Silence on Soviet

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surprised at the lack of critical of the Stalinist tradition which discussion: British CP leader has spawned both Brezhnev on Gordon MacLennan himself the one hand and Russell on the the British CP's "well known" March 3 showed that it is disagreement with Moscow over Russell who is out of step, when discussed, delegates would deal and while declarations of undywith them and put forward ing loyalty to Mr Brezhnev came ideas on how they were to be thick and fast."

Soviet President Brezhnev's report to the 26th Congress of the CPSU revealed the crisis that now wracks the economy of the It showed that far from being an isolated example, the Polish economy is simply at a more acute stage of crisis than the bureaucratically run econ omies of the other deformed workers' states.

Brezhnev confessed to difficulties in "supplying the population with food". This problem he said included supplies of meat, fruit and vegetables. And delays in distribution 'meant that stocks often went rotten before they could be consuméd.

He attacked the quality and quantity of consumer goods especially "textiles, ' knitwear, leather footwear, furniture and television sets."

He spoke of married couples waiting years for a house, and Recent events in Zambia have shown the development of the struggle to levels : that are posing a direct and growing threat to Kaunda's bosses' government.

The most decisive challenge to the government's authority and control was mounted by the massive mineworkers' strike in January.

In the Copper Belt area, the political and économic nerve centre of the country, there are over 55,000 mineworkers, who form the strongest section of the Zambian working class, and make up about one-sixth of all employed workers. y Their ręcent strike action was the most.powerful demonstration of the developing forward movement of the working masses.

On January 23; the whole workforce on the copper mines took strike action in protest against Kaunda's threat to expel 17 top trade union officials from their positions in ZCTU.

The officials were disciplined by head bureaucrat Kaunda for opposing his moves to curb the powers of the trade union bureaucracy which in turn is a part of the state bureaucracy under the one party UNIP regime.

The trade union bureaucracy provides a base for opportunists and reformists seeking to 3CM the strength of the working class as a bargairling counter in their opposition to Kaunda.

But the growing militancy of workers, and their determination to fight for their interests, poses a growing challenge to the grip of the class collaborationist bureauciacy over the unions.

Dissident union bureaucrats are acutely aware of the dangers to their own privileged positions involved in any attempt to draw on the support of the organised working class or to give a lead to workers' demands in order maintain some credibility.

Their unstable opposition is intolerable to Kaunda's government, which is facing a deepening crisis of political control.

The root of this crisis is the massive economic crisis hitting the already weak and backward economy. This forces Kaundaas an agent of imperialist capital -to oversee even harsher attacks on the working masses in order to protect and boost profits.

Determination

But the working class is refusing simply to accept these. attacks and is showing a fighting determination to win improvements in its living and working conditions.

This is the conflict that lies behind Kaunda's moves against the union bureaucracy.

• But Kaunda did not reckon with the quick and powerful response of the mineworkers, whose action threw the govern-. ment into severe crisis.

And there can be no doubt that union leaders, despite the attacked the workings of the health service.

He even criticised the interference by government and Party officials in the running of collective farms.

His sweeping attacks seem to cover almost every aspect of production and distribution. But the report was passed unanimously by the placemen at the Congress. And the criticisms will bring no changes.

No correction Indeed the whole affair exposes one of the major factors in the Soviet economic crisis. Because without freedom of criticism and the involvement of the working class in discussion and decisions on the economy, there can be no correction of errors; every plan for the economy must therefore remain a bureaucratic plan imposed from above. growing tension between some them and Kaunda, were equally terrified by this mobilis. ation of the mineworkers which threatened • to pass rapidly beyond their restraining efforts.

Failing to crush the fighting determination of the miners by police/army repression, and fearing that the miners would spearhead an escalating mobilisation through wider layers of the working masses and around a broadening range of demands Kaunda was forced to back down.

Already the country's commercial workers, drawing confidence from the miners' action, had come out on strike alongside the miners in protest at the beating up of one of their union officials by UNIP thugs.

Kaunda reinstated the 17 officials and the workers called off their action a week after it had begun.

In the cabinet reshuffle that followed this forced compromise, Kaunda demoted his righthand man Mainza, Chona, who had led the government attack on the strike and had opposed a compromise..

He also sacked the prime minister Daniel Lisulo, replacing him by Nalumino Mundia, who has a record of opposition to Kaunda.

These drastic measures were forced on Kaunda in his frantic efforts to placate the mineworkers and to stop the erosion of his already narrow base of This support has by now largely shrunk to sections of the army and the state bureaucracy, but even there it is shot through with tensions and divisions produced by the deepening economic recession and the growing crisis of political control over the masses.

Shake-ups

Kaunda's attempts to clampdown on, opposition within his own power base have already produced a series of shake-ups in the officer caste of the army and the top ranks of the government bureaucracy.

Last October, Kaunda claimed that an attempted coup had been uncovered. This was used as a cover for a wave of purges and arrests, and for the imposition of a state of emer• gency -including a curfew in the urban areas, where 40% of the country's six million people are •concentrated.

The inability of these actions to contain mass opposition was sharply shown in November, when ZCTU leader Fred Chiluba was forced by the anger of organised workers te threaten a general strike.

Zambia's backward economy is totally geared to the production of profits for international monopoly capital.

The" state ownership of major sections of the economy serves only to conceal this reality, while at the same time allowing the weak Zambian bourgeoisie and a privileged While the basis for a properly planned economy has existed in the Soviet Union since October 1917 in the form of nationalised industries, banks and state control of foreign trade, the political dictatorship of the Kremlin bureaucracy has since the mid-1970s excluded the development of such a plan.

