FREEDOM NOW" WITHOUT A FREE VIETNAM
By Evelyn Sell
The conditions of life and death in capitalist America encourage the civil=rights movement to adopt antiwar slogans and sentiments. A good example of this tendency occurred during the dramatic events in Selma, Alabama, earlier this year. In an article last April, I reported:
"The announcement that 3,500 Marines were being sent to Vietnam blazed across America's newspapers on March 7 -- the very day that Alabama troopers tear-gassed Negroes on the first March to Montgomery. The first wave of Marines landed in Vietnam on March 8 -- the day civil-rights advocates started streaming into Selma and sending delegations to Washington. The irony of Marines 'defending freedom! in Vietnam while American Negroes were being tear-gassed in Selma was not lost on Americans....
"tSend Marines to Alabama Not Vietnam! was the message of one sign in a picket line in Detroit....In the chants and picket signs and statements of these demonstrations...the most explicit statements to date were made linking up the pro=civil rights and anti-Vietnam war sentiments of millions of Americans." [See World Outlook April 2.]
A similar linking up of civil-rights workers and the student. antiwar movement was reported in the May issue of The Southern Patriot. A photograph showed a delegation of black freedom fighters who JoIned in the April 17 demonstration_in Washington. A large hand-printed banner proclaimed: "Miss. [Mississippi] Delta -- Our War Isn't In Viet-Nam But In America." The caption under the photo read: .
"Peace and civil rights activity merge as delegation from the Mississippi Delta joins Easter march in Washington sponsored by Students for a Democratic Society to call for an end to the war in Vietnam, The growing identification of civil rights and peace groups is symbolized by the woman marching in left foreground of photo at rights; she is Miss Marjorie Merrill who came up from Benton, Miss., where she is teaching in a freedom school under a project financed by a York, Pa., peace organization. One marcher from the Delta came 'because I- felt the entire nation should do something to stop this war -- we need to solve our problems at home,'!"
2 On
The "growing identification of civil rights and peace groups" noted by The Southern Patriot has expressed itself in a sporadic fashion; the visible evidences are few and far between and the growth has not been a smooth one. Students, active in both the civil-rights movement and the anti-~Vietnam war drive, have expressed disappointment and some bewilderment at the sparse attendance of Negroes at teach-ins and antiwar demonstrations. It is true that there are powerful forces at work in American society cementing an alliance between the civil-rights and antiwar movements but there are also counterpressures against such a linkage. The recent con= frontation between civil-rights leaders on the question of the war in Vietnam indicates the opposing forces at work within the civilrights movement.
During the course of a visit to Boston, Massachusetts, to lead a fight against racial segregation in schools, housing and jobs, Dr, Martin Luther King, Jr., raised the question of the civil-rights movement's attitude toward war. The April 23, 1965, Detroit News reported:
"At.a press conference King encouraged civil rights leaders to speak out against war -- Vietnam in particular,
"In the face of criticism that his powerful movement is being diverted into pacifist and ban-the-bomb crusades, King said bluntly: 'One cannot be just concerned with civil rights...it is very nice to drink milk at an uns egregated dunch counter -- but not when there's strontium 90 in it.
"On Vietnam he expressed fears about the apparent willingness of world powers 'to continue to escalate.! 'I have no objection to civil rights leaders speaking against war as against segregation,! he added,"
Although King had "no objection" to antiwar pronouncements from civil-rights leaders, subsequent events proved that the other nationally recognized civil-rights leaders did have objections, During a July 2 speech to 2,000 Negroes gathered in the Virginia State College stadium, King pressed his stand on the war in Vietnam, The Nobel Peace Prize winner warned that if the Johnson administration doesn't get the hostilities to the bargaining table he might adapt his civil-rights movement (the Southern Christian Leadership Conference) to "teachkins" and "peace rallies."
King. declared that the war in Vietnam must be stopped, “It must be a negotiated settlement,'' he said. "We must even negotiate with the Viet Cong. I'm not going to sit by and see war being escalated without saying anything about it,"
Roy Wilkins, executive oor erat A for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People LNAACGP], was asked if his organization would follow King's lead. Wilkins answered, "We think
‘we have enough Vietnam in Alabama. I feel that when you mix Vietnam and civil rights, you confuse the issue."
