Socialist Challenge No. 153, 26 June 1980
The scan: sc-n153-jun-26-1980.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 TORY JOBS HOLOCAUST
LOBBY THE TUC FOR JOBS
tain.
around 2 million.
Tory spokespeople say that the figures are due to the new school leavers - but that Is ony bart or une story. avery day brings news of more redundancies almost every part of the country is being OIL. * At Fords 2,300 jobs are
to go, including 1,300 at
1,600,000 unemployed
TUESDAY's annoncement that 1,600,000 people are out of work is just the visible tip of a jobs catastrophe hitting working people in Bri-
The 1.6m figure conceals the fact that hundreds of thousands of women and others are not registered for work - the real figure is certainly
Dagenham and 438 Swansea. addition there WIlloC TUU tewer jobs unal planned at the new Bridgend plant. * 30,000 jobs have been Jost since the beginning or tne in the West Midlands region. Thousands of redundancies are proposed at the
Lucas car components plants is being waged Dugnam ana CoveHuy
4nS0U 1ohs under threat the South Wales' pits, in addition to the 11,000 1obs about to be OST the Llanwern and Port Talbot steel plants.
* n ine vorth west inere are now 296,000 unemployed with only 14,374 vacancies. In Warrington, where thousands of eene ane aa0e threatened, unempioyea againsı a paltry 1,500 vacancies
The response of the TUC and
aDOul cicadersl this appalling situation has been pathetic. Despite protest ac ousu aLOIs. SCHIOUS fight against unemployment
COl Herd. STC con venor Warringe: Vorking told Socialist Challenge: people are benne causat In unc holocaust of Tory policies. But Murray and the TUC IcaacrsnD are just twiddlins their thumbs - - the only sign of a fightback is coming from une rank ana lle
•What we need is for our national leaders to organise a fight. That's why I'm suppor-
TU che Lobby for Jobs ai the
catastrophe unemployment inevitable. A sustained fight for ue so-nour week and work sharing with no loss of pay
could point the way to a real struggle against unemploy-
But despite pious TESOrULOnS action Deen TorEncome trom ui trade union leaders.
Two actions in the autumn will be spearheading the figh for jobs. First, the Right to Work Campaign is organising a march trom souln wales tc the Tory party conference.
But more important is the Tient inside me adou move
That's why Socialist
Challenge is calling or 1 every
build the to acuvcly lobby for jobs at the TUC in September, around the
*For 35-hour achanas. week' and 'Fight now to kick the Tories out'.
Apartheid
on the
rampage
(mixed-race) demonstrators.
of South African security forces.
Ceremonies a mixture of tear gas and sneezing powder.
both in Soweto and the Cape. Photographers blacks were killed.
heels of the Angola. The
West Africa
African attack. Domination above all Britain.
labour/high profit economy.
Pages 2 and exploit South Africa's blacks
No.153 26 June 1980 20p
murderers
WHILE Britan's Rugby Union 'Lions' were voting unanimously to continue their tour of South Africa, South African riot police were out in the black townships of Cape Town killing black and 'coloured'
The demonstrators took to the streets to commemorate the fourth anniversary of the black uprising in Soweto, in which thousands died at the hands
The demonstrations started on 15 June when 400 blacks turned up at a church in Soweto, despite a government ban on commemoration ceremonies. Riot police moved in to attack the demonstrators, using clubs, tear gas, and their own contribution to antiriot technology, the 'sneeze machine' which pours out
At the same time a widespread strike against the apartheid regime was beginning among black workers
On 16 June the riot police annonced that reporters and photographers were being banned from the black townships. The excuse given was that the presence of cameras 'provoked' the blacks in these areas, and that reporters deliberately started riots.
The real reason for the banning of reporters was clearly shown by the events of 17 June - the riot police were sent back to the townships with orders to kill. Up to 60 blacks were shot dead and more than 200 wounded. The next day an unknown number of
The killings in the townships followed hard on the
latest South Arican incursion into raid was aimed at refugees from Namibia and guerilla fighters of SWAPO, the South
People's Organisation, which is spearheading the freedom struggle of the Namibian people. Hundreds of people were killed in the South
The events in Angola and the black townships show that the apartheid machine of white domination keeps itself in power through violence and the forced subjection of the blacks. But if that were the sole basis of white supremacy the South African reich wouldn't last long. It survives above all because of the tacit economic and military support of the West, and
The present rugby tour by the British Lions is just symbolic. The blood of murdered South African blacks and Namibians is also on the hands of those who pour investments into South Africa's cheap
3 - The bloodsuckers who
Page 2 scan of this page
OUR POLICIES
C'apitalism is in crisis. The leaders of the Labour Party and the trade unions offer solutions that are in
not of the workers but of the capitalist class.
Socialist Challenge believes that
two vital tasks revolutionary socialists are:
• To build broad-based struggle tendencies in opposition
class-collaborationism in the labour movement. These should be non-exclusive grouping Ingether militants holding a wide range of political views.
• To begin to fight for the creation of unified democratic revolutionar! socialist organisation which can. all application 01 united front
begin lo be alternative thousands workers engaged in struggles.
Such an organisation should be based on the understanding that:
The for seeks io unite the fight I workers against the with that of other oppressed layers of society — women, black people. liberation. This socialism can only struggling be achieved by creating new organs of power and defeating necessary means the power of the capitalist state.
2 Спат яни сти я віа socialism
than what exists in Britain today, with full rights for political parties and currents that do not take up arms against the socialist state. The Stalinist models
'socialism' in the USSR ard Fastern Europe have discredited socialism in the eyes of millions of workers throughout the We are opposed to them and will offer full support 10 all fighting for socialist democracy.
* ona sorts cale: Capitalism The interests of workers and
on a world scale. Capitalism has not created market. if has created politics. Thus we fight for working class unit! on an scale. This unity will in the long run be decisive in defeating both the imperialist regimes in the West and the brutal dictatorships they sustain in Latin America, Africa and Asia.
I mimen item plies dramanding
immediate withdrawal British troops from Ireland and letting the Irish people determine
The Communist parties in L Europe are in crisis. Neither the 'Eurocommunist the pro-Moscow wings have any meaningful strategy for werthrow of the capitalist state.
dew revolutionary socialist parties
more necessary than belore. Conditions today more favourable than over the preceding three decades. But such parties can only rejecting sectarianism and seeing internal democracy not as a luxury but as a vital necessity. This means the right to organise factions and tendencies.
If you agree with these principles and want 10 activities by Socialist Challenge
supporters in your area, fill in the form below and send it to us.
interested Ir information about activities in my эrё3.
NEX ..
Address .
•...............Tel
Socialist Challenge 26 June 1980 Page 2
confrenting
class
Characier.
By Roy Alexander and
through
latest toll is of
socialism eleven-year-old
of retarded boy.
bosses
their actly four
South Africa.
and driven into exile.
all
commissions, speeches, and editorials.
world.
Reforms
those
world
world
international
machine
- and do
sysicili But there
current wave
nor 'coloured' community.
eve the Khoi people, are
built
century onwards.
Privileges
Throughout
to give the privileges over
source of
eature
bcanscives do
Apartheid
Africa,
backward
INTERNATIONAL
storms that
are to come
ONCE again the police of the racist South African state are killing unarmed demonstrators. The
40 dead and 200 wounded. Among the 'hooligans' tryside, and 'criminal elements', as the South African police contemptuously call those they gun down, are a nine-year-old girl and an
mentally-
This new round of bloodshed is not hard to understand. Almost ex-
years ago of thousands of black school children came out on to the streets of Soweto to fight for their right to live as decent a life as any white person in
For that crime they were beaten, murdered, imprisoned,
For four years the political leaders of 'white' South Africa have been discussing, and rediscussing, what to do about black opposition to the apartheid system. Millions of words have been poured out by goverment
politician's newspaper gle.
But almost nothing has changed. A few cosmetic. reforms now allow black people to stand in the same queues as whites and sit on the same •park benches. But they remain class- tions, ed as 'foreigners' in the land of their birth. They remain in poverty in a country whose wealth they produce. A small white minority continues to benefit from their suffering. They remain daily at the mercy of a heartless
lacisi employers, bureaucrats, and policemen who can
- separate husbands and today, wives, children and parents, in order to preseve the logic of the apartheid
are some new developments in South Africa. The
of resistance to the government has come not from the
downtrodden section of the population - those officially classed as 'black' — but from the so-called
This group is technically made up of all those of 'mixed' racial origin, but in fact most are descendents of
the original inhabitants of western South Africa whose communities were destroyed in a genocidal holocaust launched by the first white settlers from the 17th
South African history the whites have always tried
"coloureds' small the main black population, in order to use them as a
support for white rule Thus for many years they (along with the small Asian community) were the main source of clerical, professional, and skilled workers used to carry our those jobs which the whites cold so really b an able to fithe cos rede
grand design South however. According to this
the bulk of the land - and the cities in particular - belongs to the whites
and the blacks are only entitled to a
South Africa: the
'homelands'.
But the coloureds have been living in the cities for as long as the whites, have no connection with the coun
and there Is no ICTION which even by the most roundabout and twisted logic could be said to be their "home'. Participate
At the same time they are obviously not white and cannot allowed to participate as equals in a ystem based upon racisn
This uncertainty has driven th coloured community to throw in their lot with the black majority whenever important struggles have taken place. But now coloured youth and students are actually placing themselves in the forefront of the struggle rejecting he passive and wait-and-see attitud of many of their elders. They knocked away any illusion that. they could be transformed into a prop of a 'new mode!' apartheid.
The other significant development has been the growing role of black workers. 1976 it was the students of Soweto who led the strug-
The workers - their parents -while sympathetic were involved in a
lainly passive way, supporting th
tay-at-homes? (general strikes) cal ed for by the student leaders.
The present upheavals in South Africa include a big wave of strikes in the same region as the demonstra-
with workers in sixteen tories in the industrial town of Por Elizabeth (which includes the mai Ford factory) and in the neighbour ing town of Uitenhage fighting for their own demands workers in are cities of South brack There
in the coloredo
"coloureds". While the are allowed to join unions (and there are 250,000 of them in trade union organisations) the law 1012 recently hindered black organisations being formed. Despite this fact some 85,000 black workers joined 'unofficial' unions and mili-
be
have
fac-
black
750,000
tant action forced many employers to until negotiate e workers' 5. face
African state is in the process
neith te of this the South of granting trade union rights to black beyond the factories and into their workers, but with all sorts of strings communities, fighting for civil rights Effect
aevelopmichl. and
divide them, Ing played working class Africa today the
its history. their
= Souct they
South Africa to the sort desperately need.
attached to limit their fighting ability
By and large black workers have rejected this poisoned offering and
extending their organisations
and social needs as well as better wages and working conditions.
The combined effect of these two
the growing unity militancy of the entire black population, rejecting all attempts to
, and the central part beby the powerful black - is creating in South dangerous situation the racist state has faced in
Assistance
In the storms that are to come South Africa is counting upon the sort of international assistance it has always had from foreign business and
governments. The biggest backer bas alsays beez Britain, with over 700 Britist surpates mresting
Afiz DE je arTiEs de strike in South Africa todar wort for British firms or multinationals with an important base in Britain. British works
organisations should fighting for the international isolation of the South African racists; but
should also be building links with black workers' organisations in
provide them with of help. that they so
Page 3 scan of this page
The men who
HOMENEWS
IF THERE is a typical bloodsucker of the South blacks it is certain Ferguson, chairperson Associated Engineering
Bre: infamous 13 com-
Under Ferguson's leadership Associated Engineering have supported all the 'right' causes. Last year they donated £10,000 to the Tory Party, £1,400 to the extreme right wing Economic League, and £1,000 to the anti-trade union Aims of Industry.
Ferguson's political views were summed up when he wrote in the company's 1979 annual report: "As we have seen, the new goverment is persuing very different policies from those previously implemented. believe there can be little doubt that there was need for change. In particular I welcome the reduction in direct taxation.'
This 'welcome' is hardly surprising since last year Ferguson himself a £20,000 salary worth a good deal more in real terms thanks to Thatcher's tax cuts.
the annual report Ferguson also boasted that the the Group in South Africa are very encouraging.
Strength
A similar claim was made by Sir John Boden, chairperson of Metal Closures, another of the 33. In that company's 1979 annual report Boden said: 'Our South African group continues to go from strength.'
Boden is another supporter of the Tories: He has written: ment policies, if they are to be really effective, require more than one term of office. Hopefully they will imple-
the country's abolish secondary picketing and, indeed tertiary picketing, legislate for secret ballots in strike issues.'
It's not just supporters of the Tories who are involved in the starvation companies there's number of leading members of the
EARL JELLICOE, Tate & Lyle
Tory Party. There's the example of
Earl Jellicoe, former Tory leader of
the House of Lords and chairperson
LORD ALDINGTON, GEC
of Tate Lyle;
Aldington, deputy
GEC, a Tory Minister at the Board of
Trade from 1954-7, and a deputy
chairperson of the Conservative Par-
ty from 1959-63; and Earl Cadogan,
a director at Eagle Star Insurance and
a former Tory mayor of Chelsea.
African John of Group, paid
- a figure
'prospects of from
scandalously low workers.
In particular, strength
"The govern-
mandate to
21181
also 'advise'
Lord Toby chairperson of
from 1946-8.
get the
THE racist regime in South Africa could not survive without the support capitalism. Hundreds of British companies provide the money to keep apartheid in business. Usually they make huge profits
their investments - thanks to the wages paid
33 British-owned com panies have recently been named as paying 'starvation wages' to black workers.
Who are the individuals - the company
Heary
the civil service
selection board which makes sure the after
right type of people get appointed to
the government. People like try.
