Workers Press no. 772

workers press

HULL DOCKS

REBUFF FOR T&G

Clyde £35m means bigger

INCORPORATING THE NEWSLETTER •

TUESDAY MAY 23, 1972• No. 712• 4p DAILY ORGAN OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE SOCIALIST LABOUR LEAGUE LEADERS of Britain's biggest

BY STEPHEN JOHNS

union received a stunning rebuff The meeting was addressed by David.

Shenton, the union's Hull district secre- from Hull dockers yesterday when tary. He said it had been made abundantly they threw out official advice to clear to the men that the union was in fines if the peril and faced heavy end their blacking of container

YCL

Court order to end the blacking was not firms. obeyed. *There comes a time when things must explode and this is one of those times, At the first of a series of docks meet- he said. ings, full time officials of the Transport called its and General Workers' Union failed com- for the union. Last week it full-time officials together to plan how to pletely to carry out the orders of the get the dockers to lift their national action National Industrial Relations Court to 12 container firms. The decisions at on Liverpool and London get the dockers to lift their action.

are now certain to be against the union.

Panalpina- The 2,000 Hull dockers met in the City -the firm which brought the Hall and voted unanimously to keep up Court action against the blacking -said Hull Stewards' chairman Walter Cunningham: the black and reaffirmed their determina- yesterday they would send another lorry tion to strike on June 2 if the issue had to Hull docks today. 'Jones is running'. Another refusal to handle their cargo The Hull decision brings not been settled. the possibi- would clear the decks for lity of a national docks strike closer. To contempt Hull dockers' leader Walter Cunning- the

1&GWU

has meet this threat the National Association Cast Wilen ham made an attack on Jack Jones, head already paid £55,000 to the Court for of Port Employers is planning to ask the of the T&GWU after the meeting.

He said Court for a lengthy cooling-off period to earner orders Court President Sir John Donaldson had In further contempt cases the union will stop the strike. told Jones what to do and OLeS Was face sequestration assets. In the second case concerning black- all lts 'running like a frightened rabbit'.

understand that has provision already ing, the •Liverpool docks. •We are only doing what the officials been made to counter this by a proposal been given until June 2 to put its house should be doing,' he added. to Day omcials a years salary in advance in order or lace rurtner penalties attack on jobs

THE

GOVERNMENT'S

one more adaptation Tory to plan to protect certain stra- which strategy In DoverSD and intimidate the working class.

tegic industries in prepara- Market Workers reject the tion for Common chonic

BY AN INDUSTRIAL CORRESPONDENT

Stalinists and the reformists who entry got under way in par- the Tories have gone soft or sd y liament yesterday. This warned that Ve deco pressure the is to hope like hell the shipping Dolice Bill and the Clydeside strategy is Industry Minister Christopher strengthened lines start to order new Would nave to be Ships. concession to the workins Chataway Bill by 15,000 to deal with the introduced The total Closure Commons which earmarks unrest which Class but a new declaration o would result for will undoubtedly be used during industries vital to war. for the early life of the une mass unemployment due to closure of the yards! make une national economy. sure labou TOrCE The main feature of this new beneficiary of the Anatol every or producti policy Threat to will Di government hand-out will vity and refrains from industrial intensluca shipbuilding especially the action in protection of rights and wive tor more productivity and £35m attack on trade union Upper Clyde. A total The resistance of the shipyard rights sum aside workers free speech the ser

TOI

further Shipbuilders and Common weakened Govan - the gov- because mey nave been divider ernment-backed firm which is Market entry the Tories hope to between two companies soften-up the labour force in take three of the four At Clydebankias Marathon over THE WAY the law of contempt the already de This old UCS divisions. process has Manufacturing was being applied to Ship- reached The Bill marks a switch Govar Derun with shop stewards a reement dustrial Relations Court crude *lame builders from the ducks Where the Stalinist. ed Wd. over pay and conditions. shop stewards have signed challenge to tree expression and The Texan firm hopes

DUL

to agreements which allow for the speech, claimed a Labour MP in move in favour of the working begin on July babiur force or 500ithhe rent ol Commons an intal yesterday. demarca Dreak -cown CalL barrister, tion, shift-working and pledges The Tories' strategy at Govan Daviason. workforce will The l to avoid strike action. said that it was absurd that news- Shipbuilders this employed finishing the old makes oical papers and broadcasters should There they hope to keep ship- future of than coniebuilder she

UCS

Despite these and contracts Convertne permitted building alive until they can

IC POLL

Dule ol-res hostile policy Clearly if Govan Shipbuilders other commentar fraught Tormulate CommOn WIth uncertainty by trade unionists for fear of with European company begins its life with six survival threatened and the ( contempt in- interests to meet the fierce orders, the which will 4,300 with there faced and almost half voked against them competition from Japan of dole, eat of away Une -Une chances £35m grant. the deep depression in united fight against this weatner world orders. As yet there are no signs weakened because of this formal 'End black' believe that who the Convan Shipbuilders Managing any new division within the ranks. inspired by 'new course' was director of Govar prospect of by higher productivity, more suaden concern developed Ouchrist acmitted Tories for the plight of unem- publicly last week that the new redundancie and the outlawing

MANCHESTER'S

1,100 dock ployed Clydesiders should could possibly company not unofficial strikes being urged in is only worKers are Tele- yesterday's Daily launched time preparation out by their union read

WORSE

interlude zor the leatlet sent graph'. Common Market. Then the yard to end their three-week black- because or the sump in world orders. labour will face even more ing of two container firms. Bruce- Govan Ship- mood at intensified attacks. The appeal will be repeated a reveals that "solution' to Gardyne builders effectively summed the an mass meeting called

ICDOL L

DUCT

UCS

by a company spokesman yester- struggle strebed as a visor but obe cannot for Wednesda by Transport Trom une constaDe Glasgow played a major role. day who said: 'All can do and General Workers' Unior

SPECIAL

FEATURES

THIS WEEK

TODAY

'Case history of a Stalinist humbug The man in question is Monty Johnstone whose distortions about recent the SLL and YS are taken up by

MICHAEL BANDA

TOMORROW

Rhodesia: Post-Pearce A special correspondent looks at the similarity in legal powers under Smith and Heath

THURSDAY

James Reid is the most remarkable product of modern Stalinism. He has received praise from the entire capitalst media who hail him as a new kind of workers leader. What is the root of this adulation? Stephen Johns examines *The Gospel According to James Reid' on our centre pages. NINE HUNDRED workers at GKN's Bredbury steelworks, near Stockport, agreed to return to a cash work yesterday with increase but no concessions on hours after management threat- ened sackings. Three other sit-ins ended yesterday with settlements the Engineering Employers' Federa- described "sensible' tion as leaving only 11 of the original 25 factories still 'occupied'.

• See story page 3.

workers press

HULL DOCKS

REBUFF FOR T&G

Clyde £35m means bigger INCORPORATING THE NEWSLETTER • TUESDAY MAY 23, 1972 • No. 712 • 4p DAILY ORGAN OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE SOCIALIST LABOUR LEAGUE

LEADERS

of Britain's biggest

BY STEPHEN JOHNS

union received a stunning rebuff The meeting was addressed by David. from Hull dockers yesterday when Shenton, union's Hull district secre- the tary. He said it had been made abundantly they threw out official advice to clear to the that the union was in helen peril and faced heavy nnes it the end their blacking of container Court order to end the blacking was not firms. "There comes a time when things must explode and this is one of those times,' At the first of a series of docks meet- said. ings, full time officials of the Transport The decision at Hull is a stunning blow called its and General Workers' Union failed com- for the union. Last week full-time officials together to plan how to pletely to carry out the orders of the get the dockers to lift their national action - National Industrial Relations Court to .on 12 container firms. The decisions at Liverpool and London almost get the dockers to lift their action.

certain to be against the union The 2,000 Hull dockers met in the City Panalpina- which brought the -the frm Hall and voted unanimously to keep up Court action against the blacking- -said Hull Stewards' chairman Walter Cunningham: the black and reaffirmed their determina- vesterdav they would send another lorry to strike on June 2 if the issue had to Hull docks today. 'Jones is running'. Another to handle their The Hull not been settled. cargo decision brings the possibi- would clear the decks for lity of a national docks strike closer. To contempt Hull dockers' leader Walter Cunning- the

T&GWU

has meet this threat the National Association Cast ham made an attack on Jack i no. He said head already paid £55,000 to the Court of Port Employers is planning to ask the for of the T&GWU after the meeting. orders. Court for a lengthy cooling-off period to earner Court President Sir John Donaldson had In further contempt cases the union will stop the strike. told Jones what do and Jones Was face sequestration its assets. In the second case concerning black- 'running like a frightened rabbit'. understand that provision has ing, Liverpool has already docks. union 'We only doing what the officials been made to counter this by a proposal been given until June 2 to put its house al C should be doing,' he added.

lo Day omcials a years salarv in advance in order or tace further penalties.

attack on jobs

THE

GOVERNMENT'S

one more adaptation to Tory lan to protect certain stra which impoverish strategy and intimidate the working class.

tegic industrie in prepara Market Workers should reject the tion for Common

•BY AN INDUSTRIAL CORRESPONDENT

Stalinists and the reformists who entry got under way in par- the Tories have gone soft or say liament yesterday. This warned that vie dee to pressure unlalaway s the is to hope like hell the shipping Dolce Bill and the Clydeside strategy is Industry Minister Christopher would have to be strengthened lines start to order new ships." concession the Chataway® working by 15,000 to deal with the introduced a The threat total closure class th.400m Commons which earmarks which but a new declaration unrest would result for the eanly ube of the coed dying war. for industries vital early life cne mass unemployment aue to company closure of the yards! make sure the

IOICE

The win tature of ntensed beneficiary of the of producti- YveS ever policy Threat to government hand-out will vity and refrains from industria shipbuilding and especially the drive for more action in protection of rights productivity and attack on trade union Clyde. A total of £35m The resistance of the shipyard

VOCI

rights. sum free speech • The set aste

TOI

workers further Between and Govan Shipbuilders — the gov- Commor nOW because they have been divided Market entry the Tories hope to firm which is ernment-backed between two companies. soften-up the his labour force in of the four three Clydebank Marathon LaKe over THE WAY the law of contempt old UCS he yards. process has divisions. Manufacturing has being applied to Ship- rcacaco was The Bill marks switch already Govan a shop stewards decement Wide 'lame ducks builders where the Relations Cour from the crude stalinist-led austila. Wa. over and conditions. pay Texan shop stewards have signed challenge to free expression • ana Chae in tavour of the hopes to claimed a Labour MP agreements which allow for the working 24 begin on July o. the rent of Commons yesterday demarca break cowit aral labour force of 500. barrister, tion, shift-working and pledges Davidson. The Tories' strategy at Govan 2,100 workforce The l to avoid strike action. said that it was absurd that news- this Shinbuilders finishing old makes cical in papers and broadcasters should There they hope to keep ship- of hear concession s Despite Cutialis anu converting permitted until they building alive can

