p I would like to raise two points again referring to the contribu tion made by the comrade from the SACP. He raised in the second round, yesterday, the question relating to the formation of a central government and the demand of the Inkahata Freedom Party for a strong federal system. He pointed out that the position of the SACP call for a strong central government was with the idea of implementing the programme that they have and the needs of the people that they have to fulfill. I think I am raising this in the form of a question because it is not really something which is peculiar to South Africa. It is an issue which has been an issue for a hundred years in Australia, the struggle between the central government and the states in Australia. I think also it is quite an pertinent issue in India. However, probably it is not an administrative question, it is a political question, which relates to the actual level of development of the peoples consciousness at a particular stage. In Australia, it is not possible to do away with the state administrations. Even if the central government attempted to do that, it would run into very serious problems and very serious opposition from sections of the people who are attached to their parochial administrations. I think, in South Africa also, it is a political question. Simply because the Inkahata Freedom Party takes a particular position on federalism, for its own purposes, for the reason that it does not want to see a strong central government, a progressive central government, doesn’t necessarily lead us, I think, to circumstances under which because our opponents support something, we will oppose them for that reason. I just wanted to make that point. May be it is in’the form of a question. I would like to known from the South African comrade as to what their answer is to this question.

The second point is in connection with future seminars which may be organised by any Party, that may provide many opportunities for discussions in this historical period when it is necessary for us to have real exchange of opinions and not formal exchanges of opinions. It seems to me, and I repeat, that there has been a good measure of agreement on many fundamental questions. But there is a desirability somehow or the other to find time and the means by which we can discuss in greater depth some of these questions. For example, we just heard the comrades from France speak about their emphasis, and I would support them, concemingtheir struggle for democracy. But what in fact does that mean? What does it actually mean in particular circumstances? Multi-parry democracy in terms of elections -1 think I understand what the comrades from France have in mind is surely the democracy of the people, people’s democracy. But how is it expressed in terms of actual state structures? What does it mean in terms of the functioning of socialist democracy? I think these are very important questions and not sufficiently dealt with. If we limit ourselves to rather general statements, it will not do because democracy today is a very particular question, it is a detailed question when one goes into it And it is very often not on the generalities we find differences of opinion but in the particular application of those generalities. So I know that it is not possible to deal with these matters now, but I hope that in future that we have some facilities to go into details of some of these matters in greater depth. I have the same feeling about other meetings that we have been to, at the World Marxist Review for example, where there were formal statements and appearance of formal agreement on questions but the reality was actually something different. I do not think we should be at all afraid of differences of opinion provided they are expressed in a good Communist spirit, and I think we can handle that. The fact of the matter is that other political trends such as social democracy are able to live and have strong opinions on various questions. We should not any longer fool ourselves by the desirability of showing unanimity if there is not unanimity. I think it is more related to the reality of life that there be some differences of opinion and I think that this will show, and in fact is showing, that we can live with that, handle that, will be a sign of our maturity, not a sign of our weakness.