[page 22]
The Asturian Commune - 50 years on
3
UHP
La Reretucten de Asturias
THE FALL of the monarchy in April 1931 marked the beginning of the Spanish revolution. The declaration of the Republic led to an immediate outburst of spontaneous strikes and demonstration of the workers and peasants who thought that the arrival of bourgeois democracy would mean the solving of their basic problems of work, land, wages and conditions. But Spain remained a weak capitalist economy where the wealth and power remained concentrated in the hands of a small group of landlords and capitalists, linked together by common interest and fear of the revolutionary masses. A coalition government was formed of the Republicans and Socialists which proved powerless to solve the problems. Labour unrest spread.
The government was given the
By Steve Poole
power of suspending constitutional guarantees and of intervening in labour disputes. The Socialists argued that it was important to give the Republic a strong hand to defend itself against the forces of Reaction. The Republicans of course had no interest in genuine land redistribution and peasants driven by hunger to seize land were met by the Civil Guard. Arbitration agreements raising pay were ignored and workers banned from striking while government agents went into interminable investigations and discussions with landowners.
The counter-revolution had taken to arms in August 1932 but they were smashed by the workers of Seville. Then they discovered they could out-
21
do the Republicans and Socialists with demagogy, skillfully exploiting the discontent of the masses with the government. Following the Civil Guard's massacre in Casas Viejas, the Right wept crocodile tears for the massacred peasants and denounced the government for its harassment of the workers' press and the large number of political prisoners in jail!
The anarcho-syndicalist CNT was repressed by the government and as a result were strengthened and drew around them the militant layers of the proletariat. "Had the Socialists pursued a correct course they would have melted like wax in the heat of revolution", Trotsky.
In the November 1933 elections more than half the eight million voters went to the "anti-Marxist front" coalition and five million failed to vote. The
[page 23]
MIR Sept 1
largest party in the Cortes (Spanish parliament) was now Gil Robles' Catholic-fascist CEDA.
The CEDA, however, left government to the right-wing republican Radical Party, not daring to govern until they had built a mass base. To this end they introduced a bill providing unemployment benefit, set up Christian youth, trade union and peasant movements, and even frightened their allies by talk of dividing up the large landed estates.
984; Asturian Commune
But the coming to power of Hitler in 1933 and . the crushing of the Austrian workers in February 1934 had alarmed the international labour movement. The leftward evolution of the social-democracy came rapidly in Spain, already developing within the Young Socialists prior to the November 1933 elections as a reflection of the disenchantment of the working-class with the coalition government. The threat of an extension of fascism to all Europe posed by the easy triumph of Hitler in Germany forced a re appraisal of reformist ideas.
The socialist Largo Caballero, who had been at the forefront of collaboration with the monarchist dictator Primo de Rivera in the 1920s as well as in the 1931-33 coalition government, veered left to electrify the masses with statements like: "We are convinced that bourgeois democracy has not worked; from today our objective will be the dictatorship of the proletariat... We must wait for the right psychological moment to throw ourselves into combat' Caballero was groping towards the ideas of Marxism. A sincere workingclass trade unionist, he could perhaps have completed his leftward transition had there been a Marxist tendency within the Socialist Party. As it was he remained half-way between leftreformism and revolution with a centrist position: revolutionary in words, but not drawing the necessary tactical, strategical and organisational conclusions.
Even the centre of the Socialist Party, under Prieto, publicly pledged that any attempt at a fascist regime would be met by armed revolution. Some arms were imported but the socialist leaders lacked clear goals and threatened revolution instead of planning it. They did not see the revolution as the necessary culmination of class contradictions but as an unfortunate recourse imposed on them by the misunderstanding and intolerance of the capitalists. As a result, for them, the insurrecton could only be an act of desperation in legitimate defence when the door of collaboration had been shut in their faces. In reply to Prieto's threat of armed revolution Gil Robles calmly replied: "You socialists will
always be incapable of unleashing the revolution because you are afraid of it.
The working-class rallied around Caballero and threw themselves into the struggle with renewed determination, freed now from the collaborationist diversion which had led to the 1933 election defeat. The strikes increased in number and virulence. Robles did not dare enter the government. He hoped that the Radical government would ride out and burn up the new found energy of the masses. But their activity and optimism increased daily.
On the initiative of the Left Communists and the Workers' and Peasants' BLOC (later united as the POUM) a Workers' Alliance was formed in Barcelona, and later in Valencia, Madrid, Asturias and elsewhere. The Left Communists had seen these workers' councils as indispensable instruments of the insurrection to be constituted by delegates representing all workers' parties and unions, the shops and the streets and to be joined together nationally: a veritable mass leadership. Their formation would have been decisive had the socialist leaders seen them as instruments of united action and organs of workers' power. But they maintained a bureaucratic structure of mere "top" committees, without elected or lower rank delegates-little more than liaison committees between leaderships, and even these were never joined together nationally. Caballero, no more than Prieto, could understand the need to weld together the masses in action in joint organisations of struggle, like the Soviets in the Russian revolution, which united all layers of the working class against reactionary landlords and capitalists.
The Communist Party attacked the Workers' Alliances as "Trotskyfascist" and "social fascist". The anarchist CNT also refused to join, except in Asturias where the founding pact of 31 March 1934 stated that 'the organizations united in this agreement will work together until they achieve the social revolution in Spain and the conquest of economic and political power by the working class"
In Madrid the socialist leaders did little to win over the CNT to the Workers' Alliance. They refused to call action through the Alliance to develop it. They refused to mobilise for partial battles at this decisive stage. Yet neither did they seriously prepare tor the decisive showdown which they regarded as a last resort." If they try to block our path... If they illegalise us etc.
Only the Young Socialists seriously prepared; in Asturias organising uniformed military training jointly with the Young Communists. Their
22
paper Renovación frequently denounced both reformism and Stalinism and praised the Spanish Trotskyists of the Communist Left, calling on them to help bolshevize the Socialist Party and Young Socialists. But despite Trotsky's insistence the Left Communists refused to join the Socialist Party and lost this opportunity of converting themselves into a mass party by winning thousands of youth and workers to the ideas of Marxism.
In April Gil Robles called a national assembly at El Escorial near Madrid. A general strike was only called at the last minute by the Young Socialists, not the Workers' Alliance. Within three hours of the strike call, however, Madrid was paralysed. Street tram rails were torn up, food and accommodation made impossible, roads blocked by barricades and fascists turned back and dispersed with fists and weapons.
Again in Madrid the Workers Alliance, at Left Communist insistence, organised the putting up of the wives and children of those involved in the Zaragoza general strike for the reinstatement of CNT activists dismissed from work. The Alliance also organised the collection of a day's pay for the strike fund, facilitating its victory. The socialist leaders claimed all this to have been organised solely by the socialist union, the UGT; again they ignored an opportunity to weaken the anti-Alliance wing of the CNT, Zaragoza being a CNT stronghold.
