REBELLION ANONG YOUNG SOCIALISTS IN CHILE
SANTIAGO DE CHILE -- The results of the September 4 elections and the passive reaction of the bureaucratic leaders of the Chilean Socialist party, who have been putting up a blind defense of their role in the defeat, has provoked considerable reaction among the ranks of the party.
The youth proved once again” that they constitute the most sensitive sector. The criticisms voiced everywhere finally ended in the adoption of a rebellious stand by the youth leadership in both North and South Santiago. - They adopted the following resolution:
"The results of the election of September 4 weigh like a heavy burden in the minds of the workers of the country.
" amazement and anger dominate the feelings of the activists. among our youth. and: wide sectors of the party. This anger is completely justified. We have been led into a’ blind alley; this blind alley is the purely electoral and reformist. policy which the leadership imposed on the campaign, thus separating itself from the pros found revolutionary impulse of the masses that has been demonstrated on various occasions. The martyrs of the town of José Marfa Caro are a tragic demonstration of this, fighting determination of. the workers.
"yore than a month after the election, the party leadership refuses to look at:‘the dark reality and insists on its sterile legalistic and parliamentarian policy.
"It is clear that it is no longer possible to expect from such a leadership a return to the revolutionary line of our party. It is urgent to respond, to no longer tolerate a situation that threatens to destroy the living nucleus of the party, to deepen the retreat of the workers and again take us along a defeatist and capitulatory path. ae
"Tn this critical hour, it is up to us to rescue our ot .
party. We will not leave this precious instrument of the workers. in
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the hands of a Social Democratic _headorahip. The honor. of, socialism is at stake. -
"the Regional Committees of North. “Santiago and South Santiago -of, the Socialist Youth Federation call.on all the activists, sec~ . tional and regional bodies of the country to defend in the most energetic way the integrity of revolutionary socialism. Comrades: We: declare a state of revolutionary emergency in our party. We demand that the present party leadership: be put on political trial. We demand an honest, frank and revolutionary accounting of what happened, We demand a policy that will really open the road to the conquest of power by the workers. We demand a National Extraordinary Congress at once.
"We declare that this Congress cannot be called under the sponsorship of a leadership which has proved itself incapable of carrying out the great aims of socialism, This task belongs to the ranks of the party and to leaders who have not been compromised, The two Regional Committees declare that they accept no decisions emanating from such a body. We ask the comrades to take all the necessary measures to hold a genuinely democratic Congress."
A few days after this resolution was;passed, the majority of the Central Committee of the Socialist.Youth Federation decided to. expel three members of the Santiago committees who were considered to be mainly responsible for the resolution. This provoked a veritable insurrection of the. rank and file.
At a full meeting of the youth cadre in the city -- a meet= ing of record attendance -- the Central Committee did not even dare announce the official measures that had been adopted. The expelledyouth leaders were able to participate normally in the meeting. The decision of the Central Committee was unanimously rejected and the! action of the two committees was approved. :
Big sectors of the party in Santiago also successively took positions favoring the resolution,
The Central Committee of the youth organization decided to postpone a full national gathering and now appears to be awaiting the decisions of the Central Committee of the party.