The test of deployment
Since 1979, the fight against the installation of the 48 of the state which, while modest in cruise missiles alloted to Belgium has been led by two
Flemish Committee and Walloon regional authorities.
Against Nuclear Weapons (VAKA) and the Walloon itself, has nonethesome small the Flemish coordinating committees, division along language lines of every political party -
National Action Committee for Peace and Development the exception
(CNAPD). They have cooperated in organizing national other organizations. Thus, although the central governdemonstrations.
ment remains the final arbiter at all levels, the political
The pace for the antimissiles movement has been set by four big demonstrations in Brussels. The way in the different regions.
For these two reasons, this article does not offer a rounded analysis of the peace movement but will concentrate on one particular aspect that is worth bring out 150,000 people on March 17, 1985, in an studying. It will review the history of the VAKA in emergency demonstration two days after the governorder to highlight the specific features of its policy ment decided to deploy the first 16 cruise missiles at and indicate how the the Florennes airbase. In all of these demonstrations, managed to build such a mass movement. From there,
VAKA played the biggest role, with the great majority the article will go on to analyze the effects of the of the demonstrators coming from Flanders.
VAKA's activity on the main Flemish parties and
Moreover, the political life of the country over the especially on the Socialistische Partij, the Flemish last 1b years has been marked by a reorganization Socialist Partv.
The VAKA sprang up in November
1979, just before NATO's "double-track"
decision. The initiative was taken by some organizations belonging to the
OCV, a very broad forum in which of the various participated in order to discuss problems of peace and disarmament. The founding groups of the VAKA, most of them youth, sociocultural, or Third Worldist organizations, necessary to respond by direct action, which the OCV, as a discussion forum, outset, these organizations came together with the sole aim of calling a demonstration for December
9, 1979, three days before the meeting of the NATO Council at which Belgium was to take a position on the deployment of the Euromissiles.
success of this demonstration and, noting the reservations that Belgium and the
Netherlands expressed in giving their assent to the principle of the NATO nucleus of anti-missile activists decided to pursue the struggle and organize themselves in a more serious way.
As its name indicates, the VAKA confined itself to organizing mobilizations against nuclear weapons. Its aim is to eliminate nuclear weapons from the entire world. It took the form of a front of organizations without any individual members. The leadership was made up of one member from
International Viewpoint 1 July 1985 dynamic, contest parties were excluded from membership.
The component organizations of the VAKA remained active in the OCV, with which a formal agreement was reached decision making with respect to nuclear weapons. This agreement also provided for the OCV as a whole associating itself with the discussions or initiatives of the VAKA. In this way, an organic link was Communist parties, formations, revolutionary organizations) and the two labor confederations Catholic and Socialist which were represented in the OCV.
The VAKA leadership launched a major organizational drive leading to formation of city committees throughout Flanders. These local groups were open to all persons who want to work actively for the coalition's objectives, whether they were members or not of the component organizations or of a political party.
In this way, a new sort of organizational network developed. It combined autonomous leadership toward direct action and shielded from partisan infighting that could paralyze activist structure for mobilizing. (1) Moreover, this whole operation has functioned within the framework of a policy of ongoing collaboration with the organizations of the workers movement.
While it approved the NATO "doubledecision in December 1979, the
This has led to the of the far left and of many evolutions of the parties, and developing in a different leadership of this coalition coalition government of the bourgeois
Social Christian Party (CVP) and
Flemish Socialist Party (SP) at the same to deploy the Euromissiles in Belgium for six months. It made this conditional on an assessment of the negotiations with the USSR. In the spring of 1980, the decision was postponed result of a government crisis.
The new CVP-SP government was to take the first opportunity for negotiations with the USSR - which appeared at the time of Helmut Schmidt's Moscow on June 30, 1980 — to delay the decision again. In September of the same year, it reaffirmed its support for the NATO "double-track decision" declared that it would wait to see what the results were of the coming negotiafact, the government declared that "as of now, it accepts the conclusions of the tasks that fall to Belgium in the framework of NATO if negotiations fail." However, the execution of NATO's directives would not be automatic, but would remain conditional on the Belgian government's own evaluation of the situation.
The Belgian government maintained this ambiguous position for more than four years. First, it was waiting for the INF (Intermediate
It has to be remembered in this regard Socialiat Party coalition with the bourgeola CVP but It none mobilizations in 1979 and 1981.
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BELGIUM
AGEEN negotiations in Geneva, which were to start only in the fall of 1981. Then, it was waiting for the conclusion of these negotiations, which was to come at CARNHAPENS the end of 1983, following the installation of the Euromissiles in West Germany, in Great Britain, and in Italy. NIET IN BELGIE And finally, it held off insisting that there was the possibility of new nego- NIET IN EUROPA tiations opening up.
