Peking Regime Out of the Sewers, Onto Tv

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It would be interesting to know what the two Catholic bishops, the old president of the Islamic Association of China and the Panchem Lama of Tibet, Erdeni Chuji Deltseng thought of the Fifth National People's Congress at which they were delegates.

The way that these people have been dragged out of cold storage has prompted comparisons between this Congress and the situation in the early 1950s when the new Mao regime searched round for non-communist elements, remnants of the national bourgeoisie and religious leaders to try and give legitimacy to the new regime which was to "unite all classes" in China against imperialism.

•Even an old Kuomintang general seems to have been lucky enough to be elected as delegate to this latest conference, convened on 26 February in Peking for the first time since 1975.

The organisation of the Congress was certainly entirely different to the Fourth Congress held in 1975 where the delegates had to enter through the sewage system of Peking and news did not leak out until near the end of the proceedings.

This time the opening sessions were even relayed by sattelite to Japan and Europe.

The Hua-Teng leadership displayed a confidence in their control of the situation which is related to the purges of political opponents and use of incentives to try and buy off sections of workers.

It is estimated that two-thirds of the provincial leaders have been purged since the downfall of the so-called 'Gang of Four'.

Certainly the Party leadership knew the delegates would be absolutely loyal to them.

Alongside the purges, there are efforts to rehabilitate tens of thousands of CP veterans who have been attacked through the years from the anti-right movement in 1957, the Peng Teh-huai affair in 1959 to the cultural The People's Daily recently gave details of 2,300 "rehabs" in one district in Kwangsi and 10,000 Shanghai.

The main lines of the Congress were contained in Hua's address. He put forward the new economic plan to be carried out in three stages.

In the first two stages, up to 1985, industrial production is to be increased from 10-12%; agricultural production is to grow from 5-87 per year; there is to be an intensification of plans to set up agriculturally-based industries such as sugar beet: and there is to be a general improvement in the structure of agriOwen plays a fundamental and crucial role in the efforts to secure 'solutions' in the interests of capital, manoeuvring secretly with collaborators and racists in an effort to head off the struggle of workers and peasants against racism and exploitation.

British workers can make a material contribution to the defence of the gains made by their oppressed class brothers and sisters in southern Africa by systematically taking up the demand for an end to secret diplomacy, as part of the struggle for a government which starts from the interests of workers, not capitalists.

PHOTO: Andrew Wiard, Report Owen Such real solidarity demands not token "weeks" of action, not symbolic denunciations, not pressure on (or collusion with) capital, but a struggle to break the Lib-Lab coalition.

It demands too a struggle against those union bureaucrats who are themselves staunch defenders of coalition government which protects the interests of capital. The same bureaucrats who head off solidarity into mere tokens and gestures act wedded to the interests of imperialism that it tolerates South African agents operating in England to choose their next victims at the same time as Owen attends memorials for the last victims.

A clear example of this is the arms "embargo"-an attempt to replace the independent mobilisation and actions of the working class by the capitalist state, which, having been subjected to pressure was then expected to reform itself and take action in support of the interests of the South African working class!

But of course the imperialists had first ensured that the South African state was "strong enough" by stockpiling and its own productive capacities, only then announcing support for an embargo, while at the same time making quite sure that arms continued even to be supplied through secret deals, phoney third agents, etc.

Break coalition

For this reason we call for the opening of the books and nationalisation of all firms and banks trading with South African, not only to ensure effective embargoes in the interests of black workers, but to ensure supplies of goods essential to the struggle of those workers.

*We demand an end to secret deals to promote neocolonial governments. Break the Lib-Lab coalition!

*Expel all agents of racist regimes.

*Solidarity with the struggle of black workers.

*For the building of independent factory and workers committees in South Africa to lead the fight for democratic and transitional demands.

*For the building within this fight of the revolutionary party, South African section of the reconstructed Fourth

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It is not only foreign investment from the capitalist countries which is changing the economic landscape in Eastern Europe.

DISTAntar relations of Eastern Europe are significantly undermined.

But the bureaucracy's incapacity to map a way forward