of Gallipoli in THE World War 1.

See pages 6-7 What’s wrong with Star

This month student nurses and junior doctors are taking up Wars? the fight to save the National Health Service. NAt the end of the monthH, on 30 January, a “Health CSampaigns Together” conference, backed by the Unite and Unison trade unions, meets in London. The campaign for the NHS Reinstatement Bill drafted by Eric Lee reviews the latest Star Wars Allyson Pollock has been boosted by the Corbyn surge in the film. Labour Party, with a regular page on the campaign’s website now reporting on support from local Labour Parties. See page 9 More page 5 Join Labour! Solidarity interviews Clive Lewis MP about Support junior doctors and Corbyn, Momentum, reselection and student nurses — see page 12 socialism. See page 10 2 NEWS More online at www.workersliberty.org Greek “communists” oppose civil partnership law not some kind of “exotic fruit”, iso - QNEWS lated from society and the working class; on the contrary they are a By Theodora Polenta vital and organic component of the working class movement. The homophobic and reactionary “Is sex dirty? Only when it’s be - positions of KKE have nothing to ingO nd oTnuee srdigahyt ”2 2— DWeoceomdyb eAr,l lethne . do with Marxism. The left and all Greek Parliament ratified the Civil progressive forces of the civil rights Union Agreement for Same-Sex movements should uncompromis - Couples. The new legal framework ingly demand: equal rights and for co-habiting couples is also a equal treatment of same-sex and limited step towards the abolition heterosexual couples, at all levels of discrimination for the LGBTQI and all spheres of public life and Defying the Orthodox church community in Greece. legislation; ending every discrimi - The legislation makes the termi - nation based on sexual orientation, madhouse.” Centrists’ Union. Only 19 out of 75 model of man and woman in the colour, religion, gender. nation of civil partnership more dif - Not to be outdone, the Metro - New Democracy MPs voted in family environment; they try to ficult and gives rights to “civil polit of Korinthia among his wishes favour. Golden Dawn opposed. But support this “argument” by basing Ultimately the complete free - partners” over inheritance, social to church goers for a happy New very significantly, the Greek Com - it upon the “biology” of the sexes. dom of the individual, including security (pensions), and taxation is - Year, (while Greece is in economic munist Party (KKE) voted against Children who grow up in single- LGBTI people, can not be sues. The government has yet to crisis and refugees continue to the legislation. parent families, are “doomed” not achieved outside of the libera - move to legislate for political mar - drown into the Aegean Sea) talked The KKE have tried to justify to grow “naturally”? tion of the whole of society from riage between persons of the same about the “axis of evil” of the their obstructionist socially regres - So this party of the “working the shackles of economic, social sex or for their right to adopt chil - Tsipras government and the sive political stance with Marxism- class” can fight for workers’ rights and cultural oppression. dren; both issues have been post - sodomism and corruption the law out-of-context quotations, but they only if it means the rights of hetero - poned for the future. Another • Longer version of this article at will be bring; “cursing” the Prime reflect Greek social traditions: op - sexual workers? LGBTI people are bit.ly/1TC9741 weakness is the lack of provision Minister’s own young children, position to deviation from the for transgender people, such as the hoping they “turn out gay” and norm, adherence to divine scrip - facilitation of the change of per - that the Prime Minister will be at - ture — reactionary and regressive sonal documents without medical tending their civil union partner - philosophies against enlighten - Resistance in a year of fear pre-conditions. ship ceremonies. ment. of Trump’s poisonous ideas. The cohabitation agreement puts The Secretary General of KKE, By the (US) International Instead, the reason to step back the Greek state in line with EU leg - Koutsoubas, stressed that the deci - Socialist Organization and gain a wider view of the po - islation and it was well overdue; PROTEST Protestors demonstrated out - sion for two men to live together is litical landscape so that we can the postponement of these changes The horrors of the past months side the Metropolitan Cathedral private, so “it should not concern more accurately assess where we has led to Greece being condemned shouldn’t stop us from remem - of Athens in response to church the public sphere”. He also said are on the defensive, but also by the European Court of Human bering that 2015 was a year of reactions. Two young men that KKE condemns homophobic where we can push back. Rights. polarization in US society — dressed in priest robes kissed in attacks. The understandable alarm over The progressive step was made with the increasing confidence front of the Cathedral. The KKE’s stance should not sur - the Trump minority can distract despite church hostility. of right-wing forces taking These statements should not sur - prise us. They follow Stalinist Rus - from the main dynamic in the The Metropolit of Kalavrita and place at the same time as a prise us. The Church’s role is to sia’s persecution of homosexuals. presidential race: while the Re - Aegialia Ambrosios, at a concert of less-remarked-upon growth in maintain conservatism in society, to All the trash of class and patriar - publican Party is in crisis because “humanity”, said among other those looking for an alternative instil the notion that we are “ser - chal society that with Bolshevism of its inability to find a candidate things that “homosexuality is a so - on the left. vants of God” and therefore our flew out of the door, Stalinism rein - to beat Trump, Hillary Clinton is cial crime and sin. Homosexuals At a time when the airwaves are bodies do not belong to us, our troduced: the glorification of the consolidating her commanding are scum of society ... MPs support - filled with ridiculous police theo - choices for our lives are not defined nuclear family, under the rationale lead in the race for the Democratic ing the [law] deserve spitting at, as ries about the “radicalization” of by us, but by some gentlemen in that family institutions were being presidential nomination. they are not people but freaks of Muslims, we need to locate and black clothes and beards. attacked by capitalism. Clinton looks certain to be her nature, suffering mentally and spir - encourage the genuine and The bill was supported by Syriza, The KKE reproduces the classic- party’s nominee not because her itually; as they are much more dan - healthy process of left-wing radi - with votes from its coalition part - conservative argument that the message is more appealing to vot - gerous than some who live in the calisation wherever it’s taking ners ANEL, Pasok, Potami and the child needs a gender binary role ers, but on the contrary, because place. In the days before the ISIS at - the Democratic Party is not a dem - tacks in Paris, US headlines were ocratic party. dominated by the wave of anti- Rather it’s an organisation Hutchison workers deflect sackings racist protests sweeping across whose major decisions and nomi - college campuses in the wake of nations are determined by big money donations, corporate Hutchison has been there for as Hutchison bosses were evidently historic demonstrations at the By Martin Thomas University of Missouri that media connections and a rigged much as three years, without the willing to keep the terminals barely internal structure. deal redundancy payments would “ticking over” for a long time, de - pushed out the school’s president. After 102 days of bitter struggle, There’s the most obvious and If and when Clinton becomes have been minimal. spite the big losses that must have Hutchison port workers in Bris - widespread expression of people the nominee, there will be enor - bane and Sydney, members of The union has put up very strong brought them on their hundreds of mous pressure on Sanders sup - fences around the use of casuals shifting leftward: the Democratic the Maritime Union of Australia, millions of dollars of fixed-capital porters and activists, even if they and how they must be sourced, and presidential campaign of Bernie voted on 16 November to rescind investment in the cranes and other would prefer to stay independent made sure the new EBA cannot be Sanders, who is polling at over 30 their previous Enterprise Bar - equipment at the terminals. of Clinton and the Democrats, to used by Hutchison to undercut its percent as an open (if quite mod - gaining Agreement and to vote in Throughput in Brisbane is cur - join in the Clinton campaign, competitors and help “level down” erate) socialist in party polls. another EBA for the next three rently running at a tiny 20,000 teu based on the familiar logic of the conditions on the wharves. Amid the media’s Trump ca - years. per year. Hutchison have stalled on cophony, it can be easy to forget — lesser evil. MUA Queensland branch secre - releasing financial facts, but our [That] argument will sound con - The dispute started on 6 August, tary Bob Carnegie said: “My heart or never find out in the first place best calculation is that to make the vincing to many, but it’s a losing when 97 workers, about half the feels heavy with the loss of jobs, but — how small a section of the pop - investment profitable, Hutchison strategy. We can’t defeat Republi - workforce, were sacked overnight my conscience is clear, knowing ulation his supporters represent. would have to do something like can Islamophobia and anti-immi - by text message and email. The that the rank and file delegates and As political analyst Nate Silver grant racism by backing a party sacked workers ran a 24/7 protest the officials left no stone unturned 300,000 teu. wrote at FiveThirtyEight.com: whose current president carried line at the Brisbane and Sydney ter - in our battle to get the best possible Hutchison, the world’s biggest “Right now, [Trump] has 25 to out the most deportations in his - minals, with the support of the outcome in a very difficult situa - container-terminal operator, surely 30 percent of the vote in polls tory and waged endless wars that workers not sacked, who were tion”. have plans in mind for the future of among the roughly 25 percent of have fuelled terrorism and anti- called in for minimal working The dispute suffered from loss of this, their first foothold in Aus - Americans who identify as Re - Muslim hatred. hours but handled very little traffic. momentum after it was pushed tralia, and the aim of the sackings publican. (That’s something like 6 There’s another way, and In the eventual deal, the job into a war of attrition, with the would have been to clear the to 8 percent of the electorate over - we’ve seen that it works — by losses have been reduced and protests at the gates hanging on ground for those plans. all, or about the same share of peo - pressing forward with protests MUA members who accept the Vol - week after week to see what would The union was not able to es - ple who think the Apollo moon [and the left alternative]. untary Separation Package will re - come of court proceedings or cape some losses, but remains landings were faked.)” ceive no less than the equivalent of promises from Hutchison to nego - standing, and capable of fighting The point here is not to min - 26 weeks’ pay. Since no worker at tiate. the next round. imise the real impact of the spread • Full article bit.ly/1JVgMoL Workers’ Liberty @workersliberty NEWS 3 Sectarian split grows on eve of new Syria talks

putting it third in the world be - Iran may now pull out of the bilise international resistance to forces and supporting brutal au - By Ralph Peters hind Iran (more than 289 judicial UN-sponsored peace talks due to concessions to Saudi-sponsored thoritarian governments in the On 1 January Saudi Arabia put killings in 2014) and China (fig - start on 25 January. If the talks go forces in Syria. area — or are those governments to death Sheikh Nimr Al-Nimr, a ures secret, but Amnesty’s last es - ahead, Iran’s and Assad’s hand is None of the parties who may themselves. Shia cleric and leader of re - timate was 1718-plus in 2008). strengthened. Saudi Arabia has gather round the negotiating table If any “peace deal” is negoti - formist opposition. 46 other Saudi authorities said that most taken the role of coordinating the on 25 January aim for a demo - ated, and that is doubtful, it will prisoners were killed on the of the 46 were Al Qaeda or other “moderate opposition” to Assad cratic, pluralist, non-sectarian, probably be through a partition same day. Sunni dissidents. But some were in the peace talks with US and UN multi-ethnic Syria where demo - of Syria — initially by freezing many of the present military Saudi Arabia carried out a total Shia. The executions have further agreement. Its execution of its cratic rights are protected. All of front-lines between the com - of 157 death sentences in 2015, sharpened Shia-Sunni polarisation leading Shia reformist cleric them have disgraceful records in in the whole region. makes it easy for Assad to mo - working with religious-sectarian peting forces.

