Israeli state section of the Fourth Interna-
CCP 2504388 S Paris, France. The RCL tional, are appealing for international solican be contacted via PO Box 22434, Jerudarity around the slogans: "No to political salem, Israel. * trials against Israeli-Palestinian coopera-
OBITUARY
Panatt Vasu
COMRADE PANATT VASU, a long time leader of the Kerala provincial committee of the Inquilabi Communist Sanghathan (ICS, Indian section of the Fourth International)
died at the age of 61 at his home in Trichur, Kerala, on
Born into a poor proletarian family, he had to go to Ceylon, then a part of the British empire, in search of a job. He went there at the age of 16 and worked in many areas of the country doing different jobs before settling down as a beedi worker. Meanwhile, he came into contact with the
Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) leadership. At that time the LSSP was the Ceylonese section of the Fl. Vasu became an ardent supporter of Trotskyist ideas. His life from then on was a struggle to propagate the ideas and ideologies of the Fourth International. In Ceylon, he proved his worth as an efficient party worker and built up a strong working class movement among the beedi workers. He learnt Tamil and Sinhalese. Though he had no formal education, he was fluent in English, Hindi and Malayalam as well.
In 1959 he came back to Kerala under the direction of the LSSP leadership to build up a Trotskyist movement in
Kerala. At that time the Trotskyists in Kerala were spread into different parties, most notably the Kerala Socialist
Party (KSP) and the Revolutionary Socialist Party (RSP).
The majority were in the RSP. Comrade Vasu was opposed to the tactic of entryism into the RSP as he thought it would be detrimental to the future interests of a Trotskyist movement. (Later he was proved right.) But at last he joined the RSP to avoid a split among the Kerala Trotskyists. He became head of the Trichur district committee of the RSP and worked hard to build up the party. Because of his position in the party he came to be called "RSP
Vasu". At the same time, he formed a faction within it.
In 1967, along with many of his comrades Vasu left the
RSP in protest against the policy of allying with communal
International Viewpoint #148 • October 3, 1988
Such a programme would mean the construction of 1,190 homes every eight-hour working day for 12 years, or one every two minutes and 47 The government officially acknowledges that there are 935,697 squatters - the majority in the Transvaal- but the Urban Foundation estimates that in the Pretoria, Witwatersrand, Sereeniging region alone there are 2,445,000 squatters occupying 312,000 slums and 67,000 garages. * organizations. By this time, the RSP had declined substantially as a political force. Thereafter, it became his objective to build up a strong Fl unit in Kerala and India.
He was the man behind all Fl publications in Malayalam. He owned a small printing press which was mainly used to print Trotskyist and Fl literature in Malayalam. At the time of his death comrade Vasu was the editor, printer and publisher of the ICS journal in Malayalam, "Varola" or "Poster". He took his political activities so seriously that he decided never to marry or set up a family.
Comrade Vasu was fragile in body and weak in health. He was the victim of many diseases. But these could not deter him from his political activities. It was because of his influence and capacity to attract the youth of the local area that the local units of the Stalinist CPI and CPI(M) prohibited their youth from meeting or discussing political
Along with his political activities, he was active in many other fields like the atheist and rationalist movements, science and ecology movements, human and civil rights activities and so on. When the Kerala government unleashed its oppression on the cadres of the CP(M-L), a Maoist organization, he was there in the forefront of the fight to defend them against state violence and violation of their fundamental rights.
Comrade Vasu was a model communist. He was the guide, the leader and the guardian of the Kerala Trotskyists. He was, at the time of his death, a member of the control commission of the Inquilabi Communist Sanghathan. He was one of the key links connecting the old generation of Trotskyists with the new.
We, the comrades of the ICS, feel that we have lost an exemplary leader, one who spent his whole life and material earnings for the propagation of the ideas and ideologies of the Fl.