ICOULL

future clearly it Govan oil-rigs. yara lo hostie policy other commentar fraught Shipbuilders' Tormulate WIth uncertainty trade unionists fear 4,300 L European with shipbuilding company begins its life. with six threatened and having law i contempt in- interests to meet the fierce orders, the which will workers with there laced and voked against them competition from Japan almost half of the eat dole chances of away une Une £35m grant. the deen depression in united fight against this are werner world orders. As yet there are no signs of weakened because of this formal 'End black' who believe the Goran Shipbuilders Managing any division within the ranks. Licw 'new course was inspired by director of Govan prospect mediate by Company as ul hot possibly ser Archibald higher productivity, more succen concert developed demitted Tories for the plight of unem- redundancies and

MANCHESTER'S

the outlawing 1,100 dock ployed Clydesiders should could possibly unofficial being strikes 1s only urged. in univally yesterday's 'Daily Tele- time worse preparation for the leaflet sent out by their union Ical iduncaca interiude graph'. of the slump in world because Common Market. Then the yard to end their three-week black- In marice the Industr orders. force will face even more ing of two container firms Jock Bruce- Ship- mood at Govan intensified attacks. I he The adoeal will be reneated a Gardyne "solution' to that builders summed the official mass The Transpor called 1C001 from the by a company spokesman yester- struggle stribed as: a Victory but. obe

UCS

cannot for Wednesdas by the constable Glasgow played a major role. day who said: do and General Workers' Unior

SPECIAL

FEATURES

THIS WEEK

TODAY

'Case history of a Stalinist humbug The man in question is Monty Johnstone whose distortions, about recent the SLL and YS are taken up by

MICHAEL BANDA

TOMORROW

Rhodesia: Post-Pearce A special correspondent looks at the similarity in legal powers under Smith and Heath

THURSDAY

James Reid is the most remarkable product of modern Stalinism. He has received praise from the capitalist entire media who hail him as a new kind of workers' leader. What is the root of this adulation? Stephen Johns examines 'The Gospel According to James Reid' on our centre pages. NINE HUNDRED workers at GKN's Bredbury steelworks, near Stockport, agreed to return to cash work yesterday with a increase but no concessions on hours after management threat- ened sackings. Three other sit-ins ended yesterday with settlements the Engineering Employers' Federa- as 'sensible' tion described leaving only 1l of the original 25 factories still 'occupied'.

See story page 3.

WHAT WE THINK Ceylon: Fraudulent PAGE 2 Workers Press, Tuesday May 23,

OFFICIAL IRA S

THE IRISH Catholic bourgeoisie in the South tighten the screws of repression with reintroduc- tion of internment. In the North, British imperialism, be- hind the facade of direct rule, prepares new massacres, this time of Protestants. In between the Official IRA flounders in a reformist limbo without perspective, without political credibility and with- out any prospect of victory.

Having first misled Catholic its reformist workers with project of a "democratized Stormont' and its Menshevik- theory of 'stages' to Stalinist Irish socialism, the Official IRA policy has rapidly and pre- dictably led to the relegation of socialism to a distant future and the acceptance of virtual imperialist rule in Ulster.

While we do not possess the full text of the Gardiner Place statement, the summary in 'The Guardian' is sufficient to show that the Officials, for all their criticism of Provisional sec- carıanısm, share with them a hostility to Marxism common the dictatorship of the and working class. They and are today, were, variant of bourgeois national- ism and, for that reason, can- not find a road to the Protest- ant workers in the North or the Southern Irish workers.

most striking The thing about this declaration is total its obliviousness. about the British working class and the necessity struggle of Irish to link the workers with that of British workers against British im- perialism. loftily about It talks the im- possibility of establishing an independent socialist republic in the North by military action —a truism known to most Irish school boys. It calls for a 'popular' struggle [sic] and 'fusion of the people of both in the opposition to areas establishment', but it remains ominously vague on the nature of the state that is to replace Stormont and the Dail. Previously, after they were forced to change their position on a 'democratized Stormont' (which fitted in with Stalinist policy) the Officials demanded a properly democratic autono- mous administration'-an ob- scure abstraction which meant all things to all men and was something of a cross between Ecumenical council, Constituent Assembly and …a Soviet. The revisionist International Marxist Group at the time claimed that this was 'a step forward'. Marxists, however, will recognize it as a label for bourgeois democracy i.e. the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie which is not inconsistent with the bourgeois nationalism of The eight-page youth paper which leads the fight against the Tory government, for the right to work, factories, in schools and on the dole queues. Please send me 'Keep Left' for one ye I enclose £2.86 Name Address y May 23, 1972

RA STATEMENT:

the Official and Provisional

IRA.

Because of their rejection of Marxism and the necessity to build a revolutionary party embracing all sections of the Irish working class, North and because South, and also of their equivocal and pragmatic attitude the Catholic to church, the Officials have now abandoned hope any a military defeat of imperialism and prepare to do a deal with Toryism. As 'The Guardian' stated: 'The laid considerably statement less emphasis on military affairs than on education, communica- tion and agitation in social and industrial matters.' But the really reformist motives of the Officials are revealed in the following paragraph: 'It said peace in Northern Ireland could be achieved with rela- tive simplicity [sic]. It de- manded the withdrawal to bar- racks of British troops, the abolition of the Special Powers Act, and amnesty for political and untried, prisoners, tried a massive programme of and investment social to help Northern Ireland to recover, socially and economically' The demand for the 'withdrawal of troops to barracks' is identi- cal with Stalinist policy and is a reformist evasion of the revolutionary task of expelling British imperialism from Irish soil. This statement is made on the that 'goodwill' same day between Protestants and the British army broke down and when one Protestant worker told the press: 'I'm beginning to think those people in the Bogside were right. Those para- troopers go bloody mad when they come in.' Of course, a massive programme of investment is required in Ireland. But who is going to do it? What government? The are only interested in Tories preserving sections of heavy industry which they hope to rationalize in the Common Market. Hence the £45m for Harland and Woolf. . But unemployment will continue to worsen. The only govern- ment which can help to de- velop Ireland's national resources and invest on a mas- sive scale is a Labour govern- ment shorn of its right-wing traitors and pledged to social- ist policies which must include the withdrawal of troops and the ending of internment.

For such a government to be formed demands the concerted struggle of Irish workers to defeat British forces in Ulster to force and British workers the Tories to resign. Anything less, evasion is and middle-class deceit. It is time broke com- the Official IRA pletely from Stalinism.

OFFICIAL WEEKLY PAPER

SATURDAY MAY 13, 1972

OF THE YOUNG SOCIALISTS

VOL 21 NO 1 • PRICE SP

Plenty of nows, views and features at 3p a copy. Send to Keep Left, 186a Clapham High St, London, SW4 7UG. for one year THE CEYLON constitu- ent assembly yesterday passed a constitution which will make the island the Republic of Sri Lanka and sever the country's last formal links with the British crown. arrived The constitution, at after 22 months of delibe-

AROUND THE WORLD

A SIX-WEEKS marathon interna Santiago, Chile. Diplomats from th world arrived at the third Unite Trade and Developments (UNCTA with hopes. At 8 a.m. on Sunday, the last day of the conference, delegates found themselves staring down the barrel 'of the same gun Heath and leaders of the other countries metropolitan are holding to the heads of their own working classes. After 38 days of grinding debate, all that had been created was two tons of discarded docu- ments. Malaysia's chief delegate drew • the final balance sheet. He.

said: 'The stark reality is that the developed countries are not prepared to make any real con- cessions.' Stonewalled on every count the representatives of 142 'bour- geois élites' in Asia, Africa and themselves Latin America found hopelessly impotent. Inevitably as they packed their bags, the conference legacy was almost exclusively bitterness, and looming ahead the certainty of mounting repression to counter unrest at deepening popular poverty. Locked in the grip of reces- sion the 13 'rich' countries gave the underdeveloped world the message they are forced same increasingly to give their own working classes - the cupboard is bare. make Special The plea to Rights : available Drawing to underdeveloped states was refus- ed with special emphasis on the role of SDRs as a reserve asset within a framework of tottering international currencies.

Not even a commitment on the 1 per cent minimum aid target could be squeezed from the purses of the rich. Capital is cracking the whip from Santiago and its lash bites to Downing St. While the bankruptcy of refor- mism laid bare at home, UNCTAD has exposed the hope- lessness of bourgeois and often Stalinist-backed leadership throughout the underdeveloped world. PRIVATE retail trade is on the increase in Hungary and many new licenses have recently been issued for the purpose. The num- ber of traders in Budapest has increased by 1l per cent and in the provinces by 31 per cent.

Minister of Internal Trade, Istvan Szurdi, announcing this, said that traders were expected to follow policy. He added there have also been abuses nccasionally.'

rations, is a fraud from start Many will be tried before special tribunals without the to finish. It claims to make chal- most elementary rights to the republic free, democratic them. lenge evidence agallist and socialist and guarantee Their revolt last year was put all with the aid of British, rights fundamental to down US, Soviet, Chinese, Indian and citizens. Pakistani military supplies an The value of these promises eloquent testimony to the reality fact that be judged by the can of the regime's 'socialist' claims.

Ceylon is still under a rigid state As for genuine 'independence' of emergency imposed 14 months 'Republic' from Britain, the new ago. Over 10,000 young will remain within the Common- people accused of taking part in a 'Che no longer recog- wealth while Guevarist uprising are still in the British monarchy. nizing Economically, it will remain tied makeshift concentration camps to the requirements of the former awaiting trial. colonial power. The is new constitution vehemently opposed by the country's Tamil minority because Sinhalese official it makes the language. Many Tamils are unable to speak or read Sinhalese have and demanded equal rights for the minority language.

The ruling coalition, headed by Sirimavo Bandaranaike's Sr Mrs Lanka Freedom the Party with Moscow-line Communist Party and the renegade revisionists the Lanka Sama Samaja Pree is divided and three seriously MPs have been expelled from • international farce has ended at Criminal Justice repressive • from the so-called underdeveloped missions Act. ra United Nations Conference on The new constitution is a des- (UNCTAD) with brief cases bulging perate attempt to paper over the cracks. IRAQ president al-Bakr has made it clear that the two Communist Party members recently admitted to his Cabinet are hostages for his relations with Moscow.

from The Ba'athist leader declar- siderable pressure Kremlin, which recently con- ed after the announcing cluded Treaty of Friendship Charter signed National Bakr's and Co-operation with Stalinists jointly with the of One purpose government. Baghdad in that 'the responsibility for Kosygin's visit to April when the treaty was signed leading the army and direct- was to encourage the Communist ing it politically falls on the Party to join the government.

