[Increasing interest in the dissident views of the leading French Communist intellectual spokesman, Roger Garaudy, has forced the CP leadership to debate with him in the columns of l'Humanité, the party's Paris daily.
sight of a public dis-
The unusual pute in the traditionally monolithic French Stalinist party is creating something of a stir, all the more so since it is taking place on the eve of the CP congress. We have translated the following comments from the January 12 issue of Rouge, the weekly newspaper of the Ligue Communiste (Communist League), the French section of the Fourth International.]
It is probable that the "Garaudy Affair" will have considerable repercussions in the PCF [Parti Communiste Français - French Communist party) coming on the eve of its nineteenth congress. For the first time in quite a long while, a member of the Political Bureau is kicking over the traces on clearly political questions. His peers so far have not called him a police agent or an enemy infiltrator, but only a dissident and undisciplined comrade.
Rosa Luxemburg once said something to the effect: "When they accuse me of stealing the spoons in the dining room, you will know that I am in political disagreement." Garaudy has not incurred such charges (for the time being). It is true, however, that l'Humanité's tone has been escalating in sharpness at a carefully calculated pace. After respectfully apologizing for his "poor theoretical capacities,"
an obscure secretary of the Jura federation accused Garaudy of factional activities and of setting himself "above the party and in opposition to it."
It was known that Garaudy differed with the Political Bureau over the Czech question. As a result of his interview with Politika in Belgrade, he was censured (in an "understanding and fraternal" way, according to 84
the theoretician from the Jura mentioned above).
Marchais (the CP's chief hatchetman] did not launch his anathemas against the dissident philosopher until the publication of Garaudy's latest book, Le Grand Tournant du Socialism [Socialism's Great Turning Point], which was intended as a sequel to Pour un Modele Français du Socialisme [For a French Socialist Model].
As of this writing, Garaudy's book is not yet available in the bookstores, although it has gotten a noisy fanfare in the widest possible range of the mass media. Nonetheless, some observations can be made at this time.
Roger Garaudy was the man assigned all the intellectual dirty work during the period of triumphant Stalinism. It is important to keep this in mind in order to understand the personality that is being forged today. Garaudy was the protegé of Maurice Thorez, who wrote a flattering preface to his thesis on "liberty," which earned Garaudy the title of doctor of philosophical sciences from the University of Moscow in 1954.
Thorez also chaired the meeting in June 1962 at which Garaudy criticized "Stalin's philosophical errors" in front of the Communist philosophers. One suspects that with such patronage the criticism was not very penetrating.
Presentable Communist intellectuals being few, Garaudy was given the task of making overtures to the Catholics and trying to divert attention from the worst ideological excesses of Stalinism by writing platitudes about Kafka, St. John Perse, Teilhard de Chardin, etc. (A platitude does constitute a definite advance over slanderous falsehoods.)
Unfortunately for the party leadership, Garaudy was to get carried away by the game. In attempting to gain the ear of the reverend fathers and other liberals, Garaudy came at last to realize that the Stalinist reality of the PCF was a severe handicap.
The cleverest sophisms, which he had learned how to spout, did not weigh much in the balance against the fate of Solzhenitsyn, the notoriety of Marchais, and Brezhnev's tanks.
Thus, taking his role seriously, Garaudy himself started to "confront" the established authorities. He did not question the basics, of course. He is in agreement with "the program, the policy, and the objectives of the party" (an artide in l'Humonité January ty" (an article in l'Humanite, January 2).
This is one of the rare times we can believe him. What devastates him is that the party's correct policy has so little impact: "The oppositon forces, which are in the majority, are without power in the country; and within this opposition, the strongest contingent, the French Communist party, is incapable of rallying these forces" (interview in Kommunist, September 4, 1969).
Attached by his entire past and all his training to the opportunism of the PCF, Garaudy is looking for gimmicks to make a rotten policy look appetizing. So we are witnessing feats of juggling which are astonishing even from him:
- "The Party's line is correct but the Party has not scientifically analyzed the changes introduced into class relationships by the great transformation of the productive forces."
_ "The line is correct but the Party has not made clear what model of socialism we want to establish in France."
