SOLIDARITY WITH THE
[The following statement was issued March 15 by the International Executive Committee of the Fourth International. This is the World Party of Socialist Revolution founded by Leon Trotsky in 1938.]
* * *
The revolutionaries and workers of the entire world must support the students of Warsaw, Cracow, Poznan, and Gdansk who have courageously demonstrated for basic democratic freedoms. They must support these students who are calling for real enjoyment by all citizens in a workers state, of freedom of opinion for socialist tendencies and of freedom of artistic and literary creation, for the right to exist in a workers state of all political forces opposed to a restoration of capitalism, for respect for rights formally written into the constitution but which have never been honored.
The conservative bureaucrats are slandering these students by accusing them of being tools of "Zionism." In
They will not allow it to be led by a
puppet party serving the new Algerian
bourgeoisie.
The Third Congress then will be
held in the expectation of a sharpening
of the class struggle. Therefore, it is
necessary that the revolutionary poten-
tial of the masses find full expression
at it -- this potential was able to be
realized not so long ago against enemies
much more powerful and astute than those
who stand in the way today.
However, no matter what leadership
and program come out of the UGTA congress,
the fundamental strategic task of the
Algerian working class remains that of
organizing and developing a workers par-
ty which would fight for a government of
the worker and peasant masses.
Today the development of class
structures is much more advanced. The
reactionaries are more clearly declaring
their objectives. The state and party
leadership are more homogeneous and open-
ly reactionary. Therefore the two insep-
arable and complementary axes of the
daily activity of every Algerian revolu-
tionary must be: (1) struggle for a mass
trade union which would fight on clear
class bases, and (2) contribution to
pbuilding a vanguard workers party. The
future of the socialist revolution in
Algeria is at stake.
January 28, 1968
POLISH STUDENTS!
this way, they are trying to mobilize
against them the anti-Semitic prejudices
which persist in a section of the Polish
people. The Fourth International, which
extends full support to the Arab revolu-
tion and denounces the pro-imperialist,
expansionist role of the state of Israel,
brands with infamy this shameful maneu-
ver. This tactic links up the methods of
the bureaucratic government in Warsaw
with those of all the reactionary re-
gimes which have ruled Poland in the past.
No less shameful is the Gomulka-
Moczar team's demagogic attempt by this
means to appeal to the workers against
the students. This team has liquidated
the gains which the workers made in
October 1956. It drained the workers
councils of all content. It has held
down the workers buying power. It has
encouraged a high cost of living, the
black market, speculation, and corrup-
tion.
To win socialist democracy in the
Polish workers state and to strengthen
the bases of the socialized economy, the Polish workers must join in the students' battle and fight for a transfer of all power to democratically elected and centralized workers councils and for inproving the workers standard of living through the abolition of all bureaucratic privileges, the reduction of all income inequalities, and by a thoroughgoing reorganization of the nationalized economy, basing this on workers management, which would eliminate bureaucratic waste and theft.
The struggle of the Polish students is an integral part of the struggle of the students of Europe, North America, and Japan against authoritarian bourgeois power and the imperialist aggression in Vietnam. It is an integral part of the worldwide upsurge of revolutionary forces which seek to create a new socialist world by coordinating the struggles against imperialism, capitalism, and the usurpation of power in the workers states by a privileged bureaucracy. It is highly symbolic that the Czech students organized a march against the imperialist aggression in Vietnam which at the same
time was directed against the bureaucracy
in their own country, as the Yugoslav
students had done before then.
By their fight for the victory of
socialist democracy based on councils,
the Polish students have strengthened the
anti-imperialist front of Vietnam, Cuba,
and all the insurgent masses of the world.
For, cutting out the bureaucratic gangrene
from the countries which have abolished
capitalism will deprive imperialism of
one of its last political arguments.
Free Modzelewski, Kuron, and all
the imprisoned high-school and university
students!
Long live the united struggle of
the Polish students and workers for so-
cialist democracy based on councils!
Long live the united struggle of
the students and workers of all countries
against imperialism and for the defense
of the Vietnamese revolution!
Long live the world socialist rev-
olution!