Europe hinges on Germany. Economic difficulties hamper the CDU/CSU Christian Democrat coalition's deficit. cutting targets. After two years of struggles in France, many German workers feel more confident of struggle. Our reporter DUNCAN CHAPEL met NICK and CHRISTIAN, from the Fourth International's Revolutionary Socialist League, RSB, in their Munich branch office. "THERE IS a new period here after the struggles in France" starts Nick, one of the editors of the RSB magazine Avanti. "It's really reflected in some of the factories. We had a demonstration recently where one of the banners read 'we must speak French with our bosses. It is that sentiment which has come out repeatedly in recent years, saying that we have to fight."
Christian, from the RSB's political secretariat, adds that one of the first signs was at last year's May Day demonstration organised by the social democratic union federation, the DGB.
"The loader was attacked, with the crowd shouting out 'no pact with Capital!'. One of the radical student federations c alled a demonstraton against social cuts in Bonn. The DGB gave It support in order to take It over and exc ude all signs of the noal strugs . The mood was very milicant and the DGB was forced to promise a general strike. There was a strong vanguind, though not so much in Bavaria. Here, many advanced workers did not see the The economic policies of the coa lition members, especially outgoing finance minister. Theo Waigel, look set to repeat the experiences of last year.
"Next time things can be different," hopes Christian. "Those protests were not co-ordinated. There were no forces on the left to draw them together. Now there is the chance that we can use the network built up by the European marches to centralise the struggles."
German revolutionaries face the challenge of a rotten party, the SPD. which is based on the trade union bureaucrats. The German wing of Britain's Socialist Workers Party helps build the SPD, while another group, linked to the Socialist Party in England and Wales, is reassessing this approach.
Christian continues: "Most workers see the SPD as their political party. When the miners were in struggle they wanted to attack the CSU and the parliament building. Rudolph Scharping, then SPD leader, was able to calm the workers. Miners listen to him, and there is a difference between the way he is seen, the other capitalist politicians."
While the struggles of the French workers have inspired Germany's working class, France's new, rightward-moving, Socialist Party (PS) government has had an impact in the discussions around choosing between the SPD's candidates for Chancellor:
"One candidate looks to the PS and the other to Blair's Labour party" adds Nick. "Gerhard Schröder, who is the premier of the state. of Lower Saxony, wants to be the new Tony Blair, while Oskar Lafontaino, currenty the party leader, looks to SP leader Lionel Jospin's model. The whole discussion depends on the state of the class strug. gle.
RENA "The best people in the SPD support Lafontaine. We said a victory for Lafontaine had to be turned into a fight for open borders, to start the fight against unemployment and so on. The first job is to build up support for these sorts of demands, and for a programme of actions, on the left. Elections come second."
In the general elections the RSB will campaign for the former Communist party, the PDS. Christian points out "we vote for the PDS, not the SPD, to help build up the movements against social cuts. It is a working class vote.
"The PDS is a social democratic but most of its members see them.. selves as committed socialists and supporters of the class struggle. Because of this, we say that you must vote for this party. By voting for the PDS you show to Capital that you want a social alternative."
The RSB is able to work closely with the whole left, including former Stalinists. The RSB office where we met is in the Bavarian PDS headquarters, housed in a new office block in central Munich.
"There are lots of good Communists close to our programme," chips in Nick. "The main task is to develop marxist theory broadly. It's not our job to win over established Communist groups wholesale, but to develop joint work with those comrades and to win youth to our "We have had long-term collaboration: fighting racism and fascism, mobilising against the Munich economic summit a few years ago, and recently for the European marches. When we meet in this way you can not identify people's approaches with narrow party lines.
"Our relations are good, especially in Munich. We have learnt a lot from them. There should be no prejudices. Since German reunification the discussions on the left have gotten bigger and bigger."
There is a lot of work for the future. The RSB was founded three years ago by Trotskyists with different histories and experiences: some from the United Socialist Party, others from the East German group which founded Avanti, and a smaller group called the spartacus League "Our main goal, including our students and school students, has to be building up strong trade union work," says Christian.
"The question is how. For exam-. ple, not all workers are in unions. Now we are approaching young workers where they study or though in the law.
In 1934, the Annual Conference of Co-operative Women became the first organised body to call for abortion to be legalised. Out of 1,360 delegates to the Annual Meeting there were only twenty dissidents to the following resolution:
"In view of the persistently high maternal death rate and the evils arising from illegal practice of abortion, this Congress calls upon the Government to revise the abortion.
laws of 1861 by bringing them into harmony with modern conditions and ideas, thereby making of abortion a legal operation that can be framework of people to boost our trade union work in the future.
"We recently had a 10,000 strong DGB march against cuts. We were. able to do a lot there. However we have to took at where we can do politics, not just make propaganda. If we had a public meeting about our trade union work it might attract fewer trade unionists than might come along normally."
Starting almost from scratch, the •area Tom me experiences of comrades like Christian who were active Fourth Internationalists in the 1970s.
"One lesson was that we must build up our trade union work alongside our youth work. It is impossible to fully develop committed activists if they are kept aside from the struggles in the unions. We make sure our campaigning, like against fascism, takes us into the factories.
"It would still be central to our work even if we only had ten comrades, and the RSB leadership is committed to that approach."
He also points out some of the difficulties. "It is not possible to polarise: like saying either we build up routine work in workplaces or we do campaigns. We are developing perspectives for our comrades in the factories. At the same time our campaigns draw in young people. Our youth will go into the factories, not everyone, but our youth discuss how we will build up our forces in the unions."
"It is clear that we need to build up a working class-based organisation", sums up Nick. "Even good anti-fascist work requires an orientation towards the working class with a social alternative. We've seen the openings. Last autumn we had big mobilisations - 350,000 workers -in defence of full sick pay. We've had strikes at Daimler-Benz, by miners and amongst building workers. It is the start of a new cycle.".
porting abortion but Dora with others did. Without of the work of ALRA the 1967 Act would never have become law.
The anniversary of the passing of the act is a time of rejoicing, but the Abortion Act was passed just betore the rebirth of the women's movement and it has serious limitations, notably that it allows doctors, not women to make the choice.
It has without a doubt, changed the lives of many women. The ability to have a safe legal abortions, and to be able to control ones fertility is something that it is worth fighting for.