The chronic problems of agriculture and the mood of class consciousness and optimism resulting from the recent victorious strikes (including a prolonged metal workers' strike in Madrid
a 44-hour week) led to an agricultural labourers' strike in June 1934 organised by the socialist FNTT landworkers' union. By the second day 100,000 were on strike. But the socialist leaders in Madrid impeded the solidarity action pressed for by the FNTT and Left Communists. They refused to support the call for a 48 hour general strike which could have ensured victory and been a turning point in the Spanish revolution, leading to new elections, dual power between government and Workers' Alliances, the arming of the workers and the taking of power with the minimum of sacrifice. Instead the landworkers and FNTT were smashed and demoralised, the ruling class gained confidence and began the preparation of a general attack on the revolution.
The initiative had passed to the
Right and, using the legal structure in-
stalled by the 1931-33 Republican-
Socialist coalition they proceeded with measures against the workers' press,
the imprisonment of worker and pea-
sant activists (12,000 in all), the clos-
[page 24]
ing down of workers' organisations and the dissolution of councils. The Workers' opposition had been reinforced by the struggle for national liberation.
Moves against the semiautonomous status of Catalonia had roused the Catalans to huge anti- Robles demonstrations and the abandonment of the Cortes by nationalist MPs. The Basque councils also refused to collaborate with the government, leading to the arrest of all Basque In April 1934 the secretary of the Communist Party had resigned because the Communist International had refused to sanction a United Front but by September the pressure from the party's ranks was irresistible, joint Socialist-Communist activities already common at rank-and-file level, and on 23 September. Communist delegates took their place in the Alliance. In a number of strikes the CNT were co-operating with the Socialist UGT and the entry of the Communist Party into the Workers' Alliance meant that it was only a matter of time before the CNT workers would follow the example of their Asturian section. The CEDA Catholic-fascists dared wait no longer and proceeded to provoke the October confrontation by entering the Cabinet, thereby calling On 1 October the government resigned. El Socialista threatened imminent insurrection-but prepared nothing. On the 4th a new government was formed with ministers. The socialists called a peaceful general strike to give the government time to flush out disloyal troops and recover some socialist arms caches. The masses were on the streets demanding the distribution of socialist arms prior to the strike call. Only on the 19 July, 1936 was there to be such an electrically charged enthusiasm on the streets of Madrid again. There were messages from barracks and even Civil Guard posts of their readiness to go over to the workers if attacked. But the socialist leadership refused to lead and by the afternoon of the 5th, having detained many soldiers and confined the majority to barracks, the government was confident enough to enforce order with a heavy hand. Even then the soldiers driving the trams were "supervised" by pistol-toting officers. The general strike remained solid until the 13th when the socialists ordered a return to work. Industrial and commercial life had been paralysed as never before in Spain. With Catalonia in arms the October revolution could have succeeded, but the Workers' Alliance failed to orien tate itselt to the CNT, the strongest working Class organisation in the region. The Alliance had retained a bureaucratic structure and, rather than attempting to win the CNT, had maintained dialogue with the a regional bourgeois nationalist government, the Generalitat, who were harassing the CNT. In October the Alliance saw itself as a mere auxiliary support to the Generalitat. Instead of posing the problem of Catalan liberty trom the workers' angle, the Alliance waited for an initiative on the part of the regional bourgeois.
Maurin's BOC (Workers' and Peasants' Bloc) pushed this line in the demonstration in front of the Genralitat palace asking them for arms! Instead of looking to the Generalitat palace for support, they should have linked with the CNT who joined the strike and were calling for a workers' uprising "to give the movement its proper characteristics". In some Catalan towns (Sabadell, Tarrasa and Villanuevay Galetrá) the workers took control and barricades went up in Barcelona, but the Generalitat, afraid of this mass movement curtailed it by declaring a Catalan Republic and promptly surrendering to Madrid troops without a fight.
In the Basque country workers took control in Eibar and Mondragón and marched on Bilbao, to be turned back by the Prieto Socialist leadership who told them to await orders and continue the strike-with some violence "to maintain the tension"! Many small towns in the South were also temporarily taken by workers, but the socialist leaders in the provincial capital cities lacked clear goals and In Asturias (and the neighbouring mining zones of Lèon and Palencia), however, we saw the beginnings of a thorough-going socialist revolution, the first in Spain's history. Here the influence of the powerful and militant Miners' Union-which organised 24-hour general strike of 9,000 miners in February 1934 against the repression of the socialists in Vienna-played a key role. The miners' leader Peña had declared: "If we don't smash them, they'll smash us—we must learn the lessons of what is happening abroad" Here the Workers' Alliance comprised all the workers' organisations except the "apolitical" FAI wing of the CNT in La Felguera though even this group participated in the insurrection under the discipline of the Revolutionary Committee.
In Asturias the Socialist and Communist parties had been organising joint meetings of 4-5,000 miners throughout the year. The Young Socialists and Young Communists organised joint uniformed sions" to the mountains for military training. The Workers' Alliance here established committees throughout the region, expanding in representa- 23 tion and influence as they organised successful strikes such as that of the municipal workers in Gijón and 48-hour general strike in September to block another CEDA assembly in Covadonga which was the most unanimous strike ever known in In 1934 there were six general strikes in Asturias and eleven strikes of more than 1,000 workers-both economic and workers' movement had advanced and radicalised and gained a clear consciousness of its own united strength. At dawn on the 5 October miners put into practice the plans drawn up for the attack of Civil Guard posts and the distribution of socialist arms. That afternoon the government declared "a state of war" in Asturias. Many troops and Civil Guards went over quickly to the workers having witnessed their unity, strength and resolve over the previous months, but the mutinies were limited as the soldiers knew that the government was in control in the rest of Spain. With a sparse supply of arms the miners relied on surprise and dynamite. 1,000 miners took half the capital Oviedo from 1,800 soldiers and Civil Guards. The improvised bomb launchers were the first tanks seen in Spain. Arms and dynamite factories were taken. For two weeks the workers' committees controlled militias, administration, transport, provisions, telephones, the health service, industrial production etc under the slogan UHP!-Unión, hermanos proletarios (Proletarian brothers, unite!). Of 27,600 miners, 20,000 were involved in the armed struggle. Alongside the miners fought some 10,000 metal and steel workers. From the 6 October, however, the government was confident of containing the rest of Spain and, not trusting Spanish troops, sent the Foreign Legion Moors under General Franco to crush the commune. Non-striking CNT railworkers transported the troops. 40,000 were sent to take Asturias, but the workers put up an heroic resistance until the 18th, despite facing superior arms and aerial bombardment. Oviedo resembled Belgian and French towns destroyed in the 1914-18 war. The Workers' and Peasants' Republic of Asturias surrendered on the 18th "defeated, but not conquered".
The Asturian insurrection had been the most thorough-going in Western Europe since the 1871 Paris Commune and the brutal repression which followed was similar to that ordered by the French bourgeois. More than 3,000 miners were killed, many after surrender. Some 7,000 were wounded and 40,000 imprisoned and tortured for confessions or to reveal the location of arms caches.
