Alexander and 10 others in Cape Town, was hardly noticed at all. But by the UNO special committee on apartheid in its report of March 1964, it was regarded as the second major sabotage trial in 1964, and the case has also caused great interest in West Germany where a sum of $4,000 [$11,200] was Gollected by students for the defence,
Alexander and his 10 co-defendants (six men and four women) were arrested in July 1963 under the 90-Day-No-Trial-Clause and tried for "sabotage" in November, On April 15, they were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 10 to 5 years though the judge himself admitted that they had neither conmitted nor even prepared a single act of sabotage, The men.are now serving their sentences on Robben Island. An appeal was granted on certain irregularities, e.g., the instructions of Alexander to his counsel having been opened and read by the secret police, though this was refused on the general merits of the case, It is hoped that the appeal trial will take place in November, but the main problem still to be_solved_is the raising of the funds for the defence of about £3,000 [$8,400]. An Alexander Defence Committee has been set up in Britain to collect contributions towards this sun,
Pye isrey
The entire amount for the original trial was collected by West German students in a very successful campaign in the winter of 1963, Within a few weeks more than one thousand university professors and prominent persons in public life as well as.all political student unions. had signed a petition to the General Secretary. of UNO direct~ | ing his attention towards these terror trials, Together with some very prominent university professors the German Students Union organized a collection of funds at all universities and colleges which within a few months resulted.in a sum of £4,000, more than double the amount originally aimed at,
Extreme right-wing student groups that were in close contact with the South African government and its agents in Germany tried to thwart the whole campaign but had no success, Their actions served to make it.clear to Alexander's supporters that their support for their former fellow-student extended beyond their personal feelings for him, They realized that their compassion for Alexander. could not be separated from their resistance against all forms of racial discrimination, particularly having regard to the events of only 20 years ago in their own country.
Dr. Alexander had a. brilliant career as a scholar at Ttibingen | University where he wrote an. excellent. thesis on a famous German: — dramatist for his doctor's degree, He had a perfect command of Ger-. man.and impressed both professors and students by his intelligent approach to political problems; several professors, one of whom was ‘Heisenberg, a Nobel Prizé winner for physics, testified their high opinion of Dr, Alexander in written statements. He was offered posts at German and foreign universities, but decided to return to Cape Town where he refused to teach at the Colouréed!s College because he was not prepared to abstain from political activity as demanded from him.
His courage and high spirits have also impressed his fellowprisoners, On Robben Island he was even brave enough to refuse to dance the infamous Tausa dance, requiring prisoners to strip naked and perform a humiliating dance exposing their sexual organs on the pretext of being searched on returning from their day's work in the quarry. Alexander was assaulted by a warder and hurt in one of: his eardrums for refusing this demand. Assaults have also been made. on two of his friends, Don Davis, a minister and Fikele Bam, a law student. During the trial, Marcus Solomons, a school teacher, was manhandled by a police sergeant; and other friends were intimidated by the police to act as state witnesses: one of them, Gerald Giose, went insane, supposedly from the police treatment, and is in an asylum now. .
In addition to providing the financial means for the appeal, . the campaign will surely have a positive influence on the treatment of these prisoners by the prison authorities and will make it olear that the outside world is closely watching their fate on Robben Isiand and in Worcester Prison.
-“26—
SIDNEY SILVERMAN ADDRESSES ALEXANDER DEFENCE RALLY IN LONDON
"Tt is not often that I presume to speak for the labour move~ ment as a wnole but on this occasion I have no doubt that the Labour party is with me ," said Sidney Silverman, a Member of Parliament, at a packed meeting in the Caxton Hall tonight.
The meeting was called by the Alexander Defence Committee to launch a nation-wide campaign to raise $2,500 [$7,000] to help pay the cost of the appeal of Dr. Neville Alexander and 10 others (six men and four women) arrested in Cape Town, South Africa in July, 1963, under the infamous 90-Day-No~Triai-Clause and tried for "sabotage’ in November,
“An appeal was granted on certain irregularities; e.g., the instructions of Alexander to his counsel had been opened and read by the police, etc. It is hoped that the: appeal will be heard in. about eight weeks, Bates
Guest speaker was Dr. Wolfgang Mueller, formerly a student friend of Alexander at Ttibingen University, and Acting Secretary of the West German Alexander Defence Committee. The German campaign had raised £4,000 [$11,200] and collected over 5,000 signatures on petitions to the United Nations to intervene, explained Dr. Mueller, He made an impassioned plea for similar action to be taken in Britain,
Barnei Desai, President. of the South African Coloured Peoples Congress, said that Alexander's struggle for justice represents the struggles of thousands of unknown Africans serving heavy jail sentences under Verwoerd's tyrannical regime.
