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This is propaganda most movement i It is very western conspiracy FI a short documentary film on SWAPO, the gnificant liberation nside Namibia. welcome now when the press maintains of silence on Namibia Turnhalle talks where a transition :=" supposedly being SHAPO -_ - axe rat in i. ::=: hanc-ricsei : : Fustei Scutr ș =:55 S:*s :0r Government on a nev-colonial solution whereby Namibia will be divided among her ethnic groups into distinct nations.

Within this scheme the continuing exploitation of Namibian wealth by South African and Western capital would ensured, as no such 'nation' would economically viable and the worker/peasants would be forced to continue to migrate between their 'homeland" and the white industrialised areas.

403 1000021 10 lester • C20 :13: politically backward and the most politically advanced sections of the population can only be in terms of national independance combined with socialist revolution.

While socialism is spoken of, it is regarded only as an unformulated long-term aim.

The people are full of energy, enthusiasm and courage, but inevitably naive in their understandings of the cynical policies of the bureaucratically-controlled workers state which hold back on ali-out support for SWAPO's struggle and instead attempt to use it as a bargaining counter in their wheeling and dealing with imperialism.

The Namibian workers and peasants must be given the arms to achieve their own independence: the task of mobilising such support falls on the international workers movement.

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HE THIRD PART IN OUR SERIES ON THE BACKGROUND TO THE SPL The events after the death of Stalin in March 1953 underlined clearly the continued instability of the bureaucratic governments of the deformed workers states in Eastern Europe.

By June 1953 workers in East Berlin had spelled this out in their revolt against demands for increased output which combined with struggles against falling living standards and demanding democracy.

A general strike erupted and spread to other cities. Soviet troops savagely repressed the protestors and many were executed.

This experience, the first expression of political revolution, remained a lingering fear in the minds of the Stalinist bureaucracies.

In Russia itself the bureaucracy was divided as to the best means of containing the working class after Stalin's death. Molotov argued for continuing in exactly the same way, while Kruschey pressed for some token concessions to placate the working class.

PRIVILEGES

The problem was not one of principle. Both wings wanted preserve the bureaucracy and privileges.

But this intra-bureaucratic struggle led Kruschev to make his now famous speech at the 20th Congress of the CPSU which directly attacked the crimes of Stalin in order to strenthen his own hand against Molotov.

For the first time Lenin's Testament became public and many figures executed by Stalin were posthumously "rehabilitated"

This tactical division within the bureaucracy had a huge impact in the CPs in the capitalist countries. And it is no coincidence that Spanish CP leader Carrillo today iefers lovingly to Kruschev.

Indeed in June 1956 veteran Italian Stalinist Togliatti called for what he termed "polycentrism" -less control from Moscow. Togliatti attacked "the degeneration of Soviet society" and was rebuked by Moscow.

This crack in the authority of the bureaucracy created huge problems.

There is no doubt Kruschev's revelations at the 20th Congress weakened the basic support for arch-Stalinist Hungarian leader Rakosi-while Kruschev's tactic of "'liberalisation" spurred on the complete end to bureaucracy.

WORKERS COUNCILS

And while the call for workers councils had once been fraudulently utilised by the Tito bureaucracy in Yugoslavia in carrying through the split with Stalin, in Hungary in 1956 the demand was taken up by the masses and developed to produce genuine revolutionary committees and workers councils.

The Hungarian bureaucracy attempted to hold on to its old line -replacing Rakosi with his hench man Geroe.

But when the "left" bureaucrat Imre Nagy was finally installed with Moscow support an uprising was already spreading from Budapest throughout the country-which the Russian garrisons refused to suppress.

Eventually these troops were withdrawn and different forces were used to massacre the anti-bureaucratic fighters.

Meanwhile in Poland simílar developments within the working class were opposed by different tactics from the bureaucracy.

The "liberal" Gomulka was given support and some economic concessions by Moscow on conditior ita he prevented an! Polish soggot lo: the Hungarian TEs i = "7:= a2er N THE BRITİSH COMMUNIST PARTY.

Gomulka stated. he would not allow Moscow to interfere in the composition of leading committees no Russian troops were used against him.

The Hungarian events were a watershed for post-war Stalinism.

In the upheavals the Secret Police had been annihilated and genuine defence squads combining sold had workers and students functioned under the control of workers councils.

The brutality of the repressionwith some 20,000 estimated killed -was partly to provide a deterrent to any future struggle against And Stalinist bureaucracyincluding the Yugoslavian and the Chinese-backed the suppression of the Hungarian revolution.

The repression was enthusiastically backed by all the CPs in the capitalist countries-who suppressed objective reports of the events and retailed Moscow's line, in spite of the substantial losses it brought them in members and influence.

The harsh political lesson for the working class was the impossibility of basing a struggle on a "left" section of the bureaucracy. Political revolution demands the building of Trotskyist parties, in conflict with The immediate cause of the 1960s split between Moscow and Peking seemed to be differences on the treatment of Albania, which had come under acute pressure from Moscow.

ECONOMIC PROBLEMS

But also involved were economic problems in China, and Chinese opposition to the "reforming" line of Kruschev.

