The memory of the movement Year Millions
International Viewpoint, 1 and 15 June 1987 1991 0.10 1992 0.34 1993 1.03 1994 1.87 1995* 3.74 *Estimate. Source: Sing Tao Daily, Feb. 13, 1995. • Up to 30m. urban workers and 120 m. rural workers, or one in four of the workforce in both sectors, are effectively redundant. • The labour force grew by 9.5 m. in 1994, but only 7 m. urban jobs were created • 90 m. rural labourers are expected to migrate to the cities during 1995 • The richest 3% of the population has 28% of total savings (290 billion yuan). There are over 1 million yuan millionaires • Per capita 'GDP' in Zhuhai District, Guangdong (Canton) is 86 times higher than in Qinglong County, Guizhou. In 1995 the per capita 'GDP' of Guangdong Province as a whole will be 50 times higher than that of the Ningxia Autonomous Region. The ratio in 1994 was 'only' 1:37.5 In comparison, per capita GDP in the richest region of former Yugoslavia was only 7.8 times higher than in the poorest region when that country began to disintegrate. • The economies of Fujian, Zhejiang, Hainan and Guangdong provinces are expected to grow 20-27% in 1995. Compiled from reports by Zhang Kai, first published in October Review.
India
*The imposition of Presidential Rule in Punjab state [on May 11].... only confirms the bancruptcy of the Central government's policy" writes M. Navid. Far from helping to contain and reduce communal polarization in Punjab, it is guaranted to make the situation worse, as the forces of law and order are let loose to widen the repression. This will further alienate the Sikh masses of the state and push them to support those sections of anti-Centre militants who argue that the only solution is the formation of a separate country ruled by a Sikh theocracy -Khalistan...
Only the construction of a truly secular, anti-communal front can point a way out of this tragic morass. In recent months, in parts of Punjab, there has been something of a revival of genuine anti-communalist activities, such as street theatre, demonstrations against terrorist killings, and unitary activities between Hindus and Sikhs in the villages. Cadre of the CPI, CPI-M and CPI-ML have played a prominent part. Whatever the failings of the political line of their parties, the secular belief and commitment of these cadres are beyond question. The success of these actions has made their organisers targets of the terrorists, hence the rise in the number of left wing cadres assassinated". * older collections only $15/E10
Britain
"Socialist Outlook magazine was launched at a conference on May 9-10 1987 marking the culmination of an 18 month fusion process between currents around International and Socialist Viewpoint. Speaking on behalf of the USEC. Livo Maitan welcomed the fusion of the two magazines. He ... stressed the importance of measures to maximize the participation of women in the leadership of the Trotskyist movement". *
Spanish State
*The most important event in this pre-election period is Basque nationalist party) Herri Batasuna's decision to campaign throughout the Spanish state. And that they have come to revolutionary organisations like the Movimiento Communista (Communist Movement, exMaoist] and our party [LCR], seeking our support. Agreement has been reached on a clearly revolutionary programme, on the basis of which we will form united-front committees to support the Herri Batasuna slate [which is] the most thoroughgoing way of expressing all the desires and reasons for opposing the government's policies. This will not be easy, after so many years of anti-Basque propaganda... but these are problems that a revolutionary organisation has to deal with"
33 International Viewpoint #267 June 1995
Reports...World News Reports... World New
Spain 1936: The memory of the martyrs
International Viewpoint #267 June 1995 week without loss of salary, and a tax on the highest fortunes. We think this was a programme of class demands, coupled with a clear line of opposition to the Dini government and its measures This allowed us to gather the votes of frustrated and desperate left wing voters, including many ordinary people who voted for a right wing party last time around. Our score improved in all parts of the country, particularly in the working-class suburbs, where the right is still very strong. Rifondazione is now an essential part of any potential left-wing alliance. Our line so far is that we have a different tactical and political perspective from the centre left, but that we are prepared to join an electoral coalition with them to defeat the right in the next parliamentary elections. Franco Turigliato is a member of the National Committee Rifondazione Comunista, and one of the comrades producing Bandierra Rossa, the magazine of Fourth International supporters in Italy. He was interviewed by Nora Venitia for the Belgian magazine La Gauche 10/95. *
