Statement from the Fourth International

(Page 3

FOURTH INTERNATIONAL

The second elections for the European purliament witli be heid in June 1984. The first were in 1979.

Aitheugh. the “European parliament is only a consultative assembly without any real pow- & >, these elections will not fail to have an impact on the political scenu. The parties that directly represent the bosses want to make these elections into a piebescite in favour of the anti-labour and warmongering policies that they, support, a piebescite in favour of austerity and installing /the intermediate-range missiles.

in Rritain, thew are renresentad a Margaret Thatcher;in France Me wire, Wiad rt "Edlang and Jacques Chirac; in West Germany by Helmut Kohl; iN Beigium by the Martens-Gol duo; in the Netherlands by Lubbers; in italy by the Christian Democrats; and in Denmark by the bourgeois coalition in power.

As for the reformist parties of Francois Mitterand, Bettino Craxi and George. Papandreou in power in France, Maly and Greece, they are also applying: the line of austerily and. stepping up the arms race. But they are doing it in a bit more moderate style, and are politically on unable to put up any sort of credibie ulternative against the capitalist offensive.

NO TO THE EEC, INSTRUMENT

OF THE BANKS AND TRUSTS

Tne EEC is a Europe of the bosses. Tne Common Market was not set up for the benefit of the workers but to boister the power of ihe European trusts and multinationals. The EEC institutions act against the interests of the’ porideg The European Comission §=6is)§©6—coordinating the suits on steelworkers throughout Europe. it is promoting an the defensive,.austerity policy in all the member counirias. ‘Voices are now being raised In favour of equipping this Europe of the bosses with a Curopean army. Such a force would be just as dangerous for. peace and the future of humanity as the army of American imperialian: or the naticnal emmies of the European imperiziist powers. The Fourth International appeais to the workers of Europe to put no faith in capitalist integration of this region. European capitalism is no more progressive than that of the. United States. In line with this fact. we support the campaign of our comrades in the Spanish state and in Portugal!

against the entry of their countries Into the Common Market.

We are svmnatheatic to tha campaige of the Brittsn Labour ieft and the Greek feft for the withdrawal of Groece and Britain from the EEC, However, falling back on. the capitalist gove sign national state ercely offers any better deal for the workers in the member couniries cf **e Common Market.

This would in fact oniy provide a justification for still harsher austerity policies under the protext of defending national industry against foraiqn competition.

Against ihe two mirages ot capitalist integration and bourgesis national sovereignty, the Fourth Internationa! calls for a struggle...

for a Socialist United States of Europe, a common fight, a common solidarity,’ anda common gocialist objective for the workers of all countries.

AUSTERITY DOES NOT

CREATE JOBS

With the support of ali the existing governments, the bosses in the ten member countries of the Common Market, as well as those in Spain and Portugal, have been able ta Girect very wide-ranging atiacks on. workers; ibe yeh of social benefiss, «: {jmimi- Grants, and youth. ie Gstence “of their austerity policies, the governments have invoked the demands of international competition. But toe same argument has.

been used in every country, leading to an unceasing downward Spiral in buying power and gocial benefits. it ia sufficient for one country to jiower ijiabour costs, and 23 neighbouring country will juatity an ever sharper cut in the name of the national interest, that is, in faci, of class collaboration, to the sole benetit of the bosses. indeed it is faise to claim that austerity creates jobs. Since this policy started to be applied in Europe, unemployment has more than tripled, going from 4 miilion to 17 million. And no varianis of this policy of reconversron will halt the drain of jobs. To the contrary, the experts of the bourgeois institetions themselves predict that in a few years the number of jobless 1: West Europe will reach 18 mitlion,

FOR EUROPEAN-WIDE

ACTION: FORTHE 35-HOUR —

WEEK NOW, WITHOUT ©

LOSS OF PAY

A different sort of econormin policy, with different pridiitiws, 1 perfectly possible. have to be based noi on the rationale of capital, of conipetition and profit, but on the logic of labour, of solidarity among the exploited. Priority has to be giver to full employment and meetin: the basic material needs of the masses. At the time of the first European elections in June 1979, the Fourth Bul it would |

page 4 International call said: “Almost forty million of us aié@ Organised in unions. if this power is mobilised, it can win the 35-nour weorkweek with no cut in pay, new hiring to make up for lost :worktime, and workers control over the rates of work to prevent a speedup.’ This. call, setlected a - need, since today ‘the West German inetal, workers union IG Metall has launched a vast campaign of action, including strike, for the 35-hour week. Many unions in other countries have come out in support of this. The time has come to organise, alongside ths “Weat German metai workers. a West European-wide campaign of all categories of workers for the immediate introduction of the 35hour week. it is now or never.

