Algerians swing from Ben Bella Anti-Franco strike wave

INIONED between the obligations of the Evian agreement and the thrust of the masses for social change the Algerian national leaders are struggling to keep control of the situation. Naturally, under such conditions, bitter factional struggles have taken place. The apparently united FLN turns out to be an uneasy coalition.

None of the existing leaders can escape from their own origins and give a revolutionary direction to the aspirations of the peasants and workers. To look for a 'Left' or 'Right' in such a situation is to miss the whole point. The hair's breadth difference between the 'socialist' phraseology of the different tendencies is no basis for judging their political character.

The 'Marxist' Ben Khedda has been eclipsed by the ' Marxist Ben Bella who, in turn, faces strong opposition from sections of the army and from the population of Algiers. But the success of Ben Bella did not indicate a Left turn. To be sure, he proclaims himself "socialist', but he is careful to add that there will be a place for 'free capitalism' in the new Algerian state.

BLANK CHEQUE

At a meeting with the employers in Algiers on August 14 he asked them to give him a blank cheque to safeguard the economic future of the country. Significantly, at the same meeting were present Fares, president of the Provisional Government — a moderate - together with other figures trusted by French investment interests.

It was clear that Ben Bella was prepared to go ahead with the developments envisaged in de Gaulle's Constantine Plan, including the steel works at Bone, a petro-chemical complex and large-scale exploitation of phosphate deposits. In the meantime, the French government is increasing the pressure to push on with the clauses relating to the Sahara contained in the Evian agreement.

In short, it is clear that the petty-bourgeois leaders are being given to understand that this agreement was not a victory over imperialism but a deal with it. At the same time, facing hunger, unemployment and further hardship as the economy runs down, the masses are turning away from those leaders who have compromised themselves.

UNWILLING TO FIGHT The cry 'To the gallows with the men of March'-the date of the Evian agreement — has been heard in the Algiers streets. The shift from Ben Khedda to Ben Bella, and now the falling stock of the latter, are associated with the spreading understanding that these leaders are neither able nor willing to fight imperialism.

Unhappily there has, as yet, appeared no leadership adequate to the needs of the times. The different factions in the FLN are merely seeking to stabilise a position based upon a deal with French and foreign capital, to As for the its role is treacherous Having been to include it FLN electio leaders have the FLN on instead call keep Algeria within the world market of capitalism. None of them can, or wants to, carry through a social revolution. They are the representatives of the national bourgeoisie.

Despite 'socialist' phrases, their policies are intended to further develop along capitalist lines, with greater scope for Algerian capital in the new, independent state. The character of Algerian society, especially the extremely narrow social base from which the leaders are drawn, makes it difficult to make such a policy acceptable to the masses of the people.

Even the leaders of Wilaya 4, Algiers Maquis, who constitute the extreme plebian Left wing of the FLN and the most serious threat to Ben Bella and Fares, do not go beyond a radical democratic and agrarian programme.

TREACHEROUS

Communist Party, nothing short of and disgraceful. refused permission ; nominees on the n lists the party refused to contest a separate list and for the maximum THOSE prescription charges and national health contributions progressively increased over the years are, you will be interested to know, levied in a worthy cause-the cause of the drug manufacturers.

Their largest customer is the government, of course. When you have a prescription made up by the chemist, the government re-imburses him trom public money, for the cost of his services and medicines supplied..

Occasionally the Ministry of Health instructs the doctors not to prescribe certain drugs on the grounds that they are too costly and maintains that there are cheaper alternative medicines. But proscription, rather prescription, lessens the efficiency of the National Health Service, and enables the rich private patient to have treatment denied to others.

Fresh evidence is now available of the way in which the pharmaceutical manufacturers hold the people to ransom in dictating the prices of drugs.

Sales of drugs in 1961 amounted to £67 million. The known cost of advertising was nearly £7 mıllion, but to this figure must be added 'promotion' expenses borne by UK subsidiaries of American City Slants colin firms, the cost known.

This massive the form of Ben Bella: no lett turn support of the FLN and the Politburo-this at a time when the Politburo is disintegrating!

According to Humanite, 24/8/62, members of Wilaya 4 entered the offices of the Algerian CP press (Alger Republicain) and stopped them fom printing the declaration of M. Khider attacking Wilaya 4.

