Socialist Action-USA

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to defend jobs and services.

ployed. *Freeze rent and rates.

workers' defence squads.

tability, etc. and affirm their stand publicly.

a matter of urgency.

and services should be blacked.

average for the trade. the bankers and bosses.

MOLE REVIEW Official badge of the 'Save the Mole' campaign. 25p or £2 for ten, from N.Barstow 165 Liverpool Rd, London N1. IN A long-expected move with potentially far-reaching international implications, a new public faction of the American Socialist Workers' Party was launched at a Chicago conference at the end of October.

The faction - taking the name 'Socialist Action' -comprises in excess of 100 members, most of them either suspended members or recently expelled by the leadership of the SWP, headed by Jack Barnes, which has been conducting a ruthless purge of its political opponents.

Among the more prominent people involved are suspended National Committee members Nat Weinstein, Lyn Henderson and Frank Lovell. Socialist Action intends to launch its own newspaper in opposition to the Militant, the SWP's weekly paper since the 1930s.

Though the US Socialist Action appears to be politically divided on many questions, and has been launched on only the most sketchy programmatic iwo pamphlets summing up the ideas of Socialist Organiser.

Stand' - 20p plus 15p postage. 'How to fight the Tories' - 10p plus 15p postage.

Or the two together, 45p including postage. Fron •Socialist Organiser, 28, Middle I Lane, London N8.

SCOTLAND Glasgow. Contact: Stan Crooke, 34 Garturk St, Glasgow G42. SO is sold at West End bookshop, Rutherglen shopping arcade (Friday lunchtime), Coatbridge shopping arcade (Saturday lunchtime), and Maryhill dole (Tuesday morning).

Edinburgh. Contact Dave, 229 4591. SO is sold at Muirhouse (Saturday 10.3012) and at the First of May bookshop, Candlemaker Row.

NORTH-WEST Manchester. Contact Tony, 273 5691. SO is sold at Grass Roots, Books, Newton St, Piccadilly.

Stockport. Meetings every Sunday, 7.30pm: contact 40 Fox St, Edgley, Stockport, SO is sold at Stockport market, every Saturday, 11 to 12.30.

Wirral. Contact Lol Dufiy, 3 St James Court, Victoria Rd, New Brighton, Merseyside. Liverpool. Contact 733 6663. SO is sold at Progressive Books, Berry St, and at News from Nowhere, Whitechapel.

Stoke. Meets first and third Tuesdays of every month.

Contact: Paul Barnett, 328198. basis, the roots of its differences with the Barnes leadership go deep to some fundamental points.

In particular, members of the new faction have strongly criticised the sectarian, propagandist method imposed by the SWP leaders during the course of the Party's much-vaunted "turn to industry. " Far from rooting SWP militants in the struggles and organisations of the American working class, the "turn" has made them isolated, abstract propagandists for the virtues of the Cuban, Nicaraguan and Grenadian leadership, with no concrete programme, guidance or perspective for the day-to-day struggle in the unions at shop floor level.

The leaders of the Socialist Action faction have also - to varying degrees -challenged the SWPleadership's craven support for the politics of the Castro and Sandinista regimes, agi Tea we stand Labour Socialist Fight the to in Party ORGANISER for Policies and criticised the SWP's abstention from the actual campaigns in opposition to the war drive in Central America, the nuclear 'freeze" movement and struggles for women's rights. They have also opposed the increasingly tight bureaucratic regime imposed by the Barnes leadership - a regime which reached its peak this summer when, in the midst of a wave of expulsions of oppositionists, and with prominent NC members suspended, the leadership called off the Party's biennial policy-making convention at which the expulsions and suspensions could have been appealed.

It appears that the leadership of the new Socialist Action faction have been assured of support from international cu thinkers in the United Secretariat of the Fourth International for their project of declaring a public faction. The SWP is currently, however, recognised as the American sympathising section of the USFI (barred from affiliation by reactionary US legislation).

The SWP - despite its constitution — is notorious for its ban on factions within its ranks. In August 1982, three leading members -two of them veteran Teamster militants from the Minneapolis strikes of the 1930s - were summarily expelled for forming the 'Čannon-Trotsky Faction' in opposition to the Barnes leadership.

Lessons

For the USFI now to support the formation of public faction in the USA must make a formal political split with the SWP a near certainty.

And since the SWP has cultivated co-thinking factions within a number of USFI sections - including the Socialist League in Britain - this will have a world-wide effect.

To give more of a flavour of the issues and struggles current in the SWP, next week's Socialist Organiser SWP leader Jack Barnes will reprint extracts from the documents of the expelled Cannon-Trotsky Faction.

cussion on perspectives for Class Fighter. For details write to 214 Sickert Court, London N1 or phone Jane on 263 9484.

LONDON Labour Campaign for Gay Rights meets every four weeks at Marchmont Community Centre, Marchmont St, WC1, at 6pm. Next meeting Sunday December 4 - contact Mike 659 2938, Bob 341 0666.

Gay YS meets at the same place, again every four weeks. Next meeting November 20. Contact: Martin 263 9484.

Gay NUR just forming. Launch meeting soon, open to all lesbian and gay railworkers. Contact c/o 119. Southwyck, Coldharbour Lane, London SW9.

Lesbians in the Labour Party: next national meeting Saturday November 26, 2pm in County Hall, London SE1. Creche available. Contact: Sarah Roelofs, c/o Gays The Word bookshop, , Marchmont St, London WC1 Southwark/Lambeth. Next meeting, Tuesday 22 November. James Dunkerley .on 'Central America after Grenada'. 7.30pm at Lansbury House, 41 Camberwell Grove, London SE5. (T'he meeting on union leadership with Alan Thornett has been postponed to December). Socialist Organiser London educationals.

1. Fridays, 6pm, at the London School of Economics, East Building, first floor, room E196 November 18: Cuba and Central America. To follow: State and Revolution; The Russian Revolution; The USSR and Stalinism; Ireland; Why is the Left divided?

2. Sundays, 8pm, in Southwark (phone 609 7459 for details);

November 13: Black nationalism. To follow: Rise and fall of the Benn movement; Castroism.

3. Half-day school in Hounslow, Sunday December 4, 12noon to 5pm, at Hanworth Labour Hall.

Politics of SO; The 'parl iamentary road'; The Alter native Economic Strategy; The working class and revolutionary politics.

Details: 898 6961.

4. Discussion series on' imperialism, Thursdays 7pm at 214 Sickert Court. N1.

November 24: The New International Division of Labour. To follow: Lenin on imperialism; The economics and politics of 3rd World development; Is the USSR imperialist? For details of preparatory reading etc. contact 609 7459, 278 1341, or 354 1050.

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MOLES OF THE WORLD UNITE!

How to fight the Tories Theop Where