Workers Power no. 135

British section of the League for a Revolutionary Communist International

imperialist troops

Mm | The left and the war drive

iF THE Gulf conflict turns into a shooting war the lowest prediction is that 100,000 will be killed. These will not be the plastic soldiers of Newsnight’s sandtray or the cartoon Arabs from the Sun and Sfar.

» Real people will be subjected in their millions to the horrors of modern war. Poison gas, cluster bombs, B52 bombers laying down their mile wide “envelopes” in which nothing can survive— all this will be unleashed on soldiers and civilians alike.

And for what?

To defend Kuwait against lraq’s aggression, free the hostages, enforce the UN sanctions and protect Saudi Arabia from invasion, runs the official line of the USA.

This is one big lie that nobody should swallow. “If they

grew carrots out there, we wouldn't give a damn” said one White House politician.

The USA is leading the biggest build up of military force since Vietnam for one reason only: to decisively assert imperialism’s right to exploit the resources of the world. In this case they want to defend their access to cheap oil:

Britain and the USA are prepared to spend millions of dollars a day and unleash the latest, high tech military hardware to keep the Middle East as. a backwater of pov-

erty and underdevelopment which they can control.

As for protecting Saudi Arabia, it is already occupied— by several hundred thousand western and Arab troops.

The politicians: and their media puppets repeatedly call this gigantic military alliance “the camp of freedom” or “the democratic allies”.

What cynical liars! Just look at Britain's allies. The Saudi,

Syrian, Iranian and Kuwaiti

povernments—not one of them elected, not one. of them prepared to give their populations the most elemen-

tary of deimocratic rights.

*Turkey—where a sham democracy hides the daily brutality of the military and

secret police. Israel—which :

systematically denies the basic human rights of the Palestinians and has occupied the West Bank ang Gaza since 1973.

No worker has any interest

in supporting Bush and

Thatcher's war drive. And despite the barrage of propaganda it is clear that only a minority share the gung-ho “We will nuke you” line of the gutter press. Yet when the killing begins many will shrug their shoulders and say: “its inevitable”.

It is not inevitable. It can be stopped.

Mass working class protest

NO SANCTIONS! BREAK THE BLOCKADE!

PERMANENT REVOLUTION 90

A WEEKEND OF DISCUSSION AND DEBATE ORGANISED BY WORKERS POWER

From Cold War

to Guif War

IMPERIALISM AND THE NEW WORLD ORDER See page 15 for details Price 30p/10p strikers Solidarity price £1

page 3 Editorial page 7

The new world order

Benn and imperialism, Exploitation of the Midtle East, Strategy in Iraq

page 10

The Kurdish struggle

and action by workers around the world can stop it. But to do so workers must be clear that it is necessary to remove the root cause of the conflicts in the Middle East. The problems of the region are not the result of one dictator or religious fanatic. They are caused by imperialism, foreign military intervention and super-exploitation. Saddam's annexation of Kuwait was one injustice amongst the many daily in-

justices of life in the Middle

East. But the biggest injustice is imperialism, which ensures that the region richest in the world’s most vital resource remains one of the poorest and underdeveloped. Imperialism, which cries crocodile tears over the rights

page 14

of the Kurds and Palestinians, but arms and bankrolls

those who systematically

butcher them.

The troops, planes, tanks and ships are there*’to defend that big injustice not to right the smail one. At present the world’s politicians are maintaining the pretence of “giving sanctions time to work”. is

But sanctions are not there to prevent a war. They are there as the pretext.for a military build up, and when that military build up is complete the killing machine can be thrust into gear.

The only way to stop the war is to break the sanctions, end the blockade and force Thatcher, Bush and co to pull the troops.out now.@

® When the shooting starts? Turn to page 3

See ee ee lle Ud ee

TEE TE NE ee eee ES ee eee Oe eS a eee ee Oe el eee

“not beaten, not tortured”

Free the

SIXTEEN YEARS after they were originally convicted the Birmingham Six have again had their convictions referred back to the Court of Appeal. The referral came because the Devon and Cornwall police inquiry found discrepancies ininterview notes of one of the Six, Richard Mclikenny.

This cast doubt on the safety of the convictions; according to Home

Secretary David Waddington. The ~

discrepancies were discovered using a technique called electrostatic document analysis (ESDA). This showed that the record of an interview with MclIlkenny was not made at the time of interview, as claimed at the trial of the Six in 1975. According to Birmingham Six lawyer, Ivan Giffen, all the details of the ESDA tests and the

materials necessary to conduct.

them were kept from the defence lawyers for seven years. It is a miracle that it was used at all. Home Office inaction allowed the West Midlands police to destroy 2,000 original trial documents and keep only photocopies, on which ESDA tests cannot be run.

Since the announcement of the reopening of the case, media at-

Gay rights in prison

twice; first for their crime and then for their sexual orientation” says

_ Marcus Hellewell ofthe newly formed

Gay Rights in Prison (GRIP).

When a gay man enters prison he will be required to submit to a voluntary HIV test. But as one prisoner wrote to GRIP:

“| was told by the doctor: if you agree to the test you will be put in a single cell bang-up until your results come back. If negative you will be allowed a cell mate; if positive you will go into a cell with another who has a positive result. | refused at first; that’s when | was told | could forget being transferred from here. So | had the test.”

And this is no isolated incident. It is the norm for gay men in prison to be threatened with solitary confinement to force them to take an HIV test.

But despite Home Office “concern”

over HIV the most effective way of

preventing its spread behind bars is still denied.

tention has focused on the activities of former Detective Superintendent George Reade. It was Reade who was responsible for a crude attempt to synchronise the fabricated timings of interviews of the Six. Reade gave Devon and Cornwall officersinvestigating the case three different explanations for the inaccuracies and inconsistencies in the documents which were meant to be a true record of the police interviews.But behind one cop stands the ruling class’ judicial system. The history of the Birmingham Six case is one of a conspiracy by the British establishment to jail six Irish men in full knowledge of their innocence.

The original convictions of the Six rested on the forensic evidence of Dr Frank Skuse, subsequently retired on the grounds of limited efficiency, and a series of confessions extracted under torture.

The trial judge, Bridge, said at the time that to admit the confessions were beaten out of the Six would be to show the police as “masters of the vile techniques of cruelty and brutality to suspects”. Subsequent revelations have proved this to be the case.

Gay sex is illegal in the prison system. So condoms are denied to sexually active men in prison. As GRIP explains:

“Since there is no sex.in prisons it is unnecessary that there should be safe sex. While the Home Office quibbles, the virus spreads”.

Gay relationships which are established in prison become the target of official harassment, with partners quickly moved to different institutions.

Open prisons, which allow greater freedom to low category prisoners, are refusing to accept gay inmates. When asked why a Home Office press

_ Official suggested:

“| rather imagine it’s because of the risk of HIV... and because other inmates may not appreciate having to listen to homosexual lovemaking”

GRIP is committed to fighting

against such discrimination and_

bigotry and offers support to gay prisoners, family and friends.

Contact: GRIP c/o 69 Cowcross Street, London EC1

“Happy families”

TORY POLITICIANS are so committed to the family that many of them have two.

Here lies Thatcher's problem in trying to play the family card in the run up to her fourth general election. The harsh reality is that the advertisers’ dream family is in decline.

Almost 40% of marriages in England and Wales will ultimately end in divorce, according to the latest official population survey, while 24% of children will have experienced the digorce of their parents by the time they are 16.

Average family size is shrinking. Over 25% of children are born outside marriage (although over half of these are registered by parents who live together). Meanwhile the proportion of women working has continued to rise through the last decade. Women make up 44% of the workforce. Thecurrent shortfall of school leavers has increased the demand for women workers. Even the most right wing of social planners and Conservative strategists cannot come up with practical plans to turn the clock back to

Workers Power 135

The first appeal was heard in 1976 by the then Lord Chief Justice, Lord Widgery. He considered that the forensic evidence was inconclusive but was “not a point of great importance in the case”! Of the beatings of the Six, Widgery believed that this was not “beyond the ordinary”.

Lord Denning presided over the appeal court hearing in 1980. He refused to consider the possibility of the innocence of the Six:

“If the six men win, it will mean that the police were guilty of violence and threats, that the confes-

THATCHER’S BRITAIN ocTOBER 1990

Irmingham SIx

sions were involuntary and were improperly admitted in evidence and that the convictions were erroneous. This is such an appalling vista that every sensible person in the land would say: it cannot be right these actions should go any further.”

The Birmingham Six appealed to the House of Lords against Denning’s verdict. In 1981, to no one’s surprise, the Lords found against them.

In November 1986, an ex-police officer who was present during the interrogation of the Six came for-

ward to support their claim that they had been tortured. In January 1987 the case was referred back to the court of appeal. Two exprison warders and a police station cleaner corroborated the fact that the Six had been tortured in police custody. Despite this, the presiding judge, Lord Lane, declared that “the longer the hearing has gone on, the more convinced the court has become that the verdict of the jury was correct”.

It is not simply the credibility of men such as Lord Lane which is exposed by the case of the Birmingham Six, but the whole system of justice over which they preside. The conspiracy against the Birmingham Six, carried on now for 16 years, is proof that the judicial system reflects the interests of the British ruling class. That class has declared war on the struggle for Irish self-determination, and the Bimingham Six are casualtie of that war.

Only when British workers act to end that war by forcing the British troops out can we ensure there will be no more cases like that of the Birmingham Six.m

Gay bashing: | police no answer

IN THE early hours of 29 April actor Michael Boothe was stamped to death by a gang of “queer bashers”

who left him lying in his own blood.

outside a public toilet in Ealing, West London. A police spokesperson described the assault as an “extraordinary severe beating of a merciless and savage nature”. One of his feet was half severed from his leg. Months earlier 61 year old William Dalziel was killed by seven or eight blows to the head from a piece of wood, no more than three miles from the scene of Boothe’s murder. In July a young gay man was found on Clapham Common with injuries so severe that his head had swollen to three times its normal size.

the days of 2.4 children and Katy with the OXO cubes.

The right wing has, however, picked out its targets. The recent Centre for Policy Studies recently suggested that local authorities stop housing single mothers because it encourages pregnancies!

There is still talk, at the level of the Law Commission, of reforms to make divorce harder. More immediate is Thatcher's proposal to chase disappearing fathers through the courts to enforce maintenance and stoppages of earnings.

These proposals will end up hitting young working class parents, especially mothers. All such measures increase women’s dependence. Despite the miseries of modern

According to the Gay London Polic-

ing Group (GALOP) a gang of youths |

have carried out a spate of attacks on the Common since July, including beatings, clubbings and ston ings.

On 31 August a gay man was found floating face-down in a West London canal. GALOP reports that twenty gay men were murdered during the last two years, of whom eleven were victims of “queer bashers”.

Direct violent assault is only one aspect of the physical oppression oof the lesbian and gay community. Arrests for public decency offences rose from 1500 to 2000 in 1989.

Last year the Ealing police force staked out local toilets in an opera-

family breakdown we should be under no illusion about a return to the days when families had to stay together because of economic necessity. There are still thousands of women trapped in prison-house families because they can’t afford to leave.

The Tory pretence of concern for

women aside, their policies will bring no relief to women or families.

Thatcher has frozen childbenefit and drastically cut municipal housing programmes. “The party of the family”? Tell that to the thousands of families living in cramped hostels and bed and breakfast accomodation because of the lack of homes!

tion involving horse patrols and a helicopter. Weeks before the Southall murder Southall police arrested more than thirty gay men on. public decency charges, the traditional way in which gay sex in public parks and tiolets is criminal ised. A spokesperson for the Ealing Gay Association said:

“It is now more than one hundred days since Michael Boothe was kicked to death in Ealing and his murder remains unsolved. And yet the police seem to have unlimited resources to spend rounding up ‘gay sunbathers’.

Home Office minister, John Patten, meanwhile declared that the new Criminal Justice Bill would be used as a weapon against gay men; his proposals for prison sentences for “repeat sexual offenders” carry a menacing ring in the light of the 36% rise in the number of men arrested on “gross indecency charges”.

The response from the lesbian and gay community has been militant but confused. The direct action group OutRage demonstrated outside New Scotland Yard and held a defiant “kiss-in” at Piccadilly Circus. Over 500 people marched

through Ealing to demandanendto ~

anti-gay violence. But the political strategy advanced to acheive this has led the fightback down a dangerous road. OutRage has launched a campaign to force the police to monitor statistics, and introduce genuine liaison and equal opportunities. Senior Met officers have already met with representatives of the Gay Business Association and GALOP.

The police have already made clear where they stand. The ongoing crackdown on cottaging should be proof enough. Most gay men are not “out”. They don’t have public gay relationaships and have- no choice but to rely on the “cottage” (public toilet) for sexual encounters. Calls for more police monitoring are ultimately a sanction for more police surveillance and assaults on gay men. There are over seventy. laws on the statute book which discriminate against gay men. The police are the main agency for their implementation. It might suit the interests of gay businessmen to call for greater police liaison, but for working class lesbians and gay men it is the signal for further repression.

The Ealing demonstration showed the potential for a fighting alterna-

' tive. Along with many lesbian and

gay groups on the march there were also a number of trade unions and a group from the Sekhon Family Support Group, representing a black man killed earlier in the year. What is necessary is the forging of lesbian and gay self-defence groups and tuming that trade union/black community supporst into the formation of workers’ defence squads to drive the bigots, and their allies in the police, off the streets.@

See eee ee ee ae ee

THE GULF CRISIS aul

WHETHER OR not a shooting war starts in the next month one thing is sure. If and when war does erupt there will be few friends for Irag around the world.

So solid is the imperialist and Stalinist alliance that hardly a column inch or TV-second is devoted to the question of whether US intervention and the threat of war is justified. _

Instead we get propaganda, day in day out, aimed at reinforcing hostility to Iraq and preparing us for war: twenty reasons to hate Saddam— from causing inflation to closing children’s wards at Great Ormond Street Hospital.

As a result most workers will react with horror to the Marxist position; that they should actively support Iraq when war breaks out, that they should defend it now against the imperialist sanctions and blockade.

How can you defend Iraq when Saddam is a brutal right wing dictator? What about Kuwait— don’t small countries deserve protection from ex-

- pansionist bullies? These are the questions which

even committed socialists and anti-imperialists will throw back at the revolutionary left.

Though many workers hate the idea of a bloody war in the Gulf they believe in the end there is no other option. Our class is not spontaneously pacifist like the middle class liberals who run CND. If there is injustice and oppression workers will sanction the use of force to put it right where all else fails.

Revolutionary Marxists are not pacifists either. We believe that most of the injustice and oppression in the world can only be put right through necessarily violent struggle. And that struggle includes the fight against Saddam’s oppression of the Kurds, his brutal dictatorship over the Iraqi workers, his annexation of Kuwait.

But there is an even bigger force for oppression and injustice in the Middle East: USA, Britain and France who today are busy strengthening their armies to reinforce the system of injustice called imperialism. Imperialism is the cause of Kurdish oppression, the cause of the lack of democracy in

Workers Power 135 OCTOBER 1990

Why we will defend Iraq

every Middle eastern state.

A victory for the imperialist armies may cheapen the price of the petrol in your car. But it will put your boss and the bosses’ politicians in an even better position to attack you: your wages, your services, your democratic rights. 3

Whilst the war is on they will call for workers to declare truce in the class struggle, and particu-

larly in the war-related industries—the shipyards, the weapons factories and the merchant navy. But

the bosses will not stop the class offensive. They won't suspend the Poll Tax,.the NHS cuts, the drive to keep wages below inflation. They will seize the chance to attack the working class with both hands.

A victory for the imperialist armies may kick the Iraqi army out of Kuwait and topple Saddam

Hussein. But what will they replace him with? An .

unelected monarchy in Kuwait and another unelected Colonel or. dictator in Iraq, this time

more trustworthy than their former friend and

ally.

And it will leave the USA with a permanent base in the region—a pro-imperialist alliance and a string of military installations poised to crush any popular revolt the moment it starts.

