Milos Jakes - next stalinist finger of blame at the Soviet Union - while Gorbachev and co. are heading in the opposite direction as fast as possible - is a knee-jerk reaction that cannot carry much weight at an interational level. It is surely now clear to all but those who do not want to see that the USSR has now publicly junked any intention to defend any revolution and is intent on forcing revolutionary movements to the negotiating table under any circumstances. This indeed may be a key factor in the FMLN's desire to negotiate at all costs.
With one eye on the scenario after a seizure of power, the FMLN understands that it will not have any Soviet backers to sustain its reconstruction programmes, or to limit the role that the USA might play in creating yet another long-running contra war in Central America if the workers and peasants do take the leadership of the reconstruction of Salvadoran society.
At the same time as this miserable performance by the USSR the Guatemalan military has sent regiments into El Salvador to fight the guerrillas, and the Honduran armed forces have been mobilising. On the plus side, however, the Guatemalan liberation guerrilla army, the URNG, has pledged to step up the war within Guatemala as an act of solidarity with the Salvadoran insurrection. The public position of the Nicaraguan goverment has been to keep silent but it does not take a great intellect to understand the reason why or to imagine what result they hope for.
At the time of going to press, the FMLN are withdrawing from some positions within the capital whilst fighting is still going on in other areas of the country. This withdrawal of forces should not be seen as a step back or a stabilisation of situation. The FMLN, as did the FSLN in the first series of battles in 1978, ap pears to have recruited a large number of the urban population and is in a process of rapidly consolidating them and organising them before launching a fresh offensive.This fresh push must come soon enough to prevent the mass repression that will surely follow any withdrawal from urban areas, and well planned
UPDATE enough to show to the population that there is a realistic chance of overwhelming the heavily armed
Salvadoran military.
Yet at the same time the
FLN leadership is still insisting that all it is attempting to do is 'to remove the present high military command from its position of absolute power", Politically, it is arguing for an interim government made up of moderate sectors, not necessarily including the FMLN, to pave the way for elections in which the FMLN can take part.
Taken at face value, this can seem somewhat odd, given the intensity of the situation. To imagine that simply removing the army leadership will resolve questions that go to the heart of the Salvadoran social-formation appears a little naive: but the deeper purpose of the FMLN may be to maintain its leading position both politically and militarily, and to prevent the middle ground from seizing the initiative on the democratic question. Time will test out whether this is really the case, provided the present insurrection succeeds in toppling the present regime.
With hundreds of thousands on the streets,
Czechoslovakia looks to be the next bastion on unreconstructed stalinism set to fall. Glasnost has not been adopted as governmental policy yet - but the signs of retreat are clearly there.
In a demonstration of tens of thousands on 17
November, there were calls for the resignation of
Stalinist leader Milos Jakes and for democratic elections. In the brutal repression that followed, at least one student, Martin Schmid, was beaten to death; quite possibly others were too.
Then, on the Sunday, veteran oppositionist Petr
Uhl, a leader of Charter 77 activist and marxist writer, was arrested for spreading false rumours" of the death. Anna Svoboda, another leading opposition figure, was arrested on similar charges.
It Jakes" regime thought that such repression would silence the opposition, they did not have to wait long to see how hadly they had misestimated the situation - the following day 300,000 were to take to the streets in the largest opposition activity since 1968. On this occasion the riot police could only stand back and watch.
On the same day Vaclav Havel, prominent opposition leader and playwright, announced the
It is usual to end articles such as this with a ritualistic call for solidarity with the revolution. But a note on the role of the British left should also be made. Since the victory of the
Nicaraguan
Revolution the question of
EI
Salvador has been seen as a subsidiary issue;
yet it has always been the extension of the revolution in Central America that has been key to breaking the isolation of the Sandinistas and the fragmentation of the Nicaraguan revolution in the grip of the USA and USSR. There is now a real opportunity to extend and defend the revolution in one.
The whole of the left in the labour movement must now begin seriously to provide resources for the El Salvador Solidarity Campaign and build an anti-intervendomino to fall?
Citizens Initiative, the lovakia.
Gorbachev: keeping out of the way tion movement in Britain against the role of the USA, and against the complicity of the British goverment in US strategy.
This includes the simple task of affiliation to the campaign as well as labour movement bodies taking up the question and supporting the insurrection. If there was ever a time to shake of routinism and to build a substantial solidarity movement it is now.
Will McMahon launch of a new opposition umbrella organisation.
along the lines of
E.Germany's New Forum; and widespread strikes took place, particularly in the colleges. The General
Strike called by Charter 77 in response to govern ment repression is likely to bring out even greater numbers on the streets on 27 November.
Czechoslovakia has a long history of opposition activity - but since the days of the 'normalisation"
in the aftermath of the Soviet invasion in 1968, this has generally been confined to a handful of in dividuals around the human rights organisation
Chatter 77, who have served long terms of imprisonment as a result. Only a few weeks ago, some of its leaders were predicting a much slower process of building an opposition in Czechos
The events of the past few days spell the end of the period of intense repression following 1968.
While it is the working class of Czechoslovakia, and Eastern Europe more generally, that will brush aside Jakes and his cronies, socialists in the West must voice their solidarity with the movement, particularly at a time when activists such as Petr Uhl continue to suffer from state repression.
Patrick Baker