[The Workers Socialist League is a Trotskyist organisation…]

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The Workers Socialist League is a Trotskyist organisation fighting to build a revolutionary leadership in the working class to lead the mounting opposition to the betrayals of both 'left' and right wing Labour and trade union leaders and the Communist Party, as they attempt to enforce wage control, sackings, speed-up and public service As workers take up the struggle against these policies they are forced by the sheer weight of forces opposing them to confront oolitical questions. Only with an understanding of the role of the labour bureaucracy and a programme to unite the broadest sections of The Workers Socialist League is the only movement that sets out to do this, fighting consistently in the working class for transitional demands, which go beyond simply trade union militancy to raise the political questions to workers and prepare the forms of organisation and the knowledge necessary for the struggle for socialism.

As a result we have been at the forefront of struggles against the cuts, against wage control, for unionisation, and against redundancy. We have done more than any other tendency to fight the introduction of 'workers' participation' in industry. And we have strongly supported the Campaign for Democracy in the Labour Movement, which has set out to show the link between the reactionary policies of the Social Contract and bureaucratic dictatorship in both the unions and But our practical struggle for the continuity of the principles and method of Trotsky's Transitional Programme is in no way a task confined to Britain. It requires an attention and involvement in the struggles of the working class internationally, and the fight to reconSo there has been a consistent drive within the WL to deepen and enrich the movement's understanding of the history and the present crisis of the Fourth International as an essential part of our We urge all readers who agree on the need for revolutionary leadership and the demands we put forward to find out more about the corrupt bureaucracy patronised by the PPP.

The urban middle classes (particularly the lower middle class) have been squeezed by inflation to such an extent that their living standards have fallen drastically.

CATALYST

The elections served as a catalyst to trigger off the present movement, which has three important features: it is concentrated in the urban areas; the leadership of the movement is in the hands of the PNA-a contemptible rag-bag of right-wingers, careerists and religious tanatics; and it has no programme, organised solely around the slogan "Bhutto out!"

The PNA accused Bhutto of rigging the elections and demanded his resignation.

There is no doubt that the PPP gangsters, hand in hand with the bureaucracy, and police, used all forms of intimidation and corruption.

Certainly, ballot-rigging in urban SALVADOR EIGHT PEOPLE WERE killed as May Day demonstrators demanding the release of political prisoners were fired on by the police of the government fraudulently elected a few weeks ago AS WORKERS STAGED THE largest strikes since 1968, the fratricidal conflict within the ruling class reached new heights in a parliamentary debate on the latest instaliment of the "Barre Plan"the anti-working class economic policy of the Giscard government. The Gaullists gaye a vote of confidence to Premier Barre but only because to withold it would have unleashed a full scale political crisis.

SPAIN

ON MAY DAY 40 YEARS AGO the smoke was still rising from the historic Basque capital of Guernica a few days after its destruction by Nazi bombers. This May Day the fascist smoke was rising again all over Spain as Spanish Trade Unions got their first taste of "legality" granted four days earlier. Police indiscriminately attacked peaceful demonstrators leaving hundreds injured.

MAURITIUS

The political crisis sharpened when the lett-wing Mauritius Militant Movement (MMM won control of three out of the five main towns in municipal elections. Since the MMM, previously unrepresented in Parliament, won a startling 30 out of 62 seats in December's general election, the two rival right-wing parties have been clinging onto power in a shaky coalition government.

SAHARA REPUBLIC

The Polisario Front last week scored a major success in its increasingly successful fight for national liberation. The war has been going on since Spain handed its old phosphate-rich colony of the Sahara to joint occupation by Morocco and Mauritania. On May 1 the Front attacked the iron ore centre killing 65 Mauritanian soldiers and abducting six French advisors. Most of the 650 French residents have since been evacuated.

-ORKERS