The Workers' Advocate

WORKERS OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE! 25¢

Volume 10, Number 4

VOICE OF THE MARXIST-LENINIST PARTY OF THE USA

July 10, 1980

[Front page:

8 Million Jobless--A sign of monopoly capitalism in decay;

ANTI-IMPERIALIST CONFERENCE HELD IN BUFFALO, N.Y.: No to U.S. Imperialist War Preparations!;

26th Constitutional Convention of the UAW--More Hysteria About Foreign Imports-More Betrayal of the Auto Workers;

The Azanian People Are Determined to Smash the Slavery of South African Racist Rule]

IN THIS ISSUE

8 Million Jobless

A sign of monopoly capitalism in decay

ANTI-IMPERIALIST CONFERENCE HELD IN BUFFALO, N.Y.:

No to U.S. Imperialist War Preparations!

DOWN WITH U.S. IMPERIALISM!

26th Constitutional Convention of the UAW

More Hysteria About Foreign Imports -- More Betrayal of the Auto Workers

The Azanian People Are Determined to Smash the Slavery of South African Racist Rule

The Venice Economic Summit of Chieftains of Western Imperialism

A counter-revolutionary gathering to shore up the tottering world capitalist order

Miami:

A forceful rebellion of the black people against racist police murders and the oppression of monopoly capital

Radio Tirana:

Racism -- An Expression of the Criminal Policy of the American Imperialists

An Important Lesson of the Miami Rebellion:

Dual Tactics of the Savage Rule of the Rich

Detroit city workers on the picket lines against the strikebreaking Coleman Young administration

Detroit: A "Model" of Oppression

On the Strike Struggle of the New York City Transit Workers

Arming the Police to the Teeth - An Outrage Against the Broad Masses

International Harvester workers win their five month strike against compulsory overtime

Down with the McBride/ENA Sellout Contract in Steel!

Provisions of the 1980 Steel Contract: A Sellout from A to Z

Shipyard workers demand no wage cuts!

AT THE ELECTRONICS CORPORATION OF AMERICA:

Militant Strike Defies Carter's Wage Controls

Chinese revisionists are die-hard opponents of the liberation struggle of the Salvadorean People

Heroic Uprising of the Korean People Against the U.S. Puppet Military Dictators

STRIKES AND PROTESTS SPREAD ACROSS JAMAICA

Resolutions of the Anti-Imperialist Activists Conference

No to the U.S. Nuclear Program!

Down with the persecution of Iranian students! U.S. imperialism, hands off Iran!

AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY:

Students repulse fascist attack

In Commemoration of the 110th Anniversary of the Birth of V.I. Lenin

LENINISM AND THE IDEOLOGICAL STRUGGLE

AGAINST MAO ZEDONG THOUGHT!

-- PART ONE --

MAO ZEDONG THOUGHT AND THE FIGHT AGAINST SOVIET REVISIONISM

11th Congress of the CP of Colombia [M-L], an Important Event for the Colombian Marxist-Leninist

'A Classe Operaria' on the struggle of the Brazilian people against the oppressive regime

The 2nd Congress of the Communist Party [Marxist-Leninist] of Ecuador Successfully Held

Communist Party of New Zealand

"Carry the Struggle Against Revisionism Through to the End"

On the Situation in Iran

From the Joint Statement of the Workers' and Peasants' Communist Party of Iran and the Workers' Communist Party of France:

'Eurocommunism Is Anti-Communism' Comrade Enver Hoxha's New Book

FROM THE TEXT OF "EUROCOMMUNISM IS ANTI-COMMUNISM"

The Italian Eurorevisionists and the Chinese Revisionists are united by the same counter-revolutionary aim

Radio Tirana on Carter's Budget

A Budget in the Service of War and Aggression

Nothing can subdue the resistance of the Afghan people against Soviet invaders

ANTI-NUCLEAR SONG:

Vigorous Demonstrations and Rallies Mark International Working Class Day-May 1

8 Million Jobless

A sign of monopoly capitalism in decay

Over the last six months, the economic crisis of the monopoly capitalist system has once again broken out in full devastating force. This marks the onset of the seventh industrial crisis since the Second World War and by all indicators it will prove to be the most destructive crisis of the post-war period. In April the government's composite index of "economic indicators" fell by 4.1%, the sharpest drop in a given month since this index was established 32 years ago. And it fell again in May another precipitous 2.4%.

The most telling indicator of the crisis is the mass layoffs, in particular layoffs in manufacturing. In May, the employed industrial workers were being tossed out into the street at a near record rate of 3.5 workers per hundred, up from 2.8 workers per hundred in April. The first and heaviest blows have struck the industries at the very center of the economy. Auto production has crashed to 35% of last year's pace. This means that the number of cars produced will be fewer than the number produced in 1950. And it means that 35% or some 300,000 auto workers are now out of work. Steel production is also screeching to a standstill. Sixty-five thousand steel workers have been laid off as many mills are running at only a fraction of capacity or are being shut down altogether. The bottom has also fallen out of the construction industry, with home construction at a 35-year record low.

In June total unemployment hit 7.7%, which translates to an official figure of over eight million jobless workers. And there is no letup in the layoffs in sight. Even Carter's economic "experts" cannot cover up the fact that unemployment is rapidly approaching levels comparable only to the great crash of the early 1930's.

Furthermore, the 7.7% figure does not reflect the true scope of unemployment. For example, the government bureaucracy does not count as "unemployed" the several million workers who have given up looking for a job. There are also the several more million marginally and seasonally employed such as the approximately five million regular full-time workers who have been forced onto part-time schedules. Also, for certain heavily oppressed sections of the working class, joblessness is particularly acute, as among the black workers who suffer double the joblessness of the work force as a whole. And joblessness has taken on devastating proportions among the youth, particularly among the sons and daughters of the black workers and the other oppressed nationalities.

The millions of unemployed are being confronted with unbearable hardships. There is the mental agony of forced idleness. And there is the economic destitution and ruin. The very few who are lucky enough to get Supplemental Unemployment Benefits are rapidly seeing not only their SUB pay but also their unemployment benefits get cut off. The unemployment benefits themselves are not half enough to keep body and mind together. Bills go unpaid and new bills are added on. For instance, many laid off workers have to take over their health insurance premiums which means that one quarter of the average unemployment check is gobbled up by the health insurance monopolies. But the large majority of the unemployed do not even receive these measly benefits and are forced to get by on even more pitiful welfare payments or on no income at all.

So what is the source of this terrible curse of unemployment?

The mouthpieces of the rich have cooked up countless lies. The official explanation of the Carter government is that a recession and a surge of unemployment are only a temporary and necessary "sacrifice" required to "cool off inflation." But this so-called "trade-off" is nothing but a monstrous capitalist swindle as can be seen by the fact that the last six months of massive layoffs have also been six months of record levels of inflation (over 18% in the first quarter). The layoffs are also explained with a great hoopla of chauvinist hysteria to blame "Japanese imports." Or the workers themselves are to blame for being "lazy" and for their "loss of the work ethic" and "low productivity." And when all else fails the layoffs are attributed to "an act of god." Of course, all of these "explanations" have but one purpose: to take the blame off the rich exploiters and to hide the real source of the layoffs and joblessness -- the monopoly capitalist system itself.

To Protect Their Profits the Capitalists Are Hurling Ever Larger Numbers of Workers into the Ranks of the Unemployed

The capitalist employers are throwing the workers into the streets by the millions in order to protect their profits and to shift the burden of the crisis onto the backs of the workers. The periodic onset of the industrial crisis of overproduction is built into the very fabric of the capitalist order, it is an iron law of the monopoly capitalist system of production for the maximum profit of a handful of moneybags. And the basic feature of such a crisis is that too many goods, too much raw materials, too much of everything hits been produced by the workers -- that is, over and above what the capitalist owners are able to sell on the market in order to realize their profits. The bourgeois economists are lamenting that factory inventories and warehouses are overflowing and production has outstripped demand in all markets: cars, steel, lumber, machinery, petroleum products, and so on. In this situation, to protect their profit margins the capitalists have put the brakes on production. Millions of productive hands have become superfluous as the capitalist exploiters no longer realize the necessary profits from their labor power.

In short, the crisis has brought about massive layoffs, the forced idleness, impoverishment and ruin of several million workers. And all this because an over-abundance of wealth has been created. Such is the totally mad and upside-down logic of capitalist production.

Besides the profits to be made by mercilessly tossing the surplus workers into the street, in the favor of the capitalist the expansion of the multimillion army of unemployed during the crisis also places a great weight on the workers still on the job. The employers take advantage of the situation to threaten the job security of the remaining workers, to compel them to work harder and faster for less by pointing to the thousand jobless workers at the plant gate in desperate need of a livelihood.

The mass layoffs and the surge of unemployment, therefore, can only be explained by the fact that it is one of the most devastating and brutal means by which the rich exploiters shift the burden of their economic crisis onto the backs of the workers.

An Expanding Multi-Million Army of Unemployed

Thus the current wave of mass layoffs is a direct consequence of the present industrial crisis of over-production. This does not yet explain, however, the existence of a vast pool of five to six million unemployed even before the onset of this new surge of unemployment. Mass unemployment is not simply the result of a passing phase of the "business cycle" after which there is a "return to prosperity for all." Rather, monopoly capitalism has created a permanent army of unemployed. And this desperate army of several million jobless workers is taking on ever more gargantuan proportions.

Since the conclusion of the Second World War, official unemployment levels have fallen below 3.8% only twice -- during the height of the U.S. imperialist wars of aggression in Korea and then in Viet Nam. And even then, 2.9% unemployed in 1953 was the record low. Over this period economic crises have grown more frequent and much more profound and destructive. And correspondingly each "recovery" has shown itself to be that much weaker and short-lived. At the same time each succeeding crisis leaves in its wake a larger army of permanently unemployed workers.

Over the last decade this process has shown itself in stark relief. In 1969, prior to the '71 recession, unemployment was at 3.5% of the work force. During the 1971 recession unemployment hit 5.9%. In the following restoration of production, however, unemployment receded to no lower than 4.9% in 1973. Then in 1975, in the depths of the next industrial crisis, unemployment soared to a postwar record of 8.5%. However, in the three years 1977-79, when industrial production had been restored to the pre-1974 level, unemployment remained at astronomical levels. In fact, over this three year period of so-called "recovery" unemployment averaged 6.3%, which is just below the level of the deepest previous crises in the postwar period (see chart).

This shows the extremely weak and fragile nature of this "recovery." It is a reflection of the extreme industrial stagnation which has grown more pronounced in the U.S., the very bastion of world capitalism, than in any other major industrialized capitalist country besides the decaying industry of British monopoly capital. The extreme degree of stagnation of U.S. industry in relation to the other capitalist and revisionist countries is a manifestation of the force of the law of the uneven development of capitalism. In certain fundamental industrial sectors the stagnation is particularly acute. Production of primary metals, for example, even at the height of the so-called "recovery," has not been restored to the 1973 level. Iron and steel production has descended to the level reached in 1965. Therefore, while overall production levels were restored after the powerful 1974-76 crisis, the economy was not restored to "health" but remained thoroughly disease-ridden and beset with stagnation and decay.

The high unemployment levels during the 1977-1979 "recovery" also demonstrate the fact that production was restored only at the great expense and suffering of the working class. In particular, assembly lines started rolling again on the basis of the massive elimination of jobs.

With an onslaught of productivity drives the capitalist employers have been speeding up the lines, combining jobs, and enforcing ever more fascist labor discipline in order to sweat the workers to the maximum degree. And in steel, auto and the other major sectors, the monopoly capitalists have been carrying out massive rationalization, retooling and introducing new machinery, and closing down inefficient plants and mills. The net result of their efforts has been the permanent elimination of hundreds of thousands of workers in these industries and the enforcement of unbearable overwork and murderous conditions on the workers who remain on the job. Of course, all these measures taken by the bourgeoisie to extricate itself from the crisis through the intensification of the exploitation of the workers, only lead to yet deeper and more insurmountable crises as we are witnessing today.

The Scourge of Unemployment: A Powerful Indictment of the Crisis-Ridden Monopoly Capitalist System

The tremendous growth of the army of unemployed is a manifestation of the deepening of the general crisis of the capitalist-imperialist system. The world capitalist-revisionist system continues to be shaken at its foundations by the revolutions of the proletariat and the oppressed peoples, by the triumphs of socialism, and by the sharp inter-imperialist rivalries between U.S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism and the other imperialisms. The imperialists' spheres of plunder are being curtailed and their investments and operations are increasingly perilous. As a result, the periodic industrial crises of over-production are more frequent and severe. Even in the "best" of times industries are working chronically at under-capacity. Capitalism is at its highest and final stage, the stage of monopoly capitalism or imperialism, which is capitalism that has become moribund and is in decay.

All these factors add up to a constant expansion of a permanent army of unemployed workers. With the onset of the industrial crisis, such as at the present, millions of workers are thrown into the street. But the restoration of production will not mean a return to work. On the contrary, an increasing mass of workers will never be called back to industry. It is calculated by the Labor Department, for example, that fully 45% of the present jobless workers will never rejoin the productive work force.

The terrible scourge of unemployment is a powerful indictment of the crisis-ridden monopoly capitalist system. The fact that eight million of the productive workers who have built and run the modern industry in this country have been condemned to forced idleness, deprived of any means of living or work, shows that the class of rich parasites is totally unfit to rule. This man-eating system of exploitation, which is not even capable of maintaining its own wage slaves, has had its day and must go.

The onset of a new round of industrial crisis and the wave of mass layoffs calls for the most determined resistance struggle on the part of the workers. Active mass struggle against layoffs, plant closings, speedup and productivity drives is on the order of the day. The only solution for the mass of workers is to wage revolutionary struggle against the efforts of the rich to shift the burden of the crisis onto their backs and in the course of this struggle to organize themselves to overthrow the exploiters altogether. The worsening economic crisis of capitalism is a powerful revolutionizing factor, drawing the broadest sections of the working masses into struggle against ruin and starvation at the hands of the monopoly capitalist bloodsuckers. Only the socialist revolution can put an end to the plague of unemployment, poverty and crisis -- the permanent fellow travelers of the monopoly capitalist system which is rotting alive.

[Chart: The lowest level of unemployment during the "recovery" after the 1974-75 recession was as severe as the highest unemployment of the previous crisis in 1971. In fact, each successive crisis leaves a larger army of unemployed in its wake.]

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ANTI-IMPERIALIST CONFERENCE HELD IN BUFFALO, N.Y.:

No to U.S. Imperialist War Preparations!

Under the fighting slogan of No to U.S. Imperialist War Preparations! a local conference of anti-imperialist activists was successfully held in Buffalo, New York on June 7,1980. The conference was organized by the Buffalo Branch of the Marxist-Leninist Party with the active participation of the Syracuse Committee Against Social-Chauvinism and the Union of Anti-Imperialist Students (formerly the Student Peace Coalition). Workers and students who have been active in organizing the mass movement against the U.S. imperialist war preparations in the factories and on the high school and college campuses took part in the day-long meeting. This conference has important consequences for the development of the mass movement. It summed up the recent and past experience of the movement, further united the activists on the militant orientation to put the fight against imperialism in the center of the struggle against aggression and war, and set out the practical program to mobilize the broadest sections of the working people, youth and students into vigorous mass struggle. The high level of militancy and consciousness exhibited by this conference can leave no doubt that the mass movement against the draft and all of the imperialist war preparations will overcome every obstacle in its path and will be an important force for the development of the socialist revolution.

In the January State of the Union Address, the Carter government openly came forward with the warmongering plans of the "Carter doctrine" and showed that it is continuing along its reactionary path of preparing for aggressive imperialist war. The plans which Carter announced at that time for the reintroduction of registration for the hated military draft have now been approved, and in the last two weeks of July the registration is scheduled to begin. The U.S. imperialists are planning to draft the youth in order to ensure a steady supply of cannon fodder for their aggressive military machine. U.S. imperialism is also strengthening its aggressive alliances with the NATO bloc and with social-imperialist China, is beefing up its arsenal of weapons of mass destruction, is continuing its brutal attacks and pressure against the Iranian people, and is engaging non-stop in warmongering hysteria against its major rival for world domination, Soviet social-imperialism.

The aggressive activities of the Carter government have unleashed a broad mass movement against the war preparations of the U.S. imperialists. All across the country, the masses are going into action to fight U.S. imperialism. In Buffalo, the struggle has developed vigorously, especially in the last few months. Numerous actions have been organized, especially among the youth and students, in response to Carter's call for the reintroduction of the draft. Among the workers a lively discussion has been developing about the war preparations, and the workers are expressing their determination to fight against U.S. imperialism's plans for reactionary and aggressive war. The workers are beginning to participate in the political movement, in the demonstrations, meetings, and other mass actions. An important advance was made locally with the militant anti-imperialist demonstration organized by the Buffalo Branch of the MLP and the UAIS in downtown Buffalo on May 3. With the U.S. imperialists continuing their war preparations at a frenzied pace, the movement is bound to continue and grow.

In this situation, the anti-imperialist activists' conference was organized to assist the development of the movement against U.S. imperialism, to analyze and discuss the development of the war preparations and the present situation in the movement, and to set forth the fighting orientation for the struggle against U.S. imperialism.

The discussion in the conference showed that the activists have gained rich experience in the struggle against U.S. imperialist war preparations. For example, in the factories and workplaces where anti-imperialist activists have been working to develop the movement against the war preparations, they have had to fight tooth and nail against the treacherous labor bureaucracy. The labor bureaucracy is the main channel for bringing the warmongering chauvinist hysteria of the imperialists into the working class, and the labor bureaucrats have shown themselves to be the most diehard pro-imperialist, pro-war elements. The motion which is developing among the workers to oppose the war preparations is developing in spite of and against the labor bureaucracy. In this situation, the consistent agitation carried out by the MLP against U.S. imperialism has played an important role in clarifying the anti-imperialist politics and providing a rallying point for the workers independent of and against the pro-imperialist trade union bureaucracy. Among the youth and students as well, there has been important experience gained in the struggle against the pro-imperialist agents of the rich who have tried to infiltrate and smash the anti-imperialist movement. The building and consolidation of the Union of Anti-Imperialist Students has required a constant struggle against the hacks of the "left wing" of the Democratic Party as well as various opportunists who are in a yellow front with them. All these opportunists took up as their main mission to prevent the activists from opposing the draft from the anti-imperialist positions, to oppose taking the anti-imperialist politics among the masses of people and to tie the movement instead to some "influential" and "expert" "opponents" of the draft, such as Kennedy and other hacks of the Democratic Party. While rejecting the "leadership" of the "left wing" of the Democratic Party and refusing to give up the anti-imperialist politics, the genuine anti-imperialist activists of the UAIS instead have allied themselves closely with the MLP, the party of the proletariat, which consistently upholds and fights for the anti-imperialist politics in the struggle against the draft. The joint work between the UAIS and the Buffalo Branch of the MLP has made important contributions to the development of the anti-imperialist movement.

The conference addressed the wide range of issues presently confronting the movement. Its agenda was as follows:

I. U.S. Imperialism Is Preparing for Reactionary and Aggressive War

(opening speech)

A. On the all-round militarization of U.S. society

B. On the militarization of education, science and technology

II. The Movement Against U.S. Imperialist War Preparations -- Its General Features and History

All sections of the people are going into action against U.S. imperialism

A. The proletariat

Report from a steel worker

Report from an auto worker

Report from Roswell Park hospital

B. High school youth

Report from a high school student

Report from a high school activist of the early 1970's

C. University students

Report on the work of the Union of Anti-Imperialist Students (formerly Student Peace Coalition)

D. Foreign nationals

Report from a progressive Iranian student activist

III. How to Advance the Struggle Against U.S. Imperialist War Preparations

A. Opposition to imperialism must be put in the center

B. Mass revolutionary struggle against imperialism and war is the path forward

Fight every step of U.S. imperialism's war preparations!

Registration and the draft

Nuclear energy program and nuclear weapons production

U.S. imperialist aggression

Suppression of the movement

Work in the military

C. Forms of struggle and organization

IV. Resolutions of the Anti-Imperialist Activists' Conference

The conference concluded successfully with the unanimous approval of 15 resolutions embracing the analysis and path forward for the anti-imperialist struggle. Of especially great significance was the unity and determination expressed by the activists to advance the movement along the path of mass revolutionary struggle against imperialism and war. Thus, the conference took the unanimous stand that imperialism is the source of war; therefore, in the mass movement which has arisen to fight U.S. war preparations, against the draft, against the nuclear energy program and against other features of the war preparations, opposition to imperialism must be put in the center. This necessitates a resolute and consistent struggle against the "left wing" of the Democratic Party, the trade union bureaucrats, and various opportunist forces who are in a yellow front with it, who have infiltrated into the movement with the aim of opposing the anti-imperialist politics. Their aim is to tie the movement to Carter's Democratic Party, to tie it to the coattails of smooth-talking imperialist politicians like Kennedy. They are trying to direct the movement to support imperialist pacifism, detente and SALT II, etc.; in other words, to base the movement on finding a "better way" to defend the U.S. imperialist empire. For example, they claim to "oppose" the draft, for now, but they support the U.S. imperialist "volunteer army" which has over two million troops stationed all over the globe which are fully mobilized to carry out aggression anywhere at a moment's notice. In short, the objective of the "left wing" of the Democratic Party is to liquidate the movement. Against this, the path forward for the movement is the mass revolutionary struggle against imperialism and war. The anti-imperialist struggle is a powerful force for the development of the socialist revolution, and it is the socialist revolution which will put an end to U.S. imperialism once and for all by overthrowing the capitalist exploiters. Only the world proletarian socialist revolution can make possible a just and lasting peace.

The conference ended with the militant singing of the new song, "Down with U.S. Imperialism!," which was written by a militant of the MLP. All of the activists present listened with enthusiasm to this new song which captures very well the fighting spirit that existed throughout the anti-imperialist activists' conference.

[Photo: On July 2 Carter signed the order reintroducing registration for the hated military draft. The U.S. government is planning to draft the youth in order to use them up as cannon fodder in aggressive wars for the robbery of the Middle East oil and other military adventures on behalf of the oil corporations and other rich imperialists. In order to combat the preparations for such a robbers' war, the workers, youth and students, and the progressive and revolutionary activists are raising high the banner of uncompromising struggle against U.S. imperialism as demonstrated at the anti-imperialist conference held on June 7 in Buffalo, New York. The above photo is part of a militant demonstration of 150 people organized on May 3 by the Buffalo Branch of the MLP,USA and the Union of Anti-Imperialist Students (formerly the Student Peace Coalition) against U.S. imperialist war preparations.]

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DOWN WITH U.S. IMPERIALISM!

Down with U.S. imperialism

Go all out against our enemy

Revolutionary struggle is the path that we follow

Rally round the Marxist-Leninist Party

The youth are advancing against war preparations

The fight against imperialism growing ever strong

Let Wall Street and Washington tremble at our footsteps

The butchers and exploiters must be overthrown

The rich want to maintain and extend their world empire

Subjugate the people of the world, exploit and enslave

The government recruits us to be their cannon fodder

The profits of the capitalists is all they want to save

Democratic Party liars and their hangers-on won't stop us

They want to save imperialism from our wrath

But the working class and people have risen in defiance

Casting off obstructors as forward we advance

Down with U.S. imperialism

Go all out against our enemy

Revolutionary struggle is the path that we follow

Rally round the Marxist-Leninist Party

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26th Constitutional Convention of the UAW

More Hysteria About Foreign Imports -- More Betrayal of the Auto Workers

The 900,000 workers who slave for the Big 3 auto billionaires are under ruthless attack. One out of three, or 300,000 auto workers, are out of work. And those who remain on the job are being driven to an early grave by merciless speedup and overwork. In this situation, vigorous mass struggle of the workers in defense of their livelihood and against the onslaught of the auto monopolies is absolutely essential. However, at the 26th Constitutional Convention of the United Auto Workers recently held in Anaheim, California, such a struggle was not even mentioned by the UAW chieftains. In fact, not a single peep was heard from the mouths of President Fraser and his pack of sellouts against the mass ruination of the auto workers by the Big 3 auto billionaires.

Rather, arch-traitor Doug Fraser and his henchmen in the top leadership of the UAW carefully organized the convention as a wild orgy of chauvinist hysteria against foreign imports. Upon entering the convention hall, the delegates were greeted with banners declaring: "Japan Exports Unemployment," "Hungry -- Eat Your Toyota" and other similar racist and chauvinist garbage. During the proceedings, Joe Zappa, president of Local 212 at Chrysler's Mack Avenue, Detroit stamping plant, repeated his jingoist war cry to "stop Japanese imports at the sea." And another of Fraser's boys called for imposing fines against UAW members who drive foreign cars. In the end, Fraser jammed through a series of import hysteria resolutions including: 1) that the government place import restrictions and quotas on foreign cars and trucks; 2) that vehicles imported into the U.S. have at least 75% of their parts made in the U.S.; and 3) a denunciation of UAW members who drive foreign cars (as if this were to blame for the workers' own joblessness).

The convention was the latest display of an all-out campaign of chauvinist hysteria against imports whipped up by Fraser and co. since the fall of last year when massive layoffs again hit the auto workers. And this campaign has one purpose -- to divert and liquidate the struggle of the auto workers against the layoffs and ruthless exploitation being imposed by the American auto monopolists. Hysteria about imports is simply a means to scapegoat the monstrous crimes of the GM, Ford and Chrysler billionaires.

According to the UAW sellouts, the workers should vent their anger at the Japanese. Fraser and co. are striving to line up the American auto workers behind the American auto monopolies in their dogfights and economic wars with the Japanese and European monopolies. For this purpose, they are trying to convince the workers to look at their class brothers, the workers of other countries, as their worst enemies.

At the same time, Doug Fraser's sermon calls on the workers to get down on their knees before Henry Ford, Thomas Murphy and Lee Iaccoca and offer them "sacrifices" and "understanding" so that these multi-billionaire bloodsuckers can get out of their predicament and make better profits off the sweat of the workers. This is the type sellout contract Fraser jammed down the workers' throats last fall. And the biggest "concessions" were forced onto the Chrysler workers in the name of "saving Chrysler" -- a service for which Doug Fraser was awarded a seat on the Chrysler Board of Directors.

Fraser's import hysteria is a call for the auto workers to meekly submit to more layoffs, speedup and cuts in real wages under the hoax that such "sacrifices" will make the U.S. auto magnates more competitive and therefore will mean increased job security. But nothing could be farther from the truth. Just look at the "concessions" in the last contract and the record layoffs and plant closings that followed. In fact, these sacrifices have only helped pave the way for the auto monopolists to retool, modernize plants and automate the lines -- throwing thousands upon thousands of auto workers into the unemployment lines.

But of course, Fraser and the UAW chieftains, who are screaming themselves blue in the face about the Japanese, are long-time boosters of the auto billionaires' productivity drive which is ruining the auto workers. For example, at the convention Fraser announced that Chrysler will keep operating its Detroit Lynch Road assembly plant through the 1981 model year. If the plant is to remain open, Fraser announced, the workers simply must concede to the terms laid down by Chrysler Chairman Lee Iaccoca -- they must agree to "make work rules changes" so that management can eliminate and combine jobs, enforce the harshest overwork and cut back safety standards, and agree to eliminate short-week benefits so that if Chrysler wants to run the plant in halfweeks the Chrysler workers will have to get by on half-pay. Workers at Lynch Road have condemned these plans, pointing out that unemployment looks better than working under such slavish conditions. But Fraser has hailed Iaccoca's scheme and has declared this to be a "great victory" for job security. This is how Chrysler board member Fraser and the other UAW hacks betray the workers.

Collapse of the Auto Industry with the Deepening of the Capitalist Economic Crisis

The depth of the collapse in the auto industry has already surpassed that of the 1974-75 crisis. In their frenzied drive to maximize their sacred profits, the auto billionaires have again built more cars than the market can bear. As a result, one out of every three auto workers has been thrown out into the streets. Today 300,000 auto workers are on permanent or temporary layoffs. In the last year, the Big 3 have announced the permanent closing of eight major auto plants. Unemployment in key auto cities continues to skyrocket with no end in sight. In May, Detroit's unemployment rate reached 18.5% while Flint's hit 21%. These unemployed are facing a desperate situation as more and more have their benefits run out. During the month of May alone, over 17,000 workers in Detroit got their last unemployment check before it was cut off. The drastic falling out of the auto industry has in turn affected other major sectors of the capitalist economy which is in the grips of $ renewed industrial crisis. Already tens of thousands of workers in steel, rubber and the parts industries have also been hit by massive layoffs.

The Massive Modernization Programs and Productivity Drives of the Big 3 Will Permanently Eliminate Tens of Thousands of Jobs

While 300,000 auto workers are without jobs, and while plants are being closed right and left, the auto billionaires are presently conducting a man-eating productivity drive. In the plants still running, like GM's Michigan Willow Run (X-car assembly) and Chrysler's Dodge Truck, the workers are being driven like dogs. They are forced to put in long hours of mandatory overtime, jobs are constantly being combined and eliminated, and the lines are being sped up. The auto capitalists are using harassment, write-ups, disciplinary time off and firings to enforce the productivity drive.

At the same time, the auto monopolies have launched a massive modernization program to shut down older inefficient plants and replace them with new, retooled, high technology plants. GM's new plants, for example, are said to be modeled after their Oklahoma City assembly plant where robots have eliminated a large percentage of the workers' jobs. This is what GM has in mind with its plans to replace all or part of its Cadillac, Buick and Pontiac plants in Detroit, Flint and Pontiac, Michigan. In Detroit, GM plans to close the Fort Street Fleetwood plant and the massive Clark Street Cadillac complex. GM has announced its proposal to replace these two old plants with a single new complex which will employ from 3,800 to a maximum of 6,000 workers. As the Fort Street and Clark Street plants presently employ 14,000 workers, this means that some workers will permanently lose their jobs to modernization at Cadillac alone.

