Socialist Action No. 113, 13 September 1985
The scan: 113-sep-13-1985-SA-UK.pdf (PDF, Marxists Internet Archive)
Uncorrected machine reading of the whole issue. This text was read by machine (Apple Vision OCR) from the scan and has not been corrected or cut into articles. Each page gives the headlines first, then the columns in order, so one article runs on into the next. Expect misread words. Use it to find things; quote from the scan.
Page 1 scan of this page
ACTION Labour must defendI black youth BURNED TO
THE SPECTRE of inner-city revolts returned to Britain's streets this week. Four years after rioting' swept areas like Brixton and Toxteth, the youth of Handsworth, Birmingham, let the world know that Thatcher's Britain still offered them no future.
In a night of revolts in the Lozells Road area of the city they fought street battles with the police, erected barricades, sacked shops and banks, and nurned •ComicCid premises The catalyst for this, ad. the
cording 'official sources', was 'minor'. row between a policeman
ticket issued for illegal parking and no displayed tax disc.
But every other party
police brutality.
CILCS Eyewitnesses state that
when black criticised police handling
SuIC was knocked to the ground and kicked by one of the police involved.
This was just one provocation too many. Within two hours hundreds of youth 0.2101 gathered at the scene. disused bingo hall was set on fire.
Firefighters trying to extinguish the blaze were mel with Stores and police reinforcements were
Forced down Lozells Road, youth turned their anger on the commercial buildings lining it and overturned cars to restrict police pursuit.
By the morning the area was reminiscent Belfast. Thick smoke col-
gulled buildings, glass and bricks covered the and there millions of pounds worth of damage.
the aftermath of and these CYCHILS politicians alike have rushed to offer explanations Tor what occurree and to reassure property-owners
CHICCUNC DIOLCCHIOR. Afro-Caribbean youth are
being targetted arcady with references to drug
*barbarous criminality, and claims of pusners
animosity between them and the Asian community.
Keterences to the "volatile racial mix' of the area begin to suggest that intger-racial conflict is inevitable. In reality all sections of the community
thatg Afro-Caribbean, Asian, and
were involved in many incidents. Far from
divided, they are Denne united by mounting unemployment and growing deprivation in SUIC city's inner area.
An eyewitness report from Mick Archer
Lozells Road divides the Birmingham wards of Handsworth and Aston, which in January of this year had 30.4 percent and
40.3 per cent unemploy-
respectively.
Amongst youth, the figures are far worse, with many nack youngsters never having had a job.
That, HOOTE ally 'minor' incident, lies at the root of these events.
But this indefinite
gravated by the deepening
poverty of many of these
areas. According to the city council itself 49 per cent
of its *core areas,
populated by 270,000 peo-
ple, is in the most deprived
two and a half percent oi
England and Wales.
It is these problems that 3LaDOU
have to provide answers
the
first response local Labour MP Jeff Rooker rocked many black voters.
He went on breakfast
TV to describe the events.
SOCiAliSt
of Monday as 'a barbarous act of criminality, and to aclena une neavy poncing of the area and ask for more of it This type of response is a disgrace to the labour movement.
Black people require not more racist policing,
movement which attacks institutional
the ponce harassment of black youth. But in a direci
PAGE SEVEN
sense, Rooker's a response is also against the most immediate interests of the defence of THe aboul movement as a whole
The enormous scale of the deployment of riot police and techniques munities Brixton and Handsworth during year of the miners strike showed one thing clearly: the labour movement ig-
The LONDON
DEATH C
nores the repression of black people at its own peril.
Instead of joining in the hysteria of the press and the Tories, the labour movement must come to the defence of the youth of
against the vilification and repression they are now confronted with. Only when the labour movement has the courage stand
Unemployed and strikers
Inside:
TUC congress
1985-pages 2-5
South Africa-pages 6-7
STA
h BLAZES
STANDARI
Brothers beaten by rio
killed in petrol bomb atta
against such campaigns. and show that it stands the black munities against racism, will it be able not only to build an alliance with the black communities of Britain but also to defend itself.
Clare Short, Labour MP for 1C 21008H 2 Ladywood, told Socialist Action: This time police pressure seems
No. 113 13 September 1985 30p
10p
Evening News
NIGHT OF
VIOLENCE
to have been the spark, but and storetout hope the tinder is unemploy ment, racism,
tackle those issues then we will see this
again and further tragic
losso is the "barbarous
criminality' of this govern ment's policies that needs
tackled, and al labour politicians should remember that.
Page 2 scan of this page
TUC Congress 1985 ... TUC Congre
"The fight to save the NUM is your fight'
2
SociAlist
ACTiON
Duffy, Thatcher
and Owen
LAST WEEK's TUC revealed a fundamental part of the forces which are reshaping British pol which the headlines were dominated by the two extremes of the labour movement - the AUEW threatening a split of the TUC and the victory of Scarglil in the vote on the miners.
Of course these two wings totally different relation AUEW's course In reality commands large support in the TUC - perhaps one third when the final crunch comes.
Scargill's course Is supported by minority. The contre although squeezed, jority - although this contre is progressive. ly shifting towards acceptance of the anti-union laws.
But while the TUC Is most unlikely to split
the short term politics
Thatche in popula to maintai
the
the pol
пот of the anti-trade legislation Is, after all, policies and measures the AUEW and EETPU right wing carried out for yoars. This is why,
moving there is a real clash with the AUEW-EETPU. The majority TuG framework of the Tory laws by struggle but by a future Labour government. The AUEW-EEPȚU would not.
The problem for the that their course is incoherent and without
of success.
Labour government that will qualitatively
reverse Thatcher's anti-union
Kinnock has already made that clear. And,
with the strength of the Alliance, oven Kin-
nock's ability to Introduce his much mooted
'Bill of Rights'
siderable doubt.
The only logical and coherent courses be-
ing pursued are those of the AUEW-EETPU,
to accept the
laws, and the NUM's, which is to fight them
now through struggle.
the majority, it has no firm base on which it
rests
only be slowly eroded.
their very different strengths,
dominated the Blackpool headlines and why
they will continue to do so.
Ronald Reagan's much-quoted quip that
'you ain't seen
vides a key — to both the left and the much.
stronger right wing of the trade union move!
mont. The polarisations that will shake the
British trade union and labour movement are
still oaly just beginning to gather their full
Socialist Action 13 September 1985 tics. It was a congress in
were in a of The
Outside the NUM, a small ground of the TUC, still commands the ma-
and Thatcher's the
preventing
bulld-
for of British enged. They are aimed challenge from Labour on
the trade union bureaucracy
or is required. The entire
on solidariintalned In ust be intors in
JEW and the essential features union legislation. That modelled on the
fact that the general councii is to accept the Tory framework of law,
TUC would like the removed - not
general council is
There will not be
legislation.
the unions in con-
essential framework of the
While the 'centre' is
- although of courso Its support will
That is why, with the extremes in
nothing yet' for
THIS YEAR'S TUC congress was one dominated by its extremes. It was clearer than ever proof that Thatcher is increasing excluding any 'middle way' in the fight against her government's attacks on the Labour movement.
On the one hand, Gavin Laird and Eric Hammond threatened to split the trade union movement from top to bottom with their decision to break the Wembley special conference policy of non-compliance with Thatcher's anti-union laws. And Wednesday saw the capitulation of the general council in the face of such threats.
On the other hand, the NUM resolution, carried against the wishes of the TUC leadership, reflected the pressure of support for a real fight against the Tories that still exists within sections of the trade union movement.
Arthur Scargill's speech to a Labour Herald fringe meeting outlined the bankruptcy of a 'wait for a Labour government and see' approach. He spelled out in detail the way in which all the arms of the state had been used against the miners during their strike — and therefore the full implications for the unions of capitulation to the Tories laws.
The general council's surrender to the AUEW decision to ballot its members on whether to accept government money for ballots revealed the hopelessness of the TUC's so-called centre's position opening the door to further climb-downs by the general council.
The national leadership of the NUM is today the only leadership of a major union supporting determined and uncompromising resistance to the attacks from the
CAROL TURNER reports from Blackpool.
SPEAKING AT a Labour Herald fringe meeting at the
end of Tuesday's
SCARGILL explained the full extent to which Tory
anti-union laws had
mineworkers' union. He said:
PEOPLE TODAY were
talking about the decision of
congress. What was it, they
said that made delegates
their minds?
Because the predictions of
the media had been that we
woula lose wilen it cane lo
the vote at the end of the
dealer
believe that the
delegates at the congress to-
day took into account that
our people have suffered in
an unparalleled way at the
nanes one stale
They recall that there
were 60 of our members still
prison. They recognise
that nearly 700 of our peo-
ple are still sacked as a result
of the crime that they have
been fighting for the right to
retain theit job. They
science do more than give
support to policies which we
had taken up on behalf of
the entire labour and trade
union movement.
were some wau suggested that to ask for a review of cases of those still in prison would either DATES the DOUI Party and cause an electoral problem, or certainly create difficulties because we were challenging the judicial system.
People who suggest these things must be joking. Anyone who went to the Orgreave trials has seen a demonstration of corruption the like of which haven't seen British courts for half a century.
We had police officers who took the witness box who were accused of forging film produced which showed that the film you saw on BBC had been changed round to convey a different picture. And we had officer after officer coming to ad-
Unexpected support
for the miners
DECORATED IN a tasteful two-tone grey with a discreet burnt orange stripe, the Blackpool's legend 'you do not stand alone'. Put there in support of GCHQ workers, the subject of congress's first debate, the slogan had been replaced by Tuesday. As far as the general council was concerned, it certainly didn't apply to the miners.
Moving NUM comDosILe Arthur Scargill stressed the support pledged
vear's congress and the need to continue it while the attacks on the went on unabated. It wasn't just the Coal Board who were opposing the miners, said Scargill, but the whole
and its intention was to destroy the entire structure of the trade union movement.
Recalling the 1984 congress decision, and recognis ing the importance of the miners" strike, une tion called on: 'the TUC to immediately campaign and the next Labour government to legislate to provide • 'a complete review of all cases of miners jailed as a result of the dispute. • 'reinstatement of miners sacked for activities arising out of the dispute.
• 'reimbursement the National of Mineworkers and all other unions with all monies confiscated as a result of fines, sequestration and receivership, and
*the ending of all pit closures other • than hv exnaustion. saving jobs and communities and sateguarding the publicly owned coal
Arthur Scargill being arrested at Orgreave
mit that he wasn't telling the
truth.
Our lads were on trial,
charged with riot and facing
a life sentence. They were
facing court
already heard Leon Brittan
the then-Home Secretary,
TUC platform in Winter Gardens on Monday bore the
industry the basis of
Britain's niceling needs.
To those claiming that the four principles contained in
spots be reced a r
The replied: resolution not passed, then will represent liability to the whole trade union movement. because the miners will feel deserted by the TUC and its affiliates. '
Backfire
Opposing the composite on behalf of the general council, Norman achieved his most incompe-
penollance week. "There are some
that Culli Cou will want to do, there are some things they must do, began. *First to honour the miners and their families engaged that dispute, that great human effort that lasted for that long year ... drone, drone.
