Women in the Global Factory clearly shows the need for a revolutionary solution. Yet the authors' suggestions for what can be done are limited to reforms in the sys
But it is capitalist development, itself - the whole system of production based on private property and profit-making for a few - that is at the core of the increase in oppression and suffering and Ehrenreich emphasize that the solution must be global, which seems absolutely correct, and talk about creating links between women around the world such as an international network to share information on hazardous substances and corporate policies. But most of their proposals are limited to sugges-
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WOMEN
AROUND THE WORLD
Turkish protesters face trial
"The objective of this action is to denounce the murder of eight patriots, including the mayor of the city of Gerbukan in Kurdistan, as well as the attack by the police and the special repressive forces against another sixty Kurdish patriots, when they savagely suppressed the protest in Diyarbakir prison."
slogans in support of the Turkish refugees. And revolutionary left activists, mainly students, distributed statements signed by Turkish revolutionary organizations.
The area was surrounded by the police who guarded the Ministry of Communications, and in a short time a squad of special the Turkish militants from leaving after the press conference."
The Turkish militants risked their lives by crossing the border to continue the struggle. After that, they faced the ghetto of the Lavrios camp, destitution, isolation. To get out of the camp, you need the consent of the authorities who check your reasons for wanting to leave. To find a job, in most cases as a dish washer and for a short time, is a small miracle.
Today, if they are not banned from political activity outright, it is made very difficult. While Averoff, Metsotakes and others [the rightist politicians] exalt the virtues of Kenan Evren [the Turkish
With those words, on February 9, Turkish activists were talking to report14 Turkish and Kurdish political prisoners, all members of revolutionary organizations, explained to reporters the aim of their two-hour occupation of the offices of the Turkish airline, T.H.Y., in Syntagma Square in Athens. In order to carry out this occupation, they had to disarm a plainclothes policeman guarding the premises. On April 5, a court will try these protesters on baseless charges of ers about the slaughter of prisoners in Diyarbakir prison, about how the prison was sealed off by tanks and how the smoke rising over the prison showed that the protest would end with a massacre. The special forces prepared to go into action "against the terrorists." They were ordered to "attack and to prevent dictator], the government seems to think that it has done its socialist duty by the Turkish political refugees simply by assuring their survival. This article is from the March issue of Ergatike Pale, the paper of the Greek section of the Fourth International.
"resistance to authority" and "illegal violence." Belgian Fourth Internationalists form
The 14 militants were unarmed when
Socialist Workers Party they occupied the airline offices, which they had entered previously in small groups. After they let all the employees leave, they hung out a banner in Greek and Turkish inviting reporters for a press conference.
At the same time, outside the occupied office a crowd gathered shouting
Women in the global factory tions of ways to counter particular abuses of multinational corporations, along the lines of the Nestle boycott.
Fuentes and Ehrenreich present a clear description of the function of governments in both underdeveloped advanced capitalist states - especially in the United States - in underwriting this exploitative process This support ranges from economic incentives to military repression.
The struggles of Third World women for economic and political freedom must therefore involve workplace actions and strikes - many examples of which are documented in this pamphlet. But they must also attain a level of political organization that opposes capitalism and goes in a revolutionary socialist direction. This is also the only real solution for working people in the United States. Our struggles are intertwined.
This review was first published in the March 1984 edition of Socialist Action, an American socialist monthly published in San Francisco. 26
The Revolutionary Workers League (LRTRAL), Belgian section of the Fourth International, held its seventh national con-
A very large majority of the 60 delegates present approved the political resolution entitled "Towards a vanguard workers party', adopted a motion that decided to change the name of the party to Socialist Workers Party (POS-SAP), and new party statutes. Far from being a routine event, this seventh congress marked an important turning point in the history of the Belgian section of the Fourth International. It followed a long internal discussion on a self-critical balance sheet on its 15-year history.
The IRT-RAL was formally founded in 1971 by the fusion of three organisations: the Belgian section of the time, the Jeune Garde Socialiste, the youth organisation of the Socialist Party, which had been sympathetic to the Fourth International since 1969, and a small left centrist party, the product of a split in the SP in 1965, whose Walloon (Frenchspeaking) wing in particular had a workers base in several big industrial plants.
Nevertheless, this new organisation had to build itself in difficult conditions. There was a very markedly uneven development between, on the one hand, the decline in workers struggles, and rising student radicalisation on the other.
However, at the same time the Walloon working class was suffering the effects of unemployment from 1966-67 while the Flemish proletariat was strengthened and made more combative by the effects of assisted economic expansion in the north of the country, although this combativity was not reflected in a level of consciousness or union organisation comparable to that which still existed in the Walloon country.
Thus, these three initial components, of which the JGS was undoubtedly the most dynamic, drew on the active forces of the anti-imperialist movement, the student movement and the successive waves of spontaneous workers strikes.
Despite the presence of seasoned worker militants and influential union delegates [shop stewards] the line and the functioning of the LRT-RAL was determined during this period by the role played by activists who had come in large part from the student movement. This led, among other things, to a certain de lay in accumulating experienced comrades and some difficulties in recruiting and keeping workers with experience of leading struggles. The decline in revolutionary prospects in Europe, particularly after 1974-75 in Portugal, and the violent austerity offensive of the bourgeoisie, led in the end to a sharp political crisis within the organisation at the end of 1978.
International Viewpoint 9 April 1984
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Thus the seventh congress had to be a congress of rectification. This demanded a rigorous analysis of the organisation's main weaknesses. It meant making a critical survey of the current state of the workers