ALGERIA — situation unchanged

VEN while the chorus of praise for the FLN and Algerian independence was still welling up from all manner of ' Lefts, from liberals to Stalinists, events were showing that life does not at all conform to the wishes of such people. The agreements made with part of the OAS were closely followed by the split between Ben Bella and Ben Khedda and clear signs that part of the National Liberation Army was not prepared to accept the latter's leadership.

The reaction to this on the part of the supporters of the Evian agreement has been revealing. Some have seen merely a struggle for power between leaders, some of whom want to go a little faster than others. Others, of whom, not surprisingly, Fenner Brockway is one, reveal a fear of a radicalisation of the Algerian movement and come out openly for Ben Khedda, whom they believe to be more moderate and responsible.

On all sides the cry goes up for reconciliation, to make possible a smooth operation of independence in accordance with the Evian agreement.

When rifts appear in a nationalist movement we should expect to find that they have social roots. The leadership of this movement in Algeria is drawn from a narrow section of the population which it is correct to describe as 'pettybourgeois'. That is to say, its social basis lies in those spheres of professional and trading activity which were left open to Algerians under colonial conditions.

Although leadership inevitably came mainly from this section, the great mass of the Algerian people are poor peasants and plebeians. It was their irrepressible demand for land and bread which was the motive force of the Algerian revolution, and still is. The leadership, propelled forward by these energies, at the same time sought to control them.

The aims of the leaders diverge from those of the masses. The realism, for which they are praised by 'friends' like Mr. Brockway, consists of substituting the aims of the social stratum to which they belong for those of the masses. These aims can be satisfied by agreement with imperialism, if not within the confines of the old imperialist relations.

CORRECTIONS IN the article on Maurice Thorez in last week's Newsletter an error occurred in the extract from his speech in 1961 to the Central Committee of Ivry. 'He (Trotsky) opposed the militarisation of the Soviet trade unions' should have read: 'He proposed the militarisation ...

IN the article concerning Mr. Frank Foulkes and the ETU the statement appeared: 'Meanwhile Byrne, Chapple and Carron took further steps this week to consolidate their control over the union.' This should have read: Byrne, Chapple and Cannon The essence of this agreement is not to carry through the social measures, involving inroads into property rights. Without such weapons the claims of the peasants and workers cannot be met.

Such a task involves them in a web of contradictions. It produces inevitable divisions and hesitations in its own ranks. These divisions, and the precarious nature of the social balance, makes for single-party, strong-man rule in which, when the decisions are taken, the dissenters, if they are not liquidated, find themselves in prison.

The situation in the Algerian movement can only be understood against such a background. The Liberation Army, recruited from the peasants, oppressed and impoverished by colonial rule, is very different from the suave politicians, trained in the school of Tunis, Cairo and Rabat and more at home in the United Nations than in the villages.

The peasantry is thus pushed towards a radical course: in some places they have taken over estates, or have tried to do so. Some leaders, without altering their fundamental conceptions, have shown themselves responsive to this pressure. The uneasiness and open schism in the leadership of the FLN reflects the need for agrarian revolution.

At the same time, as the armed struggle developed, more and more former collaborators of French colonialism - landowners and big bourgeois—came over to the FLN. In the course of becoming a 'national' party it has tended to become not more radical but more conservative, with the weight shifted towards consolidating a bourgeois state, for which the French administration, at Rocher Noir, had been carefully preparing the way.

Now that 'independence' has been achieved it can be seen more and more clearly that as far as the FLN leadership was concerned talk of 'revolution' was nothing but a sham intended to conceal the sell-out which it was preparing.

It is now necesary for Ben Khedda to bring the dissidents in the National Liberation Army to heel and find a compromise--if that can be done-with the Ben Bella tendency. This difference remains one of tactics, for the moment.

Among the army, however, there are obviously illusions about the possibility of carrying out some kind of a peasant revolution. Such an attempt would be doomed to failure, however, not only without the support of the towns, but also without the support of the French working class. For all the independence now proclaimed, the victory that measured up to the 'metropolis' for Algeria remains French capitalism.

The deliberate evasion of these facts by the Stalinist press is a model of its kind. Not content with claiming the Evian agreement as 'an historic victory for the forces of France led by the French Communist Party and the whole camp of peace and democracy' (International Affairs, Moscow, June 1962) it asserts that the Algerian Communist Party, by its policy, 'has made a great contribution to the development and strengthening of the liberation movement in Africa'. ('The African Communist, April-May 1962).

The hollowness of these claims is shown by another article, this time by Abdelkader El Ouahrani in 'World Marxist Review' (June 1962). Presumably unconșcious of what his comrades had written elsewhere, he poses the question of why the struggle of the Algerian people lasted seven and a half years.

