In the short history of Bolivia sance its independence srom Spain there have been getting on for 200 coups. It is the regular way in which governments are changed. Many of these coups had a classic "clean" outline, sudden changes of government with little popular involvement or bloodshed. But the fascist takeover that has just occurred and is consolidating itseif, the white terror that is being ualcashed and the civil war that is to follow have a scale and significance different from an ordinary coup. Whilst the right has carried out a coup, it has had mass popular resistance and it has involved civilian fascist groups as well as the bulk of the army. Starting in the right wing stronghold of Santa Cruz. on the frontier with Brazil, the fighting rapidly spread to other cities and finally to La Par where the government was overthrown after bloody street fighting. Because both the coup and resistance to it has involved-on both sides. although to very unequal extents-civilian groups, the future struggle will be widely based involving all classes and groups.
It isa continuation of the coup aborted last October when the army tried to replace General Ovando with General Miranda. On that occasion it failed owing to the mass mobilisation which produced the compromise of General Torres, a "left-wing" reformist military solution which has been steadily losing ground to the workers and peasants, who have spent these last months developing their political organisations, in pert through the Asambler Popular (Popular Assembly), and beginning the process of arming themselves, forming peasants and workers militias, and preparing for the coup.
NO SURPRISE For no one was taken by surprise in Bolivis. The right has simply been waiting for the best time to strike. in June at the opening of the Ambles Popular a state of emergency was called, by both workers" organisations and the Government. But the right did not act. The sophisticated right. some Americans, may have hoped that a military reformist solstion, more or less of the Peruvian type, would prove an alternative to the imposition of a ferocious Brazilian style reptesion. But the Bolivian evolution has been too far advanced and has followed its course independently of Torres, undercutting his position, making him an increasingly: passive agent. It was clear to the right that it could walt no longer: the degree of organisation of the workers, the formation of armed units, would soon have produced for them an LETTESSE SEABOR The right acted because it had to. In addition there were real signs of disaffection in the amy, including the formation of revolutionary soldiers' groups. It was reported in Chile that a group of junior officers had formed an organisation hat they described as a people s army. The right, already n a postion where part of the army supported Torres, faced the prospect of a left wing current in its ranks. An indication of the speed with which events were moving in Bolivia con be gained from the fact that in July, when we were in La Paz, the new development was not at all apparent, it was outside the scheme of the revolutionary left and constitutes an unexpected development. But by August, accounts of soldiers revolts and manifestoes were beginning to appear and may have provided the immediate impetus for the actions of the right. It is conceivable that this is a product of a recent campaign undertaken by the ELN (National Liberation Army-formed by Che Guevara). Directed at patriotic and anti-imperialist soldiers. ELN pamphlets produced a class analysis of the army and appealed for support for revolutionary struggle.
THE FIGHTING Fighting in La Paz, Orato and Santa Cruz has been fierce. Oruro was taken by the fascists who were then threatened by miners marching in from the big mines which surround Oruro. Beasants and other miners marched to La Paz. Radio stations were lost and retaken. The battle waged by the students. peasants" and workers" armed groups has been heroic, against uneven odds Many were armed with old weapons, relies of the Chaco war. Holed up in the University of San Andres, students suffered the combined onslaupht of tanks, Mustang fighter bombers and infantry. Eventually they were massacred, many of them unarmed and wounded. Near the end, when La Paz appeared to be the only town in which the army remained loyal to Torres, army units swung across to the right, leaving only a single rogiment In La Paz led by Major Ruben Sanchez, and the armed students, workers and peasants, to face the combined might of a modern army and air force.
