Forces of the political revolution Strength

WITH THE 24th Congr two weeks away, a proi the ruling Stalinist bure:

Top Czech 'hardline' Stalinist Vasil Bilak has issued two letters to Party officials warning against the dangerous situation in neighbouring Poland, which he described as 'counter-revolutionary'.

In the fust letter, Bilak officials about new strikes that were oreakin strikes that were breaking out in various parts Poland, and his second letter, sent two days later on February 19, warned that the Polish strike movement could easily trigger working-class action against Stalinist regime in Czechoslovakia.

The Czech regime is deeply disturbed by the power of the Polish working and especially ory, its demand that the trade unfons should represent the interests of the Bilak's second letter criticizes the dwar Gierek adership for retreating befor the Polish working class on the issue of food prices.

Having first said the price increases introduced by the Gomulka regime had to stay, Gierek then reduced them to their pre-December levels after a strike wave hit the big textile city of Lodz.

Encourage

Such retreats, Bilak implied, would only encourage the working class to fight for even more gains-and not only in Bilak is even more worried about the Polish workers' struggle on the political front, for freedom of expression, trade union independence from the Stalinist bureaucracy and the right to strike and demonstrate.

Bilak stressed the similarity between the present Polish situation and the 1968 Czech crisis, where the anti-Stalinist movement in the working class was temporarily halted by the Kremlin invasion.

Trade union independence, abolition of press censorship and the right of minorities to organize inside the Communist Party, were among the main demands fought for by the Czech working class in the period immediately before the Soviet invasion.

Bilak obviously fears that the example of the Polish workers will give new heart to the Czech workers to continue their struggle against Stalinism. iss of the Soviet Communist Party ›und political crisis is developing icracies.

The fear of the Czech bureaucracy can be gauged from Bilak's warning to Party officials in regions bordering on Poland.

They have been instructed to watch closely all Poles who cross over daily into Czechoslovakia to work.

All references to the Polish situation have been banned from the Czech radio, television and press — again on government instructions.

At all costs, the bureaucracy has to wall off the Czech working class from the political developments taking place in Poland.

This fear lies behind the Czech regime's trial of 19 young anti-Stalinist socialists in Prague, who are now daily being slandered by the Czech press and radio as 'counterrevolutionaries' — the term Bilak uses to describe the struggle of Polish workers.

But the impact of the Polish crisis has been greatest in the Soviet Union, where the ruling bureaucracy is already deeply divided on both domestic and international policy questions.

It was Kremlin cash that paid for Gierek's panic food price cuts at the height of the Lodz strikes.

And it was also Soviet troops and tanks that ringed now only inside all ROBERT BLACK the main industrial areas last December as Gomulka's police and army went in to crush the Baltic strikers.

No amount of armour and police intimidation can check the process of 'underground' political discussion and polemic that is now thriving in the Soviet Union.

The resolute .. stand of writers like solznenitsyn, the political campaigning of Peter Yakir and Maj. Grigorenko, both reflect a deep going radicalization that now reaches right down into the Soviet working class and youth.

Not alone These gathering forces of the political revolution against the Stalinist bureaucracy will make their own experiences, and test out their own theories in actual struggles against the bureaucracy.

They do not fight alone. The unprecedented movement of the W European working class against imperialism throws the ruling bureaucracies into even deeper crisis.

It creates the most favourable political conditions in E Europe and the Soviet Union for rapid political clarification on the vital issue of Trotskyism.