fron o Birmingham correspondent “ews of the debate and voting on the draft conditution in the
Algerian Constituent Assenbly must give rise to misgivings to all those who support the struggles of the Algerian Ravolution, The most disturbing faature is the proposal that slgeria should be a one-party state and that the one party shall be the F.L.N. This constitution has not been approved by a congress of tho F,L.N, only by a meeting of party organisers,
Misgivings must be expressed on all these counts, especially in view of the contimed arrost of Boudiaf, Firstly, on the question of the one party state, revolutionary socialists reject this concept as being sn essantially Stalinist concept within the working class, The dictatorship of one party bears within it the seeds of the dictatorship of one man, Already Ben Bella gathers together the offices of President and Secretay—General in his own parson,
On the question. of the F.L.N. it must ba bluntly stated that as yet it is only a shadow party, Ben Bella admits this himself, it has yet to bo organised as the mass party of the sccialist rovolution, Therefore this itself places a quastion mark over its futures role,
Thirdly, how can one speak of the F.L,N, playing a vanguard role when its rank and file are not allowed to pronoimcoon the very important question of the constitution. No doubt there would have been difficulties in calling & congress, but they were not insurmountable.
However, to see only the black side of the picture would be wrong. The most hopeful and politically powerful event to emerge in algeria has been the creation of organs of workers managoment. Given enough time, and clear leadership these could develop into real organs of popular control and challenge the Constituent Assembly itself,
For liarxists at this stege to either wholeheartedly reject or support the dominant tendency of the Algerian Revolution would be wrong. Ye must criticise all those things that seem wrong, but in doing so must not ollow ourselves to bo driven into the camp of "prophets of doom" who only see calamity et every turn of the colonial revolution, Despite any setback or disappointments for our hopes on this or that issue we are confident that many more acta of the revolutionary drama are yet to be played.
Therefore whilst protesting at the imposition cf one party rule, our support is given unreservedly to the ilgerian Revolution,