Socialist Action No. 180, May 1988
The scan: 180-May-1988-SA-UK.pdf (PDF, Marxists Internet Archive)
Uncorrected machine reading of the whole issue. This text was read by machine (Apple Vision OCR) from the scan and has not been corrected or cut into articles. Each page gives the headlines first, then the columns in order, so one article runs on into the next. Expect misread words. Use it to find things; quote from the scan.
Page 1 scan of this page
SUPPORT THE NUS
AGTiON
VOTE
BENN/HEFFER
BUILDING AN ALLIANCE FOR SOCIALISM
No 180 May 1988 40p THE STRUGGLE between the National Union of Seamen and P&O is vital for the entire trade union movement. It is a dispute as important as Wapping or at GCHO - an attempt to break an entire trade union.
It also shows the full viciousness of the Tory anti-union laws with the right they give to an employer, unique in Europe, to dismiss a workforce which "goes on strike - - and their right to withdraw recognition from a union. It is an all-or-bust strategy by P&O to smash the NUS: The sequestration ol the NUS's assets by the courts, and the fine of t150,000, is yet another indication of the union-busting character of the Tory laws,
But the response of the NUS membership has been an inspiration to the labour movement. At the time of going to press the NUS membership has brought 80 per cent of British ferry
services to a halt
The scab serviees which the P&O
has put on from Dover are purely
cosmetic. The second sailing last Mon
day on the Pride of Bruges for example
had 50 passengers, excluding the press,
On a ship that can carry 1300!
Meanwhile by the beginning of the
same week 5000 NUS members were on
strike. All P&O ships supplying the
North Sea oil rigs have been halted,
Liverpool and Ipswich have stopped,
ferries to the Isle of Man have been
stopped, the channel island services
have been halted. The deep sea ships
are beginning to come out.
The Financial. Times admitted on
Wednesday that P&O could not operate
a service on its present strategy. To,
operate its rosters P&O has to have. a
locally based workforce. And the Dover
seafaring community has held out
magnificently.
The strike comes as owners have degutted fleet by switching to Tas nience to cut into um rates, and safety, More: of the British merci reflagged in the last around agreements wit
This tactic was also around the solidarity NUS in the miners strike. ton of coal was moved in ship by NUS members.
The use of the courts to apply Ton law was seen by P&O as providing t final edge in winning a struggle aga the NUS
But thanks to the magnificen solidarity shown by NUS members it has become a dispute that can be von by the labour movement - with an ef feet that would strengthen the entite labour movement.
The response that should come from the TUC to any unions assets be ing seized is to take immediate solidari-
ty action — but we have come to know that nothing will be forthcoming fron
that quarter. Norman Willis should be Raning sitarising essions le
not proposing concessions to
ACAS. What must be done, and is
vital, is that other unions supply the
solidarity and finance that will allow
the strikers and the NUS to keep going and win this dispute.
That is possible and neither thi courts nor P&O are capable of takin! on the British trade union movement.
Winning this dispute would be the
most significant victory for years for the trade union movement. Every see
tion of the labour movement has as its priority to mobilise in all out support for the seafarers
Winning the dispute can turn round the situation for the trade union movement.
Page 2 scan of this page
The votes that must be won
Socialist Action
ACTION SoCAlist
The policy review
and the leadership
contest
The outcome of Labour's policy review, and the tactics of the party leadership, are now absolutely clear — not that its intention was ever disguised. The aim at this party conference is to get through a policy document Aims and Values which explicitly abandons socialism as the goal of the party and, in line with that, to put through an economic policy abandoning public ownership. The aim at next year's conference unilateral nuclear disarmament. While huge pressure forced the NEC to back the NUS, support for most workers in struggle has effectively been abandoned - as the lamentable display of Robin Cook and Neil Kinnock around the nurses dispute confirmed.
The consequences of that are clear. First it is going to reduce the possibility of a Labour
government — because it allows the relation of
forces to accumulate in favour of Thatcher. Se-
cond it means that if there is a Labour govern-
ment it is going to be exceptionally right wing and demoralise its supporters.
This is really what is at the core of the leadership contest. It is obviously not about
personalities. Nor is it about internal party
matters. It is about how to defeat Thatcher and
to secure a Labour government which actually
delivers something for its supporters.
That is also how the leadership campaign
has to be conducted. The view that it would damage Labour's standing in the polls is
already shown to be false. What has to be done
is to get the issues out into the open. Kinnock
and Hattersley's supporters want the key policy
issues — above all Aims and Values and the
economic policy documents to go to this con-
ference — not to be debated. For the left the
most vital issue is that they are debated - and
that should be fought for as the first priority at
every union conference and in every CLP.
•From that the tactics of the left should be
clear. They should argue for a vote for Benn
and Heffer, in the first round - they are the
best candidates. The are the only ones clearly
opposed to the present course of the party.
They should argue for a vote for Prescott in the
second round. Meanwhile they should point
out that Prescott supports Kinnock for leader,
supports Aims and Values, and no-body knows
what his position is on economic policy.
The aim must first be to gain votes against
Aims and Values and the proposed economic
policy - and to win votes for Benn and Heffer.
Second to defeat Hattersley and the right.
policy out into the constituencies.
May 1988 very carefully is to abandon once again But the key first step is to get the debate on
THE LEADERSHIP campaign will be a hard one. It will require real left organisation in the constituencies. A glance at the arithmetic shows where the key areas will be. JOHN ROSS assesses the tight ahead. THE KEY area in the leadership contest will be in the CLPs. The vote of the Yorkshire NUM to support Kinnock and Prescott for seacer ana deputy leader makes it still more clear that there will be no significant union vole lor benn and Heffer. The crucial area will Deme constituencies and the parliamentary party.
PLP
-Inside the PLP the exact number of MPs who will vote for Benn/Hetter is not clear. But as the PLP has 30 per cent of the electoral college, and the Campaign Group had slightly over 40 members before the recent resignations, we would anticipate around 5 per cent of the electoral college vote Trom The Dee CasL Or Benn/Heffer. As their trade union vote will be minimal this means that for the leadership contenders to win 20 per cent of the elec-
oral college they ha to
in one half of the CLPs
5 per cent of the electora
olleg
Taking the CLPs, then, on the basis of the previous years voting for the NEC they are fairly evenly split between the Campaign Group on one side and the combination of right wing and 'soft left' on the other
with the right being much the stronger of the latter two. The Campaign Group has a small majcrity over the right wing and soft left combined and on Kinnock the right wing and soft left will vote together.
Majority
dividinine shose ce as a which vote in the constituency section of the NEC Coran candidates (4 out of 7), and those that vote for a minority of Campaign Group candidates (0-3 out of 7) then of 566 CLPs voting last year a small majority (51 per cent) voted for a majority of Campaign
Group candidates while a large minority (49 per cent)
voted for a majority of right
wing and soft left candi-
dates.
Tony Benn has personal
support exceeding that of hard Campaign Group constituencies. In 1987 out of
566 voted 422, voted for Benn. However it
will be significantly harder to get CLPs to vote for Benn for leader than for the
NEC. The goal of getting a
majority of CLPs to vote for Benn is theretore not unrealistic but is only going to be achieved by very hard organisation.
Candidates Regarding the deputy
leadership, wo Dolluca
factors will be crucial for
the deputy leadership and
he campaign in gener
'he first will be the vote tc
Prescott, and how to dea
with it. The other will br
regional differences.
It is clear the CLPs will
vote massively against Hat-
tersley. There are only 135
CErs wnien vote essental-
ly for right wing candidates
• including the top placed
right candidates
(Ăshley and Kaufmann) ir
the constituency section, McCluskie for and Boothroyd and Dunwoody for the women's section. That is 24 per cent of constituencies which voted last year.
This correlates almost exacuy win une resur luc last time two left wing candidates ran for a single post, treasurer in 1986. Then Ken Livingstone Gavin Strang received 75 per cent of the vote between them.
There is, therefore, hard core of 25 per cent of the CLPs which vote a right wing slate and will support Hattersley. much outside that. There is no reason to think that Kinnock will be able to pull much for his deputy, given the deep personal unpopularity of Hattersle
rescott in a seconu roul against Hattersle! would probably pick up 70-75 pe cent of the CLP vote -is 22.5 per cent of the electoral college.
Prescott
In the PLP Prescott should pick up a minimum
second round and more likely up to electoral college
With approximately 35
er cent of the electoral col-
ege vote from the CLPs and PLP Prescott only needs to pick up 15 out of 40 per cent from the trade union section of the electoral college • cigal per cent being accounted for b! the TGWU alone.
In short, not only does Prescott stand an excellent chance of defeating Hat, tersley, hute wolle wil
easily without Neil Kinnock's intervention. Kin nock is going to have to pull out every stop to save his deputy - - and even then he
may not succeed.
This makes it clear that the campaign for Benn and
Heffer must not cut across
he campaign to defeat Hat
ersev. Nol ony would ulle
be objectively sectarian, waehas une most muooltant, but it would also in-
evitably alienate the party
membership - who see the
opportunity to strike a blow against the right.
Cut This means two things
First making it clear that if there is a second round ir
which Prescott is standing
the Campaign Group can-
didates will be calling for a
vote for Prescott against
Hattersley. If that is not
done Eric Heffer's vote will
be cut down because CLPs
will be tempted to strike a
blow against the right by
likely to
defeat the right.
There should be no pro-
blem here as Campaign
Group members have made
clear that they will be votin!
for Prescott in a secon
round. It simply needs to be
done openly so that CLPs
can see clearly that they can
policies,
voting tor the
first round and still vote
against the right in the
second.
Secondly CLPs must
clarify Prescott's stand on
the policy issues. So far he
has avoided clarifying his
views on the key issues. Where, for example, does he stand on economic policy - he is a member of the
policy revien committee which is almost Clay 202 Lo Conc Le horrifyingly right wing ConclusIons
Regions
When it comes to the regions the situation is extremely uneven. The regions
really divided info two London Yorkshire, East
Total CLIS In
Region region
Yorkshire
North west
East Midlands
West Midlands 58
Eastern
Sonneri
South West
Wales
Scotland
Total- 633
CLES In
Region
Northern
51
YOrKSHIr
North West
East Midlands
West Midlands 58
master 84
Southern
South West 48
Wales 38 Scotland
Total 633 Excluding no vote
Party conference delegates in 1981 when the deputy leadership was announced.
Midlands, and North West are dominated by the Campaign Group. Here it is an issue of getting out the vote.
the other regions organisation to win over 'marginal' constituencies which means those thin king OI voting nock/Prescott, is required.
When it comes to such organisation Dy most effective grouping for aelvering voles m tne part. in the last years has been the
Run between Laboul Left Liaison and the Cam-
In last year's elections 88 CLPs DaLI Group
Voting in the constituency section of the 1987 NEC elections
Didn't
vote
-.-
67. 55
Didn't
* 1
vote
17 -10 17
-11
14 * Includes 5 CL.Ps which voted for only Campaign Group candidates but less than 7
Analysis
voted for LL Ca Cidataign Group/LLL candidates compared to 9 who voted for only LCC backed candidates for example. Key issues
concauv ne leader ship campaign will be running in lanaem will wo other key issues — the campaign against the Aims and Values' document and that against the economic polics document. These must be brought into the centre of une cade suo calibale
CLPs voting for the following number of Campaign Group candidates
6 7
11 ANUUFAVALO
ANwaN - N
90 53 62 88*
% of CLPs voting for the following number of • Campaign Group candidates
NN .
5u A
10 14° 16 16°
Page 3 scan of this page
Why I am standing for the deputy leadership
Politics Today
the vote
THE REASONS for voting for Tony Benn and Eric Heffer in the leadership election are principled and not tactical. Neil Kinnock, in his willing alliance with Hattersley, has systematically sabotaged the struggles which would have taken the labour movement forward. He has thereby weakened the working class today and made it even less likely that a future Labour government will succeed. It is only necessary to list the miners strike, Wapping, the fight against councils cuts
to give support to the nurses strikes — to make clear the record.
And worse is to come.
This year will see the attempt to commit Labour to
Principles
an Aims and Values state-
ment which is the most right wing ever adopted by
the Labour Party, to com-
mit Labour to an economic
policy which will not work
and rules out nationalisa-
tion, and, CHICAL T vcal
everyone knows the assault
on unilateralism is coming.
Ans weakens me abou
movement. Under these cir-
cumstances a vole or sena
and Heffer is clear. Tactics
But if the vote is not tac-
tical this does not mean that
tactics are not necessary in
the campaign. This is not a
waged at the
peak of left success as in
1981. It is necessary to iden-
tify clearly the issues and
how to maximise the vote.
Crucial
Some crucial issues will
not be pre-planned and will
be thrown up by the class
struggles itself. One such is
Eric Heffer and Dennis Skinner
key policies he would be campaigning on.
'SINCE 1983 the party has
been moving steadily to the
right. The leadership has
been undermining the basic
concepts of the party stage
by stage. Many of the things
that were accepted as our
basic principles are steadily
being eroded.
Not only are principles
being eroded but policies
which have been
WOrKCU
out over a long period of
LIC UY DrUDCI UISCUSSiO! and debate in the party are
equally being undermined.
