AROUND THE WORLD lation directly. They are also reluctant to work together with platforms inside the CP.
A consensus declaration denied the Federal government the right to introduce a new constitution, saying that the political spectrum in parliament no longer represented the broad movement the population originally voted for.
The meeting was unable to overcome deep differences on the national question. Though relations were friendly, Slovaks supported "their" bureaucracy's demands for a loose confederation based on two national republics, while Czechs supported a conception based on the self-managed community as the basic unit. Slovaks said this blurs the national distinction and makes the Prague-based federation the highest political authority.
BRITAIN: Matt Lee — poll tax prisoner filed, more than half from Romania and a little less than 10% from
THE hated poll tax, Thatcher's "flagship", whereby everyone was required to pay high
Bulgaria. This is more than doubills for local government finance irrespective of their income, is to be withdrawn. Howble the number for the equivalent ever, non-payers will continue to be pursued for money owed, and the tax will not be period in 1989. There are estimatfinally replaced until 1993, despite a centrally-funded reduction in the size of the bills.
ed to be more than 100,000 immi-
Its defeat was the result of a massive campaign for non-payment; some 12 million working illegally in grants have not paid their poll tax.
Austria, particularly Poles.
Visa requirements have now
Although the anti-poll tax movement was opposed by the Labour Party leadership, been re-established for Bulgarisome MPs refused to pay their tax. In some cases the Labour Party has expelled and is
Romanians and Poles, and still expelling members who advocate non-payment, including two supporters of the revans, voices have been heard calling for olutionary Marxist journal Socialist Outlook in Lambeth, South London, who have been increased restrictions. The FPO, suspended as Labour councillors.
the "liberal" opposition party, has
A crowning moment of the campaign was the demonstration of a quarter of a million called for visas for all those compeople in London on March 30, 1990, which was savagely attacked by the police.
ing from these countries, while
At the end of the day over 300 demonstrators had been injured and scores arrested two leading officials of the ruling
Over one hundred people have received prison sentences; around thirty remain in jail.
Socialist Party have stated that
One of those arrested at the "Battle of Trafalgar Square" was Matt Lee, a Socialist Out-
"the boat is full".
look supporter: Matt is the Chair of the Birmingham Federation of Anti-Poll Tax Unions.
1,500 soldiers have been sent to
Like many on the demonstrations, in the face of the police attacks, Matt defended himthe Hungarian border to prevent self along with his fellow protestors.
clandestine immigration, and the
On March 25, 1991, Matt was imprisoned for two and a half years for "violent disorder".
legislation concerning the right of
The conviction was solely based on three minutes of video evidence and falsified police immigrants to work is to be tightstatements. UNEDITED videos clearly show the brutality of the police, with charging ened up — with the support of the mounted police officers beating demonstrators to the ground
OGB trade union confederation.
(From IRES Chronique Interna-
Harsh sentences handed down to demonstrators show that the government, courts tionale, September 1990). * and police are willing to go to great lengths to enforce the poll tax and silence opposition.
On March 26, 1991, the Birmingham Poll Tax Prisoners Supporters Group was
CZECHOreformed in response to the sentencing of Matt and other poll tax prisoners. It aims to provide material assistance to those imprisoned, press for an independent public inquiry
SLOVAKIA into police behaviour, and campaign for the release of the poll tax prisoners.
Left meets
Internationally the group is calling for the following:
THE second all-Czechoslovak
• Publicity for Matt and other poll tax prisoners.
meeting of the "Left Grouping"
• Material support (books, papers etc).
- an informal network of left
• Campaigning for the release of all poll tax prisoners.
and Communist Party groups and
• Support for the call for a public/ labour movement inquiry into the events of March platforms — took place in Bratislava on April 13. The grouping meets once a month, and aims to
Donations and messages of support can be sent to:
be a forum for discussion and a
Birmingham Poll Tax Prisoners Support Group, means of producing a minimum c/o 5, Exton Gardens, Blackpatch, Smethwick, West Midlands, England, B66 common programme.
