How India won independence

[page 32]

How India won independence

THE END of the second world war 40 years ago inaugurated a global movement towards revolution particularly in the colonies of the "victorious" imperial powers of Britain and France. Not least in this revolutionary wave was the mass movement that developed in India. In his article ROGER SILVERMAN explodes the myths that have surrounded the winning of India's independence.

THE DECAY of capitalism has plung-

ed humanity into the most unstable

epoch of its history. It is hardly sur-

prising then that the most populous

country of capitalism, in which its

failure to develop society is most

spectacular— India-is also at present

probably the most volatile in the

world. The last one year has witness-

ed enough cataclysms to last a "nor-

mal" society decades: communal and

caste massacres, coups, general

strikes, assassinations, mutinies, un-

told social upheavals in every state.

The prospect opens up of the very

disintegration of India, after four

decades of independence. In particular, the Punjab crisis could start a chain reaction leading to the creation of a dozen statelets, each with its own national questions. What would be left would be, not a "Greater India" , but a Lesser Hindustan, encompassing the poorest and most wretched Northern states of the "Hindi belt" , a Hindu theocratic state in which Muslims, Sikhs and other religious minorities would be plunged into an inferno of pogroms, counter-terror and repression. If capitalism is not overthrown, India will explode into bleeding fragments. If the workers and peasants take power and thus avert this catastrophe, it will be in unity with those of the neighbouring countries, to create a Socialist United States of the Indian Sub-Continent.

These tortured convulsions are a direct result of the failure of the bourgeoisie to solve a single one of its tasks. The theory of Permanent Revolution explains that in the modern epoch the bourgeoisie in the underdeveloped countries is incapable of repeating the pioneering and revolutionary role played at the dawn of capitalism by the bourgeoisie of the West: that the tasks of the bourgeois-

democratic revolution, national unification, industrialisation, division of the landed estates, etc., can only be solved along with the tasks of the socialist revolution: nationalisation of the means of production, state monopoly of foreign trade, etc.

The emergence of a national consciousness, the vision of a united, secular, democratic Indian nation, was one of the products of the elemental movement for national liberation that was to transform the face of the planet. Some have misunderstood the fact that Congress assumed power in 1947 as a refutation of the Permanent Revolution, or at least as a sign that the Indian bourgeoisie was in some way an exception: that it was fit at least to begin tackling the tasks of establishing a modern capitalist nation. But the Indian bourgeoisie never led a national-liberation struggle. The power was not won by Congress; it dropped into its lap due to the exhaustion and senility of imperialism, amid the revolutionary ferment that gripped the world following the end of the world war.

Gandhi's role

The mantle of revolutionary democrats lies especially uneasily on the shoulders of Congress. As befitted a weak and dependent bourgeoisie, its whimpering plea for greater political responsibilities was slavish and cowardly and it huddled with imperialism at every turn in fear of the masses. The crafty lawyer Gandhi with his messianic delusions went a little further than his urbane colleagues in transcending the cramped barriers of local particularism, caste superstition and communal bigotry, an indispensable condition if concessions were to be wrested from imperialism. But at all costs the downtrodden hordes must be kept in a subordinate and passive role: they must be pacitied, hence quite literally the "pacifism" of Congress—-which once in power proved to be among the most bloodthirsty of capitalist regimes in repressing the workers and peasants. The Indian National Congress was paralysed from the beginning by fear of the masses, and squirmed a tortuous middle path between the needs

31

of imperialism, to which it swore loyal-

ty, and the aspirations of the masses

for freedom, in the interests of lever-

ing a more favourable bargaining posi-

tion for itself. It devised the tactics of

"non-violence" -the hunger strike,

civil disobedience and passive

resistance-as a means of syphoning

off the fury of the masses while ex-

ploiting them as a bargaining counter.

Churchill mocked the "naked fakir"

Gandhi, but the obese, rapacious and

parasitical Indian bourgeoisie needed

as its mascot the caricatured saint

with his sackcloth, his fasting and his

pacifism. The writings of Gandhi, once

the prisoner of the British imperialists

and now their darling, express with

breathtaking frankness the striving of

the Indian bourgeoisie to subdue the storm of mass revolt.

"I think the growing generation will not be satisfied with petitions, etc," he advised. "We must give them something effective. : Satyagraha (passive resistance) is the only way, it

seems to me, to stop terrorism. " (ie. direct action including mass uprisings).

Gandhi's first priority was to safeguard the rights of private property. He expressed horror at finding in his native state of Gujarat "utter lawlessness bordering on Bolshevism."

"I shall be no party to dispossessing the propertied classes of their private property without just cause, he assured the landlords and capitalists. "You may be sure that I shau throw the whole weight of my influence in preventing a class war... Supposing there is an attempt unjustly to deprive you of your property, you will find me fighting on your side."

He understood all too clearly that once the masses were on the move, the struggle would inevitably go far beyond the formal political goal of independence, to sweep capitalism and landlordism aside: "I hope I am not expected knowingly to undertake a fight that must end in anarchy and red ruin", , he replied to the suggestion of a general strike. He consciously us. ed the "socialist" wing of Congress Ic confuse them: "It is all well as long as you hold the peasants in check. But Nehru's presence must now ease the situation. He has no difficulty in deal-

[page 33]

June

1985:

ing with the them.

There were strict limits to his advocacy even of civil disobedience. "I cannot ask officials and soldiers to disobey," he explained frankly (and prophetically), "for when I am in power i shall in all likelihood make use of these same officials and those same soldiers. If I taught them to disobey I shall be afraid that they might do the same when I am in power."

Gandhi's servile posture towards the British raj can be indicated, quite apart from his frequent and toadying protestations of loyalty and "love" for the British Empire, by the fact that two entire volumes of his collected works are devoted to his correspondence with the Viceroy! One or two extracts will be as much as our readers will be able to stomach:-

"It would be unwise on my part not to listen to the warning given by the Government... A civil resister never seeks to embarrass the Government. I feel that I shall better serve the country and the Government by suspension of civil resistance for the time being."

And again: "I confess that it is a delicate situation. I need hardly assure you that the whole of my weignt will be thrown absolutely on the side of preserving internal peace. The Viceroy has the right to rely upon my doing nothing less.

Dismayed that the dialectic of events had prompted a breach in relations, Gandhi did not hesitate to crawl back into favour by writing to the Viceroy: "I

not know whether... friendly relations between us are closed, or whether you expect me still to see you and receive guidance from you as to the course I am to pursue in advising the Congress.

"I wish I could convince all the British public men, the British Ministers," he complained, "that Congress is capable of delivering the goods."

Trotsky summed up the delicate and complex task that faced the Indian bourgeoisie:-

"Millions of people have begun to stir. They demonstrated such spontaneous power that the national bourgeoisie was forced into action in order to blunt its revolutionary edge. Gandhi's passive resistance movement is the tactical knot that ties the naivete and self-denying blindness of the dispersed petty- bourgeois masses to the treacherous manoeuvres of the liberal bourgeoisie... The Tolstoyan formulas of passive resistance were in a sense the first stage of the revolutionary awakening of the Russian peasant masses. Gandhism represents the

peasants and restraining

same thing in regard to the masses of the Indian people. The more "sincere" Gandhi is personally, the more useful he is to the masters as an instrument for the disciplining of the masses. (The Revolution in India, its Tasks and Dangers, 1930).

"We denounce before the colonial masses the treacherous aspects of Gandhism, whose mission is to retard the fight of the revolutionary masses and to exploit it in the interest of the 'national' bourgeoisie." (1934).

The natural leadership of the independence struggle belonged with the party of the proletariat. But the Communist Party of India displayed an even greater degree of treachery than Congress.

"Communist"

collaboration

It was a historical betrayal by world Stalinism that led the CPI in 1942 to denounce as treason the massive Quit India' campaign, half-heartedly launched by Congress, which had an ambiguous and inconsistent attitude to the war. In accordance with its role as puppet of the Kremlin bureaucracy and frontier-guard of the USSR, rather than vanguard of the workers and peasants or even of the nationalliberation movement, the CPI put Stalin's alliance with Churchill before the cause of India's freedom. The only sure defence of the Russian revolution was to advance the struggle against imperialism everywhere.

