CANADIAN STUDENTS SUPPORT INDIANA WITCH-HUNT VICTIMS
By Catherine Scott
TORONTO, Feb, 20 -= The Canadian academic community has given full and vigorous support to three student victims of the current witoh-hunt in Bloomington, Indiana. A Canadian branch of the National Committee to Aid the Bloomington Students has been set up and many professors have agreed to act as sponsors for the committee,
Tom Morgan, Jim Bingham and Ralph Levitt were charged under an anti-Communist Indiana law and face two to six years in prison if found guilty. The cherge is based on a speech given on campus Mareh 25, 1963, by Leroy McRae, a Negro and National Organizational Secretary of the Young Socialist Alliance. McRae spoke in favour of. self-defense for Negroes in situations where the police condone violence against them,
Local Prosecutor Thomas Hoadley interpreted this to mean advocating "violent overthrow" of the government,
The speaker was not indicted but three of the officers of the Young Socialist Alliance, which sponsored the meeting, were charged,
Tom Morgan visited three Ontario universities from February 2 to 8, His meeting at the University of Toronto was sponsored jointly by the Students Administrative Council, the Student Christian Movement and the Combined Universities Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, It was attended by 225 students and faculty members who contributed $135,
A colleotion of $105 was raised at the meeting at York University where 135 students attended out of an enrollment of 500.
At the University of Waterloo, 55 students attended a meeting sponsored by the local Student Christian Movement and gave $33,
Morgan obtained three radio interviews as well,
A Toronto Committee to Aid the Bloomington Students has been. set up with Douglas Ward as chairman. Ward is president of the Student!s Adininistrative Council and is currently arranging meetings for the indicted students in Montreal. He has issued an appeal to all student leaders, student governments and professors across Canada for sponsorship and’ financial aid,
Sponsors of the National Committee to Aid the Bloomington Students include Bertrand Russell; Linus Pauling; James Baldwin, | American Negro author, and.John Lewis, Chairman of SNCC [Student Non- Violent Coordinating Committee]. In Canada, many professors have registered support for the committee including Prof, H. Northrop Frye, principal of Victoria College; Prof. G, Tatham, the Dean of Students at York University and Prof, R. M, H. Sheppard, Registrar of University College,
[For more information about this important case write to the National Committee to Aid the Bloomington Students, P.0O.Box 213, Cooper Station, New York 3, New York,
THE POLITICAL SHIFT IN BOLIVIA
LA PAZ, Bolivia, Feb. 20 -~ The situation in the country, now that the struggle for the presidenoy is underway, has become more and more tense, with deep differences appearing, not only among the .most important political groupings but also inside them, The struggle between Paz Estenssoro and Juan Lechin, who were former allies, is assuming greater and greater political and social significance, going far beyond their individual quarrel. This is rounded out and complicated by the often violent struggles in which the different tendencies or factions of their partisans have become engaged,
The recent congress of the MNR [Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario], which was reported in World Outlook February 7, was an important event from several angles which are well worth considering more closely if only briefly.
First of all, in the opinion of competent observers of Bolivian politicos, it was Paz in reality who pressed for the break, deliberately seeking to split the party and oust Lechin. Why did he do this?
Lechin, it is said in leftist circles in Bolivia, played a role in the MNR as long as the worker and peasant masses actively followed this party, as long as it reflected, if only in a distorted way, the interests of these popular layers. Under these conditions, he could continue to play with the right wing. He obtained control of a part of the state apparatus and he enjoyed a certain number of privileges,
But as soon as the masses left the MNR, Lechin was suspended in midair, The reactionary right wing gained complete control of the MNR, which seized all the key positions in the state and the party, refusing to share power with Lechinism, which, within the MNR itself, no longer represented anything.
In practice Lechin had become useless due to the fact that he was no longer capable of playing the role of a brake on the masses
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in the name and in the interests of the MNR. The right wing no longer cared to pay the price it had paid in the past for Lechin and decided to finish with him, taking away all his positions and finally eliminating him from the party.
In the interests of his own cause, Paz Estenssoro has been seeking to "put together" a new left, This may be the significance of. the formation of the "National Liberation Front" headed by Chavez Ortiz. LSee World Outlook February 7.]