Sir William Gorrell Baraes, a director of another of the 33, Tarmac. Barne pany. had a long career in the Colonial Office and was personal assistant to Labour Prime Minister Clem Atlee
Another ex-civil servant involved
British bosses behind apartheid
blood money
of Western
to black Wrightbead, head of 1951-3. From Wrighthead went on to be British chargé d'affairs in Iran immediately the British-inspired brought back the Shah to that coun Wrighthead is a director of the blood-sucking Michael Cott
Reed International is also one of these companies and its head is Alex Jarratt, who, as secretary to the National Board of Price and Incomes, told us what we were all allowed to
directors — who prosper from this exploita tion? Again, there are hundreds of them, but the most prominent are found in the 'top drawer' of the British ruling class.
They include members Family, the Tory Party, the House of Lords, even the trade union bureaucracy. There are press barons, top civil servants, and a whole host of ex-public school boys.
GEOFF BELL names the leading direc tors of the 33 'starvation' companies - the men who profit from aparth
Learn from 1965-68. From there Jarrait proceeded on to the Department there of Employment and was the brains behind the restrict trade union rights under the coup auspices of the Industrial Relations Bill.
by the bosses' organisation, the Concomfederation of British Industry, and a number of leading lights in the CBI also profit from the exploitation of black South Africans.
starvation firm McDougall and a member of the CBI
council since 1973.
of the Royal
son of Liadustries.
dustri control the starvation
Television
magazine.
Commission
Hovis Bank.
There
OOM
Angus Ogilvy
and unsuccessful plan to
Cydesnuir, Roland John
The Bill was strongly supported of the
Lord Roots is a director of the
Rank Hovis on their hands.
LORD BROOKES, Plessey
, Yet another Lord, Baron Raymond Percival Brookes is - a director of Plessey and was, for seven years, a CBI council member. Considering Plessey pay such low wages in South Africa it is hardly sur. prising that Brookes was a member of the United Kingdom-South Africa trade association from 1967-69
The president of this association from 1977-79 was Willian Loke. Al present he is a member of the counci of Aims of Industry and the chairper.
mother of the 33 who atso run the compins chairperwhich Campbd Fraser, a trustee of the Economis magazine and chairperson of Scottist
director; and Gamesh anGoldsmil whose chairperson Si
Towns Now
Anyone who thinks there might be a 'conflict of interest' between running these top capitalist concert and ensuring the 'freedom of the press' might have expected the Roya
the Press from 1974-77 to comment on such a conflict. But on that commission was Si George Bishop, a director in two of the starvation companies Rank
McDougall and Barclays
And don't expect some trade union leaders to do much about what
TOM JACKSON, BP is happening in South Africa. For instance, Tom Jackson of the post of. fice union is a director of BP
• D İ I İ ies are implicated in the gross of ploitation of South African blacks
, member of the Royal Family and director of GEC; Jed
, managing director of Dickin Robinson and a council member of Bristol University; Lon
otherwise known Bilsland Colville. director of Barclays, and a member
General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.
These then are some of the peop who have prospered from the Sout African regime, who run the com panies which exploit blacks
than most others - the men who las
week had the blood of those black Socialist Challenge 26 June 1980 Pap 3
Page 4 scan of this page
Trade union chiefs give thumbs down
By Alan Freeman
ON Sunday 15 June in a
quiet country house
Hertfordshire, eleven men
and
discuss the future of the
Labour Party — a party of
half a million members.
This 'commission of inquiry'
was established last year by the
party's NEC to CALLY
thorough overhaul of the par-
ty's organisation and structure.
The weakness of the party's
finance and membership was
one question on which it had to
report; but the most controver-
sial part of the commission's
work concerned questions of
inner-party democracy,
especially the three
debated at last year's Labour
Party conference: the election
of the party leader; mandatory
re-selection of MiPs; and con-
trol of the party's
manifesto.
The commission was made
up of leading trade unionists,
members of the NEC,
representatives
parliamentary party. Teeth
In the teeth of bitter
position from party leader Jim
Callaghan, they recommended
that constitutency
should re-seedi their
before each election. This was
a victory for the left: a victory
for democracy.
It was a victory made possi-
ble by the decision
Evans, leader of
largest union the Transport
and General Workers' Union,
to vote with the
members of the NEC. Ranged
against the proposal
Callaghan and his
Michael Foot, and all the other trade union leaders present at
This was the last victory for the left. Moss Evans deserted his temporary alliance with the left and two disastrous posals were voted through.
It was agreed that in future the party leader is to be chosen by a completely new body, electoral college, which will be overwhelmingly weighted favour of Labour MPs and the trade unions. This decision was later described by left MP Michael Meacher as 'a coup by those who wish to preserve the status quo'. Manifesto
The commission then went on to discuss the procedure by which the party manifesto is crawn up. At manifesto is agreed "jointly' between the Shadow Cabinet and the NEC but there has been strong pressure from the consuluency barnes 1or the executive alone to be responsible..
The commission came with a new proposal, the brainchild of David Basnett of the General Municipal Workers Union, that the electoral college will be responsible for the manifesto.
At one fell swoop the commission had decisions of the last party con-
tie say the
LABOUR PARTY
Democracy and the Labour Party
inquiry decided
election.
The alternatives:
out a
issues cent affiliated bodies.
The alternatives:
Mb) election by conference;
election d) a national council of Labour.
trade union representation.
and
the
college The alternatives: opcabinet); b) the NEC to have the final say. parties
MENS of time-honoured
ritual: the forging of a bloc between the right wing of the parliamentary val Ly trade union bureaucracy. of Moss distinct camps Britain's explained the 20 June issue of
Tribune. 'On one side were the union leaders and Messrs Foot left-wing and Callaghan.
were the six NEC members.'
WCIC deputy
MICHAEL FOOT The flouting of democracy was completely cynical.
T&G's evidence to the inquiry callea ior no change system of deciding manifesto. Evans flouted this decision. 200-plus constituencies submit-
the ting evidence, only four called
for no change manifesto, and everyone else called for the NEC to decide. Not one called college control.
The
up Jenkins. His union passed by
45,000 to 9,000 a motion endorsing the demands of 1979 Labour conference and urging its leader to position on the commission to apply maximum pressure support' of these recognising the alter or LOTIN sabotage' them!
Jenkins who actually proposed a large part of the alterations. ion leaders want to to avoid
What the commission of
1 Mandatory re selection of MPs Constituency Labour Parties should automatically re-discuss and, if necessary, change their parliamentary candidate before each
a) the present system (no re-selection procedure);
b) optional re-selection (a selection conference will be held if two-thirds of the general management committee agrees).
Some constituencies (about 55) called for a new selection procedure in which every party member could vote.
2 Election of the leader by an electoral college This college to consist of 50 per cent MPs, 25 per cent union representatives, 20 per cent constituency representatives, and 5 per
a) the present system (MPs elect the leader);
c) election by every party member;
A minority proposed an electoral college consisting of every MP, a delegate from each constituency, and around one-third
3 The manifesto to be approved by the electoral
a) no change (manifesto 'jointly' agreed by the NEC and the
party themselves wine-and-port discussions with the bosses. and the the right in power to ensure "Two that they don't have to fight formed, the Tories. bosses hold the threat ofa, the tre party over their heads to On the other discourage too-radical change, with the verv real chance thai Duffy could take a section of the unions with him in a split.
To defeat trade union LaKCI Ol Labour Party Democracy has called on the constituences to bombard the NEC with resolutions urging rejection of the majority commission report in favour of the minority, calling electoral greater strength for the unions and constituencies, and for the NEC to have the final say on the manifesto.
But to defeat the right the campaigu must be taken to tne rank and file of the unions.
Union branches The bombarding both their leaders and the NEC with resolutions
the to decide. openly stop the block vote being used Of yet again to smash democracy in the Labour Party.
on the Dangerous
It isn't necessary, for electoral fact it is dangerous, to accept the principle was college. The danger now is that the Party's diverted to bickering about the the size and shape of But an electoral college in any his shape or form is a manoeuvre to take power away from party members and the union rank demands, and file. It has no place in the 'strenuous at- Labour Party. otherwise But it was membership's right to decide must be raised: select on of MP's, to decide on the leader, and the _ too NEC to decide the manifesto in leaver line with conference policy.
CLIVE JENKINS
free hand for
They want to keep
the right, the
leaders must be The Campaign for
college with should be
conference's right The fight is on to
and in Re-selection:
of an electoral (a) mandatory*
(b) optional attention will be (c)
this body. Manifesto:
(b) against change Leadership: (a) electoral college • demand for the (b)
(c)
GMC re- (d) conference
against change
(a) for NEC's authority
election by conference
every member in the country
National Council of Labour
The composition of the commission and how it voted The commission MPs: Frank Allaun, Norman Atkinson, Tony Benn, Eric Heffer, Joan Lestor, Jo Richardson, James Callaghan, Michael Foot.
Trade Union leaders: Moss Evans (TGWU), David Basnett (GMWU), Terry Duffy (AUEW), Clive Jenkins (ASTMS), Bill Keys (SOGAT).
The votes Mandatory reselection FOR: Allaun, Atkinson, Benn, Evans, Heffer, Lestor, Richardson; AGAINST: Basnett, Callaghan, Duffy, Foot, Jenkins, Keys.
Electoral College with 50 per cent MPs to elect the leader FOR: Basnett, Callaghan, Duffy, Evans, Foot, Jenkins, Keys; AGAINST: Allaun, Atkinson, Benn, Heffer, Lestor, Richardson. (The minority proposed instead a 30:30:30 composition for the electoral college)
Electoral college to have the final say on the manifesto The same voting pattern as on the election of the leader. MOSS EVANS - voted with the left-wing members of the Labour Party executive
CLPs TUS
190 133
72 52 19 (53 CLPs wanted mandatory re-selection, through a mass meeting of members and 13? wanted it through general management committees.
LP Regions Socialist
societies
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3 •000N 000-
Page 5 scan of this page
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Page 6 scan of this page
conference launches campaign
HOME NEWS
BOC
British Oxygen
workers still solid
By Tessa Van Gelderen THE fight against redundancies continues at the British Oxygen depot in Hackney.
jority of workers were quite prepared to accept the loss of jobs; it was only the convenor John Walsh, and deputy convenor Micky Boulter who wanted a fight.
asked for a recess for a week.
meeting. Everyone was there and only one worker out of the entire plant wanted to leave his job. Meanwhile the union has told management that it won't accept compulsory redundancies. Its policy is employment, not deployment.
the beginning in fighting
place of full involvement and solidarity of the workers in the plant.
work that will result from the redundancies.
militant depot in British Oxygen.
It's a lock-out
Technicians at GEC TeleCi TWO munications, Coventry, facing the fourth week of a lock-out for supporting six striking co-workers. The strikers were protesting at the strings attached to a li per
cent pay offer — the introduc
tion of shifts and cumpulsory
Management tried unsuccessfully to pusD tae through by forcing ASTMS meniser sign the agree.
ment individually. So far one picket has been arrested.
Edinburgh
fights US
war drive
By Duncan Smith
Fifty people gathered
outside the US:
sulate in Edinburgh to protest against the US
war drive last Saturday.
The demonstration
jointly organised by the Edin-
burgh
solidarity campaign and
militants of the Anti-Nuclear
Campaign.
against the siting of
Cruise missiles in Britain, and
workers'
TO1 WIll
struggles in El Salvador and
Nicaragus.
Eresucul Carter's talk scated policiess comrade
actual policies. comrade
Salvador described
how the US had stepped
military aid to the right-
wing regime in his country.
eches from members th
speeches members
the Anti-Nuclear Campaign
They pointed out that the nuciear
pog been from they con-
been intimately con-
nected with the production of
nicer Rious. 1. 1L1S could
only be explained by the ag-
gressive drive of capitalist
markets and investments
world wide.
Protestors left feeling that
the event had been a success
and that there was great
potential for mass cam-
paign the Cruise
nissiles, particularly If the
sue is taken into the trade
union movement.
Socialist Challenge 26 June 1980, Pase b
At a meeting last week, management argued that the ma-
So Fred Ferryman, the Transport Union group secretary,
Micky Boulter, who is also branch secrelary, called a mass
The whole workforce at Hackney has been involved from
the job cuts. No amount negotiating, even with the best of union officials, can take the
together to save the 28 jobs that has been an important factor in the refusal of the depots in Cardiff and Bristol to handle any
It will be Hackney's willingness to continue the fight that will ensure that the union officials don't give in and that if and when firm support is needed, the labour movement will support | them. It is through their own independent activity and organisetion in the past that Hackney is today the strongest and most
By Mark Whyte, COHSE 426 branch THE major issue facing delegates to last week's conference of the workers' union COHSE
pay Despite the present 22 percent infla-
tion rate and the recent large increases awarded to doctors, nurses have been offered a derisory 14 per cent.
Appeals by the unions to Thatcher to increas me oner ma men on deal cars. so uc cundi delegates had to decide on what the union should do.
The executive proposed a ballot of branches, with a recommendation to reject the offer. But no SUASHVIS leadership about how the pay battle could be IF Alison Munro, chairperson of the Merton, Sutton, and Wandsworth Area Health Authority, has her way the patients in St Benedicts hospital, Tooting, will be out on the street by September.
