peace movement in East Europe tensive the potential is for mobilizing against the threat of war, and of nuclear war in particular.
These feelings were crystallized in the Berlin Appeal, which was launched in January 1982 in East Germany by Robert Havemann and the Protestant minister Rainer Eppelmann. It called for the
On Saturday, May 7, on the eve of the Second Nuclear Disarmament Conference in
West Berlin, a demonstration of 10,000 persons took place in Budapest, Hungary, called by the National Peace Council and the Young Communist League.
What was most significant about this march was that at the end of it, there were about 500 young people from the Groups for Peace and Dialogue, which are independent of the official peace movement.
They marched behind banners saying: "All missiles out of Europe!"
This is the first time in Hungary that independent peace movements have come into the streets in an organized way to demand openly immediate disarmament measures both from Moscow and Washington.
As small as this action by the independent peace groups might seem in comparison with the huge demonstrations that have taken place recently in the West, it is a portentous indication of the independent peace movement in the East and the growing pressure that it represents for the ruling bureaucracy.
Jacqueline ALLIO
It was in East Germany that independent peace groups first began to develop in
Eastern Europe. Initially, they centered around opposing the militarization daily life and demanding the right to alternative service for conscripts.
thus linked up with the longstanding movement of conscientious objectors, which was supported by the Protestant
The East German conscientious objectors have always held that the form of alternative service established in 1964 in response to pressure from young Christians who refused to bear arms - the
Bausoldaten (Building Soldiers) - was not a real alternative to militarism. This is because the conscripts assigned to construction work are obliged to wear the army uniform and are subject to the same military discipline as regular soldiers.
The conscientious objectors movement - which is estimated to have involved about 500 youth a year in the
1960s and 1970s - reached a new stage in 1981 with the launching of a petition campaign for real alternative civil-
Thousands of youths signed this petition. By no means all of them - far from it - were committed Christians.
In 1982, the movement spread reservists, who are obliged to undergo training periods of six to twelve weeks up to the age of fifty. While they did not ask to be assigned to the Bausoldaten when they were first taken into the army, a number of these reservists decided to refuse to go to their training courses, at the risk of being sentenced to six to eight
In October 1982, several hundred women signed a letter addressed to the chief
Erich Honecker, in which they protested against the introduction of a new law permitting the government to call up women from eighteen to fifty for active defense service in the event of an "emergency situation."
AGAINST THE MILITARIZATION
OF SOCIETY
The only response the bureaucrats were able to make to this groundswell of peace sentiment in growing sections of
German population was tighten the vise of militarization.
In their first year of school, East German six-year-olds start being visited in their classrooms by soldiers of the National People's Army. These military men are charged with indoctrinating the children about the army's role as the defender of peace and the fatherland
The lives of East German teenagers are marked by the militarist style of the party youth organizations in which most of them are enrolled.
In 1978, the government introduced compulsory military defense courses -both theoretical and practical - in the last two years of the mass education program (that is, for youths of fourteen to
But not content with that, the regime has recently extended the training that youths are obliged to go through after completing their 18 months of active service. creased from 21 to 24 months.
It is in this context of all out militarization of education and civilian life that the independent peace movement has to rejection of military service by thousands of youths is only one facet of the anxiety felt by large sections of the East German population. fects not only youth but also adults, as the reactions of women and reservists
The official declarations that the only reason for a strong army is to better defend the peace, in accordance with the nuclear arms from East and West Germany as the first step toward a
Europe, as well as for the withdrawal of all foreign troops from the
(There are 400,000 such troops in East Germany).
the launching of the Berlin Appeal, all the "peace forums," starting with the one in Dresden, which assembled 5,000 youth in February 1982, have generally taken up these demands, and have linked the fight for demilitarizing civilian life and for civilian alternative service to mobilizing for nuclear disarmament.
In June 1982, three thousand people, mainly youth, took part in the East Berlin Peace Forum, which was built both by word of mouth and by the distribution of leaflets bearing the obligatory warning "strictly reserved for internal church use."
Inside the Church of the Redemption, skits and poetry readings alternated with religious services. At the same time, outside the church there was a "speaker's corner" that made it possible for everyone who wanted to to express his or her opinion freely in an environment where the walls and trees were covered with hand-written statements, poems and pictures expressing the participants' hopes.
