Trotskyists and Left
Socialists seek common slate with
Danish Communist
The following interviews with spokespersons from the three components of the common socialist slate were given to Gerry
Foley in Copenhagen in mid-May.
DENMARK
Interview with Soren
Søndergård, leader of the
Socialist Workers' Party
(SAP), Danish section of
INTRODUCTION the Fourth International
NEGOTIATIONS have been underway for some time for a common socialist slate for the next Danish parliamentary elections between the Danish section of the Fourth International, the Socialist Workers' Party (SAP); the Communist Party; and the Left Socialists (VS).
In some local elections, common slates along the same lines have already been formed. The first concrete step on the national level was an agreement for collecting the more than 20,000 signatures necessary to get the list registered. The SAP has just completed its part, gathering more than 10,000.
After the Minister of the Interior recognizes that the signature requirement has been met, the constituent parties of the common slate will be able to run candidates for all 175 seats in the Danish parliament. Thus, the SAP will run in every district.
The distribution of seats among the three parties will depend on the ranking of the candidates in various election districts.
The Communist Party is organizationally by far the strongest of the three. But it has been electorally weak, and has been out
The VS, a multi-tendency far-left party, also suffered a sharp drop in its vote in the last elections, falling below the two per cent required for representation in parliament.
The party-political picture in Denmark is complicated by the existence of two big reformist parties, the Socialist People's Party (SF) and the social democrats. The SF developed largely out of a break from Stalinism in the 1950s, which included both leftward and rightward moving currents. The latter eventually became predominant, and a left wing split away at
The SF is now an electoralist party with little in the way of activist organization. But it has continued to be seen as the only credible left alternative to the socialist democrats. 20 International Viewpoint #168 • July 31, 1989
OW do you define this project of a common slate with the Left Socialists and the Communist Party?
It involves electoral collaboration on a minimum platform. When we judge it from the standpoint of the SAP, we see that this platform as a whole places the slate to the left of the Socialist People's Party (SP). • What does "to the left of the SF" mean concretely?
Further left on such key issues as the EEC, NATO, on incomes policy — where the SF more and more accepts the incomes policies — and on the shorter workweek.
This is not a socialist platform. It is not in any sense a revolutionary platform. It is a platform with a lot of good concrete demands. It also contains some glittering generalities that we do not think are very useful, such as saying that we want peace on earth and cooperation and things like that. But the CP wanted this sort of thing and so we did not want to get stalled over that. • The CP spokesperson said that the platform should not be explicitly socialist but should have a "socialist dynamic."
That is the idea in the heads of some CP leaders. But when they say that they are thinking of a very long period, one that goes through a stage of anti-monopolistic democracy, a stage in which the capitalist wild animals will be tamed, and in which good capitalists will help create a new democracy.
If we had worked out this program alone, we would have done it differently. We would have focused on concrete demands linked to the mass movement, linked to concrete struggles. This is also because we wanted to make this slate an expression of struggle outside parliament.
Of course, this agreement permits each party to put forward its own candidates in
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Party of parliament for some time. the end of 1967.
the election, and you don't have to constantly answer the question of whether people are wasting their votes by voting for you and whether you have a chance to top the 2% barrier. In fact a lot of people expect this slate to go over 2%. And for the first time, a force with some credibility is saying some good things, which have a broad hearing in the population. For example, it will be the only slate clearly rejecting the EEC. And 40% of voters, the majority of the social democrats, Denmark to leave the EEC. want • The vote against joining the EEC in the referendum was 45%. The CP said that although the overall opposition is now less, it has become more polarized in class terms.
I don't think that's so. The opposition then was also working-class, but it is true that the CP at that time ran a people's front campaign, where they tried to build on small capitalists and so on. They built the People's Movement against the EEC and gave concessions in order to hold onto these small capitalists. But they never succeeded. It was the shadow of the bourgeoisie, because not even the petty bourgeoisie was there. • Have you discussed the European elections?
There hasn't been any discussion of this, because there is a clear disagreement. The CP is in the People's Movement, and is very strong there. The first candidate of the People's Movement is a member of the CP Central Committee. The Left Socialist Party joined the People's Movement a year or two ago, with the explanation that the People's Movement had changed, that it was not so nationalistic but was more oriented to international collaboration. We think this is an incorrect judgment.
But the Left Socialists have a candidate on the slate of the People's Movement. We are not in the People's Movement, and it is impossible for us to run a candidate of our own, because in the Euro-elections, all of Denmark is one constituency. And to put up candidates, you have to collect 60,000 signatures. We are calling for a vote for the VS candidate on the People's Movement slate. • Will you be putting forward a program on the EEC elections.
Yes. It's on different levels. On the general level it is against the EEC and for a Europe of the workers and small farmers. That's what we want. The question is how to get there. And what we say is that the main contribution Danish workers can make to fighting the EEC is to get Denmark out of it, because that would be a clear message to workers in other countries that the working class in Denmark does not accept the EEC.
In addition, we have some more specific demands such as opposition to giving more power to the institutions of the EEC.
We want to build a common between workers in Denmark and workers in Europe for saving the environment and against social cutbacks.
