Belgian Genera Strike callea

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by lan Swindale A decision by the Belgian government to intèrvene in the dispute between the country's steelworkers and the EEC Commission over the restructuring of the steel industry failed to prevent a demonstration by 15,000 striking steelworkers on 16 March from erupting into the most violent clashes seen in Brussels for 20 years.

The government had been refusing to participate negotiations between the steel unions and EEC Commissioner Viscount Etienne Davignon who want to cut steel making by 4 million tonnes from 11 million to 7 million tonnes a year, with the loss of 10,000 jobs in the French speaking south. Unemployment in the steel-making towns of Liege and Charlerois already stands at 20%.

Day before

But the day before the demonstration the government appointed a new chief executive - Michel Vanderstrick - to the Cockerill Sambre steelmaking plant.

Prime Minister Martens also announced a compromise programme of closures for Mr Vanderstrick to negotiate with the EEC.

Faced with rioting in which police used tear gas and baton charges to disperse demonstrators, leaving some 170 police and 30 marchers injured, and an all-out steel strike - now in its fourth week - the EEC Commission this week announced a £260 million aid package for CockerillSambre. But significantly, they rejected the modernisation plan being put forward by the Belgian government on the grounds that its aim of viability by 1985 could not be achieved unless the plan was further modified.

Meanwhile, the Socialist FGTB union has called a 24 hour general strike for March 26 and the Social Christian union, the CSC, is following that i up with a mass march of 100,000 on Brussels on the following With unemployment now standing at 453,000 and the government's austerity programme likely to increase unemployment still further in the short term, the coalition government of Wilfried Martens faces a very uncertain future in the face of these massive actions by the Belgian working class. government further with a mass demonstration of peasants in Paris.

A French comrade recently in London talked to Socialist Organiser about the background.

'Some sections of the middle class _ like lower managers or peasants -who voted for Mitterrand have demonstrated a cerHarry Sloan •THIS MUST be the only guerrilla war in the world Where you do not see Soviet-made AK-47 rifles with their distinctive curved chambers."

These words from Guardian correspondent Jonathan Steele sum up a central weakness of the struggle in El Salvador.

For behind the fiascoes of US attempts to "prove"

Cuban and Soviet involvement in the civil war for the overthrow of the Duarte junta lies the grim reality:

no evidence has been produced by the Pentagon to substantiate their charges - because little or no material aid is being provided to the FMLN guerrillas!

News conferences to "prove" that Cuba and Nicaragua have been training guerrillas; CIA documents to "prove" shipments of arms by air, sea and land into El Salvador;

and aerial photographs to "prove" the development of advanced aggressive military forces in Nicaragua by Moscow and Havana have all fallen flat.

Revelations

Instead, revelations of Reagan approval for CIA operations against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua have been vindicated.

But while 'left' supporby commandos made up of local peasants.

Also a number of Communist Party voters abstained. • But there were relatively high votes for some candidates to the left of the Communist Party and Socialist Party, for example PSU candidates and some Maoist candidates. ters of the Salvadorean guerrillas make much of these embarrassing gaffes by the US imperialists, they remain silent on the scandalous lack of support to the armed struggle on the part of the Kremlin and Havana leaderships.

The fact is that while reagan is mustering the strongest possible military attack against the left wing opposition in El Salvador, the Stalinist leaders are engaged in no comparable moves to assist the guerrillas.

Brezhnev has repeatedly made it crystal clear that the Moscow bureaucracy has little or no interest in the struggle in Central America. Nicaragua, suffering a punitive economic blockade and growing military provocations at the hands of the Reagan government has received only a pittance in terms of assistance from the USSR or Eastern Europe.

Such assistance as has been given has come via Castro's government in Cuba which, a mere 60 miles off the Florida coastline, is itself more directly threatened by the sabrerattling Reagan government.

But despite occasional earlier blasts of rhetoric, Castro's overt and still limited material support for iffiliate to the El Salvador Solidarity Campaign, 29 Islington Park Street, London N1 certain mobilisation of the working class.

Figures have been published for January _ before the bulk of the strikes on the 39 hour week - and they show a 33% increase in strike days over January 1981. But you must remember that 1981 had the lowest number of strike the Sandinistas emerged only after the defeat of the Somoza dictatorship. And in its present armslength relationship with the struggle of the FMLN in El Salvador, the Cuban regime appears to be following exactly the same coursé.