Tale reached the point: 'Composite 19 goes so much fur ther, too far. And I regret the unsupportable demands that have been posed to us. The key point, he stressed,
say that offences of this
kind carry up life im
prisonment. It was no joke
for members of my union to
stand in tnat court room and
have to listen to fabricated
evidence. The police lied in
that court room.
When people talk to me
News
was that dealing with reim-
lost through fines and sequestra tion.
A jeer went up when one of his 'appeals' backfired: *What about fines dividuals? he asked 'A we to say that individuals
lost their all, whatever it was. are to be
in the cold financially whilst repaid UnIOnS are to get
Unions couldn't claim 'special status without damaging Labour's chances he tried to explain. "Get off, your knees,' heckled a striking miner in the balcony
cern doesn't my job back,' came the quick reply The exchange encapsulated the debate
When the composite was won on a hand vote miners and their supporters in the galleries rushed forward. Few imagined the card vote: sim majority or 64,000, would win too.
it did
Afterwards delegates and visitors discussed result. The banking and finance union (BIFTU) had. abstained; had the teachers. But the last minute decision of ASTMS
support the composite had swung the result
Despite the decided shift to the right of congress as a whole, the debate showed that substantial support for the miners' and their leadership still exists across
about enquiries ther
should be
about what happener
polic
Orgreave, about
violence on miners whe
were fighting for their jobs
My union has been thi
subject of an attack the lik
of which has never been see
Page 3 scan of this page
's 1985 ... TUC Congress 1985 ... Stitch up at Blackpool
Neur's
the reality of the congress itself was very different.
resolutions and ammendments
There was no crisis atmosphere whatever.
being stitched up.
cil and the AUEW executive.
1985, Blackpool. trast between hanger presentation by the media and the reality of the sessions in the north west's most famous holiday resort couldn't have been starker.
While Newsnight's Vincent Hanna agonised in the
yer of the Imperial Hot
nd breakfast TV crew lurk TUC delegres dozed congress corridors,
unconcerned in their red-plush history. Britain's union
had vul funds We've
SLIIKC for six
take the
argue that vote
years and had
The not only listened to
also linked national
rules in constitution which had
That final judgement, he hadn't heard the case for and against: it was an interim judgement designed to destroy the national union's case and to undermine the strike itself.
When the union by a democratic deicision refused to describe the strike as unofficial, because was Lies rule and constitution, it was declared that the union was in contempt, and the funds of the union were questrated.
THE MEDIA presentation of the TUC congress was dominated by the 'drama' of the threat of a split with the AUEW that was being played out at Blackpool. But
During the half day of debate — with dozens of
devoted to Thatcher's anti-trade union legislation there was no serious discussion, not even a direct mention in fact, of the possibility of a break with the AUEW and EEPTU.
From the outset it was clear a deal between the general council and the electricians and engineers was
CAROL TURNER looks at the events at Blackpool and contrasts the drama reported in the media to the real situation at the congress — and at the nature of the final deal between the general coun-
seats or sipped undrinkable tea in Winter Gardens cafes.
General secretaries glimpsed in fervent huddles outside the auditorium were more likely to be discussing how to hide their sell-out oi the Wembley conference decisions than what stage the negotiations were at. The bust-up with the new Icalsls was slage-llanagco by the general council from the start to finish in Darl to cloak the clear step away They came in, the sequestrators, and they seiz. ed our bank account - all
10 pebank they sid
"Where's it bank men ere said: "I don't know.'
They (the union funds) after about Not because they were brilliant detectives, but because the international banking system volunteered information as to where our money was. pound to a penny that it I'm willing to bet we a nave been a gangsie. . in New York could have deposited anywhere and nobody would have found it. But the national union's money Iney revealca Instantly.
We applied to get our from Luxembourg, Dublin, the Isle of Man, Zurich. They (the sequestors) lost in every inWe haven't won a and we Loult case lcie haven't lost one there.
So a new tactic had to be found. We suddenly found that there was an application Heathfield, McGahey and LU sack
Scargill as trustees of the miners' union, because we'd acted irresponsibly in laking an e members' money away and investig I alival 'hev had put the money at risk.
Well, PIl tell you what we'd done. We'd put it so much at risk that we got 22 per cent interest rate in-
from the 1982 special conthe te de antonion pass
the
that this congress was tak-
ing.
The first debate of con-
gress set the scene for the
events to come. The rest of
the week proceeded accor-
ding to plan — the only hic
cup an unwanted vote of
support for the miners.
A written supplement to
the annua report brought
delegates up to date with
developments Concer
the Angreat the be ming
finance and general pur-
poses (FGP committee had
met the AUEW on 7 August
and concluded that the
engineers' actions were
'contrary to the declared
policy of congress'. The
general council subsequent-
ly adopted the FGP report
and, after a further meeting
WELD Lne AUEW
stead of nine. I ought to be on the honours list!
They took into court. Our barrister said: *Just say that you'll not move the money if they'll i1UL receiver.' Well that seemed fair to me - if we'd have
red it they'd have seiz.ed it. So we agreed, and the other side agreed.
We weni back into court tor
declare to at hed age to
declare that what the two parties had said. At the back of the
'The Orgreave trial was a demonstration of
corruption the like of which we haven't seen
for half a century'
courtroom a bloke in a wig
said: 'I'm here from the se questrators. And the judge said: 'Well I'm not
supposed to hear you but 1
He listened to this fella for aboul an nour and a half, then he said: 'I agree with you.' And he sacked McGahey, and he sacked Heathfield, and he sacked Ille The judge appointed a
Tory Party member as the seme four weeks who some later. Then they appointed
receiver called Michael Arnold, who has SHICC the NUM that time said he's
There's an ironic twist to this story, because in
August, directed them
'discontinue such activities
forthwith and undertake
not to engage therein it the
future'
While congress awaited
Gavin Laird's reply, Ron
Todd moved composite 2.
This formally reaffirmed
the Wembley conference's
total opposition to the
Tory anti-union • laws, allo
called on all affiliates not to
cooperate with, and a future
Labour Repeals the 19 and
1980 and '82
Employment Acts and the
1984 Trade Union Act.
"This composite motion
concerns the impor
tant issue we have faced in
many years,' said Todd 'At
its heart is a question of the
fundamental credibility of
British trade union
movement with the
public, with the employers,
and above all with this bitter
and hostile government...
June 1984 I was a trustee of the miners' union and I was also a trustee of the mineworkers' pension scheme. the minerworkers' pension scheme we've got a bit of money: f6 thousand million.
Everything had gone
on fine for • years • fill I
I said: "Where desments ha they we in-
said: 'Well, they're invested properiy. I said: 'I want to know where. And 1 stopped the
Along Pete Heathfield Mick McGahey, challenged
And for challenging
you what that charge
in the of sour
tomorrow.
We've. got the receiver. had no
September We've
with our printers,
'What we were saying at
Wembley, in non-
cooperation stand, , was that
we should not and would
not seek to do the Tory
government's job by putting
the legal frighteners on our
members as we pursued the
everyday process ; of collec.
tive bargaining.' It was from
this 'essential principle' that
encoronene NO EU
sacrifice our basic economic
independence
equivalent of a penny on
members' subs'
But when it came Alitaling Graham
Alistair
CPSA declared himself
favour of a 'slightly dif-
ferent emphasis'.
be foolhardy for Labour to
accoun
anti-trade union legislation,
ne sala. , some parts were
already popular with trade
union members. The issue
colleagues and friends we couldn't bring out newspapers or leaflets, we couldn't pay staff, we couldn't pay our rent or do anything.
Our union is facing a fight. We're fighting to sustain ourselves, and the labour and trade union movernent's got to understand what's at stake. Out union's been hijacked, it's been laken over Dy ine state
Don': start talking to me about what happens in Poland, or Chile, Bolivia - you've only got
look here in Britain where the union officials have been removed as trustees for carrying out the wishes their members. We were elected Dy lw per cent of our members as trustees of the
we've been kicked out by one unelected judge
We're facing desperate problems, in terms of our financial future. We'll survive somehow even if it comes to the stage where no staff wages can be paid
• and by the way me and Heathfield still aren't getting paid. But the most important thing to remember is that there's got to be a response from this moveWICHL.
The fight to save and sustain the NUM is you fight. Because to the extent that we're successfu in fighting the policies of the Board and the government, to that extent your causes are also successful.
Socialist Acti
was that ballots had to take
place in a 'more neutral' at-
mosphere.
Thus the supposed unity
around the Wembley deci-
sions, and against the ac-
tions of the AUEW, choked
at its first breath. Far from
the differences with the new
realist right being a question
of 'essential principle', they
were shown to be a matter of
tactical degree and speed of
development.
When Eric Hammond of
the electricians' union took
the rostrum to oppose the
composite, car-
ried such arguments to their
logical CONCLUSI The
Trade Union Act was 'nudg
ing' unions into changing
their practices, he declared.
The 'flexible attitude' of the
EEPTU was serving its
members better than
Wembley package The 'Wembley days' had passed with the failure to elect a
Labour government in 1983.
Why penalise the engineers
or the electricians for being the first to recognise that
After all the general council itself was going down the
same path.
Ken Cameron's speech on the right to strike spelled
out the real meaning of Tory laws. Mions railwaysist com munications
essential services precluded from striking was potential ly endless, he pointed out.
'And that's what Eric Ham
aled rad orion legist ion, repld is asking us to ac-
But if any delegate in the hall was unclear on the posi
Norman sens alt her
Norman put then right. Echoing his we can't
do without the electricians or the engineers' Monday speech, he said
not departing
from Wembley. Thai would
be giving a signal that we are packing up our policy of op position. But nor are we being daft and embarking on a colnsion course or de fiance which would result in ucoverale Isses. LISTE the TUC was not going to fight the anti-union legislation now, when it counts.
By Wednesday night the general council had cepted that the AUEW would ballot its members before taking more government money. Media pundits and general secretaries alike halled the decision as a crisis averted at the eleventh hour But the debate had shown
the go esse
essential points of principle separated the general council from the AUEW executive. It is this which is creating the rea problems IOr the trade union movement. i ne stakes that led the special
conferey to de the a polay
non-cooperation Thatcher's anti-union legislation are just as high in 1985. That has already been shown by the NGA dispute by GCHQ, and finally and conclusively by the full weight of legal attacks the NUM during the strike.
There is no possibility
lat the paper-tiger unity
is year's TUC will fright a determined Tory government into backing down,
TUC Congres!
the openly
laborationist policies of the
American-style unionism
Thatcher would have others
•emulate. The outcome of
this year's TUC will en.
courage,
courts from further attacks on the unions.
By refusing to support the miners during then
1984-85 strike, the general
its unwillingness to fight the
LONe acquiesing
presenting the AUEW's
Droposed balot as a com
promise' it is demonstrating
much CLIC
prepared to shed the fig-leaf
of the Wembley decisions
In reality the general council
at its own pace, is preparing its own path for acceptance
of the anti-union laws.
The for the proDiel trade union movement, and the general council, is that
issue cannot be one the anti-union laws. The Tories
arena to a real-life fight
The onlv wav to comba the Tory attempts to pull the teeth of the trade union movement is to stand and
fight now in the struggle that will continue to take place long before the general election.
