The Red Weekly is the paper of the International Marxist Group, British Section of the Fourth International. Like its predecessor The Red Mole, it will provide reports and analysis of the class struggle both here and abroad.
Unlike the traditional inward-looking British left, we are internationalists. Red Weekly will therefore take its place alongside other Fourth International papers such as Rouge — France, La Gauche and Rood - Belgium, La Breche - Switzerland, The Plough - Ireland, Bandiera Rossa - Italy, World Revolution. - Japan, E/ Combatiente - Argentina and the Militant, paper of our American co-thinkers.
SOLIDARITY The Fourth International has been in the forefront of world movements of solidarity with the Algerian and Indochinese revolutions, It is the only organisation of the left which has been able to develop any movement of international solidarity with the Irish struggle for self determination. It alone has consistently de fended the Irish republican fighters from the lies and calumnies of British imperialism. It is able to do this because it starts from the correct premise that the main enemy of the workers of this country is their own ruling class, The Red Weekly will theretore give its Support to all anti-imperialist struggles and will attempt to develop movements of solidarity in favour of all those forces fighting imperialism.
REPRESSION In Britain as part of the preparations to defeat the working class, there is a constant and growing campaign of repression and intimidation directed at militants. The Red Weekly will take up the defence of all victims of the capitalist state, ranging from the Stoke Newington Fiws. the Shrewsbury building workers, to the latest victims in Coventry.
reheart Unlike some of the more respectable" papers on the left who profer not to defend anarchists, black militants, and irish republican activists, Red Weekly understands that the stepping up in repression is directed against all the anticapitalist forces.
INDEPENDENT INITIATIVES The Red Weekly will give its full support and take any steps possible to encourage the independent iniatives of the rank and fil. As Festher tries to disclaim any responsibility for a May Day strike he never wanted, in some areas the militants are attempting to mobilise the working class, In Oxford 100 stewards and work-place representatives from 1E unions and 35 branches attended a special Trades Council Meeting to orgamise the strike, Following the initiatives used in the miners' strike last year the meeting set up a flying-picket' to ensure that the city is shut down on May Day. In other towns such as Sheffield there will be British at 13"
12 hours ior Wi speakers from the Shrewsbury building workers at the mass meeting.
But the paralysis of the trade union leaders their absolute dependence on the goodwill of the government and the employers, has pre vented May Day being used as a mobrlising focus for beginning a fight to bring down the UNITED FRONT The article on the Lessons of the General Strike in the first issue of the paper shows how in 1925 the Government bear a retreat when faced with a united front of the working class. It did this however, only to better propare its forces for a confrontation with the unions, The union leaders went around cap in hand asking government appointed commissions to be fair' - meanwhile the government and the employers sharpened their knives, This policy led to the detest of 1926 Last year the miners smashed. the per cent "p norm'. The working class by strike action ge the Five Dockers released. The Government was in a stato of near crisis. But once again the timidity of the trace union leaders and their cesire to make deals behind the backs o Their members has put the initiative back wit the Tories, The aim of the Government to divide off the better organised workers from the less econ omically powerful, and to split the housewis unemployed, pensioners, etc, from the organ working clees must be tought. Red Weekly will therefore report on, campaign for and encourage all attempts to copose union leade retreat - not by pious calls such as to make t union leaders fight - but by the independen mobilisation of the working class. It wil encourage all those struggles which break down sectoralism and which unite all the oppressed groups in society with the working class in a revolutionary struggle against capitalism.
and to ..
CO 0 1H INTERNATIONAL JETTE SPENT 30 Ernest Mandel ERICHAR Mate OPPONTION Capitalism CURRING Levisited IN THELASE James Corney TIRO NATIONS DOGMA
importance for our work. We ask you to continue on this course, thereby showing the relevance of An analysis of the political situation in Britain allows us to foresee, without any possible doubt, a The REVOLUTIONARY MARXIST GROUP, Irish supp the Red Weekly.
A viable weekly paper of the British section struggling against chauvinism in the labour movement and fighting for solidarity with the struggle against British imperialism in Ireland is of paramount the Fourth International to the Irish struggle.
