THE Communist Party District Committee in Southall organised a meeting last week called 'Socialism and Youth' with speakers from Komsomol, the Soviet youth movement. I thought it would be interesting to go along as I have never been to the USSR, or heard anyone from there speaking.
Unfortunately, the average age of the audience was about 40 plus, and the all-male delegation from Komsomol were (being generous) in their thirties.
The meeting was getting rather boring and predictable, so when questions were asked for I asked why the speakers weren't young people, and then also asked about democratic rights in the USSR. Specifically, what was Komsomol's attitude to homosexual rights, the legalisation of cannabis and the distribution of Trotsky's writings.
The answers were most enligntening. . Apparently there is 'no problem' of homosexuality in the USSR 'although we do have some of "them'". Funnily enough, there is also 'no problem' of cannabis. The question of free distribution of political literature was dealt with as a question of dissidents 'undermining the state' and was never answered.
Komsomo has older peon e running it because really you can't expect young people to run an organisation of 40 million members. One of the speakers asked me if I would seriously consider 'leading an organisation of 200,000 people', so I said "Yes, Paloveto!' (what else could I say!).
The Komsomol delegation woul be tournig Lne coantry lor tac next couple of weeks, and I'd recommend people to watch out for the meetings and go along armed with a few questions. No problem!
Nuclear risks THE RISKS from nuclear power appear so overwhelmingly obvious that there seems no point in talking about anything other than how to get The pro-nuclear people say that any one of us is much more likely to die in a car accident than from a nuclear accident. Taking an analogy with car accidents may help to clarify the class interests in the whole debate:
*Should one drive dangerously fast?
The answer depends on the urgency of the journey, which has to be weighed against the risk of not getting there at all What if there are others in the car?
Do they have the same urgent reasons for making the journey? Do they trust the driver to inform them and look after their interests? Do they have an equal say in the speed?
* What about the other road users?
Shouldn't they be consulted — assessing risk is clearly a question of democracy.
Nuclear power development is being forced ahead by capitalism for overcoming dependence on OPEC countries; overcoming vulnerability to miners' wage demands; access by governments in colonial countries to plutonium trom spent tuer export of nuclear capital from imperialist countries to colonial countries (though this is now slowing down).
Some of these interests contradict each other. All of them are clearly opposed to working class interests.
We know from experience (Windscale, Harrisburg etc) that the nuclear industry cannot be trusted to contal ce msks or to keep us auly informed.
Socialist Challenge 29 November 1979 However to deal with the whole question of nuclear power by demanding that the technology be abolished is to deal with the dangerous driver by demanding the destruction of all motor vehicles.
It won't necessarily stop the capitalists reaching their goals by other means and may leave us without a technical resource that, used rationally, could perhaps be valuable to us. But we haven't had a chance to decide.
Cost-benefit calculations are
always done on the basis of their benefit and our cost.
But we must not reject out-of-hand the possibility of rational decisions on nuclear safety — that would be to reject the possibility of acmocrauc organisation.
CAROL RUSSELL, Oxford MANY of your readers may recall that in April this year a young South African, Solomon Mahlangu, was executed in Pretoria, despite unprecedented international appeals. This Christmas the Mahlangu family. and thousands of other families in South Africa will be remembering their relatives who have died or who. are imprisoned for their political May we once again invite your readers to send greetings for Christmas and the New Year to the families of political prisoners, detainees, the banned and the banished in South Africa, Namibia and Rhodesia. Such greetings are seen as an expression of support and concern, and are deeply appreciated by the recipients.
Lists of the above are available on request from the Anti-Apartheid Movement, 89 Charlotte St, London WI.
ABDULMINTY, Hon Sec, Anti-Apartheid Movement Splits and fusions tactical error is the analysis of Phil has betrayed revolution in practice. The two examples are Lenin and the Second International in 1914, and, Trotsky and the Third in 1933. The implication is that even if international which indicates it is unreformably counter-revolutionary they shoutd not split until this has been shown in practice.
The comrades are historically inaccurate. Prior to 1914, Lenin saw himself as the defender of Marxist orthodoxy in Russia, hence his unwillingness to siam the door and block the return of the Mensheviks to the revolutionary ranks. When in 1914 Lenin received a copy of Vorwarts carrying news of the betrayal, Lenin assumed it was a In 1933, the betrayal of the German revolution by the Third it was unreformable and thus he finally recognised the need to build a new Intenamonal. luc polntis tuat the betrayals in practice changed the analyses and on the basis of these analyses they split.
Thus comrades Hearse and Packer misinterpretation of history a principle which is then uncritically applied to the USFI today. This method of analysis has more in of the WRP and Sparticist League than with Marxism as a critical and selt crițical method of analysis.
those members of the ISA and Big its dogmatism.
STEVE PREW, Hull Pollyanna politics ONE can appreciate that in a short article it is not possible to explain problems in detail, and therefore Hearse and Dave Packer. According to these comrades, it is only justifiable existing system. to split from an international when it revolutionaries have an analysis of an taxing of the rich. forgery by the German General Staff!
of the slump International showed to Trotsky that siluanon as lically Is class.
common with the dogmatic sectarians It can only support the view of Flame who have attacked the IMG for from state bower liberation above is meant to be a series of demands within a framework of the But, it is not a capitalist myth that increased money incomes coupled with a constant production is inflationary, it is a reality. Since wages are supposed to be increased this will lead to increased costs for producers, but on the other hand it is proposed that incomes from the sale of 'essential commodities' (which "constitute a considerable part of consumer spending) will be reduced - reduction of prices — and at the same time there will be a radical The rich are those who - by and large — receive their incomes from the realisation of surplus value in the form of profits from the sale of commodities. So what is being proposed is that profit margins should be further squeezed at a time of falling profits because of the onset This is to be followed by a demand for investment to be made in the interests of the working class, but when was investment ever made upon such a criterion under capitalism? At a time of falling investment - the — Lo rurtne squeeze profits is hardly likely to induce capitalists to invest for their own benefit, let alone the working Again, I may be told that workers' control of industry is being demanded. But this is pollyanna politics. There cannot be overall workers control of industry whilst the capitalist state remains in being, other than for the briefest moment. The alternatives are either partial into the system, or workers control which is a prelude to and an integral part of democratic socialist planning, i.e. the removal of the bourgeoisie Reluctantly, I must say that I rarely have seen such a melange of reformist-keynesianism and ultraleftist ideas being put forward in a KEN TARBUCK, Hovi *One-third of prisoners are aborigines... who make up only 3.3 per cent of the population.
*In education, all children are still taught that Captain Cook was the first person to set foot in Australia.
" I here are only 63 aboriginal graduates out of a population of about 500,000;
In Queensland:
*Aboriginals live in reserves worse than concentration camps.
*All demonstrations have been banned since September 1977.
*Union strike funds are outlawed *Strikes are illegal if the government declares that the workers are involved in 'essential services'... and strike leaders jailed Weare therefore organising : picket of Queensland House, , 293 The Strand, London WC2 at 10.30am on Saturday 1 December. The struggle of the aboriginal people is anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, the struggle of black and oppressed people around the world.
TOMMY SMITH, BINDI WILLIAMS Dear Comrades, I WOULD like to thank the innumerable individuals, IMG branches, and friends on the left who have written to me sending their greetings and get-well wishes following my accident. It is not possible to reply to each one individually, so perhaps these comrades will accept my thanks via the paper.
Readers will be pleased that I have made my first regular reader on the nursing staff, and we are mustering support for the local campaign against health cuts.
Yours, BOB PENNINGTON.
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Greetings to African families
From a hospital bed