No national solution to Polish struggle

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SINCE the front page article of SO 67 on Poland I have been considering the correctness of one of the slogans posed, namely: "Independent Socialist Poland" , mentioned again in the current issue of the paper (re TILC bulletin).

I see the usefulness of this formula in differentiating and rightly distancing ourselves from the nationalistic/religious/anti-socialist elements supporting Solidarnose for their own reactionula represent a true revolutionary position?

Implies

It seems to me that it implies (correctly) support for a socialist Poland free of the control of Warsaw Pact bureaucracies and of ties with Western Imperialism.

However, the way this is posed could be read to imply the notion of the development of a separate socialist Poland which would then allude and give credence to the revisionist theory of "socialism in one country"

Betrayals

For almost sixty years the world working class has been suffering the betrayals of Stalinism; and this theory which represents a turn away from revolutionary Marxism developed as an ideological justification for the privileged role of the growing Soviet bureaucracy after the disastrous dislocation of the economy of the first workers' state suffered as a consequence of the war against the counter-revolu-. tionary armies of intervention, the brunt of which being bourne by the Soviet proletariat.

THE DAYS when you could call in the US Marines to sulve international disputes are over" , a banker wearily observed to the Financial Times last week. "The subtleties of life are such that these instruments are no longer usable and we as banks have to recognise that we are pawns and will be used in warfare"

His comment underlines the fact that alongside Thatcher's waving of rather rusty sabres, a huge weight of economic pressure is being mounted for a settlement in the South Atlantic. And the way that is done relies on. and highlights.

To counter this implication then is of course necessary since it is also as important to differentiate ourselves from any seemingly ideologically Stalinist position. This would be possible and correct I think if we substituted the formula: 'Independent Workers' Poländ"

Whilst this may appear to some as pedantic, I think it has the advantage of not only carrying the implication of working class independence from imperialism and from the Stalinist bureaucracies (including Poland's own parasitic bureaucracy) but also doesn't give any false revisionist and/or reformist impressions that Poland can exist alone as a socialist country by, for instance, its workers overthrowing their bureaucratic yoke and breaking ties with finance capital.

Such a development is of course progressive, giving a the close weave of the network of economic connections in world capitalism.

Apart from. persuading the EEC to block trade with Argentina, Britain has frozen Argentine assets.

Merchant bankers Schroder Wagg - apparently knowing about the Falklands invasion in advance - shunted all its Argentine loans off to Zurich on April 1. (So much for the banks being pawns!) But the freeze has effects.

As the Financial Times explained, "Banks from countries which have no dispute with Argentina have found their internatdemocratic transitional society based upon nationalised property and production relations that would be under the control and management of workers' councils, but still not a developed socialist society -hemmed in on all sides by on the one hand the remaining Stalinist states and on the other the still predominantly capitalist world. (However the objective situation that as a result would flow from such a development would open up very favourable conditions for the world working class).

Finally, I hope I haven't laboured the point but What I'm trying to say is that "Independent Socialist Poland" may have unwanted and quite unintended implications whereas I feel "Independent Workers' Poland" does not.

Yours comradely, BRYAN EDMANDS Coventry ional operations severely disrupted merely because they happened to channel business through London"

There are a lot of banks in that position. London is by far the world's biggest banking centre, accounting for about a quarter of the world total of banking business.

As Bob Sutcliffe explains on page 4, the economic sanctions against Argentina could have a crippling effect on its already disastrous economy.

Bob Sutcliffe also explains that the sanctions are double-edged: capitalism relies on a smooth and and file resistance to Wilson's anti-union legislation as a force to be reckoned with. Was it unprincipled to call for this action?

In some circumstances a one-day strike can be an attempt to restrict real possibilities of an all-out general strike. But Stan Crooke himself recognises that an immediate all-out general strike call is not on the agenda. So his 'all or nothing' alternative reduces to... nothing, until the Tebbit law is used.

This position parallels Len Murray's - with the important difference, of course, that Stan Crooke really wants to fight for all-out action, and Murray is faking.

But the first use of the Tebbit law will not necessarily be as spectacular as the jailing of the dockers in 1972, nor directed against a section as ready to fight back as the dockers. Look at the experience with the Prior Law.

If - for whatever reason - we fail to fight the TUC's passivity now, then we have no chance of fighting their faking when the law is used.

rapid flow of finance round the world, and the jolt of a blockage can cause bankruptcies and slumps But the double-edged character of the sanctions is also a pressure for a solution. The big bankers and bosses all over the world, while not caring a hoot for the people of the Falklands or the people of Argentina, will want to get trade and finance flowing smoothly Even if imperialism can no longer control affairs as it wishes with the Marines, it is still a formidable machinery of economic power.

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ary reasons; but does the full implication of this form-

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