Tom Wongraf in Algiers
Out of the original 900,000 French of Algeria only an unimportant 100,000 are left. Evonts have shown that the Algerians who wished to take thsir place havs not bom strong enough to inscribo their will into government pclig. Not only did the agricultural workers take over the vast abandoned ostatas but in October 1962 the govornmont was sufficiontly sure of its position to annul all property transactions that had taken place since independence (it was in this period that the nascent Algerian bourgooisie acquired proporty from the fls-ing French at bargain prices). In liarch 1963 the do facto o cupation of the land by the worksrs was ratificsd by the iarch decrees. Ths "vacant properties" becams the "socialist ssctor", and the socialism was not that of Soviot~ stylo stato farms, but autogestion - dirsct control by the workers.
4s Ben Bella pointed out in speeches of March and April 1963: "The principls of self-management was already established in the facts of the Algerian revolution by ths spontaneous and conscious action of the workinz massos,. The powerful movement of management committses that had spread across the country had only to be legalised."
In October 1963 the movammt of autogestion also began to hit the urban scene...and shows no signs of stopping its stsady progress. On ths agricultural front, a conference of represmtatives of all farms under autogestion was held towards the ond of the year, The peasants demanded reforms in such services as credit, marketing, and so7d and equipment furnishing, so as to ensures that the apparatus s-rved instad of controll d,. These reforms are now in procuss. At ths momcnt th, gov-rnmcnt is taking the vital commorcial circuits in hand in ordcr to provnt the privat. morchants and trad-rs from exploiting cithor the consumers or the sodalist produccrs: socialist pilot shops have bun opin d in ord .r to bring private prices down, and ths gov.rnment is cn= couraging the sprvad of co-opuratives in the private scetor. With the private sector thus subordinated one may cxpeet important reforms: (tight r control on intcrnational and domestic wholcsal. trad.) in tho noar futurs. Workurs' control is also sanctioned by th: lack of any-— thing lik.» the number of trained personnel] necded for a emtralised authoritarian system. (Tho March deer: 2s stipulate onc stat—appointcd dir cetor on cach farm to shar authority with the worksrs' committ..: at one point it was cstimat-:d that whercas 7,000 dir:ctors wr: nocded, tho training ccurs2s had only managed to produce 1,000. And the more nat ionalisations theres arc, the wider the gap! )
futogestion in agricultur. is working. Howsver the crises in ths traditional soctor and tho towms raqnain. In the towms thes flight of tho French was not only a flight of propictors and skilled personn-l, but also of capital, and above all, the loss of markets for Algerian industry. Roeont disturbances in Oren (over 75% unamploysd) indicate tho social dangers of purman mt unemployment. About 80% of Algerians ars rurally basa, and for ths majority the revolution in thu modern agricultural ssctor docs not moan much. Thoir problans cannot bse solved only by a transformation of the proporty regime — total popular mobilisation is imperative.