An even sharper rebuff to King's statements came from James Farmer, national director of the Congress of Racial Equality [CORE]. The circumstances surrounding Farmer's rebuff showed once again the opposing pressures on the civil-rights movement. On July 5 the CORE convention voted to call for the immediate withdrawal of United States troops from Vietnam and the Dominican Republic (going even further than King's call for negotiations in Vietnam). In the debate that followed behind closed doors, Farmer led the opposition to the antiwar resolution, Farmer insisted that as an organization CORE should stay out of the peace movement and concentrate its efforts on civil rights. The discussion, which centered around the Vietnam section of the resolution, was the most heated of the five-day convention, according to newspaper reports. The convention reversed its previous decision; CORE took no official stand on the question of war.
King's advocacy of negotiations "even...with the Viet Cong," the original vote of the CORE convention for the antiwar resolution, the scattered antiwar slogans and activities of civil-rights militants ~- all of these actions indicate the feelings which exist in the mass of Negroes, They are sick and tired of administration hypocrisy which defends "democracy and freedom" overseas and not at home. They are sympathetic toward the aspirations of the colonial revolution against which United States armed force is directed, They realize that even second-class citizenship is impossible ina world destroyed through nuclear warfare.
On the other hand, the hostile reactions of Wilkins and Farmer, the appeal of the argument that "when you mix Vietnam and. Civil rights, you confuse the issue," and the lack of consistent and significant participation in antiwar demonstrations are evidences of the counterpressures on the Negro leadership and large sections of the Negro people. Such pressures include: the crippling effects of the political ties between the leading civil-rights groups and the Johnson administration, the terrible and crushing problems of the day=toeday civil-rights battles, the pervasive suspicion of white-led and dominated movements and organizations (a characteristic of the antiwar movement to date is the overwhelming preponder-=ance of whites). . ,
The living link between the civil-rights movement and the antiwar movement is the large group of students who are active in both. . The continuing disillusionment with the Democratic party, . the growing concern over the threat of a catastrophic world war, -the developing links between American Negro freedom fighters and the freedom struggles in Africa, Asia and Cuba impel the civil-rights movement to engage more vigorously in the antiwar campaign in the United States. The final word on the alliance between the civil rights and antiwar movements has not been stated yet. The question will continue to agitate the "freedom now" ranks and leadership.
-=3]—
BELGIUM'S NEW GOVERNMENT -- A FURTHER SHIFT TO THE RIGHT.
By Henri Valin
Brussels:
After a crisis that lasted more than two ‘months, | a- new government was finally formed July 28. It is a coalition between the Christian Social party and the reformist Socialist party like the previous government which suffered a crushing defeat in the general elections May 23, The coalition still commands a broad _majority..in parliament (the two biggest parties in Belgium are involved), but in the House. of Representatives, the coalition is one seat short of a two-thirds, majority.
This technicality is important. inasmuch as the parliament elected May 23 is a Constituent Assembly charged with the task of revising Belgium's 135-year-old constitution and introducing some voting safeguards in favor of the Walloons (who speak French). This is the first parliament.in which the Flemings (who speak Flemish, a Germanic language); hold an absolute majority of seats. To revise the constitution, however, a two-thirds majority is required. Consequently, the coalition's aim cannot be achieved unless someone in the opposition is won over to the government's side. ; . i"
Needless to say, the coalition parties are not. looking to the left for this additional vote. but _to the right. They tried wooparty which was recently rebaptised as the NParby of Freedom and. Progress," ) The maneuver failed, but the coalition is still fish ing in the same place for the extra vote. All this has signified a further shift to the right as compared with the last Catholic- Socialist government headed by Théo Lefévre which was a typical — example of a "center-left" formation in the Italian style.
