The Workers' Advocate

WORKERS OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE! 25¢

Volume 10, Number 3

VOICE OF THE MARXIST-LENINIST PARTY OF THE USA

April 15, 1980

[Front page:

U.S. Imperialism, Hands Off Iran!;

"GRANDSON OF S-1"--The Kennedy "alternative" is nothing but the fascist program of Carter and Reagan;

GO ALL OUT TO FIGHT U.S. IMPERIALISM!;

CARTER'S NEW "ANTI-INFLATION MEASURES":

Squeezing the poor for the profits of the war merchants, the oil monopolies and the banks]

IN THIS ISSUE

U.S. Imperialism, Hands Off Iran!

"GRANDSON OF S-1"

The Kennedy "alternative" is nothing but the fascist program of Carter and Reagan

GO ALL OUT TO FIGHT U.S. IMPERIALISM!

CARTER'S NEW "ANTI-INFLATION MEASURES":

Squeezing the poor for the profits of the war merchants, the oil monopolies and the banks

The Strike of the New York City Transit Workers Defied the Fascist No-Strike Law

"Victory to the Transit Workers!"

Chicago Public Sector Workers Fight the Strikebreaking of Mayor Byrne

Resist the Plans of the Steel Barons!

Bethlehem steelworkers wildcat against murderous working conditions

Defy Carter's Wage Controls! Take Up Mass Struggle Against the Metal Trades Capitalists

The USWA "Buy American Steel" Campaign:

Anti-import hysteria is a tool of the rich to disrupt the workers' struggle

Simmons mattress workers resist vicious productivity drive and wage cuts

Workers at Buffalo's Roswell Park Hospital:

Step Up the Struggle Against Increased Workloads!

Richard Lipsitz Is Still the President!

Cyclic development--fundamental characteristic of the capitalist economy

GE workers oppose the class collaborationist policy of "Keeping the peace in the family"

Workers in Louisville rally to fight police attack on the MLP

Industrial Brutality and Murder by the Philip Morris Capitalists

THE UAW'S ANTI-JAPANESE IMPORT HYSTERIA IS BETRAYAL OF THE AUTO WORKERS

The West Indian Voice

CONDEMN THE GOVERNMENT'S PERSECUTION OF IMMIGRANTS

Recapture the true spirit of our people's culture-on the origins of carnival

"Albania, Bastion of World Revolution and Socialism"

Down with the racist murder of Larry Howard by the Detroit police!

The Kennedy "Alternative to Inflation" -- Mandatory Wage Controls and Savage Repression of the Workers' Movement

THE EVOLUTION OF BILL S-1

Down with the U.S. nuclear energy program!

Mass Revolutionary Struggle Is the Path Forward for the Anti-Nuclear Movement

No to the Draft! No to U.S. Imperialist War Preparations!

Hold high the revolutionary traditions of the struggle of the American people against U.S. aggression in Indochina!

ON THE CLEVELAND DRAFT RESISTANCE UNION:

Draft resistance drew hundreds of thousands of youth into militant struggle against U.S. aggression

ON THE GI NEWSPAPER "FTA":

The GI movement proved to be an important front of the struggle and showed potential as a powerful force of the revolution

Defend the Anti-Draft Movement from Slander and Attacks!

Beijing revisionist warmongers lash out against the anti-draft movement

The U.S.-China aggressive alliance has earned the wrath of the people

THE 110th ANNIVERSARY OF THE BIRTH OF GREAT LENIN

Message of Greetings on the Founding of the Marxist-Leninist Party of the USA from "People's Voice" of India

Message of Greetings to "People's Voice" of India from the Founding Congress of the Marxist-Leninist Party of the USA

Caribbean Progressive Study Group and the "West Indian Voice" Declare:

"SUPPORT THE MARXIST-LENINIST PARTY!"

Grenada: What Kind of Revolution Is This?

Internationalist Rally on the 10th Anniversary of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist)

Speech delivered to the rally by Comrade Agim Popa, head of the delegation of the Central Committee of the Party of Labor of Albania

MESSAGE TO THE CC OF THE CPC(M-L) ON THE OCCASION OF THE TENTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FOUNDING OF THE CPC(M-L)

There is Nothing Revolutionary in the Anarchism of the Chinese Revisionist "Mayday Committee"

Defeat lies in store for the Soviet aggressors in Afghanistan

The threats and maneuvers by the two superpowers cannot intimidate and deceive the Middle East peoples

The people of El Salvador are advancing in struggle against the bloodstained junta and U.S. imperialism

U.S. Imperialism, Hands Off Iran!

The U.S. imperialists are carrying out new aggression against the Iranian people. Carter and his henchmen have unleashed a new round of threats and preparations for military adventures against Iran. The U.S. imperialists were badly shaken by the Iranian people's democratic revolution. Under the fascist shah, the infamous hangman and butcher of the Iranian people, Iran was a source of great profits for the imperialist exploiters, and the shah's regime was a policeman on behalf of U.S. imperialism in Oman and elsewhere. The U.S. imperialists are not reconciled to their expulsion from this "lost paradise." They are taking shameless and savage measures, including preparations for military aggression in their drive to strangle the Iranian people and reverse their revolutionary victories.

On April 7, President Carter announced a new series of measures to be added to U.S. imperialism's brutal blackmail against Iran. Carter ordered the severing of diplomatic relations with Iran and the immediate expulsion of the remaining 35 Iranian diplomats in the U.S. on 36 hours notice. The trade embargo against exports to Iran was made official and complete. Carter also ordered an inventory taken of the approximately $8 billion of assets of the Iranian government deposited in U.S. banks. This measure was taken in preparation for the seizure of these assets in order to divide them up among those "holding grievances" against Iran, that is among the imperialist banks and others who "suffered damages" by the onslaught of the Iranian revolution. As well, Carter ordered a halt to the issuing and renewing of visas to Iranian nationals and added new measures to accelerate the mass deportations and persecution of Iranian students and others already in this country.

These steps were taken to let the world know that the U.S. government is freeing its hands in preparation for "the use of military options." As top White House officials put it, "the use of force" is possibly but not "necessarily the next step." These measures were also taken to place added pressure on U.S. imperialism's allied monopoly capitalist states of Western Europe and Japan to bring them into line with Carter's blockade against Iran. These states are heavily dependent on Iranian oil supplies, and the State Department is issuing open threats of either a naval blockade of Iran or the mining of Iranian ports if these states do not join the U.S. embargo.

These brutal and saber-rattling measures taken against the freedom- loving people of Iran are a practical application of the warmongering "Carter doctrine." Last January, President Carter, in spelling out his policy on the Middle East and the Persian Gulf region, declared that: "an assault on the vital interests of the United States of America" in this region "will be repelled by any means necessary, including military force." And it is no secret that oil -- the plunder of the rich Iranian and Middle East oil fields -- is the number one "vital interest" Carter has in mind.

The earthshaking Iranian revolution which toppled the fascist monarchy of the shah was a powerful blow to world capitalism and to U.S. imperialism in particular. The bloodsoaked regime of the shah was rigged up as a rabid guard dog over U.S. imperialism's oil and strategic positions in Iran and the Persian Gulf. And U.S. imperialism has not and never will be reconciled to this "assault" on these "vital interests" by the revolutionary struggle of the Iranian working class and people. David Rockefeller and the other U.S. oil billionaires and bankers are dreaming of their lost paradise which they had built in the Iran of the murderous shah. These bloodsuckers are feverishly striving to regain their lost neo-colonial positions. The U.S. imperialists are doing everything in their power to strangle the Iranian revolution. They are supporting the overthrown shah and propping up the remnants of SAVAK and the shah's regime who are engaging in assassinations of Iranian officials and plots against the Iranian people. It is also seeking to make a deal with the "moderates" and the government against the revolution. And it is utilizing external pressure and military threats against the Iranian people. As Carter has declared, to protect its "vital interests" and to bring the Iranian people to their knees, U.S. imperialism will resort to "any means necessary, including military force."

For the purpose of military blackmail and pressure, a massive U.S. naval force has been assembled off the Iranian coast in the Arabian Sea. This huge flotilla goes far beyond U.S. imperialism s ordinary "gunboat diplomacy" in that it includes 25 warships with three aircraft carriers, amphibious landing craft, and 1,800 combat ready marines armed with assault helicopters, tanks, etc. The outfitting of the 110,000 man "rapid deployment" force is continuing with such preparations as painting tanks sand-colored for a possible invasion in the Middle East. According to a top Pentagon official, "at Mr. Carter's request the military services are continuing to draw up contingency plans for various operations against Iran" -- the mining or blockading of harbors, the seizure of oil fields, "punitive" carpet bombing, etc., etc.

The Iranian people, however, are refusing to bend before this ferocious blackmail of U.S. imperialism and its monstrous war machine. The working masses of Iran have suffered terribly under the boot heel of the U.S. imperialists and their fascist shah. Tens upon tens of thousands of the finest sons and daughters of the Iranian people have shed their blood to be free of this oppression, and they are not about to surrender their struggle against U.S. imperialism now. Over the last week, in their millions the Iranian people have marched in the streets burning the U.S. imperialist flag and condemning Carter's threats and blackmail. The people of Iran are determined to carry their revolutionary struggle forward, and under the leadership of the working class and its vanguard party, the Workers' and Peasants' Communist Party of Iran, the toiling masses of Iran are bound to advance on the road to complete freedom and liberation. The aroused and resolute population of Iran is the great roadblock before the aggressive schemes being cooked up by the White House and the Pentagon generals.

So as to line up the American people behind U.S. imperialism's blackmail and aggressive plans, day in and day out the American people are being blasted from all sides with rabid jingoist, anti-Iranian propaganda. But the precise nature of U.S. imperialism's contradiction with the people of Iran is becoming increasingly clear to the workers and the broad masses of people. On the one hand, the U.S. imperialists want the Iranian oil fields and are striving to re-enslave Iran and even have wild dreams of putting the bloody tyrant shah back on his throne. And on the other hand, the Iranian people have risen up in revolution against the plunder and slavery of U.S. imperialism and against fascist tyranny. The American working class and people are demonstrating in numerous ways that they are completely opposed to going to war against their Iranian brothers for the greater glory of the profits of Exxon and the other "vital interests" of U.S. imperialism.

The barbaric blackmail and warmongering plans against the freedom and independence of the heroic people of Iran are showing the whole world that U.S. imperialism remains a savage and bloodthirsty superpower. The same deadly enemy of the people which perpetrated the most brutal fascist carnage against the valiant people of Viet Nam has not "learned its lesson" and become "tame and reasonable." Not in the least. Rather, with "peacenik" Carter at the helm, the U.S. warmongers are arming to the teeth as never before to put down with fire and sword the mounting revolutionary liberation struggle of the people from Iran to El Salvador. Under no circumstances can U.S. imperialism be allowed a moment's peace or a free hand to carry out its criminal aggression against the people, but it must be fought tooth and nail at every turn.

U.S. imperialism, hands off Iran!

[Photo.]

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"GRANDSON OF S-1"

The Kennedy "alternative" is nothing but the fascist program of Carter and Reagan

SI722, the so-called "grandson of S-1," is fascist legislation to suppress the mass movements and extend and develop the federal police force. The bill is being pushed through the Senate by Senator Ted Kennedy. It is a key part of the "Kennedy alternative." And it shows that this "alternative" is nothing but the same reactionary program as that of Carter and Reagan.

SI722 is entitled "the Criminal Code Reform Act of 1979." Its pretext is that it systematizes and standardizes and combines it into one code federal laws that are presently scattered over many different bills. But under the cover of "reform," it is a bill to push forward the fascization of society. It radically revises and toughens the existing laws. It dramatically extends federal jurisdiction and would require a big expansion of the federal police forces. At the same time, it is openly put forward as the model for the revision of the state criminal codes now proceeding almost everywhere. Among its provisions are the following: It extends the length of jail sentences, although U.S. jail sentences are already among the longest and most barbaric in the world. It develops sweeping new conspiracy laws and laws for the suppression of organizations, thus reviving one of the pet projects of Nixon's administration of using "conspiracy" as a catch-all charge. It contains provisions to repress militant strikes by bringing them under severe federal extortion laws. It strengthens present laws dealing with the suppression of the anti-draft, anti-nuclear and GI movements. It legalizes preventive detention of those who might "possibly" commit a crime in the future. It contains major new laws for the suppression of militant or revolutionary speeches or publications. In general, it is a bill that shows how hollow the so- called "American democracy" is.

This bill was trumpeted as "reform," but all its "reform" features are absolute rubbish. It developed broad conspiracy laws allegedly to ease the prosecution of corporations defrauding the consumer or producing dangerous products. But the bill has been amended to exclude corporate crime, while the broad conspiracy section is otherwise maintained. It is supposed to standardize federal law, but it does this by making the laws so general that the police have legal power to do as they please. Cosmetic changes have been made in the face of the exposure of this bill. Thus "preventive detention" provisions of the bill have temporarily been allegedly dropped -- but replaced by provisions allowing the police to hold suspects prior to trial without bail, that is, preventive detention in deed. The death penalty has been removed from the bill only to appear in a companion bill as part of a Senate deal. A number of minor amendments have been tacked on to the bill. But they neither change anything substantial, nor is there any guarantee that further amendments will not be made on the Senate floor. Indeed, the history of such bills as the "Labor Reform Act of 1977" shows that the most reactionary provisions of this bill were added precisely as amendments during the debate on the floor. Besides changes in the debate in the House and Senate, the bill can also receive more reactionary features in the House-Senate conference committee.

This bill is being pushed by Senator Ted Kennedy in conjunction with notorious Dixiecrats. Today Ted Kennedy is running against Carter in the presidential primaries. In his campaign he is presenting himself as the "liberal" alternative to Carter. He is being supported by the "left-wing" of the Democratic Party, by various social-democratic labor hacks such as Doug Fraser, President of the United Auto Workers and William Winpisinger, President of the International Association of Machinists and by other leading lights of social-democracy, such as Michael Harrington of the "Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee." The "left-wing" of the Democratic Party is trying to infiltrate the mass movements against the draft, and against the nuclear energy program and to put itself forward as the alleged voice of "labor" due to its influence with the top labor hacks. They fight against the issues of opposition to imperialism and war preparations being raised in these movements and they seek to subvert and liquidate them. The support of this "left-wing" of the Democratic Party and of the social-democrats for Kennedy and their quiet support for S-1722 show that these worthies are nothing but concealed fascists out to suppress the mass movement. They are for strengthening the police repression of the movement, even as they smile and bow to the masses.

The social-democrats in particular love to prate on about their "democratic socialism." They are opposed to the rule of the working class because they allege that it is "undemocratic," On this basis they rant and rave against Marxism-Leninism and the dictatorship of the proletariat, which provide genuine democracy for the working masses and an iron rule over the tiny minority of exploiters. They are horrified of the development of revolutionary sentiment among the masses. They paint pictures of a pure democracy, equally fair for workers and capitalists alike, a state that allegedly is neutral between the exploited and the exploiters. But all these fancy fantasies are nothing but an embellishment of the present growing fascism. The reality of their so-called democracy can be seen in their support for the fascist bill S-1722. The reality of their so-called socialism can be seen in their support for mandatory wage-price controls, which are nothing but open government strikebreaking to cut the workers' wages. Since this is done directly by the state instead of by the individual capitalists these social- democrats call it "socialism" and a "planned economy." True socialism and genuine democracy for the working masses can only be achieved by rule of the working class and the overthrow and suppression of the exploiters. It can only be achieved by developing the mass initiative of the workers and by pushing forward the revolutionary movement, not by developing a giant bureaucracy and police force to suppress the workers. The workers' movement and the other revolutionary mass movements will develop despite these new fascist laws, but they will develop in bitter struggle against both the capitalist reaction and the social-democratic lackeys of reaction who prettify state capitalism and fascism as "democratic socialism."

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GO ALL OUT TO FIGHT U.S. IMPERIALISM!

The American people are going into action to fight U.S. imperialism. Anti-draft fighters are marching head-on against the imperialist war preparations. Anti-nuclear activists are in battle against the imperialist nuclear energy program. The demonstrations and rallies, the mass marches and protests have spread all across the country. They herald the revolt that is growing deep among the American working class and people.

The U.S. is a monstrous imperialist superpower. It has earned the hatred of the world's people. The same war criminals that ravaged Indochina are now threatening war in the Middle East to preserve their "vital interests," namely, the fantastic super-profits of the big U.S. oil monopolies, of the Rockefellers and big bankers. U.S. imperialism is still protecting the bloody hangman, the Shah of Iran, and seeking to strangle the Iranian people's democratic revolution. Carter is shedding fake tears over the savage Russian social-imperialist aggression against Afghanistan in order to whip up war hysteria and to spur on the Pentagon's war preparations. History has shown that U.S. imperialism will commit any crime -- no matter how hideous, any aggression -- no matter how bloody, in pursuit of political domination and of economic plunder for the big multinational corporations.

U.S. imperialism also means starvation and fascism at home for the working masses. Lenin taught in his book Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism that imperialist aggression is not just an unfortunate or unwise policy of this or that politician. Imperialism is a whole economic and political system, it is monopoly capitalism. The capitalist billionaires are impoverishing the people with mass layoffs and wage cuts, with soaring energy prices and runaway inflation, with heavy tax increases and automatic utility rate hikes, while the work places are hellholes of speed up, exhaustion and murderous industrial "accidents." They are building more and more jails, murdering blacks, Mexicans and people of other nationalities, and preparing ever harsher means to suppress the working class and all progressive people. This monstrous oppression by the exploiters is met by the growth of indignation among the workers, who are in struggle against the capitalists and the labor bureaucrats. It is met by the struggles of the oppressed nationalities and by numerous other struggles against growing fascism. Imperialism is producing its own gravediggers at home as well as abroad. It is a dying system, shaken by all-round crisis. But as long as monopoly capitalism exists in the U.S., it will mean imperialist aggression abroad. And it will mean that the American people remain enslaved and exploited under the dark rule of the rich, of the racists, reactionaries and monopolists.

The Democratic Party headed by Carter is presently the ruling party of U.S. imperialism. Along with the Republican Party, it is heading for war, pushing for the draft, and demanding the continued frenzied production of nuclear weapons. Yet at the same time, the Democratic Party is trying to infiltrate the anti-draft and anti-nuclear movements through its feeble "left wing," which has always been big in promises and impotent in action. The flunkeys of the Democratic Party are seeking to subvert the mass protest, to tie it to the tails of two-faced imperialist politicians like Kennedy and Brown, and to liquidate it altogether. The mass movement must take up independent politics, the independent class politics of the working class, and oppose the political parties of the rich. It is the Marxist-Leninist Party that is the party of the class conscious working class. All progressive people should rally around the Marxist-Leninist Party, the party of genuine political independence from, and struggle against the rich.

Forward in the struggle against imperialism! U.S. imperialism is a world slavemaster and it is preparing terrible new crimes in order to preserve and extend its world plunder. It must be fought every step of the way. Step up the movement to fight the militarism and the aggressive plots of imperialism! Direct the demonstrations and rallies, protests and actions, squarely at U.S. imperialism! Denounce the Democratic and Republican Parties, the parties of the rich, and treat their political hacks with the contempt they deserve! Work hard at going out among the largest number of workers, students, youth and progressive people and at bringing them into the fight against imperialism! Read and distribute revolutionary literature! Study the revolutionary theory of Marxism- Leninism in order to wage a truly conscious struggle! The vigorous development of the anti-imperialist movement is a powerful blow that is feared by the imperialists. It is part of the preparations leading to the coming socialist revolution that will burn U.S. imperialism to the ground. Go all out to fight U.S. imperialism!

MASS REVOLUTIONARY STRUGGLE AGAINST IMPERIALISM IS THE PATH FORWARD FOR THE ANTI-DRAFT AND ANTI-NUCLEAR MOVEMENTS!

DOWN WITH U.S. IMPERIALISM!

[Photo: Part of the MLP contingent in a demonstration of 7,000 against the draft in San Francisco.]

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CARTER'S NEW "ANTI-INFLATION MEASURES":

Squeezing the poor for the profits of the war merchants, the oil monopolies and the banks

The cost of living is going through the roof. The Consumer Price Index is soaring upward at a record pace with 18% annual increases in January and February and marking more than a 15% increase over the last 12 months. The prices of necessities are skyrocketing even faster with the 70% increase in the price of gasoline over the last year and the astronomical increases in interest rates on mortgages and loans leading the way. In February, real take-home pay was 7.3% below that of February '79. Thus, for the working class and the broad masses of the people, with each passing day it becomes more impossible to make ends meet.

The working people are being pressed to the wall. And on March 14, President Carter unveiled his "new anti-inflation program" to squeeze the masses even further. Carter's latest "anti-inflation" measures cover three fronts:

(1) Revision of the 1981 budget to include a $14 billion addition to the tax burden. This increase will come mainly from a $11 billion gasoline tax which will add 104 to the price of gasoline. Tax increases will be combined with $16 billion of cutbacks in federal funding of unemployment compensation, education, health care and other social services. At the same time the budget will maintain major real increases in military expenditures.

(2) Establishing credit controls aimed particularly at consumer credit, to raise interest rates and fees, and ensure the astronomical interest rates being raked in by the big banks and other billionaire loan sharks.

(3) The strengthening of the enforcement capacity of Carter's system of "wage-price" guidelines in order to strengthen the hand of the government in suppressing strikes and cutting the workers' wages.

These measures, like all the previous "anti-inflation" measures taken by the Carter administration, have nothing whatsoever to do with "fighting inflation." Rather they are measures of the capitalist government to saddle the masses with the entire burden of inflation. These measures are not for the purpose of relieving the condition of the working masses but to worsen it; to protect the profits and positions of the most powerful monopolists -- the big banks and financiers, the oil billionaires and war industry monopolies, etc. -- which are mercilessly plundering the people. They are straightforward anti-working class measures to make the people pay for the all-sided crisis of the monopoly capitalist system.

"Balancing the Budget" to Rob the Masses and to Fatten the Profits of the War Merchants and Banks

The capitalist media mills are making a big to-do about the fact that Carter has revised his original 1981 budget proposal which he presented last January and is now proposing an allegedly balanced budget. This, the media claims, is proof that "President Carter is very serious about fighting inflation." But what do Carter's measures to supposedly balance the budget actually mean?

For the masses they mean $14 billion in additional taxes to be levied in the main from an additional 104 a gallon tax on gasoline which is going to come into effect in May. This tax is over and above the $1.50 a gallon price of gasoline expected by the end of the year. What a blow to inflation! Carter's revised budget also means some $16 billion in cutbacks in social services. The majority of these cutbacks are planned for federal funds for state and local expenditures for unemployment compensation and job programs, education grants, health care and food programs, and public transportation.

Nevertheless, despite these cutbacks, the budget is still planned to be about $612 billion, that is, $44 billion larger than the 1980 budget. Revenues collected for the 1981 budget will be over 22% of the gross national product, a record high. This is because the budget will contain even more enormous handouts to the millionaires and billionaires. Most significantly, the budget will authorize another 5% increase in real terms for military expenditures. That is over $160 billion as compared to $139 billion in 1980 for the Pentagon generals and the war industry monopolies. Besides military spending, another outlay that will not be cut back under Carter's "budget restraint" is the payments to the Wall Street banks to cover the interest on the national debt. The $70-85 billion in interest payments to the banks is the second largest single federal expenditure behind defense. (This does not include outlays for social security which do not come out of general revenues but out of a separate insurance retirement fund.) But, of course, in the world of capital to balance the budget at the expense of the interest payments to the big banks is inconceivable because it would violate the holiest of holies, the sacred profits of finance capital.

As a result of these tremendous payments to the war industries and to the banks and other handouts to the rich, despite the tax increases and cutbacks, inflationary deficits will nevertheless continue without letup. Even the bourgeois economic "experts" agree that Carter's talk of a "balanced budget" is a patent fraud and that the 1981 budget will more than likely have a $20 billion deficit or an even greater one depending on the depths of the recession.

Moreover, the publicized budget deficits include only part of the actual deficit. On top of this there is a hidden and very real so-called "off-budget" deficit. "Off-budget" deficits are created by financing government programs through the Federal Finance Bank, which in turn is financed by borrowing from the Treasury. This process incurs the increased indebtedness of the Treasury to the banks just as surely as if the government agency had borrowed from the banks directly. Thus, for instance, to see the real size of the 1980 federal deficit, $16 billion of "off-budget" deficits must be added to the publicized deficit of approximately $40 billion. In financial circles, financing through the FFB in this manner is known as a means of so-called "backdoor financing." The FFB was created under Nixon and has been utilized to the hilt by Carter, serving no other purpose than for accounting fraud to hide the actual level of deficit spending. Outright lying and deception to defraud the masses is the highest art of bourgeois finance.

Thus, while the 1981 budget deficit may be curtailed from the monstrous $56 billion of 1980, nevertheless it will contain a huge multi-billion dollar deficit even if only realized through "backdoor financing." Moreover, Carter's election year "budget balancing" will, in part, be made at the expense of even larger deficits in the following years. Massive deficit spending is, of course, a major factor for the generation of inflation. However, it is as clear as day that Carter's "budget balancing" measures are not for the purpose of eliminating inflationary deficits but to rob the masses and to fatten the profits of the war merchants and banks.

"Credit Restraints" to Ensure the Astronomical Interest Rates of the Banks and to Impoverish the People

Another theme of Carter's "anti-inflation" program is "credit restraint." According to Carter's lying propaganda, the ordinary consumer, the working people bear responsibility for the skyrocketing inflation because they are allegedly overly greedy and are therefore splurging "beyond their means" on consumer credit. On this fraudulent basis Carter makes the demagogic appeal that the "American family must try harder to live within his means." And subsequently Carter orders the various creditors (the banks, department stores, oil companies, etc.) to restrict the issuing of credit and to raise interest rates and other fees on credit purchases.

The truth of the matter is that while the depth of consumer indebtedness has become a tremendous burden on the working people, this cannot be considered a source of inflation as Carter claims. The real incomes of the workers and the broad masses of the people have been so ravaged by inflation, unbearable levels of taxation, unemployment, etc., that it has become simply impossible to live without going up to one's ears in debt. Presently the U.S. has the highest rate of personal indebtedness and the lowest rate of personal savings of any industrial country in the world. The weight of indebtedness to the banks and other creditors is a terrific burden on the shoulders of the working masses. And with interest rates on mortgages and loans soaring out of sight (for example, home mortgages, which were at the record-high level of 10-11% last year, have hit rates as high as 16-17% today) the people are being plundered mercilessly at the hands of the banks and the other big capitalist loan sharks.

Carter's concern, however, is neither reducing inflation nor the hardship of indebtedness and high interest rates weighing on the working masses. Rather, the administration's sole concern is ensuring the Wall Street banks and financial houses their fantastic interest rates on their loaned capital. The economic crisis, coupled with an 18% rate of inflation, is wreaking havoc with the bond and credit markets. The White House and the Federal Reserve have taken various new measures to stabilize the credit markets in the face of a current 20% prime interest rate. (The prime rate is the interest rate banks charge to their best short-term corporate borrowers. Until September of last year a prime rate of 12'/2% was the highest rate in history.) In the first place Carter is placing restrictions on consumer credit and jacking up consumer credit fees and interest sky-high. This policy of "credit restraint" is part of a policy of unrestrained profit-making by the big banks and other financial parasites at the expense of the working class and people and even at the expense of the smaller and weaker capitalist firms which are being bankrupted at a faster and faster rate.

Beefing Up "Wage-Price Guidelines" to Cut the Workers' Wages

The forcible suppression of the workers' wage scales through a system of wage restraints has been and continues to be the bottom line of Carter's "fight against inflation." This is despite the fact that workers' wage increases don't cause either inflation or price increases. The administration's latest "anti-inflation" measures will further beef up the government's system of "wage-price guidelines" to more savagely cut the workers' wages. It is well known that these "wage- price" restraints are solely for the purpose of restraining wages while the price of gasoline, health care, interest rates, etc., continue to go through the roof with the full blessings of the administration.

In the first place, Carter has ordered "stronger monitoring and enforcement" of the guidelines to be able to intervene in a greater number of contract struggles and to bring more pressure to bear on employers who fail to keep wage scales within the guidelines. For this purpose the size of the bureaucracy of the Council on Wage and Price Stability will be doubled. At the same time, Carter has endorsed the proposal of the pay board to raise the wage guidelines from the previous 7% pay limit to a "more flexible" 7.5- 9.5% limit on combined pay and benefit increases. This alleged concession to the AFL-CIO labor traitors who sit on the pay board is nothing but a maneuver to keep the guidelines intact. In fact, the new guidelines mean a much more severe slashing of real wages in the face of the present 18% inflation.

The bolstering of Carter's "voluntary wage-price guidelines" is another step on the road of fully mandatory controls. Presently Carter is continuing to mouth opposition to mandatory controls as opposed to such liberal-labor politicians as Ted Kennedy and a number of his boosters among the AFL-CIO and UAW labor bureaucrats who are calling for an immediate repeat of fascist Nixon's mandatory controls. These controls cut wages simply by federal decree. In reality, however, since taking office Carter has been introducing piecemeal a system of wage guidelines with the same objective of rigging up the fully mandatory and fascist wage controls as advocated by Kennedy and various labor traitors.

All these systems of "wage-price restraints" and controls have nothing to do with eliminating or controlling inflation. While they are invariably wrapped in sweet words about "fairness" and "equality of sacrifice," they have a singular purpose -- ensuring maximum profits for monopoly capital by freezing wages while prices soar out of sight.

Runaway Inflation -- A Product of the Grave Crisis Gripping the Monopoly Capitalist System

It is readily admitted by the various circles of economic "experts" that Carter's latest "anti-inflation" measures, just like all the ones before them, will not significantly reduce the rate of inflation. It is claimed that at most the CPI will be affected by one-half of a percentage point by the revision of the budget while the added gasoline tax will by itself boost the CPI by a full percent. Even the White House spokesmen admit that the main result of these measures will be "psychological."

Such admissions underscore the reality that the present galloping inflation cannot be banned by decree or "worked out of the system" by governmental tinkering. The sore of runaway inflation has deepened over the last dozen years of the Nixon, Ford and Carter presidencies; and whether under a Republican or Democratic administration, whether guided by a fiscally "conservative" or "liberal" policy, or whether the budget deficit is curtailed for a given year or not, this curse will not go away. This is because rampant inflation has become completely bound up with the crisis which is gripping the monopoly capitalist system.

Inflation, or depreciation of the dollar, comes about through the expansion of the money supply or its equivalent over and above the amount required for the circulation of commodities. The printing of money to cover the tens of billions of dollars of federal deficits is a major ingredient, but not the sole ingredient to the creation of inflation. The money supply is also expanded by the wild speculations of the monopoly financiers in ventures of various sorts which swell the values of the paper in the hands of finance capital independent from any actual expansion of production or circulation of goods. Part of the stocks and bonds thus conjured up by the wizards of financial speculation are also used like money for the buying and selling of commodities. So this increase in paper values also inflates the currency. The capitalist owners seize on this situation of an inflated dollar to jack up prices to the sky and thus rake in more millions in profits at the expense of the real purchasing power of the masses.

Since the conclusion of World War II, inflation has become a permanent feature of the capitalist economy. But it is only over the last dozen or so years that it has taken on huge proportions. This runaway inflation is a product of the crisis of the parasitic and decaying monopoly capitalist system. It is an indication of the all-encompassing and comprehensive nature of the crisis. Among other things, it reflects the fact that all the measures taken over the previous decades to alleviate or temporize the economic crises have in recent years become bound up within their own contradictions and are today only further aggravating the crisis.

For example, a massive system of consumer credit has been developed to artificially expand markets, to maintain sales and profits in the face of crisis and to chain the people to the banks and other creditors. But consumer credit itself has become a source of crisis. It is impoverishing the masses with monthly payments they can no longer meet. There is a rapidly growing number of personal bankruptcies, and the sphere of consumer credit has become intertwined with the financial crisis as a whole.

Another example is the huge expansion of the federal budgets and the use of deficit spending. Through these means, means which have been massively applied in the post-war period, monopoly capital has attempted to stimulate the economy and cushion the full impact of economic crisis. The last 15 years have witnessed a drastic ballooning of government expenditures at all levels, and the federal deficits over the last decade have been several times greater than those of any previous period. Nevertheless, at the same time, the last decade has also witnessed two major recessions, including the severe industrial crisis which broke out in 1974-75 and which was followed by five years up to the present of severe economic stagnation. And now the capitalist economy is sitting on the precipice of yet a third devastating recession.

Thus, the last decade shows that the stimulation of the economy through the expansion of government budgets and deficit spending, which in the past played a role in artificially expanding markets and ameliorating crises, is today wreaking economic and financial havoc. Among other factors, the ravages of inflation are impoverishing the working masses, distorting and ruining various markets, and generating anarchy and chaos in the credit and monetary systems. Consequently, the destructive force of inflation is further exacerbating and prolonging the crisis.

Nevertheless, the ruinous effects of inflation do not mean that the capitalist ruling class has the means or the will to put an end to deficit spending and inflation. Quite the opposite. The exploiters are trying to overcome the present crisis by increasing the exploitation of the exploited. And the means by which they are increasing this exploitation is only paving the way for even more catastrophic crisis in the future. With the objective of protecting the profits of the rich, the capitalist solution to the crisis is to squeeze the masses still harder, to strangle the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat and people at home and abroad, to seize new markets and territory through war and aggression. And to realize this solution, monopoly capital is generating runaway inflation.

The crisis is accelerating the growing revolt of the working class and people at home and the intensification of the revolutionary struggles of the peoples abroad, as well as bringing about the further aggravation of the inter-imperialist rivalries. To cope with this situation, the big bourgeoisie is systematically strengthening the U.S. imperialist war machine and the government apparatus of oppression and robbery of the working masses, beefing up the police and bureaucracy, building prisons, etc. In the face of the crisis, the monopolies are striving to realize maximum profits through the militarization of the economy, including the construction of the most sophisticated, multi-billion dollar weapons of mass murder such as the MX missile system, Trident submarines, etc. The capitalist billionaires are also resorting to unprecedented plunder of the treasury as exemplified by the tens of billions of dollars in federal debt payments to the banks, the $1.5 billion to bail out Chrysler, and other massive handouts to the monopoly corporations. All this adds up to geometrically expanding deficits and runaway inflation.

