DRAWS TO AN END
By Fernand Charlier
In.a receding article on the World Conference on Trade and — Development Lsee World Outlook May 22], we noted that the USSR had proposed at the beginning of the gathering that a permanent world trade organization be set up, but had withdrawn the proposal in face of milder proposals advanced by the national bourgeoisie of certain underdeveloped countries (Latin America among others), The Paris daily Le Monde of May 26 has just confirmed this estimate, observing that "the cautious optimism of the secretariat of the conference on this subject [the problem of institutions] was fed by a new source: the USSR, which demanded a new world trade organization, . now admits ina document the necessity of 'interim' proposals," o
The imperialist countries had proposed for their part. to maintain all the proposals of the GATT [General Agreement on Tariffs. and. Trade], to hold a conference only every three years, and to designate a commission in, which the imperialist countries would hold half the delegates.
: These countries are now in process of amending their.own reso lution in order to meet the national bourgeoisie of the underdeveloped countries half way.. The area: of agreement as they see it should. be: timing of conferences (every two years instead of.every three), and setting up of a permanent trade council in which the underdeveloped countries would hold a majority. . . but in which votes would be weighted according to the importance of the foreign trade in each country (so that the imperialists would never be in a minority}), All this would be placed within the framework of the United: Nations, (Le Monde, May 24=25, )
~The haggling over proposals that would in no way change the general basis of the problem did have the effect of dissipating many illusions about the conference, The participants no longer say much about its effectiveness and the chairman, Abdel Moneim Kaisouny of the United Arab Republic, declared, according to the May 26 Le Monde, that the recommendations “of the next conference will without t doubt be better"!
on the proposal of the Algerian - delegation, the seventy-five
countries on. the road to development, who were represented at the
*Two corrections should be made in the preceding article: Exchanges: from the workers states to the industrialized capitalist countries should read 19% of the total foreign trade of the workers states, and obviously not 0.19%, In addition, the exchanges between the workers | states and the underdeveloped countries did not suffer from the : strengthening of mutual ties among the workers states, (p- 19.) #8) =
Geneva conference, presented a resolution advocating ‘the strengthening of co~operation among the underdeveloped countries and the “estab lishment of complementary industries on an interregional, intraregional and subregional scale, without prejudice to the right of the coun= tries involved to industrialize and diversify their economies,"
'.. The Algerian move struck a positive note | in contrast to the loss of initiative suffered by the USSR when it withdrew its proposals (which were, however, supported by Burma, Ghana, Indonesia, Nigeria and Syria), thus. underlining the correctness of criticism of. the timorous. attitude of the bureaucratized workers states at the confer= ence, It was not us this time but the Bulletin of the European Economic Community (May 1964, No, 5), which noted that the tone of the speeches from what it calls ‘the’ countries of the East" was in general "very moderate,"
These bureaucratized workers states are far from advancing policies at economic conferences the way the first workers state did in the early days, By way of indication the letter can be cited that. Chicherin, Peoplets Commissar of Soviet Foreign Affairs, wrote to- Krzizhanovsky: "Only a government free from the yoke of the interests of the stock companies and others can advance a healthy program for the world economy, even if only within the framework of the existing regime, If these interests, and other sordid interests, do not agree, this will be a blow they deal themselves which can only . heighten our prestige," (Letter of February 12, 1922.)