The shift to the right is apparent not only in the general political atmosphere of parliament; it is also apparent in the composition of the cabinet and the official.declaration read by Prime Minister Pierre Harmel before the House on July 29. Several direct representatives of big business and the worst reaction, absent in the previous government, have been brought into the new coalition in the most conspicuous manner. The conservative Catholic leader Gaston Eyskens, who was prime minister from 1958. to 1961 and against whose hated government the workers launched the general strike of December 1960-January 1961, is vice-chairman of the present coalition! The new minister of justice, Pierre Wigny, after twenty-four hours in’office, sent a circular letter to the police department drawing attention to the fact that it is illegal for foreigners to stage political demonstrations in Belgium and calling on them to enforce this law strictly. (Belgium has seen a séries of demonstrations organized by Spanish and Greek workers to express solidarity with political struggles undertaken by the toil-
ing masses in their respective countries.)
To agree to a new coalition government further to the right than the last one was a bitter pill for the Socialist party leaders after the stunning defeat they suffered at the polls (the vote for the Socialists dropped 25%). After much hesitation and haggling, they finally decided at a congress held July 24-25 to participate in the new coalition, The majority in favor of swallowing the poisonous pill was the smallest since the end:of World War II, a bare 63%, Significantly, 60% of the mandates held by the Walioon federations, generally more to the left than the Flemish, were cast against the’ coalition. This included the Liége and Charleroi federations. Due to this, the large working-class federations of the Socialist party in Wallonie are not represented in the cabinet, and the Liége minister Fernand Dehousse was publicly reprimanded by his federation for joining the government.
In the opinion of the Paris daily Le Monde, the Social Democratic leaders, by joining the new coalition government, created-: favorable conditions for a "guerrilla war" against them by both the dissident left socialists and the Walloon nationalists. It. was to counter this possibility that the leaders of the large Walloon federations voted against the coalition.
But they put up only a hesitant fight at the congress without any firm basis in principles and without offering an alternative policy. The same can be said of the attempt of a few centrist members of parliament in the Socialist party, headed by Ernest Giinne, to launch a "new left" inside the party. (The militant left win was arbitrarily expelled in a witch-hunt campaign last December, In a manifesto, these centrists openly accepted the reformist position that socialism can be won in a capitalist society through gradual reforms, a position they would have repudiated in the days when they collaborated with the weekly La Gauche before they capitulated to the Socialist party bureaucrats last January.
In fact, as is made clear in the official declaration of the Harmel cabinet, the whole orientation of the reformists is based on the hope of continuation of the "boom! and full omployment through international capitalist "prosperity." - The turn of the economic situation in Italy, France, Japan “and now probably in Britain, too, shows that this faith lacks any. firmer basis in reality than miracles of other kinds.
ECONOMIC SQUEEZE: ON YUGOSLAV WORKERS
After six weeks of ‘discussion in the National Assembly, the Yugoslav government, on July 21 finally published the decrees directing a turn in economic ‘policy that was decided on some months ago. A number of things are involved, beginning with devaluation of the
ZZ un
dinar from 750 to 1,250 dinars to $1 U.S. Price increases on all commodities and services range from 25% to 300%, with the biggest jumps in the prices of raw materials and services like gas, electricity and rent. Import of goods is to be widened on a big scale (consumer goods, including Shipments from capitalist countries, are to be imported to cut prices for similar goods on the domestic market). Subsidies for plants are to be sharply lowered (including. those producing for export), Centrally guided investments are to be considerably reduced (plants will now dispose of 71% instead of 50% of their net income). Great pressure is to be brought on plants in favor. of "profitability." During a transition period, plants showing a loss will be granted subsidies (however, with a sharp reduction in the average income of workers employed in these plants). After the transition, they will be forced to close down if they can't make ends meet. This means a rise in unemployment,
Wages and salaries will be adjusted after the price increases, but the figure most generally quoted is a 25% boost. Talk is open about lowering the standard of living, since the main goal of. the new economic policy ig.to heighten "austerity." Investments (only profitable ones!) are to be increased at the expense of consumption.
The social consequences of the policy will certainly be to _ put a heavier load on the least privileged layers of the population, the least skilled industrial workers and the working population of the more backward regions. Inequalities between the workers and the bureaucracy and between workers of the more advanced and the more backward regions will tend to increase. To return to a more and more "liberal market economy" makes this inevitable whether the enterprises in competition on such a market are owned by private individuals (as is the case under capitalism), or whether they are under collective ownership but managed by bureaucrats and workers to the exclusive interest of the plant's personnel (without taking into consideration the over-all interests of society; i.e., of the toiling masses of the entire country).
