ALGERIAN REVOLUTION AGAIN IN MOVEMENT
By Henri Dumoulin
Algiers, Algeria
March 23 is more than a historic anniversary; it is "the November 1 of our workers and peasants." This was Ben Bella's way of putting it in a speech March 20 at a meeting in Algiers organized by the Federation of Greater Algiers of the Front de Libération Nationale [FLN], on the second anniversary of the March decrees.
March 23 is the November 1 of Algerian socialism. Just as _ the launching by the Algerian nationalists of the armed anticolon=lalist struggle in the Aurés mountains on the night of November 1, | 1954, sounded the death knell of colonialism in this country, so the instituting of self-management on March 23, 1963, marked a decisive step along the road of socialist revolution.
Has the socialist revolution been achieved then in Algeria? Of course not. And no one says so except perhaps bureaucrats or bourgeois hypocrites who undoubtedly fear its development.
Is a bourgeoisie still to be found in Algeria? The bourgeoisie and the bureaucrats would like to have the workers overlook it. But if we turn to the Algiers Charter (the documents adopted . by the first congress of the FLN party April 16-21, 1964), we find:
"Altogether, the bourgeois layers, properly called, do not exceed 50,000, that is, less than one-fortieth of the active population [of 1962].
"The petty bourgeoisie, a potential source of antisocialist, bourgeois ideology, occupy a more important place in agriculture, in retail trade, among the artisans, in subordinate technical and office occupations, etc.... Altogether, about one-eighth of the active population.... ;
. "Since independence, a new social layer, forming at an accel-~ erated rate, threatens to strengthen the instinctively antisocialist pressure of the bureaucratic bourgeoisie. This is forming in the | apparatus of the administration, the state and the economy due to . the feeling of strength arising from the exercise of power.
"This force, through its position in the state machinery and the economy can prove to be considerably more dangerous to the demoeratic, socialist evolution of the Revolution than any other social force in the country at present."
The contradictions and conflicts developing between these retrogressive layers and the workers in the towns is the fundamental
explanation for the wave of strikes that broke out last December and January, especially in Algiers. [See World. OutLook January 15.]-
Although mainly aimed at the foreign and Algerian bosses in _the private sector, these strikes, which also affected the national~ ized sector, put a spotlight on the position of the “bureaucratic bourgeoisie in formation in the apparatus of the administration, the state and the economy." (The terminology is from the Algiers Charter.) The posture of certain bureaucrats in the party and tradeunion leadership was also illuminated in a clear way.
The retrogressive forces sought by all means -- from persuasion to repression -- to stop the movement and to impose a compromise. The compromises, in general, by no means met the economic demands of the workers, and did not put an end to the struggie. . The workers turned to another avenue to demonstrate their discontent-and militancy -- the preparations for the second congress of the UGTA [Union Générale des Travailleurs Algériens -- General Union of Algerian Workers. | - .
We will return to the debates that occurred at the congress. But a series of preparatory meetings took place, not only in the towns, but likewise in a:series of self-managed farms in the social-~ ist sector. The daily press reflected these but faintly. - The discussions, however, were quite animated. We will indicate some of the issues. a .
The projected "Bylaws of the UGTA" (published in Révolution et Travail, February 18) stated: "The members of the Executive Commission of the UGTA are elected for two years by the Congress” and cannot be replaced. They must be members of the FLN.
A worker of the EGA [Electricité et Gaz d'Algérie] in Oran, declared with regard to this: "At bottom what is.posed is the .problem of revolutionary democracy. We suffered ourselves, in our organization, from sectarianism. If we are able to congratulate ourselves today on our accomplishments, it is because we were able to fight for a correct application of genuine democracy. This has enabled us to widen our base, to gain fresh energy to apply the Algiers Charter in life.
"There are those in the structure (members of the UGTA and of the party) who have shown their incapacity; others outside the structure have shown their determination to apply the Algiers Charter in daily life. m
The Conseil National des Cheminots [National Council of Railway Workers] at a meeting that ended March 19 proposed to substitute the following for the sentence about the necessity of belonging to the FLN in order to be elected to the Executive Council: "The members of the EC must be genuinely revolutionary militants’ meeting the standards defined by the Algiers Charter."
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Many. workers, particularly workers in the towns and permanent workers in the self-managed farms, fear the too dangerous development of a bureaucratic current, at least within a part of the leadership and the party apparatus. They are afraid that these bureaucrats and their cliques may become dangerous. allies of the "bureaucratic bourgeoisie in formation in the apparatus of the state, " referred to in the Algiers Charter.
Through experiments undertaken by the permanent agricultural workers, often in conjunction with similar efforts of their comrades in the towns, and also through contacts created by volunteer brigades on Socialist Sundays, in which city workers go out to give a hand to their comrades on the self-managed farms, certain steps have been taken along the road of unity between the city. workers (nationalized or self-managed industries, as well as semipublic and private industries) and the permanent workers of the self-managed farms,
An unknown remains: the broad mass of small fellahs (owners of very small plots of land) and unemployed, or semi-employed rural workers (landless peasants, hired hands of the Algerian owners or the self-managed sector). .
