STOP Labour's pay as you learn con

ACCESS TO university will become even harder for working-class students if new plans to hike up tuition fees materialise.

Save Free Education (SFE) campaigners warned from the outset that the introduction of tuition fees at £1,000 would be the thin end of the wedge. Already Labour’s broken its promise by increasing fees. Britain could follow the experience of Australia and New Zealand where fees rose dramatically within a short period.

Education minister Blunkett admits that if Labour win the next election they may allow Britain’s best universities to charge a top-up fee.

College heads from the elite universities like Oxford and Cambridge want to charge up to £7,000 a year, the amount foreign students are currently charged.

The government’s real agenda is to nudge education towards a two-tier system - if you’ve got the money and background you can have the best, the rest of us can put up with the crumbs.

Colin Campbell, vice-chancellor of Nottingham University, said: “In every country planning for the knowledge economy, they know they cannot turn to the poor down-trodden taxpayers to subsidise students who are going to earn a lot more than they are gong to earn”. This is a blatant divide and rule tactic.

By abolishing free education, they are abolishing the opportunity for working-class students to have access to the best education.

The campaign to build mass non-payment of tuition fees must be stepped up.

The Socialist says:

§         Support the SFE’s call to mobilise students for a lobby of Parliament on 7 March.

§         Build mass non-payment of tuition fees.

§         Defend any student disciplined for not paying fees.

§         Fight to restore student grants.

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Bannister doubles vote

 
ROGER BANNISTER, Socialist Party member and Campaign for a Fighting and Democratic UNISON (CFDU) candidate, has achieved a marvellous result in the UNISON general secretary election.

Bill Mullins reports

He almost doubled his percentage vote and won nearly a third of the votes cast (see box). This is a significant advance for the left in the union since the last election in 1995. The result is a complete vindication of the CFDU decision to stand.

His vote combines with Malkiat Bilku’s to show 44% opposed to the current union leadership. Their nearly 100,000 votes is a sign of things to come when a broader movement of opposition grows to the trade union leadership’s support for New Labour.

There is clearly massive discontent with the current leadership. Their lacklustre campaign attempted to defend their links with and support for the New Labour government, which has continued and intensified all the old Tory policies of cuts and privatisation. It inspired no one, shown by the low turnout.

The leadership panicked in the last weeks of the campaign and told the press the vote would be close, or even that Roger could win on a low turnout. They wanted to whip up a red scare campaign. But

It is only the opposition of the left, organised around the CFDU and the Socialist Party which has enabled the beginnings of a fight back against Labour’s pro-big business policies in the public sector.

The right wing have attempted to witch-hunt the left, but Roger’s vote marks a real step forward in building the CFDU.

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Kosova: One year after NATO's war

LAST MARCH, NATO embarked on a 79-day war against the Serbian regime of Slobodan Milosevic.  The Western media, with few exceptions, acted as enthusiastic cheerleaders.  Even some on the Left shamefully supported this supposedly “humanitarian” war. NIALL MULHOLLAND reviews the war and the situation today in the Balkans.

TODAY, SURVEYING the murderous ethnic clashes in Kosova, and the instability left in the wake of NATO’s actions, more and more sections of the media are questioning the validity of the war and its outcome. According to the Daily Mail: “The whole war seems to have been a big lie” (5 November 1999).

Belatedly, the media are confirming what The Socialist argued before and during the war. But only this paper offered a perspective from the point of view of the working classes, and a socialist solution.

Why did NATO go to war?

FOR YEARS the Western powers ignored the national oppression of Kosova. Serb president Slobodan Milosevic was regarded as a “man to do business with” in the region.

The ruling Serb gangster-capitalists desperately wanted to keep Kosova in Yugoslavia mainly for economic and strategic reasons.

The Western powers were primarily concerned that the conflict in Kosova did not spread to other Balkan countries. This would disastrously affect their markets and interests. They wanted to halt Milosevic’s campaign against the Kosova Liberation Army (KLA/UCK) and force him to negotiate. However, Blair and Clinton also made it clear that they opposed an independent Kosova, fearing it would inspire other national groupings to break away.

The West tried to impose a Western-run ‘autonomous’ Kosova.

