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on the World Communist Conference, the electric events in Italy and the developments in the Trade Unions is Britain are all vital issues facing the International Labour Movement. In future issues we will be publisking articles from the pens of the great Marxist teachers, book reviews and film reviews as well as material dealing with current events. In this way we hope to arm the advanced workers in the Labour Movement with the knowledge, the facts, the analysis and the programme which can answer the needs of the working class. We are confident that in the titanic events which impend in Britain and internationally in the next few years ever wider layers of workers will see the need for a clearly worked out Marxist programme. To this end is MILITANT INTERNATIONAL REVIEW published.
NORTHERN IRELAND British troops have had to be sent, not to a remote colony, but to a province of Britain itself. This after the unprecedented defeatifor the Ulster police at the hands of the people of Bogside, who rose in a mass resistance supported by 25,000 workers against the attempted invasion of the RUC. As with Rhodesia and many other colonies, the chickens of British Imperialism are coming home to roost in Ulster. For it was with active support of British capitalists that Carson and his Ulster volunteers were used to create a bastion of British big business in the North-East of Ireland, to keep the working class divided on "religious" lines and ensure that capitalism in Ireland would remain subject to that of Britain. For 48 years, the Unionist Tories have stayed in power with the votes of the Protestant population, including large sections of the workers whose fear of domination by the overwhelming majority of Catholics in Ireland as a whole, has been ruthlessly exploited to keep them in subjection to the capitalist class. But it is the minority of Catholic workers who have sufferel most, with unemployment for years on end, the lowest wages, living in squalid slum ghettoes, oppressed by a sectarian police force, in fear of attack by Protestant Peisleyite thugs and the B-specials, and denied even the basic democratic right of voting in local elections. To-day, in spite of massive handouts of 2100 million a year from the Westminster government, unemployment stands at 38 000 and the development of new industries has not been enough to offset the decline in the traditional fields of shipbuilding and linen. The continued hold of the Unionists over sections of Protestant workers has stunted the development politically of the Labour Movement. But it is not only in the North that the border has been used as a diversion to turn the workers from their social and economic problems. The Fianna Fail governments of Fire have, ruled as consistently as the Unionists in the interests of Big Business, resulting in even greater poverty and unemployment than in the North. This is not an attractive proposition to the relatively less poor Protestant workers, who fear that in an Ireland united under capitalism, a Fianna Fail government would use them as scapegoats for their own failings, and put them a similar underpriveleged position to that of the Northern Catholics to-day. For 48 years the rulers of both Dublin and Stormont have used the partition issue to rule in the interests of private profit and the continued exploitation of the workers. To-day, however, the more far-sighted representatives of both British and Irish Big Business can see that this issue is irrelevant and hints have been dropped by, for example, George Brown and Neil Blaney, that a united or federal Ireland would be desirable.
Already economically Eire is dependent on Britain, which in turn uses Irish emigrants as cheap labour. The applications
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by both governments to join the Common Market illustrate the logic of closer that O'Neill was trying to turn the Unionist Party from its state of sectarian reaction into a more "enlightened" conservative party like the British one, by introducing reforms and appealing to the Catholic middle-class. was clearly in the interests of both British and Ulster capitalists, who no longer, as in 1912, are prepared to support the Protestant extremists. As the recent delegation of Tory M.P.s stated, in the event of a shift to the right by the Unionists, the Conservative Party would have to cut its connections. They can see that their interest could only suffer if the growing unrest of the oppressed Catholic workers were to lead to direct action in support of But the Frankenstein's monster of British Imperialism could not so easily be destroyed. The Unionist backwoodsmen forced O'Neill out of office, to be replaaed by the feeble and inept Chichester-Clark. Although putting forward the same reform programme as O'Neill, for an end to the most blatant forms of discrimination and gerrymandering, he found himself between the hammer and the •anvil, the need to push through the reforms being countered by the pressure from Unionist extremists to resist them altogether. His pathetic weakness under this pressure was revealed by his refusal to ban the march of the Apprentice Boys of Derry, an act of provocation which would obviously enrage the Bogside population and which led to the direct confrontation between the Only British troops could stop the "Battle of Bogside! from becoming a bloody massacre, as the Stormont government demonstrated its criminal nature by unleashing the openly sectarian B-specials. It is not surprising that at first the Catholic workers of both Derry and Belfast welcomed the troops, as capitalist power, not excluding fire, are used to protect one thing only clearly that they will act ageinst working class orgenisations if they pose The only protectection for the workers, both Catholic and Protestant, is the strength of their own organisations. The heroism and solidarity of the Bogside workers showed the fortitude of a people prepared to stand up and fight. But how much more powerful would they be if united with their Protestant comrades, who are exploited by the same bosses! Already in Belfast, joint vigilante forces have been formed to patrol the streets. If Catholios and Protestants could unite in 1913, behind Connolly and Larkin in the great strike of the heater des or Marcon then the had an dendity of interest between all the workers. Those quasi-Marxists who claim it is utopian to call for Protestant and Catholic workers to unite, and dismiss the Protestant workers as similar to the "colons" of Algeria are guilty of a treacherous rejection of won to the banner of Socialism, had the Communist Party put forward a class the population with a far more privileged position relative to Arabs than that of the working class population is a programme of defeatism, especially when no positive policies are posed, but only the demand to keep up the barricades, which can only serve to disillusion the Derry workers unless linked up to a 3 co-operation, even on a capitalist basis.