Tores, perhaps to the surprise of some, threw in his lot with the workers and called for mass mobilisation and for the workers to "turn their factorios into trenches". He made a speech from the balcony of the Palace, only hours before tanks took over the city centre, promising the mass audience that he was with them and that united they would win. His eloquence was greeted with cries of "Arms, arms!" He promised to arm the warkers; the extent to which this took place is unclear. By now his own forces bad dwindled. There are accounts of 2,500 arms being handed out and a radio in the hands of the revolutionaries called on students and workers to go to the Miraflores barracks, which the left was trying to storm, in order that arms could be distributed. But what arns were actually handed out, if any, were too little and too late. For reasons on which it is only possible to speculate, Reque Teran, Commander in Chief of the Army, who was actually captured by the revolutionary forces, was later released (in exchunge, perhaps, for a promise that Torres could seek refuge in the Peruvian Embassy). This contrasted with the behaviour of the right who were already shooting their prisoners, students", peasants" and workers" leaders, When the end came, Torres took refuge in the Peruvian Embassy. Nothing is known of Major Sanchez. Sanchez, like Arguedas (the ex-Minister in the Cabinet which ordered the murder of Che and who is now in Cuba having been responsible for saving the diary, hands and death mask of Che) represents the crisis of the Bobvian bourgeoisie. He fought fiercely against the guerrilla, to the extent that Che commented on his military valour: he was captured by the guerrilla and later released, having, some say, come under the spell of Che* THE EXTREME RIGHT IS NOW IN POWER There is no doubt that this military regime is fascist and will unleash a terrible repression. It is not, as often in the past, a mere change of military dictatorships. It is the coming to power of the extreme right, the Falangists and the most right wing elements in the MNR (Revolutionary Nationalist Movement), It is succoured by, and will upe, the Brazilian gorillas. It will only be able to govem by terror, by thousands of arrests and posubly the physical liquidation of workers", peasants" and students" leaders. Goverment will, however, hot be easy, mot so easy as in Brazil. The consciousness of the masses, their combativity. preclude anything but civil war.
But the right has won this battle. The coup was soccessful quite simply because the armed workers organisations which were being formed were insufficiently developed, inadequitely armed and still estentially embryonic. The Government, backed by the Communist Party, was urable to agree to the arming of the workers before the coup because to have done so would have meant bringing on the revolution, deepening the processes at work and going beyond the stage of com promise represented by Torres Instead Torres opted for a policy of pacifying the right and the left -an impossible baluncing act given the strength of the workers' movement. Although the Asambles Popiar had voted for the formation of militias in June and the COB (Bolivian TUC) repeatedly called for militias, the discussion on their actual organisation was tragically and fatally delayed-partial responsibility for which lies with the C.P. 's opposition to any discussion of the question in the Papular Assembly, coupled with the tactical support it received from the POR (Lora) with its metaphysical one-day, some-day the workers will rise and find the means" chesis Their beliet in the future of revolution by insurrection meant leaving the workers defenceless today. Or it would have done had the workers listened. It was a recipe for innetivity.
THE POPULAR ASSEMBLY But the Asambien Popsia had resolved on the formation of militias and there is no doubt that peasants, workers and students were actively engaged in this process, Although Torres" period of rule afforded many opportunities for the left to organise legally, structure itself and recruit, several groups also saw the need not to emerge totally from clan destinity and they participated partially or very indirectly in the Asambler Popular, These were the ELN, the POR (of Hugo Gonzales Moscos — Bolivian section of the Fourth International) and the pro-Chinese group of Oscar Zamora. They concentrated on their military development, The POR, whilst making successful use of the opportunities for legal work, maintained its clandestine organisation and worked both to prepare a Revolutionary People's Army and to actually carry out the COB and Popular Assembly policy of establishing workers and peasanta militia.
But even apart from the direct activities of political groups, the workers and peasants themselves were arming. In July we went to the Altiplano with revolutionary students engaged in Marcist education and carrying out assistance with irrigation and other projects in a peasant community. Arms were taken and the students trained themselves for the corning fight. At the same time, the peasants wanted guns, and they made arrangeraents to buy guns which the studonts would procure in the fown.
We went to the mining town of Huanuni and met the contrade responsible for orgartising the Huanuni workers" army, which will have marched on Orato to fight che fascists, The Bolivian tin miners have Jearnt the lesson of presious massucres. Experts in the skilled task of fighting with lighted sticks of dynamite. they have traded explosives confiscated from the mines for rifles obtaited in La Paz.
