Eight hundred militants - three hundred more than expected - turned up at a conference organised by the Ligue Communiste (French section of the Fourth International) for its industrial membersand sympathisers in Rouen on 9/10/11 June.
The conference was not a rally but a serious attempt to tackle the key problems facing the European workers" movement. It is very easy to come up with general principles the problem lies in the precise tactics needed to apply them. So the conference concentrated mainly on such questions as strike support committees, grading workers" self-defence, workers control and self-management. discussions were given an international dimension through the participation of worker militants from the U.S., Belgium. Switzerland, Germany, Italy, Spain, Britain, Luxembourg, Canada and Mexico.
The conference opened on Saturday afternoon with a report on The work of revolutionary militants in the factories. This dealt with such questions as how to win an audience in the working class, what slogans to raise, what forms of organisation to propose. CIC.
WORKERS' CONTROL The session on Sunday morning was opened by a report on workers control: the revolutionary strategy, the lessons of international expe riences, and our intervention today. In afternoon the question of self-management was discussed. It was stressed that in contrast to those who in practice devalue the idea, it is necessary to be very precise on the kind of socialism we want and the means of achieving it.
This discussion was followed by commission meetings, each devoted to a specific branch of industry (engineering, post office, railways, gas and electricity, printing. building, ete.)
relatioris exercise. The picker met with considerable success, SUBSCRIBE!
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OCCUPATION 7.1% Here the discussions were extremely concrete, dealing with the traditions of struggle in the industry, the level of trade union organisation, the slogans to be raised, and so on. At the same time three other commissions were also taking place: on women workers, on immigrant workers, and on the anti-militarist struggles and work in the army.
On Sunday evening it was the turn of the foreign delegations to report on the development of workers struggles and the intervention of the sections of the Fourth International countries. Separate commissions were devoted to the struggle in Belgium, the U.S., Spain, Italy, and Britain.
Finally, on Monday morning, a report on The workers struggles in Europe, drawing together the lessons of all the commissions, was made by Charles Andre Udry, a member of the Secretariat of the Fourth International and a leader of its Swiss section. Udry spoke despite an BILLI him from entering France.
Filty-five percent of the workers attending the conference were members of the Ligue Communiste, the other 45 percent being sympathisers THIRE picketing a party given last Friday by the Irish Embassy's Press Officer for foreign jouralists who are being taken to Ireland on a Free State public many guests, tee, coming out to talk to the picketers and expressing sympathy with their aims. and members of Mole factory groups. They came from 65 major towns and cities, and around 250 factories: 63 per cent were members of the CGT, the Communist Party dominated trade union federation, and 37 per cent of the CPDT union federation, which has links with the Socialist Party.
The numbers attending the confe rence, and the scope and seriousness of the discussions, were a decisive testimony to the growing influence of the Ligue in the French working class movement. Only recently, at CFT conference, the union bureaucracy showed the increasing presture it was under when all it could come forward with in debate on strike committees was a series of anti-Trotskyist remarks. Once it was easy for the bureaucracy. the Stalinists and the social democrats to dismiss the revolutionary organisations as having no base in the working class, Rouen was only the latest demonstration of how far the relationship of forces has already been shifted in the struggles of the lust few years. On Tuesday the Court of Appeal turned down the appeals af four of the Stake Newington 5' - Anna Mendelsan, Hilary Creek, Jim Greenfield, and John Barker. Presiding over the court was Lord Chiet Justice Widgery. He refused to noopt that any of the procedures employed in last year's trial, when the tour were convicted of conspiring to commit the Angry Brigade bombings, were at all questionable. Sen tence of ten years was upheld.
On Wednesday the conviction of Jake Prescott, found guilty of the same offence in an earlier trial, was also upheld. His sontence was however enduced fram 15 to 10 years - but purely on the besit of "parity with the other four.
Students at Northumberland College of Education occupied the Administration Block on Wednesday, demanding the re instatement of student Steve Dewitt, expalled by the college authorities on acad.
emic grounds", The occupation came afte • Union General Meeting on Monday night which voted for a 24-hour token occupa tion. The victimistion is obviously an attempt by the authorities to regain the initintive lost after the successful campaign Bt the end of last term for the reinstatemant of lecturer Steve Whitley. Messages of sup port should be sent to: Students Union, Northumberland College of Edueation, Panteland, Northumberland.
A demonstration ta Brixton police station this Saturday is being organied by the