Socialist Challenge No. 130, 17 January 1980
The scan: sc-n130-jan-17-1980.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 Challenge
KICK OUT THE TORIES
Welsh General Strike on 28 January
Support
steel
workers
against
the
Tories
Rest of the Steel News
*Picketing Private Scabs in Sheffield — page 7
*No Return to the Thirties in Wales - Pages 8-9
* History of the Steel Unions - page 10
*Strike Round-up — page 11
interests.' wages will be coming soon.
No 130 17 January 1980 20p
Heres why strikers price special
Voice of Tories
I think the chairman [of BSC] is coping with a set of inherited problems in the way best suited to the national interest, the taxpayers' interest, and the steelworkers'
—Sir Keith Joseph, Minister of Industry
Voice of Corby
'Is a cut in my wages in your interests? You should ask yourself that question, because if the steelworkers lose this strike you can be certain that a cut in your
Is it in your interests if I join the dole queue? The plan to axe 52,000 steelworkers' jobs isn't because you need less steel but because the bosses' crisis means that they have to shut plants to maintain their profits.
We're already hard up against the Tories' policies, and with you behind us we can all look forward to waving goodbye to Margaret Thatcher, Sir Keith Joseph, and the other friends of big business in government.
This strike began as a fight for a 20 per cent pay rise. In South Wales, the miners and the railwayworkers know that their jobs are on the line as well as ours. That's why they are going to take indefinite strike action to stop the closures.
Support them, support us, get the TUC to do the same — in action as well as words. It's in your interests! - Alasdair Sinclair, ISTC steelstriker, Corby
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Socialist Challenge, 328/9 Upper St, London NI. Editorial: 01-359 8180/9. Distribution and advertising 01-359 8371. Our attitude to the Afghan crisis
19-20 January — make it
OUR POLICIES
Capitalism is in crisis. The leaders of the Labour Party and the trade unions offer solutions that are in the interests not oi the workers hut of the capitalist class.
Socialist Challenge believes that the iwo vital lasks contronting revolutionary socialists are:
• To build broad-based class struggle tendencies in opposition io ciass-conanorauonisa in lne labour movement. These should
HOTI-CACIUSIYE grouping together militants holding a wide range of political views.
• To begin in fight for the creation of unified democratic revo utionary socialist organisation which can, through
application of united front tactics, ibein t° housandss an alternative thousands workers engaged in struggles.
Such an organisation should be paseo on une unoerstanding taal.
The struggle for unite the fight of
Tworkers against the with that of other oppressed layers of' society - women, biack people, liberation, This socialism can only struggling
nt power and defeating with all necessary means the power of the c'apitalist statt.
2 л «H NH I BTS
what exists in Britain ilal, with full rights for political parfies and currents that do not lakt up arms against the socialist stare. The Stalinist models of "socialism' in the L.SSR and Lastern Europe have discredited socialism in the eres of millions of worhers throughout the world. We are opposed to them and will offer fuil support 10 fighting for socialist democrac!.
The interestsof workers and drapitalists are irreconcilable on a world scale. Capitalism has not only treated market, has created politics. Thus we fight tor working class unit! scale. This unity will in the long run be decisive in defeating both the imperialist regimes in the West
brutal dictatorships they sustain in Latin America, and Asia.
In Britain it implies demanding the immediate withdrawal IrilsA Iroous from letting the Irish people determine their oun future.
The C'ommunist parties in Furope are in crisis. deither 'Eurocommunist' the pro-Moscon wings have any meaningful siralegy lor oerthron of the capitalis/ state. Nen revolutionars socialise parties are necessar! than hefore. Conditions lodas more fasourable than preceding thrse derades. But such parties cau onis be rejecling sectarianism and secing internal democracs not as a luxury hut asa vital necessits. This means the right to organise factions and tendencies.
Ii you agree with these principles and want 10 involved activities hy Socialist ('hallenge sunoorter in vour area. filt in the term belom and send it to us.
intere led in
sanctions imposed
But what character,
limited
and
reactionary
reverse both the
staff in socialism
bosses
their nuclear weapons
the Afghanistan crisis. all thosse
world world
international
Africa
and the
erer are the
Why SH FI E
!TE CCTE-r
EDITORIAL
THE HYPOCRISY of imperialism over the Afghan crisis knows no bounds. In the middle of President Carter's attempt to get United Nations'
against Iran, after publicly bemoaning his inability to take military action because of the reaction it would provoke, the US government opposed the Soviet invasion on the ground of 'self-determination of nations'.
is really worrying the Department is their inability to turn back the
gains that the masses had made Afghanistan, striking another blow to imperialistimposed stability in the area. That was why the United States government through Saudi Arabia and other agencies supported and supplied the
"rebel' forces with aid of the barbaric dictatorship of General Zia in Pakistan.
Ever since their defeat in Indochina, American rulers have been looking for excuses to
domestic and international situation back to their advantage. This is why it has prolonged its gamble with the lives of its embassy
Tehran, trying to whip up internally and get international pledges of support for its campaign against the Iranian people.
The proof that the USA is not the victim but the architect of aggression internationally can shown by its campaign to base a new generation of
on European soil, establishment of a tactical strike force to intervene anywhere on the globe and the building up of я massive naval presence in the Indian ocean, prior to
One rapid gain has been made with the offer by Margaret Thatcher to allow
At Work Against Racism by Raghib Ahsan. In this pamphlet, originally published as a shorter article in Socialisı Challenge 12 October 1978, Ahsan, au Asian shop steward at the Rover
this force to use Diego Garcia. repressive and
State government.
aiding the
the
it.
hysteria
be materially strengthened
the support in such a military conflict.
We dissociate ourselyes
Southalls weekend
aulial
But these facts should not blind us to the serious situation that has resulted from the Soviet invasion. Nothing indicated that the Islamic guerillas in the country had definitively proved a serious threat to the government in Kabul. If the rightists had gained political support it was purely because of the
brutal methods of the Amin
If the Soviet rulers represented the interests of the workers of the world (which they do not) they would have opposed these methods of Amin by
development of an opposition Afghanistan which based itself on the masses. Such an opposition would have strongly defended the reforms that were initiated by the Taraki regime in 1978, extending them to the complete overthrow of diasul A ciuoal, ane oortste rully wa chosen. The invasion did not aid the revolutionars process in the country. Socialists cannot welcome
However the very fact of the invasion has changed the political conditions in the country. It has probably boosted the popularity of the counterrevolution, created the conditions for massively increased aid to the rebels through a politically and
General Zia. The possibility of a full-scale civil war has now opened up. Socialists will be forced to say which side they
utterly from. bureaucratic and reactionary motivation behind the Soviet invasion, but in the present situation a call for the immediate withdrawal of troops would
Imperialism is the main enemy.
Afghanistan — sixty years ago.
Fight all bans
witch-hunters in Transport right-wing. our
and
OOSCE DLOO
.the affiliate to the Läbour Party.
treated with the contempt it deserves.
By Oliver New
for legal costs.
event has.been
Blair Peach
League..
IMG Notorious
On 20 January there is
Pentonville prison
2-3pm. Pentonville
conditions
prisoners are being held.
resolutions condemning
the labeur movement,
Karnet Magistrates Court.
Wilh Southal these attacks have
reality.
Solidarity
real weekend of
trials are going on now.
be tantamout to being in favour of the victory of the rightist forces and the reversal of any gains by the Afghan workers and peasants in the last decades.
* See pages 4-5 for Britain's intervention into
REG UNDERHILL (now a peer of the realm) and Sara Barker were always the two most notorious
House. During the Fifties they formed part of the Gaitskellite faction and ruthlessly hounded out enemies. So. it is no surprise that Lord Underhill and several right-wing MPs are obsessed with the Militant tendency.
Their outpourings have become the subject of red-baiting articles in the popular press. No masscirculation daily has been able to resist the tide. The Daily Mirror has also entered the fray, thus justifying every stricture Tony Benn has aimed at it as a pseudo-supporter of the labour movement.
We have many differences with the Militant grouping, but we must unite to defend them against the attacks from the Tory press and the Labour
opinion these absurd witch-hunts would become redundant if all bans
were removed and all organisations in the labour movement allowed to
Without such bans being lifted all the talk about the Labour Party being a 'broad church' should be
SOUTHALL Saturday is on 19 January. All
over the country events will be organised to
publicise Southall defence and to raise money
organised by the
Southall Campaign Committee, the Friends of
Committee and the Anti-Nazi Socialst Challenge suoporters and branches should help to ensure that
maximum support is organised in every town.
La march to starting from Euston
station, London, [Melton St on the west side] at
Ipm followed by a picket of the prison from
- notorious for its bad is where the Southall political
Support for the Southall 342 by the rank
and file of the labour movement has built up
over the last few months. Hundreds of trade
union and Labour Party branches have passed
the massive police
violence against an entire black community.
This solidarity from anti-racists and parts of
combined with
increase in press publicity, has resulted in a
decline in the conviction rate at the show trials in
Nevertheless the overall rate of convictions
is still about 25 per cent higher than the national
average of 52 per cent for similar cases.
But even now the political significance of
the police attacks has not sunk in among the
left, let alöne in the labour movement. For
years we have been talking about the British
state using the North of Ireland as a training
ground for attacks on the British working class.
become a
Solidarity with the struggles of black people
is the ony thing that is standing between thugs
like the Special Patrol Group and Britain's
black communities. Make the 19-20 January a
solidarity with Southall, especially for those in prison and those whose
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ONLY THREE STOP THE BILL
One union stands up for women
HOME NEWS
By Jude Woodward THE 1967 Abortion Act represented a massive gain for women. Through it thousands upon thousands of women in this country have had a choice over when and whether to have children. Others dave matilation at the
The 1967 1 right to ruined lives, ill-health, backstreets.
In Ireland abortion unobtainable as in Britain. But it is not even a woman's right to choose contraceonon cuner. wniy burea b allowed and then only prescription.
Just before Christmas a Spanish woman was imprisoned for 12 years for performing illegal abortions. No doctor in this country has been tound guilty of Blanks insufficient grounds since the passing of the 1967 Act.
Even in other European countries where abortion is not totally illegal the time limits are shorter, grounds tougher and costs higher. In fact the '67 Abortion Act is the most liberal abortion law in any Western capitalist country.
AT LAST a major trade union has called for action against the Corrie Bill at the time of its third reading next month.
NALGO, the union government white-collar workers, is
Parliament February'.
Sadly, it's not surprising that very few unions have come forward with support against the Corrie Bill.
The TUC demonstration October was exciting partly at least because it was so unusual to find the British trade union prepared to take action on a 'women's issue.
Yet if the Bill is to be scrapped it will entirely depend on whether large sections of the labour movement are prepared to act.
The experience in NALGO should give encouragement to all those who are hoping to get their own unions to take a clear position on the Bill.
Geoffrey Drain, general secretary of NALGO, has issued a letter to all branches and district stating the executive's position.
*The Abortion Amendment which seeks to restrict the operation of the '67 Abortion Act comes up for its third reading (the decisive vote) on 8 February', the letter explains. majority of Mies voted for the Bill *At its second reading
The Corrie anti-abortion law
WEEKSTO
death LACTICE
DO I DU AT
poverty the
virtually — it is riot even a doctor's choice
doctor's
on of local
Tuesday
last
movement would therefore urge
Abortion COTLISILECCS
Bill them at the lobby.
of support the advisory. But Chiller a
HILL.
ACCORDINGto Woman's rig
Now John Corrie, a Tory MP, connivance of the Tory government, is in a very position to change all this. month's time, unless dramatic action is taken. his Bill will pass its third reading in Parliament and turn the clock way back.
Some of the changes in the proposed new the
NALGO, however, is totally opposed to any restriction of the '67 Act and I
branches to support the lobby of Parliament on 5 February to oppose the Corrie Bill.'
The letter goes on to point out that thelobby is organised by the National
Campaign and by South-east Regional Council of the TUC. NALGO members are advised to write to their MP and attempt to see
The letter does not have the status
members to lobby; purely strike will probably number of NALGO
Smith the not so serious.
In one impossible to get
Referral
members to take action who might otherwise have stayed at work on the day of the lobby. It is up to NALGO members up and down the country to make sure this happens.
In Haringey NALGO branch in North London, a motion calling on the union to back all those taking action on that day was carried. movers of the motion were called to an emergency meeting of the union's national executive where anti-Corrie campaign was discussed.
Those discussions helped firm up
decisions of the NALGO leadership, who made it clear that the union authorised any member taking strike action on 5 February. A letter from the executive will clarity that anyone taking action on 5 February will have its blessing.
NALGO is not well-known for its willingness to back industrial action, but it is making a stand on this issue. If NALGO will do that then should expect a great deal more from some other unions.
NUFE. for example, has had a very good position on abortion there's still time for the executive to back strike action for 5 February.
It is vital that all pro-abortion trade unionists pull out the stops to get the maximum official support for
action and support lobby. It's the only way to stop the Corrie Bill becoming law
ABORT ORRIE lau wouid be laughable il the Eaten Br
Under the new law it
information about the charitable abortion clinics.
agencies will be completely separated from the clinics with no formal
By Jude Arkwright
STUDENTS have put themselves at the head of the fight to defeat Corrie s Bill and for women's rights. At its December conference the Union of Students agreed to take strike action on 5 February, the day of the mass lobby against the Bill The NUS took up action which the abortion campaign put out, but if a paper motion is to be turned into reality there will have to the be some vigorous local campaigning in the colleges. The NUS executive hasn't done Local CAC/NAC be approaching [particularly FEs which are often very militant but cut off from the national union] offering to speak at meetings, taking leaflets and calling for strike action.
The Socialist Students Alliance achol
of the
connections.
Advertising will be limited
the Bill
for abortions.
Ludicrous
private abortion
better hope
to perform abortions!
Tougher
grant them.
start to succeed.
sects.
allan a
'Confrontation
The DOEST TI of outrage cataragst.
Students. Make the action bite!
book
National
other the call for strike the lobby,
much about it as yet. groups should local colleges is quite clear:
against the Bill'.
For resolutions;
How to campaign against the Corrie Bi
•Half a million signatures on the petition by 14 January, Available from/return 1o: CAC, 374 Grays Inn Rd, London WC1. 01-278 0153.
Trade union month of action in January.
•Local and regional demonstrations on 2 February to start week of
•Mass lobby and rally, Central Hall, Westminster, 5 February organised by CAC and supported by the South East region of the TUC
•Women's Assembly, Central Hall, Westminster, 8 February.
Abortion counselling services will not be allowed to directly refer women for abortion.
The British Pregnancy Advisory Servio the largest of the private charities that perfors abortions, have announced contingency plan
becomes. . law. They considering closing their clinics in this countr and arranging to send British women to France
One of the more ludicrous sections of the Bill prohibits doctors who have worked
clinics from providing 'counselling or advice to pregnant women' for a period of six months after they leave the cimi
If they leave to become local GPs they'd
no-one their surgery pregnant — if they do and need advice the ch the doctor used to work for will lose its liccad
'conscience' clauses will allo
mortions the change is eat a
abortion - which many pro-choie doctors so as the most serious aspects of the Bill discourage the granting of abortions
The new wording of the Bill is dear i - to wipe out all grounds for aborte from severe damage to the soman's pl bealth. Door on will as red do be against abortion, will be pressured sor
Prosecutions of doctors who hare l abortions on insufficient grounds ma
In addition to bese restrictices limit for legal abortion is to be reduced to 21
If dis Bal a boned s become
It. IT I S
Opinion polis bar= stoma trac a00 that the majority of people in this com
La i the Bill is passed it does out stas for
has produced a model resolution and a speaking tour is being organised your speakers now! Rock Against Sexism will do gigs against Corrie and that's a good way of getting new people involved in the Student Unions should approach unions to get their colleges completely shut down for the day of 'Flying pickets' and speakers can be sent out to other les active colleges as well.
