BUILDING THE
WORLD PARTY OF
SOCIALISTS of opposition.
Schools demonstration have been boycotted and picketed by at every level including their students primary schools. There have been fasts
Communist Party unit temples and hungerstrikes in and government has not
The churches.
succeeded in frightening the Tamil popujoins Swedish section lation and the opposition has spread to other Tamil areas, such as Eastern province.
CLAMPDOWN ON TRADE-UNION of the Fourth International
ORGANISATION
This response has not led the government to ease up at all. Their objective goes further than winning the referendum, they are also trying to get rid of the opposition trade unions, particularly in government departments. This campaign has been particularly effective in the transport unions. Where the workers have resisted the government has come down hard.
In one key industrial area the workers in 24 factories organised a solidarity coordinating committee. This has had confrontations with the government, which have resulted in one factory first in the dismissal of several trade-union militants, and now in the arrest of a number of trade-union and solidarity activists, including three members of the RMP.
So the government is trying to get total control over the workplaces, and I think it may become impossible for the independent trade-unions to function. And this is an attempt to impose conditions which will allow them to meet the demands made by the World Bank.
INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY
The extent of the repression, directed not only against Tamil nationalists, but workers and peasants, including Sinhalese, should make it possible to unite all
"The fact that I have changed parties doesn't mean that I have changed the political line that I'm fighting for. It means that I now have a party behind me that really supports that line."
This is the way that Greger Sagerstrom explained his decision to break with the Swedish Communist Party and joined the Socialist Party, Swedish section of the Fourth International. He and a dozen or so others who left the Skara branch of the CP along with him formed a unit of the Socialist Party in this fair-sized industrial town in southwest Sweden.
Sagerstrom had been the chairman of the Skara CP branch and was elected to the city council. He decided to retain his seat on the council, becoming the SP's first elected representative. He told Internationalen, the weekly paper of the SP:
" It is a natural thing for me to stay on the council. Our CP section fought the ...We have made our opinions very clear through leaflets, letters to the editor in the local press, and through our own newspaper. Those who voted for us knew for. Besides we are well known here, and we personally know at least half of those who voted for us."
The new SP branch began immediately selling Internationalen and publicizing their decision to join the Fourth International organization: "It's good to be able to sell a paper that we really believe in," members told an Internationalen reporter after their first sale.
The Skara branch began moving toward the SP after the military crackdown in Poland. They were not satisfied with the Eurocommunist CP's weak protest. Their criticisms of this became combined with their criticism of the CP's tail-endist line toward the Social Democratic Party and its complicity with the Social Democrats' class collaborationism, especially in view of the Social Democratic government's harsh austerity program.
Once they found themselves in opposition in the CP, they discovered that the possibilities for political discussion were limited. When they found a political organization they agreed with, the SP, they decided to break altogether with the ups in The Carvil nilow heat ethn- They are confident that other ple as class struggle sharpens in Sweden in the years to come.
25
Overwelming support for Trotskyist shop chairman
Just before Christmas, Gote Kilden, a leading member of the Socialist Party, Swedish section of the Fourth International, was reelected chairman of his shop committee at the Volvo plant in Goteborg by a vote of more than two to one, despite a heavy-handed campaign by the Social Democratic Party union leadership to get him out.
The Social Democrats, who control the Swedish labor movement from top to bottom, had refused for example to allow Kilden to participate in the negotiations over a reconstruction project, although all those employed in it had asked in writing that he be included in the talks.
The Social Democrat union leaders argued that Kilden did not represent the views of the workers when he opposed a junket to Portugal by the local leadership, opposed the workers paying into the company funds, and when he demanded that the local contract should make up for what the workers lost in the national one. "So, the vote became a referendum on
Gote Kilden (DR)
The Social Democrats tried to force a
He commented: " I think that the result shows that the Socialist Party did not isolate itself by putting up its own candidates in last year's general election (against the Social Democrats). To the contrary, this vote retlected an appreciation of the fact that we have followed a consistent political line."
Kilden offered analternative for workers who have been becoming disgusted with the corruption of the local Social Democrat bureaucrats as well. Internationalen noted:
"As the Social Democrats were handing out their ballots in the hall, the tone was set by an older worker who has voted Social Democrat many years. had gotten fed up with the local leadership's junkets and complacency. 'No, we're not electing the travel bureau this year."
The vote was 228 for Kilden, and 100 for his Social Democratic opponents.
In this election, the Maoist KPML(r), which customarily boycotts union votes, called on its supporters to cast their questions,"
these
Kilden told Internationalen, the weekly paper of the Socialist Party.
The election clearly aroused a special interest, because the participation was 70%, as opposed to the normal 50%. in the workplaces.
straight party vote.
But that backfired this time, Kilden said, because the austerity policies of the new Social Democratic government are very unpopular ballots for Kilden.
The result of the vote was widely commented on in the big press as marking the growth of a radical mood among workers.
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