Socialist Action (LSA) Vol. 3, No. 2, February 1980
A different group, and a different paper from the IMG’s Socialist Action of 1983–88. The League for Socialist Action were supporters of the US Socialist Workers Party’s tendency in the Fourth International who split from the IMG in 1976 and rejoined it in 1982.
The scan: Socialist Action v3 no2 Feb 1980.pdf (PDF, Marxists Internet Archive)
Uncorrected machine reading of the whole issue. This text was read by machine (Apple Vision OCR) from the scan and has not been corrected or cut into articles. Each page gives the headlines first, then the columns in order, so one article runs on into the next. Expect misread words. Use it to find things; quote from the scan.
Page 1 scan of this page
Socialist
MASS ACTION AGAINST CUTS
-ABORTION-THE FIGHT GOES ON
FIGHT
Demonstration against closure of hospitals in East London By TIM ROBINSON (NALGO Rep)
The cuts in social services announced by Geoffrey Howe last year were only the first spicy dish to emerge from the Tory kitchen. The latest one - the Tory White Paper for the coming year - is spicier yet. Over 3½ billion is going to be lopped off public spending this time.
Sabina Roberts (Streatham CLP) On Feb 5th, John Corrie's anti-abortion Bill has its third and final reading. Backed by a strong Tory majority, the Bill - if passed -will set the clock back on women's rights with a vengence.
Not only does it cut down the 'time limit' for abortions (from 28 to 20 weeks) and make abortions virtually impossible unless there is a 'severe risk' to a woman's physical health. It also -
* toughens up on the 'consci-
Hence clause to allow doctors to opt opt out;
* places a ban on
advertising;
* prevents abortion counsell-
Action
FIGHT HE THE CUT THE CUTS SAVE SAV
JOB JOBS
axed.
abortion clinics.
thirds. This means, in simple
horrors of the back-streets.
FIRST STEP
A Socialist Paper - Published in the Interests of Working People
Labour Leaders Must Launch
FIGHT
THE CUTS SAVE JOBS
What this means in concrete terms, of course, is only too clear. Hospitals will be run down to boost "private medicine". Schools will be closed - and teachers sacked - to allow the rich greater "freedom of choice". Local authority spending on Old People's Homes, housing and other social services will be
While the rich live it up on
Wing services referring women for abortions;
* makes it virtually imposs-
Bible to get information about the charitable
As Corrie himself admits, the net result of these measures will be to cut back the number of legal abortions per year by two
terms, that thousands of women will be driven once again either to have a child they don't want (& cannot afford) or return to the
Corrie's Bill - the third attempt by the anti-abortion lobby to
FIGHT • cou
THE CUTS E
SAVE
JOBS
Photo: I Mclntosh (IFL)
Howe's tax concessions, 1980 will be a pretty bleak year for the young, the old, the sick - and working people generally - who will be expected to foot the bill.
JOBS These savage inroads into the welfare state will not only mean, however, longer hospital and housing queues stretching into the
erode the 1967 Act - will not just, however, take women's abortion rights back to the stone age. It will also be used to cut into women's rights in all those areas which depend on fertility control.
Employment is one example. The Tories will doubtless use the climate whipped up by the Act to push ahead with their plans for mass unemployment. Seeking to pit men against women in the scramble for jobs that will open up, they will throw thousands of women out of the workforce into the home (where they "belong' bringing up children.
Other examples will follow. The Bill will also be used to
next decade. They'Il have a drastic
to a halt?
selves expect - at a conservative figure - to reach 1.65 million by the end of the year.
sector have to be "self-financing". What this means is that local government employees will be
A taste of what is to come can already be seen in Thatcher's decision to freeze all recruitment into the Civil Service.
REACTION Thatcher's callous attack has, of course, sparked off vigorous
to the TUC which has condemned
They are no doubt aware of the groundswell of opinion mounting
and campaigns up and down the country to prevent the cuts from being steamrollered through.
10,000 strong demonstration against the cuts in education last
"justify' cutting back on women's equal rights to pay and promotion since - it will be argued - a woman is prey to 'unplanned pregnancies' and therefore more unreliable than a man.
TUC ACTION
for the mass demonstration last October - which mobilised over
Corrie is not just of concern to women - who were, and are, in the front line.
February 1980 effect on jobs. What will happen to the teachers and nurses as hospitals and schools close? What will happen to the local authority direct labour force as building programmes grind
They'll be forced out onto the dole queues which the Tories them-
And that's not all. The Thatcher government has already announced that any pay increases in the public
expected to pay for their own wage rises by butchering their own jobs. protests from the Shadow Cabinet
the cuts as vicious and uncalled-for.
among the rank-and-file which has led to the setting up of committees
Teachers in London launched a
cont. on page 10
This is why the TUC's support
60,000 - was so important. It was a recognition that the fight against
It was also a recognition that it is in the interests of all working people to oppose measures which cont. on page 8
See page 4
Price 15 p Issues
in Steel
Strike
* A decent living standard.
British steel workers were
offered a humiliating 4% at
a time when inflation is
running at 17% (and esti-
mated to reach 20% by the
end of the year). To accept
the offer would mean a cut
in real wages. * The right to Work. At the
same time as the humiliat-
ing offer was made, Villiers
(BSC Chairman) announced
that almost 60,000 jobs
would have to go to make
the industry profitable'. To
accept the offer would
mean allowing the bosses
to solve their crisis by
throwing thousands on the
dole * Democratic rights. The
steelworkers have defended
their case by picketing
private steel companies and
drawing in the support of
dockers, miners and rail-
waymen. This "secondary
picketing (as it is called)
is in direct defiance of the
Tories attempts to muzzle
the unions. ....AND HOW YOU CAN SUPPORT IT * Stop steel moving. Make
the strike solid in the
private sector, get dockers
and railwaymen to refuse
to touch it. * Organise a meeting in your
workplace to raise donat-
ions for the steel strike. * Pass resolutions in your
union/Labour Party branch
supporting the steel strike
and calling on the Labour
leaders to give it their full
backing.
NO RETURN TO
BACK STREET
APARTIONS
BORTION ON DEMAND NOW
Page 2 scan of this page
Labour Lefts Organise
page 2
On November 16th - at the mass
anti-cuts rally in Central London -
Jim Callaghan was almost booed
off the platform. He was booed
simply because thousands of trade
unionists realise that he has no
intention of fighting the cuts or
any of the other anti-working
class policies Thatcher is pursuing.
This groundswell among the
union rank-and-file has already begun to perculate into the Labour
Party where activists increasingly
feel the need to challenge the right-
wing policies which lost Labour
the last election and which
restrict the Tory fight to Parliamentary "shadow-boxing'.
This was shown most clearly at the last Labour Party conference
where Callaghan - • despite vigorous backing from the Tory press -
came in for stringent criticism.
Significant was the fact that, unable to rely on the block votes of the unions, shifting left under Thatcher's attacks, decisive victories were chalked up against him on the question of party
democracy.
DIO
FICUTS
NEW FORMATION
This growing chailenge to the right-wing leaders has been headed most clearly by the lefts around Tony Benn. Taking their distance from the Shadow Cabinet, it has been Benn and his allies who have moved in behind the democracy issue and who have begun to identity with the growing anti-Tory struggles erupting around the country.
It was, after all, the Labour Party NEC which launched the mass anti-cuts rally late last year. It was Benn and his supporters who identified with (and spoke at) the demonstration against the Tory immigration proposals led by CARL in late November and the anti-Corrie lobby slightly earlier.
Partly in response to this growing pressure, Benn and his allies set up late last year the Labour Party Coordinating Citee (LCC) as a medium for organising
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this growing opposition to the Callaghan right-wing. Gaining support from a number of Constituency Labour Parties and trade union branches, the LCC has held a number of regional conferences to open up a debate on those policies which should constitute an opposition platform.
LIMITED?
There can be no doubt - as many on the left have spelled out - that the formation of the LCC is a clear response to the growing anti-Tory feeling building up among Labour rank-and-file and their frustration with the rightwing Callaghan leadership.
There can equally be no doubt that many of its leaders - who refused to oppose Callaghan's policies when in office LCC as channelling this frustration into paths useful to them in the inter-parliamentary feuds that are now opening up. Figures now opposing the Tory cut-backs kept very quiet when Jim Callaghan rammed through similar measures in 1976!
1UT
WITH (UTC IN wint HEALTH
CUTS
WILL
POTENTIAL
While ail these criticisms are valid, however, that is by no means the end of the matter. Whatever its leaders may feel, for thousands of activists, the LCC represents a means of seeking a coherent alternative to the policies of the present Labour leaders. Many labour and trade union members view the LCC as a real forum for hammering out a new programme that will be capable of rallying the labour movement in opposition to the Tory threat.
How far the LCC will go down this road is, of course, too early to say. It is still in an embryonic stage. The openness of its meetings so far, however, to exchange ideas and learn trom common experience would seem to suggest it is not a "closed-in' formation with 'rigid ideas.
The fact that Benn himself has been willing to co-sponsor a mass conference in March to debate out with lett groups (outside the Labour Labour Party) the way forward for socialism in the years ahead is indicative of an open-minded approach which is to be welcomed. Certainly, it compares well with the dogmatic and inward-looking approach of others.
OUTWARD-GOING Clearly, she test of the LCC - its ability to sink roots and grow -will depend in large measure on its ability to link up with and reflect the real struggles that are now
to defence of abortion rights. • see the
growth in the years ahead.
MASS PARTY?
out of the LCC meetings -
75,000
HOSPITAL STAFF
SAY STOR
TAGUTS
(1
turn it once again into a "mass
past decades, such a question is hardly unimportant.
the ability of the "left", in the
their rights and living standards against the Tories.
who have drifted out under the
forces that a real fight can be roots firmly based inside"
DEMOCRACY
The struggle for an alternative leadership in the Labour Party is
developing against the Tories on
issues as diverse as the steel strike
That certain strands inside the LCC are aware of this can be seen most clearly from Peter Hain's comments at the Manchester LCC
meeting in December when he said: "The party is far too committed to parliamentarianism, so avoiding creating a mass movement outside capable of exerting sufficient power to make social change feasible ...".
Hain's comments mark a welcome change from the past where left-wing opposition in the Labour Party was considered a matter of pious resolution-passing and not participation in the living struggles. It is this attitude - which sees the need of Labour activists identifying with and helping to build the anti-cuts struggle, the fight against racist and anti-abortion laws - which will offer the LCC a real potential for
One of the main concerns to come
particularly the Manchester con-
TEr
debate. ference last month - was how to "revivify" the Labour Party, how to
party". Considering the decline in Labour Party membership over the
Building the Labour Party, however, is not an organisational question. It is deeply linked with
coming years, to identify with and promote those campaigns working people are forced into to defend
It is only by being seen as a comradely way party fighting in the interests of working people that it will draw back into its ranks those thousands
Wilson/Callaghan leadership. Moreover, it is only by drawing in these
launched to remove the Callaghan leadership. The only way to ensure a removal of the right-wing is by movement. the left gaining a widening base -particularly in the trade unions -through its class-struggle methods.
As Hain again correctly pointed Campaign
out in Manchester: "It is a question of campaigning for, and linking up with, struggles outside and creating the conditions whereby an alternative left leadership emerges with
not just, however, a struggle over
policies. It also involves a serious fight for democracy to ensure that there can be a free and frank exchange of views within the party on the way forward.
