FROM PAT JORDAN
Two inaccuracies crept into my article on the situation in Northern Ireland (September issue).
Firstly, Kilkeel is not a Catholic town, although this does not affect my argument as the unemployed registering in that town come from the whole Mourne district, which is Catholic.
Secondly, Downpatrick was shown in the map as bearing a lower unemployment figure than is the case; it should have had a black dot.
The Cameron report which came out shortly after I wrote my article confirmed the arguments of the left and the ICRSC. It explained gerrymandering, but not why the Westminster Government had taken so long to notice it.
The ridiculous attempt of the DAILY MAIL to hunt International Socialism and Peoples Democracy on the basis of the report must be strongly combatted. All the more because Wilson and the Stormont regime are likely to look for scapegoats as their policy proves useless. As the barricades go up again we must expect the kid gloves to come off. The ICRSC needs to be strengthened in readiness for a long haul.
LETTER FROM MAUREEN ROBERTS
Any revolutionary socialist observer of the recent dispute of GEC workers at Merseyside factories will begin to ask him/herself what has really been the dominating factor in the rejection of the shop stewards' action committee resolution for a workers' take-over.
To the capitalist, it is "sound common-sense" not to listen to the "militants". After all, they are all bloody communists...,and "we know what they are like....", etc., etc. But to the revolutionary socialist, it is an extremely serious and frightening challenge to workers' democracy, when men display such hard-core resistance to the Marxist's resolution for workers' control.
What has gone wrong? Has the average worker been sufficiently canvassed? Does he really know about it? No. He is not prepared to become "involved," because he is at the mercy of the capitalists.
Working for a large factory in the North West and talking to men and women on the shop floor, etc., does not alter my opinion that the worker is AFRAID.
So let's all unite and [illegible] the worker in the [theories] and practice of workers control. Something which must be done; otherwise under this so-called socialist government there will be even more pandering to the capitalists and immeasurable redundancy.
EDITORIAL COMMENT: We entirely associate ourselves with the sentiments of this letter. Whilst the rejection of the Action Committee's plans were a setback there is no doubt that the fact that millions of workers had posed to them the idea of workers' control is immensely positive.
The Institute of Workers' Control, which helped to formulate plans for the Action Committee, is a good vehicle for proceeding as comrade Roberts suggest. Readers should check the week end of November 1st and 2nd when a workers' control conference will take place in London under the sponsorship of the Institute of Workers' Control, the London VOICE and TARGET, the busmen's paper. Full details of the conference will appear in these journals: and TRIBUNE.