We will remember this fighter as long as we continue our political activities, and these memories will be our inspiration in the future. Comrade Panatt Vasu showed us how a Marxist should live and fight for the revolutionary
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AROUND THE WORLD AROUND THE WORLD
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8
In the last issue of /V (147), the name of the author of the article reprinted from the Italian CP journal Rinascita, Michal Reiman, was inadvertently omitted. It is important to note that Reiman is not a member of the Italian
CP, but a Czech refugee living in Italy. collecting signatures from all over the world (for the full text of the appeal, see IV 137). You can contact the campaign c/o Michael Löwy, 34 rue des Lyonnais, 75005 Paris, France. Final list of signatories:
Britain: 18 MPs have sponsored a parliamentary motion to demand that the Soviet government rehabilitate Trotsky and Leon Sedov, alongside all those assassinated by the Stalinist regime: Terry Fields; Dave Nellist; Pat Wall; Mildred Gordon; Dennis Skinner; Jimmy Wray; Chris Mullins; Al-
1988 lan Roberts; Clare Short; Robert Parry; John Hughes; Bob Clay; Tony Banks; Ronnie Campbell; John Cummings; Jeremy Corbyn; Alice Mahon; Dawn Primarolo.
Denmark: Keld Albrechtsen, ex-MP,
LEON TROTSKY Left Socialist Party (VS); Margrethe Auken, MP, Socialist Peoples Party (SF); Ole Bach, SID ex. cttee., Randers; Prof. Claus Bryld, historian, Univ. of Roskilde; Leif Clynor, shop steward HK, SAS; Inger Harms MP, SF; Gitte Hesselmann, Socialist Workers Party (SAP); Anne Grete Holmsgaard, ex-MP, SF; Lars Hutters, cllr. Copenhagen, VS; Prof. Neils Hybel, historian, Copenhagen Univ.; Hanne Thaning Jacobsen, MP, SF; Helmuth Jacobsen, shop steward, SAS, ex. cttee local 16 Metal; Claus Jensen, int. sec. SID; Ivan Malinowski, author; Bent Moos, pres. HRF; John Mølgaard, trade union sec., SID; Kjeld Rahbaek Moeller, MP, SF; Jørgen Nielsen, pres. DLF, local 61, Naestved; Martin P Nielsen, shop steward SAS, ex. cttee local 16 Metal; Elisabeth Bruun Olesen, ex-MP, VS; Gert Petersen, MP, pres. SF; Poul Petersen, trade union sec., VS; Thora Petersen, trade union sec., KAD, local 5 Copenhagen; Halfdan Rasmussen, author;
Ily a 50 ans
Trotsky fondait la Quatrième
Internationale pour lutter contre le capitalisme et le stalinisme
Aujourd hui, ou est-elle, que fait-elle ?
RASSEMBLEMENT
Soeren Rishoej, MP, SF; Villo Sigurdsson, ex-mayor, Copenhagen, VS; Gunna Starck, mayor (city planning), Copenhagen, VS;
Ole Stender-Petersen, historian; Ebba samedi 10 décembre
Strange, MP,
SF; Finn Sørensen, pres.
Trade Union of Brewery Workers, Copenhagen; Jens Thoft, MP, SF; Kirsten Thorup, author; Steen Tinning, ex-MP, VS;
Boerge Trolle, author/journalist, SF; Michael Voss, SAP; Boris Weil, author/
14h - 24h à LSC, 144 Avenue du président wilson
La Plaine St Denis (93)
librarian.
Netherlands: Leadership of the Socialist
Débats, exposition, films, bal,
Workers Party (SAP); Otto van de Haar,
CP; Suzane Legene, CP; EJF Molenaar;
PWH Drenth; Anet Bleich, journalist; Max van Weezel, editor VN; Constant Vecht, journalist; Leo Jacobs, chief editor Radio
Stad; Florian Diepenbrock, FNV; Maarten
* la présence de Esteban Volkov, van Traa, MP, PvdA; Jan Gerritze, CP;
Truus Beumer-Ronday, CP; Cathir van de
Haar, CP Utrecht; Jan Marinus Wiersma, international sec., PvdA. *
Jeunesse communiste révolutionnaire
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INTERNATIONAL Moscow Trials campaign THE CAMPAIGN to clear the names of all the accused in the Moscow Trials, launched over a year ago, has been AROUND THE WORLD Errata meeting ave des militants, des délégations étrangères, les personnalites ... L CR Lique communiste révolutionnaire JC R petit-fils de Trotsky
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9
INTRODUCTION
ARNOSC
International Viewpoint #148 • October 3, 1988
Polish opposition discuss the next steps
IN THE WAKE OF Lech Walesa's tête-à-tête with Poland's top policeman, interior minister Czeslaw Kiszczak, there was a veritable summit meeting. It took place on September 16 between a Solidarnos delegation including Lech Walesa,
Wladyslaw Frasyniuk and the leaders of the August strike committees and a weighty delegation of bureaucrats presided over by Kiszczak and Communist Party secretary Stanislaw
Ciosek.
