THE MILITANT Published in the Interests of the Working People Vol. 32- No. 30 Friday, July 26, 1968 Price 1Oc JCR leader Krivine held by Paris police Alain Krivine and his wife, Michele, Charonne. Forty-one persons present were were seized by the police in Paris July questioned by the police and eight of them 16. They are being held incommunicado were then held incommunicado. and it is not known what charges, if any, The press claimed that the gathering have been lodged against them. constituted a meeting of the JCR, since Alain Krivine became known interna­ alleged members of the JCR were present. tionally as one of the main leaders of the This was vigorously denied by those Jeunesse Communiste Revolutionnaire, the questioned by the police. The meeting was Trotskyist youth organization that played actually an assembly of members of a a key role in the student demonstrations "student-workers Committee of Action." Ac­ that touched off the giant social crisis in tion committees formed during the May­ France in May and June. June upsurge have continued to meet. The JCR, together with a number of Arrests have been made in other cities, "FREE HUEY!" Kathleen Cleaver addresses demonstration protesting frame-up other revolutionary organizations, was bringing the total number of people held of Black Panther leader Huey Newton July 15 in Oakland. (Seep. 8.) "dissolved" by a government decree signed incommunicado by the police to 21. The by de Gaulle himself. Under the decree press has not reported their names; but it is illegal to either continue the organi­ all of them are said to have been herded zation or to reconstitute it. into a police camp outside of Paris. The JCR had announced its intention On July 16, a mass meeting to protest to challenge the decree in the courts, since the ban and the arrests was held at the it was issued on false grounds, alleging Palais-Royal under the auspices of the Kremlin steps up that the JCR had organized combat squads Comite d'Action Ecrivains-Etudiants (Writ­ and a militia. ers-Students Action Committee) and the The arrest of Alain and Michele Krivine Comite pour la Liberte et contre la Re­ followed a police raid on a meeting held pression (Committee for Freedom and A­ July 10 in a parish hall at 177 Rue de gainst the Repression). Police and special riot detachments, in­ cluding Compagnies Republicains de Se­ attack on Czechs curite (CRS), were mobilized in force By Dick Roberts diate purge from the Communist Party throughout the entire area. At 7 p.m. JULY 19- The Soviet bureaucracy has of the followers of the ousted regime of they began attacking youths on the side­ greatly stepped up its pressure to halt Antonin Novotny. walks. As has become customary, they did and, if possible, reverse the liberalization Marking a new high point in the tendency not draw any distinction between those of the Czechoslovakian Communist Party toward liberalization in East Europe, "Two associated with the protest meeting and and administration. Its heightened attacks Thousand Words" appeals for action that passers-by. on the regime of Alexander Dubcek since goes beyond the channels of the Dubcek They used their clubs with unusual free­ July 9 threaten to create a major East government for reforming the Czechoslo­ dom, beating victims even after they were European crisis. vakian Communist Party. It calls for down. Witnesses who made comments, In coordination with the governments "public criticism, demonstrations, resolu­ showing how shocked they were at the of Poland, East Germany, Hungary and tions, strikes and boycotts to bring down brutality, were arrested by plainclothes­ Bulgaria, the Kremlin smeared the Czecho­ people who have misused power and caused men. slovakian government in a series of dip­ public harm." While Dubcek has followed Two prominent backers of the committee, lomatic notes and official articles. On a path of grad.ual reform of the Commu­ Claude Roy and Olivier de Magny, were July 11, the SovietCommunistPartyorgan nist Pary and bureaucracy, this manifesto arrested this way. Pravda denounced "counterrevolutionary appeals to the masses for direct action An appeal has been issued for interna­ forces in Czechoslovakia ... linked with to oust the Novotny gang. tional solidarity, particularly for material imperialist reaction," comparing Czecho­ According to the July 16 note of the aid in the defense efforts. Contributions slovak liberals to "counterrevolutionary five governments the "Two Thousand can be sent to Emil Van Ceulen, Secretary, elements in Hungary." Words" document is "an outright call for Fonds de Solidarite contre la Repression A note from Moscow and the four East struggle against the Communist Party and en France, 111 Seghers, Brussels 8, Alain Krivine European governments siding with the constitutional authority, for strikes and Belgium. Kremlin bureaucrats delivered to Prague disorders. This call represents a