Through inflation, among other crisis measures, the monopoly corporations are continuing to rake in record profits despite the severe economic crisis. The truth is that Carter and the government of the rich which he heads have no intention of eliminating this inflation which is so profitable for a handful of capitalist moneybags, even if they could. Rather, Carter's "anti-inflation" measures are brutal measures to make the burden of inflation an even more unbearable weight on the masses. They are part of the capitalist offensive against the working class and people to make them pay for the economic crisis.

No Relief from the Ravages of Inflation Can Be Expected from the Gods of Plague

For the working masses, no relief from the ravages of inflation can be expected from the gods of plague. To submit to the anti-working class measures of the monopoly capitalist government, to submit to "restraint" and "making sacrifices" is to submit to the unbridled robbery of a handful of financial parasites. The reality of the situation, the 18% rate of inflation and the all-sided assault on the livelihood of the people, shows the dire necessity for the working masses to step up the struggle against the exploitation and oppression of big capital. It is only by carrying out a resolute struggle to defy Carter's wage controls and to press their demands for higher wages that the workers can find any relief from the ravages of inflation.

The resistance movement of the working class itself is absolutely necessary to block the capitalist offensive and save the workers from total ruin. There is no relief for the masses in the false promises and lies of the "pro-labor" Democrats or "big business" Republicans, from Carter, Kennedy, Reagan, or any other two-faced political lap dog of the rich. The working class must pursue its own class policy, that is it must get organized on the basis of its own proletarian class politics, independent from and in resolute opposition to the program of the rich. On this road the working class and people will be able to carry out a successful struggle in defense of their interests' and overthrow the bloodsucking monopoly capitalist system altogether.

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The Strike of the New York City Transit Workers Defied the Fascist No-Strike Law

On April 1st, 33,000 transit workers in New York City launched a determined and militant strike against the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) in defense of their vital interests. For 11 days the strike completely shut down New York City's mass transit system. And it won wide support in every section of the working class in New York, above all among the workers in the public sector. As the militant struggle was gaining momentum the top bureaucrats of the Transit Workers Union broke the strike and sent the workers back to their jobs to vote on a contract offer virtually no different than one they had already turned down. This is a serious setback to the strike, but the struggle is still not over.

The transit strike has been an important event in the life of the working class in New York. The militant struggle of the transit workers has placed them in the front ranks of the workers' movement in the local area. Their struggle has been a significant blow to the program of the rich to make the public sector workers and the working people in general pay for the city's fiscal crisis. It has taken place in the face of Carter's wage controls, and in open defiance of the laws banning strikes in the public sector. This has inspired the entire working class, including the municipal workers, who have come to the conclusion to take this same path of militant struggle. The betrayal of the strike by the union bureaucrats has brought a temporary halt to the struggle. But the defiant spirit of the masses of transit workers has not been broken. Everywhere they are denouncing the contract swindle and they are preparing to carry their struggle through.

The struggle of the transit workers takes place against the background of five years of fiscal crisis in NYC. The fiscal crisis which has gripped NYC, as in other major cities, has been accompanied by a systematic program of the rich for the impoverishment of the urban masses in general, and the public sector workers in particular. It has meant the loss of tens of thousands of jobs in the public sector through layoffs and attrition; brutal speedup and worsening working conditions for the remaining workers; attacks against wages and benefits which have caused a substantial decline in living standards; and rapid deterioration of vital services in the city.

In 1976 and 1978 the Emergency Finance Control Board forced contracts on the transit workers which drastically cut their real wages and imposed a severe productivity drive on them. Between 1974 and 1980 the transit workers have been held to a 24% increase in wages while the cost of living has skyrocketed by 54%. This has meant a 30% decline in real wages. The thousands of jobs eliminated have included more than 2,000 in maintenance alone. This has brought deterioration of the buses, subways, tracks and power lines, resulting in service cutbacks, increased breakdowns, and even derailments. This has meant the worsening of the already hazardous working conditions in transit, and the endangering of the safety of the millions of working people who ride the subways and buses every day.

Five years of these attacks in transit, municipal, and other parts of the public sector have brought no end to the fiscal crisis. Indeed, the program of the rich was never intended to solve the crisis, which is a product of the decay of monopoly capitalism. The program of the rich has been aimed to make the workers pay in order to guarantee the fantastic profits reaped by the Wall Street banks from exorbitant interest payments on the public debt. While the workers suffered cuts in real wages, while the subways and buses deteriorated, resulting in hazardous conditions for both passengers and workers, while thousands of jobs were lost and the remaining workers brutally overworked, while the politicians cried and lied that "there is no money," the bloodsucking finance capitalists have continued to reap fantastic profits.

For the workers in transit and throughout the public sector, the burning issue has been the fight against the program of the rich to shift the entire burden of the crisis onto the workers. The strike of the transit workers has been the first major strike struggle in the public sector in New York since 1976. It's the first strike waged under the slogan No givebacks! And it is demonstrating that direct mass action is the only path to defend the workers' vital interests against the interests of the rich.

The transit workers' just demands have included an immediate 30% increase in wages, a COLA not tied to increased productivity, improved health and safety conditions, and no givebacks of the benefits and work rules won in decades of struggles. Months before the strike, the MTA chairman, real estate tycoon Richard Ravitch, declared these completely just demands "grossly irresponsible." The MTA's final offer on the eve of the strike was a paltry 5% a year over three years. In the face of the present 18% annual inflation rate this "offer" meant nothing but an outrageous wage cut. The same is true of the proposal made by the mediators on the last day before the strike for 8% the first year and 9% the second, coupled with a series of givebacks. In fact, the mediators' proposal was the MTA's real offer, made under the guise of a "neutral" party, while Ravitch huffed and puffed about 5% for show. Equally important has been the rest of the MTA's "offer" throughout the negotiations -- an arrogant list of 41 givebacks and brutal productivity, measures. The MTA, with the complete backing of the city, state and federal governments, continues the program of the rich to shift the entire burden of the crisis onto the workers. The transit workers answered the MTA with a determined and militant strike.

In their struggle the transit workers have confronted the government of the rich. Their strike itself has been directed against the MTA, a state agency, whose program of attacks against the workers has been endorsed by the city, state and federal governments. As well, the workers have been faced with Carter's "voluntary" wage guidelines, which restrict the workers to a maximum of a 9% increase in wages at a time when inflation is soaring at an annual rate of 18%. These wage controls are aimed not only at reducing the workers' real wages, but in restricting their struggles.

An important weapon of the rich against the transit workers is the New York State Taylor Law, which bans strikes by public employees. This is the successor to the old Condon-Walden Act, which was smashed by repeated struggles of the public sector workers, especially the transit strike in 1966. As well as measures such as imprisoning the union officials, the Taylor Law imposes fines on the workers amounting to two days' pay for every day of the strike. Thus, the transit strike was outlawed even before it started. Before the strike Ravitch sent letters to every transit worker threatening them with the provisions of the law -- fines on the workers, loss of their jobs, the jailing of union officials, etc. Governor Carey joined in as well, proclaiming that "the Attorney General will enforce all the provisions of the Taylor Law."

Knowing the importance of the transit workers' strike, the rich brought the full weight of the government to bear against the workers. But the transit workers defied the law and the government attacks and launched the strike, fully prepared to carry it through to victory.

Before the strike began, the workers prepared for it through mass demonstrations and other actions. On March 27, over 10,000 transit workers were joined by municipal workers and workers from other sectors in a militant demonstration at City Hall in support of their just demands. On March 30, transit workers again marched to demonstrate their determination. Through these means they prepared for a long and militant strike. And once the strike began, the workers were determined to carry it through, constantly pointing out that they were ready to stay out longer than the 16-day 1966 strike.

The struggle of the transit workers, which has won wide support from workers through the New York area, has been marked by expressions of working class solidarity. These have included the joint demonstrations with the municipal workers, the strike of bus drivers for six private bus lines, a two-day strike by trackmen on the Long Island Railroad, overtime refusal by workers on the Port Authority Trans Hudson lines, and a slowdown by the Port Authority toll collectors. While the government and capitalist newspapers have carried daily propaganda that the transit strike hurts other workers, the workers in other sectors have amply demonstrated that they know very well that their interests lie in solidarity with the transit workers against the rich and their government.

On April 11 the Executive Board of the Transit Workers Union split 22 to 22 on an offer from the MTA. This offer was virtually identical to the offer made by the mediators on the eve of the strike and clearly a sellout of the demands of the transit workers. Nevertheless, the board unanimously ordered the workers back to work and to put the contract offer to a membership vote. And the union bureaucrats have agreed that even when the contract is voted down they will not resume the strike but will tie up the struggle in endless procedures. This is criminal sabotage of the transit workers' strike by the trade union bureaucrats. Even though the workers have already been on strike for 11 days against virtually the same contract offer, the bureaucrats have ordered them back to work. Even though the Executive Board itself could not agree to approve the contract, and despite the fact that the workers were fully prepared to continue, the bureaucrats have stopped the workers from striking. The top trade union bureaucrats have ordered the workers back to their jobs even though the strike was beginning to show its full impact on the tenth and eleventh days, as seen in the biggest traffic jams yet, a sharp drop in retail trade, and so forth. What a disgusting betrayal of the workers' struggle.

The overwhelming majority of the transit workers are completely outraged against this latest contract offer, and all across the city they are denouncing it and discussing the next step for their struggle. On April 1 the transit workers decided for a militant mass strike as the only sure way to win their just demands. What was true on April 1 is still true today. For the workers to defend themselves against the savage cuts in their real wages and against the all-round givebacks demanded by the government, they must override the betrayal of the union bureaucrats and take matters into their own hands.

Fight the contract swindle!

No to wage cuts! No to givebacks!

No to Taylor Law fines!

Vote no! Prepare for struggle!

[Photo: On March 27, over 10,000 transit workers were joined by municipal workers from other sectors in a militant demonstration at City Hall.]

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"Victory to the Transit Workers!"

"Victory to the Transit Workers!" is a calypso written by the Caribbean Progressive Study Group for the New York City transit workers' strike struggle. It has been sung on several picket lines of workers and received very warm support.

Victory to the Transit Workers!

The transit workers have made their demands

Higher wages better working conditions

And to back their demands

Close down the mass transit system

With heroic strike action

CHORUS:

Tell Ravitch, Koch and Carey

Tell them and all their cronies

Tell all them scabs and strikebreakers

Victory to the transit workers!

This courageous stand is a great inspiration

To the working class and people who support this struggle

Thirty percent

Is a just demand

In the face of the rising inflation

CHORUS

The reactionary state and their news media

Are attacking the workers with lies and slanders

The working class and people

Reject the state fascist plan

And support the transit workers' just demands.

CHORUS

The rich and their courts brought out their Taylor law

Their fascist wage guidelines and many more

But the transit workers

Have said nay more

Down with the fascist wage guidelines and Taylor law.

CHORUS

What do we want?

We want thirty percent!

When do we want it?

We want it now!

The rich could groan

Or they could croak

But we say no contract no work!

CHORUS:

Tell Ravitch, Koch and Carey

Tell them and all their cronies

Tell all them scabs and strikebreakers

Victory to the transit workers!

Victory to the transit workers!

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Chicago Public Sector Workers Fight the Strikebreaking of Mayor Byrne

Presently, a big upsurge is developing in the workers' movement in the Chicago area. Aroused against the wage-cutting offensive of the Carter administration's so-called voluntary wage controls and the brutal productivity drive of the rich capitalist employers which is sweating the workers to the bone and increasingly turning the conditions in the factories into those similar to prison, the workers are more and more taking up mass resistance as the weapon to defend their basic interests. Among the public sector workers, this resistance has already broken out into a vigorous strike movement. The public sector workers are fighting against the wage-cutting, mass firings, and brutal productivity measures imposed on them by the Byrne administration in order to satisfy the thirst of the rich bankers for increased profits which they are plundering from the city's finances. The public sector workers have refused to submit to the dictates of the rich banks. For close to three months, since December of last year, the public sector workers have been developing a vigorous strike movement. First, the Chicago Transit Authority workers, 11,000 strong, went on strike against the attempts to cut their wages and impose brutal productivity measures on them. In January, over 25,000 teachers went out on strike against the mass firings and attempts to cut their wages and benefits, as well as brutal productivity measures being imposed on them by the banks as part of the all-round deterioration of the public school system. In February, over 4,000 firefighters went out on strike to defend their right to organize, to oppose cuts in their workforce and for higher wages. Each section of the public sector workers have waged battles to limit the attempts of the banks to shift the burden of the fiscal crisis onto the backs of the workers. In their struggles the public sector workers have had the full support of the entire working class in the Chicago area.

The combined forces of the rich -- including both political parties of the rich, the Democrats and the Republicans, the capitalist news media, the top trade union bureaucrats, the courts, the police and all the "public" officials -- have united in organizing a vicious fascist offensive against the public sector workers to force them to end their mass struggle. The rich are terrified by the rising workers' movement which they know eventually spells their doom. They are out to smash it. Starting with vile slander campaigns against the workers, the rich have gone on to impose one fascist measure after another to suppress the workers' struggle. Court injunctions "outlawing" the workers' struggles have been issued. As well, fines and arrests have been imposed on the workers. Calls for open scabbing, especially by Mayor Byrne and other Democratic Party officials, and enforced by the police, have been carried out. However, despite these measures the strike movement among the public sector workers is continuing. The fascist measures of the rich have only served to further arouse the workers against all the forces of the rich. The workers have denounced the attacks of the lying capitalist news media. They have defied the court injunctions and blocked the scabs with their mass pickets. The workers have organized big mass rallies and called for solidarity actions of other workers. Workers from all over the city have visited the picket lines and expressed their outrage against the rich and their firm support of the workers' struggles.

The mass strikes of the public sector workers have smashed head on against the administration of Mayor Jane Byrne. She came to office claiming she was a friend of labor, a candidate of the masses. But her brazen and savage attacks against the public sector strikes have exposed that she is nothing other than a rabid tool of the rich. The exposure of Mayor Byrne demonstrates that the entire Democratic Party is rotten through and through. On the one hand there is Carter who in the name of a fight against inflation has cut federal funds to the cities, has imposed his wage controls to cut the workers' pay and is demanding that the workers slave even harder to increase the productivity and profits of the monopoly capitalists. On the other hand there is the camp of Mayor Byrne, of the so-called Kennedy "alternative," of endless liberal and pro-labor rhetoric and of savage suppression of the workers. The Democratic Party is no better than the Republicans. They are both parties of the rich, parties of scabs and strikebreakers, parties of starvation, fascism and war.

In the strike movement of the public sector workers, the working class as a whole is gaining rich experience which is preparing it for future great class battles. The workers are learning that they must take matters into their own hands and break through the sabotage of the reactionary trade union bureaucrats. The public sector workers have stood up to wage mass strikes, to defy the fascist courts and anti-labor laws, and they are learning their own great strength of the mass struggle against the rich and their government. These struggles show, too, that the workers have nothing to gain from the Democratic or Republican Parties. The workers must build their own political movement, independent of and against the parties and political program of the rich. The mass disgust with the capitalist parties must be oriented onto the path of proletarian, class politics. The only path of salvation for the toiling masses is the path of revolutionary struggle.

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Resist the Plans of the Steel Barons!

(The following article is based on an article from Buffalo Workers' Voice, Organ of the Buffalo Branch of the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA, Vol. 1, No. 3, February 10, 1980.)

In recent months, the big steel capitalists have been closing down numerous steel plants, throwing thousands of workers onto the streets. U.S. Steel Corporation alone announced the closing of over 15 plants in one blow, affecting over 13,000 steelworkers across the country. In response to these attacks, the steelworkers are going into action and big demonstrations against the plant closings have been organized in the recent weeks and months. The crisis of capitalism has hit the steel industry hard, exposing the ever deepening contradictions between the rich capitalist moneybags and the working class. The crisis in steel raises sharply the question of who shall pay for the crisis. The steel capitalists are implementing a vicious program to shift the burden onto the workers' backs. The steelworkers face the great task of uniting and mobilizing their ranks for further struggle against the steel barons in defense of their jobs and livelihood.

In the atmosphere of extreme job insecurity created by the plant shutdowns and layoffs of steelworkers, the big steel capitalists are trying to further attack the workers by means of vicious blackmail. While they are attacking thousands of steel workers by simply throwing them out of work altogether, they are using the threat of job loss to further attack the steelworkers who remain employed, in order to suck the maximum profits from the blood and sweat of the workers. The U.S. Steel Corporation has openly called for "a massive efficiency drive in steel by shutting down unprofitable facilities... and then by cracking down on labor." (Business Week, September 17, 1979) One way the steel capitalists have attempted to carry out this "crackdown" is by demanding that a large section of the steelworkers, mainly those involved in steel fabrication, be excluded from the national basic steel negotiations for a new contract, coming up in August of 1980. The steel capitalists contend that the subsidiary steel plants are only "marginally profitable" and therefore the workers in those plants should make "concessions" to the capitalists in wages and benefits in order to so-called "secure their jobs." In an attempt to implement this plan, the New York Wire Mills Corporation issued an ultimatum to their 200 workers to accept a "wage freeze" or lose their jobs. In other words, either way the capitalists demanded that the workers must pay for the crisis which besets the steel industry: accept cuts in real wages or be thrown into the streets without a job. The N.Y. Wire Mills workers gave this blackmail the proper reply. They rejected the wage freeze, went on strike for nine days, and forced the capitalists to give them a 15% increase in wages over three years.

In rejecting the wage freeze ultimatum of the steel billionaires, the workers had to overcome the treachery and sabotage of the big labor bureaucrats of the USWA, who recommend that the workers lie down like slaves before the threats and blackmail of the rich. Lloyd McBride, president of the USWA, has counseled acceptance of wage freeze on various occasions, echoing the steel monopolists' by claiming that the steelworkers' wages and benefits have allegedly contributed to "significant job loss, sales of plants and some plant shutdowns." Further, at its bargaining convention in early December the USWA bureaucracy while not directly adopting the capitalists' proposal to split the basic steel negotiations pointed out: "We believe that our negotiating committees and our present negotiating structure are capable of considering the special problems of any particular plant or any particular industry." In other words, the USWA has no objections whatsoever to making "necessary" concessions for the well-being of the industry (that is, profits of the rich) or any part of it. And so, the labor bureaucrats are hell-bent on fulfilling their mission to help the steel capitalists make the workers pay for the crisis.

Today the steel workers are fighting in defense of their jobs and livelihood against the attacks of the big steel barons. The N.Y. Wire Mill workers went on strike against the vicious blackmail of the capitalists. Big demonstrations of steel workers and their families against plant shutdowns have taken place in Youngstown, Ohio and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The issue facing the steelworkers is to step up the fight against the attacks of the steel capitalists. "Concessions" to the steel billionaires will not save the workers' jobs. It will only lead to more intensive exploitation through the steel barons' wage cuts and "efficiency" drives, and in fact to further job loss and plant shutdowns. To defend their jobs and livelihood the steelworkers must continue and step up their mass struggle against the monopoly capitalist steel barons.

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Bethlehem steelworkers wildcat against murderous working conditions

(The following article is taken from a leaflet issued by the Buffalo Workers Revolutionary Committee of the Buffalo Branch of the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA, on March 5, 1980.)

On February 8 and 9, the workers at Bethlehem Steel's 13-inch bar mill staged a wildcat strike against the unsafe conditions imposed on them by the Bethlehem capitalists. The workers walked out to protest the high levels of lead dust they are forced to breathe day in and day out, a condition that has existed ever since the mill opened over two years ago! This strike follows another work stoppage in October that occurred in the basic oxygen furnace after an explosion dropped a water-filled 22-foot section of piping onto the furnace floor. Both the contamination of lead dust in the 13-inch mill and the explosion at the basic oxygen furnace are not "mistakes," "simple accidents" or "temporary problems" that the Bethlehem capitalists intend to overcome. No, they are a result of the conscious, coldblooded program of the rich, whose concern is not the health and welfare of the workers, but is to maximize their profits.

In their desire to maximize their profits, the steel capitalists have introduced a vicious productivity drive in the nation's steel plants. Part of this drive includes the criminal neglect of the safety of the workers in the steel mills. Since August 1977, 131 workers have been murdered by the steel capitalists in the basic steel industry -- an average of more than four deaths a month -- and this is according to capitalists' statistics which only take into account deaths they can't cover up or shift the blame for. Thousands of other workers have been injured and maimed from toiling long hours, from speedup and from dangerous working conditions. The steel capitalists are fully aware that the steel mills are hellholes, where the question of injury and death is on the workers' minds constantly. The program of the rich is for billions of dollars to be invested in modern automated machinery in order to produce faster and cheaper; but when it comes to spending any money for the most minimal safety measures, the capitalists complain that these costs are "unproductive" and "cut into profits." These "captains of industry" with their pockets stuffed with profits taken from the sweat and blood of the steel workers do not care one iota about the safety of the workers. They consider the workers as just part of the machinery -- to be worked as long and as hard as possible and then thrown on the scrap heap when their usefulness runs out, if they live that long.

The government, for its part, assists the entire capitalist class in organizing the productivity drive. When the workers strike, refusing to continue working under hazardous conditions, the government comes to the aid of the capitalists by issuing an injunction declaring that the workers have no right to fight against unsafe conditions. Further, the Carter government's "anti-inflation" program is providing the basis for intensified attacks by the capitalists on the workers' health and safety. As part of the "anti-inflation" program, the Carter administration opposes what it calls "unnecessary" health and safety measures because they are allegedly "inflationary." Carter's Council on Wage and Price Stability criminally promotes that the cost of "environmental, health and safety standards" is responsible for "poor productivity growth" and there-' fore to "fight inflation" health and safety measures "must be curtailed." It is clear that neither the steel capitalists nor the government care for the health and welfare of the steel workers. On the contrary, they do everything in their power to keep the steel workers working under the most brutal conditions which endanger their life and limb. The Buffalo Branch of the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA hails the Bethlehem Steel workers for striking against the murderous conditions at their mill. The Bethlehem workers have a long and proud history of fighting the capitalists tooth and nail over the issue of safety. It is only by the workers taking matters into their own hands and waging active resistance struggles against the capitalists and their government that the dangerous and deadly conditions imposed by the steel capitalists can be fought.

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Defy Carter's Wage Controls! Take Up Mass Struggle Against the Metal Trades Capitalists

(The following article is reprinted from a leaflet issued by the Seattle Branch of the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA on April2,1980.)

The metal trades' workers are going into battle against the metal trades' millionaires. The metal trades' capitalists are attempting to force the workers to accept a wage settlement within the Carter administration's wage guidelines of 7.5-9.5% (combined wages and benefits). The sole purpose of Carter's guidelines is to carry out wage cutting with a vengeance by bringing the full force of the state against the workers' strike movement, to suppress the workers' demands for actual wage increases as the only relief from the soaring cost of living. The wage guidelines are designed to maximize the profits of the employers. They have nothing to do with "fighting inflation," as the lying capitalist politicians contend. With prices soaring at an 18% annual rate (over 20% locally) and with Carter promising higher taxes, including the 10¢ per gallon gasoline tax, a 7.5-9.5% "increase" turns out to be a brutal cut in the workers' real take-home pay.

The so-called "voluntary" wage controls are being directly imposed on the working class by the government's Pay Advisory Committee. This pay board consists of the big capitalists, Carter administration officials, and the top trade union bureaucrats. Thus, it is only by relying on their own efforts, resolutely defying Carter's wage controls and carrying out vigorous struggle to press their demands for higher wages that the working class can find any relief from the ravages of inflation. Today the metal trades' workers are attending union meetings to discuss the capitalists' latest contract offer. They should say No! and Defy Carter's Wage Controls! They should take immediate mass action against the employers, even if the capitalists' offer is slightly above the guidelines (in which case the workers would still face a wage cut).

The companies' March 10 contract proposal was an arrogant slap in the face to the workers. It is in full compliance with the Carter administration's program of wage cutting and productivity drives. It thoroughly exposes the capitalists' fraud that the workers and employers share a "common interest" in increasing the profits of the rich, that what is good for the rich is somehow good for the workers. What is actually occurring in society is that as the rich get richer, they are attacking the workers more viciously than before. For example, PACCAR, the largest employer in the metal trades, has just chalked up record profits for the fourth consecutive year. In 1979 their profits were 28% higher than in 1978. At the same time, PACCAR and the other metal trades' capitalists are trying to force a vicious wage-cutting contract on the workers in full compliance with Carter's wage controls.

The capitalists' original contract proposal included such wage-cutting schemes as the flooding of the metal trades with a new classification of worker ("laborer"), who would be paid $4.65 an hour. These workers would be used as a lever by the capitalists to threaten the jobs of the rest of the workers and drive down wages and conditions. The proposal was filled with many other wage-cutting proposals from beginning to end. There were also clauses designed to strip the workers of the most minimal rights and to assist the capitalists' productivity drives.

The capitalist monopolies are waging an intense and all-sided offensive to preserve and increase their profits by dumping the burden of the crisis onto the workers, onto the poor of city and country at home, and onto the oppressed nations and peoples abroad. The economic movement of the proletariat to resist being saddled by the economic crisis is an absolutely necessary struggle. The rich must be made to pay for the crisis. The revolutionary mass struggle against increased exploitation is essential to prepare the working class for carrying out the revolution and the overthrow of the exploiters altogether.

The rich greatly fear the radicalization that is developing in the ranks of the working class. 1980 opened with the national strike of 55,000 refinery workers and several local struggles have already occurred (the Pacific Northwest Bell telephone wildcat strike and the Pierce County employees' strike). In Washington state in 1980 the contracts of over 100,000 workers expire. The entire monopoly capitalist class is greatly worried that if a big mass struggle is put up by the 5000 metal trades' workers in April, and Carter's wage controls are defeated, then a very large movement to break through the controls will spread throughout the state. This is why the capitalists and the labor traitors are hiding the fact that Carter's guidelines are even an issue in the current negotiations.

The present head of the AFL-CIO, Lane Kirkland, is walking in the very footsteps of George Meany who sat on fascist Nixon's pay board. Kirkland now sits on the Pay Advisory Committee which wrote Carter's "voluntary" wage controls. For icing on the cake, Carter even appointed the same John Dunlop who headed Nixon's pay board to head up the present pay board. Carter's pay board is the ugly offspring born out of the "historic national accord" signed September 28, 1979 between the Carter administration and the top AFL-CIO officials and endorsed by the United Auto Workers and Teamsters. Through the pay board the labor bureaucrats have a voice in and participate directly in administering wage cuts. The establishment of this tripartite board brings the trade union hacks right into the administration of the reactionary anti-worker policies of the government of the rich. This marks a step down the path of corporate state fascism similar to that rigged up by the Italian fascist dictator Mussolini. This makes it perfectly clear that the metal trades' workers have no "friends" in the government. Today, the Democratic Party is the main political party of the rich for deceiving the workers and calls on them to sacrifice and accept every attack on their livelihood, while at the same time promotes the illusion that the capitalists can be forced by the government of the billionaires and oil kings to "sacrifice" too. The workers must reject these politics of the rich and build their own independent political movement.

To rally their own class against the capitalists' wage-cutting offensive, the workers need their own battle cry: Defy Carter's Wage Controls! Furthermore, the workers need to raise their own political voice against all the attacks of the monopoly capitalists. The class conscious workers need to rally around their own political party, the Marxist-Leninist Party, and participate in the revolutionary movement against the rich and their government.

The success of the metal trades' workers in fighting for their basic interests against the capitalist bloodsuckers and in defiance of the government's wage controls will have an important bearing on the struggle of the entire working class against the offensive of the rich. The metal trades' workers should say No! to the wage- cutting contract the capitalists, the government, and top trade union bureaucrats are trying to shove down their throats. The workers should immediately organize mass actions to back up their demands and smash through Carter's wage controls. In this way, the metal trades' workers are defending not only their own livelihoods, but also are proudly carrying out their duty to the entire working class.

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The USWA "Buy American Steel" Campaign:

Anti-import hysteria is a tool of the rich to disrupt the workers' struggle

[Buffalo Workers' Voice masthead.]

(The following article is adapted from a leaflet issued by the Buffalo Branch of the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA on February 25, 1980.)

In recent months, a big propaganda campaign has been organized in favor of the "Buy American Steel" bill which is once again being put before the New York state legislature. The advocates of this bill range from the steel monopoly capitalists and politicians on the state and local level, to the AFL-CIO Council. But the biggest advocates of all are the top bureaucrats of the United Steel Workers of America.

The big labor traitors of the USWA have not lifted a finger to fight for the steel workers' jobs against the savage attacks of the big steel capitalists. During the 1974-75 economic crisis, the steel billionaires threw 54,000 steel workers out of their jobs. The USWA bureaucrats did nothing, and still today the workers have not gotten these jobs back. In the recent period even more steel workers are being thrown into the unemployment lines. Thousands have been laid off and fired, such as the 3,500 workers at Bethlehem's Lackawanna plant. Entire plants are being shut down, such as Youngstown Sheet and Tube's Campbell Works in Ohio. In the past few months the big steel capitalists' attacks have escalated further with U.S. Steel's announcement to close 15 plants in one blow, affecting 13,000 workers all across the country. The USWA hacks have not taken a single step towards fighting against the steel barons in defense of the steel workers' jobs. Instead, they are carrying out a hysterical campaign that "steel imports steal jobs" and are demanding "Buy American Steel." With this campaign they are trying to convince the workers to stop their struggle against the American steel capitalists, to unite with "their own" steel monopolists against the others, and to regard their class brothers, the workers of other countries, as their enemy. The workers should not get diverted by the ravings of the USWA top labor traitors. To defend their jobs and livelihood the workers must continue and step up their struggle against the steel monopoly capitalists.

The U.S. steel billionaires are in the grips of a severe economic crisis and they are engaged in a fierce rivalry with foreign steel billionaires for world markets. They are seeking to maintain their profits and strengthen their economic position by shifting the burden of the crisis onto the backs of the workers. To this end they are carrying out a massive rationalization of the industry. They are closing down inefficient mills, introducing new and more modern equipment, and intensifying the labor of the workers. Through this program thousands of workers are being thrown unemployed into the streets, while the remaining employed workers are being forced to work at a feverish pace and under murderously unsafe working conditions. At the same time that the steel barons are attacking the workers directly, they are trying to restrict the importation of steel from other countries. This is to ensure that they maintain a monopoly over the U.S. market and can continue to raise steel prices sky-high.

The U.S. government has enthusiastically endorsed this rotten program of the steel capitalists. Carter's plan to "help the steel industry," which was introduced in 1977, is a plan to rationalize the industry and thereby cut costs through the layoff and overwork of the steel workers. And it is also a plan to restrict steel imports.

In short, the big steel barons, with the assistance of the Carter government, are trying to maintain their monopoly capitalist profits by viciously attacking the steel workers. And at the same time, through the anti-import campaign, they are trying to enlist the steel workers in a holy economic war against the steel capitalists of other countries.

These same sort of attacks are taking place against the steel workers in Western Europe and other big capitalist countries around the world. In the grips of a worldwide crisis of overproduction, the steel monopolies everywhere are rationalizing their mills and throwing thousands of workers out of their jobs. For example, from 1974 to 1980, 50,000 steel workers lost their jobs in France; 140,000 were thrown out of work in West Germany; 15,000 in Belgium; 10,000 in Italy; and 52,000 in Britain. But the steel workers have not taken these attacks lying down. Everywhere they have turned to mass struggle. In 1978, 90,000 West German steel workers waged a determined 44-day strike against the steel capitalists. In the Lorraine region of France, there was wide-scale rioting of the French workers against the steel barons in 1979. And this year 152,000 British steel workers waged a militant strike for over three months. Clearly the interests of the American workers lie with these struggles of the steel workers of other lands and not with the anti-import hysteria of the American steel monopolies.

The raving anti-import campaign of the USWA bigwigs is a rotten attempt to turn the American workers against their class brothers in other countries. It is intended to divert the workers away from their struggle against the steel capitalists. And it aims at converting them into slaves for the economic rivalry of the monopoly capitalists and preparing them to be cannon fodder in imperialist war. The steel workers must reject the hysterical anti-import campaign of the USWA bureaucrats and their disgusting collaboration with the big steel capitalists. Solidarity with the struggles of the workers in every country, this is the only honorable path. Mass resistance to the attacks of their "own" monopoly capitalists, this is the only way to defend the steel workers' jobs and livelihood.

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Simmons mattress workers resist vicious productivity drive and wage cuts

(The following leaflet was issued by the San Francisco Bay Area Branch of the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA on April 5, 1980.)

On March 5, the closers stopped work and walked off the line in militant opposition to the starvation wage of $5.26 an hour. As piece workers, the closers had recently experienced another cut in their piece rates based on a time study done in late 1979. The study involved a company flunkey specially brought in from Atlanta, who willingly worked at a murderous pace under perfect conditions, in order to set a standard of work higher than ever before. This latest cut meant Simmons would pay the closers less wages for an increased amount of work, further driving down their wages to starvation base rate. The closers refused to submit to this enslaving rate and walked out demanding $7.00 per hour for the exhausting and crippling work they do. This is a just struggle, in the interests of all of the Simmons workers and deserves their support.

By cutting the piece rate the Simmons capitalists are openly stepping up the exploitation of the workers. They are shifting their productivity drive into high gear. This is part and parcel of the program of the entire capitalist class and their government. The declared "number one priority" of the Carter administration is to impose a productivity drive on the workers designed to intensify the exhausting overwork and savage capitalist exploitation of the working class, combined with wage controls in the face of 20% inflation to drive down the workers' real wages. Nationwide, in desperation over the deep economic crisis which the capitalists themselves have created in their drive for maximum profits, they are implementing programs tailored to conditions in their particular industry, but which are all designed to force the workers to submit to wage cuts, intense speedup and exhausting overwork. At Simmons the hated system of piecework and time studies is the weapon used to cut the wages and enforce the man-eating productivity drive, and thereby increase the Simmons capitalists' profits to the maximum.

On the surface, it may appear that piece workers can increase their meager wages by individually working faster and making more pieces. For their part, the conniving owners of Simmons never tire of telling the lie that workers can "make some good money" on piecework. They continually say that in these hard times (hard for whom? Simmons admits to clearing $5 million in 1978 alone!) piece workers can make out based on their own "initiative and hard work." In fact, Simmons' own filthy history of rate cuts shows just how well the workers "make out" on piece rate. Their history shows that piecework is nothing but a surefire method for increasing production and slashing the wages of the workers.