But a victory for Iraq will utterly disorganise the imperialists, including the British bosses. It will signal to the workers and peasants not just in the Gulf but throughout Africa, Asia and Latin America that the world’s biggest bully, the USA, can be beaten. It will signal to the starving in every continent that the imperialist system which causes hunger, poverty and disease need not be tolerated in silence. |

That is why genuine internationalist workers must side with Iraq, despite its reactionary government. There is no need to parade with posters of the smiling Iraqi dictator, or to give his government one iota of political support to be on the right side in the coming war. The British workers

‘movément is the only force in this country which

has fought consistently for solidarity with the Kurds, for solidarity with the Iraqi workers against

EDITORIAL

Saddam whilst his generals and torturers were feted in the consulates of Europe.

We must organise now to stop the war by stopping Britain’s war machine. Workers have the power to stop supplies to the Gulf task force. We have the numbers which, if mobilised on the streets, have the power to make Thatcher and Kinnock think again before they pull the trigger.

Thatcher calls the organised working class “the enemy within”. After she smashed Galtieri she turned to smashing the miners, the printers and seafarers. If she crushes Saddam she will turn round to crush resistance to the Poll Tax, low pay and rising unemployment.

That’s why she must ve stopped, in Britain and the Gulf'l

Published every month by the Workers Power Group: BCM 7750, London WC1 3XX

ISSN 0263 - 1121

Printed by Jang International London:

57 Lant Street, London SE1 10N

Fighting Poll Tax cuts

LIVERPOOL

WANDSWORTH |S Thatcher's flag- . ship borough. In the May local elections Wandsworth Tories bought their way to another term in office with a Poll Tax of £148. This was achieved

WANDSWORTH

ONE HUNDRED and thirty-three Poll Tax and environmental health workers are on strike in a fight to force Liverpool City Council to respect national union agreenents. When town hall workers and NALGO members mobilised or a half day official strike in solilarity the Labour Council went ‘unning to court-in a bid to use he Tory anti-union laws against hem, claiming that the strike was talled by NALGO branch officers, ot through a ballot.

Councillors did not hesitate to nvoke the new penal clause which

lows stewards to be jailed or _

lave their homes siezed to pay ines. Judy Cotter, secretary of the },000 strong NALGO branch, was thoned and told she would face pil unless she called off the acion. | A letter banning the action was anded out to every counci yorker as they arrived on the norning of the strike. NALGO ficials were warned that the mion could be fined £250,000 if ne strike went ahead.

Deputy leader of the Council, jan Dean, announced:

“This is about who runs the ty—the elected council or the O branch executive.”

Jean had the shock of his life nen over 5,000 town hall work-

ers walked out in defiance.

Every housing office and social service office, every library and children’s home was closed. When the council met, 1,000 NALGO strikers, council tenants, Poll Tax unions and the Black Caucus demonstrated outside. local officials of the council unions said they would call for a mass walkout the moment the council attempts to penalise anyone for breaking the court injunction.

Recently the council railroaded through a £4-a-week rent rise as part of an attempt to reduce its £3.6 million budget deficit. With

51% of the Poll Tax unpaid the

council intends to make Liverpool workers pay for its failure to fight Thatcher.

The fighting spirit shown by defying the anti-union laws provides a great platform from which to launch a fight for all-out strike cthom against the cuts and the oll Tax itself, backed up by occu-

vy

temarcis. nere tts wouth and bleck workers. [: mest De maced under the comtral of rec’ amd fle workers. not ke mm the bends df oe tional and ace crc 2s B

Non-payers m court: tara ite page 4

by spending £17 million of the Council’s reserves and generous government handouts. The real cost of this has now been brought home to workers in the area. The Tories plan to close four secon-

_ dary schools and up to 24 primary

schools as part of a£52 millioncuts package.

Day nurseries and old people's homes will be closed. Council leader Sir Paul Beresford claims “services which met valuable needs in the past may today be outdated”. He has cut the number of social workers by

THREE ANTI-FASCISTS have been sentenced to a total of eleven years imprisonment following a fight with leading fascist Nicky Crane. To help support them and any others who are fined and imprisoned due to antifascist activities AntiFascist Action is set-

ting up a defence fund. We urge all —

readers to contribute to it and send messages of solidarity to:

Tony, Mark and David via AFA BM 1734 London WCAN 3XX

‘DEMONSTRATE!

S-A ond »

10%. The voluntary sector is also under

attack. The Tories plan to cut £3:

million from 34 voluntary groups and are considering axeing another 106. Services to go include Women’s Aid and all the local Law Centres. After twelve years of attacks on

jobs and services, and with the high-

est Council rents in London, local workers have had enough. A half day strike by the voluntary sector brought over 1000 onto the streets. Members of the NUT responded to the threat to schools with an 83% vote

amc NUS London are calling on all anti-fascists to join a countercemonsirsiion agamst the National Front (Flag Group) march to the cenctann on Remembrance Sunday. Get your organisationto sponsorthe

ners cc

i a — 7 ee Sumi 11 Now

emiber (detaits in next month's issue)

for strike action. Nalgo members, threatened with the loss of upto 500 jobs, joined them in a day of action on 27 September.

At the same time Wandsworth Tories have to contend with a growing, militant anti-Poll Tax campaign. In response they have tried to intimidate nor-payers with early morning raids by bailiffs. With police backing these hired thugs have forced their way into homes.

Local APTUs have mobilised large £roups of workers on the estates under threat to see off the bailiffs who have not yet dared reiurn.

They called ajoint meeting against the cuts with NUT and Nalgo speakers. From this a Fightback Commi:- tee has been launched, with delegates from all local unions and antiPoll Tax groups, parents, unemployed and voluntary sector users. The Fightback committee must take the lead in co-ordinating resistance in. Wandsworth, fighting for all-out strike action against the cuts, non-implementation of the Poll tax and trade union support for mobilisations against the bailiffs.

Schools and libraries threatened with closure should be occupied by staff and users. Anything less will allow the Tories to break the unity in action that is beginning to gel, and defeat the Wandsworth working class section by section.@

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ILLIONS OF people are ‘still refusing to pay their Poll Tax bills. In Liverpool the level of non-payment is as high as 51%. The Institute of Public Finance put-the number of non-

It would be easy toconclude from

such figures that the struggle to

defeat the Poll Tax was heading towards victory. Certainly the Militant leadership of the campaign states week in, week out that “we are winning” and “nonpayment is working”. This is not the case.

Around the country many councils have initiated court action to obtain liability orders against nonpayers. Anti-Poll Tax Unions (APTUs) are on the defensive as thestruggle moves from the streets and workplaces tothe steps of local Magistrates Courts.

According to Militant, the leadership of the Poll Tax Federation, none of this makes any difference.

With members of local APTUs acting as “Mackenzie's friends” (lay advisers) in the courts they have attempted to “tie up then courts in legal procedure” and’ delay the issuing of liability orders. When courts have adjourned cases the campaigns have hailed this as a victory.

But magistrates courts do not exist as neutral arbitrators between non-payers and the local council. They exist to enforce the bosses’ law. The same magistrates courts which the APTU’s see as an arena for fighting the Tax are the same ones that dish out “exemplary sentences” to Trafalgar Square demonstrators.

As the cases have preceeded the

‘courts have used their authority to

limit the effectiveness of the Mackenzie friends, either refusing to allow them or insisting on rigid court procedure. the result is Magistrates are rubber stamping liability orders hundreds ata time.

Itis only by mobilising hundreds of workers that we can efectively

|CIVIL

SERVICE

Civil Service workers are under attack. After a watershed defeat for the unions in 1987

over pay the Tories went onto the offensive. They set about privatising the civil service in a piecemeal fashion, the better to keep the workers Givided.

Their first step was to set up agencies, which would remain within the civil service, but which would allow the management leeway to attack jobs, wages and conditions in preparation for full scale privatisation.

Militants are having to build the fightback at a local level. Workers Power spoke to one civil service militant who was recently victimised and sacked-for his union activities.

_Workers Power 135- LABOUR MOVEMENT octoser 1990

POLL TAX

_ payers on the register in England : | and Wales up to 30 August at eight. million, and forecast an overall deficit of £1.7 billion. .

action to strike

action! —

defend non-payers dragged before the courts. In Colchester a demo which involved student nurses, lorry drivers and striking engineers broke into the court and severely disrupted the proceedings. In Sunderland police had to use a bomb scare to evacuate over 300 protestors who had occupied the court. In Sheffield, where over 1,000 turned up outside the courts, a fighting example was set by 16

lecturers who walked out of work in support of two colleagues summonsed for non-payment.

The number of workers refusing to pay the tax is not reflected by the number active in th local APTUs. The passivity of the nonpayment campaign must carry the blame for that.

The councils have two real options once they get their liability orders; the bailiffs or wage arrest-

ment.

The Certified Bailiffs Association admits that with only 1,000 certified bailiffs in England and Wales they face an uphill battle.

~The Confederation of British In-

dustry believes that wage arrestment will “undoubtedly incur the displeasure of any employees from whom the deductions are made, with a consequential adverse effect on public relations”.

Coventry protester dies

BOB PHELAN died after trying to

protest against the Poll Tax. Mr Phelan, 57 years old, was in Coventry’s magistrates’ court on 26 September opposing the Labour Council’s efforts to penalise nor payers. Despite protests frony his wife, who made known Mr Phelan’s heart condition, the police dragged him from the court and manhandled him. He collapSed but court offcials refused to allow his fellow protestors

Stop victimisa

WP: What events led up to your victimisation.? |

Simon: Despite having had a good report after my first six months and despite having had no wamings— something I’m supposed to be entitled to—I got a bad report after my first probationary year. |

My probation was extended and then, again without warnings, and in flagrant defiance of my rights, | was given another adverse report and sacked.

WP: What was the real reason they picked on you to victimise?

S$: Companies House (CH), where | work is an Agency. It’s being primed for full blown privatisation. Part of this. priming is grinding down the unions. The management are intimidating the workforce through a series of arbitrary sackings. By sacking atrade union militant they were saying to other members—this is what's in store for you if you get involved in the union.

WP: Did you get any support for your fight against victimisation?

S: There was widespread support, and not just from people who were politically sympathetic to me. There was a generous collection and when it came to action a one day strike was well supported by the CPSA (my own union) though the NUCPS lost a strike vote by two. One problem was that the activists at CH didn’t build on this action. It needed to be linked to the othersackings that have taken

to call an ambulance. When the ambulance finally arrived it proved too late. Mr Phelan died at the hospital.

Mr Phelan's only crime was to refuse to pay an unfair and iniquitous tax. The Labour council was trying to force him to pay. The police, as usual, showed no restraint in dealing with people they regard as “troublemakers”.

There have been protests at Mr

place, the speed-ups and the court injunction that had prevented us from taking action against the National Front’s attempt to register at CH. Unfortunately. when | argued for a joint campaign by the CPSA and NUCPS on these issues | did not get much support.

WP: What was the role of the branch officers?

Phelan’s death, including the disruption of a council finance meeting. There is a demand for a public enquiry into his death.

Coventry Workers Power supporters send their condolences to Mr Phelan’s wife, family and friends. We pledge to continue the fight he so bravely supported and honour his memory by stepping up our campaign for militant working class action to smash the Poll Tax.

ions!

S: They gave me plenty of support so far as my appeal was concerned but when it came to action they used the injunction overthe National Front issue to drag their feet.

They wouldn’t move unless it was officially sancctioned by head office. They were against linking the various issues and both unions conspired to keep their members separate, even

To turn their fears into reality the APTUs must transform themselves into an army of activists, taking the fight toevery workplace and every estate. The threat of prosecutions must be met with strike action, mass demonstrations and occupation of the courts.

Bailiffs must be met by workers’ defence squads who'l teach these modern day bounty huntersaswift lesson in class justice.

Alll trade union organisations must be won to strike action against wage arrestment and against victimisation of workers who refuse to implement the tax:

The vital precondition for thisis for Poll Tax activists to break with the Federation leadership which believes that a strategy of passive disobedience is “unbeatable” and has turned working class activists into an army of Perry Masons rather than fight for the strike action necessary to win.#

Trafalgar Square — the video; turn to page 6

insisting on separate ballots.

-SO, although the aggregate vote showed a majority in favour of a strike in my support the NUCPS vote was counted separately. Two votes kept them out of the action!

The whole experience has some valuable lessons. | was victimised because of my trade union activity. Management are attacking us on a broad front and they want to get nid of the opposition.

The lesson is we need to fight back on a broad front by organising the rank and file in the workplaces and linking the different attacks.@

BETWEEN 15 OCTOBER and 3 November a ballot is being held in the two main civil service unions, the CPSA and the NUCPS, on a proposal to merge the two unions. Workers in both unions should vote against the merger. It is a bureaucratic stitch up that will undermine the CPSA's position as a civil service union.

By bringing countless managers from the NUCPS into

STOP THE

the same union as the workers they manage the merger will undermine the ability of civil service workers to fight back against the broad range of attacks they face.

A good example of how

this will work is the case of Simon (see interview). The manager who spied on him and reported him was an NUCPS member able to vote against strike action to support Simon’s reinstatement. The whole reporting system gives managers the right to fire workers, raise or lower the wage scales and determine their conditions of work. Having these managers in the same union as the workers they report on won't influence their decisions. It will simply increase their ability to undermine

action.

Of course the NUCPS is not simply managers and we are in favour of a single civil service workers’ union. But a merger to create such a union is unthinkable until the NUCPS has been split along manager-worker lines.

MERGER!

This can be done by militants in the NUCPS taking up the fight against the reporting system, pushing a boycott of it by EO grades. Bosses’ narks who scab must be disciplined, persistent offenders must be expelled. A fight for workers’ controlin the workplaces must be taken up and counterposed to the reporting system, and a recruitment drive on the basis of a pre-

entry closed shop must be carried out. Against the current preparations for privatisation and attacks on pay and pensions, joint rank and file committees of both unions must be established

so that real fighting unity is built up in the workplaces.

Within the CPSA a “Stop the Merger Campaign” was set up last May. It has a lot of support inthe CPSA but little in the NUCPS. The campaign should be supported by all branches within both unions. But if it is to play 2 role in building ari industrial union ,as opposed to the bureaucratic stitch up proposed, it must address the NUCPS militants with the policies outlined above, Otherwise there is a danger. that

offcials in the CPSA will simply use the campaign for

their own sectional and careerist purposes.B For more information contact: Stop the Merger, c/o 191 Burford Road, Forest Fields, Nottingham, NG7 6AY

Nurses at the Northern General Hospital in Sheffield are striking to stop shift changes. Management want to cut the current ten hour night shift by 38 minutes.

AR FROM allowing night nurses to work fewer hours, the change would add an extra shift a month for full time workers. And it would mean a cut in pay for part time workers. Despite management's attempt tosplit the workforce by offering to guarantee existing part time workers their current shifts, a COHSE ballot delivered a 77% vote in favour of strike action. The night nurses were united in their determination to oppose the shift changes. A significant number of nurses in the no-strike Royal Col-

lege of Nursing (RCN) left-that ~

organisation and signed up with COHSE sothey could join the fight.

Workers Power supporters argued that the attack on working conditions is part of the bosses’ preparations for the Northern General opting out. The way to stop these plans in their tracks was to strike. The fact that management have launched a wide range of attacks on the workforce gave weight to our arguments.

In Hull similar attacks on shift patterns are threatened. In Scotland nurses working for the Lothian Health Board are facing even more stringent attacks on their conditions. They are holding a ballot for strike action.

Attacks

Moreand more attacks will come as management prepare to implement the NHS Bill. This encourages hospitals to become self-governing bodies or separate business organisations. It allows hospitals that opt out to set their own rates of pay and working conditions. They could even refuse unions any recognition:

The actions in Sheffield and elsewhere, such as in Fife where nurses struck against the grades they were given, are good starting points in the campaign to defeat these plans to break up the NHS. Such actions need to be built upon and spread across the country. But the union leaders prefer to fight the NHS Bill by parliamentary questions and publicity campaigns.

But with NUPE’s Roger Poole talking about the need for nurses to work to grade, with the COHSE conference calling for action over clinical grading by the end of the year, and with a national campaign on ancillary pay, the chance exists unite the health workers for areal fight with the government is there.

This means using the current disputes to build up strong rank and file organisation on a hospital andcity wide basis. It means building joint shop stewards’ committees accountable to their members through mass meetings and publi-

cising the case for strike action in ~ regular bulletins.

