SOCTALIST WORKERS
CONFEDERATION FORMED IN BELGIUM
By Henri Vallin
Three hundred and fifty delegates, representing all the main cities and industrial areas of Belgium, met in Lidge October 10 at the founding congress of the Socialist Workers Confederation. They represented the three organizations -- the Walloon Workers party, the Left Socialist Movement of Brussels, and the Flemish Socialist Movement -= which decided to unite their forces in the struggle for a socialist Belgium on a federal basis that would grant self-determination to the two nationalities living in the country.
The first action of the congress was to respond favorably to an appeal from the Berkeley, California, "Vietnam Day Committee" to join in an international demonstration on October 16 against the U.S. imperialist war in Vietnam,
The great majority of the delegates consisted of youth and factory workers, among them well-known shop stewards and trade~union -militants from the Liége metal works, the Charleroi metal and gas plants, the Antwerp and Ostend shipyards, the railway workers and the teachers union.
The presiding committee consisted of Robert Nicolas, of Charleroi, Pierre Le Grave, the Brussels left socialist member of parliament, and Frans Vrancks, chairman of the Louvain federation of the Young Socialists and shop steward at Sabena, the Belgian air lines. Vrancks represented the Flemish wing of the movement,
The main reports were as follows: Marcel Slangen (of the Walloon wing of the confederation) on internal policy and federalism, Van der Borght (Flemish wing) on foreign policy, and Ernest Mandel, editor of La Gauche on social and economic policy.
The congress adopted a programmatic resolution stating the goal of the party is to overthrow capitalism, replacing it with collective ownership of all the means of production and workers manage-= ment of all the plants and factories in the framework of a democra» tically planned economy. The resolution states that this goal cannot be reached except through conquest of power by the working class, international solidarity among the workers, and the international victory of socialism,
The immediate program of action of the Socialist Workers Confederation calls for federalism and anticapitalist structural reforms; namely, nationalization of the banks, insurance companies, all credit outfits, the mines, power plants, oil refineries and gas works, all of these to be placed under workers control.
The program calls for workers control over all important
factories and collective ownership of land used for buildings.
It advocates the 40-hour week with no reduction in weekly pay, four-weeks vacation with double pay, a free national health service, large increases in pensions and social benefits, and so on.
It also demands that Belgium leave NATO and radically reduce military expenditures.
Solidarity is expressed withall the colonial peoples fighting for their freedom as well as with the struggle of the Negro people in the United States for equal rights.
The Belgian daily press, radio and television gave extensive coverage to the congress, handling it as a major political event in the country.
The veteran of Belgian socialism, 94-year-old Camille Huysmans, sent a letter of sympathy to the new confederation and declared his readiness to join it. Huysmans, a Social Democrat all his life, started to move left a few years ago, especially under the impact of the Chinese revolution and in opposition to the rearmament of Germany. He had recently made an extensive tour of China. In his message of sympathy to the congress, he strongly condemned Foreign Minister Spaak for complicity in the war of aggression which U.S. imperialism is waging against the Vietnamese people, and took a firm stand in favor of the Vietnamese and Chinese revolutions,
The October 16 demonstration against the war in Vietnam, which the delegates decided to help organize, is being backed by a number of left-wing organizations. Among them are the Brussels railway work~ ers union, the gas and electricity workers union, the teachers union, the Committee for Struggle against Neocolonialism and Fascism, the Jeunes Gardes Socialistes, the Communist Youth, the Socialist Students, the Communist Students and the Committee for the Antinuclear Demonstration.
: The Khrushchevist Communist party, which is participating in the demonstration, wanted to give it a mere pacifist orientation, However, the organizing committee, mainly under the influence of militants belonging to the Socialist Workers Confederation, adopted a radical line and slogans so as to clearly express solidarity with the opponents of the Vietnam war in the United States and with the Vietnamese revolution itself,