Brezhnev's report showed that; fax from being discussed by the toiling masses in the USSR, 'the deficiencies of the economy are not even discussed by the 5,000 privileged bureaucrats who attended the showpiece Congress.

Even Sam «Russell-veteran Stalinist reporter for the Morning Star felt obliged to point out the failure of delegates to dis... cuss the shortcomings listed by Brezhnev:

fT+ mine tri hio ormontad that when Mr Brezhnev's report was layer of the petty bourgeoisie a share in the crumbs from the imperialist table.

While the nationalisations undertaken since independence Were measures forced on Kaunda tó head off the demands of the masses, they were not turned to the advantage of the masses by a struggle to smash imperialist control.

The catastrophic impact of the world recession is most sharply reflected in the collapse of the price for copper exports, which account for over 80% of foreign exchange earnings.

Coupled with the rising costs of vital imports like oil and food, this has driven Kaunda's regime into even tighter dependence on imperialist banks and trusts, which demand increasingly harsh measurès against the masses in. return for vital loans and investment.

Conditions

As part of the conditions laid down by the IMF for its latest loan, Kaunda has slashed subsidies on food and other basics and launched further attacks on wages, jobs and working conditions.

A's the daily struggle for the basic necessities of life sharpens, the impoverished masses have shown a clear willingness to resist these attacks and take forward their demands.

The mineworkers' victory against Kaunda's offensive. on the organised working class has strengthened the class confidence and militancy of workers, and pointed to a decisive way forward for the oppressed urban and rural poor.

The Zambian working class cannot afford to hold back while imperialism and its agents are driven towards an escalating counter-attack.

Workers must turn to the task of mobilising their own class strength behind demands and actions that start from the needs of the working masses, defend the class interests of the workers, and give a decisive revolutionary answer to the crushing problems facing the masses of urban and rural poor.

' In the communities and workplaces, independent organisations must be built to take up the struggle for workers' demands and workers" self-defence against state and right wing attacks.

In the trade unions, rank and file workers' committees fighting for workers' demands can spearhead the struggle against the bureaucracy and for the independence of the unions.

Against the class collaborationist opposition currents to Kaunda within the petty bourgeoisie, the bureaucracy and the army who are posing as alternatives to Kaunda's regime, the light must be taken up for a programme of demands and action that can show an independent way forward in struggle for a fighting alliance of the oppressed masses under working class leadership. overcome.

However the contrivutions so far of leading party officials from various republics and regions have consisted of a series of self congratulatory speeches quite startling in their smug selfsatisfaction.

While praising Mr Brezhnev to the skies for his good work, leadership and foresight, not one of thé delegates who has spoken so far has taken up a single one of his criticisms.".

Russell lists in this category the first "secretaries of the Parties of Moscow, Leningrad, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Bashkiria and Rostov and the Prime Minister of Russia.

He says that the first secretary of Byelorussia made a passing reference to the food prorenimed.

"while the rest was silence The dictatorship of General Garcia in Bolivia is stepping up its attack on culture and education.

In addition to the closure of the universities immediately following the coup of 17 July 1980, the regime has now begun a series of meetings for 'educators' and restructuring commissions'. ; the proposals of which are nothing less than the reflection of the will of the junta.

Nobody can fail to recognise that the closure of the universities, has been undertaken precisely to stop them being an active centre of resistance to the fascist dictatorship.

Thousands of students have been forced into employment in marginal sectors or into the growing mass of Bolivia's unemployed.

Moreover, some 4,300 employees in higher education have been suspended.

There is widespread apprehension at the fact that in Bolivia. today the only professional training institution that cóntinues to function is the army's Colegio Militar.

The recent announcement that the first year of the teacher training course is to be suspended and that in future the intake will be drastically cut (in a country where illiteracy, runs at 60%) means that overall some 30,000 students will lose the chance to enter higher educaCRISIS made no criticism of the other. Congress-referring simply to Afghanistan.

The suppression of criticism does work" tion and receive training.

The hundreds of students who were forced into exile following the coup: have been impeded from entering universities in other countries because the . junta has periodically announced that it will be 'shortly reopening' the system "with full guarantees'. •So far this has proved to be a lie and there is little sign that it intends to undertake such a measure in the short term.

Indeed, it will not do so until it has fully ensured that its restructuring commission', which received a budget of some seven million dollars between September and December 1980, has finalised arrangements to eradicate university autonomy and the traditional studentprofessorial equal co-government.

Repression

The commission has announced its intention to 'eliminate all ideology' from the curriculum and totally depoliticise education. This means nothing less than repression of free thought and the suppres sion of all scientific endeavour.

The regime is seeking to establish a university that functions as another arm of the dictatorship as existed under the Banzer government.

‹Garcia has announced that Indeed the Morning Star on it proudly claimed that the Congress proved that "socialism in future students that fail their exams will be put on trial and jailed -there can be no more obvious indication of the barbarism that characterises this regime, which having sought to repress the slightest vestige of working class resistance now moves to expel independent thought from Bolivia.

Those students struggling alongside the working classthe only class capable of defeating the dictatorship and ensuring basic liberties-have an obligation to fight for the reopening of the universities, the restitution of their autonomy and of equal co-government with the academic staff.

The universities must once again be made into an active centre of reșistance to the military government.

*Down with the dictatorship!

*Reopen educational all institutions!' *Restore university autonomy!

*Restore • student professorial co-government!

*Convert the universities into active centres of resistance!

This statement was issued at the end, of February by the Grupo Revolucionario Antiimperialista Boliviano _en Londres which can be contacted through Socialist Press.

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Wednesday Manchester 14 90Q.