There was a striking contrast
Anybody wanting further information and copies of our petition can contact the group between the optimism of the Slovak groups, able increasingly to relate to a public identifying the market reforms as against Slovak national interests, and the Czechs,
31, 1990.
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23 May 13, 1991 • #206 International Viewpoint
AROUND THE WORLD / PORTUGAL
The largest groups present were the of the Democratic Left (SDL - the old CP), and the Czech Democratic Forum of Communists, a platform in the Czech CP. Other groups
Slovakia's Workers' Forum, Union of Socialists, and Social Democracy, and the Czech groups Left Alternative, part of the Democratic Forum and the Green Platform in the CP.
Although the grouping bridges the major divide of left politics, current or recent membership in the Communist Party, many groups, including the Czech Social Democratic Party, refuse participation while hard-line CP groups are
Left Alternative accepts only observer status for the same reason. The anarchist groups, the major current with any youth consider most of the above groups Stalinist.
The association is supported by the publishers of Left Alternative's Polarita, the hard-line CP Nase Pravda and the Trotskyist Fourth International's review into the bureaucraticcapitalist media, especially in the Czech Republic, remains very difficult, and the groups pledged to exchange information and articles regularly.
The next meeting will be in Prague on May 18, sponsored by the Democratic
Communists CZECHOSLOVAKIA Far right demonstration THE far right Republican Party held a 4,000 strong march through Prague on Saturday April 13, the culmination of a national week of action. Their supporters - skinheads, workers facing redundancy, political prisoners from the 1950s and students — chanted slogans and applauded Miroslav Sladek, their charismatic leader, and an employee of the censorship office until November 1989.
Sladek's constant megaphone diatribe illustrated. the confused, populist base of the movement. He claimed that "all those in power are communists and STB (secret police) people", "we are becoming foreigners in our own land", "They won't make us speak Slovak, German or Hungarian!", "Three governments? [federal, Czech, Slovak) — I'd need 7 minis-
All the Czech Republic's problems are blamed on a mysterious mafia of communists, ex-communists, Charter 77 police informers, Jewish intellectuals, ungrateful Slovaks and foreign monopolies.
Sladek exploits many of the realities of the Czech situation.
The Communist bureaucracy was not swept from power; indeed the present 24 sections of them and an intelligentsia elite represents a compromise between International Viewpoint #206 • May 13, 1991 elite of Charter 77 activists (almost none of them Jewish!).
There is undeniably a strong Chartist "jobs for the boys" phenomenon in state and economic appointments. groupings in the bureaucracy are making deals with foreign companies to rip off state property in speculative or short term projects that will not strengthen the Reform programme bogged
The government seems paralyzed. Parliament is cut off from the people and bogged down in a series of 40 economic reform laws which nobody understands. The standard of living of the workers has fallen over 30% over the last year, and the economy is weaker than before. Inflation and unemployment are rising.
The Republican Party's strategy for dealing with all this is a series of con-
Decisive purges and expulsion of all ex-CP members from leading positions would free over half a government" would allegedly stop corruption and ensure a fair deal foreign investors. To this the Republicans have attached the slogans of self-management and worker-share ownership, stolen from the left.
from a number of left friends support my own impression that the Republicans have not grown since their last major demonstration, on the of George Bush's visit last support is constantly over, and Sladek has not yet built either an organizational structure, or a respectable facade, or a milieu of skinhead thugs to do the Party's dirty work. This week has, however, advanced all three aims a little further.
The organized far right is less a feature of Slovak politics, though virulent racist and nationalist sentiments are a common communism is not so strong, in part because the Stalinists industrialized Slovakia within 30 years, and brought its standard of living up to Czech levels, and in part because the "normalization" after 1968 was not as severe in Slovakia.
several extreme groupings celebrate the Nazi-puppet Slovak state of 1939-45, and its unsavory leaders, the centre parties have monopolized the nationalist mantle with their chauvinist language law (discriminating against the 10% Hungarian minority and their anti-Prague rhetoric. The left is the only current with an anti-bureaucratic propaganda.
We have not heard the last of the far right in Czechoslovakia, nor is there yet much sign of a force that can squash before they grow - Adam
On the
EEC
drip-feed