news of the workers movement ana the. fourth international
ITALY ACTIONS AGAINST FASCIST VIOLENCE On the evening of April 16 a young studenf was shot dead by a fascist in Milan. Immediately after the killing, massive and determined protest demonstrations began; they continued during successive days in Milan and many other cities. The repressive forces intervened very strongly in these demonstrations; one young worker was killed when he was run over by a carabinieri truck; many others were wounded by gunshots. The tragedy of April 16 began almost casually. Groups of youth belonging to the Movimento Studentesco (Student Movement, a far-left organization) were returning home after a demonstration. Suddenly, one group of students was approached by a small car, the passengers of which began to insult and provoke the demonstrators. Some of the demonstrators reacted by breaking one of the car's windows. Three persons then got out of the car, all of them known as fascist
ORT:thugs. While two of them moved away rapidly, the third drew a pistol and shot Caludio Varalli, a student at the institute of tourism, in cold blood. Within several minutes, the square in which the murder had occurred was filled with hundreds, and then thousands, of people. When the news spread that a rightist daily newspaper had published a distorted account of the events, groups of demonstrators attacked the offices of the paper, blocking the exit of distribution trucks. The workers of the newspaper themselyes intervened, forcing the managers to publish a new edition in which a statement by the typographers appeared giving a version of the events that agreed with that of the demonstrators. The following day the schools were closed in many cities; many factories were shut down, and there were very combative demonstrations. About 50,000
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A NEW STAGE IN WORKERS
Italian section of the Fourth International), who have been the targets of fascist violence in various cases (in Rome, Naples, and Florence during the past few months, for example and participated in the front ranks of the mobilizations after the murder in Milan, have not adopted the slogan of the centrists. Instead, they are developing their intervenSRI LANKA STRUGGLES? January 31, 1975, marked an important new stage in the history of the working class movement in this country. On the last day of 1974, the progovernment trade-union center, known as the Joint Committee of Trade Union Organizations (JCTUO), had announced a token strike of their unions for January 31 in pursuance of the "Twenty-Eight Demands" that they have publicized from time to time since July 1973. (See INPREGOR, Nos. 18 and 21) They chose to emphasize three demands as "immediate demands": *Take-over of the textile industry, company-owned estates and banks; *An immediate payment of Rs 75 to all employees who draw a salary of less than Rs 800; *Payment of Rs 2.50 for every point increase in the
Cost of Living Index. In a leaflet dated January 20, 1975, the Ceylon Mercantile Union (CMU) expressed the view that the JCTUO could not be expected to launch any genuine struggle on its "demands, " since it was controlled by the three parties represented in the government, namely the Sri Lanka Freedom party (SLFP), the Lanka Sama Samaja party (LSSP), and the Communist party (Moscow). The JCTUO, said the CMU, "is essentially a tool of the government." For that reason, the CMU decided to call a token strike on January 31 to focus mass attention not only on the three demands publicized by the JCTUO, but more so on others, namely: *For the ending of the Emergency and the restoration of democratic rights and civil liberties, including the right to strike; * For the repeal of repressive and reactionary legislation like the Public Security Act and the Criminal Justice Commissions Act; *For the unconditional release of all political prisoners;
tion on the basis of two central points: the workers united front (as opposed to the "democratic" antifascist front) and self-defense of the workers and students, as opposed to refusing to respond adequately to fascist violence, as the CP continues to do in each attempt to hold back the response to the actions of the fascist commandos. m
_by BALA TAMPOE *For the reinstatement of all workers dismissed under the Essential Services Order and the restoration of all rights taken away from workers under cover of the Emergency; *For compulsory food production on the plantations; *For adequate rations of essential foodstuffs at reasonable prices; *For the restoration of the eight-hour day as a maximum under the law. The CMU also called upon other unions not associated with the JCTUO to take part in a token strike on January 31 on the same or similar demands. The CMU thus posed the question of a token general strike of the entire organized working class on Jonuary 31 to recover freedoms as well as to profect the living standards of the masses of the people, including the working class. It wos in that situation that, on January 29, the very day on which a general membership meeting of the CMU was held to endorse the token strike decision of the General Council of the union, the JCTUO leadership hastily announced that they had decided "to suspend the token strike scheduled for January 31. " They published a statement to the effect that they had met with the prime minister and members of the cobinet on January 28 and that the positions of the government on the three "immediate demands" they had "presented" was as follows: 1. The question of nationalizing essential industries had "engaged the attention of the parties of the United Front and a decision on this" would be communicated to the JCTUO. 2. An additional payment of Rs 25 would be made "to all employees drawing a salary of less than Rs 800 a month in the government, corporation, local government, and cooperative sectors; and
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