Party conference where everyone could applaud together with equal feeling. But will the dictatorship actually fall? Does the unity of the "vote no' campaign have any fubloodstained dictator represented a real blow against the right wing regime, possibly a fatal one; but only the future will tell. There is everything to play for, and the actions of all sides count. The dictatorship has many other lines of defence following their defeat in the plebiscite.
The 1980 •constitution of liberty still remains in place, a fraudulent 'constitution' that legitimises the totally arbitrary use of executive power. Article Eight, prohibiting the establishment of marxist or communist parties or any organisations "based on class SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 10 November 1988
UP D A TE celebrations? warfare' remains in force.
Pinochet himself still has 18 months in power under the terms of the plebiscite even after the no' vote; and if that is not enough, he is commander-in-chief of the armed forces for life: hardly encouraging factors in the fight to restore democracy, let alone the fight for socialism.
The good signs are that the enemy are already beginning to squabble among themselves. The right wing's main man is down, so the fight is on for a successor, a new right wing president.
The chiefs of the national police and both the navy and the airforce have made comments distancing themselves from Pinochet, though navy chief Merino is seen if anything as even more of a fanatical anti-communist than Pinochet. Now he is casting doubt on whether Pinochet will stay the full 18 months, while airforce chief Matthei has talked of possible negotiations with the opposition. They are looking for alternative ways to maintain their power, and their disagreements on how to do this, and conflicting personal ambitions may well work to the advantage of the Chilean workers and peasants.
On the other hand, although the wide diversity of those campaigning for a 'no' vote helped produce a successful result, it might also
Chile work in favour of the regime, which still won 43 per cent of the vote. Many from the Christian Democratic party argued that the boat should not be rocked in the period leading up to the plebiscite, and that there should be no mass protests or demonstrations against
These people were wrong; was precisely the mass pressure that forced the regime to take the risky step of going for a vote. Only such pressure can lead towards a real change in the polities of government and a dismantling of the military state. That is, of course, not what the Christian
The Christian Democrats played a key role in Pinochet's overthrow of Salvador Allende's popular front government in 1973, and now see themselves as natural successors to the dictatorship that they helped set up. They think it is time for a 'clean' change of image for the government, while retaining the same content. They support the 1980 constitution.
They see themselves as able to reach an agreement with the regime, since they would guarantee immunity for those responsible for the torture and murder of so many Chileans. This would kill stone dead any hopes of real change following the plebiscite.
The 16 parties which par-
C. GUARITA/REFLEX ticipated in the 'no' campaign managed to achieve a rare degree of unity around their limited but significant aim. On the left as well there have been less divisions and in-fighting than has been prevalent in recent years.
The Socialist Party, MAPU, the Communists and the MIR agreed that the plebiscite is only part of a greater campaign which must involve mass mobilisations against the regime as a whole. There must be a clean break from the regime and no negotiations with it, though both Socialist Party leader Ricardo Lagos and the Communist Party had only recently argued for negotiations or dialogue' with the dictatorship.
The Communist Party shifted its line substantially to the left as the campaign went on, adopting the call for a mass movement to create conditions for a new provisional government.
Ricardo Lagos has emerged from the events as the leading figure among the left organisations, though he believes Chileans are not yet ready to vote again for a Socialist president, and is reportedly 'saving himself' for an electoral bid in the 1990s. We will undoubtedly be hearing a lot about him in reports on Chile in the coming year or so.
Gareth Mostyn Page 3
The bosses' each-way bet
What's happened to Jesse Jackson? ABOUT 450 years ago, John Heywood wrote a comedy called 'The Four P's'. The play's title referred to four liars and scoundrels, each of whom practiced a trade beginning with the letter 'P'
Now The Four P's have returned. Each one of the modern 'P's' is a liar, a scoundrel and - a Proletarian!
