AROUND THE WORLD
SAVE NICK KELLY
PROTEST MAY 14
BIG TURN OUT AT
AUSTRALIAN
MARX CONFERENCE Direct Action staff writer Roger Miles reports on a recent Marx commemoration event in Australia.
A successful Karl Marx Centenary Conference was held in Melbourne, Australia, over the Easter weekend.
The conference organising committee involved the Socialist Workers Party, the Australian section of the Fourth International.
Seven hundred and sixty seven people registered to hear 61 talks and panels on various aspects of Marxism.
These ranged from how to build political solidarity with Vietnam and the independence movement in New Cal-
Nicky Kelly has been on hunger strike since May 1. Despite widespread protest from human rights organisations, including Amnesty International, prominent labour movement figures, a number of members of parliament, and other well known individuals and organisations, the Irish Government has refused to make any move to release him.
Kelly, a member of the Irish Republican Socialist Party, has been convicted and imprisoned for a mail train robbery in 1976 which he denies having committed and for which the Provisional IRA claimed responsibility in 1979 (see International Viewpoint No 26, March 21, 1983).
Those tried and convicted with him had their convictions thrown out on appeal when their signed "confessions', the only evidence against them as against Kelly, were disallowed as evidence.
Kelly was certified as suffering from a severe anxiety neurosis. He is in a weakened and debilitated state and his hunger strike could come to a rapid and tragic end.
The Nicky Kelly committee is appealing for international support, and in particular for May 14 to be a day of international solidarity. side Irish embassies or consulates this day, together with messages of protest to the Minister of Justice, Michael Noonan, Government Buildings, Dublin 2, Ireland, are urgently needed to put pressure on the government, who could exercise their power to release him.
Send details of actions taken and copies of messages to the Release Nicky Kelly Committee at: 11 Grange Terrace, Blackrock, County Dublin,
At the time of his appeal Nicky Ireland edonia, to the history of the Australian labor movement, the Palestinian struggle, and the fight against war today.
Other topics debated included varying theories of women's oppression, differ-
TURIN CONFERENCE ON WOMEN AND WORK ent currents of philosophy in Western Marxism, and the relationship between Marxism and art.
The conference heard five feature talks on Marx and Marxism.
Two of these were given by Ernest Mandel, a leader of the Fourth International, and a well-known Marxist economist.
In his first talk Mandel explained why the working class is still, as Marx expressed it, the "gravedigger of capitalism."
More than 800 people heard Mandel speak on the present world recession, and how it confirmed all of Marx's analyses of capitalism made last century.
Equally enthusiastically received were two lectures given by another international guest, Pedro Camejo, an International Executive Committee member of the Fourth International.
Camejo's talk on the Central American revolutions explained why they were key to the class struggle today.
His later talk on the coming revolution in the US emphasized the class forces at work that would spell the end for US
The final feature talk was by Jim Percy, national secretary of the SWP, who explained why the struggle for Marxism in our time is necessarily the struggle for a Leninist party. 26
Over 650 women attended the first international meeting of "Produce and Reproduce: Women and Work in industrial countries" in Turin, Italy on April 23,
Conference participants came from
Europe, as well as from Australia and the United States.
Organized by the feminist collectives, 'Intercategoriale' (trade-union women's caucus) and the UDI (Union of Italian women) (see IV No 25, March 7, 1983), this conference was an overwhelming
Workshops covered the whole range of what women and work can mean. They included: salaried or wage earning self-employed women, work or domestic labor, new technologies, social services, family and work, sexual identity and self-perception, culture and the cultural industry, feminism and power/women and politics and sexism at work and in politics.
of fighting against everything, I want to fight for something, one woman said. This seemed to express the attitude of the majority of women and expressed one of the goals of the Turin conference.
Workshop proposals included establishing an international women's news. letter, a data bank in London, a documentation center in Turin and a women's press agency.
The most concrete action proposal came from the Belgian delegation, "Femmes contre la crise' (women against the crisis), which judging by the signatures on the mailing list, represented the kind of action women felt needs taking up The Belgian women proposed an international Tribunal in Brussels against all of the discriminatory policies toward women for March 8, 1984, followed, most likely, in the autumn of 1984 by a European-wide demonstration focusing on the specific demands of women and how they are affected by the crisis.