That means fighting every as it place, fighting to win the Labour Party support that struggle, and demanding an in-coming Labour government throws out the whole parcel of Tory anti-trade union legislation. A
for fighting the
cher.
what most union
fier rhetoric amount
can hide the
anti-union The
union forward a
split with the AUEW
No has been the TUC
engineers accep
Instead union
money.
What is needed is TUC
be the council preparing own climb.
union laws.
Page 4 scan of this page
24 hour action for GCHQ
4 Bernard Reagan
An old
'WE MUST be honest about what we can and cannot do. We must promise what we can deliver. We must not promise more than we can deliver, and we must deliver what we promise.' So said Norman Willis introducing the joint economic policy statement to this year's TUC congress.
mise nothing at all, Mr Willis was onto a winning bet at last.
New Britain is a masterpiece of empty retoric.
That is DOL say, however, that the document is devoid oi content On the contrary, fitting ticle world be an
*An Old Partnership, An Old Britain', IOr ILS intention rather openly is to lay the groundwork for comes policy and the return to a Lal bour government of the WilsonCallaghan type. The entire structure is there.
The partnership document promises a national economic summit', bet-
Cill ployers and the unions: an 'integral part of our policy for extending industrial democracy and planning' in the task of getting 'our
people back to work'. The
Willis TUC speech «ll-
Socialist Action 13 September 1985 CONGRESS '85 had none of the atmosphere of Brighton 1984. Last year's congress took place in the midst of the miners' strike. from day one, with young miners and women from the support groups.
The air was electric all week. Everyone who addressed congress knew that they were being measured against the fighting determination the NUM
and file and its leadership.'
In contrast, this year there were few occasions when the conference actually Cante ave. were standing ovations for Line workers and the teachers fighting for Inel pay claim. But in the main speakers were long
economic
partnership
TUC-Labour Party
In supporting a statement that managed to pro-
For the misnamed A New Partnership, A
phasised the 'f50 billion spent abroad since 1979 -twice as much as manufacturing investment in this county the same period'. t was al shades of George Brown's 'National Plan' of 1964.
Wilson
Despite congress speeches deploring any hint incomes policy, what is clear is that the
partnership' is not one of the working class against capital, but a tripartite deal
Labour fingers will remain crossed that the old trigger
of 'increased demand' will
of GCHQ * UNIO
SER
This conference and last
The hall was packed,
on rhetoric, and there was no sense of the trade union
up to organise for struggle.
Ăs Sylvia Burton, chair of Addenbrookes Hospital strike committee the Labour Herald fringe meeting: class can't turn to the TUC
then wiere car they go?
Like numerous other strikers lobbying congress
Night R
Sient Norwood Junction NUR Tos ale celes
Neither the leadership of the TUC 1IUl the Labour Party have learned anything from the lessons of the Wilson years. Nor do they avul criale the changed situation in the 1980s.
The motive force Thatcher's attacks on the
movement is precisely because emplovers are no longer prepared maintain anything like full employment • a lact Laciliy aumitted in the partnership
This statement shows how the Labour
ICAl government will reduce unemployment and get to grips with Britain's longterm industrial weakness. And it reaffirms our com-
full employment."
But it proposes precise-
Even previous pledges are largely abscill
As with the debate on the anti-union laws. so too the economic policies adopted by this year's con-
represent a sharp
hift rightward
NOS LIM
guards, Barking Hospital workers — they hardly got a mention. But one group of workers who did receive a warm welcome were ine Dunne's from
who have been on Dublin, strike for 11 months after their refusa] handle South African goods
Whilst it was true that the oi the borearay water miere still aged males, was much in evidence it was also clear that the inspiration of the miners' strike is very much hands on tve NUM motion The vote by show of revealed a massive majonty in support.
It was only when the
DESPITE SOME ring-
ing rhetoric, no clear strategy emerged to combat the Tory attack
on trade union rights at
GCHQ, during the first
debate of the 1985 TUC congress in Blackpool.
Rather it was a stage-
managed affair, a display
of amour propre between
the general council and the
new realist splitters acted
out between Norman
Willis and Eric Ham-
mond.
Civil servants from
Cheltenham were
Distors galey, e heir bane- pride
ners festooning the
balcony during the debate,
as one general secretary
after another took the
card vote was taken, following the demands of right wing CPSA president Kale Losinska, margin became so narrow.
least one delegation, with over half a million
By Bernard Regan, NUT delegate (personal capacity)
votes, cast their card vote against the NUM without a delegation meeting.
Inod discuseation
we did discuss
delegates, Socialist Teachers Alliance supporters and others, rostrum to pledge their
Movine recono n 20, John Sheldon of the Civil Service Union pointed out that disciplinary action against GCHO union members was imminent. am therefore calling upon the movement,' he said, "to act on its previous pledges: that if our members are dismissed they Will lake accion in their support.
Pledge
The pledge rellan. that of last year's con-
gress, to call a day of ac-
tion coordinated through
the Council of Civil Service Upions.
'Support those people,
moved backing for the motion. This was defeated because of oppositor from the Broad Alliance, i grouping that includes
of the Communist Party dees nave since the NUT does a clear policy calling on the TUC to campaign for amnesty the delegation was obliged
the advice general secretary Fred Jar vis to oppose the motion Instead there was an over whelming vote to abstain.
The miners VOLE reflects the impact of the strike amongst and the radicalisation that
going inside the union in the course of our support the resolution, demanded NUPE's Rodney Bickerstatt. 'And if
Thatcher dares to move against one of them, let's make sure that the day of action is massive industrial action the like of this government has never seen before.
But with no plan
beyond a 24
page Bickerstaffe's
speech is likely to stay only
at the level of fine words.
the exchange
between TUC general
Norman Willis
and the electricians' leader
Eric Hammond that pro-
pose of this opening
debate. Promising a ballol
to call out the power
workers for a one-day ac-
tion in support of GCHQ,
News
current pay fight
What typified the character of the congress was the fact that the whole question of the AUEW acceptance of governmen money for balloting never debated by delegates. Instead, it was the trade union bureaucrats who stitched up the dea behind the closed doors of the Imperial Hotel.
Blackpool 85 was undoubtedly a ster backwards. the vote on the NUM motion reflects the fact that there remains a fighting determination inside the working class We will have to look elsewhere than the TUC for leadership however. Hammond becan: n proud to be _responsible for this contribution, it'|] probably be my last one.' Welcoming the promise of support from the electri cians, Willis said in his
"If this battle is to be won, Eric,
need the electricians and the engineers in this EL COS The beginning of con-
gress was a set-piece show of unity. Unity of course, is necessary in the face of a threatened split trade union movement.
media dramatics aside, there should be no doubt that the terms were those AUEW and the EBPTU. ancialen
Eric Hammond called the tune and Norman Willis dutifully piped
Page 5 scan of this page
News
is 1985...
photo: JOHN CHAPMAN
THERE WAS no compromise reached at Blackpool last week.
Gavin Laird delivered a diplomatic speech in which he claimed there were no victors. But the settlement reached between the AUEW executive and the TUC general council over the acceptance of government cash for union ballots was entirely on the terms laid down by the engineering union leaders.
This is made perfectly clear in the letter sent by
AUEW general secretary to Norman Willis on 4 September - that is, the third day of congress
which formed the basis of the 'deal'. It says: 'the executive council of the AUEW are bound by the decisions tional committee.
Contrary the impression by the media, it was the union's national committee which had decided back in May LILa the AUEW should reballot on this question, not the TUC general coun-
cil. Had the TUC suspend-
OUR paper is needed.
Our paper is apprecia-
ted. Our paper is uni-
This was the ver-
dict of Socialist Action
supporters in the engin-
eering and rail 'In-
dustries who met over
last weekend.
Engineering comrades
pledged $240 there and
to the paper's
fighting fund.
workers donated £125.
Peter Heathfield, eneral secretary of the UM told our sellers at the Women against Pit Closures conference that ne took socials ¿culon becanse 'It had not opportunistically dropped the miners case like so many other left papers .
Our coverage in defencr of the NUM has been se cond to none.
Nowhere else is it possible to get the grouments and intormation on the struggle in
AUEW forces TUC climb down
There should be no doubt about this.
chen expellot and the
ballot and the current ballot for presidential election would have been about affiliation to the TUC.
By Jon Silberman, AUEW convenor, Colman Fasteners
The AUEW membership, by our massiye yoic
favour of the retention or tne Dollical fund and Labour Party affiliation,
stand on being part of the
Socialist Action
fighting fund
rail. Our informed
coverage allowed us
successful
Socialist
in Manchester, North
West
Glasgow which were well
rai workers
and other class fighters in
wake of the guards
ballot defeat.
This record is what
engineering CUIR
rades expect Socialist Ac-
tion to emulate in rela-
won to me
events now facing
because of
WUT&CIL
because the course
pursued by the engineer-
ing unions right wing
leadership. They have re-
quested a special four-
page supplement in the
paper, aimed at clarify-
the "money for
ballots' issue and the
question of state in-
tervention
unions. Thirteen papers
шеге Ін anions those
who attended na-
AUEW * •Broad
Left rally in Birmingham
last weekend.
broader movement. But TUC general council recoiled stand. Instead the AUEW TONI taking this will ballot in November.
The executive given a commitment to the TUC spelt Laird's letter to Willis, simply 'the ballot
... will contain that ALEW (EFC) as an attilate of the TUC acknowledges the authority of congress and accepts that under the direction the general council the consequential effect of a 'yes' vote will mean suspension from the TUC":
The executive 2150 committed themselves ensure the ballot 'meets the joint spirit of our discussion'.
Ther bunote until
will not known until
Most important of all has been our coverage of
South Africa and Central
America. Successful
sales have been held
places not previously
tried.
Last weekend, over
100 papers were sold in
East London markets,
over 20 in the centre of
Manchester, and good
sales in other centres
mainly to black people.
Yet weekly publica-
tion of our paper is not
secure. Particularly dur-
regular
ing me sulumer.
financial contributions
have been
disrupted. This was the
hasis for the appeal to
our engineering and rail
We ask every sup-
porter to rush donations
to the editorial
We are not crying wolf
Our weekly
threatened if we do not
get a major increase
lomations rapidly.
helps.
Please send your
tion to Socialist Action,
PO Box 50, N1 2XP.
TUC Congress 1985 ...
Engineers lead stated that they apply for further funding until it is
But given the effective one-two they have got going Hammond and the EETPU leaders, this is ment the f commitment. EETPU have
applied for government cash and the cheque is in the post.
Moreover, the TUC leadership did not challenge the AUEW the political terrain of accepting cash ballots. Instead they concentrated exclusively the question of the authority or ine general council and congress itself But if AUEW and EETPU members are to be won to
'no' vote in the coming ballots, they be convinced that accepting state funding loi the unions compromises the union's independence.
The question of the independence from the state of the AUEW, indeed of the entire trade union movement is the key one. But the TUC general coun
cil has already compromis
ed itselt on this issue of
principle. Union leader-
ship after union leadership have complied WILD Trade Union eats 1984
for in
stance by stipulating that
their members hold ballots
before taking industrial
With the notable ex
ception of the NUM, this
also goes for the left
leaderships.
But there is deep
position in the ranks to
state intervention. In the
itself a wave of
protest greeted
ecutive council circular on
the need for ballots before
industrial action, such that
Gavin Laird was forced to
make a public retraction in
the August issue of the
union's journal.
this deep-felt
sentiment that the cam-
paign for a 'no' vote must
appeal. Laird and Ham-
mond have threatened to
split the movement if they
can win their members to a
'yes' vote.
