AROUND THE WORLD
West Germany Demonstration against austerity THE FALL actions of the German Confederation of Trade Unions (DGB) against the government's policies were a great success. A campaign of more than a thousand local demonstrations and tens of thousands of factory meetings culminated in rallies of more than 600,000 workers on October 19.
The government proved unable to use the budget debate that took place in the middle of the week of action to sell its so-called achievements in reducing unemployment. Kohl's propaganda about the "week of agitation" and the DGB's so-called "scorched earth" policy was no more effective in keeping the workers away from the demonstrations.
In the factories and on the streets the potential opposition to this government became clear, and the responsibility that falls on the trade-union movement.
Those who came out for these actions are not going to be satisfied any more if Breit proposes negotiations with the government. OK, but only when there is not going to be much on offer. So, how often should we go through this business?
The active workers want a different policy. But unlike Breit [leader of the DGB] they know that means another government. And this in fact aroused the Social Democrat candidate for chancellor, Johannes Rau, for a day or two, and he gave an interview to the Cologne Express outlining the policy he would follow in government:
The 23 laws passed by the present government introducing social cutbacks and cuts in trade union rights would be reversed. Political blacklisting would no longer be practised, and the government would opt out of the NATO double-track decision and any participation in the Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars).
But that was too much for other party figures, and Rau himself complained of being misunderstood by the Express.
This points up the dilemma of the Social Democrats. Rau, Apel, Vogel, and the rest want only enough "alternative policy" to gain a profile of opposition to the Turn parties [the Tum" is used by the Christian Democrats to mean that the period of "welfare" capitalism is over].
This is why Rau and Schroeder reject an alliance with the Greens. That would force them to change their policy. The bosses might bring economic pressure to bear and threaten to stop investments, as they are doing today in Hesse [where there has been an alliance between the Social Democrats and the Greens].
The unions have to widen the opening that has begun. This means:
- Contract struggles to maintain the living standard by higher wages and to win a shorter workweek in opposition to flexible hours and unemployment.
- Mobilizations against the Tur government and for a Social Democratic government working with the Greens, because that is the only alternative today to the Turn.
Mobilizations to press their demands, especially for an employment program in the social and environmental areas, in order to assure that another government will pursue a policy in the interests of the workers.
Readiness to support such a government actively against the open and surrepticious resistance of the bosses.
(From the October 24 issue of Was Tun.) Latin America Fourth Internationalists meet THE THIRD meeting of the political bureaux of the Latin American sections of the Fourth International took place last September and • was attended by representatives of the sections in Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru, Chile, Brazil, Uruguay, and the West Indies, as well as a delegation from the United Secretariat.
There were issues on the agenda concerning the region as a whole as well as discussions on the political development and construction of the sections in particular countries.
The first report presented was on the deepening economic crisis of the past year, its social effects and the responses and initiatives in relation to the foreign debt following the conferences that were held in Havana last June and July. The Latin American sections of the Fourth International drew up a joint statement on this subject and pledged to be actively involved in the regional wide day of trade union action on
October 23 (see International Viewpoint No 85, October 28, 1985).
The meeting also discussed two further reports, one presented by comrade Margarito Montes from Mexico on the question of the development of the peasant movement in the region and its relations with the workers movement; and the other on the changes in the social position of women and the forms of struggle in the economic crisis. The latter report was presented jointly by comrades from Mexico, Brazil, Uruguay and Colombia.
Finally the meeting discussed the situation in Central America.
Concerning the construction of the sections and their perspectives for growth, the discussion centred on the cases of Uruguay, Brazil, Colombia, Bolivia and above all Mexico, following the results of the elections in July 1985 and the successes of the PRT (Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores). In relation to this, the meeting noted a document announcing a split with the Colombian section of the Fourth International issued last June by former leaders of the PSR (Partido Socialista Revolucionario), Socorro Ramirez and Ricardo Sanchez. The United Secretariat of the Fourth International adopted a statement on this issue at its September meeting in which it 'condemned the split initiative as a break with the programme of the International and as in practice going further and further from the construction of a vanguard party based on a Leninist heritage.' In the position it took the United Secretariat confirmed its total support and solidarity with the PSR, the Colombian section of the Fourth International' .0
ERRATUM
For technical reasons an error occurred in /V No 86, November
11, 1985 on page 23.
In the article entitled The
SWP(USA) rejects the organisational demands of the Twelfth World
Congress', , the end of the second section of point 'c' of the world congress resolutions should read,
'when they should all be members of the fraternal section of the
Fourth International in the United
States, the SWP ...', not, "when they should all be members of the Fourth International in the
United States, the SWP ...'
We apologise to readers for this error.
PEACE