at the NUM rallies was taken by a special meeting of the national executive. Once again, we have the party leader openly ignoring decisions of the party.
Members should ask themselves many other issues will it happen on? We are going through the same business we did with the Wilson Callaghan leaderships.
we want to correct that historical tendency, then there's no more im. portant issue to correct it on than the miners' strike The overwhelming majori ty of Labour Party memb ers not only feel total comthe NUM dispute, but understand that it is a matter of fundamental importance to the future of the labour movement.
They have made their yiews clear, now they must insist that the leadership reflect them. the lack of settling the call on the party paigning to focus public support for the NUM.' dispute is wholly due to the that the continued isolation of the miners is largely the trade union and labour movement. We believe due to the failure of the party leadership to use their access to the mass media to put this case so effectively, and we regret that instead the par- across. Nobody else has sufficient authority to do ty's representatives have allowed the media to lines, the voting procedures of the NUM, and such red herrings as the Gadafi incident. We therefore leader and deputy leader issues, and to do so on the basis of unconditional attention on
HE RE-ELECTION of Ronald gan was not exactly a surprise. at a taste of what is to come has cady been seen in Reagan's 'Mig reat' invasion scare caragua.
And that raises a big question i strategy for socialists. a mosy years be fought against? most reactionary US president Jow can the international policy of be United States and its allies be efeated?
JOHN ROSS looks at the state I international politics for the left aday and the lessons of the last eat international struggle against United States - the THE ELECTION of Ronald Reagan in 1980 coincided with of discussion politics within the left bour The levelopments intimately ected.
During the period of relaxation of East-West' tensions in the 1970s the years of detente fundamental features TUAL specifically world politics roceed. fashion developed discussing politics in terms of 'national specificities'. Discussion of politics as a world system, and therefore of internabonal strategy, was relatively absent.
But the reality of Ronald Reagan soon reminded socialists rather harshly of the fact that the fundamental forces of politics character. The world is not simply, or even primarily, composed of separate mation states.
On the contrary, each basic force tich confronts the working class Reaganism, the Soviet bureaucracy, the power of the United States, perialist system, the capitalist economic cis: - operates on a world scale.
A: Trotsky put it, ours ear= oi imperialism, le, cocomy and world politics under the begemony of finance Therefore, 'not a single....party can establish its programme solely or maina from conditions and tendencies of dacopment in its own country....the rational orientation of the proletariat must and can only flow from a world orientation and not vice versa.' This truth, which applies to every country, is true with redoubled force in an imperialist country -in regard to the United States. For the strength of the ruling class of an impenalist country does not come solely from the exploitation of the working dass of its own country. It comes from the exploitation of the working class of the entire world.
It flows from this that the struggle true as regards the United States, against strategy Ronald Reagan is necessarily, How can essence, an international strategy.
ly years ago, dent countries, against Vietnam imperialism.
Line civil war Hassive Ici wing or lne two Coll is confirmed by confirmed as time goes on. many of the at the end of his life, of seemed to which flowed for dia, China, world capitalism...
perialist war, definitively drawn revolutionary movement. the imthe revolution in the is: 'the of tion. In Lenin's words:
capital.' Russia, India, the overwhelming emancipation rapidity, and above all assured.' against the ruling class of an imperialist state cannot be conceived of solely, or primarily, as one taking place on a national terrain — and this is particularly the most powerful capitalist power of the confronting in its Lenin formulated his problem of struggle in an imperialist country sevenwith great precision: 'the socialist revolution will not be solely, or chiefly, a struggle of the revolutionary proletarians in each country against their own bourgeoisie — no, it will be a struggle of all the imperialist-oppressed colonies and countries, of all depen'Characterising the approach of the world social revolution....we said that of the working people against the imperialists and exploiters in all the advanced countries is beginning to be combined with national wars against international imperialism. This the of the revolution and will be more and more In one of the famous articles written Fewer Better, But Better, Lenin outlined the perspectives from this reality still more clearly: "as a result of the last imperialist war (the First World War - JR) a number of countries of the East, Inetc have been completely jolted out of the rut....It is now clear to the whole world that they have been drawn into a process of development that must lead to a crisis in the whole of •Precisely as a result of the first imthe East has been Into the revolutionary movement, has been drawn into the general maelstrom of the world final analysis it was this 'East' which, Lenin's analysis, would drive forward the victory of world socialist revolu'In the last the outcome of the struggle will be determined by the fact that China, etc account for majority of the population of the globe. And during the past few years it is this majority that been drawn into the struggle for with extraordinary so that in this respect there cannot be the slightest doubt what the final outcome of the world struggle will be. In this sense, the complete victory of socialism is fully and absolutely The fact that the great reserves of world socialist revolution were not seen by Lenin as the 'white' proletariat of Western Europe or the United States but the thousands of Russia Asia, millions and the semi-colonial