Socialist Challenge No. 162, 3 September 1980
The scan: sc-n162-sep-03-1980.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 POLAND: ROUND 1 TO THE WORKERS
INTERN
yielded fantastic results.
On Monday Lech Walesa, the leader of the Shipyard workers, signed the Gdansk Pact which included: * Full recognition for a free trade union in the Gdansk region and the right to strike. * The right for trade union journals to publish whatever they choose and a liberalisation of the censorship laws. * The release of the 25 leading dissidents who were arrested
during une strike, cluding the leading figure in the KOR, Jacek Kuron. * Pay increases have promised, meat imports are to be encreased to allow lower prices, and improved housing programmes are planned. Meat rationing will be looked into. * The Polish government has declared 1t will speed economic reforms, decentralise management, and ensure that a national debate takes place on the question.
Women with babies will be allowed to stay home for three vears with tull compensation. Family allowances will be raised to the level of the army militia. Retirement pensions will be increased. * No victimisaton of strikers and a case by case study of those workers victimised previous strikes to gain reemployment. * The constructio... a marble plaque to commemorate workers killed in the 1970 riot at the Szcecin shipyard.
Speakers: Tessa Van
Workers throughout the world will be inspired by the victory of the Polish workers. Their 18-day general strike in the Baltic ports has
In Szcecin, has been signed although the Lenin new union has less room for manoeuvre than in Gdansk.
In Silesia, a region of the county were Gierek iS judged to ticularly high, have demanded recognition for independent unions and higher standards of safety in the pits. recognise the Communist Party as 'the leading force in Poland and 'not to question the existing system of alliances'. But strike been Lech Walesa urged workers not worry about respect the role of the Com-
We have formed unions ourselves, he told the 1,000 delegates listening to the negoulations the shipyards. 'If them, as I am, then you can be sure that we won't anybody else to have a leading role inside them'.
But there will be conflicts between the free trade unions and the Polish Communist Party in the future. economy is only efficient when the workers themselves decide on economic priorities.
To decide these priorities, in power must be taken out of the nands of the eaders of the Polish Communist Party placed in the hands workers. This is the only perSOILLOI workers of Poland today.
IMG/Revolution Youth PUBLIC MEETING
What is happening in
Poland today?
Gelderen (IMG), Sonya Martyniak (Revolution Youth), and Oliver Macdonald (Editor, Labour Focus on Eastern Europe).
Friday 5 September 7.30pm, Conway Hall, Red Lion Square,
Holborn, London WC1.
a similar pact
support for
be par30,000 miners
agreed to
international
leader
having to
these
Lenin you are inside
allow
A planned
and of the
tacing the
tee discusses the next move in the struggle.
ABOVE: Strike leader Lech Walesa chaired around the shipyard. BELOW: Strike commit-
.No.162
the
June be tion.'
3 September 1980 20p EYEWITNESS: INSIDE THE LENIN SHIPYARD
From Jean-Yves Touvais in Gdansk 'WE ARE going to win!' Everyone waits with calm confidence in their strength,
unity, their rights. There are tens of thousands of people gathered around the Lenin shipyard in Gdansk. In many cases the whole family has come.
They listen to the loudspeakers broadcasting the discussions inside the factory. They bring money or food for the strikers, bags filled with potatoes or tomatoes. They go up to gates are covered with flowers and embrace each other. Eager
The children are there too;
huge crowds stretching round this immense shipyard are all waiting for the government to meet the demands of
300,000 strikers in the
Everyone is eager for information. Now and then so-
throws bunch of leaflets in the air and there is a mad rush for them. But soon everything is calm again.
In fact everybody will get a chance to read these precious Leaflets as they are passed from hand to hand, crumpled and badly printed though they may
- the yard only has one printing machine whose limit is a few hundred copies
Since Saturday (23 August) the strike committee's bulletin has come out daily. In its first issue the committee (the MKS) explains: We know that the government is doing everything to isolate us. It tries to cover up our strike. It wants to block solidarity. It says that we are anti-socialist elements, that our strike Is political. What we want is to discuss the economic problems, to win our rights. We aren't against the regime.' Watchful
The tone is moderate. But very quickly one gathers that these words lag behind present consciousness
As one MKS delegate explained to me he tree tradi union is for us the first de-
LIne political prisoners, and all our rights. It isn't a simple economic ques-
People can't go in and out at will. Only factory delegations and journalists can cross the threshold. The strike commees are walchrul. AreNa series of checks, each visitor receives a pass. This allows free movement inside the factory. Continued on page 3
Page 2 scan of this page
Socialist Challenge POLAND: ROUND 1 TO THE WORKERS
yielded fantastic results.
On Monday Lech Walesa,
Shipyard workers, signed the Gdansk Pact which included: * Full recognition for a free trade union the Gdansk region and the right to strike. * The right for trade union journals to publish whatever they choose and a liberalisation of the censorship laws. * The release of the 25 leading dissidents who were arrested earlier during the strike, cluding the leading figure in the KOR, Jacek Kuron. * Pay increases De enced sed toman er
CINCO LOw prices, and improved housing programmes are plannea. Meal rationing will be looked into.
The Polish government has declared will speed economic retorms. decentralise management, and ensure that a national debate takes place on the question
Women with babies will be allowed to stay home for three years with full compensation.
ed to the level of the army
Retirement pensions will be increased. * No victimisaton of strikers
workers victimised previous strikes gain employment. ble The cuesto conmemorate
plaque commemorate workers killed in the 1970 riot at the Szcecin shipyard.
Speakers: Tessa Van
Workers throughout the world will be inspired by the victory of the Polish workers. 18-day general strike in the Baltic ports has
In Szcecin, a similar has been signed new union nas less room Iol manoeuvre than in Gdansk.
In Silesia, a region of the country where Gierek is Juugca lo ticularly high, nave en corn independent unions and higher standarus or salely I lue pits The strikers recognise the Communist Party as 'the leading force in Poland' in- and 'not to cuestion the exalliances But strike been Lech Walesa urged workers not worry about JOWC respect the role of the Communist Party. 'We have formed unions ourselves,' he told the 1,000 delegates listening to the up negotiations shipyards 'If you them, as I am, then you can be SUIC WOlI anybody else to have a leading role inside them'
But there between the free trade and the Polish Communist Party in the future. economy is only efficient when the workers themselves decide uni cconomic proriucs.
To decide these priorities, hands of the leaders Polish Communist placed in the hands workers. Inis is the only permanent solution workers of Poland today.
IMG/Revolution Youth PUBLIC MEETING
What is happening in
Poland today?
Gelderen (IMG), Sonya Martyniak (Revolution Youth), and Oliver Macdonald (Editor, Labour Focus on Eastern Europe).
Friday 5 September 7.30pm, Conway Hall, Red Lion Square,
Holborn, London WC1.
Their
pact
although the
support for par-
30,000 miners
agreed
of international
leader
having
these
Lenin
will be conflicts
A planned
of the Party and of the
facing the
tee discusses the next move in the struggle.
ABOVE: Strike leader Lech Walesa chaired around the shipyard. BELOW: Strike commit-
.No.162
their the
the be mand.
tion.'
3 September 1980| 20p
EYEWITNESS:
INSIDE
THE
LENIN
SHIPYARD
From Jean-Yves Touvais in Gdansk 'WE ARE going to win!' Everyone waits with calm confidence in their strength,
unity, their rights. There are tens of thousands of people gathered around the Lenin shipyard in Gdansk. In many cases the whole family has come.
They listen the loudspeakers broadcasting the discussions inside the factory. They bring money or food for Ine surkers, bags filled with potatoes or tomatoes. They go
the which are covered with flowers and embrace each other. Eager
The children are there too;
huge crowas stretching round this immense shipyard are all waiting for the government to meet the demands of
300,000 strikers in the region.
Everyone is eager for information. Now and then so-
throws bunch of leaflets in the air and there is a mad rush for them. But soon everything is calm again
In fact everybody will get a chance to read these precious leaflets as they are passed from hand to hand, crumpled and badly printed though they may
the yard only has one printing machine whose limit is a few hundred copies.
Since Saturday (23 August) the strike committee's bulletin has come out daily. In its first issue the committee (the MKS) explains: We know • unal une government is doing everything to isolate us. It tries to cover up our strike. It wants to block solidarity. It says that we are anti-socialist elements, . that our strike is political. What we want is to discuss the economic problems, to win our rights. We aren't against the regime.' Watchful
The tone is moderate. But very quickly one gathers that these words lag behind present consciousness.
one MKS delegate explained to me: "The free trade union is for us the first de-
Then the political prisoners, and all our rights. It Isn't a simple economic ques
People can't go in and out at will. Only factory delegations and journalists can cross the threshold. The strike committees are watchful. After a series of checks, each visitor receives a pass. This allows frer movement inside the factory. . Continued on page 3
Page 3 scan of this page
Morning Star: silence has its own eloquence
INSIDE THE LENIN
By Brian Grogan
THE Polish crisis has
thrown the Communist
Party into turmoil. The
Morning Star
primarily attacked the
hypocritical found
love of the Tory press for
'independent unions'
as long as they are 2,000
miles away in Poland!
wrong With
that. But the CP has used
this attack to avoid giving
the striking Polish
workers.
been couched in terms of
removing blemishes from
the essentlarly nearny Dods
politic of Polish society.
'The answer' stated the
wurst eautoriar arter me OC. cupation of the Lenin Continued from page 1
Everywhere we get a warm welconc. HOUT hundred delegates are in permanent session in a large conference hall. Everything is in place. are no fag-ends on the floor. The walki Vasc regularly changed.
Behind the platform is statue of Lenin, and on the table, among the flowers, wooder staterer caece doubt, by a worker worker with raised fists.
This the democratic leadership of the strike: a congress meeting night and day. In front of each delegation is a piece of card announcing the name of their factory. There is a constant shuttle between this hall and the different factories.
Women
Ask anyone and they will tell you how each striker has a say in the movement. A young woman from a preserved food factory in Gdansk, where 90 per OI the 750-strong worktorce are women. told me:
'I've been here for six days, but our strike was really decided only yesterday. The director first proposed a meeting with the picicel, and he himself nominated three delegates
Many consultation.
These discussions were viously useless.
"hen came here, when I went back we elected our own committee. workers. one tor each department, were elected by a show of bands aller daiscussiona there are two of us here, and we report back twice a day on what has been going on. As for the director, he's vanished from the scene. Permit
I ask if her factory is occupied. She shows me an MKS permit: 'We are continuing to work. What we produce is of use to the strikers. We have the permission of the MKS.
This is true of a number of concerns. The trains serving the urban concentration of Gdansk, Sopot and Gdynia run every ten minutes because they're vital. Often the engines are decorated with Polish flags as a sign solidarity.
It was in this conference hall that deputy prime minister Jagielski arrived on the evening of Saturday 23 August. days after the movement had started in the Lenin shipyard,
recognised the MKS.
INTERNATIONAL
shinvards (20 August). 'is to
be found partly in the inade-
of the democratic tile iraut
unions on benait of their
...and in the
the Polish government has
na nated. decisions
prices and food distribu-
tion. Wider questions
socals tenoracy are disa
involved.
What these 'wider quesSOUPIESI
democracy' are is not ex-
plained. But Mick Costello,
CP's
ine maustrial
organiser, was quite ada-
mant in a major statement
buwusuce Dy me morning
Star (29 August) that the There
The minister was able to see 1s a the 'anti-socialist
across the table and in the flesh. of a They
were of ditterent ages. some in overalls, tired, many of nem women, and cach Will a cassette recorder so that their workmates would be able to hear everything that happened.
It's 8pm when comes in. There is total silence. Slowly he walks through the hall under their watchful but happy gaze. On the platform is the entire presidium: nineteen people chosen by the MKS.
Strike leader Lech
Crises and shakes his hand. He suggests that small room Every word will be broadcast directly throughout the plant outside. The agrees. The hall explodes with Joy, chanting 'Leszek! Leszek!'
Concrete
ob- The negotiations
Jagielski has nothing concrete and
to say. What about the restora tion of communications betTwelve
Tween Gdansk and the rest of Poland? 'You know, there has been stormy weather over WarNow saw for the last few days. The
installations were There is laughter 'Come on. the storm keep up for twelve days!'
munications is regarded by the MKS as a precondition for continuing discussions. pledge from the minister, and so he leaves at midnight with nothing resolved. But no-one is
of
Nine
finally
surike movement in no wal
meant any 'basic weakness
of the social system itself.
maller.
present regime is the only
The CP fails to explain
Will
Gierek came to power on a
reform
nothing been done.