Revolution Command Coun- The Iraq Stalinists' reluctance cil alone.' to join the Bakr cabinet is under- standable. The Command Council is ex- For nearly ten years, since the clusively Ba'athist. fall of president Kassem, the added: 'No party other He Ba'athists™ have rigorously perse- than the Ba'ath party will be cuted the CP. At one point, after allowed to carry out any forms of massacres, more than a series of political organizational Communist or 800 Party members activity within the armed forces.

were in prison. The Communist Party The decision to join the Bakr two Makram Talabani, cabinet the Communist ministers puts Minister of Irrigation and Amer Party completely at the mercy of Minister of State with- Ba'athist Abdullah, its traditional enemies. portfolio It is done solely in the interests entered the out Kremlin Cabinet at the beginning of last of diplomacy and the Iraq working class to week. Doses They joined only after con- great dangers. and the Caucasus were brought SOVIET authorities are trying to olay down the significance of last in to quell the rioters. Kaunas, Sunday's edition of the Rus- week's street battles in sian-language Lithuanian daily Lithuania, and discredit the mar said that 'Sovetskaya Litva' hose death sparked them of had four-member commission The funeral of Roman Kalanta, examined Kalanta's documents, burned himself in a public who and letters, drawings notes, park in Kaunas ten days ago, led schoolwork and questioned his clashes between the violent friends. parents, teachers and police and young Lithuanians.

concluded rhev that he was 'psychologically sick and com- killed and paratroops nitted suicide while in a sicl security units from Central Asi ondition'

SLL LECTURE

Cliff Slaughter, Central Committee member of the Socialist Labour League, will give the last in a series lectures on Marxism and the Socialist Revolution itain on the following date in Sheffie Monday, June 5, at 7.30 p.m._Philosophy at the Burngreave Vestry Hall Barnsley Road

SHEFFIELD

A new and deadly weapon devised by British troops in Ulster

UNASSAILABLE

evi- dence has reached Workers Press to show that the British troops are firing batteries at young children during street-fighting. They removing the from the rubber bullets cartridge and inserting torch about three inches batteries long: :: An eyewitness in Londonderry last Friday several

LOOD.

firing these deadly weapons teenagers standing only 30 yards away. Recently in a 4-vear. batteries were picked up in Derry last Friday after troops had These old boy. was killed when he was fired at teenagers only 30 yards away parents and a locat Me bullet' a rubber time his time Ulster drugs torture film is 'postponed'

GRANADA TV

Workers the British army. These barracks at Ballykinlar, A Press the film be include hooding torture, Girdwood and •World in Action' some time in the future. W000 film on torture The is ing with cigarettes and The postponement of programme an Ulster has been 'post- film is investigation electric shock torture. the

LOLLUTC

poned' mysteriously. The mate

STICSL

say LIc. some axely gave the television team Last year It was to have been Roman® medical evi- other Action' shown last night at the the Irish situation- regarding Denis The LaLICI slot of drugs •South of the Border- dependened tenn 8 o'clock. Father Raymond Mur- men detained then ray, chaplain of Armagh

RUC

stations following dependent Instead viewers

(ITA).

The sa'W Authority about an experi- made before: their - booklet there ment at Runcorn in- the priests give accounts priests inter- thes the nim was even capi volving the pill. variety viewed number dependent so-called "in of a who had been sub- who Action' the RUC arbiters In carried out by the Special Branch and assumes Detainee was drugged by the army POLITICAL detainees in Ulster and brutality investigations by television. press and are drugged oelng wild ,am- Dr McAteer took Revelations. that phetamines. Deallus the urine sample from soldiers re eased now used is the arugs ane ten • alo it to the laboratory indication local police station for question- clearest that the Hospital. Belfast OI ing. workers of Ulster are the 'positive' for during the showed amonel. pigs for W as two-lay guinea the sort of amines. Special interrocaron Ene repression the Tories have in known that the army and It is Branch that the drugs were ad- Office have mind for the rest of Britain.

Home been the ministered for manv vears to tri Taken large doses amphet- Over the months there have out drugs on prisoners. been persistenț that amines make a person deurous The Pentagon hạs already used and garrulous. In these circum- •drugs against being used to gain information the the drugs • drugs stances. police' use detainees. DUl onv al une weck• described people IrON SuD end did. the first concrete case uclainces slale versives' both in the and emerge. •say ments Toev were There difficults ill-treated during questioning.

an obvious The British army has been statements have become drugs alC concucums neolv-secret tests ministered; by the men crucial OUldillils convictions its own personnel using cannabis one and sed ceone tard in recent monas me courts nave LSD, and amphetamines. found dismissed number of charges traces can because Having tried out CS. the gas, me dooasurcall had been dye, smoke bombs, hood- In were to establish a level os Newrv doctor has callull been able extreme force, extracted torture ano electric-shock was arrested not to say torture the top brass the amphetamine urine of licalllicil, The statements is are also vital army now intent on trying out man, aged 28. who the army, for the army to tend off torture its latest barbarism-drugs beaten up

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MAX SHACHTMAN:

EMPLOYERS in the Man- Behind The Moscow Trial chester area may be reveal-: 100 ing a second prong of their Stalinism In Britain strategy break the en- : £1.12} -cloth £2 aperback gineering workers' pay fight.

Death Agony of Capitalism At the weekend 3,500 unes The Transitional Programme) factory GEC-AEL's Trafford Park ended an • eight-week Class Nature of the Soviet State work-to-rule and piecework Pamphlet 20p ban in return for an immediate Defence of the October £2-a-week rise with a further £l in March 1973. Ine neory and Practice ol Revisionism Pamphlet 15p In line i deration Engineering Postage 10p per book, 3p per Employers pamohlet. Order from : concession Was

NEW PARK PUBLICATIONS

hours •or holidays, although 186a Clapham High Street promised these would be the London SW4 7UG subject of early discussions Meanwhile the 900 workers at Workers Press,

BY A CORRESPONDENT

insisted that- it was a heavier object that had been fired at the boy. The Workers Press correspon- dent picked up three batteries after Friday's incident. They had been fired by soldiers of the First Battalion Worcesters and For- Regiment who resters are currently on a tour of duty in Derry. Officers were in the vicinity and This is what a direct lethal lead cased batte ABOUT 1,200 miners at the Snowdown pit, near Canterbury in Kent, have gone on strike in pay and manning dispute. The afternoon shift took the strike decision unanimously at a meeting yesterday. The branch officials are in touch with the area headquarters •to make the strike official.

The dispute began on No. 28 face when management refused to let regular men • 'work the

BY AN INDUSTRIAL

CORRESPONDENT

Bredbury steelworks, near Stock- port—the first of over 20 sit-ins in the Manchester area - have been told by Guest, Keen and Nettlefold's management that sackings are 'imminent and in- evitable' There is no evidence that GKN is losing money. Profits for 1970 were f43m and for the first six months of last year topped f22m.

But the employers, with two months' lost production behind them, showing mounting are signs of wanting to bring things to a head. Their feeling that the time may ers Press, Tuesday May 23, 1972 PAGE 3 took no notice. There quite distinct a difference in the sound made in the discharge of a rubber bullet and object a metallic like a battery. This is not the only barbarism which the army is resorting to.

clashes local Aiter recent people have picked up army riot sticks. One had nails sticking out of it and the other had been hollowed and filled with lead to give it even heavier weight.

irect rubber bullet hit the effect of a more Ibattery rip'-operate the conveyor belt.

The men also demanded payment as usual for the job. At a lunchtime meeting the next shift decided to go on forced on us, strike. 'It's been one miner told Workers Press.

'It's a deliberate provocation.'

At the meeting union officials mentioned the dangers of the Industrial Relations Act. But a miner said: 'We don't recognize the Act.' be ripe is reinforced by the return to work of some plants and by the pressure the sit-ins are bringing to bear on Amal- gamated Union of Engineering Workers' funds. The threat of sackings by GN —a financial contributor to the right wing Economic League and notorious for its tough line with workers—-may.be carefully timed warning of what the sit-ins could cost if they go on.

That the ball is so securely at the employers' feet is also a final tribute to the bankruptcy of the engineering union's treacherous policy of plant-bargaining.

The united, executive abandoned national fight earlier this year.

PAGE 4 Workers Press, Tuesday May 23, Michael Banda replies to Johnstone in the 'Morning S

PART ONE

Right -to - Work The marches organized by the Young Socialists and the Socialist Labour League have provoked consider- able comment from all quarters. Whether the comment came from the capitalist press. or the revisionists, they all contained a common ingredient of mal- evolent hostility to the revolu- tionary aims of the YS. to the But it was left Stalinists in Britain to launch the most vicious attack, com- bined with the most injudici- ous distortions and outright lies about Trotskyism, against the marches. The British Stalinists' out- burst is not entirely unexpec- ted of course. Their reformist policies — outlined in the "British Road to Socialism'- and their loyalty to the counter-revolutionary foreign policy of the Soviet bureau- cracy, have decimated their and undermined their ranks, political credibility in the working class. Nowhere is this more evi- dent than among the youth, not only in This is reflected age levels of the Com- the munist Party which more and more resembles an old Stalin- boys' club, but even more, in virtual collapse of the youth organization-the YCL.

its congress, this At last organization, whose policy and activities are controlled in the most bureaucratic way by the registered nothing but CP, factional splits, loss of mem- bership and a catastrophic de- cline of its youth paper.

This crisis in the YCL stems.

directly from the reformist history of policy and British and world Stalinism, as its complete bank- well as ruptcy in the face of the present economic and political crisis. (This bankruptcy in the face of objective events is com- pounded today by the emerg- ence of a strong, numerous and solidly based revolutionary ay May 23, 1972 to article by an rning Star' of April 1 youth organization- which fights against t ist betrayals.) lead a struggle to s The Stalinists' counter-revolutionary ist leadership and their Class of the evasion Toryism alienate wor As the crisis the Communist Party more isolated from tr Nor is it surprisin hostility, the • to those who organize for revolutionary should increase in its own loss unable to stop the YS and the SLL, all the more f tries therefore, to and who better than the not too you Stalin-boy' Johnstone? (See Monty April 18, 1972 YS- the against the Stalin- inists refusal to gle to smash the • reform- in the working consistent challenge nate working class ne crisis intensines and struggle proportion of influence the growth of Stalinism more franticallv discredit them the

TOI

t too youthful 'Old himself Monty 'Morning 1972). ortant that people the qualifications stone has acouirec after all, a of of politi- anti-Trotskyist falsifier of follows the in- started like people ean of Canterbury, and a host of other preferred to bureau- oralinist the USSR than on has defending privilege and very expression of rom and resistance es a special hatre He joined th Canc remainee he briefly Trotskyist Revolu- Party from He was at full-time chairman of Com- Student CP,

YCL

RALWAY

RiGHT TO V National Education officer and editor of 'Challenge', the YCL paper. His rise from small-time to big-time functionary was un- doubtedly influenced by his slavish and sickening adher- ence to Stalinism in the period of some of the most barbaric repressions in the USSR and Eastern Europe. His public school education, his middle-class snobbery and his truly amazing lack of poli- tical conscience suited him eminently when it came to writing Stalin's obituary in 'Challenge' We will not bore readers with the inane remarks of one mediocrity about writing another, but truth demands at least some explanation for the following grotesque compari- son penned by Johnstone: 'For 30 years Stalin led Soviet people from victory to victory ... so that it is today well the road to com- on munism 'On his passing we can say, as Engels said of Marx's death 70 years ago: "Man- exactly kind is shorter by a head, and the greatest head of our times at that. His name and work will endure through the ages"' When 14 leaders of the Czechoslovak Communist were framed, Party tortured shot by Stalin's bureau- and cracy in April 1952, John- occasion rose to the stone with his customary lack of principle - and wrote this ritualistic denunciation: 'Slansky, former general secretary of the Czech Com- munist Party and 13 associates guilty of were found spying and sabotage for the US and its satellites. "These unwillingly people confessed their crimes in the face of the irrefutable testi- mony of fact, documents and the evidence of witnesses..

