Since 25th March 1971, when General Yahya Khan unleashed the Pakistan Army against the Bengali nation, the situation in West Pakistan has been deteriorating rapidly. The invasion of East Bengal has inevitably created a chronic recession in all sectors of industry in West Pakistan. Two principal factors have contributed to the present state of the economy: the colosal expenditure involved in the maintenance of the armed forces in East Bengal and the sharp decline of the Bengali market for West Pakistani manufactured goods.
Al the moment, the military dictatorship is sponding over obe milson rupees a day on the maintenance of tne armed forces in East Bengal. The task of these foroes is to carry out a ruthless programme involving the systematic massacre of large numbers of Bengalis, in order to terrorise the population and to crush the forces which are carrying out the strugele for national liberation. On the second point, the East Bengalis are no longer buying goods manufactured in West Pakistan. Superprofils have been wrung from this market in the last two decades, and the exploitation of East Bengal has directly financed the development of Karachi and the Punjab: A swift decline in the economy of West Pakistan followed the stagnation of trade in BengaL ATTACKS ON WORKERS The West Pakistani capitalists, however, refused to suffer any losses incurred as a result of the crisis and have taken Tull advantage of the opportunity to carry out a devastating attack on the standard of living of the working class and the peasantry. The bourgeoisie, with the help of Yahya's nuatary caque, has embarked on a programme of systematic and ruthless oppression, which has been manifested in both the public and private sectors of industry in West Pakistan.
The government departments have been forced to cut expenditure drastically. As a tesult the redundancy rate in this sector has shot up to 80-85% in the last few weeks. In Le pervere soctor, banks, bauery manuacng plants.
textile mills, sugar mills, printing presses and the whole of the service industry have been very badly hit In an attempt to maintain their profits the capitalists have taken extreme measures. they have ordered lock-out, clowd a whole number of plantic and sold them to the scrapyards on the prelext of underprodactice and st ofitahility of the units:
Retreachment of th GUST CE THISTES Wants by la on naTe become a March this year, in the textile industry alone, 400,000 workers have been arbitrarily thrown out of theit jobs. Recause of the hauled development of industry in genera..
once a worker is thrown out of a job, the likelihood of his Finding another is negligible.
The collusion of the military junta with the bourgeoisie is blatant, Lodet the present martial law regulations. arbitrary retrenchment of workers and lock-outs are illegal: yet no action is taken against the entrepreneurs when these acts occur, nor when workers are dismissed without the correct legal procedure being observed RISING PRICES An additional feature of the oppression is the deliberately created shortage of supply of commodities to the market. the resun be wus nas been that the price of consumer and other primary products has soared. thus ensuring superprofits to the capitalists. The following figures provide an estimate of some or the screases tosE nave taken place in the last three moaths:
Raw Cotzon-509; Matieries 400% Cloth-25%;
Petrol -25%; Mear-100%; Oil -30%: Matcher-100%;
Soup- 33% The stagnation of the coonomy is reflected in the sinking share prices, drastic cuts in all allocstions of funds for industrial projecis and a chronic shortage of strategic • mates, ror example, as a resut of the crisis in Fast Bengal, no cheap newsprint paper is being imported from toat arca.
REPRESSION Of course the regime itself has taken a series of measures in an attempt to crush any sign of militancy appearing among the workers. The crumbs thrown to pacify the masses in pends of felative prospenty such as tas relief for the lower income groups, have all been taken away. All political and trade union activity is banned, There is total press censorship, and contradictory reports in the newspapers are SONOR OUCHEERLE Landless tenants eking out a seagre existence by working for the feudal lords are being forcibly cocted from the estates. This is mainly achieved with the help of the police and the collusion of the local bureaucracy and the houmeoisie. Tear eas. batons and other instruments aarc been used by the forces of repression in carrying out these evictions.
MILITANCY OF WORKERS AND PEASANTS: THE SANDOZ STRIKE But the masses are sectoms win anger net as eard oppression and there has beer srong resistanoe in many cases. The peasants have vigorously opposed their oppression and armed clashes between police and tenants have taken Nace in the worth West Frontier Province. LaoJoros Nave been kidrapped and held to canson as a reprisal for the atrocities commilled aciinst The peassots. Arcady workers in many of the mass industries are resorting to mass strikes. The newlaney of the workers, arta Law notwittstanding. is rising and can be illustrated by a strike at a pharmaceutical plant of Sandoz in Hyderahad. 250 wotkers. 80 of them women, came out for a day, in contravention of the martial law regulations, demanding higher pay, better working conditions and the reinstatement of a worker who had recently heen sacked. The employers called in the local bureaucrats to "quell the disturhance. When the hews got round to the other industries in the area (Telephone and Telegraph Workshop and Indus Gas) the workers immediately intervened on behalf of the Sandoz employees. They threatened to call solidarity strikes in their industries, too if the bureaucrats contrived to interfere. The authorities and the employers backed down and the workers' demands were met in full. Similar actions have been succewful in other industries, Although strikes are illegal under the Time militant unions are so well organised that they confidently fight the hourgeoisie tooth and nail and come out victorious in their struggles. POLITICAL SITUATION are themselves hegemonised by different political grouping ranging from fanatical religious parties on the extreme right to the Macists on the left. The situation is further confused by the splits among the Maoists, For example C. R. Arlam's Pakistan Socialist Party supports the West Pakistani Army's invasion of East Bengal and Emits itself to propagandistic Worker Party) did some important work at the grassroots level but in the last two months bas capitulated to the West Pakistani bysteria against East Bengal.
