LETTER: Chinese Trotskyists

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actions were initiated on this call in the following period throughout the United States. and though individual employers were forced to concede shorter hours, there was no general lega. change.

When the two-year period came to an end on ist May 1886, workers in every part of America were on strike or were preparing to do so to obtain the eight hour day. In Chicago at least four workers were shot dead as they tried to prevent the entry of scabs into a factory.

On the evening of 4th May abou 3000 people gathered in the Haymarket Square in the centre of town to protest. As they were dispersing, the police suddenly char ged into the crowd, and a bomb went off killing seven policemen. To this day it is uncertain who let off the bomb, but the most likely explanation is that the explosion was the work of an agent continued from page 6 farmers themselves, with the help of the workers, can curb this robbery. Committees elected small farmers should make their appearance on the national scene and jointly with workers' committees and committees of bank employees take into their hands control of transport, credit and mercantile operations affecting Agriculture. (p. 29) he richness of these demands worked through by Trotsky on the basis of the experience of the Russian Revolution (which itself took place in a backward. largely passed called for action in every country on that day aiming *to reduce the working day by law to cight hours.

Thus on May Day 1890 there were stoppages of work and demonstrations throughout Europe and North America on this demand, and many gains were reported from France, the United States and elsewhere. Only in Britain did the conservative trade union leaders refuse to initiate any action on May Day itself, but called instead for demonstrations over the following weekend.

This rather shame-faced practice is no doubt partly responsible for th fact that few British workers now seem to know that May Day began in militant action and solidarity with those throughout the world who have lost their lives and livein the struggle for the emancipation of their class.

peasant economy) is lost By all those who turn their backs on the Transitional Programme and merely generalise about the "colonial Yet it is only through the fight for such demands that the united strength of workers and peasants can be mobilised both to defeat imperialism and the national bourgeoisie and to be prepared to take the struggle forward to the establishment of a planne economy with the full and democratic participation of workers and peasants committees and soviets.

Only in this way can the world food crisis be solved.

We have received the following letter from Gregor Benton of the Chinese Department, University of Leeds. The ma. papers published in Britain which claim adherence to the principles of Trotskyism have all received copies, and some have already published it. For our part, we would strongly endorse its call for the issues to which it refers to be taken up throughout the Labour movement.

According to a recent Hsinhua News Agency dispatch, "war criminals just released by special amnesty numbered 293 in all, including 290 war criminals who belonged to the Chiang Kai-shel clique, two war criminals from the Japanese puppet regime in Manchuria and one war criminal from the puppet Inner Mongolian Autonomous Government'. This means that all war-criminals held in (19 Mareh 1975, Peking) have now been released."

But no similar amnesty has ever been declared in the case of those revolutionaries, in particular the Trotskyists, who were arrested in the course of a nation-wide rai: on the night of 23-24 December 1952. Altogether 200 persons were seized. No indictment was eras made public. Those arrested No public trial were refused conti et with their miatives and friends.

It is therefore impossible to say with any certainty what happened to those Trotskyist militants since. We do not know what "crimes" they were charged with. We do not even know how many of them are still alive. What little information we have indicates that most of the younger ones are now living under supervision after 5 years more of imprisonment and are barred from employment. The older comrades continue to rot behind bars.

Who are these Chinese TrotskyIsts Mao judges more dangerous to Mis regime than Kuomintang counter-revolutionaries? They include: 1. Chen Chao-lin: a founding member of the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese Trotskyist movement, a leader of the 1925-27 revolutio prominent writer and ranslator. Assuming that he is till alive, Cheng will be 74 years old. He will have spent 30 years in jail -seven under Chiang Kai-shek, twenty-three under Mao. 2. Chiang Tseng-tung: a leading activist in the Shanghai labour movement and a participant in the Shanghai general strike and uprising of 1927. If still alive, he would now be about 65.

Ho Chi-shen: a student leader Peking in the carly 'twenties, who joined the CCP shortly after its formation. Together with Mao, Ho played a leading role both in. the 1925-27 revolution and in the revolutionary movement in Hunan Province alter its defeat. Like Chen Ch'ao-lin, Ho will have spent seven Chiang and under Mao - his old comrade-in-arms. If alive, her will now be 79 years old. 4. Ying Kwan: a student in France with Chou En-lai in the carly 1920s, an intimate friend of Marshal Chen Yi and a leading activist in the CCP in Anhwei Province during the 1925-27 revolution. Ying Kwan was also founding member-of the Chinese Trotskyist movement. As Trotskyist, he was jailed twice by the Kuomintang police during the 1930s. still alive, he would be about 75 years old.

Lin Huan-hua: a revolutionary leader of the younger generation. He worked underground in the anti-Japanese resistance from 1938-1945, and was a member of the Executive of the Canton Printworkers' Union when arrested by the Maoists. He is now a little over fifty years old.

This issue must be taken up throughout the labour movement and a campaign launched for the immediate reicase of all Chinese Trotskyists and other revolutionaries sti" in iail.

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LIST PRESS, Thursday Ist May, 1975