The splitters can be
defeated. The alternative
would be a wnolesale
climbdown by the TUC on
its opposition to the cash-
ballot-laws.
for ballots'
AT AN AUEW presidential eve-of-poll rally
Birmingham Broad Left candidate John Tocher came strongly for a 'no' vote in the coming ballot on acceptance of government cash. 'Once an independent union starts accepting state funding,' he declared, "it's
thin end of the wedge to state control.'
Tocher challenged his audience not to think this is impossible. 'Our history shows it is true. He who
the piper calls the Days
Voting in this, the first round of the battle fo president, goes on until 29 recenteer Tocher spelt out what he now considers to be the chief issue of the
the crossroads. people have shown that they want to take us beyond the Rubicon. mem bers al c already consorting with the scab union of Nottinghamshire miners.
hey're opposed to ai
ruggle with the gover ment or the employers.'
Tocher condemned what he described as the
'ultra right' leadership of prepared to see a spire AUEW. *They LIC
Hammond they have been blatantly
flouting TUC decisions
daring the general counci
to take them on.'
He contrasted the hard
line ets eadership
engineers' in
the face of TUC decisions
with their stance towards
the bosses. 'That's the
Socialist Action
Tocher says 'no cash
thing with these people.
They get very tough with They get very iough with trade unions. But if they meet an angry employer can't see them for dust!'
But Tocher backed the Willis-Laird agreement. I
at TUC
He said:
bistory.
instructed to run
and its position on driver only operation.
we refused, we were sent home. the trade union movement!
13 September 1985 5
TUC Congre
think the general council did the right thing. Now must for a there's another . "yes" vote, trade union movement will either have to be prepared for a split or dilute its policies to accomodate the AUEW.
Railworkers
THE TUC congress was notably silent on the issue of a rail strike and the plight of sacked guards. But during the GCHQ debate, Scorfish railworker PÅT DEVITT took the opportunity to highlight the driver only dispute.
ISTARTED with the railways in 1938, more than 27 years ago. In July of this year rail workers in this area were issued with copies of their service
my particular case this showed an almost 100 per cent clear discipline and attendance record. But within three weeks I was sacked.
Why? Because I am a Glasgow Central guard.
Like guards in other parts of Britain we were issued with an ultimatum by management: we were
experimenta driver only operated trains and told to forget about past procedures of consultation and negotiation. We wen being asked to abandon any loyalty to our unior
We were being given a large sample of a nev jack-boot industrial relations policy of BR. Wher
When we continued to stand by our union, we were sacked.
This is the industrial tyranny railworkers now face, brought about by a combination of the anti-union laws introduced by the present government, alongside the threat of the dole queues if we refuse to click our heels when management snap their fin tyrants must be met with resistance. Long live
Page 6 scan of this page
Socialist Action 13 September 1985
The road to Soweto
THE SOUTH African state is unique. It does HOL 'diserminate' against the majority of its population, it excludes three quarters of them even from formal citizenship.
Nor is the apartheid state some backward relic. It is the most advanced industrial state in Africa. South Africa refutes any view that capitalism and 'free enterprise' automatically produce democracy or even political advance. On the ... dontrary, it is because of capitalism -, that the South African historically became more reactionary at every turn. It is because it is so politically backward that South African capitalism has been so successful.
How did such uniquely reactionary and racist state come into being? In a nutshell, it was born of colonisation, slavery, and gold.
Wave
The South African whites were colonists - and to this day call themselves Europeans. The first mass wave of settlers were Dutch farmers. Then in 1794. came the English to claim me strategically located Cape colony for their Empire.
But these whites were also slavers. And a slave by definition, is not human. They work but have no rights.
When in 1834 the British finally "freed' the Boers' slaves, the state and labour relations that. emerged were already branded with extreme oppression. The 1841 Master and Servants' Act made it illegal to break a labour contract; the Kaffir Employment Act forced black people to sign contracts and carry passes
In the three Boer states black people had no vote and the Transvaal constitution bluntly stated the people want no equality of white and black inhabitants either in church or state'.
In North America those who colonised the interior of the continent, and who farmed the land with their own labour, had already won independence when they forged the final form of the United States constitution. These small farmers in alliance with the radical bourgeoisie, and workers, defeated the save -StaLes and had to proclaim freedom for all on their banner in the US civil war.
Diamonds
In South Africa the interior was instead colonised by slavers fleeing from the British. They drove the inhabitants off the land and set them to work - as wage labourers without political rights. When there was struggle for independence from Britain at the beginning of the 20th century it was waged by the most backward, cramped and reactionary sectionof South African society
the Boers This struggle for independence had white supremacy openly inscribed on its banner.
Nevertheless it was just conceivable that the unstable Boer farm could have produced a development - an alliance of poor and proletarianised whites with dispossessed Africans against landlords and imperialists. This was a type of pattern which was seen in South America. But one discovery determined a completely different course: gold.
Diamonds had already been found in 1870. In 1886 the largest gold fields in the world were discovered. The profits were stupendous, standing even today at up to a hundred per cent higher
the average industrial average. This development allowed an agreement of the British and the Boers.
A deputation of Boers visited Britain within a month of their defeat in Ine Boer war of 1899-1902. sought assurance from the government that the recent dispute between the white races would change nothing in the status of the black'
They need not have worried. The British imperialist Cecil Rhodes, who by 1900 controlled the mining industry,
had already introduced the 'Glen Grey
Act in 1894 — calling it his 'Native Bill
for South Africa. Its purpose was to merely drive blacks off their land and into his mines.
*Every black man cannot have three acres and a cow'., Rhodes declared It must be brought home to them that in future nine-tenths of them will have to spend their lives in daily labour.
short the transplanted the Boer system of labour relations from the land to the mines welcoming the system the Boers had developed with open arms.
Struggle SLalC Africans were to be confined by
force to a tiny portion of the land, denied the right to settle in the towns, and herded into the mines and factories by sjamboks and starvation.
Africans movements were rigorously controlled by Pass Laws and forced segregation. They were to become an institutionalised migrant labour force deprived of the most basic right of all: the right to form a community by living where they chose.
The profits of South Africa were imperialist. They derived from the combination of minéral monopoly and super-exploited labour were opened up by foreign capital.
But despite losing the war the Boers managed one unique feat. They maintained control of their own capital and siphoned off a portion of the superprofits of the British. They used this to create a white bloc uniting all from the richest mineowner landless Boer. With it they forged a new SLaLC. Instead of uniting with the black
people to throw out the imperialists the Serialises to suppress the blacks. Time. secured the blacks, by virtue of a common goal with the British, to a white supremacist state — a unique fusion of settler and imperialist capital, a state which was not a nation state but a purely settler state of the white people.
Black
The chosen instrument for this process was the Boer National Party formed in 1902. It was this party which 'invented' Apartheid.
Party in turn was linked to a network of institutions of Afrikaner capital such as its rided 19nk), its first investment house, (founded 1934), trust, Federale (founded 1940) and the infamous secret society, the Broederbond.
The National Party finally won its
electoral victory in 1948 and it has
governed ever since. But this simply
culminated a forty-year process during
Afrikaner capital through political alliance with British imperialism what it had lost in the war against it.
The rise of the apartheid state was inexorable In 1913
WORKERS UNION OF AFRICA system different
Act, known to Africans as the 'Law of Dispossession', confined black to 7 per cent of the land. The 1923 Urban Areas Act prevented blacks settling in the towns and introduced a uniform pass system. A succession of segregationist measures between drove black, coloured and Indian people off the voters' roll.
In Labour relations the principles of the original Masters' and Servants Act They were re-enforced again and again and British were coupled to the pass system. It was virtually illegal to strike - and black strikes were broken
mass arrests, and often mass CIS SESSO shootings The risk of any alliance bet
ween black workers and poor whites was prevented by white wage rates 8-10 times higher than those of blacks and by depriving black people of skilled
British imperialists
the poorest
WAS with the
of current events.
The National
the black trade unions.
Volksbeleggings jobs and education.
invention
achieved
Land had gone before.
before.
" COMMERCIAL C
'reform'
blood industry
the Wall Arcal state
• Segregation
with mass
homes
the Soweto rebellion of 1976 that focused world attention on the new rise of black revolt in long history South Africa. It is the starting point of most people's knowledge of South Africa and the direct background
ALAN
Soweto was the political backdrop to the rapid rise of
It showed that the long year's of 1976.
Apologists for Britain's support for the South African regime often try to claim that apartheid was some peculiar LOWIIS
abberation which will eventually disappear when "English good sense' prevails. But when communities the National Party government of 1948 began to implement apartheid formally it was only making systematic what had been developed with full British support in the entire hundred years that court.
Apartheid, however, was not mere. ly a 'logical' development of what went cibly resettled under
It was the only possible way to defend it. This is why every hope of
apartheid has so far been dashed and every mass movement for civil rights has finally been drowned in
Why? Because once mining capital began to expand, as it had to, into in-
tical effect dustry proper, then it was inevitable laborator that the urban black population would start to grow. Eight million black col - paratus which is among of the most oured and Indian people today work in
making it ever more im- world. possible to maintain the pure fiction that the "black' nation belonged in its rural homelands. It became more and more necessary to politically exclude blacks from any rights in the South
comodate the
The legislative keystone of apartheid was therefore the Group Areas act of 1950 — which created segregated esidential areas for whites, coloured Africans and Indians. By 1979 550,00 people had been evicted from their
under this act and shipped off been its victims. either to makeshift townships, driven back into permanent migrant status (by being officially resident in the Bantu
of apartheid's strengthening were coming to an end.
But South Africa had a
of struggle before that great revolt of 1976 - a history without which the present struggle cannot be understood.
FREEMAN looks at the rise of the apartheid state - and at the history of black resistance which led to the explosion
homelands but obliged to work in the towns) or by fording blacks into the twilight existence of the illegal shanty
Women were particular victims of a : system designed to prevent stable urban
emerging Under the
Natal Code black women are perpetual legal minors with no right to own or inherit property, act as guardians of their children or represent themselves
A staggering total of 6 million Africans have been uprooted and for-
this policy inevitably, because of the ever-growing threat to white rule created by black
resistance, this policy has gone hand in hand with growing repression, and
growing political exclusion.
The "theory' of apartheid provides
for 'independent' black administra
tions in the bantu areas. But the prac
is that the hated col bodies in the bantustans
simply serve as part of a repressive ap-
sophisticated and well-equipped in the white
The real intention of the entire
system is simple: it is to deprive blacks
of any right to be present, or even to
vote, in the real bodies of power in the
country: in those of the white state.
Such a state as that of South Africa
cannot be 'reformed'. . It cannot 'ac-
black people whose
whole purpose it is to subjugate. It is
not even a national state of South
Africa. It is a purely white state.
That apartheid state can only be
overthrown. And that task falls to the
black population of South Africa who,
for four hundred and thirty years, have
The struggle against
apartheid is one to smash the entire ex-
isting state structure in South Africa
and everything that sustains it.