The LCC already has a good record on this question, many of its supporters helping the fight at the last Labour Party conference to loosen the right wing's undemocratic grip over the party and forcing through re-selection of MPs and the right of the NEC to determine election manitesto.
Such gains have to be maintained and extended against right-wing pressure so that the Parliamentary Labour Party as a whole becomes accountable to the conference. As part of this offensive, the LCC should stand forcibly against any attempts by the right wing -backed up, of course, by their allies in the Tory press - to launch witch-hunts in the party and to revamp the bans and proscriptions measures. All tendencies should have the right to put their point of view in a free and democratic
In order to struggle for the democratisation of the party, the LCC must itself be vigorously democratic. While it has shown itself open to different ideas at conferences held to date, at the Manchester meeting it decided that elections to the Executive of the LCC would be by postal ballot and that the Executive would have the right to exclude anyone it wished without right of appeal. Such positions run counter to its otherwise open nature and could - if extended - mar its ability to become a broad, open tendency drawing in wide support.
STEP FORWARD The LCC was born out of the mass discontent of the labour movement with the right-wing policies of the Labour leaders. As such, it can become a major step forward which socialists should support and help build. No doubt there will be differences on the way forward but these could be discussed out in a
It, as a broad current, it can begin to link up with the struggles underway - and maintain a scrupulous democracy which allows a genuine exchange of views -- then it could become a serious challenge to the Labour right-wing and a major step forward in the fight for socialist policies in the labour
Against the immigration
repeal
SMP-
the T immigration act
Socialist Action
SCLV
which way
The National conference of
the SCLV in December last
year had, as a major thread
running through it, the
question of its relation to the
newly-formed Labour Co-
ordinating Committee
Quite different attitudes
were put forward. Some com-
rades clearly wanted to
"ghettoise" themselves from
this new formation which is beginning to draw support around the country. Such was the position of those comrades
around Workers Action who tended to stress the shortcomings of the LCC rather than its potential for growth. While wanting to work with it, they
supported the idea of maintaining a "hard left" in opposition to it.
Other comrades saw the LCC as an important step forward which SCLV members should be a part of in order to participate in an ongoing debate. Comrades from Socialist Challenge - who were denied the right to pose a resolution on this point -advocated this position.
Clearly, the growth of the LCC poses a serious problem for the SCLV at the present time. The SCLV is not a grouping but an alliance of various strands around a limited programme. While winning some support, it clearly does not have the potential of the LCC in terms of a base in the CLPs or -more important - in the trade unions.
In our opinion, the comrades from Socialist Challenge were quite correct to imply that maintaining the SCLV as a "counter" current to the LCC would be a serious error. To compete with the LCC around the country in forming support groups inside the Labour Party would be a disservice to creating a united struggle by the left in the period ahead
Far from opposing the LCC, the SCLV members should seek to join it, to enter into dialogue with it and to form joint committees with it (where an SCLV group exists). The aim should not be to hive oneself off into corners but to attempt to build a joint left in which different currents can function and argue for their position in a democratic atmosphere.
Unfortunately, the SCLV conference rejected this orientation and voted to continue to build itself in opposition to the LCC. We would hope that, as time develops, the comrades will rethink this course.
P.B.
CAIL NEWS
CAIL News is the journal of the Campaign Against the Immigration Laws which has been in existence now for over a year. It contains all Ine auest up-to-care normanon or the effects of the 1971 Act, abuses under it. the Tory proposals and news of anti-racist activities around the country. It vou would like to take out a sub - or order a bulk order for your Labour Party/trade union branch - Dlease write to: CAIL c/o Lansbury Hs. 41 Camberwell Gve, London SES
Page 3 scan of this page
TORIES UNWRAP RACIST PROPOSALS
February 80 The Tories ran the last election campaign on a clear racist ticket. Thatcher spoke of the country being "swamped by an alien culture" and Willie Whitelaw - the Tory "softie" - openly explained the need to slam the door on Black immigration. All in the interests of "racial harmony", of course.
The meaning of the Tory "hard line" on immigration is already being felt by Black families up and
S. London CARL
By JENNY HILL On January 11th. representatives from a number of South London Labour Parties, the Communist Party and other left groups met in Brixton to set up a local CARL group
As well as building support against the 1971 Act (and the Tories proposals), the committee discussed taking up specific individual issues in the area. such as the threat of deportations. police harasslell cil.
The first concrete step was to call for a public meeting on March 5th to gain wide support for these aims. If you would like information about the group, please contact CARL c/o Lanshury House. 41 Camberwell Grove. London ES.
CARL
NEXT STEPS
Sunday November 25th saw the
biggest demonstration yet against
racist immigration curbs. Organised by the C'ampaign Against Racist
Laws (CARL), over 10,000 marched
through London demanding the repeal of the 1971 Act and the
Tories' new measures.
Not only was the size of the demonstration impressive but also
the broad forces that came together to build it. Present on it were not only the major ethnic groups - who took the initiative in forming CARL
- but also Labour MPs, Labour and trade union branches and antiracist groups.
down the country: Evidence is already leaking out that twice the number of families are being harassed and deported today as under the previous Labour governinent.
The case of Sanjesh. Jayesh and Diptesh Patel taken away from their mother and deported hack to India because of an "improper" entry clearance - is an example of the vicious harassment beins used
TORTUOUS Bet the Tory goremmar! 's net just content with giung the polle? the "green light" to victimise Black families. What they rear!! "slamming the door" was torealed last month in their White Pape: on Immigration, Within the pages ot this tortuously-worded docunnar lies an attempt to rende: the !O?! Immigration Act even more vicksly racist di sexist in character
The psychology behind : scen most dearly hy examining •ce of the proposals that has hit ihe press headlines - the one hannug wornen bringing their hushands ei fiances into the country. Wer Whitelaw originally made this proposal, there was an outery among Tory backbenchers that white women -. employed in the diplomatic service or in multinational firms •• might be discriminated against.
Under such pressure. Whitelow
Particularl! welcome on it was support trom the labour modement which is beginning to realise that it cannot stand idly by while the Tories whip up racist moods designed to divide and split working people.
NEXT STEP
CARL's next step is obviously to build on this positive turn-out hy drawing ever-wider forces into opposition to the Tory offensive. At a steering ettee meeting following the demonstration. it was agreed to go ahead with certain initiatives that had already been planned.
These include sponsoring a marca from Bradford to London -mainly by the Bradford Asian Youth Organisation -to build regional demonstrations against the immigration laws. Such
Whitelaw's curbs give police the green light to harass Biack community
dul amended it to bring out the real victums of these new curbs. Only the fiances or husbands of non-British (i.e. Black) women settled here would be penalised. Coulin t he deurer. could it? The aim of the amendments is not to
nul on Black immigration. "FIRMER ACTION"
e• Black pcople eto can stili gain
dranged murrages
mean by moin their tamily alreads settled terr. te encem orthe Tory forensent tor the "familv"
reduciy i itter the rights of
of "officsls" and toking "firmer denon" ayaanst se-called illegal
hel visus.
under the 1971 Aut. the power to
inchout waront and deport those considered "andesirable" without right of appeal, it is a my stor exact what "ürmer action"
steps are clearl important in continuing the pressure against the govemment.
Most important. however. it was agreed to hold a national conference in the Spring of all of CARL's supporters. Obviousl! key to such a conference must he mapping out a series of national
structure capable of winning the widest lavers into the campaign. CENTRAL The ability of CARL to build on
so far should not be under-valued. The Tories racist measures are not accidental. They are central to whipping up racist moods which -it is hoped - will divide and and helping confuse working people in the rears ahead as inflation & unemploymen grow.
CLIMAX the right. tghten un on immigration. as such.
The other ereprsas the Tories have
:de smali trekie
These inclade s han en aimed at the and a virtual
breesi doest extend to Black
Oe gerants are aime al
¡ose Blar h people who do manage te ship ets cogli the immigration net.
These inslade acreasing the power
immigrants and dost "overstaying"
Sitco the polict aiready have.
arrest suspected "illegal immigrants"
FIGHT-BACK
ancali actions and setting up a democratic
the positivo response it has met with
London WC3.
Presumably, it is a nod and wink to the police to escalate their harassment already being dealt out to the Black community.
When these proposals were put to Parliament, ex-Home Secretary Merlyn Rees denounced them as "racist, sexist and discriminatory". Fine words. What Rees didn't explain was that they form merely the climax of a whole string of equaliț racist acts which Labour -as well as Tory - governments have introduced over the years.
Ever since the Tories brought in the Commonwealth Immigration Act in 1962 - making entry into Britain dependent on a colour bar -successive governments have tumbled indecently over cach other in tightening the screws on Black entry. Wilson's 1965 White Paper and Callaghan's 1968 Immigration Act were part of this whole shitt to
And didn'i Merlyn Rees himselt. when in office, enforce without an! scruples the 1971 Immigration Act. despite the lact that the Labour Party conference had denounced it as racist and called for its immediate repeal"?
LEGAL RACISM It is no doubt a step forward for Rees to denounce the latest proposals in the Tory White Paper. That campot ener up for the fact. however. that be accepting the racist logic of these Acts for so long. Labour governments have helped to create a climate of legalised racism in Britain.
What else can doo call it? Once it is accepted that Black people can be denied entry on grounds of colour • and denied democratic rights on the same grounds - then racism has recented official approval Ail the Race Relations Acts in the world won't change thai!
ln is this climate of legalised racism fostered by these Aits which the Tories now want to take still furthe* -.that creates a highly explosive situation. Unless it is challenged now, white workers could begin to fall vietim to the demagogy of the ultra-right and see Black people not as allies but as a threat to the jobs and wages scramble that will open up.
Fortunately: despite the Labour
It is only by building a strong campaign now against these meas. ures that it will be possible to offset such a development in the future. This means. in particular. taking CARL into trade union and Labour Party branches and gaining mass support for the campaign.
The fact that the demonstration on Nov. 25th was backed by over 30 Labour MPs and by the Labour Party NEC is a positive step in this direction. That step must now he used to convince ever-wider layers that delending the rights of Black people today is the best way of defending the whole labour movement tomorrow
* If you would like to set up a
CARL group locally - or find
out more about the campaign
write to: CARL, PO Box 151,
page 3
WHITELAW'S RACIST
CHARTER
The 1971 Immigration Act already
makes it virtually impossible for
Blacks to enter the country. Only
those who have grandparents her
can come in freely - and that, of
course, means whites. Blacks (or
non-Dałmas as toe sci owus toem
have no right of entry.
In order to close the tew remain
ing "loopholes" - and reduce those
Blacks already here to second-class
Clizens wanclan s proposal.
include
.1 han on arranged marriages Obviously directed against the Asian community to curb the trickle of fiances coming in, Al han on hushands & fiances. White foreign-born women. settled here. will be free to orne n aneu nuspanas Hances Vn back wonen wil oe MCCLcu 1 han on parents, grandparents & children under 18. Virtually every one secking entry to join their family will be excluded anaer me new conditions. wn‹ cares about the suffering caused? Work Permit Restrictions. Aim ad at cutting still further the miniscule number of Blacks allowed in under the quota scheme.
* Curh on foreixn students.
