Socialist Challenge No. 82, 8 February 1979
The scan: sc-n82-feb-8-1979.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 UNION LEADERS BACK INCOMES POLICY DIRTY DOZEN
A 'social concordat'. This is the phrase being used to describe the new deal being negotiated by the Labour government and the TUC.
The background to the talks is strikingly obvious. * The Ford workers, then the lorry drivers, smashed the 5 per cent policy. * Low workers are showing they have the power to do the same. * Labour's election chances with its present policies have almost reached
Photo: JOHN STURROCI point.
And yet, 12 trade leaders have chosen this time to raise the white flag.
These published a document entitled 'The Better Way'. In it they suggest that there should be a
Photo: ANDREW WIARD (Report
Photo: ANDREW WIARD [Report)
incomes paid public sector FRANK
ROY workers)
TOM Yanising WOrKers union
dozen' have
Grantham
NO SURRENDER TO THE
They try to pretend that this
policy would 'voluntary' but then go on to suggest that it be policed by a new Prices and Incomes Board and the TUC.
Who signed this document? The names are:
LORD ALLEN (shopworkers) JACK BODDY (farmworkers)
CHAPPLE
TONY DUFFY (engineers)
GRANTHAM (clerical
JACKSON
LEIF MILLS (bank staff) BILL SIRS (steelworkers) KEN THOMAS (civil servants) SID WEIGHELL (NUR) TONY CHRISTOPHER (Inland Revenue staff) GEOFFREY DRAIN (NALGO)
Some of the 'dirty dozen' (from right, clockwise): Lord Allen, Tom Jackson, Tony pheighell, Geoffrey Drain, Soy Frank Chapple,
Bill Thomas, Terry Duffy.
LOCOZ CHE: CC 010U6
be
(elec- adopted,
(postal Any
placed
and Labour Party.
little fear They would Christo-
Ken
No 82 8 February 1979 15p
The danger is that a majority of the TUC General Council will now follow these gentlemen's example - that the talks now taking place at Downing Street will result in a series o attacks on the right to strike, the right to picket, and the right to fight against low pay.
But whatever policies are
whatever the talks produce, the General Council of the TUC has no right to go back on conference decisions.
'concordat' must be before the labour movement, organised through recall conferences of the TUC
Let the workers decide. One prophecy can be made with
of contradiction. not decide in favour of the dirty dozen.
Photo: CHRIS DAVIES (Report]
Page 2 scan of this page
Low pay: Dragging Labour into battle
EDITORIAL
Socialist Challenge, COTOSS 8180/9. 01-359 8371.
A better way
for capitalism
counts.
"voluntary'. democracy.
moderation. against trade unionists involved in struggles.
the Duffy-Boddy
they accept the
A recall TUC to
support for all workers engaged in struggles.
General Zia's
choice
Pakistan is over the Bhutto trial.
government they want through a free general election.
alternative to the present set-up.
The ultimate choice will be
taking place. Whatever choice Lia
future.
If you agree with these principles and want
to be involved in activities by Socialist
Challenge supporters in your area, fill in
the form below and send it to us.
* I am interested in more information
about activities in my area.
* I would like additional literature and
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Send to Socialist Challenge, 328/9 Upper
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Socialist Challenge 8 February 1979 page 2
328/9 Upper Street, London N1.
Distribution/ Advertising THE document entitled 'A Better Way' is remarkable on many
It is signed by twelve members of the TUC General Council. The document thus reflects the combined intellectual weight of Terry Duffy and Jack Boddy amongst others. It represents a sharp attack on the current policies of the TUC and the Labour Party in that it rejects free collective bargaining and comes out strongly for an incomes policy — albeit one which is
Let us just pause for a moment and imagine what would have happened if the TUC and Labour Party conferences had voted for an incomes policy and then a minority on the TUC had published a defence of free collective bargaining. All hell would have broken loose. The entire media would have denounced them as antidemocratic'. Labour Ministers would have publicly taunted them and the general theme for weeks would have been that the left hates
But when decisions are taken by one trade union conference after another against wage restraint, and sanctified hy both the TUC and Labour Party conferences, then all scruples disappear. Duffy, Boddy, Weighell, Jackson, and co. are the voices of
Acclaimed by the 'popular press' and feted by the government, they are the voices of collaboration. For them the only future open to British workers is one whose horizons do not extend beyond capitalism. The way they propose is certainly a better one for the present economic system, but not for those who are among its
The fact that the TUC dirty dozen have taken the initiative in this fashion should come as no surprise. The Labour leadership is desperate for a concordat with the unions before the elections. This document has already been used by Callaghan as a wedge
It needs a reply. Clearly the militancy of the low paid workers is
most eloquent response, but much more is needed. The
grouping needs to be confronted politically. The bulk of the TUC leaders are incapable of providing a reply because
essence of what their colleagues are saying. discuss the present crisis and alternative solutions would be one arena where those in favour of the class struggle could put forward their positions and win THE Supreme Court of Pakistan decided, as was expected, to uphold the verdict of the High Court and confirm the death sentence on Zulfigar Ali Bhutto. The fact that it could do so only by a margin of 4-3 is, in itself, a reflection of how deeply split
We have no sympathies with Mr Bhutto's brand of politics. But we are nonetheless totally opposed to a military regime hanging him or any other civilian politician. In these situations we can only demand that the people of Pakistan are allowed to determine the
If Zia hangs Bhutto, the country will fall apart in years rathe than decades. There will be enormous pressure on him to Bhutto live, not least because of the situation in Afghanistan and Iran. However Zia also knows that Bhutto alive is a permanent
made outside Pakistan. It is in Washington and Saudi Arabia that the serious discussions are
uitimately compelled to make, the realities are overpowering. Pakistan is a state without a
By John Ross
AT ITS executive meeting last Saturdav. the National Union of Public Employees discussed the question of disaffiliating from the Labour Party. It is not an idea that executive members have dreamt up; various NUPE militants have raised it.
And SCCHIS resolution along these lines will De some one conference in the spring.
The policies of this Labour government make such antipathy to the Labour Party quite understandable.
When, in government's disgraceful policies, a Labour Prime Minister urges scabs to cross picket lines, contempt TOT leadership and everything stands for IS response of any militant.
But for NUPE to disaffiliate from the Labour Party would be a disastrous mistake.
Millions of workers still see the Labour Party as their party; at least to the extent of voting for it, as do the overwhelming majority Quite rightly, they know that the Tories have nothing but propose hatred for the unions.
This is why would be such a mistake. By Colin Smith
WELL OVER a hundred people attended the Socialist Unity conference last weekend, including towns where candidates will be standing at the General Election.
The conference Socorro Ramirez, presidential candidate for the class struggle
UNIOS elections in Colombia, recount the experiences campaigns in Peru, Costa Rica and
As Bob Pennington, national organiser of Socialist Unity, said in his opening remarks: "Elections are millions of politics. The revolutionary left
afford opportunity to talk to those wno are Labour Government and are
revolutionary socialists are:
1
THE FIRST WORD
NUPE
says
that pursuit of the
the Labour it the healthy of union militants.
disaffiliation And it
Election opportunity
This was member of
from not to stand Election and urged
SWP heard position.
the recent
of electoral Mexico, Colombia class struggle.
This can working
time when people discuss Campaign this NUPE.
disgusted with
OUR POLICIES 2
Capitalism is in crisis. The leaders of the Labour Party and the trades unions offer solutions that are in the interests, not of the workers, but of the capitalist
Socialist Challenge believes that the two vital tasks confronting
* To build broad-based class struggle tendencies in class-collaborationism in the labour movement. These should be non-exclusive in character grouping together militants holding a wide range of political views. * To begin to fight for the creation of a unified and democratic revolutionary socialist organisation which can, through an application of united front tacties, begin to be seen as an alternative by tnousands or workers engagco struggles
Such an organisation should be based on the understanding that:
The struggle for socialism seeks to unite the fight of the workers against the bosses with that of other oppressed layers of society black people, gays — struggling for their liberation. This socialism can only be achieved by creating new organs of power and defeating with all
cessary means the power of the capitalist state.
LENDIN
LOW
PAY
(A)
UP
It would aid Tory influence and infiltration in the union.
would cut NUPE strike militants off from many of the
pay Party.
looking for an alternative.'
echoed by the Socialist Workers Party, who regretted the decision of his organisation
claim Socialist Unity to continue to fight for taking place.
reconsider
the discussion it for an emphasised that the aim of the Socialist Unity election campaign was not simply to promote a socialist alternative orgramme, put to promote tic
be achieved by with the many independent campaigns, and helping to build left organisations in the unions such as the
for Action in
The conference also agreed to make Ireland a central theme in the election campaign.
opposition to - women.
tendencies.
NUPE
says 5%
insults
the Low
Pai they people whose solidarity is now needed for the public sector
A different course has to be urged on the NUPE leadership; that of using its membership to carry the campaign against low
deep into the Labour
They should call for every section of the Party - from the National Executive Committee, to each and every branch -
support the public sector
and organise solidarity with the action now
They should demand that Labour Party funds are used
CALCHSIVe publicity campaign in support of the
• REPRESENTATIVE
Pluto Press, independent socialist publishers, are seeking a representative for London and the South.
The successful applicant should be energetic and able to work independently. Salary £3,800, plus expenses and four weeks' holiday.
Apply in writing, with full c.v. to Pluto Press Ltd, Unit 10 Spencer Court, 7 Chalcot Road, London NW1 8LH. Tel. 01-722 0141.
Our socialism will be infinitely more democratic than what exists in Britain today, with full rights for all political parties and currents that do not take up arms against the socialist state. The Stalinist models of "socialism in the USSR and Eastern Europe have discredited socialism in the eyes of the millions of workers throughout the world. We are opposed to them and will offer full support to all those fighting for socialist democracy.
The interests of workers and capitalists are irreconcilable on a world scale. Capitalism has not only created a world market, it has created world politics. Thus we fight for working class unity on an international scale. This unity will in the long run he decisive in defeating both the imperialist regimes in the West and the brutal dictatorships they sustain in Latin America, Africa and Asia
In Britain it implies demanding the immediate withdrawal wi_British-troops from Ireland and letting the Irish people determine their own future
The Communist Parties in Europe are in crisis Euro-communist nor the pro-Moscow wings have ans meaninglul strategy for the overthrow of the capitalist state. socialist parties are more necessary than ever hefore. Conditions Inday are more favourable than over the preceding three decades. But such parties van only be built by rejecting sectarianism and seeing internal democracs not is d luxury but as a vital necessity. This means the right to organise factions and
workers' demands.
It is a battle that needs to be centralised. A call by Alan Fisher an emergency Labour Party Conference to repudiate Callaghan's policies and support the public sector workers would meet with a real response EO IB the LaDOu movement.
Such a conference could help initiate the fight in the labour HOVC LICHI for socialist policies and a new leadership. National government?
IT WAS Thatcher's bash the unions speeches which commandeered the headlines last week, but Liberal leader David Steel and former Tory premier Edward Heath also look-in with their appeal for a National Government.
The partnership is not new. Ever since the miners' victory in February 1974, Heath and Steel have considered that neither a Tory nor a Labour government could defeat the rank and file strength in the
With that sole aim in view,
want to unite the mai political parties in a National Government. Then a straightforward Tory government could take office to carve its way through the working class.
Historical precedent helps support such a plan. The last National Government, in 1931, savagely cut wages, reduced unemployment pay, and slashed what then existed by way of social services. It led to the largest Tory majority this century.
The plan has some support in the ruling class. But most City opinion is hoping that Thatcher can use Callaghan's attacks on frenzy of public opinion to frenzy of 'public opinion' allow an openly anti-union Tory government to be elêcted
Neither the
Page 3 scan of this page
HOME NEWS
LAST THURSDAY, Labour (sic) Prime Minister Callaghan launched attack on striking low paid workers.
This time his target were
hoto: JOHN STURROCK
THE DECLINE in the NHS is graphically illustrated by one set of statistics the number of hospital beds in England and Wales.
The shocking decline reads as follows:
1949: 501,078
PRIVATE HEALTH SERVICES Estimated expenditure within.
Photo: ANDREW WIARD (Report
19 19
ACCORDING to Nye Bevan, the aim when the NS was introduced in the late 1940s was
make free health Care *available to the rich and poor alike.
That has turned out to be a very false promise indeed. The graph illustrates the expenditure in private health services.
The simple fact is that if you can afford it, you can get high quality treatment as quickly as you like.
But if you are not so well off, this is the verdict of a recent
National Health Service
The real killers,
the real vandals
strikers at some Jim hospitals. Said Callaghan: *It is not acceptable that sick human beings, whether they be adults or children... have proper attention 1974: 420,972 1978: 403.682 Not surprisingly, a rise in the number of DELUS followed the decline in beds.
Those figures are: 1956: 404,176 1976: 607,141 Independent Hospitals
NHS Hospitals
Private health as a proportion of NHS expenditure (2)
survey in the Financial Times: *Poor people are even more likely than richer people to die [early] now than they were 30 years ago'.
The fact is that, despite the NHS, Britain spends especially small proportion of prouuel health.
In 1975 it spent 5.3 per cent - lower, for instance, than that of the USA (7.4), Sweden (7.3.), and West (6.7).
London bidden to them.'
Callaghan went on to brand the strikers as 'vandals'.
There is one adjective which should can used for- Callaghan's remarks: sick.
There are available which tell how many people have died, how many people have attention forbidden to them' by the massive cuts in government spending on the Health Service in the past five years.
But one observation can be
Three weeks ago some 80,000 low paid workers through the streets of London to demand a living November 1976 mately the same number were also on the march.
They were protesting against Labour's cuts the National Health Service. Many of those who marched in November 1976 were the same as those who marched three weeks ago. has And since 1976 it has been
low-paid workers doctor to the Daily Mirror.
an
bedsprings.
The doctor was describing
Germany
nave Slee Sune Labour's cuts.
Sore have to discribe
no figures demonstrations,
fighting had "proper health service.
the job.
story. Since 1974 the marched cent, wage. And approxi- kers.
especially in training
way to in the Health Service survives.
CALLAGHAN has accused the strikers of being 'vandals'. Listen to this description of an event in October 1977 as it was given by a
"They literally ran into the hospital...and put the patients in wheelchairs. They broke up the beds with hammers and took away
*They left beds overturned and blankets, mattresses, chairs and flowers were scattered all over the floor'.
Hospital in London was forcibly closed and when patients were physically removed from their beds.
Once more the reason for this piece of real vandalism was the cuts in the NHS demanded by the Labour government.
IF THE Labour government and the Whitehall planners get their way, the decline in the NHS will get even worse.
For instance, although there has been a marked decline of available beds in the London region, the plan is to accelerate that decline and to cut a further 21,814 by 1986 — just under a third of those now available.
And London are already forced to close their doors on occasion because shortages, Labour plans to cut 24,000 more jobs in the London NHS region by 1986.
The conclusion is as obvious as is the slanderous nature remarks: Defend the NHS.
That, for a start, means defending and supporting those taking industrial action now; industrial action aimed at securing a decent wage for the lower paid and at saving the NHS from collapse.