I he issue is leit vague Ds
Costello: •We must express
our confidence in the ability
the working Cass
PoisOnered and the
Workers'
rary (rUW") ficulties that cave arise din to overcome the dif-
this context.'
SHIPYARD
POLAND
elements'
Baltic
Jagielski
IN REVOLT
Walesa
they go into a too worried. "They'll be back, behind the hall. they
On Sunday the calm. Everyone knows that the Central Committee is meeting in Warsaw.
Walesa's name:
broadcast the recording of last night's meeting. A simple Mass is celebrated in the morning by the bishop of Gdansk and atbegin. tended tne workers. asking God for more freedom, gi calci suicigill
We stroll through the shipyard. has corne out again after two days of rain. damaged.' ing. Here and there workers are in ine nall. asleep on the grass, or gathered
didn't little discussion Everyone is at ease. One senses a quiet revolution, fully confident in itself.
There is no
news arrives. The radio broadCASIO Gierek's Central
But is there an identity of interest the Polish working class and the present Polish regime and the PUWP?
We have had 30 rears experience of the Polish bureaucracy. In that time not onis nas itired tolois an austerity policy on the backs of the working class; Was sue pressed ever single political right; forcibly crushed all previous independen orcanisation and killed workers' leaders all in the bureaucracy's determination to eep massive privileges.
The state controlled nounced. gate,
There from time to time.
fades.
gone on strike too! cheers.
wait Gierek
don't have any option.' same opinion.
situation Nothing's changed.'
tory comments:
The loudspeakers regularly
prime minister. thing here!'
• They sing old hymns majority Waits
Everyone
peacefully The sun
It is a mild even-
groups. the hall', I'm told.
Much hope
Then, just before 8pm, the
speech to ine Committee. The
unions have been the immeulate mstrumenis in the factories for carrying out : dictates of the regime.
SUCT loreanse possible with such a force.
We don't disagree with the Morning Star September) that, 'it is to be agreement: reached over the weekend will lay the basis for securIng genuine sone grass-roots participation in he making of decisions and meir impientenanon But politics is not about wishful thinking. Working Class power Is was Sars M power exercised by freely elected working class
REPORT
change in prime minister is an-
Outside the main three or four thousand people have gathered to listen.
are amused comments strike.'
Sometimes the broadcast Walesa takes the microphone: "The equipment's
There are No-one anything new has happened.
A delegate from the main poses an naval dockyard later explains Lech to me: 'It's like when you go fishing. You bait the hook and
thinks we're stupid fish, but he's wrong. We general discused his speech in my factory and everyone was of the
The speech these changes: so much hot air!
A worker from a fish fac-
'We don't know anything about the new
The important what's happening
walls for the debates government commission, convinced that they are going to win. They have lost count of the number of factories dailv going on strike. On Sunday a score of new delegations swelled the central strike commmittee. Each is applauded. 'Soon inere won't be enough room ur shoes
placed in to win." solidarity from other regions of Poland. But my interpreter, a crowd delegate from an electrical construction factory, explains:
'We don't want a general streets.
delegates in a national confull executive DUWCUS anis cannot be canaled with the exercise of power by the PUWP on behalf of fue workle class.
Let the Polish Com. munist Party test its self-proclaimed leading role in wee ciccuon. • delegates from the factories and communities to a congress of the workers committees i he fundamental dividing line in Polish socie. • ouay is verween mose who are prepared to struggle for working class power and those wild LOL.
AN EYEWITNESS
strike; it would cost Poland too dear. In refusing to listen to us the government is wasting $37 billion a day. But if necessary the whole country will go on
Telephone
Monday evening, at 7.30pm. the government pro-
immediate meeting. demands the restoration of telephone links with the rest of Poland, and when there is no response the
assembly unanimously that there will be
At 9pm the government is back on the line: "Communications have been restored. Can we have a meeting?' The MKS sets a new precondition: there must be an announcement that the talks will be broadcast on the radio. There must also be 20 minutes on national radio and an hour on television.
The new prime minister accepts everything, so discussions will open in the morning. The
will be broadcast throughout the region. Late that night an old worker says to
*I am very proud of the Polish workers, and I know them all here. They have been waiting 35 years for this. I certainly wouldn't like to be in the
of the prime minister, because we're going
At lam there is still a huge
gathered round the Lenin shipyard in Gdansk. But not a cop is to be seen on the
Socialist Challenge
British Communist Party's
attempts to sit on the fence
cosmetic
changes - lead it to cover
for the Polish
bureaucrats.
How else can the silence
of the Morning Star on the Brest of ter peders of the
explained? Wh
suive sucn brominence to the
Polish authorities'
"anti-socialist
forces' (15,
August)?
Silence has its own elo.
Cucuce The Morning Sta
seen til to call for
support for the 21 demands
Of the strikers or warn of thi
real danger of a Russian in.
vasion. Gierek is backed by
the Soviet bureaucracy.
denounce nim de-
nounce the Soviet leaders.
This the British CP dare not Lech Walesa unemployed electrician whose found a new job.
3 September 1980 Page 3
Page 4 scan of this page
POLAND: WORKERS' POWER CAN SOLVE THE CRISIS
INTERNATIONAL
FOR the fourth time in 25 years, the industria workers of Poland have thrown back the Stalinist regime's destructive attack on the rights of the Polish masses.
The bureaucratic regime plungea Ine ronsh economy into a catastrophic crisis. The source of its inability to manage the economic and social life of the country is the subordination of every other issue to the preservation of the bureaucracy's exclusive grip on political power.
When Gierek came to power he solemnly promised an uninterrupted rise in living standards and stable prices. But running up huge foreign debts, failing supply consulei markets, it had to make up for its incompetence subsidies taking up 40 per sent of the massive
total budget.
Since 1976 it has been trying to make the working masses of Poland pay by USLY every LUCK manoeuvre to raise prices, thus breaking the pledge on living standards through which Gierek gained the workers' acceptance in 1971.
Meanwhile, the industrial system is in chaos. The credits from Western capitalist banks have in many cases been squandered on useless projects.
In the last few years, the regime has tried to shift the burden of paying tor the crisis onto the poorest and
sections of Polish society weakest while at the same time allowing a new class of speculators and racketeers, often linked to the bureaucracy itself, to flourish.
The poorest peasants have been hit by the new pension laws, essential medicines nave run out. the living standards of a big section of the less well-paid workers have declined, the miners in Silesia have been forced to put their lives at risk in the cause of gelling the SLaLe population's housing needs have been ignored, social services have eroded.
The Polish working class is quite able to take upon itself responsibility for clearing up the crisis that the Stalinist regime has created, but only on one condition: the working class must gain political power. No working class responsibility for solving the crisis without working class political power. This the decisive behind the present crisis.
From this defensive struggle, on the basis of defending their economic rights, the Polish workers will grow in strength. confidence dilu organisation and can open the road to a Dos uve. asue. over sonor to the crisis. They can turn the 'Polish People's state which the working people will really exercise political power and determine inel own tale.
A national congress of work-place and neighbourhood delegates should draw up a new economic plan and supervise its implementation
In June 1976 the Party centre asked the voivode party organisations what the reaction would be to their planned price increases: everv single
›oivode party organisation except on
- 4< о о ч said the increases would be accepted! That is a measure of how closely the so-called Polish United Workers' Party represents the real views of the Polish workers.
So all talk of the party being the forum for discussion and decision on a plan to beat the crisis is another way
Socialist Challenge 3 September 1980
has off the ground. and the
been issue
of saying that an anti-working class policy will continue. self- The real, living working people of
rolana must be debate and decide the measures needed to overcome the should be a national congress of the eleted delegates of work-places and neighbourhoods throughout the cities and villages of Poland to decide on a new economic plan and to supervise Its apiementalion.
Unmuzzle the press, open the books of the ministries, tree discussion of alternative programmes
Any publication demonstrate a minimum of support sav 5.000 readers ficially supplied with paper and printing facilities. Repression of the unofficial OICSS like Nowa bullsein Robotnik should be ended KOR's bulletin Otherwise all talk of 'national discussion' is a cynical sham. Workers in the big factories can demand the right to start their own independent workers'
Page 4
THE following declaration was written by exiled Polish revolutionary Marxists in July, before the latest strike wave got Polish workers; they must be given the power to fight the crisis.
papers.
given ine rignt to decide amongst them. crisis. There want the workers to sutter unemplov-
national system of planned develop ment should come out openly with their programme. Those who want to give the workers power over the plan who want to defend the right to work and to a living wage, must be able to put forward and poncics.
first.
which can re-organisation of
should be of. managed bv the people themselves. free from bureaucratic dictates. programme to solve the crisis must publishing information ple.
state bureaucracy over the lives 01
It argues that the bureaucracy is incapable of solving the economic and political crisis, and that the struggle in Poland poses the question of political power.
All programmes and policies from democracy. all sections of society must be fully aired in public so that the workers can
Those who gramme:-
ment and who want to abandon any
with inflation!
argue tor their
A policy which puts the interests of working people
As socialists we call for a radical
society so that creases, social, economic and political life is
to monitor price rises.
therefore be worked out in accordance with the needs of working peo-
Such a programme must include breaking the power of the party and working people, and the fight for a
Kings, 3. media! bodies. privileges
to them.
terest cliques
mittees.
new political order of working class
In the fight for these objectives we put forward the following action pro-
1. No cuts in living standards! Raise wages in line
The government has for four years reneged on its pledges to keep down prices. Bit by bit, it has surreptitiously increased prices all along the line. This is why the workers of Ursus have demanded a sliding scale of wages, to keep wages in line with price rises.
Just as the workers have chosen their delegates in factory after factory lo leda me ligal againsu orice In-
they should choose delegates to cost of living committees
such as 2. No victimisations! Defend the right to strike!
The workers who have defended their class interests in the wave of strikes have taced the threa of vicious state violence and reprisals. After 1971 and 1976, the workers
leading the struggle were victimised; the bureaucracy ruined the lives of the strike organisers and leaders by sack-
demotions, persecution, expulsion from the party, etc
This must not be allowed again. Victory will only be secured when the right to strike is guaranteed, when laws penalising workers for 'harming national production' are scrapped
The right to strike means the right to picket and the right to hold street demonstrations. The police and the security organs must be banned from intervening in industrial disputes.
Full access to the
The workers must have the right to tell the truth about what is going on. Open the pages of the press to the wurkers collitices.
4. For free and democratic trade unions!
The workers must have the right to create their own independent trade union organisations, to build up their own funds, and to clect their own representatives. Manugement personnel should be excluded trom such
5. Demobilise the army of place-hunters and supervisors! For workers' selfmanagement!
Polish industry is stuffed full of supervisory personnel and of posts and perks for those prepared to do the bidding of their superiors. The well heeled director, party factory com mittee secretary, full-time trade union official and their cronies have their
perks and leaving aside all the fiddles and shady deals that are open
Control over the management of the enterprise and plant must be put back in the hands of the mass workers — the only people with no in-
1n such corrupt. nepotistic Social and welfare services should be entirely separated from management activity and put in the hands of independent, elected com-
Overall control of the enterprise should be in the hands of elected committees_of shop-floor and white collar employees who should take all the key decisions about the running of the plant ana cuerprise No Stalinist intervention in Polish affairs
The regime brandishes the threat of Soviet invasion to intimidate the working class. This threat cannot be ignored: it must be faced openly and challenged Where does the Polish government stand on the question of Poland's right to self-determination?
The workers must demand of the government that it openly stale is opposition to any Soviet interference. It should demand action to demonstrate the Soviet government's good faith: it should demand the removal of Soviet troops trom Poland
It should seek a united front of Communist and Socialist parties and the governments of workers states
Romania, Yugoslavia and others in defence of Poland's right to national self-determination.
If the Polish workers reach out for support from the working people of Eastern Europe and throughout the world. thev will create the best conditions for resisting any Soviet attempt to suppress their just struggle.
Page 5 scan of this page
CARDINALS AND
tempts to force Polish workers to return to one and the same time to the dilemma work. This was the message contained in Car- Poland's leaders and the strong hold of religion dinal Stefan Wyszynski's sermon broadcast on in Poland. Socialist Challenge talked to Oliver 'If Wyszynski can't get them to return to the Roman Catholic church in Polish society.
square behind the
Polish television last week.