This action has got to bite and bite hard. This Tory government has got to be stopped — without control over our bodies we can't control our lives. Our New Year message to Corrie 'Hands off our bodies, 'Strike full details of model leaflets, speakers etc. phone Jude or Mick on 01-359 8371. Socialist Challenge 17 January 1980 Y ge 3
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SOUTH ASIA IN TURMOIL
INTERNATIONAL
India's frail
democracy
By Jude Woodward THE imperialist press loves an Indian election. ‹ The 'world's biggest democracy" they proclaim, and fondly show television film of elderly female
khaddi-clad Leasant vI carefully casting their votes.
The message isn't difficult to penetrate — the Indian population may be starving to death, illiterate, poverty-stricken, hardly human, but everyone gets a vote. This is a good thing, and it only happened because the good-old Brits used to run tbe place and wouldn't let independence until they learnt to be democratic.
But what the truth democracy?
Let's look at a few facts.
The only party government since Indian independence in 1947, apart from the last two years of Janata rule, has been the Congress Party. The prime-ministers have exclusively come from the Nehru family, again apart from the two years of Janata and also the one year premiership of Lal Bahadur Shashi in 1966.
Although the existance of only one ruling party and only ruling necessarily indicate a lack should certainly open room for doubt. renewed emergence of the Congress Party at the last election, Janata as a meaningful electoral alliance, merely underlines the absence of any significant choice for the Indian electorate.
The constitution, agreed in 1950, learnt one important thing from the way the British had ruled India It allowed for powers - all democratic and fundamental rights accorded to the Indian people by the constitution can be suspended whenever the security of the state' is threatened.
Detention
The Defence of India Act, introduced by the British during the First reintroduced as Defence of India Rules after independence. These rules, 1971 Maintenance of Indian Security Act (again based on the British Defence of India Act), allow for detention without trial for a year or more.
amencments allow renewed, again without access to courts. In
cheergency times courts may not issue writs of habeus corpus, and prisoners have no right of appeal to the courts.
In 1974 this darling of the Western press, the proof that underdevelopment in
doesn't have lead to dictatorship or socialism, was described like this: 'In its treatment of those who pose a political threat to it, the government oi india nas nothing to car ow uk wa repressive regimes in the world.'
At one stage in the 'naxalite' rebellions (rebellions of poor peasants led by the CPI-ML) an estimated 17,500 were held without trial in one state alone. Charu Mazumdar, leader of the
CPI-ML, was arrested on 16 July 1972 and died of a 'heart attack' while in custody twelve days SHIGE
The response to industrial action is similarly almost always repression. In May 1974 there was a strike of the 1.8 million underpaid workers on
India's railways (India's largest single employer apart from the land). The strike was met with
20,000 arrests, 25,000 sackings, railway workers
homes were invaded and smashed up, and many
workers were evicted from the 'railway colonies'
where they lived.
Although the right to labour organisation
exists in India it is no more secure than any other
democratic rights in the country. Employers take
on thugs to beat up union activists and smash
strikes, often with the
authorities. Reprisals
Here is an account of the reprisals taken
againsi union militants after a strike at the British
Leytead factory in Madras in 1972.
The (hired thugs) came into our section
amed with iron bars, cycle
lold he would have it 'straightened out"
thrust to the ground and his arm smashed with a
hammer. When the bleeding and beaten workers
ran from the factory they were arrested by armed
outside.
8 BIL WalLlls
allowed through the police cordon.
The Indian constitution is nominally federal
— a necessity taking into account the diversity of
the pan-Indian state.
languages in India, and a staggering 845 different
Socialist Challenge 17 January 1980 Page 4
Gandhiesque figures
them have
Indian
form national
family doesn't 351.
n' for docta The
following the disintigration of the
massive reserve secession.
unremittingly
World war, Wat government together with the
detention to be
South Asia
the country?'
Lok Dal.
rhetoric
connivence the
their
chains and sicei manifesto.
sorter with a iwisted arm was
The hired thugs were
There are 15 recognised
languages and dialects actually federal provisions are supposed to divert any threat towards secession posed by the linguistic, religious, cultural and racial differences in the
IT IS rare in India that more than half the
the turn-out was 55 per cent.
cent swing to the Congress[I], coupled
with the split in the Janata party, gave the
former an increase in seats from 153 to
Less than half those who
actually chose Indira Ghandi's party
so out of a population of 600 million only
75 million voted for Indira Ghandi.
subcontinent. But there is no acceptance of the right of national self-determination and it is an indictable offence to even verbally
Congress Party has not successful in controlling as has in running government. Local electorates have often chosen different parties and coalitions in their regions. In West Bengal in 1967, 1969, 1971 and again at the recent election the CPI-M (split from the CPI) won control of the area.
- the Congress Party the communist government in 1970 and 1971 and ruled directly from the centre.
Attempting to actually achieve something for the people in India, rather palliatives, is simply a signal for the jettisoning of all the rules of parliamentary democracy.
When Indira Gandhi introduced a state of emergency in 1975 she was not doing anything surprising, the country had been more often under 'emergency" • ie presidental rule not since 1962. It's true she did go further than before. She smashed all freedom of the press for example, even words of Gandhi and Nehru had to be checked before publication. had to say about it was: "What difference do a few hundred journalists make to the freedom of
But India was already set down the route Indira Gandhi was on before the British were eyer forced out.
The Janata Party, which was elected to restore democracy and stamp out corruption, was if anything more corrupt than the Congress Party itself. From the point of view of the masses it made little difference at all, and it gave the Jan Sangh party, a semi-fascist Hindu chauvinist party based on the richer peasants in the South, a chance to gain respectability. It has become the third party in Parliament under the new name of
Illiteracy
Indian democracy is a sham and a fraud and has been since it was first mentioned. Despite the
the facts speak Something like 80 per cent of the population is illiterate — a higher proportion than 15 years ago
and when the elections are run by a highly literate bourgeoisie the masses don't stand much of a chance. And when 17 per population owns over 50 per cent of the land the poor peasants can hardly choose to vote against
landlords who've
handsomely paid for their tenants' vores.
Neither party in the last election produced a veithe party presented the masses
ith a programme for economic recovery
to prevent famine, to reform
fight poverty,
landholding. Indira Gandhi may have won a
landslide victory, but it will take more than her
image to keep India together as the new wave of
world recession closes in.
The irony is that there is some truth in what Compared le the military dictator-
ship dares tic press sali borde in Patiszan.
in cakes IOre
people queuing up to vore to
spoken. The
An 8 per
N
voted
advocate
been as the central
But the central
- overthrew
than just offering
- than
All that Indira
By Geoff Bell
state which
themselves
Britain and
Moscow:
cent of the
already been Afghan
Curzon's
our side.'
Rolling
India is
Iban 400,000 government of
make a real would adopt the
Samarkand
U. S. S. R.
"Herat
AFGHANISTAN
Kandahar
BALUCHISTAN
- ARABIAN
=S EA
IN 1923 the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Curzon, threatened to declare war on the Afghan
had secured its independence from Britain just four years before. Behind this lay the friendly relations then being established between Afghanistan and the USSK.
Evaluating the possibility of war between
Afghanistan, Raskolnikov, Soviet representative in Kabul, reported to
*In the event of an Anglo-Afghan war all the sympathies of 70 million Moslems in India would be on the side of the Afghans...In view of the
people's attachment independence it mast be said that the chances of the Afghan government capitulating hefore the English.. are extremely slight.
It secres logical to presence that as a result of ultimatum Afghanistan will welcome rapprochement with USSR even more readily. History is on
It is unlikely that Raskolnikoy or the Soviet
1923 envisaged that appearance of Soviet tanks rolling across the Afghan border in 1979-80. On
~ Faizabad
BADAKHSHAN.
Taligan.
KABUL •Kunar Jalalabad.. S Islamabad
PAKISTAN
*Karachi
USSR and Afghanistan
the contrary.
Independent
new tion:
of Afghanistan,
change for the 'history'
CHINA
Pomirs
Lahore
Delhi
INDIA
Miles 400 The policy of the early Soviet government was to stress its clean break with the imperial Russian policy of vying with the British Empire to secure military and economic contro!
Thus the Soviet Union was the first country to recognise the independent state of Afghanistan, and in 1921 the two states signed a friendship treaty. Among the promises made by the new Soviet government was one which emphasised its adherence to the principles of self-determina-
'In fulfilment of and in accordance with undertakings of the government of the RSFSR [Soviet Union] given by its chief Lenin to the Minister Plenipotentiary of the Sovereign State
Russia agrees to transfer to Aíghanistan the lands in the frontier area which
clonged to it in the last century, while observin
the principles of justice aud the free expression o the will of the peoples inhabiting those areas.
Such a declaration must have been a welcom
people Afghanista Throughout the previous century the coustry had been the vietim of a tug of war between the rival imperial powers of Britain and Russi During the first British-Afghan War of 183812
Page 5 scan of this page
— in the beginning there was a treaty
+
RASUL BAKSH PALEJO addr
The 'haris'
of Sind
SIND IS one of Pakistan's four
provinces. Its interior contains one of
the most
masses. These are the 'haris' or poor
peasants.
1948-9 the
appointed a committee to study their
Dient. its report was a whitewash. but
a civil servant produced a dissenting
tenort. known atter him as the Masud
Report. These few quotes
readers some idea of the Sind 'hari'.
*They [the haris] are human beings
and, as such, rational animals, and
though they drudge like
burden, they
privileges nor any rights of human
beings... When I came to Sind I was
shocked see the
contons ol lae Nars•. lucy are No
better than serfs. They live in the most
primitive conditions
conception of social,
economic rights...
scattered. tar from one another. in
small hamlets consisting of thatched
mud houses. Most of them share huts
with cattle...
"The hari who has cultivated a
piece of land for several generations
does not know how long he will be the British burnt whole villages and massacred their inhabitants.
In the second British-Afghan 1878-80, the British decided that the best way of
controll as they cord as o hir hands ony
Afghans as they could lay their During a similar conflict at the end of the 19th century, even Winston Churchill proclaimed 'we are a very cruel people' as he watched British troops shoot prisoners and burn villages.
By the time of the third British-Afghan War • of 1919 the British had adopted a new technique for quelling rebellious natives. This consisted of using air power to strafe Afghan villages.
WAS after this Soviet-Afghan treaty was signed. Lenin greeted Afghanistan's successful battle for independence
Britain estabusing independent Muslim state in the world', destined for 'the great historic task of uniting around itself all enslaved Muslim peoples and leading them to the road of freedom and independence'.
Buffer
Soviet foreign policy independent Afghanistan not just because it recognised the right to self-determination and backed anti-imperialist ecause such a State served as a butter geninst
A peep into
Zia's Pakistan
of the
LOVEI WILCHIL
will give
COLOU
enjoy
miserable
without
political
They live
included women
allowed to stay
zamindar War
conflict that the
only supported
governments, but
ses a mass rally of 10,000 peasants in the interior of Sind province in
slave A woman poet addresses the audience several hundred
on it. Fear reigns supreme. Fear of imprisonment, fear of losing his land, wife or life. The [landlord} might get The Khyber Pass in 1929
annoyed with him and oust him. The zamindar might at any time send for the hari for purposes of forced labour...
The hari behaves like a helpless
when he has to face zamindar. It is not an unusual sight to see how numerous haris come and touch the feet of a zamindar...
*The zamindar is a feudal lord and maintains a legion of servants, owns fine horses, cows and buffaloes. He possesses a large number of firearms and hisso fiousnesses ev rupees.
into thousands Extravagance in food and dress, gross and vulear sexual ostentations are the things on which
devotes his income.' [Masud Report quoted Tariq Pakistan: Military Rule or People's Power, Cape, 1970].
Since that report there has been no qualitative improvement in the life of ine haris of Sind. But they becoming more organised. exclusive photographs show a Hari conference which was organised by the Sindhi Hari Committee in Rahuji Village in the interior of Sind on 8-9 October in 1979. The conference was nol pupucisea, our ive aclegale. attended from all over the province.
Floggings
The day after it ended several important Sindhi leaders arrested. Rasul Baksh Palejo, Fazil Rahu and sixteen other organisers were arrested for organising an illegal meeting. They were tried by summary military court. Palejo was sentenced to a year in prison. Others were publicly flogged and sentenced to prison. The local police chiefs were suspended for their failure to informt
military authorities of conference. The right-wing expressed its 'anxiety' that the 'fires of communism' were being lit in the rural areas of Sind.
is the real face of Zia's Pakistan.
India. Evident
slim. practically
communism's independence
This death.
In this
follows in 1929:
By Ghulam Hussein
THE HANGMAN has now become the custodian of the 'free world' in South Asia. The repressive and which Pakistan has being enthusiastically important media as the frontier Those Pakistanis sickened by this campaign will be highly amused, for Zia's record is an open book.
Ali's: In September 1970 fearless military leader was in Jordan, on loan from Ene class to the Hashemite monarch. In other words mercenary. He helped to carry out the These bloodiest massacre history.
Palestinian killed. As a token of his King Hussein presented Zia-ul-Haq with one of Jordan's two hillary awards. Lla saw absoluleiy no contradiction (as Muslim) in killing Palestinians and Pakistan's so-called support for their cause.
Obsequious
were Five years later Bhutto appointed him Chiet of General Staf Pakistan Army. Zia obsequious, a uniformed Uriah Heep.
In 1977 Bhutto's daughter Benazir, then at Oxford, socialist who had just returned from a short-visit what he thought of the country's immediate the replied bluntly: "Either your will be assassinated or there will be a military coup.' Replied Benazir: grant you he might be assassinated, but a coup, never. You see Zia is in possible-British invasion of the Soviet Union via
The Bolsheviks also knew that the possibility of comminist revelution in Afghanistan was very
The Afghanistan Communist Party the concentrated their efforts in Asia on assisting the Indian Communist Party. Al the same time the
have hoped evident _respect for would sprese communist ideas in the comatry.
policy was continued after Stalin's policy "socialism country' — stressing that support for revolutions elsewhere must come second to the defence of the
— was to sentence to death man! revolutions and revolutionaries throughout the world. But in Afghanistan it had less effect as no communist movement existed there.
sense the . Soviet attitude Afghanistan at the end of the 1920s differed little from that outlined previously by the Soviet-Afghan treaty of 1921. Rykov, the Chairperson of People's Commissars, put it as
Pakistan last October. Following the meeting Palejo and dozens of other peasant leaders were arrested.
Who is Zia-ul-Haq?
our pocket.'
that no
most brutal, unpopular regime
ever had is now
acclaimed by yestern of freedom. servility.
who яге
Pakistan's
Pakistani ruling
state-sponsored
in Palestinian indefinite Hundreds and hundreds of elections freedom-fighters were
CE LiCo gratitude, oppositional accompanica highest thousands People's "devout National Party, off many Mengal.
in Afghanistan. promoted as a
was suitably
by the Pakistani asked a Pakistani
future. He father DECUIC transform
rather than later.
