breaking from their old reformist and revisionist leaderships.
‘YOUTH BREAK FROM CHILEAN SOCIALIST PARTY |
: SANTIAGO DE CHILE -- A number of members of the Socialist arty have broken from the reformist bureaucracy and joined the PSP party, he Socialista Popular], which was formed last year through the
fusion of various socialist. currents, and the Partido Obrero Revolu-~ cionario of Trotskyist. tradition. [See World .Outlook April 3, 1964)
wee on November 16, : a group of Socialist ‘university students. sent a letter to the head of the Socialist nucleus ,of the Teaching Institute, which said in part:
: "through this letter we are. “informing. ‘you of our | decision to leave the Socialist party and join the ranks: of the Partido Socialista Popular, We have seen day by day how, because of the course on which it has embarked, the Socialist party is selling out the revolutionary movement of the Chilean workers. In the development of the movement, the stumbling, reformist leadership has limited itself to playing a regressive, vacillating role that in fact blocks the perspective of socialist revolution. The popular movement requires the creation of
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a revolutionary. vanguard that would.aim its potential forces at taking political power, This leadership, impossible to build in the SP because of the Social Democratic bureaucracy, is being constructed in the ranks of the PSP.
"This responsibility is an inescapable duty for every young revolutionist, and we,’ conscious of this, cannot refuse this duty, We know that there are still valuable elements in the official SP, but we are certain that as they deepen their experience within the party, ‘they will finally join our barricade. At the present time we are in contact with many former comrades, and under the:banners of revolutionary socialism held by the growing and vigorous PSP, we will be able to fight for the exploited on the road to their freedom, — For revolutionary socialism! Long live the Partido Socialista Popudar} Oe
"Signed: Luis Poulers, Sergio Funez, Oscar Vallespir, Jorge Quezada, Julio Miranda, of the Teaching Institute of the University of Chile."
After this break with the reformist bureaucracy, the university students of the PSP, together with the Socialist youth and other revolutionary groups, made a united front, running a slate in the elections held by the Teaching Institute. .This revolutionary slate won 442 votes, being defeated by the Christian Democratic slate (960 votes), ‘but they topped the Communist party slate which won 342 votes.
This deepened the crisis in the Communist Youth, who want to go along with the revolutionary groups, but the PC stopped this, arguing that ‘Trotskyist elements were involved.
‘At the beginning of December, the overwhelming mma jority of the’ adult regional committee and the Socialist Youth of the province of | Llanquihue (in the south of Chile), broke with the bureaucratic leadership and joined the Partido: Socialista Popular together with all their members belonging to eight sections in the province.
They were welcomed by Humberto Valenzuela, ‘the well-known leads er of the municipal workers who is general secretary of the Partido Socialista Popular. He noted that the party is doing well in the provinces, having already won members’ in Coquimbo, Talca and O'Higgins.
The decision of the Llanquihue Socialists is another symptom of the deep internal crisis shaking the old reformist party. The crisis was also indicated in the first part of Décember by the militant support which the Socialist Youth gave the strike movement here, It was also ‘shown in a différent way by the incapacity of the bureaucracy to hold a:National Plenum of the Youth at the beginning of. the month and bythe gains registered ‘by the left wing of the: youth: at the Congress of the Regional Committee of South Santiago (the most proletarian area in Chile),
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