cent reports of demoralisation in the Hezbollah forces after three The forces in Syria years with nothing to show for it but a stalemate. Iran’s primary concern is to ex - the ground to Iran. Iran had troops pand its influence and power The Syrian Army and its allies operating on Assad’s side officially have been responsible for most across the region. Assad’s regime from 2013 and in reality from 2012. has mutated considerably during of the over 250,000 civilian Over the last four years it has deaths in Syria. At the outbreak the civil war, accommodating to granted Syria billions of dollars of Iranian influence and increasingly of the civil war, the army was military aid. Its casualties have about 220-280,000 strong. relying on brutal religious sectari - It is reported to have lost over been increasing — well over a hun - anism to consolidate its rule. Iran 50,000 dead. Many others have de - dred in the last few months of 2015 will want to consolidate that serted. Something like 40 or 50,000, — but low enough to be sustain - change and impose its own politi - mainly Sunni Muslims who refuse able for its authoritarian regime. cal model on whatever territory to take part in the army’s attacks on In October Iranian President Assad or his successors hold. Iran civilian Sunni communities, have Hassan Rouhani denied rumours has mobilised its regular Revolu - defected to opposition militias. that Russia would be able to mus - tionary Guards into Syria and prob - In April 2015 the army’s strength cle in on — or transform — the Axis ably intended them to stay. was estimated at about 110,000. of Resistance that has united Russia will have links with for - Iranian and Hezbollah forces have Assad’s Shia allies. The Axis is an mer Ba’athists in the regime who Hezbollah are an important fighting force for Assad increasingly carried out operations informal international military al - are nervous of Iranian domination, alongside the army, or even taken liance. Since it was first mentioned but it does not have forces on in 2006, it has not been much more the leadership of the safer Wah - be consolidated across Syria-Iraq- charge of them. ground to stop Iran’s project, and is habism of the Saudi regime. Iran, that gets in the way of Sunni The most notorious of Assad’s than a declaration of a shared anti- will likely to accommodate to it. Israel, anti-US position. But now it The US is unwilling to repeat an co-operation between the Gulf auxiliary militias are the shabiha, The moves for peace talks are Iraq-style occupation in Syria. states and Turkey. With Iran com - has evolved into an international organisations of thugs set up by overwhelmingly driven by outside It has instead invested in at - ing out of the cold of US sanctions, political Shia-Islamist movement, a Bashar Assad’s uncle Rifaat al- interests and not by any internal tempts to organise pro-US militias Iran may want to position itself as counterpoint to Saudi Arabia’s in - Assad in the 70s and 80s to do dirty force in Syria. The outside powers in Syria. Those attempts have been a big supplier to Turkey and be - ternational Sunni coalition. work for the regime. In 2011 the may have a limited joint interest in spectacular failures, with those US- yond that to Europe. Before 2012 Hamas was a part of shabiha made brutal attacks on the beating back Daesh, but they have trained groups being gobbled up The external powers want peace the Axis, despite also being linked initially broadly democratic and nothing like a joint project to re - by Islamist militias. For now, the in Syria — at least, enough of it to to the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood, secular protest movement and de - place it. US and its allies are allowing the allow stability for business — but but it has withdrawn because of the liberately provoked sectarian reac - Saudis to become the paymasters they have competing interests to be Syrian civil war. tions by targeting Sunni for most of the militias and to shape served by that peace. The Lebanese Shia-Islamist SAUDI communities. them politically. This could become And the continuing war feeds movement Hezbollah became de - Saudi Arabia looks on Daesh as Jaysh al-Sha’bi, another unoffi - a major cause of embarrassment to profits in the arms industry. The US pendent on Assad after 1979 for a troublesome competitor for the cial Alawite force, was reorganised them. arms industry currently sells Saudi training facilities and for military allegiance of Sunni Wahhabists in 2011. It is reported to be 100,000 On top of all the political compli - and the UAE $8 billion per year in equipment sent from Iran. For and Islamists throughout the strong but ineffective as a military cations, there are economic ones. equipment alone. Britain and Assad it provided an armed force, world. force. Syria is both a source of hydro - France are not far behind. There experienced especially in small Daesh, by actually building a carbon fuels and a potential route will be strong business pressures to scale guerrilla-type warfare. quasi-state power with many simi - for gas and oil pipelines. There are allow Saudi Arabia to continue to MODELLED Two years ago it was estimated larities to Saudi Arabia, has created two rival pipeline plans: Iran-Iraq- invest in arming forces in Syria. Since the Iranians moved in, that Hezbollah numbered only huge embarrassment for the Saudi Syria-Turkey, and Qatar-Saudi-Jor - In 2014 $92.7 million of arms Jaysh al-Sha’bi has been effec - about 5,000 regulars and 15,000 re - tyrants and their allies. dan-Syria-Turkey. Some analysts were bought from Bulgaria alone tively replaced by the National servists, and out of that number Turkey’s president Erdogan pur - have argued that Qatar’s involve - to be supplied to Syrian militias Defence Force (NDF), built under about 5,000 were committed at any sues a different model of authori - ment in Syria stems from Assad by Saudi Arabia. Without such the direction of the Iranian Hos - one time to Assad’s war. That is a tarian Islamism, and has had a blocking the Qatar-Turkey line. arms supplies and subsidies, the sein Hamadani, and modelled on small number in comparison with useful modus vivendi with Daesh. If contiguous Iranian-dominated militias and armies in Syria could the Iranian Basij. the other militias, but Hezbollah Erdogan allowed and encouraged and Shia-dominated territory can not continue their war. The NDF has been more explic - are important because of their mil - Daesh’s war on the Rojavan Kurds. itly recruited as a religious anti- itary experience, their commitment, In return Daesh did little that might Sunni sectarian force. In a and their capacity to draw in Shia destabilise Erdogan’s rule. collapsing economy, with huge em - foreign fighters to come and fight Al Qaeda and Daesh have built Sectarian division ployment, whole villages of Alaw - their organisations with anti-Shia for Assad, such as the Abu Fadl al- Syria is separating out along ite men have been recruited to the atrocities, particularly in Iraq. But al-Nusra Front. The Shia will go to Abbas Brigade (AFAB) of primarily sectarian lines. NDF for reasons both mercenary Iraqi Shia volunteers. Daesh has not targeted Turkey’s Turkey and then be relocated to UN-negotiated evacuations have and sectarian. Hezbollah, unlike the Iranians, 25% Shia minority, the Alevi. government-held areas in Syria. taken 126 Sunni rebel fighters and Iran probably calculates that the do not appear to Syrians as foreign Erdogan was a close ally of Morsi On 26 December an agreement civilians from Zabadani, north NDF will, like Hezbollah, have an intruders and have been widely in Egypt. Morsi’s removal from broke down to evacuate 2000 Is - west of Damascus, an enclave sur - ideological loyalty to Iran even if distributed among Syrian and Iran - power and the outlawing of his lamist fighters and residents from Assad is removed. ian forces, often as officers. Muslim Brotherhood by the new rounded and bombarded by gov - the Palestinian camp in Yarmouk Russia has had influence with the They are largely located in the military-dominated regime in ernment forces and their and south Damascus. 200 al-Nusra Assad regime for decades. Putin areas near the Lebanon border and Egypt were strongly supported by Hezbollah allies. Front fighters were able to move may have saved the day for Assad may be most interested in consoli - Saudi Arabia. Simultaneously 336 injured de - from Deraa in the south to Idlib when he began his aerial bombard - dating their hold there. Audacious international action fenders were evacuated from two province in the north east, in ex - ment of Assad’s opponents in Sep - Daesh tried to undercut Hezbol - against Daesh would create consid - northern Shia villages, al-Foua and change for Iranian officers cap - tember 2015. However Russia has lah with the Beirut bombing of Au - erable problems for Erdogan. Like Kefraya, besieged by Jaysh el tured by rebels. avoide d sending troops to reinforce gust 2015. That did not succeed in the Saudis, but for different rea - Fateh, a collective of opposition Similar deals have seen fight - Assad, beyond a few “specialists”. triggering wider communal disor - sons, he will want to allow Daesh groups that includes Ahrar al- ers move from rebel areas of That leaves most of the work on der in Lebanon. There are some re - supporters to be reorganised under Sham and the al-Qaeda affiliated Homs. 4 COMMENT Email any comments to [email protected] Spanish politics at a crossroads I think that we will move to have new elec - ing corruption. THE LEFT tions in a few months. This is a period of In Catalonia and the Basque country, great political instability. Podemos came first because it looked like the Spanish elections (held on Sunday 20 force in favour of self-determination. It made December) marked a defeat for the How do you analyse these results? self-determination a condition of talks with ruling right wing party. The Partido There is a failure of the big parties, a break - the PSOE. Popular only took 123 seats out of 230, down due to corruption and very powerful 63 fewer than four years ago. social discontent. What are the effects of these elections on The Spanish social-democratic party, There is a broad consensus in the country the radical left? the PSOE, won 90 seats, Podemos 69, that says that the big parties are shite. A new Next to Podemos, Izquierda Unida has col - and Ciudadanos, a rightwing anti- generation, coming from the Indignados lapsed electorally. It only took two seats. corruption party, 40. movement, is fighting for another solution Even though Podemos is broadly thought of We republish (from the website of the and so they are getting results. as more radical than IU, the IU programme French Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste) Ciudadanos got a much worse score than is still more leftwing than that of Podemos. an interview with Alex Merlo, was predicted. At one point, they managed For instance, we know that many Podemos parliamentary attaché for the Member to position themselves as a force that was nei - activists voted IU for this reason. of the European Parliament Miguel ther leftwing nor rightwing, but anti-corrup - There was no Anticapitalistas MP elected Urbán Crespo, members of Podemos, tion. But, during the campaign, they because the primaries within Podemos once and of Anticapitalistas, the Spanish indicated that they would support the PP in again took place in an undemocratic fashion, section of the Fourth International. forming a government. That meant that they which completely sidelined the minority in appeared like a rightwing party supporting Podemos. Nevertheless, we are very politi - the ruling party, so they lost a lot of votes. cally close with the MPs elected in Catalonia. Not having any MPs makes it harder for us What are the consequences of these elec - to be a political force with a presence in na - tion results? What about the Podemos campaign and tional debates. It is chaos. There is no way to form a gov - itsT rhees uPlotd? emos results were best in the re - Finally, Pablo Iglesias is calling on all other ernment. It is a first in the history of the coun - Podemos election publicity gions where they turned to social move - parties for a “historic compromise”, an elec - try. ments, which was the orientation defended toral reform (for proportional representation, into the system and that we are now heading Maybe a majority is possible with Ciu - by Anticapitalistas. mainly) and territorial reform (for self-deter - for some major internal conflicts. dadanos, but it is not likely. This party has in - In Catalonia, with the movement Barcelona mination). With these proposals, he has aban - dicated that they will let the largest party en comú. In Galicia, with a platform made up doned the proposal for a Constituent We will also see how the social situation rule, so they won’t vote against a government of the Indignados movement, trade union - Assembly for constitutional reform and a changes because, for a year now, every - led by the PP. But that doesn’t make a major - ists, and activists from campaigns around transition process. This is not a logic of rup - thing has been centred on electoral ques - ity. housing, water and public services. In Valen - ture, but the situation is very interesting be - tions, but there is an accumulation of The only solution is for the PSOE to enter cia, the coalition was less radical, it was an al - cause everything is destabilised in the experiences, of local struggles which government with the PP. That will tear the liance with a split from [Communist country. open the possibility for a new phase of PSOE apart and if it allies with the PP in a Party-led coalition] Izquierda Unida, with a It is clear now that, within Podemos, the mobilisations. grand coalition, it will explode. The PSOE platform that concentrated largely on fight - populist tendency wishes to integrate itself • Original interview: bit.ly/1kHQsrs can abstain, but that is not likely. The Stalinist campaign against the Spanish revolution