Winning the battle over shift changes in the Northern General today is an important first step in taking forward. the struggle for such organisation and for a national fightback.@

Send messages of support and donations to the strike fund to:

COHSE Sheffield General Branch Union:Office Northern General Hospital

Herries Road Sheffield S5 7AU

Workers Power. 135-

* @ © @

chools

deepens

ANY CHILDREN returned to \Y) eae in September to find that they had no teacher.

Whilst various “experts” are giving their opinions on the standard of spelling in the bosses’ press the education system is falling apart for want of money, teachers. and _ resources. .. oe -

Teachers are not being recruited and many are leaving for better paid and less stressful jobs. Teachers from overseas, recruited on the cheap and with no guarantee of retraining, are not filling the gap.

In the London Borough of Hackney there are currently 200 vacancies in teaching. Most of these posts are being filled by temporary or supply staff. But, at the beginning of term thirty posts were unfilled and children simply had to be sent home. At one primary school classes were.sent home for over two weeks

because the school was five teachers short.

The government doesn't seem to be unduly worried. Perhaps this is because most of the kids in Hackney have working class parents. In fact the Tories are pressing for greater cuts in education. Wandcsworth, their favourite London bor-

ough, is planning-to.close.as many as four secondary schools and 28

other educational facilities.

The government also want a tough stance on teachers’ pay. Not very difficult for them since they impose teachers’ pay awards. Education Secretary, John MacGregor, wants a pay formula linking teachers’ pay to an average based on increases across the lowest grade white collar workers in the public sector—the “interquartile range”.

This formula is an arbitrary and ludicrous way to deal with the prob-

OIL WORKERS

_.. oatety at stake

THE STRUGGLE for union recogni tion and improved health and safety conditions in the offshore oil industry has become a bitter war of attrition. The danger now exists that the bosses’ tactics of mass sackings and ruthless intimidation will defeat the courageous fight led by the Oil Industry Liaison Committee (OILC).

The series of six one-day strikes and the threat of further limited action has wrought havoc with the offshore contractors’ maintenance programme, especially in the East Shetland basin. The action to date, however, has not wrung a single concession from the employers. Meanwhile, more than 1,500 men and women remain sacked without a penny of support from the official unions to which many of them belong.

As September drew to a close the oil bosses had further strenghtened their position. In the wake of the Piper Alpha disaster the Department of Energy mandated the companies to install emergency

safety shutdown valves on the platforms. Now, taking advantage of the Gulf crisis to maximise production and reap vast profits, the new “oil minister”, Colin Moynihan waived the bosses’ obligations to carry out these safety measures by the end of the year. He even had the gall to accuse the offshore workers of endangering their own safety!

OILC is unclear on what its next move should be. It abandoned a planned 48-hour strike by “bears” working in the southern gasfields off the Anglian coast and in Morecambe Bay, after one of the major contractors announced hundreds of redundancies to take effect from late October. A layer of activists from the northern sector of the oilfield remain onshore, victimised eight weeks ago. With its shock troops depleted the OILC is reluc-

LABOUR MOVEMENT octoseRr 1990

ri cs one nee soa 3 oe coe pened = cage

Sheffield nurses fight shift changes

ae Sage J

lems of a teachers shortage. The offer will take no account of inflation or the decline in teachers’ “real” wages over the years of imposed settlements below the rate of inflation.

With larger classes, less money for resources and low pay teachers will continue to leave schools.

dn response to the MacGregor formula, which would result in arise of about 8%, the Executive ot the National Union of Teachers (NUT) is recommending a pay claim of 10% plus £1,500 for all teachers. They beleive the strategy to win this claim should focus around yet another publicity campaign aimed at “public opinion”. The claim and strategy will be discussed at a Special Salaries Conference of the NUT in Scarborough on 3 November.

Teachers are told that the Executive recommendation represents the

tant to call for any escalation.

The AEU’s Jimmy Airlie heaped praise on the OILC at the TUC Congress in Blackpool, yet he and the other union tops have done nothing to organise the ballot for official strike action among the “bears”.

The job ‘vf actually compiling a register of union members has fallen to the offshore workers’ paper, Blowout, which ran two pages to publicise the ballot without receiving any financial backing from the seven unions involved. The union bureaucrats clearly hope that the anger of August will diminish as the winter strengthens its grip over the North Sea.

The OILC has continued its refusal to make a clean break with the trade union officials and is now paying a high price. Even so, the struggle is far from over. In the days and weeks ahead militants must seek to prepare ever larger sections of the workforce for the necessity of an indefinite strike throughout the offshore

wishes of the membership. The Executive did consult local union associations last term, but no one other than the Executive seems to have been able to analyse the re- | sults—rather too convenient!

The Executive recommendation

, represents the lowest figure they

believe they could get away with at

8 the conference and the proposed

Strategy is designed to avoid a

fF campaign of action.

The left within the union, the Socialist Teachers’ Alliance and the Campaign for a Democratic and Fighting Union, have agreed to a

| joint approach to the Salaries Con-

ference.

At a meeting in London on 15 September, delegates from local union groups throughout the country discussed and agreed an amendment to the Executive's recommendation. The amendment is for a claim of a flat rate increase for all teachers of £3,200. It also calls for a one day strike in the spring, followed by escalating strike action and other forms of action, such as not covering for absent teachers and boycotting testing.

A flat rate claim will benefit lower paid teachers most. It will be vital in recruiting new teachers and protecting those who do not receive the additional responsibility ailowances. The left’s amendment also recognises that strike action and not glossy adverts will win the claim.

The left’s commitment to such action is more of a problem. At the September meeting only Workers Power raised the need for all out strike action. We were then told by members of the SWP that this was an impossible call and would scare off the membership. At the same time they admitted it would be necessary to win the claim.

This is no way for the left to lead a pay campaign. If we are to win decent wages for teachers, resist redundancies and stop cuts, we will need a membership committed to taking all out strike action and we need to openly campaign for that in the schools from now.@

industry, twinned with platform occupations.. _ |

In the meantime trade unionists elsewhere need to intensify their efforts to win sustained financial support for the OILC and its sacked supporters through invites to OILC speakers,*regular collections and levies. Especially in the seven unions concemed activists must seek to expose the criminal role of union officials and forge an effective opposition to their undermining of the dispute.

The stakes remain high. As Blowout editor Neil Rothnie, himself a former “bear”, puts it:

“Unless we win, a disaster of Piper Alpha proportions is just a matter of time.”

SUBSCRIBE!

Blowout

£25 for 100, £15 for 50 Write to: Blowout, 52 Guild Street _ Aberdeen, AB1 2NB Tel; 0224 210118

ON SATURDAY 31 March 250,000 people demonstrated in the streets of London against the Poll Tax. The march had been boycotted and sabotaged by the official leaders of the labour movement. It ended with a pitched battlein Trafalgar Square and a police riot through the West End of London.

of the violence on the day was a police attack on the demonstration. |

The Battle of Trafalgar documentary and the pamphlet Poll Tax Riot provide two “alternative” views of the events of March 31. Both provide a clear picture of the police violence from the point of view of the ordinary demonstrators. But both are flawed by their implicit political standpoints.

Subtitled “Ten hours that shook Trafalgar Square”, and dedicated “to all working class heroes”, Poll Tax Riot is made up of accounts of what happened in Trafalgar Square on the day: the mood of celebration at the start; the gradual realisation of the need to defend the demo are perfectly

Workers Power 135 REVIEW OCTOBER 1990 : snes

Nick Stone reviews Poll Tax Riot (Acab Press)

and Battle of Trafalgar (Channel 4 TV)

captured.

- The video documentary is also based on individual accounts of the events and claims to present them in the order they happened: something the “professional” news media failed to-do in their immediate response to the violence:

From both accounts it is clear that the police made a conscious decision to escalate the trouble after a small section of the demo

minutes. The TV documentary clearly shows agents provocateurs being bustled into the crowd by uniformed police. With the most minimal of pretexts, the police not. only decided to unleash mounted and riot squad police in Whitehall, but to do soin a way that forced the trouble upintothe passive crowd of around 100,000 in Trafalgar Square.

When this initial charge met with resistance the police resorted to textbook tactics of riot control, what Martin Walker calls “colo-

nial policing” on the video docu- -——~

mentary. Riot squads batoned bystanders and demonstrators

had staged a sit-down protest alike; police horses trampled

outside Downing Street for thirty

Tee saith

about

Vietnam

Jenny Scott reviews the latest issue of Revolutionary History

MENTION HO Chi Minh and there

are still plenty of so called —

“Trotskyists” who will tell you what a great revolutionary fighter he was. Coming into politics at the time of the USA’s war against North Vietnam and the National Liberation Front (NLF) inthe South, such “Trotskyists” are generally ignorant of the real history of the Vietnamese revolution.

This ignorance has been wilfully maintained. Both the United Secretariat of the Fourth Intemational (USF1) and what was Gerry Healy’s International Committee (IC) decided a long time ago that the Vietnamese Stalinists, and their leader Ho, were the standard bear ers of the permanent revolution in

Indochina. The military victories of ......... the Stalinist-ed forces over first the French and then the US impe- ° rialists, made a lot of people sus- |

ceptible to this nonsense.

The latest issue of Revolution: _

ary History (Volume 3, No 2) sets the record straight on Vietnam. A series of documents from the Vietnamese Trotskyists, as well as book extracts on the subject of Vietnamese Trotskyism, are republished.

They shed light on the debates within Vietnamese Trotskyism about how to conduct an antiimperialist united front, an issue as relevant today as when the documents were first written.

The accounts of the 1945 Viet-

namese fevolution reveal the so @xtikuyeresewraessmem enn:

treachery of Ho Chi Minh and the Stalinists at the time. Committed to the “stages” strategy of revolution, Ho sacrificed the independent interests of the workers, as well as the aspirations of the poor

peasants, to the Allied imperial

ists and their agents in Vietnam. The Stalinists welcomed the French and British troops back into the South, and disarmed the Trotskyist led sections of the masses who tried to resist imperialism.

The heroism of the Vietnamese masses in the wars that followed should not blind us to the Stalinist

betrayal of 1945. In. deliberately blocking the possibility of proletarian revolution the Stalinists were responsible for needlessly prolong-

ing the wars with imperialism. The —

defeat of imperialism was delayed by thirty years.

Not only was the revolution itself betrayed but its vanguard, the Trotskyists of the Socialist Workers Party and the League of Inter national Communists, was massacred on Ho’s direct orders. Trotskyist leaders, like Ta Thu Thau were killed because, according to Ho, they would not obey his class collaborationist line.

The Trotskyist groups in Vietnam, though small in numbers, had real mass influence in the

people’s committees established 2" account of the exhilaration of in the 1945 revolution. Their tactics, their debates and their differ

‘Workers’ = 7 Revolution : and National ‘Independence

ences, revealed in these documents are a rich legacy from which we can leam a deal. Revolutionary History ts to be congratulated for making such material available. It is a fitting tribute to the revolutionary fighters murdered by Ho, exposing Stalinism, even in its Vietnamese variant, as counter-revolutionary. It is also an indictment of the wretched centrists of the USFI and IC whose distortions and cover-ups insulted the memory of the courageous Vietnamese Trotskyists.m

demonstrators underfoot and

_ vans were driven at speeds of up

to 40 mph into dense crowds. What happened next was a testament to the fighting spirit of working class people. Groups of workers and youth started to

regroup, arm themselves with

whatever was at hand_and fight

__ the police with a level of bravery

and self sacrifice not seen since the Miners’ Strike of 1984-85.

It is here that. the responses of the two accounts diverge. The video makers acknowledge at the start that, like all films, this has been edited. The video coverge makes careful use of techniques designed to prevent footage being used to incriminate demonstra-

—tors. | But it is no accident that there

is hardly a single example in the video of demonstrators successfully resisting a police attack. Everyone who was there on the day knows that time and again youth were able to drive back police, rescue arrested demonstrators etc. The crucial moment when the initial police attack in Whitehall was repulsed in chaos is missing from the video account although Poll Tax Riot contains

that moment:

“The police line broke and as they fled down Whitehall through the oncoming crowd, hand to hand fighting erupted .. . In all the

The BI

WILLIAM McILVANEY’S novel, The Big Man, is the basis for the film of the same name currently on general release. Its hero, Danny Scoular, isa sacked miner from.a Scottish pit village, victimised for his role inthe Great Strike of 1984-85.

Scoular, played by Liam Neeson, was jailed during the strike, for GBH ona policeman. After his release he finds himself, like so many of those sacked for their role in fighting Thatcher, without prospects and caught in a downward spiral towards poverty and loss of self-respect. .

A strike leader, but not a sea soned trade union militant, Danny has no political answers to his plight. The pressure of poverty on himself and his wife and kids drives him into the arms of a local gangster, Matt Mason, rather than into his local National Justice for Mineworkers Campaign.

demos I’ve ever been on, seeing

those coppers run was the most

empowering moment ever.” (p49) Whilst exposing the brutality

of the police, the video fails to

expose the political cowardice of the march organisers, the Militant-ledAnti-Poll Tax Federation. Roy Hattersley is shown frothing on about exemplary sentences, but what about Steve Nally and Tommy Sheridan who condemned the fighters as troublemakersand promised on the very same news bulletins to “name names”?

The pamphlet, on the other hand, is heavily influenced. by anarchism, both in its style (lots of pictures captioned “Get the bastards!”) and its substance.

One particular account reads: “the real battle is a political one, and that includes beating the left scum .. none of them have any concept of people being able to act without leadership even when they see it for themselves. From Militant to Workers Power they all repeat the words of the tabloidsand talk of “troublemakers”.”

This is not true.

Workers Power condemned the Militant’s leadership and stood shoulder to shoulder with the

g¢ Man

Gary Boyle reviews David Leland's The Big Man

Mason tempts Danny into the world of illegal bare knuckle fighting with offers of easy money. It seems to be an ideal solution. He is tough and desperate. He can fight and get

paid for it. The film’s strength is its» exposure of quite how rotten this-

solution really is.

Instead of resolving his problems, Danny’s involvement with Mason intensifies them. His dignity as a human being and as a worker is destroyed. As his wife tells him:

“The strike was different. That was something worth fighting for. Our jobs, our pride. Now you’re just a rich man’s pawn.”

This point is hammered home by the fight scene itself. In slow motion we see Danny and his opponent grapple, kick, punch and gouge each

Since then there has been a & f u Nn desperate attempt by the media | , | tocover-up the fact that the cause a = &

active fighters. We did differentiate between resisting police attack and going on a spree of destruction andrandom looting. But we refused to condemn the looters as “troublemakers”. Unfortunately, the whole day proved that leadership is vital in this, as in every working class struggle. The Militant leadership abandoned the demo to the po-

lice. There was no alternative

leadership on the day and resistance had to be improvised. It failed and hundreds of working class youth have passed through ~ the courts as a result.

Organised defence squads with the support of the majority of the crowd could have successfully defended the demonstration and directed its anger towards more useful targets than the shops in Regent Street. But that needs revolutionary political leadership, something neither Militant nor the anarchists can provide.

TRAFALGAR SQUARE DEFENCE CAMPAIGN c/o Room 205 Panther House 38 Mount.Pleasant London WCl1 0AP

other. Like pit bull terriers they are made to fight until the blood flows and one of them drops. And in the background Mason and the other

-man’s backer bet and barter over

the fighters’ lives.

Redemption for Danny comes through the people of his own village. The strike he lived through with them was sustained by working class solidarity. When he runs into

difficulties with Mason that solidar-

ity reasserts itself and brings Danny back from the brink of destruction.

Despite its flaws, particularly its ambivalence towards the question of justified class violence, this film does celebrate the working class’ Capacity for resilience, for standing together against common enemies and for picking itself up off the floor after defeats and preparing for new Struggles. Its director, David Leland, has done a good job. Go and see it. .

Foreign Minister, called the

Gulf crisis "a defining moment" in world politics. US President Bush is pushing the same message at every opportunity. The time is ripe, he told the United Nations, for a "new world order".

They are right in one respect. The "old order" has crumbled and world politics stands at an historic turning point. But a new world order of peace and co-operation between the nations of the world is impossible as long as capitalism exists.

The only "world order” that can emerge from the alliance Bush has cobbled together over the Gulf is one based on continued repression, exploitation and bitter quarrelling over the spoils. And even that is not guaranteed.