Greater powers are envisaged to deport foreign students deemed to he prolonging their stay 'unnecessaril!" or failing to attend courses on a regular
Internal Controls. 'Firmer action' is considered necessary anainst illegal immigrants and 'help' tor those genuincly wishme lo leave tuc counuv. suen proposals will give immigration officers & police the green light ii 'up' their harassment of Black communities. Already. under the Thatcher regime, the number of Blacks being deportVG aS QouDCa
"with?e Torer ..:.. building up to these laws and inling expression in the labour
The mass CARL demonstration on Neverber 25th won the backing of the Labour Party NEC and over 30 Labour MPs. They supported a march which not only opposed the latest Tory proposals but called openly for the repeal of the 1971 Immigration Act.
That was a major step forward bat still only a step. The aims of CARL have dow got to be taken into all tade union and Labour Party branches and the passive "acceptance" of racism by the Labour leaders chailenged head-on. Only by winning the labour movement to the aims of this campaign can we create a force capable of curbing the growth of racism in the ditticult years ahead.
MIKE RODNEY
(CARL Steering Cttes)
March at Friend's Meeting House,
{ Luston Rd.. . London. Bradford
Asian Youth Movement march
i trom pradora lo London. zou
W8K2
Thrai
ART
AERE
STRY
To
Page 4 scan of this page
SUPPORT THE STEL
page 4
Editorial:
ZIMBABWE
by the Thatcher government with a clear sigh of relief.
control.
won, however, by Carrington's brilliant diplomacy. They were gained by the stepped-up bombing, by Rhodesian forces, of
forces.
CONCESSIONS
'independent' Black government but with built-in advantages
entation in Parliament and a tight grip over the police, army,
firmly loaded against the Patriotic Front. Not only has the election time been cut short to give them an inadequate time to prepare. The cease-fire stipulates that the 1700 Patriotic Front guerrillas report to 16 'assembly points' to be confined for the duration of the elections.
of support in the villages and leaving them 'vulnerable' to British, South African and Rhodesian troops.
NEUTRAL?
The Thatcher government claims that Lord Soames - and his
ilise the liberation struggle has been revealed very clearly in Soames' acts as governor.
While the Patriotic Front guerrillas have been rounded up & installed in 'confinement' camps, their opponants - supporters of the Muzorewe regime - have been given full freedom of action. This has not only led to the breaking up of peaceful demonstrations by ZAPU or ZANU supporters or police raids on ZAPU offices in Salisbury. It has led to the cold-blooded murder of Patriotic Front members.
were murdered without them firing a shot. They merely retused to lay down their arms and, for this, they were gunned down where they stood.
SOUTH AFRICA The broader aims of the Thatcher government can also be
ian army).
The fact that this is in defiance of the London agreement -as has been pointed out by Mugabe - clearly does not worry Thatcher's representative in Salisbury. Renewing links with
Tories in helping contain the upsurge for independence and Black majority rule and stabilising Southern Africa in the interests of Imperialism.
Only last December, Thatcher herself stated that the ceasefire in Rhodesia would make it possible to end"...... the isolation of South Africa in world affairs";
TROOPS OUT NOW
room for manoeuvre of the liberation forces in Rhodesia & given Imperialism new openings for intervention. The fight for national liberation, for land, for trade union rights and decent wages by Zimbabwean workers and peasants is being trapped in the repressive arrangements worked out in London, Salisbury and Pretoria.
Despite this set-back, however, Thatcher is finding it difficult to stem the mass resistence that exists. Even before the accords had been signed, mass demonstrations by ZAPU and ZANU supporters - reaching over 60,000 - took place in Salisbury
Moreover, during the election period, the forces of the Patriotic Front have held mass rallies to air the social and political grievances of the masses - such as the popular demand for land reform.
If we in Britain are to help this struggle - and ensure it is not demobilised by the Tories and their backers in South Africa - then we have to expose the hypocrisy of 'neutral' role in Rhodesia and campaign actively in the labour movement for the withdrawal of British troops.
SOCIALIST ACTION.
Editor: A.D. Scott
Typeset by Bread 'n Roses (TU) 01-485 4432 &
Printed by Spider Web Offset (TU) 9 Rosemont Rd., NW3.
Last month, Lord Soames flew to Rhodesia to 'supervise' the elections agreed to by Patriotic Front leaders, Joshua Nkomo and Robert Mugabe, in London. Clearly such an agreement was met
It represented the last attempt to contain the mounting struggle for Black majority rule and independence that neither the Smith regime nor the puppet-Muzorewe government had proved able to
The concessions made by the Patriotic Front leaders were not
neighbouring Black regimes offering sanctuary to the liberation
The agreement itself provides for the establishment of a new,
for the white minority. These include a disproportionate repres-
Moreover, in the build-up to the elections, the dice have been
This was quite clearly aimed at isolating them from their base
Commonwealth 'monitoring' force - are there to play a neutral role. But the real intentions of the Tories to disarm and demob-
The seven guerrillas who were killed near Lupane last month seen in the decision by Lord Soames to retain the services of up to 2,000 South African troops (working alongside the Rhodes-
the white racists in Pretoria is clearly seen as important by the
It is quite clear that the London agreement has limited the
Britain's
Dist. Manager: Anne Williams Bus. Manager. Dave Macleod
On Jan 28th, thousands of workers will respond to the Welsh TUC's call for a one-day protest strike in support of the steelworkers. The fact that the strike was called is, itself, a sign of the mass opposition building up in labour ranks against the Tory plans to cut plants.
For, if the steel plants are closed, it will not be just steelworkers who will be thrown on the scrap-heap. South Wales will begin to look like an industrial cemetary as cuts are also made in rail transport, road haulage and mining. According to the Welsh TUC, a cut-back in steel product. ion would lead to 21 pits being folded up and 21,000 miners' jobs being axed.
HUMILIATING
The Tory government, of course, has always maintained that it has nothing to do with the steel strike. It's a dispute "between the management and workers" This is a lie. It was Sir Keith Joseph himself, who, last year, told Sir Charles Villiers that he would have to "balance the books' and make the 'necessary cuts'
It was the Tories who were behind Villiers' insulting pay offer to the ISTC (only recently) of 4%c at a time when intlation is raging at over 17%. And it was the Tories who were behind the announcement - in the same week - that steel plants all over the country would have to be closed down to remove over 52,000 jobs.
Workers trom Shotton to Teeside, from Corby to Clydeside were expected to bail out the British Steel Corporation by taking virtually a cut in wages and allowing thousands of members to be sacked.
RAM THROUGH
The Tories no doubt thought that pushing such a 'deal' through
35 HR
VEER
The British Steel Corporation is not alone in trying to recoup its losses by closing plants and throwing thousands on the dole. The same picture can be seen in most industrial countries as the international recession has bitten home and demand for steel has dropped.
This downturn has led to mass confrontations as, in one country after another, workers have fought to save their jobs and living standards. Last year, German steelworkers struck for 7 weeks for the 35-hour week and higher pay. Only slightly earlier, French steelworkers
cut in the worktorce. union leadership
be easy meat. come.
WE
DEMAND
Polic private sector.
in the steel industry would not provoke much opposition. Atter all, the union leadership had shown its weak-kneed spirit on a number of occasions in the past. agreeing to plant closures and erosion of working conditions that had already led to a drastic
Where better than in steel to implement their industrial strategy of making workers pay for the massive 'rationalisation' plans they have to bail ailing British firms out of crisis? Fearful of taking on the miners, they no doubt hoped that a weak and vacillating
- combined with a demoralised workforce - would
Having implemented a drastic defeat on the steelworkers, they also no doubt hoped that this would serve as a clear precedent for other workers who will also feel the Tory axe in the years to led a hundred-thousand strong protest against plant closures.
In Britain, however, the effects of the recession on steel have been aggravated because of its outdated plant and equipment. Retaining the old-fashioned 'open hearth' method, BS's efficiency was so low that it has lost out to foreign competition not only on the world market but even on the national
'RATIONALISATION'
Over the years, successive governments have tried to "solve" the problem by cutting back on 'outdated plant' (to the scale of 40,000 jobs.) Now the Tories, blaming a 'lazy, overpaid workforce' for low productivity, want to launch an all-out attack.
They intend a massive "restructuring' of the industry to serve sectors of British industry which would have to pay more for steel from abroad, and to provide basic steel for privately. owned specialist producers. Profitable sectors of the industry will, no doubt, be hived off to the
In order to ram through this "rationalisation', 52,000 jobs will
Socialist Action COR COR:
SAY ISAY
clos
DETERMINATION
But they miscalculated. Far from rolling meekly over, the reaction among steelworkers up and down the country was so strong that they forced even their vacillating leaders into action. As steelworker Ray Davies from Lanwern put it: "We've given management massive co-operation, even to losing 40,000 jobs, but we're not going down on our knees to grovel".
Far from grovelling, before the Tory attack, the steelworkers have organised. Strike action has been 100% solid. Mass picketing.. as at Talbot in South Wales - has blocked steel production in private firms. Flying pickets have blockaded railyards and incoming steel at the docks.
Such determined action has brought forth howls of protest from the Tories and their press who no doubt see Margaret Thatcher's anti-union laws against
Cut Hours -
have to go to the wall. Death sentences are hanging over the heads of Shotton (6,400 jobs to go), Llanwern (400), Clydeside (2,165), Ravenscraig (7,390), Port Talbot (2,100), Bilston (2,000), Corby (5,000) and Redcar (1,200).
BLINKERED
Far from challenging the mass attack on jobs, the leaders of the ISTC have meekly gone along with it. Allowing plants to be closed down one by one, the workforce has been picked off in isolation. The latest example of this was Corby where the ISTC leadership was quite willing for it to be closed down in exchange for a few 'golden handshakes'.
The reason for this, of course, is that they accept the arguments of the Tory government that the industry has to be made viable before it can be expanded. Having accepted this proposition, there is nothing more for them to do than to get the best deal possible in exchange for the mass redundanc. ies that occur.
The only opposition that has been forthcoming - voiced more
Page 5 scan of this page
February 80
- SIRIKE
picketing being thrown in the dustbin even before they are introduced.
SOLIDARITY
Equally important, the determined action by the steelworkers has proved a rallying call to thousands of other workers who know only too well that if the Tories win this one, their necks will soon be on the block.
Railway workers have refused to transport steel and dockers to handle it. Miners have 'instructed' the NCB not to buy steel during the dispute and have (in S. Yorkshire) held pit-head collections. Carworkers in Rotherham have blocked steel entering the plants and nurses at Stocksbridge have visited the picket lines with tea and sandwiches.
The climax to this mounting solidarity was clearly the minigeneral strike called by the Welsh TUC on January 28th. They
Not Jobs!
recently by the Secretary of the Welsh TUC, George Wright, - is that import controls could be adopted to keep out foreign steel.
DIVISIVE
Such a proposition - accepted by wide layers of the union leadership - is equally utopian. In the first place, it merely ties more strongly the interests of British steelworkers with that of the company instead of seeing that the only way they can really protect jobs is by fighting against it.
In the second place, it is divisive. Calling for 'import controls to protect steelworkers jobs is at the expense of workers in other countries. It merely exports unemployment. What this will lead to, in practice, is workers in different countries competing with each other instead of uniting in a common struggle against the steel barons.