But CPI leaders entered into a prolonged and increasingly servile secret correspondence and even held secret meetings with the British authorities, volunteering their collaboration in fighting against the Congress "fifth column" (see facsimile letter for one example). In April 1942 the CPI submitted a memorandum to the government declaring: "Today all the Indian Communists are burning with an ardent desire to co-operate with the existing war efforts, even under the present government" and requesting official help to "enable us to resist the Japs... We have no doubt that the government will find our organ the most effective war propaganda newspaper that has yet been introduced in India". . The party offered "our wholehearted co-operation" in sending its released leaders on countrywide tours "to rouse the patriotic instincts of the people in defence of our coun try", , "undertake recruitment for all branches of the fighting forces", "do all we can to build fraternal relations between the army and the people" "work out schemes for speeding up production" , etc. The government

32

"will have no need to fear strikes as fal

as we Communists can help it"

The party continually bragged

about its successes at breaking strikes

preventing food riots and discouraging

desertions, gloating that even the pro

imperialist newspapers "have not writ

ten so consistently and strongly

against sabotage as our weekly

organs"

British bureaucrats overcame of

ficial scepticism with cynical

arguments: "When your house is on

fire, the important thing is that so.

meone is helping you put it out, not

what he was doing previously... It is

easy to give a dog a bad name and

hang him. It is more difficult, but far

more worthwhile, to recognise and

seize the moment at which it may be

possible to convert a rebel into a useful

citizen... The change is in tactics only, but if they change their tactics,

their ideology does not matter... We can accept these people as short-term

allies... The Communists might pro-

vide something of a makeweight against the pernicious activities of Congress'

As a result, while Congress leaders were imprisoned between 1942 and 1945, and an estimated 10,000 youth, workers and peasants were killed fighting British imperialism and tens of thousands jailed or flogged, the CPI was legalised, its activists freed from the jails, and its newspapers subsidised by the British government! Such was the anger of the masses at this sickening treachery that CPI offices and printshops were bombed and CPI activists attacked. It took years for the CPI to recover any credibility and to this day Congress leaders demagogically exploit this criminal record at election hustings, etc.

The masses showed an unrelenting and growing determination to achieve freedom. Trotsky warned that under such a leadership their efforts were doomed. "The Indian bourgeoisie is incapable of leading a revolutionary struggle. They are closely bound up with and dependent on British capitalism. They tremble for their own property. They stand in fear of the masses. They seek compromises with British imperialism no matter what the price, and lull the Indian masses with hopes of reforms from above. The leader and prophet of this bourgeoisie is Gandhi. A fake leader and a false prophet!... Double chains of slavery-that will be the inevitable consequence of the war if the masses of India follow the politics of Gandhi, the Stalinists and their friends." (India Faced with Imperialist War, 1939).

It was inconceivable that an effete, snivelling party like Congress could wrest the power from the hands of im-

[page 34]

perialism. How then did the party of the "fake leader and false prophet" come to inherit the power?

The winning of Indian independence was due neither to the saintliness of Gandhi nor the benevolence of Mountbatten, but to the revolutionary wave that rocked the planet following the Second World War, a wave that also launched the towards colonial revolution, swept to power workers' parties or Popular Fronts in Western Europe, and brought an end to landlordism and capitalism in China and a number of countries in Eastern Europe. In India, the masses tore control of the national liberation struggle out of the quavering hands of Congress.

Revolution 1946 was a year of revolution. It began with the mass movement which forced the British to release from jail the leaders of the Indian National Ardecidedly non-pacifist nationalist movement which had taken up arms, in collaboration with the Japanese) who had been convicted of treason. On 19 February there began the great naval mutiny, in which the thousands of ratings of the Royal Indian Navy in Bombay-Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs together-threw overboard their British officers, trained the guns of their battleships on the centre of Bombay (another very non- Gandhian gesture) and hoisted on their masts the red flag, together with those of Congress and the Muslim League. Immediate sympathy launched by Royal Indian Air Force men in Bombay and Madras in their thousands. General strikes broke out in several cities. On Ist March the sepoys (troops) in Jabalpur barracks soldiers based in Debra Dun mutinied. The following day, the movement spread from the navy, air force and army to the police force: in Allahabad, police staged a mutiny and hunger strike. By 22nd March the police of Delhi had also mutinied. On 3rd April, 10,000 Bihar police went on strike. Soon the workers had joined the movement. On 2 May, North-West railway workers struck, and on lith July, there began the all-India strike of 100,000 postal workers. On 23 July, 400,000 industrial workers came out in their support.

the attitude to this magnificent movement of the Congress so-called "leaders" of the independence campaign? One of consternation. Sardar Patel successfully urged the Bombay naval ratings to surrender, promising to use his influence avoid victimisation-following which they were jailed. Gandhi and Nehru denounced the strikes, and Congress President Maulana Azad said "strikes, hartals and defiance of temporary authority are out of place." India was ablaze with strikes, mutinies, uprisings. The Empire was without an Army. Lord Mountbatten was rushed out to organise a hurried withdrawal from India, working in the classic 'divide and rule' method of imperialism. Partitioning the living body of the country, by giving power to Congress in India and the Muslim League in Pakistan, they thought they would dominate by playing one section against the other. Later he explained: "India in March 1947 was a ship on fire in mid-ocean with ammunition in the hold... It seemed that the only possible alternative to a quick transfer of power was...to bring in a large number of British Army divisions to hold down the country.

But how many divisions would it need to hold down an angry population of over 500 million? It would take an army of occupation and conquest bigger than the entire British Army to India. And then?

Napoleon's famous epigram, you can do anything with bayonets except sit on them. And where, in the conditions of that post-war dawn of hope, were the forces for such an army to be found? War-weary, radicalised and determined to go home and build a new world, the British troops were in no mood to play the role of an imperialist occupation army, fighting a dirty war and a lost cause. If US imperialism had to stand by gritting its teeth while China, the biggest nation on earth, abolished landlordism and capitalism, then how much less could the mangy lion prevent the political transfer of power to the Indian bourgeoisie? In fact the radical temper of the British soldiers had already compelled the British Government to demobilise them in haste and take the guns out of their hands. No wonder that General Auchinleck, faced with this forest fire of revolt, cabled back to Whitehall that unless independence were conceded, India could not be held for three days! In the whole history of British rule, imperialism had never needed a fullscale occupation army in India. Britain conquered India with Indian troops, cunningly intriguing and playing off the rival Maharajahs of the feuding principalities. Even the rebellion of 1857 was localised in character. It took the tidal wave of national consciousness that engulfed India in 1945-7 to sweep the raj away. Compare the situation in 1853, the heyday of British imperialism, when Marx wrote: "While all were strugg!• ing against all, the Briton rushed in and was enabled to subdue them all.. A country not only divided between Mohammedan and Hindu, but between tribe and tribe, between caste and caste, a society whose framework was based on a sort of equilibrium, resulting from a general repulsion and constitutional exclusiveness between all its members. Such a country and such a society, were they not the predestined prey of conquest? If we knew nothing of the past history of Hindustan, would there not be the one great and incontestable fact, that even at this moment India is held in English thraldom by an Indian army maintained at the cost of India?"

India gained its political freedom, thanks neither to Congress nor the CPI, but to the revolutionary mood of both the Indian masses British troops, and the pressure on the Labour Government by the British working class. By 1947, the police, army, navy and air force had melted away, and there was no prospect of finding a new occupation army. The cynical right- wing Congress leader Rajagopalachari commented: "If Mountbatten had not transferred power when he did, there might have been no power to transfer.

Communal partition Despite recent attempts to build up a cult of Mountbatten, his role was one not of "brilliant diplomacy" but of rat panic. He negotiated a rapid withdrawal in collusion with the British stooge Jinnah, leader of the Muslim League, which exploited the fears of the Muslim minority of persecution at the hands of a Hindudominated Congress government by insisting that Hindus and Muslims constituted "two nations" and demanding partition. British imperialism, with Congress connivance, was responsible for the bloody dismemberment and communal vivisection of India, the slaughter of millions of Hindu and Muslim hostages and the transmigration of tens of millions into refugee The legacy of British imperialism in India, as in Ireland, the Middle East, Cyprus, etc, was a festering communal poison which can never be eradicated while capitalism remains. Having done their utmost to damp down the masses' struggle, the Congress leaders-like their Irish counterparts 25 years previously-meekly accepted communal partition as the price for the trappings of power.

If the bourgeoisie had been capable of playing even the fesses. -e = developing society, here was the idea test of its potentia : *13:1

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MIR

1985:

India

dreamed of more favourable conditions. It took hold of the destiny of the most populous capitalist country on Barth, commanding a gigantic potential home market its population is now as great as those of the USA, the EEC countries and the USSR put together), at the outset of the biggest world economic upswing in the history of capitalism! India is rich in untapped mineral and agricultural reserves, and above all in the most precious and productive resource of all: human labour power. If the Indian bourgeoisie could have arrived on the scene and come to power two or three centuries earlier, India could have been a USA. Its pitiful condition today proves graphically the historical redundancy of capitalism.

Failure of capitalism

It is ironic that apologists for capitalism blame India's poverty on one of the very factors that fuelled the economic "miracles" in Germany, Japan, Italy, Brazil, etc., at the very time that Indian capitalism was hardly hobbling along: "overpopulation" the availability of surplus manpower, which allowed an influx of fresh reserves of labour into industry in those countries. America's wealth was founded upon successive waves of immigration which provided a rare combination of both cheap labour and a booming market. Conversely, the declining populations of Ireland in the 19th century, or India's neighbour Nepal today, bled by mass emigration, have hardly been beneficial to their economies! Socialism could proudly harness the energies and creative talent of humanity.