34
Ken Loach's new film "Tierra y Libertad — Land and Liberty" provoked fierce debate after its launch in Madrid earlier this year. As Jaime Pastor reports, audiences include militants themselves persecuted by the Stalinists in 1936, members of the Spanish Communist Party, and a younger generation of militants eager to understand this dark page of their movement's history. The Spanish Civil War of 1936 had a profound effect on the European labour and socialist movement. International Brigades were sent from many countries. But the liquidation of 'dissident' revolutionaries within the anti-fascist front by the agents of Stalin cast an especially bitter shadow over the defeat of Republican Spain by Hitler and Mussolini. The film itself is a moving homage to the comrades of the Marxist Workers' Unification Party (POUM) and the anarchists who struggled to combine the anti-fascist struggle with a social revolution in the zones under Republican control. Ken Loach uses the dramatised experience of a member of the British Communist Party who enlists in the POUM militia to introduce us to the main debates and conflicts on the left in Spain. The vitality of the debate, and the spontaneity of the actors avoids the simplification of these conflicts. The film concludes with one of the most tragic forgotten' episodes of the war - the elimination of a POUM militia by an unit of the new Republican Army led by Stalinist officers. The great merit of this film is its contribution to restoring the memory of those Communists who struggled against Stalinism, and who, in the midst of the Spanish Civil war, became the victims of Stalinist executioners, at the same time as the original Bolshevik militants were being liquidated in the Soviet Union. The first Spanish veteran' to react to the film was Santiago Carillo. Nowadays he supports the ruling Socialist Party (PSOE). But he felt obliged to defend his past in El País. He repeated all the old lies against those who combined war against fascism with social revolution, and accused Loach of failing to understand the nature of the anti-fascist struggle. Several days later, former POUM youth leader Cde Solano responded in the same newspaper. He reminded Spaniards that it was not POUM which disrupted antifascist unity, but the policies which Stalin imposed on the Spanish Communist Party (PCE) and the Catalan Unified Socialist Party (PSUC), and which Carillo and his friends docilely followed." Ken Loach's film was not meant to be an instrument of point-scoring, of ' told you so'. As Solano stressed, the point of the film is to reclaim the memory of those who struggled for another kind of socialism -quite different from the Stalinist 'model which dominated left thinking at the time. "Criticising and analysing Stalinism is a national sport now that it is dead and gone. This 'sport' is so easy it hardly earns merit for its practitioners. But to expose Stalinism back then, as Leon Trotsky and a handful of others did, with their suicidal moral and intellectual energy, that was a way to sign your own death certificate. "Land and Liberty" retells the story of the suicide of the last — the only authentic Bolshevik revolutionaries. The Spanish left is still talking about the film. It will help the younger generation discover one of the key pages in Spanish history, and the history of the interational labour movement. Let's hope that it helps many of our comrades in the Spanish Communist Party, with whom we work in the United Left (IU), to understand Stalinism better. * Who was the POUM? The POUM was founded in 1935 as a fusion of the Catalan wing of the Spanish Communist Party and the Spanish section of the Left (Trotskyist) Opposition writes Vincent Scheltiens. Trotsky himself opposed this fusion. He had urged the Left Opposition to enter the Social Democratic party, where a left wing current was developing around Largo Caballero. At its peak the POUM had 7,000 members, mainly in Catalonia. In 1936 the POUM and the anarchists entered the Catalan government. The movement's leader, Andreu Nin became Minister of Justice. Trotsky attacked this participation in a coalition government with the bourgeois parties. The POUM ministers were expelled from the government in May 1937, on Stalin's orders. The 'Communist line was that the Trotskyists were fascist agents who had infiltrated the Republican camp. The POUM and anarchist militias were crushed by force. All the remaining leaders were executed, many after torture. Despite the wide range of opinions and tradition represented in POUM, none of the leaders 'went over' to the Stalinists, and none was willing to sign an accusation of their former comrades as Trotsky-fascists'.
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