That's right! The Fab Four [presidential about their proletarian roots. Michael Dukakis (the unions' favourite) sings ballads to his immigrant father, teenage love, grocery shopping, and mowing the lawn on a summer's day. George Bush salivates over pork rinds and country music
Bush recollects how he packed his two kids and 'everything we had' into the family Studebaker and headed west for the Texas plains. There, he says, they 'lived the dream - Little League, you know, football on Friday night'. Very touching
Even Dan Quayle and Lloyd Bentsen have carried their bluecollar rhetoric to wherever workers congregate - labour meetings, county fairs, and union picnics. Speaking before the United Food and Commercial Workers convention, Bentsen drawled that the theme of his campaign was 'a good job and decent wages. Page 4
UPID A TE
The Democrats charge that the Republican administration has treated the working men and women of America with disdain'. But the Republicans are not to be undone. In their party platform. they profess that 'the bosses of the Democratic Party have thrown in the towel and abandoned the American worker'.
As Jimmy Durante said: 'Everybody wants to get in on the act!' Each one of our Four P's* wants to be the friend of the worker. But, given their record, the Republicans will find it tough making friends.
Under the recent administrations of both Republicans and Democrats, poverty has increased. In 1973, eleven per cent of the population lived under the poverty line. Now poverty is officially around fifteen per cent. Over thirty million people are listed as 'Poor' - another dreaded P' word.
At this point another kind of capital P' comes to mind. Lestany X-rated words leap out at you, let me tell you what 'P' really stands for.
Each one of our 'Four P's' is a Plutocrat. Rather than describing a Mickey Mouse character, a plutocrat is defined by the dictionary as a member of a wealthy ruling class'. Most of us will probably never have the opportunity to shake the hand of a plutocrat in our lives, even if we
US Elections would wish to. We just don't move
Generally, what a plutocrat has, that we seem to lack, is money. Neusweek, in its August 29 issue, lists the assets of the presidential hopefuls. Spendthrift Dukakis seems to be the poor man of the lot. He is only 'worth' $464,365, but stands to inherit another S1 million after his mom's death.
It appears, furthermore, that
- after packing his kids into the old Studebaker-went on to earn a bundle in the Texas oilfields. He is worth $2.6 million, according to Newsweek.
When fellow Texan Lloyd Bentsen entered politics, he stepped down from the corporate boards of Lockheed, Continental Oil and several other banks and corporations. But he happily still retains his ranch, a farm, a $1 million town house, and investments for a total of at least $10 million in assets.
Meanwhile J. Danforth Quayle hangs in with $50 million to his name - though Quayle's family has assets of from $600 million to over $1 billion, according to most accounts.
Thus our 'Four •P's' rank within the wealthiest 0.1 percent of the population. This small sector, not coincidentally, owns close to thirty percent of all privately owned wealth in the USA.
Of course none of the candidates, with the possible excep-
tion of Quayle, is quite in the category of the Mellons, Morgans and Rockefellers - families that control fortunes equal to the assets of many countries. But as members of the same economic class. the candidates interests are intimately linked with those of the top leaders of American
A review of the hefty contributions that the capitalist class makes to the political campaigns of the Democratic Party may raise suspicions that the party's agenda does not exactly coincide with the theme of 'a good job and good wages' for working people.
Lloyd Bentsen's contributors, for example, include airline tycoon and union-buster Frank Lorenzo, ultra-right tabloid owner and fellow union-buster Rupert Murdoch, chicken magnate Frank Purdue (employer of thousands of underpaid black women), and corporation buyout artist Henry Kravis - who is also a member of George Bush's national finance committee!.
Who pays for such politics - as usual? As if you couldn't guess!
Now I know the word that best describes the four candidates. It's Pickpocket.
Michael Schreiber (reprinted from Socialist Action (US), September 1988) SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 10 November 1988
Chadli's headache
HE! MOiNS FORT QUAND JE PARLE!!! 'Shut up, I'm talking!" THE SUDDEN explosion of popular anger in the streets of Algerian cities has shaken the Algerian ruling autocracy out its roots. For the last 26 years, basking in the glory of the onemillion martyrs of the Algerian revolution, the ruling FLN has steered with an iron fist the young republic towards a "brave new world' - a socialism 'à l'algérienne' which dazzled a whole generation of muddle-headed western revolutionaries into thinking that it was 1917 all over again!
A quarter of a century later, the FLN is still hanging on to power although its "socialism' is in deep trouble. The 'socialism" miracle was nothing but a mirage on paper.
Vast prestige projects, particularly in steel and petrochemicals, engulfed massive investments but remain semi-paralysed by the huge bloated state bureaucracy, Agriculture, based on state farms established in the richest farmlands expropriated from the French colonys can barely deliver one third of the country's needs. Ninety-five per cent of the country's income comes from oil revenue, and with the drop in price, Algeria not only lost 40 per cent of its state revenue but had no alternative but to start building up a huge foreign debt. With the economy in tatters, the only viable
- the parallel market -flourishes for the benefit of the racketeering nomenklatura tied to the state bureaucracy and the ruling party. Symptoms of SOCIALIST OUTLOOK no 10 November 1988
U CP DA economies in ruin are always the same: inflation, shortage of food, corruption, soaring unemployment that sooner or later lead to social tensions and explosions.
It is no surprise that President Chadli's panacea was to reverse gearand Thatcherise the economy: austerity, cuts and privatisation of the huge state sector. For the first time since the revolution, state enterprises instructed to make profits have started making redundancies. Even the symbol of the collectivist state - the Ministry of Planning - was abolished in November 1987.
Chadli began his "reforms' quietly in 1986 when he put his strategic vision, the 'national charter', to a referendum which he won overwhelmingly. To put his charter into motion, Chadli set his eyes in winning the support of the FLN congress taking place this December which not only decides the main economic orientations for the next five years but also appoints its general secretary to be the single candidate to the next presidential election in early 1989.
Chadli saw himself as the only contender for another term of office with complete free rein on the main strategic choices. He took no notice of the Algerian working class which he knew was demoralised by 26 years of the political desert and saddled with an amorphous state trade union -the UGTA - whose only role was to prevent workers from acting to defend their interests. This time, however, workers were for the first time confronted with redundancies, wage freeze and a sharp fall
Algeria in their standard of living. Sections of the FLN, with their sympathising wing in the UGTA, who are hostile to Chadli's liberalisation plans were keen to see some unrest developing, but only sufficient to put them into a better bargaining position. They quickly gave support and encouraged the first wave of strikes by car workers at the Ruiba-Reghaia heavy vehicle factory (Berliet). Having made their point, they started ushering carworkers back to work when disaster struck. Post-office workers came out on October 2nd and called for a general strike. Two days later, the first skirmishes between unemployed and student youth and the police transformed the situation. Soon the rebellion embraced the whole country. Street riots spread to Blida, Mostaganem, Oran, Constantine and even Annaba - Chadli's home town.
Whether emulating the less recent bread riots in Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco, or the intifada in Palestine, Algerian youth vented their anger on every symbol of opulence and state corruption. Luxury shops, town halls, police stations, government offices, state supermarkets - Galleries Algerienne, Souk al Fallah -Mouhafdahs (FLN district offices) went up in smoke. Chadli knew that he had to stop this from becoming a general conflagration and he ordered the army to nip it in the bud. Riot police, gendarmerie, paratroopers, tanks, and helicopter gunships confronted the demonstrators leaving a trail of dead and wounded. Few Algerians
believed their people's army capable of such a ruthless bloodbath.
Having quashed the revolt, Chadli addressed the nation and proposed constitutional reforms as if they were a concession. His real agenda was to defuse the situation and start reoccupying political positions from his adversaries. Soon after his speech, thousands of civil rights activists, trade unionists, and politicians were rounded up and will be tried as rioting hooligans. At the same time, state supermarkets were flooded with luxury goods and food never seen on shelves for several years.
To what extent the popular explosion has shifted the balance of forces before the next FLN congress remain to be seen. What is certain is the sudden confident mobilisation of the working class which belied all those who have denied that it could play a role anymore in the political life of the country.
What is also certain is that the crisis of a state capitalist class, perhaps the most developed in the Arab world, will open a new chapter in the demise of Arab nationalism. Whether Chadli survives with the help of a much more naked military dictatorship and/or in alliance with the fundamentalists, will not resolve the long term problem of a decaying state capitalism.
Only the Algerian working class can resolve them. For this, an Algerian Solidarnose is still to be built.
Jim Boumelha Page 5
British nurses need