Arrests begin in Czechoslovakia

AFTER the purge of party and government leaders in Czechoslovakia come the rrests. Reliable reports from Prague speak of the arrest of General Vaclav Prehlik, who was head of the Central Committee's military and security department under As a prelude to his arrest, the general's parliamentary immunity was lifted on Wednesday.

Other arrests are believed to have involved members of the group that signed a tenpoint manifesto attacking the Soviet invasion and occupaOne of them is Rudolf Battek, a leading sociolohis, soo losing his partles tary immunity.

The new repressive laws, worse even than anything suffered under Stalin and Novotny, are already. being widely used to deal with any oppositionists to the Husak regime.

More signatures Despite these and many ther, arrests, the manifesto ontinues to collect more signatures.

Historian Jan Tesar is now emands closed shop similar closed-shop agreements had been made in nationalized industries such as the railways and electricity supply and should be possible in the Post Office now that it was a nationalized industry.

The claim, he said, was in line with the Donovan Commission report on the unions.

But union leaders who argue for the closed shop on the basis of the Donovan Report are opening the way for handing over shop floor workers' negotiating rights.

The Donovan Report proposed closed-shop agreements for conditions where unions had already agreed to discipline or expel workers who took unofficial action of any sort.

With the union playing this role the employers need a closed shop so that all workers come under the discipline of the union.

Closed-shop agreements in the interests of the working class will certainly not derive from any government inquiry, but will only be gained through struggles against the Labour government for the independence of the unions from the state. in jail, while the popular TV personality Skutina is believed to be in hospital, suifering from stomach • trouble after a hunger strike in test against being jailed without charge for more than three weeks.

This is now 'legal' under the regime's new emergency legislation.

The Czech Party leadership is deeply split in this new crisis.

A sizeable minority voted against Husak at the recent two-day session of the Party Central Committee.

The issue was the legality of the Party Congress held in a factory in the first days of the Soviet invasion.

The new, pro-Kremlin Party leadership has naturally disowned this Congress which took a stand against the intervention and for continuation of the 'Action Programme' endorsed by the Party in April 1968.

Even after numerous purges and threats, Husak was only able to rally 65 per cent of the Central Committee members behind a resolution invalidating the Congress and its decisions.

Crisis deepens

As a sop to Dubcek, who recently expressed his support for the laws now being used to jail his supporters, the 'liberal' leader was offered a 'responsible post' as Mayor of Bratislava, an insult that Dubcek declined.

The Czech crisis deepens hourly.

General

strike in Ceylon?

THE Ceylon • government is facing the prospect of general strike, it was stated in Colombo.

A deadline for a return to work in three strikes already in progress has been ignored by the unions.

tween the government and the whole of the trade union movement.

Husak is only the half-way house to an even more reactionary and anti-working class regime.

The Kremlin has forced his hand to begin this new purge and wave of arrests, but much worse is planned for We insist once again : • Withdraw all Soviet troops from Czechoslovakia. • Form workers' councils, the only guarantee against bureaucracy and capitalist restoration. • End the purges in Czechoslovakia. • Free all those already arrested.

paralyse Fiat THE GIANT Fiat motor works was again paralyzed by strikes on Thursday.

The employers' association admitted that in the whole of the Turin area, over half the labour force were out in plants affected by the strike.

Picket lines were strongly defended, which at Fiat reflects a remarkable development of class feeling in a company which, until this lowest strike rates in Italy. has had of the Joined The Fiat, building, engineering, agricultural and educational workers were joined in strike action by technicians in atomic energy research plants.

Civil servants, scientists, teachers and peasants are now, for the first time, fightalongside the industrial working class in the most powerful movement Italy has seen since the destruction of workers' organizations by fascism after 1922.

All the parties-capitalist, retormist, centrist and Stalinist-are in crisis as the struggle to either crush or contain this upsurge develops.

The dangers of a Greekstyle military coup cannot be ruled out in this tense situaIn Italy the task is one of building revolutionary leadership. There must not be another Mussolini 'march on Rome'.