Far from competing with each other, British steelworkers should be trying to find links with workers
- particularly in Europe - to mount a common defence of jobs and wages in the period ahead.
1
are only too aware that if the steel plants close, South Wales will be returned to the industrial desert it was in the 1930s when thousands were forced to move out to find jobs.
LEADERSHIP
There can be no doubt that if the steelworkers remain firm -and extend solidarity actions like these - then they can halt the Tory offensive in its tracks. Not only can they win a decent wage but also ensure that jobs are not lost through plant closures and the introduction of new machinery.
One of the key demands now being raised among militant steelworkers is precisely the need to shorten the work week through 'worksharing'. New technology can be used to better and not worsen working conditions and throw men out of a job. It is labour which creates the wealth, not capital, so why on earth should steelworkers accept any redundancies?
As Brian Molyneux (member of the Stocksbridge & Tinsley Park Strike Cttee) put it recently: are for 20% index-linked, with no productivity strings at national or local level, and no more redundancies. We've sent telegrams to the EC explaining this"
LEADERSHIP
The real problem with ensuring that both wages and jobs are safeguarded remains the leadership of the ISTC - and its allies in the TUC. In the past, Bill Sirs has been only too willing to accept redundancies as plants close and worse working conditions in exchange for a little extra cash.
In 1976, the union pledged itself to support an agreement which called for 'streamlining' manning levels, ending the guaranteed SHORTER-WORKWEEK
The first step of such a defence must be an understanding that steelworkers did not create the present crisis and should not be made to pay for it. Why should steelworkers jobs be put on the line because of growing inter-capitalist competition as recession looms?
This does not mean that steelworkers are against the introduction of new plant and machinery. On the contrary, it is to be welcomed if it benefits the workforce -who produce all the wealth does not worsen working conditions and throw thousands out on the dole.
If machinery is to be brought in and plants 'rationalised', then the answer of steelworkers in Britian should be the same as steelworkers in France and Germany. Bring in the shorter work-week, share the work out among existing steelworkers without loss of pay! It is only by a consistent fight along these lines that jobs today will not be slashed tomorrow.
PAUL PHILLIPS
working week and 'flexibility' of labour. It has been acceptance of BOB SWART these type of deals which has led (T&GWU) to 40,000 steelworkers jobs going to the wall over the years.
One of the major concerns of rank and file steelworkers must be to ensure that Sirs is not allowed to come to a similar compromise with British Steel management, selling yet more jobs for a little extra cash on the table. He has to be told, in no uncertain terms, that the job of a union leader is not to help the Tories rationalisation' schemes but to defend his members wages and jobs! FOR 20% INDEX-LINKED! NO REDUNDANCIES! WORK. SHARING WITH NO LOSS OF PAY!
Over the past month or so, Carter has tried to fire up hatred of Iran by claiming that "innocent Americans" were being "abused" by the Iranian students holding the US Embassy. Ignoring the students' claim that the Embassy was a hotbed for CIA activities, the news media has tried to portray the US personnel as normal men and women caught by the Iranian "fanatics".
: "We Direct Action (an Australian socialist paper) analyses the
The Americans being held hostage in the Tehran Embassy have been brainwashed, according to Carter's Press Secretary Jody Powell. Powell said the hostages had been "subjected to very sophisticated and very subtle techniques..."
students occupying the Embassy have clearly made a breakthrough.
trying -up with a reliable brainwashing technique. And now Iranian students have done it. apparently without spending a cent. No wonder Carter is so mad at them. TOUCHY US Presidents have grown increasingly touchy about brainwashing over the years as the evidence has mounted that the "enemies of freedom" have
behind.
the Chinese Communist Party brainwashed hundreds of millions
overthrow capitalism in direct defiance of Washington's better judgement. Not long atterwards, Castro did the same thing to the Cuban people so thoroughly that not even the Bay of Pigs and the
could unwash their brains. and
Nicaragua, from Ethiopia to
fear of poverty and the govern-
look after their welfare.
GALLING
Iran is particularly galling, for Iran was the scene of one of
Below Allen Myers. writer for
If this is true, then the Iranian
After all, the CIA. as is well known. have spent millions and millions of dollars over the past 20 to 30 years
without success - to come mastered the art while America lags
In the early 1950s, for example.
overseas banks. of peasants and thus forced them to
SAVAK
opportunity to buy Coca Cola again
The same thing happened in Vietnam, and today the US government is certain that the Vietnamese are brainwashing the Kampucheans to dislike Pol Pot. From Angola to
Mozambique, the evidence mounts.
Hundreds of millions of people are being brainwashed into an irrational
ments Washington has appointed to
The brainwashing now going on in
Washington's most ambitious anti-
DAY OF ACTION
The Welsh TUC has called for a mini general strike on Monday 28th
January. The call stems from the mass threat to jobs in South Wales
if government plans to cut back on steel plants go ahead.
Not only would thousands of steel jobs be lost, but it would lead to
an estimated 21 pits being closed down and the loss of another
21,000 miners' jobs.
Originally, the Welsh TUC had planned for an indefinite strike on
January 21st but - it seems - were persuaded to postpone it until
March 10th. This was under the pressure of the British TUC which
no doubt hopes that the steel strike will be settled long before that
date and the determination of South Wales workers dissipated.
Despite this set-back, however, the January 28th action should be
seriously built for as a stepping stone for an ongoing campaign for
the right to work in South Wales. The TUC may be trying to hold
back the struggle but they musn't be let off the hook.
A mass turn-out of January 28th will be the surest way of telling
our leaders that they cannot avoid taking up a real struggle against
the Tories' anti-working class policies.
BRAIN -WASHED'
brainwashing campaigns.
Beginning in 1953, when it discovered a Communist plot to brainwash the Iranian people into disliking their amiable Shall. the CIA went all out to unwash Iranian brains. Atter removing one of the dirtiest washers -- Mohammed Mossedegah, who had brainwashed many Iranians into accepting the absurd notion that Iranians should own Iranian oil - the CIA helped the Shah set up a vast antibrainwashing operation.
The CIA experts had discovered that the first step of brainwashers was often to get people to dislike extreme poverty. They therefore advised the Shah to teach the Iranian people to love poverty. which could be done. of course. only if they had the opportunity to experience it. This is why the Shah found it necessary to deposit most of the proceeds from Iran's oil in
But the central feature of the CIA's campaign to save the Iranian people from brainwashing was the creation of SAVAK. Under the direct control of the Shah, SAVAK set out to counter the "sophisticated and subtle" brainwashing techniques mentioned by Powell.
Obviously, the most effective opposition to such techniques could only be unsophisticated and unsubtle. Borrowing heavily from the pioneering anti-brainwashing techniques of the Nazis, the CIA helped SAVAK perfect its methods.
These included electric shock, rape. pulling out nails and burning. A particularly effective means of dealing with washed skulls proved to be crushing the skull in a vice.
On the theory that it was best to get to people betore they had been brainwashed, these techniques were often used on children.
But, despite these humanitarian
page 5 The Ayotollah: brain-washer in chief?
citorts. the brainwashers ve and the Shat was deposed. Now. to add insult to injury. Americans are being brainwashed 1oo. How else can you explain some of the hostages saying that the Shah should be extradited to Iran to stand trial
DILEMMA Jimnly Carter now faces a real dilemma. He would. of course, be fully justified in a military attack on the Iranian people who have repaid Washington's 25 years of devotion to their welfare by allowing themselves to be brainwashed.
The problem is that large numbers of Americans are also susceptible to brainwashing .. as shown by a recent US poll in which nobody said they loved the Shah enough to die for him. There is therefore a real danger that brainwashers could use subtle and unsophisticated techniques to play on this sentiment if for example. the Marines were sent to Iran.
Thus Carter is in a "no-win" situation. Around the world. and even in the US itself, Washington's every effort only seems to result in still more washed brains.
READ
INTERCONTINENTAL PRESS
Intercontinental Press
Somoza at Bay as People Rise in Nicaragua
Workers Upsurge in Tunisia
Page 6 scan of this page
page 6 by DAVE MCLEOD
The Tory government decision to lop 5%c off subsidies to local authorities has placed many Labour councils in a dilemma. Wanting to fight back - yet worried about going bankrupt in April - many of them have turned to rate increases as a "solution".
This has been the case with many councils such as Islington, Hackney and Lambeth which has projected rate rises for the coming year of over 56%. Speaking at a public meeting in December, councillor Kotz (Deputy leader of Hackney Council) explained that *Slogans are alright. but we have to live in the real world".
HEROICS?
The pressure on local councils has been so great that even layers of the socialist left have been drawn into backing these "solutions" Bernard Misrahi, for example, in a recent article in Socialist Organiser, argues that rate increases should be seen as a "temporary measure to give us more time" to build an effective anti-cuts campaign.
Misrahi backs up his arguments by saying that rate increases affect businessmen more than working people and that, anyway, "... a rate increase might mean a few less pounds in the bank - but cuts mean less day nurseries and an even longer wait for council house repairs".
Misrahi's arguments, reflecting a minority view inside the SCLV emphasise the need to keep Labour councils in power (without any undue "heroics") until a major campaign is underway to confront the Tories. "Refusal to raise enough money to meet expenditure", he writes. "will almost certainly result in the Tories sending in commissioners who will gleefully savage those services which have the greatest ideological significance.... WRONG PREMISE Misrahi's arguments miss the point. Just what are the cuts about? They're an attempt by the Tories to make working people pay for the current crisis. Tax concessions for the rich - to boost investment and profit - are to be paid for by working people in less hospitals, schools and social services.
Does putting up the rates challenge this basic assumption that
WHAT
supporters
movement). th Halds off demands:
already on the dole.
living to offset inflation.
ARE RATE INCREASES
THE ANSWER ?
working people should shoulder the burden of the present crisis? On the contrary, it merely passes it on to them in a disguised way. Tax concessions for the rich are to be paid not in cuts but in taking money directly out of working people's pockets. There's a real "distribution of wealth" for you! From the poor to the rich.
As for Misrahi's argument that rate increases will fall mainly on businessmen, this is equally incorrect. In boroughs such as Lambeth or Camden, for example, it is working people who will have to pay through the nose and, for them, rate increases are no different from rent increases.
LESSER EVIL But won't the temporary evil of rate rises at least allow Labour councils a chance of hanging on? As Pete Rowlands — arguing a similar case to Misrahi at a recent SCLV conference ... put it: "Better to have a Labour council in Lambeth. even it it has to raise rates. than to have the commissioners sent in by the Tories".
Such an argument is not new.
It is exactly the same used by Callaghan, when in office, to justify his attacks on the social services.
The only alternative 1o the Labour ПЕНИИ SERVICE CUTS FI' ,TS
"scalpel" was, he explained, the Tory "axe". Unfortunately, as Callaghan discovered in the "winter of discontent". working people have no loyalty to a government -even a "lesser evil' Labour one -which acts against their interests.