their demands.
workers and the arm of the state, the RUC.
a protection against the RUC and the B-men.
the profits of private industry.
• a threat to British investments.
the whole class basis of Marxism.
programme to unite Algerian and french workers.
of the Ulster Protestants relative to the Catholics.
programme and a perspective.
It was from this sort of viewpoint • Such a policy However, the armies of any The role of British troops in Aden shows Even the Algerian settlers could have been Yet they were a tiny part of To write off two-thirds
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The only realistic programme is for a United Protestant and Catholic working class movement, firstly to form joint trade union defence forces situation. It is in militia such as these that real class unity can be forged. Secondly, the need is to campaign for the nationalisation of the monopoly industries and the socialist planning of industry and new towns, linking this to the immediate demands for equal pay, a minimum wage and a crash housing programme. To carry out such a programme, it is only the Labour Movement which can give the necessary lead. It is true that both the NILP and the Republican Labour Party are playing very minor roles, there is no alternative force capable of bringing together the Trade Unions. The great upsurge of support for the Irish Labour Party in the urban areas of tire shows the latent power of the political arm of the Labour movement. From such a campaign could develop a working class unity on both sides of the border, with a Socialist United Ireland making the partition and the old religious barriers a thing of the past. This would have immediate repereussions in Britain, where three million people are of Irish descent, and would accelerate the movement towards Socialism Mrs. Gandhi's decision to go ahead with the nationalisation of the 14 banks of India will not in itself go anywhere towards solving the catastrophic crisis in Indian society. But it has unleashed a whirlwind. Congress has irrevocably split into Right and Left. On the one hand, the right wing "syndicate" which has always contralled the party has been have resigned or been pushed out. Already they have been holding secret talks with the extreme reactionary Jan Sangh and Swatantra parties about . On the left, the Communist Party has welcomed her actions. She has been greeted with uproarious applause at Congress Party meetings. Hundreds of thousands of workers in all the big cities have demonstrated in her Steel and metal workers, rubber plantation workers have clamoured for the nationalisation of their industry. Journelists have come out for the nationalisation of the press - and Mrs. Gandhi herself has stated that "newspapeers should be wrested from the hands of big businessmen to make editors free." An enquiry has been set up on this question, but up to now she has disclaimed any intention of taking over the press. She has spoken of a "new era" but immediately hastened to assure big business that "this does not mean an era of nationalisation." (Actually it would hardly take an era to take control of the "commanding heights" of industry - 80% is in the against police attacks throughout both islands.
INDIA future coalitions.
favour. There have been demands for her to pockets of only 75 families anyway.) 4 and the hooligan elements who have exploited the head sue) By Julian Silverman floored. Many • take over the import business.
