Picket to defend arrested Chinese socialists

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Demonstration in Shanghai, 1979, by opponents of the Stalinist bureaucracy Indian worker's speak on strike ban The Peking authorities have stonewalled all appeals internationally to release the arrested editors of China's unofficial magazines.

Since April, when most of the arrests took place, the regime has not brought any of the editors to trial publicly, and has refused to disclose any information about them.

Since the trial of Wei Jingsheng in October 1979, six months after his arrest, the regime has not staged a public trial of a dissident editor.

The 15 year sentence produced an international outcry which embarrassed the regime. And it failed to deter the democracy movement, which continued to flourish and gain influence among students and industrial workers in all of China's main cities.

The unofficial magazines' increasing circulation, the large votes in the local elections for dissidents standing on a political platform of radical anti-bureaucratic changes and workers' strikes demanding Polish-style trade union rights in 1980, have forced the regime to take tough action.

Conscience

Amnesty International has adopted 20 of the dissidents as prisoners of conscience, though probably more have been arrested.

What is striking about the arrested editors, is their youth (30s or late 20s), and their working class backgrounds (at least 12 of the 20 are factory workers).

They belong to China's post 49 Revolution generation who have been taught to believe that China is a "People's Republic" and that the Communist Party is leading the workers and peasants towards a communist society.

Through their political ist democracy bound by a legal code.

The Li-Yi-zhe wallposter. achieved international fame, but Wang and his two comrades were sent to labour reform camps for several years.

Wang was released in January 1979, after the authorities ruled that he and his comrades were victimised by the Gang of Four.

(It took two years after the fall of the Gang of Four for the authorities to reverse their verdict).

Key Wang became a key activist in the new-born democracy movement. He has kept up a prolific correspondence with journals throughout China, and his essays have been published in English, in New Left Review and other magazines.

Xu Wenli, a 36 year old electrician Beijing (Peking), was chief editor of the Journal "April Forum" . The journal had a circulation of several thousand at its peak before the regime first banned it in 1980.

Xu was a prominent petitioner for the release of Liu Qing, who was arrested for distributing the trial transcripts of Wei Jingsheng. Xu considered himself a Marxist and insisted that "democratic socialism" could not be achieved by police action".

Xu however thought that the CCP would, under pressure, be reformable. When the journal "April Sth Forum" was relaunched, Xu's editorship passed to more radical elements led by Yang Qing, a steelworker in his early 30s. Yang has also been arrested Chen Er-jin who is in his late 30s received no more than primary school education in the remote province of Yunan. Despite this, and with only limited editions of Marx and Lenin's writings as references, Chen produced a booklet in 1976 "on the Democratic Revolution of the Proletariat" which concluded that China was ruled by a privileged bureaucracy.

He was arrested, tortured and imprisoned in 1978 as a result of his booklet. Though not well known, and not yet translated into English, his booklet is politically even more incisive than the Li-Yi-zhe wallposter.

Fu Shenqi, from a Shanghai worker's family, worked in Shanghai City Motor factory for five. years atter leaving school. In 1977 he gained admission to Shanghai No. 4 college and returned to work in his factory a year later. Fu was a member of the Communist Youth League.

He became active in the democratic movement in Shanghai in 1978. In 1979 he helped found the journal "Voice of Democracy" When Voice of Democracy" declared its support for the "strike activity of Polish workers fighting for democracy and against bureaucratic tyranny" , the authorities declared the lournal "anti-Party and antiIn April 1980 Fu stood as a candidate in the local elections Ior a "people's representative" Despite being branded by the factory committee as a "dissident who has joined an "anti-party, anti-socialist organisation" , he came top of the poll with 43% of the vote.