To begin with, time studies, on which the rate is based, are them selves a scheme for cheating piece workers. Often individual workers have intensified their work in order to make more than the base rate only to have Simmons carry out a new time study which invariably sets a new "normal average" rate which lowers the amount paid per piece and speeds up production. How many times have the Simmons bloodsuckers introduced a new style, or new "cost-cutting" changes in production materials -- some way -- as an excuse to re-time the workers. These time studies are always done under the guise of "impartiality" and "science." Simmons professes to being interested merely in finding out the normal pace of work. But experience has shown that time studies, without fail, have been used to further enslave the workers. Of course, during an actual time study perfect conditions are set up in order to get the fastest possible rate -- a rate which is then held over the workers' heads like a hatchet. But when workers point out that these "perfect conditions" do not exist on the day-to-day basis, that the machinery, tools and material are always faulty in one way or another making it extremely difficult to make more than the starvation base rate, they are told to stop "complaining" and just work faster.

The productivity drive, its time studies and piece rate cuts are not aimed solely at the closers. Simmons' productivity drive and wage cuts are an attack on the livelihood of all the furniture workers in the plant. Even the better paid piece workers, whose jobs enable them to receive a bit more in wages, who may not yet have experienced rate cuts like those which have affected the closers, are in no way insulated from the productivity drive and the threat of time studies and enslaving rate cuts hang over their heads as well. Day workers also feel the painful effects of the productivity drive. For example, the handlers, who receive hourly wages, must work right alongside piece workers and attempt to keep up with them as they are driven to exhaustion. In addition, to enforce this productivity drive, all workers, piece workers and day workers are constantly subjected to fascist harassment. Workers are hounded and harassed with written warnings and in so-called counseling sessions, to increase their production or face firing. Workers who are ill, who have been injured or developed crippling diseases such as tendonitis because of overwork, are attacked for being absent. And recently, Simmons has stepped up their efforts to force workers to be at their work stations from buzzer to buzzer so that every last drop of profit can be squeezed from their hides.

In carrying out their program against the workers, the monopoly capitalists receive the greatest assistance from the top trade union bureaucrats and their flunkeys. These sellout "leaders," under the guise of "representing the workers," in fact echo the entire capitalist program. They attempt at every turn to stop the resistance of the workers. At Simmons, within moments of the closers' work stoppage, the flunkeys of the top trade union leadership were called to the scene by their capitalist masters. They then proceeded to denounce the work stoppage and even went so far as to threaten the workers with firing if they did not return to work immediately, What Simmons' capitalist could have put it any better? Time and again, whenever the workers at Simmons have fought back by speaking out, writing grievances, carrying out slow-downs or work stoppages, these labor bureaucrats -- hardened lackeys of the capitalists -- have hurried to the scene acting as firefighters for Simmons and dampening the flames of the workers' resistance. They are renowned for telling the workers to give up the struggle and surrender. They say that "there is nothing to be done" and that the company "has a right" to make any attacks on the workers they choose, These lackeys actually speak for Simmons, justifying the capitalist policies to the workers. During the so-called counseling sessions, for example, it is these lackeys first and foremost who try to convince the workers to submit to Simmons' "reasonable" demands that they never be absent, or that they should work faster and produce more.

Experience has taught that the workers cannot depend on the trade union bureaucrats. The path for opposing the capitalists' productivity drive and wage cuts is the path of active resistance. Active resistance requires that the workers rely on their own efforts and strength, on their unity and numbers.

The Marxist-Leninist Party, San Francisco Bay Area Branch, fully supports the active resistance of the workers at Simmons and hails their fight against the capitalist productivity drive and wage cuts. This is part of the developing fight of the entire working class against the program of the capitalists. Wage active resistance against the Simmons capitalists' productivity drive and wage cuts!

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Workers at Buffalo's Roswell Park Hospital:

Step Up the Struggle Against Increased Workloads!

(The following leaflet was issued by the Buffalo Branch of the Marxist- Leninist Party, USA on March 1, 1980.)

In recent weeks, the struggle of the Roswell Park workers against the "cost containment" program has been heating up. In response to the fascist firing of a worker in the housekeeping department, over 100 workers signed petitions denouncing the administration for its attacks -- denouncing increased workloads and the fascist labor discipline which is imposed to enforce them. In response to the "absenteeism" crackdown in nursing, many workers boldly confronted their supervisor to denounce the policy of "A minusing." Other sections of the workers as well, are getting into motion on many fronts to oppose the administration's "cost containment" attacks. These struggles against the Roswell Park administration signify the further growth and strengthening of the trend for mass active resistance among the Roswell Park workers.

In particular, large numbers of workers are becoming increasingly a- roused for struggle against the increased workloads they are being forced to bear, and against the fascist labor discipline which the administration imposes to enforce the increased workloads. Increased workloads are an especially severe problem for the workers as a direct result of the implementation of Carter's "cost containment" program. In housekeeping, for example, many positions have been allowed to remain unfilled causing severe shortstaffing. The administration is demanding that the smaller number of workers take up the slack with the dictate: "Everyone must do extra work!" In nursing, at latest count, 66 positions are unfilled -- an astonishing one out of every 7.6 jobs! This has resulted in a patient-to-nurse ratio high above that of a few years ago. At a "normal" general hospital this would be serious enough, but Roswell treats an abnormally high number of patients requiring very serious attention due to the nature of their disease and therefore the increasing patient-to-nurse ratio has extremely serious repercussions. It is not at all unusual to find a floor which has a ratio of 10-12 patients per nurse -- and this on the day shift when all of the specialized work and treatment is being carried out. This exposes the utter hypocrisy of the administration which pretends to be so "concerned" for the well-being of the patients. In fact, it is their own brutal policy of shortstaffing which is to blame for any neglect of patient care which exists at Roswell Park!

In order to enforce their policy of increasing workloads to the extreme, the Roswell administration is attempting to impose a fascist labor discipline on the workers, to turn them into obedient slaves who will work themselves to the bone without complaint. The housekeeping supervision has become notorious for its policy of firing any worker who refuses to be a slave to the increased workloads. This is what was behind their vicious firing of Curtis Wirt, who is the latest victim of this longstanding policy. And where they cannot fire a worker outright, they reserve all sorts of disciplinary measures to use against those who do not accept the extra work like meek lambs. They are attempting to create a concentration camp atmosphere where none dare resist for fear of punishment. It is for this same purpose that throughout the institute the administration is cracking down on absenteeism through the use of "A minus" time (withholding pay from workers for "excessive absenteeism"). In nursing, it is now a policy to "A minus" any worker (except supervisors) who runs out of sick time, even if they have vacation or personal leave time saved up, contrary to well-known and long established practice. The nursing supervision is so vicious in the application of this policy that they penalized a young nurse who missed days due to pregnancy for "abusing the use of sick time"!

The stepped-up attacks on the Roswell Park workers are part and parcel of the intensification of the "cost containment" program by the Carter administration. In late 1979 Carter called for new "cost containment" legislation to step up the attacks on the hospital workers. The Roswell Park administration is responding to Carter's call by attacking the workers, "dutifully" implementing "cost containment" to the letter. However, while the Roswell administration is intensifying its attacks, more and more these attacks are backfiring in their faces. Instead of increased discipline, there is increasing defiance of the fascist dictates of the administration and its lackey supervisors. The Roswell Park workers are in the mood for struggle. Now is the time to step up the struggle against increased workloads, and against the fascist labor discipline which is imposed to enforce them. By stepping up the struggle against increased workloads, the workers can land a powerful blow against the "cost containment" program.

Step up the struggle against increased workloads!

Mass active resistance is the way to defend the workers' basic interests!

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Richard Lipsitz Is Still the President!

(The following article is taken from a statement issued by the Buffalo Branch of the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA on April2, 1980.)

On March 17, the CSEA Regional Trial Board suspended Richard Lipsitz from the office of president of Local 303. As all the Roswell Park workers know, Richard is an ardent fighter for the workers' cause and a militant supporter of the Marxist-Leninist Party. And that is precisely the reason the top labor bureaucrats of CSEA/AFSCME have waged a seven month long, reactionary campaign -- starting from the moment he took office -- to drive him from office.

The top labor bureaucrats of the CSEA/AFSCME use the official trade union to cooperate with the class enemy, the rich. They use the official trade union to preach submission to the enemy's attacks and to sabotage the workers' just struggles. And they use the official trade union to tie the workers to the political parties -- Democratic and Republican -- of the rich. According to the top labor bureaucrats, it is illegal for the workers to use the trade union to defend and pursue their own class interests against the interests of the rich. It is illegal to resist the attacks of the rich, such as "cost containment," through the trade union. It is illegal to be active inside the trade union for working class politics independent of the rich and their political parties.

And so, despite the workers' democratic election of Richard Lipsitz as their union president, despite the workers' continued and increased support for Richard in the face of a big reactionary campaign organized by the labor bureaucracy and the Roswell administration to discredit him and drive him from office -- despite this the labor bureaucrats decided Richard must go. Fine and dandy! But, the workers at Roswell Park are having their own say on this question. The workers did not elect Richard president because the labor bureaucrats decided they should. Nor are the workers going to stop supporting Richard as their president because the labor bureaucrats say they should. No, the stand of the workers is in complete opposition to the stand of the labor bureaucrats. The workers say: Richard Lipsitz is still the president! Richard is a fighter; a leader and an organizer of the workers' struggle against "cost containment" and other attacks. He is a champion of the workers' genuine class interests against the rich, a militant supporter of the Marxist-Leninist Party, the party of the class conscious working class. That is why the workers support him, and no decisions or judgements passed down by the top labor bureaucrats can change that.

In fact, over the past period, while the labor bureaucrats have plotted and conspired behind the backs of the workers to expel Richard from office, the masses of workers have rallied to the line Richard represents, the line of the Marxist-Leninist Party, in greater numbers and with growing conviction and militancy.

Today, more than ever, it is crystal clear that mass active resistance is the correct trade union policy. The Marxist-Leninist Party advocates and helps the masses of workers to organize active resistance to the capitalists' attacks. At Roswell Park, as the attacks launched against the workers by the administration and the government keep on growing, the necessity for the workers to actively fight back and organize resistance to these attacks becomes more urgent every day. In the recent period, numerous struggles against overwork, firings, fascist labor discipline, etc., have been waged by the workers. The Marxist-Leninist Party is in the thick of these struggles, assisting the workers to get organized. But, precisely at this time, the labor bureaucrats have declared that it is illegal to use the trade union apparatus to organize struggle against these attacks. Showing their complete contempt for the workers' basic interests and demands, the labor bureaucrats have hardened their sellout stand. "Nothing can be done. The administration and the government have every right to attack the workers. The workers have no right to resist. That is the contract. That is the law." This statement sums up the stand of the labor bureaucrats. Thus, today it is clearer than ever before that to defend their interests, the workers must organize without and against the labor bureaucrats by relying on their own efforts. The workers must organize outside the official trade union channels, as well as fight inside the trade union against the sellout policy of the labor bureaucrats.

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Cyclic development--fundamental characteristic of the capitalist economy

(The following article is reprinted from the Albanian Telegraphic Agency News Bulletin, January 20, 1980.)

"The economy is weak"; "a series of difficulties rise on some fronts"; "since last spring a new economic recession has started" -- such assertions one frequently noticed last year on the pages of the American press. They are repeated by senior officials and are mentioned in reports and surveys on the country's economy. According to official forecasts, in March this year the overall national production will be 2.2% lower than in March last year. The same panorama of the economic recession is noticed also in the other capitalist and revisionist countries. Last year, the Soviet Union recorded grave failures in the main branches of the economy, especially in the energy and mining industries, in agriculture, etc. The economic difficulties were aggravated last year in revisionist China too, where the non-exploitation of the productive capacities in many branches of industry has reached 20-30%. The bourgeois-revisionist world continues to be in the grip of the grave crisis which started in 1974 and which is showing no signs of relaxation.

The present economic-financial crisis is one of the strongest the world of capital has ever experienced. It once more proves that the cyclic development has been and remains the fundamental characteristic of the capitalist bourgeois and revisionist economy. The fact is that during the last 145 years, capitalism has experienced the destructive crisis of overproduction 19 times. Taking into consideration its proportions, intensity, destructive force, duration of depression and cycle, the present crisis not only does not lag behind the world economic crisis of 1929-1933, but in some indexes it is graver than that. The industrial overproduction crisis is interlaced with the agrarian, energy, monetary, raw material, political, moral and ideological crises, thus sharpening the general crisis of capitalism to an unprecedented extent. During the first two years of the present crisis, 1974 and 1975, the industrial production in the capitalist- revisionist countries recorded the greatest recession after the Second World War: in Japan 20%, in Britain 15%, in the U.S.A. 14%, in France and Italy 13%, in West Germany. 10%, etc. This recession was accompanied by the bankruptcy en masse of the industrial and bank firms, with the growing chronic non-exploitation of the productive capacities, with the unprecedented increase of unemployment, inflation and prices. Unemployment in six main capitalist countries taken together is now four times greater than at the beginning of the crisis of the 30's. According to official data, unemployment in the capitalist-revisionist world has reached the figure of 110 million people, while in fact the unemployed are some dozens of millions more. Besides this, in 1979 as against 1963, the general index of prices of the mass consumer goods reached 228.6% in the U.S.A., 388.9% in Britain, 187.1% in West Germany, 367.7% in Italy, etc. The continuous price rise on a broad scale is noticed in Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union and in all the Comecon member countries. Revisionist China, too, embarked on the road of the frenzied price rise of mass consumer goods.

The blind alley which the economy of the capitalist-revisionist world has entered exposes the falsity of the theories of the advocates of capitalism, who have tried to prove that capitalism can be developed without crisis. It shows that neither the so-called arrangement of the economy by the state on the basis of state monopoly capitalism, nor "the programs" elaborated by the bourgeois-revisionist governments and parties to shift the burden of the crisis onto the shoulders of the working people, nor the attempts made by the imperialist and social-imperialist powers to pass their economic difficulties onto the back of the other countries, can stop the crisis avalanche. The perspectives are gloomy and the forecasts show a further worsening of the economic indexes during this year. According to an economic survey made in the context of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the recession will continue in the countries of this organization. The total national production in the U.S.A. will be 1.25% lower than last year while a recession of 2% is expected to occur in Britain. It is also expected that prices, inflation and unemployment will rise still more during the current year. Three million people will be added to the army of the unemployed in the countries of the OECD.

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GE workers oppose the class collaborationist policy of "Keeping the peace in the family"

(The following article is taken from The Louisville Worker, newspaper of the Louisville Branch of the Leninist Party of the USA. Vol. 1, No. 3, March 1, 1980.)

In March, Local 761 of the IUE will hold elections for officers of the union. This is a good time for the workers to assess the important battles they are waging against the attacks of the GE moneybags. It is a time when the workers should discuss the issues facing them and how to continue their struggle and develop it further. Currently, the GE workers are embroiled in struggle against the vicious productivity campaign of the GE capitalists. This campaign is aimed at maximizing profits by intensifying the workers' labor. In addition, hundreds of workers have been thrown out of their jobs as a result of GE's layoffs. The layoffs pose a problem for the unemployed workers, who suffer a loss of income, as well as the employed workers, who suffer from extreme job insecurity and intensification of their labor. Furthermore, the workers are subjected to increasingly stricter rules imposed upon them by GE in an effort to enforce their productivity campaign. Their policy on absenteeism is particularly harsh, as workers are fired or disciplined for "breaking the rules." These are important issues facing the GE workers today.

The GE workers are following the path of active resistance and are learning this is the correct path forward. The workers have refused to accept written "warnings" for absenteeism. They have waged slowdowns against the intensification of their labor and have refused overtime to oppose layoffs. In January, 1200 workers on the second shift of Building #1 walked out in opposition to the productivity campaign. After laying off hundreds of workers, GE then tried to take workers off their regular jobs and put them on other jobs in order to get the same amount of production out with the smaller workforce. In addition to the walkout on second shift, 150 workers in Building #1 on the dryer line walked out when GE launched the same attack on first shift.

This resistance movement of the workers terrifies the GE moneybags, who are driven into a frenzy in their efforts to suppress the workers' just struggles. To fulfill their aim of sabotaging the workers' struggles, GE seeks to impose a union policy contrary to active resistance. The policy of the rich is embodied in the political line of class collaboration. At GE, this collaboration comes up in the line of "keeping peace in the family." This is the policy promoted by the GE foreman and the opportunist lackeys and agents of the rich in the workers ranks. This policy of "keeping peace in the family" is aimed at suppressing the workers' resistance. It is a line which serves the interests of GE and is a disaster for the workers. The workers and the capitalists are not one "big, happy family," as the rich would like the workers to believe. Rather, the relationship is one of two antagonistic classes. The working class produces all the goods and services in society and the capitalists live the life of luxury by exploiting the working people and performing no labor. These two classes are locked in a life and death struggle for survival and they do not prosper and benefit equally. Rather, one class develops at the expense of the other. The gain of one is the loss of the other. Therefore, there will never be "peace" between the two, nor should there be. The working class is stepping up its just struggle against the reactionary attacks of the capitalists and their government and will continue to fight until its complete emancipation from wage slavery. While GE organizes one attack after another, the workers are told not to resist, but to "keep peace in the family" and that, somehow, this will benefit them, too. However, in reality, GE's productivity campaign has resulted in layoffs, the elimination of job classifications, speedups and firings for "absenteeism." And for GE, the productivity campaign has resulted in earnings of $1.4 billion in 1979 -- an increase of 14.6% over the previous year! Thus, it is clear, the policy of "keeping peace in the family" has meant increased wealth for GE and increased hardship and poverty for the workers.

While GE carries out its vicious productivity campaign to step up the exploitation of the workers, the lackeys of GE advocate that "GE has the right to organize production as they see fit." This view attempts to sabotage the workers' just resistance to the productivity campaign by telling the workers to sit and passively accept the intensification of their labor. The workers are the actual producers of the appliances at GE. They have every right to have a say in how the production is organized and carried out -- especially when their working conditions and wages are being attacked so viciously by GE's reorganization of production. In order for the workers to protect their vital interests, they must oppose this view of GE having "the right to organize production as they see fit" and step up the struggle against the attacks.

To enforce their productivity campaign, GE uses reactionary rules to suppress the workers' resistance struggle and create an atmosphere of intimidation among the workers. In January, the GE workers exposed the use of security guards' surveillance of the production workers as one way GE is increasing the jailhouse working conditions. GE is also stepping up the firings of workers for absenteeism; and even firing some workers who have accumulated several years of seniority. GE's fascist absentee policy is aimed at instilling fear in the workers on the one hand; and, on the other hand, GE uses the issue of absenteeism to attack the workers for "low productivity" and sow splits among the workers by claiming labor intensification is the result of worker absenteeism, rather than their productivity campaign. The workers have refused to accept written warnings of discipline and have denounced the firings for absenteeism. Yet, the lackeys in the workers ranks promote "GE has the right to make reasonable rules -- this has been upheld by the NLRB." In this way, while the workers are justly resisting the jailhouse working conditions and the unjust firings, the lackeys are working to sabotage the workers' just struggles from within.

Layoffs are another way in which GE shifts the burden of the economic crisis onto the workers' backs and which are an inevitable outcome of their productivity campaign. The lackeys in the workers ranks completely deny the source of layoffs and call upon the workers to attack their class brothers and sisters in other countries by promoting the lie that "foreign imports cause layoffs." This lie will never lead the workers to fight layoffs because it denies the true source of the problem, the monopoly capitalist system, and puts up a smokescreen to let the rich off the hook. While GE is laying off workers, the same amount of production is being put out. By intensifying the labor of the remaining workers and through overtime, GE is able to produce the same amount of appliances with fewer workers. Thus, it is not "foreign competition" which is causing layoffs, but GE's stepped-up exploitation.

The purpose of all the lies of GE and their lackeys in the workers' movement is to sabotage the just resistance struggle of the workers. Therefore, anyone who has the interest of the workers in mind must not only advocate the fight for the workers interests, but they must also fight against the policy of "keeping peace in the family." This election campaign is a good time to denounce this policy and to stand up for the policy of active resistance against the attacks of the GE moneybags.

Down with GE's productivity campaign!

Oppose unjust firings!

Fight GE's layoffs!

Active resistance against capitalist attacks is the correct trade union policy!

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Workers in Louisville rally to fight police attack on the MLP

(The following article is adapted from The Louisville Worker, newspaper of the Louisville Branch of the Leninist Party of the USA, Vol. 1, No. 3, March 1, 1980.)

In order to suppress the workers from developing their struggle against the rich, the Philip Morris capitalists, the Louisville police and courts teamed up to attack and jail comrade Barbara Powell, a supporter of the MLP (see The Workers' Advocate, Vol. 10, No. 1, January 15, 1980 for full details). The MLP's work to organize the workers, expose the attacks of the rich, popularize the resistance and give the workers orientation and tactics in their struggle, has played an important part in the resistance movement of the Philip Morris workers. The Philip Morris capitalists had hoped that the attacks on November 28 would keep the MLP from speaking to the contract that the capitalists were trying to impose on the workers. Philip Morris had hoped to stop the distribution of revolutionary literature to the workers, embroil the comrades in court battles and smash their influence among the masses.

But the militant Philip Morris workers and the MLP smashed this plot. At the time of the police assault, the workers vigorously denounced the attack and called on the police thug to take off his gun and fight the workers. Later, the workers put out the "Open Letter From Philip Morris Militants," which denounced the jailing of comrade Barbara and supported the MLP's distribution of revolutionary literature at Philip Morris. And with the Party, the workers organized to step up the distribution of revolutionary literature at Philip Morris and at other factories and communities throughout the city. Workers at many factories came out in opposition to the police attacks and some organizations made statements in support of comrade Barbara's struggle.

The courts pronounced comrade Barbara "guilty" for organizing the Philip Morris workers. Yet the struggle of the workers against the unjust jailing, the Party's campaign against police attacks, the growing city wide resistance movement and comrade Barbara's vigorous fight inside the court itself, all put pressure on the Philip Morris capitalists and the government to back down in their attack. In an attempt to put an end to this issue, keep the politics from coming out in the courtroom and stop the outrage that was developing citywide among the workers and masses of people, the court, on February 8, voided the six months jail sentence against her, and instead imposed probation and fines.

On February 17, the Louisville Branch of the MLP organized a meeting of the workers to sum up the campaign against police attacks. Workers from Philip Morris and from several other factories and work places attended the meeting. They discussed the all-round development of the resistance movement of the workers in the factories, the struggle against fascist police attacks, and the work of the MLP in these struggles. At the meeting a militant resolution was passed calling on the masses of workers to "Step Up the Fight Against the Rich." The resolution declared, that the workers present at the meeting would work night and day to organize the workers struggles, extend the distribution of revolutionary literature in the factories and throughout the city, and orient the masses of workers to an active resistance against the attacks of the rich and their government.

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Industrial Brutality and Murder by the Philip Morris Capitalists

(The following article is reprinted from The Louisville Worker, newspaper of the Louisville Branch of the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA, Vol. 1, No. 3, March 1, 1980.)

In the past month, one worker has died of a heart attack while working at Philip Morris and another worker was brutally attacked by a reactionary foreman. The rich owners of Philip Morris will stop at nothing to maximize their profits. Philip Morris sends their dog-like foremen to maim the workers and drive them to early deaths. But even these vicious attacks will not stop the workers from stepping up their fight against the Philip Morris billionaires.

These savage attacks will strengthen the workers in their fight against Philip Morris' hated program of "utilizing the workers' time"!

On Sunday, February 10, a worker on the third shift was brutally attacked by a foreman. The worker's machine was jammed and she repeatedly told the foreman, Ron Leach, to get a mechanic to fix it. Leach, whose only interest is to help the company get out production, ignored the worker's advice to get a mechanic and demanded that she solve the problem and start the machine. When it was clear that the machine was jammed, Leach, acting like a rabid dog, impatiently grabbed the worker and smashed her thumb in the jammed machine. Even though Philip Morris would like to sweep this incident under the rug like all the other attacks against the workers, the workers are discussing it and denouncing the foremen's vile activities against them.

On February 21, 1980, Henry C. White, Jr., who was only 50 years old, had a fatal heart attack while working on the third shift at Philip Morris. Mr. White was not feeling well; however, his foreman would not give him a pass for first aid. As a result, some of Mr. White's friends and fellow workers found him passed out on the floor and rushed him over to see the nurse in first aid. This was the last time his coworkers saw Mr. White alive. Philip Morris does not even have a licensed doctor on the third shift nor do they have adequate medical facilities to deal with emergencies like heart attacks. Philip Morris does not care a lick about the workers' health and safety, and is only concerned with "utilizing their time" to the maximum, no matter if it drives the workers to early graves.

Both of these savage attacks on the workers' lives and physical well-being clearly show how the rich fill their pockets at the workers' expense. At Philip Morris, as throughout Louisville, the workers are developing their fight against intensification of their labor, wage cuts, mandatory overtime, fascist labor discipline and reactionary foremen. The Philip Morris moneybags use their foremen like wardens, to harass and attack the workers with the aim of stopping the workers' growing resistance. But no amount of harassment, brutal physical attacks, or even murder will stop the workers from advancing their resistance against attacks from the rich.

Comrade workers, turn grief into strength.

Down with the industrial brutality and murder by Philip Morris!

Step up the fight against the rich and their government!

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THE UAW'S ANTI-JAPANESE IMPORT HYSTERIA IS BETRAYAL OF THE AUTO WORKERS

(The following leaflet was issued by the Detroit Branch of the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA, on April 10, 1980.)

Ever since the 1979 sellout contracts were imposed on the auto workers, Doug Fraser and the other top UAW hacks have shouted themselves hoarse against foreign car imports. They have picketed Japanese car dealerships. They have launched a "Buy American" campaign. They demand that foreign auto capitalists must build plants here and exploit American workers. And they threaten to "get tough and push for import quotas." This anti-import hysteria is a continuation of the longstanding betrayal of the workers by Fraser and his cronies.

Presently the auto workers are under savage attack by the auto billionaires. Over 200,000 (one out of every four) auto workers are laid off. Many plants have been permanently closed, while threats of even more shutdowns are issued every day. The overproduction crisis in the auto industry is again taking on drastic proportions as the capitalist economy is rapidly sliding into another recession. The auto workers are being thrown into the unemployment lines because they have built too many cars for the market to bear.

Moreover, the workers are being thrown out of their jobs on a massive scale by the auto monopolists' ruthless productivity drive. Jobs are being eliminated through automation (robots, computers, retooling, etc.) and through job combination and ferocious speedup. As well, the old inefficient plants are being shut down and production concentrated in the plants which exploit the workers to the highest possible degree. The workers' livelihood is being undermined at a rapid rate.

In this crisis where are the mighty warriors, the militant labor leaders of the UAW? These traitors are on the other side. Fraser has not lifted a finger to defend the workers' jobs from the attacks of the auto capitalists. And now he is scrambling to divert the workers' growing anger away from the auto magnates and direct it against the Japanese. The top UAW hacks have cranked up their anti-import hysteria to provide a scapegoat for the crimes of the rich. They are trying to hitch the auto workers to the coattails of the American auto magnates in their competition and economic war with the monopolists of other countries. And they are trying to convince the auto workers to regard their class brothers, the workers of other countries, as their enemies. Moreover, the anti-import hysteria aims to trick the workers into eagerly cooperating and sacrificing to make the American monopolies more competitive, as a step towards greater job security. But such cooperation, as the last auto contract proved, means only a one-way trip to the unemployment lines. Fraser's banner of fighting imports to save jobs is a fraud. The UAW bureaucrats have never fought for job security for the workers and they never will.

The Labor Hacks Support the Job Cutting Productivity Drives

For example, the top UAW hacks have always been enthusiastic supporters of the monopoly capitalists' productivity drives. They want the workers to work harder and faster to make the U.S. companies more competitive against foreign imports. They claim that this will somehow protect the workers jobs. Fraser himself, during the 1979 contract negotiations, even declared in a letter to the Detroit News that "The key to higher living standards is higher productivity." What a hoax! It is the everyday experience of the workers that the productivity drives do not mean protecting jobs and better living standards, but unemployment and poverty.

Just look at the disaster which has befallen the Chrysler workers. Last fall the labor bureaucrats were moaning "Chrysler is in trouble. They need help to modernize and improve their competitive position. The workers must make concessions in order to save their jobs." The contract imposed on the Chrysler workers turned over $460 million in "sacrifices" to the auto capitalists. In addition, $200 million was "sacrificed" from the pension fund. These sacrifices did not save a single job. On the contrary, Chrysler continues to retool, shut down inefficient plants and eliminate jobs on a mass scale. Since the contract Chrysler workers have witnessed the closing of Dodge Main, Lyons Trim, Fostoria Foundry in Ohio, and the announced closing of Eight Mile-Outer Drive Stamping. When questioned about this latest plant closing, UAW Vice-President Marc Stepp replied "Oh, we knew about that a long time ago!" What a shameful admission! All the time they were promising that sacrifices would save jobs, the labor traitors knew that thousands more Chrysler workers would be thrown into the streets! (In all fairness, however, we must admit that there was one job that was saved -- Fraser's. He's now on the Board of Directors.)

But perhaps, some people might say, the hacks have learned their lesson from the Chrysler sellout and will now put up a fight. Not on your life! They still support the capitalists' productivity drives and job elimination schemes down the line. Just listen to the words of Mike Rinaldi, president of the Ford Rouge Local 600: "now that the auto industry management has finally recognized the necessity to get involved in sweeping programs to remake their product lines and retool virtually all of their plants, as an example here on our home grounds, the Ford Motor Company has announced that they will be spending an average of about $4 billion a year during the 1979-1984 period for retooling." (Ford Facts, March 10, 1980) Rinaldi is well aware of what this "modernization plan" will mean for the workers, as he points out "The Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) recently completed a survey of top manufacturing managers and engineers who predicted that 20% of the workers employed in the direct assembly of a car will be replaced by robots by 1985 and that 50% of the workers will be replaced by 1995. White-collar workers face the same type of unemployment through the introduction of microprocessor technology into the office." (Ford Facts, Feb. 11, 1980) But does Rinaldi propose to fight for the workers' job security against these attacks? Not at all. He hails this program to throw thousands more auto workers into the streets. At the same time it is this same Rinaldi who is shouting loudest that it is the foreign workers who are stealing jobs! (In fact, it was Rinaldi who organized the picket of the Toyota dealership in Dearborn.)

Only Mass Struggle Against the Rich Can Preserve Jobs

The anti-Japanese campaign is aimed at recruiting the U.S. workers as willing slaves in the capitalists' economic wars and at crushing their resistance to the layoffs, plant closings, speedup, job combination and other attacks on their livelihood. But the workers will have none of this. The rabid chauvinist hysteria has not mobilized the masses of workers, but is only a creature of the hacks and the capitalist media. Instead workers are taking into their own hands the struggle to defend their basic interests and to resist the monopoly capitalists' attacks. Workers are organizing slowdowns to meet productivity drive. Strikes are longer and more frequent. Wildcats recently broke out at the Chrysler Tank Plant in Lima, Ohio. There hundreds of workers walked out when Chrysler demanded that they work overtime while other workers were laid off. As well, the International Harvester workers have dealt the capitalists a powerful blow by striking for 5 months against forced overtime and a productivity drive aimed at eliminating 10,000 jobs while increasing sales by 40%. From their own experience the workers are more and more realizing that to defend their jobs and livelihood they must rely on their own efforts, oppose the sabotage of Fraser and the other UAW hacks, and wage determined mass struggle against the rich auto monopolists.

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The West Indian Voice

CONDEMN THE GOVERNMENT'S PERSECUTION OF IMMIGRANTS

(The following article is reprinted from The West Indian Voice, newspaper of the Caribbean Progressive Study Group, February-March 1980.)

In a recent raid at the Port Authority Mid-Town Bus Terminal [New York City], the fascist agents of the Immigration and Naturalization Service hauled scores of persons from the lines where they were waiting for buses, as well as from inside the buses, and arrested 85 domestic workers on the charge of being "suspected illegal aliens." These workers were detained for several hours in makeshift detention rooms at the bus terminal; most were then transported to the Federal Plaza Building and then to the jails of the INS. It has been announced that 25 of these workers are to be held for possible deportation to the Caribbean.

This raid followed a much larger raid at a Brooklyn factory some weeks before, where over 300 workers were abused and arrested by the gestapo officials of the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

The stepped-up gangster-style persecution of immigrants and other workers is a conscious and deliberate racist and fascist policy of the government of the rich. "Peacenik" Carter's Attorney General, Benjamin Civiletti, has recently announced that the government plans to focus the hunting down of immigrants at the work places more than at the homes, which are referred to as "Residential Area Control Investigations."

With this plan, the work places are going to be policed closer and the raids of the gestapo officials of the INS conducted on a wider scale. They aim to hunt down the immigrant workers and terrorize all the workers, whether of immigrant or other origin, as have occurred with all of the raids carried out by the INS. With the announcement of this plan, the government has codified its policy of launching hitlerite attacks on the immigrant workers in order to step up its attacks on the entire working class.

The Carter administration takes the posture that it is attacking the immigrant workers and people out of its unbounded concern and love for the rest of the working class. The labor hacks of the AFL-CIO are ardent supporters of Carter's campaign against the immigrants, and have banned the admittance of "illegal" workers into their unions. The reactionaries are claiming that by terrorizing the immigrant workers, launching their gestapo raids at work places and homes, while stampeding over all the working class and people, that they are going to provide jobs for other workers and will be making more services available to people. At the same time, the Carter administration has imposed wage controls and back-breaking productivity drives on the entire working class, and has officiated at the firing of hundreds of thousands of workers from their jobs in cities across the U.S.

In reality, the rich and their stooges are carrying out a wild campaign of lying hysteria and terrorizing the immigrants. This is in order to scapegoat the immigrants for the evils of the man-eating capitalist system of the rich and to disguise the fascist program which the rich are imposing on the entire working class and broad masses of people, to split up their ranks and drive them to further enslavement. When the Carter administration, for example, activated its massive chauvinist crusade against the Iranian people and the Iranian revolution, and announced that the Immigration and Naturalization Service was to carry out a fascist roundup of some 65,000 Iranian students resident in the U.S., to fingerprint, photograph, screen and also deport all who supported their people's glorious revolution, Carter's Attorney General announced immediately after that they had plans to investigate all of the estimated 280,000 foreign students residing in the U.S.