- And in more concentrated form: The program is excellent but its theoretical bases are "very weak" (for this reason he was unable to support the draft theses of the nineteenth party congress).
Our philosopher thus accepts the concept that a correct program can be built on a nonexistent theoretical foundation. The role of theory, then, is to justify the program after the fact in order to make it more palatable to finicky intellectuals. This in general is what Roger Garaudy presumed to criticize Stalin for in 1962- using theory to justify "incorrect practices."
Artfully justifying the PCF's line is not enough to attract the intellectuals and the youth, who show a very marked coolness. What is needed is to reestablish some degree of democratic life within the organization and to assert some independence from the USSR.
Garaudy's complaints about theway l'Humanité mutilates his writings and the peculiar way party members are informed have the definite ring of truth. Unfortunately, and because of this, we can entirely sympathize with Garaudy's distress; it was not long ago (1967) that he grossly manipulated Trotsky's writings on the theory of the permanent revolution so as to make them fit in with Stalin's version of what Trotsky wrote. (See Roger Garaudy, Le Problème Chinois, Collection 10-18, pages 142-152.) But, in spite of everything, when he calls for the publication of opposition views, basing himself on Lenin, and when he calls out for Brezhnev to "Resign!" we can only applaud him.
It is more honorable, it should be added, to get yourself expelled from a Stalinist party than to expel others. We hope he will permit us to express some concern for his political future. We do not know if the "congress" (in other words, the apparatus meeting in plenary session) will decide to expel him. But it does seem to us that a process has been set in motion which must sooner or later lead to this.
Inasmuch as Garaudy supports the line, attacking only the methods of applying it, he constitutes an ideal oppositionist for the leadership. You just have to look at the zest with which those who inspire the column publishing contributions to the "discussion" point up the erring comrade's contradictions and duplicity.
Pierre Hervé also began by proclaiming his agreement with the party line when he published La Revolution et les Fétiches [Revolution and Fetishes] in 1956. He attacked only the party's ossified ideology and its methods, arming himself with quotations from Stalin. He did not suspect that the logic of his position would lead him far from home.
For historical reasons, the ties the PCF has developed with the USSR, the existence of a bureaucracy functioning in the Stalinist manner, and the omnipresence of ideology have prevented the party from integrating itself into bourgeois society as the Social Democratic parties have done, which often had less reformist programs.
Refusing all "lifelines," and hanging on with both hands to the party line, Roger Garaudy risks finding himself one day high and dry on a beach of bitter realism ...
Ecologists Alarmed
Unexpected Costs of the Aswan Dam
The name of Gamal Abdel Nasser will no doubt be long remembered for at least one of his works-construction of the Aswan Dam. Built high up in the Nile, it provides water for year-round irrigation besides electricity.
However, even leaving aside the flooding of irreplaceable artistic treasures and sites of great archaeological importance, it appears that some of the costs of the dam were not given adequate consideration.
In the January issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Garrett Hardin lists four items that ought to have been considered before starting the huge project:
"First, the replacement of periodic flooding by controlled irrigation is depriving the flood plains of the annual fertilization it has depended on for 5,000 years. (The fertile silt is now deposited behind the dam, which will eventually have to beabandoned.) Consequently, artificial fertilizers wil! soon have to be imported into the Nile valley.
"Second, controlled irrigation without periodic flushing salinates the soil, bit by bit. There are methods for correcting this, but they cost money. This problem has not yet been faced in Egypt.
"Third, the sardine catch in the eastern Mediterranean has diminished from 18,000 tons a year to 500 tons, a 97 per cent loss, because the sea is now deprived of flood-borne nutrients. No one has reimbursed the fishermen for their losses.
"Fourth, schistosomiasis (a fearsomely debilitating disease) has greatly increased among Egyptians. The disease organism depends on snails, which depend on a steady supply of water, which constant irrigation furnishes but annual flooding does not. Of course, medical control of the disease is possible-but that, too, costs money."
Besides this, Garrett Hardin points out, one of the first effects of the Aswan Dam was to bring about an expansion of the population, "of whom a greater proportion than before are capacin
NASSER: Puts snail above the sardine chronically ill." This can lead to unforeseeable "political effects."
