Workers Press no. 52

workers press The daily organ of the Central Committee of the Socialist Labour League

PUBLISHED FROM TUESDAY TO SATURDAY • NUMBER 52

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 9, 1969

INCORPORATING THE NEWSLETTER

PRICE 6d. Whilst Vietnamese die Tube engineers' rally Briefly Warning of

LEFT M.P.S GO

productivity The dangers press rise basic and, until last Thursday night

ON TALKING

was met. until the pro

BY MICHAEL BANDA

BY DAVID MAUDE

LONDON'S tube maintenance strikers continued their dispute into its twelfth determined week formula. yesterday with a mass rally in Westminster.

LAST NIGHT'S Commons foreign affairs debate, Thursday, strikers will consider plans to ex- like all previous debates on Vietnam, promised to tend their strike be a fraud and a farce designed to salve the con-

NEWTON ABBOT

dictumber of pat pip pare seiences of the 70 left MPs while lett his son

IRADE! CENTRAX WORKERS

indications of support - let will give', said strike

STOP WILSON'S

WIN

BONUS

Collect Ciallillal ister trip cook, yesterday to reacher Lay method a tom The and the

VISIT TO NIXON

Nixon.

CGH

me paid on Several speakers The motion submitted hasised that Region By the dispute, which is Reg Birch Cal son Wilson to lossl the 70 MPs piously nonths ago t back their claim ciate completely from US ment nor pereirad signs petition policies and to strive for a settlement war Acton rallwa based on the 1954 Geneva Beind the is Convention. gence The cowardly unprincipled reugh the

TRAL

spot productivis nature of this opposition "The Times':

BERNICES

Union of Railwaymen (NUR).

yesterdays ring deaner indicated apprengine rin secrens also further

MONEY BACKING

"decisio affecied by the ecisions dustries factories then adds: ractorie to the back. he strike unan hour's pay to Rocion at tors Her Big S.W. march have Car unions nothing (Liverpool) transmissior anster date shed havene alified with thi backs Devon strikers from the nett Mes meet in even if it were carried. continue. Such insist that the breke the Must entere re MORE THAN 1.500 workers marched through the therefore streets of Newton Abbot, Devonshire on Saturday to Paris Secret A State Kilian Coot vic Vietname GREAT PROMINENCE has Logers has demand nigner wages lor an workers in une area.

sections of sure. Said Don Cook yester- said been given sayinere may be lu a uvel demonstralon By our industrial correspondent the reet street press to last Sanctify workers kept up tne slogar week's inter. пі роз5- shouting of 'We want more strike for four weeks, was a ible national conference in •Wage freeze out' considerable cussions with Feather: vit i en By our foreign correspondent and had travelle throughout the entire untries march.

DANGERS

tion tor their parity of earnings There are doners here. The agreement me Souries est were promin- questesas higher wages. Mes behind this agreement?

with productivity ently displayed. Press answered The conference's inal de- Foundryworkers, strike more organize on a We at to Washington dard 40-hour week throughout col- claration letermin- Gilmon of where 1,000 have been militancy

PAGE 4 CUL...

perialim in * Wison goren

SOCIALIST LABOUR LEAGUE

proposed worker: withdrawal" d peasants

PUBLIC MEETING

we lockg mounted qua the anyway. F the US can Read demands hate The purpose of this elaborate ar: the head of West Czechoslovakia, persecution are Workand n it states (Decem See picture page four → safety during the withdrawal

BIM

ber 8, 1969): of Soviet intellectuals and the Geron told the Sunday 'Mr. Wilson will not

GREET

agree Communist Party Congress to their mike made manufacte

WORKERS PRESS

Dunstable Bedfor in the critical britaln Monday Dec. 15, 8p.m. n. Social. vermany. so lar, so good reven-man

HOLBORN ASSEMBLY HALL

This i he foll therefore pro- *ted by the Amalamar ar poses hn's Mews off Northington Stre the earest tube Chancery Lane • Cs visit. to stop Wilson's Speaker: G. Healy (national secretary, Socialist Labour ving lim lovembet • Students' union to League)

EIGHTEEN

ganizations to tel (Editor, Workers Press) Chairman: M. Banda ther this campaign. e sign

STOP WILSON'S WASHINGTON

was passed overte at public meetings "non-aggression' Soviet-W. German

VISIT!

i neel Selden Union. talks begin See the film of the first issue being prepared and mact have begun?

UGM

FOR THE DEFEAT OF US

printed and the film 'Young Socialists, 1969 • disgus ° Mot declaratiations that nassacres caned o Vietna

IMPERIALISM IN VIETNAM!

LIVERPOOL

By a foreign correspondent rod its total opposition to the

WEATHER

DEMONSTRATION

Sunday, December 14, 7.30 p.m.

MERSEY

ing fog. Shaftesbury Hotel, Mount Pleasant would mean 7C (45F)

SUNDAY JAN. 11

DOCKERS

an The managemenur turn

SHEFFIELD

'Cloudy with

STRIKE

ASSEMBLE: Speakers' Corner (Marble Arch), 2 P.M. Sunday December 21, 7.30 p.m.

NINETY - EIGHT

oxreesterdak be naustries exalotton (centre

MARCH:

via Oxford Street, Regent Street, cave of a dispute over car Carver Street (behind City Hall) discharging. Trafalgar Square past Downing Street.

is mild n Speakers of the ic Sorate. Mild. Maxi MIKE BANDA (Editor of Workers Press) MEETING: Lyceum Ballroom, near Aldwych, • rain * a dim tor handing in 4 P.M. SHEILA TURKANCE (National secretary of the drizzle and mor Auspices Young Sociallet Young Socialists)

• PAGE 4 COL. 4 →

PAGE TWO

THE AUTHORS of "Class Colour in and South Africa, 1850-1950' were both leading mem- Communist bers of the Party of South Africa be fore it was banned by the 1950 Suppression of Com- munism Act.