The drastic economic measures which the Tito regime feels forced to take in order to combat run-away inflation, which has been spreading for some time, indicate that workers self-management at the plant level, while certainly a step in the right direction, does not in and of itself constitute an ideal "model" for managing the economy of a workers state in transition from capitalism to social-~ ism,
Only the combination of workers self-management at the plant level, with central planning under a regime of workers political democracy on the national level, can make it possible to gradually break the stranglehold of the bureaucracy. over the economy, while at the same time avoiding the twin evils of overcentralization and overdecentralization (excessive use of market mechanisms and excessive leeway for particularist, regional and corporatist tendencies at plant and local levels) to which the Yugoslav economy has been submitted successively, the first before 1948 and the latter after 1953,
B40
DISSIDENT POLISH YOUTHS GIVEN HEAVY SENTENCES
Con May 26, the Paris daily Le Monde reported the arrests of some youths in Poland on political charges, -Among -the accusations _was the charge that they had advanced a program based in part on “the criticisms levelled by Trotsky against the Stalinist system," This was reported in the May 28 World Outlook. Since then, we have received inquiries about further developments. Inasmuch as we have no inside channels of information in this instance, we are compelled to rely on such items in the world press as are called to our attention. The July 30 New York Times (international edition) ran areport on the case by its special correspondent David Halberstam, datelined Warsaw, July 29. The following is the full text.] —
The arrest and sentencing of a prominent young instructor at Warsaw University has underlined one of the dilemmas the Communist party of Poland faces with contemporary youth,
The instructor, Karol Modzelewski, and a graduate student were sentenced to three and one-half and three years, respectively, for disseminating papers that the state judged false and prejudicial, Mr. Modzelewski is the son of the late Zygmunt Modzelewski, Foreign Minister from 1947 to 1951.
Young Mr. Modzelewski, an assistant in philosophy at the university, was a party member .
His case is significant because it comes at a time when the party is concerned by the lack of political enthusiasm among young people. But the case also illustrates the party's sensitivity to anything that challenges the present doctrines -- indeed, sensitivity to the kind of discussion and debate that tends to excite and lure young people into politics,
Mr. Modzelewski was reportedly the leader of a small group of party members, primarily instructors and graduate students, at the university. Several others involved in the case have been — arrested and may be tried later.
Sources said that Mr. Modzelewski was an eager young party member. He was in Italy in 1963 and apparently became interested in some of the ideas being debated within the Italian Communist party and the way in which they were debated,
This kind of debate, he decided, was what was needed among the youth in the Communist party in Poland.
Upon his return, he and several party colleagues began to talk and write on a broad range of political, social and economic
questions facing Poland. Implicit in their talks was the belief that there should be more debate within the party.
Reportedly, there was no main theme to these views -- they ranged from revisionism in some areas to calls for more collectivization in agriculture,
These views were circulated entirely within the party student group. Nonetheless, Mr. Modzelewski and his group were disciplined by the party last fall. They lost their party membership and they were at least threatened with suspension from their university positions.
Mr. Modzelewsk1 and his friends, however, continued to discuss and formulate their ideas in the late winter, this time outside the framework of the party.
This .spring, Mr. Modzelewski and several others were arrested, and last week the Government announced that he had been sentenced to three and one~half years, and a colleague, Jacek Huron, to three, The sentences were considered stiff,
Implicit in the case was a warning to university students and graduate instructors to watch their dissent. But a part of it, too, according to sources, was a warning to sons and daughters of high officials that the Government did not intend to confer political privilege by birth any more than it intended to confer economic privilege by birth.
SWISS GROUP BREAKS WITH PEKING
The Swiss Communist party, which split from the pro-Moscow Labor party and declared itself strongly in favor of Maoism, recently took a new step of considerable interest. It has declared its independence from Peking and has called on "all the revolutionary Marxists" to organize a new "revolutionary International" to bring to-~ gether all the parties and groups desirous of struggling against imperialism,
As reported by Agence France Press in a July 20 dispatch from Geneva, the appeal was strongly directed against the "superiority complexes of Moscow as well as Peking" and rejected the idea of a “pro=Chinese" International.
