No 128 MarchiApril 1992 30p Newspaper of the Spartacist League Workers need a Bolshevik party! No vote to Kinnock's Labour Party!

"Mr Kinnock runs well behind his party in popular esteem - why? ... "His new year message may hold the answer. It brims with the politics of the bland, by the bland, for the bland .... For a left-wing party, such timidity and caution bodes ill for the kind of govern­ ment that would follow an election victory. . . . The prospect is that he would be putty in mandarins' hands, a prisoner of the Establishment, a mere figurehead doing the honours at No 10 and diving for cover twice a week at question time." Take a guess. Is this from any of the Labourite left newspapers (Workers Power, Socialist Organiser, Socialist Work­ er, etc)? Wrong. It is the Sunday Times (5 January). The bourgeoisie at least under­ stands that Kinnock ha') nothing to do with socialism. But the wretched "lefts" are falling over each other to explain to the workers why it is necessary to elect the Labour Party. The TUC/Labour tops (the "lefts" as Homeless huddle outside Job Centre; Kneel well as the rights) have done all they can Kinnock, friend of the City, promises more of to muzzle class struggle in order to prove the same. continued on page 10 For proletarian political revolution to overthrow Yeltsin's starvation regime MOSCOW, 18 January-Two weeks to strike: "In Dzerzhinsk, there are 18,000 have passed since Russian president Boris miners who are unemployed because they Yeltsin's "free market reform" sent the ran out of support timbers in the mines" prices of food and other necessities and have no money to buy more. "In skyrocketing. Despite demagogic prom­ Armenia, the lack of gasoline and heating ises of abundant supplies, the store oil is catastrophic. There is electricity shelves remain empty and lines remain only six hours a day in the cities and four long. Popular anger is fast bubbling to hours in the countryside. The enterprises the surface. As "Tsar Boris" tours Russia, have stopped working. There is energy he is greeted everywhere by placards, only for the bakeries and hospitals. Kin­ jeers and shouts attacking the "liberali­ dergartens are closed down." sation" of prices. And Yeltsin's political Food riots have started erupting in allies have started to desert and denounce various Soviet cities. In Tashkent, capital him. of Uzbekistan, police opened ftre on At the same time, hyperinflation, thousands of students marching on the hoarding and speculation are destroying presidential palace; several were killed. A the links between mine and factory, week ago, shoppers in Stavropol broke between collective farm and food store. store windows in outrage against the out­ In Moscow, most industrial enterprises of-reach price of sausage - a kilo now have enough supplies to operate for only costs up to a month's wages of an aver­ another two or three weeks. With the age worker. Angry protests in Vladimir imperialist-dictated "shock treatment" over the cost of milk led local authorities being carried out by Yeltsin and his to lower the new price from 6 roubles to counterrevolutionary cohorts, the entire 1.20 a litre, still massively higher than two economy is grinding to a standstill. Mos­ weeks ago. Spontaneous food protests cow TV News One (17 January) reports have spread to Moscow as well. On 12 that miners across the country are ready continued on page 6 Tens of thousands march on Revolution Day, Moscow 1991. letter- deed continued to provoke 'controversy' down to the present day? Or is this too something communists musn't talk about Robin Blick: anti-communist in public? I look forward to the publication of my corrections, and any comments you may We reprint below a letter to Workers 'unabashed' or othwerwise, and since you 4. Trotsky (drawing on both Stalinist Hammer from Robin Blick. All textual offer no evidence for this assertion, I and Menshevik accounts of the events in see fit to make on them. errors are the responsibility of the author of would like to know on which of my question) did indeed believe that Stalin's Robin Blick the letter. writings you base it. As an advocate of seizure of Eastern Poland in September working class self-emancipation I am, 1939 awakened hopes fot liberation 16 December 1991 naturally, an opponent of all forms of amongst the opressed classes and mi­ WH replies: We are happy for Robin totalitarianism. Perhaps, like so many norites of that region. ('In Defence of Dear Editor, Blick to point out for the record that he others on both left and right, you are Marxism' Merit, 19765, pp.87-8) "did not wait" for Jaruzelski's counter­ There are several passages in your unable to appreciate the difference. Or as you put it: coup to support counterrevolutionary attack on the journal 'Revolutionary 3. I did not, as you say, write 'two 'The Jews headed towards the Red Solidarnosc. The rest of his letter amply History' (,Workers Hammer', Jan/Feb reviews' for the Autumn 1991 number of Army.' But that was exactly my point! I confirms our characterisation of him as 1992) which concern me directly, and 'Revolutionary History', only one. My then described what happened to some of an anti-communist. (Although, perhaps contain either errors or distortions of other offering, as any literate person able them. As I said in my review (you quoted "unabashed anti-communist" was too fact. I will correct them in the order in to count up to two should have been able this very passage) 'there were recorded strong - witness the fact that Blick is which they occurr. to devine, was a not a review (if it was, instances of Jewish refugees from the abashed.) Abashed or no, this "opponent 1. I did not wait for the Jaruzelski pray tell me the title of the book Nazi zone fleeing, or being driven back, of all forms of totalitarianism" cannot coup to help rally support in Britain for reviewed) but a letter, published in the to their near certain death under the lash even bring himself to state the fact that Solidarity. I was co-founder, in August letters section on page 42. Remarkably of Stalinist pogroms.' Do you deny this? Jews behind Soviet lines were saved 1980, with my wife, Karen, and Adam for an 'unabashed anti-communist', in this Your reference to Trotsky offers you no during the Second World War in which Westoby, of the first and only enduring letter I defended Trotsky against what I help at all. But mine to the US State the Soviet Red Army smashed Hitlerite support group, the Polish Solidarity believe was a Stalinoid perversion of his Department collection of documents on fascism. His references also speak for Campaign. appreciation of the so-called (but never the Stalin-Hitler Pact, 'Nazi-Soviet themselves: the US State Department 2. I am not an 'anti-communist', by Trotsky) 'Canton Commune'. Relations', 1948 (which you, for obvious documents, including a "Nazi account" reasons, missed out in the above contained therein. quotation from my review) most certainly Blick "reveals" that Stalin was no does. There, on page 128, is a Nazi particular friend of the Jewish people­ In honour of International account (dated December 5, 1939) of why nor, we might add of the Soviet peoples Women's Day 'the expulsion of Jews into Russian in general-in order to grotesquely territory, in particular, did not proceed as place an equal sign between Nazi Ger­ On the occasion of Intemational Women's smoothly as had apprarently been many and the Soviet Union. Here Blick, expected.' Jews driven into the Soviet Day, 8 March, we print below an extract from with his talk of "Stalinist pogroms", sinks zone 'came back', with the Russian Die Gleichheit (Equality), the newspaper of to the level of the arguments expected commander trying to force the German the German Social Democratic Patty (SPD) from a David Irving who wants to claim one to readmit the group.' Deny the truth especially addressed to the question of w0- that the Nazis' treatment ofthe Jews was of this if you like. But Trotsky won't be men's emancipation. This paper was launched no worse than the Soviet Union's and at able to help you. Nowhere does he imply, in 1891 by the SPD to the worlc the least Hitler was fighting Bolshevism. Even further of let alone state, that the Jews or any other the the pronounced anti-communist Martin TROTSKY party amonl¢ women. Much of SPD's LENIN refugees from Polish (or Nazi) pioneering worlc serves to this day as a model Gilbert in his history of The Holocaust The SPD went over to social chauvinism at the time of World War I and it is no persecution should have expected any (1985) writes, on the contrary, about the better treatment from Stalin. On the accident that those who fonned the Spartacist group in 1916 and the Gennan Communist number of Polish Jews who found refuge contrary. He warned - correctly - that Party (KPD) in 1919 - the organisations which carried forward revolutionary work among in the USSR - not because they were women - included revolutionaries like Clara Zetkin, one of Die Gleichheit's first editors. all 'independent activity on the part of the "driven" into the Soviet zone by the masses in the new territories' would 'on These communists fought unswervingly for special, high-Ieve~ agitational and Nazis but because they fled there for ref­ propagandistic work among women; they were among the leading radicals in the SPD who the morrow undoubtedly be supressed by uge. Moreover, even before the German had staunchly defended their revolutionary proletarian vision against all fonns of ruthless police measures'. (ibid, pp 18-19) invasion, many of them had been Why do you fmd it so hard to admit, narrowness and chauvinism -from trade unionism, pariiamentarism and nationalism to resettled by the Soviet government in male chauvinism and feminism. Die Gleichheit's editors promised that the newspaper after all that we now know of Stalin's's Central Asia and other distant areas to atrocities (free at last to tell the truth, would: make sure they didn't fall into Nazi Soviet historians number his victims near hands. Meanwhile the "democratic" im­ the 50 million mark) that Stalin could " ... fight with all energy and sharpness for the full social liberation of the world of perialists whom Blick blocks with in his behave as Trotsky predicted, and as the proletarian women, because this is possible only in a socialist society. For only in such "anti-totalitarianism" refused to open above case proves? Is it perhaps fear of a society, along with the disappearance of the property and economic relations presently their doors. the sin of 'Stalinophobia' (hatred of dominant, will the social contradiction disappear between those who own property and It's frankly revolting to argue against Stalinism) that leads you quote with such those who do not, between man and woman, between intellectual and physical labor. the likes of Blick - who will use any a sense of outrage my reference to the The elimination of these contradictions can however only come through class struggle: stick to beat "Stalinism" - on this ques­ the liberation of the proletariat can only be the work of the proletariat itself. If the mass deportation and extermination of tion. To any decent person, let alone so­ proletarian woman wants to be free, she must join forces with the common socialist the Baltic peoples? Do you deny that this called "socialist", the difference between movement .... But the characteristic standpoint, the standpoint of the class struggle, atrocity occurred too? Or similar crimes the Nazi mass genocide of peoples and must be sharply and unambiguously emphasized in an organ for the interests of against the national minorities of the the terror carried out by the Stalinist proletarian women. And this must be done all the more sharply, the more the Caucasus and Crimea? Or the Jews again ruling caste of the Soviet Union is mani­ bourgeois women's righters make it their business, by the use of general humanitarian in the last years of Stalin's rule? Or is it fest. As the historian Moshe Lewin, phrases and petty concessions to women workers' demands for reform, to throw up simply bad form (i.e., 'anti-communist') author of Lenin's Last Stnlggle, put it: obstructions in the world of proletarian women and to seek to draw them away from to refer to these things in public? ('Not in "Jews like anyone who is not instituting front of the workers, Comrade') If so, the class' struggle. But the schooling of proletarian women precisely for the cl3§S pogroms against them. When the whatever became of Trotsky's injunction struggle will also in the future continue to be the foremost task of Die Gleichheit." Lithuanians came in there were pogroms. to 'say what is'? When the Latvians, the Estonians, the -cited in Werner ThOnnessen, Die Frauenemanzipation (1969) 5. My review was not, as you say, Ukrainians, came in there were pogroms. 'filled with innuendo' about Lenin's When the Soviets came in there were not dealings with German imperialism. In an pogroms. Under Stalinism the net was article of nearly four pages, I made one cast very widely, and arbitrarily. It didn't reference to the 'controversies sur­ involve nationalities as a matter of rounding Lenin's precise relations with course.. .. In the Soviet Union, I might the Kaiser's government during and after have been killed, but I joined the Red WORKERSIIAMMER the episode of the "sealed train" '. (In Army, I was a citizen, I didn't get caught your quotation, again for obvious reasons, in the net. In the Soviet Union Jews were For a federation of workers rep-ublics in the British Isles I ~ For a Socialist United States of Europel you missed out the first two words.) citizens; by definition they were not con­ Hardly what you would call 'filling'. And demned to die" (Nation, 30 September Newspaper of the Spartacist League, British section of the International if there was an innuendo, vigilant people 1991). Communist League (Fourth Internationalist), such as yourselves would surely have As to Blick's fmal point that "Lenin EDITORIAL BOARD: Bonnie Bradley (Editor), Jon Branche, Ralf Eades, Alec Gilchrist, Eibhlin McDonald, Alan Mason, Len Michelson, Ellen Rawlings, Michael Riaz, David Strachan exposed it to your readers. You don't, did have a 'precise relationship with the PRODUCTION MANAGER: Michael Rlaz because there was none. What I did do Kaiser's government' and that that rela­ CIRCULATION MANAGER: Antoine Vernes was refer readers, in a footnote, to two tionship - whatever it was - has indeed collections of documents on the subject. continued to provoke 'controversy' down Published by Spartacist Publications, PO Box 1041, London NW53EU Subscriptions: £3.00 for 1 year, overseas airmail £6.00, Surely even you would agree that Lenin to the present day" we refer our readers Opinions expressed in signed articles or leIIenI do not ..-sarIly express the editorial viewpoint did have a 'precise relationship with the to Leon Trotsky's chapter "Concerning Pri'lted by Slough Newspapers Ud(TU). ISSN 0267-8721 Kaiser's government' and that that Slanderers", directed against one Keren­ relationship - whatever it was - has in- sky, in My Life .•

