socialist Socialist Challenge SINK THA FALKLANDS WAR NOW LIKELYChallenge socialist Declare wa unemployi Socialist Challenge Challenge STOP TAR Lunch, in STOP THIS TORY SLAUGHTER Socialist defended Militant's right to exist, organise, sell and be heard in the Labour Party.
But this doesn't absolve us, as socialists, from responding when Militant endangers workers" inMilitant's conduct the war means that this right of criticism is now a duty. for i verges on class treachery.
Not once has Militant called for the recall of the fleet or an end to hostilities by Dram To Militant and those the Young Socialists who confront IS CLUET. ship we say: this stand runs CELY COURASCO ENC BIL terests of workers Argentina, in Britain and opposite of a class stand. It is the opposite of socialist internationalist position. It plays ducety into the nands of the Tories and the right wing of the Party left it would set back the cause of socialism in Britain for a decade.
on Militant reject position, to join the growanti-war movement, commit the YS to Join it.
and commit the Labour TALL and trade unions likewise government stop the war.
How on earth could a Labour appeal WOTKETS WALSE DROSECUTE a war against them? Even Lenin and the Bolsheviks, involved an inter: imperialist war, proposed peace as the first action oi a socialist government and the foundation of an ap peal to unity with workers in other lands.
SHEOTEOVE Militant's omission of the demand for an end to the war is not a mistake, a typing error, a apse of memory. Militant LICCCOIS claim; it the DESS accepts -OL 110 that Britain has legitimate ICTrIOTIdI 1the South Atlan tic. This is spelt out in the 7 May issue, where Militant — like Socialist Challenge, for different - rejects the idea of a United Nations soluBut for Militant the withdrawal. It Grant, as explained by Ted socialist federation of Briand the Falklands, this basis, are told, workers appeal to workers for Ther sualin the Every:
Argentinian workers MOVEMENT BES SPOOrL the claim to the islands, regardless of whether they support the junta or its ac tionso Brilish government maintains the British claim on the islands can possibly gain a hearing amongst Argentinian WULACES No ween the IWO working classes is possible while the British labour MUSCLICH supports the present war.
Militant's position leads socialism in Britain at this moment: a mass campaign against the war.
Any other poncy than its own, we are tol * like for Tory government, would be like asking the lion to lie down wit! the lamb", This is a spurious argument and Militant knows When vou strike for higher wages, you don't expect your bosses to agree with you. When Militant itself built a campaign to demand better conditions for YOPS workers, they did claim Norman Tebbit would become the workers" friend.
Of socialists make demands on Tories: because we know that a mass movement can force them to concede or Moreover Militan have forgotten Marx's own dictum: No nation can CICE Tree achieve socialist in Britain unchecked?
the lack fight against war?
thinh worse the Detorer YOU the against Thatcher's Militant steers within a hair's breadth of saying it opposes not the such, but the Tories' conluct of i It calls on workers t place no confidence in the But what does this mean?
war? That could send Galtier of hie This beyond anything LaYS done sin past. merely i fail to organise to step back from this terrible course. re-examine its past tradition and follow through the consequences of the Marxist position on war It know! this position is, for it proudly featured in the 30 April issue, which reprints an arcle from the 1980 May Day issue:
*Principled opposition the murderous. plundering role of British tion for o be socialist. tendency claiming to been consistentl maintained," it says. Unti now! Not a word against the sinking of the Belgrano or the bombing of the Port airficids is to be found in the paper Is the murder of hundreds Argentinian workers in uniform not to be counted as part or br tain's murdering Even the liberal bourSCOTSA was appalled at these bloodthirsty and WE SCHOEs!
But Militant lays the blame for these deaths at the feet of the junta! *The workers and soldiers AWS HE C HECTES of Argentine big business which the junta was set up to defend, they say on 3 May.
In the name of socialist comrades, think again! Whose LETESS DOC. me yunta defend? Argentine big business? There Argentine big business. It beholden, lock, stock and owned barrel, to Western big - Tribune Stop thi STRIBUNE HALT- ABOUT And even if you don't believe this, even if you deceived yoursel with your own propagan da, ask yourselves: what nas the workig cass oi the world to gain from a British victory *The junta took military of the May, If the British navy sueCEO WE SHORTEI rison of three thousand, ten thousand twenty thousands soldiers in Port Stanle do you imagine theywill be used to suppor the Argentinian workers when they take Caltier Listen to the Argentinian workers tnemiseives who have appealed to the British labour to support their claim to the Malvinas in order to But worse is to come: Militant's support for the war leads it into a conscious distortion of Marxist principles governing the socialist attitude to war. On 9 April they open with a correct point. origins of the crisis itself are not to be simply asking "who struck the first blow?' they rightly say. But they go o o argue that it depends or "The class relations in the Marx, Lenin and Trotsky always said that class relations hetween countries, determined the attitude to war. And within a week we find, on the front page of Militant, the headline WUENES COUMOE DUEL CUR demn the Argentine invasion of the Falklands.
Confrontations are always the result underlying relations Marxism's ting the finger of biame The capitalists can always SECUSHILE so as to make themselves appear as the peaceful party when in fact their op pression and greed brovoked the incident con cerned.
When workers occups a factory, do we denounce Does this alter if the owne has been in possession since 1833? No: that the bosses own the tactory only because tney have used the threat of police violence for a hun dred and hity years to take from the workers the fruit of their labour and call it We follow the law of our own class. which says that the workers have a right to own what has been made with acu SHOOTS and the natural resources to which this labour is applied. The "aggression" is the product of injustice CLUC MESSENG Revolt Nor is this changed if the act of revoll 1S advised productive for socialism Whatever socialists had to say about the riots, they made blame lay with the Tories. for creating the situation where the youth had to other recourse Did Mili banner LOTTE CaTE headline saying workers cannot but condemn the nots! No - but it 1s th logical next step.
Militant knowi these things how Marxists take sides in war. The fact is that it ha:
with Maggie because it believes that the junta is main enemy facing workers.
Comrades, you have il CORDICCIV upside down Maggie Thatcher is a far greater threat to the workers of the world then Galtieri beside her in this war and you will never bring socialism to Britain.
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fall from office. Free
sakes with Maggie Tha sides