However the Western powers, led by the US, blew all chances of a settlement when they introduced a provocative ‘appendix’ during talks with Milosevic at Rambouillet. NATO arrogantly demanded the right to occupy Serbia, not just Kosova. Milosevic would have lost power to Serb hardliners if he had accepted. US-led NATO then thought a few days bombing in March would bring Milosevic to his senses and restore NATO’s prestige. This was a huge miscalculation.

As the Yugoslav army dug in and the war dragged on NATO became more desperate and began bombing civilian targets. Their so-called ‘smart bombs’ repeatedly hit fleeing refugees and civilians, and even friendly neighbouring states.

NATO’s war actually intensified the suffering of Kosovar and Serbian people and massively destabilised the region. In response to NATO’s attacks the Serb armed forces terrorised and expelled the Kosovar population, mainly into Macedonia and Albania which threatened to widen the arena of the war. Many Kosovars also fled NATO’s aerial terror, as has been confirmed by many eyewitness accounts.

The pliant Western media filled acres of newsprint with horror stories about ‘Serb genocide’ against the Albanians. Of course, terrible crimes were committed. Socialists condemned all acts of ‘ethnic cleansing’ and repeatedly put forward the idea of a workers’ democratically controlled defence force to resist the Serb militias. But was there ‘genocide’?

Since the war ended it has become clear that the massacres of Kosovar Albanians were nowhere on the scale claimed by Blair and Clinton. They gave figures of dead from between 10,000 to 100,000. According to press reports, by November 1999 the number of discovered dead was around 2,000.

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Did NATO win the war?

FROM EARLY on massive cracks were showing in the NATO ‘united front’. The Italian and Greek NATO members openly called for a halt to the war. There were mass anti-war protests in a number of countries. A land war would have meant high casualties and an explosive anti-war movement everywhere.

More than anything else the US administration wanted to avoid the use of  ground troops. They are still haunted by their disastrous war against the people of Vietnam.

Despite being the only superpower, the US has limited room for manoeuvre. Clinton was not prepared to put US troops into combat with battle hardened Serb forces.

But neither could NATO win a war from the air alone. They were therefore forced to negotiate with Serbia, by leaning on Yeltsin to broker a deal. The Russian regime was prepared to sell its Serb ‘brothers’ short for urgently needed Western cash.

NATO states cried ‘victory’. But the new deal conveniently forgot all about the Rambouillet ‘appendix’.

True, the Western powers now have direct control of much of the ex-Yugoslavia and the US ruling class especially will try to use this to its advantage. Yet NATO/United Nations (UN) still faces trying to hold the region together, committing huge resources and tens of thousands of troops.

Western powers have failed to remove Milosevic from power and only destroyed a small part of the Serb army’s hardware. The squabbling, Western-backed Serb opposition parties have been unable to capitalise on the country's dire situation. Rather, Milosevic has increased repression and blamed Western sanctions for shortages, mass poverty and unemployment.

Tensions with Montenegro, the other small state in Yugoslavia, are reaching boiling point. The Montenegrin government wants to break from Serb domination and believes the NATO/UN presence gives it more scope to do so.

The West is terrified at the prospect. But the Montenegrin government threaten a referendum on the matter. The population is split on the issue and events could lead to a civil war.

And this is not the end of the West’s nightmares - explosive national and ethnic disputes run throughout the Balkans. For instance, Macedonia, a volatile patchwork of ethnic groups, cannot hold together indefinitely.

In vain, the Western powers will attempt to contain the Balkans. But the very presence of Western troops only deepens problems.

NATO’s war also marked a decisive new chapter in world power relations. For the first time NATO had gone to war in the heart of Europe.

The new capitalist ruling class in Russia has reacted in horror. This has partly provoked the bloody war in Chechnya. Russia and the West are vying for the control of resources and strategic influence in the Caucasus.

NATO’s Balkans adventure has massively increased tensions between capitalist powers. Intense competition and conflicts, on a regional and global scale, are inevitable.

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Does Kosova have self-rule?

KOSOVA, LIKE Bosnia, has now become another Western controlled ‘protectorate’, an impoverished, colonial-style statelet. The economies and infrastructure of Kosova and Serbia have collapsed. Little of the promised post-war 'aid' has arrived in Kosova.

