The 'sign now fraud

we THE COLLAPSE of the secret Vietnam talks in Paris has revealed the totally fraudulent character of the British Communist Party's so-called 'sign now' campaign.

İvertising the campaign on December 4 the Stalinist newspaper 'Morning Star' called for 'superhuman efforts to pile up the pressure to get Nixon to sign the peace treaty with North Vietnam without further perhuman the efforts would Japan:

build-up NEW Japanese governis coming under strong pressure from the military to step up its rearmament campaign and widen the base of the armed forces.

The militarists are making their demands despite a government decision to double expenditure on the armed forces in general secretary opian. the Na- current four-year The tional Defence Council, Osama Kaihara, yesterday claimed the present armed forces were far too small to defend Japan.

The National Defence Council is the civilian body charged with control over military policy. Kaihara said the biggest problem facing apan was the manpower shortage in the army.

The government has at present decided that the armed forces should not exceed a total strength of 260,000—mainly to avoid overseas fears of reviving Japanese militarism. 'But is it possible to defend Japan with only [sic] 260,000 men?' Kaihara asked.

He said: 'In my opinion, for effective defence a national resistance organization of every Japanese citizen is indispensable. The self-defence forces [euphemism for the armed services] will constitute the core of the organization.' What is proposed in other words, is the militarization the whole of Japanese society for 'defence' purposes. But just who is threatening Japan? Perhaps nobody asked Kaihara, because certainly didn't answer this question.

He did, however denounce the constitutional restrictions on sending troops abroad, which he claimed interfered with training schedules.

With Japanese capitalism in great crisis as a result of the American pressure for export cuts and revaluation, the significance of the resurgence Japanese militarism is clear. Japan opens up to firms JAPAN is preparing to open most of her industries to 100 per cent subsidiaries of foreign firms in a trade liberalization move designed to resist pressure for another revaluation of the yen. Finance Ministry sources in Tokyo said yesterday.

The move is included in a new programme to be submitted to the Foreign Investment Council shortly for consideration and approval At present only 50-50 joint ventures are automatically permitted in the majority of Japanese certainly have to be, for the entire experience of the Vietnam protest movement has demonstrated beyond a shadow of doubt that US imperialism cannot be 'pressurized' by vigils, petitions, protests and the like.

is clear that if American imperialism were susceptible to what the Stalinists call 'world-wide pressure', the war would have been over years ago. It is equally clear that the war is not over. le Paris talks, in which the in the trade unions and show Stalinists placed so much faith, business. have proved to be simply a means of preparing the next And when you think about it, stage of the war. The Americans have shipped in arms, went to the leaders of the Marchais projects the party nation' GEORGES MARCHAIS 20th Communist Party Congress Sunday with a pledge to 'serve French people and the nation'.

That was an apt conclusion to four days of debate which made it clear that the French CP is prepared to defend the interests of the bourgeoisie in the event of an electoral victory of the Union of the Left and on the eve of sharp class conflicts in Europe.

If there was a persistent theme in the Congress, it was that the Communist Party was, above all, a party for the nation.

Take the intervention by Jacques Ducios, veteran member of the Political Bureau. He defended Marchais in a speech which placed him firmly in the tradition of Marcel Cachin and Maurice Thorez 'always under attack from men of power who put their class interests before the interests of the nation'.

The inevitable empty optimism pervading the Congress gave way to a more sober tone when Etienne Fajon opened the second session of the Congress devoted to the party daily 'L'Humanité'. It is the first time that 'L'Humanité' has appeared on the agenda of a Congress.

Fajon complained that many members and even branch secretaries do not read the paper, thinking they can make do with 'radio and cla: 5S-consciousness'.

He claimed that sales industries. About 200 industries have already been • freed for 100 per cent subsidiaries of foreign firms, but they are either industries in which foreign countries are not interested or those in which Japanese industries are too strongly competitive.

The Finance Ministry sources said a Cabinet Council of Economic Ministers might be held to endorse the proposed new programme even before a new government is formed by Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka, expected by Christmas. munitions and 'advisers' and stepped up their savage attacks on the north. hile this goes on, the Communist Party is trying to deluge the chief butcher with appeals to 'sign now'. Could any spectacle be more obscene? This is a policy fit only for pacifist fabians and contented slaves. le fact is, of course, that Nixon pays no attention whatever to the bleatings of the Stalinists and their hangers-on in the trade unions and show why should he? This year he Rio Marchals (right) with Claude Estler, Socialist Party secretary, at the CP Congress.

daily had dropped by 63,000 and the Sunday magazine by 160,000 since 1950.

This had led to a reduction in size. If it continued, prices would have to increase and more reductions were envisaged.

The parlous state of the Stalinist Press in France is only one reflection of the crisis of the main party of the French working class.

The average age of the Party representatives at the Congress was 33 years and 72 per cent of delegates had joined the CP since 1958.

A list of 21 new members to the Central Committee shows that only five of them had joined the party since 1958 and only eight are less than 35 years old.

The French Stalinists, of course, have lost many middle-class youth to the numerous reorganizations of the 'extreme-left', and have no policy or wish • to attract working-class youth who are suffering from low wages and enormous unemployment. The youth are not willing to sing hymns to the 'greatness of France', in the traworld • Stalini both Moscow was received st movement in and Peking and like a hero. : arrived in Moscow within days of the blockade of Haiphong and the renewed bombardment of Hanoi. Yet none of the communist parties which are now so actively bombarding him with appeals made any protest about his visit. ley didn't even apply what "pressure' they could muster to get their political masters Moscow to rescind the invitation. The cowardly leaders of the British Communist Party, who are now such paper heroes outside the American embassy and 10 Downing ditions of de Gaulle and Thorez.

However, the CP does still retain a big following in the trade union movement. The trade unionists are under sharp attack from the monopolists rationalization of Europe and must enter into conflict with their CP leadership which accepts the economic reality of the Common Market.

The Congress deliberately played down the future the working class faces in the EEC.

While delegates spoke about attacks from this and that mono poly, the EEC was scarcely mentioned.

To break the French working class from the weakening grip of Stalinism is an urgent task which can only be accomplished by the building of a section of the Fourth International France.

SEVEN THOUSAND members of the Ceylon Bank Employees' Union returned to work yesterday after an abortive 107-day strike over demands for better promotion prospects and more pay.

The strike, which affected all commercial banks, including two state-owned banks, was called off after a union meeting held on Sunday to consider the union's failure to win its demands.

Government spokesmen said soon after the strike began on September 1 that there would be no negotiations with the union while the strike continued. communist parties to a means of applying pressure to bourgeois governments in the interests of the Soviet bureaucracy. The 'sign now' campaign is fully in line with this basic Stalinist policy. is a fraud from start to finish and helps the US government with its own manipulations of 'public opinion' while disarming the working class and spearheading pacifist illusions at a time when the greatest vigilance is required. ternational working-class solidarity with the Indo-China revolution is not a matter of petitions to Nixon, but, above perialism at home through the construction of the revolutionary party of the working class. lis struggle alone can bring forward the only force capable effective solidarity action with the Vietnamese revolution —the international working class.