Hugo Blanco, Victor Cuadros, and other deputies introduced a motion calling for an immediate end to the country’s military government and for the assembly to assume all the legislative and executive powers of the nation…”

Debate on the motion was postponed until the next session of the assembly. However, the question has been posed: Will the assembly act as a servile tool of the military regime, or will it act as the representative of the Peruvian people?

The proposal of the workers deputies is that the Constituent Assembly use its authority “to implement an emergency plan that would include: full democratic liberties; reinstatement of the fired workers; and urgent measures to solve the economic crisis, which would have as their axis the nonpayment of the foreign debt, a general increase in wages and salaries, and free land for the peasants.”

This is not what the government of Gen. Francisco Morales Bermúdez had in mind when it scheduled elections for the Constituent Assembly. But Morales Bermúdez has been caught between the extortionate demands of imperialism and the deepgoing radicalization of the Peruvian masses.  
 
Aug. 17, 1953
Four million French workers are on general strike in a solid united front action of every section of the labor movement against the anti-labor decrees of the Wall Street-backed Laniel government. In a mounting movement that surged forward during all last week, the unions have halted rail, air, maritime, bus and subway transportation; paralyzed telephone, postal and telegraph service; and shut off electric power, gas and other utilities, and brought mines, metal works and construction building to standstill. All government offices, banks, insurance agencies, and municipal services are closed tight.

Not since the June 1936 general strike has France witnessed such a massive and united action of the working class. The movement, which began as a protest over Laniel’s proposed “economy” decrees, quickly turned into a show-down struggle for political power between the workers organizations and the capitalist regime.

Wall Street and Washington are reeling at this body blow to their “cold war” schemes. This is the answer to their gloating over “troubles behind the iron curtain.” The malicious chuckles are silenced. There is no joy in Wall Street. American capitalism now confronts in France the same class force that erupted against the Stalinists in East Germany last June 17.  
 
 
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