Rules

The election rules require a minimum of 50% of the vote for a successful election, SO m under normal circumstances à second ballot should have been held. The Party Committee promptly cancelled the second ballot to prevent Fu's October 1980, the National Association of Unofficial Magazines was founded to unify and coordinate the democratic movement throughout China. Fu assumed the position of the chief editor of the National Association's journal, "Responsibility" from the third issue onwards. Nine issues were produced before the wave of arrests in April.

Picket

In Britain, the Socialist Committee in Defence of the Democratic Movement in China has called for a picket of the Chinese Embassy on Thursday October 1, the day the 1949 Chinese Revolution is celebrated. They have also launched petition campaign demanding the release of the dissidents and demanding the rights of free press, the right to strike and the right to organise parties and trade unions in China.

For details, copies of the petition, etc., please write to the SCDDMC, c/o S. Grover, 380 Edgware Road, London W2. Please send letters of protest to the Chinese Embassy, 31 Portland Place, London W1. Socialist Organiser has been talking to indian labour movement activists about Gandhi's recent ban on strikes in india.

P.S. Khabra, Ealing Borough Councillor and President of IWA (Southall) told us:

You have to recognise the power of the Indian Congress Party. After indePESKA ЗI SERPHA 8I endum to re-elect the plant's manager.

The manager, who shut down the plant's Solidarnosc newspaper for printing anti-Russian cartoons, has called on the PUWP to back him up. and to reaffirm the Party's exclusive authority in the matter of appointments.

There are differences of emphasis between various tendencies in the PUWP Central Committee. Some would accept some form of elections for factory managers - as long as the results, in the end, always conform to the party's wishes! - and then there are the table-thumpers who pull dusty copies of 'Lenin Anarcho-Syndicalism' off their shelves condemn any workers' control.

The bureaucracy cannot relinquish its monopoly of appointments without seriously and irreparably damaging itself.

The bureaucracy is also pendence it was this party that was seen to institute all the democratic structures in India. Opposition to Congress was practically non-existent.

The prestige of Congress was so great it swept elections all over the country.

Of course there is opposition now the Janata using unemployment to beat down the resistance of Polish workers. As part of its plan to meet its commitments to the international financiers and the Soviet will be necessary to 'redeploy' (i.e. sack) 660,000 between now and 1983 in industry, administration and construction.

And for the immediate period ahead, the Labour Minister has announced 180,000 redundancies in industry, 150,000 in construction, and 60,000 in transport.

To accept the bureaucracy's plans in the name of responsibility or caution would be self-destructive for Solidarnose. The fight for workers' control is now on the agenda, and needs to be fought through to its conclusion - revolutionary overthrow of the bureaucracy. party - but that is equally as corrupt, and they only got into government as a reaction of the people against Indira Gandhi's Emergency.

I was there during the Emergency and l was shocked. The aim was quite clearly to silence political opponents. It was like Nazi Germany or Fascist Italy.

People were afraid to say anything, the fear was if you said anything you'd be locked up.

And there was also the disgusting spectacle of Sanjay Gandhi. Sanjay was basically a dictator - he could do what he liked through his mother.

Any pretence at having Parliamentary democracy in India became a farce then. There were even slogans written up all over the place saying "Sanjay says grow more trees" , as he had an idea about trees needing to be grown to stop soil erosion. Or "Sanjay says produce less children" , as he had an idea about restricting population.

That is well known.

I'm not surprised to hear that Indira Gandhi has imposed a six month ban on strikes. I think she's learnt a lot of lessons since the Emergency.

There has been no real limit on • corruption and blackmail, the bribery and black market activities -and there wasn't during the Emergency, which was the public reason for it, according to Congress.

It was on the basis of stopping corruption that the they gọt the support of the Communist Party of india for the emergency powers. i criticised the CPI for that.

I don't know what the CPI's attitude is this time round, but i can never !. port the restrictions on feedom of speech, assembi! 17g press that Indira Gandhi imposes, or banning It's all part of the cor-:. tion and thirst for powe: =: any price that prevals -India now.

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Union, the government has recently announced that it