Mass Struggle Is the Only Way Forward

More and more, from their own experience, the auto workers are 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 struggles against the auto billionaires. Fraser's rabid anti-import hysteria campaign has been a dismal failure. It has not mobilized the masses of auto workers. Its support comes from the capitalist news media and Fraser's full-time, paid UAW hacks. Instead the auto workers are increasingly taking the struggle into their own hands and fights are breaking out against the attacks by the auto billionaires. Workers are waging slowdowns and sickouts to meet the productivity drives. Strikes are longer and more frequent. Recently, there were wildcats at the Chrysler Tank Plant in Lima, Ohio against forced overtime while thousands of other workers were laid off. For more than five months this spring and winter, workers at International Harvester waged a nationwide strike against IH's job elimination schemes. There the workers successfully fought against more hours of forced overtime which was part of a productivity drive aimed at eliminating 10,000 jobs while at the same time increasing production by more than 40%. This, path of mass struggle and resolute opposition to the attacks of the auto billionaires is the only way forward!

(Leaflet issued by the Detroit Branch of the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA on June 30, 1980.)

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The Azanian People Are Determined to Smash the Slavery of South African Racist Rule

In the contemporary world, all of the allegedly most impregnable positions of imperialism and savage reaction are being shaken by the revolts of the proletariat and oppressed masses. And the South African white minority regime, that fortress of the most barbaric racism and fascism, is no exception. The heroic Azanian people, who have been humiliated and degraded as much as any people anywhere, have once again taken to the streets in a powerful outburst of struggle against this infamous regime of apartheid racist segregation and fascist oppression. Throughout the month of June, the Azanian workers and youth and students launched a series of powerful demonstrations, strikes and other courageous actions directed against the racist apartheid regime.

Still haunted by the heroic rebellion of the Azanian people of June 1976, a struggle which began in the black township of Soweto and which shook the racist minority rule to its foundations, the Pretoria government decreed a ban on all rallies and meetings that were called to commemorate the Soweto rebellion. But, despite this fascist decree the youth and students of Soweto and other areas bravely held their meetings and demonstrations which were ruthlessly attacked by the police. In response to these unprovoked and savage police attacks the Azanian masses unleashed their fury. They answered the police bullets by stoning and burning police vehicles. The working class districts were turned into arenas of fierce clashes with the police. A massive struggle broke out in Cape Town where demonstrators closed down a major freeway and forced the racist authorities to retreat from sections of the city. As the police mercilessly gunned down, beat and murdered unarmed demonstrators, the masses justly retaliated and beat, burned and punished with their lives a number of these fascist executioners who fell into the people's hands.

In close conjunction with these struggles, over 75% of the Azanian workers in Cape Town, and others in Bloemfontein, went out on strike. A strike wave soon spread to the factories of Port Elizabeth where over 10,000 workers shut down the GM, Ford and VW auto plants. To protect the property of these imperialist corporations, the panic-stricken authorities brought in armored cars and riot police to surround the plants. At the U.S. imperialist Goodyear plant near Cape Town, 1,000 workers who were fired for participating in a strike against the racist wage system, persisted in their struggle and militantly fought back against a police attack on their demonstration. In these powerful strike actions, the workers have demanded an end to the grossly discriminating slave wages paid the black workers under the apartheid system, and have demonstrated their determination to free themselves of the unbearable oppression of the racist minority rule.

The South African apartheid system is a means by which a small minority of European colonial settlers have oppressed and subjugated the Azanian people in the most barbaric and criminal fashion. Apartheid has divided the oppressed Azanian people into the categories of "Bantu," for the black Africans, and "colored" for those considered to be of mixed blood. While the white settlers constitute only 17% of the population, they have confined the black African people to a mere 13% of the land, and with the poorest soil at that. This land comprises the notorious bantustans, which are nothing but poverty-stricken rural ghettos. The African people are not permitted to leave these bantustans without permission of the racist authorities. While the Azanian workers are allowed off the bantustans to go to the cities to produce super-profits for the foreign and local capitalists, they are often not allowed to bring their families or permanently reside there.

In short, for the Azanian people the apartheid system has turned their rich and beautiful country into a big convict prison. The Azanian masses have been stripped of even the most minimal rights. Their every movement is restricted and scrutinized under the hated pass-law system. For blacks, trade union organization and strikes, political meetings and rallies are strictly illegal. And South African prisons are tilled with tens of thousands of opponents of apartheid rule. Under the apartheid wage system, Azanian workers are exploited to the bone and are paid starvation wages that are only a small fraction of the wages of the white workers. The languages and culture of the Azanian people have been systematically suppressed and the Azanian students have waged numerous struggles against having the "Afrikaans" language of the settlers imposed on them. The apartheid system of oppression is enforced with unbridled racist violence and terror. The fascist armed forces have carried out countless massacres of the people including the infamous Sharpeville massacre and the massacre of over 600 martyrs of the historic struggle of 1976.

The apartheid system is a product of the bloodstained imperialist colonization of Africa. Almost all of southern Africa was seized as British colonies at the turn of the century after Britain had inflicted defeat upon its rival Dutch colonialists. In this period, the British imperialist, Cecil Rhodes, explained Britain's colonial policy, stating: "My idea is that natives should be kept in these native reserves and not mixed with the white men at all.... We are going to be lords of this people.... We must adopt a system of despotism...." And it is these very same dogmas of monstrous racial oppression and despotism which guide the modern fascist apartheid state.

Following World War II, U.S. imperialism emerged as the leader of world imperialism, and as the principal bulwark of colonialism and neo-colonialism, and as the pillar of world fascism and racism. Hence, U.S. imperialism, which practices savage racial oppression against the black people at home, realized a near and dear friend in the fascist apartheid system. Along with British and other corporations, the U.S. imperialist corporations have invested heavily in apartheid South Africa and realize a fortune in super-profits off the super-exploited and downtrodden Azanian workers. South Africa is an important source of gold, diamonds and rare metals which are crucial for the U.S. aerospace industry, missiles and other weaponry. The South African government, which is armed to the teeth, also provides an outpost to control the sea route between the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic, a vital link to the Persian Gulf oil so coveted by U.S. imperialism. The South African racists are also one of the closest allies of the racist state of zionist Israel. Moreover, apartheid South Africa is the principal base for the imperialist and neo-colonial enslavement of the whole of southern Africa. On behalf of imperialism, the South African racists have seized Namibia as its colony and have carried out countless acts of military aggression against the freedom of the people of Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Angola.

For all these reasons, the U.S. imperialists want at all costs to keep their racist and fascist cohorts in power in South Africa. They will stop at nothing to turn back the liberation struggle of the Azanian people. The Carter administration's talk of "concern" about the racial oppression of the African people is the cruelest mockery of reality.

However, it is not U.S. imperialism and the racists and fascists who can decide the fate of the African people. The long-suffering people of Azania, who imperialism would like the world to believe have been condemned to apartheid slavery for good, are rising in struggle and heroically shedding their blood to realize their liberation. It is most definitely the fascist apartheid rule which will be destroyed and the heroic Azanian people who will emerge victorious from this conflict.

[Photo: June 1980: The Azanian people rose up on the fourth anniversary of the Soweto uprising of June 1976.]

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The Venice Economic Summit of Chieftains of Western Imperialism

A counter-revolutionary gathering to shore up the tottering world capitalist order

The annual economic summit of the "seven major industrial democracies," including the heads of state of France, West Germany, Britain, Italy, Canada, Japan and the United States, was held last month in Venice, Italy. The problems on the agenda of this meeting of the chieftains of the Western imperialist bloc were: how to shore up the world capitalist system in the face of the extremely grave crisis which has it in its grips; how to put down the rising revolt of the proletariat and working masses and curb the liberation struggle of the oppressed peoples; and how to cope with the Soviet-led social-imperialist bloc.

In dealing with the economic crisis which is rocking capitalism, these leaders of the so-called "industrial democracies" are completely bankrupt. They have absolutely no solutions. They dare not even pretend to be able to resolve the severe economic crisis, the rampant inflation, the mass unemployment, the energy crisis, and other chronic diseases of monopoly capitalism. In their communique there is nowhere to be found even a promise of a way out of the crisis or a better life for the miserably exploited working masses. To no one's surprise, the only "solution" these overseers of the crisis- ridden monopoly capitalist order could find was to put the entire burden of the crisis upon the shoulders of the workers at home and on the oppressed peoples abroad. Accordingly, as the conference ended. Carter summed up its significance for the people with the statement: "We will be returning to our own countries to be asking for more sacrifices" -- that is "sacrifices" from the working masses to bail capitalism out of its ever-worsening crisis.

At the summit, the heads of state declared that inflation was the number one economic problem, noting that the average rate of inflation in the Western capitalist countries has shot up from 8% during last year's summit, to 14% this year. The big bourgeoisie demagogically blames the workers for this inflation which is caused in fact by their own capitalist system itself, and then arrogantly demands that the workers pay for it. In the U.S. the workers are well aware of what Carter and his cronies mean by "sacrificing" to "fight" inflation. It has meant, among other things, severe cuts in real wages through his "voluntary" wage controls, increased productivity drives of speedup and forced overtime, and severe cutbacks in the few meager social programs. As can be seen in the summit's communique, essentially the same program is being forced on the proletariat in all the Western capitalist countries under the hoax of "fighting inflation." This joint declaration to put the burden of economic crisis onto the proletariat under the hoax of "fighting inflation," together with the estimate of the bourgeois economists that approximately three million more workers in the Western capitalist countries will lose their jobs in the next year, shows quite graphically what utter starvation and impoverishment the capitalist monopolies of the West have in store for the proletariat.

Along the same lines is the "solution" to the energy crisis unanimously adopted by the chieftains of Western imperialism as a centerpiece of their summit. Again they have resolved to put the burden on the people. They openly declared that they would continue to increase prices to "limit consumption" (i.e., skyrocketing prices to soak the masses for the super-profits of the multinational oil corporations), and stockpile for war. And they brazenly reaffirmed at length their dedication to pushing forward their warmongering imperialist nuclear energy program.

In particular, they demagogically blamed the oppressed nations for the high oil prices. Contrary to their lies, however, it is the huge imperialist oil monopolies themselves, and especially the giant U.S. oil corporations, who dominate the world oil trade. At the Venice summit, these rapacious imperialist powers, who for generations have plundered the developing countries of their oil and every other resource, resolved to work together more closely to confront these countries and force them to forfeit their oil at the cheapest prices possible.

The heads of state of Western imperialism made a special statement directed against the Iranian revolution. The purpose of this statement was to demonstrate their support for all the aggressive measures of U.S. imperialism against Iran which have been taken to crush the revolution, reimpose the fascist Shah and seize back Iran's rich oil fields for unhindered exploitation by imperialism.

Faced with deepening crisis, the inter-imperialist rivalry between the Western imperialist bloc headed by U.S. imperialism and the other imperialist bloc headed by Soviet social-imperialism has become very acute. This increased contention is shown by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, by U.S. imperialism's huge military buildup in the Indian Ocean area, etc. Accordingly, at the summit the Western imperialist allies discussed what are the best tactics with which to confront Soviet social-imperialism and to expand their own imperialist spheres of influence at its expense.

In a series of secret talks they raised in particular the question of developing new forms of organization to bolster their warmongering political-military alliance. Already joint NATO forces are deployed throughout Europe, the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean. However, for example, Carter proposed to expand the joint military forces to the Indian Ocean -- an area he has declared part of the "vital interests" of U.S. imperialism, and where he pledged to enforce U.S. imperialist domination "by whatever means necessary" in his warmongering "Carter doctrine" speech in January. This measure is designed as an answer to the Soviet aggression in Afghanistan, and to contend with Soviet imperialism for the domination of the rich oil resources of the whole region. These discussions among the chieftains of Western imperialism about more compact, and far-reaching "new forms" of organization above and beyond NATO, demonstrate the feverish pace with which they are preparing for aggressive and plunderous wars as a "solution" to the deep crisis of the capitalist system. Along the same lines, the Western allies reaffirmed their joint resolve to bolster the murderous nuclear arsenal of NATO, which entails carrying out an earlier decision to update this arsenal with U.S.-built Cruise and Pershing nuclear missiles to be stationed throughout Western Europe.

At the Venice conference, the inter-imperialist squabbles among these big imperialist states, though muffled, were ever present. Of course, Carter reiterated the longstanding guiding policy of U.S. imperialism that the Western imperialist alliance can maintain its strength only if all the participants obediently toe Washington's line. Despite their various quarrels, these lords of capitalism are united in their fundamental counter-revolutionary objective of defense of U.S.-led Western imperialism and the man-eating monopoly capitalist order.

Looking at the results of this summit it is clear that it is a desperate attempt to shore up the tottering capitalist system reeling from the effects of the crisis which its own internal contradictions have given rise to, and from the growing revolutionary revolt of the people.

This summit can be summed up as a conference of counterrevolution where the tactics of the bourgeoisie to pacify the revolt of the proletariat of Europe, Japan and North America, and to crush the national liberation struggles of the people of the oppressed nations, especially the heroic democratic revolution of the Iranian people, were discussed. It was a conference of open warmongering where the chieftains of the Western imperialist bloc consulted to coordinate tactics for confronting Soviet social-imperialism over the question of its invasion of Afghanistan and in turn to expand their own neo-colonial empires.

As long as Carter was in Europe, he utilized the opportunity to look after U.S. imperialism's affairs in Italy, Yugoslavia, Portugal and Spain.

On his first day in Europe, he dined with the Italian President Pertini, who invited along to the palace the chieftain of Italian Eurocommunist revisionism, Berlinguer, so Carter could receive a firsthand report on the efforts of the Italian revisionist party to divert the Italian workers' movement. Thus Carter had the opportunity to assess for himself the benefits the Italian revisionists can provide in extinguishing the revolutionary ferment of the Italian proletariat and people during the very severe crisis of capitalism in Italy.

Also while in Italy Carter stopped off to see the Catholic Pontiff, where, according to Carter's aides, the traveling Pope, the unofficial ambassador-at-large of U.S. imperialism, gave a comprehensive report on his ideological-political work worldwide against communism and the revolution. Carter was reported to be particularly pleased with the efforts of the Pope to subvert the Iranian revolution from the religious angle (even though they have failed miserably) and gave the Pope his blessing for his efforts.

After the summit, Carter went off to Yugoslavia, where he paid his respects at the grave of the arch-revisionist and U.S. imperialist agent, Tito. Carter used the platform provided by the Yugoslavs to make a demagogical speech warning of the dangers of Soviet imperialism to the "small and independent" nations, as exemplified by the invasion of Afghanistan. But in doing so he was calling on the people of the oppressed nations not to fight for genuine freedom from all imperialism, but to draw more closely into the U.S. imperialist fold. Such idle chatter about the independence of small and weak nations to prettify real slavery to imperialism is the very essence of the so- called "non-aligned" movement founded by Yugoslav revisionism, and praised in the joint statement of Carter and the Yugoslav leaders. It is a movement which is "non-aligned" in words only, words designed by Tito to prettify domination by imperialism. Tito's "non-aligned" movement is a fraud conceived in Washington to convince the people of the oppressed nations that there is some "third road" between imperialism and genuine socialism, and therefore they need not wage a real revolutionary struggle for their independence and freedom from imperialism of all types.

Traveling on to Spain and Portugal, Carter met first with the monarcho-fascist regime of King Juan Carlos of Spain and then the right-wing generals of Portugal. He praised both for their new-found "democracy" as a "tonic for the whole Western world." A "tonic" indeed! The farce of "democracy" in these countries of reaction, both of which are under the domination of U.S. imperialism, is designed to paint black as white, to stave off the revolt of the workers and oppressed people. In Spain, the very same fascist generals and ministers who served fascist Franco for decades still run the army and the state, the reactionary king has been placed back on the throne, and the monarcho-fascists in power guard the interests of U.S. imperialism, beg for NATO membership, etc., etc. This is the "tonic" Carter is placing his hopes in.

However, Carter is not putting all his eggs in one basket here either. Just as Pertini introduced him to the Eurocommunist Berlinguer in Italy, here in Spain the king (the king!!) introduced him to the chieftain of Spanish Eurocommunism, Carrillo. Carrillo and Carter's national security advisor Brzezinski were said to have had a very amiable "chat." Imagine what a scoundrel and traitor to communism, what a fascist this Carrillo must be to have gotten on with the ultra-imperialist warmonger Brzezinski! Brzezinski even went out of his way to flatter Carrillo by revealing he had read his new counter-revolutionary, anti-Marxist-Leninist book Eurocommunism and the State.

In Portugal, for the same reasons the rightist generals, the betrayers of the Portuguese people's revolution, introduced Carter to the pro-imperialist Portuguese "socialist" leader Soares.

In short, all the ideologies and dark forces of reaction which the U.S. imperialists have been carefully grooming were consulted and encouraged by Carter during his visit to Europe. All the reactionaries, the open fascist dictators and kings, the forces of religious reaction, and of revisionism and social-democracy are being mustered by U.S. imperialism for the great class battles which are rising. The chieftain of U.S. imperialism, Carter, by openly hobnobbing with the chieftains of Eurocommunism, Berlinguer and Carrillo, and with the Titoite revisionists demonstrated for all to see what an utter betrayal of the workers' movement the politics and ideology of these revisionists are.

None of these reactionary ideological and political forces Carter gave his hand to in Europe can halt the advance of the Marxist-Leninist communist and workers' movement, nor of the national liberation struggles of the oppressed nations. More and more the people are coming to realize that the imperialists and their opportunist and revisionist agents have absolutely no solutions to the mass misery of the people under the capitalist system. The proletariat and oppressed people are taking matters into their own hands and rising in struggle. It is this revolutionary struggle which will smash the capitalist-revisionist system to smithereens. It is in this revolutionary movement, and nowhere else that the real solutions to the crisis can be found.

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Miami:

A forceful rebellion of the black people against racist police murders and the oppression of monopoly capital

From May 17 to 19, in their tens of thousands, the black population of Miami rose in a powerful rebellion against the systematic racial discrimination and violence practiced against them by the monopoly capitalist authorities. To put down this struggle, the government unleashed the fury of their local and state police forces and over three thousand National Guard troops. In the three days of furious fighting, fifteen people were killed, most of whom were shot down by the police. Over 350 were wounded including five police and one National Guardsmen who were shot. And there were over 1,200 arrests.

This forceful outburst of rebellion is a most condemning exposure of U.S. monopoly capitalist rule. The Miami events tear to shreds the false mask of "human rights," "freedom" and "democracy" which is nothing but a flimsy disguise to cover up the savage repressive nature of the home rule of U.S. imperialism. Miami has once again laid bare to the whole world that the rule of the capitalist billionaires in the U.S. is a regime of barbaric exploitation and oppression, of unbridled racism and growing fascism where the black people are murdered by the police with impunity like dogs and where the police and the troops mercilessly crush the revolt of the masses when the situation becomes intolerable. At the same time, the Miami events demonstrate that the working class and the broad masses of the people will never be reconciled to this oppression and that the revolt of the black people against the racial discrimination and violent repression of big capital and its government cannot be eliminated. The courageous struggle of the Afro-American population of Miami is a great source of inspiration to the entire working class and all the working and progressive people who are in struggle against the common enemy, the monopoly capitalist oppressors.

A Powerful Outburst of Struggle Against Racist Police Repression

The rebellion in Miami broke out as a massive protest against the acquittal of the police responsible for the brutal murder of Arthur McDuffie, a 33 year old black insurance salesman. On the night of December 19 of last year, Arthur McDuffie was savagely beaten to death by over a dozen Dade County police who bludgeoned McDuffie with nightsticks and flashlights after stopping him for running a stop sign on his motorcycle. Four of the police involved were eventually put on trial. But for this cold-blooded and bestial murder of McDuffie most of the charges against the four police were only for minor infractions of the law such as tampering with evidence and only one of the officers was charged with second degree murder. From the beginning, the state prosecutors worked hand-in-glove with the police to ensure that the officers would be acquitted. In preparation for the day the "innocent" verdict was to be announced, the trial was moved 250 miles away to Tampa in an attempt to diffuse the mass outrage at the inevitable verdict.

Then on Saturday afternoon, May 17, the "innocent" verdict was handed down by an all-white jury. That same evening a mass demonstration 7,000 strong gathered at the Justice Building in downtown Miami to protest this criminal outrage and to avenge the murder of Arthur McDuffie. The police tried to provoke the demonstrators and in response the masses furiously counterattacked against the police. Ten or more police cars were turned over and set ablaze. The masses stormed the Justice Building itself, which includes both the Dade County police headquarters and the Court House. Sniper fire was directed at the panic-striken police defending the Justice Building which was eventually set on fire, burning down its East Wall. The Florida State Office Building nearby was also set on fire.

From the Justice Building downtown, the fighting spread to the black districts of Liberty City and Coconut Grove. The masses were determined to wreak their just vengeance against the police and the racist authorities. Rallies and demonstrations continued and the police were driven out of the black districts under a hailstorm of bricks, bottles and rifle fire. A small number of racist vigilantes were sent into the community by the police to terrorize and shoot down the people on the street. Some of these fascist hoodlums were given the just punishment they deserved by the masses. And besides the direct battles with the police and their racist cohorts, a large number of the supermarket monopolies, pawn brokers, liquor stores and other capitalist parasites in the community had their stores broken into, stripped of merchandise and then burned to the ground.

This great outpouring of revolt threw the capitalist authorities into a total panic. On Sunday, the Miami mayor and police chief declared the situation "out of control" and Florida Governor Bob Graham dispatched 3,400 National Guard troops and several hundred police from law enforcement agencies across Florida to put down the masses. This huge army of suppression cordoned off the black districts and a dawn to dusk curfew was clamped down on a 32 square mile area including Liberty City, Coconut Grove and downtown Miami. Though afraid for their lives to enter the heart of the black neighborhoods, the police and troops savagely set upon the masses who happened to come into range of police lines. Hundreds, including many ordinary bystanders, were mercilessly beaten by the police and over 300 people were hospitalized with serious injuries. A large number of the injured had been hit by police gun fire. Most of the 15 killed were murdered in cold blood by the police. The last person to die in the three days of fighting was a black man who was shot six times by two police officers when he approached a police barricade on his bicycle.

The courageous masses, however, were not cowed down by the ferocity of. the police repression. Nor were they intimidated by the calls of the Miami mayor, the Florida governor and the federal Justice Department authorities to "stop the violence" and to "restore law and order." In a further attempt to suppress the struggle, the so-called "leaders" of the black people, such sold-out opportunists as Andrew Young, Jesse Jackson, and John Conyers, were helicoptered into Miami in order to "bring the situation under control." But their attempts to "mediate" the struggle on behalf of the government, and their appeals to "cool it" were angrily rejected by the masses who jeered and condemned these mangy lap dogs of Jimmy Carter and the other chieftains of monopoly capital.

Thus, neither the savage repression by the police and National Guard troops nor the demagogic appeals of the government and its agents were able to pacify this powerful struggle. In fact the struggle spread and under the slogan "AVENGE McDUFFIE!" thousands of black youth in Tampa took to the streets and fought the police. A rebellion also broke out in a prison outside of Miami where the prisoners demanded an end to the racist and inhuman treatment of the authorities. In Miami itself, the police and troops were unable to re-occupy the Liberty City and Coconut Grove districts until Tuesday when they cleared the streets with tear gas after three nights of furious fighting.

The capitalists media mills and all the lying mouthpieces of the rich have been screaming in unison that Miami was a "race riot," that the black masses were rebelling "against the whites," "against the Cubans," against anyone and anything but their real oppressors. Nothing could be further from the truth. This struggle of the black population of Miami was directed squarely against the police and the capitalist government, the mortal enemy of the black and all the oppressed and working masses Over the last year, the Miami police have not only bludgeoned to death Arthur McDuffie but have systematically carried out a whole series of beatings and murders of the black people. Therefore, when the murderers of McDuffie were let off scott free -- once again declaring to the whole world that the racist government of the rich grants the police the right to murder the black people at will with the full blessings of the courts -- the seething indignation of the masses erupted into a powerful mass action. In their tens of thousands, the working and oppressed black masses took to the streets to give a fitting reply to this outrageous injustice. This courageous action of the black population of Miami is a most honorable and just stand and has received the sympathy and support of the broad masses of the working class and people.

A New Upsurge of the Black People's Struggle Is on the Order of the Day

The rebellion in Miami is an important indicator that a new upsurge of the black people's struggle against racial discrimination and oppression is on the agenda. The Miami rebellion is the largest such struggle since the great Afro-American rebellions of the 1960's -- in Watts, Harlem, Newark, Detroit and countless cities and towns across the country. And the unbearable conditions which gave rise to these earth-shaking struggles of the 1960's -- the bestial racial discrimination and violent repression and the double exploitation and oppression of the black people -- have not been alleviated in the slightest but remain intact and with even greater force.

All the hired apologists and flunkeys of the rich are trying to hide this fact. Year in and year out they have been working night and day to convince the world that U.S. monopoly capitalist rule has changed its barbaric racist nature, that "times have changed." This is why the university sociologists and other bourgeois "experts" have declared that Miami was nothing but an accident of history, a freak "backlash" to the influx of Cuban refugees or similar such nonsense. Meanwhile, Carter and his stooges have all shed a tear about the "miscarriage of justice" and the "unfortunate breakdown of the judicial system" in Miami. But the police murder of McDuffie and the exoneration of the murderers is a systematic occurrence, not only in Miami, but in cities and towns across the country. The McDuffie case is not a "breakdown of the system," as the mouthpieces of this repressive system claim, but a typical example of the "justice" enforced under the racist and terroristic rule of the rich.

Moreover, besides the racist police attacks and wanton murders, the black people face brutal racial discrimination in every sphere of life. In Miami over 30% of the black youth are unemployed. The wages of the black workers are a mere 57% of those of the white workers, and 38% of the black population lives under the official poverty level. Overcrowded and wretched housing in the black communities of Miami have become unbearable. And these intolerable conditions are in no way peculiar to Miami. They are not the exception but the rule.

Therefore the fundamental situation which gave rise to the great rebellions of the 1960's has not been eliminated but has grown worse. However, to snuff out the black people's resistance to this oppression the bourgeoisie has tried to hide its ugly racist policy. The monopoly capitalist rulers, these most monstrous and racist barbarians, have attempted to put on a "humane" and "civil rights" mask. Supposedly the oppressors of yesterday have "learned their lesson" and today are extending a hand to give the black people "a fair shake." To bolster this great hoax a small number of black faces have been put in city hall and other high places within the government apparatus of oppression. And the monopoly capitalists have installed in the White House the Democratic Carter administration, the self-styled "friend of the minorities" -- that is friend of the arch-traitors to the black people, the Coleman Youngs and Andrew Youngs, the Coretta Kings and Jesse Jacksons.

Behind this hollow mask, however, the racial oppression against the black people has actually been intensified. The black working masses and the other oppressed nationalities have been forced to bear the brunt of the burden of the economic crisis which the rich have placed on the backs of the workers. Over the last five years, the black workers have suffered more than double the unemployment and have taken the worst of the other hardships of the economic crisis. Moreover, the government has attempted to float racist and fascist movements to attack the black people such as the so- called anti-busing movement. Attempts have also been made to foment racist campaigns under the racist bogey of "reverse discrimination." Increasingly the government is striving to organize and set in motion gangs of racist terrorists such as the KKK and other fascist scum. And this all-sided intensification of racial discrimination and terrorism against the black people has been punctuated by growing numbers of atrocious police murders.

And just as the cosmetic changes on the face of the savage rule of monopoly capital can not change its ugly racist features, so too they can not eliminate the Afro-American struggle. Rather, new storms of the revolt of the black masses are brewing. In Oakland, California; in Brooklyn, New York; in Wichita, Kansas; in Battle Creek, Michigan; in Greensboro, North Carolina; and in numerous other towns across Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and the South the masses are taking action against police attacks and the attacks of the racist gangs. And now Miami has clearly spelled out that a new upsurge of the black people's struggle against racial discrimination and violent repression is on the order of the day.

Imperialism has "no room" for the liberation of the black people. As Miami has once again demonstrated, the imperialist system of exploitation and oppression can never provide real equality and justice for the black people. On the contrary, the savage and bestial oppression of the black people is a permanent policy of U.S. monopoly capitalist rule. And correspondingly, the struggle of the toiling black masses against this oppression, against racial discrimination, against police murders and fascist repression and against grinding poverty is a powerful force for the overthrow of this man-eating system. The Afro-American struggle is part of the struggle of the entire proletariat and oppressed masses for the overthrow of the rule of the rich, for the proletarian socialist revolution. And it is only the victory of this struggle which can bring genuine liberation to the doubly oppressed black masses.

The Workers' Advocate considers the rebellion in Miami to be a most significant event heralding a great new upsurge of the black people's struggle against the bestial oppression of monopoly capital. This courageous rebellion is an inspiration and encouragement to all the working and oppressed people. It is an opening shot of the big class battles, of the upsurge of all the revolutionary mass movements emerging in the 1980's.

[Photo: The black people of Miami directed their rebellion squarely against the police and the racist capitalist government.]

[Photo: 7,000-strong, the black people stormed the very headquarters of the racist police and courts in Miami, leaving it in flames.]

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Radio Tirana:

Racism -- An Expression of the Criminal Policy of the American Imperialists

(The following is from a commentary broadcast over Radio Tirana from the People's Socialist Republic of Albania on May 23, 1980. Transcribed by PCDN.)

The demagogical propaganda which is trying to present the United States as a model of democracy will never be able to cover up the savage repressive character of the American bourgeois state. This reality was manifested in all its savageness in the city of Miami, Florida, these days, where, as a result of the fighting which broke out between the Negroes protesting against social injustice and the bands of racists and police forces, 20 black people were killed and 270 others wounded.

The bloody events which occurred in the city of Miami testify first of all to the genocide which is applied against the black working masses. This policy cannot be disguised behind Carter's statements about so-called "human rights," the policy of equality and well-being which he claims is being implemented in that country. The myth of human rights was smashed to smithereens by the bullets of Carter's racist police force in the streets of Miami.