After the Second World War Stalinism expanded into Eastern Europe and China. US imperialism emerged as the leading political and economic power in the imperialist camp. The two sides confronted each other in a Cold War. This was the "old" world order, erected on top of massive defeats for the working class in the 1930s and during the war. For years, despite many national liberation struggles in the semi-colonial countries, the political revolutionary crises in Eastern Europe and the class struggle in the imperialist heartlands, this order survived.

In 1989 all of that changed. A revolutionary crisis exploded in Eastern Europe. Gorbachev, at the helm of tne USSR, steered a course toward pro-market economic reform and political liberalisation. But instead of the orderly reforms envisaged by the bureaucracy the masses stepped in, toppling the Stalinist regimes throughout Eastern Europe.

In the course of the last twelve months the working class of Eastern Europe, repulsed by socialism because of the crimes the Stalinists had committed in its name, fell under the leadership of pro-capitalist forces. In East Germany capitalism was restored. The governments of the other degenerate workers’ states all want to follow suit. For the moment the crisis has been resolved to the benefit of the imperialist bosses.

Theimperialist politicians were confident enough to declare: "The €old War is over. We have won". It was, according to the imperialist pundit Francis Fukuyama, “the end of history”. Capitalism, in its liberal democratic form, would rule the world. The USSR, confidently expected to follow East Germany on the road to capitalist restoration, wasinvited to play a role in helping shape that world order.

Yet behind the rhetoric the imperialists were pondering as to how to shape a world that would guarantee their continued, and now extended, scope for exploitation. Now that the USSR was no longer an immediate threat, no longer a check on US intervention in the semi-colonial world, how were the contradictions, that still wracked the world and still gave rise to endless conflict, to be resolved?

Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait has concentrated the imperialists' minds acutely on these problems.

The Middle East, a powder keg of artificially created states, unresolved national conflicts and vast oil reserves, was always

D OUGLAS HURD, the Tory

As the imperialist armies mass in the Gulf their political masters are celebrating

—_

Workers Power 135 OCTOBER 1990 7

THE GULF CRISIS |e

anew world order". The celebrations are premature, writes Arthur Merton.

Duilt

bound to explode.

In order to preserve cheap oil the imperialists need to maintain the national divisions of the area and preserve the ruling cliques— both royal and military. In order to defend its client state, Israel, and overcome its one-sided reliance on the Israelis, US imperialism needs to strengthen its military capacity in the region. In order to resolve the Palestinian question and the conflict in Lebanon to its own advantage imperialism has to increase its political leverage with the major Arab states. }

Saddam's invasion has given imperialism a pretext to achieve all of these goals. In the Iran/Iraq war Kuwait's ships flew the US flag to protect themselves from the missiles of both sides. Today “poor little Kuwait" has become the flag of convenience for a massive imperialist intervention.

During the 1970s the military fortunes of the USA and its puppets took a sharp knock, in Vietnam, Southern Africa, Iran and

~ Nicaragua. Throughout the1980s

Reagan struggled effectively to reassert military supremacy. But as the US debacle in Lebanon showed, the Middle East remained the weak link in US military hegemony.

Since the-fall of the Shah of Iran in 1979 the USA has been heavily reliant on Israel as the policeman of the region. It has longed for the opportunity toreassertitself militarily in the region, something which could only be done with the approval of the USSR and a majority of Arab states.

Once Saddam invaded Kuwait the USA saw its chance.

According to US Secretary of State James Baker:

"Our strategy is toleada global alliance if you will, to isolate Iraq politically, economically and militarily ... In this effort, America must lead, and our people must

New world order:

US military supremacy, paid for by the rich but militarily powerless ruling classes of Germany, Japan and Saudi Arabia, guaranteed by a Stalinist dagger in the back of anybody who resists: that is the true picture of the new world order Bush wants. But can he get it?

understand that. We remain the one nation that has the necessary political, military and economic instruments at our disposal to catalyse a successful response by the international community ... Only American engagement can shape the peaceful world that our people so deeply desire.”

US military supremacy, paid for by the rich but militarily powerless ruling classes of Germany, Japan and Saudi Arabia, guaranteed by a Stalinist dagger in the back of anybody who resists: that

is the true picture of the new |

world order Bush wants. But can he ee it?

e fundamental problem facing US imperialism is the contradiction between its political supremacy and its economic decline. This was true throughout the 1970s and 80s as Japan and a Europe dominated by West Germany emerged as real challengers to the USA in the world economy.

From the days when the USA accounted for 52% of global GNP it was down to 26% in the 1980s. From being the world's banker it changed, by 1985, to one of the biggest debtor nations.

The problem was already manifest as Stalinism collapsed. Far from the USAreaping the benefits of winning the Cold War it was German and Japanese capital which rushed into Eastern Europe.

And now, to fund a military of-

fensive designed to defend cheap oil for the whole imperialist world, America has to go cap in hand to

Japan, Germany and the oil °

sheikhs.

A world based on exploitation and repression will always need a world policeman: a policeman

who will stop two-bit villains like

Saddam getting in the way of the super-crooks who run and own the imperialist countries. Having denied Germany and Japan any military role for over forty years only the USA is capable of playing that role. But it is economically incapable of sustaining itself in that role. In this lies one of the biggest threats to the imperialist order, new or old.

Certainly the response of their former "adversary", the Soviet bureaucracy, gives the US administration no cause for concern. By acting as a “responsible” ally of imperialism Gorbachev wants more than just a place at the treaty tables. In return for pulling out of Afghanistan, helping sell out the anti-apartheid struggle, pushing fora settlement in Cambodia, Gorbachev wants massive aid for his own failing economy.

In exchange for economic assistance it will help the USA police the world's trouble spots. In keeping with its continued rhetorie about peace and progress it will insist, more loudly than the imperialists, on the need for action tobe conducted via the United

Nations.

Despite the USSR's abject collaboration there are major problems facing the "new world order”.First, there is the task of holding together a military alliance consisting of Israel and the Arab states, and paid for by America's biggest economic rivals.

The whole US project could blow up, literally, in the faces of the participants. Ifthe USA wins at the cost of having tore-colonise Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, if it expends thousands of US soldiers lives only to find itself dug into another Vietnam this will place enormous strains on the inter-imperialist alliance and working class support for the war at home.

These problems only reflect the larger contradictions of the capitalist system.

Britain, after years of the "Thatcher miracle” is in an economic mess. The USA stands on the brink of a recession with unemployment now rising, profits falling and the entire financial system reeling from the collapse of the US building societies.

If they defeat Saddam the imperialists can achieve a carve up that suits their needs for a decade or so. Even then they will have to contend with the recessionary forcesinthe world economy which appeared long before the latest oil shock.

But if they fail to quickly and decisively subdue Iraq they facea new period cf open rivalry, political instability, military paralysis and recession deepened by a sharp, strategic rise in the oil price. Either way the world will remain incapable of satisfying the most basic human needs for the vast majority of its population.

Imperialism's struggle to imposea new worldorder will arouse opposition from the peoples of the semi-colonies at the sharp end of oppression.

It will evoke hostility amongst the Eastern European masses. They were promised milk and honey by capitalism, but withits — return they are having to pay for oil at market prices. The current crisis has already taken Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria and Romania tothe brink ofruin. Developments in Eastern Europe will be watched by every worker inthe USSR, many of whom are already rightly suspicious of Gorbachev's pro-market policies.

And within the imperialist heartlands themselves the workers will begin to fight back, at first against the immediate effects of the impending recession and the effects of war, but increasingly against the system that ruins their lives with the constant threat of unemployment, the constant need to struggle for a living wage, the constant ero-

sion of decent health and educa-

tion services. ss

In short the new world order, even ifit can be built at all, will be built on sand. It will be undermined by theinner contradictions of capitalism itself—class conflict, imperialist rivalry, economic crisis.

Our job is to utilise every opportunity to prevent the consolidation of the new order. To turn every conflict into a practical struggle for revolution—for the destruction of the imperialist world order and the establishment of genuine peace, freedom and democracy. That will come through the world socialist order, and when thatis established real human history will begin.

gers of suc

8 Workers Power135 OCTOBER 1990

do not want a war in the

Gulf. That is clear from their many statements and the passion with which they point to the dana war. This leads many on the left to take their arguments about the best way to stop that war very seriously. Hardly a week goes by without one of the left papers reprinting a speech from one of these two. Benn graced the platforms of nearly twenty fringe meetings at Labour Party Conference.

Benn came to the fore as the leading opponent of Thatcher's war drive with his motion and speech in the emergency commons debate on the Gulfin early September. Eric Heffer spoke vigourously against the imperialist war, which he argued would be for oil profits not democracy.

But behind these fine wordsis a strategy which cannot stop war. It

Te: BENN and Eric Heffer

-.1s astrategy which will not rid the Gulf of the major de-stabilising’

force, imperialism, but reassert imperialist control with a more human face. It is the strategy of United Nations (UN) sanctions,

“peacekeeping forces” and “defen-

sive military deployment” which every worker should oppose. Benn declared: “The House of Commons unani-

mously condemns the Iraqi inva-.

sion of Kuwait and supports the UN sanctions.”

He is not opposed to the idea of an external intervention in‘ the Gulf. First of all he is against Thatchers willingness to take military action without UN back-

- ing, and, secondly, against the

build up of the huge US and British force in the Gulf. His preferred option is to use firm sanctions to

force Iraq to negotiate a settle- -

ment and withdraw from Kuwait. What is wrong with these argu-

“ments so frequently heard from the self-proclaimed leaders of the |

anti-war. movement? They start from the idea that it

-js the business of the “interna-

tional community” to force Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait. Whilst every worker should have opposed —

‘the invasion of Kuwait, it is not

the businessof Thatcherand Bush _

to sort out the disputed borders.

Indeed it was the carving out of false borders as part of imperialism’s strategy that created the conditions for the current conflict. The imperialists are the problem,

| not the solution.

There is only one force that has any interest in fighting for the freedom of the peoples of the

‘Middle East from dictators like

Saddam and royal despots like the Emir of Kuwait, and that is the working class.

But Benn argues that the UN can and should right the wrongs of the Middle East, firstly through

. the use of sanctions against Iraq. ©

In the Commons he said: “the

_ Sanctions are bound to work so. . long as the world community can

be kept together”. In this he shares the stated aim of Thatcher and

| Bush—international pressure to

force Saddam to withdraw. But what is this “world commu-

; nity”? If he is referring to the UN,

then it in no way represents any common interests of the peoples |

| THE GULF CRISIS

Tony Benn: imperial

left wing face

Within the antiwar movement many leading figures such as Tony Benn Suggest that the United Nations provides the best hope for. averting war. Clare Heath disputes this claim and argues that the sanctions and the UN itself are part of the war drive.

of the world. Even in the impotent General Assembly, whichincludes many of the non-aligned nations, itis the rulers of all countries who are represented, each with their own interestin denying the rights of workers and the oppressed.

In so far as there is a “common interest” at this level, it is to maintain the rule of capitalism. Even the representatives of the Stalinist states co-operate within the UN to maintain stability, and thereby the rule of capitalism or Stalnism thoroughout the world.

The only body with real power in the UN is the Security Council, in particulér its five permanent members.

The Security Council, as its name suggests, is there to defend the interests of imperialism. The presence of the USSR and China on this body has at certain times been a restriction for the USA, but

with the end of the Cold War and the total surrender of the Stalin- ~

ists to the imperialists, they too

-are now united behind Bush and Thatcher.

Today the UN is acting as a fig leaf for naked US aggression, just asit didin Koreain the 1950s. The US wants to reassert its control in the Middle East and to ensure its oil supplies. Iraq’s actions are seen as a threat to their domination, and the USA has taken the oppor-

‘tunity to establish a huge mili-

tary presence in the area to try

and win back control. The backing.

of the UN, on the spurious grounds of support for Kuwaiti sovereignty, is the perfect cover for the real

imperialist motives of the US and _

Britain.

Tony Benn’s support for the intervention of the UN is itself a left cover for the imperialists.

In relation to Britain Benn writes:

“Britain should immediately withdraw its land and air forces, and throw its full weight behind the United Nations in implementing the sanctions.”

This is not a call for “Troops Out” but for reliance on a sea blockade enforced by the flotilla of battleships in the Gulf and the Eastern Mediterranean. For -all Benn’s speeches against the

“gunboat diplomacy” of the past,

Benn’s stratregy amountstonothing better.

Added to this he puts forward the idea that the “British” have a

_ common.interest in relation to the Gulf, that “we” in Britain should .

unite in a common struggle to force Iraq to toe the UN line.

~ British workers are presumed —

to have-a common interest with British bosses in relation to Iraq. But if sanctions were successful and Iraq defeated, even without a war, that would immeasurably strengthen the power of the USA and Britain in the Gulf.

Would that bein the interests of British workers? No. It would strengthen Thatcher, it would increase the ability of the bosses to exploit workers across the globe, confident that if any national uprising or revolutionary struggle threatened their interests then imperialist forces could step in to crush the rebellion: And it would strengthen the bosses in Britain itself, making them more confident in taking on and defeating working class struggles.

What Benn refuses to accept is that the whole political crisis in

the Middle East, including the. imperialist presence in the Gulf.

Palestinian issue which he hopes

‘the UN can deal with at the same

time, is the result of the exploita-.

tion of the region by imperialism. In reality the UN can never solve this crisis because it is permanently tied to imperialism by its very nature.

In opposition to Thatcher's war drive Benn argued:

“I am opposed to war against Iraq. I’m opposed to action outside the UN. I believe it would divide the Security Council. It might bring many Arab countries out

against us.”

Here again Benn reveals him- .

self as a true politician of the ruling class. He opposes anything which would divide the ruling powers in the UN. But he talks fearfully of uniting the Arabs against “us

The “us” he means is not the world working class, but the imperialist world rulers. If the oppressed workers of the Arab na-

tions, including the dispossessed —

Palestinians, were united in a common. struggle ‘against the

then it: would be a defeat for our main enemy. But Benn can only

see it asa threat. . Benn prefers sanctions to war as the way to bring Saddam into

line. The hopes of millions of ordi-

nary people are riding on the bet that.sanctions can avert war. But they are mistaken: Sanctions are

world's most vital natural source, oil. Yet the vast ma jority of its population lives in abject poverty and under McIOUSIY repressive regimes. Why? - The answer lies in the whole history of colonial and imperialist in-

T HE MIDDLE East fs rich in the

tervention suffered by the peoples

of the Middle East.

As Britain’s colonial empire expanded during the nineteenth century attention focused on control of the Arabian peninsular, the Eastern Mediterranean and the Red Sea as the site of a possible sea route from Europe to India. When the Suez

Canal opened in 1869 Britain was

in control of Egypt and the major trade route through the Middle East. But political control of most of the region rested with the decaying Turkish empire.

Once oil was discovered the fragments of the Turkish Empire became the target of first economic, and then outright military, intervention by the big imperialist powers.

After the First Worid War demol-

ished the Turkish Empire the victors divided up the spoils. They literally divided the region between themselves, “mandating” (giving!) Syria and Lebanon to France, Palestine and Irag to Britain.

Kuwait was carved out for Britain in the 1920s and Saudi Arabia became an American sphere of influence in the late 1930s. —

Israel was created out of part of » - Palestine in 1947 as a Zionist

homeland for the Jews and immedi -

ately expanded into neighbouring,

Arab lands. Beneath this patchwork

~ quilt of artificially drawn borders lie-

" MIDDLE EAST Isto

millions of workers and peasants trapped in national. and religious states which systematically discriminate against and oppress them:

@ the Palestinian Arabs, forcibly

-removed from their lands and sub-

jected to Israeli occupation;

® the Kurds, a nation of 16, million were conveniently forgotten during the carve up of the Middle East and now exist divided between Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Syria, each of which oppresses them ferociously;

@ the Muslims and Druze of Lebanon, trapped in a Christian confessional state.

Each testifies to the arbitary and external considerations imperialism used when dividing up the region -

After 1945 a different tendency. developed within the system of imperialist exploitation. The- USA became the unchallenged imperiaiist superpower. As well as. preventing Japan and Germany from carving out new colonies it was able to force France and Britain to dismantle the colonial and “mandate” sys-

tem, giving its goods and its cur- - yency free access to the whole wotid

economy...