Other speakers included Raymond Kunene, representative in. Britain and Europe of the African National Congress; C. Van Gelderen, Hammersmith Borough Councillor and Ellis Hillman, London County Councillor, The chairman was Chris Arthur, president of the National Association of Labour Student Organizations,
' Among an impressive list of individuals and organizations who sponsored the meeting were Frank Allaun, M.P.; Bob Edwards, M.P., General Secretary of the Chemical Workers Union; Ernie Roberts, Assistant. General Secretary of the Amalgamated Engineering Union and a number of Labour Party and Young Socialist bra anches.
Mrs. Connie Kirkby, the secretary of the Alexander Defence Committee, announced that postal orders and cheques should be made out to Defence and Aid, Alexander Appeal. The mailing address is Mrs, Connie Kirkby, a7” Thurs ley House, Holmewood Gardens, London, S.W.2. .
Tho. meeting closed by passing a resolution endorsing the actions and proposals of the Committee,
oly a
"I HAVE NOT FORGOTTEN. . .
By Pierre Frank
Within a few weeks of each other, the heads of the two biggest Communist parties of western Europe died. While purely accidental, the coincidence of the two events provides a political symbol of the greatest significance. In effect, the death of the two men marks the end of an epoch,
Among the leaders of the world's Communist parties, Togliatti was the oldest, holding seniority even over Mao Tse-tung. Thorez, likewise an elder among the leaders of the Communist movement, was of working-class background; Togliatti was an intellectual. Both of them belonged to the young generation in the.old socialist parties. following World War I who turned toward the October Revolution to re~ new the workers! movement which had been defiled by the betrayal of the Social Democracy in 1914, Both of them, in the enthusiasm of their youth, were attracted by Bolshevism, .
Each of them, of course, underwent different experiences for a long time, The Italian Communist party was driven underground in 1922-25 and did not begin to function openly until after the downfall of Mussolini, The French Communist party did not go through the underground experience until during the second world war, There were likewise significant differences in the character and comportment of the two men, Togliatti was more supple than’ Thorez, although this should not be exaggerated as has been done by many commentators, The suppleness of Thorez was evidenced often. 1. enough and Togliatti dis- ~ played his bureaucratic aptitude.
One essential characteristic brought them together, even united them: Both Thorez and Togliatti utilized their talents and their posi-~ tions they had won, to place the organizations that had been created to prepare and lead the proletarian revolution in the service of the Soviet bureaucracy when, under Stalin's leadership, this bureaucracy usurped power in the Soviet state and in the Communist International. This was not an easy operation, and Thorez and Togliatti came to play their role only after hesitancy and reservations. In 1924, Thorez distributed Trotsky!s New Course in the Pas-de-Calais federation of which he was’ secretary. Even in 1928, in the corridors of the Sixth Gongress of the International he indicated his reservations on tne theory of “socialism in one country." At the same congress, Togliatti supported Bukharin, and it was while the car was going full speed, it could be said, that he jumped out when, a few months later,,. Stalin cut down Bukharin and crushed the Right Opposition in the USSR and the Communist International.
These old leaders of the Communist movement were perfectly aware of Stalin's crimes; they were particularly cognizant of the
policy of the "third period" and how fatal it was in Germany in 1933, But both of them served as willing tools of the Soviet bureaucracy; both of them became Stalinists above. all because they had lost confidence in the revolutionary capacities of the working class,
In the years following the war, differences arose betwoen Thorez and Togliatti, but these remained within the framework of their common loyalty to the Soviet bureaucracy. (It has even been observed that there was something symbolic in the fact that both of them died not in their own country but in the Soviet Union or on the way there, )
More important than the differences which developed with regard to their positions in the Sino-Soviet conflict was the fact that they shared a fundamental point of departure -- in practice they had given up the proletarian revolution and envisaged no road to socialism except the "peaceful" one. With both of them this was not just a concept; they actually assured the bourgeoisie through their deeds that the parties they led constituted no revolutionary threat.