TOL Congratulations! The appearance of Red Weekly represenss a major step forward for the Trotskyist movement in Britain. The addition of another revolutionary weekly newspaper to the list of resolutionary periodicals in political solidarity with the Fourth International reflects the conlinuing growth in the strength and vitality of the international revolutionary movement. We look forward to the increase in international collaboration and exchange of information that will be made possible by the weekly publication of your paper.
From the Socialist Workers Party (USA)
Probibited from affiliation to the Fourth International by reactionary legislation.
May Day Supplement Page 2 rers of the Fourth International, greets building of a revolutionary party is central.
We are sure of the success of Red Weekly:
Саном он :похім E publication of the Red Weekly The COMMUNIST LEAGUE, French section of the Fourth International, sends its most fraternal greetings for the launching of Red Weekly. the new paper of the IMG. The change to a weekly demonstrates the political and organisational progress achieved by the British section of the Fourth International in the framework of the past few years' increasing social conflict.
rise in the tempo of the class struggle. For Leninists the role of the revolutionary press in the KRAVER 40 TIMERS UGE The REVOLLTIONAERE SOCIALISTERS FORBUND (Danish seetion of tbe Fourth International) seuds fraternal greetings to the International Marxist Group on the occasion of the All over Europe there bove been increasing struggles, not least in Denmark where 260,000 worker were on strike or locked out for a few weeks afler March 2ist. In a period of mass struggle it is vital for revolitionary marxista to have regular news journale. Faced with attacks from the bourgeois media the labour movement needs its own forms of communication. We are sure that the Red Weekis will mark a big step forward for the ING and enable our comrades in Britain to win many militants to the banner of the Fourth International.
HE REVOLUTIONAIRE ARBEIDERS LIGA — LIGUE REVOLUTIONAIRE DES RA VAILLEURS (Belgian section of the Pourth International) and the editorial boards of its eckly papers Rood and La Gauche welcomes the new weekly paper of the IMG. Such a sollective organiser' is an absolute necessity to combine the uneven development and to unite the ifferent sections of the labour movement against the capitalist order. le greet the rising anti-capitalis struggle in Great Britain, that confirms the existence of a new olutionary period in Europe. 'he LIGUE MARXISTE REVOLUTIONNAIRE (Swiss section of the Fourth International) welcomes the publicacion of Red Weekly. The deepening struggles of the Belish working class, he civil wur taking place in Ireland and the crisis of the British beurgeois leadership imposes mportant tasks for che resolutionary marxists in Britain. A weekly newspaper is of ley mportance for the accomplishment of these sasks. At the same time the publication of this hew evolutionary weekly newspaper shows the political and organisational development of the ING and confirins the development of tbe Fourth Internutional in Europe, Uniting these struggles is the task of revolutionary marsists, a task that the Fourth International res to implement on a world scale. We revolutionary marxists in Sweden send you our warmest and most fraternal greelings, We have always followed and read with interest The Red Mole and have tbrough it abo found political stimulus. The name of our own puper - Mulcaden (The Moie) - bears the mark of this inspiration Wich the development of mass struggles, particularly within the working class of Europe, and the parallel development of the sections of the Fourth International, it is of vital importance that we can create revolutionary newspapers capable of intervening in the daily struggles of the masses. The creation of the weekly Red Weekly is an important step forward in this respect and in the development of the international Trotskyist movement in Britain.
From the Revolutionara Marxisters Forbund.
Prohibited from affiliation to the Fourth International by reactionary Jegislation.
SAGAMI The editorial board of Sedai Kukumoi/The World Recolution — paper of the Japanese section of the Fourth International) welcomes the news that you are to have a weekly paper. The Red Weekly can be added to the growing list of weekly journals of the Fourth International, lE will undoubtedly help the IMG in its work to build the Revolutionary Party In Bricain, and strengshen the International in Burope.
We in Japan are well aware of the value of such a journal in a time of rising class struggle. May il help you win many of the newly radicalised militants to your side!
