On the day that strike notice was given at Jaguar the Coventry Claimants and Unempioyed Workers Union was approached to prepare a leaflet on Social Security benetits for the Jaguar workers. These were distributed in the plant immediately before the strike began in order to prepare the workers for claiming benefit during the strike. Prep arations were made to organise mass claiming in the second week when almost all those on strike would be entitled to SS payment for their rent and dependants.
When this was discussed at the strike committee meeting it was noted that Jaguars intended to pay lump-sum holiday payments in this second week. These payments are made up of weekly holiday credits deducted from wages over the past year. Management notified the Department of Health and Social Security (DHSS) that holiday money was to be paid one week before the beginning of the Coventry holiday. Senior SS officials decided that these payments would be regarded as regular income - thus depriving a majority of the strikers of their right to benefit for up to two weeks at a crucial time.
The strike committee issued a statement on Inis matter waien, togetner with tartacr intormation on claiming benetits. was published in an information bulletin with the assistance of the C&UWU. The bulletins were distributed by the shop stewards when the Jaguar workers came to collect their pay. The next day a special centre was set up for Social Security claims from the strikers. Officials of the DHSS stopped all strikers entering the centre and asked if they had received holiday money. Those who had received little or no money were allowed to claim, but the others were taken aside in groups and told that they were not entitled to benefit. Many workers argued that this money was already committed to holiday bookings, etc., and that they could not meet everyday expenses with holiday savings. IMG members active in the C&UWU who were present pointed out to the state officials and to the groups of workers that this was an arbitrary decision by the DHSS, calculated to weaken the strike. it would be necessary to organise on a mass scale, as on the the pickets, in order to maintain the strike and ensure that entitlements were paid by the ss Claims from most strikers will be met after the first week of the holiday fortnight. Test cases are being fought on the issue of holiday pay. It will become most important to ensure that these are backed up by organised mass action by the Jaguar workers after the holiday. This attempt by the DHSS to deny strikers and neur rammies taeur rightful benefits must be defeated. Coventry IMG. 2040 KV JAGUAR
Georges Marchais, leader of the French Communist Party The agreement between the French Communist Party (PCF) and the French Socialist Party (PS) is only the latest sign of the crisis of the European Communist Parties. As the agreement is not therefore simply part of a process taking place in France it is worth looking at its wider significance, THE SOCIAL BASIS OF EUROPEAN STALINISM A classical Stalinist party is fundamentally different to a social democratic party such as the Labour Party. The aims of a social democratic party correspond to the position of a privileged layer within the working class which is tied to the ruling class of its own country. A Stalinist party however is not tied to its own bourgeoisie but to the bureaucracy of a workers state. It is this fundamental fact that explains why in the past it has been out of the question for the fusion, or even long term co-operation of the Communist and social democratic parties to occur. For example in 1939 all the CP's followed the line of Moscow over the Nazi-Soviet pact and this prevented co-operation with social democratic parties in France and Britain. This situation has been fundamentally changed however by the way in which the individual Communist Parties have grown and by the logic of Moscow foreign policy.
The old Stalinist parties represented the coming together of two elements. In the first place there was the degeneration of the Soviet Union and the coming to power of Stalin. Secondly there was the enormous series of defeats of the European working class from 1923 onwards. The seizure of power by fascism in Italy, Germany and Spain together with the collapse of the Popular Front in France disillusioned tens of thousands of militants. It was on this social base that Stalinism consolidated itself. However, for all its bureaucracy, this base was a working class base. The members of the Communist Parties were the most anti-capitalist members of the working class and joined the CPs because of their connection with the October revolution and their revolutionary rhetoric. These people were virulently anti-capitalist, had a contempt for liberalism, pacifism etc. It is this layer programme of government'. that forms the base of, for example, the Sid French tendency in the British CP or is the central core of the PCF. However, from 1934 onwards a considerable change took place in the Communist Parties. In these years the tactic of the Popular Front was taken up. This meant basically collaborating with liberal sections of the ruling class and therefore placing great emphasis on ideas such as 'peace", democracy' etc. The people who were attracted on this line were very different to the old base of the CP. All sorts of middle class elements such as teachers, solicitors, journalists, professors, ate. were recruited into the CP's. These soon predominated over the old working class cadre. The gains made in this way can dearly be seen if you look at the membership figures of the British Communist Party. In 1934 it had 5,800 members while by July 1939 it had 17,700. When Russia was collaborating with the allies during the war and the CP was carrying on activities suchas denouncing strikers, the intake of people into the Party was even greater. In 1943 the membership of the CPGB reached 55,000 A similar situation occured in all the Communist Parties in the same period - for example in France the PCF increased in size almost six-fold in the course of the Popular Front. An enormous number of middle class elements attracted by the talk of peace and freedom" joined the organisations. By the beginning of the cold war in 1947, which stopped the flow of middle class elements into the CP's, the social base of the Communist Parties had been entirely changed. They now contained two fairly distinct groups. On the one hand a deeply bureaucratised but extremely anticapitalist working class layer, and secondly a middle class mass who had never really broken with social democratic and bourgeois ideology.
The particular ways in which these social layers combined of course differed from country to country. In Italy for example the Communist Party had been illegal for twenty years at the end of the war and the extremely Stalinist core did not exist. From the beginning therefore the PCI was a liberal semi-social democratic organisation. The PF however still had its core forged in the 1930's intact and cont-
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only one sign of the general crisis of Stalinism in Europe. well as examining more closely the long term prospects of