Cling workers jailed at Shrewshe first victims of a new form of ed to cripple the working class By applying the laws of criminal • trade union activity, the trials have made every organise meeting, or demonstration thie for the actions of those he sted out by all those leading aguinst the trials that this new the working class moverent the Industrial Relations Act. evin Halpin of the Liaison the Defence of Trade Unions, I spokesmin for the Communist and the day following the sentences: pot to work over the holiday, to get ponse as got the docken oul of ALDING THE RESPONSE at to the jailing of toe lustrial Relationn uf workers wil not to build this respomie was pirea all the pubVery 24 have hardly rootired MADE IEC ALLAM00 recognined by millions of worken anb-working class, The Shrewsbury under the existing criminal law, iets still believe to be in some sense ly. the trade anion leadership led a il inadequale, campaigo against the lations Act, whereas over Shrewsbury wred the 24 rather than the Government what we must work out is how to e unfavourable circumstances. We the strategy of the Communist Party. lying the lading roie in ihe campaign, be emsential lessons of the Pontomville 5 LESSONS OF PENTONVILLE 5 af the obvioas lessons of the Pentonville 3 Ice is that an immediate and decisie action section oe sections of worken can provide [determined lead which the rest of the foliow. The first task in reply to the писать всестоге, маз tand 1: 10 до indefinite strike action under way in the industry as soon as possible, ago-day stoppages have occurred in the buildae acros the country over Shrewssury in recent er has campaignod about the trials, and the eng Ster, along with the papers of the revolution ay keft, has given the case ex tensie corcrage.
Runs of support have boen passed up and the country, Over 650 delegates, many of them Workers, attended the Liverpool Trades spotored Shrewsbury Conference bust tely sentenos was paried, the North Wales Delonce Committee called on North Wales building ken to strike in the new yoar until the 3 were miened trignificantly, the Morning Saar failed to print tis) Then, on 31 December, the Stor reported a change of line, without any explanation: The 11 January 1974 not act in 1972 because a letter froon the dockers section of the T&GWU arrived in the post, They ac bed because they had no choice buf to act. Appeals to the TUC against the background of a nationel building sirike anu far mone likely to be cileotive than nicely typed requests. What the Communist Party huve done in the Shrewsbury campaign is to subordinate the response of the inas movemeat to the thy tem of the official trade union machine DF courst, nobody claims that the TUC will take ao action on Shrewsbury as a result af official requests and general badgering, or that the TUC should not he lobbied. The TUC will probably be fonood to calf a one-day protest strike over general Tor policis. But no Tory policy las over boen changed gnificantly by one-day protest stoppages: Thes n the neh liken patome to toe [P's alar For the campaign, amd it is plainly uscless as far as freing the 3 is concerned.
The Communist Party line offers no guide for what to do uf the TUC dorst'l delver Che gooda It is no use saying, as Lou Lewis did at the Shoredisch meeling, Chat the cank and file will havg to find a way to do the gob themsches 4f they find that the campaign to get action frata Ove buscaucracy is a faiture. A series of one day stoppages und demons trations ceateed solely around gotting the ollicial machine to do something which it then fils to do will be a demoralising anl courcy-wasting process By the time you get aroond to discussing the corvet cours, the movereat will ba w already bruken up on the rock of hurepucralic immoreahility By the time 15 January, has come and gono, the trials of the remaining 18 will be opening in Shrewsbury and the prospect af reversing the verdicts imposed on the 3 will scem more and more distant. In the absence of any clear focus For stugde worker will begin to think "Let's not do anthing unid the appeals ait over and the whole movement will evaporate, leaving the Shrewsbury 24 firmly in die hands of thre state The CP knows fall well what the Shrewsbury trinls art designed to da, It knows that indefinite national stoppages and 'action of geoctal strike proportion/ b the only cerlain way of releasing the 3 and stopping the trials, They openly say that it was not the machinations of an 'independent" kgat machine which pot the 5 out of Pentonville, bat the mass action of the warking class, It knows that the Taries are engaged in an all out attack on the working class and that a fragmented response will oot stop them Yet ley act in a way which contradicts all these COMMUNIST PARTY STRATEGY The Communist Party has many genuine illusions in the trade union bursaucracy, but what is uppermost in their thinking is their relationship with the trade union and Labour Party Tefls: The road to socialism for the CT lies through a parliamentary coalition with the Labour left which will use the capitalist state machine to legislate socialism into existence. The mass stragale of the working class iloes have a purt in this sébema - hut ondy u secondar A general strike of the soet that shook the Britich -ruling class in 1926 ue France in 1968 would dis rupt afl these well takd plens Lindet snolt circumstanos the Jeft' bunsucrats in boch the trade unions and the Labour Party world rapidly shy away from the mass morenent, laving the CP all alone in the middle Even the lumated level of stragplc we bave scon so lar has forced the CT into some very curions contartions as rhey step leftwards with one foot to keep up with the militants, and rightwards with the olber to keep up with Scanlon and Jones-all in the interests of "anity": yoo know The "left" bureaucrats have a magic famula to which hey have resourse in times of crisis-a penura clocuon. This alluws them to pose as the bolde champions of the working claes against the Toe beast, while at the tane time selsing to do anything Saf all about the strugehes in which workers ane actually enuzged, No one hes aided this pley more Than the Consommst Party and Iw Mormong Stor abo consstenly juesent the strinde aginst tik Tury Governmenl as if a generul eleccion wis the on eis gren Woc sos toa HMoT Ho itprecats ams boriu for the mast elto tn Fol dradi se d moil agelon la the finess se tilan nose chestico brachiae te ber Sucb ideas can do natsing to carty tar Shasbury campaipi forward: the road to victory, in this ruggle fies clesuly and wireetly through the door uf massie industrial action -whether it be in alliance with the bureaucrats of in the teeth of their treschery