THERE Upper North National Health Service who
fight against bookshop. occupied hos- Left pitals threatened with closure, country are others have gone on scores of DCEWCCH
SONe have valuable taken strike action. They were
then for a decent LICWS DaDCIS
They are fighting for the the same today. They know that part of rebuilding a decent This health service is paying those who work in it a decent rate for
One example tells the whole
son, pated be of i paper
compared non-manual professional wor-
And the consequences? Last
and year 8,000 fewer nurses took ur
compared to 197 LOVCHICH
That is why a living wage for British people' all those who work in the health service is not just the quick simple way to end the present wave of strikes; it is also the
ensure the National
Free to lican 'publications
Provos.
instance, Socialist Flame.
sell Big Flame. what happened when Hounslow
British
probably bulletin
with an organisation,
although many hospitals in
Trotsky's
of
Callaghan's
that
News
nowhere
Rising Unfree
IS a bookshop Street, Islington, London, which goes under the title Rising Free. aspires to be a "libertarian'
bookshops in this few and far They provide service for the distribution and purchase of
journals and books which the monopolies in
book and newspaper business refuse to stock.
includes newspapers glad like Republican News, which this week merges with the other Provisional Sinn Fein BECWS paper An Phoblacht (good luck and all the best with the new
Editorial Board)
But Rising Free has decided not to stock Republican News for political reasons, on the basis that the Provisionals are fighting on a nationalist basis
consider the British and expressions of the will of the *was
Rising Free also suggests that the Provisionals' ideology 'is a form of national socialism'.
This outburst came after the Christmas bombing campaign own. launched by the Provisionals in England, which caused Rising
stop stocking RepubNews or any other which have previously given support to the
Those who have offered such support in one form or another include a rather wide spectrum of the British for
Challenge, Worker, and Big
So what is Rising • Free's attitude to these papers? They don't stock Socialist Challenge or Socialist Worker but they do
But when we pointed out to a Rising Free spokesperson that Big Flame also supported the Provos, we were told: "That's right, they'll have to go."
So Big Flame will soon be added to the censorship list. But that is not all. The same spokesperson added that the Islington Gutter Press would be looked at pretty closely, that local alternative paper has given regular coverage to the anti-imperialist struggle
But the collaboration in the
LOVCHCHES CHICS sion of Republican News is not the only feature of management policy at Rising Free.
They also said they would
banning the the Committee Against Repression in Iran, because CARI had a dispute
obscure left-wing the Spartacists on a recent demonstration. reckon CARI will go too', said the spokesperson
Last summer Rising Free prominently displayed a poster advertising a 'celebration'
assassination. seems that their peculiar brand
libertarianism' is now almost indistinguishable from the methods of Stalinism Mac High places LONDON's homeless allowed a wry smile at the news
Centre POInt, SEne unoccupied office block
from
central London, may be listed as a building of architectural
There is a particular irony here. It was the Centre Point scandal which prompted legis-
La penal rate building kept deliberately empty and the rating of empty buildings.
But buildings listed aS 01 architectural merit are exempt from empty rates!
Friends in high places? Lady N
know that College, Oxford, is ending its 700-year men-only policy in 1979. They will be less pleased to learn of the chauvinism in the college's annual record for 1978.
It includes an obituary of Lady Julia Namier by Maxine Berg, the first recipient of a research fellowship (sic) in history founded by the Namiers.
Lady N, the obituary says
known English academic circles through her marriage in 1947 to Lewis Namier (a well-known rightwing historian, ed.). But she had a past and a life of her
Although born in Petersburg (Leningrad) in 1893 of wealthy parents, Lady Nand her first husband, a Tsarist diplomat, were enthusiastic about the revolution.
Both eventually fell foul of Stalin. Her husband was executed, and Lady imprisoned. She left the USSR in 1934.
And what of her life with Sir Lewis, the man whose biography she was to write? Over to Ms Berg:
*She played a part Namier's research by learning to drive and chauffeuring him about the country in his search for archives. Her aristocratic presence also made her success at many of the country houses, and she thereby cleared the way for Namier's access to family papers."
An ironic comment on thi wretched role is not to be found in the obituary.
Chairman Mac
THE DELICATE palates of the Chinese masses are due for
shock. The delights of Chinese cuisine are well-known. What is less well-known is that, while no-one starves to death, there is a shortage of food.
A recent demonstration by peasants in Peking demanding food illustrated this point rather aptly. So the comic operas staged by the Society for Anglo-Chinese Understanding (SACU) in Britain will soon be needing a new script.
To get back to the story: the Chinese government has just negotiated deal with MacDonald's Hamburgers. From now on the citizens of Peking, Shanghai, Canton, etc., will be able to enjoy Big
and the odd quarter pounder. Milk shakes will also be available.
But where will the milk come from? Unanswered question And what about the peasants? They could alwaysorganise night raids!
Socialist Challenge 8 February 1979 page 3
Page 4 scan of this page
Leyland - a mess of the unions' making
Low pay
suffered a sharp decline since that time.
anything else.
By Patrick Sikorski
Despite the vicious anti-union campaign which is being conducted by papers like the Daily Mail and the Sun and TV programmes like Nationwide,
here is growing support for
stal strik
Rank-and-file anger greater than it was four years ago. This can be seen in the actions of ambulance -CTVeTS and hospital porters, sections of workers not well-known for being infiltrated by 'reds and Trots".
At the same time evel bourgeois opinion polls reveal a greater public support low-paid workers than other section of workers. This support is so far untapped.
The advantage gained by the rank-and-file vis-à-vis the union leadership and the government is of immense tactical importance.
This time the claims of water, local authority, and hospital workers are running together.
They have united 1¼ million workers around the claim for £60 and 35 hours. This was a victory won by union members at last year's NUPE conference. It was and remains the best way of winning the full
The union leaders SaUnCR supporters of Labour government. They perfectly aware that an all-out strike would ruin Labour's electoral chances. However, the best way to avoid the strike is to force the government to concede the claim. planned for this Friday.
in December over parity payments.
Leyland.
By Geoff Bell
In a full page advert in the Financial Times of 6 December 1978, BL management spelt out what the now disputed agreement was all about.
After listing what the offer involved - essentially a 5 per cent increase and towards parity in the different plants the advertisement emphasised:
"All of this is being paid for
- not by the government or customers but productivity in the form of demanning and increased outpur per man.
•Unlike some productivity deals, this one will only be paid
Socialist Challenge 8 February 1979 page 4
The case for
all-out action
THE LAST time public sector workers fought back against low pay was in 1974. Their real wages have
An all-out national strike would get the workers the £60 and 35 hours they are demanding quicker than
Not for our union leaders.
They are prepared to go along with the government line and be satisfied with a few crumbs.
They hope that these crumbs will satisfy enough workers to enable them to accept government deal.
At the same time it will divide workers from each other something which neither government nOr the leaders have been able to do so far.
The government efused to budge from its 5 pe ent offer. It then realised tha it was too close to election time to fool around and it has now offered a 10 per cent deal for for local authority workers and a any are h AN ALL-OUT stoppage at British Leyland
The unions claim management has failed to honour an agreement made
In fact it is the union leadership which is primarily responsible for the loss of earnings now threatened at
and when the production has been delivered."
Management are now claiming that this extra production has not "been delivered". cite the lorry drivers' strike and the strike at the Drews Lane LOISISSOI plant mingham last November as the move reasons for the failure to meet the production target.
Consequently, they say, the company will not pay parity wages for November December 1978. extra have also asked that January and February payments deferred until March.
Grenville Hawley, time official of the Transport and General Workers Union
/ package of up to 17 per cent for water workers.
This offer is being grasped by the union leaders. They hope that they will be able to divide stronger sections from the weaker ones in this fashion. Hence they favour strike actions.
But such actions sufficient to win the claim. Militancy alone cannot win the day. Public sector workers are scattered in tens of thousands of hospitals, depots They can be united by an all-out strike and by democratic - the organisation of strike commitunion tees. In this way the stronger
militants will be able to help weaker sections. initially NUPE
looked for ways of mobilising all their members for action and answering barrage of media propaganda. The workers infinitely more caring than the was responsible for the negotiations that with Leyland, has said that the
union side were misled b management into signing the December agreement.
But BL made it very plain at the time that higher tivity was necessary to fulfil the parity obligations extra Rather than being "misled"
the union negotiators must be faulted for not spelling out in detail what the They involved when they recom-
Amended acceptance through a secret ballot of all Leyland in Bir- workers.
When cune offer made, Socialist pointed out that the parity ANCCICBE had financing and described the
and offer as 'a raffle ticket'. Management But others were only too
keen to
be Particulariv to the fore was
shop stewards chairperson and the full- Communist Party
Derek Robinson.
At a mass meeting at the
10.30am
1 pm eagerly
SeleCuVC
are not
and controlling services through strike schools and mittees, the
worlers can win
deciding what should not go through picket lines.
leaders have not
the constant media
and would also prevent Robinson
produc- Such agreement
Virror agreement
efficient, concerned liable. was first Challenge
to be self
The
promote the deal.
BL's member
1. Rebuilding the Left in the Unions Sat 17 Feb.
The Minority Movement and lessons for today (Rich Palser)
Building left tendencies in the unions (Patrick Sikorski, plus peaker from Ford Group, STA, Workes CAN)
The organisation of workers' struggles (Pat Hickey, plus speakers from public sector struggles).
callous hypocrites of the ruling class and its press; a thousand permanently times more humanitarian than the pathetic Minister of Health
Ennals. By monitoring agreed by emergency compublic sector to scab. without a How, singh: life being put in danger.
The lorry drivers did it by
should and the Was there starvation in the cities due to food shortages? Were millions committees, laid off as predicted? No, it was all a morbid fantasy of the
Workers' control of hospi- public support.
ambulance depots manage- SeCtO * TEMPORARY Longbridge plant in November, he described those opposed agreement. to the deal as 'the lunatic left, workers the Trots and their henchmen". themselves
insisted: 'We are situation. prepared to be reasonable.'
support for the has won warm
praise from BL's boss Michael
Edwardes, who commented in a recent interview in the Daily
*If anything I would say that the Communist shop stewards in Leyland are among the most
ana lc
The 'reliable' leadership of
Robinson, Hawley and others
entrenched has now landed BL's workers in the worst of possible worlds.
December agreement limited wage rises to 5 per cent, il pleagea une umon to accepi 7,000 redundancies, and now it first
has enabled management to
postpone parity payments.
workers are to
extricate themselves from this
mess, it is obvious that the first
SOCIALIST CHALLENGETRADE UNION DAY SCHOOL
2. The Trade Unions and Eastern Europe Sun 18 Feb.
10.30am
2 pm
The Soviet
Venue: Starcross School, Risinghill Street, London N1.
Admission 50p per day, or 75p tor both. available.
ment taking the opportunity to
close wards whole hospitals
The emergency services code
Fisher, Spanswick and Ennals must be thrown out. It is a management charter
then. can further support be won for the strike? Flying pickets can be sent out to get support from other public sector and industrial workers
Through local trades coun- the cils and strike co-ordinating
one-day area general strikes of the broad labour movement can be called to mobilise trade union and
The general strike of public
workers in London's
REFUSE
RECEPTION
CENTRE thing that has to go is the
Otherwise would soon find in a Catch 22
If they strike against the postponement of parity payments, then the resulting loss of production would allow man- the agement to put off paying up even further; but if they don't strike, there is no way Leyland will backtrack
Apart from the future of the be.
WHILE the presses at The Times remain silent, the print and journalist unions facing an
OSTEEE OVC HCY technology have produced their own version of the Thunderer
The Times Challenger
Planned to be a monthly, the
16-page issue CORZILS reports and opinion columns from chapel officials and union leaders on the fight against Lord Thomson.
What policy for the unions (Oliver MacDonald)
Repression in Czechoslovakia (Jan Kavan)
trade union group (Vladimir Derer)
The case of Rudolf Bahr (Gunter Minnerup)
Creche/accommodation
| East End, called by the ILEA
district committee for
February, excellent
example of this
There are indications that the
10 per cent offer by Callaghan
to the local authority workers
will be extended in thenext
week to the hospital ancillary
workers
There already an
agreement between the union
leaders and the government on
basis for long-term
comparability deals.
All the elements of a sell-ou
are present, but the initiative is
still very much with the rank
and file. The strike spreads
from day to day. Building now
for all-out action can win the
full claim.
EMERGENCT KHUN
...!! agr cenicul, now be taking a long hard look BL workers will
both the participation' machinery which promoted this agreement and those on the union side who spoke up for it A new fighting leadership is needed at BL. If the events of past few months prove anything, they prove that Derek Robinson and his allies have never been that fighting leadership, nor do they want to
Funded from labour movement advertising, 100,000 copies of the paper have been produced.
Several articles raise the issue of press freedom, and this will be one of the themes of an open conference on the challenge at The Times to be held by the NATSOPA print union Saturday 10 February, 2 to 5.30pm at the "Y' Hotel, Grea Russell St, London WC1.
Page 5 scan of this page
social workers
Tyne and
Wear
By Elsa Conway NUPE member, St Nicholas Hospital
CARETAKERS in Sunderland, refuse disposal workers in the whole of Tyne and Wear are out on strike. Most of the hospitals are being hit various forms of industrial action and only selected roads are being gritted.
union co-ordinating committee has agreed to grant concessions those where the elderly, sick, disabled might be seriously а естес.
Meanwhile NUPE's local authority branch strike committee is organising a petition of support and a financial appeal.
The Campaign for Action in NUPE held a meeting Newcastle on 31 January. Approximately 25 people attended and speakers included a nurse, a teacher of the mentally handicapped, and a school student.
In an attempt to stem the obvious tide of militancy in the area, it has been rumoured that private firms are being hired to remove dirty linen and provide linen skips in strike-bound hospital laundries.
Oxford
By Anita Richards Area supplies department, Oxfordshire hospitals
ACTION has been taken in Oxford by almost every section of public sector workers, with a policy of "patient care only being applied in the hospitals for two days this week.
The Churchill sector joint shop stewards committee, which I'm on, has ensured that control over emergency cover is in the hands of the unions taking action.
This makes it much more difficult for management to persuade mose remaining on duty to scab on those taking action.
A resolution to the NUPE hospital branch for all-out aCL01 has obtained backing, but branch chairperson has rerused lo allow it to be discussed.
Members could do worse than follow the example set at Oxford Polytechnic. NUPE steward there failed to build for the 22 January day of
He has since replaced prepared to lead the struggle.
Brent
By Hugh Lowe ASTMS member, Northwick Park Hospital
WITH overtime bans working to rule as the main form of action by health workers in Brent, management is seeking retribution prevaricating over bonus and overtime payments.
It has not been amenable to deals. When NUPE offered to provide cover at the Central Middlesex Hospital if management agreed to close two wards, this was turned down.
Local management has also refused to implement a national agreement on engineers While the Department of Health
has issued instructions that local aureement hours for lab technicians will not be recognised.
Teeside
By Alan Theasby
THREE hundred public sector
workers picketed the Minister when he Thornaby Teesside Friday.
He had been invited by lan by Wrigglesworth, Labour MP and secretary
Group.
Callaghan was due to lunch at Middlesbrough town hall but areas NUPE staff there refused to and serve him, and he was forced to eat at a private hotel.
Sine public sector committee refused to NUPE officials to have lunch with the Prime Instead pickets handed him a bundle of hundreds of wage slips so that he could see the in level of their take-home pay.
The public sector workers were joined in their protest by WOTHERS from Wrightson engineering firm in Middlesbrough, which threatened with closure. Manchester
By Martin Collins
THE 'VICTIMS' of the public sector dispute in Manchester, even those who have crossed picket lines to bury relatives, have made clear on phone-in programmes that they
support the aims of the strike.
The extent of public support full ise officials. surprised the
in hands presently decisions about who stays in and who comes out. They are
used to involving membership
When Eve Bryczowski, shop steward in housing branch, proposed that
meetings of should co-ordinate the action, the full-time official to the fact that only 50 turned out for a low pay rally last
Members of the committee were amazed. Many of the branches had received the mailing after the rally. wide The far left in Manchester has come together in a £60-35 hours campaign, producing a public leaflet to counter media coverage and a bulletin for the unions on building the strike. The We are fighting UHHORS to SChemes and keep been membership informed.
Southampton
By Steve Ferris NUPE member Southampton General Hospital
THE UNION leadership at this and hospital followed Fisher's advice of supposedly harassing management through working to rule and lightning by walkouts.
has increasing frustration the members, not least because the tactics create more work for them WHeN they HOTHe routes
Staff have yet to have the opportunity to decide on strike action.
Supporters of the Campaign for in NUPE arguing for such together with the election of a strike committee and weekly mass meetings to plan the pay campaign.
Prime
visited Minister.
Head
is Press Officer Islington NALGO
The scheme adopted by a 2:1
dead meeting on 26 January has been
Tavoured BEne leaders since last November. been rejected by the social workers,
union who saw it as unclear
whose potentially divisive. rest the workers in 14
continuing their strike.
The offer the demands for locally negotiated settlements, and there is no
NUPE's
pointed Hackney 1
district
By Nick Beeton
THE TRADITIONAL friction between students, teachers, and NUPE staff lessened at education college as a result of the students' ability to swing support sector dispute. for the
The students' union at the
such
the college has been very weakly organised, principal called the students and staff together to persuade us that we should feel free to CrOSS Ine NUPE picket line on the 22 January day of action, the meeting came to the opposite conclusion.
As a former NUPE steward now doing a further education COLESC. was able to first-hand experience of the abysmal pay of public sector
Alan workers.
The outcome of the debate was that the students voted overwhelmingly to and the NATHE teachers
been who had previously been split among on whether to cross the picket
line — supported our position.
Hackney 2
By Ailean O'Callaghan are THE PUBLIC sector workers' action,
In Hackney, London, is being co-ordinated strike representing NUPE,
the Drain
of the Local Government Officers Union. some time despite this agreement.
groups of workers The deal grades
ASSIStANTS
consistently level.
cuts across their when they started.
and owe memoers
together in Hackney
the other unions.
colleges has
Hackney further
work to do.
behind the public
home-helps.
when the Minister photographed at the
caretakers by ancillary workers.
Emergency cases lowed during the strike, vital services to old
offer strike committee.
stay out,
By Anna de Casparis NUT rep North London
now due executive of
East to cross picker nues
committee GMWU
NALGO shows
SOCIAL WORKERS striking for increased pay and regrading have been told to accept a nationally agreed
negotiation framework by a special delegate meeting
It looks as though strike action will continue for
implemented locally in a way that is acceptable to individual
establishes five thret for workers and two for welfare
with very vague definitions of the role of each
The first of the three social workers" levels is more or less the same as the old national
After six months on terms. some may well find At themselves on the same grade as
Local employers have re-
- Int teachers first time these unions have go schools.
NALGO workers in the area have now agreed to do no work which will disrupt the actions of
The strike committee's plan so far has been to bring out only key personnel. Thus the refuse drivers are on strike but not the
between consequence the latter have no
Others on indefinite strike are boiler operators in public baths, sewage workers, and could be
Only a day after Health
David Ennals was Queen Elizabeth children's hospital last week, stroking the heads of babies a 24-hour strike was held By Mike Eaude
TGWU were aland people, such as meals-on-wheels, have liking of Ron been kept operating by the Transport
Bristol Teachers and pickets informing
Archway School,
WHILE a thousand schools were shut last week by public sector strike action, which is
escalate, the the National Union of Teachers has told us
They point to a statement by Alan Fisher that NUPE pickets would not attempt to stop
on the basis of this agreement, and there are fears that they are prepared to sit it out.
NALGO's determination to find a compromise deal rather than strengthen the strike gives obstmare councus, Ike towel Hamlets, grounds for thinking that if they refuse to make concessions then the strikers will eventually be forced back to work on the worst possible
the special delegate meeting, where social workers were greatly outnumbered by other local government repre- | leadership.
For pupils CHECHE A campaign is being
the instruction to scab
With the outcome of the 35 per cent pay claim that has now been submitted for teachers so closely tied to developments in the public sector, solidarity is of obvious importance.
Joint meetings in schools
NUT and NUPE members should be the first step and it needs to be taken urgently since any teacher who refuses to cross a picket line
victimised by our union leadership. Avon
A DAY of action locally on the public sector claim is not to the
Dagger, the Union's district officer for general workers in
He told a mass meeting of health and council stewards on 27 January that such action had to be 'confirmed nationally' -which wasn't simply a matter of
once but, according to Dagger, having the proposal vetted'
Although the union officially now. says it's up to branches to decide what action to take, it has refused to take any lead in linking the various sectors.
Ring Us!
WITH widespread industrial action among the one and a half the picket line
sentatives, the NALGO leadership's main argument for
effect of the strike on the
the summer, they claimed, for a fight against the 5 per
WOEKCES promise of any action in the summer. General secretary Geoffrey Drain is one of the signatone. of TUC moderates'. incomes policy statement.
As one delegate at the meeting said: 'NALGO ha: proved itself to be the Micke Mouse outfit that some of it members suspected.
What these events show is the long overdue need to organise a broad section of the membership in a fight to change the union's policies and its
million public sector workers, among others, we depend for effective news coverage on our readers across the country.
Send us the facts from your locality, together with ments from those lined up against the pay how they consider the battle should be conducted.
You can ring in reports on 01-359 8180/9.
Cheshire
Home
By Jane Coleman Liverpool Women's Action Group
THE BITTERLY cold weather has been making life hard for women on the picket line at the Leonard Cheshire Home outside Liverpool.
Sacked 11 weeks ago when they asked their union, NUPE to negotiate pay for them, there is still no sign of a settlement The hopes of the sacked women are now heavily dependent on the results of an inquiry set up three weeks ago
NUPE's threat to close dowr the home if the workers are not reinstated seems very hollow
The women have begun to lose hope of getting their jobs back and instead are demand. ing full compensation and the withdrawal of all allegations of cruelty.
The women have reduced their hours of picketing, but
fighting. They financial support and help on
Socialist Challenge 8 February 1979 page 5
Page 6 scan of this page
Snow White might get through
IN BRIEF
Defend gays from police harassment
By Jamie Gough
Frank Kelly, a well-known anti-fascist militant in Bradford, has been charged with buggery and indecent assault.
'Indecent assault' means any sexual act between two men one of whom is under 21, all such acts being illegal.
The man Frank is supposed to have slept with, Shaukat All, made a statement to the police naming a 'David' whom he has identified as Frank.
Frank denies that he has ever had a sexual relationship with Shaukat.
This case highlights barbarity unacl which people receive prison sentences for having fully consenting sexual rela tionships.
It also shows the barbarity of the immigration laws which give the police CHUHHHOUS
intimidate harass black people.
SUCHOISTE 2pm, meeting carpark
Hotel, Leeds Bradford.
For more information, contact Frank Kelly Defence Ctee, Gr Fl, 127 Thornton Rd, Bradford. 0274 22518.
Huntley Street trial restarts
By Piers Corbyn
NEW evidence against the police is coming to light in the trial of 14 squatters arrested during the mass eviction from Huntley Street in London last
Vigorous cross-questioning by the defence in court has led the police to admit that two police spies Nigel Wildman and Mary McClosky — lived in Huntley Street for three weeks prior to the eviction, posing as homeless squatters.
It also appears that tales of a "missile arsenal' in Huntley Street were also used to justify the scale of the eviction.
The Huntley Street Defence Committee are submitting
TUC Inquiry evidence one into the Special Patrol Group and the Special Branch Police.
The Defence Committee are holding a public meeting *Huntley Street state rehearses on February when they will detail the evidence gathered so far.
The trial starts again on Wednesday
rebruary.
Picket Marylebone Magistrates Court at 10am. There will be a
Theatre outside COUL
Public Meeting, Thursday 15 February at 7.30pm, Central London Poly, Bolsover London W1.
Fighting closure at Vickers
*HOWWAY the lads, howway Ine lads ...tnal was more unan a Geordie football slogan Friday, it was the sound as workers from Vickers Scotswood plant 3H1U Newcastle welcomed each new contingent from other Vickers plants to a massive march and rally to save the works from closure.
The march must have been over 4,000 by the time it reached the City Hall. After only two weeks campaigning the fight to save Scotswood is a major issue for the labour movement in Tyneside.
In the next issue we will carry a full article on the background to the closure and campaign.
Socialist Challenge 8 February 1979 page 6
here month'
Dave Stevens,
Anti-Racist Committee. By Rich Palser
the For the NF, of course, the
fact that Dave is an active long anti-racist is enough to qualify
him as "degenerate'.
But how he comes to be facing three separate charges of assaulting police and one of actual bodily harm after being arrested and demonstration last
rather better explained by the anti-racist pamphlet Support the WolverRd, hampton anti-racists.
The pamphlet is far than an explanation of Dave's case, though it leaves no-one in ally doubt as to should support the outside Stafford Crown Court on 19 February to demand the dropping of all charges.
It is a case study in how By Emily Grundy, Campaign Against the Immigration Laws
THE recent revelations about *virginity women trying to enter Britain pr the horrore ractices horrific permitted under the immigration laws.
The immigration laws as they discriminate blacks. The enormous cretionary powers immigration officials that this racism is compounded - in 1968 immigration officers
the
St, last
HOME NEWS
Wolverhampton: A
case study in racism
THE National Front's journal, Spearhead, carries a
regular monthly feature entitled Degenerate of the
racism manifests itself in one
anO how to overcome it.
The labour movement was either unaware or did not care.
One reply to an committee circular was from a Brother AUEW Supervisory Section: anti-racist *My members feel that if any March is racist policies practised in this country it is not anti-black but anti-white... why not a referendum on immigration.. more in early anti-racist committee decided to make it an issue in the labour WIV they movement. picket cessful demonstration, organised a labour movement
councillors, MPs, and trade unionists on the panel
immigration, but...
It Heathrow issued a publi atement of support for Eno Powell.
Discrimination against black CASIZIN they have finally made it tc
practices Police raids, passport checks, detentions and deportations are all too familiar, and the Select Committee against recommended more money for dis- "internal policing'. allowed Under the accused of being an illegal' immigrant can be held in prison and deported without trial or
'. Last June their selected 'degenerate' was
member of the Wolverhampton
hear the
Wolverhampton
organise to ment.
So overwhelming evidence Indian anti-racist
J Wenlock of the
confidence
are being language.
1978 the blacl people's
to confront Following a suc- racism they movement.
WILE HOCa being at the picket to rcoruary Just une orncial nigure As a result of
practice immigration must go on.
law someone
of the chief facets of
maras, Martial COT
SHEPPELD
evidence of racist MANCHESTER violence and police harass- Liberation
Abraham
was the provided by the Workers Association and the anti-racist committee that the tribunal concluded that Speakers:
police had lost the lan of the black MISTOR community due to fraudulent charges, brutality, and abusive
The work of the Wolver- accommodation hampton anti-racist committee is a practical example of hov
organisations can work with other anti-racists
oration) state racism and within the labour
Learn from them by buying the pamphlet, and help them by AUEW / TASS
19 Moss Side.
ight of appeal. On 30 Apri 1978 there were 249 people i British prisons held under the immigration Acts, and that is law
the outcry Immigration about virginicy tests and tne picket of the Home Office.
Merlyn Rees has now said the
will stop. The fight against the immigration laws information
It is not enough to campaign
tion laws. against 'abuses' of the system, we must realise that immigration legislation represents one
meeting on state
WHAT'S LEFT
5p per word. Display E2 per colum publication. Payment in advance. Deadline: spm paturday Deton
TURKEY: What's really happening? Moninly socialist bullet in crensnrascist ideology in turkey, Nantardl
Law, nuros big. Annu
JUST OUT: Revolutionary Socialism No 3, the journal of Big Flame. Articles include: the urban struggle in Spain, he new revolutionary politics in Ital art time women workers and th Abour market the incornoration of the shop steward movement. 40p from Big Flame, 27 Clerkenwell Close, London
Revolutionary munist Group bublic meeting struggle against racism'. Thurs 15 Feb .30pm, The Library, King Edward VI School, Glossop Rd, Sheffield 10
17 Feb, Women's day of workshops, films Moss. 10.30am to 5pm Creche. Adm: £1.50, E1 unwaged.
40 HOUR strike - 35 hour week day
DaT 10 Feb 10.30-4.30 cowane centre cowane otoni
Mcollant Martin Moss (POcU Dundee, NUm speaKe!
McDougall Society) contact: Gordon Love, 23A Wallace S
CHiLe camozion worker is lookino 1o
Norn Londol Phone Jerry: 01-272 4298 (day).
MANCHESTER Socialist Unity public
, and MObs SiDE socialst chanene
Speakers:
West, candidate, Rick Gwilt, TGWU and Cf Thurs 8 Feb, 7.30pm, Whalley Hotel racism and that we must fight for an end to the immigration laws altogether, not just for a
that slightly less obviously racist
The Campaign Against the
Laws (CAIL) was set up in June last year by a number of people involved in anti-racist activity to provide
with and WOLK organisations involved in the
We produce a Newsletter and will provide speakers for any
EOPLES Democracy benefit conce
rock band. Sat 1 Waterloo . 14 Bayliss Rd, Londo €1 (£2,50 for three) in advance from the
EDINBURGH Revolutionary Comhad Council Piano place, Not i month v public Struggle Against Racism.
RED LADDER,
(musical skils an averate potam a
Leeds 12. Tel: Leeds 792228. date 28 Feb
WOMeN ano heain - wnat are wi TontinG Tor A worksnoo organised to orine togetner air women concerner with the fight against hospital cuts and closures and me nont to control ou own bodies.