In fact," the central secretariat of the party declared, "4t is not right for Moscow or Peking to show superiority complexes and under different guises, more or less interested or egocentric, to seize the position of dominators of the Communist world. The two. brother enemies are too anxious to maintain and to deepen their dif-
ferences to have the right. to dominate anyone and to ‘give advice! and orders which they do not follow themselves."
With regard to Moscow, the declaration said, "We think that a .revolution cannot be made along the peaceful road and that peaceful coexistence is a betrayal and a demobilization of the peoples, a slackening of vigilance, as well as a very grave error,"
: As for Peking, the call said that "imperialism is not a-paper tiger and to spread this belief is a very grave error,"
Without directly mentioning the Chinese Communist party. leaders, the document criticized those who issue warnings to aggressors, and held that it would be better ‘*to demonstrate what they are capable of doing."
Concerning Vietnam, the Swiss Communists said: “Hanoi has not hastened to ask for volunteers, Chinese or otherwise. The reasons are known and they are correct. Would Vietnam excite such greed if it were only an improductive desert?"
The Paris daily Le Monde (July 21) devoted a half column to the declaration of the Swiss Communist party, noting that this was the first time that a European Communist party had "so violently attacked both Moscow and Peking" and that it was notable that it proposed "the creation of a new International on a still harder basis than that advocated by Peking."
Eliane Perrin, a sociology student in Geneva, wrote to the editor of Le Monde expressing astonishment that a newspaper "as serious as Le Monde would grant so much space" to the Swiss Commun= ist party which has "at the maximum thirty members and has no weight either in domestic Swiss politics or in international politics.
To this the Swiss Communist party replied in a letter (quoted in Le Monde July 30) that as of July 15, 1965, it had issued 511 membership cards, with a still higher number of sympathizers cards, "after all, we have never pretended to be numbered in the thousands, It is true that when our party was defending only the theses of the Chinese comrades, recruitment was difficult. Now that we have opted for a Communist road adapted to Swiss realities and possibilities, it is much less difficult for us to find new adherents,"
This "Communist road," according to Le Monde, was defined further on in the letter as a "clear and independent line," the signers not desiring "to be either slaves or robots of anyone," The letter also said that in the first part of August a conference was scheduled to be held "somewhere in Europe" at which a new "revolutionary International" would be launched,
Ue
ARAB MAGAZINE DENOUNCES ALGERIAN COUP D'ETAT .
The editorial board of the Arab Revolution has issued an English translation of its stand on the coup d'état in Algeria June 19, The magazine condemns the seizure of power and offers its "“unconditional Support to the popular resistance against the military dictatorship,”
It also recalls "the criticism from the Left to Ben Bella and his revolutionary brothers for not taking a bold and ruthless stand against reaction and its henchmen in the government and the army." History has shown that there is no middle road. There is either’ "a permanent revolution or a counterrevolution," mo
The statement lists seven demands.which the editors feel should be pressed by the Algerian masses:
"(1) The immediate release of President Ben Bella and all his brothers who were arrested by the military dictatorship.
"(2) Calling for an emergency Congress of the F.L.N. party, in which all tendencies must be represented and given full hearing, to investigate and severely punish the instigators of the coup.
_ _ ie La
_™(3) The Congress must declare its firm upholding of the ‘Algiers Charter! which should be developed to suit: the newly arisen situation.
"(4) The return of the legal democratic institutions, the central committee and politieal bureau of the party, and the National Assembly.
"(5) Freedom for press and all mass organisations which were suppressed by the military regime. ;
(6) Purging of the civil service of all bureaucratic and right wing elements.
"(7) Merging the organisations of the 'political Commissariats' of the army with the party at all levels."
BOOK BY TROTSKY APPEARS IN ARABIC
Two works by Leon Trotsky, The Permanent Revolution and Balance and Perspectives, have been translated into Arabic for the first time and issued in a single volume.* The translator, Bachaar %L. Trotsky: The Permanent Revolution -- Balance and Perspectives, translated by Bachaar Abou Sabraa,. Politics and Society collec= tion. Darettalia, Beyrut, Lebanon.
