[The Workers Socialist League was formed 1974 to…]

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The Workers Socialist League was formed 1974 to struggle for the continuity of the Trotskyism in Britain and towards the rebuilding Since then our work in the mass movement has seen the Leagu develop into an expanding organisation with important new areas of worl (especially in the Midlands and the North West), and an enlarger In the daily struggle to take the demands and principles of Trotsky' Transitional Programme into the trade unions, the WSL has been at th forefront of the fight for the sliding scale of wages, and work sharin on full pay - demands which at the T&GWU Conference were the onl alternative to Jones' treacherous £6 pay plan and the wholesale acceptanc In the Health Service, WSL comrades have led the struggle for th sliding scale of NHS spending and for trade union committees to open th books of the Authorities, along with the fight to end all private practice policies adopted by ASTMS National Conference.

In local disputes also, WSL comrades have tested and developed thr demands of the Transitional Programme, putting forward in every cas the only real opposition to the Stalinists and the right-wing. Our struggle for the "open the books" demand in the motor industry has won a mas response. The WSL alone among the groups on the left has fought the speed-up proposals of the Ryder Report since its very publication, and w have leafletted almost every major BLMC plant in the only nationa At the same time we have put forward a policy to fight unemploy. ment, calling for unity of employed and unemployed through the fight to mobilise the trade union movement, and following this iniative, the first Trades Council sub-committee to fight for these policies has already On every issue facing workers today the WSL is the only that fights consistently for transitional demands, going beyond union militancy to pose the political issues to workers.

While these practical interventions have developed the League's grasp of Trotsky's Programme there has been a consistent drive to deepen and enrich the movement's understanding of the history and the presend crisis of the Fourth International, as an essential part of any seriou This has gone alongside the development in the International Pages of Socialist Press of programme and perspectives on a whole range ol international struggles against imperialism, in which again the method and the principles of the Transitional Programme are an essential starting point, and on many of which no other movement puts forward any We urge all readers who agree on the need for revolationary leadership, and the demands we put forward to find out more about th WSL and join our fight in the labour movement. Simply fill in the COMPLETE and SEND to: 31 Dartmouth Park Hill, London cialist Press Subscriptil 32 doctors have fortunately failed in their grotesque struggle to hold together the disintegrating body of Franco. Now, every sign is that his political heirs will find it just as difficult to keep his collapsing regime alive.

Franco has bequeathed them little in the way of an organised mass political base. In the interests of his own personal dictatorship he absorbed the Falange into the National Movement - less a political party than a ministry of the government - which orchestrates displays of public support for the regime.

Its political weakness helps to explain the recent growth of ultra-right groups which, encouraged by the urban police and the powerful Civi Guard (the armed rural and provincial police), have terrorised worker and separatist militants.

It is overwhelmingly the merciless armed strength of the Guardia Civil and the army on which the Franco dictatorship rested. But the recent Sahara crisis showed the deep divisions within the regime between the army and the 'political' leaders.

Aware that Spain could not hang on to its colonial possession, the regime agreed to hand over the sahara to Moroccoin exchange for a share of the profits on the territory's vast phosphate deposits.

The architect of this agreement was Solis Ruiz, the Minister of the Movement; and its purpose was to kill the Algerian supported anti-Spanish Saharan independence movement.

Juan Carlos, on becoming acting head of state, successtully supported the army's resistance to withdrawal, and the Moroccans withdrew, though subsequentiy a settlement has divided the territory between Morocco and Mauretania.

This episode, though a partial victory for the army and its champion Jùan Carlos, illustrates the political power of the army. Nothing. would be more dangerous than to assume, as recent publications of the revisionists of the "United Secretariat of the Fourth International", do, that it will stand by passively and watch the disintegration of fascism.

On the contrary, the army will do everything in its power to preseve fascist rule, though its leaders are fearful of the effects of internal dissent.

This is shown by the arrest in the last few months of several officers belonging to the Democratic Military Union (a largely bourgeois liberal movement of perhaps 500 to 1000 officers and NCOs out of a total of 100,000).

In addition the Army has within the last month reversed its custom of stationing conscripts (the great majority of the Spanish army) in their home areas.

As in Chile in the weeks before the 1973 coup, conscripts have been moved to areas where they do not live, making it easier to break their political contacts and Six trade union militants were arrested in Soissons, north-east of Paris, last week and charged with a series of criminal offences, including "inciting military personnel to disobedience" for distributing leaflets drawn up by a soldiers' committee of the 67th (infantry) regiment.

The six - four members of the reformist trade union federation (CFDT), and two from the Communist Party-dominated CGT, France's largest trade union federation - were released on bail but face possible jail sentences if convicted.

Their arrest came only a few days after police in ClermontFerrand (near Lyons) had pulled in a Portuguese left-wing soldier, Joachim Ferreira Fernandez. He was held for lenothy interroation reduce the danger of mutinies.

This move must be seen in conjunction with an emergency plan (called Operation Morning star) to be implemented at the first signs of mass political action on the death of Franco.

The plan includes hundreds of arrests of known political activists (from revolutionaries to christian democrats) the confining of 'uncertain' sections of the army to barracks and the call-up of voluntary reservists who, with the more reliable Guardia Civil and police, would control the streets of the major cities.

As we go to press Operation Morningstar has not been activater in full though a massive security operation has been mounted in the cities, and during Franco's illness the already high level of political arrests (officially put at 500 since July) was stepped up știll further.