This is what forced the right to act. It did so while it was stil possible, as the revolutionary left know it would be. Torres BANZER AFTER TAKEOVER for it to occupy the main towns in 48 hours. But it cannot Revolutionary workers", peasants" and students' organisa tions have reached a stage of organisation and consciousess that means that the long struggle is just beginning. Though the movement may be decapitated by the repression, the resistance will be fierce. It will be multiform. There will he no immediate debate on the priorities of arban or rural guerrilla, of peasent armies or workers' militias. The struggle will take place in the town and in the selva and on the altiplano. All methods will he used because the struggle will be waged by different groups throughout the country, fighting as they can, developing small armies and sabotage groups, engaging in commando operations and holding areas of the country. No one expects a quick victory, Armed organisations still have to develop, to test themselves in strugple. The Jong war has begun.
ARMED STRUGGLE IS THE ONLY ROAD Above all, this Bolivian experience shows that the key goal of the revolutionary movements is to develon their own army, to destroy the bourgeois army. Whether this strategy is applied in the conditions that will prevail now under a epressive regime or whether it is applied in the context o hort-lived electoral openings elsewhere, there can be no short cut, The revolutionary army, developod from small beginnings, has uitimately to destroy the bourgeois army. the ultimate strength and expression of capitalion and imperialism. In all Latin American countries, the development of this army, side by side with the development, to the extont that conditions permit it, of mass resolutionary organisations, committed to the armed struggle, is necessary for the victory of the revolution.
The implications of events in Bolivia have a wider significance extending to all other Latin American countries, in particular for Chile and Peru, potentially for Uruguay. and possibly for Argentina if the detente with right wing Peronism appears. It represents a strengthening of a gorilla position. It shows that liberal or military reformist regimes will give way to blind repression under the successful advance of the workers" movemerit. Chile, though sepurated by its northem desert and the Cordiliera, has now effectively got the Brazilian gorillas for neighbours. In addition, the problems facing the revolutionary left in Chile are those that existed in Bolivia. Despite its "democratic" traditions, the Chilean bourgeoisie and its army remains intact. In Chile the awareness of the left of the need to prepare to fight is cloudy and preparations appear to be minimal. In Uruguay, the possibility of the frente Amplio (Broad Front, similar to Popular Unity in Chile) winning the electons Tator this year poses precisely the same problems and the Bolivian experionce shows the need for the Tupamaros to develop to the point of destroying the Uruguayan army, even though this could signal a Brazilian invasion. In Argentina, with a more remote possibility of clections and a detente with official Peronisin, the Trotskyist and Peronist armed forces will again confront the need to smash the bourgeois state, whatever temporary, "democratic" openings may be granted or won. In Peru, the so-called left military regimo, essentially similar to the Torres government, can look forward to the same fate if its reforms travel boyand a certain point or if the workers' movement undergoes an upseige.
The Bolivian experience destroys the illusion that there is a peaceful road, It destroys the ilusion yet apain for those who still need to have this illusion destroyed. And it shows the need to struggle now, independently of the current comlexion of the government, and to continue until final victory. It shows that if mass organisations and revolutionary parties merely have a policy of growing and waiting for the day when they can take power by mass insurrection and uprising. the right will not wait idly by.
Teresa Hayter Bob Gregory, August 1971 writing from Havana "POSTSCRIPT: Sanchez is now in Peru. Extracts froin an interview with him, in which he analyses the reasoos for the defeat of the revolutionary forces, and criticises Torres, will appear in a future issue of the Mole.
Pursuant to the recent historic call and the directive of Maulana Bhesari, the leader of the oppressed people, to unitedly carry forward the liberation struggle, the represen tatives of the National Awari Party (under the leadership of Maulana Bhusani), Communist Revolutionaries East Bengal Coordination Committee, the Communist Party of East Bengal (under the leadership of Deben Sikdar), the Shramik Krishak Karee Sangha, the Communist Party of Bangladesh (Hatiar), the Purba Bangia Krishak Samnty, the Purbu Bangla Shramik Federarion, Bangladesh Shramik Federation, (East Pakistan Shramik Federarion,, and the East Bengal Revolutionary Sradenzs' Union and other political and mass organisations met in a conference and formed the "Bangladesh National Liberation Struggle Coordination Committee", and having unanimously adopted the following declaration, place it before the people of Bangladesh.