That plus the fact that the
How to win
- not to mention the latest episodes such as the failure
the P&O dispute. Benn and Heffer, and the Campaign Group, have taken up, and given full blooded support, to the struggle. Tony Benn and Eric Heffer went down to Dover to express support for the strike - which is what the leader of the Labour Party should have done. Support for such struggles is both vital in itself and will win support for the campaign.
Class
But in addition to direct class struggles there are a number of clear, coming, policy issues which can and should be used directly in the campaign. How to articulate these with the leadership campaign requires strategy and tactics by the left - not only organisation but highlighting what are the decisive areas where the left can win votes. These must also, to have an effect, be the most important issues of policy. Before considering these however consider briefly the line up of forces in the CLPs.
Leaving aside random votes the leadership election will see four basic groupSOCIALIST ACTION asked Eric Heffer to explain the reasons he was running for deputy leader and the
leadership has increasingly concentrated power in the hands of the parliamentary
By Eric Heffer MP
party, in the hands of the shadow canine ane withi the shadow cabinet in the smauer crous arousa dat leader of the party.
Increasingly we are not involving the membership
democratic decisions. This has got to be stopped. sume unab une bally
ings inside the constituency parties. The first is those voting Kinnock-Hattersley - the right. The second, the soft left, will vote Kinnock-Prescott. The third the periphery of the hard left, will vote BennPrescott. The fourth, the hard left, will vote Benn-Heffer. It is relatively easy at the beginning of the campaign to work out the relative strengths of some of these currents and, in turn, work out the key issues which must be clarified to strengthen the left.
First, as we show on the opposite page, approximately 25 per cent of CLPs will vote for the right wing
Kinnock-Hattersley. Nothing substantial can be done about them and for campaigning purposes they may be ignored.
The second group which it is relatively easy to determine the weight of, is the hard left which will support Benn-Heffer from the beginning of the campaign. Eric Heffer received 180,000 votes for the NEC last year which is also the strengin or mose unal volca for at least five Campaign Group candidates out of seven. This is 32 per cent of CLPs voting at conference.
Battle
The real battle ground is approximately 40 percent of CLPs that are not committed either to the right wing or the hard left. How
win CLPs at present thinking of voting BennPrescott into voting Benn-Heffer, and how to win
membership decides that we have had enough of this drift towards the right. If we are going to conduct a real tight against the Conservatives, and not just leave them damage themselves, if we are going to mobilise opinion against them, then we are going to have to mobilise that : opinion through a party which is dedicated to its principles and will fight inside the House of Commons in the most vigorous tashion and take that fight out into the country, into the trade unions and into the localities.
This is why I think it is abso ule essenual ual tuls contest should take place.
The deputy leadership is not just about organisation, it is about policy. A lot of the input into the policy review is being made by Roy Hattersley. The document Alms ana values acooted by the NEC, has. •got Roy
the whole document.
We have had a debate on this in the PLP. I was told by the leader of the party that if any member of the parliamentary party had ideas on it they should
Tony Benn speaking in Chesterfield CLPs at present thinking of voting Kinnock-Prescott in to voting Benn-Heffer is the key issue. The key to achieving this is first to ensure that the policy issues are debated out before the issue of the vote for leader and deputy leader are taken.
Policy
The decisive policy issues that can be foreseen are clear. Politically, in the contest for the leaders post, the key to winning votes from Kinnock will be discussion of Aims and Values and the positions taken by Labour on key issues of the day such as the NHS dispute.
The great majority of CLPs will be opposed to Aims and Values as it becomes clear what it is about — the dumping, even in the party's aims of any commitment to socialism. We would expect 75 per cent of CLPs to oppose Aims
submit them to the NEC
und the would be
idered. I submitted a who series of amendments. I received a card back saying that they had been deall with. But when I asked my colleagues on the executive • committee whether they had seen these amendments they said they didn't come simply been co appared by
leader of the party and that was that.
This document is a fun. damental retreat from the basic ideas of the Labour Party. It means that we are moving away from the idea of the public ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange. We are talking in terms of accepting the capitalist system and merely making a few changes here and there. We are actually ac cepting the agenda set by the Conservative party support for the market, for share holding and so on. It is a fundamental undermining of the basic concepts of
This relates to the discussion going on in relation to the whole future of economic policy. Here it
and Values - compared to 50 per cent that might be considering Benn for leader at present. The first crucial task is to explain to the 25 per cent of CLPs that will oppose Aims and Values, but at present may support Kinnock, that this is a completely inconsistent position. That Aims and Values must be thrown out. Kinnock, who introduced the document into the NEC, must be voted against — including because he supports Aims and Values.
The first priority on the issue of leader is therefore to ensure that every CLP debates Aims and Values. Resolutions to oppose it should be moved wherever possible. It is precisely because the leadership does not want the issues discuss. ed that it is attempting to move for postal ballots in the leadership election - so that members do not discuss the issues - and is moving for immediate
will be very interesting to know precisely where the other candidates for the deputy will stand.
Roy Hattersley's pos
tions are well known. He i the chief author of the Aims and Values document. But John Prescot aso a member of th economic policy review comice dwal will interest the positions he will take. Up to now he's tended
say that he agrees enti
with what Neil Kinno and the leadership are do-
ng, and its more a questior
of the role of the deput leader rather than the DOLLICS Well we're terested in the politics, they are really the key question.
As far as the policies of the campaign are concerned the first thing is to bring all those industries that have been privatised into public ownership - with this time
TOTHES democratic management and the involvement of white collar and blue collar workers.
ner we have seriously argue for the ex-
and control to the banks
nominations. Forcing a debate on the policy issues is the first priority.
As regards the deputy leadership the decisive issue will be both Aims and Values and CCO ONC policy. Everyone knows that Hattersley wrote Aims and Values and that he supports the documents likely to emerge from the Productive and Competitive Economy committee of the policy review. However no-one knows where John Prescott stands. He has declared that he supports Neil Kinnock for party leader and, while he is a member of the Productive and Competitive Economy review committee, he did not even attend its final meetings which finalised the document it is presenting. Vote
The significance of this has to be brought LOU because the crucial CLPs in the deputy leadership con-
and finance houses. We cannot talk in terms of creating full employment without having the control of the basic industries, as Nye Bevan put it, of the 'commanding heights' of the economy.
These two issues - the extension of public owner ship and the campaign toi toleher We have to have a - are tied policy of creating public in dustries in the worst hit areas. We need investment in these regions.
Second we need a full scale programme for housing - primarily for public housing so that
are able to have decent houses to live in. We have to scrap all the nonsense that has been talked about for some years about choice because millions of our people don't have choice. We have to get down to a campaign for housing and construction work. If we do that this wil also help bring back full employment.
Then we have to say that as far as democratisation is concerned not only do we have to have freedom of in-
Socialist Action May 1988 test are those at present con-
•VOLLIS BennPrescott - CLPs that wish to vote against the right but which are thinking of voting for Prescott in order to defeat Hattersley.
Here the left must explain that it is correct to vote for Prescott on a se cond round but that it is necessary to cast a clear vote against Aims and Values and the economic policy documents. That means voting for Eric Heffer on the first round -Heffer being the candidate for deputy leader clearly opposed to Aims and Values, the economic policy drift of the party, and its current course. Supporters of John Prescott must be challenged to ask where he stands on these decisive issues.
In every CLP, however the crucial issue is to win a debate on the policy issues starting with Aims and Values and economic policy.
ormation but we must g
d of the House of Lo and bring back democracy the cities by it the right authorities that will not be dominated centra
all anti-trade
union legislation has got t
e repealed and new legisl tion brought underlines the rights of the trade unions on. a scals never seen before
In relation to foreign affairs we have to fight for a non-aligned policy, the en ding of all nuclear bases in
country, and workin for the winding down, and ultimate abolition, of bott NATO and the Warse Pact, and for a nuclear free Europe.
Alongside of that must be the ending nuclear energy in this country and basing our energy industry on coal.
From the point of vies
To the a at local lete
through having branches in offices, in workplaces.
hese are the key sae in the campaign. are waging a crusade for socialism.
Page 4 scan of this page
How do we fight the clause now?
Socialist Action
Ireland —
polls say
time to go
THE LABOUR Committee on Ireland (LCI) AGM at the beginning of April met as opinion polls both in Ireland and Britain showed a dramatic increase in opposition to British policy, and the British presence, in the North of Ireland. REDMOND O'NEILL reports.
A SERIES of recent opinion polls in Britain and İreland have shown a dramatic shift in opinion against the Anglo-Irish Agreement and in favour of British withdrawal from Ireland. In March half of those interviewed in Britain in a MORI poll for the Economist were for British withdrawal from Ireland now or within a set period. Only one in four people were for Britain remaining in Ireland permanently.
The results of the latest opinion poll in southern Ireland are more dramatic: The poll, reported in the Irish Post, was conducted by Irish Surveys on behalf of the Irish Independent.
There has been a spectacular change in Irish attitudes to the Anglo-Irish Agreement. Only 22 per cent of those interviewed believed that the Anglo-Irish Agreement has brought about an improvement in the administration of justice in the north and only 21 per cent believe that it has brought about a change in the position of the nationalist community.
On the British presence as such, a clear majority want Britain out within five years. Twenty three per cent wanted an immediate British withdrawal. A further 30 per cent want British withdrawal within five years. Thirty four per cent want the troops to stay until a settlement is reached. And only four per
support Britain remaining CelL permanently.
In answer to the question of how peace can.best be achieved in the North of Ireland, 50 per cent were in favour of a united Ireland, including those supporting a federal arrangement. Twenty nine per cent favoured power sharing in the north and Il per cent approved of an independent Northern Ireland. Only two per cent favoured a return to majority rule in the north and four percent were for integrating the North of Ireland with Britain. The talks between the SDLP's John Hume and Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams were endorsed by 68 per cent with only 14 per cent opposed.
The disenchantment with the Anglo-Irish Agreement is mirrored in a poll conducted 15-17 February in the Six Counties for Fortnight magazine and Ulster Television. In this, 81 per cent of nationalists could detect no benefit to their community from the Agreement and only 16 per cent thought the nationalist community had benefitted from the Agreement. A massive majority of people in Ireland have lost all confidence in the Agreement.
The poll also showed that whilst the Enniskillen bombing significantly reduced support for Sinn Fein this was entirely recouped by the impact of the Stalker/Sampson report and the rejection of the appeals of the Birmingham 6.
In a chilling indictment of British rule, to the
question Are there any events that would give you hope for the future here??, to quote Fortnight's report: respondents could not think of anything atall. *Remarkably,
The Irish Post commented on these polls in an
editorial under the title "Time to go: 'Something en-
tirely new is needed and democracy in these islands
demands that British withdrawal from the north is
put on the agenda. The "Time To Go" year-long
campaign, headed by MP Clare Short, and soon to
be launched in Britain, is timely...
presence is at least part of the problem in Northern
Ireland. remains the
negotiating a peaceful and permanent solution.
The Labour Committee on Ireland at its AGM at
the beginning of April recognised the potential for
significantly broadening the withdrawal movement
in this context. It endorsed the year of action tor
British withdrawal culminating in a demonstration
and festival in August 1989. It set the goals of winn-
ing a majority for action against employment
discrimination and significantly increasing the vote
for British withdrawal at this year's Labour Party
conference.
Most encouragingly of all, it was attended by
Tom Hart, a member of the Transport and General
Workers' Union national executive, who pledged that *
he and others would be working to open up the
debate on Ireland in the TGWU and to seek to get the
union to reverse its 1987 Labour Party conterence
vote against the MacBride principles on employment
discrimination in the North of Ireland.
May 1988
Marketing Ireland out of three The British
greatest obstacle to
FOLLOWING the decision of the Campaign group to contest the Labour Party leadership a number of MPs resigned from the group. Significantly this included a number of women MPs, Jo Richardson, Clare Short, Margaret Beckett, Joan Walley and Joan Ruddock. The reasons they state for resigning are disagreement with the leadership contest. Others have attempted to present the issue as about the position of women. The decision of these MPs to leave the Campaign group is unjustified and wrong.
All these MPs are also members of the Tribune group, and iney are not resigning from this group.
of the Tribune group shows what is wrong with their action and clarifies the issues n vo ved.
The Campaign group has endorsed the demands of the women's conference for a strengthened women's organisation, it SODOLLS the call for constitutionally recognised Black Sections, it consistently defends the DarLy s position for unilateral nuclear disarmament, it supports British withdrawal from the North of Ireland.
The mbune group nas taken no positions on comparable issues defending the interests of women — or of black people, or of party democracy, or on Ireland on public ownership or any similar questions Specifically:
• The Tribune group
has not the demands of the women's conference for the election of the women's places on the NEC.
• The Tribune supported our the demands of Black Sections.
• The Tribune group
CLAUSE 28 becomes law at the beginning of June
and the first attempts to use it against Labour local
authorities can be expected immediately after that.
PETER PURTON, member of the Labour Campaign for Lesbian and Gay Rights National Com-
mittee, looks at the way ahead.
THE campaign against the
clause has as housands men been
dous. of
previously non-political
and gays nave
discovered their strength.
