(The following statement was issued December 26, 1976, by the United Secretariat of the Fourth International.]
The Fourth International hails the release of two political prisoners, Corvalán and Bukovsky, which has long been working class opinion demanded by throughout the world. It denounces the backed by the gogovernment of Chile, vernment of the United States, as responsible for the murder and torture of thousands of Chilean political prisoners. In agreeing to this exchange, the only aim of this inhumane regime was to utilize the arrangement for anti-Communist propaganda purposes.
the Fourth International likewise de ounces the evnical wav in which th Soviet bureaucracy accepted the deal, which helps reactionary circles in the capitalist countries to identify the political regimes of Pinochet's Chile and the USSR, an identification that we categorically reject. Once again it is confirmed that the repressive actions of the Kremlin are the biggest aid to anti-Communist and antisocialist propaganda throughout the world.
In making the trade of Bukovsky for Corvalán, the Brezhnev regime has implicitly recognized Bukovsky's status as a political prisoner, a status that had been denied when he was imprisoned and forcibly confined to a psychiatric hospital.
The expulsion of Bukovsky from the Soviet Union comes several months after the expulsion of Plyushch and other Soviet dissidents; at the same time repression is stepped up against various other oppositionists. These actions illustrate the repressive character of the Moscow regime.
The Fourth International calls upon supporters of freedom of expression throughout the world to intensify the struggle for the release of all political prisoners in the Soviet Union, for their right to live in their country and defend their opinions there. This is an essential part of the struggle for the reestablishment of socialist democracy in the Soviet Union and in the other bureaucratized workers states.
The Fourth International notes that several Communist parties in Western Europe have taken positions against the imprisonment of oppositionists or dissidents in the Soviet Union. The Fourth International demands that these parties translate their restrained verbal positions into vigorous action. We call on them to organize mass demonstrations for the release of all those imprisoned, to support the workers in Poland imprisoned or fired from their jobs for having gone on strike, to demand the withdrawal of troops of the
Copean
VLADIMIR BUKOVSKY
LUIS CORVALAN
Warsaw Pact countries from Czechoslovakia. Their opposition to the Soviet bureaucracy's denial of worker's democracy will, however, continue to lack credibility as long as they do not permit the existence of tendencies and free expression in the mass political and trade union organizations which they control.