The Miami events are no coincidence but are part and parcel of the entire state policy of the American bourgeoisie. In the United States, the bloody laws of racial discrimination, barbarous oppression and exploitation are operating in all their ferocity. Retaliating against the sharpening of the struggle of the peoples for their rights and democratic liberties, the bourgeoisie has strengthened its whole network of the repressive police forces throughout the country.

Racism, this offspring of the bourgeois order, is second-nature to American imperialism, a political tradition of the American imperialist bourgeoisie. Within this framework the so-called "order" which Carter gave the Attorney General to complete an alleged inquiry into the bloody terror launched on May 19 in Miami by the police forces and the bands of racists, has a very false ring about it. The culmination of diabolical hypocrisy is Carter's alleged regret of the Miami "tragedy," and this is allegedly why he has issued the order for the guilty to be punished. This is the typical hypocritical and diabolical stand of the criminal who strikes at night and weeps the next day.

The legitimate revolt and protests of the black masses following the ugly and criminal events in Miami, especially in the heat of the campaign to elect a president, are a serious setback for the rabid racist and fascist policy implemented by Carter and his administration. Thoroughly discredited by the struggle of the black people for freedom, democracy and justice, and in an effort to suppress the profound and unrestrained anger of the 27 million strong black population, Carter is now demanding that law and order be established so that justice can be administered. In this way, the racist chief of American imperialism, Carter, is aiming at shirking the responsibility for these ugly crimes of the racists. This is another perfidious effort to hide behind demagogical tactics and disguise the criminal aggressive and imperialist nature of the activity of the White House against the blacks. This is one of the most hypocritical, cynical and ugly expressions of the nature and the policy of the White House, the epilogue of which are the crimes committed by the so-called "preservers of law and order" against the Negroes in Miami.

The threads of these crimes all lead back to the White House because the police always act on its orders. Imperialism is racist and fascist. Imperialism and racism are both enemies of the freedom, dignity and genuine justice of the black or white working people. The daily reality of police and fascist terror is teaching the black working masses the truth about things and they are becoming more and more convinced that they will win their rights only through struggle on the same barricades with the entire American proletariat against the oppression and exploitation of the capitalist and imperialist system in power.

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An Important Lesson of the Miami Rebellion:

Dual Tactics of the Savage Rule of the Rich

The rebellion of the black people of Miami provides rich lessons for the struggle of the black people and for all the revolutionary struggles of the working class and people. In particular, the government's suppression of the rebellion brought into full play the dual tactics of the savage repressive rule of the rich: on the one hand, merciless violent suppression of the masses; and on the other hand, the smiling face of "compassion," "human rights" and "fairness to all."

On the evening of May 17, the black people of Miami took to the streets in a powerful mass action against the criminal acquittal of the police murderers of the black insurance salesman Arthur McDuffie. The government's immediate response to this great outpouring of revolt of the masses was to crush it by the force of arms. To put down the struggle all the available city and state police forces as well as 3,400 National Guard troops were dispatched against the masses. The police and troops cordoned off the black communities and furiously set upon the people with shotguns and billyclubs, killing several, seriously wounding hundreds and throwing in jail over a thousand. The police also mobilized their henchmen out of uniform. Fascist vigilantes, armed with shotguns and automatic weapons and riding in cars and pickup trucks, were sent through police barricades into the black communities to gun down and terrorize the masses.

But this monstrous army of suppression could not put down the powerful struggle. By the second day of the rebellion, the government had mobilized its second line of defense. The government's big guns of political deception were brought into the battle to suppress the masses under a nauseating smokescreen of "non-violence," "fairness" and "equal justice."

President Carter, the grinning "human rights" preacher and chieftain of man-eating U.S. imperialism, personally orchestrated this barrage of political deception. He beseeched the black people with the age-old sermon of the oppressors that "violence cannot contribute to the resolution of problems." This was the message Carter conveyed to Florida Governor Graham in his telephone conversation praising Graham for his decision to call out the National Guard against the people! Thus, according to Carter's pious sermon, the black people must meekly submit to the racist violence and murders of the police. However, if the masses do rise in struggle and take mass action, then the army should be called out to "restore order" and to drown the rightful protest of the people in blood. This is the sole logic of the "opposition to violence" of the monopoly capitalist dictators.

So, if the masses are to be suppressed by the National Guard when they courageously take matters into their own hands, what is Carter's answer to "the resolution of problems"? According to Carter and his fleet of henchmen, the oppressed masses should rely on their own worst enemy, the racist government of the big bourgeoisie. When the people are filled with outrage and indignation at the systematic police murders and beatings and at the systematic exoneration of these murderers and criminals by the courts and by the endless investigations of the government authorities, the masses should be pacified and lulled to sleep with more court proceedings and more government investigations!

Hence, on Sunday, May 18, the second day of the rebellion, Carter's Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti arrived in Miami to "investigate" "any possible violations of civil rights", in the police murder of Arthur McDuffie. Civiletti piously proclaimed: "We hope no one feels so outraged and revengeful that they will not give the U.S. government a chance to investigate the death of Arthur McDuffie." And Civiletti explained his purpose: "There has been a feeling (a feeling!!) of a double standard of justice applying to the community" and therefore "concrete action" is needed. So, a host of FBI and other Justice Department agents were brought into Miami to "study" 14 cases of police brutality including seven murders. Their task: to whitewash the crimes of the police while creating a deafening racket about the "delivery of equal justice" in an effort to temporize the people's "feeling" about savage police brutality and racist justice. Such "investigations" to cover up and whitewash police attacks in order to check and diffuse the mass outrage has become a major function of the Justice Department. In fact, an office of the Justice Department, the U.S. Community Relations Service, has been set up for this very purpose and is presently involved in "investigating" over three thousand police murders and beatings across the country. Obviously, Civiletti's promise of a "fair shake" for the black people of Miami is nothing but the same type of "justice" which is provided for all the thousands upon thousands of victims of racist police attacks and savage repression.

But Carter and Civiletti did not attempt to pacify the Miami rebellion with false promises and demagogical sermons about "justice" on their own, that is without their loyal frontmen and stooges. Thus, hard on the heels of Civiletti they dispatched Andrew Young, John Conyers, Jesse Jackson and other like traitors to the black people to "cool out" the situation. Standing in Civiletti's shadows, these bought and paid for mouthpieces of the White House issued countless "demands" for "action" for a "complete investigation of the breakdown of justice" and so on and so forth. But their loudest demand of them all was that the masses of people take no action at all, that they "cool it," "go home" and "wait for the federal investigation." In the meanwhile, Andrew Young and company will "negotiate," allegedly on behalf of the black people, some meaningless promises from the authorities in order to pacify the burning anger of the masses.

These soldout elements are hardened apologists of monopoly capitalist oppression and firefighters of the black people's struggle against racial discrimination and repression. Andrew Young proved his worth to the government as a "civil rights leader" in the 1960's. As he himself explains it, Young played the role of "mediator" of the black people's struggle, sitting with the government authorities to "mediate" how best to keep the struggle "within bounds," how to "maintain order" and prevent the masses from breaking through the chains of reformism and pacifism. For his loyal services Young was appointed ambassador to the UN where he was charged with employing similar pacifist methods to champion U.S. imperialism's neo-colonial strategy in Africa and around the world. Similarly, Representative John Conyers proved himself by, among other things, riding on the hood of a police car with a bullhorn appealing for "law and order" during the Detroit rebellion of 1967.

In this regard, Jesse Jackson made an important, though unintended, self-confession about why he and the others were helicoptered into the Miami rebellion. He declared to the angry masses in Miami "I didn't come here as a riot stopper." But of course nobody believed him. Rather everywhere these "riot stoppers" went to "cool out" the situation they were met with total disgust, their meetings were boycotted and they were bitterly jeered and condemned as the bootlickers that they are. At one point, to save the skin of Andrew Young the police had to disperse a crowd of 1,000 angry youth where Young was scheduled to speak. And even then the few remaining youth drove Young off the stage with boos and curses.

Hence the rebellion in Miami unfolded in spite of the desperate efforts of Andrew Young and the other royal envoys of the White House. And it unfolded also in spite of the efforts of their junior partners, certain local "civil rights leaders" who attempted to ban all mass meetings in order to "avoid violence" and who worked hand in glove with the police to "restore law and order."

From this account it can be seen that the government did not attempt to put down the Miami rebellion with naked force alone. Along with the shotguns and billyclubs came the pious promises from Washington of "justice" or "a fair shake." And along with the false promises came the well-groomed and carefully tailored agents and flunkeys of the capitalists and their government.

Such are the dual tactics of the big bourgeoisie. Such are the two sides of the one anti-people, racist policy of the Democratic Carter administration.

The Carter government is a monopoly capitalist government of merciless exploitation and robbery of the working masses, of savage racial discrimination, and unbridled reaction and growing fascism. But it pursues this policy under the false flag of being the "friend of labor and minorities." It attempts to hide its true nature under a liberal-labor mask, under mountains upon mountains of demagogy about "concern for the poor" and about "human rights" and "civil rights." And to make the image complete the Carter government has brought into its fold the Andrew Youngs, the "civil rights leaders," and other flunkeys of the rich. When Carter took office Andrew Young proclaimed this heir of the Georgia slaveowners to be the only white man in the country "free of racism" and who "understands the needs of black people." But a liberal-labor mask cannot change the thoroughly anti-working class and racist essence of the rule of the capitalist billionaires. The liberal-labor and social-democratic deception of the big bourgeoisie, of the Democratic Party and its army of lackeys are not a roadblock to, but are in the very service of the growing fascization of the monopoly capitalist state against the working class and the broad masses of the people.

However, with the deepening crisis of the capitalist system, with the growing offensive of the rich, with the intensification of the class struggle and the developing upsurge of the mass movements, the smiling mask is slipping from the ugly face of the monopoly capitalist dictators. Thus, when the apostle of "human rights," Jimmy Carter, nervously flew into Miami in the aftermath of the rebellion to offer "assistance," he was met with a fitting welcome. Several hundred furious Afro-American demonstrators surrounded his limousine and pelted it with bottles and rocks. And Carter sped out of Miami to the sound of the masses' angry slogan "HAIL TO THE CHIEF RACIST!" Such are the signs of the times.

[Photo: The "human rights" mask of Carter did not fool the black people of Miami. Hundreds surrounded his limousine and pelted it with rocks and bottles shouting, "Hail to the chief racist!"]

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Detroit city workers on the picket lines against the strikebreaking Coleman Young administration

On July 1, the Detroit city public sector workers went out on strike. Over the last several years, the livelihood of the Detroit city workers has been under assault by the city administration as part of the efforts of the rich to saddle the working class and people with the city's severe fiscal crisis. Over the last three years, the city workers have received wage increases totalling a mere 13%, and they have a cap on their cost-of-living allowance limiting it to 20¢ per year. With the double-digit inflation, the city workers have suffered big cuts in their real take-home pay. They have also suffered large-scale layoffs and vicious job- eliminating schemes such as the introduction of one-man, instead of three- man, garbage trucks. In the negotiations for a new contract, the city offered the workers a wage freeze and more attacks on their livelihood. In response, when the contract expired, 6,700 sanitation, transportation, clerical and other workers went out and took to the picket lines, idling another 1,300 workers along the way. Pressed to the wall, the workers are striking for wage and COLA improvements and against mandatory overtime and the "attendance control program" and other intolerable work rules.

In response to the workers' modest demands, Mayor Coleman Young, the "people's mayor," the "street fighter for the people," has declared that "the city has no money for raises for city workers" and that the workers must sacrifice in order to make a good impression on the Republicans when they come here to have their convention. In his TV press conference of July 3, Young denounced the striking workers as "crazy" and as "harming the image of the Renaissance City." He threatened that if the workers persist in their "illegal" strike he would resort to court injunctions, firings, calling out the National Guard or whatever means is necessary to break the strike. These ugly threats of fascist suppression come from the honeyed lips of the great liberal Coleman Young, the "champion of the working man."

It should come as no surprise. Young has forged a whole career of loyal service to the rich behind a cover of a sham militancy for the people's interests. He began as a union bureaucrat in the CIO learning social-democratic politics and the art of "left" posturing to fool the masses. He still retains and uses the close ties with his labor traitor buddies such as the notorious sellout and Chrysler board member Douglas Fraser. After the 1967 rebellions Young was brought into power by Detroit's auto monopolists and bankers to provide a black face and the appearance of "reform" while continuing the same merciless exploitation of and racial discrimination against the working class and people. Young has served his masters well.

In the present strike Young has declared, "I will not mortgage the city of Detroit for the interests of a few!" What a lie! "Mortgaging the city for the interests of a few" is the very heart of the Coleman Young regime and his fraud of "Renaissance City." He already has mortgaged the working people of Detroit to enrich his real friends, the auto capitalists and the big banks, and at a fabulous rate of interest. No handout is too lavish for these parasites. Young has promised Chrysler that the city will foot the bill for its new $100 million paint plant. Any monopoly who sets up a plant in Detroit is a candidate for millions in tax abatements. In recent weeks Young has offered as a gift to General Motors 500city acres which will entail bulldozing 1,500 homes, a hospital and anything else in GM's way. And countless millions were shelled out by the city to lure the fat cats of the Republican Party to hold their convention here.

But when it comes to the basic needs of the working masses "there is no money." From his Manoogian Mansion Young declares "The city workers must go on a bean diet." Let them eat beans!

In his utter hypocrisy Young preaches that "We are all suffering from inflation. The city workers must not be selfish." "Hundreds of thousands are unemployed. The city workers should be grateful that they have jobs." In this way Young seeks to utilize the plight of the unemployed against the city workers and to use one section of the workers against another. He has called on the working masses to "show that they oppose the striking city workers." His demagogic appeal is that in this emergency rich and poor must unite to "save Detroit." But this despicable ploy will never succeed. The rich and the poor have no common interests. The rich are the very source of our suffering. Any fight waged by a section of the working class aids the struggle of the workers as a whole. It is only through their unity and mass struggle that the workers can defend their basic interests. Through his stand against the city workers, Coleman Young has once again shown himself to be a sworn enemy of the working class and a bootlicking lackey of the rich. Such false "friends of the people" must be fought resolutely with the weapon of mass struggle.

The strike of the city workers in defense of their very livelihood is an entirely just action which has the sympathy and support of the broad masses of working people. Mayor Young, the city officials and the capitalist media are raising a big stink that the city workers' strike may upset the plans for the Republican convention. Of course, the workers' struggle upsets the Republican Party for it is, along with Mayor Young and the Democrats, a party of strikebreakers, imperialists, racists and billionaires. The Republicans are the open party of the rich, the party of the criminal mass murderer Nixon and of the fascist mouthpiece Reagan. Hence, if the workers stay out and press their demands -- no matter how much it may disturb this media spectacle of the Republican Party of open reaction -- so much the better for the workers.

(Leaflet issued by the Detroit Branch of the Marxist-Leninist Party of the USA, July 3, 1980.)

[Photo.]

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Detroit: A "Model" of Oppression

When Benjamin Hooks, head of the NAACP, went down to Miami to "cool out" the rebellion there, he proposed to a meeting that "We need to develop a Detroit plan for Miami." Other so-called "civil rights leaders" and government officials also pointed to Detroit as a model remedy for preventing rebellions such as took place in Miami.

For example, according to these oh so worthy gentlemen, the key to pacifying the masses and preventing rebellions is "good race relations" between the police and the authorities and the black community. And allegedly this is among the many miracles which have been achieved in Detroit.

Of course, Detroit does provide a national model of sorts, a model of the most fierce and intense oppression of the masses under a liberal-labor mask of "civil rights" and "equality." The mayor, Coleman Young, is not only a black ex-labor bureaucrat but is also a vice-chairman of the Democratic Party and a close crony of President Carter. The city council and the other city positions are stuffed with Democratic Party hacks with a social-democratic stripe, with "civil rights leaders" and even a self-styled "Marxist," Ken Cockrel. And the city government follows closely the social-democratic policies of the labor chieftains of the United Auto Workers. For all these reasons, the traitors to the black people and the other opportunist chieftains hitched to the liberal-labor policy of the Democratic Party have placed Detroit on a pedestal as a model of "progress," of so-called "black power" and "social justice." At their last year's convention, which was held at Detroit's Cobo Hall, the bourgeois reformists of the revisionist "Communist" Party called for the realization of the "progress" achieved in Detroit as the model for all their local areas.

So what is the real condition of the working class and people of this city which is owned by and run for General Motors, Ford and Chrysler? Detroit is a city of jobless and starving auto workers. In May there was 18.4% unemployment, or 123,000 officially jobless workers. For black workers, who are the majority of the population and the hardest hit by the auto layoffs, 40% joblessness is expected in July or August. And 65% unemployment is on the agenda for the black youth this summer.

Furthermore, the countless police murders and beatings in Detroit are no less atrocious than those in Miami. A fine example of the "good relations" of the police with the masses was the institution of the torture of prisoners with electric cattle prods in a number of police precincts. This new level of barbarism attained under Young and his black police chief came to light after the recent beating death of a black prisoner.

In recent weeks the Detroit city council has given a further display of its "progressive" and "civil rights" stand. It has invited the racist and fascist scum of the Ku Klux Klan and nazis to come to the city council for public hearings in order to "let them have their say."

Many further examples of similar such "progress" could be given. However, it is clear enough what a "Detroit plan for Miami" would mean. It would mean jobs and positions as black officials for the traitorous "civil rights leaders" and poverty pimps along with a new "friend of the poor and minorities" signboard tacked up on city hall. But for the broad working masses it would mean the maintenance of the status quo of merciless exploitation and oppression; the continuation of savage racial discrimination and no end to the racist police murders and repression. This is what Mr. Hooks and his friends have to offer the people.

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On the Strike Struggle of the New York City Transit Workers

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. It won wide support in every section of the working class in New York, above all among workers in the public sector. At a time when the strike was gaining momentum it was broken by the top bureaucrats of the Transport Workers Union Local 100, who foisted a sellout contract on the transit workers.

The militant struggle of the transit workers was an important event in the life of the working class in the New York area, and a battle call to workers throughout the public sector. Its impact was vividly shown in the repeated solidarity actions of workers in related sectors.

Like any militant struggle involving tens of thousands of workers, the transit strike revealed in a vivid form many issues facing the workers' movement today.

The transit strike shattered the myth that the workers have interests in common with the rich in the face of the fiscal crisis.

In 1975, when the New York City fiscal crisis broke out, the capitalist politicians solemnly proclaimed that everyone, both capitalist and worker, was in this together, that everyone must make sacrifices in the face of the crisis. This was the slogan for a systematic program of the rich for shifting the burden of the crisis onto the working people in New York in general, and onto the public sector workers in particular. In transit it has meant the loss of thousands of jobs, worsening of already hazardous working conditions, and a 30% loss in real wages, while the only "sacrifice" made by the big bankers has been to donate time to the Emergency Finance Control Board to oversee the attacks against the workers. Meanwhile, the Wall Street banks have continued to reap fantastic profits through exorbitant interest payments on the public debt.

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 burden of the crisis onto the workers. The transit strike was the first major strike struggle in the public sector in New York since 1976, and the first waged under the slogan "No Give- backs." It highlights the lesson that the workers have no interests in common with the rich; that the workers have no interest in "making sacrifices" so that a handful of moneybags can extricate themselves from the crisis at the workers' expense; and that the workers can defend their vital interests only in struggle against the interests of the rich.

In order to wage their struggle the transit-workers were obliged to defy the law and government attacks.

The transit strike was an illegal strike from the beginning, banned under the New York State Taylor Law. As well, the transit workers were faced with Carter's "voluntary" wage guidelines, which are aimed not only at reducing real wages, but also at restricting the workers' struggles. The weight of the government was brought to bear against the transit workers. Only by defying the government attacks and going outside the narrow bounds of legality were the transit workers able to wage their strike.

Every large, militant strike faces government attacks in the form of injunctions, police attacks or in other forms. This is twice true for workers in the public sector, who face the government as an employer and are invariably subject to special laws banning strikes. Like any other aspect of government, such laws have a class character; they are laws of the rich against the workers. The transit strike demonstrated that in order to carry their struggle through, the workers cannot rely upon the courts, laws, government bureaucracy, etc., but on the contrary must be prepared to defy them.

The militant mass character of the transit strike won it wide support, marked by solidarity actions by workers in related sectors.

Throughout the transit strike the government and the capitalist newspapers carried daily propaganda that the strike hurt other workers, who. it was alleged, opposed the strike and flocked to the banner of the MTA bosses. Naturally, it was always suggested that it was the militancy of the transit workers which was their worst problem. In fact, the transit strike won wide support throughout the working class in New York City. Workers in other sectors knew very well that their interests lay in solidarity with the transit workers against the rich and their government. This was vividly shown in repeated solidarity actions by municipal workers and by workers on the private bus lines, the Long Island Railroad, and the Port Authority. This support was not won by Transit Workers Union Local 100 president John Lawe fawning before MTA chairman Ravitch and denouncing the transit workers for "strike fever." The militant mass struggle of the transit workers inspired workers in related sectors to launch actions in which they expressed their solidarity with the transit workers while raising their own demands as well.

The transit strike showed that the top trade union bureaucrats are betrayers of the interests and struggle of the workers.

The top bureaucrats of TWU Local 100 colluded with the MTA against the transit workers. Their venom against the workers' struggle was expressed by local president John Lawe who denounced the workers for "strike fever." On other occasions Lawe further clarified his policies. In court on April 22 he justified breaking the strike on the grounds that a first judge had earlier found the transit workers in violation of the Taylor Law. And then, in the April 29 Executive Board meeting he refused the request of a majority of the board for a second vote on the contract swindle -- on the grounds that the second judge had declared the sellout legal. Therefore, according to this hack, it is not the vital interests of the workers, but the Taylor Law and the courts and the interests of the rich which rightfully dictate trade union policy.

The policies of the top bureaucrats of TWU Local 100 are not simply the crimes of one or two individuals, but in fact reflect the program of the entire trade union bureaucracy. This is highlighted by the fact that the secret meetings in which Lawe colluded with MTA chairman Ravitch against the transit workers were arranged by Theodore Kheel, the paid "advisor" of the New York City Central Labor Council.

Collaboration with the employers, subordination of the workers' struggles to the laws, courts and government bureaucracy -- this is the policy of the entire trade union bureaucracy for betrayal of the workers' interests and for the sellout of their struggles.

The transit strike showed that the loyal trade union opposition poses no opposition at all to the treachery of the top bureaucrats.

The opposition factions of the Executive Board were paralyzed in the face of Lawe's back-to-work order. Afterwards they came back to life, only to again demonstrate their utter bankruptcy. The opposition factions, commanding a majority of votes on the Executive Board, were completely impotent in the face of Lawe's strikebreaking and the contract swindle.

The opposition factions never lifted a finger against Lawe's strikebreaking. Their only fight was against the ratification vote. And they waged this fight, not by mobilizing the masses of transit workers for action, but by the means they hold dear -- they contested it in the courts and in an Executive Board meeting, quoting chapter and verse from Robert's Rules of Order on both occasions. In court and outside as well they promised that defeat of the contract, either in the Executive Board or by the ratification vote, would mean only a return to the bargaining table and not to the picket lines. To deny the workers the weapon of mass action, whether this is done by the strike-breaking of the top bureaucrats or in the guise of opposition, is the greatest betrayal of all. And to make public promises to this effect to the MTA is to add insult to injury.

The opposition factions have proven that they have no real differences with Lawe on what is most basic in any struggle -- the mass action of the workers. What the opposition factions hold dear -- the courts and the official trade union apparatus -- are the very means which were used to break the strike and impose the sellout. It is here, and not with the vital interests and mass action of the workers, that their allegiance lies. This is why the opposition factions in the Executive Board are nothing but a loyal opposition.

Denial of the weapon of mass action, confining the workers' struggles within the bounds of the courts and the official trade union apparatus -- this is the line of the loyal trade union opposition. This is no opposition at all.

The transit strike demonstrated that direct mass action is the only path for the workers to defend their vital interests against the interests of the rich.

Direct mass action was the path taken by the transit workers. Defying the dictates of the MTA, they launched a militant strike struggle. This required going outside the bounds of legality and defying the Taylor Law, which bans strikes in the public sector. It required as well breaking through the plots of MTA chairman Ravitch and Local 100 president John Lawe to prevent the strike. The dramatic impact of the transit strike on the business and commercial life of the city was a demonstration of the power of the mass action of the workers. In contrast, Lawe's treacherous sellout, whose first aim was to break the strike, shows the hatred for mass action nursed by the rich and their representatives in the trade unions.

The events following Lawe's back-to-work order showed that launching direct mass action was the transit workers' only alternative to betrayal. These events demonstrated that to confine the struggle to the courts and the Executive Board, to bind it hand and foot with the laws of the rich and the procedural rules of the Executive Board, whether it is done in the name of sellout or in the name of opposing the sellout, means to ensure the success of the sellout and the betrayal of the workers' interests. Going outside the official trade union channels in order to launch renewed mass action was the only possibility for continuing the struggle, overcoming the sellout and defending the vital interests of the workers.

The transit strike shows that in order to carry their struggles through, the workers must be organized independently of the official trade union apparatus.

Transit workers returned to work cursing Lawe's sellout. For several days afterwards there was overwhelming sentiment to continue the struggle. But the transit workers were not able to overcome the betrayal of the top bureaucrats. An important reason for this is that the workers were not organized independently of the official trade union apparatus.

The role played by the trade union apparatus was to be an instrument, not of the struggle of the workers, but against it. This can be seen not only in the treachery of the top bureaucrats, but also in the use of the official apparatus after the return to work to wear down the spirit of the workers and smother opposition to the contract swindle. This was a strikebreaking role. And in truth, this role did not begin with the strike, nor has it ended with the strike, nor is it a peculiarity of the TWU. It is this role of the official trade union apparatus -- with the rich and their government, against the workers -- which creates the need for the workers to be organized independently of it.

Some sections of the transit workers, at least at union election time, are organized into the groups of the loyal opposition. But this is not the same as being organized independently of the official trade union apparatus. It is not the same because these groups are not independent of the official apparatus in their policy. They worship the courts and the official apparatus, procedures, etc., just as Lawe worships the courts and the MTA, and their attitude toward the mass action of the workers is basically no different from Lawe's.

Of course, the workers should also fight inside the trade union to defend their interests. But this fight must be subordinated to and serve what is most important, namely the independent action and organization of the workers, and cannot be a substitute for these. Such a struggle cannot be confused with the dead-end court cases and the knee-jerk "going through channels" of the loyal opposition.

The organization of the workers independently of the official apparatus is an issue at all times, and not only at contract time. For example, the new contract provides for a number of give-backs, and the terms of these give- backs are very general. The MTA will try for maximum violation of work rules and cutting of break time, increased harassment by supervisors, etc., while the workers will oppose this. Such struggles on the issues which arise from day to day in the yards and tunnels also require independent organization of the workers to get carried through.

The Marxist-Leninist Party was the only organized force in the transit strike which consistently supported and defended the mass action of the workers.

Through its leaflets, stickers and other forms of work, the New York Branch of the Party provided consistent support to the transit workers' struggle. It hailed the fighting spirit of the transit workers before the strike and defended the mass action of the workers during it. At each step it provided analysis of the maneuvers of the MTA and Lawe against the workers. After the return to work it pointed out that mass action was the only alternative to the sellout, while also advancing tactics to keep the fighting spirit of the workers alive and make possible the preparation of such action.

The consistent position of the Party toward the workers' struggles stems from its class stand as the party of the proletariat. The Party fights for the development of the struggle of the working class, for mass action and against class collaboration, as well as for the working class' own revolutionary politics independent from and opposed to the politics of the rich.

The relationship of the politics of the Party to its position in the transit struggle becomes clear when it is understood that every organized force in transit is associated with some political trend, and this, in the case of the top bureaucrats, is the politics and parties of the rich. The trade union bureaucracy, including that of the TWU and the Central Labor Council, is associated with the Democratic Party, the party of Carter, Carey and Koch, a party of the rich which is in power and is the chief administrator of the program of the rich to shift the burden of the fiscal crisis onto the workers. It is no accident, therefore, that during the transit strike the top bureaucrats colluded with the MTA against the workers.

For another example, erstwhile "opposition" leader George McDonald adheres to the National Right-to-Work Committee, a reactionary big business organization. He is a loud supporter of the imperialist wars of the rich against the people of other countries (such as Viet Nam), and a big fan of the police, the instrument of the rich for suppressing working people. The politics of George McDonald are the politics of the rich, and it is no accident that in the transit workers' struggle he did not stand against the rich, but adapted himself to their interests and was awarded a vice-presidency for his efforts.

It is the Marxist-Leninist Party which stands for the organization of the working class independently of the rich and for the advance of its struggles on all fronts.

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Arming the Police to the Teeth - An Outrage Against the Broad Masses

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

The New York City administration, with the backing of the state government and the politicians, is arming and rearming the police to the teeth. Koch, Carey and the loudmouths and fascist scribblers who run the media, are cheering the cops on to shoot first and ask questions later. These cheerleaders are shedding crocodile fears and staging a big hysteria about the "rigors" of police work.

Big play is being given to the efforts of the city administration to further enlarge the ranks of the New York City police which now stands at upwards of 23,430 since the recent addition of 411 new officers to its ranks.

As of February, shotguns and mace were added to the regular arsenal of the police which already included "psycho rods," clubs, knives, the service revolver and an unlimited number of "backup" handguns. The addition of the shotgun and mace to the arsenal of the police is another fascist outrage against the broad masses of the working people in New York. The shotgun was reintroduced after over 20 years when the state and city officials were forced to withdraw it in face of the widespread opposition from the masses to the terroristic murders and assaults which the police were carrying out.

