THE ANNUAL conference of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in December will be its biggest yet with more than 2000 delegates.
But will it be its last before CND's support begins decline?
A large section of the leadership of the peace movement is preparing for retreat, or the 'long haul'. DICK WITHECOMBE, leading activist from Manchester Area CND, looks at the debates within CND and argues that such a retreat must be resisted at this year's The cruise missiles have now started arriving, the general election brought back the Tories and Reagan seems hell-bent on getting back to the good old days of Vietnam. No wonder there is now a raging debate in CND - what do we do now?
Thompson started the rounds of this debate, with his pamphlet Defence of the Nation, published mid-way through the general election. In his most pessimistic mood he urged a new direction on the peace movement: cast off fundamentalist unilateralism, distance ourselves from the Labour Party and embrace a new anti-nuclear re-armament coalition with Liberals, SDP and wet Tories.
Since then the popular expression of this has been the freeze campaign. Countless articles have explained this • position in Sanity, CND's -i slogans on the 22 October demonstra- and it was one of the main tion.
These retreats are out of tune with O the committment being shown by the 2 thousands of activists in the ≤ movement over the last weeks in opposition to cruis The demonstration of 10.000 on 22 Octob was doubtedly a highpoint of history. During the same week more million people through Europe; in Germany Holland hundreds of thousands of workers took 'warning strike' action.
Smith, writing in Sanity, has pointed to the need to prepare for a long haul' steps to disarmament that take up, to the short term, 'achievable demands'.
No, not a clear cut demand to get rid of cruise and cancel Trident. Rather the agreeable to our friends in the SDP et around the freeze demand.
demands for a dual key, negotiations Cox, has pointed out in Sanity that this type of approach was a disaster in the 1960's. CND went behind the demand when the Americans signed slogan will be the main debate at CND conference. A ballot of CND groups first put the Scottish CND pro-freeze camdebate over all other issues. The freeze, it is argued, is a very mand • United Nations have adopted this position, after all. The problem is that two months later the passed the budget for the first ten MX the Hitle after the arrival of cruise, would be tantamount to saying that the campaign to get rid of cruise has to be postponed to another future stage. Try saying that to the hundreds of people arrested in actions against the arrival of cruise over the last iwo weeks, to the Greenham movement and to the mass of CND activists whose hard work built 22 Oc peace amendment to this resolution. In effect this deletes all reference to the freeze, CND's leaving a number of excellent proposals for CND to step up its campaigning marched District CND has also submitted an CND's swan-song.
events at Greenham. discussion about the freeze tees. even the Contress and Be US Congress then non-nuclear NATO.
Greater Manchester emergency resolution calling for the freeze to be dropped as a campaigning slogan. This is already supported by a growing number of CND groups, areas tions to this year's CND conference are the lack of proposals on how to campaign to get rid of cruise now that it has The fact that resolutions had to be submitted by June no doubt conThe tendency towards increasingly national very strong next year. The grass roots base and imagination of the movement has always been one of the strengths of together as a mass movement by major actions such as the October demonstrations, 6 June last year, and the 'emleadership of CND to water down our demands and to change our campaignpolitics, so as not to alienate a potential broad base (the SDP, Liberals and wet Tories), is a dangerous attack on the reflected by the increasing central control of the movement by the CND Executive which has led to the closure of Youth CND and Labour CND commitEmergency resolutions to CND conference against these closures will provide CND activists with an opportunity to call a halt to these attacks on the democracy of the peace movement. Sanity also attempts to reverse its use as a mouthpiece for the new thinking of the leadership, by opening it up to grass roots debate and give it a more popular, NATO, criticise the leadership tor on failure to implement the proposals to increase the campaigning for CND's position on NATO which was passed resolution attempts to change CND withdrawal to the dissolution of the plus Warsaw pact. Amendments attempt to introduce the strategy previously urged Socialists in CND should be to the fore in arguing for and building the Greenham Socialist Action. maximum unity in the movement. This means- defending CND's programme and campaigning methods. Unilatera nuclear disarmament nas proved lo the bed-rock for the existence of CND for the last 20 years. Our campaigning slogans against cruise and Trident have seen us grow to a mass movement in the last four years.
This also means arguing for overwhelming support demonstration of women at Greenham on 11 December, for support for the anti-Trident convention February and for another mass CND June next year to coincide with the European elections and the many disarmament actions be ing planned throughout Europe.
The composite resolution on thi labour movement, calls on CND t organise such a mass demonstration jointly with the TUC, Labour Party and the National Union of Students early next year. Both this resolution and one of the two amendments also call for the development of strike c tion in the form of 'warning strikes' of the sort that took place in Europe in "the other amendment, TUND, puts back such action until more education work has been done amongst union members. This tends to evade the real question: six million trade unionists are affiliated to CND and the LP and TUC conferences las year both called for a labour movement day of action in 1983. When are the bureaucrats in the labour movement going to put paper policy into the type of action that will get rid of cruise?
The CND leadership commands tremendous respect in the peace move. ment. For four years the movement has grown massively, and achieved many It is therefore difficult to predict to what extend CND conference will call a halt to their retreats. Bal what is clear is that the left wing of th movement • the activists in the 1000 groups, Greenkar movement and the youth - now Beet to start to organised to defend the unit: of the movement and its programme slogans and campaigning methods. We December 25 November 1983
Socialist Action. 25 November 1983 the chair for that meeting Downs and Colleen Ryan 'Having read your the items included were