ENTORAL The British Scargill and the Polish Scargills

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IT'S as if a giant reversing lens has been placed across Europe.

Arthur Scargill denounces the Polish Arthur Scargills. At the same time, the time-servers and bureaucrats of the British labour movement support, in Poland, the same working class Solidarnosc's programme includes: works managers to be subject to recall by elected workers' councils; 'opening the books' of state economic planning: abolition of the privileges of the bureaucracy, free trade unions and the right to strike. That is not anti-socialist.

Solidarnosc was and is about the working class organising itself to speak for itself and fight for its own interests. It represents the same spirit of working class rebellion that Arthur Scargill is associated with in Frank Chapple, David Basnett, Kate Losinska and the rest differ from the official Polish 'union' leaders in that even the most right-wing TUC union is a genuine workers' organisation, whereas the official Polish 'unions' are state-controlled fronts. But in spirit they are infinitely closer to the fake union leaders leaders nominated by General Jaruzelski than to. Lech Walesa. The narrow-minded devotion to their own careers, the hostility to what disrupts their bureaucratic security Not all is topsy-turvy, though. For most of the TUC right-wingers were blatant hypocrites in their pious outcry against Scargill's denunciation of Solidarnosc. They themselves continued relations with the official Polish 'unions' as Solidarnosc struggled for life in 1980-1. Bill Sirs, now so loud against Scargill, spoke understandingly of the 'probThe timing showed up their hypocrisy. It's no news that Scargill has a scandalous attitude to Solidarnosc. It's not a new revelation to be gleaned from the cynically-timed publication of a six week old letter in The TUC right-wingers chose to denounce him last week, not in order to help the Polish workers, but in order.to help themselves at the The name of the reversing lens is nationalism. The working class is a world class. The motto, 'An injury to one is an injury to all' , applies world-wide. Yet Arthur Scargill clearly sees class struggle as just British That's why he can write one third of the world's workers - those who live in the Stalinist states — out of the class struggle, allotting them Perhaps he is motivated by the principle, 'My enemy's enemy is my friend': if the Stalinist bureaucrats arouse the hostility of Britain's bosses, then they must be on our side. But working class politics demands more than just blindly kicking against the bosses, saying yes Perhaps he is concerned to defend the principle of a nationalised economy. So are we. So is Solidarnosc. But military defence of nationalised property relations against an imperialist assault is one thing. Political defence of the bureaucrats who sit astride that nationalised economy against the living, struggling, angry working class is another.

The same nationalism explains why Arthur Scargill, alongside his industrial militancy, supports a not-at-all-militant programme of import controls, withdrawal from the EEC, and siege economy. He is looking for 'socialism in one country', and since that is impossible he ends up Arthur Scargill's nationalism should help us understand the nationalism of the Polish Scargills. Theirs has more justification, in that Poland is an oppressed nation while Britain is still a big imperialist power. And none of them have carried it as far as Scargill: none of the Solidarnösc leaders has come out in favour of Tebbit's laws or Reagan's unionBut some of the Solidarnosc leaders undoubtedly have had illusions in Western, capitalist democracy. And part of the reason must be the same 'my enemy's enemy is my friend' principle that appears in Arthur TUC right-wingers like Chapple cynically try to use the same revulsion against Stalinism in order to argue that the unions must collaborate What we need instead is the spirit of class struggle applied consistently: - for the unions to break links with the Tories; and for solidarity stonewalled over the Korean jumbo-jet disaster, stating only that the jet 'continued its flight in the direction of the Sea of Japan' Then it tried to brazen it militancy that they detest in Britain. out. It was a spy-plane and it was over USSR territory, the Kremlin said, so they shot it down. That was that.

This was, perhaps, about what we should expect from the Stalinist bureaucracy, with its habitual brutality and Britain. its lack of any accountability to the people it rules over.

No wonder it has been a field day for the cold warriors.

But the US also has some questions to answer. Why was the plane off course, and why wasn't it warned and comfort, is the same.

it was off course?

The main outlines of what happened on August 31 are not much contested. The plane left Anchorage, Alaska, lems' faced by his 'colleagues' in Poland. at 14.00 hours Greenwich Mean Time, on a flight to South Korea. Over the North Pacific it began to stray from the columns of a small circulation paper. its scheduled flight path.

From then until it was shot down over the Sea of Japan TUC congress. it deviated steadily further and further from its scheduled path.

It was picked up by USSR workers versus British bosses.

radar at about 16.00 as it came over • the Kamchatka no role but to support their 'socialist' rulers. peninsula, home of major Russian military installations.

The plane was then tracked by the USSR. About 1812 hours, and possibly also earlier, when they say no and no when they say yes. USSR fighters came within eyesight of it. By then it was over the island of Sakhalin, again an important USSR military site.

The US says the Russian ighters came very close to the airliner; the Russian account contirms this, since it says that the fighters waggled with a recipe of 'capitalism in one country'. their wings as a signal to the jumbo-jet, and there would be no point doing that unless it was within eyesight.

busting. Missile tests According to the US, the airliner had its lights on; accorScargill's argument. ding to the USSR, it didn't.

According to the US, and the USSR does not contest it, with the Tory 'elected government'.

the, airliner had switched off its 'transponder', , which with Solidarnosc. helps to identify it on radar screens.

At about 1826 the airliner was shot down.

The New York Times has SOliDARIOSi reported that major USSR missile tests were in preparation in the area, but were cancelled after the airliner incident.

The US interpretation of all this is that the plane simply EDMUND went off course through some mistake or another.

is all? But, for a start, chopping I92181 BALUKA and changing in the US story suggests that they are covering up something. Only semiaccidentally and under pressure of questioning did the US reveal on September. 4 that a spy-plane, an RC-135, was near the airliner before it entered USSR air space.

They also made much of th distinctive silbosette the = Deto do r....- STEI Jittr (Telr teer alski. DEEnter that the US frer nO of what was going on for so long? The US has a radar station in the Aleutian Islands, in the North Pacific: didn't it pick up the airliner going off course?

The RC-135 spy-plane, according to the US's own account, met the airliner as it was about to enter USSR air space. • Why didn't it sound a warning?

The press reports indicate that the •last position report that the airliner gave to Tokyo was wrong. Were all the previous position reports wrong tao? If so. did Do one notice II DeE res I mime = IE DS00S VIE I *Z E DE IS FIDEI: ver fis eseme I

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Socialist Organiser September no.146 Pagc ¡LL BE GLAD TO SEE. THE END TO THIS

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