POLAND, DEMOCRACY, AND
THE WORKING PEOPLE OF THE THIRD WORLD
INTRODUCING ISSUE NO 1
The worldwide response to the Polish bureaucrats' attempt to crush the democratic workers movement included the first major protests against Stalinist repression in third world countries.
This new fact reve als how wideLy discredited the Stalinist regimes have become. But it also indicates some important things about the way anti-imperialist struggles are developing today.
Such sympathy for the Polish democratic workers movement in countries oppressed by imperialism stands in contradiction to the echoing of the Stalinist line by the Cuban and Nicaraguan leaderships, who justly enjoy the greatest prestige in the eyes of anti-imperialist fighters.
It is hardly likely that the Cubans and Nicaraguans have any liking for the bureaucratic terror in Poland. They have never practiced anything of the sort in their own countries and have quite a different sort of relationship with their own working people.
Still, the Cuban and Nicaraguan responses cannot be explained away as mere placation of the USSR. They By Jacqueline Allio reflect a clear lack of understanding of the political importance of Solidarity's struggle.
For example, the Cubans have not endorsed the Argentine Communist Party's cosying up to the dictatorship in its country, although Moscow approves of it.
The Cubans' determination to aid the fighting people of El Salvador also is in contradiction to accepting the perspectives and methods of Stalinism, which are expressed in the crackdown in Poland. Furthermore, Cuban leaders have explicitly commended the democratic and undogmatic attitudes of the Nicaraguan and Salvadoran leaderships.
This issue includes a series of interviews with revolutionists from countries oppressed by imperialism. What they all point up is the importance of democracy, and therefore of Solidarnosc for the working people fighting imperialism.
Ireland is not always thought of as a third-world country but many of the same political problems are posed for revolutionists there. And in Ireland the Cuban revolution enjoys particular prestige and Irish revolutionists pay considerable attention to the statements of the Castro leadership, It is notable how much the interview with Bernadette Devlin parallels those with other revolution ary leaders in countries oppressed by imperialism, although there has been no direct ongoing contact.
The next issue of International Viewpoint will begin our regular fortnightly schedule. And we will devote special attention to the state of the West European workers movement after the crackdown in Poland.
There will also be an analysis of the situation in Ireland in the wake of the hunger strike and following the recent elections.
The issue will focus on the reaction of the West European Communist Parties and the unions they influence to the events in Poland. But it will also deal with the positions of a number of revolutionary nationalist movements in Europe
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The next issue will be dated March 14.