IN THREE PARTS

Mr H. J. Simons lectured in African law and govern- ment at Cape Town Univer- sity up to 1964 when he was expelled by the government from the University. Mrs R. E. Simons (Ray Alexander) was a leading trade unionist until banned it was not a police state under Smus British seriest cost in 1953 and was 'elected', as because con- Britich a European, to be a 'Native Cecil Rhodes the British Governo Napier, Representative' in 1954, on 1o be eas Cape, proved the "decreed striCT equality books like before the law of all the basis of the anti-African persons in Natal' (p. 18) when Native Representation Act Natal British proclaiming TOwn of 1936. colony false- -the Napier A from paria mer star id

HIS IS

proclamation gave the African: her trom seat (Zulu) no rights at all and led the all-white parliament.

The authors choose not even strictest and land to mention e trom They have Wed strict that written a hook ot 700 because it came much African let with Movement interesting and impor- European for stand right to alone material. tant Natal parlament,

CPSA

It is the most comprehen- the This theory sives of South date pression that sive account tret WaS Africa) with respect to 'native Boers' hatred historv of the South Africar due to the Popular Front representation', Party, this. whereas Communist tor Liberals with the essentially, is what the book is Industrial mainly about. and in working the occupation ano Despite the views and, pos- Conciliation Act in the unions and Natal one which. the

CPSA

sibly, the intent, of the writers, thereny hinodiact chanters helped to divide along racial history of British colonial ex- unis book is the most revealing lines Pansien. selt-indictment to date ot the

CPSA

Unlike certain other so-called Communist Party Simons stood for Simons South Africa Party writers. however. the liberalism racial for a long time *300 did not 20). Tolerance iD. Years', the moment has which has been used of the British Dar ucularly hey te or she by the Atrica with the Communist immigrants as merely asborb- close ues Academy of 'the prejudices party of treat britain. racial the USSR as a Sciences the white inhabitants' (p. 20), whereas the British im SourCe-DOOK Nevertheless, this 'oversight' The British migrants were one of the main it is not in keening with the sources racial Dremarce obiectivity in many parts of and discrimination Class and Colour'. Again, • this implicitly pro- nfluenc of British British ostensibly anti- liberal historian: of there old one book the orst secuon the dealing with the 19th centurv THE opening page begins with South Africa. It repeats the liberal theory by the a typical idea, long foste idea inno tostered

ITS

absorbor Trek that the 1836 Boer was Simons is one of the intellec- imperialism namely caused mainly bu the British by-products the apartheid and all 'abolition' of slavery in 1934 Popular Frontist collaboration 17), whereas

CPSA

itself recent creation evils are a another Unity Movement liberals spawned by British im- therefore, and the boers ano Dol "The Role of the history, as it was the creation. main v.

1953) (Cape The section on 19th century Rritich imperialism, snares Boers whom the Boers act merely chowed clear v that ine lineralicm is not accidentally exposed agents, hiding the one of the weakest the trekked hecause they taled or role of their real their own to conquer and dis- book. the Xhosa the At the same time, it fails The authors say 20 years of astern Cape, a task that was almost totally to deal with the ot unoroken rue ov atrikane.

them- disposses- authors Mans large-scale have later. as albeit very and resis- destroyed hope selves show. the

SION

eDI and African: eaceful revolution' (P 7) as undertaken the agenate y tance save possil in Boers. romnletev.not hy the were disnossessed in a series. any colony' but by the British. of wars paralleled only hy the fascist conquest of India by Britain. South Africa. Dealing with the conquest of '300 like They say that South Africa the Zulu of Natal, the authors Harlier histories this struggle Years' 'has been turned into a police Ayninder liberal-created myth state under the conto ola British Cape liberalism and : is a whereas white nligarchy which uses pity, to say the least, that the fascist techniques' (p. 8) as if had already entered the Natal The Communist Party of South Avere (Cely cong ad servants to Bhish imperialish. Above apathid (s th A have • Genara Smuts icent Beer commandos in 1902. By our industrial staff WORKERS at Imperial Chemical Industries' and lished as a series of glossy eliminating unnecessary plants up and down the wasteful practices'. pamphlets by the company, country are rapidly com- roturn for fived annual the agreement spells out the to realize the grim salaries (the rates to be deter ing maccino concaccions made hu mined job-evaluation), behind the fine reality with overtime the union leaders in return gether talk as the management (at overtime rates for ... a 6.8 per cent wage above the normal hourly rate) gets down to the iob of raise. its new implementing unions The present company-wide 4h c hote conceded weekly staff agreement 'some' flexibility between craft garsamant and between craft

(WSA).

earlier deal which allowed ICI and non-craft emplovees. commence "trials of propo- signed in The agreement, utilization Since decisions. on to the payment structure' of flexibility are to July by of degree and representatives practice This locally, nine unions including Hugh scheme Known taken free introduced for a giver the managemen' Scanlon of the AEF, hand to imance as much fexi.

of the Electrical Cannon bilitv as they can with government Trades Union, Dan McGar- prodough the MUPS deal met policy. pre- vey of the Boilermakers, and narnand muntion for intanding i. Miller of Transport and with recistance in some of agreements later. Workers' company'e nante ICT dapided membership General Union) it was safe to go ahead with made compulsory. sweeping powers the next stage GivAC The that agreement the ICI management to im- The WSA sets out what the states be enforced re- stage next plement flexibility, job evalu- dundancy at any location as a The aim agreement, ation, Measured-Day dinast recult of this Agreement Worr the preamble states type payments systems and and any reductions numbers of people rarill he reductions in the workforce.

affinionor tho achieved by normal operations more effective or other locally • other locally agreed means'.

Couched in the carefully people, material employing bland language beloved i the full of other words, the person to extent In work-study experts and pub- of redundancies time and canabilities and br nrauenting

WORKERS' PRE

Cecil Rhodes comes off rather lightly, for the authors blame the Afri- kaner Bond of 1879 for in- creased racial practices rather than treating them as part of the Rhodes-spun British web of laws and practices from the time of the Kimberley diamond mines and, later, the Rand gold mines. Both of these were opened up by British capital which, together with labour aristo- mainly from Britain, crats created most of the network of labour concentration camps known as compounds, the in- dustrial colour and the 'Bantustan'-type reserves (rural reservoirs of cheap labour).

It was in this period of the mining revolution that the basic colour-bar structure of South Africa was elaborated, economically and politically.

