ALGERIAN WORKERS ON THE LAND HOLD CONGRESS
By Henri Dumoulin
ALGIERS -- The founding congress of the Workers on the Land [Travailleurs de la Terre], organized by the UGTA [Union Générale des Travailleurs Aleériens}, was held here December 25-27. The gathering of delegates of the agricultural workers, the administrative services and the ONRA [Office National de la Réforme Agraire] discussed the most important contradictions affecting Algerian agri-~culture.
However difficult it may be to continue along the necessary road of the agrarian reform today, it is encouraging to see the way in which the problems were posed, self-criticisms were voiced, and efforts made to find revolutionary solutions.
First of all, in the self-managed sector, the contradictions derive fundamentally from the rise of a government: bureaucracy that. tends to seize prerogatives that, according to the decrees on self-=management, belong to the workers. . The lack of experience in work-
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erst democracy among the agricultural workers, many of whom are illiterate, explains this in part. The lack of technical training, the insufficiency of competent cadres in the guiding bodies (ONRA,the former SAP [Sociétés Agricoles de Prévoyance], etc.) fosters: ‘ais~ organization, corruption and the flight of capital. Some of the new officials exploit these difficulties for personal ends,
In addition, the nonsocialist environment of the self-managed sector utilizes these dificiencies to the utmost in order to carry on sabotage and to increase the difficulties. :
"The workers are crushed by certain people in charge," said one delegate. “It is necessary to reconstitute the organization of the former SAP [this body was attached to the ONRA] so that the workers can gain freedom in management." He proposed that sincere agricultural workers be chosen to control each farm and department.
“Another delegate spoke “against the kind of excessive lite led by some of those in charge."
The | same problems were . taken up by President Ben Bella | in: his introductory speech: "On the question as to whether or not self~ management has been effectively applied, I will reply no. The work~ ers do not yet play the role that belongs to them; the organisms of self-management do not yet carry out their furictions. But everything will be possible when everything is based on’ the rank and file."
In the final resolutions of the congress, the workers showed. the maturity they have acquired: “The Congress denounces the maneuvers and plots of the enemies of the working class who are trying to sabotage the construction of socialism by setting up obstacles to prevent self-management from functioning, either through opposing genuine democracy in management’ or through not furnishing the socialist sector the cadres it lacks, or through denying selfmanaged enterprises the financial autonomy granted them by law." : The resolution protested against "the bureaucratic methods that aim at concentrating in the hands of state functionaries the powers of management that should be transferred to the organs of self-management."
A second series of contradictions is. developing in the private sector. While the Algerian Revolution has nationalized the lands formerly held by the Europeans, the big Algerian holdings have not. yet been touched by the agrarian reform, Moreover a large number of fellahs [peasants with small holdings] “owning five or six hectares cannot survive it they are not helped § and regrouped — in the form of co-operatives,'
"By the ime of our. next> congress," said Ben Bella, "these fellans must be among us," we tie
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The Ben Bella government passed an important milestone in the struggle against the counterrevolution when it succeeded in neutral izing the enormous mass of small fellahs and landless peasants and preventing the big proprietors from switching their allegiance away from the revolutionary government.
This success forced the counterrevolution to retreat and to reveal its true features as when it attacked volunteer brigades engaged in medical care for the rural population in the Grarem n region of the Constantinois.
It is now up to the Revolution to definitively win the poor peasants by deepening the agrarian reform.
This is what the final resolution of the Congress advocates. It must. now be converted into deeds as soon as possible. For let there be no mistake. Many social inequalities, often crying ones, still continue. Inequalities between the big land owners and the unemployed; inequalities between the agricultural workers and the new bureaucrats of the administration; inequalities between the less favored mountain regions and the formerly colonized fertile plains under self-management today; inequalities between the countryside and the towns, ;
Thus it is clear that if it wishes to remain popular, the Revolution must be continued, must open the new stages advocated by the Congress in its final resolution as for example in the following:
“Whereas it is necessary to suppress the big land holdings that constitute an obstacle to the development of socialist relations of producticn in the countryside and that favor the maintenance of the material privileges and ideological influence of the big owners, perpetuating the exploitation of the poor peasants and bringing about poor utilization of the agricultural surplus product;
“and whereas the peasant masses of the so-called 'traditional! sector of agriculture constituted the main base of support of the liberating action of our glorious ALN Larmée de Libération Nationale] and were special victims of the colonial regime and the repression;
. "And whereas the misery and destitution which the peasants still suffer from in these regions are likewise considerable obstacles to the national economic development;
“The Congress,
"Appeals for the consummation of the agrarian reform through the limitation of private property in such a way that any building up of a privileged class of owners in our countryside becomes impossible;
"Appeals for democratically associating the agricultural work
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ers and landless peasants on a local level in applying the law of the agrarian reform;
"Appeals for the promulgation of a statute on small peasant co-operatives."
The primary aim of the Congress was to found the Trade Union Federation of Workers on the Land [Fédération Syndicale des Travailleurs de la Terre]. This union must play its role within the framework. of the..development of the socialist revolution. This means ‘that it must play a role in management, organizing and developing produc-~ tion through the participation of the workers in management of the enterprises, But the union must not be converted into a mere transmission belt between the workers on the one side and the. state. and. party on the other, oo
The. union must become, through an independent, democratic . structure, an instrument of the workers in their own defense and in the struggle against the abuses committed by certain bureaucratic tendencies that have already been denounced. It must, in addition, play an effective role in workers! control of production, |