Czechi attack unions

PRAGUE Radio announced on Wednesday that many leading Czech union members have been removed from their posts.

All those purged were prominent in organizing working-class resistance to the Kremlin interventien and occupation.

Since Husak's takeover last March, they have resisted his hard-line, pro-Kremlin policy.

The radio stated that the Bohemia-Moravia Council of Trade Unions has sacked four of its leaders and a further four have also resigned.

Among those sacked is Vlastimil Toman, head of the largest union, the metal workers, with a membership of close on a million workers.

Strike action

This same union threatened strike action in January against the attempt to remove Josef Smrkovsky • as Czechoslovak National Assembly (Smrkovsky was in fact purged from the Central Committee at its recent plenary session.) Nationalization out of the question' —Libyan oil minister LIBYA'S new Republican government announced in Tripoli on Wednesday that it does not intend at present to nationalize the country's oil Dil Minister Anis Ahmed Shteiwi said:

Nationalization at the present time is out of the question because we have neither the manpower nor the market outlet for our oil.' Main question Nationalization of oil would Coms Tor Libyan wardness by imperialism ackd its internal feudal agents.

But the main question is the political base of the regime. While it received popular support for its overthrow of the reactionary monarchy, the government represents the newer, privileged groups that have developed around the state bureaucracy, the armed forces and business interests.

This essentially bourgeois group would certainly like to develop Libyan capitalism out of revenue from the lucrative oil industry.

However it seeks to do this more by a 'fairer' division of the spoils than by a direct challenge to the property rights of the big oil monopolies.

To mount a struggle against the oil giants and their gorquire first of all mass support from the Libyan workers and peasants.

Bonapartist

This typically Bonapartist, Nasser-style regime fears the mobilization of the masses as much as it does the imperialist encroachments.

Like so many Arab regimes, the new Libyan government struggles to balance itself between imperialism and the Arab masses.

It combines nationalist demogogy and talk of 'socialism' and 'revolution' with suppression of genuine socialists and revolutionaries at home.

These contradictory policies reveal the basic inability of the colonial bourgeoisie to fight imperialism through to the end.

ALLIANCE

MEETINGS SWINDON Speaker: Frank Willis ung Socialists candidat in the parliamentary by-election Tuesday, October 14 Reuben George Hall Walcto Estate Friday, October 17 Swindon Town Hall Thursday, October 23 Common