"Before the Aswan Dam was ever started, there should have been a thorough study of the costs and benefits to be expected. There was a study of a sort, of course, but it was myopic on the cost end: All it included was the cost of building a concrete dam, implicitly assuming that it is possible to do just one thing. There was no mention of the costs of a new fertilizer industry, of a far-flung medical program, of a soil reclamation program or of developing a new occupation for displaced fishermen; and nothing at all about controlling pathological processes in the body politic."
In Hardin's opinion, "What was missing in the preliminary cost-benefit analysis was the ecologic view. The analysis was merely economic, in the narrowest sense."
From the data indicated by Hardin, it is quite clear that the decision of the government of the United Arab Republic to build the Aswan Dam involved the ecology of the entire Mediterranean. To have reached a proper "cost-benefit analysis" would have required a common effort by all the countries bordering the Mediterranean. In fact, some of the ultimate effects of the Aswan Dam are clearly of concern to some degree to all of mankind and their interests should have been taken into consideration.
But how is any such comprehensive, scientific planning possible under the capitalist system which puts
Tunisia the economic interests, "in the narrowest sense," of each national capitalist class above everything else?
Hardin does not even raise this question, still less answer it. Nevertheless, it would seem rather germane to ecology in the broadest sense.
However, perhaps those "pathological processes in the body politic," touched off by construction of the Aswan Dam among other things, will eventually rectify things, including granting the sardine fishermen of the Mediterranean a guaranteed annual wage.
made by a number of attorneys and was upheld by the International Human Rights Federation. Tunisian lawyers who agreed to defend the victims were disbarred, and two French lawyers were deported and not permitted to take part in the trial. The defendants were not allowed to confront their accusers or to call witnesses in their behalf.
The second trial, in February 1969, involved a group of pan-Arab nationalists. They were reportedly given similar treatment.
Bourguiba has in the past demonstratively released small groups of imprisoned students in response to pressure from world public opinion. It remains to be seen whether those scheduled to be freed will receive the amnesty they have been promised and
Student Demonstrators Granted Amnesty
Bahi Ladgham, first minister to President Habib Bourguiba of Tunisia, announced January 14 that some forty imprisoned student leaders would soon be released.
The political prisoners were sentenced to terms of up to fourteen years in two trials in September 1968 and February 1969 for participating in demonstrations at the University of Tunis in March 1968.
According to the January 16 Paris daily Le Monde, the prisoners include "progressives, Communists, Trotskyists, and sympathizers of the Baath party."
The students are to be released in small groups on three national holidays. The first group was scheduled to be freed January 18, the anniversary of the opening of the struggle for independence in 1952. The rest are to be released March 20 and June
The trials were part of a government crackdown on the deepening student radicalization. One participant in the June 1967 demonstrations against Israel's surprise attack on the Arab countries was sentenced to twenty years in prison. The March 15, 1968, demonstrations were called to protest this harsh punishment.
Two groups were prosecuted in the September 1968 trial: supporters of the magazine Perspectives, which the prosecution labeled "pro-Chinese," but which included other tendencies; and the Communist party group around the magazine Espoir (Hope].
BOURGUIBA: Decides it's time to give his regime a bit of face-lifting.
When the sentences were handed down, the September 18, 1968, Le Monde said, "
... the greatest doubt remains as to the validity of the charges against the defendants. Unless the distribution of literature, publishing opposition papers, and holding unauthorized meetings is called a 'plot' and criticism and propaganda a violation of state are considered security."
The Bourguiba regime was accused of having tortured the prisoners prior to their trial. This accusation was whether there are other political prisoners not covered by the amnesty.
Israel
Decree Bans Nicola
Haifa
Jabra Nicola, a leader of the Israeli Socialist Organization [ISO), was placed under a ban in a decree issued by General David Elieser, December
15. Nicola cannot go outside the city limits of Haifa without the personal permission of the general. Such a decree smacks of the totalitarian practices of South Africa.
Censorship of the ISO publication Matzpen [Compass] has been made much more severe. Virtually half of the last issue was ordered deleted. This is the first time that the Israeli authorities have gone this far in muzzling a legally published Hebrew journal. Until recently, only publications in Arabic were subjected to such measures.