By Gerry Bates but “international units of the Popular Front members in the Brigades were therefore or - (national and international).” Their task was dered to join the Spanish Communist Party, Tear down the Glasgow waterfront statue not proletarian revolution but “the plebeian to make them subject to its discipline. of Stalinist sycophant Dolores Ibarruri resolution of the tasks of the bourgeois-de - And prior to repatriation, assessments of (“La Pasionaria”) and replace it by one of mocratic revolution.” each Brigader were carried out by leading Archived material quoted in the pamphlet the Gorbals-born International Brigader Communist Party members in the Brigades. highlights the attitude of the Stalinist cham - Alexander Marcowich! This is the conclu - The assessments were then sent to the rele - pions of Popular Frontism to other anti-fas - sion of a new Workers’ Liberty pamphlet: cist political forces in Spain. vant national Communist Party. Frequently, Lions Led by Jackals — Stalinism in the Anarchism was, just about, acceptable. It they do not make for pleasant reading. . International Brigades was a product of Spanish backwardness. And Other archived material makes clear that The pamphlet draws on the wealth of ma - it was heading in the right direction: Anar - members of the Independent Labour Party terial — much of it previously unused — in chist leaders had joined the Popular Front (ILP) battalion in Spain were being “set up” the Communist International’s archives of governments, and the anarchist militia had as fascist collaborators in preparation for the International Brigades, published online been incorporated into the government’s Moscow-style show trials, in which the ILP by the Russian State Archive of Socio-Politi - armed forces. would be in the dock alongside their co- cal History in early 2015. But the POUM (Workers Party of Marxist An abyss separates the political reality of thinkers in the POUM. Unification) was “a band of murderers, Hence the incongruity of Glasgow com - the International Brigades from their por - wreckers and spies” at the centre of a vast memorating the International Brigades with trayal in “official” labour movement history. conspiracy involving “degenerate, declassed As the archived material quoted in the intellectual philistines, spies, agents, com - a statue of “La Pasionaria”. Ibarruri — the pamphlet confirms, the Brigades were a po - mon criminals, terrorists, diversionary ele - object of a Stalinist cult in her own right — litical project subject from the outset to the ments, swindlers, black marketeers, sexually vigorously advocated the physical liquida - political dictates of Stalinism. From recruit - degenerate elements, and professional tion of antifascists who shared the politics of ment through to — for those who survived whores and pimps.” Glasgow’s ILP tradition. Lions Led by Jackals – Stalinism in the — repatriation, Stalinism controlled all as - Trotskyism was likewise beyond the pale: Far better, the pamphlet concludes, if the International Brigades . Publication date: 15th pects of life in the Brigades. “The unity of the People’s Front, like unity at labour movement in Glasgow — and not just January. Buy online: £4 including postage at Recruitment to — and exclusion from — an international level, depends on the liqui - bit.ly/lions-j in Glasgow — were to commemorate the In - the Brigades was controlled by the national dation of Trotskyism. It is impossible to tol - ternational Brigades with statues to the likes Communist Parties. Complaints about the erate within the Popular Front the A considerable number of them thought that of Alexander Marcowich. Marcowich was an “quality” of volunteers and the methods accomplices of fascism, those who have tried they were joining a proletarian army, and that antifascist, an anti-Stalinist, and a product of used to recruit them were also addressed to to sabotage the Soviet Union.” they were fighting in a proletarian revolu - the Jewish-socialist traditions of the early- the national Communist Parties. The pamphlet also highlights two issues tion.” Many volunteers thought — understand - largely or completely ignored in “orthodox” twentieth-century Gorbals. Needless to say, Brigaders were given a po - ably — that they were going to Spain to fight Stalinist histories of the Brigades. Denounced in his archived file as “Very litical “education” to disabuse them of such for working-class revolution. According to an The Brigades were riven by competing na - bad. Disrupter. Trotskyist. Dangerous”, it “misunderstandings”. What that “education” archived report on the British Battalion: tional prejudices, and also often displayed was Brigaders like Marcowich who repre - involved is clear from the archives. “Especially at the beginning, English com - chauvinist attitudes towards the indigenous sented what was best in the International The Brigades were not a proletarian army rades arrived in Spain with a lot of illusions. Spanish. In early 1938 all Communist Party Brigades. Workers’ Liberty @workersliberty WHAT WE SAY 5 Without help Make Labour reinstate the NHS! from Murray The Unite union helped with resources This month student nurses and junior contract it had won only eight months before for Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign for doctors are taking up the fight to save the to provide NHS care for elderly patients in Labour leader, and by all accounts National Health Service. At the end of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. It said, in Unite’s leaders are influential with the month, on 30 January, a “Health Cam - effect, that it had cost-cut so much to win the team round Corbyn. paigns Together” conference, backed by contract that it couldn’t deliver it. So a long article by Unite “chief of staff” the Unite and Unison trade unions, meets Allyson Pollock writes: “There is mounting Andrew Murray about Corbyn’s Labour, in London. evidence that the English NHS is paying for first published on the web in mid-October The campaign for the NHS Reinstatement work regardless of whether it is done or not: and widely circulated since, deserves analy - Bill drafted by Allyson Pollock has been with one contract, Netcare did not perform sis. boosted by the Corbyn surge in the Labour nearly 40% of the work it had been con - It’s an odd article, written in the style of Party, with a regular page on the campaign’s tracted to do, receiving £35.1 million for pa - a jaded but worldly-wise oracle addressing website now reporting on support from local tients it never treated. young devotees. And vague when it gets to Labour Parties. “The English NHS is on a track towards the the point. One issue is funds. The Tories say they US system, where commercialisation results It castigates Blair-Brown “New Labour” aren’t cutting the NHS, but they are. They in around $750 billion wasted each year due at length, chides Ed Miliband’s weakness, cover up by claiming that the missing billions to overtreatment, undertreatment, and and observes that battles inside the Labour are “efficiency savings”. billing, invoicing, and marketing costs”. Party are now central to left politics. Then An ageing population and more new treat - The NHS can still be reinstated. But con - it gets to how to consolidate Corbyn’s vic - ments, expensive at first, mean that a stand - tracting-out is siphoning off its life bit by bit. tory in face of hostility from the parliamen - still in NHS cash translates into cuts in real With its new leadership, the Labour tary Labour Party, from the media, and terms. Party can and must be turned round and from the ruling class. Another issue is the knock-on from the To - turned outwards, to campaigning on the Murray advocates “a measured and rad - ries’ huge cuts in local government funding. Netcare private health care business was paid streets for the NHS and pledging unequiv - ical approach to economic transformation”. Councils have cut social care. Elderly patients £35.1 million for patients it didn’t treat. ocally to reinstate a Health Service based Who would wish for a haphazard and con - well enough to leave hospital but not well on social provision for need, not market servative one? Murray is bland even when enough to manage on their own get stuck in Private firms have been winning 40% of mechanisms. regretting that Jeremy Corbyn has (rightly contracts that GPSs’ “clinical commissioning hospital, and that leaves fewer hospital re - • www.nhsbill.org in our view) committed himself to opposing groups” put out to tender, worth a total of sources for other patients. • www.healthcampaignstogether.com British exit from the EU. A third issue is creeping NHS privatisation. £2.3bn, only slightly fewer than the 41% Most interesting is what’s missing. When the Tories and Lib-Dems passed the awarded to NHS bodies. The article says nothing about Corbyn’s Health and Social Care Act in 2012, health ex - According to the Kings Fund, in acute care Solidarity has had a Labour, or the Momentum movement pert Allyson Pollock declared: “The Act effec - commissioners spent about £14 million less launched by some of the Corbyn team, cam - tively reduces the NHS to a funding stream in real terms on non-NHS providers in make-over! paigning on the streets, to mobilise and to and a logo. Behind the logo, corporations bid 2012/13 compared to 2011/12. convince people. for health contracts in a regulated market”. But in community health services the pri - As politics hots up we have more opportunities The Tories protest that still only 6% of the vate-sector proportion increased from 12 per to distribute our newspaper and circulate our NHS cent in 2010/11 to 18 per cent in 2012/13. ideas, so we’ve given ourselves a new look NHS budget goes to private firms. The Kings It mentions the Tories’ new laws restrict - Private-sector mental health providers Will you help us, either by becoming a Fund reckons that about 9% of the total NHS ing trade unions, but makes no proposal raked in 12 per cent more between 2010/11 subscriber to the newspaper or by taking budget is spent on non-NHS providers ex - to mobilise Labour’s new members to and 2012/13, while spending on NHS mental some copies to distribute yourself? We invite cluding dentistry, medicines, and general campaign against them. Or for the NHS. health fell 2.5 per cent in real terms over the you to contribute by sending in a report or practice (not all “non-NHS” is private). Or for public ownership and democratic same period. letter, to [email protected]. The private sector still leaves basic and dif - control of high finance, which is TUC The contracting-out process does harm We are also raising the price of the paper ficult health care to the NHS, and for now policy. even when a public-sector provider wins. In to 50p (unwaged) and £1 (waged) to help us mostly picks up easier stuff on the edges. It’s It mentions “restoring a greater measure a lot of smaller contracts. December “UnitingCare Partnership”, a con - raise funds and continue producing and sortium of local NHS trusts, pulled out of the printing Solidarity. to democracy to the Party”, but says noth - ing about what measure. And why only a measure ? Why not just democracy? To make a democratic, policy-making, debate-rich Labour conference the decisive authority, and require all Labour’s old-regime “chiefs of staff” to follow the democratic mandate or step aside, is crucial. So is creating space for an open, demo - cratic, lively Young Labour and Labour Stu - dents movements. (The existing heavily-controlled Young Labour and Labour Students structures make real life difficult). He says “wait and see” about the Mo - mentum movement, but nothing about let - ting it develop a democratic structure and a campaigning profile, as it must. Looks like Corbyn supporters who want to press ahead on those fronts will have to do it without help from Murray. Murray has been chief of staff of the Unite union since 2011. Although theoretically he is an appointed functionary responsible for backroom organisation, rather than a per - son elected by union members to represent them, he has moved motions for Unite at the TUC, sat on the TUC General Council (though he is not there now), and spoken to the press on behalf of the union. He is also an avowed admirer of the supposed “socialism” of the old USSR and a member of the Communist Party of Britain. He is a long-time leader of the Stop The War Coalition, which gained credit for organising big marches against the US invasion of Iraq but more recently has responded to Ukraine by pointedly not opposing Russia’s war and to Syria by implicitly backing Assad. More online at www.workersliberty.org Workers’ Liberty @workersliberty Savage, bloody and pointless

One hundred years ago, on 9 January boats taking them ashore, some as they 1915, Allied armed forces finally left waded towards the beach. The sea was red Turkey’s Gallipoli peninsula, defeated. with their blood for 50 metres out from the In the eight months since the Gallipoli shore. Witnesses spoke of unbearable crying campaign had started, 87,000 Turkish of wounded and dying men. There were over troops had been killed, alongside 2,000 Anzac casualties, 2,000 Turkish. 10,000 French, 21,200 British and Irish, The landings held, but troops did not ad - 1,300 Indians, 8,700 Australians and vance onto the peninsula as planned. They 2,700 New Zealanders (the last two to - did not have enough ammunition, and the gether known as the Anzacs). Including military goal of capturing Constantinople the injured, there were nearly 400,000 was less achievable than ever. But their lead - casualties. ers ordered the much-reduced force to stay Janine Booth describes what hap - put. pened at Gallipoli. Part two will be pub - Sir Ian Hamilton was in overall charge, commanding the Mediterranean Expedi - lished in Solidarity 389. tionary Force. He believed that the British The First World War was into its second would win because they were superior to the year when Britain attacked the Dard - Turks. The commander of the British 29th Di - enelles strait, a narrow passage of sea in vision, which landed at Cape Helles, was the eastern Mediterranean overlooked by Major-General Aylmer Hunter-Weston, who the Gallipoli peninsula. ignored requests for reinforcements and am - munition. Australian Gallipoli historian Les The area, part of modern-day Turkey, was Carlyon writes that Hunter-Weston “threw then part of the Ottoman empire, which after away troops the way lesser men tossed away 600 years was falling apart, known as the socks … without imagination or pity.” His “sick man of Europe”. The rising power of misleadership at Gallipoli would show him Germany and the existing empires of Britain, as the caricature of the bumbling British gen - Tsarist Russia and Austria-Hungary wanted eral. to grab what they could from the Ottoman rubble. Their rivalries and manoeuvring in - tensified. A secret deal in 1908 agreed that BATTLES AND TRENCHES Russia could have Constantinople (now Is - Three days after the landings, the Allies tanbul) if Britain could have the Ottoman made their first attempt to advance from province of Iraq. the beaches. The First Battle of Krithia The Ottoman empire was governed from was under-resourced and poorly planned: the French commander, Albert d’Amade, Constantinople. In 1908, the Party of Union Lancashire Fuseliers on their way to Gallipoli, May 1915 and Progress overthrew Sultan Abdul was confused about his role, and nobody was certain where the Turkish front line Hamad, bringing to power the “Young toman, now in Iraq) to seize control of the oil Most British military leaders, though, actually was. Turks”, led by Enver Pasha, Talat and Kemal fields. It was becoming clearer what the war thought the plan was daft: Britain had little Shortly after, the Second Battle of Krithia Mustafa. was really about. knowledge of the area or the Turkish enemy, saw Hunter-Weston run the same battle strat - When the War began at the start of August and the terrain was unsuitable, with hills egy three times, even though it kept failing. 1914, the Ottoman empire was not part of it. AIMING FOR THE STRAITS overlooking narrow straits that were far eas - There were no wagons to carry the wounded It might have remained neutral, or it might Russian Tsar Nicholas suggested to ier to defend than to attack. But Churchill from the dressing station to the beach, so have joined with either side, according to its Britain that it could distract the Ottoman went ahead regardless because it suited his many died who might have lived. There were leaders’ calculations of potential benefit. empire by engaging Turkey in battle in the political ambitions. 6,500 Allied casualties, nearly one third of the While Germany courted Ottoman support, eastern Mediterranean. Lord Kitchener According to socialist newspaper The Her - men, but nowhere had the Allies advanced Britain made arrogant diplomatic blunders, (Secretary of State for War) and Winston ald , “With insouciant flippancy… [Churchill] more than 600 yards. and three months into the war, the Ottoman Churchill (First Lord of the Admiralty) liked bade us prepare for a most decisive and mo - The campaign was already a trench-bound empire joined on the German side. On 6 No - the idea: they would force the Dardanelles mentous development of the war by the con - war of attrition. One side would attack, the vember, Britain invaded Basra (then Ot - strait and capture Constantinople. quest of the Gallipoli Peninsula.” other would fight them off. Thousands On 3 November, Churchill ordered the would die, more would be injured, but only Navy to bombard the outer forts on the Dar - a few yards would change hands. It was sav - danelles coastline. This alerted the Ottomans age, bloody, pointless. On the hospital ship to the prospect of an attack, so they spent the Gascon, Nurse Kitchen described it in her Gallipoli next three months preparing their military diary as “a dreadful war … more like whole - defence: laying mines, installing heavy sale murder”. Some were so badly injured By Janine Booth weaponry and searchlights, increasing the they were sent home, only to face destitution, number of troops sixfold. abandoned by the government which had Rank corpses carpeted Gallipoli Following further bombardments in Febru - sent them to war. The Herald reported the At Russell’s Top, Lone Pine and Suvla Bay ary 2015, Churchill began the naval cam - “pitiable story” of a man who fought at Gal - By bullet, bayonet or dysentery paign on 18 March by sending ships up the lipoli and was discharged with rheumatism: Eight months of folly fighting lives away Dardanelles straits, attempting to force with a wife and 3 kids to support, he received Young Albert Booth got out of there alive through a seaway only one mile wide. Turk - a pension of just 4s8d per week, for 18 From hell to hell, from Dardanelles to trench ish mines sank three Allied ships and the fleet months only. No others from his landing craft survived withdrew. Churchill was undeterred, taking Private Ernest Law also kept a diary, writ - But joined the dead, the ANZACs, Turks and French the view that it mattered little if these ships ing on 6 May of charging out of the trench One hundred thousand gone from those sad nations were lost because they were “old and use - with his fellow soldiers “under heavy ma - And all for what? A great futility less”. He said little of the people on board, chine gun fire, some of them was hit before Did lives not figure in the calculations who were neither. they could get over the top. It was terrible Of Britain’s First Lord of the Admiralty? On 25 April, Allied forces landed on six going across the open – was at it until dusk Excuse me if I don’t take out a sub beaches on the Gallipoli peninsula. Some and suffered heavy losses.” On 12 June, To Winston Churchill’s great admirers’ club landed on the wrong beaches, having drifted Albert Henry Booth, Janine’s “Dropping shells about our trench all day. a mile north of their target in the dark. grandfather, who fought at Gallipoli The 5th [Lancashire Fusiliers] was coming 25 April 2015 Some men were shot dead as they sat in the HISTORY 6-7 Timeline

3 November 1914: Naval bombardment of Dardanelles forts 5 November: Turkey joined the War on the German side 19 February 1915: Naval bombardment of the Straits forts began 18 March: Naval attempt to force the Straits; Turkish arrest of 250 leading Ar - menians begins the Armenian genocide 25 April: Landings at Cape Helles and Anzac Cove 28 April: First Battle of Krithia 2 May: Turkish counter-attack 6 May: Second Battle of Krithia 14 May: War Council 24 May: Armistice to bury dead 4 June: Third Battle of Krithia 28 June: Battle of Gully Ravine 30 June: Failed assault on Russell’s Top 3 August: Allied reserves landed 6 August: Offensive began 7 August: Landings at Suvla Bay; charge on the Nek 8-10 August: Chunuk Bair hill briefly captured by Allies 9 August: Attack on Hill Q 21-22 August: Battle of Scimitar Hill; at - tack on Hill 60 14 October: Dardanelles Committee Allied troops in the trenches at Gallipoli sacked Hamilton 15 November: Churchill resigned from out of the firing line and one of them got his takes, and also sent their own soldiers, many and several machine guns at short range.” government head clean blown off by one of the Turks” of whom were conscripts, to certain slaugh - When they reached the enemy trenches, they 22 November: Kitchener recommended shells about three yards away from me.” ter, for example in a May 19 attack on Anzac found them covered with wooden beams, a partial evacuation Churchill’s brother Jack, a Staff Officer, lines. and the Turks shot them from below until 27 November: three-day storm; hun - wrote to him just two weeks after the first The 57th infantry led the charge for Turkey they made holes in the improvised roof and dreds killed landing, telling him that it was stalemate and the Ottoman empire, but not a single jumped down into the trenches for hand-to- 7 December: Cabinet decided to evac - trench warfare. But still he carried on. man survived the war. Their commander, hand fighting. uate Suvla and Anzac Three weeks into the land campaign, the Mustafa Kemal, told his men that he was or - The next day, new Allied landings went 18-19 December: Anzac and Suvla British War Council discussed the situation. dering them not to fight but to die – they badly. Bogle’s narrator sings: “And how well evacuated Bound by the upper-class nonsense about would be replaced. Before the attack on the I remember that terrible day, how our blood 28 December: Cabinet authorised evac - not giving bad news to superiors, Hamilton Dardanelles, in January 1915, Enver Pasha stained the sand and the water, And how in uation of Helles made out to Kitchener that things were not