The third international convention
PEACE MOVEMENT
Peace Foundation; Ron Todd of the British Transport and General Workers Union; Luis Echeverria, an ex-president of Mexico; Luciana Castellina and Lucio Margri, Italian PDUP (United Proletarian Party) MPs; Tony Benn, a left leader of the British Labour Party; the writer Alberto Moravia; Jiri Pelikan, Czech on nuclear disarmament - a balance sheet dissident, now member of the European Parliament for Italy; Lian Halevi, a representative of the PLO in Paris; Nidle Jotti, president of the chamber of deputies in Italy; Andreas Hegedus, ex-prime minister of Hungary; etc.
The deployment of the first Nato missiles in Great Britain, West Germany and Italy in the autumn of 1983 might have seemed to many people to sound the death knell of the peace movement in these countries.
not in fact the case.
It is true that the mobilisations announced for this autumn will undoubtedly be smaller compared to last year.
this is partly because the peace movements in countries like Belgium and the Netherlands, where the euromissiles have not yet been installed, decided to concentrate their efforts on the months preceding deployment
It is also true that the movement went through some difficulties last winter, especially in West Germany and Italy. Here they were trying to redefine their perspectives in a situation where the European capitalist governments totaly disregarded the explicit opposition of millions of people to their militaristic policies.
However, the massive mobilisations this spring in the Netherlands, in
Spain and in West Germany testify to the continued determination to fight for peace. (1) The third convention of the campaign for European
Nuclear Disarmament (END), which took place in Perugia, Italy, at the end of July also showed that, far from being despondent, the forces of the peace movement are very much alive and ready to do battle.
One of the most remarkable features of the international meeting, which was attended by 1,200 people, was the presence of the official peace committees trom Eastern Europe,
Equally notable was the absence of participants from the independent peace groups of these same countries,
The main issues on the agenda concerned the perspectives of the movement after the first deployments, the question of Nato's policies in the Mediterranean basin and the dialogue with the movements in the
Jacqueline ALLIO
The conference certainly did not satisfy those who were looking for coordinated perspectives for action. Nothing of the sort was planned by the organisers. Moreover, the dialogue of the deaf that opened up from day one with the representatives of the Eastern European countries did not help matters.
However, the meeting, did, at least, make it possible to put the most rightwing section of the peace movement clearly in a minority. The reformists, who from last autumn have been advocating the adoption of more realistic strategies, were wasting their time here.
Conscious of the unpopularity of their for compromise, their reprekept a low profile in the
In the final rally, Mient-Jan Faber, one of the main spokespersons and leaders of
Netherlands'
Interdenominational
Council of Peace (IKV) had to take up the proposals for international activity which had been put forward by delegates from several countries.
These included; demonstrations that were to be organised in West Germany at the end of September, at the time of the
Nato exercises; the participation of delegates from different countries in the
International Viewpoint October 15, 1984 headed up by the Soviet one.
who were refused visas by the demonstration planned in Rome for the time of the meeting of Defence ministers of seven countries of the Western European Union (WEU) on October 26 and
Also among the steps proposed were active solidarity with a campaign for a referendum on the missiles in Italy and support activity for the struggle of the peoples of Central America, the request of the Sandinista leadership, will be taken up this autumn by peace movements in a series of European
As in previous END conferences, in Brussels in 1982 and in Berlin in 1983, the one at Perugia gave only a one-sided picture of the reality and activities of the European movements. Having become such meetings have a bureaucratic character, several of the most combative sections basically refuse to send delegates, and the method of selecting delegations accords a lot of weight to the reformist wing of the movement, which is often over-represented in the leaderships or in the coordination of the national movements.
