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The instability of the tas- illegal - in particular political cist Franco regime in Spain is still banned.

Just over twenty million people have been freed from the rule of American puppets 'by the liberation of South iVietnam and Cambodia. But in the states south and west of China lives a population of rover 300 millions, the enormous majority of them as poor and oppressed as the people of Indochina were.

The area as a whole - loosel! known as South East Asia - is exploited by almost every type of parasite: American, Japanese and European capitalist firms; local capitalists, bankers and moneylenders; capitalist and feudal landlords; national military cliques sheltering in the anti-communist shadow cast by imperialism.

LAOS This whole region - from the Chinese border to the islands north of Australia - received an enormous political shock with the fall of Phnom Penh and Saigon. Most immediately affected was the kingdom of Laos, divided since 1973 by an uneasy truce which left the Communist Pathet Lao forces in control in many of the northern areas, but the southern towns and many of the rural areas in the Burma ( Laos!

Thailand Ho Chi City Minh Malayasia 50k hands of rightist generals, teudal warlords and CIA-backed mercenaries. During May their power crumbled. Following anti-American student demonstrations, Pathet Lao forces took over Savannaket, Thakhek and Pakse, the main centres in the south.

Nothing could more clearly show the combined and uneven character of the struggle in IndoChina, the working through of the permanent revolution, than Laos.

The impact of the victories in Cambodia and Vietnam has been immediate. With the fall of Saigon, the value of the Laotian currency plunged, and planes and boats to Thailand filled with fleeing right-wingers. US imperialism has been unable to use military power to 'stabilise' the situation, and in the political vacuum left the local 'democrats' evaporated. The Prime Minister, Prince Souvanna Thouma -one of the professional 'neutralists' of Aisa to whom the terrible blows struck at the revolution have given the appearance of an independent political role - has simply handed the Vientiane government over into the effective domination of the athet Lao.

Eye witnesses described how Pathet Lao columns, headed by Soviet tanks with garlands of flowers round their gun-barrels, In regime north pro-Ch Philippine: entered Savannakhet to be wel comed by the whole population, including government officials and the high-school heads who a few days before were held prisoner by revolutionary students. All the forms were preserved - the royal government, the faction of neutralism, the participation of the Buddhist monks in the liberation ceremonies. The Pathet Lao even pressed for jobs in the coalition cabinet vacated by right-wingers to be filled by similar figures, instead of their own representatives. But it was no: "peaceful road'. Imperialism's eviction from Vientiane is the direct fruit of the bitter fighting for Phnom Penh and Saigon. Imperialism's power is rotten, and when its props are removed, it falls.

For almost ten years pro-Chinese guerrilla forces have controlled large areas of northern Thailand, with military support from North Vietnam. It is the threat they represent which now forces the corrupt Pramoj government to retreat from its military agreements with the US, and hasten towards better relations with Vietnam.

BURMA Burma, again, the military has tost large areas of the o military forces led by the nese Communist Party.

~ Japan Pacific Ocean South East Asia Although leading Communists were killed, and some territory regained, when govenrment forces made a drive into the Pegu mountains in April the liberation forces have still a large area under their control.

The Malaya government also faces a guerrilla movement in the country-side, and has done since the second world war, despite the most brutal repression by British forces in the 1950s. The city-state of Singapore, under the police rule of Lee Kuan Yew, has held opposition leaders in gaol for the last ten years without trial, and sup pressed independent trade unions.

INDONESIA

Indonesia, with a population of over 120 millions, has been ruled by Suharto's military dictatorship since 1965, when hundreds of thousands of Communist Party supporters were murdered following his coup. With oil production totalling $5,600 million last year, Indonesia represents the focus of imperialist economic interests in the area. But large demonstrations against Japanese imperialism in 1974 in the capital, Djakarta, showed that the regime is unable completely to suppress the underground opposition.

The Philippines, which the US protege Marcos placed under martial law in 1972, faces both Communist guerrilla forces throughout the area, and an increasingly radical Muslim liberation movement in the south. The victories in Indochina have driven the government to threaten withdrawal of the huge American military facilities at Clark Field and Subic Bay. And the dictatorship of Park in South Korea reacted to the American rout in Indochina with a wave of repression, including the arbitrary execution of eight left wingers just before the fall NO STRATEGY None of these regimes possesses much greater intrinsic stability than the former governments in Indo China. They exist on the backs of the bloodiest defeats and repression: of the working people, and with the direct and indirect support of imperialism. Yet the policies of the Vietnamese leaders - and still less those of Peking - represent no clear strategy to lead and strengthen the movement against them.

Peking - which bears a heavy responsiblity for the 1965 massacre in Indonesia - has already let it be known that it would tolerat the maintenance of some US bases in the area as a counterweight to Soviet military strength. This flows directly from the Chinese leadership's reactionary 'theory' that the Soviet Union is a 'social fascist' state character. Last month the conference of foreign ministers from ASEAN states (Association of South East Asian Nations - Thailand. the Philippines, Malayasia, Singaporr and Indonesia) in Kuala Lumpur dispersed, the delegates unable to agree any sort of common policy in face of the revolutionary victories in Indochina, or on any sort of collective re-arrangement of their relationships to US imperialism. But right after the conference ended an editorial in the Hanoi daily Nhan Dan (expressing government policy) declared that:

'After the victory of the Vietnamese people and that of the Cambodian people, several governments have spoken of a new policy of international sovereignty, of their intention of re-examining their military alliances with the United States, and have declared their intention of recognising the Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam. There are so many positive signs which go in the direction of the national interests of these countries, and which reflect in some measure the will of the people to eliminate the pressure of American imperialism, in order to follow the road of independence and of democracy' And during May the Provisional Revolutionary Government in Saigon established diplomatic contacts with Burma, Malaysia and Thailand. Such 'diplomatic' language is in line with the policy of 'non-interference' declared by the PRG. While the newly-freed countries of Indochina need, and are entitled to seek, diplomatic recognition and economic relations, they have a duty not to allow their diplomacy to disguise the reactionary nature of the ASEAN regimes.

As Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos have shown in practice, the development of the socialist revolution in Asia more and more clearly calls for a break with the Stalinist standpoint of 'socialism in one country', and political leaderships fighting on policies that are uncompromisingly revolutionary and internationalist. shown clearly in the mass artests of workers, students and general strike.

These repressions follow hard on a continuing series of arrests including university professors and well known lawyers. In Madrid on May 27th for instance police arrested a group of 14 which included four professors, five lecturers and five students, meeting in the university Law Faculty. Another group of 21 people including lawyers and workers was arrested in Valladolid.

The Madrid strike, called by the illegal Communist Party and Socialist Party as a "day of struggle" affected a wide range of industries including metal working, banking, and insurance offices, as well as schools.

Although officially-censored news reporting claimed that fewer than 100 had been arrested in the police swoop on militants, a spokesman for the illegal 'popular front' organisation the 'Democratic Junta' claimed 300-400 had been jailed. These incuded strike pickets who attempted to spread the strike action, and groups of students who tried to stop rush-hour traffic, shouting 'down with fascism'.

The repressions, together with the continuing state of emergency in the Basque provinces, indicate the nervousness of the regime at the continuing offensive of the working class, which has drawn great strength from the downfall of fascism in Portugal.

As Socialist Press has pointed out, continuing illegal strikes and the impossibility of completely suppressing them have forced the regime to introduce legislation whicl gives Spanish workers the right to strike for the first time since Franco took power in the 1930s. Yet the restrictions included in the legislation would still leave the overwhelming proportion of strikes The brutality of the Sn nith regime in Rhod esia (Zimbabwe) showed again last week with the murder, by the police, of 13 Africans and the wounding of a further 28, tollowing violence arter a mee- P 11 PA. ting of the African National Council (ANC).

The meeting itself revealed major weaknesses in the ANC and indeed its complete inability to carry forward the National liberation struggle.

The beginnings of a factional struggle between the diplomacy orientated ZAPU and the guerilla orientated ZANU reflects the fact that these organisations were forced into a merger under the umbrella of the reformist ANC by the bourgeois heads of state of B Lack Africa, led by Kaunda of Zambia.

Kaunda insisted on this part of his agreed deal with the Vorster regime in South Africa to secure a 'settlement' in Zimbabwe in order to smooth out a path for detente between South Africa and the Black African states.

This policy has played right into the hands of Smith and the Rhodesia Front. Ever since the arrest of Sithole (the leader of ZANU, now free in Zambia) in March Smith has been playing for time, trying to exploit the weakness of the ANC alliance and while making some token concessions, to preserve for as iong as possible White supremacy. As he said quite openly at the end of April "there is never going to be any handover illegal - in particular political strikes and solidarity strikes are strikes and solidarity strikes are still banned.

US imperialism is clearly concerned at the tottering state of the dictatorship. This is the reason for President Ford's special trip to Spain while he was in Europe for the NATO summit conference. Just as American support for the EEC is angled towards ensuring an economic bulwark against the European working class, so the bolstering of the counterrevolutionary NATO alliance and the drawing closer of Spain is seen by the US bourgeoisie as the militar! preparation to defeat the revolutio nary struggles which are on the agenda throughout Europe.

Yet the reluctance of many leading Spanish military figures to get involved in confrontations outside Spain itself is reflected in the surprising move to de-colonise the Spanish Sahara, in the face of a probable long and politically unwinnable struggle to maintain Spanish rule.

In addition, the growing hostility to US bases in Spain from Spanish workers is reflected in a statement issued by six (illegal) political parties calling for their withdrawal, timed to precede Ford's visit.

The statement said that no renewal of the bases agreement would be valid without the "consent" of the Spanish people, which would presuppose the guarantee of personal liberty, universal suffrage, the recognition of political parties, a democratic Parliament and trade union rights. The statement's signatories included the Socialists, Social Democrats and Christian Democrats.

Every action of the Spanish dictatorship speaks loudly of the fears of revolution. The Madrid strike, as a part of increased working class militancy in the growing struggles for democratic rights suggest that the downfall of fascism might even precede the rapidly approaching death of the ailing (of power) in Rhodesia"

Smith now sees his chance. Three days after the shootings he comes forward with the offer of 'unconditional talks' dropping his previous prerequisite of a total end to guerilla activity meanwhile insisting the ANC drop its demand of release of all political detainees.

By subordinating the armed struggle to "negotiations" with Smith, the liberation struggle is weakened. The conference of the so-called 'Organisation of African Unity' - the talking shop of the African bourgeoisie - in Dar es Salaam in early April agreed to support the guerilla struggle only after negotiations had "clearly failed.

This reactionary posture is reenforeed by Wilson and the Right Wing Labour leaders who, at the Commonwealth Prime Ministers Conference in Jamaica flatly refused any British aid to the . armed Smith has absolutely no intention of negotiating away White supremacy. The struggle for Zimbabwe can only be carried forward by a break from the reformist bourgeois politics of the ANC leadership and building a unity between the working class and the peasants.

This unity can be forged on the basis of the struggle for the expropriation of the land held by the white settlers, and of capitalist industry. On this political platform the armed struggle can win the mass support which can bring victory against the racist Smith regime.

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¡OCIALIST PRESS, Thursday June 12th, 1975 recognIses French administration in'

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youth in Madrid last week for participating in a one day