The support which has
been carefully and tireless-
ly fought for over the years
by campaigns such as the
Labour Campaign for Les
bian and Gay Rights, and
lesbian and
trade union groups,
enabled us to overturn the initially backward mentary
Parliamentary
Labour Party and to win
unexpected public opposi Neil Kin thek to the clause from
Front bench
spokesperson Jack Cunn-
ingham, whose BUSI
response was a disgraceful
capitulation DICOLLY.
and policy, eas now f badly rejection
committed aDOl
government to repeal of
the measure.
But lesbians and gay
men, and those local
authorities which nave
tried to carry out national
Labour policy cannel
wait to be rescued by:
future change of govern-
ment and must decide now
what strategy to adopt ir
the weeks and months to
come.
The public campaign
will continue, with the
mansion nation 3 propril,
London April,
Tegora marches
throughout May, and Les-
Principles and tactics
has supported witch hunts in the party.
• The Tribune group in the shadow cabinet elections last year, refused to alBy Jude Woodward, Press officer WAC (personal capacity)
ly with the Campaign group to elect a left majority in the shadow cabinet that would have supportea une ke) elements of party policy which the right are opposed
• The Tribune group has not endorsed policies defending public ownership.
• The Tribune group has not unequivocably supported unilateral nuclear
The Campaign group, which no one claims has always been right in every decision it has made, has fought on the principlec Issues of and democracy in the party. In particular its record defending the demands of women and black people in the is infinitely
Inerior tO DalL Tribune
- not to speak of
1VU leil Kinnocl
So if one takes the bian and Gay Pride in
It is certain that Tory
backed reactionaries will
›e already preparing thei
cases against the most ac
vanced Labour councils in
order to put the clause to the only test which will
determine the meaning, it
practice, of that undefined
homosexuality which
28 so very
dangerous. That test is the
lecision of a judge, and i
is obvious that Ine nke
will be un-
favourable.
It is also certain that
lawyers will already be ad.
Labour councils
that to abide by
to quietly
DC whole exercise. The Tory
borosition in tHaringen, aledingey,
which originated
'positive images' in educa
tion policy which
prime target of clause 28
is already using the clause
tu whip up hostility to the
Labour group and,
presumably prepare the
path for prosecution
The first battle which
needs to won,
therefore, is that councils
must continue to defend
party policy and to b
prepared to fight the issue
the whole way through the
courts. The list of Labour
authorities adopting this
stated political positions of Jo Richardson, Clare Short, Joan Ruddock ana unc others literally one would have to say that they have subordinated agreement over ciples to disagreement over
the advisability or not of a leadership con test. The resignations only make sensesoc much more fundamenta pollucally is involva a basic political position.
Certainly their action in remaining in the Tribune group shows that their posi tion can have nothing to do with that of women in th par he form a
group form separate, new and feminist group then
for their departure based on the weakness of the Campaign group on women might have some credibility. But
[LESBIAN
Demonstration in Manchester against Clause 28
olicy in principle cor
inues to grow. But it wil
be necessary to maintain
pressure to keel
hem to it in practice
The continuing fight
for the understanding and
support of the
movement, especially the
town hall and teaching
trade unions is the secon
critical strand
strategy. There is no doubt
that teachers and other
workers will be victimised
under this law by less pro
gressive councils. A will-
ingness to fight against
such attacks, in the way in
which a Bradford teacher
has areddy had to be
defended by threat of strike
will be vital
to making the law as un
workable as possible
The Stop the Claus
campaigns must continue
Clare Short: her decision to leave the Campaign Group is unjustified and wrong to leave the Campaign group for the 'feminist' cloune group is a poor joke
The Tribune group has probably never even discussed its policies on women nor endorsed the demands of women in the party. ine intoure giou
as not endorsed a singl one of the women's con
ference deresentation ease
representation women in the party or to create a more powerful Labour wonder. organisation
The fact that they do not resign from the Tribune group simply makes crystal clear that it is not a step towards 'feminism
Others who disagreed with the contest, and voted against it in the Campaign
group have not walked ou
Some, like Tony Banks hav declared their support tor
to mobilise the widest
forces against this law and
opposition to the
vicious wave of reaction
which spawned it, and wil
be fanned by it. To do sc
alliances already built, as
with the FAB campaign
need to be continued an
strengthened
in the labour move-
ment, broad and commit-
ted support has to be won
cess has started with the
unprecedented debate and
vote at the NUT con
ference, and will be con
tinued through OLHe
union conferences during
the Summer. LCLGR is
organising a high level
campaign for the annual
Party conference
aimed at maintaining the
News
Tony Benn despite disagree ing with holding the contest at this point. This is because they understand that agree. ment on policies is more important than a tactical disagreement - even a very important one such as a leadership contest
icularly the women ME he MPs who left should reverse their decision. Not because the Campaign group is perfect on the issue of women - - far from it - but because the Tribune group is worse. Because the Campaign
supports women's demands and the Tribune group opposes them. By
credibility
Tribune group the womer MPs have strengthened forces in the party who not support the demands of women.
In politics, always, principles must take priority over tactics.
YR
issue of equal rights for
lesbians and gay men on
the political agenda and
hardening existing sup-
port.
Clause 28 as law marks
a new level of attack on
lesbian and gay rights un-
precedented in this coun
try in the twentieth cen-
I of reaction in which
the Tories are revelling
But its impact is seen anc
•understood broad
forces to extend much fur-
ther than its initial target.
It is by mobilising this sup
mer
mitigating conse
quences and preparing for
ITs occal
Peter Purton writes in a
personal capacity
Page 5 scan of this page
audacious campaign
News
Black Section AGM
THE FIFTH annual meeting of the Labour Party
proach is more subtle and mediated.
The conference, which took place on the weekend of the 26/27 March in Manchester town hall, was in many respects an historic experience. Conference debated 25 resolutions submitted by formal bodies of the Black Section, including two emergencv resolutions on South Africa.
There was also a major discussion on education prepared by the national exCCuLIVe. Another discussion, on the inner cities, had to be remitted because of time.
The conference, however, was dominated by a discussion on the way forward. Hight out of twenti three resolutions submitted prior to conterence adaress ed this debate. Bernie Grant cancelled trip to Afghanistan in order to contribute to the debate at the conference. Events
The fact this question dominated conference attests to the seriousness with which it is viewed in the Black Sections. When the sequence of events is reviewed it is easy to see why such
Agenda set for
Black Section registered a new situation in relation to the party's leadership. Previously the approach of the party hierarchy was to attempt to snuff out the stirings of the party's black membership. Its new ap-
importance is attached to the matter.
When the first resolu-
By Mike Wongsam
tions on the representation of black people were sub mitted to the party conference the NEC established a working party to report back with recommendations.
Minority
The NEC's working party, which had broad representation across the labour movement and included a number of black members of the party, had protracted deliberations ane concuciee une wides consultation exercise ever undertaken by the party until that point.
The of these
fion was that two positions were advanced from the working party. One. the majority position with overwhelming support on the working party, supported the idea of Black Sections and recommended that the constitution of the Labour Party be altered to
ЕСПО
make their establishment possible. The second, minority, position, argued against the estab ishment of Black Sections, lavour or une establisnment of a black based (although with the participation of whites) campaign for black rights.
Aim
In the event, none of these positions were acted upon by the NEC. Instead, the NEC decided establish a Black and Asian Advisory Committee' (BAAC) appointed by the NEC. This unprecedented step, the NEC has never before acted against the recommendations ot Its own working established the future attitude of the party leadership to the Black Sections
the aim of complete annihilation.
An attempt at a compromise to resolve matters was proposed by Eric Heffer — the establishment of an affiliated organisation which would represent the view of black people to the Labour Party, and would be open to non-party members. However by now the framework had been set, and the NEC had staked everything on the BAAC. Heffer's proposal didn't fit into the requirement to inflict a defeat on the Black Section, and was duly voted
EBLACK
Black Section demonstration against racist killing in Wolverhampton down by the NEC.
Since then, the party leadership has taken every opportunity to try weaken, isolate, and marginalise the Black Section. There has been the expulsion of Amir Khan and Kevin Scally, the actions against Sharon Atkin and Phil Murphy, and actions and threats against constituency parties that gave recognition tc Black Sections
At the same time, the Black Section built an extensive system of alliances within the party, and is conducting similar work within the trade unions. Moreover, the credibility of the Black Section within the black community has steadily grown with its increasing emphasis on community based grassroots activity
Most important, however, are the notable victories scored by the Black Section ove the party leadership. Firstly, struggle to reinstate Khan and Scally, which was a campaign led by the Black Section in alliance with others in the party, and, secondly, the campaign against the BAAC — which even the party leadership admit is now defunct. These established the ability of the Black Section to conduct an audacious campaign against the leadership and win victories.
The latest episode in the holy war conducted by the leadership against the Black Section was an attempt to use the four black MPs, in place of the BAAC, as a potential alternative centre of gravity for the articulation of black interests. The opening tor this arose out of the Sharon Atkin affair.
Tactic
But this tactic has been frustrated by the policy of the Black Section and the fact that not all the black MPs have agreed to be used against the Black Section in this way. Any attempt to use the black MPs against the Black Section would have resulted in splitting the MPs - making the operation much less credible.
therefore finely balanced. The situation Neil Kinnock at present gets more votes in the movement than any Labour leader since Attlee or Wilson in his early period. The Black Section continues to get a million votes at party conference but has not been able to break through this barrier. Nevertheless, black working class in this country continues to expand, the Black Section system of alliances within the movement Is growing and the left victories in the recent TGWU elections -with Region No 6 now hav-
Socialist Action
• ing a policy of support for Black Sections - give new openings. Furthermore the party leadership's tactic of creating the BAAC has not worked, the attack Sharon Atkin is likely to result in another embarrassment for the party leadership, and the tactic of trying to get the black MPs to launch a frontal assault on the black section has not succeeded. Faced with an impasse the party leadership turned from direct assault to an outflanking and splitting tactic.
'Affiliation'
This nanocuvic wa. started by Paul Sharma in an article in Tribune after party conference. He advocated the 'affiliation' op tion and couched it in such a provocative attack on the Black Section that it had the clear aim of getting its leadership to reject the proposal. The aim was that the Black Section would reject any proposar on allanor and a tame body could be establisnea by ine party leadership to try to split the Black Section and remove its support.
The Black Section leadership refused to walk into the trap. It reiterated its principled position that while only the establishment of Black Sections will resolve mne question black organisation in the Labour Party it welcomes any step strengthening black democratic representation in the partv. It als pointed out that members oi suci a back organisa tion would inevitably arrive at the conclusion that Black Sections are necessary — as had the working party.
Manoeuvre
However, while the party leadership was engaged
the party took it seriously and proposals previously rejected by the NEC began to re-emerge.
The Heffer 'affiliation' proposal has reappeared in an amended form as the 'Bill Morris proposal' -
really a suggestion since Bill Morris presented it in an article in Tribune but it has not been put on the table of any formal discussion. The NEC working party minority position has reappeared as the Tony secretary of the Ucera Carke general proposal.
It is clear that the BAAC having failed the party leadership is considering retreating to the pre-BAAC proposals as they have not succeeded in annihilating the Black Section. This obviously throws open again une debate about black representation in the party.
Crunch
The crunch matter will be the question of white membership. The creation of an affiliated black organisation with official status and representation on GCs, which would be able to campaign for black representation on the NEC would be a clear, even il limited, step forward for black representation. It would also almost certainly, after a couple of years debate, come out in favour of Black Sections.
But establishing an affiliated black organisation
May 1988
would mean the leadership making a real, even if inadequate, concession to the fight, against racism and black-oppres sion. This, naturally thei have no intention of doin if they can avoid it.
A second round of manoeuvering has therefore started with the reaffirma tion by Kinnock that any black organisation must be open to white people. The racism inherent in this proposal is astonishing — ever the present party leadership does not dare to suggest, for example, that men should be able to join the women's section of the party. Ever the most right wing black Labour MP, Paul Boateng. has not been able to endorse this proposal.
The party leadership is therefore in a quandary. If it proposes black organisation which white people can join' option it will have another BAAC fiasco on its hands. But ac cepting the principle of black self-organisation means taking Certall limited step forward in the
Response
The response of the Black Section to this has been exemplary. It has consistently explained that it will not accept a ridiculous proposal •of a black organisation members, but it welcomes any genuine step, forward for black self-organisation and will examine any concrete proposals in that light. Bernie Grant, who in the debate at the Black Section AGM introduced himself as secretary of the parliamentary Black Section,
-all nounced that he had been Invitea to nave aiscussion: with the party leadership, and that he was willing to make representations on behalf of the Black Sectior in these discussions.
The Black Section executive moved remitting the entire discussion on this issue to the incoming national committee, which was agreed by conference. Secondly, the Black Section agreed to participate in any discussions with the party leadership through Bernie Grant, while reaffirming its committment to the objectives of the Black Section.
Resolution
This therefore puts the Black Section in the best possible situation in the existing relation of forces — and the new tactics coming out of Walworth Road. If Walworth Road are genuine about finding a resolution to the debate that guarantees black representation at all levels of the party, then the Black Section is not go ing to hold up the swiftest possible progress. noweve if the party leadership pursues as hidden agenda, o persists with 'white members of a black organisation proposal then this decision puts the Black Section in the best position tactically to respond to any outflanking operations.