Participation by fevolutionary forces in the elections to the European parliameni to be held in.

i Belgium: the Parti . Ouvricr .

ders Partl} has gathered the 1,000 signatures in @ach province neoded to run a giats. The Ligue Communisie Revolutionnaire of Luxembourg hes alzo met the requirements. Thus, both these organisations will be directly involved in the election cam paign. In italy, ke France, there are ery high legal and financial barriers to running an independent siate.. For example, it is necessary to collect the signatures of 30,000 supporters in each of the five election districts. And then these.

signatures have to be ‘validated’ in front of a notary, which costs a tot of money. in view of tha workers siruggies that are being weged now agains?

the austority decrees of ithe governrmnant presided over by the - Socialist Bettina Craxi and the June has been made difficult by — numerous begal barriers. Nonetheless, ‘jn the countries concerned will take the occasion to wage a - Gampaign against austerity, the: Mussiles and against anti-labour’ policies. We publish below the eal adopied jointly by the United Secretariat of the Fourth ‘international and the European ~~ sections directly concerned by the i” ~Cammon Market question.

min France, the tinancial riurdle a runing candidates was very.

high. Just publishing the official...

material for a European ‘election, campaign costs 5. million francs; - Thus, the Lega Comunista Rivolu- | “4about £400,000). This money is oe reunbursed only to siates that get over 5% of the vote. Nonetheless, the Ligue Communiste Revolutinnnaire Franch cectinn af the Fourth international, is waging 4 — Peciaeye Tia) a ey. wisi vulfiiiinte rma raliy against austerity and the capitalist united Europe on May and at te. Bourget in Brilain, revoiuti Marxists are calling for a vote for Labour candidates. supporting the call of the left wing of the Labour Part; for withdrawal from the EEC an!

for oppesition te the missiles and austerity. ami financial: mobilisations against the instailaton of the 9 Missiles at the Comiso the sec- ' trons of the Fourth international site, the European elections will assume a maior national dimen- - Bien in pela Guus y. 3 For this reason, since the Socialist cP slates unc: ‘= Party is ia. the. government and ithe Communist Party is riding on the workers mobilisations, the Liga Communista Rivoivzionaria, italian eection of the Fourth international, has decided to cali for a working Class vote for the Democrazia Pro!-taria and the ths slogan; Sirengthen the lofi appceition to tha - Craxi Government and the Christian Democrats." zionaria will campaign against” the missiles and austerity, for teft unity in the struggle against the government, Nonetheless, it will modify its electoral call if the CP's role in the workers mobilisations turns into open betrayal.

In Danmark, you need to get 69,000 signatures to run @ siaie.

So, the Socialistisk Arbeiderparts (SAP) hes begun ciecussion with the Left Socialist Party (VS) for an @lartoral secorcd on the hasia of a manifesto . against unemploymani, for the 35 hour week and 141: Supp iiiiy (he Struyyes tue, this demand, jor a European wide: -sirika against ihe missiles end for: imperialist mili Oh, 490,000 in Belgium. the Greenham Common women are Danish withdrawal from the EEC.

if these negotiations we unsuccessful, the SAP will propose common actions with the VS in tha framework of the campaign.

APPEAL OF THE FOURTH

INTERNATIONAL FOR THE

EUROPEAH ELECTIONS

Now is the tume aiso for all members of parliament who claim to represent the working class to introduce simultaneously. in the national partiaments and the Eurepean parliament, -Ddills.. that would reduce the legal workweek te 36 hours. Now is the time for th Vest European unions to call on the American and Japanese unions to join in this campaign.

This is the only = effective way tn sian the drain at inns to avart ihe divisive and demoralising..effacts of massive structurai Tae yeheeiid ke tiie Wk nee movement, to force international capitalism to pay the bill for the Suir for which A alone is reeponsible | “pcr Now AGAINST. nee ep, ing. ‘But they are SoMitig up with more and more money to. finance arms. spending. to finance ther tmerventions in the Malvinas, Lebanon, Chad and ireland. They apply the rules a acre and retusn to - spanding education =and health, ‘but ‘AO -§ government assesses the return: serng its military spending. ie The working’ Ninoeiie on Europe _ afe more and more rejecting this insane. arms race, which threatens sooner or later to reduce our continent’ tad radioactive ashes.

