Algeria December 14. It nevertheless provides useful material for understanding why the right-wing group headed by former Chief-of-Staff Col. Tahar Zbiri thought they could overturn Boumedienne the way Boumedienne overturned Ben Bella on June 19, 1965, and take the country still further down the road away from socialisn.
{Boumedienne managed this time to retain power against the military plotters. He may not be so successful in the next attempt. It is to be noticed in particular that Boumedienne made no attempt to mobilize the masses against the danger, or even to rally the unions. Instead, according to the press, while trying to liquidate his opponents in the military apparatus, he has also dealt some blows against the unions, which still remain too independent for his taste, as the article by Larbi Hamdane indicates.
[The "year five" refers to the historic victory of the Algerian freedom fighters over French imperialism in 1962 which opened the way for the country to go socialist, a direction of development that was slowed down by Ben Bella's policies and then reversed by Boumedienne's coup d'état.]
* * *
The balance sheet of his government and,above all,promises for the future made up the gist of Boumedienne's speech on November 1, the fourteenth anniversary of the Algerian uprising. Since his record in power is quite meager, the Algerian president emphasized the future: economic planning, industrialization, agrarian reform, departmental reform,* reduction of the inequality of development among the regions, elimination of illiteracy, development and democratization of education, strengthening of self-management and, in addition, compulsory military service -- and all this “with order and discipline."
Such are the perspectives outlined in this address, which made no appeal to the masses to achieve this program but bid them put their confidence in the gov-
* Algeria like France is divided into départements which constitute the second level of government. -- Translator.
ernment "with a spirit of sacrifice."
The real situation of the country
invites much less optimism than the of-
ficial self-congratulation would have us
share.
In fact, since the Mideast crisis,
whose repercussions have not ceased to
shake the Arab countries, a growing mal-
aise has been apparent; thus the most
fantastic rumors are circulating about
the resignation or flight of various min-
isters; and the tone of the trade-union
press and the resolutions of gatherings
of the workers have never been so firm
and clear in their denunciation of the
bourgeoisie and the bureaucracy.
A split has developed in the so-
ciety. In placing himself to the left of
the Arab countries for a whole period and
in particular to the left of Egypt and
especially at the most intense moment of
the crisis, Boumedienne undoubtedly
heightened the fears of the right; at the
same time, by proceeding to a partial
mobilization of the masses and demanding
certain sacrifices of them, he roused the
masses to increased resistance to the at-
tempts of the bourgeoisie and the govern-
ment to exclude the workers from the eco-
nomic and political direction of the
country.
Thus the press and official pro-
nouncements have been full of the need
for order, discipline and national unity,
centering "their fire exclusively against
the foreign enemy. Révolution et Travail,
the organ of the UGTA [Union Generale de
Travail Algérien -- the Algerian General
Labor Federation] appeared with the head-
ing Unity and Vigilance Against Reac-
tion.
Moreover, since the Khartoum con-
ference, Algerian policy appears much
less clear than before, disengaging more
and more from the conflict in the Near
East and leaving the role of vanguard of
the Arab countries to Syria. The impres-
sion is given that a compromise has taken
place among the quite diverse tendencies
within the Algerian leadership.
In the most recent period, the
emphasis has been put instead on the so-
called conference of the "77," held in
Algiers from October 10 to 25. The object
of this economic conference, comprising
the countries of the "third world," was
to prepare for the United Nations Con-
ference on Trade and Development which
will be held in New Delhi in February
1968 at which all the UN countries will
be represented.
But eighty percent of the governments represented at Algiers were mere lackeys of imperialism: Thailand and Colombia were the spokesmen for Asia and Latin America; delegates were present from South Vietnam and from South Korea, while Cuba, China and North Vietnam were absent and the only socialist country represented was Yugoslavia. The concluding resolution, without a political preamble, was only a list of wishes ("What is needed is...What would be required is ...") presented to the imperialist countries with the aim of improving the terms of exchange in world trade and obtaining additional "aid" from these countries.
The conference was held in the context of the colonial revolution, of the pressure of the masses of Africa, Asia and Latin America. The exploiting classes of the "third world" use the threat this represents to bargain for additional gains -- "this or revolution." They regale their peoples with perspec-— tives for economic developments based not on independent struggle but on negotiations with imperialism on a worldwide basis, masking of course their own parasitic role in the econony.