The decision to close the hospital was confirmed at the 11 June meeting of the AHA WOrKCIS Benedicts have different ideas however. 8-month work-in still continues and the Ales meter adore the meeting about reasons for the closure embarrassed Alison Munro so much hat the meeting came to an
Shop stewards at the Bolingbroke hospital are showing their solidarity by refusing ad Benedicts and are pointing out that their hospital is ill equipped to be a geriatric hospital.
Amlomatice Gives maye also given a compitment not move the but in Means minde of closure the Etwall Hospital in Derbyshire and the Princess Mary Hospital —
Hugo Dewar - founder
of the British Trotskyist
movement
By Harry Wicks circulating the Trotskyist paper 'Red Flag'.
Trotskyists manifesto opposing the war.
By Jenny Flintoft, Hampstead Labour Party THE anti-Cruise missiles campaign will be the big. gest thing since CND in its 'heyday'. This was the feeling at the Labour Co-ordinating Committee's
It is the willingness of the Hackney BOC workers to fight meeting in Brent, North West London, on 16 June.
stallation is planned for 1984,
rentaron S Matus.
Trades Council told us. 'The will technology, ses. We mobilise the
Nurses pay -union
won.
health was nurses' support
were forthcoming from the union action.
St Benedicts -
the fight goes on
private transport has been used to smash work-ins.
Building support for the picket is absolutelv prevent a repetition of this at Benedicts. Battersea and Wandsworth Trades COLICI WILl supporting a mass picket outside St Benedicts or Thursday 3 July, and a publi
July at which Alan Fisher has been invited to speak.
The workers Benedicts will want to know, if Fisher turns up, why he has failed to campaign in support of St Benedicts every hospital work-in and what he intends to do about it!
Hugo Dewar, one of the founders of the British Trotskyist movement died on 14 June after a long illness. Hugo, a member of the Tooting branch of the Communist party, was expelled with the whole of the left opposition group in 1932. During the 1930s when the Trotskyists were persecuted and slandered he devoted his energy and enthusiasm to sustaining and
As secretary of the Socialist Anti-War Front he wrote the
After declaring his socialist opposition to the war 10 a
The biggest thing since CND
these
O'Callaghan (Brent ind Frank Hanson (secretar of Brent LCC) said that th anti-nuclear movement must Several emergency motions at the conference tried to fill this gap, suggesting strike action with campaigns solidarity action by the rest of the trade unior These motions were ruled out of order on the conference did DUl debate an emergency resolution from the Dunder branch which outlined a campaign of industrial
Initially the executive intended to oppose this but when it seemed likely that conference would the resolunion. LINC executive asked delegates to remit it. This was carried, as was the ballot recommendation, the result of which will be known in ten days Some nurses may be reluctant to take strike They may be scared of being disciplined by the General Nursing Council, or be concerned Please send messages of support, donations, etc to Arthu Honor.
Benedicts Occupatior ComLane, Tooting, London SWIT.
MASS PICKET at ST BENEDICTS HOSPITAL TOOTING, SW17
Thurs 3 July, 6-9pm, Church Lane Gates.
Regular pickets take place every Monday evening Tooting Broadway o Tooting Bec Tube stations.
conscientious objectors tribunal, he was finally conscripted into the army. In the army he became a prolific writer, con. tributing poems and articles to various socialist journals.
In 1946 he stood as an Independent Labour Party candidate against Douglas Jay in the Battersea by-election. Following this he began a long period of research into Stalinism, writing a long book on the policies of the British Communist Party (later published in an abbreviated form by
In 1956, when the whole left was shaken by the Soviet invasion of Hungary he, together with a Rumanian socialist Daniel Norman, wrote a topical pamphlet 'Revolution and Counter Revolution in Hungary' which helped explain these events to a new generation of socialists breaking from Stalinism.
In later years Hugo assisted socialist historians in Paris who were working on the publications of the Leon Trotsky
With the passing of Hugo Dewar the international
81S0
oppos
threal
danger Class.
In the discussion which
build leaving the NHS
would include
similar stage.
sibility to campaign for similar solidarity.
Police arrest black
factory workers
monton, now owned by Thorn EMI.
tory.
who were working in the factory.
recisted aimrest
vary between 54 and 72.
migrant workers.
he factory
which it is necessary for people to prove they are innocent'.
went on to
immigrants who enter this country
persecuting the
must be repealed.
through on Sunday on 01-359 8180/9
to lowe Charlie Van Gelderen said that defence of the Soviet Union should hot mean that we are uncritica. 01 'exclusive nuclear CHID mobilise the world proletariat policies and failure against the Other contributors nhasised the calling , for NATO and mobilising youth against the war drive People left feeling massive support for the cam larger meeting plannea or laler l be year. about patients' welfare. Yet industrial action with emergency cover is the only way the claim can be won; a victory which is necessary to stop nurses The fear of disciplining action by the nursing council can be laid to rest if a sufficiently large number of people were involved in industrial ac-
The cause of the nurses can also be advanced if they link up with other trades unionists. other health service staff and administrative and clerical staff whose negotiations have reached a Solidarity action is crucial for nurses to win their claim. In 1914 the miners came out in sup port of the nurses. The TUC today has a respon• expressions ol SHORTLY after 2pm last Friday afternoon police in four Transit vans and two coaches arrived at the Main gas appliances factory in Angel Road, Ed.
While Home Office officials went to the personnel department to examine the records of black workers, police surrounded the factory, and cops with dogs patrolled the railway line next to the fac-
The police then moved in and arrested immigrant workers
Scuffles broke out outside the main gate as some workers
. Others managed to escape by clambering over the outer fence. Estimates of the number of immigrants arrested
This is the biggest raid that has ever been made under the 1972 Immigration Act, which severely restricts the rights of im-
The Home Office revealed that the operation had been carried out with a warrant which specified the name of
, but not the names of any individual being sought Joint Council for the Welfare Immigrants described the raid as ta mere fishing expedition in
question whether such arbitrary arrests are lawtu!
One thing is crystal clear. As long as the police have legal backing, through the existing immigration laws, for harassing
they will feel confident in black workers in this way. These racist laws
THE deadline for short news articles is 10.30am
Monday. Articles up to 200 words can be rung
Scottish
TUC bans
H Block
delegation
By George Kerevan THE Scottish TUC has banned Edinburgh Trades Council from sending a delegation to investigate
the Long Kesh concentration camp in the North of Ireland.
A crowded meeting of the
rowly voted to accept the ban, rather than face disbandment by the siuC. The full-tim secretary of the trades coun cil, Des Loughney went ahead with The VAl capacity.
Edinburgh Trades Coun
for political static or alon
prisoners since this year Derry relatives of the
approached
council trade unionists se
visit trade unionists im prisoned in the H Blocks.
May voted unanimously
send the president Roger Wes and the secretary.
deputy general
John Henry and Hugl
the TGWU to read the rio
act to the trades council ex
ecutive on 13 June
TAey cloimed that
Northern Committee of the
Irish Congress of Trade 'Unions did not want the visi to go ahead. Whyper,
member of the Communist
tarty Block
prisoners "murderers', and
said that if the delegation pro.
STuc WOU
dissolve the trades council.
Despite the dissent
members of the Socialis workers rar ana lie later national Marxist Group the
recommended the council that the trip abandoned.
By-election
candidate is
Orange thug
By Joseph Michael
Brady
THE Glasgow Central by.
election has an odd feature
there a National
Front candidate who has been disowned by the NF
The thug in question is
McKenzie leading
member of the Scottish
Loyalist Association former leader of a street gang
called the Remo, and a vice
president of the fanatical
of Ireland Loyalist
organisation, the Apprentice
Boys of Derry.
McKenzie has a number of
convictions tor assaul
grievous bodily harm. He was
expeller from Orange
order tor "bringing the
stitution into disrepute'.
The NF directorate that
McKenzie is not their call
didate. Perhaps they think
Lnev have had enough bad
publicity, or perhaps they fea
they cannot control McKenzie
Scottish Loyalist
Association boot boys.
c at thu chool nọt tich
•the
McKenzie is using the election
as a chance to push sectarian
*Smash the IRA'
march was • planned bi the
•Glasgow NF for 21 June, bu
it was called off after the Anti
counter-demonstration.
The ANL is still planning
public opposition to McKen-
zie, as is the Glasgow I TOOD
Movement All anti-
fascists are urged to conțact
the Glasgow ANL for up to
date information. The ad.
dress is Trade Union Centre,
Carlton Place, Glasgow.
Page 7 scan of this page
Labour Party discovers women's liberation
HOME NEWS
By Janice Mcghee
OVER 150 people met in Edinburgh last Saturday at a conference organised by the Labour Co-ordinating Scotland to discuss the labour movement's response to Tory attacks on women.
The majority of delegates were Labour Party members, but there were representatives from the trade union and women's movements. The growing interest by the Labour Party in the position of women.
The early discussion attacks on women. not without criticism of the last Labour government's record.
Margaret Curran, the only woman member on the LCC executive in Scotland, outlined the need for mass participation by the working class in the Labour Party 'to achieve a socialist transformation of society'.
Ine Labour rarty was basea too mucn on men around ine political fight industrialisation, she explained. The party had failed to reach women.
Jo Richardson MP emphasised the need to involve women in the party and sketched the attacks by the Tories on even the small progress By Valerie Coultas
OVER 200 women attended the second Women's Fightback weekend.
The Campaign, initially sponsored by Socialist Organiser, decided that it vital that women unorganised' were made effects of the Tory Employment Bill on their rights as workers, mothers and trade unionists.
Women's Fightback will be building a big lobby at the TUC this year making it clear that women want Len Murray to act now to defend a woman's right to work.
There was quite a long debate in the morning on what policies the campaign adopt. The planning committee's draft policy, which was eventually adopted, mainly on the attacks on women at present and the need to fight in the women's movement and the labour movement for action to be taken against Tory policies.
An amendment put by the IMG stressing the need to give equal emphasis to work in the
Workshops were held on the Labour Party Young Socialists, Housewives in Dialogue, and producing regular Fightback campaign.
The workshop on the newspaper attracted the largest number of women and a lot of
her Committee in
conference showed
powerful
centred Tory Tories
"Tory
portunitics.
all levels. against de-
last
Women decide
to lobby TUC
enthusiasm
Charter, conference last Fightback, campaign.
was 'organised and aware of the concentrated
decade.
trade unions and the Labour Party was carried. d elect representatives when
about their
newspaper for the WE LUN
women had made. She pointed out that anti-
women slogans such as
forced existing prejudices
She covered many important topics within speech, including
missiles and the need for an increase in social services, especially nursery facilities. should be able to choose whether or not they
wished to work, Jo Richardson argued.
the Parliamentary fight against we corne sil she congratulated the Edinburgh MPs for their role in this fight and said she was in favour of further Parliamentary action to extend the 1967 Abortion Act.
However, she made no mention of the extra-parliamentar! against the Bill, headed by NAC
In the 1980s she saw women under the
becoming poorer being educated, forced back to the kitchen sink and
Victorian morality' attempting to hide the harsh realities of capitalism.
She went on to call for better training op-
equality in education women to take a vital rôle in decision-making at
The attack on women workers was discussed during the workshop session. The topic was introduced by Mary Harrison, women's advisory committee. She criticised the
Labour similar policies to Thatcher's.
was expressed for the idea of Women in Action, a paper that came out of the last conference of the Working
Campaign fusing with the newsletter of the
Everyone agreed that a popular, regularly produced newspaper aimed at women in the labour movement would be vital to building support for the fightback against the Tories.
The conference voted at the end of the day to bring the two journals together. agreed that there would be a rally in London to launch the paper on a regular basis.
Decisions were also taken that stressed that the campaign should be as open and as broad based as possible. The steering committee and the editorial board have the power to co-opt women who want to get involved, and other campaigus anu or anisanons can arrate
The campaign obviously has a lot of poten. tial to reach out to the thousands of women who have become active within the trade union movement and the Labour Party over the last
The decision to elect the steering committee in a hurried manner at the end marred the conference, however. Women had to decide to
pollics or tnerr women's and labour movements.
The result was a steering committee that
'open' as it could Workers Action was the only tendency at the conference which was represented on the slate.
'Ditch the Bitch' rein-
opposition to Cruise
Women
•were required,
Party could
campaign
less well She wanted to
facilities, improving
and for
of the STUC
for implementing
By Valerie Coultas
victory for women in tain.
for five • Cals women's the National Abortion
movement.
trade unionists special labour
year.
the law
have children.
the NAC/Labour
liaison committee
unionists.
she argues.
Kate, Women's the National Union Fightback
ment.
Female It was membership
those affiliated to the TUC
Wing with those domestic
concerns.
discussed in the trade unions, little was known Kate explains, record in the on or caused embarrassment.'
have been.
trade unionists change attitudes.
Much of the discussion concerned the
Employment Bill as it affected women and the
need not only to fight for better education but
for women to organise within the trade unions
to take up women's issues.
The other workshops dealt with women
under capitalism and women's rights and the
law. Legal changes in divorce and abortion laws
the speaker from
Women's Charter argued. in order to allou
women to look at the wider struggles.
The latter part of the conference was mainly
concerned with what women in the Labou
do Gay : Johnson,
counsellor for Darlington, pointed out that
"policies on women's rights needed to be part of
a socialist manifesto' to be implemented on the
return of a Labour government
see legislative changes in-
cluding the extension of abortion on the NHS,
a policy of non-sexist education, child-care
supplementary
allowances for women, and perhaps the setting
up of a trade union development fund to
encourage the participation and organisation
of women within the labour movement.
