THE SUDAN -- BETWEEN NASSERISM AND SOCIALISM
By Nathan Weinstock new governmental team are remindful in various ways of the beginning of the Egyptian revolution of 1952 and the regime of General Kassem in Iraq•
The military nature of the putsch, the immediate naming of fourteen officers to key posts, the dissolving of political parties, the death penalty for strikers -- all resemble the first steps taken by the Egyptian "Free Officers."
On the other hand, the collaboration of the powerful Sudanese Communist party (the main force in the 1964 uprising) with the new regime
: -- at least three members of the cabinet belong to the CP -- suggest comparison with the Iraqi regime of 1958. Like the late General Kassem, the new head of the government, Awadallah, is able to maintain himself thanks only to the support of the unions and the Communists.
It is to be feared that the Communist party will rapidly become a hostage in the hands of the nationalist officers, who will then get rid of it when they have consolidated a regime of the Nasser type. One recalls in particular the massaacre of the Communists by the Ba'athist militia in Iraq•
The Sudanese Communists would be well-advised to also recall the arrests of hundreds of their cadres and of left-: wing trade unionists in their own country in January 1967 under pretext of "military sedition." The bourgeoisie know how to rid themselves of their proletarian allies after the chestnuts have been raked from the fire.
For the moment, in face of the threat of a counterrevolution inspired by the traditional religious forces, the officers can hardly do without a labor base. But it can be predicted that unless they quickly put an end to the repression of the movements for autonomy of the south, the new masters of the Sudan will be caught in a hopeless war like the regime in Iraq in its persecution of the Kurds.
The Sudanese Communists must boldly advance a class program in order to overcome these difficulties and to mobilize for the socialist revolution.
THE NEW YORK PRIMARY - A SWING TO THE RIGHT?
The defeat of New York's liberal Republican Mayor John Lindsay in the June 17 primary elections was taken by many observers as new proof of a strong rightward drift in American politics. The victors, who will face Lindsay in the final election in November, were the most right-wing of the choices on the ballot: John J. Marchi for the Republicans and. Mario A. Procaccino for the Democrats.
There were many reasons for the vote, however. For the mass of workers, who see the conditions of city life steadily deteriorating, there is little to choose between a capitalist liberal like Lindsay and his right-wing opponents.
It is true that there is a political polarization as a result of the rising struggle for black liberation, growing antiwar sentiment, and the youth radicalization. A large portion of the youth, nowever, cannot vote. Ine traditionally high rate of abstentions in American elec-
Copair tions is symptomatic of widespread disbelief in the efficacy of the electoral process. Hence elections are weighted in favor of the more conservative sectors of the population (in the New Jork primary only 35 percent of the eligible voters cast ballots June 17). The key factor is that there is no organized right-wing social movement of any size. The real social change taking place is still the massive radicalization of a new generation -- outside of the electoral process.
LINDSAY: No answer to the problem.
KEY PROBLEM FOR MAO - "BUILDING THE NEW PARTY"
Roderick Macfarquhar, writing in the May 9 issue of the liberal New Statesmen, published in london, pays tribute to
Isetung's "impressive"
Mao success in the
Cultural Revolution as registered at the recent Ninth Congress of the Chinese Communist party.
"He has almost wiped out the old party leadership, whose commitment to longer trusted," says revolution he no Macfarquhar. "Only one third of the old politburo members retain their seats on the new one: less than a quarter of the old central committee survives and those 40-oda members are swamped in the greatly enlarged, 219-man new body. Even ii there were no ideological reasons for the purge, so considerable an infusion of new blood could be justified by the need to invigorate the party machine. Io this end, the congress also passed a new constitution whose basic effect will be to destroy the old, highly bureaucratised apparat, modelled on the Soviet Communist Party, which Mao defeated."
Macfarquhar believes that "the regime will continue to emphasise ideological training in Maoism and to revolutionise the educational system."
He does not think a "full-scale new leap forward" will be attempted. "Actually economics is barely mentioned in Lin's report, a confirmation that politics still takes command. This is also reflected in the presence of only one experienced economic administrator (other than Chou En-lai) in the new politburo, compared with five in the old."
Macfarquhar wonders at the absence of anything in Lin's report concerning the problems to be faced in reconstituting the Chinese Communist party.
"More strangely, " he writes, "Lin Piao also paid scant attention to what
[In winding up his campaign in the first round of the French presidential elections, Alain Krivine spoke at two meetings organized by foreign cothinkers, one in England, the other in Belgium. By speaking in these countries, the Trotskyist candidate sought to give expression to the internationalist spirit shown by the new generation of French revolutionary youth in the upsurge of May 1968.
[The largest meeting was at the Free University of Brussels May 31, where Krivine spoke to an enthusiastic crowd of must surely now be the order of the day -- building the new party. The importance of this operation is underlined by the emergence of the military as the major grouping in the new central committee -- dent foreteormed red with 14 per 1 per cent as compared with the 14 per
Il per cent for surviving government officials and a possible 28 per cent for cultural revolutionaries. This preponderance of soldiers in the central committee may mean little in practice since that body is, probably deliberately, too large to be effective. But almost half the military members are delegates from the provincial revolutionary committees, where they are probably the effective administrators: and they have ensured that they outnumber on the central committee each of the other two groups of provincial delegates, the reformed cadres and the cultural revolutionaries."
At the provincial level, it "will take much time and tactical skill to reassert true party leadership," Macfarquhar continues. However, "Mao has dug himself securely in at the centre. I'he ruling politburo standing committee contains himself, Lin Piao, Premier Chou Enlai, Mao's long-time political secretary confidant Ch'en Po-ta, and K'ang and who is experia party official enced in internal security and who rallied to Mao's banner some years ago. All but Chou could be described as 200-percent cultural revolutionaries. Cultural revolutionaries, including Mesdames Mao and Lin, are not the largest single group in the politburo as a whole: the generals just outnumber them. But all but one of the soldiers have been chosen from the former armies of Lin Piao and those of one of the marshals who has apparently agreed to support him. In this selection may lie the start of an attempt to divide the generals among themselves and so restore the party to the command of the gun."
2,000 persons. The French revolutionist's appearance in Belgium, however, was the target of an attack, distinguished for its narrow national chauvinism, by some Flemish Communist youth. Paraphrasing the epithet used by their French counterparts who, at the beginning of the May 1968 upsurge, referred to student leader Daniel as "the German," these Belgian