It is also important to underline the impact of the presence at Perugia of numerous political and trade-union celebrities of different hues, such as Ken Coates, president of the Bertrand Russell
This heterogeneity also represents the richness and force of the movement. The fact that Olafur Grimsson, a representative of the Parliamentarians for World Order tried to convince the conference of the importance of negotiations between non-aligned governments and of the highly democratic intentions of Indira Gandhi, or of Miguel de la Madrid (the president of Mexico), is in itself, of Against the rightward drift
What is important is that the representatives of the Madrid Anti-Nato Commission and indeed of the whole Spanish delegation, which represented the most advanced wing of the conference, were able to present their view to all those assembled, that peace would not come
'without a world liberated from colonialism, sexism.' (3)
Another positive element was the fact that the Italian Communist Party (PCI), which, ten days before the opening of the was asking the Italian nacoordinating organisation to athe idea of holding any mass mobilisations in the autumn, was forced into a minority by the proposals for action made by the Italian supported by delegates from other
It is necessary to recognise that in the post-deployment period, the peace movement has reached a crossroads. Influential groups see the need to go beyond simple protests against nuclear arms toward a programme which aims for political results. This means moving on from a movement based on protest and fear to one that stresses constructive proposals for peace, such as for a defensive strategy or a non-aggressive foreign policy.... (4)
This sort of statement coming from one of the best-known people in the British END is typical of the views that
See IV, No 57, July 16, 1984. The Western European Union is the only European authority mpowered to deal wi problems of defence. It has representativ from France, Great Britain, Italy, West Ger-
Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxem' Against militarism. For an ideology of Document for the anti-Nato Comlission of Madrid presented to on of the orkshops at the conventio
"Has the movement a transitory character? by Meg Beresford, a document for the conven-
13
have been expressed by the reformist of the movement since last
After the deployment of the first nuclear missiles these reformist leaders eagerly concluded that the mobilisations had failed. They started looking for ways out that would lead to compromise with capitalist governments. Thus, we witnessed M-J Faber proposing the acceptance, this spring, of a limited deployment of missiles in the Netherlands,
Kaldor, a well-known figure in the British movement, in her determination to define 'alternative defence policy', even went so far as to propose a 'fight to reorient Nato strategy toward a policy of conventional defence'.
As if the aim of Nato were not to defend the interests of imperialism by any means, even at the cost of supporting bloody regimes, such as the one run by the Turkish generals! As if Thatcher did not see eye to eye with Reagan and as if Nato could transform itself into a club of individuals whose only concern was the welfare of the peoples of Europe!
In their desperate attempt to reconcile the irreconcilable, the Fabers and the Kaldors conjure up the image of neutral Europe pleading to be freed from Amer-
*Europe is an occupied continent', they proclaim. And in order to persuade peace movement activists of the need to change course, they go as far as to assert that, 'in failing [to prevent the deployment of nuclear missiles], have we perhaps become the involuntary agents of a new cold war? (6)
It is significant that such positions are echoed by people like Claudin, who, while he is an ex-Communist, is nonetheless avowedly hostile to political objectives of the peace movement in his own country, one of whose chief demands, alongside that of 'US bases out', is 'Spain out of Nato'.
Obsessed with the threat, which, according to him, the USSR poses to the West, Claudin is definitely worried that Nato is under the thumb of the USA. He sees it, nevertheless, 'as a mechanism for defence which Western Europe needs.' He does not shrink from asserting that, 'to work in Nato for peace, for a united and autonomous Europe is not only the most realistic policy for a democracy but is a morally just one. (7)
The fact that similar positions are expressed within the movements in other countries indicates the scope of the political battles that will have to be fought in the months to come in order to arrive at the correct strategic perspectives for the movement.
Such positions also say a lot about the depths of confusion into which the most right-wing sections of the movement foundered in the wake of the first deployments. For a number of reformists, sincerely committed to the fight against the missiles but incapable of linking their fight to an anti-imperialist and anti-militarist perspective, it is easier, when 14 faced with a 'fait accompli' of deployment in several countries, to accept defeat and to look for a new way out.
This is where the renewed emphasis on proposals for a freeze, for negotiations and a policy of detente comes from. This is the source of Ken Coates' insisthe necessity to 'look to a positive outcome at the third session of the United Nations on disarmament which will take place in Geneva in autumn of 1985.