A letter of solidarity with the 13 women fired from the Belgian firm Bekaert Cokerill for fighting their employers and trade-union officials against imposed part-time work was sent.
International Viewpoint will be printing a more extensive report on the Turin conference in a coming issue.
GIM (Gruppe Internationale Marxisten - FDR) - GRM (Gruppe Revolutionaere Marxisten - Austria) - IKB (Internationale Kommunistenond - Netherlands) - LCR (Liga Comunista Revolucionaria - Spanish State) - LCR (Ligue communiste revolutionnaire - France) — LC ega Comunista Rivoluzionaria -Italy) - LRT/RTL (Ligue revolutionnaire des travailleurs/Revolutionaire Arbeidersliga - Belgium) — PS(
SAP/PSL (Parti socialiste ouvrier/Sozialistische Arbeiterpartei/Partido Socialista dei Lavoratori - Switzerland) — SAP (Socialistik Arbejderparti - Denmark) - SL (Socialist League - Great Britain) - SP (Socialistiska Partiet - Sweden)
United Secretariat (USEC) of the Fourth International 5 May 1983
The roots of the arms race lie therefore first of all in the economic crisis of the capitalist system and the necessity to maintain imperialist order against workers struggles and the inevitable explosions of oppressed peoples driven to desperation. The often-argued Soviet military superiority, and the threat it is supposed to pose for the 'free' world, are only pretexts to justify the escalation
On the basis of the work of certain American experts, it can be estab-
The United States still has more nuclear warheads than the Soviet Union.
- With the development of the new missiles, the US government is aiming for further qualitative superiority over Soviet nuclear armament. The Pershing II are to be used above all for a first strike surprise attack against the Soviet Union. Because of their more limited explosive power and because of their greater accuracy, they can be used for 'regionalising' atomic wars, that is to say, to them "limited, manageable and accessible'. They therefore reveal the aim of imperialism's new arms race — to exert its military power also in regions which are distant from the American continent. The logic of deterrence is thus proved to be a logic of blackmail.
The difference in percentage of their respective Gross National Products spent on arms by the USA and the USSR, which the imperialists often use as an argument, is meaningless. While declared American arms spending is 7% of the GNP and estimated USSR spending 15% of the GNP, the American GNP is double the Soviet GNP. Thus, in absolute terms, imperialist military spending is greater than USSR spending. Soviet military expenditure is a great burden on the Soviet Union to the point of worsening economic and food supply problems. Furthermore, SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute) statistics indicate that in 1980 NATO was responsible for 43% of world arms spending as against 26% for the Warsaw
Imperialism is still the principal warmonger and the main threat to peace.
SOLIDARITY WITH THE PEACE
MOVEMENT IN EASTERN EUROPE
For its part, the military policy of the bureaucracy in power in the USSR and the East European countries has a : reactionary dimension which is a consequence of its domestic and foreign
A foreign policy based not on militant internationalism, on solidarity betre en obers and pendie threnh ot coexistence or division of the world with imperialism.
- A domestic policy anchored not in the democratic masses but on the negation of the most elementary political, trade union or national rights as shown by the Soviet intervention in Hungary (1956), Czechoslovakia (1968) and Jaruzelski's tough crackdown on the Polish workers (1981).
That is why we are in solidarity with the currents of opposition to the arms race which have appeared in East Germany, and in a more limited way ir other East European countries. The de velopment of such currents would be an encouragement for the antiwar movement in Western Europe and would strike a blow against imperialism a thousand times more deadly than a few more Soviet missiles. By demanding public and democratic control over defence and foreign policy, a mass antiwar movement independent of the state in East Europe would inevitably take on an anti-bureaucratic dynamic.
ONLY MASS ACTION CAN FORCE
THE WARMONGERS TO RETREAT:
Nuclear war looms as an unprecedented danger for humanity. Neither protests nor maintaining the balance of terror are guarantees against the outbreak of such have such murd irus instrumenes at thetr disposal the danger of nuclear holocaust will continue.
The only chance of preventing war is to disarm the warmongers by overthrowing capitalism where it is strongest. This is the task and duty of workers inside
The struggle against the war drive is everybody's affair - workers on the receiving end of austerity policies and unemployment, women suffering exploitation and oppression, and young people condemned to unemployment and military service. It is far too serious a question to berleft in the hands of diplomats or sorted out between governments in secret summit negotiations. Only mobilisation can hold back the warmongers.
