Revolt against sackings

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They too know that this would act as the spur to a revolutionary upsurge within South Africa itself and herald the downfall of pro-imperialist regimes through'out the continent.

To maintain the global balance of forces with imperialism, these 'communists' must act to hold back the forward movement of the working class and oppressed masses internationally.

One crucial part of that gigantic betrayal has been withholidng vital material support from liberation struggles against colonial rule and imperialist domination.

While we give no support to the counter-revolutionary policies of world Stalinism, we do demand that the workers' states immediately provide the forces involved in such struggles with the arms and other material assistance they urgently require.

With such assistance, the forces of the Patriotic Front could rapidly defeat the crumbling Smith regime, and destroy Nkomo's lingering hopes of coming to power through compromises and sellouts in negotiations with the 'transitional government' and its imperialist well-wishers.

OXFORD WSL

A series of seven classes on Permanent Revolution-the World Revolutionary Struggle.

Next class Southern Africa-the struggle against the white settler regimes.

Sunday 29 October B Block, East Oxford Community Centre at • 8 nAn m France is in the grip of a wave of militant strikes and demonstrations by workers and youth incensed, at falling living standards, unemployment and cutbacks in public spending.

Strikes have hit the railways, the post office, shipyards, docks, schools, and i local government, while angry school youth last week stormed the French stock exchange-the Boursehurling stink bombs and smashing windows in protest against the shortage of teachers.

This coming week steel workers, postal workers and others are due to stage further demonstrations.

But the mass parties of the French working class-the Socialist Party and the Communist Party-have no perspective to offer these mounting struggles.

So hollow is their left rhetoric that when Stalinist leader Marchais got up to speak in Parliament on the Giscard government's budget proposals, Prime Minister Barre ostentatiously left the assembly, declaring that he was "off to work"

Marchais nothing daunted, pressed ahead with his demagogic speech ringing with nationalism, "Concessions"

"We have decided to stop you going any further on the way to austerity and unemployment. Successes have been achieved by workers' struggles. We can make you go back, if FUND total to date to £405.94. you continue flaunt your determination concede nothing."

With this talk of . "concessions" Marchais began to spell out that all the Communist Party intends to do is pressure the bourgeois regime into a few token deals-not mobilise the strength of the working class against its full-blown attacks on jobs and living standards. He concluded:

"It is time you showed less arrogance and disdain towards the working class, and decided instead to seriously start the necessary negotiations."

Barre had been shrewd in contemptuously brushing aside Marchais' empty bombast. He knows that the Stalinists pose no serious threat to his jobcutting plans.

The CP and SP alike have restricted their calls for working class action to token protests and stoppages-one day strikes here and a march there.

And while the CP-led union, the CGT, has, under pressure, called indefinite strike action by 3,600 ship repair workers in Marseilles „ato combat redundancies, the same Stalinist leaders have urged 1212 workers facing sackings at La Ciotat to remain at work while round table" talks take place.

As the working class demonstrates its militancy and its independent strength, so the Stalinist parties in Europe and internaționally demonstrate more clearly their counterrevolutionary role and their dedication to the bourgeois order.

Socialist Press Monthly Fund 31, Dartmouth Park Hill London NW5 1HR.