This turn toward negotiated solutions at the UN also explains the abrupt change in attitude of some of the organisers, who lurched from making virulent attacks on the Soviet government and its allies at Berlin last year, which were coupled with statements of unconditional support to the East European independent peace movements, to a much more moderate approach this year, seeking to establish special relations with the bureaucrats of the official committees. In their opportunism, they even went so far as to condemn those in the conference who dared to take up the repressive policy of the Soviet Union towards the independent movement activists in the East European Disarray of the official East European movements
The official peace committees, which are transmission belts for the governments of Eastern Europe, sent high-powered delegations to Perugia. They might have been expected to attempt some big manoeuvre. Instead they launched a public relations operation, which fell flat. Perugia must have provided some painful lessons for these plump and well-fed
From the opening of the Convention they were given a carpeting. At the very mention of the seats that were left empty in memory of the 59 activists from Eastern Europe and Turkey who were not allowed to leave their countries, a group of militants with gags on and carrying banners demanding freedom of expression and organisation in both East and West and the release of all peace campaigners in prison, stormed the platform. chair of that session, Ken Coates, tried in vain to drive them back, disclaiming any responsibility on the part of the organisers for such a display.
The Soviet Union delegation responded to this initiative, launched by German supporters, members Proletaria) and of the Fourth International, and spontaneously supported by many other delegates, with a press statement threatening to quit the
The next day, in the workshops, they were systematically grilled about government's military policy...but they
The day after that, the press conference, which the East European representatives had decided to call, became the occasion of a torrent of speeches and questions demanding an explanation as to
NO.
TRIDENT NO
NO CRUISE MISSILES Women play a decisive role in British peace movem why such and such a peace activist was in prison in Estonia or another in Moscow. In fact, members of the Fourth International had distributed a press release listing dozens of names. These East European spokespersons were asked what the troops were doing in Afghanistan, how they could justify their government's military spending and whether they had information on the exact positioning of 5. 'Banishing the fear factor', an article by Mary Kaldor which appeared in New Socialist, published January-February 1984, in London.
The only way to save detente , document for the convention signed by M-J. Faber and M. Kaldor. 7. *Nato: the reasons for not pulling out an article by Fernando Claudin and Ludol! Paramio which appeared in El Pais, in Madri June 16, 1984.
International Viewpoint October 15, 1984
NO CRUISE
MN CRUISE
SILES TRIDE (DR) Soviet missiles in the USSR and the other countries of Eastern Europe.
Brandishing of placards and a stream of abuse greeted the bureacrats' replies, in which they called East European peace campaigners hooligans. But this did not discourage them. The next day they were still there....
The East European official representatives did end up leaving in the final rally when a young woman from East Germany grabbed the microphone to explain that she had just been expelled from the GDR (German Democratic Republic) after several months imprisonment for her pacifist activities. But they sneaked out, without even being able to put their names to a joint statement with the various delegations from committees affiliated to the World Council for Peace International Viewpoint October 15, 1984
(a pacifist organisation dominated by Moscow). The Communist parties of Italy, Spain and France in particular had stalled on this.
At last the Soviet delegation had to face up to the truth. Their attempts to woo the delegates had failed miserably in the face of the determination of peace activists present to maintain their independence both from their own governments and from the Soviet bureau-
This unbending approach was taken right through the conference by delegates, who did not represent so much the emergence of a left current, but more the comsections of their own national This applied particularly to the women who from day one had decided to organise themselves to protest organisation of the conference and assert their wish that the conference be accessible to all the participants, and not only the property of small numbers of experts and high and mighty leaders.
The jointly prepared speech that was read out by one of them from the platform on the last day - after forcing the hand of the organisers who were only allowing 'special guests' to speak - was one of the most radical of the conference. in the analysis of political objectives but in the definition of the tasks of the movement on an international level.
These combative sections came forward on a series of issues. They supported the independent peace campaigners of Eastern Europe and the struggle of the peoples of Central America. jected the policies of Nato and insisted on the need to take the path of mass action in order to create a favourable balance of forces vis-a-vis the military policies of the various governments.
An appeal taking up these points and synthesising the most advanced positions expressed in the conference (see box) received a very favourable response. In one day, more than a hundred delegates, representing their respective campaigns had signed, including representatives from tries (most notably the Spanish state), exiles from the Eastern European countries and the president of the Peace Committee of Nicaragua.
This initiative, in which supporters of the Fourth International were fully involved, could not, nowever, overcome the nature of the discussions over action perspectives. Nevertheless, some important steps forward were made in the right direction.
An initiative taken by German activists the day after the Berlin conference to establish contacts with the independent peace movements in the East was reflected concretely in Perugia by the distribution of a paper written by the left and jointly signed by activists from East
It stressed the need for direct collaboration between the two move-
A plan of meetings on specific topics and the setting up of a secretariat composed mainly of exiles from the East should help to develop the contacts that have been initiated.
Only a short time on the agenda was allocated to the question of the Mediterranean. The organisers were little inclined to confront a problem which would only expose the contradictions of the reformist currents on the question of Nato.
Nevertheless, the contacts established between Spanish activists and some of the delegates from Greece and Italy offer the possibility of joint activity in the coming months. The participation of some sec tions in the demonstration in Rome at the end of October will be the first test of
Finally, the contacts made between the different delegations and the representatives of the peace committees of Central America gave the most sections of the peace movement the opportunity to set up initiatives in their own countries that could express more peoples fighting imperialism and experiencing war every day of their lives.
The coinciding elections in the USA and Nicaragua in November, and the approach made by the Sandinista leaders to the European peace movements, seeking support for their struggle, give scope for those who place their own struggle within a clearly anti-imperialist framework to show their solidarity with the peoples of Central America. Some negative aspects
The standing ovations that greeted the speech by Mariano Miranda, president of the Peace Committee of Nicaragua, the final rally, are evidence of the spirit in which delegates responded to the appeals addressed to them.
In the end, the women decided to hold a special conference in the two days lead. ing up to next year's convention in Amsterdam so as to pool their experiences and ensure that their point of view will be listened to.
Among the weaknesses of the Perugia conference was, firstly, the small weight attached to the links between the peace movement and the workers movement. In Berlin, in 1983, there were a series of forums - some of the most interesting of the convention - that brought together trade unionists to debate possible initiaunions and the workplaces and diseuss how to approach the question of employment and reconversion in the arms industry. Despite their limitations, the symbolic strikes which have taken place in West Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark have been important for propagating the aims of the peace movement among workers.
However, despite the awareness of the issue shown by some delegates, especially the Spanish and Italians, the questions of involving the workers did not figure in many debates at Perugia. Danish activists had come there to put forward the
conventional and nuclear rearmament, against
Nato, for a European nuclear-free zone, and for peace, liberty and disarmament idea of a strike at a European level, and although they were able to make individual contacts with other interested delegates, they did not get the response they had been counting on.
The theme of austerity was there in the background - in speeches denouncing military budgets and the modernisation programmes for conventional weapons adopted by parliaments at the cost of huge cuts in programmes. But a concern with linking these issues and developing forms of action to alert workers to fight for peace never came to the forefront in discussions. The very positive examples of the strike called by the main union federation in the Netherlands, the FNV, in May, on the theme of "No to the bomb, no to the July package!' (measures which threatened unemployment benefits) and the joint marches organised by the women of Greenham Common and the miners' wives in Great Britain were not sufficient to bring this decisive aspect of the movement to the centre of the de-
ALON
RAKER
TOIN bates.
Revolutionaries will have a decisive role to play in the coming year. They October 1983 peace demonstration in West Germany (DR) have to encourage the most combative sections to oppose the defeatist perspectives of the right and to unite their divided forces so that they can influence the direction of the movement at an international level and intervene forcefully in the debates at the next convention in Amsterdam in 1985.