In 1982 and spring 1983 millions of workers, women, and youth throughout Europe against the deployment of nuclear missiles, as in Great Britain, West many, Belgium, Holland, Italy and Denmark, and for the rejection of NATO and the removal of its bases in the Span-
But demonstrations are not enough. To mobilise the masses, the struggle has to be organised in the workplaces, in the schools and factories. Often local, or even regional, trade-union bodies have passed and supported this spring's demonstrations. Many trade- union leaders have spoken out in these actions. We must build on this, proposing actions that can mobilise the mass of workers -proposals like a one hour or 24 hour strike as are being discussed today in the Dutch workers movement.
Agreement on the broadest and most united basis can be reached in Western Europe against the deployment of nucclear missiles scheduled for the end of the
1. From Comiso in Sicily to Greenham Common in Great Britain say no to Pershing and Cruise Missiles!
2. Remove the NATO bases! Dismantle American forward bases in Europe! Down with the Turkish dictatorship which is making Turkey a fortress for imperialism in the region!
3. No to French and British nuclear weapons which are an integral part of the imperialist military apparatus!
4. For a nuclear-free Europe from Poland to Portugal, from Sicily to Scandinavia!
5. For massive cuts in military spending, total nationalisation and reconver sion of the arms industries - Jobs not Bombs!
6. Full support for democratic rights for soldiers enrolled in the bourgeois army and for workers subject to the special laws which place restrictions on hiring or on trade unions in the arms in-
Central Amerimperialist intervention in
The Fourth International and its sections are fully engaged in the battle against the war drive and austerity. Throughout Europe one united voice must be raised to say no to the deployment of the missiles and to military spending, to oppose the effects of the crisis (unemployment, cuts in wages and social services, racist agitation of rightwing forces). On each important occasion this voice should be heard. For the Autumn the mobilisations which have developed in different countries should take a new step forward in coordination by the organisation of a large European-wide demonstration.
The European sections of the Fourth International will commit all the forces at their disposal to this battle.
27
NO TO WAR!
No to Militarisation, no to Nuclear Missiles,
The increasing militarisation of Ronald Reagan's United States no longer has any lim-
The avowed aim is to definitively break the 'balance of terror' to the advantage
West European countries.
Imperialism is not just the potential its.
of imperialism.
The cost is astronomic.
ready been announced would mean doubling the military budget between now and the year 2000.
ise the anti-war movement.
To implement the projects that have al-
Hiroshimas stocked in the silos, the submarines or the nuclear bombers, it is also the 'silent Hiroshimas' of misery and hunger caused by the plunder of the colonial and semi-colonial countries: 40,000 children die each day in these countries - mostly from malnutrition.
In practice the 'interim plan' only proposes to keep intact the nuclear force of the
US and Nato while putting pressure on the USSR to reduce their nuclear arsenal.
These diversionary manoeuvres have not had much effect. Since the huge antiwar demonstration in Bonn in 1982, which drew 300,000 people, the level of mobilisation has continued to rise. In 1982 more than three million demonstrators marched in Europe, the US, and Japan. The Easter activities in 1983, particularly in West
Germany and Great Britain, were new spectacular successes.
The objective dynamic, and the general tone of these movements, demanding unilateral disarmament by the imperialists.
trade unions and the Labour Party, CND has come out in favour of unilateral disarm-
In Germany the Greens, who have just entered parliament, ament of the country.
advocate 'the demilitarisation of West Germany, even if it has to be unilateral'.
Further mobilisations are envisaged throughout the year, and up until the new
European elections in spring 1984.
Conferences on disarmament will be held in
Sweden in May, and in Denmark in September. A demonstration against the deployment of missiles is planned for France on June 19, as well as a march for peace in the United States in August. Autumn demonstrations are to be held in most Europ ean countries.
Campaigns for referenda on the military budget or the missiles are presently going on in Switzerland and Italy.
During the congress of the Italian Communist Party, Enrico Berlinguer publicly proposed an international demonstration against the missiles for October 23 in Geneva. A European-wide initiative is in fact on the agenda for the autumn.
All these questions could be debated at the conference organised by the Bertrand