[page 25]
Nationally a state of emergency was maintained for three months: the councils of Madrid, Valencia, Barcelona and other towns were dissolved, the workers' organisations banned, Catalan autonomous rights suspended, thousands of activists sacked, wage levels reduced and unemployment increased.
But Asturias had saved the Spanish workers from decisive defeat. The insurrection inspired admiration and the hope of a new general offensive on the part of the working class. The Young Socialists adopted the slogan, "we must continue until the triumph of the October revolution" ' Because the workers had fought arms in hand it proved impossible to consolidate a fascist regime as Hitler had done in Germany thanks to the passivity of the Social-Democrats who had underestimated the effects of a fascist government in smashing the workers' movement and thanks to the insane position of the Communists who saw the Social-Democrats as their principal enemy. In Germany fascism seized the reins of government without a shot being fired; in Spain Asturias proved that the Spanish fascists would face civil war.
Within three months the unions were again collecting dues, issuing illegal papers and organizing wage donations to prisoners' families. Large sections of the peasantry and middle class were drawn into the amnesty campaigns, with meetings of 200,000. General strikes were organised against the executions of October prisoners. May Day 1935 saw a total stoppage of work and was followed by a split in the Radical Party-the "wets" going over to the amnesty campaign, a split in the CNT with the formation of a syndicalist party for participation in the elections, and a right to vote concession by the CNT leadership. In February 1936 the bonapartist regime
was swept away at the polls and in the
streets, with workers tearing open the Jails, enforcing the reinstatement with
back pay of those victimised atter UC-
tober 1934, dismissing scab workers
and achieving a shorter working week.
Trotsky wrote on the Spanish Oc-
tober of 1934: "No one has said that
the revolutionary method automatical-
ly assures victory. What is decisive is
not the method in itself, but its correct
application, the Marxist orientation in
events, powerful organisation, the con-
fidence of the masses won through
long experience, a perspicacious and
bold leadership... The reformist par-
ties of Germany, Austria and Spain
did not prepare the revolution, did not
lead it, but suffered it... The result of
the civil war depends for three-
quarters, if not nine-tenths, on the
political preparation...
But the Socialist Party had failed to
: MIR Sont 1984. Fennomic notes
MVVIVU maintain the offensive, had failed to create genuine soviets and national cohesion, had failed to conduct propaganda to neutralise or win over the troops, had failed to explain to the workers what the coming revolution would mean by propagating the slogan of land and factory seizure and by forming militias, but had instead hinted darkly at their own Blanquist preparations to effect it themselves. Even in Asturias the socialist-dominated Provincial Committee failed to systematise the revolution, failed for example to proclaim that the land was now the property of the labourers and poor peasants, a measure which would have rapidly had repercussions in neighbouring Galicia.
...Of what does this political preparation consist? Of the revolutionary cohesion of the masses, of their liberation from servile hopes in the clemency, generosity and loyalty of 'democratic' slave-owners, of the education of revolutionary cadres who know how to defy public opinion and who know how to display towards the bourgeoisie one-tenth of the implacability that they display towards the toilers. Without this temper, civil war, when conditions force it-and they always end by forcing it-will
LEconomic not
take place under conditions most unfavourable for the proletariat, will depend upon many hazards, and even then, in the case of military victory, power can escape the hands of the proletariat. Whoever does not foresee that the class struggle leads inevitably to armed conflict is blind. But he is no less blind who fails to see behind this armed conflict and its outcome the whole previous policy of the classes in struggle... In Spain, as in Austria, it was not revolutionary methods that were defeated but opportunist methods in a revolutionary situation. It is not the same thing!"
Marx had warned of the dangers of "playing" with insurrection and of failing to act with determination by not taking the offensive or going all the way. "The defensive", he said "is the death of every armed rising." Fortunately, the Asturian workers, in taking the offensive, saved the day and preserved uncurbed the Spanish workers' spirit of resistance and revolution-soon to sweep across Spain, in response to the militaryfascist rising, on the 19 July, 1936.
In the next issue of the MIR, Steve
Morgan writes on the workers' upris-
ing in Vienna, February 1934.
les By Bob Mckee
Western economy
running out of steam
THE LATEST economic forecast from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) confirms earlier predictions by other forecasters that growth of production in the major capitalist countries will decline in 1985, ie the 'boom' of 1983 and 1984 is coming to an end.
The growth in production reached 2.4% in 1983 and accelerated to 4½% in 1984. But this relative improvement over the decline of 1981 and 1982 was almost totally dependent on a buoyant US economy which expanded by 3.4% in 1983 and by a startling 6% in 1984. Excluding the US economy, the rest of the 24 OECD nations only increased production by 1.8% and 3.0% in 1984.
However, the OECD predicts "a slowing of the expansion in the USA for 1985, with production falling sharply to just 2.5% growth for that year. As a result, overall OECD production will only rise by 2.75% in 1985.
The US government continues to run a massive budget deficit in order to pay
24
for fast rising investment in "defence" Increased government borrowing is forcing up US interest rates and may drive them even higher in 1985 because investors in foreign currency deposits can receive high rates if they hold their money in US dollars. This has enabled US companies to buy goods from other OECD countries, thus stimulating those economices to some extent.
However, increased US interest rates have forced up rates in other OECD countries in order to avoid too sharp a fall in their currencies. Any fall in a country's currency in relation to the dollar will increase inflation as countries purchasing dollars have to find more of their own currency to pay for them.
Generally rising interest rates are beginning to squeeze the share of profits going to manufacturing industry which has modestly improved its rate of return on investment in the last two years. As the OECD puts it: "real interest rates are high by historical stan-
[page 26]
dards and are likely to remain so... in relation to realised rates of return on capital. Hence pure profit rates remain depressed."
Therefore there is expected to be a decline in the growth of fixed investment in OECD nations for the rest of 1984 and through to 1985. So while the downturn in growth in 1985 may keep prices from rising too fast, the end of what the OECD calls this "mild boom" holds out no improvement in the prospects for unemployment. In Europe that will continue to increase from its current level of 18½m to 19½m by the end of 1985 and will stop falling in the USA. The OECD is very unsure about the future, If the massive US balance of payments deficit (now $80,000m per year rising to $100,000m in 1985) eventually produces a sharp fall in the dollar when other nations are no longer prepared to accept credit for US purchases, then interest rate rises could really strangle the world economy and throw it into another major recession or slump greater than the last. And unemployment is already at a record According to a recent study by Union Bank of Switzerland, labour costs in the UK are among the lowest in the advanced capitalist world. Among the top 15 capitalist nations, only Spain and Ireland have cheaper labour forces than Britain. Labour costs per worker per hour are around SwFr14 (£4.50) in the UK, while they reach SwFr25 in the USA and Canada. British employers can therefore hardly complain that high labour costs are the cause of their low profits —although they do!
