Turkey must not become another Chile!

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Islanders.

On June 15 1970 100,000 workers stormed onto the streets of Istanbul.

There were clashes between workers and police.

On June 16 the army was sent in with tanks and barricades.

Workers jumped over the tanks and passed the barricades.

Soldiers refused to fire.

There was loss of life on both sides.

The reason for this uprising was the anti-union laws proposal Ecevit The changes in government personnel in India, with Charan Singh now cobbling together an administration, reflects the worldwide crisis of leadership in capitalist countries.

While the ruling classes of Italy, Portugal and America scramble about for a leader, the Indian example deserves particular attention since it heralds the abandonment by the Indian bourgeoisie and landed interests of the parliamentary form of rule.

Certainly, imperialism no longer sees the need to pay lip-service to their 'largest democracy in the world' The pleading invitations Indira Gandhi made to foreign capital at the time of her 'Emergency' rule, were accepted only on condition of a massive destruction of democratic rights and an achievement of 'stability' in the country.

Sterilisation

It is now common knowledge, for instance, that the forced sterilization programme arose from the specific directives of the World Bank as a condition for their dollar-aid to the rural sector.

While the Janata government continued with the same economic policies of the Emergency period-turning the Indian economy into a subexporter of consumer durables produced by multi-nationals-the conditions of their coming to power, on a massive anti-Emergency anti-authoritarian resistance, made them incapable of an all-out attack on the working class and peasantry.

A huge bureaucracy, poor state services, chronically weak rural supply sector and above all, the undefeated militancy of the working classes in parliament to ban the left wing union confederation DISK.

Following the June events the government was forced to withdraw the proposal.

Six years later, a similar proposal was brought before parliament.

350,000 workers immediately struck for six days; once again the government was forced to retreat.

In both events the DISK leadership played a reactionary role, trying to prevent workers taking the control of industrial areas and refusing to draw larger sections of workers into action.

The positions of the Turkish Communist Party, Turkish Labour Party and other working class organisations and parties were no different from the positions of the DISK leadership.

Treacherous

The treacherous policies of Stalinist and reformist leaders throughout the period since 1970 is the main reason for the present reactionary political situation in Turkey.

On the one hand these leaderships hold workers back from taking revolutionary measures in their struggles; on the other hand they force workers to turn towards an increasingly fragile bourgeois democracy as a solution to their Singh remain the hysterical objections of the indigenous and international capitalist investors.

But if the Janata did nothing to resolve their troubles, private capital, likewise, did nothing to resolve those of the Janata Declining standards of living brought two million peasants marching on the capital last December and this year alone has seen massive strikes of bank employees, power and textile workers, and most recently, of course, the police forces.

The police uprising-quelled temporarily only through armed confiict with the army-was obviously the signal that changes had to be made.

One national bourgeois paper lamented it as 'denoting the wreckage of a political and social system that had begun to devour its own institutions'.

The make-shift alliances now reached by the politicians demonstrate the great weakness of the ruling classes and the impasse they have reached in ruling through the parliamentary form.

problems while the 'democrats' themselves resort to increasingly dictatorial measures.

The fact is that the bourgeoisie under the conditions of sharp economic crisis caused by the world crisis of capitalism can no longer tolerate even its own facade of democracy.

Credits

The crisis is constantly deepening. All the efforts of Prime Minister Ecevit and his ministers to obtain credits from the IMF and other imperialist organisations have been in vain;

they have failed to get even one doilar.

All the vague promises from the IMF and other imperialists were to gain time.

The interests of imperialism in the middle east are threatened especially by the Iranian revolution.

What the imperialists plan to do is to create in Turkey a counterweight against the Iranian revolution.

And for this a right wing military take-over is the only way.

It was because of this that the bourgeoisie has moved towards smashing all working class organisations as the only way of making the workers pay for the crisis.

Unable to decei ve and stop masses by mil itary police Desai Charan Singh, leader of a rich peasant party (the BKD) and for personal reasons virulently anti-Indira Gandhi in the past, has now made a deal with her, exchanging bloc support in Parliament for the dropping of all 'special court' charges being processed against her for crimes committed during the emergency.

This deal means the separation from power not only of Desai's forces, but also those of the Hindu-fascist party the Jan Sangh, with the prospect, therefore, of their 'combat'wing, the RSS increasing their activities of killing. Muslim families and militant workers.

Spineless

Tailing behind all these developments are the spineless leaders of the workers' parties.

The socialist-bloc in parliament have agreed to support he Charan-Indira alliance on the former's 'assurance' that he will continue to fight 'authoritarianism' The Moscow controlled attacks the bourgeoisie has pushed forward the fascist gangs.

There have been bitter fights between workers and youth on the one hand and the fascists on the other.

But finding itself completely disarmed by its own leadership, the working class has not been able so far to wage a sufficient political and physical fight against the armed detachments of fascism.

The fascist attacks turned into uprisings in 1978.

The bloodiest one of these uprisings took place in the city of Karaman Maras in December.

According to official figures 130 were killed and thousands wounded.

Yet there was no reaction to this fascist massacre by the Stalinist and reformist leadèrs other than verbal protests.

The bourgeoisie took this event as the active test of the situation.

Martial

And, receiving no reac tion from the working class, 1 hey proceeded to introduce ma rtial law in the main industrial and Kurdish cities.