Such activities can and must be rooted out in this and other countries wherever this takes : ('Challenge', Janu- place... ary 10, 1953) We shall return to the Slansky trial later when we 'CL discuss some of the more pre- posterous allegations of John- stone. But for the present we must warn curious readers that Johnstone has not attempted to even explain his conduct retrospectively. He was chal- lenged to do so as far back as November 12, 1969, in an edi- 'Workers Press'. torial of the We are still waiting. months True enough four after this challenge Johnstone disembarrass attempted to himself of the stigma of the Slansky trial with an article in 'Cogito'-a journal of the

YCL.

This article was obviously prompted by King Street's steady progression to the right its manifest desire and to placate the chauvinistic preju- dices of the British middle class which had been outraged by the bureaucratic military in- tervention of the Warsaw Pact forces into Czechoslovakia in August 1968. There was nothing principled or politi- cally commendable in John- stone's simulated pose of out- raged innocence and remorse.

In 1953 Johnstone found no difficulty in supporting Stalin and the bureaucracy against a tendency which, dis- ina torted way, represented the aspirations of the East Euro- In 1968 pean workers. same middle-class Philistine instinct guided him to support the petty-bourgeois pro- western orientation of Dubcek.

Thus one and half years after invasion Johnstone the write could the apropos 'Slansky affair: It should still be possible to lift at least a curtain which corner of the covered the "biggest stain on the history" of Czechoslo- vakia: the mass murder of 1l of the Communist leaders Party [the Slansky affair].'

How charitable! Unlike, and in contrast to this two-faced Stalinist humbug, the Trotsky- ists opposed the East Euro- pean trials and pointed out that they were part of a mon- strous terror campaign de- signed to compromise Tito and drive Yugoslavia into the orbit of imperialism. They were, counter-revolu- C tionary acts. Johnstone sup- ported Stalin then because he was opposed to any independ- ent: organization of the work- ing class and completely hostile to revolution. That is his position today too. That is why he can attack Trotsky- ism whilst criticizing the East European trials at the same time. If he criticizes, from the standpoint of petty- bourgeois humanism, not from that of a revolutionary defence of the working class and the conquests of the October Revolution. Johnstone's critique-if it can be called that - is de- liberately aimed at weakening the case for communism and strengthening the policies of Stalinist class-collaboration. It has nothing in common with Marxism. readers would Some no doubt be curious to know why Johnstone has to criticize Stalin at all. Doesn't this mark him off from his predecessors, like J. R. Campbell? If a man must react differ- ently when he is in water than when he is on land, then a Stalinist apologist too must differently to changed react conditions. of Trotsky- The old gang baiters operated in a period when the working class was defeated, demoralized and con- fused. It was a time when not only the Stalinist scribblers but the murder squads of the GPU as well could act with impunity. Today it is different. The resurgence of the working class and the severe defeats suffered by imperialism in the post-war period-Vietnam is the latest - have created enormous problems for the 'Stalin men'. They have not only to tread more warily and speak less stridently they must 'anti-Stalin' even wear an mask to defend the opportun- ist ideas of Stalinism effec- tively. Such is the role of Johnstone- the apologist.

CONTINUED TOMORROW

A LETTER TO THE EDITOR

When on April 30, 1970, US troops and tanks rumbled across the South Vietnamese frontier into neutral Cambodia the second Indo-China war started. From then on, just as there would be one single war, so there could only be one single Indo-China peace, peace, an that is, if the conflict could limited to the states be involved. A week before the invasion was launched, US Secretary of State i William Rogers assured a Congressional Appro- priations Committee that no American troops would be sent to Cambodia. A few days after, President Nixon and Secretary for Defence Melvin Laird gave assurances that the invasion was limited in time and space. Within a couple of weeks a flotilla of gunboats, with an umbrella of US planes and helicopters, moved up the Mekong river 100 or so miles into Cambodia and the Saigon puppets with the US blessing were stating that their troops had gone to Cambodia to stay.

Gunboats on the Mekong. It smells strongly of the most rapacious phase of 19th cen- tury colonialism. Is anybody sure what that flotilla of South Vietnamese on the gunboats was doing 'Washing- Mekong river? The ton Post' asked editorially on May 13: 'Where there are gun- boats, can some kind of gun- boat diplomacy be far behind?'

the The expedition Mekong was in fact only a logical if startling extension of a broad new US military-politi- cal intervention—a special war which had its first try-out in South Vietnam from the end of 1961 onwards. It is a classic example of the application of that rather awkward and hitherto much misunderstood 'neo- term colonialism'. Special war in the Nixon era of 'Asianization' of teleguided US colonialism in Asia equals the practical con- tent of the old John Foster Dulles concept 'Let Asians fight Asians' where that fur- thers US interests. 'Special war' was ene of ou three types of war which the late President Kennedy's including military advisers, President Nixon's advisers on national security affairs, Henry Kissinger, persuaded him the Ca US must prepare to fight.

The great thing about 'special war' was that others did the fighting while the USA put up the money and arms, provided strategy and tactical diversion through a corps of US 'military advisers' and pro- vided facilities such as air power and air transport. Among the advantages of special war, was that it was cheap to run, as the cost of maintaining a local soldier was fractional compared with an American soldier. The policy of 'Vietnamization' 'is a question of changing the colour of the corpse'. 'Special war' failed in Viet- nam and had to be moved up to the next state of 'local' or 'limited' war - one in which American combat troops are involved but which is limited in scope and stops far short last 'global of the third and and nuclear war'. 'Special war' has been waged by the US in Laos from late 1960. From April 1970 it has been waged in Cambodia. The 'gunboats up the Me- kong' took the concept a stage further. Instead of US- backed local forces being employed to maintain a pro- US regime in power in their own country, they were now sent into invade a neighbour- ing country for the same pur- pose. An obvious advantage of this was that the action could be shrugged off as South Viet- namese, not bound by any of rules Washington pre- tended it was imposing on its of own military commanders.

Workers Pross, The so-called 'Sihanouk trails' or 'Ho Chi Minh trails', Vietcong sanctuaries or bases are a put-up show. It is irrele- vant to what is happening in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam but it represents a logical extension of policies followed by the USA in the area from 1954 onwards-policies delib- erately planned in the name of 'filling vacuum' the power created by the collapse of French colonialism in Indo- China. It is as simple as that.

All the rest is decoration and juggling with semantics. USA deliberately set The out to wreck the 1954 Geneva Agreements, which it refused undertook to sign but to respect. In refusing to accept the elections to unify Vietnam -to have been held in July 1956 according to Geneva Agreements - in refusing tc respect the neutrality of Laos and Cambodia and consistently working to overthrow neutral- ist regimes in those countries, US policy-makers created brick by brick the grave situation which the former l exists in states of Indo-China today.

The concept of Laos and Cambodia as neutral buffer states was the basis for the settlement at the 1954 Geneva conference. John Foster Dulles stalked out of that conference and neutrality as later denounced "dangerous and immoral'. The end result is gunboats up the Mekong and third Indo-China war. It is typical development of neo- of the colonialism that they are pup- pet gunboats. It is also typical that Thailand and South Viet- namese Asiatics are co-operat- ing with Cambodia sub-puppets to tear Vietnam to bits and 318- Press, Tueeday May 23, 1972 PAGE 5 South Vletnamese tanks, backed by US air power roll Into Cam- bodia in April 1970. transform it into a sub-colony, or at least trying to do this.

When the CIA brought about the downfall of Prince Norodom Sihanouk of Cam- bodia and his neutralist con- cepts, they started a chain reaction of events, the ulti- mate consequences of which are unpredictable. Not only did they bring the Vietnam war onto Cambodian soil but they created a single war-front in all Indo-China. In blowing the restraining calm of Cambodian neutrality US policy-makers have started a 'no-frontiers' war which might well blaze its way across all of southern Asia-and beyond.

Washington has made much of 'communist sanctuaries' in Cambodia. There are far more important American sanctu- aries in Thailand, Malaya, Burma and Laos. There are American guerrilla bases in Thailand, Burma and Malaysia.

Despite the claims made describing Sir Robert Thomp- son as the 'victor of counter- insurgency' in Malaya, there is still an unfinished incipitent, guerrilla war there. The hard core and leader- ship of Malayan guerrillas, whom Sir Robert Thompson defeated militarily, never remains intact and active in the Thailand-Malaysian fron- tier area. President Nixon decided on 'Vietnamizing' the war instead of ending it, on expanding it instead of limiting it. Ameri- can intervention, and in some cases American presence, acts as a powerful fertilizer on the of National Liberation seed movements. This is a fact of the 1970s which President Nixon and his successors will have to reckon with.

MADAGASCAR: ISLAND OF FERMENT

PAGE 6 Workers Press, Tuaaday May 23, 1872

BY JOHN SPENCER

President Philibert Isi- ranana of the Malagasy Republic is one of black Africa's most vicious anti-communists. Two months ago he told the South African propaganda magazine "To the Point: I will have nothing to do with communism. I will do every- thing in my power to stop communism, whether it be Chinese communism, Russian communism or imported from Cuba, or what you will. 'Even if it from comes France. Communism will never be established here, as long as I can prevent it. And listen to this. Listen carefully. Even if the South Africans took it into their heads some fine day to become communists, I would slam the door on them.' Tsiranana is, to all intents and purposes, the dictator of Madagascar, the world's fourth largest island. At the last elec- tions, in January, he was re- turned unopposed to the presi- dential palace — with an incredible 99.7 per cent of the votes. Tsiranana is a devout Catho- represented the lic, who country for several years in the French National Assembly before becoming head of state in 1960two years after inde- pendence. Now 60, he recently suffered a serious illness and nearly lost power when his began intriguing ministers against him while he was re- cuperating in a Paris clinic.

His South African admirers Monsieur have dubbed him . per cent, but his 6‡- 100 million subjects don't agree. by students Last week, led from Tananarive university, they rallied 100,000-strong outside his palace demanding his resignation. The huge demonstration followed a massacre of workers students by the hated and Republican Security Forces at the weekend, in which at least 24 were killed and hundreds injured Isiranana replied with a of emergency, an all- state night curfew and the appoint- ment of a military governor for the Malagasy capital. More than 400 students and workers were detained. The Republican Security Force barracks was surrounded by gendarmes tanks to protect the inmates from popular wrath. The explosion of popular anger against his regime can- not have come as a complete surprise to the Malagasy presi- dent, though only two months • he was proclaiming that ago the people 'love me so much'.

In March 1971, the poor peasant farmers of the south attacked gendarme posts and government buildings several towns. Isiranana put down the revolt with great 100 brutality, killing over people. He claimed 'Maoists' were responsible for the southern uprising and took the oppor- tunity to fortify his personal rule by accusing former vice- president André Resampa of plotting against the regime.

