popular. resistance against the Boumedienne regime, is being circulated in Algeria. Issued by the “Organisation de la Résistance Populaire" (People's Resistance Organization), it bears the signa-~ ture of Hocine Zahouane, a left-wing member of the Political Bureau of the FLN (Front de Libération Nationale) and chairman of its Cen= tral Commission of Orientation until Ben Bella was overthrown on June 19,
LIn a dispatch from Algiers reporting distribution of the document, Le Monde's special correspondent said (August 4 issue) that "circles close to the government" claim that Zahouane is fol» . lowed "by only a few 'stray' elements." Also that he did not go into opposition until after "trying, in vain, several times, to be taken into the Council of the Revolution" set up by Colonel Boumedienne,
("After having disappeared for two days following the coup a' état," continues the same source, "Mr. Zahouane was again seen in Algters up to the beginning of last week, It is even affirmed by trustworthy sources that between June 25 and June 30 -- at his request == Colonel Boumedienne met with him twice. It is not known where he is at present." ; .
[It is not without interest that L'Humanité, the central organ of the French Conmunist party, published the full text of the proclamation (August 3), calling special attention to it with a front-page headline. The content of Zahouane's proclamation stands in rather startling contrast to the policies of the French Communist party, one of the most conservative and rigidly bureaucratized in the world, It is soarcely likely that the French CP bureaucrats have suddenly become converted to revolutionary socialism even in relation to Algeria. Whether they are under pressure from former members of the Algerian Communist party, which was dissolved, is a matter for speculation. However, publication of the proclamation does offer the leaders of the French CP a means of appearing con= siderably more radical than their critics in Peking who precipitately recognized the Boumedienne regime out of hope of gaining passing factional advantage in the Sino-Soviet conflict.
[We offer below a translation of the text published by L'Humanité, |
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Ps Algerian People, Working Men and Women!
Since June 19 you have continued to demonstrate your dis~ approval of the military coup d'état which overthrew the revolution-
ary réBime established after the country won its independence, By both the indignation and anger whieh you voiced in the streets and the mournful silence of our cities and countryside on the anniver~ sary of our independence, you have continued to reject the fait accompli, the "explanations" and- "justifications" of the men of June 19,
You have good reason to be disturbed and alarmed; you have | good reason to believe that the gains of the revolution are thréatened; and you can only be vigilant in face of the regroupment of the reactionary and counterrevolutionary forces. Your revolutionary instinct has led you to feel that through the man who incarnated your hopes it is the Algerian people who have been stabbe it is the revolution that has been betrayed, it is socialism that has been disowned.
It is of course true that the overturned revolutionary regime was incarnated, personified by Ben Bella; but it was far from con~ sisting of a single individual alleged to have set up a so-called tyranny. In reality, if Ben Bella sinned, he did so most often on the side of gentleness, a naive spirit of conciliation, and not on the side of the force required to deal with stubborn enemies of the Revolution, who were more numerous, in the final analysis, than those touched ‘by him, He
This regime, despite its weaknesses: and tactical errors, which we must also analyze so that they can be taken into account in the future, after all expressed the deepest revolutionary aspirations of the working masses and opened the way to the continuous transformation of the national revolution for independence into a socialist revolution -- self-management, the nationalizations, the March decrees, the Algiers Charter, are very concrete revolutionary conquests that mark and clearly point the road,
This regime in addition, thanks. to a courageous anti=-imperialist policy of constant support to the revolutionary national liberation movements and of friendship with the socialist countries, brought unparalleled prestige to Algeria abroad,
It is true that this regime was fragile and that the absence of genuinely socialist, revolutionary democratic structures in the party, in the trade unions, in the administration, created a vacuum that a ‘single man could not fill indefinitely. It is even true that many militants, to whom this was a constant preoccupation, were often confused by Ben Bella's administrative methods, his combinations, But. even those who were the hottest about the great difficulties standing in the way of the socialist revolution, are ill-advised to reproach Ben Bella in this respect today. The revolutionary forces which were often the main victims of these methods never, so far as they were concerned, violated the legal frame of the revolution and always employed fraternal and frank criticism within the regular bodies of the party. Despite everything, Ben Bella remained a man
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who was not the tool of any foreign or domestic counterrevolutionary force; a man, on the contrary, who was. always sensitive to the aspirations of the revolutionary forces. -
Who are the conspirators of June 19? _ Among them are inflexible enemies of socialism,
Who has done more than Mahsas to drain away the content of self-management in agriculture?