In Denmark, for example, when petrol contains additives that can destroy your brain, there has been a law saying there had to be a warning. But that's not allowed any more in the EEC, and so it's because it's considered a restraint on not allowed any more for Denmark trade." To fight things like that, we want to make alliances with people in other countries on the basis that it is not Danish laws that should be worse, but those in other countries that should be better.
We are against the idea of the Single European Act and also against the alternative that has been offered, the Workers' Single Act. We are against that because we think that every working class must fight for as much as possible. And if we have this idea of a Single Act now, it will mean that the workers in Denmark, perhaps the workers in Germany, should slow down their struggles to allow the Portuguese to catch up. And that's totally • What about this general aspiration for unity, the slogan of the United States of Europe.
We don't use the slogan of the United States of Europe, because it is misunderstood. In Denmark, it is not just 40% but maybe 95% who are against the EEC developing into a supernational structure, a European state. So, raising a slogan of a United States of Europe, even a Socialist United States, is not very clever. • But what about the big political question? The EEC poses the question of the unity of Europe, but on an undemocratic basis. What is the democratic alternative?
It is already clear that Denmark is not strong enough to survive in the so-called Internal Market. The whole debate in Denmark has been what to do about this problem. They don't know the exact figures, but between 40 and 120 billion kroner are going to be removed from the control of the Danish state when the Internal Market comes. Because you can't have very high taxes on cigarettes here, if you can just ask someone in Germany to send you cheaper ones. So, they will have to drop all such taxes. So, they are saying that there will have to be big social cutbacks in order to make ends meet.
The government is talking about plans for putting Denmark in a situation where it can function in this Internal Market. But the reality is that we will be totally dependent on foreign capital, because all the big factories are being bought by American, Swedish and German capital.
So, we can foresee a situation where industrial nation, deindustrialized. The
DENMARK government opened up the possibilities to buy summer houses in Jutland [the peninsular part of Denmark]. So, it seems that a good part of Jutland will be bought by Ger• That is, the Jutlanders move out because there aren't any more jobs, and retired Germans move in?
Yes. What has been discussed in some parts of the trade-union leadership and by industrial leaders is that we should have some industrial locomotives that could draw the Danish economy behind them. They have tried to carry out fusions to create some big industrial companies, for example Nordic Insulin, a drug company. It is one of the biggest in Denmark today, but in comparison with its German coun terparts, it is very small. The biggest company in Denmark has 5,000 employees. • If the slate elects people to parliament, what attitude will it take toward the social democrats on the question of forming the government, particularly if the social democrats form a coalition with the Radicals?
That question is still being discussed. We think we have agreement with the VS on it. We think that it has to be absolutely clear that this slate is totally against a coalition government including both workers' parties and bourgeois parties, even small bourgeois parties. If there is a majority of bourgeois forces in parliament, the working class parties' should be that of a clear opposition, not collaborating with the so-called center.
We think the CP has a different sort of inclination. The CP will not rule out the possibility that, under certain circumstances, it would be better to support, or help to create a social-democratic government allied with some of the small bourgeois parties, rather than have a government of the big bourgeois parties. Here there is a clear disagreement.
What we agreed about is that any seats we win should help to establish a government of the workers' parties, and that the slate will support such a government insofar as it implements workers' policies. The slate will not support it just because it's a government of workers' parties. • What's the possibility of this electoral alliance becoming an alliance in action, say in the trade-union movement?
There we have to be careful because on the one hand it is a goal for this slate to have actions outside parliament. But, at the same time, we don't want to limit unity in action to the members and supporters of these parties.
We also want to include workers who are not supporting any particular party, social democrat workers, SF workers and 21 even workers voting for bourgeois parties. July 31, 1989 • #168 International Viewpoint
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DENMARK What we can and want to do is to use this agreement to initiate united-front activities that also include others.
What we would say is that the possibilities with this alliance are better. It's not a guarantee, and it's not clear it will establish more activities. But the possibilities are better, both because it represents a real force, and also because we can use this common platform as a point of departure for taking initiatives on the things mentioned in the platform. The pressure for this has already resulted in a lot of local slates in municipal elections. Some of them have initiated real actions. # How much does this bloc lead to actual political discussions among the three parties?
The political discussion has been very much on the level of the leadership. Among the rank and file, the discussion has been mainly over whether or not it is a good idea to have the alliance. In the CP paper over the last year or two, there has been enormous discussion about it. Every day there have been a few contributions on this question. But we want now to try to develop the political discussion about this. There is agreement that there should be meetings and conferences. • So, you don't have a lot more contact with the VS and CP ranks than you did?
Not nationally, but on the municipal level there has been a lot more political discussion: Should socialists accept tax increases? What can we learn British municipal struggles, from Liverpool, Manchester, the Greater London Council? • What attitude do you take to the
Greens?
You must not compare the Danish Greens with the German Greens, because the Danish Greens are clearly a non-socialist, non-working class phenomenon.