May Day Supplement Pag: 3
MAY DAY MANIFESTO of the FOURTH INTERNATIONAL The rising wave of militancy since May 1968 of the working class and all the oppressed of capitalist Europe has reached new heights during the last months.
In Italy, the metal workers have engaged in an unprecedented wave of stration af 250,000 in Rome and the pertial occupation of the Fiat factory in Turin. This struggle has had a largely suegenfuf outcome In Britain, after several years of growing strikes and resistance against reactionary legislation, the trade union bursaucracy has been forced under the pressure of the growing militancy of the working class to call a 24-hour general strike for 1. May.
In Spain, tens of thousands of workers in Barcelong have jast downed tools in protest agsinst the shooting of a building worker by the police. in France, atter many occupations of smaller factories, the revolt of the low-peid conveyor belt workers at Renault coincides with the occupation of the important Peugeof car factory.
Denmark and Holland have just experienced the biggest strike wave since the Second World War.
In Beigium, a whole series of militant strikes have followed one another since last autumn.
Even in Western Germany, the most prosperous and stable copitalist country in Europe, there have been several important wild-est and official strikes, and growing agitation at plant and union level. This rising wave of militancy is the answer of the working people to the burdens imposed on the wage earners by the growing contradictions of late capitalist society, and to the way in which the European capitallts try to solve this crisis at the expense of the working class. Inflation, massive lay-offs a return to uremployment on a scale not seen since the Second World War; speed up; increasing wark-load and work-fatique, intensified exploitation; incrassed attempts to integrate the unions into the bourgeois state, attacks againes the right to strike and so organise strike pickats, against basic democratic rights of the How win, owe copeson Dy the sure apparatus, some imes assisted by armed gangs of thugs in the servien of the employers or of a ciner-cut fascist character; intensified super exploitation of immigrant workers and national and racial minorities, youth and women worker; increased degradation of the environment and the quality of life these are some of the key evils against which the European workers are struggling in ever inertusing numbers, All of these evils are tied to the growing crisis of late capitalesm as a зумель, всеготогаль ало пацогану, wichexpressestre, mong other things, in the crisis of the world monetary system, the incriase of adopte centensire torust to coeir struggles and to poorcame Ineir tragmentation in corportist, localind, or industry-wide limited stri and demonstrations Whatever the immediate forms and demands for the current strike y which express this need — ane ts depends upon the concrove stru tion in wich particular European country - the key question which they ultimately raise is that of the conquest of power by the workis class.
This conquest of power cails for a new and higher form of democre than bourgeois perliamentary democracy: the democracy of worke councils, which will not reduce but increase all politics freedoms including the freedom to form opposition parties, to publish oppos tion pepers, to have access to radio and TV and all other democrati freedoms — which the working people want to enjoyThe present offensive of Capital against Labour - itself an expressi of the growing structural crisis of the world capitalist system - is n It is nurtured by international capitalist organisations (tha so-called multi-national corporations"), propped up by international power organs like the Common Market, the world-wide operations of US. Japanese moerialism, NATO, SEATO, international financial instil tions, etc, etc. Cepital is more and more international in arganisati dosirst it. a nationaliy limited working class movement becomes D tentially ever weaker and ever more outmanoeuvred. Multi-national corporatione, whether dominated by US, Eurapean, Jopanesu or 'national" copitalists, can open and close factories in many countries at will, can lay off thousands of workers, and can t to orsurise governments and union bureaucrats into alaning wagi and working conditions at the lowest level existing in thase countri Reforming legislation, always at best a by-product of the miliens struggles of the working class, is more and more paralysed when cor fronted with the operations of these gians corporations. There is ar one way to answer them efficiently: to oppose international solida and internationat unity of action of labour to the international ope tions of capital!
Let us build a close network of shop-stewards, factory delegates an tectory committens of all plans awned or controlled by the same multi-nationa- corporation. on geery reduction in manpower, every charge in labour organisati every decision of soead-up or deserioration in working conditions, commonly plan the response of the workers.
Let us establish a solid unity in action of all trade unions in the wh of Europe, irrespective of political or philosophical differences bet HE THREE IT ACHES Let us organise European wide strikes ageinst the European-wide o
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