CALL FOR FORMATION OF NATIONAL LIBERATION FRONT In the context of the present situation in Bangladesh we feel that the people of Bangladesh should unitedly march on to struggle. It is the sacred duty of every political party and group, mass organisation, class organisation and individual citizen, to unitedly participate in the liberation struggle maintaining cohesion and understanding between themselves. and with a vow to free the motherland from bondage, For this is the struggle of the whole nation, of the entire people. It is impossible to come out victorious in a fight against the marauding armed foroes well-equipped with modern weapons, without the participation of the entire people. It is from this basic realisation that Maulana Bhasani, the leader of the oppressed people, gave his call and directive in pursuance of which, representatives of several political parties, groups, individuals, mass organisations and class organisations assembled together on lat June 1971 and formed Bangladesh National Liberation Struggle Coordination Committee. The immediate objective of this Coordination Committee is to take the liberation struggle forward to success on the basis of a definite programme and line of action keeping close contact and maintaining full coordina tion with Bangladesh Government and all the forces engaged in the liberation struggle. We believe that a well knit and united national liberation front formed through the cooperation of all parties, opinions and individuals is necessary for the success of the national liberation struggle of Bangladesh. It is for this reason that we, on behalf of this Coordination Committee, appeal to all freedom-loving political parties including the Awami League, groups, mass organisations, class-based organisations and patriotic indivi duals to form such a National Liberation Front.
ULTIMATE AIM AND OBJECTIVE The ultimate aim and objective of this Coordination Committee is to free Bangladesh from the clutches of the marauding bandats and to establish on its soil a free, huppy. decent, democratic social system anti-imperialist, antifeudal and anti-monopoly capital in character-where peasants will be really free from the centuries-old exploitation and oppression of the landlords and usurers, where his rights over land will be established; where the warker will have the guaranlee to live like a human being along with his wife, sons, daughters and other members of his family: where the curse of unemployment will not be there; where the student will have a universal, democratic system of education based on science: where fur the intellectual there will be the fullest opportunity to develop his creative genius; where every citizen will bave complete indopendence in political, cultural and religious matters. In this society will be established the freedom and dignity of women. Under: this system taking recourse to advanced agricultural methods and development of industry, a self-reliant economy and prosperous country will be built. In short, for the cutie people there will be a minimum guarantee of food, clothing. housing, education, medical facilities and other basic needs of life. This will be a Bangladesh for the workers, peasants. toting people, middle-classes and the patriotic section of the bourgeois a people's Bangladesh.
IMMEDIATE TASKS The immediate tasks of the Coordination Committee in the course of achieving the objectives mentioned before, would be to resist and annihilate the Pakistani marauring Forces. This task of ours is great and arduous. Whereas che marauder forces are militarily strong and the people on the other hand do not possess arms, the Coordination Committee believes that it would bo necossary to advance through a protracted process by employing guerrilla tactics of war of consolidarin our own strength while gradually weakening the enemy. On the other hand, the Coordination Committee is firmly convinced that the people are sure to be victorious in this war becuase the marauding forces are alien, harbarous and numerically insignificant in comparison to the 75 million people of Bangladesh. This Coordination Committee further helieves chat the success of a war depends upon the fullest utilisation of the strength and resources of the whole people. This liberation struggle, too, will have to he waged depending on the people's own strength and not by dependon any foreign power. We shall have to embark on guerrilla war keeping in view che objoctive of orgonising a people's anny from amongst the people. Peasants who foon the majority of the people will be the mainstay of the people's army. The overflanked and vast countryside of Baneladesh will be the operating hase for armed guerrilla warfire. This guerrilla war will be conducted in close contact and coordination with the Mukti Fauj (Liberation Force) of Bangladesh.
