Spain: Stalinism to the Rescue

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The crisis Israeli of 11.= The acute political crisis of the Spanish ruling class has prompted Stalinists both in Spain and internationally to come rushing to its rescue.

The fortnight in which the government seized on the pretext of the wave of political killings to arrest huge numbers of militants of left parties, was chosen by the Soviet Union and all the other workers' states of eastern Europe to announce the re-establishment of full diplomatic relations with Suarez' fascist government.

In concrete terms, this is a mere ormality, since trade and other relations have existed tor many years.

But politically it was obviously planned as a major boost to Suarez' fake 'democratisation' plans.

As a quid pro quo for this gesture of world Stalinist support, Suarez has effectively dropped present governmental in Israel has left the Labour Party facing one in its Ul lit gravest muments ur no The crisis itself has its origins in an apparently trivial event. At the start of December the United States delivered three new fighter jets to the Israel government.

The planes were half an hour late in arriving and by the time all the US personnel had been properly welcomed it seems as if the Jewish Sabbath had actually started. Outraged by this breach of the Holy Way, a right wing religious sect tabled a motion of no confidence in the government.

The motion was debated in the Knesset (Israeli parliament) on December 14, and the government managed to secure its defeat by 55 votes to 48.

During the debate however, 9 of the 10 members of the right wing National Religious Party (NRP), who form part of Israel's coalition government, abstained on the vote, showing thereby its opposition to the policies of the Rabin adminstration.

On December 20th, Prime Minister Rabin, leader of the Labour Party which dominates the coalition sacked the three NRP Cabinet ministers.

This move left his administration a minority government, capable of ITALY THE MOVEMENT OF ccupation in Italy's universities, which began three weeks ago in Palermo, pread last week to embrace Rome, Naples, Bari, Cagliari, Florence, Milan, Pisa and Bologna.

The movement - against massive overcrowding on the campuses, discrimination in teaching and exams, graduate unemployment and fascist provocations in the unipersities - brought out tens of thousands on a demonstration through Rome on February 9th.

Many students expressed strong criticism of the Communist Party's policy of an 'historic compromise" with the Christian Democratic gorerument, and demanded joint action with worker and unem- 11111m ployed.

CLASH ON MEKONG

THE LAOTIA\ goverment Spain's claim to the £1,500 million gold reserve shipped to Moscow by the Popular Front government during the civil war, which was spent on armaments and other supplies for the republican forces.

Suarez has also taken steps which may result in the rapid legalisation of the Spanish Communist Party which, with the tiniest of reservations, has supported the government crackdown of the last two weeks.

Parties no longer have to get direct approval from the Ministry of the Interior. They must now tegister their statutes with the government which has six days to decide whether they might be totalitarian or under the orders of a foreign political organisation.

In that case, the government will submit the statutes to the Supreme Court for a final ruling on legality.

The Socialist and Israeli soldiers beatir mustering only 57 votes out of in the Knesset.

The day after the dismissal of the NRP, the Rabin cabinet resigned, thereby forcing a genera election. By this time the crisis had been further exacerbated by the resignation of two. Cabinet ministers from the Independent Liberal Party.

This now leaves in power a caretaker government which is a coalition of the Labour Party and the "left wing" Mapam Party.

There has been considerable speculation as to why Rabin provoked the crisis in the tirst place by sacking the NRP ministers. I has been suggested that by forcing Parties have already registered under this reactionary law, which is designed to keep illegal any organisation claiming to be revolutionary socialist.

Suarez is well aware that his major allies against revolution are the reformist and Stalinist leaders.

But it still doesn't appear quite that way by the more confessedly fascist sections of the right. Manuel Fraga's neo-fascist Popular Alliance, the groups of the Falange such as Blas Pinar's New Force and large sections of the officer corps are utterly opposed to the formal legalisation of workers' parties and wish to maintain capitalist rule in Spain without any concessions to bourgeois democracy.

The army Chief of Staff General Vega Rodriguez last week announcd.. that "in exceptional circumstances the army could be compelled to fill a political vácuum', adding merely that it wouldn't go ...= RA13138A3RAT: 4*0392002029120 1g young Palestinian demonstrator an early general election Rabin will nip in the bud the growth of the newly formed Democratic Movement for Change, which had threatened to draw support away from the Labour Party.

Another reason has been suggested also - the need for Rabin to consolidate his own position as leader of the party against the threat of Defence Minister Shimon reres, who lost the leadership election by a very narrow margu just 2%2 years ago.

Peres' policies are even more right wing than those of Rabin, and are marked by his absolute refusal to concede any part of the West Bank to Arab Rule, and his so far as to overthrow But it is unlikely to hold back the far right, particularly since it was immediately followed by the killing of another policeman in Barcelona, responsibility once again being claimed by "GRAPO' whose identity remains as mysterious as ever.

The 'rescue' of the head of the Council of State and the General kidnapped by 'GRAPO' , ana the capture of a number of members of this alleged: "extreme left" organisation, was presented by the government as a great triumph.

THERE ARE PRESENTLY three thousand agents of the CIA and its sister organisation the DIA (Defence Intelligence Agency) active in Spain, according to a report last week in the Madrid daily Informaciones, quoting sources close "security services o the Spanish advocacy of more stringent economic measures.

His growth in influen se now is the corollary of a decline in Rabin's standing, both of whi are a product of the severe crisis which now grips the country.

Inflation is running at 38%; there has been a gradual drop in the exchange rate of the Israeli pound of 23%; economic growth in 1976 was only 1.3%; and the annual balance of payments deficit now stands at 3,223 million dollars.

In this context Peres, in conjunction with his political ally Moshe Dayan and the extreme right wing ikud Party, has been calling for a more drastic attack on living standards as the only way to solve Israeli capitalism's problems.

Rabin has responded by getting the unions to agree to a wage freeze until the May election.

By cutting himself off from the NRP Rabin has left himself little room for manoeuvre.

Apparently he has now made a bureaucratic turn leftwards on the question of returning the West Bank to Jordan. This has been done to try and secure support from the Mapam Party for a new coalition