All these are signs of a desperate fear of any movement of the masses. Its political weakness is also reflected in the major tactical: differences between its political leaders about what amount of "democratisation" is the minimum necessary to contain the mass movement and to preserve the effective power of the Spanish ruling class.

Some clue as to the initial tactic to be attempted will come from Juan Carlos selection of his first prime minister.

Of the candidates most widely mentioned, Solis Ruiz and Rodriguez de Valcarcel are ultra hard-line Falangists, Arias Navarro, the present prime minister, is regarded as a cautious centre of the far right candidate; and J.M. de Areilza and Fraga Irabane are considered the most 'liberal'.

Fraga Iribane, currently ambassador to Britain, has had discussions with the leadership of the Spanish Communist Party.

He or Areilza might attempt to restore some degree of formal legality to political parties and bring odher parties into a coalition.

But any degree of 'opening out of the regime forces two massive contradictions. One is the situation in Portugal.

Fernandez is a militant of the 'Soldiers United Shall Win' (SUV) movement of rank-and-file soldiers in Portugal which has won the support of thousands in the Portuguese armed forces against the attempts of the government and officer caste to restore military 'discipline' and use the army to enforce state policy.

LEAFLETS The crack-down by the French police followed a wave of demonstrations and leaflet campaigns among conscripts against their oppression. At the beginning of the month the military intelligence services launched a probe into the struggle of rank-and-file soldiers of the 19th regiment at Besancon - supported by local militants of the CFDT -to form a trade union branch.

One of the main immediate icoes une the arhitran and heatol the growing demand in the working class for the immediate and total overthrow of all aspects of the fascist regime.

As the recent upsurge of strikes shows, workers will use the slightest concession as an opportunity to demand more:

The second contradiction springs from the economic crisis. Though the slump has still hit Spain less sharply than other western European countries, the growth rate of production has been halved in the last year, unemployment has now begun and the rate of profit is estimated to have fallen by 25%.

The slump has been temporarily been held at bay by a huge government deficit which is reflected in a 30% rate of inflation and a huge balance of payments deficit which has caused a haemorrage of Spain's previously large foreign exchange reserves.

The government has attempted to control wages and last week the wage control law was reinforced (the Minister of Finance justifying the measure by saying that even the British Labour government was doing the same!).

In this situation the political situation impels the regime to concede more rights to the working class; equally the economic crisis impels them to make sure that such rights are not used.

Few circumstances could be less favourable for any liberalisation course on which the Spanish bourgeoisie embarks.

It has, however, important allies: the reformist and Stalinist leaderships in the workers' movement.

After Franco's death, the first reaction of Socialist Patty leader Rodolfo Llopis was to say that 'Above all we must avoid in Spain the same spectacle as Portugal.

Santiago Carillo, General Secretary of the Spanish Communist Party was more explicit:

"The forces of opposition, left, centre and right inclusive, must come out into the light of day and propose a realistic provisional government able to achieve the greatest possible national unity"

In other words, Carillo proposes not even a popular front alliance but a •governmental alliance of the Communist Party with fascists! Francoism is mortally sick; and Carillo wishes to play the doctor.

The working class is capable in Spain of completely overthrowing not only Francoism but capitalism' itself - but only through the most determined and principled struggle for the political independence of the workers movement against leaders who threaten to destroy it in alliances with the bourgeoisie and with ficers in the barracks. Unofficial sources close to the military heirarchy claimed that clandestine committees of soldiers - influenced by the movement in Portugal - had been active in the region since June.

Probably in response to this, the government brought in a presidential decree in July of this year specifically forbidding soldiers to join trade unions or political organisations - and it is undet this, as well as general legislation of 1972 restricting soldiers' political rights to virtually nothing -that soldiers at Besancon are likely to be prosecuted.

EXPOSED The struggle at Besancon in particular, showed up the attitude of the reformist and Stalinist leaders to the capitalist army in the sharpest possible way.

Charles Heru, leader of the Snrialiet Partr'e committer trade union base.

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attempt to organise soldiers into the trade unions as an attack on "the freedom of nur country to "ALM be independent within the framework of the existing alliances" and an attempt "to weaken the instrument of defence, and thus defence itself"

DENOUNCED

The stalinists, for their part, denounced "the anti-militarism of leftist elements" • Both of them thus put themselves shoulder to shoulder with General Bigeard, appointed as Defence Minister earlier this year in a political reshuffle aimed at rallying the 'confidence' of the right wing behind the government's determination to crush 'indiscipline' in the ranks.

Despite the unanimous hostility from the government and the labour bureaucrats, the struggle against the officer corps and the army regime is spreading. In many areas local trade union organisations have put their presses at the disposal of committees in the barracks.

Local rank-and-file soldiers in Decembe principles of the Fourt I would like more information about the WSL •El .E4 subscription infantry regiment at ClermondFerrand and from units in Verdun, Timnaes and Crennhle There hac even been a leaflet campaign among the ranks in the very heart of French militarism - the officer school at Saint-Cyr.

The political limits of the movement are set by the fact that it has been, so far largely influenced by the PSU (a 'left' social-democratic party, with several parliamentary deputies) and that it has not yet gone beyond the basic demands for democratic right: for soldiers.

But it is clear that it is a movement pushed forward by the revolution in rortugal, where the resistance of the rank-and-file soldiers is one of the strongest in the offensive of the working class.

Even while faced with the enmity of the labour leaders and the threat of harsh military dis cipline, the French soldiers involver have picked up a gauntlet to challenge the very existence of the capitalist standing army and the right of the ruling dess to organise bodies of armed sca arzinsi the workine siass ai bou

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S, Wednesday November 26th 1975