Poland not another Chile |. This article by Luis Corvalan, leader of the Communist Party of Chile and former member of the Popular Unity Government of Salvador Allende, first appeared in the Colombian paper Voz Proletaria. It is printed in abridged form. * * * The leaders of Polish counter-revo- lution who gathered in Radom and Gdansk early in December decided that their hour had come. **Confrontation is inevitable, and it will take place,” Walesa said. The vice-chairman of Sol- idarity’s Warsaw branch warned him: “If you retreat one step, I personally will tear your head off.’’ Palka from Lodz proposed organizing “‘workers’ militia armed with helmets and batons.’ Bjucak from Warsaw called for the immediate formation of a ‘‘social-economic coun- cil,” to become a sort of provisional government. All this reminds us Chileans of the events which took place in our country. The same was said, though in other words, under the Allende government, on the eve of the fascist coup. | Thanks to the loyalty and patriotism of the army, the people and government of Poland have embarked upon a path which will enable them to block the plans of the internal and external enemies of socialism and to safeguard the in- dependence of their country. Chilean Communists know from ex- perience what a victorious counter-revo- lution brings. We rejoice at the new turn of events in Poland. The measures for national salvation taken by the Polish government will make it possible to avoid the catastrophe that was imminent and will lead to a further strengthening and development of socialist democracy in that country, to the correction of the mistakes that had been made. The U.S. President reacted to this with irritation, raising a fuss over what he calls ‘‘violation of the elementary rights of the Polish people,’’ and bluntly de- manded the release of the Solidarity and KSS-KOR leaders and other con- spirators. Reagan said all this on De- cember 17. One day earlier his represen- tative in the United Nations voted against a resolution condemning Pino- chet’s fascist regime. And this at a time when repression in Chile is intensified. It may be recalled that in our country counter-revolution was directed from Washington, and it paved its way under the banner of ‘‘defence of freedom and democracy”’ and not under the banner of fascism. The coup drowned the free- doms of the people in blood and de- stroyed all traces of democracy. A con- stitutional, democratic regime was re- placed by fascist arbitrary rule. In Chile, too, some trade union leaders followed the counter-revolutionary path. The majority of truck-owners, taxi- drivers, shopkeepers and a part of the workers at the El Teniente copper mine went on strike against the Allende government. But their participation in no way changed the fascist character of the plot. It should be added that, having ex- perienced the blows of the Pinochet dictatorship, the same truck-owners, taxi-drivers, shopkeepers and miners have understood that nine years ago they were deceived or mistaken and are now fighting against the tyranny. The CIA did not spare dollars for the “‘strikes."’ The press hostile to the government received generous financial aid. About 2,000 CIA agents penetrated into Chile under the guise of diplomats or tourists. It was the same in Poland. Fresh proof of imperialism’s direct interference is being discovered there every day. In the days of the Popular Government in Chile the mistaken idea prevailed that freedom is an indivisible, supra-class value. Even some advocates of socialism considered it possible to transform the existing system while recognizing the right of not only the democratic opposi- tion but also of the fascists to enjoy all political freedoms. This was proudly de- scribed as a singularity of the Chilean revolution. The lesson was tragic. Freedom for all turned into a rampage of counter-revo- lution and, after September 11, 1973, into fascist slavery for the people. The building of socialist society is a great undertaking which is not and can- not be free from difficulties of every kind. The mistakes of the Polish leadership led to discontent taking ona wide scale. This discontent was employed by the class enemy, who, frankly speaking, gained successes until General Jaruzelski as- sumed leadership of the Party and the government. The measures taken in Poland for the normalization of production and the ac- tivity of the state did not figure in the U.S. imperialists’ designs. They hoped that in. that country, just as in Chile in 1973, the situation would lead to the col- lapse of the socialist state and a military confrontation in Europe. Ultimately, they had hoped that the Polish people would be unable to defend socialism by themselves. But the U.S. imperialists mis- calculated. The course of events did not Santiago stadium, Sept. 1973. justify their hopes, and hence their hy} terical rage. Reagan has cut food suppl to Poland. It is not to his liking that | socialist country is overcoming a difficl] moment in its history. The U.S. Pres dent has evidently forgotten that !} times when the world depended on U. actions have gone never to return. Chilean Communists would like | reaffirm their already stated opiniont ] while in the world and in separate cov! tries not everything can be painted bla’ and white, in the class struggle on ! national and international level one 1*] to stand either on one or the other side! the barricades. We are on the side of socialist Polan? - INTERNATIONAL FOCUS By TOM MORRIS || i Through rain, sleet, nuclear dust ... Worried about The Bomb? If so, you'll be pleased to know that the U.S. government has a Federal Emergency Manage- ment Agency (FEMA) to en- sure the capitalist system re- bounds from all-out nuclear war. It has conducted no less than 369 ‘“‘post-attack recovery studies” and it’s heartening to see FEMA’s main concem lies not in lives but in such Ameri- can values as banking, rents, mortgages, mail and currency. The U.S. Postal Service plans to distribute ‘‘postage- free Emergency Change-of- Address cards’’ to ensure sur- vivors will pay their bills. Banks are working out detailed plans to keep the system functioning. ‘‘ Victory in a nu- clear war,”’ explains a Federal Reserve System pamphlet, “will belong to the country that recovers first’’. The Department of Housing and Urban Development's manual on post-attack prob- lems discusses how to estab- lish emergency housing and “firm rent guidelines’’. Other departments get into such matters as the president’ s survival, opium stocks, safe- keeping of bank records, what to do with the Declaration of Independence, how to pre- serve currency and how to bury the dead (head to foot). rocedures| Artist's view of post-nuclear life — save the president. PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MARCH 12, 1982—Page 8 FEMA writes: ‘‘The most important thing to remember about a nuclear waris that it will not be the end of the world. Nothing gets in the way of re- sponsible post nuclear attack planning like negative, uncon- structive attitudes ...”’ In an orgy of positive thinking, the agency then says 162 million Americans will be dead and injured. But your ‘‘negativeness”’ is soon replaced by a thnill of hope when you're told: “‘And even if all the plans come to nothing . . . and people start using fifty dollar bills for toilet paper, and mortgage payments fall behind, and the mail goes undelivered, and surviving Americans form tribes and battle one another for dusty cans of tuna fish — . Someday, maybe, as the result of one bit of preattack plan- ning, those survivors’ descen- dants will be able to find their way back to our traditional American values ...”’ Feel better? — Political reality and tunnel vision he US, administration is” marshalling its best talent to sell the idea to the American people and to the world that U.S. vital interests ‘are threatened in El Salvador. Its tunnel vision view of the conflict raging in that country reflects its general outlook to- ward the entire national libera- tion struggle underway in Latin America and elsewhere. According to U.S. thinking, as enunciated by Ronald Reagan, the U.S. faces ‘‘guerillas, armed and supported by and through Cuba, ... attempting to impose a Marxist-Leninist dictatorship on the people of El Salvador ...”" It would be too much to be- lieve Regan thought that up by himself. His ignorance of world events, of the motive forces behind human struggle, is complete. What Reagan does is mouth the words; his advisers and ‘‘experts’’ and the interests they serve do the thinking. Not one word in Reagan's speech about decades of colo- nial brutality and butchery en- dured by the people of Central America. Nota single sentence about the U.S. role, of Ameri- can gunboat diplomacy, of in- vasion, subversion and plun- der. It’s a shocking and danger- ous situation. Every move, every action, every speech from White House spokesmen ‘indicates a wider plan to de- stroy governments of which they disapprove even at the risk of a wider war. One of the men_ behind Reagan’s Central America pol- icy debacle comes highly re- commended to plan debacles. Thomas Enders, Assistant Secretary of State for Inter- American Affairs has emerged as Reagan's chief policy- maker in the region. Enders, former U.S. ambas- sador to Ottawa, was also a former U.S. deputy chief of the U.S. mission in Kampuchea from 1971 to 1974. While there he coordinated the massive U.S. B-52 bombing raids on that country — an undeclared act of war which killed thou- — sands of people. Enders believes in ‘‘domino }j_ theory” politics. He argued | that in Indochina and does so today when he says ‘‘the de- _cisive battle for Central America is underway in El } Salvador"’. This thinking is shared by 7 | Haig, Weinberger and others § | who direct and shape policy. 9) armed with this in- 9 credible doctrine, bolstered by And, lies and deceit, the Reagan J. administration marches off to 7 war once again for God an . Country. .The problem, however, that the world has moved with — giant steps since the days the 9} U.S. could plunder, invade |) and occupy at will. Washing- |) ton, sadly, may have to re-- learn that lesson.