COMING FLN CONGRESS IN AIGERIA
By L. Couturicr
The congress of the FLN LPront de Libération Nationale] is scheduled to be held in about two months. The Algerian press is publishing articles and letters from readers on the future congress, The December 15 issue of Le Peuple featured the "Program of Work for the Preparatory Commission of the Congress of the FLN." [See World Outtook January 3.] In September President Ben Bella promulgated a constitution in which article 23 reads: "The FLN is the sole vanguard party in Algeria," Article 24 specifies: . "The National Liberation Front defines the policy of the nation and inspires the action of the state, It controls the action of the National Assembly and the
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Government." There is really no need to search through Algerian texts; the three letters "FLN" crossed the borders of Algeria many years ago to win the hearts of the exploited throughout the world,
Yet it is necessary to recognize the facts -- the FLN defined by the Algerian constitution, which the militants are discussing -- this FLN does not exist,
What actually exists under this name is a narrow organization composed of militants whose links with the masses vary according to place but which are generally thin, For example, among the three hundred workers of the Laimeche Ali co=operative of Tizi-Rached, in Kabylie, there are four party members although this is a tpozlott cooperative requiring a militant background for those who work there,
To say that the FLN, a vanguard revolutionary party, does not exist, is admitted, moreover, by most Algerian militants. They speak about "creating the party of tomorrow," about a "new FLN," in brief of upsetting what exists while retaining the respected name, Prisoners of Qld Concepts
The reasons that brought about the liquidation of the Front are multiple, They were analyzed with great depth and lucidity in the Tripoli program, The leaders were unable to pass beyond the immediate stage of the armed struggle and diplomatic battle, While the peasant, in the course of combat, progressed rapidly on the political level and presented more and more revolutionary demands, tne leadership remained prisoner to military-bureaucratic concepts and did not arm the militants ideologically, Thus came into operation the fusion, calamitous for all revolutions, between the political organization and the state apparatus -= it took the form of the disappearance of the FLN in the GPRA [Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic] and its various extensions abroad and in the ALN [National Liberation Army] et home.
With the winning of independence, the diplomatic and military tasks were displaced by the pressing need to construct a new state and a new society, Political militants were needed, united by a com mon ideology in the framework of a dynamic organization. The Tripoli program bitterly observed: "The sole reason for the existence of a party is its ideology. It ceases to exist as soon as it comes to lack one,"
The penalty was the crisis of the summer of 1962 and the confusion of many militants.
The pressure of the peasant masses was such that the wing most closely linked to them triumphed. Ben Bella took leadership of the country and began a socialist policy by reinforcing and "legalizing" the llanagement Committees which appeared spontaneously after the departure of the Europeans,
But the difficulties remained enormous whether they concerned
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the smooth functioning of Self-management, the problem of unemployment, the development of industry or sabotage by the bourgeois elements or Pieds-Noirs [the French born in Algeria]. The Kabyle crisis was an indication although it remained quite isolated: the demonstrations in Oran were another quite worrisome indication, showing that elements opposed to the present course could find a certain climate for growth.
Need for Bold Advance
In such a situation, a revolutionary power can grow stronger only by advancing, by paralyzing those in the opposition who have deep social roots, Thus the reply to the "Kabyle rebellion" was the nationalization of wide areas of land, Such measures, however, should not be decreed empirically, under the direct pressure of passing events. What is necessary is a short and long-range plan in order to determine priorities and so that the masses can participate in a conscious way in constructing a new society. :
To carry out a plan integrated in the Algerian reality, to be able to draw the peasants and the workers into undertaking it, a party linked to them is needed. Thus the great importance of the coming congress of the FLN, and above all its preparation,
Little is known at the moment about the documents to be submitted to the delegates, but from the program of work for the preparatary comission, there is every reason to believe that they have a resolute socialist outlook, ~
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Whatever its formulation may be, the program defends a socialist line, But then in Algeria to have any audience you have to be socialist. That is why everything definitively depends on the way in which it will be applied; that is, the structure, the composition of the FiN assumes great importance, The best resolutions can be sabotaged by defective or provocative application, But the only guarantee that the line defined by the congress will be actually applied resides in the organization of a party democratically linked to the masses, drawing from them its strength and dynamism.
Danger of Bureaucratism
The big danger faced by the Algerian Revolution comes less from the big bourgeoisie, whose wealmess is well known, than from the bureaucracy which every victorious revolution necessarily secretes. All the more so in a country of low economic level where there exists a not inconsiderable layer of small merchants, employees, intellectu~ als, aspiring to play a more important role than under the French occupation. DS
Even those who are not of petty-bourgeois social origin can change insofar as leadership posts entrusted to them by the revolution go to their heads, they acquire a taste for power, for the commodities that become available, and they cut themselves off from the people.
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They become bureaucrats.
These bureaucrats exist in great number in Algeria and the struggle at the Congress will be conducted against them. That is, if they are unable to "manipulate" the congress by the methods well known in our countries of Europe and if the voices of the genuine militants ring out.
This means that it is necessary to attach great importance to the way in which the delegates are selected. In the Algerian press, many letters from readers demand that the delegates be elected by their fellow workers or by the inhabitants of the village and that the two criteria should be actual participation in the war for freedom and . their attitude toward self-management and the present socialist line. This way of proceeding seems eminently desirable to us and could even be extended to designate those who are to be members of the FLN before they proceed to elect their leaders,
Problem of Democracy
We have not insisted on a certain number of ideas which appear still insufficiently elaborated in the Algerian documents dealing with the party, How democratic will the internal life of the single party be? How can those be heard who have other ideas on the problems of tactics or strategy? How can the construction of a socialist society be reconciled with the desire to achieve a new unity among "all the people," "like during the war"? How to assure close ties between the party, the poor peasants and the workers?
All these questions are posed and will certainly be discussed at the congress. The latest issues. of Révolution Africaine show that the Algerian militants have already begun to study them and that. the struggle against the bureaucratic degeneration of the party and the state remains one of their major concerns,
We do not believe that the congress will have a magic effect and that from the present void will spring a party ideologically solid -and linked to the masses, The party will be built day by day in the course of socialist construction, winning little by little the best militants who are now scattered. But in the same way that a success~ ful birth can augur favorably for the development of an infant, so a democratic, representative congress will assure a good send-off for the revolutionary vanguard party of the new Algeria.
MOMENT OF TRUTH
Cassius Clay after winning heavy-weight championship: "I dontt like to fight, I don't like to get hurt, I dontt like to hurt anybody. I only fight to make a living and when I have enough money I won't fight anymore." .
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A VICTORY FOR BOTH THE KURDS AND