The reactionary officials of the rich and the heads of the Police Benevolent Association are boasting about the special "new powers" which the cops now feel, having the shotgun as their "new partner." They are boasting that unlike the standard.38 caliber police service revolver, the shotgun (Ithaca Model 37 Police Special -- the pump action carrying 4-5 buckshells, each shell containing 9 slugs the size of a.32 caliber bullet) is capable of killing four to five people with one shot from a twenty to twenty-five yard distance, and of boring a hole the size of an orange in a person from a ten foot distance.

Added to this, Commissioner McGuire has initiated study and plans into the feasibility of introducing police dogs into subway patrol, and police officers have been sent to Philadelphia (where this program has been underway for years) to study these techniques. The city administration speaks with pride of the example set by the fascist Frank Rizzo, ex-mayor of Philadelphia who earnestly wanted to declare himself "mayor for life" and whose crimes earned the disgust and contempt of the broad masses, to the extent that even the Justice Department was forced to stage an "investigation" into the "excesses" of his administration. This, however, is of no consequence to the "crimefighters" Koch and Carey.

The arming and rearming of the police to the teeth is for the purpose of equipping the police to carry out the fascist dictates of the city administration and its millionaire and billionaire masters against the interests of the working class and people in New York. They are being armed to the teeth in order to police the city's population closer. Thus, the newspapers are speculating that with this "new partner" no one will dare stand up to the abuse of the police, that now all and sundry will bow in fear. The police are, as well, being armed to the teeth in order to answer any sign of protest with the bullet, the club and the dog.

The city and state administrations are mapping out these measures to deal with the growing protest and strike actions of the working class such as the heroic transit workers strike and the upcoming contract negotiations of hundreds of thousands of workers a- cross the city who are waging struggle, refusing to starve in order to foot the bill for the city's economic and fiscal crises. Koch and Carey are worried about the emerging mass movement among the youth against the draft, the nuclear energy program and overall war preparations of U.S. imperialism. Life experience has shown, as well, that the cops, armed to their underpants, are going to step up their violent racist attacks against the national minority communities in New York, where, for example, in 1979 alone the New York Police Department shot and killed 23 persons, beat 2 to death and wounded 63 others. The addition of the shotgun is to aid the annual "summer sprees" of the New York Police Department in the poor working class communities across the city.

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International Harvester workers win their five month strike against compulsory overtime

(The following article is reprinted from The Louisville Worker, newspaper of the Louisville Branch of the MLP,USA, Vol. 1, No. 4, June 10, 1980.)

From November 1, 1979 to May 5, 1980, workers from UAW Locals 817 and 1336 at International Harvester stood firm in their strike against the Harvester capitalists' "program to increase productivity and profit margins." For the past three years Harvester has been carrying out a "cost-cutting campaign" which has already eliminated 6,500 jobs nationally. Harvester's demand to increase hours of compulsory overtime was aimed at eliminating more workers.

The main issues in the strike were the demands of the company to force an extra work day on the workers and to force pieceworkers onto other jobs when their machines broke down or when they finished their quotas. The workers defeated the company on these issues. They would not accept this program which would eliminate more workers' jobs and force the remaining workers to work harder to produce more for International Harvester's "profit margins."

The workers resisted all the schemes and pressures from the company, which tried to force these determined workers to give up their struggle. The workers also rejected the call of the top labor hacks to scab on the clerical and technical workers and other craft locals who had continued their strike after the UAW locals reached agreement with Harvester. Despite the fact that their strike benefits were stopped, the UAW workers continued to honor the picket lines of the workers remaining on strike, forcing International Harvester to come to agreement with the newly formed clerical and technical workers' local and the other craft unions.

The Carter government has been assisting the monopoly capitalists to protect their profits during the current economic crisis by imposing vicious productivity drives on the workers. Just as at Harvester, the rich factory owners in numerous other factories have been intensifying the labor of the workers as part of this productivity campaign. For example, the Philip Morris workers continue to defy the company's despised program to "utilize the workers' time" which forces them to do extra work out of their job classification. At General Electric, the capitalist owners and their lackeys are attacking the workers in much the same way. The foremen try to take workers off their regular jobs and shift them around the plant (including taking pieceworkers off their jobs and putting them on the assembly lines); and the company is trying to eliminate helpers on jobs. But the GE workers waged wildcat strikes at the beginning of this year, forcing the GE capitalists to call back many workers on layoff. The workers at GE are continuing their resistance with slowdowns and other methods of struggle. These examples show, that workers all over Louisville are developing their resistance against the brutal productivity drives of the rich and the Carter government.

The International Harvester strike demonstrates the fact that the workers are becoming increasingly conscious that resolute resistance to the rich is their only defense against the double curse of mass layoffs for some workers and long hours of brutal overwork for the rest. "Making concessions" to the productivity drives and wage cuts of the rich does not "save jobs" but means job elimination and further impoverishment for the workers. The persistent strike which the International Harvester workers waged is absolutely necessary to defend the livelihood of the workers. The Louisville Worker proudly hails the victorious International Harvester workers as they have inspired the working masses through their resolute fight against the productivity campaign of the capitalist slave drivers. Such struggles are sure to develop and advance in the coming period as the workers step up their fight against the capitalists' offensive. Hail the victory of the International Harvester workers! Mass active resistance against the attacks of the rich is the correct way forward!

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Down with the McBride/ENA Sellout Contract in Steel!

Today the steel workers are coming under vicious attacks from the "Big 9" steel billionaires. Faced with a worldwide capitalist economic crisis, the steel barons are closing down plants left and right, and throwing thousands of steel workers into the streets. The steel capitalists and the Carter government are demanding that the workers make "sacrifices" and take wage cuts. Workers not already laid off are being murdered by the unsafe conditions and worked to death by the steel barons' productivity drive. And a special attack has been launched against the workers in the steel fabricating and subsidiary industries. The steel monopolists are demanding that these workers take wage freezes, make "concessions," and that these workers' contracts be broken away from the Basic Steel Agreement.

This situation calls for the steel workers to wage vigorous mass struggle to defend their jobs and livelihood and to make the steel billionaires pay for their crisis. But just look at what McBride and the other USWA trade union bureaucrats are doing! These hacks have gone down on their knees to lick the boots of the "Big 9" steel monopolists. They have signed a new Basic Steel Agreement, on April 14, which sells out the steel workers on every front: wages and pensions, COLA, health and safety, and job security.

Instead of calling on the workers to fight to defend their interests, McBride and co. cooked up this betrayal behind the workers' backs in the smoke-filled rooms in Pittsburgh. The steel workers don't even have a say in whether to reject or accept the sellout contract. It is a contract that is being forced down the workers' throats.

This sellout contract is the fruit of the longstanding class collaboration by the USWA leadership, who have aided the steel monopolies in every attack that they have launched against the steel workers. It is a contract imposed upon the steel workers by the fascist dictates of the Experimental Negotiating Agreement (ENA). In the early 1970's, the steel billionaires and former USWA President I.W. Abel developed ENA to impose "class peace" on the steel workers. In 1973, the ENA was written into the Basic Steel Agreement. It took the powerful weapon of national strikes away from the steel workers. It replaced the national strike with binding arbitration on all national steel issues. Seven years of this ENA- imposed "class peace" has led to massive unemployment and devastation for the workers. Yet today, Lloyd McBride and his cronies are fighting like hell to extend the life of the hated ENA. And they are going even farther down the road of betrayal of the steel workers' interests. In the 1980 sellout contract, the McBride hacks have a- greed to set up two new "committees" to help the steel billionaires administer plans for further job elimination, speedup and increased productivity. Like the hated ENA, these new committees aim to suppress the workers' struggles, to impose class peace, and to put the workers completely under the heel of the dictates of the steel billionaires.

Mass Struggle Is the Only Way

To defend their jobs and livelihood the workers must take matters into their own hands and wage mass struggle against the steel billionaires. This struggle is already under way. In Youngstown, Ohio and in Pittsburgh,

Pennsylvania, hundreds of steel workers staged mass protests against plant closings and the loss of their jobs. At two Indiana steel mills, several hundred workers organized demonstrations and public meetings to denounce the job combinations, fascist disciplinary rules and the introduction of the piecework system. The workers at Bethlehem Steel's Lackawanna, New York mill waged wildcat strikes and other work stoppages against the murderous working conditions. And in the small steel shops, in the fabricating plants and the subsidiaries of the "Big 9" steel monopolies, the workers are more and more waging hard-fought strikes against wage and benefit cuts, shutdowns and elimination of COLA. These and other struggles, like the 1977 contract strike by more than 20,000 iron ore miners, show that the workers do not have to go down on their knees and peacefully accept the dictates of the steel billionaires.

The workers can and must take matters into their own hands. They must blow up the "class peace" dictated by the fascist ENA. They must rise up against the class collaborationist "labor-management committees" and all the class betrayal of McBride and the other USWA trade union bureaucrats. Only by waging the most determined mass struggle can the workers defend their jobs and livelihood against the savage attacks of the steel billionaires. This mass struggle is one of the streams of the great class battle between labor and capital. The workers must fight the rich and force them to bear the burden of the capitalist economic crisis. They must utilize the day-to-day struggle to organize themselves as a revolutionary force, as a class independent of and opposed to the rich. The steel workers must find their salvation not in the "Class peace" of the ENA nor in the lying promises of the capitalist politicians, but in the advance of the mass struggle and the development of their revolutionary organization. This struggle of the steel workers will play its role in organizing the workers as a powerful and united class, a class capable of leading the revolt of all exploited and oppressed masses against the rule of monopoly capital.

[Cartoon.]

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Provisions of the 1980 Steel Contract: A Sellout from A to Z

1. Wage Cuts

On the front of wages, McBride and co. have sold out the steel workers lock, stock and barrel. They have betrayed every promise made at the 1979 Wage and Policy Conference. At that time they shouted from the rooftops that the steel workers are entitled to a "substantial wage increase," and that "one element of any wage increase must be the restoration of the purchasing power of our members lost due to rising living costs." Despite these big promises of McBride and co. for a "substantial wage increase," the new contract calls for a wage increase of only 604 per hour over three years. This is the lowest wage increase allowable under the ENA! An increase of only 3% a year, it is 204 per hour less than the increases provided for in the 1977 contract!

As well, the 1980 contract actually provides for a cut in the steel workers' Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA) payments. In the first place, the COLA formula remains unimproved and lags behind the upgraded COLA formula won by the rubber and auto workers. Furthermore, the steel workers' May 1st COLA payment (estimated at a minimum of 324 per hour or $665 per year) is being stolen to pay for their pension benefits. Sellout McBride would never think of having the steel billionaires pay for even the minimal increases in the pension benefits. Oh no! They must be paid for by the workers in the mills. And when the workers, young and old, have stood up to denounce this open robbery of their pay, the USWA traitors yell and scream that the workers are against pension increases for retirees. This is a slick trick for McBride and his boys who have never fought for the interests of the workers, neither the retirees nor those still working.

This sellout on the front of wages and benefits is so bad that even Carter's vicious wage cutters on the Council of Wage and Price Stability are cheering that it is "substantially lower" than Carter's own wage-cutting guidelines. The yearly estimated increase for wages, COLA and benefits is a pathetic 7.56% per year at a time when inflation is soaring at 18% a year.

2. Retirees Are Sold Down the River

In the 1979 Wage and Policy Statement, McBride and co. claimed that "all pension benefits (including both existing pensions and future retirement benefits) must be protected by cost-of-living adjustments which are sufficient to preserve their purchasing power irrespective of the amount of inflation." Again McBride has shown himself to be a two-faced liar and traitor to the workers. There are no COLA payments for retirees. Furthermore, the workers who retired under the 1977 contract will be getting a measly 10% increase in their pension benefits. Well, Mr. McBride, is this what you call "keeping up with inflation" -- a 10% increase when inflation is running at 18%? McBride and co. even have the nerve to call these pathetic pension increases a "significant breakthrough" for the retirees. And it should be kept in mind that these pension payment increases are not even being paid by the steel billionaires, but are being taken from the active workers by robbing them of their May 1st COLA increase. And now McBride and his fellow hacks are trying to convince the workers that all of their other demands had to be sacrificed so that the pension benefits could be improved.

3. No Protection Against Industrial Murder

Today the steel workers are being viciously attacked on the front of health and safety. They are being forced to work faster and longer, with greater fatigue, under more hazardous conditions and with less safety precautions. With constant layoffs and the job reassignments that follow, workers are placed in unfamiliar work areas with unknown dangers around every corner. The steel companies are rewriting work rules, thus forcing workers into more and more deadly situations. Workers in the coke ovens, blast furnaces and in other areas are all forced to breathe cancer-causing dust and poisonous gases. "Cost improvement" programs are cutting back installation of safety equipment and routine maintenance programs. Even the lying and minimized accident and death statistics which are released by the steel companies admit that at least 131 steel workers have been murdered by "industrial accidents" since 1977.

With the signing of the new contract, the USWA bureaucrats are continuing their refusal to fight to protect the life and limb of the workers. This contract, like those in the past, claims that the workers have the right to refuse unsafe work. But the everyday experience of the steel workers shows that when you refuse unsafe work, you are written up, sent home, suspended or fired for "job refusal," while the hacks look the other way. In fact, these soldout hacks act just like assistant foremen. They consistently explain to the workers the "rights" of the steel billionaires to harass, suspend and fire the workers, and argue that the workers should not fight to defend themselves. The new contract maintains this same old system. It guarantees the steel monopolists' rights to discipline the workers, while keeping the workers tied up in endless red tape of safety grievances, OSHA hearings and court cases -- all designed to keep the workers from waging mass struggles against the murderous conditions.

4. More Speedup, Job Combination and Job Elimination

Faced with the loss of more than jobs in the steel industry in the last six years, the steel workers are fighting mad and are demanding increased job security. Seeing this storm brewing, McBride and co. are scurrying to establish new mechanisms of "class peace" and to subordinate the demands of the workers for job security to the productivity drive of the steel billionaires. Together with the steel monopolists, the USWA bureaucrats are setting up Joint Contracting Out Committees and Labor-Management Participation Teams. Instead of fighting for job security and against job elimination, these sellouts are helping the steel companies carry out their productivity drive, which aims at driving the workers like slaves and eliminating even more jobs. Under the banner of "limiting contracting out" and for "job security" the USWA leadership is working night and day to guarantee that the steel workers will be forced to work harder and faster, to work more doubles and six and seven day schedules, to have their jobs combined and to have more jobs eliminated.

The Joint Contracting Out Committees are being set up at a minimum of one plant of each of the "Big 9" steel corporations. They will only provide for the return of a few token maintenance and craft jobs now being done by outside contractors. But, as the summary of the contract points out, even these few jobs will only be returned with "the installation of certain revised trade and craft jobs." In other words, in exchange for the return of a few token jobs there will be increasing job combination and the resultant overwork and even greater job loss.

The Labor-Management Participation Teams are being set up in every plant where the USWA and the company agree to establish them. These "teams" are designed to drive the workers like slaves, to implement fascist labor discipline and to increase worker productivity. The USWA contract summary points out that these "teams" will function "at department level to improve department and unit performance...to get the job done more efficiently, (and for) reducing absenteeism." As well, the contract agrees to make no changes in safety, working conditions or whip-cracking foremen "unless the union reciprocates and addresses its (the company's) concerns about production." In short, every demand of the workers is subordinated to the productivity drive of the monopoly capitalists and the resultant overwork, murderous conditions, and job loss.

5. Double Attacks on the Steel Workers in the Subsidiaries and Fabricating Plants

The steel companies are currently mounting a particularly vicious attack upon the workers in the subsidiaries and in fabricating. They are trying to force the steel workers to take wage freezes, to make "concessions" and to have them broken away from the Basic Steel Agreement. Prior to the signing of this sellout contract, McBride and co. had worked out an agreement with the steel capitalists to sell out the workers in the subsidiaries and in fabricating on a plant by plant basis. This rotten agreement remains in effect today. But this wasn't enough for the greedy steel capitalists, who have demanded that all fabricating and subsidiary workers be eliminated from the Basic Steel Agreement. Several months ago, McBride said that he would be willing to go along with this demand of the steel billionaires to make their plants "more competitive and profitable" against their non-union sweatshop competitors. This would be accomplished by reducing the wages and benefits of the fabricating and subsidiary workers down to the level of the non-union operations. This open betrayal has incited the workers, and vigorous opposition including strikes is beginning to take place. The resistance of the steel workers to these attacks has temporarily forced the steel barons and their loyal servants in the USWA to postpone the total break of all subsidiary and fabricating workers from the Basic Steel Agreement. McBride now says he will wait until August of 1981 to announce this act of treason. Until then he will "review, discuss and analyze" the proposal of the steel companies.

6. Seven Years of ENA -- Seven Years of Betrayal

For the last seven years, the USWA has been shouting to the skies that the ENA would "curb layoffs," "provide for job security" and bring about "higher pay" for the steel workers. They've claimed that by eliminating national steel strikes and by instituting "class peace" the steel workers and steel capitalists alike would live in harmony and prosperity. But the experience of the American steel workers has shown that this is nothing but a big fat lie! The ENA is part of a program of growing fascism set up by the government, the monopoly billionaires and the soldout trade union leaders. Its aims are to smash the fighting unity of the workers, to suppress national strikes and to drive the workers into devastation and ruin. Just look at the rotten fruits of the ENA. More than 60,000 jobs have been eliminated in the American steel industry in the last seven years. Today the steel companies are closing plants left and right, but McBride and the rest of the ENA sellouts have not lifted a finger to protect a single job. In fact, right now the steel companies and McBride are plotting to break the subsidiary and fabricating workers from the Basic Steel Agreement. During this whole period, the steel billionaires have launched a massive productivity drive in which the remaining steel workers have been driven like slaves and have seen productivity increased by more than 10%. In the last seven years, the steel workers and the retirees have seen their real wages and pensions cut due to soaring inflation. Not only have McBride and co. refused to drop the hated ENA from the Basic Steel Agreement, but they are reportedly now negotiating to strengthen its fascist suppression of the steel workers' struggle. As well, under this latest ENA-negotiated contract, McBride and co. are even going farther down the road of class collaboration. They are setting up the two new "labor-management committees" to help the steel companies impose "class peace" and administer plans which will further ruin the steel workers.

(These two articles are reprinted from The Workers' Advocate Special Bulletin issued May 9, 1980.)

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Shipyard workers demand no wage cuts!

At the end of June the contracts expire for nearly 20,000 shipyard workers on the Pacific coast. These workers have been pressed to the wall by soaring inflation. And the monopoly capitalists are attempting to cut their pay still further by holding them to the wage-cutting guidelines of the Carter government. The workers are also suffering from the speedup, overwork and the fascist labor discipline of the vicious capitalist productivity drive. As well, the Todd shipyards and others produce the naval warships of U.S. imperialism. As the needs of the U.S. imperialist war machine increase, the monopoly capitalist merchants of death are stepping up their brutal exploitation of the workers. To ensure continuous production and their enormous monopoly profits, the capitalist shipbuilders are not only driving the workers in an ever increasing pace of work, but are also imposing the most arbitrary reactionary rules to break the rebellious spirit of the workers and create a "peaceful" work force of wage slaves loyal to the interests of the billionaires. The masses of workers are boiling with rage against this savage exploitation and a storm is brewing in the shipyards of the west coast.

As the Carter government steps up its preparations for imperialist aggression and war, and as the revolutionary ferment spreads wider through the working class, the organization and struggle of the workers in the military industries takes on an added significance, For some time the Seattle Branch of the Marxist-Leninist Party has been participating in the struggles of the shipyard workers in Seattle and working to build the Party among them. The Seattle Branch has persistently agitated among the workers against the imperialist war preparations and for the socialist revolution; they have encouraged every step of the mass economic struggle of the workers, have led battles against racial discrimination in the yards, fought against the fascist company thugs, and produced revolutionary literature for the workers in both the English and Korean languages. The following is excerpted from a leaflet of the Seattle Branch, dated June 17, 1980, which mobilizes the workers for the current contract struggle.

No Wage Cuts! Mass Struggle Is the Only Way!

Since May 27, negotiations between the shipbuilding unions and the rich shipyard capitalists for a new three- year contract on the Pacific coast have been taking place in Olympia, Washington. During the life of the 1977-80 contract, the shipyard workers have taken wage cuts in the face of skyrocketing inflation and have seen a steady stream of productivity measures forced on them. As the July 1 deadline approaches, the capitalist employers are trying to impose further wage cuts and worsen the working conditions of the shipyard workers.

Under these conditions, the workers have to take matters into their own hands and use their large numbers to enforce their demands for: (1) a substantial wage increase; and (2) improvements in their working conditions. Part and parcel of this fight is the struggle to defeat the sabotage of the trade union officials, who will do everything possible to prevent a militant mass struggle from breaking out.

No Wage Cuts!

In the course of the 1977-80 contract, the wages of the Todd and Lockheed workers in Seattle have increased from $8.16 to $10.67, a 31% increase. But the cost of living in Seattle during these three years increased by almost 40%. This amounts to a 9% decrease in real take-home pay. If other factors are taken into account (such as the spiraling government taxation, and the extreme increase in the basic necessities of life -- which are under-estimated in official cost-of-living figures), the wage cuts experienced by the shipyard workers are even more than 9%. This is why so many workers say they can no longer save money, that they are being forced into debt to make ends meet.

At the Todd and Lockheed shipyards, the moneybags are fond of talking about the "high wages" of the workers. But in fact the workers' wages are steadily being reduced. And all of the praise of the union bureaucrats for the "decent contract" they negotiated in 1977 has shown itself to be nothing but a Madison Avenue selling job for the shipbuilding companies.

During 1979 in the Seattle area, the cost of living shot up 18% and today shows no sign of letting up. This shows that the workers have to fight to not only make up for what they have lost, but also have to defend themselves from the present and future inflation. The fight for higher wages also requires defiance of the Carter government's wage controls, which are aimed at forcing the workers to accept a combined wage and benefit annual "increase" of 7.5-9.5%. This amounts to a massive wage cut at today's 18% rate of annual inflation. The shipyard workers are demanding a substantial wage increase. This demand is absolutely correct and necessary. No wage cuts!

Abolish the "Todd Prison" Rules

At Todd shipyard, as is the case in other large yards, the moneybags have launched an offensive aimed at increasing productivity. Throughout 1979 to the present, Todd has systematically rigged up a "Todd Prison" of fascist labor discipline, to further strip the workers of rights and to coerce them to work harder under any conditions. The absenteeism guidelines and the 3:25 p.m. ruling, which lengthened the working day, are the most vicious of these attacks. These attacks have been added to the denial of breaks and the frequent use of "no re-hire" slips against "incorrigible" workers. The absenteeism guidelines and the 3:25 p.m. rule are illegal according to the present contract language (article 30.3 states that "all existing practices...will continue in effect unchanged"). But this did not prevent Todd from launching these attacks. Now Todd wants these rules legalized in the new contract, which will help them enforce these attacks on the workers and assist their productivity drive and mad pursuit of maximum profits.

The Todd workers have been actively fighting the "Todd Prison" rules for over a year. The workers demand that: (1) these measures not be legalized in the new contract; and (2) these rules be eliminated entirely. To enforce their demands and take revenge against the capitalists, the workers must launch a powerful mass struggle to smash the "Todd Prison" rules and to win a substantial wage increase. Down with the "Todd Prison'' rules!

Mass Struggle Is the Only Way

The union bureaucrats are the loyal servants of the monopoly capitalists. They are now frantically working to prevent the mass struggle of the shipyard workers. This is why the International officials and their local flunkeys overruled the "no contract, no work" resolution passed in a Boilermaker Local 104 meeting in April. This is why local union officials have flatly refused a meeting of all crafts to discuss the contract proposals. And this is why they are threatening and harassing those militants who are every day standing up against the company. Despite all this sabotage, the workers are marching forward and a big fight is brewing.

At Todd, the workers have gained valuable experience in struggling against the company's offensive in the yard. The boilermaker work stoppage in February 1979, the bitter fight against the absenteeism guidelines, the widespread tool room boycott, the defiance of the 3:25 p.m. ruling, and opposition to firings and "no re-hires" have helped prepare conditions for the workers to take matters into their own hands.

The widely known demands of the workers are: (1) on wages -- a substantial wage increase; (2) on working conditions -- an end to the absenteeism guidelines, the 3:25 p.m. rule, the arbitrary use of "no re-hires" and improved safety conditions; and (3) on benefits -- sick leave, increase in pensions for older workers and retirees and increases in health and welfare.

Mass action against the monopoly capitalists is the only sure way to defend the workers' own vital interests. At Todd, the workers are more and more talking about walking out on July 1. This is a correct stand in the fight against wage cuts and worsening working conditions.

It is also necessary to actively participate in the union meetings in order to expose and defeat the sabotage of the hacks. They should not be given a free hand to railroad through a rotten company proposal. The workers should brush aside the objections of the hacks and turn these meetings into platforms for organizing the mass struggle.

At present, the workers in the different yards are being told they must abide by a majority vote of all workers up and down the coast. This is a sellout artist's trick because the hacks are notorious for stuffing ballot boxes and the vote tallies can't be trusted. The sellout attempts of the bureaucrats should be broken. If this can't be done coast-wide, it should be done wherever it is possible. If the sellout is broken in one yard, it will fire the workers in the other yards with enthusiasm to militantly join the struggle.

The monopoly capitalists are shifting the burden of the economic crisis onto the backs of the working class. The shipyard capitalists, for example, are recording all-time record profits. To make the rich pay, the workers must blow up the "class peace" imposed on them by the rich and their collaborators, the union bureaucrats. With the approaching contract deadline, the issue facing the workers at Todd and elsewhere is to take matters into their own hands, rely on their huge numbers, and wage a vigorous mass struggle against the rich to defend their vital interests.

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AT THE ELECTRONICS CORPORATION OF AMERICA:

Militant Strike Defies Carter's Wage Controls

(The following account of the ECA workers' strike has been taken from the May 21 and June 18, 1980 special bulletins of the Boston Worker, newspaper of the Boston Branch of the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA.)

Since the middle of May the workers of the Electronics Corporation of America (ECA) have been striking in defiance of Carter's pay-cutting controls to win a wage increase that keeps up with the soaring cost of living. The workers have fought vigorously against the threats and bullying of the ECA capitalists. They have thrown up a militant picket line to stop company scabs from breaking the strike. And they have waged mass resistance to defend their picket line from the violent attacks of the Cambridge police. This militant struggle has captured the support of the working masses of Boston. The picket lines are greeted by passing cars and trucks with honking horns and fists clenched in solidarity. The determination of the ECA workers to carry through their struggle is an inspiration to the working masses who recognize in this strike their common struggle against the fascist wage-cutting offensive of the rich and the Carter government.

On June 16, the workers organized their biggest picket line yet. Hearing that ECA planned to bring in several hundred scabs to break the strike, 60 to 70 ECA workers gathered at the plant gates determined to stop the scabs at all costs. Apparently the ECA capitalists were unable to pull together a sizeable strikebreaking force. Only a few scabs appeared and these were quickly turned away by the militant action of the workers.

The ECA capitalists went into a frenzy at the defeat of their strikebreaking plan, and using the pretext of the workers' fight with the scabs, they called in the Cambridge police to viciously attack the picket line. The police thugs savagely jumped on one and then another of the workers, beating them and trying to put them under arrest. But the workers skirmished with the police for hours, and militantly defended their picket line. When the cops singled out one militant worker and tried to force him into a police cruiser, the picketers confronted them en masse, shaking their fists in the faces of the cops and demanding that their fellow worker be set free. Terrified of the militant defiance of the workers, the police backed off, and the militant worker escaped their claws and rejoined the picket line.

The vicious attack of the police on the ECA workers exposes the true character of Carter's "voluntary" wage controls. If the workers do not "voluntarily" capitulate to the wage- cutting guidelines, then the full force of the state is launched to viciously suppress the workers and bring them to their knees. The militant struggle of the ECA workers shows that for the workers to defend their livelihood from the capitalist wage-cutting offensive the workers must closely unite their ranks and wage active mass resistance to every attack of the rich and their government.

The vicious wage-cutting attack on the ECA workers is part of the capitalist offensive against the entire working class. The purpose of the offensive is to make the workers bear the burden of the crisis of the capitalist system. The program of the rich is clear: starvation for the workers while they line their pockets with gold. By the official government figures (Consumer Price Index), American workers have suffered a 7.3% cut in real take-home pay between February 1979 and February 1980. And the monopoly capitalists have been showing record profits. For example, Exxon reported last month the highest profit increases of any American company in history.

The ECA capitalists are implementing this fascist program to the letter. During the period of the last contract, from 1979 to 1980, the workers' real wages were cut by 5%. At the same time the ECA capitalists' sales have increased steadily. They are bragging to their shareholders that they expect "another record year for both sales and earnings" in 1980. In their contract proposal, the company is offering starvation wage increases of 8.5, 8.8, 8.8% for the next three years. With inflation soaring at 18% this year, under this proposal the workers would face a savage wage cut of about 10% each year. Over three years the workers would face a cut of around 30% of their wages! This would mean total devastation for the workers! In pushing this vicious wage cut, the ECA capitalists are trying to cram Carter's wage controls down the workers' throats. Carter's fascist wage controls are a government-dictated wage cut for the entire American working class. The rich claim that these controls are necessary to "fight inflation," but the real purpose of the wage controls is to help the monopoly capitalists carry out their program of starvation for the workers. Thus when the workers make their just demand for a raise that keeps up with the rising cost of living, Carter brands this as "inflationary" and the workers are threatened with the full force of the government of the rich. The ECA workers are refusing to sacrifice for the rich. They are taking the path of defying Carter's wage controls!

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Chinese revisionists are die-hard opponents of the liberation struggle of the Salvadorean People

The great upsurge in the struggle of the people of El Salvador against the anti-popular ruling junta installed by U.S. imperialism is intensifying with every passing day. The working class and peasantry, the youth and patriotic people of El Salvador are waging a titanic struggle against decades of merciless exploitation and terrible poverty under the heel of U.S. imperialism and the handful of capitalists and landlords in its service.