It should be noted that most of the speakers hailed the Soviet Unions's disarmament proposals, thereby squelching any attempt to give the affair an antiCommunist tone. This bore out the statements made shortly before by participants in the movement in answer to questions from a reporter for the Swedish magazine ETC: (2)
"Reagan's policy threatens the entire world....Both East and West Germany should demilitarize. Our goal is a neutral, disarmed, and reunited Germany.
"We can get Western TV. Their propaganda is as idiotic as ours. We are fighting for peace. The bourgeois press in the aganda. What they say is false. No one is talking about introducing a capitalist system in East German."
The East German peace activists also
"We have to reform socialism from
We have to have open debate.
From the letter of the Hungarian peace activists
With respect to the way that weapons will lose their power to terrify and how
Work for disarmament is a step in the right direction."
One cannot fail to be struck by the similarity between these statements and those made by many Polish workers in Solidarnosc when they were questioned about the aims of their struggle. Morethe differences between East and West can be resolved through dialogue: Such over, one of the participants in the June dialogue cannot be limited to diplomatic exchanges.
1982 East Berlin forum remarked:
streets, in the homes of ordinary people, and then it has to be reflected back
"You can hardly believe that...such an action could take place in East Berlin...
In both the East and West, it would be better if discussions were not limited
What struck anyone attending it was the to exchanges of opinions around a negotiating table....Our group has drawn up a list of proposals on ways for overcoming distrust and "humanizing" internaopen display of differences. It was sometional relations. We have proposed exchanges between Russians and Americans thing more than just a demonstration for
We also propose that TV debates be held between peaceful disengagement.
It was political, political leaders of the two sides, during which viewers in both the East and West
I would even go further and say that it was the expression of a legal' opposition.
We propose a ban on the sale of military toys, and we would like to work on
"Today's peace movement a peace education program in the schools.
dent of the state is not just a movement
In suggesting a cut in military expenditures, that advances ideas on peace and other government that this money could be better used for peaceful purposes.
have proposed a program for halting the spread of malaria, which afflicts a great questions that do not correspond to the policies of the Unified Socialist Party number of people, as well as a project for cleaning up the environment and the air. This would cost less money than producing new weapons
(SED, the Communist Party). It is a
These are only examples to indicate our general approach, which if it were movement that is objectively attacking followed by the Soviet people, could help overcome mistrust. These humanitar the roots of the system itself. What is ian proposals may be a bit naive but they nonethelss have real potential. They being challenged is the dominant role of can nip nuclear armament in the bud, in the human mind.
the SED, of the totalitarian regime. (3)
Even though not all the participants
New missiles are banging at Europe's door. There is are yet conscious of this, there no place for new missiles, either in Europe or anywhere else.
are many indications that the movement is taking on more and more of an antibureaucratic dynamic.
THE CONTRADICTORY ROLE
OF THE CHURCHES
A foretaste of this was given by the
February 1982 Dresden forum.
The
Protestant church came out with a position opposing signing the Berlin Appeal because "it raises a series of questions that have no place in discussions about the responsibility of Christians with respect to peace." This statement was very badly received by the participants.
They booed the church official who was given the job of explaining that "this will not help discussion of how to safeguard peace." (4)
The church hierarchy has also recently made a concession to the regime, calling on youth to stop wearing the peace move-
This move has also been very unpopular and tended to radicalize those who have been more conciliatory.
The Protestant churches played a decisive role in promoting the conscientious objectors' movement, while at the same time they managed to maintain astonishingly open relations with the authorities throughout the 1980s.
In fact, the churches enjoyed an exceptional independent status in the country. They are the only institution that is not under the control of the party. However, it is obvious that the dimensions assumed recently by the movement for civilian service and for denuclearization of the two Germanies has complicated things.
Now this church, which Pastor
Eppelmann himself, accuses of having a
"disastrously timid mentality" in its relations with the state, is in danger of being totally swamped by a mobilization that far exceeds what it wanted.
through the press and TV.
during summer vacations.
could phone in and ask questions....
weapons unnecessary and pointless.