What role should a revolutionary government have played at such a conference? First, it should have exposed and explained the limitations of such a meeting. It should have declared its refusal to accept the laws of the capitalist world market even if adjusted and mitigated. It should have denounced the role of the exploiting classes allied with imperialism in the countries of the "third world," exposing also the "third world" notion and proclaiming that the road to development for these countries leads through the socialist revolution. It should have declared that the way to economic liberation is first of all to mobilize the energies and resources within these countries rather than go begging favors from imperialism. It should, finally, have denounced the futility of counting on the capitalists to completely recast the mechanisms of the world market and let it be known that justice in world trade cannot be achieved except through the liquidation of capitalism and imperialism throughout the world, thus appealing for a socialist revolution in the industrialized capitalist countries.
But what in fact was the attitude of Algeria both at the conference and in the press and radio comment?
Except for Boumedienne's opening speech, which attacked neocolonialism and "peaceful coexistence" and thus created some stir among the delegations, the position of the Algerian delegation was to avoid political confrontation, to secure at any cost the success of the conference, that is, unanimous agreement on this document made up of wishes innocent of political implications. Bouteflika's concluding speech represented a great retreat from Boumedienne's speech fifteen days earlier.
All the propaganda media were put to work to convince the Algerian people of the "historic" importance of this conference; and, while there was considerable discussion of the growing gap between the "affluent north and the disinherited south," none of the commentary made any allusion to class contradictions in the individual countries and on a world scale. It is clear that the Algerian leadership, whose rise to power helped to bring about the failure of the "Second Bandung" in Algiers in 1965, attempted to use this conference to refurbish its international reputation. Therefore, they made every compromise essential to its "success." Both by its political line in some cases and its compromises on other points, the position adopted shows clearly the limitations of the Algerian leadership; they gave a boost to neocolonialism, as the praise of the French bourgeois press confirms.
Sending a message of condolences to Fidel Castro on the death of Che Guevara, “who contributed greatly to the awakening of the peoples of the third world," while signing a document together with the Bolivian government appealing to the imperialists to work for the development of this same "third world": such are the blatant contradictions of a petty-bourgeois leadership caught between the antiimperialism of the masses and the steadily mounting weight of reactionary forces within the state apparatus.
Inside the country, we see an erosion of the conquests of the revolution and economic stagnation.
Agrarian reform and economic planning have figured in all official pronouncements for many years but there has not even been a start toward putting them into practice. The departmental reform is certain to have no more effect than the city government reform. Five years after independence, fifty percent of school-age children are not in school. In agriculture, self-management is stagnating; in industry, it is going backward. The government is setting up "national corporations" with state capital or on the basis of combined state and private capital, whose essential characteristic is the total exclusion of the workers from management and the reinforcement of the bonds between the bureaucracy and the bourgeoisie.
This evolution toward a form of "state capitalism" thus represents a very marked setback for self-management.
As for industrial development, by
1970 it will amount to no more than the construction of the steel complex at Annaba and the petrochemical complex at Arzew and will fall far short of providing the number of jobs necessary for significant reduction in unemployment. As for the institution of compulsory military service, one cannot but approve the principle. But how is this to be applied? The sole guarantee for the revolution would be arming the workers and peasants.
Faced, in fact, with the skepticism and hostility of the masses, the government is seeking to broaden its base by reinforcing the FLN [Front National de Libération -- National Liberation Front -the governing party]; this is why an FLN congress has been announced . But since the leadership does not want to expose itself to mass pressure through the party, this reinforcement will mean nothing but an enlargement of the apparatus.
The sole means of expression available to the masses, though it is a very important one, is the UGTA and its organ Révolution et Travail, which has been appearing more or less regularly again since last May 1.
The present leadership, elected at the Second Congress in March 1965, despite its limitations, has never integrated itself into the regime and today is in open conflict with the policy of "national corporations" developed by the Ministry, of Industry. The most recent issue of Révolution et Travail is full of resolutions of assemblies of trade-union delegates and cadres denouncing the assaults on self-management and the reinforcement of the bureaucracy and the bourgeoisie. Therefore, the Third Congress of the UGTA just announced for the end of next February takes on very great import.
At present the UGTA is very weak both quantitatively and qualitatively. In order to wage an effective struggle against the mounting reaction, it is vital that it be strengthened and given new life. Workers' assemblies must be organized for this purpose; moreover, representation at this congress should not be based on dues, often long unpaid, but on participation in rank-and-file assemblies. This must be a congress of concrete decisions. It must determine to take the essential measures to inform and educate the masses. The union itself must free itself from all bureaucratic snares: otherwise resolutions for the defense of self-management and socialism will remain meaningless.
Preparation for this UGTA congress must be regarded by all revolutionary militants as the top-priority task for these next months: this congress will either be a congress of all the workers which will restore their confidence in their union and enable them to confront the bourgeoisie and bureaucratic regime or else the UGTA will not be set aright and the erosion of the revolutionary conquests will continue to mount. This congress, much more than the conference of the "77,"will be "historic" for the Algerian workers and for the