sy 4 10th anniversary of Soweto revolt on June 16. . Anti-apartheid forces in South Africa are mobilizing themselves. for heightened con- frontation with the racist Botha regime. Proclama- tions that have been made point to June as a show- down month, in Black townships and in work- places around the country. During the last weekend of March a major con- ference was held in Durban, Natal, that set forth the perspective of sharpening struggle to dismantle apartheid. Called by the National Education Crisis Committee (NECC), made up of students, parents and teachers, the conference was attended by over 1,500 delegates who met to decide on whether to end or continue the year-long boycott by Black pupils of the grossly unequal apartheid schools. A debate over the boycott of classes had been going on for some time in the anti-apartheid move- ment, with the more radical African youth who have been on the township streets in confrontation _with government troops and police urging ‘‘libera- tion first, education after,’’ and with others, includ- ..ing older activists, calling for the stuggle over equal education to take on new forms. The Durban conference decided to end the boy- cott of schools, but it was in no sense a retreat on the issue of apartheid education. It was merely a shift to what was termed ‘‘new and creative tech- niques” that will raise the struggle to a higher level. The decision was to undertake ‘‘alternate educa- tion’’ by taking control of the schools in the town- ships and running them with liberation-oriented political courses. As one of the NECC conference organizers, Lechesa Tsenoli, said: ‘*We are going to run the schools, we are going to organize the syllabuses. It is no longer a question of petitioning the government. We are going to be- = mative education: iss! grins come actively involved » in Songer an se News Analysis William Pomeroy Student demands had not been merely for equal- ity of education facilities and reorganization of cur- ricula that are aimed at molding Black youth into an inferior social status. Demands have included the ending of the state of emergency imposed by the Botha regime in July 1985, the removal of troops and armed police from the townships, the release of detained pupils and teachers, and lifting of the ban on the Congress of South African Students. The NECC delegates held to these and other anti-apartheid demands by replacing the schools boycott with decisions to intensify rent and con- Anti-apartheid forces mobilizin sumer boycotts in the coming period. These are 10 be climaxed by.a ‘‘national stayaway from work or general strike for three days, beginning onJ 16. This will commemorate the 10th anniversary * a . the Soweto revolt of June .1976. A significant feature of the Durban conference came at its opening: the delegates stood with raise fists for a moment of silence in memory of Mose Mabhida, the general secretary of the South African Communist Party who died of a heart a tack in Maputo, Mozambique, on March 8. Mos ses Mabhida was also a member of the national exe¢ tives of both the African National Congress and the South African Congress of Trade-Unions. : The general strike called for by the NECC for June 16-18 dovetails with the pronouncements made by the new super-federation of African labo! the 500,000-strong Council of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) that was launched at the be -ginning of last December. COSATU at that gave the apartheid regime six months to begin t dismantling of the apartheid system, by scrapping the pass laws. : If it failed to do so, said the COSATU president Elijah Barayi, ‘‘we are going to burn the passes i the Black man.”’ The objective of the natio anti-pass law campaign, according to COSAT founding conference resolutions, is the scrappl of the whole migrant labor ‘system. This COSATU call’ would coincide with | t Y NECC’s general strike call. Worker response 103 i general strike would depend on coordination WIN" COSATU. In view of the fact that the NECC do not conceal its links with the United Democratié Front and its sympathetic ties with the ANC, # forthcoming display of anti-apartheid solidant may well be one of the broadest demonstrations ‘ by the growing liberation movement. (2s ssieas a major overha MOSCOW — Some Western commentators present a distorted picture of the Soviet economy. The fact that so many changes are being made is presented as proof that the economy is in a state of crisis. However, The Soviet economy is not in bad shape when’ compared with that of the developed capitalist countries. The essence of the big change-over is to ac- celerate the rate of economic growth, even though it is higher in the Soviet Union than in the West. There is no unemployment here, no structural crisis and no inflation. Wages, social security benefits and _ working conditions are improving continuously and the housing problem is being consistently solved. Prices are stable for all essentials. Opportunities for rest and leisure are increasing. The system of public education is being upgraded at all levels to meet the demands of the next century, with free tuition at every level. Although hostile critics admit that the USSR leads the world in the production of oil, gas, steel and cement, they argue that it is behind in the volume output of sophisticated products in certain fields. But that is an over-simplified presentation. While the Soviet Union is behind the United States and Japan in some cases, it is equally true that those _ countries are behind other countries in certain fields of production and research. No country can be the leader in every field. The Soviet Union leads the world in many areas of engineering and technology. This country, which was the most backward of the great powers under capitalism, has become a modern country with a highly developed industrial base despite the terrible losses of World War Two and the hostility of the big Western powers. However, the fact remains that the leadership here, the news media and the general public are sharply critical of the state of the economy. There is universal agree- ment that while the existing economic mechanisms played a positive role in the building of socialism, during World War Two, in the post-war reconstruction and in ~ the consolidation of the world socialist community, it is 8 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, MAY 7, 1986 From Moscow Jack Phillips time for achange. Whereas the emphasis up to a relative- ly short time ago was on extensive development, the current emphasis is on intensive development. The economic guidelines adopted at the recent, 27th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union spell out the new orientation quite clearly. They call for measures to improve production engineering and to ex- pand the application of basic progressive technologies by 50 to 100 per cent. The introduction of fundamentally new technology'i is to be speeded up to increase labor productivity many — times over. There is to be a more effective use of re- sources and lower resource inputs into production. In agriculture, there will be greater emphasis on the switch-over to industrial and intensive technologies. The introduction of automated systems -in various spheres of production, above all in design and machine process control, is beirig accelerated. The target for the current five-Year-Plan is to double the level of automa- tion in production and to build automated units that can be quickly and economically regeared. A key problem that is being tackled at factory level is the operation of the economic mechanism. Enterprises in many cases do not as yet have an effective, internal mechanism to ensure the timely renewal of plant and products and the implementation of the latest achieve- ments of engineering, technology and science. “one of the major objectives in the current e¢? The creation of such internal, economic prose no! reforms. An essential feature of the change is thal work collective and every worker should fin? 44 fitable to implement more advanced technical M® f The whole system of planning, quality and in i financing and the evaluation of performances we prises and individual workers is being overhaulet A direct link is being established between the 5 the wage fund in an enterprise and the return or sale of its products. This is meant to exclude thé facture of low-grade goods for which there is nO! ow Enterprises are to be given the opportunity to follo i) examples of the Volga Auto Works (where thé the Lada car) and the Sumy Engineering work they make pipeline pumping stations). They W! mitted to earn and directly control more funds fo! ing and plant expansion and to have at theif more money for wage incentive and social bene In short, the stress will be on cost accounia af fitability and more local autonomy, within the work of a more flexible system of overall plannio economy has become too big and too intricate t0 in the old way and the changes taking place pl t the leadership here are fully aware of that fa¢ example, the practice of subsidizing inefficieM!, «(0 prises at the expense of the more profitable ones! ended. It is not in the national interest to SY inefficient production. he The working people are actively supporting # ef! economic reforms because they know that the q Ks ibe aig objective is to improve the living standards and © tH fr life of all Soviet people, with a firm guarantee ! will be a job for every person able to work. T ie & know that the stronger the Soviet Union wil th nomically, the more effective it will be, along socialist community of nations, in the struggle ¢ tain world peace. No, there is no crisis here. Those who want 10", about economic crisis should look to the capitalis for their subject matter.