The law of permanent revolution has been brilliantly vindicated in reverse by the negative history of Indian capitalism. Not a single task of the bourgeois-democratic revolution has been fulfilled. Capitalisin has failed to develop a home market-on the contrary the already appallingly impoverished masses have been utterly pauperised since independence. The percentage of Indians eking out a brutish existence below starvation level has grown to 60 per cent. This is the material basis for the constant eruptions of rioting, blind despair and communal slaughter in all the cities, and conditions néaring civil war in large areas of the countryside. Indian capitalism's unseemly scramble to cash in on foreign booms instead has ended in disaster, with the Indian share of world trade steadily declining throughout the post-war Western boom from its highest point, achieved in 1938! Even in absolute terms, it has nor lost its earlier toe- hold on world

CENTRAL HEADQUARTERS

Communist Party Of India

(Section of Tha Commarial International)

190 B, Khetwadi Me

Bombay 4, March

Ten: FROM DEWAR ponsor 18934 (I.O. Jochi)

Bof Na

Personal

a Road, 15.. 194

Doar Sir Boginali,

of the Party centre vita enolosures, on tuo situation in the Provfor the Governeat but you vill soo thät no talk atraight and are frack.

try to best to sake our attitude as clear as 1a sumerty possiblo. do 80. ay risiting you and expleining thinga, I wIll be quate willing ti explato il la a Meso. congress araures auspicior in our bonafidea. IS it 1a a0 I could very fast. I hope you vill be ablo to intervene successfully and holp un to do our bit againat the Fifth column aad in saving

back an the 29tha

Inst. I as golag to lalaber on tho 16th, sad vill bo

dith good riabus,

CPI treachery: A letter from PC Joshi, General Secretary of the PCI, to Sir Reginald Maxwell, the Viceroy's Home Affairs Chief in 1943.

markets, and is now, at the insistence of the IMF, demolishing its tariff walls and opening up its limited internal market to a flood of cheap imports threatening the destruction of the bulk of Indian industry. After a feeble flutter, Indian capitalism is now decisively beaten by the monopolies of the West and Japan, which use India as a dumping ground.

A tiny class of vulgar parvenus has India by the throat, a parasitic bourgeoisie that straddles a shadowy border-line with gangsterism and feeds its gross appetites by sordid speculation, black-marketeering, usury bribery, smuggling, above all by downright cheating. A huge volume of "black money" is swilling and lurching throughout the economy making a mockery of bureaucracic regulation and "controls"

If there has been a marginal growth in the industrial proletariat in India since 1947, there is no question that the social class which has swollen into monstrous proportions during the same period, due to land hunger and unemployment, is the lumpenproletariat of the teeming shanty towns.

In terms

land

34

reform, Congress

only broke the stranglehold of the feudal landowners in a few areas, notably Punjab (hardly a paragon of stability today!). Landlessness has swollen to half the rural population and five per cent of landlords own 45 per cent of the land.

Congress has failed to wipe out the surviving antiquated and even precapitalist forms of production. In fact, there survive primitive communist tribal societies (the 'adivasis' of Madhya Pradesh, the North-East, etc.); a widespread system of slavery ('bonded labour' in the stone quarries, plantations, etc.); feudal serfdom, sharecropping and absentee landlordism over the majority of the land; large scale primitive cottage-industry manufacture; and the economically dominant capitalist monopolies. India thus resembles a huge living museum of historical materialism. This is the clearest token of capitalism's impotence to decisively put its own imprint on society. Another is the fact that capitalism can only totter along on the crutches of the state, hence twothirds of labour in the 'organised sector' is employed by the state.

Congress has failed to shake off the horrible medieval legacy of the Dark

[page 36]

Ages caste and untouchability, communal bigotry, ignorance and superstition. The economic collapse has led to a resurgence of all that is most vile and barbarous in India's cultural heritage: communal and caste massacres, witchcraft, astrology, ritual child slaughter, dowry murders, widows' selfimmolation, etc. Rajiv Gandhi boasts of leading India into the 21st century. Most of the country would grateful to be dragged into the 17th century! Balkanisation Above all, by betraying the hopes of the independence movement Congress has allowed the flame of national consciousness which set India alight in 1947 to flicker and dim almost to extinction. This represents its most shameful humiliation, he Indian its ultimate historical failure.

bourgeoisie needs a united India which can provide it both with at least some home market (if in practical terms this amounts to only five per cent of the population, this still means nearly 40 million people), and especially with the lavish public funds of which it milks the state exchequer. The Balkanisation of India would mark its final demise as a class. But it has utterly discredited itself. It can no more hold India together than it can solve any other of its tasks. It has lost all faith in its own future. Thus, just as Indian businessmen will cheat their way around their own laws to make a fast buck out of smuggling and blackmoney transactions, making a mockery of their own tariff and tax systems, so too their political agents will freely spit upon the sacred cows of Gandhism and nationalism and in- Marxist Studies pamphlet series Stalinism and solsnevisi by Leon Trotsky Marxist Studies dulge instead in unscrupulous conspiracies with the dark forces of communal gangsterism for the sake of the their personal careers. Congress has finally, and inevitably, turned full circle into the party of Northern Hindu ly dynasty, a monarchy in all but name, to resuscitate the flagging myth of Congress' role in 1947. At every time of political crisis when it was faced with a choice-in 1966, 1969-71, 1975, 1979-80, 1982 and again in 1984—it had no alternative but to entrust its fate to succeeding generations of the Nehru family-to his daughter Indira and grandsons Sanjay and Rajiv. History has thus played a cruel joke on Congress. A mass movement for Indian national unity overthrew an Emperor and swept an unwilling Congress into power; one generation later, Congress needs a new Royal dynasty to try in vain to keep India from crumbling to pieces.

The Indian bourgeoisie aped the imperialists by adopting a bullying posture towards the weaker nations of the sub-continent, especially in its national oppression of the Nagas and Mizos in the North-East, its refusal of a plebiscite in Kashmir, its annexation of Sikkim, etc. It periodically stages local coups by dismissing elected state governments (recently in Kashmir, Sikkim, Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Punjab, etc.) and imposing direct rule. But disillusion and disgust at the antics of the ruling class has soiled the vision of a united India and led to a resurgence of regional and secessionist movements. Most dangerous of all are the complex tensions that have arisen between the overlapping communities, 2 The Spanish Revolution 1931-37 Name Address.

Ted Grant and Peter Tafte 2.

Mantis Cana 35 especially within the urban lumpenproletariat, leading to an ugly eruption of communal pogroms against Muslims, Sikhs, etc. But a national consciousness does not drop from the sky, it is founded on a material base. The fragmentation and eclipse of an Indian national consciousness today is rooted in the actual material failure of the bourgeoisie to fulfil its historic mission, and the criminal refusal of the proletarian parties to assume even that responsibility, let alone that of the socialist revolution.

The only class that can "save India" is the Indian proletariat, which by its magnificent record of struggle, especially over the last decade, has staked an irrefutable claim to be literally the most militant and combative in the world, and whose proven heroism, tenacity, and tionalism testify to the decisive revolutionary role it can play once it finds a worthy political expression. The decadence of capitalism is nowhere better illustrated than in India. The workers, peasants, youth and unemployed face ever more excruciating agonies in terms of economic hardship and national oppression alike. But Marxists can have no illusions about it: there is no section of the bourgeoisie in any country, rich or poor, that can solve these problems. More than ever, the task of historical progress falls on the shoulders of the proletariat with the overthrow of capitalism on a world scale. Additional Reading on India: India-The Gathering Storm Roger Silverman, 60p MIR No.21, Winter 198081-Article on India by Roger Silverman Out now!

Other titles planned include: 3. The Rise and Fall of the Communist International by Ted Grant.

4. In Defence of October by Leon Trotsky. 5. The Chinese Revolution by Peter Taaffe. 6. Will there be a Slump by Ted Grant. 7. Menace of Fascism by Ted Grant. Subscribe! Six pamphlets for £4. Each pamphlet will be mailed to you as soon as it is printed. I enclose £4 for titles 1 - 6/2 - 7/3 - 8/1,3 - 7* * delete as required.

Cheques payable to: World Socialist Books. Send to: 3 - 13 Hopscott Road London, E9 5HB.

[page 37]

Memories of a Notts miner, 1926-39 EMIR June 1985: Notts miner When Spencer ruled ...

THE FOLLOWING article has been received by the MIR from a retired Notts miner, SID RICHMOND It recounts his experiences working in the Notts coalfela when management had the upper hand following the miners' defeat in 1926. It gives incidences which highlight the harsh working conditions imposed on the Notts miners during this period and how the union was painfully rebuilt in the teeth of ferocious opposition from management, aided by Spencer's company union. In this respect, as Sid Richmond points out, it is pertinent reminder to those who flirt with the idea of breaking from the National Union today. And, not least, the article shows the impact the great struggle of 1926 had on the author as a 12 year old boy—in the same way as the recent miners' strike has radicalised a whole generation of youth so graphically demonstrated in the magnificent movement of the school students. POOLSBROOK, a village belonging to Staveley Coal & Iron Co, of about 800 houses. I was twelve years old. Two years previously the company were bringing people with big families from various parts of the country free of charge, or to pay later out of their earnings. Men and boys over 14 years old were given jobs at the various pits, Ireland Colliery and Markham No 1, 2, and 3 pits.

Duckmanton pit village was built about the same time, as the new part of Poolsbrook-round about 1923-24. This was also filled by people and families on poor relief from all over the country-Scotland, Wales, Staffordshire, Lincolnshire and so forth. Before the strike started, lots of these people were up to their ears in debt and there was no wonder that they didn't want to stop work. However, most of them did, but as you may guess a minority carried on working. Next thing we knew 240 police from Manchester were billeted in the 2 villages, mainly to escort the scabs to work and back. Scuffles used to break out, if a scabs wife hung washing out someone would dash out and cut the line. Then there would be a crowd gather, chanting SCAB, SCAB. Soon they would be surrounded by 50 or 60 Police, who would take the first 12 they got hold of from the outside of the crowd and lock them up. More often than not they were just onlookers. One day in the new village in the Crescent at Poolsbrook a scuffle was taking place, about 100 men, women and children shouting and cat-calling. I was one of them.

In the meantime an old man, a retired miner (a preacher at the local chapel) was walking home from 36 nearby town of Staveley. He couldn't get past, so he sat on a garden wall to rest. Up charged the police, whistles blowing, truncheons waving and grabbed at least a dozen-yes, of course old Mr Holden, one of the most respected men in the village, was one of them. He was the first they got to. Because he protested he was rough-handled, handcuffed and charged with resisting arrest.

Later he was sentenced to three months in jail. I know the women are seen to be actively supporting their men in the current strike but more behind the scenes the women played a big part in 1926. There was a lot more poverty and misery, but somehow raffles and collections provided us school children with our only meal of the day-4 o'clock in the Church Hall each afternoon, three slices of bread and potted meat and a mug of tea each. Of course, we were well versed in the art of looking after ourselves around the countryside as well, weather permitting.

Those were in the days when all cooking in the home was done by coal fires, oven one side, water boiler the other. Coal, of course, was scarce. Many frozen fingers and feet I had digging on the old pit tips, sometimes to have a barrow full when 2 or 3 police would come and tip the barrow up and chase us off. Under the ground around Poolsbrook there is a seam of coal about 4 feet thick and about 8 feet deep. This was well known because all the allotments had wells sunk down to it.

As the coal shortage grew men were digging down through the floor of pig pens, chicken sheds etc., to get to the coal seam.

When discovered the police would fill them in and knock the shed down, then other holes would be dug somewhere else.

A near neighbour of ours used to go out at night and throw lumps of coal off the coal trucks moving out of the sidings at Seymour. The stationary ones were well watched by the police. He would then collect it up and hide it in a pre-arranged place at the side of a footpath. Next day I would go with a pram as if I was taking a baby for a walk. Off would come the pram cover, in would go the coal, back with the cover.

Then I would walk, pushing the pram loaded with coal, through the village and past dozens of police (the saps.).

One Saturday morning, together with my mother, we were walking back from Staveley. We reached the bottom of the village. It was early morning, not a soul in sight, then round a corner comes a woman, she was on the other side of the road from us. My mother said,

[page 38]

as if to me 'There's one of the bloody scab's wives, she ought to be ashamed". Nothing else was said, nobody else in sight or hearing. The next thing we knew, on the Monday following, a policeman delivered five summonses against my mother for various alleged offences. When my mother appeared at Chesterfield Court and pleaded 'Not Guilty' the Magistrate just said "We must believe our officers, fined £1 on each charge".

First Monday in April 1928 I started work at Markham No. 2 pit-3 feet high at one side of the pit, two feet three inches at the other side-pony driving, and after a couple of runs to show me the ropes, I was on my own.

On the district I was on, the return airway to the actual working face was too low and dangerous to take the ponies along. So we had to travel half a mile along the main tub road where empty tubs travelled one side and full tubs the opposite side, fastened in sets of eight to a haulage endless rope. Going into work "Alright" the rope was stood. Winding time up the pit at the end of the shift on days was 2.15 pm, coal turning resumed at 2.45 pm for afternoon shift. So the pony drivers had to wait until the rope stopped at 2.15pm, take their pony to the underground stable, unharness it and travel another 1¼ miles to the pit bottom, all in 30 minutes. The pony drivers asked for the rope to be stopped 10 minutes earlier but this the management would not do. The following day, at the end of the shift, the bigger boys took my pony, tied it up and said "Get off home Sid, we'll look after it". I didn't know until later that all the ponies had been left up the workings and not taken to the stables. Now you SCABS be warned what happens when there is no union to protect you. All the pony drivers were prosecuted at Chesterfield court and fined 30 shillings each-approximately three weeks wages. The Derbyshire Times newspaper called it an illegal strike. No action was taken against me because I didn't know what was happening and had only been working less than a week.

During my schooldays and after I left to start work I played about with a lad named Billy Cain. He was a nice lad and a very good boxer. An uncle of his, I think his name was Mick Cain, was agitating and trying to get the union on its feet again. He started selling a single sheet foolscap newspaper called Spark (probably the forerunner of today's Miner) in the pit yard at Markham. When it started to get popular after a few weeks the management sent for the police and had him forcibly removed from the premises. Because of this activity he was sacked at the pit and within a week evicted from his house. Furniture, bedding, pots, the lot put out on the street. Because my friend Billy was his nephew he was sacked as well. He went off with Billy Woods Boxing Booth which came with the fairground, three years later he came back punchdrunk.

In the meantime at 15½ years old I had my first shift on the face, in a tub stall. It was a Friday night shift. There was little or no work for the pony drivers because the face had come between two gate's and until this had been headed out again the coal cutter couldn't get through. One man in these two faces hadn't come to work so the deputy asked if any of us wanted to take his place. I jumped at the chance to earn 9 shillings and 8 pence (new money 46p) instead of 3 shillings and 9 pence (18½p).

It was well earned, hard hot work because of lack of ventilation in a dead end, with just a small amount of air getting through.

Soon after this I got the sack for fighting with an overman in the pit bottom. It was at the end of Friday night shift (Saturday morning) when we arrived to go up the pit late because of putting the ponies away. We were told we had to go round to 'B' shaft and although the distance between the two shafts on the surface was 200 yards, underground it was a mile and a half.

I refused to go and sat on the tub controls and stopped any more tubs being run on to the cage. Soon this big Overman came, his name I remember was Arthur Brown. We had a set to and I thumped him. Myself and the other drivers still had to go to the other shaft but I felt a bit of satisfaction. Of course, I had to appear before the 'Big Chief' the Undermanager. Cards in my hand, I went down the passage to the 'Black Shale Seam' Undermanager for a job.

I got started there and had been there a month and just settled in when this Overman, Brown, was transferred, He saw me and his eyes nearly popped out of his head. He phoned up the pit offices and my cards were waiting for me when I got up the shaft at shift end.

I then got a job at Bolsover pit and after a few months, at 16 years and 8 months (I was big for my age and gave a wrong date of birth) I got on to the face for regular stinting. After a couple of years I got itchy feet and I got a job at Harworth pit. My Uncle was the Spencer Union Secretary there but he didn't know I was going. I like to do things for myself. Anyway, giving my age as 21 (I was just turned 19) I was set on as stallman. I was in charge of 12 fillers (less money than me) some of them old enough to be my grandad.

Soon I got fed up and moved back home and to Markham Black Shale again stinting (The overman was out of the pit having had a leg taken off in an accident). Soon after I left Harworth pit I heard that Mick Cain had started there. I used to motor cycle over to Harworth to visit my Aunt and Uncle. Soon I heard news of unrest and the system of checkweigh was the chief cause.

Under Spencer's Union Rules only one man, the Manager's choice, was in the checkweigh office. In all other areas apart from where Spencer's Union ruled, there were two. The Checkweigh was where the tubs were weighed and should have been booked to the men whose number or tally was on the tub. With 37

[page 39]

1985:

just a Manager's happening.

Mick Cain realised this and agitated enough to get the men out on strike. The strike lasted for about 14 weeks, if I remember rightly. The Spencer Union was broken at Harworth and soon crumbled at other pits but I have a hazy recollection that Mick Cain was sent to jail.

Anyway, I'm still on the coal face, stinting at Markham Black Shale. I was also in the Territorial Army. In May 1938 I was fetched out of the pit on afternoons because of general mobilisation. This lasted 15 days and it was my 'first holiday' paid for at army rates by the government.

During 1938 we had two explosions and fires at our pit, the Black Shale. The first explosion was a local

man in you can guess

small one but 7 men were killed. The fire was a small affair, caught in time. The second explosion happened at the end of the night shift and killed 78 men, most of them as they were making their way to the pit bottom. Some of them were within a few yards of safety. I was on afternoons and my mother woke me about 6 am saying that something had happened at the pit. I ran up to the pit and volunteered to go down on rescue. There was no-one to rescue, they were all dead that were still in. After about two hours working in the poisoned atmosphere carrying bodies of men we knew and had worked with, six of us were overcome and had to be revived with oxygen. A few months later I joined the regular army, just in time for the outbreak of the war.

mouses

00

Review

British

Intelligence

and Covent

Action

Jopathay Blocks

Patrick Fitzgerald

British Intelligence

and Covert Action By Jonathan Bloch

and Patrick

Fitzgerald (Brendon 1983, £6

95)

Reviewed by Jim Chrystie

BURRIED AWAY in estimates, out of sight

the Defence or control of

Parliament are the budgets for the intelligence services. According to the Financial Times they comprise about 10% of the defence budget; about £1,700m this year.

The recent Channel Four documentary showed that they were virtually a law unto themselves. Ex-MI5 officers told of widespread telephone tapping, burglaries and surveilance of labour movement and CND activists. Officially the intelligence services are under Ministerial and thus parliamentary control. But as the recent controversy showed, reality is different.

Historically, as formal democracy was gained by workers, the ruling class took precautions to ensure that their power and influence was not affected by ordinary people having the vote. Key decisions were removed from Parliamentary control. They created new institutions to combat "sedition" ', and took care that they did not fall under any democratic check. They hid this with talk of not revealing secrets to the Russians, which is quite ironic as it now seems that some of the best informed people about British intelligence were the Russians as they virtually ran it.

But whilst the media has concentrated on this aspect (was Roger Hollis, head of MI5, a Russian agent?), they have paid little attention to what British intelligence has actually been doing in much of the world.

This book attempts to rectify the gap. It gives a guide to all the different arms of British intelligence and charts the history of its foreign network, MI6. It closes with a special look at current intelligence activities in Ireland and in an appendix gives the names of 131 suspected intelligence agents.

Some of the information will be of surprise even to activists in the labour movement. Despite denials by leaders of the Labour Party, British troops fought in Vietnam. SAS troops went

38

as sections of Australian and New Zealand SAS forces. So keen were right-wing Labour leaders to act as agents for the Americans that even after US troops left Vietnam, British intelligence, through a GCHQ listening post in Hong-Kong, kept the Americans informed about what was happening.

Even some of the Labour Lefts ideas were deceived by the intelligence services. After Rhodesia declared UDI the British navy put ships off the coast of Mozambique ostensibly to stop oil reaching the illegal regime. (All the time of course British companies were shipping oil through S. Africa, with Civil Servant assistance.) But after 1972 there were no more interceptions. So the navy monitored the communications signals of the FRELIMO liberation movement and presumably passed them on to the colonial power, their NATO ally, the military regime in Portugal. Officially Joan Lestor was in charge of Labour government policy towards Southern Africa after 1974, but she was too close to the liberation movements and therefore some of the intelligence reports from Southern Africa were kept secret from her and other Labour ministers.

In its public propaganda the British ruling-class talks of commitment to democracy. But when its interests are threatened it is one of the most vicious in the world. It has a long, bloody and ruthless history. Torture, military coups, terrorism, assasination, bombing campaigns and hijacking are all part and parcel of its trade. In the post-war period it has helped to install bloody dictators such as Amin or the Shah of Iran.

Sometimes it has even had to be restrained by the CIA. After the Suez debacle of 1956 British intelligence stalked the Middle East like a crazed wounded animal. The CIA man in the region complained that listening to the plan of George Young, then MI6

[page 40]

Deputy Director (now leader of the extreme right-wing Tory Action) made him think "I'd entered a madhouse". Young had outlined plans to assasinate the Egyptian leader Nasser and then as "Saudi Arabia and Syria threatened Britain's survival their governments would have to be subverted or overthrown".

If anyone thinks this is all just of historical interest then the chapter on current operations in Ireland should dissuade them. It details MI6 operations both in Northern and Southern Ireland, with agents involved in bombing, bank robbery and killings. There can be little doubt that such actions will be used against the labour movement in future, if the forces of organised labour do not succeed in carrying through a fundamental change in society.

Many of the people named with connections with the intelligence services have moved onto other things. One is now editor of The Times. Charles Douglas Home wrote a 'background 'Arabs and Israel', book'

on the though he claims he did not know that the publishers were in effect the government's shadowy propaganda outfit, the Information Research Department. IRD was wound up by Owen, then Labour's Foreign Minister, and replaced by the Overseas Intelligence Department; its first head was Ray Whitney, now a Tory MP. Coup in Iran Perhaps one of the notable features of this history of MI6 is how it charts the decline of British imperialism. When in 1951 the Iranian government nationalised BP's oilfields, Atlee the Labour prime minister, asked the Chiefs of Staff to draw up a military plan to seize the oilfields. But the Americans would not support a major military action. Nevertheless Britain still had the greatest number of agents in Iran and throughout 1952 they planned a coup. Britain did not have the funds for the project so the, by now, Conservative government had to call in the USA for a joint operation. Day to day liaison was through George Young. The Americans demanded a heavy price. In return for help the CIA took over MI6 agents in Iran and after the successful coup BP lost its monopoly and had share out oil with the US companies. Then the UK helped to train the Shah's brutal secret police, SAVAK, and even allowed them to monitor anti-Shah Labour MPs in Britain.

The following decades were ones of increasing decline. A personal anecdote will illustrate the point. In 1978, twenty-five years after British participation in the coup which established the Shah on his throne, I attended a private meeting with David Owen, then Labour Foreign Secretary and a strong supporter of the Shah. He was clearly astonished to hear, through Iranian exile sources, of bitter discontent within the Iranian army towards the monarchy. This was long before there were any public demonstrations of protest against the regime, but clearly British intelligence sources in Iran were totally dependent upon the Americans and they had no idea what was happening.

Author harassed But whilst the British ruling class is not the most efficient in collecting its power should not be underestimated. It is still fairly effective in preventing British people from government warned this book's British publishers that they should not print the book, as it, "constitutes an extensive and serious breach of Dnotice no 6 in publishing detailed information about the activities and methods of the telligence services". Since its publication over a year ago only Tribune and The Observer have reviewed Jonathan Bloch, one of its authors and a South African political refugee, has had his permission to live here withdrawn and faces expulsion. And finally the government is reported to be considering legislation to prevent such a book ever being published in Britain again.

This book is not the definitive account of British intelligence services. And it is not particularly easy to read. But it is a useful contribution. It is one of the few which actually addresses itself to what the intelligence services were doing. And the evidence is a damning exposure of those that claim that British governments are protecting ' There is no greater proof of the ruling class' hypocrisy than its bloody covert operations, operations which are kept in their hands, outside any Parliamentary control, and which pose a real threat to the labour This book is a good beginning. But there should now be a thorough investigation by the labour movement into all the activities of British and foreign intelligence networks. Their past and present activities show what a massive danger they are to all activists in the labour movement both in Britain and overseas.

39 COS I HE MARTEN DIGGING DEEPER OK HOW BETLE Digging Deeper- Issues in the Miners' Strike Edited by Huw Bynon, Published by Verso, £3.95 Reviewed by Chris Herriot Sacked miner, Monktonhall NUM) AS AN in-depth analysis of the most important struggle between capital and labour since 1926 Digging Deeper only manages to scratch the surface. In the introduction, the editor, Huw Beynon, describes the book as a work of "social and political research" and as such it fulfills its function to a degree. In parts, the excitment, enthusiasm, hopes and aspirations expressed in the dispute are conveyed in such a way as to give life to the events or instances described. However, the authors admit to having hurriedly put the work together at the turn of the year which goes some way to explaining its seeming lack of form. All aspects of the dispute are mentioned but not always developed. So much has been attempted to be discussed that some important points are missed altogether or are skimmed over as the numerous co-authors attempt to develop themes of particular interest to each of them. And, it is very easy indeed to pick up on particular themes from all-encompassing an event such as this and to use living, exciting examples to further a political case.

For instance, Loretta Loach of Spare Rib attempts to use the experiences of two miners' wives to build up a picture of women in the mining communities not only moving into action against Thatcher but also against the wishes of and, in some way, in opposition to the men. The Women's Support Groups are seen as being held back

[page 41]

MIR June 1985: Book reviews

and stifled by the male-dominated NUM. The men in the mining communities are supposed to have seen the development of the women's groups as a threat to their manhood or male ego.

No doubt such prejudices did exist in individual cases. But, the main source of resentment that built up as far as the Women's Support Groups were concerned was not in relation to male chauvinistic attitudes in the NUM but rather because of the attempts of some trade union funetionaries to impose bureaucratic practices and constraints on ALL the support groups and organisations that sprang up in the course of the strike. Indeed, this stifling of local initiative in favour of bureaucratic control is one of the major failings in terms of strike organisation that is not touched upon at all in the book.

The structure and procedures of the NUM stem from the historical development of the union itself from the old Miners' Federation of Great Britain (MFGB). The essentially 'federal' structure of the union leaves the constituent Areas a certain measure of autonomy. Full-time Agents are employed by the Areas to oversee the 'districts' or 'panels' and, at a lower level, is the lodge committee and branch itself which is normally based on an individual workplace. The complicated workings of the NUM may generally suit the needs of the membership in 'peace-time' but are not at all geared for the swift actions and decisions required in the day to day pandemonium of a national dispute. With the prospect of continuing local disputes in the future, the question of reviewing established practices and implementing fundamental changes is of crucial importance.

Formal alliances

The union has to abandon its practice of only developing links with other unions at area and national level and begin to encourage such activities at rank and file level. This was a major failing in the organisation of solidarity from other workers during the dispute.

Beynon deals with this issue by arguing: "For the NUM to place a tourniquet on the flow of coal, it needed something better than the Triple Alliance. Best of all, of course, would have been an Energy Alliance which linked miners with workers in the oil and gas industries and in the power stations.

However, Beynon is not precise enough here although he is near the mark. Of course, an "Energy Alliance"

NUM pickets at Eggborough power station. Beynon argues for an 'Engery Alliance' with power workers-but paper agreements amongst union leaders are no substitute for rank and file organisation. Photo: R. Clarkson

could have been of tremendous benefit but not if it took the same form as the "alliance" of union leaders in steel, rail and coal. Formal "alliances" are no substitute for rank and file organisation-in some ways they appear about as effective as the multitude of peace pacts and promises made between the world powers before the Second World War!

In fact, Beynon would appear to have something of a fetish for "alliances" of one kind or another. He talks of "the possibility of a new kind of radical alliance around energy, peace and urban decay". These apparently were the issues the NUM should have pushed because "no simple form of words was going to unlock the dispute". • But nowhere is a strategy outlined nor an explanation given as to how the strike could have been won on the basis of an "alliance" around the "green politics which are of growing significance in Europe" Nor even how the "alliance" would be composed and what functions it would carry out.

Kim Howells, the South Wales NUM Research Officer, advances his ideas about a 'broad democratic alliance' although it is very difficult to establish what is exactly meant by

...a new collective spirit which revived community life and re-awoke in ordinary people the understanding that it was possible to take the first, concrete steps towards creating a more humanitarian and socialist society now, in the dreary midst of Thatcherism, and that it was idiotic to assume that such steps were only

40

possible after some special kind of electoral victory or a triumph on the barricades" and "with no prompting from Marxism Today, New Left Review or Labour Weekly, the people of the coalfields created the basis for a new politics...

'Planning agreements

Bill Schwarz, a lecturer at North East London Polytechnic in Cultural Studies, develops his own brand of fanciful theories in relation to the role of the media during the strike. Miners and trade unionists in general will be only too glad to learn that "media practitioners" are not, in fact, deliberately biased against the workers' movement. It is their conception of "balance" that is wrong. Further, it is argued that the movement should not simply describe the media as a "lie machine" because that "obstructs attempts to utilise whatever openings for sympathetic coverage that are available"

Such openings were few and far between for the 12 months the miners battled against the full force and brutality of the capitalist state. It is the height of naivety to suggest that the media would be more sympathetic if spoken to or about in a 'nicer' fashion. Nor is it a question of redefining "balance" or the "general or national interest" . The media, as Alan Fountain and Schwarz himself explain, is controlled by big business. Real and genuine "balance" can only be achieved by wresting control from the ruling class and putting it into the hands of the labour movement.

The miners suffered at the hands of the media. Other workers have and will be treated in the same way when they are forced to struggle. There can be no compromise with any instrument of big business because the capitalist crisis means polarisation and instensified class struggle or poverty and misery.

Indeed the depth of the economic crisis renders any class collaboration impossible except at the expense of working class living standards and conditions. This is clearly indicated in the later chapters on the future of the coal industry although the authors seek to promote 'planning agreements' as an alternative to the crisis.

But the 'Plan for Coal' can be seen as a clear example of the viability of 'planning agreements' on the basis of a capitalist economy. This document, agreed by both Labour and Tory governments, has been cast aside at the whim of the ruling class. What prospect is there for enforcing 'planning

[page 42]

agreements' on private enterprise when they are shown to be worthless in the public sector?

A 'New Plan for Coal' is advocated One which would look to the interests of working people and not to profits for big business. But, such a 'Plan' could only be introduced and enforced on the basis of a socialist, planned economy. It is utopian to think that A political history of Japanese capitalism By John Halliday, Published by Pantheon Books, £10.00 Reviewed by Mike Waddington IN A recent report by the Japanese Fair Trade Commission it was discovered that during 1976-81 only two imported products increased their share of the Japanese market:

spaghetti up 1,974 per cent and biscuits 111 per cent! Cars on the other hand declined by 21 per cent. These figures illustrate Japan's superiority as a capitalist nation. In 1970 Britain had a small trade surplus with Japan; by 1982 that had become a $1,000 million deficit. In 1930 Japan accounted for 2.5 per cent of world GNP wheras in 1982 it was 12.5 per cent.

The reasons for this are clear. It is not due to "unfair trading" by Japan. As the World Business Editor of the Economist wrote in the Times (13 September 1982) "Britain and other European countries have little in fact to gain from the abolition of the few remaining tariffs and obstructions to imports into Japan. Twice this year the bosses will be 'nice' and co-operate with a plan it it affects their profits. Digging Deeper builds up an excellent case for the miing industry and illustrates clearly the tremendous support and solidarity that existed for the The solutions it advances, are a hotch-potch of Hobsbawmian ideas of the 'Alternative Economic Strategy' and 'Broad the Japanese have made a long list of concessions on obscure import procedures, but Trade Officials still pressing for fairer trade admit that the deficit in Europe's trade with Japan will widen further"

Japan's superiority is due to investment. Japan has been the biggest investor in the capitalist world-now leading the world in new technology. For example, of all the programmable robots in industry throughout the world 14,000 or 60 per cent are in The massive investment in Japan is not due to more "forward looking" or "industrious" Japanese capitalists but to the political conditions established in Japan in 1945-52. Halliday's book describes, amongst other things, how these conditions were created. One historian has written "Japan was to emerge in 1952, after six and a half years of American occupation, as one of the worlds least revolutionary societies" (Post War World Vol 1 Pg67).

In World War II 44 Japanese cities were destroyed leaving 260,000 dead, 412,000 wounded homeless. 60 per cent of Hiroshima, 51 per cent of Tokyo, 56 per cent of Kobe and 44 per cent of Yokahama were destroyed. Industrial production was down to 10 per cent of its pre-war level. Food was in very short supply with rations set at 1,000 calories per day. An estimated 22 per cent of the 74 million Japanese population were suffering from tuberculosis.

The end of World War I had seen the 1918 'Rice Riots'-when 10 million Japanese took part in 636 uprisings which were only put down by the army. The Americans occupying Japan in 1945 were determined that such would not recur.

However, the American GI's were not too keen on being kept in the army. When the War Department slowed down demobilisaton to strengthen the American armies of occupation there were many demonstrations and near mutinies like at Fort Shafer in Hawaii on January 13 1946.

The allies appointed General MacArthur to run Japan and he got off to an unexpectedly good start. Nosaka, General Secretary of the Communist 41 Alliances'. Some of the chapters, such as "Welfare Against the Workers", , are worth reading and have value for the trade union activist. Of course, no book written during the dispute could fail to capture some of the mood and general excitment of the dispute. Digging Deeper is one of the first books published on the strike. That just shows that first isn't necessarily best. Party, christened MacArthur 'the liberator-the man who was coming to carry out the revolution!"

The real situation however was summed up by a businessman (and later foreign secretary) Aii Chiro, "When it was learned that the occupying power would be the US many industrialists uncorked their champagne bottles and toasted the coming of a new industrialists era".

MacArthur began with a few radical steps:-October 1945 saw the repeal of all laws restricting freedom of thought, speech, religion and assembly. 2,511 political prisoners were released in December 1945 and the trade unions were legalised. Within a year their membership soared from 126,000 to nearly 4.5 million (6.7 million by 1948). Trade union membership pre war had peaked in 1936 at 420,589. These liberal measures were merely MacArthur letting out a little slack-riding out the storm until he would be strong enough to put his foot down-on the necks of the working class. Jon Halliday writes "In spite of a meagre documentation, it is clear that the Japanese working class staged a major challenge to capitalist rule in the months immediately after the surrender, and that this challenge was staved off only by the joint action of SCAP (MacArthur's administration) and the Japanese Conservative US keep Emperor Yoshida, who formed one of the first post 1945 right wing governments, puts it more vividly in his memoirs; he was "forming a government with the revolution raging outside his window. Halliday writes: "Tokyo responded by making clear its determination to collaborate in blocking any attempt at revoutionary upheavals and signalled back that the key element in ensuring such a policy was retention of the Emperor, the linch-pin of the class system".

The Emperor was kept. Sections of the ruling class argued that even the army should be kept-thus wrote the British Royal Institute of International Affairs in 1945: "Not withstan-

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1985:

ding the insubordination and terrorism for which the military and naval officers were responsible between 1932 and 1936, it remains true that in internal emergencies, the armed forces have shown themselves to be a stable element of the state"

An American civil servant, Talcott Parsons, had before the end of 1945 written to the President identifing a potential Japanese revolution as predominantly rural. Land reform was therefore essential. This sacrificing of a section of the Japanese ruling class had great benefits for America because the gap in agricultural production created was neatly filled by American agricultural surplus (even today around 70 per cent of Japan's agricultural imports come from America).

The land reform was as could be expected, stunted. Two-thirds of land was actually excluded. The net effect was to depopulate the countryside and build up the working class. 1950-60 saw four million people leave the land, 1960-70 a further five million.

The working class however, provided most of the sleepless nights for capitalism and the years immediately after the war represent one of the most heroic periods (and effectively suppressed episodes) in the history of the otherwise denigrated Japanese working class.

The working class's response to defeat-which meant inflation, unemployment, starvation and illness-was to take to the streets. May Day 1946 saw the first workers' demonstration for decades. There were virtually continuous demonstrations against the right wing Yoshida government which had granted massive licence to the police to attack workers' gatherings.

By far the most worrying development for capitalism was the "work-in" or "production control" movementwhen workers took over and ran a company. It started at the Yomiuri newspaper where the workers took the paper over in retaliation to the owners' anti-working class attitudes and editorials.

At Mitsui's coal mine in Hokkaido the workers took it over, cut working hours from 12 to eight hours per day and boosted production from 250 to 650 tons a day. They also established a people's court to try war criminals.

On the Keisei electric railway the workers speeded up repair work three and a halt times, worked holidays and weekends and let the public travel free! On May Day 1946 the railway workers let all demonstrators aginst Yoshida travel free!

A historian of this movement has described the "production control"

movement in a massive understatement: "It challenges the traditional concepts of industrial relations and the institution of private property"!!

The socialist revolution was breaking out.

The trade unions split into a right wing federation, the Sedomei, and a militant left wing federation, the Sanbetsu Kaigi (with 1.5 million members).

19 May 1946 saw a quarter of a million workers on a food rally in Tokyo invade the Emperors' kitchens (clearly the workers had gone too far)!

MacArthur responded the next day: "If minor elements of Japanese society are unable to exercise... self restraint...I shall be forced to take the necessary steps to control and remedy such a deplorable situation"

Unions repressed

Laws were brought in to ban strikes and police brutality increased. The Sanbetsu called a general strike for 1 February 1947. MacArthur banned it on 31 January and called new elections. The Japanese Socialist Party (JSP) emerged as the biggest party but lacked an overall majority.

Incredibly Katayama, the JSP leader, formed a government, promising not to include any left wingers in the cabinet, not to nationalise anything nor give any "state secrets" away-no doubt a reference to the strike breaking activity of the state.

Halliday again: "By lumbering the socialists with responsibility for a new government they could not really control, SCAP ensured that the working class nressure would be eased temporarily and that a large segment of the political representatves of the working class would be discredited in the long run."

Under Katayama inflation reached its peak, wages were only one third of 1935, taxes and unemployment increased and massive subsidies were given to big business. In the government's words, to give "industrial management and capital a breathing spell and also restrain the demands and pressures of trade unions."

The JCP we should remember still supported MacArthur-thus the working class was totally beheaded by its leaders. Katayama tell atter eight months but his government clearly got the ruling class over the most critical period.

March 1948 saw the Sanbetsu organise another general strike, which was again banned with concessions.

This period saw the growth of more state repression with another general election called for January 1949.

42

Starving Japanese sift through the refuse of the US Eighth Army HQ in search for food. Under the American occupation there were mass sackings of workers for trade union activity.

"One Japanese official is quoted to the effect that it was more difficult in 1948 to hold a meeting than it was under Tojo". Canvassing from house to house was banned for the election in 1949.

The results brought Yoshida back to power. The JSP representatives fell from 143 to 48 and the JCP increased its representation from four to 35 (with ten per cent of the vote-its highest ever)!

Yoshida began with massive attacks on the Sanbetsu. 1949 saw 435,465 workers sacked for trade union activities, 1950 a further 260,000. 100,000 workers were sacked for being in the National Railway Workers' Union. All the gains of the Sanbetsu were taken back, wages cut, and "temporary status" for workers returned. Goon squads and gangsters were employed on the shop floor to terrorise the workers. The Sanbetsu was smashed.

However, with the expansion of the economy there was a revival in the fortunes of the labour movement: by 1955 the "Shunto" or "Spring offensive" was created-whereby one union "leads off" a struggle for everybodies' wage increase. (The strikes lasted an average two to three days). Since that time the latent power of the working class has grown and the vital ingredient missing in 1945-52, the revolutionary leadership, will be forged in the class struggle now opening up in Japan.

74 per cent of companies in Japan have ex-trade union leaders on their boards of directors: the time will come when the workers will challenge the capitalist system and when not even the collaborators who have dogged the Japanese labour movement will be able to save capitalism.

[page 44]

The Tragedy of the Chinese Revolution By Harold R Isaacs 3rd edition, Published by Stanford University Press, $8.95 Reviewed by Dudley Edwards THIS THIRD edition of The Tragedy of the Chinese Revolution valuable reading for anyone wishing to understand Chinese history in the 20th Century and also to know why the long drawn out revolution in that country culminated in a Stalinist dictatorship. However this third revised edition is inferior to the first edition published in 1938 which is now unfortunately out of print and very difficult to come by. This revised edition is inferior because in 1938 the author wrote from a genuinely Marxist and revolutionary standpoint but abandoned this position in the period between the publication of the first edition in 1938 and the second edition in 1951.

It is for this reason that in the second and third editions the author eliminated the original introduction by Leon Trotsky in which the original warmly endorsed.

author endeavours to explain this in his new prefaces to the second and third editions, but only succeeds in explaining his own confusion. Although by 1951 the author has forsaken the basic Marxist position of Trotsky, the book still gives an extraordinary factual account of the false and opportunist policies foisted on the Chinese communists between 1925 and 1927. The fatal nature of these policies for the Chinese workers is clearly demonstrated in the numerous quotations given from the official documents of the Communist International and from made by Stalin himself.

Despite his loss of faith in Marxist theory the author does not deny the truth of Trotsky's analysis and indeed is compelled to say in his preface to the "He (Trotsky) predicted with startling precision every turn of events as it took place. His analysis and criticisms of the official course were confirmed again and again by the evidence which this work examines in detail. This is a fact that is not altered by the passage of time, DUDLEY EDWARDS has been active in the labour movement for over 50 years. He joined the Independent Labour Party Guild of Youth at 17 and in the 1930s organised branches of the National Unemployed Workers' Movement in London, Brighton and Oxford. In 1932 he joined the Communist Pary. He was secretary of the Uxfor P just before and during Worl War Two, and a member of the AEU District Committee during these years. In the 1950s and 1960s he was a convenor at an engineering factory in West London. He broke with the Communist Party after realising that Stalinism could never bring any kind of democratic socialism. He has been a Labour Party member for 16 years defending the principles of Marxism expressed in the pages of Militant again by shifts in a writers or outlook."

cumulation of factual evidence therein. It clearly shows that the young Chinese working class movement which sprang up with enormous speed and power after the First World War was torpedoed by the opportunist tactics of Stalin, who through the Executive Committee of the Communist International succeeded in dominating the very new and inexperienced Chinese Communist Party.

Kuomintang slaughter workers The tactics put forward by Stalin, Bukharin and other Stalinist functionaries were based on the idea of dissolving the organisational independence and political programme of the Chinese Communist Party into a bloc with the Kuomintang, the political organisation of the Chinese national bourgeoisie. This meant that by keeping their "heads down"

and soft-pedalling on any kind of socialist programme-by discouraging the peasants from taking over the land and refraining from any action which would antagonise the landlords or the capitalists-the workers would be able to come out on top when the Nationalist revolution, led by the native capitalists, was completed. As a matter of fact the Kuomintang under Chiang Kai Chek was totally incapable of completing the National 43 Bourgeois Revolution because it remained under the financial domination of the Western Powers even after they handed over to Chiang Kai Chek the territorial concessions they had previously wrung out of China by military force. The only way that the National revolution would be completed was by the rapid carrying through of radical land reform which handed over to the peasants the vast areas owned by the Chinese landlords. the landlords and Chinese capitalists were unwilling to do. They were dependant on the huge loans provided by the western bankers and financiers. And as soon as they saw that Chiang Kai Chek intended to destroy the great movement of the workers and peasants, the British, and Belgian American, French capitalists gave him their support in return for being allowed to maintain their financial domination in Shanghai, Hankow, Canton and other trading The tactics of appeasing the native bourgeols, who were in the pockets of Western Imperialism, was therefore the exact opposite of the Bolshevik strategy worked out by Lenin on the eve of the October Revolution in 1917. It amounted to a switch over to the policy advocated by the right wing Mensheviks who said that the Russian labour movement should trail along behind the Liberals and make no bid until a capitalist for power "democracy" had been established in Russia; to which proposition they added the proviso that at some indefinite period in the future the labour movement would then be able to enter into a contest with the capitalist ruling through Western parliamentary democracy. This policy recommended to the Chinese Communists in 1927 by the Stalinist Executive of the Communist International was a repudiation of Lenin's tactics which for the first time in history had brought the working class to This confused "Two Stage" theory, manufactured by the Stalinists for China in 1927, subsequently became the official doctrine of the Communist Parties throughout the world, with disastrous results for the organised working class as well as the peasants. The Left Opposition took a completely opposite point of view, warning that such a policy of class collaboration would lead the working class of China to disaster and result in the massacre of all the best cadres of the working class, which although still a minority was, in 1927 growing and fighting with immense vitality.