2 WORKERS HAMMER Our beloved comrade Martha who arrived at the apartment where Phillips died on 9 February in Moscow. Martha was staying on the morning of A professional revolutionist and sup­ 9 February, the day of the most reCent porter of the Trotskyist politics of the large demonstration against Yeltsin, Spartacist tendency (International Com­ found her there having apparently died munist League) for 20 years, Martha in her sleep. Although she had recently was living and working in Moscow as a Martha Phillips been quite ill with a kidney ailment, her teacher of English at the time of her death seemed medically inexplicable death. As the senior cadre among sev­ since she had been improving. In the eral comrades who were working to midst of their shock and grief, the reimplant the revolutionary programme ~ comrades asked for an autopsy which, of Lenin and Trotsky in the land of its when it was finally performed, revealed birth, Martha was engaged in a crucial 10 March 1948-9 February 1992 that she had been stabbed. At the pres­ struggle whose outcome still hangs in ent time, the possibility cannot be ruled the balance. Her death is a bitter blow out that this hideous crime may have to the future Soviet section of the ICL been politically motivated. The Moscow and a shattering tragedy for her many militia is carrying out an investigation close friends in our party. We extend in which our friends and supporters in our sympathy also to Martha's family, Moscow are cooperating. the Greenbergs, to Jeff, and to her son Many moving messages from com­ Lael, who she deeply loved. rades who knew Martha and loved and Martha was won to Spartacist poli­ valued her greatly have been received tics along with several other comrades and we will share excerpts from some out of the Proletarian Orientation Ten­ of them in future issues of our press. In dency /Leninist Faction left opposition the US, formal meetings to honour.. her inside the Socialist Workers Party. are planned in the Bay Area and New Originally recruited to the SWP as a York City. Other ICL sections are college student in Madison, Wisconsin, plann;~

MARCHIAPRIL 1992 3 Scottish Militant alibies BNP race-terrorists

As we go to press, Tommy Sheridan­ head of the Anti-Poll Tax Federation and Scottish Militant Labour's parliamentary candidate for Pollok - is on bail appeal­ ing a vindictive six-month prison sentence for "contempt of court". This is the state's revenge for October last when 400 anti-poll tax protesters halted Scotland's first warrant sale. It is an attack on the whole working class and must be defeated. We demand: Drop the charges against Tommy Sheridan! Free all poll tax prisoners! While defending Sheridan against the capitalist state, we say: No vote for Sheridan - don't help Ramsay MacKin­ nock and his poll tax-enforcing, wretched Labour traitors into government! Dead but not buried, the poll tax needs to have the final stake plungel;l into it by some Scottish Militant Labourite Tommy Sheridan: he allbles the BNP. Spartaclst League contingent at combative Dundee genuine class struggle. Recently, hundreds anti-fascist rally. 12 May 1990, demands vengeance for Somali student Ahmed Shekh. of NALGO members struck Strathclyde Regional Council's fmance department in previous meeting where Sheridan used organising the racist, strike-breaking cops Where Militant has stood against offi­ solidarity with 200 community workers racist epithets against Japanese people. into trade unions; it has consistently cial Kinnockites, as in the Liverpool by­ who had been out nearly six months in a SignifIcantly, nobody even tried to defend rejected fighting for the defeat of its election last July-and now in Pollok dispute sparked by Council redundancies. Sheridan. "own" bourgeoisie from the Falklands/ - Militant offers no political alterna­ Immediately the administration of the Sheridan's performance is both a scan­ Malvinas War to the recent one-sided tive to the Labour Party. On the con­ poll tax was hit and the arrogant Labour dal and a deadly dangerous symptom of slaughter of the Anglo-American led trary, it desperately tries to breathe life Council was quickly forced to plead for social-democratic putrefaction within the imperialist "allies" against Iraq. In fact into what Rosa Luxemburg some 75 terms. But the Militant Labourites, des­ workers movement. Among the some 35 "Labourite grass" would sum up very well years ago called the "stinking corpse" of pite holding key official positions in attending the Militant meeting, including the role that prominent Militant sup­ social democracy, pledging itself to "Real NALGO, have done nothing to raise anti­ a substantial number of SWP members, porter Jim Cameron played when he Labour" policies and to a "majority poll tax demands in this strike! only the Spartacist spokesman called fmgered Spartacist supporters to the cops Labour government elected at the We print below an article reporting on Sheridan to task for his defence of the on a demo in Glasgow against the Gulf earliest opportunity" (Militant, 7 June Sheridan's recent revolting public apology BNP and its ilk. And in Scotland there War - so enraged was he by our slogans 1991). It is precisely for this reason that for race-hating fascist scum in Scotland. has been a sharp increase in the level of for the defeat of imperialism and defence we did not advocate even the most criti­ fascist activity, centred particularly on the of Iraq. And let's not forget Militant's cal support to Lesley Mahmood, the BNP. A few months ago Niaz Ahmed of offer to shop anti-poll tax demonstrators Militant CfUldidate in Liverpool. GLASGOW - Tommy Sheridan gro­ Glasgow died after an attack by a racist to the state after the police riot in Trafal­ Militant's chauvinism at home and tesquely alibied and used the very lan­ mob which a year earlier had left him gar Square. abroad is in the worst tradition of the guage of race-hate fascist scum at a 20 severely brain damaged. A hundred and For our part, we defend all the victims social democracy. Indeed Sheridan's January public meeting in Glasgow's fifty BNPers massed in Glasgow to of the state vendetta against anti-poll tax statements carry the stamp of Henry M Langside Hall. Prompted by a question oppose the Bloody Sunday 20th Anniver­ protesters and non-payers, including Hyndman, the social democrat, anti-Sem­ on whether or not Militant would affiliate sary march on 18 January. That same day Tommy Sheridan. ite, fervid supporter of British imperial­ to the exhumed popular-frontist Anti in Edinburgh anti-racist protesters ism, the monarchy and parliamentarism Nazi League, Sheridan responded with marked the third anniversary of the mur­ The rise of fascism and reaction (who went on to found the National the following Militant version of "fighting der of Ahmed Shek by race-hate killers. throughout Europe has been fuelled by Socialist Party) - or of Manny Shinwell fascism": at a Militant meeting six weeks And the very day after the Langside Hall the collapse of Stalinism in Eastern of the ILP who, as leader of the Sea­ ago in Penilee, the "60 local youth" who meeting the BNP attacked the left Europe, the ascendancy of counter­ farers' Union was directly responsible for appeared included a large contingent of bookshop Clyde Books in broad daylight. revolutionary nationalist regimes there inciting the seamen to a racist riot against BNP supporters. Spouting such fllth as The Militant has helped to pave the and the drive towards capitalist restora­ a group of African sailors in Glasgow in "Hang the IRA!" and "deportation of way for these emboldened scum. Two tion in the Soviet Union led by imperial­ 1919 while campaigning to exclude Chi­ blacks and Asians" this racist rabble years ago, it gave the green light to the ist-backed Boris Yeltsin. Not only do the nese labour from British ships. comprised fully two-thirds of the meeting; BNP with an offer to debate them in likes of the BNP and Le Pen's NF in Our tradition is that of the great Bol­ Sheridan said there were as many as 40- Pollok. We wrote at the time: "It is ABC France take inspiration from the anti­ shevik October, the Communist Interna­ 45 of these scum there! Sheridan for Marxists that fascists are not a debat­ Communist "rollback", but as inter-im­ tional of Lenin and Trotsky, the best of announced that they "didn't know any ing society. Their genocidal programme perialist rivalry deepens, the working the proletarian internationalist fighters better". In keeping with Militant's policy means terror in action: their stock-in­ people face rising unemployment and like James Connolly and the Red Clyde­ of debating and "exposing" the fascists, trade is the frrebomb, the knife, the gun, falling living standards in a deepening sider John MacLean. Since the first im­ global economic recession. Such condi­ Sheridan went on to defend - very con­ the lynch rope. They must be crushe~ by perialist war, the dividing line between cretely - the racists welcomed into Mili­ the mobilisation of the organised workers tions further encourage the fascist bands these two - the social chauvinists and the tant's Penilee meeting. Of a local Asian movement in alliance with all the in­ to step up their murderous attacks authentic communists - has been irrec­ shopkeeper whose shop was daubed with tended victims of fascist terror: Asian and against minority and immigrant popula­ oncilable. Against the treacherous La­ racist graffiti and who called the cops black people, gays, Jewish people, tions. Militant hailed the Yeltsinite bourites - from Kinnock to Sheridan - after an "incident" with these thugs, Gypsies, leftists, Irish and immigrant counterrevolutionary forces in the Soviet we struggle to forge a party dedicated to Sheridan said: "Of course he was labelled communities" (Worlcers Hammer no 111, Union, enthusing about "people's power" the destruction of capitalism, the defence a grass, a Paki grass"! "Don't assume November/December 1989). and joining the barricades of the capitalist and extension of the remaining conquests that these kids know who Adolf Hitler How alien the Scottish Militant La­ restorationists in August. of October. Such a party must be the is," Sheridan went on, "that's why they go bourites are to such a proletarian per­ In Scotland, the growth of nationalism champion of all the oppressed; as Lenin around Paki-bashing". spective was laid bare again in Sheridan's has been fuelled by the prolonged histori­ put it, the tribune of the people. This outrage was immediately and statements. This is what Militant means cal betrayals of the Labour Party - not We in the Spartacist League will cer­ vehemently protested by Spartacist by ''working on the estates"; a con­ least its enforcement of the hated Tory tainly not be advocating a vote to Kin­ spokesman Cheryl Myall, an Asian wo­ cretisation of its "Scottish turn". Notori­ poll tax, widely recognised as an aspect of nock or his "real", "independent", "Scot­ man and the only non-white person at the ous for economism and blindness to national oppression. To save Scotland for tish Militant" or other supporters in the Langside Hall event. Comrade Myall extra-class oppression, the now split its rotten Labourite programme, Militant upcoming general election. We say: Crush sharply condemned the stench of racism pimps for Kinnock's Labour rule in West­ set up "Scottish Labour Militant" to fascist terror through trade union/minor­ emanating from Militant's Labourite minster have a sordid history of pander­ "demand that a Scottish parliament be­ ity mobilisations! Smash Yeltsin/Bush/ polities: "You use the same language as ing to the prejudices of the labour lieu­ gins to transform Scottish society in the Major counterrevolution - for prolet­ they do.... I don't expect to hear this tenants of British imperialism as well as interests of the working class". Militant's arian political revolution to overthrow language from someone who calls himself to the most backward layers of the work­ "Scottish parliament" would look more Yeltsin's starvation regime! Break with a socialist! You reflect the racism and ing class. Thus Militant refuses to call for like Liverpool City Council, writ large. the Labour traitors - forge a Bolshevik chauvinism of the British Labour Party." the immediate withdrawal of the British Like we've said before, if you liked Derek Party! For a federation of workers repub­ The Spartacist spokesman recalled a army from Northern Ireland; it advocates Hatton, you'll love Tommy Sheridan. lies in the British Isles! •

