Back Armed Liberation Fight! Orive Out Smith Racists!

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Ian Smith's white racist regime in Rhodesia now confronts the onset of the armed struggle for black African liberation the onset of the armed struggle for black African which, fanned on by the victory of the MPLA which. fanned on by the victory of the MPLA liberation forces in Angola, is spreading like a bush fire.

StAnLOn And as the liberation struggle grows it confronts still more desperate moves by world imperialism and its allies to maintain Southern Africa as a bulwark of repression and anti-communism.

Last week, -Mozambique President Samova Machel made the belated move to seal off the traffic of Rhodesian exports through the ports of Beira and Maputo (first established under the Portuguese fascist regime).

This, together with the confiscation of much valuable equipment and chrome shipments already in Mozambique, will strike a hefty blow at the Rhodesian economy - but is a calculated move to head off rather than lead forward the impending armed struggle against Smith.

DOOMED Indeed the whole strategy of the imperialists and the "left" bourgeois nationalists is now to pressure Smith into negotiating a "peaceful settlement" rather than allow a hopeless and doomed all-out war to develop in which all hope of maintaining direct imperialist control over the area would vanish. As the Financial Times assessed the Mozambique moves: "President Machel may well have calculated that his move will provide the extra push necessary to ensure further concessions from Mr. Smith at the constitutional talks.

The form now taken by imperialist interventions is precisely this channelling of revolutionary struggle into bankrupt, reformist roads. In the context of today's struggles, no compromise is possible. Certainly nothing reilects more sharply the changed balance of class forces on a world scale in the wake of the defeat of US imperialism in Vietnam and Cambodia last year than the impotence with which the leading imperialist powers have been forced to witness the growth of national liberation struggles in Africa.

REACTIONARY

And nothing more condemns the reactionary nature of the calls from all quarters during the Angola struggle to simply "withdraw all troops!" '. It is now clear for all to see that if the FNLA/UNITA forces with their squads of fascist mercenaries, CIA 'advisers' and South African regular troops, had defeated the MPLA, that this latest development in the struggle for Zimbabwe would have been drastically retarded.

ADAPTING

Now capitalist and Stalinist governments alike spring to adapt to the new balance of forces in Southern Africa.

The British Labour government, by supporting Mozambique, attempts to bluff Smith into peacefully conceding "reforms" , ottering as turther bait the possibility, voiced by Foreign Office Minister David Ennals that:

*Britain could become involved in policing operations after a return to legality [end of UDI] and while an agreed settlement was being put into effect."

This is in essence the same as the South African racist regime headed by Vorster, which, fearing the Zimbabwe struggle may snowball into South Africa, is refusing to give Smith military help - unless reforms are made to head off the outbreak of all-out armed struggle.

HOLD BACK

Amid rumours of arms shipments and Cubans arriving in Mozambique, the Kremlin and Cuban governments hold back from immediate intervention, giving Smith some leeway to settle peacefully in the new situation. At the same time the "left" nationalists limit their support for the Zimbabwe fight to providing guerrilla bases and releasing thundery press statements calculated to keep intact their "peaceful" agreements compromise withthe banks and monopolies.

As for the right wing Zimbabwean nationalist leader Nkomo, he continues, more isolated ever week, to ›ursue endless "co stitutional talks" with Smith while increasing sections of the nationalist movement arm ready for war.

In the fight for African liberation then, just as in the fight to defend the working class and overthrow oppression in every country, the most crucial question is the building of Trotskyist leadership. Oniy such a leadership can carry through to the end both the fight for the immediate overthrow of imperialism and the socialist measures of nationalisation of land and industry necessary for the construction of a planned economy outside the domination and exploitation of imperialism.

Thus while we must unconditionally support the armed struggle of Zimbabwean liberation forces in their fight to drive out the Smith racists, we in no way declare support for their political programme, which (as in the case of the Angolan MPLA and Mozambique FRELIMO) is completely inadequate to solve the economic problems faced by the mass of African workers and peasants.

But all class conscious workers must now take up the demand that the left' MPs fight for material support to be sent to the freedom fighters in Rhodesia.

This of course is inseparable from the necessary all-round fight to remove the reactionary WilsonHealey-Callaghan leadership, who will oppose these struggles. In this fight also, the indissoluble link between the Zimbabwean struggle; and the international struggle of all workers is revealed.

CUTS This week sees a test of the claims of left' MPs that they oppose the Labour government's savage spending cuts.

Some Tribune MPs have put down a critical amendment in the two-day commons debate on the cuts.

25 Tribune MPs (though the group claims 80 members) have said they will not vote for the government - though they have been too coy to say whether they will vote against it.

RETREAT

But the history of the lefts so-called "fight" so far is one continuous dismal retreat.

By the time of the meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party to discuss the cuts the initial bloodcurdling statements made by the *lefts' to the press immediately after Healey's announcements had converted themselves into muted and respectful reservations.

The "lefts" crumbled weakly before Healey's insults. He arrogantly said that critics of the spending cuts were talking poppycock" and were "out of their tiny Chinese minds".

On the Labour Party's national executive several lefts' voted with Wilson and Healey, thus defeating the call for a special party conference.

And Judith Hart agreed to withdraw a motion critical of government economic policy as long as it was discussed at a special meeting of the National Executive and the Cabinet later this month.

That meeting, of course, is nothing more than a Downing Street tea party designed to head off any political opposition. The "lefts' see the whole question of the cuts as one where they must raise only face-saving protests to be dropped if they rock the boat; they do not see it for what it is -cont'd on back page, col 4.

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• SULIALIST PRESS, Wer Asturias Bilbao Vigo Vitoria Pamplona