If Labour councils carry out the cuts - or the disguised form of cuts tale Increases represent - ten trey will get a similar response. And
WE
Socialist Action sees its central aim as building, within the labour movement, a class-struggle left-wing fighting for socialist policies against those which recently lost Labour the election & disillusioned thousands of Labour
Such a left-wing should support not only policies in the interests of working people but also their allies among the youth, women, Blacks and oppressed national minorities. It is only by showing that Labour champions the rights of all the oppressed & exploited that a really united offensive can be organised against the Tories (and their right-wing allies in the labour
Socialist Action believes that a real-left-wing should be built around
Hands off the Unions! No curbs on the right to strike or Picket! * For the 35 hour week. End unemployment by work-sharing (with no
loss of pay) and introduce a mass public works programme for those * Oppose all wage curbs! For wage increases to be tied to the cost of
* Open the books of all those companies claiming inability to pay a
IMPRACTICAL
socialist premise: that working
such a position will be termed happen next year, and the lear atter. when the economic crisis
once the path has been taken AAAL TEMPORARY
cuts has been built. But this is
for rate rises have done so as an alternative to mobilising mass action against the cuts.
people against the Tories when
force.
in mobilising working people
with "figures".
put profit before people. London SE 19.
Feb 9th.
Misrahi's position violates a basic
people did not create the crisis, are not responsible for it and should not have to pay for it. No doubt "unrealistic" by those whose main concern is maintaining a Labour Council in power. But, in reality, it is their position which is unrealistic.
Massive rate increases this year might be able to oftset the cuts the Tories are imposing. But what will
education.
deteriorates and the Tories make even more swingeing cuts? Rate increases will not be able to offset the cuts and the result will be -
• of combining rate increases with cuts!
Such a policy will not only delay an inevitable confrontation with the Tories but will ensure that it takes place on the most disadvantageous terms: i.e. after councils have effectively demoralised and alienated the grass-roots of Labour supporters by conning them into thinking a struggle can be avoided.
It may be argued, as Mistahi does. that increasing the rates should be seen merely as a temporary solution until a wider campaign against the
certainly not how it is being seen.
Those councils which have opted
vote against.
Such a change is no accident. It is impossible to mobilise working
councils start by cutting their living standards. It is as unrealistic as a trade union leader mobilising action against redundancies after agreeing to the "sack" for half the work-
This is the major error at the root of the argument of those who support rate increases. They see the solution to the Tory offensive not
against the attacks but in "juggling"
STAND FOR
decent wage or threatening redundancies. Nationalise all those that
Tax the rich not the poor. No cuts in the social services. For social
expenditure to be tied to increases in the cost of living. * For women's rights. For the right of all women to free abortion on
demand, free nurseries, equal pay and opportunity. Support NAC * Fight racism. Repeal all racist immigration laws! Defend the right of
Blacks to defend themselves as they see fit against racist attacks. * For the right of all oppressed nations to determine their own future -
Get the Troops out of Ireland now! * For a safe environment. End nuclear reactors and base an energy
strategy on coal. Explore alternative energy sources
Socialist Action supporters, while fighting for the above, will seek the widest possible unity with all forces in the labour movement around concrete issues. We would also seek, in our pages, to develop an ongoing debate over the best ways of building a socialist alternative.
If you would like to find out more about Socialist Action - or contribute to it - write to: Socialist Action, c/o 58, Auckland Road,
Anti-cuts Round-up
Middlesbrough: Backed by the TUC's Northern Regional Council,
thousands of nurses, council workers, clothing workers and the Fire
Brigades Union will be launching a mass anti-cuts demonstration on
South Yorks: On February 18th, the South Yorks Association
of Trades Councils will be launching a 24-hour strike against the
cuts and Thatcher's economic policies. Backed by the 60,000
strong NUM and AUEW, all the main unions in S. Yorkshire are
taking part.
Lancaster: Lancaster and Morecombe Action Committee has
called for a rally against the Tory cuts and other policies on Jan.
19th. The rally has been backed by local Labour Parties, the
Trades Council and the student union.
I.L.E.A. caves in
By DAVE PICTON (NUT)
On December 4th, the Inner London Education Authority voted for a cut of €21,590,000 or 4.19%. Accusing supporters of a no-cuts policy of living in "cloud-cuckoo land", ILEA leader Ashley Brammal blithely announced that such cuts would do no serious damage to
is living in cloud-cuckoo land. If unese curs are commirmea al une budget meeting on February 5th. they will mean a loss of something like 1,000 teaching jobs and a reduction in finance, transport, Mamenance an in service trailing for all IL FA schools.
And they haven't stopped here. so nasty. 1 seems, are Labour members of ILEA to support the • ory are that they nave eren de cided to up school meal prices from 30 to 35p. No doubt thev are anti cipating the Tory Fiducation Bill
interids removing from LEAs the obligation to provide a schools meal service and leaves them free to charge their own prices ACCOUNTABLE?
What is worse, this cave-in before the Tory government was made in the teeth of fierce resistance from those whom ILEA Labour members are supposed to represent. Only two Labour councillors actually voted against all cuts Ken Livingstone and C'harlie Rossi. The others who voted for them did so even though they had been urged, by constituency Labour Parties, to
One example of this is Elsie horsted chel woo or ine Laool group on Lambeth Council, who was actually mandated by the Labour councillors she represents on ILEA to vote against. The Greater London Regional Council of the Labour Party had even taken the unprecedenica step or loobyl; the Labour members of ILEA to ex press neur amnost unanimou. opposion to We dals
The same disregard for democracy was shown by NUT representatives on the ILLA education committee. These two "interpreted" the VUT instruction not to take part in an ascusson arouno curs by ... abstaining! Since the vote in
Socialist Action favour was only narrowly passed -by 29 to 28 - they are now, quite understandably, coming unde considerable pressure to resign. GENERAL This situation is not, of course. unique to the ILEA. Up and down the country, Labour councils are acting as if the cuts imposed by the present Tory government are if not actually desirable, at least inevitable.
Acceptance of Tory measures can be tracea back to ine las Labour government agreeing to
social spending be drastically reduced. That decision legitimised the idea in Labour ranks that cuts in social services were economically necessary and inus preparca ine ground for the massive Thatcher
Ashley Brammal -- like other Labour councillors - may talk of tne need to be reanstic. keausm. in this context, means however mereiv offloading the burden tor the present crisis onto working people by croding living standards and butchering jobs.
ACTION Such backdowns have not gone unchallenged however. Opposition to the cuts is mounting among rank ana me trade unionists. community organisations and in the case of
- among parents and schoolchildren who will be the first to suffer
The first signs of it was the mass lobby of the ILEA organised by the Inner London Teachers Association on December 4th which brought over you condon leacner: - and
onto the streets. It is students actions sucn as tnese waicn will pul growing pressure on Labour coun chuors and trade unon olicials le stand up to the Tory offensive... or. at least. make way for those that will.
Already, under the opposition building up to Brammal's wielding of the axe, the Executive Committee of the London Labour Party has denounced the ILEA decision and has pledged its support for those ILEA Labour members who opposed the cuts.
CLARITY If this opposition is to grow. however, there is an urgent need to develop a clear alternative to the deoloalcal orensive waien une Tories have so effectively waged unroudi are mass meula. Il las ic be clearly argued that the job of Labour leaders is not to do the 1 orles alrty work - eltner ov imposing cuts or increasing the rates — Dul lo derena new ment bers' interests
It is only by fighting for this position within the trade unions and Labour Party that a serious political alternative can emerge against the capitulatory line of the present leaders.
Page 7 scan of this page
February 80 In February, the Greater London LP young socialists will be meeting once again at our annual conference. The key debate will be, of course, how to draw thousands of young people into our ranks to help the anti-Tory struggle.
The opportunities for massive growth are clearly there. The past few years have seen an upsurge among young people and thousands have begun to get involved in politics for the first time.
Many of those who demonstrated last November for abortion rights were young women from the colleges and schools. Many more who supported the mass ANL carnivals - and the Scrap SUS campaign - were young Black and white workers. Even more have been involved in campaigns such as those against nuclear energy and against the cuts. The teachers' demo against the cuts was supported by hundreds of NUSS students, for example.
RESPONSE It is clear that there is a real chance for the YS to move out boldly and draw thousands of young people into the YS in the months ahead. But will they respond to this challenge? Will it be able to adopt those policies necessary for it to grow and become the spearhead of a "Youth Against the Tories" campaign?
The prospects do not look so bright at the moment. Leaving aside a few YS branches around the country which have taken up these issues and become involved in campaign politics -- the YS as a whole does not seem able to respond in a positive way. As we meet, next month, the YS will actually be smaller than it was 10 years ago, despite the growing interest of young people in politics.
The reason for this stagnation can be laid most obviously at the doors of the tendency that dominates the YS nationally: Militant.
INWARD-LOOKING While Militant fights for socialism, it doesn't seem able to move out and relate to young people on the issues they think are important. It tends to downplay issues such as women's or Black rights and ignores almost everything that isn't on the "economic level". Thus, despite requests, it refused to affiliate - or support - the big demonstrations against Corrie or the campaigns against racism led by the ANL and, more recently, CARL.
Militant seems to think these
Dear Comrade,
"No! - to Nuclear Power", in the last issue of Socialist Action, showed clearly that the government's plans to extend the nuclear power industry are a threat to health, safety and democratic rights - and would mean a net loss of many jobs in the power industry as a whole.
Clearly, the struggle against nuclear power - which is beginning to emerge in this country - should not be regarded as a "job for the Liberals".
The article concludes with the demands "No Nuclear Power Stations - For an alternative energy strategy based on coal". To this should be added the demand: "No
Which way for YS
issues are "unimportant" compared with questions like fighting unemployment or nationalising the giant monopolies. What Militant doesn't understand is that young women will not join an organisation that doesn't take women's rights seriously or fight for them. And Black youth will not join an organisation that talks of "equality" but doesn't actively fight racism today.
Whenever motions have come up at YS conferences trying to get the YS to support these campaigns -such as the Troops Out Movement - Militant has always tried to crush them. As long as the YS continues to adopt this sterile position, however - preaching at youth instead of being involved in action with them - the YS will continue to stagnate. Isn't it odd that all the struggles against the Tory government have been led by campaigns which the YS has refused to support?
CAMPAIGNING Young people don't want to be preached at. They want an organisation that is involved in real action which they can identify with and get involved in. What we should be doing at the coming conference is not "talking" about socialism -passing dull motions boring everyone to death - but drawing up plans for some serious campaigns the YS could lead in the years ahead.
It's no use talking about leading a campaign against the Tories by itself. What we need to do is draw up a series of campaigns we want to promote that can draw thousands of young people concretely into anti-Tory action. What sort of campaigns could we support and/or promote?
SUPPORT NAC. One of our
main thrusts could be for all YS
branches to support their local
POST BAG
redundancies - retraining programmes for all nuclear power workers". Such a demand lays the basis for overcoming divisions between workers in different energy industries.
Len Wagstaff (London, SEll)
Dear Comrade,
The last issue of Socialist Action contained a number of articles on the question of democracy in the Labour Party. This was correct. There ts no doubt that the issue is becoming increasingly relevant to more and more Labour activists as the last Labour Party conference proved.
colleges into activity * SUPPORT CARL. Another
major question YS branches
campaign launched recently -
with the support of the adult
Labour Party
laws that hit Black youth. * TROOPS OUT NOW. A third
called by the UTOM. * AGAINST THE CUTS. A final
area could be to support the
mass anti-cuts campaign by w winning over young people in
in supporting the unions'
services.