THROUGHOUT the 19th century, the German Reich and the Austro-Hungarian and Russian empires partitioned Poland into three parts. The Poles were sandwiched between Russian Orthodoxy and German Lutherism. As in Ireland, the church became linked to the idea of national identity, and this identification was reintorced in this century by the division of the country in 1939 as a result of the Stalin-Hitler Pact, and by the heavy losses it suffered in the Stalinist purges.
At the end of the Second World War the church hierarchy was more cautious in its approach to the collectivisation of the and than its Hungarian counterparts. wanted maintain its political influence over the masses and its leader, Cardinal Wyszynski, was clever enough to realise that he could DOI oppose this popular measure.
Although the Polish church
INTERNATIONAL
The Polish Church and....
THE Catholic Church in Poland stands four
Gierek regime in its atpays lip service to supporting ODDOSILOD movements Poland today, a look at its post-war history shows limited that support has been.
After initially opposing the Communist social legislation on abortion, divorce, and civil marriage, deal was struck between church and state in April 1950. As a result the Polish bishops called on the Polish people to respect the laws and institutions of the state'.
The church and 19,683 priests.
for 186 new churches to be built.
There are
nuns.
BUREAUCRATS
conaemn ciergy wn are gulty of anv underground or anti-state achow. tivity' in return ment allowed religious education in the schools, and the only government's Catholic university in a Communist country, Lublin University, was set up
East European mounted a wave of repression as part of a campaign against Tito, the leader of the Yugoslav Party would dared to break with Stalin.
The Polish Church: key facts
There are 78 bishops in Poland, two cardinals, and two archbishops. There are 9,856 churches
Between 1945 and 1970, 352 new churches were built. 871 old churches were restored.
Between 1971 and 1978 permits were issued
42 monastic orders, over 7,000 monks, 100 women's religious orders and 25.765
work, then there's certainly no politician who
can,' commented a Polish journalist, pointing at
MacDonald and Jo Singleton about the role of
and punish those
the govern
Stalin's death in 1953.
VIOLes was neard
was further
the working class, who had
alliances
church.
church was
lUll lll to newspapers
throughout
period
of
Party.
In Hungary Lazlo Rajk was anti-semitic
executed as an 'agent of Tito';
sham trials, torture, and imprisonment took place in every ot the
country in Eastern Europe until
Yet no fascist from the
leaders of the Polish church.
tion In 1956 the close relationship between church and state these purges.
consolidated. the face of the upsurge inside Power
Gomulka, the head of the Polish Communist Party, decided to make
revolutionary forces. The only with TOLE mits way for the regime to defeat the militant base of the working class movement was to make a nouncemen deal with the peasantry and the
needed'
Land was de-collectivised so that only 10 per cent remained in the hands of the state. The movement,
allowcu full religious practice, representa-
Parnament, and the publish its own Gierek Wyszynski loyally urged all
Poles to vote for Gomulka in the elections that year and con-
back the the 1960s. The church itself flourished in this
By the end of the '60s there were three times as many nuns and twice as many monks in Poland as there had been in the '30s. Bishops were paid higher salaries than central committee members of the Communist,
Another test for the Polish church came in 1968. A big
campaign was launched against intellectuals and dissidents who were critical
church hierarchy, who in the inter-war years had backed the semi-
National Democraci Party and had a strong tradi-
of anti-semitism, raised not a word of protest against
sion'
Adam Michnik, a left wing Christian writing in The Church, the Left and Dialogue, ad-
that behaviour at this time was wor-
'An unequivocal proby the bishops about anti-semitism was badly
Gierek, coming to power in 1970 after another upsurge by Poland's militant working class
straight Wyszynski for help. The Cardinal urged the workers to pray for 'peace and calm' and to put an end to their strike
was obviously grateful to Wyszynski. When day.
the latter reached retirement age, the Communist leader sent a personal letter to the Vatican requesting that he should stay on as Cardinal.
dissideni intellectual circles in Poland the church undoubtedly has a strong influence. The workers also clearly look to the church as a source of support in their conflict with the government.
But the Polish bishops' new found support for opposition movements is very conditional. They want to know whether the movement will increase their power and privileges in Polish society.
Skills
The church wants access to the media, full legal recognition and even more churches built in return for 'services rendered to the regime in ending social ten-
As the Human Institute of Conflict Studies has pointed out: 'It says much for Cardinal Wyszynski's political skills that he understood that the crisis in Poland could be transformed into a lever for strengthening the position of the church. This explains the : backing that it passively gave to the opposition movement.'
But the church, like the regime, fears nothing more than the mass movement of the striking Polish workers. As the workers' combativity increases their trust in the church grows less and less. Even the 'clever' Cardinal Wyszynski is finding the going tough in Poland to-
Socialist Challenge 3 September 1980 Page 5
Page 6 scan of this page
- Forty years after the assass THE MAN WH THEY COULDN
day.
but for genuine socialist democracy.
imperialists and Stalinists. by Tariq Ali and Phil Evans.
ON THE fifteenth anniversary of the October revolution the Social Democratic students of Copenhagen invited Trotsky to speak. readily accepted the invitation: here was an opportunity to escape, even for a brief period, from Turkey, home since Stalin had cibly deported him three years before.
From the first moment of his exile Trotsky SLIDDOROV sought the right of political asylum in Western Europe. Labour government Donald, together with the French radical and German democratic governments ceeded in barring Trotsky's entry into Western Europe.
This opportunity to lecture in Copenhagen made it possible for him not only to his co-thinkers but, more importantly, to get closer to the battle. lines that were unfolding in both Germany and Spain.
Where better to press home his warning to the German working class on the menacing growth
Hitler's fascism than from the very frontier of the Weimar Republic?
To the fury of the Stalinist parties Trotsky's journey across Europe made the headlines of the world's press. Frenzy
Hardened Dally tionaries circulated the story that trolsky was travelling to Denmark to denounce the Russian revolution. The nearer he got to Copenhagen the more strident his opponents became.
Monarchists denounced him as the arch Bolshevist who had been responsible for the fall of the Czar. Stalinists were whipped to a te or ane Soviet and com-
Soviet Communist International leaderships became more apparent.
In such a political climate the responsibility of assuring Trotsky's safety rested with the interSocialist Challenge 3 September 1980
LEON TROTSKY, leader of the Russian Revolution and later founder of the Fourth International, murdered forty years ago by an agent of Stalin.
It is from Trotsky's fight against the bureaucratisation of the Soviet workers' state, for the maintenance of a policy of revolutionary internationalism based on the independent struggle of the working class, that the International Marxist Group draws its inspiration to-
When Trotsky and his small band of supporters around the world fought to create a new Fourth International in the face of the betrayals of the Comintern (whose policies had let Hitler into power in Germany), their struggle was very much against the stream. It was above all a declaration of confidence in the revolutionary potential of the working class in the future.
Today that confidence has been totally vindicated — not merely by the general rise in world revolution, but above all by the events in Poland. As Trotsky predicted, the working class is in revolt against the bureaucracy — not for the restoration of capitalism,
The Polish workers' strikes are dramatic confirmation of the relevance of Trotsky's analyses - and of his struggle for a new world party which would fight to mobilise the working class internationally against the
Below we print a recollection by veteran revolutionary Harry Wicks of Trotsky's famous speech in Copenhagen in 1932, extracts from Trotsky's writings on the tasks of the political revolution, and a couple of pages from the newly published Trotsky for Beginners
Memories of Trotskys
last public meeting
He
This forthere
The Mac-
sUCa SUL-
HARRY WICKS HICCU national left opposition.
On arrival at Esbjerg, Trotsky proceded to a small house on Dalgas Boulevard in the suburbs of Copenhagen. that house became workshop.
In a box room at the ton of the stairs all interviews were held and the final preparations for his lecture and trans-Atlantic radio talk were made. our small group of Left Oppositionists maintained security.
From the moment of Trotsky's arrival the Communist Party conducted a vociferous agitation.
Capitalising on the func- spread interest, they organised a series of anti-Trotsky meetings.
To those Stalinist meetings went. Severely hampered by the language barrier and the absence any sympathetic group, we published a tiny leaflet and endeavoured to counter their lying campaien.
It became clear that the CPstimulated hostility was fouling up the political scene and that there was danger meeting would bla disrupted. In the circumstances it was decided to bring from Hamburg a group of sympathisers, ex-Red fighters, to provide a protective Page 6
For eight days
LT's
Day and night
screen in front of the platform and supplement defence force.
wide-
Danish that the
Front
TROTSKY speaking in Copenhagen
our meagre discreetly
On the night of the meeting a LEON and Natalia Trotsky returning from Denmark
vast crowd had assembled in front of the main entrance We
approached une building from the rear. It ap-
steps, pace, time
Internationale'
peared to me that it was some sort of field that we crossed
Trotsky strode out with firm
Natalia one felt tense. Friendly students led us to a small ante room at the rear of the platform, and for a few moments it was possible to unwind.
Trotsky autographed copie of his recently published Histor for a number of officials. Th
arrived to step up to the platform. As Trotsky approached the podium and faced that large audience, the loudspeakers played the opening bars of "The
seemed that all the accumulated tensions of the few days disappeared. What re mained was an attentive audience hour, — not a critical voice was raised, hardly a cough - an audience
entranced by the speaker they were listening to and by the great theme: the defence of the October revolution
It was five years since Trotsky had addressed a live audience Then it was at the grave of his friend Adolf Joffe. But his open.
Nation: 'I stand under the same banner as I did when I participated in the events of the revolution' not only nailed the lie of the Stalinist slander camaign, but also showed that h had lost none of his verve as speaker.
The lecture was a magnificent defence of the Russian revolution as a stage in the historical rise of humanity
That evening, in little over an
the audience heard remarkable precis of his threevolume study of the Russian
Page 7 scan of this page
2p
Socialist Challer te
KICK OUT THE RIGHT
VOTE WRIGHT
Socialist Challenge 3 September 1980 Page 7
Page 8 scan of this page
STOP THE ROT:
ONE interested group of people can be sure to stick their noses
Dres They Il bempoing
They'll be going all out for Duffy, just like they did last time round. As Boh Wright put it when speaking to engineers in Manchester: 'As soon starts on 9 September, we can expect the attacks to come.
They'll be trying to take advantage of the postal ballot, seeking talk membership Wilen they're isolated privacy of their own home.
'In the last election 220 column inches were given to the Duffy campaign. we can expect it to start on September when Woodrow Wyatt puts pen to Socialist Challenge 3 September 1980 Page 8
Mass meetings to fight Tory press
paper. into the counter ins the press and
of our union.
balloting muss meets engineering issues involved.
the the As Bob Wright each camp to explain their case.
This time democracy Sunday 14 Poland -
we need a vigorous campaign in the factories. We need an election campaign run amongst the 1,200,000 members
And that means a concerted campaign of propaganda and, above all, of
Duffy has shown that he'd prefer to keep workers in the dark about the He's turned down the challenge of debating Bob Wright on TV. So it's now up to the stewards to make sure that debate takes place by organising mass meeting In every factory and inviting speakers from
It will be by using the methods of workers'
just like we've been seeing in that we can best deal with the Tory press and the mafia at Peckham Road.
THE outcome of the forthcoming AUEW elections is vital not just for engineering workers but for the whole labour movement. If Duffy defeats Bob Wright and is re-elected president, the rot will continue -wages declining, thousands of jobs lost and shop floor organisation weakened.
Alongside Sir Terry Duffy has joined the right-wing bloc inside the Jackson and co. In the Labour Party Duffy is part of the 'moderate' rightwing opposition to democracy and accountability. Duffy is an obstacle to any fight against the Tories' attack on the working class.
The most recent example "leadership' has been his attitude to the Tory anti-union laws. Duffy has rushed to accept state financing ballots. He has no plans to lead the AUEW in the sort of fight waged by the union against dustrial Relations Act in 1972. Duffy must go
It is clear that Duffy's policies are hampering the defence of engineers' living standards. In his election address he hardly attempts to hide his opposition to any form of struggle against the Tories and the employers: 'I believe that we must have co-operation, not conflict'.
Duffy's 'co-operation' has already meant the sack for workers at British Leyland as Michael Edwardes' redundancy plans proceed without an ounce of opposition from the leadership of the AUEW.
"With the alternative being closure of British Leyland, some seem-
unpalatable decisions necessary, but the result has been success in regaining a period of peace at BL'. This is not Edwardes or some right-wing member of the Tory cabinet speaking - it is the president of the AUEW!
Robinson
Duffy's determination to assist the employers in breaking the strength of shop-floor organisation and imposing 'peace' in industry was most revealed at BL when Edwardes victimised Longbridge convenor Derek Robinson.
