NEWS FROM
THE FOURTH
International Viewpoint #151 • November 14, 1988
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL NEWS auto-workers from Austria, Belgium, the
Spanish state, France, Britain, Holland,
Germany and Sweden. A delegation made up by members of the American SWP at-
At the beginning of October, cars were all
INTERNATIONAL WESTERN EUROPE Women's liberation school FOR THE FIRST time in its history, women from different sections of the Fourth International have had an opportunity to get together and discuss questions relating to feminism at a school arranged around these themes.
The school was primarily made up by European comrades, but two Japanese women were also able to participate. This gathering made it possible to deepen our debates over key questions of the day for feminists, such as the significance for women of new reproductive technologies; the evolution of the family and the relationship of these changes to the role of women in the workforce and also violence against women.
The school concluded with a more general debate on our orientation today in a situation where the feminist movement is far less organized than in the past, and on what we can do to contribute to changing the situation.
Forty women from almost every country in Europe living and talking together for four days: everyone agreed it was a memorable occasion and one to be repeated. * JAPAN Fl members still in jail TWO MEMBERS of the Revolutionary Communist League (RCL), the Japanese section of the Fourth International, who were arrested in 1978 for their role in a protest against the extension of the Narita airport are still in prison. Watada Kumeo and Mayeda Michiko received respective sentences of 12 and 10 years in prison.
The campaign against the destruction of the peasant community of Sanrizuka in order to make room for the Narita Airport culminated in a sizeable demonstration on March 26, 1978. More than a hundred people were arrested and sentenced to a year in prison. But the Japanese bourgeoisie chose to focus on sixteen of the demonstrators who had occupied a control tower. Of these sixteen, twelve were members of the RCL. Fourteen of them were condemned to heavy sentences of from four to seven years of prison and the last of these has just been released. All of them resisted the pressures put on them, and have become active again. Only Watada and Mayeda remain in jail. 26 The Japanese state wanted to make an example of someone. Despite the petition campaign with over 130,000 signatures for their freedom, it is keeping them in harsh conditions at Fuchu prison in Tokyo and Yokohama prison, often in isolation without books or newspapers whenever they are deemed to be disobeying the guards. They only have the right to one visit a month from no more than three family members. A campaign was mounted to extend their visitation rights, and to allow them to receive letters from non-family members. It was taken up by the Kyuen Renraku Center [a civil rights defense group] and several university and trade union figures, but the state refused to back down. In order to show its solidarity, the RCL elected Watada to its Central Committee at its 1987 congress.
Meanwhile, the struggle against the airport continues. Today ecologist forces— which grew enormously in Japan in the 80s because of their opposition to the staggering program of installing nuclear power plants — are also involving themselves. Committees against food contamination have linked up with the peasants of Sanrizuka and created cooperative stores. These new militants are learning the history of the earlier struggles. The government plans to further extend the runways and buildings at the airport and a new construction project will be underway in 1989. Peasants and their allies remain determined to fight this new menace to their community and to the Tokyo population's environment.
Solidarity messages can be sent to the Japanese section at the following address: JRCL, Shinjidaisha, Shiba 5-13-17 Minatoku, Tokyo, Japan. * WESTERN EUROPE Auto-workers' conference AT THE INITIATIVE of the Fourth International, a European conference of autoworkers was held in Paris on October 15 and 16. It brought together delegations of CRAI
"CRASHED
CRASH
the rage in French current events, as there was a huge auto show going on, and at the same time one workshop in a Renault factory in Le Mans was on strike, paralyzing almost every Renault factory for days.
This is only a coincidence, since the conference had been planned for this date for over a year, but it serves to highlight the
Despite the satisfied statements of French manufacturers on television and in the press, world competition between car makers, especially the Japanese and Americans, is becoming more and more vicious as they compete to win the European market, the only market as yet unsaturated and solvent. The restructuring of the last few years, which has turned the industry upside down and created enormous new profits, has not run its course yet.
However, the struggle at Le Mans to increase workers' buying power shows the vulnerability of the new organizational methods in auto plants. The introduction of the Japanese methods of fast turnover -which keeps inventory levels very low — makes strikes at different points of production extremely effective since stock runs out immediately.
In a context where, in spite of their continuing attacks, the bosses have not been able to bring the workers to heel, the "Japanization" of work methods leaves flaws in the manufacturing process.
The conference provided a space for an assessment of the breadth of attacks that will continue in order to complete the restructuring of the industry at the world level. On the other hand, it also provided a source of new hope for fight-backs, with an exchange of experiences and information and with an analysis of the weakness of the organization of production due to the lack of coordination.
