NUMBER 45 AUGUST 1977 TWENTY CENTS Defend pickets, bans, closed shops o Ilrightll to scab!I

From the massive open-cut mines of t·he Pilbara to rai sed by the SUA) working shorter hours at no loss in the wharves of Queensland, the recent outbreak of pay plus full parity at the highest international level. class battles has manifested the bourgeoisie~s deter­ The legislative attacks on union rights have been mination to cripple the trade-union movement. The tory accompanied by an increasingly shrill propaganda cam­ governments of Charles Court in West Australia and Joh paign to whip up pOPlliar anti-union sentiment. During Bjelke-Petersen in Queensl and have spearheaded a the Mt Newman strike in West Australia, Court sent let­ deliberate campaign of open provocation and repressive ters to every householder in the Pilbara encouraging legislation designed to strip organised labour of its their involvement in "restoring industrial peace" -- at only effective weapon against the bosses: the ability a government eXPense of over $800! Following mass to organise and effect a shutdown of production. The union mobilisationsin defence of the arrested Fre­ closed shop and the right to picket have been threat­ mantle pi cketers, over 2000 avowedly middl e-class ened by legislative attacks and a barrage of propaganda marchers, organised by a liberal Party member, demon­ in the bosses' press aimed at mobilising an anti-union strated against "irresponsible unionism" in Perth. And hysteria and glorifying common scabs as heroic "rebels" during the Fremantle conflict, a little-known Women's and "victims" of the "powerful", "militant" unions. Anti-Strike Party (WASP) sprang up which denounced the The bourgeoi sie' s attempt to trample over funda­ strikers for "making family I ife hell" (West Australian, mental union rights to organise, place bans and picket 22 June). While WASP itself is insignificant, such has figured prominently in the recent disputes: In strikebreaking mobilisations of politically backward Queensland, Edward Zaphir, ·0 state official of the women pose a potenti 01 danger to future workers' Storemen and Packers Union (SPU) faces a fine of $400 struggl es. In vivid contrast to academic "Marxi st"­ or one year's imprisonment or both for banning a Too­ feminists, who express more concern for the interests of woomba fuel depot owner I ast year to enforce payment thei r scabbing "si sters" than the struggl i ng workers, of union dues. Again in Queensland, the Seamen's most of the strikers' wives fully and publicly backed Union (SUA) is threatened with potentially destructive the strike. financial Penalties in a civil-court writ filed by the giant Utah DeveloP!1lent Corporation in response to a ban on Court and Bjelke-Petersen are notoriously anti- Utah ships. In , communi st reac- _ Vic:tQriff, tbe I,..i.8.-. "', .'"""., ..tiaAaw5~Cou-rt eral government of 'ck-.ng's·'r perio,dically. rants Rupert Hamer is Fight Chrysler sa _ that industrial un- threatening to in­ rest in the Pi Ibara flict fines of is the result of $50,000 on each SEE PAGE 2 a Moscow­ of eight unions orchestrated con- shoul d they im~ spiracy to dis· plement a ban on the Newport power-station project. In rupt the lucrative mineral-based export- t~~cie in his West Australia, 21 picketers -- most subsequently let state!). But they are merely the front-runners in the off -- were arrested on 14 June during a dispute between current anti-union offensive, ,which was prepared and the Transport Workers Union (TWU) and the Fremantl e encouroged by the ACTU bureaucracy's treacherous oil terminals. The picket line was also the central focus compliance in the smooth passage last May of Fraser's of a clash at the Mt Newman mining company in Port Industrial Relations Bureau (lRB) legislation and, 'six Hedland in the Pilbara. months earlier, by the enactment of the Vital States Projects Act in Victoria and equally draconian laws The labour movement must present a solid united banning the closed shop in WA and stripping unions of front in the face of this union-bashing offensive. The immunity from civil-court suits in Queensland. These S-PU backed down on initial threats of a national strike very laws are now being used against the unions only because of fuel depots shou I d Zaph i r be convi cted. A strike the reformist misleaders refused to mobilise the ranks to de­ must be call ed of the enti re SPU, backed up by the full feat them last November! industrial might of the union movement! Similarly any The massive and immediate response of WA union­ penalties or fines brought against the SUA or the Vic­ torian unions would necessitate the widest mobilisation ists to the arrest of the Fremantle picketers -- among of the trade unions, up to and including the call for a whom were the state Labor MP for Fremantle, Dr John general strike. Drop the charges against Zaphir! Hands Troy, the TWU state secretary, Rob Cowl es, ,and its _ off the SUA! state president, Jack Higham -- dramatically reaffirmed the possi bi I i ty of mobil i si ng the ranks agai nst the But in the context of defending the SUA uncon. bosses' provocations. While the dispute originated ditionally from the bosses' attacks, class~conscious with a TWU demand to place "limitations" on the use of workers must explicitly repudiate the dangerous anti­ private fuel agents rather than TWU tanker drivers to de­ worki ng-ci ass demands rai sed by the SUA bureaucracy, I iver petrol suppl i es, the arrests transformed it into a led by supporters of the pro-Moscow Soci alist Party of struggle over the right to picket. As a leaflet distributed WA unionists respond to Court's arrest of 21 Fremantle picketers with Australia. In its "fight for the right of Australian sea­ by the WA Trades and Labor Council correctly recog­ 14 July mass march on courthouse (top); face attack by bosses' paid farers to man vessel s carrying Australi a' s coal over­ nised, "The current challenge to the right to picket is strikebreakers (above). Below: Court (left) and Bjelke-Petersen seas" (Seamen's June 1977) the SUA is in effect Journal, part of a challenge to the traditional and legitimate snearhead current anti -union offensive. demanding that Utah sack the present predominantly activities of the trade union movement". Spanish crews. The US- owned Utah used part of the $137 million in profits it cleared last year to buy a half­ The day after the arrests, workers in key industrial page advertisement in the Australian (25 June) to plead zones throughout the state stopPed work.- In Fremantle that Australian crews would be too costly! But the seamen, ,wharfies, ·dockers and tally clerks walked off class-struggle re~ponse to the use of low-paid foreign the job to march on the court, "lOOO-strong through the labour is not to launch a divisive, chauvinist compe­ city, grim-faced and determined, ,sweeping away a brief tition for jobs. SUA members must call for a campaign police attempt to block their progress" (WheeJ[TWU for international union organisation and a powerful journal], June-July 1977). When the magistrate indefi- strike for increased crew sizes (a demand presently continued on page two Queen's Jubilee - a carnival of reaction SEE PAGE 4 J. talism.- It is a battle line in the class war, acquiescing to repressive anti-union legislation whose inviolability must be defended by every but into accepting the paid enemies of the Unions. • • unionist. It represents the only real power the workers movement -- the cops -- into its ranks. Continued from page one workers have under capitalism -- the power to The president of the WA police "union" complained shut down production and stanch the bosses' flow nitely adjourned the "obstruction of traffic" that his members had been unfairly depicted as of profits. A picket line must mean one and only charges which had been brought against the strikebreakers when they had only been used to one thing to every worker at a struck site: Do twenty-one, the Court government took the unusual uphold the law, and had been thanked for the way step of bringing them forward again, additionally not cross! One out, all out! they acted by a TWU official (WA Daily News, 23 charging five leaders of the 15 June demon­ But it is the reformist bureaucracy itself, June)! But what law were these "unionists" up­ stration with "unlawful assembly". Workers took resting on the historically evolved craft 'struc­ holding? The bosses' strikebreaking law; in this to the streets again and the bourgeoisie, con­ ture of the Australian union movement, which most case a particularly noxious law passed in late vinced for the moment that organised labour was undermines the power of the picket line and the 1976 prohibiting assembly of three or more people not without muscle, let off all but five of the pewer of the-union movement. The entrenched without permit -- a transparent attack on the arrested pickets, fining the rest token sums of craft divisions make effective pickets all the right to picket and demonstrate. more urgent, yet militate against their effect­ five ~ollars, which were paid anonymously. Not for nought did Trotsky consider strike tiveness. At Mt Newman, mass pickets of over 600 In an editorial on Fremantle, Fairfax's pickets "the basic nuclei of the proletarian workers successfully confronted the scabs who de­ Sydney Morning Herald (13 July) asked, "But is army". The bourgeois state and its armed thugs cided to return to work at the risk of losing picketing a basic right?" "Certainly not if it serve only one master -- the employers. A class­ their union cards. But throughout the strike is a~companied by violence or physical intimi­ struggle leadership committed to this understand­ over 120 track maintenance workers stayed on the dation or verbal abuse", came the predictable ing would -- without engaging in adventurist con­ job with the striking unions' approval! The reply from this authoritative bourgeois mouth­ frontations -- prepare the workers to defend piece, which last year called out an army of self-defeating character of such union-sanctioned their strikes and their picket lines without any cross-craft scabbing waS illustrated in the violent , abusive ,"ops and scabs to break a long, illusions in the "neutrality" of the police. De­ Queensland SUA ban, where Utah ships have been bitte~ strike by its own workers. fence of the workers organisations against the loaded despite the ban on tugboat service. However the bourgeoisie self-servingly defines bosses and their state, as part of the struggle "rights" for those it exploits, the picket line Furthermore, in its refusal to challenge the to do away with the bosses entirely, demands the is a central weapon in the workers' struggle to "legitimacy" of the ruling class, the bureaucracy construction of such a leadership in the workers defend and improve their conditions under capi- misleads the workers not only into passively movement .•

