tions for the regional leadership of the SP there were two slates — one put forward by the Soares leadership, and the other proposed by some militants at the base of the party. However, it is necessary to stress that this tendency is only just beginning and remains an empirical opposition. It doesn't question, for instance, the participation of the SP in the Sixth Government.
What 1s the present project of the Portuguese Communist Party?
The CP has also in reality backed @the attacks of the ruling class, both by participating in the class colaborationist governments and through its divisive politics. It maintains its support for the AFM, and after 25 November it has recommenced its attacks against the extreme left.
• After November the revoiutionary left has passed through a crisis. What has been its outcome?
Within the far left the strongest a current are the Maoists. Most of them are merely sects, but it is necessary to make an exception in the case of the Popular Democratie ne samaton in Hase imor is urucnt ne amorese must-pe allowed to decide their own political future, free from any interference by the Indonesian military dictatorship. Just as the struggles of the people of Mozambique. Angola and Guine-Bis sau weakened the dictatorship in Portugal, so the struggle of Ine people or rast timor can play a vital role in weakening 1he brutal military regime in Indonesia.
Gn s- varen a nanonai moriłorium on caste imor wil be held in Australia as the culmination of an extensive threeweek campaign organised around the visit of a delegation from MES wants to make the organisation 'Leninist", with democratie centralism, but this has already provoked a number of splits. I think that the MES has about a thousand members nationally.
The PRP is a militarist organisation without a clear political line. It limits its programme to the defence of socialism, to the dictatorship of the proletariat and the armed insurrection. In all the copies of its paper there is a photo of a rifle. When they sell the paper, their members shout that there are guns in the paper. ample of their militarism.
We think that the comrades of the MES and the PRP are incapable of drawing any balance sheet of 25 November. characterisation of the SP as a party close to fascism, which merely represents a continuation of their political line before 25 November.
Both the League of Revolutionary Unity and Action (LUAR) and the Popular Socialist Front (FSP) are basically dead. The Revolutionary United Front (FUR) has also disappeared, as a result of the events of 25 November and its ultra-left political line due to the role of the centrists, notably the MES and PRP.
OULPENCS project of the ruling class.
Portuguese goods?
This is just a small exugal.
They maintain their tional ruling class. struggles are yet to come. the Fretilin liberation movement to the major towns and cities of Australia. In conjunction with this moratorium, the British Campaign for Independent East Timor, together with the AusTanan bocinst Amance, whll be nolding a picker outside tne Indonesian Embassy. 38 Grosyenor Square, London W.I. Note the date - 18 March, from 12.30 to 2.30pm - and start organising support now.
Further details of BCIET activities, publications, etc. from: 40 Concanon Road. London S.W.2. (01-274 9308). workers against the attacks of the ruling class. Our propaganda will centre upon the need for a united front of the working class to initiate a response to the autoritarian What do you think of those 4 in Britain, such as the CP and Tribune, who support the imposition of import controls on After 25 April 1974 the internaational bourgeoisie implemented a total boycott of the Portuguese Even the so-called 'democracies' like Britain have boycotted Portuguese exports, while the multinational firms like Plessey are creating redundancies in PortWe think that the position of the British CP is a totally nationalist one, which has nothing to do with proletarian internationalism. Against that we think that it is necessary to organise the broadest solidarity implemented. with the Portuguese revolution against the sabotage of the internaIn this task we have confidence. in the real revolutionaries, and in particular the Fourth International. to maintain the campaign of international solidarity. As I have said, the revolution did not end on 25 November. The most important not openly).
sabre-rattling Last week Samora Machel, the president of Mozambique, plunged in with his own contribution to resolving the crisis in Zimbabwe. Ina sabre-rattling speech. Machel declared a 'state of war which amounted to no more than the implementation of United Nations sanctions against Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) - which to date the regime had been openly fouting! To add a touch of spice to his demagogy. he immediately instructed that a programme of building "air-raid shelters should be This move is truly an "ace in a situation where imperialism and racist South Africa have suffered a political defeat in Angola which renders both incapable of intervening directly in Zimbabwe. Vorster's game of detente has suffered badly and for the moment the neo-colonial regumes of Africa are reluctant to touch South Africa with a barge pole (at least The Smith regime is refusing to concede "majority rule, while the reformist leader of the ANC (African National Couneit). Joshua Nkomo, grows more isolated by the day as the militant ZANU (Zimbabwe African National Union) bullds up us strengtn. une danger for the international capitalist class) of an escalation of the armed struggle grows daily. Mozambique has been used for a long time as a base for ZANU, yet this verv movement couid set off a series of social and political crises that would Thrcaten not oniy te interests or emper ialism. but also those of the present regime in Mozambique. BUREAUCRACY Cleari conscious of all these factors Machel has proposed a policy that not saly serves the interests of imperialism. but also ensures the continuing dominance of his bureaucratic regime.