The new states whieh came ‘into ; -existence inherited the borders, the

THE { EG 5 ULF CR THE * =

of

state bureaucracies, the armies and above all the weak ruling classes of the former colonies and mandates. |

No: powerful capitalist develop-

ment had occured prior to inde- |

pendence. the Arab bourgeoisies were geared to helping imperialism exploit the people and natural re-

— Sources of their country. The colo-

nial regimes and the puppet monarchies they installed had been linked to the feudal ruling classes of the region.

-Many of these did not long survive the departure of the British and French colonialists. The result was a series of military dicatorships, professing some form of anti-impe- — rialist, pan-Arab nationalist ideology (Nasserism, Ba’athism etc).

These regimes came into existence during the dramatic ascent of oil-as the most critical commodity for a whole new cycle of expansion in the imperialist heartiands.

The major oil. corporations—the so-called “seven sisters”—reaped

‘-a@ tich reward from their conces- ‘sions, pipelines and oil-refineries in the region. This enormous natural °

not an alternative to war but a prelude to it. Sanctions are a different way of trying to force Saddam Hussein into submission.

They could only work by crip- .

pling the Iraqi economy. Benn has claimed that he opposes a block-

ade of food or medical supplies, but ultimately by denying Iraq revenue through trade in oil, it will be unable to buy food.

The fact that Iraq is dependent on a large number of imports is itself a demonstration of the way in which imperialism exploits countries, making them dependent on one key product, reducing their capacity to produce other commodities and therefore forcing them onto the world market to purchase essentials.

Sanctions are economic war. Even the distinction between economic and military blurs once the sanctions are enforced by a blockade.

To enforce the blockade means to use the military to prevent ships or aeroplanes taking in goods. The peace-keeping UN that Benn places such trust in has shown itself perfectly willing to back the use of force to impose sanctions.

Sanctions are a form of imperialistintervention. Enforcing them by arms escalates the situation and provides an excuse for the presence of more and more imperialist troops. Sanctions will lead to war, unless the victim of the imperialist blockade surrenders.

Benn and Heffer, like millions of ordinary workers, do not want war. But they do not, in fact, rule out the use of arms, for all their speeches against the horrors of such a conflict. :

The early day motion which Benn put forward in parliament in opposition. to Thatcher, called

-for-military action to be taken

“only” if it was explicitly authorised by a resolution of the UN Security Council.

No doubt conceived as a clever

. ploy to tie the hands of Thatcher. and Bush; it is hopelessly mis-. taken. If the USA really had to.

gain the formal backing of either

the Security Council or the General Assembly it would do so with the same combination of threats and bribery it has used to construct its coalition of Arab states.

Benn calls for:

“,.. the immediate withdrawal of all foreign forces, to internationally accepted frontiers, in line with all the UN resolutions on the Middle East, and the introduction of UN Peacekeeping forces in all disputed areas.”

And who are these UN keepers of the peace? When it suits imperialism they can be a motley collection of tiny military forces from Ireland, Finland etc, such as the Israei army was able to ignore when it swept into Lebanon in 1982. When it really matters,a UN peacekeeping force can be a mighty US army flying the UN’s blue flag, such as in Korea.

The only foree the UN is likely to send to the Gulf is the latter kind: one armed to the teeth and prepared for offensive action to enforce a settlement which had been decided by imperialism and its allies within the UN.

If the current crisis leads to a revolutionary upsurge of the Iraqi and Kurdish workers against Saddam Hussein, of the Saudi Arabian workers and the Palestinians against their oppression

andexploitation, then this “peacekeeping force” will not be.there to defend their interests.

Unlike Benn and those who believe the illusions he peddles about the UN, we should recognise its reactionary, pro-imperial-

ist role, and will fight.tobreak the - blockade, break the sanetionsand -

call for allimperialist troops, what- -ever flag of convenience they fly, to get out of the Gulf.@ -

=xploitation

wealth had to be kept secure for the imperialists. For most of the 1950s and 60s this was accom-

plished by British military bases in.

Aden, Oman, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait. Britain. propped up a series of “traditional”, i.e

conservative and reactionary, re.

gimes for as long as it could. Their origins lay in the nomadic, tribal and merchant enclaves which dot-

ted the coast of the Arabian penin--

sular. -Many of these states rapidly

became very wealthy from the.

massive oil royalties accruing from

the exploitation of the region's

massive reserves. Effectively the _ triba-feudal ruling classes suddenly found themselves rentier capitalists on a oeiously BmnEgnape scale.

~ Sheikhs, Sultans and Emirs of

petty statelets as well as the more .

substantial lon Saud dynasty found

that even after the oil companies —

took their toll they had resources to dispose of. Although they were abie

to buy the allegiance of a significant . proporion of theirstates tiny popu- -

lations, they used their wealth nei-

ther to.raise the living standards of.

the working. masses,. nor to. invest

in the independent development of their national economies. .

But the most populated states had little or no oil. Those which did,

like lran- and iraq;;sooner or later - saw radical military regimes topple.

the pro-imperialist monarchs.

From the mid-1950s to the mid1960s several attempts were made to federate the Arab states, at-

tempts which imperialism frustrated .

through a variety of means.

THE GULF CRISIS _

oa! Bebe 2 ey

meas po

Every time one of the local ruling classes of the Middle East attempts to alter the balance of exploitation in its favour, to divert oil resources towards the development of industry and. agriculture it is met by eco-

nomic sabotage and military inter-

vention—f not by imperialism, then

by imperialism’s. key tool in. the.

region, the state of Israel.

israel has, up to now, proved well worth the billions of dollars poured into it over four decades. Strategically it splits the whole Arab world

in-half. It provides a garrison of | highly trained troops. armed with — -the most. modem_weapons, includ- -ing nuclear arms.-it: holds; the Jarg-

est number. of hostages in the world—the majority of the on

“jan people.

Not one of the Middle Eastem states, has been able to break out of the semicolonial system and

develop a balanced modem econ- .

omy. Expansionist adventures by

_ countries such-as- Iraq are not'the -

result of the fact that these countries have become imperialist in the Marxist sense. They are the product of the desperation of the semi-colonial bourgeoisie which is

prevented from expanding its sphere -- of exploitation to the same level as the imperialists. -

When. George Bush announced he was drawing “a line in the sand” it was nothing new. The whole history of the region is one of lines drawn in the sand by imperialism to suit its own needs and to thwart the aspirations of the masses. When

bourgeois politicians from George

Bush to Neil Kinnock invoke “international law", again it is nothing new: the whole history of imperialist plunder and violation has been sanctioned by successive international laws and treaties which are always dictated by the strong to the weak.

That is why the only. progressive answer to the problems of the Middie East is to get imperialism

- out: militarily and economically.

The struggle to drive out the imperialist armed forces must be harnessed to the struggle to seize

- their capital, their oil refineries and

factories, as well as those of the -|]

“national” capitalists. who are thor- |

. Oughly. enmeshed in-the world im- -perialist system of exploitation.@-

IF WAR breaks out between Iraq andthe imperialist alliance revolutionary Marxists would support lraq. A victory for Iraq, even under its present brutal dictator, would be better for the world class struggle than its defeat at the hands of imperialism.

But how does this position apply in lraq? Doesn't it inevitably mean suspending the class struggle?

It must be tempting for Iraqi.

militants to see an imperialist victory over the Ba’athist regime as presenting the best opportunity to overthrow Saddam. This temptation to take a defeatist stand in a war with imperialismis understandable, but wrong.

A military defeat for lraq is not certain to bring down the dictatorship, even if it leads to Saddam's own downfall. The imperialist forces would be only too pleased to see a continued firm hand in Baghdad.

if Saddam and the ruling Ba’athists fall fighting against imperialism their influence will not be removed from the minds of the ‘masses. If the working class and its vanguard are seen to have abstained in the struggle against imperialism their ability to win the leadership of the masses will be enormously set back. —

For these reasons Iraqi revolutionaries cannot remain neutral in

| the struggle against imperialism.

They must participate in the national resistance, raising slogans for a genuine war and uprising of the Arab and other peoples of the Middle East to drive out the impe-

} rialist-forces.

in the first phases of the struggle

they: must put forward demands

on the detestable regime itself. ‘The regime deceitfully claims to be leading a genuine antiimperiat-

_ ist struggle. If so it should nation-

alise all imperialist holdings in lraq and Kuwait, distribute arms to the workers and the urban and rural poor, enabling them to form militias and elect their own officers. This would prove the most effective way of preventing the onslaught of the imperialists.

- Revolutionaries should likewise demand that if sacrifices are to be made during the imperialist blockade, then all should make them, not just the poor. Committees of

workers, especially women, should ‘be elected to ration and distribute

foodstuffs, fuel, and medical supplies.

Agitation must be launched around revolutionary democratic slogans—an_ atomised and en-

| slaved people cannot be mobilised

against imperialism. Freedom of speech, assembly, press and or-

@ ganisation, both trade union and

political, are the most elementary necessities in both Kuwait and lraq. Amongst these demands central is that for the withdrawal of all iraqi troops from the Kurdish regions and the proclamation of full and free self-determination for the Kurds, up to and. including full state independence.

To rally the oppressed and exploited masses of the Middle East against imperialism and_ its stooges—King Fahd, Mubarak, Assad, Rafsanjani—it is necessary to give arms to the Palestini ans and support thelr cause with deeds, not rhetoric.

In no sense does the fight for these demands, which recognise Imperialism as the main enemy, mean that revolutionary Marxists

should give Saddam political sup-

port or preach class peace with

-}:no.confidence in Saddam Hussein

His present timidity and future

treachery in any real battles.

‘What should Iraq! workers fight for?

against imperialism must be ruthlessly exposed. The course of the war may demand his overthrow, to prevent defeat and disaster. The road to a total victory over imperialism lies over the corpse of his regime. Iraqi workers will have to make a revolution to open up this road.

But today this road lies through a military united front with Sad dam against imperialism.

By. fighting alongside, even within, the forces loyal to the Ba’athist rulers, so long as they are actually fighting imperialism, revolutionaries will be able to win over rank and file soldiers to opposing the dictatorship, to the establishment of democratic political freedoms.

During the war, if it breaks out, any insurrection or uprising against Saddam must of course be judged against the need to defend Iraq against imperialism and to the objective of winning the war. The former is temporarily subordinated to the latter. This does not mean that it is excluded, but that any decision to undertake an insurrection to topple Saddam would have to be taken with a view to increasing the chances of victory, not in indifference to the prospect of military defeat.

This in no way cuts across the real logic and methods of class struggle. Insurrection is not on the order of the day for scientific socialists unless the vanguard of the masses has been won to it and the broad majority of the proletarlat and peasantry will look on it with sympathy and rally to the revolutionary government’s -defence. To reach an insurrectionary

. situation within conditions of war

the existing dictatorship would have to be disintegrated or disintegrating.

Nor does revolutionary defencism mean that other forms of class struggie—strikes, demonstrations, occupations—are suspended. But clearly in a justified war their objectives will be different and will centre on the objective of workers’ control of production in general and war production in particular. The workers’ objectives will be to aid the war effort,

to defeat sabotage and incompe-

tence, to smash the privileges of the ruling classes and their managers and bureaucrats. Their objective will be to see that food and

- ‘services are efficiently and equitably distibuted. Thus workers’ - struggies will aid the drive to de-

feat imperialism, not hamper it. .

The overall objective of the working class.must be to turn the limited and petty conflict with imperialism .that Saddam launched, and which imperialism has turned into a major conflict, into a real broad anti-imperialist

- movement of the whole of the Middle East. Within this struggle

the perspective must be to win democratic freedoms, above all the freedom to. create.a_revoiutionary vanguard party, free trade unions, workers and peasants. councils; in short to win-class independence.

But this struggle for democracy is inseparable from the struggle against imperialist domination itself. Against the wishes of every bourgeois and petit bourgeois nationalist leader the working class must lead the fight to its logical - conclusion: the expropriation of all big capitalists and landowners. The revolutionary struggie against both Saddam and imperialist in tervention can be combined only in the strategy of permanent revolution: the fight for a workers’ and

’ government: and the

Socialist United States of the

Middle East.@

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- £0 Workers Power135 OCTOBER 1990

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NEWS FROM THE SECTIONS:

THE GULF CRISIS aa } ARBEITERINNENSTANDPUNKT Stalinists split solidarity committee

AT THE second meeting of the Action Committee Against Imperialist Agression in the Arab Region, the Austrian Communist Party demanded that the slogans of the committee be changed. They demanded that the committee, which had been formed around the slogans, “Imperialist troops Out, No NATO planes over Austrian airspace, Against war preparations” should include a slogan condemning Iraqi agression, otherwise it was not being “even handed”.

When the committee refused to accept this demand, pointing out that the main enemy in the Gulf was imperialism the Stalinists walked out, refusing to support the planned rally against imperialist intervention outside America House.

Perhaps more surprising was the fact that the Revolutionary Communist League (RKL) and the Austrian section of the United Secretariat of the Feurth International (USFI) walked out in support! Despite these defections the committee’s rally went ahead on 30 August. Two weeks later the Austrian Communist Party, the Socialist Party and the Christian Democrats organised their own eighty strong rally which supported economic sanctions and the UN blockade of Iraq. The RKL apeared on neither of these mobilisations preferring presumably to stay at home!

The committee is pushing ahead i organise anti-imperialist and anti-war activities including meetings at Vienna University anda call for a demonstration immediately any strike is made against lrag.@

THE GULF CRISIS aan

REVOLUTIONARY TROTSKYIST TENDENCY Fighting Bush’s war drive

THE RTT, the fraternal organisation of the LRCI in the USA, started working inthe Emergency Committee to Stop the War in the Middle East and helped organise for the first big anti-war demonstration in the USA which took place in San Francisco at the end of August. Several hundred protesters marched in a militant demonstration which was reported widely in the American media.

But the Committee rapidly fell under the control of the “Workers World Party” a neo-Stalinist sect which proceeded to ban any socialist speakers apart from themselves from platforms and events. They prefer to provide a platform for liberals, Democrats and the church. As a result

- anewcommittee has sprung up called the “Ad Hoc Committee Against

the Vietnam War in the Middle East” which involves among others Socialist Action (SA—a sympathising section of the USF), and the Communist Party. In mid-September a “teachin” on the Middle East organised by this committee drew over two thousand people.

The RTT has been active in both committees. It has argued the importance of raising slogans against the blockade of Iraq. At one of SA’s forums, SA showed it had left none of the USFI’s opportunist method behind. When pressed on the need to take up the struggle now against the blockade of Iraq, Jeff Mackler, SA National Secretary and long time SWPer, replied that this was out of the question as the “people” were not ready for such demands, that they did not want to hear anything more than “Bring the boys home”. Despite these differences the RTT remains fully behind the committee's attempts to mobilise against the US imperialists’ drive to war.

- On 20 October mass demonstrations are planned in many major cities in the USA.@

TROTSKYIST INTERNATIONAL

issue 5 out soon!

ARTICLES INCLUDE: LRCI international perspectives LRCI resolution’on the Gulf Crisis Action programme for the GDR after the elections The Butchenko affair Archive: Rudolf Klement on war

Available price £2 (inc P&P) from: Workers Power, BCM 7750, London WC1iN 3XX

The LRCI

Arbeiter/Innenstandpunkt (Austria), Gruppe Arbeitermacht (Germany), Irish Workers Group, Poder Obrero (Peru), Pouvoir Ouvrier (France), Workers Power Group (Britain)

Poder Obrero-OCIR (Bolivia) is in the process of discussions with the LRCI with the aim of becoming an affiliated section. The Revolutionary Trotskyist Tendency (USA) has fraternal relations with the LRCI. The Gruppe Arbeitermacht (Ost) is a sympathising section.

Where now for Kurdish struggle?

From George Bush to Neil Kinnock every capitalist politician now uses the excuse of Saddam Hussein's butchery of the Kurds as justification for intervention in the Gulf. We are asked to forget that whilst Saddam was America’s ally the world’s great powers and the United Nations did not lift a finger to punish Saddam for the slaughter of thousands of Kurds with poison gas in 1988.

Now Thatcher ghoulishly cites the image of the bodies of Kurdish women and children to preach the virtues of family life.