Sout
histor
Origins of th
apartheid st
THE BLACK people of South Africa have been writing history of resistance since the first Portuguese settlers were driven out in 1948. By 1879 the Zulu forces which headed resistance to the Boers, had 50,000 troops in arms and inflicted a stunning defeat on the British army.
The modern history of black resistance in South Africa however starts with same process which created apartheid in its modern form - with the rise of the black working class.
Apartheid finally is creating its own gravedigger. The racist South African state is founded on an army of black labour which grows in proportion to
South African capitalism's development. Not surprisingly, therefore, the history of resistance to apartheid, and of resistance to South African capitalism, have been intertwined at every step.
Successive leaderships have ex plored 'peaceful' reform only to find this road barred by the South African state. Eighty years of bitter struggle have progressively shown black people that they cannot just defy the apartheid state. They must overthrow it. The successive waves of struggle have shifted the movement progressively leftwards In is orientation.
The very first modern movement of revolt Ghandi's 1906 campaign goainst nesses for ndians - Hustrated this dynamic clearly. Ghandi, the
Page 7 scan of this page
h Africa's
te tounder -of resistance, openly opposed the strike movement which it produced. But his movement was already merging into a much wider one against the proposed 'whites only' government of the new Union of South Africa in 1909.
1909 in turn saw the first countrywide movement of Africans and in 1912 the African Native National Congress
- renamed the African National Congress (ANC) in 1923 - heard Pixley Seme, a young black lawyer, that: "The white people of this country have formed what is known as the Union of South Africa - a union in which we have no voice in the making of laws and no part in their administraTOn. We have called you therefore to this conference so that we can together devise ways and means of forming our creating national unity and defending our rights and privileges.'
World War I however exposed the weaknesses of the ANC's largely middie class founding leadership. Believing a British victory could bring reform, the ANC leadership attempted to damp down struggle and even recruited black people to fight for British colonial ambitions against Germans Namibia.
This stand aborted the mass movement which in 1913 had developed into the first anti-pass campaign organised by African women in the the Orange Free State, and the first sustained strike
of struggle
by blacks in the South African mines.
The mass struggle resumed after the war with a wave of union battles. In 1920 71,000 black miners struck. Chamber of Mines had to admit the struggle had practically paralysed the country'. Eleven miners were shot, but the power of black working people was now plain for all to see.
Out of the post World War I strike wave the Industrial and Commercial Union (ICU) was formed Clements Kadalie. Kadalie had led the 1919 Port Elizabeth dock strike. 1923 10,000 of the members wee womer
The 'constitutionality" however broke the ICU's back. Kadalie reacted to increasing repression by rejecting strikes as 'unconstitutional'. In 1926 he contrived to explain have the Communist Party of South Africa (CPSA) expelled
spontaneous 1927-28 pushed the ICU membership: up to 200,000 but the leadership renounced the strikes. The ICU broke up soon afterwards.
The 'constitutionality" of directly surfaced again in the political movement. The All Africa Convention (AAC) of 1935 brought African, Coloured and Indian peoples for the first time to oppose a segregation bill introduced by Prime Minister Hertzog. This bill effectively removed all non-Europeans from the voting rolls tion Councils' (NRCs) instead.
The AAC leadership however threw in itself into the NRC elections - claiming that they had to use whatever consitutional mechanisms were around to push the AAC's case.
In reality the NRCs were not merely powerless but instruments: of developing apartheid state. From this
and indeed
the resistance.
bluntly prohibited
one strike alone sixteen were shot dead.
were over 60
Non-European
and commerce Two
formed under strong fluence. The South African Trotskyists dissolved into it, and the Unity Move-
it made a propaganda fetish of the boycott tactic for mass mobilisations and actions. Simultaneously radical wing, the ANC Youth League, developed under leaders Mandela, Tambo and Sisulu.
unambiguously belonged to the indigenous people by right. Its adopted by the ANC as a whole in 1949, called for weapons: immediate boycott, strike, civil disobedience, non co-operation and such other means as may being about the accomplishment and realisation of our aspirations.'
Nationalism
The
its
Communist Party itself.
utilised the slogan 'workers of the
The largely
decisive turn to black workers onl
International.
Stalinism launched in the late 1920s
leaders and cut it off from the nationalists. This reduced the CPSA to a rump and created the space for an in-
The fluential Trotskyist movement.
followed every twist of Stalin's line and subordinated everything to support for
the ANC, the CPSA supported the old ANC leaders in for the NRC again under
boycott ticket.
By
the 1940s and 1950s black radicals were ICU's 30,000
not keen on the CPSA - and why the ANC Youth League initially developed
issue independently of it.
trom
strike wave in?
issue soon
together
'Native Representa-
the. 1914 ANC delegation
point on the issue of boycotting' these,
white institutions became a fundamental line of divide in troduce
In 1941, under the impact of wartime inflation, municipal, rail, dock, walked out in the Rand and Natal. This was under conditions where legislation
'all strikes by Africans under all circumstances.' In Sion
But despite this repression there In 1952 the
illegal strikes between 1942 and 1944. In 1942 the Council of
Trade Unions was ANC's formed. This at one point had 119 af- 7000 to 100,000 filiated unions and by 1945 represented 40 per cent of Africans in manufacture
political developments companied this process. In 1943 the specific measures Non-European Unity movement was
Trotskyist in- Bantu Authorities
ment adopted a ten-point programme of democratic demands. Unfortunately
being able to function. the ANC Principles the future ANC
The ANC Youth League stated
Programme of Action,
the following founding principles. and active jected this
it, black and white', ANC Youth League was distinguished not just by its militancy tion of our people.
African nationalism specifically did not consider itself Communist. That position, in turn, has to £l per be put in the context of the role of white working class organisations and of the
of South Africa
In 1922 striking white miners had
president. world fight and unite for a white South
White CPSA of the Africans, dapted to white pressure. It made under the pressure of the Communist
The ultra-left third period line of regarded as African.'
Opposing then purged the CPSA of successive
oppressed,
During World War II the CPSA
wards
the Allies' war effort. In 1947, back in
standing candidates — allegedly on a as against the ANC.
It is not suprising therefore that in
mass
When, in 1948, the National Party was elected to office and began to in-
apartheid ANC Youth League shot to leadership of the struggle. On 1 May 1950 a one day stoppage of work was met by savage repression Eighteen people were murdered by the authorities and a general strike was called for 16 June in mourning and protest. This in turn was greeted by the Suppres-
of Communism Act and man ANC leaders were driven underground
Defence Campaign was launched which turned the ANC into the broadest mass resistance body.
membership rose from at a time when black union membership talling to 38,000.
The Defiance Campaign, organised jointly with Coloured and Indian mass organisations, was to protest against six
including the Pass Laws, the Group Areas Act, and the
system. It was however led on Ghandian lines with 5000 selected 'defiers', and could not defeat the all out repression launched against the moment. By 1953 ANC membership had fallen to 28,000 with its key leaders jailed or prevented from
The ANC response under CP prompting, was to convene the 'Congress of the People' in 1956. This adopted the Freedom Charter (published in Socialist Action No. 111) which is now considereu vy me sive as part DE 1S
A militant wing of the ANC re-
development. Robert up. Sobukwe, who emerged as spokesper-
son of the opposition denounced the
hrase in the Freedom Charter readins 'South Africa belongs to all who live in
Sobukwe proclaimed that 'African Nationalism is the sole ideological basis for the salva-
Against a background of militant bus boycotts, a popular campaign for a
minimum wage, and generalised uprisings in the townships, the polarisation within the ANC grew. Faced with exclusion the dissidents in 1959 launched the Pan African Congress (PAC) with Robert Sobukwe as
'We aim, politically, at government
for the Africans', Sobukwe stated, 'with everybody who owes his loyalty only to Africa and who is prepared to accept the democratic rule of an African majority being
all collaboration with either the government or with white parties, the PAC declared 'there can be no cooperation between oppressor and
dominating
Although PAC influence after-
drastically declined measure orts support or me ume can be seen from the fact that the government 'survey' in 1963 found that 57 pei cent of all Africans supported the PAC
In December 1959 the PAC called for civil disobedience against the pass laws, and the ANC then called for a
day of action against the same laws in March. This was the political background to the date that is engraved
Socialist Action 13 September 1985
time: 21 March 1960 — Sharpville.
On that day police opened fire on unarmed demonstrators, killing 67 and injuring more than 180. Nearly all were shot in the back.
The pass laws were temporarily suspended but the mass mobilisation: went on. The-Justice Minister told parliament Their aim is to bring to its knees any white government in South Africa which stands for white supremacy ... they do not want peace and order; what they want is not £1 a day for all the Bantu; what they want is our country.'
Repression, then as now, was the only answer for the regime. Neither the PAC nor the ANC were prepared for the scale on which it was launched. On 8 April a wave of government terror was launched. Both the ANC and PAC were outlawed, 18,000 were arrested -including 1,700 activists.
This was the decisive turning point in South Africa because it marked the end of all projects for gradual reform or legal action. Both ANC and PAC responded by setting up armed wings.
The problem however was that this armed resistance became for a whole period counterposed to systematic mass acuon, bou orgamsawons at tne mme isolated themselves from the next wave of mass actions in the 1970s.
The next decisive developments in the black population were those produced by the capitalist nature of apartheid itself. The black urban working class grew inexorably despite all attempts to segregate it, deport it, deprive it of rights of settlement, and break it
Dorawing semi-legal townships shot up on the fringes of the industrial centres.
The movement which finally gave expression to the burning frustration of the youth of these townships is symbolised for the world in the person of Steve Biko.
Biko
Biko had led an all-black split from the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS) in 1968, forming the South African Students' Organisa tion (SASO) in 1969. SASO became the nucleus of the Black Consciousness movement: the proclamation thai Africans, Indians and 'coloured' consituated a single black nation in South Africa. As well as hearkening back to the Africanism of the ANC Youth League and the PAC, the black consciousness movement was strongly influenced by black American radicals and revo utionaries such as Malcolm y The movement was propelled by the defeat of the Portuguese colonialists on South Africa's northern borders.
It was under this movement's influence that, on May 17, 1976, school students in Soweto organised a boycott of Orlando West Junior Secondary school in protest against the new policy of making Afrikaans the main teaching language in the Transvaal.
The name 'Soweto' joined that of Sharpville in the world's memory as a symbol of anti-Apartheid struggle: but with a difference. For if Sharpville was the symbol of white repression, Soweto was the symbol of black revolt.
Since then the struggle in its different forms has never stopped.
Page 8 scan of this page
8
THE REAL character of the Socialist Party
government of nowhere more starkly revealed than in its policy in the French colony of New Caledonia.
On coming to power Mitterrand promised
the Kanak people of these islands 'peace and
independence'. Instead they have met torture, » rapidly escalating French police and military
imprisonment,
Kanak resistance to France has been mounting
rapidly and dominating the life of the country.
SUSANNA OUNEL a long-time activist in the
Kanak national liberation struggle,
what has been happening in New Caledonia and the
history of her people's struggle against the French
THE New Caledonia not
the colWhen tney arrived came
will
never kill because
from Ulllaudy only
the massacres.
In 1878, chief called
follow whạt French
the French rule in New
1917, when they fought World War
to France to
*why
defend the the French the Ger-
our killing
organised people to
in Paris. day, is in Paris. chief by the same people who
granulaticis and our
grandmothers — were too
scared revolt. The
repression was really
Up until 1946, the
Kanak people did not even
have the right to go into
the towns - • they first nad
to get permission from the
gendarmes (police).
