'Morning Star' supports the jailers of Hugo Blanco

native to the present regime.

As the 50th anniversary of the foundation of the Party at Tour l in December 1920 draws near we can expect the usual flood of distortion about the Party's past.

It is clear from preceding articles that the early attempts by the Communist International, and especially by Trotsky, to establish a party of a Bolshevik type in France after Tours, while making some progress, were soon overcome by the degeneration of the International itself.

What emerged from the process wrongly called 'Bolshevization' was a docile instrument of Moscow which was later endowed with a handpicked leadership headed by Maurice Thorez.

Thorez accepted Stalin as his mentor and built the Party into a powerful political force in France, but one noted for its unswering fidelity to the needs of Moscow.

If the writings published at the time of the 40th anniversary are any guide we cannot expect that Party historians will deal at all faithfully with its past.

The special number of 'Cahiers de Communisme' put out for the education of militants on that occasion was able to deal with the Party's history without a reference to Stalin-or to the Communist International! The reader gathers that the Party had always been right, thanks principally to Maurice Thorez.

The Party militants have to be confronted with the real past of their own Party and the counter-revolutionary role which it has played since the 1930s.

The leadership has to be asked now where it stands on Stalinism and whether it still justifies the Moscow Trials and purges; how it explains the repression in E Europe; and whether it still accepts the characterization of Trotskyism which it employed in the past.

Not least there has to be some explanation of the treatment meted out to Marty, Tillon and other militants who served the Party well for many years and were then denounced and slandered.

What were the real facts about the Party regime in the days of Thorez?

Opening up these questions is not of merely historical interest. It can provide an important weapon in dealing with Stalinism and its sequels and cutting them out of the French working-class moveThe carrying out of this task is part of the struggle to bring the working class to power. IN THE May 12 'Morning Star', Jorge Del Prado, General Secretary of the Peru Communist Party, explained to its readers 'Why Communists Support Peru's Military Government'.

This regime has already been roundly condemned by the leaders of several leftwing groups in Peru. Even the Castroites oppose it, despite the fact that the Cuban government has several times stated that General Velasco's regime is capable of carrying through a consistent fight for socialism against internal reaction and US imperialism.

It, holds in prison many well known militants -including Hugo Blanco-and has repressed both students and peasants fighting for their democratic rights. In no sense of the term can the regime be described either as socialist or even bourgeois democratic.

Prado carefully skirts round these unsavoury facts. At all costs, the regime must be built up as 'progressive' and 'anti-imperialist':

The military government • •. contrary to the views abroad that it had carried out a preventative coup d'etat against the left, has, in fact, introduced a number of important radical measures ...

The real basis of Prado's support is not the class nature of the regime, but the role it can play in the intricate manoeuvrings between the Soviet bureaucracy and US imperialism:

'In the face of the opposition of internal reaction and the threats of economic sanctions from the US that these measures evoked, the government established relations with the Soviet Union and other socialist countries ..?

For a Stalinist, this is the beginning and end of all political wisdom.

In fact the Stalinists have now become one of the main props of the regime-something which helps to explain Castro's statements in support of General Velasco.

Prado himself describes how his Party has helped to mobilize the Peruvian working class behind a regime that could at any moment turn on them in the most brutal fashion:

'The General Confederation of Labour of Peru, in which Communists play an important role, had by now become a very powerful force. ... The confederation called a big march and meeting to support the government's policy, but also to demand an end to the anti-labour policy of the Ministry of Labour. ... As the march was due to end in a meeting in the square of the Presidential Palace, the President indicated that in this case he would have to make an appearance, which he wasn't prepared to do, though he respected the demonstration that had been called.

'A compromise solution resulted in the march being transferred to another square.

Thus on March 9, this year, the first organized mass demonstration of the government took place with over 60,000 taking part.' (Emphasis added.)

Mobilizing So the Stalinists - working through the trade unions-are the main political force mobilizing the working class behind the military regime. As Prado makes very clear, the rally of March 9 could not have taken place without the intervention of his Party.

Prado, at the instigation of the Soviet bureaucracy, follows in the blood-drenched footsteps of the Chinese Communist Party. It too, in the interests of 'anti-imperialist unity, mobilized the workers and peasants behind a 'left' military figure-Chiang Kai-shek —who also had good relations with the Soviet bureaucracy. 11.10 News summary. 11.15 Disco 2.

Midnight Movie.

'Affair in Trinidad' with Glenn Ford and Rita Hayworth. An American goes to the West Indies to investigate his brother's death and becomes involved with a gang of international conspirators. With Stalin's assistance Chiang led the Chinese workers into massacre after massacre.