Who has done more than Boumaza to strangle the socialist industrial sector? -
Who has done more than Bouteflika to transform the men Sey of foréign affairs into an office of neocolonialism?
Who has siphoned off more for his personal needs from the budget of the ministry of tourism than Kafid Ahmed?
Who has done more in high education than Chérif Belkacem to foster the antinational and capitalist spirit inherited from the | colonial period?
Who has done more than the Chabous (Moulay Abdelkader), the Hoffmanns, ex-officers of the French army of occupation, to humiliate_and declass all the glorious revolutionary officers of the ALN [Armée de Libération Nationale] and to transform certain units of the army of the people into putschist detachments?
Who within the conspiracy represents the interests of the foreign oil companies more than Belaid Abdeslam?
Who, more than these men, with Boumedienne in the lead, have stubbornly resisted democratizing the party, cleansing out the admin= istration, creating a genuinely popular militia and carrying out all the revolutionary measures advocated by the Algiers Charter?
At the side of these sworn enemies of the socialist revolution, the other members of the self-styled Council of the Revolution are vehicles, consciously or otherwise, of pressures and influences profoundly hostile to socialism,
That is why the domestic bourgeois and reactionary forces supported the putsch,
What is why Franco, Salazar and Saigon saluted the coup d'état condemned by Gamal Abdel Nasser, Fidel Castro, Sékou Touré, N'Krumah and all the progressive forces of the world,
Algerian people, working men and women}
For three years very important conquests were gained despite
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the obstacles, despite the permanent opposition of the forces of reaction and imperialism. - But consolidation of the democratic regime of the “people still remained distant.
Self-management had to be solidly based, the pig landholders expropriated for the benefit of the poor peasants, all the agents of _ reaction and imperialism cleaned out of the state.
A vanguard party had to be created to promote. the democratic planning of the economy. —
All this was necessary and possible.
_ All this was urgent because the structure was still young and fragile.
The military coup d'état of June 19 dealt a setback to the preparations for rectifications projected under the. pressure of the masses in motion,
AIGERIAN PEOPLE!
It would be illusory and dangérous to count on democratic political practices from a military regime founded on the sword and the blood of sons of the people.
This regime has already strangled the Republic, It has opened the way to new adventures. It has housebroken and corrupted the party, It seeks to subjugate the UGTA [Union Générale des Travailleurs Algériens] and the other mass organizations. It has tarnished the international revolutionary prestige of the country.
Cut off from the working people, fundamentally distrustful of them, it can rule only through lies, social demagogy and repression,
AIGERIAN PEOPLE, working men and women!
Only organized resistance can now save the acquisitions of the revolution,
We call on you for this resistance,
We call on the genuine socialist militants to create underground cells of the FLN on the basis of the Algiers Charter,
Workers, poor peasants, revolutionary intellectuals, constitute everywhere in the villages and the countryside, in every plant and in every farm, in the offices, in the buildings, underground eells as guides and inspirers of the ORGANISATION DE LA RESISTANCE POPULAIR (ORP).
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. Workers, patriots, Algerians in emigration, women, ‘youth, © small artisans and merchants, officers, subofficers and revolution-= ary veterans, functionaires devoted to the Republic, create Committees of the ORP everywhere to prepare and to undertake a struggle in all forms against the stranglers of the Republic, to safeguard the threatened national independence and to ensure ‘the triumph of the Socialist Revolution.
Hard and long though the struggle for these objectives may be, the united revolutionary and socialist forces, assured of the active solidarity of all the progressive forces of the world, will not disarm, will not cease to conduct the most stubborn struggle to win,
And they will win..
For the leadership of the ORP
Hocine Zahouane Algeria, July 28, 1965
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Directeur-Gérant: