SolFor isociadl ownershaip of the rbanks iand itndustryy No 394 17 February 2016 50p/£1 Inside: JUNIOR DOCTORS Chronic mental health service underfunding

Decades of underfunding of mental health services is leaving the most vulnerable at risk. See page 2 REBEL Raising Atlantis AGAINST GOVERNMENT’S IMPOSED CONTRACT

Andrew Coates reviews Workers’ Liberty’s book The two Trotskyisms confront Stalinism . See pages 6-7 Welfare not warfare! Solidarity discusses why we should abolish Trident and how it can be done. See page 5

On Thursday 11 February, Tory health minister Jeremy Hunt announced that he had broken Join Labour! off negotiations with the BMA and would impose his new terms on junior doctors. BMA Junior Doctors’ Committee chair Johann Young Labour to Malawana responded by promising continued action. debate free More page 5 education and Trident renewal MOBILISE TO SAVE THE NHS! See page 10 2 NEWS More online at www.workersliberty.org Anti-Muslim campaign targets Sadiq Khan lamism is absurd. Bourgeois politi - By Sacha Ismail cians of all parties and stripes are The campaign to stop Sadiq often insufficiently careful about Khan being elected Mayor of who they associate with, and in - London is starting to get a sufficiently sharp and clear in the nasty, distinctly racist, anti- political lines they draw around Muslim flavour. themselves. The idea that a paper On 12 February the centre pages like the Standard , owned by Russ - of the Evening Standard carried a ian oligarch Evgeny Lebedev, has double page spread with the head - any right to criticise such things is line “Exposed: Sadiq Khan’s fam - laughable. ily links to extremist But in this respect Khan really organisation”. has nothing to answer for. He is “Extremist” is the word of being targeted because he is choice in the anti-Khan campaign. Labour and because he is Muslim. It was also in the Sun’s headline on This sort of “exposé” is a lurid 8 February, and is littered across attempt to say, without actually the mainstream media’s web cov - saying it: “Look, he’s brown and erage. Zac Goldsmith preferred to his name is Khan —perhaps he’s call Khan “radical and divisive”, got something to do with extrem - obviously with the same implica - ism and terrorism”. If this cam - tion. Namely: Khan is linked to paign gets any grip, it will no radical Islamism and perhaps even doubt become even more unpleas - to terrorism. ant. The 12 February a Standard arti - There is plenty for the left to crit - cle was hung on the fact that icise in Sadiq Khan’s politics and Khan’s former brother-in-law, campaign. But aside from our de - Makbool Javaid, was at one point sire for a Labour victory, having an linked to ultra-Islamist group al- Asian, Muslim-background mayor Muhajiroun; and that as a lawyer of London would be positively Not really an extra billion Khan defended some Islamists un - good. The right-wing, anti-Muslim justly treated by the British and US campaign against Khan is recommend no more than 85% oc - their own payment-by-results sys - governments. By Todd Hamer shameful. cupancy rate). Yet the plan does not tem. Unfortunately they have cre - The attempt to link Khan to Is - include any new investment in in - ated nothing but a lot of clinically On 15 February, the government patient beds. useless bureaucracy. The under - responded to a report on mental Inpatient bed numbers are at a funding of mental health services is health by pledging an extra £1 historic low. Around 2100 beds yet more evidence of the waste and billion a year. (about 10% total capacity) closed inefficiency of applying capitalist Failed by the “justice” system This will be used to fund an extra between 2011 and 2014, after a 39% market logic to healthcare. 600,000 places a year to talking reduction in bed numbers from Lastly, the report does nothing to By Gemma Short therapies for low-level depression 1998 to 2012. address the social causes of mental and anxiety, improve child and Prevention is better than cure, the illness. It states that one person in Sarah Reed was found dead in perinatal services, and increase acute inpatient wards underpin the four will suffer a mental health her cell in Holloway Prison, north community crisis support which is rest of the service. Overcrowded problem this year, but does not tell London, on 11 January. non-existent in some parts of the wards are less conducive to recov - us why. In 2012 Sarah was the victim of country. ery. Pressure on beds leads to late There is one reference to the neg - police brutality when stopped by However, it appears that the admissions with the person deeper ative effect of insecure jobs and police on a shop-lifting allegation. “extra funding” is actually funding into crisis requiring a longer hospi - housing on people’s mental health, PC James Kiddie was caught on that has already been announced. tal stay as well as early discharge but no critique of the policies that CCTV grabbing Sarah by the hair The new response simply details with increased risk of rapid relapse have promoted that insecurity. and then punching her as she lay how it will be spent. It is “extra and the need for readmission. For all the volumes of psychiatric on the floor of the shop. The attack funding” in the context of a 8% cut All this leads to worsening prog - research and psychological theoris - was so violent a fellow police offi - in NHS mental health services dur - nosis and increased dependence on ing, relatively little is known about cer gave evidence against Kiddie in ing the last parliament and 13.2% services. Paradoxically, an increase the workings of the human mind court. cut in local government funded in inpatient capacity could signifi - and the causes of depression, anxi - The circumstances of Sarah′s mental health services between cantly reduce demand on the entire ety, mania or psychosis. However, death in Holloway prison are un - 2010-14. It is “extra funding” in the service. there is broad consensus that these clear. The Ministry of Justice simply context of £22 billion “efficiency conditions emerge as a result of reports that Sarah was ″found un - savings” for the NHS between stress. 2015-20 and local government serv - PRIVATISATION responsive in her cell″ and that The underfunding of mental Writing in The Observer in the ices being reduced to a rump. ″prison staff attempted CPR″. The health services (including inpa - same week the taskforce published independent Prison and Probation NHS England’s Mental Health their report, Tim Adams suggests tient beds) is due to the difficulty Ombudsman will conduct an in - Taskforce Five Years Forward had that “the frontline of labour dis - reported that suicide rates have in - in marketising mental health vestigation. case against Sarah remanded her to putes has shifted from picket lines creased after years of decline. Less care whilst aggressively privatis - Sarah′s story is a tragic and prison to await trial, despite all the to worry lines”. The modern epi - that one quarter of people with a ing the NHS. shocking tale of a woman who was evidence that she should have been demic of stress (which accounts for mental health condition receive While it is relatively straightfor - denied help by every part of society sent to a secure hospital where she 10 million lost working days a year) treatment from a chronically under- ward to attach price labels to hip re - and abused by the police and may have got some of the support has coincided with the decline of resourced part of the NHS. placements and cataract prison system. she needed. militant trade unionism. It is a re - The lack of inpatient beds means operations, it is less clear how Sarah′s newborn baby died a 70% of women sent to prison to sult of individuals coping with in - that 500 patients a month are trans - much schizophrenia or depression sudden death in September 2003, await trial do not subsequently get justice, inequality and frustration ported out of county in search of a might cost. Commissioners have after which she suffered bouts of a custodial sentence. 30% of as individuals rather than fighting bed. Often these will be people in tended to pay physical health trusts severe mental ill-health. Whilst de - women in prisons have been previ - as a collective. acute psychotic crisis, removed per treatment, each neatly priced tained under the Mental Health Act ously admitted to psychiatric units. The labour movement must from family and friends when they up in the payment-by-results sys - in Maudsley hospital in October In the 12 months up to September fight for adequate services for are at their most vulnerable and tem, and then give the remainder of 2015 her family says she suffered a 2015 there were 7,415 incidents of people suffering mental health least able to understand what is their budget to mental health. sexual assault. They believe that self-harm by female prisoners in crisis. But we must also fight to going on. As budgets have been squeezed, this incident, where she had to fight the UK. transform our society and create The taskforce report suggest bed off the attacker, led to staff calling Sarah is a victim of how the mental health trusts have suffered. a world where mental health occupancy is dangerously high at the police and Sarah being arrested. justice system treats women. The response of mental health trust problems are the exception The magistrates who heard the 94% (Royal College of Psychiatrists bosses has been to try and create rather than the norm. Workers’ Liberty @workersliberty NEWS 3 Can win the Democratic nomination? ton, he has to face the gauntlet of dictable factors — including the po - By Danny Katch, the Democratic Party establishment tential for the Clinton campaign to International Socialist and the corporate media. self-destruct. Organization Then there is the issue of “su - But Sanders supporters need to perdelegates” to the Democratic ask themselves another question: if When the loudmouths at Fox National Convention that will offi - Bernie Sanders could manage to News used to warn about the cially pick the nominee. Some 712 win the Democratic Party presiden - threat of America being taken out of the 4,763 delegates aren’t se - tial nomination, can he win the over by socialists, they probably lected in primary contests, but get Democratic Party to support any - weren’t thinking about people in their seats based on being an office - thing he stands for? Iowa and New Hampshire. holder or party insider. As SocialistWorker.org wrote in But with Bernie Sanders’ decisive So far, 359 superdelegates have an editorial: victory in the New Hampshire pri - already pledged to vote for Clinton, “Sanders’ insistence on talking mary on February 8, to go with his versus 14 for Sanders. In other about health care is a breath of tie with Hillary Clinton in Iowa, the words, Sanders will have to do fresh air in the post-ACA political most support so far in the race for much better than win a majority of climate. But it is, in fact, unrealistic the Democratic presidential nomi - have less than $1,000 in their com - It’s easy to smirk at how wrong al - primary voters — he has to over - to propose a single-payer health nation has gone to a self-described bined savings and checking ac - most every part of that sentence come the head start that Clinton care system as a candidate of a socialist. No, it’s not the same as the counts — and a quarter have less now seems, but a lot of the people has by virtue of being the nearly party that is just as much in the imminent working-class seizure of than $100. doing the smirking, at least those unanimous choice of the party es - pockets of the insurance and phar - tablishment. the means of production, but Six months ago, few observers old enough to remember, are lying maceutical industries as the Repub - If Sanders can hold up under the Sanders’ unlikely surge doesn’t thought that Sanders would be in to themselves if they claim they licans. Were Sanders ever to find pressure of the coming months and show any signs of slowing. the position he is today... His cam - didn’t feel it at least a little bit. himself in a position of trying to continue winning the same level of Sanders was always expected to paign has become the latest explo - This year, Bernie Sanders is in - achieve single-payer, his own party support from primary voters and do well in New Hampshire, next sive expression of class anger in spiring voters with another narra - would stab him in the back. door to his home state of Vermont, America — another face of a radi - tive. He’s the last honest politician, caucus-goers in other states, then things will get interesting. “Sanders says he wants to bring but he trounced the former Secre - calization that includes Occupy the guy everybody laughed at as a ‘political revolution’ to Washing - tary of State and one-time prohibi - Wall Street, the protests of low- they got rich on Wall Street gam - ton, but what does that really tive frontrunner by more than 20 wage workers for a $15-an-hour bling, while he kept to his princi - WALL ST mean? When he defines it, he usu - percentage points. minimum wage and the Black ples — even ! — until the His continued success will fur - ally means that the groundswell of As in Iowa, Sanders dominated Lives Matter movement, to name a day of financial reckoning came, ther alarm the likes of Goldman support to get him elected would Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein. among voters under 30, winning a few examples. and everyone realised he was right also usher in a Democratic majority lopsided 82 percent of the vote, ac - In the face of the Bernie’s surge, all along. Clinton has been courting sup - in the Senate and House, which port from Wall Street for many cording to exit polls. He had the Clinton supporters are coming off Bernie’s story doesn’t completely could enact his progressive policies years, despite her occasional bouts edge among women, too, young as entitled and out of touch — from hold up — Progressive Punch and get money out of politics. the pundits who sigh that Sanders ranks him as having only the 18th of watered-down populist rhetoric. and old — who Clinton supporters “Sanders’ ‘revolution’ depends voters don’t seem to understand most progressive record in a Senate (Unfortunately, given Sanders” had alternately attempted to guilt on the party supporting his plat - that our political system isn’t that he’s supposedly leading a rev - thoroughly mainstream positions and to shame into joining Team form — while its leadership makes meant to actually get anything olution against. Sanders may on foreign policy, including sup - Hillary. clear every day that it doesn’t. done; to the strange “feminist” ap - champion single-payer health care port for the “war on terror”, the Sanders’ success is clearly based “The betrayals would begin long on widespread anger about eco - peals from rich and powerful against the mess that Obamacare military-industrial complex won’t women to young debt-ridden ones made of an already messed-up sys - have as much reason to be before the next president and Con - nomic inequality and insecurity — gress are sworn in. In 1972, liberal the urgently felt issues that always to help Hillary move into the White tem, but Senator Sanders did the alarmed.) House. “realistic” thing in 2010 and voted But the impact of a continued George McGovern won the presi - gets short shrift among mainstream dential nomination over the oppo - political leaders. Even as the official Presidential elections in the US for the Affordable Care Act. and widening groundswell of pop - aren’t about platforms or personal - Still, the narrative is grounded in ular support for Sanders could go sition of party leaders — and the unemployment rate dropped Democratic establishment sat on its below five percent in January, ities so much as they are about enough reality to work. further and shake things up in paths. Campaigns carefully weave The odds are still against Sanders many liberal organizations, such as hands to make sure McGovern lost wages have remained so low that the general election against Richard more than half of US households their candidate’s biographies and winning the Democratic nomina - NARAL Pro-Choice America and political beliefs into a symbolic nar - tion for president. the Human Rights Campaign, Nixon.” rative about the country we want to That’s not because, as the main - which reflexively endorsed Clin - But recognising the difficulties Reading is a right: the live in. stream media lectures, his message ton. in overcoming them shouldn’t In 2008, Barack Obama thrilled of universal health care and free Can Sanders actually win take away from recognising the fight to save libraries millions with his story of an intelli - college tuition is somehow against enough votes in the primaries to impact his campaign has already had and will continue to have in How to fight library cuts and gent outsider whose unique per - the values of a majority of Demo - win the Democratic presidential why it matters. spective could bring white and cratic primary voters, but because nomination? He still has to be con - the coming months. black people together to acknowl - he is starting from way behind in sidered a big underdog. But it can’t bit.ly/1R6tqWY edge and finally overcome the many states —and even if he man - be entirely ruled out so far in ad - • Abridged from country’s long history of racism. ages to pull even with Hillary Clin - vance, and with so many unpre - socialistworker.org

Help Luqman Onikosi Chicago teachers restart their fight against cuts In 2007 Luqman Onikosi came to the UK from Nigeria to study ery provision by 1,000 places, when poll showed that more than four banks but not for our students,” at the University of Sussex. By Conway Williams the reality is that he plans to cut times as many people in Chicago said teacher Sarah Chambers, one Whilst in the UK he developed chronic liver disease. After fin - Chicago teachers are beginning main school budgets by $120 mil - support the teachers as the Mayor, of the arrestees. “When it’s reached ishing his degree, he began to to stir again following the threat lion. despite his extensive publicity and a point where teachers are occupy - work in the Nigerian High of huge cuts to school budgets These cuts come on top of years media campaign. ing banks to make their voices Commission, before becoming across the city. of retrenchment since the strikes of Earlier this month more than heard, it shows that we need an to ill to continue work. Since July last year the Chicago 2012. But the cuts of the last five 3,000 CTU members, parents, stu - elected school board.” years have been masked by teach - dents and other supporters A dispute like this can go one In 2012, the Home Office at - Teachers Union (CTU) has been at - tempted to deport Luqman. If tempting to negotiate a new con - ers working longer hours for less marched in freezing conditions in way or the other given the stakes pay, effectively running all extra support of a fair contract for teach - involved. The CTU, so far, appear he had been deported in all tract for teachers. Chicago Public likelihood he would have died. Schools (CPS) and in particular, the curricular sport and cultural provi - ers and in opposition to education to have played this well, using sion for students in their own time. cuts. During the protest, 16 union protests and other levers to force Fortunately a successful cam - City Mayor, Rahm Emanuel, have paign kept him in the country. been trying to use these negotia - The stakes high here and strike activists staged a sit-in at the Bank the hand of the authorities. Sooner or later some serious Now the Home Office is try - tions to impose cuts to pensions action seems likely. For now the of America and were arrested. industrial action is likely to be ing to deport him again. and pay, as well as threatening 2000 strikes have been postponed whilst They used the arrests as an op - necessary if the people of Support Luqman’s appeal for teacher redundancies. more talks continue. However, the portunity to expose corrupt prac - Chicago are to protect their further legal advice, and a cam - Now, using slick PR and media CTU has been busy building an im - tices in the city’s public finances teachers and the education serv - paign to save his life. stunts, the mayor has announced a pressive coalition to resist the cuts, and to demand serious negotia - ice. disingenuous plan to expand nurs - forging links with the community tions with the Union over the con - and students as in 2012. A recent tract. “Rahm has money for the • www.campaignforluqman.org.uk 4 COMMENT Email your letters to [email protected] Prevent: not convinced This bureaucratic drive is

LETTERS probably counterproductive Omar Raii ( Solidarity 390) and Patrick Murphy ( 391) both draw atten - Solidarity The problem with Prevent is that, firstly, tion to the shortcomings and potential Yes, of course, we should oppose the dangers of the Prevent programme, government’s anti-Islamist strategy, Pre - it is part of a ruling-class ideological offen - aimed at countering “extremism”/”radi - vent. It is heavy-handed and, probably, sive against Islamists which is done in the calisation” in schools and colleges. counter-productive. name of the ruling class and with their It does indeed seem to be the case that in Teachers already have a legal obligation to ideas. The government knows it is part of a some instances Prevent has been imple - actively stop children being put in danger, bureaucratic elite, and they are seeking to mented in a heavy-handed manner by over- and keep them safe. So, for example, I have co-opt teachers and others into gathering in - zealous and/or ill-trained teachers. I can also reported to the school’s safeguarding officer formation for them which they wouldn’t be agree that Prevent is potentially a threat to that one of my students had been attacked able to collect otherwise. free speech — discouraging free and open by his dad. The senior member of staff then But the net is far too wide. If a kid tells me discussion of the issues surrounding terrorist Moazzam Begg reported the incident to the police. they are in favour of sharia law I would like ideologies and thus making it more difficult In the same way I recently reported a stu - to talk to them, not to get them arrested or Watch continues to carry this false story on to counter them. dent for Islamic extremism. That report led their website. put under state surveillance. I can draw a However, there is a great deal of credible to a police raid on his family’s home. How Omar and Patrick rightly point to the fool - distinction between a student who might be evidence showing that much of the opposi - can I justify reporting this student? Because ishness of much of the left (and the NUS lead - about to sign up with Daesh, and another tion to Prevent stems not from “ordinary” I might have saved his life (and the lives of ership) in allying with Cage/Mend/Prevent who is curious, or awkward, or bloody- parents and teachers, but is being organised others he might have hurt if he had ended Watch in opposing Prevent. But both com - minded, or contrary, or a bit sexist. and co-ordinated by ultra-reactionary Is - up in Syria). rades take it as read that we should oppose And finally this policy will be overseen by lamists, specifically Cage, Mend and their On the level of the obligation to keep kids Prevent, albeit “for the right reasons and with school head teachers who are paranoid front organisation, Prevent Watch. Many of safe there is no need for extra legislation. the right allies.” I’m not convinced. Teachers about becoming the next school to have a the media stories about heavy-handed Nor is there any need to force schools to and others in positions of responsibility to - and/or inappropriate Prevent interventions student disappear to Syria (with all the bad wards young people are, quite rightly, re - teach “a broad and balanced curriculum were, in fact, put about by Prevent Watch press and interest from Ofsted that gener - quired by the state to take action to protect which promotes the spiritual, moral, cul - with the intention of spreading fear and con - ates). They will over-report to cover their their charges from grooming and all forms of tural, mental and physical development of fusion in Muslim communities. Several of arses. physical and mental abuse. Surely protecting pupils.” That’s already a legal obligation in these stories have turned out to be exagger - Obviously what is required is for the children and young people from terrorist ide - schools like mine. ated or, indeed, downright false — for in - unions to develop an independent policy. ologies is a similar responsibility that social - If the government wants to stop religious stance the story about the Muslim boy in We should oppose Islamist terror in our own ists should not, in principle, oppose? radicalisation, the best first step would be to Accrington whose family received a police name, and educate students to value liberty A final (genuine) question: Omar states abolish religious schools. My school does visit after he wrote at school that he lived in and equality. that Prevent “is aimed exclusively at Islamic quite good work promoting gay equality a “terrorist house” when what he meant was There are groups which oppose Pre - fundamentalism and Islamism”: is this true? and women’s rights; I bet you can’t say the a terraced house. Sections of the media had a I have read elsewhere that only 56% of same about the independent religious vent for their own reasons (because they field day with this story, but it now turns out those referred for intervention under Pre - schools attached to the mosque at the end of are Islamists, or the Islamists’ “useful id - that the police visit had nothing to do with vent have been Muslim. my road, or for any priest-and-nun-infested iots”), but that shouldn’t stop us cri - Prevent or “terrorism” but happened because schools as well. All religious schools main - tiquing the government from a socialist the boy had also stated that he’d been sub - Jim Denham, Birmingham tain boundaries, encourage isolation and ob - perspective. jected to physical violence at home. Prevent scurantism. A London teacher Peter Tatchell is not a racist or a transphobe

phobe for signing a letter defending freedom For any human being, to have to justify their By Cathy Nugent of speech? very existence; to experience, as a conse - Veteran LGBT and socialist activist Peter Speaking on Newsnight (15 February) the quence, constant dehumanising harassment, Tatchell is no racist or transphobe, and we journalist Paris Lees, herself a transwoman, is intolerable, and must make you feel very should defend him against those charges. argued that it was indeed ludicrous to char - vulnerable indeed. His alleged racism and transphobia were acterise Tatchell as a transphobe; to make him Nonetheless there are real problems with the grounds on which an NUS LGBT officer “guilty by association” by signing that open “outlawing” the views of people like Greer. refused to share a platform with him at the letter; to assume or act as if he agreed with As we have previously argued in Solidarity , “re-radicalising queers” event at Canterbury feminists such as Greer, whilst he is on record Greer and others are not simply bigots Christ Church University on 15 February. with directly opposed views. (though in their absolute refusal to interro - The LGBT officer was, in their view, follow - Yet Lees did understand why people were gate their views they give a good impression ing the policy passed by the LGBT conference angry with Tatchell for signing the letter. By of being bigots); nor are they people who fol - of the National Union of Students which doing so he was implying that it was easy for low through on prejudice by beating people could be read as obliging an officer of the transpeople to “engage” with the likes of up on the streets. They are, as Kelly Rogers union not to share a platform with an “op - Greer. put it, “one side of a (largely) generational di - pressor”. Of course they are entitled to follow Lees went on to say, “… more broadly, yes vide between second-wave radical feminists the policy of their organisation and, in fact to I think it is right that people should not en - and younger feminists who adopt a more refuse to share platforms with another gage with transphobes... marginalised people trans-inclusive perspective”. speaker on many grounds. But Tatchell, an have had to explain themselves over and Will radical feminists of this sort ever “oppressor”? over again. change their opinions? Doubtful. Should we The evidence cited by the LGBT officer in care if their views become so marginal they respect is important, that we can begin to private emails was not Tatchell’s alleged ENGAGE cease to get invited to conferences and semi - marginalise transphobia, not only in univer - racism, but an open letter Tatchell signed “There are certain people who are just not nars. No. Should we advocate that other peo - sities but also in wider society. which opposed “no-platforming” of some willing to engage in debate. They have ple, better people, (how about trans activists, That will not of course take away Paris feminists such as Germaine Greer and Julie heard the arguments. This person [Greer] trans-inclusive socialist feminists!) get more Lees weariness, take away the crushing effect has made personal attacks on individual invitations, a bigger platform. Yes! Bindel. The letter argued Greer, Bindel et al of always having to explain, of never being were being silenced on the grounds that they trans people before. Nonetheless as long as people continue to allowed to get on with your life. are “critical of the sex industry and of some “They have argued for conversion therapy, be persuaded by their views, and unfortu - demands made by trans activists”. In reality, which has proved to be very dangerous. nately I believe they may be, we absolutely That is why we need more discussions Greer and Bindel’s political stance is at lot Those people should not be given platforms need to debate these views. It is only by about how to build a collective fight more than this in relation to transgender. to air their prejudices.” “winning the battle of ideas”, making con - against oppression, where the oppressed Both have denied trans women are women. Lees is wrong in her conclusions, but she stant and sustained ideological challenges do not feel it is always their responsibility Still, why is Tatchell being labelled a trans - has, of course, made an important point here. and explaining why equality, tolerance and alone to take on the fight. Workers’ Liberty @workersliberty WHAT WE SAY 5 Junior doctors rebel against contract

On Thursday 11 February, Tory health min - ister Jeremy Hunt announced that he had broken off negotiations with the BMA and would impose his new terms on junior doctors. The new contract, which Hunt plans to im - pose from 5 August, aims to force junior doc - tors to work longer and even more unsociable hours, especially more weekends (the “seven-day NHS”), with a slash in their wage of up to 30%. The new contract also removes barriers to prevent hospitals making their junior staff work overtime for no extra money. 14 out of 20 bosses of NHS Trusts, cited by Hunt as supporting the move to impose the contract, have said that in fact they oppose it. BMA Junior Doctors’ Committee chair Jo - hann Malawana responded by promising continued action. “Junior doctors cannot and will not accept a contract that is bad for the future of patient care, the profession and the NHS as a whole, and we will consider all op - tions open to us”. The junior doctors have come a long way in six months. Their combination of public government in its drive against other health will be covered by consultants, meaning a campaigning activity, grassroots mobilisation dustrial action. workers and indeed all workers. greater impact on clinics and elective work. and strong industrial action has had an im - Junior doctors should speak to GP and con - The discussion at the BMA Junior Doctors’ The action should also include a walk-out pact. The stubbornness with which the Tories sultant colleagues to look for ways to coordi - Committee meeting on Saturday 20 February of all junior doctors on new work days the are running the NHS into the ground despite nate with their battles with the government. should include the following ideas for action: government wants to say are social, i.e. Sat - mass public discontent shows that any less The TUC should also be approached to 1. To oppose both the currently proposed urdays. active campaign could win little. work with the junior doctors’ committee to contract and its imposition as not safe and 3. The BMA should explore all legal av - The junior doctors need to keep strong in - organise a joint national demonstration not fair. To highlight its impacts on Saturday enues to stop imposition, without in any way dustrial action — basically, strikes — at the against the imposition of the contract/in sup - working; evening unsociable hours; LTFT relying on such avenues. Industrial strength core of their strategy. Yet it is increasingly port of our fight, against the removal of stu - [part-time/flexible working] trainees; in and organised campaigning which will win clear this is a political fight. dent NHS bursaries, for an end to counting as working hours, for doctors on this dispute. Legal action is an auxiliary. A great strength of the campaign has been privatisation, and for the reinstatement of the call, only the hours actually worked; on first 4. Greater coordination with and support willingness to link the issue of the junior doc - NHS as a comprehensive, well funded public refusal on locum work. from the wider trade union movement. tors’ contracts to the wider struggle to save service. 2. To escalate industrial action. The BMA should ask all trade unions to the NHS, defend workers’ terms and condi - 5. To issue a public statement setting out The action so far has been well supported, discuss what they can do to support the fight. tions across the board, and stop austerity. this strategy. and junior doctors are more angry and deter - The junior doctors should organise a fringe That is not completely uncontroversial in All unions in dispute should be supported. mined after Hunt’s latest move. The direct meeting at Unison Health Conference in the BMA, but the most active junior doctors But this dispute especially. The NHS is vital employers, the NHS Trusts, are in difficult fi - Brighton on 25-27 April, and will investigate argue that the temptation to back away from for all working-class people. nancial situations and do not want sustained organising fringe meetings at other upcom - Support from other workers who can hit the political implications should be opposed. periods of action. ing union conferences. profits directly is important for NHS work - Even if the new contract were perfect The BMA should set an escalating pattern The junior doctors’ committee should cam - ers to win disputes; and the junior doc - (rather than very bad, as it is), the junior doc - of strikes, the details to be decided by the ex - paign among members to stress the impor - tors’ initiative can be built on to crystallise tors would be right to fight against imposi - ecutive. Escalation should at some point soon tance of actively backing and working with the widespread anger against the Tories’ tion. To allow the government to make include pulling out junior doctors working in other workers in dispute, particularly health sabotage of the Health Service into an ac - unilateral changes to the contracts would set accident and emergency and on call. Patients workers, and where possible coordinate in - tive movement to save the NHS. a dangerous precedent and embolden the Abolish Trident! Welfare and jobs, not warfare and mass murder Nuclear weapons — and especially those Russia, or Iran — because they have the mis - clear and bold; Labour MPs should under - without knighthoods, people who just want nuclear weapons whose use would incin - fortune to be ruled by cynical criminals is stand it is expected they vote to abolish Tri - to pay for the weekly shop. erate tens of millions of civilians — are an immoral. dent. Such a policy could be a big vote And just because the GMB is in a member - obscenity. Shooting down missiles aimed at UK cities winner. ship competition with the Unite union A future Labour government must abolish would be rational self-defence; destroying The left should advocate all those opposed (which also has its cynics), doesn’t mean Trident. In the first instance, this is a moral millions of lives in a revenge attack would to Trident and for socially useful spending GMB members’ jobs are not important. All question: Ban the Bomb! be a war crime. We shouldn’t do it; we join the Labour Party and fight for the policy, workers’ jobs and wages are important. No, Imagine, if you can, the worst case: a nu - shouldn’t justify it. now. If some Labour Party right-wingers re - the way for Labour leaders and the left to clear attack on the UK in which London and sign, so be it. win the argument inside the labour move - other big cities were destroyed and millions COST ment is to guarantee all workers whose jobs were murdered by a foreign power. Perhaps Even if the Trident nuclear weapon sys - JOBS are endangered by the cancellation of Trident the attack came from a rogue state run by a tem were free it should be abandoned. Several thousand UK jobs depend on useful work with no loss of pay. strange and insecure freak, perhaps it came However Trident is very far from being building and maintaining aspects of the A Labour government could do this and from a resurgent Russia run by a ex-secret free. Trident programme. still have £100 billion to spare. policeman gangster. Estimates of its running and replacement Opposition inside the labour movement to It seems that a large part of the British rul - What then? We are told by those who are costs over the next several decades seem to abolishing Trident comes from — amongst ing class’s attachment to Trident has little to pro-Trident that a rational, reasonable re - run to £100 billion or more. others — Sir Paul Kenny, leader of the GMB do with the specific worth of the weapons sponse would be to burn and kill the three The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament union. system. It has more to do with maintaining million citizens of Pyongyang in revenge. Or estimates 150,000 new nurses, 1.5 million af - Sir Paul was recently knighted. His job at the image of Britain as a world power and to lay waste to St Petersburg, and kill five fordable homes, or the tuition fees of four the GMB pays, apparently, £121,000 a year. keeping the British state inside prestigious million. Or Moscow, with eleven million. million students could be paid for if Trident Just because Sir Paul is a loudmouth and international institutions such as the UN Se - If North Korea — if you could imagine it was scrapped. occasional cynical-left-talker does not mean curity Council. — launched a nuclear attack it would have Labour should write into its Manifesto his view, that a Trident upgrade should go These are things socialists have no interest nothing to do with the citizens of that coun - that it intends to abolish Trident and spend ahead to guarantee jobs for GMB members, in. try. They have no power, no control. To in - the money, instead, on the NHS, homes and should be discounted. That view is shared by Welfare, education and humanity — not cinerate the people of North Korea — or abolishing tuition fees. Labour should be thousands of more honest people — people war and imperial prestige. More online at www.workersliberty.org Workers’ Liberty @workersliberty Responses to Stalinism : raising A

which has not ceased bearing fruit, might Andrew Coates reviews The two seem to offer more fertile soil on which Trot - Trotskyisms confront Stalinism , edited by Sean Matgamna. Part two of the skyists too can plant their seeds. But for review will be printed in Solidarity 395. Matgamna at least the original City of the Trotskyist movement has not been sub - “Les bruits lointains d’une atlantide dis - merged in the deluge following the Fall of parue, de cette ville d’Ys engloutie que cha - Official . We should first of all, cun porte en soi.” [The distant sounds of a like a modern Montaigne, return to the li - vanished Atlantis, of that sunken city that every - brary in its principal Tower. 4 body carries inside]. A contrast might be made with Lars T. — Ernest Renan, Souvenirs d’enfance et de Lih’s influential Lenin Rediscovered (2005). Lih Jeunesse , 1883. argues that Lenin’s politics developed in the Ten years after the 1989-91 fall of Soviet- shadow of German , and its bloc Communism, Perry Anderson wrote, chief theorist, Karl Kautsky. A strategic em - launching the second series of phasis on the importance of political liberty, Review (NLR) that, there was “no longer as a condition for the development of the any significant oppositions” “within the movement, was grounded on a “world his - thought world of the West”. torical epic about the coming of socialism”. The governing and intellectually dominant The task of the left was to bring the “Good neo-liberalism had no rival on the radical left. News” of socialism to the working class, Amongst the aftershocks of the collapse of merging intellectual resources and the labour the USSR, “Virtually the entire horizon of ref - movement. But for Trotskyists in the 1940s, erence” for his generation on the left, “the after two decades of Stalinist rule in “social - landmarks of reformist and revolutionary so - Two strands of in the 1940s: (left) and James P Cannon cialism”, Bebel, Bernstein, Luxemburg, Kaut - ist” Russia, forced collectivisation, famine, sky, Jaurès, Lukács, Lenin, Gramsci and litical legacy which Trotsky left at his death European revolutions. Morrow by contrast the Great Terror and the Gulag, there was lit - Trotsky, have been “wiped away”. For stu - — back to 1940.” 2 could see that it was more probable that, tle tangible to evangelise about. The German dents they had become “as remote as a list of Apart from Matgamna’s introduction we “bourgeois” democracy would be restored, Communists had lost to the National Social - Arian bishops.” 1 are offered an extensive — over 600 pages and advocated a left-wing democratic re - ists; the Spanish Civil War had ended with The second volume of The Fate of the Russ - long — selection of original articles from 1939 sponse. Morrow was the main subject of an defeat for the Republic and the left. Nazi and ian Revolution is, like the first, aimed at re-es - to the early 1950s, by Trotsky, his “orthodox” important 1970s, Where Trotskyism Got Lost by Fascist tyrannies were now poised to turn tablishing, in the face of Anderson’s verdict, champions, and those expressing opposing Peter Jenkins. (1977), which might also seem Europe into a totalitarian Empire. The old the present day importance of one of those views on the errors and gaps in their political an appropriate sub-title for The Two Trot - colonial powers of France and Britain, they distant figures, In his Introduc - approach. The present work aims to present skyisms .3 considered, looked only to protect their own tion to The Two Trotskyisms Sean Matgamna a demythologised account of the raucous de - interests, as did the Americans. There was, in draws how own parallel with the heresiarch bates of the Trotskyist movement inside the short, an abundance of very Bad News. The Arias and his followers. The reference is not, WORTH American Socialist Workers Party (SWP – Bolshevik Revolution, Lenin’s years of lead - as one might expect, to the unequal contest The first thought of the reader is to ask henceforth the SWP referred to) during the ership during the founding of the USSR, and between the founder of the Fourth Interna - whether it is worth the time and effort to 1940s — placing the heretics on an equal, if Trotsky’s battle against Stalin’s rule, re - tional’s circle of supporters and Stalin’s Es - look into this literature. not superior, footing to the Orthodox. The mained, for them, touchstones, but their faith tablished -Leninist Church. It is to Are we delving into the “archives” of a lost texts are not always easy reading. Anybody in the future of socialism had returned to be - disputes within the Trotskyist movement, Atlantis, as former Fourth Internationalist 5 unused to the disputes of hard-core Trotsky - lief in “things unseen”. “The Heterodox were the Arians, and the Or - Tariq Ali, prefacing the philosopher and life- ism will find the often wildly intemperate Our knowledge of the heterodox side in the thodox the Catholics of post-Trotsky Trotsky - long Trotskyist activist Daniel Bensaïd’s An language unattractive — the suffix “ite” for early centuries of the Christian Church comes ism.” The leader of the — “heterodox” Impatient Life (2015) has described records of opponents’ standpoint, “deviation”, and from fragments of their documents, and the Trotskyist — Alliance for Workers’ Liberty the Trotskyist movement? A more urgent task “petty bourgeois individualism” get freely commentaries of the victorious Catholics. (AWL) argues that this division, which orig - might be to respond to the post-Communist aired. The articles range from the ‘Shacht - Backed by Emperors the Orthodox consid - inated in the 1940s, amongst those who “em - “lucid recognition of defeat”— as NLR edito - man” opposition to Trotsky’s call for defence ered the Arian congregations to be rebels bodied the great truths of Marxism” the only rialised a decade after Perry Anderson’s ver - of the Soviet Union, to the scepticism of Felix against the supreme powers of Heaven and “authentic Marxist-communist tradition” dict. The “archipelago of a thousand Morrow, a leading American Trotskyist and Earth. Although the analogy is strained those was of lasting significance. Revolutionary so - Marxisms”, the research programmes of the author of an orthodox account of the Spanish who criticised Trotsky and the leadership of cialists, “must go back to re-examine the old academic left which the same Bensaïd saw Civil War, who became sceptical about the the American Trotskyists, the Socialist Work - debates and the flaws and lacunae in the po - flourishing in Marx for our Times (2002), and ’s prediction of post-war ers Party, in the 1930s and 1940s, are like

