Italy: "A pre-revolutionary situation' says government minister 20 MILLION STRIKE

MILLION workers went throughout Italy yesterday in support for cheaper and The strike hit every sector of the economy.

Apart from the main industries and transport, whichhave been ve centre of large - scale strike actions over the last three months, the stoppage also affected food supplies, mail and newspapers.

Radio and television programmes were also drastically cut.

Minister of Labour, Carlo Donat, once a leader of the Catholic trade unions, made a plea for concessions to the working class before the situation deteriorated still further.

Squeeze

Pointing out, in a magazine article, that on top of acute problems such as housing, low wages and poor social services, a 'considerable credit squeeze' was being operated, Donat warned of the effect of such a policy would have on the working class:

'I think that it is necessary to change this policy •• If this were to have repercussions on employment, it would create a prerevolutionary situation in the country, with the danger of an outburst to the right.' As an old trade union All Trades Unions Alliance meetings LUTON 'Report back from Motor Workers' Conference' Chursday, November The Cock Park Square HULL "The Workers Press' Thursday November 20 more plentiful leade 'he is talking about. Carlo Donat knows With the working class atready pushed to the limit, a rise in unemployment now would provoke even greater struggles than those taking place at the moment.

Outburst

And when Donat refers to 'an outburst to the right, everybody in Italy will know what he means.

many months now, there has been speculation in the press that the military, allied with fascist and other extreme right-wing elements, have been preparing a coup to forestall the development of a revolutionary situation in Italy.

Writing as both a 'leftwing' member of the ruling Milan Wednesday-Hundreds of workers and students, yelling 'it's the revolution' and "civil war', fought violent battles with police here today.

One policeman was killed and 20 injured in the clashes, a police spokesman said. At least 20 demonstrators were taken to hospital.

Fighting broke out when police tried to stop demonstrators forming an unauthorised protest march through the city after a trade union strike rally.

Christian-Democratic party and as a spokesman for the bureaucracy of the Catholic trade unions (who are supporting the general strike), Donat appealed to the employers to concede at least some of the workers' demands-even if only in their own long-term interests:

I think this lack of consciousness [on the part of the employers] is shared by some politicians responsible for monetary and financial manoeuvring'.

This last remark is directed at Guido Carli, the 'hard-line' Governor of the Bank of Italy, who last week B.S.R. pickets stand solid THREE HUNDRED workers from the BSR factory in East Kilbride met yesterday afternoon and decided to remain on strike as a body until all strikers are returned to their original jobs.

The strikers had walked out of the factory on Tuesday over the conditions under which they were to start back to work.

Some alleged they had been moved to different departments and others complained that whilst scabs were allowed to go to the toilet, union members had to ask for permission.

The atmosphere could be cut with a knife, the workers said.

strike Moon-walk delayed after a grey. 194 perfect landing THE TWO US astronauts, Charles Conrad and Alan Bean, yesterday became the third and fourth men to set foot on the moon.

They began their 3t-hour walk on the lunar surface five hours after their spacecraft Intrepid landed in the moon's Ocean of Storms at 7.54 a.m.

The Apollo 12 astronauts were jubilant at the accuracy and smoothness with which their spacecraft touched down.

The spacecraft landed right on target. Houston mission control reported that Intrepid was within 800 feet of Surveyor 3, an unmanned US moon probe which landed in the crater in April 1967.

Retrieve parts

During their moon-walk Conrad and Bean are to retrieve parts of Surveyor 3, including a television camera.

US scientists hope to gain new knowledge about the effects of the harsh lunar environment on man-made materials.

The scientific value of the Apollo 12 mission is it fol. ever, limited because lows so close on the previous mission, leaving little time to integrate the lessons from Apollo 11.

Leading US space scientists have resigned in recent months because they believe the US government is distorting the Apollo programme for propaganda ends.

Each Apollo mission has been accompanied by controversies.

Apollo 12 itself was launched in weather condiagainst a sell-out From our own Gurrvonvirdun..

A striker complained that in one working bay there were more scabs than union members.

The strike committee claimed it had been told that there would be only 140 cabs in the factory, but it eemed that several hundred had been newly-started during Strikers were very critical of the way in which union officials had handled Scene at the Milan Pirelli plant during the receir strikes whick have Another step WORKERS PRESS the E.E.C. THE AGREEMENT for scientific and technological co-operation, between Britain and the Common Market countries was accepted • on Tuesday on behalf of the government by Foreign Secretary Michael Stewart.

It represents another step towards British entry into the Common Market.

Standardization of techniques and equipment in computers, telecommunications, transport and metallurgy - four of the fields of research involved —is a necessary preliminary if the British market is to merge with Europe.

move has the full backing of leading sectors of big business.

Encouraged

When the National Economic Development Council met in London, it is said to have encouraged Wilson to press for entry as soon as possible.

The big employers have The strike committee announced that there would be no return to work until all union members had been given back their jobs.

They were not going to be subjected to the indignities they experienced on Tuesday, they said.

According to the agreement between BSR and the AEF, a full-time trade union advisor, to be paid by the company, has been nominated by the union. technological co-operation.

Such co-operation will only enefit the working class wher the Common Market is smashed and the Socialist United States of Europe is built on its ruins.

FRENCH

POWER STRIKE FRENCH electricity and gas workers struck yesterday in support of a pay claim. The ioin several thousand atomic power station workers already nvolved Police had to oust electricity men occupying Paris distribution centres. North-East schools struck yesterday.

outs.

hit 73 schools.

The strikes are to continue up to scheduled to begin. December 1, schools are By our education correspondent COMPROMISE BRENT Teachers' Association is demanding that there be no compromise on the £135 claim, that no strings be attached to the award and that a strike fund levy on all members of the National Union of Teachers be set up.

Five _schools in the area have already volunteered for a two-week strike from December 1. It is reported that some 80 schools in the borough of Newham have also volunteered.

demanded firm resistance the employers to worke wage demands.

Vatican

Agnelli of Fiat, also a supporter of firm action against the working class, is believed to have won the Vatican for this policy.

No doubt the monopolies and their government spokesmen would like to buy peace in the way Donat suggests-but they simply cannot afford to.

As the world trade war sharpens and plans go ahead for British entry into the Common Market, the Italian ruling class is forced to stand and fight.

This means continued deflation, more unemployment, low wages, continued houssocial services. There is 0r shortages and other way.

The Italian working class enter this decisive stage of their fight as an integral part of the European working class.

With the British employers drawing closer to France, West Germany and Italy, the British workers increasingly share and face the same problems as those confronting the Italian The Italian workers are enormously handicapped by their lack of any revolutionary leadership.

The Stalinists, the centrists and the reformists up to now have restricted the strike wave to largely union demands.

Our solidarity with • the 20 million Italian strikers must be expressed by building this leadership in Britain, as part of the only world movement that can lead the Italian workers to victory-the Fourth International. Moon-walk tions so bad that the rocket was hit by lightning shortly after take-off and for 12 seconds its electrical system was knocked out.

There were allegations that the launching took place at the set time despite the adverse weather conditions because President Nixon . was watching the launch at Cape Kennedy.

Exploded

It is certainly no accident that US space scientists chose the Apollo 12 launch date to release the information that a giant Soviet rocket, designed to land cosmonauts on the moon, exploded on its launching ramp earlier this year.

Such propaganda manoeuvres accompanying the space 'spectaculars' cannot disguise the deepening crisis of US imperialism.

Saturday's spectacle at Cape Kennedy could not hide the enormous opposition to Nixon and the Vietnam war shown in the weekend's demonstrations.