Afghanistan
and social character,
an independent state now for six months was
Soviets actively supported from withost.
situation tha Soviet/ Afghas border...e
Afghan policy
of internal affairs of th
Lenin's Convulsions
one
And this
'Our neighbours greal, greal telals suffered
basic principies Lenin and by
the other.
general was ever pocket' of any civilian politician. But this story, which is not apocryphal, reveals Bhutto's over-confidence. He genuinely believed that Zia was a safe bet because he was both extremely stupid and cultivated a facade The general's low cunning ultimately defeated Bhutto.
Dangling
Zia lied incessantly. He promised elections within six months when he first seized power. He has since made three other promises in order to keep the politicians dangling in mid-air. ASICO Del he announced an postponement of the and banned all political closing down a number papers. This was the arrest of activists of Bhutto's Party and the Pakistan which is led by the veteran Baluchi leaders Bizenjo and
Today Zia has been given a new lease of life by the Soviet intervention He is now being stable and efficient defender of Western interests. It is true that the army is the only effective instrument the West has in Pakistan. But Zia and his regime are hated people. Not all the aid of the IMF/World Bank or the military might of the United States will save him for long. • He is hemmed in by Babrak Kemal, Khomeini and Indira Gandhi. And we would venture attempi Pakistan into Saudi Arabia without oil will fail sooner the utmost regret that the internal crisis which
people are now going throu complicațed by antagonisms of a national, rac
is being prolonged. country which for the ten years of its existenct a
made great progress. been in a state of aii thanks to the opposition of reactionary forces
"I must also direct your alteation to the tan
certain was reiterated by the Vice-Commissar of Foreign Affairs, Litvisor:
the Afghans have. borne this year. Afghanistan convulsions which have caused anxiety, interested as we are in the Afghan people fully preserving their independence. Faithfal to
of our policy tie have refrained from the slightest intervention in the bitter internal struggles taking place in that country, and from supporting one group againsi
Socialist Challenge 17 January 1980 Page 5
Page 6 scan of this page
'Defend Robbo Assembly meets
DEREK Robinson was.
Britain's second largest Leyland's Longbridge complex. une chairperson of the Committee, company-wide stewards organisation, and he represented the unions on the joint Cars Council, set up under Lord Ryder to integrate the shopfloor into the BL management decision-making processes.
On 19 November last year he was sacked: The reason given was that he had signed a pamphlet arguing against the 'Edwardes Plan' to sack 25,000 BL workers.
Sir Michael Edwardes has been chairperson of BL for just two years. For these two years .. supported by the last Labour which gave him a knighthood for his services -Hdwardes has tried to reduce the total number of BL workers and to raise the levels of productivity. He successfully closed the Speake
Liverpool, redundancies in 18 months, and imposed speedun on the lines.
Alternative
Edwardes sacked Robinson
ballot on the company. unions his 'Survival Plan' received a massive 72 per cent majority. there was a big difference between getting this vote and actually implementing the plan and knew the main opposition would come from the shop stewards.
After the stewards' withdrawal from the participation scheme and rejection of a 5 per cent pay deal, the scene was being set for a confrontation. The course that Edwardes took was to use his success in the ballot to isolate the stewards. The sacking of Robinson stunned the Clue Ilyale.
Edwardes' gamble was that he would get the support of the union leaders, who backed his plan, and with the encouragement of the Tories would be able to weather the storm that erupted after the sacking. He was proved right Terry Duffy, president of the engineering union of which Robinson was a member, refused to make the strike official after talks with BL management. Rather than spontaneous strike action that erupted the AUEW executive set up a union inquiry' to investigate Robinson. leaders, as well as the BL bosses, saw him as a threat.
Collapsed
A recent article in the Plymouth-based Sunday Independent quoted Sir John Boyd, AUEW general secretary, hadn't sacked him we would have done so in the next few days'. The Robinson out, and the strike collapsed.
At its highpoint 40,000 BL workers were out. Many of them were from plants like Castle Bromwich and Canley, due to close this year. Duffy and Boyd did the job that BL managers couldn't do. They ensured effective action BL Cars — to defend Robinson was called off.
The AUEW is not like other unions. It has a
By Pat Sikorski
ARTHUR SCARGILL last Sunday pledged the backing of
Hille for industrial reinstate Derek Robinson as convenor at the Longbridge plant.
But Bill Jordan. organiser of the AUEW, told over a thousand jeering delegates
'reinstate kabho' could not guarantee that the union's enquiry would find in favour of the sacked shop steward.
He went on to tell delegates that it was all very well sitting militant but it officials like himself that would have to carry the fight for Robinson and pick up the casualities on the way.
it Ine most arrogant assertive speech by a right official in the union for a long time.
Confident
It showed that Terry Duffy and
John Boyd,
British Leyland shop stewards are so
weakened that the combine will be
unable to call for action if the national
leadership does find against Robinson
or tries to negotiate a
with Leyland chief
Edwardes.
Delegates from the north-west and
sociadist Challenge 17 January 1980
the convenor of factory, British He was also BL Combine unofficial government,
forced 20,000
after the future of the With no alternative from the trade
Edwardes still realised that
when
supporting the
*court of The union
AUEW
as saying: "If they
AUEW leaders sold passed a
that the most all-out strikes throughout
Yorkshire action
British Leyland
West. Midland
at the Assembly that he
passing would be
and wing compromise Michael
Page 6
very right-wing leadership, but it still has one of the most democratic constitutions in the trade union movement. The fesponse of many active members has been to sacking of Boyd, Duffy, and the rest of the national executive.
The Birmingham Northfield Branch of the AUEW, which has a majority of BL workers, calling for an immediate ballot, under Rule 15 Para S, to re-elect the entire executive after their handling. dispute. Only 10 per cent of the 2,600 AUEW branches need to support this motion to force through the ballot. The Northfield motion sets a basis for a massive campaign against the right-wing leadership. With the Robinson sellout so clear, the left in the union are in an idea position to gain support for an alternative to Glasgow district of the union strongly criticised the union leadersnip but failed to mention the campaign which is starting to have an impact on the
Boyd. 'We would have sacked him'
RELAUNCH
ROBINSON
BATTLE
of AUEW members. demand the Alliance right wing.
That's the campaign sponsored by Engineers' Charter, the rank and file • paper in the union, for a ballot to
By Pat Kane Boyd and Duffy that would defend the interests
Derek Robinson is also a leading member of the CP, and a supporter of the AUEW Broad Left. This is the largest grouping within the union, consisting of an alliance between the Labour 'lefts' and the CP. The 'Rule 15 campaign first received support from the Broad Left and the Morning Star. But to have a ballot success you need a credible alternative. last four years the Broad Left had been in political crisis, and its reputation for militancy has been severely tarnished.
Hugh Scanlon, whom the Broad Left placed in power as president, is now Lord Scanlon — a
remove the executive council of the union, if 10 per cent of the branches call forit. The Charter says that it has 200 of the necessary 280 branches for
government's pay policy.
now they are in the House of Lords. Censure the executive.
Left campaign presidential election next November.
• of Robinson.
members.
possible to get Robinson. The
January
every militant shop steward.
Watching
Robinson affair -
Of the ISTC nationally.
the movement cannot
under the Tories' new laws?
LCDTU For the
the ballot. "The
have to
in 1972.' such conference.
to discuss
Prior Bill.
reward for his efforts in supporting the Labour
The CP-dominated • Broad Left cannot break with the 'lefts', even
With no alternative to offer the CP have retreated from the campaign for a ballot to re-elect the executive and the campaign has disappeared from the pages of the Morning Star. Instead they want motions of support for the reinstatement of Robinson and censuring
Leading CP members. now openly argue that any ballot would result in a defeat for the left, and would weaken the Broad
for Bob Wright in the
The lack of any credible alternative to Duffy and Boyd will set the seal on the sacking
The CP could have organised a campaign to defend Robinson, starting from the active involvement of thousands of AUEW
The issue was so clearly one of victimisation that even the Broad Left could
The Northfield resolution received wide support throughout the union, and it is still
an effective campaign for Liaison Committee for the Defence of Trade Unions conference on 26
provides us with an opportunity to demand the organisation of such a campaign. The BL workforce is far from being smashed -Edwardes' pay offer and productivity plans have been rejected. But if there is a wages fight the threat of victimisation will be used against
The Tories and the rest of British industry will be watching for the outcome of the
wondering if they too get away with sacking their own militant shop stewards. Before the steel strike began several ISTC militants were sacked with the agreement
Derek Robinson is a member of the CP. The CP dominates the Broad Left and the LCDTU.
defend its own militants, then who will defend the thousands of ordinary trade unionists will be victimised
We must make Robinson one of the central issues at this
not by saying how 'responsible' a trade unionist he was, but by organising a fight to get hım back into BL Liaison Committee for the Defence of Trade Unions Saturday 26 January, 10.30am, Friends Meeting House, Euston Road, London Credentials from Jim Hiles, 137 Wanstead Park Road, Ilford, Essex.
Scargill added his voice to the criticism of the engineers' leaders. He said that if any branch officials of his had been sacked 'not a single cobble of coal would have been moved' until they were reinstated.
He explained that the attack on Robinson was part of a general attack on the British trade union movement. Prior proposals together with all other anti-working class laws be thrown out by mass working class action of the sort that defeated the Industrial Relations Act
resolution the delegates pledged full support for whatever action necessary to secur Toe remstatencil! of Robinson anc the withdrawal of disciplinary charges taken against the three other shop stewards involved; Len Brindle, Jact Adams and Mick Clarke.
But the question of calling any action was not put to While delegates i at int Liason Committee for the Defence of Trade Unions conference will be able matier fortnight, it seems unlikely that the Leyland combine will call the all-out action in Leyland plants and beyond that will reinstate Robinson and win round one of the battle against the
Page 7 scan of this page
Ciose encounters that can win
SUPPORT THE STEEL STRIKE
STRIKE NEWS
By Clive Turbull
IN South Yorkshire, scene of some of the biggest picket-line battles strike, the number of pickets has doubled during the past week, Sheridan, member committee in Rotherham.
taken place in Sheffield, hundreds of pickets from South Yorkshire have been dispatched to ports, stockholders, and private steel firms as far afield as Boston in Lincolnshire, Lynn, Manchester, London, and Birmingham.
with more than a dozen arrests at Duncan Hadfields, private beginning of the strike, Hadfields has increased production from 12 to 16 shifts.
co-ordinating Yorkshire area, takes the view that unless the strike is extended to the private sector it cannot
Athousand
pickets
greet the
industry
minister
By C Banner and J Schweik
*MAGGIE OUT, Maggie chanted over a thousand steelworkers from Sheffield, Rotherham, and Shotton as they marched through the centre of Birmingham to picket Sir Keith Joseph last Friday:
The industry minister had come to meet West Midlands TUC leaders, and was visibly shaken reception by the steel strikers.
A TY interview evening showed Joseph emotional state as he lamented the inability of workers to understand the need tor his monetarist policies. If there's one thing the minister hates to have to deal with it's people. Pushed
One of the pickets who had come to greet him was Karen Locker, STC member and Labour councillor from Corby. She has grasped the finer points of the Tories policies only too well. 'What we're facing is part of the Tory strategy to take on the working CASS movement,' she told Socialist Challenge.
*The government said they going to put us in our place. But if the Tories want a steel. industry, they're going to have to pay tor it.
'We've lost enough jobs,' Locker added. "They pushed us so far that now we've got no choice. We've got to fight and we've got to win.'
kind of remark that makes Sir Keith despair. It just isn't the way that right-wing academics, industrialists, and the City see things. Inherited
When told by Roy Bishop, ISTC's Midland divisional that the boss of the Corporation should be Joseph replied: I think the chairman is coping with a set of inherited problems in the way best suited to the national HALCIESL the interest, and the
be
during the steel
according to Stan of the ISTC strike
While the pitched battles with police have
King's
In Sheffield itself the struggle has escalated
steel firm. Since the
The Rotherham strike committee, which is
dispute the South
the Out,'
Corby,
al - nIs
broadcast that
interests.
an
made sure of that.
sheets that
people around the world. were Interest then
that Joseph omitted to mention
As Steelworkers' Banner official SOCe spelled out,
paid over in interest charges.
early "70s. the officer
British Steel weekend said
removed, BSC empioyee
taxpayers' Board and British Rail',
steelworkers' The bankers
made effective. The consistently refused to accept instructions from ISTC general secretary Bill Sirs that picketing should be restricted to BSC plants.
Despite support from the Transport Union locally, scab lorry drivers continue to try to run the gauntlet of the picket line. 'We've turned
back again,' says the secretary of the ISTC's Shepcote No.1 branch
on strike is red get de Tory
opinion against government,' adds. "They confrontation.'
ISTC members are working normally at Duncan Hadfields. They separate agreement from those employed by the steel corporation, and they have not been called out by the steel union executive.
Thanks to this policy encouragement of the mass media, attitudes on shopfloor at Hadfields against the strike. Mick Adams, convenor at
Inset: Stan Sheridan of the Rotherham strike committee
Well, it's true there are inherited problems. The planned slashing of annual production capacity to 15m tonnes because of the West's crisis has
can't
But it is the capitalists' balance
require steel-making capacity in the West to be destroyed
not the needs of the masses of up
There was one kind of 'interest'
have a - the kind paid to bankers and financiers.
ISTC's newspaper has of the £1,215m loss declared by the steel corporation over the past four years, £680m of this was
A large proportion of this results from the investment undertaken as a result of the ready optimism of the
The Sunday Times editorial last
that the payments amounted to f1,120 per
per year. It added 'there are precedents for writing off the sources of loan liability at the Coal
and financiers
committee has
the local
in the dispute.
to join the strike,' doubt approves
Lonrho wanted
covered by
and the any in Europe.
have hardened In an DUNCAN HADFIELDS— the privatesteel firm in Sheffield which has been the scene of daily pickets.
wouldn't be unhappy about They would still be collecting from the taxpayers, the large majority whom happen to be working class people. So why not tell them they
-have any more payments? That really would be in the interests of almost everyone.
So too is the action that is building
stop the closures. It's capitalists who don't want steel-making capacity, not working class.
If Sir Keith Joseph can ever bear: to spéak to a steelworker, ne
word with Harold Watling from Shelton Barr rolling mill, who went to Birmingham to shout at the
This is what he told Socialist Challenge: "The Shotton lads Joseph's got to go and the rest of the government with him
Insult
"The 2 per cent offer was an insult. We accepted the wage limit in the last pay round.
'Where 1 work, in the rolling shop there were six slingers. The price of our rise was three slingers down the road, and the rest of us doing double the work.
'It's got to be 20 per cent this time round, and no more redundancies.'
Hadfields' East Hecla works and secretary of
private sector steel maintains that IST members at the plant are saying that they would be justified in ignoring any strike instruction which could involve them
'We are now under pressure from our members to ignore any call from the executive
Adams argues. Bill Sirs no this assertion interests against the unity of the steelworkers.
