New clampdown on Chinese opposition

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"It is forbidden to provoke trouble by resorting to demagogy among the masses or to hurl false and defamatory accusations"

"It is also forbidden to put up posters, wall newspapers or other placards or slogans on the walls of the streets, public buildings and other places, with the exception of places reserved for this use"

"Forbidden in all circumstances are posters, notices, books, magazines, albums, photographs and cards which go against socialism, the dictatorship of the proletariat, the leadership of the CP, Marxism -Leninism and the thought of Mao Tse-tung or which reveal state secrets."

"Clean up"

This communique, adopted by the revolutionary committee of Peking, was followed by a citywide "clean up"

It follows similar measures taken in Shanghai a month ago. The text reveals that there has been a great deal of agitation.

The numerous occupations of offices in factories and government bodies by angry workers and peasants was said to threate their normal operation.

Also, central committee documents were being "leaked' The crackdown has been aimed particularly at trying to head off a repetition of the last three year's demonstrations on April 5.

This year the anniversary of Chou En-lai's death coincides exactly with the Day of Celebration of the Dead.

Supervision

The demonstrations in Tien An men Square went ahead under very •heavy police supervision.

The end of the so-called "liberalisation" period has also been characterised by arrests of oppositionists.

Four activists in the Alliance of Human Rights were arrested on 4 April as they were putting up a poster in the centre of Peking.

Two Agence France Presse correspondents who witnessed the arrests and had got as far as copying down "The enemies of democracy have begun to attack" were dragged away by the police.

They claim that they were insulted and accused of "poking their noses into Chinese political business" It is estimated that about dozen involved in the Demonstration in support of Hua face clampdown liberalisation campaign are in prison.

Many of these groupsand there are now six "underground" journals circulating in Peking-have begun to make correct criticisms of the CP leadership and have directed against the bureaucracy.

Some, like Ren Wanding, have even made accurate assessments of the motives of the bureaucrats:

"If the authorities are taking up the question of democracy, it is because of the present economic diffi. culties in China"

in 1976: now opponents The clampdown must also be to do with the recent ignominious withdrawal from Vietnam which served to highlight the international weakness and confusion of the bureaucracy.

There is evidence that some of the recent protests were against the Chinese invasion of Vietnam.

There is little doubt, then, that the new clampdown is not a sign of new-found strength and unity of the bureaucracy but is a panic reaction to its growing crisis. incident, the 70 year old former President of the: Multan Bar Association was stripped naked in public and beaten.

Only party These tactics helped ensure that Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party remained the only mass political party in Pakistan.

But when army leaders, headed by Zia, staged their coup in the midst of mass struggles against Bhutto's ballot rigging in 1977, this political monopoly became as much a liability to Bhutto as a source of strength.

Because while the Zia regime risked mass resistance if it chose to execute Bhutto, as long as he remained alive he was seen as a political focus for any potential opposition.

It was this fine calculation which caused Zia's long delay before giving the hangman the go-ahead.

Since that point mass resistance to Zia's vicious Islamic dictatorship, triggered by the execution, has produced pitched battles between demonstrators and police in Rawalpindi, Lahore and Karachi.

In the forefront of the demonstrations have been thousands of militant women, subjected to intensified repression by Zia's recent reactionary Islamic decrees.

In reply police have helped sponsor the emergence of clubwielding right-wing gangs who have joined them in violently attacking anti-Zia forces.

Economic crisis

With his government completely isolated from any mass support, a raging economic crisis fuelling further struggles, and the ever present probability of having to contain national struggles by the Baluchis ior other oppressed nationalities imprisoned within Pakistan's imperialist-drawn borders, Zia's main hope of survival now rests on the total absence of any independent leadership for the toiling masses.

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