Hundreds of Kosovan Serbs have been murdered and kidnapped. Only a quarter to a third of the pre-war Serb population remains, clustered around the capital Pristina and the town of Mitrovice. The NATO/UN forces have stood by and watched this wave of ethnic barbarism. The powers are complicit in the ethnic division of Kosova.

The Kosova Liberation Army (KLA/UCK) is behind most of the violence. Unlike sections of the Left that have enthusiastically supported the KLA, The Socialist consistently pointed out the true nature of the force. We understood many Kosovar Albanians joined the KLA as a means of defending themselves against Serb forces, but its right wing, pro-capitalist leadership can offer no solution. The KLA want to create an ‘ethnically pure’ Kosova.

The plans of the KLA, and the legitimate aspirations of the Kosovar people - to run their own affairs in an independent state - are coming into sharp conflict with the NATO/UN forces on the ground. The Western powers still resist Kosova self-determination. In the eyes of Kosovar Albanians the UN and NATO are being transformed from ‘liberators’ from Serb rule to new oppressors.

This has led to direct armed clashes. In mid-February a French NATO soldier was killed and another wounded by Albanian snipers in Mitrovice, after days of vicious inter-ethnic fighting. This can spiral into full conflict.

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What is the solution?

SINCE THE collapse of the totalitarian Stalinist regimes in the Balkans, and the reintroduction of capitalism during the 1990s, workers have endured mass impoverishment, unemployment and wars.

Stalinism denied workers’ democracy, and self-determination for nationalities. Yet, despite the Stalinist regimes, the planned economy provided free health care, jobs and cheap rent. All this has been destroyed by the new war mongering, Mafia-capitalists.

A socialist solution is needed to resolve the problems that afflict the Balkans. This requires the building of the independent workers’ movement, armed with a socialist programme.

The first signs of this development were seen last year when workers organised demonstrations in Bosnia over non-payment of pensions and wages and against the NATO/UN regime. There were also workers’ strikes against the policies of the Croatian government, and a massive rejection of reactionary nationalism at the polls.

These are magnificent examples of the ability of the working class to overcome serious defeats.

To successfully unite all workers, a class movement in the Balkans must stand for the right of self-determination to nations like Kosova.

A socialist society would allow all peoples of the region to decide their own future, and in a voluntary and equal socialist confederation of states, the rights of all minorities would be guaranteed.

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London Assembly elections: A statement by the Socialist Party

A real test for left Unity

LABOUR’S SELECTION ballot for its London mayoral candidate shows growing opposition to Blair’s openly capitalist party.

Blair’s project has deprived the mass of workers of their own independent political organisation. The Socialist Party has raised the need for a new, broad, inclusive mass party of the working class. Building such a party though will be a complicated, protracted process.

No other organisation to the left of New Labour is better qualified in building an electoral alternative to Blair’s party. Socialist Party member Ian Page is currently London’s only socialist councillor. We also have two councillors, Dave Nellist and Karen Mackay, in Coventry.

The Socialist Party was the first left organisation to propose the need for socialist alliances. We played a pioneering role nationally in developing this work. Since 1995 we have participated in the London Socialist Alliance (LSA), a grouping of left organisations, and played a pivotal role in its political and organisational development.

Last August, the LSA was relaunched to offer a socialist alternative to New Labour in the GLA elections on the basis of left unity around a commonly agreed socialist platform.

The LSA accepted our position that socialist alliances are part of the process of building a workers’ alternative to New Labour, alongside initiatives in the trade unions and single-issue campaigns. Socialist Alliances can play a role, providing workers’ long-term interests are put before particular groups’ short-term electoral gains.

The LSA, involving collaboration on common aims, marked a step forward, but it can only be maintained on the basis of openness, recognition of differences, and democratic decision making.

The LSA’s success will also depend on the approach it takes to workers’ mass struggles and developments within the trade union movement.

RECENTLY THE Socialist Workers Party (SWP) decided, belatedly, to throw its full weight behind LSA. Previously they were “neither in nor out” of the LSA; they opposed alliance work and denounced socialists standing in elections.

