BELGIAN SOCIALIST PARTY HOLDS FIRST RALLY
. BRUSSELS -- One of the largest halls in this city was packed at the first public rally of Belgium's new left socialist party March 31. Speakers at the meeting included Jacques Yerna, secretary of the Li&8ge trade-union federation and member of the executive committee of the Litge section of the party [the Parti Wallon des Travailleurs -- Walloon Workers party], Robert Nicolas, member of the political secretariat of the Cha rloroi branch of the PWI, Pierre Le Gréve, chairman of the Brussels teachers union, and Ernest Mandel, secretary of the Brussels section of the party [the Union de la Gauche Socialiste -- Union of the Socialist Left].
In Belgian political circles, the meeting of some 1,200 was considered to be a big success for the new party, clearly indicating its potential threat to the reformist Social Democracy. The audience was not artificially swelled by bringing in busloads of supporters from the provinces. It represented a genuine test of interest in Brussels itself in the new formation,
The audience was noticeable for its youth and its clearly working-class character.
The main themes of the speakers dealt with the anticapitalist character of the new party, denunciations of the reformism of the Socialist party and its betrayal of the program on which it was founded. Sharp criticisms were made of the two Belgian Communist parties for their incapacity to develop policies independently from Moscow or Peking. The speakers explained that the overwhelming majority of the Walloon working class favors federalism and that the party will fight for this goal, which is not incompatible with socialist aims, .
One of the high points of the meeting was the denunciation made by Pierre Le Gréve of the imperialist aggression in Vietnam. Strong applause greeted his expression of solidarity with the Vietnamese people. - os
Enthusiastic | applause likewise greeted his forceful assertion, following criticism of the two Communist parties, that the new party will seek solidarity in action with all other working-class political tendencies.
Ernest Mandel, who made an analysis .of the failures of the
social=-democracy in Belgium and its incapacity to respond to such opportunities as the general strike in 1960-61, was followed with intense interest by the big audience. He was applauded many times, most strongly perhaps when he cited Fidel Castro, “The task of a revolutionist is to make the revolution,"
He paid tribute to the example set by the Cuban revolutionists. While there are obvious differences, he said, between Belgium and Cuba ~= as in the role that might be played by guerrilla fighters ~~ the Cuban Revolution nevertheless offers important lessons _ that deserve the closest study by the Belgian working class.
Scoring parliamentary illusions, he stated that it is in the factories and in the streets that the workers have made their most important gains. This was true in the past and will remain true in the future,
, He lashed the role of American imperialism in Vietnam and the danger it has placed before the entire world of Johnson's “escalation" ending in a nuclear catastrophe. He hoped that the organizations of the left would give an answer to the Americans such as they deserved -- an answer in action.
‘The meeting ended with the entire audience joining in singing "The Internationale, " .
LIEGE MINERS END SIT-DOWN