It took 20 years or more for the Chinese working class to recover from the bloodlettings of Shanghai, Canton and Wuhan.

Now Prado plans a repeat performance in Peru.

Latin American Stalinism has always taken as its starting point the interests and diplomacy of the Kremlin, and never the revolutionary interests of the workers and peasants of central and South America.

The Cuban Communist Party has one of the worst records in this respect.

The name Batista evokes hatred and disgust in the memory of every Cuban worker jailers of Hugo Blanco, who have 'introduced a number of important BBC 9.00 a.m. Nai zindagi-naya jeevan 9.30 Repondez s'il vous plait. 10.00 Wie bitte?. 10.30-11.30 Service. 11.35 Swim. 12 noon Germany 1870-1970: 'Das Volk'. 12.30-1.00 p.m. Decimal shop. 1.25-1.50 Farming. 2.00 Education programme. 2.29 News headlines. 2.30 'It was very easy in those days to die . ..: Russell Braddon, Australian journalist talks about his experiences as a Japanese prisoner of war. 3.05 A film for the family: 'A Cry From The Streets'. 4.40 Going for a song. 5.05 Hobbyhorse. 5.30 Look. 5.55 Shari Lewis 6.05 News and weather. 6.15 Ideas in print.

Religious discussion.

Songs of praise for Sunday. 7.20 Appeal on behalf of the Royal National Institute for the Deaf.

Play of the month. 'The Rivals' with Andrew Cruickshank and Beryl Reid. Sheridan's comedy, written in 1775, about the trials and misunderstandings of various sets of lovers. 10.10 News and weather. 10.20 Omnibus.

"The Hollywood Image', the post-war years.

Julie Felix.

Guest stars, Peter Sarstedt and Blue Mink. 11.45 Weather.

BBC 2 1.50-6.30 p.m. Cricket.

Player's County LeagueHampshire v Surrey.

News review and weather.

Rowan and Martin's

laugh-in.

Bird's eye view.

'Eastern Approach.'

9.05 Music on 2.

Music Now-Watchi

Music. and peasant. His regime, overthrown by the 1959 Castro-led revolution, was responsible for the torture, murder, persecution and poverty of countless thousands of workers and poor peasants.

Yet how many know that Batista was once supported by the Stalinists?

Again, the determining factor was Stalinist diplomacy— only on this occasion, the Batista regime was given the stamp of approval because it was pro-US imperialism!

The date is important-early 1939, when the Soviet bureaucracy was still pursuing its 'Popular Front' line against Germany. The Roosevelt Administration was also antiGerman, so all pro-US regimes in Latin America, whatever their internal policy, won Stalinist support.

In the 'Communist International' for January 1939 we can read (in an article entitled The Struggle for Democracy in Cuba') the following apology for the regime overthrown by Castro 20 years later:

'Great changes have recently taken place in the political life of Cuba. At the beginning of 1938, the government, whose real head is Colonel Batista, was a military dictatorship. Now it has taken genuine steps towards recognizing the democratic rights of the people ...

.. On September 30, Batista told the American agency, the Associated Press, "Cuba is for democracy and are supported by the Peruvian Stalinists. SUNDAY TV against the totalitarian states". He added that the Cuban army, 25,000 strong, would support the democratic United States [sic!] in the event of their fighting a war against fascism ... Comrade Blas Roca [the current leader of the Cuban Stalinists] ... [was] received by Colonel Batista, who assured [him] of his determination to call the Constituent Assembly during 1939. When Blas Roca refuted the charges of the reactionary press that Batista had manoeuvred against the Communists, Batista sent him a friendly telegram, reaffirming his aims.' a leading reactionary, has joined a Nazi Party, which has been modelled on the German Nazi Party. Together with the Trotskyist agents, whose acts of provocation include attacking a priest and throwing bombs in a cinema, the reactionaries are trying in every way to sabotage Batista's preparations for the Constituent Assembly. ... Cuba's Communists and democrats are on their guard. They have discovered the sinistersanguinary designs of the fascists and reactionaries, and the deeds of their agents, the Trotskyists' In those days of the proRoosevelt 'Popular Front' Trotskyists were denounced as enemies of US imperialism. Today the Blas Rocas and the Castros slander Trotskyism as one of its accomplices!

The same is true of the Peruvian Stalinists. Never at any time have they called for the release of Hugo Blanco, who is an avowed supporter of Trotskyism.

Instead they try to isolate Peruvian revolutionaries from the working class and peasantry, slandering them as 'adventurists'.

Drawing ever closer to the