4 WORKERS HAMMER ARA/ANL: popular front exhumed

Within the space of a few months two shared strategy of binding the working Welling) are fostering suicidal illusions in was leading many tens of thousands of popular-frontist "anti-racist campaigns" class to a bloc with "respectable" ruling the neutrality of the capitalist state. Nor people in the opposite direction, from have been launched. The Anti-Racist class and Labour celebrities~ Some leftists is there much mileage in isolated run-ins Hyde Park to Brixton for the pacifist fun Alliance, backed by many Campaign like Workers Power and the Workers between small groups of leftists and and "magic" of Carnival 2. In the words Group MPs (notably Tony Benn, Ken International League call for a single, fascists (a speciality of the old Anti-Fas­ of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), the Livingstone and Diane Abbott), and united "anti-fascist movement", ie, a cist Action, before it was reborn as proto­ guiding force behind the ANL: "The sun organisations like the Labour Party Black bigger, more deceiving, more credible type ARA/ANL: in November it called a was out, the faces of the people were Section and the National Black Caucus, popular-front trap for genuine anti-rac- "national demo" in the East End... while bright, happy.... All was celebration" was formed in November last year. It (Socialist Worker, 30 September). draws the allegiance of the Morning Star And the ANL was celebrating in full - not to mention such ''working-class knowledge of the NF march. A month fighters" as Anglican bishop Trevor Hud­ before, the anti-fascist magazine Search­ dlestone and the Welsh Liberal Demo­ light had informed ANL leaders of the crats. Three peers of the realm also impending NF parade. For more than adorn the sponsors' list. Mid-January saw two weeks, immigrant groups in the East the launch of a rival: the Anti Nazi End and small left-wing organisations had League. It is a perfect replica of the repeatedly called on the ANL to mobilise Mark I model of 19n-79 - right down to its forces to stop the fascists. But to no the prominent endorsement of Glenys avail. Kinnock (Kneel was with Mark I). A few Lulled by ANL leaders int'O thinking of the nobs have been poached by the Fri:~::.~:~ f!=~:z.::J= :!:!:=~f=:;;::::ma:!,= ==t7::%'·'~~~~:~I·s~~ i:=:'::':.!,!:;::~ :..~~-::':~ ~t. and seen the S~ stbjeCt to allegations of n..r:..-=~~·~a,~:''7,,~ that all was well in the East End, an EM' E...... bnt. _. 010". ,1'101_. racIst assaults. Rare/ycan a tactIC ha..e m/Sfjred so 0.. all!llalo ""',nu <"""", S."" a ARA but the politics are just the same. :,!~'"":.7.:~~""::~~::= <=:~=.:~~::: badly ~!"';'~O~h,:~'~'!,':;;';:~o estimated sixty to one hundred thousand ::.~<':~~~u;: ':c.~:~ =:. :::~ra~~!t"::.:: Coin UOyrJ chromcles the painful birth of the ANL ==:=~.... :..;~:.:~ The new ANL declaims: "The Anti Nazi II/l~n· <1>1 ITKMIm..,' ... I.... HI" iO<>I>Pamyat Black Hundreds and Nazis. end-of-march rally near the new fascist merical weight of the thousands on the activism, exploiting the dread of a growth The fight against fascism cannot be headquarters in Great Eastern Street, NF "Anti Nazi" jamboree could have been in fascism. The social-democratic fake successful unless it is based on the inde- national organiser Martin Webster was sufficient to stop the Front marching with lefts look at the results of their support pendent mobilisation of the working class: able to boast that there were no "no-go" impunity into Great Eastern Street. for DDR Anschluss, for Yeltsin-Bush- in mass, trade-union centred, multi-racial areas for the National Front. And the Instead, with drums beating and Union Major counterrevolution in the USSR united-front demonstrations and defence fascist thugs let out a loud cheer. Jacks waving, and with the ever-present and for Mitterrand's popular front across guards to crush the likes of the BNP. Why was the Front allowed to parade police accompaniment, the fascists the Channel, and cynically reckon up the Those, like the SWP or the centrist Rev- unchallenged into the East End? THE marched unscathed to their rallying place. score in members retained and contacts olutionary Internationalist League, who MAIN RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE Cock-a-hoop at their easy success, NF gained in Little Britain. recommend reliance on the police, the FASCISTS' SUCCESS LIES WITH THE leaders Webster and Tyndall were able to Behind the turf wars of ARA (''we're local councils or the courts (as in the ANTI NAZI LEAGUE. For while the claim "We have never been stronger" to run by black people themselves") and the demand by all and sundry for Bexley NF was spewing its race-hatred through their followers at the East End rally. And ANL (''we've got the numbers") lies the Council to close down the BNP HQ in the City and into Shoreditch, the ANL continued on page 9

September 1978: NF parades near Brick Lane while ANL Mark I ·celebrates· at carnival miles away.

MARCHIAPRIL 1992 5 08r Spiegel RIIiaInger IBIeck Star Yeltsin decrees "free market" price explosion, while Desperate people buy soup from Moscow street vendor. state shops remain empty. ~

resignation of commander in chief Mar­ into the private markets, or sequester section of the Soviet proletariat. How­ USSR ... shal Yevgeny Shaposhnikov, a leading them in anticipation of still higher prices, ever, in the absence of revolutionary (Continued from page 1) Yeltsin supporter in the military. A senior would be immensely popular among all leadership, the miners sought to defend lieutenant of the strategic rocket forces layers of the population. Workers com­ their living standards within the frame­ declared, "The army should not be a toy mittees to seize and distribute food sup­ work of Gorbachev's perestroika (ie January, 1500 people linked hands to in the hands of politicians. That is a path plies could lay the basis for genuine market-oriented "reforms"), such as block off the Kuznetski Most, only blocks to civil war." An officer speaking for the workers soviets, drawing in elected repre­ gearing miners' wages to the profits of away from the Kremlin, after a store ran Russian Communist Workers Party sentatives from all factories and enter­ their particular mines. As the promises of out of milk - a commodity which has (RKRP), who called "to defend Soviet prises, as well as students, pensioners and the Gorbachev regime were broken and grown so rare that many can't remember power as our fathers did", was ordered white-collar workers. Workers defence conditions continued to deteriorate, an when they last saw it in the stores. away from the microphone and badly guards to protect food supplies and dis­ independent miners union was formed The Yeltsin government is in increas­ beaten up. tribution points could pave the way to the under a hard pro-Yeltsin leadership with ing disarray, and is increasingly despised Organised working-class protests and formation of workers militias, allying with open ties to American imperialism. strikes against the price rises could pro-socialist units of the Red Army. Only But now the miners are facing and galvanise the simmering Soviet population through seizing political power in its own reacting against the effects of the Yeltsin­ around a proletarian axis of struggle and name, and sweeping away the ite drive towards capitalist coun­ open the way to political revolution to counterrevolutionary "governments" terrevolution. The strike in Karaganda sweep away the fragile counterrevolution­ precariously perched atop the fractured was preceded by one in December ary governments which now hold sway in bureaucratically degenerated workers restricted to one mine, triggered by the Russia and the other republics. Already state, can the Soviet working class combat fact that many miners had not been paid this month Lithuania bas been hit by a the catastrophe that DOW faces it•. for two months. Notably, in addition to weeklong strike shutting down the five Revolutionary proletarian leadership is wage demands, the workers called for biggest newspapers in the republic. On 13 key to deciding the fate of the Soviet doing away with the extortionate "free January the miners in the Karaganda coal proletariat and the deeply battered home­ enterprise" cooperativist stores, a demand field in Kazakhstan walked off the job. land of the October Revolution. If the being raised again in some areas now. However, their misguided demand was proletariat does not act in its own name, But the main demand of the pro-capitalist for the state procurement agency to pay the danger exists of fascist and other anti­ (and pro-Yeltsin) leadership of the Inde­ higher prices for their lower-grade coal. Semitic and nationalist demagogues seiz­ pendent Union of Miners centres on There is now talk of the Vorkuta coal ing on the growing desperation of the raising the price of coal paid by the state miners going out as well. And in the city working masses and derailing the possi­ procurement agency with the extra profits of Voronezh, several hundred miles from bilities for struggle, by raising the old being cycled back to the miners. Moscow, workers threaten to take strike pogromist cry of "Beat the Yids!" Yet Such wrong-headed demands are by no action if "measures are not taken by the numerous "Communist" remnants of means peculiar to one group of miners February I". the old Stalinist ruling party either give but are widespread among Soviet workers The uncontrolled price rises are giving back-handed support to capitalist restora­ facing the disintegration of the economy the Soviet working people a taste of what tion or make common cause with Jew­ and the ascendancy of pro-capitalist capitalist restoration means. It is virtually baiting Great Russian chauvinists. This forces. In the Karaganda case, the local impossible now for an average working was graphically demonstrated in a 12 mines are of poorer quality than those in couple to feed their family, and on many January demonstration dominated by the other regions, particularly in the Kuzbass. goods the prices have continued to esca­ Only a collectivised and centralised econ­ Niedenthal{Tlme newly formed RKRP. While some 15,000 Russian fascist blackshirts of Pamyat late sharply after the 2 January ukase people, many of them carrying red flags, omy would subsidise higher-cost and spew anti-Semitic filth. (edict). In the Ukraine the government turned out to denounce the price rises lower-grade coal, thus ensuring equality of has supplemented workers' wages with and the dismemberment of the Soviet income for all miners. If industrial enter­ " by much of the population. Significantly, 200 roubles worth of food coupons pe~ Union, demonstration organisers not only prises are "free" to buy what they want a recent poll showed that a third of Rus­ month to soften the blow and prevent provided a platform for unalloyed Rus­ and negotiate over prices, they will never sians believe the imprisoned Kremlin Russians coming in to buy goods; the sian nationalism but allowed an organised pay the same for lower-grade Karaganda coup plotters of last August should be coupons are now trading on the black fascist and monarchist contingent to coal as for higher-quality Kuzbass coal. freed. Key Yeltsin ally Ruslan market at ten times their face value! The participate with impunity. The demand for ''workers manage­ Khasbulatov, speaker of the Russian consciously engineered free fall of the In the midst of this counter­ ment" of enterprises within a market parliament, has now added his voice to rouble means that every time hardwork­ revolutionary turmoil, the International economy is the hallmark of social demo­ the growing chorus calling on the govern­ ing citizens pass a street kiosk they are Communist League is ftghting to forge crat Boris Kagarlitsky, who has func­ ment to resign, denouncing as "utterly taunted by the sight of a single packet of the cadre of an authentically Leninist tioned as the self-styled "left wing" of the senseless" the "uncontrolled, anarchic Marlboros selling for the equivalent of a multinational vanguard party. Only a re­ counterrevolutionary camp. Especially as and runaway price rise". While Yeltsin week's wages. turn to the internationalist road of Lenin the Soviet economy spirals downward, and Ukrainian president Leonid One elderly woman staring at the new and Trotsky can provide a programme for this would mean ruthless competition Kravchuk squabble over how to carve up prices in the state-owned Yeliseevsky a struggle to reforge the Soviet Union on between the miners of the different coal the living body of the Soviet armed forces Gastronom (supermarket) in central the basis of collectivised economic foun­ fields. Moreover, if the lackeys of Wall and particularly the strategic Black Sea Moscow gasped, "It's a nightmare come dations and reverse the counterrev­ Street and Frankfurt led by Yeltsin and Fleet, the military is openly expressing its true" (Moscow Guardian, 10 January). olutionary tide. Kravchuk open Russia and the Ukraine dissatisfaction with all the nationalist Another shopper added, "Only rich to the world market, Soviet miners would governments. people can buy in these shops now." And Miners In the vortex face competition from South African At an assembly of 5000 military the prices in the private markets, where Beginning with the massive strikes in coalproduced by superexploited black officers in the Kremlin on 17 January, the plentiful supplies are available, are many the summer of 1989 in the Kuznetsk miners and from highly mechanised strip mood was angry and the sentiment was times higher. Basin of western Siberia, the Donets mines in the western United States and overwhelmingly for maintaining a single Decisive and disciplined working-class Basin of the eastern Ukraine and the Australia. army ansi unified command structure. action to seize the hoards of food sup­ Karaganda coal fields in Kazakhstan, the Rosa Luxemburg, in her classic pol­ One young naval officer demanded the plies from speculators who funnel goods miners have. been the most combative emic against social-democratic reformism,