Information exchange for campaign. the politics of community care, racisn and health, preventior
SPARTACisT Leaque oublic meetint Deiend the Gains or october. erisrel ¡suom ar central Library, rielowa cres Molloway ha. London No
SPANIACIS Leacue Suoli Fri 16 Fel 021-4727726
SOUTH BANK Poly anti-racist week action Mon 12 Fe
Rotary St. Wed Racism gig with the Users and Crisi 8pm, 75p, Student Unior nationality
We call on ANL branches anti-racist and anti-fascist committees, women's groups, trades councils and trade union branches to affiliate to CAIL immigration in their areas, for Take issue example by campaigning around those held in prisor under the Acts.
For more information about CAIL and details of affiliation contact CAIL, Box 133, c/o Rising Free, 182 Upper Street, London NI.
•AWAZ says: end sexual harassment, no immigrafior controls', yelled
150-strong picket of the
Home Office last Friday.
Called by the Law Centres
Sub-committee on Race and Immigration, it was supported by numerous
black, women's and anti-
racist groups, including a
vociferous militant
contingent of Asian women from Southall. The picket was to protest against the forced virginity tests' at Heathrow airport.
Professor Huntingford, a long-time campaigner for abortion rights, point-
ed to the racism involved and said: 1 am appalled that any medical profession could aid and abet this imposition on the liberty of people in general and
women in particular.
CAIL have called
meeting for Fri 9 Feb at 7pm, Roebuck pub,
Tottenham Court Rd, London W1.
Page 7 scan of this page
Putting over the white, male, middle class view
Leicester Poly exposes AN ANALYSIS of a local paper's reporting of Ireland Bork undersieshaveto live and
IRELAND
By Liz Curtis
CENSORSHIP', said Denis
Lemon, editor of Gay News *is how other people in your name are protecting you from me.
He was addressing Theatre Writers' Union conference on censorship in London on 28 January. The TWU was spurred into calling conference because so many of its own members are falling victim to censorship.
The growing use of overt censorship during the last two cars or so especially in
- has led to a number of discussions among media workers. These discussions have mainly concerned television.
The Theatre Writers' Union wanted to bring together people trom all different parts of the
theatre, television, journalism, the visual arts.
Some 200 people attended, and the speeches both from the platform and from the floor indicated the high degree of concern InaT many media workers now feel.
And during the conference it became clear that this concern is not limited to overt censorship but extendsto the way the media present the world in general.
Speaker after speaker showed how whole sections of the population - Irish Republi-
1969г: L808T
print run of 5,000 copies.
Interlink director Peter Sinclair.
different finishers Interlink found a new excuse.
Interlink to censor the pamphlet.
Censorship and Ireland
Scans, gays, blacks, workers — are excluded from or misrepresented in the media.
This exclusion is achieved in a number of ways. Sometimes, as journalist Campbell and a statement sent the by Republican News editor Danny Morrison made clear, the state intervenes directly against those who reveal its the unpleasant secrets.
Sometimes the broadcasting authorities step in to ban or cut a TV programme. More than 20 TV programmes on Ireland are known to have been victims of such interference Open censorship is avoided where possible, inevitably leads to friction. But as Philip Schlesinger, author of Putting 'reality'
BBC news, put it, Ireland has presented a crisis for the British state and the British media, for the public system.' Britain is fighting an unpopular war in the north of Ireland — much closer to home Inan previous colonial Control of information is vital to the war effort.
But the media establishment cannot perenca on to toe the une because the repressive methods being used in Ireland actually conflict with the establishment image of Britain.
Inevitably investigative jour1979? 30p •
*British Soldiers Speak Out on Ireland' has proved one of the most popular political pamphlets for some time. Put out by Information on Ireland, the pamphlet has sold out its first
But now its printers, Interlink, have refused to print a second edition. A variety of excuses have been offered by
First he claimed that the printers' finishers had objected to the pamphlet, but when Information on Ireland found
suggested that pressure from other customers had forced
women, nalists begin to ask questions.
The authorities quandary. anowing me trumn through leads to awkward questions about the war, Duncan using open censorship exposes
the fact that the state something to hide.
control are Production staff are instructed to 'refer up' programmes on Ireland for vetting at high levels.
Deterred, they
suggest programmes -censor themselves Censorship can take other forms Elizabeth Bond cribed how, because company did a play about the
effects of asbestos, the multinational company involved put together DISSUIC 'Northern organisation,
Arts Council, which sacked the cast. and especially Playwright broadcasting told how a director
down her play about the effects of psycho-surgery. He did not even alter the script — he simply
wars. instructed the actress to 'act less
brain-damaged'!
Several speakers pointed out that censorship can be more subtle. Gays, blacks, Irish people and women are degraded through 'comedy' while their unle perspectives "justice-loving" shown.
In the interminable bulletins on strikes, strikers "just happen' International
week.
By Ailean O'Callaghan
A 55-page analysis of the Leicester Mercury's coverage of Ireland over the last ten years forms the core section of a report by a working elected by Leicester Polytechnic Student Union. 'We hope', provide the Leicester people with an awareness of the extent which they have continuously complete misrepresentation of the events in Ireland."
The that. Key articles and editorials in the Mereury covering major events such as the Civil Rights movement, the attack on the Bogside in internment, Bloody and so on are documented.
Not only are the facts of these Sinclair CYCLILS contrasted
Mercury's reports (which are systematically refuted), but the anti-Irish racism which
are In such
but
has
So more insidious forms of
and
brought European/British
Ultimately,
hesitate to they in control.
deswhen a theatre
the ruling class. tunding
the Pennines
on
Cherry Potter
Wale CO machinery
The committee
conference. even
never publishing
Ireland.
racist rag
Tribunal on
party for martyrdom'.
they say, "to the peace-loving
been exposea LO
foresee its bloody end. publication does just
August 1969,
Sunday,
with the
not to be interviewed about
what they are striking for.
circumstances not
even self-censorship is at work.
The media are simply churning
out a view of the world which
reflects the ideology of the
people who control and stest
West colonial,
white, male, middle class view.
Farrukh Dhondy pointed out,
what is heard depends on who is
At the sametime, the fight for
the right of the oppressed to
have access to the mass media —
as well as setting up alternative
means of communication - is part of the light to destabilise
The conference concluded by setting up a committee which aims partly to act as a pressure
sne unions and
ultimately the TUC (while some of the media unions have formal
for dealing with censorship, they rarely use it).
coula ac worse than start by publishing some of the papers given at the
Liz Curtis is a member of the Campaign for Free Speech on Ireland, which will shortly be
comprehensive pamphlet on the media and has been compiled. It is part of the work of the
Britain's Presence Ireland, whose preliminary hearing was conducted last
Mercury offers as an explanation of the violence is exposed.
For example, the day after RUC gangs first invaded the Bogside in 1969, the Mercury's readers were informed in an editorial entitled The Hate of the Irish' that 'the Irish seem set
It went on: 'It is difficult for
English to understand the forces that drive
aroused Irishman to self-destruction. But that is what is *recent happening. But now the killing murdered has begun it is impossible to
This, of course, makes it easy to explain away the role of the British army. In June 1970 the Mercury explained under they headline "Why We're There':
*Ulster bleeds and burns -and British troops see action for a special plea: which they have no stomach at all Northern Ireland needs Britain for economic survival, whatever we do there is not out of a belated sense of empire or modern power politics but out
for
of sheer humanity.'
The violence of the oppressed against the oppressor is treated rather differently. At thetimeof the first internment swoops in August 1971, in which dozens of Irish people died, the paper claimed that ordinary law was ineffective in dealing with the "ruthless viciousness of the
The latter, it alleged without substantiation, had committed
deLS of CECROSSIN in cold blood, people including young children, and put at risk the jobs and the whole future of entire communities"
Those who conducted the raids, however, and were later proved to havetortured many of those lifted, were the subject of
*Spare a thought today for the young British troops. They have but, just come through another ugly weekend in which they have been stoned and shot at...
"Amid this turmoil the young
work under siege conditions, be treated as mortal foes by a
section of the population, and yet conduct themselves in the
non-belligerent way specifie
service when rendering aid to the civil power.
When 'non-belligerent' para troopers killed 14 unarmed civil rights marchers on 30 January 1972, the Mercury found that the victims were responsible:
*The accusing finger of guilt again points the British Army, but the plain fact is that a march, which was completely illegal anyway, got out of hand
IRA doubt intended.'
These are just some of the indictments made by the working party which, incidentally, was elected by union general meeting and i accountable to ll
It is impossible to counter distortions without making clear why they are made and in whose interests. The report does both, and in so doing clearly takes the side of the Irish people
The working party is acting not as a neutral moral arbiter
as International Tribunal itself will, as prosecutor of British imperialism in Ireland and its agents in this country
Sociajist Challenge: & February 1979, page 7
Page 8 scan of this page
Exclusive interview with Hugo Blanc
PERU RE AND REP
INTERNATIONAL
Rallying
for unity
worldwide
By Davy Jones AT last Friday'S Rally Imperialism, the International Marxist Group Development Fund Drive raised £2.000.
Penny Duggan, from Central Committee, made the appeal for money, explaining that the theme of the rally was •Workers of the World
"That need not be an empty slogan: she said. "the Fourth International in a modest way is a living reality of that political theme.
The platform of speakers proved the point impressively from Latin America, Asia. Africa and Farope.
"Our Iranian comrades, she went on, have just distributed 20,000 copies of their newspaper magnificent, large collection at the Fourth International Anniversary rally last November helped to make this possible.*
She continued the wutlining the different objectives of the Development Fund Drive.
•We need more publications, just like nur Iranian comrades, to explain our revolutionary politics. And we need to build up our printshop in order to facilitate the production publications.
Another key area of the fund drive is to finance the construction revolutionary youth organisation.
•The Revolution paper has its own 14.000 fund drive and as part of the IMG appeal we intend to ensure that it gets every penny of that £4,000, she explained.
To date fund drive total has reached t5.787 with a further £826 in pledges to be collected.
Between now and May Day.
the fund drive closes, further national
events are planned
national Revolution rally and a large
May Day event.
Al a local level 1o0.
branch is organising
Tundraising event. And every
comrade and sympathiser is
asked to donate
wage or grant, to the Fund Drive
Appeal.
So. if you want more information
about the fund drive or would like to
make a donation.
coupon below and send to: IMG. PO
Box 50, London N1 2XP.
Name.
I enclose a donation of ... IMG Development Fund Drive.
the
(Cheques payable to The Week).
payable to The Week].
Corialict Challenoe
After the historic
Evian military Constituent stoppage CGTP (Confederación
was a failure. for this?
and conjunctural. be fired.
Christmas and
three weeks in advance.
8,000 (£20) a month,
Against masses were not used to.
has been very badly the IMG
trade union leaders
been in the Communists kept control.
CGTP is 'Unidad' faction
DESKETS
Stalinists.
stoppage?
Iran. The They
Congress
appeal by
government. called off on its second day.
of these government foster
follow the strike call?
will be constitutional road, having proven difficult.
in the strike? when
in particular a
IMG culmination at least one
IMG Frankly, being one day's income.
please fill in
La month, the now?
handing over
... 10 такс piacc struggles will Dage 8
general strikes of 1977 and 1978, which forced the Peru-
to hold elections to a Assembly, general called by the Stalinist-led •eneral de Trabajadores del Perú) on 9 January
What were the reasons
There were a number, both structural
First of all, the recession - the fact that 50 percent of the workforce is unemployed and those who have jobs are frightened of losing them. The strike was due to last 12 hours; anyone absent for three days or more from their workplace can, by law,
Moreover, the stoppage came after
New Year holidays when the workers are short of money. But most importantly, the strike did not come as the culmination of a period of intense struggle, after a wave of strikes, but was called for a date fixed coldly
The delay gave the government the time, which it used very intelligently, to take preventive measures: they raised the minimum wage by 2,000 soles to
they put out constant warnings on TV, they gave orders that troops could shoot to kill. It was a type of préventive repression the
Then, the working class movement
affected by the sacking of between 5,000 and 6,000
and cadres as a result of the July 1977 general strike.
Finally, there was a lack of unitary leadership of the strike, as there had
previous the
controlled by of the Peruvian Communist party, in other words, the
What W8S their real objectiye, in your view, in calling the
wanted to demonstrate their strength. The decision to call a general stoppage was taken at the CGTP Filth
last year. The stoppage certainly represented the PCP(U) chief card in negotiations with the military
But the stoppage was
To what extent did the fact that the military has agreed to hold elections soon and return power to a civilian
illusions in the masses and lessen their resolution i0
This had only a small effect, I believe. But now it is possible that the masses
resigned to following the other road
What was FOCEP's (Frente Obrero,
Campesino, Estudiantil y Popular) role
We supported it, of course, though we
had no part in the leadership of it. We
saw that the masses were willing to
fight, and if the stoppage had come as a
of strikes and
movements it would have succeeded.
we over-estimated the
conditions, failed to realise how much
the working class has been weakened by
the dismissal of the union leaders and
cadres I've already mentioned, by the
recession and also by the breaking of
the miners' strike last September.
This was a very tough strike, it lasted
miners marched
Lima — and finally the movement was
brutally repressed by the military. The
CGTP did not support the strike. That
fact has not been forgotten.
What are the political perspectives
The military government will be able to
move with more assurance towards
power to d civilian
government which will almost certainly
But the working class continue because the
economic crisis is going to continue.
Constituent Assembly was engaged on its night-long weekly plenary session. Shortly after the opening, the assembly moved into secret session to consider, it was said, relations with Chile after a recent Chilean spy case in Peru.
Before the end of the secret session, Blanco was able to leave the chamber, having denounced the presence in Peru of other spies — those of the CIA -to give this interview to RONALD FRASER
As I said earlier, however, as the elections approach and as a result of the strike failure, the masses are likely to become more electoralist.
In the Constituent Assembly elections last year, FOCEP, an electoral alliance of your party, the Trotskyist POMR (Partido Obrero Marxista Revolucionario) and other left organisations, won 12 per cent of the popular vote, making FOCEP the largest working class force in the assembly, and the third largest of all the parties represented. What do you expect in the next elections?
Less votes than last time, in truth. The bourgeoisie is not going to allow itself to be surprised twice in a row. This is no tragedy for us. FOCEP is a group of militants with a following of half a million voters. We haven't been able to
enlist all of them by any means.
An electoral campaign is useful as a means of educating people,
particular, for us, of achieving our
major aim of reuniting the Trotskyist
movement. We have recently been able
to reunify five separate groups into the
new PRT (Partido Revolucionario de
los Trabajadores).
THIS interview with HUGO BLANCO took place on the evening of
23 January in the Parliament building in Lima where the
were the reasons?
Sectarian elements demanded,
strategic concepts be shared
That is quite a different matter.
There.
wrong by changed.
are unable to accept.
Do you see the possibility
and in PST?
members of the two organisations.