Despite the absence of the Lechinist left wing, the MNR congress witnessed an internal conflict of extreme violence which was settled through battles that included some wounded, The crucial question was the. apparently secondary one of designating a vice-presidential candidate,. Three MNR Factions i
The Estenssoro right wing, adhering to U.S. imperialism and working in close touch with the American embassy, was. in fact absolute master of the congress, but it was divided in three factions.
The. first was an ultraright tendency openly inspired by the army, which did not hesitate to organize "mass" demonstrations; namely, mobilizing in the streets employees of the military administration, conscripts in civilian clothes, womén and peasants brought directly > to the city. The sandidate supported by this campaign, supported moreover by the Americans, was the air force general Barrientos Ortuno. The Minister of Labor has publicly denounced him as "the candidate of the Pentagon,"
The second tendency, which expresses the particular interests of the bourgeoisie interested in exports from the eastern regions (Santa Cruz, Pando, Beni), rallied behind the candidacy of Senator Rubén Julio,
The third faction, the state and party apparatus, favored Federico Fortun, a confidant of Paz Estenssoro and executive secre~ tary of the MNR, It was this third group, the most numerous at the congress, which finally carried the day. Fortun will thus be the candidate alongside Paz Estenssoro, New Center of Polarization
The struggle opened by Paz and the right wing of the MNR to isolate and dump Lechin has nevertheless had consequences which its initiators did not foresee. Excluded from the MNR, Lechin, by force of circumstance was obliged to establish contact and liaison once again with the masses, Thus, no matter what his personal intentions may be, he is becoming a more and more powerful pole of attraction, a new polarizing cconter for the worker and peasant forces and certain advanced sectors of the petty bourgeoisie... :
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The scope and actual thrust of this process are not yet determinable, These will depend to a considerable degree on Lechin'ts attitude in coming weeks and months, However, it should be noted that some 40,000 miners have decided to follow him,
This has caused some alarm among certain layers of the MNR. Former president Hernfn Siles Suazo has even suggested a compromise solution to save the unity of the party at the last minute, His solution envisages running two MNR candidates for the presidency, The voters could indicate their choice in the Uruguayan way ("lemas" and "sublemas" -- splitting their votes). As for the miners, they are out and out partisans of a new party.
Lechin has called a congress :of his partisans in early March. But it is necessary to point out that in the Lechinist camp, too, there is serious dissension, First, there is a tendency that is not hostile to the proposal made by Siles Suazo; i.e., not to break with the MNR up and down the line. A different tendency, contrariwise, wishes to form a new party for which it is now preparing the statutes and the program, A name has already been chosen (Movimiento Izquier~ dista Revolucionario), Actually, in La Paz, the new party is held to already exist -- the tendency favoring a compromise with Siles has no possibility of winning. "stalinists" and. "Protskyists"
But even within the new party there will be an internal struggle which in practice has already begun, The real issue in the differ~ ences will soon be clear; it concerns strategy as well as tactics. In fact the militants who come under the label of "Lechinism" have different origins, Some are of "Stalinist" background; others are generally "Trotskyist." The first are more or less organized; they support Leohfn unconditionally; they advocate revolution by stages and on a national democratic program, The others who are regarded as "Trotskyists," are not organized, yet represent a more advanced and more proletarian sector than the "Stalinists."
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The "Stalinists" wish to get rid of the "Trotskyists" in order to establish control over Lechinism, Towards the end of January they demanded the expulsion of Ernesto Ayala Mercado, reputed to be a Trotskyist theoretician who is at present ambassador to Mexico, They accused him of "opportunism" and “wavering.” The workers wing defended Ayala, explaining that other elements of the left have served in an official capacity at the government level and no one wanted to expel them for that reason, This was only a pretext, they scontended,. The expulsion did not take place, Lechfin seems to be balancing between the two sectors,
Another important question with many implications is the favorable attitude displayed by bourgeois and "Stalinist" elements of Lechinism for a working alliance against Paz with the Bolivian Soci-~ alist Falange (a fascist-like rightist tendency) and Guevara Arze who headed a split from the MNR to the right a few years ago,
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The congress of the Lechinist movement will thus be an event of great importance in the political life of Bolivia at this stage, Rightist and conservative elements do not hide their apprehension and there are even rumors in La Paz of a military coup to prevent it, It goes without saying, however, that such a measure would provoke an energetic answer from the masses and could precipitate a crisis,
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