Therefore the Coordination Committee places the following lasks of the present stage of the national iberation struggle for its fulfilment before the people: 1. In every village of Bangladesh an all-party People's Liberation Council with the representative participation of various sections of the people should be formed which would take over political, social, administrative and all other responsibilities of villages, organise and direct Village Protection Forces and administer justice through constitution of People's Courts, 2. All payment of taxes aru repayment of loans and interest to the Military Administration of Pakistan should be completely stopped. 3. Foodgrains hoarded in exoss of actual need for making cxoess profits would be confiscated by the People's Liberation Council of the village for sale among the poor people. 4. People's Liberation Councils of the villages would completely put an end to the oppression of the usury system affecting the poor people of the villages. 5. (a) People's Liberation Councils of the villages will severely punish those cooperating with, alding or acting as agents of the Pakistani ruling clique in any way and will confiscate all their properties and discribute them among the poor and Jandless peasants.
(b) In mutual understanding with landlords (jotedars) who support the National Liberation Struggle, measures will be taken in order to ease the former exploitation by the Tandlord over the poor and landless peasants and agricultural lahowers, 6. People's Liberation Councils of the villages will look after all the properties of those citizens of Bangladesh who were compelled to leave the country. 7. A self-reliant, self-sufficient economy will have to he built up in the rural areas through proper arrangements for distribution, sale and purchase, increased production and development of cottage industries on the basis of mutual aid and mutual cooperation" 8. In the sphere of education and culturo, national imago will he Imbued to the complete exclusion of the current modes of education and influence of corrupt culture. 9. (a) Small guerrilla squads should be organised in the villages with peasants, workers, students and other militant youths to liquidate islated enemies and replenish their annoury with ames snatched from the enemy as and when its scope and opportunity arises.
(b) All communications and supply lines should be damaged and disrupted in order to make it difficult for the martiling forces to have free movement, to secure supply of arns and ammunitions and to collect and distribute -stores and provisions and make it impossible for them to continue administration and exploitation unhindered.
(clIn order to gain the confidence and love of the people, guerri las shouli respect the people, help the people and protect the people.
(d) Side by side with the discharge of their military responsibilities, guerrilla squads should carry on political propagands campaigns among the people in support of national liberation struggle.
(e) Those peopic willingly rendering heip to or cooperat ing with the Pakistan Government and the Pakistant forces or their agents in any way politically, economically or militarily-should be treated as nationni enemics, and after thorosgh investigation they should either be liquidated or punished in any other manner on the busis of collective decision 10. Stringent measures should be taken against thosa whe carry on campaigns, overtly or covertly to undermine the morale of the people, H. Stemest measures should be taken through People's Liberation Councils of the villages to punish those engaged in dacoily, hooliganism and other anti sociat activities taking advantage of the plight of the people. 12. Sever punishment should be meted out to chose who indulge lit atty communal activitics, provocations or propas ganda in order do dirkle and discopt the liberation struggle. 13. In towns and urban areas guecrilla activities based on "hit-and-run" tactles should be carried on to disrupt the enemy and Keep theat constantly engaged in the spell of distarbance. 14. Connections with the administrative and all other systems of the military rulers should be severed by all sections of the people. 15. This Coordination Committee gives the clarion calf to the working class of Bangladesh to follow up their tradition of strugale and continue the present deadlock in the econonly now under the control of the ruling clique.