Reviews and critical commentary on The two Trotskyisms confront Stalinism

“This book is an amazing textbook ... [it] “There are some who, for whatever rea - “Trotsky and to some extent Trotskyism presents the material in such a way as to sons, do not think there is much (or any) did their best to make sense of what must show the whole dialogue between two importance to such history ... To deny that have seemed utterly senseless, like the pri - species of socialism — crudely, between there is anything useful to learn from such oritised mass murder of millions of quite in - Shachtman and Cannon — as it developed excavations and explorations is inconsistent nocent people, but they were somehow too and, through the critical years, the devel - with a serious attitude toward the discipline close to the phenomenon to do it justice. Yet opment of the ideas of bureaucratic collec - of history, as well as toward political theory, to see how hard they tried, how valiantly tivism and the theories. It not to mention Marxism. Sean Matgamna they struggled, how readily they sacrificed keeps track, not just of Trotskyism, but of has performed a genuine service for schol - their own futures for the sake of some basic Marxism, of socialism ... This book gives ars and activists.” understanding, there is no better place to us material to think about what socialism Paul Le Blanc start than here.” really is.” Robert Fine Ed Strauss Available now in both print and as an e-book. Order yours online today! Read more reviews: bit.ly/twotrotsreviews Buy your copy now bit.ly/twotrotskyisms REVIEW 6-7 American radical intelligentsia, affecting fig - Pierre Broué, every declaration that Trotsky swiftly exiting the Workers Party, the later ca - ures such as Max Eastman and Edmund Wil - made has to be seen in the light of his prior - reers of the main supporters of the Shacht - son. Sidney Hook, a more substantial ity: building a Fourth International that man current are presented as proof that the intellectual figure than Burnham, author of would play a leading role in this upheaval. In Heterodox can be dismissed. This tale has the still read, From Hegel to Marx (1st Edition, Poland and Finland (1939) he began by pro - had a long life. Alex Callinicos has offered a 1936), a student of the pragmatist philoso - claiming, as a would-be commander of his version of the “inevitable fate of those who Atlantis pher and educationalist John Dewey, Chair of own revolutionary forces, that the Kremlin, stray from orthodoxy” position. In his ac - the Dewy Commission (1937) which con - with the “Red Army on the side of the work - count of Trotskyism he stated, “in the absence Arian ecclesiastics, largely known through demned the Moscow Trials and their accusa - ers in a civil war”, would be “forced to pro - of an articulated theory of the new mode of the literature of their adversaries. tions against Trotsky, perhaps symbolises this voke a social revolutionary movement.” With production, the concept of bureaucratic col - Max Shachtman (1904-1972), a founder of change. By the end of the decade Hook had more information to hand, and faced with lectivism has acted primarily as a means that SWP, and a member of the Executives moved from the traditions inspired by Marx, Shachtman’s criticisms, he announced a few whereby its adherents could adapt to the pre - 11 Committee of the Fourth International, has, including a period of “Trotskyesque” anti- months later that the USSR was planning to vailing mood on the local Left.” to Matgamna, suffered the worst from the Stalinism, towards a rejection of historical “Sovietise” the country, under bureaucratic Whether the failure to have a substantial — “handed-down” and “apparatus historiogra - and dialectical materialism, and anti-commu - command and police repression. This is the “correct” — line on the USSR was a factor in phy” of Orthodoxy. The Downfall, from crit - nist (big and small “C”) support for the “revolution”, which. Matgamna does not fail the group’s evolution, or whether bureau - icisms of Trotskyism to support for American American constitution and liberal to emphasise, that became the norm in post- cratic collectivism was the nearest label at 8 imperialism, was his, and his comrades’ fate. democracy. 45 Eastern Europe. This had begun as the war hand for the Workers Party leadership to jus - This parable was part of the consoling “rev - Inside the SWP rifts hardened during the developed. The Orthodox party paper praise tify its — decade long-evolution towards the olutionary mythology” that helped the Or - first years of the Second World War. The SWP for the Soviet Armed Forces appeared. This American political mainstream is hard to de - thodox stand together against an assortment minority recoiled from the Molotov-Ribben - reached an apogee with SWP columns glori - termine. For Matgamna the arguments of this of enemies on the left and survive the ascen - trop pact of 1939. Shachtman, Martin Abern fying “Trotsky’s Red Army”. The”‘progres - dissenting strand of Trotskyism didn’t come dancy of Official Communism. For and other dissenters began to question the sive” revolutionary foundations of the from a fit of temper or stray into the ideology Matgamna this did not prevent them chasing policy of “Defence of the USSR”. The SWP “workers’ state” became, for a time, more im - of the “petty bourgeoisie”. It can be argued 9 after, “alien political movements”, and, above majority accounted that on the basis of the portant than its “degeneration”. that the theory of ‘bureaucratic collectivism’ all, becoming “critical supporters of varieties economic foundations laid down by the Oc - was part and parcel of a political response to of Stalinism.” 6 tober Revolution it was their duty to back the EXPELLED the Soviet state, principally its actions in the Sean Matgamna reminds readers, a few of country. For the majority Stalin’s occupation The minority was expelled from the SWP early years of the War. This political legacy is important for the whom may need this underlined, that Trot - of half of Poland, the invasion of Finland and in the same year, 1940, as Trotsky’s assas - renewal of revolutionary Marxism. Indeed, sky — by definition the lodestar of Trotsky - other Soviet manoeuvres in Eastern Europe, sination. In the 1940s, the Heterodox “elaborated a ism — was not infallible. Over the period found them “partisans” of the USSR side, to They took 40% of the membership with politics of consistent anti-Stalinism as leading up the War he presented a “large the point of calling for the people in occupied them and a majority of the youth wing. SWP well as consistent anti-capitalism.” 12 quiver of half-evolved and half-eroded ‘po - territory to back the Red Army. leader James P. Cannon’s account in The sitions’, ambivalences, and contradictions.” From the Bad News of the Gulag there was Struggle for a Proletarian Party , absorbed by Matgamna is keen to make one point clear. soon even worse news about the conduct of generations of Trotskyists, and percolating References: The founder of the Fourth International did the Soviet invasions and fresh slaughters. For through the wider left, presented the conflict, not lay down a hard and fast “line” on the the dissidents these actions proved that Rus - as a battle between a “shabby crew” of “ad - 1. Page 17. Renewals, Perry Anderson, New central issue of the controversies. “While de - sia had acted as an “imperialist” power — venturers, careerists, self-seekers, dilettantes Left Review , second series No 1. 2000. fending the view that the totalitarian regime acting with a brutality which no slogan could quitters-under-fire” and serious proletarian 2. Page 98 The Two Trotskyisms Confront Stalin - created over the foundation the October Rev - cover up. The claim that at least something of revolutionaries. Outside of the material in ism , Edited Sean Matgamna, Second Edition, Workers’ Liberty, 2015, ( TTCS ) Vol. 2 of The Fate olution laid down, in nationalised property a workers’ state remained in the country, The two Trotskyisms confront Stalinism we of the Russian Revolution Workers’ Liberty, Page and planning may have been evolving as however “degenerated”, rang hollow. Russia know, from the SWP’s own publications, that was not in a “transition”, however unstable, Cannon and his earnest allies dispensed with 133 TTCS . See also: Sean Matgamna Introduc - “transitional society”... he admitted, in effect, tion, Lost Texts of Critical Marxism, Vol. 1. The Fate the theoretical possibility that the USSR was towards socialism. Unrestrained violence “formal” democracy in order to effect the ex - was embedded in “bureaucratic collectivist” of the Russian Revolution, Workers’ Liberty. already established as a new exploitative clusion. That is, bluntly, he ignored the 3. Where Trotskyism Got Lost , Peter Jenkins, society; its apparatus was marked by ex - class society, a semi-slave society.” We would party’s own statues in order to be rid of the Spokesman.1977. also note that Trotsky’s frequent use of the ploitation of the workers, tyranny and mass minority. This could be considered evidence 4. A Letter from Atlantis: Remembering Daniel term “totalitarian” — a word first used in murder. It would be simpler to recognise that in support of a charge against Trotskyists: Bensaïd, Tariq Ali, Introduction to An Impatient Marxist circles by the dissident’s dissident there was nothing worth defending about the that they are democrats to the tips of their Life , Daniel Bensaïd, Verso, 2015. Editorial, Shift - Victor Serge — would raise hackles amongst ‘Soviet’ State. Amongst the Heterodox the toes, except when democracy is an obstacle ing Sands, Susan Watkins, Page 23, New Left Re - 10 view 61 second series 2010. those who have consigned it to Cold War po - contours of what became known as the to their factional manoeuvres. 5. Pages 42–3, Lars L. Lih, Lenin Rediscovered , litical “science”. 7 ‘Third Camp” position, standing neither with The new Workers Party (WP) of the minor - the Soviets nor the Imperialists but for inter - ity engaged in serious trade union work. But Brill 2005. 6. Page 97-8. TTCS . national socialism, began to see the light of years of this activity in Cold War 1950s Amer - STRANDS day. 7. Pages 5-6. TTCS . On Serge and Totalitarian - That 1940s Trotskyism divided into two ica drained their radical politics away. Apart ism see: Victor Serge: totalitarisme et capitalisme These opinions were met with hostility by strands is a claim that rests on an account from a radical faction, whose best-known fig - d’État , Philippe Bourrine, Fundación Andreu the SWP leadership around James P. Cannon. focused on North America. ure was , author of the landmark Nin, 2001. Trotsky’s intervention, in the early stages of In the 1940s the SWP (US) was the largest democratic Marxist Karl Marx’s Theory of Rev - 8. Chapter Five, Young Sidney Hook, Marxist the dispute — attacking the Heterodox in his and Pragmatist , Christopher Phelps, Cornell Uni - Trotskyist group in the world, whose several olution (5 vols. 1977), most of the remaining own right — give it lasting importance. He versity Press, 1997. thousand members had played a substantial members drifted from revolutionary Marx - did not condone the full scope of the actions 9. Pages, 268–9, and Page 280, TTCS . Pierre part in the trade union movement. The pub - ism towards the Democratic Party. Shacht - of the “Kremlin oligarchy”, but considered Broué, Trotsky . Chapter LIX, La Ive at la guerre , lication by Shachtman of criticisms of dialec - man’s evolved towards the “liberal that the “nationalisation of the means of pro - anti-Communism” of that Party -— in 1961 1998, Marxist Internet Archive. tical materialism from a “pragmatist” 10. Part 1, The Struggle for a Proletarian Party , duction” called for defence of the USSR, co - he refused to condemn the Bay of Pigs Inva - philosophical standpoint by James P. Cannon, 1943, Marxist Internet Archive. inciding with “preparation of the “world in the party’s theoretical journal, New Inter - sion and later supported the US over Viet - “Perhaps it is not generally known in the Inter - proletarian revolution”. For his biographer, national in 1938 was not universally wel - nam. With Burnham’s rightwards turn, after national that in the 1940 struggle in the SWP, the comed. Trotsky came down hard on the Burnham-Shachtman minority was supported “anti-dialecticians”, harbingers of open “anti- by the majority of the resident IEC of the Fourth International, at that time located in New York. Marxism”. Broader political differences … They claimed the formal right to spoke in the emerged. What Trotsky and his immediate name of the Fourth International” “The Conven - supporters called the “petty bourgeois” op - tion of the SWP (April, 1940) paid no attention position began to engage in open factional to the formalistic arguments which were un - warfare with the majority. This bitter quarrel doubtedly in their favour.” Letter from James P. was less over the value of the ABC of Materi - Cannon to Leslie Goonewardne. February. 23. alist Dialectics than on the nature of the So - 1954. Towards a History of the Fourth International viet Union and the SWP’s policies towards Part 3. Volume 4. Part 3. International Committee Stalinism. Documents. 1951-1954. Socialist Workers Party. By the late 1930s there as indeed a shift in 1974. 11. Chapter 4: 1, Heresies: Max Shachtman parts of the from an interest in and the evil empire, Trotskyism , Alex Callinicos, Marxism, including Trotskyism, towards Marxist Internet Archive, 1990. democratic “anti-totalitarianism” inside the Labor Action, the paper of the Workers Party, after Trotsky’s murder 12. Page 3, TTCS . 8 REVIEW More online at www.workersliberty.org An antidote for the persisting residue of Stalinism

Herman Benson was a founding turn. When the Trotskyists left the SP in 1937, between the two strands of Trotskyism in nection to workers’ revolution. In the U , most member, along with Max Shachtman, I, along with many other YPSLers, went with the 1940s? nominally “socialist” currents lost any distin - Hal Draper, and others, of the Workers them. I think the editor does a great job, although guishable socialist quality. Once, socialism Party, which broke from the US Socialist I mention this to explain why I never gave I may be prejudiced. For me, reading it at 100, meant concentration of industry in the hands Workers Party in 1940 following a clash much weight to the complaints against Can - it activates the juices of a 24-year old zealot. of the state (nationalised property) and a on attitudes to Stalin’s invasions of non’s bureaucratism. They [the “old-time One minor quibble, though: what’s the point planned economy in a democratic society. Poland and Finland. He was a member Trotskyists”] went through unexplained fac - of the final extract from Trotsky on dialectical Now, each group has transmuted socialism of its National Committee and labour tional frictions and personal combinations in materialism? into an amorphous dissatisfaction with the the Communist League of America (CLA, the status quo plus whatever their hearts desire. editor of its paper, Labor Action . Later, he founded the Association for first US Trotskyist group, founded by Can - Looking back, do you see any of those is - The perspective of a traditional socialist soci - Union Democracy and was its first non, Max Shachtman, and Martin Abern in sues in a new light? ety emerging from a workers’ revolution and Executive Director. 1929), not me. Even now, I don’t think our dis - Of course. More than half a century has a workers’ state has vanished and is not likely He spoke to Daniel Randall for putes of that period shed any light on the elapsed. The world refused to evolve as we to be revived here. In that atmosphere, the question of the party. hoped or expected. But that’s the big story. WP could not survive. Solidarity about the debates which are Old-timers could vent their grudges against The Workers Party/Independent Socialist examined in The fate of the Russian Cannon, but for me, and most in early oppo - League (WP/ISL) tradition didn’t hold up in Do you think the debates of 1939/40 have Revolution Volume 2: The two sition, the immediate issue was clear: the a discrete form, but rather diffused, in differ - relevance for socialists today? If so, what Trotskyisms confront Stalinism , in which some of his writing from the time is Russian invasion of Poland and Finland was ent ways and in different directions, into is it? included. an oppressive “imperialist” attack, to be con - other organisations. I believe there is a lot to learn from the old demned. WP/SWP dispute, not only for socialists, At that point, everybody would still be for Do you think that was inevitable? If not, Marxian and others, but for all crusaders for What, for you at the time, were the primary defence of the Soviet Union if it really came how could it have been avoided? social justice. In the broadest sense, it reminds motives for siding with the opposition in under attack. It took a long period of intricate I do think that the demise was “inevitable”, us that when our ideology appears somehow the 1939-40 battle? debate over complex ideological issues to free whatever that word means. Both sides in the to justify a horror or an act of oppression, In 1939, I was not an old-time Trotskyist. I even us from notions of defending one of the 1939/40 dispute counted on worldwide so - maybe there’s something flawed in our ideol - had joined the Young People’s Socialist most oppressive regimes in history. Some cialist revolutions in the post-war period. ogy. League (YPSL), the youth wing of Norman said, “we’re not defending the regime, only When capitalist democracies and Stalinist dic - More to the point, especially for me, those Thomas’s Socialist Party (SP), in 1930, at the nationalised property”. People like [Albert] tatorships emerged intact, the political-social discussions restore the defence of democracy age of 15. By the time the Trotskyists joined Goldman and [Felix] Morrow needed more foundation of that position was undermined. in society as a central theme not only for so - the SP, the depression, the rise of Hitler, and time. The WP splintered, and the SWP , as the book cialists but for all who seek social justice. the destruction of German Social Democratic describes, was transformed into something Reflection on those debates, for those Party turned me into a kind of Leninist, but Do you think The Fate of the Russian Rev - alien. who undertake it, is an antidote for the one repelled by crazy antics of “Third Period” olution Vol. 2 accurately conveys the sub - A kind of desiccated, academic Marxism persisting residue of Stalinist thinking in Stalinists and then by their popular-front stance and the balance of the disputes found refuge in the universities, without con - the labour and socialist movements. Verses from the first world war: Poets against profiteering

