confusion. The miners had balloted not to strike, Fords had returned to work, the gasmen had gone back, and so had the hospital workers. There were large protest demonstrations on 1 May. On 2 May everything was back to Meanwhile the TUC leaders were sitting in No. 10 Downing Street seeing how much they could sell away. It seemed very difficult to prevent the bureaucrats from talking, At the same time the employers und the Tory Government began to test the temperature of the water: Victimitation and attacks on factory organisation, combined with an attack on picketing, all within the framework of the TUC Tory talks, aimed to prepare the ground for dealing with any possible wages explosion to For the working class the only possible way that the talks could be smashed and the fight against the Tory Government restarted was by rank and file workers organising to move ahead, despite their leadership. Who would lead such a fight? The Communist Party could not risk leading massive actions, like the carly ones they pulled off against the Industrial Relations Act. Such actions would shatter the fragile alliance they had built up with Scanion and Jones now perched cosily in No. 10! Although verbally it opposed the TUC-Government negotiations, a deathly silence hung over the Morning Star when it came to ways of fighting the talks and preparing the fight against the Tories.
AN ISSUE It was clear with the first small Shrewsbury demonstration on 15 March that here was an issue on which it was cascotial to resist. But it was also an issue which could unite all workers, and around which they could begin to struggle. In many ways the charges laid against the 24 building workers for their picketing during the building strike summed up the preparations the ruling class was making. Later that month the Engineering Employers Federation submitted a memorandum to the Government, spelling out the failure of the Industrial Relations Act. They pointed out that, with the power of the rank and file still not broken, new methods were needed to deal with the working class. They suggested the use of the criminal laws against trade union activity. This was the tactic which the capitalist state had already adopted with the Shrewsbury case. It was obvious that Shrewsbury was designed to prepare the ground on picketing so that struggles like the one the EEF faces now could be smashed.
The significance of Shrewsbury was that workers in every area could be drawn into organisation and activity around the case. This was the only way to win, and, at the same time, could represent a first step towards a united The significance of the local defence committees and the Shrewsbury campaign was that they built a unity of sections of the workers move.
ment in action. Together with the struggle nentioned above, they brought the rank and file into action despite and against the bureaucrats and held back the Tories tactical offensive. Because of those independent actions of the Tank and file and the victories at the individual union conferences the basis was laid to move into the offensive against Pliase 3 and the Tory Government despite the right turn bf the TUC To show that the rank and file could organise independently of the trade union bureaucracy was to undermine the basis of the talks. It was a warning that the burcaucrats would simply be bypassed if they came out with a sell-out deal. Today the picture has changed to the extent that the miners have submitted a claim for a 4296 increase. The engineers have submitted a claim for a E1O increase. Both these claims have two things in common-they drive a railroad through any pay policy fand will have general working class support because of that), and they are the spearhead of a new working class offen sive. Both are accompanied by a flurry of rank and file activity.
RANK AND FILE ORGANISE In Sheftield, for instance, a call has gone out from the shop stewards quarterly meeting for a national stoke. This is combined with the setting up of a strike committee to prepare the ground locally. The conference called by the rank-and-file paper Engineering Voice in Birmingham on 9 September, representing a substantial portion of the rank and file of the engineering industry, passed a resolution calling for national strike Among the miners, strike Tunds have already been set up in many pits. In Kinneil pit workers have been guaranteed solidarity action, in the event of any strike, from a section of the local refinery workers. Many militants in both engineering and the mines are calling for joint actions. Such action would amount to a general strike situation which would make it possible for the working class movement to win a resounding victory and bring down the Tory Government All this combines with a growing interest among major sections of the working class movement in some of the discussions taking place inside the Labour Party. This raies the prospect of a combination of mass industrial action with orginisation on a more political basis and a search for more long-term solutions to the problems facing the working class.
DEFEND PICKETING What, then, is the importance of the defence of the Shrewsbury workers for the coming struggles against the Tory Government? First, we have to remember that while even the acWritings 1992 Leon Trotsky / E1.65 + 20p pop Weltings 1939-40 (second enlarged edition| Loon Trotsky E1.65 + 20p pap Problems of Everyday Lite Leon Trotsky -E1.45 + 15p p8.р Teamster Power Forrell Dobbs / E1.25 + 10p lauel: A Colonial-Settler State? Maxime Rodinson / F0.75 + 15o p&p Documents of the F.l. 1993-40 / 11.85 + 20p p&p The Origins of American Marxian David Herresholt / C1.15 + 10p p&p The Dawn of European Civilisation V G Childe 711.00 - 12p p&p SPECIAL OFFER (closes 30 Nos): Any two titles from the above lisl: 20p p&p the two; any three titles: post free.
Cash with order to: RED BOOKE 24 Bouncary Road, London N.W.B. policy for a whole period has been to try to build an alliance between the leuding lefts" in the buresucracy and the rank and file. Such a bridge is becoming more and more difficult to build. The CP must keep activities like those around Shrewsbury well under control, if it is not to throw its relationship with the left bureaucrats out of the window altogether, But it a not possible to lead the working class movement forward and prepare for the big struggles in this way.
If the Liverpool Conference does nothing more than pass a protest resolution and call on the trade untion bureaucrats to take up the case of the 24, it will have been a failure. The main task of this conference must be to strengthen the independent activity of the rank and file in defence of the Shrewsbury 24-to develop mass actions, organisation and understanding of the importance of this question, and its relation to the emerging working class offensive against the Tories. That is the only way to win over Shrewsbury, and the only way to prepare for the coming showdown with the Tory Goverment.
Paul Smith Red Weekly 21 September 1973 Page 3
THE RECENT MILITARY COUP IN CHILE sets two important tasks for the left in Britain - to solidarise with and defend those who are fighting back against this in order that such a tragedy need never again take place.
----- pull-quotes -----
Demonstrators march through Shrewsbury after committal proceedings, 18 May new books from Red Books
NI What is the line up of the CP on this? Their