militant sacked out of line with seniority must VBU tops finger militants be reinstated immediately with full back pay! The bureaucrats who would turn their own members over to the bosses' repressive apparatus must be driven out of the union! In an attempt to appease the anti-communist furore a WSA spokesman appeared on Adelaide tele­ Fight Chrysler sackings! vision after the mass meeting to deny that WSA supporters had given any specific instructions on industrial acts to the Chrysler workers. Whether On 12 July the federal government reimposed put a four-day week to our members" (Sydney this shameful admission is true or not, they strict protectionist quotas on foreign-assembled Morning Herald, 9 July) -- an 'Tal ternati ve" which clearly failed to provide the leadership necess­ cars. Senator Cotton, the minister for industry would still have left 300 workers retrenched! ary to channel the workers' outrage into a and commerce, justified this profit-boosting plum Despite occasional bluster about "plant sit-ins" successful struggle against the layoffs. Immedi­ for the Big Three -- Chrysler, Ford and General the VBU bureaucracy has concentrated on protec­ ately following the vote to repudiate the bureau­ Motors-Holden -- as "necessary to prevent severe tionist gimmicks to avoid any mobilisation of the crats' sellout an occupation of the factory disruption to employment in the local industry" union ranks. should have been organised and a call issued to (Sydney Morning Herald, 13 July). In the short all car industry unions -- including the term the quotas will result in yet another in­ militant-talking Amalgamated Metal Workers -- to crease in the already skyrocketing domestic car launch an immediate industry-wide strike -­ prices. As for saving jobs, a true measure of including occupations of other factories threat­ the effectiveness of such chauvinist solutions ening sackings, short workweeks or forced leaves was indicated three days later when 700 workers -- in solidarity with the occupation and for a at Chrysler's Tonsley Park factory near Adelaide thirty-hour week at no loss in pay. Instead the found retrenchment notices inside their pay company was allowed to set up the sackings,in packets at shift's end on the Friday. such a way as to ensure that those workers most As enraged workers stormed out of the plant, likely to galvanise any militant action were they reportedly overturned a car, spilled tools safely out of the factory before anything could over the floor, punched hammers through car be done. panels and smashed up an administration office. But the Maoists, with their single-minded The Chrysler brass, who had good reason to fear fervour for "Australian independence", are in­ an outburst in response to Fhe mass sackings, capable of leading car workers toward the not only had the police standing by but had international unity which is a necessary aspect their own security force mobilised around the of a class-struggle strategy. Their clamour factory, complete with walkie-talkies, to keep against the "multi-nationals" and for close watch on the workers. To minimise the "Australian-made" cars is no less a reactionary possibility of a sit-in strike on the Monday, diversion from a united struggle against the special "letters of identification" needed to Scuffle following mass meeting of Tonsley Park workers. international car manufacturers than the VBU get back in were distributed to all but the bureaucracy's own reliance on nationalist sacked workers. Foreman's "alternative" had been correctly protectionism. Their anti-Soviet tirades feed rejected by a mass meeting of 3000 angry Tonsley into the anti-communist barrage which is now The entrenched right-wing bureaucracy of the Park workers the same day the quotas were an­ being directed against them. And, as they Vehicle Builders' Union (VBU) pinned the blame nounced. Apparently led by WSA supporters, they demonstrated by taking the union before the for the sackings, incredibly enough, on the instead voted overwhelmingly to reject any Arbitration Commission over irregularities in a workers, scapegoating .in particular supporters of sackings and to place bans on production of recent union election, they are no more willing the Maoist-influenced Worker Student Alliance Chrysler'S new-model Galant and the handling of a to recognise the class line between the bosses' (WSA). DJ Foreman, VBU state secretary, de­ stockpile of 6000 unsold cars -- a particularly state and the labour movement than are the nounced the WSA for having done "Chrysler's work ineffectual gesture given Chrysler's inability to bureaucrats who took them to court. for them" (Australian, 13 July). But it was sell the cars. When the bureaucrats moved in to A leadership capable of advancing the Foreman, not the WSA, who only days earlier had close the meeting prematurely a brawl broke out pleaded that, "We have no al ternati ve ... than to interests of car workers can only be built on the in which several of them got jostled and man­ basis of firm opposition to the bosses, their handled. The VBU bureaucrats, joined by the state agencies and their nationalist schemes; bourgeois press, immediately pounced on the inci­ committed to international working-Class unity dent in an attempt to discredit the outcome of and the expropiation of the bourgeoisie the meeting and launch an anti-communist purge "patriotic" as well as "multi-national" -- under against the Maoists. Don Dunstan, whose Labor a workers government. a monthly organ of revolutionary Marxism for the re­ government responded to the over 1000 layoffs (350 workers were sacked the same day at the Defend the victirrrised militants! birth of the Fourth International published by Sparta South Australian Meat Corporation) by setting up For factory occupations backed up by industry­ cist Publications for the Central Committee of the an emergency relief work program for 130 workers, wiCk strike action to :reverse the sackings! Spartacist League of Australia and New Zealand, chimed in with a denunciation of the WSA and For a thirty-hour week at no loss in pay! section of the international Spartacist tendency "distress" that the car workers had rejected the Nationalise the cal' industry without compensation sellout. unCkr workers control! No to protectionism -- for international workers EDITORIAL BOARD: Adaire Hannah The VBU bureaucrats have since called in the Bill Logan bosses' courts on their own members -- WSA sup­ unity! • Len Meyers porters who they alleged were involved in the Dave Reynolds fight. Furthermore, many, if not all, of the WSA John Sheridan militants -- some with up to seven years time at Available soon (Melbourne correspondent: Steve Haran) Chrysler -- were singled out for the sack, which otherwise affected only workers with up to one year's seniority. IJhatever the extent of open GPO Box 3473, GPO Box 2339, Spartacus Youth League collusion between the bureaucracy and the Sydney, Melbourne, company, the victimisations were ominously fore­ pamphlet NSW,200l. Victoria, 3001. shadowed by one VBU organiser: (02) 660--7647 (03) 62-5135 ". .. we know everyone 0 f them. . . . Jus t 1 ike price: $1.50 any communist or Maoist they are out to de­ SUBSCRIPTIONS: Three dollars for the next twelve stroy the system .. ,. And now we will have to issues (one year). consider if we will allow a minority of 20 Order from/pay to: ratbags to destroy the jobs of the membership AUSTRALASIAN SPARTACIST is registered at the GPO, Sydney for at Chrysler." (Australian, 13 July) Spartacist League, ng as a newspaper -- Catel!ory C. GPO Box 3473, Printed by Maxwell Printing Company Pty Ltd, VBU members must repudiate this open purge! All Sydney, 2001. 862 Elizabeth Street, Waterloo, NSW 2017. legal charges must be dropped immediately! Every Page Two AUSTRALASIAN SPARTACIST August 1977 CL surrenders to SWP reformism Fake Trotskyists announce shotgun "fusion"

