With the Olympic games just a month away, Tory leaders are still appealing to members of the British team to ignore the Olympic Association away from Moscow.
Thatcher is not happy with the results of the boycott campaign so far. She is no doubt equally unhappy about the labour movement campaign to raise money to pay the fares of British athletes who decide to go to Moscow.
The recent decision controlled Hackney Council to send f1000 to the Olympics Association donations from Newcastle Counci least five Scottish local authorities, the Stirling Trades Council, and a number of unions, including the construction section of the Engineers' Union.
None of the imperialist powers is able to come up with a coherent political solution to the Afghan crisis which is mutually acceptable to Western governments. Carter alone has a region. and stay proach.
tackled the Labourfollowed similar national Schmidt, ple.
BRUTAL repression has been used by the South Korean clear policy: to use the presence of Soviettroops to boost his war drive and to justify the stepped-up military presence of the US in that But even in his own country, other government leaders haven't been convinced by his apSecretary of State Muskie, stance, argues that the SALT treaty should be independently of developments Aighanistan.
President Giscard of France has now supported the proposal for a supposedly 'neutral' Afghanistan put forward by Lord Carrington. They want a a negotiated Afghanistan, made part of a wider Middle East settlement so as to attract Soviet leaders to a conference table. West Germany's Chancellor however. seen To Afghanistan and prioritise other issues like arms control in dealings with the Soviet Union.
Of course all these powers share a common end, even though they differ over means. None have at heart the interests of the Afghan neo Western leaders are eager to defend them alliance of Afghan Thatcher for inin but remains by the dictatorship of settlement inspired by want to drop from Soviet tanks but not from the reactionary landowners, clergy tribal leaders presently being supplied with arms by Egypt and the Gulf states denounces the 'butchers of Kabul' but congratulates the British Army on its work in the North of Ireland. Carter waxes and man s l Aganisar silent about the hundreds thousands of Iranians killed and maimed by the Shah, or those oppressed in South Korea The boycott of the Mobcow Olympics is no concern abqut the bureaucratic methods of the Soviet leaders but by a desire to attack the gains of the October revolution. In condemning the Soviet Union, Western powers are seeking to prepare the working class to accept moves of their own against revolutionary developments in the Third Central America is especially threatened.
However, it is not all smooth sailing for the USSR in Afghanistan. Soviet troops intervened there to stablise the civil war situation that and right-wing Democratic Party, defending, being made to of • CROPOIL the core of militant Afghans, vicious right-wing Today, drive. threatened the status quo in the entire region.
They chose to strike a blow against the opponents of the whatever their intentions, the radical reforms undertaken by the PDP government. But the blow was struck in a burcaucrauc way, will no schious alchip!
win over a section peasants or the middle class of the cities who reactionaries. By mobilising around a radical social programme a small such as those who organise the militias, the Soviets could undermine support for the reactionary alliance.
ensure that a regime is not installed in Afghanistan. But the methods and policies of the Soviet bureaucrats can't be replied upon to win the sort of deep-going gains which could people. This •only come from the independent mobilisation of the masses, something which would turn back the offensive of the rebels and check Carter's war