TOWARD LABOR UNITY IN IRELAND ao ‘DUBLIN, May 25 -- This country!'s second, biggest union, the Workers Union’ of Ireland [wur], with a membership of 30,000, ranging from factory workers to airline pilots, has decided to affiliate to -the Irish Labour party,
The. decision will almost double the number of ‘trade unionists affiliated to the Labour party and is sure to have an effect on other major unions not yet pledged to support Labour,
Heretofore. the only real liaison between the Labour party and’ the major unions has been the economic committee. comprised of Labour deputies and leaders of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions acting from ‘time to time as a national council of Labour,
‘Now it is felt that the decision of the Wor has almost sealed the issue and that other unions will feel compelled to Follow suit,
WEST GERMAN STUDENTS GIVEN HRARING IN BAST GERMANY.
HAMBURG, May 27 == The West German ‘left-socialist student organization, the SDS [Sozgialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund -~ .. Socialist Student Association. of Germany], whose affiliation to the Social-Democratic party was broken by the right-wing leadership of that party because of the students! militant Marxist convictions, was invited by the East German authorities to participate in the "German Reunion, ' amass youth festival organized by the Ulbricht regime for May 16-17, o oe
‘The SDS replied that it was willing to participate provided that it could have its own reporter at one of the discussion panels to be held at the festival, ‘This request was rejected by the Hast German authorities on May 14. However, the next day the decision was reversed and the SDS received 'a written statement that its. con» ditions had been accepted,
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The SDS thereupon sent a delegation of three, including Helmut Lessing, vice=chairman of the organization, He made. a report at a. panel discussion of some 300 participants, 100 from West Germany, 200who were members of the FDJ. [Communist Youth of East. Germany] and:-who, of course, had been carefully : selected by the Ulbricht ‘regime,
Lessing took sharp issue with anti- Communism. put was. Guite critical of the bureaucratic regime of the German Democratic Republic, His main points along these lines. were:
(1) Opposition to the rigged Stalinist trials held in East Germany, particularly the condemnation of "our friend Heinz Brandt." (Brandt was an oppositional German Communist who spent ten years in a Nazi concentration camp. A correspondent of Metall, newspaper of the metal workers union, he was kidnapped in June 19 El by the Stalin« ist police and condemned at a secret trial to fifteen years at hard labor,. Significantly, a few days after the East. German Youth Festival, _ Brandt was suddenly freed,) —
(2), Opposition to the transformation of: socialist theory into’ a dogma, For critical scientific examination of all facts, This, Lessing held, does not contradict full participation by scientists in the fight for socialism,
(3) Seience and scientific research require unlimited freedom of information, "The possibility of obtaining information freely is not only a condition for intellectuals’ to engage in scientific work, In a process of real emancipation it is also a condition for the formation of critical judgment in all men," Later in his remarks Lessing said: "No political system which tries to prevent people from making up their own minds ~- by deciding what information should or should not be made available == has the right to call itself socialist or democratic,"
(4) Social science must start by recognizing the real contradictions in society. Where the existence of such contradictions is not taken into account, a tendency. develops to consider their manifestation to be a consequence of the influence of an alien foe and to hold that the demand: for greater freedom "only adds grist to the mill. ,.. of the imperialist enemies of freedom" (Politbureau member Kurt Hager), In concluding this point, Lessing said: "In the German Yederal Republic, the SDS is considered to be an organization of the extreme left. But unity cannot be forged with political forces that repress with inquisitorial means any in their own country (GDR) who, without questioning the fundamental economic structure, hold ‘Ndevias tionist! positions on other issues,"
(5) "Bureaucracies," Lessing said, “always speak in public about the alliance with science and the intellectuals, But in prace tice they all too often do not tolerate scientists who analyze social reality. ina deep-going way. What they want instead are theoreticians engaged in research in small isolated compartments , who perhaps dis-
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cuss with their colleagues, but for the rest limit themselves to making available to the authorities the results of their work, leaving it up to the authorities to decide what is correct, what incorrect, what can be used and what cantt be, It is in this context that we in the SDS have viewed the struggle for the independence of our organization, We were unwilling, and we are still unwilling, to bargain over the results of research. We are particularly grateful for the support which we received from.well-known scientists who didn't hesitate to suffer expulsion from the SPD, since they were members of the party. By taking this stand, they demonstrated against the concept of the party bureaucracy on limiting Botenvitic discussion among socialist intellectuals," a
In conclusion, the SDS vice-chairman expressed the hope that a serious and democratic exchange of opinions with the FDJ could be continued in public,
This report was followed by a long discussion. “Among the participants was Professor Klaus Fuchs (the famous atomic scientist who was condemned as a "spy" in Britain after the Second World War). He was rather noncommittal, Politbureau member Hager sourided rather bitter in the remarks he offered, Lessing had observed that contem« porary socialist literature by such authors as Oskar Lange, Paul Sweezy, Maurice Dobb, Eugen Marz and Joan Robinson can be bought freely in Western Germany but cannot be found in East German book shops. Hager's response to this was that Sweezy is a "Protskyist,"
This brought loud laughter from the audience, ._
The Bast German press did not publish Lessing's report, However it reported the discussions which it touched off. This was sufficient for intelligent readers to catch the drift of Lessing's remarks, 2
The importance of > granting a hearing to a figure like Lessing: is considerable, It is the first successful attempt to‘hold a public discussion of this kind in East Germany in which an anticapitalist, socialist position was heard that included critical observations aimed at the bureaucratic Ulbrich regime, It enabled the audience to gain a much clearer idea of the character of the left+socialist forces in West Germany.