Los Presos Politicos

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Nearly one million people marching in the streets of Santiago, Chile, on Noy. 18, 1983, demanding an end to 10 years of ruthless military rule. The banner reads, "No to the war councils; Free the political prisoners."

SOCIALIST ACTION JULY 1984 9 11, 1973, when the union movement was brutally smashed and destroyed by the military dictatorship.

Under harsh conditions, including a profound transformation of the economic and class structure of Chilean society, a new clandestine trade union movement developed that was democratic, organizationally autonomous, and independent of the state and its bureaucratic apparatus. This new movement, besides creating rank-and-file controlled unions, also initiated unions by branches of production, particularly in the textile and steel industries, as well as other local or regional forms of organization.

This whole silent and clandestine process that has been occurring these past years has led to several underground union conferences. A process of debate has also led to the adoption of a fighting program. This program was new not only in the way in which it proposed to organize the unions, but also in the way in which it conceived of the union struggle itself.

The last conference agreed on the following four points: (1) the rebuilding of the union movement from the base up; (2) full utilization of democracy •in agreeing on plans of action and electing leaders; (3) a class-based platform for fighting the dictatorship; and (4) a conception of full autonomy for the union movement and its complete class and political independence from the state. These agreements led to the development and growth of the Greater Santiago Inter-Union Federation, which is today known as the Metropolitan Workers Command (CMT).

S.A.: What kind of protests can the union movement wage in Chile right now?

V.T.: The union movement has been through three phases in the course of the period of counterrevolution. After a first period of defeat and learning, a second phase consisted of the search for a new approach with respect to union demands and the struggle against the dictatorship. This involved the fight to oppose Pinochet's Labor Plan, which denies union rights such as the right to meet, the right to petition, and the right to strike.

The third phase began when the union movement abandoned its silence, came out of clandestinity, and developed its struggle in the full view of Chilean society. This occurred with the first strikes, and through the first forms of protest which led to the active participation of the union movement in the national protests against the dictatorship.

In these national protests which began on May 8, 1983, and in which the working class and millions of opponents of the regime participated, the working class could still not paralyze production. In other words, it could not yet call a massive general strike, although it was able to put forward the general demands of the movement.

S.A.: What happened this past May Day?

V.T.: The recent May Day was the product of all the protests which have been occurring in Chile. The working class-the opposition-has won a lot of space for itself. The institutional conditions have not changed at all from the point of view of repression. Nevertheless, the people, the working class, and the unions have acted as if the repression did not exist.

In the period prior to May Day, the dictatorship was asked to legally authorize the holding of the demonstration. The dictatorship understood that, whether or not it granted legal permission, the demonstration was going to take place. Since there was nothing else it could do, it gave its permission.

The two most powerful organizations of the union movement, the CMT of Santiago and the CNT, participated in a united manner. They were joined by the three currents in the political opposition-the Democratic Alliance (Alianza Democratica-AD), the Coordinadora de la Izquierda Revolucionaria (Coordinating Committee of the Revolutionary Left-CIR), and the Popular Democratic Movement (Movimiento Demofront in opposition to the military dictatorship which, undoubtedly, is trying to achieve changes in the current Chilean situation. Nevertheless, this section of the bourgeoisie and the Pinochet dictatorship itself are tied to the same dominant group of international finance and monopoly capital.

The Popular Democratic Movement represents the forces that were part of Allende's Popular Unity. It is made up of those forces whose political project was destroyed on Sept. 11, 1973. Politically, this grouping seeks to carry out the strategy of the international Communist parties.

With the Coordinating Committee of the Revolutionary Left, we are talking about the resurgence of a revolutionary left that would maintain the originality that marked the socialist movement in 1933 with the birth of the Socialist Party, and that marked the foundation, in 1965, of the Movement of the Revolutionary Left, the Chilean MIR.

These two revolutionary organizations were intended to fill the historic vacuum in Chilean society existing "Popular assemblies are being created on a national level as well as in the factories, the field and the working class neighborhoods." inter-bourgeois character of the crisis.

The situation in Chile is also of great concern to the different groups within the imperialist bourgeoisie (international Christian Democracy, the Socialist International, etc.) who understand that the class alliance that held the dictatorship together is breaking down. They are especially concerned with Chile's foreign debt, which stands at $27 billion and is the fourth highest in Latin America after Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico.

S.A.: On a somewhat different note, how does the Chilean working class see the situation in Poland?

V.T: When the events happened in Poland, the Chilean unionists in exilebut also within the country-took an attitude of sympathy with the union movement that challenged the political authority of the Jaruzelski regime.

We maintain a tireless criticism of the "process of the construction of socialism" such as has developed in Poland over the last 35 years. It has led to the establishment of a regime which is far from what we in Chile conceive of as socialism.

Perhaps this is because the political and economic conditions are quite different from those of Poland, but, nevertheless, we are opposed to the idea that—under a regime that calls itself socialist-so many millions of workers are repressed. We believe that socialism, on the contrary, can become a real possibility only when it is generated, impelled, and sustained from the ranks by the self-organization of the class, by the self-organization of the workers.

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(continued from page 1: “U.S. deficit runs wild”) that might tap some of the corporate riches, loopholes and exemptions are provided so the wealthy escape paying more than a small share. "Taxes should hurt," declared Ronald Reagan when he was governor of California. Then it was discovered he had paid no taxes the previous year on his hefty salary and divi dends.

Reagan did not tell exactly how he was able to escape the hurt of taxes, but he had a whole range of options. He might have put his money into municipal bonds where the interest is free of federal taxes. He might have bought oil leases where the oil depletion allowance would wipe out his tax liability. He could invest in an elaborate tax shelter such as real estate investments that create phony losses and real profits. controls, the national debt blasted off into the stratosphere. In 1970 the Treasury borrowed $16.7 billion; it borrowed 15 times as much in 1983. In 1984 it will borrow $200 billion and another $200 billion next year, and in the year after that.

The interest charge on the soaring debt is soaring even faster. It has risen 500 percent since 1945 and stood at $134 billion in 1983. At this point the government has to borrow to pay interest on the old debt, thus adding new debt in an ever ascending spiral. The Treasury has to sell $3 billion worth of bonds every day to keep the system going.

No buyers for U.S. bonds The United States is the richest country on earth but how much financial strain can it stand? On May 11, 1984, it appeared for a while that the breaking national debt. They plan to close some loopholes in the tax laws and cut some more benefits to create a saving of $148 billion in the next three years. This is no solution. The debt will still rise $460 billion in that period. The intent of the bill is to push the hard choices for a real solution three years down the road.

Mondale and Hart have offered nothing better. Jesse Jackson proposes cutting the arms budget by 20 percent. This will never balance the budget, especially when he very properly wants to restore the benefit cuts. Jackson is operating inside the Democratic Party. This limits any proposals he may make.

The first step in solving the financial dilemma is to wipe out the entire arms budget, close the hundreds of bases overseas, eliminate the secret budget of the CIA, and cut off money to the contras in Central America. This would be a real down payment on the debt. Taxing the millionaires and corporations on the full amount of their wealth would be a second down payment.

A resolution in favor of these two steps would never make it to the floor of the Democratic convention. The Democratic Party is not working on the solution; it is a big part of the problem.

Only a new party, a labor party, that breaks with the two-party power structure and mobilizes tens of millions of working people can force real changes in Washington. The astronomical national debt indicates that the system is running out of control. It is time for the common people of America to take control and halt the slide to bankruptcy and nuclear holocaust.

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ALLÊNDE 597,65 ...deficit runs wild