PALACE FACES A CRISIS by ABBAS TARIQ In Morocco today the crisis of the regime is combining with the crisis of imperialism, one of whose most explicit manifestations is world capitalist inflation. In Morocco, as elsewhere in economically peripheral areas, the inflationary push asserts itself as repeated attacks on the standard of living of the masses. The deterioration of buying power has been very sharp, despite wage increases on the order of 15 percent that were won by a combative proletariat. The economic and social review Lamalif (No. 66, November 1974) revealed that "the wholesale price index rose 5.4% in July, while the retail price index rose 1.3%, which brings to 14% the retail price increase between July 1973 and July 1974 and a wholesale price increase of 21.6% during the same period. " This publication stressed that "if the figures for August and September were made public, the increase would be doubled or tripled, even given the adjustments that are made in the official index. In fact, the distortions of this index are such that it no longer has any meaning; the state services themselves recently demanded that another index better reflecting reality be set up. (The index now in use was initiated in 1959.) How can an economy that depends essentially on exploitation of the soil and the subsoil and is oriented basically toward exports escape from dependency and avert being subjected to the effects of the crisis of the capitalist system? If the state of foreign trade for the first six months of 1974 is examined, it is seen that Moroccan imports increased 73% (from 2, 215 million DH in 1973 to 3,829 million DH in 1974; 1 DH = USSO.24). During the same period, exports rose only 66% (from 26
= 0 HASSAN I 2,037 million DH to 3, 373 million DH). The deficit thus passed from 178 million to 456 million DH. The growth in exports is especially significant in that it results above all from the export of spring wheat (the value of which increased from 144 million to 414 million DH), sugar (from 174 million to 311 million DH), oil (from 98 to 432 million DH), vegetable oil, and lumber. The value of exports of semifinished products rose from 573 million to 978 million DH, an increase of 65.8%. In 1974 export of vegetable products represented only 27.99% of total exports (as compared with 51.4% in 1973). On the other hand, export of phosphates now accounts for 51.7% of exports as compared with 25.11% in 1973. The value of phosphate exports rose from 388 million DH to 1,514 million DH, an increase of 290%. Nevertheless, the increase in exports is far from sufficient to compensate for the deterioration of the trade balance. Imperialist control & plunder French imperialism structures its intervention in Morocco around the banking system. The major imperialist banking concerns are the Banque de Paris et des Pays Bas (500 million transactions), the Banque Rothschild, the Banque de Suez (to which must be added the BNDE, which is under the control of foreign capital), the Morgan Guarantee Trust, the Société Financière Internationale, not to mention the operations of the World Bank, which is controlled by the United States. Of the twenty-three banks operating in Morocco, twenty are controlled by France or the United States.
Union Nationale des Forces Populaires (National Union of Popular Forces),
Union Socialiste des Forces Populaires (Socialist Union of Popular Forces), arose in 1972 from the Rabat branch of the UNFP. Principal leader: Bouabid.
Union Marocaine du Travail (Moroccan Union of Labor), trade union whose apparatus is under the influence of the UNFP. Principal leader: Ben Sedik.
Parti du Progrès et du Socialisme (Party of Progress and Socialism, formerly n the automobile industry and related branches, General Tire, Chrysler, Renault, and Goodyear ave recently moved in along with Berliet and Fiat. The mining industry, with the exception of phoshates, is under imperialist domination: - Fluorine: Omnium Nord-Africaine (ONA), a holding of the Banque de Paris et des Pays Bas; Ugine-Kuhlmann; Preussag (West Germany; - Copper: France and Japan; silver mine owned ay ONA; cobalt (ONA); - Oil: Ente Nazionale Idrocarburi (ENI, Italy); - Manganese: the Zellidja mines (Penarroya). Finally, the tourist industry is dominated by the "Club Méditerrannée-Trigano, " controlled by the Banque Rothschild and ITT. These few figures impel the least credulous to ask themselves some questions about the reality of a "national" Moroccan economy. One of the consequences of the domination of the rural regions is unemployment and an exodus to the cities. In the Haouz region alone the National Immigration Office estimates the number of people prepared to look for work in capitalist Europe af 10,000. The market in "human commodities" is a fruitful one. There are now more than 500, 000 Moroccan workers in capitalist Europe. As for unemployment, it has become banal to say that it is structural. It affects more than 45% of the active urban population; more than 50% of small peasants are affected by underemployment. "Moroccan" industry presently accounts for only 11% of gross production and provides (according to official figures) only 127, 000-157, 000 jobs. While imperialism, U.S. imperialism in the first place, intervenes directly in setting down the economic and political orientation that the country is supposed to fake, it does not do this in order to aid
TABLE OF ORGANIZATIONS UNFP USFP UMT PL Parti Istiqlaal (Independence party). PPS the Communist party). Principal leader: Ali Yata.