Not long ago, some high-school students in Tel Aviv brought out a newspaper critical of Israel's policies toward the neighboring Arab countries. The police grilled them about their "association" with the Matzpen group.
Up until then, the students had never heard of the ISO. They courageously defended their democratic right to freedom of speech, and after being released looked up the ISO. Truth makes its way, sometimes in strange ways.
Ethiopia
Feudal Emperor Faces Radicalizing Campus
About twenty-seven students are said to have been killed by government troops in Ethiopia during demonstrations protesting the December 28 assassination of Telehun Gizew, a student leader at Haile Selassie University in Addis Ababa.
The university, which was closed an estimated 40 percent of the last school year because of student demonstrations, has not reopened as scheduled after the Christmas holidays. According to Frederic Hunter, writing from the Ethiopian capital in the January 22 issue of the Boston Christian Science Monitor, this decision was taken by the Haile Selassie regime to avoid a confrontation with angry students who blamed the government for the murder.
"Official government spokesmen," Hunter said, "suggest there is strong suspicion that Mr. Telehun's murder resulted from internecine struggles among radical student groups."
This version is not accepted by the students:
"Most students believe orders for his assassination came from the imperial palace and were executed by the military. In their eyes, the fact that the student leader was personally related to the imperial family lends credence to this view."
University and secondary-school students gathered on the Haile Selassie campus the day after the shooting. The government called out security forces. Hunter described what happened:
"Following prolonged and fruitless negotiations over possession of the body and details of a procession, and after considerable student taunting, security forces opened fire on the demonstrators, say sources sympathetic to them. Later they are said to have used tear gas to disperse the crowd and to have bullied both professors and students from university classrooms and lounges.
"According to government sources, the incident caused three fatalities; students set the figure at 27 or more. Security forces are also said to have beaten students at an Addis Ababa secondary school."
SELASSIE: Target of protest over murder of student leader Telehun Gizew.
In Harar, near the Somalia border, police dispersed a symbolic funeral for Telehun Gizew at a secondary school. "According to education circle sources," Hunter said, "police bayoneted the assistant provincial education officer, roughed up 10 teachers and administered beatings not only to students but to parents as well, claiming the latter had not taught their children discipline."
Some 1,800 secondary-school students staged a march in Makelle, the capital of Tigre province. Other demonstrations took place in Adowa and Axum. This is reportedly the first time there have been widespread student actions outside Addis Ababa, and the first time that students have openly condemned the despotic regime rather than demanding mere educational reforms.
A prime focus for student protest is the deep involvement of American imperialism in Ethiopia. Hunter writes:
"Students see American aid and advisers as propping up a regime which, without that support, would topple.
"According to them, evidence exists that active American support of the Emperor played an important role in thwarting the 1960 coup. They point out that aid funds and equipment strengthen and enrich a recipient government and say that American military aid has killed more Ethiopians, such as those at the recent university demonstration, than external enemies of the country."
Only about 10 percent of schoolage youth attend educational institutions. Until recently, even these were largely confined to the capital. Now third-year university students are going to the countryside to teach at rural secondary schools. In the process they are beginning to broaden the base of their movement.
The reporter for the conservative Boston daily comments:
"Observers doubt that student discontent will soon lead to significant change. Still, rural junior high-school students are beginning to talk of dying for their freedom. Some have started to speak openly despite the fact that government informers infiltrate classes."
All Deliberate Speed
"WASHINGTON, Jan. 3 (UPI) - The Government reported today that 61 per cent of the nation's Negro students and 65.6 per cent of whites still attended largely segregated schools, 14 years after the Supreme Court's desegregation decision.
"The figures, compiled and made public by the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, were for the fall of 1968. But Leon E. Pannetta, director of the department's Office of Civil Rights, said they 'present what can be considered the basic nationwide picture today.'"
Birds Die in Irish Sea
Since September at least 17,500 birds have died in the Irish Sea from a still unidentified pollutant.
Prime suspect biphenyl), is PCB (polychlorinated a toxic waste from the plastics industry.