OUR DECLARATION In this situation, beset in a juncture of life and death, inspired by our conscience to do our duties to dear motherland and the people, Bangladesh National Liberation Striple Coordination Crimmittee alsone the fall lon declaration with conviction before the people of Bangladesh as also to all freedom-loving people of the world: * This Coordination Committee declares its firm resolve to establish an "Independent, Sovereign People's Republic of Bangludesh" resisting and defeating the planned campaign to compictely destroy the Bengake people through genocide, loot. arson, rupe of women and forcing out the citizens en masse from Bangladesh, carried out by the maraders of the fascist military junta of Pakistan, who are the lackeys of imperinlism, feudalism and monopoly and big capitalists. • This Coordination Committee takes the solemn pledge to unitedly carry forward to success the armed national liberation struggle now going on in Bangladesh and declares its onencas with those who are participating in this national liberation struggle with unfathomable courage and sacrifice and sends them its warm revolutionury greetings. * This Coordination Committee takes the wow to defeat all internal and foreign conspiracies aimed at compromise and clearly declares that this struggle shull not cease till the marauding forces are wiped out from the soil of Bangladesh The people of Bangladesh have shed and are shedding their blood for every inch of land and for real national freedomn and they shall continue to do so in the future, too. * This Coordination Committee pays its deep respect to those who have been martyred and expresses sympathy for those who have been humiliated, tortured and lost their dear ones and all belongings in the national liberation struggle of Bangladesh. This Committee declares its resolve for carrying on the struggle to securely rehabilitute in an atmosphere of fredom und independence those people who were forced to leme the country after having had to suffer tremendous torture. * This Coordination Committee sends its revolutionary greetings to the workers, peasants, students, youth of Bangladesh, the members of the Bengal Regiment, E.P.R., Police, Ansars, Mujalids and all those volanteers who. inspired by patriotism, have been taking part in the nationa liberation struggle. * This Coordination Committee expresses its heartfelt gratitade to the Indian people, purticularly the people of West Bengal, Tripurn, Assom and Meghalaya for the help and cooperation they extended to the national liberation struggle and to the homeless evacuees of Bungladesh. * This Coordination Committee calls upon the Sindhi, Baluchi, Pathan and Punjabi people, especally to their workers, pessunts and the toiling masses, to build up a strong mus movement against genocide committed by the fascist militury junta of Pakistan in Bangladesh and in support of the liberation struggle of Bungladesh. * This Coordination Committee appeals to all freedomloving people, all democratic and Socialist States of the world, to extend all-out help to the national liberation struggle of Bangladesh. We have inexhaustible human resources, all we need are weapons, money, provisions. medical supplies and moral support. • This Coordination Committee declares its decision to cirry on unifedly the nutional liberation struggle forward to succes by muintaining contact und coordination with the Government of Hangladesh and all the foroes engaged in the National Liberation Struggle. * This Coordination Committee sends its clarion call to all political parties including the Awami League, class and mass organisations as well as to all patriotic people of Bangladesh inespective of their religion, creed, Innguage and community to unitedly fight und uproot the ruling clique of Pakistan fruin the soil of Bungindesh through a people's war by forming a "NATIONAL LIBERATION FRONT". This Committee is firmly convioced that the National Liberation strugule being the struggle of the entire peopk can ouly be taken forward to a final decisive victory by a well-consolidated and united National Liberation Front capable of fulfilling the hopes and aspirations of the entire people FIGHTING PEOPLE OF BANGLADESH!
A death-defying war-the war of independence - is going on in the whole of Bangladesh. We all have hecome part of this death-defying war to do away with the insults suffered by a humiliated people, to free the subject motherland from bondage. There is no respite, no stopping of this war till Bangladesh is independent. Come, let us pounce with arms upon the hundits who have killed our fathers and mothers. brothers and sisters, sons and daughters. who have defiled the chastity of our mothers and sisters; let us turn to the enemies with burising revenge and hatred and decimate them to take revenge for our blood. Ours is a just war, our victory is inevitable. The defeat of the marauding Pakistani foroes is inescapuble. Independence is sure to dawn on Bangladesh.
LONG LIVE THE INDEPENDENT SOVEREIGN PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF BANGLADESH!
LONG LIVE PEOPLE'S ARMED REVOLUTIONARY STRUGGLE!
-Bangladesh National Liberation Struggle Coordination
THE 1971 T.U.C. CONGRESS: A SMELL OF UNREALITY It was ironic that this year's TUC Congress which was called upon to deal with the challenge thrown in its face by the Tory government should be chaired by a well-known scab bureaucrat, Lord Cooper (of Pilkington fame and the GWU). The Industrial Relations Bill, rising unemployment. proposed wage freczes, found the TUC lendership totally unprepared and unwilling to challenge the Tory government. Certainly the Scanion/Jones/Daly combination ПОСКИ ОСТАО АВОС КЛЕ ROFES AUTE thrown around quite bruzenly. Conference passed a resolution "instructing" unions to de register, but rejected by a large majority a call to expel unions that refused to do precisely that. The 1972 Congreis could deal with such cases and in the meantime the T&GWU leaders attitude implied that they would not go out on a limb and deregistration to be successful ind to be universally applied. The debate on deregistration provided the peak of the conference and once that was over and the AUEW and the T&GWU had obtained the expected majority. the TUC virtually packed up and went to sleep. More trade union bureauerits could be seen outside the conference hall than inside when unemployment was being discussed, and even the Common Market "debate" took place before a half empty and half-asleep chamber.