Management at Duncan Hadfields has wheeled out the time-honoured story that if the plant shuts the result would be bankruptcy. This is a little strange since the company was purchased iwo years ago for £15m by
Lonrho, which invested £11m to make the plant as advanced as
attempt to defuse the Hadfields' management invited ISTC official:
that.
of
interest of discontent'. The
the the the
17201
saved.
say the strike. shorten the days of Thatcher's rule.
committee, done.
staying open.' of sectional
they'll step in.'
proposals were in force. go back to the Dark Ages, he says. the have to arrest thousands of us. since enough'
situation mass picket to close the plant, and
East Hecta
Try this sales pitch
UP TO now the daily papers have avoided the anti-union excesses of the 'wintes
steel strikers every day on the front pages. If anything the popular press has preferred to relegate the strike to the inside pages rather than opting for wild union bashiag
The Sunday papers are a slightly different story. The Sunday Express las weekend had a front page feature on the 'reds' behind the strike — incodi Socialist Challenge. Thanks for the compliment, but perhaps the pay offer a the steel closures have something to do with it.
Woodrow Wyatt in the Sunday Mirror has explained that the stecturert were 'committing hari-kiri' by demanding higher wages. In reas this former Labour MP and now boss of a printing fire pat ferman employers" arguments that only by cutting jobs and wages can steet
It is not just a question of whether the mass media attack the stre. Ne tr is that there is no mass paper or broadcasting channel which actively supports
That's where Socialist Challenge comes i. tol sympathetic coverage to the steel strikers sad tell the t industry and its bosses, but it also tries to bad!
By taking the paper out and selling it to steelworkers me ca the politics to win. By selling it to other working class people me can importance of solidarity actions to make the strike bite more
Our paper is fighting alongside the steelworkers. You can make it sor effective by seizing every opportunity to sell the paper during the strike. Lest week Sheffield IMG ordered an additional five hundred copies for sale on the picket line, and Cardiff increased its order by a hundred, bumping up our prisi run. Follow their example and help to bump it up again.
to inspect the plant to show that they were not doing work which BSC would otherwise have
But as Stan Sheridan of the Rotherhar strike committee points out: "They can go i there, but it doesn't make any difference wha they find. These lads won't accept this plac
Alan Cooke, a steel worker for 22 years says: 'The police might have been playing it softly so far, but we've had a dozen arrests ad Hadfields. As soon as the action really starts,
Cooke considers that there is 'no chasce' of the Tories stopping picketing, even if the Prior
'Thatcher's tryin? t 'But she'
Where woul they put us? They couldn't build prisons fast
The strike committee is now
welcomes any support from local trade unionists.
Photos. CIVE TURNETTY
haven't been denounced each anita
nickty
Socialist Challenge 17 January 1980 Page 7
Page 8 scan of this page
WELSH VALLEYS: NO RETURN TO THE '30
By Valerie Coultas
THE NUMBER of people without Britain in 1932 was estimated to be seven million. The decline of Britain's traditional industries and the collapse of international trade after the crash of 1929 caused suffering throughout the length and breadth of the country.
South Wales, heavily dependent as it was on coal, iron, steel, and fin plate, showed what a reserve army of labour meant in awful reality.
Lt. Col. Sir Parliament in 1934 on the eastern area of South Wales, found that unemployment there was 44.5 per cent. Many mining villages, especially those on the worked-on seams in the north of the coal field, such as Blaina, Bryn Mawr and Merthyr Tydfil, Portal describes as 'derelict, two-thirds of the workers unemployed
Of 50,000 miners unemployed had been out of work for a year, 56 per cent for two years, and 35 per cent for over three years. Behind these statistics lay problem.
The coal and steel industries had undergone a period of expansion during the First World War, when they were vital for the war machine needed to defeat German imperialism. Even after the war the demand for Welsh coal and steel was high because the Belgian and French industries had been destroyed.
But 1923 the boom collapsed. depression which began in Wales was to last until the outbreak of the Second World War. Raw materials
Areas of Britain which had a greater variety of industries were more depression. But the large population of South Wales was concerned with the extraction of raw materials, such as coal, and the production of the basic material for other industries, such as steel bars, rather than the production of finished goods.
The over-valuing of British currency with the rise in the gold standard in 1935 made exports from South Wales uncompetitive. The protective tariffs which many countries put up to prevent foreign goods interfering with the development of domestic industries after the First World War added to trade problems for Wales.
The British Navy began to use oil and this further and hydro-electric power reduced the domestic consumption of steam coal.
Although the stayed at its 1913 level, the production of steam coal began to fail. The antiquated steel piants
By Paul Highfield
NOW living in Cardiff, Joe Phillips is 69
and an ex-miner, who started down the
pits in 1925 at the age
remembers the militancy of the early
'20s, such as the.
which achieved a big wage increase.
When 1 started colliery Maesteg it was a 7-hour
working day — shorter hours than
today. We were out for nine months in
the General Strike.
Baldwin had said: 'Lock them out.
We can get cheaper coal from India.'
But the sell-out by the TUC isolated
the miners. After we'd gone back at the
end of '26 things got worse and worse.
The wage cuts and longer hours started
being brought in in 1927.
Lack of unity
There were many thousands not in
the South Wales Miners' Federation, so
there was great lack
although my own lodge
mititaet. It was a closed shop.
asenployment began to get
bad you could go
colliery and there'd be 20 men waiting
Socialist Challenge 17 January 1980 Page 8
work in William Portal, reporting for
with over
76 per cent The resilient to the majonty undercut the market. Motor transport
production of anthracite coal
I WAS BANISHED
poverty was terrible
of 14. He the 3d bus fare. Means test
1921 miners' strike
Cogmant any jobs to go to.
Letchworth deliberate
of unity, The
down wages. to the loD or any Carter unemo oyment
and coal mines of South Wales found it increasingly difficult to compete magnificently re-equipped industries as those in Belgium.
From an output of 10m tons of steel in 1929 in Britain as a whole, production plummeted to half that figure by 1931. Coal output fell from 257m tons in 1929 to 207m tons in 1933.
Protection Although the government protectionism after 1934, this did not solve the employment problems of South Wales because its industries depended on exports. Even in 1939, with re-armament well under way, there were 100,000 people unemployed in South Wales. in desperation, many younger people left Wales in search of work. Between 1931 and 1938 the population of Greater London increased by nearly half a million while that of South Wales fell by 115,000.
Migration 100k strongest members of the community. It cut the DOWN of those ntensified the poverty and dereliction. It meant that the social services declined.
Whole families being common. Often it was only the very young who found work. Wages were appallingly low due to the massive competition for jobs. Shops closed, charities dried up, the roads were neglected. Merthyr Tydfil, once a proud borough and cradle of the British iron industry, became a ghost town. A Royal Commission described the scene in 1935: "Merthyr Tydfil has many sites of decaying iron works, the most modern of which stands like memorial to past prosperity hillside of Dowlais. The mayor of the explained very graphically how the number people made destitute by greater te see the manager for a job. The
— I had to walk three miles there and back to the pit each day because we couldn't afford
The Board of Guardians means tested everyone who was unemployed
and vou never got more than 15 shillings a week in vouchers. Food was cheap, but no one could afford clothes.
I was made redundant, and then sent to a government training centre in Letchworth, Herts, in January '3z, and trained as a plasterer, but there weren't now, I think that the thousands of us who were sent to Dudley, Leominster,
victims of government policy of dispersal to prevent unity among the unemployed in South Wales. I couldn't return to Wales until 1949.
Tories today want a huge surplus of unemployed, to defeat the -rade union movement and to driv
trying to abolish benefits after six
with such
light
Eg smal commission
inhabitants. introduced
distant
off on the dole.
away the youngest and left behind.
unemployed was 'IT was a point of honour never to buy anything if you could get it in other ways. We took wood from fences without any sense of shame. We would steal timber from the pit heads.
'And if sheep could be enticed from the hillside, it would be killed and the meat divided among the people of the village. We were not ashamed because we were being made outcasts by those who owned the means which could have given us a livelihood.
"The miners would climb in their pit clothes a thousand feet or so up the mountain to scramble for bits of coal among the slag. A day of this weary work — as hard as any day in the pit — might fill a hundredweight sack of coai worth 1s.3d, while under the valley floor the rich
on the of the country. town
this change was far directly
months in the USA, and Thatcher, Too, wants to slash benefits 1929-30, when benefits were cut from 17s to 15s 3d. Single women only got 12s and dependent women received 8s. CallaghaM rather will fight back. Len Murray They say: "Think of the just like in the General Strike. We can't let the Tories win.
I hope the South Wales miners come out on strike and do everything and anything to get a full stop in all the pits in Britain.
Afraid The Tories are afraid of the miners' strength that's one of the reasons why they want & vast nuclear power. the lead in the fight against closures in Wales.
But the rest of the trade union movement - the steelworkers, the dockers, railwayworkers -everybody must support them.
thrown out of work:
«When the works were in full employment, a large number of elderly men were employed as watchmen, signalmen, gatekeepers, and on other
work, who are nOW anemployable and in receipt of public assistance.
'Similarly, elderly men and women who had
shop when these industries because of the reduced purchasing power of the
Women who kept lodgers, went working days cleaning and washing for workers who are now unemployed, are also in receipt of public assistance.'
The pits in the Merthyr area, which had employed 24,000 in 1913, were down to 8,000 in 1935. Miners were desperately seeking work at
collieries. Some spending so much on fares that if they were married with fair-sized families they were better
Humanlives
In 1934, 63.4 per cent of the workers in Merthyr were registered unemployed.
As with all communities which face poverty and social deprivation, the uitimate price was paid in human lives. In 1935 in the Home Counties the rate of infant mortality was 42 per 1,000 live births. In Glamorgan, it was 63 deaths per 1,000 live births.
•In 1936 the maternal mortality rate was 3.65 per 1,000 for England and Wales taken together. In Wales alone the rate was 5.67. Death from
Arthur Horner, "The Incorrigible Rebel'
tuherculosis was twice as common in Wales
South Shields and Gateshead as it was in the rest
Resistance to government policy in these
areas was fierce. The degree of solidarity among
the unemployed was unparaileled. In 1935, when
the vast majority of the unemployed suffered a
* just as in
same
nation' expansion of
Dhain, TIH
regarded
all-Wales were. down action, SW England Midlands Wales Scotland Northern Ireland
of Commons:
country and
enjoyed by Movement in the limiting the Parliament.
As Ralph same path.
Port Talbot—
cut in the dole and the means test was applied in a savage fashion, South Wales w
The anthracite miners called for a 24strike, which was followed by a similar call the Cambrian Combine Miners in the Rhor The South Wales Miners' Federation calle
conference and set up a counc which brought 300,000 people
In Merthyr Tydfil a demonstration of wi smashed the windows of the newly-establ
Unemployment as a percentage
of insured workers by region in 1932
London and SE England Unemployment Assistance Board.
WH Mainwaring, Labour MP for the Rhondda, made a desperate appeal in the F
*I hope the working classes of this countr pay heed to what is said and done here toda that from now onwards the agitation which its height in South Wales (Hon members Al over'] will spread like a flame throughou
English working classes will join with the Welshme make the demand that come what will damnable regulations must be withdrawn
The reductions that had beer made in th were refunded. But despite the massive su
the Unemployed Wor depressed areas, bott Labour Party and the trade unions natic refused to take up the cause of the victir capital sturmiess anve lot plous.
It was left to the Communists to organis unemployed nationally. Despite the enthus of many rank and file Labour Party mer their leaders, afraid of the militancy they\v unleash, refused to take on the capitalist sy They were bound then, as they still are tod
struggle the confine Miliband explained Parliamentary Socialism the Labour Party deliberately refused to further that educatio organisation outside parliament, of a mi movement in defence of working class inte (our emphasis). When the chips are down Jim Callaghan and Len Murray will follo
Page 9 scan of this page
1936: CYMPARC vlllagers pray for miners on a stay-down strike.
town fights for its future
By Pat Kane
PORT Talbot is very industry town.
Tommy Lyons, secretary of the Electricians Union describes Port Talbot 'as a steel works
Apart from most people in Swansea depend on the giant BSC firm for their livelihood.
Built in the boom of the fifties, on the site of the old Abbey works, the new Port Talbot workforce looked forward to a rosy future.
But competition from abroad and the general slump in trade due to the economic crsis is now turealcuing ce workers South Wales, Port Llanwern.
The BSC are considering closing down either all of Llanwern Port Talbot or part of each. There are
suggestions of Velindre being hived off to private enterprise.
Wyn Davies has worked in the blast furnace at Port Talbot since he left school:
much a cle
plant,
several oil refineries
The
at the newest steel plants in
Talbot and
For all of
and ovens:
'If the plant closes, or even if there are some redundancies, I don't know what else I could do.
•Before the steei strike I thought we would be forced to leave Port Talbot. But now I think we can stop them. If the government won't give BSC the money to keep the plant open then we will just have to keep the plant open ourselves.'
'BSC management hope steelworkers in Wales will fall in with the ISTC line nationally and swop an increase in their pay packets for jobs.
carrot of large payments will be waved under the nose of the union leaders and the rank and file steei workers will be expected to cave in when it comes to selling jobs.
'But every day the strike continues steelworkers realise that fighting a government that's rigid on pay and jobs. It has to be forced to give in on both.
Tom Evans works in the coke
'I think that the strike should be about jobs as well. In a way it is about jobs. If you don't have one a pay rise won't do you much good.'
general
coal from abroad.
beca postponst postponement opposition
unless
the action.
These are:
with redundancies
run.
L'sion of Miners.
remaining
two collieries Forking, I'se Merthyt and T:
closed down. be greater than in • that the Britain.
redundancy pay and lobs
Poll
they argue, let's they' te
have to start by
steel jobs.
strike call
THE WALES TUC has called for a one
state Monday January. The strike, led by miners, rail and steel workers will go ahead unless the British Steel Corporation cancels plans to increase purchases of coking
But the indefinite strike called by the Welsh unions for 21 January has
TO march was decided Nationalised Industries Committee.
The 10 March strike will go ahead
the BSC agicto to int demands of the 14 unions who planned
*The provision of a subsidy for coking coa mined in Wales *Postponement for two years of the plan to half Welsh steel production
between 11,000 and
*Suspension of BSC's top management *An enquiry into the way the BSC
Don Hayward, an officer of the
Dai Coity Davies is the Corapersation Secretary of the Sonth Fistes Nationa
The National Coa Board tas told is which collieries in oct area are ilkely to be ciosed dont.
It will mean the closure of the
collieries in the Valley and the Aberdare Valley. Thos
_ Penrhiwceiber ste.
izLE IxTE
collieries in the Rhondia. Tse all te
In the next valley to the Rhondda the Ogror, there is only one colliery, the Windham and Western. This is to be
there employment for the miners. I be closed. in the Lynth alley, sy will be closed. In the Liynfi Valley John's and Coegnant are on the list for closure. Possible closures also extend to the Eastern Valleys, Monmouthshire, the Rhymney Valleys and the Western Valleys. Forty pits are open now, we
The left in Plaid think that the issues raised in the present steel dispute are the most important facing Wales since the 1930's.
