Algeria A New Stage in the Revolution

THE open insurrection of the Muslim population of the cities of Algiers and Oran last week tears away the veil of make-believe from de Gaulle's policy. It demonstrates the real and profound nationalist sentiment of the mass of the Algerian population, a demand for human rights and the recovery of their own land. De Gaulle's policy in recent months has been based on the attempt to find tame Muslims. with some backing in the population at large, able to become figure-heads in an ostensibly ' independent' Algeria.

Such a government could be presented as a recognition of self-determination and a reason for continuing to refuse negotiations with the nationalists. It would. of course, enable the main interests of French capital in Algeria to be fully preserved. It would require some sacrifice of the privileges enjoyed by Europeans in Algeria-and their enraged opposition sparked off the latest upheaval. Events have shown that they either have to accept the coming reality of Algerian independence, staying on without privileges or packing their bags, or impose their will both on the majority of the Algerian population and on the French government. The de Gaulle middle way shows itself less and less Thoughts on...

BRIAN feasible. But stormy days undoubtedly lie ahead; the final showdown has yet to come In 1957 the paratroops and the psychological warfare section of the French Army waged the ' battle of Algiers to break the nationalist network in the Casbah. It was a vicious struggle. It was then that torture was first used systematically and that the men who killed Audin and tormented Alleg got their apprenticeship in Gestapo methods. Collaborators were enlisted from thugs, murderers and prostitutes in the Casbah itself to terrorise and spy upon the population. All to no avail. The dragon's teeth sown then in terror and death have now grown into the young men who EARCE proclaim their allegiance nationalism to of French tommy-guns. Even the slogan 'Algerian Algeria, proclaimed by de Gaulle to enable the links with France to be maintained, has been torn from his grasp. For the mass of the Algerian people it has been seen as a temporary stop on the road to complete independence: seen concretely as the shoving off their backs of the arrogant. ' black feet ' (European settlers) and the whole burden of French administration and military terror.

In a movement of such elemental force violence is inevitable. We have criticised before the indiscriminateterrorism which the F.L.N. leaders have from time to time encouraged. We have especially criticised that terror when directed against other tendencies in the nationalist movement. What has happened in the last weeks is essentially different; it is violence which has. been provoked by the Europeans and their security forces. The figures of casualities speak for themselves. This was nothing short of a massacre of unarmed. demonstrators.

NOT ANTI-SEMITIC -French propaganda has made much of the fact that some Jewish shops were smashed up and that a synagogue was entered and a nationalist flag hoisted over it. Obviously it tries to influence world opinion by evoking memories of Nazi anti-semitism. As far as can. be seen, Jewish shops have been treated no differently from those of the French shop-keepers, and, indeed, all those considered to be associated with French rule. In fact, ever since 1871, French colonialism has tried to split the Jewish community (a large section of which had been established in the country for centuries) from the Muslims by enabling the former to accede to French citizenship while the latter were denied it. Even so, in many places large numbers of Jews and Arabs live side-by-side in harmony and the Jewish community, through the six years of bitter war, has not had to. complain of anti-semitic acts even in cities like Constantine where it is especially large. In parts of the South there are villages where Jews live much as they did in biblical times; it is said that they have given active aid to nationalist fighters and have even furnished recruits to the partisan bands.

As for the enraged European population, it still has a strong bargaining position. It clearly benefits from the support of the army as well as that of right-wing forces in | France. The presence of Salan and Lagaillarde in Spain show the possibilities of civil war inherent in the situation.

-IMPOTENT LEFT The policy of the French left, in its official form, will clearly reflect its impotence and its general inability to link up the national struggle in Algeria with the working class movement in France. So far it has shown itself incapable of mobilising an effective protest movement against the massacres. Some elements have for some time been taking shelter behind de Gaulle. Such tendencies were echoed in recent Tribune correspondence and by a broadcast by Alexander Werth, well-known 'expert on French politics who has friends in French left-wing journalistic circles. Expression is given to the same tendency, with a little more subtlety, by new ' left Claude Bourdet, who recently wrote, not of supporting de Gaulle, but of pushing him along the road that he wanted him to travel. Those on the left who adopt such an approach show a complete failure to understand the role of de Gaulle and an irresponsib attitude towards the task of building a powerful opposition movement based on the working class.

The events in Algeria underline once again the inescapable necessity for such a movement in order that the French working class can at least pay its debt to the Algerian revolution and go forward to make its own.

After Scarborough THE BATTLE BEGINS PROSPECTS AND TASKS FOR THE L THE LABOUR PARTY By G. Healy Price 2d.--From The Newsletter, 186