To achieve this required a split with your former party, the PST (Partido Socialista de los Trabajadores). What
in the PST condition of POMR re-unification, that not only should PONSE
- quite correctly - but also tactical concepts
The formation of tendencies is not understood in Peru as it is in Europe. The idea that the majority tendency can determine a tactic which is accepted by other tendencies does not exist easily
the
The tactic, of course, may be proved
it must then be This implies a flexibility in tactics which some elements in the PST
of further reunification? With the POMR or the
It will be easier with the POMR than with the PST, I think. We do not have behind us the years of rancour and dispute that bedevil relations between
We are much newer here, and als have been working closely togeth FOCEP. Our militants are use collaborating, For example, i assembly session that's taking pla this moment. Ricardo Napuri ot
speaking behalf
Has the concept of the consti assembly providing you with a pol platform from which to educat masses proven effective? No, it hasn't. Not directly, in any since virtually nothing of what is s
assembly reported government-controlled press. But have been other political advant Parliamentary immunity, for on
Let me put it plainly: a memb this assembly enjoys just abou same rights as an ordinary citize bourgeois democracy. No more
If it hadn't been for this immur would have been deported twenty already. Instead of which, we have able to organise and address me of 10,000 and more people.
The people listen member of the assembly for he their eyes, an authorised spokesp
Page 9 scan of this page
CESSION RESSION
And so, outside the assembly, been possible to use membership to reach the masses, government's servility.
Then, there is the fact that the left party offices are not constantly being searched and smashed by the security forces. In a country where a typewriter
importance.
As far as concerned, membership of the Human Commission of the assembly has meant that 1 have access to prisons etc. to investigate conditions.
The Commission has the right to investigate certain other areas as wel. When two students were shot by police last year during a demonstration, we were able to talk to witnesses and authorities - but not to the policemen wno nrea tne talal snots.
Has the left been able to curb any of the excesses that the right has tried to write into the new constitution?
No, the left has not been able to shift the constitution by a milimetre.
it has Popular Revolucionaria to denounce the the largest
assembly,
accepted the determined fight
Considerab e
Ine vote will be my Rights decided yet.
moment. electoral alliance with Democrática Popular), the
Iran second to FOCEP?
An electoral alliance is a
with any parties
However, the fact that APRA (Alianza
Americana), bourgeois JAIL in the if not the PPC (Partido Popular Cristiano). appears to have
revolutionary left's to ensure that dence illiterates should be given the vote, must be considered a victory, surely.
Well, it would be if we were sure that
given for the next elections. But this has not been finally
Let us return to the next elections for a
FOCEP MAKE UDP (Unión electoral front dominated by Maoists and which
strategic alliance, not a tactical one. We make tactical pacts, join in common action rule.
which share our parncular lacucal aim at any moment.
But elections are different. They are concerned with the question of power and, in consequence, imply - even if
only symbolically - a strategy.
We refuse to create illusions in the masses that the bourgeoisie will permit us to take power through elections. We stand therefore for an electoral unity which strictly respects class indepen-
no alliance with bourgeoisie.
Many sectors within UDP tempted by such alliances. remains to be seen whether such an electoral pact is possible.
The bourgeoisie would, of course, like to take over FOCEP which it sees as an easy prize. It will try to do this by infiltrating those who believe in class collaboration. We shall, remain firm on this principle as we have
The betty bourgeoisie has STOWE Peru under the ten years of military
Their role in a revolutionary strategy seems to me important, if not determinant. What is the PRT's policy towards this class?
The revolution will be made by the working class in alliance with the peasantry and the poor urban petty
bourgeoisie.
The petty bourgeoisie is a very broad
class in Peru. It ranges from individuals
who are poorer than industrial workers
to those who are relatively well off -
from the street vendor to the smal
businessperson.
The former category
only to walk down some of the streets in
Lima to observe
numerous and lives
precarious existence. It and other strata
of the poor petty bourgeoisie stand, in their great majority, shoulder with the industrial workers.
They have a profound hatred of the government. they joined massively in the previous general strikes - though to a lesser extent this time - and by their presence in FOCEP's base committees
When Popular People's Defence Fronts have arisen, the petty bourgeoisie's
has always been noticeable
Where the proletariat has dominated the proceedings, the higher strata of the petty bourgeoisie have moved out; but where this has not been the case, the petty bourgeoisie, including the higher strata, has taken over the Assembly.
These assemblies and fronts have BESCHI specine locannes specific conflicts and have disbanded once the conflict has been resolved. We, of course, have tried to ensure that they continue in independent organs of struggle, but so far without success.
Does the impoverished petty geoisie share all the working class's revolutionary aspirations?
No. They don't agree with certain types of working class struggle and slogans. For example, the proletariat's taking over factories, workers' control. Strikes, on the other hand, are much more attractive to them.
Does the PRT recruit among this class?
Of course. Our base is in the working class and poor petty bourgeoisie in the shanty towns around Lima and the provincial urban centres.
We have so far not recruit widely amongst the peasantry. The latter, by and large, community organisations union organisation. for a political organisation.
They accept me as a peasant union leader of the Campesina del Perú), and if 1 raise the cry, "Viva FOCEP!' they will echo it, but it's no more acknowledgement, I know.
What about factory organisation?
The PRT has factories. The trade union organisation tends to predominate parties on the factory floor. There is a greater fear of carrying out political work in the factory than in the shanty towil
The loss of the 5,000 union leaders and cadres I've referred to has had a serious impact. The working class has been weakened, numerically and in its the combative capacity, by these sackings and the recession. are It thus It would gonear that the terrorism which threatened your life last year has diminished. Is this correct?
Diminished, yes, international campaign, but it has not ceased. A PC-ML has been denouncing in the assembly however, that he received threats during the strike, that papers and a briefcase in his office were burnt with acid. It is very important that the campaign continue.
One final question. If the bourgeoisie "slipped and revolutionary left to win election, what would happen?
The bourgeoisie will never allow us to take power through elections. would be an immediate military coup.
you have
this very
extremely
an
shoulder
We know this because
Assemblies
participation for majority
during
exIStenCe
First, bourmental.
The
the slogan of
of lan omit. reinforced by and social crisis been able to the have their and trade They see no need
the need CCP (Confederacion
liberation larly urgent. than verbal
committees
over political
Day.
to
way in
thanks to the
constituent deputy
international
allowed
the next
There
Zimbabwe
month
of action
planned
FOR A SOCIALIST AFRICA
By Our Foreign Staff THE 85 per cent vote among whites for the draft Rhodesian constitution has surprised even lan Smith's most loyal followers. The constitution claims to be controlling white minority in parliament and retains all the apparatus of the present settler state.
This assured its victory in last week's referendum, but such a large majorit provides interesting evidence of how Rhodesia's whites are thinking.
it shows that the new constitution changes nothing funda-
Nearly a year of transitional government involving former nation. alist black leaders has shown that white racist capital has nothing to fear from integrating tame black leaders.
less intelligent ultra-right sections of the white community have accepted the result as proof of final defeat. The leaders of the Rhodesia Action Party and Save Our Nation announced their intention to wind up their parties and pack their bags.
Secondly, the result shows the deep conservatism of the white community in sticking with the familiar leadership
This innate caution is the escalating military - as we reported al length last week the white army is losing
war with the Patriotic Front guerillas and the social fabric is tearing
With elections to the new 'majority rule parliament taking place in April.
for solidarity with the • struggle becomes So the decision of the Anti-Apartheid Movement National Committee to name March as a Month of Action on Zimbabwe is timely.
It plans three national events:
March Zimbabwe Action
* 17 March, Zimbabwe Day Public Meeting, organised by ZAPU, one ol the Patriotic Front organisations
* 21 March. Zimbabwe Fundraising
The AAM has the following aims for the Month of Action:
to mobilise political support and material aid for the Patriotic Front;
expose the continued collaboration between Britain and the illegal Rhodesian regime;
* to campaign for the extension of sanctions to South Africa as the only
which sanctions against Rhodesia can be made effective:
to expose the 'internal settlement" and reveal the true nature of the "transitional government' in Rhodesia
There is just one glaring omission from this list. With the collapse of the Smith regime imminent. there is an increased possibility that imperialism
particularly British may try to salvage the situation by military means
The solidarity movement should be under no illusions that a British military intervention could be positive, an activity against it should be an integra part of the campaign. national ehers in the Month of ation Further details local Charlotte Stret. London A1.M. Pul are available from the AAM, list will appear in the March issue of Anti-Apartheid News.
Socialist Challenge 8 February 1979 page 9
Page 10 scan of this page
Down with Bakhtiar! Yes to workers' power!"
ISC replies to Socialist Challenge
Trotskyists
publish
Bill of
Rights
By Steve Potter
A PRESS conference which took place in Tehran on 22 January heard the proposals of the Trotskyist Socialist
Workers Party (formerly Sattar League) for ending United
domination country and for the immediate election constituent assembly.
Reporters from virtually all
foreign media were given copies of the constitution that the proposes for adoption by such a constituent assembly.
Entitled 'A Bill of Rights for the Workers and Toilers of Iran', the draft maps out how
struggle for democratic rights, against imperialism and against the repressive apparatus should be waged.
capstone of programme for the constituent assembly is a workers' DESAILS of a government of property-owning class.
The press conference
by Professor Zeyott Obrohimi of Tehran University. Other speakers Babak Zahraie, editor of the weekly Payam Daneshjoo, poet Reza Baraheni, Javad Sadeeg, Parvin Najafi and Nemat Jazayeri, former executive secretary of the US-based Committee for Artistic Intellectual Freedom in Iran.
Speakers stressed the need for building a mass socialist party. Such a process will entail the revolutionary Marxists Iran, including the Trotskyists publishing Che Bayad Kard, a paper produced in Iran.
* Details the conference and the Bill Rights can be found in the latest issue of Intercontinental Press/ Inprecor, 30p plus postage from PO Box 50, London N1 2XP.
SOCIALIST CHALLENGE
PUBLICMEETING
The struggle forsocialism
in fran
Speaker: Steve Potter
8pm, 16 February, Conway Hall, Red Lion Sqare London WC1 (Holborn tube)
€ ‹Eritrea film FOR THOSE who are horrified at what is going on in Eritrea and for anyone else there will be a showing of the film Sawrana, shot in Eritrea, at the Scala, Tottenham Street, London WI, on Sunday 25 February at 1.30pm.
There will be a discussion afterwards. Invitations have been sent to the Soviet and Cuban embassies, as well as to sympathetic journalists, such as John Pilger.
Socialist Challenge February 1979 0989,10
INTERNATIONAL
By Steve Potter
THE Iranian youth went from demonstrator to demonstrator feverishly showing pictures of atrocities mitted by the army in Tehran. The photographs everyone who saw them that repression goes on in Iran and need for SWP solidarity remains as strong as
Never.
The 2,500-strong stration, which took place last Saturday London, organised by British organisations, Iranian student organisations grouped in the Iran Solidarity Campaign and the the Committee against Repres-
sion in Iran and was supported and the National Union
Students. the After speeches from repre-
sentatives of these organisawas
tions, including the joint far left statement reprinted on the back page, the demonstration's WErE
high point came as it passed the American Embassy venor Square. The 500-strong CARI contingent in particular shouted slogans 'Carter! Callaghan! Hands off and Iran!" and 'Don't make Iran
another Vietnam'.
At the Iranian which was massively protected by hundreds of police the whole demonstration shouted *Down with Bakhtiar! Yes to workers' power.'
BBC reporters who attended press of the demonstration were evi-
dently Gear since described on the news as proKhomeini, despite the complete The Iran Solidarity Campaign replies to Socialist Challenge. THERE are a number of points we would like to UDOI regards Challenge's contribution, the tone of which makes it sound like a joint statement with the Committee Against Repression in Iran
1. You write that 'a number of Iranian student been involved in CARI and left because they disagreed with this orientation' (i.e. toward labour and STUCCHI movements Britain).
The Confederation of Iranian Students — National Union - was in fact a main founder of CARI and many of its members contributed greatly building Marxist Group members London, Manchester Sheffield can confirm this.
On the question of orientation we refer you to the draft platform of the ISC. not because of orientation, but because of a right turn on the side of IMG and its Iranian
on us their political positions. 2. It issurprising to see that you suddenly think that the slogan
Polaroid
reminded
international
demon-
was left
of in Gros-
including
Embassy
absence of religious slogans.
The demonstration had was large majority students on it, showing the lack of appreciation within the left important, because the IMG and its Iranian supporters was the only
touch opposed 'clarifying the role of
Socialist imperialism including
imperialism in CARI's manifesto, April 1976).
This point has been forgotten since we left CARI and even until recently activists of CARI argued that slogans like Death to the Shah', groups have Shah's Regime
imperialist slogans were not the ones around which mobilisation should take place and therefore in must not be raised. the struggle in Iran or the prospect of isolation in the solidarity movement must have made you change your position.
toward As regards the exclusion of a International CARI speaker from the rally at
the end of and demonstration (by biggest ever held in Britain on the question which you did not even bother to We left,
report), distorted to an unbelievable extent by the people who claim to be agamst disincanon Prior to the demonstration we had been denied the right to announce it on two occasions (the Fourth
IRANIANS on the demonstration in London last Saturday.
whole of Iranian the Imperialist Hands off Iran' is | Fortieth anniversary rally and
CARl's public
organisation which
British Iran' (from whether to
La deafening "No'
speaker 4. You *Down with the and anticoalition of groups called the ISC',
vague ponical Dasis militant mass ISC'.
More biased
agreed around
the ISC far read.
of Iran so lar,
the event has been the only
supporters International. 5. It seems that WaLCE
International's
and the labour movement as a
strategic role which Iran plays in maintaining
network of imperialist exploitation in the
meeting) and although we do not believe a solidarity rally to be a place to settle political differences, we asked for the feeling of the rally
allow CARI speaker to address it, and it was
which took away the chance for a CARI
Wole nat -ISC *is confined to organisations of a particular point of view', 'loose
Iranian student gates SSA delegates questioned the
COT the
statements.
There are different viewpoints among Iranian student groups their in the ISC, but we have all
the draft ploitation. platform, which is quite clea (3) SC and could not have been labelled vague when it had not even been
The point you make though does apply to CARI, in which
Iranians are the of the Fourth and identity
you always religion down political differences. We suggest that you stop asking people to join organisations with whose politics they e) the right of
for
be DOING
larly key area of the Middle East
At its Steering Committee next day, CARI saw bringing this awareness to the labour disagree ('We suggest that the SWP and ISC...actively partici pate in building CARI...').
Wesuggest that you recognise unity.
ISC platform
DRAFT for platform of Iran Solidarity Campaign':
(1) ISC supports and propa-
the demands of the Iranian DeoDle for the over throw of the Shah's dictatorial regime and a complete halt to Imperialist domination in Iran.
(2) IS defends the struggle of the Iranian working class for
democratic rights and on all of ex-
supports all the democratic rights of Iranian toiling masses including a) the right of nationalities to self-determination b) the right of ethnic minorities for preservation of their culture
c) freedom of ideology and
for organising independently fight for their liberation
socialists
movement as its main task over
the next few months
After the affiliation of the
National Union of Students to
CARI, a joint speaking tour
with the NUS will be proposed.
