anti-capitalist struggle.
Undoubtedly, the resurger.ce of nationalism in the United Kingdom has shown itself in varying not least being the case of the Welsh Nationalist Party (Plaid Cymru) which, while relatively weak, has gathered support around the justified feeling of ethnic-linguistic exclusion.
Spearheadedby militant Welsh nationalist youth, the fight against Westminster!s chauvinist policy.
of restricting the use of the Welsh language has brought ever-wider layers into opposition to a capitalism increasingly unable to satisfy the most meagre demand of oppressed layers of the populWhile varied in both form and tempo of development, the new nationalist upsurge adds a major explosive ingredient to the gathering class struggle which will result in sharp conflicts with a bourgeois order ever more hostile to democratic rights. The task of socialists, far from standing 'aloof' or seeing such developments as merely a ¡diversion' from their economist blueprint, vigorously support and champion them within a socialist perspective.
B) Black Power During the late 'fifties and early 'sixties, the ruling class - mainly through a Tory government - scoured the 'colonies! encouraging thousands of West Indians, Pakistanis and Indians to emigrate to this country to help fill the 'labour shortage' created, particularly in the service industries, during the post-war boom years.
The layer of Black immigrants who entered Britain during that period have not only been super-exploited as a ready source of cheap labour. The super-exploitation in itself reflects their pariah status as an oppressed minority discriminated against in all aspects of life on account of a deeply embedded racist bias.
Consigned to low-paid, dead-end jobs, this layer has been forced to bear the brunt of Britain's precipitate decline more sharply than any other sector. The perspectives offered them are growing racist oppression mirrored in both attacks on their democratic rights (as under the 1971 Imm -igration Act) and on their living standards (as they face soaring unemployment for the youth, worsening education facilities & ghetto housing). Moreover, the growth in racist attitudes fosterDAVI Such racist developments will not find, however, a 'passivel victim. Growing alienation from white racist society - combined with identification with the rise in national liberation movements in the 'Third World' - has given rise to a Black Nationalist consciousness that has become a permanent feature of the radicalisation process.
This growing sense of dignity and defiance has been revealed, over the years, in support among the Black community for struggles such as those against the Smith regime in Zimbabwe or the Vorster regime in South Africa; mobilisations against police victimisation and harassment as in the Mangrove trial; militant trade union actions as at Imperial Tyewriters and - most recently - the mass retaliation against the anti-immigrant campaign whipped up in the mass media in 1976.
The latter development was particularly important since it showed that, even more than in the past, the Black community was not prepared to passively tolerate the racist backlash the press, in combination with the 'right' of the Tory Party, was seeking to inflame. Key to this increasingly militant mood have been younger Blacks whonot willing to accept the racist bias of a society which condemns them because of the colour of their skin to dole queues, slum housing and police persecution - organised defence committees and launched mass actions against racist Immigration laws.
While knowing ebbs and flows, such struggles will grow in the period ahead as the Black community is subjected to both economic deprivation and greater harassment. Challenging head - on the racism inbuilt into the very nature of the system, these struggles have a directly anti-capitalist thrust and can lead ever - wider layers of Blacks to see their main enemy as class society
Far from. 'splitting' the labour movement, as the ultra-lefts of the WRP to the reformists maintain, the development of Black Nationalist conscious -ness is a major step forward. Supporting uncon -ditionally the struggles of Blacks against their specific oppression - and defending their right to organise separately both inside and outside the labour movement - is a key task for socialists.
At the same time as supporting such struggles, however, socialists are also confronted with the need to break down racist prejudice within the labour movement which the ruling class will increasingly use, in the period ahead, to confuse and diviae. This cannot be done, as tendencies from the WRP to 'Militant' suggest, by calling on Blacks to lay aside their struggle against racism and 'unite! with white workers at the 'economic' level. This is merely pandering to the racist prejudices embedded in the labour movement which are the prime cause of 'divisions'.
It can only be done by winning support within that movement against the oppression Blacks face which is, potentially, a 'threat' to all workers. The unity of the working class can only be achieved by the most 'privileged' layers being willing to champion the demands oi the most oppressed & A welcome sign in this direction was the resolution passed at last year's Labour Party Conference calling ior the immediate repeal of the 1971 Immigration Act and the demonstration sponsored by the NEC which mobilised over 20, 000 against the racist witch-hunt built up in the mass media last year.
C) Women's Liberation The Women's Liberation Movement arose in the late sixties mainly out of the general questioning of social and 'moral' attitudes provoked by the youth radicalisation. Such a movement was not limited to Britain but was part of a world-wide revolt by young women against the oppression they suifer, as a sex, in class society.
The rise of the women's movement within the advanced capitalist countries - from the L'SA to Italy where, in 1975, mass action on the issue of divorce brought down the government - is by no means accidental. It stems from the deepening contradictions felt by women today between their new awakened horizons and the reactionary soclal role imposed on them through the medium of the family unit. It is out of this contradiction - in the broadest sense - that the present dynamic can be situated.
Since the last war, the economic needs of most advanced capitalist countries have drawn women increasingly into the labour force. In Britain today, for example, they represent 40% of the labour movement and the biggest single element contributing to the growth in trade unionism. Paradxically, however, it has been this rapid influx into the labour force - inter- reacting with the social and moral questioning of the late 'sixties -which has brought out, before ever-wider layers of women, their specific oppression as a sex:
* While being drawn into the labour movement, they are denied equal opportunities with men because their primary role is still seen as getting married and raising a family;
* While performing work often similar to that of a man, they are denied equal pay - despite the passing of the Equal Pay Act - since their wage is seen merely as supplementary to that of the 'main' breadwinner;
* While expected to enter the labour force, they are equally expected to bear the main burden of servicing the family unit as well;
* While aware that society is capable of providing child-care facilities and safe birth control devices which would leave them free to participate more fully in social life, they are often denied access to them because their main 'unction' is seen as bearing and rearing children. Over the past decade, these contradictions have manifested themselves most sharply among young, professional women who represent the radicalised layer making up the women's movement. The demands this layer has pioneered however - iree abortion on demand - a woman's right to choose, free child-care ¡acilities, equal pay and opport -unities - are capable of drawing thousands of women into struggle since all women suffer a similar oppression as a sex.
This has not only been seen in the development of the National Abortion Campaign (drawing, at its peak, 25,000 onto the streets), but in numerous isolated struggles of women over the years such as those oi London buswomen to go driving or those of the Trico workers for ecual pay.
AUEW OFFICIAL STDIVE.
There can be no doubt that the rise of the womens' movement, insinuating its influence into all areas of society, has created a serious problem for the ruling class. While making 'concessions' to absorb or head it off (as in the Sex Discrimination Act), they are fully aware that the dynamic of these struggles can present a growing threat to the stability of class society.
The demands thrown up by the women's movement, challenging women's second-class a breeder of children economically dependent on the man, are a deepening threat to the stability of the family unit. In threatening the family, however, they implicitly threaten a major prop of class society through which the ruling class obtains many of its benefits.
The family provides them not only with a mechanism for passing on private property. It also provides them with a) a means of instilling authoritarian attitudes into each new generation; b) of abnegating responsibility for the care of old, young and sick which is imposec on the individual SOCIALIST ACTION
breadwinner; c) of retaining a cheap source of labour (women) who can be drawn into the economy at times of expansion and removed at times of recession; d) oi 'splitting' working people on sex lines since women, cut off and economically dependent on the man, are less likely to identify with his struggles at work. layers. One of the most positive signs in this direction has been the willingness of both TUC and Labour Party conferences to come out for free abortion on request and against any attempt to whittle away those rights won under the 1957 Act.