At every half-yearly assessment, the decision was put off, and it was again in December 1984. It was only when the day arrived that had been set by NATO for the arrival of the first missiles, March 15, 1985, that the Belgian goverment suddenly gave the green light, sending shock waves through public opinion. In fact, the Belgian people only learned of this decision after the US airplanes carrying the cruise missiles were already on their way. For 'a unilateral step toward bilateral disarmament'
At the beginning, the VAKA demanded that the government negotiate before deciding on any deployment of the
This point of view was shared by a very broad spectrum of organizations and defended within the government by the Socialist parties. The VAKA leadership came quickly to understand, especially after Ronald Reagan came out with his celebrated formula, which was immediately supported by the Belgian government, that the antimissiles movement could not count on the negotiations to solve the
The VAKA leadership, which was in no way tarred by the brush of the peace movement of the 1950s, drew a negative balance sheet of the whole of disarmament negotiations, "All negotiations in the have led to new steps in the arms race."
It has to be understood clearly that Marxist analysis of the arms problem, nor from a conception of the need for unilateral disarmament on the part of the imperialist states. It was based on seeing the impasse that resulted from simultaneous, balanced, and negotiated disarmament.
The thinking that inspired the VAKA came from a current
Reciprocated Initiatives in Tension Reduction), which unfrozen by unilateral partial measures, elicit similar measures on the other side and open the way for new negotiations that would then really be directed toward reducing arms stock-
It was from this standpoint that the VAKA was to focus on the demand that the Belgian government unconditionally reject the installation of a single cruise missile. This position was expressed in
"Missiles, no way! A unilateral step toward bilateral disarmament!"
AN BELGIE !
### GAND
Brussels demonstration 25 October 1981 (DR)
This political orientation made possible a considerable growth in the strength of the antimissiles movement in Flanders in 1982 and 1983, enabling this movement in turn to become a major factor in the political life of the country.
After the November 1981 elections, the government that is still in office was formed by a coalition between the CVP, the main bourgeois party, led by the premier, Wilfried Martens; the PVV, the Flemish Liberal Party; and their Chretien (PSC) and the Parti Reformateur Liberal (PRL). The Socialists were forced to go into opposition.
Although this new government mainits predecessor's attitude toward the antimissiles movement and continued to put off the decision on the installation of the missiles, there could be little doubt about the real intentions of such an all-bourgeois government. Nobody could believe that go against Washington and NATO. So, the determination of the VAKA and its broad base to fight this government started to grow.
Sustained propaganda and information campaigns by the VAKA have led and more organizations to take a position of unconditional opposition to deployment of the cruise missiles. This includes not only the opposition parties, such as the SP, the Volksunie (the bourgeois Flemish nationalist party), and Agalev (the Greens), but also a great many traditionally been part of the social base of the CVP. The latter comprise the Pax Christi, Catholic Third World aid associations, all the Catholic youth organizations, the Catholic universitites,
Borders, and the sociocultural organizations of the Christian Workers
(MOC-ACW), genuine mass organizations deeply rooted hood, and every village in Flanders. (2)
The decision to hold a third demon1983, which was announced a year in
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advance, opened the way for a broad campaign by the VAKA around the slogan "Missiles, no way!" and for broadening its local committees.
At the same time, in the OCV, the VAKA pursued an intelligent unity policy that led to the official participation of the whole of the Christian Workers Movement in the 1983 demonstration. Even though this movement is part of the CVP and does not hold a unilateralist position toward the missiles, was possible to get its leaders to endorse the action. This is because they feared finding themselves at loggerheads with their own base, which was influenced to a considerable extent by the VAKA campaign and which participated in it actively
So, the October 23, 1983, demonstration drew 400,000 persons, of whom three quarters were Flemish, that is 300,000 people out of the total Flemish population of 5 million, which is by far the highest proportion that we have seen in Europe, far greater even than in the Netherlands.
The demonstration reflected a real united front of the entire workers movement. Participating in it were the Christian and Socialist Unions, all the parties of the workers movement, and also tens of thousands of individuals who were -not mobilized by the traditional apparatuses but directly by the structures of the VAKA. This strengthened the VAKA's position relative to the traditional reformist leaderships, confirmed its authority, and increased its margin for maneuver and its capacity for autonomous initiative.
After this demonstration, the vast network of local VAKA committees, most of whose members are independents,
The Christian Workers Movement (MOC/ ACW serves as an umbrella for all the Christian organizations in the working class the confederation of Christian Unions (CSC), the Christian mutual-aid societies, cooperatives educational bodies, etc. The MOC is linked to
Parti Social Chretien/ Christelijke Volkspartij (PSC/CVP) through the Christian Democratic wing of these parties.
International Viewpoint 1 July 1985
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AFBOU
demanded and got the right to send representatives VAKA leadership. So, since the of 1984, this leadership has included 15 representatives of the component representatives committees (three per
Twice a year, a general assembly of the committees meets. It has no formal decision-making power, but has a real influence on the general orientations.