UNITED ACTION
should try and get unity with all forces on the left. Militant is often frightened of holding joint actions with other groups and try to cut the YS off from them. This is a
the YS is stagnating.
campaigns. then we want to draw the maximum number of people into action. It is by showing ourselves as non-sectarian in this
wing Labour leaders.
real, live organisation, no doubt
turn the YS into a dead-end sect. Anyone interested, therefore, in
Rd. London. SE19.
Tony Benn made.
Benn's rule in the last Labour
Heffer made were a major step forward in democratising the Labour Party and should be supported for that reason.
Cutting the powers of the Labour PM and making policy decisions the province of the Parliamentary Labour Party
would be a serious blow to the right wing.
Mike Strange (London, SW2)
by GRAHAM WEIGHT
NAC groups and to try and draw
young women in the schools and
could relate to is supporting the
- against racist
could be trying to build a local
TOM branch in our area and to
mobilise for national activities
the colleges and schools to see
that they have a vested interest
defence of health and education analysis of its role"
In building these campaigns, the YS sectarian idea and also explains why
there.
If we are truly fighting for these
way, that we will persuade a lot of people who get involved to join the YS and to help us oppose the right-
In fighting to make the YS a
its character? we'll have to fight the "preaching" attitude of Militant which wants to
trying to make the YS active in the way I've indicated, please write to:
Socialist Action, c/o 58, Auckland
invasion
While correct to raise it. howaver, 1 think your attitude towards
and the proposals he to be insensitive, to say the least. Whatever you may think of
government, the proposals he and to pressure from constituencies - COVER
EDUCATION FOR SOCIALISTS
It wasn't the UN that got troops out of Vietnam but mass action by working people
"The idea has often been raised of a United Nations "peacekeeping' force being used in N. Ireland" writes Paul Shaw of Cambridge. "How should socialists view the UN? Does it have any progressive elements? I would like to read an
"United Nations" was the name adopted on January 1, 1942, by the wartime alliance led by the US. British and Soviet governments. In October 1943, the foreign ministers of these governments - along with a representative of Chiang Kaishek's regime in China -- agreed that after the war "united action... will be continued for the organisation & maintenance of peace*
Fine words which did nothing to change the real aims of the pow. ers involved. While making speeches about 'peace' in the UN, British troops continued to pour into Kenya or Malaysia to curb the liberation struggles there and France carried out its colonial wars in Algeria and Indochina.
Instead of opposing these aggressive acts and calling on Western powers to withdraw from the colonies, the UN backed them up to the hilt. The US invasion of Korea in 1949 was carried out under the UN flag. while UN "peacekeeping forces in the Congo in the carly 1960s helped destroy the anti-imperialist upsurge
CHANGED ROLE?
That may have been true in the earlier years. it could be argued. but isn't the UN different today? Aren't the majority of countries that currently make it up workers states or semi-colonial countries that won their independence atter it was formed? Hasn't this altered
Well, it is a fact that the General Assembly of the UN has sometimes served as a forum in which these countries have denounced the crimes of imperialism. This is what happened when the Cuban revolutionary government exposed the US Bay of Pigs'
While this is true however, it is also a fact that only the Security Council - made up of 5 countries each with the power of veto -can take action. If the General Assembly sometimes passes an anti-imperialist motion, such a motion is never transformed into action because of the veto used by Security Council members such as the US. Britain or France.
The clearest example of this is South Africa. While repeated motions have condemned the apartheid politics of the South African regime, they have never led to more than token action because of the opposition of imperialist countries.
In this sense, the UN still remains dominated by the Imperialist countries which either use it as an
page 7 effective tool to pursue their aims or who synically disregard it, when it isn't useful to them. If it didn't serve their interests, they would simply split it wide open and withdraw their financial support.
It would be utopian to expect anything else. The drive for profits forces the Imperialist powers into an endless search for markets, sources of raw materials and areas for profitable investment. The need to maintain and expand these nordings icads to constant aggress ion against the colonial world and the workers' states (as happened with Vietnam).
The UN, because of its more independent image. actually affords them a chance of pursuing their aims while appearing before their own people as well-intentioned seckers after peace.
CONFLICT But if this is true. it could be objected, why haven't conflicts between the imperialist countries and the Third World torn the UN apart? The answer is not so complex as it may appear. Most of the governments of the former colonial countries in the UNare capitalist.
While they may have taken actions aimed at establishing a degree of independence for their own capitalists, they are still dominated economically by imperialism. This is as true for a country like India as for Angola which recently won its independence from Portugal.
This is why these governments inevitably go along with solutions that uphold basic imperialist interests .. whether in South Africa or Indochina - even though they may use the UN General Assembly sessions for anti-imperialist speeches that win popular support at home.
WORKERS STATES? Unfortunately, the bureaucracies that rule the workers states in Moscow and Peking lend their support to the United Nations and uphold myths about its 'neutral' role. They have the power to expose its real nature, but to do so would cut across their desire to trade political support for capitalist regimes for economic and diplomatic deals.
Thus the Soviet bureaucracy was quite prepared to entertain Nixon to work out a trade deal with the US at the very time that US bombers were raining the equivalent of one atom bomb a day down upon the cities of North Vietnam.
This policy stands in marked constrast with the policy followed by the Bolsheviks towards the League of Nations, an earlier instrument of capitalist peacemaking', that came into being after WW and died with the approach of WW2. Lenin described it as a "thieves' kitchen'
Pete Marais
Page 8 scan of this page
page 8 Inflation is now running at 17% and is expected to top 20% by the end of the year. For the government, of course, the chief cause of inflation is "excessive wage demands" and public spending. "We have to live within our means", Thatcher says. But do wage demands cause inflation? Below, Pete Marais examines the real causes of inflation and how working people can safeguard themselves against it.
The inflation gripping Britain today - and most Western capitalist countries - stems from the end of the "post-war boom" period. Building on the ashes of the war. and using the complex technology developed during the war years. inaustry expanaed
More and more workers were hired. Wages increased and - in Britain - many workers were able to afford cars, houses and other consumer products considered a "luxury" in the pre-war years.
You CANT,
EDICATION:
'THE BANK
But capitalism cannot expand indefinitely without leading to a crisis. As each industry manufactures and sells more goods, markets inevitably become "saturated". There aren't enough customers. Industry slows down production. Workers are fired. In turn, their purchasing power declines, cutting sales back even more. The economy slumps into depression.
DEFICIT SPENDING Inflation is a direct result of this over-production crisis of capitalism on a world scale. The 1930s taught the capitalist rulers that they cannot afford to let a world "downturn" reach its natural limits. They cannot afford to impose massive "trade barriers" which promote bankruptcies and growing lines of unemployed.
These crisis conditions only serve, they learnt to their cost, to provoke a mass working class upsurge as happened in the 30s when socialist revolution was on the
erode democratic rights and which seek - by making women scapegoats for the Tory unemploy. ment drive - to split and divide them.
The mass mobilisation on October 28th showed the Tories that there was a united resistence to their plans to ram through unemployment by taking away women's elementary rights. PROTEST?
While a welcome step forward,
INFLATION: Whamto
agenda in many European countries.
In order to prevent a recurrence of such dangerous trends, capitalist governments have resorted more and more to "deficit spending" to offset these recessions. What this means, in concrete terms, is that they spend more money than they take in in taxes.
INFLATION Over the past 8 years, for example, government hand-outs to private industry have soared from a mere £21 millions a year to a colossal £8 billions. The deficit spending to "aid" ailing companies -promote arms manufacture - is financed by the creation of new money in a central bank.
As the government pours out money to keep alive "ailing" firms, new money is poured into the system by the banks. The end result is that even when companies have overproduced and find they can't
WE TOO
LIVE IN
THE AGE OF
"INELATIONE
sell their goods, instead of lowering prices to get rid of them, they tend to raise prices. They try to make up for slack sales with higher prices.
Government deficit spending and monopoly pricing consequently dovetail to unleash inflation, even when production is declining. CREDIT EXPLOSION This process was already well underway in Britain in the middle 1960s. Continued hand-outs to ailing British industry combined with money poured into the armaments industry created a deepening inflationary trend.
This gives the lie to the propaganda of successive governments that wage increases cause inflation. On the contrary, wage increases merely represent the attempt by working people to maintain their standards of living in the face of an innauonary spiral
The average wage of working people in 1974 was £80 a week. Today that wage stands at £110. If
ABORTION — continued from paget
however, the TUC's support for CAC cannot be allowed to remain at the level of a one-off protest. If the Corrie Bill is to be defeated
on Feb 5th or later continued mass action will do The lod
The previous anti-abortion Bills - both James White's and Beyon's • were only prevented from becoming law because of the vigorous action NAC launched against them. The only way to stop the Corrie Bill getting on
during that period has soared by a colossal 56%, we can see that in real purchasing terms our standard of living has actually declined by 3%.
CUTBACKS Would it therefore be correct of workers in Britain to support the Thatcher government's decision to
it be correct to accept Thatcher's
inflation is by the government spending only what it receives in and to taxes and eliminating deficit spending?
ary policies would be suicidal. In
of the right-wing Tories will only lead to a mass destruction of
education and other social services are peeled away.
to mass unemployment as thousands of workers employed in the public sector are pushed out onto
on demand, would only serve to slow down industry and lead to unemployment in other sectors of the economy as goods can't find y customers. governments - the only two solu-
mines living standards unemployment as part of a generalised recession.
ALTERNATIVE The only way to offset this twin evil is by bold socialist policies. In order to help curb intlation,
health and education, the labour
arms budget and pour the money into socially useful areas.
- building houses, hospitals, schools and parks - would also provide jobs for the tens of thou-
sitting idle.
At the same time, however,
of living inbuilt into wage agreements. Since the Consumer Price index is "rigged", consumer price committees are needed to follow actual price increases in garages,
should cover not only wages but also Social Security pensions for the old, unemployed and sick.
the statute books will be by similar mass action which will have to be that much more vigorous because of the strong Tory support for it in the House.
Opinion polls have already shown that the majority of people believe abortion should be a woman's right. The only then only way the Tories can be stopped in their tracks is by tapping this vast potential support in mass action.
ALL OUT FEB 5TH
the labour movement for a mass turn-out on Feb 5th (when the third reading occurs). Already.
blame?
we consider, however, that inflation cut back the social services? Would
argument that the only way to stop
To support Thatcher's detlation-
the first place, the "fiscal" policies
workers living standards as health,
held.
In the second case, they will lead
the dole. Such a move, cutting back
For Thatcher - and all capitalist
tions they can offer working people are either inflation - which under-
— or mass
SPUC.
socialists should fight clearly for an end to arms expenditure which eats up a vast proportion of government revenue. Instead of cutting back on
movement should fight to slash the
A bold public works programme
sands of skilled workers at present
working people should fight to gain protection against inflation. Unions should campaign to have automatic increases to keep pace with the cost
supermarkets and shopping centres.
Moreover, cost of living clauses
This means fighting within
STREETS!
Students against Corrie
By Liz Eastham (NUS) (Below Liz Eastham, LSE student. describes how the College Women's Group mobilised for the mass CAC demonstration last year and is continuing the activities this year.)
On Monday Oct 8th, the LSE Women's Group met to decide how to give the fullest support to the TUC's call for a demonstration against Corrie on Oct 28th. As part of the LSE's Campaign Against Corrie, a sub-group was set up to consider the different actions to be taken leading up to the demo.