The attacks organized against the immigrant peoples in the U.S. are part of the overall campaign of the government of the rich to suppress the working class movement. The rich aim to create a quiet home front, whereby the working class and people would be viciously suppressed into submission to the fascist, warmongering ambitions of the U.S. imperialists. The U.S. imperialists try to confuse who is the enemy of the people in the society, so they single out people of definite national origin, such as the Iranian residents, for special attacks, with the hope of splitting the proletariat and lining up the American working class and people behind this reactionary program.

In Germany in the 1930's, when the monopoly capitalist system was in deep crisis and the German imperialists were preparing for aggressive war, the bourgeoisie installed Hitler and imposed fascism on the German people. To put the entire German working class and people under fascist slavery and tie them to the Nazi war machine, the Hitlerites carried out the most barbaric persecution and slaughter of the Jews, Slavs and other peoples. In the U.S. today, while the various nazi sects of Hitler worshippers and the Ku Klux Klan carry out open propaganda for Hitlerism, assault and murder people with the protection of the police forces of the rich, the monopoly capitalist state is intensifying the racial discrimination and violent repression against the Afro-American people and other oppressed national minorities. And, the monopoly capitalist state is stepping up its gestapo persecution of immigrants, and floating hitlerite lies and slanders against them.

In the face of these attacks of the government on the immigrants, the immigrant communities have no choice but to get organized to wage a fierce blow for blow struggle against these attacks. The entire working class and all progressive people must fight the vicious persecution of the immigrants.

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Recapture the true spirit of our people's culture-on the origins of carnival

(The following article is reprinted from The West Indian Voice, newspaper of the Caribbean Progressive Study Group, February-March 1980.)

INTRODUCTION -- In this issue of The West Indian Voice, are concluding the series on the true spirit of the culture of the West Indian people. In Issue No. 8 we presented Part Two of a three-part series on CARNIVAL -- THE FESTIVAL OF PROTEST. Carnival, a festival of the people of Trinidad and Tobago, is one of the festivals of the West Indies which is most distorted by the reactionary state in the U.S. and its agents in the community. It is a festival of protest which has been converted into a state-funded extravaganza, for the traitors and the state to slander the community as a "happy-go-lucky bunch of people" and to mock the militant customs and traditions of the West Indian people by promoting in the place of these proud traditions, all sorts of smut and degeneracy, which is then attributed to our community. In order to drag this festival in the mud, the state established the West Indian American Day Carnival Association, run by its well-fed traitors to the West Indian people, and gave to these traitors the task of organizing the prostitution of the Carnival which they now call the West Indian American Day Parade. In 1977, for example, the state launched the bourgeois black politician and poverty pimp, Percy Sutton, as "Grand Marshall" of this "parade. And in 1978 almost every politician vying for office was seen on Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn, with Mayor Koch and Governor Hugh Carey on hand and visible. This "parade" was led by these completely soldout agents of the rich, under the official escort and protection of U.S. Navy cars and hundreds of police.

Calypso -- Protest or Obscene Frivolity?

The shantwell leaders of the stick-fight bands became the calypsonians. In many ways this is an oversimplification. The development of calypso as a musical and poetic form has its origins in peasant and tribal cultural forms. In Venezuela, among the people of Amerindian descent, there was a type of topical song known as CARISO. It is felt that the musical form of calypso is influenced strongly by a Venezuelan- Amerindian dance tune known as PASEO. West African topical songs known as WUSO also were known in the Caribbean.

It is recorded by Bryan Edwards, an 18th century historian, in The History, Civil and Commercial, of the British Colonies that the slaves sang songs of a calypso type:

"At the merry meetings and midnight festivals they are not without ballads of another kind, adapted for such occasions, and here they give full scope to a talent for ridicule, which is exercised not only against each other but also, not infrequently, at the expense of their owner or employer...."

The following is recorded in the Journal of a West Indian Proprietor by Matthew Lewis, a slave owner of Jamaica. This song was sung by the leader of a slave revolt, "the King of the Eboes," during the preparations for the revolt.

"Oh me good friend, Mr. Wilberforce,

make we free!

God almighty thank ye!

God almighty thank ye!

God almighty make we free!

Bukra in this country,

no make we free

What negro for to do?

What negro for to do?

Take force by force!

Take force by force!

Chorus:

To be sure! To be sure! To be sure!"

In 1899, the editorial of the Port-of-Spain Gazette refers to calypso singing and the original mas tents:

"There are various bands of these roughs which have been organised for the coming carnival (and who) congregate, we understand, for the practising of ribald songs which are to be sung during the two days of the fete. These songs are for the most part intended to bring certain persons into ridicule...

The first known calypso in English is critical of the Governor Jerningham, for his interference in the affairs of the Port-of-Spain City Council. It was sung in 1898:

"Jerningham the Governor

Is a fastness in to you

Is a rudeness in to you

To break up the laws

Of the Borough Council"

The essence of calypso is protest. The calypsonian has always been the spokesman for the sentiments of the oppressed. Following the strike of the dockworkers in 1919, the calypsonian "Chinese Patrick" sang:

"Class legislation is the order of this land

We are ruled with the iron hand--"

During the famous strike of the oil workers in South Trinidad in 1937, a "striker's calypso" was sung; some of the lyrics were as follows:

"We workers is so many

Working for de oil company

We strike in Point an Fyzabad

Against the oil robbers of Trinidad...."

Up till at feast 1960, this striker's calypso was sung by Jab Molassi in Fyzabad.

On the campus at University of the West Indies St. Augustine, the Calypso King for 1970, the Mindbender sang:

"If anyone feel it aint go have war in dis country

Is either he deaf, he drunk or he dam stupidy...."

A great transformation took place in calypso as a direct result of the occupation of Trinidad by American imperialist soldiers during the war of 1939- 1945. The capitalist-minded tent managers saw money-making possibilities in the presence of Yankee soldiers roaming the streets of the city in search of entertainment, with their pockets filled with Yankee dollars.

The hardship of the war years, the constant shortages and rationing, the shortage of money and employment, led to the birth and the rapid growth of prostitution in the cities. The daughters and wives of poor workers were driven by economic hardship to prostitute themselves to American soldiers. The East Dry River area in Port-of- Spain and the village of Carenage became the hunting grounds for Yankee soldiers. The urban men hated the soldiers and there were many violent clashes between the young men of the city and the Yankee soldiers.

The naked and vicious exploitation of the women was the price extracted from our country for the presence of American imperialist troops.

Some of the calypso tents became the dens of obscene vulgarity as singers prostituted themselves and their art to the decadence of the American soldiers.

A struggle developed between the Old Brigade calypsonians striving to retain the old Kaiso; and the Young Brigade calypsonians offering their art for sale to the Americans by catering more and more to the tastes of the Americans. Smut and all forms of vulgar frivolity took over these tents as nightclub-type entertainment was provided for the Yankee occupiers.

More or less, the Young Brigade won out and the calypso as we know it today resulted. However, there are calypsonians who have resisted the decadence and who have kept Old Brigade-type calypso alive. The extent of the control of the media over the values and ideas of our people is demonstrated by the fact that the calypsonian who sings protest songs today is regarded as a rebel.

Tourist Festival

Because of their control of the machinery of the state, the ruling classes have been able to suppress those aspects of Carnival which served the interests of the masses of people with the aid of their laws and the threat and use of armed force.

With their newspapers, radio and television and through the financing of competitions they have promoted the Carnival that serves the interests of the hotel owners, food and drink manufacturers, and the mas factory owners posing as band leaders. They have shaped and molded a new Carnival to cater to the tastes of the tourists. The police and the courts were given special Carnival instructions to protect the tourists in 1976.

All Carnival pictures in tourist brochures and magazines show flimsily clad women, dancing with legs exposed, belly exposed, breasts exposed, wining and gyrating.

Carnival advertisements promote the idea of brown-skinned girls, barely clothed and laughing invitingly at tourists.

Trinidad is promoted as a country of fun, of happy-go-lucky people. Massive banners stream across all the main roads advertising Free Contraceptives for Carnival. Sex and Carnival are promoted and made into synonyms as these Carnival banners warn against Carnival Babies.

Male and female prostitution is openly advertised. Calypsoes tell "Miss Tourist" about the power of the "Iron Man." Calypsoes telling about a "Bum-bum" carnival "Saltfish," and "TutTuts" are promoted by the radio stations.

Calypsoes such as Sparrow's "Jamming" are promoted and the jamming dance was promoted as the dance for 1976. As a result of the tremendous influence of the advertising machine of the capitalists, mas players told to jam one another in front or behind, were doing just that in order to be "with it."

Recapture the Spirit of Carnival

Today the masses of the people are being driven away from Carnival. Bands which formerly fielded thousands of people in the great military mas of the times, now struggle to draw together a couple hundred.

There are, however, a few protest bands. The opposition of the masses to the sellout of Carnival continues to grow. The Carnival "Development" Committee set up by the puppet regime in Trinidad and Tobago is popularly spoken of among the working class and people as the Carnival Destruction Committee. And in 1979 there was a landslide boycott of the Carnival shows and competitions, the largest ever.

Reject this sellout of the Carnival. Recapture and develop the true spirit of Carnival -- the West Indian people's Festival of Protest -- as culture and festivities for, by and in the service of the interests of the broad popular masses, not for the rich money-grabbers and their stooges.

Down with sellouts and traitors!

Recapture the true spirit of Carnival!

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"Albania, Bastion of World Revolution and Socialism"

This is a song written by comrades of the Caribbean Progressive Study Group in New York City.

[Sheet music.]

1944 marked de end of war

Marked de downfall ah foreign aggressors

Dis year, de 35th anniversary

We saluting dis great victory

CHORUS:

Albania, you are de bastion ah

World revolution and socialism

Showing dem stinking imperialists and

All dem opportunists you mean business

In we small countries, we enemies say

Socialism eh go see de light ah day

Dey trying to put a lot ah doubts in we head

Well tell dem dey wrong

Is red we turning red

CHORUS

From de example of Albania

De masses rising up all de world over

Revolution not just an aspiration

But a problem taken up for solution

CHORUS

De Chinese rightists, with imperialists

Promoting dey 'three worlds theory'

Well we could see is wed dey wed

Till death due dem part

And is we who killing dem dead

CHORUS

We go win dis war, like dey did in '44

Guided by de PLA and Enver Hoxha

Guided by de line ah de CPTT*

We going straight down de road to socialism

CHORUS (twice)

*Communist Party of Trinidad and Tobago

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Down with the racist murder of Larry Howard by the Detroit police!

On February 25, the Detroit Police brutally murdered Larry Howard, a 26 year old black worker employed as a rigger at Great Lakes Steel. The murder of Larry Howard is the latest example in the ongoing series of brutalizations, harassments and killings committed against the youth and workers of Detroit by Coleman Young's "cleaned up" and "reformed" Police Department.

On the evening of February 25 at 2:30 a.m., Larry Howard and a close friend, a laid off Uniroyal worker, were driving to Larry Howard's house on the southwest side of Detroit when their car ran out of gas. The two young workers then began walking home carrying an empty gas can. Along the way, the two men were stopped by the Detroit police and questioned about what they were doing out on the streets at 2:30 a.m. At this point the police, who treat all the black youth as dangerous criminals, jumped out of their squad car with guns drawn and demanded to search the two men. With his hands in the air, Larry Howard told the police that he had an unloaded gun under his coat and that he would surrender. At this point, police officer Robert May removed the gun from underneath Larry Howard's coat and threw it on the ground. While hurling all sorts of vicious racist abuse at Larry, policeman May then took his police revolver and began to hit Larry across the face, neck and shoulders with the barrel of his gun. With his hands still in the air, Larry Howard demanded that May stop beating him, but May refused. In self-defense Larry Howard punched and knocked the police thug to the ground. Policeman May then got up and shot Larry Howard in the chest at point blank range.

In an attempt to cover up and justify the brutal racist murder, the Detroit police took the other young worker to jail. During this time, the police were frantic in their attempts to picture the two young workers as criminals. They sent out a teletype to cities as far away as Cincinnati hoping to pin a car theft or hold-up on Larry and his friend. But their efforts were in vain and they had to let Larry's friend go after holding him for several days without charges.

Working hand-in-glove with the police, the Detroit News ran a typical racist story to cover up and justify the murder of Larry Howard. The newspaper article concocted a whole picture of Larry and his friend as armed gangsters who pulled a gun on the police. The story then went on to prettify the coldblooded murder of Larry Howard by saying that the police "inadvertently" "discharged" his gun while trying to disarm Larry. These are the same worn-out lies that have been used for years by the police and their apologists in the news media to justify the murders of scores of youth and workers. These concocted stories are used to blame the people for the murderous crimes of the police. They are also used to hide the real criminal histories of the police killers like Officer Robert May, who has taken part in several shootings of the people in the past, including the slaying of a 13 year old black youth for stealing a bike.

The police murder of Larry Howard has come only a few weeks after the brutal beating murder of Edgar Smith in the 2nd Precinct jail. While in his jail cell, Edgar Smith was beaten by police with a black jack and tortured with an electric cattle prod and then left in agony moaning on the cell floor, only to be found dead hours later. In the days and weeks since the public announcement of Edgar Smith's murder large numbers of youth and workers have come forward to testify about being tortured by the Detroit police using the barbaric electric shock cattle prods. And in recent days, Detroit Chief of Police, William Hart has openly admitted the widespread use of the instruments of torture in the jails and precinct houses across Detroit.

The racist police murders of Larry Howard and Edgar Smith, the countless other unpublicized murders and the recent disclosures of the use of electric (cattle prod) shock torture by the Detroit police all expose the anti-people nature of Coleman Young's administration. Mayor Young is a slick liberal-labor politician. He is the vice- chairman of the Democratic Party and a long-time supporter of Jimmy Carter. Coleman Young came to power in 1973 with promises to "clean up the police department" and to abolish STRESS (the police squad which ambushed and murdered more than 20 black people). But it is the same Coleman Young, the "crusader against police brutality and against STRESS," who now has James Bannon, the mastermind and commander of STRESS as the number two man in charge of the police force. Mayor Young has kept the STRESS program but simply left off the name. It is this "street fighter for the people" who has viciously attacked the garbage workers and bus drivers through job eliminations and harassment on the job. The everyday experience of the youth and workers shows that nothing has changed. In Coleman Young's Detroit the youth and workers face constant police harassment, they are held in the police jail at 1300 Beaubien for days on end with no charges at all or on trumped-up charges, and they see their friends beaten and shot dead on the streets by the police. It is clear that Coleman Young was put into office as a black front man for the capitalist billionaires for the sole purpose of deception to hide and serve the racist and anti-working class rule of the rich. The murders and terrorism of the police brings home the fact that, behind the "pro-labor" and "pro-minorities" mask of the likes of Coleman Young and the other Democratic Party hacks, the rich are developing reaction and fascism to suppress the working class and people.

The murders of Larry Howard and Edgar Smith and the disclosures of the cattle prod torture scandal have ignited the burning outrage of the people of Detroit. The working class and people of Detroit have a glorious tradition of struggle against exploitation, racial discrimination and violent repression. The police terrorism against the people must be fought with mass revolutionary struggle.

Down with the Racist Police Murder of Larry Howard!

(Leaflet issued by the Detroit Branch of the Marxist-Leninist Party of the USA, March 11,1980.)

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The Kennedy "Alternative to Inflation" -- Mandatory Wage Controls and Savage Repression of the Workers' Movement

The present 18% rate of inflation is a catastrophic problem confronting the working class and the broad masses of the people. All the capitalist politicians -- Democrats and Republicans, Carter, Reagan and the rest -- are promising solutions to this major problem. But each of the election year "anti-inflation" schemes of these political flunkeys of the rich amounts to cuts in real wages, speedup, cutbacks in social services, and the continuation of the soaring cost of living. There is no relief from runaway inflation in the false promises and the anti-working class measures proposed by the two-faced capitalist politicians. The same goes for the lies of Senator Ted Kennedy and his supposedly "alternative" measures which are no alternative at all.

This so-called "liberal" of the wretched "left wing" of the Democratic Party is loudly campaigning for mandatory wage-price controls. This, Kennedy claims, is the only "meaningful alternative" to the "meaningless" measures of the Carter administration. Kennedy stands for the "strong measure" of mandatory wage controls to ban wage increases by government decree. The first objective of such wage controls is to suppress workers' strikes and other mass struggles which are the sole means the workers possess to protect themselves from the ravages of inflation. In short, the Kennedy "alternative" is the same program of monopoly capital to place the entire burden of the economic crisis onto the shoulders of the working masses through the savage repression of the workers' movement -- through wage freezes, productivity drives, unbearable taxation and no letup in skyrocketing inflation.

Kennedy Stumps for Nixon Style Wage-Price Controls to Break Strikes and Cut Wages

Senator Ted Kennedy is the typical liberal-labor political hack of the Democratic Party. Kennedy is the darling of the top trade union bureaucrats and of the social-democrats. Despite its false mask of being "the party of labor and the minorities," the Democratic Party is equally the party of monopoly capitalist reaction as the Republican Party of "big business." And despite Kennedy's false pose as "the friend of the working man," in reality he is a bitter enemy of the working class. Kennedy is not only a multi-millionaire capitalist in his own right, he is also a big flunkey of the monopoly capitalist class as a whole. Clear proof of this fact is Kennedy's loud propaganda for Nixon style mandatory wage-price controls to cut workers' wages and to bring savage repression against the workers' movement.

In his campaign for the Democratic Party nomination for President, Kennedy is making a big fuss about what he describes as Carter's "Republican" policies. As opposed to Carter's "Hooverism" in economic policy, Senator Kennedy as the "true Democrat" is proposing: "an immediate six month freeze on inflation -- followed by mandatory controls as long as necessary, across the board -- not only on prices and wages, but also on profits, dividends, interest rates and rent." Kennedy has placed this proposal in the center of his nomination strategy. He has even told reporters that if Carter adopts these measures that he, Kennedy, will return to the Senate to get them passed into law and possibly even abandon his campaign.

According to the demagogical lies of Kennedy and his boosters, a system of wage-price controls is "the only solution" to inflation based on "fairness" and "equality"; unlike the "unfair" and "pro-business" policy of Carter and the Republicans. However, the experience of the workers, both in the U.S. under the Nixon's controls in 1971-73 and in the other capitalist countries, tells a different story. Such controls never have been and never can be "fair" or "equal." Rather, they inevitably only hold down wages while prices are allowed to soar out of sight. Wage-price controls are a fascist measure whereby the state openly throws its full power against the workers' movement.

Kennedy's six-month wage freeze means the straightforward banning of wage increases by government decree. His subsequent indefinite period of wage controls means the outlawing of wage increases above a set limit -- a limit set far below the pace of price hikes. For the workers, both mean massive cuts in real wages in the face of runaway inflation. To enforce such a wage freeze or controls the entire, capitalist state power is brought to bear against the workers' just demands. Sanctions are placed against employers who cave in and grant concessions to the workers in violation of the controls. And, if the workers refuse to go along with this wage cutting and carry out strikes to press their demands, the employer will have the federal wage freeze or controls to assist in breaking strikes (the issuing of court injunctions to order the return to work, the breaking of picket lines by the police, the jailing of striking workers, etc., etc.). In short, Kennedy is demanding the iron suppression of the workers' movement.

On the other hand, Kennedy's proposed freeze/controls on prices and the incomes of the capitalists are a hoax to swindle the masses. Prices as well as "profits, dividends, interest rates and rent" will be controlled in name only while they are allowed to continue to soar upward in fact. The proof of this is, for example, in the government controls of domestic oil and natural gas prices, controls which are very dear to Mr. Kennedy who has, by the way, extensive holdings in the Texas oil fields. Under these controls the prices of domestic oil products and natural gas have doubled and tripled over the last six years, a handful of giant oil corporations continue to rake in record tens of billions of dollars of profits year in and year out. Another example is interest rates which are also controlled by the government via the Federal Reserve. Under these controls interest rates have nearly doubled over the last year. And interest rates have grown so criminally high that proposals have been introduced in various state legislatures for the scrapping of laws against usury which prohibit the 18-20% and even higher interest rates presently being charged by the big banks and other capitalist loan sharks.

Government controls on the unbridled price gouging and monstrous profit making of the capitalist moneybags is something like having the fox guarding the hen house. To create the illusion that the government is about to take real measures to cut the profits of the big capitalists -- a government which is blatantly manipulated by the big banks and corporations, a government which is nothing but an executive committee for managing the common affairs of the monopoly capitalists in their robbery and oppression of the working class and people -- is simply to throw dust in the eyes of the masses. At most Kennedy's proposed freeze/controls will mean the temporary slowing of price increases only for them to skyrocket again after the controls have been lifted and the workers have already been locked into three year low wage contracts.

This proposal for mandatory controls, Kennedy claims, is what separates himself, the "true Democrat," from Carter, the "closet Republican," and provides the "alternative" to four more years of the policy of Carter and "his Republican colleagues." This is a very telling admission on Kennedy's part. In fact, it is a self-confession that both Kennedy and Carter, the "true Democrats" and the "closet" and avowed Republicans, all share an identical anti-working class program.

Since taking office Carter has been striving to rig up the same fascist system of wage controls as advocated by Kennedy. Carter has been systematically strengthening his "voluntary wage-price guidelines" in order to force wage cuts on the workers and to set up the machinery for clamping down with fully mandatory controls.

Thus, while Carter continues to mouth his "opposition" to mandatory controls, at the very same time the business journals, for example, are explaining how the present 18% rate of inflation is due in part to price hikes in anticipation of Carter bringing down mandatory controls either before or after the election.

Moreover, Kennedy has backed Carter down the line in his policy of the piecemeal introduction of mandatory controls through a system of "voluntary guidelines." As Kennedy told the Washington Post on January 20: "What I'm calling for is an active, effective voluntary wage-price guidelines policy." So, underneath all the rhetoric and demagogy, the only real contradiction between Kennedy and Carter on the question of wage controls is how "actively," "effectively" and "immediately" they are clamped down against the workers' movement.

Kennedy is not only treading in the footsteps of Jimmy Carter, but in those of Richard Nixon as well. Kennedy's proposed wage-price freeze/controls are a carbon copy of those imposed under the Republican administration oi the fascist Nixon from 1971 to 1973. Such is the absurdity of Kennedy's noise about "true" Democratic versus Republican policy. Both of these big parties of monopoly capital worked hand in hand to wield Nixon's controls against the workers. It was Senator Kennedy himself who called on the capitalists to resist any wage increases that were not linked to increased productivity (that is to allow wage hikes necessary to keep pace with inflation only on the condition the workers slave harder for the capitalist employers.) This is the same call which Kennedy is issuing today. And it was Kennedy and the Democrats in Congress, those alleged "friends of labor," who pushed through the legislation under which Nixon imposed his fascist wage controls.

Wage-Price Controls Cannot Relieve the Burden of Inflation on the Masses

Kennedy's boosters object to equating his mandatory controls with those of hated Nixon. Allegedly Kennedy is different -- the "champion of the working man." Therefore, unlike Nixon, Kennedy will pursue a policy of "equal sacrifice for all," that is, while holding down wages he will at the same time not only hold down prices

but also profits, interest, etc. And through this "evenhanded" and "fair" policy, inflation will be "frozen" and then "worked out of the system" altogether. So says Doug Fraser of the UAW and the other trade union sellouts on the Kennedy bandwagon. But this is all so much eyewash.

In the first place, this "equitable" policy takes as its basic premise the same worn-out capitalist lie that wage increases are part of the cause of inflation. The fact of the matter is, wage levels have nothing to do with inflation. How else can it be explained that inflation is soaring at twice the pace of wage increases, leaving the workers 7.4% behind in real take- home pay over the last year alone? The freezing of wages means only one thing: more profits for the capitalist employers. And conversely, a raise in wages only means that much less in profits. Therefore, freezing wages will neither "freeze inflation," nor will it be "equitable," but it will mean more profits for the moneybags and more poverty for the workers.

Secondly, there can be no "equality" in the relentless class struggle between worker and capitalist. In particular, the government cannot be considered a neutral arbiter to ensure "equal sacrifice from all." Rather, the monopoly capitalist government is a monstrous strikebreaking force for the ruthless suppression of the working class and the oppressed masses. There is no such thing as "equality" between the exploiters and the exploited. The policy of the government of the rich, no matter how many fine words of "fairness" and "equality" disguise this policy, is invariably an unequal policy in favor of the merciless exploitation of the working class and the broad masses of the people by a handful of powerful capitalist billionaires.

And finally, even if prices were frozen or restrained for a short period of time, this could not "work inflation out of the system." The present runaway inflation is completely intertwined with the deep crisis which has the monopoly capitalist system in its clutches, demonstrating that this system is in decline and is rotting alive. In particular, the last years of rampaging inflation on top of recession and economic stagnation is a reflection of the fact that all the contradictions of the parasitic system have become bound up with one another, resulting in an extremely acute and comprehensive crisis.

Among other factors, inflation has its roots in the tremendous growth in government expenditures. This includes the massive spending for the artificial stimulation of the economy, and the enormous growth of the military and bureaucratic apparatus for aggression abroad and oppression of the working masses at home. The billions of dollars that are poured into the manufacture of weapons and the building of prisons, the lavish handouts to the corporations and banks, and all the other reactionary activities of the capitalist state are covered in part by inflationary deficits.

In this regard Kennedy is one of the foremost promoters of the huge growth of repressive state machinery. It should be remembered that our "anti-inflation" hero, Senator Kennedy, supports Carter's unprecedented military budgets; is a principal author of the Senate's Criminal Code Reform Law, which is a major piece of fascist legislation for beefing up the repressive police state in the U.S.; and is an advocate of providing more "incentives" to the corporations.

A further source of inflation is the rampant speculative ventures of the big financiers.

The current rampaging inflation which is ruining the masses is, at the same time, a source of fabulous profits for the millionaires and billionaires.

Consequently runaway inflation cannot and will not be brought under control by government decree, by mandatory wage-price controls nor any other anti-working class measure. For the masses, the only relief from the ravages of inflation is in the uncompromising class struggle against the rich. And the only way to put an end to the monster of inflation is to do away with the monstrous monopoly capitalist system that has produced it in the first place.

An Important Political Lesson

Kennedy's election campaign propaganda for mandatory wage-price controls provides an important political lesson. This repressive measure is being most ardently fought for by the "liberal" hero of the "left wing" of, the Democratic Party. And the most vocal support for Kennedy's strikebreaking controls is coming from the top trade union bureaucrats, particularly from the more "militant" social- democratic hacks of the UAW and the IAM. Just as Nixon's wage-price controls were prepared for and applauded by the Democrats and labor traitors, today too, it is these champions of liberal-labor politics which are in the advanced posts of political reaction against the working class. This is further evidence of the conclusions drawn by the Founding Congress of the MLP USA which pointed out:

"The Democratic Party and the Republican Party are ruling parties of monopoly capital, parties of imperialism and rabid reaction. They have a common program, but while the Republicans are the open party of the rich, the Democrats are the main party for the deception of the workers. For decades, the reactionary program of big capital, the fascization of the state and society, and the savage attacks on the workers' movement and the oppressed nationalities has been carried out repeatedly on the basis of liberal-labor politics and under a signboard of 'pro-labor' and 'pro-minorities' demagogy."

And from this assessment, the Founding Congress stressed the conclusion that stepping up the fight against the liberal-labor politics of the Democratic Party and its "left-wing" flunkeys is absolutely necessary to advance the revolutionary working class movement. With this stand the working class is building its own independent political movement, irreconcilably opposed to the anti-working class and fascist program of the rich.

[Cartoon.]

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THE EVOLUTION OF BILL S-1

The history of S-1722 shows that it is a result of the collaboration between the Nixonite fascists and the' "left wing" of the Democratic Party. "Liberals" and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans have worked together to develop new attacks on the revolutionary mass movements.

The efforts of the monopoly capitalist class to put together and enact a comprehensive "Criminal Code Reform Bill" originated in 1966 under the Democratic Party administration of Lyndon B. Johnson. 1966 was a time when the black people's struggle against racial discrimination and violent suppression was raging, and when the mass movement against U.S. aggression in Indochina was rapidly growing in size and militancy. It was a time when an explicitly revolutionary movement was developing. The bourgeoisie put forward the idea of a "Criminal Code Reform Bill" as a response to the revolutionary upsurge of the 1960's. With this project, the exploiters were preparing new means of repression of the mass movements and the revolutionary organizations.

In 1966 Lyndon Johnson, himself a war criminal, received the approval of Congress to establish the National Commission on Criminal Law Reform. He appointed as its chairman the then California Governor, the "liberal" Democrat Edmund G. Brown, the father of the present California Governor Jerry Brown. This Committee included Republican Senator Roman L. Hruska of Nebraska, Democratic Senator Sam Ervin, Jr. of North Carolina and the Dixiecrat John L. McClellan of Arkansas, and others. Thus LBJ's Committee consisted of both Democrats and Republicans and of both "liberals" and Dixiecrats. All three Senators belonged to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The Brown Commission submitted its final report on January 7, 1971 during the presidency of fascist fanatic and war criminal Richard Nixon. Shortly before receiving the Brown report, Nixon had set up a Criminal Code Unit with the Justice Department under the then Attorney General (and now convicted Watergate felon) John R. Mitchell to produce a version of the Criminal Code Reform legislation. The efforts of Nixon's "Justice" Department resulted in the "Criminal Code Reform Act" of 1973 called S-1400. It was introduced into the Senate Judiciary Committee by Senators Hruska and McClellan on March 27, 1973.

Meanwhile Senators Hruska and McClellan and others had held two years of hearings on the Brown Commission Report in the Senate Judiciary Committee and produced their own "Criminal Justice, Codification, Revision and Reform Act of 1973," called S-1 for short.

Throughout 1973 and 1974, more hearings were held to combine the Nixon administration's proposal with the similar version produced by the Senate committee. And on January 15, 1975 a revised S-1 was introduced in the Senate Judiciary Committee by Republican senators Hruska and Hugh Scott (Pa.) and Democrats McClellan and Mike Mansfield (Mont.). This bill, both in its 1973 and 1975 versions, won the hatred and contempt of all progressive people. S-1 was widely known as a Nixonite fascist bill. And while it is just to refer to S-1 as a Nixonite bill, in all accuracy it should also be born in mind that it was produced through a combined effort of the administrations of both LBJ and Nixon and of both "liberal" and Dixiecrat senators.

Amid much controversy, S-1 failed to pass the Senate Judiciary Committee and was still stuck there when the 94th Congress closed at the end of 1975. At this time the prince of liberals, Senator Ted Kennedy, pranced onto the scene to rescue this fascist bill for the sake of arming the monopoly capitalist class to the teeth against the revolutionary mass movement. Senator Ted Kennedy concluded an alliance with the open reactionary Dixiecrat Senator McClellan. Mainly under Kennedy's leadership, S-1 was slightly pared down by the Senate Judiciary Committee, revised, touched up, given a thin coat of paint and prepared for passage. A mist of perfume was sprayed onto the bill to fool the masses. For example, the provisions concerning the death penalty and gun control were removed. This was simply a deal by Kennedy, as it should be born in mind that Senator Kennedy is one of the ardent partisans of gun control, that is keeping guns out of the; hands of the people. Kennedy stated that it was necessary to reword passages of the bill that were too outspoken and replace them with the empty hypocrisy so beloved of liberals, while preserving the reactionary features under new names. As Kennedy said, referring to the necessity to oppose the use of the phrase "preventive detention" while preserving the actual provisions for preventive detention: "Occasionally, as we learned in the early 1970's, government itself inflames the problem by encouraging...law and order rhetoric." Thus Kennedy was only opposed to "law and order rhetoric" while in favor of the actual provisions for Nixonite "law and order."

On May 2, 1977 Senators Kennedy and McClellan introduced S-1437, popularly known as the "son of S-1," into the Senate Judiciary Committee. On January 30,1978, after a short debate on the Senate floor, S-1437 passed overwhelmingly. However the House Judiciary Committee failed to pass a House version of S-1437 and the "son of S-1" collapsed.

But Kennedy did not give up. Loyal to the monopoly capitalist dictators and their police state, he tried again to pass this bill. Since his Dixiecrat partner McClellan had died, Kennedy this time allied with the notorious Senator Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, former Democratic Party Dixiecrat who had joined the Republican Party. Together they pushed S-1722, popularly known as "the grandson of S-1," through the Senate Judiciary Committee on Dec. 4,1979. The full Senate is expected to debate S-1722 this spring. The bourgeois media predicts that it will pass the Senate with the same large majority that passed S-1437 two and one-half years ago. This bill, S-1722, has the fervent backing of the Carter administration. The House version of the bill (HR 6233) was passed by the House Subcommittee on Criminal Justice on March 11, 1980 and is expected to pass the full committee soon, reaching the House floor for a vote in late spring or summer.

Thus the Nixonite fascist bill S-1 was originated by the Brown Commission and transformed into first S-1437 and then S-1722 mainly by Senator Kennedy. Indeed The New York Times flatly states that S-1722 in "Kennedy's bill." Thus Kennedy and the "left" wing of the Democratic Party have been in the forefront of the fascization of the American government and police apparatus. While Nixon called for "law and order," Kennedy and the Democrats achieve the same objectives under the "liberal" and "pro-labor" signboard. Some social-democrats have attempted to justify their support for the Democratic Party by speculating on this or that difference in the original proposals from the Brown Commission, dominated by the Democratic Party, and the present versions of S-1. What a fraud! Former Governor Edmund Brown himself fully supports S-1722. For that matter, his son Governor Jerry Brown also supports S-1722. The entire big bourgeoisie and its political representatives are working to fascize the state, while the social-democrats are their right-hand men in prettifying this fascism as government measures to help the people.

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Down with the U.S. nuclear energy program!

IT IS AN IMPERIALIST PROGRAM AND HAS BEEN LINKED TO WEAPONS PRODUCTION FROM THE START

The Marxist-Leninist Party is totally opposed to the criminal and barbarous U.S. nuclear energy program. This program is completely bound up with U.S. imperialist war preparations. It is a program of deadly radioactive poisoning of the people; a program of wild profiteering; and a program of increased U.S. monopolization of world energy resources and domination of other countries. The U.S. nuclear program is rooted in the imperialist economic and political system. To effectively oppose this program it is necessary to take up the fight against imperialism.