The reason for low labour costs in the UK is not principally low wages. Pay per hour in Britain is SwFr10 per hour, higher than France or Italy at SwFr9. Costs are kept low because UK employers pay much less in social security contributions than do other employers-only 41% of hourly pay compared to 81% in France and 91% Another interesting fact to emerge from the survey is that Japan is no longer a low wage economy. Japanese workers receive higher pay rates than their British counterparts. The success of the Japanese economy and the failure of the British cannot be explained by cheap Japanese workers and overpaid British ones. It is more accurate to say that expanding Japanese industry has boosted wages while a declining British economy has lowered workers' incomes.
UK oil surplus hides disaster in manufacturing The Thatcher government would never have survived in office had it relied on the success of British manufacturing industry to create wealth and income in the last five years. The revenue from Britain's oil exports has competely masked the dramatic and irreversible decline in the nation's manufacturing trade surplus. In 1978 British industry was exporting £3800m more in manufacturing goods than it was importing. In 1983 it imported £6,800m more than it exported! This is a recipe for economic disaster which has only been averted, temporarily, while oil revenues last. The deterioration in British manufacturing trade is particularly sharp in the industries that used to be considered the strongholds of British industry: motor vehicles, textiles and electrical equipment. Whereas in 1978 they provided a small surplus of exports over imports, in 1983 they contributed over 70% of the total manufacturing trade deficit. The only areas that have shown improved surpluses or at least maintained the same position as in 1978 are the aerospace industry, supported by increased government defence spending financed by the tax-payer and to a lesser extent the chemicals industry. Overall in the last five years imports have increased by 34% compared to British manufacturing industry lost its share of world trade over a decade ago, but now it is fast losing its position in home markets. Why? Because it cannot raise productivity sufficient- Import and export ratios, selected UK industries Industry Import Export sales penetration ratio (%) (%) 1978 1983 1978 1983 Motor vehicles 25 37 28 24 Electrical/ electronic engineering 22 30 28 27 Office machines/ADP 54 62 42 42 Man-made fibres 26 39 36 43 Foot- 22 ware/clothing 30 14 13 Textiles 25 32 20 20 Chemicals 20 23 29 31 Instruments 35 37 33 37 Aerospace + other transport 27 equipment 23 33 36 Total manufacturing 21 24 21 21 Import penetration measures imports divided by home demand + exports. The export sales ratio measures exports divided by manufacturers' sales + imports. So, since both ratios have the same demoninator, any increase in the import penetration index faster than a comparable increase in the export sales index reveals decreased competitiveness of UK manufacturers. Source: Monthly Digest of Statistics, December 1983. Figures refer to the 12 months ending December 1978 and 1983 respectively.
25 ly to compete with more efficient rivals. And the situation is likely to get worse. By 1985 the manufacturing deficit will be so large that it will eat away entirely the oil surplus and revenues obtained from banking, insurance and shipping that Britain usually relies upon. By the early 1990s oil production will have dropped away to the point where Britain will be forced to import oil again and the mask that has covered over Britain's manufacturing collapse will be removed to expose the decay beneath.
Saving British industry by cutting its taxes The British government is not stupid They know that the reason for the disastrous failure of British industry is lack of investment-although they usually tell us the lie that it is the high wages of British workers. However. they know why UK capitalists will not invest. As they put it:
"what the UK really needs... is not just more investment but...is more genuinely profitable investment"' Economic Progress Report May 1984.
that Treasury report they graphically demonstrate why British in. dustry will not invest-because the rates of return on investment "have been consistently lower than in competitors' countries"
Why? Because British industry is so inefficient that output per unit of capital is less than half that of the USA or West Germany, for example.
But what is the government's solution? To raise production and investment by a plan controlled and executed by the whole industrial workforce, instead of allowing decisions to be made by a few who are looking for only "genuinely profitable investment"? Of course not. If profit rates are too low, let's increase them — but not by raising efficiency (they don't know how under the private profit system) but by lowering the taxes on existing profits even The government's answer is to alter the tax incentive scheme in such a way that, as the Treasury openly boasts in this report, "the rate at which comsignificantly lower than any of our major competitors".
The report does not explain how this extra handout to our inefficient British capitalists is to be paid for, but it is not difficult to work out. If there are less taxes to be raised from the big companies then they must either be increased elsewhere ie from the workingclass in income tax or further cuts must be made in public spending. So the Tories are not stupid. If profits are too low for the capitalists, make everybody else subsidise them a bit more. It's sim-
[page 27]
Book Reviews "The Lucas Plan; A New Trade Unionism in the Making?"
By Hilary Wainwright and Dave Elliott.
& Busby 1982 Allison £2.95 Reviewed by Vivienne Seal THE LUCAS Aerospace workers' campaign against redundancy, based on proposals for using their skills to make socially useful products, received tremendous support throughout the labour movement nationally and internationally.
Back in the mid-1970s the Lucas chairman announced:
move overseas with capital, investment and jobs and retain its UK operation on a care and maintenance basis." Between 1970 and 1975 the total workforce in the combine had declined from 18,000 to 13,000. In 1974 the announced Labour Government defence cuts. Lucas Aerospace works on many defence contracts and combine shop stewards committee realised that these cuts, together with the "rationalisation" planned anyway by management, meant that there would be redundancies to fight. At the same time the individual unions in the combine nearly all had national policies that favoured defence cuts, and the combine committee supported such policies in general terms. The strategy they adopted was to work out an alternative corporate plan to fight without opposing redundancies Every worker in the combine was asked to supply details of his or her experience and knowledge, and trades councils, trade unions and community groups supplied details of specific local needs. Studies of technologies were made and circulated to all the sites. Corporate planning committees were set up on most sites. stewards developed ideas for alternative products based on their their local factory's knowledge of equipment, services, siting and layout, the skills of the workforce, existing and planning products and so what both technically possible and socially needed. Alternative methods of production, using technology to rather than diminish replace human intelligence and skill, were also proposed.
MIR Sept 1984; Book reviews The alternative plan was published in 1976. Lucas workers campaigned against redundancies by arguing that the company should diversify in ways recommended by the plan rather than shut down plant and make workers About 150 products were described, some involving detailed designs and specifications for production. They included remote handling (telechiric) devices for undersea maintenance, fire fighting and mining that would avoid dangers to miners, firemen and divers; a rubber wheeled vehicle that runs on roads or rails, powered by a hybrid electric and petrol engine; electromagnetic fail-safe auxiliary brakes for heavy vehicles; artificial limb control systems; sight substituting aids for the blind (drawing on experience in designing blind landing systems for aircraft); solar cell technology for powering housing estates; and a vehicle designed especially for disabled children. Several prototypes have since been build and the road-rail vehicle, apart leading a demonstration in Burnley against redundancy, has according to the stewards proved to be successful "tecological cessprop in mobile exhibitions.