Yet the authors pay little or no attention at all to the work of Rhodes in his 1894 Glen Grey Act, which created what the Boers now call the 'Bantustans', nor to the equally important pioneering segrega- tory work of Theophilis Shep- stone in setting up the first significant reserves (in Natal) and in using the conquered chiefs as media of 'indirect rule'. Would it be unfair to attri- bute this omission to hind- the CPSA sight, since was later to work much of the political machinery set up by Rhodes and Shepstone? the on the sections diamond and gold mines, the Simons make a study of the British workers who came to the final South Africa quarter of the 19th century.

'Some were staunch trade unionists and ardent social- ists,' they write. White work- authority over ing men, set in African despised peasants, them and also feared them as potential competitors' (p. 32).

Later, they often use the term 'socialist' and also 'class- conscious' (p. 56) for anti- African, racialist workers, as a socialist could be a though racialist a racialist Or a socialist. Although they argue against their own terminology, it re- mains strange (yet perhaps not so strange) for Jack Simons, anyway, for he may remember a leading member of the CPSA the Cape Town Rail- saying in way Institute in 1940, when 'anti-war' and the CPSA was the Nationalist flirting with that if you scratch Party, under the skin of an Afrikaner partheid' was the recent creation of the eral Smuts (centre) surrounded by now falls entirely on the local union officials and shop stew- ards. Already workers at the Pontypool ICI factory fear the workforce may be cut by more than 20 per cent. Similar fears have been expressed by work- ers at the Huddersfield plant.

The method to be used in the plants to determine work- ers' annual 'salaries' under the scheme fall into the new psuedo-scientific familiar work-study pattern. Union leaders and manage- : 'that the results ment agree work-measurement and of method-study techniques ap- propriate for establishing and maintaining manning correct levels at standard performance (in work-study terms) ... need to be openly used and applied in each situation'. Jobs will be graded by 'a specially selected of team Company or inter-Divisional assessors' trained in the assess- ment procedure in the course of the MUPS trials. In the usual manner of such assessments, 'points' are allo- cated on scale under four headings: mental; personality; physical; and skills and know- ledge requirements. Typical of ership

WORKERS' PRESS

nationalist (racialist) you'll find a socialist. Or has he forgotten? The authors' treatment of the role of the missionaries, who have long been under- stood in the liberatory move- been prime ment to have agents in the conquest, dis- possession and subsequent sub- jugation of the Africans, and prime movers of educational segregation, is pathetic, to say the least. But then the real analysis of the missionaries has come from those who stood for non- collaboration and not from those who repeatedly collab- orated politically with them.

They still collaborate, in the Anti-Apartheid Committee in Anglican London, with the Church, one of the main and one of the oldest institutions of racial discrimination, both in church and school, in South Africa. It is thus perhaps not sur- prising that the Simons were unable to reveal missionaries like John Philip as pioneers of segregation, rather than 'a bearer of British culture as of the well teacher as a gospel' (p. 47). White labour ONE of the most valuable sections of the book is made the questions used in assess- ment is: Is it a requirement of the job to think consecu- tively and coherently and to place the right inference on happenings which have been observed?' On the basis of these and 'objective' questions, similar grades are established and the workers paid accordingly.

'salary' in the Annual various grades runs from £950 grade two to £1,450 in in grade 7. Most of the workers, of course, will find themselves in the lower grades, their jobs up to the maximum speeded efficiency' and their annual pay fixed in advance: Far from en- hancing their 'status', , as the agreement claims, many will find their craft status seriously eroded by the 'flexibility' terms in the deal. Many ICI workers correctly consider the deal will endanger union organization at local level and drive wedges between different sections of workers.

Workers must organize to fight against these deals by building a revolutionary alternative in the unions to the present lead- ership. up of the chapters dealing with 'White Labour'. The Simons do not hide the role of founder-members of the CPSA who were also, at various times, leaders of the white workers. Among these was W. H. ('Bill') Andrews-leader, be- fore the first war, of the en- gineers' union. Giving evidence to the Mining Commission in 1908, Andrews declared that 'the coloured races, if unchecked, would rise to the top and itself' endanger the state (p. 88). He came out strongly for industrial colour bar an against non-white workers. .

Andrews and other 'social- ists' *certainly excluded the African from their vision of the ideal commonwealth' (p.

59). Andrews and some of those who thought like him became founder members of the CPSA soon after the Russian Revolu- tion. Even in the time of Lenin and Trotsky and long before the Stalin regime the CPSA was born with the birthmark of racialism. And this came, at the time, from the racialists emanating from social democracy, in par- ticular from the British Labour Party. The South African CP owed its first congenital defect to the British Labour Party and the chauvinists in the British trade union movement of the time. At the same time, the South African Labour Party, an off- shoot of the British Labour Party, took a leading role in the all-white parliament in in- troducing colour-bar laws for factories and mines. The 1910 Act of Union, the basic constitution of apartheid to this day, was passed in the British Houses of Parliament without dissent. The fundamental colour bar of South Africa was created by the British parliament, with the support of the Labour Party. Andrews and other Labour Party leaders in South Africa wanted the Act amended, with "Native 'separate and Assembly" having Coloured only advisory power, to block the extension of the Cape's "coloured franchise", and con- fine the vote to adult whites, subject to retention of their by coloured rights existing voters in the Cape' (p. 109).

No non-European was ever to be allowed to sit in parlia- ment. This was the stand of the South African Labour Party, and, in principle and in their voting, of the British Labour Party. And it was the stand, too, of founder members of the

CPSA.

Another founder member of the CPSA, S. P. Bunting, was a Labour Party member of the all-white Transvaal Provincial Council and in 1914 he defen- ded the 'white Labour policy' against the African workers.

