have revived the tradition of struggle which made Lenin predict that the first socialist revolution in Westem Europe would be in Spain. Since the strike-wave initiated by the Asturian miners, in 1962, there has been a series of bitter if sporadic strikes. The CP, still very strong in the Spanish working class, led a number of them into defeats, failing to prepare the militants to defend themselves against the State, and exp *g their vanguard to represson. Still combativity has remained high, and despite Stalinist attempts to bureaucratise the Worken Commissions which appeared in 1962, the working class has maintained its allegiance to the Commissions as basic units of self-organisation.
In 1969, faced by falling profits, the Spanish bourgeoisie imposed a State of Emergency to give it the powers to stop the strike movement. The workers have been undeterred, and new elements-white collar workers included -have been drawn into struggle against the capitalists* attempts to take away what gains had been made. In the universities too, there has been a continuing fight against police occupation of the campuses, and movements in solidarity with the workers struggles.
BURGOS TRIALS A TURNING POINT The past year in particular has been marked by a generalisation and politicisation of the struggle. The Burgos trials were a turning point. The strikes and demonstrations of workers and youths workers will not stand by while their movement last December were directed against the State, its police and its legal machinery. They brought about a victory-the removal of the death penalty against the ETA militants-and therefore gave the working class a new weapon, the knowledge that it could win. In the months since then there has been constant activity on the part of the working class, despite new attempts at repression. In May the call of the revolutionary groups to boycott the State trade union elections found a significant response, despite the fact that the CP was calling for participation on the slogan "Vote for the best man'. Certain sections of workers have sustained prolonged struggles: notably the miners of Asturias. who were out for virtually the whole of the autumn; and the building workers, an important force in the Spanish economy, who have kept up a series of tuation of the contradictions in Spanish capitalism, with its continued inability to complete basic tasks of bourgeois democracy. Industrial development has relied overwhelmingly on capital imports. Spain has had to import not only most of its manufactured goods but, in the absence of land reform, even food. All this has been paid for basically by tourism, and by the export of Spanah workers-of a quarter of the working population. Spain's position in inter-imperialist competition is so weak, that this situation is highly unstable, and the repercussions of crises within imperialism are great. In the present crisis, the income from tourism is falling and the emigrants are beginning to return. The bourgeoisies need for profits, however, means that it is unable to alleviate the social effects of this phenomenon. Since 1969, prices have been rising fast, wages have been heavily attacked, and redundancies in industry have added to the soaring unemployment; while the need for greater 'productivity" (surpius value) means continued struggle on the shop floor.
Ideally, the most class-conscious of the Spanish bourgeoisie, represented by Opus Dei, would like to see a change towards a more stable situation of bourgois democracy. The policy of the CP fits in very well with this. But at the moment, the bourgeoisie is incapable of making significant concessions to the workers, and the is crushed. The key question is the formation of the revolutionary leadership of the Spanish working class. The regime too is well aware of this. Its repressive machinery is now concentrated against the most militant groups on the left: in particular, the revolutionary wing of the ETA, which has recently embarked on a new course of armed actions and expropriations against the regime: and the LCR (Liga Comunista Revolucionaria) which took important initiatives in the campaign to boycott the State trade union elections. and in-the movement of solidarity with the SEAT strike.
REPRESSION OF MILITANTS ETA militants are still in jail: on 3 December they initiated a hunger strike which has been taken up by political prisoners generally and six weeks later SOLIDARITY WITH THE STRUGGLE IN CEYLON The Ceylon Solidarity Committee was formed in April 1971, when British revolutionary organisations joined comrades from three Ceylonese revolutionary organisations, led by the Ginipupura, to pledge solidarity with the struggle being waged in Ceylon by the J.V.P. (Janatha Vimukthi Preramuna Peoples Liberation Front)
against the Bandaranaike government. The JVP had organised for five years, concentrating on the non-plantation sector of the peasantry, before coming out into the open in the election campaign of early 1970. Its political freedom was brief, for after the election of the coalition government, the JVP began to pressurize it to implement its pre-election programme. This resulted in a government announcement that the JVP were 'CIA agents" and the JVP then presented its own programme. The economic situation in Ceylon was becoming more and more disastrous and the JVP won more and more popular support every day. So the Bandaranaike government moved against the JVP on the pretext that a JVP plot to overthrow the government had been discovered. A curfew was imposed. a state of emergency declared, mass arrests took place not only of JVP members, but of any young people the police and the army felt like picking up-and prisoner were frequently killed, as the police and army had full powers of action without having to account to the relatives of their victims. In face of this repression, the JVP decided on a policy of armed insurrection, and three weeks after the declaration of the State of Emergency, the struggle began. Bandaranaike's government was in a panic as it was immedlately apparent that the uprising had mass support, and attempted to suppress the revotales of rape and torture. Basic democratic freedoms continue to be suspended. The right to strike is no more tolerated and increasing restrictions are being put upon the free functioning of trade-unions and other working class organisations. Without wanting to take a position with regard to the armed clashes which recently occurred in Ceylon, and while differing among themselves as to the nature of your government and the insurrection which was directed against it, the undersigned are of the opinion that a prolonged suspension of democratic and working class freedoms discredits in the whole of South Asia the cause way to solve the grave social crisis which exists especially among the youth and lies behind the recent insurrection, as some of your cabinet ministers themselves have stated.
For these reasons the undersigned ask you to release immediately the political militants whom you have arrested, among them Wijeweera, leader of the JVP, and Illanshellin, leader of the Socialist Youth Front (a revolutionary socialist organisation among Tamil plantation workers), and to restore immediately the free exercise of democratic freedoms to all organisations of the labouring masses of your country.
Ernest Mandel Brigid Brophy Alain Krivine E.F.C. Ludowyk M. Rocard Ralph Miliband Tariq Ali Ernie Roberts Anthony Arblaster David Steel Robin Blackburn Arnold Wesker Russian copy of The Revolution Betraved: facsimile of the original typed by Natalia Sedova and corrected in pencil by Leon Trotsky.
Limited print of 300 copies.
Price US$20.
Order from Red Books, 182 Pentonville Road, London N.1.
In the last but one issue of The Red Mole we have noted, they are treated like primary school children. Little is done to prepare them for the realities of work. Many are bitter because they are not allowed to take any exams or qualifications at the Centres. Until this year the local technical college ran language courses for immigrant school leavers, but this has been abandoned, allegedly for lack of room(!) and those who want to continue their 'education", or who can't find a job, and are selected as suitable, are sent back to the centre for another year of the mixture as before. Recently, a 'NOW WE ARE IN ENGLAND' This comes out clearly in a booklet that the headmistress of the St. Michael's Centre has written for new arrivals, called Now we are in England' . There is a picture of a youth with long hair, tight trousers and denim jacket. The accompanying text in simple English reads:
"Look at this boy! His hair is too long and very untidy. His shirf has many colours. His jacket is very untidy. His trousers are very tight. He is smoking. This is a bad school boy. This kind of boy will get into trouble." their art. A child-centred education for Asian children means the opportunity to explore their own culture in their own language. (There is of course no reason why English children should not be able to learn an Asian language if they want to.) It also means a recognition of their own cultural integrity in Black Studies courses. These have been tried with success with West Indian children at Tulse Hill Comprehensive School in London (again, these are also open to white children). Neither of these proposals is incompatible with a crash course in English language in short, frequent and intensive sessions.
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of socialism which you say you want to further. Nor does this represent the best