Comrade Gisela was bond man Seen s difficult due to the hardships of the war.
in the struggle of the student movement in its heyday and was active in Rudi Dutschke's SDS. Thereafter she joined the
Fourth International, fulfilling her tasks both in the Belgian section - of which she was a central leader for several years -and the international level. In April 1969 she was a delegate for the Belgian section at the 9th World Congress.
She will be cremated at the Père Lachaise Cemetery at 10.30 am. Her comrades and friends and companion Ernest Mandel. They will not forget her. They will remember her contribution to the struggle for the renewal of the workers movement and the building of a revolutionary International.
is stronger than that. It might be less prepared and less organized than a regime that today has the guns and the tanks, while it has no weapons.
I think that Solidarity should get more support from all over the world. The Polish government will not get the world to forget that a group of workers appeared in Poland who wanted to perfect socialism.
Q. In your meeting with Walesa in Rome, you had a discussion on the question of the party. Now, in the light of the events in Poland, what conclusions have you drawn from this argument?
A. What has happened in Poland should serve as an example to the entire world. Comrade Walesa had an aversion to parties, which is understandable given the special history of the country. Their forms of organization can't be the same as ours. But it has been demonstrated that if the working class has no political organization of its own, or if its organization does not have an alternative for running the country, you are always in the tow of the state and those who hold the economic power.
I think that Walesa put too much faith in the good will of the Polish regime. I think that they paid too high a price for the working class, as others have in other countries already for thinking that things could be settled simply by negotiation. We workers have learned from Poland that still more organization and preparation for the struggle is needed. You cannot have the illusions that those who hold the power will give up their privileges and let the working class run the country.
Q. Has the repression in Poland shaken your confidence in the prospects for building socialism?
Bureaucratic socialism doesn't work anywhere in the world, because socialist society has no meaning without the involvement of the people. Solidarity was fighting to perfect socialism. What would this have meant? It would have meant that the workers would enjoy the fruit of their labor. It would have meant freedom of organization, expression, and freedom to demonstrate. All this was in the platform of Solidarity. You can't condemn a system on the basis of the practices of a government. I don't think that the Polish government was ever able to conduct itself as befits a socialist regime.
We look with great sadness on what has happened in Poland because Solidarity aroused the fighting spirit of all the workers of the world.
On the other hand, the conservatives and the right have no reason to laugh about what has happened to strikers in socialist countries. You just have to look at what is happening in the capitalist countries we are living in. You just have to look at what is happening in Salvador, in Guatemala, what happened in Brazil in 1964 and in Chile in 1973, and in Argentina, in Paraguay, Uruguay, and so on. In the capitalist countries we have seen much more violent attacks on the people.
Paris. Her disappearance and the loss of a courageous and devoted activist.
civil strife.
with her family
22 journalist.
on Monday