At a series of joint public forums in late both the liquidationist logic of the CL's poli­ July, the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and the tics and the rotten character of the USec. At Communist League (CL) publicly announced in the 22 July Sydney joint forum, CL speaker Dick passing that the two groups were in the process Nichols justified the projected "fusion" by of fusing. Separated when a minority left the stating that, with "the class struggle inten­ SWP (then Socialist Workers League) to form the sifying", "none of the groups that exist at the CL in 1972 -- only eight months after their orig­ moment could possibly provide the size of leader­ inal "fusion" -...: both groups have been "sympath­ ship for the working class". A year ago, the CL ising sections" of the Pabloist "United Sec­ pointed to the "intensifying class struggle" to retariat of the Fourth International" (USec) justify a diametrically opposed perspective: since early 1974. The split in Australia re­ building a fake mass-agitational independent flected the tenuous character of USec "uhi ty" organisation -- complete with a "mass", never­ internationally, polarised into two parallel pub­ quite "weekly" paper. Having failed to recruit lic factions. The SWP adhered to the reformist the masses -- in all of twelve months! -- the CL Leninist-Trotskyist Faction (LTF) , theoretically abandons the perspective of building an indepen­ guided by US SWPer Joseph Hansen, while the CL dent organisation through political liquidation supported Ernest Mandel's centrist International for one of building a larger, more influential Majority Tendency (IMT). one elsewhere through organisational liquidation. The 1972 split was in part a product of the An SWP Information Bul.letin (April 1977), made future CLers' disgust with the staid reformism available by a recently resigned member, docu­ and class collaborationism of the SWL, which ments the trail of mutual recriminations, lies faithfully imitated the American SWP's conscious and manoeuvres, international intrigues and and systematic effort to divert all social double-dealing -- but virtually no politics -­ struggles (eg, the anti-war movement, the women's which led up to the current "fusion". In other movement) into popular-frontist blocs with the words it portrays Pabloism, whose organisational liberal bourgeoisie. But the CL shared with the "principles" -- just as, and because, its politi­ SWP -- and refused to break from -- a common cal programs -- are trimmed to the requirements Pabloist methodology: liquidation of the Trot­ of petty, short-term expediency. CL speaker with SWPers (seated) at Sydney joint forum. skyist program in pursuit of non-proletarian But that is only half the story. The SWP common "international", oversee the fusion nego­ "vanguards", which for the CL included Stalinist sei zed upon the McCarthy "fus ion", whi ch was tiations? Never, says Percy -- "we don't need guerrillaists, petty-bourgeois nationalists and officially lauded by the USec, to bolster its it, we won't allow it". When they fused with the elusive "new mass vanguard", an empirically T McCarthy, "we didn't need any big brothers to defined layer of any sort of "militants" momen­ te 11 us what to do"! But isn't the USec supposed tarily estranged from the mass reformist parties. Pabloist "principles" to be a democratic-centralist international? Not M1,red in centrism, the CL wobbled empirically as far as Percy is concerned: if the SWP line between revolutionary impulses and reformist Jim Percy ... differs from the USec international majority -­ appetites. as it in fact does -- nobody is going to tell the Eight months ago, a majority of the Political "There's a lot of difficulties in a fusion with the com­ SWP "we can't carry that line in our press. We Committee of the CL -- including the group's rades from the rump CL, b'ecause we can't agree even reject that. We reject it totally, fundamen­ founding leader, John McCarthy -- simply quit, on what a fusion is, it seem's." tally, wholeheartedly, and we won't change on without a sign of internal political struggle, "Those people don't want anything to do with us at all. that. That is non-negotiable .... " and with some followers turned up bit by bit in Probably sti II characterise us as reformist." the SWP, which labelled this cynical dredging SWP rejects Trotskyist stand on Soviet Union operation a "fusion". The deserted and indignant "

It is 25 years since the coronation of Eliza­ and inevitable. That is why the Queen is treated Recent British monarchs have intervened in beth II of England, "Queen by the Grace of God with such dignity, why this cow is sacred. domestic politics as well. In 1931, Ramsay Mac­ and Defender of the Faith". And her Silver There is plenty of talk about the privilege of Donald's "Great Betrayal" -- the National Front coalition government with the Tories and Labour Jubilee is celebrated with royal pomp, nauseating the monarchy, but it is nearly always cast in the sycophancy and national-chauvinist rejoicing over arguments that anti-monarchist liberals have MPs -- was arranged by George V, exercising his "right to be consulted and encouraged". Dis­ an institution which should have been abolished raised since the nineteenth century: it is a centuries ago (and once was, with a headsman's cussions between the Duke of Windsor and the waste of money. But it is not the amount of Nazis in Germany placed the Duke as the rumored axe) . money that makes the monarchy reactionary; the likely prospect to head a quisling government in As this impoverished island writhes in the function of the money is to flamboyantly assert England. death agony of British imperialism, the Queen's social privilege. For the bourgeoisie, it's portrai t and the Union Jack are everywhere. "Her cheap at the price. The House of Lords has also raised its be­ Majesty" -- drawn on mugs, embossed on ashtrays, wigged and powdered head from time to time. Just So the Queen, who really believes in the mon­ etched on glass, sewn on clothes -- gazes "ser­ last year it used its vestigial "right" to archy, maintains a costly, stuffy sense of that enely" down upon her humble "subjects"; the Union approve all legislation by vetoing a Commons­ pri vilege. Her "right" to feed her six Corgi approved bill to nationalize the port of Felix­ Jack, once the arrogant symbol of a great col­ dogs out of little silver bowls once derived from onial power and still the emblem of imperialist stowe. Then on November 22 a Labour proposal to "god"; now it derives from capital, but it is all nationalize the aircraft and shipbuilding indus­ patriotism, waves from the windows of houses and the same to her royal highness. She still has in the numerous street festivals in honor of the tries was blocked by a vote of 197 to 90 in the Queen. Lords. The British are sensitively self-conscious The House of Lords is not elected, the bulk of about the anachronism of a monarchy in an ad­ its lifetime members being drawn from the heredi­ vanced industrial nation, a monarchy still main­ tary "peers" and from bishops and archbishops of tained in the lavish style to which it became the Church of England. Since 1958 the government accustomed in ages gone by. The tone for the has held the right to appoint Lords under the monarchy's modern apologists was set more than a "life peerage" system. In addition to the big century ago by historian Walter Bagehot, who pro­ businessmen, aging Labour Party leaders can vided a rationale for the mission of British im­ expect to become "Labour peers", rewarded for perialism: "Above a11 things our royalty is rev­ their service to the bourgeoisie by being put out erenced. Its mystery is its life. We must not to pasture in this powdered-wig grazing ground. let in daylight upon magic". Today, in this These vestiges of feudalism do not often corroded ex-empire when the masses of working attempt to overstep their bounds, nor would their people find increasing difficulty in putting removal in itself alleviate the oppression of the meagre subsistence on the table, the job of British working masses. But these relics are not keeping out the "daylight" is more di fficul t but merely an affront to the working class. Under not less important for the ruling class .... particular circumstances they could become a real Does the monarchy do any real harm? After military danger to the proletariat. all, say its apologists, it has no power. The Remember that the British officer corps is monarchy no longer represents feudalism as an drawn from the petty aristocracy and owes its economic-social order. The tyranny of kings has traditional allegiance to the Crown. The Queen been-repfaced 5ythetyranny of capital. The Queen rides golden coach to and from palace. is nominal head of all the armed forces. As the Economist magazine points out that despite her London Times (11 June) reported: "To mark her visible crown the Queen would not dare echo her castles (one with 365 rooms), ornate gold Silver Jubilee the Queen has appointed herself Richard Nixon's "If I do it, it's legal". carriage, servants, race horses, royal yacht and and other members of the Royal Family to a total But the monarchy performs important functions airplane, Keeper of the Swans -- and of course of 18 honorary commands in the army and RAF, and for the British ruling class. First of all, it her personal stock portfolio, tax-free by stat­ 19 more in the Commonwealth armed forces". While serves an ideological purpose as a popular focus ute. No one really knows exactly how much the these commands are merely honorary, the very real for national chauvinism and reaction. British Queen is worth because she is the only person in officer corps is very clear that its loyalty is ideologues argue that the Queen is a symbol of an Britain granted exemption to a recent law requir­ to Queen, not Parliament. In a future crisis advanced civilization, of general social achieve­ ing financial disclosure. Nehlshleek (13 June) situation it is quite conceivable that a right­ ment and -- especially -- of class harmony. The estimates the total wealth of the Queen and her wing bonapartist coup attempting to restabilize bourgeois economic order replaced the feudal one, eldest son at about $140 million, excluding an the bourgeois order would seek out the monarchy they say, but look how well we retain our conti­ art collection valued at another $85 million. It as a buttress to reactionary mobilization, and as nuity with the past! The English social revol­ further estimates that the Queen and her kin cost a sign of "legality" and legitimacy against a ution, which came early and was somewhat trunc­ the taxpayers about $15.4 million a year. But weak bourgeois-democratic Parliament. far more costly to the working class is the ideo­ ated, makes for a pretty, if inapplicable, myth Though the monarchy is of class peace: the feudal aristocracy and the logical assertion of privilege and its anti­ democratic effects .... a constant anti­ bourgeoisie which supplanted it reached accord democratic outrage and and became the Establishment, embodied in the It is not just for strictly ideological pur­ potential military focus monarchy, the House of Lords and the Established poses that the monarchical establishment is main­ for reaction, the insti­ Church. tained by British capitalism. The monarchy has tution goes on unimpeded The Queen thus represents the British counter­ sometimes exercised direct influence. Of course by the British fake­ part to the American myth that US society is the monarchy isn't about to use its residual lefts. The primary re­ classless. In England it is manifestly imposs­ governmental powers today. The last time it sponsibility lies with ible to deny the existence of class-based in­ vetoed a parliamentary act was in 1707 under the Labour Party, which equality. So the ruling class maintains that Queen Anne. And it has been more than a century has a programmatic elec­ while there are classes, and there may be shifts since a monarch disbanded a government. tion plank to end the in the class structure, there must be no alass monarchy but has sup­ struggle. The monarchy is the living and fam­ But at critical moments the monarchy has gone ported this reactionary iliar sign that there is a grossly unequal social beyond i~s role as advisor to and mouthpiece for institution as part of place for everyone, and that this is historical the ruling party. At the Jubilee ceremony the its more general commit­ Queen created a minor shock wave by attacking the ment to capitalism. As Scottish nationalists: "I cannot forget that I --- ftc'" ,"""."~ ~U",,,,\,~I~1 B~l"C;'" ~.~,..,rtl ~ early as 1927 former Revolutionary was crowned queen of the United Kingdom of Great Labour Prime Minister THE CRISIS IN THE Communist Bulletin Bri tain". But this attempt to influence politics MacDonald allayed any WOMEN'S MOVEMENT: is dwarfed by more dangerous attempts by monarchs apprehensions about (no 8, part 2) ._~11i1\". """"~." 'r to exert reactionary influence. Labour's "democratic" ~~~rw~~ton ...::,aa lw.:: ..... C"'"S\f~1 ... pretensions when he ac­ for.t_ Queen Victoria, who openly detested any form ...... _1 price: one dollar cepted an invitation to of republicanism, exerted enormous influence, in­ the royal court and cluding choosing personnel for the foreign (free on request with 12 issue donned the traditional subscription to Australasian service, vetoing cabinet appointments and urging blue and gOld-braid cos­ Spartacist) a free hand for imperialist policy in Ireland, tume of the peerage .... ~~S~~~r~$,~:'~~~~m':;,t"., ~rul~CI~' I~)'" the Sudan and elsewhere. George V considered

.1lot ..... III' .. ,.... II •• ~.tI!.,,''''' .. o!'IIO~'''C ..l .. t!... Order from/pay to: But it is not just the ~,d ..' .,..,.. , l,,,,.t,,,,, ~.'" ~"", \9ll dismissing the government over the Home Rule Spartacist League, question lest Parliament hand Ulster "to the Labour Party that refuses Ramsay MacDonald, GPO Box 3473, ,~~' ~."\TRll'~ lN~ ~~~ It:'Ll~~ Pope". George VI proclaimed simply that "India to challenge the British Labour prime minister, in ~ ~>l'OIo".JOOl Sydney, NSW, 2001. Establishment. All left- ~ must be governed", urging that Gandhi and Nehru full royal plumage outside be kept in prison. Continued on page seven Buckingham Palace (1927). Page Four AUSTRALASIAN SPARTACIST August 1977 Healyites, messengers of Qaddafi

EDITOR'S NOTE: The Healyi te Socialis t Labour fanatical in his devotion to the Koran, which "Parties are treason" -- what about the League expressed scarcely veiled sympathy for sanctifies the feudal enslavement of women and Workers Revolutionary Party? In this "People's Qaddafi's Libya in its recent conflict with the prescribes legal punishments such as cutting off Public" where communists are to be jailed and equaUy reactionary Sac1at of Egypt and explicitly the tongues of liars and the hands of thieves. butchered and their books burned, ostensible praises the Libyan dictator elsewhere in the same At least 700 political prisoners have been re­ leftists would have to do some pretty peculiar paper (see Workers News, 28 July). The following ported held ·in Libyan jails. Regarding one trial things to survive -- and News Line has made it article, reprinted from Workers Vanguard no 158 of 17 prisoners (aquitted in 1974) against whom clear the WRP would be more than willing to do (20 May 1977), illuminates the Healyites' concern Qaddafi personally intervened to impose new sen­ them. The London Times (6 September 1976) re­ for Qaddafi. tences of life imprisonment and death, Amnesty ported: In ternat ional recent ly noted: "The accused were Something stinks in News Line, daily garbage allegedly Marxists, Trotskyists, and members of organ of the British Healyite Workers Revolution­ ary Party (WRP) -- and it's not simply that it the Islamic Liberation Party" (Interaontinental continues these political bandits' unsavory rec­ Press, 4 April 1977). Qaddafi' s 1973 "cultural ord of sectarianism, Stalinist gangsterism and revolution" laid out his "Five Principles", in­ egregious opportunism. Ever since News Line's cluding: inception on 1 May 1976, it has been a mouthpiece "We must purge all the sick people who talk of for the megalomaniacal ravings and "people's Communism, atheism, who make propaganda for democracy" pretensions of Colonel Muammar Qaddafi the Western countries and advocate capitalism. of Libya. Month after month articles in News We shall put them in prison." Line have lauded the dictator in weirdly shame­ And: less fashion, hailing his "agricultural revol­ "We live by the Koran, God's book. We wi 11 ution", his support to the "Arab Revolution", de­ reject any idea that is not based on it. tailing his every attack on the "high treason" of Therefore we enter into a cultural revolution Egypt's Anwar Sadat, and so forth. to refute and destroy all misleading books Thus a brief article in the 26 February News which have made youth sick and insane." (New Line hailed the London publication of the Libyan York Times, 22 May 1973) strongman's Green Book as "an uncompromising re­ Qaddafi's idea of "refutation" is simple: he jection of parliamentary democracy in favour of ordered "the burning of books that contain im­ 'the authority of the people'''. Two Labour MPs perialist, capitalist, reactionary, Jewish or SLL supports petty-bourgeois Arab nationalism .. who pushed the book were taken to task for giving Communist thoughts" (New York' Times, 18 April it "a patronizing send-off"; their praise of the 1973) . "The repression in Libya has not, of Green Book as "challenging, stimulating, moral" The sordid history of the Healyites is replete course, weakened the interest of left-wing is evidently insufficiently fulsome for the WRP' s with examples of slavering enthusiasm for left­ groups in other countries. Representatives of taste. Qaddafi's Healyite press agents complain talking "Third World" nationalists and Stalin­ Miss Vanessa Redgrave's Workers' Revolutionary that his "writings and his drive towards people's ists. Workers Press gratuitously proffered Party, for instance, have visited Libya three democracy hardly received the attention they de­ "leftist" cheer leading to assorted petty­ times in the past twelve months. Nor has it serve". bourgeois anti-working-class formations, from the diminished the affection of those countries The WRP has in the last-year been making up ~~oist Red Guards to the Angolan MPLA. But the like Malta, which feel, with some reason, that for that with a vengeance. Over 20 articles on WRP's pandering to Qaddafi is surely a new low. Colonel Qaddafi has proved to be their only Libya have appeared in News Line, not to mention Perhaps the most disgusting was a full-page friend." a considerable increase in "special reports" from "special News Line interview" with Hamied Jallud, Malta's reasons are obvious. About to be im­ Tripoli and attacks on Sadat's Egypt. News general secretary of the "Libyan trade union fed­ poverished by the closing of NATO bases, Malta is Line's castigation of Egypt, described as "near eration, equivalent of the British TUC" (14 Sep­ now dependent on Qaddafi'g aid to remain solvent. bankruptcy", for its repression of leftists is tember 1976). To News Line questions about col­ The mendicant guerrillas who flock to Tripoli completely in accord with Qaddafi's feud with lective bargaining and the right to strike, the seeking Soviet-made arms and Libyan oil money re­ Sadat -- and contrasts sharply with the Healy­ Qaddafi bureaucrat replied, "The role of the portedly have included Muslim secessionists from ites' silence on repression in Libya. trade unions in socialist countries is completely the Philippines and Ethiopia, opponents of anti~ An ar·ticle in the 14 October 1976 News Line, different from capitalist countries"! After all, Qaddafi Arab regimes (Sudan, Yemen, Syria, for instance, discussed a BBC televisiOn inter­ "the resE.0nsibility of the trade unions is to Tunisia, Morocco), the Provisional IRA and vari­ view with Qaddafi and dismissed the interviewer's educate-the workers and increase production"; ous Palestinian organizations. Naturally, such inquiry into political groups do not bite the hand that feeds them and prisoners in Libya as have accorded Qaddafi a high place in the one of the bourgeois pantheon of "anti-imperialist" leaders. media's "stock-in­ trade questions". Workers Press, which folded on 14 February News Line smugly 1976, titled itself the "Daily Organ of the Cen­ added, "Gaddafi was tral Committee of the Workers Revolutionary unmoved, saying that Party". Heavy pUblicity in the preceding months they were 'enemies of for the paper's "Crisis Fund" and dire warnings the revolution'''. The that "the future of the paper is in doubt" would Healyites praised the lead to the presumption th~t it closed up shop program for having for lack of funds. Yet the "Final Edition" Edi­ "broken at least part torial Board statement does not explicitly say of the Gaddafi enigma so; instead, the Healyites tersely announce that and answered some of their printing firm, Plough Press, will cease the US State Depart­ operations. ment and Zionist The Healyites, normally so fond of denying in­ lies", but complained convenient reports on the grounds of their bour­ that the interview was geois sources, hid behind an abstract and irrel­ not shown on prime evant set of statistics from one of the great time: bourgeois interests, the British Printing Indus­ trial Federation, on "rises in general expenses" "Miss Kewley's pro­ increasing printing costs. For two and a half file rightly be­ months no Healyite newspaper appeared. Then News longed in the BBC's Line sprang to life -- but not as any kind of prestige slot, party organ -- with a format which included paid 'Panorama' . HealyiteNews Line (8 September 1976) hails "Libya's Day". "It is a measure of­ advertising. At about that same time Healy was replaced by Mike Banda as WRP general secretary. the censorship on television that it was Qaddafi's "General People's Congress" will look squeezed into the 'religious programmes' after the workers' interests. The WRP's shame­ The WRP ranks have been kept busy with the department where it could not do justice to less presentation of Qaddafi's repression of the usual treks across England -- and lately the the subject of Islam or its leading advo­ Libyan working class leaves no doubt of its utter "Children's Crusade" across Europe ["Euro-March cate." subjugation before this capitalist dictator. '77"] -- designed in part to keep them too What is perhaps most curious is that Workers News Line hailed the "General People's Con­ exhausted to notice their corrupt leaders' Press, the previous Healyite daily -- which gress" held in early March in Shebha, a small maneuvering. But even a cursory look at News folded in February 1976 with the presumption of desert village distinguished by Qaddafi's having Line's year-long pandering to the oil-rich "lack of funds" -- paid little or no attention to gone to school there. Fidel Castro was the guest Qaddafi forces the observation that there is in­ Qaddafi and his so-called "Revolutionland". In of honor as the "Congress" renamed Libya the deed something very rotten in the state of Den­ the six months prior to its collapse, we could mark .• locate only one article in Workers Press dealing "People's Socialist Libyan Arab Public" (sic) and kicked off Qaddafi's "Third Universal Principle" specifically with Libya, and this was implicitly which he modestly claims solves "the problem of critical of Qaddafi, reporting a protest by Libyan students in London against the police democracy". Marxist Bulletin no 8 slaughter of "at least 16 students" at a demon­ The Healyites have had some "problems" with stration at Libya's Benghazi University (Workers "democracy" themselves; their solution has gener­ Documents of the Rev­ Press, 14 January 1976). ally been to beat up political opponents. alutionary Tendency Qaddafi, who -- unlike the WRP -- holds state inside the US Socialist On 8 September 1976 News Line carried a Workers Party against centrefold spread on Tripoli's "anniversary cel­ power, has worked out a more elaborate schema. the Ii quidationist line ebration" of Qaddafi' s military coup. Boasting His little Green Book explains that "both admin­ on the Cuban Rev­ huge photos and snide comments about the bour­ istration and supervision become popular" through geois press' lack of coverage of the glorious "committees everywhere" -- while Qaddafi becomes olution. head of the "General People's Congress" which event, News Line's spread on "Libya's Day" was a price: $1.15 sharp departure from the silence of Workers Press runs everything and is so "popular" that it meets the year before. Something had changed, and it once a year. The sinister meaning of this "sol­ ution" comes out in the slogans pasted up around Order from/pay 10: wasn't the Qaddafi regime. Sparlaci sl League, Shebha: "Parliaments are defunct", "represen­ GPO Box 3473, We are more than happy to give Qaddafi's poli­ tation is a fraud" and "Parties are treason" Sydney, NSW, 2001. cies "the attention they deserve". Qaddafi is (London Guardian, 3 March 1977). AUSTRALASIAN SPARTACIST August 1977 Page Five Bolshevism, Trotskyists campaign reformism and police spies in student elections In its 28 July issue, the Socialist Workers Party Campus Spartacist clubs at LaTrobe and Sydney to win students to the worldview of revolutionary (SWP) paper, Direct Action, printed a letter from the Universities stood candidates in SRC and AUS Trotskyism, to the program of international Spartacist League (SL) in response to one by SWPer elections last month as a proletarian-communist working-class revolution to smash capitalism! Brett Trenery which appeared two issues previously. alternative to the usual stock of right wingers, The two main contenders for SRC posts are the Trenery's letter had accused us of "slandering" lisa student-power. radicals and "patriotic", anti­ Soviet Maoists. Reprinted below are excerpts "uni ted left ticket" made up of Labor Club and Walter, a "turned" ASIO agent whom the SWP retained Communist Group supporters and "independent as a member, in the course of our exposure of another from a Campus Spartacist (21 July) distributed at Sydney University and an SRC election statement lefts", and the Liberal/Democratic Club candi­ ",turned" agent, Janet Langridge. Our letter pointed out dates headed by Joe Bullock and Tony Abbott. that our concern did not focus on Walter specifically but by one of the three Spartacist League (SL) candi­ dates at LaTrobe, Andrew Georgiou, first printed Posing as "moderates", the Liberal/Democratic on the SWP's "social- democratic complacency toward Club candidates are simply the campus agents of a the-bourgeois state" which lay behind its "sweetheart in the LaTrobe student paper, Rabelais (vol 11, no 7). general capitalist drive for social austerity and attituaetoward exposed agents" -- ie, its refusal to wage-cutting to prop up the bosses' profits. expel on the spot either Walter or Ian Gordon, a long­ They have opposed any increase in TEAS allowances time SWP member who confessed to having been bought and defend the Fraser government's economic and off by ASIO in May this year. Judging by the frenzied education policies. While peddling the most vituperation of Direct Action's reply, which concludes nauseating anti-homosexual, male-chauvinist and with a public pledge to consign any further letters from anti-communist filth and opposing any student the SL ",to the rubbish bin", we have ,struck a sensi­ support to anti-racist, national liberation or tive nerve. left-wing causes, these scum promise more "social Trenery's letter implicitly justified the SWP's atti­ functions" (read: beer for the boys)! tude to Walter by emphasising the naivete of the apoliti­ The "al ternati ve" to these reactionary nean­ cal Walter, who allegedly didn't realise the meaning of derthals provided by the "united left ticket" is what she was doing untfl she was politically ",con­ united mainly by a common desire to "defeat the ver_ted". Direct Action's reply to our letter is more right" and keep control of the SRC. This year straightforward: it contains an explicit political defence, the Australian Union of Students (AUS) has been without qualifications, of the SWP's practice of refusing wracked by petty intrigues and bureaucratic to expel confessed police spies, and in particular of manoeuvres between a Maoist wing (including "demand ing Ian Gordon's resignation rather than ex- National U editor Jefferson Lee) and a rival pelling him". The defence rests on essentially two , alliance of Communist Party and Socialist Youth points: (1) to characterise "turned" police spies, as our Alliance supporters and "independents", of whom letter did, as "inherently untrustworthy and unstable" is the "united left ticket" is but the local Sydney "religious metaphysics"; and (2) expulsion is a punitive University version, that is "left"-talking, form of retribution which is entirely superfluous and social-democratic student bureaucrats. In oppo~ somehow crazy. The unstated conclusion is that having si tion to the supporters of the "united left your comrades turned in to the secret pol ice should not ticket" who fully backed the move to sack Jeffer­ not inspire any special indignation. son Lee, the Spartacist Club pointed out that in - --- - .-- In New Zealand t~day many militant unionists who the absence of an indicated democratic method of remember the bitter waterside strike of 1951 still refuse selecting his replacement, to vote for the motion to work alongside anyone who" scabbed in '51". Is thi s to sack Lee would only be to endorse politically attitude a product of "religious metaphysics"? No! It his qualitatively similar opponents, and called is a hard lesson of the class struggle. Those who have Spartacists in 30 October TEAS boycott, Sydney. for new elections for a delegated August National Council to elect a new national leadership .... proven themselves capable of gross deception, sabotage The LaTrobe candidates polled 76, 84 and 92 and informing can never be fully trusted. Ingrained dis­ votes each (the highest vote cast was under 300). We fight for staff/student/campus worker con­ trust of those who have spied or scabbed for the class At Sydney University, SLer Peter Musicka polled trol of the universities to wrest control from enemy is one of the most important means of reinforcing 37 votes for the SRC presidency, reflecting the the hands of the administration, the ruling the sol idarity and integrity -- and trust among comrades __ modest but visible impact of the five-month-old class's direct agents on campus. lfhile support­ of the labour movement. How much more crucial for the Spartacist Club: The presidential election was ing all legitimate struggles against the auto­ revolutionary party -- which can expect to be subject to narrowly won by the "united left" candidate, cratic administration, we oppose any illusions the most extreme pressure, material and moral, the bour­ Barbara Ramjan. But the strong vote for the re­ that the so-called "progressive" departments like geoisie can bring to bear in future crises and periods of actionary, Tony Abbott, indicated the right Political Economy and General Philosophy with reaction -- to be suspicious and vigilant toward those wing's growing influence. With its uncritical their "relevant, critical and democratic" who have already proven weak or duplicitous. Only a support to the "united left", the fake Trotskyist courses can be anything more than playpens for party saturated with the spirit of social-democratic com­ Socialist Youth Alliance (SYA) was left with no academic pseudO-Marxists. We support the current placency about the future and trust in the permanency of reason to run '" and did not. Instead it at­ struggle of staff and students against the admin­ bourgeois democracy, or one which is completely un­ tacked the Spartacist Club's Trotskyist campaign istration in the Social Work Department, for serio~s, can ignore such dangers. with outright lies and slanders that the SL "ab­ example, although the demands are clearly within As for the second point, the SWP announces that its stained from the anti-education cutbacks campaign the framework of the capitalist education system. "primary concern" in the Gordon case "was to sever because they opposed its demands, they abstained The Social Work students and staff calIon the Gordon's connection with the party as quickly as poss­ on defense of AUS, in fact they have even sup­ Board of Studies (a higher body of the adminis­ ible"; for the SL, ",i,t is to 'punish' the spy with expul­ ported the right wing's call for the sacking of tration than department head Professor Brennan) sion". We did not, of course, use the word "punish" in AUS's militant leadership" (S.U. Socialist Youth to take more responsibility for courses, and want our letter, which stated that failure to expel Walter and Alliance Club Newsletter, 25 July). staff/student consultative committees to have the Gordon "was an attack on the vigilance necessary to right of appeal to the Board. More seriously, The SYA is as honest as it is socialist. The they, together with the Communist Group demanded defend the labour movement". But in any case, since SL voted for the AUS demands, and participated when is "demanding a resignation" more expeditious that the administration discipline the lecturer, actively -- far more so than the SYA Club at Dr Ralph Locke, who struck a student. Perhaps than expulsion? "Demanding resignation" is what bour­ Sydney -- in the TEAS campaign. But the SYA geois government leaders do to ministers implicated in now that Locke is openly scabbing on the staff voted against a~ SL motion to extend those mini­ an indiscretion. The SWP's preference for, and later in­ strike, the Communist Group will request that the mal demands! The SL has defended AUS against administration discipline him for that too, in­ sistence on, this diplomatic evasion is certainly signifi­ right-wing attacks such as the red-baiting hys­ cant. stead of relying on mobilisations of students and teria against "Maoist violence", which the SYA staff to drive this strikebreaker out through tven the rotten, right-wing reformists of the ALP and its fellow "rrrilitant leadership" types en­ protest and exposure. Though it is for ever expelled Sir Jack Egerton, at least from his party pos­ thusiastically echoed. We urged students to ab­ prattling about "student/staff control" the itions, and that was only for accepting a knighthood. In stain both on the motion to sack Maoist Jefferson Communist Group makes no pretence of challenging 1974 the US Socialist Workers Party (co-thinkers of the Lee and on the UNSW Spill motion since neither the administration's basic role. We demand: SWP) expelled en masse over 100 members who belonged had clear provision for new elections. The SYA Abolish the degree system! No disrrrissals for to the Internotionalist Tendency (politically supporting demands that Lee be sacked but uncritically backs class failures! Open admissions! Staff/studEnt/ Ernest Mandel). Evidently the SWP is not averse to the equally bureaucratic "democratic left" clique campus worker control of the universities.' ... "punishing" by expulsion internal opposition and al­ currently running AUS, going so far as to accuse leged indiscipline. Isn't taking money from ASIO to spy any who criticise this clique of "objectively" ReVOlutionary-minded students cannot effec­ on your comrades enough to warrant expulsion from the blocking with the right (Direct Action, 7 July). tively participate in the struggle to overthrow SWP? While the SL has called for an immediate national capitalism and establish socialism through Historically, the Bolsheviks' attitude to police in­ council, prepared through full delegate elec­ "student unionism" or limited intra-departmental filtrators stands in contrast -- with all proportions tions, in order to elect a new leadership and re­ struggles, but only as part of a communist van­ guarded -- both to the criminal complacency of the SWP solve the clique war presently enervating AUS, guard organisation. We stand under the banner of and to the promiscuous finger-pointing of the Healyites. the SYA has opposed our motion for this simple international communist revolution, for a workers In her Memories of Lenin Krupskaya describes the case democratic procedure. In the recent Social Work government to expropriate the capitalist class, of Malinovsky, an Okhrana (Czarist secret police) agent Department struggle it was the SL that called for for the dictatorship of the proletariat! a full university-wide strike to shut down the who had infilfrated the Bolshevik Central Committee VOTE TROTSKYIST! VOTE SPARTACIST! and led its Duma (parliamentary) fraction. When, in- 1914, campus. Unlike the SYA our comrades are not interested in winning or preserving bureaucratic Malinovsky suddenly and mysteriously resigned from the LaTrobe: Spartacist election statement party and the Duma, a special control commission was sinecures in student "unions" but in winning convened to investigate long-existent rumours spread by radical students to the cause of workers revol­ In three years at LaTrobe the Spartacist the Mensheviks that Malinovsky was an agent provoca­ ution. Club's (SC) principled intervention into campus teur. Unable to find any firm evidence, Lenin dismissed Sydney: Vote Trotskyist! Vote Spartacist! life has left a record that demonstrates our the rumours as Menshevik slanders. When the Okhrana commitment to winning students to a revolutionary files were opened following the revolution and Malinov­ Every year Sydney University students are class perspective. In this year's TEAS mobilis­ sky was exposed, he voluntarily surrendered to the called to vote in the elections for the Student ation the SC initiated the strike committee and Bolshevik government, ",rlepudiated" his past -- and was Representative Council (SRC), for the faculty alone fought for a strike at the general meeting immediately shot. "Religious retribution"? No -- class representatives, the president and the Honi Sait against the Independent Left/Libertarian Social­ war. editors. This year the Spartacist Club is run­ ist/SAl [Students for Australian Independence] ning candidates in the SRC elections. Our aim: do-nothing sabotage. In the 1975 LaTrobe campus Page Six AUSTRALASIAN SPARTACIST Au,ust 1977 workers strike only the SC consistently manned Of course they explain how many hospitals could In Britain the pro-IMT International Marxist the picket lines and campaigned for the widest be constructed with the money wasted on the Crown Group (IMG) has launched a new "non-sectarian" student-staff support, firm opposition to any jewels, but the real message is: join the Jubi­ weekly aimed at drawing the "far left" groups, scabbing and a solidarity university-wide strike. lee. If the workers are being encouraged to have but especially the larger, third-campist Social­ The looming employer-state attacks on the Newport fun to celebrate the reign of the Queen, then ist Workers Party (formerly International Social­ union ban, the inevitable confrontations with these "socialists" will show the workers how they ists), into a menshevik-swamp regroupment. Long Fraser's IRB and rightwing attacks against AUS may have even more such "fun": articles have appeared in the IMG press attempt­ will again present the urgent need for determined "There's lots of things that socialists can do ing to prove that Lenin was really a Menshevik united defence and a class-struggle program about the Jubilee. But the key is: Don't be after all by distorting the history of the against the capitulations and empty rhetoric of a killjoy. Add to the fun. Bolshevik faction -- which led an essentially the AUS and trade-union bureaucracies. "We're for street parties, but we're also for independent existence -- in the Russian Social pointing out that we must live in a strange Democracy and deliberately suppressing Lenin's As internationalists