The present military regime was put into power in October 1979 in a coup d'etat engineered by the U.S. State Department. It was put into power to stave off the revolutionary struggle of the Salvadorean people which was threatening to topple the fascist U.S.- backed regime of General Carlos Romero. The October 1979 coup simply replaced Romero with Romero's colonels. While Romero's colonels and the Carter administration claimed they would bring "peace" and "reform" to El Salvador, the new regime only brought the continued massacre of the people. This campaign of terror against the Salvadorean people is supported and organized by U.S. imperialism which has sent U.S. army counterinsurgency teams and millions of dollars of military aid to the fascist regime in order to put down the revolution.

However, neither the regime's bloody suppression nor its demagogical posturing have deterred the heroic Salvadorean people from their revolutionary struggle. The fighting Salvadorean masses have denounced this "Romeroism without Romero" and the "moderate" policy of the military dictators has resulted in a fiasco, while the revolution surges forward, the regime of the colonels and U.S. imperialism lie totally exposed as the butchers of the Salvadorean people.

Just as the present junta becomes more thoroughly discredited, and its U.S. backing more exposed, who should step forward to try to save U.S. imperialist domination and to try to stop the people's struggle but the Chinese revisionists -- masters in the filthy craft of apologizing for U.S. neocolonialism!

In their April 14, 1980 issue of Beijing Review, the Chinese revisionists completely deny the U.S.-backed nature of the coup in October 1979. Instead, they write that a new junta was set up in El Salvador which the "United States welcomed" since it promised "it would allow the existence of various parties, respect freedom of speech, and carry out economic and social reform." How touching! Bloodthirsty U.S. imperialism, the power which for over 43 years has collaborated with the Salvadorean reactionary classes to ruthlessly oppress and exploit the toiling masses "welcomes" the junta because it promises to carry out "reforms." This charming line -- which comes from the champions of the "third world" -- is exactly the line with which Carter himself tries to deceive the people. The U.S. installed this junta because it was its only chance to maintain its domination in El Salvador against the rising tide of the genuine independence struggle. This move was undertaken precisely to draw the masses back under the wing of the government, precisely to throw water on the flames of revolt.

Once having prettified and covered for the role of U.S. imperialism, the Beijing Review then has some fast talking to do to explain why the junta has not carried out its "economic and social reforms," and why, instead, it continues to savagely attack the people. They write, "Hamstrung by the right-wing forces in the army, " however, the junta has not "fulfilled its promises." (!) As well, they say, "armed anti-government organizations" occupied buildings, etc., thereby making it difficult to carry out reforms. What a fantastic tale! The junta would have carried out reforms if it weren't "hamstrung" by the right wing and opposed by the people's struggles! In reality, this is a regime of terrorist murderers, a regime that is waging war against the Salvadorean people on behalf of internal fascist elements and U.S. imperialism. In reality, this regime has been working to eliminate anyone who so much as raises his voice against the right-wing fascists. The present junta has never had any more intention of "fulfilling its promises" than has any other puppet of U.S. imperialism.

Finally, to complete the whitewash, the Beijing Review searches frantically to rescue the junta. They latch onto a "decree" promulgated by the junta "under which a limited land reform would be carried out by distributing 200,000 hectares of land to 50,000 peasant households." If we again return to reality, we will see what type of "land reform" these revisionist butchers are praising in their Beijing Review. On March 23, 1980, when peasants peacefully occupied some land bordering on the population of Tacachico, the police surrounded them and proceeded to massacre them, leaving 25 dead, 50 wounded, and some 100 captured. This is the type of land reform for which U.S. imperialism and its puppets are so famous!

The foundation of the politics of the Chinese social-imperialists -- who are socialist in words but imperialist in deeds -- is the rotten theory of "three worlds." This theory calls on the people of the world to give up their revolutionary struggle against their "own" reactionary regimes and instead to unite with them and with U.S. imperialism, in order to oppose Soviet social- imperialism.

Fully elaborating their "three worlds" theory with regards to El Salvador, the Beijing Review not only manages to praise the present junta as being an independent "human rights" regime which, through no fault of its own, can't "fulfill its promises," they also denounce the revolutionary masses under the pretense of opposing Soviet social-imperialism and their Cuban lackeys. According to these bootlickers of U.S. imperialism, "in the name of 'supporting' armed struggle [emphasis added] the Soviet Union and Cuba have worked themselves into some Salvadorean organizations." In this way, the Chinese revisionists try to paint anyone who advocates armed struggle against imperialism and the regime as a tool of the Soviets. If the Chinese revisionists were at all concerned about the revolutionary struggle of the Salvadorean people being liquidated, they would point out that the true agents of Moscow in El Salvador, the pro-Moscow revisionist "Communist" Party of El Salvador, was until recently the most diehard supporter of the new regime of Romero's colonels and has only given up its open support in order to save itself from political extinction. But the Chinese social-imperialists cannot do this because, like their U.S. imperialist allies and the Soviet social-imperialists, they are bitter opponents of the revolution. Thus, the Beijing Review article defines a "patriotic stand" as "support for the coup by calling on the guerrillas to lay down their arms," while only "foreign forces" would exploit the "tense situation" and call for revolutionary struggle. This is the most shameless, anti-popular, anti-liberation scribbling imaginable!

In their article, the Chinese revisionists do manage to come up with one point that can't be disputed. They remark that "The turbulence [in El Salvador -- ed.] has something do to with the situation in Central America and the Caribbean region as a whole." This is true. But whereas this fact can be used to further grasp the struggle against U.S. imperialism in all these countries, the Beijing Review tries to use it to again call on the heroic people of El Salvador to unite with U.S. imperialism and the junta against Soviet social-imperialism.

While it is true that Soviet social-imperialism has been and remains, along with U.S. imperialism, the most ferocious and blood-soaked enemy of the freedom and independence of the peoples and social progress, it is also true that the U.S. imperialists consider Latin America to be their private domain of unrestricted robbery and plunder, and it is against the U.S.'s intolerable neo-colonial slavery that the proletariat and people of Latin America have risen up. The Beijing Review, however, says that the reforms which were so "welcomed" by the U.S. imperialists, "obviously displeased" the Soviet Union. This is painting the U.S. -- the superpower which actually dominates in El Salvador -- in pro-people colors, while at the same time portraying the Soviet Union as the "main enemy of the peoples" in Latin America. This is nothing but Beijing Review acting on behalf of U.S. imperialism as the thief who yells: "Stop thief! "

The peoples of Latin America have demonstrated that they have no intention of remaining under the heel of U.S. imperialism. Nor do they want to become like Cuba, which has been crushed by Soviet social-imperialism. The peoples of Latin America are fighters for genuine independence and liberation against both superpowers and all reaction. The developing revolutionary situation in El Salvador is part of a great upsurge of revolutionary struggle sweeping Central and South America and the Caribbean. The triumph of the people in Nicaragua a year ago has sparked an increase in revolutionary activity in Central America and especially in neighboring El Salvador and Guatemala. In response to this upsurge, the Carter administration -- proving that it remains a deadly enemy of the people -- has stepped up its measures to put down the people's liberation struggle sweeping Latin America. Last October, using hysteria about the "Soviet brigade in Cuba" as a pretext, Carter spelled out the new steps to be taken against the growing revolt of the people of Latin America and the Caribbean. Intelligence operations were expanded and a Caribbean Joint Task Force Headquarters was established to direct counterinsurgency military operations in the region. In summing up its defeat in Nicaragua, the Carter administration concluded that U.S. imperialism is faced with "insurgency and communism" throughout the region and that it had been "insufficiently forceful." And Carter, Brzezinski and his National Security Council are plotting to ensure that there will be "sufficient force" against the people of El Salvador.

No matter how the Chinese revisionists may try to falsify and prettify the role of U.S. imperialism, the wave of popular struggle is and will continue to be directed against both the local feudal oligarchies and dictators as well as against U.S. imperialism which props them up. 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, nor compromised in favor of the U.S. imperialists by the Chinese revisionist scribblers. The Salvadorean people have intensified their struggle. They 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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Heroic Uprising of the Korean People Against the U.S. Puppet Military Dictators

Throughout the month of May, the people of south Korea waged a fierce struggle against the fascist military dictatorship supported by U.S. imperialism. In early May, the university students held daily anti-government demonstrations on a nationwide basis. At these demonstrations the students raised demands calling for the abolition of the hated martial law, an end to government press censorship, better conditions for the workers and the dismissal of professors serving the fascist regime as agents. With the government refusing to implement these just demands, the students escalated their struggle. In the capital of Seoul, 50,000 students marched on the capital, battling government troops, setting fire to police vehicles and commandeering buses to smash police lines. In the cities of Kwangju, Taegu, Chonju and elsewhere similar actions were carried out in defiance of the martial law. The people of Kwangju carried out massive protests and clashes with the police and military troops for days on end and eventually drove the government troops out of the city. While holding the city for five days, a huge demonstration of 200,000 was held during which the masses called for the death of General Chon Too Hwan, the head of the criminal regime.

This powerful revolt against the brutal government repression developed in the midst of a big upsurge in the struggle of the south Korean workers who are fighting for higher wages in the face of an inflation rate of over 40%. In the first four months of 1980, the workers have conducted over 700 actions which violate the fascist laws of the military dictatorship. Mass struggles have been undertaken by textile, steel and electrical workers. Three thousand miners battled the police for eight days and stormed the police station after the police attempted to break up a protest against the sellout settlement imposed under the government-controlled trade union apparatus.

The regime of General Chon has responded to the struggles of the workers and other strata with the most vicious repression. Protesters have been gunned down in the streets by the hundreds; thousands have been arrested, and house-to-house searches have been conducted to search out anti-government rebels and terrorize the people. The fascist repression is sanctified under the provisions of martial law. Martial law was proclaimed during the reign of the U.S. puppet, Park Chung Hee, and has been strengthened by the present regime. During the recent rebellions, the government announced the Martial Law Decree 10 which closed the universities, banned all political gatherings and labor strikes, and intensified press censorship. The savage measures of the government, however, have not been able to stop the revolts of the masses.

For some time, the south Korean regime has been in the midst of a severe political crisis within its ranks. It is this dogfight which led to the assassination in October 1979 of President Park. Since Park's assassination, Park's generals, led by General Chon, have been consolidating their power by eliminating all opposition, even arresting the leader of the fascist Democratic Republican Party, the current ruling party. And it was under these conditions of a sharp dogfight within the fascist ruling clique that the mass revolt against government repression broke out.

This criminal ruling clique of murderers and thugs is fully supported by U.S. imperialism. U.S. imperialism has not changed its bloodthirsty nature one bit since the days when it launched its war of aggression against the Korean people in 1950. With this war, the U.S. aggressors tried to subjugate the Korean people. They also sought to strangle the then revolutionary and newly liberated People's Republic of China and to further their warmongering policy of "containment" of the then socialist Soviet Union. Today, some 40,000 troops of the invading aggressor armed forces of U.S. imperialism still remain in south Korea despite Carter's abandoned promises to withdraw the troops. Moreover, the fascist 620,000 man armed forces of the military dictatorship have been armed and trained by the U.S. imperialists, who have also built the Korean CIA along the lines of the notorious American CIA. Recently, the U.S. military command and the south Korean military, under General Chon formed a joint military command that gives the U.S. direct control of over one half of the south Korean troops. This May, when the troops of the military dictatorship were mobilized to butcher the masses, it was the U.S. General Wickham who authorized the mobilization plans. Thus, the U.S. imperialists not only have their own troops occupying south Korea, but the puppet army of General Chon is at their beck and call as well.

The U.S. imperialists and the south Korean government suppress the just rebellions of the people in order to perpetuate the vicious exploitation of the south Korean working masses at the hands of the U.S. banks and companies and the local capitalists. The so-called "economic miracle" performed by U.S. imperialism in south Korea can only be maintained with a reign of terror because while their capitalist concerns are raking in vast super-profits, the wretched conditions of the workers grow ever worse.

The U.S. imperialists have also turned south Korea into a virtual U.S. military base which plays a key role in the strategy of U.S. imperialism to dominate Asia and the Pacific region. During the war of aggression against the Indochinese peoples, south Korea was used as a launching pad for the invading U.S. armed forces. Today, the U.S. imperialists still utilize south Korea as a means to fight the revolutionary and anti-imperialist struggles of the peoples in the region, the U.S. imperialists and their south Korean puppets, along with imperialist Japan, have formed a military alliance which conducts joint military exercises, practicing for invasions throughout all of Asia. Along with its base in south Korea, U.S. imperialism is also developing its reactionary alliances with Japan as well as with social-imperialist China in order to put roadblocks in front of its main rival for world domination, Soviet social-imperialism.

Thus it is clear that behind the bloody suppression of the south Korean people lie the predatory interests of the U.S. imperialist bourgeoisie. The recent events have shown that U.S. imperialism will never peacefully give up its "paradise" in south Korea, and will resort to the most savage fascist measures to maintain it. Therefore, for the people of south Korea to win their liberation, U.S. imperialism must be fought and driven out.

[Photo.]

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STRIKES AND PROTESTS SPREAD ACROSS JAMAICA

[The West Indian Voice masthead.]

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

Powerful outbursts of strikes and protests by the working class and people have been taking place in Jamaica for several months on end. Recently, strikes, building takeovers, go-slows, sick-outs and street demonstrations have repeatedly occurred, involving workers in numerous factories, railway workers, nurses and midwives, electricity workers, public sector workers, students, bank workers, media employees and civil servants.

As well, there have been a number of incidents where the urban masses, clashing with the police, have stormed supermarkets and food warehouses, taking what they need and demanding that they be supplied with food items. In January and February, roadblocks were thrown up in well over 10 districts in protest against rising prices. Even children in Kingston have launched their own protests against the failure of the government to provide water supplies to them and their families, and against other shortages.

The workers are heroically resisting the measures taken by the Manley regime to dump the burden of the capitalist economic crisis onto their backs. They have said No! to Puppet Manley's 10% wage ceiling, his "Social Contract," and are defying the fascist Labor Relations and Industrial Disputes Act which, among its fascist provisions, prohibits strikes among a large cross section of workers. The workers are justly demanding increased wages, decent working conditions, no layoffs and medical coverage.

The masses of town and country are protesting the constant price increases, the overburdening taxation, unemployment, food and water shortages and the elimination of needed public and social services -- all of which pose serious impoverishment, starvation and ruin for them. They are waging their struggles, refusing to starve their families and work like slaves as tribute to the rich of both local and foreign origin, and to the reactionary capitalist politicians.

The West Indian Voice fully supports these just struggles which the working class and people have launched. There is no part of Jamaica where the reactionary bourgeoisie is at peace. There is no part where the working class and people are not rising up, resisting the shifting of the burden of the capitalist economic crisis onto their backs and striking blows at the sellouts and traitors.

The ruling Peoples National Party and the equally reactionary Jamaican Labor Party "opposition" are both terribly afraid of the growing protests and indignation among the toiling masses against the terrible hardships brought to bear on them by the regime of sellouts. These two chief capitalist parties are afraid that things will fall from their grip. They are afraid that the strikes and protests being waged by the laboring masses of town and country will grow into a powerful storm that will threaten their end.

Puppet Manley's PNP, under whom the most vicious and all-sided attacks have been launched on the working class and people over the past eight years, is posturing as a party that is somehow "anti-imperialist" and "for" the working class. The regime, headed by Manley, is hunting down the workers' struggle, throwing the full weight of the economic crisis on the workers' backs, enforced by the reactionary laws and the police. While rapidly extending the police and security forces and expanding the government bureaucracy, Manley has attempted to enforce a 10% wage ceiling on the heads of the workers together with his "Social Contract" (demanding productivity drives). The wage ceiling, along with the rapid price increases, inflation and devaluation of the currency, brought a tremendous burden to bear on the working people and just in the past four years, drastically cut their standard of living by well over 20%. The Gun Court and the fascist labor law, the Labor Relations and Industrial Disputes Act, were implemented to step up the police terror against the urban masses and to curtail and suppress the workers' struggle with the threat of heavy fines and imprisonment.

Yes, Manley has problems with the U.S. imperialists! But these problems stem from differences on what is the best way to organize the imperialist domination of Jamaica and rescue it from the predicament it is confronted with in the face of the rising mass struggles of the workers. Plus, these problems have to do with Washington's concern that their own son, Michael Manley, is giving a play to the Soviet social-imperialist rivals of Washington, in Jamaica.

The measures of the Manley government, though, were in line with the direct instruction from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Washington. There is nothing "anti-imperialist" in that regime. Manley, himself, speaking at a news conference with U.S. businessmen in Florida last December, after two years of willingly taking his dictates from the IMF and barely one month after President Carter announced the establishment of his Special Task Force to deal with the Caribbean, had this to say:

"I mean that very seriously we have been greatly encouraged by the U.S. policy in the Caribbean since 1977, since President Carter's administration... There is a thing they call accepting ideological pluralism. We think it is a right direction for the world to go in. I think it is a very healthy direction for the U.S. to go in; and I just hope that nothing is going to disturb that."

And just what is this direction, this "accepting ideological pluralism"? What is the real meaning of Manley's self-professed "democratic socialism" and how does he plan to safeguard the imperialist domination of Jamaica with this policy which he is pleased that U.S. imperialism accepts? Manley goes on to say:

"...there is a tendency for American businessmen to get very scared of any country that is trying to grapple with social problems in an urgent way, and they get a little typecast as radical; and there is a tendency to back away and say 'well I don't think I will go there' and that's a pity, because probably it means you are going to get a more stable investment climate. Because a country has grappled with those problems, it will be less subject to revolutionary change and explosions later on." [our emphasis -- ed.]

These were Manley's words of advice to his U.S. imperialist masters: that they should work out more sinister ways to dominate and deceive the people, lest they be overthrown now.

This is the difference between the imperialist puppet Manley, his PNP and the equally fascist Seaga and his JLP. While the JLP, led by the millionaire, fascist Seaga, openly swears that it can administer the affairs of the IMF and the U.S. imperialist stranglehold better than Manley, with a "best brains" government and "administrative professionalism," Manley has gotten wise to new ways, new arrangements vis-a-vis accepting "ideological pluralism," through which the imperialist domination will savagely increase "in a more stable climate" and maybe live on through the ages.

Yet! According to Manley's mastery of the lying dictionary, the measures of his regime were allegedly "against imperialism and local reactionaries" and in the interests of the "toilers."

Here, it is important to understand that this remarkable feat and posture on Manley's part was only made possible due to the open betrayal of the revisionist and opportunist traitors in the region, to the workers' cause, headed by Trevor Munroe in Jamaica, and in the region, who openly praised his policies and announced themselves as "defenders of the Manley Government." These sellout traitors, posing as "working class leaders" and "strugglers" openly became the volunteer advisors of Manley's neo-colonial regime. They became notorious strikebreakers and firefighters, with rare devotion, against the brave struggles which the working class and people were waging in Jamaica.

Thus, in these heroic struggles which the working class and people of Jamaica are waging, it is necessary to resolutely fight these "alternative" traps set up by the sellout capitalist politicians and the revisionist and opportunist traitors, and for the workers to close ranks. Only along this path can the interests of the working class and people be served and the attacks of the regime and the "Opposition" to make the workers shoulder the burden of the crisis, be fought.

[Photo: Jamaican youth protest against shortages of water and other supplies.]

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Resolutions of the Anti-Imperialist Activists Conference

The following resolutions were passed unanimously at the Anti-Imperialist Activists' Conference in Buffalo, New York on June 1980. (Subheads added.)

U.S. Imperialism Is Preparing for Reactionary War

1. U.S. imperialism is preparing for reactionary, aggressive war. The naked imperialist "Carter doctrine" expresses the criminal, warmongering aims of U.S. imperialism. U.S. imperialism is preparing for war to protect and expand its world empire and to increase the super-profits of the U.S. monopoly capitalists, the U.S. oil billionaires and financiers. These war preparations are aimed first and foremost against the world proletariat and people, against the revolution and socialism. U.S. imperialism is preparing to drown in blood the revolutionary and liberation struggles of the world's people, to deny the people freedom and democracy by these means, in order to subjugate and plunder the people for the super-profits of the monopoly capitalists. At the same time, U.S. imperialism is preparing for war against Soviet social-imperialism. The inter-imperialist rivalry between these two superpowers is leading toward war, a war which is unjust, predatory and reactionary on both sides and for which the people will be made to pay the terrible price.

U.S. Imperialism, Hands Off Iran!

2. The democratic, anti-imperialist revolution of the heroic Iranian people, which overthrew the fascist Shah, was a powerful blow against world imperialism, especially U.S. imperialism. The Iranian revolution is a great inspiration and encouragement to all the oppressed nations and people who today groan under the yoke of imperialist domination. Today, the Iranian proletariat and people are continuing their revolution with the aim of completely eliminating the positions of imperialism in their country. In an effort to strangle the Iranian revolution, with hopes of restoring their lost paradise in Iran, U.S. imperialism is harboring the fascist Shah (either directly or through its client states), and has organized a big reactionary offensive against Iran. This reactionary offensive against Iran has already led to an ill-fated but criminal military invasion of Iranian territory. In order to "line up" the American people behind its aggressive, counter-revolutionary offensive against Iran, the U.S. ruling class and all its hangers-on have whipped up a barrage of the most rabid, racist and chauvinist propaganda against the Iranian revolution in the U.S. We -- the progressive and democratic American masses -- resolutely oppose and denounce this chauvinist propaganda; resolutely oppose and denounce U.S. imperialism's offensive against Iran. We stand firmly on the side of the Iranian people and against "our own" government. If U.S. imperialism launches further aggression against Iran, or any other people, we will stand in support of the just liberation war of the peoples against U.S. aggression, just as we stood on the side of the Vietnamese people's liberation war against U.S. imperialism. U.S. imperialism, hands off Iran!

Support the Afghan People Against the Brutal Invasion of Soviet Social-imperialism

3. In the final week of December, 1979, the Soviet social-imperialists (socialist in words, imperialist in deeds) launched a massive and brutal invasion of Afghanistan. They are now waging a brutal war of subjugation against the Afghan people. This barbaric assault against Afghanistan is further proof that the present-day Soviet Union is a warmongering imperialist superpower, a dangerous and deadly enemy of the people. The once glorious land of socialism, under Lenin and Stalin, which was the mighty bastion of world revolution, liberation and anti-fascist struggle has been transformed, since the time of Khrushchov, into a bastion of counterrevolution, of social-fascism and social-imperialism. U.S. imperialism, for its part, is crying crocodile tears about the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan at the very same time that it -- along with Chinese social-imperialism -- is plotting its own conspiracies to sink their claws deeper into the flesh of the Afghan people, particularly by arming and instigating mercenaries and bandits disguised as "freedom fighters." These mercenaries and bandits armed by U.S. imperialism and Chinese social- imperialism have nothing to do with the genuine Afghan patriots who oppose the Soviet invasion. The genuine liberation forces can never rely upon one imperialism to "fight" the other. The working and progressive people of Afghanistan, who have fought legendary battles for their independence in the past, will surely bury the Soviet social-imperialist aggressors along with the mercenary tools of the other imperialists. We fully support this just, liberation struggle of the Afghan people.

Imperialism is the Source of War

4. Imperialism is the source of war. First and foremost, it is the imperialist superpowers, U.S. imperialism, Soviet social-imperialism and Chinese social-imperialism, who represent the biggest danger and the main source of war in the world today. As well, the lesser imperialist powers, including those of West Europe, Japan and Canada, along with the other reactionaries in alliance with the big powers, are in the world imperialist front and are plotting criminal aggressions against the people. Both through their reactionary, warmongering alliances, and through their inter-imperialist rivalries, all the imperialists are preparing for and conniving at reactionary and aggressive war.

Down with Both the "Carter Doctrine" and the "Kennedy Alternative"

5. The "Carter doctrine" is naked imperialism and open warmongering. The fact that Carter has dropped the mask of imperialist pacifism and has been "born again" as an open warmonger does not signify any basic change in the policy of U.S. imperialism. Rather, it shows that the imperialist pacifism of Carter, his human rights fraud, his whole peacenik posture of the last three years, served the same end as his now open warmongering. Carter's previous policy was a policy of war preparations, just as surely as it is today; only previously these war preparations were disguised and hidden by talk of peace designed solely to lull the masses to sleep. While Carter is now openly calling for war preparations, other imperialist politicians such as Kennedy have picked up his old, worn out peacenik mask. But beneath Kennedy's various tame criticisms and small differences with Carter lies Kennedy's own "doctrine" for defense of the U.S. world empire, for imperialist war preparations. Whether through the use of open warmongering, or through the use of imperialist pacifism, all the imperialist politicians have the same program: preparation for aggressive war abroad and reaction at home.

All-Sided Militarization of U.S. Society

6. An integral and central part of U.S. imperialism's war preparations is the militarization of U.S. society. Certain basic features of this militarism are:

a) the avalanche of chauvinist and warmongering propaganda which daily bombards the masses;

b) the militarization of the youth and women in preparation for using them as cannon fodder in U.S. imperialist aggressions and war;

c) the militarization of the economy, through increased military spending by the federal government and through the energy program of U.S. imperialism, which the masses of workers and people are made to pay for;

d) the U.S. nuclear energy program;

e) the maintenance of a "stable rear" through the suppression of the working class struggle.

It Is the Revolutionary Struggle Worldwide that Can Stay the Hands of the Warmakers

7. The only genuine alternative to the war which U.S. imperialism is preparing is the development of the anti-imperialist, anti-war movement, which is an integral part of the struggle the American working class and people are waging against "their own" ruling class. Shoulder to shoulder with the revolutionary peoples of all lands, with socialist Albania, with the heroic Iranian masses, the American working class and people have set out on the path of struggle against U.S. imperialism's war preparations and a broad movement is developing. It is the powerful development of the anti-imperialist, revolutionary struggle worldwide that can stay the hand of the warmakers. And if the imperialists succeed in launching a war, then only if they have fought every step of the way against the war preparations will the people be in a position to bring that war to an end through the further development of their revolutionary struggle. To eliminate war, it is necessary to eliminate imperialism.

The Anti-Imperialist Movement Is Growing and Gaining Strength

8. A broad mass movement is presently developing to oppose U.S. imperialist war preparations. Especially since Carter's State of the Union message, in which he presented his naked imperialist "Carter doctrine," the movement has undergone an upsurge. The struggle against Carter's call for the reintroduction of draft registration has played an important role in developing the mass character of the movement. Demonstrations and rallies, mass marches and protests have been organized all across the country in opposition to the draft and other war preparations. From the outset, the mass movement which has developed against draft registration has had an oppositional character, that is, it has developed against "our own" imperialist government. The anti-draft movement has drawn forces from the anti-nuclear movement who have gained experience in struggle and have been politicized. The anti-draft movement arose against a massive barrage of chauvinist, warmongering hysteria organized by the U.S. imperialists. The masses took up the struggle right at a time when the calls for "patriotism" and "national unity" by the Carter government and all of its flunkeys were at a fever pitch. The war hysteria has been connected to the question of oil, and, with the already deep hatred of the masses for the U.S. oil monopolies, there is fairly broad consciousness that the war being prepared is a war for the rich. This is shown by the slogans which have been raised by the masses, such as "Hell No, We Won't Go; We Won't Fight for Texaco!" The revolutionary traditions of the mass movements of the 1960's and 70's, especially the anti-war movement, are also strengthening the oppositional character of the movement, as evidenced by the relatively strong anti-imperialist current already in the movement, by the rapid development of contradictions with the police and other forces of the state, and by the tendency for the movement to adopt the methods and forms of mass struggle from the earlier mass movement. While the imperialists are maneuvering to defuse the movement, and a flabby "left wing" section of Carter's Democratic Party has entered the anti-draft movement in an effort to divert it from its oppositional course, the factors for the further development of the movement are excellent and it is bound to grow.

The Workers, Youth and Students Are Going into Motion Against Imperialist War

9. All sections of the people are coming into motion against U.S. imperialist war preparations.

In spite of and against the rabid, chauvinist, warmongering of the reactionary trade union bureaucrats, among the workers vigorous discussion is taking place and the workers are expressing their determination to fight against the war preparations. The workers are paying close attention to and beginning to enter into the political movement that is developing all across the country against the war preparations. The anti-imperialist sentiment and motion among the workers are of especially great significance, for it is in the activation of the proletariat, at the center of the other anti-imperialist masses who are also in motion, that the movement against U.S. imperialist war preparations has its greatest strength and prospects for victory.

The youth and students are vigorously fighting against the war preparations, especially against the draft for it is the youth, and first and foremost the working class youth, who are to be turned into cannon fodder for the imperialist war machine. The movement is developing in the high schools as well as in the universities. In the movement, the genuine anti-imperialist forces are arising and getting organized independent of social-democracy, as evidenced by the anti-imperialist organization SPC at the University of Buffalo. This is a significant development and an important factor for the strengthening of the anti-war movement.

The participation of people from other counties in the movement, especially progressive Iranian nationals who are currently under sharp attack by the U.S. government, is a valuable contribution to the movement, for they bring with them the revolutionary sentiments and fever of their peoples, and an expression of the international character of the struggle against U.S. imperialism and its war preparations.

The Marxist-Leninist Party Is a Powerful Factor for Building the Anti-Imperialist Movement

10. The existence and work of the Marxist-Leninist Party is a powerful factor for the development of the mass movement against U.S. imperialist war preparations, for the strengthening of the oppositional character of the anti-draft and anti-nuclear movements, and for putting opposition to imperialism in the center of these movements. The Party stands in resolute opposition to all imperialism, and especially fights every step of U.S. imperialism's war preparations. The Party fights vigorously against the warmongering hysteria and chauvinism of U.S. imperialism and in support of the revolutionary and liberation struggles of the world's people, especially the people who are oppressed by "our own" imperialist government. The Party seeks to weld the anti-draft and anti-nuclear movements and the other mass movements into one powerful revolutionary force against U.S. imperialism. In the movement of today, it is the Marxist-Leninist Party which carries on and upholds the best revolutionary traditions of the mass movements of the 60's and 70's. Further, in order to advance and build the mass movement in an anti-imperialist direction, the Party fights tooth and nail against social-democracy and opportunism which is trying to liquidate the movement.