The U.S. nuclear power program is closely linked with war preparations. It was originally developed as a byproduct of the development of nuclear weapons. The U.S. imperialists use the development of the nuclear reactors to provide research and development, as well as plutonium, for bombs. One of the first applications of nuclear reactors was to provide power plants for submarines and aircraft carriers. And the feverish construction of nuclear power plants is now an important part of the stockpiling of domestic energy resources in preparation for aggressive war. Nuclear power is particularly favorable for energy stockpiling as it is relatively immune from interruption by the people such as from the Iranian revolution and the strikes of the coal miners.

Nuclear power generation is an extremely poisonous process. Deadly radioactivity is emitted from the mining of uranium, from fuel processing and from the everyday operation of reactors. Enormous quantities of nuclear waste are piling up from the existing reactors, but there is still no reliable method for the disposal nor even long-term storage of the extremely toxic wastes. It is estimated that 300 to 2,500 cancer deaths will occur due to the accident at Three Mile Island one year ago. A catastrophic reactor meltdown could kill up to 45,000 people, according to a study of the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) itself. Cancer and sickness for the people go hand in hand with the nuclear program, yet its development by the rich continues unabated. This is not so surprising. One can expect nothing else from the U.S. imperialists who have committed such genocidal aggression and murder in Viet Nam, Iran and many other countries.

The building and operation of nuclear reactors provide colossal profits to the finance capitalists, the construction and engineering giants, and the energy monopolies. These profits are being extracted from the working masses through automatic rate increases in the skyrocketing utility bills and through ever increasing taxation.

U.S. monopoly corporations export nuclear reactors to many countries, while retaining control over them by controlling the nuclear fuel and other technology. The export of nuclear power reactors helps the U.S. imperialists to further monopolize world energy sources. This not only provides huge profits but also creates tighter political domination by the U.S. over its vast neo-colonial empire and contributes to its drive toward imperialist world domination.

The U.S. nuclear energy program cannot be "reformed" and made peaceful, safe nor humane. It must be liquidated lock, stock and barrel. The U.S. imperialists are intensely committed to nuclear power because it serves their vital interests. They have been stubbornly resisting its liquidation and will continue to do so. Therefore, the fight against the nuclear energy program must necessarily take up the fight against imperialism.

Carter's Hysterical "Energy Shortage" Fraud Is Blackmail in Support of Nuclear Power

Carter and the Democratic Party are fervent advocates of nuclear power and diehard representatives of imperialism. Nuclear power is one part of Carter's overall energy program. Just as Carter uses fake energy shortages to impose skyrocketing oil and gas prices on the masses, he also promotes the fraud of an "energy shortage" to justify the nuclear power reactors and cram them down the people's throats. The U.S. does not suffer from an "energy shortage" but is in fact swimming in energy resources. Even without importing any oil or the use of any nuclear power, the U.S. has abundant natural gas, petroleum and coal deposits to last for many, many decades, until long after all sorts of other energy sources are in use.

The oil monopolies and their government apologists shout about U.S. "dependence on oil imports." But the U.S. doesn't import oil due to a domestic shortage. The U.S. used to be the world's major exporter of oil. It changed to an oil importer as it stepped up its plunder of world oil resources. The main reason the U.S. pursues foreign oil and other energy sources is not to supply U.S. energy needs. Rather, the U.S., just like any other imperialist power seeks to monopolize all sources of raw materials, energy, etc. Through its control over world oil markets, the U.S. not only makes huge profits, but is also able to exercise hegemony and control over other countries.

Carter screams about "conservation" and "alternative energy" to supposedly alleviate this nonexistent shortage. But Carter's talk about conservation has nothing to do with stopping the criminal waste of energy and other resources committed by the monopoly capitalists. Extravagant waste is profitable and will exist as long as capitalism exists. Carter talks about conservation to justify the lifting of environmental regulations, to blame the people for the wastage of the corporate exploiters, and to justify "conserving oil" by using nuclear power.

Carter's talk about "alternative energy" is for the purpose of pushing nuclear power, and for handing billions of dollars to the energy monopolies to help them develop, monopolize and stockpile all other energy resources. He is emphasizing those "synfuels" that are best suited to military use. At the same time, Carter is promoting schemes of small-scale energy production such as solar and wind power in order to divert the protest movement into following the futile illusion that the power of the energy monopolies can be broken by such schemes. The problems caused by large-scale capitalist production can only be resolved by large-scale socialist production, established through the revolutionary expropriation of the monopoly capitalist class. Nostalgic dreams glorifying the bygone days of chopping wood and other small-scale capitalist petty production will solve nothing.

The Democratic Party and its flunkeys use the blackmail and fraud of an "energy shortage,", and the slogans for "conservation" and "alternative energy," to confuse the people, prettify capitalism and justify the reckless development of the nuclear power reactors.

Mass Revolutionary Struggle Is the Path Forward

The anti-nuclear movement is a powerful force against the criminal U.S. nuclear energy program. This movement is closely linked with the vigorously developing movement against the reinstitution of the military draft and against all imperialist war preparations. The target of the anti-nuclear movement, its enemy, is imperialism. For this reason, the anti-nuclear movement is faced with every conceivable type of opposition from the lying capitalist politicians, among them first and foremost Carter and the entire Democratic Party.

Some Democratic Party big shots, notably Brown and Kennedy, feign opposition to the U.S. nuclear program. This is a fraud. Kennedy has made several vague statements in opposition to nuclear power plants. Kennedy is just like Carter, who said he was "against" nuclear plants in the 1976 elections. Kennedy is not against nuclear power plants, but is in favor of a better U.S. government whitewashing of the dangers they present to the people. And Kennedy is co-sponsoring the Criminal Code Reform Bill S-1722, the "grandson of S-l," which is straight- out fascist legislation. This Bill contains sweeping new anti-conspiracy laws, legalizes preventive detention of those who might "possibly" commit a crime, and provides for even harsher sentencing for those convicted of federal offenses. And Kennedy's attitude to the anti-nuclear movement is revealed in that this Bill not only virtually outlaws demonstrations against the government, but it especially outlaws mass actions at nuclear plants. The "anti-nuclear" Kennedy is an identical animal to Carter. The vassals of the Democratic Party who are pushing Kennedy for president are also in fact preparing the ground to support Carter in the 1980 elections under the worn-out logic that Carter is the "lesser of two evils." As for Brown, everyone knows he'll say anything to get elected. Both Kennedy and Brown are diehard imperialists, and once you scratch the surface, warmongers as well. The entire Democratic Party and its multitude of flunkeys loosely comprising its "left wing" all agree with Carter's basic premises in support of nuclear power: the fraud of an "energy shortage" and the trickster slogans for "conservation" and "alternative energy."

The Democratic Party and its flunkeys are trying to infiltrate the anti-nuclear movement in order to liquidate it. They want to utterly destroy any aspect of uncompromising opposition to the nuclear energy program and to imperialism. To do so they are trying to transform the anti-nuclear movement from the path of mass struggle to the path of electoral politicking for the presidential elections, to elect another liar to replace Carter, who some feel has lost his "credibility" and is washed up. They are trying to hitch the anti-nuclear movement to the Democratic Party; to have it drop its demands against nuclear energy and become transformed into a patriotic pressure group for the passage of this or that aspect of Carter's energy program. The struggle against the U.S. nuclear program can only advance in the course of resolute opposition to the attacks and sabotage of the Democratic Party and all of the apologists for imperialism.

The U.S. imperialists, Russian social-imperialists and other imperialists have made a monster out of their nuclear programs. The U.S. nuclear program must be stopped entirely. Only under socialism will research be developed on how to master nuclear energy for mankind's benefit, and not as today to whitewash its dangers and prepare for war. Only the socialist system has no interest in developing nuclear power prior to the time when mankind will achieve genuine mastery over the technology involved.

The U.S. nuclear energy program is not a temporary aberration or mistake. The monopoly capitalist dictators know exactly what they are doing. There is no such thing as a humane imperialism, an imperialism that doesn't frantically arm for wars of aggression, systematically exploit the people for maximum profits, or which has any concern about the well-being of the masses of the people and whether or not they are being poisoned by radioactivity or any other kind of pollution. Therefore, the fight against the U.S. nuclear program must not be based on appealing to the mythical "good intentions" of this or that section of the monopoly capitalist class, of the capitalist government, or of lying Democratic Party politicians. The appeal is directed to the masses of people to draw them into revolutionary struggle for the total elimination of the nuclear energy program, for the exposure of the monopoly capitalists and their political spokesmen and tricksters of all varieties.

Mass revolutionary struggle against imperialism is the true path forward for the anti-nuclear movement.

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Mass Revolutionary Struggle Is the Path Forward for the Anti-Nuclear Movement

(The following is a leaflet issued by the Chicago Branch of the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA for a public meeting, held on March 22, marking the first anniversary of the incident at Three Mile Island.)

Since the nuclear breakdown and near-catastrophe at the Three Mile Island (TMI) nuclear power plant one year ago, on March 28, 1979, a big upsurge of mass opposition to the reactionary U.S. nuclear program has developed. Massive demonstrations, which have involved hundreds of thousands of people, have taken place at nuclear reactor sites, nuclear weapons plants, nuclear waste dumps, uranium mining areas, at the Wall Street banks and financial houses, and in Washington against the U.S. government. All across the country, groups have arisen to protest the U.S. nuclear program. People have formed study groups and other organizations, and distributed literature at schools, factories, and in communities. The nuclear poisoning affects everyone and there is not a place in the country where the poisonous wastes are not shipped through or stored. Among the people the opposition to the production of nuclear weapons and the all-round preparations for war of U.S. imperialism, continues to grow. The demand of the masses of people is that the nuclear program be eliminated in its entirety, both the domestic reactors and the nuclear weapons.

This upsurge of the anti-nuclear movement, the development of the political consciousness and activity of the masses of people in calling for the complete destruction of the criminal and barbarous U.S. nuclear program is a severe blow to the wild profiteering and warmongering aims of U.S. imperialism. In fighting against the reactionary U.S. nuclear program, the struggle is directed against the imperialist system itself. The U.S. nuclear program is completely rooted in the socio-economic and political system of imperialism. The energy monopolies, the financial magnates, the state machine, the Republican and Democratic Parties are all committed to the wild profiteering, neo-colonial domination and plunder, and the war preparations which are the basis for the development of the criminal U.S. nuclear program.

In the face of the development of the anti-nuclear movement, the U.S. imperialists are not giving up their aims of world domination and preparation for war which form the basis of the nuclear program. Since the TMI near-catastrophe one year ago, the U.S. imperialists have continued to escalate their war preparations. The deployment of nuclear weapons in Western Europe has increased. Plans for the deployment of nuclear weapons in the Persian Gulf have been developed. The U.S. imperialists are forging ahead with the building of the MX missile system. The U.S. imperialists are developing chauvinist campaigns against the Iranian revolution to preserve their world domination of oil. The U.S. imperialists are preparing to reintroduce the draft to use the American people as cannon fodder in their wars of aggression. The domestic nuclear reactor program has been restarted, and the U.S. government is preparing to bring the storage and transport of nuclear waste under the direct control of the military for reprocessing for more bombs. In the face of the development of the anti-nuclear movement, the U.S. imperialists have not become reasonable in the least about the development of their nuclear program.

Can the U.S. government, which dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, slaughtering over 200,000 people, and then went on to feverishly develop nuclear weapons to ensure its world domination, be at all reasonable? Can the U.'S. government, which feverishly developed its entire nuclear program without regard to the safety of the masses of people and without solving any of the safety issues connected with nuclear power, be at all reasonable? Can the U.S. government, which has continued to develop the nuclear program after the near-catastrophe at TMI and in spite of the massive opposition of the American people, be at all reasonable? Can the U.S. government, which has not touched a single hair on the heads of the nuclear billionaires and warmongering militarists who are responsible for the poisoning and death of hundreds of thousands of people, while this government arrests and persecutes opponents of the criminal and barbarous U.S. nuclear program, be at all reasonable? No, it cannot. The U.S. government is nothing more than a front man for the energy billionaires, and nothing more than a machine for waging war against the people in the U.S. and throughout the world. It has not been one individual which has developed the monstrous U.S. nuclear program, nor even just one of the political parties. The development of the U.S. nuclear program is intimately bound up with the wild profiteering and warmongering aims of the imperialist system itself.

The path forward for the anti-nuclear movement is that of revolutionary struggle against the billionaire exploiters and imperialism. Only the mass struggle has the strength and vitality to strike a real blow at the nuclear energy program. It is only the drawing into conscious life and struggle of the masses of working and progressive people that is the life of the anti-nuclear movement and the true road forward.

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No to the Draft! No to U.S. Imperialist War Preparations!

Thousands upon thousands of youth and students have plunged into mass struggle against Carter's call to reintroduce draft registration. This is a correct and important struggle which deserves the full support of the working class and all progressive people. Draft registration is one in a whole series of warmongering measures being taken by the Carter government. It is part of the preparations to launch new wars of imperialist conquest, to fight the Soviet social-imperialists for markets and spheres of influence, to drown in blood the anti-imperialist struggles of the working masses all over the globe. Carter's plans for aggression and war are the inevitable product of the imperialist system of exploitation, enslavement and plunder of the people by a handful of monopoly capitalist billionaires. The anti-draft movement is fighting against the U.S. war preparations. In this struggle, opposition to imperialism must be put in the forefront and the people organized for mass revolutionary struggle.

The Carter Government Is Preparing for Imperialist War

With draft registration for 18, 19 and 20 year olds, Carter is preparing to reintroduce the hated military conscription for millions of the sons and daughters of the working masses. He is revitalizing the Selective Service System, setting up the local draft boards, and getting ready all of the mechanisms to quickly force millions of young people into the aggressive U.S. army. Draft registration, as with other proposed plans like compulsory national service for all youth, aims at militarizing the young people. As well, women are to be drafted too, thus stepping up the militarization of women. Draft registration is a further attempt to generate a war hysteria and to prepare the youth to become cannon fodder in the aggressive adventures of U.S. imperialism against the working class and people of other countries.

Carter has declared that draft registration and his other war preparations are to "defend" America's "vital interests." But it is clear that these are only the vital interests of the oil tycoons and other monopoly capitalist moneybags and not the interests of the American working masses. Carter has proclaimed the sacred right of U.S. imperialism to dominate and enslave the people of the entire Persian Gulf oil region. He is directly admitting that the war he is preparing is a war for oil, a war to safeguard the enormous super-profits of Exxon, Texaco and the other U.S. oil billionaires plundered from the people of the countries of the Middle East. Even when Carter sheds crocodile tears over the brutal Soviet social-imperialist invasion of Afghanistan, it is not the freedom and independence of the people that he is concerned about. He is using this savage act of aggression by the Soviet New Tsars to intensify U.S. imperialism's own aggressive activities. He is getting ready to launch aggression to drown in blood the anti-imperialist revolution of the Iranian masses and to suppress the other people of the Middle East. He is preparing to fight the Soviet social-imperialists over which imperialist superpower gets how much of the loot robbed from the people. Carter's war preparations are directed precisely at defending the vital interests of the U.S. billionaires, the vital interests of their system of enslavement, robbery and plunder of the people. The interests of the American people do not lie with Carter's war preparations, but with the revolutionary struggle to overthrow the imperialist exploiters.

In the Fight Against the Draft, Opposition to Imperialism Must Be Put in the Center

While Carter is reintroducing the draft and openly calling for imperialist war preparations, a flabby "left-wing" section of his Democratic Party is entering the anti-draft movement. These flunkeys of the Democratic Party claim that they too oppose draft registration, at least for now. But their opposition is not against imperialism and war. Instead they are trying to subvert the anti-imperialist struggle and bring the movement under the wing of the Democratic Party and its warmongering policies. They wish to convert the whole issue of draft registration into whether a volunteer army or drafted army is best, whether the present army is "adequate" to "defend" U.S. imperialism, and so forth. But whether volunteer or conscription, the army remains the aggressive war machine of U.S. imperialism. While feigning opposition to draft registration, these flunkeys even paint the drafting of women in liberation colors and make lying claims that the brutal militarization of women is the only way for women to win equal rights. These impotent whiners are promoting Ted Kennedy, Jerry Brown and other diehard imperialist politicians of the Democratic Party. These politicians are only opposed to the draft for the time being in order to sabotage the revolutionary movement. Kennedy is against registration because it is only a "paper curtain against Soviet troops," while he is in support of increased military spending and for more conventional forces. He is promoted as being against the MX missile, but he is against "hasty" development at this time only because he regards it as "goldplating" which "drains the resources of other needed weapons."

The basic issue with regard to the draft is: the draft for what? The issue is that the U.S. army is an aggressor army, an army of imperialist war and enslavement. Today the U.S. imperialists have over two million troops which are stationed in bases all over the globe and are fully mobilized to carry out aggression anywhere at a moment's notice. The reintroduction of the draft is for the sole purpose of further strengthening these aggressive forces. In the fight against draft registration, the issue of opposition to imperialism must be put in the center. The flunkeys of the Democratic Party who "oppose" draft registration but support imperialism are simply lying politicians seeking to infiltrate and liquidate the mass movement. They want to turn back from Carter's present position of open warmongering, to Carter's former position of concealing war preparations under fraudulent appeals for "human rights" and "peace." They are assisting the U.S. imperialist war drive by trying to trick and stop the mass struggle against it.

Organize Mass Revolutionary Struggle Against Imperialist War Preparations

The reintroduction of the draft is another warmongering measure of the Carter government against the American people. In the 1960's and early 1970's a huge revolutionary mass movement developed against U.S. aggression in Southeast Asia. With great determination and militancy, millions of American people rose up in one mass action after another against this most savage war. ROTC buildings were burned to the ground. Militant actions were organized against the draft boards, as hundreds of thousands of youth resisted serving in the aggressive U.S. war machine. Large numbers of GI's organized resistance inside the military as well. They put out anti-war leaflets and papers right on the U.S. military bases; they staged demonstrations, organized rebellions in the stockades, and carried out mass refusals to go into combat. With the defeat of the U.S. imperialist aggression by the revolutionary struggle of the Indochinese peoples, and shaken by the massive revolutionary movement at home, the bloodstained monopoly capitalist government temporarily ended the draft in an effort to pacify the American people and trick them into believing that American imperialism genuinely wanted peace. And now it is "peacenik" Carter who is trying to once again impose the draft. This exposes that the years of talk about "peace" and "human rights" were just lies. When the Democratic Party sings psalms of peace it is only trying to conceal its rapid preparations for war.

Now again the American people are rising up to oppose the crimes of the U.S. imperialists. Hundreds of demonstrations and other mass actions have been organized against the production of imperialist weapons of death and destruction, against the U.S.-China warmongering alliance, against Carter's threats and brutal blackmail against the heroic Iranian people, against the U.S. imperialist nuclear energy program, and against the draft. All of these struggles are entirely necessary and correct. The imperialists must not be allowed a moment of peace in which to carry out their aggressive war plans. Every step that the Carter government takes towards war must be opposed by the struggle of the masses.

The source of war is world imperialism, headed by the U.S. and Soviet superpowers and including revisionist China and the other imperialist states. The U.S. is an imperialist monster, a world exploiter, blackmailer and bully, and a center of international aggression. So long as U.S. imperialism exists, the world will be subjected to its schemes of world domination and the threat of war. The anti-draft movement is fighting against the aggressive plans of U.S. imperialism. Through this movement thousands and thousands of people are being drawn into open conflict with the Carter government. They are being tempered and trained in struggle, and through their own experience they are becoming convinced of the necessity of revolution. To put an end to imperialist aggression and war, the masses must wage revolutionary struggle to overthrow and put an end to the imperialist system itself.

[Photos: In March and April, mass demonstrations and rallies were held in many cities across the U.S. denouncing both Carter's call for the reintroduction of the draft and the wild and frantic war preparations of the U.S. imperialists. On March 22, braving fierce wind and rain, more than 30,000 people demonstrated in Washington, D.C. (left). In Olympia, Washington more than 200 activists held a militant march and rally, shouting the slogans: "Down with the warmongers!" "No to the draft!" and "Down with all imperialist war preparations!" (right)]

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Hold high the revolutionary traditions of the struggle of the American people against U.S. aggression in Indochina!

The movement against the aggressive war plans of U.S. imperialism is making great strides forward. Every new step the Carter government takes to prepare for war has become a new cause for mass protests against the U.S. imperialists. No sooner had Carter announced his plans to reintroduce draft registration, then thousands upon thousands of people went into action in militant demonstrations and rallies against the draft in the cities all across the country. And these militant mass actions continue to grow. One of the reasons that this movement has so quickly taken on a mass character and raised the militant slogans against the rich and their war plans, is that it is based in the revolutionary traditions of the mass struggles of the I960's. Through the massive upheaval against U.S. aggression in Viet Nam, the American people were schooled in a firm and fighting opposition to U.S. war plans. Large numbers of people, through their experience in the mass movement, came to see that behind U.S. aggression and war lay the blood- stained imperialist system, the interests of the monopoly capitalist billionaires. And many drew the correct conclusion that to fight imperialist war requires a revolutionary struggle to overthrow the imperialist system. To inform our readers of the revolutionary experience of the 1960's, The Workers' Advocate is carrying articles about two organizations and the struggles they waged against U.S. aggression in Viet Nam.

The first article is on the Cleveland Draft Resistance Union (CDRU). This organization supported resistance to the draft and supported the resistance inside the U.S. armed forces. CDRU organized mass struggles against the draft and U.S. aggression, it worked to draw working class youth into conscious political activity and educated them in opposition to U.S. imperialism. Draft refusal did not and could not bring a stop to the U.S. aggressive war. Even when the draft resistance movement was at its peak, when at some draft boards as many as 50% of the youth drafted refused to serve in the imperialist army, the government was still able to obtain enough troops to carry on its aggression. Nevertheless draft resistance did create serious problems for the imperialists' war recruiting. And most importantly, draft resistance drew hundreds of thousands of young people into active mass struggle against U.S. imperialism. It schooled an entire generation in militant struggle against U.S. aggression and brought many young people into the ranks of the revolutionary movement.

CDRU not only organized draft resistance, but it also supported the resistance of the GI's inside the aggressive U.S. military. One result of this work was the establishment at the Fort Knox army base of the GI anti-war newspaper and organization, FTA. This was the first of the anti-war GI newspapers that were established on U.S. military bases all over the country and abroad. FT A inspired a spirit of rebellion among the GI's, and organized them for mass struggle. It educated the GI's to oppose U.S. imperialism, supported the national liberation struggle of the Vietnamese people, and worked to link the GI's to the struggles of the American masses and to bring the GI's over to the side of revolutionary struggle against the U.S. imperialist billionaires. The development of FT A and the GI movement generally, shows how the struggle against U.S. aggression spread deeply among the American masses into every sphere of life. This experience demonstrates that, despite the severe repressive conditions in the military, the GI's can and must be organized to fight imperialism. The majority of GI's are the sons and daughters of the working class. Their interests lie not with the rich billionaires, but with the struggles of the workers and the liberation struggles of the people all over the world. The GI movement, like the draft resistance movement, proved to be an important front of the anti-militarist struggle and showed its potential as a powerful force for the development of the socialist revolution.

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ON THE CLEVELAND DRAFT RESISTANCE UNION:

Draft resistance drew hundreds of thousands of youth into militant struggle against U.S. aggression

The Cleveland Draft Resistance Union (CDRU) was formed in April 1967. It was composed of revolutionary youth who had experience in the Afro-American people's struggle against racial discrimination and violent repression in the South and North, in the struggle of students against the decadent bourgeois education system, and other struggles. CDRU followed the policy of vigorous struggle and soon assumed the leadership of the militant youth and students in Cleveland in the fight against the draft and the U.S. imperialist war of aggression in Viet Nam. It was part of the especially powerful wave of youth and student struggle which swept the U.S. in 1967, when the youth broke out of the confines of pacifism and bourgeois legality imposed on them by the opportunists and waged active mass resistance to the government and the war. In the big anti-war demonstration in Washington, D.C. in October 1967, hundreds of young people were arrested when they stormed the Pentagon and fought pitched battles with the police. CDRU was an active contingent in this struggle. Big and very militant demonstrations were organized in cities throughout the country during this period, like the "Stop the Draft Week" marches in Oakland, where 10,000 youth marched and fought the police to close the Oakland induction center. As part of these national actions, the CDRU organized a "Stop the Draft Week" in Cleveland. On December 8 it organized a demonstration of 300 at the Cleveland induction center, confronted the police and forced the closing of the induction center for a day. These and other powerful mass actions of the draft resistance movement mobilized hundreds of thousands of young people and brought them into open conflict with U.S. imperialism. Through the rich experience gained in these struggles, many of the youth became convinced of the necessity of revolution and began to work actively to overthrow the imperialist system once and for all.

CDRU Organized Militant Demonstrations Against U.S. Imperialist Aggression in Southeast Asia

One of the main activities of the CDRU was the organizing of militant demonstrations at the Cleveland induction center in support of the young people who were resisting the draft and also in support of those who entered the army and organized resistance there. In these mass actions, CDRU practiced active resistance to the fascist attacks of the government- organized reactionary gangs and to the attacks of the police itself. The very first action of CDRU was such a demonstration in April 1967. And throughout the year these demonstrations grew in size and militance, disrupting the functioning of the induction center and even temporarily closing it down. For example, on November 28, 1967 the CDRU organized 150 youth to demonstrate in support of three draft resisters who were going to the induction center for their physical. CDRU supporters infiltrated the induction center, posing as draftees. Inside they leafletted all of the inductees and stood up and denounced the U.S. aggression in Viet Nam. Some inductees walked out of the center on the spot and others joined the demonstration as they arrived at the center. The demonstrators blocked buses full of draftees that were being brought in from other cities. CDRU supporters infiltrated one of the buses, which was coming from Akron, Ohio, and leafletted all of the youth there. The CDRU supporters and the entire bus load of draftees came to the agreement that if the bus was stopped by the demonstration, then they would get off and go home, claiming they could not get past the demonstrators' picket line. The police became enraged at the demonstrators' disruption of the induction center. Policemen on horseback, as well as some 50 foot patrolmen viciously attacked the marchers, clubbing and kicking them and sending four to the hospital. But the demonstrators were well organized and fought back. Their defense guard, armed with shields and other weapons, held off the police attack and allowed the mass of demonstrators to regroup and continue the march. After several hours the government was forced to close the induction center to the public. This demonstration and others like it built up the reputation of the CDRU among the fighting youth and many more came to join them in the mass actions they carried out.

CDRU Educated the Youth to Fight Against U.S. Imperialism

The CDRU was in the center of the Cleveland movement against the savage U.S. imperialist aggression in Viet Nam. It aimed its work at the working class youth, and educated them to oppose the U.S. imperialist system. CDRU put out a newsletter entitled "Resistance" and leaflets which explained that the rich imperialists alone profited from the aggression in Viet Nam. It carried articles from Viet Nam veterans who exposed the brutal crimes of the imperialists and supported the heroic national liberation struggle of the Vietnamese people. CDRU distributed its literature at the high schools and in the working class communities, as well as at the induction centers. It organized meetings against the U.S. aggression. And it had speakers, such as Viet Nam veterans, who spoke against the imperialist war on radio shows and at other events. CDRU also organized a counseling service to assist young people to resist or avoid the draft. And in this draft counseling, as well as in the leafletting, meetings and demonstrations that it organized, the CDRU always carried on political education among the youth on the nature of imperialism and the war and worked to bring them into active participation in the mass struggle.

CDRU Supported Resistance Inside the Army

CDRU not only organized resistance to the draft, but it also supported resistance inside the army, and it gave active aid to both. It carried articles in "Resistance" from Viet Nam veterans and the parents of soldiers in Viet Nam, supporting and encouraging the GI struggles. And it carried statements against the imperialist war by active duty GI's. In July 1967, CDRU began supporting a black GI who was inducted in Cleveland and sent to the Fort Knox base. There he organized a group of 12 soldiers in basic training, called the "dirty dozen," who publicly denounced the war and refused to participate. The army broke up the group by transferring many of them to other military bases and by court-martialing and sentencing the main GI organizer to 30 days of hard labor and putting him in the stockade for a short time. Despite this suppression, these GI's continued to struggle and mobilized many other soldiers to oppose the imperialist aggression against the Vietnamese people. The CDRU reported on these struggles in "Resistance" and actively organized in defense of these GI's. Later, the CDRU organized a militant demonstration at the Cleveland induction center to support and give a spirited send-off to a young draftee who had decided to go into the army and organize resistance to the war there. At Fort Knox, this soldier organized a GI group and began producing FT A, the first of the antiwar GI newspapers put out on military bases. Through this work the CDRU actively aided the development of the GI movement and it created a burning sentiment against U.S. imperialism among broad sections of the youth in Cleveland training them in the spirit of defiance and active struggle.

CDRU Fought the Opportunists Who Tried to Stifle the Draft Resistance Movement

The activity of the CDRU aroused the extreme hatred of the local state machine and its opportunist agents, who attacked the organization viciously. CDRU members were hounded by the local police "red squad" and by the Immigration Department, and attempts were made to infiltrate the organization with agents and to frame it on terrorism charges. The CDRU also came into sharp contradiction with the opportunists in the people's ranks, a holy alliance of trotskyites, revisionists and social-democrats, who served the bourgeois state by trying to stop the movement from taking the path of active mass resistance to the war of aggression. This struggle was sharpest with the trotskyites, who exposed themselves as the servile agents of the state, opposing active self-defense against the attacks of the police in two militant demonstrations at the Cleveland induction center in the fall of 1967. The CDRU also waged struggles against the revisionists and social-democrats who supported the campaign of McCarthy for president and who worked to keep the struggle against the war in the narrow bounds of pacifism and bourgeois legality.

In the course of these struggles, the core of activists in the CDRU became conscious of the necessity of adopting the world outlook of Marxism and organizing the industrial proletariat for socialist revolution. They first organized a Marxist study group and in the summer of 1968 reorganized themselves into the Cleveland Workers' Action Committee. Inspired by the first conference of North American Marxist-Leninists, which was held in Regina, Canada in the spring of 1969, the American Communist Workers Movement (Marxist-Leninist) was founded as the single center for the U.S. Marxist-Leninists. Both before and after the conference the CWAC and then the ACWM(M-L) carried vigorous campaigns to unite all of the Marxist-Leninists. It vigorously took part in the revolutionary mass movements, opposed revisionism and opportunism, carried forward the work to unite the Marxist-Leninists, rapidly spread across the country and established itself as the nucleus of the Party. To advance the struggle for the Party it founded the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists (COUSML) in 1973. After ten years of struggle, begun with the work of CWAC and the founding of the ACWM(M-L), the genuine revolutionary vanguard of the American working class was reestablished this year, with the founding of the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA.

The CDRU was a militant organization of the draft resistance movement, and played an important role in the mass struggle against the aggressive U.S. imperialist war to enslave the Vietnamese people. Draft refusal did not and could not put a stop to the imperialist aggression. But the draft resistance struggle brought hundreds of thousands of young people into militant and open conflict with the rich imperialists and their government. The spirit pf defiance and revolutionary struggle which it inspired in the youth is still being felt today, in the mass struggles that are now unfolding against the war preparations of the Carter government. And the lessons of this revolutionary struggle are being carried forward and applied by the Marxist-Leninist Party which is working to advance the movement against war preparations and to weld together all of the currents of mass struggle into a single torrent of revolution that will sweep U.S. imperialism into its grave.

[Photo: Activists of the Cleveland Draft Resistance Union participate in the march on the Pentagon in October 1967.]

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ON THE GI NEWSPAPER "FTA":

The GI movement proved to be an important front of the struggle and showed potential as a powerful force of the revolution

The GI movement grew up as part of the massive upheaval of the American people against U.S. imperialist aggression in Viet Nam. The heroic national liberation movement of the Vietnamese people and the flames of the raging mass struggle of America's youth could not help but inspire rebellion among the U.S. soldiers as well. GI's began deserting the military and going AWOL in unprecedented numbers. Some openly declared their refusal to obey orders to go to Southeast Asia. And many began to participate in the big anti-war demonstrations and rallies. By the late 1960's the GI movement began to take on a more organized form. Anti-war meetings of GI's were held in cities near to the military bases. The GI's, despite severe repression, began to organize mass protests, like anti-war petitions and meetings, on the military bases themselves. And GI anti-war newspapers began to appear. By the summer of 1970, GI's had organized anti-war papers on at least 45 military bases inside the United States and at least two in Germany and one in Japan.

The first of these papers, called FTA, was organized by soldiers at the Fort Knox, Kentucky army base. The first issue appeared in June 1968. Immediately it caught the imagination of the broad masses of GI's at Fort Knox and won their wide support. The letters "FTA," short for the army recruiting slogan of "Fun, Travel and Adventure," meant to the masses of GI's "fuck the army," which was a popular slogan of the soldiers against the U.S. imperialist war machine. In this paper the GI's recognized their own voice of protest, their own instrument of struggle. FTA was distributed through a secret network of GI's on the Fort Knox base, and by civilian supporters in Louisville, Kentucky where many soldiers congregated on the weekends. While organizing at Fort Knox, FTA supported the GI movement everywhere. It spread to other military bases and was distributed by GI's in Germany, Japan and Viet Nam. The army carried out harsh repression of the FTA organizers and supporters. There were innumerable disciplinary measures, arrests and court-martials. The army even kidnapped one of the principal FTA organizers and eventually threw him in prison for three years. Nevertheless, FTA continued to come out about every six weeks for nearly three years. During this period, it was always in the center of the Fort Knox soldiers' fight against U.S. aggression, constantly encouraging the organization of mass struggle and educating the soldiers in opposition to imperialism. FTA also fought against the use of the U.S. troops to suppress the struggles of the American masses. And it was an important instrument of the GI resistance to the fascization, racial discrimination and all-around horrible conditions in the U.S. military.

FTA Encouraged and Organized the GI's for Mass Struggle Against U.S. Aggression

By the time the first issue of FTA was distributed, there was already a burning sentiment against the U.S. aggression in Southeast Asia among broad sections of the GI's. The majority of the American soldiers were from the families of the working class and had no interest in subjugating the working people of other countries. They had been torn from their families, put under the jackboot of fascist military discipline, and made the cannon fodder of the U.S. imperialist adventure to enslave Viet Nam. The GI's were sent to carry out the U.S. aggression under the guise of the imperialist lie that they were fighting for the "freedom" of the Vietnamese people. But the soldiers saw with their own eyes the savage atrocities, the napalming and massacres by the U.S. armed forces. And they saw as well the valiant liberation struggle of the heroic Vietnamese masses. The reality of the U.S. aggression exploded the imperialist myth that America was fighting for Vietnamese freedom, and the GI's became embittered and wanted to strike out against the U.S. imperialist government.