There is not much time.
The East German Protestant church could, very quickly, find itself in a poas contradictory as that of the
Catholic church in Poland, which is constantly torn between its desire to keep its position as the government's main interlocutor and the need to adopt more radical positions so as not to become discredited in the eyes of the masses.
As for the bureaucracy, it also finds itself caught in a difficult position. claims by the East German Peace Council that "socialism equals peace" jibe less and less with the government's strident militarism. At the same time, they make it more and more difficult to justify a course of open repression against the independent peace movement.
THE "WAR OF THE BADGES"
The demonstration of this was the "war of the badges." At first the authorities promised the church that they would not repress those who wore the cloth badge of the peace movement (which is a representation of the statue given to the UN by the Soviet Union of a blacksmith beating a sword into a plowshare). But alarmed by the extent of the Dresden forum in particular, the bureaucrats suddenly changed their tune.
The badge in question abruptly became a "subversive symbol," and anyone wearing it became liable to prison sentences under Article 106 of the Penal Code. The decree requiring authorization for all printed material was even hastily revised to cover "cloth emblems." Since then, youth who persisted in wearing the emblem have been suject to all sorts of harassment, up to expulsion from their
Some young people have even had their identity papers taken away and re-
It has to take place in the we would like to remind our They can make placed by a "PM 12" card. This is the document given to "suspicious elements" who have been in prison and are forbidden to travel abroad
But this did not keep many youth who took part in an assembly in Magdeburg a few months after the Dresden forum from wearing plain white badges, which are reminiscent of the electric resistors Polish workers wore in their button holes after the Solidarnosc badge was banned.
The authorities took the popularity of the independent peace movement's symbol seriously enough to try to neutralize it by promoting a counter emblem, in this case Picasso's dove surrounded by the word "peace." The SED youth, the FDJ, wore it last year in of ficial rallies, sometimes even on headthe style of Western peace
The battle does not involve just em-
It has become a war of slogans. "Beat your swords into plowshares" has been twisted into "Swords and plowshares!" and the "Peace without arms" of been turned around to "Peace against the arms of NATO."
The authorities' need to do everything possible to coopt the independent peace movements is related to the fact that it is very difficult for them to get people to believe that they are agents of the
The independent peace movement's positions with regard to NATO's policy are in fact quite clear, in particular as regards its opposition to the stationing of Cruise and Pershing 2 missiles. 3. "Friedenswerkstatt in Ostberlin. Erlebnisse eines DDR-Teilnehmers," OsteuropaInfo, No 3, 1982, p. 48. 4. "The Sword and the Ploughshare Autonomous Peace Initiatives East Germany," John Sandford, END pamphlet, 1983.
15
Thus, the independent peace movement's orientation is not making the job of the authorities any easier. And this is all the more true because the positions described go hand in hand with a conviction on the part of the majority of those involved that the independent peace movement should not cut itself off from the official peace movements but rather try to put pressure on them by appealing to all those who identify with their stated aims.
This attitude is shown clearly in the messages sent by the various East German groups invited to the West Berlin peace conference in May 1983 and which could not come because their representatives were refused visas. (see boxes)
The organizers of this conference had made support for bilateral disarmament a condition for taking part in the organizing committee. In contrast to this, all the messages from the East European independent peace groups stressed the need for appealing to all components of the movement, including the official structures in the East European countries.
In fact, the Hungarian Groups for Dialogue and Peace went even further. They severely criticized the conception of the Liaison Committee for the Berlin Conference, accusing it of failing to understand the sort of influence the official structures have over a large part of the population in the East European coun-
It is estimated that the Groups for Dialogue and Peace have about 20,000 active sympathizers today. They are undoubtedly the major current in the Hungarian peace movement, which is made up of a myriad of autonomous groups.
This movement began in September 1981, when a group of students at the art school of the University of Budapest proposed building an independent peace demonstration opposing both Soviet and American nuclear weapons. They applied for a permit to demonstrate but were re-
Then the League of Young Communists (KISZ — Kommunista Ifjusagi Szoevetseg) called a rally for December 12, just a few days before the time for the independent peace demonstration - December 17.
