[Militant Italian workers demonstrating against rising prices. ¡…]

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Militant Italian workers demonstrating against rising prices. ¡ Secretive paralysis is the st description of the Italian bmmunist Party's policy in government crisis that upted last week.

The immediate cause of the fall the Christian Democrat Aldo oro's cabinet (backed by a parlialentary coalition of Republicans, acialists and Social Democrats) as a slight shift to the left, under essure, on the part of the Sociali Party leadership, which withew its support until the Communi Party could be brought into me sort of governmental 'underending.

But the Moro government - a binet of big business and of merican foreign policy - has been ar to collapse since the early summer, and was given an extra lease of life only by the refusal of the Stalinist leaders to demand general elections and to force the Socialist Party leadership into an electoral agreement.

SWING

Ever since the June 15th regional elections showed a big swing to the left, with the Communist Party polling only marginally less than the Christian Democrats, the various factions in the Christian Democratic Party have been using their breathing space to prepare themselves the most advantageous political bargains possible with the Communist and Socialist Parties.

And in this they have had every ounce of help from the Communist simply seeking to reshuffle the diplomatic pack of cards internationally.

We said this was elementary but it is not obvious, apparently, to some who claim the mantle of revplutionary Marxism' or "Trotskyism'.

SCANDAL

The coverage of events in Angola since independence on l1th. November by the Socialist Workers Party of the United States and the magazine Intercontinental Press published with their support, has been little short of a scandal, sullying the name of all the traditions to which they lay claim.

For example, an article by Ernest Harsh in Intercontinental Press for 24th. November equated the three Angolan organisations in their 'anti-working class policies' and claimed that all three were equally 'seeking support both from the imperialist powers and from the workers states'.

He also alleged, though the eviaence for this is scanty to say the least, that the FNLA and UNITA 'have a long history of resistance to Portuguese colonialism'.

All this studied neutrality has led to a number of ludicrously wrong and dangerous political conclusions. An article in the SWP's paper Militant of 12th. December determinedly avoids taking sides and calls for "political pressure... against the intervention - direct or indirect - of Washington, Pretoria and other imperialist centres"

Intercontinental Press of 22nd. December contains a piece by its editor Joseph Hansen which while pointing out the inescapable pro-imperialist record of the FNLA leaders, refuses to take sides in carling for their military defeat!

Hansen's concluding slogan, Get them out before they get us in" is nothing more than an appeal to pacifist and even chauvinist feelings in the American petty-bourgeoisie.

The battles in Angola do not take a form chosen by Marxists. However, it is their essentia, duty to take sides in a conflict crucial lor the future of imperialism. However clear we are about the inadequacies of the MPLA, however well, we understand the counter-revolutionary role of Stalinism, we must take sides in this struggle.

For our part we repeat our support for the struggles of the MPLA, we applaud their successes, and we call for the recognition of their government. The military defeat of the pro-imperialist FNLA and UNITA will be a step forward in the struggle against imperialism.

Even if not the end of the battle, this is a step in the struggle against imperialist control of Africa, which no no taralytinantice and anninlinto Party leadership, whose policy of an historical compromise' - ie. a government embracing themselves and the Christian Democrats -places them in some respects to the right of the Socialist Party.

It is possible that President Leone and the political chieftains can cobble together such a cabinet. But it is not likely to have much greater stability than its predecessors - on average post-war Italian governments have lasted well under a year. And the intricate manipulation required to construct it may well exceed the several weeks which are usual in such cases.

CRISIS

reasons for this ply the complexities of political intrigue. The economic crisis in Italy - one of the Western European economies worst-hit by the world recession - permits of very little 1oom for reforms. Over forty manufacturing companies are thought to face bankruptcy it the government crisis holds up the subsidies and loans they were expecting for more than a week.

And the massive strike by public service employees in all three of Italy's three main trade union confederations last week was followed by a threat from the main engineers union to launch a national strike if there is not soon a governmental agreement which offers some protection on jobs and wages.

OPPOSED

Yet still CP leader Berlingut er is opposed to an election - despite the gains it would certainly bring his own Party and the Socialists. He preters to wheel and deal - in the interests of 'democracy' - with the Italian Tories and the Pope.

For the same reasons the CP press has played down the widespread reports that the CIA has chanelled six million dollars in this year alone into the coffers of a broad range of politicians - after all Berlinguer may find himself within a few weeks sitting round a 'progressive cabinet table with the recipients of Washington's 'slush funds'!

Events in Italy were echoed last week by a marked shift to the right on the part of George Marchais and the leadership of the French Communist Party. In an effort to shore up the rickerty 'Union of the Left' with Mitterand's Social Democrats and the bourgeois 'Left' Radicals, Marchais last week declared on television that he favoured dropping the aim of the 'dictatorship of the proletariat' from the Party's statutes.

Speaking in the run up to the February Congress of the Communist Party, Marchais prostrated himself before French "democratic', petty bourgeois patriotism:

"The Communist Party is not dogmatic. It knows how to adapt to the conditions of its time. NOw, today, the word 'dictatorship' does not correspond to what we want. It has an intolerable significance, contrary to our aspirations, our positions.

Even the word "proletariat' is no longer suitable, since we wish to group with the working class, the majority of salaried workers. ! But that does not mean that we are abandoning the objective we have made our own: socialism in French Colours.

OFFICIAL

This change, which does no more than make official what has been Stalinist policy for years, nonetheless represents an important step in the continuing adaptation of the Western European Communist Parties to their own capitalist classes.

he policyso "st alrward ne country put i Stalin in 1924 can now be seen in its true colours - condemning workers to capitalism in every other country in the interests of the Stalinist bureaucracy.

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TO MPLA! MP