After six months during which the party leadership tried to claim that the issue was irrelevant, and attempted to crush the Black Sec tion. black representation and organisation in the once more heading the top of the political agenda
Page 6 scan of this page
FROM M
Socialist Action May 1988 WENTY YEARS ago, in Ma 968, barricades stood in the street: of Paris. Ten million workers took part in the largest general strike in history. Hundreds of factories were occupied. "The events' of May 1968 are this month being commemorated on the television and in the colour supplements.
But twenty years later, the elections in France show a very different pattern. The first round of the presidential elections on 24 April registered not simply the virtually certain re-election of Socialist Party president Mitterrand but the largest vote for an extreme right wing candidate, Le Pen, in any country in Western Europe since World War II. These elections give a deep insight into European politics. JOHN ROSS looks at the developments twenty years on from May 1968. TO KNOW why no socialist can support Neil Kinnock or his policies simply look at the presidential elections in France. What is most significant is not that Mitterrand is almost certain to win reelection on 8 May. That is primarily a party political gain. It is that there exists. today in France, as a direct product of Socialist Party government, the largest extreme right wing force in any European country since World War II.
That the rise of Le Pen and the National Front is directly correlated with the Socialist Party in government there is no. doubt. In 1974, under a government of the right, Le Pen received 0.7 per cent of the vote. In 1981, the year Mitterrand won the presidency, and the Socialist Party the majority in the legislative elections, Le Pen couldn't even collect the necessary signatories to be nominated. Yet within two years, in the 1983 Municipal elections, Le Pen's National Front defeated the Socialist Party mayor in the industrial town of Dreux. Two years later, in the
European elections the National Front
won 10.9 per cent of the vote. Two years
on again they won 9.6 percent in the
legislative elections — and 35 seats in the
National Assembly. The 14.4 per cent in
the April presidential elections caps that
off. The correlation between the rise of
the National Front and the experience by
the French workin
CONSTRUCTION
SPECULATION
PROFiT.
342885
32,770 850
Capitalism kills
Party in government is clear.
The rise. of the National Front furthermore correlates with a deterioration of the relation of forces on a whole series of other fronts. In particular French union membership has plummeted -less than 20 per cent of the French working class is now unionised. The evident disarray in the bourgeois parties revealed in the three way split between the Gaullist Chirac (19.95 vote), the 'centre candidate Barre (16.53 per cent) and Le Pen — does not compensate either for the worsening of the relation of forces or the sharp right wing shift represented by support for Le Pen.
Undoubtedly France is not in line with developments in a number of other West European countries. For example in West Germany the period Democratic Party Democratic Party (FDP) government in the 1970s witnessed a radicalization to the left with the rise of the Greens and not the growth of the extreme right. Yet the development in France is ominous — in many ways the most serious negative development in Western Europe since 1968.
Why should the re-election of a Socialist Party president coincide with a rapid growth of the extreme right? What does it tell us about the political situation in France and Europe? deserves lo be celebrated less with euphoria and rhetoric than with a real attempt to understand the forces which it unleashed and the developments which have taken place since. To understand them, however, it is necessary to go back to the events which created May 1968 and the forces which it unleashed in France and Europe.
THE
BACKGROUND
TO GO back to 1968, the great general strike of May that year in France was a product of the long post-war economic boom. From 1948 to 1968 capitalism underwent the greatest international expansion in its history. Output in twenty years increased by more than during the
class in every imperialist country, including Western Europe, were profound. Western Europe's strengthened. Millions farmers moved off the land and into the working class. In a number of countries, particularly Britain, millions of women moved into waged work.
Simultaneously mass unemployment virtually disappeared for two decades
Violent economic fluctuations vanished
Living standards rose uninterruptedl year after year. Income differentials narrowed. Almost uninterrupted reforms took place. The working class in the advanced imperialist countries became stronger than ever before
simultaneously sank into a satisfied torpor.
European states, including the structure of their labour movements, equally remained almost unchanged for this twenty year period. Bourgeois democracy existed in northern, and most, although not all, of southern Europe. In the Iberian
per cent of the
were propped up by the United States
passed from in 1967.
of Social thern Europe - Britain, France, Nor(SDP)-Free Sweden, pro-American and May 1968 major states in Western Europe.
The United States militarily
States then
was the US do ences for the working which stood be
working class was
of peasant
Europe.
World War II until the mid-1960s -
economic policies.
- and
The political structure of the West
peninsular the old fascist dictatorships ot Salazar in Portugal and Franco in Spain
and its European collaborators. Greece dissatorship, to cil military dictat semip semi-
Within the working class a major split existed between the north and south of Europe. The working class of nor-
Riot police = SS Holland eas dominated by strongly Denmark, Belgium,
pro-Cold Socialist Parties. The Communist Parties in these countries were weak - although they generally had a significant weight in the trade unions. The working class of Southern Europe — France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece — was dominated by pro-Moscow Communist Parties. The post-war division of Western Europe between countries allied with the United States, and states subordinated to the USSR, was reflected in the dominance of pro-American and pro-Soviet currents in the structure of the Labour movement The political influence of either fascists or small revolutionary groups was almost insignificant — although substantial ex-
working class.
The most significant change within the ruling class in Europe was the crea tion, in 1958, of the EEC. Based on agreement between West Germany and France it progressively expanded from the original six members to take in all the
This whole West European political structure was, in turn, unimaginable without its relation to the United States.
saved Western Europe at the end of World War II - without it the Soviet Union would black struggle have crushed Nazi Germany alone and BROVC CHL capitalism would have been destroyed from Moscow to the channel. The United
SECUTOU Marshall Aid fet knew that it nd the US army, Western Europe
and a combination of the strong working Europe.
class movement and the presence of the Soviet Union in Europe which would have threatened capitalist rule in Western
THE The United States, for its part, sub-
sidised Western Europe from the end of simply Way Mansit Aid-but by Us
private investment and US international
The political reflection of this was the
popularity of the US not simply among
the capitalist class but among large sec-
tions of the working class. President
Eisenhower saw demonstrations in his
TO LE
IRSCRSCI
SSSSS
support when he visited Europe, the assassination of Kennedy was experienced as a deep personal tragedy by tens of millions in Western Europe.
The West European working class, however, was itself profoundly changing in a process which might be described as its 'de-aristocratisation. Millions of And women entered the paid workforce -overwhelmingly in the worst paid and least skilled jobs. Capitalism in the West European countries drew in millions of immigrant workers — creating for the first time a significant black and im migrant working class. These women and black workers formed the new mass semi-skilled and unskilled section of the
Outside Western Europe the process which dominated the political situation was the unfolding of the colonial revolution. During twenty years the greater part of the European colonial empires were dismantled. Attempts to prevent this -notably by the French in Indochina and Algeria — were crushed. Capitalism was overthrown in China, Cuba and North Vietnam. In the United States the colonial revolution directly interacted with the 'de-aristocratisation' of the working class to help inspire, and help force the US government to give in to, the rise of
in the Civil Rights
As long as capitalism continued to
boom this West European political structure functioned with relative political cohesion. May 1968 was the symbol it
could no longer operate. May 1968, the
led up to and created it
established the present situation in CONSEQUENCES
THE background to May 1968, was the Vietnam war. Opposition to the
war fuelled the student rebellion in Europe that flared for two years before May 1968. Economically Vietnam overstrained the US economy. The US attempted to finance its war effort by running huge balance of trade deficits with its West European allies. The West European working class simultaneously was stung by inflation, produced by the flood of dollars out of the US, and placed in a strong bargaining position by the rapid upturn in production, created by exports to the United States. This combination was a recipe for an explosion → which duly occurred. May 1968 and the struggles which followed it - the strike wave of autumn 1969 in Italy, the struggles against the Heath government in Britain, and the rising struggles under the Franco dictatorship in Spain -signified that the post-war order in Western Europe could not survive.
how simultaneously, in the consolidation of forces such as Mitterrand in France, the emergence of left wing currents such as the Greens in West Germany and the 'Bennite' left in Britain, and the rise of the extreme right National Front in France?
PAS DE REPLATRAGE
LA STRUCTURE
EST POURRIE
No replastering — the structure is rotte
Taking first erroneous analyses, a sec tion of the Marxist left believed that the
preceding order in Europe was going ti
be replaced by socialist revolution. From
1968-75 events which took place
culminating in the downfall of the Por
tuguese dictatorship in April 1974, wen
interpreted as meaning that social
revolution had returned to Wester
Europe
But that perspective was not realisti:
Certainly the movements of the workin
class after May 1968 were even larg:
than those in the inter-war years or afte
World War I - reflecting the social e
pansion of the working class. Ten millio
participated in the general strike of Ma
1968 in France, 12-15 million in the strik
wave of autumn 1969 in Italy, two na
tional miners strikes and a wave o
political strikes took place in Britain i
1968-74, a series of general strikes shool
Page 7 scan of this page
AY 1968
E PEN
the Franco dictatorship. Nor did the working class return to passivity after 1968. But in terms of the overall political situation it was ridiculous to make a comparison to the inter-war period or to revolution.
In the famous formula of Lenin for revolution to take place it is 'not enough tor une explorea ana oppressca diasses lo realise the impossibility of living in the old way, for a revolution it is essential that 'the exploiters should not be able to live and rule in the old way. Not simply was the working class in Western Europe after 1968 not engaged in revolutionary struggles comparable to the inter-war struggles but the situation was not revolutionary.
In the inter-war period the ruling classes had literally been unable to carry on in the old way. The revolutions in Germany, Hungary, and Austria led to the collapse of the German monarchy and the destruction of the Austro-Hungarian empire. The crisis in 1929-33 led to the destruction of the Weimar republic and the victory of fascism. In the 1930s first the monarchy and then bourgeois democracy collapsed in Spain to be followed by the triumph of fascism. In France the growth of the right in the early 1930s was followed first by the Popular Front and then by the effective collapse
these events was the dislocation of economic production in 1917-21 in Cen-
ral Europe, and then economic collaps
ifter 1929 throughout Europ
No such events took place in Europe after 1968. There was economic recession, but it is ridiculous to compare it to the immense breakdown of either politics or the productive system in 1917-21 or after 1929. The ruling class was able to go on in the old wav. in the sense ot not tacing ni her a collapse in its power or a collar s economv conoarasie to me
Period. What the bourgeoisie to do was to adjust the mechanisms by which it ruled.
Here it is worth noting, again that, even if it had wished, the methods open to the bourgeoisie in the 1970s were no longer comparable to those of the interwar period. The economic recession from the mid-1970s placed on the bourgeoisie the necessity to increase profits. But the economic and social formulas open to enable it to achieve this were very different to the 1920s or 1930s. bourgeoisie had mobilised the mass inter-war petty-bourgeoisie oisie the tooth the pette - both the bourgeoisie BUC peasants and rural petty-bourgeoisie -for a direct assault to smash the workers movement by violence. This was the political formula of fascism.
Such a social formula is impossible today. The mass reactionary peasant vote that sustained Hitler even in his periods of isolation in the 1920s, or which provided the base of Mussolini or the French right of the early 1930s, simply doesn't exist anymore. It was destroyed by the post-war boom. Even the urban petty-bourgeoisie has declined significantly. Quite different tactics are required by the
bourgeoisie today than old style fascism.
In a sense the policies of the West European bourgeoisies in the 1970s and 1980s are modelled more on those of the British ruling class during the 1930s than of fascism. This is no accident as the British was itself a ruling class in a coun try in which the petty-bourgeoisie had declined too far for a fascist solution to be viable.
CONTINUON
LA GREV LE APITA MEURT Continue the strike, capitalism is dying
The British bourgeoisie in the 1930s had, above all, sought to split the working class. Although the 1930s are remembered as a period of desperate poverty and unemployment the truth is that this was true only for one section of the working class. For many the 1930s in Britain were a period of prosperity. Real wages for those in work grew rapidly, new industries were created in the south, house building and motor car building booms took place, Britain benefitted from a sharp turn in the international terms of trade against the colonial countries. The working class was completely split with radicalisation among a minoritv but with the Conservative Par Eyelative unity of the working class tes. picking up its largest ever votes. only recreated in 1945 and in the post-war boom - from which all sections of the working class gained to differing degrees.
When the economic recession began in the mid-1970s the bourgeoisies in Western Europe, following the contemporary model of Japan and the United States, began a job of splitting the work
ng class. Their instrument was the 'dua society' - the creation of a core of still secure, well paid, white, and chiefly male, workers surrounded by a periphery of low paid, unskilled, insecure, frequently black, workers whose conditions rapidly deteriorated. Outside even these lav the widening pool of the unemployed. It is Into unis sucture matue radicausabot of the left, the growth of the extreme right, and the victories of right wing social democracy such as Mitterrand al fit.
Taking first the development of right wing social democracy, its base is both these overall social changes and, more specifically, the crucial change in the relations between the United States and Western Europe which took place after 1968.
