[* Organise the left to beat back the…]

Scan page 13

* Organise the left to beat back the Tories' attacks! No to labour movement. Organise full support for black can organise the left in the movement, it needs its own To make Socialist Organiser a real campaigning paper that attacks on union rights; defend the picket-line; no state interference in our unions! No to any wage curbs. Labour must support all struggles for better living standards and * The capitalist police are an enemy for the working class. Support all demands to weaken them as a bosses' striking force: dissolution of special squads (SPG, Special Branch, organised activist support - and money. Local supporters' groups have been established in mos increases. For a price index calculated by working class * Wage rises should at the very least keep up with price organisations, as the basis for clauses in all wage agreements *Free abortion on demand. Women's equal right to work and full equality for women. Defend and extend free state our circulation and gives the paper a firmer financial base. job, but realise that it can't possibly do enough unless you big towns to buíld a real base for the paper. (20p for unwaged). So becoming a supporter helps build six papers an issue and to contribute at least £1 a month help. become a card-carrying supporter. Supporters are asked to undertake to sell a minimum of If you like Socialist Organiser, think it's doing a good Fill in the form below and send it to: Socialist Organiser to provide automatic monthly rises in line with the true cost * Fight for improvements in the social services, and against should apply to state benefits, grants and pensions. of living for the working class. The same inflation-proofing cuts. Protection for those services against inflation by auto- supporting strike action to defend jobs and services. hour week and an end to overtime. Demand work-sharing matic inflation-proofing of expenditure. For occupations and * End unemployment. Cut hours, not jobs. Fight for a 35 without loss of pay. Organise the unemployed - campaign for a programme of useful public works to create new jobs * The black working people of South Africa should get full struggles and armed combat against the white supremacist Repeal the Prevention of Terrorism Act. Political status for regime. South African goods and services should be blacked. gay community to organise and affirm their stand publicly. support from the British labour movement for their strikes, determine their own future. Get the British troops out now! discriminate against lesbians and gay men; for the right of the * The Irish people — as a whole - should have the right to * Against attacks on gays by the state: abolish all laws which Irish Republican prisoners as a matter of urgency. * It is essential to achieve the fullest democracy in the labour movement. Automatic reselection of MPs during each parlia* Defend all jobs! Open the books of those firms that threat- ment and the election by annual conference of party leaders. 1 want more information•/I wish to become a' Socialist en closure or redundancies, along with those of their supp!- Annual election of all trade union officials, who should be Piers and bankers, to elected trade union committees. For * The chaos, waste, human suffering and misery of capitalism occupation and blacking action to halt the closures. For nationalisation without compensation under workers' urgent need to establish rational, democratic, human control now - in Britain and throughout the world - show the over the economy, to make the decisive sectors of industry • Make the bosses pay, not the working class. Millions for social property, under workers' control. The strength of the hospitals, not a penny for 'defence! Nationalise the banks and financial institutions, without compensation. End the labour movement lies in the rank and file. Our perspective must be working class action to raze the capitalist system interest burden on council housing and other public services. down to its foundations, and to put a working class socialist alternative in its place — rather than having our represent* Scrap all immigration controls. Race is not a problem: atives run the system and waiting for crumbs from the tables racism is. The labour movement must mobilise lo drive the fascists off the streets. Puree racists from positions in the 112.3 Gc/o 28 Middle Lane, London N8.

Organiser supporterG

Name Address ....Phone conditions. for the unemployed. management.

* Freeze rents and rates. defence. Build workers' defence squads.

MI5, etc.), public accountability, etc.

nursery and childcare provision. paid the average for the trade. of the bankers and the bosses. self'Kirkby Snorter', , to break necessary for unemployed down the lack of communi workers to join the T&G and cation between the activists campaign in the union for and the mass of unemployed the rights and needs of the in Kirkby. unemployed - not accepting

Scan page 14

The unemployed centres the status quo of official meet together on a delegate indifference. An unemployed cor ference on Merseyside on October 19 brought together some diverse experiences. Chris Erswell reports.