Pro-Afrikaner ANDREWS, Bunting and other founders of the CP became 'anti-war', but not from the viewpoint of the non-white oppressed who 'enjoyed' the opposite of the democracy which Smuts and Britain were fighting for. Rather did the 'left-wing' of the Labour Party incline to the 'anti-war' pressures of the pro- German Afrikaner National- ists, with whom they had long collaborated in the provincial councils and parliament, and in the unions. Not that Andrews and com- pany were pro-German. They simply opposed the of the war in the interests Afrikaner worker, and Bunting on August 5, 1915, said they had 'to choose between the Afrikaner vote and support of the war' (p. 183). They produced a weekly, formed 'International', and first the International League of the Labour Party and then International Socialist the Cecil Rhodes: Major architect of apart Tuesday, December 9, 1969 League (ISL), a forerunner of the CPSA. Their anti-war stand had nothing in common with the internationalism of Luxemburg, Lenin, Liebknecht, Trotsky and others who fought the war as an imperialist one, but the Simons fail to draw this con- clusion. During the war Bunting con- sidered the white workers more objectively and decided that they 'had been corrupted by racialism. "Slaves to a higher oligarchy, the white workers of South Africa them- selves in turn batten on a lower slave class"' (p.189), he wrote in 1916 in Inter- national. His views were not shared by Andrews and many others who, with him, set up the CPSA after the October Revo- lution. Nor did he hold to his clear formulation of 1916 consist- ently. Nor did 'International' which, in March 1916 blamed capitalism for breaking down the "ethnological tendency" to a "natural social apartness of white and black"' (p.193).

The idea was that after a "revolution' there would be 'apartness'. This is, literally, 'apartheid', the official creed of the government of today in South Africa. The 'anti-war' International' opposed mixed marriages editorially (p.194). When it opposed the Afri- can Peoples' Organization and the African National Congress 'petty-bourgeois' and as 'nationalist', it did so not from the point of view of anti-imperialist international- ism, but from the viewpoint of the corrupted white Labour aristocracy, the social basis of social democracy. The Russian IN 1917 Andrews came out 'parallel' unions for separate for coloured and African workers. And even in the midst of the which Russian Revolution, Bunting, Jones and Andrews,

ISL

other ISL leaders hailed, candidates were standing for all-white elections on the basis of the disfranchisement Act of Union of 1910. At the same times they en- gaged in 'parallel' activity among coloured, Indian and African urban workers. And 'Andrews continued to be a source of strength among white workers' (p.210). For some time after its sup- port of the Russian Revolution the ISL 'had no coloured or African members' (p.210), and the ISL continued to reject the against colour dis- struggle the central crimination as transitional struggle in South Africa. They used the question of the 'class struggle' to avoid and evade the national-liberatory like certain early struggle, white 'socialists' in America during the anti-slavery struggle, which Marx wholeheartedly supported. In practice their 'socialism' remained racialism, its oppo- site. The ISL continued to regard the white workers *ad- as vanced' and as the 'vanguard of revolution' (p.211). So as not to antagonize the white workers, ISL statements 'condemned the use of violence and even strikes as instru- ments of social change' (p.211).

rchitect of apartheid.

Tuesday, December 9, 1969 Early members of the African National Con organized massive strikes of African work anti-pass campaigns. The ISL had to 'avoid a blood bath by preaching in- dustrial unity ... This would ensure peaceful change without "such evils as the white work- ers justifiably fear"' (p.211), wrote the 'International' in December, 1918. What this had in common. support for the Russian with Revolution is more than diffi- cult to imagine. THE INDUSTRIAL Socialist League in Cape Town, similar to the International Socialist League in Johannesburg, pub- lished the 'Bolshevik' before the two led to the founding of the CPSA. Before the latter was formed, the African and Coloured workers had begun to form militant, anti-colour bar unions and the African National Congress (ANC) had launched an anti-pass cam- paign, while African and Coloured workers came out in massive strikes. The 'communists' early largely turned their backs on these historic developments, which were greatly inspired by the Russian Revolution. When white workers scabbed strikes in 1919, African on Bunting condemned them, but Jones and Andrews 'defended the white workers' (p.223). When the ISL celebrated May Day in 1919, 'Andrews regretted the absence of Afri- cans and Coloured' (p. 224).

The ISL brochure carried of Lenin, Trotsky, pictures Liebknecht and Luxemburg, but few of their real ideas.

The first major non-Euro- pean trade union, the Indus- trial and Commercial Workers' Union (ICU) was formed al- most entirely independently of the ISL's of Cape Town and Johannesburg. Nor did they have a signifi- cant hand in the strike 70,000 African miners in Feb- rurary, 1920. But when the white workers came out in a strike against the employment of African miners in skilled jobs, the early 'communists' came out in full force, as if it was the start of the long-heralded revolution'.

Nominally the CPSA was proposed in September 1920 and in January 1921 accepted the Communist International's 21 conditions of membership, with a reservation on clause 3, (on illegal work) so as to enable the Party to take part in (all-white) parliamentary elections (p.26l). The CPSA itself was set up n Cape Town in July 1921, with Bunting as treasurer, and Andrews as secretary-editor.

"All the delegates and mem- bers of the executive were whites' (p.261). 'The party's first manifesto appealed mainly to the white working man' (p.261). The first test of the CPSA soon afterwards, with came the white miners' strike in favour of the mining colour bar and against the African miners, in 1922. In November 1921 the 'In- ternational' of organ the CPSA, said that the white miners were 'perfectly justified in $ fighting to keep up the numbers and pay of holders of blasting certificates' (p.276).

(Colour bar certificates re- served for whites only under the Mines and Works Att of Smuts.) The Simons comment: 'This unqualified approval of the oldest and most signi- ficant colour bar on the mines revealed the decision of the communists to back the white workers against the Chamber in all circumstances' (p.276).

The Chamber of mines favoured ietting cheap African an National Congress (ANC) in 1919 of African workers and launched the first labour do a restricted number of jobs previously reserved for whites. The CPSA did not think of supporting the Atri- can miners against the Cham- ber's multifarious colour bars.

The Trades Hall in Johan- nesburg was the headquarters of the CPSA and also became the HQ of the 'militants' lead- ing the white workers. Bunting called on African to support the white workers workers and said that 'colour bars were "of course unfair" of all yet served the interests workers "to the extent" that they helped keep up higher wages and the number of those drawing on them.. 'The abolition of the colour bar would benefit only a small handful of Africans', he said adding, 'security for the white man, on the other hand, lay not in retaining the colour bar but in raising the wages of Africans' (p. 281). In January 1922 the CPSA offered its services to the strike committee. The strikers came out with the slogan 'For a white South Africa'. The Forsburg commando (anti-African vigilantes) hoist- ed a Red Flag and carried a banner 'Workers of the world, fight and unite for a white South Africa' (p.285).

The CPSA supported the slogan 'critically' (p.285).

This African, arrested for a pass offence, must now serve his sentence by working for a white farmer for 9d. a day. The CPSA 'hailed the com- mandos as "Red Guards of the Rand" and praised them for in the Red Army enrolling under the Red Flag' (p.286).

The commandos rejected a Chamber offer to keep a ratio of one white to 10 Africans.

The commandos beat up Africans and the police ter- rorized and arrested the Afri- cans rather than the strikers.

the The CPSA defended colour bar as a defence of that 'The wage-rates, saying immediate, partial demand for the retention of colour bars was consistent with the move- ment's aims' long-range (p.290). After Smuts put down the strike with the use of bombers, the apartheid regime offered and gave the white workers a place in the sun, recognising them as allies in. the struggle for a 'white South Africa' Seventy-eight strikers were killed and 30 Africans were killed by strikers themselves.

After the end of the 'strike', Bunting wrote a pamphlet, 'Red Flag', which continued to defend the colour bar on the mines. In its first major practical test, in 1922, the CPSA had stood on the side of apartheid and against the African work- ers, no matter what excuses it made for its betrayal.

This emerges fairly clearly from Chapter of the Simons' work. In 1960, African workers expressed their hal laws of the capitalist class by launching s movement. with Nationalists THE WHITE miners' strike of 1922 was followed by the Coalition, Labour-Nationalist which replaced the Smuts gov- ernment. concessions Major were made in order to bring the white workers into the 'United White Front' against the non- Europeans, and new apartheid laws of labour, land and the compounds and reserves (Ban- tustans) passed by were the Labour Party - Nationalist regime. Under cover of the Commu- nist International's directive to form 'proletarian united fronts', the Communist Party formed the opposite, a Popular Front, not with the parties of the oppressed, but with two of the parties of the Herren- volk oppressors, namely, the Labour Party, representing the colour-bar white workers, and the Nationalist Party, repre- senting the white farmers and small businessmen. 'Andrews, Shaw and Dun- bar', write the Simons, 'appeared on platforms with Labour and Nationalist party leaders' (p.302). The 'International' of June and July 1922 regarded this as a step towards a 'peoples' gov- ernment'. Essentially it was no different from the present Vor- ster apartheid government of South Africa. Even reformist leaders of the coloured people, like Dr Ab- durahman, write, after Smuts had bombed and killed African peasants Bondelzwartz, at South West Africa, and at Bul- hoek, Eastern Cape, that the Nationalists would treat the Africans in no different man- ner. Indeed, the 1922 strike, sup- ported by the CPSA, increased the flood of racialism which, in turn, guided and was directed by the ruling Nationalist and Labour Parties, as Smuts' party had done before. The CPSA supported this policy of racialism with their Popular Front of 1922-1923 and later. It revealed, thereby, the depth of the influence on it of 'white South Africa' and British social democracy.

period the CPSA, In this while backing white Labour and white nationalism, helped to confuse the members of the great African-Coloured Indus- trial and Commercial Workers' Union (ICU). The ICU members had hailed the Russian Communist Revolution, yet here, in South Africa, was a Communist Party which was openly on the side of the 'white' oppressor his parties, and, thereby, against the non-European oppressed and workers. Moreover, the 'Internation- al', organ of the CPSA, at- tacked the ICU for being against the industrial colour

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WORKERS' PRES

pressed their batred for the apartheid • by launching a nationwide pass-burning International', bar (p. 307. May 18, 1923). Further, at its April 1923 Congress, the CPSA voted by a two to one majority to apply for affiliation to the anti- African Labour Party (p.309).

The pro-Nationalist line of the CPSA was taken up by a section of the ICU leadership under Klement Kadalie (who in turn was guided by British Labour and trade union and also Liberal advisors). The Nationalist Party, using the Popular Front, gave money and printed an election issue of 'Workers Herald', the ICU paper. Kadalie's short-lived faith in his people's most bitter ene- mies' (D.319) was increased bv the collaboration of the Com- munist Party itself with these enemies of the African people.

This collaboration was seen as a result of a directive from Moscow, which had, in fact (this was before the triumph of Stalin) advocated the opposite policy. There was a revolt of E. Roux and others against the policy of collaboration with the Labour Party and Nation- alists, the YCL and was formed, with one of its aims to bring Africans into the Party. E. S. ('Solly') Sachs, in the ICL since 1917, a leading Party and member, a trade union leader of a segregated all-white union, with a separate branch for coloured members, was among those who opposed a change in policy. He defended separate organ- isations for the Africans.

Roux's group won the day but in 1924 were defeated when Andrews and others won a motion at the Party Con- gress of December 1924 to again apply to join the Labour Party. Although at its January 1929 conference the Party eventually adopted 'the prin- ciple of complete equality of races' and called for 'Workers' and Peasants' Re- public' independent of Britain, (p. 352), this was little more than groups in the coloured and African unions and even 'bourgeois organizations' had previously spoken about and even advocated. Nor did it put an end to the CPSA's colour bar policies.

African union

THE

ICU had an estimated African membership of 120,000 by 1927. Although estimates varied, it was recognized as biggest industrial union the of African workers which has ever existed in South Africa.

After the attempt of Hertzog to corrupt it, it was heavily persecuted. Kadalie's own nationalism, sharpened by the anti-African 10.00-10.30 Speak Your Mind. 11.32 News Headlines. Weather. Reporting 6.00-6.45 Scotland: Scotland. 9.10-10.00 A Song Of Crotal 10.00-10.30 Quizburgh. White. an 32 News Headlines. Telewele.

5.20-5.50 p.m. 6.00- Wales: Heddiw 6.45 Wales Todav, 6.45-7.10 7.10-7.30 Z Cars. One Of 8.00-8.25 The Family. 8.25-8.50 Ryan A Ron- nie. South and West: 6.00-6.45 p.m. Points West. South Today. Spotlight South- Weather All. Nationwide. west. 10.00- 10.30 Free For Peninsular. Open 11.32 News Headlines, House. Weather.

B.B.C.-2

11.00-11.20 a.m. Play School.

1.15-1.45 p.m. Medicine Today.

Role In The 7.00 Britain's Seventies. 7.30 Newsroom and Weather. 8.00 Floodlit Rugby League: Wigan v. St. Helens. 8.45 Jazz Scene. "Blithe Spirit': film 9.10 of Noel Coward's play.

VORKERS' PRESS

policies of the CPSA, led him closer to the main ideological influence on the CPSA in this period: British social demo- cracy. He moved into the maws of the ILO at Geneva and else- where. He was 'taken in hand' by Fenner Brockway and the British ILP. The Amsterdam (Second) In- ternational accepted ICU mem- bership in January 1927. The International Federation of Trade Unions, run by social democracy, welcomed him in Paris. Grimshaw and Creech- Jones, of the Labour Party's 'colonial' (imperialist) section, 'revised' the ICU constitution.

Despite this the British TUC would not accept Kadalie as a fraternal delegate to its annual conference 'for fear of offend- ing white trade unionists in South Africa' (p.362). In the face of and wage anti-segregation strikes of farm workers in Natal, of Natal coal miners in June 1927, of railway workers, of 30,000 diamond workers in June 1928 and of other African workers, the BICU leadership adopted more British Labour and more a Party and Fabian reformist line. Kadalie admitted, in Decem- ber 1927, that his new 'consti- tution' was 'based the on model of the best modern trade unions in England' (p.365), and Champion, one of his rivals, said: 'Our Kadalie was full of English ideas.

Among his advisers were British 'socialists' and 'liberals', like Mrs Ballinger (later a 'Native Representative') and Miss Winifred Holtby. Finally, after Lord Oliver, Labour peer, had wished to see 'the ICU relieved of its com- munist propagandists' (p.360), the British ILP and Walter Citrine sent William Ballinger of the Motherwell Trades Council to 'organize' the ICU.

There is a saying in South Africa that Ballinger did 'or- ganize' the ICU-out of exist- ence, with the policy of British social-democratic reformism, paternalism and collaboration with apartheid. 'Ballinger became the ICU secretary, president and council all in one' national (p.375). By the end of the 1920s British social democracy had helped to reduce South Afri- ca's biggest and most militant African trade union to a sham- bles and a memory. The CPSA's criticism of the reformism of the ICU did not put it in practice to the left of the British Labour Party.

(The beginning of being , 'left' in South Africa was and is to be against colour discrimina- tion and other forms of imperi- alism.) For when the ICU applied to join the TUC in South Africa in December 1927, Ben Weinbren, an executive mem- ber of the TUC and a leading 'communist, said: 'We were all scared that he would us, we re- swamp SO jected the application' (p. 369) ('Forward'), January 1, 1944).

Andrews, of the CPSA, was among the TUC members who examined the ICU application to the TUC of a memo December 28, 1927. The memo was approved by 58 to two by the TUC's segre- gationist leadership. Apartheid white labour ap- proved the memo of a leading CPSA member because it was basically in line with their own anti-African policy. Moreover, Andrews himself 'drafted the memorandum' (p.369). Andrews was then secretary- editor of the CP. "When the test came' , wrote the Simons, 'he made his stand on the issue of white labour solidarity' (p.370). Once again the CPSA had betrayed the African proletariat of South Africa. 10.45 Europa. 11.20 News Summary and Weather. 11.25 Line Up.

I.T.V.

2.25 p.m. The Pony Club Christ- mas Rally. 3.25 More Best Sellers.

3.55 Face Of The Earth. 4.15 News Headlines. 4.17 Paulus. 4.30 Crossroads. 4.55 Junior Showtime. 5.20 Magpie. 5.50 News From ITN. 6.03 Today. Branded. 6.30 7.00 The Tuesday Film: 'Sec- ond Chance with Robert Mitchum, Jack Palance. 8.30 Cribbins. 9.00 Happy Ever After: 'Party Rachel Piece' with Roberts, Peter Bowles. 10.00 News At Ten. 10.30 If The Village Dies: Docu- mentary about an Indian village. 11.30 How About You? Question Of 12 midnight A Human Rights. All independent channels as London ITV except at the following times: a.m.-12.J0

CHANNEL:

11.00 ›.m 1.40 Cher 4.15 Castle Haven. Schools. 6.00 Channel News and Weather.

Oscar. 6.35 Cross- 6.10 Channel Lookaround. roads. 7.00 Star Movie: 'My Six Loves'.

WHILST

broadc experiences crisis, those who o control lt are trying to move open pr and to ensure that and television Co l One astonishing the struggles at the the rapidity with whic workers and manas quiet for so long, al passing through the of conflict. rrom protest to str November 11 at the front. 'Pay lasti causes and circumstat recent alspute have completed it 'Industrial action of t it we can all tet achi bygones. task force 4.46 It's : Pla sting atest 'n or very serve ower 'adio Such a crude attempt to re- tinue establish the old cuddly rela- ters. tions cannot succeed, but it ire of confuse. When can taken BC is alongside the flurry of parlia- mentary goings-on over broad- both casting, it is certainly intended ment, to paper over the deep cracks now which have appeared in the once smooth facade. hases But the cracks are irre- parable; the conflict of inter- ests involved is fundamental.

es, to The questions of pay and con- Is em- ditions, of the future of radio • vary and television, of redundan- • hesi- cies and profits and policy, wever cannot be met at Westminster or by cheery messages from on dition high. azine, The Minister of Posts and Telecommunications, Mr John every Stonehouse, has been forced to on, a ector- make preparations for a major tured government inquiry into the long-term future of broadcast- with ing after 1976. It was only in June 1962, S: ue of however, that the last one, the urt of Pilkington committee, made its arbara 'the future of the report on , the broadcasting services in the es of UK' and on 'what financial and