When the idea of an independent peace demonstration was raised again in the spring of 1982, the KISZ intervened once more transforming what was supposed to be an independent demonstration on May 9 into an official parade. Nonetheless, some activists from the inplacards saying "Abolish all the weapons."
One of the most developed currents in the initial period grouped around the "Antinuclear Campaign," which involved primarily very young people (14 and over) in the high schools. Their central slogan is "Melt down all the weapons!" Their activity consists of distributing leaflets, putting up posters, and wearing bad-
Antinuclear campaign activists are often seen in the parks talking to passersby and handing them flowers, trying to ent 10
4 win their support for the peace move-
Another group, made up of young artists, has taken the name It devotes itself to producing artistic materials for the peace campaign.
In the universities, where the mobilization was more limited in the beginning, the movement has organized around the Groups for Dialogue and Peace, whose actions and views have been publicized in the West through the interviews of its groups exist today in several towns outside Budapest.
Finally, it should be stressed that this movement immediately struck a chord with the "Eucharistic Groups" led by the priest Gyorgy Bulanyi, which have been campaigning for many years for non-violence and the right to conscientious
Bulanyi's movement has, moreover, come into head-on conflict several times with the Catholic hierarchy. Anxious to remain on good terms with the regime, church have condemned the movement severely. bishops have even declared themselves
"to resolutely defend the social order of the Hungarian People's Republie against any attempt, from whatever quarter, to destabilize the state." (5)
Howeyer, when the Hungarian primate removed two young members of a religious order from their posts for preaching conscientious objection, these decisions provoked an outery. This case revealed the gulf that exists between the radicalism of the believers for peace and the deepseated conservatism Hungarian Catholic hierarchy.
Bulanyi's supporters have formed a "Committee for Human Dignity," which in a statement issued in January 1982 expressed its support for the peace movements in the West, as well as its opposition to the presence of nuclear weapons, both bombs and missiles, in either East or West Europe.
All these groups and currents agree on the need for maintaining strict independence from the state, while cooperating wherever possible with the official peace movement. They criticize the bureaucratic character of the official peace movement but say that they have many of the same goals.
THE PEACE ACTIVISTS AND THE DISSIDENTS
What is more of a problem is the attitude of many young activists in the independent movement toward the dissidents, whom Koeszegi has described as "the so-called opposition" and "a force that could try to manipulate the movement" in the same way as the Peace Council or the state. "The attempts of opposition elements to assume a dominant place in the developing movement could become a great danger to the movement itself." (6)
Of course, the traditional opposition has helped set the stage for this kind of reaction, inasmuch as a lot of dissidents did not make any bones about their skepticism regarding the objectives of the peace groups, and did not begin to take an interest in them until it became clear that they had a real audi-
Nonetheless, the distrust, not to say hostility, of the peace groups toward the dissidents can only have negative results for the movement itself if it is persisted in, because it is based on a wrong political estimate of the situation in the countries bureaucratic rule. This attitude arises from the illusion that it is possible to find a "third way," a "non-political" way, that would make it feasible both for the movement to maintain its independence and get official acceptance.
This notion often goes hand in hand with a certain opportunism toward the bureaucracy, as can be seen from some passages quoted from the letter of the Groups for Dialogue and Peace. often proclaimed desire to be a legal movement is at the root of this refusal opponents of the regime: worried about actions that would tend to give any basis for the idea that the new peace activists are dissidents." (7)
This illusion that there is a middle way for avoiding confrontation with the ruling bureaucratic minority is reflected also in the refusal of many peace groups to set up any real coordinating body for the
This was expressed quite clearly at the meeting of the various groups in July 1982, which was attended by several members of the official peace organization and of the government as well as by some Hungarian dissidents.
"The only guarantee that we can continue to exists is the diversity that characterizes us," (8) a participant in this meet-
Friedensgruppe garn," Osteuropa-Info, No 3, 1982, P. 74 November-December 1982, p. 27.
ing said, rejecting any perspective of a prepared to support or even to tolerate
Diversity is in fact one of the signs of the vitality of this movement. same is not necessarily true of the lack of coordination, because this involves obvious limitations on its activity. could be seen when the peace march organized by the Soviets went through Budapest in August 1982.