6 WORKERS HAMMER Reform or Revolution, explains why pro­ remains the conflict between Yeltsin and not be defended if the army is dismem­ programme - despite intimidation and ducer cooperatives (the equivalent of Kravchuk over the Black Sea Fleet. A bered, and the Soviet Army will be threats from fascists and anti-Semites ''workers management") under capitalism week ago, Yeltsin thundered that the fleet destroyed if the various counterrev­ marauding through the crowd. are always destroyed by market competi­ "was, is and will remain Russia's". Nego­ olutionary regimes succeed in destroying The Stalinist bureaucracy suffered a· tion: tiations last week produced a flimsy com­ the Soviet Union and its socialised foun­ decisive political defeat last August when "As a result of competition, the com­ promise which promises to divide up the dations. Ominously, if not surprisingly, Yeltsin's countercoup followed the plete domination of the process of pro­ fleet ship by ship, with the Kiev regime the voices for maintaining military unity botched coup attempt by Kremlin conser­ duction by the interests of capital­ insisting that all ships not armed with overlap heavily with those of Russian vatives. The remnants of the self-styled that is, pitiless exploitation - becomes nuclear weapons belong to it. nationalism, seeking to erect a strong "patriotic" wing of the Stalinists have no a condition for the survival of each But Air Force deputy commander in Great Russian (bourgeois) state which basis for an independent political exist­ enterprise. The domination of capital chief Col Gen Boris Pyankin has warned dominates the other republics and ence. They have no perspective for the over the process of production that the dispute between Yeltsin and restores the "prison house of peoples" multinational Soviet working class to expresses itself in the fOUowing ways. which Lenin's Bolsheviks fought against Labor is intensified. 'The work day is Kravchuk "has created a dangerous fer­ overthrow Yeltsin and the other lengthened or shortened, according to ment among the troops". The com­ and uprooted. Thus the Stalinist/Russian counterrevolutionary regimes in the non­ the situation of the market. And, de­ mander of the strategic nuclear forces in nationalist Sovetskaya Rossiya (14 Jan­ Russian republics and to reintegrate the pending on the requirements of the the Ukraine, Maj Gen Vladimir uary) highlights its coverage of the 12 Soviet Union on the basis of proletarian market, labor is either employed or Bashkirov, practically threatened January demonstration with calls for political power. Instead, the Stalinist thrown back into the street. In other Kravchuk: "In my division I have more "The Army, One and Indivisible". This "patriots" seek to make common cause words, use is made of all methods that buttons than the President, so you better harks back to the old tsarist watchword with Great Russian nationalists of the enable an enterprise to stand up be careful of me." The 14 January Pravda "Russia, One and Indivisible". In the most reactionary stamp in the name of against its competitors in the market. featured a front-page statement from the absence of a communist internationalist 'The workers forming a cooperative in opposition to Western domination. We the field of production are thus faced "Officers Assembly of the Moscow Garri­ perspective, the impulse of many military are now seeing the most degenerate form with the contradictory necessity of son", the successor to the political com­ men to restore social order and a strong of Stalinist "popular frontism" - a politi­ governing themselves with the utmost missariat Yeltsin sought to outlaw, warn­ state can readily be channelled into sup­ cal bloc with monarchists and fascists. absolutism. They are obliged to take ing against the break-up of the army. pression of working-class unrest. The Russian Communist Workers toward themselves the role of capitalist Less than 10 per cent of troops sta­ As we wrote in December 1991: "The Party, formed at a conference in entrepreneur - a contradiction that tioned in the Ukraine have thus far sub­ military officer corps is the only remain­ Sverdlovsk two months ago, is the largest'· accounts for the failure of production mitted to Kiev's new loyalty oath, with ing genuinely multinational Soviet institu­ of the numerous "Communist" splinters cooperatives, which either become pure some 100 units explicitly refusing, and the tion. Yet to preserve the multinational capitalist enterprises or, if the workers' cast off by elements of the decomposing interests continue to predominate, end Kravchuk regime appears to be backing Soviet state and army requires salvaging Stalinist bureaucracy. Unlike the overtly by dissolving." off from its ultimatum to expel all "dis­ the socialised property upon which it was social-democratic Party of Labour (Trud), loyal" units by the end of the month. Nor created" (Worlcer.r Vanguard no 541, 27 whose most prominent spokesman is The salvation of the Soviet working is Yeltsin's proposed oath of loyalty to December 1991). The Soviet Army must Boris Kagarlitsky, and Roy Medvedev's class now facing capitalist coun­ the Russian government faring much return to the internationalist foundations explicitly pro-Gorbachev Socialist Party of terrevolution does not lie in enterprise better. upon which it was created, exemplified by Labour - both of which accept the intro­ self-management and profit-sharing Moreover, while soldiers are being the programme of its founder Leon duction of a market economy - the schemes. It lies in defeating the forces of buffeted by the same nationalist pressures Trotsky. RKRP claims to oppose the introduction counterrevolution in order to preserve as Soviet society at large, the divisions of the market in principle. Kagarlitsky's and revitalise the collectivised economy over the loyalty oath do not seem to be Stalinist "patriots" and Great outfit openly models itself on Neil Russian chauvinists Kinnock's British Labour Party and calls for "free wages" to accompany "free At the 12 January demonstration the prices", while the founding conference of crowd cheered as speakers denounced the the Socialist Party of Labour last month renaming of Leningrad and demanded featured an invited delegation from the Yeltsin's resignation, and also when a German Social Democracy, the labour military speaker called on the army to lieutenants of the Fourth Reich. "fulfill its constitutional duty and take authority into its own hands". But the Cohabiting the Stalinist swamp with rally's organisers, the Toiling the RKRP is the Russian Party of Com­ MoscowfToiling Russia umbrella group munists (RPK) and the Union of Com­ dominated by the RKRP, had made the munists, both of which issued out of the focus of its demonstration call a demand former Marxist Platform of the CPSU that Yeltsin come to address the rally! and both of which accept the introduction The demo brought together all that is of capitalism with talk of a "mixed eco­ disgusting and retrograde about the so­ nomy" and maintenance of a strong state called "patriotic" holdovers· from the sector. Yet another, smaller grouping is collapsed Stalinist bureaucracy. Called as the All-Union Communist Party (B), a sequel to an earlier protest on 22 VKP(B), composed of various competing December, its chief demand was "Let the "Unity" (Yedinstvo) organisations, includ­ voice of the people be heard." The ing that of notorious Stalin apologist Nina "people" its organisers had in mind were Andreyeva. The VKP(B) explicitly calls Aono~ enbUHKCKO-6yweaCKYfO for a return to the Stalin era (as well as 1I0rnppee0J1H.iL\~jKi : the likes of Nevzarov, the populist-monar­ chist television commentator who recently the traditions of the mediaeval Grand CHoaa Hil nyrb linked up with the pro-capitalist "black Duke of Muscovy, Alexander Nevsky!) fleHI1HtI 11 TpOU,KOW: colonel" Viktor Aiksnis to form the and its leaders make no bones about Russian-nationalist "Nashi" ("Ours") their virulent Russian nationalism. ~r~a4.ii¢~t~{:b~~~t;- :r(;;f3tl~·HiK\H~eC\(.tif{ rh~lit The Stalinist United Front of Toilers tr~ Ht*~$:C~~I1.Hf(Nfln'PH.a;H. ~. /~ party. Nashi's banner draped the platform ~~t,. (OFT) has for all intents and purposes ':' ~. and supporters of Zhirinovsky's fascistic Workers Vanguard Liberal Democratic Party were present. ceased to exist, with its Moscow apparat New York, 31 January - Spartacist protest outside Federal Reserve Bank At the 22 December demonstration, going into the RKRP and other sup­ where Ye/tsln was feted by his Wall Street paymasters. Zbirinovsky was even allowed to speak porters, such as those around the newspa­ from the platform. per Kontrargumenty i Fakti, pulling away Unlike the huge 7 November Revol­ in an attempt to form a clearing-house on the basis of proletarian political power along the lines of national origin. By all for "Marxist" views. At the time of the and centralised planning. This requires a accounts, the military hierarchy remains ution Day march in Moscow which tapped into widespread sentiment against August coup and countercoup, KIF perspective based on down-the-line oppo­ intact. One appeal circulating within the claimed that the main enemy was the sition to the introduction of the market armed forces from an aviation unit Yeltsin's counterrevolution, the subse­ quent demonstrations have been much pathetic "Gang of Eight", even as Yeltsin and on the internationalist unity of insists: was spearheading pro-imperialist workers of all nationalities. The ruse of smaller and significantly Russian-national­ "The army has been the force restrain­ ist in colouration, with Pamyat and other counterrevolution. pitting workers of one region or national­ ing fratricidal slaughter. The politicians ity against another is the game by which of the independent states, in pursuit of fascist groups openly participating with As for the RKRP, its chief components the bourgeois forces hope to divide and their aims, have done all they can so their anti-Semitic filth. On 12 January consist of the commander of the atomise the proletariat in order to crush that nationalist sentiments reach a there was even an organised bloc of Sverdlovsk military district, General point resulting in the intended political several hundred fascists and monarchists Albert Makashov, a pronounced anti­ any workers' resistance. and economic dividends for themselves at the flanks of the demonstration. Red Semite who ran in last June's Russian Army in an uproar and so force men in uniform to come flags and portraits of Lenin (and a few of presidential election with the open back­ to power." Stalin) were to be seen alongside tsarist ing of the fascist Pamyat; the Leningrad It is not only the economic situation banners and anti-Semitic signs. A call Communist Initiative, whose chief which threatens to explode in the faces of The appeal concluded with a demand for from the podium was made for "unity of ideologue was Makashov's running mate, Yeltsin and his counterparts. The armed "the provision in the transitional period all forces, from Communists to monarch­ Andrei Sergeev; and Viktor Anpilov's forces remain the one significant multi­ of uninterrupted legal and social protec­ ists" to preserve "the great state". Never­ Molniya newspaper in Moscow. Despite national institution in the Soviet Union, tion of officers and their families, pro­ theless, for many of those who turned orthodox-sounding denunciations of and its very existence is threatened as the duce, food, pay and normal conditions of out, the red flags and calls for soviet capitalism and calls for elected workers various republican "governments" life " . power were not merely window-dressing soviets to rule, the RKRP consistently scramble to dismember the Union and But conditions of life in the Soviet for a nationalist programme. Over 1800 aims its main fue against "Western capi­ divide up the spoils. The focus of the Union today are anything but "normal". pieces of ICL literature were sold to tal" and is chiefly characterised by its deep divisions between the republics The conditions of officers and troops will those open to an authentically communist continued on page 10

