One of the last demonstrations by the MIR, Chilean revolutionaries, before the coup 1973, the strategy of the Right in Chile was to use its control over the judiciary, the police, Parliament and the Controleria (which, as we have mentioned, has to sign Government legislation) in order to harass the Popular Unity Government in every way. Its supporters among small businessmen (like the lorry-owners and shopkeepers) and the professional classes were using strikes to undermine the economy; and they were aiming to create a mass movement in the streets calling for the arined forces to Intervene to lend the chaos continually being centre.
In these circumstances, the working class and its allies were bound to find themselves time and again in situations where the State apparatus of the bourgeoisie was acting against their interests, even while the Government was formally com mitted to representing those interests. Working class self-organization to defend the takeovers of factories and farms and protest against class justice were a necessary reaction to this situation. The actions of the boises, lorryowners and otlier counter-revolutionary groups meant that the working class had to take action to gain control over the system of production itself, because this was slipping increasingly out In October 1972, the lorry owners went on strike for the first time, followed quickly by other right-wing "professional groups such as white-collar warkers and doctors, and by the bosses themselves, who began to sabotage production in every feasible way. Shopkeeper sympathetic to the Right closed their shops. and many small shopkeepers who wese not sympathetic were forced to close by che unemployedthreat of a Right wing fascist organization, 'Fatherland and Freedom'. Worken mobilized to take over factories so that the production should go on in the face of the bosses strike. They developed organizations capable of handling the problems of supplies and communications for a whole network of industries, and capable of protecting these industries and supply networks against organized, armed, right wing attempts at Similar organizations were also thrown up in the people's living quarters. There too, securing MERSE YSIDE IMG DISCUSSION GROUP: A series of introductory discussions organised by Merseyside IMG on the polities of the October. For decaits, phone John, 051-08 8061 or write to MDG, 52 Cullen Street, CEYLON SOLIDARITY CAMPAIGN: Public mesting, Friday 19 October, 7.30 pm at Conway Hall, Red Lion Square - The Chilean experience and its significance for evolutionary movementi of service.
NOTTINGHAM RED CIRCLES: Wide ranging series or discussions based on the politics of thi Fourth International. Every 2nd and 4th Tuesday in the month. 8.00 p.m. at the Lion LEAFLETS, PAMPHLETS, COVERS, ETC Waiity electrostencils by return, Only 30pl (plus 5p papi from 56 Park Roud, Lenton, Nottingham. All process to Red Weekly ·3,0 suppies became a matter of urgency, and local supply command centres' grew up, reorganizing as a massive community effort the small People's Supply Committees (JAPS) which Popular Unity itself had created in 1971 to enforce price controls. It was necessary to organise workers" guards, to protect small shopkeepers who stayed open, against the threats of the Right. In some places, people's power in the living quarters joined with people's power in industry to fot a single organization, the communal command The tragedy of Popular Unity is that in its Last months, differences within the coalition, and even within the revolutinnary left, seriously weakened these mass, popular organizations. Until mid-August of 1973, the Communist Party refused to allow its militants to participate in the cordons, denouncing them as "parallel organizations in competition with the trado union federation (CUT)
But differences also appeared between the Socialist Party and the MIR, The Socialist Party, in opposition to the Communists, maved acutely to minforce the cordons: building a provincial coordinating assembly of delegates from individual condors where this was possible and setting out a policy of confronting the coming coup through a defence organization of the people at their place of work. The MIR strategs was much more cautious. They argued that the only appropriate revoluHonary orginizations of the working class were thoss where tle working class was already united with it allies from the urban poor and organizations based on the unity of industry and the living quarters-the "communal command centres. They may already have been chinking of the possibilities of waging a guerrilla war, Now the survival of the revolucionary left in Chile deponds on the organizations of "People's Power', built up over the last year. A strategy of prolonged guerrilla war aguinst the military junta is the only one possible. The nilitary can only lestroy these organizations through an unpo edented massacie of the working class. If the stop short of that, Chile's revolutionary process nay yet go forward again, SAM WALLER FREE THE COVENTRY 71: Seturday 6 October, rally in Coventry Precinct at 11.30 am -spesker Michael Farvell, Sunday 7 October, demonstration at 2.30 pm from Small Heeth Park. Birmingham, to rally in Digbeth Civic Hall, Monday 8 October, picket outside Birmingham Crown Court at 9.00 am.
TECHNICAL TEACHERS Rank & File meeting, Sunday 7 October et The Roebuck, Tottenham Court Road (Warren St tube at 7.00 pm. Speaker and discussion on conditions RANK & FILE pamphlet, Education and suciety Cy whinie Hosenberg, 10p als 50 påip an orders less then 10. From: 86 Mount Grove Road, London NS.
WORKERS FIGHT PUBLIC MEETING: Chile o discussion on the lessone for mercists" Speakers: Bas Hardy and Andrew Hornung. Sundey 7 October, "Golden Lion', Kings Cross Road, Nt at 8.00 pm.