Psoe Drops Marxist Label

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The Ethiopian military dictatorship has now launched its offensive against the liberation struggles of the Eritrean people. With massive bombing raids across the whole country, Ethiopian troops are attempting to break out of their beseiged positions in the few towns not controlled by the Eritrean Popular Liberation Front and the Eritrean Liberation Front. Although reports are confused, it seems likely that Cuban forces are also involved in this counter-revolutionary war. As the bloody attacks of the Derg meet with the determined resistance of the Eritreans the threat of genocide looms daily closer.

Not to be outdone by Santiago Carrillo in his abject compromise with the bourgeoisie, Socialist Party leader Felipe Gonzalez has announced that he intends to propose at the next party congress the dropping of the label "Marxist" from the statutes.

Gonzalez, an "unashamed electoralist" , admits that this is an attempt to win votes on the right.

Mengistu welcomed by Castro in Havana But although the "Marxist" label was only inserted in the statutes in 1976, it looks as if it may by very difficult for Gonzalez to get rid of it now.

First reactions in the PSOE were universally hostile-not only in the "left" of the party but also among the leadership whom Gonzalez had . not bothered to consult before making his suggestion.

One executive member said that "to drop Marxism at the present time was like dropping the law of gravity." • But Gonzalez claims in effect to be inspired by the thoughts of Marx himself.

"Marx," he said, "wouldn't like the word 'Marxism' if he were alive today."

Well, if it is "Marxism" the way Felipe Gonzalez practises it, he can only be right.

Six Socialist MPs have signed a statement declaring their undying loyalty to "Marxism"

In Barcelona, PSOE leaders are describing Gonzalez's statement as "treason"

Even Juan Reventos, the right wing leader of the Catalonian Socialist Party (shortly to fuse with the PSOE) has admitted that if there were a vote on the question in the party, Gonzalez would undoubtedly lose.

Frankly expressing his opportunism, Reventos said that:

"It was without doubt a mistake for the party to define itself as Marxist. But it would be an even bigger mistake to want to renounce it."

As well as defining itself as "Marxist" , the PSOE has made much, especially in recent weeks, of its republicanism.

This it has used in an entirely opportunistic way to attract votes from the left.

But, as the PSOE slavishly showed last week, its "republicanism" is as skin deep as its "Marxism'.

At the end of the constitutional discussions in the Cortes on the monarchy, the PSOE abstained while the right, the Basque and Catalan bourgeois nationalists and the Communist Part voted for the monarchy.

As if the abstention was not feeble enough, the PSOE spokesman Gomez-Llorente conceded everything to monarchism.

"If the monarchy is set up in a democratic way, " he said in the debate, "and if it works in a constitutional manner, we will accept it."

If the PSOE hopes that these concessions to the right will increase its electoral support, it must have been disappointed by the results of last week's two byelections for the senate in Oviedo and Alicante.

Though the PSOE won both seats, its share of the vote fell compared with the elections last June.

The gainers were the Manuel Fraga's hard-line Francoist Popular Alliance and most dramatically the Communist Party which roughly doubled its share of the vote to 16% in Alicante and 23% in Oviedo.

The working class, however, is showing increasing signs of impatience with the parliamentry compromises and manoevres of its leaders.

A new strike wave is hitting Spain. Following the militant stoppage by hotel workers in the South, 800,000 workers in Barcelona last week went on strike to demand full trade union rights and labour amnesty (the reinstatement of workers sacked and blacklisted for union or political activities under This was a strike against a leadership which claims, less and less convincingly, that these rights can be gained through the Francoist-dominated Cortes.

These tensions between the working class and its collaborationist leadership can be expected to show itself next weekend at the 31st Congress of the UGT, on which Socialist Press will carry a special on-th-spot report in two weeks' time. will be followed by further devaluations totalling another 15% during next year.

The government, clearly concerned about the effects of these measures on the "peace" which broke out in Jamaica in January and on the attempts of Manley to "unite the nation" behind his drive for more production, delayed the final announcement while they attempted to draw further concessions from the IMF.

But the IMF refused to budge.

So rather than risk the "chaos" that would have resulted without the loan, the Manley government prepared for the worst and accepted the IMF's conditions.

By this act, Manley once again gives the lie to the myth enthusiastically fostered by the right wing that he is somehow directing the Jamaican economy towards Cuban style "socialism"

Meanwhile, despite the efforts of the Peace Movement led by the two most notorious • gangsters in Kingston, the murders of the rich and famous continue.

This week's victim was Jack Anderson, a former City Editor and leading sports journalist. He was shot down by unknown gunmen at his home.

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#SIERESS politicians and the USA as evidence of impending Castrostyle revolutions which justified