SOME of the readers of the Morning Star, the daily paper of the Communist Party, will have got a nasty shock when they read in the issue of Monday 11th October, the statement of the Stop the War Coalition (StWC) condemning the activities of the leaders of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU).

In particular, the statement condemned the activities of their British representative Abdullah Muhsin. He played a critical and counter-revolutionary role at the Labour Party conference in getting leaders of the major trade unions to break their mandate and vote against the resolution calling for the date to be named for the start of the withdrawal of British troops from Iraq.

The statement insists that the StWC ‘has consistently called for the withdrawal of foreign troops and the ending of the occupation.’

It adds: ‘This position commands the support of the great majority of the British people and was reaffirmed recently as the unanimous position of the TUC.

‘It also commands the support of the majority of the Iraqi people, as evidenced by opinion polling carried out by the occupation forces themselves.’

The StWC names the three issues that decided it to condemn the IFTU.
It states that Muhsin: ‘Urged that the Labour Party conference welcome the puppet Iraqi premier Allawi, at a time when the entire anti-war movement was demanding that the invitation be withdrawn, which it subsequently was.

‘Shared a platform with Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and the government’s “human rights” envoy to Iraq Ann Clwyd, respectively a leading architect of, and an indefatigable apologist for, the war and the occupation.

‘Most shamefully of all, energetically lobbied the trade union affiliates of the Labour Party to oppose a motion, reflecting the unions’ own agreed policies, calling on Blair to set an early date for the withdrawal of British troops from Iraq.’

The StWC statement added: ‘In their last undertaking, the IFTU representative worked as the direct instrument of the government and the Labour Party apparatus, which prepared and distributed his statements to delegates and ensured him access to union delegations.

‘Indeed, the statement by the IFTU representative issued by the party was not merely supportive of the continued military occupation of his country, but could also be read as supportive of the original invasion of Iraq.’

The statement added that the IFTU ‘attempted to divide the anti-war movement from the trade unions’.

The statement concluded: ‘With regard to the IFTU, the StWC condemns its political collaboration with the British government, exemplified at the Labour Party conference, and its view that genuinely independent trade unionism in Iraq can develop under a regime of military occupation – including the daily bombardment of major Iraqi cities – by the US and Britain.’

The fact of the matter is that the IFTU did not develop these traits overnight. Its leaders supported the war from its beginning, they returned to Iraq in the baggage trains of the imperialist armies and formed the IFTU which now supports indefinite occupation, (or until Allawi asks for it to be ended – the same thing as indefinite occupation).

Part of the shock for Morning Star readers is that the CP and the Morning Star have acted as the most enthusiastic cheer-leaders for the IFTU ever since the March 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Some of its readers will have noted that the Morning Star did not condemn Abdullah Muhsin, the British representative of the IFTU, or the IFTU itself. It limited itself to printing the StWC statement, and then giving Muhsin ‘the right to reply’ to George Galloway MP’s attack on his politics, the next day.

Galloway scathingly described Muhsin as a ‘trade unionist of 18 months’ and a ‘former pillar of the Iraqi Communist Party’ who is ‘now masquerading as a spokesman of the working class of Iraq’.

He added about Muhsin’s presence at the conference that ‘The state brought along its very own Iraqi Quisling’.

Once again, the Morning Star or the Communist Party did not put out its own statement on any if this dynamite political material.

Both the CP and the Morning Star are hoping that, given time, the fury over the IFTU stab in the back at the Labour Party conference will die down, sooner rather than later, and that then it will be possible to resume treachery as usual.

The Stalinists are going to be disappointed. The anger over the sell-out by the trade union leaders at the LP conference is, in fact, increasing by the day.

On Friday at the European Forum Conference, the leader of the IFTU, Subji al Mashadani, was prevented from speaking by angry workers and youth and had to leave the meeting.

The TUC leaders could not prevent this from happening and commented later: ‘The TUC is dismayed at this morning’s events that saw a small minority of participants heckling and jostling the leader of the Iraqi Federation of Trade Unions, Subji al Mashadani, forcing him to leave the session.

‘We condemn the attempts of a few to prevent the views of Iraqi trade unionists from being heard. We call on everyone at the European Social Forum to support the decision of the organisers to allow Subji to speak tonight as originally planned.

‘The TUC believes that the voice of Iraqi trade unions should be heard. The IFTU is one of several trade union voices in Iraq and the TUC is of the view that all of them should be listened to if we are to help the Iraqi people to rebuild their country.

‘Our Congress reiterated our view that the war was wrong and that troops should be withdrawn as soon as possible. The only way forward is to allow people of differing opinions to have their say.’

Anger is growing at the role of the leaders of the major British trade unions at the Labour Party conference, not just the leaders of the IFTU.

The Morning Star is caught in the contradiction between the millions who oppose the war and the occupation, and the trade union bureaucracy which is willing to sell out anything and everything to make a deal with Prime Minister Blair.

The Stalinists are going to be destroyed by this contradiction.

At one time, the Morning Star was the mouthpiece of the Stalinist bureaucracy in the Kremlin.

But after Gorbachev, and then Yeltsin, undermined and then declared the end of the USSR, they ‘seamlessly’ switched their support to the British trade union bureaucracy, who are now financially supporting the newspaper and getting its political support in return.

At the Labour Party conference, this TU bureaucracy shamelessly sold out to Blair over Iraq, with Muhsin and the IFTU as the facilitator.

The Stalinists, who have a number of prominent leaders in the StWC, could not just dismiss the massive anger of the millions who support the anti-war movement – they had to print the Stop the War statement, while taking care not to support the statement editorially since that would cook their goose with the trade union bureaucracy.

In fact, the Stalinists have been to the right of the TUC on the question of the Iraqi trade unions.

In their statement about the welcome that the IFTU was given at the European Social Forum, the TUC said: ‘The TUC believes that the voice of Iraqi trade unions should be heard. The IFTU is one of several trade union voices in Iraq and the TUC is of the view that all of them should be listened to if we are to help the Iraqi people to rebuild their country.’

The position of the Communist Party and the Morning Star since the invasion of Iraq has been to support the IFTU, and to condemn unions such as the GFTU (General Federation of Trade Unions in Iraq) which they call a ‘yellow trade union’, but which recognises the right of the Iraqi people to fight the occupation armies and their puppets in the current insurgency.

The CP and the Morning Star enthusiastically supported the comradely relationship that the IFTU established with the Iraqi Governing Council, which was selected by US occupation chief Paul Bremer, and then with the ‘interim government’, which was also selected by Bremer.

There are Iraqi Communist Party members in the leadership of the IFTU, and Iraqi Stalinists sat in the Iraqi Governing Council, and sit in the ‘interim government’.

For its services to imperialism the IFTU has been legally declared the official trade union of Iraq. The IFTU is in fact the real ‘yellow trade union’, sponsored by the yellow politics of the CP and Morning Star, as the StWC and the British workers have just discovered to their cost.

• Continued tomorrow