A dominant theme was the involvement of
women in the Labour Party and the relation-
ship between the party and the women's move-
Five places are already reserved for women
on the Labour Party's national executive. LCC
unions The defeat of John Corrie's membership restrictive abortion Bill in fight. March was a tremendous
Bri-
It was the culmination of an National alliance that had been growing Employees and
between the through Campaign, and the organised labour
NAC now intends to build on that support by calling on all
cessfully movement con- Trades ference in February of next
The conference will discuss and he facilities improved ed be changed allow women to have the right to choose when and whether to paigning
Kate Holman, a member of
Abortion Rights Campaign trade union
considers that fertility control is an issue that is relevant to all trade
'Until women can choose when to have children they will continue to be forced into low-paid unskilled jobs,'
who is a member of nalists' Equality Working Party, feels that if women can plan their lives they will be able to play a much more active role within the trade union move-
trade union has increased dramatically over the past ten years. Women have been joining trade unions at the rate of 164,000 each year, and they now comprise 28 per cent of
Despite the difficulties they face in participating in a movement that is not geared to deal-
who have responsibilities, women have forced the trade union movement to take up our
•When abortion was first
'it was frowned
The impact of the women's movement and the consistent work of female and a few male
helped, to
•OT would-be
on it.
Scottish
district liberation led by Sheila Gilmore burgh (labour
thrown Women from benefit
past decade.
Mass
Abortion: an issue for
every trade unionist
Not surprisingly it was the with a large female which led this 1975 the Tobacco Workers' Union got the TUC to adopt a policy of abortion on
1979 was the Union of Public the National Union of Journalists which put a resolution to the Women's TUC calling for the tion take action on their policy and call a demonstration against any restrictive legislation.
The tobacco workers sucraised this. the Union Congress last reachad a char mandate te which meant that the call the 28 October demonstration against the Corrie Bill.
However, the TUC leaders have so far confined their cam-
abortion to defensive stand. Despite their policy for abortion on request, and also for day-care facilities to be made available on the NHS, they have not emphasis-
JAI GHTEK
HERFOSS
& SON
EY GITHA SOWEREY 2 July, 7.30pm, Manning Hall Theatre, University of London Union, Malet St, WC1. (Tickets £1.50 in ad vance, 21.75 on the door)
Secialist Challenge -26 June 1980
speakers argued that in every constituency the
Parliamentary candidates should have at least one woman and one worker
'Regional meetings to discuss women's position within the Labour Party were suggested -the debate on Jemocracy having highlighted the under-representation of women. Women were also urged to pass resolutions through their local Labour Parties calling for a special meeting of women in the Labour Party in
A workshop on left politics and women's
from Edin Party, accused the far left groups of concentrating too much on "the point of production' and not on women's concerns and of putting off the struggle for women's liberation until after capitalism had been over-
the women's movement pointed out that the Labour Party's record was not so hot. It had ignored the women's move. ment and had dismissed it as 'apolitical' for the
action against the Tories was not discussed at the conference, neither was there a great deal of attention paid to actively organising women in the trade unions. Nevertheless, it marked a big break in the Labour Party's traditional attitude towards women and shows that the audience for feminist ideas is growing.
Led that abortion should be a woman's decision and that the law needs to be improved to allow women that choice.
This is why the National Abortion Campaign has called conference win active labour movement support for a get local authorities to provide free abortion facilities. This is seen as the first step towards legislawhich finally allows women to decide what they car do with their own body and their life.
If your union is committed a pro-abortion position, make sure it is represented on the NAC/Trade Union Liaison Committee which is planning the conference If your trade union branch is not yet affiliated to NAC, invite a speaker and make sure it
IF you would like speakers or further information, NAC.can be contacted at: 374 Grays Inn Road, London WCI.
RTHINGTON'S
PRESEN National Abortion Campaign Benefit
Page 8 scan of this page
THE FIGHT TO SAVE
Why import
controls
won't save
jobs
MANY trade unionists, those who look to Tony Benn, think that import controls would workers from job loss. CONNOLLY, crafts Rotherham British Steel Corporation (BSC), disagrees.
Why do you oppose import controls? Those who suggest that import controls are any answer to the problems facec by steelworkers are misleading the working class. It shifts attention away from the real enemy, to our brothers and sisters overseas. It takes the heat off the steel management and their Tory backers.
What takes our ups and downs of the capitalist economy over which workers have no control. In 1973, projected capacity for BSC was 36m tonnes per year. Today the plan is for 15m tonnes. Yet imports have hardly risen in that period! stand at about 7m tonnes. The massive loss of tonnage is a result of the recession, and not the use of imported steel.
We hardly got out of one recession, and now we are into another. As a result of the last one, shipbuilding was halved; car production was down by over a third; and construction was cut by a half. needing steel are taking a nose-dive.
This is where the problem is. still be declaring redundancies if not another ounce of steel was imported.
Even if the tonnage level was maintained in the British steel industry, tional industry used only British steel, this wouldn't guarantee jobs.
The bosses are concerned about squeezing more profits from the work of each individual. We can be certain that tonnage increases would go hand in hand with changes in manning
socialied
particularly
protect BERNARD convenor at jobs is not imports, but the
They These and other industries
BSC. would
and if the entire na-
Sports so much.
the workers I know.
Age 8
levels, productivity deals, and so on. This involves more job losses.
Wouldn't import controls protect our industry, though?
Talking about 'our' industry is just a contrick to make workers take responsiblity for the problems of the economy. The only time we hear talk about 'us' is when there are losses, not when profits are mounting.
Once you accept the need for 'our' steel to make profits, you are drawn into accepting slimline agreements, speed-ups and wage rises below mination. roras makes a massive pronl but it has just announced redundancies. Profits and workers interests don't go together. But wouldn't it give us just a breathing space to get the industry sorted out? Sorted out for whom? North Sea oil was meant to be a bonus, and it could be. But who benefits just now? The oil companies with their record
The only time import controls would be imposed by the government is if the bosses could get a better return that way. This would still mean attacks on workers.
The reason the Tories won't go for this policy just now is because Britain relies on ex-
Volvo takes more British steel than Fords. A trade war might develop if the crisis gets worse. It happened in the '30s. But
great depression certainly didn't help any
Surely accepting super-exploitation abroad?
Europe.
ty. This is what Indian trols.
So what is the answer?
be abolished.
more workers Train them. study. Lower the retiring age.
through the cash limits.
a priority.
cars.
Where some things
longer,
society based on people's needs.
profit system. to work building
working people and their families.
imports is accepting other workers
British steelworkers are the lowest paid in
Would it have helped us during our strike if German workers stopped British imports on the grounds that we are low paid? What we needed and what we got was solidari-
South Korean workers need in order to fight their low wages.
workers to have visited our brothers and sisters abroad during the strike. They would have seen that the bosses in other countries are trying to sell the same lie to workers there: that the problems they face are also due to foreign imports.
For me, it is a natural progression iron organising locally to organising internationally. You can't do that with a policy of import con-
Steelworkers have to start from the need to save jobs. If there isn't enough work, then it should be shared, with no loss of pay. Overtime should
We need a decent wage without overtime, and a fight to force management to take on
especially young workers.
Give older workers time off to
But this would bankrupt the industry. So the government will have to give a subsidy to save jobs. We are in the 1980s, not the '30s. We have a right to a job. We'll have to smash
But don't forget. Interest payments to the money lenders account for over half the "loss' made by BSC. This was nearly £200m this year alone. The cancellation of these debts has to be
We can't stop there. There is a market for steel. But not under this system. Obviously we don't need less steel than we did in the '60s, let alone the '30s. We need more hospitals. more schools, more roads, more railways, and more
aren't needed any let's re-tool the industry. Who could argue that Africa has enough tractors or other, pose the closure plans. Militants machinery which idle factories here could produce? We couldn't produce enough steel in
We need a government that breaks from the
One that sets unemployed people the roads, hospitals and equipment we need. One that begins to plan the economy in the interests of the majority - the
Warrington -
if steel dies,
se to are ate our one to ser the town die
By Martin Collins IN less than a month, on 18 July, 685 jobs at Warrington Bewsey Road steel plant are due to be axed. Now that Llanwern and Port Talbot steelworkers have accepted the British Steel Corporation's terms for the first round of job losses, Warrington will be a new focus in today's national fight to save steel jobs.
The announcement of the Warrington redundancies came on 17 April. a fortnight atter the end of the 13-week steel strike This national strike was planned by the Tory government to make an example of the steelworkers and to give one sharp message to the rest of the labour movement: "There is no point in fighting back'.
Hard
But strikers in Warrington fought hard to make sure the Tories didn't get away with their plans, and they are just as determined that their works will not close. On 9 May, unions on the site voted overwhelmingly to op-
made it clear that the fight was not just to protest, or to hold out to get better terms for selling their jobs. Warrington aim to keep the plants open.
A propaganda battle is raging inside the plant. The unions pro duced a poster which pilloried two members of senior manage
ment, called Skinn and 'Don't get SKINNed aLE fight closures!'
Management respond a circular which began, get HERDed like sheep Port Talbot closures 'Herd' in question is Coli convenor of the Iron an Trades Confederation at ington, Socialist Challenge pa Lessons of the Steel Strik Humourous
These humourous don't conceal the grim re the fight to save steel jobs The industry is blighted b tinual crisis of over-prod Since 1967 an average of jobs have been lost each 1965 steel provided 317.0 but last year only British Steel intend to red number to around 100,001 end of the year.
Warrington jobs will saved with a big effort to port from other workers area, and a fight to get th ing of the leadership of t April that 'the fight to sa is just beginning. He sho forced to live up to that pr
On 23 May, the ISTC tive voted unanimously to fight to save jobs in Warr Union officials were ins to ensure no work was d other plants Wari orders. But this paper F needs to be backed by th tant action that was evide
Page 9 scan of this page
STEEL JOBS
FOUR hundred steelworkers packed the local AUEW Hall in that the workforce is committed to an all-out fight against the Tory Warrington last week to hear Bill Sirs, national secretary of the closure plans. He added that the private sector Skinningrove 8.
the Warrington plant.
ing the national strike. Then a united effort by rank and file steelworkers made it difficult for Sirs to bring the strike to the speedy end (and sell-out) that he wanted from day one strike.
Rotherham steel joint unions have votea to give • Warrington 100 per cent backing and today refuse to accept any orders. But Scunthorpe presents a different picture. The convenor plant, connivance with the full-time official for the area, has opposed a delegation from Warrington to address the Scunthorpe
Iron and Steel Trades Confederation, local trade union officials, and Labour MPs pledge support for the fight against the closure of agreed not to take Warrington orders. Local convenor Colin Herd, chairing the meeting, announced BSC unions.
workers.
There is a crazy belief that if Warrington closes, jobs in Scunthorpe will be safe. tions are that closes, not only will Scunthorpe be next on the list, but it is more likely to be shut.
Warrington
'new town development' area. It is the centre of the wire drawing industry, and even the local football team Wires'. Closure of the bigges stee works wil mean the death of the town.
A recent Manpower Services
Commission that there unemployed in the town. In the All indica- last six months, 480 local firms Warrington announced redundancies and 180
closed large wire-drawing Rylands Whitecross,
so-called declared 200 redundancies in the
near future.
The effect of the Road closure won't be confined the to 685 jobs in steel. businesses will be affected. rington steelworkers can't wait until the closure date and then say it's too late to do anything.
135 hexirst week dis enough plant, and the Rotherham British Steel Corporation unions have
Bill Sirs undertook to seek similar support from Scunthorpe
report indicated were 49,000 but militants
doesn't.
altogether. The factory, has Jur bie slee litesi.
isation Bewsey Government.
British Steel Many local working War-
Lovelo them.
steelworkers. works.
SINGIES
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
9.
Bill Sirs may like that to happen,
throughout the 10. country need to make sure
jobs.
Firm action is needed now to 11. save jobs, and part and parcel of the fight must be a national plan
This will involve fighting for full national- 12.
under a future Labour and imposing on management weed Where union leaders block the fight to save jobs, the rank and file will
Fact independently of
A draft "Steelworkers Charter' was adopted by & recent meeting of the Jobs Action Committee, set up by Llanwern
steelworkers from other parts of the country to discurs these policies and the steps needed to campaign for united industrial action to save jobs.
Hopes are high that the current modest acthrities of the committee will gather support and lay the basis for a firm opposition to any attempts to close the Llanwern or Port Talbol
Eleven thousand jobs have been carved up by the present slimline agreement, and the closure of one of the plants could mean a further loss of between 5,000 and 10,000 jobs. Steelworkers Charter The following demands reflect the deeply held convictions of the steelworkers in South Wales area. We ask for the support of all organisations in the labour movement for these demands with a united approach to the task of changing the macabre destruction of the industry by the BSC.
The British steelworkers demand that the government of the day takes the interests of workers into consideration when plan. ning the future of the steel industry.
The British steelworkers demand a market for all steel which can be produced by existing plant.
We will not accept plant closure and refute absolutely any redundancy.
We demand full implementation of a guaranteed 35-hour working week and worksharing with no loss of earnings. We demand a ban on overtime.
We demand the option of retirement at 55 years for men and women with at least 80 per cent of current earnings to maintain spending power.
