promise made in the 'It was the crisis', they say. *Factors beyond our control. This is a lie.
A policy which meets the needs of working people can be carried out today. But even some of the positive elements of the 1974 manifesto - • measly as they were could only implemented if a bold choice was taken to mobilise working class in a fight to break the capitalist hold UIL economy.
This would have meant a repudiation of the contract and instead:
*a declaration of war on the rich and powerful;
*ending private ownership of production, sanctioning action taken by workers to put the economy in their own hands;
*breaking up the army of How will the "Labour' does not have majority in parliament, that does not mean its situation is totally hopeless. There is a way out; one need only have the will to find it.
Suppose MacDonald said this: *To our shame, country has a kind of august dynasty that stands above democracy and for which have no need. ...What if he added: 'We are going to take their lands, mines and railways, and nationalise their banks.' ..If he added, •With the resources released by abolition of the monarchy and the House of Lords we are going to undertake construction of housing for the workers,' he would unleash tremendous enthusiasm.
In Britain three-quarters of the population is working class It Is a purely country. It has a small handful Labour manifesto in 1974. Labour leaders and the government have said time and again that they had no choice.
bureaucrats and police who run the LOUI forcing us to serve the interests of capital; * rooting such a government in the power of the working CaSS by promoung centralising genuinely be cratic workers councils.
This week VY C the examine a few steps could be taken to begin to the remove the running economy from the hands of the capitalists.
Restoring full employment. One and a half million are on the dole today. This because there is no work. But if they were employed idle factories, offices their couldn't be sold which would satisfy capital's of landlords and capitalists they are very rich and powerful, it is true, but still they are only a handful.
If MacDonald walked into parliament, laid his programme on the table, rapped lightly with his knuckles, and said Accept it or I'Il drive you all out' our [saying it more politely than I've phrased it here] — if he did this, would unrecognisable in two weeks. VY C MacDonald would receive an overwhelming majority in any The British working class would break out of its shell of the conservatism with which it has been cleverly would discard that the reverence for the laws of the bourgeoisie, the the church Casses. monarchy. But MacDonald will not do that.
Trotsky, speech to the Tbilisi Soviet, 1924 desire for profits.
Simple measures of workers control and CHISHEC Dase programme of public works is fulfilled. construction, behalf, direct workers ancillary only sixty per cent of existing Cabacily repeated throughout areas of industry.
CHO demo- A measure resources which released has been calculated by begin to ways in which. economists Andrew Glyn and John Harrison. In his pamphlet "Tribune's Alternative the egy, Giyn quotes from the National Economic Review that production isn't average of 20 per in the capacity.
Around £20 billion of goods and and services (in 1975 prices) produce which could be produced are at a price not thanks to the huge amount of idle resources. calculates that it could provide the following: 50 per cent improvement in pensions and other benefits: £3,500m.
Minimun per week: £5,500m.
Doubling £4,000m. 25 per cent increase in health education £3,000m. 10 per cent increase in living standards: £4,000m To protect the economy from financial and economic sabotage it would have to acompanied by the nationalisation of all finances and by control of all foreign trade. surrounded. It Proper slavish production would planning and nationalisation of propertied large industry, together with a and the completely new, non-imperialist role in the world economy. And under these circumstances the new technology microprocessors sately used to everyone's living conditions without unemployment. planning could 200,000 billion and workers are idle This USC other people.
total could Compare this Stratstatistics thousandth this amount! Institute Consider WEIGE SHOW are free-loading al all cent under goes on luxury expensive Glyn manutacturmg for useless 'needs' Finally, the ownership of land. earnings of £70 for working housebuilding: increasing essentials certainly does not expenditure: producton.
The Benwell be prices. This average. In banking and instance, the full state much higher.
development of require could be broken up.
nationalised.
like could be capitalists.
vote tor the class vote, most evident.
FORTY way forward. misery from Removing the income of the idle rich. The Labour Research Department recently estimated eight win pounds. This probably a tremendous underestimate, since widespread tax fiddles and deceptions conceal the real wealth of Britain's top Communist The chairperson of the Board SCLICLAR of Inland Revenue, Sir William Lennan.
party Pile, reported to the Commons last week that he estimated tax yesterday fiddling at three billion pounds.
with so-called social security frauds of one the waste this involves. An army of parasites simply head. living, without doing any useful work at all. And much of the money the rich has its hands on goods like cars, yachts, and houses which are out of the reach of ordinary people. So useful productive resources are commocies things. speculation and activities like live This only jacks up the cost of living people by the price of like housing. the add government.
Community
Development Project estimates that 50 per cent of the cost of every house is now accounted for by interest charges and land figure an London, for proportion is This wealth could be put at the service of working people.
Investment and property trusts Banks, land and monopolies could be Luxury goods industries could be reconverted Next week we will look at Party other measures to end capitalist waste and state hand-outs to From the left press WHAT attitude should socialists adopt towards the return of a Labour government? A whole has emerged on the left in this election. Most socialists have called for a return of Labour because it is the lesser of two The Workers Revolutionary Party is unique in its refusal to call fora vote for Labour Party time, Socialist Challenge rejects the reasoning behind both these tory positions. We have argued for a there is no socialist alternative not merely because this represents a class against but because it is when the leaders of the working class are in office that their defence of capitalism becomes Under these circumstances, it is that much easier to fight fora real socialist alternative to the left of Labour.
MORNING STAR Communist candidates are to spearhead a bold and confident' election campaign by their party to defeat the Tories and win a Labour government that will take a left In all constituencies, where Communists are not standing, electors will be urged by the party to vote Labour.
And a 'special responsibility' will be laid on Communists to support Labour candidates who endorse ano fight for left policies.
These were the strategic by the Party's general Mr Gordon and adopted by the executive committee launching general election campaign.
2 April ...The issue is policy. We need different policies, ones which stand Callaghan's policies and Thatcher's policies their Instead of kow-towing to the big multinationals which are holding our country to ransom in the pursuit of their profits, need to challenge their wealth and power and solve the crisis at their expense in the interests of the working people.
To achieve that requires two The defeat of the Tories. And the building up of the mass democratic movement to the point where it can compel Labour government to implement left policies, including, as necessary, changes in composition of the The Communist candidates will be spearheading the drive for these twin aims in their election campaigns.
-Editorial, Tuesday 3 April.
NEWSLINE THE various revisionist groups in Britain are unanimous in calling for the return ot the thoroughly discredited Labour government in next month's general election The International Marxist Group, the Socialist Workers' and the tiny Workers Socialist League all pleaded with the working class to vote June party of Callaghan, Healey, Merlyn Rees and Roy Mason..
In past elections the WRP and its predecessor the Socialist 35a 001 League forward the demand 'Labour Power Socialist Programme' and campaigned to "Make the Left MPs Fight".
But that does not mean tha such calls are correct for all the circumstances. Throughout the hisof Marxism, Trotsky, Lenin. Engels and Marx himself frequently engaged in bitter struggles against thost who clung to the slogans of a past era when conditions had changed...
What is decisive in Britain today is not whether Thatcher and Joseph subjectively hate the working class more thar Callaghan and Healey and are therefore more anxious to attack them.
The decisive factor is the obiective world crisis and it impact on British capitalism. The stage is set in Britain for a general strike and civil war, whoever wins the coming general election...
Our candidates will pu Forwara a cicar revornonar programme, based on the Transitional Programme of the Fourth International. We know such a programme will not large VULC in this election - but that is not our primary concern.
Our task is to put before the Widest possibie audience workers, youth and professional people the task which faces them - the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism in Britain as part of the world socialist revolution.
- Saturday 7 April TRIBUNE •.THOSE in the trade union movement who go into this election to help return a Labour Government do not do so in happened in the last four years. They go into the battle in order that they may be able in the future to have some more significant influence upon what the next Labour government does or does not de.
Without doubt Labour's chances for re-election now depend on the sucess of the campaign by the trade unions. There is no reason to believe that they will not pull their weight...
But the ingredient which must be added to that campaign in Labour's election manifesto must willing and enthusiastic commitment • to many of the crucial economic policies that the trade unions have been arguing for for so onithout a doubt, the most important must be a full scale commitment to democracy, both through representation of trade unions in companies and also through the implementation of planning Labour's objective must be to campaign for a future which must bring change. , The trade unions could well be the best engine for that change in the years to conte - 6 April
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•Faller e 12 April 1979 Page 6 THE government has managed to break almost every Party's