the independent development of a national bourgeoisie conscious of its own interests. It does it primarily to defend its own interests, which in the long run are threatened by the anarchy and weakness of the existing regime. This is the only way to understand the two attempted coups (July 1971 and August 1972). The aim of these two warning blows, which occurred in the framework of options taken by the Pentagon and the CIA, was to head off the rise of the mass movement and to avoid both the bourgeois solutions of the Istiqlaa! party and the solutions of the petty bourgeoisie of the UNFP. U.S. imperialism's objective in July 1971, and even more clearly in August 1972, was to destroy the anachronistic apparatus of the monarchy and replace it with a strong state militarily capable of damming up both the claims of the various opposition political groups and the rise of struggles of the working masses. If one of these coups had succeeded, the strong state that would have emerged from it would have moved to open and extend the Moroccan market to the whole AraboAfrican economy. Imperialism cannot content itself with the Moroccan market alone, which is too narrow either to absorb the capitalist industrial surplus-product or to intensify the investments of international financial companies. Imperialism has always dreamed of making Morocco an important pole in its economic and political strategy. The obstacles presently standing in the way of such designs are the weakened monarchy and the hybrid and timid bourgeoisie. After the failure of the two coups, there was no alternative but to seek another road. The safest road was the construction of an alliance of the ruling classes and layers against the disinherited masses: against the proletariat, which was becoming more and more militant (with protracted strikes in the mining result of a split from the Istiqlaal party. Principal leader: Ibrahim.
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MOROCCO industry and among the dockers, crane operators, and truck drivers, who outflanked the frade-union apparatus of the UMT); and against the poor peasantry (which confronted the army in Oulad Khalifa and Sidi Sliman). This alliance thus compelled the autocratic monarchy to try to put an end to the political struggles being waged by the radicalized youth of the high schools and the university and to the armed struggle that was arising in the Atlas Mountains, unleashed by radical nationalist elements who broke in practice with the legalism of the UNFP. The present turn The monarchy promulgated a "plan of economic initiative" in order to offer some so-called response to the crisis of the Moroccan economy. According to the monarchy's own declarations, this plan "is to be applied to a liberal economy and therefore has an indicative character marked by the absence of constraints and thus the greatest latitude in the choices and actions of economic agents. " Fundamentally, this whimsy about indicative planning will only perpetuate the same industrial, agricultural, financial, and fiscal choices as before. The annual growth rate for gross domestic production has been set at 7.5% for the period 1973-77 (which represents twice the previously recorded rate). The overall increase in investments foreseen in the plan is 29,000 million DH, with an average annual rate of investment of 18%, rising to 23% by the end of the plan. The comments this plan calls for would be numerous if it were not for the one enormous question that must be raised right from the beginning: Where will the investment funds be found? The 29,000 million DH in investment funds that is called for and normally should have been raised has not at all been collected. Sales of phosphates, whose price has quadrupled (reaching S68 a ton) can be a source of only 4, 500 million DH, the best part of which has to be diverted to the compensation fund whose function is to maintain the prices of cereals, sugar, oil, and fertilizer. Foreign capitalists, solicited with great urgency and attracted by the prospect of big superprofits, are hesitating. The Arab investments promised by the oil emirates are so far very low. Abu Dhabi has advanced only 150 million DH; Saudi Arabia has granted a $50 million loan. The Arab dollars are being sent elsewhere. But how much of these funds will actually be usable?