This attitude typifies both the impotency of the TUC and the refusal of the so-called "left" trade union leaders to even attempt to offer a strategy for fighting redundancies and unem ployment. With unemployment in Scotland running at 6le of its work force, what is needed is a firm resobe on the part of the trade union movement to mount a vigorous campaign aguinst the Tory government by a series of wellplanned strikes, demonstrations, ete. But the refinal, nay the fear, of uning industrial action against a capitalist government colours the policy of the TUC and its compogents. With a few exceptions the trade unions have refused to discus seriously the question of unemployment as simply a bad spot on its conscience which can be cleaned by simply organising a few demonstrabons. As reported chewhere in this isue of The Rei Mole, the methods to which workers are resorting in the fight against redundancies are a sore reminder to the TUC and more importantly to the two major unions of the levels which rank-and-file militancy cun reach. This militancy. despite lack of a clear and coordinated leader. ship, shows no sign of ebbing and is bound to have an effect on the trade union officials. Thus the next TUC Congress could in fact he guite important as the abysmal record of the TOC on the Industrial Relations Act and unemployment could lay the basis for a split inside the TUC itself. The condition of British capifalism is far too critical for the TUC to be able to get away with doing nothing while the Tories ure carrying out a vicious attack not only on the rights of trade unionism, but on the living standards of the working class as a whole.
We will discuss future developments in the TUC in some detail in future issues of The Red Mole, but there can be little doubt that a split in the TUC and the emergence of a continental trade union structure would vastly improve the chances of revolutionary forces being able to develop inside the trade unions. REPRESSION IN WALES August 21st saw another protest meeting organised by the militant Weish pressure group. Cymdeithas yr Jaith Gymraeg (the Welsh Language Society), this time on the steps of the Welsh Office building in Cardiff, The accasion was the and of a 200-mile marathor walk from Bangor, Canarfonshire, designed to publicise the second class status of the Winish language in broadcasting.
500 people took part in the last stages of the walk from Pontypridd, and a petition in favour of a reorganisation of radio and TV in Wales was signed by 10,000 along the route, as wall as several thousand in other amas. The Society proposes a Welsh Broadcasting Authority to replace BBC and ITA in Wales, with separate TV and radio channels in the two languages, thus ensuring fair play for Welsh-speaking and English-speaking communities alike.
The refusal of Christopber Chattaway, Minister of Posts and Telecommunications, to give serious consideration to their plans has already led to direct action by the Society, and more is promised. Early in July five TV masts were simultaneously occupied by groups of protesters, although programmes were not interrupted. Three Society members are at present on remand at Rislay, near Manchester, awaiting trini on charges arising out of an incident at Granada Television studios when extensive damage to equipment took place.
One of the three involved is Ffred Ffrancis, Secretary of the Society, who is already under a suspended sentence of tweive months imposed after he and six others were convicted of conspiring to remove English-only road signs. When an application for bail was made in the present case, the prosecuting counsel retorted that to grant bail would be "like releasing been set"
Welsh Office officials were not available to accept the 10,000-name petition at the Cardiff meeting, but had detailed the caretaker of the building to do so. Referring to this, Society Chairman Dafydd Iwan raised a cheer when he stated that the meeting were glad to do business with the caretaker, because they were closer to him than to anyone else who worked in the building - Keith Bush, Cardiff. *Or special interest at the August 21sr demo was one of the few speeches in English delivered by John Owen. He declared that nothing could be obtained from the Welsh Office and that our only hope lay with the Weish workers. He referred to Fired francis as being in a foreign prison, in a foreign land" and it was for people like him that "we rust carry the fight forward Forward to the Welsh Revolution."
JUST OUT
A pamphlet containing a short biographical sketch of Leon Trotsky-in Bengali.