The southern uprising, led by the left-wing Monima Party, economic sprang from deep and social causes. The yearly income of the southern farmers is about £18, of which more than a fifth is taken in tax.

suffer Their smallholdings the effects of drought and cyclones as well as the fall in export prices occasioned by the world crisis. monetary With over 450,000 youth un- employed on the island, in- cluding thousands graduates, Tsiranana's rule is becoming increasingly intoler- able. Mary of the peasants are worse off than they were under French colonial rule before independence in 1958. In fact, brought little independence real change in the relationships between Madagascar and the former colonial Dower. wholesale trade in The exports Madagascar's staple sugar —mainly still and spices-is completely in French hands.

The country is part of the French Community and has a 'special relationship' with the Common Market. So close is the French con- nection that educational cur- ricula for universities and schools are dictated from Paris.

The French Ministry of Educa- which oversees the tion, country's colleges and schools, makes concessions no Malagasy national feelings, and students end up knowing more about the course of the Loire than they do about their own national geography. Resentment at French domi- nation of the universities was one of the main causes of the student strike at Tananarive university, culminated which in the clashes and demonstra- tions last week. The students rightly feel the arrangement is a standing in- sult to their nationality and their anger is increased by the prospect of ever find- minute ing a job where their skills can be used. More than 10,000 students qualify every year in administrative professions, but there are jobs for only 2,000 or 3,000. By 1975, if the current trend continues, it is estimated that Madagascar will have 60,000 unemployed graduates. The students' other main de- mand in their strike was the the annulling of the one-sided 'co-operation agreements' with Under these France. agree- signed in June 1960, ments, the French government main- 4,200 tains troops the on island as part of the South Indian Ocean Command. They include special troops trained for service overseas, including one regiment each of Foreign Legionnaires and paratroops.

There is a navy base at the port of Diego-Suarez, and a contingent of air force heli- copters and transport planes.

The French forces on the island are as large as the Madagascar army itself and under secret protocols attached to the agreements, the Mada- gascar government can call for French aid for 'defence' pur- poses. The French forces on Mada- commanded by gascar are Marcel Bigeard, an General old Indo-China hand who com- manded one of the two de- feated French battalions at Dien Bien Phu. Bigeard is a and notorious right winger anti-communist. At the end of last year Isiranana denied 'most and formally the malicious ridiculous rumours which seem to be flying abroad that French paratroops have been sent to Malagasy to help me retain power'. Isiranana says he is 'very pleased' with the French mili- tary presence: I am not like certain Africans. What do they "Independ- do? They shout ence, independence". And do know what happens be- you hind the scenes? They do not .. Our have even guns • enemies are afraid of us be- they afraid of cause are France • The French pro- tect us. That is why I like the French.' Among Tsiranana's closest French friends are the leaders of the Socialist Party. Mada- gascar's ruling party is called the Social-Democratic Party, and its leader has a specially soft spot for the European re- formists. One of his closest Euro- Workers Prose, Tuesc pean contacts is German chan- who cellor Willy Brandt, founded the appropriately. named Friedrich-Ebert Foun- dation in Tananarive for adult education. Isiranana's latest actions prove he has little to learn from Ebert when it comes to suppressing revolu- tion. His counter - revolutionary enthusiasm makes him a natural ally of South Africa Africa He says: If South wants to co-operate with us, why not? If it comes to us with racism, there can natur- ally be no agreement. I have made this clear to the South Africans who came to talk to me about co-operation. They fully understand that.' 'co-operation' Madagascar's with South Africa is as one- sided as its relationship with Market. the Common The island is a lucrative outlet for South African capital, parti- cularly in the tourist trade.

Workers Press, Tueaday May 23, 1972 PAGE 7 Left and above: President Philibert Tsiranana of Mad- agascar. They call him 'Monsieur 100 per cent'— but his 6½ million subjects do not agree. South African firms are build- ing a luxury hotel at Nossy Be on the coast-another insult to the poor peasants of the southern area. They are building airports and roads, and in co-operation they are French, with building in Tananarive. Isira- nana maintains 'there is no scope for any sort of imperial- ism here'. The 100,000 citizens who marched through Tananarive week denouncing last 'slave French agreements as treaties' emphatically disagree.

PAGE 8 Workers Press. Tuesday May 23,

OVER POPULATION OR P

CAUSE OF WORLD HUN

FRANKS.

| PART 2

... In some large and popu- lous regions of the develop- ing world we are currently threatened not so much by increasing shortages, as by surpluses of food! (World Hunger, January 1972—Magazine of the Freedom From Hunger Campaign.) Action to cut food pro- duction is actively under.

taken by numerous organizations, including some which claim to work for an end to starvation. For example, an appeal to major rice exporting countries, especially Italy and. Japan, to cut rice production, or at least 'avoid measures which encour- age it', was made on June 1, 1971, by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organ- ization (FAO) Rice Study Group. A huge fall in the price to exporters was said to have occurred as a result of 'over- supply' It was in 1959 that the FAO the Freedom From set up Hunger' Campaign (FFHC) with an initial budget of $25,000 to promote 'action against world • a role somewhat at hunger', variance with the parent organ- ization's strictures on produc- tion of rice and many other foods alleged to be 'in surplus'.

Technological progress, especi- ally the use of new, high-yiela varieties, is said to have con- tributed to all previous world rice production records being broken for the fourth succes- sive year. Japan and Italy have both doubled exports and the Com- mon Market as a whole has in the current year gone over from importing to exporting the commodity. The Philip- pines, where much of the re- search into high-yielding rice strains is carried out, has exported rice for the first time in 70 years. Markets have 'saturated' that become SO growers and exporters attempt to outdo each other in accusa- tions of 'dumping'. Other Cereals Drastic actions by inter- national grain authorities to existing unsold cut back on stocks throughout the capitalist world were more than ofiset by extra large harvests in 1971.

In the United States, the wheat million tons harvest at 43.6 18 per cent up on the was In October last 1970 crop. year, American farmers were threatening to burn stocks to try and stop the collapse in prices on the open market.

In December, the United States House of Representatives passed a bill to buy up 300 bushels of wheat (20 million у May 23, 1972

OR PROFIT? THE REAL

HUNGER. BY BERNARD

per cent of the crop) and 25 million tons of feed grains, and store them in a 'food bank' to be released 'only in the case of a national food shortage' The US Department of Agricul- ture has also announced plans to reduce feed grains acreage in 1972 by 25 per cent on the 1971 figure. Altogether, 38 • to million be acres are 'diverted' out of maize, barley and sorghum. It is interesting to compare this situation with a prediction an eminent 9th-century by English scientist, Sir William Crookes, physicist, chemist and government adviser on scien- tific questions. Addressing the leading British scientists of his day at a meeting of the British Association for the Advance- ment of Science in 1898, he warned: certain that within a generation the ever- of the increasing population United States will consume all grown within its the wheat borders and will be driven to import, and, like ourselves, will scramble for a lion's share of the wheat crop of the world.

This being the outlook, exports of wheat from the United States are only of present interest and will gradually diminish to a vanishing point.' He added: Those present who may attend the meeting of the British association 30 far years hence will judge how my forecasts were justified.'

Crookes died in 1919 and so did not live to see the whole- sale dumping, burning, plough- ing up and general destruction of crops following the glutting markets, export and of all otherwise in the 1930s, or the more or less continuous sur- pluses since then. In the Common Market, the harvest was a 1971 cereals record 75 million tons—12 per cent above the previous year's level. Wheat production alone increased by 10.6 per cent. The bigger harvests are attributed 'favourable growing

CON-

to unusually high ditions and alone, yields'. In Germany yields of cereals, not including grain maize, rose from 26.2 cwt to 31 cwt an acre. In France, despite a reduc- tion of nearly 600,000 acres in the area under barley, the 1971 crop was still 880,000 tons above the 1970 crop— UN official figures. 'Production is rising faster than Europe's ability to eat it', commented a 'Sunday Times' writer. bumper harvests The are regarded by the EEC officials as a major 'threat' to the Common Market's agricultural which, in 1970, cost policy more than £1,000m in support for farmers' incomes in the area. According to one report, grain merchants have been buy- ing up storage space all over Europe, even crossing over in- to Czechoslovakia to hire dis- used churches as warehouses.

In November Nixon's special representatives for trade attacked mon Market agricultural policy practices' to this would 'restore to One of process for plus Specific spraying so rendering with 32.6 farmers in colnshire and acre increases government Corn surplus and sllos on a farm In Illinois, USA last year, the Com- 'unfair trading that hope that the on on compulsory Common the sur- them are laid preparing and blue dve Anglia Lin- on the of 34 cwt they have all grain greatly Nations' Agricultural September million tons two years. One of the storage. seei grain-handling city silos. Institute the January journal of the Hunger harvest in hill 1967-1969 yield Mexican Again, can ist, this time India's ot over the past me to the present Is al a one

TWO

improved food situa- i the United Bulletin of Statistics for Indian wheat to 23.250 in- -all problems large programme by and storage capa- Grain Storage set up at ar article in issue Freedom from the wheat rose by was dwarf wheats 'the country a pre- recent date. production years leads production This million tons, not enough to take care of the needs of the rising population.' Two years after this pre- diction was made, total Indian grain production stood at 104 million tons. In the third year of the forecast, it stood at 112 million tons and, as stated, all wheat Aid imports were stopped. Vegetables Onions from the 1971 English crop are being allowed to rot and then dumped following a sharp drop in market prices.

Payments to farmers were £20 • ton in 1969 and 1970—a encouraged situation which producers looking for a profit- able crop not yet in glut to increase acreage from an over- all 10,000 acres in 1970 to 13,600 in 1971. With a mass of high-quality imports also on the market, prices are now down to £12 a ton. It was in 1971 that Plantings of many vegetables heavily Britain cut were back following the 1970 lover- production'. Pea acreages, for example, were down by 18 per cent compared with the pre- vious year. in the EEC, also Farmers faced with vegetable gluts, are getting rtady to take a bigger slice of the trade in Britain.

A fltm 'roll-on, roll-off' port installation is being built in Northern Brittany to get early potatoes, cauliflower, brocoli and other produce to English markets—on the doorstep of Cornish producers-within ten to 12 hours of being harvested.

CONTINUED TOMORROW

In a suitably pompous and abstract introduction to this volumé of New Left commentary, Nikos Stangos writes: one feels almost 'At times as if Berger is fighting a losing battle: we believe, most of us, that the kind of integration he requires, amounting to a meta- physical attitude, is no more than inability to think an clearly or "objectively"? (p.14.)

This required "inability' is precisely what becomes apparent in the selected pas- sages of Berger's work. What 'metaphysical' Stangos terms Marxists would call passively idealist. Despite the cover of super- ficial, fleeting references to occasional Marx, and the garnish of words like 'dialec- tical', 'synthetis' . and 'petty bourgeois, Berger is an anti- Marxist, observing the world from a safe distance. His remoteness from the standpoint of Marxism can be seen in the way he regards the individual. It is always experi- ence rather than consciousness which he treats as most important. 'Speech, as the recounting of experience and the means of making it real, preoccupied the Romantics. Hence their constant comparisons between paintings and poetry.' (p.148.)

(My emphasis.) Yet the primary focus of interest must be the develop- ment of consciousness. Speech does not reflect merely experi- ence, but also level of the consciousness with which that experience is understood.