The working masses unfortunately have not yet understood this, That is the explanation in part for the hundreds of thousands of people who turned out for the funerals. Consequently most of the petty-bourgeois intellectuals in the periphery of the workers! move-~ ment are unable to understand the historic role of a Thorez and a Togliatti; hence the many stupidities like those uttered by: Sartre with regard to both men.
But the most clear-sighted elements among the bourgeoisie of France and Italy understood this role quite accurately, They did not forget the situation at the time of the liberation from the German occupation and the immense service that Thorez and Togliatti rendered them, How strongly impressed they were can be judged from the fact that twenty years later they publicly expressed their recognition over the coffins of the two leaders,
Here is the letter which de Gaulle sent to one of the sons of Thorez, authorizing its publication:
"T offer you and your family my sincere condolences in your grief over the death of your father, For my part, I have not forgotten that at a decisive time for France, President Maurice Thorez -whatever may have been his actions before and after that -- in response to my appeal and as a member of my government contributed to maintaining national unity. Please accept, Sir, my deepest regards,"
. IT have not forgotten that at_a decisive time... It is not true that Thorez responded to de Gaulle's appeal, Thorez and Togliatti were lined up with Stalin. They acted in accordance with the commitments made by Stalin to American and British imperialism at Yalta, Teheran and Potsdam, In consequence the capitalist state and economy were saved in western Europe,
- -. De Gaulle summarizes in his letter only what he stated much more explicitly in his memoirs: .
. “Taking into account previous circumstances, events since then, the necessities of today, I hold that the return of Maurice Thorez as head of the Communist party can yield more advantages at present than ditfioulties. *
"Tnasmuch as in place of revolution, the Communists seek pre~ ponderance ina parliamentary regime, society runs - Less risk, oo.
“as for Thorez, while trying to. advance the affairs of Commun= ism, on many occasions he was to serve the public interest. On his. return to France, he helped put an end to the last vestiges of the 'patriotic militiat whom some of his people obstinately sought to maintain in a new underground, Insofar as the gloomy, hard rigidity of his party permitted him, he opposed the attempts at encroachment of the liberation committees and the acts of violence to which the overexcited groups turned. _Among-.the workers -~- they were numerous -particularly the miners, who listened to his harangues, he did not stop advocating the slogan of working to the utmost and of producing, cost what it might. Was this simply a. political tactic? It's not my business to figure it out. It was enough for .me that France benefited," (Le Salut, pp. 100-101.)
"I have not forgotten," said de Gaulle. The Italian bourgeoisie also has not forgotten that from. 1943 to 1948 Togliatti rendered similar service, that he even got his party and the workers who followed it to accept the Concordat tying the Vatican to the Italian Republic, Thus the president of the: Italian Council, Moro, the Christian Democrat, did not hesitate to offer to the Italian Communist party an Italian army plane to take Togliattits assistant to the body of the dead secretary in order to return it to Italy. De Gaulle, in most revealing terms, and Moro in a spectacular gesture, showed that they understood the essential role played by the Communist parties: createa to overthrow the bourgeois onder , they saved it at a crucial moment. ” Thorez and Togliatti, through the role which they had their parties play, through entering the bourgeois governments, saved capitalism not only in France and Italy but, -if the struggle of the Greek partisans at the time be recalled, probably the whole sector of Europe located along the Mediterranean, without mentioning the wider conse~ quences.
The forward march of the socialist revolution took a more com-= plicated road. Saved in the West thanks to the betrayal of the workers leaders, world capitalism still did not have sufficient forces to crush. the Chinese Revolution, which in turn gave a gigantic impulse to the colonial revolution, The revolutionary thrust throughout the world in turn has tended to break the myth on which the Communist parties have lived since they were subjected to Stalinism. Currents
are appearing among them hostile to the reformist politics and seeking a revolutionary outcome,
Thorez and Togliatti have passed from the scene precisely as the crisis breaks out, after thirty years of monolithism, bringing to an end the period during which they ruled in their parties, The crisis is a world-wide one, intimately linked with the Sino-Soviet conflict, It brings to an end the domination of the Soviet bureaucracy over the sector of the workers. movement linked with the Russian Revolution, The old bureaucratized leaderships are doomed, New revolutionary leaderships, after long and painful tests, will emerge. They, looking back at Togliatti and Thorez and their kind, will say, like de Gaulle, but with quite an opposite feeling, “We have not forgotten. 2