Similar alternative plans have since been discussed by workers faced with at Vickers, redundancy Leyland, Chrysler, Clarke Chapman, GEC, Rolls Royce, Hawker Siddeley Aerospace. The metal workers' union in Germany and the US Autoworkers and the Aerospace and Machinists' union have taken up the ideas in the alterntive plan. Lucas workers have visited factories all over the world to share their expeiences with other groups of trade unionists. In France workers voted for developing alternative socially useful production (part of the Socialist Party's manifesto) at the May 1981 general election. But Lucas management, not surprisingly, were less enthusiastic. In fact have refused to consider the workers' alternative, even at one stage deciding they did not recognise the combine committee (with whom they had previously negotiated). When the plan was published they wrote a 26 page reply, essentially arguing that aerospace products would remain profitable and "of social utility" was no need to consider alternatives. Many Lucas workers at first believed that the company would accept the alternative plan. They have recognised that management's" attitudes and actions are governed, not by abstract 'rationality' but by vested interests. In this case management have been determined to oppose the plan in order to demonstrate who controls the company and who decides on corporate strategy and product development. There is no question that they would ever willingly allow the workers to have a say in these matters even though Lucas has actually missed out on profitable markets to make For example, the heat pump described in the alternative plan was developed, built and then tested in Milton Keynes Development Corporation houses (financed by a government grant, not by Lucas). The heat pump, which works like a refrigerator in reverse, is not only socially useful-it would halve the fuel bills in an ordinary council house-but has a potential market of £1,000m according to market consultants Frost and Sullivan (whose report was privately commissioned by Lucas and intercepted by the shop stewards!). A German firm now manufactures heat pumps commercially and several other products from the alternative plan are being made by other firms, mostly abroad. The major success of the alternative plan was to give the Lucas workers the confidence to fight redundancies and closures with industrial whatever hard luck stories or statistics they got from management.
workforce knew they had at least as and understanding as management and no one could convince them that massive dole queues were inevitable, even in a period of recession. At some sites (eg Burnley) che corporate plan was dicussed in mass meetings of 3,000, details were worked out at "teach-ins" of around 300 and joint shop stewards committee proposals resulted from the maximum involvement of the whole workforce. Hundreds of workers discovered skills they did not know The number of workers employed by Lucas Aerospace declined by another 1,000 to 12,000 between 1975 1981. But since management stated that their target was 8,000, and the only compulsory redundancy in that period was Mike Cooley, chairman of the combine shop stewards' committee (officially for declining tion" to management) despite 3 major attempts to close down the whole site, the workers regard this as a partial victory, even though the loss of Mike Cooley was seen as a major blow. In fact Mike Cooley is firmly convinced
[page 28]
that he, too, would still be doing his
old job today if he had relied on the
strength and militancy of the combine
workforce and not on his union's
bureaucracy taking his case through
the "correct" formal procedure. He
commented that it is astonishing how
similar are the views of some members
of the Communist Party in leading
trade union positions to the views of
Lucas management, when it comes to
fundamental challenges to the way in-
dustry is run.
Hilary Wainwright and Dave Elliot
have recently written a book about the
Lucas Plan. It gives a wealth of detail
about the plan, how the workers came to develop it, and how they have campaigned since. The book also covers the development of the combine committee iself, which alone has important lessons for workers in multi-site and multi-national corporations. It is a very readable account of one of the most important experiences in recent labour movement history.
My main criticism of the book concerns the way it deals with nationalisation. The sub-title "A New Trade Unionism in the Making!" makes it clear that the book is not just a history of the Lucas Plan, but is intended to have more general implications for the labour movement. The last chapter is devoted to these implications. authors seem to counterpose workers' alternative plans to demands for nationalisation as the basic strategy for the labour movement's campaigns on jobs, conditions and wages. Thus, for example, the authors are explicitly opposed to "the traditional view of state intervention, in which legislation for public ownership was understood as the first step towards socialism." This they call "nationalisation for its own sake."
The authors are quite right to criticise the way in which nationalisation has been carried out in the past, producing bureaucratically run state corporations which operate in the interests of private industry. This was exactly the reservation many of the Lucas workers themselves had about nationalisation before.
But the authors seem to be opposing nationalisation altogether although their formulations are rather vague and inconsistent. Their perspective is as follows: a socialist government would provide resources and encouragement to groups of workers and users of various kinds of products, who would draw up plans for producing and using the products. For example, in the case of public transport vehicles, plans might be drawn up by bus workers, transport users, Lucas, Dunlop and British Leyland workers and local authority representatives. Such a government would back
LUCAS PLAN,
THE MAKING? I
Hilary Wainwright
ALLISON & BUSBY
workers bargaining over proposals based on these plans with financial and other sanctions on the companies concerned. Where this met with determined resistance, a socialist government would need to be prepared to socialise the company and/or industry, under workers' control."
In other words, public ownership is seen as a last resort. The authors do not spell out whether they see some industries as remaining indefinitely in private hands, management having agreed to the workers' alternative plans-or whether their perspective is for a gradual taking over of the whole of industry, firm by firm. Either of these policies is likely to give the capitalists the opportunity to organise the overthrow of a left-wing labour government as they overthrew Allende's government in Chile.
On the other hand, they see some industries being "socialised" within "the first months" of the government while nationalisation of the banks appears at the top of the list of priorities, as though the intention is to please everyone on the left of the labour movement.
The statement that "workers' plans are in effect proposing a form of restructuring... in the interests of labour rather than capital. They anticipate and identify new markets and consumption patterns, and by their political pressure they attempt to back social needs with the purchasing power of local or national government" is definitely meant to refer to a period when the ownership of the means of
27
production is still in private hands. Is. deed, Hilary Wainwright is currer:* trying to put her ideas into practice as a member of the GLO's Economic Policy Group, while former leading Lucas shop stewards Mike Coole! and Phil Asquith have similar jobs in the GLC and Sheffield City Council respctively.
Later on, however, the emphasis shifts. They say, in the case of the car industry, that they do not stand "simply for nationalisation of the car industry" but "for proposals (for example to get rid of planned obsolescence in car manufacture, to produce low price, non-polluting city cars. to establish an extensive system for care and maintenance of long lasting cars and to improve public transport. These demands do not conflict with those put forward by Militant-for the nationalisation of the car industry under workers' control with production for social need not profit.
The point that needs to be stressed however, is that production for socia! need in ways put foward by the Lucas alternative plan will not generally be possible (apart from one or two preducts that are also profitable) until the firm or industry concerned is run democratically under workers' control. And that, in turn, will only be possible when industry is publicly and not privately owned. Aneurin Bevan (whom the authors criticise) was quite right to say that nationalisation was the first step towards socialism: but the Lucas stewards were also right to say that nationalisation alone is not
[page 29]
MIR Sept 1984; Book reviews
enough; it is no more than important though it is.
Although many Lucas workers at first saw an alternative plan as a way of protecting their jobs without changing the management or ownership of the company, there were plenty of others who saw it as a powerful propaganda weapon in the campaign for nationalisation and workers' control, but not fully realisable until such nationalisation had been achieved. At the combine shop stewards' meeting that decided to initiate work on the alternative plan it was also clearly stated: "We reaffirm our policy that Lucas Aerospace be nationalised with full workers' control." Workers' alternative plans are not an alternative to a campaign for nationalisation but part of it; an elaboration of the ways in which the production tor need not profit under workers' control may be achieved; and a way of involving the while workforce in the campaign to take over society and implement such plans.