MARCH/APRIL 1992 7 British troop-s out of Northern Ireland now! Not Orange against Green but bourgeoisie in the South as well as the Green nationalists in the North. Such a programme would take advantage of situations like the Civil Rights protests in class against class! Derry 1968 where joint struggle across communal lines was posed concretely, and would offer a communist solution to The twentieth anniversary of the mas­ unemployment, housing, discrimination sacre of 14 Civil Rights marchers by the and sectarian violence. British army in Derry on Bloody Sunday This basic application of the Leninist has just passed. Since a Labour govern­ approach to the national question is ment sent the troops in, the occupation of unique to our tendency. Our opponents Northern Ireland has meant a continuing on the left partake either of Labourite bloody cycle of imperialist repression and social-chauvinism or vicarious Green inter-communal violence. Today, the nationalism or both on the Irish question. headlines are filled with "Ulster killings For instance, a leading member of the total highest in nine years" and "Political Socialist Workers Movement in Ireland, leaders to meet at Downing Street amid Eamonn McCann, has recently published fears of slide to civil war". We call now, a book Bloody Sunday in DenyfWhat as we have all along, for the immediate, Really Happened which contains many unconditional withdrawal of the British moving accounts from relatives of those anny! killed. However, referring to illusions The Bloody Sunday killings were a within the Catholic community that the watershed in the history of the North. troops would serve any purpose other Designed to demonstrate the British than continued bloody repression, government's support for the blatantly McCann "neglects" to note that chief discriminatory Stormont regime and to among those with such "illusions" was his Bloody Sunday massacre, Derry, 30 January 1972. cow the Catholic population into sub­ own party! In the notorious words of the mission, the army's slaughter drove a buried in the grave beside Tony Doris­ Peace Movement. The likes of the British 11 September 1969 issue of Socialist generation of militants into struggle, killed by the SAS in Coagh less than a TUC's Norman Willis will pontificate Worker: "The breathing space provided by though mostly towards the nationalist cul­ year ago. This "shoot-to-kill" operation against "violence" at such rallies, but it the presence of British troops is short but de-sac of the IRA. To add insult to followed the 4 February shooting to death was Willis' cohorts in the British Labour vital. Those who call for the immediate injury, the commanding officer of 1 Para by an RUC officer of three at Sinn Fein's Party which dispatched the troops into withdrawal of the troops before the men on that day, Derek Wilford, was awarded Republican press centre, the killing of Northern Ireland. behind the barricades can defend them­ the OBE while the Widgery Tribunal five in a crowded bookmaker's shop in a While Sinn Fein/IRA have been suc­ selves are inviting a pogrom which will hit whitewash exonerated the army and­ Catholic area of Belfast by Loyalist gun­ cessful in frustrating the British rulers' frrst and hardest at socialists." Having typically grotesque for such bodies - men on 5 February (the UFF claimed attempts to pacify the North, their nation­ been on the wrong (ie imperialist) side blamed the killings on the victims them­ responsibility ending its statement with alist strategy offers nothing to the work­ from Korea to Afghanistan to the Soviet selves. "Remember Teebane") and the IRA's ing class of these isles. Their goal is a Union, it is not surprising that the SWM It is indicative of the sentiment of criminal sectarian attack on Protestant "seat at the negotiating table" (as the capitulates to imperialism doser to home. bourgeois defeatism within Britain, with workers at Teebane in Co Tyrone who recent statements by Martin McGuinness Presently, the British have increased talk of an "imposed solution" and general were carrying out construction work at and Gerry Adams underline), a "solu­ the number of "security forces" sent to weariness of the quagmire, that now even army bases on 17 January. tion" worked out between Paisley, them­ Northern Ireland and public opinion is Wilford has called for an end to the Unlike defensible attacks by the IRA selves and the British. The IRA's military being sounded out as well on internment. British occupation. A former sergeant directed against British imperialism and strategy likewise does not seek to defeat In the Republic, the Mary Robinson­ major in the Parachute Regiment has its agents - eg, the bombing of the Al­ the British army but rather to demoralise supporting Sunday Tribune has editor­ furthermore admitted that he saw no dershot military barracks, the blowing up it and pressurise the government. They ialised on the need to introduce intern­ gunmen, no nail bombs and no weapons of Mountbatten or the near-miss at consciously seek to cultivate the bour­ ment north and south. Despicably, the ex­ in Derry on the bloody 30 January 1972: Brighton - the Teebane bombing was geois defeatist wing of public opinion that Stalinist leader of the Workers Party, "I feel in my heart that a lot of these aimed at Protestant civilians. As was the extends from the Tony Benns through to Proinsias de Rossa, has also recom­ people were innocent" (Guardian, 27 case with the Birmingham pub bombings, Derek Wilford - a sentiment reinforced mended such a move! Originating as the January). In the wake of the Birmingham London Underground bombings and by the ability of the IRA to disrupt life in political wing of the Official IRA, which Six, Guildford 4 and Tottenham 3 cases Enniskillen and the unabashedly sectarian the capital (and specifically Whitehall). ceased military operations against the where the British government, its cops murders by the IPLO in Belfast, we con­ Gerry Adams has taken to extolling the British in 1972, the Workers Party have and courts, were proved to be criminal demn indiscriminate terror against Prot­ capitalist counterrevolution in Eastern become notorious apologists for the role liars and brutes, the ruling circles in estant (or British) civilians by Republican Europe as a "process of democratisation" of the army and the RUC. Now wracked Britain (and Ireland) feel compelled to forces. As we wrote in "Theses on Ire­ (even as the Lithuanians model their new by an internal crisis over de Rossa's "re-examine" the fmdings of the Tribunal. land": "In military conflicts between Irish army on the SAS): Sinn Fein could play attempt to abandon its "Marxist-Leninist" In Ulster, there has been heightened nationalist organisations and the British its role in the "New World Order". trappings, the Workers Party's "revol­ activity of reactionary Loyalist death army/state authorities we defend the Sinn Fein's nationalist programme is utionary socialist" wing maintains this squads acting in concert with the Royal actions of the former since this is still a counterposed to the Marxist struggle for shameless pro-imperialist stance. That UJster Constabulary (RUC), Ulster struggle of an oppressed nationality a proletarian solution in Northern Ire­ genuine internationalists defend the Defence Regiment (UDR) and British against imperialism .... Terrorist acts di­ land. Our Marxist programme is prem­ Soviet Union through supporting class army. The collusion between the security rected against the Protestant community ised on the recognition that there are two struggle at home is an alien concept to forces and Loyalist paramilitaries has by organisations of the oppressed Irish communities in the North; it is a situation the Workers Party whose IDs all, for been underlined by the case of Brian Catholic community are in no way a blow of interpenetrated peoples, where under example, voted for an all-parliamentary Nelson - a top intelligence officer of the against imperialism, not justifiable as the capitalism the self-determination of one demand that striking ESB (power) paramilitary Ulster Defence Association 'violence of the oppressed' and are no people can be carried out only at the workers return to work during an import­ (UDA) and agent of British Military more 'progressive' or defensible than expense of the other. Our call for no ant strike last spring that threatened to Intelligence. A none-too-subtle plea-bar­ similar acts by Protestant paramilitary forcible reunification, for an Irish workers smash the class-collaborationist PESP gaining managed to bury some of the groups." republic within a socialist federation of and open the door to widespread class evidence of the murderous work of the An indication of revulsion at the Tee­ the British Isles, consciously leaves open struggle. British army agents in the Orange para­ bane attack, crossing the sectarian di­ the question of where the Protestants will Capitulating to both nationalist and military organisations. The Stevens in­ vide, was the 10,000 strong rally in Belfast fall in the course of the struggle for social-democratic pressures is the Irish quiry was launched after photomontages called by the ICTU as well as an inte­ workers revolution in these isles. It is Workers Group, affiliates of the British of Republican suspects "disappeared" grated strike and march of the Mid important to remember that the Bloody Workers Power organisation. Politically from an RUC station in south Belfast Ulster Trades Council in Cookstown on Sunday slaughter nearly provoked a gen­ endorsing the IRA's strategy of unifying and turned up in Loyalist and UDA the Monday following the bombing. But eral strike in the South that was only de­ Ireland under capitalism, the IWG writes hands. Not one RUC officer was charged for such mobilisations to point the way fused by the government's call for a "day "The national strnggle which they [the in the wake of this investigation. Smash forward for genuine class unity against of mourning" instead. IRA] lead retains its fundamentally pro­ the RUe and UDRI Orange and Green sectarian terror it is We struggle for a proletarian axis, on gressive content. .. to end the Partition of On 20 February, two IRA men­ necessary that a clear stand is taken in a programme addressing the oppression the Irish working class and nation" (Class Kevin Barry O'Donnell and Sean O'Far­ opposition to the role of British imperial­ of the Catholic minority and appealing to Struggle no 25, February 1992). This rell-were buried in Coalisland, Co Ty­ ism in the North; otherwise such move­ the joint class interests of the Catholic nationalist myth is shared by much of the rone after they and two others were shot ments likely become pro-imperialist and Protestant workers against the reac­ left from the Communist Party in Ireland dead in an SAS ambush. They were stooges as happened with the Women's tionary Orange demagogues, the Green continued on page 10 8 WORKERS HAMMER NF rampage. The ANL is also prepared in support of the Spanish Popular Front. If ever organisations aspiring to the to strike off 2,000 more of its supporters." Only under overwhelming pressure from leadership of the workers movement have ARA/ANL ... Now everyone knows what the IMG the London working class were they deserved to be excoriated as "scabs", it is (Continued from page 5) doubtless knew all along: the imposing­ forced to call off this sham and mobilise the SWP and IMG. Falling at the feet of sounding "all ANL supporters mthe East to stop the Mosleyites in the streets. The reformism and liberalism - these are the End" were a meagre handful indeed, and hundred thousand workers who joined methods of the rubber-spined ANL and in what these thugs no doubt consider a the "two thousand" ANL supporters to be the demonstration that day were the force its creatures. The fight to mobilise the victory celebration, a gang of 50 to 60 NF "struck orr' from the Carnival turned out that was primarily responsible for arrest­ united strength of the working class, youth that very night rampaged through a to be more like two dozen. ing the crescendo of Blackshirt activity. headed by disciplined, organised and predominantly Asian estate off Brick But given that "the best answer to the At least the CP - rotten, reformist serious workers defence squads - these Lane, smashing shop windows and threat­ fascists" was "the mass mobilisation of and popular-frontist as it was - eventu­ are the methods of Trotskyism. Septem­ ening local residents. Carnival 2 itself' the IMG should not be ally managed to make it to the East End. ber 24 has drawn the line. Make your This is the type of fascist thuggery too perturbed by the pitifully small But the SWP and IMG never got there. choice! • which a strong, well-organised workers turnout in the East End. Yet such cynical defence squad would prevent from ever indifference seems too much for even the getting off the ground. Rooted in the newly pacifISt IMG to swallow in one contested debates at the upcoming Sinn organised labour movement, it would be gulp. So they nod, yes, "physical action Fein conference will be over abortion. well placed to teach these fascist scum a is ... crucial" - but not now, because the Abortion ... North and South, the callous, grinding well deserved lesson and send them scur­ East End immigrant community does not (Continued from page 12) rule of the religious bigots needs to be rying back to their rat holes. No such "support" or "understand" self-defence. smashed so that no more will women defence force exists today. But the ANL The answer is to "boost the morale" of To fight for women's liberation must travel in secret to London for their right, and its hangers-on have no intention of the immigrants ... by leaving the streets to mean a fight for the defence of the no more will people be denied something ever fighting to build one; instead they the fascists and marching off in the oppo­ workers states against the counter­ as simple as a Brook Advisory Clinic for keep preaching that blowing balloons and site direction with the Carnival. revolution of Yeltsin/Bush and for world­ the most basic information and holding rock concerts is the way to deal The only alternative to this is suppos­ wide socialist revolution. Those fake-left counselling! With its 20 per cent unem­ with the NF hoodlums. edly to call for state bans on the fascists: organisations such as the Socialist ployment, barbaric clericalism, the con­ "Any idea of self-defence not based on Wor~ers Movement (SWM) and the Irish stant cycle of British imperialist repres­ Alibis for betrayal mass action perspectives [read: Carnivals] Workers Group which aided the quest for sion and communal conflict in the North: Both the SWP and the International will ultimately lead to reliance on the an imperialist "new world order", sup­ this island cries out for a proletarian Marxist Group (IMG), who backed to the state." But the IMG's sage advice against porting Wall Street's tool Yeltsin in solution. The elementary demand for the hilt the decision to continue the Carnival calling on the state to fight fascism rings August last year, are accomplices of the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of and denounced calls to divert it to Brick completely hollow. What did these people system which would crucify a teenage the British anny is imperative in such a • Lane, now have a lot to answer for. have to say just one year ago, when the rape victim . perspective. Already these Carnival revellers have government banned an NF march in Now, filled with angst for Ireland's Socialist revolution will tear down the started producing their alibis. Tameside?: "can we proceed and say that "international reputation" the denizens of gombeen bourgeoisie here and the Loyal­ In the September 30 Socialist Worlcer, we are in principle opposed to any bans the Dail wriggle around suggesting a little ist masters in Northern Ireland: No for­ SWP patriarch Tony Cliff attempts to imposed by the bourgeois democratic amendment for "special cases". Revolt­ cible unification - for an Irish Workers defend the Carnival ("the biggest anti­ State on fascist or racist activity? We ingly, the SWM joins this bourgeois cleri­ Republic within a socialist federation of racist demonstration since the thirties"), reply clearly and say: No, we are not cal mainstream with the minimal slogan: the British Isles. The industrialisation and while bemoaning the "failure of opposed to these bans if they are specifi­ "Rape victims have the right to abortion". construction of a planned economy alone organisation" which allowed the fascists cally directed against the fascists ... " Of course they do - and so does every can provide the quality health care which to march unimpeded to Shoreditch. It ("IMG Position on the Bans", Socialist other woman! Mary "I am against abor­ will make abortion and contraception free was just a little slip-up, he claims -like Challenge, 6 October 1977) .... tion" Robinson is part and parcel of the and safe for all women, on demand. Such forgetting to bring enough paper cups to state perpetrating this obscenity. a society would provide a job for every­ a picnic. From Lewlsham to Brick Lane Robinson, the front-runner for a new one and free 24-hour childcare, laying the But Cliff has another, more honest, The events of September 24 should Fine Gael/ Labour coalition, supports the material basis for the genuine liberation argument. He estimates that between expose once and for all the rottenness of British troops in Northern Ireland, is a of women. twenty and forty thousand militants would the popular front "anti-fascist" road. member of the anti-communist Trilateral Among the first acts of the workers have heeded a call by the SWP to go After the Lewisham and Tameside dem­ Commission, a backer of PNRjPESP aus­ state which emerged from the 1917 Rus­ from Hyde PlP'lt tQ.JJrick Lane. However, onstrations last year the SWP, red-baited terity just like her mentor Dick Spring. We sian Revolution was not only the abolition if this had happened - if the peaceful, furiously by the bourgeois press and in the Dublin Spartacist Youth Group said of all laws restricting rights to abortion orderly festivities had been interrupted by without a firm base of support in the "No vote to the Robinson popular front" and divorce but also the establishment of militant anti-fascist action - "the result working class for its street fIghting tactics, when most of the rest of the left was full democratic rights for homosexuals. would have been"... the "disintegrating of sought the comfort, respectability and cheering her to the heavens. Understanding that it was necessary to the ANL"! Thus Cliff admits the sorry numbers of a class-collaborationist bloc The workers must rule if women are to replace the functions of the oppressive truth: in order to hold the ANL together built on the quicksand of abstract "anti­ be free/ The whole gang, from the Fianna institution of the family by providing its supporters had to be prevented from Nazism". The ANL is a perfect replica of Fail crooks to the Labour Party lackeys social institutions for childcare and confronting the fascists. the peaceful "anti-fascist" protest move­ needs to be swept aside. Likewise, the housework, the Bolsheviks immediately The SWP consciously used its authority ments that the Stalinist Communist Party crisis-ridden Workers Party, which sup­ began to establish collective creches and to keep as many people as possible out of erected in the 193Os, full of hot air and ports the presence of the British imperial­ kitchens. As tribune of the people, the East End, safely listening to music pious gestures, and with all the fighting ist troops in the North, of course backed Lenin's party fought too against all forms and "anti-Nazi" speeches on the other strength of a soggy biscuit. Robinson and has lurched right under the of national and special oppression - just side of London. Moreover, it did this by The events of Lewisham shared with impact of the collapse of Stalinism in as here the official discrimination and lying. At midday, when no more than 500 the ANL a total failure to see the Eastern Europe. And the pressure of racist attacks on Travellers must be anti-fascist militants were in the Brick mobilisation of the organised working class bourgeois and Catholic order extends smashed. Lane area, SWP leader and ANL secre­ as the only way to destroy the fascist beyond the servile reformist Labour and We in the DSYG are fighting to build tary Paul Holborow assured the crowd in scum. They were the outgrowth of a Workers parties; the republicans of Sinn a party in the tradition of the Bolsheviks, Hyde Park that everything was under substitutionist attempt to replace the Fein, in keeping with their nationalism, a revolutionary party to lead the working control in the East End: "Several thou­ weight of the trade unions with "far-left" have repeatedly refused to approach any class in the overthrow of this rotten capi­ sand anti-fascists are already there, shoul­ militancy. But the ANL has spat on and social issue that might alienate Catholic talist system. For women's liberation der to shoulder with the Bengali com­ pulverised the fighting spirit and genuine reaction. Thus one of the most bitterly through socialist revolution!. . munity." desire to smash the fascists that the Lew­ Cliff claims that there was a "failure of isham demonstrators expressed. communication"; but Holborow com­ The legalist, pacifISt antics of the ANL municated his message very clearly. Ex­ were prefigured last autumn by the SWP actly as was intended, virtually nobody and IMG's fatal predilection for state WORKERSllAMMER came from Hyde Park to Brick Lane. bans as a "method" of halting the Nation­ Marxist newspaper of the Spartacist League Those ANL supporters who fmally did al Front. But the members of these make it over to the East End from Brix­ organisations would undoubtedly have ton at 6pm were several hours too late. laughed derisively at any suggestion that, But the SWP's feeble excuses don't only one year later, they would be dancing C 1-year subscription to Workers Hammer for £3 hold a candle to the arguments of the to Tom Robinson whilst Tyndall and (Overseas subscriptions: Airrnail £6.00) Webster's vile plague stomped in the East IMG. These second division ANL fans­ C 1-year subscription to Workers Hammer PLUS 24 issues of Workers Vanguard, the same people who used to propound End. There is nothing accidental about Marxist fortnightly of the Spartacist League/US for £8.00 adventurist battles with the cops as an this switch of policies. Without a clear All above subscriptions include Spartacist, organ of the International anti-fascist strategy - positively glory in programme ofproletarian action, the fight Communist League (Fourth Internationalist) the ANL's betrayal. The back page head­ against fascism will inevitably come to a line of the September 28 Socialist Chal­ dead end - either in suicidal adventurist C 3 issues of Women & Revolution for £1.50 lenge asks: "Were we right to go to Brix­ stunts or in the popular-frontist "anti­ Name ______ton?" and defiantly responds: "YES! fascism" of pacifISt Carnivals. YES! YES!" ... The workers of Britain must look to Address ______After warning that "ALL CALLS TO the heroic battle of Cable Street in Octo­ CANCEL CARNIVAL 2 WILL PIAY ber 1936 for the answer to the NF threat. Postcode Telephone ______INTO THE HANDS OF THE NF', the Until two days before Mosley's Black­ IMG adds: "Of course Brick Lane must shirts were scheduled to march to the Make cheques payable/poat to: Spartaclat Publlcatlona, PO Box 1041, London NW53EU be defended. All ANL supporters in the East End, the CP was planning a simulta­ East End will be ready to respond to any neous peaceable rally in Trafalgar Square MARCHIAPRIL 1992 9 struggle in the service of the electoral terrevolutionary forces driving towards Labour, it declares its readiness to cam­ fortunes of the Labour Party. The strike capitalist restoration within the Soviet paign for Labour Party candidates (inclu­ Election ... level is the lowest ever recorded. And Union. The fake-Trotskyist left lauded ding open Kinnockites) if they accept a (Continued from page 1) even Labour's usual promises to repeal Yeltsinite counterrevolution,joining the programme of reformist "minimum de­ imperialist chorus cheering the 'death mands". Fuelled by defeatism over the Tory anti-union legislation have been of Communism'. We Trotskyists have dispensed with. Tony Blair, the shadow always insisted that those who cannot Soviet Union, Leninist's social-democratic to the bourgeoisie that Kinnock & Co are "employment" secretary wanted to make trajectory is more than evident. During fit to govern decaying capitalist Britain. defend the existing gains of the workers it forcefully clear to the City and the bankers: movement are incapable of making new the Gulf War it refused to take a side for During the recent Gulf War, Labour "No doubt over the coming weeks, conquests." the defeat of imperialism and defence of enthusiastically supported Bush/Major's after the nonsense on tax and defence, Iraq. Today it cynically hails the SWP's imperialist mass slaughter of Iraqis. The our political opponents will next say resuscitation of the ANL popular front. Labour "lefts" such as Tony Benn bayed Labour will return to the industrial Ted Grant, the ex-guru of the Militant Only socialist revolution offers a way for tightening the UN sanctions in order relations law of the Seventies. That is tendency, is the living proof of the fallacy out for workers and the oppressed in to starve the Iraqi people to death. In the false. There is no turning the clock of "deep entry": having spent the last 40- Britain. For this we need to forge a coming general election workers and back; there will be no wholesale repeal odd years earnestly beavering away within Leninist-Trotskyist vanguard party in oppressed minorities have no interest of the existing trade union legislation. the Labour Party in a futile attempt to "For example, ballots before strikes, irreconcilable combat with all shades of whatsoever in the victory of Kinnock's transform it into a "mass socialist party", Labourism and social democracy. For Labour Party. There is nothing to inter­ ballots for union elections, restrictions Grant has been dumped by the over­ on mass picketing, will stay. Like com­ class-struggle leadership of the trade whelming majority of his members in a sect with electoral support. We do not panies, unions will be subject to proper unions! For trade union/minority mobili­ call for a vote to the racist arch-scab­ legal regulation" (Times, 15 January). recent split. But at least Grant is honest sations to crush race terror! For prol­ herder "I am a reactionary" Kinnock. about his Labourism. The rest of the fake etarian revolution throughout these isles! Labour councils have been key agents The working class has its back to the left are in principle no less cretinous in For a Socialist United States of Europe!. wall. Official unemployment rose to a enforcing the much hated poll tax, send­ their tailing of the Labour Party, which is four-year high of 9 per cent in December ing bailiffs to seize the assets of non­ why the SWP, Workers Power, RIL et al 1991, taking "the total number of unem­ payers. The Labour Party tops certainly are out there hustling votes for Kinnock. don't feel guilty about oppressing the ployed to 2.55m, a peak last reached in The Labour Party - as opposed to the poor. But ironically it might cost them December 1987" (Financial Times, 17 Tories or the SNP - is a bourgeois Ireland ... the election, in a way they didn't antici­ January). Behind the statistics lies the workers party, with a thoroughly pro­ (Continued from page 8) pate. A Sunday Times (19 January) sur­ agony of millions of workers. Thousands capitalist programme but organically of workers have lost their homes as house vey reveals that "Fifteen Labour MPs, including a senior member of Neil Kin­ linked to the mass organisations of the to the Leninist and Revolutionary Inter­ repossessions reach record levels through­ working class. In the course of mobilising nock's shadow cabinet and three of his nationalist League in Britain. The reality out the country. Public services such as for class struggle and through the expo­ frontbench team, risk losing their seats at of forcible unification would be the rever­ the National Health Service are a bad sure of Labour treachery by the commu­ the election because tens of thousands of sal of the terms of oppression, forced joke. Thousands of homeless people sleep nist vanguard, we seek to polarise the voters have dropped off the electoral population transfers and renewed rough in inner cities; begging for food. Labour Party along class lines, in order to register in an attempt to evade the poll communalist bloodletting - the logical Cops routinely go on the rampage against split its working-class base from its pro­ tax." result of the extension of the Southern youth and ethnic minorities in inner-city capitalist tops. If the Labour Party runs in Fearing they would lose newspaper bourgeois clerical state over the whole ghettos. Asians, blacks, and other minor­ parliamentary elections independently of sales due to the suffocatingly boring island. The IWG has electorally sup­ ities face escalating attacks by murderous the bourgeois parties and is not decisively election campaign, the tabloid press ported both the bourgeois nationalist Sinn gangs of fascists and· skinheads. Among identified with openly anti-working class became desperate. An attempt to Fein in the North and the wretched blacks unemployment is running at levels or pro-imperialist policies, it may well be scandalise Paddy Ashdown over a past Labour Party - advocates of the Anglo­ triple the national average. advantageous for revolutionaries to affair with his former secretary backfired Irish Accord which facilitates the extradi­ British capitalism is in terminal extend critical support. But this is mani­ as his popularity rating soared instead. tion of Republican militants to British decline. In the period from 1979 to 1991, festly not the case today. Japanese manufacturing output experi­ Another expose attempted to show that jails - in the South. Most recently of enced growth of over 60 per cent, as Kinnock had pro-Soviet sympathies, with We do not call for a vote to the candi­ course the IWG and Workers Power have compared to 4.9 per cent in Britain less luck. Here even the gutter press was dates of the Militant tendency, or to the embraced the "struggles" of the Nazi­ (Observer, 16 February). The situation attempting the impossible. Kinnock is an so-called "independent socialist" cam­ infested nationalists in the Baltics and cries out for a thorough-going workers anti-communist to the core and he is paign of Dave Nellist, expelled last year joined the imperialist -backed Yeltsinite revolution, to lay the basis for the social­ proud of it. And as we noted in "Hate by the Labour Party for his links to Mili­ forces of capitalist restoration on the ist reconstruction of this society as part of capitalism - hate Yeltsin, Kinnock!" tant. Just as was the case with Lesley August barricades in Moscow. the Socialist United States of Europe. (WH no 126, November/December 199i): Mahmood in the Walton by-election in An end to bloody imperialist repres­ In the decade of Thatcher's vicious July 1991, the Militant candidates call for sion and sectarian slaughter requires the "Many advanced workers may well vote electing a Kinnock government and offer forging of a Leninist party committed to crusade against workers and ethnic with their feet in the upcoming general a programme indistinguishable from altering the course of the conflict towards minorities, she enacted draconian anti­ election. But Neil Kinnock can' count union laws aimed at smashing the power on the loyal support of the British fake Labourite reformism (see article on Scot­ a class determination and proletarian of the organised working class. Now the left. And their pledge to the British tish Militant, page 4). Nor do we call for revolution. It is for this perspective that treacherous union bureaucracy hides social democracy goes hand in hand a vote to the candidates of the Leninist. we in the International Communist behind these laws to oppose hard class with treacherous support to the coun- While claiming that it is not supporting League struggle: workers to power!.