More than ever, as the day of a European single market draws near, and as international car companies continue to consolidate themselves, international coordination and solidarity becomes is essential. This conference was a first step in that direction. *
US A Anniversary celebrations TWO EVENTS have been held in recent months in the United States to celebrate the
Anniversary of the Fourth
The first was organized by Socialist Action in San Francisco on August 6. Over 300 people heard leaders of the Fourth International and representatives from revolutionary movements throughout the world. Speakers included Jeff Mackler, coNational Secretary of Socialist Action; Rosario Ibarra, presidential candidate for
The speakers at the forum on Trotskyism in America were Jake Cooper, a member of Socialist Action and a participant in the Minneapolis labor struggles in the 1930s; Frank Lovell, a long-time Fourth Internationalist labor expert, now a member of the FIT; and Alan Wald, a representative of the FIC and author of a book on the intellectuals who joined the Trotskyist movement at the end of the 1930s. The program was accompanied by the showing of a film about the 1934 Minneapolis general strike led by
The forum on the Soviet Union was introduced by Marilyn Vogt-Downey, cochair of the Moscow Trials Campaign Committee, which is pressing demands for rehabilitation of the victims of Stalin's purge trials. The other speakers were Estaban Volkov and Gerry Foley, editor of International Viewpoint.
At the national liberation and socialist revolution forum, the speakers were Susan Caldwell, from Gauche Socialist/Socialist Challenge, a Canadian sympathizing group of the Fourth International; Mahmud Hawari, from the Revolutionary Communist League, the section of the Fourth International in the Israeli state; and John McAnulty from People's Democracy, Irish section of the FI; as well as Lloyd D'Aguilar, a Caribbean journalist.
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL NEWS
The electoral politics and revolutionary strategy forum focused on the problems posed for revolutionists by the upcoming US presidential elections. It was introduced by Tom Barret of the FIT. In addition, Rosario Ibarra recounted the experience of the Trotskyists in the Mexican elections. And Charles Van Gelderen talked about problems of electoral tactics in South Africa and
Featured speakers in the concluding rally were Esteban Volkov, Leon Trotsky's grandson and curator of the Trotsky museum in Mexico; Rosario Ibarra, the presidential candidate of the Mexican section of the Fourth International and a well-known leader of the human rights movement; Claudio Mangani, a representative of the United Secretariat of the FI; and Paul Le Blanc, a representive of the FIT. There were also a number of brief messages from other speakers, including Zbigniew Kowalewski.
The audience averaged a hundred in the forums, and a larger number came to the rally. The crowd included many old timers in the US Trotskyist movement, some with more than 50 years service; but also a significant number of young people newly coming around the Fourth Internationalist organizations. The discussions marked by a broad range of international experience. * the PRT, Mexican section of the FI and Ed- LEON TROISKY gar Sanchez from the Political Committee of the PRT; Zbigniew Kowalewski, a former leader of Solidarnosc in Lodz and author of a book on the Polish upsurge of 1980-81, Give us back our factories; Saths Cooper, former president of AZAPO, now chair of the National Forum of South Africa; Evelyn Martinez from the National Network in Solidarity with Nicaragua; and Paul Siegel, co-chair of the Moscow Trials Campaign Committee.
Giving greetings from the United Secretariat of the FI, Claudio Mangani spoke about the struggle to found the Fourth International and the major changes taking place today, notably in the USSR. He said, "The Fourth International was founded by the generation of the 1930s. The struggle to build the FI is being continued today by a new generation. Just recently, 700 young
50 years ago,
Trotsky founded the Fourth
International to fight against capitalism and
Stalinism
Today, the
Fl is continuing this struggle
RASSEMBLEMENT people from around the world came together at the FI summer camp in France. This is the new generation that will guarantee the continuity of the Fourth International." Greetings were also given to the event by a number of sections and groups supporting
The commemoration of the anniversary for the East Coast of the United States was
La Plaine St Denis (Paris, 93)
held in New York October 14-16. It was sponsored by the Fourth Internationalist
Debates, exhibition, fülms, dance,
Tendency (FIT) and the Fourth Internationrally with speakers and delegations al Caucus of Solidarity (FIC). The program included forums on "Trotskyism in America," "The Soviet Union today," "National liberation and socialist revolution" and
"Electoral politics and revolutionary
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Saturday 10 December 2pm until dawn at LSC, 144 Avenue du président Wilson, from all over the world... including Esteban Volkov, Trotsky's grandson, and Rosario Ibarra (Mexican PRT) LCR volutionnaire 27 JCR Jeunesse communiste révolutonnaire