The Lucas Plan represents an enormous step forward for the labour movement because it demonstrates in the clearest possible terms that the bosses are redundant. What remains to be done, however, is to use the organised strength of the working class to actually put them on the dole.
Second
olutio
C ba
Revolution
evolu in Cu
Monthly Press
evie
JP nth
or ay Press
Review by Mike Waddington
FIDEL CASTRO and the 26 July movement came to power 25 years ago, in January 1959. It was not until 16 April 1961, two years later, that Castro first used the word, "socialist" in a speech. This of course did not make Cuba a socialist regime, but the significant fact is that Castro discovered his "socialist" terminology after he came to power.
The Cuban revolution represented a gigantic step forward. But it would be a complte mistake to imagine that it was carried out by a conscious Marxist revolutionary movement. The Cuban guerilla leaders, including Castro, started out as middle-class democrats whose model for society
the USA. The nationalisa-
economy was carried out
and under pressure.
Thus Castro, far trom being the architect of a new regime was more like the bricklayer who stands back to see what he's done.
JP Morray's book, The Second Revolution in Cuba, originally written in 1962, is an adulatory book about Cuba with no real criticisms of Castro, sometimes bordering on the mystical, for example, "what looks from the outside like a dictatorship of an individual is felt within to be the authorised instrument of a popular will! (PP 165- 166).
Morray homes in on a crucial pointer to the fact that the regime in Cuba is not socialist-there are no "soviets" organs of workers' control, but then he tries to make the point irrelevant, "the Cuban revolution had its short periods of dual power. But the 2nd Cuban power was not a soviet. The civil war had not been fought primarily in Havana. it had been primarily a guerilla struggle fought in the mountains and in the provinces...the general strike that followed Batista's flight in January 1959 called by Castro won its goal so easily and enjoyed so much upper class support that it afforded no occasion for the development of organs of struggle... there were no Cuban soviets. Nevertheless", he adds, "the revolution, .. . found its instrument in Fidel Castro" (p 14).
The importance of this book, however, is that it details the period between Castro the liberal and his transformation to Castro the 'Marxist'
When Castro began the civil war with the attack on the Moncada barracks on 26 July 1953, he did so in defence of the liberal constitution of 1940-the dictator Batista having seized power in a coup in March 1952.
Castro's ideas were best expressed by the 1776 American Declaration of Independence rather than Lenin's Imperialism. Castro's hero was Jose Marti, a liberal, described as the "Thomas
Jefferson" of Cuba. Castro was not a
member of the Communist Party. The rebel army fought under the three col-
oured stars and stripes of the Cuban republic and not the red flag of the proletariat.
For Coronet magazine, in February
1958, Castro wrote, "we have no plans
for the expropriation or nationalisation
of foreign investments" (p 4).
Even the Readers Digest reported
there was "no evidence of Communism
the rebel army"
When Batista's rule collapsed in
January 1959 Castro backed up his
words with action: he appointed a Con-
servative anti-Communist judge,
Manuel Urrutia, as the first president.
was at first tion of the empirically
28
Castro initially sought aid from the US.
Urrutia had supported the regime of Batista originally, "but saw the tyranny, too rapacious and bloody, was provoking a dangerous and unpredictable spirit of rebellion." The overthrow of Batista was necessary because in the words of the Bar Association it was "the only one capable of channelling the rising tide of rebellion of our youth" (p 11).
A majority of the new cabinet were conservative supporters of America. The Finance Minister, Rufo Lopez, looked to private American investment as the principal hope of Cuban economic development. Castro was not even in the first government at all. He announced that all debts of the previous regime would be honoured and payments were made when they fell due. Castro said on many occasions that all he wanted to do was to bring the poor up without bringing the rich down. This was to prove impossible.
He used his influence to prevent strikes and even criticised workers who refused to set anti-government editorials in type.
Rents were, however, drastically cut, for the poorest sections in society and this action was instantly attacked by the capitalists. The press warned that an investment strike would be the result.
By March 1959, after barely three months of power, "the freeze of capital had begun. The investor class resorted to a national lock-out, thinking that this threat of economic paralysis would bring Castro to his senses" (page 35). Even so, Castro still held to the belief that there was a capitalist future for Cuba.
On 21 May 1959 Castro said, 'this is not a red revolution, it is an olive green revolution and after this revolu-
[page 30]
On the eve of the take over: Castro addresses his men in the mountains, late 1958. ...
tion there will be no other", (p 44). But Castro despite his intentions, was subjected to other pressures, in particular from the peasants over the land question.
In May 1959 Castro "bitterly denounced the re-appearance of tactics, commonly enlisted in Spain in the 1930s" (p 47) of peasants'
land. He therefore announced land reform. All estates greater than 979 acres were expropiated with compensation to be paid on the value declared in the landlords' tax returns. We should add by the way that this act was denounced by the capitalists as "worse than communism" and they were making more than just a comfor the simple fact that the Communist Party of Cuba proposals were more "moderate" in that they exempted the largest sugar plantations The Communist Party held the Stalinist view that a period of national capitalism was the next stage for the revolution. In fact Morray is forced to say (page 33) somewhat ironically, "had he, (Castro) been a member of the Communist Party doubtless the revolution would not have come so soon"! That is an understatement. The Communist Party had also been in alliance with Batista from 1938 to 1944. The United States government expressed its grave concern on behalf of the landlords over the land reform and the rent acts.
June also saw the first terrorist bombs going off in Havana, planted by counter-revolutionaries. Fire bombs were also dropped in plantations by the restorationists flying from Miami. The counter revolution had begun. Nixon, then the president of America, said that in 1960 the United States secretary decided, "to provide arms, ammunition and training for Cubans in preparation for an invasion" (page 104). The decision came over the sugar crop of Cuba. Castro announced that all Cuba wanted was to sell its sugar to the world and not receive loans or In July of 1960 the American government brought in a law to give the president the power to cut the Cubans' sugar quota to America. Castro responded to this law" (as it was dubbed) with stand-by American-owned enterprises in Cuba (page 97) "as they cut our quota pound by pound we will seize their mills one On 6 July 1960 all Cuban sugar imports to the United States were banned. Two weeks later the Soviet Union offered to take up the entire "banned" crop. On 6 August, 1960 Castro nationalised all American companies in and retaliation for the ban, sugar because of the sabotage and armed intervention of the capitalists. The American oil companies had been sabotaging the industry for some time, by closing plants and refusing to refine Soviet crude. Clearly the capitalists on whose behalf Castro had begun the war did not like being heirs to a revolution.
Compensation would be paid to the ex-owners of expropriated companies from a "sugar fund".
• Money raised from sugar sales in America! On 13 October, 1960, the government nationalised all the remaining banks and 382 businesses, giving it control of 80% of the industrial capacity of the island. By 25 October they had nationalised the remaining parts of the economy. Capitalism was thus extinguished.
