Bellman Answers Back

Bellman, the lively commentator of The Post, the journal of the Postmen's union, U.P.W., has once again returned to comment on our attitude to the war in Vietnam: "I have been taken to task by The Week for suggesting, in this column in January, that perhaps the supporters of the Australian Vietnam Day Committee who recently organised a "Folk Songs with A Message = Songs Of Peace And Love" concert in Melbourne might possibly be more desirous of a defeat of the Americans by the Vietcong than in peace, Says The Week: 'Bellman's comment is a little surprising, The Week has consistently supported colonial and national liberation struggies, and has shouted from the housetops that Labour should be aligned with them, against imperialism.' I am then asked if I think this is wrong, "Well, I do. I am an internationalist, I do not support ‘national liberation struggles' against 'imperialica!, I am not prepared to support the Americans against the National Liberariorn Front (the Vietcong) or the Vietcong and the "Democratic Republic of Vietnam! against the Americans. Becuase whoever © ultimately wins in Vietnam, it will not be the workers and peasants of that unhappy country. Of that I'm certain, National 'liberation' struggles elsewhere in Asia and Africa should have taught the intellectual 'revolutionariest of The Week that their success only results in the substitution of one set of rulers for another, Either way, the people get robbed of the fruits of their labour! Unless, of course, there is a strong and free trade union movement around to prevent this," Ken Coates writess"Bellman speaks for many people in the Labour movement on this issue, so it is important to meet his arguments. First of all, he is entirely right to insist that a strong and free trade union movement is vital to the protection of the working people anywhere in the world. The Week has always defended trade wmion rights, wherever they have been attacked, either in the third world or at home. . Whenever, in revolutionary countries of the third world, the trade unions have not been actively involved in gaining more and more effective powers in the running of the economy, this has usually resulted in a halt to progress, and even frequently in the overthrow of anticolonial governments and the installation of military or authoritarian rulers. We would agree with Bellman that without strong and independent unions, workpeople will lose their rights. That is why, in England, we are firmly opposed to the present retrogressive incomes policy of Mr. Brown, which puts essential trade union freedoms in jeopardy. But when Bellman opts for "neutrality" between the Americans and the people of Vietnam, he unwittingly harms the cause of trade unionism. The poor peasants and working people of Vietnam do support the Liberation Front, with every bit as much enthusiasm as postmen in England support the U.P.We, to put it mildly, And it is a cardinal principle of trade wmionism that the oppressed people of the world must offer support to one another: as the Australian ~ dockers helped Ben Tillett and Tom Mann in 1899, as did the Russians help the British miners in 1926. Such support stems at least as much from intelligent self-interest as from the moral identity of one striker or freedom-fighter with another, If the Americans are not beaten in Vietnam, their economic and political control of the whole third world zone will be tightened, and this will make real trade unionism impossible, because foreign imperial rule today can only take place through the medium of military of dictatorial satraps. Unions become revolutionary bodies in such conditions. In some countries, Cefo, Congo, Brazzaville, they even get involved in seizing political power themselves,