serious July 16 stated, "A situation has thus arisen danger to the party, the national front [in Czechoslovakia] absolutely unaccept­ and the socialist state, and is an attempt able for a socialist country." The implicit to introduce anarchy ... [the document's threat of intervention was all the more purpose] is to legalize the platform of 2,000 Blade workers galling since the Kremlin has kept a force counterrevolution and hoodwink the vi­ variously estimated to number as many gilance of the party, the working class and as 27,000 troops on "maneuvers" within all the working folk." Czech territory for several weeks after But the real targets of "hoodwinking" the originally announced time of departure. are not the Czechoslovak people at all, strike at Detroit plant On July 17, Yugoslav President Tito who have been enthusiastic supporters of and Rumanian Communist Party head government reform, steadily pushing it By Derrick Morrison grievances against the corporation; that Nicolae Ceausescu came out in support to go further and faster. By claiming that DETROIT- This city, which was the black workers who have been fired on of the Czechoslovaki,angovernment. Wash­ there is a big danger of counterrevolution scene of the biggest black uprising in the trumped up racist charges be brought ington issued a warning against armed in Czechoslovakia, the Kremlin bureau­ 20th century last year, has now become back with all lost pay; that black bro­ intervention in Czechoslovakia the same crats are above all attempting to hood­ the scene of the most advanced actions thers in South Africa working for Chrys­ day, but official circles tended to dismiss wink the Soviet peoples themselves. This yet undertaken by black workers. ler Corp. and its subsidiaries be paid it. For example, a July 17 New York point was drawn sharply in an April 18 This was the case when black workers at an equal scale as their white co-work­ Times dispatch from Warsaw reported: statement by the United Secretariat of the under the leadership of DRUM, the Dodge ers; that a black brother be appointed as "Diplomatic sources here say the current Fourth International, giving early warn­ Revolutionary Union Movement, struck head of the board of directors of Chrys­ relaxation oftensions between Washington ing against Soviet intervention in Czech­ the Chrysler Hamtramck Assembly plant ler Corp. and Moscow may have persuaded the oslovakia: on Friday, July 12. About 2,000 black An indication of the strikers' disgust Soviet Union and some of its East Euro­ "The Czechoslovak counterrevolution is workers struck and picketed the plant over with the union organization was the in­ pean allies that they can intervene mili­ extremely weak, and the international situ­ the racist treatment handed out by the clusion in the list of a demand that all tarily without fear of Western repercus­ ation is hardly favorable to reinforcing Chrysler management. According to union dues be stopped and the dues money sions ... Some Western and Communist it ... The Soviet bureaucracy's direct DRUM, over 70 percent of the 10,000 go to the black community to aid in the sources have been struck by the timing representatives in Czechoslovakia, the men workers at Hamtramck Assembly are struggle for self-determination. of the new understanding between the two of Novotny and the Kremlin, understand black, yet 90 percent of the plant manage­ The present struggle has been building superpowers which has grown steadily this perfectly. Their aim is to arouse skep­ ment is lily white. The strike was a wild­ up since September, 1967. At that time since the Czechoslovak crisis began earlier ticism and distrust for socialist democracy cat because it was not sanctioned by the Willie Brookins, a black worker, was fired this year." in the popular sectors, to seek a justifica­ United Auto Workers local leadership. by Chrysler when he defended himself tion, even in entirely isolated phenomena, Among the demands listed in the DRUM against an attack by two white guards at The "Two Thousand Words'' for an intervention and the crushing of newsletter were: installment of 50 black the plant. The guards claimed they at­ The focal point of the Kremlin's charges the mass movement . foremen, 10 black general foremen, 3 black tacked Brookins because they thought a against the Dubcek government has been "The Soviet bureaucracy fears the con­ superintendents, and a black plant man­ package he was carrying into the plant a document entitled the "Two Thousand tagion which could result for the toiling ager; that all doctors and 50 percent of after lunch contained a bomb. As it turn­ Words." This manifesto was drafted by masses of the other workers states, above the nurses at the plant medical center be ed out, the package contained two sausage Ludvik Vaculik, was signed by 70 Czecho­ all Poland, East Germany and the USSR black; that a committee of black rank-and­ sandwiches.