We demand that the government of the day fund pensions until state retirement age is attained.
We demand that the government of the day makes available all financial aid that the EEC funds provide for an investment programme with no job loss.
We demand that nationalised industries receive interest concessions in line with other EEC countries with a view to the ending of interest payments completely.
We demand that Government subsidies be made available to the British Steel industry, in line with other EEC countries. We demand opposition to changes in working practices which involve a deterioration in conditions, safety, and the number of
We demand an end to hiving off of steel production to private industry and the complete nationalisation of steel producers, processors, and stockholders.
We support steps towards the creation of one union inside the steel industry. As a first step, we demand a common pay claim for all steelworkers.
The twelve points in this Charter are a realistic and attainable ser of aspirations. Adoption of these demands will give workers a real voice in control of the industry and protect it from decimation. We pledge our support for the maintenance of a strong industry whose wealth-creating potential must be realised without unemploymen! and used for the welfare of the people of this country.
Photo: Larry Herman
Llanwern militants now plan to meet with
Socialist Challenge 26 June 1980 Page 9
Page 10 scan of this page
Support grows for Your last chance!
AGENDA
WHAT'S LEFT
MALES IOr sOs 1O: word or is por col. trace. Dead e 1. 0
immigration laws
Moss
the union for socialis
ST PAUL'S.
BOX I, rulmarks, Ireland: Social 28 banned TV film Oxford Arms (upstairs), Deptford
Demonstration;
Defence Campaign, 49 Railton Rd, London. E24 OLN.
nay ailable Woods 01-858 6865
SCEVENTS
so he sat home Coit.
AMNESTY
at 1985 Boo-ou side doi
A so, Sit tot For more nore detail:
info phon available from Fourth Idea BRENT: SC supporters sell every Sat Morning
ullmarks, 110 Cheltenham Rd, Montpelier,
INFIELD: SC availabir trom Nelsor
By 11am- 1pm. The Piazza. SC also Hilat Hill ros Sirmation about local activities. Tel. 061-682
OXFORD: SC supporters sell every very sal
every
on sale 11-1 every Sat., Regent
8 SOCi
on sale every Sat lunc! ugh, and in 'Oreens', Spencer day 3 6pm Whitecha
Benn's Load Tolman. Venue:
Coach and Horses, Cannock Road.
IMG NOTICES TGWU fraction been. postponed from 6
red due to clash
Sat 28 Jun
SEVERAL hundred people
at the Morning Star's 50th
anniversary festival joined
in the campaign to free Petr
Uhl and the other imprisonAll ed Charter 77 civil rights activists in Czechoslovakia.
Many new signatures were added to the petition calling for
British labour movement lawyer to have access to the prisoners and to investigate the conditions under which they are held.
The International Marxist Group is calling on every reader of Socialist Challenge to do what they can to mobilise in the unions and the Labour Party in defence of these Czech campaigners.
The Fourth International, through its vigorous campaign to free the 14 Iranian comrades, demonstrated how effective international solidarity can be. Petr Uhl's defence cam-
paign could in many ways be easier if equal determination is shown.
Uhl is one of the most respected and leaders of the dissident movement in Eastern Europe.
In the coming militants in the workers' movement will be approached for their full support in this campaign. Not a union or abom Party branch meeting or con-
Marta you
49405
Petr Uhl and
the balled Chartists
in Czechoslovakia
Petr Uhl and the
jailed Chartists in
Czechoslovakia'
Excellent new campaigning
pamphlet, outside 40p plus 12p (p&p)
From SC Pamphlets,
PO Box 50, London N1 2XP.
Bulk order rates on request. BRENT IMG organised highly successful fund-raising barbecue which has 180 10 Socialist coffers. Tickets sold for £1 covered a barbecue meal, entertainment, home-made beer and punch - served up in a beer tent in the garden!
Now Lambeth branch has its own spectacular social lined up for 26 July. Tickets for £1 are available from Pam, c/o PO Box 50, London N1.
In this friendly socialist competition for Hackney supporters are out to top the contributions other areas with their rapidly Fri 27 selling anti-Cruise badges.
These are the kind of collective efforts that will allow our paper to go from strength to strength. What are you doing to help?
Uhl campaign
ference can go by without aid and support defence of these Czech comrades.
tion which we hope readers will put as a resolution to labour movement bodles Copies both the Czech Embassy, well-known
months under which they are held.'
Beer, food and..
brought Challenge's
500
1,000
Jean Well Socialist
Challenge is having a funds, 1,500 tund drive Keith..
missile 2,000
Kensington sought for the campaign Tosek, Below is the text of the peti(Tel: 01-998 4490).
Led by should be sent to 25 movement support. 'WE are deeply concerned by the reports of the conditions of imprisonment of Petr Uhi and other supporters of Charter 77 civil
As you know, the national executive committee of the Labour Party and the leadership of the British Communist Party strongly condemned the imprisonment of the Charter 77 leaders last
Yet we now hear that Petr Uhl is banned from keeping all reading material, even letters and photographs from his family, and is forced to engage in very hard labour despite acute bron-
Otka Bednarova, on a disability pension before her arrest, is also made to work without consideration for her health.
We urge you to allow a British labour movement lawyer to have access to the Charter 77 prisoners and to investigate the conditions
Lash!
Dut why!!
Didn't the see mu T.V show?
Palace Gardens, London W8, and to the defence
IceT c/o Ruth ternational. 14. Elgin Court, 16 Montpelier Road, London W5.
-The new pamphlet produc-
Socialist Challenge can only help in winning labour
fund!
paper. ..funds Your Bank
Amount to be paid Ha! They! never make it, those wreckers! Signed... [paranoia,
ONLY a handful of places are left at the summer school organised by the International Marxist Group on 12-18 July, 1980. If you want to attend there is still a slim chance, so send in the form below without delay.
Attendance at the school is open to members and sym pathisers of the "MG, Revolution Youth, and the 4th In
I am interested in coming to the summer school. I am a member of the IMG/Revolution/I am a sympathiser of the IMG/Revolution from
Name/Address
enclose a cheque/PO for towards the $47.50 cost of the school.
Cheques payable to 'The Week Society'.
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£3089.13 towards
the £6000 emergency
By Micky Boulter, deputy convenor, British Oxygen Hackney depot IT'S great news that the emergency fund drive of the International Marxist Group has reached the half-way mark of its £6,000 target. The IMG needs every penny it can get.
At my workplace at the British Oxygen depot in Hackney we are fighting redundancies. We are not prepared to let any of the 28 jobs threatened go. They're not our jobs to sell. We've had many successful struggles in the past, so we know that what we need are the right policies and the money to get the message across.
That's why all socialists must support the IMG and Socialist Challenge. We've got to get rid of this Tory government now, and everyone has to give lots of money. We have to have a paper and organisation that can get around to all the people.
We need that in British Oxygen, and so do all the other workers
A lucky winner!
Manchester is the lucky winner
paign for bankers orders to the
We are now opening a new
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Socialist Challenge 26 June 1980 Page 10
Page 11 scan of this page
Brynmor John
THE six-monthly Troops Out Movement takes Edinburgh on Saturday 28 June. It will be a day of debate, discussion, and exchange of information. Local Labour MP Ron Brown will open the conference and there will be reports on the work being done in the labour movement, around the issue of Irish political prisoners, recruitment, and on the other activities in which the TOM is engaged.
The last session of the conference will take resolutions the activities of TOM which now has over 40 branches scattered throughout the country.
Three issues are likely to come to the fore: a national demonstration in the autumn; Charter 80; and the establishment of a functioning headquarters. Demonstration
The proposal for a demonstration was aired in a short paper submitted by the International Marxist Group in the run-up to the conference and in a statement produed by the Committee for Withdrawal from Ireland for the for Withdrawal' forum held on 14 June in London which was attended by approximately 250 delegates and observers.
There is a difference of emphasis between
John: To modern politicians Northern Ireland is an fashionable subject because it is not susceptible to lazy solunons, whelner uney are inose already tried, or those not tried so far.
SC: It certainly fashionable for the leaders of. the Labour Party. At last year's party conference both parliamentary leadership the national executive fought tooth and nail to stop Ireland being debated.
It was only after a petition demanding such a debate had attracted Over 400 signatures and the issue was taken to the conference floor that the NEC agreed to a half-hour debate.
As to 'lazy solutions', the Jast labour government never tried any others; it never attempted to try and end the Irish war by any other means than Roy Mason's 'military solution'.
John: The difficulties will only be solved when you have induced the communities to devise an acceptable solution by they can live in peace. I hat is as much, or more a matter of persuading human beings as it is of devising institutions.
That is what many in the Labour • Party They are the ones who call for an end to bi-partisanship.
Let it be clear what bipartisanship is in this context.
It is only an agreement to share certain aims, namely restoration of peace and a constitutional settlement to which both communities can adhere.
statement anyone: would think that the war in the North of Ireland is between and the only way it can be end- LWU 'communities'
ed is when the two communities agree.
There is, of course, a third party — the British government and its army. For many in the Norill of Ieland tne best way to restore peace would be to withdraw that army.
John: Recent speeches Labour members seem to mean
declaration for united Ireland. That seems to thinking up the question to fit the answer.
Such a declaration would nave - as would an outright declaration in favour of complete integration of Northern Ireland in the UK, on the other side the effect of alienating one of the two communities.
You cannot in policy statement treat one or other of the communities as being of no
INTERNATIONAL/IRELAND
conference of the
place in on anti-
Irish Unity', 'Voices
The
un-
un-
the
and
Gloucester spokesperson
the North of Ireland. which
the
by
be
consequence, and then expect a Secretary of State for Northern Ireland to go out and bring the two sides together.
SC: The record of the Labour government Irish war is there for all to see. Because ot Its policies, Labour government secured in Parliament the co-operation of the Unionists.
Three major issues facing
the IMG and the CWI. Both are agreed that one demand of the demonstration should be opposition to Tory plans for the North of Ireland, but there is a difference on additional demands.
The CWI is suggesting the slogans,
"End Partition', Withdrawal'. The IMG determination for all the Irish people now'. Alternatives
The disparity between the two alternatives is not just terminological. While the demands put forward by the CWI might appear to be concrete alternatives to the are in fact too vague on the one hand and too restrictive on the other.
The IMG believes that it would be politically incorrect to make a call for Irish unity the basis of a demonstration in Britain. political structures will be developed in Ireland after Britain has been driven out will be up to
hopes that a united, socialist republic will be established, but it would not dream of suggesting that a solidarity movement
Labour and Ireland
A reply to
IN A sparsely reported speech delivered on 14 June to
Fabian Society, the
on Northern Ireland, defended the Labour and Tory bi-partisan approach to
They gave in, for example, to the Unionists' more seats which in itself was a step to last complete integration. on the On Catholic community regarded the Secretary of State Roy Mason with undiluted hatred, not just because of his support for the Unionists but because of his
Conference of Troops Out Movement
For
•For a British proposing 'Self Sentiments
proposal - for
Whatever forward by
own
Labour Party Brynmor John,
Socialist Challenge. demand for Westminster,
hand.
in Britain adopts such a position. The job ot such a movement is to support the struggle of the Irish to decide for themselves how they want to be governed. The probability is that this will take the form of a united Ireland, but that is up to the Irish people to decide, not for demonstrators in this country to demand.
Second, the demands in support of British withdrawal and the ending of partition, while correct in themselves, become almost meaningless if they are only vague sentiments. The IMG
self-determination now makes this much more specific.
On the Charter 80 campaign the IMG will suggest that the TOM conference gives this important initiative its full support. Charter 80 has been established on the five demands put
the Irish political themselves. These are: the right to wear their
clothes; free association; the right to refrain from prison work; the right to organise their own education and recreation; the right to full remission of sentences.
On this basis the expectation is that Charter
That John felt obliged to stage this defence was an indication of the mounting criticism within the Labour Party of its leadership's attitude to Ireland. Extracts from John's speech are reprinted below, with comments from
taking the side of the
membership of TOM.
Inappropriate troops.
organises itself.
prisoners time basis to staff this office.
experience
co-ordinated movement. tre.
THE picture on this page is taken from
This excellent pamphlet, reviewed ir
Challenge, costs 75p plus 25p pap, or ten copies for £5 plus
Available direct from Information on
Rd, London W14.
80 can attract wide support and this holds out the possibility of more effective work on the rights of Irish political prisoners than has been the case so far. At the same time it would be wrong to see support for the fight for political status for these prisoners as a formal basis for
Some in TOM have suggested this in the past but it is inappropriate for an organisatior like TOM to insist that before anyone can joir its ranks they have to fully support the Irish prisoners. This would narrow the appeal of TOM and give it the appearance of a politica party with an increasing list of demands, rather than & movement based on the single issue of Irish self-determination and its practical implication, the immediate withdrawal of British
- Finally there is the issue of how TOM
The IMG is suggesting that TOM is put on a sound organisational footing. This means the establishment of a national of. fice and someone who would be paid on a full-
of other campaigning organisations, such as the National Abortion Campaign, suggests that developing such a servicing centre can make all the difference when responding quickly to events and developing a
Ireland as a whole to come together.
This is because the whole record of the British government's and the army's role is not to stand between the two Contes. • endorse the view of the Loyalist community; • 021 the North of Ireland must stay British whatever the people of Ireland as a whole feel.
As far as 'persuading human beings' is concerned, the British government in the past ten years has adopted rather extreme methods in this regard — like interning its opponents without trial, torturing those interned, and "iltreating' suspects at the Castlereagh interrogation cenHow is it now possible to "persuade' the 14 people the British Army shot on Bloody Sunday in Derry in 1972?