took command of an attack on the Russians that hell that they called Suvla Bay, we were 9 January 1916: Evacuation completed so bad. Instead of discontinuing the opera - and ordered an advance which led to 30,000 butchered like lambs at the slaughter.” tion, it was continued and reshuffled. Ottoman soldiers freezing to death. At the same time, the Anzacs attacked a make progress along the peninsula. But with Churchill was moved away from the Admi - ridge called the Nek. Commander of the 3rd the military commanders having poor com - ralty to the Duchy of Lancaster. Lord Fisher AUGUST OFFENSIVE Light Horse Brigade Colonel Frederic munications, the result was not a breakout, resigned his position as First Sea Lord when Hughes ordered a bayonet charge doomed to Hunter-Weston, claiming poor health, was but loads of dead men on both sides. his demand that the operation be discontin - failure against weapons developed fifty years allowed to leave the campaign in a way no The first four days of August offensive saw ued was overruled, and was replaced by Sir rank-and-file soldier would have been. earlier. Most of the first and second wave of 25,000 Allied casualties. The operation had Henry Jackson. On 24 May, despite his litany The new commander was Lieutenant- men died within three paces of going over failed. But Hamilton had an absurd romantic of failure so far, Hunter-Weston was pro - General Frederick Stopford. In August, the the top. Hughes’ brigade officer Lieutenant- notion about regaining lost ground and moted. Allies launched a desperate offensive. Colonel John Antill refused a request to can - pressing on, and kept sending men to their With reserves arriving, the campaign be - cel the third wave and ordered the men to ONE-DAY ARMISTICE came bigger on both sides. “Push on!” Hughes’ decision to call of the deaths. Stopford did not even go ashore, and On 24 May, both sides’ leaders agreed a The New South Wales Infantry charged fourth wave came too late. Carlyon argues objected to being woken up to be told of pause to bury the dead soldiers. This was Turkish lines on 6 August: W.H. Nevinson that: “The scale of the tragedy of the Nek was problems with landings. Ten days into the not an act of respect or ceremony, but be - wrote in the Manchester Guardian (under strict mostly the work of two Australian incompe - doomed and disastrous offensive, he was cause the thousands of corpses were rot - wartime restrictions): “At the word all the tents, Hughes and Antill.” Hughes went on sacked and replaced by General Julian Byng. ting, swelling, stinking, and attracting first sections rose, climbed the sandbag para - to be heavily decorated, and retired in 1924 By this time, the Allies had attacked vari - millions of flies and rampant disease. pets, and rushed forward across an open as a honorary major-general. ous hills, either failing to capture them or In the words of Scottish-born Australian space of about sixty yards of rough ground. Allied forces also attacked Lone Pine in an holding them briefly only to be easily picked Eric Bogle’s song “And the Band Played Our men were at once met by furious rifle fire attempt to break out from positions and off. On Hill Q, the Allied troops were mistak - Waltzing Matilda”, “We buried ours, and the enly shelled by an Allied gunship. Sources: Turks buried theirs, then we started all over Nevinson, who had been a socialist activist Les Carlyon, Gallipoli , Bantam 2001 again.” A Turkish captain wrote that: “At this John Rainford and Peter Ewer, film: ‘Gallipoli Lest We Forget … the facts’ in East London before becoming a war jour - spectacle even the most gentle must feel sav - John Rainford, World War I – separating fact from fiction, 17/4/15, Green Left Weekly nalist, wrote: “The slopes of the ridges here age, and the most savage must weep.” Phil Shannon, review of What’s Wrong with Anzac? The Militarisation of Australian History , Mar - bear terrible witness to the intensity of the But when the Turks later requested a simi - ilyn Lake and Henry Reynolds, 2010 fighting. The dead lay thick everywhere and lar armistice, Hamilton refused. As June Matt McCarten, Anzac story — a sordid tale of world domination and death, 29/4/97, New Zealand the stench is appalling.” turned to July, Turkish battalions carried out Herald The command knew that it could not win a series of suicidal counter-attacks after slight Harvey Broadbent, Gallipoli: the fatal shore , 2005 anything more than a few yards of territory, Allied advances, and Hamilton hoped to ben - Bob Gould, Don’t mention the wa r, Ozleft, 2005 but this at least gave them the opportunity to efit from Turkish soldiers’ unwillingness to Gallipoli’s Shadow, The Age , 2003 send good news to Kitchener. charge over fallen friends’ corpses. HN Brailsford, The Tragedy of the Dardanelles, The Herald , 17/3/17 Gallipoli Association website In the ruling class’s sick dictionary, Turkish army leaders, under the command The Herald “thousands of working-class men dead, of the German Von Sanders, also made mis - The Manchester Guardian ten yards gained” was “good news”. 8 FEATURE More online at www.workersliberty.org A service for scholars and activists

the accumulating contradictions can as well had begun the transition from capitalism to By Paul Le Blanc lead to socialism as back to capitalism; (h) on socialism. The bureaucratically-degenerated With the publication of two fat volumes of the road to capitalism the counterrevolution workers’ state must be replaced by the re-es - documents under the heading The Fate of would have to break the resistance of the tablishment of a genuinely democratic work - the Russian Revolution , edited by Sean workers; (i) on the road to socialism the ers state. Matgamna, Workers’ Liberty has per - workers would have to overthrow the bu - What Max Shachtman and others have in - formed a genuine service for scholars and reaucracy. sisted upon is that the loss of political power activists. In the last analysis, the question will be de - by the working class makes Trotsky’s insis - In a sense, we are presented with three cided by a struggle of living social forces, tent characterisation of the USSR as any kind books in the guise of two, with the editor pro - both on the national and the world arena. of a workers’ state incredibly problematic. ducing introductions of 156 pages in the first Trotsky believed that “only hypotheses are Combine this with the physical elimination volume and 125 pages (including timeline possible” regarding future developments be - of the forces in the USSR that might have and glossary) in the second. This “book” of yond this transitional stage. One possibility been capable of leading the political revolu - 281 pages advances a line of argument that was the eventual restoration of capitalism – tion for which Trotsky and his co-thinkers champions the perspectives of Max Shacht - which, in fact, is what finally happened. He were calling, and we seem to have entered a man, a US associate of Leon Trotsky who had genuine hopes, however, that the strug - theoretical and political cul-de-sac. broke with him in 1940. gles of “living social forces,” including in the Shachtman concluded that the Stalinist bu - The 790-page second installment, The Two Soviet Union, would move forward toward reaucracy was a far more stable formation Trotskyisms Confront Stalinism , deals with the socialism in the foreseeable future. than Trotsky wanted to believe. Following contending views within the US Trotskyist Concluding that “the bureaucracy can be James Burnham (who later became a right- movement 1940s, specifically, those aligned removed only by a revolutionary force,” Trot - wing ideologue, and whose importance with Trotsky and James P. Cannon in the So - sky noted that “to prepare this and stand at Matgamna goes out of his way to minimize) cialist Workers Party, and those aligned with the head of the masses in a favourable his - and Joseph Carter, Shachtman concluded that Shachtman in what became (for a while) the Leon Trotsky toric situation” would be “the task of the So - what had crystallised was a new form of class Workers Party. viet section of the Fourth International.” He society — unanticipated in Marxist theory. The previous volume is actually entitled have much to recommend it. admitted that “today it is still weak and This new class society was tagged as bureau - The Fate of the Russian Revolution , and basi - It is this last point that I want to focus on driven underground,” but added that “the il - cratic-collectivism, which Shachtman saw as cally presents the views of Shachtman and in the remainder of these comments. As the legal existence of a party is not nonexis - no better, no less exploitative, no more pro - the current he led during the 1940s, and early framework, we must naturally turn our at - tence.” gressive than capitalism. 1950s. A “slimmer” volume, it weighs in at tention to the analysis Shachtman contended Within two decades he partially followed slightly over 600 pages. It was actually pub - with — that developed by Trotsky. As PROBLEMATIC DEVELOPMENTS Burnham’s trajectory, seeing this new lished as Volume 1 of Lost Texts of Critical Matgamna correctly emphasises: “Trotsky This key assumption was to become al - tyranny as much worse, far more exploita - Marxism , an overarching banner that seems constantly rethought, reconceptualised, read - most immediately problematic with the tive, far less progressive than capitalism. He to have been dropped. justed his thinking on the USSR as on other onset of what the late historian Vadim Ro - then joined Cold War anti-Communists who There are some who, for whatever reasons, issues.” This is amply demonstrated in govin termed “political genocide” — saw the power of the capitalist United States do not think there is much (or any) impor - Thomas M Twiss’s remarkable new study, Stalin’s 1937-38 slaughter of old Bolshe - (whose imperialist foreign policy Shachtman tance to such history, and have expressed the Trotsky and the Problem of Soviet Bureaucracy viks, and of the majority of Trotskyists had been denouncing over four decades) as view that the publication of these volumes is (Haymarket Books, 2015), which traces the who were machine-gunned in the gulags. the strongest bulwark against the totalitarian ridiculous. It is certainly true that poring evolution of Trotsky’s analyses and theorisa - A case can be made that a failure to ade - menace. through old left-wing documents from the tions from the early 1920s to the mid-1930s, quately factor this horrific fact into his subse - In addition to Trotsky’s and Shachtman’s 1930s and 1940s is not something that most replete with brilliant insights blended with quent analyses and theorisations introduced approaches, there is the alternate theoretical people are inclined (or in a position) to do. false starts, misperceptions compelling sub - an element of unreality into what Trotsky had construct of “state capitalism” — that is, see - But to deny that there is anything useful to sequent corrections, and the evolution of a to say about the political revolution he advo - ing what developed in the USSR as simply a learn from such excavations and explorations deepening understanding of complex reali - cated. But it is worth giving serious consid - new variant of capitalism, with the bureau - is inconsistent with a serious attitude toward ties. The culmination was the 1936-37 classic eration, nonetheless, to what he meant by cratic state functioning as the “capitalist” that the discipline of history, as well as toward po - The Revolution Betrayed . “political revolution.” extracts surplus-value from the still-exploited litical theory, not to mention Marxism. The Revolution Betrayed covered a broad Believing that the political revolution he proletariat. Different variants of this theoret - What’s more, the materials by Shachtman array of economic, social, political, and cul - called for must not substitute one ruling ical approach were developed by the “coun - and his comrades are packed with interesting tural issues. Trotsky went on to argue that the clique with another, Trotsky insisted that cil communists” associated with Anton ideas, useful information, and sometimes de - Soviet state and society were fluid, transi - “bureaucratic