Far from giving support to the spontaneous reaction of the members to support Robinson, struggle by refusing to call strike action and allowed the management and the press to conduct a vicious campaign against Robinson - while the AUEW held an 'enquiry'. Edwardes may have given the kick in the teeth, but Duffy's was the stab in the back.
The national settle ment
Duffy appeals for votes on the basis of the gains made from the national engineering dispute last year:
'Our success was hailed by unions at home and abroad as a victory and a breakthrough, for with the extra week's
hundreds of
John Boyd, CBE,
TUC with Chapple,
employers and the
of his
for postal
Heath's infamous In-
thousands of
achievement!'
the way,
were
holidays and hours.
tried so hard to avoid Bob Wright clearly didate in
Duffy sabotaged the
United States
against the Tories.
I used to be a ooo untill d
THE EFFEC
IS SHATTE
holiday the working year will be reduced by nearly 5 per cent for about 2 million engineering workers. This is no mean
The truth is that if Duffy had had his
two million engineering workers would have been sold down the river before the struggle started. The recommendation of the executive council was to accept the employers' miserable offer of a small increase in the minimum time rates with virtually no concessions on
It was the national committee which rejected this recommendation and forced Dutty into the fight which he had
Bob Wright, the main left-wing can-
opposition to Duffy, has declared his support for the decisions of this year's special Labour Party conference in May. He has declared his opposition to wage restraint and called for the extension of the nationalisation of major industries such as North Sea Oil.
He has also supported the moves by Tony Benn and Eric Heffer to make the Labour Party more democratic. Particularly welcome is his opposition to American bases in Britain and his call for Britain's withdrawal from NATO -a crucial question for all working people at a time of growing war cries from the
Bob Wright's position on such questions clearly shows him in opposition to the attempts of the right wing within the labour movement to prevent a fight
If Wright wins the presidency of the AUEW it will be a bitter blow not only to Duffy but to all those within the trade
Page 9 scan of this page
-VOTE WRIGHT
AUEW General secretary JOHN BOYD (above), he and Duffy helped get BL convenor DEREK ROBINSON (right) the sack.
AUEW steward covered Dutty
ING
unions and the Labour Party who stand in the way of working class struggle. It will strengthen the hand of the militants in the task of organising that struggle. This is the importance of voting for Bob Wright as president.
Fight for policies
It would be foolish to think that simply electing Bob Wright as President would solve the problem of the leadership of the AUEW. The truth is that even if he had a majority on the executive council his policies are not sufficient to present
Mo Pa. So, 21, 1649 SODOFF
the
necessary
the
socialist
movement
the challenge of a
years.
So
class. for members.
'Fight like Poles'
ENGINEERS in Bury have called on the TUC to organise a general strike against
Tories. The AUEW Committee passed the resolution aimed 'if
at bringing down Government'.
A Bury district official said the strike call was inspired by lne sirikes in Poland. Brett, the present Assistant General Secretary of the AUEW, standing for re-election, took
tCHC when he Manchester's Houldsworth Hall. workers have shown what power we've got if we're prepared to use it,' he declared.
And Bob Wright himself was clear as to the aim of such action. •We've got to generate a
capable defeating government before its term of office ends. But instead of doing this', Wright went on, TUC have offered to talk to the Tories. They shouldn't be talking to the Tories, they should be rallying the rank and file.'
socialist alternative to capitalism' which he calls for in his election address.
He deplores unemployment. Yet he says nothing in his election address about the fact that last year's settlement tied the hands of the union for four years on the question of the shorter working week.
Neither should it be forgotten that Duffy is not the first president of the AUEW who has tried to ditch the demand for a shorter working week. Hugh Scanlon did it successfully for over ten
La 'left' leadership Scanlon/Wright variety is no guarantee that there will be a genuine struggle to defend the interests of the working
The election of Bob Wright as President of the AUEW will hopefully open up at opportunity for the left in the union to debate the policies needed to fight the Tory government. It will create the best conditions for starting the fight
an AUEW which fights for its
District
the THE fight
Ken
the spoke in "The Polish missiles.
standing
this matter was not
'the
the subject!
UCATT, TASS,
adopted clear
Iney
conference itself. none other than the
of the
commitments
Cruise missiles in Britain. 'The
ter,' Rogers concludes.
and to a proper defence.
obligations,
Engineers against
the missiles
is on over which way the AUEW's votes will be cast at the alliance Labour Party conference
Soviet Union. issue of Cruise Nothing
Thanks to the line up on the
Borders committee at the reverse, the AU's policy-making national committee this year, the zove nucle
discussed despite the fact that 1l of the union's 26 divisions had sub- effort,
when the
USDAW, SOGAT, FTAT
ASTMS and were the the Agricultural Workers have then?
anti-missiles This positions, but Duffy and Co preferred the national commit tee to have no policy so that proclaims.
can do what ther wail when it comes to Labour Party And what
Sir John Boyd, CBE, the ut-
unbeloved general Malaya, secretary, has already started Angola, preparing. In the July issue of the Journal, Boyd included an article called Ten Points
ULE Defence and Disarmament' by thoughts
Ri Hon William Rodgers MP, opposition spokesperson on defence.
This article is a full-blooded defence of Britain's NATO
including both the last Labour government's we must increase in defence expenditure and the NATO decision to site
tion question missiles and their deployment in Britain is not a minor mat-
'It is at the heart of whether Britain remains committed to NATO ing.
We must fulfil our NATO
says
because Labour is the government of peace and NATO is the
Walca makes peace possible against the aggressive
could be further from the truth. The history of the ast 30 vears broves exactiv
from the Korean War in 1950 when the Attlee
£4,600 (think of what that would be at today's prices) to the US war
to the Vietnam War Wilson administra tion backed the Pentagon all the way down the line. Where
aggressive Soviets
doesn't bother Rodgers. After all, 'for 30 years Europe has lived in peace', he
Tell that to the people of ireland. Mr Rodgers.
about the wars organised by European powers elsewhere in the world: Korea,
Aden, Algeria, and the Sahara amongst others.
Engineering workers have nothing in common with the
of this particular member of the Gang of Three, nor for that matter with leaders
of the AUEW who get them to write in our lournal
The fight is on against their warmongering.
ensure the biggest possible turn out of engineers
on the anti-missile demonstra-
28 September
Blackpool on the eve of the Labour Party conference.
Already North Manchester and Accrington District Committees have given their back.
Engineers are planning to
go from the demonstration to
lobby their delegation which is
Socialist Challenge
'Break
the law
to defeat
the Tory
Act
JOHN SMILIE, convenor of Snow's in Sheffield, who is standing for the National Organiser's position in the current elections, characterised the present leadership as 'supine and spineless'. He denounced Duffy's offer of conciliation with the Tories and their anti-union legislation.
"Duffy has said he against people breaking the law. He has shown that he is ignorant of class history. He wouldn't be where he was if workers hadn't broken the law. The trade unions were born out of struggle and illegality', Smilie reminded his members.
Tribute
He paid tribute to those who had been imprisoned and exiled for fighting for the very right that the Tories were now attacking - the right to picket.
And he recalled the role that the AUEW had played in fighting Heath's attempts to shackle the 'The Godfather" Boyd and Duffy
SLOOLe embarrassed to be a member of this union', he said. 'We've got
restore our fighting traditions.'
3 September 1980 Page 9
Page 10 scan of this page
AUEW SPECIAL
TUC at Brighton,
right-wing delegates of the AUEW themselves by providing virtually the abstentions on the motion opposing the Employment Act.
Together with leader Frank Chapple, Duffy-Boyd leadership of the AUEW argue that the should not opposed, because it holds out
secret positions.
Things have gone a long way AUEW among the forces leading the
against the previous legislative attempt to discipline unions and run their affairs the Industrial Relations Act.
Strikes
A series of one-dav strikes in 1972 stopped the whole of the engineering industry and forced the Tories to back down bit by bit on their judicial attempts to shackle the unions.
The new Employment Act is every bit as pernicious and anti-union Heath's Industrial Relations Act. It has
senes of measures which aim to make life easier for employers and difficult for
unions workers.
will, for example, become much easier employers to justify sackings at industrial tribunals. open to many businesses to refuse to re-employ
WUllICI who take maternity leave.
Implications
But the crucial measures of the Act are limiting workers' rights industrial disputes. restricting the closed Many types of sympathetic and 'secondary' action will become illegal. The implications of the notorious limitation of pickets to six have become all too obvious during the dispute at Brixton dole office.
For all these reasons it is imperative that the trade union and labour movement carry through a policy of complete non-cooperation with the Act.
But why AUEW acceptance of Tory money for ballots so pernicious? Isn't this a very minor aspect of the Act?
answer to concerns the whole move away from branch voting towards postal ballots, which occurred in the AUEW while Socialist Challenge 3 September 1980 Page 10
ENGINEERS
MUST FIGHT
EMPLOYMENT
ACT
ON THE first day of the Scanlon was president.
some The advantage of voting in
branches is that it is a system of distinguished collective democracy.
voting can hear the debates and only discuss out the different points of view held by union members before voting.
Propaganda
the
Act The postal ballot stacks the cards for the right.
entirely
Many important election the the promise of state money to • individual union member who
union votes trom home and doesn't her his
meeting will be with barrage of was propaganda for the right and
against the left.
Tories' With
election for president of the we shall certainly see the media machine swing into again support Duffy and with about Wright. this cosy relationship between the Tory press and the right wing of the union leaderships which the postal reinforces.
Precedent
But leaving that argument aside. the use of state funds for any union activities creates a very dangerous precedent. Step by • step it croues and independence of the unions, which is so vital if they are to defend their members' interests for against both the employers and the government.
It speaks volumes about the oresent leadership AUEW that, together only Frank Chapple handful others, prepared to have dealings with the Tories' Employment Act.
We can't rest until this rotten leadership removed. Voting for
during Wright is the
GallE along this road.
shop.
this
Hugh
Those system
branch bombarded press
forthcoming
scare stories It's precisely
ballot
Friday. the with and
Bob first step pickets over the last few weeks. March Against Missiles
Eve of Labour Party conference Sunday 28 September Blackpool
Assemble: 10.45am War Memorial, Nr Butlins
Hotel. March to Rally 1.30pm South Pier. Sponsors Include: Manchester Against Missiles, Bob Wright AUEW Assistant Gen. Secretary, Ken Slater AUEW District Sec. Accrington, Manchester North AUEW District C'ttee, Colin Barnett NWTUC Sec., Frank Allaun MP, Labour Action for Peace, Bob
Walter NW CND Sec., EP Thompson. Lobby the AUEW delegation to call for
La vote against the missiles 2.00pm AUEW offices, Station Road, Blackpool.
CON-MECH: one episode in the AUEW's struggle against the Industrial Relations Act under the Heath government KING HENRY'S Meat Products factory in Manchester, where eleven workers were arrested after police attacked pickets last ADWEST in Reading, where police have repeatedly clashed with
Socialist changing. time we're
the
and abroad.
Special £2.
to:
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THE CON-NECI 08001
Recession hits
truck industry
onset of the recession the heavy/medium truck market has started to collapse, with a 25 per cent drop in sales in the UK in the last month alone.
This is a reflection of the dent sharply declining volume of
being transported, hauliers who are no longer expanding their fleets, and thus hanging on to older
which they would normally replace with the
the UK truck ERF in Sandbach, Seddon (International Harvester) and LVL
South Ribble and have sizeable in the
Fodens have already called in a receiver. Redundancies
In the Ribble area neither tion the war industrie Aerospace (Tornadoes), British
Fuels Limited warheads) and Royal Ordnance Factory or the locomotive plant at GEC could absorb the thousands of engineers, fitters, tvpists and technicians who wil be thrown onto the unemployment heap if the redundancies gently
Moreover there exists in
work in the industries of death. Unlike the
textiles industry, the LVL and Sed. membership demoralized and seem willing
The main obstacle to the fightback is (as usual) the local
Communist leadership around able Brindle and the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions (Preston branch) who are determined to struck lead the membership down the
FOR SHOP STEWARDS TOMA LANGLEY cul-de-sac of import controls to the brick wall of the Alternative Economic Strategy.
more inappropriate course of action could not be imagined, for the industry is highly import/export depen
Moreover it is well known that "Third World' and newly industrialised countries would be unable to afford the models that LVL build especially for this market.
Hysteria
The that Hino trucks are to be imported via a final assembly plant in Warrington has been greeted by shrill cries of anti-Japanese hysteria from both management and union leadership.