The SWP now turn to the LSA because they believe it will benefit them. They don’t view it as part of the process of building a new mass working-class party.

With the SWP in charge (with the compliance of the other left groups) the LSA has turned away from democratic and joint decision making. If not corrected, this will undermine both the assembly election work and the LSA’s future.

The SWP only pay lip service to left unity. In the student field, the SWP excluded Socialist Party members involved in the Save Free Education campaign from discussions on the “united for free education” slate of candidates for NUS executive elections.

The SWP has an inconsistent attitude to socialist alliances, preferring to stand aloof from, and even oppose, attempts to build a broad left against New Labour or the trade union right wing.

They have never been involved in alliance work at a national level. In Wales they aren’t involved in the Welsh Socialist Alliance, and only participated in the Welsh Assembly elections under the temporary banner of “United Socialists”.

In the trade unions, the SWP’s approach is inconsistent. The SWP have always worked outside of, or even against, broad left formations. In the 1995 UNISON general secretary elections, the SWP stood against the left candidate.

In the current UNISON elections, fearing a drubbing, the SWP were compelled to back Roger Bannister. Many rank-and-file SWP members worked in Roger’s campaign. But in typical SWP fashion, they set up campaign committees separate from the official CFDU campaign. After an initial flurry, the SWP leadership’s attitude has been lukewarm.

Even when involved in alliance work, the SWP operate outside alliance structures, with only a pretence of consultation. This attitude will be a major obstacle in attracting new workers and youth, who will be repelled by undemocratic methods.

Outrageously, the SWP recently tried to expel the Socialist Party, one of the LSA’s founding members, from the LSA in order to pursue their short-term objectives, free from our opposition.

The SWP also sought to prevent other lefts from identifying their group or expressing political positions other than the broad LSA platform at public meetings. Important issues face our movement; workers will be coming to meetings wanting to debate them.

Contrast this attempt at gagging, rightly rejected at a recent LSA meeting, with the full freedom the SWP give themselves to make public statements in the LSA’s name on issues as yet undecided by the LSA.

In a recent Evening Standard article, SWP member Paul Foot said that LSA London assembly candidates backed Livingstone for mayor. The LSA’s position, taking account of differences between its constituent groups, was to await the outcome of the selection process, including whether Livingstone stood as independent, before deciding whether to support Livingstone.

When the Socialist Party objected at this attempt to impose its position in the LSA, the SWP said it would become the LSA position. The SWP announce the decision first and debate the issues later.

AT THE Waltham Forest Socialist Alliance public meeting on 11 February, despite previous agreement by the local Socialist Alliance, a Socialist Party member and local health worker was told on the night of the meeting he couldn’t speak from the platform.

The SWP claimed there were too many speakers. However the chair of the meeting later revealed that she thought our member might criticise the LSA’s decision to stand against the Campaign Against Tube Privatisation (CATP). As a result, no local community activist spoke from the platform.

Public meetings are an essential part of any election campaign. But given the nature of the socialist alliances and the political differences which exist, agreement between organisations is vital.

No one group should be seen to be using the LSA to the exclusion of others. Where one group is looking to initiate a meeting or activity in the socialist alliance’s name, that organisation needs to consult other groups before proceeding with its plans.

When a list of public meetings was presented to the LSA meeting on 1 February, the Socialist Party assumed that all of them had been organised by local socialist alliances involving all local left groups.

But in Lewisham, for example, where there has been a genuine socialist alliance for a number of years, a public meeting was originally organised for 14 February, without consultation with either the local socialist alliance or the LSA.

This meeting appeared in a list of public meetings presented as a fait accompli to the LSA meeting on 1 February and was announced at a Lewisham and Greenwich alliance campaign meeting on 31 January.

Notwithstanding the LSA meeting’s decision to cancel the Lewisham public meeting and continue discussions with the local socialist alliance, the meeting was rescheduled for 17 February, again without consulting either Lewisham and Greenwich Socialist Alliance or the LSA.

The rescheduled meeting clashed with an important tenants’ meeting called to oppose Lewisham council’s proposal to privatise council housing stock. Ian Page, Socialist Party councillor in Lewisham, nevertheless agreed to speak at the meeting.