GROUPS represented at the conference were the IGWU 6/612 unemployed branch; Wirral, Kirkby, Tuebrook, and Huyton TUC unemployed centres: Halewood and Cantrill Farm unemployed groups; and the ex-Shotton ISTĆ steelworkers' group.

In addition, many community and adult education workers were present. About 100 people attended the conference in all, including local Labour MP Eric Heffer.

The conference was a follow-üp to a smaller one in Halewood about two months ago.

Bobby Owens - an unemployed ex Triumph Speke worker and chairperson of TGWU Region 6 - introduced the morning session with a brief summary of the TUC unemployed centres in Liverpool.

Kirkby UC has produced IN 'COMMUNIST' Poland, the government is again showing itself determined to crush the newly-aroused workers' movement.

Just as Thatcher and Tebbit have laid down plans to defeat the unions in Britain, Jaruzelski and his fellow bureaucrats hope through police action to tame Solidarnosc and enforce cuts in living standards on the Polish working class.

But while Thatcher and Tebbit are acting in defence of the private property and profits of the British capitalist class, in Poland capitalist ownership of industry and the banks was swept amar long ago.

The Stalinist saie bu.

Sis a sit 59 Ta = 20a SEES I DIE Fared!

BE SIDOS SE ITEMS • BE =0 = 3NE 55CT ETLITEC I system of repression modelled on that of Stalin and the Kremlin bureaucracy. The objective is to atomise the Polish working class through wholesale police terror, rigid censorship and the manipulation of state-run 'unions' -thus denying the working class the right or the facilities to organise as a class.

Thus the bureaucrats have struggled to forestall and weaken resistance to sheir political monopoly of 29, a community newspaper, the basis once a month. of the economy.

In many respects therefore this system, though based not on capitalist but on nationalised property relations, bears similarities to fascism.

Trotsky points out in the Transitional Programme that the political apparatus of Stalin's dictatorship differed from that of fascism only in its "more unbridled savagery".

It is against such conditions that the movement has emerged and gathered strength: it is to restore them that the Polish bureaucrats - goaded or by their masters in Miscon - Dos threaten 20KE Dil in Fist sister is sives sat E Priso TIT:

I7.It Following the Stalinist "model' for economic development, Poland's rülers threw the focus onto engineering and heavy industry.

Despite distortions caused by unfavourable trading relations with the USSR, bureaucratic mismanagement and - most important of all - the isolation of the, Soviet/East Europe tim the more Owens stressed that is is From the Tuebrook UC, West, the Polish economy grew rapidly between 1950 Industrial production rose by 700% - with engineering output increased by 2,600% in the same period. This expansion strengthened and enlarged the Polish working class.

But this growth was not linked to the necessary development of consumer goods industries and the agricultural system. As demand increased for these goods, supplies fell far short, and the queues began to grow.

In the early 1970s, first the Soviet bureaucracs rand then their junior coller agues in Eastern Europe beg an to seek as escape from 1 these diffacuities through gr eater Irvitemeri in the ( capitis auric market. The det azs to sell 'soci ialist rico sara lance =ars of Westem- made chno= 50207 acT inflation in the capi countries raised the, . Price of consumer imports • into Eastern Europe, whil e the recession in world and fiercer compe stition cut back the sale of S stalinist exports.

The effect on Polan dand East Europe was a d ecline in economic gr owth, imported Western • . inflation, and a growing deficit on balance of payment ts.

These problems were I reported that the group had discussed the TUC guidelines. We felt the TUC had no mandate from anyone unilaterally to impose the guidelines, and there had been no consultation whatever with the unemployed.

The TUC lays down three OF an actual decline in production in the (largely private) agricultural sector.

An attempt to escape from the economic squeeze by pushing up exports faster than production only increased the shortages. A powerful working class in Poland was demanding improvements in living standards and opposing moves to raise prices, while the bureaucracy was unable to tap the potential of the nationalised economy.