In their desire to respect diverse points of view and their fear of going too far, the members of the various peace groups to ignore this demonstration. The chance would have been missed if it had not been for two of the best known and most courageous of the Hungarian dissidents - Miklos Harszti and Lazlo Rajk - who took advantage of this opportunity to distribute leaflets to the demonstrators and spectators criticizing the Hungarian government's military policy and protesting the presence of Soviet troops and missiles on Hungarian soil. In this respect, Koeszegi says that no one knows for sure whether nuclear weapons are stationed in Hungary.
Nonetheless, as the organized participation of the Groups for Dialogue and Peace in the official demonstration May 7 in Budapest shows, the dynamic of mobilization itself can only help the independent peace movement overcome its political and organizational limitations.
So far, the Hungarian authorities have not moved directly against the independent groups. To the contrary, their policy has been to "ride the wave." The Peace Council has taken over the various proposals made by the independent groups — such as starting up a publication, opening a peace discussion club, ete. - and denatured them. This does not mean, contrary to the hopes of some young activists, that the authorities are
"At most, there has been a certain tolerance on the part of the police, Miklos Haraszti has said, who is quite experienced in such things. have to expect measures discriminating against people in their workplaces, in the schools, and in the enterprises." (9)
One thing that would certainly help the young activists in the peace movement to come to an understanding of the political stakes involved in the strug gle they have undertaken is establishing with independent movements in both the East and West. In fact, many participants have expressed a desire for this.
From this standpoint, of the Group for Peace in Moscow, however modest its size, is a considerable encouragement for the peace movements in other East European countries.
On June 4, 1982, a group of eleven persons invited some foreign correspondents to a meeting to give them an appeal to the governments of the USSR and the US and to public opinion
They sent it at the same time to the Soviet press and to the
The members of this group - mainly scientists who have not participated before in oppositionist political activities - thought that the nuclear arms race between the US and the Soviet Union represented the biggest threat to peace. They made it clear that they did not condissidents, that they agreed with the Soviet government's nuclear disarmament policy, and that they wanted to keep their activities within a strictly legal framework.
The proposals of this group concerned, first and foremost, the establishment of links between ordinary citizens both in the USSR and internationally. As they saw it, in the face of the threat of nuclear war, the effectiveness of dialogue at the top alone was more than dubious. Their concern was to see that the views of opponents of war were disseminated so that the great majority of people against war could make their feelings known and therefore influence the thinking and decisions of the ruling minorities and the course of East-West relations.
This approach could hardly have been more moderate, but this did not keep the bureaucracy from lashing back immediately, although it has not yet resorted to all-out repression or mass arrests.
As soon as the appeal was made public, the members of the group and all those who dared to sign the statement were subjected to reprisals, which ran the gamut from "chats," in which they were told to withdraw their signatures, to two weeks in jail and internments in psych-
Some signers had their phones cut off, others were threatened that they would be fired from their jobs because of "lateness," others were put under house arrest for a month, and there were also certain warnings, in the form of near "accidents." The Soviet press started up a chorus that the Group for Peace were linked to the CIA and so forth.
decided to organize a demonstration for June 27, 1982, under the slogans "No more Hiroshimas" and "Peace through through fear," several members group were arrested, charged with "hooliganism," and sent to a prison for alcohol. ics on the outskirts of Moscow.
Facing a flood of protest letters from the West, the Soviet bureaucrats, who are anxious to remain on good terms with the independent Western peace movements, responded in a telegram to END (European Nuclear Disarmament Campaign)
From the letter of the Soviet peace activists that "not a single person representing the peace movement in the Soviet Union has been subjected to repression and still less has any such person been arrested."
In recent months, we have been very disturbed by the growing differences between the peace movements in the East and West. division of our forces. The cold war must not penetrate into our sphere of work!....All the peace organizations should follow a more tolerant, more realistic, more cooperative, noninterventionist course in their relations with each
We ask you in particular to consider the following questions. First: What image of the Warsaw Pact countries are you helping to build?
