These are the British

by Drew Middleton

Here is a curious sidelight on Communist methods. The ETU is weak financially, perhaps the poorest of the ten largest unions. But it spends money freely on "education." The ETU has its own Training College at Esher, where its more ambitious members can be trained to further the interests of the Communist Party and to silence the voices of critics and doubters. Although the non-Communist members of the ETU consider the college as a valuable device for the advancement of the worker, the institution plainly is a training school for Communists and their creatures in their prolonged war against the British economy.

One of the basic concepts of British Socialism is the solidarity of the working class. Acceptance of this concept makes it difficult for the industrial worker to think of the Communist, who comes from the same town, speaks with the same accent, wears the same clothes, as an enemy. There is a pathetic ingenuousness about workers who try to tell the visitor that the Communists "are just the same sort of blokes as us except they've got a different political idea."

The Daily Mirror team in its portrayal of the trade unions devoted a chapter to "The Communist Challenge." Significantly, a large part of the chapter provided an incisive and illuminating illustration of just how the Communists move to gain control of a union.

Where else are the Communists strong? They are in control in some areas of the National Union of Mineworkers. Arthur Horner, the Secretary of the Union, is a Communist. But they are being fought hard in the NUM by men like Sam Watson, who heads its Durham region.

The connection in the Communist mind between the control of the NUM and the ETU is obvious. Control of these two unions would enable Communists to halt the flow of coal and electric power to Britain's factories. Not much more is needed to cripple a nation's economy.

But the Communists press on. They establish cells in the aircraft industry. They work industriously at fomenting trouble on the docks, especially in the ports—such as London, Liverpool, and Glasgow—through which most of the exports pass. Already the threat to block coal and power can be augmented with a threat to halt defense production and exports. It is improbable that the Communists are now powerful enough to carry their program to a triumphant conclusion. But they are on their way.

How do they work? Very much as they do elsewhere in Europe. In Britain, as in Germany or Italy or France, the Communists care very little about better pay or better working conditions for union members. Their objective is power, power that will enable them to push the interests of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. And, to repeat, they have learned that for them power in Britain is obtainable only through control of the unions and not through Parliament.

The Communists try to establish cells in every important factory in Britain. These cells maintain contact with the district secretary of the Communist Party, who knows from the cell exactly what sort of work the factory is doing. Little wonder that Soviet visitors are incurious about the details of British production when they are shown British factories. The information obviously is safely filed in Moscow.

When an industrial dispute develops in a factory, the Communists seek to widen the area of dispute and to involve as many unions as possible. They also do their best to bring the recognized non-Communist leaders of organized labor into disrepute. One method is to organize support for demands that the Communists know the management cannot accept. When a strike organized on this basis fails, the Communists point out to the union members that the leadership is weak and hint that a more "dynamic"—i.e., Communist—direction would benefit the union.

The Communist drive to break the power of the unions and thus to spread industrial discontent is assisted by the character of some union leaders. In many instances leaders are elected to hold their jobs for life, and after years of power they become dictatorial. It is a favorite Communist charge that the union bosses are "in" with the employers, and that as long as their jobs are safe they will do nothing to upset the present situation.