Meetings held with Liverpool
and Hull Port shop stewards
committees will aim
culminate with the affiliation
of the National Port Shop
Stewards Committee
Other trade unions will be
contacted to provide support
the workers' struggles
continuing in Iran. There will
launched
throughout the whole labour
movement for the
withdrawal of logistical and
maintenance aid for the Shah's
At the same time CARI will
propose united action on the
lines of last week's demonstration to all other forces active on
the question of Iran, particu-
the ITantar students
grouped in the Iran Solidarity
Campaign
There will be a full discussion
of the situation in Iran and
wildl Can be done in the imperialist countries to block the forces of reaction at the
CARI Conference on Saturday 31 March at University College London Speakers invited
include Fred Halliday, Hull o and Liverpool dockers, and shop stewards from the Vickers Combine Committee.
* Further details of the Conference and delegation forms can be obtained from CARI, Box 4, Rising Free, 182 Upper Street, London NI Phone 1-5pm - 01-800 8958 the existence of differences both in politics and action and stop appealing for unprincipled openly and freely organise
(4) ISC campaigns for the release of all Iranian political prisoners
(5) The ISC emphasises the importance campaigning particularly within the labour movement to over the
workers for the Iranian popular movement and aim to put a ban
all trade especially arms sales to the Shah's regime
(6) ISC believes in organisational democracy and does not believe in voting on political and ideological issues
Proposed by CISNU (supporters of Vanguard Armed Movement) CISNU (Left Platform) Autonomous Iranian Students in London Armeniar Anti-Imperialist Students Society Association of Kurdish Students Abroad (UK Branch)
Page 11 scan of this page
Khomeini is back -
SWP doesn't rule out support
finally greeted their figurehead.
But the Iranian revolution is not over
left.
thinks, and continue revolutionary party needs to be buil in Iran. By Francois Massion
•WE WILL set up a committee 10 discuss constituting assembly. The people already spoken on their desire to have an Islamic government. But if on the juridical level a referendum IS necessary, won't stand in the way of it... We will put forward candidate for the presidency of the republic. He will have to be elected by the people. Once he is elected we will support him.'
AFTER years of dictatorship the demand for the election of a constituent assembly is popular with the Iranian people.
For the masses this means at last deciding what direction the country should take; it means abolishing the institutions of the Pahlavi monarchy; and it means greater freedom an improvement in living standards.
This is why the constituent assembly is one of the basic demands of the Iranian Trotskyists.
But for such an election to be really democratic there must be the right of free expression and organisation irrespective religious belief or political position.
Khomeini is opposed to these ideas. In his opinion "subversive groups should not legalised.
*We will put Islamic conditions to which candidates must submit. In this way we want to stop small groups standing
the Ш12SS democracy
INTERNATIONAL
what now?
KHOMEINI is back! After a wait nearly as long as the Shah's protracted departure, the Iranian masses have
crucial struggles may have hardly begun. And one of the vital questions of the coming months will be the political confrontation between Khomeini and the
On this page we look at what Khomeini really
to discuss what
people."
For Khomeini communism is a great danger threatening Iran, WHICH must be an vigorously. The have regular attacks followers students at Tehran University
we CVOIVe once an government' was installed.
For the Iranian Trotskyists the constituent assembly have a series of tasks. t wil have to dismantle monarchical institutions, stroy imperialist domination, emancipate the re-establish the right self-determination of oppressed nations, and allow the liberation of women. capitalist will be able to carry out such reforms since that involve the systematic mobilisation of the working masses and and the abolition of the class privileges on which bourgeois power rests.
'WHAT WE are interested in is our independence, freedom and the establishment of an Islamic republic. means the overthrow of the of Shah and the extermination of the royalist regime.'
IT IS by remaining intransibe gent on the question of the republic - m contrast to unc National Front and moderate the religious leaders Khomeini has gained such great popularity in Iran. the In the eyes of the Iranian of Shah masses, KHOMEINI — wants to impose Islamic conditions'
indeed its sort of
fought increasingly by religious left-wing
"Islamic
will monarchy symbolised oppression and the slogan of the Islamic republic" de- has been taken up because it signified change peasantry, and the change was proposed
only the condemned the Shah's dealings: Shi'ism and its 'radical" leaders. government But what Khomeini proposes
runs the danger
would matching up to the massive
expectations which have been placca mil Although certain religious leaders have gone as far as to talk about exploitation of man by man', the Islamic republic which they propose does not give them the means to exploitation.
It does not intend to break
SURES with the DECSCHIE
economic system. Its aim is to increase the role of religion in running the state. This will not much beyond Libya. 'In an Islamic government there is absolutely no room for
that
By Oliver MacDonald
LEADERS of the Workers Party are open the question of whether their party will throw its weight behind the Trotskyists in Iran. But, speaking at a rally on *Building the Party in Iran' in London on 1 February, they did seem to rule out a campaign to force the Labour govern-
Iran's Chieftain tanks.
Peter Gowan International Marxist Group's Political Committee, invited to mae an extendea controution to the discussion, welcomed the points made from the platform about the Iranian revolutionaries return to their homeland and help build workers party.
He said that exiled Iranian members International had returned to the country and linked up with on a Trotskyist current that had emerged in a number of cities
MASS movement has shown that Iranian working class is driving force of the revolution.
Communism. exploitation. The
and ideologically largely points of (П1T271
forcE which fighting for a
capitalist
forward of not moderate reforms
the population.
of their
"ending the the working
succeeded
eliminate this
that the driving force movement capitalist peasants and intellectuals.
Gadaffi's and peasants' during the mass struggle
Socialist keeping
the process of formation.
Gowan
servicing of
workers' party. of the which the SWP the Fourth comrades
need for to Britain and European left. revolutionary
Fourth
Islam and communism are economically through
different view. (Ayatollah state.
The Iranian Trotskyists are
workers' and 'IN peasants' republic. The Iranian
class has already are proved its inability to
even the most tions TOT the advisers.' benefit of the vast majority of
On the other hand, because
social weight, the ist working masses, and above all
class, have one year in changing more than the Shah's the regime had done in 25 years.
snown of the Company. is the Iranian working class, allied to the poor
The leadership of the country falls to them. Only a workers Israel
government supported by the organised power of the oppressed and exploited, is capable of meeting
for Iranian Trotskyists
Those comrades had already brought out twenty mousane copies of a new weekly paper in Tehran and a Trotskyist party uniting all these forces was in
Tehran. resent mous stakes in the Iranian weekly revolution and the responsibilities of the revolutionary left throughout the world to assist issue. the development of a Marxist
Pointing out the valuable aid
could give to International's the country
sised the impact which such a But non-sectarian assistance from obviously the SWP could have both in
throughout the
He added that he did not Trotskyists. want to put the SWP leaders on the spot for an immediate reply LICE and urged a serious considera-
Neither Tony Cliff nor Terry Labour Povey ruled out the possibility that the SWP might back the
the needs of the Iranian people has
the socialist reorganisation of society and the
principle Iran will not adhere to any military bloc. We the
favourable non-alignment, but technical ques
will be entrusted to
THE struggle against imperial-
domination the moment occupies an important place in the Iranian revolution The oil strikers have demanded
expulsion of foreig advisers and a real nationali
of the National Oil
Khomeini has taken certain progressive positions on these questions: breaking off rela
South Africa and and supporting the Palestinian fighters. But when it comes to the crunch, things are left to the 'advisers'
The capitalist regime in Iran Trotskyist forces in Iran. They were unhappy about what seemed to them a light-minded The declaration of the founding of a party by comrades from North only
their arrival in
Povey also felt that the new
was wrong to have failed to provide coverage of the strike movement in its first
Another platform speaker not from the SWP tell that it was wrong to produce a national weekly paper to link up socialists in various parts of Iran.
and that local papers would be better. tion
these points are matters of style form and tacties which should not in themselves be a barrier to SWP support for the Iranian
A more disturbing disagree-
arosen LESUULSI to Gowan's second suggestion of a mass campaign to force the
government to immediately stop all servicing of
been shaped by the imperialist powers (primarily Britain and the United States)
Its economy largely depends on the capital of multinationals. Its petrol exports are dependent on the good will of
capitalist trusts which distribute it. Its army is directed by US military advisers and officers trained in the United States
In this context a break with imperialism means more than just declarations of national independence and of the end of foreign exploitation.
It means a series of economic and political decisions which break with the market economy and the national' bourgeoisie, since that is how imperialism has achieved its domination
This would be one of the tasks of workers' and peasants' government to
compen sation the assets of the big foreign firms and to allow the working masses to regain COHO SOVCE their natural
Both Colin Sparks and Terry Povey opposed such a demand.
considered it unrealistic and that such a campaign could
breed illusions in the Labour government.
They stressed instead that it was necessary to get positive action by British workers in solidarity with Iranian trade unionists - a proposal which Gowan had welcomed COTE clearly one which will not solve the problem of withdrawing British military specialists from
However, the SWP's regarded s
as final. In the first place the organisation has long tradition of demanding that the British government withdraw
troops Ivorter Ireland, a parallel case to its military involvement in Iran.
Secondly, Tony Cliff in his summing-up speech pointedly avoided the entire issue, unu presumably reserving his position on it.
Socialist Challenge 8 February 1979 page 11
Page 12 scan of this page
Marxist theory and
By James Francis
THE Chartist movement characterised by the exact opposite of the so-called 'virtues' of the British labour movement. Its focus was not economic but political. And right from the beginning it was not only ideologically but international in its character.
Looked at from 140 years later, the six demands put forward by Chartists universal male suffrage, equal electoral districts, parliaments, payment of MPs, secret ballot and no property qualification for MPs - appear reformist and inadequate (not to mention sexist). But at the time they were genuinely revolutionary.
CLASS WAR
The conditions demanded did not exist in any country in Europe. Moreover there was conservative stratum working class, no stable reformist party, which could have confined the struggle to such a programme.
victory on me six poInts have unleashed open class war in England.
The bourgeoisie certainly
this. The response to the last great demonstration In 1848 blockade London with troops, fortify buildings, to place the marines on alert and to recruit 170,000 special constables.
In addition there were wholesale arrests and deportations — 1842, 1,500 arrests followed struggle In the North-west England. Confronted by this massive repression, the Chartists develop new forms of struggle or turn
In November 1839, John Frost led 4,000 Chartists, mainly miners, in an armed attack on Newport in South Wales.
More importantly, in 1842, Chartists developed uniquely working class struggle for the first time anywhere in the world the strike. The idea developed from plans for a "sacred month, implications of what happened in the North-west went a great deal further than this.
The strike was spread by mass agitation Oldham, for example, was brought out by the arrival of several thousand striking cotton workers from Ashton-underLyne. The general strike was wholly political in character be no return to work until the Charter was granted in full.
POLITICAL PARTY
It was amid this agitation that the key question of an working class political party finally taken up.
Thus, already in the early 1840s, the
for the Labour, formed out of the Chartist agitation, was discussing the idea of forming a working class political party based on the trade unions. If such a party had been established at that time it would have been vastly different from the later Labour Party.
SURPLUS VALUE
was
organisationally
the mass
within the
would
under- integration of Government's
RATESI was to LU
earlier, in the Europe. of
had to
imperialism
the "day to day' issues. the a new and imperialism,
Torm OT international questions. and 4Us saw political general attempts
but the throughout Europe. actually revolutionaries international participated in
physical monarchy.
- there would
Calon was Torned CondOn This became
Communist
well as German members.
independent
WaS
left-wing Chartist leaders, Protection of
'Democratic
of the
the British movement internationally.
imperialism.
in the world.
Mass action with politics to the fore, the political general strike, the
unionism, armed activity by the class, the need for a working class political party - these were the clear elements of working class activity in the mid
Given another decade to develop the working class in Britain would have emerged with traditions twent years in advance of developments in
RISE OF IMPERIALISM
It was the massive rise of British
from the late 18405 onwards which succeeded in diverting the working class movement into the safer channels of trade unionism and peria, sis on also pre to
The 1830s sustained create international working class political organisations
For example, German and French
organised in the League of the Just, Blanqui's 1839 attempt to overthrow the French
These international organisations rapidly spread to England. In 1840 the German Workers Educational Asso-
exist. an international organisation under the name of the
Workers' Educational Society. It had Scandinavian, Dutch, Hungarian, Czech, and Russian as
The British Chartists took part in these organisations. They had strong links with the struggle in Ireland. The
Harney and Ernest Jones, helped set up
Committee for the Regeneration of Poland' in solidarit with the Polish liberation struggle.
This organisation had the support
Communist Workers Educational Society, the Union of exiles. French Democrats, and the left wing
IN THE earlier articles in this series we have looked at the main characteristics — both historical and political — which distinguish the major trends in the British labour movement.
We have pointed to its political backwardness, its national insularity, its indifference to Marxist theory, and its overwhelming stress on day-to-day trade union struggles. These elements mark
But these trends are not due to some specific characteristic of this island. They are due to the historical strength of British
The truth of this assertion can be most easily demonstrated by examining the workers movement in Britain prior to the rise of imperialism, when it was not backward but the most advanced
In this article we examine the lessons of the greatest working class movement in Britain before imperialism - that of the Chartist movement of the late 1830s and 1840s.
of the Polish Democratic Society.
Political solidarity activity of this kind posed the need for international organisation — the modern prejudice that national organisations had to be built before international ones did not The first international organisation 1844, held to honour the German out of a London meeting in Communist leader Weitling. It was addressed by English, French German speakers, and was probably the first major international socialist public meeting in history.
The Society of Democratic Friends of All Nations was set up from this gathering and involved the Chartist Lovett plus Polish, German French revolutionaries.
The next initiative came directly from the left wing of the British Chartists rather than from European
George Harney helped to establish
the Society of Fraternal Democrats
exclave prominent members of the Charter Association together with Schapper from Germany, and representatives for France, Switzerland, and Poland.
In 1848 Harney explained the ideals of the Society to a meeting of German Communists:
'lappeal to the oppressed classes in every country to common cause... the cause of labour, of labour enslaved and exploited. Do not the workers of all nations have the same reasons for complaint and the same causes of distress? Have thes not, therefore, the same just cause?
In pursuit of these Societv tried to create a wider anc more authoritative organisation. It was in contact with the Democratic Belgium which at that time was led by Marx.
These two organisations jointly decided to call an congress for a 'union of all democrats of all nations in the great struggle for political and social equality.
The defeat of revolutions, including the Chartists, in 1848 was a severe blow to the Society of Fraternal Democrats. The force of the combined defeats led to its disintegration - but this was not the end of attempts to form an internationa organisation
In April 1850,
initiative in forming the Universal Society of Communist Revolutionand aries.
DEMORALISED
Harney defeats of 1848 — his paper, The Red Republican, published and translation of Manifesto in November 1850.
But, like the majority of the old militants, Harney became demoralised and turned to open reformism in the period of prosperity of the 1850s. The first development of modern
the British labour
movement
in this country.
into the 1850s.
movement,
the socialist
included COTHECC protest Lans.
Scandinavia, Hungary,
only world.
unite •TOT the ideals the as well." international
Association in
Nation, international Socialists
the European
rejected
Harney, Marx, 1859 and the French revolution-
Adam took the himself survived the
the Communist build
British imperialism created unfavourable conditions for the development of a revolutionary workers movement
But the most left-wing forces in the old Chartist movement tried to keep up the pre-imperialist traditions even
Ernest Jones, one of the greatest figures of the English workers
used all his energy an money in founding a new Chartis People's Paper, and trying to unite
Chartist, trade union and co-operative organisations into one Parliament of Labour.