In the next few weeks, a stall was set up and people were asked to sign the CAC petition against Corrie. All public rooms in the school were flyposted and leafletted. There was a huge response to this aspect of the campaign, hundreds of people signing the petition and a great many useful and interesting discussions being
As part of the build up, two meetings were held, one featuring Glenys Cousins of Women's Voice and the other Dr Wendy Savage of NAC who explained to a packed meeting precisely how the Corrie Bill would affect women. Her wide professional experience and understanding of women seeking abortions allowed her to answer the wide-ranging questions raised by the audience. Many of the people attending came away far more aware of both the need for an abortion service and the implications of the Corrie restrictions.
During this period, it was clear that SPUC was also trying to win support. A room had been booked at the college for Oct 27th. While there was a debate in the campaign as to whether or not the meeting should be allowed to go ahead, it was finally decided there were no grounds for cancelling it but that it should be picketted.
However, it was later discovered that SPUC had booked the room as a private meeting, attendance being limited only to those who had bought tickets. At this stage the campaign drew up a letter of objection to the meeting and it was agreed by the University authorities that, since the union had given its backing to the Campaign Against Corrie and since SPUC was infringing the LSE's own guidelines on letting rooms to outside bodies, the meeting should be cancelled. MASS TURN-OUT In the last two weeks before the demonstration, there was growing activity in the college. The information stall was kept busy and the petition was supported by teaching staff, porters and administrative workers as well as a huge number of home and overseas students.
NALGO and the NUS have pledged their support for the lobby and will be mobilising actively for it. Despite the short time left, this call should be carried into all trade union and Labour Party branches.
If the Bill isn't halted on Feb 5th, then the mass opposition mobilised against it must serve as the base for an ongoing campaign until it is removed from the statute books.
ALL OUT ON FEB 5TH! NO RETURN TO THE BACK-
NO TO CORRIE'S BILL!
Socialist Action
OVER OUR
DEAD
BODIES
CORRIE
A great deal of information was disseminated, discussions and arguments entered into and a great many people, otherwise uninvolved in any aspect of the school's political life, were sufficiently concerned to put their names to the petition and wear the badges supporting CAC
The extent of the support was reflected in the large numbers who marched behind the LSE banners on October 28th, many of them men and not all of them students. CONTINUING However, the march was not the end of the Campaign's activities. A month later, a debate was held at the school - organised by the Christian Union - - between a representative of SPUC and Jo Richardson MP, and plans were laid for the new year. The purpose of these was to reactivate support for the lobby of Parliament on Feb 5th (the time of the third reading of the Corrie Bill).
Among activities planned are a video show of the demonstration on the 28th Oct and a benetit disco. In addition, the Campaign intends producing a pamphlet detailing the current position on abortion rights, how Corrie's Bill will change it and why the Campaign opposes it
There will be few people at the LSE unaware of the issues involved and of the Campaign's reasons for opposing the Bill. It is to be hoped that this will provide an ongoing base for fighting until women are given the right to free abortion on demand - a woman's right to choose.
SEXISM
SCIENCE
HAI
Page 9 scan of this page
Afghanistan: US HANDS OF!
February 80
CHINESE AMERICA
have been urged to do the same. Washington's outrage is understandable. The move by the Soviet rulers came in reaction to increasing military activity, over the past year, by rightist guerrillas determined to roll back the land reform & other social gains that had been initiated after the 1978 April revolution. From the outset, these forces had been organised, financed and equipped by Washington and its allies, most notably the Pakistan military dictatorship.
The Soviet and Afgan offensive to defeat the rightist bands is, in this sense, a major set-back for Washington's manoeuvres, not only in Afghanistan but in neighbouring Iran as well. It is a sharp blow to their efforts to hold back the revolutionary upsurge in the area.
UPSURGE
Despite Washington's hypocritical propaganda, the entry of Soviet troops took place against a rising upsurge of the Afghanistan people for social change that can be traced back to 1978. The seizure of power in that year by the P.D.P.A (the Peoples' Democratic Party of Afghanistan) was not a "coup", as the Western press would have us believe, but the culmination of a series of mass uprisings in the streets of Kabul.
Ironically enough, the events of 1978 were precipitated, in part, by Washington itself. In response
By LEN WAGSTAFF
(ASTMS)
"But if the troops are withdrawn
irom Northern Irelano, there l be a
blood bath...". How often has
us arument been neard m me
labour movement - on the brief
occasions • meland Is la:seu•" 10
oppose any idea of troop with-
drawals. Isn't it the argument used
by ligures trom Callaghan to koy
Mason to justify their bi-partisan
poncy with the lores.
But isn't it a fact that, on
analysis or wnal is come on m une
6 Counties, a bloodbath is already
occurring and that the chiet cause
of it is the British troops (sup-
posedly there to "prevent
violence.
ACCIDENTAL?
The creation of N. Ireland in 1921
was achieved despite the opposition
of the mass of the Irish people for
self-determination. Forcing
thousands of nationalist Irish
people into this artificial state,
successive British governments have
collaborated with the right-wing
Orange politicians to set up a
repressive regime based on the
HANDS OFF AFGANISTAN
During the last days of December, Soviet troops poured into Afghanistan The reaction by Western governments was hysterical. Denouncing it as an attempt to "subjugate an independent Islamic people", Washington has curtailed trade and diplomatic links with Moscow. Its "allies" to inducements from the USA and the Shah of Iran, the capitalist regime of Mohammad Daud, that originally had economic ties with Moscow, shifted towards a more 'openly pro--imperialist stance. As part of this shift, Daud cracked down heavily on the PDPA, a pro-Moscow Stalinist Party.
On April Ist, 1978, Mir Abkar Khyber, a prominant leader of the PDPA, was assassinated. This spark ed off an immediate popular response which led to mass actions against the government. Against the background of mass upsurge, PDPA militants and supporters in the military deposed Daud and seized power.
REFORM
All the posts in the government were held by PDPA members and Taraki became president. On May 9th, he described the armed uprising as the beginning of a "democratic and national revolution". He outlined a 30-point programme of democratic and social reforms aimed at breaking the power of the landlords and improving the lot of Afghanistan's workers and peasants which began to be put into effect. These included: * cancelling the debts of poor
peasants. * implementing land reform by
setting a ceiling on ownership ot about 1s acres * legalising trade unions for the
Who's Behind the Blood Bath?
denial of elementary rights to the
Catholic minority.
A look at a tew or ine economic
statistics within the border drama-
tically illustrates this "division"
Since the partition, wage rates for
the (largely Catholic) unskilled jobs
have constantly been 4-6% lower
than the corresponding rate in
Britain, while those for the (largely
Protestant) skilled jobs have been
equal to i not nigner than the
corresponding British rates.
unempoyment presents d
similar picture. In 1975, the jobless
total in rroleslani arcas was about
3-4% (Britain: 5%) while in Catholic
areas it was about 15-20%. In
housino. the canone area ol
Fermanagh has a staggering 40-45%
areas" (Antrim, Down and Lisburn),
the rate is about 10 to 20%. Similar
diterences can be seen in neart.
infant mortality and infectious
ciseases.
EXPLOSION
It was these differences - combined
wii elecuon manoeuvres - wilen
explain the upsurge among the
Catholic minority at the end of the
196Us. Ine mass railles and
inated by the Pushtun nation). * introducing a mass literacy campaign. * improving the status of women by outlawing child marriages, declaring primary schooling as compulsory and offering special courses to married women.
but the social measures it tried to introduce won it greater popularity. At least until mid-1979, demonstrations in support of the government were held on almost a daily basis, drawing as many as 150,000 people.
WASHINGTON
the Kremlin could not ignore it.
important, Moscow began to give it considerable assistance. Some 40 new economic aid agreements
the number of Soviet military & civilian advisers rose to several thousands.
It was not Moscow's increased influence in Afganistan that alarmed Washington, however, but the Afghan revolution itself and its repercussions in Central
workers and peasants and feared that the revolution might lead to an overthrow of capitalist property relations. This fear was fed by the revolutionary outburst in Iran only shortly later.
that Washington began to back those forces in Afganistan who were themselves opposed to the
Kabul government. Dispossessed
monarchists, usurers, smugglers and opium dealers began to be organised into guerrilla bands to oppose the land reform, the literacy drive and other measures. Some groups, like the Hezb-i
the monarchy which had been
Others, like the Jamiat-i Islami,
ani circles. Some of them fought
demonstrations represented the nonE oy mouses or camolics tot equal rights - for the right to decent nousing, a joo and democratic rights.
The entry of British troops, under 'sunny' Jim Callaghan in 1969, was not - as was widely suggested - to prevent pogroms in the North. It was to preserve a minority, to protect a status quo i walen rrotestant workers obtained certain privileges at the expense of Catholic workers.
Far from helping to preserve "peace", used as tne bulwark or a system which breeds violence and opposion neu mam dum nas been naked repression, torture in Castlereagh barracks and the imprisonment or hundreds of pollica. prisoners by means of no-jury courts and une anu-democrall Prevention of Terrorism Act. LABOUR COMPLICITY Unfortunately, instead of opposing this repression, successive Labour Home Secretaries have been only too prepared to entorce lt by claiming the need to fight against
When the PDPA seized power, it had only a limited base of support.
DIVISIONS The Soviet government had no ties with the Afgan revolution, but
Since Afganistan was strategically
had been signed by late 1978 and Asia. Washington was opposed to the social gains won by the Afghan
It was to curb this development
progressive measures taken by the
landlords, former military officers,
Islami favoured the restoration of
overthrown by Daud in late 1973.
had close toes with rightist Pakist-
British troops have been
"terrorism". eloquently proves
ionary forces operating mainly from camps in Pakistan's northwest frontier. When the regime in Kabul sought to suppress them. Washington denounced it as "repressive". When Moscow gave some assistance to the Afgan government, Carter warned them against "interference".
With such backing, these groups stepped up their activities in many parts of Afganistan, destroying bridges and schools, murdering PDPA members and seeking to create so much insecurity that the government would be unable to carry through its reforms.
Although the guerrillas' claims to success were exagerated, they did cause severe disruption and damage, and wore down the morale of the Afgan army. The Afghan government managed to hang on to the cities, but their ability to carry through a struggle against the guerrillas in the countryside was hampered in two ways.
First, factional conflicts inside the PDPA emerged. As early as July 1978, one faction in the party - led by Karmal and known as the Parcham - was purged. The victorious faction, known as the Khalq, was itself rent by divisions. It was through these factional infights that in September 1979. President Taraki was removed & Hafizullah Amin seized power.
Secondly. it also appears that some of the regime's reforms were implemented in a bureaucratic manner, without any serious attempt to organise, educate and mobilise the masses, particulariy in the countryside. This gave the reactionary guerrilla groups real chances for exploitation which they naturally seized.
Both Taraki and Amin repeatedly requested Soviet military aid to combat the guerrilla forces. Some was provided but. as the Izvestia Jan Ist admitted, Moscow hesitated in the hope that the rebellion would itself lose momentum.
This attitude changed, however, in response to Washington's manoeuvres in regard to Iran. When Carter began to threaten military
What they are in fact doing, of course. Is to preserve a system o repression and privilege in Northern re ana wach uvides workie people and pits one sector against the other. By so doing, they create the situation in which a "bloodbath" constantly exists as the recent toll of deaths only too
Removal of the troops from N. Ireland is not just an elementary duty of the British labour move.
page 9
agression agalist lan - and lo prepare to "bolster' his military position in the Indian Ocean and Persian gulf - Moscow feared that the escalation of rightist guerrilla activity could result in the weak Afgan regime being overthrown.