autocracy must give place to Pannekoek, Otto Rühle, Paul Mattick, and licious humour. For some of us, at least, they tional, and could not be defined by “finished Soviet democracy,” and he offered details on others; by the Johnson-Forest Tendency and are well worth looking at. social categories” such as capitalism or social - what this would look like. Full freedom of its successors associated with CLR James and ism. Capitalism was governed by profit-dri - speech and genuinely free elections, with not Raya Dunayevskaya; and by Tony Cliff and CAPABLE ven market relations, an accumulation only a democratisation of the Bolshevik party process, inconsistent with the actual dynam - There are others who complain that the but also the freedom for other parties to exist ics of the USSR. Socialism could not be re - two volumes are skewed to favour the in the re-democratised Soviets, would all be duced to a state-owned economy with Shachtmanite orientation, and they cer - crucial, as would the revival of the trade top-down centralized planning in a single tainly are. unions. “The bringing of democracy into in - country, even one as large as the USSR – it re - But there is hardly anything wrong with dustry means a radical revision of plans in quired genuine democracy and global scope that, because the very purpose of these works the interests of the toilers. to be viable and consistent with a Marxist un - is to make the case for the Shachtman orien - Free discussion of economic problems will derstanding of socialism. Instead, Trotsky of - tation. If Sean Matgamna didn’t feel a pas - decrease the overhead expense of bureau - fered this complex characterisation: sion for this perspective — which he cratic mistakes and zigzags.” Bureaucratic The Soviet Union is a contradictory society advocates in the very capable polemic that privileges and high-budget “show-off” proj - halfway between capitalism and socialism, in constitutes the “third book” — these volumes ects would make way for a more equitable which: (a) the productive forces are still far would never have been produced at all. sharing of the social wealth, with decent from adequate to give the state property a so - Writing a capable polemic does not neces - housing and other social needs being priori - cialist character; (b) the tendency toward sarily mean writing a persuasive polemic. tized. “The youth will receive the opportu - primitive accumulation created by want For example, I am not persuaded that the nity to breathe freely, criticize, make breaks out through innumerable pores of the ideas and the very nature of Shachtman’s mistakes, and grow up. Science and art will planned economy; (c) norms of distribution Trotskyist opponents — James P. Cannon and be freed of their chains.” And naturally, “for - preserving a bourgeois character lie at the others in the Socialist Workers Party — are eign policy will return to the traditions of rev - basis of a new differentiation of society; (d) adequately characterised or dealt with either olutionary internationalism.” the economic growth, while slowly bettering by Shachtman or Matgamna. It can certainly Trotsky believed that such a political revo - the situation of the toilers, promotes a swift be argued that, over the long haul, their or - lution could free the nationalised, planned formation of privileged strata; (e) exploiting ganisation held up better than that of Shacht - economy — flowing from the conquests of the social antagonisms, a bureaucracy has man, their political orientation proved in the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 — from the converted itself into an uncontrolled caste some ways less disastrous (avoiding Shacht - authoritarian-bureaucratic stranglehold that alien to socialism; (f) the social revolution, be - man’s Cold War anti-Communism of the would otherwise kill it. The Bolsheviks, had trayed by the ruling party, still exists in prop - 1960s — instead organising an effective led the successful struggle to give all power Second edition now out, 798 pages, erty relations and in the consciousness of the movement against the US war in Vietnam), to the soviets, the democratic workers’ coun - £23 including postage. toiling masses; (g) a further development of and their theoretical orientation continues to cils, thereby creating a workers state, which E-book versions now available at bit.ly/2t-eb Workers’ Liberty @workersliberty FEATURE 9 others associated with the International So - cialists and British Socialist Workers Party. In 1948 Cliff forecast Shachtman’s trajec - tory: “If the Stalinist regime denotes the de - cline of civilization, the reactionary negation of capitalism, then it is of course more reac - tionary than the latter. Capitalism has to be defended from Stalinist barbarism” (Tony Cliff, “The Theory of Bureaucratic Collec - tivism: A Critique,” Selected Writings [Lon - don: Bookmarks, 2003], 160). Partisans of the state-capitalist theory, no less than those of the degenerated workers state perspective, have seen bureaucratic-collectivism as facili - tating a fatal accommodation between would-be Marxist revolutionaries and actu - ally-existing capitalism. Shachtman’s 1940s articulation of the the - ory of bureaucratic-collectivism, however, does not inevitably lead to an alignment with the foreign policy of US imperialism. Among the partisans of the theory who did not abandon revolutionary politics are Julius and Phyllis Jacobson, Hal Draper, and others who produced the journal New Politics, var - ious comrades associated with the US group Solidarity, etc. No less important than the revolutionary honor of such partisans, how - ever, is the theory’s value for what some of us call scientific socialism – a commitment to struggling for socialism that is grounded in a serious utilisation of what are today the dis - ciplines of history, economics, sociology and political science. Bureaucratic-collectivism certainly has value as a descriptive term — the economy is collectivised (not a market economy) but is dominated and ruled by an authoritarian regime representing a privi - leged and powerful bureaucratic apparatus. A celebration of materialism and war? But what Shachtman meant by “bureau - cratic-collectivism” was more than that. CLASS The apparatus was seen as a socio-eco - nomic class, similar to the slave-owning What’s wrong with Star Wars? patricians of ancient Rome, the hereditary aristocracy of feudal times, and the capi - By Eric Lee In the current film, we’re seeing just more of sides seem mirror images of each other. talists of our own day. Similarly, bureau - them. And they are bigger. The religion of Star Wars makes no pre - cratic-collectivism was presented as a Socialists begin our understanding of Having said that, let’s try to look at the tence of being a code of ethics or morality; new form of class society. culture with Marx’s oft-quoted com - film critically. The moment one does so, cer - no one does anything because it is the right tain things become obvious, and none of thing to do. Neither side seems to care in the From our own historical vantage-point, the ments about the ruling ideas of an age them are very good. slightest about taking the lives of millions roughly fifty-year existence of this purport - being the ideas of the ruling class. The Star Wars films, including the newest on the other side. edly “new stage of class society” does sug - Living under capitalism, we understand one, are celebrations of militarism and war. Both sides are despotisms — one ruled by gest the possibility that Shachtman and his that just as we are critical of the structure of Nearly all the characters wear uniforms and an Emperor (and in the current film, comrades were experiencing an optical illu - the society we live in, and the behaviour of carry weapons. The weapons are vastly Supreme Leader Snoke), the other ruled by sion. As Trotsky argued, it was all much more its ruling class, so we are also critical of its more powerful than anything available a Princess (now General). While the earlier transitory than they believed (although cer - cultural and intellectual production. today, and include the capacity to destroy Star Wars films made reference to a republic, tainly less transitory than Trotsky himself There are few cultural products that have entire planets. and even showed a kind of parliament, had anticipated). been shared as widely as the Star Wars With such enormously powerful there is nothing of the sort in the current Marcel van der Linden, in his excellent sur - films. Seven films made over the course of weapons, far greater numbers of people are film. There are just warlords on each side, vey of contending theories, Western Marxism nearly four decades have been seen by mil - killed in a few minutes in a Star Wars film each commanding their uniformed fighters, and the Soviet Union (Haymarket Books, 2009), lions, possibly hundreds of millions, of peo - than have died in any wars we have experi - sending them to their deaths in an endless has noted that “it is perfectly clear that the ple. As socialists, we should have something enced in human history. conflict that has now gone on for decades, if Soviet society can hardly be explained in or - to say about this. not centuries. thodox Marxist terms at all.” In examining Some people would stop right there. It’s The script for the new film is derivative the predominant theoretical variants — (1) just a bit of entertainment, just some fun. BOTHERED and unoriginal. As critics and fans have degenerated workers state, (b) bureaucratic- Not to be taken seriously. Certainly not wor - And yet the films seem not to be too pointed out, there are plot holes large collectivism, and (3) state capitalism — he thy of a critique. bothered about this. enough to fly the Millennium Falcon concludes that a fully adequate analysis of I disagree. Marx, Trotsky and other social - In the first film (Episode IV), when an en - through. The film seems clearly aimed at the USSR has yet to be developed. He adds ists wrote extensively about culture, art and tire planet is destroyed, one character says children, and yet Disney has successfully that this does “not mean to imply that the old literature. Trotsky was acutely aware of the “I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if marketed it to adults as well. As a commer - theories are of no use whatever in further the - importance of film and wrote about it, millions of voices suddenly cried out in ter - cial product, Star Wars is a great success. oretical developments,” suggesting (cor - among other places, in his short book, Prob - ror, and were suddenly silenced. I fear Science fiction doesn’t have to be this way. rectly, in my opinion) that each approach has, lems of Life . something terrible has happened.” We can imagine other worlds, other futures, in fact, proved capable of generating valuable Like millions of other people, I went to see But in the latest film, when several planets that don’t insult our intelligence or celebrate insights and analyses. the latest Star Wars film over the Christmas are destroyed one after another, no one ex - To the extent that this is true, and that break. Let me start of by saying that it is presses any such feeling. The only comment militarism, genocide, autocracy and the the materials in these volumes also pro - massive improvement over the three previ - made is that the enemy is getting closer to worst forms of faux-religious mumbo- vide valuable primary sources on the im - ous films (the prequels known as episodes I the rebel base and must be defeated. Mil - jumbo. portant history of US and world – III) and that the special effects are, as was lions have died in an instant, but the “dis - Harrison Ford, who plays Han Solo in the Trotskyism, those committed to a truly to be expected, spectacular. That’s not much turbance in the Force” is no longer felt. current film as he did in the first three, scientific socialism in efforts to under - of a compliment, as the prequels were gen - This casual approach to death is linked to starred in just such an intelligent film when stand and change the world should see erally seen as disastrous. Star Wars’ approach to religion. To the ex - he played Deckard in Blade Runner . That the publication of these volumes as a pos - Fans