CYRIL SMUGA
HE OFFICIAL communique
T published shortly afterward stated that a round table would be held
"the model of in October on functioning of the state and public life, the acceleration of the development and modernization of the economy and the form of the Polish trade-union movement". Once again, although in fact what was involved was negotiations between Solidarnosc and leading bureaucrats, the communique did not specify the position of the two delegations. On September 16, the Polish parliament accepted the government's resignation. Everything was moving.
At the same time, nothing had changed.
On September 21, the trial of Jozef Pinior,
Czeslaw Borowczyk and Jolanta Skiba was held in Wroclaw. They were jailed for trying to organize a strike in May. In the worst bureaucratic tradition, the presiding judge continually took sides against the defence witnesses, refused to grant bail and, at the same time, observed that this trial of Polish
Socialist Party (PPS) members had nothing to do with politics! The defence lawyers attempts to argue that there was a climate of détente in the country were dismissed with a wave of the hand. In Wroclaw young people from Alternative Orange carried out a mass distribution of a leaflet. It showed a big pig, with a laconic caption, "round table in place of the trough."
The official press has been talking constantly about an "understanding.
This is the term used also by many
Solidarnosc leaders. Journalist Maciej Szumowski rejects this term (he was editor-in-chief of Gazeta Krakowska in 1981 when the daily was in the front line of liberalism of the
10 official press, and was fired after the
December 13,1981, coup d'etat). "Let's say rather that after some years the two sides have reached the conclusion that they regime and Solidarnosc would try to score
Speaking in a Polish broadcast of Radio Free Europe, Jacek Kuron said that it was necessary "to force the regime to accept radical political and economic reforms." He went on to say: "It is not the same thing ticipation, involvement in public groups, social movements and therefore a debate through representatives in various negotiations between social groups and above all between the society and the regime. This second way is far more profitable for the country and the society. Everything that has happened recently gives hope that this second way will be possible."
Jozef Pinior does not share this view. From prison, he explained to his comrades in the PPS that the bureaucracy was trying to create a sort of a "Bantustan" oppositionists.
With Lech Walesa's appeal to stop the
SOLi
not subsided. The prevailing atmosphere is one of a truce, as is shown by spontaneous strike attempts, which Solidarnose members are still managing to control.
The outlines of the debate
This feeling of uneasy waiting also predominates among the leaders of the various currents in the Polish opposition. It casts so heavy a pall that, although everyone is asking themselves what should be done if Solidarnosc gets legalization in one form or another, this question is not being faced. This situation is reflected in the interviews that follow. They are at least partially epresentative of the positions of new forces on the Polish political landscape.
For some years, the activities of the Freedom and Peace Movement (WiP) have marked a political remobilization of Polish youth. The appearance and trajectory of the new Polish Socialist Party have reflected a radicalization and left politicalization of a part of the new generation of opposition activists.' Finally, "Striking Solidarnosc" — that is the independent union structures that appeared in the spring and summer 1988 strikes - have operated publicly in a mass way, bringing together both traditional leaders of independent trade-unionism and those who have emerged from the recent struggles.
It would be an exageration to say that these three interviews sum up all the political and ideological positions held, or even that the opinions expressed here are fully representative of the organizations to which these people belong. Nonetheless, they indicate the outlines of the debate. * 1. See our dossier on the refounding of the PPS in IV 137, March 21, 1988.
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