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Socialist Party leader Mario Soares in the ment to replace his minoritu Cnnialict arminictro. any swer o 10tion defeated in parliament last month The SP policy of 'leaving office in order to return stroniger' has made some headway.:

After his defeat Soares began by insisting that the largest of the opposition parties, the bourgeois Social Democratic Party be forced to try to form a government.

The Social Democrats got 110 support from the other main capitalist party the Social and Democratic Centre (CSD).

Only person The previous formal alliance of these parties has for now more or less collapsed.

Soares has, as he intended, produced a situation where he is the only person who could possibly form a government based on the present parliament.

His designation by President Eanes as his own successor as Prime Minister was welcomed by the leadership of both the CSD and by the Contmunist Party.

Soares clearly cannot set up a replica of the defeated minority government.

The formula he is now hawking to the other party leaders in a 'government on a The whirlwind development of diplomatic Soares Socialist base with personalities'.

The CP and the CSD both accept this formula on the understanding that it means some of their own leading members will be offered ministries.

Already this amounts to a reversal of the CP's position before Christmas that there should be either a CP/SP government or fresh elections.

But the CP's compromise is filthier than that.

The CSD has said that their support for such a govemment required further moves to reverse the gains made by the working class since 1974.

They want further reversals of the land reform and the return of more nationalised property to the capitalists.

It is in full knowledge of these conditions that the CP Stalinists have given their support to the new government formula.

Austerity

They know that the only possible programme of the popular front government now being set up will be one of economic austerity measures directed against the working ciass.

They have already publicly agreed on many occasions to give undertakings to the International Monetary Fundfrom which the Portuguese state desperately needs an $800 million loan.

If the Stalinists seriously wanted a programme for the workers then they would mobilise the working class.

It is in fact doing precisely the opposite, as it showed by its conduct in the recent strike of pilots on the state airline, TAP, in support of higher wages.

Manoeuvred

Instead of linking the pilots' demand to, the needs of the rest of the workers, the CP leaders-like the Soares government-characterised the strike as 'against the national interest' and manoeuvred to isolate the pilots from the workers' movement.

The combination of this with the Socialist government's use of the airforce to break the strike forced the pilots back to work.

But Stalinist and SP leaders are aware that they cannot have long to work out a deal with the capitalist parties and the IMF before other sections of the working class see militant strike action as the only answer to their rapidly deteriorating economic conditions.

The great wave of industrial aci ion which continues to sweep over Tunisia has caused a governmental crisis within the one party regime.

President Bourguiba emerged from retirement to supervise the dismissals and resignations which have produced a new cabinet, solid in its determination to crush the working class.

Reliable technicians and bureaucrats have • been appointed to replace those politicians who, from various motives, sought to negotiate with the strikers and demonstrators.

Workers' demands for higher wages and improved conditions • have become sharper as the Tunisian economy has experienced the ravages of the capitalist crisis in an acute form.

At present these struggles have been expressed through the UGt, the only legal trade union, whose highest officials automatically occupy leading positions within the ruling Destour Socialist Party.

The union's general secretary, Habib Achour, has declared that the strikes and demonstrations are not interest with the peasants, workers and petit-bourgeoisie in resisting world capitalism.

The PCI therefore attempted • to hold back radical movements for land reform and workers control, but these movements were quite strong enough to frighten the national bourgeoisie and their friends among the army officers.

As a result of the PCI's policy, the workers and peasants were totally unprepared for the right-wing coup, and it is estimated that one million communists were killed.

Destroyed

had three which membos three and 16 million in its affiliated organisations was destroyed within a few weeks.

Indonesia has a diverse population of 150 million people, the fifth most populous country in the world.

Apart from small ethnic minorities at Stone Age levels of development, the great bulk of the population is concentrated on the island of Java, and lives by intensive subsistence agriculture.

The major problem facing these peasants is the falling political movements.

Prime Minister Hedi Noulta nas characicrstu tuc +--A7 41 presentation of wage demands, which employers are unable to meet, 'indecent' imenstantley ho had prepared troops for a major: MOIC offensive against the striking miners and railway workers.

Strike action

The phosphate miners began indefinite strike action on 30 December, to be joined: in a general strike of all miners on 2 January, when the railway workers began their three-day strike.

But those factions who oppose the present policy have no interest in mobilising* the independent strength of the working class.

Their aim is to exploit this stage of the class struggle so as to assist their manoeuvres. to become the ruling faction themselves.

The violent struggles to come. will provide a harsh school from which the Tunisian workers can draw the necessary lesson that they must break organisationally and politically from the one-party Bonapartist regime which oppresses them in the interests of capital.

Suharto (right) with Generals necessary industrial goods, and their increasing indebtedness to landlords and moneylenders.

By protecting the free market rights of imperialism and the property rights of the bourgeoisie, Suharto's regime makes these problems insurmountable, tor all his rhetoric about development.

So-called 'amnesty' It is therefore not surprising that open opposition to the regime is once again growing rapidly, although at the moment it appears to be very unorganised.

The increasing need of the Suharto regime for foreign assistance in holding down the Indonesian population is probably behind the propaganda •nonsense of the so-called "amnesty"

To transform the peasants' situation in Indonesia it is necessary to end private ownership of capital and land.

Only a working class leadership could provide the basis for such a transformation, which would have toi be carried out in determined..

opposition to the Indonesian bourgeoisie.

Such a leadership remains

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process of forming a popular front govern-