News Repc Russia: Conferences on Trotsky and Democratic Production Scholars for Democracy and Socialism is sponsoring a scientific conference on "Problems of Democratic Production" which will also be held in St. Petersburg, Friday-Monday, December 1-3. For more information, contact Alexander Buzgalin at e-mail <[email protected]> This event will run concurrently with the second conference of the Committee for the Study of Leon Trotsky's Legacy. This event will commemorate the 90th anniversary of the Petersburg Soviet of Workers' Deputies of which Trotsky was the guiding spirit and a key political leader. Established on October 13, 1905 as a product of the workers rebellions, it survived for 50 days before it was crushed by the Tsar's military forces. Contact Professor M.I. Voyeikov, Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Science, ulitsa Krasikova 27, 117218 Moscow. Tel: (095) 332 4525; Fax (095) 310 7001 or Marilyn Vogt-Downey, Committee for the Study of Leon Trotsky's Legacy, P.O. Box 1890, New York, NY 10009; tel: 718-636-5446; fax: 212-8071832; e-mail: <[email protected]> Ship for Bosnia to sail from Sweden to Scotland The cargo ship Haväng will leave the port of Gothenberg
Reports... on November 10, loaded with at least 35 containers of aid for Bosnian trade union relief projects. The next port of call is Aberdeen, followed by Antwerp and Barcelona, with arrival in the Croatian port of Makarska hopefully by the end of this year. Sweden's best selling singer and novelist Ulf Lundell raised 300,000 SEK for the campaign with a solidarity concert on October 13th. He will give a second concert in Gothenberg the day of departure. Lundell joined Ship for Bosnia representatives for a recent telethon, which raised at least 260,000 SEK for the campaign. * For more information contact the Gotenberg Ship for Bosnia campaign at + 031 12 13 27 fax 031 14 13 11, or the Stockholm office at +84620532
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International Viewpoint n° 269 -September 1995 35
rts
Nuclear victory for Britain's Labour right
News Repor THE LABOUR LEADERSHIP NARROWLY DEFEATED left-wing demands for the Trident nuclear missile system to be scrapped, during its annual conference in Brighton. A motion demanding that Trident be scrapped was defeated by 55.8% of the vote to 44.2% on October 6. This was the first time for some years that the leadership's views on nuclear weapons have carried the day at a party conference. The result, along with agreement by delegates not to debate motions demanding significant defence spending cuts, were characterised by senior party sources as proof of the transformation to New Labour. Conferences of 1993 and 1994 both endorsed calls to scrap Trident, although the leadership maintained this would not affect the formation of its policy. According to Orpington delegate Gill Collins, "50% of people in Britain now consider nuclear weapons unnecessary. The bad old days of the Labour defence bogey are going. The Tories are losing their ammunition... Trident is a massive, costly white elephant that should soon be with the dinosaurs... if the NEC and the shadow cabinet had actively promoted party policy [decommissioning Trident], the intensity of feeling against Trident would be much greater than it is." Trade unions were split on the issue, with the giant Transport and General Workers Union supporting the call to scrap the weapon system, but the public service union Unison, the Popular resistance incre A SERIES OF HIGH-PARTICIPATION STRIKES in July and August hit the public sector: telecommunications, water, health, and public works. Unions protested the draconian plans for redundancies which seek to prepare these utilities for News Reports. privatisation, governmental plans for privatisation, the dismantling of nationalised industrial and agricultural groups (through reducing import taxes) and legislation which would effectively transform the country into a gigantic free trade zone. Workers in the clothing workshops, and the assembly plants of the free trade zones (maquiladoras) struck for their right to form trade unions. The «forces of order» reacted violently. The government's top concern is frightening away foreign investors. Demonstrations by demobilised FMLN soldiers are also increasingly frequent, as are deaths of former guerillas at the hands of the police. Four years after the cease-fire agreement, demobilised soldiers of both sides are still waiting for 60% of the promised land transfers. On 28 July the Army joined with the police to suppress a demonstration of the demobilised. Such blatent intringements of the peace accords are increasingly common since the UN mission effectively withdrew in April. The March 1995 split in the FMLN has weakened the movements ability to react to developments. The remaining components of the front are busily preparing for December 1995, when they will dissolve into a single party. According to Shafik Handel of the Communist Party (PCS), "the consolidation of the FMLN as the party or political subject of te revolution constitutes a historic necessity and one of the 36 International Viewpoint n° 271 - November 1995 general GMB union and the Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union backing the leadership. Brian Godsell, of the AEEU, told delegates: "Defence has been the Achilles' heel of the Labour Party for too long. Now's the time to turn defence into attack." The leadership earlier had averted one possible defeat when, citing time pressures and technical factors, it decided not to allow votes on motions calling for Britain's defence spending to be cut to the average level of other Western European countries. The previous six Labour party conferences have backed such calls. Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament chairwoman Janet Bloomfield said the decision to keep Trident was party leader Tony Blair's "first blank-cheque policy commitment which goes against the grain of public opinion". A recent MORI poll shows that, for the first time, a majority of British voters believe nuclear weapons are no longer necessary. "The British people are ready for disarmament," said Bloomfield. "The Labour Party should give it to them... There is much the party could gain from advocating a radical disarmament programme which promises that the millions currently devoted to the means of mass destruction can be ploughed back into rebuilding our schools, houses and other public services." [AN] ases in El Salvador conditions for realising successive victories until the consumationn of the democratic revolution" There has been a noticeable decline in the militant base of the (social democratic) Democratic Party (PD), formed by the two currents which left the FMLN in March. Their alliance with the right was confirmed during the July strikes, when PD leader Joaquin Vilalobos warned strikers that «such methods do not help solve the problems. They have rather more in common with the anti-democratic culture of the most conservative sectors of the right». Several weeks earlier, the PD found itself the only party in parliament which supported the ARENA government's proposal to increase Value Added Tax by 3 percentage points. Two of the PDs nine deputies have since abandoned the party in protest, while militant support for the party is evaporating in their popular strongholds like Segundo Montes, a town dominated by repatriated FMLN militants. [PM/AN] Hungarian students demonstrate SOME 3,000 STUDENTS PROTESTED ANGRILY October 5, after hearing details of an agreement between student union leaders and Prime Minister Gyula Horn. 10,000 student demonstrators had formed a human chain around parliament the previous evening. They were protesting the new basic fee of 2,000 forints ($15) a month introduced by the government this academic year, and demanding that state spending on education to keep pace with inflation. The National Alliance of Hungarian University and College Students has accepted the basic tuition fees, while the government will ask universities and colleges not to impose additional fees of their own this academic year. The hated tuition fees are part of an austerity package which has triggered a wave of protest across Hungary this year. [AN]