It was this that prompted the Soviet decision to act. As Izvestia pointed out Jan Ist, Moscow was not going to allow a "neighbouring country" to be "turned into a base for the preparation of imp. erialist agression against the Soviet Union".
In the process of sending in Soviet troops to deal with the rightist guerrillas, Moscow at the same time backed the overthrow and execution of Amin, in whom they had little confidence. As the Kremlin bureaucrats often do with ousted Soviet officials. Amin was made a "scapegoat" for past failures
Karmal, whom Moscow gambled would be more reliable, was returned from exile in E. Europe and became the new President. He reinstalled a number of previously purged Parcham faction leaders.
US - HANDS OFF!
Washington would undoubtedly like to do more than scream in outrage to stop the Soviet drive and contain the Atghan revolution. They have been limited, however, by their growing political weakness since their major defeat in Vietnam. This has been shown in their inability to openly intervene in the mounting struggles in Iran, Grenada, Nicaragua and Ethiopia.
This does not mean, however, that their 'threats' of military action should be taken lightly or that their continued support for right-wing guerrilla bands cannot seriously damage or hold back the Afghan revolution
While the Soviet move will do much to break the rightist opposition, the only sure way to defeat it is to back up military action by social measures to advance that revolution. New social measures and the organisation of workers and peasants to support them is the only sure way of blocking Carter's ambitions.
We, in the West, can play our part too by exposing the sheer hypocrisy of Carter's so-called defence of 'democratic rights' and demanding: US - Hands off Afghanistan
By P. Henning ment which has long pioneered the fight for democratic rights. It is also the only way to ensure that a bloodbath does not take place since be repressive riotestant maoriL! - confronted with a united Irish opposition - would be much more likely to lay down the gun and come to the conterence table
This is why it is vital for socialists to take the issue of re and into trade une an Labour party branches, demanding the removal of troops - now!
Page 10 scan of this page
NO WITCH HUNTS !
Socialist Action
By RALPH WOOD On January 11th. the Guardian leaked extracts from Reg Underhill's report on so-called 'infiltration' into the Labour Party. The reasons for printing the report - shelved by the NEC for over 4 years - were as a "contribution to the growing debate".
The real reason for the Guardian's interest in this cold chicken, however. was revealed in the editorial on the same day. It was a call to party "moderates" to take arms to save it from what it called "the teachings of Trotsky". In other words, it was a call for a witch-hunt.
To back up its clarion-call, it prominently featured right-wing David Owen's speech at the Labour for Victory meeting in Newcastle which singled out the Militant current for special treatment. Warning of "authoritarian" attitudes, he called on Labour moderates to close ranks to freeze
CUTS
December. A month earlier, over 8,500 firemen marched against the cuts in Nottingham and, in numerous areas, there have been Labour Party and Trades Councilsponsored demonstrations
Moreover, pressure is building up for even stronger action now that the cuts are beginning to bite. On Feb 9th, the Northern REgion of the TUC is launching a mass rally against the cuts and on
and sympathisers can donate to it.
-please send cheques or postal orders to:
Donations received from:
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them out of any office.
SURPRISE The fact that the Guardian should rush to the support of Labour's right-wing is, of course, no surprise. The capitalist press has always shrieked loudly on their behalf whenever it looked as if the party might become even moderately responsive to the interests of working people.
The resounding slap in the face Callaghan received at the last conference -of the party with many of the anti-Tory struggles now taking place -are clearly seen as danger signs.
Such a trend could increasingly -they are only too aware - isolate the social democrats (already talking of a "third party").
The aim of these revelations is not only, however, to rally the right before it is too late. They realise how isolated they already
Continued
from page l
Feb. 18th, the South Yorks.
Trades Councils - backed by the 60,000 strong NUM and AUEW - are calling for a strike against Thatcher's policies.
It is undoubtedly this growing pressure that has forced the TUC - and their allies in the Labour Party - to call a national 'day of action' against the cuts on March 9th. But will the Callaghans and Murrays - who have denounced fund drive SOCIALIST ACTION, unlike the bourgeois press, has no vast funds to promote it. It relies purely on sales and on what readers
If you would like to make a donation-however small, it all helps
SA Fund Drive, c/o 58 Auckland Road, London SE19.
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are. It is also to split the left by
Callaghan, they have more in
"authoritarian" left.
DEMOCRACY
Such an attack is, of course, launched under the fig-leaf of
the right-wing are the natural
democratic for 300-odd MPs to calmly overturn conference - and the identification
millions of Labour voters.
for these 300-odd MPs.
bankers and monopolists - to
of working people who put them into office in the first place.
over the mouths of those who
the Tories so eloquently from the platform - continue to reflect this feeling and use March 9th as a springboard for an ongoing mass anti-cuts campaign?
The outlook hardly favours optimism. While the TUC has declared its support for a "con-
the cuts, it has been a campaign
to implement the cuts or on trade unionists to take strike action against them.
WARNING On the contrary, figures like Callaghan - while mouthing criti-
issued stern warnings against the unions using any "industrial
social services. Respect for the "law" figures much larger in their minds than the livelihood of working people.
leaders seems to be to contain the £1.00
"protest' £40.00
weak-kneed appeals to wait for the £1.00 return of a Labour government in £5.00
5 years' time. £2.00 $2.50
too surprising. How indeed can £103.00 Callaghan be expected to lead an
effective opposition to the cuts when he himself, in office, was
protest. represent. debate.
warning the Tribunites that, whatever differences they may have with
common with him than with the
elementary right.
DEFENCE preserving "democracy", of which
custodians. It is, you see, perfectly
decisions representing the wishes of for them.
It is equally perfectly democratic
- collaborating with unelected civil servants,
launch attacks against the millions
And it is even more democratic, it seems, to stick a strip of cellotape
will not succeed. are pursuing?
THRUST certed campaign of action" against
long on words and short on action.
At no time have the labour leaders called on Labour councils to refuse
it, "removed"
cism of the Tory proposals - have
muscle" to defend their jobs or the
The main concern of the labour
actions combined with
Such an attitude, of course, isn't
- not the end
their tracks.
disagree with this and bundle them
out of the back door. Democracy,
in the eyes of these Liberal allies of
the Labour right-wing, obviously
entails the minority dictating to the
majority and the unceremonious
shutting up of those who dare
ALTERNATIVE
Unfortunately for the Guardian -
and its scare tactics - many Labour
and trade union activists are
learning to view democracy in a
different light. They are learning
that democracy means MPs abiding
by the wishes of those millions of members in the party which they
It means creating a mechanism to ensure that those MPs, once elected, will not be able to get away with calmly overturning the decisions of the Labour movement passed after a long and democratic
And it means ensuring, for all currents in the labour movement, the right to present its ideas for debate free from witch-hunts, gags and censure motions. Freedom of speech, while it may be alien to the Guardian's notion of "democracy", is being seen more and more by thousands of labour activists as an
Whatever differences may be held with the Militant current, it is in the interests of all labour party members to defend their right to express their views and argue freely
The real enemies of democracy in the labour movement are not currents such as these. It is those forces backed by newspapers such as the Guardian which would like to maintain their bureaucratic grip over the party by the witch-hunting and expulsion of currents they disagree with. It is up to us all in the labour party to show them they
prepared to slash the social services and hold down the wages of the low-paid? How can he be expected to stop the Tories when he sympathises with the very policies they
The Labour leaders must not be allowed, however, to get away with uttering their toothless threats against the Tories combined with appeals for the return of a rightwing Labour government. They have to be forced now into building a real fighting campaign against the Tories or else — as Ted Knight (Leader of Lambeth Council) put
"No cuts in the public sector! No rate increases!" "No redundancies — for the 35-hour week". These are the demands that have to be taken up in a real, fighting campaign against the Tories.
Such demands have to be taken into trade unions and Labour Party branches to mandate Labour Councils, up and down the country, to follow the lead given by Lambeth and refuse to introduce the Tory hatchet-work for them.
More importantly, the Labour leaders have to be called upon to mobilise the whole Labour movement behind them. March 9th must become the beginning
- of a real united labour movement campaign to halt the Tories in
February 80
Politics of
Disaster
by TERRY VINEY (NUT) "Opposition to nuclear power
might well provide a focus for
protest groups over lue nexi
decade"
That's the reason the Tories give for deciding on a "low profile" approach to their nuclear programme over the next 10 years. The Central Electricity Generating Board's promise to give public reports on the safety of their nuclear plants tends to sound rather hollow after that.
EXPLOSION The reason for the Tories' reticence is clear. They are scared of an explosion Not the sort that shook Harrisburg rennsylvanla last year, wnen a bubble ol explosive gas blocked the reactor's cooling system and threatened the contamination of almost 100,000 people.
These kind of explosions are, as we all know, merely the "scare-mongering" reports issued by "dissident" groups.
No, the explosion they fear is a human one. They are frightened of the mass upsurce inat men develoo i tael suicidal plans ever became widely known. DANGER And, of course, they're right. The Tories plan building another 10 nuclear power stations in the next decade. Some of these will be pressurised water reactors (PWRs) of the kind that almost brought aisaster to inree Mue Isiano
It is not just the horrendous possibility of a "melt-down" that make reactors like this potential time-bombs. Scientists have admitted that radiation leaks cannot be completely eliminated and that the incidence rate of cance among the workforce will therefore be high. The accident rate at Windscale confirms this
Moreover there are the dangers of "atomic waste" which - as scientists at the Windscale enquiry confirmed -retains is deadiy elects Ior up to 30,000 years. Just where will it be contained - - and what guarantees are there that natural disasters won't "disturb" it?
FIGHT-BACK The implications of these death-traps has already led to wide opposition in many countnes dom te usA lo werany where mass protests have forced the covernment to nar nea sucida. programme
The beginnings of a similar move. ment seem to be emerging in Britain when last November, a major anti-nuclear conterence took pace in condor chaired by Arthur Scargill. Bringing together all the anti-nuclear groups, the conference called for an unqualified No! to nuclear power and decided to launch a major campaign against Tory policy.
The potential of such a campaign is unquestionable since there have already been numerous calls for a public enquiry and conservation groups all round the country nave challenged ine melnods the Tories are using to steamroller through their plans.
AIMS One of the major aims of the campaign
- mus be to bring the horrendous dangers of a nuclear future to the public scrutiny This will mean a major struggle within the labour movement, many of whose leaders - including the lUC - nave given their stamp of approval to the Tory plans
It has to be pointed out, in opposition to figures such as Chappell of the ETU, that nuclear power is not inevitable. that there is easily enough coal to provide energy needs for hundreds of years (during which time research could be developed into alternative sources).
Equally important. it has to be pointed out that nuclear power is a threat not only to the safety of the labour movement, but to jobs and to unions' democratic rights. It may provide ine inaustral barons wil massive orons at a ume waen or supplies are becoming "precarious" but for working people, it is a potential time-bomb No! to Nuclear Power! rora rewraming rrogramme.
For an alternative strategy based on coal!
← Socialist Action (LSA) August 1979Socialist Action (LSA) Vol. 3, No. 3, April 1980 →