However, despite this disarray in the revolutionary ranks. Chore are some sgniticant groupingi, predominantly Maoist, doing serious, mainly underground, work amongst the peasails and workers The student federations are also split according to their political affiliations. Numerous clashes have occurred between the religious fanatics (Jamaatis) and the left-wing groups led in the major universities by the Maoists.
After the general elections the hopes raised by the bourgeois opportunists, and specifically, Bhutto's People's Party-, mainly through the use of "left-wing rhetoric, have been slattered. The more conscious workers have seen through the vile deception of these leaders of "national stature" and stand now in total opposition to them. At the same time there has been a regroupient of the forces of crisis in East Bengal.
GOVERNMENT PROPAGANDA The State propaganda machine has reinforced this reaction by being ruthlessly efficient in West Pakistan in crenting mass hysteria agaurst the Bengali nation-. This has been done through the government-controlled newspapers which means nearly all of them, and the national radio and television. Twa recent examples of the blatant propaganda are the production of a 55 mirute colour fiction, purportine "atrocities committed by A wami League cadres, rebels and Indian intuitarors octote the invasion by the west Pakistan! armed forces. The other was the publication of a White Paper on che "Crazir in East Pakion", which is a massive concoction of lies, presented as data on the barbarities" of the "Awari League hoodlums, bad elements, saboteurs and ' It is asteworthy that the quorsilla fighters are more recently called "Indian agents". The savage attacks on the Hinda minority have hecome intensified and a systematic compaign is in operation to whip up mass religions hysteria against this minority. People are inveighed into joining the armed forces by being persuaded that they are carrying out a "holy war against the heathers" in detence of the fatherland.
As a resuit of this "national emergency", political life has become totally paralysed. The bourgeois parties impotently plead for the lifting of the restrictions on Iber activilies. Ibe Macists, after the stand taken by the Chinese burcascracy sapporting Yahya's actions, find themselves totally confuse 14 Lacking the analysis put so clearly by the theory of Permanent Revolution, they refuse to give support to the National liberation Movement until "the class character of the struggle has emetgod". However, because of the role played by the Chinese vis-a-vis Nixon, because of their support of the Ceylonese government and their diplomatic overtures to the Barmese clique led by General Ne Win, there is turmoil in the Maoists" ranks. It cannot be doubted that among the Macists there are genuine revolutionaries who are in the process of rethinking their whole political line in view of the events of the past few months, and a change in their orientation is possible.
All the indications poat towards the fact that the explosion in Bengal has produced a political terntentation in West Pakistan and deep-going change is taking place in the relation of foroes in the arente of class struggle. The transformation of this struggle into an annied confrontation in the not too distant future is more than a renote possibility.
—Mohd Hussein, writing from Karachi -OUTES rather than on trades as in Britain. Unions are federated according to the palitical loyalties of the emplayees 2. There has hean a split in Bhutto's People's Party. The left wing" has a "socialist rhetoric, while the main group, led oy Bhutto and backed w powortul business interests and fauce landloeds, has given up ait pretence of pursuing anything resembling • socialist programme. 3. The propaganda is quite sophisticated. Recently the role of the British Army in Northers Ireland has been equated with the operations of the West Fakiwani Army, The British have bean exposed as hypocrites and advised to put their own house in orbit. In this way the British press and BBC have been stripped of any credibility that they might have had under "normat circumstances The influence of the Wostern Press on the Western Pakistanis has been effectively destroyed 4. The Mooints' view is that Sheikh Mujib is cearly an agent of British and Amefican imperialism. Why wise, would these powers afford him such strong support?! The Magists claim that Mujib in fact tried to destroy the Left in Denget before 25th March through the agency of the Awami League forces, and that he would certainl ot have allowed the left to gain a foothold shier his victory Adamies and other West Pakistani indumnalists were protected by the Awemi League and large mobe were unloashed against the common Bengal, The Macists further belove that the evidency in uncontrovertible that before the invasion of Bengal by the armed farpes, a fascistic genocidal campaign agsinst the non-Bengali minority mainlo Urdu-sookice Biters, wes lunched, in which 100,000 people wore massacred." Some of these al lagations might be correct but lal Yahya's class role is obscured, and (bl Marx and Lenin are discarded on the question of self-determination red Background books to the events which are transforming the East PAKISTAN-Military Rule or People's Power:
by Tariq Ali. The background to the current struggle for power in BanglaDesh, recently published in French and Italian with a new introduction. Also available in Swedish. [£2.75] PERMANENT REVOLUTION: by Leon Trotsky [E1.05] THE DEATH AGONY OF CAPITALISM: by Leon Trotsky [20p] TO THE TOILERS OF THE EAST: by Leon Trotsky [7%p) LETTER TO THE INDIAN WORKERS: by Leon Trotsky [7%p] PEACEFUL COEXISTENCE AND WORLD REVOLUTION:
THE CATASTROPHE IN INDONESIA -Three articles on the fatal consequences of Communist Party policy (20p) Other reading.
THE STRUGGLE IN BENGAL AND THE FOURTH INTERNATIONAL (IMG Publication) [10p] PAKISTAN-CLASS & COLONY: Nations | New Left THE STRUGGLE IN BANGLA DESH: Ali Review No. 63 From RED BOOKS, 182 Pentonville Rosd, London N.T. Add 12%% for postage and packing. Send s.a.e. for free catalogue.
- In brief