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Socialist Challenge 25 January 1979 page 12 IN Isfahan 140 US instructors employed Bell copter company went on strike in 1970. They were complaining about bad conditions and the allegedly low quality of Iranian trainee pilots.
Last weekend the roles were reversed when air base workers in Isfahan, Hamadan, Bandar AbDas and snanronkı struck against the continued presence of foreign military advisers.
One of the ways imperialism the exerts its influence in countries by like Iran and an important factor if the US decides on a matary somnon thousands of foreign advisers.
The conventional image of Ine mercenary is a scar-faced. brainless, fascistoid thug. But this traditional beast, though ne certainty exists, lasting impact 'white-collar mercenaries'. Heli- Of the 43,000 US personnel in Iran last year only 1,000 were military; 32,000 were civilian employees of panies.
The provision of technicians is an essential *post-sales' service in this high technology era. For example, a SUBZUrO! of F-15 [about 18 planes] requires 266 trained maintenance personnel.
In countries like Iran, with a fragile infrastructure and poor education, these Lave be is tens of Almost contract says that they will only stay long enough to train native workers to take over their jobs.
But it usually doesn't work our that way, tran is sun using has less than the as on the more recent LICS because thei private com purely technical capacities. part of the Bell Helicopters Iranians to run it.
technicians provided always Security Agency. US personnel on the F-4 planes it bought ten years ago, as well F-5Es, stay on political and military use far exceeds their When the Shah decided to set state apparatus.
Iran's up an aerial cavalry brigade, independence took on military former General Delk M. Oden generals a to recruit 1,500 US personnel, mainly ex-soldiers, to train the States.
And when the Iranian regime commissioned Rockwell International to set up an Ibex the people hired were forme agents of the CIA or National Hiring white-collar mercenaries boils down to the purchase exporter: of high technology from the Impertanst powers which, after all, is the basis of Iranian industrialisation.
But it is also more than that - a subtle but direct method of bringing pressure to bear on the most influential sections of the relative political and strong machine gives large degree of United But the imperialists have such leverage that it is doubtful if the generals would go against their long term wishes whatever they may be.
The British state does not wield the influence it used to in ron but it is still a maior arm the Shah bought more Chieftain tanks than the even now le Ministry of Defence is pressing on witn the sale of Rapier missiles to the Bakhtiar regime.
are the plan for a multi-million pound military-industrial complex in Isfahan. And that sort of project means more white-collar mercenaries.
This gives both the -US opportunity and the duty to influence directly the course of Will the Bakhtiar manoeuvre there be military coup? Or can both options be averted?
The choice is largely with the mass movement in Iran. But it is our responsibility too.
*Demonstrate 3 February, 1.00pm, Trafalgar Square.
IT IS NOW more than two years since the singer/song-writer WOLF BIERMANN was expelled from East Germany as a dissident.
You are a member of the Spanish Communist Party [PCE), Hamburg. That's a bit paradoxical. Can you say what led you to join the PCE?
I joined the PCE for a very simple reason. I think that it's necessary to organise to be effective politically.
That's particularly artist. One can very easily find oneself isolated as a special case because of one's supposed "fame' moreover, a way of being pulled out of politics.
In West Germany, where I now live, there is a party which calls itself Communist and which doesn't like me much. But I can't wait until a Communist Party which suits me appears in West Germany.
And because in other respects 1 don't want to be shut up in those little sectarian cages of the West Germany far-left organisations (some are sympathetic to me, others disgust me, but in any case that's not the kind of organisation I want to belong to), I therefore joined the PCE.
Another reason for this decision was that I wanted in some way to confront the East German authorities politically, since they cated me and would like to isolate people like me from the workers movement, the Communist moveI therefore took this decision on grounds of what I would willingly call political hygiene, so that there is no handle for these slanders, so as to help comrades in East politically.
My comrades in East Germany can thus express their solidarity towards me more easily by simply saying: But he's a member of a brother party, this criminal Biermann!"
Of course I wouldn't go so far as to imagine that the high priests of East Germany would let that impress them and shed tears over this expression "brother party'; they think, to put it subtly, that the PCE has 'embarked on a mistaken road - ог. crudely, that comrade Carrille is also a'criminal' Thirdly, I joined the PCE and not the Italian or the French CP (which certainly wouldn't have delighted to welcome HIC ranks) because chance dictated that I established closer links with this party It was because of the facts of my family history, my artistic interest in the songs of the Spanish Civil War, because the PCE invited me during its campaign; and because ine invited me to join the PCE — I had the feeling that it was a demonstration of friendship, of solidarity, of esteem, and I was glad of that.
Of course 1 didn't go into the PCE as if it was a church; I have a critical relationship with my party. What the mass media and many comrades call represents of historical which has many and complex aspects.
The in the different Wuete Bere communist parties vary a lot from one to another; but what interests me are the features orientation of these parties. 'The Alternative', to Barbara Heimweh and Alain Brossat of the French daily 'Rouge'.
lives: which pope.
undertaken by the Stalinists - wnich Is being undertaken orient towards the socialist democracy one of in my opinion.
socialist countries.
excessive excommuni- justified, I think.
favour!) and for everything Germany These more been into its finally WACTIO development Euroin the What's involved is an attempt to break out of the vicious circle of Stalinism, to develop a politics which relates to the traditions of the communist workers movement, and which relates more to the concrete conditions of the country where one inevitably means detaching oneself from the Soviet There is nothing surprising about the fact that this destalinisation is • all LIC others are dead. And we have all So... in a Stalinist manner (an accusation levelled comrade Carrillo), that this wish to prucipics of gOeS hand-in-hand with non-democratic methods, that it is pursued through decrees on unis which descend from the heights...