INTERNATIONALIST
The internationalist tradition was maintained in the People's Paper -Marx was one of the contributors
Out of this activity Jones set up the International Committee in 1855 together with French, German and Polish groups. Its first meeting was addressed by the Russian revolutionary, Alexander Herzen, the French
Talandier, the Chartist leader Holyoake, and messages were read from Victor Hugo and Blanqui's supporter Barbes
Its aims were outlined as: "to
against alliances with •to heln the oppressed nationalities win their freedom; to proclaim and promote the sovereign rights of Labour, that uncrowned but
monarch of the
'For us, nation is nothing, man is all. For us the oppressed nationalities TOTH DUL OIC LIC UVCSd DOUr O every land, that struggle for life against the nation of the rich.
*We begin tonight no mere crusade against an aristocracy. We are not here to pull one tyranny down only that another may live the stronger We are against the tyranny of capital
The International Committee held weekly meetings, and in August 1856 it joined with the French Commune Revolutionnaire, the German Communist Workers' Educational Associ-
and the Union of Polish form an enlarged International Association.
INSULARITY
Its manifesto "To the Republicans Democrats and Socialists of Europe
all alliances with the bourgeoisie in the name of 'national liberation', and called on workers to refuse to participate in the predatory war between France and Austria in
It was these overtly political and organisationally internationalist traditions of the Chartists which formed the progressive current in the British workers movement.
The retreat on these aspects within the dominant tradition of the British workers movement, towards national insularity and stress on the bread and butter' issues, came about as a result of the pressure of imperialism.
The choice facing those attempting
new revolutionary organisation in this country is well summed up by the choice between these two traditions: the tradition of the Chartists or the tradition imposed by British imperialism.
Socialist Challenge 8 February 1979 page 13
Page 13 scan of this page
Big Flame says broader debate is needed
"Pre-conditions are far reaching replies IMG
Left
unity
BIG FLAME does not in prin-
ciple, or in the medium term,
reject the idea of being part of a
new revolutionary organisa-
tion, which would include the
IMG, the ISA, and other poli-
tical tendencies.
However, after much dis-
cussion within our organisa-
tion, Big Flame has decided not
to sign the joint appeal on
revolutionary unity presented
by the IMG and ISA.
The appeal as it stands con-
tains much we would agree
with, since we have always been
in favour of, and engaged in,
joint work wherever possible.
but te polncal basis or tne
initiative, the differentiation of revolutionaries from reformists, is not sufficient for re-
groupment or discussion of regroupment
organisation, the eventual aim of this initiative.
We believe it covers up other important areas of debate on BOURSE TO ENTIRE
*The type of revolutionary strategy and tactics that are necessary in the conditions of
class struggle of post-war cap-
We would agree with Richard Hyman's response to Ine appeal in Socialist Challenge, stressing the importance of tre-thinking some of the analyses and theories which have failed us in the past'.
The appeal gives the impression that the tasks of revolutionaries are unproblematical, that the left has a common understanding and agreement on what these tasks are.
*An explanation for the retreat in class struggle in the post-war penod.
*The relationship between revolutionary organisation and the autonomous movements — women, blacks, gays.
*An of why many thousands of militants have experienced revolutionary organisations as a *revolving door through which they pass, either into a further one, or into none.
We feel that the IMG is, at the moment, closed to a far-reaching debate BIG FLAME's refusal to sign the appeal for joint work is all the more regrettable because Big Flame has been one of the few organisations on the far left warch was consistently stated Is commitment to revolutionary unity.
What prevents the comrades from signing the appeal? The big rame auonar Committee agrees that we need distinguish between revolutionaries and reformists on the basis of fundamental policies.
But it savs programmatic agreement isn't enough.
If Big Flame were to have its way, even before discussions could begin entering into joint work with the aim of regroupment - each of us would have to put up our hands for a common explanations of such problems as:
•Why many thousands of militants experienced revolutionary organisations as a revolving door...' or why there was a retreat in the class struggle in post-war penod .
Socialist Challenge has all along rejected an approach
Socialist Challenge 8 February 1979
revolutionary
Challenge on 6 January. joint questions. Two recent articles in Socialist Challenge illustrate UTS *The Crisis of the Far Left in Europe' by John Ross, and Ernest Mandel's Fourth International: 40 years
Firstly, they deny that any substantial changes have taken place in post-war capitalism -hence "classical' revolutionary these politics do not need any alterawhich places these kinds of preconditions before groupment process can begin.
Since its launch, the paper has argued the need for a united democratic centralist organisation in Britain, in which through open and democratic
these questions, and many others, could be discussed out. to While such issues important, and all have a place for debate inside a revolutionary organisation, it is utterly sectarian to refuse to unite with people who hold differences on questions other those around fundamental questions
Far from approach, the SING adopted position paraphrased Lenin's known point: "We should spell out our differences, order to further divide ranks, but in order to dissolve the divisions and unite'.
The record of the IMG in practice just does not add up to the sectarian picture Big Flame is trying to paint.
Today, the department
page 12
WE PUBLISH here the response from Big Flame's National Committee to the appeal for joint work and
unity which appeared in
Members of the International Marxist Group and the International Socialist Alliance, which jointly issued the appeal, have discussed the response and it was considered that none of the points raised by Big Flame should stand in the way of its involvement in the
tion. Secondly they assert that the FI has been correct on every major question in the period.
For instance. they sav: *The also correctly understood the historically limited the so-called boom".? In fact, Second World War, the FI predicted that capitalism would quickly collapse and the system would not even meet the imdiscussing how to participate in ally re- the forthcoming World Congress of the national; and in several towns SWP are debating with the IMG on issues relaung to me International. kinds of The other questions that Big Flame considers should be a can be part of any regroupment debate we totally agree with.
We drew up the document called 'Our Common Ground' so that we could have the basis for discussion on such issues as *the type of strategy and tactics that are necessary in the conditions of sectarian class struggle has and which relationship between revolutwell- ionary organisations and the
ALEOHUIEOUS BHUYCLECHLS not our Big Flame has yet to state its
forward in this document.
It's not only National wants unity on a basis that we international would regard SWP WICE
Socialist future. about the •We successes asserted.
"post-war after the backwards, 'occasional is closed to these debates.
Fourth Inter-
confirm the comrades Big Fame has Fourth Revolutionary?
traditional that Trotskyists
revolutionary
that conveyed by IMG's rigid revolutionary
of post-war be used
USTHSE He
misrepresented. that the Big
committee which still
sectarian They between the
areas of work outlined.
Much of the Big Flame letter is concerned with criticism of the IMG, which the ISA as a group has no position on. It was therefore thought that the IMG itself ought to reply to these.
The areas of debate outlined by Big Flame clearly need to be pursued, and Socialist Challenge hopes to help organise discussions on some of these in the near
Praise of Communism
It's sensible. anyone can understand it.
It's easy.
You're not an exploiter, so you can grasp it.
It's a good thing for you, find out more about it.
The stupid call it stupid and the squalid call it squalid.
It is against squalor and against stupidity.
The exploiters call it a crime But we know:
It is the end of crime It is not madness, but The end of madness.
It is not the riddle But the solution It is the simple thing So hard to achieve.
Bertold Brecht.
mediate needs of the masses.
Similar points could be made outside a
limits the FI This is analyses of Stalinism and other Ross's
article
Inese points are not made in Trotskyists a sectarian nit-picking way. But aries?' this tendency to re-write history
admitting only conjunctural er- rigidity rors', does not bode well for the attitude ability of the IMG to learn poconsider a priori that the IMG
example.
Several examples are used to
"rigidity" of the IMG. However, we believe that
mis-read the article Can only Trotskyists be
The argument it contained Campaign NUPE. was tar it is qure in une witn
Trotskyist views might find themselves in a minority in a
organisation!
Quite the oppose message from
Big Flame.
Another proof cited of the
approach is our elections. orientation to the SWP. The worry is that the appeal might
as a battering ram SWP. But the IMG's resolution on the SWP is take
We have tried to make a very
necessary. secise characterisation of the
We're certain that Big Flame will agree with us when we say that serious differences exist
have be overcome concerning the views
an organisation. of the SWP on the relationship
ism. new
litically from others, inside or
SICW confirmed by John Challenge SOCIS entitled, *Can Nonbe Revolution-
Further confirmation of this
lies towards the SWP, expressed in its resolution, 'Our autonomous movements, for
This kind of debate has been possible thanks to the joint work that has been carried out
hope Fine ANL, the Ford Workers' Group, and the
for Action
Sometimes it's difficult to get this kind of joint work off the ground. Socialist Unity is a case in point. Both the IMG and Big Flame have made appeal after appeal to get the SWP to drop
sectarian approach in
Unfortunately, sometimes the only way the SWP will listen
DULCE is if the sheer weight of the forces involved makes them
stock. That's why battering rams are sometimes
But is this sectarian on the part of the IMG? Far from it -the fight to involve the SWP in Socialist Unity starts from the rather broader concerns of the working class and not from the interests of the IMG as
Big Flame wants joint work
Orientation Towards
SWP.
For the IMG, "The SWP's
from
Marxism, i.e. Trotskyism', and
its members will have to either
abandon their programmatic
tradition or they will have to
abandon their class.'
Much of this resolution can
only strengthen fears that this
appeal and similar 'unity
initiatives" are to be used as
sectarian battering rams against
the SWP.
For example, the experience
of Socialist Unity is scen d.
enabling the IMG to launch a
campaign for a "socialist alter-
native" aimed at forcing the . SWP into an electoral alliance
with us. The appeal we are dis
cussing with ISA/BF should b
seen as a lever.
Big Flame, as a non-Trot-
skyist
willing to regroup
organisation that defines revolutionary Marxism as Trotsky.
And if the IMG is not willing to recognise the strengths as
well as the weaknesses of the SWP's politics, what chance is there of those of BF being taken
seriously within a regrouped
organisation, dominated by the
IMG WHEE its present perspectives
BF sees left regroupment as providing the organisationa framework for genuine
from and synthesise differing traditions on the revolutionary left.
united revolutionary organisation should not merely be the sum of parts engaged in constant faction fights.
We remain in favour of joint work and debate - but without conditions. Joint work that will keep open the possibilities for future regroupment.
We will continue to work with the IMG, the ISA, other organisations, and non-aligned militants in areas like Socialist Unity, United Troops Out Movement, Anti Nazi League, Ford Workers Group Big Flame National Committee and debate but without conditions, it claims. We're for joint work as well, but in some of the areas proposed - in the ANL, UTOM and so on we
that Labour Party militants, CP members and a wide range of other militants will be involved.
But that's to dodge the real question about revolutionary unity. And for that, Big Flame does lay down condition: far-reaching ones.
Big Flame's course, we'll all be condemned to smail sects competing' for confused recruits; acung cross purposes; and all the
have crippled British revolutionaries for too long.
Or we hope
COLESC. continue the joint work and discussions with Big Flame comrades.
But comrades, can you not see that had you decided to sign the joint appeal, we could have probably involved even larger numbers of militants in organised fashion?
Dodie Weppler, IMG Political Committee
Page 14 scan of this page
SOCIALIST CHALLENGE EVENTS
LETTERS
Joe Hansen
MANY comrades will share with me a deep sense of loss over the death of Joe Hansen.
In view of the calumnies which have been heaped on him from certain
- and which will doubtless repeated in obituaries — it is apt to quote the following extract from Heijenoort's book With Exile:
*....of all the Americans who lived in Coyoacan, Joe was the one with whom Trotsky got along best and for whom he developed the most esteem.?
Subsequently, by his contributions to the international movement and the building of the Fourth International, comrade Hansen more than justified the Old Man's high opinion of him.
He will be remembered long after his traducers have been forgotten in the dustbin of history.
CHARLIE VAN [London]
Class
collaboration
on China?
SOCIALIST Challenge has deservedly won itself a reputation among independents the most serious paper on the left today. Because of this reputation, it is all the more serious that your coverage of recent events in China, over the past several weeks, has descended to rank class collaborationism.
Class collaborationism is a harsh term. But how else characterise the slavish imitation of the bourgeois line on China.
Since the death of Mao, bourgeois press has praised the new spirit of 'openness" hailed the end of Mao's 'dictatorship' and the dawning of a 'Peking Spring'. And what do you have, by way of a proletarian line, to counterNothing. Only the same bourgeois bourgeois carch phrases: *democracy human rights'.
As Lenin frequently pointed out, talk of abstract democracy meaningless. Marxists alwavs ask the question: democracy for whom?
It is clear that, since 1976, moves have been made in China strengthen the privileges managerial and intellectual strata. It NORTH WEST WARRINGTON Socialist Challenge group meets regularly. Ring chester Socialist Challenge offices fo Man
details. U01-230 2392 GREATER MANCHESTER Socialist
226 4287)
Socialist Mupporters sell the paster at Cost Side MOSS SIDE Socialist Centre, Saturday, 11-1. now meets fortnighty in goes group days. For details phone 061-136 2352 or write to Manchester SC Centre, c/o 14 PiccaCHy Zimbabwer Speaker Pete Evans (NW behind
liaisor • Thur 22 Feb, 7.45pm, in Windsor Castle pub, Egan St.
NORTH EAST NEWCASTLE Socialist Challenge local supporters are acuver ir you want
Socialist Challenge 8 February 1979 page 14
BAD AS
tasteless
Jean van Trotsky in
Trotskyist these class
understand democracy.
January) reproduce
GELDEREN the right of foreign travel.
The real
the wall
should be the case in China? In failing
Socialist aligned
can
the on Ireland
in China and
analysis?
difference
Committee, January).
to
of the
2905in them, phone Pete on (0632)
Pitington, Durham
MIDDLESBROUGH Socialist
iso savataste tom
STOCKTON-ON. TESS readere ran hir Socialist Challenge from Green Books upstairs in the Spencer Hall shopping centre
SCOTLAND For information about the paper or its Scotland please contact Sen Challence Books 64 Glasgow. Open Wed, Thurs, Fri and Dar alternoons. rnone or alternative allangement 221 (401). wide range o. Fourn internationa suorcations.