I will try to explain briefly some of the basic elements that make it possible
First of all, Flanders only went through its big growth of industry in the 1960s.
processes of urbanization proletarianization reduced the hold of the church and the effectiveness an ideological of solidarity among the classes. In time,
Revolution had to create within the CVP, the bourgeoisie's main party, which got 40% and 45% of the vote respectively in the 1977 and 1978
The Christian Workers Movewhich has a far larger memberthan the Socialist historically been integrated into this diction surfaced slightly, if at all in the 1970s. It was later to explode over the missiles question, with the economic crisis helping to exacerbate the class
Moreover, the influence of the Social Democracy, whose historic bastions are in the Walloon industrial areas, has not spread very widely in Flanders. Because of its class-collaborationist policy and frequent participation in the bourgeois governments since the Second World War, the Social Democracy has appeared to the young Flemish proletariat as an establishment party, lacking dynamism, ideologically ageing. In a nutshell, the Socialist Party, whose vote fell continuously from 1961 to 1981, dropping to 22%, got no grip at all on the new radicalized generations
Among the Flemish youth, the role of different sorts of associations in which the initiative was taken by young activists not dominated by reformism, who threw themselves pell mell into all sorts of specific struggles and campaigns. It was out of this milieu that the founders of the VAKA came, along with a consid-
Under the impact of the mass movement, Flemish Social Democracy underwent a spectacular evolution. After the old Socialist Party split along linguistic lines in 1978, the Flemish Socialist Party started up a vast rejuvenation operation under the aegis of its new chair, Karel and a new generation of leaders. This operation in no way put in question the political orientation of the party, as shown by its continuous that ruled between 1977 and 1981, which International Viewpoint 1 July 1985 introduced the first austerity measures, preparing the way for what has become a thoroughgoing policy today.
time of the NATO "doubletrack decision" in December 1979, this
While formulating Euromissiles, Flemish Socialist Party gave its approval NATO's plans. However, a third of the voting members this position, which meant that they were ready to trigger a governmental crisis over this question.
The ambiguity of the SP's positions, with the party supporting the VAKA's demonstrations on the one hand government's could only increase the Democracy inspired in the nascent mass movement, who had previously turned against Social Democratic practices. But movement of radicalization precisely the that the SP's "modernization" operation was designed to attract toward the party.
After its umpteenth electoral defeat in November 1981 and its passage into the opposition, the SP progressively took mobilized actively for the demonstrations From this point on, the SP distinguished itself from every other reformist current, including the PS (Walloon Socialists), in that it no longer opposed deployment only in the name of the need negotiations a chance first to avert the stationing of the missiles." Its rejection became un-
While the Walloon Socialist Party and the Christian Workers Movement never the justification for the "double-track" decision itself and left the therefore, for a deployment of the Euromissiles, the SP broke with decision by NATO and with the political attitude it had held while it was still in the government. Preparing for elections
This change would never have been possible without the formidable pressure of the mass movement led by the VAKA. But, conversely, the support dominant workers party helped the VAKA to stick to its basic demand "Missiles, no way!" despite all the pressures brought to bear on it by the forces of the right.
In fact, while the SP was in opposition, it could take more radical positions without having to pay too great a price. The test came later when, in the begin-
1985, the government began preparing to accept the installation of the missiles.
After some hesitations, which revealed that an intense internal debate had taken place, the SP finally came out for unconditional withdrawal of the missiles without the agreement of NATO if need be. What is more, it pledged never to participate in a government program did not include this demand for the unconditional removal of the missiles already deployed.
This evolution was once again VAKA put its political demands to the parties. It also reflects, on the other hand, the SP's desire to regain its lost ground, to rebuild, and to better its
The SP has been obliged by the breadth and determination of the mass movement to identify itself as much as possible with its demands.
Moreover, this mass movement is far from being defeated because there has been an initial deployment of the missiles. It is in fact building a new mas mobilization for October that is, six weeks before the which are to be beld December 8, 1985. It is demanding pure and simple removal of the 16 cmis missiles already installed in and it wants to bring pressure to the formation of the new governme
This context, therefore, posed high hurdle for the SP, but it clean The SP's present line, concrete point is in direct opposition to NATO, the United S their imperialist policy. maintains this political orientation coalition with the CVP is out of th question. No bourgeois party is going swallow that. However, inasmuch as the present government coalition of the CVP and the Liberals is in big danger of losing its majority in parliament in the upcoming impasse is shaping up for the bourgeoisie. The latter may find itself incapable of putting together a government with any stability whatever.
However, despite its education on the missiles question, the SP has not broken with reformism. It does not itself exclude collaborating again in a government with accepts NATO and the concept of deterrent. It accepts framework of peaceful coexistence and the French and British arsenals. And, finally, it supports a European defense.
So there is no guarantee that the SP not capitulate sooner or later on the question of the missiles. However, if it does, a deepgoing crisis in the party is a certainty. The SP leadership in fact seems already to have gone further than it wanted to.
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SPANISH STATE.
Thus, the masses have a whole series of reasons to think that there is a real possibility for victory in the against the missiles. There is the vastness of the mass movement — the polls show