the SC has always seen as sort of society if we only get to have them evolution from a revolutionary Social Democrat to one of its particular responsibilities 'defence of every 25 years. the founder of the Communist International (see the victims of the murderous Chilean junta. In "And do we really need a bunch of royal "IMG turns Lenin into a Menshevik", Workers Van­ 1976 we helped build the international labour­ scroungers if we're to enjoy ourselves? If guard no 164, 1 July 1977). Why not have the centred defence campaign that successfully freed we were without them and all the other would­ equivalent of Bolsheviks and Mensheviks -- and Chilean miners' leader Mario Munoz from the be captains and kings in society we could take worse -- in the same party? In rejecting out of Argentine junta. In June we helped initiate and over our streets and cities and towns and hand any discussion of the "basis of present build a militant demonstration to highlight and enjoy ourselves all the time .... " (Socialist unity of the Fourth International" -- a reason­ oppose the Government's continuing threats to Worker, 4 June) able if rather naive proposal of CL leader Ron deport over 100 "illegal" Chilean migrants. Poulsen -- Percy exclaimed in his report, "The Throughout this work we raised the lessons of the Amidst the carnival of reactionary sycophancy, basis for unity is that we I-re Trotskyists. Isn't Allende popular front that led to the Chilean we must recall with fondness the beheading of that right?" Programmatic differences are irrel­ workers' defeat in the 1973 military coup. Popu­ Charles I in 1649. Oliver Cromwell, at the head evant if you can agree on a label! (It is highly lar frontism (now looming large throughout West­ of the bourgeois revolutionary army, not only got doubtful Percy will be proposing "fusion" to the ern Europe), by tying the workers parties into a rid of an intractable monarch, but for a time Stalinists but Pat Clancy will tell you any day treacherous coalition with a wing of the bour­ also abolished the House of Lords and more than a that he's a "Leninist".) geoisie, can only lead to further bloody defeats. few bishops. By 1660, however, the son, Charles II, was returned to the throne along with the Unlike the liberals, reformists and Maoists lords and bishops. Cromwell's corpse was dug up For Marxist unity - Reforge the Fourth International! our recent exposure of further ASIO infiltration from his grave and hanged at Tyburn. And the in the labour movement (the Langridge case) and "Uni ty is a great thing and a great slogan", British have had a monarch ever since. The arch­ said Lenin. "But what the workers' cause needs our determined opposition to the murderous covert conservative Edmund Burke favorably compared the operations of the CIA/ASIO will not be used to is unity of Marxists, not unity between Marxists Glorious Revo lution of 1688 with the "dangerous ly and opponents and distorters of Marxism" cover for the betrayals of Whitlam/Hawke/ democratic" French Revolution of 1789, which Halfpenny and company. Our alternative is not ("Uni ty", April 1914). The international occurred when the social forces were more fully Spartacist tendency has been built largely liberal outrage but building a revolutionary matured and which swept out the monarchy so re­ leadership in the labour movement that in over­ through fusions, many of them with left oppo­ soundingly that bonapartism and restorationism sitional currents in the USec who have found throwing capitalist rule and establishing workers could never really refurbish it. state power will hand out to all the bosses' their way to Trotskyist politics. But such thugs and spies the fate they deserve. It is to the reactionary spirit of Burke that fusions were based not on a pre-arranged agree­ ment to cover up programmatic differences, but on Vote for the communists -- Vote Spartacist! the Silver Jubilee is really dedicated. For Marxists, jubilation awaits the day when the genuine principled agreement on the undiluted Vote Florrimell, McEwan, Georgiou for S,RC! revolutionary program, agreement achieved and Vote Florrimell for AUS! • proletariat, led by its vanguard party, uproots the bourgeoisie and its entire rotten retinue of tested through political struggle. Neither the feudal remnants. The instruments and symbols of CL nor the SWP is Marxist. But in junking its repressive imperialist power have no place out­ deformed and partial opposition to reformism in side the museums. In one of the world's first order to serve the dictates of Pabloist "unity", modern capitalist societies, even minimal demands the CL will only be assisting the creation of a of the bourgeois revolution await the revolution­ larger more effective obstacle to the revolution­ Jubilee • • • ary proletarian victory: Down with the Monarchy! ary proletarian cause . Continued from page four Down with the House of Lords! Down with the The CL can expect precious little reward in Established Church!. return for committing organisational suicide. ist and radical strata maintain a formal oppo­ Until now CL members have sidestepped the more sition to the monarchy but, despite self­ (excerpted from Workers Vanguard no 164, 1 July 1977) egregious betrayals of Hansenism by pointing out ·congratulatory mock-rejection of the Crown, the that the SWP's positions did not represent the populist appetite to associate with the spirit of line of the USec. But Percy's insistence on in­ Jubilee "good cheer" is evident. ternational "freedom of criticism" does not pen­ The most bizarre and profitable form of mock­ etrate the confines of Australia. The US SWP had rejection of the Jubilee is the punk-rock version el, SWP no compunction in summarily expeillng the Mandel­ of "God Save the Queen" recorded by Johnny Rotten • • • ite Internationalist Tendency in 1974 and then and the Sex Pistols. This number, which attempts Continued from page three using the expulsion as evidence of its non­ to be deliberately arresting and pornographic, violent respectability before the bourgeoisie less" since the start of the cold war! Rejection has become a raging controversy and despite (or (see Workers Vanguard no 59, 3 January 1975). because of) a government ban is the number-one of Soviet-defencism is the classical seal of Percy has the right to put the international min­ American social democracy, whether or not it is ority line publicly; the CL's membership will hit song in Britain. The Sex Pistols sing that hidden behind ersatz "ban the bomb" pacifism. they live under a "fascist regime" which has have no right to put the international majority turned them into "morons" (the latter seems unde­ , What sort of international party is the USec, line, if that is what they anticipate. niable on the face of it), but they finally which seeks to incorporate reformist national As though in anticipation of an infusion of explain that they like the Queen after all. groupings that flatly refuse to recognise its potentially troublesome Mandelites, the new "Or­ international authority and flout basic Trot­ ganisational Principles of the SWP" emphasise It is not just the Sex Pistols, with safety skyist principles; which forces unprincipled pins on their noses, who feel ambivalent about that, "Loyalty to the SWP is the prirmry con­ mergers upon its sections? In reality, no sort. dition for membership. ... There is no such thing the Silver Jubilee. The Communist Party, for Rather the USec is an umbrella'structure held instance, is holding "People's Jubilees". But as a right to belong to the party for people who together through rotten blocs and unprincipled are disloyal to the sWP or whose first loyalty is the real Sex Pistols of the left are the state­ compromises in order to create the appearance of capitalist Socialist Workers Party (formerly to some other [!] political tendency" (Socialist a single world Trotskyist organisation. No one Worker no 3, August-September 1977). As members International Socialists). These workerists are even pretends that it is a democratic-centralist running a big campaign under the slogan "Stuff of the SWP, the Mandelites will have to defend world party, and to call it federalist is to the whole body of Hansenite betrayals. the Jubilee -- Roll on the Red Republic". Their abuse the concept of federalism. The organis­ newspaper, Socialist Worker, is filled with ational principle governing the USec is a kind of We noted at the time of McCarthy's defection radical-chic playful rejection of the event and hypocritical pluralism: any group is allowed to that the CL had little future: short of a pol­ calls for organi zing "red" Jubilee ce lebrations. do anything, if only it recognises the USec's itical break with the Pabloist USec toward the claim to be the Fourth International. authentic Trotskyism of the Spartacist League they would rapidly find themselves emulating USec and the London Bureau their fallen leader's crawl into the reformist The USec in no way represents the continuity SWP. Eight months after the "fusion" which Percy of Trotsky's Fourth International. But it does reported to the SWP conference had "so obviously resemble the centrist "London Bureau", which worked", the leaders or the McCarthy clique are Trotsky struggled against during the 1930s in the unseen and unheard. The politics of opportunism course of working toward the foundation of the has its own logic. To the USec, embodying those Subscribe 12 issues- $3 Fourth International: politics of surrender, the international Spartacist tendency offers the only revolutionary " [Its] international conferences ... represent Overseas rates: alternative: the struggle for the rebirth of the half diplomatic, half parliamentary insti­ Fourth International on the genuine program and surface mail ., $3 for 12 issues tutions and assemblages, after the image of uncompromising principles of Trotskyism .