The Chinese and Albanians defended for the record of Stalinand the Albanians in following this line are now even criticising the new Chinese leadership.

Mao Tse Tung however; was himself not averse to using different tactics in maintaining the hold of the bureaucracy-as was shown in 1966 when the "Red Guards" were mobilised as part of a struggle between rival elements of the Mao declared himself an 'internationalist" , but preserved the Stalinist concept of attempting to build 'socialism in one country and seeking deals with imperialism.

It was his line therefore, that betrayed the Indonesian revolution and the slaughter of 5000,0001.000.000 CP members at the hands of the Peking-backed Sukarno government.

I: was Pass irat is: rusted to recognise the Boumedienne regime in Algeria after the overthrow of Ben Bella.

Peking sent tanks to support the Pakistan government against the Bangladesh liberation forces; it supported the pro-imperialist FNLA in Angola; and today it supports the Common Market.

The Sino-Soviet split was a split between two bureaucracies. And so degenerate had the Stalinist bureaucracy become that in 1962 Moscow sent arms to the Indian bourgeois government to assist them in a war against the Chinese workers state.

Though the East European CPs backed Moscow against the Chinese, the party leaders used the split to further their own national bureaucratic interests and put pressure on Moscow.

In Czechoslavia the strategy of "liberalising" the Stalinist apparatus had taken longer than elsewhere to institute. It was only in 1968 that veteran Stalinist Novotny was removed and replaced by Dubcek.

The change took place at the high point of wave of working class struggles which also erupted in a general strike and mass occupations in France in May-June 1968.

Czechoslovakia was not isolated from these developments, and the problems of the Dubcek bureaucracy were sharpened. The 'liberalisation' movement began to get out of control. Dubcek attempted to get help from Moscow -and invited Soviet troops for manoeuvres in Czechoslovakia in June 1968.

In the factories workers were pressing for complete reform; and a Czech edition of Trotsky's Revolution Betrayed was set up for publication.

But there was no conscious leadership developed. Workers councils on the level of Hungary had not appeared. And when Russian tanks moved in to reinforce the bureaucracy many Western CPs felt Moscow had over-reacted and criticised the intervention, voicing support for Dubcek.

ARMED WORKERS

Trotskyists opposed the Russian intervention but called clearly for the arming of Czech workers to oppose any pro capitalist forces and to prepare for political revolution.

Both Hungary and Czechoslovakia show the severe limits imposed or any "literalisation measures by the 3Xea103* Stalin sensing its own weakness and isolation from mass support.

Such "concessions" as are made by the bureaucrats are not because they are pushed in the same direction as the working class, but because they desperately seek to head off the working class.

Now in 1977 many forces combine to disrupt the Stalinist "monolith". The national bureaucracies exploit the position of the CPs in capitalist countries-with Hungary's Kadar declaring support for "Eurocommunism"

But while the line of the biggest European CPs has astonished Hungary 1956 bourgeois observers, there is nothing new in their actions. While Berlinguer in Italy tor instance declares support for NATO we should remember that Tito in 1954 signed a pact with Greece and Turkey which tied him to NATO.

The new element is the new material conditions in which these policies are adopted. In particular there is now a serious problem for the Russian bureaucracy should it need to pull the CPs into line in a sharp issue-for example in the case PHOTO: John Sturrock, Report of war between the USSR and a European capitalist state.

However to attach a new name "Eurocommunism" to this political line is false. The situation is not new-but the result of a general tendency of Stalinism towards nationalism.

This tendency has advanced furthest in Europe because of the need by the capitalist class to use these Communist Parties as a prop to their tottering bourgeois regimes in Spain, Italy and France.

In exchange for acceptence by the bourgeoisie, these CPs come out with verbal criticism of the internal regime in Russia and Eastern Europe.

COMMON GROUND

White the Soviet bureaucracy answers these criticisms it carefully avoids attaching the class collaboration of these CPs. The common ground that unites them is in fact their resolute opposition to the political independence of the working class and to socialist revolution.

The split in the CP in Britain must be seen in this light.

The so-called "New Communist Party" around Syd French defends all the actions of the Moscow bureaucracy and attacks the new draft of the British Road To Socialism for not including the call for the dictatorship of the proletariat.

French's attack on the British CP. leadership is thus in no way linked to any fight against Stalin's line of "socialism in one country" which in fact requires "peaceful coexistence" and "parliamentary roads"

But even while advancing a line directed towards ClOSer relations with the British capitalist class, CPGB leader MacLennan has been forced to draw heavily on an association with Moscow for his support. The Cl daily Morning Star is also heavily dependent upon sales in Eastern Europe for its existence.

And French for his part endorses the real treachery of the British CP -its support for "left" TUC bureaucrats; its support for "workers participation"; its opposition to struggles to break Phases 1 and 2 of the Socia! Contract; its nationalism on the Common Market and on import The splits in the CPs internationally will no doubt weaken them in their counter-revolutionary line.

In exploiting these splits we must show clearly that we are for the unconditional defence of the USSR, China and the other deformed workers states against imperialism even while we fight for political revolution through the rebuilding of the Fourth International with parties in those countries.