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The plan insists on the development of "modern agriculture, " that is, agriculture that is essentially oriented toward export products and that is consequently buffeted by the fluctuation of world market prices. Moroccanization In the final analysis, the burden of the objectives of this plan can be summed up as a "Moroccanization" operation that the regime had already launched some four years ago. This formula conjures away a whole orientation subjected to the imperatives of the imperialist economy. But two aspects of this operation should be stressed: First, the encouragement of the purchase of small and middle-sized companies from the former colons (this has some mobilizing potential and alienates a middle-layer commercial bourgeoisie from the regime); and second, the offer of guarantees to the various nationalist currents that the recovery of the national product will really and continuously occur. This "Moroccanization" operation is not unrelated to the crisis of imperialism and the exacerbation of interimperialist competition. The monarchy wants to play on these conjunctural interimperia list contradictions. But since Morocco itself is not a significant power, all these maneuvers will amount to nothing. This is a policy on which from time to time many an Arab regime has broken its neck. Nevertheless, the gimmick of "Moroccanization" has also been taken up by the opposition (Istiqlaal, UNFP, USFP, PPS). For the monarchy, whose back is to the wall, the launching of this plan was dictated by the need to rapidly defend its own interests from those of the bourgeoisie. In the final analysis, the role of the technocrats in the planning system consisted of studying the situation and proposing a rationalization of the plunder of the country by sketching out a bill of fare and profits that would take account of the interests of foreign capital (imperialism), comprador capital (the palace and the parasitic layers), and "national" capital (the bourgeoisie of the Istiqlaal). Apparently, these technocrats made a mistake in their optimism and idealism, for one year after the announcement of the plan (which had satisfied the bourgeoisie), the regime is gradually abandoning it! The abandonment of the plan, or more exactly the switch in options on industrialization and "agricultural development, " is explained by the reality of imperialist domination of the Moroccan economy. Last November 19 King Hassan, referring to the economic difficulties Morocco is experiencing because of the "price increases in raw materials, "
stated that the country would careen into disaster if it did not alter its mode of living. "Only a grand effort in the area of agriculture will be able to save us from catastrophe and win us prosperity, dignity, and respect among nations, " he said. For the regime, the solution to the vital problems of undernourishment, employment, and generalized poverty requires the development of the agricultural sector. The ruling clique is counting on the facilities for access of Moroccan goods to the European market established through the customs convention signed in 1969 with the European Economic Community. (The development of exports is presented as
"inevitable necessity and precondition for economic growth. ") The bourgeoisie of the towns, which had believed in the sand castle of the 1973-77 five-year plan, is now being asked to invest in the primary sector. It has to throw itself into expanding landed property, developing an agro-industrial sector, and assuring a significant rate of exports. Apart from a few fine points, the economic map will remain nearly the same as before: Imperialism will retain privileged control of the industrial, mining, and banking sectors; the same parasitic comprador sectors will cluster around imperialism. The bourgeoisie will try to accumulate in the agrarian sector by developing and diversifying the capitalist mode of production in the countryside. This will lead to an extension of the domination of the capitalist mode of production over the whole of society, especially through the growth of agricultural production and productivity. The beginning of the application of an agrarian reform will engender the development of a layer of kulaks, of middle-layer proprietors, the indispensable hookup in this domination. For the moment, the representatives of the bourgeoisie (the Istiqlaal party) and their historic allies, " the UNFPand the PPS, have not reacted to these about-faces by the regime. They seem to be counting more and more on the prospect of their integration into the state apparatus in the near future. The Sahara operation Given its inability to fulfill its economic promises, the regime has cleverly launched a series of unprecedented political operations. These operations are directed at the bourgeoisie, petty bourgeoisie, and Stalinist political formations. The first is "operation Sahara"; the second consists of some measures of liberalization.
The monarchy needed a major trump card to break out of its isolation and move away from the brink of collapse and decomposition on which its regime was teetering. Following Sadat's example, the monarchy chose the "territorial question." The Spanish-controlled Sahara was the choice prize that was to constitute the pole around which national consciousness would be polarized and crystallized. Since the end of 1974, the Schara has become the number one theme of domestic and foreign policy. The proclaimed objective is national liberation, or more exactly, the completion of national liberation by the bankrupt monarchy. Hassan's cleverness lies in the timing of his move. Taking advantage of the deep response of the masses to the struggles of the African peoples of Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, and Angola, of the defeat of Portuguese fascism, and of the October War (in which Morocco got off cheaply by sending a few battalions), he succeeded for a time in forging unity around the throne by putting forward the theme of liberation of the Sahara. In the space of a few months this mystifying theme managed to unite behind Hassan the sworn enemies of the throne, the Boucettas, the Bouabids, and the Ali Yatos. Overnight, these general secretaries and presidents of parties, these "glorious oppositionists, "became royal emissaries defending the "patriotic and national cause" at the United Nations and before other governments, with the same status and the same rights as the ministers of the palace. It was not long before this regime hated by the masses, this lackey regime, this watchdog of imperialism, became "national" and "patriotic" in their eyes. Once again, befrayal and opportunism came to the fore, endorsing the crimes of the throne. The list of these crimes and massacres is a long one: the suppression of the mass insurrection in the Rif in 1958 and in Casablanca in 1965, the massacre of the peasants in Ouled Khalifa, the execution of Dakhoun (a UNFP militant and fighter of the Palestinian resistance) and fourteen of his comrades, the shooting of striking miners in Jerrada and of agricultural workers in Sidi Sliman, the execution of seven nationalists last August 27. Hassan did want such obvious groveling and servility from these parties. Having gotten more from them than he had hoped on the Sahara question, he had only to move to the second phase of his strategy; for the aim of the ruling camarilla was clear from the beginning: to seek the broadest possible support both nationally and internationally to impose a negotiated solution on Spanish fascism.
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MOROCCO The regime's objective was to bring a part of the Sahara under its administration and preserve the economic and military interests of imperialism in the region, all the while intensifying the fusion of comprador capital with imperialist capital through stepping up the exploitation of the phosphate and petroleum deposits of the region. In fact, a new economic reality has arisen in the Sahara since the discovery in 1964 of phosphate, iron ore, natural gas deposits, and, most recently, off-shore oil. The Bouakraa and Tichli phosphate deposits are among the richest in the world: 3,300 million tons (exploited by Krupp, producing 10 million tons a year). The oil in the Adiat Amercaba region near Smara is exploited by the CGG. The INI controls the ferrous ore centers in Rio de Oro, whose deposits are estimated at more than 70 million tons, the iron content of the ore reaching 65 percent. Hassan's operation succeeded partially; the intense diplomatic bludgeoning managed to produce an overwhelming UN vote postponing the Spanish plan for a referendum on self-determination in the Sahara• The International Court in The Hague gave its advice and worked out in the smoky language of international bourgeois law a neocolonial pact between the Spanish fascist bandits and their apprentices Hassan and Ould Dadah. To gain credit for this plan and to show that his ambitions did not go beyond it, Hassan rejected anyisupport to the armed struggle in Sahara and reassured imperialism. In a press conference last September 17 he stated: "/ have already asked the Spanish either to police their own territory, for it still is their territory, or to allow me the freedom to prevent the secessionists from acting, because I know the people of the FLS (Sahara Liberation Front). My troops are in large part down there to do a policing job if the Spanish government does not do it. "I want the German interests with investments in the Sahara to know that as far as 1 am concerned it is not only Spanish interests that are involved. There are the interests of all the financial groups that have invested in the Sahara and in phosphates. "
No commentary is necessary.
Neither the PPS nor the USFP nor the UNFP reacted.
Once again they did not consider the point essential. For them, any bargaining with the throne is acceptable, provided the throne deigns to allow them to sit side by side with it on the government benches of the future parliament.
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Liberalization measures The regime was not blinded by its own success (in the Sahara, in options for economic development). The only thing remaining was to establish the elements for politically capitalizing on the gains already made by its strategy and for breaking out of its isolation. The regime itself realizes that neither the throne nor the big bourgeoisie nor the Stalinist or reformist current can have any success in holding back the rise of struggles unless some adaptation to the period is made. In order to avoid being trapped in its incapacity to contain the present struggles and the struggles to come, the monarchy had to seek an alliance with the political parties. The convergence of the interests of the monarchy and those of the opposition had to be effected through a sharing of political power. The royal promises concerning the establishment of a parliament by October 1975 and a government of national union beginning in January 1975 must be seen in this framework. In making this move the monarchy showed how well it understands the reformist, legalist, and collaborationist character of these political formations. The throne understood how much it still retains the ability to isolate the political parties and render them incapable of basing themselves on the struggles of the masses in order to shift the relationship of forces in their favor. The regime controls the process of "liberalization" from top to bottom, laying down the dates and conditions of its implementation. Manifestly, the regime is not giving way to panic, for the relationship of forces is still favorable to it. It showed this by authorizing the formation of the PPS, which amounted to a de facto legalization of the thricebanned Communist party. It made a similar demonstration by lifting the ban on the Rabat branch of the UNFP, which was reconstituted as the USFP.
No one should be fooled. None of these concessions were made under the pressure of the organized mass movement. In fact, while authorizing these parties to raise their heads, the regime executed their radical, extremist elements. Since Hassan has extended his hand to these parties and promised them that he will share power with them, they are remaining silent. They are promising the masses that many changes will be granted by a government of national unity based on a common program and placed under the control of the monarchy.
To be continued.
RESOLUTION ADOPTED BY THE
INTERNATIONAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
OF THE FOURTH INTERNATIONAL
The following