second time, seventy days after our first open letter,* seventy days in which the Palestinian and Lebanese peoples and their fighting forces waged a heroic fight that will forever hold a place of honor in the history of people's struggles.
But after this epic battle, we find the Zionist enemy sueceeding in imposing their will by political means when they failed to do so by military means.
The explanation for this, comrades, has to be sought in the glaring contrast between the heroism of our two peoples and our fighters, and the political line that dominated our patriotic camp (this goes both for the line followed by the Palestinian leadership and for the line that predominated among the Lebanese) In fact the PLO was not so much concerned about liberating the Lebanese territory that had been invaded (to say nothing of the Palestinian territory) as it was in gaining American recognition. To achieve this, it was prepared to grant legitimacy to the Zionist state and thereby disregard the heritage of 35 years of tenacious national struggle.
However, the recognition was not mutual; the PLO leadership got no corresponding concession. ferred to abandon Beirut, the last bastion of the Palestinian resistance, in order to preserve itself so that it could continue to carry on the policy that it has adopted as a substitute for people's struggle diplomatic negotiations based on the cowardly Arab regimes, which are agents of imperialism.
Here, you, comrades and brothers, bear a responsibility, Some of you put pressure on the Palestinian resistance to leave Beirut. Others failed to raise their voices to appeal to the Palestinian fighters to stay and thereby to counter the capitulationist intentions of the Palestinian leadership. In fact, comrades and brothers, the withdrawal of the Palestinian fighters from Beirut represents not only a submission to the will of Menahem Begin and Ronald Reagan. It also represents a very grave shift the grave of the national movement as a whole. We do not have to try to prove to you that Beshir Gemayel, the leader of the fascist gang, who has liquidated his own allies, will not hesitate a minute to liquidate his historic enemies, no matter what intentions he proclaims when he takes office.
In this connection, it is essential to understand that there are objective class divisions in what you call the "Islamic and Patriotic Camp." The bourgeois forces that are the agents of the Saudi state, itself an agent of imperialism, and which are represented by Sueb Salam, will probably make a deal with the fascists after they have gained a voice in the government. This is why, while we are for the broadest possible front of opposition to the plan of the fascist dictatorship, we maintain that we should not rely on keeping these bourgeois forces in such a front but to begin working now to build a system of institutions able to lead and organize the patriotic resistance to the Zionist occupiers and their Lebanese tools.
We call once again for what we believe is the only program by which we can successfully oppose the offensive that we are now facing, a program based on the one we proposed seventy days ago (in order to prevent what has now happened), which we have modified in the light of the new circumstances. Its main points are the following:
1. Rejection of any compromises with the fascists that would allow the armed forces that they control, in particular, the "legal army" to enter our patriotic Beirut.
Unification and centralization of all our active forces in a National Guard in order to increase the effectiveness of these forces and to keep arms from being used by suspect groups for ends that serve the interests of our enemies.
3. Formation of a national command to lead the battle, a command elected by a central council of delegates elected by the fighting units.
Setting up "local councils" to organize the civilian forms of resistance in our patriotic Beirut, in particular, means in the relationship of forces to the advantage of the Zionist, im- of disseminating information to serve the struggle waged by the perialist, and fascist offensive that is being waged against the Le- patriotic forces. banese and Palestinian masses and their patriotic forces.
Having said this, comrades and brothers, let us recall what we said in our first open letter about what attitude should be taken to the so-called legal institutions. We appealed to you to reject the line of collaborating with the so-called legal institutions. We appealed for initiatives to create a new legality based on the sacrifice of the matryrs who fought to defend Lebanon and to dump the corrupt "legality" based on a more and more fictitious parliament. Instead, you preferred to wait and place your hopes in a rigged constitutional game that finally brought forth a fascist mouse as the president of an occupied republic.
A lot of things could be said to evaluate the period we have just gone through but that is not the purpose of this letter. The balance sheet can be left to history. Through this letter, we want to draw your attention to the gravity of the stage that is now opening up. In this new phase, any compromise by any patriotic organization with the Zionist-imperialist-fascist plan is a suicidal position. Such an attitude would help further to dig 6
These are the measures, comrades and brothers, that we consider necessary for organizing the defence of our besieged
This is your last chance to rise to the level of the strug If you fail, you will not escape the guillotine of history, even if some of you manage to escape the executioners of Beshir
Greetings in the name of our resistance. Let our battle cry be "Fascism Shall Not Pass." Revolutionary Communist Group Lebanese section of the Fourth International
See IV, July 19, 1982, p. 4, for the previous statement of the Revolutionary Communist Group.