BELGIUM one year after

THE Belgian general strike of a year ago was - one of the major events in post-war working class history. Its course and out•come contain lessons of great importance for the international movement. Here, in microcosm, all the main problems which have faced the working class in recent decades came rapidly to the fore.

The strike blew sky-high the myth of working class apathy so sedulously cultivated in some pseudo-Left circles. This was not a movement of starvelings, but of comparatively well-paid workers. It was not only a reaction to an attempt by the Belgian government to place on their shoulders the problems of capitalism, it was also clearly a movement against capitalism as such.

Instinctively the whole working class in Wallonia, and parts of the Flemish North, placed themselves against the state and its minions and moved towards staking out their own claim to rule and to create a new social orde: free from exploitation.

When everything has been said about the peculiarities of the Belgian scene, it remains true that the million workers who took part in this strike were fundamentally no different from their comrades in the other European countries. What happened last year in Belgium could, in fact, take place with equal intensity and unexpectedness in France, Germany or Britain.

The fact remains that the sacrifices and heroism of the Belgian strikers were not crowned with success. The Socialist Party leaders, visibly embarrassed by the strength of the movement and effaced while it was at its height, have now secured for themselves ministerial seats and pursue a policy in line with the needs of Belgian capital.

Many workers who took part in the strike have since been beating out overtime and consoling themselves with beer and the telly. For a moment they sensed their class power and caught a glimpse of the future. Lacking were the programme and leadership to make that power effective. The betrayal of the Socialist and Communist Party leaders was to be expected: the absence of an alternative was the key to the failure of the strike.

Periods of calm the preparation, not occasions for defeatism and despondency. The fact that the preparatory work in Belgium had not been correctly carried out removed the possibility of taking advantage of the opportunities which presented themselves. The class-conscious vanguard found itself in the tow of centrist demagogues who had no intention of making a serious fight either against Belgian capitalism or its agents in the labour movement.

It now has to be recorded that the great majority of the delegates to the recent Congress of the Socialist Party celebrated the anniversary of the strike by approving increased appropriations for the arming of the gendarmerie — the main strikebreaking force—to include tanks. Uborevich (shot).