The CP with its usual doublethink, stated it had no animosity towads Wilaya 4 but that this form of censorship was wrong!

If those masses had been passive in the past it might have been easier-but the seven-year struggle for independence involved the great majority of the population and costly sacrifices. It culminated in the outrages perpetrated by the OAS which inflicted big casualties on civilians—while the leaders restrained those who wished to strike back at the murderers.

MASSES MORE RADICAL The demands which are coming from the masses are much more radical than those which any of the rival factions striving for leadership can meet. No Left turn can result from any combination or permutation of such leaders. • On Tuesday, the Algerian Communist Party issued a statement calling for support for the FLN Political Bureau led by Ben Bella. The CP said it would support the 'Politburo' because a central authority was needed to organise elections.

expenditure takes brochures, free samples and even Iree travelling 11: offered to doctors to inspect factories where drugs are produced. When, sometimes, the factories are in Europe, the attraction of such visits is obvious.

The Association of the British Drug ethics Pharmaceutical Industry states that without substantial profits, research for new drugs would be insufficient and that 'earnings of the profit necessary to pay for this research inevitably depends in our free enterprise society on the normal commercial practices of advertising and the maintenance of brand names and on full patent protection for the discoverer of a new drug' of which is not Actually the cost of research is THE , shar struggles mines.

Spanish issued a of the r. 11 society. must be nationalised. ment of illness.

Last week has seen a renewal of the in the Asturian On August 21 the Communist Party statement in support strikes, draw ing the rollowing conclusion:

'The events of the last few days in the Asturias confirm that the days of April and May saw the first big fight of a battle which can only finish with the disappearance of the dictatorship. That is why the CP addresses itself to all anti-Franco opposition forces so that, without wasting any time, they can renew the contacts made during the month of May, in order to co-ordinate their efforts, to prepare jointly for the new working-class and popular struggles and to work out the basis for a political agreement for the re-establishment of democratic liberties in Spain.' CP RUNS AWAY However, while the CP, by proposing alliance with all kinds of reactionary organisations, runs away from its task of mobilising the working class against Franco and the system which put and now keeps him in power, the fight in the mines goes on.

On August 23 it was estimated that 9,000 miners were on strike by chance a charge against profits and all such expenditure is wholly allowed for tax purposes. It would be wrong to imagine that the drug manufacturers, out of the goodness of their hearts, allocate part of their profits to research for the benefit of 'our free enterprise Clearly the case for the nationalisation of the pharmaceutical industry has been made by the manufacturers themselves. Since the cost of chemicals is an important factor in determining drug costs, the chemical industry too Proper public control of the industry will enable the best drugs, not the best advertised, to be used. It will enable research to be undertaken in a regulated fashion so that the experience of all engaged in the industry will be available to all. Discoveries will not be jealously guarded by individual firms but will lead to still greater improvements in the treatgrows ERIC NEILSON making 15 pits completely idle. In other mines in the area, workers went down the pits but refrained from working. In those mines where work carried on, only 70 per cent of the normal output was maintained. By the next day the number of strikers had risen to 10,000 and 20 pits were affected.

By the 26th the figure was 15,000 and still rising. The day also saw the publication of a communique by certain 'respectable' opposition groups denouncing the support given by the US to Franco in times of crisis for the regime, and cutting off their relations with the US embassy.

VAGUE REPORTS

Since then news of the strike has been somewhat vague. Official reports in the Franco press on the 27th contradict themselves—one spoke of 3,000 miners returning to work and 8 mines reopening, another of the spread of the lock-out in the mines.

The attitude of the Franco: promised US government towards this last wave of strikes has shown a marked degree of hesitancy. Instead of declaring open war against the strikers it has resorted, in the face of growing solidarity towards the movement, to conducting a smear campaign against them in the press, accusing the leaders of being paid by foreign powers to carry out subversive activities.

CRIMINAL POLICIES At a times when the dictatorship finds itself in such a weak position, the policies of the Spanish CP become all the more criminal. By calling for the reestablishment of bourgeois democracy in Spain, it is laying the base for the re-establishment of fascism. For if bourgeois democracy were restored, the extreme backwardness of the economy would in all probability force the bourgeoisie to resort once more to fascism to solve its problems.

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