Berger goes on in a way to illustrate this when he quotes Monet: 'Beside her [nature's] gran- her deur, her and Dowel immortality, the humar creature seems but a miserable atom.' This is experience, together attitude with a religious indicating Monet's ignorance and fear when confronted with the natural world. It is important continually to recog- nize the difference between undergoing an experience, and consciously understanding that experience. Berger's pose as an observer also underlies his approach to the art of the Cubists. In The Moment of Cubism', their posi- tive features are quite reason- ably treated, yet not a word is said about the principal short- • comings of these artists-that they merely interpreted the contradictory appearance of the world around them, making little endeavour to understand the essence of their period.

They were very much confined to a vacuum of self-conscious- ness and subjectivism, as is Berger when he writes: "The only inspiration which exists is the intimation of our own potertial' For Marxists, the potential of the individual cannot be seen in isolation, and is cer- tainly not the starting point for building a revolutionary party. The individual must be in the context of society, seen and it is only after changing society that the full potential of any individual can be realized. Berger, however, is not a Marxist and is striving merely to reflect the appearances of objective reality (The Look of Things'). The essay titled 'Drawing' is very clear on this point. There is no awareness that even while he draws, his subject changes, or that while he contemplates, events con- tinually pass him by. With Berger, as with all pseudo-Marxists and aca- demics, the philosophical per- spectives of the middle class— empiricism, mysticism, indivi- dualism, and all forms of idealism-emerge most clearly in a political context. One of the biggest stumbling blocks for all 'left' liberals is Che Guevara, their neo- Christ in the age of capitalism's decay. Berger treats Che with profound meta- reverence, physical speculation and com- plete political confusion.

Berger tells us that imperialism has 'changed' its significance.

He explains: 'Previously it had demanded cheap raw materials, exploited labour and a controlled world market. Today it demands a mankind that for counts nothing.' (p.45.) thus the Berger separates economic impact of capitalism from its 'moral' effect on man in capitalist society. He wishes to show that Guevara fought to make the world tolerable to the moralizing observers of the 'New Left Review', and that this was not at all a fight to smash the economic system of capitalism: "The social forces historically capable of bringing about the transformation are—at least in general terms — defined Guevara chose to identify him- self with those forces' (p.52.)

But Guevara identified him- self far more the force as capable of bringing social change. He took upon himself and his small band of sup- porters the task, as individuals, of transforming society. In a bold but entirely anti-Marxist fashion he tried and failed. His failure was the failure, inevitable in this epoch, of individualism. The mystical way in which the middle class now glorifies indicates him the breeding ground of individualism in the working class today. Berger falls into the academics' hole of finding neat historical 'parallels' and 'patterns': 'For example, the manner in which during crisis of lut May 1968 de Gaulle was able to manoeuvre and lever the electorate and the constitution remarkably similar to was Louis Napoleon's.' (pp.83-84.)

What a wealth of difference, of total opposites, lie beneath this apparent similarity and congruence! Here we see clearly how deceptive is "The Look of Things'. Finally we | must look at Berger's treatment of the Czechoslovak crisis of 1968 in order to see the empirical posi- tion adopted and the way in which this ties in with worship of spontaneity in the working class. Berger sees the 'liberalization' moves of 1968 as a move by the bureaucracy

AND

"SELECTED

ESSAY&

ARTICLES. The Look of Things'.

John Berger. Pollcan Books. 250 pages. 40p. to end their own privileged positions: It was necessary for the ely people to begin to take over what had been constructed in their name, to take possession of the content of the socialist forms which had been rigidly and distortedly formalized.'

(p.230.) The move to the 'left', then, was not a conscious act by the bureaucracy to head off rising, political consciousness and demands in the working class, but an end to oppression!

'Anything less would have meant transforming a ruthless authoritarianism into a more benign one.' (p.230.) Berger takes the appearance as essence, and blames lack of freedom under the bureaucracy onto democratic centralism: ...the intention was to legalize opposition groups and factions within the Party and to abandon the practice of centralism" "democratic as institutionalized and made an article of religious faith by Stalin after the expulsion of Trotsky.' (p.232.) (My empha- sis.) True to his middle-class and in company with ideals the revisionists, Berger attacks in its democratic centralism perverted Stalinist form in degenerate workers' states, and then generalizes on this basis.

Trotsky defended democratic centralism as the only suitable form of organization for the building of a disciplined revo- lutionary party, while attacking the bureaucratic degeneration of the Party apparatus under Stalin. Democracy was sup- pressed by Stalin (as the Moscow Trials and the expul- of Trotsky show), and sion democratic centralism was practised after the never domination of the bureaucracy in the Soviet Union. From these points, it is plain Berger approaches the question as an anti-Marxist with no concern for the build- ing of a revolutionary party.

In this, and also in his attitude to the working class, he is at with the International one Socialist revisionists, etc. He writes: 'Czechoslovak workers now Prettiness face conscious and a more important choice than has been offered them for 20 years. In choice, this however harsh, recognize and many will rediscover their political power.' (p.231; written 1968) Undoubtedly, consciousness in the Czech working class had advanced but, without a revo- lutionary leadership, most only remain workers could within the bounds established by the conditions of life under the Stalinist bureaucracy. With- working out leadership, class has no political power.

However great the frustrations of the worker, revolutionary theory has to be introduced from without. Spontaneity, as Berger ruefully discovers at the end of his essay, is not revolutionary consciousness. This is the danger of building 'grass-roots movements, and worshipping the working class.

task is to fight con- Our sciously for Marxism against elements of confusion such as Berger, as well as the revisionists. Workers Presi The Festival of Darkness-— Lord Longford-Malcolm Mug- geridge-clean-up Britain cam- sought out evil in paign has the almost-forgotten corners of our national life. • has Now the cry gone up that BBC's dramatically boring, every-day story of simple folk, "The Archers', is fast becoming a cesspool of torrid sex.

Creator of the serial Godfrey Baseley says the new script- writers have turned the quiet into of Ambridge village another Peyton Place. Then a sensational interven- tion was made by the Shrop- shire branch of the reactionary National Farmers' Union. Too much time was spent sex and boozing' and the on Below: Polly and Sid Perks rkora Pross, Tuesday May 23, 1972 PAGE 9 beauty of agricultural life was being left behind, they said.

Baseley (67), who lives in the Gloucestershire village of said l it was this unspeakable led to him getting the sack from the BBC earlier this year.

In one recent episode the following sordid doings went on: Sir Perks kissed his wife Polly in the post office; Doris Archer warned Tony off his girlfriend-'she's fast in more ways than one' — and Dan Archer started talking about putting a stallion with a mare.

All this must surely meant that purity will have to be restored to the nation before the decay in moral fibre brings about total collapse. How long can 'The Archers' last?

LEON TROTSKY :

Germany 1931/1932 Paperback £1.25—cloth £1.87½ Where Is Britain Going? Paperback 37}p Revolution Betrayed Paperback 62}p-cloth £1.05 Problems of the Chinese Revolution Paperback £1.12t—cloth £1.87% Permanent Revolution: Results and Prospects Paperback 75p In Defence of Marxism Paperback 75p Lessons of October Paperback 60p Postage 10p per book, 3p per pamphlet. Order from :

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Fighting the Tories' Rent Bill PAGE 10 Workora Prosa, Tuoaday May 23, 1972 BY PHILIP WADE Our Housing Correspondent THE LABOUR group on decision to implement the •Tory Bill when the council itself de- London's Wandsworth bates the question on June 13.

"The policy of the new EC is council, who have 58 virtually to do nothing until it's too late. In other words, they will seats against 12 Tories, implement it, Mr Belton told me. has already decided to 'In the long-term this sense Bill is absolutely. critical for implement the "fair rents' housing. It is socially divisive and a direct attack on all tenants. Bill by 29 to 26. What you could have is the of" poor establishment people's The decision caused a ghettos-inhabited the by low- of protest, especially storm -and high-income income poor previous affluent areas. it reversed a as group decision not to imple- 'Because of the split Wandsworth virtually ment. crippled effective group at as an the moment. And there is a fair of personal bitterness" amount: about it all. "The aim of the Bill is obviously to save money at the expense of The subsidies to tenants. owner- remain untouched and occupiers don't think it's accident In the decision, any protest at that these people in virtually the whole Labour are majority for the first time.

leadership the council on quit their One of them was posts. 'As I'm far as concerned Tony Belton who resigned as Wandsworth Labour group still housing committee chairman.

ofuse has to take a stand and to implement the Bill, added Mr With seven of the nine Labour Belton. group execuțive members gone, What about the lack of a lead the fight is now on to reverse the The dally paper that leads the fight against the Torles.. £20.28 for 12 months (312 Issues) £10.14 for 6 months (156 issues) £5.07 for 3 months (78 Issués) If you want to take Workers Press twice a week the rates are: £1.56 for 3 months (24 issues) £6.24 for 12 months (96 issues) Fill in the form below NOW and send to: 186a Clapham High St., CIrculation Dept., Workers Press London, SW4 7UG. I would like to take out a subscription to Workers Press.

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Name Address fory from the Labour Party nationally?

I'm worried about the leader- 13. ship nationally, on questions like the Common Market or the trade unions, where the Labour Party doesn't seem to know where it's going. And I suppose that is true locally on this issue.'

What about the future housing and policies of a Labour government?

'Far too few people in West- minster have had experience of local government work. That is why the 1969 Housing Act which was good in intentions- hand has given to an open speculators. property "The next Labour government has to have policies aimed at municipalizing rented property. And we've also got to take over in the cities. building land Wandsworth council has just paid about £75,000 for half an acre. The other alternative, of course, is to nationalize the banks and so on. But I don't see the leadership going that far,' said Mr Belton. THE SPLIT inside the Labour Party on the Tory rents' proposals has deepened with the formation of an action committee by councillors opposed to the Over 40 of them set up the committee in London at the weekend and it will campaign for the nén-implementation of the Housing Finance Bill if it becomes law. councillors are expected The to call a national conference in June to mobilize other Labour-

UNION CONFEREN

BY AN INDUSTRIAL CORRESPONDENT

THE TORIES are trying to break the trade union move- ment, National Union of and Knitwear Hosiery Workers' president Peter Prendergast told the annual conference at Bournemouth yesterday. The 'severity' shown in the first few weeks of the Industrial Relations Act's operation had appalled him, he said, adding: 'Our forefathers must be turning in their graves that we have allowed this to happen. 'The dockers are to be com- mended on their struggle and one can only hope "that their en- deavours will not be in vain. Knowing the Liverpool dockers, they will not give in so easily no matter what the Industrial Court has to say about it' MEANWHILE, along the south Eastbourne, coast general Tony Belton-Resigned from chairmanship of housing committee controlled local councils against the Bill. But only nine councils were represented at the meeting. These included representatives from the Labour minority group on three councils which have already decided in favour of implemen- tation. It was made clear that despite the lack of lead from the Labour Party nationally, the Greater London . regiona. council of the March «for? non- LP voted in implementation. Another national conference of Labour councillors is planned for June 10 in Sheffield at the invitation of the city's control- ling Labour group.

