AROUND THE WORLD
AROUND
THE
WORLD lation directly. They are also reluctant to work together with platforms inside the CP.
A consensus declaration denied the Federal government the right to introduce a new constitution, saying that the political spectrum in parliament no longer represented the broad movement the population originally voted for.
The meeting was unable to overcome deep differences on the national question. Though relations were friendly, Slovaks supported "their" bureaucracy's demands
AUSTRIA
Immigration from the east seemingly isolated amid growing right wing sentiments and a general retreat for a loose confederation based on two national republics, while Czechs supportthe end of July 1990 some 17,500 requests for asylum had been filed, more than half from Romania and a little less than 10% from nia and a little less than 10% from Bulgaria. This is more than double the number for the equivalent period in 1989. There are estimated to be more than 100,000 immigrants working illegally in Austria, particularly Poles.
Visa requirements have now been re-established for Bulgarians, Romanians and Poles, and voices have been heard calling for increased restrictions. The FPO, the "liberal" opposition party, has called for visas for all those coming from these countries, while two leading officials of the ruling Socialist Party have stated that "the boat is full".
•
1,500 soldiers have been sent to the Hungarian border to prevent clandestine immigration, and the legislation concerning the right of immigrants to work is to be tightened up - with the support of the OGB trade union confederation. (From IRES Chronique Internationale, September 1990). * CZECHOSLOVAKIA Left meets THE second all-Czechoslovak meeting of the "Left Grouping" - an informal network of left and Communist Party groups and platforms — took place in Bratislava on April 13. The grouping meets once a month, and aims to be a forum for discussion and a means of producing a minimum common programme.
There was a striking contrast between the optimism of the Slovak groups, able increasingly to relate to a public identifying the market reforms as against Slovak national interests, and the Czechs, from politics. Parts of the Czech left remain reluctant to depart from the relative consensus of all Civic Forum offshoots on the economic reform, and oppose the attacks on the working popued a conception based on the self- managed community as the basic unit.
Slovaks said this blurs the national distinction and makes the Prague-based federation the highest political authority.
BRITAIN: Matt Lee — poll tax prisoner
THE hated poll tax, Thatcher's "flagship", whereby everyone was required to pay high bills for local government finance irrespective of their income, is to be withdrawn. However, non-payers will continue to be pursued for money owed, and the tax will not be finally replaced until 1993, despite a centrally-funded reduction in the size of the bills.
Its defeat was the result of a massive campaign for non-payment; some 12 million have not paid their poll tax.
Although the anti-poll tax movement was opposed by the Labour Party leadership, some MPs refused to pay their tax. In some cases the Labour Party has expelled and is still expelling members who advocate non-payment, including two supporters of the revolutionary Marxist journal Socialist Outlook in Lambeth, South London, who have been suspended as Labour councillors.
A crowning moment of the campaign was the demonstration of a quarter of a million people in London on March 30, 1990, which was savagely attacked by the police.
At the end of the day over 300 demonstrators had been injured and scores arrested. Over one hundred people have received prison sentences; around thirty remain in jail. One of those arrested at the "Battle of Trafalgar Square" was Matt Lee, a Socialist Outlook supporter. Matt is the Chair of the Birmingham Federation of Anti-Poll Tax Unions. Like many on the demonstrations, in the face of the police attacks, Matt defended himself along with his fellow protestors. On March 25, 1991, Matt was imprisoned for two and a half years for "violent disorder" The conviction was solely based on three minutes of video evidence and falsified police statements. UNEDITED videos clearly show the brutality of the police, with charging mounted police officers beating demonstrators to the ground.
Harsh sentences handed down to demonstrators show that the government, courts and police are willing to go to great lengths to enforce the poll tax and silence opposition.
On March 26, 1991, the Birmingham Poll Tax Prisoners Supporters Group was reformed in response to the sentencing of Matt and other poll tax prisoners. It aims to provide material assistance to those imprisoned, press for an independent public inquiry into police behaviour, and campaign for the release of the poll tax prisoners. Internationally the group is calling for the following: • Publicity for Matt and other poll tax prisoners. • Material support (books, papers etc). • Campaigning for the release of all poll tax prisoners.
• Support for the call for a public/ labour movement inquiry into the events of March
31, 1990. Donations and messages of support can be sent to: Birmingham Poll Tax Prisoners Support Group, c/o 5, Exton Gardens, Blackpatch, Smethwick, West Midlands, England, B66
2LT.
Anybody wanting further information and copies of our petition can contact the group at the above address. * 23 May 13, 1991 • #206 International Viewpoint
THE growing number of foreigners arriving in Austria, above all from eastern
Europe, has put the question of immigration at the centre of political debate. At
AROUND THE WORLD / PORTUGAL
The largest groups present were the Slovak Party of the Democratic Left (SDL - the old CP), and the Czech Democratic Forum of Communists, a platform in the Czech CP. Other groups include Slovakia's Workers' Forum, Union of Socialists, and Social Democracy, and the Czech groups Left Alternative, part of the Democratic Forum and the Green Platform in the CP.
Although the grouping bridges the major divide of left politics, current or recent membership in the Communist Party, many groups, including the Czech Social Democratic Party, refuse participation while hard-line CP groups are present.
Left Alternative accepts only observer status for the same reason. The anarchist groups, the major current with any youth support, consider most of the above groups Stalinist.
The association is supported by the publishers of Left Alternative's Polarita, the hard-line CP Nase Pravda and the Trotskyist Fourth International's review Inprekor.
Breaking into the bureaucraticcapitalist media, especially in the Czech Republic, remains very difficult, and the groups pledged to exchange information and articles regularly.
The next meeting will be in Prague on May 18, sponsored by the Democratic Forum of Communists - Adam Novak. * CZECHOSLOVAKIA Far right demonstration THE far right Republican Party held a 4,000 strong march through Prague on Saturday April 13, the culmination of a national week of action. Their supporters - skinheads, workers facing redundancy, political prisoners from the 1950s and students — chanted slogans and applauded Miroslav Sladek, their charismatic leader, and an employee of the censorship office until November 1989.
Sladek's constant megaphone diatribe illustrated. the confused, populist base of the movement. He claimed that "all those in power are communists and STB (secret police) people" , "we are becoming foreigners in our own land", "They won't make us speak Slovak, German or Hungarian!", "Three governments? [federal, Czech, Slovak] — I'd need 7 ministers!"
All the Czech Republic's problems are blamed on a mysterious mafia of communists, ex-communists, Charter 77 police informers, Jewish intellectuals, ungrateful Slovaks and foreign monopolies.
Sladek exploits many of the realities of the Czech situation.
The Communist bureaucracy was not swept from power; indeed the present 24 secions ref them and an intelligentsia elite represents a compromise between International Viewpoint #206 • May 13, 1991 elite of Charter 77 activists (almost none of them Jewish!).
There is undeniably a strong Chartist "jobs for the boys" phenomenon in state and economic appointments. Mafia groupings in the bureaucracy are making deals with foreign companies to rip off state property in speculative or short term projects that will not strengthen the economy.
Reform programme bogged down
The government seems paralyzed. Parliament is cut off from the people and bogged down in a series of 40 economic reform laws which nobody understands. The standard of living of the workers has fallen over 30% over the last year, and the economy is weaker than before. Inflation and unemployment are rising.
The Republican Party's strategy for dealing with all this is a series of conflicting slogans. Decisive purges and expulsion of all ex-CP members from leading positions would free over half a million jobs.
"Firm government" would allegedly stop corruption and ensure a fair deal from foreign investors. To this the Republicans have attached the slogans of self-management and worker-share ownership, stolen from the left.
Impressions from a number of left friends support my own impression that the Republicans have not grown since their last major demonstration, on the occasion of George Bush's visit last November.
Their support is constantly turning over, and Sladek has not yet built either an organizational structure, or a respectable facade, or a milieu of skinhead thugs to do the Party's dirty work. This week of action has, however, certainly advanced all three aims a little further.
The organized far right is less a feature of Slovak politics, though virulent racist and nationalist sentiments are a common part of political life there. Anti-communism is not so strong, in part because the Stalinists industrialized Slovakia within 30 years, and brought its standard of living up to Czech levels, and in part because the "normalization" after 1968 was not as severe in Slovakia.
Whilst several extreme nationalist groupings celebrate the Nazi-puppet Slovak state of 1939-45, and its various unsavory leaders, the centre parties have monopolized the nationalist mantle with their chauvinist language law (discriminating against the 10% Hungarian minority) and their anti-Prague rhetoric. The left is the only current with an anti-bureaucratic propaganda.
We have not heard the last of the far right in Czechoslovakia, nor is there yet much sign of a force that can squash them before they grow - Adam Novak.*