Our people
mothers, our parents, and
were
humiliated every day.
Every day you would hear
the whites calling us 'dirty
Kanaks' - and 'Kanak',
for them, was a really pe-
jorative word.
The Kanak dress
frock introduced by the
missionaries throughout
the Pacific), for example,
is a symbol of our CUl-
onisation. The Kanak
dress was designed
distinguish the Kanak
women from the white
women. The Kanak
women did not have the
right to wear jeans OI
women's clothes.
They had to wear a Kanak
dress, that when the
tourists came they could
see these dresses and ad-
mire the "beautiful folk-
lore' of our country.
Socialist Action 13 September 1985
Mitterrand in France
and repression.
There explains
In 1953 Our parents formed the first Kanak political party, the Unior Caledonienne (UC) and they began to ask for an improvement in our living conditions.
called Naisseline
ing. Naisseline
1968 and students'
France. he arrived
work was really pejorative, fought
Then created the Red The Red
of our
of
cluding The
back again the struggle get strong.
wing began They
said Caledonia
became
said
Africa, because
ports did
from but from
We are the producers
gold, iron,
COC.
cobalt, He LOCE
And we have
tourists.
that our
freedom, the
protect uS from being
hungry
our country
lot of
young
Namouda.
Kanak.
The in-
spector never tried,
but
to France. In 1980 they
He was
visited
wages that were owing.
and opened He
light
since
they Jean-Pierre
Declerca,
from He was
PON
REVOLUTIONN
this year by French colonial forces general secretary • of the
Jnion Caledononienne. After each killing ILIUIC and more people demonstrated.
The total population of New Caledonia 140,000. But the Kanak people are only 60,000 in countrie The white French, alre descended from those who came 1853 (the Caldoches) 49,500 30,500 The are
Chinese, Wallis Islanders, Tahitians, and other im-
migrants. This figure also
includes an estimated
20,000 French civil
vants and their families,
temporarily resi-
dent in New Caledonia.
INDEPENDAND KANAK:
Kanaks fight
for freedom
Eloi Machoro, Kanak leader assassinated on 12 January
We the word
began to tions.
Out of 7000
The immigrants
3000-strong FLNKS demonstration in Noumea on 11 March perialism from Algeria, all the traitors from Vanuatu,
traitors from Vietnam. We get that sort of refugee!
The ernment has said that we will through referendum,
ple who parent born in Caledonia
We made concession
tions,
tims of refuse out rights as indigenous
The French 'socialist" government of Mitterrand sent special envoy
negotiate for them
Edgard Pisani said he together, to meet lal tes bring
'communities'.
Communities? They
can call other ethnic communities
cause they are from over-
We are
seas, Dur nut us not Kanaks are the true people community,
of the land
On the question of
negotiations, we say we do
not want a plan for in-
dependence drawn up
France for us to just sign
We do not Walt neo-
colonial independence where bases hers
military bases and
control of our economy.
We want true economic,
Duntical ana cultural in-
dependence and then
negotiate our
agreements as • a 50c
nation with other
sovereign nations. Kanak
sovereignty our
right in New Caledonia. I
is not negotiable.
KArL
Kanak have
our freedom. 1853 our
fought against the bloody
, hid their onisation.
them.
today it is because the great
our grandCullaze mothers
seriod o
plantations they worked
pregnant they had birth. Since then, the of our women
clear after Sometimes
army
Wt
A LO betwen
and anywhere
They
don't then the husband
Hallk. about
because
They said
traception. 1982 we
exploited the struggle
the We
not
society to
life.
Before colonisation
our had
Kanak Since the
News
it is a 'crime'. the 14 and Kanak
they
We did not in the bush.
hypocritical
witholding
Our
colonialism of
from
necause l
do every job.
because
the
they what was happening their own
must see
In our
not only but also
along; we together
think we change Kanak brothers, both Kanak and men
fight side with
land them,
ricades
FLNKS. each
of im.
perialism.
Today in New
Caledonia is the
few white
whites other
problems
tney can that out
themselves
came to
were
women. wanted me
the Kanak
racist systei
secure.
But th
will ge
our If they
they
wanted
all of
us.
end. nothing
Page 9 scan of this page
Surplus Value
THE STRUGGLE in Africa sharply poses one of the most central questions of socialist theory: the relation between the struggle of the working class and the revolutionary fight democratic demands.
JOHN ROSS looks at the historical development of the way Marxists have posed the relation between democratic and socialist revolutions.
THE of the relation democratic revolution and socialism was posed right from the beginning of Marxism. The first revolution which Marx participated - the German revolution of 1848 — saw a comprele of revolution and the socialist movement of the working class. The development which arose from ir was termed by Marx permanent revolution.
The core of the process Marx analysed simple. The demands of the 1848 revolution in Germany were bourgeois democratic. Above all they were for the unification of the German nation into a single democratic state — thereby overcoming the fragmentation of Germany into a series of reactionary monarchic statelets dominated by the remnants of feudalism.
with these democratic of the revolution Marx, in March 1848, fundamental document the Demands
ofe Communist demin dermany.
crucial declaration was that:
Germany shall be declared a single
indivisible republic! gramme then went on to outline the demands for a universal right to vote, the arming of the people, the complete destruction of feudal relations in land. and a series oi other revolu tronary bourgeois measures.
But while the immediate tasks of the 1848 revolution were bourgeois democratic it rapidly became evident that the bourgeosie itself had no intention whatever of seriously fighting for them. By July 1848, in his The Bill Proposing the Abolition of Feudal Obligations, Marx could Germany to the great bourgeois revolnon or lue eighteentn century and write that: 'the German revolution of 1848 is merely a parody of the French revolution of 1789'
The German revolution was a 'parody, in particular,
Jerman bourgeoisie, unlike French, refused to ally peasantry to smash its decisive enemy
- the feudal landowners and monarchy. As Marx wrote: bourgeoisie of 1848 unhesitatingly betrays the peasants, natural allies. .. and without whom it cannot stand up to the aristocracy.
By refusing mobilise peasantry, who provided the potential mass base of the revolution, and the direct enemy the feudal downers, the capitalist class aborted the bourgeois revolution itself.
The reason for the refusal of the bourgeoisie Lany decisive struggle against the monarchy was clear to Marx. By 1848, the capitalist class in Germany was more scared of the working class than
reason it refused to unleash thorough going revolutionary struggle at all.
Marx summarised the situation in December 1848 in his The Bourgeoisie and the Counter-Revolution: German bourgeoisie developed sluggishly, timidly and slowly that at the moment when it menacingly confronted teudalism and absolutism. saw menacingly pitted against itself the proletariat From the first it (the bourgeoisle, was betray the people and to compromise wilt une crowned rebresent ves the old society.
The conclusion of this situation was simple. Marx had already outlined it in November 1848 in his Victory of the Counter-Revolution in Vienna: *The bourgeoisie in Germany meekly Jols le monarchy and of feudalism before securing even the first conditions of
South of
democratic
key
and
bourgeois
published a
'The whole of
This pro-
freedom and its rule
carry LEHOUST bourgeois democratic revolution.
democratic
bourgeois however had verv sions,
Engels French
February. becausede
the ble.
with the bourgeoisie
"The German rendering
are its
the
lantion meant bourgeois
through any
feudal
corned any 'While
"The
positions,
Power inclined
Germany. But
Tried though.
absolute Bismarck.
8000000H:
Democratic
socialist
revolutions
existence necessary for its own civic
In short the bourgeoisie refused and was unable to
tasks the LITt intact.
such a rerusat or lne bourgeolsie No 10 carry through the tasks of the
democratic revolution definite concluwhich formed the core of Was a Marx's theory of permanent revolution. These conclusions were spelt out by Engels in his Campaign for the had
'Ever since the
Nor
tions. itself
HOIC
the
The refusal,
which of the revolution biwality petty
from their ruling proletariat has
In the event the revolutions of Walil
1848 did not transfer political power
mo une nands or tne workig class in
precisely for that
reasons the tasks of the bourgeois
democratic revolution were not car-
Naturally history could not be halted entirely. Twenty years later, in the
January 1871, Germany was united by
But far from being
bourgeois democratic unification of
the state it was an extreme reactionary
The large landed estates, above all those of Prussian Junkers, were left
The monarchy was retained. democratic constitution established. Germany was united by the most reactionary state within it — Prussia. What was produced by 1871
grotesque caricature goals of 1848.
It was an understanding of what
occurred In Germany became a basis of Lenin's analysis of
development of the Russian
twentieth century. at the beginning of the • Lenin understood .... perfectly well that by the beginning of this century it was impossible to maintain the semi-feudal relations in land which continued to dominate Kussia
could the Tsarist autocracy, which rested on these landed rela-
survive. The establishment of capitalist relations in land in Russia had to be achieved. But this could be done in one of two ways.
The first was the type agriculture seen in the United States, and aimed for in 1848 in Germany:
establishment of a free holding peasantry and the abolition of the large landed estates. The second possibility • was the reactionary "Prussian' path which had occurred in Germany that is a development
maintained the large downers and everything tied to them.
Lenin spelt out these alternatives
The Agrarian gramme of Social Democracy in the First Russian Revolution: ' 'Capitalist development in Russia has made such strides during the last half-century that the preservation of serfdom in agriculture has become absolutely impossible, and its abolition has assum-
nation wide revolution. But the abolition of serfdom in a bourgeois country is possible in two ways
*Serfdom may be abolished by the feudal-landiord evolving into Junker-bourgeois economies the other path development have called the American path of development, in contrast to the former, the Prussian
too, involves the forcible break-up of the old system of landownership ... But this essential and inevitable break up may be carried out in the interests of the peasant masses and not of the landlord gang!
The task of the working class in Russia, in Lenin's view, was to propell
agrarian revolution in 'American' direction — that is to the revolutionary division of the great landed estates which had been aimed
at in 1848.
struggle outlined an algebraic formula - that the degree to wels revolution would grow over into a Dro
letarian revolution would be determined by the degree of preparedness of the working class. This perspective of the was outlined by Lenin in his Two Tac-
of Social Democratic Revolution in June 1905 102 for example
What Lenin left open by this formula was the relation between the democratic revolution socialist revolution. In some of his writings they are seen as close in time and part of an interconnected process. In others, the majority, they are clearly seen as significantly separated in time and in their political mechanics. Trotsky
up Marx and Engels' formula of 1848
of — that of the permanent revolution.
Irotsky but torward the ana vsis tha the tasks of the bourgeois democratic land- revolution in Russia would be carried
out not prior to but following and via the establishment of the DOWCI of the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. lan- More precisely in
democratic tasks would be solved, in Trotsky's Pro- Revolution, through:
ship of the proletariat which has risen to powel as the democratic revolution?
democratic revolution is conceivable only through the dictatorship of the proletariat which bases itself on the alliance with the peasantry and solves first of all the tasks of the democratic revolution!
significance of democratic tasks, the slowly social content of the intitial period of
the dictatorship
of could be one that was as yet bourgeois
democratic. Trotsky wrote, replying to his critic Preobrazhensky, that history had shown through revolution that: "the only road for solving the peasant
letarial he result has that pro-
letariat! The result "socia: content under the dictator ship of the proletariat (based on an alliance with the peasantry can remain during a certain period of time
an not socialist as yet.
Trotsky noted for China, for example, in his article Summary and Perspectives of the Chinese Revolu-
Socialist Action
dictatorship
political hands of Nicaragua
tatorship
revolution
fulfilled
working class.
As only
As regards the political outcome
Lenin
which the bourgeois working
Democracy in ended
and the
proletariat,
It was Trotsky who explicitly took place,
analysis lildl
political working class the
Russia the
in Permanent "The dictator violent leader of the
More generally: the victory of the
The
Precisely because of the decisive
Not the proletariat proletariat? democratic
the Russian
question lies sky
was that
13 September 1985 9
tion that: the social content of tha boureois democratic revolution wi fill the initial period of the comir.
of the Chinese pro letariat and the peasant poor
This perspective has developed ir real life and not simply in Russia -where the land question was solven after the October revolution, le atte
power had passed into itthe working class. for example politica power passed into the hands of the working class in July 1979, the dic
proicialla established, but as yet the 'social con tent' of that dictatorship remains on: of a bourgeois democratic revolution
Naturally the theory of permanen
did not mean that bourgeois democratic tasks can_be
anywhere firsi establishing the state power of the
with Germany after 1843 history will not stand still. If certain tasks cannot be fulfilled by revolttionary democratic means then the: will be fulfilled by other bourgeois -one might say Prussian - means.
But an alternative other than the political power of the working class means that these democratic tasks wil be carried out in a partial, and not a thorough going, way - a process seer from Ireland at the end of World Wa I, through the independence of India. up to the liberation of Zimbabwe Ir all of these cases, precisely because the state power of the working class was not established, the tasks of th bourgeois democratic revolution we::
carried out in a partial, 1. complete, and aborted way.
The same applies to South Africa It is extremely unlikely, and excludei in today's conditions, that aparthei could be smashed in South Africa without revolution and the establish ment of the political power of the
Nevertheless purel! theoretically — in a different interna tional context for example - it can not be entirely exluded that at leas: major aspects of apartheid could be
without the overthrow of capitalist rule. That depends on the
development of the situation, the degree of preparedness of the black South African workers, the in ternational situation and so on
Bur if the political power of th working class, the dictatorship of th
is not established, ther even the democratic tasks of the th: revolution will not be carried throug: in a thorough-going way. A thorough: going agararian reform transferin, land to the black farmers will not taki
single South African tionality will not be welded together every vestige of racism will not be ex tirpated from the state. Without th political power of the working class the dictatorship of the proletariat, be ing established not only will socialism not be achieved but even thoroughgoing democracy will not be created
The black working class of Sourt Africa must throw itself complete!! into the democratic revolution agains apartheid. It must carry it througt completely to its conclusion - to thi
overthrow ot the aparther It must seek through thes means to establish the political powe of the working class in South Africa
working class must clearly understand that to the degree that th political power of working class is no established in South Africa so also th democratic revolution will be aborted
Will the South African working class, through the struggle to over-
apartheid, succeed establishing the dictatorship of the
Or will even revolution be largely aborted? It is impossible to decide it advance. Only struggle, not specula tion, decides these issues
But in his formula for Russia Trot-
the line march of the black South Africar working class: "The dictatorship o: the proletariat which has risen 1o power as the leader of the democrati:
The establishment of the political state, power of the working class a the leader of the democratic resolu
That is the axis of the Soutt African revolution.
Page 10 scan of this page
10 Socialist Action
fight back
DEPTFORD LABOUR Party's black section is asking for an all-black short list when the party selects a candidate to replace sitting MP John Silkin. But the local black section had agreed to withdraw from the selection procedure, under pressure from part of the local left', after agent Kath Butler threatened the party that it would not be allowed to proceed with selection otherwise.
Silkin himself announced in July that be wold ITUL be standing again, after a three-year battle to remove him.
Local black members are convinced that he was driven into EITS when he realised he would face massive. opposition from the black community.
'His announcement came directly after he was closely questioned on
sections Drake ward in July,' explained Man Mohan from the black section. Mohan said the Deptford black section does let the local party off the hook
We are challenging the local party, just as East
13 September 1985
Black sections
Lewisham is challenging the NEC, he said. "Do they mean what they or are they also racialists?
withdrew from the selection but now we want
what they have to offer black people.
'Fine words are not enough. Our local government committee circularised all branches regarding nomination for the pane for the 1986 elections. said "the LCG requests branches blacks, ethnic minorities, and women". So far we have seen none. We are testing 1o see how much our wnie comrades nical what they say'.
So far only four constituencies have selected
(plus 20p p&p).
to:
2XP
black candidates without a challenge from Walworth Road. At least five more are NEC threat because their black sec10HS are involved in the selection procedure.
During the 1982 witchhunt, it was only because local parties stood up to NEC threats of disbandment that witchhunters were forced into a temporary retreat. Growing pressure from sections of the 'left to capitulate to NEC not onliy weakens local democracy but leads them to turn their fire on the party's black members.
'We'll never get the transformation to socialist party,' said national black sections vice chair Mark Wadsworth,
bones conne agents in overriding black SELLIONS rights sake of bureaucratic
and good housekeeping.
A New Socialist Action pamphlet, price 50p
Bulk order rates available on request. Write
NUM pamphletaPO Box 50, London N1
ON 8 OCTOBER 1985 the trial of Gerald Pryce and four other black youths is due to start at the Old Bailey. Gerald is the brother of Eustace Pryce, a sixteen year old Afro-Caribbean who was murdered by white racists in Newham last November. charged with attray -racists who killed his brother.
Justice for the Pryces Committee, which is fighting for the charges to be dropped, and to publicise the
been treated by the police and the British courts. ON NOVEMBER 29th 1984, 16 year old Eustace Pryce was murdered by racists on the streets of Newham.
The murder happened after racists provoked a fight, and black vouths responded.
Eustace was not even involved in the fight, but was stabbed in the back of the neck and died almost immediately.
Three plain clothes 1011Ce officers actually witnessed the incident from a bus. Their response was predictable. They did not arrest the murderer but instead Eustace's brother on the grounds that he was in a distraught state and looked as though he was about to something dangerous.
He was then denied the right to go with his dying brother to the hospital,
taken to Plaistow police station. When aunt tried to visit Gerald at the station, she allowed to see him, and he was only Fine that his later to that his brother was dead.
The police brutality continued in the weeks that followed, and Gerald was re-arrested December 18th, and charged with affray. He was con tinuously denied bail and only releast on Januat. 7th, under restrictive bail conditions.
The white murderer, on the other hand, was only arrested after considerable community pressure and was given bail almost immediately, the grounds that it would be wrong keep him prison over Christmas.
The bail conditions imposed on Gerald since
Labour must fight
racist attacks
THE FOLLOWING letter outlining steps that can be taken by local Labour parties in the fight against racist attacks is being circulated by the Labour Left Co-ordination.
Dear friends, The last few weeks have seen an upsurge of fatal TaLs attacks black
Country: The media have country. media have concentrated on the more serious arson incidents, but for each of these there are many attacks which go unreported. We
write to draw the attention
Justice for
He is for fighting back against the
Below we publish the appeal circulated by the
outragous way Gerald and his entire family have
January (which were only reduced on July 31st) meant that he could not even come into Newham to see his family, friends or pregnant girlfriend. Gerald been denied the basic human right mourn with his family while the murderer of his of local Labour Parties and trade unions to these attacks, and o demand that they take them seriously, using all political and organisational facilities available to them an effort to passing of a beyond the routine resolutio! - Important though that may Dalli and union branches should consider calling (public) meetings to for example: • show the strength of anti-racists in ine area. • compile a list of those who are willing to carry out various
the Pryces
brother walks free.
The Pryce family are not alone in their sutfering, and the catalogue of Michael Been violence
was kill in Hacknev When his friends carried him to the police statior they were treated though they were criminals by police officers whe left Michael bleeding unattended in the station. Hit later alea in nospital. In the courts, the callousness continued and Michael's mother, shocked by light sentences given to his murderer forcibly removed and thrown into a prison cell.
The message from the police and courts is clear
tasks, eg meetings with Black organisations. lobbying local . authorities, developing a public profiie, etc
• set up a telephone tree
of contacts and advertise the fact through leatlets, posters ano the local paper o be available at short
notice to provide practical and physical support to victims of racist attacks.
Harry Cohen, Labour MP
for Leyton, has taken the
initiative through the pro-
mollon Private
Member's Bill, entitled
the Harassment
News
pere is no lustice for biack people, when members of our community are murdered their families are treated as criminals.
Gerald goes on trial on October 8th, alongsid two Asian and two Afro Carribean youths, also charged with affray. Com munity pressure resulted in Gerald's condition. being partially relaxed, and only community pressure will finally bring about justice for the Pryce family.
Remember Eustace ... Defend Gerald.
For details contact: Justice for the Pryces Suppor Committee, PO Box 273 Forest Gate, London E7 Tel: 555 8151 Bill, which deserves discussion and support.
Labour Party members should prepared work alongside others in broad-based campaigns to counter these attacks. In ment played a major role
repelling attacks fascists on Jewish people Exercise in the repeat this exercise in the Comradely greetings,
Narendra Makanji, larg Labour Party Black
sections
Dary Jones. secretar
Labour Left Coordination
Page 11 scan of this page
Women's Action Committee
News
THE LABOUR WOMEN'S Action Committee as usual will be campaigning around conference resolutions and elections aimed at improving the represen.tation of socialist women in parlament and public life, in order to promote the needs of oppressed women — black, working class, lesbian, and others — everywhere.
WAC sponsored
with one exisolatio, ception, are under 'Women's Organisation' on the asen la pad Resolution and 24 underline the need remedy the powerlessness
women's donerece and the national Labour women's committee. whose demands for posinve achiol tor val ty women have been ignored year after year.
Motions 16-24 reiterate WAC's constantly tabled demands for the omen's conference to elect the women s secuon or tue national executive and be allowed table tive resolutions at party conterence, ana lor trie mikelsion of at least one woman*?* blend into a composte and
every wallallculal y
junction which would
Savage,
Hospital suspended for alleged malpractice.
of the Royal College
can bestow.
the polities of childbirth.
Three of five COllI-
plaints against her involve
breech tHruus. Gordon
Bourne, regional adviser
mortality,
was called id Wendys study
Tien. He and
other male opponents con-
cluded she carried out
caesarian sections during
childbirth "too late'
He delivers breech bir-
ths by caesarian as a mat-
ter of course. But Wendy
at Party conference
low-paid
shortlist.
Only 12 women have so lar heen selected for safe Labour seats. Calls from the '8 women' s conterence for this situation remedied L0 OC VIZCILY
By Josie Edwards, WAC Press Officer
before the next general election have been ignored by the party institutions This line is underwritten in the one resolution not on the women's section of the agenda. This is 31, which demands mediate action get women into parlamentary shortlists. Isolated in the 'party franchise' section ot the pad, this could fail to
riske nel being debated.