FTA became the voice of this GI outrage. It told the plain truth about the savage U.S. assault on the Vietnamese. It carried letters and articles from GI's exposing the brutal crimes committed by the U.S. armed forces. And it exposed that it was imperialism, the rich monopoly capitalists, Chase Manhattan Bank and the oil billionaires, which were behind the U.S. aggression. From its very first issue, FTA also supported the national liberation war of the Vietnamese people and through the years it explained to the GI's why the Vietnamese were right to fight to free themselves from the clutches of U.S. imperialism. FTA was always a paper of the masses of the GI's at Fort Knox, their voice of protest. And through its work it channeled the outrage of the GI's against U.S. imperialism and oriented their struggle in a revolutionary direction.

FTA was not only a GI newspaper, but it was also an organization of the soldiers. Many GI's were disciplined and even court-martialed for merely having a copy of FTA in their possession. Therefore, just to distribute the paper, required the organization of a secret network of GI distributors on the base. Over the years hundreds of GI's were drawn into the work of distributing FTA, and the paper was spread to every corner of Fort Knox, even into the most restricted areas like basic training and the Special Processing Battalions (SPB's) where GI's were held before and after being sent to the stockades. The FTA organizers also regularly held anti-war meetings in the barracks and carried out bold actions to inspire in the mass of GI's a spirit of resistance. For example, leafletting raids were held where dozens of GI's would run through a number of barracks around Fort Knox, passing out hundreds of FTA's or other leaflets at one time. Because FTA was so widely supported among the GI's, and because the papers were passed out so quickly that the officers and MP's couldn't catch the distributors, very few of the GI's ever got caught. This type of mass distribution, and other bold actions of the FTA supporters, built up the reputation of FTA among the masses of GI's and encouraged them to^resist the military suppression and to fight against the imperialist war.

The FTA organizers also held public actions off the base and organized the GI's to participate in the general movement against the U.S. aggression. For example, in 1968, "speak outs" against the war were held for the GI's in Louisville, Kentucky and in the fall a GI contingent was organized to participate in the big anti-war demonstration in Washington, D.C.

In the summer of 1969, the FTA organizers established a group of some 25 GI's which opened a political center for the GI movement in Maldraugh, Kentucky, just a few miles off the Fort Knox base. This became a place where the activists of the GI movement at Fort Knox could meet and plan their activities. Frequently GI's just back from Viet Nam would travel halfway across the country to the coffeehouse to meet the FTA organizers and discuss with them the development of the anti-war struggle in Viet Nam. From the beginning the coffeehouse was heavily suppressed. The city government wrote a new law which prohibited the coffeehouse from getting a business permit, and the police padlocked its door. But the GI's defied the police and opened the place illegally by holding a mass meeting of about 100 GI's and some civilians from the city. In the year that the coffeehouse was open it was firebombed twice; two grand juries met and indicted coffeehouse operators; more than 20 people were arrested, half of them GI's, and many spent a month in the county jail; the courts ruled in favor of evicting the GI's and they were forced to pay a $10,000 bond to appeal the case; and the coffeehouse supporters received untold harassment, with the GI's suffering from innumerable disciplinary measures and court-martials. Despite this heavy suppression, the GI's kept the coffeehouse open for a year. From this center they organized study groups of Marxist literature, distributed revolutionary literature, held mass meetings and rallies against the war and organized demonstrations against the political persecution and jailing of the coffeehouse supporters.

Through the work of the supporters of the coffeehouse and FTA, through the many actions they carried out and the secret distribution network they built, FTA encouraged and organized the masses of the GI's for struggle against the U.S. imperialist aggression in Southeast Asia. FTA supported and encouraged even the smallest resistance, sought out ways to bring the GI's into mass struggle, and educated them to fight imperialism. Through its work, FTA brought a whole section of GI's into active participation in the movement against U.S. aggression in Viet Nam and it oriented the masses of GI's to support the revolutionary struggle against U.S. imperialism.

FTA Organized Against the Use of U.S. Troops to Suppress the Mass Struggles of the American People

The 1960's was a time of revolutionary struggle of the American people. Not only did millions of people join up with the struggle against U.S. aggression in Viet Nam, but millions more were drawn into the broad mass movements that developed on a whole series of fronts. The Afro-American struggle burst into the flames of the great rebellions that shook the major cities throughout the country. The strike movement of the workers took on a renewed vigor, drawing millions and millions of workers into militant strikes against the monopoly capitalist exploiters. And the youth and students set the campuses ablaze with their broad mass actions. Increasingly the government was forced to bring out the army to control and suppress these mass struggles. Army tanks rolled through Detroit and Newark to put down the fighting black masses. Airborne army units were dispatched to Washington, D.C. in an attempt to control the fierce struggle of the antiwar demonstrators. U.S. troops were sent to take over the post offices and to keep the mail moving in an effort to suppress the 1970 national strike of the postal workers. But the very issues that were agitating the American masses and bringing them into mass struggle, were also exciting the U.S. soldiers. And increasingly the GI's resisted being used to suppress their friends and relatives who were fighting against the rich and their government. Just as in Viet Nam, where the soldiers began to fraternize with the national liberation forces, began to refuse combat orders and to sabotage the imperialist war effort, so also inside the United States the GI's began to resist being used to suppress the struggles of the American masses.

FTA worked actively to organize this resistance of the soldiers, to link the GI's with the mass struggles of the people and to bring them over to the side of revolutionary struggle. FTA carried regular articles supporting the revolutionary movement and explaining to the GI's the demands of the masses and why they were fighting. It showed the GI's how the imperialist system savagely exploits and oppresses the American people for the profits of a handful of rich exploiters. And it showed that whether the U.S. armed forces were being used for aggression in Viet Nam or to put down the struggles of the American masses, it was at all times an instrument of the billionaires to protect and extend their exploitation and plunder of the working people.

When mass resistance of the GI's broke out, FTA supported it and encouraged the masses of soldiers to follow this example. For instance, 5000 anti-war demonstrators marched onto Fort Dix, New Jersey army base in the spring of 1970. A number of army units were called out to stop the demonstrators. But when one company of basic trainees was ordered to fix bayonets, the entire company refused. The soldiers then refused to carry out any orders to take action against the demonstrators and the army quickly rushed the company back to its barracks. This incident, and others like it, were reported in FTA and the GI's were encouraged to follow this example and support the just struggles of the American masses.

FTA also organized a big campaign against "riot control training" after the army organized this as a regular part of the training at Fort Knox. FTA exposed that this policy was instituted to use the Fort Knox soldiers to suppress the struggles of the workers and black people in Detroit, Louisville and other cities in the Midwest. It demanded an end to all such training and organized the GI's to resist it. In one case, FTA supporters were included among the GI's who were to play the role of "rioters," so the trainees could practice the methods of riot control. But these GI "rioters" took their work seriously and threw the entire training into disarray. They wrote their own picket signs against the army; they raced through the barracks mobilizing many soldiers who were off duty to participate in the "riot"; and while the GI's who were supposed to control the "rioters" messed up carrying out their orders, the GI "rioters" pelted the officers with rocks, mud, water balloons and whatever else they could get their hands on. Through these type actions, FTA supporters made a mockery of the riot control training, undermined the fascist military discipline and encouraged a spirit of defiance among the masses of GI's.

The resistance of the GI's to being used to suppress the struggles of the masses was an important part of the GI movement and showed its potential as a force for revolution. Every revolutionary struggle faces the armed suppression by the monopoly capitalist billionaires. And it is an important question for the success of the revolution that at least a sizable section of the armed forces of the rich are won over to take the side of the revolution. The struggles that took place in the U.S. military during the 1960's and early 1970's showed the potential for just such an eventuality. FTA worked actively to encourage the resistance of the GI's. And through the education it carried out and the actions it organized, it strove to bring the GI's over to the side of revolutionary struggle, to make them an active force on the side of the masses for the revolutionary overthrow of the monopoly capitalist billionaires.

FTA Fought the Fascization Racial Discrimination and All-Round Intolerable Conditions Faced by the GI's

For the U.S. imperialists to carry out their unpopular aggressive war against the people of Southeast Asia, for them to suppress the broad mass struggles of the American people, they had to build up the army based on the most fascist military discipline. The army worked to imbue the soldiers with the aggressive ideology of imperialism. It conducted brutal discrimination against the black GI's and other nationalities serving in the imperialist war machine. And it carried out the most savage political persecution, suppressing with an iron hand even the smallest dissent, and banning any political rights of the soldiers except to serve as the cannon fodder of U.S. imperialist aggression.

This tyrannical fascization of the army was itself a source of the rebellion of the GI's, who increasingly stood up to fight against the intolerable conditions. FTA was an instrument of this struggle of the GI's. Even the slightest issue agitating the GI's, like the right to wear Afro-American hairstyles, became a matter which FTA protested and used to encourage the resistance of the GI's. Low pay, overtime duties, the despicable housing conditions, the bad medical care of soldiers and their families, the savage racial discrimination and complete lack of rights were all issues on which FTA fought for the GI's. The U.S. army, like all imperialist forces, was thoroughly corrupt. Officers frequently stole food and other goods supposed to be for the GI's, and sold them for the officers' own profits. FTA also exposed these crimes against the soldiers. FTA carried a regular column entitled "The Lifer of the Month" in which it encouraged GI's to write exposures of the most fascist commissioned and non-commissioned officers ("lifers"). By ridiculing these officers and exposing their crimes against the rank and file soldiers, FTA encouraged the GI resistance and frequently the mere exposure of these crimes was enough to win the demands of the GI's.

Some of the largest mass struggles of the GI's took place in the stockades. Due to the savage suppression of the GI's, the harsh racial discrimination, and so forth, the military prisons were completely overflowing. The army even had to set up Special Processing Battalions (SPB's) to house GI's who were waiting to go to the stockades or were just about to be released, in order to take care of the overflow from the stockades. The horrible conditions in the stockades and SPB's led to many big rebellions where GI's seized control of sections of the prisons, burned areas to the ground and fought the military police. FTA supported these just rebellions and fought for the demands of the GI's. For example in the winter of 1969 FTA assisted the soldiers at the Fort Knox SPB to fight the harsh conditions. The GI's met in the SPB and drew up their demands. But the army wouldn't listen, transferred a number of the GI leaders to other bases and sent some to the stockade. As a result the soldiers in SPB rebelled, taking over their barracks. It took the military police several hours to put down the struggle. FTA smuggled the demands of the GI's out of SPB, published them in the paper and mobilized soldiers all over Fort Knox to support the struggle.

Through these types of struggles against the appalling conditions and for the GI's rights, the widest sections of the soldiers were drawn into mass actions. FTA worked to organize the GI's through these struggles, fought to win the demands of the GI's, and used these struggles to draw the GI's into the general movement against U.S. imperialism.

Activists of the GI Movement Took Up the Struggle to Build the Marxist-Leninist Party

FTA was a paper and an organization of the GI movement, and like the movement as a whole it suffered from not having the leadership of a vanguard party of the working class, a party consistent in revolutionary principle, guided by the Marxist-Leninist theory of the working class, and politically mature and trained in revolutionary tactics.

Due to the conditions in the army, the severe suppression of the GI organizers, the constant shipping of soldiers to other military bases, throwing them in the stockades, and so forth, FTA was unable to maintain a stable core of revolutionary organizers. As a result FT A was inconsistent in political thought and action, repeating errors which had already been made and having to learn over and over again the lessons already learned in revolutionary struggle.

Even more significantly, the revisionists, trotskyites and other opportunists infiltrated the GI movement and sought to divert it from the path of revolutionary struggle and to liquidate it. The opportunists attempted to put an end to any talk of opposition to imperialism, claiming that this "turned off" the GI's, and they tried to put every GI struggle on the path of their pacifist, legalist and reformist illusions. For example, the struggle of the GI's for political rights had at its heart the desire of the soldiers to oppose U.S. imperialist aggression in Viet Nam and to support the revolutionary struggles of the people. As a result the GI's used every means of struggle, both secret and illegal as well as legal methods, to organize the GI's and encourage their mass actions. But the opportunists tried to remove the revolutionary content from these struggles, to convert them into the sole issue of "constitutional rights" and reforming the military code of justice. They limited the scope of the GI struggle, pushed court battles into the center and increasingly brought up lawyers to be the "fighting force" of the GI movement.

The organizers of FT A came up in one confrontation after another against these revisionists and trotskyites. Over the years, the revolutionaries among the GI's learned to despise the opportunists, the illusions they spread and their sabotage of the soldiers' struggle. And they began to see that to wage a consistent fight against the opportunists, and to advance the GI movement required the building of a centralized revolutionary fighting force, a vanguard Marxist-Leninist party, stable and consistent in revolutionary principles and tactics.

A number of the organizers of FTA and other activists of the GI movement took up the work to build such a Marxist-Leninist party. They linked up with the American Communist Workers Movement (Marxist-Leninist), the national Marxist-Leninist center which was founded in 1969. After ten years of struggle begun with the founding of ACWM(M-L) and carried forward by the COUSML, the Marxist-Leninist Party, the genuine revolutionary vanguard of the working class, has been established. Today the Marxist-Leninist Party carries forward the revolutionary traditions of the FTA and the GI movement.

The experience of FTA, and of the GI movement generally, shows the possibilities and necessity for conducting revolutionary work in the armed forces. The soldiers are mainly the sons and daughters of the working masses and their interests lie with the revolutionary struggles of the people. Despite the repressive conditions, the organizing of the KKK and other fascist gangs, and the all-round fascization of the army, the masses of GI's can and will be mobilized against imperialism. With the advance of the mass movement against U.S. imperialist war preparations, and the development of all of the various struggles of the masses against the rich imperialist exploiters, the GI movement will also become organized and play its important role in overthrowing the monopoly capitalists.

[Graphic.]

[Photo: On November 9, 1972, 132 sailors in San Diego refuse to reboard the USS Constellation because of racist practices on the ship.]

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Defend the Anti-Draft Movement from Slander and Attacks!

(The following leaflet was issued by the Syracuse Committee Against Social-Chauvinism, March 27, 1980.)

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE DAILY ORANGE:

On February 25, the Syracuse Committee Against Social-Chauvinism initiated a demonstration on the Syracuse University Quad under the slogans: "No to U.S. Imperialist War Preparations!" and "No to the Reintroduction of the Draft!" This demonstration was part of the growing movement nationwide to oppose the draft and other war preparations. The demonstration was warmly received by a large number of students who, along with the working class and other oppressed youth, are the object of Carter's plans to increase the U.S. imperialists' supply of human ammunition for their wars of aggression.

In the face of this growing movement against the draft and other war preparations, the campus paper the Daily Orange saw fit to attack the demonstration of the 25th. In its article "Group Organizes Protest" (February 26, 1980) the Daily Orange blatantly lies about the support of the students for this demonstration, and distorts the politics of the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA and its role in the movement against war preparations. This attack is aimed at the entire movement.

The Daily Orange article begins by attacking and slandering the students. It characterizes those who "gathered to watch" by stating only that "snowballs and hecklers' shouts were directed" at the demonstration, and then gives a quote from one student to complete the impression that the students were antagonistic to the demonstration and opposed to the anti-imperialist stand of the Syracuse Committee Against Social-Chauvinism. This is a blatant lie. For over two weeks prior to the demonstration the SCASC and other activists distributed well over 1,000 leaflets on the SU campus alone. This leaflet explained the political stand of the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA in the anti-draft movement, and raised the same slogans as the demonstration on the 25th. These leaflets were vigorously received by the broad masses of students. At the demonstration itself, well over 250 students gathered to read and discuss the same leaflet, and to listen to the statement of the Syracuse Committee Against Social-Chauvinism which denounced the warmongering plans of "human rights" Carter. Those few students who opposed the demonstration by weakly tossing snowballs in the direction of the demonstration were either berated or ignored by the majority of students, many of whom stayed afterwards to have long discussion on the anti-imperialist nature of the movement against the draft. Thus, the Daily Orange turns truth on its head when presenting the stand of a few disruptors as the stand of the large majority of students.

This is not the first time the Daily Orange has slandered the students by presenting them as in support of U.S. imperialism. A few months ago, when the warmongering campaign of the U.S. government against the people's revolution in Iran was at its peak, a handful of reactionaries supported by the state called for a racist and fascist demonstration against the Iranian people. At that time the Daily Orange reported that 200 students showed up. This gave the impression that these students supported the politics of the demonstration. What the Daily Orange article failed to report was that these students, along with the SCASC, showed up to denounce the fascists, who were exposing their true political stand by shouting the hitlerite slogan "Seig Heil."

The Daily Orange should stop these actions which have the effect of propping up the pro-imperialist warmongers and slander the actual sentiment of the students to fight against the draft and all the imperialist war preparations.

The Daily Orange article goes from distortion and slander of the true anti-imperialist sentiments of the students, to distortion of the politics of the Marxist-Leninist Party and its role in the movement against imperialist war preparations. There are three basic distortions we want to deal with in this letter.

1. The Daily Orange article distorts the line of the MLP,USA for the development of the anti-draft movement by promoting that the MLP,USA will "attempt to stop the draft through creating an atmosphere of discussion through mass meetings." We don't know where the Daily Orange got this line, but it was not from the SCASC or from the Marxist-Leninist Party's newspaper The Workers' Advocate, which states our line clearly. U.S. imperialism has been exposed over and over by its own actions as a most bloodthirsty and barbaric superpower. In the 1960's and early 1970's, its brutal attempt to suppress the national liberation struggle of the peoples of Southeast Asia showed the lengths of slaughter and destruction the U.S. imperialists are willing to go to suppress those who rise up against it. Today the U.S. imperialists are preparing to launch aggressive war to protect their "vital interests" -- the profits of Exxon, Mobil, and other rapacious monopoly capitalist groups. U.S. imperialism, along with the other superpowers are threatening the world with nuclear holocaust. Thus the savage war preparations of U.S. imperialism clearly cannot be opposed by peaceful "discussion." To promote such a line for the development of the movement against the draft is to sow dangerous illusions among the people. The Marxist-Leninist Party does not have such illusions. The MLP,USA promotes the line of mass revolutionary struggle against every step taken by the imperialists in their war preparations. The mass movement that developed against the war in Southeast Asia over a decade ago showed the correctness of the line of mass revolutionary struggle, and the bankruptcy of the line of peaceful opposition to imperialist war. Speaking about the mass movement against the war in the 60's The Workers' Advocate states: "With great determination and militancy, millions of American people rose up in one mass action after another against this most savage war. ROTC buildings were burned to the ground. Militant actions were organized against the draft boards....large numbers of GI's organized resistance inside the military itself...they staged demonstrations, organized rebellions in the stockades, and carried out mass refusals to go to combat." These mass actions and demonstrations of a decade ago are the heritage and fighting experience of the movement against the draft today. This heritage is upheld by the line of the Marxist-Leninist Party, the line of mass revolutionary struggle. This is the line that the Daily Orange article, through its complete misquote, distorts into the line that "discussions" will "attempt to stop the draft."

2. The Daily Orange article also attempts to speculate on the differences of the groups within the movement against the draft. Through this they encourage splits and disunity. This is not our line. We stand for the unity of the movement, for the unity of all those who are genuinely opposed to the draft and the war preparations. The reinstitution of the draft is part of the overall intensification of U.S. imperialism's war preparations. It is through aggressive war that the U.S. imperialists seek to deal with the rising revolutionary and liberation movements of the world's people by drowning them in blood. This aim, along with their contention with the Soviet imperialists for world domination, are the reasons behind Carter's calls for increased military spending, the development of the MX missiles, the strengthening of NATO and the U.S.-China alliance, etc. The call for the reintroduction of the draft, so that the "peacenik" Carter and his masters can have a continuous supply of human ammunition, cannot be separated from U.S. imperialism's entire war program. Thus, those who claim to oppose the draft, but defend U.S. imperialism, are only flunkeys of the rich, hiding in the ranks of the people. The Workers' Advocate clarifies the purpose of this infiltration by stating: "While Carter is reintroducing the draft and openly calling for imperialist war preparations, a flabby 'left-wing' section of his Democratic Party is entering the anti-draft movement. These flunkeys of the Democratic Party claim that they too oppose draft registration, at least for now. But their opposition is not against imperialism and war. Instead they are trying to subvert the anti-imperialist struggle and bring the movement under the wing of the Democratic Party and their warmongering policies. They wish to convert the whole issue of draft registration into whether a volunteer army or a drafted army is best, whether the present army is 'adequate' to 'defend' U.S. imperialism, and so forth.... The basic issue with regard to the draft is: the draft for what? The issue is that the U.S. army is an aggressor army, an army of imperialist war and enslavement.... The flunkeys of the Democratic Party who 'oppose' draft registration but support imperialism are simply lying politicians. ... They want to turn back from Carter's present position of open warmongering, to Carter's former position of war preparations under fraudulent appeals for 'human rights' and 'peace.' They are assisting the U.S. imperialist war drive by trying to trick and stop the mass movement against it." It is the struggle against imperialism and its agents infiltrating the movement which will strengthen the movement and build the true unity of all those genuinely opposed to the draft and the war preparations. This is our position on the vital issue of unity within the movement. The quotes in the Daily Orange article on our attitude toward the Syracuse Coalition for Peace are pure fabrication and distortion.

3. Several times throughout the article on the demonstration of the 25th the Daily Orange promotes a false contradiction between the work of the Marxist-Leninist Party and the SCASC in the movement against the draft, and our work for the complete overthrow of U.S. imperialism. We would like to clear up this "contradiction." The war preparations of the imperialists, which the anti-draft movement is waging active struggle against, are part of an entire program by the U.S. imperialists to save themselves from the deep economic and all-round crisis which has their dying system by the throat. This program is one of starvation of the workers through wage controls, of developing fascism to suppress the people of the U.S. as they rise up against the exploitation of the monopoly capitalist system, as well as their plans for war. The workers, progressive students, Afro-Americans and other oppressed and exploited masses are all engaged in struggle against the vicious attacks of the monopoly capitalists. The Marxist-Leninist Party defends the momentary interests and immediate aims of these movements, but in the movement of the present it also represents and takes care of the future of the movement. The Marxist-Leninist Party has put forward the program of the working class as opposed to the program of the exploiting capitalist class. The program to defend the immediate and long-term interests of the working class and people of the U.S. is one of mass revolutionary struggle. The Communique from the Founding Congress of the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA states: "The MLP,USA works to weld all the revolutionary currents into a single torrent with the proletariat at the center.... These movements, which bring the masses of people into open conflict with the rich and the state power of the rich, are schools of revolution. In these movements, the masses of working people gain rich experience, become convinced through their own experience of the need for revolution and of the correctness of the policies, slogans and orientation of the Marxist-Leninist Party, and become organized and prepared for the revolution." There is no contradiction between our work against the draft and our work for the anti-fascist proletarian socialist revolution. The Daily Orange should cease such actions as the attack on our demonstration, which slander, disrupt, and foment splits in the movement against war preparations.

The SCASC for its part will continue its program for the development of the struggle against war preparations, and calls upon all progressive anti-imperialist students to unite with the SCASC to develop the movement and defend it against all attacks.

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Beijing revisionist warmongers lash out against the anti-draft movement

The Chinese social-imperialists have shown once again that they are hardened fascist warmongers. In an article in the March 10, 1980 issue of the magazine Beijing Review, these Chinese revisionist allies of U.S. imperialism viciously denounce the anti-draft movement and the progressive anti-imperialist youth. The article "No Return to Cold War?" by the Xinhua News Agency's Washington correspondent Peng Di states: "Therefore some U.S. congressmen and political figures are underestimating the Soviet designs for aggression and expansion. They warn against over-reaction to the Afghan invasion and 'a return to cold war.' Some even describe the invasion as a defensive action out of security considerations with no intention to drive southward. Naturally this view is approved by students who are reluctant to join the armed forces...." (emphasis ours.)

According to the professional liars of the Beijing Review (or is Peng Di really writing for Buckley's National Review), the opposition to the draft only comes from "students" who are "reluctant" for unspecified reasons -- the clear implication is that they are cowards -- to join the "armed forces." "Naturally" the Beijing Review neglects to mention exactly what kind of "armed forces" it is that these "students" are reluctant to join. These armed forces are the cannon fodder for U.S. imperialism. The "students" are opposed to invading Iran to fight for the greater profits of the huge American oil monopolies. They are opposed to slaughtering the world's people to maintain a vast U.S. empire. They are opposed to the imperialist armed forces that napalmed the Indochinese people, set up one fascist dictator after another in the Caribbean and Central America, supply the Israeli Zionists with weapons, and so on and so forth.

These "students" are in reality both students and vast masses of young workers. The young workers are fighting against the capitalist exploitation and oppression at home, and they want no part of being a U.S. expeditionary force abroad. They are not opposed to fighting, as the militant and protracted strikes show, but they want to fight against the U.S. imperialist exploiters and not on behalf of them. Students too are part of this movement. But it is the students with progressive ideals who are opposed to the imperialist aggression and war. To find cowards, you must look to the revisionist liars and yellow capitulators of Beijing Review and of the Hua-Deng fascist revisionist clique, who have cowardly capitulated to U.S. imperialism under the thin pretext of fighting Soviet social-imperialism. These revisionist character assassins hiss in unison with the U.S. imperialists that to be against U.S. imperialism means to be a witting or unwitting dupe of "Soviet aggression or expansion." For the Chinese social-imperialists are real cowards who cannot even imagine standing up for revolution and socialism against all imperialism and social-imperialism.

To add some "profundity" to its analysis, the Beijing Review comes out with its stock nonsense about "some U.S. congressmen and political figures" being against the cold war and others for it. Naturally, the Beijing Review is for the worst Reaganites and warmongers and is in favor of each new military step of the Carter administration. But in truth all the U.S. imperialist political figures are equally imperialists, only with slight differences on how best to go about striving to dominate the world and carry out inter-imperialist rivalries and how best to hoodwink the American people. Beijing Review, however, rushes in with this tale of "appeasement," straight out of the fantasies of the John Birch society, in order to prove its allegiance to world imperialism and its rabid opposition to the revolution.

Today a broad movement against the reintroduction of the draft has broken out. This movement is part of the struggle against all U.S. imperialist war preparations. Through this struggle thousands of working class youth and of students are being brought into active struggle against U.S. imperialism. This attack on the anti-draft movement by Beijing Review shows the counter-revolutionary and utterly reactionary nature of the Chinese revisionists. It shows that the Chinese revisionists are nothing but cynical social-imperialists and army recruiters and drill sergeants for U.S. imperialism. The Chinese warmongers are lecturing the youth and students that they should give up their allegedly cowardly "reluctance" to take part in imperialist slaughter and take up fighting for the red-white-and-blue with sword in hand. The Chinese social-imperialists want to incite an inter-imperialist war between U.S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism which they feel will be to their advantage. They hope to prosper through the massacre of millions upon millions of people.

The Chinese revisionist supporters in the U.S., "our own" domestic "three worlders," are also opponents of the anti-draft movement. However, their special role in the imperialist strategy is to infiltrate the people's movement and subvert them. So they have to find ways and means of trying to make the Beijing Review's warmongering palatable to the masses. Thus The Call, organ of the Pentagon-socialist "CPML," has set for itself the task of bringing the anti-draft movement into the context of being a part of a worldwide coalition with U.S. imperialism against Soviet social-imperialism. They stress that one cannot oppose all imperialism, for "it is folly to fight all enemies at once, or to fight alone. Better to single out the main source of hegemonism and aggression and unite all who can be united to resist it." (The Call, January 7, 1980) Therefore they support U.S. imperialist aggression, advocating that "U.S. government action (what a nice polite description of U.S. aggression and militarism -- ed.) can be seen only as one component of a worldwide effort against the Soviet war machine." (The Call, January 7, 1980) On this basis, they support all the warmongering steps of the Carter administration, holding that "Faced with such obvious threats to its longstanding position of dominance in the world, the U.S. government has begun to take concrete measures against Soviet expansion.... Although these moves are doubtlessly designed to further U.S. imperialism's own quest for world power, they are positive in that they present obstacles to Soviet aggression, which is the main threat to world peace." (The Call, January 28,1980)

But how to reconcile these positions with the necessity to work in the anti-draft movement? The "three worlders" of the "CPML" accomplish this feat by arguing that there are other, more effective ways to counter "threats" to U.S. imperialism's "long-standing dominance in the world" than the draft. The Call argues that: "There are many steps available to Carter right now besides the draft. For example, the U.S. continues to supply the Soviets with technological and economic aid. If Carter wants to stop the Soviets, he should cut off all trade." (February 18, 1980) They also suggest selling weapons to China, tying the heroic Afghan resistance to U.S. imperialism, and other similar steps. The "CPML" stresses that it is for a harsher stand than Carter, and even denounces the Carter doctrine as "in certain respects...even a step back from the Sonnenfeldt Doctrine of 1975, which subsequently became a synonym for appeasement." (February 4, 1980) They are for weighing the draft against other measures and seeing which is more effective. As for the draft itself, this is a matter of timing. The organizational secretary of the "CPML's" youth league points out that "the real question isn't whether women should be drafted, but rather if anyone should be drafted at this time." (The Call, February 18, 1980, page 3, emphasis ours) Thus he is opposed to the fight against the militarization of women and wishes the question reduced to when is it best to reinstitute the draft.

This is exactly the nature of the "CPML's" "opposition" to increases in defense spending. The Call asks: "Why must defense spending be boosted when even the government's own reports show massive waste and efforts to simply line the pockets of the government bureaucrats and defense contractors, while driving down the masses' standard of living? (February 4, 1980) However, if the money really went into building more H-bombs and not into "the pockets of the government bureaucrats," if it really was used for fighting for U.S. imperialism's interests, then The Call would be satisfied. That would be a "concrete measure against Soviet expansionism."

The movement against the reintroduction of the draft must be oriented against U.S. imperialism. The Chinese revisionist Beijing Review is an open enemy of the anti-draft movement. The "CPML" "three worlders" are camouflaged enemies trying to infiltrate the anti-draft movement. They both have the same positions and they are both recruiting sergeants for U.S. imperialism.

[Cartoon.]

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The U.S.-China aggressive alliance has earned the wrath of the people

(The following leaflet was distributed by the San Francisco Bay Area Branch of the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA at the March 22 demonstration in San Francisco of 7,000 people protesting against the draft. The leaflet was issued by the San Francisco Bay Area Branch. It was aimed against the " three worlders" who are trying to divert the anti-draft movement into supporting the U.S.-China warmongering alliance.)

A significant feature of U.S. imperialism's all-sided preparation to launch new wars of imperialist conquest, to fight the Soviet social-imperialists for markets and spheres of influence, to drown in blood the anti-imperialist struggles of the working masses all over the globe, is their warmongering alliance with China. In January of this year Defense Secretary Harold Brown, the highest representative of the Pentagon, toured China. Even though these trips by top officials are always billed as "people to people" diplomacy, when Brown climbed onto a Chinese tank and from that vantage point stated to his hosts that he "hopes that relations will grow between the armies of our two countries," the true nature of the U.S.-China warmongering alliance was once again revealed for all to see. This alliance between the warmongers of Beijing and Washington is proving to be a hotbed of war and aggression and is fraught with great danger for the people of the world, for their freedom and independence.

One of the main directions of Harold Brown's trip and of his bargaining with the chieftains of Chinese social- imperialism is the extension of military collaboration, something which both sides are deeply interested in. In meetings with top Chinese leaders, as well as between joint work groups, the ways and means of supplying China with equipment and advanced military technology were discussed. As a result, after Brown's successful tour the Carter administration offered to sell China all kinds of military equipment, including advanced computer, satellite and radar technology, and trucks and other military vehicles.

But the current bargaining goes even further. Apart from military problems, international questions were also brought up at the bargaining table in Beijing and coordination of joint policies and stands were worked out.

The Pentagon chieftain went to Beijing at a time when the Soviet social-imperialists have launched a brutal, fascist invasion of Afghanistan; when the American imperialists have launched a cold war and real economic and political aggression against Iran -- two events which have further complicated the situation in the Middle East. In these conditions the American imperialists and the Chinese social-imperialists, in rivalry with the Soviet social-imperialists, are seeking an even greater coordination of their political and military activities in the turbulent situation which they themselves have created. Time and concrete actions have proven that the Chinese social-imperialists are playing the role of an imperialist gendarme, of the most zealous champion of the interests of U.S. imperialism wherever it is in rivalry with the Russian imperialists in the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, Asia and in Europe. This zeal is based on the American economic and military support on which the Chinese revisionists have centered their entire policy of transforming China into a superpower.

The U.S.-China alliance began in 1971 when Kissinger went to China for secret talks. These talks led up to the infamous meeting between Nixon and Mao Zedong in 1972. This meeting took place at a time when the fascist Nixon was carrying out the most barbaric bombing of Viet Nam, when U.S. imperialism was being smashed by the heroic Indochinese people, and when Nixon and the U.S. warmongers were becoming isolated and denounced around the world and at home. It was a time when U.S. imperialism was looking for a way to outflank its massive opposition and regroup its forces in order to continue its aggression. It was at this moment that the U.S.-China alliance was born. The thoroughly discredited Nixon, whose hands dripped with the blood of the Indochinese people and the students at Kent State, was warmly embraced by the supposedly "revolutionary" leader of China -- Mao Zedong. We see that right from the outset, the U.S.-China alliance was in the service of imperialist war and aggression.

The visit to Washington, D.C. of the Chinese revisionist chieftain Deng Xiaoping in January 1979 marked the full flowering and public declaration of the all-round economic, political, ideological and military alliance between U.S. imperialism and Chinese social- imperialism. Having once received the blessing of the U.S. imperialists, it was only a matter of hours after he left the U.S. that Deng proclaimed that China was "going to teach Viet Nam a lesson," and it was only 13 days after Deng concluded his nine day pilgrimage that the Chinese troops invaded Viet Nam. Mr. Deng and his host, Mr. Carter, sang duets about their "new relationship" saying it was a "factor for peace and stability in Asia and the world." But the brutal Chinese invasion of Viet Nam, which is a product as well as a vivid example of the U.S.-China alliance, exposed for all to see the true nature, the warmongering nature of this alliance.

Indeed, the open U.S.-China alliance has been widely advertised as a way to thwart the hegemonism of the Soviet social-imperialists -- which both Washington and Beijing want to portray as the only aggressor. The Soviet Union, since the rise of Khrushchovite revisionism, has been a ferocious imperialist state which has carried out brutal invasions and neo-colonial expansion. But since when have the U.S. imperialists, who stand convicted of plundering and strangling the people on every continent, been any different? The two superpowers, the U.S. and the Soviet Union, as the two biggest world oppressors and plunderers are to the same degree the gravest threat to the world's people. Coming under the umbrella of one superpower to protect against the other will only spell disaster for the toiling masses who will pay a heavy price.

In addition, as part of the U.S.- China alliance, the Chinese revisionists have made it their mission to subvert the anti-imperialist revolutions in Asia, Africa and Latin America. They find every opportunity to paint in progressive colors all the bloody dictators who are puppets of U.S. imperialism in those countries. For instance when Hua Kuofeng visited Iran, the country was in the midst of the revolutionary struggle which eventually toppled the Shah, a puppet who had been installed by the U.S. CIA in 1953. Hua found a way to support the Shah and slap the face of the revolutionary masses, who were laying down their lives for their freedom even as he was visiting. While in Iran Hua sang praises to the Shah, alleging that he was an "opponent of superpower hegemonism." As long as some word is uttered against Soviet social-imperialism, any dictator is welcomed into the bosom of the U.S. and Chinese imperialists and dubbed as progressive.

These crimes against the anti-imperialist revolutions are part and parcel of the theory of "three worlds" which is a theoretical cornerstone of the U.S.-China alliance. It is under this theory that the Chinese revisionists call on the world's people to entirely give up the anti-imperialist struggle in any form and instead enter into imperialist alliances. This theory calls on the "third world" to unite with the "second world" and especially with the U.S.-led Western imperialists, with NATO and the Japanese imperialists, under the hoax of struggle against the so-called "first world" (the two superpowers). But the true intent of this theory is revealed by the Chinese revisionists themselves who have given up all the pretense of struggle against the "first world" and are instead calling for unity with one half of the "first world," namely with bloodthirsty U.S. imperialism, against the so-called "main enemy," the Soviet social- imperialists.

This formula in defense of U.S. imperialist aggression is put forward by the "three worlders" in this country too. Michael Klonsky, leader of the so- called "Communist" Party "ML" and a free-lance advisor for the Pentagon through the pages of his chauvinist newspaper, The Call, as well as other "three worlders," are the most ardent defenders of U.S. imperialism and its policy of war and aggression. Their single mission in life is to line up the working class and people behind the war chariot of the U.S.-China aggressive alliance under the slogan that the U.S. proletariat should "direct the main blow against the Soviet Union." With the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan they are more explicitly than ever spelling out their strategy of uniting "all who can be united" behind the warmongering and aggressive policies of the U.S. government. As The Call puts it: "U.S. government action can be seen only as one component part of a worldwide effort against the Soviet war machine."

In fact, in league with the most case-hardened warmongering' politicians, the "three worlders" are positively ecstatic that Carter has "finally" "come around" to their "hard-line" position of stepped-up aggression and rattling of sabers. "Faced with such obvious threats to its longstanding position of dominance in the world, the U.S. government has begun to take concrete measures against Soviet expansion.... Although these moves are doubtlessly designed to further U.S. imperialism's own quest for world power, they are positive in that they present obstacles to Soviet aggression, which is the main threat to world peace." (The Call, Jan. 28, 1980) What unabashed and total enthusiasm for imperialism! The "concrete measures" "designed to further U.S. imperialism's own quest for world power" and to consolidate its "longstanding position of dominance in the world" have become a "positive" force for "world peace."

The U.S.-China warmongering alliance, being part of the war preparations of the U.S. imperialists, has earned the wrath of the people. Along with the mass protests and demonstrations against the draft, against Trident submarines, and against the nuclear energy program, all over the country militant protests were also held against the visit of Deng Ziaoping to the U.S. and against the strengthening of the U.S.-China warmongering alliance.

This movement against the imperialist war preparations -- the anti-nuclear movement, the anti-draft. movement, and the movement against the U.S.-China warmongering alliance, etc. -- is drawing thousands and thousands of youth into open conflict with U.S. imperialism. In this movement they are being tempered and trained in struggle and through their own experience they are becoming convinced of the necessity of revolution. Mass revolutionary struggle is the only path forward which can combat the wild and frenzied war preparations by pushing forward the revolution. The anti-imperialist struggle is a powerful force for the development of the socialist revolution that will put an end to U.S. imperialism once and for all by overthrowing the capitalist exploiters. The path for the movement against war preparations is the path of mass revolutionary struggle.

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THE 110th ANNIVERSARY OF THE BIRTH OF GREAT LENIN

[Photo.]

April 22, 1980 marks the 110th anniversary of the birth of Comrade Vladimir I. Lenin. Comrade Lenin was the beloved teacher and leader of the world proletariat. Comrade Lenin defended and developed the theory of Marxism with rare mastery and absolute loyalty. He fought with relentless determination against all the revisionists and opportunists and against the conciliators and centrists. His work and struggle marked an epoch-making development of the theory of Marxism under the conditions of imperialism. The Great October Socialist Revolution, led and organized by the great Bolshevik Party of Comrade Lenin, opened up a new era in the life of man, the era of socialism. This revolution' was primarily an international revolution, a revolution that signified a radical turn in world history, a turn from the old, capitalist world to the new socialist world. This revolution established the revolutionary authority of Leninism. Today the genuine communist parties of the whole world are guided by Marxism-Leninism. As Comrade Stalin, the loyal and brilliant continuer of Comrade Lenin's work, teaches in his classic work The Foundations Leninism teaches:

"Leninism is Marxism of the era imperialism and the proletarian revolution. To be more exact, Leninism is the theory and tactics of the proletarian revolution in general, the theory and tactics of the dictatorship of the proletariat in particular."

The immortal teachings of Comrade Lenin inspire the struggle of communists everywhere. Without a revolutionary theory, a revolutionary party gropes in the dark. In the present situation, the enemies of the proletarian revolution have stepped up their efforts to attack, distort, defame and negate the revolutionary theory and ideology of Marxism-Leninism. Most recently, the Chinese revisionist trend has come out into the open and the ugly features of Mao Zedong Thought have been seen for what they are. All this gives special urgency to a task which is always of paramount importance, namely to the study and defense of Leninism. For this purpose, on this year of the 110th anniversary of the birth of Comrade Lenin, The Workers' Advocate will carry a series of articles on and collection of quotations from the immortal works of Comrade Lenin and of his loyal disciple and the continuer of his work, Comrade Stalin.

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Message of Greetings on the Founding of the Marxist-Leninist Party of the USA from "People's Voice" of India

[People's Voice masthead.]

People's Voice

New Delhi

February 8, 1980

The Central Committee

The Marxist-Leninist Party of the USA

Dear comrades,

People's Voice heartily hails the founding of the Marxist-Leninist Party of the USA. People's Voice considers the founding of the Marxist- Leninist Party of the USA as a victory for the international proletariat because the Marxist-Leninists' in the USA have succeeded in reconstituting the party of the proletariat in the USA which is the decisive condition for smashing the fascist, warmongering and bloodthirsty U.S. imperialist bourgeoisie which is a mortal enemy of the entire mankind.

The Marxist-Leninist Party of the USA is the fruit of years of arduous struggles by the Marxist-Leninists in the USA whose immediate roots are in the revolutionary mass movements of the 1960's and 1970's. With unshaken faith in the victory of the cause of the international proletariat and loyalty to Marxism-Leninism, you comrades unflinchingly defended the revolution and socialism through the years of intense ideological confusion-mongering and splittist activities of the Chinese revisionists and succeeded in reconstituting the party of the proletariat in the USA on the granite foundations of Marxism-Leninism. The great tenacity with which you comrades have fought against Browderite, Khrushchovite, Maoist and other brands of revisionism and succeeded in reconstituting the Party is a great source of inspiration for the Marxist-Leninists in India who are engaged in reconstituting the party of the Indian proletariat. The reconstitution of the party of the proletariat in the USA is a great blow to the fascist offensive of the U.S. imperialist bourgeoisie against the proletariat and people of the USA, and its war preparations. It is a victory for Marxism- Leninism over revisionism and opportunism of all hues. This is indeed a cause of great joy for the international proletariat.

People's Voice is very happy that you comrades have ushered in the decade of the 1980's with the founding of the Marxist-Leninist Party of the USA, and wishes you comrades all the success in strengthening the Party and marching at the head of the proletariat of one of the most industrially advanced countries in the world to smash one of the most aggressive imperialist powers mankind has known.

With communist greetings.

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Message of Greetings to "People's Voice" of India from the Founding Congress of the Marxist-Leninist Party of the USA

Dear fraternal comrades,

Today, at the birth of the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA, the delegates to the Founding Congress in the name of the Party send to you our warmest revolutionary greetings.

This Founding Congress is the fruit of lengthy and arduous struggle against monopoly capital and growing

fascism, against revisionism and opportunism. The determined struggle which was launched against Browder- ism and Khrushchovite revisionism broadened and directed its salvoes against Chinese revisionism and social-chauvinism as well, which had revealed themselves as enemies of the revolution and wreckers of the historic struggle against modern revisionism.

For decades since the betrayal of modern revisionism the burning question before the working class was the reconstruction of the Marxist- Leninist party, the party of the proletariat. The legacy of revisionism is such that there is no direct continuity with the party of the proletariat of the past. The task of reconstructing the party fell to the activists who came forward from the revolutionary mass movements of the 1960's and in subsequent years, who, at the greatest sacrifice, were obliged to establish anew the revolutionary traditions and Leninist norms. With the founding of the American Communist Workers Movement (Marxist-Leninist) in 1969 this struggle was renewed in an organized way and with a vigorous character and entered a new phase. This struggle further deepened with the founding of the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists in 1973.

This Congress crowns with victory the struggle of the American Marxist-Leninists to reconstruct the party on the basis of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism. It marks the advent of the 1980's, a decade of great class battles in which the American proletariat will march under the banner of its vanguard party. On this day we share this victory with you, our fraternal comrades with whom, though half a world apart, our heart beats as one.

The American Marxist-Leninists have always drawn great joy and inspiration from the advances of the Indian revolution. In the 1960's the communist revolutionaries in India stood up to smash the revisionist treachery of the so-called "peaceful road to socialism." In 1969 they founded anew the party of the Indian proletariat with the program of revolutionary overthrow of the reactionary state. This struggle was a part of the great international struggle of the world's Marxist-Leninists against revisionism. It gave new hope to the millions of toilers in India that their deepest aspirations for emancipation would be fulfilled. It was a source of inspiration to the revolutionaries the world over.

During the past period the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists in India have fought courageously to overcome the brutal onslaught of the reactionary classes and the base treachery of the revisionists, including Chinese revisionism and Mao Zedong Thought, and reconstruct the vanguard party of the proletariat on the basis of the revolutionary doctrine of Marxism-Leninism. One year ago began the publication of People's Voice. People's Voice is the glorious voice of Marxism-Leninism in India, a beacon of revolutionary science shining throughout the land. Its clear and resolute stand assists the Marxist-Leninists in all countries in defense of the purity of Marxism-Leninism in battle against revisionism and opportunism, including today's great battles against Chinese revisionism and the anti-Marxist-Leninist thought of Mao Zedong.

It is the proletariat and the proletariat alone which is capable of leading the toiling and oppressed masses of India to emancipation, and it is only the Marxist-Leninist vanguard party of the proletariat which can guide the class in fulfilling this historic mission. Today, in the inspired and resolute defense of the principles of Marxism-Leninism, in the Marxist-Leninist clarification of the decisive questions facing the Indian revolutionaries on a domestic and international scale, People's Voice is laying the granite foundations for that party. This inspires us and gives us confidence in the certain birth of the party and historic advance of the Indian revolution.

Shoulder to shoulder with the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists in India, the Marxist-Leninists in the United States fight in the common cause, the cause of the international proletariat, of socialism and communism.

Long live the militant unity between the Marxist-Leninists of India and the United States!

With warmest revolutionary greetings,

Founding Congress of the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA

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Caribbean Progressive Study Group and the "West Indian Voice" Declare:

"SUPPORT THE MARXIST-LENINIST PARTY!"

The Caribbean Progressive Study Group and The West Indian Voice warmly salute the Founding Congress of the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA held on January 1,1980. We salute the courageous Marxist-Leninists who have successfully reestablished the political party of the American proletariat. We wholeheartedly rejoice with the proletariat in the tremendous victory of the Founding Congress of its party, the MLP,USA.

We salute the manner of seriousness, forthrightness, the indomitable spirit of bravery and of unyielding faith in the triumphant principles of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism with which the Founding Congress set upon its historic work. The "Communique of the Founding Congress of the MLP,USA" is a document which we will always remember with great pride in times to come, and we call on all the progressive forces in our community to seriously study this historic document whose forthright, clear and principled revolutionary stand shows the type of mettle of which the MLP,USA is made. A Rousing Red Salute to the MLP, USA!

The very event of the Founding Congress is profound and an historic success. The road to the reconstitution of the political party of the American proletariat has been marred by decades of obstacles and roadblocks thrown up in its path by the imperialist rulers and the revisionist and opportunist traitors in their service. These difficulties were braved and overcome by the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists (COUSML), the militant nucleus of the Party, whose work prepared the conditions for the Founding Congress of the MLP,USA. The founding of the MLP,USA is the fruit and the legacy of struggle and determination in the cause of the proletariat, the revolution and the teachings of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin upon which the Party is based.

The Marxist-Leninist Party is born. Today! There is such a party! A party of the revolution and socialism, a party opposed to the parties of the rich, opposed to both the Republican and Democratic Parties of the billionaires, and opposed as well to the revisionist, opportunist and cultural nationalist groupings and sects which all serve the rich and carry the politics of the rich regardless of their fashionable disguises with which they all hide their true nature.

From the Democratic Party, which poses as the party of labor and the minorities, to all of its revisionist and opportunist sons and daughters -- they all paint themselves in order to fool the people. They all declare that they are parties of the working class and broad masses in order to convince the laboring masses to line up behind these parties of the rich, and in this way block the proletariat from becoming organized and conscious of its mission, from carrying through its independent march and from responding to all the questions facing the society from its own standpoint, and in this way fulfilling its role as the liberator of the entire society from capitalist slavery and injustice and offer the broad masses a bright and happy future in the revolution and socialism under the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Today, with the founding of the MLP,USA, a new chapter is unfolding in the life and struggle of the proletariat and revolutionary masses. Now, entering the 1980's, which holds great prospects for the struggle of the American people, the working class has its own party, a revolutionary party capable of leading the proletariat and people in an independent, political movement for complete emancipation from the rule of capital.

The founding of the party is the first historic step for the constitution of the working class as a class for itself, distinct from and opposed to the rich and all the exploiting classes. The founding of the MLP, US A is of decisive importance to all the genuinely revolutionary currents in the United States. In the factories, mines and fields, in communities, among the youth and in the schools, the broadest masses are fighting courageously and searching for a way out of the intolerable hardships, starvation, criminal exploitation, violent repression and racist attacks which life means under the citadels of this "American democracy" of the rich moneybags.

Without the leadership of a party with firm revolutionary convictions and scientific foresight, and one which is capable of leading the masses in struggle -- there can be no lasting success scored and the interest of the proletariat and people cannot triumph. Now there is such a party. Such a party is the MLP,USA.

This truth stands in our community as well. The West Indian community has definite lessons and experiences to go by. Today in our community a revolutionary current is vigorously organizing the people against the racist attacks of the government and its storm troopers, participating in all aspects of the working class movement in solid unity with our fellow workers, the ordinary Americans, as well as in genuine solidarity and support for the struggle of the people in the West Indies for total emancipation from imperialist domination and from the rule of the reactionary bourgeoisie. The Caribbean Progressive Study Group is organized, comprised of workers and militant youth who work without letup on these fronts. And it is this work which is scoring successes and winning the support and respect of all that is alive and honest and loyal to the proletariat in the community.

The growth and successes of the progressive forces in the West Indian community was possible because the banner of the proletariat, the politics of the MLP,USA, was carried into the community.

Even the lowest and most unashamed traitors to our community often rebuke us for this fine situation, for this is what they had feared most since they had decided to pledge their entire lives to worship the politics of the rich and sell out the interest of the people.

These traitors have been running around for long years bringing disaster, confusion and demoralization to everything they manage to put their hands on. No sooner do the police gangsters shoot down someone, than do these traitors plead with the community to leave matters in the hands of the politicians and courts of the rich. No sooner is there an upsurge in the West Indies than do these traitors scream their enthusiasm and zeal, not for the working people, but for those who administer the affairs of imperialism in the West Indies.

Our experience shows that it is only when the banner and politics of the proletariat and its party is upheld and followed that the interest of the people can be served and real successes won in their interests. The leadership of the Marxist-Leninist Party is the guarantee that genuine solidarity will be built with the struggles for national liberation, not the "solidarity" of the traitors with the puppets and stooges who govern for imperialism in the West Indies.

The West Indians in the United States are, by large, proletarians, members of the working class, who participate in every struggle of the working class and people against the monopoly capitalist dictators and their state power.

The founding of the MLP,USA, the victory of the Founding Congress of the party of the proletariat, is a victory for the proletariat as a whole. The rich and their vagabonds have their parties. Now there is a genuine party of the American proletariat. Down with the parties of the rich!

Red salute to the Founding Congress of the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA!

(Reprinted from The West Indian Voice, newspaper of the Caribbean Progressive Study Group, February- March 1980.)

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Grenada: What Kind of Revolution Is This?

[Class Struggle masthead.]

(The following are excerpts taken from Class Struggle, Organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Trinidad and Tobago, Vol. 1, No. 6, March 1-15, 1980.)

March 13, 1980 marks the first year since the overthrow of the fascist regime of Gairy in Grenada by the forces of the New Jewel Movement (NJM) led by Maurice Bishop.

At this time it is of utmost importance that a proper assessment be made of the achievements of this so-called "revolution" in Grenada led by the revisionists.

The Communist Party of Trinidad and Tobago sees it as its responsibility carrying out this task of exposing and fighting against the treachery of this revisionist regime in Grenada just as we also see our responsibility to oppose and combat the regimes which give their loyalties to the U.S. and other imperialists.

Today, in Grenada, a fierce battle is taking place between these two reactionary trends. One trend, the leftist, is headed by the government in power, the New Jewel Movement, which calls itself the "Peoples 'Revolutionary' Government." (One can expect that in due time the word "revolutionary" will be changed to "socialist" in an attempt to further deceive the people about the undemocratic sellout nature of this government which subordinates the interest of the people of Grenada to that of its social-imperialist masters.) This government has the fullest backing of leftist traitors of every kind throughout the Caribbean.

The other trend is led by those inside Grenada and throughout the region whose mothers' milk has come from the breasts of Washington and London and who to this day eat out of the crumbs dropping from the mouth of the imperialist exploiters as they gorge themselves with the riches of the region, and who live off the few dollars falling out of the over full pockets of their masters. These forces include the staunch supporters of Gairy, the anti-communists of every description and the bourgeois nationalists who have sold their navel string to U.S. imperialism, such as Eric Williams, etc.

Between these two forces are squeezed the working class and people of Grenada and the genuinely patriotic and democratic forces who are fighting for genuine independence and social progress, without the imperialists and social-imperialists.

The large amount of money being given to Grenada by the imperialists is a good measure of the struggle of the two imperialist superpowers for this prize. U.S. imperialism wants to keep this landmark away from Soviet social-imperialist penetration and domination for very strategic reasons. While the Soviet Union is fighting for the setting up of another base of "leftist" reaction in its service in the Caribbean.

When one considers that Grenada has a population of just over 110,000 people and a workforce of about half of this total, one can see the extent of the plans of imperialism and social- imperialism to super-exploit the working class and people with this $300 million. Every bone will be sucked dry by the imperialists to reap maximum profits for their dollars. The repayment will be through money (interest on loans plus capital repayment, etc.), through political loyalty or through both ways.

The question comes up: what kind of revolution is this that makes the imperialists and social-imperialists and reactionaries so happy that they have invested more than $300 million in the space of less than twelve months? The answer is that the events in Grenada do not constitute a revolution, they constitute a change of government, a change of managers aimed at strengthening the interests of imperialism and social-imperialism and aimed at continuing the enslavement of the people of Grenada under the disguise of "revolution" and other nice sounding phrases.

The imperialists are not scared because this so-called revolution has not touched their vital interest, as any genuine revolution would do.

Where are the moves of the Grenadian government to hit at imperialism, social-imperialism and reaction or to safeguard the victories achieved with the removal of Gairy? There are none of significance. The regime has not even seen it necessary to remove the authority of the Queen of England over Grenada.

Whereas actions to hit at imperialism and to safeguard the interest of the people are not being taken, the revisionists in the government are making moves to strengthen the investments by another imperialist power, the Soviet Union, and at the same time preparing for the vicious suppression of the genuine patriotic and democratic forces who stand firmly against imperialism and social-imperialism.

In the present case of the Grenadian NJM, they have taken up the role of carrying out the transition of the country from the hands of the Anglo-American imperialists to the Soviet social-imperialists.

Maurice Bishop, the leader of the Grenadian revisionists, has gone to the extent of calling the sellout activities of his government "socialism." According to him socialism is being built in Grenada. Nothing could be farther from the truth. In the first place, how can socialism be constructed in any country when the first and most fundamental steps to truly put the economy of the country in the hands of the people are not being taken? How can socialism be built when the enemies of Marxism-Leninism are in power and the working class is without its political Party and therefore is unable to play the leading role in the society? What is being constructed in Grenada is not genuine socialism but the revisionist type capitalism similar to that which exists in Yugoslavia, Cuba and several other countries under the domination of the Soviet Union and the United States of America.

The people of Grenada have a long and glorious history of fighting against oppression. They have a long history of combating reactionary and traitorous forces who serve the interest of foreign exploiters. The NJM revisionists are trying to divert the deep hatred of the people for U.S. imperialism and for the fascist regime of Gairy into supporting the criminal oppression by Soviet social-imperialism and at the hands of the NJM revisionists themselves. This will, however, be no easy task for the revisionists to achieve.

The militant traditions of the Grenadian people can never be killed by the traitors. Slow as it may take, the people of Grenada will most certainly rise up and put an end to this regime of traitors, a regime which the people do not deserve.

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Internationalist Rally on the 10th Anniversary of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist)

Montreal-March 30, 1980

Report from the delegation of the Central Committee of the Marxist-Leninist Party of the USA

On the 30th of March an internationalist rally was held in Montreal marking the 10th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist), the vanguard party of the Canadian proletariat. Marxist- Leninist parties from various countries throughout the world participated in this grand rally organized by the CPC(M-L) on the theme: "Hold High the Bright Red Banner of Marxism-Leninism and Proletarian Internationalism."

The founding of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) was one of the historic turning points in the life of the Canadian proletariat. Under the conditions of the stifling atmosphere created by the monopoly of liberal-labor politics and cold war ideology, CPC(M-L), and the Internationalists before it, asserted anew the revolutionary and Marxist-Leninist traditions of the working class which the revisionists had sought to trample into the mud. The founding of CPC(M-L) was an expression of the revolutionary aspirations of the working class for freedom, independence and socialism.

Many hundreds of workers and other progressive elements militantly participated in the Internationalist Rally, expressing their spirited support for CPC(M-L) and for the fraternal Marxist-Leninist parties, who fight on a common front in the cause of the revolution and socialism.

The fraternal Marxist-Leninist parties participating in the internationalist rally included: the Party of Labor of Albania, the Revolutionary Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist), the Communist Party of Denmark (Marxist-Leninist), the Workers' Communist Party of France, the Communist Party of Germany (Marxist-Leninist), People's Voice of India, the Workers' and Peasants' Communist Party of Iran, the Portuguese Communist Party (Reconstructed), and the Communist Party of Trinidad and Tobago.

Comrade Hardial Bains, Chairman of CPC(M-L), addressed the rally on behalf of the Central Committee of the Party. He spoke on the summation of the 10 year history of the Party and on the tasks which lie before it in preparing the coming revolutionary storms.

Comrade Agim Popa, head of the delegation of the Central Committee of the Party of Labor of Albania, presented a message of greetings to the Central Committee of CPC(M-L). He went on to speak to the recent achievements of the Albanian working class and people in constructing socialism, to the international situation and the struggle against imperialist war. Comrade Popa condemned the revisionists of all hues as firefighters against the revolution, and pointed out the necessity of combating and defeating revisionism.

The internationalist rally in Montreal is another manifestation of the triumphant march of the international Marxist-Leninist communist movement. Since the time of the Seventh Congress of the PLA, a number of grand internationalist rallies have been held such as those in Canada, Germany, Italy, Portugal and Spain. These rallies constitute an important contribution to the strengthening of the unity of the international Marxist-Leninist communist movement. Forms such as these promote bilateral and multilateral contact, close collaboration and joint activity among the Marxist-Leninist parties. The Marxist-Leninist Party, USA hails the internationalist rally in Montreal and the growth and strengthening of the unity of the Marxist-Leninists on a world scale.

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Speech delivered to the rally by Comrade Agim Popa, head of the delegation of the Central Committee of the Party of Labor of Albania

[Photo: Agim Popa]

Dear Comrades,

It is a special joy for us to have the opportunity to be here today among you to bring to you the ardent greetings of the Albanian communists on the occasion of the marked event, the 10th anniversary of the founding of the sister Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist).

Binding the Party of Labor of Albania and the Albanian communists with the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) and the Canadian Marxist-Leninists is a sincere internationalist friendship, based on the struggle for the common ideals of Marxism-Leninism and socialism, on the common struggle against imperialism, social-imperialism, modern revisionism and reaction.

With interest and the sentiments of fraternal solidarity, the Party of Labor of Albania, the working class of our country and the Albanian people have always followed the revolutionary struggle and efforts of the Communist Party of Canada (M-L), the proletariat, the working people and the progressive forces of Canada against the monopoly bourgeoisie and capitalist exploitation, for the defense of the legitimate rights of the working people, for the progressive ideals, for genuine national sovereignty, for the triumph of socialism. The struggle of the Communist Party of Canada (M-L) and its resolute stands against American imperialism and Soviet and Chinese social-imperialism, against modern revisionism of all shades and the reactionary forces in the world are known in the People's Socialist Republic of Albania and enjoy the complete support of the Albanian communists and people.

The Canadian working class has outstanding traditions of revolutionary struggle. The betrayal of the modern revisionists, who abandoned the ideals of the revolution and socialism and transformed the former communist parties from revolutionary parties of the proletariat into "bourgeois-worker parties" to undermine the revolutionary movement and to perpetuate capitalism, in Canada, too, brought about great damage to the working class and its struggle. But the violence of the bourgeoisie, its demagogy and the revisionist poison have never been able and never will be able to extinguish the revolutionary aspirations and spirit of the Canadian proletariat. The founding of the Communist Party of Canada (M-L) ten years ago, its struggle for democracy, genuine national independence and socialism are clear evidence of the fact that the great ideals of the struggle for the liquidation of all exploitation of man by man, for the building of the new world without exploiters and oppressors, the socialist world, have always been kept alive in the working class and the working people of Canada, that the Canadian proletariat is with each passing day becoming more and more conscious of its historic mission, that the ideas of Marxism-Leninism are invincible. This struggle is a constituent part of the chain of the revolutionary and liberation movement in the world, therefore the Albanian communists and people fully support it.

Dear Comrades,

The Albanian communists, the working class and the entire people, too, are fighting with all their might to build up, strengthen and defend socialist society. Last November, our people drew the balance sheet of the magnificent victories they have scored during the 35 years of socialist Albania under the unflinching Marxist-Leninist leadership of the Party of Labor of Albania with Comrade Enver Hoxha at the head. Last year too, our Party and people celebrated the outstanding jubilee, the 100th anniversary of the birth of the great Marxist-Leninist and revolutionary, J.V. Stalin, while this year we will commemorate the 110th anniversary of the birth of the leader of genius of the world proletariat, V.I. Lenin.

Our country has now gotten down to work for the realization of the tasks of 1980, which is the last year of the sixth five-year plan. During the four years of the current five-year plan important successes have been achieved in all the fields of socialist construction. During this period of time, too, a general characteristic has also been all-round progress, uninterrupted development in every branch and sector of the economy, culture, the defense of the country. The importance of the achievements of socialist Albania, especially over these last four years, clearly emerges if we take into consideration, on the one hand, the profound crisis which has powerfully gripped the capitalist-revisionist world with all its destructive consequences such as decline in the rates of production, unemployment, inflation, etc., while on the other hand, the outstanding difficulties our people have had to overcome during these years, caused by the imperialist-revisionist encirclement and blockade, by the Chinese sabotage and the immediate severance of all credits and supplies from China, which also left many projects and objects incomplete, as well as by the destructive earthquake of April 15 last year. But, irrespective of this, the targets of the four years of the current five-year plan have been fulfilled with success, while the results of 1979, the first year without any aid and credit from abroad, are the highest ones recorded as against any previous year of the five-year plan. Socialist Albania was not subjugated, as the Chinese and other revisionists thought, nor will it ever be subjugated; it does not and will never stretch its hand to anybody, but under the unflinching Marxist- Leninist leadership of the Party of Labor of Albania, totally relying on its own forces, it forges only forward. Today, the People's Socialist Republic of Albania is the only country in the world which knows neither crisis, nor decline in the rates of production, neither unemployment, nor price rises, but only stability, progress and an uninterrupted rise in the standard of living of the people. In regard to the damage of the April 15 earthquake, this was liquidated within a mere five months, without any foreign aid and without the slightest decline in the rates of the fulfillment of the tasks in various branches of the economy.

At present, on the basis of the achievements scored over the years of the current five-year plan, work has begun in Albania for the drafting of the seventh five-year plan, which will open up new and broader vistas and which will lay down other bold tasks for the further development in all fields of the complete construction of socialism. The fundamental feature of the new five-year plan, which is being drafted with the direct and active participation of the broad working masses, as an expression of their conscience and will, under the leadership of the Party, is that it will be the first five-year plan which we are drafting and will totally implement relying only on our own forces, without any foreign credits. The Albanian people are firmly convinced that the new five-year plan, too, will be realized and that this will be further outstanding evidence of the vitality of the ideas of Marxism-Leninism and the genuine socialist order.

These successes and all the victories achieved by socialist Albania during the 35 years of its existence, constitute a valuable historic experience which shows that not only in the major countries, as was the Soviet Union in the time of Lenin and Stalin, but also in a small country faced with an imperialist-revisionist encirclement like Albania, it is entirely possible after the overthrow of the exploiting order and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat, to construct socialism and defend it from the efforts of internal and external enemies, relying on its own forces, and to carry forward the uninterrupted socialist revolution unceasingly, and block the roads to the danger of retrogression into capitalism, if it is led by an unflinching genuine proletarian party, like the Party of Labor of Albania with Comrade Enver Hoxha at the head, which is implementing the teachings of Marxism-Leninism faithfully and creatively and which powerfully unites around itself the working class and all the working people with its correct revolutionary policy.

Comrades,

We are living at a time when the revolution and national liberation of the peoples are not just an aspiration and a future prospect, but when they have been put on the agenda as a problem taken up for solution. What characterizes our time is the extension and the deepening of the world revolutionary and liberation process, which is no longer divided into a definite front and rear area or completely "calm" areas, zones without revolutionary upheavals, where the bourgeois and imperialist domination is stable and safe.

The triumphant anti-imperialist and anti-feudal revolution in Iran, which toppled the hated medieval dynasty of the Pahlavis and shook the positions of American and world imperialism like an earthquake in the whole area of the Persian Gulf and the Middle East, as well as the revolutionary outbursts in Nicaragua and elsewhere, show that even though they have a powerful economic potential and are armed to the teeth with the most up-to-date means of war and oppression, imperialism and the superpowers and their puppets are not in a position to subjugate the peoples, no matter whether they are big or small, when the latter are determined to fight selflessly through to the end and make every sacrifice for their freedom and independence, for the defense of their rights.

But the revolution is not a spontaneous or accidental process. The creation, consolidation and development of the genuine Marxist-Leninist parties, which have taken up and raised aloft the banner of Marxism-Leninism and the revolution, betrayed and thrown aside by the revisionists, clearly shows that, apart from the maturing of the objective conditions, the necessary subjective conditions are gradually being created for the revolution. In his book Imperialism and the Revolution, Comrade Enver Hoxha writes: "On them devolves the burden of opposing the glorious Leninist strategy of the revolution, the great theory of Marxism-Leninism, to the global strategy of world imperialism and revisionism. On them devolves the burden of making the masses fully conscious of the objectives and the right road of the struggle and the Sacrifices it demands, of uniting, organizing, guiding and leading them to victory."

What characterizes the Marxist-Leninists is the unflinching principled position in their stand towards imperialism and its enslaving, expansionist and warmongering policy, too, in particular towards American imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism, which are today the biggest and the most ferocious enemies of socialism, the revolution and the freedom-loving peoples, the main bastions of world capitalism and reaction, as well as towards Chinese social-imperialism, which has completely joined in the game of the superpowers and, in alliance with American imperialism, is carrying out a dangerous subversive, counter-revolutionary and warmongering activity.

The hostile economic and military blockade of American imperialism against Iran, together with the military fascist occupation of Afghanistan on the part of Soviet social-imperialism and the efforts of China for hegemony in Southeast Asia and other areas of the world are open and very dangerous acts of aggression, which are directed against the cause of the revolution and freedom of the peoples the world over. Everywhere, in the Middle and Far East, in Africa, Latin America and Europe, in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, in the Mediterranean and Northern Seas, the rivalry among the imperialist superpowers for expansion, markets, spheres of influence and strategic zones has become extremely acute, menacing countries and peoples, while the unprecedented armaments race they are conducting is leading the world towards a new general slaughter. Under these conditions and circumstances, the duty of the Marxist-Leninists, the revolutionaries and all the progressive and peace-loving peoples is to powerfully and constantly expose these dangerous acts, continually enhance their vigilance and raise the broad masses of the working people and the peoples into an active struggle to stay the hand of the imperialist and social-imperialist aggressors, enslavers and war mongers, to restrain their military adventures and, in case they erupt, hurl themselves into the revolution to overthrow that hated order which gives rise to exploitation, oppression and destructive wars. The only correct stand which leads to salvation is determined blow for blow struggle against all the superpowers and not illusions or reliance on one or the other superpower or shelter under their umbrella.