In response the Communist Party have drafted an emergency resolution which calls for the blacking of all Hino trucks and the lobbying of the TUC conference for import controls.
To this end the Confedera-
has organised a miniconference originally intended as a debate on how to save the industry but already being billed as a Jap-bashing session by the local press.
Strategy
The role of the local Labour MP Stan Thorne will be that of
guiding the struggle along the reformist path to defeat, secure in the knowledge that he has only two years left betore retirement
Despite the dominance of the CP left in the debate many people are suspicious of their arguments concerning import controls and are preparing for a fightback. But they are constrained by a lack of a coherent
If the revolutionary left was
to overcome the sectarianism and weakness in numbers which bedevils it then a savage blow could well be
the Thatcher govertment nere
Page 11 scan of this page
Revolution. Trotsky gave me a copy of that speech to bring back to the British comrades. Alas at the time we were too poor to publish it, but eventually it was published by the Independent Labour Party.
We returned to the house on Dalgas Boulevard excited and enthused by the success of the meeting. The desire to talk well into the night was natural. That household, however, had a strict working regime.
More than once our animated talk was interrupted by Natalia urging us to be quiet because her son Sedov was on the phone speaking from Berlin. The phone was in the adjacent hallway.
Most evenings after a packed working day Trotsky would join us downstairs for discussion. In the house now were comrades
nation of Leon Trotsky
OSE IDEAS
'T CRUSH
from France, Ilaly, Belgium, and Britain which indictated that the Left Opposition was taking shape U11 national level.
Trotsky in the few days that remained for him in Denmark Trotsky for Beginners
was anxious for us to concentrate our thoughts and work on the priorities. cerned with the critical situation that faced our movement in both Germany and Spain.
from power, yet it was clear that what we fought for, the united front of the German class,
Party and Comintern. The small circulations OTI pamphlets were in themselves an alarming indicator.
Leadership
growing forces, to mobilise all our efforts and members for a concerted drive to aid our Ger section repeated advice. One of his major concerns meetings was to find a way to leadership.
SOON Stauning government clear that they were in no mood to allow Trotsky to prolong his stay in Denmark, not even for a week. With Natalia, his life companion, they long journey back to Prinkipo, tell place or exile But the movement finitely richer for that journey.
The voice and message of Trot sky reached tens of thousands.
life to hear many revolutionary OraLorS.
MacManus, Bukharin, Saklatvala, and Felix Cohn, the old Polish communist, to name a few. But, political partiality, Copenhagen speech was the most impressive.
Classic It represented cerence or me clover evolu. tion but a classical exposition of the role of revolution in class society. It is worthy of a promiplace DOOKSIeU Holland, Trotsky's Copenhagen speech is
printed Defence of the October Revoluall iter- tion (New Park), price 15p from The Other Bookshop, 328 Upper
Street, London NI 15p for p&p if ordering by post.
The Other Bookshop Books on Trotsky
Tariq Ali and Phil Evans Writers and Readers £1.95 Trotsky — A Study in the Dynamic of His Thought -
Ernest Mandel New Left Books £2.95 Available from 328 Upper Street, Islington, London N.1. (Tel 01 226 0571) POST FREE
Betrayed,
plebeian hatred.
He was deeply con-
quests.
Only months separated Hitler
working was being blocked by the
of the Communist
press and
To consolidate our weak but
hypotheses
was Trotsky's From the those evening
Lucillalai
the lecture the made it 1938
commenced the
new perspective... was in-
I have been privileged in my hare, Togliatti, Arthur oppression. privileges bureaucracy!....
allowing for my Trotsky's equality forms of labour!
not only
Many worker's
pamphlet In
2XQ. Add
From The Revolution
, 1936 "The present regime in the Soviet Union provokes protest at every step, a protest the more 'burning in that it is repressed. The bureaucracy is not only a machine of compulsion but also a constant source of provocation. The very existence of a greedy, lying and cynical caste of rulers inevitably creates a hidden indignation...
"Will the bureaucrat devour the workers' state, or will the working class clean up bureaucrat? Thus stands the question whose decision hangs the fate of the Soviet Union. The vast majority of the Soviet workers are even now hostile to the bureaucracy. The peasant masses hate them with their healthy
'If in contrast to the peasants the workers have almost never come out on the road of open struggle, thus condemning the protesting villages to confusion and impotence, this is not only because of the repression. The workers fear lest, in throwing out the bureaucracy, they will open the way for a capitalist restoration.... Without a planned economy the Soviet Union would be thrown back for decades.
'The workers are realists. Without deceiving themselves with regard to the ruling caste — at least with regard to its lower tiers which stand
- they see in it the watchman for the time being of a certain part of their own con-
They will inevitably dishonest, impudent and unreliable watchman as soon as they see another possibility. For this it is necessary that in the West or the East another revolutionary dawn arise...
"There is no peaceful outcome for this crisis. No devil ever yet voluntarily cut off his own claws. The Soviet bureaucracy will not give up its positions without a fight. The development leads
•With energetic pressure from the popular mass, and the disintegration inevitable in such circumstances of the government apparatus, the resistance of those in power may prove much weaker than now appears. But as to this only
are possible. In bureaucracy can be removed only by a revolutionary force. And, as always, there will be fewer
Transitional Programme,
...the chief strength of the bureaucracy lies not in itself but in the disillusionment of the masses, in their lack of a ties.
"A fresh upsurge of the revolution in the USSR will undoubtedly begin under the banner of the struggle against social inequality and political
Down with the of the Down with the Soviet aristocracy and its ranks and orders! Greater
of wages for all
SOMET, EXACTLY?
AM - COOL QUESTION:
Soviet is an emory, government. It organises a tree press.
Takes over me wool .. Tie railroads The first wave of the next revolution will lead to the creation of Soviet all over the country trousk,
Pages from the new Trotsky for Beginners by Taria Ali and Phil Evans: left, on the rise of the
"The revolution revolutions which, economic foundations of societv.
February 1917 in Russia, etc.)...
upon
written down....
absolutism..
cloue for another. methods a resurrection of the trade unions. 'The bringing of democracy drive out the
bureaucratic mistakes and zigzags. playthings theatres, show-off subways out in favour of workers' dwellings. norms of distribution"
equality.
freely, criticise,
case, the
'The struggle for the freedom of the trade unions and the factory committees, for the right of assembly, and for freedom of the press, will unfold in the struggle for the regeneration and development of soviet democracy...
'Democratisation of the soviets is impossible without the legalisation of soviet par-
The workers and peasants themselves by their own free vote will indicate what parties they recognise as soviet parties.
'A revision of planned economy from top to bottom in the interests of producers and consumers! Factory committees should be returned the right to control production. A democratically organised consumers' cooperative should control the quality and
WHAT'S GOING ON?
Party-State bureaucrats
Horganise
which the bureaucracy preparing against itself will not be social, like the October revolution of 1917. It is not a question this time of changing the economic foundations of society, of replacing certain forms of property with other forms. History has known elsewhere not only social revolutions which substituted the bourgeois for the feudal regime, but also political
without destroying the swept out ar old ruling upper crust (1830 and 1848 in France,
'This is the first time in history that a state resulting from a workers' revolution has existed. 1 ne stages unrougit waica i must go are nowner
The proletariat of a backward country was fated to accomplish the first socialist revolution. For this historic privilege, it must, according to all evidences, pay with a second supplementary revolution — against bureaucratic
'It is not a question of substituting ohe ruling
but of changing the very of administering the economy and gulding te culture or tne country. burtaucral autocracy may give place to soviet democracy. A restoration of the right of criticism, and a ge nuine freedom of elections, are necessary condi tions for the further development of the country. This assumes a revival of freedom of soviet par ties, beginning with the party of Bolsheviks, and
into industry means a radical revision of plans in the interests of the toilers. Free discussion of economic problems will decrease the overhead expense of
Expensive Palace. of the Soviets, LICY will be crowded 'Bourgeois will be confined within the limits of strict necessity, and, in step with the growth of social wealth, will give way to socialist
'Ranks will be immediately abolished. The tinsel of decorations will go into the melting pot. The youth will receive the opportunity to breathe
Science and art will be freed of their chains.
"And, finally, foreign policy will return to the traditions of revolutionary internationalism.'
price of products 'Reorganisation of the collective farms in accordance with the will and in the interests of those who work there! 'The reactionary international policy of the bureaucracy should be replaced by the policy of proletarian internationalism. The com. plete diplomatic correspondence of the Kremlin should be published. Down with secret diplomacy! 'All political trials. should be reviewed in the light of complete publicity and controversial openness and integrity. Only the victorious revolutionary uprising of the masses can revive the Soviet regime and guarantee its further development towards socialism.'
soviets; right, on the rise of the bureaucracy.
Socialist Challenge 3 September 1980 Page 11
Page 12 scan of this page
Beyond the Fragments in conference... A RETREAT FROM POLITICS?
If your phone doesn't click it's probably tapped
HOME NEWS
Bath Fights
Back
Secretary, Bath
Campaign Against the
Cuts
TORY-dominated Bath
was faced
protest of several hundred
people last Saturday
organised by the city's
campaign against the cuts.
TalE abbey protested
against local and national
cuts, unemployment, and
attacks trade union
rights.
Speakers included
¡coreschlarves or me racer
Council, the Campaign
Against the Cuts, the Right to
Galle BaLA
Anu-nucea Group. Two
Labour also
spoke.
A thousand leaflets were
distributed explaining that,
'we don't think that millions
ol uselu workers snould ne
thrown on the scrapheap of
unemployment just to protect
company OrOTIES and is part of the foghaba protest dividends
message Trom ne
speakers was equally clear:
build the campaign
Donces as oari
of a campaign to kick out the
Tories.
further details
Bath Campaign Against the
Cuts phone Bath -0298. BOLTON REJECTS
MISSILES
packed oft a small hal le MORE than
Bolton last week to discuss
organising local acuvides
against the Cruise and
Trident missiles.
The meeting addressed by a sneaker from Manchester Against the Missiles. and Chris. Horrie, the editor of CND's paper Sanity.
The threat that these
people, the impossibility
defence against the nucicar ROCAUSL fantastic waste of resources
Tory
Drovisional steering committee of ten was elected by the meeting to plan future activities SuCT oca public. meeting to the anti-missile lobby of the Labour Party conference, and mobilisation for CND's national demonstration on 26
Anyone interested in local activities should ring Pete on Bolton 391408
March against
the missiles
organisations backing the march to the Labour Party conference on 28 September in Blackpool to call for a mass campaign against the siting of Cruise Missiles in this country.
Many Labour Party branches throughout the
4 chave expressed their outrage at the recent announcemeni by the Defence
vetrelary. rrancis rym, mat 100 Cruise missiles will be sited Britain by 1982. Yet William Rogers, lle serence Secretary, still continues
out in favour of this vecision.
The labour
movemen is be innisite calise than only
massive campaign the Tory warmongers.
far include: Manchester Against Missies. Manchester Women's Movement for Socialist Challenge
THE long-awaited Fragments' was attended by 1,400 people. from a myriad of local activities, they hoped to develop between the formalised programme or a strong national structure.
However, ute proved to be a fragmentation of experience. The conference overcome this. At its best the discussions in
the workshops were amiable and bland. But
being unable to find the minimum basis on which links become possible
demands, common initiatives, and national
co-ordination
reverted to an easier theme: slagging off the
revolutionary left.
Many these
revolutionary left — its lack of roots in the
organised
membership, its inconsistent attitude to the
women's movement,
towards certain types of community-based
struggles
By Kevin Simms, Secretary, NW London branch POEU OVER the years members of left-wing organisations have given their many and varied reasons for knowing that their phone was being tapped: strange noises, clicks, voices, use numbers, even the voices of the listeners have been heard.
Tapping the Telephone, a pamphlet from the research department of the Post Office Engineering Union, should clear away these myths once and for all. It should always be remembered that the authorities have the latest technology available to them.
Of most interest to Socialist readers is the tapping of labour movement militants. For the security agencies to tap all the thousands of political and union activists would be a daunting if not impossible task.
There are however some individuals and organisations that are permanently tapped and, depending on political and industrial events, others are tapped for various periods.
This pamphlet gives many examples (some proven, some alleged) ranging from MPs to trade union activists. A revealing example was from the steel strike. A strike committee gave phony information phone about a picket and then watched the local police act on it.
