After Gang of Four

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Teng Hsiao-ping, in opening the national conference of education on 22 April stated 'Education must be at the service of proletarian politics and combine with productive work".

The conference was called to "clarify" several problems which have remained unresolred since the fall of the "Gang of Four"

Not much information has as yet been released as to the discussion and decisions of this conference.

We do know however, •hat it was one of a series on #ll sorts of subjects, such as agriculture, industry and the sciences.

The turmoil has clearly seen such that it was not felt possible to convene them any sooner.

It is widely known that such measures as the reintroduction of qualifying exams and recruitment straight from secondary school to college, have been introduced.

Teng has placed the emphasis on greater specialisation and academic qualifications.

A noteworthy aspect of the conference was the absence of Wu Teh, mayor of Peking.

Many wall posters have appeared recently critical of Wu's handling of the events in Tien An Min square following the death of Chou En lai.

Evidently the authors of the posters enjoy patronage from people in high places.

The question of material incentives and piecework rates is the major issue of May Day in China this year.

Since material rewards were endorsed at the recent National Science Conference "bonuses" are openly talked of.

Higher productivity

Ambitious targets demanding much higher productivity have also been set.

Another problem is the lax ness in party discipline.

Many examples are given of Party members using Taoist priests and geomancers in funerals of relatives.

It appears that this is a common practice throughout the country and that a network of religious traditions has been re-established The break from the Gang of Four and the Mao faction in the bureaucracy has now become so complete that the anti-Confucius campaign of well before the death of Mao is being strongly condemned.

It cannot be long now before explicit attacks on the entire Maoist legacy are heard.

As the Hua regime entrenches itself further it becomes steadily more obvious that without the development of a Trotskyist revolutionary leadership capable of leading a political revolution for the overthrow of the bureaucracy, there can be no solution to these problems and contradictions within the degenerated Chinese workers' state.

exposed The origins and history of Zionism as a means of giving special privileges to white Jews in the Israeli state were the topic of debate at a 200strong meeting in Leeds last week.

Called by the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign and sponspored by Leeds Trades Council, the meeting heard Akiba Orr, a member of the Jewish anti-Zionist movement Matzpam go on to criticise the reactionary Arab bourgeois regimes that surround Israel, calling for a socialist secular Palestine.

Garth Frankland, a member of the Trades Council and platform speaker, speaking in a personal capacity, stressed that as a socialist he saw the Palestinian question as not merely a question for the Middle East but one for the British working class.

He called for a trade union delegate conference to be held on Palestine to prepare s: •* continued their repression in the north as their part of the struggle to keep Ireland safe for capitalist exploitation.

Last week saw a renewed crackdown on republican forces with the arrest of 15 peoplemainly members of Provisional Sinn Fein-in early morning raids.

Copies of Republican News, the Sinn Fein paper which had dared to publish articles exposing conditions and publicising protests at the Maze prison.

Then on Thursday British troops moved in to seal off Catholic areas of West Belfast in a bid to stop demonstrations in support of protesting Republican prisoners at the Maze, who are refusing to clean their cells.

Independent action

Meanwhile, new talks between British imperialism's minister for repression in Northern Ireland and the bourgeois government in the South are scheduled for this week.

Nothing could more clearly emphasise the necessity for independent working class action North and South of the border to force the withdrawal of British troops and car, through a sira in the -=-253 * whole irish 255.

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Black workers in Namibia constructing a railway