A READER WRITES TO RED WEEKLY:
Comrade, I would ake to raise some pomts concernina councals of action wich you have mongonce en rose 155u3 ot sta weekir, Iou assume inat tause ready were iner "highest forms of the united front' as Trotsky called sorels Tom Brown - who was al the time the Cr arune rarty soon arace as a jerust - andysed Ene running of the General Strike and the Councils of Action in his native Durham in issues of Daecr Action published in the winter of 1962/63.
Councis of action were confued to existing coun CLAZ00ЯMAA MANOVEL HE CO CHE SHE BITEL border and traveiled acroas the border to work was Linked, in the union, with people at the other end of his county and not with his wowkmates, He was Dol asked to picket bis own place of work, but to go to others perhaps miles away.
Less than a quarter on all the unionised workers in the county were in fact called out on strike. The councils of action acted to prevent other workers coming out in skiris or to forestall any form of picketing which went beyond that prescribed.
Red Weekly B February 1974 Page 10 1c coutois composition was nor notably democratic and it had little contact during the couts o the stake with maen marant opison open saen a depressing picture did brown paint CP theorists who said: "In Russia these councils of action were called soviets Now we know what SOPULS HERE.
Unless, of course, they were right and the burecratic deformation lay in the soviets at the height of the October Revclution as well as in the tact that those soviets took over almost intact the whole apparatus of the Tsarist state" (Lenin).
Which woukd of course mean that such workers" power as sisted operatod on i tsarist cove service and unty personnel through deformed soviets, and cough this Tsarist apparatus over what was-until after Lenin's death-u prodominately capitalist Perhaps you should look more carfully at the councils of action.
Fraternally, Laurens Otter Editor's Reply:
Comrade Orter is correct to criticise our squation of councils of action with soviets The councils of action, as they existed during the general strike, were certainly no more than embryonic organs of workers' power and never developed to the level of soviets All Ibe samo time, Comrade Otter appears to be mentoroc on some cactus gucsons concerning the councils. Toes bodies wore not organised on a county basis but an a locul basis, asually based on existing trades councils. There were more than 90 In some cases the council of action was established as a sub-oommattee of the trades council. More frequ endy the trades council enlarged itself hy canarsing for delegates from previously unarfiliated branches, al unions' strike contmitlees in the locality. In other strike committee was just a federarion of union STING TOMATELS Dusham, to which conrade Otter refers is one of the very few cans in which a regional structure was crucid, but this was not ona county basis, It was: peneral council reprosenting the strikers of Ducham convenied by this body some 28 councils of action and 52 strike commattees in the two counties sent delegThe councils of acrion did indeed suffer from many weaknesses, some more so than others. But tbey did provide a framework within which the mass struggle of the enrire working class could be united and organised, SHAUCHE SHELL CANVEE The SIST ration of social life from the capitalist state machine As the strike progressed —despite continual obstructian fram the TOC General Counci and problems of trade union sectionalism the Councils were forced to take on wider and wider respoosibilities: the control of transport; the administration of pourer supplies: picketing; the dissemination of imfarmation; and the A continuation of the strike would have necessitared a drastic overhaal in the structure and operation 0l the Counces. But there is ever reson to belsert that this transition could have been made, and genuine organs of workers democracy and workers power would Jace come into existence.
Ne cannot expect workers power to suddenl spring forth in all its purity, It will emerge bit by bit out of the harsh logic and objective becosity of the das strugde, marked by all the weaknesses of the class which gives hirth to it trade union sectionalism, nottical backwardness reformst dusions contiluc cossareme at in bureaucratic ideas and procedures may at first seem like a rather patheric offspring unto the fullblown expression of the power of the working class.
The Art Castings workers last Saturday..- "there can be little doubt that without the solidarity of local militants, the combination of management victimisation, police harassment, and delay by the foot-shuffling T&G bureaucracy would have broken this important struggle." The Transport and General Workers" Union has, labour movement. At a mass meeting on Kent students occupy More than five hundred students at the University of Kent occupied the registry building on Tuesday afternoon to demand the reinstatement of Joe Connor, a CP member who has been asked to withdrun from the university. He was originally told that this was because he had missed two seminars, but when he disproved this charge, he was informed that his academic record was unsatisfactory.
Trade unionists on the campus have been asked for support, but the university has refused to hear representations from the trado suons on the case. Students disrupt RAF recruiting Students at the University of Enst Angla harried a senior RAF officer, who had come to interview potential recruits to the armed forces, last Thursday. As the interviews were transferred to anotber building demonstrators chanted: Troops out of Ireland - Internees out of Jail', and No campus recruitment for armed for following the success of this demonstration, which was orgunised by the International Marxist Group and supported by the Students Union, there are plans to organise a protest on 11 February, when a team from the Matistry of Defence will intertiew women for jobs in the intelligence service.