The important lesson for activists to observe is not to use the phone (or the mail) THE CAMPAIGN for Nuclear Disarmament has added its name to the list of labour movement
Peace, Frank Allaun MP, Colin Barnett West
Salveson, Secretary Manchester Communist tarly. JOAN rarkinson.
Secretary of Preston Trades
Action for Peace. bertranu Mussell peace Hunton.
Thompson (END), Bob Wright, AUEW AssIstall General secretary Walt Greendale, TGWU National
HUL General Council ember, Accrington AUEW District Committee Manchester North AUEW District commullec. East
Party, Campaign Nuclear Disarmament. 3 September 1980 Page 12
'Beyond the conference last Saturday
proved Coming
national links "fragments' without
fragmentation also
was strikingly unable to
common
the conference too often
criticisms of the
working class, its turnover of
national its indifference
- nave a certain amount of truth. But it is just silly to say that these 'locally'?
official
of engineers'
tions.
The Challenge Billal.
Tory
over KING HENRY'S PICKETS
By Pete Clifford ELEVEN pickets were arrested outside King Henry's Meat Products factory in Levenshulme Manchester, on Friday. Chief cop Anderton's police decided to go further than the Tories' 'six o cerane they went out to stop any one of the 150 trade unionists there from effectively picketing.
Enose arrested were four women members of the Bakers They, and 22 others. had walked out of King Henry's on 7 July after 17 of nat Deer given one week's notice.
This was the final straw.
They putting with Victoriar comations. unsafe machines and virtually no rights for years Friday's action by the police has only strengthened
weaknesses are primarily due to methods of
organisation, structures and hierarchies.
A more serious diagnosis might be that
there are political reasons why the left has
unable to project
politics into all spheres of society
popular and concrete fashion. On this level,
of how to develop a socialist programme,
Beyond the Fragments has some pertinent
points to make.
For example, there is the tendency of far
left organisations to concentrate on short-
term issues — the immediate response to
redundancies in a factory — rather than the
longer-term work on a theoretical and grass
roots level, which is necessary to develop an
adequate response to unemployment and a
clear view of what socialism could provide.
Also, it is true to say that a national
organisation can, because of its nationally
determined priorities, cut across the tactics
and priorities which local members may
have developed from a closer involvement
in their own town.
Of course, the opposite is also true. The initiatives of
orgallisalion are vitel
precondition for local campaigns
could the Anti Nazi League have developed for relaying information that they do not want the security agencies to know about.
The pamphlet shows that even the present
'safeguards' are not being observed. The officially sanctioned taps are quite clearly the tip of the iceberg. There are many ways that the authorities can get round the regula-
use bugging devices customer's premises and the Printer Meter Check (an engineering device for checking the accuracy of a meter) are just two ways. The latter is not used to listen to conversations but lists the numbers of all calls made and their duration. It is allegedly used extensively in the North of Ireland.
With present technology a tap has to be physically placed either in the customer's premises or in the exchange, but with the new computer-controlled exchanges (System X) it will be possible to write a programme so that the authorities can sit in their ottices Chelsea or wherever and listen to any line in
This is one of the great dangers that all trade unionists should be aware of and it is of the greatest importance that this facility is not available in the new systems.
The weak part of the pamphlet is the way it poses the call for an enquiry. It takes the traditional liberal attitude of "security against 'democratic values'. type of enquiry it calls for is one consisting of Privy Councillors with 'as much as possible of
the determination of the strikers They are not only picketing every day but : have enlisted the SubDUr North-west region of the TUC for a boycott of King Henry's products throughout the area Liverpool dockers are atready backing that up with action.
day
Does this
really
Or does Perhaps the 'vision discussing and
Britain rather than
Only with
about political revolutionary
around demands,
how
the hearings in public in the surveillance.
have quite detailed knowledge. ing class.
Labour
as much as any Tory government. balancing
The
London W5. Price £1.
Local Bakers Union
secretary Bill Harrison says that their next mass picket or
September must strength of this an-union mamagement. Trade unionists throughout the area should make a date with King
original ideas in Beyond the Fragments did not surface at the conference. Two general trends were visible and both were expressed through the most common phrase
'the need to develop our vision of
mean concentrating looking at structures and hierarchies with a retreat into smaller and smaller groups and more localised activity as the only way
vision of socialism'? In other words, is BTF a staging post for those who are leaving or who have left political activity aimed at mass social change?
something else? means developing detailed manifesto for the struggle for socialism in
stereotyped and predictable ragbag of demands that is often dignified by the name of a programme?
that agreement about political principles can there be openness
tactics. The movement started from a certain agreement
goals common Without political agreement and unity in action, tactical flexibility can only become a recipe for greater fragmentation.
In a capitalist society the main security task that capitalism faces is controlling the organised working class movement. An enquiry where one section of the ruling class investigates the activities of another is unlikely to result in the curtailing of surveillance of militants or even expose the extent of that
Socialists and trade unionists should call for a labour movement enquiry where Post Office and other workers could expose the extent of surveillance, of which many of them
Post Office workers, like all government employees, are covered by the Official Secrets Act so that the trade union movement would have to fully defend against victimisation any worker giving evidence to this enquiry.
It would expose quite clearly the real role of the state. It would show that far from being a neutral body representing all classes in society, it works very clearly in the interests of big business and against the interests of the work-
It would also expose the role of successive
governments who have used the security forces against the labour movement
Tapping The Telephone is available from POEU, Greystoke House, 150 Brunswick Rd
Henry's for the day.
Daily picketing from 6.30 am at King Henry's Products Ravenoak Ave, Levenshulme
Donations. support etc BS&A WU. Room 4, George House, 30 Dudley Rd, ManCuester lo
WHAT'S LEFT
-dhone of of.249 geT Week.
CONGRATULATIONS, on the
oh Compagn hellance, so Cap
political statu
be all in the same
•BRING
called by Anwar Ditta
FIGHT POLICE ATTACKS! Public
It in the Brixtor , Rd, Brixton (op Speaker to
Even turkey,
fi disco, Sun 7 Se
Colombo Street, , SEI
Cor 2-50 or a one o
Com
SOUTH LONDON CAMPAIGN AGAINST RACIST
kers include John TillOUNCIL
TRADES
Fi labour movement se tials from Harland, Airie Chose Noctorum, Birkenhead
No Arms for Chile Vigil at Chilean Embassy Thursday 11 September: Seventh anniversary brutal coup.
at Friends House,
la of the Bolivian Mines. Music depression in Chile. Organ Ted: 01.C2-4295 Solidarity Cam SC EVENTS Ser Socialist Care e ed by Cardinal Enterprises
ty seated is cardinatel or Socis Chalent ap to ca
Socialis
com sdatiorier
'Saturday 27 Sept at th TEESSIDE
Hoppening Rid. • огоці
Middi
THE deadline for short news articles for this page is 10.30am Monday. Articles up to 200 words can be rung through Sundays on 01-359 8189
Page 13 scan of this page
a Orange death squads surtace again
IRELAND
By Geoff Bell RODNEY Patrick McCormick died in Northern Irish town of Larne on Monday of dast week. He was shot ten times in the back
head the latest victim of a renewed assassination campaign by Loyalists.
McCormick Was member Irish Republican Socialist Party. So was Miriam Daly, another victim killed in June.
Miriam was a prominent campaigner on behalf of the H Block prisoners; as was jonn lully, wild was murdered a fortnight before Miriam. At least
Catholics Republicans have fallen victim to the assassins this year.
There is little doubt who is pulling the trigger. The Ulster Defence Association, led by shop steward Andy Tyrie, is letting it be known that it is responsible.
Activists
The renewed assassination campaign follows the pattern of previous
Loyalist-inspired murders. These reached their peak in 1972 and 1975 when 125 and 150 people died respectively.
Over two-thirds of these victims were Catholics, and the deaths took place when British governments were discuss-
launching JICW political initiatives. The
By Tom Marlowe
SIX WEEKS ago few
ple outside the
American
Bolivia had ever heard of
General Luis Garcia Meza.
Today Meza is one of
the most tyrannical
tators in the world.
heads a ruthless military
government, one of whose
main backers said recently:
'We must have repression
until we have complete con-
trol of the situation.
must create discipline.
There is no alternative.'
An example of such 'discioline'
was reported last week by Amnesty
International. Amnesty
now me max locao remell oi
the Bolivian Army entered the min-
ing district of
August, 18 days after the military
coup.
Beheaded
rirst lney usca artmery, plane.
and tanks to bombard the
Miners resisted with stones. People
who tried to flee were then pursued
and killed by soldiers.
Corpses beheaded and
aim of the terror cam-
paigns was warn the
British not to dream up
any solution which attack-
the privileges of the
Loyalists.
no coincidence
that the latest bout of
assassinations coincides
with a renewed attempt by
the Tories to negotiate a
political solution. The on-
ly new aspect is the em-
phasis on political activists
INTERNATIONAL
Bolivia:the
exercise in
discipline
miner had gunpowder rammed into
peo- his mouth by soldiers and was then South dow uo i me lown centre. w omel
were raped. of Amnesty has the names of eight Incl who are definitely known to nave been ce oners wo re missing and others who have been
die- arrested
He Rich
The prisoners seized in Caracoles are among the estimated 2,000 jailed since Meza came to power. The 3.500 sho, ace ording to led on toe
We have been
Same enou The Meza coup is the 189th in Bolivia since it was granted formal locals almost a caricature of the described hall joke South
'banana republics presidents are changea every olne. day.
The Icasull WIly susceptible to coups can be stated quite simply: it is a potentially rich Coll. outs the poorest in the world. The majority of the eople resent this, s they eno lo voic or bonlical Da
area. ties or join trade unions which pro-
mise to even up the balance of Boli-
Kit those who own a0e oo! from those riches reject such ex-
as targets.
To be successful, such assassinations need help from quarters. First a degree of assistance is required from the security forces
There is evidence of this in the present paign. For example, it is unlikely that the killers of Miriam Daly could have slipped in and out of the staunch Republican area trucks. One
pressions of popular will — by torture, murder and coups. happened, Bolivia on 17 July.
after Hernan Siles Luazo had top
music pea the polls in tne erection. Luazo American has been described by the Financial
which 'a left-wing
but even Zuazo's politics were too extreme for the officers who staged Bolivia the coup.
I Ne interests thei became apparent when Meza banned all trade unions, declared his intention to 'eliminate...all traces of Marxist cancer' 'all those who nonal economy as traitors to the receive drastic penalties'.
particularly
in which she lived without
the
OCHE SOULLCU
British Army, who main-
tain constant
surveillance of such
districts.
Furthermore, a British
Army officer was quoted
in the Guardian earlier this
year as saying that he
favoured a policy of "selec-
tive assassination
The seconc factor
which sustains the Loyalist
. And Ina sunke again, followed,
Meza's coup came two weeks
Such
moderate' internationally
represented racketeers.
and warned that sabotage the power. wil oe proclaillice All of
fatherland and
be in This last statement was aimed could
mineworkers
assassins is encouragement from bourgeois politicians. Although Loyalist leader lan Paisley has condemned the killing of McCormick, saying that the murderers, will one day
answer to the inescapable tribunal of Almighty God', he and Unionist Party leader James Molyneaux were whistling a different tune in June. who responded to the coup with
Harsh Teoressiol but information which has leaked out despite the drastic censorshi suggests unal strikes are continuing in mining areas.
resistance likely to clique has little support either inside the country or
Even the United States has suspended foreign aid to
new government's links with drug
There are also reports that there have been widespread desertions from the army since Meza came to
which that suggests
po as tor lived as most o
as short lived as most of
ORANGE demonstration
(left) the respectable
face of the assassination
squad which murdered
McCormick (above)
At a rally organised then by the Fermanagh United Protestant Actior Group, they proposed a resolution warned 'we are no longer going to stand idly by...we shall take whatever steps necessary to protect ourselves'.
One of Paisley's main associales in the Democratic Unionist Par400 Kms
Brazil
Peru Trinidad
Orura
Potosi
Chile
Organising Popular resistance THE Partido Obrero Revolucionario - Combate (Revolutionary Workers Party — Struggle), the Bolivian section of the Fourth International, has called for a 'united front of the left and workers organisations' against the new regime. The objects of such a united front, say the POR, should be:
•To reconquer democratic rights of the people; the economic defence of working popular reșistance; a political-military offensive against the fascist dictatorship; to overthrow the dictatorship; to impose respect for the popular will as expressed in the elections of 29 June; to confront the manoeuvres of imperialism and its agents; to open the revolutionary socialist road to the struggles of our people.'
ty, the Rev Williams Beattie, showed what measures
thought wert 'necessary' at the start of August. He presented banner to the Apprentice Boys of Derry - an all Protestant SUCIeL
in honour of William McCaughey, Loyalist convicted of the murder of a Catholic shopkeeper and
kidnapping of Catholic priest.