waited eagerly for director JJ tent to which anyone in the Star Wars uni - film raised important questions about what itive contribution. Abrams to rescue the series, which he has verse holds religious beliefs, they believe in it means to be human. Deaths in that film – now done. And the effects, while impres - The Force. The Force has a dark side and a even the deaths of replicants who were not human — were done on a human scale, one • Paul Le Blanc is a long-time Trotskyist; an sive, don’t have the same shock value as light side, but it is not entirely clear why one at a time, and each one painful and tragic. historian; author of a recent biography of those of the original 1977 film. Then, we is a force for good and the other a force for That is what great science fiction looks Trotsky; and a member of the US Interna - were seeing things we’d never seen before. evil. Take away the mood music and the like. Not Star Wars. tional Socialist Organization. evil-looking black costumes, and the two Where we stand More online at www.workersliberty.org Workers’ Liberty @workersliberty Today one class, the working class, lives by selling its labour power to another, the capitalist class, which owns the means of Turning Labour outwards production. The capitalists’ control over LABOUR constituents thought they were the economy and their relentless doing the right thing. drive to increase their wealth, Look at Corbyn over the Blair causes poverty, unemployment, the Clive Lewis, MP for Norwich years. He often voted with his con - blighting of lives by overwork, South, spoke to Solidarity . science, with what he thought were imperialism, the destruction of the true Labour, socialist values. environment and much else. Do you agree with the Shadow Chancellor that it would be de - There have been a number of ex - Against the accumulated wealth and power sirable to overthrow capitalism? pulsions of left-wingers from the of the capitalists, the working class must unite together in I am a democratic socialist. But Party. What do you think of this? solidarity to struggle against capitalist power in the workplace, there are as many definitions of so - Is there a place for Marxists in and wider society. cialism as there are of capitalism. I Labour? The Alliance for Workers’ Liberty wants socialist revolution: think the neo-liberal version of cap - I won’t comment on individual italism is a world away from the cases, because those will be dealt collective ownership of industry and services, workers’ control post-war capitalism that we had in with by a formal process and we mentum because I’m not a and a democracy much fuller than the present system, with the 50s and 60s. Do I want to see an have to have confidence in that. As spokesperson for Momentum. Mo - elected representatives recallable at any time and an end to end to neoliberalism and this ver - for your second question, if you can mentum was not set up as a ma - bureaucrats’ and managers’ privileges. sion of capitalism? Yes. be a Marxist and hold the demo - chine to purge Blairites, to deselect We fight for trade unions and the Labour Party to break with Do I think that there is a role for cratic values and principles of the MPs. It wasn’t even set up to be an capitalism in the future? Well, I Labour Party, then yes, of course I its “social partnership” with the bosses and to militantly assert internal group, to focus on the in - happen to be a pragmatist. I don’t see no problem with. ternal mechanisms of the Labour working-class interests. think there is an appetite in our Party. In workplaces, trade unions, and Labour organisations; democratically-elected system, at What democratic changes and It was always designed to be an among students; in local campaigns; on the left and in wider the moment, for complete destruc - reforms are needed in Labour? organisation that worked with the political alliances we stand for: tion of capitalism. Without getting into specifics, Labour Party — it will now be for • McDonnell is not talking about what we have seen in our party Labour Party members only — and Independent working-class representation in politics. the overthrow of capitalism, he’s over the last 20 years is a system • which campaigned actively, to be A workers’ government, based on and accountable to the talking about making capitalism that has become more centralised, involved with community cam - labour movement. work better for more people in a more top-down. A big part of Je - paigns, campaigns against the abo - • A workers’ charter of trade union rights — to organise, to fairer, more effective way. remy’s campaign was about open - lition of the Human Rights Act, strike, to picket effectively, and to take solidarity action. The right want to take us into a ing up the Labour Party to the against the Trade Union Bill, to dark, dystopian future in this coun - membership, giving them more say • Taxation of the rich to fund decent public services, homes, keep the NHS public. Now, people try and we are offering a demo - in the positions and the policy of might reasonably say, “why can’t education and jobs for all. cratic, socialist way forward that the party. Not just making sure that your CLP do that?” But the reality • A workers’ movement that fights all forms of oppression. can make our economy and society annual conference can be the pri - is that some CLPs — not all — have Full equality for women and social provision to free women a better place. I don’t see that as mary, sovereign democratic forum become election machines. And from domestic labour. For reproductive justice: free abortion on being incompatible with capital - for deciding what policy is, but also rightly so, because we are in the ism. Who knows where we’ll be in the National Policy Forum. demand; the right to chose when and whether to have children. business of winning elections. But 40, 50, 60 years? I think that anything that gives there are a lot of people who have Full equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. the membership more of a say is a come into the Labour Party who Black and white workers’ unity against racism. What should the relationship be good thing. But that has to be bal - also want to be able to do things be - • Open borders. between the Parliamentary anced with the ability to run a party yond that. • Global solidarity against global capital — workers Labour Party and Party mem - in a modern, technocratic democ - bers? Do you think the free vote racy, in a way that isn’t just going everywhere have more in common with each other than with There are lots of people who over Syria was the right thing to to be complete chaos. supported Corbyn’s platform their capitalist or Stalinist rulers. do in light of Labour’s confer - who for whatever reason are not • Democracy at every level of society, from the smallest ence policy? Do you think that being a Labour members of the Labour Party. workplace or community to global social organisation. There is a divide between some MP should be a job for life, or is Do you mean to say that these • Equal rights for all nations, against imperialists and members of the PLP and the centre reasonable for Labour MPs, like people have no legitimate role in of gravity within the membership, councillors, to be subject period - Momentum? predators big and small. and we need to think about how to ically to mandatory reselection? • Is there a place in Momentum for Maximum left unity in action, and openness in debate. square that circle. I don’t think mandatory reselec - the Socialist Party, for the SWP, for • If you agree with us, please take some copies of Solidarity On Syria, did Corbyn make the tion is something I agree with. Peo - parties who have stood and cam - to sell — and join us! wrong call in giving members a ple might say, “well you’re an MP, paigned against Labour and who free vote? No. I think he should you would say that”. If my CLP is do not entirely share Labour val - have done it sooner. I understand unhappy with me, there is already ues? No, there isn’t. Momentum is Upcoming events the dilemma. We had a policy. Peo - a process, a trigger ballot process, clearly a Labour Party organisation. ple within the PLP interpreted the for them to say, “Clive, we’ve We might do campaigns, say on the Saturday 9 January — Save NHS Bursaries demonstra - policy differently. Some people watched you for the last five years Trade Union Bill, where we have a tion, 12pm, St Thomas’ Hospital, London SE1 7EH — thought that the caveats had been as an MP and we don’t want you to day of action in the city centre, col - bit.ly/NHSbursary met, others didn’t. be automatically re-selected.” lecting signatures — we’re not During the original vote on oper - So when I come up for automatic going to stop anyone else from get - Wednesday 13 January — Fate of the Russian Revolution ations in Iraq, Corbyn said that re-selection, they can open it out to ting involved, if we share the same reading group (London), 6pm, WC1H 0AY — matters of war are matters of polit - other candidates. I think that sys - campaign aims. But in terms of the bit.ly/fatereading ical conscience. I think he was spot tem is fair. I can understand why decisions being made inside Mo - on. I think the Tories are wrong on that has caused a lot of problems mentum, those are for Labour Party Thursday 14 January — GMB celebrates Eleanor Marx, this too – you shouldn’t whip, you for the Labour Party, with the members. should vote with your conscience. 7pm, GMB headquarters, London NW1 2HD — boundary changes coming up and It’s a massive issue to send people so on, people are worried about a Should it not be for Momentum bit.ly/eleanormarx to war, to do damage, potentially to purge; that’s not something I have to decide on its own member - kill people. ever agreed with — we have a dif - ship policy? Thursday 21 January — Workers’ Liberty London Forum, I understand some people think ference of opinion on that. Clearly. And it is not right for the Syria: War and Solidarity, 7pm, Indian YMCA, W1T 6AQ he should have whipped and I un - advisory group of Momentum to bit.ly/syriasol derstand why he might have been The intense media scrutiny of be in the hands of just a few people. tempted to do that, thinking, everything that Momentum does We want it to be in the hands of Saturday 30 January — Health Campaigns Together con - what’s the point of being Leader, is leading to a sense of paralysis, Labour Party members who are ference, 10.30am, London Welsh Centre, WC1X 8UE — standing on a platform of having a a reluctance to make decisions part of Momentum. That’s where bit.ly/NHSconf very different foreign intervention or to speak or act boldly or deci - we should end up. policy, if I can’t stop my party from sively. Do you agree? How do we There is going to be an interim Saturday 27 February — Stop Trident National Demon - voting to bomb? break out of it? period of six months , and then stration, 12pm, London — bit.ly/stoptrident MPs are not only responsible to Momentum is an organisation the people who are involved with their membership, they are also re - whose democratic structures have Momentum are given a demo - Have an event that you want us to list? sponsible to their constituents. And yet to be decided. It’s in a transition cratic say over Momentum. Email [email protected] many MPs would say that their stage. And I can’t answer for Mo - REPORTS 10-11

