the failure to mobilise the masses in a spirit of class struggle, the absence of a strategic and tactical line adequate for the needs of a people's war, and the absence of a true unity based on revolutionary principles, left aU the trump cards in the hands of reaction and enabled it to prevent the victory which seemed to be on the horizon.
In the light of this disaster, everyone has finally understood that the unity of revolutionary forces round a vanguard organisation of revo- lutionary proletarians offers the only road to victory."
This is an analysis which will appeal to many socialists. The pro- gramme of the Congolese Marxist Revolutionary Party (also given in the bulletin) contains many socialist objectives. But nowhere is any method of struggle other than guerilla warfare even mentioned. The very words
"trade union" are conspicuous by their absence. The prospect held OUI to the people of Zaire is one of civil war continuing for "ten, twenty or thirty years" and it is made very clear that anyone who attempts to make peace, on any terms whatsoever, is to be branded as a class
traitor.
It is, of course, true that Zaire is a country where much blood has been shed and that its present government is right-wing and deeply implicated in collaboration with imperialism. Yet can it be true that in Zaire, alone among Ihe countries of independent Africa, the class struggle has reached such a pitch of intensity that for decades to come one can dismiss all possibility of tra~e union action, of legal or peaceful struggle for socialism, of the formation of broad programme fronts, of
lhe establishment of an anti-imperialist government of national unity?
All the experience of the African people in recent times suggests lhat the Congolese Marxist Revolutionary Party has arrived at an excessively rigid and ultra-left position.
The bulletin contains a statement of international affairs which leaves no room for doubt as to the origins of this false position. The statement heaps fulsome praise upon the Chinese leadership and has
nothing to say about the Soviet Union except the infantile accusation that the Soviet Union "has indulged in hundreds of thousands of manoeuvres to extinguish the People's Republic of Albania".
Thus the rule is once again illustrated: to attempt to universalise the Chinese experience and tum it into the basis of a new brand of Marxism inevitably leads to positions from which there is no way forward.
CAMEROON
The Union of Peoples of Cameroon (U.P.C.) was originally the Came- roon section of the Reassemblement Democratique Africain, the left- wing party which contributed so much to the liberation struggle in all the French colonies in Africa. In recent years, the V.P.C. has undergone many hardships and setbacks. It has been the target of vicious repression=:
at the hand of the French-dominated governments of Cameroon. Many of its leaders have been driven into exile. A period of disunity followed, in which it proved impossible to maintain adequate links between the internal and external organs of the U.P.c., and clashes between indivi- duals dominated the affairs of the external organs. The Revolutionary Committee which headed the external organisation fell eventually into the hands of a small group, whose recent attacks upon the government of Guinea (always the most faithful ally of the progressive forces in Cameroon), have led to grave suspicion that they have surrendered to total opportunism.
In December 1972, a conference of U.P.C. militants was held to consider these problems. It elected a comminee of eleven who issued a new programme and a moving appeal for the holding of a full-scale party conference to restore unity. The section of the programme on international solidarity declares:
"The struggle for liberation from the yolk of colonialism and neo- colonialism is inseparable from the struggle against imperialism, for the building of a democratic and prosperous society. The struggle of the people of Cameroon for independence is an integral part of the struggle of the peoples of the whole world against imperialism, for a society relieved of all forms of exploitation of man by man ....The militants of the U.P.C. are aware of the solidarity which unites their national cause to that of other revolutionary forces throughout the world. These forces are the socialist countries of Europe, Asia and Latin America, the progressive regimes of Africa, Latin America and Asia, the working-class and progressive forces of the capitalist countries and all the progressive forces of the world. These forces are the necessary allies of the Cameroon people. The U.P.C. therefore rejects as counter-revolutionary and pro-imperialist all actions and all ideas tending to isolate the Cameroon liberation movement from the rest of the progressive forces of the world ...
"This is why the U.P.c. will abstain from any action capable of aggravating to even the slightest extent any divergences which may exist between one detachment and another in the world revolution- ary movement ...
"The U.P.C. renews its unbreakable support for the heroic struggle of the peoples of Angola, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Niger, Chad, Congo-Leopoldville, Eritrea and libouti, as well as for the valiant people of Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Palestine ... "
The work of preparing for the party conference has necessarily been prolonged, as it involves the creation of new lines of communication between U.P.C. supporters in exile and those in Cameroon. A "Uaison Bulletin" is being published at regular intervals to assist in this work. At the date of the latest news reaching us, this work was still in progress.
SOUTH AFRICA AND ISRAEL
While one African state after another broke off relations with Israel in protest against continuing Israeli occupation of Arab lands, South Africa maintained a consistent pro-Israel bias. The fact cannot be ex- plained only on the basis of the presence in South Africa of a large Jewish minority, whose sympathies are overwhelmingly Zionist. There are deep Israeli-white South African affinities of policy, ideology and relationships to American imperialism. These have produced a markedly pro-Israeli bias in the ranks of the South African government, even though its whole past, when it was the 'opposition' is heavily tainted with pro-Nazi activity, and with anti-semitism. Jews, for example, were specifically barred from membership of the Nationalist Party, until the provision was shamefacedly withdrawn at the time of their rise to power.
Perhaps another aspect of this situation is given in this report, reprinted in its entirety from the London Daily Telegraph of 31st, October. The Daily Telegraph is notably right wing, pro-Vorster and pro-Israel.
"A South African Air Force fighter is reliably reported to be the unidentified Mirage jet which the Egyptians claimed to have shot
down over the Suez Canal last week.
The presence of a Mirage puzzled observers because Israel's 3S French-built Mirage III fighters are among her older aircraft which have been superseded by American Phantom-4s and Sky hawks.
The report both underlines and is given credibility by the almost total break in diplomatic relations with Israel made by African states over the last few days.
It also helps explain President Sadal's recent statement that Egypt would only recognise as prisoners of war those captured who were Israeli citizens.
The South African Air Force is equipped with 32 Mirage III and Mirage IV aircraft and they are its most up to date fighters.
BATTLE EXPERIENCE
It is thought that the South African Government sent a number of volunteer pilots with their aircraft to Israel to gain the battle experi- ence.
Additionally the Vorster regime may have felt that the war was uniting the Arab and African states as never before, and therefore that Israel was an ally.
The planes presumably flew up the West Coast of AlTica, usmg Portuguese airfields in Angola and Guinea, then joined the stream of replacement American aircraft going Easl from the Azores."