McCaughey's eventual arrest has persuaded growing number of Lovalists that safer ways of pursuing their sectarian activities Figures released last week show that recruitment to the "security forces' in the North of Ireland is on the
Recruits
The part-time Ulster Defence Regiment — controlled in theory by the British Army is now receiving nearly 1,000 applications a month, while the Royal Ulster Constabulary is attracting even more potential recruits.
No figures were gover on the percentage of applications from the Loyalist community. But if past trends are anything to go by, only five per cent of these recruits are likely to be Catholics.
At time when unemployment in the North of Ireland is over 15 per cent, it seems that the reaction of many Loyalist workers is to play a more active role in the repres sion of their Catholic coulicroarls
BOLIVIA
400Miles
Gochabamba
• Santa Cruz • Sucre
Paraguay
/Argentina
people; to organise Socialist Challenge 3 September 1980 Page 13
Page 14 scan of this page
Pakistani Workers' Association formed
INTERNATIONAL /
South Korea
Korea.
Kim Dae Jung has been charged 'conspiracy', and
dent Chon Soo Hwa.
South Korea. three days before the trial opened.
and US governments.
USA
that's where Billy is.
virgin" '
Chile 1989.
ed at the police.
Italy Bologna railway station massacre.
Semerari objected to the description 'brains"? Spain
tatorship in the sky.
ing announcement in the press:
Superior.'
friendly to Gierek during his recent troubles.
Socialist Challenge 3 September 1980 Page 14
AROUND THE WORLD
A FURTHER exercise in democracy — Western style — is now underway in South Korea. This involves the military trial of Kim Dae Jung, a former presidential candidate and the best known liberal opponent to military rule in South
with sedition', 'leading a country-wide simultaneous popular uprising' by the right-wing regime headed by presi-
Chon came to power in May after the South Korean state was shaken by a series of mass revolts. He has ruled by martial law ever since. The trial of Kim Dae Jung is particularly significant because, more than any other bourgeois politician, he is associated with the fight for democratic rights in
Chon has told reporters that the trial will be 'fair and open', but when it began on 17 August Kim told a different story. He described how he had been 'kept incommunicado' by the government, and had 'suffered mental torment beyond description during lengthy prison questioning by the military authorities'. Kim was questioned from 9am to midnight for 60 days. He was only allowed access to a lawyer
The Chon regime has been backed by both the Japanese
QUOTE of the week comes from Lillian Carter, mother of the most famous brothers since rrank and Jesse james Lillian was asked where Billy — he's the one who isn't president — had got to. She replied: 'Wherever there's trouble -
Sometimes when I look at all my children I say to myself, "Lillian, you should have stayed a
A MASSIVE anti-government demonstration filled the streets of Santiago last Thursday — the first major protest since President Pinochet seized power seven years ago.
The demonstration came after a huge crowd, said to number 'tens of thousands' by the International Herald Tribune, was stopped by riot police from entering a political rally given by former Chilean President Eduardo Frei. The rally had been called to denounce Pinochet's proposed new constitution, which would keep him in power until at least
After being refused admission the crowd took to the streets, chanting slogans against Pinochet, singing and waving burning paper. Police attacked sections of the march, and according to some reports a number of bricks were hurl-
PROFESSOR Aldo Semerari occupies the Chair oli Criminal Anthropology at Rome University. He has given psychiatric evidence in virtually every important criminal case in Rome in the last few years. Now it seems that Semerari is not one to live by theory alone. Last week he was arrested and accused of being the mastermind behind the
Semerari recently declared his intention to sue for defamation a left-wing Italian magazine which accused him of being the brains behind fascist terrorism in Italy. Perhaps
WITH the Catholic church receiving such good publicity in the West because of the events in Poland, and with the Pope himself due to visit Britain, it is instructive to glance at how the Catholic Church has fared in Spain since one of its staunchest allies, General Franco, departed to the great dic-
The verdict is that it isn't doing too well. A sign of the Church's problems is that it is now being forced to advertise for nuns. The Order of St Jerome recently placed the follow-
'We seek young girls with a religious vocation, healthy in body and mind, who would be welcomed without dowry into the Hieronymite Sisters' Convent. Communal life is a happy one in a recently built convent. Write to the Mother
The number of nuns in Spain has fallen by nearly 20,000 since Franco die 1, which suggests that religious enthusiasm wanes along with authoritarianism in politics. That is one explanation of why the Polish Catholic Church proved so
By A Kahn and A Shah On Sunday 24 August modest, but step taken organising workers in Britain.
Pakistani transport number of cities met in the morning to draft constitution and aims of the Pakistani Association (PWA).
five-person committee was prepare the ference of the PWA for the winter of this year.
The committee consists of Abid Shah T&GWU, (AUEW), Raja Iqbal Tariq Ali.
On Sunday public meeting in Digbeth Hall was attended by over a hundred Pakistani speakers included Karamat Ali,
trade-union Pakistan, Shahid Nadeem from the Committee Democratic and Non-Aligned Pakistan, Raja G&MWU Convenor at BICC, East London, Sighat Kadri, president of the Standing Committee of Pakistani Organisations and Tariq Ali, from the PWA.
I won't pay
my fare to a
black'
A PWA supporter, who works
es a acker-conector
Street Station, Birmingham, re-
Socialist
reporter:
A white man had travelled
from London lo
wunout oucker
him to pay he said: I refuse to
fare to a black
option but to call a policeman
and he could pay the fare in the ponce station
'He still refused so I called a
policeman After
ine stor
me that I let him pay the fare to a white ticket collector.
ed and finally the con took him
handed it to me. I then
racist
Dut inal s ine problem. racists
get a lot
from the police.'
Sibghat Kadri welcomed the formation of the PWA and moped that 'it would create a genuine and popular grassroots organisation workers in this
Kadri stated that such an organisation was badly needed
HOMENEWS
crucial first towards Pakistani
A founding meeting of
engineering and
workers from
approve the
Workers'
Ahad Aziz Mian,
workers. The
militant from
for
Iqbal, of the he stated,
workers.
fight for such a unity.'
He
are not only
factories incident Chalenge
Birmingham the economic crisis. wnen asker
So l
pressing
confirming tories. pledged me con suggesten 1o *WA and
I refus- cards to porters in their factories. collected the money and
let the through the barrier. by
encouragement in their tionary Urdu press.
many black welcome workers in Britain organisation.
Pakistani country." venior.
Road, Birmingham.
and if organised on a non-sectarian basis could receive widespread support. He pledged that as a lawyer he would urge Asian lawyers to aid those workers who needed legal aid.
Tariq Ali explained the aims
organisation. I hope', 'that this will be an organisation which will struggle for the solidarity of all black
We look forward to the day that all black workers
organised one organisation and the PWA will
explained that self-organisation was one important way of combatting racism inside the working class.
It is when white workers beein to see that hack workers
capable of self-organisation, but can in many
lead bruce. tor trade-union rights and against
the widespread racism which exists and which will grow with
At the conclusion of the meeting, resolutions opposing the immigration laws and ex-
solidarity with political prisoners in Pakistan were unanimously carried.
Workers from different fac-
to build the took membership recruit more sup-
The formation of the PWA is a small first step. It will be at-
many including Ganeral Zia's embassy, priests
pay, and the reac-
But it will be a step that workers will giving Pakistani their own
Further information can be obtained from Abid Shah, Con-
PWA, c/0 ALKAYHAM Cafe, Stratford
CONSTITUTION AND STATEMENT OF AIMS OF THE PAKISTANI WORKERS' ASSOCIATION
TENS of thousands of Pakistani workers toil in the different sections of British industry. We work in the car factories in the Midlands and in London; the textile industry; on the buses and in the underground; in engineering and on the railways and in numerous service industries (such as Heathrow Airport).
We face countless problems. workers we are subjected to the everyday exploitation of a capitalist system in crisis. But the fact that we are black makes life even more of a grind. The bosses deny us our rights in many factories and get away with it because of shopfloor racism and because the unions refuse to act on our behalf. The failure of the unions to wage a fight against racism within their own ranks aids the bosses because they can divide the workers on the basis of col-
Many of our fellow Asian workers are organised in Indian Workers' Associations (IWAs). organisation which can help us combat the problems we confront in everyday life. We have no one who can help us to organise our strength in the unions in order to fight exploitation on every level. That is why we need our own organisation
The aims (slightly abbreviated): 1. The PWA is open to all Pakistani workers regardless of caste, creed, or colour. 2. The PWA will support all those in Pakistan who are fighting to free themselves from the chains of capitalism and the fetters of Landlordism. 3. The PWA will fight against any harassment inflicted on our community regardless of the form it takes. 4. The PWA will fight for the right of our children to learn their own languages in schools. 5. The PWA will fight within the community for equal rights for women. It will make a special effort to recruit women trades unionists to the PWA.
A full copy of the constitution and statement of aims can be obtained from Abid Shah at the address given above
Together with white We have no
— the Pakistani Workers' Association.
Page 15 scan of this page
- THE DIFFERENT
UNDER REVIEW
Skip Laszlo talks to drummer
MAX ROACH
THE first black drummers to arrive in the
Americas did so without their instruments. The
white slave traders saw the drum as a rebellious
link with Africa.
But the heirs of those slaves have been hit-
ting and tapping out the censored sounds ever
since. The distinguished career of jazz drum-
mer Max Roach spans five decades and yet the
musical e..ablishment has ensured his obscurity
outside jazz circles. A musical radical, he is also
politically outspoken.
'We have oppression of black people, you
in Britain have Ireland, it's the same thing —
imperialism. Most people believe the '60s was
an isolated period, but it wasn't. The USA will
always produce Malcolm X's, WEB Du Bois,
Marcus Garveys and Martin Luther Kings. Just
as American society is very stubborn about
preserving oppression, resistance keeps being
generalea.
In the middle of his set at the recent
Bracknell jazz festival Roach appeared on stage
with only two drum sticks and a high-hat (foot-
cymbal).
itself brought rapturous applause, was preced-
ed by a lesson in politics and music history. Slavery
'This instrument was added to the tradi-
tional drum kit by Jonathan David Samuel
Jones and if you figure how an
American got a name like that you can begin to
understand what slavery is all about.
'He was part of the legendary Count Basie
band that took New York by storm all those
yeurs ago with a music called
whatever that is.
what.'
Earlier, before his set, we had been talking about the role of jazz, how each innovation of style was attacked only to be accepted years later - often after the leading innovators were
LETTERS
Front's West Brom fiasco
THE attempts of the National rronto use lae mass unemnovment of the Midlands to spread their racist poison with their rusalobs tor kritish workers' march ended in fiasco on 17 August
Aller danker Dans nao been imposed on five towns, Martin Webster announced that he and kwu yours reis would march through to the unemployment office in West Bromwich.
When he arrived in a red corlina ne was surrounded by waiting anti-fascists chanting 'No nazi scum in West Brom'. He was told ov the cher constanle of kirmingham that he would be arrested if he marched and had to leave to the cheers of the anti-fascists.
Anti-racists then broke the blanket ban and marched up the high street to the unemployment office. One arrest was
I he main NF march, number co more læ so cook nace through Nuneaton under heavy police escort. It was constantly who had managed to get through the police road blocks Front were stoned and after a man produced a shotgun outside a Duu allu til catclica tue nas.
ANL secretary Paul Holborrow was among those arrested.
PM GRANT, London
SC - about time for a change?
THE statement in Socialist Carence v v ano ne relaunching of a new-style SC was enthusiastically received by IMG members, supporters and occasional readers of the paper in our aica This was especially so afte
the most popular comment was 'about time
We" _come une naive •i the editorial board, and would like to put forward some of our
His solo on the instrument, which
Afro-
'swing' dead Revolutionary music that's
right up own proposals which we feel
would greatly improve the paper.
On language and communica. tion we would like to see a more
sensible balance between very lecnnical sounding and high scor ing 'scrabble' words and ordinary spoken English.
This or full of working class snobbery to some comrades but we believe i lo oc a lundamenta error o
• What's the use of spoiling some excellent articles them unintelligible to the readers?
lI we can't communicate with our readers through our paper we might as well sell the Beano halisiatta into coloe burea
In general we feel that for the paper to be : used effectively as a gutine socialist baber to win trade union militants and others to revolutionary politics it has to break with the theoretical journal image.