When environmentalism first became popular, these issues were taken up by the SF and in the left, so for a long period the socialist movement in Denmark has been green. Thus, it was very clear that if there was room for a green party in Denmark, it would have to try to get bourgeoisminded people who were concerned about the environment. That is what they have tried to do. The problem the Greens have had is that the old established pettybourgcois party, the Radicals, appealed to the same people. But now that the Radicals are in the government, they are being discredited and opening up space for the Greens.
This is why our slate has to give a clear answer on the environment. We have a chance to win people who are not traditionally linked to the working-class 22 movement because we can stress that the only way to save the environment is to International Viewpoint #168 • July 31, 1989 attack private ownership. If we are successful in this, we have a real chance of stopping the Greens. • In terms of this alliance, there have been differences between you and the VS in the past over unions. Do you think those differences have been overcome?
Yes. They can be political differences. But there are no differences over whether we should work in the unions, that we should try to build up class-struggle left wings in the unions. In fact, some comrades in the VS are leading important unions, the brewery catering workers' unions.
The national leader of the catering workers is a member of the VS. And this union has led very good against MacDonalds, who do not want to hire union members; and in support of immigrant workers, who very often work • How does your electoral alliance fit into your longer term strategy?
There are two elements in our strategy. One is to achieve regroupment on the far left, to create a stronger revolutionary party. The other is to bring about a broader change in the face of the workers' move-
We don't see this alliance immediately as building a stronger revolutionary pole. Of course, there is a connection, because if the Left Socialists and ourselves are able to work together and have the same attitude toward a reformist party, as we see the CP, then of course that would make it easier to carry out a revolutionary regroupment. We are engaged in a process of revolutionary regroupment with the VS and some smaller groups.
And then there's the question of much broader change in the workers' movement, where the CP is a factor, as is the SF. The question there is which way for the workers' movement as a whole. This is neither a revolutionary regroupment nor that sort of broad change, but it is linked to both of them.
Concerning the change in the CP, the problem from our point of view is that the people who are most in favor of cooperating with the left and for this alliance are the Renewers, whose political positions are also going in the direction of the SF. The Renewers tend to say that there are "survival questions" that are more important than class struggle.
There are really big contradictions in all this. So, you could ask: why make this alliance now, why not wait? If we want to be a part of this discussion, if we want to win as many as possible for a working class point of view, the best way is to take initiatives like this. • What do you think are the perspectives for the CP?
We cannot offer any guarantees of where this will lead, where the CP will end up. What we can say is that we are participating on our own program and on a common platform that is acceptable. We will fight for all the positive aspects. The best thing of course would be if the development of the CP changed.
Some of the CP traditionalists see now that Gorbachev is attacking something they believe in. They don't like this idea of factory closures, of linking wages to productivity. They fight against that in Denmark. Now they see Gorbachev doing the same in the Soviet Union. So many of them say that Brezhnev was better. Many of them are good people, class-conscious people in terms of the Danish class struggle. It is clear that either one of the two main currents in the CP will capitulate, or sooner or later there will be a split. • Of course, you cannot predict how things will go in the Soviet Union.
But I don't think that anything that happens in the USSR can prevent a split in the Danish CP. Whatever happens in the Soviet Union, it will not change the situation in the CP. • Not even if Gorbachev loses and a neo-Stalinist comes to power?
Then there will be an immediate split in the Danish CP. A very big group would go to the SF immediately. They would drop every idea of communism. What they are doing now under the cover of Gorbachev is dragging the CP toward positions closer to the SF.
So much has been said about Stalin, so many lies have been exposed, that they can't just go back. Only a small section of the party would follow a shift like that, a thousand at most. • The VS put a lot of stress on the antagonism might call the petty-bourgeois sectors of the party and the trade-union activists, like the conflict in Britain between the Morning Star and Marxism Today.
The workers and trade-union activists tend to be traditionalists. The intellectuals and political activists tend to be the Renewers. It is clear that there is a social division, and that the so-called Stalinists. or traditional wing of the CP, are based more in the unions. The Renewers want to engage in politics. So, they cannot use empty phrases about working together with the social democracy for anything.
If they want to work with the social democrats in parliament, they have to get into parliament first, which makes it necessary to negotiate with the VS and SAP. So they do that. Talk about collaborating with the social democracy is of no use.
On the other hand, in the unions there is the social-democratic bureaucracy. And who do the CP militants or trade-union leaders or bureaucrats deal with? With the social democrats first and foremost. So for
DENMARK what we are going to do on parliamentary the level is necessary. But they do really hate those intellectual, middle layer, activists and thinkers in the CP.
I have talked to a lot of them, and what they in fact say is "We
"A life or death question for the CP"
Interview with Poul Petersen, secretary of the Left Socialists' (VS) Political Committee
W HAT IS the purpose of
this common slate? The objective is to get into parliament with 3% or 4%. The condition for this is to create a dynamic on the left. The problem is that for several years now the left has been represented by the SF, which is a reformist socialist party, and very near to the social democrats.
There have been several small parties further to the left, revolutionary parties, such as the VS and SAP. But none of these parties has been able to get over the 2% hurdle to get into parliament. That has dampened the optimism on the left, and lowered expectations. So if we can create an alternative with some prospects, we might get in with 3% or 4%. • Do you have plans for a broad campaign committee that could include unorganized people in the work of the campaign?
That is what we plan. But first we have to get enough signatures. You have to get about 20,000 signatures to stand for parliament. This is so new that we will have to wait until after the summer to see what
But of course a movement will have to be built to back the list. Because if it is only on the parliamentary level, it will not last long. I don't think that there will be a common campaign committee in the first election. It depends on the Communist Party, because it's them who from the start insisted on the independence of the parties. We and the SAP called for united work on a united platform. • It seems as if it will be hard to involve unorganized people if there are three different campaign com-
Yes, it will. But this is a life or death
Communist Party, because of its internal problems, and the suspicion of CP members toward VS and SAP, especially SAP. • What perspectives for the future
I see it as a part of the develwe accept that, all that we have fought for is nothing, and we can't live with that."
They can't take all those question marks. They want to carry on their work as usual, and they also want to adapt to the new times and developments. That's why they are prepared for a sort of alliance with those in our party who stand for class war against those who are softer. That's a peculiar development. • You find that your relationship is better with the union activists than with the Eurocommunists?
Yes. It's a funny thing, because originally we made an alliance with the Renewers to get this project. But as the process has been going on the alliance has moved more to the left than the Renewers would like. That's why in a way there is an alliance with the trade-union layer in the CP. • A lot of the discussion for this common program seems to be around questions like NATO and the EEC.
Yes. That's because the Communist Party does not want to go to the left of the policy of the peace movement. • You get this trend in favor of staying in NATO in the Italian CP as well.
Yes, but in Denmark this trend is in the
STUDENTER
SOPROR
OG opment on the left, what we call a regroupment process. Because at the moment it is difficult to imagine how the left will look in five years. I have even talked to leading cadres of the Communist Party who say that they don't really know whether the Communist Party will exist in five years because they have a big, very
SF. We had such a trend in the VS four years ago but they left and went to SF. • What about the EEC?
There is more agreement on that. We are all against the the European union. But the Communists want to stress the anti-union politics, and VS and SAP to stress the demand for leaving the EEC, but in the end we have come to an agreement on getting out of the EEC
KLASSE reformist wing who could just as easily be members of SF.
And they've got the old Stalinists, the traditionalist, ortho-
The Communists cannot risk being alone in not stressing that, because there is a popular feeling in the working class that we should get out of the EEC as quickly as
KAMP dox Communist Party members. They can see that there's going to be a split. • Does the division in the Communist Party run between trade-union and political activists?
More or less. But you also see that there is a feeling among the trade-union activists of the need for united work. They see at least that
• What alternative do you offer to the EEC other than just a return to national sovereignty?
That's a problem. That's being discussed in our party at the moment because we are affiliated to the People's Movement Against the EEC, and their alternative is EFTA [the European Free Trade Association]. EV have been is batoss for the 23 EEC we have better possibilities for the July 31, 1989 • #168 International Viewpoint
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them it is not empty to talk about the democracy. For them, this talk about the necessity of relations with the social VS and the SAP is a bit strange, because there are not so many unions where we have significant forces. In this sense you can understand why the Renewers are keen on this alliance and the trade-union people are more scep- tical. But I think this will change, because I think now that many of the trade union leaders now understand that if they don't lo it, they will be out of politics. * also think that Stalin was a horrible per- son, but we can't accept that there was no socialism in Russia at the time. Because if
DENMARK class struggle. In my opinion, the negative side of this might be isolating ourselves From the class struggle in Europe. There is an isolationist tendency in the Danish population, especially among the working class..
i Do you think the anti-EEC vote has increased? What would the vote be today if there were another referendum?
It would be less. Not because the antiEEC feeling is weaker but because people can't see the alternative. If you say, OK we can just leave and affiliate to EFTA, it's not really an alternative. What you have to say at the same time is that we have to join Europe in another way. Everybody knows that.
• For the past period the CP has been mainly interested in the social
Going into this bloc means breaking their de facto bloc with the social democrats. Do you think that that's the way they're
Yes. And that's a problem for a lot of the trade-union activists in the Communist Party. But those I have talked to say that in fact they realize that they have to change their line. They can see that the development of party is so right wing at the moment that it is no longer possible for them to bloc with
• How much of an impact have the events in the USSR had on the CP?
This creates a lot of problems for their members because nothing is certain anymore. That paralyzes them.
• If the countries that have had planned economies appear to be abandoning them and taking a leaf out of Thatcher's book, does that pose a general ideological problem in Denmark?
I remember a few years ago, there was an attempt to get a common program with the radical dockers and other forces, and there was general opposition to including the demand for nationalizations, since this was considered unpopular and
What position does this program take on nationalizations?
It is not mentioned, as far as I remember. But we have talked about it, and all three parties are in favor of it in different ways. On the other hand, there is resisamong the working class. That's the prob• Is the question of immigrant workers an important issue for the coalition? 24 racism and anti- fascism. We stress that very much, both antiInternational Viewpoint #168 • July 31, 1989
• This raises the question of Com- / mon Course. If their vote is a left vote - which is questionable -they would be an important component of a common socialist slate.