Here the effects of steel closures will
Many other parts of For us, the present call for industrial action is not just about pay The Welsh TUC has always argued that we can't isolate the two questions of
They have sent mans delegations up to London to press this
Unfortunately the TUE nationally and ISTC want to isolate these issues
tackle pay first and then get on to the question of jobs. From the Welsh point of view this is useless. The issues are integrated
; opposing the strategy to shut down plants and cut
For us in Plaid Cymru, this links up with the question of autonomy for the Welsh people. This would enable us to adopt different policies and to argue
Defend jobs
I South Wales
Challenge:
The
after Welsh TUC'S
abstained on the proposals.
called for similar
remain an 15,000
the steel workers.
in Cardiff on the 28 January. All out for 28 Jannary!
The pits that will close
Супоп
BH
nationalised, there wier:
Now there are forty.
The trading estates in
female workers
PLAID CYMRUSPEAKS
our case.
action does extremely TUC will be
in coal and steel.
We should parliamentary
thing that is really industrial action
unemployment.
I don't
BSC
is not how things will change.
by anyway. A mandate from the Welsh people does not exist.
National Union
•We are giving the TUC one more chance. We think that they should be giving a lead on the fight for jobs. they do not act by 10 March we are no going to hold off any longer. all-out action from then on in Wales.
Disappointment in the climb down Reflected in the ore one miners who union leaders
If the British TUC leaders had been serious in taking up the fight for jobs. they would have supported the original action of the Welsh trade unions, an
action throughos Britain to save jobs and confront the policies of the Tory government
Nevertheless the dates set for action important focus both to
Major rallie: been planned throughout South Rials.
The first takes place at Sophia Garden
Our boys nave struggled to build their homes. Trans port costs out of the valleys are bigh
Treforest and Bridgend are fully staffed, mainly with
Fi hese valleys are going to be derelict if the cuts go through.
The Welsh executive of the National Union of Miners is committed to strike action against these cuts.
It is not clear what will now happen on 21 January about the Welsh TUC's call for action. If the proposed strike
not go ahead I will disappointed. The Welsh going back on the leadership they have given so far -they will be letting down their members
be arguing that debate like proposed for next Thursday is useless. Nothing will be gained by this. The only
understood is firm The miners showed this in 1972 and 1974. The only way to
deal with this gone ment is to and
against
agree with Callaghan's nonsense about waiting for the Taris to work through their manda: Ts s the worst kind of social democrati nonsense from the Labour Party. This
The Conservatiye government wa
the Welsh people
Socialist Challenge 17 January 1980 Page 9
Page 10 scan of this page
The rank and file must
THE UNION WITH A BUILT-IN AUTOCRACY
SUPPORT THESTEEL STRIKE
STRIKE NEWS
By Geoffrey Sheridan
IT'S AN open secret that Bill Sirs general secretary Steel Trades Confederation, is not a happy man. Few union leaders have found themselves at the centre of a national strike with such publicly proclaimed reluctance.
•My members want 20 per cent with no strings attached, ' he informed readers of The Times last Friday. would not say it must be X per cent, Sirs continued. I am prepared to do all I cán to help the industry in restructuring.'
And how far is the leader moderation prepared to go?
position has been very realistic. offered considerable concessions they 1BSC have been wantine for vears multi-union bargaining level.
*I am not Dere to government,' Bill Sirs assured By Patrick Sikorski
PRESIDING over a loss of 10,000 jobs every year for 14 years is the record of the leadership of the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation.
Formerly BISAKTA (British Iron and Steel and Kindred Association), the union was created in 1919 from the amalgamation of 14 or so cratt unions.
The lack of any notable tradition of militancy in steel was, in large part, due to the 'contract svstem' dominated the industry a century ago.
Leading workers i the processes were paid a lump sum by the employers on a tonnage basis.
distributed the through their own gang. Steel worker was set against steel worker.
Although this type of sub-contracting has disappeared, the feature of, • seniority on the job and in the union: hierarchy has persisted.
Rule book
Workers rise to more responsible jobs through experience and every job has its own rate. For example, in the mid-Sixties, the workers at the Port Talbot works were organised into 1300 different job virtually every one had its scale. union solidarity does not easily.
The rule book of the union autocratic. Under rule 4, clause 3, member, branch or official shall have the power to order to sanction any strike or stoppage of work or any act thai might deemed industrial practice.'
Just in case anyone tries to do just thai, rule 4, clause 15 empowers the Etecutive Council tommate or close down any branch or branches where it shall, in absolute discretion,
shall be necessary expedient... Unaccountable
* sere war widely used in Wales area in the 1920s supporting Socialist Challenge 17 December 1980 Page 10
of the Iron and
its there plainly enough. This was at of negotiations 'Our We
docks. at plant
defeat the and five percent
The productivity job
Trades
which
various
These British Steelworkers
and own wage
emerge
"no
unfair
*suspend,
its the
nationa
a controi the strike!
Times readers. He did not say that if the stee workers fake their end from him they can expect to be defeated by the government, but the message was
the eleventh-hour held at the ISTC wHel the membership was already laying seige to the steel plants, stockholders, and Murray
Sirs
The generous demand of the ISTC leadership was for 8 per cent all round
to be based weaken loss] deals. 'We JOHN HODGE. President of the old
Union. One time minister in Lloyd George's cabinet.
Programme for reform
A BIG step towards the reform of thé ISTC seemed on the cards in 1978. At that year's delegate conference a motion was passed to amend the
structures of the union to allow the executive council to reflect accurately
the membership's interests through divisional representation. A year afterwards no action was forthcoming. in the union from South Yorkshire, Wales, and Scunthorpe set up the Liaison Committee for Constitutional Reform.
The reforms the committee is proposing are of burning concern to all ISTC members. The abolition of trades sections, one of the heritages of the union's craft history, and their representation are top of the committee's priorities.
In addition, they propose that candidates for executive council office
should set out a manifesto for the members to decide on.
Other reforms aim to transfer control to the membership. So the
committee proposes that the executive council should cease to be the sole
policy-making body of the union and that the annual delegate conference
should be sovereign; that there should be a lay president, and that other
full time officials should be elected.
A pamphlet setting out these proposals can be obtained from the secretary of the Liaison Committee for Constitutional Reform: Brian Molyneux, 16 Saint Mary's Road, Darfield, Barnsley.
dissolved and militants expelled.
Today the leadership of the union is still one of the most unaccountable in the trade union movement. The first ever national conference of the
were absolutely amazed when it was rejected,' Sirs commented. After all those years of the ISTC leaders
after concession, rotten steel bosses wouldn't pull Sirs' chestnuts from the fire.
The TUC leadership has shown similar enthusiasm for the strike. Len
put himself at the head desperate "peace' efforts. With the failure of these talks, Murray has joined the ISTC executive in trying to
the effective picketing circulating the TUC'scode.
CONFEDERATION
VILGATE CONF
Activists and officials
replacement by divisional ISTC was held in 1976.
The development of any rank and file leadership through shop stewards committees has been stunted by the immediate referral of all but the
The record, past and present, of the steel union leaders points to one conclusion the should run their strike democratically through the formation of a national
It is the strike committees which have mushroomed country which are leading the strike in the regions. meetings, benefits, and general information on the strike have all come through these by bodies.
If strike committees de it locally,
AND STEEL THAUE
Annual Delegate Conference of IST Cin 1978. Still nota policy-making body.
smallest disputes to joint arbitration machinery.
'Socialisation'
The old BISAKTA leadership was responsible for this joint union/ management approach problems in the indüstry. From the
30s onwards its 'socialisation' polici and nationalisation plans contained detailed administrative running the industry management-umon-government col trol. In the eyes of the trade union leadership, the interests of BISAKTA
and COCTOC
The Green
British Steel Corporation to run down the labour force in other ways than through direct closure. Management
able to carry consultation with the union, a vast range of changes
practices, demarcation and grading
One example of a full scale deal was that at the
step forward.
Action around the
Picketing, mass effective.
OCCIEL 1964-69.
workers Allowing
workers.
ANDREW WIAnU (neport,
working.
TUC
by 1978 to all closure:
pians for under joint
Warning
the employers
Despite
Book signed by the 1969-70 empowered the
through,
In working The
Steel Company of
they can do it nationally.
For the first time in the history of the steel unions, local representatives were consulted during the process of national negotiations. This was a tiny
But it was the executive council of the ISTC which called the strike in consultation with the National Union of Blastfurnacemen, , and the strike could be called off in the same way.
Representative from each local strike committee shond be sent to a national strike committee convened by the executive, or by a local strike committee if the executive refuses.
should he coordinated between areas and with other unions
• make the strike 100 per cent
A national body of those directly engaged in the struggle should decide whether the strike continues, whether it stops, and whether its objectives have been won — not Bill Sirs. Wales (now Port Talbot) between
Over a five year period some 5485
were affected by 'demanning, a further 3431 by changes in working practices and 2054 as a result of technical change
for retirement and deaths, the hard redundancy figure over the period was just under 3,000
January 1976 the Labour government proposed a £179 million cut in the wage bill of the industry at the price of 40,000 jobs. • Unofficial strikes at Port Talbot and other South
Wales mills, with overtime bans in Sheffield and elsewhere were able to turn back the frontal assault on redundancy and guaranteed weeken
But after a three week strike the Steel Industry Consultative Committee signed an agreement with the employers which called for 9,300 redundancies in the South Wales mills
The ISTC South Wales organiser Stan Biddiscombe said: "I do not think there will be a violent reaction amongst the men. Most of them are reconciled to the fact that jobs must
although still negotiated on a local basis.'
In September i last year Bill Sirs was quoted on the proposed Corby
'We are not talking about redundancies, but if it was a question of restructuring that would reduce chats, we would be prepared to look at
the magnificent mass demonstration by 10,000 workers in the town on 1 November, Sirs went on
to betray his own members and the
whole of that steel town
: was putting the
finishing touches to the pay strike, the union signed a £30 million severance deal for 5,500 workers.
whole history of the leadership of the steel utions is one of
selling jobs for productivity deals.
Strikers should be warned.
Page 11 scan of this page
Clyde strike leader calls for TUC action
HOME NEWS
PAT McKenna, branch at the Civdescale steel works and я member of the union's national negotiating committee, called last Thursday for the TUC to stop around unions and management in the steel strike and to dramatically increase its support for the steel workers.
'Everyone who works with steel should be called out, whether they're in the private or public sector,' McKenna said. 'Steel is used in cars and engineering - they've all got to come out. We need an integrated strike'.
Speaking in the Scottish strike headquarters at Motherwell he said that every steel worker was convinced that it was the Tories who were forcing the BSC's hand:
In McKenna's opinion the original 2 per cent offer had been better in a sense than the present one, which would involve the loss of the guaranteed working week.
'Due to the nature of the industry, demand
Only gel orders cost bry Says works The
only get orders worth 2 or 3 days' work. guaranteed week which the corporation now wants to abolish weekly wage on average.'
McKenna challenged the figures that BSC is using to justify the closures.
argued. £200m a year in interest payments to the banks. This figure snoulan l be mcluaco m accounting. Dockers
John Hamilton, another member of the Clyde strike committee and an ISTC branch
_ at Ravenscraig, Grangemouth docks that morning to see the dockers. Rumours had been circulating that the corporation was attempting to steel via Grangemouth Rotterdam. run-up to the strike.
According to the reports, the steel was being imported either as european steel or. the road, as privately-produced British steel.
Middlesbrough
Steelworkers in Cleveland will be among those taking part anti-cuts demonstration in Middlesbrough on 9 February.
The protest has been backed by 'the TUC's Northern Regional Council and will bring together workers, nurses, clothing workers, and the Fire Brigades Unions, as well as the steel strikers.
The steel strike itself hotted up last week Middlesbrough management steel Hadfield and Partners called in the police in an attempt to intimidate pickets.
The pickets had been nearly run down by a lorry leaving the factory carrying scab steel. When the pickets attempted to talk to other i drivers Hadfield's general manager John Crow called in the cops.
But even the police were a little aggrieved at being summoned Crow. "The pickets were behaving quite reasonably,' commented police officer.
Corby
WITHIN the past few days, picketing the steel plant in Carby has become redundant. Members Engineering Union employed at the plant were the last to join the strike, at the beginning of this week, and now nothing moves in or out.
The main work of ine committee despatching pickels. On Monday, for example, couple of car-loads went off to the docks at King's Lynn, where doekers have agreed that if a 24-hour picket is maintained steel will gates. Private steel st on on are a major target,. and pickets from Corby went to John Lee in Grantham, Lines, where assistance was requested by women strikers. Only six lorries managed to leave the plant, instead of the usual 40.
'Morale has improved deal,' says Alisdair Sinclair, an ISTC
secretary of the ISTC staff
arbitrating between is worth 13 per cent of the
'We don't operate 'We have to pay back had been to
Wishaw ie-import its and Leith from. roadway after having exported it in the confronted
once on
now virtually certain to close. "There IS a
in an
council
Lanarkshire
when stockists down a steel Lanarkshire.
lorry works.
by Scunthorpe long dispute.
strike flying
pass
Monday a great
WAT2 40 The dockers were solidly behind the strike and no steel would be moving out of Grangemouth or Leith from then on The picketing was now concentrating on the steel stockholders. has east Saturday, (Boards with nais Saturday, boards profruding and broken glass were found in the . by the yard. lorry drivers who threatened with the sack if they didn't smash through the pickets.
The lorries were stopped while talks were held between ISTC officials and the manager of
member at the Corby plant, which is
Black of experience.
When 84 of us went on a flying picket to Birmingham last week, I was the only one who had been on a picket line before. But that's rapidly changing, and more and more people are saying: 'Christ, they're asking us to give up pay jobs and they want to cut our
DETERMINED picketing has closed
stockists at Wishaw, Management at the company, Steel Stockists Ltd, agreed on Wednesday of last week to shut their depot gates for a month after a 100-strong picket line had prevented a number of lorries from entering the
Because such picketing has been
THE strike committee in Scunthorpe jointly organised by ISTC, the Blastfurnacemen's Union, and the General and Municipal Workers, is determined that no steel will move on Humberside. A thousand flying pickets are in operation around the clock at the ports of Goole and Immingham, and there are pickets outside the gates of 22 private steel stockholders in the area.
Scunthorpe, like Shotton, Corby and Consett, is a one-industry town and already local traders say sales of food have dropped by 20 per cent. Before the strike there was little enthusiasm for action, but now attitudes among the 18,000 steel workers and their families are hardening. They are prepared for a
*I have never known trade unionists in this area anxious to picket before,' says the ISTC joint committee chairperson Stan Sheridan. to realise that their quarrel is not with British Steel but with the governmment.'
The dockers at Immingham are unloading steel but, with the support of railworkers, are refusing to let any steel leave the port. At Hull, on the other side of the Humber, the dockers are refusing to unload any steel cargoes. In Scunthorpe the Steel Action Committee, formed to fight BSC's closure plans, is busy taking soup to the picket lines.
BSC has said that Scunthorpe is to lose 4,500 jobs by August, but the figure is expected to be around 6,000 — a third of the workforce. 'If the men take their redundancy what work will there be for my sons when they leave school?' asks Penny Jackson, an action committee leader who is married to a steel worker. If the closures go ahead Scunthorpe will be decimated. The Labour Council is vainly seeking to attract new industry to this isolated spot on
This Saturday the local action committee is organising a regional conference on the steel struggle to mobilise opinion against the closures.