As the First World War progressed, Who shouts “Hooray!” and draws the cash. overseas military service). working-class people became more Hughes had told French daily newspa - “Well, we was jest abart fed up then, an’ we per , “All our sacrifices in the war aware, and resentful, of those If any kingly power on high Le Matin told ‘im to go to ‘ell, will be in vain if we leave to Germany the profiteering from their suffering. While Could hear our prayers as we invoke Or stop out here like us for a bit — which ‘ud means of recommencing the commercial men were wounded and died in the His aid, with blood and blasphemy, do pretty near as well. war”, and made similar calls while visiting trenches, and men, women and children Would he withhold the lightning stroke? We never though much of perlitical chaps, troops in France. at home suffered appalling poverty, Would not his lightnings rive the oak but this particular bloke — capitalists saw the war as an And raze the forest with a crash? A Practical Man? We don’t think; ‘e’s a b….. opportunity to make money. Nay, rather, they should strike the bloke The War To End War — New Style bad practical joke!” Poets addressed this with anger, Who shouts “Hooray!” and draws the cash. “We’ve ‘ad a perlitical bloke down ‘ere of a Albert Grieve’s poem was published on 9 mockery and wit. The three poems here most particular kind, were all published by anti-war labour Whether for him the freights are high, September 1916. ‘E was a Practical Man, ‘e ses, an’ ‘e spoke He also uses a refrain line, “Human life is movement newspaper The Herald a Whether he deals in coal or coke, ‘is practical mind; century ago in 1916. His yellow goblins will not fly, cheap to-day”, and like Dawson’s, could be An’ ‘e said, ‘Yer may lay the enemy out an’ set to music. Janine Booth Nor will he “in the wars be broke.” make no end of a splash, It is not ours to grouse and croak, Unfortunately, I have not been able to But wot’s the use of layin’ ‘im out if yer find out any definite information about Al - Writing from ‘Somewhere in France’, Pri - Our business is to smite and smash; don’t lay ‘old of the cash?’ But someone ought to watch the bloke bert, although there were several soldiers vate A.W. Dawson introduced his poem by of that name. quoting a corporal of the Royal West Who shouts “Hooray!” and draws the cash. “Well, we none of us came out ‘ere for cash, Kents: but simply to do our bit. “Ah! My boy, there’s blokes at home mak - Say, Corp’ral, chuck a chum a smoke But when we started explainin’ to ‘im, ‘e Profit and Loss ing money out of this business. They don’t Or I’ll be writing something rash pretty near ‘ad a fit; (A Song of the Profiteers) want it to stop.” About that baroneted bloke ‘You’re splendid fightin’ men,’ ‘e said, ‘an’ Who shouts “Hooray!” and draws the cash. Not of the fools am I who say Dawson used a poetic form originating in a credit to England’s flag; That war is waste and cannot pay. the country in which he was fighting. A “bal - But wot’s the good of fightin’ at all if you * Johnson (derived from US heavyweight Dear is grain, but I don’t complain, lade” (not the same thing as a ballad!) is a don’t get away with the swag?’ And human life is cheap to-day. medieval and Renaissance French “forme boxing champion Jack Johnson) was the British nickname for a heavy, black German fixe” — three eight-line stanzas followed by “An ‘e said, ‘You was unprepared for war, Why must these wage-slaves grumble, a final, four-line “envoi”, each with the same 15-cm artillery shell. Whizz-bangs were an’ for peace it will be the same’; shells from German 77mm field guns. pray? last line (the refrain). Traditionally, the envoi But we answered, ‘Soldierin’ isn’t our job, No sacrifice too great, I say. addresses a prince; Private Dawson’s ad - but we’re learnin’ the rules o’ the game, Our purpose one is to crush the Hun, M B (Maurice Benington) Reckitt was a dresses his corporal. An’ now that we’ve got our ‘and in’ — But For human life is cheap to-day. The Herald published this poem on 30 guild socialist and one of the founders of ‘e larfed at us louder still — the National Guilds League in 1915. September 1916. ‘Wot are you getting’ your ‘and in for if yer To it, my soldiers! Win the day, Later in life, he wrote extensively on Chris - don’t get it into the till?’ And steal the Teutons’ trade away tian Socialism, and the MB Reckitt Trust con - Ballade of Merchant Princes The land I feed, and you may bleed, tinues to fund projects concerned with “Then ‘e told us as ‘ow the blood an’ the For human life is cheap to-day. The Johnsons* and the whizz-bangs* fly, Christian social action. mud and’ the ‘ellish kind of a strain The air is thick with dust and smoke; His poem, written in his native Yorkshire O’ sticking’ out this blinkin’ war would all (Chorus). Above the woods the summer sky vernacular and published on 8 July, is a satir - of it be in vain War is waste the cranks have said; Laughs at the Devil’s ghastly joke, ical response to Billy Hughes, Labor Prime Unless while we was chargin’ the foe an’ We gamble in ships, and coal, and bread, I think of comfortable folk Minister of Australia (later National Party gettin’ ‘im on the run And this is the burden of our lay; Who in the City cut a dash; Prime Minister after Labor expelled him for The blokes at home what collar the ‘oof ‘ad Human life is cheap to-day. Ah, me! That fat and pursy bloke attempting to introduce conscription for collared the trade o’ the ‘Un. Workers’ Liberty @workersliberty FEATURE 9 Lies, damned lies, and Jeremy Hunt’s statistics