Yes. The problem is that it is a populist party that wants to make a bridge between red politics and petty-bourgeois politics, and they have had this attitude toward immigrant workers and refugees that is purely racist, but at other times it just facilitates racism.
We have said that if they are going to join the alliance, they have to publicly change their politics. Otherwise we don't want to have anything to do with them. • One side of the impact of the changes in the Soviet Union is obviously to break down the CP's barriers against the left, but it also breaks down the barriers to going further to the right.
Yes, and that's why it has been so important for us to draw the alliance to
That's why, for VS, we have accepted several things that in reality we don't want. But if we get the alliance now, we have a handle on them, because they cannot go as far to the right as they would do
In reality, a large part of the CP membership stand for SF politics, and would
• That means that the discussion between these two wings in the CP will tend to focus on this electoral program.
Yes. And that is a lot better than other possible focuses. • Can you talk to the CP rank and
Yes, we can. But our problem is we have had so much to do and so few resources that we haven't been able to act as we should. Members have done it, but we have not done it as a party, but we could have a large influence.
several times to come to local CP branches to talk about the alliance. That has never happened before. And then we talk about everything - Poland, Hungary, everything. • Does the question of Trotsky and the Left Opposition come up much?
No. But it will. In the Communist Party it has to. • If they ask you about that, do you defend the tradition of the Left Opposition?
Yes. I do, because it is my tradition. But it is not the tradition of the VS as such. I have never been in the Trotskyist movement, but from the first time I started to think about the Russian revolution,
I was a Leninist and Trotskyist in that
"I think that it is much easier to discuss with Trotskyists or Maoists now"
Interview with Anker
Schjerning, member of the Executive Committee of the Danish Communist
Party
H OW DOES the Communist
Party evaluate the progress on achieving a common slate?
The Communist Party of Denmark has not yet taken the final decision. Our members will have to decide whether the party will participate in the elections on our own slate or on a common slate with the other forces.
In our understanding, this is not an alliance but electoral cooperation. It is a cooperation for the time being between these three parties. The two other parties have already decided at their congresses. Our party will decide in the course of the • This type of electoral cooperation has been discussed in Denmark for a number of years, and this is the closest that it has come to realization. What has made this possible now, rather than some years ago?
I think that international developments have had some influence, the develop ment in the Soviet Union for instance, the problem of democracy in the countries. Those problems that divided the Communist Party from other parties of the left, particularly the Left Socialist Party, no longer exist. Our position on human rights, the participation of the people and the role of the party are changing.
I also think that some differences from the late 1960s and the 1970s are fading. At that time the students and the radical youth groups were very active, and influenced the left forces. They dominated the VS, and they had a lot of notions that they could defend the working-class's interests better than the workers themselves. Our party had many reservations about such student socialist groups. I think these problems from the past are not forgotten but they are greatly diminished. We think for instance that the VS has more realistic points of view now concerning the conditions of the working class than they had ten or fifteen years ago. • There was an article in Moscow
News some time ago saying that it was not true that the Trotskyists were traitors, and that it was possible to accept Trotskyists in unitedfront work.
I think that it is much easier to discuss with Trotskyists or with Maoists now. And I think the main problem in our relations with the SAP is not their international relations, but rather our disagreements on national policy.
My opinion is that they have a smallgroup, sectarian evaluation of some of our national problems, for instance in the peace movement. In the VS, there has been a small group that has held that the Communists were still Stalinists. But Trotskyism as such in my opinion is not a problem. • What about the issue of the EEC?
On this issue, there is agreement among the three parties. I think that all three parties are active in the popular movement against the EEC. • And NATO?
I don't think there is much difference between the three parties on the principles. All the parties want Denmark to leave NATO. But there is a difference in my opinion in that the Communist Party has been much more involved in the broader peace movement. The platform of the peace movement is against the policy of NATO, but it does not demand that Denmark leave NATO immediately.
We have had discussions here about whether we will close the slate to people who are active against NATO's policies but who, for the moment, do not want Denmark to leave. The Communists want to open the slate to all forces in the peace movement that are active against NATO policy. • The Italian CP has a position in favor of staying in NATO and trying to transform it. Is there any sympathy for that view in the CP here?
No. We think that the Scandinavian countries could have a stronger influence on international peace and disarmament policy outside NATO. But we think that as long as Denmark is in NATO, the popular forces in the NATO countries should work together and that we should press the Danish government to make proposals inside NATO against militarist policies. • Some communist parties have ideas about the possibility of transforming the EEC, about democratizing it and using its institutions to further progressive politics. Is there any sympathy for that view in the Danish CP?
No. Of course, we think that we should strengthen cooperation between the trade unions and working-class and progressive people across the borders. But we are against strengthening the institutions of the EEC, and we think that the Danish working class has better possibilities for influencing the national institutions than the EEC institutions.
Of course, as long as we are unable to stop the integration policy, we cannot be indifferent to the EEC institutions. They have a lot of money. When the Nicaragua Committee and other forces seek money and resources from EEC budgets for projects in Nicaragua, or for Green projects, we of course support them.
differences between the VS, the SAP and the CP over the Easter strikes a few years ago. Is that still a problem?