At a Lewisham and Greenwich Socialist Alliance meeting on 14 February, called to lay plans for the local campaign, the SWP swamped the meeting with over 40 members to push through a decision to support the LSA top-up list, reversing a previous decision to await further developments before making a final decision.

The Socialist Party will remain committed to the socialist alliance project long after the London assembly elections, unlike the SWP, who, on the basis of past experience, we predict, won’t be able to sustain their current distorted turn towards left unity.

If the SWP continues with its current methods in the LSA, other left groups may be forced to conclude that the only way to develop real left unity is to turn their backs on the SWP’s manoeuvrings and build genuine socialist alliances.

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Mass Protest movement in Austria against right-wing

SONJA GRUSCH of the Sozialistische LinksPartei (SLP), Austrian section of the Committee for a Workers International (CWI) – the socialist international organisation to which the Socialist Party is affiliated) reports on the massive school students strike and demos against Austria’s new right-wing coalition government.

“AFTER THE elections on 3 October 1999 (when Jorg Haider’s extreme right-wing Freedom Party (FPO) gained 27% of the vote) we decided to call for a school students’ strike through the SAP/YRE (School Student Action Platform/Youth Against Racism in Europe) in case the FPO came to power. We started to collect names and addresses from school students who wanted to participate.

In January, when it became clear that there were negotiations between the FPO and the conservative People’s Party (OVP), the SAP called a meeting. Representatives from 23 schools were there and we set the date of the strike for Friday 18 February.

The official school student representatives, which in Austria are dominated by a organisation (Scholerunion) financed by the [Blairite] Social Democratic Party (SPO), spoke out against it, as did the ministry for education.

There was also enormous pressure by the authorities in some schools against the strike. But once the date was announced by the SLP on the daily anti-Haider demos, it became widely known.

The demo itself was a big success. The police speaks of 4,000 students, the press of 7,000. We are sure it was 15,000 - at least at some stages of the demo. It was one of the biggest school student demos and it was very lively, political and militant. There were youth with flags, home-made banners, shouting, whistling and discussing.

The slogans were against the cuts in education, against racist policies, the repression by the ministry of education and the headmasters and against the government in general.

The media say the students just wanted to have a day off; that’s a lie, if you consider the threats used against them. In one school the authorities even locked the doors, to prevent them to go on the demo - the students climbed out of the window!

19 February mass demo

AFTER THE daily demos in the last three weeks, the mass demo on the 19 February was a high point of the movement. It was organised by the ‘Democratic Offensive’ a platform of different artists, politicians etc. 300,000 people turned up despite the rain.

The trade unions mobilised as well and people came from all over Austria. The speakers were mainly ‘establishment’ politicians but they had to accept a speaker from the Left-wing ‘Action Committee against blue-black’ [“Blue-black” describes the OVP/FPO coalition] who spoke about the hypocrisy of the European Union politicians who condemn the coalition but are themselves pursuing right-wing economic and social policies, and about the need for strike action against the government.

There was a Left demo to the mass rally. The SLP had a loudspeaker truck with speeches, music and slogans. We also used the famous “Widerstand” [“resistance”] banner, and also a CWI banner saying: “Against racism and cuts, For Workers’ Unity and Socialism, Committee for a Workers’ International”.

In the whole movement we sold 3,500 special issues of our newspaper. On the 18th and 19th we sold 3,000 copies of edition number five.

We called for the trade unions to become active, for 8 March to be a day of action and strikes.

Socialist Left Party rally

THE AUSTRIAN CWI section formed itself as a party at its national conference on 30 January.

We wanted to go for a big launch rally on 18 March. But because of the anti-Haider protest movement, in which we intervened as SLP, we decided to go for a showcase meeting on 20 February.

Despite the short notice the meeting was a great success. There were 100 people, with speakers from Austria, Germany, Joe Higgins (Irish Socialist Party TD), and the CWI. Four joined at the meeting and several others joined in the days before.

We expect the movement to subside after the 19th. But, together with the Action Committee, we call for weekly demos every Thursday. We also will continue to pressure the trade unions to call for a strike and put forward 8 March as a national strike day.