Opposition to Imperialism Must Be Put in the Center of the Struggle

11. In the mass movement which has arisen to fight U.S. imperialist war preparations, against the draft, against the U.S. nuclear energy program, against other features of the war preparations, opposition to imperialism must be put in the center. The anti-imperialist politics provides the only correct, scientific analysis of the source of the war preparations which the masses are fighting. The anti-imperialist politics unites the various struggles into one powerful movement against the common enemy, U.S. imperialism. The anti-imperialist politics concentrates the oppositional and militant character of the movement, and are the basis for thoroughgoing and resolute struggle against the war preparations.

To oppose the anti-imperialist politics, to narrow and divert the movement and to liquidate its oppositional character, the "left wing" of the Democratic Party, and various opportunist forces who are in a yellow front with it, have infiltrated into the movement. Their aim is to tie the mass movement to Carter's Democratic Party, to tie the movement to the coattails of the smooth-talking imperialist politicians like Kennedy. They are trying to direct the movement to support imperialist pacifism, detente and SALT II, etc.; in other words, to base the movement of finding a "better way" to defend the U.S. imperialist empire. For example, they claim to "oppose" the draft, for now, but they support the U.S. imperialist "volunteer army" which has over two million troops stationed around the globe which are fully mobilized to carry out aggression anywhere at a moment's notice. In short, the objective of the "left wing" of the Democratic Party is to liquidate the movement against war preparations. Thus, it is necessary for the anti-imperialist forces to wage a resolute struggle against this "left wing" of the Democratic Party and its basic social-democratic politics.

For Mass Struggle Against Registration and the draft

12. The reintroduction of draft registration is one of the warmongering measures being carried out by the Carter government, with the current plans being to begin compulsory registration this summer. In the movement against registration and the draft, opposition to imperialism must be put in the center. We support all activities of a mass character against registration and the draft, and work to give them an anti-imperialist direction. Refusal to register or to be drafted cannot stop the war plans of U.S. imperialism or end the war once it breaks out, as certain pacifist forces promote. But mass struggle against registration and the draft, which brings the masses into an active fight against the government, are entirely correct and necessary, and these can play an important role in the development of the movement against U.S. imperialist war preparations.

For Mass Struggle Against Imperialism and War

13. Mass revolutionary struggle against imperialism and war is the path forward for the movement against war preparations. The movement against war preparations must be based on the masses, below the Democratic Party hacks, below the reactionary labor bureaucracy, below the soldout petty functionaries of the state. The masses must be brought into the political movement against war preparations and organized for mass struggles. Every step of the war preparations must be fought against in order for the movement to be built and strengthened.

Get Organized Independent of the 'Left Wing" of the Democratic Party and the Social-Democrats

14. An important feature of the movement which is developing is the rise of anti-imperialist activists who are working and getting organized independent of the "left wing" of the Democratic Party and the social- democrats. This is an important development which is only beginning and should be further developed and consolidated, because the "left wing" of the Democratic Party is operating to stamp out the initiative of the anti-imperialist activists and to tie the movement to the imperialist politicians. At the same time, it is important not to abandon the masses who may be temporarily under the sway of the Democratic Party hacks and the social-democratic organizations and who participate in the activities which are organized by the social-democrats or others in the yellow front with the "left wing" of the Democratic Party. We should go into the demonstrations and rallies, mass meetings and forums organized by others in order to take the anti-imperialist politics there and work to win the masses to the anti-imperialist positions, to split from the Democratic Party.

The basic methods and forms of struggle and organization which we take up flow from our general aim in the movement: to draw the masses into active struggle, to strengthen the oppositional character of the movement and to put opposition to imperialism in its center.

Solidarity with the Revolutionary Forces Around the World

15. We express our firm solidarity with, and support for the fighting forces around the world who are in struggle against imperialist aggression and domination, especially against "our own" imperialist government. These forces are our reliable allies in the struggle against U.S. imperialist war preparations, our struggles support and assist one another. We pledge to the revolutionary peoples of the world, to the masses who suffer under the weight of imperialist domination, to uphold our responsibility and fight every step the U.S. imperialists take against the peoples, every step towards reactionary, aggressive war.

[Photo: On May 3,1980 a militant demonstration was organized by the Buffalo Branch of the MLP,USA and the Union of Anti-Imperialist Students (formerly the Student Peace Coalition).]

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No to the U.S. Nuclear Program!

Presently, U.S. imperialism is pushing ahead with both the development of the MX-ICBM missile system and measures to put breeder reactor technology into production to increase the supply of nuclear plutonium for the production of nuclear bombs. These two measures are clear evidence that the U.S. imperialists are stepping up the development of their warmongering nuclear energy program. These measures are a component part of the most feverish militarization of American society which the bloodstained U.S. imperialist bourgeoisie is carrying out at this time in their striving for world domination and their preparations for launching aggressive wars.

The MX missile system is a project to place 200 nuclear missiles on an underground road system to be shuttled back and forth among 4,600 launching pads. The total cost of the system will approximate $100 billion, making it one of the most expensive projects in U.S. history, second only to the cost of the construction of the entire U.S. interstate highway system. The project will encompass an area in Nevada and Utah approximately the size of the state of Georgia. The masses of people in the area have already suffered poisoning from the open air nuclear bomb tests conducted in the Southwest in the 1950's. They are today opposed to being sacrificed for cannon fodder for the warmongering ambitions of the U.S. imperialists. Despite massive opposition to the project, especially from the people living in the area, the U.S. Congress is on the verge of passing legislation to put the project into operation, and with a solid, warmongering majority.

The placing of the MX missile system project into production is a major expansion of the U.S. nuclear weapons program. It is also part of a whole series of warmongering nuclear developments being introduced at this time, including the continual underground nuclear testing for the research and development of more sophisticated nuclear weapons, the placing of over 500 additional nuclear missiles in Western Europe within the next year, the continual production of new Trident nuclear missile launching submarines, and the production of 3,400 nuclear Cruise missiles. While putting these measures into production, the U.S. imperialists are planning even more criminal nuclear developments, including the production of the neutron bomb which only kills people without destroying property, the introduction of nuclear missile launching submarines into the Great Lakes, and the introduction of nuclear weapons into the Persian Gulf area.

This step-up in nuclear weapons production and deployment is a product of the warmongering ambitions of the U.S. imperialists for increased plunder and world domination. They are measures to back up the "Carter doctrine" to protect the "vital interests" of the U.S. monopoly billionaires in the face of the revolutionary struggles of the people of the world, such as the Iranian revolution, and in the face of increased competition for world domination with the Soviet social-imperialists. Along with the fantastic increases in the military budget, the organization of the 110,000 man "quick strike force," the strengthening of the U.S.-China warmongering alliance, the unleashing of the CIA and FBI to attack the revolutionary movements, the suppression of strikes and the enforcement of murderous productivity drives against the workers, and the reintroduction of the military draft, the stepping up of the U.S. nuclear program is part of the feverish militarization of American society being carried out by the U.S. imperialists in their preparations for launching aggressive wars. The U.S. nuclear program from its very inception has been part and parcel of the U.S. war preparations. Brandishing nuclear weapons the U.S. imperialist bourgeoisie continues to back up its policy of blackmail, plunder and aggression against the people of the world and its "balance of terror" which it maintains with the Soviet social-imperialists in their competition for world domination. The U.S. imperialists have time and again threatened the peoples of the world with nuclear holocaust if they do not obey its dictate as they have threatened the people of Indochina, Korea, and the peoples of the Middle East.

In conjunction with the increased production and deployment of new nuclear weapons of mass destruction, the U.S. imperialists are escalating their domestic nuclear reactor program with measures to place breeder reactor technology into operation. The development of breeder reactors would provide the imperialists with huge amounts of bomb grade plutonium with which they could supply all their new weapons systems and refurbish their older ones. Already the U.S. government has taken measures to centralize and temporarily store the spent fuel waste from the existing commercial reactors. The centralization and storage of this waste planned for Morris, 111.; West Valley, N.Y.; and Barnwell, S.C., which are all reprocessing plants, is a major step towards reprocessing this spent fuel for eventual use in supplying breeder reactors to increase the production of bomb grade plutonium. A recent memo by Energy Secretary Charles Duncan disclosed that the government is planning to go ahead with the development of the breeder reactor. For this purpose in the next five years the government plans to spend $1.4 billion for the management of the waste and $865 million for breeder reactors.

Historically, the U.S. domestic reactor program has always been closely linked to the research and development of nuclear weapons. The first commercial reactors were, in fact, developed on the basis of military nuclear research and the technology was handed over gratis to the energy monopolies. Even today this profitable relationship for the energy monopolies continues. All of it is of course paid for from the tax dollars of the working class and people. With the development of the breeder reactor, the commercial reactors will in turn play an integral role through their spent fuel waste in providing the nuclear material for the production of bomb grade plutonium.

Besides this direct link with the nuclear war preparations of imperialism, the domestic commercial reactor program plays a key role in assisting U.S. imperialism in stockpiling energy resources for war. The U.S. imperialists are developing the domestic reactors to have a "secure" and "alternative" source of energy at a time when coal and oil have proved vulnerable from the revolutionary struggles of the world's peoples, such as in Iran and the strikes of the coal miners in the U.S. Developing nuclear power as a "secure" and "alternative" source of energy allows U.S. imperialism to "conserve" and stockpile oil for use to run its planes, tanks, and other weapons of war while powering the industry for this war machine with the domestic nuclear reactors in the U.S. This is the real content of Carter's energy program and talk of "conservation" and "alternatives." The masses of people suffer fake shortages, sky-rocketting prices, and nuclear poisoning while the U.S. imperialists stockpile energy resources for war.

The nuclear weapons program and the domestic commercial reactor program are inseparable aspects of the criminal U.S. nuclear program. This program of wild profiteering, neo-colonial enslavement and poisoning of the people is a key component of the all-round war preparations of U.S. imperialism. It is a program which is deeply rooted in the economic, political and social system of imperialism. Both U.S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism have made a monster out of their nuclear programs.

The demand of the masses of people for the complete liquidation of the U.S. nuclear program is absolutely just and correct. The anti-nuclear movement is a powerful force against this criminal and warmongering program. This movement is closely connected with the mass movement against the reintroduction of the draft and against all imperialist war preparations. The target of the anti-nuclear movement, its enemy, is imperialism. For this very 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 Democratic Party, which along with the Republicans are fervent advocates of nuclear power and imperialism.

The U.S. nuclear 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 profits, or which has any concern a- bout the well-being of the masses of the people. Therefore, the fight against the 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, first and foremost the working class, 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.

(Leaflet issued by the Chicago Branch of the Marxist-Leninist Party the USA.)

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Down with the persecution of Iranian students! U.S. imperialism, hands off Iran!

DETROIT:

In the early morning hours of Wednesday, April 30, federal agents of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) in Detroit raided the homes of Iranian students and arrested fifteen. The students were taken to jail and subjected to the most vile racist and jingoist threats and abuse by the federal police. Ten of the students were charged with such flimsy "crimes" as: working for their living; not reporting a change of address (which is a lie); and one student was charged with registering for only eleven and not twelve credit hours of classes to be technically a full-time student. While the students were charged with these technicalities, in fact the arrests were for political repression. The FBI was called in and the students were subjected to lengthy political interrogations. However, the students did not cower in the face of this vicious persecution by the government, but they stood up to these attacks honorably as is the tradition of the Iranian people. One student was physically assaulted by the police for denouncing their racist and jingoist insults. This student and two others were summarily deported without completing the usual court hearings.

The Iranian students in the U.S. have always demonstrated and fought fearlessly against the shah and the U.S. imperialist oppression of their homeland. Carter is stepping up the terrorism of the Immigration police and the FBI against the Iranian students and has begun wholesale deportations as one of the many measures designed to silence their voice of opposition to a war of aggression against Iran and in support of the Iranian revolution. These attacks on the Iranian students are an attack on the entire American working class and people. The U.S. imperialists are developing fascist repression in order to secure a quiet home front for war and aggression abroad. The vicious, arbitrary fascist persecution of Iranian students in the U.S. -- the wholesale rounding up and fingerprinting of 65,000 students, the denial of all visa renewals, denial of their right to work, freezing of Iranian bank assets, etc., as well as the terrorist police raids, beatings and deportations -- shows what the U.S. government has in store for all progressive forces who raise their voice against the U.S. imperialist dictators. In fact Carter has already proposed that all demonstrations against U.S. intervention in Iran be outlawed.

The American people are filled with anger against the U.S. capitalist authorities for subjecting the Iranian students to this despicable racist and jingoist persecution. Carter has been trying to incite the working class and people to line up behind the warmongers' plans to re-enslave Iran. But his chauvinist campaign is failing miserably. All over the country, thousands upon thousands of people have carried out demonstrations and mass protests against the draft and U.S. imperialist war preparations. And many more actions have been held in solidarity with the anti-imperialist revolution of the Iranian people. The hearts of freedom-loving people everywhere are with the fighting Iranian masses who have sacrificed tens of thousands of martyrs in their liberation struggle to free their country from the slavery of the Wall Street billionaires. At the same time, it is the likes of the fascist shah and the U.S. oil corporations and the Pentagon warmongers that are despised by the working people. The American working class and people are firmly opposed to a war of aggression against Iran for the greater glory of the profits of Exxon and U.S. imperialism.

Down with the vile racist and jingoist persecution of the Iranian students by Carter and the U.S. government!

U.S. imperialism, hands off Iran!

(The above article was taken from a leaflet issued by the Detroit Branch of the MLP, USA on May 1980.)

BUFFALO:

(The following article is taken from a statement of the Student Peace Coalition [now Union of Anti-Imperialist Students] and the Buffalo Branch of the Marxist-Leninist Party.)

Last week, a federal judge ordered the deportation of another Iranian student from Buffalo. The government openly stated that a major reason for his deportation was his participation in the anti-imperialist demonstration organized in downtown Buffalo on May 3. and other political activity in support of the just revolutionary struggle of his people. This deportation of a progressive Iranian student is part of the all-round offensive of U.S. imperialism against the Iranian revolution.

Carter has ordered all Iranians to register with the government and has used this registration program to carry out FBI interrogations, compile police dossiers and prepare for mass deportations. Under the auspices of this program, progressive Iranian students are being attacked and deported, jailed or fined for such "crimes" as changing their address, holding down a job, etc. The government tried to use this fascist registration program to "legitimize" its deportation of the Iranian student from Buffalo last week. But the fascist aim of the registration program itself, and the real reason for the deportation were clearly exposed in the "other" reasons given for the deportation -- to attack this Iranian student because he is a progressive supporter of the Iranian revolution and of the struggle of the American people against U.S. imperialist war preparations.

The demonstration in Buffalo on May 3 was a significant development in the anti-imperialist struggle here because it militantly denounced the war preparations of U.S. imperialism and supported the Iranian revolution, raising the slogans: U.S. Imperialism, Hands off Iran! and Support the Iranian revolution! Down with U.S. imperialism! That is why the imperialists have launched attacks against it. At the demonstration itself, the reactionary news media organized a provocation against the Iranian participants in the demonstration and attempted to identify and photograph them. This activity of the reactionary news media, which has been a loyal and dedicated agent of U.S. imperialism's chauvinist campaign against the Iranian people, is nothing but police activity for U.S. imperialism. This is fully born out by the fact that it was only a few days later that one of the Iranian students who was in the demonstration was identified and seized by the immigration authorities to be deported.

The American people do not support the frenzied preparations for war which U.S. imperialism is engaged in and they do not support the vicious fascist attacks on the Iranian people. The American people are developing and building the movement against U.S. imperialism's war preparations. As an important part of building this movement, all progressive and democratic people should denounce the U.S. imperialists' reactionary attacks on the Iranian revolution and resolutely oppose the deportations and other attacks on the progressive Iranians resident in the U.S.

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AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEY:

Students repulse fascist attack

(The following article is excerpted from a Statement by the San Francisco Bay Area Branch of the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA, May 9, 1980.)

At noon on Friday, April 25, the University of California (UC) administration launched a cowardly police attack against the literature table of the Students Against Imperialist War Preparations. This latest attack on progressive students follows the arrest of students for political postering and for demonstrating their opposition to war preparations, in particular opposition to the ROTC and Marine recruiters on campus and the UC nuclear weapons labs. Students have even been harassed and arrested for stepping forward to oppose the arrests of others! These attacks are part of an intensified campaign by the university administration and their campus thugs to stop the growing movement of the students against U.S. imperialism -- in the first place, by suppressing literature and discussion opposing the war preparations. The sentiment of Berkeley. students is to oppose the draft and all war preparations and to defend their right to receive, distribute and discuss progressive and revolutionary literature. In fact more than 60 students in the plaza that day rallied around the table and repulsed this fascist attack, sending the police scurrying back to the basement of Sproul Hall. This is the fighting spirit of the students, and it is precisely this spirit which the rich U.S. moneybags through their university administrations and police desire to crush.

Students should take serious note of the fact that this reactionary provocation took place the morning after Carter's abortive invasion of Iran. The imperialist politicians and news media have for months now been shouting themselves hoarse trying to whip up "patriotic," national chauvinist war hysteria against the Iranian people and in favor of U.S. aggression against Iran. Particularly on college campuses, various reactionaries have been floated to make it appear as if students support the jingoist slogans of Carter and the oil monopolies -- and these reactionary intrigues have been defeated time and again by the students themselves who have no desire either to slaughter the Iranian people nor to be slaughtered in the U.S. imperialist wars of aggression. The literature being distributed on April 25 was in support of the basic slogan "U.S. Imperialism, Hands Off Iran!" It was this slogan which the reactionary specifically attacked as he spewed forth racist and chauvinist filth against the Iranian people and in support of the U.S. aggression. "Miraculously" a TV "news" crew appeared on the scene to "impartially" film this "student's" jingoist raving. In fact this "news" crew, police and provocateur had all been seen together by students moments before this attack. This illustrates once again how carefully orchestrated this attack was as well as the criminal nature of the imperialist news media who actually work with the police to stage "news" in order to place a fascist on TV and then to portray his views as those of the students of UC Berkeley! This type of activity, where a fascist pretends to be a student, and a "just happened to be there" TV crew films his chauvinist ravings in order to present them as the views of the students is straightforward ideological war preparations. However, the quick and spirited response of the students, their denunciation of this reactionary impostor's imperialist politics, and their unified resistance to the attack on the literature table disrupted the criminal plans of the imperialists and their UC administration flunkeys.

Today students are again being drawn into mass movements against the draft and against the criminal nuclear energy program. The youth and students are a powerful progressive and revolutionary force. Their actions to oppose police attacks, to organize against imperialist war preparations and to support the revolutionary work of the supporters of the Marxist-Leninist Party in distributing literature, etc. -- all show that neither intimidation nor police violence can stop the just struggles of the students.

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In Commemoration of the 110th Anniversary of the Birth of V.I. Lenin

LENINISM AND THE IDEOLOGICAL STRUGGLE

[Drawing.]

The authority of revolutionary Marxism-Leninism is decisive for the advance of the proletarian revolution. This article is the second in a series written in honor of the 110th anniversary of the birth of Lenin. It discusses the teachings of Leninism on the ideological struggle. It is the job of every revolutionary and every class conscious proletarian to uphold the bright red banner of Leninism against the curses of the bourgeoisie and the distortions by the revisionists.

Ideological Struggle Is One of the Three Basic Forms of the Class Struggle

Leninism upholds the great role of theory in the working class movement and for the revolutionary party. According to Leninism, theory and the ideological struggle are not something incidental, not an adornment or shiny tinsel useful only for showing off at ceremonial occasions, but an essential and always necessary part of the struggle of the working class. Leninism in fact defines the theoretical or ideological struggle as one of the three fundamental forms of the class struggle.

Thus Lenin in his classic work What Is To Be Done?stressed the role of theory in the revolutionary movement. He pointed out:

"Let us quote what Engels said in 1874 concerning the significance of theory in the Social-Democratic [Marxist -- ed.] movement. Engels recognizes not twoforms of the great struggle of Social-Democracy (political and economic), as is the fashion among us, but three, placing on a par with the first two the theoretical struggle."(What Is To Be Done?, Ch. I, Sec. D, emphasis as in the original)

Lenin then proceeds to give a lengthy and extremely interesting quotation from Engels which includes the following passage:

"...For the first time since the working-class movement has existed, the struggle is being waged in a planned way from its three coordinated and interconnected sides, the theoretical, the political and the practical- economic (resistance to the capitalists). It is precisely in this, as it were, concentric attack, that the strength and invincibility of the German movement lies." (Ibid., emphasis added)

Leninism places the theoretical struggle on a par with the economic and political fronts of struggle. This Leninist teaching was reiterated by Comrade Enver Hoxha when he stated:

"...unless it is waged in all its main directions, political, economic and ideological, no class struggle can ever be complete.These three forms of class struggleare intertwined with and complement each other. At given periods, now one or now the other form of class struggle may come to the fore, but in every case it should be waged on all the fronts. We should not forget that the enemy, too, wages his struggle in all directions:ideological, economic and political." (Report to the 7th Congress of the Party of Labor of Albania,Ch. IV, Sec. 1, p. 116, emphasis added)

Leninist Theoretical Work and the Ideological Struggle Against Opportunism Are Inseparably Connected with Each Other

The theoretical struggle of the working class is inseparably connected with the ideological struggle against opportunism and with the life and death struggle of the socialist ideology against the bourgeois ideology. All those intellectualistic pseudo-theories that put artificial and scholastic divisions between theoretical work and ideological struggle, or between the elaboration of principles and the polemical struggle, or any other of numerous pettifogging distinctions are absolutely hostile in spirit to Leninism. Leninism calls for the closest connection between theory and practice. Leninism stresses the teachings of Marx that Marxism is not a dogma, but a guide to action. And such a revolutionary theory as Marxism-Leninism, intimately related to revolutionary practice, is not too fastidious or aristocratic to concern itself with the affairs of the practical movement. Such a theory deals with both strategy and tactics, both the ultimate aim and how to get there, both general principles and the methods and limits of maneuvers and compromises, in brief, with every aspect of the revolution. Such a theory guides every step of the revolution and therefore is intimately involved with the controversies and struggles over the orientation and direction of the revolutionary movement.

In What Is To Be Done?,Lenin stressed the connection between theory and the ideological struggle against opportunism. For example, near the start of Chapter I, Section D, Lenin compares two publisher's announcements, one of the economist journal "Rabocheye Dyelo" and the other of a group of revolutionary Marxists. After showing how the announcement for "Rabocheye Dyelo" is completely silent on the theoretical tasks facing the Marxists, he then writes:

"The other announcement, on the contrary, points first of all to the decreased interest in theory observed in recent years, imperatively demands 'vigilant attention to the theoretical aspect of the revolutionary movement of the proletariat, and calls for 'ruthless criticism of the Bemsteinian[revisionist -- ed.] and other anti-revolutionary tendencies in our movement."

Lenin directly connects the question of "vigilant attention to the theoretical aspect of the revolutionary movement of the proletariat" with "ruthless criticism"of revisionism. Lenin reemphasizes this in connection with his famous quotation on the need for revolutionary theory. He writes:

"Without a revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement.This thought cannot be insisted upon too strongly at a time when the fashionable preaching of opportunism goes hand in hand with an infatuation for the narrowest forms of practical activity. Yet, for Russian Social-Democrats the importance of theory is enhanced by three more circumstances,... Under these circumstances, what at first sight appears to be an 'unimportant' mistake may lead to most deplorable consequences, and only short-sighted people can consider factional disputes[here Lenin is referring to the fight between the Marxists and the Economists inside the Russian party -- ed.] and a strict differentiation between shades inopportune or superfluous. The fate of Russian Social-Democracy for many, many years to come may depend on the strengthening of one or other 'shade'.'' (Ibid., emphasis added)

And Lenin continues on to stress the "ideological struggle against all opponents of Marxism.'' He stated in the Appendix to What Is To Be Done?That:

"The contents of this agreement on principles... make it perfectly clear that we put forward as an absolute condition for unity the most emphaticrepudiation of all and every manifestation of opportunism generally, and of Russian opportunism in particular. Paragraph I reads:... 'The sphere of Social-Democratic activities includes...ideological struggle against all opponents of revolutionary Marxism ...[We omit the rest of Lenin's list -- ed.]"

Hence the ideological struggle is one of the crucial aspects of the struggle against opportunism.

Lenin's Struggle Against the Slogan of "Freedom of Criticism" and in Militant Defense of Ideological Struggle and the Monolithic Unity of the Party

In order to infiltrate the proletarian parties, opportunism opposes the ideological struggle of the Marxist-Leninists. The opportunists want to carry out their corrosion of the proletarian parties in peace, without obstacle. They arrogantly propagate bourgeois ideology and mock Marxism. But faced by the devastating reply by the Marxist-Leninists, the opportunists cower and demand the right for opposite views on principles to coexist in peace. However, a party that allows the coexistence of opposite views on matters of principle has already lost its militant revolutionary character. Lenin fought irreconcilably for the monolithic character of the proletarian party and against coexistence with opportunism. His well-known fight against the opportunist slogan of "freedom of criticism" and in favor of the ideological struggle is part of this Leninist defense of the party principle.

Lenin exposed the meaning of the slogan of "freedom of criticism" in What Is To Be Done?The "criticism" that is being referred to in the slogan is not the criticism and self-criticism that goes on all the time in a truly Leninist party. Nor is it the self-critical evaluation by the Leninist party of its work. And still less is it the criticism by the Leninist party of all opportunist and revisionist trends. Nor is it the vigorous discussion by the working masses of the burning issues of the revolution. No. The "criticism" that is being referred to in this slogan is a very particular "criticism"; it is "bourgeois criticism of all the fundamental ideas of Marxism" (Ibid.,Ch. I, Sec. A) and it is the revisionist trend that took up this "criticism" and "transferred (it) bodily from bourgeois literature to socialist literature" (Ibid.)In brief, the "criticism" that is being referred to is nothing but opportunism, an opportunism which in those days, like today, liked to present itself as opposition to "dogmatic" Marxism.

Lenin clearly pointed out who the "critics" were that he was fighting:

"In fact, it is no secret that two trends have taken shape in the present-day international social-democracy.... What this 'new' trend, which adopts a 'critical' attitude towards 'obsolete dogmatic' Marxism, represents has with sufficient precision been stated by Bernstein, and demonstratedby Millerand." (Ibid.)

"He who does not deliberately close his eyes cannot fail to see that the new 'critical' trend in Socialism is nothing more nor less than a new variety of opportunism. And if we judge people not by the brilliant uniforms they don, not by the high- sounding appellations they give themselves, but by their actions, and by what they actually advocate, it will be clear that 'freedom of criticism' means freedom for an opportunistic trend in Social-Democracy, the freedom to convert Social-Democracy into a democratic party of reform, the freedom to introduce bourgeois ideas and bourgeois elements into Socialism." (Ibid.)

Lenin fought the adherents of "freedom of criticism" by defending the ideological struggle. He scathingly showed that the "inherent falsehood"in the slogan of "freedom of criticism" was that it demanded the cessation of ideological struggle, the coexistence of opposite views on principle, rather than the "substitution of the new views for the old," that is, rather than the theoretical struggle to replace the incorrect views by the correct ones. He wrote:

" 'Freedom' is a grand word, but under the banner of free trade the most predatory wars were conducted; under the banner of free labour, the toilers were robbed. The modern use of the term freedom of criticism' contains the same inherent falsehood.Those who are really convinced that they have advanced science would demand, not the freedom for the new views to continue side by side with the but the substitution of the new views for theold.The cry 'Long live freedom of criticism,' that is heard today, too strongly calls to mind the fable of the empty barrel.'' (Ibid., emphasis added)

Thus "freedom of criticism" meant freedom for opportunism, freedom from the ideological struggle of the revolutionary Marxists. "Freedom of criticism" meant extinguishing one of the basic forms of the class struggle, namely, the ideological struggle. Lenin opposed the "freedom of criticism" slogan by defending the theoretical struggle and the struggle against opportunism. He showed how negation of the theoretical struggle meant in fact negation of the role of theory altogether. He wrote:

"...that the celebrated freedom of criticism does not imply the substitution of one theory for another, but freedom from all integral and considered theory; it implies eclecticism and lack of principle.(Ibid.,Ch. I, Sec. D, emphasis added)

Economism Negates the Ideological Struggle and the Role of Theory

The opportunist Economists in Russia, the forerunners of the Mensheviks, supported the demand for an end to the ideological struggle and for the "freedom of criticism." The Economists were openly contemptuous of the value of theory and hence ended up supporting the Bernsteinians. Lenin pointed to the opposition by the Economists to the discussion of all theoretical issues and to ideological strife and wrote:

"This fear of criticism being displayed by the advocates of freedom of criticism cannot be attributed solely to craftiness (although, on occasion, no doubt craftiness has something to do with it: it would be unwise to expose the young and as yet frail shoots of the new trend to attacks by opponents). No, the majority of the Economists quite sincerely disapprove (and by the very nature of Economism they must disapprove) of all theoretical controversies, factional disagreements, broad political questions, schemes for organizing revolutionaries, etc. 'Leave all that to the people abroad!' said a fairly consistent Economist to me one day, and thereby he expressed a very widespread (and again a purely trade-unionist) view: our work, he said, is in the working-class movement, the workers' organizations, here, in our parts; all the rest are merely the inventions of doctrinaires, an 'exaggeration of the importance of ideology,'..." (Ibid., Ch. I, Sec. C)

The Economists leaped and danced against " 'the exaggeration of the importance of ideology'." They thought it very clever to counterpose PRACTICAL work or the MASS movement to the theoretical struggle and to put the words "practical" and "mass" in bold capitals. But by downplaying the role of theory, they sunk into the bog of opportunism. For the result of negating theory is to be rendered helpless before the spontaneous development of the working class movement and incapable of resisting any fashionable deviation or prejudice. The result of negating theory is to become a helpless plaything blown and tossed about by every breeze.