SCABsteel protection — a cop warns a picket outside asteel stockholders yard in Wishaw
movement of all steel. broken withdrawn.
nails picketed on
A hundred pickets
had been
seen to be effective it has been labeled
OI
Davidson described the closure of the Wishaw stockists as industrial
demanded that the Tories' anti-union legislation be introduced at once.
Such frenzied attitudes are further proof of how important "secondary" picketing is, and how the struggle in steel is closely linked with the battle against the threatened laws of Tory Employment Secretary, James Prior One-day strike against Tories THE South Yorkshire Association of Trades Councils has set in motion a 24-hour local general strike on
HAULAGE
the yard, who eventually agreed to halt the
But the agreement was as soon as mass pickel "There will be no agreements," said John Hamilton
GKN Stockholders in Rutherglen is being
La 24-hour: basis. Pickets told Socialist Challenge that they had turned back all the lorries attempting to enter the yard, and stopped four lorries from leaving it.
The controntation had developed first thing in the morning as the four lorries formed a convoy with headlights blazing and approached
February against policies.
All the main unions in the South Yorkshire 66,000-strong NUM and the AUEW — are presently meeting to support the call and finalise preparations.
The Yorkshire Campaign Committee, which support for the 28 November national anti-cuts demonstration, has begun a programme of factory motorcades, and public meetings ensure a massive February, Summing up the Yorkshire labour movement, councilJor Roy Thwaites, leader of the South Yorkshire county council, remarked:
union movement here has taken the lead in the fight, not just against the
government's economic and industrial policies as a whole.'
Association of earlier this month expressed disgust ai the TUC's inactivity on this front, particularly its national day of action against the cuts until 14 May.
ted: "A day of action on 14 May will not help Labour councils which are fighting the cuts. The TUC should be leading from the behind.'
Trade unionists from other parts of the country have decided that they cannot wait for the TUC to act. The Manchester engineering shop stewards has called for a day of action against the cuts and unemployment on 18 February.
So, too, Council. Tony Robinson will be speaking at a raily to be held on the day of action.
Trade unions and Labour Party branches throughout should be pulling out the the strike résolutions should be flooding in to the TUC demanding that they extend this action.
"cowboys'.
was finding
Heath.' wouldn't win on pay
more the pipe line. demo including the
impressive
• t0 turn out 18 council.
mood of the
I am delighted that the trade
The meeting of the Yorkshire
Trades Councils action delay in leaving a By Mike Eaude
are Euro MP Dick Caborn commen- timetable for
Tory-controlled
reorganised not from The
confederation 0f
week.
Manchester Trades
Benn and Derek
also
the country endorsed by stops calls and
the line. The 80-strong picket line stood firm against the lorries, all driven by non-union
The manager of the yard finally ordered the lorries back into the sheds.
Thatcher, the pickets said, had reckoned the steel workers would be a soft option, but she
differently 'Villiers Thatcher's puppet. We've got to get rid of this government, just like the miners did with
One picket said: "The Tories got elected and immediately handed massive pay rises to the
offered an insulting 2 per cent as well as 52,000 redundancies. It's the same with BL. They've got to go. Every steel worker in BSC and in the
Workers on the Rutherglen picket came from three plants in the area. Only one, the massive fully-integrated plant at Ravenscraig, closure plan. Hallside is definitely closing at the end of March with a loss of 600 jobs.
The strikers on the picket line had already received their redundancy notices. «We're trade unionists. It's a matter of solidarity. They've
The other plant, Clydesbridge, was not yet definitely up for closure but is to be reviewed this month. The strikers considered that they support of workers in the rest of industry who
Pat Shevlin, spokesperson for the Scottish steel workers' strike committee, is insistent that the strike should be extended to the private steel
have everything to do with our dispute. We are not simply on strike for the steel workers for every British worker whose pay claim is in
'If the government and BSC grind us into the ground every other settlement will suffer.
Lancaster anti-cuts
'STOP the cuts, defend our unions' is the slogan adopted by Lancaster and Morecambe Action Committee for a demonstration and rally against the
this protest has come from the trades
Labour Party executive and left-wing Speakers at the rally will include
Right.to Work Campaign.
The demonstration in Lancaster Fenton Street, behind the GPO. Bring banners and placards. Further details from Roger Smith, tel. 0468 21474.
Bristol teachers'
TEACHERS at three schools in Avon refusing implement the • the new term. Aven's council, front runner in education cuts, bas school timetabies to assimilate the effects of job loss Ayon division action representing NUT members in the area, has called a strike for 16 January. Of the 27 schools where teachers voted by a two-third majority to take strike action in a ballot held last November, a third will be called out for three days each
O seA a motion epo mie Nat sent a motion NUT executive calling for solidarity action. For strike action to be officially approved by the union, it has to be NUT's national action committee. So far no date has been set for this body to meet.
Pressure needs to be put on the national action committee to make the Aven strike official.
Socialist Challenge 17 January 1980 Page I1
Page 12 scan of this page
A pantomime with no good jokes
Ireland-assessing the prospects
IRELAND
By Geoff Bell THE PANTOMIME season started a bit late in' Belfast, but opening last week Atkins' "constitutional conference it is now under full swing.
AS curtain raiser conference, UH joked that the British Army in the
trained and most dedicated soldiers of any Army in the world. Next day the
article appeared Daily Telegraph. Here it is, believe it or not, without a word changed:
*The Army ambush in Ulster on New Year's Eve, in which an officer and young soldier were shot dead by their own comrades, was carried out "properly and very-effectively" the men's commanding officer yesterday.
• We are operating in a terrorist situation", said Thomson, CO of the 2 Bn, Parachute Regt. "It is every bit as hazardous and difficult as Palestine, Malaya, Cyprus
other counter-insurgence operation."
Professional
*Harsh as it may sound, said Col Thomson, the ambush was extremely professional and successful. It had achieved what it had been set up to do.
* 'It was not a question of people running around the place shooting at each other. It was a controlled action and the only thing that was wrong was in the question of mistaken identity.
'The battalion now unenviable record of collecting the most casualties of any unit during a tour of Northern Ireland since the troubles started more than ten years ago.' Boom, boom! Atkins followed this up by an old, but nonetneles. popular joke among members of his
'Of course the IRA DOC SUI. not beaten yet. We all know that. they can be and we all know that too.
The only thing Humphrey didn't know was how. Never mind, on to the conference itself at which the cast was enlarged to include lan Paisley of the Democratic (a joke in itself) Unionist Party, John Hume of the Democratic and Labour
Oliver Napier of the Alliance Party. Napier and Alliance have been figures ot fun in ine Nor or Ireland lol some time, but like coconuts in a
fairground every time
knocked down the stall-owner
goes under the grand title of the
Secretary of State for
Ireland — keeps putting them back on their stand again. Lubrication
Still, Alliance _for an easy jibe and perhaps the best
crack came from an
participant at the conference who said
THE CURRENT issue of Ireland
Socialist Review (no 6, winter 1979/
80) features two major articles on the
debate on Ireland at the 1979 Labour
Party conference, and on the position
of Ireland in the world economy.
In Ireland and the world economy
Marie Smith examines the reasons for
the relatively high rates of economie
growth experienced in Ireland
the last three decades. She asks if this
can be accounted for
government policies of regional aid to
ndustry which might have encourag
ed private capital investment.
She argues the greater importance
of low wages and
labour as the main factors attracting
multinational capital to ireland.
The consequences of this for an
anti-capitalist strategy for the Irish
working class are drawn out in detail
and the importance of ite unresolved
national question to such a strategy is
clearly stated.
The second feature
analyses the debate on Ireland which
Socialist Challenge 17 January 1980
Humphrey
the Januäry Atkins
the best
in the said
Colin has the are But Social
Party and
they - who
Northern
But
are always good Allance to make
anonymous
over
through
abundance
article conference in Brighton.
Page 12
that the party was "just lubrication'
as the conference began it seemed that it required more than
the affair run smoothly. The cynics got an early dig when Atkins opened the talks in front yet of the lights of the TV cameras by
price took place at the 1979 Labour Party
Written by Don Flynn, one of the delegates who
Beifast constitutionai conference—
WE ARE IN HERE
FOR YOU, YOU ARE
OUT THERE FOR US
SMASH THE H BLOCKS
complaining, "We're getting a bit hot which operator, being no respector important persons, shouted the reply: 'Don't worry it will get hotter for you The jokes came thick and fast
participated in that debate, the article describes the background pressure and lobbying that took place to force Ireland onto the conference agenda.
Flynn assesses the prospects for continuing the battle to get Ireland raised in the Labour : Party
among constituency activists provides the best opportunity for building a 'Troops Out' current for a decade. Party also iscusses a full transcript or discussion of the Labour the debate itself, from the speeches of the rooDs Out supporters to the replies from the National Executive Committee.
Ireland Socialist Review no 6 can he obtained from most left bookshops Loughborough Road, London SW 9. from: 50p, including postage. subscription for 4 issues of the Review costs £2; cheques made payable lo Ireland Socialist Review.
after that. Harold McCusker camera things underway by protesting that no
Union Jack was flying on the top of
of
Stormont Buildings, in conference was meeting. The amusing •of this McCusker is a member of the Official
WHAT'S LEFT
ENTRIES are. Sp a word; semi-display £2 a
publication. All pasmeots in advance
spare To Books for Southern Africa", Box 10) cialist Challenge, 328/9 Upper Street, London
SOUTHERN Africa. The Imprisoned Society and
•party three
prom convas dil teas
MARCH for abortion rights in Newcastle: stop ine arm-aborilor Newcastle, 2pm. Organised by NAC, supporte by Northern Region
struggle, shown di January, 8pm ar White Horse Pub, Church Ro Willesden. buses MANCHESTER Hands Off Ireland!
flag
the same attitude. involved
cheerful
what attempt to
they (the
mess of it
they want'
short run indeed.
into a second
TITSI
then never mind'
The only got diversion..
knows, which the
protest was that
WEST.
Friday
, Money vital field activity or any books you can . clemostead Livi
Just arrived in London are Ale • Tim Jenkin and Stephen Lee th
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Unionist Party which is boycotting the conference. Accordingly it was a bit cheeky of him to complain that the
Vol the United Kingdom and British Commonwealth had adopted Rude gestures
Meanwhile inside the conference itself an SDLP delegation member (sic) walked into the discussions with
open. Perhaps this was in a second protest from Harold McCusker who reported that a 'rude gesture' had been made at him from a window in the conference
But then down to business and the
David Wyatt, one of Atkins' officials, that no agenda had been fixed for the
This was because the SDLP and DUP could not agree on
should discussed The problem was Paisley's insistance that no mention should be made of either power sharing or an Irish dimension.
No agreement
Arguing that the Irish national question was irrelevant was Paisley's
win the 'joke of the conterence' award. bul at least ne showed some seriousness when he said: "As an Ulsterman, I don't think
British) understand Northern Ireland: they have made a
Therefore, it would be better for Ulstermen to shape what
The first day of the conference ended with no agreement on what should be discussed and when the same happened on the second day it seemed that the show was in for a very
But then Humphrey Atkins made a bold attempt to turn the pantomime
farce by suggesting. that conterence should be örganised to discuss things which people wouldn't agree to discuss al
conference. Hardly diplomatic stroke of genius, but again good for a laugh. Atkins' lack of
was underlined by his comment, 'if we can't find agreement
Spoil-sport
spoil-sport in thest whole proceedings was Gerry Adams. vice president of Sinn Fein. Gerry had been arrested and held for a couple of days on the eve of the conference so perhaps he found it ditticult to sustain
his usual sense of humour. Anyway Adams said that the talks were a
Now Adams knows that, Paisley Atkins •knows and knows. But for Gerry to tell the world is a bit like giving away the ending of a good joke. But then again, maybe the joke wasn't so good after all.
Public meetin Bill Sed 23 tado on, The bernacie, Porie to do about 3rd reading of Corri
WOMENS LIBERATION and the • Socialist
- a day school organised by Hemel Sat 2 Feb. Chauiden Hall c nauden Helte Admission El So for whole day, Slator sopra social par: bana, disco] RED LADDER Theatre is a socialist/femirtist of England. We need ecost each theatre
cond administrator to.. start as soon as possible to help with the bookin
03xE797703/2 Coine one die an an 1912 Te
rain Painer s, of cavity ka, Oxford. Fo
Hail, Princes Si, off Cowley Ro corrie
Remembe Bloody
Commercie March it Bird a,
Commemoration Maret in Birmingham
Speaker from Hands oi. Irelani invited. Mon it. Jan, onwa Réd Lion So WC1. 7.30pm, entrance 20p
RAR GIG on Fri iS Jan at the School of Orienta
- the Mighty Tubes and the Malet St. London WCI. : Vincent
CONGRATULATIONS to Liz and Dominiq
in the birth of their second son, from friends ar members of Southampton IMO
Page 13 scan of this page
The mercenaries who run
South Africa bombs Angola
INTERNATIONAL
Rhodesia
THE British Governor, Lord Soames wields no authority in 90 per cent of Southern Rhodesia. This is the area which continues to be ruled by martial law. Here another group of Britons hold: the the thousand mercenaries regulars in the Rhodesian army.
Although the security forces are in theory no longer 'operational" against the Patriotic Front, they still retain
pontical governors. In addition, Soames has now given them the task of seeking out *ceasefire violafors' mercenaries play a disproportionately large part in the success of these operations. Thousands
Estimates of their numbers run as high as 15,000. • This is probably a considerable exaggeration, but they can undoubtedly be thousands. As long ago as 1976 Major Nick Lamprecht, mercenary recruitment, reckoned that foreigners made up applications to join the Rhodesian army.
The number of local whites liable to conscription has dwindled because of emigration. One solution adopred by the authorities was to introduce conscription of blacks. politically useful because it allowed the army present itself (quite dishonestly) as an African force defending the black government of Bishop Muzorewa. But militarily the black draft had two drawbacks.
First,
out of 1,500 reported for duty. authorities have refused to release subsequent figures
Secondly, black troops were sue considered wholly relizor in a bust war against the Patriotic Fross military cominuanques all-white Rhodesia Light which claimed over half the 'kills', and that left out of account the activities of the various elite counterinsurgency units.
SAS
This is where the mercenaries fit in. They COnC from all France, West Germany, Portugal, Spain and Scandinavia. But the largest contingents are from the United States, South Africa, Britain and the white Commonwealth.
Since the trial of British and American mercenaries in Angola in THE South African racişt government has begun systematic aggression against Angola in retaliation for its support for SWAPO, the Namibian liberation movement.
Last month I interviewed Manuel Pedro Pacavira, the Minister for Agriculture, while he was 00 2 bren stop-over Nigerian support. He gave a precise list of South African aggression in the three month period September-November,
t,000 Angolans lost their lives and $60 million of property was destroyed:
Aerial violations 53; violations 6; bombings 7; attacks by
aerial arous mines 14; civilian deaths 84; Angolan army deaths 12; civilian 168; Angelan army wounded 8; stolen cattle 56; vehicles destroyed 7.
'Pacavira told me:
The present situation in Angola is one of constant and systematic aggression from South Africa. The terrorist actions which have
several serving
Inullary
The counted in
charge
half the
1976 the sort
sriminal This
an airmy
famous British conterpart. Racialists
such abn =PEE $AS
the
• Infantry
recruiters are the same too —
Aspin in Britain. in an Fortune Major explained why
such as good
Israel,
rather more According to one Sweeney, ' puppet
properly of
Angolan
Children appeal for
acts
the civilian population following villages have
carry off UHI land
18; laying ol this way.
