[Japanese trade minister Sonoda greeted in Peking crises…]

Scan page 2

Japanese trade minister Sonoda greeted in Peking crises force election ET A terrorists continue to attack Francoist state functionaries The name apparently comes from Pravda's description of Sir Neil Cameron Chief of the Defence Staff) when he made his infamous anti-Soviet speech to Chinese tank commanders earlier this year.

Welcome support

No doubt the Chinese bureaucracy will welcome the support of such bastions of the ruling class.

It is certain that whatever use they put the planes to will not be disapproved of by these Spanish Francoist Premier Suarez was virtually obliged to call a general election (scheduled for March 1) after the severe blow to his government's authority which the constitutional referendum turned out to be.

Under 60% of those eligible to vote said "yes" to the new constitution, which was designed to put a convincing veneer of parliamentary democracy over the furnishings bequeathed by Franco.

In its campaign for a "yes" vote, Suarez' Democratic Centre Union was joined wholeheartedly by reformist and Stalinist readers.

They, too, have lost political face as a result of the half-hearted approval of the constitution.

Such planes can be used not only to deal with border clashes with the Soviet Union or Vietnam, but also to crush "internal disorder"

Clearly the bureaucracy is increasingly worried by the recent expressions of anti-bureaucratic feeling.

Although the high-point of the Big Character poster campaign in Peking seems to have passed, reports are still coming in of action against the regime.

A recent, staggering, strike of 50,000 "ruralised educated youths" sent to eight state farms in Yunnan was a wellAnother blow has been the fact that neither the whole might of the Francoist police and armed forces, nor the reactionary demagogic campaign against terrorism of every major political party in Spain have been able to bring an end to the terrorist campaign of the Basque nationalists of ETA against the army and police.

Spectacular

Last week ETA scored its most spectacular strike since the assassination of Franco's No. 2 Admiral Carrero Blanco in 1973.

They killed the military governor of Madrid. And since January 1 they have killed police and army officers at the rate of one a day.

Although one of the alleged assassins of Carrero Blanco was murdered by government agents last month, ETA's active terrorists have in general successfully evaded the forces of organised and disciplined event.

The 28 youth who demonstrated in Tien Anmen Square on 27 December also had well thought-out grievances against the local party leadership.

They appealed to Hua and Teng to sort it out.

• Others, however, have had no illusions in the leadership as a whole and one very long poster in particular, by a Peking railway worker, is reported to have attracted special interest and approval from the crowds who read it.

It is a sustained argument for democratic rights and against bureaucratic control and repression.

And that is partly because a large section of the working class have genuine sympathy for ETA's acts against the Francoist apparatus.

The events of November showed that a sizeable section of the bourgeoisie was-even before the referendum-unwilling to leave the state to the increasingly discredited "democratic" politicians.

It has become clear that the attempted military coup, which the government has tried to shrug off as a joke carried out by two or three demented officers, was in fact known about in advance by at least 400 senior officers, none of whom reported it!

They were presumably preparing to join it if success seemed possible.

privilege. "The state system of our country is practically the same as that of the USSR. "This kind of state system is itself the origin of the birth of a bureaucracy and a bed of privileges. "If we do not go on to a radical reform of this system •.. we may bring about a Soviet style of modernisation. Enrichment of the state. impoverishment of the people."

This railway worker, after making telling attacks on named Chinese leaders, goes on to make demands such as that all bureaucrats should be elected FT man of the year Teng Hsiao Ping The final element in the atmosphere in which the election will take place is the mounting struggle around the regime's proposal to continue with rigorous wage controls designed to cut real wages and over the enormous and stillgrowing level of unemployment.

So the calling of elections is the result of the extremely weak condition of the "reformed"

Francoist state.

Problems

But the further attempt to produce a stronger government through democratic approval will also raise new problems for the Spanish ruling class.

In the first place it will bring the masses once more to the centre of the political stage and expose political leaders to their demands.

This pressure will be felt most acutely by the and reformist leaders.

Communist Party leader, Santiago Carrillo, still supports an emergency government of national unity with the Francoists.

Socialist Party (PSOE)

bacter studiede ambiguous on this question but certainly wants to avoid being placed in a position of having to form a PSOE government with mass working class support.

The leaders of the main working class parties, therefore, will be seeking to maintain their consensus with the UCD while at the same time coming under tremendous pressure from their working class base to break with the bourgeoisie and adopt socialist policies. along with the mandarins themseives...

"I hold that the members of the party and the masses should be informed of political struggles inside the party, especially those which take place in the central committee."

This remarkable poster is one example of the increasing opposition which the bureaucracy is facing from socialists as well as from amobilisations of the masses.

The most important mobilisations reported so far have been the recent demonstrations in Shanghai.

A workers' demonstration on 29 December protesting at work conditions and wages was fired on by the police. One woman was reported injured.

An editorial in the People's political democratisation."

Plainly it is hoped that a certain amount of 'letting off steam' will defuse the situation.

However, the Youth League journal observed that the "need for stability and unity" was even more necessary now that foreign trade was being developed"!

The increase of trade with Europe, Japan and now particularly the US has been of major significance in the last year and Teng was named Financial Times "man of the year"

US businessmen are rubbing their hands with glee.

As Donald Regan, chairman of Merrill Lynch summed it up: "Any nation of over 950 million people growing at the rate of 18 million a year is a tremendous market." working class and seeking to destroy • its organised strength as the only means to impose a new round of even more severe attacks on jobs and living standards.

Faced with this danger the working class can only fight back successfully by