[BIRTH OF SOCIALIST MOVEMENT Building democracy in Trinidad part of the organized opposition to such: change. Here it employs its trading, diplomatic and other policies to this end. Trinidad is trying to organize a bloc of conservative states in the region which includes Barbados, St. Vincent, Antigua. . and using its capital in this respect. “* * * * resent the interests of working people. Since 1919, when the first general strike movement signified the development of a modern working class movement until today, there have been a series of high points of working class struggles at the trade union level. oe Some of these high points have been associated with efforts to build a con-- scious working class political organiza- tion, but none has really succeeded. Trinidad and Tobago today is dis- tinguished among the main West Indian territories by not having a working class party at whatever level of consciousness — not even social democratic. We work in a society in which the Professor James Millette, lecturer in history at the University of the West In- dies, Chairman of the February 18th Movement and President of the Trinidad-Tobago Peace Council was in Canada recently and was interviewed by Tribune Assistant Editor, Tom Morris. The Feb isch Moveinentinatihic formative stages and is developing its programatic positions which will be pub- lished in due course. Our effort in Canada is to launch a Trinidad-Tobago . Democratic Association, and we are looking to that association to organize the Trinidad and Tobago community here and to form working relations with other Caribbean groups. _I am in Toronto to participate in the Trinidad and Tobago Democratic Association which is a support group in Canada of the February 18th Movement. The February 18th Movement is a Marxist organization which came into being following the collapse of the Un- TRIBUNE PHOTO ’ JAMES MILLETTE Build an organization for working people ited Labor Front in Trinidad. This front ’ was, until September, 1977, the most im- portant manifestation of the attempt to form a broad-based, seperate and effec- tive working class political organization. Following on the Front’s collapse some of us took the view that the princi- . _ ple need of the day was to mobilize all available forces for leading a disciplined, united Struggle for the advancement of the working class in our country. We decided to call this organization the February 18th Movement because that day in 1975 matked the founding of the. United Labor Front when 50,000 workers met and mandated the’ various leaderships of the ULF who had met to form a trade union centre, to bring into being a political organization capable of seeking the seperate and distinct inter- ests of the workers of Trinidad-Tobago. The ULF failed in that attempt. And we believe it is very important this effort » be continued to bring such an organiza- tion into being: but this time an effort inspired by the principles of Marxism- Leninism and of scientific socialism, av- oiding the pitfalls of the ULF. : . * * The ‘Major struggle in our country today is to build an organization, at whatever level of consciousness, to rep- bourgeois and petty-bourgeois organiza- tions are well-organized. In fact, the ‘government, led by the People’s Na- tional Movement, comprises elements more and more representative of local and international capitalism than at any other period in Trinidad’s history. In 1956 when the PNM came to power, they represented the most progressive, anti-colonial elements including sections of the middle class and national bourgeoisie. Today they are no longer anti-colonialist. They dissociate them- selves,.except in rhetoric, from the na- tional liberation movements. - The PNM government is consciously pro-imperialist and pro-capitalist with its new constituency of the country’s weal- thy and their multi-national allies. * * * This feeling is remarkable because the . government has a policy of avoiding all international liberation struggles. With the €xception of statements on apartheid in South Africa, they virtually ignore this world-wide struggle —as does the media they control. The fact that-several countries in the region are consciously seeking a pro- gressive, non-capitalist path has led to a situation in which Trinidad is becoming GDR-FRG delayed talks get go ahead By FILS DELISLE ~ Tribune Berlin - ETS BERLIN — Three au- thoritative declarations by GDR and West Ger- man spokesmen have made it clear that the postponed summit meet- ing between the two Germanys will take place and that the leaders of both sides agree that further normalization in their relations is in their’ mutual interest. The. declarations, which have importance for European politics in general, followed cancel- lation by the West Ger- man side of a scheduled meeting between FRG Chancellor Helmut Schmidt and GDR State Council Chairman Erich Honecker at the end of August. The strikes on Poland’s Baltic coast were cited in Bonn as the reason for the postpon- ment. : In the first of the three declarations. which ‘have-- now clarified the situa- tion with regard to the proposed first summit consultations between Bonn and socialist Ber- lin, Schmidt stated pub- licly that the summit has only been postponed and not cancelled, that there _ is no crisis in relations between the two Ger- manys, and that he will journey to the GDR at a later date to meet with Honecker. This was followed by a statement to Honecker by Guenter Gaus, chief of Bonn’s permanent diplomatic representa- tion in the GDR, that ‘further’ improvement. ins relations between the FRG and the GDR would be a great contribution to _ the cause of world peace. At a reception for Hon- ecker and other GDR leaders at a West German exhibit at the autumn Leipzig Trade Fair, Gaus told Honecker: os = i | : : : - Two sides of the class question ED ZL TSD Marxism-Leninism in Today’s World the same ionic of ihe Tiiomwon oon 3 blatant class (capitalist) bias of the monopoly controlled press. _ The Toronto Globe and Mail, for Au- gust 28 carried a banner headline, Two papers die as Thomson, Southani tighten belts’’. The story goes on to describe how these two giant - ; monopolies of Canada’s newspaper ___ business set about tightening their indi- vidual grips on the purveying of what passes for news in a society that is in the death hug of monopoly capitalisni. It goes On to tell its readers that the clos- . ing of the Winnipeg Tribune and the - Ottawa Journal — the two most recent victims of the stranglehold of the giant monopolies over the dispensing of. news — leaves only four Canadian cities that have competing English- language dailies under separate owner- ship. They are Toronto, Edmonton, Calgary and St. John’s. * x” * they are fully conscious of their own class interests. Which interests happen to be opposite to the interests of the working people. eae ok Now the other side of the coin. Page 20 of the same August 28 issue of the to serve the interests of the multi- national corporations, the system of capitalism and the industrial and financial tycoons, including those of the newspaper world. Why should it be ’ otherwise as far as these gentry are concerned? Take the following two examples from the same issue of the . Globe and Mail, that carried the items . Globe and Mail carried’ a story headed 7 : ” ‘‘Thousands protest constitutional plan SUS RARE Sos ee in Chile”’. Date-lined Santiago, Chile, A front-page story says ‘‘Poland to the news item infotms the reader that allow free trade unions’’. The strike for the’ first time since the Allende movement in Poland has been front government was overthrown seven © page news since it began some ISdays You's SB 50,000 Chileans demon- ago as these wards are being penned. strated in the streets ina major opposi- But not only front page news. There tion political demonstration’. The have been pages and pages of inside item, quite-small in comparison with news and commentary. All of which news from Poland, goes on to say that has been in favor of the strikers and the the demonstration was broken up by Polish working people. And mind you, club wielding’’ police in riot gear, and — this big newspaper solidarity comes while some were wounded, ‘‘no deaths from the billionaire newspaper ty- + Were reported”. coons. Doesn’t this seem to be standing _ The story is presented in factual things on their heads? : style. No mention that Salvador Al- Doesn’t this seém strange, for as lende was murdered on the order of every Canadian worker knows the big __ fascist generals. Nor mention of created economic crisis are the working Canadian dailies are notorious for tak- ‘‘human rights” in Pinochet's Chile. people. ing the company side against the work- No mention either of the cruel fascist- x * * ers in every dispute or strike that takes regime that has murdered thousands of ” These two examples point up the two place in Canada?. This is so because the Chilean workers, peasants and intel- sides of the class war between the big newspaper owners are part and par- lectuals. international working class movement cel of the exploiting capitalist class, and _ These two examples of reportage iri and internation capitalism. PACIFIC TRIBUNE—SEPT. 12, 1980—Page 9 In respect to the Polish workers’ strikes the monopoly press in Canada doesn’t give a hoot about the well-being of those workers. All it is concerned about is whether or not the strikes con- tributed toward the possibility of the restoration of capitalism in Poland. It hopes to use the dispute between the workers and the socialist: government of Poland to discredit socialism in the eyes of Canadian workers and to fan the flames of anti-communism in Canada. However, time will show that the | monopoly press is but whistling in the . dark. Socialism will live on in Poland and will eventually emerge victorious in Canada. As for its soft treatment of the polliti- cal demonstration in Santiago, Chile, that is not surprising. Fascism is a form of monopoly capitalist rule. It is the bloody terroristic rule of finance capi- tal. Its chief victim is the working class, just as the chief victims of monopoly- This means a number of things to monopoly. First, a tighter hold on the marketing of the commodity it sells. _ Secondly, it means a tighter grip on the lucrative advertising market which, in the final analysis, will be at expense of _ the consumer. But most important it means tighter monopoly control over what you and I will be allowed to read, how that news is presented, and whose interests will the pap that passes for News serve. It stands to reason that the news dis- hed out, its presentation in respect to the image conjured up, will be beamed