Order from: IMG Publications, TECHNICIANS CONFERENCE SHOWS DETERMINATION TO CONTINUE FIGHT On Suturday August 11th the recall conference of the AUEW (T&S). previously DATA, unanimously reaffirmed its decision to deregister now that the Industrial Relations Act is law. The firm stand taken is to be welcomed, as must be the determination to make every other union follow their lead. The Act was described Mike Cooley (President) as a piece of anti-working class legislation which must he seen and fought in political terms. The Act was a piece of calculated planning by the Tory Goverment necessary to further subordinate the working class and its organisations in this period of crisis within capitalism, with continual inflation and unemployment. Also for the Tories to enter the Common Market it was necessary to get rid of the previously liberal code of Industrial Relations and fall in line with the present members of the Common Marker. The delegates had no illusions as to whown the Act was directed at. They realised it was not the Scanlons or the domeses but them, the militants on the shop floor.
The initial consequence of de registration for the AUEW (T&S) as a union with just over 100,000 members will result in a loss of £30,000 a year in tax relief. The reaction of contrence to tas was Cat Balls TaTe could be no ambiguity. that the Act had to be opposed in totality, and that there must le a continued determination to force the shour movement to continue the industrial action of March Ist and 18th. The above, if it is to be carried through to its logical conclusion, must be for militants in the labour movement to continue the struggle for a ""General Strike" which will bring down the Tories and make it prisoners of war". As yet no date for the trial has clear that the British working class will not be trampled on. That we are unwilling to accept once again the "Jarrow Marches". that we will accept no more productivity deals or redundancies, that we demand the "right to a job."* It was also inade clear at the conference thar with the defeat of the Tories, no Labour Government with the illusion of bringing in another In Place of Strife and continuing the present aftack on the working cas through social service cuts, ete., would be acceptable. One of the last delegates to speak stated quite clearly that the fight against the Industrial Relations Act and the system which introduces such legislation could only he successful if a revolotionary leadership worthy of the fritish working class was built. We in the International Marxist Group. Spurtacus League und The Red Mole support these sentiments wholeheartedly.
-Alan Ras AUEW (T&S) 10p.
182 Pentonville Road, London N.1.
The POR. Bolivian section of the Fourth International, which had warned the Bolivian masses again and again about the incoming reactionary army coup, fought in the front ranks of the vanguard which tried to stop the army's onslaught, arms in hands. In La Paz, at least four POR militants were killed in the battle, among them Tomas Chambi, member of the Central Committee of the POR, and peasant leader of the party.
Comrade Chambi, who had already been imprisoned under the Barrientos Ovando dictatorship, led a column of poor peasants who joined in the armed struggle against the reactionary army coup. When his body was recovered by the masses, they found in his pocket a small note in his handwriting, which read as follows: "I am a militant of the Partido Obrero Revolucionario. My party has taught me courage and to struggle for a just cause. Forward, for national liberation, the final victory will be ours!"
The Fourth International will keep alive the memory of comrade Tomas Chambi and of all our other Bolivian comrades who gave their lives in the struggle against the bourgeois army, for the building of a people's army. for the building of a workers" and peasants government in Bolivia "Cuba grows .. ": a Britain Cuba Associacion exhibition illustrates Cuba's emphasis on educa tion to provide a technically bused agriculture and new men to take their part in world developmeat.
At the National Film Theatre, in association with the fiest showing of Felix Greene's Cuba we, 1-3 October.
BCA, 24 Gloucester Place, WIH 3AU EDEFOREAL BOARD: Tarig Ali, Dave Bailey, Robin Blackbum. 1. R. Clyne Pelor Gowan. Teres Harter. Alan Jones, Pat Jeaden, Dave Kendall, Branka Magas, Martin Meteyard, Neil Midilleton, Bob Purdie DESIGN: Dare Edmunds DISTRIBUTION: Debbie Dodge Paidsied My Reforen for The Real Mole, 18 07 934 0 278 16 PLEASE SEND ME THE RED MOLE FOR THE NEXT 6/12 MONTHS, FENCLOSE CHEQUE/P.0/
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PROJECTED PROGRAMME FOR THE NLF