ABS

other conditions should apply hear- to the conduct of all these services' out in The bourgeoisie and its agents in the government are • kind staggering from one aspect of tober the crisis to another. Workers rmath will not fail to notice this BS as desperation. both COMMERCIAL television, of te on course, continues to exhibit rather all the features of the same itions. ( e staff contradictions of capitalist in the control. In the Financial Times' e this example, (November 7), for es be . Shawcross, chairman of Lord Stratford Johns as the heads of the police tly, Softly, : a programe aimed at boosting the law's image. 4.00 News nmen-

ATV

MIDLANDS:

p.m. giques, 4.15 Your Headlines. 4.02 Houseparty. Star ShowcasATV Today. 6.35 Cross- Diane's Magic Theatre. " Club 7.00 Star Western Movie: The roads. ( Hard Man' with Guy Madison, Valerie 6.00 Green. 11.30 Play With French, Lorne Film: A Purpose, Weather. tewart ernard ULSTER: 4.30 p.m. Romper Room. ast is 4.50 Ulster News Headlines.

6.00 UTV

11.30 Crossroads. 7.00 Mid- Reports. 6.35 tewart Movie: 'Will Gentleman' week Any e New 11.45 with George Cole. 11.30 Billy.

Weather. 3.00 p.m.

YORKSHIRE:

Play Better p.m. Golf. 3.30 All About Riding. 4.11 neatre. 4.15 News Headlines. 4.13 The Tingha and Tucker Club. 4.25 Katie Stewart Cooks.

leybun 6.35 6.00 Castle Haven. 6.55 'Last Holiday' Alec Guinness. A man spends his ly Six with David last few weeks at a fashionable sea- 9.00 Hadleigh. 11.30 The nantic side hotel. Man Who Never Was. 11.45 Late 12.01 Weather. TYNE-TEES: 4.09 p.m. North East • Club 4.11 News Headlines. 4.13 Newsroom. e For Paulus. 4.25 Mad Movies. 4.53 North 6.36 East Newsroom. 6.00 Today 6.35 Castle Six. 7.55 6.30 Where The Jobs Are. dnight Haven. 7.00 The Tuesday Films: 'Come with George Formby and On George' Googie Withers. 11.30 Late News Extra.

t: 4.24 11.47 The Season Of Advent.

Cross- SCOTTISH: 4.20 p.m. Scotland Early.

Haven. Scotland Now. Sylw. 4.30 Crossroads. 6.00 Deal? 7.05 6.30 Raw The Name Of The Game. 11.30 Late Call. 11.35 Letters From The Dead. • Club GRAMPIAN: 4.15 p.m. News Head- Haven. 4.17 Sean The Leprechaun. 4.30 aulus. lines. Skippy. 6.00 Grampian News.

Farming roads. pache' News. 6.15 Out Of Town. 6.35 Cross- Peters. roads. 7.00 The Film Stars: "The Pot dnight Carriers' with Ronald Fraser. 11.30 Play With A Purpose.

PAGE THREE

Thames Television, made his carefully-prepared pitch.

Rather than argue crudely for more profit, or a fair return on capital invested in this most important industry, as it's called, Lord Shawcross took the line that programmes are bound to suffer unless the companies can retain more of their income. He was at pains to point out that commercial television is no longer goldmine and clearly indicated a coming deterioration in output, 'unless the government does take prompt action'. The crisis is real enough.

Some of the 15 franchise holders may be going into the red after only the second year of the current contracts.

The Independent Television Authority has estimated that during the coming year the programme companies will re- ceive £100 million income from advertising. Costs are put at £60 to £62 million, leaving £36 to £38 million surplus. The government levy plus corporation and income taxes, will take nearly £35 millions.

That leaves, according to the estimate, between £3 and £5 million to be shared amongst the contractors. This is a shortage of profits.

And commercial television, need we add, is run purely and simply for profit. Conse- quently, in Scotland, Grampian has cut its contractual obli- gations to provide local inter- est programmes by 20 per cent.

Elsewhere, instructions to producers to cut costs are now normal. The big five, Thames, Granada, ATV, London Week- end and Yorkshire, producing 60 per cent of all network programmes, are considering forming joint production consortium. The move towards mergers on this scale is always a sign of crisis. Smaller companies like Scot- tish TV and Grampian are planning a sales link, whilst Westward and Channel TV have already reached agree- ment in this way. Yorkshire and Anglia are said to be discussing ways to share facilities and thus some money. Meanwhile, Forte's and British Lion (Britain's third largest film production and distribution company) are buy- ing substantial stakes in Thames Television. All round there is a flurry of defensive activity. One point which no doubt has a bearing on these activi- ties; on June 16 Mr Stonehouse made a firm promise that thé levy will be reviewed if profits for the industry fall to the estimated £5 million. Clearly, the companies are going to hold him and the government to that promise.

Last week's statement about the new committee of inquiry makes that clear. In 1976 the present fran- chises run out and the BBC's charter comes up for renewal.

By then more stop -gap measures will have been tried and also found wanting. No long-term solution is possible without socialist ownership and control. Current programme output makes that quite clear. An in- creasing desperation in the schedules is showing through.

The 'TV Times' makes inter- esting reading. A 'Coronation Street' birth- day pull-out souvenir, a full- page picture of Eamonn Andrews who returns to- morrow, would you believe it, with 'This Is Your Life'.

The only interesting shows mentioned are the last of the Kestrel plays for London Weekend Television. The BBC is in no better state. There the situation shows in a different way. Last week brought a perfect ex- ample of it. "Softly, The programme Softly-Task Force', like all current police series, is dedi- cated these days to creating the new image of the law as efficient, productive, relentless and always ready for change.

Last Thursday's episode was no exception in its emphasis on the mobility, cleverness and upstanding of the natures coppers and detectives con- cerned. The programme ended with a shot of Stratford Johns look- ing delighted at the way his force had conducted them- selves. The news followed.. New Scotland Yard an- nounced that four detectives under investigation in the cur- rent allegations of corruption had been suspended. One of them is from the new regional crime squad on which Task Force' is modelled!