South
wounded
dozens of carried
been
тать Fais: 1:0.40 -of person who Is attracted has become well known:
psychopaths, military veterans or both. Combat in Vietnam, Ornan or Ireland is useful experience
fightine ribbliti The Rhode. ia= SAS has beca able lo attras a good its of reTurs from is tacre
are the very same people who played David Bufkin in the US and Leslie
interview in Soldier of Lamprecht has foreigners join up: 'Rhodesia has many things to offer
Rhodesian beer, friendly populace, and what I would describe as a free and easy, unhurried way of life, lots of wide open spaces.'
But most mercenaries have
specific motive of them, Frank 'Most of them, like myself, are racialists. One doesn't join the carried out by UNITA, Savimbi's
organisation, are fully supported by the racist recimen There has been great loss of life and damage
especially the Cuando Cubango, Cunene, Huila and Mocamedes.
There have been brutal attacks on
and entire been bombed and terrorised to force the people to flee The racists during these raids always
Namibia, alca causing great hardship to our people. Thousands of cattle have been lost in
African aeroplanes [Mirage] have even attacked schools and recently bombed a school killing
Angolan children. They attack on Lubango, one of our most particularly vicious important towns in southern Angola, totally destroying a furniture factory and killing and wounding many.
RHODESIAN ARMY
BALAPERS Rhodesian army because he wants to make a lot of money.'
Mercenares In Rhodesia employed as ordinary soldiers, trict
estimaic
amited made mercenary operation in Angola sach a military disaster. camps' — the precise methods ased by the Scouts.
Liaison
Mercenary recruitment is one of the ways Western governments have connived in keeping the white regime in power. Bufkin received CIA money and so did the British recruiters. Leslie Aspin claims they had a direct
with the US Embassy
Recently, two of our important between the provinces of Mocamedes and Huila, destroyed. destroyed in the latest action were five
All the reconstruction we shall have to undertake will take a lot of our time and money. The railway has already been rebuilt and traffic is now back to normal.
South Africa has recently been
our fishing villages in the south and these have laid mines on roads in the
The South African appears to be increasing, with the use
armoured cars, helicopters, ground troops and Reconstruction
Of course, the Angolan and their armed forces (FAPLA] have responded vigorously attacks, and have succeeded destroying some of their aircraft and Causing loss of life and
•By Richard Carver
John Banks, recruiter for Angola, under oath that he had a three-year contract with Inspector Ray Tucker of the Special Branch. This is how he was able to get his men Heathrow with so little trouble.
Illegal
Banks' top. Early in 1978 he and Aspin had a meeting at the with John Davies, the Tory Shadow Foreign Secretary, leader of the pro-Rhodesia lobby, and William Shelton, another right-wing Tory.
Under the 1870 Foreign Enlistment Act, Rritain is legal lne Angolan fiasco showed that the law was not working, so the Labour government set up a parliamentary committee under Lord Diplock to investigate its workings.
Diplock's recommendation
that mercenary recruitment should be decriminalised because the law was an infringement of persona freedom (the mercenary's, victim's)!
Diplock also explained thai in the case of Rhodesia the 1570 Act mas are irrekrant:
SO IS E
1727
'Kith and kin'
Thee what role the Braisi played?
Yet that same British army which directly or indirectly trained the bulk of the Rhodesian security ferces now poses as a neutral arbiter tonitoring the ceasefire. wealth force of about a thousand only 60 come from Fiji and Kenya. The rest are from Britain, Australia and New Zealand countries which provide the largest number of mercenaries. Guess whose side they'll be on when it comes to the crunch?
By Geoff Hunt in Nigeria
most damage to the South Africans. they persist and retaliate eyen more brutally.
Defensive
Naturally, their objective is the destabilisation of our economic life; they want to divert our attention away
problems of national reconstruction
the wake colonialist war. Their attacks force us into constant defensive action. they want to discourage material and moral support we give to action SWAPO.
Again, their objectives these immediate ones; SWAPO and the MPLA are not their they know very well that Africa is their enemy. Therefore they want to contgin people Africa to imperialism aud are trying to create difficulties across the these continent. In every may they wish to in thwart the economic ment of Africa to a real and material complete independence.
the leading British
mainlamned
through
contacts went right to the
latest House of Commons
Julian Amery
mercenary recruitment in
2XP.
existing
not his
Fi bare so seria it the m
Isil comeal Out of a Common-
the yery 643-971 Booksho phone 461138
DUNDEE
But
problem. the books Clapham.
the Portuguese SWINDON SC
• Also. in the TEESSIDE
patall i transcend
¿ enemies, • whole of
the opposition of
STRIKE entire Crusty:
develop-
Intercontinental
Press/Inprecor
THE Soviet offensive in Afgbanistan "is an aid to the oppressed in their battles against imperialist domination, not only in Afghanistan, bat siso in neighbouring Iran and throughost the entire region and the colonial and semi-colonial world. It is a sharp blon to imperialism's efforts to hold back the world revolution.'
This is Ernest Harsch's view in the
issue meckly Intercontinental Press/Inprecor (Vel 18, No 1]. Single copies cost 3h, plas 10p pop, but subscriptions wort much cheaper al f11 for one sear le issues], £6 for six montts [24 issnes]. or £3 for an introductors offer ed lo
1o "Intercontinental Press" to: IP/I, PO BOs 50. London S
SOCIALIST
CHALLENGER
EVENTS
Simut and no
- For more in schold Som 0 Can
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BRADFORD: SC available from Fourth Idea
Bookshop, 14 Southgate
SOSTON: For more info phone Nick.
BRISTOL: SC on sale 11-1, 'Hole in Ground",
• more info contact Box 2, c/a
Bristols, 110 Cheltenham Road, Montpellier
available from Wedge For more info about local actívitie:
SC available from Dundee Cit
Sauarc outside Boots, every Thursday 4-5.30pm
HACKNEYSCmeeting; *Support the steel strike
Hackney Trades Hail, 96 Dalston Lane, ES.
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I.AMBETH: SC' now available at Kiosk Brixtor
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sale 11-1pm every Sal.,
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songs/speakers, National Abortion Campaiga
Campaign Against Corne Socialist Challenge. 17 January 1980 Page 13
Page 14 scan of this page
LETTERS 328/9 UPPER STREET LONDON NI
Dancing to
Carter's tune? I WAS quite shocked to find Socialist Challenge dancing to the tune of the US State Department ('Soviet troops out of Afghanistan!', 3 January):
There has been a more or less continuous build-up of Soviet troops in Afghanistan ever since the fall of the Daoud regime — recognised by all the bourgeois press, and by Socialist Challenge in its previous articles. Roughly concurrently with the latest coup, Carter & Co have started denouncing the 'massive Soviet build-up' and, after a little hesitation, the British bourgeois press has followed suit in calling this an invarin
But this is by no means the produci or carter s concern for human rights or (Eric Heffer notwithstanding) for the self-determination of nations. It isa part of the US goyernment's war drive aimed at legitimising an armed intervention in the Middle East to defend the interests of US imperialism.
Whatever the shortcomings of' Babrak Karmal — and for that matter, of Leonid Brezhnev — if the forces backed by US imperialism win out then no way will Afghanistan get national self-determination or revolution. What it will get is feudal ,reaction and a US puppet government.
What's at stake for workers in the West is not an abstract moral question. It's more imperialist support for the Zia regime in Pakistan, and it's US workers being sent out to die for the interests of US imperialism:
Revolutionaries have to be quite clear which side they're on in this development. We have to fight tor:
Imperialist hands off Alghamistan!
• No aid to the Pakistani regime! No aid to the counter-revolution!
No sanctions against the USSR! Britain out of NATO!
Tariq Ali's article managed to find itself to the right not only of Socialist Worker but even of the Guardian. Let's have a line of intransigent opposition to imperialist manoeuvres
- not a series of moralistic half-truths and concessions.
MIKE MACNAIR (London E9)
Aid to create working class THE article on Afghanistan by Tariq Ali (3 January) created more problems than it solved. Terms and concepts are undetined while theores are imposed onto situations that bear little relation to them.
With no working class or bourgeoisie ('only two tactories'), what would be the class nature of the 'thoroughgoing revolutionary democracy' proposed? Considering the alleged predomination of tribal land ownership, and given no industrial support, what radical socia measures could win mass support' for the 'genuine revolution"?
To understand the relationship - between the situation in Afghanistan and the international struggle for socialism we must examine it dual Cial acicl. The 'internal' dynamic of contradictions within the Afghan social formation is mediated by the 'external' dynamic of international class struggle. The national question is an international question. The internal variables are the productive relations while the external variables are imperialism and the workers' state.
The interests of the international proletariat favour a workers' state solution, but for this a working class must exist. The expansion of the proletariat has not and cannot be accomplished through reliance on the imperialist world market. Also there is no internal dynamic towards such acako ero vaucuicIld market, agricultural surplus, industry nor capitalist agriculture; and export-led growth is unobtainable. Democracy as a form of class rule would be impractical to impose on the tribal peoples; there is little basis for
17 January 1980
BAD
LAST
democratic revolution.
The only way forward is to create a working class from above with Soviet help. Ali is incorrect to forecast failure. Social transformations need not rely on 'mass revoluțion' (although socialist transformation does). The People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan, isolated, faced over-whelming opposition from tribal reaction. Without Soviet intervention the result would have been a dictatorship armed and backed by imperialism, endangering the USSR on its southern border.
The Soviet bureaucracy is counter-revolutionary but its own interests, in survival, occasionally concur with those of the proletariat. This is the case in Afghanistan. Real. conflicts of interest are not solved by education, while 'radical social measures' may indeed be applied with force where such conflicts exist.
In not specifying the class nature or dynamics of 'autocratic regimes' versus revolutionary democracy', or 'genuine revolution' versus substitutionism, Ali transforms these terms, abstracted from reality, into principles. Using an idealist methodology and attempting to outflank the Soviet bureaucracy he fails to defend the workers' states and ends in joining the imperialist chorus
'Soviet troops out of Afghanistan'. PAULANDREWS (Lambeth Could the Russians succeed?
NOT very long ago, Tariq Ali rightly condoned Vietnamese action in Kampuchea. But he has now condemned Soviet action in Afghanistan (3 January). This is inconsistent.
In the beginning of 1979 the Kampuchean revolution reached a critical stage, and might have collapsed but for the timely Vietnamese assistance for the forces of revolution in that country. wnich were thereupon able to rid • Kampuchea of the tyrannical regime of Pol Pot and counter American and other neo-colonialist and imperialist conspiracies in Indochina. The revolutionary process was at an even more critical stage in Afghanistan when the Russians intervened.
To say that a genuine revolution had not taken place in Afghanistan would be inadmissible. traditional argument about the smallness or absence of a working class as laid down in the Marxist textbook. But where did such an idealist textbook revolution ever take place? In China? In Vietnam? Indeed, in the Soviet Union itself?
In our times the criterion of a genuine revolution might be stated as being, primarily, that the revolution must have emerged from a people's own experience and be true to the gut of their being even while it is in accord with the logic of Marxist theory.
What was required of a geniune revolutionary movement after the overthrow of Daoud in April 1978 was first of all to change the country's feudal condition, and this the administration of Taraki attempted to do as soon as it came to power. Among its first reforms was the halting of the sale of girls. This was a rampant evil, a part of the feudal system in which slavery and sertdom flourished
To people outside Afghanistan, the steps that Taraki took might seem of little more than passing importance. But it was a revolutionary measure of historical Page 14
OF THE WOULD LIKE TO WELČOME) KOY COCONMENT YOU TO THE EIGHTIE S.. a kind of living, and held out promise of fundamental human rights.
'extremely small' working class and deeply-rooted tribal structure with tribal property rights, making obvious 'the magnitude of the tasks' facing the new leaders. But is that any
is not fit för revolution and social progress? Is Tariq being realistic when he complains that the regimes which took over from Daoud were
the conditions of Afghanistan any measure tor democratic procedures at we know them would have made
There is of course truth in his comment that 'genuine revolutions can only succeed with mass support'. need for 'a patient process of educating the masses coupled with a series of radical social measures'. But who will help in putting through such radical social measures?
The Western press and leaders have constantly gloated that Russia has been getting 'bogged down' in Afghanistan. Yet suddenly the West is moving fast to put an end to Russia's intervention, crying out in pious horror and demanding withdrawal of Soviet forces from
The reason is obvious Imperialists, the Chinese leadership, and their allies and supporters, are frightened that the Russians will succeed where no one else has succeeded before. That the Afghan
profound effect on that part of the world, where the minorities like the
which they have been subjected for (CLEuC).
should fight every imperialist action which is directed against the Afghan revolution AHMAD SHUJA (London W14)
women media workers, are making a cinema commercial to assist the Campaign Against Corrie. The 45
There is the independent cinemas throughout Britain early in the New Year. It'sa fast, witty animation aimed at publicising the drastic consequences of the Corrie Bill if it is passed on 8 February. without payment and production costs are being met by public donation. Money is still needed to strike extra prints. Join the fight and send your donation to: CAC Clip Collective, 2 Chichele Road, London NW2, CAC CLIP COLLECTIVE SWP membership YOUR issue of 3 January contains a letter stating: 'Duncan Hallas has been quoted as admitting that the effective membership of the SWP is about 1,500...' Quoted by whom, when and where? It would be interesting to know such statement. The membership of the SWP in Autumn 1979 was 3,600. This figure was obtained from actual registrations in the branches and, far from being intended to 'mislead militants', was part of the detailed
UNLESS YOU HAPPEN TO AERIACK ORRSH• OR A WOMAN. OR YONG... • significance for Afghanistan, where it gave people for the first time a right to
delegates
Comrade Tariq talks about the
effective.
argument for saying that Afghanistan problem
autocratic; does he really think that in
(8 November).
This squares with his view that there is
place revolution will succeed and will have a
Baluchis, Pakhtuns and the Kurds are waiting to put an end to the tyranny to
That is why we, as revolutionaries, Clip Corrie's wings THE CAC Clip Collective, a group of
second commercial will be screened in
blind.
The women involved are working
applicable
Certainly I have never made any
Thatcher
OF COURSE, YOU COULD BE ALL THESE THINGE IN WHICH CASE LEE0 C®& WORLH LIYING confidential information on the state of the party given in a document for
Asto 'effective' members, 1 believe that all our members are
DUNCAN HALLAS (London E2) Men are part of the
YOUR corespondent Tommy Cusack (13 December) séems very hostile to a politics which says that 'men are part of the problem in building socialism'. This phrase SuNTANC LICURS WaS VIZ IU make when I originally wrote to you
It is those who perpetuate the oppression of their sisters and brothers who are scabs, not those who challenge them in doing so. Given that, you can't overcome the divisions in the working class created by these different sorts of oppression by pandering to them. In the case of sexism, not only must it be challenged but this must be done by women, because men always have something 'more important' to do.
Now in my view that strategic understanding of what the attitude of' socialists should be towards divisions within the working class flows from the opinion that men have a material OUL OL ACOS THECICCI OOOIeoswomen. To me this is evident from their social power over women, but it is this assertion which aroused comrade Cusack's wrath in the first
I didn't intend to carve out a theory around this, and I haven't really got the time, but if anyone is interested they should have a look at Heidi Hartmann's article 'The Unhappy Marriage of Marxism and Feminism' in the summer 1979 edition of Capital and Class.