~3 Gm
Abou Sabraa, has included a short biography of Trotsky as well as an introduction by Isaac Deutscher under the title, The Age of Permanent Revolution,"
The translation ‘isa good one, which says much for the .translator's understanding of Trotsky's fundamental ideas, Arabic being notoriously weak in Marxist terminology. It is to be hoped that — Sabraa will continue his efforts in this field so that other works ~ by Trotsky as well as by Marx, Engels and Lenin will finally see the light of day in Arabic.
' The book should find a waiting audience, for Trotsky" s con= cept of the permanent revolution, a concept first enunciated by Marx midway in the last century, is of burning actuality in the Arabic world of today where the revolutionary process that will eventually end in socialism, as foreseen by Trotsky, has already begun in many countries.
TORONTO PICKETS DEMONSTRATE AT U.S. CONSULATE
. The third federal convention of the New Democratic party, meeting in Toronto in mid July, passed resolutions condemning by an overwhelming vote the U.S. aggression in Vietnam and the Dominican Republic. On July 14, the same day that the resolutions were passed, some 150 delegates out of the 800 present marched from the hall through the ‘streets to the U.S. consulate,
They carried placards bearing such slogans as "Speak Out Against Napalm and Torture"; "Canada Must Cease Support of American War"; "T,C.Douglas [the party's leader] Calls for Right of Vietnam to Determine Its Own Future." A number of placards bore the slogan, "Withdraw U.S. Troops from Vietnam,"
The press noted that the marchers were mostly youth and that they were not accompanied by the party leaders.
At the U.S. consulate, H.W.Herridge, an apple grower who represents the British Columbia riding of Kootenay West, mounted the steps to state the reason for the demonstration, "We represent the wishes of mankind in being here this afternoon," he said,
Midway in his remarks a consular official poked his head out the door and complained to the police who were present that speeches were not permitted on the consulate property.
David Middleton, a former NDP candidate from York West and a_ member of a tendency in the NDP called the "Socialist Caucus," shouted back to the U.S. official: "This is Canada, you yardbird,".
mye
=3Qm.
The elderly Herridge said, according to the press: "This is the first time I have learned that the public entrance to a U.S. consulate is not public." He went ahead and finished his remarks,
Middleton then asked if anyone had a resolution to offer, and someone in the crowd yelled: "I move we nationalize the American — consulate."
The pickets then marched ina circle, carrying their signs and chanting slogans like "Hands Off Viet Nam!
Middleton shouted towards the consulate: "Put your hands in your own pockets, you robbers." me
During the convention deliberations, the Socialist Caucus fought to have the New Democratjc party come out for nationalization of all Canadian industry, They demanded’that the NDP stand firmly on its working-class base and stop: expelling members who hold minority views. ‘
T.C.Douglas called the Socialist Caucus "a bunch of screwballs" whose proposals were not worth answering. He said he doubted that there were more than thirty delegates in the group.
John Steele, a 24-year- -old truck driver who is chairman ‘of the Socialist Caucus, conceded that only a small proportion of the delegates belonged to the group but said that it has strong support among the rank and file. A committee room was opened by the group in a nearby hotel where NDP delegates could come to discuss party questions, .
Despite the depreciation of the group voiced by Douglas, they offered the only effective socialist opposition to the views of. the reformist leadership.
INSECTICIDES CONTAMINATING THE ATMOSPHERE
Scientists at the National Vegetable Research Station in England have discovered traces of insecticides, including DDT and dieldrin in rainwater, reports the August l London Observer. This points to contamination of the atmosphere, probably through evaporation of the poisons during spraying or from deposits now covering vast areas of soil surfaces.
The discovery may account for the presence of DDT recently > noted in the fat and liver of Antarctic seals and penguins, "Air currents could carry insecticide vapours over the globe quite quickly." The worst danger is the concentration of insecticides at the end of a food chain. Several species of birds are nearing extinction due to this. Now it would appear that the food chains in the oceans are similarly vulnerable.