Kurdish bourgeois nationalists are currently being entertained in the embassies of Britain, France and the USA. /s the imperialist taskforce the answer to the Kurdish people’s plight? No, says Nick Stone.

sixteen million whose languages and culture have dominated the Zagross mountain region for over a thousand years. Kurdistan is divided between Iran, Iraq and Turkey—with smaller Kurdish populations in Syria and the USSR. The process of creating modern semi-colonial capitalist states in these countries reduced the Kurds to the status of a persecuted and oppressed national minority in each country. | -It was Mustafa Kemal, the founder of modern Turkey, who institutionalised the oppression of the Kurds. In 1924 he banned the Kurdish language, schools, publications and political associations. Every Turkish regime, from then to the present government of Turgut Ozal, has continued the brutal subjugation of the Kurds.

In Iran, since the fall of the short lived Mahabad Kurdish republic in 1946, all expressions of Kurdish national identity banned. Though Kurdish guerrillas played an active part in overthrowing the Shah they were amongst the first victims of the Islamic counter-revolution. In 1979 Ayatollah Khomeini executed hundreds of Kurdish guerrillas and civilians.

In Iraq itself the history of the Kurdish national struggle has

T KURDS are a nation of

‘been more varied, but just as

bloody. When the Ba’athists overthrew the monarchy in 1968 the bourgeois Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP), led by the Barzani family, entered into negotiations on limited autonomy with Iraq.

Pressure

Pressure from the Kurdish masses and the plotting of Israel, Iran and the USA aborted the limited collusion between Saddam and the KDP. In the mid1970s Barzani led 100,000 Kurds against. the Iraqi army. But at the height of the conflict, when Iran had resolved its immediate grievance with Irag over the Shatel Arab waterway it withdrew all support for the KDP-led forces, enabling Saddam to crush the resistance, executing hundreds and evicting thousands from their homes.

The re-emergence of conflict between Iraq and Iran in the 1980 Gulf War gave new impetus to the Kurdish national uprising in Iraq. By 1983 the Kurds were involved in military conflict with all three oppressor nations. Following the 1988 cease fire the

Turkish President Turgut Ozal—still persecuting the Kurds

Iraqi government stepped up its repression of the Kurds in the northern provinces. Thousands of Kurdish villages were destroyed and large numbers of Kurds forcibly transported from their homelands to a desert region near the Jordanian border.

In the town of Halabja 5,000 civilians mostly women and children, were slaughtered in August 1988 when Iraqi forces used poison gas to exterminate them. One hundred thousand Kurds fled the poison gas bombs to seek refuge in Turkey. They were left to rot in the refugee camps.

Given the Iraqi regime’s history of genocide against the Kurds it would be no surprise if many Kurds saw the answer to their oppression in the build up of US and British forces in the Gulf. But they would be wrong.

The historic. responsibility for the plight of the Kurds lies with British imperialism. The SykesPicot treaty between Britain and France in 1916 carved up the Turkish Empire into “spheres of influence”.

The boundaries of Iran, Iraq and Turkey were established artificially to suit the imperialist exploitation of the region. The repression of the Kurdsin each of these countries has been sanctioned by imperialism.

In 1989 after the mass gassing of Kurds had been revealed, the USA resumed lending to Iraq through the Export-Import Bank and extended billions of dollars to Saddam in credit guarantees

to purchase agricultural products. In January 1989 the British Minister of trade doubled Iraq’s credit limit.

In 1989, when Kurdish refu- . gees fled to Britain to seek political asylum from repression in Turkey hundreds were turned around and sent back on planes by immigration officers without setting foot on British sojl.

In October 1989 Siho Ilyigres burned himself to death in protest at his imprisonment at Harmonsdworth Detention Centre. Three thousand Kurds currently in London live with the constant threat of detention or forced repatriation.

Tragic

It would be tragicif the Kurdish people of Iraq allowed themselves to be used as puppets by an alliance including two out of three of their biggest oppressors and the imperialist powers responsible for their oppression in the first place. They should not cease the struggle for national self-determination. They should continue to fight to get all Iraqi troops out of the region. But they should refuse to ally themselves with Turkey, Iran and the imperialists.

They should join the Palestinian masses and every progressive force in the Middle East in the defence of the region against US intervention and, if it occurs, in the defence of Iraq against military invasion.#

Workers Power 135

STALINISM

‘IN CRISIS

The Soviet Union is gripped by a political and economic catastrophe no less momentous than that facing the Middle East. Economic chaos and national disintegration have begun to fuel each other, leaving the Stalinist bureaucrats paralysed and divided. Nothing less is at stake than the disintegration of the USSR and the chaotic overthrow of its post-capitalist property relations, writes John Hunt.

VERY SOVIET citizen is now experiencing the effects of economic chaos and_ national conflict on a day to day basis. The paralysis which has gripped the central organs ofthe state only serves to heighten the unbearable feeling of rage and frustration of the mass of workers. | The old economic system of centralised planning by the all-powerful bureaucracy has broken down. The

incoherent elements of market and —

planning hamper and obstruct one another. The. central allocation of resources has all but collapsed. Managers are sending out scouting parties to look for raw materials and for outlets to sell their produce.

Production fell by 2% in the first quarter of 1990. Prime Minister Rhyzkov confirmed it has fallen in the second quarter too, but could not give a figure.

What this cold statistic means for the worker in the factory or fields, for the working class woman in the endless queues, is that the shelves of state stores are empty even of the item which the old bureaucratic plan put there in relative abundance— bread. In Leningrad and other cities there have been strikes and even barricades over the disappearance of tobacco. Everyone expects the situation to get worse as winter ae proaches. __

A bumper harvest has not. been

reaped in time. AS much as 20-25%

of it is rotting in the fields. Sending squads of factory workers to the countryside has in turnledto a slump in industrial production.

In a bitter foretaste of the much vaunted “market economy” staple items of consumption that have disappeared from the state stores reappear in the private markets at unbelievably inflated prices. Meat onthe private market costs ten times the price marked on the empty counters in the state shops.

This economic chaos fuels, and is in turn fuelled by, intensified regionalism and nationalism.

The Soviet Republics are refusing

to deliver their planned quotastothe |

central agencies. They refuse to receive orders from, or supply information to, the central planning bodies. Inter-communal strife has disrupted production and communications in Central Asia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. Even within the Russian Federation towns such as Sverdlovsk refuse to send materials to Moscow.

Growing

In the rebellious republics of the Caucasus, the Baltics and. Central Asia the total separatists are growing in influence. This is increasingly the case in the Ukraine too. Rukh, the nationalist organisation is ‘in-

creasingly led by those who want:

total independence. More startlingly support for separatist slogans is growing amongst the Donbass miners; most of whom are Russian speakers and in the past opposed Ukrainian separatism.

The parliament of the Russian Federation has adopted its own plan

the .

USSR

from Moldavia.

The conditions for racial conflict and pogroms.-are developing in parallel withthe economic hardship and despair of the population.

The profound social crisis is in turn sharpening the crisis within the bureaucracy. The bureaucracy’s paralysis issevealed by the six months of inconclusive debate within the Supreme Soviet over the rate of economic reform.

Most of the regime's economists have totally given up on central planning, the source of their privileges and their political power. Instead they fantasise in endless articles and papers onthe avalanche of prosperity the market would bring, if not to the whole USSR then to “their” republic, which is only held back by the “exploitation” of the centre.

Rump

A significant rump of the central bureaucracy, the KGB and the army obviously disagree with this, if for no other reason than that to dismantle the. “central command economy” would mean dismantling their substantial salaries and their even more substantial access to villas, special shops, clinics and the perks of office.

However they are silent. They pack the benches of the Supreme Soviet, the CPSU Congress and Central Committee, watching the antics of the “reformers” with scarcely con-

-cealed distaste. But they have no

alternative, no answer to the crisis. Yetthe reformers themselves have fallen into conflicting factions. The

00 days to go?

Yuri Butchenko

much heralded. “Abalkin-plan” was shelved at the last minute when the newly emerging workers’ movement threatened to strike against any

massive price increases. Inits place

has come the Shatalin plan.

This has already been accepted by Yeltsin and the Russian parliament. It envisages a 500 day rush towards capitalism. This will be accomplished in four stages:

@ A stock exchange will be set up and the state industries and farms

will be sold off to their workers and —

the populace to soak up the billions of roubles in savings, thereby solving the governemt’s enormous debt crisis. The state will auction flats, construction projects and shops. it will end all subsidies to enterprises,

allow farmers to withdraw from the

collectives with land and the defence budget will be slashed

@The second stage will free prices, allowing them to “float”. In fact they will rocket rather than float. Real wages will fall and thus the masses will pay the full costs of restoration.

@ |n the third stage, days 250 to A400 of the plan, 40% of industry, 50% of construction and transport and 60% of retail trade will be privatised. By day 500 Shatalin envis-

~ ages 70% of industry in private hands.

@ After this comes “the beginning of recovery”. In an attempt to fend off workers’ suspicions Shatalin assures them “world experience has proved in practice that the more developed market relations are, the lower the level of labour exploitation”.

It is unlikely that the fifty millions

N ISM OCTOBER ie

unemployed predicted if the plan ‘were carried out would agree with him. But just as tne Russian media once pictured workers in the imperialist west living only in Dickensian conditions it now shows only the fattest portions of the labour aristocracy of America, Germany and Ja pan. A capitalist USSR, reeling from 500 days of Shatalin, will not resemble California or West Germany but Mexico or Egypt.

The conservatives probably had enough deputies in the Supreme Soviet to vote down Shatalin’s plan. Instead they, and many radicals with them, simply refused to turn up for the vote, rendering the meeting inquorate. In a farcical move the paralysed parliamentarians voted Gorbachev the power to introduce the market reforms.

Troubles

Despite ail the radicals’ desire for “constitutionalism” they have handed over the decision to a bureaucratic “strong man”. Likewise the conservatives are prepared to pass the power to the originator of all their troubles.

Gorbachev has been given the power to rule by decree. Who will obey his decrees? His 1989 ban on strikes has beencompiletely ignored. No-one tried to enforce it. He issued an order banning Armenian vigilantes from bearing arms. No one put down a single rifle. He banned demonstrations within a mile of the Kremlin. In September the Moscow Coun-

Soviet miners’ organisations. We are only too happy to correct this simple mistake in our account. A variety of pro-Stalinist organisa-

11

oui

il i

SR ee Gorbachev decrees, but who will obey?

cil led tens of thousands of Muscovites right past the Kremlin chanting “500 days yes! Ryzhkov No!”

What is the answer to this chronic paralysis? Will the USSR and the

- planned economy just fade away like

the Cheshire cat, with Gorbachev left on the stage of world affairs like its smile?

No: It must pass through a revolutionary crisis in which a bureaucratic military crackdown, as well as successful workers revolution is a distinct possibility.

Coup

Moscow is already rife with rumours about a military coup. But at present any attempt to use the multinational Soviet Army to crush the republics would be suicidal for the top generals.

Far more likely is the crystallisation of an authoritarian pro-market trend around Gorbachev himself, using the already granted special powers, backed up by the most reliable organs of repression. It is certain that the Shatalin plan could only be pushed through by crushing the resistance of the workers whose jobs and livelihodds it would destroy.

At the moment crushing that resistance would be made easier by the misileadership. of the new Confeceration of Labour which has enormous illusions in the fast track to marketisation.

There is an acute crisis of leadership which can only be-resolved by a revolutionary Trotskyist party and programme. This must set as its aim the overthrow of the bureaucratic caste that is restoring capitalism, taking the whole economy into the hands of the producers and consumers, giving the republics both the ~ right to separate and the option of a

ON 11 JULY Workers Power issued a statement on the Yuri Butchenko affair in which we stated that in a telephone call with Butchenko he informed us that his official invite papers to this country had been signed by George Miller, British representative of the right wing | Russian organisation, the NTS. This was true. In the August issue of our newspaper we said that we only learnt that the official invite came from Miller when Butchenko actu-

ally arrived in Britain. This was a mistake.

it arose whilst attempting to put together an honest account of the Butchenko affair relying on the memories of translators and intermediaries. 7

Considerable confusion surrounds the bureaucratic procedures needed to get people from the USSR into this country. CSWEB itself had sought to get Labour MPs to issue such invitations to the independent

tions, suchas the Spartacists, have suggested that the discrepancy between our two versions of the “invite” means we were involved in some nefarious plot aimed at smearing Arthur Scargill and collaborating with imperialism’s spy agencies. Having corrected the factual error we can only ask our accusers, what does this prove? | We stand by the political reasons for organising and then terminating the CSWEB tour.@

truly equal federation of workers’ states.

Such a Soviet federation would be able to democratically plan the use of the vast human and natural resources of the USSR. It could aid the

_ workers of Europe, Asia and beyond in the struggle for power and help create a world of abundance and true democracy that would put capitalism into the museum of human history. 4

for capitalist restoration at breakneck speed, in stark defiance of the central bureaucracy. The declarations of independence and the severing of economic links have inflamed national feelings within the republics between the majorities andthe “new” minorities. After the Moldavian Republic’s independence declaration its two largest minorities, the Turkic Gaguaz and the Russians have now declared their own independence

A \ "1

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THE LONGEST AR

“Inside this

grim prison ...”

ACCORDING TO the Minister for Prisons in Northern Ireland, Crum-

Jin Road Gaol is incident free and

staff and facilities are utilised to keep contact and friction to a minimum. At about the same time as the Minister made his statement Crumlin Road was the scene of a vicious assault on

republican prisoner Martin Mol-

loy by four loyalists.

Early in May loyalist prisoners rioted, with forty inmates barricading themselves into a dining room while six prisoners gained access to the roof. they were protesting about integration of loyalist and republican prisoners.

This was only the latest in a series of incidents stretching back to 1976 when forced integration was first tried by the Northern l|reland Office (NIQ).

Republican prisoners in the jail have repeatedly warned that the

_ policy is placing their lives in jeop-

ardy and-should be abandoned immediately:~—-.-

Crumlin Road is the. only prison. |

in Northern Ireland where a policy of forced intgegration is pursued. John Hall, spokesperson for the Prison Officers’ Association, has admitted the implemen tation of the poicy is the result of a political decision by the British government and NIO rather than an internal policy of the prison administration.

Forced integration is one of the few remaining vestiges of the “criminalisation strategy” pursued by Britain since 1976; localising the conflict in Northem lreland, gearing up the police and prison service to do the bulk of repressive work, stigmatising and treating the republican fighters as criminals or- gangsters.

Most aspects of the strategy were wrecked by the 1981 hunger strikes.

In Crumlin Road Gaol however

the policy continues. Rooftop

occupations, protests at remand courts, no slop-out protests, hunger strikes and cell-wreckings— all have failed to move the NIO.

There are four wings in the goal. Sentenced prisoners (all of whom are non-political) are held in D Wing. Republicans and loyalists have operated a system of self-imposed segregation which results in the halving of entitlement to the exercise yard and canteen association.

Danny Morrison, former Sinn Fein director of publicity and now

Class Struggle

on remand in Crumlin Road explains:

“It’s easy to visualise how a fight can break out when, as in the case of republican remand prisoner Tommy Braniff, the. loyalist charged with assassinating his father, is passing him every day. For three months | was In the cell next to that of the same loyalist who was charged with possessing RUC security files on my own movements.”

Forced integration is used as a method of political control by the NIO. Political organisation within the prison system is frustrated by the threat to security embodied in the. presence of loyalists alongside republican prisoners. As Crumlin Road governor John Semple put it, the integrated system “reduces the prospects for planning escapes from the prison in that loyalist and republican groups are highly

unlikely to make escape plans

together.

Added to this is the violence meted out by the regime itself. At a protest outside Derry Council, one republican prisoner's relative said “we have had to visit bruised and battered sons and husbands and have had their blood-stained clothes sent out to us on visits”. The situation is serious and deteriorating.

Crumlin Road Gaol is more than just a symbol of British rule in Northern Ireland. It is a microcosm of the system of injustice and discrimination, with the state able to divide and rule, to repress the nationalists under the guise of even handednes and non-sectarianism, to use the loyalist paramilitaries as the unofficial arm of the state sure in the knowledge that as long as this system works protestant and catholic workers can be prevented from

getting together to “escape” from.

that large prison house called the Orange State.@

Monthly paper of the Irish Workers Group

issue 21 out now includes:

Action can stop extradition!

The struggle against PNR wage deal 1970: when nationalism marginalised the left Defending Trotsky from the Irish “Trotskyists”

plus full review of Kieran Allen’s book “The Politics of James Connolly”

Available from Workers Power, price 50p or from 12 Langrishe Place, Dublin 1, Ireland

STALINISN OCTOBER 1990

S _.__ Workers Power 135

AS IMPERIALISM BURIES GDR.