John: The government's forthcoming initiative must, in my view, be judged by two criteria.
First, whether it is likely to secure the agreement of both communities. Secondly, , will it enable the minority community
government of the area as well as the majority?
We cannot credibly dismiss
meets my criteria I will support
call to end bi-partisanship im-
than what is being put forward
the Northern Irish state to ex-
must do is to decide
decide how and in what form
Tories, on the other hand
Whatever the details of the
Page 12 scan of this page
Marxist writer murdered in Guyana but Resistance mounts to Burnham regime
INTERNATIONAL
Grenada Maurice Bishop's 'New Jewel Movement'. recognise unions.
local reactionary torces assassination attempt on Bishop comes as no surprise. West Germany
and Hamburg. ground' for the arson attacks.
Turkey
ject to torture which, in three cases, ended in death.
sexual organs, lips and feet. Algeria TWENTY-FOUR workers,
by students to be educated in their own culture.
in the Arab language.
on Berber culture it was banned by the government.
and injuries.
security' court. They face up to 20 years in prison.
Minister of Justice, Lahcene Soufi, Algiers, Algeria.
Socialist Challenge 26 June 1980 Page 12
AROUND THE
WORLD
TWO people died and 20 were wounded when an attempt
was made at a political rally on 20 June to assassinate
Maurice Bishop, Prime Minister of the Caribbean island of Grenada. The attempted assassination comes in the wake of hysteria whipped up by the United States government and the bourgeoisie in the Caribbean against the government of
The 'New Jewel Movement' came to power 15 months ago by overthrowing the corrupt and dictatorial regime of Eric Gairy. Gairy ruled the country through his notorious 'Mongoose Gang' of thugs. Since the revolution, the old regular army has been swept away, and a new 'Peoples' Revolutionary Army' and a popular militia set up in its
The prices of the three basic commodities - rice, sugar and cement — have been reduced with the establishment of a National Importing Board. Secondary school fees have been reduced, and a youth programme for reconstruction set up. A tremendous boost has been given by the regime to the self-organisation of the masses, through the setting up of trade unions and legislation which compels employers to
The popularity of the New Jewel Movement, the radical measures it has taken, and the close links that Bishop has established with Cuba, have all contributed to the hostility towards the Grenadan revolution on the part of the US and
Agallist this background the
AN estimated £90,000 worth of damage was caused after three arson attacks on Family Planning centres in Bremen
The centres are run by Pro Familia, a non-profit making organisation financed largely by Government and local subsidies, which has 135 centres throughout West Germany.
The attacks follow a campaign against abortion launched by the Catholic Church in Germany assisted by right wing doctors and politicians. Jurgen Heinrichs, head of Pro Familia, last week charged this alliance of 'preparing the
AMNESTY International has stated that torture in Turkey has now become 'widespread and systematic' and that those arrested by the police and martial law authorities were sub-
An Amnesty research mission visited Turkey last month and its findings have just been published. The human rights agency reported the case of a 17-year-old woman who was interrogated and tortured for two days, including being tied to a wooden cross suspended from a wall while electric shocks were administered to her fingers, head, stomach,
students and trade union militants are facing trial in Algeria arising out of the struggle
language and
The background to the trials goes back to the start of last year when a general strike by 'arabist' students broke out in support of 'arabisation' of courses and the ending of discrimination in employment for graduates with diplomas
Despite government repression the movement spread and at the end of last year in Tizi Ouzou, secondary school students went on strike over the demand for the teaching of the Berber language and culture. When, this April, the Tizi Ouzou students invited a writer-poet to hold a conference
The students responded with a strike which soon spread to the whole of the area and took on general strike proportions. Savage repression followed with hundreds of arrests
Further strike action secured the release of most of those held but 24 left-wingers are now to be tried before the 'state
An international appeal has now been launched on behalf of the 24. Letters of protest should be sent to:
By Sheila Malone
'FORWARD works of Walter
and the unity
Guyanese,
African workers.'
This was the from a rally organised by the Workers
Alliance held last Saturday in London in memory of Walter Rodney.
Rodney died on the night of 13 June as he left a Working. Peoples' meeting in Guyana. been told was a walkie-talkie set exploded on or beneath the seat of his car. The person from whom he received the package, a former army sergeant, has since disappeared.
Marxist
and historian, ticularly works on the movement and on wice re wen to work a. zania. In 1974 he returned to his native Guyana, on the northern coast of South America, where he later became a leading member of the WA, a grouping which has united opposition in the country to the corrupt ruling People's National Congress.
• коапсу WPA member to die violently in Guyana in the past year, two
former Peoples Progressive Party has also died suspiciously, as well as a priest who was stabbed to death by thugs from the House of Israel, a right wing pseudoreligious body notorious Jim jones sect. and likewise backed by the government.
Police ment of the left have become systematic, together with government paid armed thugs, are regularly used to break strikes.
Forbes Burnham
Opposition have •cel Criminal Law Bill was rushed through this year, a number of offences longer tried by jury.
Rodney had been on trial with others last month on a frame-up charge of burning down the headquarters of the Peoples? National Congress.
with the Rodney of the Indian and
message
Peoples'
(WPA)
Georgetown, A package he had
a Marxist writer
became parwell known for his
Rastafarian Africa, is now the third
similar to the Walter Rodney
arrests and harass-
and the military, years of
Forbes
1973.
sations under a policy operative socialism'.
and sugar.
Although
they . were steps which have property foreign interests to state They
sugar newspapers therefore and
under which the world market.
Walter volved crippling compensation
There is no doubt that his murder was part of a concerted attempt by the government to - Silence all op peression is ind tionames
unsavoury rule Burnham's PNC, political financed and put in power in 1964 by the CIA in order to pre- Despite vent a victory of the Moscow- $135m backed PPP, and kept in power by rigged elections in 1968 and
Despite coming to power tion is declining through an alliance of foreign wards the PNC was pushed to The undertake large-scale nationali-
of 'co- rising, This involved nationalisation of 80 per cent of the economy, including strikes, the major industries of bauxite
these nicasuits to this situation
of half-way stage to socialism,
simply economic transferred ownership from the local
have not altered the domination of the economy by
bauxite and rice, and dependence on capitalist export markets and its subjection to fluctuations on
The measures have also in
. of former owners and were carried out with such bureaucratic ineffi ciency that production has actually fallen in these industries.
Instead of benefits to the Guyanese people, there is now a parasitic layer of state func- has
who economic power through state patronage and privileges, and
power through. increased state repression.
an injection of against the United States during the lifetime of the Burnham regime, the crisis of the economy is deepening. Produc
real growth in the economy fell by 25 per cent between 1975 and 1977.
balance of payments deficit is worsening, prices are WPA
and unemployment stands at 35 per cent.
An increasing number of
notably the 19-week strike in the sugar industry, indicates the response of workers
Intercontinental Press
SOUTHERN African and Latin America feature in this
week's issue of Intercontinental Press/Inprecor. A special
feature is the document
recently-achieved unity of Guatemalan revolutionaries
Of equal interest is the publication of a statement by
the Peruvian PRT, assessing the results of the recent
election campaign in which Hugo Blanco became a
member of parliament.
Single issues 40p including postage. Subscription
rates: £6 for 24 issues. Orders and cheques/postal orders
to Intercontinental Press, PO Box 50, London N1 2XP.
Since its formation in 1978, the Workers Peoples' Alliance
gained a mass following and has organised meetings of thousands. Its policies of a united anti-imperialist front of all revolutionaries and a broad-based anti-dictatorial alliance
repression have succeeded in uniting opposition to the Burnham regime.
The WPA has emerged as an alternative to the policies of the Moscow-oriented parties in the Caribbean.
It is the rapid growth of the
in Guyana which has caused the regime to resort to its present brutal methods of repression to try to destroy it. Maximum SUDOUR and solidarity is needed against these attempts and to ensure that the struggle continues.
combined wit In reCol
which is the basis for the
Page 13 scan of this page
El Salvador leaders tour Europe
INTERNATIONAL
By Dodie Weppler ASSASSINATIONS, beatings and torture are daily events faced
by El Salvadoran workers and peasants. Whatever Carter might say about human rights, it doesn't tally with the vast US support for regimes in Central America.
In a film shown at a meeting in London last week with leaders of Democratic Front currently on a European tour, one scene strikingly depicted this grim reality.
am learning to read,'
Salvadoran peasant, 'because sooner or later I will be jailed and I will need legal help. But this will involve paper work. something could be done against my wishes.'
This scene in the film Who is for liberation? shows not only how imprisonment is a fact of daily life for growing Salvadorans, but it also indicates the enormous social tasks in store for the people when their revolution is finally victorious.
The message put forward at the meeting by the main speaker from the Front, Rafael Menjiver, was the need for a vigorous solidarity movement of all people 'to support our historic struggle for freedom.
'Our struggle is not a matter for the El Salvadoran people alone, because the crisis created in our zone is one which affects the
Ford
workers
plan
fightback
THE second meeting of the European Ford Workers Combine took place in Copenhagen from 6-8 Representatives attended Ford plants in Denmark, Spain, Portugal, Germany, and Britain. These ranged from official shop stewards tees' delegates to 'unofficial' rank and file groups. From the UK Ford Group, delegates attended from Dagenham, Langley, Halewood, including members of Big Flame, the Marxist Group and the Socialist Workers Party.
Discussion centred technology, the fight for the shorter working week and Ford's plans to introduce 'Japanese' methods of production into Europe - all against a background of slumping short-time working and cies:
MEX
murders,
of the most barbaric
the Revolutionary
says an El
can't read, meeting.
numbers of El The discussion on working week
and the consequent
Portugal workers 45-hour week demanding this
Saturday morning.
international
June. unions this. year. from
Holland,
commit- 26 days a year holiday! members of
Workers
and autumn. When
International
on new
work; no
redundan. on short time
HONDURAS
EL SALVADOR
G
world as a whole. None of the countries of the through defending their own interests, will be able to remain outside the struggle in Central America, Menjiver told the 100-strong
Wak echoed Nicaraguan • charge d'affaires Tomas Chamorro, who paid his tribute to the fallen in El Salvador. ment made by the Sandinista leadership Whiek has had so much impact in El Salvador and internationally: "Any direct US intevention in El Salvador against the peasants and workers will not be tolerated by Nicaragua.'
Whether the Revolutionary Front will take the Nicaraguan road remains to be seen. This new coalition unites all the major opposition groups in El Salvador, Revolutionary Co-ordinating Committee of the Mass (a united front of the principal organisa-
the shorter highlighted the disparities which exist across Europe
difficulties in launching an international campaign for the 35-hour week. For example, in
have basic and the be reduced 40 hours but only on night shifts. In Spain, Ford workers fought all last year to reduce the basic work week India, from 44 to 40 hours by striking every
Some progress has been made in Holland where the retiring age is now 62. Industrial contracts are negotiated collectively in Holland and 35 hours was a major demand of the trade
Despite this only workers for the Mobil oil company made the breakthrough. They will get 35 hours by 1983 and a new shift system which will give them an extra
One immediate success of the Combine has been to push the European Metalworkers Federation into calling an official conference for Ford convenors and officials in Spain in the
happens, the bureaucrats from Britain and Germany will be in for a rude surprise because the European Ford Workers Combine will have supporters at it.
They will be fighting for a policy of no transfer of production between Ford's European plants without the permission of the plant losing the
overtime working while others making the same product are
and a Europe-wide campaizn for the 35-hour week.
NICARAGUA
bourgeois party,
by the Salvadoran London, densely populated He repeated the state-
from malnutrition.
Democratic _peasalils,
from of the land.
By Tom Marlowe
bad news for imperialism.
and the most right-wing independence.
was necessary to save India from communism
many democratic rights.
strength to stength.
candidate of the Indian ruling class.
of monetarist-type policies.
ty openly siding with big business.
peasantry or the Indian working class.
tions of the workers and peasants), to the social democratic MR, and the recent split from the Christian Democracy. There is also a unified military command The roots of the war being fought by the El . masses todav are not ditticult to find. With its population of 4.7m it is the most country in the world.
Salvador has other telling statistics. For instance, its people have the lowest calorie intake per person in Latin America. Three quarters of El Salvadoran children aged under five suffer
In a country where three out of five are the overwhelming majority don't own any of the land they work on. Ninety-two per cent of the population owns just 10 per cent The price of food has trebled in the past
Death of a high - flyer
THE death of Sanjay Gandhi, in a flying accident on Monday, is
At the age of 33 he seemed destined to be the next Prime Minister of
Prime Minister since
His rise to power had two explanations: the good fortune of being born into the Nehru/Gandhi dynasty; the new politics with which he became associated, and which imperialism and its servants in India felt
What these politics amounted to was evident during his mother's previous term in office. Sanjay was directly responsible for the 'emergency' legislation and the forced sterilisation campaign which curtailed
These policies, more than any others, were responsible for Gandhi's defeat in the 1977 election. Yet Sanjay not only survived, but went from
Being Gandhi's son, and therefore someone who by virtue of a family name had a chance of 'stabilising' Indian politics, was a great help in this regard, but Sanjay was also evolving new politics which made him the
These included attacks on trade union rights, fierce opposition to nationalisation, a contempt for bourgeois democracy and the advocacy
Sanjay epitomised the transformation from a Congress party with an anti-imperialist heritage and social democratic history to a Congress Par-
The fact that he was young, was Gandhi's son, had control of the youth wing of the Congress Party and had built up a powerful system of patronage enabled Sanjay to enact such a transformation. No other politician in India today can be as useful for imperialism as Sanjay promised to be. This death is a blow for imperialism, but not for the
third largest five helicopter gunships have arsellal
have been established. Determination
to prop up the
problems.
tions.
explained,
nature of the army.
rounds up peasants.'
