Editorial Notes Page 2 Defend the Communist Party

Gunter's vicious speech about "red plots" needs complete and utter repudiation. There must be no bones about where we stand on this issue: in the past, sections of the left wing of the Labour Party have capitualted to anticommunist hysteria or been mealy mouthed in their opposition to witch-hunting. This mistake has cost us dear. The same techniques first used against the Commmist Party and its supporters has then been applied to other sections of the left. We need, in this issue as in all others, to apply the class test. Why, in simple class terms, is the Commmist Party being accused of plotting to disrupt the nation's economy? The answer is easy to work out: it is because Gunter wants to confuse the issues, to intimidate trade unionists who are defending their living standards, and because the Government wants to create a political atmosphere in which to take drastic anti-trade union action. Gunter seeks to take advantage of the fact that many of the strike leaders are members of the Communist Party to obscure the real reasons for the so-called industrial unrest. We should expose this lying nonsense for what it is. If anyone is responsible for creating industrial anarchy it is the Government. Which set of people has caused huge losses in production? Who is responsible for the closing of hundreds of factories; for increasing unemployment, for disrupting the docks by forcing through wnfair changes in conditions; for turning whole sections of Wales and Scotland into depressed areas; and for isolating huge areas of the country by savage rail cuts? I could go on, but to ask these questions is to answer them. This Government, because it has rejected the socialist option, has no other choice than to do terrible damage to the economy, Now it is blaming the workers for defending their conditions which have been threatened by these irresponsible actions, Every section of the left should defend the right of the Communist Party to exist and to advocate its ideas without being the target of lying attacks, Let us defend the Communist Party from these attacks, let us pledge ourselves to get all our organisations on record against this rotten McCarthyism. He who hesitates on these issues has no right to call himself a socialist, I am certain that The Week supporters will do all in their power on this issue,