Labour Aid Workers! Control

The Week sends greetings to the 4th Workers! Control Conference which is to be held in Coventry this week-end, It is quite certain to be the most successful, both in terms of attendance and the composition of the deleg~ ations. No longer can anyone say that workers! control is an abstract theory of interest to a few socialist academics, This charge, which was never true anyway, falls to the ground in face of the mounting number of shop stewards' committees and trade union organisations sending delegates, The conference will take place at an extremely appropriate time: the second stage of Wilson's incomes policy legislation is going through Parliament next week and there is no sign of any fight from the traditional left in this country. On the contrary, many of those who voted against entry into the Common Market will not even be abstaining. This shows the immense confusion that Wilson's tactics and policies are still causing, The defeat that Labour suffered at the municipal election hustings shows that the traditional electioneering road to socialism has virtually exhausted its possibilities, If we are to go foward at all on the road to socialism a decisive break-through is needed, Before this can be achieved, a thorough ideological analysis of the problems of modern capitalism must become the property of the left, This conference is the most practical and broadest aspect of the fight to achieve this goal. Unless the transitional slogans of workers! control and opening the books become the mass popular slogans, and are deeply under= stood, there is no prospect of advance for socialism in this country, You can play your part by going to the conference and by distributing the conference material to the widest sections on the left, There is little else as important that readers of The Week can do,