French Stalinists rethink over Afahanistan

Scan page 3

The break of the French Communist Party from its Euro-Communist parties is beginning to have internal repercussions.

Despite the fact that journalists of the CP's paper L 'Humanite have been constantly present in Kabul it was decided by the secretariat to send a • special representative on a fact finding' mission to see the Aighan Party leadership.

The results of this can hardly be cheering. In a confidential report to Central Committee members, Claude Gotignon throws a number of spanners into the bureaucratic works of the party machine.

Firstly he concludes that the agrarian reforms implemented by the Stalinist-sponsored Taraki and Amin regimes were essentially authoritarian and military, taking the form of the enforced distribution of landwithout any deeds or titles-by sections of the Afghan army.

This had, he explains, the effect not only of antagonising the Mullahs and feudal landlords, but also of alienating sections of the peasantry who found themselves moved in at gunpoint.

In Kabul itself unemployment is rife with most shops and craftsmen being forced to close down.

Herein lies the source of the unrest in the capital, with no social group identifying their interests with the Kabul party's regime.

According to Gatignon, Karmal, the Afghan party leader, was forced to admit that the legacy of past party policies was so heavy that only a concerted and united stand between the warring factions could offer any hope of a solution to the internal gripping the country.

Karmal tactfully avoided explaining how such unity could be achieved.

But his Minister of Foreign Affairs did have one piece of unwelcome advice for the French CP.

While welcoming the French Stalinists' support, comrade Dost was careful to stress that from their point of view, and the point of view of Stalinism as a whole, it was essential that the French CP maintained good, friendly relations with the other Western European CPs-all of whom failed to support the Soviet invasion.

The message was clear.

"Unity" on a platform of class collaboration is the name of the game.

Back to the Eurocommunist drawing boards, comrades! For the third time in recent months workers at the strategically crucial SASOL plants-site of South Africa's massive oilfrom coal energy projecthave come out on strike.

These strikers are part of an unfolding mass movement of workers and youth moving forward and asserting their independent strength in struggle throughout the country.

Last month 18,000 black construction workers at the SASOL 3 plant were laid off alter taking, strike action to demonstrate their hatred for the oppressive material conditions under which they are forced to live and work.

Following the bombing of the SASOL 1 plant in June by guerrillas of the reformist African National Congress, the state sent in the army to bolster Botha entering or leaving the complex, the plants have their own special police force.

The workers live on site, crammed together in barrackThese strikes are symptoapartheid-capitalis: crisis-ridden matic of the crisis-ridden South Africa and testimony to the growing strength and confidence of the black working class.

Again and again, in the factories, mines, schools and communities, black workers and youth, have demonstrated in practice their determination, combativity and willingness to struggle to the end against the system that oppresses and exploits them.

Obstacle

In the coming period, as more and more workers move into spontaneous struggles in defence of their living standards, the biggest obstacle they face is the crisis of revolutionary The petit-bourgeois reformism of the Stalinist-dominated ANC is a noose around the neck of the revolutionary working class.

In an interview in this week's Newsweek, Oliver Tambo, the leader-in-exile of the ANC, underlined the path their betrayal would take should they come to power on the backs and blood of the working class.