But these deficiencies are inevitable When one looks at things in East Germany - which still remains the reference point of my poncal outook - curocommunisin stands out inside the party, it is a big hope for many comrades in the Perhaps this hope is romantic, living but it's nevertheless The Stalinist bureaucracy which holds power in East Germany has a particular hate for the PCE. (this obviously isn't an argument in Its which happens around the PCI and the PCF far more than it has for world they bureaucrats feel LOLC threatened by comrade Berlinguer than by comrade Nixon. And I use the word 'comrade' for Nixon deliberately and ironically. I can't easily forget that some time ago comrade Brezhnev literally fell on the neck of this gentleman, embraced him and called him 'tovarich"
This gesture deeply affected us in East Germany, because it happened when the Vietnam war was reaching bloody climax and self-respecting would have clasped the hands of this criminal.
You know that the PCE abandoned the reference to Leninism at the time of its last conference. What do you think of this? Was there a discussion problem in the Hamburg branch, did you yourself vote on this question?
Don't ask me that kind of hypocrticial question when you already know the answer.
You know very well that as a member of the party I didn't vote on this question and not just me, outside Spain, but also my comrades there. LOu KnOW yCEY wC that it was announced by Carrillo while he was at a conference in an American university.
But you also know very well thai there are very lively discussions or this question, you know very well that the Catalan section have a reasonable position on that: not that fetishise Leninism in ahistorical way, but they don't want to throw out the baby with the bathwater and forget everything we owe to Lenin.
They have a real understanding of the historical October Revolution: also, they don't think that the position of the PCE on this question can result from a simple theoretical wheeze on the part of the leader of the party.
I'm going to Barcelona at the start of 1979 at the invitation comrades section of the PCE), to sing there and to discuss these problems with them.
In any case, I think we have to get rid of the habit of regarding comrades as salnts, only to them later.
find very apt Luxemburg said about the October Revolution: importance, limits; the immense contribution of Lenin and his comrades, but also the way in which its character was limited no by the historical conditions of the COCHICHe you wrote a song waien comes over ar a tribute to the Italian Communist Party (PCI). Since then there has been the PCI's attitude affair, its enlistment in a policy of national unity, STIS position in favour of an austerity policy. What do you think of all that!
Nothing COLICICIC enough information. I wrote this song while was stil in East Germany. while I was preparing for my concert tour in West Germany..
At that time I looked at the policy of the 'Eurocommunist' parties from the specific point of view of their influence on political relations in East Germany.
For instance, the conference of European CPs took place in Berlin not long before I left. Before it was held an agreement was reached that very Lic seeenes orme creaders woule be published in their entirety in Neues an Deutschland, the official organ of the East German CP.
Imagine the impact of this in East Germany read the speeches Marchals, orackers on ine su - LIST A edition) -LIST B • LIST C (£2.50)
Writing (£1.00)
in jail.
importance of the more what is going whether bourgeois the PSUC (Catalan Stalinist Rosa great historical but also its inevitable Germany.
impact.
The Moro on the adoption of a inhabitants, West Germany. i don't have In the the 20th century.
East in factories copiers - that sudden v one can of Carrillo, and Berlinguer in this rbookmartFIRST QUARTER 1979 The Bookmarx Club is now an established method for socialists to get the best of new socialist books at a big discount-and delivered to your door HOW IT WORKS. You send us £4.50 for which you will receive the books or List A below plus those on one other list of your choice. Extra lists can be obtained for £2.50 each. Don't delay, send in the form now with you subscription, you will save pounos on me reidi value or une books snow W Bisbee '17 by Robert Houston (no pape t2.00 * a bating of shing for anyone falle LIST E For Marx (Vol 1) by Yvonne Kap Michele but fo 127.50 Walraff, the Undesirable Journalist NAME ADOKES.
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people who say the same things in East Germany are put Now I live in the West, and I see things a bit differently. I'm much interested know ins-and-outs of the PCI's policy towards the youth, if it understands among them. or not it sides with the against them, if destalinisation is being pursued with methods. whether orientation towards socialist democ racy, rank and file democracy, is just tactical orientation intended deceive party militants more than the bourgeoisie or not.
On a different subject, we would lik to know what influence you thin Bahro's book The Alternative had in East Germany.
let East Germany by the time the book was published. So I can't do more than speculate on the basis of the information have from Bas On that basis, I think Bahro's book has had an immense machine for diffusing the "samizdat' has functioned in the same way as it did with my songs - which, in proportion to the number more widely circulated in East Germany than in What is true from them is still truer for The Alternative: prose gets out more widely than songs, in this case because it corresponds to the forms of social oppression... which are prosaic I'm told that Bahro's book has been reproduced in large quantities West, many people tend to forget that East Germany also lives in Germans have photo equipment and printing materials, although it is strictly forbidden to possess any machine for reproduction apart from the typewriter.
The machines which can be found duplicators, photoare controlled I the strictest fashion. And in spite of that Inese texts get our it suke tne saying. one who is thirsty can drink just as well out of the hollow of their hand Blood in the Streets (£1.00)
The Singing Flame by Ernie O'Malley Roberts e22 the Night by Michel Men in the Sun by Ghassan Kanafan wish to join/rejoin Bookman Please send list A + Lists) O Socialist Challenge 25 January 1979. page. 13
H THE QUEUE
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He is now a member of the Spanish Communist Party, although he lives in West Germany. Recently he spoke about the reasons for this, and also about the impact of Rudolf Bahro's book