A Savage Suspension
LAST MONDAY the Hight Court refused an in-
have reinstated Wendy the consultant obstetrician at Mile End
Only weeks ago she was awarded the Fellowship of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists — the highest honour her profession
She faces a two-year inquiry and a ruined career because she disregards her male colleagues' views on
believes women prefer not nave surgical Veldul during childbirth, and lets them have
By Valerie Coultas
vaginal births if possible.
She only intervenes if she has to.
Doctors, with their attention focused on rising up the profession with ex-
One can but wonder aloud
the standing orders
chis odd agenda place-
odd agenda placement!
In the NEC elections, WAC CLOONE LILI four rather than the full five wornen needed for the women's section. These
Maynard MP Margaret Beckett MP.
Short MP and Diane ANDOLL Westminster city cillor and black CeLLOE
The missing name ALLIVINL. is Francis Morrell, leader of ILEA who cannot be nominated since she is not, this year, conference
lelegate
This highlights the wal the party machine works against women. Existing NEC members and MPs are eligible ex-officio, but
contenders not in parlament have delegates.
For very good reasons different party members will want the experience of attending conferences, but the condition I2CH
pensive techniques, may
find it quicker, easier and
more controllable to resort
to a surgical operation.
But maternal death is three
HIKC Y
result and no wollel.
wants to sutter the trauma
of an operation during
birth or the effects of that
operation when the child is
Wendy's suspension
has deprived Tower
Hamlets wollell
obstetrician, though the
Bengali community's
religion dictates female
COCIO for female pa-
tients, and 80 per cent of
Britain's women prefer
female attention during
maternity and childbirth.
Wendy is staunch
defender of the Nationa
NEC hopefuls must always be delegates is a
shibboleth designed to keep new faces with new ideas at bay.
Among these, of
are women committed to reform in parlia- LOUISE. mentend so illich wil
TeOrH which favour the oppressed half of the population: women.
The arguments to de fend this condition are similar to those denied Women Against Pit Closures membership of the NUM
that encourages 'undesirable elements' This is nonsense since : the nominations for the NEC by CLPs ensures that NEC contenders are thoroughly known within the party
These problems may come to a head soon. The insulting way in which the
section the NEC, through being only one elected b full
onference rather than separate interest, becomes a political football for parLy uci.
Helen Bradley's drawing of suffragette Annie Kenney ir Miss Carter Came With Us. Labour women are stil fighting for votes for women to elect their own section of the NEC
Service and op-
poses who
resources to line their
packets. SDOKe up
against proposed
£100,000 test tube baby
clinic to serve private pa-
tients the last thing
needed, she said, in a low-
income, large-family area. Sosure op sei 10 LA
closure Mile End
hospital and favoured
community based, decen-
tralised health centres.
Her clinics are to be
taken over by John Har-
tgill, senior •OSLCLTI-
Call the London
Hospital, and
thusiastic private health
For £400 he
Draculiunei
provides ante-natal care,
through his Harley Street
practice using the private
London
wHig
At '85 women's conference a resolution calling tor ine natola Labour women's committee hold shadow elections for the women's section of the
the ensuing women's conference (in 1986) was overwhelmingly carried. The women thai women want should not be constrained by artificial party rules or the fact that their faces don't fit with the party establishment.
• For those ready once more for the fight, WAC iS organising at conference
follows: Fringe Meting September,
Bournemouth 6.15-8pm, Pier Centre. Speakers will include
Review 2 OcRichardson
9-12pm, venue HoV Ve The WAC hotel for
sisters wanting advice or a chat is The Cliffside Hotel, Durley Gardens, West Cliff Rouremouth Phone Jane Slowey on 0202 27833.
VOTES TOR
WOMEN
hospital. For a year he did
hold single NHS
LUL
ante-natal clinic, and he
delivers half the number of
oer o oe o los
colleagues do.
HOL Just
medical dispute. Wendy
has touched a raw nerve in
the male-dominated
medical establishment.
She has politically
victimised. The labour
movement should join the
protest against this vicious
suspension.
Picket District Health
Authority, Thursday 12
September 4pm, London
Hospital, Whitechapel.
For more information,
Wendy Savagi
Support Campaign,
Waterloo Road, London
SEI 8XF.
Socialist Action slate for the Labour Party NEC
Labour Campaign
for Lesbian and
Gay rights
debate on lesbian and gay rights almost certain.
Fifty four CLPs and 45 MPs . and MEPs have far signed the LCLGR'S campaign statement calling for such a debate to go ahead
"This debate wIll DE seen bv our members and the lesbian and gay communities as the outcome of man thea overent to
movement Paulane issue, said
Canning the LCLGR.
Pointing out that this was a product of the campaign waged by the lesbian and gay CO IUILl! support of the miners and against the discriminator)
practises of Rugby counci had come up at the TUC for the first time with a SPARE RIB tese probation omficers and resolution submitted supported by NALGO'.
Salisbury CLP has also submitted an amendment Photo Party conference on AIDS the Health debate at
and there will be at least
nine 'out' lesbian and gay
Saturday Panel on Warnock
Speakers include:
Dr Anne McLaren (member of Warnock Inquiry Committee)
Jo Richardson MP Creche, Good disabled access
Street, London WC2B 5AX
13 September 1985 11 Diane Abbott, Westminster City councillor, is on WAC's FOURTEEN constituency Labour Parties have submitted resolutions and amendments to this year's party conference making the first ever conference
delegates attending party conference this year.
Get your CLP/MP/Trade Union branch to support
Lesbians and gay men suffer systematic discrimination TOCICu large and also within the One aspect of this discrimina is highlighted by the fact that annual party conference has never discussed the issue. Another is the fact that the party has a policy which is discrim. inatory (ie different ages of consent for heterosexuals and gay men).
This cannot go on any longer if we are to show to lesbians and gay men that the party has anything to offer them We urge support for the Labour Campaign for Lesbian and Gay Rights campaign to have the issue debated at this year's annual conference. • For more informatior phone 01-326-1471
National Abortion Campaign 10th National Conference Saturday and Sunday 26/27 October 1985 County Hall (GLC) South Bank London
(Waterloo tube)
Sunday Abortion Internationally With speakers on:
Nairobi Decade of Women Conference; Ireland; S Africa; Latin America International attacks
Details from: NAC, Wesley House, 70 Grest Quee
Page 12 scan of this page
BRITAIN NOW stands alone with West Germany in rejecting any sanctions at all against South Africa. The job of the labour movement must be to fight to break all diplomatic, military and economic links with the country until its racist regime fails.
Reagan's patheric 'sanctions' package has
Even the TOocaU-bC.
Daily Telegraph on 10 September explained: •Government, business and anti-apartheid groups were united in their view
Kancal santlbus mould have no practical impacl.
But such cosmetic measures are too much for Geoffrey Howe. The korles three take arguments. against sanc-
They say sanctions will hart black people.
Ine fact that all South African black anti-apartheid organisalions Temand sancuons.
They say they can have
'dialogue' with the regime
:¿torms'. Some dialogue!
Some reforms!
The fact is that they do noi want to kill the goose hat lays their golden eggs.
They do not want the oniy :ust solution: black majority rule.
They say sanctions will nor affect the regime.
Joubts on score hould have been removed • hy the crisis which hit the
RAIES.
Inland 6 months £8, 12 months S15 Overseas
(12 months only)
Europe £17; Air Mail £24 (Double these rates for multi-reader institutions)
Name .
Address
Please send me as special offer .
atited a arenal ee ires Po Bos0
Prizsed By Laneridge Lrd. (TL). London E2.
Break the
Aparthelo
connection
Rand on 31 July.
Business investment does South Africa towards "democracy': it is the önly reason the apartheid regime still exists. South Africa's celiciss. built gold, completely dependent on foreign inwhose profits come from blạck sweat and blood.
Gold brings 40 per cent of South Africa's earnings $7 billion, supplying cent of world per gold.
One measure alone would bring the governitS knees: haclll blanket ban on DalIN loans. According to International Business Week for 9 September South Africa has $12 billion ir short-term loans and can afford to repay only $140 million per month.
The truth is that investors are makıne a tortune out of apartheid.
Tory refusal of sanctions is particularly hypocritical. British banks supply $5.5 billion of South Africa's £12 billion in loans; nearly half South I enclose cheque/PO payable to Socialist Fction for £ . Send to: Socialist Action Subs, PO Box 50, London NI 2XP
50, London N1.
Africa's $11 billion in CHCCLCCRVCSLOICn comes from the 400 UK culDallic. operating LUCIC The UK exports $1.7
billion in goods to South Africa every year.
Collaboration with apartheid is direct. Inter-
Computers Hallolia Limited suppry one utancI of the computer technology that has helper the regime put over 2.800 black leaders in jail. Marconi's have recentiy been revealed io be supplying sanctions-busting military equipnient. hell and RP are up to their necks, not ¡ust in bypassing oil sanctions, but in developing
Mucitdi which, horrifyingly, the inıltarv is considering us
against the black popmlanon
That is why the responsibility falls squarely the shoulders of the labour movement to isolate the racist regime and, together with the massive wave of black resistance which has shown ILS DOWCI world in the last bring down the apartheid government.
The TUC and the Labour Partv must de-
to all links mana an end with South Africa. Bring down the apartheic regime!
Special free book offer!
Take out a years inland subscription and we will send you free one of these books
Over Our Dead Bodies -Women Against the Bomb
Introductory offer for new readers:
Eight issues for just £2!
Base
the fence with countries.
day was clear.
Thi= •Phoenix W'eekend' cincided with the Tory Minist y three r.ihon 'Brave
everele designed i0 faru» public atten-
the nuclear threat towards the supposed Russian threat.
Homen W eTd casily fooled and by Saturday L NEN H OLSICL were evers gale Greenham. gam or Sunday coach loads of
FOR THOSE w ho thought the Greenham Women's Peace Camp was dying last weekend's 'Replace the
action proved them mistaken. Hundreds of women turned up at the 10 different gates to cover
blankets sent from many different
The message from Greenham on its fourth birth-
Greenham is still alive, protesting about the deployment of cruise missiles in Britain.
women started to arrive.
By midday each Di the .! gates had embroideree
By Valerie Coultas
blankets and baner arrayed around them ing that viğilanı abour ithe nudlear anreae aRenasa Paula Yares. trom Yellou Gate. had been strip-searched three WPCS in Newbur! ponce
Greenham lives
station With iwo policem ching they the floor a: internalls
ned D : j W'omen ¿losure.
the cruise have been installalicIlel Greenham has waned. Yet tamen's opposition to the 4 .i." lald has continued
decline -ilic numbers at the camp and a
hard, wet summer The Defence by-lan makin urespass on ine base acıı oftence has increased women's determination 1o invade „ITne camp OUU women had been arrested before the by-law was
-
.manged in April, 1,000 " nie.
Only 75 per cent of the L'S government's planned CLAC. UCCL cone d eruise wat di. The tion by cruisewatch women's peace movement has broadened its aims by taking up the plight of Pacific women islanders protesting at nuclear waste
and Central American momen by plan ning a march againsi US aggression in tha: area
On : Ouoter a camp meting u!! diwuss plans for Desember Make "OLT •Labour altiUl Pariy ur irade union bande s tacre lor enal event.
• For more informatior ielephone London Green. ham Support Group of fice: 01-608 0244.
← Socialist Action No. 112, 6 September 1985Socialist Action No. 114, 20 September 1985 →