WORKERS PRESS

PAGE FOUR

'Morning Star' refuses to report This Saturday Young

GRANGEMOUTH

Socialists

GRAND XMAS

BAZAAR

SET-BACK

By our Industrial correspondent Saturday, December 13

CORN EXCHANGE

THE STRIKE at BP's Grangemouth refinery

LEEDS

site, which began in mid-September, has Doors open 12 noon ended.

NTRA

Described by one striker as the biggest in a long list of sell-outs perpetrated by his union's leaders, the half the site's sacked boiler-

ABERDEEN

settlement returns makers to their jobs. This was accepted at a mass meeting last Friday by 172 votes to 156.

Labour council The voting was conducted ballot on the tries to break Вмест ста whic Amar yamated Dociety ol boulermakers oncials. me inion Congress, men who Mich - a serie. dustmen's strike even the terms, at Even Aberdeen dustcart drivers, members of the Scottish Commercial Motormen's Union, are now entering on the sitanted to work again • on strike. sacy are actermined to will uner demand or as a week pay rise without sumes.

By our Industrial reporter out of 300 wed : original 137 platers). rest, with The are surplus Leaders of the London tudi

ROME

strike committee 'Open' job terday's Central Hall, West- 200 in march activities as tany macca on he bile break the Lambeth dustmen's Lael Strik Pressure azalnsl LIbi against C.P. lein week. Chairman or tn ly lement signed Blame strike committee Don cooK been Under ovis they applying is seen on the let of the three leaders tubemen's expulsions accentuced directa the stricer nearest the camera. Boilermakers' Muncipal goes Un S.W. march remained unimpaired Another MP and a TWO HUNDRED Italian Communist Party members ci use for boilerspecias.

This penal demonstrated outside the offices of the

• FROM PAGE ONE

brutal ment level that is of Brien. federation of their Party on Friday night, in protest ccepting wage 'Mor interested. Star dustmen the roads. apparently, is not against the proposed suspension of five supporters of Scottish this paper ince we made our claimither mands. Vietnam the opposition 'Il Manifesto' group.

can not thin the i Among the demonstrators LEFT MPs murder were ten Hoe advisable for Rome Party

• FROM PAGE ONE

with to inter anion dispute to the 15-weko we die see ot A NEW YORK peace fund This is in line in th recent strike struggles wisen to Salom Brown and loundation nas called lor an in the Rome area. But the our Crane yet investication _ Into Opposition has also broken sarases about the massace imperialist has Been there sind other US to see thest atrocity. Retain whip labour movem particularly ATUA meeting dation strike y retire organized by the TUAtin strategy and partial told charades or these tum that faced the stic Secretary that the done Libyan leaders Tension main capitorist, • daily strikers 5 for orgatulati sucthe under pressure m Plumbing Trade he sal sou della in orts issuel of Sast Satordad the with the go to a hithe Engineers the incident blaimed pole visi to oust Britain to the Kins be o part Colland Kite mike Police strikers he ASB has claimhese di there wa

NEGOTIATIONS

normea aDo national coppers one are plan • were made at a removal British bases face trial ning big attacks. Libya are yesterals of the toya *The Wilson government has Matony icemenin of pub. amus is yel anotner exampie consistently More public prosecutors of governments. imperialism pra Vietnam. Wi Catania ded better he Tore con producerity deposed in 1967, as he does important, today. attack Through • large aired in demanded by by the is.

'BENEFITS'

Yone who sit to To suc Bring Carrons and bee pickets regime's of • Wyan domie Wils

FROM DEALS

declare, can an he pot or al Supal or all foreign Labour speakernd sister day This you meath sp Congress People. now, it Union Kissed corpse workers' Wage cuts es and do national independen com tre boiler lutio mo trend support MPs imperialism. rewards and benefits. nakers work under Clause 6 clash with Menan strikers a Shipyard militant sacked in 197, the Tories to r not after strike that the FOUR HUNDRED Aberdeen shipyard workers have returned to work after being on strike for a week against Whom ar the sacking by John Lewis and Son of a shop steward solidarity anu apprenuice. workers still ork, the unish of each e But hoth By a Workers Press reporter remain sacked. chiefsympathiesup Iployers on the tot would be 'regarded' the law courts lie. Kegotiation with she eup work ana lal back at progers. Wildlife Automation workers to killed by The sacking of this cancels pretude reer to a cacks chemicals? ban overtime workers in the area.

WORKERS

Wiles den's meeting agreed There have been research must strikers to to the crat military and rnment in Sout Trish sea lace before th less will do. used iry. from s that they Still sacked to requirements rather The and a spende i me san i the local 160 Clapha Waster, London shat the formula, in satice the last 1a been been convenor for under Costro ceived a new £200,000 order.

By the forelgn editor alian Communist Party members Rome ared the offices of the 'arty on Friday night, in protest suspension of hve supporters of By a forelgn correspondent Communist the prod trion resum daders, and unicd bs eay ats ha I would like to subscribe to l Name Address ost to: Circulallon or•aniz aoham Hah Street. London. sw Court threatens to extradite Robert Williams DECEMBER 15 will be Robert F.

Detroit, Michigan. Agreement nears on arms summit SOVIET-US talks SALT Be arms limitation in Helsink week yester- time in the new years Car unions

• FROM PAGE ONE

Tay for women, securitua a guaranteed the i her can be no real • rasters of workroduction

NOW

Tor soch wo days OR Et tor three month. I would like to subscribe to Workers' Press for Tuesday. December 9. 1969 Williams' second hearing in the Randolph County Court, The militant hack lead. er is fighting attempts to extradite him trom Michi gan to the State of North Carolina, where he faces trial on a trumped-up kid- napping charge. right - wing MiChigan's governor Milliken has al ready signed extradition papers. All that stands be tween Williams and dition * which restraining order the extradition Preventi being carried out. ase go back to , 55, was goes ba minary he returmed Marine Monroe Couls brack nainit

MILITIA

a fight el, steps by a , but did he was not penal rape her. drink- int and the di terror of the mito of helian. ing es Success the Ku nate kobert

'KIDNAPPING

wiTha si din being heldhich ust 25-2 rem lie Robert of local blacks are tender ther through The black ghetto was i an Three hundred of the out to defen inintil te family i until 1966.1 1969. From Chicago. plane for