Stalin pointed out that Lenin's What Is To Be Done?upheld the role of theory and socialist consciousness against the Economists. Indeed he showed that "the historic significance" of this book lay among other things in that it:

"1) For the first time in the history of Marxist thought, laid bare the ideological roots of opportunism,showing that they principally consisted in worshipping the spontaneous working-class movement and belittling the role of Socialist consciousness in the working-class movement;

"2) Brought out the great importance oftheory,of consciousness, and of the Partyas a revolutionizing and guiding force of the spontaneous working-class movement;..." (The History of the CPSU(B),Short Course, 1939 edition, Ch. 2, Sec. 2, p. 38, emphasis added)

Stalin stressed the great role of theory and, elaborating on the Marxist-Leninist conception, wrote:

"The fall of the Economists' and Mensheviks was due among other things to the fact that they did not recognize the mobilizing, organizing and transforming role of advanced theory, of advanced ideas and, sinking to vulgar materialism, reduced the role of these factors almost to nothing, thus condemning the Party to passivity and inanition.

"The strength and vitality of Marxism-Leninism are derived from the fact that it relies upon an advanced theory which correctly reflects the needs of development of the material life of society, that it elevates theory to a proper level, and that it deems it its duty to utilize every ounce of the mobilizing, organizing and transforming power of this theory." (Ibid.,Ch. 4, Sec. 2 "Dialectical and Historical Materialism," p. 117)

Ideological Struggle and the Monolithic Unity of the Party

The Leninist party is a revolutionary party, a party of action. Hence it must be a united party, a party with iron discipline and unity of will, a monolithic party. Leninism fights for the monolithic character of the party. It shows the ways and means to attain and preserve that unity. The monolithic character of the party cannot simply be declared or decreed. It comes as the result of the protracted revolutionary struggle against the class enemy and against the opportunist trends. And the maintenance of this unity depends on its being constantly tempered in the heat of further revolutionary struggle.

Thus the question arises of how should unity be achieved in the Marxist-Leninist parties and how should their monolithic character be ensured. Some may ask: by ideological means or organizational means? But no, the question cannot be posed in that way. Such a counterposition of the two methods is not proper, not Leninist, but mechanical and bourgeois. Leninism stresses the proper use of both methods. For the class struggle inside the party cannot be considered complete unless it is waged in all its directions.

Leninism teaches that, as Stalin says,

"The source of factionalism in the Party is its opportunist elements." (Foundations of Leninism,Ch. VIII, point 6)

In order to be a united party, a Leninist party, the proletarian party must therefore be built without and against the revisionists and opportunists. The Party must take both organizational and ideological measures against opportunism.

Stalin, elaborating on this Leninist thesis, stressed the rotten nature of the theory of the coexistence in one party of revolutionaries and opportunists. He stated:

"The theory of 'defeating' opportunist elements by ideological struggle within the Party, the theory of 'overcoming' these elements within the confines of a single party, is a rotten and dangerous theory, which threatens to condemn the Party to paralysis and chronic infirmity, threatens to make the Party a prey to opportunism, threatens to leave the proletariat without a revolutionary party, threatens to deprive the proletariat of its main weapon in the fight against imperialism. ... Our Party succeeded in achieving internal unity and unexampled cohesion of its ranks primarily because it was able in good time to purge itself of the opportunist pollution, because it was able to rid its ranks of Liquidators and Mensheviks. Proletarian parties develop and become strong by purging themselves of opportunists and reformists, social-imperialists and social-chauvinists, social-patriots and social-pacifists." (Ibid.)

Here Stalin reiterates the powerful Leninist teachings about the need to split with the opportunists and revisionists. It is teachings such as these that have provided the solid ideological basis for the movement against social-chauvinism, which is purging the Marxist-Leninist movement in the U.S. of the social-chauvinists, Chinese revisionists and various opportunists. These teachings do not denounce ideological struggle, but instead denounced coexistence in one party between Marxism-Leninism and opportunism. Indeed, in general the proper purging of the party presupposes an active ideological struggle. Hence the Leninist party is not just built without the opportunists, but also in struggle against the opportunists, including ideological struggle against the opportunists. Monolithic unity and iron discipline do not negate ideological struggle, but presuppose it. In a striking quotation Stalin stressed that:

"To expel Brandler[a right opportunist -- ed.] and Thalheimer is an easy matter, but the task of overcoming Brandlerism is a difficult and serious one."("A Letter to Comrade Me-rt," Works,Vol. 7, p. 46)

This sentence occurs in the midst of a passage that is rich with a number of profound ideas. This passage reads in part as follows:

"...To disavow Trotsky and his supporters, we Russian Bolsheviks carried out an intense campaign based on an explanation of principles in support of the foundations of Bolshevism against the foundations of Trotskyism, although, considering the strength and prestige of the Central Committee of the R.C.P. (BJ, we could have dispensed with such a campaign. Was that campaign needed? Certainly it was, for by means of it we educated hundreds of thousands of new Party members (and also people who are not Party members) in the spirit of Bolshevism.It is very sad that our German comrades do not feel it necessary that repressive measures against the opposition should be preceded or supplemented by a wide campaign based on an explanation of principles,and are thus hindering the education of the Party members and Party cadres in the spirit of Bolshevism. To expel Brandler and Thalheimer is an easy matter, but the task of overcoming Brandlerism is a difficult and serious one. In this matter, repressive measures alone can only cause harm;here the soil must be deeply ploughed, minds must be greatly enlightened. The R.C.P.B.) always developed through contradictions, i.e., in the struggle against non-communist trends, and only in that struggle did it gain strength and forge real cadres. The same path of development through contradictions,through a real, serious and lengthy struggle against non-communist trends, especially against Social-Democratic traditions, Brandlerism, etc., lies before the C.P.G. [Communist Party of Germany -- ed.]. But repressive measures alone are not enough in such a struggle."(Ibid., pp. 45-46, emphasis added)

It is quite significant that Stalin connects the failure to wage the ideological struggle to failure to understand the role of the inner-party struggle in general. He stresses that a communist party develops "through contradictions, i.e., in the struggle against non-communist trends" and that only in that struggle does it "gain strength and forge real cadres."

Stressing the bad effects of slighting the ideological struggle in the party, Stalin wrote, concerning the methods to be used at a particular time with respect to the Right deviation:

"...Of course, it is easier to remove people from their posts than to conduct a broad and intelligent campaign explaining the Right deviation, the Right danger, and how to combat it. But what is easiest must not be considered the best. Be so good as to organise a broad explanatory campaign against the Right danger, be so good as not to grudge the time for it, and then you will see that the broader and deeper the campaign, the worse it will be for the Right deviation. That is why I think that the central point of our fight against the Right deviation must be an ideological struggle."("Industrialisation of the country and the Right Deviation in the C.P.S.U.(B.)," Works,Vol. 11, p. 300)

Thus monolithic unity and iron discipline do not negate the inner-party struggle in general or the ideological struggle in particular, but presuppose it. It may be Khrushchovism, Bonapartism, bourgeois ideology or whatever you like, but it is certainly not Leninism, to counterpose iron unity to the class struggle within the Party.

Leninism thus calls for the use of both ideological and organizational measures in ensuring the monolithic unity of the party. Leninism not only teaches the use of both methods, but provides an arsenal of theory concerning the proper relations between the two methods and the general principles underlying when to stress one method, when the other, and how to combine them. Leninism thus provides full scope to the ideological struggle as one of the crucial fronts of the proletarian revolutionary class struggle.

[Photo: Lenin Debating With the Narodnik Vorontsov (1894); Narodism had to be completely smashed ideologically if the further spread of Marxism and the creation of a Marxist workers' party were to be assured. This task was performed by Lenin.]

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AGAINST MAO ZEDONG THOUGHT!

--INTRODUCTION--

With this article, The Workers' Advocate is beginning a new series of articles devoted to denouncing the anti-Marxist-Leninist and revisionist theses of Mao Zedong Thought. This series further elaborates in some detail the condemnation of Mao Zedong Thought that has already appeared in The Workers' Advocate. In the last one and a half years since the publication of Comrade Enver Hoxha's great work Imperialism and the Revolution, Chinese revisionism has suffered yet another great fiasco with the widespread exposure and denunciation of Mao Zedong Thought. It is Mao Zedong Thought that has provided the ideological basis for all the various factions of Chinese revisionism and that is the basis of the notorious "three worlds" theory and of the infamous social-chauvinism of "directing the main blow at Soviet social-imperialism." The exposure of Mao Zedong Thought has tremendously deepened the ideological content of the fight against Chinese revisionism and has given a big impetus to the revolutionary tempering of the international Marxist-Leninist communist movement. The fight against Chinese revisionism has exposed the corrupt and opportunist nature of a number of erstwhile fashionable theories and practices. But the fight against Chinese revisionism, like any other profound revolutionary movement, has not taken place without encountering various obstacles and difficulties. And in the course of the struggle against Mao Zedong Thought, a number of differing views have been expressed as to the nature of Mao Zedong Thought. Hence it is important to reiterate the Marxist-Leninist critique of Mao Zedong Thought. Such clarification provides one of the effective means of propagation of revolutionary Marxism-Leninism. In this series of articles we will concentrate on a number of burning issues that have arisen in the course of the struggle against Chinese revisionism and Mao Zedong Thought.

We are publishing this series of articles because the Marxist-Leninist Party of the USA holds that the struggle against revisionism and opportunism must not only be continued, it must be deepened and intensified. The Workers' Advocate stands firmly opposed to all those theories that slight or denigrate the struggle against opportunism. There are those who claim that the questions of revolutionary theory and of struggle against opportunism should not be brought to the rank-and-file revolutionary. They think that it is enough that the masses know that the slogan "Mao Zedong Thought" has been condemned and whom to applaud and whom to boo, while the science of Marxism-Leninism is restricted to a handful. We are opposed to this. We hold that such a practice is only capable of building organizations that are blown by every breeze, organizations that will be prey to every fashionable deviation and unable to defend Marxism-Leninism. The theory of Marxism-Leninism -- and what is inseparably bound up with it, the question of struggle against opportunism -- are matters of vital concern to all revolutionaries and proletarians. To slight this theory is a most dangerous practice. Thus Comrade Enver Hoxha points out in Imperialism and the Revolution that:

"One of the reasons why the former communist parties in the capitalist countries turned into revisionist parties was precisely because they had utterly neglected the study and assimilation of Marxism-Leninism. The Marxist-Leninist doctrine was used only as an adornment, was turned into empty words and slogans, had not been implanted deeply in the consciousness of the party members, had not become part of their flesh and blood, and had not become a weapon for action. That small amount of work which was done for the study of Marxism-Leninism was aimed only at acquainting the party member with some cut-and-dried formulas, just enough to enable him to call himself a communist, to love communism in a sentimental way, while about how and in what manner this would be achieved he knew nothing, because he was not taught this." (Book form, pp. 244-245; and in Proletarian Internationalism, Vol. 1, No. 2, p. 67, col. 2)

This is why every revolutionary and every proletarian must be concerned with the struggle against Mao Zedong Thought. The struggle against revisionism and opportunism is on questions of vital importance for the orientation and direction of the work of the revolution. It is a fight both over the general principles of the revolution and over all the concrete problems of the revolutionary movement. It comes up in the formulation and defense of the revolutionary strategy and tactics in the concrete situations facing each party, over the questions of how and what revolutionary mass organizations to build, over the question of how work among the masses is to be conducted, etc. And the struggle against revisionism and opportunism must be taken to the masses. This is part of imbuing the proletariat with Marxism-Leninism, it is part of the party's task of educating the proletariat. As it was put by Comrade Fiqret Shehu at the scientific sessions in Albania in October 1978:

"The historical experience of the struggle between Marxism-Leninism and revisionism over the last decades too, fully confirms Lenin's teaching that the only correct Marxist line in the world communist movement is to explain to the proletariat and all the working people the absolute need to break with revisionism and opportunism, to educate the masses through a consistent struggle against those trends, to expose their betrayal of the proletariat and the peoples and all the infamy of the policy they pursue." (Problems of Current World Development, Tirana, Albania, 1979, p. 68)

Today, to the ranks of those opposed to carrying the struggle against Chinese revisionism through to the end, there have been added those who are scoffing at "ideological struggle" and who have been brutally attacking our Party in part on the grounds of our Party's active and leading role in the movement against social-chauvinism in the U.S. These worthy gentlemen are willing, in order to soothe their conscience or to avoid being condemned by the masses of indignant revolutionaries, to "support" the struggle against revisionism and opportunism in the same way as the priests sometimes cry "Hallelujah!, Hallelujah!" But they fling themselves with a vengeance against the actual ongoing movement in the U.S. against Chinese revisionism, and they savagely seek to strangle our Party which is in the thick of this struggle. They oppose the fierce battle of revolutionary Marxism-Leninism against revisionism and opportunism by taking up the downright economist and pacifist position of opposing "ideological struggle." They sigh and whine that: just look, all these different groups, sects, parties, ideologies, and they are all in struggle against each other. What a mess! Let us just close our eyes and hope that it will all go away!

This demoralized petty-bourgeois view that denounces "ideological struggle" is the complete opposite of the Marxist-Leninist conception. The revolutionary Marxist-Leninists say: the class enemies are attacking, on the ideological front as on the other fronts! So, to arms, comrades, to the front lines! The whiners and pacifists say in unison: the class enemies are attacking! Oh how horrible! Let's wring our hands, call for peace and quiet and denounce the evils of struggle! The revolutionary Marxist-Leninists say: the revisionists are in such disarray and have suffered such fiasco that even some of them are forced to admit the impossibility of stopping the ideological struggle! Therefore let us step up the battle and strike them some new blows! There is no stopping until the utter destruction of modern revisionism! The whiners shake their heads and suggest that perhaps this whole struggle is one big diversion. After all, aren't there better things to do? Why be so "sectarian" as to build the Marxist-Leninist Party without and against the revisionists and opportunists when it is so much more "practical" to dance with this or that opportunist chief for the pragmatic interests of the moment? They denounce the ideological struggle as an alleged "disruption of unity," but they tremble at the sight of the monolithic unity of a Marxist-Leninist party such as ours and mutter about "religious discipline and loyalty," "Charlie's angels," and "dummies." But all the whining is to no avail. The ideological struggle cannot be stopped by either side. It is a reflection of the irreconcilable antagonism between Marxism- Leninism and revisionism, of the fierce life and death struggle between socialism on one side and imperialism and its lackeys on the other.

As well, we find that these gentlemen have reduced the repudiation of Mao Zedong Thought to such absurdities as denouncing one or two word phrases, like "movements," "campaigns," "alliances" and "getting organized." In brief, we find that they have no serious criticism of Mao Zedong Thought at all. Just imagine, how is it possible to denounce "movements," "campaigns" and "alliances" as Maoism. The revolutionary Marxist-Leninists have their "movements," "campaigns" and "alliances"; the Maoists also have their "movements," "campaigns" and "alliances," and indeed we find that those who are denouncing these one-word phrases themselves have their own "movements," "campaigns" and "alliances" that they are very proud of. Clearly it is a question of what type of movements, campaigns and alliances, of what principles or lack of principles underlie them, and so forth. But to ignore all this and to sum up one's alleged opposition to Mao Zedong Thought with such meaningless generalities as opposition to "movements" is to admit that one has no serious opposition to Maoism at all.

This reduction of the denunciation of Mao Zedong Thought to absurd trivialities like denouncing "movements" and "campaigns" shows the sorry results of negating the ideological struggle. And indeed, when these gentlemen proceed to denounce the "ideological struggle" as allegedly Maoism, they have gone to the extent of denouncing one of the basic tenets of Marxism-Leninism. Marxism-Leninism holds that the ideological or theoretical struggle is one of the three basic forms of the class struggle and it is necessary and obligatory at all times. In denouncing ideological struggle -- and it makes little difference whether or not these gentlemen occasionally put quotation marks a- round the phrase to make it more ironical -- they are throwing out the baby with the bath water, for they are throwing out Marxism-Leninism under the pretext of denouncing Maoism. Indeed, these worthy gentlemen especially vent their ire against the movement against social-chauvinism, for forsooth it is both a "movement" and involves "ideological struggle" as well. By applying their inanities to denounce the indignation and revolt of the progressive masses against social-chauvinism and Chinese revisionism, these gentlemen are showing that their whole song and dance about "movements" and "campaigns" and so forth is not intended to fight Chinese revisionism at all, but serves only to oppose the struggle against Chinese revisionism, to reduce it to harmless phrases, and to prevent it from being carried through to the end. Their topsy-turvy logic amounts to the sophistry of declaring that the fight against Chinese revisionism is allegedly itself a manifestation of Chinese revisionism for it is "ideological struggle."

And indeed the denunciation of "movements" and "campaigns," of "getting organized" and of "ideological struggle" by these gentlemen is just Maoism turned inside out. For it was the Chinese revisionists who made a big point of reducing the struggle against revisionism to stereotyped formulas, six-word quotations torn out of context and nonsensical anti-Marxist jingles. And now these gentlemen, under the pretext of fighting Maoism, have taken the Maoist method to the extreme of denouncing even single words. What rot! Indeed this demagogical slogan-mongering is Maoism inside out in more ways than one. For again it was the Chinese revisionists themselves who have repeatedly opposed the ideological struggle against revisionism, constantly sought reconciliation with this or that opportunist, and so on and so forth. While today by crusading against "ideological struggle" these gentlemen are advocating what are in essence the same theories under the pretext of opposing Maoism. They practice the replacement of "ideological struggle" with the opportunist "tactic" of "put unity in the forefront, and the opportunists expose themselves."

Under the cover of such trivial and apparently meaningless "profundities" as denouncing "campaigns" and "movements," these gentlemen are in fact putting forward the view that Maoism and "ideological struggle" are in essence ultra-leftism, that Maoism is exaggeration of the struggle against revisionism, and so on and so forth. They are opposing the Marxist-Leninist condemnation of Mao Zedong Thought as a dangerous variant of modern revisionism and they are indifferent to denouncing the social-democratic theses that saturate Mao Zedong Thought. These gentlemen in fact counterpose the struggle against ultra-leftism to the struggle against revisionism. This again is just Maoism turned inside out. This is the old familiar refrain of the Chinese revisionists who opposed Marxism- Leninism, the struggle against revisionism and the spirit of revolution under the guise of fighting "dogmatism" and "ultra-leftism." Revolutionary Marxism-Leninism is hostile to and actively combats both right and left opportunism, but without losing sight of the fact that today modern revisionism, right opportunism, remains the main danger in the international communist and workers' movement. And truly only those whose brains have been addled through repetition of meaningless generalities about "campaigns" and "movements" could forget the fact that at the present time in the U.S. and certain other countries, social-democracy (Eurocommunism is playing a similar role) is being further activated by the bourgeoisie; the three worlders are merging with social-democracy as the other revisionists did before them; the labor bureaucracy is taking on a deeper tinge of social-democracy, and the social-democrats and various revisionist trends in chorus are stepping up their efforts to wipe out any revolutionary spirit and to fight Marxism-Leninism. Meanwhile these gentlemen are singing lullabies to the effect that allegedly there is no way that revisionism and opportunism can arise again with the same kind of bluster that they had in the 1970's and that the main danger is the allegedly ultra-leftist error of "ideological struggle."

The Workers' Advocate will never accept any of these pseudo-theories. We stand opposed to the denigration or slighting, even if it only be to the smallest degree, of the role of the Marxist-Leninist ideology. We hold that confusion stems not from ideological struggle, but from the insufficient development of the ideological struggle. Therefore we are for carrying the struggle against Chinese revisionism through to the end, and for giving that struggle a deep and firm ideological basis. This is why we are writing this series of articles.

The Workers' Advocate also holds that in fighting Chinese revisionism, it is essential not to neglect the struggle against the other currents and trends of revisionism and opportunism. For example, there can be no complacency about the struggle against modern Soviet revisionism which remains a deadly enemy of the international communist and workers' movement. Soviet revisionism not only is the most elaborated and worked out system of modern revisionism, and not only possesses all the possibilities afforded by being in control of the state power of a superpower, but it also seeks to hide its treachery to Marxism-Leninism and the revolution behind the prestige of allegedly being the party of Lenin and the first soviet state, although in fact the renegade Khrushchov and his successors have betrayed and destroyed the party of Lenin and Stalin long ago and restored capitalism in the Soviet Union. There can be no illusions in or slackening of the struggle against the Soviet revisionists or their followers in the various countries. And as well vigorous opposition must be maintained against Eurocommunism, Titoite revisionism, Trotskyism, social-democracy and all currents of revisionism and opportunism.

It is important to notice that the struggle against Soviet revisionism (and the same holds for the other revisionist and opportunist trends) is not only expressed in condemnation of Soviet social-imperialism and of the theories and ideology of Soviet revisionism, but also in the way in which Chinese revisionism is condemned. For example, the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists denounce the Chinese revisionists and Mao Zedong Thought for, among other things, obstructing, vacillating and wavering in, and sabotaging the struggle against modern Soviet revisionism. This condemnation is in itself a call for further and more intense and consistent struggle against Soviet revisionism. Meanwhile the Soviet revisionists also denounce Mao Zedong Thought, but from the point of view of saying that the struggle against Soviet revisionism was wrong. Clearly the Marxist-Leninists and the Soviet revisionists are denouncing Mao Zedong Thought from two entirely opposite standpoints. And those who adopt the fashionable theories that Mao Zedong Thought was basically too leftist, fought too hard against the Soviet revisionists, issued too many polemics or engaged in too much "ideological struggle," are not only wrong both in fact and in theory, but they are also in effect blunting the struggle against Soviet revisionism. Soviet revisionism, social-democracy and various other opportunists are especially interested in the type of criticism of Maoism that presents it as too revolutionary and use this type of criticism as a way of disparaging the revolution, disorienting the progressive masses and promoting philistine and liberal-labor politics. This type of criticism of Mao Zedong Thought has been widely trumpeted by those seeking an end to the struggle against opportunism, and it brings grist to the mill of both Soviet revisionism and social-democracy. One of the potent antidotes to this opportunist criticism of Mao Zedong Thought is maintaining the revolutionary content to and correct orientation in the criticism of Chinese revisionism. The powerful Marxist-Leninist denunciation of Chinese revisionism and Mao Zedong Thought trains the masses in distinguishing the utter rottenness and filth of all revisionism and strikes hard at Soviet revisionism and social-democracy. For while it is essential to take account of the different forms in which the various revisionist currents present themselves, nevertheless they are all branches from one single trunk and all express the same bourgeois and counter-revolutionary socio-political content.

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-- PART ONE --

MAO ZEDONG THOUGHT AND THE FIGHT AGAINST SOVIET REVISIONISM

In the first parts of this series we shall concentrate on various questions related to ideological struggle and the struggle against opportunism. We shall uphold the Marxist-Leninist critique of Mao Zedong Thought as anti- Marxist-Leninist and revisionist. This critique condemns Mao Zedong Thought for being opposed to the struggle against opportunism. We shall refute that distortion of the criticism of Mao Zedong Thought that presents Mao Zedong Thought as allegedly being the exaggeration of the struggle against opportunism, the issuing of too many polemics or the practice of engaging in ideological struggle. Such a vulgarization of the criticism of Mao Zedong Thought is a complete negation both of historical reality and of Marxist-Leninist theory, and it can only bring grist to the mills of Soviet revisionism, social-democracy and the other revisionist and opportunist trends.

In this part, Part One, we shall take up the following question: Did Mao Zedong and the Chinese leadership fight too hard against Soviet revisionism and wage too much "ideological struggle," or on the contrary did they waver and vacillate in the struggle against Soviet revisionism and seek to strip this struggle of its deep ideological content and to extinguish it altogether?

In judging whether or not Mao Zedong and the Chinese leadership fought too hard or not hard enough against Soviet revisionism and what their attitude was to ideological struggle, a key criterion of tremendous practical, historical and scientific importance is the assessment of the history of the struggle against Soviet, Khrushchovite revisionism. Whether or not Mao Zedong Thought is an exaggeration of the struggle against opportunism or is hostile to this struggle can be seen in practice by what stands it took towards modern Soviet revisionism and the related revisionist currents. Whether Mao Zedong Thought stood for ideological struggle, and what type of ideological struggle, can be seen by examining whether or not the Chinese leadership waged a vigorous ideological struggle against the Soviet revisionists. Our Party paid special attention to the history of this struggle of crucial importance for the international communist and workers' movement, the struggle against Soviet revisionism, in studying the question of Mao Zedong Thought and in delving into the question of finding the roots of the "three worlds" theory, roots that have proved to be Mao Zedong Thought itself. And this study shows that the Chinese leadership repeatedly vacillated, wavered and obstructed the struggle against Khrushchovite revisionism. The Chinese leadership and Mao Zedong personally did not want to enter this struggle, dragged their feet when they found themselves in it, found it a heavy burden, did grave damage to the ant-revisionist cause and finally collapsed altogether into open revisionist positions and alliance with imperialism. Far from engaging in too much ideological struggle, the Chinese leadership was hostile to polemics, slow to begin them and early to leave them, and repeatedly acted to strip the polemic with the revisionists of its deep ideological content.

Thus, far from exaggerating the ideological struggle, the deep-rooted error of Mao Zedong and the Chinese leadership in this regard was precisely that they were not motivated by profound ideological reasons in the struggle against Soviet revisionism, but only by pragmatic considerations. On such a basis, it is impossible to maintain a real struggle against Soviet revisionism. Comrade Enver Hoxha has pointed out that such a struggle, motivated by pragmatic considerations rather than the Marxist-Leninist ideology, is in fact the middle road in questions of principle and is but "a mere bluff which is short-lived." He stated at the Fifth Congress of the Party of Labor of Albania in 1966 that:

"...there can be no middle road. The 'golden mean' is the line of the reconciliation of opposites, which can never be reconciled. Nor can the middle road serve to disguise the deviations from Marxist-Leninist principles, because, if the fight against revisionism is not inspired by ideological motives, but only by certain economic and political motives on a national chauvinist basis, it is a mere bluff which is short-lived. Those who uphold this line in their stand toward the renegades from Marxism-Leninism are themselves in danger of slipping, sooner or later, into the positions of the latter..." (Cited in the History of the Party of Labor of Albania, Ch. VII, Sec. 2, pp. 603-604, emphasis added)

And indeed the stand of the Chinese leadership against the Soviet revisionists proved to be a mere bluff which was short-lived. The Chinese leadership has today openly come forth in full revisionist positions and joined openly in the dance of the inter-imperialist (and inter-revisionist) rivalries and alliances.

Now let us review some of the facts about the vacillating, wavering and conciliationist stands of the Chinese leadership in the struggle against Khrushchovite revisionism. The study of the crimes of the Chinese revisionists against the anti-revisionist struggle is tremendously facilitated by such authoritative works as the Albanian Letter of July 29, 1978 (Letter of the CC of the Party of Labor and the Government of Albania to the CC of the Communist Party and the of China, July 29, 1978), and Comrade Enver Hoxha's monumental works Reflections on China volumes I and II, and Imperialism and the Revolution.

To begin with, the Chinese leadership did not even want to start the polemical struggle against the Khrushchovite revisionists at all. They were not hotheads eager to jump out into polemics and ideological struggle with the Soviet revisionists but ultra-sluggish conciliators, centrists, rightists, social-democrats. Their pragmatic motivations did not lead them to exaggerate the struggle against revisionism but, on the contrary, to avoid that struggle, to seek to tone it down and to seek reconciliation with the Soviet revisionists. When the Khrushchovite revisionists had forced the open struggle by their savage and brutal attacks on Marxism-Leninism and the international communist and workers' movement, the Chinese leadership held back from this struggle. It was left to the staunch and principled revolutionary Marxist-Leninists of the Party of Labor of Albania to begin the open struggle. And it was the Party of Labor of Albania that bore the burden of this struggle single-handedly for almost three years while the Chinese leadership was seeking an end to the polemics. Thus when the Soviet revisionists publicly attacked the Party of Labor of Albania at the 22nd Congress of the CPSU in October 1961, Zhou Enlai, on behalf of the Chinese leadership, did not defend the Party of Labor of Albania but instead demanded the end of polemics. The Albanian Letter documents the conciliationist stand of the Chinese leadership and its reluctance to begin the struggle with the Khrushchovite Soviet revisionists. It states:

"The Bucharest Meeting and, later, the Conference of the 81 Communist and Workers' Parties in Moscow [of 1960 -- ed.] marked the final split between the Marxist-Leninists and Khrushchovite revisionists, and the beginning of the open polemics between them. Whereas our Party initiated and carried on the fight against Khrushchovite revisionism with consistency and resolve, the Chinese leadership wavered and failed to adopt clear-cut anti-Khrushchovite stands. In the initial stage of the fierce polemics between the Party of Labor of Albania and the Khrushchovite revisionists, China was in agreement with Albania, but this only on the surface, because, in reality, as was proved later, it was seeking a reconciliation with the Soviets and the extinction of polemics with them." (p. 25, emphasis added)

"In this manner, when the reconciliation and agreement with the Soviet revisionists, so ardently sought by the Chinese leadership, did not materialize, only then [late 1963 --ed.] the Communist Party of China effectively entered the road of anti-Khrushchovism and agreed to the determined, consistent and principled struggle of the Party of Labor of Albania. This could not fail to rejoice the Party of Labor of Albania and the Albanian people who, single-handed, were for almost three years then facing up to the open frenzied attacks of Khrushchov and entire modern revisionism." (p. 27, emphasis added)

Hence for almost three long years the Party of Labor of Albania was left to wage the open fight against Soviet revisionism alone. And shortly after the Chinese leadership finally joined the struggle against Khrushchovite revisionism, they immediately began to vacillate again. In April 1964 they sent Khrushchov himself a telegram of congratulations on his birthday. Later in 1964 the Chinese leadership began bringing forward territorial claims against the Soviet Union. This was a major blunder. The Khrushchovites used this stand of the Chinese leadership to discredit the struggle against revisionism. With this stand, the Chinese leadership diverted the struggle away from the ideological issues and instead brought forward national chauvinist positions. But a struggle waged from such chauvinist positions is, as Comrade Enver Hoxha teaches, only "a mere bluff which is short-lived." Hence, having raised the territorial questions, only a short time later, on the occasion of the downfall of Khrushchov later in 1964, the Chinese leadership tried very hard for reconciliation with the Soviet revisionists and held meetings with the Soviet revisionists to try to arrange this reconciliation. This failed. But the Chinese vacillations continued.