In the context of the efforts for the preparation of the subjective factor of the revolution, of special importance today is the struggle of the Marxist-Leninists against modern revisionism of all shades -- Yugoslav and Soviet, "Eurocommunist" and Chinese -- because the revisionists are the most dangerous agency of the bourgeoisie and imperialism, firemen of the revolution, even sometimes, as the great Lenin said, better defenders of the bourgeois domination than the bourgeoisie itself. Without exposing and smashing modern revisionism of no matter what trend, without divorcing the working class and the masses of the people from the poisonous and counter-revolutionary influence of revisionism, there can be no talk of the proletarian revolution and the triumph of socialism.

In the common struggle against capitalist exploitation, against American and world imperialism, Soviet and Chinese social-imperialism, modern revisionism of all shades, reaction, fascism and the danger of war, to carry forward the cause of the revolution and the freedom and independence of the peoples, of democracy and socialism, according to the immortal teachings of Marxism-Leninism, the great internationalist unity of the Marxist-Leninists is born, grows stronger and is tempered from day to day, and this is one of the important sources of our strength in the face of the front of the enemies.

Long live the militant friendship and internationalist unity between the Party of Labor of Albania and the Communist Party of Canada (M-L), between the Albanian communists and the Canadian Marxist-Leninists and revolutionaries, between the working class and peoples of Albania and Canada!

Glory to Marxism-Leninism!

(Reprinted from People's Canada Daily News, organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist), March 31, 1980.)

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MESSAGE TO THE CC OF THE CPC(M-L) ON THE OCCASION OF THE TENTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FOUNDING OF THE CPC(M-L)

In the name of the Marxist-Leninists and class conscious workers of the United States, the Central Committee of the Marxist-Leninist Party of the USA sends to you and to the entire Communist Party of Canada (Marxist- Leninist) our heartfelt fraternal revolutionary greetings on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the founding of the CPC(M-L). In the course of the ten years of the life and revolutionary struggle of the CPC(M-L), our Party and its predecessors have closely followed the activity of the CPC(M-L), have studied its experience, and have rejoiced at and been inspired by the victories of the CPC(M-L) and the Canadian proletariat. The CPC(M-L) and our Party have been fraternal fighters in the same trench against imperialism and social-imperialism and against revisionism and opportunism of all hues.

On January 1 of this year, at the Founding Congress of the MLP,USA, as one man the delegates sent their ardent revolutionary greetings to the CPC(M-L) in a unanimous resolution. In part, this resolution reads:

"The fraternal ties between the proletariat of our countries finds its highest expression in the fraternal relations between the Marxist-Leninists of the U.S. and Canada, which are part and parcel of the relations binding together the international Marxist-Leninist communist movement. These ties were formed at the end of the tumultuous decade of the 1960's amid the powerful storms of struggle of the masses against imperialism and reaction, and in the course of the historic struggle of the world's Marxist-Leninists against modern revisionism. These ties have always been based upon Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism, and have been a source of inspiration and strength for us."

In this first decade of struggle of the CPC(M-L), you have achieved important victories. The CPC(M-L) was the first Marxist-Leninist party successfully reconstructed in North America following the betrayal of the modern revisionists. The CPC(M-L) rose up against the morass of liberal-labor politics and cold war ideology and against all the treacherous anti-Marxist-Leninist theories of pseudo-revolution. The CPC(M-L) and the Canadian Internationalists and the Canadian Communist Movement (Marxist-Leninist) before it, asserted anew the revolutionary Marxist-Leninist truths which the revisionists had sought to trample into the mud.

One of the historic achievements of the Party has been that from the day of its birth it has taken a revolutionary stand against the state and against all reaction. This stand of the Party has been a powerful blow against the philistinism and capitulation propagated by the revisionists and opportunists. The militant comrades of the CPC (M-L) have stood firm against thousands of arrests, against jail sentences and deportations, and against all persecution. The CPC(M-L) has taken the stand of active resistance. This glorious history of the CPC(M-L) is eloquent testimony to the proletarian revolutionary spirit of the Party, to the fact that the CPC(M-L) has always been a party of revolutionary action, a party built in the midst of the class struggle.

The CPC(M-L) has stood up to mobilize the proletariat for an irreconcilable struggle against the Khrushchovite revisionists, the trotskyites and the social-democrats. As well, the CPC(M-L) was also born in the struggle against New Leftism and neo-revisionism. Carrying forward this tradition, the CPC(M-L) has stood firm against the attacks on it by the Chinese revisionists and has gone to the root of the issue by denouncing the anti-Marxist- Leninist and revisionist Mao Zedong Thought.

The CPC(M-L) has stood for the party principle. It has opposed the liberal morass of anti-party theses pushed by the revisionists and the opportunists, opposed the anarchist phrasemongering against the party, and opposed the Browderite thesis of a loose educational association. It is fitting and proper that the CPC(M-L) has declared the tenth anniversary of its founding to be "the year of the party."

These have been some of the victories of the Party in its ten years of struggle. The founding of the CPC (M-L) was one of the historic turning points for the struggle of the Canadian proletariat. With this act, once again the Canadian proletariat has its genuine vanguard party.

Our two fraternal Parties have been closely linked together for this entire period. We have fought together against the enemies of the revolution. In May 1969 the Canadian Internationalists organized the First Conference of North American Marxist-Leninists held in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. This conference inspired the activists of the Cleveland Workers Action Committee to take up the heavy responsibilities of uniting the Marxist-Leninists in the U.S. and forming the American Communist Workers Movement (Marxist-Leninist), the single nationwide Marxist-Leninist center, which rapidly grew into the nucleus of the Marxist-Leninist Party. And today, the year of the party in Canada, 1980, is also the year that has seen the birth of the Marxist-Leninist Party of the USA.

Dear fraternal comrades, on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the founding of the CPC(M-L), we wish new victories to the Party of the proletariat of Canada. We are confident that, under the leadership of the CPC (M-L), the proletariat and working people of Canada will march forward in revolutionary struggle. Under the leadership of the Party, they will make the rich pay, throw U.S. imperialism out of Canada, carry forward the socialist revolution and build a new Canada, a socialist Canada without exploitation and with genuine independence and democracy for the people. At your side will be the proletariat of the United States, marching forward under the banner of the MLP,USA in the common cause of the revolution, socialism and communism.

Hail the tenth anniversary of the founding of the CPC(M-L)!

Long live the international Marxist- Leninist communist movement!

Glory to Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism!

Central Committee of the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA

March 30 1980

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There is Nothing Revolutionary in the Anarchism of the Chinese Revisionist "Mayday Committee"

STATEMENT OF THE SEATTLE BRANCH OF THE MARXIST-LENINIST PARTY

In recent weeks, an organization calling itself the "Mayday Committee" has been provoking workers to engage in fist fights with them at Todd Shipyards in Seattle. These fights occurred on March 7 and March 20. The "Mayday Committee" is a group formed by the "Revolutionary Communist Party" ("RCP"). The method used by the "RCP" and the "Mayday Committee" to provoke these fights was to harass the workers incessantly and to demand that their literature be read. They would taunt the workers and call them "narrow-minded" and "backward." They would try to scare the workers by yelling that "World War III is coming!" apparently in an attempt to make the workers think their literature was important. When the workers did not agree they would confront and challenge the workers, shouting: "We are for the working class, where do you stand?" It is not surprising that punches were thrown at the "Mayday Committee" in such an atmosphere. On March 20, although the situation was very tense from the moment they arrived, the "Mayday Committee" was even more virulent and provocative. At one point, a member of the Committee shouted: "What are you all doing building warships for World War III?" and another pitched in saying, "You are contributing to World War III and supporting the capitalists!" These are contemptible slanders which blame the workers for the crimes of the monopoly capitalists. It is the rich who alone are to blame for the feverish war preparations that are taking place. The U.S. imperialists, not the workers, are to blame for the ongoing militarization of all aspects of society, including the shipbuilding industry where the workers are forced by the rich to find work in order to make a living. It is not surprising that some workers were incited to respond to these anarchist taunts and insults. And so, in this general pattern, fights broke out on the above two occasions.

The activity of the so-called "RCP" has nothing in common with revolution and communism, nor with the celebration of May 1, international working class day. The Marxist-Leninist Party (MLP) has absolutely no connections with the "Mayday Committee" nor the "RCP."

Naturally, when the workers are treated with such contempt by the "RCP," an organization calling itself "revolutionary" and "communist," the most reactionary workers, and even fascist elements, will jump to the fore of these fights. These elements, some of whom are spies and agents of the shipyard capitalists, try to utilize the workers' contempt for the so-called "revolutionaries" in order to generate hostility against the genuinely progressive and revolutionary forces. The "RCP's" wild and provocative behavior is utilized by the capitalists in this way. Neither side of these fights deserves to be supported. The participation of outright reactionary elements in these brawls does not mean that the "RCP's" anti-working class behavior is progressive in the slightest.

"RCP's" provocations against the people have not been limited to Todd Shipyards alone. Workers at several other factories in the Seattle area are also aware of their insults and general harassment. Students at Garfield High School, the University of Washington and Seattle Opportunities and Industrialization Center (SOIC) as well as people in other parts of the city have also been subjected to their anarchist abuse. In fact, "RCP" has provoked a whole series of fist fights with the masses of people and similar incidents in several other areas across the country. Because of the wide-scale and feverish nature of this activity, it is important to provide some clarification of the political basis behind the actions of the "RCP."

Why Does "RCP" Insult and Attack the Workers?

Why is "RCP" provoking workers and attacking them? "RCP" believes that the workers are, as they say it, "contented and ignorant fools." "RCP" has complete contempt for the masses of people. They think that by taunting the workers, particularly with hysteria about the alleged imminency of a third world war, that they can "wake up" the workers, whom they consider to be "asleep." In the depths of despair, they suffer the delusion that once the people are supposedly "woken up," the "RCP" will gain much support.

"RCP" Is Based on Chinese Revisionism and Mao Zedong Thought

Where did the "RCP" acquire such views? "RCP" got them from the Chinese revisionists and their theory of "three worlds," which have their roots in the anti-Marxist ideas comprising Mao Zedong Thought. Chinese revisionism states that the working class is not revolutionary and consists of ignorant people, who are "bought off" and do not want to oppose the capitalists. These ideas have nothing in common with reality nor with the theory of Marxism-Leninism. It is common knowledge that the Marxist-Leninists consider the working class to be the only consistently revolutionary class, which rallies around itself all of the oppressed people in the revolutionary struggle. The working class is the leading and main force that will completely transform society and construct a bright socialist future. The Chinese revisionists and their followers such as the "RCP" have always opposed the Marxist-Leninist theory on this and all other important issues.

Chinese revisionism is an extremely right-wing, anti-revolutionary theory. It is this theory which is the justification for the warmongering U.S.-China alliance. The Chinese revisionists and their followers cloak their right-wing theories in many different disguises and wear many different hats. Among them are their reformist and anarchist hats.

For example, the "RCP" has always stubbornly defended the idea that "the workers are backward." When they put on their reformist hat they conclude: 'therefore one cannot talk about the necessity for revolution because the people aren't willing to listen to this. Instead, one should act very meek and carry out a timid reformist policy. In this way we can first win friends and be able to talk about revolution later." When they want to look "revolutionary," they put on their anarchist hat. The anarchist view, like the reformist view, believes that "the workers are backward," but comes to a different conclusion. It concludes: 'therefore one should act more boldly, yell about "revolution," and carry out anarchist attacks on the masses for not being revolutionary.' Today, the "RCP" is often found wearing their anarchist hat.

What has caused the "RCP" to put on their anarchist hat? Anarchism is the shriek of despair of the reformist. The "RCP" uses anarchism to look "revolutionary" in order to hide the reformism in their soul, and to be able to continue to practice their reformist policies in various ways. The "RCP" is desperately attempting to look as

"revolutionary" as they possibly can. They are very embarrassed by the exposure of the openly right-wing, anti-revolutionary nature of their theoretical instructors in China, and are pretending to be "birds of a different feather."

Chinese revisionism and the theory of "three worlds" have become discredited and an object of scorn inside the revolutionary movement. These counter-revolutionary theories have given rise to China becoming, not a socialist country, but a capitalist and social-imperialist country. The theory of "three worlds" is simply a crude justification for the revisionist rulers of Beijing to conclude the warmongering U.S.-China alliance with the capitalist chieftains of Washington, D.C.

The "RCP" used to openly and wholeheartedly support the "three worlds" theory. But, as the Chinese social-imperialists used this "theory" to justify inviting one U.S. corporation after another to run roughshod in China, and to justify supporting one U.S. puppet after another such as the Shah of Iran and Pinochet of Chile, the "RCP's" agreement with this theory became embarrassing. The "RCP" blushed, and then invented "two" theories of "three worlds," one good and one bad. They claimed to support the "good" one, which they attributed to Mao Zedong. The "bad" one they pinned on Deng Xiaoping. But both are the same thing. Mao Zedong's ideas gave rise to Chinese revisionism and its theory of "three worlds" in the first place and to all their consequences... including the U.S.-China alliance. It was Mao who invited the hated fascist and war criminal Richard Nixon to Beijing, not once but twice. And Nixon's second visit to China took place long after he had resigned the presidency in disgrace and there could not be the slightest pretext of "legitimate diplomacy" involved in these sordid meetings.

While the Chinese revisionist-theories were being completely discredited inside the Marxist-Leninist movement, the image of China as a model of socialism was being destroyed among the masses of people. Every day the capitalist newspapers squirm with delight over this or that new "investment opportunity" opened up in China, over the visit of this or that senator, congressman or Pentagon general to conclude various deals, including U.S. military "assistance." The people can see for themselves that China has become a fellow imperialist and junior partner of the U.S. imperialists.

These developments have thrown the "RCP" into a deep predicament and crisis. The "RCP" is embarrassed by Chinese revisionism. And so, to cover up the bankruptcy of their own views, the "RCP" is running around in a frenzy trying to look as "revolutionary" as they can. And to the "RCP*" in large part this means to launch anarchist, "super-revolutionary" attacks against the so-called "backward" workers for supposedly not being "revolutionary."

What are some of the main political characteristics of the Chinese revisionists and the "RCP"? Below, we will deal with four of them.

"RCP" Creates War Hysteria

The first feature of the Chinese revisionists is that they create war hysteria, claiming that "World War III is inevitable." They create hysteria about war in order to justify their warmongering alliance with the U.S. imperialists. They say it is necessary to line up everyone -- workers and capitalists alike -- of the "third world," "second world" and one-half of the "first world" (U.S. imperialism) in order to fight the Soviet social-imperialists. They claim that the Soviet aggressors are the only danger and source of war, while U.S. imperialism has become a peaceful lamb. They say that it is necessary to give up the revolution, join up with the U.S. imperialist bloc and to oppose the "real villains," the Soviet social-imperialist bloc alone. The war hysteria of the "three worlds" theory is a crude device to fight the revolution, and to support the warmongering designs of U.S. imperialism against their rivals of the Soviet Union.

The "RCP" promotes the same Chinese revisionist war hysteria among the masses in the U.S. They shout "World War III is coming! " in order to supposedly "wake up" the people, and to scare and frighten them. This frenzied activity gives "RCP" the appearance of being "actively" opposed to war. But in reality, this hysteria is just another way to oppose actually organizing the masses against the rich and their war preparations.

The Marxist-Leninists are opposed to the war hysteria of the Chinese revisionists. The Marxist-Leninists recognize that, indeed, the rivalry between the two superpowers is developing in the direction of new wars of aggression, including a catastrophic nuclear third world war. These wars are to put down the revolutionary forces of the world and to decide which superpower can grab the biggest share of slaves and territory from the other. The Marxist-Leninists seek to prevent such wars by actively developing the revolutionary movement, in order to stay the hands of the warmongers and overthrow them altogether. The Marxist-Leninists oppose the complacency and passivity pushed by the Soviet revisionists' "detente" fraud and by Carter's "human rights" fraud -- which declare that peace is secure and can be ensured by hypocritical SALT talks about disarmament, while their arms race continues unabated. The Marxist-Leninists also oppose the fatalism and hysteria of the Chinese revisionists about the "inevitability and imminency of world war," which is also opposed to building the revolutionary movement, including the movement against war preparations. To prevent imperialist war, it is necessary to wage revolutionary struggle and fight to overthrow imperialism. If the imperialists plunge the world into war, the task of the proletariat is to turn the imperialist war into a revolutionary struggle for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie. But it is only by fighting against imperialism and its war preparations before war occurs, that prepares the conditions for waging revolutionary struggle when and if war should break out.

"RCP" Opposes the Working Class Movement

A second feature of the Chinese revisionists and their followers such as the "RCP" is that they are opposed to the working class movement. Just as they denounce the workers as "backward and bought off," they also denigrate the working class movement as "reformist," and particularly denounce the economic struggles as "economist " and " non-revolutionary." They claim that the workers' mass struggles cannot be utilized to build the revolutionary movement.

From this basic view, the Chinese revisionists arrive at many different conclusions, sometimes reformist,

sometimes sectarian or even anarchist conclusions. The reformist view holds that because the workers' movement is supposedly not revolutionary and only for small reforms, therefore if one is to participate in this movement, one must be a timid reformist, hide the need for revolution and openly oppose revolutionary politics. The anarchist view says that because the workers' movement isn't revolutionary, therefore one must not participate in it. Instead, in order to look "revolutionary," one must denounce the workers' movement as "reformist" and "economist."

Chinese revisionism and Mao Zedong Thought contain elements of both reformism and anarchism, as well as other anti-Marxist-Leninist trends. The Chinese revisionists and their followers such as the "RCP" sometimes take up reformism, sometimes anarchism, and sometimes combine both aspects in their policy, depending on what is most useful to oppose the revolutionary movement at a particular time. Today, to look more "revolutionary," the "RCP" is carrying out a lot of wild, anarchist activity. For example, they ridicule the workers' struggle for higher wages and to defend themselves from wage-cutting inflation, as nothing but a struggle to obtain more so-called bribe money and to be more "bought off." The "RCP" shouts about revolution, but cannot see anything revolutionary in the workers' economic struggles against the rich, and opposes them. The "RCP" does not base their activity on building the workers' mass struggles. They base themselves on a small band of anarchist "heroes" who go on a rampage of provoking workers, "waking them up," and denouncing the workers' actual struggles. The "RCP" is opposed to utilizing the workers' mass struggles to build a revolutionary working class movement.

Marxist-Leninists support the working class movement and are opposed to both reformism and anarchism. The MLP works to strengthen all of the mass struggles against the rich, and knows how to utilize even small-scale struggles as arenas in which to develop revolutionary work. The MLP seeks to combine all the mass struggles -- from the anti-draft and anti-war movement, the workers' struggle to defy Carter's wage controls, and the struggle of the black people against racial discrimination and against the racist violence of the police, and many others -- into a powerful revolutionary onslaught against the rich. All the mass struggles should be utilized in order to expose the complete bankruptcy of the capitalists and to raise the workers' class consciousness. Marxist-Leninists use the actual struggles to build the vanguard revolutionary party and the broad mass organizations. They strive to inspire the workers with the ideals of socialism and to instill in them unshakeable confidence in the victory of the revolution.

"RCP" Is Opposed to the Struggle Against Revisionism and Opportunism

A third feature of the Chinese revisionists is that they refuse to oppose revisionism and opportunism. One of the favorite means of the capitalists to fight against the revolution is to use revisionism and opportunism to attack and undermine the Marxist-Leninist forces. To wage the revolution and advance the cause of socialism requires a determined struggle against all brands of revisionism and opportunism, be they trotskyism, Soviet revisionism, or Chinese revisionism, and others. The "RCP" however, is opposed to fighting revisionism and opportunism and considers this struggle a diversion.

The "RCP's" anarchist posturing is intended to convey the image that they are "super-revolutionaries" and the biggest opponents of class collaborationism and reformism. But "RCP's" anarchism shares the same basic premises as reformism, and the "RCP" keeps their own reformism in their pocket ready for use. The "RCP" in fact opposes fighting against the influence of reformism and even says that the struggle against such notorious reformists as the social-democrats is unimportant. But the social-democrats, which include people like Douglas Fraser of the United Autoworkers Union, William Winpisinger of the Machinists Union, Ed Sadlowski of the United Steelworkers Union, and others, are the main prop of the Democratic Party in the working class movement. They are the indispensable tools of the rich to undermine the workers' movement from within. Social-democracy must be opposed tooth and nail. The "RCP" however, does not attempt to actually fight reformism, does not attempt to actually be revolutionary, but just adopts hollow anarchist phrases and postures in an attempt to look revolutionary. They do so, not simply out of vanity, but because their whole outlook is saturated with reformism and they are incapable of fighting against it.

"RCP" Is Against Socialism

A fourth feature of the Chinese revisionists is that they are utterly hostile to socialism. They hate socialist Albania, the only genuine socialist country in the world today. In Albania, the people's revolution drove the foreign imperialists out of the country 35 years ago. The rich exploiters were overthrown and the working people became the true masters of everything taking place in their country. Today the workers actively participate in managing the economy, making the laws and enjoy genuine democracy. The working people of Albania are free from the exploitation of the capitalists. Today their labor serves, not to enrich a few, but to constantly improve the people's well-being and the construction of socialist society. Albania is the only country in the world without inflation, without unemployment, without any taxes. In Albania, health care and education are available at no cost. Rent is 1% of one's income. Women enjoy equal rights with men and equality reigns for people of all nationalities. Albania is the beacon of socialism, a shining example of the emancipation of the working class. Albania is the bastion of world revolution, a reliable friend and staunch comrade of the millions and millions of workers and oppressed people who are fighting against the brutal exploitation of the imperialists.

The "RCP" is running around with red flags attempting to portray themselves as genuine socialists. But while red flags are a good idea, they should be reserved for the socialist proletariat. How can the "RCP" say they have anything to do with socialism when they are bitterly opposed to socialist Albania, the only place it exists today? The attacks of the "RCP" against socialist Albania reveal in a concentrated way the "RCP's" anti-revolutionary and anti-communist features.

The "RCP's" insults and taunts against the workers, and their policy to provoke fist fights shows the bankruptcy of Chinese revisionism and the "three worlds" theory. The workers have no interest in responding to these anarchist provocations. These brawls should not take place. Neither side of these fights should be supported because there is nothing progressive or revolutionary in either side. The genuinely progressive and revolutionary forces should instead devote their energies to strengthening the mass struggles against the rich. They should take up the unerring science of revolution, Marxism-Leninism, and reject Chinese revisionism and its "three worlds" theory. The class conscious workers should rally around the Marxist-Leninist Party and prepare for revolution.

[Cartoon.]

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Defeat lies in store for the Soviet aggressors in Afghanistan

(The following is from a commentary of the newspaperZeri i Popullit,the Central Organ of the Central Committee of the Party of Labor of Albania, as carried on February 27 by theAlbanian Telegraphic Agency News Bulletin.)

The explosive situation in occupied Afghanistan, the blows the social-imperialist aggressors are receiving in that country once more clearly reveal that the common end of the occupiers has been and is shameful defeat, writes today the newspaper Zeri i popullit in a commentary on the recent events in Afghanistan. In this mountainous country, stresses the newspaper, the myth of the invincibility of the army of the Soviet social-imperialists is being destroyed, just as the myth of the invincibility of the armies of the U.S. imperialists was smashed to smithereens in the jungles of Viet Nam.

The newspaper points out that the aggressors penetrated easily in Afghanistan due to the treacherous policy pursued by those ruling in Kabul, who gradually sold the country to the Soviet social-imperialists. But the fascist strategists of Moscow are now experiencing the "invincibility" of their army, when a small, but valiant people have pinned down and are causing shameful defeats to their armies. Through their struggle, the Afghan people are demonstrating that no army, no matter how big and armed it may be, can suffocate the aspirations for freedom and independence of the peoples. The fascist cruelty of the occupiers, who have resorted also to napalm and who have razed to the ground whole villages, massacring women, old folk and children, cannot strangle the resistance of the Afghan people.

The newspaper writes further on that the resolute struggle of the Afghan people clearly shows that Afghanistan's invasion was not at all done at the will of the Afghan people, as the Soviet revisionists propagate, that the social-imperialist aggressors did not penetrate there "to assist" this people from any foreign danger. Afghanistan's occupation is a link in the chain of uninterrupted actions of the Soviet social-imperialists to implement their expansionist and hegemonic policy.

Exposing the attempts of the Moscow mass media and officials to minimize the struggle of the Afghan people, the newspaper points out that the struggle of this people has nothing to do with that war of words which is taking place between Moscow, on the one hand, and Washington and Beijing, on the other hand, which want to fish in troubled waters. The Afghan people and the fighters, who are experiencing the fascist Soviet aggression on their shoulders, do not forget the criminal war of the U.S. imperialists in Indochina, do not forget the aggression unleashed by the Chinese social-imperialists against Viet Nam. The superpowers, stresses the newspaper, quarrel and contend to gain each more than the other, but when the question is to suppress the people's aspirations for freedom and independence, they unite.

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The threats and maneuvers by the two superpowers cannot intimidate and deceive the Middle East peoples

(The following are excerpts from an article in the newspaperBashkimi,newspaper of the Democratic Front of Albania, taken from the February 16 release of theAlbanian Telegraphic Agency News Bulletin.)

In an article exposing the threats and maneuvers by the two superpowers in the Middle East, the newspaper Bashkimi stresses among other things that the USA is trying to exploit the imminent Soviet danger to pose itself as the "greatest friend of Moslem peoples" and to strengthen its positions in that region. The newspaper points out that the U.S. imperialists and the Chinese social-imperialists are as dangerous enemies to the peoples of that region as the Soviet social-imperialists, that no true liberation struggle can be assisted by the imperialist powers and that the USA entertains the hope of restoring its influence in Afghanistan and elsewhere through the blood of the Afghan people and other peoples of the region. Excerpts from the article follow:

The Middle East countries are under the constant pressure and threat for influence, interference and hegemony by the USA and the Soviet Union. Through the occupation of Afghanistan, the Soviet social-imperialists ensured temporary military and strategic advantages in that region, but they have lost much in the political and diplomatic field. Their perfidious and barbarous aggression against the people of Afghanistan has aroused a powerful wave of hatred and indignation among all the other Middle East peoples, who see in this aggression a direct threat to their freedom, independence and security....

U.S. imperialism is trying to exploit the opportunity to pose itself as "the greatest friend of the Moslem peoples," as the "supporter of the liberation struggle of the Afghan people," as the "defender" of the freedom, independence and security of the Middle East peoples. But it is clear to anyone that behind these hypocritical statements lurk the attempts of U.S. imperialism to exploit the imminent Soviet danger in order to intimidate the countries and peoples of the whole Middle East basin, to consolidate its positions and control the situation. The USA is also trying to group the reactionary forces of the region in order to use them as an interfering and striking force in case similar situations with those of Iran are created. Viewed in this light, the visits of Carter's envoys to Pakistan and the Middle East countries aim to revive the old imperialist treaties and alliances, which will serve to regain and safeguard the imperialist positions of the USA under the guise of the "preservation" of security in that area.

The Soviet Union suffocated Afghanistan through the strength of its troops and arms and, although the United States knew such a thing before hand, it remained silent because it was preparing to suffocate Iran through the economic and military blockade. Nobody can guarantee that it will not act tomorrow against any other country of the Middle East like the Soviet Union did with Afghanistan. Coming out allegedly in defense of the struggle of the people of Afghanistan against the Soviet occupation, the United States wants to transform this just liberation struggle into a struggle where the Afghans are set against the Afghans, that is, one party fighting to defend the interests of the Soviet social-imperialists and the other party those of the U.S. imperialists. The peoples of Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and the other pain-stricken peoples of the Middle East, cannot believe in the so-called "aid," "defense" and "good will" of the U.S. imperialists and the Chinese social-imperialists, who play the tune of Washington, but who both of them are as dangerous enemies as the Soviet social-imperialists. The United States wants to put the liberation struggle of the people of Afghanistan under its control and to use it as a means of pressure against the Soviet Union in its game for rivalry and hegemony in the entire Middle East area. The two superpowers as the experience in the other regions of the world shows, do not hesitate to play with the destinies of the other peoples and countries and use them as exchange currency in their base bargains. It should be borne in mind that, despite the feuds and disagreements they have and will have over the spheres of influence in the Middle East, the United States and the Soviet Union are united by a joint counterrevolutionary target: to restrain and suppress with every means the process of such revolutionary transformations in that region as those that took place in Iran, which dealt a stunning blow to their hegemonic neo-colonialist positions. In achieving this aim, when their interests demand it, they might strike agreements between them and sacrifice for its sake one or another country and people. Therefore the peoples of this region do not believe the wolf in lambskin....

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The people of El Salvador are advancing in struggle against the bloodstained junta and U.S. imperialism

The people of El Salvador are advancing on the road of revolution against the fascist junta and U.S. imperialism. The workers, peasants, youth and other patriotic sections of the people are launching numerous actions against the military dictatorship. In recent weeks, two general strikes have been called in the capital, San Salvador. The second strike, held in mid-March, resulted in a fierce three hour gun battle as the people heroically fought back against an assault of the armed forces. At the end of March, 30,000 people participated in a mass protest against the murderous repression of the regime. A number of factories have been occupied by the workers to press their demands against their growing impoverishment. In the countryside, the popular forces have continued to launch armed assaults on the junta's National Guard. Like the Nicaraguan people, who through their revolution overthrew the U.S. puppet Somoza, the Salvadorean people are developing their revolutionary struggle against the fascist dictatorship.

The people of El Salvador are fighting against the fascist reaction which is dependent on U.S. imperialism for its existence. It is the fascist regime which is the protector of the interests of U.S. imperialism and the big capitalists and landlords in its service. The domestic reactionary classes and U.S. imperialism collaborate to ruthlessly oppress and exploit the toiling masses who are forced to live in abject poverty. In order to ensure their super-profits, for over 43 years the U.S. imperialists have installed one military dictator after another to suppress the people. The current junta was put in power by a coup d'etat engineered by the U.S. State Department in October 1979 in order to stop the massive revolt of the people against the hated military dictatorship of General Carlos Humberto Romero. Faced with the prospect of having the regime of General Romero overthrown, the U.S. imperialists replaced him with a new, less discredited set of military officers. Romero's colonels replaced Romero. Since that time, the anti-fascist and anti-U.S. imperialist struggle of the people has been directed against this "Romero- ism without Romero."

The Carter administration has backed the government of Romero's colonels to the hilt under the hoax that the new regime is "moderate," and stands for "human rights," "social reform," and "peace" in El Salvador. On this basis the administration has been arming the junta to the teeth. "Riot control" equipment and military advisors were immediately sent to put down the people's rebellion. In March an agreement was signed giving the fascist junta $13 million in economic and military aid. And a series of U.S. Army counterinsurgency "training teams" have been dispatched to instruct the terrorist Salvadorean National Guard and police in their war against the people.

With the blessings of the Carter administration, the new military junta immediately unleashed a campaign of murder and suppression in order to crush the developing revolutionary movement. All forms of protest against the government were banned. Striking workers have been rounded up and executed. While in the city and the countryside, suspected anti-fascist militants are hunted down and shot in door-to-door searches.

All this terror against the people exposes the fraudulent claims of the Carter administration and U.S. imperialism that the military junta is striving to avert civil war and to stop the "violence of the left and the right." In reality the regime has been trying to eliminate anyone who so much as raises his voice against the right-wing fascists and their government protectors. Even such a non-revolutionary figure as the Archbishop Oscar A. Romero was assassinated last month under the aegis of the "moderate" junta. And at the funeral of Archbishop Romero, government agents opened fire on the 30,000 mourners, killing 40 people.

As for the so-called "reforms" which the Carter administration has required as a condition for the military aid it is giving the junta, these are blatantly fraudulent and can only be carried out by butchering the people. When 70 peasants, for example, actually tried to seize a farm during the junta's "land reform," 18 of them were shot down by government troops who had "nationalized" the farm allegedly on behalf of the peasants. Thus the regime of "peace" and "reform" installed by the Carter administration is in reality a regime of terrorist murderers, a regime that is waging war against the Salvadorean people on behalf of the most criminal fascist elements and U.S. imperialism.

The U.S. imperialists are not only trying to crush the struggle of the Salvadorean people but are also trying to stop the revolutionary movements all over Latin America and the Caribbean. Recently, the administration announced it was planning to give $4 million in military credits to the reactionary regime in Honduras so that it can help suppress the struggle of the Salvadorean people as well as safeguard the interests of U.S. imperialism in Honduras. Last October Carter announced the establishment of a Caribbean Joint Task Force Headquarters in order to direct counterinsurgency military operations in Latin America and the Caribbean. But these measures will never stop the workers, peasants, and patriotic people of Latin America in their heroic struggle against the local tyrants and dictators and their U.S. imperialist sponsors.

As the situation in El Salvador is demonstrating, the people are not about to be cowed down by the bloody terrorism nor diverted from their goal by the fraudulent maneuvers ordered by the Pentagon and State Department strategists. The Salvadorean people have intensified their struggle, and the "moderate" policy of the military dictators has resulted in a fiasco. The Salvadorean people are on the path of revolution, which is the only path that can liberate them from the present bloodstained regime and U.S. imperialism.

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Hail International Working Class Day!

May 1st

U.S. imperialism, hands off Iran!

No to the draft, the nuclear program, and all imperialist war preparations!

Defy Carter's wage controls!

Wage mass revolutionary struggle against starvation, fascism and war!

Down with U.S. imperialism, Soviet and Chinese social-imperialism all reaction!

Glory to socialism in Albania!

Workers of all countries, unite!

Rally to the red banner of the MARXIST-LENINIST PARTY the party of revolutionary struggle and socialism!

MAY DAY DEMONSTRATIONS AND MEETINGS

New York City

DEMONSTRATION

Saturday, May 3 2:00 p.m.

Assemble at 174 St. and Ft. Washington Avenue (1 block west of Broadway)

MEETING

Saturday, May 3 7:00 p.m.

Place: Milbank Chapel, 125 Main Bldg

Teachers College

525 West 120 Street, NYC

Buffalo, NY

DEMONSTRATION AGAINST IMPERIALIST WAR PREPARATIONS

Saturday, May 3 12:00 noon

(for assembly point contact Buffalo Branch of the MLP, which is a sponsor of this action)

MEETING

Saturday, May 3 7:00 p.m.

Place: Unitarian Universalist Church 695 Elmwood Ave. at West Ferry St. Buffalo, NY

For May 1st activities in other cities, contact the local branch of the MLP,USA.]

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