The reasons which lay behind this political turn are mainly twofold. On the one hand the working class remains betrayed by its leaderships and Communist Party, (CPI) remains consistent to its policy, and where Indira Gandhi goes it slavishly follows.

Meanwhile the "radical' Stalinists, the CP/ (Marxist), in state govenment in West Bengal and Tripura, continue as their 'revolutionary' strategy, the building of popular frontist alliances and unity with other 'left and democratic' forces.

Temporary

While undoubtedly the present collusion of forces is temporary, no-one can predict the exact form in which bourgeois rule in India will attempt to break from parliamentary rule and proceed to mount a massive attack on the democratic rights and living standards of workers.

The Workers Socialist League, supporting the fight to reconstruct the Fourth International on principled basis, has always opposed any attempt to poison discussion between organisations daiming to adhere to the Fourth International through accusations of a police, provocateur or agent character.

In this context we condemn the form of accusations used in the recent period by the French OCl and other organisations belonging to the Organising Committee for the Reconstruction of the Fourth International against the Argentinian group Politica Obrera and the Liaison Committee of Chilean Trotskyists.

These groups, which were denied any political programme for action in its own defence.

This means that struggles have taken the form of isolated and local physical fights against organised and armed fascists.

Peasantry ' On the other hand the leadership crisis in the working Class leaves it also unable to put forward and fight for a programme to win the support of the peasantry and petty-bourgeoisie, at a time when these classes also reeling under the blows of the capitalist crisis, have come to the edge of bankruptcy.

So large layers of the peasantry seeing no alternative in the working class have turned towards the fascists and generals as saviours.

This change in the political stance of the millions of peasants has been the key factor in the turn of the political situation in Turkey.

On May Day of this year military chiefs outlawed demonstrations and arrested thousands of workers and left wingers including the leaders of the TLP, TSLP and DISK.

But despite this these leaders still called on Ecevit to lift the generals' ban on marches.

What comes clearly out of these events is that bourgeois democracy has effectively ended Certainly, whichever leader of the Congress, Indira Gandhi or Deruaj Urs, gains control of the Congress Party machinery, they will have the support of the Indian big bourgeoisie and This is because the interests and rich peasant power base of Charan Singh are antagonistic to the dominant interest of industrial capital.

However while capitalists seek for an answer to their problems, the ruling classes remain weak when confronted with the militancy of the workers and peasants.

What is needed is a workers party, which can free the masses from electoral politics, reformist demands and counter-revolutionary 'democrats' and offer an independent programme of democratic and transitional demands. expelled by the OCRFI in January of this year have been characterised by the OCI as "giving support to the Videla dictatorship". . Other Latin American sections of the OCRFI have accused them of "open and direct defence of the bloody dictatorship of Pinochet", of being "agents of the military-fascist Chilean junta' and "guard dogs of The WSL regards these allegations as slanders for which the OCRFI and its sections offer no evidence and which they are using as a substitute for taking up their differences politically.

The WSL calls on the OCRFI, unless it has evidence to offer of these grave charges, to withdraw them at once and to cease poisoning and aborting the possibilities of political clarity in the struggle to rebuild the Fourth International.

Bonapartism, which is the new form of rule relying on the present unstable balance of class forces must give way to either revolution or counter-revolution —a fascist military dictatorship.

The main force which prevented moves to carry out a reactionary military takeover since the beginning of this year was the Iranian revolution and the impulse that this revolution gave to the Kurdish masses in Eastern Anatolia.

Fearing an armed struggle for national independence, the bourgeoisie declared martial law in six more cities of Turkish Kurdistan.

The Iranian revolution has created a'very sensitive balance of forces.

But this balance now seems to be changing once again in favour of a military takeover.

The danger is immediate. It is a question of weeks, even days.

Therefore to fight against this danger is of utmost importance.

And it is important not only from the viewpoint of the Turkish working class but from the viewpoint of the proletariat throughout the Middle East and the world as a whole.

The forming of a united front of all workers' organisations on the basis of programme of action against fascism is central to the fight.

This programme of action must include demands for building workers' militias to combat fascist and military interventions.

Factory committees must be formed to take control of production in order to paralyse counter-revolutionary forces.

The needs of the peasantry must also find a revolutionary expression in order to draw as much as possible the peasant masses towards supporting workers.

Central to this is the demand for a workers and farmers government which through the expropriation of the banks, transport and major industries could offer the peasantry cheap credit and easy access to the market for their produce.

Break from Ecevit and bourgeois democracy!

Build the united front!

Build workers' militias-arm the workers.

For self-determination for the Kurdish masses.

For a workers and farmers A sharper class struggle seems inevitable from recent political and economic developments in West Germany.

For as the economic crisis tightens its grip, political forces in government have taken a sharp shift to the right.

This month has seen the selection by the opposition CDU:CSU coalition of FranzJoseph Strauss, right wing Bavarian CSU leader, as candidate for the Chancellorship in 1980.

He has immediately announced his determination to remove the SPD Chancellor Schmidt from office.

This marks a solidification of the right wing coalition in Germany which long seemed on the point of disintegration.

There can be no doubt that the German bourgeoisie sees looming ahead the need for a strong right wing government of the Thatcher type.

Economic reports this week forecast that by 1980 the German current account will show a deficit of £2 billion for the first time in 15 years, as oil prices rise and imports continue to exceed exports.

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LIST PRESS, Wednesday August 1 1979 1979

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GERMANY IN CRIS