Once Chiang Kai Chek entered the

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MIR

1985:

great city of Shanghai he did indeed turn on the workers; the very same workers who had already taken over the city and who had greeted Chiang Kai Chek's troops. Within 48-hours he ordered his troops to massacre many thousands of militant workers in the streets.

As a young man at the time I well remember the photographs brought back to Britain by merchant seamen and others. These pictures depicted the numerous summary decapitations carried out by axemen in the streets of Shanghai

On 21 April 1927, scarcely a month after the coup in Shanghai, the Russian Pravda published Stalin's Thesis to the Executive Committee of the Communist International. This was entitled: "The Questions of the Chinese Revolution". Stalin began by saying: " ...the line laid down was the correct line... This was the line of the close co-operation of the left wingers and Communists within the Kuomintang, of consolidation of the unity of the Kuomintang... of making use of the Right, of their connections and their experience so far as they submited to the discipline of the Kuomintang.. "This, scarcely a month after the lower grade CP officials and trade unionists in Shanghai were murdered in the streets by the forces of this very same Kuomintang!

Trotsky replied to Stalin in The Chinese Revolution and the Thesis of Comrade Stalin in May (his answers were never printed in Prauda nor anywhere else): "We know very well how the bourgeoisie submitted to "discipline" and how the proletariat utilised the Right's, that is the big and middle bourgeoisie, their "connec tions" (with the imperialists) and their "experience" (in strangling and shooting the workers). The story of this "utilisation" is written in the book of the Chinese revolution with letters of blood. But this does not prevent the theses (Stalin's theses-DE) from saying: "The subsequent events fully confirmed the correctness of this line. Further than this no one can go!"

Stalin went on to say that the slogan of the soviets was therefore inadmissible because it would mean "issuing the slogan of a fight against the existing power in this territory (in Wuhan, where the government was in the hands of the 'left' Kuomintang-

DE)... of the fight against the power

of the revolutionary Kuomintang for in this territory there is at present no power other than the power of the revolutionary Kuomintang."

Trotsky replied to this: ''These

words fairly reek with the apparatus-

like, bureaucratic conception of revolu-

tionary authority... The government

is not regarded as the expression and consolidation of the developing struggle of the classes, but as the same selfsufficent expression of the will of the kuomintang... The provincial kuomintang of Chiang Kai Chek has an old, reactionary, mercenary bureaucracy at its disposal. What has the Left Kuomintang? For the time being nothing, or almost nothing. The slogan of soviets is a call for the creation of real organs of the new state right through the transitional regime of a dual government"

But despite the slaughter of the militant workers in Shanghai the Chinese Communist Party continued with this fatal policy of class collaboration. Trotsky summed it up, saying that this policy was "to bring one's head voluntarily to the slaughter. The bloody lesson of Shanghai passed without leaving a trace. The Communists, as before, were being transformed into cattle herders for the bourgeois executioners" '. Other massacres followed at Changsha, Wuhan and other cities, towns and villages but the official line continued for another two years leading to the slaughter of the best

worker and peasant cadres in all the big cities.

At last in the early 1930's there was a sudden and typical Stalinist reversal after the damage had been done. But this is another story. It included the setting up of abortive 'Soviet Republics' in relatively small areas of rural China between 1929 and 1934. These were eventually overrun by Chiang Kai Chek's armies backed by the Western powers. This defeat lead on to the famous Long March and the setting up of a peasant army which eventually took power in 1949, without any significant contribution by the urban proletariat, leading to the establishment of a Stalinist dictatorship.

Editors Note: Unfortunately, although the Stanford University Press have published a third edition of Isaacs' book it has not been widely distributed outside the USA and is therefore still not easy to obtain. However most libraries and some larger bookshops would order the book. For Trotsky's writings including The Chinese Revolution and the Thesis of Comrade Stalin, Trotsky's On China is available at £7.50.

To accompany the articles on the history cassette tapes are being prepared in the Alan Woods. The first C90 tape, covering Russian Marxism up to the 1890s is now : by post) from: World Socialist Books London E9 5HB

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[page 46]

Militant international review 500 Militant Middle East International -workers Review hold the key.

JUNE 1902 ISSUE 22 BOD from.

The battle or the 35 hos Trotsky on the press.

Militant International Review OCTOBEH 1963 ISSUE 23 149 THE Militant International Review has always aimed, through the clear ideas of Marxism, to aid active workers involved in discussions and debates in the Labour movement to fully understand developments in society and adopt the methods, tactics and programme necessary to advance the struggles of the working class. Unlike other Journals, because we base ourselves on the analysis of Marxism, we are confident that the ideas, prognoses and perspectives that have been explained in the MIR since its inception have stood the test of time when matched against the way events have unfolded.

Now all our readers have the opportunity to buy the back Issues of the MIR from Issue No. 10, March 1976 to Issue No. 28, Winter 1985. Write to World Socialist Books, 3 - 13 Hepscott Road, London E9 5HB, stating which issue(s) you want to purchase, at 80p per copy plus 20p postage and packing (60p postage for 5 copies or more). All cheques to be made payable to World Socialist Books. MIR No. 12 Febuary 1977 CONTENTS: British Perspectives and Tasks for the Labour Movement: the Crisis of British Capitalism and how to Find a Way Out. MIR No. 13 Autumn 1977 CONTENTS: What Next for the Trade Unions? Soweta and the Future of South Africa. Poland: a Regime in Fear of the Workers! Review Article: The Control of Technology. MIR No. 14 Summer 1978 CONTENTS: The Brutal Face of Toryism Behind the Liberal Mask. The Colonial Revolution and the Deformed Workers' States. MIR No. 15 Autumn 1978 CONTENTS:Perspectives for the Spanish Revolution. Sri Lanka Moves Towards Dictatorship. British Communist Party in Crisis. MIR No. 16 Winter 1978 CONTENTS: Editorial: Decisive Turn in Britain. Middle East Crisis. The Battle for the 35-hour Week. International Notes. Freedom of the Press and the Working Class MIR No. 17 Autumn 1979 CONTENTS: After the Election-Perspectives for Britain. Ghana at the Crossroads. Iran New Stage of the Revolution. Profits drop. Book Reviews.

MIR No. 18 Winter 1980 CONTENTS: Forward Into the 'Eighties. The Forgotten Revolution: the Hungarian Soviet Republic 1919. Letter from Madrid. MIR No. 19 Spring 1980 CONTENTS: The Crisis of Thatcherism. Russia: Reform or Political Revolution? USA Perspectives. If Sharks Were People and Questions of a Reading Worker-Brecht. Jack London: The Man, the Socialist, the Fighter.

MIR No. 20 Summer 1980 CONTENTS: Britain's crisis: Are import controls the answer? Forty years since Trotsky's assasination. Poland's winter of discontent. MIR No. 21 Winter 1980-81 CONTENTS: British capitalism faces castastrophe. India-The crumbling state. The 1919 Belfast engineering strike MIR No. 22 June 1982 CONTENTS: Falklands War, What lessons for the labour movement? El Salvador: Which way forward for the revolution? Marxism and the state: Who really threatens democracy? MIR No. 23 October 1982 CONTENTS: Labour's Programme '82. Crisis in the Soviet Union. International notes -Brazil/Spain/Banking crisis MIR No. 24 November 1983"

CONTENTS: Editorial. Labour after Brighton. Grenada invasion. Argentine elections. Book reviews. Latin America on the brink. Letter MIR No. 25 Spring 1984 CONTENTS: Editorial. Lenin's last struggle. Andropov and after. The lessons of the Belgian General Strike. George Grotz-The artist and revolutionary. Economic notes. Book reviews MIR No. 26 Summer 1984 CONTENTS: Editorial. Britain the real situation. Character of the European revolution. Engels and human development. Hanging on the Tories' coat tails. Economic notes. Book reviews MIR No. 27 Autumn 1984 CONTENTS: Editorial. The choice before the Labour Party Letter to the Editor. Marxism and the Nicaraguan revolution. The Asturian Commune. Economic notes. Book reviews MIR No. 28 Winter 1985 CONTENTS: Editorial. Women in revolt. From bureaucrat to dissident. Settling a debt- a short story. Economic notes. A rêgime on trial. Five letters by Trotsky. Book reviews

[page 47]

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