GERMANY / SPANISH STATE
Committee was meeting. The two were hated by the Communists for their participation in beatings. Immediately after the attack on Anlauf and Lenk the police opened fire, shooting into the surrounding crowd and killing a trader and a child. Karl Liebknecht house was closed for 14 days meanwhile been designated as "antiparty". The fact that this has now been stuck on Mielke is yet another turn of the opportunist screw in regard to this case.
It may turn out that the defendant can rely on the capacities to play out a comedy in the courtroom. His first move "I want to go home" was successful as was his remark on the second day of the trial "someone has stolen my hat". No doubt there will be others. In any case, whatever you think about Erich Mielke, we are seeing here an attempt at a perversion of justice.* by the police.
In 1934 charges of murder were brought against Erich Mielke, a reserve leader of the KPD self-defence guard, and others. At The missing general the time of the act he was under 24. The fact that in 1934 he was already living in the Soviet Union and was thus out of danger, cannot be used as an indirect proof. At that time many KPD functionaries were delegated for periods of time to the USSR — at the Lenin School, to work or for poli-
SINCE the end of 1991, the Spanish State has been affected by a tical activity, for example, in the Cominwave of social struggles. At the end of last year, Leon, Asturias, tern or the Executive Committee of the
Cartagena and El Ferrol were paralyzed by general strikes.
Youth International.
Subsequently the movement has spread through the steel and
In his memoirs, completed in May 1946,
Herbert Wehner, the technical secretary of engineering industries with demonstrations in Cantabria, the CC of the KPD in 1931, asserted that
Andalusia and even in the Canary Islands. Transport has been
Heinz Neumann, a member of the CC and paralyzed in Madrid and Barcelona and new actions are planned the politburo, had been a supporter of a particularly sharp ultra-left course and had
These are movements of protest against industrial reconversion, ordered the Kippenberger apparatus to de-industrialization and layoffs resulting from the policies shoot the policemen in order, through the followed by the Spanish government, under pressure from the act itself and the expected repression, to
European Economic Community (EEC).
over-shadow the impact of the 'people's referendum' affair and create a new situation."
Murder in Moscow
Neumann was arrested in 1937 in Moscow and murdered by the Stalinist apparatus. His life-long companion, Margarete
Büber-Neumann, claimed in 1957 that
Walter Ulbricht had "given the order to
Fritz Bröde, the responsible leader of the party self-defence guard, to find two suitable people to carry out this deed". One of them was Mielke. Ulbricht wanted in this way to discredit Neumann, on whom he wanted to throw the responsibility for the
In 1966 there appeared the eight-volume
History of the German Workers' Movement produced by the Institute of
Marxism-Leninism under the auspices of the CC of the East German SED (Socialist
Unity Party — the Communist Party). The chair of the editorial collective was Walter
Ulbricht. In the fourth volume it is asserted that the shooting was organized by Heinz
Neumann and Hans Kippenberger.
When Margarete Büber-Neumann published her version in 1957, Ulbricht was public enemy no.1 in West Germany. The charges thus not only exonerated Neumann but also became part of the German struc ture of prejudice. The official version promulgated by Ulbricht in the East in 1966 was part of the attempt to attribute the serious mistakes of that time onto the Neumann-Kippenberger group that had for Galicia and Murcia.
JOAQUIN NIETO
F hundred
IVE miners from Leon have just undertaken a march to
Madrid to demand that their jobs be retained; they are threatened by the project for the restructuring of the Ponferrada mining and steel-making enterprise. In 18 days they covered the 503 kilometres from their village to the capital. Along the route they were greeted by solidarity rallies. In some spots the entire population came out to welcome them with a musical band
Meanwhile a group of miners has been staying underground for 40 days, that is, since the strike in the Leon mines began.
This struggle exemplifies something that is becoming increasingly widespread in response to de-industrialization and the attacks on jobs this brings with it;
workers' protests seeking the solidarity they need to impose the central demand of the workers: an end to layoffs.
Effects of EEC membership
The economic recession, the effects of the Spanish State joining the EEC and the policies of the ruling Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) have provoked a wave of reconversions in both the public and private sectors. This brings in its wake the de-industrialization of whole zones and massive layoffs affecting tens of thousands of workers in industry. Mining steel, textiles, fertilizers and naval shipyards have all been hard hit among others.
The government's reply is that
"the best industrial policy is one that doesn't exist". They are refusing any policy involving public investment which could soften the blows to the most hard hit sectors and create a new industrial fabric.
The most dramatic consequence of this situation is unemployment. Enormous job losses — between 30 and 40% in mining and steel - are planned. The weakening of these sectors will cause further job losses in related industries.
Zones affected by this de-industrialization are regions of industrial "monoculture", and whole populations are afflicted by the scourge of unemployment.
Under these conditions it is easy to understand the spread and size of protests taking the form of local or regional
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strike
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