CALL ISSUED FOR POPULAR RESISTANCE IN ALGERIA
LA two-page mimeographed circular, calling for the organization of popular. resistance against the Boumedienne regime, is being circulated in Algeria. Issued by the “Organisation de la Résistance Populaire" (People's Resistance Organization), it bears the signa-~ ture of Hocine Zahouane, a left-wing member of the Political Bureau of the FLN (Front de Libération Nationale) and chairman of its Cen= tral Commission of Orientation until Ben Bella was overthrown on June 19,
LIn a dispatch from Algiers reporting distribution of the document, Le Monde's special correspondent said (August 4 issue) that "circles close to the government" claim that Zahouane is fol» . lowed "by only a few 'stray' elements." Also that he did not go into opposition until after "trying, in vain, several times, to be taken into the Council of the Revolution" set up by Colonel Boumedienne,
("After having disappeared for two days following the coup a' état," continues the same source, "Mr. Zahouane was again seen in Algters up to the beginning of last week, It is even affirmed by trustworthy sources that between June 25 and June 30 -- at his request == Colonel Boumedienne met with him twice. It is not known where he is at present." ; .
[It is not without interest that L'Humanité, the central organ of the French Conmunist party, published the full text of the proclamation (August 3), calling special attention to it with a front-page headline. The content of Zahouane's proclamation stands in rather startling contrast to the policies of the French Communist party, one of the most conservative and rigidly bureaucratized in the world, It is soarcely likely that the French CP bureaucrats have suddenly become converted to revolutionary socialism even in relation to Algeria. Whether they are under pressure from former members of the Algerian Communist party, which was dissolved, is a matter for speculation. However, publication of the proclamation does offer the leaders of the French CP a means of appearing con= siderably more radical than their critics in Peking who precipitately recognized the Boumedienne regime out of hope of gaining passing factional advantage in the Sino-Soviet conflict.
[We offer below a translation of the text published by L'Humanité, |
3
7
te
2.
=
ate
<
2 Ss
Ps Algerian People, Working Men and Women!
Since June 19 you have continued to demonstrate your dis~ approval of the military coup d'état which overthrew the revolution-
ary réBime established after the country won its independence, By both the indignation and anger whieh you voiced in the streets and the mournful silence of our cities and countryside on the anniver~ sary of our independence, you have continued to reject the fait accompli, the "explanations" and- "justifications" of the men of June 19,
You have good reason to be disturbed and alarmed; you have | good reason to believe that the gains of the revolution are thréatened; and you can only be vigilant in face of the regroupment of the reactionary and counterrevolutionary forces. Your revolutionary instinct has led you to feel that through the man who incarnated your hopes it is the Algerian people who have been stabbe it is the revolution that has been betrayed, it is socialism that has been disowned.
It is of course true that the overturned revolutionary regime was incarnated, personified by Ben Bella; but it was far from con~ sisting of a single individual alleged to have set up a so-called tyranny. In reality, if Ben Bella sinned, he did so most often on the side of gentleness, a naive spirit of conciliation, and not on the side of the force required to deal with stubborn enemies of the Revolution, who were more numerous, in the final analysis, than those touched ‘by him, He
This regime, despite its weaknesses: and tactical errors, which we must also analyze so that they can be taken into account in the future, after all expressed the deepest revolutionary aspirations of the working masses and opened the way to the continuous transformation of the national revolution for independence into a socialist revolution -- self-management, the nationalizations, the March decrees, the Algiers Charter, are very concrete revolutionary conquests that mark and clearly point the road,
This regime in addition, thanks. to a courageous anti=-imperialist policy of constant support to the revolutionary national liberation movements and of friendship with the socialist countries, brought unparalleled prestige to Algeria abroad,
It is true that this regime was fragile and that the absence of genuinely socialist, revolutionary democratic structures in the party, in the trade unions, in the administration, created a vacuum that a ‘single man could not fill indefinitely. It is even true that many militants, to whom this was a constant preoccupation, were often confused by Ben Bella's administrative methods, his combinations, But. even those who were the hottest about the great difficulties standing in the way of the socialist revolution, are ill-advised to reproach Ben Bella in this respect today. The revolutionary forces which were often the main victims of these methods never, so far as they were concerned, violated the legal frame of the revolution and always employed fraternal and frank criticism within the regular bodies of the party. Despite everything, Ben Bella remained a man
42 me
who was not the tool of any foreign or domestic counterrevolutionary force; a man, on the contrary, who was. always sensitive to the aspirations of the revolutionary forces. -
Who are the conspirators of June 19? _ Among them are inflexible enemies of socialism,
Who has done more than Mahsas to drain away the content of self-management in agriculture?