ingly pronounced. Following the declar­ organisation. While all these outfits upper layers. The elements of both USSR ... ation of the "Confederation of Indepen­ preach popular-frontist nationalist unity, already exist." dent States" last month, Anpilov tried to what is needed is authentic communist The Pravda writer would like to see a (Continued from page 7) compete with the Great Russian drum­ unity around a consistently international­ "civilised" parliamentary opposition along beating of the extreme right-wing "De­ ist programme to defeat the the lines of West European social demo­ mocratic Party of Russia" of Nikolai counterrevolution and restore the multi­ cracy or the French Stalinists. But the ever more open appeals to Russian na­ Travkin and called for a "united front" to national Soviet proletariat to political consolidation of counterrevolution in the tionalism. "save the Soviet Union". Earlier this power as in the days of Lenin and Soviet Union will be anything but At its founding conference in Sverd­ month, at a small 6 December protest Trotsky. civilised. There is an alternative to an­ lovsk, one RKRP leader praised the against the price rises, Anpilov supporters archy or fascism. It is the restoration of Bolsheviks for leading "the people to not only joined with Pamyat but physi­ social and economic order on the basis of fight against those who destroyed Great cally blocked with the fascist scum in a For an all-Union Leninist-Trotskyist party! proletarian political power. Half a century Russia in February 1917" (KIF, January fight with anarchist demonstrators.• ago Leon Trotsky predicted that the 1992). And Sergeev last year dismissed Yet the RKRP and the other Stalinist Anpilov and his ilk seek to channel the inevitable collapse of Stalinist bureauc­ rump groups have no coherence and will the "idea of international collectivism" as Soviet masses' desperate struggle to ratic rule will lead either to bloody outdated, adding: "If we continue to stick be ripped apart by their internal contra­ defend their living standards before the counterrevolution or to the re-establish­ with it, we will do moral harm to the dictions, with the right-wing elements onslaught of capitalist counterrevolution ment of genuine soviet democracy such as Russian people, but the idea of Russian, going over to the reactionary nationalist was established by the Bolshevik Revol­ or Great Russian, if you please, collecti­ camp outright. Leftist elements of the into a bloc with reactionary nationalism. This is not only a sinister but a dangerous ution of 1917. vism will work." RKRP have been openly critical of What's required is a proletarian-revol­ Of late, the Russian nationalism of the Anpilov's capitulation to Russian nation­ game, for the fascists whom it fuels and legitimises will treat their erstwhile osten­ utionary leadership which can direct the RKRP, particularly of its most prominent alism and even speak of an ill-defined elemental resistance of the masses in a sibly Communist "patriotic" allies no less spokesman, Anpilov, has grown increas- "internationalist wing" inside the conscious struggle for proletarian political ruthlessly than they will treat the Soviet revolution. The possibilities for defeating workers, Jews and other nationalities, the counterrevolution are ample: hatred should they be given half a chance. An Spartacist League/Britain for Yeltsin and his cohorts grows by the article on the new "left" organisations in day. Our comrades seek to forge a new Glasgow PO Box 150 London PO Box 1041 Pravda (6 January) observed: Bolshevik vanguard nucleus through a Glasgow G3 6DX London NW5 3EU regroupment of all those who would be 071-485 1396 "If the leftist parties can't control the 041·332 0788 spontaneous protests of the working communists on the programme of Red people and lead them in a civilized October. For an all-Soviet Leninist­ Dublin Spartacist Youth Group political manner, we can have two Trotskyist party built in the struggle to PO Box 2944 different political scenarios: either we reforge the Fourth International! Dublin 1 can have an absolutely destructive 01·974617 spontaneous upsurge of the lower lay­ Reprinted from Worfren VtmgUIIl'Il ers or fascist methods of rule by the no 543, 24 January 1992.