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YORKSHIRE
HUDDERSFIELD SC
is in the context of the ascendancy of
forces that we must Cemanes TOT The wall posters described in Socialist Challenge (18
some classic petty-bourgeois demands under the guise of "socialist democracy': the right to form non-proletarian parties, release of "prisoners of conscience,
debate. significance of the democracy debate is encapsulated by President Carter to support human which called on rights in China. It is not noticeably the masses in other countries who expect support of human rights from
imperialism. Why, then, does Socialist Challenge imagine that this
challenge the bourgeoisie's analvsis of events ir
Challenge has objectively with imperialism. You should throw your fusion pages open to a debate on this
NEIL MACDONALD (Brighton)
Revolution-
ary position Loyalist
JOHN WE ARE following with interest the debate in your paper on revolutionary
We hope it will help British revolutionaries to clarify points of
agreement among themselves. We are certain this process will not be aided by the contribution of a member of your National Policy
Francis Mulhern (25
He implies that the Protestant majority in the Six County area of our country have the right to self-determination. If this is so, his position is not points. consistent with revolutionary Marxist
Friendly & Trades Club, Northumberand St
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NOTTINGHAM socialist Forum: The Liberation of Southern Alrica speaker tony soutnal. tAuro Feb, 7.30pm, in Room 8, Peoples Hall, meets at the -neatcore or. oocianst chanence can
principles, for it means support for the partition of Ireland. The population of the 32 counties of Ireland have the unconditional right to determine their own future, with or without the consent of the Northern Protestants.
They have no 'right' to veto the resolution of the national question in Ireland. This is the framework within which revolutionaries can and should
Francis Mulhern does not seem to accept it - revolutionaries should debate with him as an opponent of the right of the Irish people to self-determination. And Socialist Challenge should ask him how he can justify his membership of the NPC, since one of the paper's principles is *letting the Irish people determine their own future'
To further emphasise that this is not a tactical question, WC quote the following point of principle from the
fusion conference adopted optes
conference Peoples"
Democracy and the Movement for a Socialist Republic (then Irish section of the Fourth International): We are united in our rejection of the claim that any lasting solution to the oppression of the Irish people can be found in a Six County framework and rejection of any "right"
continue partition."
As members of PD and the Fourth International we would like immediate clarification on these points.
MEEHAN, MEEHAN (Dublin)
NHS low pay
EITHER through editing or possible mistake on my part, my letter on NHS low pay (25 January) fell short of proper clarification, and I would like to correct a couple of
First, the letter should have made it
Heathcote St.
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Also, it should have mentioned that it is only when you add the £7.20 supplement on top of the grade 1 basic rate of £35.20 that the total will go over the f40 mark.
STEPHEN Steward, St Andrews Norwich)
Women in SF
AM very LeGuin's article (11 January). I have just finished reading the first anc third volumes of children (Wizard of Earthsea and The Farthest Shore) and there can be no doubt that
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The entire archipelago of Earthsea' is based on an exclusively male power structure of wizards, 'mages, princes and kings. There is not a single powerful or important female character in either book except for one obvious "baddy' who gets her just deserts and is torn to shreds by demons
The masses of Earthsea in genera
SC are just a faceless mob dependent for guidance on the wisdom of wizards and the power of princes. Those who live on the fringes of the archipelago are mere primitives anyway. So here we have, in LeGuin's own words, 'the sexual Alien, the social Alien, the cultural Alien, and finally the racial
These two books deal in a fascina. ting and valuable way with the prob.
- our own deaths- and it was totally unnecessary to set them in this authoritarian, patriarchal and anti-socialist world of her devising
Have I missed something? If it's parody, it's too subtle for me. I would dearly like to hear Ursula LeGuin's
BOB GILBERT (Swansea)
* Ursula LeGuin's article was reprinted from the Canadian paper
Voice, where it appeared of Canadian University Speakers include Cir John Sween
Mare 5t, Em, in the Briannia pub
HACKNEY , 12-2pm, in Kingsland Hig supporters
Sainsbury's
night for the Fund Drive at North London Pol (Ladbroke House annexe), Highbury Grove HARINGEY Paper sales at Finsbur Park and seven sisters tubes. hur evenine muswel hit ano Crouch end Broadways, Saturday morning. Also avanaole al muswer nil booksnor MUSWEl newsagent, Bookmarks, Finsbury Park. Hill broadway Lane. N8; and Vare:
PADDINGTON IN KENSINGTON
LEYTON readers Paters New Sagealis Sheridan's Newsagents, date St. WALTHAMSTOW readers -Cal from MAnHOW SocIalIst Challence st oners meet recura details fro OX DU LOnDON NIZI
Page 15 scan of this page
'The
became
our
MICHAEL HAMILTON,
with a play against the sus laws.
Dominic: Wegot our first play. This Green and Pleasant Land, from a triend. It's a protest play against the sus laws, which we read and decided we wanted to do, so we got some people together, including a director, and performed it.
The Forum Youth Theatre grew from this group and we now have about 20 members. We're hoping rehearsals for three other plays fairly soon.
Michael: We've put This Green and Pleasant Land on at our school, Quinton Kynaston, in North-west London, and at a local community centre. Quite a few schools have expressed an interest in it.
Dominic: The headmaster at our school was very upset about the play. It's a liberal, trendy comprehensive and we've tried lor ages to lom a studen political group there.
For a while we seemed to succeed. We organised a picket of Paddington Green police station after one of our kids was beaten up there, and we protested about certain sexist incidents within the school.
But it became apparent that senior staft were institution alising the group, which made it completely ineffectual. allowed us to meet and even announced our activities over
tannoy. Our meetings
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E FOURTH
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THE LONG
RCH OF THE
headmaster
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play...'
16, and DOMINIC SHAW, 17, are founder members of Forum Youth Theatre, a newly-formed theatre group which began
They are also members of the National Youth Theatre and the Cockpit Youth Theatre. They spoke to JAMIE GOUGH about their plans for the group.
seemed to be an extra part of
We had a very different reaction when the sus play. We invited along the police community relations officer from St Johns Wood. I was playing the policeman who the black kid.
The head became
start agitated and seemed to feel a lot
more threatened than he had Deen wien we formed student action group. I think it was because the play wasn't connected with the school and therefore couldn't be
Michael: The next few be doing will be that we'll written by ourselves.
I'm writing one about the conflict of minority groups the way in which a West Indian may discriminate against Asian; a Rastafarian against women; a black heterosexual against gays, and so on.
The way people victimise each other and what we can learn from it.
Dominic: My play is about how people get seduced into the NF It's the story of someone who has been sacked from his job and is a reject for reasons which are the fault of
They the state.
He lashes out at minorities and has dreams of glorious suicide, sword in hand. He's a
dynami
of the cuban revolution SPECIAL OFFER FEBRUARY ONLY Joseph Hansen's the eariv vears revolution and its analysis by the Trotskyist movement. Only £2.00 (normally £2.80) (p&p add 30p). Pathfinder
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comic, but ultimately he's a pathetic character. In the end he takes an overdose - the easy way out.
We want to put the plays on with the theatre group, but it seems pretty impossible at the moment to get a place of our UWIL
Michael: Just where we could rehearse. clapped out theatre that we could do up - anything!
Dominic: And, of places to perform. What we need is contacts; people who would be willing to join us and we performed generally help us.
What I really want to do in the long term is to provide an alternative to the three main fascist vouth theatres. Al the moment beats up there's the
Cockpit, and quite Children's
That's just about it in terms of getting into the acting world
the and doing something with it.
They ve got the monopoly.
Michael: We don't want money insti- from the Arts Council because
that puts a limit on what you can do. They can turn round a year later and tell us they don't
be like what we're doing.
Dominic: We'll try to survive funds from like the All London Teachers
an Against Racism and Fascism
who have helped us, and loca groups which are interested.
But it needs funding on a larger scale. from the ANL.
Michael: Perhaps we could get financial support from trade union branches affiliated to anu-lascist groups. want opportunities to do what various we want.
Dominic: This is a cry for help. And if you can, then contact Michael and Socialist Challenge.
SPECIAL OFFER
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However,
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We just
Dominic c/o
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IMG by Huge Blanco
INTRODUCING Oxy and the Morons: Hackney-based, New February, and available for gigs Wave, Socialist playing a benefit for Challenge (phone 01-249 3867). In their
own words:
We play rock music because
we enjoy it and other people
though we are all good liberals. corporate political We don't have identity,
We feel that culture is a
vehicle of ideology and take a
political attitude towards the
medium in which we work.
We don't have a 'politics
which we put forward. We are
attempting to overcome our
own personal political contra-
dictions, as is anybody in our
audience.
It is impossible to be both
commercially viable on a mass
principles. On the one hand, intimacy in and true to socialist
performance is sacrificed for
the sake of greater protection,
and independence is lost to the
control of record companies.
accusations of elitism if we just Alternatively, we could face
political integrity and played confident in .our
endless benefits to enlightened and the Morons are anxious to It will be gathered that Oxy put their music across to a wider audience than that which has attended the majority of their gigs (largely benefits) to date. the temptation of sloganeering. In our lyrics we try to avoid Some bands have attempted to sloganeering nature. This strikes us as being crass theIr lyrics music of by because the slogans can become easily digestible commodities, the same as any pop product. do so. sages can have a value in raising have to be spoon-fed. these political mesconsciousness and mobilising Our approach is one that and powerful figures to try and
such techniques as change consciousness. This has admittedly caused away from fascism-the leader misunderstanding in the past and and will doubtless continue to awareness through dialogue is plus disco.
RAN
(p&p add 10p), THE UNFOLDING The Other Press REVOLUTION Analysis of the revolution by Iranian Trotskyist
causes
Morons
write
13 But we believe very
strongly that audiences do not In the long run we have to get away from using personalities
As a model, this is not far (Ladbroke House), Highbury
the led. Collective
OUT MID-FEBRUARY Trotskvist movement. with ar introduction by veteran British Trotskyist Harry Wicks. 30p
-DOL
the revolutionary opposite to
this model.
OXY AND THE MORONS are
playing Challenge at Benefit Night the Socialist Tuesday 13 February, on 11.30pm, at N. London Poly 7.30-
Grove, N5. There will also be a
second band, THE CRASS,
Sing okshop
Send cheque to: The Other
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Socialist Challenge 8 February 1979 page 15
Page 16 scan of this page
'Our imagination is captured by the future of the movement'
THIS statement by four British revolutionary organisations was read out to last Saturday's Iranian solidarity demonstra-
THE organisations of British revolutionary left which have signed this statement are here today
SHOW solidarity with the movement in Iran.
The working people of Iran have, through their heroic and determined action, overthrown the bloody tyranny Mohammed Reza Pahlavi and opened the way for a socialist
But the struggle is by no
means over. The imperialist
powers which long supported the Shah's dictatorship been struck an important blow, but they are already desperately
manoeuvring to retain reassert their influence.
We revolutionaries in Britain
be campaigning IRANIAN Trotskyist Hamid speaking at last Friday's Rally Against Imperialism in don. Full story on page 8.
"THE need for Challenge and others DuoncIse the public sector workers struggle and combat the vicious lies of the capitalist media is greater now than it has ever been.
timents accompanied a donation from medical student last week. But unusual thing was that the money was from the proceeds
Domestic: 6 months, £5; 12 months, £10 Abroad: Airmail, £16.50. Surface, E10 per annum. Multi-reader institutions: double individual rate Name
Address
1 enclose a donation for the Fighting Fund of
"Socialist Challenge'. Complete and return to: Socialist Challenge, 328/9 Upper Street, London N1.
Socialist Challenge
workers and student movements here to thwart their plans. we will be bullding a campaign which says, particularly to our own government with shamerul
the 'Imperialist hands off Iran!'
In Iran, with mass agreement of the imperialists,
the Bakhtiar government and the generals on whose bayonets it rests are using all their might
of preserve ENTE
repression and created by the Shah. People are still dying in the streets at the hands of the army.
The first task movement in Iran is to prevent have BOSKRUSIT maintaining the Pahlavi regime and the
by repression and manoeuvre. Revolutionaries in Iran must and
fight for the widest possible democracy the organise and assemble freely, the the right to free
uncensored press, the right to strike and form trade unions, full equality for women, right to self determination for national minorities, disbanding of the repressive apparatus and the free election of a constituent assembly.
None of these freedoms can be fought for or guaranteed unless they rest
working class. It was the mass oil worker brought the Shah to his knees. Only the continued mobilisaton of the ranian workers' movement can win democratic rights.
But the Iranian masses have Lon- more to gain
parliamentary democracy. It is
OUR FUND DRIVE
to Our reader was doing a two
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As often happens the student received a gratuity from the consultant this work. Our reader decided the the best solution was to send it to a
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record,
the full
system exploitation
of the mass
generals
right to
and
SIne
the
Shah's on the of
clear from the demonstrations in Iran that many aspirations are expressed in the Gemand Republic.
But although the than slogans may be shouted alike by
worker, peasant and business-
Our thanks.
Many of our readers especially teachers COlIC pedagogue Bernard Regan. But by the end of his sponsored slim for the Fund Drive the new emaciated
private be unrecognisable.
The original plan was for the macroscopic mentor to lose a
utterly
new-look wraith-like Regan is so pleased with his progress that he is continuing his paid famine for another month.
If he reaches the two-stone mark our svelte schoolteacher stands to make £200 for the paper!
Or even more. Because you can help the trim rushine vour Abecedarian, Socialist Challenge.
Our thanks to our haggard hero and to:
Anon K Miles Bolton IMG Tim Danby Arie Luiten Hans-Martin Fink
oppressed is Islamic of the bazaar.
Islamic Anon John Inglis - will have D Grimsditch
portly T Lambert MB Camden IMG Caroline Scott educationist will Anon
Week's Total Cumulative Total
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ONE YEAR after launched, HERCE
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The sales currently under review by sponsorship to
Gc/0 effort
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Joint statement on Iran
man, behind these slogans the fiont of the workers and the shopfloor,
very different from that of the big merchants
Already some sections of workers are demanding an end
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More importantly, we want to know why the sales figures have slumped. If you have had
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an to management control of the
no more sackings and workers power. Women have been out on the streets in they have begun to organise for their freedom in the workplace and the community.
below, then please ring us this week with details.
After all, if the problems lie at the door of these outlets, this will obviously be a factor in WH Smith's final decision on stocking the paper.
Remember too that not only Cross, is the paper stocked regularly at the following London shops, plus the Oxford and Cambridge
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The working class has shown its power in Iran and that power can put an end to capitalist exploitation and replace it with the rule
workers themselves.
The factory and popular committees thrown up by the struggle of the last few months could be the embryonic forms of workers power in Iran. It
of every revolutionary in Iran to extend and deepen the organisation of these committees.
In the absence of an alternative leadership the masses have rallied around Khomeini. The demands of the workers and the oppressed go far beyond what
Islamic Republic can provide.
In order that their efforts are not fruitless it is vital that a revolutionary party is built which unites the workers and the oppressed and leads them forward to a socialist revolution which will provide the only real basis for a complete liberation from exploitation and oppression.
The mass upsurge in Iran has already brought much joy to socialists in other countries by sending imperialism's favourite emperor scurrying into exile
But imagination is captured evel mOre by the future of the movement. By the possibility it has of carrying on to rid Iran of all exploiters. Of replacing the tyranny of the Shah with a workers state.
Long live international SOHURTHEY!
Forward -10 the Iranian socialist revolution!
Socialist Workers Party International Marxist Group Workers Action Big Flame
outlets, but you can also ask for a special customer's order for the paper at any other branch of WH Smith
The present London outlets should Victoria (Main, Local), Kings Cross. Brent
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← Socialist Challenge No. 81, 1 February 1979Socialist Challenge No. 83, 15 February 1979 →