A desperate bureaucracy resorted to seeking huge loans on the capitalist money-markets - to the extent that by 1980 over two thirds of Poland's hard currency income was needed just to service its debts.

The capitalists however continue to be ready to lend to Poland - seeing loans io Eastern Europe as offering secure resuras on pay=E=: sue = priftable outunderutised = it Ea755ion.

They correctly see that the Polish leaders and the Stalinist bureaucracies as a whole are a conservative force in international politics. The Stalinists wish to preserve their own privileges against the working class at home - and see. aims:

* to put on trade union education courses, * to provide a counselling and welfare rights service, * and to make representations on behalf of the unemployed for free bus travel, etc.

VU.... continues his series on throwing but coexisting with the capitalist class internationally.

Far from fomenting or even favouring revolutionary struggles, the Stalinists brutally crush them at home and seek to divert and contain them abroad.

For bankers and industrialists therefore the Polish bureaucracy has been a viable and valuable customer. Nor has this position changed: indeed the possibility of Poland defaulting on loans is one which bankers are unanimous in wishing to avoid - since it would destabilise large areas of Western banking.

On the other hand, more loans extended now can be expected to yield further large interest payments -The TUC also lays down that management committees must be 50% local authority representatives, 50% TUC representațives, plus a token unemployed worker.

The Tuebrook group has decided there must be a Stalin - gravedigger of the revolution effectively drawing profit from the labour of the Polish working class.

In other words, the warped development of Poland's nationalised economy in conjunction with the bureaucratised economy in the Soviet Union has left the working class in want of basic consumer goods and exposed to indirect capitalist exploitation.

To resolve this situation, it is necessary to map out a programme for action to wrest the control of the economy and of the state from the hands of the bureaucrats and place it in the hands of the working class.

Next week's article will begin to look at some of the elements necessary for such a programme. majority of unemployed. on the management committee. Funds will be accepted from the government Manpower Services Commission (on which the TUC relies) on those terms or not at all.

Tuebrook supports the call for a national conference of TUC centres to adopt democratically agreed guidelines.

Talents glaring omission from the TUC guidelines is any perspective for a fightback for jobs. The Tuebrook group has produced a guide for unemployed groups to draw up schemes of useful public workers out of local inquiries into the needs of their district.

Tommy Ewing from the Kirkby centre said that some centres have been lacking in confidence in regard to. welfare rights advice. But a bold effort on welfare rights can help integrate the unemployed into the centres and develop their untapped talents.

An expert silk-screen printer has been found in this way at the Kirkby centre.

Labour councillor Gerry Fyrill reported on the youth unemployed group in Halewood, who are not interested in bus passes or free use of façilities, but want action on jobs.

They want 'the dignity of a wage packet' He stressed the need for a vigorous campaign for the unionisation of the YOP schemes, and attacked the local Labour council for their attitude - at first they refused to put up the People's Marchers.

From Shotton, a member of the ISTC unemployed group recounted their attempts to enlist the support of the NUR leader Sid Weighell for their campaign for concessionary travel on trains. Weighell had given an Evasive From Shotton, a member of the ISTC unemployed group recounted their attempts to enlist the support of the NUR leader Sid Weighell for their campaign for concessionary travel on trains. Weighell had given an evasive and off-hand reply.

The TUC, he concluded, regards the unemployed as an embarrassment, and hopes we will go away and leave them alone.

In the afternnon, John Nettleton, ex-convenor of the closed Courtaulds, Aintree, plant, introduced a disCuSsIon on education courses for the unemployed.

In the established education system, he said, he had only ever learnt about Kings and Queens. The discussion that followed stressed that what the unemployed need is education linked to the practical tasks of fighting for jobs - like the history of unemployed struggles worldwide, and practical skills like duplicating, typing, "videomaking, etc.

The conference set up a number of work groups on areas like education, jobs fightback, communications, MSC schemes and their unionisation, etc, and planned another conference, to be held in Kirkby December.

Scan page 15

"Socialist Organiser no.59 October 29, 1981 Page