10 WORKERS HAMMER the question of proletarian class power. rise in the activity of fascists like the state funding of Catholic (and other The miners strike illustrated the link BNP, who also feed off Loyalist sym­ religious denominational) schools. Scotland ... between anti-Sovietism abroad and hatred pathies and target Irish republican (Continued from page 12) of class struggle at home. On the eve of organisations. And these scum will not be Forge a Leninist vanguard partyl the strike Scargill was viciously witch wiped out for good, short of a workers or another form of disadvantage or dis­ There are several organisations that crimination ie, the whole of the Celtic hunted by the TUC bureaucracy for his revolution, because the poverty and blight inherent in capitalism is a constant breed­ make left-sounding criticisms of the SNP peoples and in fact everywhere outside opposition to counterrevolutionary Soli­ and Scottish nationalism, but from the darnosc. The most virulent of the TUC ing ground for racism. the Home Counties. The compacted standpoint of Labourite social democracy. Cold Warriors like Eric Hammond were Catholic republic, now largely purged of A typical example is an article on Scot­ also the most open scabherders during Protestants, should have full option in the land in the February issue of Worker.r context of working people taking power the strike, but the "left" leaders as well SNP - Junior Imperialists In training Power, entitled "Separation no answer". to do as it wants. The rest of the still as the Kinnockites betrayed the miners. Thus while pointing an accusing finger at The Communist Party's Mick McGahey interpenetrated peoples might want to With the collapse of Stalinism there the SNP, Workers Power alibies the sat mute through the red-baiting attack move their capital out of London, leaving has been a resurgence of inter-imperialist British Labour Party. Like the other fake on Scargill, and then negotiated a secret the ex-queen behind. rivalries, and it is in that context that the leftists campaigning to put Kinnock into deal to run scab coal into the Ravenscraig Scottish nationalism has been a reac­ nationalists hope to loosen their ties with No plant during the strike. Today all but one 10, Workers Power takes its political tion not to the expansion of British im­ England. Thus Ascherson suggests that cues from the Union Jack-waving Labour of the Scottish pits have been shut down, perialism but its decline. From misty "The end of the cold war meant, less Party tops. (We are led to recall Alan Tartanry to Tom Nairn-style intel­ and Ravenscraig is going too, while visibly, that certain 'strategic' inhibitions scabherder McGahey hails counter­ Thornett's Labourite paroxysms in 1980 lectualising, the search for a liberating about what happened to Scotland faded. over our evocative placard for a "Scottish national culture and identity is reaction­ revolutionary Boris Yeltsin's suppression Anxieties in Washington about the secur­ of the CPSU. workers republic as part of the USSR" ary. Recently the columnist Joyce McMil­ ity of the Holy Loch bases, about the which our American comrades carried at The Scottish nationalists and their lan provoked great debate when she patrolling of the 'Faeroes Gap' through a protest against Prince Philip.) ideologues explicitly appeal to the model suggested the Scottish people include which Soviet submarines passed between The Militant tendency supports a Scot­ of counterrevolution in Eastern Europe anyone living within the current Scottish the White Sea and the North Atlan­ tish parliament in Edinburgh, which in to motivate their slogan of "independence boundaries, with Neal Ascherson retort­ tic ... were sharply reduced." Although their typical parliamentary cretinist way ing that Scottishness was "not just post­ in Europe". Referring to such factors as today the SNP uses a lot of populist they believe can be transformed into a al". Today's Scots are the product of the assumption of power by Solidarnosc rhetoric, seeking to shake off its "Tartan workers government. But they don't only successive waves of invasion, migration, in Poland, the "overthrow of the Berlin Tory" image, the bottom line for these capitulate to nationalism. They too sllp­ intermixing of the Picts, other Celts, Wall" and "the end of the Soviet external bourgeois nationalists is that they want to port the election of a Kinnock govern­ empire", Neal Ascherson writes that "All Norsemen to Irish industrial workers into become the exploiters in their own right ment, and they go so far as to assert that these changes ... made the project of a nineteenth-century Glasgow. On a of the Scottish workers, and are fishing if only there were more Labour leftists broader scale, the Angles, Saxons and Scottish national unit acting autonomous­ around for a larger imperialist power to elected, there would be no problem with related tribes were colonising peoples ly within some European framework very become their sponsor. Scottish nationalism: "In the early 1980s who thoroughly intermixed both with much more plausible" (New Statesman & A common nationalist argument is that when the left held a majority on Labour's preceding and successive waves of Society, 20 & 27 December 1991). The association with England may have been national and Scottish executives, the SNP peoples. A future workers' history would SNP particularly enthuses over the Nazi­ useful in its period of ascent, but now was marooned in its rural outposts of likely vastly diminish that emphasis which infested Baltic nationalists; thus at their with British imperialism on the skids, it's northern Scotland and the Western Isles" received history places on the Norman conference last September SNP parlia­ time to part company. But if British (Militant, 20 September 1991). Conquests (1066 and all that). The Nor­ mentary leader Margaret Ewing urged . capitalism has been decaying for years, But the Labour "lefts", like Militant mans were more a layer of feudal con­ Scots to "follow the Baltic peoples to what about Scotland? The SNP's prom­ itself with its antics on Liverpool Council querors from above, who yet - in Eng­ national freedom" (Scotsman, 20 Septem­ ises to rebuild the Scottish steel industry of passing out thousands of redundancy land and lowland Scotland if not in Ire­ ber 1991). Meanwhile "democratic" are so much bunk, at a time of deep notices, have been plenty culpable in land and Wales-merged to play their Lithuania was busy "rehabilitating" thou­ economic recession where far more pro- selling out the interests of workers. Mili­ part (like the Bruce in Scotland's wars of sands of Nazi collaborators sentenced for . ductive and efficient steel mills, as in the tant et al want to "save" the Labour independence leading to Bannockburn). war crimes by Soviet courts! German Ruhr, are being shut down. And Party by pressuring it to the left and Dublin was originally a Viking settlement In the Soviet Union, where the very as for North Sea oil going to benefit thereby making it more palatable to and York of course was capital of Viking existence of the workers state is sharply "Scotland", as long as there's production working people. But genuine Trotskyists England. A longer view of history, as well threatened, nationalism is being used as for profit the workers will continue to be understand that the central obstacle to as current attributes might suggest a battering ram to mobilise counter­ sacrificed in Piper Alpha-style disasters, proletarian revolution on this island is the Edinburgh, Dublin or even York as a revolutionary forces in what is essentially while a handful of oil companies rake in British lAbour Party. The Labour Party future capital of the workers republics of a wrecking operation for capitalist billions. SNP leader Alex Salmond must be split, and the working-class base the offshore isles. restorationism. Russian chauvinist Boris revived the mantle of Scottish colonialism won from the pro-capitalist tops. As Leninists we uphold the right of the Yeltsin, and his counterparts like Krav­ when he posed the alternatives as "Scot­ This requires the intervention of a Scottish nation to self-determination, ie chuk in the Ukraine, promise "free tish sheiks or tartan coolies" (Blowout, proletarian, revolutionary and interna­ the right to a separate state. This has market" starvation and fratricidal nation­ December 1989). Well, we Marxists are tionalist party. Such a Leninist party must nothing to do with the issue of "economic alist bloodletting. In Poland, eastern on the side of the "coolies" against the be a "tribune of the people", addressing viability" of independence, about which Germany and the other areas of Eastern "sheiks" and not least in the days of the all forms of oppression, thereby enabling much has been written in the bourgeois Europe where capitalist property relations opium imperialists Jardine and Matheson the working masses to transcend national press. Indeed, none of the options within have been restored, fascist and racist in Hong Kong and tea plantations in and other divisions in the interest of a capitalist framework are "economically gangs wreak bloody havoc against minor­ Ceylon called Glen-this and Loch-that. united class struggle. Because of the deep viable" for the exploited working people. ities. Class-conscious workers in Scotland, We believe that the oil wealth should treachery of British social democracy Our support to the right of independence where there has historically been strong benefit not a small number of bankers, such issues as the national question in­ is motivated not by nationalist support for sentiment in support of the gains of the capitalists, colonels and sheiks but the volving semi-assimilated peoples in the separation but rather internationalist Bolshevik Revolution, will certainly not working people of the entire world. British Isles-which would have been commitment to remove barriers to the fall for this nationalist bunk that tries to As would-be junior imperialists, the easily resolved within the context of pro­ class unity among workers. However, glorify racist capitalist counterrevolution. SNP has supported British imperialism in letarian revolution - have not diminished whether or not we advocate independence There is no such thing as a genuinely every war since it came into existence. It but become inflamed .. As we have noted depends on the depth of national antag­ benign, or "progressive" nationalism, and supported the war in the Gulf and refuses previously: onisms between the working people of that includes the nationalism of the to call for British troops out of Northern the different nations. At present we do oppressed. That is because nationalism is "Counterposed to Labourite Unionism Ireland, Labour having sent them there in and English chauvinism as well as to not advocate independence, since there is a bourgeois ideology, and is premised on the first place. During the squalid the NATO-loyal SNP, we communists no evidence that proletarian class unity the existence of a class society where the Falklands War the SNP's then president fight for a federation of workers re­ can only be resolved through separation bosses necessarily pit workers of different . William Wolfe justified its support to publics in the British Isles. We uphold for Scotland. There has been no lack of nationalities or races against each other. Thatcher by presenting the issue as one the right of self-determination for the joint class struggle uniting workers There are many articles today in the where Protestant Falkland Islanders Scottish and Welsh nations and a work­ throughout Britain - of which the miners Scottish press which point to the venal would fall under the control of the "cruel ing class revolutionary resolution in strike was the most powerful example. and brutal character of the Home and ruthless fascist dictatorship of a Ireland. The prospects for an independ­ The problem has been absence of revol­ Counties-centred government of Britain. Roman Catholic state". Wolfe was finally ent Scotland however would be bleak, Much of what is written is true. dumped after an anti-Catholic diatribe and for Wales even more so. Our per­ utionary leadership. spective of triumphant, unified class The shutting down of Clydeside ship­ However, the underlying assumption is during the Pope's visit to Glasgow in the struggle to overthrow capitalism points building in the early 1970s was greeted by generally that if the English were out, a early '80s. to amiable and easy resolutions of an occupation of the yards, which was Scottish-run society would be inherently The SNP are pretty timid even by national questions. Its defeat leads less betrayed by the CP and other "left" fairer or more humane. This is simply not bourgeois nationalist standards. They are clearly in other and likely miserable bureaucrats. The steel strike of 1981 was true. Small nations can be very nasty, too. in fact deeply opposed to republican directions. The subjective factor of the knifed by the TUC, and the recent an­ How about Catholic clerical Ireland's principles, supporting the continuation of revolutionary party may well be the nouncement of the closure of Ravenscraig monstrous denial of abortion rights, even the monarchy. Their Constitution Policy decisive factor in what remains an is a direct product of that policy of to teenage rape victims? Or take the declares: "Scotland will retain a limited unresolved question." betrayal. But by far the bitterest conflict instance of the literal witch hunting of - Workers Hammer no 111, and constitutional Monarchy, with the November/December 1989 was the heroic year-long miners strike of recently arrived residents of the Orkneys Headship of State vested in Queen Eliza­ 1984-85. Virtual civil war raged in the by "social" workers there and the "Royal beth and her successors according to Above all, we seek to be guided by the coalfields, and twice the dockers went on Scottish Society for the Preservation of Scots law... " (Sunday Times [Scotland], experiences of the Bolshevik Party, which strike in solidarity with the miners. But Cruelty to Children". The level of racist 2 February). And while separation of in the more complex circumstances of the Labour jTUC tops sabotaged the attacks against the Asian community in church and state is an elementary demo­ the tsarist prisonhouse of peoples, led miners struggle, because they preferred to Scotland is as high, if not higher, than in cratic principle, the SNP's new-found the working masses and oppressed to lose the strike rather than unleash the England. And with the resurgence of interest in ingratiating itself with the power through proletarian international­ trade unions in a situation which posed Scottish nationalism has come a sharp Catholic hierarchy has led it to support ist means .• MARCHIAPRIL 1992 11 WORKERS For a federation of workers republics in the British Isles! For a Socialist United States of Europe! Tory ravages, Labour perfidy fuel· Scottish nationalism GLASGOW -A recent opIDlon poll local enforcer of the poll tax and other commissioned by the Scotsman showing capitalist austerity policies. The SNP has that 50 per cent of Scots favour independ­ gained rapidly at the expense of the Kin­ ence has thrust the question of the na­ nockites, seeking its place in the "New tional oppression of Scotland into the World Order" with the slogan "independ­ limelight. The ultra-reactionary Sun's ence in Europe". Scottish edition emblazoned the cross of St Andrew across its front page and The influence of nationalist sentiment exhorts Scots to "Rise now and be a is not limited to SNP supporters - in nation again", explicitly supporting the fact, support for the SNP in the polls is SNP (while campaigning for John Major only at about half the level of support for in England). In the past this rag has been one form or another of independence. known for its virulent waving of the Having deduced that if Scotland goes Union Jack. The Tories are reduced to a independent it would doom their electoral handful of MPs, and the announcement chances in Westminster, Kinnock's John last month that Ravenscraig is shortly to Bull Labour Party is itself playing a ver­ close, throwing thousands on the dole and sion of the nationalist card with the pro­ finishing the steel industry in Scotland, mise of a "devolved" Scottish parliament could seal their fate. While the Tories are -which in practice would amount to a publicly campaigning that they will main­ glorified regional council. But perhaps the tain the status quo, a shaken party estab­ most interesting barometer of the impact lishment is mooting it about that there of nationalism on the left is the tartan Piper Alpha: 167 workers slaughtered for bOlles' profits. could be "constitutional changes" after a transformation of the Militant tendency. Proclaimers, and the rectors at the uni­ Society) wrote a notorious article entitled general election if the Tories lose more This staid Labourite grouping, for years versities of Glasgow and Edinburgh are "The meanness of Scottish nationalism", seats in Scotland. among the most unionist on the left, now nationalists. At the same time, however, where he accuses the Scots of having There is a sharp sense of political has set up a separate organisation called the organised workers movement has "littleness of mind, a meanness and a disenfranchisement here: the Scots have Scottish Militant Labour with its own shown little support for the SNP. A re­ burden of resentment ... an inferiority voted overwhelmingly for Labour in the press. flection of this is that the Scottish TUC, complex masked by aggression, one which last three elections, yet Labour has been In this industrially devastated country which supports Labour's devolution pro­ also leads to self-delusion" (Guardian, 29 trounced south of the border. It was there is little future for the youth: in posals, is opposed to independence. January). hardly a secret that Thatcher in particular Glasgow, for example, among the few The mushrooming of pro-indepen­ Close to 80 per cent of the population hated the Scots, and she imposed her jobs on offer is work in fish and chip dence sentiment in Scotland has met with of the British Isles lives in England. despised poll tax a year earlier on Scot­ shops for SOp an hour. Support for inde­ a vile chauvinist backlash in England. Nor Besides the politically independent south land than in the rest of Britain. But the pendence is highest in the 18 to 24 age is this limited to Tory right-wingers or Irish Catholic state, the peoples of Scot­ upsurge in nationalist sentiment is not group, popular rock bands include the the gutter tabloid press. Thus Edward land, the north of England, Wales and simply directed at the Tories. The Labour Gaelic-singing Runrig and nationalist­ Pearce, a columnist for the liberal Guard­ perhaps the Cornish, also experience one Party is widely resented for being the inclined duos like Hue and Cry and the ian (and the Labourite New Statesman & continued on page 11 Free abortion on demand! Irish clerical state blocks abortion for teenage rape victim

We print below the text of a leaflet edict made clear that similar action can ist rulers, this case has rightly outraged have fallen victim to capitalist counter­ entitled Down with the injunction! Free be taken against any other woman broad layers of Irish people and could revolution such as Poland and East abortion on demand!fWorkers must leaving Ireland to get an abortion. This well backfire on the wretched gang Germany. Attacks on the rights of rule in Ireland if women are to be is the police-state "morality" of clerical lording it over the working people. We women world-wide are the inevitable free! distributed by the Dublin Spartacist reaction; it is an attempt by the church demand: Down with the injunction now! product of the capitalist system in Youth Group on 22 February at a mass and the Irish state to bolster the exist­ For free abortion and contraception on decay. And from Warsaw to Dublin, demonstration. The ICL has also inter­ ing ban on abortion and extend it to a demand! For the right of divorce! For from Belfast to Teheran, social reac­ vened in protests in New York City and virtual house arrest of the thousands of the complete separation of church and tion, chauvinism and clerical domina­ London. women who seek abortions outside the state! tion are the handmaidens of anti-com­ country every year. The "new world order" onslaught on munism. The Karol Wojtylas and Ian The 17 February court ruling ban­ Foul state interference has multiplied abortion rights extends far beyond the Paisleys as well as the likes of Costello ning a 14-year-old rape victim from a thousand times the tragedy faced by particular viciousness of the Irish cleri­ are the enemies of working people and obtaining an abortion anywhere in the this young woman. Throwing into stark cal state. The same nightmare threatens profoundly committed to the enslave­ world is an unspeakable outrage which relief the depraved, corrupt and repres­ and blights the lives of women in the ment of women. must be fought. "Mr Justice" Costello's sive character of the Republic's capital- countries of Eastern Europe which continued on page 9

12 MARCHIAPRIL 1992