Czech dissident jailed

Socialist Organiser no. 47, 6 August 1981 · scan p. 4 · about 254 words

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AS THE popular upsurge of struggle against the Polish bureaucracy takes a new turn, a prominent Czech dissident has been jailed for a record 7½ year term.

Rudolf Battek, a supporter of Charter 77 and an active member of the Committee for the Defence of the Unjustly Persecuted (VONS), was charged with subversion in collaboration with foreigners, and also with assault on a policeman last June.

The "collaboration" charge stems from Battek's Kreisky and Swedish Prime Minister Olaf Palme.

More political trials are expected in Czechoslovakia, involving 16 people who were among a wave of 36 arrests in May.

Stalinist

Now more than ever the old guard Stalinist leaders are determined to be seen to crack down on the slightest sign of opposition.

The international workers' movement must rally to the defence of Battek and socialist opponents of the regime. from the Party. •The *born again Eurocommunist tendency is largely based on petty bourgeois sections of the Party apparatus and elected local working class support.

Basque It is not surprising that its leadership comes from the Basque country which is the area of Spain where the CP is industrially and electorally weakest.

The "Afghans" are based on the much stronger Calatan section of the Party which is nonetheless split almost in half on the questions involved.

Part of the difference is that the pro-Soviet faction support the re-inclusion of "Leninism" in the official definition of the Party (it

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councillors, and it is based on very little rank and file