Illiterate for the most part, they have not yet made their voice heard.on the political scene. They were not represented at the congress of the Travailleurs de la Terre [Workers on the Zand]. Ben Bella, in regretting this, clearly stressed the fact,
But it must never be forgotten that if they are probably less advanced in understanding the need for a social and socialist revo- . lution (particularly, of course, among the small fellahs), their support in the nationalist struggle was essential. The final resolution of the congress of the Travailleurs de la Terre reaffirmed this: "The peasant masses in the so-called 'traditional' sector of agriculture constituted the main base of the liberatory action of our glorious ALN [Armée de Libération Nationale] and suffered especially under the colonial regime and the repression. "
For them only a radical agrarian reform offers a way of overcoming misery and abysmal poverty, at least partially. (Such a reform, announced long ago, has been postponed from time to time. At present it is projected for the summer of 1965, after the harvest.
It is significant that the permanent workers on the selfmanaged farms voted for this resolution and are advocating an agrarian reform. But it must be understood that its application or lack of it depends not only on the degree of mobilization and organization of the poor peasantry in the hinterlands, but also on the understanding, the militancy and the dynamism of the proletarian vanguard in the towns and countryside.
If a resumption of the mobilization of this proletarian vanguard is now being felt, another category of particularly exploited -
persons in Algeria, the women, have also begun to raise their voices. A series of things show that this is not entirely spontaneous but is due to a group of dynamic women who are trying, not without success, to organize a movement, demanding in particular full and complete participation in the national organizations, in all progressive demonstrations, the complete application of the Algiers Charter, the struggle against the traditional practice. of the dowry, freedom of choice in marriage. ,
This movement. began naturally in the big urban centers and has not. yet gone beyond this limit; but the demonstration on March 8 in Algiers, in conjunction with the observance of International Woman's Day, when several thousand Algerian women massed in the streets despite the ironic quips and stupid jeers of many men, marks the.end of one phase and the beginning of another,
The number of workers who came to Algiers March 20 to commemorate the second anniversary of the: march decrees (200,000 according to the March 21 Le Peuple) constitutes fresh proof of this new mtlitancy of the toiling masses. Here again the women were well represented. _ a
Similar demonstrations occurred in other cities, particularly in Constantine,
The UGTA congress inevitably confirmed all these tendencies. The renewed mobilization of the masses strongly affected the deliberations. In fact, the pressure of the workers, their dissatisfac~ tion with the incipient bureaucratic tendencies in the unions and elsewhere was so strong that the congress ended by completely sweep-= ing out the entire previous UGTA leadership. Not a single member of the executive committee was re-elected. A number of rank-and-file militants were brought into the leadership, whose general secretary Mouloud Oumeziane made an appéal for consolidation of self~management and for unity between the workers and peasants.
The pressure of the masses was also apparent in the consideration given to the woman question at the congress, the inclusion of two women workers in the new executive committee and the fact that twenty-three women delegates took the floor during the congress,
The congress adopted a resolution insisting on the necessity to carry out the next phase of the agrarian revolution by limiting the property of Algerian landowners. The resolution calls for the building of peasant unions, including small peasants and sharecroppers, and calls on the workers to mobilize against any attempt of the landowners to sabotage the next phase of the agrarian reform,
It also calls for clearing out all corrupt elements and former collaborators with the colonial administration from the state and party apparatus. It demands consolidation of the self-management system, the strengthening of the public as opposed to the pri-+
_vate sector of industry, closer integration of the mass of workers in the general management of the economy. It calls upon trade-union leaders to always use persuasion and never authoritarian methods in educating the workers of the public sector in. a "mentality of selfmanagement" as against the old “mentality of wage earners."
In all these points, the resolutions as well as the outcome of the debates at the congress undoubtedly strengthened the left wing of the FLN which is opposed to bureaucracy and wants to push the Algerian Revolution another step ahead. This is also reflected in the general resolution adopted at the congress which explicitly named the bureaucracy as among the reactionary social layers against which it is necessary to struggle. .
Ben Bella himself, undoubtedly influenced by this new radicalization, made two significant statements in his concluding speech ai the congress, The March 29 Le Peuple quoted him as praising "revolutionary democracy as opposed to. the democracy of phrasemongers," and proclaiming that. "undoubtedly real democracy is the very means to realize socialism, socialism through self-management." In addition, he promised that "before the end of the year 1965, the | socialist sector will dominate the private sector Lin industry] ."
“only on the question of strikes did the congress take a more ambiguous stand. It declared that strikes in the self-managed sector are inadmissible, It stated that "in the interest of socialist Algeria" all “unnecessary conflicts should -be prevented." At the same time it called upon the workers of the private sector to “oet to know all secrets of their bosses" and to exercise their right to "co-management," ;
It remains to be seen whether this new rise of mass spirit will remain sufficiently strong and vigilant to carry through the next big stage of the agrarian reform this summer and autumn. If it does, it could become an important new turning point in the development of the Algerian Revolution.
Imprimerie: el rue d' Aboukir, Paris 2 (imprime par les soins. de Directeur-Gérant: Pierre FRANK. —_ 1! éditeur),