In some peace journals, this image has only three facets — a strong army in a militarized society, frequent violations of human rights, and generally oppressed groups. Can this help build the confidence needed to resist
In the Appeal for a Nuclear-Free Europe, it is said that "we cannot pay any attention to the bans and limitations imposed by any national state." out of ideological hostility that you stress so strongly not your independence from Moscow, which is correct, but your profound dislike for these states?
The second question is the following: all-Europe peace movement, can this be done without the Peace Councils and Peace Committees [the official structures] in the East European countries?
Have you really tried to cooperate with them? Is it a good strategy to pose conditions and refuse to begin discussions until they are met? We think that it is possible to reach the peoples of the Eastern European countries through these bodies.
Do you intend to wait until our countries are transformed into Western-type democracies before you establish contacts in Eastern Europe? nuclear holocaust comes before that?
It is essential to avoid any
If we take up the work of building an
What if the
As for the two persons from group of eleven portrayed as an indepenpress, peace movement by the Western they "beat up a woman in a bus and were sentenced by a district people's court to two weeks in jail for hooliganism." (10) WHY THE BUREAUCRATS FEAR THE INDEPENDENT PEACE MOVEMENTS
It should be pointed out that the bureaucrats' fear of the impact that the activity of such a group could have is fully justified. Four months after launching their appeal, the eleven had already gathered the signatures of 900 people supporting their action. Signatures have continued to pour in since then, coming mainly from scientific and intellectual circles but also from sections of the stu9. Osteuropa-Info, No 3, 1982, p. 83. 10. "Moscow Independent Peace Group," END pamphlet, London, 1982, p. 24.
17
dent population and the working class. New Groups for Peace have been formed in Odessa, Novosibirsk, and Leningrad. A youth group calling itself Independent Initiative" has also been formed, which has several hundred members.
The latest reports are that the bureaucracy, which persistantly refused to give exit visas to several members of the group of eleven that applied for them years ago, suddenly decided to grant a number of
Notably, it reportedly gave an exit visa to Sergei Batovrin, a young painter and spokesperson of the
This is another way of trying to get rid of the "protesters" whose example the Kremlin fears. It is an all the more effective one because the "protesters" are not interested primarily in addressing foreign public opinion but public opinion and the government in their own country.
To be sure, so far the Soviet workers seem more concerned about problems of supply and the standard of living than about the SS-20s. But it is nonetheless true that a whole section of the population that remains terrified by the experience of the second world war has shown itself quite sensitive to the aims of the fight for peace.
Even though the Peace Councils are totally bureaucratized structures whose sole purpose is to back up the government's policy, the massive character of peace demonstrations in the USSR reflects something more than compulsory participation by the workers. the expression of a real concern on the part of a section of them. demonstrated by the way that they joined spontaneously in the demonstration -in particular the older generation - in some cities when they saw the banners of the peace march organized by the ScanVyborg in Denmark to Minsk last summer.
The Soviet leaders, thus, have every reason to fear the activities of a group that is campaigning not only against the arms race but also explicitly condemns the diversion to military purposes of vast resources that could be used to meet the needs of the masses, a group that supports an idea that is highly subversive in the countries under bureaucratic rule "the right to work for peace."
tries, as was proposed by some people at the West Berlin conference in May in exsectarian and sometimes explicitly anti-Communist speeches. Rather such links are important to keep the bureaucrats from isolating and crushing groups that demonstrate a desire to organize independently of the state. This would also make it possible to dispel the suspicion that often exists in the minds of the participants in the independent movements in the East about the Western peace movements, since the official press potential allies of the bureaucratic leader-
"The fate of the independent peace movement depends in large part on what our comrades in the Western peace movements do," Sergei Batovrin has said in the name of the Soviet group. Inasmuch as the governments of the bureaucratized workers states, in particular the Kremlin, are in fact obliged to take account of them, the attitude that the independent peace movements in the West take toward supporting peace activists subjected to repression in the East will certainly have a real importance for the survival and struggle of these autonomous groups.
