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Writings of TEON BOTSKY Leon Trotsky 032-08 (1838-8)

CURITHIES OF WRITLOGS OF TEOD LEON TROTSKY TROTSKO 977-70 1834 -35 Six volumes of Trotsky's writings during the years 1933-1940 £8.00 including postage Please tick those you require. Amount enclosed Name Address Complete form and post to: lications, 186a Clapham High Street, London SW4 7UG Ivew rark rublicatons, 18ba AT- n..L A New Park Publicatiol History of Russian Revolution —special gift pack of three volumes £1.70 including postage Clap ham High 1s Bo oklis tis ar TROYST Trotsky—a documentary Francis Wyndham and David King £1.65 including Street, ailable, free, or requ est.

JOIN THE LEGION.. te l-rench -oreign Leglon, which is at present waging a recruiting campaign across the border in Italy. Italy is the pool of surplus labour for the European Common Market. From all over the coun try, and particularly from the impoverished south, men are driven by lack of work to move to the industrial towns of Germany, France, Holland and Belgium.

Common Market statutes provide for the free movement of labour, which in practice means the enforced migration of hundreds of thousands of men and women from one country to another.

The 'free mobility of labour' is being given a sinister new twist by the French authorities, however.

Over the last few months thousands of young Italians have received the following sinister communication through the post.

Honoured sir, Here, in a few words, is all that the Foreign Legion can offer you. If among your friends there is someone who already has some problem, I think it will be worth their while to read this letter.

At present you are certainly without personal or family worries and your job is perfectly secure. Without doubt your life is satisfying and your work interests you. But tomorrow, who can say?

What can happen in six months? In a year? Will you be facing problems then? Will you perhaps have lost your job? Or will you be unhappy in vour work? Too monotonous, too dirty, too tiring? Perhaps you will have family worries ... or problems with the law.

You can never be sure of anything, isn't that so? If you were in trouble, you would be happy to find a roof over your head, a hearth, a refuge. To find a group of friends who would look after you and help you to solve your problems.

Something which offers you an active and interesting life; which-can offer you a future as a trained specialist; which will enable you to discover exotic countries you would never otherwise get to see.

And all this in an atmosphere of free comradeship, without any worries about money. The Foreign Legion can offer you all this! No, don't throw away this letter even if the name of the Foreign Legion frightens you ... or makes you laugh.

Read it right to the end to form an opinion even if it is unfavourable. I'll take that risk. And after ali, reading it doesn't commit you to anything.

The letters have been sent out only to selected young men, whose age, social class and police record makes them likely candidates for membership of the French Foreign Legion.

Naturally, the French authorities are committing a flagrant violation of Italian law, which does not permit any other country to recruit Italian nationals to its armed forces.

Opinions differ, but it may even be in breach of French law, as well. But that does not appear to bother the authorities either side of the border.

When the matter was raised in the Rome parlament by the veteran Communist Party senator Umberto Terracini last August, he had to wait six months for a reply. Then he was told by the Interior Minister's under-secretary that the government would see it didn't happen again.

The letters are still flooding ınto the country, however, as Terracini pointed out in parliament on March 14. The Italian government claims to have made representations in Paris and yet the recruitment letters are still arriving complete with brochures setting out the Legion's terms and conditions of service in the most attractive light.

Any desperate young Italian -and there are many, many desperate young Italians-has only to make his way over the border into France (he can cross with his identity card) and sign up at the nearest Legion recruiting office.

The Italian government makes no effort to put an end to this infamous traffic, though it has every reason to know the real facts about service in the Legion. From the Legion's main base on Corsica, dozens of disillusioned soldiers have tried to swim to freedom and land in Sardinia.

Their efforts are often unsuccessful-some drown, some are recaptured. But the conditions of service are so appalling that they are prepared to risk it. If they are not in some Corsican barracks, the would-be legionnaires are likely to Monday find themselves in the hot desert of Djibouti or Chad or in the steaming forests of Madagascar.

They come back to Italy after three years or five years in the service of French imperialism trained for one purpose and one purpose only: the suppression of colonial revolt and the use of modern weaponry.

Their heads filled with the ideology of reaction inculcated by an officer corps which includes many veterans of the SS, the veteran Legionnaires will be ready recruits for the Italian fascists.

Perhaps that is why the Italian government is prepared to turn a Nelson's eye on the flagrant violation of its own constitution by a supposedly friendly power.