The trade unions called for the demo on the 19th but that’s it. The trade union leaders argue to wait for the government proposals to be put to the parliament so that they know about the details and then they will act against it. But we also have to ensure pressure from below, that they have to speak openly about strike actions.”

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The tireless Eleanor Marx

WILL THORNE of the Gasworkers’ Union, writing in 1925 about Eleanor Marx’s suicide on 31 March 1898 said: "But for this tragedy, I believe Eleanor would have still been living and would have been a greater women's leader than the greatest of contemporary women."

Katrine Williams

The life of Eleanor Marx, youngest daughter of Karl Marx and a woman brought up as a revolutionary, is inspiring. Absolutely committed to the ideas of socialism she fought for every reform and against any injustice.

Eleanor comes across as a woman you can relate to. She detested housework and also thought that the first public lecture she gave would be her last. In fact she was an excellent public speaker and in much demand.

She had a knack of adapting to her audience to raise socialist ideas in a relevant and comprehensible way. When anarchists were tried after a bomb killed a policeman Eleanor explained that the bombs needed were ‘agitation, education and organisation’ to be thrown amongst the masses.

Eleanor was active in the workers' movement during a key period of British working-class history. On Bloody Sunday 13 November 1887, when police attacked workers converging on Trafalgar Square, Eleanor was in the thick of it urging workers to stand firm against police charges.

1889 saw the period of New Unionism, of unskilled workers getting organised into trade unions. However hard Eleanor and her partner found it to make ends meet, writing articles and translating books, she recognised this was nothing compared to the absolute poverty of workers.

She relished the opportunity to be involved in mass working-class organisations when the new unions were taking off, rather than the small socialist groups with their dry theoretical discussions. She did not want to just talk about socialism but also to take action to build for it.

For her there was no artificial division between work for constitutional reform, such as a legal eight-hour day, or building a trade union to force employers to concede a shorter working day. The leading trade union leaders at the time paid tribute to the amount of hard graft that Eleanor put in during the dockers’ strike, from public speaking to the unceasing clerical drudgery that went along with the dispute.

Eleanor was most involved with the Gasworkers’ Union. In 1879, Will Thorne could only write his name. Ten years later he was the general secretary of that union. Eleanor helped him improve his reading and writing to cope with all the union paperwork.

She also helped draw up the formal rules of the Gasworkers’ Union and the first half-yearly report and balance sheet for 30,000 members. She formed the first women's branch of the union whilst being involved in the three-month strike in Silvertown.

At the annual conference in May 1890 she was the only nominee to be unanimously elected to the union's executive council, a post she held until June 1895 without missing a meeting. At the second annual conference, she came top of the poll in the election for the ten-seat executive and was elected to go with Thorne to the International Congress. There she delivered the first national report to be done by a woman.

Eleanor worked tirelessly for working-class unity and internationalism. She campaigned for unity between male and female workers, fighting against the idea that male workers should be the sole breadwinners and showing that where women organised, wages and conditions improved for everyone.

Female labour made up nearly one-third of the total adult labour force in 1881 and Eleanor saw the economic independence of women as an important step in the organisation of the working class at a time when, as she said, men looked on women "as domestic animals, more or less his personal property".

She explained that the double burden women carried of work in the home and for starvation wages, made it difficult to organise women, but vital nonetheless. A resolution on equal rights for both sexes was passed at the 1891 International Congress.

But she made it clear that passing a well-intentioned motion was not enough, it had to be campaigned for as well.

Eleanor raised issues to advance women workers wherever she went. In a speech supporting Crosse & Blackwell onion skinner strikers she urged the women to check that their partners had a fully paid up trade union card or else they should show them the door.

The lack of a mass workers’ press and labour party was a weakness in the British labour movement but Eleanor saw the possibility of achieving these through the New Unionism movement.

Unfortunately, she did not live long enough to see the formation of the Labour Party in which she could have played a vital role in this party as well as in the campaign for the women’s vote.

In 1917, she would have seen the Marxist politics developed by her father and continued by her coming to life with the Russian revolution. It is our responsibility to ensure that Eleanor's campaigning for workers’ unity and internationalism is put back on the agenda as we go into a new century.

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