50 Interserve clean - ers, London Under - ground workers of other grades, and Victory for DLR cleaners supporters protest - ed outside Inter - By Ollie Moore serve’s London headquarters on 15 Cleaning and security workers December 2015. The on London’s Docklands Light protest, organised Railway (DLR) won a big victory by the RMT’s Lon - before Christmas, settling a don Transport Re - long-running dispute over terms gion, demanded and conditions for a deal that that Interserve end represents a 75p/hour pay in - its practice of rou - crease, backdated to April 2015. tinely short-paying cleaners, stops job cuts, and ends outsourcing by The workers, employed by out - directly employing agency workers. sourced subcontractor Interserve, struck several times throughout 2015. An RMT statement called the deal “a massive breakthrough”, which “gives some much-needed No mandate for Prentis! Christmas cheer to a group of Lon - DLR cleaners on strike last year don transport workers who have wrong doing on the part of the a fair deal in the workplace.” tions, including cleaning and some By Gemma Short full-time officials. Either the full- fought long and hard for pay jus - Although under the publicly- security work, to Interserve. Dave Prentis was re-elected as time officials acted against Unison tice.” Directly-employed DLR staff owned Transport for London aegis, Unison General Secretary at the rules, or they did not! The statement continued, “this are also in dispute with KAD over the DLR is privatised and operated end of last year, with less than Despite seemingly having full- pay victory proves that low paid a variety of issues, and have sev - by a consortium of contractors (Ke - 50% of the vote, less than 10% time officials publicising him, and workers can get organised into a eral strikes planned in the first olis Amey Docklands, KAD). KAD turnout, and amid allegations of Prentis appearing in almost every fighting trade union and use their in turn outsources various func - four months of 2016. article in the Union′s publications collective industrial strength to win cheating. A few days before the ballot during the election period whilst closed a recording was leaked that the election — and other candi - implicated Unison full-time offi - dates — were not mentioned, cials in campaigning in favour of Prentis′ vote took a huge batter - Jobs battle continues on Tube Prentis in clear breach of unison ing. Since 2010 Prentis has gone rules. Both Unison and the Elec - from 185,000 votes to 66,000, loos - and other disruptions, as years of terms and conditions and contracts toral Reform Services failed to de - ing 119,000 votes — two thirds. This is no real mandate for By Ollie Moore staffing cuts mean that many Tube unilaterally changed. clare the result null and void as a Prentis to continue to sit back stations rely on workers doing The new model (called “Fit for result of the full-timers actions. Tube union RMT has announced while public sector workers and overtime to remain open. Calls for an independent inves - an indefinite overtime ban for the Future”) was first announced in services are attacked by the London Underground plans to tigation, including by a large sec - station workers on London Un - November 2013, since when Tube government. derground (LU), as part of its on - impose a new staffing model on workers have struck for a total of tion of the NEC, were ignored, stations in 2016, which will see six days in an attempt to stop it, as and instead Unison launched an going fight against job cuts and • The whistleblower who made attacks on terms and conditions. hundreds of jobs lost, most workers well as using other tactics such as internal inquiry. That inquiry has re-graded to more responsible roles claimed that the recording shows the recording has answered alle - The ban, which began on 3 Janu - overtime bans and revenue strikes. without any additional pay, and signs of having been tampered gations that the recording was ary, could lead to station closures Elements of the changes have al - with, yet does not try to deny any tampered with. Read the answer ready been imposed by Tube at: bit.ly/unisongate bosses, including the closure of all RMT gears up to defend Glen Hart LU-operated ticket offices. A Tube worker and RMT activist London Underground workers told Solidarity : “These changes will are preparing to ballot for make our working lives much strikes to defend London Un - Arriva trains strike more stressful, and seriously affect derground station supervisor the service we’re able to provide to Glen Hart. about basic workplace justice and our passengers. Footfall is going London Underground at - By Ollie Moore decent working conditions and it is up, so staffing levels and services tempted to discipline Glen for down to the company to recognise like ticket offices should be expand - Driver members of both the Aslef closing his station during an RMT the anger amongst the workforce ing as well, not being cut back.” and RMT unions working for Ar - overtime ban in 2014, although he shown this morning and to meet Supporters of the socialist rank- riva Trains Wales struck on Mon - had followed railway regulations with the unions for genuine and and-file bulletin Tubeworker are ar - day 4 January, leading to to the letter. After having to drop meaningful talks on the issues in guing for the overtime ban to be widespread disruption. these trumped-up charges, they dispute.” went after Glen on a ludicrous supplemented with a ban on Unions suspended a planned As well as pay, unions are con - misconduct charge, essentially al - higher-grade working, and for a strike in November, but reinstated cerned about how frequently leging that he had been rude to a programme of escalating strikes to action after Arriva failed to make a workers will be expected to work manager... on no other evidence be announced as soon as possible. satisfactory offer on pay and condi - past an agreed 9.5 hour shift Tube unions also remain in than the testimony of that man - tions. length, arguing that the wording dispute with LU about their 2015 ager! Aslef organiser Simon Weller in the company’s current deal places have left LU mana gers in pay settlement, now nine months A lively demonstration at no doubt that the RMT is pre - said, “The company has not made (that they will be expected to do Clapham Common station in overdue, and new staffing a new offer. It has sent us a form of so in “special circumstances”) is pared to use its full industrial arrangements to facilitate the in - December and a campaign of words. But it is not new and it is too vague, as Arriva frequently muscle to defend Glen from vic - troduction of 24-hour running propaganda across Tube work - not an offer.” RMT General Secre - serves events such as football timisation. (“Night Tube”). tary Mick Cash said, “This strike is matches. Momentum on the streets Lambeth librarians balloted The protests were called for by 60 other stations were By Tim Cooper Action for Rail, backed by rail leafleted including Kings Cross staffed book stations, and cut up to unions and was the first protest of On Monday 4 January Labour where campaigners were joined By Peggy Carter the year that Momentum called for 25% of library workers′ jobs. Uni - and trade union activists by Jeremy Corbyn and the son and local library campaigns activists to get involved in. Shadow Minister for Transport After striking unofficially in No - leafleted passengers at train sta - vember, library workers in Lam - have organised marches and In Nottingham Momentum sup - Lillian Greenwood. tions across the country on the porters from Nottingham East, beth have now been given an protests against the cuts. first working day since rail fare Broxtowe and Sherwood CLPs official ballot by Unison. One such protest saw cam - rises of 1.1% were implemented, handed out postcards for passen - • To get involved in Momentum Lambeth council plans to shut paigners knitting shut the doors making them the most expensive gers to send to their MPs calling for in Nottingham contact Tim: half of Lambeth libraries, turn three of one of Lambeth’s council of - in Europe. no fare increases. [email protected] into membership gyms with un - fices on 18 December. SolidaFor a workers’ giovertnment y No 388 6 January 2016 50p/£1 DOCTORS STRIKE 12 JANUARY NHS towards a neoliberal, com - their labour completely from 8am By a junior doctor mercialised system.″ to 5pm on Wednesday 10 Febru - The announcement on 4 Janu - Despite months of protest, ary. This model of escalating ac - ary that junior doctors will strike ACAS, negotiations and endless tion, with dates named in advance on Tuesday 12 January is good promises, tweets and bluster from shows a seriousness not seen from Jeremy Hunt the main issues have other public sector unions. news. remained unchanged. The govern - Doctors will stage picket lines at There was never any doubt that ment is trying to remove the sys - all hospitals and at some outpa - NHS Employers would not be able tem by which hospitals are fined tient clinics and GP surgeries, as to offer a contract which is accept - for overworking their junior doc - well has holding ″meet the doc - able to junior doctors. They have tors, and the government is deter - tors″ events after picket lines at proved everyone right, and it ap - mined to make Saturday a ″normal local transport stops or shopping pears that negotiations, while working day″. centres. It is crucial for this dispute making some quite considerable Junior doctors are right to be to develop, make serious wins and progress have got no where near to angry. Behind its propaganda the to become a wider campaign about solving the main issues. government is trying to take an the NHS, that it has the grassroots Speaking on behalf of the British NHS workforce which is currently involvement of doctors, other Medical Association′s (BMA) jun - breaking its back holding up a health workers and NHS cam - ior doctors committee, Dr Yannis creaking system and attempting to paigners. Gourtsoyannis said ″over the last destroy what little safeguards and The longer this goes on the few weeks, in the course of nego - protection we have. clearer it becomes that this is tiations with Government we have Junior doctors will provide not about junior doctors. It is encountered only intransigence. It emergency care only for 24 hours just another salvo in an all out is clear that the government per - from 8am on Tuesday 12 January, attack on all workers in the health service. ceives our contract issue as piv - Junior doctors protesting in London in October and for 48 hours from 8am Tues - otal for its attempt to ‘reform’ the day 26 January, and will withdraw Save our student bursaries! Save NHS bursaries Saturday 9 January Mark Boothroyd is a nurse at the public service ethos that means supportive. They recognise how London demonstration, assemble noon, St Thomas’ Hospital. He spoke people work so hard, destroy hard it’ll be for students. Like any to Solidarity . some of that loyalty. It could create part of the public sector, when St Thomas’ Hospital, SE1 7EH an incentive for people to leave the they take action they get a lot of Cuts to the student nursing bur - NHS to go into business. It’ll support. They’re people who’ve bit.ly/NHSbursary sary will decrease access to change the relationship between chosen to go into a job that’s not nursing education for working- the workers and the service. well-paid and takes a lot out of participate in, like student nurses labour and showing up how de - class students. You’ll effectively be paying to you, so there’s a lot of goodwill. wearing a slogan T-shirt over their pendent the NHS is on their free The psychological impact of that work. As student nurses, we do We need to build up public sup - uniform, and demonstrations out - labour would be telling. Rank and file nurses under - much debt will be a huge barrier. some unpaid work on the wards as port and bigger displays of oppo - side hospitals. We want to be able stand that if we don’t fight back, We are the lowest-paid profession part of our training. When the bur - sition. There’s been a network of to push the government back by our jobs and service will be dev - of those requiring university-level sary is taken away, we’ll be paying students organising the protest. public pressure, develop organisa - astated. But the leaderships of training: teachers, social workers, for the luxury of working. But it needs to become more cohe - tion and build industrial strength. the unions aren’t making any doctors. The top salary outside of The response from nursing sive, with more reach amongst stu - It’s not out of the question that stu - moves in the direction of a fight London is 25k per annum. schools around the country to the dent nurses, and on wards as well. dent nurses could strike. A lot of like that. So any initiative will The cut will also destroy some of 9 January demo has been excellent. There is a plan for days of action in students are used to plug gaps due Nurses in my hospital are very the hospital, stuff everyone can to staffing cuts. Withdrawing that come from below.

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