RENCES-ROUND-UP

secretary of the Institute of Civil Servants, William McCall con- a statement by Tory of demned leader Edward Heath that care should be taken not to train .. engineers and mathematicians in excess of the number needed by industry. Describing the statement as misguided, 'depressing and McCall said: 'Our aim must be to produce people possible as many as the limit of their qualified. to potential and to make full use of their abilities and talents.

MUCH the same thought domin- ated the opening day of the South Wales miners' annual conference at Porthcawl yesterday. President Glyn Williams said the government should sink new coal mines in line with the policy of other great coal producing like Russia and countries America, Referring to government report on fuel Mr Williams said:

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

: ON

THE TENANTS' STRUGGLE ARE

WELCOME.

ADDRESS TO WORKERS PRESS

HOUSING CORRESPONDENT,

186a CLAPHAM HIGH ST,

LONDON SW4 7UG.

The betrayal of the vast majority of Labour councils on the Bill has brought an immedi- from tenants and ate response and file inside the the rank Labour Party. Last week there were calls Hammersmith Joint from the Tenants' Action Committee for the resignation of the 45 Labour councillors who voted for imple- mentation and have since sus- pended the Il who voted against.

• Said a spokesman: 'We are setting a precedent which will enable future representatives to be aware of their position when they vote on other important issues? It is to be hoped that the report favour of will come down in expansion of the coal industry with no more pit closures except in those pits where coal as been worked out' South Wales NUM president Glyn Williams:

BRITAIN

was heading, to- wards chaos because of law- breaking activities by trade union leaders, strike pickets, A BLACK Country engineering firm Labour councillors and school children, a Scottish business- 1890 without granting trade union ri man said yesterday. 80-strong work force demanding r Every section of society had to think about law and order mated Union of Engineering Worke before Britain went any fur- ther towards complete chaos, The workers at H: F. Shaw said William Jack, president of Ltd, near Dudley, Worcester- the Glasgow Chamber of Com- shire, have pitched tents near "What are we to make of the the factory and are mounting a supposedly situation where 24-hour picket. responsible leaders established under coe econd The strike began two weeks established under finally boiled ago when anger encourage, or at any rate connive they should those to whom at the management's atti- at, over give a responsible lead when the tude and the wages it was pay- openly defy the law of the land?'

ing. he asked. Attacking workers directly, he All male workers are 35p on told conference in business an hour and women earn between Glasgow: 'What are we to make 20 and 30p. This that means of called "picketing", activities skilled welders are £14 earning which sometimes have amounted a week before tax. The men are tionnothing less, than intimida- suported by local AUEW officials negotiating with who are condemned those Jack also management. Labour councils said who have 'fair Said steward Kenneth the they won't implement rents' Wright: We are prepared Bill and school children to "indulging in public demonstra- here until stop out. we get recognition. I would sooner tion'. go He laid part of the blame on a back on the dole than return to those conditions.' 'diet violence'. television ROLLS-ROYCE are to bring other engine companies in world said Lord together their Derby and Bristol markets, chairman Cole in a message to workers.

engines divisions in an 'efficiency' The rationalization the drive, it was disclosed yesterday.

question of possible redundancies, 'These moves will put us in although • Lord Cole made no his much better shape to of such compete mention plans in with and also to co-operate statement.

REGIONAL TV

CHANNEL: 10.20-2.33

London. 4.00 Lottery. 4.10 Enchanted Puffin. house. 4.20 4.25 Simon Locke. 4.55 London. 6.00 News. Police weather. 6.10 file. 6.15 Lookaround. 7.00 6.35 London. Sam Film: 'Calamity Jane and Bass': 8.30 Albert. 9.00 Crime of passion. 10.00 London. 10.30 Munich. 11.45 Drive-in. 12.10 Gazette. 12.15 News, weather.

WESTWARD. As Channel except: 3.55 Gus Honeybun. 4.20 News. 12.16 6.00 Diary. 12.12 News. Faith for life. SOUTHERN: 10.20 London. 3.00 Man from Uncle. 4.00 House- party. 4.15 Grasshopper island. Crossroads. 4.55 London. 4.30 6.00 Day by day. 6.30 Sky's the 7.00 Film: 'No Questions limit. Asked'. 8.30 Albert. 9.00 Crime of passion. 10.00 London. 10.30 Munich. 11.45 News. 11.55 Farm Sally 12.25 Weather. progress. Trench. London.

HARLECH:

10.20-2.33 Camping 3.20 and caravanning. 3.50 Junkin. 4:15 Tinkertainment.

4.30 Crossroads. 4.55 London. 6.01 Report West. 6.18 Report "Yuma'. 8.15 Wales. 6.40 Film: 8.45 12.00 Albert. London. Weather. Cymru/ HTV Wales and HTV Wales as above except: 4.15-4.30 Miri mawr. 6.01-6.18 dydd. HTV West as above except: 6.18- 6.35 Report West. 10.20 London. 3.15 By-

ANGLIA:

4.10 3.45 Women today. gones. 4.15 Mr Piper. 4.40 En- News. 4.55 chanted house. London. 6.00 About Anglia. 6.35 London. 7.00 McMillan and wife. 8.30 Albert. 9.00 Crime of passion. 10.30 10.00 London. Munich. Elvi Hale plays Anne of Cleves 11.45 Jesse James. of Henry VIll' on BB

ATV MIDLANDS: 10.20-2.33

Lon- 3.35 Stars. don. 3.10 Afternoon. Place. 4.40 Enchanted 12.15 Peyton 3.45 Women 4.10 Simon today. 4.55 London. 6.00 News. house. 4.40 Story. 4.55 London. Locke. Put it in writing. 6.30 Set of six. 6.00 Today. 6.35 London. 7.00 Film: Halliday Brand'. 7.00 'The Film: 'Frenchle'. 8.30 Albert. 9.00 9.00 Crime of Albert. 8.30 das- 10.00 London. Crime of passion. 10.30 10.00 London. sion. 11.30 Who knows? 10.30 Munich. Munich. 11.45 Monty Nash.

ULSTER: 10.20-2.33 London. 4.30

TYNE TEES: 10.20

London. 3.00 4.50 News. 4.55 Romper room. Master chefs. 3.15 Danger man. London.

6.00 UTV

reports. 6.15 4.10 News. 4.15 Crossroads. 4.40 Daws explores. 6.35 London. Sean. 4.55 London. 6.00 Today. 'East of Sumatra'. 8.30 7.00 Film: Hogan's heroes. 7.00 Film: 6.30 Crime of Albert! 9.00 passion. 'Seven Ways from Sundown'. 9.00 Crime of

GRANADA:

10.20 London. 2.35 8.30 Albert. 3.30 Messengers. 10.30 Avengers. 3.55 sion. 10.00 London. Camera in 4.10 News. Munich. 11.45 One step beyond.

action. ring firm which has survived since union rights is now besieged by an anding recognition of the Amalga- g Workers and union rates of pay.

DAN McGARVEY, the boiler- makers' leader, has been asked to intervene in the seven-week- old dispute at Silley Cox and Company, Falmouth. The management is threaten- ing to shutdown the ship repair yard if no quick settlement is reached. Managing director Wilf New- ton said the main issue was 'whether the boilermakers are prepared to be part of the com- munity and work along with management and other unions to ensure the future of the port'.

boilermakers' The national •executive member, Cyril Marley, travelled to Falmouth a few days ago, but his trip was abor- tive. It is understood that at least one Silley Cox ship contract has been transferred • to Newcastle, which is also McGarvey's head- quarters. Why haven't Newcastle ship- yard workers been informed by McGarvey and his officials of the Falmouth tense situation at where management is wielding the big stick over the work force? res In the fourth play In 'The Six Wives /lIl' on BBC 2 tonight. nted 12.15 News. 12.30 Epilogue.

SCOTTISH: 10.20-2.33

London. 3.30 Sean the leprechaun. 3.45 Crossroads. 4.10 Dateline. 4.55 London. 6.00 Dateline. 6.20 Car- toon. 6.35 Hogan's heroes. 7.05 Film: 'The Charge of the Lancers'. 8.30 Albert. 9.00 Crime of passion. 10.30 Munich. 11.45 Late call. 11.50 Drive-in.

GRAMPIAN: 11.00-2.55 London.

3.38 News. 3.45 Women today.

4.10 Nanny and the professor.

4.40 Once upon a time. 4.55 London. 6.00 News, weather. 6.05 Strictly Scottish. 6.35 London. 12.40 Workers Press THE Trades Union Congress should be urgently recalled to clarity its policy towards the Industrial Relations Act, the foundry workers' conference was told yesterday. Robert Garland, chairman of the foundry section of the Amal- gamated Union of Engineering Workers, said that the trade unions were at the crossroads over the Act. 'Either we seek to operate it when it appears to be to our

ALL TRADES

ALLIANCE M

Fight the Tortes' 'fair rents' BIll NORTH KENT: Tuesday May 23, 8 p.m. SOGAT House, Essex Rd, Dartford. DAGENHAM: Tuesday May 23, 8 p.m. Co-op Hall, Fanshawe Avenue, Barking. CLAPHAM: Tuesday May 23, 8 p.m. Small Hall, Clapham Manor Baths, Clapham Manor St, SW4. PRESTON: Tuesday, May 23, 8 p.m. 'Railway and Commer- cial Hotel' (near railway Butler Street. 'Recall station), the TUC, Make the Tories resign. TODMORDEN: Tuesday May 23, 8 p.m. 'Royal George' Rochdale Road. Speaker: Cliff SLL Central Slaughter, Com- mittee member. WEST LONDON: Tuesday May "Prince Albert', Kings Cross. LIVERPOOL: Thursday, May 25, Mount p.m. YMCA, Pleasant, Liverpool 1.

BBC 1

9.20-9.35 The herbs. 9.38-12.30 Schools. 12.55-1.25 Aelwyd ac Eiddo. 1.30 Along the trail. 1.45- 1.53 News and weather. 2.05- 2.25 Schools. 4.15 Play school.

4.40 Jackanory. 4.55 Animal magic. 5.20 Scooby-doo. 5.44 Hector's house. 5.50 News and weather.

6.00 NATIONWIDE.

6.45 TELEVISION TOP OF THE

FORM.

7.05 TOMORROW'S WORLD.

FILM: 'MAYTIME IN MAY-

FAIR':

Neagle, Michael Wilding. Roman- tic comedy. 9.00 NINE O'CLOCK NEWS and weather.

9.20 DOCUMENTARY:

THE

PRESS

WE DESERVE.

Scoop, Scandal and Strife.

10.05 SPORTSNIGHT

WITH

COLEMAN.

International soccer, England Ire- V land.

11.35 THE BITTER SANDS.

11.40 Weather. 7.00 Film: 'Mozambique'. 8.30 Albert. 9.00 Crime of passion. London. 10.30 Munich. 10.00 11.45 Hot seat. 12.15 Epilogue.

Munich. 10.00 London. 10.30 11.45 White line. YORKSHIRE: 10.20 London. 3.00 Master chefs. 3.15 Danger man.

4.10 News. 4.15 Crossroads. 4.40 house. 4.55 London. Enchanted Calendar, weather. 6.30 don. 6.00 Hogan's heroes. 7.00 Film: 'Sas katchewan'. Albert. 9.00 8.30 Crime of passion. 10.00 London.

10.30 Munich. 11.46 Spyforce. don. 12.40 Weather. kers Press, Tuesday May 23, 1972 PAGE 11 advantage to do so, which means appearing Court when the occassion demands, or we stand defiance fothe outright our Act, he told the delegates at Easbourne. 'In these circumstances it appears to me not only desirable but vitally necessary that the TUC should be urgently recalled in order to clarify the position and strengthen the unity of the said trade union movement,' Garland.

DES UNIONS

'E MEETINGS

MANCHESTER: Thursday, May 25, 8 p.m. Wheat Sheaf, High Street. SOUTHALL: Thuraday May 25, 8 p.m. Parkway Rooms (Rent Northole net mine Estate, Racecourse pool).

NORTH LONDON:

Thuraday Arms, Fortenham "Bricklayer's , Tottenham High Rd (nr White Hart Lane) CROYDON: Thuraday May 25, 8 p.m. 'The Anchor' (corner of Southbridge Rd and South End). LUTON: Thursday May 25, 8 p.m. St John Ambulance Hall, Lea Rd. SOUTH EAST LONDON: Thure day May 25, 8 p.m. Deptford Engineers' Club (opposite New Cross Station).

ACTON:

Monday June 8 p.m. Co-op Hall, High Rd.

30, 8 p.m.

ITV

10.20 Schools. 1.15 Time to re- member (London only). 1.45 Schools. 2.33 Good afternoon!

3.00 Houseparty. 3.15 Let's face it. 3.45 Danger man. 4.40 Once upon a time. 4.55 Junior show- time. 5.20 Magpie. 5.50 News.

6.00 TODAY.

6.35 CROSSROADS.

7.00 ALBERT! Hot-Pot!

'THE BLACK

FILM:

DAKOTAS'. Gary Merrill, Wanda Hendrix, John Bromfield. Western. 8.45 DOCUMENTARY: "Munich: The Road of Excess'.

10.00 NEWS AT TEN.

10.30 CRIME OF PASSION.

Jean-Paul. 11.30 THE HOT SEAT. Drive-In special.

12.00 ANTHOLOGY OF LOVE.

'I Love You'.

BBC 2

11.00-11.25 Play school. 5.35-6.30 Open University.

6.35 COMPUTERS IN BUSI

NESS. How To Fail.

7.05 OPEN UNIVERSITY.

7.30 NEWSROOM and weather.

8.00 RICH MAN, POOR MAN..

Medicine.

8.50 WHEELBASE.

9.20 THE SIX WIVES OF

HENRY

VIll. Anne of Cleves.

FLOWER

10.50

CHELSEA.

SHOW. A Flower for All Seasons. 11.15 NEWS ON 2 and weather.

11.20

THE OLD GREY WHISTLE

TEST. Kris Kristofferson, Rita Coolidge, Quiver.

PAGE 12 Workers Preas, Tuosday May 2

VIETNAMESE

libera- tion forces hit back in strength yesterday against the diplomatic conspiracy strangle to their revolution. As President Nixon landed in Moscow to be greeted by President Nikolai Podgorny and premier Alexei Kosygin, the forces of General Vo Nguyen Giap went into action on all three fronts in South Vietnam. Massive reinforcements moved imperial towards the ancient capital of Hué and fresh tank forces were reported moving on the city. In the Central Highlands; a liberation battalion overran Base Camp 41, 14 miles south of Kon- tum and halfway on the road to Pleiku. Both Central Highland cities are in danger of being overrun the communist offensive. North of Saigon, near the pro- vincial capital An Loc, a relief force of government troops is outside the still bogged down city and facing strong attack from well-entrenched liberation troops. The renewal of the liberation offensive will come as a serious embarrassment to both parties in the Moscow talks. It proves that the mining of Haiphong and the other North Vietnamese ports has done little or nothing to reduce the fighting capacity of the liberation armies.

Vietnam is high on the agenda talks and the at the Moscow Vietnamese leaders clearly fear that Nixon and the Soviet leaders will cook up a compromise sell- out to stem the advance of the revolution in Indo-China.

NEW pay deal for 1,000 A drivers employed by car trans- in Birmingham, porter firms Luton and Ellesmere Port, will give some men rises of up to £7.50 a week. Some transporter drivers are already earning between £60 and week and in one 'golden' £80 a week in 12 can get as much as £150 with incentive bonuses and allowances. Their latest increases range from £2.50 to £7.50 for an aver- age 55-hour week.

LATE NEWS

Printed by Plough Press Ltd. (TU), London. SWAh Street, day May 23, 1972

FROM DAVID MAUDE OUR INDUS

BLACKPOOL

POST WORKERS' leader T warned that the Tories were : movement to 'strike back' at 1 Act. But he defended his. execu- tive's decision to use the National Industrial Relations Court in its bid to stop the Post Office recognizing the non-TUC Telecommunication Staffs Association. adopted this 'face- Jackson both-ways' stance during the opening session of the Union of Post Office Workers' 53rd annual conference at Blackpool. . His words came after union leaders had persuaded the 1,450 delegates to accept the removal of several motions on the Act- for TUC-led calling one a General Strike-from the agenda.

Platform speakers were later successful in their bid to grant Jackson a 15.5 per cent wage increase—almost twice that they got for its members earlier this year. This would link his pay to that of a second-line head postmaster.

In money terms it means his pay goes up from £4,490 to £5,200 a year. There will be similar increases for other officers. The UPW secretary later told Workers Press he had no interests in the outcome of the vote to grant him an increase— 'except in so far as it affects what I draw at the end of the month.' In his speech, the UPW secre- tary claimed that the 9-per-cent settlement his 190,000 members had received, while not the best union had achieved, had the beaten the government's pay norm in existence at the time.

dis- It had done so without ruption or drain on union funds time next year be in better shapis • they had been before the than lengthy 1971 strike. The cementing of better rela- tions with Post Office manage- with the ment, in contrast on industrial" rela- deterioration tions outside the corporation, was a major theme in his speech.

Jackson claimed that with the Users help of the Post Office National Council, the union had slash 25,000 scotched plans to jobs by 1978. The job-loss figure in the Post Office's current five- year plan was closer to 1,000.

The union decision to go to the NIRC in a few weeks time, he went on, did not imply a

WEATHER

IT WILL be dull with rain at first over north-east Scotland, East Anglia and south-east England but otherwise Scotland, central and eastern England will be dry with sunny periods. How- ever, cloud and rain over Wales, Northern Ireland and western into England will spread east remaining areas of the British during the afternoon and Isles evenins, but the rain will die out in the west later in the day.

It will be rather cool in the west but temperatures elsewhere will be about normal.

NEWS DESK

01-720 2000

CIRCULATION

01-622 7029

R INDUSTRIAL CORRESPONDENT IN

ader Tom Jackson yesterday s were forcing the trade union ack' at the Industrial Relations decision to register under the Act. 'We were never registered and I hope we never will be,' ,; he said. 'It would be a tragedy irre- spective of what happens else- where if we were to get ourselves in the frame of mind where we registered and became creatures of this government.' He said that the TSA could not possibly obtain recognition under the Act, and said that to make that a certainty, Protessor Wedderburn Bill had been briefed to put the UPW case to the NIRC. The present government, he was the most divisive on said, class lines since the 1930s.

'We have reached a situation where if we are not very very careful the government will put us in the situation where we will have to strike back. If the Tories did not control their legal procedures then the Act would be destroyed along with the Tory philosophy that workers could be bludgeoned.

Earlier had the conference agreed that it would not debate motions on the Industrial Rela- Act, and Jackson told tions

MAY FUND

NEEDS £543.60

IN 9 DAYS

OUR TOTAL now stands at £1,206.40 with a target of £1,750 to raise by the end of this month. There Is not a moment to lose. In Ulster the situation borders on clvil war. In Britain, the fight by the Tories against the rall- waymen and dockers comes to a head. Every day, Workers Press Is needed to prepare the working class to win this fight. Put every.

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Workers Press May Appeal Fund 186a Clapham High St London SW4 7UG. UPW secretary Tom Jackson speaking 'Financial at Times' seminar last week. His salary now tops the £5,000 mark. Workers Press that this meant that it was now likely the issue • would not be discussed at all this week. He expressed concern about this since it could leave the im- pression that there was some equivocation in the union's posi- tion on the subject. Tory leaders were asked yester- day afternoon to wipe out the £135m deficit the Post Office is expected to accumulate by 1973.

Delegates to the conference also called on the government to make a contribution towards the long delayed mechanization of the postal service. Jackson said that a realistic approach to the development of the service required the search for new traffic and the increasing of productivity, that SO could pay its way corporation without price increases, He proposed several diverg- ences from the previous executive policy on productivity; for the first time the executive wants members to accept Adpost, the delivery of advertising material door to from door with conse- quential pay increases at local level. Socialist Labour League Public meeting

SUNDAY MAY 28

RECALL THE TUC!

DEFEND THE DEMOCRATIC I

BUILD COUNCILS OF ACTIOI

MAKE THE TORY GOVERNME

RETURN A LABOUR GOVERI

SOCIALIST POLICIES.

Beaver Hall, Garlick Hill (nr Ma Speakers: MIKE BANDA (SLI

LARRY CAVANAGI

JOHN SIMMANCE

THE

MINIMUM 9 per cent pay rise for teachers, announced in the Commons yesterday got a lukewarm re- ception from teachers' organi- zations. Lowest paid teachers will get rises of 10 per cent : and 11.8 per cent. Edward Britton, general secre- tary of the National Union. of Teachers, said the award was 'an appreciable improvement on the altogether inadequate offer made education authorities. by the 'But it does not go very far towards a really satisfactory solution of the teachers' salary probłems.' He said the government had wanted to restrict the increase to arbiters decision to go above the 7 per and welcomed the figure. He also welcomed the decision to give some preferential treat- ment to the under-paid teachers.

But even that only very little way towards relieving the hardship in which many teachers start their careers.'

WOMEN were still the largest pool of cheap labour in Britain the women's conference of the General and Municipal Workers' Union was told yesterday. Alex Donnet, the union's chairman, female more stewards, branch secretaries and regional council women were needed.

production at the

MINI - CAR

Austin Morris factory at Long- bridge, Birmingham, was halted yesterday by a strike of 360 en- gine inspectors. About 1,000 assembly workers were sent home, joining 2,300 engine assemblers and machinists laid off last week. The dispute, work - measurement, has over stopped engine production for the mini, 1100/1300 and Marina WIDESPREAD Rachmanism in Glasgow by 1975 was predicted by the city's Lord Provost, John Mains, yesterday. described the Tory 'fair rents' Bill as 'deca- dent and unpleasant' and appealed to the whole labour movement to unite and oppose it.

7.30 pm · 28

RATIC RIGHTS !

ACTION NOW!

VERNMENT RESIGN!

GOVERNMENT PLEDGED TO

Il (nr Mansion House tube) IDA (SLL Central Committee) VANAGH (Liverpool docker) MANCE (YS national secretary)