Who has done more than Boumaza to strangle the socialist industrial sector? -
Who has done more than Bouteflika to transform the men Sey of foréign affairs into an office of neocolonialism?
Who has siphoned off more for his personal needs from the budget of the ministry of tourism than Kafid Ahmed?
Who has done more in high education than Chérif Belkacem to foster the antinational and capitalist spirit inherited from the | colonial period?
Who has done more than the Chabous (Moulay Abdelkader), the Hoffmanns, ex-officers of the French army of occupation, to humiliate_and declass all the glorious revolutionary officers of the ALN [Armée de Libération Nationale] and to transform certain units of the army of the people into putschist detachments?
Who within the conspiracy represents the interests of the foreign oil companies more than Belaid Abdeslam?
Who, more than these men, with Boumedienne in the lead, have stubbornly resisted democratizing the party, cleansing out the admin= istration, creating a genuinely popular militia and carrying out all the revolutionary measures advocated by the Algiers Charter?
At the side of these sworn enemies of the socialist revolution, the other members of the self-styled Council of the Revolution are vehicles, consciously or otherwise, of pressures and influences profoundly hostile to socialism,
That is why the domestic bourgeois and reactionary forces supported the putsch,
What is why Franco, Salazar and Saigon saluted the coup d'état condemned by Gamal Abdel Nasser, Fidel Castro, Sékou Touré, N'Krumah and all the progressive forces of the world,
Algerian people, working men and women}
For three years very important conquests were gained despite
La
we Aue
the obstacles, despite the permanent opposition of the forces of reaction and imperialism. - But consolidation of the democratic regime of the “people still remained distant.
Self-management had to be solidly based, the pig landholders expropriated for the benefit of the poor peasants, all the agents of _ reaction and imperialism cleaned out of the state.
A vanguard party had to be created to promote. the democratic planning of the economy. —
All this was necessary and possible.
_ All this was urgent because the structure was still young and fragile.
The military coup d'état of June 19 dealt a setback to the preparations for rectifications projected under the. pressure of the masses in motion,
AIGERIAN PEOPLE!
It would be illusory and dangérous to count on democratic political practices from a military regime founded on the sword and the blood of sons of the people.
This regime has already strangled the Republic, It has opened the way to new adventures. It has housebroken and corrupted the party, It seeks to subjugate the UGTA [Union Générale des Travailleurs Algériens] and the other mass organizations. It has tarnished the international revolutionary prestige of the country.
Cut off from the working people, fundamentally distrustful of them, it can rule only through lies, social demagogy and repression,
AIGERIAN PEOPLE, working men and women!
Only organized resistance can now save the acquisitions of the revolution,
We call on you for this resistance,
We call on the genuine socialist militants to create underground cells of the FLN on the basis of the Algiers Charter,
Workers, poor peasants, revolutionary intellectuals, constitute everywhere in the villages and the countryside, in every plant and in every farm, in the offices, in the buildings, underground eells as guides and inspirers of the ORGANISATION DE LA RESISTANCE POPULAIR (ORP).
—~44.—0
. Workers, patriots, Algerians in emigration, women, ‘youth, © small artisans and merchants, officers, subofficers and revolution-= ary veterans, functionaires devoted to the Republic, create Committees of the ORP everywhere to prepare and to undertake a struggle in all forms against the stranglers of the Republic, to safeguard the threatened national independence and to ensure ‘the triumph of the Socialist Revolution.
Hard and long though the struggle for these objectives may be, the united revolutionary and socialist forces, assured of the active solidarity of all the progressive forces of the world, will not disarm, will not cease to conduct the most stubborn struggle to win,
And they will win..
For the leadership of the ORP
Hocine Zahouane Algeria, July 28, 1965
.
Directeur-Gérant: