Citizens demonstrate against the Tories’ Goods and Services Tax outside a $250-per-plate dinner for Primer Minister Brian

Mulroney at a Vancouver hotel Oct. 22. Demonstration, which included participat

ion by the B.C. Nurses Union, First United

Church and the Coalition Against “ Free” Trade, featured a larger-than-life puppet replica of the unpopular prime minister,
which was later “arrested” for crimes including the GST, free trade and the abortive Meech Lake Accord.

Crisis over free market solutions
focuses socialist debate in USSR

MOSCOW—Alexei A. Prigarin, 60, is
a professional economist with Goskom-
trud, the State Labour Committee of the
USSR. He is also a Central Committee
member of the Soviet Communist Party
(CPSU). Last February he became a
founding member of the Marxist Platform,
a socialist opposition group within the
CPSU. He currently sits on the MP’s co-
ordinating council. He was recently inter-
viewed by the Tribune's Moscow cor-
respondent Fred Weir.

Question: How does the Marxist
Platform differentiate itself from the
Democratic Platform and, indeed, from
the mainstream positions of the CPSU

itself?

Prigarin: Many of us have partici-
pated in the democratic movement since
its beginning. Last year we took part in the
creation of the Democratic Platform with-
in the CPSU, and from that development
a natural split took place. The Democratic
Platform contains a very wide diversity of
forces, everything from left social demo-
crats to neo-conservatives. For that reason
we decided not to enter this movement,
because we remain on a communist posi-
tion.

After the 28th Congress of the CPSU,
the left-wing of the DPhas remained with-
in the CPSU, though other sections of it

have left. So we regard them as our nearest
political neighbors on the right. Tactical
co-operation and dialogue with the DP is
still very possible, and with other groups
and movements as well.

All of this is perfectly normal in a
pluralistic, multi-party society. But we
also believe that the CPSU should
regenerate itself, and fight — in the politi-
cal sense — for leadership in society.

Question: Nothing is more confusing
to Westerners these days than the
Soviet political spectrum. Could you
offer us some definitions here?

Prigarin: How is it that anti-com-
see CPSU page 7

October 29, 1990
50 cents
Volume 53, No. 37

T fight

Senators facing
heavy pressure

Pro-Canada Network committees across
the country were gearing up last week to
maintain the pressure on the Senate to kill
the Goods and Services Tax in the wake of
a renewed government effort to put the GST
legislation to the upper house fora final vote.

“We're looking at intense activity likely
over the next five weeks,” Randy Robinson,
political education co-ordinator for the Pro-
Canada Network, said in an interview from
Ottawa.

Robinson said it was “possible to hold up
the GST in the Senate if the Tories don’t
break the rules.”

The upper house has continued to be at
the centre of the cross-country storm of op-
position to the GST. Earlier this month, Sen-
ate Speaker Guy Charbonneau touched off
a furore when he broke with longstanding
procedure and ruled that a vote could be
taken without Liberal senators being pre-
sent.

The uproar was muted last week, how-
ever, following a deal reached between

see PRO-CANADA page 8

Tory govt gets
UI bill passed

Despite country-wide opposition to the
legislation, the federal government man-
aged Monday night to force through the bill
dismantling part of this country’s unemploy-
ment insurance system as part of an agree-
ment between the government and Senate
leaders that will see continuing debate focus
on opposition to the Goods and Services
Tax.
Bill C-21, first introduced by the Tories
in 1989 but held up by the Senate — which

Labour Forum, page 8

held its own hearings and the contentious
legislation and proposed a series of amend-
ments —was finally put to a vote in the
upper house Oct. 22 —ten months after its
scheduled Jan. 1, 1990 implementation date.
The Liberal amendments were not included
in the final bill.

The ratification vote, its passage assured
by Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s un-
precedented action in appointing eight new
Tory senators, was part of a deal worked out
with Liberal members of the Senate to put
three key pieces of legislation to a final vote
in the upper house. They include the UI bill,

see Ui page 3