Not in my opinion. The important thing is the policies today and in the future. The new thing is the fact that the parties can have a dialogue over political events.
At the end of 1987 the VS's and the Communist Party's commissions began to meet to discuss different things. Before then we only discussed in the trade-union movement. We did not sit together around a table to discuss the Easter Strikes, for instance, as parties. This is a new thing, and a hopeful one in my opinion. • How do you see the development of this electoral cooperation. / understand, for example, that in the upcoming campaign you are not proposing that there be a united campaign committee. Do you see that as a possibility for the future?
If the cooperation goes well, and the parties in the process of dialogue come closer to each other and other forces, then of course we could take the next step to conduct common election campaigns. But we have to start from the beginning. • But it will be difficult to call on unorganized people to join three different campaign committees.
Yes. It has been a difficult process. I think that one of the difficulties was that the SAP and the VS started from a very high level, and then moved downwards. They started with the idea that the three parties should take the initiative to make a socialist unity slate, a kind of new electoral organization, that would have a very broad platform and conduct a common campaign and take common positions.
We started with the idea that the three parties should continue as three independent parties, and find a minimum platform and try to move up from that. One of the successes is that the two other parties have realized that it was not possible to start from this high level of unity. • What if you elect someone to parliament? What attitude would you take toward the government? Would you vote for the social democrats to organize the parliament?
Yes. All the parties have agreed that we should recommend to the head of state,
DENMARK the queen, to ask the leader of working-class party — the social democrats - to head up the govern• Would you support a democrats with the left radicals?
That's one of the things we have discussed. In our opinion, it depends on the concrete situation, and it depends on the movement and the political basis in the population. We will only support a social-democratic government for the things and not all the things they do. And that's also something we have discussed with the SAP and the VS.
In my opinion, they are making too big a thing of this Radical party. Our real problem is not the Radical party, our real problem is the social democrats. Do the social democrats want a real working-class policy, a real popular policy, a policy against NATO, or do they want cooperation with the ruling classes? That's the real prob-
I don't think that the SAP's formulation is correct politically, because they say that this small Radical party will be able to dominate the social democrats. In my opinion, the real problem is inside the social-democratic movement itself. • What are the possibilities of extending this cooperation to the trade-union field?
This list opens the possibility that forces other than parties could nominate candidates - individuals, trade unions, unemployed movements or environmental groups. So, this slate opens possibilities to bring trade-union forces into politics in a
I'm sure that the trade unionists supporting the Communist Party and the VS and the left forces will look with a lot of sympathy on this slate. And I am also sure that many social democrats and SF people will also like this project, because many people have criticized the small Communist and Left Socialists for being responsible for 4 % of the vote not being represented in parliament, and for the possibility that we could have a workers' majority among the people but not in the parliament. • Do you propose getting peace organizations to endorse this list?
We don't think that peace organizations as such will endorse it, but that individuals working in the peace organizations • You think the list should have a clear reference to socialism?
No, not explicitly. Such forces must realize that the real opponents of their green ideals or their peace ideals are the capitalist forces, and they have to draw corresponding conclusions about the need 25 for people's power and socialism. * July 31, 1989 • #168 International Viewpoint
USSR
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NOSTPERESTROIKAGLA Right to strike legalized....and restricted ON APRIL 29, 1989 the Soviet trade union daily Trud published a proposed law that would make it legal for Soviet trade unions to organize strikes. The term "strike" is not used. It is clear that the legalization is a consequence of the increasing number of strikes in the Soviet Union and the sympathy that they have met with in the media and public
But at the same time the legalization also contains a restriction of the right to News of May 14, 1989, a decree has just come into force (after deliberations in the Supreme Court in the course of which equates strike pickets with "demonstrations in a public place" and therefore considers them illegal if they are not preauthorized by the municipal authorities. * Partial media rehabilitation of
The same week, the weekly Ogonyok published three texts of "Memoirs of Lenin" by Karl Radek, Grigori Zinoviev and Leon Trotsky.
At the same time the review Argumenty i Fakiy, a weekly intended for the education of Communist Party cadres, printed pictures of busts of Lenin and Trotsky, made by a British artist in the early 1920s, on opposite pages. The journal quoted the words of the artist that "Trotsky was worshipped by the Red Army".
According to an opinion poll conducted by the German weekly Der Spiegel, and reprinted in the Flemish socialist daily De Morgen on June 7, 1989, 20% of Muscovites have a positive opinion of Trotsky, and 23% a negative opinion. On Stalin the positive opinions are 13% and the negative 66%. On Bukharin, the positive opinions rise to 50% and the nega-
In view of the fact that Bukharin has been officially rehabilitated become something of a cult figure in the media, while Trotsky continues to be strongly criticized, the judgement on Trotsky can be considered unexpectedly favourable.*
The crimes of Stalin THE WEEKLY of the Association for Cultural Relations with Ukrainians Living Abroad, News from the Ukraine, published in its May 1989 issue an article entitled "Let us make a solemn oath" concerning a mass demonstration that took place in the forest of Bykivnya near to Kiev, where a mass grave of victims of the NK VD [secret police] has been discovered. So far the remains of 7,000 bodies have been uncovered.
