72 SOCIAL SCIENTIST The Peoples9 Resistance The popular response to the Piazza plan was sharp and immediate^ Twelve days after the message was televised, 3,000 students rioted in Sicuani, a major strike broke out in Arequipa and there were mass demonstrations in Cusco, Puno and Ayacucho. On June 30 the students o£ Tacna joined in the struggle and on July 5 teachers declared a national strike. All the working class organizations and parties denounced the plan as a surrender to the blackmail of international financial capital represented by the IMF and called for mass mobilisation to stop its implementation and to halt the right-wing offensive that had progressed unimpeded throughout 1976 to culminate in the Piazza plan. The decisive unity achieved by the left and its effectiveness in mobilising mass support forced Minister Piazza to resign on July 7. The PCP called it a ^victory of the people93 and the PSR characterized the resignation as ^a failure of the capitalist solutions, rejected by the people.'9 Piazza's resignation, however, was not followed by a clear rejection of his economic plan neither by an acceptance of the workers9 demands for a halt to repression and mass dismissals. The following day the CNA gave its support to mass mobilisations and violent protests took place in Huancaye where six people were killed and 36 wounded. On July 15, food prices increased despite the wide popular protests and more than 20 working-class organisations, including the CNT, the CGTP and the GTRP, published a declaration calling for a general strike to be held on the following 19th. The call for a general strike had the widest political support ever achieved in recent Peruvian history. The Partide Gomunista Peruano, the Partide Democrata Gristiano, the Partide Socialista Revolutionaris, the Partide Comunista Revolucionario, Vanguatdia Revolucionaria and the Partide Obrero Marxista Revolucionario joined forces in support of the general strike. The only trade-union organisations which refused to participate were the weak Confederacion de Trabajadores del Peru (ENT) controlled by the APRA party and the trade-union of CENTROMIN (ex-Cerro dc Pasco) under the influence of the Maoist fraction Patria Roja. The unity of the working-class organisation and of the progressive parties ensured the total success of the general strike which completely paralysed Lima and most of the major cities. It was carried out with the grcates t discipline. Waves of Repression The danger that the unity of the left and the decisiveness of the working-class movement represented to the Morales Bermudez government was clear and the reactionary forces grouped around. The government's response was to step up the repression against the left. A decree enabled the enterprises to dismiss all the strike leaders. The offices