New Trotskyist group formea!

ON 28 September in East Berlin, a new Trotskyist organisation, Gruppe Arbeitermacht (Ost) was founded. The political foundations of the group are the LRCI's programme, “The Trotskyist Manifesto” and-the “Fundamental Principles of Our Programme”. The group's foundation is the result of months of collaboration between comrades from the LRCI’s West German, Austrian and British sections and East German revolutionaries.

est problem facing revolu-

tionaries in the GDR (East Germany) has been how to oppose the Stalinist regime without playing into the hands of the West German imperialists.

The LRCI developed a strategy of political revolution that made no concessions to either Stalinism or imperialism but related to the urgent needs of the workers of the GDR as the crisis deepened. It is this programmatic clarity that has convinced the new group to declare itself in political solidarity with the LRCI and to seek

pe OR THE last year the great-

recognition as a sympathising

section. The coming year will be no less

- fraught with political problems.

The strategy of the West German imperialists has been to force through unity and to regain the territory of the GDR, irrespective of the cost. Any delay would have increased the likelihood of mass opposition, not only within the GDR but also the FRG (West Germany).

Nonetheless, the consequences of their hasty Anschluss are going to make themselves felt. Already, the FRG has had to accept the need for a third(!) budget which will see public sector borrowing grow to DM 150,000 million (roughly £50,000 million) and that is without the costs of the East German “State Trust” which is responsible for the still-nationalised industries of the “ex-GDR”. In total the state debt in the FRG is now approaching DM one billion—approximately £330 million! Of course the intention is to make the workers of both “halves” of Germany pay the price, not only of this debt, but for restructuring the German economy.

Such a huge injection of cash into the German economy will encourage inflation unless it is held in check by a combination of

The shape of things to come? An overturned van ablaze

lower wages and higher productivity within the economy as a whole. Soaring unemployment in the ex-GDR, with over 100,000 a month joining the dole queues, is the most immediate result of this. The rash of strikes and demonstrations during the summer, and the threat of a “hot autumn” convinced the Federal Government that it would have to take full control before risking the wholesale closure of the remaining state industries. This is the real purpose behind the bringing forward of the date for unification, but the full impact will not be felt until after the December elections have provided a government that can claim to represent the whole country.

Changes : The huge changes that have taken place in the past year have left the German working class without a coherent political leadership. By opposing immigration from the east, the SPD has discredited itself in both parts of the country. Its own recent unification is unlikely to establish it as a contender for government. In the exGDR its support appears to have dropped below 20% in the run up to the Landtag elections in midOctober. But it is by no means

clear how the workers will re-.

spond to the collapse of the GDR. The south was most prounification in March but has also been hardest hit by the consequences. The “hero-city” of Leipzig now has 90,000 out of work.

The Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS, the old Stalinist party) has tried to complete its transformation into a western style social democratic party by sympathising with the plight of the unemployed. But it has not supported, much less. encouraged, their direct mobilisation against

near Alexanderplatz, Berlin, 25 September

closures.

Its aim, it says, is to be “a strong shield to protect the weak”. Although this is a pathetic, and ultimately, utopian idea, the party's continuing identification as a workers’ party has made it the principle pole of attraction to the left. Together with elements from the Greens and the smaller left currents, the PDS has formed the “Left List” to try to maximise its electoral support in the coming elections. A court ruling that GDR parties need only achieve 5% of the vote within the old GDR territory, not the whole Federal Republic, should ensure parliamentary seats for this unprincipled amalgam. |

The comrades. who have now formed the Gruppe Arbeitermacht (Ost) have been extremely active within the GDR left. The September issue of Arbeitermacht sold 1,400 in its first week in Berlin. This work has brought more and more contacts from in and around the PDS and Leit List. One group of workers involved in the factory committe of the PDS, for example, invited a speaker from the paper to take part in the recent conference on the economic situation organised by the party. More than 400 workers heard our comrade attack the “social market” programme of the PDS leaders in a speech which was reported in the party’s daily paper, Neues Deutschland, the following day.

In the coming months the principal task of revolutionaries in both parts of Germany will be to intervene in this still very fluid left milieu around a programme that stresses the need for working class independence within the new state. In so doing they will forge the political and organisational basis for the foundation of an all-German organisation as the

German section of the LRCI.8

GREECE

as many weeks paralysed

Greece in September. Over a million workers responded to the calls for two day stoppages by the Greek Labour federations. At the same time power, bank, public sector and munitions workers were on indefinite strike or occupying their workplaces.

Despite the daily 15 hour blackouts in Athens, the thousands of tons of uncollected rubbish, the absence of public transport and the growing food shortages, the majority of Greek workers remain solidly behind the strikes. They are well aware that, if the strikes are defeated, their fate will be a lot worse than the temporary discomfort caused by the action.

The right wing government, New Democracy, came to power in April this year. Its leader, Constantine Mitsotakis, promised a vicious austerity package. In a phrase stolen

Tes =: GENERAL strikes in

from his idol Margaret Thatcher,

he declared, “we must understand that we cannot live beyond our means”. No, this did not mean that the fabulously rich Onassis family would be called on to sell up their islands and mansions. But it did mean that workers were going to be made to pay for Greek capitalism’s massive crisis.

Mitsotakis is presiding over the poorest economy within the European Community. Inflation is now

CAMBODIA

22%. The foreign debt stands at £12 billion with a budget deficit for 1989 of £6.8 billion.

To deal with these problems New Democracy set out to:

@ abolish the index linked wages, that had provided some protection against inflation; cut social security benefits ~

@ raise the retirement age and the level of workers’ contributions to pensions whilst cutting pensions themselves

@ sack workers in nationalised industries.

To undermine opposition to these attacks the government prepared anti-union laws to introduce compulsory strike ballots and the right to legally penalise workers who took strike action.

British workers will recognise the unmistakably Thatcherite character of this austerity package. But the Greek working class has given us a good lesson in how to react to such attacks. Their determined action has plunged the government into panic. The austerity package was passed in Parliament by one vote—the government’s working majority—but the strikes went on. And the government is now openly divided, witha number of minigters desperate to open negotiations with the unions and ready to concede on aspects of the austerity package. This despite New Democracy’s Thatcher style

UN: friends of Pol Pot

at the top table of the “new

world order”, the USSR and China played a key role in ending Cambodia’s eleven year civil war. At the UN Security Council in August they voted for a peace plan involving a UN overseen ceasefire, an interim government comprising all of the conflicting forces and elections designed to establish an independent and neutral Cambodian government.

It all sounds very fair. It fits in with the promises of a new era of peace that Bush, Gorbachev and others prattle about in their television speeches. And after all doesn’t Cambodia deserve to be given a break after the horrors it has suffered for the past twenty years?

Don’t believe a word of it! The imperialists and the Stalinist leaders want to tie up the loose endsin Indochina. US imperialism brutally raped the region in the 1960s and early 1970s. After its defeat in 1975 the projects of the mutually hostile Stalinists in Vietnam and

Fi. TO earn their places

Cambodia to build “socialism in one country” led to Pol Pot’s killing fields, a Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, a brief Chinese-Vietnam war and interminable civil war within Cambodia itself.

invaded

In 1978 Vietnam invaded Cambodia and overthrew the murderous Pol Pot regime. The Vietnamese Stalinists were not actinginan internationalist fashion as their apologists claim. They had long sought to dominate Indochina and installinga pro- Vietnamese regime in Phnom Penh (Cambodia's capital) was their principal objective.

~The government of Heng Samrin,

and now of Hun Sen, Cambodia’s prime minister, was the result. Until last September this regime was defended by a massive Vietnamese army. Ranged against it was acoalition comprising Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge, Son Sann’s bourgeois Khmer People’s Liberation Front and Prince Norodom Siha-

nouk’s National Army. Despite the.

rhetoric about taming the unions and making no U-turns!

Working class action, organised on a class wide basis, not shrinking back from the need to defy the courts and defeat the riot squads has put the government on the defensive. British workers should take note and prepare to deal with Thatcher in the same way, particularly as she makes ready for a new round of attacks called for by Britain’s recession.

But Greek workers still face problems with traitorsin theirown ranks, just as we do with the TUC

WHAT REALLY lies behind the recent violence in South Africa? 1990 has witnessed ferocious violence, especially in the townships, leading to 2,300 deaths, 740 in the last two months alone.

The western media has been quick to exploit the fact that this violence stems from the conflicts between black factions; the ANC and Chief Buthelezi’s Inkatha. It is portrayed as tribal (Xhosa versus Zulu) and shamelessly used to plug the racist message that blacks cannot be trusted to runa civilised society.

Infact the apartheid state deliberately created the divisions be-

presence of the Khmer Rouge, the imperialists and China backed this coalition. It was the lesser evil to the Soviet/Vietnamese backed regime in Phnom Penh.

With Gorbachev's global retreat it was inevitable that Cambodia would be sacrificed to the imperialists at the negotiating table. For its part Vietnam, dependent to a large extent on Soviet aid, was prepared to go along with negotiations aimed at a settlement that would, eventually, mean the return of Pol Pot’s butchers. And since their troops were withdrawn, Pol Pot’s fighters, the best armed and organised faction within the coalition, have made headway in their guerrilla campaign.

The Hun Sen regime could not win this war. The drain on the economy was crippling, with 30% of the state budget going on defence. Inflation was rampant— 200% this year. The country’s vital agricultural sector was severely dislocated by the civil war, with some 150,000 people displaced from fertile land by the fighting.

a <-Workers Power 135 _ INTERNATIONAL | GOCTORER 1990" = ease se

and the Labour Party. The “socialists” of Pasok and the Stalinists in the Communist Party are busy declaring support for the strikes today. Yet less than a year ago the Stalinists were in a coalition with the right wing New Democracy. And before that the Pasok government had itself been trying to attack the index-linked wage system and social security!

Within the three union federations the leaders who support these traitors are doing all they can to control the strike wave. They have deliberately restricted the general

tween the Zulus and the Xhosa and fostered Inkatha as a right

wing black organisation that could |

act as a counterweight to the ANC. The terrible violence in the townships is the direct responsibility of the apartheid system.

It is becoming more evident by the day that white right wingers and whites within the police and armed forces are fomenting and executing the violence. While inkatha is not directly linked to the forces of white reaction, evidence is emerging of collaboration between these sinister forces aimed at breaking the ANC’s mass base through terror. The weight of evi-

These circumstances, combined with the USSR and Vietnam’s willingness to co-operate in the imperialist’s plans for the.country, opened the door to the UN peace plan and to the acceptance of it by the opposition coalition and the Phnom Penh regime.

Balance |

Cambodia’s fate now hangs in the balance. The interim government, the Supreme National Council, is made up of six of Hun Sen’s representatives andtwo each from the other opposition factions. It is currently under debate as to whether or not Sihanouk himself should chair the Council asits13th member. But the real power struggle is unlikely to be determined on the Council

Civil war is still raging. Even with UN forces in the country it will continue. With an estimated $10 billion and 20,000 military and administrative personnel needed toimplement the peace plan, there is every chance that it will collapse

General Strikes against — austerity

strikes to two days, despite the willingness of thousands of workers to come out indefinitely. And, as the government’s resolve began to crack, the union leaders held out the prospect of resolving the crisis through separate settlements that would leave many workers still victim to the effects of the austerity package.

To avoid this terrible waste and betrayal ofthe Greek workers’ militancy the struggle must be developed into an indefinite general strike tosmash the austerity package and the anti-union laws.@

dence pointing to such involvement by pro-apartheid whites has become so great that De Klerk himself has felt obliged to order an independent inquiry into the allegations.

But at the same time he is quite prepared to use the tried and trusted methods of apartheid repression against the black population.

Operation iron Fist was launched last month to crack down on the violence. Needless to say while there have been arrests of Inkatha members itis ANC supporters who have borne the brunt of the police offensive.

before any elections.

This is a graphic illustration of why the UN can never be a force for justice. All the plan agreed by the imperialists, the USSR and China has achieved, is to legitimise the conflicting factions’ claims to use Cambodia as they see fit. Each faction will use the terms of the peace plan to further their own reactionary projects. The long suffering Cambodian masses will be the ones to pay the price.

So much for the healing powers of the “new world order”. In aland torn by war it can only sow the seeds of renewed conflict. In the name of peace it has reinstalled into the interim government Pol Pot’s most notorious hatchet man, Son Sen, along with Khieu Samphan, the architect of the economic policies that led to at least a million deaths during the Khmer Rouge’s reign. And if either the playboy Prince or the pro-US Son Sann get their way, Cambodia will become one more field for plunder by the ASEAN states and imperialist Japan.

ee Rape ee a ee ee ee

14 Workers Power135 OCTOBER 1990

THE GULF CRISIS all

T PRESENT there are no fewer than three national campaigns against the Gulf War. On three successive Saturdays in September there were demonstrations in London against the war, each called by different elements within the anti-war movement, each then boycotted by other sections. Added to this one of the largest sections of the British left, the supporters of Militant, have steadfastly ignored the demonstrations and campaigns against the Gulf crisis.

All this reflects the fragmented character of the British left. But whilst part of the antics can be explained by the sectarian desires of some left groups to outmanoeuvre other left groups, there are important politica] questions underlying the divided nature of the anti-war movement.

The Campaign Against War in Gulf(CAWG) has called a Conference Against the War in the hope of unifying the movement. This conference will need to tackle the key question of what the basis for unity should be.

Many on the left, including the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and supporters of Socialist Outlook, Socialist Organiser and Socialist Action, argue that the important thing is to build the biggest single campaign possible in opposition to the war.

Each of these organisations themselves argues that the way British workers should oppose the war is to call for the withdrawal of British and US forces from the Gulf, but are keen to unite with others who simply want to stop the war. 3

Itis correct to try and win unity with the broadest possible sections of the working class and labour movement around any action which will impede the imperialist war drive. At the moment a demonstration which is called on the basis of Stop the Waris an action hostile to Thatcher's plans. If millions of workers could be brought to such a demonstration

it would be areal deterrent toher.

continued pumping of resources into the war drive.

But opposition to the war alone is not enough as the basis for a campaign which we try to win workers to. This is because behind the Stop the War banner will stand not only those who

want to get imperialist troops out*

of the Gulfin order to foil the US plans to strengthen its ability to exploit the Middle East, but also those who want tosacure the aims of the US forces, without resorting to use of arms.

Having raised the call to Stop the War, the question begged is how? Ken Livingstone for example is against the war, but argues vociferously in favour of sanctions to bring Saddam Hussein to heel. His way of stopping the war would be tighter

hat kind of nti-war ovement ?

BY CLARE HEATH

more effective sancitons. Tony Benn is against the war. He too

supports sanctions, and sees a

more effective UN as the way to

stop the war. [see page 10/ Whenit comes to taking specific

actions against the imperialist

-war itis obvious that such oppos-

ing positions, hidden behind the united pacifist slogan of “Stop the War”, will lead to a clash. Antiimperialists will be seeking to win workers to action such as refusing to handle supplies or communications for the armed forces, and to break the economic blockade of Iraq. :

The “pacifists” who seek a UN solution would urge workers to support a more effective blockade. Those Labour lefts who oppose the US and British troops but call for a UN force to intervene would fight against workers taking action to stop supplies reaching these British, US and French soldiers flying the UN flag.

Moreimmediately the problem of asingle united “anti-war” campaign was revealed on the 15September demonstration. Although the overwhelming majority of the people on the march were calling for US and British Troops out of the Gulf, not a single speaker put that forward at the rally.

We were subjected to a monotonous line of speakers urging better sanctions and for the UN to sort it out. This is because the opportunist left such as the SWP, whilst supporting and doingmuch of the work in building demon-

ist Outlook both proclaim

S OCIALIST ACTION and Socialtheir support for the politics

strations like that, are so determined toretain the worthies from the Labour left, the unions, CND, and the Greens within the movement that they dare not demand the right to raise their own positions from the platform. They fear that more of their famous friends will do a Bruce Kent and pull out

because someone dared to raise.

the ‘slogan of “Troops out of the Gulf’.

