regime. Whatever the result, the public split should weaken the reactionary fundamen talists.
But the lack of a mass working class party in Algeria will make it difficult for the mass rejection of Chadli's austerity to be channelled into a positive alternative to the government's pro-Western stance.
Supporters of the main far left party, the Socialist Workers Party, have called on all anti-capitalist forces to unite in a Workers List in the June 27 elections to provide an alternative way forward for the mass move ment.
New left party for Italy MORE THAN 150,000 members of the Italian Communist Party (PCI), recently renamed the Party of Democratic Socialism, have left to form a new, anticapitalist organisation 'he Movement for Communist Refounda tion (MCR) was launched at a congress at the beginning ofMay, followed by a public meeting attended by 15,000 people.
The group's 12 senate representatives have now formed a common group with Thoco of the far left Democrazia Proletaria(DP), as well as winning between five and sixteen per cent of the vote in recent local elections. ' The organisation of the joint parliamentary fraction prefigures the merger 1fth atter Dra cotions, scheduled for June The MCR. led by Sergio Garavini, a prominent leader of the CGIL union federation, and Armando Cossutta, a well-known leader of the Italian communists, remains unclear on many political issue. But speeches by it's leaders indicate that the organisation intends to promote the politics of class struggle, while rejecting many of the PCI's past positions.
Cossutta described the foundation of the MCR as a 'denunciation of the abandonment of a class identity, of an anti-imperialist tradition....
The MCR leader went on to explain his view of eastern Europe: that the pre 1989 regimes in Berlin and Prague had 'no foundation in the consciousness of the workers' But '1989 has not freed the world as Ochetto and his PDS comrades said; today there exists...a strong capitalist domination.' by Charlie van Gelderen The repeal on June 17 of the Population Registration Act, the law under which every South A frican had to be racially classified at birth, has been hailed by De Klerk and his imperialist backers as marking the end of apartheid.
This was the last of the draconian laws put on the statute book by the National Party government after it came to power in 1948. In purely legislative terms it could be said that there was now no legal basis for apartheid.
But the vast majority of South Africans suffered racial discrimination from the day the first white men -the representatives of the Dutch trading oligarchy, the Dutch East India Company established their requisitioning station at the Cape for ships on the way to India. This was long before the word 'apartheid' attained its present international infamy.
In the years of a more 'liberal' administration, what is now Cape Province was a British colony, and the franchise was based on educational and economic attainments. But though a TOTA thousand Blacks managed to get the vote, they were subject to restricLaws), right of residence and employment.
There were separate facilities for Blacks in res taurants and cafes, in bars and off-licences, hotels and other places. In employment they were subject to vicious exploitation.
The repeal of the apartheid legislation undoub tedly marks a step forward. It will be that much easier now to organise political activities, although the security forces still operate as if nothing has changed.
But De Klerk's declaration that 'the vast majority of the population would be rejoicing will not beechoed by the black people shivering in their unheated shacks in Khayelitsa, not many miles away from the white parliament which passed those laws. Nor will there be celebrations among the inhabitarts of the townships on the Rand, racked by inter-tribal violence encouraged and assisted by the security forces.
Real power in South Africa, political and romaine firmly in the hands of the six million whites where De Klerk is determined that it should remain. Blacks will not be allowed to vote in any by-election that may come along prior to a new constitution. Nor can they be conscripted into the remain exclusively for whites. The educational system is also still structured along racist lines.
The liberation forces will now be concentrating their efforts on the fight for a Constituent Assembly to draft a new, non-racial constitution. Nearly all the parties in the liberation move ment call for Constituent Assembly, but there are nuances in their approach There is still some am biguity in the ANC's position. It agreed at the recent meeting with the PanAfricanist Congress(PAC) in Harare to reject any further negotiations with the elme une al oostces t alks. - the freeing of political prisoners, return of exiles, repeal of security legislation have been removed.
But it still seems to be prepared to enter all-party talks in the hope that it can win the other parties over to the wisdom of holding elections to a constitutionmaking body. The ANC and its allies are also calling for an interim government, once obstacles to negotiation have been removed and serious negotiations begin. Such an interim government, drawn from the major parties, would rule by decree and would be responsible for drawing up the procedures for the No. 5 sembly.
The PAC, along with the Azanian Peoples Organisation (AZAPO) and the Workers Organisation for Socialist Action(WOSA), reject this idea. They reject it on the grounds that they do not want to be responsible for administering apartheid, even for an interim period.
The South African Communist Party is also said to ›e uneasy about this, hough it does not want to clash openly with it's ANC ally. There is some fear in Communist Party circles that the ANC leadership is conceding too much to the government, a view shared y the ANC Youth League. AZAPO and WOSA believe that a constituent assembly can only be won in struggle.
De Klerk knows that to keep up the momentum of reforms, which his imperialist allies will insist on, ne must make some move towards enfranchising the Blacks, some time in the not too distant future. He robably has in mind the Jamibian model. where the constituent assembly, once elected, sat behind closed doors to work out the constitution, and lost all contact with the electorate.
The ball is now at the feet of the parties in the liberation movement. It has everything to play for, and very little to lose.
July 6, 1991 Page 7 .
National struggles like this in the Ukraine further destabilise Gorbachev Planning Agency, has been replaced by a