Ogueli
where, after many
appealed to them to refuse to obey.
The fate of the
entire region.
Rolled back
Nicaraguan events.
Sallull
the anniyelsaly
Nicararuan inssurection.
include: Cuban chargé d'affair, Indian
death,
repressive
Socialist Challense 26 June 1980 Paco 13
four years, while wages have remained static But, as the commentator in the film noted, someone is making money. El Salvador is the
producer coffee in the
Any opposition to these depressed conditions has been met by severe repression by the regime. But this won't be enough to hold back the struggles of the El Salvadoran masses
The US government recognises what it is u against and the consequences for the region at a time when the Nicaraguan revolutionary process is deepening. Carter has just sent a further 36 military advisors and 100 marines. Thirty-
- used in Vietnam -been recently added to the regime's
Finally, four new American military bases.
According to Rafael Menjiver, the determination of the masses and the new-found unity of the opposition forces will make US efforts
regime difficult, while government's military forces have their own
Menjiver estimated that the army has been losing 600 soldiers a month in deser-
As Hector Ogueli, another speaker on tour
disintegration the Ei Sature of the a for A arises be worse and arises because of the students are liable for conscription into the army, the regime doesn't want them. Instead the army takes trucks into the countryside and
explained that the assassination of Archbishop Romero occurred after his sermon
queries by peasants as to whether they should obey their command, he
EI Salvadoran struggle depends not only on the continuing resistance of the masses. It will also be determined by the ability of the international workers' movement to mount solidarity against US threats to the
Time after time the platform speakers at the El Salvadoran Solidarity Campaign meeting compared the way the struggle in their country is unfolding to the war in Vietnam, rather than
This process of 'Vietnamiis what needs to be rolled back, and solidarity work can again play the vital role it did in defeating US imperialism in Indochina.
One immediate event that British socialists can support is the rally being organised jointly by the Nicaraguan Solidarity Campaign and the Nicaraguan Embassy on 19 July to celebrate
the
The evening rally will be at the Logan Hall, Bedford Way, London WCI. Speakers invited
Vietnam ambassador, Grenadian High Commissioner, plus leaders of the British labour movement.
SANJAY Gandhi who, before his was spoken of as the next Prime Minister of India. As leader of the Youth Congress, Sanjay Gandh was enthusiastically cited to policies of mother, Indira Gandhi.
Page 14 scan of this page
LETTERS
South Korea's growth -
is it so
unexp
AS A regular reader of Socialist Challenge, I haven't been aware
issues (David Booth, 12 June). But leaving that question aside, wial, I wondel, Is inc sigulncance of David Booth's own line?
His view is that rapid economic growth has been taking place in a number of less developed capitalist countries and Lual uns owen das ochchica lc living standards of the working class and the poor. But what
always highly In cerrapid.
WIL LL OC SUCI aS LO redress the overall tendency? Or will it represent the working of
of the Marxist view of economics?
Writing without specialist
knowledge, I would have thought tal cedo apour ano ne aosence of independent working class organisations were sufficient to
much US capital has been invested in South Korea (it is interesting that a recent issue of Fortune was acvoica allusi entirely to the charms of this region of the world as a source of
Unless some novel economic factor is involved which will give capitalism generally a new lease of life, I do not understand how David Booth's reading of the South Korean miracle makes a iot of difference to the political tasks of socialists in the West, deed, to those of the socialists in Solteoren
On the contrary, recent events in South Korea seem to confirm that the capitalist development of poor countries — even an 'extraordinary' rate of development
• merely brings tne well-known political tasks into sharper focus.. A NORWEGIAN READER
Import
controls don't
defend jobs
MARTIN Stevens (Letters, 12 June) savs that import controls will not hit foreign workers because as British industries col-
replaced with those of foreign workers, but the country just gets poorer and de-maustralisation
We shouldn't rob workers of an important tool in •ceram toos ana mausury
His first argument isn't true because his second isn't true cula Import controls don t defend jobs.
They don't take control of investment out of private hands. atais, workers arre rorced io buy goods from British capitalists, at higher prices than
do is fork out extra cash to keep these capitalists afloat.
al 1s, in ericci, a cisguista subsidy: Fair enough - but isn't this OK if the capitalists then use this money to keep tael maustres going? The answer is that they don'r!
Britain's private shipbuilders were subsidised up to their cyeballs right throughout this cen-
never ploughed back a peury of it.
The cash was used to prop up ating profits, pay back moneylandes and sharcholders fat com-
ctitive rates of interest), and -if there any left over soroon, widt rala or pront are much higher because of the slavelabour conditions of economic стоску.
But doesn't this benefit foreign workers? Absolutely not.
The reason for the misery and Socialist Chalk
depender r aciuse test.
ment does not take place under the control of the peoples of these
Our capitalists invest abroad in limited • in in-
needs of the who are not given the money to pay for these goods. Jane resources of the Third World remain permanently underexploited to sausty une greca or a lew rich investors.
The root of this is not the movement of goods: a socialisi Britain would enter immediate discussions with Third World peoples (particularly countries like Cuba and Nicaragua where popular revolutions have
expropriate, private capital) to expand trade in a planned way -
both sides. unilaterally Imposca by Britain Os, which is what the Labour lefts DIOPUSC
But this can only be done if control over investment is taken out of private hands and if the pront molive ceases to arctale how production'is organised
We need a planned, socialist economy under workers' control first. Then we can discuss the planning of trade in a meaningful
ALAN FREEMAN, London
Import con-
trols maximise
profits not
employment
MARTIN Stevens claimed (12 June) that when 'British industries collapse their products are often
workers'. This is probably the case but how import controls
dustries is a total mystery -alleviating competition when there
To see import controls (à la Tony Benn and Ken Gill) as the
shows, to say the least, dangerous naîvety. Martin should realise that •cul s sulale A basca ull blall ning agreements with the captains of private industry!
The last thing that company directors and shareholders have in mind is the building of a planned
economic recession 'agreements' with capitalists have
Luc savil or capitalista.
As Paul Highfield pointed out
To Julicia INDOR controls will not be used to protect jobs but to maximise profits.
In this light. Benn's stratery Is
poratism than socialism! It's obvious that by polarising national comemon m e de os prepared for the advocacy of national competition in labour (immigration controls) and even
vocate war on the basis that it cures unemployment?
LES HARTOP, Coventry
Coal subsidy
no answer
PAUL Highfield's article 'The Wounded Dragon' (5 June) was just the sort of feature in which Socialist Challenge is usually lack11L.
Paul maried his article by raising the demand for a subsidy for Welsh coal.
This demand originates from the reformist leadership of the
the Welsh Labour Party. It is part of an interlocking policy of import controls on coking coal. op.
workable reserves, , and a government subsidy f
Lual
controls, Paul does not see any similarity to the question of sub-
use this demand riquite explicit: hey aim to counter the effects of
dustry through the state writing off a loss in order to better com-
natural complement to import controts. 26 June 1980 Page 14
to satisfy the World peoples
economy,
sidiaries,
cent subsidised.
sumer of coal Educational class collaboration of Communist teachers KATHY Underwood's article on the National Union of Teachers (12 June) doesn't get to the root of why the Communist Party is not interested in organising a
Cacils. troducing,
which the CP Polish and the accep- Allíance.
We must win
Birmingham May) that there have been no
revoltou duradomen
With further in-
askea to write to soclals •ISCUSSIONS
This thorny issue
, grappling with it.
of the
it means to be
practice consists mainly of meetings. demos. Dickets. and 'organising'. We should em-
and certainly not as a profes
also involve building loving
other people's children
revolutionary society.
helping our children become
tionary outside the home - it
tionary.
disappear. ; and to which
Liverpool 7)
Kathy's article
organisation.
arruca Ior ara to Donacs
Italian, British, tomatic of the problem that Mary Carter so movingly described (15 drunken,
bout the seeming impossibility of
eting the demands of being a
discriminately.
There are many of us in the revolutionary left who are struggling with this problem, and many of us find it to be as important as some people it is. all the other issues which fill the
We recently held a well. police? attended day school on the theme
Mary's letter was discussed. I was
Challenge on behalf of the day - not the fans' school mentioning some of the
This turns out to be an impossible task so instead I would nike to use vour felters coluna lo advertise the imminent publication of the record of the school
Socialist Charter group said at the school, there is an urgent need to
phlet will be of some use to all the others in the movement who are
Perhaps I can be rash enough to offer one of the conclusions many or us dre connae to. ln conflict of demands of revolutionary practice and relating to church mtat wen icccuc u we were to re-define our idea of what
: a revolutionary
We should dispense with the Leninist notion that revolutionary
of reply.' phasise that revolutionary practice does consist of these things but not to ine exclusion or all else, sional' activity, occupying all our
Revolutionary practice should
comrades, and with our own and
Kna orearousaios waca we l' tend to see throughout the post-
Ir unis oecame a pronty now.
revolutionaries would not become
328/9 UPPER STREET LONDON N1
would be part of being a revolu-
There would be no rupture between "home politics and out side' politics. And the strain which most of us who have
Culo
with Mary Carter would begin to
PAUL HOLT, Big Flame Football: What about the
Italian police?
WHILE it was a welcome change to see football discussed in Under Review, Geoff Bell's article (19 June, was tony madcouae ever as a commentary on the events at the England v. Belgium match in HYes, English football - and European football generally — is at a low ebb and is, as Geoff wates. contrato waren yes. lit waving of Union Jacks helps to promote chauvinism and reac-
But surely when cops -
For whatever -waac into football lans lasning out with batons and using tear gas, it might just be worth pointing out the police's role.
The impression from Geoff's article (however unintentional) is mu we arenor too podere• about cops beating up "this
Union Jack-waving chauvulsuc laboc. aven ac bourgeois media agreed that only
fans were actually fighting and that the police attacked in-
It might not be Geoff's idea of a fun summer's holiday watching the English team in Italy, but to
Don't we think they should be able to do thai without being attacked by the
And why no mention of the arrogance and hypocrisy of the powers that be in football, such a:
Doooy clariton s comnicul Liai 'the game is all about the players
Who paid his wares for years! They go or about the eneas or alcono wier people in football such as Lawri McMenemy are up to their nec in advertising drink.
The Tory Press
and How To Fight It 'Despite the deplorable national coverage of the TUC's Day of Action many people in this country still fail to understand the common interests between the Tory government and the capitalistrun media. Appropriately drawing on the experience of 14 May, this pamphlet succinctly outlines the ways workers can gain a voice'
KATE HOLMAN, NUJ chairperson of the East End News
'This pamphlet is a welcome addition to the growing literature exposing the trae monopoly nature of our so-called free press. We must now step up the fight to maintain and extend the existing left media, build new local and national alternatives, and win the right
MIKE POWER, NGA activist, Daily Mail
'A useful pamphlet from Socialist Challenge. It sets out clearly and simply the criticism of our existing press. It argues that workers need to fight for the right of reply by direct action... that seems far more doubtful as a strategy?
HAROLD FRAYMAN, deputy editor, Labour Weekly
* 'The Tory Press and How To Fight It? — buy it, read it, sell it, and implement it! From Socialist Challenge, 328 Upper St, London N1. Single copies 10p plus 10p p&p. Multiple orders, 8p pre-paid sale or return, post free. Cheques to 'The Media Group'.
Let's have more articles or sport, but make sure they hit out at the right people. It's not a question of supportig noongallism, but of looking at why it oc-
KEITH SINCLAIR, Hull
Where CND has been
PHIL Hearse is very mixed-up in his dates for the early history of CND (19 June). .. UND was formed in February 1958, not 1957. The Direct Action Committee Against Nuclear War preceded it in June 1957. The first Aldermaston march was in 1958 not 1957. The Committee of 100 was formed in the summer of 1960, not 1963 as Phil suggests, and its first mass civil disobedience was in rebruar 1961 (I was arrested on it and
it well).
The split between the constitutionalists led by Canon Collins, and the direct action
In fact it was already present at the beginning of the movement.
To say that CND was 'becom ing identified as a campaign of the radical left' in 1961 is confus-
ed it persistently on the usua 'popular front grounds until 1960 wach it sudacmy changca pond because it saw that it was gathering the bulk : of the young left: but both the CP and the SuL they were prominent at demos
'workers' bomb
I don't think most of us had any illusions about the ambivalence of their support. Revd. KEN LEECH, London E2 DELTA5
ISE Moughton st WO2T
Houghton St £1.80
CHARTER
80
this relationship and also
Equality Working Party and
Page 15 scan of this page
UNDER REVIEW
'My name is Vittoria, Im a comrade from Messina. At 16 I'm already tired of struggle, resigned, especially now when 1 see how they kill us, taking away our right to demonstrate... Comrades, it's sad to admit it, but it's how it is: they 're smashing us, we're not going to win.
Vittoria, Messina school student
'So what do we say to our workmates who now more than ever see us as the only people capable of opposing the Christian Democrat/Communist Party government, the only people capable of giving a lead....It's convenient to dissolve the party into the movement, but it doesn't help the movement to grow, it becomes suffocated. I believe we should look to the movement to try and develop a political project which would return to the movement and be tested there.