The combative sections must ensure mains on a course of mass demonstrastrikes and referendums which will draw together large numbers of people, whether it be against deployment or for withdrawal of those missiles already installed, against Nato bases, or against the national strike force - as in Great Britain, for example, where the next series of demonstrations will be
Everywhere, the major concern must be to develop an anti-capitalist consciousness within the movement by highlighting the economic policy of capitalist governments and opposing all threatened cuts in social spending, demanding the reduction of arms spending and putting forward forms of actions which will draw in large layers of the working class.
Everywhere we have to take advanthat, in all countries, the movement re-
Statement on campaigning for peace The undermentioned delegates to the third European convention for nuclear disarmament, held at Perugia, judge the following issues to be a central priority in the mobilisations to come.
Freedom of expression, organisation and distribution is indispensable in the fight for peace both in the East and in the West. rejection of repression against the Turkish peace movement, just as we have protested to the Soviet representatives in the convention against the repression which independent peace activists in the East have been subjected to. them be sacrificed in the interests of diplomatic approaches to the official peace
The rejection of the missiles, of Nato and of all the (new) attempts towards creating a Western European nuclear and conventional defence force. the presence of foreign, especially American, bases in Europe. We reject the idea of a Nato based only on conventional weapons, as we do the illusion of national or international nuclear deterrence. The peoples of Europe must be able to give their verdict on Nato, on the foreign bases and on nuclear weapons through referendums The people of Europe must reject the notion that an autonomous, defence force would guarantee more security and well-being. On the contrary, such a perspective would only increase the danger of war and encourage further waves of militarisation in Europe. It would, in turn, lead to increases in military spending and further austerity measures.
Solidarity with the people of Nicaragua and with all the peoples of Central America. Those in struggle in Nicaragua and Central America face a terrible threat. 'Pax Americana' in Western Europe - especially the repression by the generals of Nato against the Turkish people — so we also reject the US intervention in Central
The peace movement is as lively and active as ever. The fight against the missiles is now, more than ever, necessary. the European peace movement to prevent the deployment of missiles in the Netherlands and Belgium and to demand the dismantling of those missiles already de-
This is not the time for retreat and hesitation.
We pledge ourselves to prepare for, in the autumn of 1984, a new wave of mass resistance to militarism, against in the East and in the West. 16
We have demonstrated our
Just as we reject the
1985 will pose a decisive challenge for tage of concrete opportunities to help develop an anti-imperialist consciousness amongst those mobilising against the theat of nuclear war, by exposing the aggressive policies of the Ronald Reagan government in Central America, by contrasting the objectives of the Nicaraguan revolution with the destructive aims of imperialism.
Everywhere, we have to strive to develop an anti-bureaucratic consciousness by solidarising with the independent peace movements in Eastern Europe and actively supporting the victims of repression, by denouncing the bureaucracy's acceptance At the same time, we need to seek sup port from activists in the East European independent peace movements for unilateral disarmament moves in in order to combat the illusions which exist in the Eastern European countries about the nature and real aims of imperialist policy.
One thing is for certain, the capacity of the peace movement to create a favourable balance of forces and to achieve certain, even partial, victories over the capitalist governments they are confronting, will depend on two things:
One is mass mobilisations against nuclear armament and the policies of Nato. The second is strengthening of a left wing within the movement aware of the political stakes involved in the fight for peace and of the necessity to link this with the struggles of the working class as a whole.
International Viewpoint October 15, 1984
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MISSILE
SPANISH STATE
A revolutionary elected to the leadership of the workers commissions
The third congress of the Confederation of Workers official documents, criticising the orientation of the
Come tis act ole dae ey or alothe and outgoing leadership and proposing alternatives alon the following lines: for an alternative of resistance anc open collaboration (called 'national solidarity') in any sort of social contract with the bosses and the govern- nationalisation of the banks to solve ment. But the trade-union right wing was split in the redeployment; and against Spanish entry elections for the commission executive between the