In other words while Castro is ready and willing to utilise setbacks to imperialism to further strengthen his own diplomatic support in Central America and the Caribbean, he is no more willing than his Kremlin sponsors to commit material resources to support the armed struggle.

Like the Kremlin leaders, the bureaucrats in Havana seek first and foremost to preserve their own basis of power and privilege by arriving at a balance of forces a 'peaceful coexistence' - with imperialism.

similarly cynical approach - in which the objective is to establish a political framework of class collaboration rather than class confrontation -dictates the stance of the so-called "Socialist International" on the war in El Salvador.

Fearing a defeat of the junta, they would prefer to see a "negotiated solution"

in which the reformist leadership of the opposition Democratic Revolutionary Front (FDR) would be established in office presiding • over a stabilised 'mixed' capitalist economy.

Wonder

Small wonder therefore that the leaders of the FDR - and some of the politically confused elements of the FMLN guerrillas - are enthusiastic supporters of the Second International, and of the Mexican government which has taken a similar view.

An interview in the current El Salvador News Bulletin reveals representatives of the largest FMLN grouping, the FPL, praising the "firm role" of Mexico, main cause of discontent is the EEC Common Agricultural Policy.

But the leadership of the main peasant • organisation is strongly influenced by the RPR [the Gaullist partyl, and undeniably the right wing parties are using the discontent to increase their pressure on the government.

Castro: a lot of words, but how much action? and the 'bastion of support offered by the Mitterrand government in France.

Yet workers in France and Mexico know to their cost the real nature of these so-called 'allies' In their struggle to end not only political repression but also poverty and exploitation, the masses of El Salvador will need to develop a new leadership with a more advanced political perspective, starting from an understanding of the treachery of social democracy and Stalinism, and their fundamental opposition to socialist revolution.

That is why a revolutionary part is needed in El Salvador based firmly upon the proletariat, fighting to weld a fighting alliance with the poor peasantry in El Salvador and with the oppressed masses throughout Central America in the struggle for have been established in most big towns.

per, nonth (20p for unwaged). If there is no group in your help us to build one?

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Address munist Party] is determined by two factors.

Firstly, support for the government, which is characterised as being on the right path. At the same time, at least officially, the CGT proclaims the necessity for the workers to act independently.

The CGT thus keeps some leeway for itself in order to be able to lead and head off any working class struggles which challenge the government.

The CFDT [the secondlargest union federation], on the question of the working week for example, has gone so far as to criticise the government for not having 8 "courageous" attitude. It should have said that a reduction in the working week is possible, but only at the price of a sacrifice on wages.

This orientation derives, so it seems, from the CFDT's concern not to arouse high hopes among the working class and find itself confronted with big mobilisations when those hopes are disappointed. It is a continuation and a stepping-up of the so-called 're-centring' orientation, which dates from 1977 at least.

In Force Ouvriere [the third union federation, which declares itself 'nonpolitical'], the attitude of the leadership has been Mitterrand: conceding to the right wing Lucet was a manager of the social Security fund in the Marseilles region, a member of FO and also of the RPR. He set out to smash the CGT in his department.

After official reports of financial malpractice by Lucet, he was removed from his job. Then he was found dead. At first it was supposed to be suicide, but the suicide theory is now seriously placed in doubt.

The RPR immediately seized on this suicide, or assassination, to present Lucet as the victim of a slander campaign by the CGT, and the first victim of the socialist regime. FO has lined up with this campaign.

Oppositions are developing within the unions.

In the CGT, a current developed before the presidential elections around the demand for left unity. It included SP members, some dissident members of the CP, and sections of the far left.

Issue

The main issue in the CGT since the elections has been Poland. The CGT more or less lined up with the position of the CP, which is that nothing should be done in solidarity with the Polish workers. Here again, SP members, CP dissidents, and sections of the far left were able to link up to establish a 'CGT for Solidarnosc' committee.

The question of trade union unity may be coming to the fore again, too. But there will probably be some deal between the CP and the SP to give the SP more elbow room in the CGT.

In the CFDT, the criticism made of the leadership on Poland is that it has had a sectarian attitude, using Poland merely to boost the CFDT as against the CGT.

The most important issue in the CFDT is the leadership's attitude on the 39 hour week and wage cuts. There is strong opposition in the CFDT on this issue"

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Socialist Organiser no. 78 March 25