In December 1971 and January 1972 an unprecedented wave of arrests took place in Czechoslovakia. With more recent arrests the total is now at least 200. The arrests resulted directly from the November 1971 elections, whose function was to legitimise through the ballet box the regime imposed by the armies of the Warsaw pact. Despite the remarkable success of the Government (93.83 per cent) it still did not feel confident enough, and subsequently had to resort to arresting those people calling for a boycott of this farce A few weeks ago a request to Angela Davis to call for the release of political prisoners in Eastern Europe and in capitalist countries was made by Jiri Pelikan, an ex-member of the Central Committee of the Czech Communist Party forced to flee from Czechoslovakia after the invasion in August, 1968. This appeal may have been a little naive, but the response has revealed to many militants the essentially Stalinist character of Angela Davis's politics. In her reply, she explained that anyone who left the "socialist" countries was objectively counterrevolutionary as they were acting in oppos ition to the socialist system". Secondly, if people in Eastern Europe ended up in jail it was because they were undermining the government. In other words, by implying that these societies are true socialist societies, she has ended up by pandering to the very image of communism that the bourgeoisie tries to impose on us.
Even the French Communist Party has made "some criticism" of the Czech trials, arguing that in this case there should have been an "intensive ideological and political struggle to beat and isolate the enemies of socialism", and not trials. It is apparent that the French C.P. still considers that any ideological opposition to the bureaucracy is de facto counterrevolutionary, and its present line is in fact due more to its courtship of the Socialist Party of Mitterand than any political objection to the trials. Proof of this is the fact that a statement was only issued by the political bureau of thé French C.P. after continued promptings by Mitterand.
The CPB has also expressed concern at the trials, following a similar line to that taken by the Italian C.P. which deplored the trials "if the reports received are accurate".
The reticence of the official Communist Parties will surprise few people (we characterise these parties as Stalinist precisely because of their organic links with the Communist Party of the Soviet Union). However, it must come as a surprise to many militants when Angela Davis's statement is, in effect, more reactionary than that of the French Communist Party. The reason why we should be concerned about her position is because of the key role she has assumed in politicising many young militants both in the States and elsewhere in the world. Any statements she makes may well influence them further, and that is why it is absolutely necessary to explain that by her statement she has reneged on the duty of revolutionaries to support the right of socialists in Eastern Europe to develop ideas and critiques of their societies, and to organise against a bureaucracy. It is not enough for all her supporters to have fought for mere bourgeois democracy within the capitalist countries. They must realise that it is as necessary to aid struggles for true proletarian democracy within the workers' states.