Moreover, the struggle of these groups is not limited to the question of disarmament. As the arrests in the USSR and the repressive measures resorted to in East Germany have once again shown any activity that involves asserting a right to any freedom immediately leads to confrontation with the ruling minority and immediately raises the question of fighting for democratic rights as a whole. And this struggle also runs up against the presence of Soviet troops stationed in
East European countries, which used, directly or indirectly, as an instrument of repression against the mass
In getting involved in the peace movement, the working people in the East countries come into direct collision with the policy of the bureaucracy, one of whose obsessions is to prevent any mass mobilization that might endanger the place that it holds or the privileges it enjoys. In a parallel way, the working people in the West who mobilize for disarming the imperialists collide with the interests of the war profiteers and the power of their represent-
A united fight by the peace movements in the West and East is thus a decisive question for the antiwar struggle on a world scale. Mobilizing the masses opposed to the stationing of nuclear weapons, to increasing military expenditures, to militarization of civilian life and to all attacks on the rights of trade unions is the only real defense against the threat of war.
This struggle points up the converging interests of peoples both East and West who are fighting for the right of self-determination, the right to decide their
The East European peace movements are only in their infancy. In East German and Hungary in particular, they are distinguished by the youthfulness of their
They have thus far remained outside the workers movement. objectives they put forward concern all working people.
In a whole series of respects, these movements represent a grave challenge to the bureaucratized official structures and a determination by the participants to take questions that affect them into their own hands. They reject a military policy that - in the name of defending the fatherland - responds to imperialist escalation by getting trapped in an arms
They condemn pouring social wealth down the bottomless pit of military expenditures rather than using it to
All these questions are explosive ones and they terrify the bureaucracy. It has learned at its cost, and this lesson confirmed again in the revolutionary upsurge in Poland, that movements that start out for apparently very elementary antibureaucratic dynamic that cannot be contained by offers of superficial reforms and changes. What is at stake for the bureaucracy now is not how many missiles it has but the very survival of its rule.
İNPREKOR
THE NEED FOR UNITY BETWEEN
THE PEACE MOVEMENT
IN THE EAST AND THE WEST
Powracająca fala walk masowych
The Soviet bureaucrats, of course, did
DOLNOŚLASKA LINIA FABRYK everything possible to keep the participants on the Vyborg-Minsk march from making contact with the eleven members
O MIEDZYNARODOWYM WYMIARZE of the Group for Peace in Moscow.
managed to manipulate this action suf
POLSKIEJ REWOLUCJI ficiently to present it as an act of unconditional support for their international
Polish Inprekor no 8-9 is now out!
CHIŃSKIE ECHA SIERPNIA 1980 policy.
This episode indicates the importance of establishing direct links between the nr 8/9 styczen - ma j
CENA: 15FF, 2%5, 100 F3, 7FS, 7DM, 15 KrS independent movements in the West and the East.
The reason for this is not to avoid contact with the official peace movements in the East European coun
18
1983 w. Frasyniuk
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KORESPONDENCJA PRASOWA
US auto workers union discusses challenge of union-busting, layoffs
The following article is from the June 3 issue of The Militant, a weekly paper reflecting the views of the Socialist Workers Party, an American organization in solidarity with the Fourth International. Elizabeth ZIERS
DALLAS — The 3,000 delegates to the United Auto Workers (UAW) 27th Constitutional Convention here May 15 - 20 took note of all the blows the union has suffered in recent years. In his keynote speech, outgoing President Douglas Fraser told the delegates membership had dropped by 400,000 to 1.1 million, and a quarter-million auto workers are still on indefinite layoff with little hope of recall. Although auto sales have picked up somewhat over last year, they are still 2.4 million off the pace of 1978, the year before the current crisis hit.
Fraser listed all the major auto plants that have no UAW contract in force: Nissan in Smyrna, Tennessee; Marysville, Ohio; and General MotorsToyota in Fremont, California.
Fraser continued, "People say, Well, you haven't got those workers organized. First of all, the top priority is to create jobs for Americans, and then we have the obligation to organize those plants."
No specific plans for organizing drives were proposed by Fraser, newly-elected
Owen Bieber, or any other UAW official.
### SPARK OF COMBATIVITY
The delegation from Local 1364 in Fremont brought a spark of combativity to the convention with their fight against its money with Toyota to retool the Fremont plant, and it refuses to recognize its contract with w