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The victory of her nominee for president, Giri, against the official "syndicate" nominee accepted by Congress, Reddy, has consolidated her position. Threatened by the "syndicate" with disciplinary action and by the right wing parties who accused her of "a treacherous act against the constitution", she appealed over their heads to the masses. But how far will she go? Big Business remains virtually untouched. Starvation, poverty and unemployment are even increasing! The past three years of inactivity by the Central Government have meant the rise on the one hand of reactionary right wing nationalist movements in the States, and on the other, of left wing "Unitud:Front! goreronento led by the formerly pro-Peking wing of the Communist I rty. The cynic 1 jostling for positions in governments which do nothing to appease the mounting frustration has stepped in and set up a system of Presidential Rule. This happened, for example, as long ago as ten years in Kerala. More recently a similar pattern was repeated in Bihar this July. It looks as though the present situation could lead to a similar train of events on a national scale. "There will be more incentive, not less, to cross the floor and even to bring down a Government, in State or Centre, for the sake of a promise of a post in the new coalition. The history of State coalitions in the last few years is an eloquent warning." So wrote the Financial Times. That is why the issue of the Presidential elections was a political one. He will be In order to stave off the disintegration of India two alternatives are before the ruling class: a right wing coalition with the aid of the army, or a left wing "United Front". All the signs point towards the latter in the first instance, but it is vital to be forewarned: so long as big capital is not touched the catastrophe will grow deeper and deeper. There Take the experience in Kerala for example. The "left" wing of the Communist Party had been in power there for two years when the Financial Times foreign editor there wrote that despite rising misery "nothing has happened, nothing been attempted, nothing acheived." "The leaders blithely admit the miserable conditions of the State. But 'What can they do? It is the system that is at fault! they insist 'not the men in power.''' Party find a genuine welcome for their investment", but "Industry refuses to move in". Even the F/T foreign editor was compelled to state blandly that "it seems astonishing.. that the appalling conditions of the masses have not already produced a strong revolutionary movement." It is indeed the 'system which is at fault. The excuse for doing nothing about it has been that nothing should be done which might provoke the Central Authorities, nothing which might upset the middle classes, the peasants etc. Of course, the 'intervening layers' must be won over. But it is not, a 'ramshackle and opportunistic coalition" (to use the F/T phraseology once more) which is going to win them over, it is action in defence of their interests. In Kerala, the "Tited Front" Government will meant continuous breakdown no mere figurehead as he has is no halfway solution.
leader Gopalan-assured 5 the editor that"Financial Times readers would and, amid rioting, the Central Government has been in the past, in the event of a coalition.
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be defertod et a certain stace; their inaction is povin the way for the disillusionment of the mosses.In West Bogal, the situation would have been identical but for the struggles that took place when the Central Government tried to step in. Workers seized factories and locked up the management, peasants seized the land. The people themselves attempted to carry out the policy So long the economy is run by and for the 75 families, what hope is anoithere for the middle class, the peasants etc. hounded by moneylenders from the cradle to the grave, never free of debt, starved of credit in a market which barely exist as far as the starving millions are concerned? On thorother hand, Kerala, though poverty-stricken, has the most literate population in India. Together with the advanced industrial workers of Calcutta and the rest of West Bengal they could form the base of a which, having expropriated the big monopolies, could hand out credit to the peasants and small businessmen on terms infiritely préferable to the present terms dictated by greed and corruption. A United Front Government, however "left" in words will be able to do • nothing more than aid the enemies of the'intorvening layers!, the monopolists who run society at the moment. The middle class will continually be pushed • in into bankruptcy and unemployment as they are today. What is needed is The Marxists in India must rrepare themselves. They must call for all support for the mass movements of occupation of the land and the factories; to lead on to a workers and peasants government. The Working Class in Russia in 1917 was no bigger a proportion of the population. Taking power in Petrograd and Moscow, their demands raced through the whole of the U.S.S.R. and the world. This could be the perspective for India. WE INTEND TO PUBLISH A DETAILED THEORETICAL STUDY OF DEVELOPMENIS IN INDIA IN A FUTURE ISSUE OF MILITANT INTERNATIONAL REVIEW. Viterso workers! government MILITANT LABOUR'S MARXIST 6 of the United Front Government and more.
action on a clear alternative programme.
months 10/-.
Name Address VOICE Obtainable from 197 Kings Cross Rond, London V.C. 1.
Please send me MILITANI for the period indicated below:- 3 months 2/6, 6 months 5/-, 12
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On August 21st, about 50,000 Czechoslovaks massed in the squares of Prague and Brno to mark the anniversary of the Wareaw were met with tanks, tear gas grenades, water cannon; they were chased systematically by police wielding rubber truncheons.
were shot dead. 2,000 people were arrested. According to the British tourist who became entangled with the demonstration, police were viciously beating all the detainees in the police station until they collapsed. The leaders and the official Press smeared them with accusations that they were all "criminals, Czechoslovak police, under direct orders from the Czechoslovak Government finally unmasks the real face of this "realistic" "compromise" regime. The crowds that gathered had no programme, no plans to overthrow the leaders, no real hope of reforms. Their constantly-repeated slogan consisted of the But Dubcek, like Husak, had appealed for "calm". Moreover, he is one of the four signatories to the new viciously represive laws, which provide for detentton: without trial, representation or appeal in all cases of: criticism of the current Party line. If we look at the other three heroes of the era of "socialism with a human face", we see the aging President Svoboda still presiding, Prime Minister Cernik faithfully parroting the slanders of the Kremlin about the "counter-revolutionary" danger, and Smrkovsky - undoubtedly the principal target of the Stalinists - openly repudiating the massive support offered him by the trade unions and the students and meekly accepting.. Dubcek, Smrkovsky, and the other spokesman for the managerial wing of the bureaucracy, preferred the slender hope of co-operating and "reasoning" with the desperadoes of the Kremlin, only to be unceremoniously kicked out of their influential posts rather than offer principled resistance. himself on his "realism". The "Sunday Times" (24th August) is at least less "Meanwhile, we in the West have no right to blame the Czech authorities for collaborating with their victors. How many of our own politicians, given the choice, would prefer war in the streets, the physical occupation of our capital, the probable death of many of our fellow-citizens, to acquiescence however humiliating - in a deal which at least leaves the appearance of our national sovereignty intact? We may despise the Strougals and the Indras, the active Quislings of Czechoslovakia. For Dr. Husak and his beaten colleagues If Dubcek had not appeared too identified with the 1968 tradition, he also would be at his previous post, alongside Cernik and Svoboda. As it is, even now he is still for the moment among the top politicians "collaborating" with the "victors", swallowing their "humiliation", rejoicing in "at least the appearance of national sovereignty", and enjojing the pity of the "Sunday Times". It is hard to distinguish between the policies of Dubcek, Husak and Strougal vagrants, fascist stormtroopers, "etc.
single word: "Dubcek".
his own dismissal.
we must reserve our pity.'
today.
7 CZECHOSLOVAKIA hypocritical than most of the Western Press:- - They / Pact invasion.
At least eight youths The savage treatment meted out - by Husak too prided
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In the mute despairing crowds massed in Wenceslas Square stood the symbol of the people's thirst to resist the terms of the Kremlin. A Czech "The outright Quisling regime in Czechoslovakia today relies on no the pro-Dubcek rule of ....Novotny....Outside Czechoslovakia it is often believed that until last August the intelligentsia, especially the writers, were caused by the fact that this particular social group, by the very nature of its work, is able to give public expression to its views.
this is the most positive aspect of the present situation - the workers in the factories are showing the same resolute opposition to the policy of the Czechoslovak lendership... The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia claims to be . the party of the working cinss. The leading role of the working class is anchored in the constitution. And yet the working class now distinctly, and publicly, refuses to accept the official brand of socialism.... If the workers in the factories who defiantly sounded the hooters at midday on August 21st, whole strata of the trade unions and of the Communist Party itself, the whole of the student population, and everyone else among tens of thousands of demonstrators were really all "counter-revolutionaries" after the revolution, then it is a sad reflection on the leadership of the C.P. both in Czechoslovakia and in Russia. In fact, only half-kearted. attompts were noie to provide the flimsiest evidence of bourgeois mub- 4 year after the invasion, no counter-revolutionary has been brought to trial. Now, perhaps, show trials will be staged - but it has taken a year to The whole population except for a handful of Novotny's creatures was pressing for simple democratic rights to check the arbitrary acts The British C.P. daily "Morning Star" wrote a leading article on 27th August, neatly apportioning equal portions of praise and blame to all the parties The invasion was a "tragic mistake" (last year's empty verdict). But, equally, mistakes were made if We Czechoslovak leadership last year..... insufficient action was taken against the anti-Socialist forces. So was there less convincing as evidence of an imminent counter-revolution last August than the material published immediately after the intervention". So was the regime right to break up the demonstrations? Ah, but "anti-Socialist forces took advantage of the situation", But all the same, the working people "were express -ing support for what they feel to be the correct path for Socialism in Czechoslovakia. " They do not tell us whether their feelings were right or not, because it is only the Czechoslovak Communists and working people who can solve their problems." Though, of course, "Communists in other countries.... are entitled to express their opinions on the position in Czechoslovakia or anywhere else." Provided, it seems, they say nothing conclusive or intelligible. Would resistance have led to a bloodbath? The tactic. of utter capitulation has alrendy spilt the first drops of Czechoslovak blood. Victory is possible if, and only if, the masses are rallied to the banner of real proletarian intentionalism. By a class appel to the soldiers of Russia and the Warsaw Pact countries, and a clear programme to end the rule of the Brezhnevs, • Husaks and Ulbrichts forever and to create a genuine socialist federation based journalist writing in "The Observer" (24/8/69) said:social force worth mentioning.
the most nonconformist section of society.
verodor.
fabricate the evidence.
of the State and Party apparatus.
involved.
a threat to the revolution then?
8 The support it has is incomparably smaller than This is an illusion, probably In fact, however - and 21 years No, "recent material published.....is even
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