foreseeable future, our society should be built on a combination of socialisen and democracy, and that specitically the development of Marxism and scientific Communiem will allow crcation of the BRITISH CP The reaction of the British Communist Party has been to declare that they oppose dealing with dissidents like Solzhenitsyn by administra tive and punitive methods: in our view, dissi dents should he handled by political discussion. (The Times, 14 February), However, this protest is only an abstract plea intended for puhlie consumption. After all, it would be difficult for them to explain that the Soviet bureaucracy cannot behave otherwise, for fear of exposing its past crimes and revealing the repressive character of the regime. Any rea discussion would have to take up not just the present reactionary positions of Solzhenitsyn, but the whole history of bureaucratic dictator ship which Solzhenitsyn refers to in his own No, our task is not to give advice to the Soviet bureaucracy about howin its own interest and in the interest of its friends who scck alliances-it should behave a little mote discreetly, Our task, and that of any real communit, is to explain why, concretely, it is impossible for the Soviet bureaucracy to allow any criticism; why they can't combat reactionary ideas in a communist way; and why so many million tons of coal, plus so many dams built, plus so miny peasants educated, is not - necessarily equal to socialism. On the contrary, the building of socialism demands above all else the active iovolvement of the mass of the working people-that is to say, the utmost development of workers" democracy ar all Frunce's colonial problem' flared dramaticully aguin last week when police opened fire on a group of strikers in the Caribbean island of Martinique, killing one agricultural Inbourer and wounding another two.
Martinique, one of the group of islands known as the Antilles, has been the scene of a series of strikes since late last year. The major focus in this strike wave has been the struggle of the workers at the France-Antider newspaper, one of a chain owned by a tormer Nazi collaborator und MP, M. Herant. But numerous other groups have been drown into struggle during this period-notably workers on the sugar plantations, building workers, and electricity workers, This movement culminated on Tuesday 12 February in a general strike called by the ofticia trade union organisations. Limited by the burcaucrats to a one-day event, it was intended as a kind of warning shot to the bosses to make a few more concessions if they wanted to avoid trouble in the future, However many workers opposed this perspective, recognising the need for an ongoing focus to unite the various struggles, It was one of these workers, Perrier Inany, who died when police opened fire on a picket trying to keep the strike going on one of the sugar piantations.
The French authorities are now quite clearly preparing to use the betrayals of the trade unior leaders to mount a witch-hunt against the leading rank-and-file militants. Last Friday, a statement published by the Ministry for Overseas Territories claimed that: "The trade union organisations have been outflanked by wildcar groups, as is shown by a leaflet distributed hy the Communist Party, which calls on its supporters to stay calm and beware of provoca eurs, The number one target here is the GRS (Groupe Revolution Socialiste-Sacialist Revol ution Group), a Trotskyist group which recently affiliated to the Fourth International, What most alarms the French authorities about the GRS is that while its influence in the trade unions is still quite limited, its internationalist, socialist perspective has had a dramatic impact in the strugeics of the last few months It has been particularly prominent in organising support around the France-Antilles strike, and perhaps its grentest achievement is that it has successfully challenged the traditional rivalry fostered by the authorities between the islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe. The GRS • receily played the leading role in organising a joint strike of school students on the two island The latest struggles have raised very sharply the question of permanent revolution and the need to develop 3 socialist perspective for the struggle against French colonialism. In connertion with this, the GRS at its recent conference adopted the slogan for a federation of Socialist States of the Caribbean. It is precisely because such a perspective cuts through nationalist rhetoric and poses the need for a sharp break with Imperialism that the authorities are now preparing to crack down on the revolutionaries But the massive response to the death of Perrier Imarty shows that this will by no means be an easy task. Combined with the domestic problems of the French regime, it is no wonder that the parallel of Algeria is already being