The demonstrations against ihe installation of the missiles brought, Out unprecedented numbers of people — millions in VWvest Germany, more than a million in Britain and Haiy, more than half a mittion in the Netherlands, and ‘in Britain, continuing their struggle against the NATO base. . This mass opposition to the omisc'lee is clearly oriented in , the direction of anti-imperiaiism

and unilateral disarmament. This dynamic must be “stimulated, reinforced and generalised by specific action proposals more and more coordinated on the international levei. Among the proposals that could be made, two are particularly opportune. One is the call for a referendum against installing the Euro-missiles on the territory of each country or keeping them there. The other is for the unions to organise a general strike on & West Eur scale, against the presence of the misailes.

FOR AN ANTI-CAPITALIST

ALTERNATIVE, FOR FHE

UNITED SOCIALIST STATES

OF EUROPE —

The workers movement must organise its opposition to the Europe of the bosses, of the trusts .

and the multinationals, to the Europe of austerity and greater militarisation. It must do this on an international scale. The trades union movement has not yet managed to do this, either in the case of the steel workers fighting for jobs, or in the case of the struggie for the 35-hour week.

In recent months, there have been big workers struggles, such as the public workers strikes in Belgium and the Netherlands, the exemplaiy mobilisation of the fialian’ Workers in defence of the sliding scale, tha miners strike in Britain, the Spanish workers resistance to austerity, and the strike, of the Talbot-Poissy plant in France. But in all these coves

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Sterling - 6 months £9 (25FF}, i yoor the fighting spirit of the workers. .

has-run up againsi divisions among the traditional leaderships of the workers movement, their refusal to organise the etruggle and to support an anti-capitalist alternetive, their capitulation ‘to, so-called international constraints and constraints of competition, thet is thelr capitulation to the rules of the capitalist game.

Neither in France, nor Spain, nor italy, nor Sweden, nor Greece, nor Portugal, nor only yesierday in Germany, have the big Social: Bsmocraiic and Communizt. ‘parties in government . fought back egainst the attacks on ~ the werkera who cre str ~ gpainst austerity and N ling O's ultra-militarist policy, The reason is that these parties and trades union teaderships refuse to attack the roots of the evii. in order to throttle the effects of the crisis, it Is necessary to break the power of the banks and the financial combines by nationalising them definitivaly: under workers control. The goalmust be to put in power workers governments backed up by the workers mobilised and organisedin their workplaces and neighbourhoods.

This means aiming for the expropriation of big capital and reorganisation of the economy based on damocretic olanning by the workers. This etruggts is linked to the fight agalnai the bureaucracy in the Eastern block countries, which ts reflected in the growth. of: an independent peace movement.

Interintional’ _ A fortnightly Jounal of world pelitics Peyment in french &ancs if possible, Personal cheques to PEC ond mali te: 1V, 2 ree Richerd Lanair, 8308, Mon treull, Fravce. acy BH {And it is necessary to declare our solidarity with this movement against the re ion to which it has been subjected). This struggie will open up the way for a , Socialiet United States‘of Europe, the only.real alternative to the divided Europe of today, prey to paraliei crises of capitalism in the West and of bureaucratic rule in the East. A Socialist United States of Europe will not only offer an effective soiution for the working masses of this continent. It will also offer a powerful assisiance to the super-exploited peopies.of the Third -wortd in. theie struggle to free themselves: from: the morass of- y in which imperialism and capitalism has trapped them.

A socialist breakthrough in Europe, would offer hope to all of humanity for a way out of the deepening shadows of hunger, unemployment,’ dictatorship and war, @ road to progfess and an assured future. — Forward to ‘active solidarity for i workers in ! | abbott: cba liked ”" Forward toward woridwide solldarity for all exploited and oppressed, in particular those in Central America, the Near East and Southern Africa, who are the target of direct Imperialist actisn' Forward to Revolution! United Secretariat of ¢}.« 1 AL. | , ‘ mereisch? VEG the world Socia':s: