DENMARK WORKERS DEMAND: The slogan "Out with Hartling! Out with Hartling!" was heard throughout a large part of Copenhagen on November 26. The cry against the Liberal party head of government was shouted continually by the 120,000 workers who assembled in front of the parliament building to protest the high rate of unemployment and the goverment's economic policies. The November 26 demonstration was the largest in Denmark since 1956, when 200, 000 workers took to the streets to protest against a Social Democratic government that had enacted a wage agreement after the workers had rejected it. Workers came to the demonstration from all over the country, some leaving early in the morning to reach the rally at 44
The trajectory that the new state will follow will depend on the relationship of forces between those elements favorable to the well-being of the bureaucratic petty bourgeoisie and those elements who are conscious of the present impasse and will thus opt for the road of mobilization of the masses on an anticapitalist basis. Since April 25 we have already written that a dotted class line runs through a movement like the PAIGC. Little by little this line is becoming more precise -around such decisive questions as whether to develop a classical army or peoples militias, what compromises to make with neocolonial Africa, and even on the question of democracy in discussions. It is to be expected that there will be a Maoist development in the Cape Verde section of the PAIGC as a result of emigration of intellectuals to Europe, and there will be an attraction among the petty-bourgeois layers to the economic power of the USSR. Nevertheless, in the present phase, these political expressions are not presenting any resistance to the fidal wave of nationalist ideology. Rather, they are adapting to it. It remains to be seen whether in the course of events there will emerge genuine class-struggle currents that, basing themselves on the fifteen years of struggle, seek to remobilize the Guinean masses around anticapitalist objectives and foster a clear comprehension of the regional and international implications of the revolutionary process. D
OLL the Ethers the parliament, which began at 3:00 p.m. In Copenhagen itself, more than 25,000 workers walked off the job earlier in the day to march through the city and converge on the rally site in factory or trade-union contingents. The demonstrators stood for more than two hours in the rain listening to speeches by trade unionists and representatives of the workers parties. The November 26 action had been planned for some time, It was initiated by, the construction workers unions in Copenhagen, Arhus, and Odense and by the Arbejdernes Faellesorganisation, an umbrella organization for all the trade unions in Copenhagen.
DENMARK The major force behind the action was Formandsinitiativet (Chairmen's Initiative), a body of local trade-union leaders dominated by the trade-union fraction of the Danish Communist party, which saw it as a means of outflanking the Social Democrats. And in fact, the Social Democratic leaders remained hostile (or at best neutral) toward the demonstration until the last moment, when they won concessions on its technical organization and then decided to participate. The November 26 demonstration was the third major manifestation of working-class militancy this year. In May more than 200, 000 workers went on strike against a government-sponsored tax reform (see INPRECOR, No. 4, July 18) and in October more than 35,000 workers launched solidarity strikes with 400 workers who were fined by the Labor Court for having engaged in "illegal" strikes (see INPRECOR, No. 11, October 31). The significance of the three mass actions against the government's anti-workingclass policy is more than simply conjunctural. If represents a more profound tum in the Danish social situation. The current wave of worker militancy in capitalist Europe is now affecting even traditionally peaceful Denmark, where the workers are beginning to organize opposition to the bourgeoisie's attempts to make the workers bear the costs of stagnation and the general crisis of capitalism. The roots of the government's antiworker policy lie in the worst recession in the Danish economy since the 1930s. Because of the structural weakness of the Danish economy, the international capitalist crisis is being felt very sharply. Throughouf the 1960s the Danish government had problems with an increasing balance of payments deficit. These problems were acutely intensified by the rapid rise in oil prices, because Denmark depends on oil for 90 percent of its total energy consumption. Unlike the other Scandinavian countries, Denmark does not produce any commodifies that are currently scarce on the world market, and the result has been a 20 percent decrease in the terms of trade for the Danish capitalists during the past ten months. This in turn has meant a drastically worsened competitive position for Danish export industries, a problem that can now be solved only through an extremely tough policy against the working class. Caught between rapidly rising production costs and increasing competition on the world market, the Danish cap¡talists have said "no" to any wage increases. Govemment policy has been aimed exclusively at bolstering the export industries; the effects of the recession on the industries producing for home consumption have been allowed to assert themselves without any government interference. In fact, there have been drastic cutbacks in public spending. The result has been a massive wave of layoffs (running at an average of 4, 000 workers a week during the past three months) and an unemployment figure of 8 percent of the registered work force; in some industries, like construction, the unemployment rate is as high as 12 percent. In addition, the government has threatened to take another step against the workers during the upcoming national wage negotiations, declaring that if so-called zero-solutions are not reached (that is, agreements providing for no wage increase at all), the regime itself will intervene to impose such solutions. And this at a time when the annual rate of inflation is running at 18 percent! It is this development that has impelled the Danish working class to militant class struggle and even to massive political demonstrations demanding the ouster of the government. The economic crisis and the response of the workers have also had big repercussions within the labor movement that have posed life-or-death questions for the Social Democracy. The Social Democracy has been the major governmental party in Denmark since the second world war, and the Social Democratic leaders have grown so senile that they have difficulty even understanding what is going on. Up to now they have maintained their right-wing positions in spite of the left turn among the workers. They are still publicly advocating an incomes policy, telling the workers that they have to tighten their belts in order to save the economy. This was clearly expressed even during the November 26 demonstration. Anker Jorgensen, chairman of the Social Democratic party, who spoke for his party at the demonstration, was jeered throughout his whole speech. And no wonder! He told the 120, 000 workers that "if is okay to demonstrate, but demonstrations shouldn't be held just for their own sake. What is also needed is serious politics, " which means a Social Democratic government carrying out an incomes policy. These words From a labor "statesman" were greeted with the derision they deserved. The policy of the Social Democrats is probably aimed at achieving a coalition government consisting of themselves, the present goverment party, and eventually the Radical Left, another bourgeois party. Given the present developments within the working class, this policy places in jeopardy the Social Democracy's traditionally hegemonic position within the workers movement. If the Social Democrats continue their present course, it is likely that this position will be lost. Already the two other large working-class parties, the SF (Socialistisk Folkeporti -Socialist Peoples party) and the Communist party, particularly the latter, are rapidly gaining ground. Although each of these parties has a purely reformist policy, they are both seen by broader and broader layers of workers as real leaders of the struggle. That is because they are the ones that have created the opposition bodies within the unions and are taking the initiatives in the workers' response to bourgeois attacks on their real wages and employment.
45