The answer which he gives is twofold: 'Primarily because France possessed modern means of warfare: planes, tanks, artillery and warships. The Algerian patriots lacked these weapons. Secondly, because France was supported by the aggressive NATO bloc ... There THE Tories are now endeavouring to create favourable conditions for their re-election.

It is not going to be easy for them this time to wave the magic wand of cheap money to stimulate production, increased consumer spending and all the appearances of a prosperous society. Surplus capacity means that heavy capital investment will not be undertaken by big business, and one of the ingredients necessary for buoyant trading conditions is a high degree of investment.

Big business embarked on large capital programmes at the time of the last boom period generated by the government's pre-election fiscal policies. It will be considerably more cautious in the future, faced as it is with falling profit margins and the fact that investors are unwilling to get their fingers burnt.

In any case the government has already relaxed controls with a view to stimulating trade. Bank rate reductions, decreases in the banks' special deposit obligations and a reduction in hire purchase deposits from 20 per cent to 10 per cent over a wide range of consumer goods, have already been introduced but there is no sign of an increase in retail trade.

The government will have to think of other measures that they hope will increase their popularity at the polls. Their difficulty is that they cannot fail to upset one sacrifices, but ã compromise?

can be no doubt that if the French colonialists had not had these weapons, the Algerian people would have saved the lives of hundreds and thousands of their sons.

What about the French and Algerian Communist Parties, not to speak of 'the democratic forces of France'? Ouahrani does not speak of them, and for good reason. He is trying to show that the best way to struggle against imperialism is to 'force' it to disarm, 'so that peace and freedom may triumph everywhere and for all time. Such an assignment precludes bringing in the role of the working class or any mention of real struggle.

But, throughout the course of the Algerian national struggle, the policy of the Communist Parties has been along these lines. That is why the Algerians had to bleed for seven and a half years and at the end of it get not a victory that measured up to their sacrifices, but a compromise.

The French and Algerian Communist Parties, despite the devotion of many militants, have an unequalled record of betrayal. section of big business, but this would be part of the cost of running a successful election campaign.

Whilst the government obviously does not intend to legislate against monopolies it has decided that resale price maintenance is expendable. The Tories believe that their brand image would be improved if they appeared to be on the side of 'cheap prices' even though they antagonise some •3 7 ff f manufacturers and the small shopkeeper in the process.

The most blatant attack on resale price maintenance has been carried out by supermarkets and discount stores, resulting in court decisions unfavourable to them.

Whilst manufacturers of consumer durables such as refrigerators, washing machines, television sets, etc., have seen advantages in resale price maintenance in boom times, they are now often only too glad to use the cut price stores as outlets for their goods. of the Algerian Revolution met in extraordinary session to examine the drafts of the Evian agreements.' Implicit in the Evian agreements, however, are the punitive actions against the Left and the agreement with the OAS!

Some of these measures will shock even the most credulous supporters of the FLN-and, perhaps, amaze its most severe critics. The French Federation of the Algerian Communist Party, for example, has protested against the re-arrest and imprisonment of Auguste Chatain, an ALN fighter who was sentenced to 20 years' hard labour by a French military tribunal.

In April he was released but was re-imprisoned by the Provisional Executive for non-payment of fines imposed by the French tribunal! At the same time that he was re-imprisoned, OAS prisoners and murderers were being reprieved!

Many other militants still remain in prison despite the appeals of the Algerian Communist Party to Ben Khedda to release these freedom fighters and also to stop the intimidation of party members during the referendum campaign.

The most scandalous case so far is the arrest of Djemila Bouhired and Zohra Drif on June 26 by FLN officers. The officers-faced by an indignant public-were later forced to release these two well-known militants of the Algiers underground.

An international campaign was waged on Diemila's behalf in 1958 to release her from the parachutist torturers in Algiers.

More than 200 militants of the ALN have been arrested and are being kept incommunicado.

British Labour cannot and must not allow these flagrantly anti-communist and anti-labour measures to go unanswered. It must demand of the GPRA and Provisional Executive that all these political prisoners be released immediately.

They do not, however, give them their usual well-known brand names but are identical goods sold under special names.

In this way they have the best of both worlds. They have taken advantage of a retail outlet for their surplus production but have preserved the dignity of the brand image- and their basic price structure.

The smaller retailer, however, has been under no illusion as to his ever-decreasing ability to survive.

The abolition of RSM would not only affect the consumer durables. Clothes, footwear, foodstuffs, groceries, beer and tobacco would also be affected.

Where manufacturing industries maintain a monopolistic position, as in the brewery and tobacco industries, their profits will not unduly suffer, and a cut-price war will simply result in a number of bankruptcies and smaller profit margins.

In textiles and similar industries one can expect a large number of mergers, so that price domination in the hands of the manufacturers. On the retail side only supermarkets and large multiples will survive. The day of the small trader has ended.

TT uly 4. 1962