Claudio C, Turin factory worker By Jude Woodward and Phil Hearse THESE two remarks, taken from letters that appear in Dear Comrades, are not just the individual responses of two comrades. They reflect the crisis that contronted the whole Italian far left in 1976 and 1977.
The general election of June 1976 resulted the right-wing Democrats, the ruling party since holding on to power. far left had been based on the expectation ol á victory tor tuc iell ana a govelncne of the Socialist Party, the Radical Party and the Communists. The orcanusadon: nad formed Proletaria (Proletarian joint electoral bloc, with holding enough sway in the new ment to push it fartner to tne lelt.
The revolutionary left won nine seats, but that was lu compensation for overall cerere. Tune multarls disoriented and demoralised.
After the Chilean coup Italian Communist Party (PCI) pursued a policy of seeking collaboration with the cinsual Deuucias, lc promise'. Alter the 19/o elecuons ialy
vas ruled by a cabinet composed entirely of Christian Democrats but with the tacit support ('non-opposition') of the Communist Party.
The bicycle
On Saturday 14 March, while I was.
following the demonstration along
via Torina on my push bike, a com-
rade marching behind the LC ban-
ner asked to borrow my bike to get
up to the front quickly. I lent it to
him, but I haven't seen it since.
hope it's all a mix-up
ask this comrade to return the bike
to me at the central branch office as
soon as possible. Otherwise I'll have
to think I'm the biggest fool in
lUWI.
Marco
The total bankruptcy of the Com
MUnISI ralLy s approach
many militants to take
titude to the PCI and other established
WOrKCIS ol salsalvis,
trade unions. nence mne use o latoasi
groups like the Red Brigades and spon-
lancisi PLOUUS like
themselves tne metroponlan Iulans.
mood was also reflected in Lotta Con-
Unda.
At the Rimini conference, when Lotta
Continua dissolved, a leading comrade
called the CP an 'instrument for the pro-
moo or luan doc lasa
10,000,
inside the
Rimini. ( Christian 1947, The strategy of the
far left
Democratzia Democracv.
the aim of
govern-
WCIC
of 1973 the
'historic com-
- so 1
trade unions capitalist state'.
The economic across une caoltalist
rose steeply encouraged Ciresual Democra an acil support,
including the
ana demonstraululs
calling challenged 1 lc
in Lotta Continua
. Sofri, the
IN 1976 Lotta Continua, the Italian revolutionary organisation, had a membership of
and its newspaper of the same name had a circulation of 30,000. It seemed set to go from strength to strength.
But in that same year a lively discussion
organisation turned unresolvable conflict at its conference in
The conference ended with the
CONTI
secretary of Lotta Continua, called the
arcuiations began
crisis that appeared world in the earls which
1970s struck Italy badly. Unemployment
and inflation galloped. The with guveilillcil. imnosed austera.
workers responded with a wave of strikes
vul nulic • 01 these
reached critical proportions, the PCI and
trade union leaderships were not seriously
and the government was by
and large able to impose its policies
situation required of the and
revolutionary left a new perspective, and
a lively pre-conference discussion opened
Documents reflecting
the discussions held in national assemblies
of the various sectors of the organisation
Letters fromtheltalian far left
Voices in a wilderness
into were produced. But the Rimini conference
on 31 October with no clear posiCons lor voune.
This situation threatened to leave Lotta Continua political line
face huge political economic crisis. But then there burst upon the conference another explosive issue.
The far left in Europe faced a common probiem: now to meel Ine culalienge
both in general politics within their organisations. In the Italian far left this problem exploded with par ticular intensity.
Italian culture and the repressive divorce
abortion laws, produce. repressed sexuality, greater
StrOn'C! •ICllldit SLei CuLy madonna or whore. Sexism pervades the revolutionary movements
more pronounced
Р.C.J destruction of Lotta Continue as organisation, although its paper continued to appear and retained its popularity.
Dear Comrades, recently published by Pluto Press, is a collection of readers' letters taken from Lotta Continua in the year after the Rimini fiasco. Here we reprint some of the letters and poems and examine the background to the book.
way than in the Protestant countries of Northern Europe. challenge of the new women's movement. Lulld Continua with A struggle erupted at the conference between feminists and workerists. and The controntation expressea ltscll a. 'workers centrality vs feminist centrality'
The leading group that had called the con ference disappeared altogether and played Ca ne no roie in the debale. No one realirmcu that revolutionary strategy must take up
June DrObICHl posed movement, or that the mass movement ol must have dependence. emtypeis mo, more The idea that apitalisn will eliminate all form:
Catholic overthrowing capitalism at all. Stress was
capitalist struggle.
Workerist to this
an tinua means
the problems that at the Congress.
Led their discontent.
Led.
A CV violent cashes
Continua
paper and feminists Later, unoe
(Workers' muntents
LUCO. risoner. screws, the solitary confinement.
far left.
Genoa. lines,
Pina Marozzellli
moving will to struggle, to
disorientation
were organisations,
Crete Flame,
period of nore noncol ll
tionary
had not the
Today
The
tionship to the
by the women's
specific
the overthrow of failed to provide. no of women's oppres-
Continua' has an argument againsi
laid on changing consciousness, habits and benaviour as an alternative to antl-
conac reponded badly aggressively exhibiting their male chauvinism, or indulging in lengthy self-criticism on ine conicrence noor . The up-
confusion votes were taken, except to elect a national committee, and the conference ended on the note "The conference continues' • CLOE: COI
'the struggle continues')
Lotta Continu: was tinisnea; out tae leucis orra lsalivl page of its newspaper became the arena for debating
had raised their heads , Comrades described theit confusion and demoralisation, discussed personal problems, wrote poetry, express.
Meanwhile, the crisis in Italy deepen-
student radicalisation led to on une surcels But the militants grew more confused. perspectives, in despair, they poured ou their hearts in the letters page ol Lola police, friends and comradesiedio to the students killed by
• in moving words. dune workensk continued their debate pressure from groups like the Red Brigades and Autonomia. Operaia
Autonomy), more and more Young people wrote of their aDUl the problem • O their families their schools. wrote about nte in jail, the psychological effects Everyone wrote to the paper: the letters page of Lotta Continua reflected the ferment of the Italian
Two generations
I'm a pensioner from the heart of
Comrades, I'm tired and
disgusted, but I have faith in you
young people who are carrying on
our struggle. I'm sure that if we are
all united, like so many years ago,
we'll manage to crush them. As for
us old comrades, we'll make an ei-
fort to be with you in the front
and it must be a great joy to
comrades who have been in the
struggle for over thirty years.
Greetings with a clenched fist
from your comrade,
The letters collected in Dear Comrades
make, a fascinating document, at times
humourous, seek a better life, is
rarely absent from the letters
Dear Comrades is also a pro
foundly tragic document, expressing the
To une ltallal far left.
Despite the huge numbers of people
workers, students, women, youth - who
aroul , these organisations could the revolutionary
not. rise to the challenge
, distorts the failure of Lotta Con- AMOCISUl militant of Big
tinua in his introduction to the collection
He would have us believe that since 1976
the Italian far left has OCCI through a
"reassessment'. twoule thousands of
comrades have been say JOSL IO lIC revolu-
movement. Many have drifted
back to the PCI, despite its role in suppor-
ting the government: the far left presented
them with no alternative. Others turned to
terrorism and the Red Brigades
measurably weaker than it was in 1976. _itne left is im-
There is nothing positive in that. It is a
greater tragedy than all the little tragedies
described in the letters.
letters page of Lotta Continua
was more lively and reflected a fuller rela-
! véve àn
find on the British revolutionary left. But
however important that may be, political
answers are necessary. Otherwise the let ters pesinay anseers het the s n-
answers spon-
taneism of Lotta Continua consistently
Dear Comrades: Readers' letters to 'Lort
just been publisher
Pluto Press, £1.95 paperbacl
Page 16 scan of this page
Socialist Challenge THOUSANDS MARCH AGAINST MEGA-DEATH
r. Published by Cardinal Enterprises for Socialist Chatlenge, 328/9 Upper Street, London N1. Printed by East End Offset Ltd (TU), London E2
POURING rain and couldn't stop thousands of people marching through London last Sunday to demand an nuclear arms.
The march, called Labour Party, was led off by various Labour MPs, members the ecutive, including Joan Lestor, Jo Richardson, and Dennis Skinner. Michael Foot was chief Labour spokesperson and he too was at the head of the demonstration.
The leaders were followed by contingents organised by the Party in the localities: There were several thousand members and supporters in this section of the march the mobilisation by the Labour Party on a national demonstration for many years.
The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the Campaign for
Hree Europe brought large numbers of supporters on to the demonstration. One of the
striking features demonstration was the high proportion of young people who turned out. Groups of friends carried home-made placards calling for an end to war: 'Fall in against fallout'; 'Education not missiles'; 'Wage weapons; 'Germ warfare nightmare.
Dummy
The theme of the Labour Party placards was to link the high spending on arms with the cuts in public expenditure on welfare services. A dummy of Margaret Thatcher "The prime da for No increase in placards called for defence spending'.
This theme was echoed in the Labour Party speeches at the end of the demonstration Michael Foot linked defence spending with the election of
Tory government, and heckling questions about Labour's record on defence spending when it was in power.
Unilateral
Jo Richardson was speaker at the rally to call unequivocally for unilateral nuclear disarmament. "I am a unilateralist and proud of it,' she said, 'This government is a
of confrontation cold war. This government frightens me to death. It is not only launching an all-out attack on working people and their families but it is driving us closer to war.'
Susannah York, the actress, spoke from the platform to insist governments should begin about people and not refuse to accept that the 25,000 people here today are one fortieth of a megadeath. I am not a millionth of a mega-. death. We are ourselves.'
Fenner Brockway the peace campaigner, Lawrence Daly NUN, Calder of END, were also speakers at the rally. All made worthy speeches
Registered with the ros
thunder
end to
by the
left-wing national ex-
Labour
Party
largest
(END) also
war on
with the NATO war mongers.
tracted over 300 marchers. drew out the
was labelled
clearly called for their official
NATO.
were sold.
Weapons
in Hyde. Park.
increased
ignored
coomsady This is absolutely true. demonstration beginning ine only determined campaign.
and
Britain:
that thinking
numbers. • Name
Address
veteran Joan Lestor MP,
and Mary
calling for world peace and disarmament. But no one pointed to the first necessary step in achieving disarma. ment, to get Britain out of its alliance
anti-imperialist contingent organised by the International Marxist Group and Revolution Youth at-
Slogans connection. between disarmament. the troops in lreland Carter's war drive against Iran, and
Britain UHL Thousands of badges announcing I won't die for Thatcher'
on
Michael Foot, in his speech at Hyde Park, pointed out that there are bought two or three years to go before Cruise is due to arrive in Britain, and this is money
arriving Sunday's must be only TENe bigger, and more
SUBSCRIBENOW
12 months £12.50; 6months
Abroad: 12 months - Surface Mail
Airmail
Multi-reader institutions: Double the above rate
I enclose a donation for the Fighting Fund of. sheplete and redMa Socialist Challange, 328 Upper Street, London N
nee
sige
Iwon't die for 'hatcher
STOP
CRUISE MISSILES
TWO thousand people who marched
the anti-Cruise demonstration can't be That's how many of the marchers
this recently-produced badge. 20p plus 10p p&p, or make
for local campaign/ organisation by ordering 20 or more at a bulk discount rate of 15p per aage post jre
Ill orders must be pre-paid to Hackney Socialist Education Group c/o PO Box 50, London N1 2XP ayable to Socialist Challeng
over other factories. missiles wrong!
lost.
backing the lobby?
Around. threats of the dole.
No.153
CRUISE
Lobby TUC
fight for jobs
FORD UK has announced that it expects 2,750 of its carworkers to volunteer for the golden handshake. Blaming falling car sales, they have issued 1,300 redundancy notices at Dagenham with the rest spread
Workers at the British Oxygen depot in Hackney and the Llanwern steelworks near Newport have decided that it's about time a lead was given from the TUC on the fight to protect jobs. whatever the size of the "golden handshake' offered it won't help them to get another job in the present economic situation. A job sold is a job
That's why the workers at BOC Hackney and the Llanwern Action committee are backing the lobby of the TUC calling for action now — and a 35-hour week — to protect jobs. The unemployment figures are rising every day. Isn't if about time your trade union branch discussed
Put this resolution forward in your trade union branch. Make sure the Ford workers, the Welsh steelworkers and the miners who face the loss of jobs aren't left in the lurch by the Labour leaders this time
"This Tory government is intent on destroying workers' standards of living and their organisations, the trade unions. Their main weapon is the creation of mass unemployment in order to increase profits through squeezing more production out of a reduced workforce; in order to "persuade" workers to take cuts in pay rather than fight for a decent standard of living; in order to weaken and smash union organisation by "disciplining" those who want to fight back with
'The whole labour movement, the unions and the Labour Party, must unite against this threat and take united action now.
"As a first step in such a campaign this branch/ward agrees to sponsor a call for a mass lobby of this year's TUC Congress in Brighton around these demands: *No to Unemployment — For a 35 Hour Week Now. *Fight to Kick Out the Tories.'
26 June1980 20p
Photo: GEOFFREY SHERIDAN (Socialist Challenge)
MUN
PARTY
PUT CRUISE
Miéenr They know that
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