Patriotic Front leaders rely on Rhodesian state repression

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With gangs of proMuzorewa thugs reportedly rampaging through townships in Zimbabwe beating up political opponents, the Rhodesian army, airforce and auxiliaries continue to press home the advantage handed to them by the Lancaster House "settlement"

Over 20,000 Patriotic Front supporters are now herded into the assembly areas. And British governor Lord Soames has given the state forces a free hand to murder and . terrorise those guerrillas that have so far refused to accept the total surrender "negotiated" by their leaders Mugabe and Nkomo.

Murdered

13 guerrillas were last week murdered in cold blood-as they made their way peacefully to an assembly camp.

And Soames last Monday authorised a full-scale air strike designed to obliterate a 450strong guerrilla camp: the action was called off only 15 minutes before it was due to take place, after frenzied : efforts by Patriotic Front commanders forced their followers to surrender their arms.

Socialist Press has consistently argued that the long term interests of the petty bourgeois nationalist leaders of the Patriotic Front were directly opposed to the interests of the workers and peasants of We have stressed that this conflict would eventually be paid for in the blood of anti-imperialist fighters.

Indeed, for the Patriotic Front leaders, the forcible herding of disarmed and impotent freedom fighters into the assembly areas amounts to nothing other than presenting their credentials for a place in a black bourgeois government in For them, the presence of Muzorewa the South African army at Beitbridge, the unchecked operation of Muzorewa's "auxiliaries" and the police action of the state actually assists a break from the demands and pressures of the most militant PF rank and file.

This nationalist leadership is in the process of extricating itself from the anti-imperialist struggle in a bid to qualify for a place in a pro-imperialist government.

This has not been without a price: the anger of PF militants and disillusion of the workers and peasants are clearly on the increase.

And, in placing capitalist "stability" and profits before the interests of the masses, the PF leaders will be forced to rely even more heavily in future on the repressive apparatus of the state to crush their former supporters.

The harsh material conditions that daily confront Zambian workers and peasants can only exacerbate their conflict of interests with the nationalist leadership.

No boom The rapidity with which trade and financial links have been re-opened after the lifting of sanctions do not so much augur an economic boom to follow, but rather point to the quick profits there are to be creamed off by those capitalists who can take advantage of the current economic shortages.

The international capitalist recession is a bitter reality for the workers of Southern Africa for it compounds their suffering brought about by the ultraexploitation of the migrant labour system that prevails.

Facing the possible short-term prospect of a vicious white racist reaction and the long-term necessity of repression by the petty bourgeois nationalist leadership, the workers and peasants are offered no way forward by the elections stemming from Lancaster House, but only the possibility of grievous defeat.

The electoral victory of any section of petty-bourgeois nationalism, however radical can represent no gain whatever for the working class in Zimbabwe today.

Fraud

In any event the moves of the Rhodesian state and threats by Muzorewa make it clear that the "election" itself will be a total fraud in which intimidation and ballot rigging will play an equal role.

Workers and militants within the Patriotic Front must, dismissing the election, sieze the opportunities created inadvertently by imperialism and the nationalist leadership to pose the revolutionary working class alternative to the politics of reformism.

Within the assembly camps and in the towns and rural areas the task of the independent organisation of the working class must be undertaken.

The arms of the guerrillas must be retained. But the armed struggle must be pursued not as the main thrust of the sterile politics of guerrillaism; instead it must be placed under the direction of the democratic organisations of the working. class.

*No handing over of arms.

*No surrender to imperialist control.

*For the construction of independent Soviet-type -committees of workers, poor peasants and fighters guerrilla armies.

*Cadres with military training to build workers militias in the towns and rural areas under the control of independent organisations of workers.

*For the nationalisation without compensation of all land, factories, mines and banks.

*For workers' management of industry and largescale agriculture.

*For a constitúent assembly of democratically elected delegates of the workers and peasants linked to the dissolution of the capitalist state apparatus.

*Build a revolutionary party as part of a reconstructed Fourth International.

Nkomo