Having established a regime in the image of Moscow, Castro discovered he was a "Marxist Leninist"! His party merged with the Cuban Communist Party, taking 15 of the 25 seats on the national directorate of the Cuban United Party of the Socialist Revolution.
The so-called socialist revolution of 1960 was clearly carried out against the original wishes and intentions of Castro and was forced upon him by the bankruptcy, active sabotage, and the flight of the national capitalists as well as Imperialism's complete inability to accept any change in its own back 29 yard. Morray makes the point, 'the history of the maturing Cuban revolution would have been slower and rougher, had the United States not accelerated it by trying to reverse it" (page 96). The existence of the Soviet Union, a powerful example to Castro was the deciding factor. Castro could still give himself a postion in society and at the same time improve the lot of the poorest sections of society. Morray reveals the truth unconsciously, when he says, (page 166) "the changes in the government bureaucracy... are also changes of attitude to Marxism-Leninism rather than changes of personnel. In general, the same functionaries now keep their jobs by prudently professing Marxism-Leninism rather than shunning it as required in the past... the bureaucracy, a privileged sector, compared to other workers is not fully aware that there is a new master in the house; partly because the new master Is not yet organised sutticiently to give the state its new general will. The first had become last but the last have yet to become first". Cuba thus became a deformed workers' state. Castroism is thus a more radical sounding version of the Stalinism that exists in Russia and Eastern Europe. This book is useful for the information it contains. Unfortunately, it is currently out of print, but those who are interested can obtain it from a I public library.
[page 31]
International money and capitalist crisis the anatomy of global disintegration By EA Brett Published by Heinemann and Westview Press, 1983 Price: £13.50 Review by Bob McKee THIS BOOK is not easy to read if you are not steeped in a knowledge of capitalist economic theory. It is not made any easier by an academic approach no doubt rendered inevitable because it is a product of university research. Also Ted Brett's style is somewhat byzantine in his use of English grammar.
the theoretical Nevertheless, arguments presented by Ted Brett as an explanation of the growing international trade and financial crisis in the worth the effort of 1980s are well reading the book.
Ted Brett sets out to demonstrate that capitalism is not an economic system of balanced and stable growth, but one of uneven development inevitably breeding crisis. Capitalism develops unevenly by industrial sector, by region and by country because it is an unplanned, anarchic private profit system based on production for the market.
Far from developing harmoniously, as the spokesmen of capitalism claim, the 'free market'
and free trade'
system leads to inequality of production, income and wealth. There is a concentration, not an even distribution of capital accumulated, and this very uneven development leads to overaccumulation, crisis and siump. Brett shows that the post-war attempts to equalise differential production and wealth though international credit and trade institutions, even in a period of unprecedented capitalist prosperity, did not succeed in stopping this uneven and anarchic develop ment of world productive forces. Only the end of competing national capitalist states and the formation of a world governmental power could allow the proper planning of production and trade and make possible harmonious and equalising growth of MIR Sept 1984; Book reviews! Brett sticks closely to the Marxist view that the capitalist production must inevitably lead to periodic crisis organic composition of capital creates a tendency for the overall average rate of profit on capital to fall. He argues forcefully that both the monetarist and Keynesian theories of capitalism are either wrong or inadequate. The classical capitalist economists denied the very possibility of slump, blaming any unemployment or general decline in production on "rigidities" produced by trade unions artificially holding up wage costs or monopolies unfairly controlling prices. After the experience of the thirties, the Keynesians recognised that a permanent slump was possible but believed solution lay in providing cheap credit. With the coming to the end in the mid the long boom of seventies of capitalism, Brett shows that neither capitalist economic prescription can explain or overcome this new period of stagnation and slump.
Brett produces pirical evidence to back up his argument that capitalism is a system of uneven development and crisis. When he refers to Lenin to explain how competing national capitalist states can never combine to plan production and trade harmoniously, he is on strong But his reliance on some of the ideas of Mandel lead him seemingly to contradict that view when he talks of an international "an incipient system" or the "qualities of supranational state" being devleoped with the setting up of international institutions like Bretton Woods or the IMF. In his book on the European Economic Comin the seventies, Mandel suggested that the EEC customs union could develop into some supranational tradicting Lenin's Imperialism. With the present state of the EEC, we do not hear that argument any more. And Brett's own evidence clearly refutes the possibility of such a world order being formed under capitalism: he emphasises the collapse of the Bretton Woods monetary system in the 1970s and the complete non-starter of the Havana Charter of International distribute wealth more evenly. Brett offers no alternative socialist policy to the discredited measures of the capitalist economists to deal with the crisis of the eighties, but to be fair he makes it clear that he does intend to do so. Within that limitation, the book makes a useful contribution to the understanding of world capitalist crisis, if you are prepared to go to the trouble of reading it.
God's Banker An account of the life and death of Roberto Calvi By Robert Cornwall Published by Gollancz, 1983.
Price £8.95 Review by Mick Brooks IN THE summer of 1982 Banco Ambiggest privately owned bank, suddenly went bust leaving $1,300 million in debts. Shortly Calvi, was found hanged under Black friars Bridge with his pockets stuffed with stones and banknotes.
story is told in "God's Banker". This book should be read by anyone who doesn't believe that there is an Establishment, and by people who know the Establishment runs capitalist countries but want to find out how it operates.
The Banco Ambrosiano scandal is linked to the discovery of the P-2 Masonic lodge which virtually runs 'The membership lists amounted to little short of a parallel state. The names included those of two current cabinet ministers, large segments of Italy's military and service secret hierachy ranging from the chief of the general staff and present heads of the Guardia di Finanza itself. No less than 50 generals and admirals, serving in or featured on the lists. There retired, industrialists, financiers, were diplomats, top civil servants, police of- GOD'S BANKER AN ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE & DEATH OF BOBERTO CALVI BUPERT CORNWELL
[page 32]
ficers... The slant of the P-2 was
broadly anti-Communist and right
wing. Attempted coups, more or less
serious, were more than one between
1960 and 1975 in Italy, and several of
those said to have been involved were
to feature in Gelli's (head of the P-2
lodge) motley army. There are
numerous pointers too that the P-2
may have had a hand in right wing ter-
rorist outrages dotting recent Italian
history, from the so-called 'strategy of
tension' which emerged in the late
1960s to the Bologna station bombing
of August 1980. The aim, presumably,
to soften up public opinion for
takeover by a more authoritarian
regime."
Calvi, of course, was a member of
P-2. But there are other connections between bankers and politicians "Even before the Ambrosiano affair, some three-quarters of the Italian banking system were owned by the State. And in many cases the senior posts are politically conditioned appointments, the accepted spoils of power..." These functionaries "moved like financial barracuda, acting sometimes on their own behalf, sometimes for their political patrons, but unfailingly with money from the public purse.
Another part of the network of power and social control is the press. Calvi's spectacular financial career involved using other people's money to buy political influence. He took over the affairs of the spendthrift heir to the fortune of a group of newspapers in Italy. The cost of the 'Corriere della Sera' group was money well spent. The group stuck up for Banco Ambrosiano right up to the end.
