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Mongolia’s experience eyed
_ by newly liberated nations

aN BATOR, Mongolia — As many speakers
Peoples BS at the recent Congress of the Mongolian
lis a gg Olutionary Party (MPRP) this small country
ae Significance for the many newly liberated
This of Asia and Africa.

and oth pn ainous area, slightly bigger than Quebec
= ith a

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From Moscow
Jack Phillips

population just under two million, has a
aMccesstul It was in 1921, that Mongolia conducted
remnant independence struggle, throwing out the last
i by-nas of the crumbling Chinese empire. From there
press; Sed capitalism, moving directly from feudalist
Stone to the building of socialism.
Pictur ure is a mainstay of the economy and it was on
lanbyn Fy that the report delivered by MPRP leader
'81.¢5 atmunk centered. Most of the targets of the
oo were met. Agricultural output rose by 18
Velo and considerable growth was also noted in the
Perce, Pment of fuel, energy and other raw resources.
Mt hyo income grew by 12 per cent, meeting the target

Workers’ parties, revolutionary democratic parties and
movements and the Indian National Congress.

It was a united congress, with strong emphasis on
practical measures to strengthen the material and ideo-
logical elements of socialist construction, the fight to
presserve peace in the world and the unity of the world
communist movement.

Jack Phillips represented the Communist Party of Canada at
the 19th Congress of the MPRP.

A monument to Sukhe Bator, leader of Mongolia’s 1921
revolution, situated in the main square of the capital, Ulan
Bator.

| ep

erase” Previous congress and retail trade turn-over
d by 24 per cent.

Eliminating Shortcomings

gut Vettheless, the Central Committee report made it
t not all the assignments set by the previous

ee had been met. This deliberate emphasis on
the euings and how to eliminate them was a dominant
lepate the main documents and the speeches of the

S.

ine Tepor put it this way: ‘‘When giving an objective
Neca, € of the state of affairs, we should admit that our
hag . Could have been more impressive provided we
No ic “ceeded in making full use of the country’s eco-
Riou eo ential and in fully tracking and mustering all
for, .“€S available. We failed to utilize all the potentials
Ig tening the effectiveness and quality standards in

Theor Of the national economy.”

D : e 4 4
fc the next five years, the emphasis will be on intensi-

wat ;
| dey, re Of the economy in order to complete the

ligagpement of the material and technical base of

| Xj. ‘Sm. This task, it was stated, will be easier to

i ni because of the long-term program of economic,
ay and technical co-operation between Mongolia
Alm Soviet Union to the end of the century.
y Ost 80 per cent of the delegates were attending a
ij, “gress for the first time. Sixty-three per cent of

| hog: delegates. were directly involved in material pro-

in. Those of working class origin numbered almost

The d and from agriculture almost 27 per cent.
Yome fact that more than one fifth of delegates were
Won SPeaks well for this Asiatic country where

N Once were the most oppressed among a back-
Thoce pressed people.
“Ong Se delegates who spoke to the main documents
ang Ntrated mainly on how to overcome shortcomings
Wolved Very frank in their criticisms. Being directly
i
Iieelitical leadership at various levels, they spoke in
© and practical terms.

Non-Aggression Pact

Stren foreign policy, the congress emphasized the
the fetening of security in Asia as the major direction of
The ,'80 policy activities of the Party and the state.
TE, wy, Ongolian Foreign Minister, Mangalyn Dugersu-
lhe "ed that the militarists wanted to turn Asia and
ial” into another frontier of confrontation with
Mey Sm. He stated that the proposal advanced by the
tion Us Congress of the Party for concluding a conven-
Nation Mutual non-aggression and non-use of force in
ained » between the states of Asia and the Pacific re-
Vital force.
bom the Voroinikov, head of the fraternal delegation
that th, Communist Party of the Soviet Union, charged
Sing United States administration does not want an
Mente tension, does not want disarmament. ‘‘ This is
Y confirmed,’’ he said, “‘by the provocative ac-
Yo of the United States military in various parts of the
the. by the build-up efforts to militarize outer space,
"Oca €sSive actions against Libya, the unceasing pro-
. ON against Central America and the fanning up of
We," in the near and Middle East. But no matter how

: Pen Provoked, we will not renounce our principled

n Policy course. We are convinced that the future
Monies to the policy of peace and co-operation between

t importance of the congress is witnessed by the
Cy; 2t there were 73 fraternal delegations from 66
fs in attendance, including Communist and

N production and in giving economic, and so-—

Barbados vote stunning upset

BRIDGETOWN — Nobody
expected it. It was like a hurricane
that periodically sweeps over the
island.

Riding a tide of popular support
for an attractive tax cut and cuts
in the prices of certain com-
modities, the Democratic Labor
Party ousted the Barbados Labor
Party in a stunning 24-3 seat elec-
toral victory, May 28.

The vote saw incumbent Prime
Minister Bernard St. John and 11
of his 12 cabinet ministers
defeated.

The large turnaround — the
BLP had 17 seats to the DLP’s 10
in the last Parliament — made a
mockery of all pundit predictions,
including this reporter’s.

There were several factors
which turned the tide against the
rightist St. John administration
during the three week election
campaign.

The DLP, which split from the
BLP in 1955, shares the same
British Labor Party, social demo-
cratic ideology as the Barbados

Labor Party. In this campaign the

centre-piece of the DLP’s plat-
form was to‘ inake the first $ Bds
15,000, of annual income tax-free,
appealing to both the general

_ working class and to middle in-

come earners.
The party also promised to
lower prices on gas and some ser-
vices like water, though in general
its program differed in very few
respects from the BLP’s.

Crude Line

One factor which swung many
of the island’s 176,700 voters
away from the government was
the bolting of ultra nationalist MP,
Dr. Don Blackman from the BLP
to the Opposition, shortly after
the elections were called.

Blackman’s accusations that
the government, which had
ousted the DLP from office in
1976, after a 15 year rule, was
being influenced by certain white
businessmen, struck a responsive
chord with the mainly Black elec-
torate which still feels the legacies
of slavery and neo-colonialism.

This was reflected in the 11.8
per cent island-wide swing in the
vote against the government anda

From the Caribbean

relatively large, 76 per cent voter
turnout.

However, some analysts ar-
gued that Dr. Blackman’s and the
DLP’s crude line of reasoning
was not constructive and served
to divide the country even further
along racial lines. For example,
Blackman cavalierly described
the St. John government as a
“‘mulatto”’’ regime and repeated
that he was against; ‘‘flooding the
island with non-black
immigration.”

The DLP leadership’s un-
critical acceptance of this reac-
tionary stance reflected decidedly
unsavory aspects of the party’s
election program, which in sev-
eral other respects wasn’t based
on principled positions, even
from a classical social democratic
viewpoint.

Illusionary Hopes

For example, instead of pledg-
ing to co-ordinate and expand the
publicly-owned and controlled
sector of the economy, the DLP
spoke of dismantling certain state
enterprises.

Dr. George Belle leader of the
Workers Party of Barbados, said
it was illusionary for the DLP to
pin its hopes on the private sector.

“The corporations are the ones
who mashed up the economy in
the first place’’, Belle said, re-
ferring to the almost zero growth
coupled with a jobless rate of
more than 20 per cent in an
economy based on tourism, sugar
cane and small manufacturing.

The Workers Party ran one
candidate in the election.

On the plus side, Barrow said
his government will pursue a
non-aligned foreign policy “and
would take a ‘‘cautious ap-
proach” to the U.S.-instigated
regional military pact tying the
country to six other eastern
Caribbean islands.

ea
—
_~

While the new premier, op-
posed the U.S.-backed invasion
of Grenada, political observers
here take note of his individual-
istic and eccentric style. They
argue that the onus will now be on
the peace and progressive move-
ments to pressure the whole DLP
leadership to give the island a
truly independent foreign policy
and to take practical measures,
like banning nuclear-armed war-
ships from the island, to con-
tribute in making the Caribbean
Sea a zone of peace.

Voters Wanted Change

The elections clearly indicated
the islanders were looking for
something new to free them from
the clutches of the BLP
administration, whose propensity
for building unnecessary capital
works projects, like a cross-island
super highway, at the expense of
job creating and useful projects
like housing had shown it was
clearly not a party representing
working peoples’ interests.

Coupled with this was the
St.John government’s aimost
complete subservience to
Washington’s foreign policies, its
full backing for the invasion in
Grenada, a case in point. Indeed,
the People’s Progressive Party in
Guyana welcomed the BLP’s re-
moval describing it as representa-
tive of U.S. imperialism.

Barrow’s new DLP administra-
tion, political observers point out,
must now place the country’s re-
lationship with the world on a
more meaningful and potentially
beneficial level.

Strengthening the public sector
and taking other measures to en-
sure that the economy is truly

‘ owned and democratically run by
the islanders in a genuine, multi- —

racial society is now on. the agen-
da, analysts like Dr. Belle and the
Workers Party of Barbados
leadership, argue.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JUNE 25, 1986 e 9