The closing of the ports of Beira and Maputo (formerly Lourenco Marques) in Mozambique to goods from Zimbabwe has meant that there remain but two routes by which these goods may pass: through Botswana and South Atrica. The closure of the Mozambique ports thus clearly DHS VOrNCEOlC DULarC aSEL economie strangulation of the Smith regime will depend on Vorster.
As the latter has openly declared that he is in favour of "majority rule", he will once again be able to restore his image by applying just enough pressure to force Smith to capitulate to the peaceful settlement carnestly desired by international capital: and in so doing. Vorster will once again be acelaimed by the likes of President Kaunda of Zambia as the "bringer of peace on carun . and bund cyes can agall be turned on the fate of the millions of blacks in sourn Alrica liseit.
A peaceful settlement in Zimbabwe will mean the establishment of a neo-col onial regime (led no doubt by Nkomo) that is politically and economically dep CHeent On musE SOunLATLd A DOVC dI i wu mean anatemo to soateund smash the large forces that today are led by ZANU and the Zimbabwe Military High Command.
Machel's sabre-rattling is aimed prim arily at bringing about just such a peacoful settlement" in Zimbabwe, and not at aiding the strugales of the masses unde the leadership of ZANU. Furthermore nese moves ure a blatant atremot to dry ert attention inside Mozambique from the crisis that the regime is currently facing: only last December there was a major mutiny in the army which was brutally put down and followed by a huge purge under the banner of clearing corruption and evil".
MILITANTS Those purged were in fact militants who had been protesting against Machel's policies, and against appalling work conditions in the armed forces. Faced with wowig assent and ue mounting cconon ie crisis. Machel's plan to 'build air-raid Sneiters is smoi an aitemD to divert the attention of the masses by erecting a "socialist image for the regime based on "sacrifices' made for the struggle in Zimbabwe.
It should be noted that Machel has made no comment about the 80,000 Mozambican workers who remain in Zimbab we. nor about the several thousands who Work m sowm Alncan mes m esenane for gold received by the Machel regime trom vorster. Nor was tere been ant explanation as to why, until last week. the regime reflused to apply the sanctions against the Smith regime.
It is no surprise. therefore, that the Labour Government has been generally ent husiastic about Machel's latest movCs. nor Is Iu surorisine raut aler near" a year of delays, Wilson has 'now decided" to go ahead with the aid programme for Mozambique!
JULIUS KARANJA
8 Polemic Lein, and Trotsky after 1917, both taught the absolute necessity, against all forms of opportunism and conciliation, of relentless political and ideological struggle against wrong positions within the party. At the same time however they also held the position that political splits of the party, as opposed to faction fights within the party, become justified only with a definitive crossing of class lines in the greatest events of the class struggle.
If we approach the 1953 split from this principle then the chief organisational question which has to be decided is whether this was a split into two ditterent worla parnes, into two aujerent inema tionals, or a split into two factions within the same International.
The implication of this question, and the basis for deciding it, are clear. To justify a split into two separate world parties on a Leninist basis, not merely must wrong theories have developed and wrong pos itions on questions have been taken, but these must have culminated in historic betrayals of a character qualitatively the same as those of August 1914 on the outbreak of the imperialist war or those leadRed Weekly 11 March 1976 towards the holding of a joint international conference'(5). Again, on the view that the "Pabloites" were a current outside Trotskyism who had carried out an historic betrayal of the working class, this must be counted as a vile capitulation Finally, in the series 'Hansen and Novack - Accomplices of the GPU" in Workers Press, the WRP goes even further. It discovers that there is some World Trotskyist Movement' which not merely must be defended against 'GPU accomplice' Hansen, but which can actually set up a commission to investi gate inis said accomplice But the whole concept of a World Trotskyist Movement' only makes sense if what is involved is not forces which have carried out world historic betrayals, but instead a whole number of forces which may well justify the formation of tendencies and factions but which do not justify the existence of different parties and a different International.
CONCLUSIONS