At the pinnacle of the Italian Establishment is the Vatican, sponsor of the ruling Christian Democratic Party. But the Eternal Church also has earthly needs. Its vast assets are controlled by the IOR (Institute for Religious Works), the Vatican 'bank'. "The IOR is best seen as an "offshore" merchant bank in the heart of Italy, serving the universal Church-and, it has been said, not a few favoured Italians as well" . IOR funds were made available to Banco Ambrosiano by its chairman, Archbishop Markincus. Markincus, a close associate of successive popes, is a name persistently linked with financial scandal. The swindler Michele Sindona took the Vatican for anything from $30-300 million, but Markincus kept his post.
Sindona pioneered many of the methods later used by Roberto Calvi. He used not only the Vatican but that other wing of the Italian Establishment, the Mafia. Calvi likewise resorted not only to smears and dirty tricks but also to gangster methods to throw the Bank of Italy off his tail. In-
vestigator Ambrosoli was shot dead in
a contract killing.
Calvi, then, was at the centre of the Italian establishment. He managed to have close connections with both the Catholic Church and freemasonry, traditonally hostile powers. He built up the Catholic Banco Ambrosiano as his personal vehicle. The Bank was actually named after St Ambrose, who had said "It is nature itself that has given birth to the right of the community whilst it is only unjust usurpation that has created the right of private property.
In detail Calvi's swindles were immensely complicated, involving the creation of a web of shell companies in Liechtenstein, Panama and Nicaragua. Money was pumped round and round, though much of it dropped off en route to grease the palms of politicians. The Christian Democrats admitted receiving $3 million from Sindona "but the true figure probably was considerably higher." Calvi carried on the tradition, bailing out loss-making Christian Democratic papers.
A socialist might expect the ruling capitalist party to be up to its neck in corruption. But representatives of the workers' parties were also sucked in. Calvi always knew how to play both ends against the middle. As a young man he furthered his career by joining his university fascist association But by 1944 he went everywhere with two party cards-one for the fascist party and the other for the 'socialist Party. His own views of course were true blue. "Calvi expounded with conviction on the need for freedom, and to contain the Communists.
Bettino Craxi, leader of the Socialist Party and now Prime Minister of Italy, was drawn into the net. ENI, the Italian state owned oil company, which is the fourth biggest corporation outside the USA, is used by the parties as a pork barrel. Craxi led the struggle for Socialist Party money and influence within ENI. He moved on from there. Calvi persistently claimed Craxi as his political sponsor. In return the Socialist paper Avanti consistently supported Calvi and Banco Ambrosiano as the rumours grew. At his first trial "a legal expert of the party claimed that the judges had been deliberately picked for their bias against Calvi. The magistrates were using warrants "like bludgeons" and their power should be reduced". Craxi in person complained of the judiciary's rash and intimidatory use of its authority.
The joke runs that only three institutions work in Italy: the Communist Party, the Vatican and the Bank of Italy. We have already seen the Vatican's involvement and the Bank of Italy stopped in its tracks. By
21
Ligio Gelli, grandmaster of the P-2 Lodge
June 1982 the Communist Party also owed Ambrosiano 11 billion lire, plus 20 billion owed by their paper Paese Sera...
Indeed Calvi's influence reached to the most surprising quarters. When he set up shop in Nicaragua he "was on good terms not only with the then dietator Anastasio Somoza, but also with the ever more menacing Sandinista opposition." In 1979 "Ambresiano' s subsidiary was the only (foreign bank) not to be nationalised by the new revolutionary regime"
Calvi surrounded himself with eight gorillas 24 hours a day, and a fleet of armour plated Alfa Romeos with bullet-proof tyes at a cost to the bank of $1 million a year.
Even as the smell of the swindle wafted towards the noses of the public, Calvi retained his connections. He got his passport returned by the Italian magistrates so he could flee the downfall of the Banco Ambrosiano complex. Filletti, deputy chairman of the Upper Council of Magistrates was found to have been provided $800,000 in a secretly numbered Swiss bank acount.
Even after Calvi's mysterious death, rumour and speculation grows. Was he involved in a right wing terrorist network? In gun-running to the middle East? This can of worms will not so easily be closed.
And is this tale just something that happens in Italy? If so why did the London coroner virtually instruct the jury to bring in a verdict of suicide-a clear cover-up?
Calvi is dead but the Establishment still rules.
[page 33]
Subscribe to Militant International Review Marxist journal for the labour movement 4 issues £4.00 (p + p included) Fill in the form below and send to World Socialist books, 1 Mentmore Terrace, London E8 3PN. (Make cheques payable to World Socialist Books) Name..
Address Subscribe to Militant Irish Monthtly, the Marxist paper for workers' unity and socialism 6 issues 12 issues Name Address Return to Militant, Circulation, Middle Abbey 75 Dublin 1 ......
... ...
£2.00 £4.00 Street, 32 A bargain pack of most of Militant's international pamphlets, for a limited period only: — Grant-Falklands crisis: a socialist answer Grant- Rise of De Gaulle and the class struggle Grant-Socialism and German rearmament Militant-Lessons of Chile Militant-Iranian revolution Militant-Greece: workers demand socialism Silverman -India the gathering storm Sliverman-India on the brink? Taaffe - Cuba analysis of the revolution Throne-Socialism or catastrophe (Ireland) cluding postage.
Subscribe to Militant Weekly Marxist paper of the labour movement Militant aims to give first hand coverage of the issues facing working people, and activities in the labour movement both in Britain and internationally. Full Marxist analysis is given of major political events ad issues. Subscribe now! Join our fight for a daily Marxist paper to help in the struggle for socialism.
Britain and Ireland £5.00 26 issues 13 issues 25 issues £10.00 52 issues £20.00 Name Address Terrace, London E8 3PN.
Militant International Pack Cover price £3.10, yours for only £2.50 in- Rest of world (air) Europe (by air) 26 issues £16.00 £11.00 52 issues £32.00 Make cheques payable to Militant, and return to the Circulation Department, Militant 1 Mentmore
[page 34]
Also available from World Socialist Books Ada 25% postage to all orders under t5, 10% to all orders t10. Write to: World Socialist Books, 1 Mentmore Terrace, London E8 75p Special offer Wainwright— The Lucas Plan cover price £2.95 yours for £2 including postage.
Limited period only.
Trotsky-Spanish revolution IMF and Latin America.
Grant-Coming world revolution 3PN THE ALLISON & BUSBY Weber-Nicaragua: Sandinista revolution Latin American Bureau—The poverty brokers: Get these Militant pamphlets now! Militant-History of the Labour Party Taaffe —Militant: What we stand for Grant-The crisis: where is Britain going LUCAS PLAN A NEW TRADE UNIONISM IN THE MAKING?
Hilary Wainwright & Dave Elliott £4.95 £3.95 £3.25 35p 20p 40p 30p