concentrate on building itself And he restricts himsel! to primarily reporting (in a rather those debates at tho AGM in which there were derenpas between socais Oulook and Socialist Organiser supporters.
While the debate on Maastricht was important, and Socialist Organiser's view that imperialism still retains a acressive element should be refute fai's to mention that resolutions we passed unanimously Labour Party-Trade Union ink and con demning the launch of Red, Green and Radical in the place of socialist He does not mention that the AGM was opened with speeches from the NUM and strikers from Sheffield and is. lington NALGO branches.
On pi closures, Brooks writes a resolution caling for a one day general strike to support the miners 1o prepare a general strike to kick out the Tories was Yet the resolution passed did call on the TUC to call a day of action against pit closures. Such a day of action is a general strike in all but name To my knowledge it is not the policy o Socialist Cullook to call for an inefinite general strike, especialy one limited to kicking out the Tories.
The idea that what Trotsky called the highest form of class struggle short of an armed insurrection should have such a Imited am is noutne short of noituious Pete Firmin, London Smear! Wilson and the Secret State By Stephen Dorril and Robin Ramsay Reviewed by David Coen HAROLD WILSON has undergone something of a retrospective reabilitation of late, with a spate of material looking back - often nostalgically - at the Labour governments of But when Stephen Dorri and Robin Ramsay (out shers of Lobster magazine) write about Wiison, they do so in the spirit of the old adage that just because youre paranoid, it doesn't mean nobody is The book catalogues the longest sustained campaign against a maior posuckan in Bresh nistory Wisonke resignation in 1976 was the torrent of manufactured press candals covering everything from his relations with his secretary to a rumoured communist cel at number 10, but simply by his desire to retire at 60.
The book shows how secret service altempts to discredit Wilson were actualy instigated by sections more class struggle-based approach to the problems of British economic decline and increasing trade union militancy of the early There is litte doubt these elements were planning a coup, especially after Labour's victory in the second general election of 1974.
Wisen had been President of the Board of Trade in the first post-war Labour governmen, ano as suar ent couraged trade with the USSR. making several trips to Moscow.
Mary of the contacts he made in this period, especially those in the importexport business, were held p as evidence that Wilson was a oviet agent. It was even suggestec that Gailskeil was murdered by the KGB to ease Wison's path to the Labour leadership.
Yet ironically, Wison himself used the secret state against the labour movement, most notably in the 1966 seamen's strike. Labour's padership even used information from right wing industrialists organisations against the lett.
The Wilson story can be divided into three periods. First, the attemois to keep wellson airo Labour out of power, which finally failed in 1964; second, Wilson's deal with the US; third, when the bourgeoisie's strategy switched to replan Labour wah nos just & not mal Tory government, but one headed by a night-wing class stug gle leadership.
Dorril and Ramsay argue that tom 18oe, wilson coreruy dacted US cold war policy, especially in Vietnam. Nevertheless, this did not prevent the active CiA participation tematic promotion of Atlanticism within the Labour Party bur une book is most seresta (and most disappointing) in its ac count of the post-1974 period, especally the emergence of Margaret Thatcher within the Conservative Party.
Much of the framework for this book came from the writings of former inteligence officers Fred Hotroyd and Coln Wallace, who both there is disappointingly Ette informa. son on the links between counter in surgency in the six countes and the struggle over the future direction of British politics.
Army reluctance to move against the 1974 loyalist strike which bought down the power-sharing executive had overtones of the Curragh mutiny of 1912, when it refused to move against armed loyalist oppositon to the Home Rule Hill The ot son was presumabiy not lost on Harold Wilson at a time of coups and rumours of coups, nor on Edward Heath. plotting in the period resulted from an interneone bate between M 5 and Mi6 and its numerous hangers-on, determined to find a role to replace its diminished responsibilties after the collapse of the emThey may e hat naday may have too easily disgroups bridging the (anyway narow) gap between the inteligence with such elements as Aims of Industry and the Freedom Associaton, conspired to remove not just Wison but also Heath. No. 35 January 16, 1993 Page 9
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