• the Second International but on a much smaller airmail·· $5 for 12 issues (except EuropelNorth America). $10 for 12 scale, which serve no other purpose than to issues (Europe/North America) furnish right-centrist organizations with a decorative international cover, behind which NAME ______they may pursue their national opportunist politics." ("The London Bureau and the Fourth • ADDRESS, ______International", Docwnents of the Fourth Inter­ correctzon national, p 95) The IMT-dictated "fusion" here reflects an The article, "Protests defend Chilean mi­ CITY international right turn, resulting in an attempt grants", in ASp no 44 (July 1977) incorrectly POST"-::C:O::DE~----- STATE __ to mend relations with the reformist minority. listed the Australian Clerical Officers Associ­ In Canada, for example, the rapidly rightward­ ation Reform Group as one of the endorsing organ­ moving Mandelites have been involved in a "fusion isations of a united-front demonstration to de­ process" with the Hanseni tes since the beginning fend Chilean migrants facing threat of deport­ mail to/make cheques payable to: of the year. Elsewhere as well, appetites to ation, held in Melbourne on 24 June. In fact the Spartacist Publications, graduate to the big time have led to widespread Reform Group did not endorse this crucial action GPO Box 3473, unity manoeuvres, justified through a conscious, of class solidarity and the member of the Reform Sydney, NSW, 2001. explicit revision of the Bolshevik-Leninist con­ {;roup present at the demonstration spoke in a ception of the party. personal capacity .• AUSTRALASIAN SPARTACIST August 1977 Page Seven Anita Bryant pushes reactionary hysteria in US- Stop anti-homosexual crusade

The following article on the recent anti­ clslon permitting states to withhold public­ homosexual hysteria in the US is adapted from assistance funding for abortions. Workers Vanguard no 164 (1 July 1977). Anti-ERA (a constitutional amendment to grant Tens of thousands of demonstrators, angry over women "equal rights"), anti-busing and anti­ the anti-homosexual, right-wing crusade of Bible­ abortion forces have all found the Carter anti­ spouting bigot Anita Bryant, took to the streets Soviet "human rights" moralism a fertile culture the weekend of 25-26 June in record numbers in medium in which to grow their rightist mobilis­ cities across the US. New York City saw its ations against homosexuals, minorities, women and largest homosexual-rights demonstration ever, es­ eventually the working class itself. But the timated at 40,000 participants. "gay rights" demonstrations -- locked into subre­ Huge demonstrations commemorated the "Stone­ formist "life-style" politics -- have posed no wall riot" of 1969 -- a symbol of homosexual re­ strategy to overcome the oppression they protest. 'sistance to police harassment -- which was Like feminism and black nationalism, the touched off when cops raided a New York Greenwich ideology of "gay liberation" is rooted in the New Village gay bar and were met for the first time Left polyvanguardist notion that each stratum of with sharp resistance. Marches also took place the oppressed must "unite" in an "autonomous in San Francisco, Miami, Los Angeles, Chicago, movement" to fight their special oppression. The Atlanta, Kansas City, Seattle and Providence. In commonality of "sexual orientation" is presumed San Francisco, where 100,000 people demonstrated, to transcend class differences as workers and Mayor George Moscone ordered· flags to be flown at their bosses, tenants and their landlords, sup­ half mast in memory of Robert Hillsborough, posedly discove:r; "unity" around their "common stabbed to death last week by four men who alleg­ interests". edly yelled "faggot" as they murdered him and What "common interests"? The working class beat his companion. and its allies have no stake in the perpetuation All of the demonstrations were sparked by the of capitalist exploitation and oppression. The recent victory of Anita Bryant's right-wing "Save bourgeoisie and its professional servants in the Our Children Campaign" in Dade County, Florida, Democratic and Republican Parties have a real ma­ which was successful in repealing a law prohibit­ terial interest in the maintenance of the capi­ ing discrimination against homosexuals. Bryant talist system of war, racism and oppression, in­ has vowed that she will take her crusade where­ cluding its ideological and institutional props. ever "God sends me", and that seems to be where­ Homosexuality is seen as a threat to bourgeois ever reactionary forces can be organised for god, morality and the institution of the family. country and the family. Whether homosexuals are marginally and grudgingly Homosexuality is a touchstone of social atti­ tolerated or are persecuted, reviled and ulti­ tude in the US. Bryant's crusade depends on a mately perhaps even slaughtered depends far less number of primitive fundamentalist lies about on the size of "gay rights" demonstrations than homosexuals and consequent fears among more on the immediacy of capitalism's need to socially backward Americans. The idea that homo­ frontally assault the working class. In periods sexuals are child molesters is a lie more power­ of crisis, when fascist irrationality is revealed ful than all of Anita Bryant's sermonising. as capitalism's last resort, leftists, unionists, minorities and social "deviants" will discover into "coimnunities" within the large urban This vicious slander hits particularly hard at centres, can develop an exaggerated sense of teachers. The effect, therefore, of Bryant's just how much "common interest" they have with their social weight in US society. That they are campaign is to set up an employment test for the "democratic" bourgeoisie! The fundamental being scapegoated by the right wing is hardly teachers on the basis of the most backward tenet of "democracy" under capitalism is the anythin~ to be happy about. notions of "social deviance" and to open up homo­ bourgeoisie's "right" to exploit the working sexual teachers to blackmail, because they could class; the rest is ultimately dispensable. Un­ At the Los Angeles demonstration homosexual lose their jobs if "discovered". The Spartacist like women's oppression and black oppression, "solidari ty" above pOlitics took on a "free League demands that teachers' unions defend the homosexual oppression is not a strategic con­ speech for .fascists" tinge when a civil liber­ democratic rights of their entire membership sideration for the socialist revolution. But tarian took the speakers platform to protest whether or not ordinances protecting these rights only those who take the liberation of the working against the exclusion of a group of homosexual are retained by the bourgeois state. masses as their cause can effectively defend the Nazis. He was shouted ·down and forced to leave rights of homosexuals. the platform. Homosexuals have become the open target of a An exception to the anti-working-class tenor general assault on democratic rights. The reac­ Life-style radicalism was abundant at all the of the Los Angeles demonstration -- whose organ­ tionaries hope that the widespread prejudices demonstrations. But there was very little sense isers requested that the demonstrators thank the against these "deviants" will prevent the de­ of what the recent attack at Dade County would police for their tolerance -- was the militant fenders of democratic rights from rallying to mean for homosexuals or how to fight it. In joint contingent of the Spartacist League/US their defence. But democratic rights are not fact, many groups made it clear that they thought (SL/US) and the Bolshevik Tendency of the Red divisible; the reactionary mobilisation has it was a good thing that homosexuals were under Flag Union (RFU-BT -- formerly the Lavender and blacks, women, "reds" and all varieties of attack because it made them angry, brought them Red Union). The two groups carried slogans which "deviants" lined up in its sights. The most re­ out into the streets and helped "build the gay stressed the need to fight for democratic rights cent such assault has been a Supreme Court de- movement". Homosexuals, who often live compacted for homosexuals and chanted "Workers unite to smash the right!" The Red Flag Union (BT) , which represents the most advanced section to emerge from the "gay rights movement", is presently engaged in fusion discussions with the SL/US. In breaking toward Trotskyism from its original Maoist leanings, the RFU(BT) was temporarily attracted to, but rejected, the pseudo-Trotskyist, polyvanguardist politics of the Mandelite wing of the United Secretariat. The SL/US and RFU(BT) seek to pose a class axis in the fight against all special oppression. Their insistence that sexuality is a private and not a political matter may some­ times shock "gay activists" accustomed to oppor­ tunist patronising, but their revolutionary pro­ gram will attract the most serious elements from the "gay liberation" milieu. A speaker from the RFU(BT), which has for years struggled within the homosexual milieu, took the microphone to pose the need for a Bolshevik party embodying the Marxist program, the only program capable of overcoming all forms of special oppression through victorious social­ ist revolution. To the amorphous and ineffective "gay liberation movement" the RFU(BT) spokesman counterposed the need to build the Trotskyist vanguard. The political development of the RFU was a challenge to the demonstrators to look to the SL and take their places not as "gay rights" activists but as proletarian cadres in the front 40,000 march in New York, 26,June, to protest against Anita Bryant's anti-homosexual crusade. lines of the class struggle .• Page Eight AUSTRALASIAN SPARTACIST August 1977