We find that not all our considered errors can be attributed to the editorial board. Many SC sup-
ourselves included ale equally gullty or not sending reports, articles, and so on.
or comrades with very little previous expenence we pernaps tend to exaggerate SC's deficiencies. But we would certain! uke to near trom other branches or individuals on what they feel about our paper.
BOLSOVER IMG
Historical
misrepresen-
tation
IN HIS article US Workers Need a Labour Party' (14 Aug), Ball makes several errors when he aescribes ine mistorical develop ment of the labour movement in this country.
Just cook aline ne-uo or forces at the 1900 Memorial Hall conference in London which saw lic cicallon oilse taDour Representatial Clammittee (the forerunner of the Labour Party) sows cicarly indianey were anything but the forces necessary *to build an independent class parThe platform comprised a valiy ul labour
'Jazz has always been under attack, from the days of Buddy Bolding,
to today. Bolding because he improvised. In the '20s they had 'race' records and decent people weren't supposed to listen because the music came from by making
Liberal MPs and their supporters in the TUC leadership, the Fabian Society, the Independent Labour Party, the Social Democratic Federation (which pulled out of the LRC the following year), plus the trade union leaders of the new unions John would also have us believe that 'the leaders of the ¿laue onlon concress wanted us. til the last minute to form a political party'
branch anachronise view dron
correspondence to what took place al ine turn or the century.
Sections of the TUC leader. ship fought tooth and nail against ty' with prophecies more in keeping with the Old Testament than ine trade unions But this view was defeated not only at the TUC ycal perore me Memoria hal meeting, but at the meeting itself The main supporters of the move to found une Labou Representation Committee (which became the Labour Party in 1906) were the new ultions (Malch
John makers, Shop Workers.
Workers, Dockers, Gas Workers), not the con spirators waiting for a last minute deal from Downing Street I certainly think it is valid and essential for us to generalise, to draw upon the periences or allerent working class movements internationally.
But I would urge John Ball and others who contribute to Socialist Challenge to be more correct in their historical representation.
TERRY HAIG, Bristol
DRUMMER
before Kid Ory,
was criticised
over the Word
democracy. Tories Hit
Pensioners
This would
but bears little financial policy
per cent in November conference, the and f6.15 for a couple.
cent.
Ross MP:
, Transport
and value of the
couple.' (Hansard, 29 July) wealth of ex
usual. The delay will save the government £65m, but it will ficant call • worse off. In other words, pen-
Black people who weren't "civilised"'
'It was an outlet to protest at the indignities Jaced by black people. Now it frees people all
'Politically I see jazz as the natural music of
European classical music is the music of imperialism - a conductor and a A FEW weeks ago, Socialist Challenge drew attention to the Tory government's attack on children and young people. But Thatcher and her crew do not discriminate on grounas or age when it comes to attacking the
Old age pensioners a song to ve lara ml as a direct result of deliberate goverment
quite apart from sharing in the hardships causea by culs in wellare anc social services, hospitals, etc.
In his last budget, the Tory earners. Chancellor announced that pensions would be increased by 16.5
- an increase of £3.85 for a single person
• lilaliva is currently running at 21 per
What does this actually mean?
Reg Prentice gave the answer in reply to a question from Ernie
'On the basis of maments line relal brice in under threat. dex from Dec "79 to June '80, the
pension has fallen by 11 per cent from £23.30 to £20.99 Ior a single person, and iron £37.30 to £33.61 for a married
But this is not all. This year pensioners will receive their an- elderly poor. nual micrease two weeks later than
•ocusioner beg t 4d
sioners will be contributing that
Led and debated like in a meeting. you can have no "Bach is God"'
Telling the truth
the Count Basie Band in the '30s. establishment.
This 1950s album
Garvey.' after that piece
'bonus' of £10. Even Scrooge relented during the festive season!
Last year, when pension in. creases were linked to either prices
or wages (wnichever was ine greater), the Treasury
underestimated the annual ingovernment realised this, despite a Words fail me wen une
moral obligation to make good
the shorttall of 50p a week t couples and 35p a week to single persons, they cold-bloodedly decided not to do so
Government policy to break the link with earnings and to relate pensions only to prices will tion (see
result in an ever-increasing gap between pensioners and wage
Supplementary pensions will drop to tne basic pension rate Single pensioners will lose 40p per week and couples 50p. Lump sum payments and launary adounons are to be reduced and it will be more difficult to claim them
ale value or lne week in validity Pension will be reduced and now the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act
wilch oro vides for help to the disabled, is
Local authorities are now permitted to charge pensioners on suppiementary benents for nome helps. Several Tory councils (e.g Barnet and Redbridge) are already them impostig tnese charges, wnich constitute a brutal attack on the
Tory immigration laws make it harder for elderly dependents to join their families in Britain while the Social Securitv Ac makes it an offence for an elderly dependent to claim the noncontributory benefits. The resull
Socialist Challenge
composer rule the rest of the musicians like slaves. In jazz an idea is presented to be discuss-
"This music lets each generation speak', Roach continued, listing a succession of tenor saxophone players. 'A Coleman Hawkins (the first great saxophonist) doesn't mean you can't have a Lester Young and he doesn't prevent a John Coltrane. You got Louis Amstrong but
'Leonard Feather (guru of the white critics) attacked Billie Holiday's last album "Lady in Satin" (1958) because he said she didn't sound like she did when she was 21 and playing with
But I love that album, it tells about her life, her loves, her emotional ups and downs, her feelings. Jazz allows you to sound 50 when you're 50. When you are 19 you should sound 19. Jazz allows you to tell the truth — be who you are'
By most standards Roach should be rich and famous today. Along with Parker, Dizzie Gillespie and others whom non-jazz fame has eluded, Roach innovated 'Be-Bop'. White imitators of the style can be found regularly on Parkinson and other late night TV shows. But Roach not only kept innovating but he also made the link with Africa and his stand for civil rights too obvious to be ignored by the musical
Down Beat magazine praised the music of
Garvey's Ghost as being 'heroic and grandiose,' but insisted this was 'oddly at variance with what is known of
His remarkable album, made with singer Abbey Lincoln, We Insist, The Freedom Now Suite, recorded in 1961, contrasted American slavery with the emerging independent nations of Africa. The black civil rights party, The Freedom Now Party, is said to have been named
'This music that always challenges the music, challenges society.'
is poverty and starvation and is anomer campic or lne racism which is implicit in Tory philosophy.
Charlie Van Gelderen, London NW11
As Valerie Coultas knows perfectly well, I did NOT say in Beyond Fragments that I was opposed paign being a national organisa Socialist Challenge 27 Aug). I never have been In giving an historical account of the debates which occured in Essex Road Women's Centre ir 1975 1 wrote that many women were suspicious of national struc was a problem for us:
Feminists often felt that any Hallulla campaleung structure gave women in left groups an ad over them, in terms of determining policy, as they were more experienced in that form of centrally organised politics.
I did not say • wilar Iny own Dos on was ne denare ! described was clearly around problems of working in national , not about te impor tance or otherwise of building
1 all genuinely snocked anc disgusted by Valerie's distortion and misquotation Not only was Ins a personal allack, ll was also an attempt to discredit the whole 'Fragments' event by a jourHansul manucuvre reminiscent oi the columns of Woodrow Wyatt.
Words fail me.
Lynne Segal, London
3 September 1980 Page 15
Page 16 scan of this page
Socialist Challenge
r. Published by Cardinal Enterprises for Socialist Challenge, 328/9 Upper Street, Lonaon N1. Printed by East End Offset Ltd (TU), London E2
FOUR HUNDRED people lobbied the TUC Congress as itopened, demanding action in the fight to save jobs. The lobby attracted delegates from South London, Scotland and ingham. steelworkers, public workers and unemployed youth were a reminder to delegates that passing resolutions is not enough.
The TUC campaign for social and economic advance is now one year old. In that time unemployment has risen to 2 million. The aim of the campaign is to force the government to change course and to implement alternative policies.
With unemployment radical policies are needed to save jobs. Unfortunately, all that the TUC nas done is to re-arrm us exisung strategy of putting pressure on the governme.
Despite the massive increase in unemployment, the size and strength of the TUC continues to grow. year a record 12 million workers are affiliated. The fight to save jobs starts in the factories where the unions are strongest.
That's why the lobby was so imJUltalll. Angry steelworkers from Llanwern challenged delegates from tue steer amons who had negotiated the loss of their jobs. timised civil servant brought a large contingent from the Brixton dole office — recent scene of mass picketing.
Organise
Both the Communist Party and the Socialist Workers Party mobilised their supporters, and the Work Campaign lobbied support for
march to the lorv ference on 10 October. a united aim that the TUC must
and lead the fight to save jobs.
At a packed fringe meeting, Stuart MacLennan, a conference from the civil servants' CPSA, spoke of how the Tories are trying to use unemployment to break the organised working class. Ray Davis, a steelworker from Llanwern, why the TUC had not supported the Welsh TUC's attempts to organise strike action in defence of steel and mining jobs. Michael Boulter, convenor of Hackney. maximum unity of those opposing
Unemployment is the major issue facing the unions. The trade union leadership want to wait for the next Labour
unemployment. By then hundreds of
thousands more will have lost their jobs.
The fight must start now. The enemy is the Tories - and when they come to Brighton they I have a warm
reception from the mass lobby on
unemployment.
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whole response asked the Employment Act, Murray
Thatcher. Even that is likity
to be denied him.
. BOC, called for launched
'economic and vance' une coveramcat must change course'. pressurising the Tories has gọt the TUC precisely nowhere in
to solve that time.
Even the perennial friend of the labour oureaucrals. week to comment on what a pathetic the TUC currently has
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"FIGHT FOR JOBS"
TORIES
AS THIS week's TUC has unfolded it has become obvious that Len Murray and the union tops are absolutely devoid of ideas ab sut how to fight the Tories.
Faced with the most vicious anti-working class government since the war, with unemployment in real terms at more than 2½ million, Len Murray increasingly resembles a frightened rabbit hypnotised by the Tory cobra.
the membership, figures and a man like Murray, who gol job through a meeting working in a Congress House. Oched is campaign for BUT THAT
TIVE DOES EXIST. It was call disl spelled out last week by two under the slogan of Labour MPs. policy Welsh Ogmore, pointed with a huge Tory majority in parlament Daily Mirror, the Tories on bred on n Tories was moved last TUC to call a general strike against Tory policies. and inept leadership Dennis that the
That an alternative exists, of the Polish workers pointed
the way to fighting the Tories TUC in this country. Powell and
DEMANDS TUC LOBBY
NO TALKS
WITH THE
Skinner resiste man vital
the lorie
anti-working mass brought down.
pathetic TUC
never occurs to
decades of back : room at
ALTERNA-
Ray Powell, MP for the constituency
out thạt
needed
He called on the
argued 'wondertul example Invest now for
the future
ONE person who has
their last few months usefully is
John May from Swindon.
others took their summer break
he was organising a sponsored
'dry out' of himself
money for Socialist Challenge.
Saving money on booze
raising it for a worthy cause is
something more of our
should consider! Going without the
inessential now might prevent us all
from having to go without what is
essential in the future — our weekly
Socialist Challenge.
to our
are infinitely more
There is nothing to talk to
All C determined to pursue their
class policies. fought with
industrial action and
To fight for that means fighting against the timid and
misleaders of the
DULE
QUEUES
NEWS
contributors who helped us out this
over the next month if we are to meet our fund target of f2,500 spent Thanks this week to:
W Hoff While
to raise
and
readers
on 359-8180. regular
ABOVE Dennis Skinner MP, who pointed to the 'wonderful example' of the Polish workers to the craven approach of the TUC to the Tories.BELOW: The lobby delegates urging a fightback against the Tory attacks
SAVE STEEL
SAVEA
BEGGAR MACOREBOR: ® •WO STOP WELSH STEE Anon week, but we need a lot more support J May
(Dry-out)
MB
Total £1.95
Socialist Challenge social &
second-hand books/records sale
SATURDAY 20 SEFTEMBER CAXTON HOUSE, St John's Way, Archway, London N19 From 5pm till late.
Socialist Challenge is still collecting books and records for the second-hand sale. If you can donate any thing or help in any way, please contact Yvonne
which greeted TUC STEEL
WORKERS
20.00 10.00
5.00 C Van Gelderen 20.00
66.95 Cumulative Total 322.76
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