The broadest possible workers’ united front must be built to stop the imperialists in the Gulf. A

united front must be based on

united action, and in this case that has to be any and every ac-

ty

tion to obstruct the military, economic and political intervention of the imperialists.

Above all action is needed to get British and US troops out, and that is exactly the kind of action which will send Bruce. Kent, the Greens and Plaid

Cymru fleeing from the campaign. :

A united campaign is needed, and the existence of the Ad Hoc Committee for Hands off the Gulf and the Campaign Against War in the Gulf, both of which are basedon anti-imperialist slogans, is ridiculous. Workers Power is affiliated to both and actively working for them to unite on specific actions and to create a single anti-imperialist campaign at the conference in November.

If we lose the arguments decisively for a broad anti-imperialist campaign in the workers’ organisations, then we will work within a pacifist Stop the War movement, so long as it does not adopt a pro-sanctions position, and continue to fight for it to adopt the position of Troops Out.

At every possible opportunity we would raise calls for action to get the troops out, and demand the right to put our position for-

a 4

Popular front on the march: left to right; Ken Cameron, Tony Benn, Marjorie Thompson (CND), Plaid

Cymru and the Greens—every one supports the sanctions

ward at all rallies, demonstrations and meetings against the war. But at present the fight in the labour movement has only just begun.

The accommodating lefts around the SWP, Socialist Outlook, Socialist Organiser and Socialist Action are content to be the anti-imperialist left wing of the peace movement, if Kent and Livingstone will let them in. But if their past and present practice is anything to go by they will bea very loyal opposition. Soloyal that they will hide their slogans, set up platforms of pro-UN speakers, refuse to call for decisive workers action against the troops—anything rather than split the pacifist “broad front”.

Their adaptation to the pacifist forces will not result in a bigger movement within which they can then win the anti-imperialist argument. It will lead to a weaken-. ing of the forces of anti-imperialism arguing clearly within the working class for troops out. And when the shooting war starts, the peace movement will fly apart, leaving the anti-imperialists standing alone in working for the defeat of Thatcher and her imperialist allies.

Thatis why we have tobuildan anti-imperialist working class orientated movement against the Gulf War drive now—not give up before we've even started.

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of the same organisation, the United Secretariat of the Fourth international (USFI). Their supporters would all claim to solidarise with the positions of this Intemational. |

In mid-September a prominent supporter of Socialist Action, Carol Turner, led a successful witch-hunt within the pacifist Committee Against War in the Gulf to get a representative of the anti-imperialist Campaign Against War in the Gulf (CAWG) unceremoniously thrown out of a meeting.

Astonishingly, the persecuted CAWG includes amongst its lead ing sponsors none other than Socialist Outlook. .

The witch-hunting of one British set of supporters of the USFI by the other is just one more example of the USFl’s abandonment of the struggle to build a democratic centralist International. An International united by a common programme and organised on a democratic centralist basis would debate and decide upon the necessary course of action on how to build an anti-imperialist movement. Then supporters in each country would act in a unified way to take the democratically agreed posi-

- tion into the working class. So

what has the USFI done? Look in the pages of Socialist Outlook and Socialist Action and

Socialist disunity

you will find virtually identical statements on the Gulf crisis. There is one disagreement on whether revoljutionaries should continue to call for lraqi troops out of Kuwait in the face of the massive build up of inperialist troops in the area. Otherwise the two joumals closely follow the position laid down by the Paris-based international. leadership of the USFI on 6 September. This statement is principled, calt ing for working class opposition to the imperialist war drive, and clearly states the USFI’s willingness to side with Iraq against imperialism in the event of war.

Does it follow from this that the USFI acts in a revolutionary way? No. Socialist Action are actively working to exclude the left from the pacifist Committee. They are refusing to argue for troops out, claiming it would be divisive. That is, it would divide them from the pro-sanctions, pro-UN sections of the Labour “left” such as Livingstone with whom they are desper ate to maintain a cosy pact. The question of how to actually oppose the imperialists’ war drive is conveniently forgotten,

Apart from the Communist Party, Socialist Action supporters are the only section of the left to be al

BY COLIN LLOYD

lowed access to the privileged inner circle which runs the pacifist committee. They have forcefully argued against raising the demand for imperialist troops out of the Gulf, and have prevented others from putting this forward.

On the 15 September demonstration one leading Socialist Action supporter is reported to have ordered a Middie Eastern comrade with a Troops Out placard to move from near the front of the march and jointhe SWP contingent. When he refused the police were asked to move him. When the state re-

fused to oblige the Socialist Ac-

tion “comrade’ forcibly took the placard from the man, according to a witness of the event. Supporters of Socialist Outlook have not taken their opportunism to such extremes and have remained within the anti-imperialist CAWG committee, although arguing for unity with the pacifists on the basis of “Stop the War”. They

have though, in contrast to their

brothers and sisters in Socialist Action, continued to argue the need for anti-imperialist contingents on joint demonstrations. This

has led to public slanging matches —

at weekly meetings of CAWG by two sets of people cup bound together by their commo support for the USFI!

This series of sordid escapades is a classic example of centrism. In the pages of their journals both Socialist Outlook and Socialist Action have a formally revolutionary position on the Gulf. But this posi tion is not intended to guide them to consistent revolutionary action in their practical opposition to the war. Their actions on the ground merely demonstrate varying shades of adaptation to Labour lefts and pacifists. =

Socialist Action’s recent promotion to the job of witch-hunter general on behalf of the pacifists reveals just how low centrism can sink—adopting Stalinist methods to silence opponents of their popular front friends. It should also serve as a warning to those who believe the occasionally correct statements of the USFI make it a revolutionary or even reformable international. The USFI’'s “theses” bear little relationship to its supporters’ practice. Their public squabbles and tailing after the

pacifists and left reformists reveal

the real character of this Intemational—bankrupt!

Workers Power 135 OCTOBER 1990 15

WHERE

Demonstrate Conference STAND BLAC KPOOL Conference against War in the Gulf

Thursday 4 October 12 noon Sunday 4 Movember WORKERS POWER is a revolutionary

Labour Movement conference organised by Campaign peathlineins eben eceliget epy a Lobby of Labour Party Conference Against War in the Gulf, sponsored by Workers Power Mays, Ergets, Lenin and Leelee imperialist troops out of the Gulf! Send delegates from all trade unions, Labour Parties, of the Third (Communist) International | Break bi-partisan support for. war and sanctions! student unions, local anti-war committees. Pass this big Net nn Rie daa resolution: Capitalism is an anarchic and crisisridden economic system based on This believes there is a need for a united campaign against PCa hoe cas ee i LO Re DO Ny imperialist intervention in the Gulf. the abolition of capitalism. We are for its | nt b ialist production Wednesday 10 October 6pm 3 This ___ resolves to sponsor the Conference Against War in the ‘ pinned to aon tarnan nape. : Gulf on Sunday 4 November, to send delegates and the following Only the socialist revolution and the Torchlit demonstration called by Hands off the mantion: smashing ofthe capitalist state can eve iis ; Middle East Committee This conference resolves to founda united anti-imperialist campaign class, led by a revolutionary vanguard : : against the imperialist intervention in the Gulf based on the party es =e an : wy shee Assemble Marble Arch (by the Arch itself) tollowing slogans: counts ariel Woe ee | Stop the war! the dictatorship of the proletariat. There is no peaceful, parliamentary ie] US-British troops out of the Gulf! socialism. The Labour Party is not ialist LON DON No sanctions—break the blockade! : ss - x! ai adi fe = : nek ee Saturd ay 24 November This conference resolves to elect a steering committee from the bourgeois in its politics and its practice, -

. but based on the working class via the delegates present to run the national campaign. trade unions and cates by the mass

Stop the War Demonstration of workers at the polls. We are for the

a an « 5 = a end - Called by Stop the War Committee Debate and discussion the Cano Party and the LPYS, in ode f 3% ——- . . to wi rkers within those Build an anti-im perialist contingent calling for: Saturday 13 October organisations away ee and s,s ‘o the revolutionary party. US-British troops out of the Gulf 52 Featherstone St London ihe thisrumned Communist Portied are No sanctions—no blockade Women only forum on the Gulf Crisis ae Fe pe Lape pogig like Organised by Women for Socialism - bureaucracy that rules in the USSR. Their strategy of agit acng vee : oe : bourgeoisie (popular fro Inthe event of military action demonstrate from Spm Workers Power Public Meetings terible defeats on the working class nwards: «te | f saiuet imperialist Teepe Gus oF se Guilt! | workers’ eistea, atalniat burcerkrecies [ON DO \S London: Thursday 18 October 7.30 sp eee Recipes * as Céa London School of Economics : not hold political power. To open the

US Embassy Grosvenor Square

Contact your local anti-war committee for details of James Connolly—a Marxist analysis venues outside London Cardiff: Wednesday October 24 Hotel Diplomat 7.30

road to socialism, a political revolution to smash bureaucratic tyranny is needed. Nevertheless we unconditionally defend these states against the attacks of imperialism and against internal capitalist restoration in order to defend the post-capitalist property relations.

In the trade unions we fight for a rank and file movement to oust the reformist bureaucrats, to democratise the unions and win them to a revolutionary action programme based on a system of transitional demands which serve as a bridge between today’s struggles and the socialist revolution. Central to this is the fight for workers’ control of

-PERMANENT REVOLUTION 90 oe

A WEEKEND OF DISCUSSION AND DEBATE ORGANISED BY WORKERS POWER We are for the building of fighting

organisations of the working class— factory committees, industrial unions and councils of action,

We fight against the oppression that capitalist society inflicts on people because of their race, age, sex, or sexual orientation. We are for the liberation of women and for the building of a working class women's movement, not an “all class" autonomous movement. We are for the liberation of all of the oppressed. We fight racism and fascism. We oppose all immigration

1 1-1 S N OV F Vi i - ty controls. We are for no platform for

fascists and for driving them out of the

"KINGSWAY PRINCETON COLLEGE, | | "2° coon tne sovesies o

oppressed die Sebati or ante Ate : SIDMOUTH STREET, | | ism 'teiertoucen'agtre drive British troops out of Ireland. We

(NEAR KINGS CROSS) LONDON politically oppose the nationalists

(bourgeois and petit bourgeois) who lead the struggies of the oppressed nations. To their strategyqve counterpose the strategy of permanent revolution, that is the leadership of the anti-imperialist struggle by the working class with a programme of socialist revolution and internationalism.

In conflicts between imperialist countries and semi-colonial countries, we are for the defeat of <our own” army and the victory of the country oppressed and exploited by imperialism. We are for the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of British troops from Ireland. We fight imperialist war not with pacifist pleas but with militant class struggle methods including the forcible disarmament of “our own” bosses.

Workers Power is the British Section _ of the League for a Revolutionary Communist International. The last

revolutionary Intemational (Fourth) collapsed in the years 1948-51.

US ree shows his true colours IMPERIALISM AND THE NEW WORLD ORDER The LRCI Is pledged to fight the

centrism of the degenerate fragments of the Fourth International and to refound a Leninist Trotskyist International and build a new world party of socialist

Courses include: The Middle East Today @ Counter-revolution in Eastern Europe? @ The Politics of Workers Power @ feelaboreted vanstional programme : Trotsky’s Legacy @ The British Labour Movement Today @ Tickets: Weekend £10 (£4 conc.), Day £6 (£3) @ Send of the working cines— fighting for"

cheques (payable to Workers Power) to: Workers Power, BCM 7750, London WC1N 3XX @ Creche will be available severeticiges inl lime fighter

against capitalism; if you are an internationalist—join us!

WHAT’S IN a word? A lot if that word happens

to be recession. The world’s capitalist over-

lords are terrified of uttering this word. At every opportunity they have done their best to talk down any suggestion that their world economic system is teetering on the edge ofa

major recession.

Yet the facts speak for themselves. The north east of the USA is stuck firmly in arecession. The car industry in particular is slashing production and laying off workers by their thousands. The construction sector across the whole of the USA has hit had its worst year since 1982.

_ In the last three months the output of goods and services in the USA has been scraping along at an annual rate of 1.2%. Unemployment

is at its highest for two years

at 5.5%.

Britain is in even worse shape. Last month Chancellor Major told the world’s leading bankers that things

_ were bad and likely to get

worse. And most Tories, despite their perfumed phrases

in public, privately admit .

that the next six months will witness further decline. Britain’s economy isin recession.

The engineering bosses have announced job cuts totalling 80,000. More factory closures will follow those like the Laura Ashley plants in Wales. And the CBI has issued its gloomiest predictions for industry since the early 1980s.

The service sector, which has seen its biggest expansion ever inrecent years, will be particularly badly hit by redundancies. ,

Who is to blame for these economic woes?

It would be very convenient to make Saddam Hussein the scapegoat. He

can easily be portrayed as

the cause of the oil price rises and their knock on effect

WORKERS PAID a heavy price during the last recession. In Britain’s manufacturing industries hundreds of thousands of jobs were lost as factory after factory closed. |

Thatcher declared that there was ne alternative and that. her monetarist medi cine. would eventually re- ‘sult in a bright and prosper ous future.

As inflation rises, as industry’s orders dry up, as the factories again switch to short time working or prepare for closure, as the dole queues once again begin to swell, her lies about capitalism's fairness stand exposed. Capitalism is a system of crisis. And crisis means misery, insecurity and poverty for the working class.

As the bosses decide that

British section of the League for a Revolutionary Communist International

| WORLD RECESSION LOOMS AY?

throughout industry.

The bosses’ pressis already adding capitalism’seconomic difficulties to his list of crimes. This is, quite simply, a lie. Even the Financial Times admitted:

it is no longer profitable for them to take on workers or keep up their existing workforces we will hear familiar arguments and lame old excuses about the crisis: blame the Arabs for the en-

ergy price rises; blame work-

ers’ wages for high inflation; blame unemployment on wage rises “pricing workers out of their jobs”; accept voluntary

redundancies or even wage

cuts to keep factories open. All of this is rubbish. As the recession deepens workers must reject the lies of the bosses. Their proposals to deal with the crisis will try to divide and weaken our ranks, pitting skilled against un skilled, black against white, male against female, employed against unemployed. By these means they will hope to get away with their plant closures, redundancies

The future looks none too good for these oil traders

“From an economic point of view... the euphoria that greeted the new decade was beginning to look tarnished . .. well before the Iraqi President launched his tanks against Kuwait.” (24.9.9)

and wage cuts. We must not

Jet this happen. We must not

pay for their crisis. We must close ranks and fight for a workers’ answer to the crisis.

For eight years the bosses have amassed vast. profits thanks to ourlabour. We won't be cast off like used clothes now that their system is in

crisis. Militant direct action—

strikes and occupations— must be the starting point for our resistance.

_ But on its own, as the defeats of the 1980s showed, this is not enough. We need a political altemative, fought for inthe daily struggle, that chal lenges capitalism itself. .

In the face of closures and redundancies we must fight

for nationalisation under work-.

ers’ control and with no com pensation to the bosses, for work or full pay and for the hours of the working week to

- §0?

abe

The breakdown in the eight year long cyclical upturn of the world economy began before the summer. Everywhere, with the exception of West Germany, company profits had been falling and

be controlled by the workers themselves. The bosses’, not the workers, must pay the price for the irrationality of their system, © their market, their production for profit instead of human need.

In the face of rising inflation we must not sacrifice our wages in the hope of keeping our jobs. Recession combined with high inflation—stagflation —demands that we protect wages, not company profits. As well as establishing a strictly guaranteed minimum wage, based on the current average industrial wage, we need a 1% rise for every 1% rise in inflation, with the inflation rate determined by workers’ price watch committees not by the figure rigging govemment.@

INSIDE EA ‘@ USSR—500 days to

@ Poll Tax struggle in the courts

@ Greek general strikes

investment plans had been drastically pruned.

The recovery that followed the 1979-82 recession was sustained through the vast spending of Reagan’s USA, funded by Germany and Japan

Today both of these countries are far less able toactas Uncle Sam’s bankers. Japa- ° nese companies have found money for invest and banks have their own problems with rising intrest rates and fall-

ing shares.

Germany—once keen to lend the USA money—has been forced to borrow money itself to pay the huge cost ($54 billion this year alone) of annexing East Germany.

All of this means that the international co-operation which regulated the world economy, and was essential to prolonging the years of recovery, is breaking up. All that isin question isjust how deep the world recession will be.

Pe a ee ae