De Gaulle's Gamble

E GAULLE announced the agreement with the Algerian nationalists as a realistic step taken in the national interests of France. By this he meant-as the terms of the agreement make clear— that French capitalism needed to bring the war to an end and that, in the circumstances, it must be considered fortunate that it has safeguarded its vital interests so well.

Not a word was said about the causes of the struggle, or the factors which led him to change his own policy.

These are bygones: the task now is to seize the opportunity presented to continue the coonomic exploitation -of Algerian labour and natural wealth, with the goodwill of the FLN assured.

For international capitalism, as well as for France, the end of the war was imperative.

The spectacle of a people in arms fighting against oppression has been too much like an incitement to other peoples in the African continent.

Not only did all capitalist states have an interest in an Algerian settlement - and they FACED with an overwhelming vote in support of the exiled Juan Peron, Argentina's President Frondizi acted in the only way open to a good democrat in the circumstances: he called in the Army.

In ten provinces, including Buenos Aires, Peronists were elected as Governor, and obtained majorities in Congress.

On Tuesday, two days after the elections, the President agreed to demands from the Army and put these provinces under military rule.

Frondizi is now preparing a decree which will illegalise the Peronists. Sunday's elections were the first in which they were able to stand since 1955, when the army overthrew the Peron regime.

The vote is a blow to the US-dominated Organization of American States. Peron, balancing between sections of the Argentine capitalists and the trades union movement, was a thorn in the side of the State Department.

Since his ejection from power, he has lived in Franco Spain.

His supporters still retain a big following among trade unionists, and the Argentine Trade Union Confederation has threatened a general strike against the army's reversal of the election results.

geoisie has tragedy of struggle.

It has meant of the Alger been partly in Fifth Republic a settlement capitalism.

secondiy, there is sition to de Gaulle European population as well as part of corps, whuch offers fascist alternative certainly oppose, as as it is able, the settle has now been made. may have enforced it through the United Nations if de Gaulle had not taken steps in that direction - but the Fifth Republic itself was threatened by the continuance of the war.

It was threatened in two ways, and neither of those threats has been entirely removed by the cease-fire.

Firstly, there was the possibility of a line-up between the Algerian people and the French working class which would have threatened the very existence of capitalist rule.

The blocking of this development by the continued preference of the leaders of the working class organizations for their 'own' bourbeen the great this seven-year that the sacrifices an people have vain and that the was able to reach favourable to the oppofrom the in Algeria, the officer a militaryand will effectively ment which Spreading chaos in Algeria could not only make the settlement unworkable, it could also create a wider field of action for the OAS in France and enable it to make a bid for power.

By emphasising the second of these threats and supporting de Gaulle, whatever the verbal reservations, the Communist Party has kept the working class as passive spectators of the Algerian tragedy.

Its position has been shared by the socialist and trade union leaders. The French 'left' has again manifested its desperate fear of a political intervention involving the mobilization of the masses.

The danger of fascism has not been lessened by this policy of the lesser evil'. Workers have been confused by the contradictions in this policy and have been held back when they have wanted to fight.

De Gaulle is hoping that the working class leaders will maintain their present policy and will be able to keep their followers need the the OAS Algeria to check. He m king c ass agai nable ł is policy carried through.

At the same time, in the interests of French capital, his government stands • behind the bosses in their drive to gear industry - through speed-up, breaking down traditional workshop practices, concentration, etc. — to withstand increased competition in the Common Market.

But it must be stressed that while de Gaulle takes neces sary defensive measures against Salan and the OAS, that body, or the people behind it, are potential allies should the gamble in Algeria or with the working class in France fail.

The gambles which are now being made depend upon the complicity of the leadership of the working class movement in France and of the national movement in Algeria.

The interests of Social Democratic and Stalinist bureaucracy, as well as those of the petty bourgeois apparatus of the FLN, are best served by an accommodation with imperialism.

No doubt these men now hope that they are moving into calmer waters; a return to a routine of negotiation and pressures or, for the FLN, the assimilation of the concessions made to them at Evian.

In a future which is no less obscure because of the ceasefire, and where the possibilities of speculation are endless, only one thing seems certain.

The stabilisation of the Fifth Republic, and of the new Algerian Republic to be associated with it, hinges upon a series of conditions which are unlikely to be realised.

Neither the French working class, nor the peasants and workers of Algeria, are likely to accept for long, or passively, a situation which offers no perspecitve but further sacrifices on their part.

The opportunities for new leaderships are greater than ever.

AT its meeting last week, the executive of the Amalgamated Engineering Union decided to write to the Labour Party asking why Ernie Roberts had been taken off the 'A' list of union sponsored parliamentary candidates.

Roberts, who is AEU Assistant Secretary, had been declared ineligible for Labour Party candidature on the recommendation of the Organization Subcommittee.

Although George Brown, the Sub-committee's chairman had alleged that the AEU had been 'consulted', in fact no reasons have yet been presented for the decision, either to Roberts or