SCIENCE

By Les Hearn The government’s argument in their at - tack on junior doctors’ pay and conditions has been that they had a manifesto com - mitment to introduce seven-day access to all aspects of health care and that this was necessary to reduce excess deaths among weekend hospital admissions. The government’s approach seems to amount to forcing junior doctors to work more at weekends for less pay. But, unless they also force them to work longer hours, this must reduce the number of doctors on weekdays. If the original problem of excess deaths was due to a lack of junior doctors at weekends, the result would be to equalise death rates by lowering death rates following weekend admissions and raising those fol - lowing weekday admissions. Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt was very keen to talk about the evidence of excess deaths to justify his actions and, of course, evidence is very important. He claimed “We now have seven independent studies show - ing mortality is higher for patients admitted at weekends.” We will look at this evidence. The DH says there is significant evidence of a “weekend effect” where patients admit - ted over the weekend have higher rates of illness. Nevertheless, the authors try to ex - examination by consultants, makes no spe - tors but more about lack of senior staff and mortality. 1 The DH lists eight pieces of what plain what they persist in describing as an cific mention of doctors. It does identify a services. they call research in support. overly increased rate. substantial need for more funding, not so far 8. The final paper (Temple, 2010) refers to 1. The major study cited by DH is from the They cite: reduced or altered staffing and addressed by DH. trainees (i.e., junior doctors) being unsup - British Medical Journal (Freemantle et al., mix of skills at weekends; impact of shift sys - 4. NHS Services, Seven Days a Week ported and unsupervised (according to DH 2015): 2 one of its co-authors is Bruce Keogh, tem; fewer senior staff available; more staff Forum also quotes Freemantle et al. (2012). 3 website: the paper itself seems no longer National Medical Director of NHS England. who are unfamiliar with policies; and need It then discusses 7-day services wholly in available — “404 page not found”). Nothing It found that death rates were higher for pa - for more prompt treatment than available. terms of increases in the availability of con - justifying pay cuts and increased weekend tients admitted on Fridays (2% higher), Sat - They give the example of treatment for hip sultants. Juniors are mentioned in the context working for juniors. urdays (10% higher), Sundays (15% higher) fractures which should be very prompt but of benefiting from the advice and supervision The DH’s evidence is aimed at supporting and Mondays (5%) than on other days. Since they admit that their figures showed no sig - of more consultants, which would reduce the the idea of a 7-day NHS but they themselves, the overall death rate within 30 days for all nificant difference for this condition. Nothing need for such a large number at weekends, in their introduction, only mention urgent admissions is 1.8%, this means that the 15%- about the need for more junior doctors at while improving their medical education and and emergency care and consultant cover. higher Sunday rate is 2.1% or 3 in 1000 weekends, still less that Saturdays should be training. There is nothing about junior doctors. “extra” deaths. We need to understand why counted as part of the normal week and that 5. This is Freemantle et al. (2012) 3 and is es - Of the eight papers, only three provided and this is where it is important to look at junior doctors should have this part of their sentially the same as the first paper. data and these were updated samples of the how ill patients are on the day of admission. pay cut. 6. Seven Day Consultant Present Care 5 calls same type of data; one showed that the NHS Freemantle et al. (2012) 3 tentatively say that for daily reviews of patients by consultants “weekend effect” was international; the other RISK “It may be that... 7-day access to all aspects and consultant-recommended treatments to four called for more consultant support and The study informs us that, while 29% of of care could improve outcomes for higher be available seven days a week. Support hospital services at weekends and increased weekday admissions are emergencies, on risk patients...admitted at the weekend.” services should also be available seven days funding; none mentioned junior doctors Saturdays the figure is 50% and on Sun - They then say that the economics need look - a week both in hospitals and in primary care apart from their need for more senior sup - day 65%. ing at to see if this is “an efficient use of scarce (general practice etc.). port. There is one very simple possible expla - Using another criterion, mortality risk from resources.” The update, Freemantle et al. nation for this — people are admitted at all factors except day of admission, while (2015), 2 states that “It is not possible to ascer - JUNIORS weekends because they have to be — they are 20% of weekday admissions were in the tain the extent to which these excess deaths No mention of juniors except that their much more ill. highest category, 25% on Saturdays and 29% may be preventable; to assume that they are training would benefit from the wider Jeremy Hunt’s attack on junior doctors’ on Sundays were in this highest risk of dying avoidable would be rash and misleading.” availability of consultants. No support for pay and conditions (like his support for group. On these bases, we would expect an They draw attention to the reduced level of Hunt’s attack on junior doctors. homoeopathy) completely lacks evidence. increased death rate for weekend admissions support services at weekends and state that 7 This (Aylin et al.) 6 is research on death of anywhere between 25% and 125%. The ob - “There is evidence that junior hospital doc - rates among emergency admissions. It pre - served “excess” of 15% on Sundays should tors feel clinically exposed during the week - dates the Freemantle papers and the latter in - be a cause for congratulation. end.” This does not mean there are too few corporate its findings. It found a 10% higher This paper is an update of the previous junior doctors on duty but that the support death rate at weekends. It wasn’t able to rule Notes study by Freemantle et al. (2012) 3 (see 5 services and senior staff are not sufficient. 1. https://www.gov.uk/government/publica - out that emergency admissions at weekends tions/research-into-the-weekend-effect-on-hospi - below), also including Keogh. The findings Nothing about cutting juniors’ pay and forc - (of which there were fewer than during the ing them to do more weekend shifts! They tal-mortality/research-into-the-weekend-effect-o were broadly similar except that the death week) were different in some way. Freeman - n-patient-outcomes-and-mortality rate on Saturdays and Sundays were very signally fail, in fact, to address the question tle et al. (2012; 2015) 3,2 showed that they were 2. Increased mortality associated with weekend significantly lower than the average for in their paper’s title: “a case for expanded different, with more in the highest risk cate - hospital admission: a case for expanded seven weekdays. In the update this curious fact, seven day services?” gory. day services? Freemantle et al. 2015 4 which certainly needs discussion and expla - 2. Ruiz et al. shows that there is a “week - Interestingly, they suggest that cancer pa - http://www.bmj.com/content/351/bmj.h4596 nation, is barely mentioned. end effect” in other countries where “the par - tients in a terminal condition were more 3. Weekend hospitalization and additional risk of To summarise, death rates for admissions ticipating hospitals represent varied models likely to be admitted to hospital at weekends death: An analysis of inpatient data. Freemantle on Saturdays and Sundays are increased by of service delivery.” Nothing special about et al. 2012 http://jrs.sagepub.com/content/ because of a lack of community and primary 105/2/74.full.pdf+html 10 to 15% but death rates for those already in the NHS, then! care options then. This would skew the death 3. The East Midlands 7 Day Services Project 4. The Global Comparators project: international hospital are reduced by 5 to 8%. Thus, the rates of cancer patients in hospitals. Aylin et comparison of 30-day in-hospital mortality by main source of support for the government’s merely quotes the results of Freemantle et al. al. say that this “may be a whole health sys - 3 day of the week Seven Day NHS plans does not provide any (2012). It provides no further evidence but tem problem.” They quote studies showing 5. from Academy of Medical Royal Colleges evidence for it. The weekend death rates for discusses how services might be expanded. that there is no “weekend effect” in intensive 6. Weekend mortality for emergency admissions. all patients are in fact far lower than one It talks of increasing access to diagnostic serv - care units, attributing this to the high level of A large, multicentre study would predict from the seriousness of their ices but, apart from calling for a more speedy consultant input. Nothing about junior doc - 7. Professor Sir John Temple: Time for Training @workersliberty Where we stand More online at www.workersliberty.org Workers’ Liberty Today one class, the working class, lives by selling its labour power to another, the capitalist class, which owns Labour youth and student conferences the means of production. socialism, capitalism, Trident and The capitalists’ control over the economy and their relentless LABOUR war; and get stuck into campaign - drive to increase their wealth causes poverty, unemployment, ing on issues from free education to the blighting of lives by overwork, imperialism, the destruction By Michael Elms voter registration and nuclear dis - of the environment and much else. armament. This influx of new life will be re - Against the accumulated wealth and power of the capitalists, On the weekend of 26-28 Febru - ary, the Annual General Meetings flected at the Labour Students the working class must unite to struggle against capitalist of Labour Students and Young AGM, where leftwing delegates power in the workplace and in wider society. Labour will be held in Scarbor - will bring motions on Free Educa - The Alliance for Workers’ Liberty wants socialist revolution: ough. tion, Trident and rebuilding the Previously a bastion of the NHS, as well as standing a slate of collective ownership of industry and services, workers’ control, Labour has no constitution of its Blairite right, with a reputation for socialists calling for the renewal of and a democracy much fuller than the present system, with own and is regarded by some party venal careerism, sinister banality the organisation as a socialist youth elected representatives recallable at any time and an end to officials with deep suspicion. (networking events!), and barely- movement. Following a push by Corbyn bureaucrats’ and managers’ privileges. legal bureaucratic skulduggery, The rightwingers in charge of the supporters to get delegates elected, We fight for trade unions and the Labour Party to break with Labour Students has been buffeted political machine that brought you the make-up of the conference floor by the winds of change following Jim Murphy and Jack Straw are un - “social partnership” with the bosses and to militantly assert looks leftwing, and the prospects Jeremy Corbyn’s election. likely to give up without a fight. working-class interests. for a soft-left sweep of the commit - Across the UK, Labour Clubs Punishing transport and accommo - tee are not bad. have seen a surge of interest from dation costs in addition to hefty In workplaces, trade unions, and Labour organisations; But the most important thing that leftwing young people from Sep - ticket prices for the event form a Young Labour activists can decide among students; in local campaigns; on the left and in tember. first line of defence; and the Blairite to do at this year’s conference is wider political alliances we stand for: This has, naturally, been met faction in Labour Students has simple: build local groups! Young with horror from the outgoing form for spirited hi-jinks such as • Independent working-class representation in politics. Labour groups are few and far be - leadership. Blairite chieftains is - cheerfully locking leftwingers in • A workers’ government, based on and accountable to the tween at the constituency level. The sued instructions to Club chairs cupboards to keep them from the many young people coming into labour movement. over the summer to not hold any podium... but friends of Solidarity the Labour Party need local organ - • A workers’ charter of trade union rights — to organise, to meetings in the event of a Corbyn report that they are confident that isations, with independent life, and win, in the hope that left-leaning this year will see big and overdue strike, to picket effectively, and to take solidarity action. connections to neighbourhoods new members might not notice the changes in Labour’s student wing. • Taxation of the rich to fund decent public services, homes, and communities. existence of Labour Clubs, and The remainder of the weekend education and jobs for all. Instead of city-wide or region- leave them alone. will be taken up with the AGM of • wide Young Labour groups that A workers’ movement that fights all forms of oppression. The results of this strategy have Young Labour, the organisation for hold big-ticket events with MPs Full equality for women, and social provision to free women been disappointing. From Glasgow all Labour members under the age once in a blue moon, the Labour to Brighton, Labour Clubs have of 27. from domestic labour. For reproductive justice: free abortion on Party needs a youth wing that seen leftwingers sweep Club Com - The conference will elect a new demand; the right to chose when and whether to have children. can be both an activist force and mittee elections and organise dis - leadership and debate policy — it - Full equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. the seed-bed of a renewed so - cussions about big issues like self a concession wrung from years Black and white workers’ unity against racism. of leftwing agitation, as Young cialist left. • Open borders. • Global solidarity against global capital — workers everywhere have more in common with each other than with Right-wing press attacks Momentum activists their capitalist or Stalinist rulers. • Democracy at every level of society, from the smallest process. The Telegraph headline claims By Sacha Ismail Gilligan’s attacks focuses on indi - that Momentum wants a “ruthless workplace or community to global social organisation. viduals. One Momentum Steering purge” in Labour, but in fact it is • Equal rights for all nations, against Following the first democratic national committee meeting for Committee member, as a student the Telegraph obviously pushing for imperialists and predators big and small. union sabbatical officer, criticised a witch-hunt against Momentum. Momentum, the Daily Telegraph • Maximum left unity in action, and has published an attack, written pro-war Remembrance events and The more Momentum develops, openness in debate. by notorious right-wing hack An - defended his fellow officer’s deci - the more attacks it will face. It drew Gilligan, on people elected sion not to take part. needs to stand firm in the face of If you agree with us, please take from the meeting to the Momen - Another stood as a socialist can - the assault and defend the com - didate against Harriet Harman... rades being targeted. some copies of to sell — tum steering committee, as well Solidarity as on the organisation more six years ago. Another — shock, More generally, it needs a clear and join us! broadly. horror — is part of an organisation campaigning agenda — mobilis - ing its supporters to fight for The article is full of lies and in - that defends migrants and Labour election victories, ventions, including a claim that refugees. And so on. to shake up the party, and to the Momentum NC was appointed All the claims have elements of campaign on big issues like the — when in fact, following some ar - lying in them, but mostly NHS — so that it can pro-actively guments in Momentum, it was these comrades are being attacked Events simply for being socialists. push forward regardless of the elected by a more democratic Thursday 18 February Saturday 27 February right wing’s shrieking. Workers’ Liberty London Forum: Stop Trident National How to save the NHS Demonstration 7pm, Indian YMCA, London, 12 noon, Marble Arch, London Campaign for Socialism AGM discusses way forward W1T 6AQ bit.ly/stoptrident bit.ly/NHSLDNforum Saturday 5 March By Brendan Menezes from the press, and the fact that the Monday 22 February March against Lambeth library election of Jeremy Corbyn to the Barnet Momentum public cuts The Scottish Labour Campaign Labour leadership was “a once in a meeting with John McDonnell 10.30, Brixton Library, London, for Socialism (CfS) held their lifetime opportunity”. MP SW2 1JQ AGM on Sunday 14th February. The AGM itself passed a range of 7pm, Middlesex University, Lon - bit.ly/LambethLibrariesMarch The meeting heard of “Labour motions on energy policy (the don, NW4 4BT plans in both Scotland and the UK North Sea oil industry and taxa - bit.ly/stoptrident Sunday 6 March to re-frame the current political de - tion), abortion rights, and tempo - Stop Turkey’s war on the Kurds! bate and provide a genuine eco - rary employment contracts, and Thursday 25 February Break the silence! National nomic alternative to Tory and SNP elections were held for the execu - tion). SLYS previously saw great Tyne & Wear Momentum demonstration austerity.” tive in which Neil Findlay was success after winning a clean slate meeting: Fight to save the NHS 1pm, Trafalgar Square, London Before the AGM, an open meet - elected convenor. of positions at the Scottish Young 7pm, Tyneside Irish Centre, New - bit.ly/kurdishdemo ing was held with talks by Lesley Most notably, it was ratified into Labour conference last year. castle, NE1 4SG Brennan MSP and the Shadow the constitution that the Scottish The meeting concluded with bit.ly/TyneNHS Chancellor, John McDonnell MP, Labour Young Socialists (SLYS) the presentation of a Valentine’s who spoke at length about democ - would formally become the youth Day card signed by SLYS mem - ratising the economy at the macro wing of CfS (although fully retain - bers to John McDonnell, which Got an event you want listing? Email level, the personal pressure he faces ing its autonomy as an organisa - was very gratefully received. [email protected] REPORTS 10-11 E-ballot or no, fight the Bill By Gemma Short ment allowing e-ballots for the FE colleges pay strike Conservative party mayoral selec - tion but not for unions. However By a lecturer A leaked letter from Business Innovation and Skills minister the pitfall that always existed in this tactic has now come to bite us, On Wednesday 24 February Nick Boles to Oliver Letwin and we may be given e-ballots as a workers in Further Education Chris Grayling shows the gov - way of passing all the rest of the (FE) colleges in England will ernment is considering some attacks on our class in the bill. strike over pay. ″concessions″ in order to en - Our movement shouldn′t, and University and College Union sure the Trade Union Bill is should never have, suggest we are (UCU) members struck in Novem - passed in the House of Lords. anything but opposed to the Trade ber but this time they will be joined The letter, dated 26 January, sug - Union Bill full-stop. We are con - by workers who are organised by gests that the government is wor - ceding to the government med - Unison. ried that the threshold provisions dling in our unions′ democratic The dispute is in response to the for strike ballots will not be passed imposition of a pay freeze by the in the House of Lords. They pro - processes. employer organisation, the Associ - pose to commit to conducting a re - At the Campaign for Trade ation of Colleges. Imposing a pay view into allowing the use of Union Freedom London rally on award without union agreement is electronic ballots for strikes, some - Thursday 11 February, union lead - an unprecedented action by the thing the TUC and most unions ers including Dave Prentis talked employers, but to be expected have made a prominent part of left, saying we should not settle given the confidence of the em - their campaign against the Bill. for e-ballots. However, not one ployers. This does not mean that e-bal - person on the platform made sug - Why are they confident? There lots will become a reality. There is gestions for where the campaign has been no serious challenge from ritual strategy of striking to protest ucation, to begin this work and we currently no time-frame on when against the bill will or should go the unions to a year on year attack rather than to win. One and two should call on and unite with the any such review must report and now. on pay and conditions. The average day strikes are easily absorbed by new forces of anti-austerity in the no guarantee it will report in The letter also suggests that the FE lecturer has lost £5,950 in pay an employer in a further education Labour Party to stand with us. favour of e-ballots. Boles says in government may remove the re - over the last six years resulting setting. We need a strike of all workers in the letter ″I would not propose quirement for picket supervisors from a collapse in the level of pay We need to make the 24 February post-16 education and it needs to that we should also announce the to wear an identifying armband awards and increment and scale a solid and loud protest against the be indefinite. We have to unite the period in which the review would and provide their details, but ille - negotiations. All this is bathed in assault on further education but it grievances in higher education, fur - report, although I expect us to gal picketing would still become a the background radiation of the must also be the beginning of an ther education, sixth forms and come under pressure to do so.″ criminal offence not a civil one. systematic dismantling of further urgent debate in our unions on academies because the govern - Tellingly the letter says ″there E-ballots or not, the cam - education, now happening in the strategies to win, and with urgency. ments has united them in a strategy are areas of the Bill where we paign against the Trade Union form of the government’s area re - We cannot wait for a general elec - to bend and contort education to fit could make changed .... without Bill must continue. views. tion, there will be nothing left of the the needs of big business, in fact, to significantly defeating its primary Our trade unions have called for post-16 education system our class make post-16 education a big busi - purpose.″ • Read the leaked letter: an increase in pay of £1 per hour for needs by then. ness. This is a clear response to the bit.ly/TUbillleak all college staff. This is a unifying We need emergency conferences, Let us educate ourselves on TUC′s campaign, which largely fo - • Unite adopts policy of defiance demand, which is good, but the uniting all the unions in post-16 ed - how to win. cussed on the need to e-ballots on Trade Union Bill: problem is it is attached to the now and the hypocrisy of the govern - bit.ly/TUbillunite Tube workers to vote on deal

particularly for drivers. barely keeps By Ollie Moore Although RMT and Aslef are rec - pace with in - London Underground workers in ommending their members accept flation, and the RMT and Aslef unions have the offer, many activists are mobil - will be begun voting on an offer from ising a no vote. Unite, which also negated by the company aimed at settling has members on the Tube, has re - increases in A Sisters Uncut activist was arrested in Portsmouth on 9 February after disputes over pay and “Night jected the deal. employee activists threw 4,745 pieces of confetti into the council chamber to represent Tube”. A supporter of the Tubeworker National In - the number of domestic violence incidents in the city to protest budget cuts. The company’s proposed settle - bulletin told Solidarity , “multi-year surance contri - See bit.ly/1RJ7qDV for more information. ment is a four-year deal, giving in - deals stack things in management’s butions. creases in basic pay of 1% or RPI favour. While we’re restricted from “The elements of the offer relat - (whichever is higher) until 2019. fighting over all-grades issues like ing to work/life balance are vague ENO singers ballot over cuts The offer also includes a bonus for pay and terms and conditions, promises rather than firm commit - implementing Night Tube, and management has a free hand to ments, and don’t apply to all staff. England was cut by £5m a year. A “We should reject this offer By Peggy Carter commitments to explore schemes plan their next round of cuts. strike would not be unprecedented, “The deal is pretty shoddy on its and reinstate industrial action to for improving work/life balance, Chorus singers at the English chorus singers struck in 2003 under own terms; the pay increase offered push for a better one.” National Opera may strike after similar circumstances. The com - the company announced plans pany was given an emergency for four redundancies and a pay grant by the Arts Council that time, cut of at least 25%. something which wont happen this The singers′ union, Equity, is bal - time. Paramedics win victory over pay Equity members have labelled loting them for strikes, and has the cuts as ″cultural vandalism″. pay deal, though they went on to launched a public campaign to op - By a paramedic refuse to fund this. pose the cuts. Yorkshire unions were the first to The cuts come after the com - • Sign the petition: Paramedics in Yorkshire ambu - ballot on the issue. An informal pany′s subsidy from Arts Council bit.ly/ENOpetition lance service from Unison, Unite ballot of Unison (the majority and GMB have won a victory on union) paramedic members pay after a long battle on the showed 97.9% for action on a 76% Coventry bins unofficial strike issue. return, and a formal ballot had Paramedics have had a massive been prepared. The day before it Bin workers in Coventry staged in support of two other union increase in their responsibilities in went out the Trust agreed re-band - our members a lot of confidence an unofficial strike last Tuesday members who were facing discipli - recent years and pressure has been ing. that we can win through a strategy (9 February) over the suspension nary hearings. building nationally for this to be re - It’s a sectional dispute and of industrial action. of a colleague. Workers went back to work on flected in pay. Last year the govern - there’s still elements to fight on. We Other ambulance branches The strike, which lasted a day, Wednesday 10 February and ment recognised this, including a need to use this victory to broaden have had their eyes on Yorkshire happened after a union representa - their union, Unite, is planning a call for issues of recruitment and re - out gains for all our members. But over this, and there’s a possibility tive was sacked for putting up a ballot for official strikes if the tention to be addressed in the NHS it’s been a big success and given of a national ballot. poster advertising a demonstration union rep is not reinstated. SolidaFor a workers’ giovertnment y No 394 17 February 2016 50p/£1 SYRIA: THE NON-CEASEFIRE for a long term and durable ces - permanent war? All sides must By Simon Nelson sation of violence”, and rebel be forced to the negotiating table On 12 February, talks in Mu - spokesman Salim al-Muslat told instead of sparking a new world nich produced an agreement reporters: “If we see action and war”. to implement a so-called ces - implementation, we will see you Russia’s aim is to force the US sation of hostilities in Syria very soon in Geneva”, but the and its allies to settle for acquies - within a week, and allow the rebels do not believe that the cence with the Assad regime. It is delivery of aid to besieged agreement will produce a real ramping up the violence so as to areas. ceasefire. present that as the only alterna - On 15 February, however, The Munich deal should at tive to chaos and increased Unicef said that Russia had least allow some new supplies to bloodshed. bombed three hospitals in rebel- get in to besieged areas, but No big faction in Syria, nor any held areas, and it is explicit that it Ra’ad al Hussein, the UN’s High of their major international back - will not cease its air strikes Commissioner for Human ers, is able to believe that current against rebel forces. Turkey Rights, said: “The warring parties negotiations can really bring a shelled the positions of Syrian- in Syria are constantly sinking to cessation of hostilities. Kurdish forces on every one of new depths, without apparently The power play between the the three days following the Mu - caring in the slightest about the Gulf states, the US, the EU, Iran nich agreement. In fact, the risk of death and destruction they are and Russia continues to drag on, direct clashes between Russia wreaking across the country. leaving the Syrian people to suf - and Turkey in Syria has in - “Women and children, the eld - fer at their hands. creased, rather than decreased, erly, the wounded and sick, the The International Business Times since the agreement. disabled are being used as bar - (13 February) reports a count by The agreement explicitly al - gaining chips and cannon fodder Turkish officials of around lowed for bombing against day after day, week after week, 100,000 Syrian refugees living in Daesh to continue. The Assad month after month”. nine ad hoc refugee camps set up regime said on 15 February that a Confirming that Syria remains inside Syria near the Turkish bor - “ceasefire” did not mean it stuck in a war of attrition, Russ - der, and a tenth being built. Further floods of refugees would “stop using weapons”. ian prime minister Dimitri are likely. Europe — and Britain US Secretary of State John Medvedev said: “The Americans — should urgently open their Kerry insists that the UN will and our Arab partners must think doors to these refugees. “work to develop the modalities hard about this — do they want a

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