revolutionary Marxism have succeeded in gaining a position inside the working class.
The leading role inside this current has undoubtedly been played by the Ligue Communiste: in struggles against political repression, in the school and student movements, in solidarity actions with the struggles of the Indo-Chinese peoples, in support of strikes and, most recently, in mobilizing thousands after the murder of Pierre Overney.
This somewhat more publicized aspect of its political presence goes hand in hand with its systematic intervention in working-class struggles, which makes it the only organization capable of challenging the PCF and CGT2 hold on the French working class. The in creasing preoccupation of the Stalinist bureaucrats with the activities of the Ligue Communiste is a further proof of the influence this organization has acquired and continues to acquire in many layers of the working class.
Its success is not accidental. It is closely linked to the fact that the Ligue Communiste is the only organization on the French left that keeps alive the Leninist conception of organization. Furthermore, it is the only organization on the French left that bases its strategy on an analysis of the international balance of forces and, by being a member of an international organization, is capable of putting this strategy into practice.
It is necessary at this stage to reply to those 'internationalists and "Trotskyists' inside the PSU who, while complaining of the nationalist orientation of the neo-Stalinist populists and of Rocard's followers inside the party, never get around to offering an internationalist alternative. For this purpose it is sufficient to quote a passage from a book recently published by one of their tendency: *Those spineless critics of Trotsky to be found in the groups situated between Marxism and reformism reproach him with trying to build an international roof before erecting the national walls of the revolution. However, for us the International does not represent a sort of friendly summit of nations who, joined in a happy recognition of their common ideology. send each other congratulations at times of congresses. For us the International means a world party which, united on a Marxist-Leninist programme, discusses and decides strategy on the world scale. This programme is not the roof that one erects at the completion of building but the very foundation upon which one builds the international and national organizations."
We believe that the Fourth International is precisely in this sense a weapon essential to developing an international movement of the proletariat and the only organization capable of responding globally to the new upsurge of the international class struggle. For us, therefore, the Ligue Communiste is the only organization within which one can confront the problems of the epoch: the present stage of the world revolution, the origin and crisis of Stalinism, the relationship between the vanguard and the masses. The theoretical debate within the Ligue Communiste The appeal below, originally launched in Paris by commissions which are gathering and translating documents, has now been sponsored by an 'International Jury against the new Prague trials, which is working in conjunction with the commissions and will carry out a counter-trial, publicly, through meetings and conferences.
The Jury has been set up in order to give shape to the widespread but so far isolated discontent and protest against the trials. By now commissions exist in many Western European countries. This initiative must be taken up in Britain as well by all those who are engaged in the fight for socialism.
THE DEFENCE OF THE CZECHOSLOVAKIANS IN PRISON IS PART OF THE FIGHT FOR SOCIALISM!
WE WILL BREACH THE WALL OF SILENCE WHICH SURROUNDS THEM:
At dawn on August 21, 1968, the armies of the Warsaw Pact entered Prague and millions of people were caught between indignation and sheer stupor. Today, more than three years after this show of force, hundreds of people are imprisoned because they do not accept the current situation. Others have lost their jobs and are forced to live by their wits. They have not accepted the situation either. All of them are, or will be, threatened with legal action for their activities during or after the Prague Spring. They have no assurance that Husak will abide by his declarations affirming: "There will be no pre-fabricated trials". The facts themselves have already disproved this affirmation (cf. the trials of Petr Uhl, Prehlik, Skutina, Lederer, etc...). The inner logic of legal intervention can only be more repression. Unable to convince, the present government is obliged to repress: "pre-fabricated" or simply "fabricated, these trials are a necessity:
The present Czech government is presenting them as essential for the defence of socialism. Nothing could be more monstrous or more efficient in discrediting socialism once and for all in the eyes of masses of people in and outvention itself had been "isolated", and not been followed by "normalzation", followed in turn by "consolidation". The same reasons that led us to "disapprove" now compel us to fight against these trials. The defence of socialism cannot admit either compromise or ambiguity.
Consequently: -conscious that heavy penalties are in the offing for the Czech prisoners and that the present government is once more using the sa me police proceedings as in the 50's; -conscious that the repression in Czechoslovakia has created an image of socialism that only inspires disgust; the under-signed call for the constitution of an International Jury which, by furnishing the maximum proof, will cast light on the methods and objectives of the present repression in Czechoslovakia, will take charge of the prisoners defence and by doing so, will thereby indict the accusers.
Claude AVELINE (France), Robin BLACKBURN(G.B.) Marguerite BONNET (Fr.), Clarole BOURDET (Fr.), Peter BRUCKNER(W.Germany), Andreas BURO (W.Germ.), Igor CORNELISSEN(Netherlands), Claude COURTOT (Fr.), Tamara DEUTSCHER(G.B.), Hans-Magnus EIZENSBERGER (W.Germ.), Roer GARAUDY (Fr.), C.GAVRAS(Ft.), Wilfried GOTTSCHALCH(W.Germ.), Daniel GUERIN(Fr.), Me Gisele HALIMI(Fr.), Georges HAUPT (Fr.), Edmond JAGUER(Fr.), Simone JAGUER(Fr.), Vladimir JANKELEVITCH(Fr.), Andre JEANSON (Fr.), Serge JONAS(Fr.), Me Yves JOUFFA(Fr.), Alain KRIVINE(Fr.), Henri LEFEBVRE(Fr.), Eric LOSFELD(Fr.), Jacques MADAULE(Fr.), Ernest MANDEL(Belgium), Franz MAREK(Austria), Dyonis MASCOLO(Fr.), Me Leo MATARASSO(Fr.), MATTA(Fr.), Daniel MAYER (Fr.), Dr. MINKOWSKI (Fr.), Yves MONTAND(Fr.), Claude MORGAN(Fr.), Maurice NADEAU(Fr.), Pierre NAVILLE(Fr.), Valerio OCHETTO(Italy), Pierre Jean OSWALD (Fr.), Theodoros PANGALOS(Greece), Jiri PELIKAN (Czechoslovakia), Gajo PETROVIC (Zagreb), Jean PICART LE DOUX(Fr.), Michel PICCOLI(Fr.), PETKOFF(Venezuela), Sybille PLOGSTEDIOV. Germ.), Jean PRONTEAU(Fr.), Michel RAPTIS (Fr.), Madeleine REBERIOUX(Fr.), Michel ROCARD (Fr.), Rossana ROSSANDA(It.), Laurent SCHWARTZ (Fr.), Jean SCHUSTER(Fr.), Jorge SEMPRUN(Fr.), Simone SIGNORET(Fr.), Hans-Rudolph SONNTAG (W.Germ.), A.G.van der SPEK (Neths.), Mikis TILLON(Fr.), Jean-Pierre VERNANT(Fr.), VERCORS (Fr.), Klaus WAGENBACH(W.Germ.), ZAROUBINE (U.S.A.).
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