The changing economic relation of the US to Western Europe, the fact that it was no longer subsidising but striking blows against its European allies, broke
the back of the pro-American currents in the European Socialist Parties. Nowhere was that clearer than in France. The old French socialist party was on the verge of extinction by 1969 - gaining only five per cent of the vote in the presidential election of that year. Only a rapid turn by the party in the early 1970s under Mitterrand revived the party.
In France, as elswhere in Western Europe, the right wing of the socialist parties began to adopt a new rhetoric — pro-EEC, pro-austerity, in some cases demagogically anti-American. The current what became right 'Eurosocialism' — Mitterrand in France, Gonzales in Spain, Craxi in Italy developed from this. The right wing of the European social democracy now saw its saviour not in the United States but in the EEC — a course advocated in Britain today by Stuart Holland, Frances Morrell and, increasingly, Neil Kinnock. Mitterrand, with his pro-European armaments, pro-European austerity, pro-EEC stance is a perfect example of this current. This right wing social democracy is today the most powerful current in the workers movement in Europe.
In this policy social democracy is even more successful, in certain countries, than the traditional bourgeois parties. The EEC means the untrammelled supremacy of big capital. It means eroding the power of localised small capital and farmers - the traditional base of the national bourgeois parties. In most European countries, therefore, the capitalist parties have split into strongly pro-EEC currents and those pursuing a more 'national' orientation. In West Germany this split lies between the strongly pro-EEC Free Democratic Party (FDP), passing through the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) of Kohl, to the Christian Social Union (CSU) of Franz Josef Strauss. In France, where national 'Gaullist' currents have been strong historically, it has created a particular split between the forces of Giscard d'Estaing/Barre (UDF), Chirac (Gaullist), and now Le Pen. Equally in Spain the bourgeois parties have remained divided and weak.
In such situations the right wing social democracy, with its firm pro-EEC oriention apa bulk be cohesion stability for bourgeoisie. In France the government of Mitterrand, with its policy of economic austerity, its nuclear build up, and its Shoring up the system
firm support for the siting of Cruise Missiles in Europe, has been the best possible government for the French bourgeoisie.
The social bloc represented by such a current is also clear. It fits directly into the dual society. It is an alliance of the best off sections of the working class — of the employed workers, of the skilled, of those in the core, of those least touch ed by the austerity - with big capital. For capital it is an attempt to create a real European capitalist competitor to the United States.
The development of both the left and the right in Western Europe fits into this framework. Because the forces which are excluded from this right wing social Put your head in and see our programme: UDR (de Gaulle's party) democratic bloc are precisely the unskill. ed and semi-skilled section of the working class created by the post-war boom -layers that are overwhelmingly women and black. The formula of the right wing social democracy is an alliance of the bureacracy and best off sections of the working class with big capital against the worst off sections of the working class.
In that framework the rise of both the left and of Le Pen is logical. They are the forces pushed outside the orbit of right wing social democracy. The enormous emphasis in the left wing currents on women and black people, as well as ecology and other themes, reflects the social recomposition of the working class since World War II.
But this social development also creates the ambiguity in the situation. On the one hand it creates the space for left wing political developments. But on the other, as Le Pen's vote makes horrifyingly clear, it also creates space for the right.
Le Pen's vote in France includes authentically some of the most deprived and socially depressed sections of the white working class. For example in the traditional Communist Party strongholds around Paris of Montreuil and St Denis the National Front gained 18 and 20 per cent of the vote respective ly. Le Pen demagogically appealed to sections of the white working class who share the race for increasingly scarce jobs with immigrant workers and who felt, and in reality have been, totally deserted
Socialist Action 1988 by the traditional workers organisatons Le Pen's is the most advanced political expression of the same process which has seen the rise in racist attacks in Britain and the rise of xenophobia and racism against immigrant workers in West Germany. The combination of right wing social democracy with the rise of both the left and the right is an entirely logical development.
So far in Western Europe the consequences of the crisis, and of right wing Socialist Parties, had been primarily to strengthen the left — the Greens in Germany, the left socialist parties in Denmark, the left in the Labour Party in Bri-
tain. But Le Pen's is a very stron
reminder that the same social forces cat
rise to extreme right wing developents. That it should do so so first in France, with its strong nationalist tradition, its still relatively strong petty bourgeoisie, its strongly nationalist, and declining Communist Party, and its now seven year experience of a right wing Socialist Party in office is entirely logical.
In an article in this month's Marxism Today Stuart Hall and Martin Jacques claim that "The 20th anniversary of 1968 has a strange almost eerie character. It is not like the 10th anniversary in 1978. Then the lines of continuity were still strong. Now, the umbilical cord has been cut. In the West, at least, we are living in a different era.
The events in France show just how wrong is that judgement. Jacques and Hall arrive at that conclusion only because they, ironically like some of the left, continue to regard May 1968 as some far away romanticised vision of the revolunon. It was not. It was a seismi event which unleashed the present political situation in Europe. It is an event whose shadow grows ever longer.
From the barricades errected across the streets of Paris on the night of 10 May 1968 grew not the revolution but, in a sense, something still more powerful. That night the entire political structure of Europe began to change. It is still changing under the impact of the vast force! unleashed by it.
May 1968 was not the revolution. It was not even the 'dress rehearsal' of the revolution. It unleashed social forces which twenty years later are working themselves out with no sign of stopping. If anyone contents themselves simply with the memory it is because they are unable to understand the originality, the uniqueness of what was created - how 1l failed to correspond to the reality of what anyone, or any class, foresaw at the time It corresponded to the great truth of Lenin that reality is "infinitely more complex than forseen by any party. party.
The real celebration of May 1968 is not just to remember. It is to try to understand what has taken place. Because understanding is to create the firmest basis for action.
And Le Pen's success in France, as well as the left wing developments in other countries, shows how urgent that understanding is.
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8 Socialist Action May 1988
THE REVOLUTION began in the East. From Russia it passed over into Hungary to Bavaria and, doubtless, it will march westward .through Europe. This march of events is taking place contrary to prejudices, allegedly Marxist and rather widespread among broad cireles of intellectuals, and not those of Russia alone.
The revolution through which we are now living is proletarian, and the proletariat is strongest in the old capitalist COunurICS where it is much larger numericallv. better organised. -more class-conscious. It is seemingly in the nature of things to expect that the revolution in Europe ought to unfold approximately along the same paths as those of
'In contradistinction to the direction of
the proletarian revolution unfolds from East to West'.
capitalist development: England - the first-born capitalist country, to be followed by France, to be followed by Germany, Austria and, finally, at the bottom of the list - Russia.
The fact is that the revolution began and led to the victory of the proletariat in the most backward major country of Europe — Russia. Hungary is unquestionably the more back ward half of the Jorme Austro-hungaran monareny, which as a whole, in the sense of capitalist and even cultural-political development, stood between Russia and Germanv. Bavaria where, following Hungarv. Soviet power has been established, represents with respect to capitalist development not the advanced but, on the contrary, a back ward section of Germany. Thus the proletarian revolution after starting in the most back ward country of Europe, keeps mounting upwards, rung by rung, toward countries more highly developed economically.
What is the explanation for this "incongruity"?
The oldest capitalist country in curope ana tne worla Is - Englana. Meanwhile England, especially during the last half-century, has been from the
'Our October revolution was an uprising
not only against the Russian bourgeoisie
but also against English and French
capitalism®
standpoint of the proletarian revolution the most conservative country. The consistent social-reformists, ie:, those who try to make both ends meet, hence drew all the conclusions they needed, asserting that it was precisely England that indicated to other countries the possible path olitical development and that in t e the entire European proleta ald renounce the programme of the social revolution.
For the Marxists, however, the 'incongruity' between England's capitalist development and her soclalist movement, as conditioned by a temporary combination of historical forces, did not contain anything disheartening. It was England's early entry onto the path of capitalist development and world robbery that created a privileged position not only for her bourgeoisie but also for a section of her working class. England's Insular positon spared her the direct burden of maintaining militarism on land. Her mighty naval milllarism, although requiring huge expenditures, rested nevertheless on numerically small cadres of hirelings and did not require a transition to universal military service.
The British bourgeoisie skillfully utilised these conditions in order to separate the top labour layer from the bottom strata, creating an aristocracy of skilled' labour and instilling into it a trade union caste spirit. Flexible despite all its conservatism, the parliamentary machinery of Great Britain, the incessant rivalry between two historical parties the Liberals and the Tories - a rivalry
which at times assumed rather tense form although remaining quite hollow in content, invariably created when the need arose an artificial political safety-valve Tor use aisconteuto ule workine masses This was supplemented by the fiendish dexterity of the ruling bourgeois clique in the business of spiritually crippling and
bribing, quite 'exquisitely' at times, th
leaders of the working class
Thus thanks to England's early capitalist development her bourgeoisie disposed of resources that enabled them systematically to counteract the prozeraran revo unon. winee proletariat itself, or more correctly, within its upper layer, the same conditions gave shape to the most extreme conservative tendencies which manifested themselves in the course of decades prior to the World War...
capitalist development from West to East,
While Marxism teaches that class relations arise in the process of production and that these relations correspond to a certain level of productive forces; while Marxism further teaches that all forms of ideology and Toremost, politics correspond to class relations, this does not at all mean that between politics, class groupings and production there exist simple mechanical relations, calculable by the four rules of arithmetic. un the • contrary, ine reciprocal relations are extremely complex. It is possible to interpret dialectically the course of a country's development, only by proceeding from the action, reaction and interaction of all the material and superstructural factors, national and world-wide alike, and not through superficial juxtapositions, or through formal analogles
England accomplished her bourgeois revolution in the 17th century; France — at the end of the 18th century. France was for a long time the most advanced, the most 'cultured' country on the European continent. The French social-patriots still sincerely believed even at the beginning of this war that the entire fate of mankind rotated around Paris. But once again, just because of her early bourgeois civilisation, France developed powerful consci valive tendencies within her capitalism. The slow organic growth of capitalism did not mechanically destroy French handicrafts, but pulled them along, simply relegating them to different positions, assigning them a more and more subordinate role. The revolution, by selling the feudal estates at auction to the peasantry, created the French village, extremely viable, tenacious, stubborn and
etty-bourgeois
The great French Revolution of th 18th century, bourgeois both in its most extreme objectives as well as results, was at the same time profoundly national — in the sense that it rallied round itself the majority of the nation and, first and foremost, all of its creative classes. For a century and a quarter this revolution established the bond of common remembrances and traditions between a considerable section of the French working class and the left elements of bourgeois democracy. Jaurès was the greatest and last representative of this conservative ideological bond.
Under these conditions France's political atmosphere couldn't fail to infect broad layers of the French prolelanal. especially the semihandicraftsmen with petty-bourgeois il-
usions. Conversely, it was precisely th
ich revolutionary past that gave th French proletariat an inclination to settle scores with the bourgeoisie on the barricades. The character of the class strug-
gle, lacking clarity in theory, but extremely tense in practice, kept the French bourgeoisie constantly on guard and compelled it to go over early to the export of finance capital.
While on the one hand seducing the popular masses, including the workers, by a dramatic display of anti-dynastic, anti-clerical, republican, radical and other tendencies, the French bourgeoisie, on the other hand, availed itself of the advantages accruing trom primogeniture and from its position of world usurer in order to check the growth of new and revolutionising forms of industrialism within France herself. An analysis of the economic and political conditions of French evolution, and furtermore not oniy on a nanonal but ar international scale, can alone provide an explanation of why the French proletariat, split up after the heroic eruption of the Paris Commune into groups and sects, anarchist on the one wing, anc 'possibilist' (reformist) on the other, proved incapable of engaging in open revolutionary class action, of struggling directly for state power.
For Germany the period of vigorous capitalist flowering began after the victorious wars of 1864-1866-1871. The soil of national unity, drenched by the golden flood of French billions, became the bed of a glittering reign of boundless speculation, but also that of an unprecedented technical development. In contrast to the French proletariat, the working class of Germany grew at an extraordinary rate and expended most of its energies on gathering, fusing, organising its own ranks. In its irresistable upsurge the working class of Germany got great satisfaction from adding up its automatically growing forces in the reports of parliamentary elections or in unc slalclucus o urauc unos ueasunes. The victorious competition of Germany on the world market created conditions equally favourable for the growth of the trade unions as well as for the unquesnonabie improvement in tne aving Standard of a section of the working class.
In these circumstances the German Social Democracy became a living — and later on ever more moribund — incarnation of organisational fetishism. With its roots deeply intertwined in the national state and national industry, and in the process of adaptation to the entire complexity and entanglement of German social-ponucal relanons, wmcn are d combination of modern capitalism and medieval barbarism, the German Social Democracy along with the trade unions under its leadership became in the end the most counter-revolutionary force in the political evolution of Europe. The danger of such a degeneration of the German Social Democracy had long ago been pointed out by Marxists, although we'must admit that no one had foreseen how catastrophic would be the character of this process in the end...
As regards the development of Austria-Hungary, it is impossible from the viewpoint of interest to us to say anything which would not likewise apply in a clearer form to the development of Russia. The belated development of Russian capitalism immediately imparted to it an extremely concentrated character. When in the 'torties of the last century
BALGT
COR
Knopf established English textile factories in the central Moscow area, and when the Belgians, the French and the Americans transplanted to the virginal Ukrainian and N brussian steppes the huge metallurgical CHICIOIISC COl structed in accordance with the latest WOrG •117 European ana American technology, they did not consult textbooks to learn whether they should wait until Russian handicraft developed into manufacture, while manufacture in Ils turn brougat us lo une targe-scaic factory.
On this soil, i.e., on the soil of poorly digested economic textbooks, there once arose the famous but essentially pucnie contoversy over waetner Kusslan capitalism was 'natural' or 'artificial' in character. If one were to vulgarise Marx and look upon English capitalism not as the historical starting-moment of capilanst development our ratner as tne all-imperative stereotype, then Russian capitalism would appear as an artificial formation, implanted from without. But if we analyse capitalism in the spirit of Marx's genuine teachings, that is, an an economic process which first evolved a Lypica nauonal fom dn waen cnen
the most weakly barricaded door.
outgrew this national framework and evolved world ties; and which in order to bring the backward countries under its sway sees no need of returning to the Too s ane usages orus muranl davs. our employs instead the last word in tccnnology, une last word in capilaust cx ploitation and political blackmail - if we analyse capitalism in this spirit, then the development of Russian capitalism with all its peculiarities will appear wholly 'natural, as an indispensable, component part of the world capitalist process.
This applies not alone to Russia. The railways which have cut across Australia were not the 'natural' outgrowth of the living conditions either of the Australian aborigines or of the tirst generations 01 malefactors who were, beginning with the epoch of the French revolution, shipped off to Australia by the magnanimous English metropolises. The capitalist
International
SOCIA
EAST AN
development of Australia is natural only from the standpoint of the historical pro. cess taken on a world scale. On a different scale, on a national, provincial scale it is, generally speaking, impossible to analyse a single one of the major social manifestations of our epoch.
Just because the Russian arge-scalt industry violated the 'natural' order of succession national economic development, by taking a gigantic economic leap over transitional epochs, 'it thereby prepared not only the possibility but the inevitability of the proletarian leap over Tne epoch bourgeols democracy.
The ideologist of democracy, Jaures pictured democracy the nation's supreme tribunal, rising above the warring classes centuries-long history of handicrafts and In France, Winne
of handicraft urban culture, with her strugg es ot citv communes and. late her revolutionary battles of bourgeois democracy, and, finally, with her conservatism of a petty-bourgeois variety, democratic ideology has until recently still rested on a certain historical soil.
An ardent defender of the interests of the proletariat, and profoundly devoted
'The revolutionary epoch burst in through
to socialism, Jaurès, as the tribune of a democratic nation, came out against imperialism. Imperialism, however, has demonstrated quite convincingly that it is mightier than 'the democratic nation whose political will imperialism is so easily able to falsify by means of the parliamentary mechanism. In July 1914 the imperialist oligarchy, on its way to war, strode over the tribune's corpse; while in March 1919, through the 'supreme tribunal' of the democratic nation, it officially exonerated the murderer of Jaures.
In Russia these illusions from the outset did not have any kind of support beneath them. With the ponderous sluggishness of its meagre development our country didn't have time to create an urban handicraft culture. Nurtured under the high pressure of foreign finance capital and aided by foreign
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International
ILISM
WHAT PLACE does the development of European politics since 1968 occupy in the overall march of socialism? Since the mid-1970s, the working class in Western Europe has been forced onto the defensive. The steps forward in the international class struggle -Central America, in Southern Africa, in the Philippines have taken place outside the advanced capitalist countries. This corresponds to the history of the twentieth century: socialist revolution has taken place in the colonial and semi-colonial world and, with the exception of Russia, capitalism has continued to exist in the imperialist states. Events since 1968 therefore are not an aberration but follow a clear logic. To help understand this process we reprint here a 1919 essay by Trotsky. Entitled En route, thoughts on the process of the proletarian revolution, it studies the general development of world socialism with brilliant thumbnail sketches of the chief European states
an ideal historical background to understanding events in Western Europe since 1968.
D WEST
technology, Russian capitalism in the
course of a few decades gave form to a
million-headed working class, which cut
like a sharp wedge into the milieu of All-
Russian political barbarism. Without the
massive traditions of the past behind it,
the Russian workers, in contrast to the
Western European proletariat, took on
not only traits of cultural backwardness
and ignorance - which the semi-literate,
indigenous urban citizens never wearied
of pointing out - but also traits of
mobility, initiative, and receptivity to the
most extreme conclusions deriving from
their class position.
If Russia's economic backwardness
conditioned the spasmodic, CaLaStrO
phic development of capitalism, which
immediately acquired the most concen-
trated character in Europe, then the same
universal backwardness of the country
the spasmodic, catastrophic
development of the Russian proletariat
permitted the latter to become -
course only for a segment of a certain
•nistorical perioa - ine most irrecon
cilable, the most self-sacrificing bearer of
the idea of social revolution in Europe
and throughout the world.
Capitalist production in its 'natural' constantly expanding
reproduction. Technology keeps rising,
the amount of material boons keeps
growing, the mass of the populatior
becomes proletarianised. Expanded
capitalist production deepens capitalist
contradictions. The proletariat grows
numerically, constitutes an ever-larger
proportion of the country's population
becomes organised and educated, anc
thus forms an ever-growing power. But
this does not at all mean to say that its
class enemy - the bourgeoisie - re-
mains at a standstill. On the contrary, ex-
panded capitalist production presup-
poses a simultaneous growth of the
economic and political might of the big
bourgeoisie. It not only accumulates col
ossal riches but also concentrates in its
hands the state apparatus of administra-
tion which it subordinates to its aims.
With an ever-perfected art it ac
complishes its aims through ruthless
cruelty alternating with democratic op
portunism. Imperialist capitalism is abl
to utilise more proficiently the forms of
сетостаси proportion
economic dependence of petty-bourgeois
layers of the population upon big capital becomes more cruel and insurmountable. From this economic dependence the bourgeoisie is able, by means of universal suffrage, to derive — political dependence.
A mechanical conception of the social revolution reduces the historical process to an uninterrupted numerical growth and steadily mounting organisational strength of the proletariat until, comprising the overwhelming majority of the population, the proletariat without a battle, or virtually without a fight, takes into its own hands the machinery of bourgeois economy and the state, like a fruit ripe for plucking. In reality, however, the growth of the proletariat's productive role parallels the growth of the bourgeoisie's might. As the proletariat becomes organisationally fused and politically educated bourgeoisie is in its turn impelled to perfect its apparatus of rule and to arouse against the proletariat ever-newer layers of the population, including the so-called new third estate, ie., the protessional intellectuals who play a most prominent role in the mechanics of capitalist economy. Both enemies gain in strength simultaneously.
The more powerful a country is capitalistically - all other considerations being equal - the greater is the inertia of 'peaceful' class relations; all the more powerful must be the impulse necessary to drive both of the hostile classes - the proletariat and the bourgeoisie — out of the state of relative equilibrium and to transform the class
truggle into open civil war. Once it ha
lared, the civil war - all other conditions being equal — will be the more bitter and stubborn, the higher the country's attained level of capitalist develop. ment; the stronger and more organisec both of the enemies are; the greater the amount of material and ideological resources at the disposal of both.
The conceptions of proletarian revolution which prevailed in the Second International did not in reality transgress the framework of self-sufficient national capitalism. England, Germany, France, Russia vere regarded as independent worlds moving in one and the same orbit towards socialism, and located along the different stages of this path. The hour of
the coming of socialism strikes when capitalism attains its utmost limits of maturity and thereby the bourgeoisie is compelled to surrender its place to the proletariat, as the builder of socialism. This nationally-limited conception of capitalist development provides the theoretical and psychological grounds of social patriotism: 'Socialists' of each country deem themselves duty-bound to defend the national state as the natural and self-sufficient foundation of socialist development.
But this conception is false to the core and profoundly reactionary. By becoming world-wide, capitalist development thereby snapped those threads which in the past epoch bound the fate of the social revolution with the fate of one or another more highly developed capitalist country. The closer capitalism knit together the countries of the whole world into a single complex organism, all the more inexorably did social revolution, not only in une sense drus common destiny but also in the sense of its place and time of origin, fall into dependence aponord factor and primarily as
world factor, primarily dependence upon those military conflicts which imperialism must inevitably provoke and which, in their turn, must shake the equilibrium of the capitalist system to its roots...
Growing out of capitalist development as a whole, and at the same time appearing before the national consciousness of each individual capitalist countrv as an external tactor. perialism acts as if to discount the difference in levels attained by the development of the respective capitalist countries. At one and the same time, they were all drawn into the imperialist war, their productive foundations, their class relations were shaken simultaneously. Given this condition the first countries to be driven out of the state of unstable capitalist equilibrium were those whose internal social energy was weakest, ie., precisely those countries voungest in terms of capitalist development.
Here an analogy virtually imposes itself - the analogy between the inception of imperialist war and the inception of civil war. Two years before the great world slaughters, the Balkan Wall erupted. Basically, the selfsame forces and tendencies operated in the Balkans as throughout the rest of Europe. These forces were inexorably leading capitalist mankind to a bloody catastrophe. But in the great imperialist countries there likewise operated a mighty inertia of resistance both in domestic as well as foreign relations. Imperialism found it easier to push the Balkans into war precisely because on this peninsula there
re smaller weaker states. wu a muc
ower level of capitalist and cultura development - and consequently with less of the inertia of 'peaceful' development.
The Balkan war - which arose as a consequence of subterranean earthquakes, not of Balkan but of European imperialism, as the direct forerunner of the world conflict - attained, however, an independent significance for a certain period. Its course and its immediate outcome were conditioned by the resources and forces available on the Balkan peninsula. Hence the comparatively brief duration of the Balkan war. A ten months sufficed to measure the national capitalist forces on the poverty-stricken
peninsula. With an earlier start the Balkan war found an easier solution.
The World War started later precisely because each of the belligerents kept glancing fearfully down into the abyss toward which it was being dragged by unbridled class interests. Germany's extraordinarily augmented power, counterposed to the ancient power of Great Britain, constituted, as is well known, the historical mainspring of the war but this same power long kept the enemies from an open break. When the war did break out, however, the power of both camps conditioned. the prolonged and bitter character of the conflict.
The imperialist war, in its turn, push ed the proletariat along the path of civil war. And here we observe an analogous order: countries with a younger capitalist culture are the first to enter the path of civil war inasmuch as the unstable equilibrium of class forces is most easily disrupted precisely in these countries
Such are the general reasons for a phenomenon which seems inexplicable at "The great French revolution of the 18th century, bourgeois both in its most
extreme objects as well as results, was at
the same time profoundly national!
first sight, namely, that in contradistinction to the direction of capitalist development from West to East, the proletarian revolution unfolds from East to West. But since we are dealing with a mos complex process, it is quite in the nature of things that upon these indicated basic causes there arise countless secondary causes, some or wnien tena to remorce and aggravate the action of the chief tactors while others tend to weaken this
the development ol Kussian capitalism the leading role was played by European finance and industrial capital, particularly and especially that of -France. I have already underscored that the French bourgeoisie in developing its usurious imperialism was guided not only by economic but also by political con siderations. Fearful of the growth of the French proletariat in size and power, the French bourgeoisie preferred to export its capital and to reap profits from Russian indistrial enterprises; the task of curbing the Russian workers was therewith un loaded on the Russian Czar. In this way the economic might of the French bourgeoisie also rested directly on the labour of the Russian proletariat. This created a certain positive force in favour 'Thanks to England's early capitalist
conservative tendencies?
of the French bourgeoisie in its co-
relations with the French proletariat and,
conversely, this same fact engendered a
certain incremental social force advan-
tageous to the Russian proletariat in its
relations with the Russian (but not the
world) bourgeoisie.
What has just been said applies
essentially to all old capitalist countries
exporting capital. The social might of the
English bourgeoisie rests on the exploitation of the English proletariat but also of
the colonial toiling masses. Not only
does this make the bourgeoisie richer and
soclany stronger, but unis also secures l
the possibility of a much wider arena for political manoeuvres, DOLl TOUCI
rather far-reaching concessions to its native proletariat as well as through exer
ting pressure on it by means of the col-
onies ...
In view of the foregoing reciprocal
relations, our October Revolution was an
uprising not only against the Russian
bourgeoisie but also against English and
French capitalism; and this, furthermore,
not only in a general nistorical sense — a:
the beginning of the European revolution
- but in the most direct and immediate
sense. In expropriating the capitalists and
refusing to pay Czarist state debts, the
Russian proletariat thereby dealt the
Socialist Action May 1988
cruelest blow to the social power of the European bourgeoisie. This alone sutTICES to explain why the counterrevolutionary intervention of the Entente imperialists was inevitable. On the other hand, this intervention Wal rendered possible oniv because the Rus sian proletariat found itself placed by history in a position which compelled the Russian workers to accomplish their revolution before it could be accomplished by their older and much stronger European brother. Hence flow those supreme difficulties which the Russian proletariat is compelled to overcome upon taking power.
The Social-Democratic philistines have sought to conclude from this, that there was no need of going out into the streets in October. Unquestionably it would have been tar more 'economical for us to have begun our revolution afte the English, the French and the Germa: revolutions. But, in the first place, history does not at all offer a free choice in this connection to the revolutionary class and nobody has yet proved that the Russian brocalal assured. a revolution 'economical' in character
Second, the very question of revolu tionary 'economy' of forces has to b reviewed not on a national but on a world scale. Precisely because of the entire preceding development, the task of inInaung the revoluton, as we nave altad) seen, was not placed on an old proletaria with mighty political and trade union organisations, with massive traditions of parliamentarianism and trade unionism, but upon the young proletariat of a backward country. History took the line ot least resistance The revolutionar epoch burst in through the most weakly barricaded door. Those extraordinary and truly superhuman difficulties which thereupon fell upon the Russian pro letariat have prepared, have hastened and have to a certain degree made easier the revolutionary work that lies still ahead for the Western European proletariat.
In our analysis there is not an atom of
The revolutionary "primogeniture' of the Russian proletariat is only temporary. The mightie the opportunist conservatism among the summits of the German, French or English proletariat, all the more gran-
development ... within the proletariat ...
conditions gave shape to the most extreme
diose will be the power generated for their revolutionary onslaught by the prolelarlal or mese countries .. The dictatorship of the Russian working class will be able to finally intrench itself and to develop into a genuine, all-sided socialist construction only from the hour when the European working class frees us from the economic yoke and especially the military yoke of the European bourgeoisie, and having overthrown the latter, comes to our assistance with its organisation and its technology. Concurrently, the leading revolutionary role will pass over to the working class with the greater economic and organisational power.
If today the centre of the Third International lies in Moscow - and of this we are profoundly convinced - then on the morrow this centre will shift westward: to Berlin, to Paris, to London. However joyously the Russian proletariat has greeted the representatives of the world working class within the Kremlin walls, it will with an even greater joy send its representatives to the Second Congress of the Communist International in one of the Western European capitals. For a World Communist Congress in Berlin or Paris would signify the complete triumph of the proletarian revolution in Europe
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Jackson shifts right
Victory to the Afghan government
10 Socialist Action THE RESULT of the New York Democratic primary was not the substantial 'reverse' for Jesse Jackson that the press are claiming. True he only received 37 per cent of the vote compared to Michael Dukakis's 51 per cent. But that is still a tremendous percentage for a candidate who was portrayed at the beginning of the campaign as on the 'way out fringe of the Democratic Party. Jackson was completely consolidated as the second runner for the Democratic nomination. Openly right wing Albert Gore was crushed with less than 10 per cent of the vote. Jess Jackson is now a powerful force in the Democratic Party.
The campaign also gives a deep insight INTO. SLne forces work in US DOLCs After decade in which all official claims were that Reagan's presidency showed a profound shift to the right in US political opinion the reality is that Jackson's campaign has shown a real growth in the most left wing section of the Democratic Party - shifting the entire party to the left
The mobilisation of thi US electorate in support of a programme ol radical reform is all but unparallelpe in ine rece SOV O. the country's political development. SOUL ANCW York also zowed that the
Coalition's'
MalnOOW strategy of politicking from WILD IS the largest of America's bourgeois parties is inexorably dragging the campaign to the right.
Jackson has increased his share of the white vote since the 1984 presidential elections to a degree - in the South alone it increased from 1 to 7-10 per cent. He's also managed To nammer aus col• petitors in a number of the nrimaries and caucuses that have taken place thus far, most notably in Michigan where he won 55 per cent of the vote to Dukakis' - the Democratic front runner's THE SIGNING of the agreement between the USSR, Pakistan, and the United States for withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan now allows attention to be concen-
By Mark Wilson
trated on the nature of the two forces that have been fighting in that country. The Soviet withdrawal will be phased over nine months.
The 'mujahedin'
fighting the Afghan
government have stated
they will ignore the Ac-
cord. The United States
will continue to supply
them.
There is no doubt regar-
ding the character of the
mujahedin. Their social
Afghan
leadersnD
landlords. The polllical
programme is vicious reac-
tion against ATOnal
workers, Afghan peasants,
and Afghan women. They
have viscerally opposed the
secularisation of the state,
equality for women, and
May 1988 - 28 per cent.
All this, as we tried to make clear in the March issue of Socialist Action, is on the basis of a populist
By Chris James
programme, calling for, among oIner things, massive reductions in arms socnaie lor ivestchl the economy, the creation of a national health service, and a verbal commitment to the rights of foreign countries to determine their own social systems free of outside interference.
It is, naturally enough, on this last position that Jackson has now openly begun to shift. New York represented an exceptional primary. rece ves 255 Democratic delegates, the largest anotmesl after California (whose primary takes place in early June) And 25 per cent of the electorate New York is Jewish, the vast majority of
StaLCsud porters of the Israeli state.
The Zionist lobby in the Us is a tremendous 'behind the scenes' political
›ower. wnose oressure cal
iterally make or break a candidate on the basis o their position on the conflicts in the Middle East. In
particularly the agrarian
reform implemented by the
Kabul regime since 1978. In
a nutshell, they are a reag
noiav wicc uauc uau
feudalists, arch-reactionary
religious fanatics, monar-
other words, you support Israel unequivocally or else we mobilise literally millions of voters and fightwing activists to try and ensure that you're not elected.
aeksons Dubic une and the line of the campaign in general. on Israel and the Palestinians up to New York has been consistent, if mistaken. He has stood for the right of the Palestinians to a homeland on the West Bank and in the aza uo asa lor an l ternational conference in order to mediate such a resolution to the conflict the conference to include representatives of the PLO as the representatives of the Palestinian people in their struggle. He has met with Arafat publicly (and was photographed exchanging hugs with him), and a section of his constituency has been Arab-Americans who truly beneved lnal ne wa. the only candidate that was willing to stand in solidarity with them.
But when the pressure's on, ODDOELUISS itself very clear under such circumstances. In order to win over some sectors of the Jewish vote — he currently is polled as receiving 10 per cent of their vote as opposed to Dukakis' 74 per cent
-— Jackson has shamelessly Tenceca caluclus tions, claiming that 'he saw no need to bring Mr Arafat into the formal negotiating process' and that 'the sole purpose of his meeting with
the- Palestine Liberation Organisation's leader had been to challenge him over his position on Israel! He went on to say that the 'US priority in the Middle East should be to assure Israel's
See TIPL On in part by getting the •Io recognise Israel's right to exist' (In-
chists and every other possi-
ble SCimWCCaT0C
found Afghanistan.
Their entry into Kabul anuld aian the phisical
annihilation
dependent, 11 April).
This is not the first time that Jackson has quickstepped to the right under DICSSurC only the most brazen. He fudged on his line of non-intervention in other nation's aftairs over the Gulf War, for instance, whe ne eccccu oveeu that if elected he would
US naval Hlalllali presence in une area to safeguard its interests.
Why is it that Jackson has taken such a turn? Part
is the OT-IL oI Coulse. pressure exerted by his 'need to win votes'. More fundamentally, however, is the reality of operating within the Democratic rarly, which has proven 'graveyard" of virtually every social reform movement that is has managed to lure within its grasp in the
In order to get the Dasl. public support, or even the recognition, of the party big-wigs, Jackson has to do things in a way that will not be perceived by them as threatening the status quo. weecess o say. LuCUCS tioning support for the SO HS state and its
nachinations as the tool o
JS imperialism in the Mic ce Has one orine issues that stands at the head of ine agenda
Its ironic, though, that this move by Jackson very probably didn't win him ane Jewish vote in Nev the Jewish voTe n York. But it will have disaffected New York's 100,000
Arab-Americans, as well as intensifying the contradictions within the ranks of the
progressive sections of the
Rainbow Coalition that there has been such a struggle to build.
Unfortunately, New York is only the beginning of the process.
vanguard of the Afghan
working class.
This character of the
mujahedin is thoroughly
understood by international
cabla. Uuenlas Dald
Jackson campaigning in New York
bloodbath' was the title of
the central article in the
Sunday limes summarising
the accord on 17 April. The
internatondl Herald
Tribune's headline was
•Despite Accord, Chaos Is
HIGIANTS. •RE
E UNDOCUMENTED
Nation's Destiny".
The Economist went the furthest when it COllE mented "The Afghans may settle their own differences violently... within a year the top .тей nunered Afghan communists will be in retirement in Russia, and any left behind will be as rare as French collaborators after 1945'.
This agreement should be the occasion for the British left, which has been largely supporting unest reactionaries, to take stock of its position. The Atghan mujaheddin represent one ol tne most ooscurantisi Islamic fundamentalist forces in the world. They do
ot even have the merit,
id the Khomenists in Ira oi naving overtnrown te
shah. They are propped u
MuncaDols alu HUH by imperialism and their
DaruCulary reactionary
client regimes — noradry
Saudi Arabia and Pakistan
The other finances of the mujahedin have come from the massive internationa
drug traffic conducted from
their base in Peshawar
Pakistan
It is a matter of disgra that the British left, unde the guise of 'anti-Sovietism
International
V JUST has been supporting this scum who if they come to power will wipe out, through physical annhinilation, traces of com munism, liberalism, working class organisauon, any other organised form wHu Lucy Consiuc susoce - undoubtedly including any organisation of women in Afghanistan. The killing of 600,000 communists by the Suharto forces in Indonesia in 1965 should pro. vide some sort of model foi what the mujahedin represent.
The social reality of the situation in Afghanistan nasse exaCuc difficult. It has been made
Soviet bureaucratic methods. But there is no doubt wnien side SOCaIss NOUk be in in that war. It is a bat battle between a bureaucrati. progrest the mint rea "progressive regime tionary forces in the work Socialists should stand quivocably, as they or atle side for tee Aht
ent does not win the pric
wrill ibe
Page 11 scan of this page
News
IN AN operation involving the Israeli army and navy, led by the Mossad secret service, the Zionist state last week assassinated the PLO military commander, Abu Jihad, in Tunisia. Tobether with the 14 Palestinians murdered by Zionist troops in the West Bank and Gaza in the clashes following the assassination, the Zionists have now slaughtered nearly 200 unarmed Palestinians since the uprising began on 9 December last year.
reflection of the Zionist view, aruculateu preciseiy by Shamir, that the Palestinians should be crushed like grasshoppers'. But it is also a reflection of the increasing disarray of the Zionist forces. Convinced by its own propaganda that the uprising is simply a tew trouble directed by the PLO, the Zionist state resorts to terrorist actions aimed at eliminating the 'ringleaders'. However, the murders, the countless beatings and maimings, the curtews and the deportations simply serve to fuel the flames of revolt and unite Palestinians and other Arabs in ever larger nunoers.
By Rashid Ashraf
The assassination, for
its intended effect crushing the uprising, has provoked some of the most violent clashes in the occupied territories and led to 100,000 Palestinians joining a 3-day strike called by the PLO inside the Israeli state. antena. tionally it has provoked MOves towards
Arab unity with Syria's Assad making overtures to re-establish links with the PLO and even Egypt condemning the criminal action' of the Zionists.
Palestinian deaths have resulted not only from actions of the troops but also those of the 'settlers' or armed colonisers, to give them a more accurate name. The recent incident in Beita, where an Israeli woman
vocative tour a the
'tour'
Palestinian village by the colonisers, gave an ironic twist to their activities. In the confrontation with unarmed Palestinians, it was the colonisers' own bullets which killed the woman. Of course, this did not stop the army from imposing a curtew on the village, rounding up the men in the town square, demolishing the homes of suspects and deporting six men to
south Lebanon.
The uprising has struck the Israeli economy directly through the suc-
Stop Zionist terrorism
cessful boycotts of israeli goods and mass resignations OI Palestinian workers from the menial jobs that Israelis will not do. In the Gaza strip nearly all of the 400 Arab Doncener nave resouca effectively ending the 'rule of law there. Those who have in the past collaborated with the Zionists such as Hafez Toukan, the Israeli
Mayor Nablus, have started to resign their positions or flee into hiding
Apart rom the murders the Palestinians have suffered over 4,000 arrests, 20 deportations and thousands of casualties. Yet the revolt continues to gather force. Its persistence can de explained by its. mass, popular character and the high level of self-organisation displayed, particularly by a new generation of Palestinian youth. While the United Leadership of the Uprising (ULU) directs the central initiatives such as the 'days of struggle, the driv. ing force of the uprising remains the local committees. Against this form of popular participation the repressive apparatus of
ing increasingly ineffec tive. This is reflected in the indiscriminate mass arrests and deportations which simply result in the emergence of new organisers and committees. the impotence of the much vaunted Israeli internal secret service, Shin Bet, was underlined when its announcement that leaders of the ULU esponsible for issuing th
1 leaflets directing the in iTiatives na peer roundca
was promptly follow-
The outrage in Tunisia and the daily Zionist attacks on the Palestinians have helped to litt the democratic veneer from
SLaLC Flored Zionist soldierse L CBS reporte Nablus systematically beating up two bound Palestinian youths for 40 minutes, and then breaking their arms. As a result of the international andemnation this tim pro voked, the Israeli state was forced to arrest the
soldiers. The soldiers' defence centred on the simple truth that they were carrying out orders from the government. The most shocking aspect of this incident for many supporters of the israe state, i ho erete was the reaction Zionists, such as Yuval Ne'eman of the Tehiya Party, who campaigned for the release of the soldiers and tougher ac tion against the Palestinians!
The Zionists WCIC quick to learn the lessons. of this incident, however. The occupied territorie are now regularly turned into closed military zones ana une worlds press is cr cluded, to allow Zionist LIOOOS ovelale unhindered by considerations of 'human rights. Arab newspapers and news agencies have also been saul dowu
Despite this, news of
ne repression contnue
o leak out. The Zionist have laid siege to entire villages and camps, denying them food and basic medical supplies in an effort to starve the Palestinians into SUMISSION That peculiarly Zionist system of instant 'justice', the 5 homes, has also suspects homes been resurrected. Even the normally sedate Vatican was moved to compare the activities of the Zionists with the Nazis treatment of Jews.
The heroic resistance of the Palestinians needs international soldaril and financial aid is vital to ont une enrecis orart curfews. In Britain the
rights united campaign around the most pressing questions: raising funds and organising solidarity actions around the demands of immediate and unconditional Lionist withdrawal, and the holding of free elections in the West Bank and Gaza with full right for the PLO to participate. • In the Israeli state Arab and Jewish activists including the Sons of the Village movement and the Revolutionary Com. munist League Israeli state section of the Fourth International, have established Committees to Fight the Occupation. They have undertaken to channel funds to the popular committees in the occupied territories. They
Remy Mendelzweig, Sport St, 34575, Haifa or Marcello Weksler, Post Box 26163, Tel Aviv.
the presidency.
For SSiN the conference
an in-
for SSiN Maeve was a
alternative
INUT paigning for students. terests Socialist
NUS.
of Malto
posts allowed SSiN borough at the beginning of April.
the na-
a recipe
executive's to
the SOThe cam•Educa tion
council
doomed fo
ecuuve union's
quickly ushered The
the union, defer the
In
SSiN peaks?
DESPITE this year's NUS conference being widely canvassed as the one at which Socialist Students in NOLS (SSiN) would make a successful challenge for the leadership, in fact the conference was marked by the emergence of a new right wing coalition which forced SSiN back into third place in the elections for
through. notably NOLS for elected Labour
Education
majority
The of the
within the
support.
Conference decided that the replacement wi not by SSiN. But this con derence also SaW the emergence of a right-wing coalition of so-called 'independents under the name of 'Students for Students'.
This current, whose only
Members resist executive's
attack on union democracy
TEACHERS RECEIVED an average of 4.25 per cent across the board rise in the government announcement on their pay last week. This falls way short of the 40 per cent the national union of teachers voted on at its annual conference in Scar-
reality this debate will be the political direc tion of the union, not about organisational matters. It will be very impor tant.
By Pat Tough NUT
There is a whole layer of union members who do not see themselves as part
Lose restructuring ( union in an undemocratic way. In the buildup to the spheduled for no special now for June, the left. including the Socialis Teachers Alliance, mus recognise the huge vacuum that has opened up on this issue the centralist urge of the union leadershir The executive': decision to name Doug Macavoy? Genera Secretary designate without any recognised procedure uo lo aDol clearly exposed the corrupt method of the bureacracy and was rejected by
desgates tiner bendon
London Teachers
Socialist Action common political thread was opposition to 'political student unionism, gained a third of the vote and knocked SSiN into third place. It represents an attempt to break up the hegemony o plains why both the SDP Labour in NUS This and Liberal students were caling lor a vote for the *Students for Students' candidates canecales.
Although Labour has majority support in NUS, the new method of election of the part-time executive posts in block ot 12 which will be implemented next year, will make it far easier for these non-Labour torces to gain seats on ine executive. This makes it all the more imperative tha Labour students should fight for a majority of seats on the executive.
The election of 'Students for Students' into control of NUS would undoubtedly mean that the NUS leadership would no longer defend automatic membership or Nos lol students, supporting voluntarv membership instead instead The ground would be laid for the destruction of NUS as a real element in the defence of education and students.
For force like "Students tor Students' to win the leadership of NUS wole De asas rous 1o! students and the labour movement. The refusal of the DL leadership of NOLS to fight for a clear majority of the seats on NUS ex ecutive gives ground to unese Torces
Meanwhile, SSiN's pro-imperialist politics cannot win a majority either, moreover half their votes WCIC transferring Students for Students on the second ballot - an indication of the inherently right wing trends underly ing the politics of SSiN. The (ILTA) officers, instated atter suspension from
were given tacit
They showed why were unprepared to allow members to be victimised
by overzealous union of
ficials all too willing to flout union disciplinar!
procedures and to spenc
large amounts OT the unions funds in the process
A standing ovation was also given Lena Milosecic from Leicesteshire who moved the resolution that would have made clear that the NUT was to
counteract stereotypes an
misconceptions about le
bians and gays and to cam
paign against Clause 28 o
the local government bill.
The conference listen-
ed silently to the debate and in spite of the defeat
of the motion, moved b
Lena, which lesbian an
gay teachers had put for ward, we secured a grea victory. The union is now committed to maintaining support for any teache victimised on the grounds of their sexual orientation and 'encouraging
development of unbiaser altudes aboul nomosex uality. The campaign wag-
May 1988 11 only consistent fight for a campaigning and interna tionalist leadership of NUS will come from Labour's lell, as an alternanve to both the DL and SSiN.
This is the importanci of Campaign Student, and the Alliance for Socialism that it was involved in at this
NUS conference
gain seats on the executive step forward in NUS and has scored some political
Unlike at the last NUS conference when the first discussion on Palestine in 11 years led to no policy being adopted, at this NUS con Terence from GUPS making hardhitting and hardline speech, received overhelming support on conference floor.
Unfortunately the debate on Palestine was not reached on the agenda due to lack of time, but it is clear that positions In solidaritv with the Palest nians would have been adopted. Campaign Stu dent, and the IAS, have been the core of the cam paign to achieve this situation in NUS.
Campaign Student and IAS supporters have also carried ine against Alton in organising and building a well-attended fringe meeting, despite the les than enthusiastic support of the DL NUS leadershp.
A major fringe meeting was also held on Irelanc with the new NUS president Maeve Sherlock who moved the initial motion that changed NUS policy on Ireland. This laid a good basis for building the coming year of action, and the Students Against Repres sion network. ed by lesbians and gay me around clause clearly had an impact on the educational union.
A substantial lobby of the conference W2S
ganised by supporters the Fight the Cor the lobby in sp Wide support to the union's negative at titude to the abortion bill made it all the more effec tive The immediate task for the StA, indo ingha for ta the left, and in type of union the NUT i going to be. The meeting called in May on this by the Coventry Teachers Associanon must be sup ported by local associa tions. A lurch towards new -realism at a time when the state education service is undergoing an immense Tory restructuring is no -time tor business as usua
Conference in defence of union Called
Coventry
he held on saturday May
at L Bank Teachers Centr from 11 am to 4 pm. Fur ther details are availabl from Rhona Hazel, 22 Noi
humbe 30 to 020s
Page 12 scan of this page
Defend abortion rights
SCOTLAND SAYS Fight Alton's hill
12 Socialist Action
Stop Alton on 6 May
ONLY DAYS after the 20th anniversary of the 1967 Abortion Act, David Alton's anti-abortion bill will come forward for its final reading in the House of Commons on Friday 6 May.
1967 all others have been defeated. Alton's Bill Campaign, whose affiliates include 22 national trade unions and the Labour Party, is calling for a final mobilisation to show the strength of opposition and ensure that this is reflected in the defeat of this bill, whatever its final form, on 6 May.
The bill now COR2 forward represents the most serious threat to the 196 Act so far. The anti-abortionists have learned rom nels experence other bills, and Alton has tocused the 110S L emotive and confused issue of time limits.
By Anne Kane
It Has been rushed
process at breakneck speed - from initial presentation to final reading in less than seven months. It has had un Drececented coverage and sympathy. Attacks
There is also no doubt that any success for this bill would bolster the anti-abortionists to come back again with further attacks, as they made clear committee.
As approach the final debate it is well known that there is not great support amongst MPs for an 18 week time limit. Many MPs who voted for this in
acual suDDorl other less drastic restric-
22 or 24 weeks. The LOTS FAB campaign has received many replies from MPs on both sides of the division in January stating support for such an option.
MPs argue that a 24 week limit for instance
Name s
Action for & be
Registered as a newspaper with the Post Office.
Published by Cardinal Enterprises, PO Box 50. London N..
Printed by East End Offset Ltd. (TU), London E2.
May 1988 Alton's is the 15th attempt to restrict the Act since
The Fight would be in une with developments in medical
and with current medical opinion. Many claim that the number of women having abortions at this stage is in any case insignlicaul. Safety
In reality due to the margin ot error of at least two weeks a flat ban on
23 weeks
would criminalise roughly
2.000 women every year on current figures. Inserting a
flat time limit for the first time into the 67 Act would tend to increase this margin of error — eaucatea gues
sing of what week of
pregnancy a woman is in
rather than viability would determine the legality of abortions.
The burden would lie with the doctor pertorming the abortion to prove that a woman was not more than a certain WCCKS
We could look
forward to a string of anti-abortion court cases.
Arbitrary
Even among those who accept that a woman should
forced to continue a pregnancy because the foetus meets an arbitrary viability limit, there is no clear medical support for a 24 week limit in the way
Alton is proposing. Indeer
a House of Lords Selec Committee wiCh considered viability and took
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comprehensive medical submissions, concluded in February against a lowering of the time limit or notion
Neither is there support more broadly JOE SUCH d limit. The FAB campaign TCCCIEV mailed every Labour MP the text of a letter calling for a vote against any reduction, including 24 weeks, signed by 14 trade union general secretaries.
Alton of course hopes for more than 24 weeks, but any success, the first in 20 years, would spur him and Ine ant-adornonists on to further more attacks. With
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this in mind, Cyril Smith, one of Alton's main sup porters, has tabled amendments for the report stage on May 6th on time limits of 18, 20, 22 and 24 com pleted weeks.
Issue
The first important issue will be whether the procedure set during the Corrie Bill, taking amendments in descending order, followed or whether the Speaker overturns this and takes amendment in the order that they were submittea, in pracuce ascending order. Other SINCE last month readers and supporters have continued to respond marvellously our appeal for an £8000 publications fund in order to ensure the production of Socialist Action in 1988.
Donations received in the last month already amount to f1329.29 in large and small donations, and in
money raised through fun-
draising events and activities.
Supporters in Birmingham have responded
particularly well in sending
in a total of £135 already,
and are planning a series ol
fundraising events to keep
the money coming in.
One supporter in South
London has donated the
proceeds from a recently
published research paper.
amendments - 27 and 26 weeks tor insance - 1ave been tabled and the importance of order is that as soon as any amendment
fall. Taking them in ascending order will effectively increase the risk of the amendments on the lowest time limits, being carried.
The remaining time before 6 May must be used to put maximum pressure on MPs to vote to defend the 1967 Act and against Alton's Bill in any form. MPs should be written to and talked to, especially
abstained last time round and those
Publications fund drive
SUPPORT IS COMING IN
We have also received a series of large and small donations from individuals.
Together with last month's total of £510 the total income for the fund
£1839.29. This puts us on target to achieve our goals. as long as the money keeps coming in and readers and supporters continue to help out.
Socialist Action will continue to campaign against the Alton bill, and against the Zionist aggression against Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. It will prioritise building the proposed year of action to mark the 20th anniversary of the troops going in to the North of Ireland.
It supports and builds the Black Section, Women's Action Commitlee, mne Labour campaign
Labour MPs party policy. Several trade unions have instructed sponsored MPs who voted for Alton in January to vote against in any future votes.
All supportive MPS should be checked to make sure that they will definitely be in the House of Commons on 6 May after the local elections on 5 May.
Protest
And all supporters should be at FAB's final protest demonstration against the Bill on the eve of the third reading, on Thursdav 5 Mav assemble for Lesbian and Gay Rights
Labour Party Campaigns. With Labour CND it supports the movement against nuclear weapons, and seeks to help defend Labour's unilateralist policy. Socialist
Acon can winever struggle against the , Thatcher government's attacks on the working class.
And Socialist Action
will be campaigning for the largest possible vote for Benn and Hefter in tne
Labour leadership election,
and for the left slate in the
NEC elections.
But do all this
Socialist ACTIOn nas come out, and that takes money. That means selling
Socialist Action, and help:
Ing nowever you call to sup
port our publications fund
ACTiON SoCAist
Malet Street London. Building
Should the bill get through on 6 May in any form the fight is far from
over. It would then gọ to th
FOUSCO LOOS WICE. the power to substantially amend it. FAB will, course, be organising events aimed at the Lords in the unlikely event that the Bill is not thrown out on 6 May.
Every opinion poll and survey in the past 20 years
port for Defeat this Bill, like all the others by mobilising that opinion on 5 Mav £8000 £7500 £7000 £6500 26000 £5500 £5000 £4500 £4000 £3500 £3000 £2500 £2000 €1500 €1000 £500
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