The co-president of the Ukraine Memorial Association, Les Tanyuk, stated during the meeting: "The cream of the people of Kiev and the Ukraine are buried here. The peoples' commissars, the military leaders, the Cheka officers, intellectuals, the leader of the Party, Panyas Lyoubchenko and his wife, the writer Ivan Mykytenko, the academician A. Krymwriter Ludmilla StarytskaCherniakhivska. This place is the site of the martyrdom of Ukrainian culture."
Another speaker declared: "The fact that it is only now that we have been able to learn the truth about Bykivnya shows that
1937 is not the distant past. Stalinism is still alive. It holds back the progress of glasnost and attacks its own people with shovels, as happened on April 9, 1989 when the meeting in Tbilisi [the capital of
Georgia] was broken up."
A letter from Andrei Sakharov was read at the meeting. It includes the statement:
"Let us make, today, a solemn promise that we will do everything in our power to prevent this country ever again moving back — even if only slightly - to the state of hypocrisy, lying, falsification, cruelty and fanaticism in which it has lived for so long, and from which we have gradually begun to free ourselves." *
The "State of laws" and its
Trotsky ON APRIL 21, 1989,
GASNOST excerpts from the memoirs of Raymond Robins about the first years of the Soviet regime. Robins, an American, knew These excerpts include the following remark: and Trotsky came to power on the basis power to the Soviets."
On April 20, 1989, the Review of Books announced the presentation of a talking book on the 1917 revolution containing speech by Trotsky, described as a "brilliant orator" and a "tribune of revolution", whose our writings allow us to "understand Leninist logInternational Viewpoint #168 • July 31, 1989
PANCHO contradictions THE LEGAL basis for the arrest and sentencing of numerous oppositionists in the Soviet Union was the notorious Article 70 of the penal code which condemns not only actions but also writings guilty of "anti-Soviet agitation" or "slandering Soviet [i.e. state!] institutions". For a long time liberal intellectuals and some of the more radical Gorbachevites have been conducting a vigorous campaign for the suppression of Article 70. They have just won a partial victory. A decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of April 8, 1989, effectively revises the penal code as regards
"crimes against the state"
However, although it removes the most outrageous aspects decree continues to outlaw "calls for changing the Soviet political and social regume in contradiction with the Constitution" and "defamation or discrediting of slate organs and social organizations" The editorial offices of newspapers, radio and television have received a large number of letters criticizing these stipulations, pointing out that they contradict the policies of glasnost and perestroika.
in Moscow News of May 21, 1989, the jurist Nina Beljiava writes: "How are we to understand the idea of *appeals to change the social and state system'? Are we not already engaged in changing the social and political regime, given that we have embarked on a propolitical and economic reform, involving new property relations, the separation of powers, the introduction of new democratic institutions?" * ACCORDING to Moscow News of June 4, 1989, the Soviet pharmaceutical industry meets less than 50% of the requirements for medication. Some 30% of the medication distributed is imported. Only 75-80% of the needs of people with diabetes, tuberculosis, asthma and heart diseases for medication are met.
The conditions of poverty, helped by social inequality, lead to a dual system of health care. There is one for the mass of the people increasingly cut off from access to medication, and another for the bureaucrats and the new rich, who can get through "connections" and "the mutual exchange of services" ( the "grey" ket), or simply by paying high prices.
The creation of a network of private proresources that would be reduced by the "market economy".
Why not let people vote on the question: What is most important? Sufficient free and effective medicines or irresponsible, megalomaniac projects like that of Pensioners in poverty "WHY ARE tens of millions living below the poverty line while others are living in luxury?" asked Boris Yeltsin at the Congress of People's Deputies on May 31. According to Gorbachev there are more than 40 million Soviet citizens living below the official poverty line, some 35 million of whom are people living on various kinds of fixed pension.
On June 7 Prime Minister Nikolai Ryzhkov announced a rise in the minimum pension to 70 roubles per month, which is the minimum wage.
War veterans and veterans of labour were also promised improvements. However, according to Ogonyok in February 1989, the new law will not come into operation until 1991. * The shredder at work? A JOINT Polish-Soviet historical commission has been at work on the "blank spots" in the history of Polish/Soviet relations. The secret pacts agreed in August 1939 between Hitler and Stalin concerning the absorption of the Baltic States by the Soviet Union and the partition of Poland are proving a particular problem. According to the Commission:
"From collections of German diplomatic documents published in the West, it
USSR may be concluded that an additional protocol formed a part of the pact. The original of this protocol has not been found in the Soviet archives... Democracy versus production? ON JUNE 26 the Soviet press agency TASS reported the suspension of live covcrage of the proceedings of the Congress of People's Deputies. According to Anatolii Lukyanov, interest in the broadcasts resulted in a 20% fall in industrial output! From now on the public will only be able to see "edited highlights" of their legislature at work. * Unemployment causes conflict UNEMPLOYMENT Kazakhs has been cited by Soviet sources as a reason for the clashes between Kazakhs and immigrant Caucasian oilworkers in Novyi Uzen' in Western Kazakhstan in mid-June 1989 that led to five or more deaths.
According to the chairman Supreme Soviet of the Kazakh Republic, Magda Sagdiev, some 1,500 to 2,000 young people in the town of 56,000 were
Management, concerned to meet plan targets at the lowest possible cost, preferred to bring in labour from outside rather than pay the training and infrastructural costs of using local labour. The chairman of the republican State Committee on Labour and Social Problems, Nedirmamed Alovov, commented that at least part of the unemployment resulted from lay-offs caused by the introduction of the khosraschot [cost-accounting] cconomic policies. *
CZECH INPREKOR duction, import and sale of medicines will not resolve the situation. By legalizing the "grey" and black markets it will increase
June 1989 inequality and social in justice.
A real solution would be a change in investment policy, that is to say increase in the amount of hard currency committed to imports of medicines and an increase in the funds allocated to the development of scientific research and the production of medicines in the Soviet
This would only need small sums compared to the total hard currency reserves and productive investments of the USSR. Moscow News estimates the total increase in hard currency payments required at 100 million roubles. No new enterprises have been built in this sector for 15 years. Modernization would cost a billion roubles.
When we realize that 30 billion roubles have been allocated for the gigantic petrogas plant at Tyumen — judged ruinous by both economists and ecologists - it becomes clear that the issue is one of the choice of priorities, and not a lack of
C 9
To be or not to be
5. 0,1080
Contents:
• "Are Trotskyists the last of the dinosaurs?"
• Draft IEC resolution on the USSR
• Petr Uhl's critique of the manifesto of the
Movement for Civic
Liberty (HOS)
Write to: Czech Inprekor,
2 rue Richard Lenoir,
93108 Montreuil, France.
27
----- photo credits and running heads -----
9
Severe blow to woman's
USA each state, the legislators and governors, to chart the course of the state laws.
pro-choice anti-abortion and
Both organizations are preparing to fight within right to choose the confines of this system. Anti-abortion groups are arranging to introduce restrictive measures on the right to choose in most states. Pro-choice groups are encour aging representatives to vote against this
THE US SUPREME COURT decision announced on July 3 in the case Webster v. Reproductive Health Services has, as expected, severely limited a woman's right to abortion (see IV
162). By upholding key provisions of the Missouri law in question, the court has invited individual states to limit the ability of all women to exercise this right.
In addition, the Supreme Court will hear three new cases this fall that will give it further opportunities to abolish the right to abortion altogether.
TERESA MARTINEZ
B
Y A VOTE of five-to-four, the right to a safe and legal abor-
) tion, as established in 1973 with the case Roe v.Wade, has been compromised. States may now prohibit the use of public funds, public employees, and public facilities to perform abortions not necessary to save the life of the woman. The justices also ruled that states may require doctors to test for fetal viability
With a ban on public funding, legal abortion is nearly eliminated as a choice for young and poor women who rely on public health care. It could also limit access for many women who would otherwise have no problem obtaining abortions at private facilities because the private/ public distinction is practically existent in US health care. Most "private"
amount of public aid that would qualify them under this new prohibitive law.
Another provision of the Missouri law prohibiting public financing of abortion counseling was also upheld, but applies only to state officials who distribute the funds and not to health care providers.
However, in some places, even without a law, public health care employees are already being instructed not to discuss abortion as an option, thus already beginning to curtail the free exchange of infor-
The most menacing and symbolically significant provision of the ruling is that which requires fetal viability testing. The court did not offer guidance as to what is to be done if viability is established, but it is widely agreed that the woman would be forced to continue the pregnancy. The scientific community point of viability is 24 weeks. With the new ruling, the court has upset the so- called "balance" between the rights of the
28 a 24 weeks in the Roe decision. The juswoman and the fetus that was established
International Viewpoint #168 • July 31, 1989 tices failed to make an actual ruling on this question, however, creating a legal vacuum that threatens to allow the state to take control of a woman's body from the moment her egg is fertilized.
The tests to be used to determine fetal viability, which are basically useless until the 28th week of pregnancy, are sometimes dangerous, are very expensive, and delay abortions by often critical weeks. In the US, less than 1% of abortions are performed after the 20th week, so this restriction could actually have little practical application. It is, however, psychologically potent - encouraging conservative state legislators to enact further restrictions and discouraging doctors from providing abortion services. More restrictions expected in
Three more abortion cases are due before the Supreme Court this fall. One from Illinois would require abortion clinics to have expensive equipment unnecessary for the conduct of safe abortions. This would force most clinics to close and, even without overturning Roe, render meaningless the constitutional protection of abortion rights. This nightmare is
La real possibility, because court could examine the case on what it calls a "rational basis," form of judicial review.
Two other cases, from Minnesota and Ohio, involve parental consent. Among other things, the states are asking that the provision allowing the woman to exercise a "judicial bypass" of parental consent be declared unconstitutional. The Supreme Court will probably rule in favor of these restrictions.