But after the points comrade Cusack made i don't need to worry, because none of them dent the assertion I made. His strongest, most rational point was that to prove a material interest you have to show that there's no alternative to the sexual division of labour.
The trouble is, you don't have to prove that no-one else can do 'women's work' to show a material interest because you are dealing with oppression, not exploitation. With the relation of capital to labour, labour power is the only thing which can create value, hence the relation of exploitațion. But Marxism, as Heidi Hartmann explains, is sex and race
Moreover, Marxists, as Hartmann points out, have only analysed the relation of women to capital, not the relation of women to men. The latter is the sphere of this whole debate, so I'm afraid the safe, old categories comrade Cusack is using — Engels not least of them — may just not be
For example, if men controlled women s sexaa r orccrlo dass ul private property to their heirs, how did they get control of that private property? Presumably something in the sphere of early relations between women and men. See what i mean: SUE LANDAU (London NW3) Rock Against
1980 is Rock Against Racism's year of the RAT. It's the year when we crank up a Rock Against Thatcher campaign and roll the Tories out of
• AND THE 1 k
YOUR SHOTAN MEKĄ c A ! power. The steelworkers' strike is the first major fightback of the '80s against Tory policies, which are also wreckine our health and we tare services and education opportunities.
Organise RAI benefits for the strikers in your areà; if there aren't any, do one anyway and send the donations to the 'RAR Steel Workers Strike Fund', c/o Box M, 27 Clerkenwell Close, London ECI. Ring RAR on (01) 802 8773 for bands and advice.
ROCK AGAINST RACISM
PTA arrests
THE Christmas issue of Socialist Challenge sent its greetings to the women in Armagh jail, Northern Ireland. At least you made a token gesture but what about the Irish prisoners in English jails at the present time?
There were no Socialist Challenge supporters or sellers to be seen on the pickets organised after 27 Irish people, several of them woren with children, were picked up on 12 December under the Prevention of Terrorism Act. There are still seven Deoole -_ tour men and three womer
- in Brixton awaiting trial. It looksas if the police intend to keep them locked up for weeks before the trial.
Please will you publicise their case and ask your supporters to attend the next picket of Brixton prison, called for 26 January. Meet outside the. prison at 10am. Bring banners and placards.
DEBORAH KELLY (London SE14)
IMG attacked
A SHARP attack on the International Marxist Group was made by John Strauther (13 December) in the guise of a demand for the expulsion of the Leninist Trotskyist Tendency from its ranks. According to comradt Strauther, 'This result would then have the welcome eifect of removing the chief obstacle to the formation o1 a unified revolutionary organisation.
But the effect would be the exact opposite. The political views of the LTT are absolutely within the framework of the politics of the Fourth International. If we are to bulld a mass party a much greater disparity of views will need to be incorporated in a single organisation.
The LTT in Britain, through their action here and internationally, played an important part in
by defendinge the integrity orche par
and the FI. These comrades have fought loyally for their views inside the IMG and the FI, implacably. opposing the splittist course of the majority of the LTT and the Bolshevik Faction.
It isideas like those defended by comrade Strauther which are the recipe for building a sect. They are not just attacks on the LTT but on the whole IMG, which has the proud record of defending the democratic rights of all minorities which operate within the framework of democratic centralism.
BRIAN GROGAN (IMG]
LETTERS published on this page will normally be cut to at least 400 words. to ensure that the maximum number of readers can express their views.
Anonymous letters will not be published unless there is a very speciai reason, but real names will be withheld from publication on request.
Page 15 scan of this page
Socialist photography in focus
UNDER REVIEW
schon Midglied
der Arbeiter.
By Larry Herman
THE first left-wing photographic annual to be
published in Britain,
One,
attempis to establish photography as an
commodity and
working class through news management.
Not only is if exceptionally good in giving
examples of how subtle the bourgeois media
can be, but it excels in articles examining how
photographers organised
worker photographer groups in Europe and
North America during the 1920s and '30s.
Much can be learned from that period by THE RISE and fall of Hull News, the weekly paper launched by Trades Council, has been tiscusscu l lest pages.
Preston Trades Council, however, adopted a rather different approach to bringing out its journal, Preston Worker. Trades council JOHN PARKINSON HAMMONDS explain below.
WE first discussed bringing out a journal after Labour lost the election. The demoralisation and confusion in the movement caused by the Labour government made it clarify and debate why the occurred. We needed a vehicle to develop the struggles and campaigns of working people in Preston.
Of course different tendencies have their how the journal should be developed. But all are agreed on the need for an active working class DaDer. issue contains a number of different viewpoints from the left and labour movement - something we see as vital to create the type SECUECU
At the moment producing the journal quarterly and bringing out special supplements to deal with immediate problems like the wave on have to prove we can do our own thing
Du
Forgrasper!
socialist
Photography/Politics: is a breath of fresh air at a time of 830 0 wholesale attacks on the
themselves into
wrong,
Preston Worker
using latent skills
Hull ist media. much
cracks of the system members JIM have alternative SYSECHI technology, under our control.
think so. necessary Instead OI dental
political own Ideas on for a photo team. Latent skill The first
La practical of debate inspiring. It
will be back to their branches.
nail le We realised they
THE OTHER BOOKSHOP
Terror or Love?, by Bommi Baumann — Platform Books, £2.50
Photography/Politics: One, by the Photography Workshop, £4.95
Hittone de itions Late Co, 65050 per 2004m y Pierre Frank 82
328 Upper Street, London N1 2XQ (tel: 01-2260571).
photographers today, themselves be organising to argue out ideas and foster a coherent offensive against the capitalist ‹ media, in tnis way we could begin to face up to the essential political compromise we make as individuals - periodicaily working for the left media while also shoring up the capitalists' view of the working class.
The importance of being clear questions is shown in Nick Hedges' criticism of the housing charity Shelter. Hedges was staff. photographer for Shelter several years ago, and his analysis is generally correct. however, propaganda in the same way as that of the and develop a challenge to the capital-
We can't simply operate within the capitalist system by demanding the right of reply. Of course we must do this, but you can't live within the
because they sque nayou ou develop meat son.
develop media and educational — using our skills and their
Some on the left would call our approach amateurish, but we don't
You have to take it slowly. trying launch grandiose weekly paper we obtained a printing press for £25. We made the platemaker ourselves for £1S, and we were quite surprised at the response within the movement to our appeal
There really is a lot of latent skill.
Once we showed that the journal was
proposition provided training operation in media techniques which the stewards involved began to take
Take the Fire Brigades Union, for
Through their involvement with Preston Worker they have now
can operate a press
who should
capia anu labour.
its general
on thest An
Where he goes
Shelter's themselves and produce their leatlets.
What you need is someone who understands the whole process and can nurture the skills required. At the beginning there was a lack of people
help in writing, lay-out production, but this is being resolyed as we train people up.
There has been very little problem on distribution. We.printed 3,000 of the first issue and sold practically all of them. We have not looked newsagents as the basic outlets, have rened trom . the start on shoc stewards selling LICE meetings
Nor do we look for commercial adverts, and we won't use Trades Council funds give work commercial printers. Some members of the NGA may object to this, but the fact is that if one tries to professional and commercial it just can't be done. We don't have the money or the resources and we get ripped off.
We encourage our printworkers to lend their skills to the movement. This is what counts. In our opinion Hull Trades Council were a little too fast and too ambitious.
Copies of Preston Worker are available from Preston Council, John Parkinson (Secretary), 24 Hammond Street, Preston (tel. 54616).
revolutionary left, without pointing to the very different role they play in the conflict between
Because Photography/Politics: One has contributions from 24 individuals and groups,
political content is uneven. It could also have done with more illustrațions, particularly as some of the prose is unnecessarily obscure and cumbersome.
• example of how language unwittingly be used to confuse occurs when Jo Spence writes that there is a binary opposition within systems of signification in which what is present is definable only in relation to what is absent: thus ""woman" is signified in relation to
SPEAKOUT
By Paul Morrison
'men's groups'?
socialism and sexual liberation.
sexist language and mannerisms. own
and personal life
A painful process
to but
branch sexuality and relationships.
to
be too
cannot be reduced to class division.
oppressive forms of masculinity.
Trades ourselves
"man" "masculine"?
If photographers
inevitably very careful to mystification
can Hackney Flashers are doing today.
In defence of men's groups
IN socialist circles in the '70s, even where feminism has gained only minimal acceptance, men's groups are a phenomenon often greeted with suspicion at the very least. After all, aren't all the powerful institutions which control our lives
Achilles Heel is a magazine produced explicitly by a collective of men. One of the fundamental convictions of the collective is that consciousness raising groups, for men as well as women, have a vital role to play in organising for
The emergence of the Women's movement in the early ' 70s affected both my ideas as a socialist and changed my relationships with women. By accepting the basic positions of the women's movement it was possible, as a man, to develop some forms of anti-sexist behaviour, e.g. taking responsibility for child care/ housework, supporting demands for nurseries, abortion, equal pay, avoiding
But socialist feminists I was close to made it clear to me that feminism extended far beyond the struggle against institutions. I was affected by the criticisms women were making of how men on the left operated both in public
I have been in a men's group for over six years. As men we are socialised to be competitive; out-in-the-world, objective and to suppress our emotional and subjective selves, particularly when we are with other men. Often the burden of our emotional lives is taken by women with whom we have sexual relationships, reinforcing the mothering role that women are made to play.
The essential part of a men's group is learning to share subjective feelings with other men. This has been for me not a pampering and preserving of male ego but has been at times a painful process, facing assumptions built into my
Achilles Heel magazine for me is an attempt to make public and sharę experiences and understandings gained from men's groups. I don't see this as a diversion from my activity as a revolutionary socialist. To echo Beyond The Fragments, socialism is not just anti-capitalist combat, it is the struggle for an alternative, creative and genuinely caring society.
The autonomous movements have shown that all oppression in our society
present Tory administration, which reaches out to the greed, envy and hatred that capitalist society generates in individuals, depending heavily on sustaining
As a socialist I feel I cannot be passive in relation to my socialisation as a man, leaving it to the struggle of women and gays to redefine my role in society I believe that men's groups and the exploration of masculinity in Achilles Heel indicate the part which men can play in fighting sexism, not just by giving a measure of support for feminist campaigns, but also by actively changing
Achilles Heel costs 65p [incl p&p] from 7 St Mark's Rise, London E8 2NJ. Please make cheques/POs out to Men's Free Press.
Socialist Challenge
"feminist" in relation 10
Part write about themselves and their work they must always be
avoid any suggestion of Nevertheless general the annual is very readable and is a real testimony hot only to what some left media workers have done in the past but also to what those like
Photography/Polities: One is published at £4.95 by Photography Workshop, 152 Upper Street, London N1, and is distributed by PDC (27 Clerkenwell Closé, London ECI):
We need no clearer example than the 17 January 1980 Page 15
Page 16 scan of this page
Socialist Challenge STOPTHE TORY WARMONGERS
FEW sights have been more sickening in the last week than that of the Tories attacking the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan while dismissing murder of Patriotic Front guerillas by the Rhodesian army as 'inevitable'.
Lord Soames, the Governor in Salisbury, is more and more blatantly exercising his powers in favour of what the Tories have been aiming for all along: a victory for white stooge Bishop Muzorews.
It must be the strangest 'ceasefire' of all time. One side, Front guerillas, are camps, poweriess Meanwhile their opponents, forces of the white dominated regime (backed up by the South Africans), have complete freedom of action including the right to murder guerillas in cold blood.
We stress: in cold blood. The seven guerillas killed near Lupane last
Saudi
Arabia
United Arab Emirates
refused to lay down their arms. for that they where they stood.
Not one of the Patriotic Front's opponents has been askedto lay down tbeir The "raxiliaries' a polité, name Muzorewa's army terrorising black areas formerly under the control of the Patriotic Front.
As for the Rhodesian army, the Financial Times reported last that there are 45 two-man teams to monitor what is believed to be over 100 company bases...the monitoring
Britain:
Abroad: 12 mouths.~
Multi-Reader institutions: Double the above rate
Name.
Addres»
Socialist Challenge'.
operations command'.
menwealth the Patriotic Front,
British
much te
the Patriotic invasion'. corralled: Into intervene. Secret the
Oman.
against
580 British
Diego Garcia.
Friday never fired a shot. They simply C' It has little or nothing to do with
And gunned down Soviet Int mence
government's for but in devastating effect.
That is why
week of Zimbabwe!
*Meanwhile the Ireland see page 12.
SUBSCRIBE NOW
12 months £12:50; 6 months $6.50 Surface Mail: €12.50 — Airmail $18.00 I enclose a donation for the Fighting Fundof............... Cheques. POs and Money Orders should be made payable 10
Complete and return to: Socialist Challenge, 328 Upper Stree1, London NI
Registered with the Post Office as a newspaper. Published by Relgocrest Ltd. for Socialist Challenge,
force relies on being kept informed of
by the Rhodesian
The supposedly "neutral' Com-
monitoring force actually monitoring no one but the
But the Tory warmongers aren't just trying to fix things in their interest in Zimbabwe. The architect of the 'ceasefire', Lord Carrington, is now on a trip to the Gulf and South Asia. And what he's úp to there hasn't
de with anyone's 'independence' and 'freedom. from
Last week he spent a few days in
This is a small Gulf state where Britain fought a secret war for
rebels • In Dhofar province. There are still no fewer than
officers seconded contracted there. They virtually run the Omani army, nary and air force.
Then there's the little matter of
This island WAS * historically part of Mauritius until Britain (under a Labour government). said that the country couldn't have its independence unless it gave up Diego Garcia. Now the island has become the main US naval base in the area the staging post for Carter's war drive against the Iranian revolution.
Because that's what it's all about.
Afghanistan, which has been under
for What scares the pants off Carter and the Tories is the outbreak of revolutions such as that in Iran which threaten the whole imperialist system of domingtion - or the one which could break
Zimbabwe with equally
we say: Stop the •Tories war drive! British troops out
WaT goes on in
Our Fund Drive
OUR 'Fiver to fight the Tories' fund got off to a flying start this week with some 13 (not supporters sending in a fiver. The first two were from Dick Hall (NUM) and Gill Butler (NAC mittee). Close behind came a further E5 from the Avenge Scrooge Front • and from Hackney IMG. That brings the fund drive total after only two weeks to -£355.54;
• But as the Tories tighten screws against the throw their lot imperialism's cold war campaign on Algialistan, and murder of Zimbabwean fighters, spare a thought for our fund • appeal. Your fiver will go straight into
the Tories. unlucky for
M. Mulvihill R. Hurcombe
steering com- R. Hall
D, Power comrades in Teesside SC G. Butler A. Herring AHN the C. Robinson behind American R. & A. Spalding
C. Hewitt
supervise freedom P. H. Wilson
Week's total
328/9 Upper St, London N1. Printed by East End [offset] Lid. PO Box 82, London E2.
the front line in the struggle against
Our thanks this week to:
75.00 5.00 .00 3.50 :.00
Hackney IMG fivers 35.00
2.00 .50 5.00 Avenge Scrooge Front 5.00
23.00 £142.50 CUMULATIVETOTAL £355.54
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