These stands of the Chinese leadership are documented in detail in Comrade Enver Hoxha's book Reflections on China. The following is one of many passages that stresses that the Chinese leadership did not want to start the polemical struggle against the Khrushchovite revisionists and that they wavered after it began:

"In this document["On the Ten Major Relationships," April 1956 -- ed.]Mao took the initiative, which might have been coordinated with the Khrushchovites, as it was in fact, Khrushchov had informed Mao of his revisionist ideas and about the actions he was to undertake. Mao was in agreement with Khrushchov, a thing which he stated publicly at the Moscow Meeting of 1957, where he praised Khrushchov, attacked Stalin, and approved Khrushchov's liquidation of the 'anti-party group of Molotov and company.' And in this way Mao assisted Khrushchov.... The 8th Congress of the Communist Party of China was in tune with the Khrushchovites,...

"Mao's aim was to help not Khrushchov but himself, so that China would become the main leader of the communist world and Mao would replace Stalin, whom they thought they had buried. Mao acted quickly to take hegemony.

"Khrushchov for his part wanted to bring Mao Tsetung into line, and under his direction, meanwhile, however, the Party of Labor of Albania intervened by defending Marxism-Leninism and the Communist Party of China. The fire of the polemic was kindled at Bucharest and the Party of Labour of Albania continued it 'with a volley of machine-gun fire' at the Meeting of 81 Parties in Moscow. Mao was for putting out this great fire, was opposed to the polemic. He wanted meetings, wanted social-democratic agreements because he himself was a social-democrat, anopportunist, a revisionist. But Mao could not extinguish the fire or the polemic, and seeing that he was unable to establish his hegemony, he changed his stand. Mao took a somewhat 'better' anti-Soviet stand, and here he appeared to be in accord with us who were fighting Khrushchovite revisionism consistently. But even at this time he had hopes of rapprochement with the Khrushchovite revisionists. Efforts were made to this end by the Chinese leaders, but we opposed them.

"When Khrushchov fell, Mao's hopes revived.... This was a fiasco for Mao Tsetung. Then, from the strategy of the fight on the two flanks he turned towards the United States of America." (Reflections on China, Volume II, from near the start of the entry for December 28, 1976, emphasis as in the original)

Thus the Chinese leadership was not for ideological struggle nor for exaggerating the struggle against revisionism. On the contrary, Mao Zedong personally was for social-democratic agreements, for coexistence with and alliances with the Soviet revisionists, for working together. Not ultra-leftism, but social-democratic rightism and centrism characterized his stand towards the Khrushchovites. And even after the Chinese leadership joined the anti-revisionist struggle, it continued to waver and to bring forward a number of stands directed against this struggle. Among these stands are the following:

-- The Chinese leadership put forward the theory of "the revisionists take the first step, we take the second." According to this slogan, the revisionists could never be attacked unless they themselves attacked first. Or, as Comrade Enver Hoxha puts it:

"The tactic of the Chinese is that, if the enemy beats his drum loudly, they beat theirs a little more softly, if the enemy muffles his drum beat, their own drum should not beat at all." (Ibid., from the beginning of the entry for September 15, 1964) The Chinese leadership made the whole question who attacked first long after the time for such formalities had passed and the revisionists had already long ago taken "the first step," if not the first hundreds upon hundreds of steps. The Chinese leadership used this slogan to justify their hesitations and sluggishness and waverings.

-- The Chinese leadership put forward in early 1965 the theory that they were fighting the Soviet revisionists through the articles of the fraternal parties, and would not themselves directly attack the Soviet revisionists until they were attacked. Hence this theory was an elaboration of or a variant of "they take the first step and we take the second." Comrade Enver Hoxha scathingly pointed out:

"Hence, a 'stern' fight with others' bullets. And the Chinese, living on 'borrowed flour,' will deal the witch the 'final blow' after the others have torn the mask from her. In a word, this means to build your reputation on the other's efforts. This is truly revolting, neither Marxist, nor honorable." (Ibid., entry of February 3, 1965, emphasis as in the original)

-- The Chinese leadership put forward the opportunist theory of the "anti-imperialist united front including even the modern revisionists." This means to stop the polemics with the revisionists, to put aside the questions which "divide" the Marxist-Leninists and the revisionists and to give up struggle against revisionism. It means to not believe that the revisionists are actually counter-revolutionaries and pro-imperialists. And indeed what kind of struggle against imperialism can be waged on a basis acceptable to the revisionists? Only a struggle in words, a verbal struggle to pull the wool over the eyes of the masses, a tinsel struggle, not a real one.

-- The Chinese leadership attempted to reconcile with the Soviet revisionists following the downfall of Khrushchov, although Khrushchov's successors neither repudiated the revisionist ideology nor the crimes of Khrushchov.

-- The Chinese leadership constantly maneuvered with and sought alliances and even warm friendships with all sorts of other revisionists allegedly "against" the Soviet revisionists. The Chinese leadership was interested in the Titoite revisionists, the Romanians, the Eurocommunists and so on. What type of principled struggle can be waged against Soviet revisionism when one is allying with one revisionism allegedly "against" the other? Naturally, as well such a policy means compromising or giving up the ideological struggle against revisionism. In fact the Chinese alliances with Romania, the Titoite revisionists and others served as a bridge towards reconciliation with the Soviet revisionists and building contacts with the U.S. imperialists.

-- Titoite, Yugoslav revisionism was the first example of revisionism in power. The struggle against Titoite revisionism is not a minor question, but a major question of principle in itself and one of the crucial issues over which the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists fought against Khrushchovite revisionism. The Chinese leadership opposed the condemnation of Titoite revisionism and had publicly whined that this was an alleged "mistake" of Stalin's. The Chinese leadership invited the Titoites to the 8th Congress of their party in 1956. The Chinese leadership only condemned the Titoites for a short period, for expediency, in the struggle against Soviet revisionism. They then immediately began to waver again, to seek alliances with the Titoites and so forth. In 1968>and 1975 they went to the extent of trying to force socialist Albania into a military alliance with the Titoites. Finally the Chinese leadership has once again come out into the open with full praise of Titoite revisionism.

-- The Chinese leadership has always had a condescending and arrogant attitude towards the new Marxist-Leninist parties that were born in the struggle against modern revisionism. They were interested in these parties only for the purpose of trying to turn them into gramophones for the Chinese line. The Chinese leadership did a tremendous amount of damage to these parties, negated the principle that there is only one party in each country, promoted anti-party groupings, and so forth. These stands of the Chinese leadership revealed that they had no faith whatsoever that strong new parties could emerge from the struggle against revisionism and were opposed to building the Marxist-Leninist parties without and against the revisionists and opportunists. Instead the Chinese leadership pinned its hopes on alliances with the rotten parties of modern revisionism, whether Eurocommunism or the revisionist parties in power.

-- The Chinese leadership has repeatedly removed the ideological content from the struggle against the modern Soviet revisionists. This is particularly apparent in the period of the 1970's. And when the Chinese leadership embarked upon the alliance with U.S. imperialism and began attacks on the Soviet Union in accordance with the theory of "three worlds" and "directing the main blow at Soviet social-imperialism," these attacks were not ideological struggle or ideological articles at all but simply propaganda attacks.

-- The Chinese Communist Party was absolutely silent when Nixon visited Moscow in 1972. They did not expose or denounce the Soviet revisionists for their dealings with Nixon in the slightest. Hence the Chinese leadership not only made its own deals with Nixon during his visit to China, but stopped the polemic against both U.S. imperialism and Soviet revisionism. Naturally it is hard to flay the Soviets for the same crimes that one has oneself just committed.

-- And even today the Chinese leadership may, if it suits their pragmatic interests, reverse their alliances and ally with the Soviet social-imperialists against the U.S. imperialists. It is not for nothing that they have repeatedly sought reconciliation with the Soviet revisionists during the whole struggle against Soviet revisionism. Or, the Chinese revisionist leadership may take up a position similar to that of the Titoites and openly pelt both U.S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism with flowers and conciliationist rhetoric with only the flimsiest pretext of "opposition" to this or that policy.

The above is only a partial listing of the multitude of conciliationist and wavering stands taken by the Chinese leadership in the struggle against Soviet revisionism. These stands of the Chinese leadership were not accidents. They reflect the fact that Mao Zedong Thought is anti-Marxist-Leninist and revisionist itself. They reflect the fact that Mao Zedong Thought contains a whole arsenal of pseudo-theories aimed at negating the struggle against opportunism. For example, the Chinese revisionists denounced Comrade Stalin and Marxism-Leninism for the struggle against opportunism and held that this struggle was sectarian, ultra-left, a disruption of the struggle against the class enemy and that opportunism was in fact a "middle force" to be united with. Thus the Chinese have made a point of denouncing the analysis concerning the struggle against opportunism and the question of the "main blow" given in Section III of Comrade Stalin's article The October Revolution and the Tactics of the Russian Communists in which Stalin emphasizes the importance of the struggle against the opportunist and compromising parties. The Chinese revisionists and Mao Zedong Thought counterpose their ideas of opportunism as a "middle force" to the Marxist-Leninist teachings about opportunism. Naturally such treacherous stands of the Chinese leadership as the "united front against imperialism including the modern revisionists" were just the translation into practical politics of the stand that opportunism is a "middle force" to be united with. The Chinese revisionists as well elaborated their opposition to Marxism-Leninism by denouncing the struggle against social-democracy and the term social- fascism. They have resurrected the rotten trotskyite lies about the rise to power of Hitlerite fascism being allegedly the result of the "sectarian" struggle against social-democracy and denied the truth that social-democracy facilitated Hitler's rise and paved the way to power for him. And today the flabby attitude of the followers of Chinese revisionism towards social-democracy, indeed their ardent embraces of social-democracy and merger into the social-democratic morass, and their cover-up of the role of social-democracy in implementing the fascist offensive of big capital, is just the translation into practical politics of the anti-Marxist-Leninist positions of Mao Zedong Thought concerning social-democracy. The Workers ' Advocate has discussed the opposition of Chinese revisionism to the struggle against opportunism in the series of articles "U.S. Neo-Revisionism as the American Expression of the International Opportunist Trend of Chinese Revisionism," especially Parts II and V in the issues of The Workers' Advocate of May 1, 1979 and October 15, 1979. It can be seen that Mao Zedong Thought not only utterly negates the Marxist- Leninist teachings on the struggle against opportunism and on the ideological struggle, but the Chinese revisionists have trumpeted to the skies their opposition to this struggle and their condemnation of Comrade Stalin for his principled struggle against opportunism. It is utter prettification of Chinese revisionism to close one's eyes to and forget about these infamous and widely propagated theories of Mao Zedong Thought and instead to regard Maoism as an exaggeration of the struggle against opportunism.

Along with its open theories against the struggle against opportunism, Mao Zedong Thought has also promoted caricatures of theoretical work. On the one hand Mao Zedong Thought denigrates the need for Marxist-Leninist theory and advocates mindless pragmatism and practicism, while on the other hand it advocates the elaboration of theory detached from practice. This advocacy of theory detached from practice is used to sabotage and conciliate the struggle against opportunism, to promote intellectualism and coffeehouse Marxism on the pretext that the time is not ripe for revolutionary action and to provide an allegedly "orthodox"-sounding cover for the most reformist and revisionist practice. Our Party has opposed this separation of theory from practice from the day of the founding of our predecessor, the American Communist Workers Movement (Marxist-Leninist), in May 1969. hi the struggle against social-chauvinism we denounced the reduction of the struggle against revisionism to isolated phrases and arbitrary "dividing lines," the reduction of the living, revolutionary principles of Marxism-Leninism to lifeless, meaningless formulas and analogies and historical parallels, as an idealist distortion of the theoretical struggle, a distortion in the service of the social-chauvinists themselves and of the conciliators. We called this method "idealist anti-revisionism" and thus denounced it as a sham anti-revisionism, which was word-juggling in the clouds, and called for a solid, genuine, materialist anti-revisionism. In our article "How to Advance the Struggle Against Social-Chauvinism" of February 1978 we flayed idealist anti-revisionism; we showed that this distortion was in fact the method denounced by Comrade Stalin in his article "Lenin as the Organizer and Leader of the Russian Communist Party" as the method of the opportunists and the Mensheviks. And we showed that it was the method of the Klonskyite Pentagon-socialists themselves. Indeed, it is a traditional method of social-democracy.

The Chinese revisionists dragged out these caricatures of the struggle against opportunism to serve as a cover for the factional fighting in the Chinese Communist Party. And the influence of these methods caused damage outside China as well. During the so-called "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" in China these methods were further applied and even taken to extremes. Among these methods is the reduction of all ideological issues to several word quotations, to lifeless, meaningless phrases and stereotyped formulas. Peking Review was noted for its potboiler articles consisting of stale repetition of formulas over and over again combined with pictures of Mao. In the U.S. there were those who even organized debates on whether "political line" or "class struggle" was the "key link" and other modern-day versions of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Behind these formulas and equivocal hints the Chinese revisionists completely buried the actual facts and ideological issues involved. During this period, the struggle against Soviet and other revisionism, the examination of the political and ideological ideas actually guiding the Communist Party of China, and other such questions, were generally toned down or even essentially eliminated. The method of mindless screaming about "the theoreticians of 'ideological struggle'" or "the theoreticians of the 'movement'" (this would have been called "the 'line' of 'ideological struggle' " or "the 'line' of the 'movement' " in the not too distant past) and so on and so forth will be completely familiar to those who have lived through the period of the Cultural Revolution and tried to follow the Peking Review or the debates among the domestic idealist anti-revisionists. True, Mao Zedong Thought and the Chinese Communist Party at that time talked a lot about the primacy of "political work," the necessity to create "public opinion" and "to do work in the ideological sphere" and so on and so forth. They talked and talked in generalities, but the more they talked about political and ideological work the more stereotyped their formulas were and the less they actually engaged in such work. Comrade Stalin, in the Report to the XVII Party Congress on the Work of the Central Committee of the C.P.S. U.(B.) scathingly condemned "...idle chatter about 'leadership in general' instead of real and concrete leadership;..." (Section III.2) And this applies fully to Chinese revisionism in general and the "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution" in particular. There were hurricanes of idle chatter about political work and ideological work in general instead of real and concrete ideological work. Not ideological work, but factional fighting, the whispering in the ears of the Red Guards about whom to attack and whom to defend, the dressing up of Lin Piao's soldiers in civilian garb, the sordid pragmatic balancing of factions against each other -- these were the "gifts" of Mao Zedong Thought to the "GPCR" and the Chinese people, who rose to fight the ultra-revisionists. And yet there are those today who, after the mask has been stripped from these liberal, social-democratic, anarchist and factionalist methods of Mao Zedong Thought, after the deeply rightist essence of all this has been exposed, want to put the mask back over the enigma of China and set up Mao Zedong Thought as the model of ideological struggle! No, revolutionary Marxism-Leninism will never accept such a prettification of Mao Zedong Thought!

Chinese revisionism has built up a myth around Mao Zedong, a myth that among other things makes him into the great opponent of Khrushchovite revisionism and that presented Mao Zedong Thought as the alternative to modern revisionism. Many revolutionaries around the world looked up to Mao Zedong because they believed that he was the major leader of the struggle against modern revisionism. It is the duty of the revolutionary Marxist-Leninists to destroy the unwarranted myths of Chinese revisionism. Those who are advocating that Mao Zedong Thought is an exaggeration of the struggle against revisionism and is ideological struggle (with or without quotation marks) are to that extent still under the sway of the myth of Mao Zedong. Therefore on this question, under the banner of denouncing Mao Zedong Thought, they are bringing grist to the mill of the Khrushchovite or social-democratic criticism of Mao Zedong Thought that proceeds from the standpoint that there is something ultra-left, sectarian or disruptive of unity in the struggle against revisionism and opportunism. And indeed such theses are also close in spirit, if not identical, to the tired-out old theses of Mao Zedong Thought and Chinese revisionism themselves. Thus such denunciations of Maoism as ideological struggle are striking examples of Marx's comment that: "The antiquated makes an attempt to reestablish itself and maintain itself within the newly achieved form." (Letter to Bolte, 23 November 1871), for something similar to the theses of Mao Zedong Thought against the struggle against opportunism are reappearing in the form of a denunciation of Mao Zedong Thought.

But revolutionary Marxism-Leninism denounces Mao Zedong Thought from the point of defending the ideological struggle and the anti-revisionist struggle. It neither adopts the Khrushchovite standpoint of denouncing the ideological struggle against opportunism nor does it fall prey to the myth of Mao's leadership of the anti-revisionist struggle. Revolutionary Marxism-Leninism holds that the ideological struggle is one of the three fundamental forms of the class struggle. It teaches that without fighting opportunism, imperialism can not be fought successfully. And indeed the sorry evolution of Chinese revisionism has provided additional proof of this, for history has proven that the opposition of the Chinese leadership to struggle against opportunism was directly related to their repeated striving for accommodation with imperialism and China's eventual transformation into an aggressive social-imperialist power directly allied with US. Imperialism.

Revolutionary Marxism-Leninism exposes the myth of Mao and painstakingly exposes the true facts about the role of Mao Zedong Thought and Chinese revisionism and calls for the stepping up of the struggle against Chinese revisionism, Khrushchovite revisionism, social-democracy and all forms of revisionism and opportunism. The study of the history of the struggle against Khrushchovite revisionism provides abundant confirmation of the Marxist-Leninist critique of Mao Zedong Thought as a deeply rightist theory, a revisionist theory saturated with theses typical of classical social-democracy. This study shows that far from being the major leader of the struggle against Soviet revisionism, and far from exaggerating the struggle against opportunism, the Chinese revisionists and Mao Zedong adopted centrist, rightist, vacillating and conciliatory stands towards modern revisionism right from the start.

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11th Congress of the CP of Colombia [M-L], an Important Event for the Colombian Marxist-Leninist

(The following article is reprinted from Albanian Telegraphic Agency News Bulletin, May 15, 1980.)

In a press communique, the National Propaganda Secretariat of the Communist Party of Colombia (Marxist- Leninist) informs that the 11th Congress of this Party was held. Follows the text of this communique:

The Communist Party of Colombia (M-L) informs the Colombian proletariat and people, the working class of the world, all the peoples of the world and especially the Marxist-Leninists, for the successful development of the proceedings of its 11th National Congress.

The 11th National Congress pf the Party, convened at a certain place in Colombia, in the most difficult conditions of illegality, constitutes an event of importance for the unity of the Colombian Marxist-Leninists.

The most important problems of the Colombian and world revolution were discussed in a fraternal and comradely atmosphere, through debates it was expressed the high level of unity and the maturity attained during the whole period of the preparation of our Congress.

The reaffirmation of Marxism-Leninism as the Party's ideological guide, the profound struggle against revisionism of all hues and especially against the so-called "Mao Tsetung Thought" and the liquidation of its influences in our ranks, constitute the essential elements of the 11th Congress of our Party.

The conclusions of our 11th Congress aim to solve the main problems of strategy and tactic of the Colombian revolution, to reaffirm the genuine Marxist-Leninist character of our Party and its lofty proletarian internationalist spirit, to enlighten the road which guarantees the proletariat through its party to play the vanguard role in the process of the revolution, placing it in the van of the class struggle to seize political power in its hands and exercise its dictatorship in the form of the people's democracy.

Likewise the Congress defined the necessary organizational measures to facilitate the implementation of the adopted conclusions.

Undoubtedly, the new strategic and tactic definitions made by the 11th Congress, constitute a valuable assistance for the work of the communists and of the revolutionaries in the conditions of the mounting sharpening of the social contradictions in the international and national plane, in the conditions of the deep economic, political and social crisis which is shaking the capitalist-revisionist world, which in Colombia is manifested with all its might, as well as in the conditions of the demands the struggle of our people lays down with each passing day.

The unprecedented vitality in the ranks of the Marxist-Leninists, their readiness to contribute together with all the really revolutionary forces to the achievement of our common objectives, the persistency to safeguard the triumphant principles of Marxism- Leninism and the unshakeable and determined stand in the struggle against U.S. imperialism, Russian social-imperialism, the bourgeoisie, landowners and all the reactionaries as well as against revisionism and opportunism of all hues, were clearly expressed in all the discussions held in the 11th Congress of our Party.

The 11th Congress unanimously approved the messages of solidarity and the message of greeting addressed to all the sister Marxist-Leninist parties which fight under various conditions for the lofty ideals of socialism and communism all over the world.

The message of greetings to the Albanian people, the PLA and its leader, the great Marxist-Leninist, Comrade Enver Hoxha, merits a special consideration.

The Congress expressed its special gratitude to the revolutionary fighters and particularly to the Colombian partisans of our People's Liberation Army and National-Liberation Army and addressed a message of fighting solidarity to them.

The 11th Congress of the Party concluded its proceedings honoring the memory of the communists who have laid down their lives to the cause of the world proletariat during this period among whom: Hysni Kapo, Diogenes Arruda, Pedro Vasquez, Pedro Leon Arbileda and all other leaders and militants whose example testifies to the communist courage and determination which will inspire our Party in its activity and struggle.

The 11th Congress of our Party is an appeal and pledge of work for all the militants and revolutionaries and, all the activity of the Colombian communists will be illuminated by its just conclusions.

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'A Classe Operaria' on the struggle of the Brazilian people against the oppressive regime

[A Classe Operaria masthead.]

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

The newspaper A Classe Operaria, Central Organ of the Communist Party of Brazil published recently an article exposing the maneuvers and attempts of the Figeiredo regime to put a democratic facade to its oppressive regime. It stresses that the problems of the Brazilian people can be solved only through their determined struggle.

The heralds of the military regime, the article stresses, try to prove that the system in power is being democratized, that it is working out plans for the liquidation of arbitrariness and oppression, while in fact the opposite is happening. This is shown in the best way by the activity of the Figeiredo government against the strikes of the working people.

After exposing the various viewpoints, according to which the end will naturally come to the reactionary regime through decrees and measures, the article of the newspaper A Classe Operaria says: "To put an end to the dictate and power of the generals, who think that they can do whatever they like, a broad mobilization of the people and their struggle on an ever broader scale is indispensable. For two years now, the strike movement has swept over the whole country and the present wave of the struggle which has begun with the powerful strike of the working people of Santos Port, clearly show where the strength which will destroy the regime of the generals lie.'

In conclusion A Classe Operaria underlines that the communists, as consistent revolutionaries, keep aloft in the people's movement the banner of uncompromising struggle against arbitrariness and oppression.

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The 2nd Congress of the Communist Party [Marxist-Leninist] of Ecuador Successfully Held

(The following article is reprinted from Albanian Telegraphic Agency News Bulletin, June 11, 1980.)

The newspaper En Marcha, organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist) of Ecuador, informs of the successful conclusion of the proceedings of the Second Congress of the Communist Party (M-L) of Ecuador. The newspaper points out the importance of this Congress, emphasizing among others that the Communist Party (M-L) of Ecuador has constantly strengthened the features which make it the political vanguard of the Ecuadorian working class, the revolutionary leading staff of the proletariat and of the whole people.

Our Party, stresses the newspaper, has gained important experience from the struggle against imperialism, social-imperialism, reaction and various contemporary trends of revisionism, the anti-Marxist "Mao Zedong Thought" also included, and through its struggle is confirmed as a determined revolutionary proletarian fighter and defender without concessions of the purity of the Marxist-Leninist doctrine.

The newspaper underlines further on that the blood shed by the comrades Milton Reyes, Miguel Pozo, Rosita Paredes and Jorge Tinoco is a vivid expression of the revolutionary proletarian spirit of the Party, of the communist qualities and moulding of its militants.

After pointing out that the Second National Congress of the Party carried out in practice fundamental political and organizational tasks, the newspaper writes:

The Communist Party (M-L) of Ecuador is a determined banner-bearer of the unity of the international Marxist-Leninist communist movement and its Second Congress, confirmed the indispensability to carry forward, through all means they possess, the strengthening of the unity of the Marxist-Leninists throughout the world on the basis of Marxism-Leninism, proletarian internationalism. The Congress hailed and expressed its warm fraternal revolutionary proletarian solidarity with the People's Socialist Republic of Albania, the only socialist country in the world today, and a brilliant example to the proletarians and peoples. The Congress reaffirmed the solidarity with the fighters of the working class and the peoples of the world for their liberation.

The Second National Congress honored the memory of our comrades who have laid down their lives in struggle, as well as the memory of Comrade Hysni Kapo of Albania; Diogenes Arruda, Pedro Pomar, Joao Batista, Angelo Arroyo of Brazil; Pedro Vasquez Rendon, Pedro Leon Arbileda of Colombia; among the other heroic fighters for the cause of the world proletariat.

The successful conclusion of our Second National Congress opens new and great perspectives for the carrying out of the Ecuadorian revolution.

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Communist Party of New Zealand

"Carry the Struggle Against Revisionism Through to the End"

The March/April, 1980 issue of New Zealand Communist Review carries the statement by the Political Committee on behalf of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of New Zealand, March 16, 1980, entitled "Carry the Struggle Against Revisionism through to the End." In this statement, the leadership of the CPNZ presents its stands against Chinese revisionism and Mao Zedong Thought. Below we have reproduced excerpts from this statement.

"The Communist Party of New Zealand, under the leadership of the Central Committee, is carrying out the decisions of the 1979 National Conference to investigate the reasons for the revisionism now so openly being practiced in China. Weighing deeds against words, checking practice against theoretical writings, seeking truth from facts in the correct Marxist-Leninist manner (instead of selecting and twisting facts to suit pre-conceived idealist theories) the CPNZ is discovering more evidence to show that the revisionism of the Communist Party of China is not just a recent occurrence....

"The Conference also recognized that 'the great flag of Marxism-Leninism and socialist revolution still flies high over the People's Socialist Republic of Albania' which 'has staunchly upheld proletarian internationalism and fought revisionism in all its guises.' It condemned all those who called the PLA struggle against revisionism 'left dogmatism.'

"The Central Committee meeting on February 9 and 10 this year upheld these Conference decisions, dealt firmly with a factional attempt to reverse the decisions and carried forward to a new stage the Conference decision for more investigation and for fraternal relations with other Marxist-Leninist parties in accordance with proletarian internationalism. It recognized the importance of these correct relations in safeguarding and strengthening the dictatorship of the proletariat in Albania as a bastion of the world's working class upholding the leading role of the Party and the class and resisting the many attempts by revisionists to put this leadership in the hands of other classes....

"In short the CPC, far from practicing proletarian internationalism, was practicing Chinese national chauvinism and trying to turn our Party into an appendage of the China Society, having even corrupted the role of that society.

"The Conference documents show how this was attempted, and how the CPC used agents within the Party to achieve its aims. The great nation chauvinism of China showed up in its high-handed, arrogant, non-fraternal attitude and interference in our Party. As the need to use the Marxist veneer decreased so did the arrogance and interference increase over the years.

"As this has occurred over a great period of time, the question of Mao Tsetung's leadership of the CPC must be open for examination.... It was during this period that social-democrats and reactionaries from New Zealand, including Prime Minister Muldoon, were given audiences with Mao without any regard for the repercussions on the revolutionary movement here. This is apart from Mao's reception for President Nixon during the U.S. aggression against Viet Nam without any regard for the repercussions in Indochina (the U.S. dropped thousands of photos over Viet Nam showing Mao and Nixon grinning and shaking hands).

"Mao was Chairman of the CPC and not head of state during all these receptions so there was no diplomatic necessity for him to receive these enemies of the people. He was the head of a supposedly proletarian party. It was during this period that the groundwork for collaboration with U.S. imperialism got under way. The 'three world' theory plus the 'two stage revolution' were developed to give theoretical justification for collaboration with any reactionary, any imperialist who was opposed to China's current enemy -- the Soviet Union. This included Nixon, Muldoon, the Shah of Iran, Tito and a host of others. In 1972 the Chinese, without regard for our position, praised the return of a social-democratic government in NZ. U.S. imperialism in turn used the NZ Labour Government to strengthen its links with China.

"It was not that the Chinese did not understand social-democracy. They understood only too well and decided to use it for their own purposes. Just as they later praised the ANZUS Treaty for its role against the Soviet Union!...

"Mao was not a Marxist-Leninist but a popular leader of a bourgeois democratic revolution who was very able in popularizing Marxism in order to rally local and international support for the cause of Chinese nationalism."

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On the Situation in Iran

The heroic Iranian working class and oppressed masses have carried out a great revolution. They have brought down the fascist monarchy of the tyrannical shah and in so doing have struck a heavy blow to world imperialism. In particular, the revolution in Iran has rocked U.S. imperialism, which had invested a great deal in the bloody monarchy of the shah and which has drawn countless millions in super-profits from the robbery of Iran's oil. However, in the course of this earth-shaking revolution the proletariat and the other toiling masses of Iran, who brought about the revolution, were not yet in the position to come to power themselves. Rather, power was usurped by the exploiting classes who had participated in the popular struggle for the overthrow of the fascist shah. And the Khomeini government has more and more come into open conflict with the interests of the broad masses of the Iranian people.

For its part, U.S. imperialism wants desperately to regain its lost paradise of medieval oppression and unbridled super-exploitation in Iran. It wants to put its shah back on the throne once again in order to reclaim its lost positions. Hence the savage U.S. imperialist blockade, ruthless blackmail, military aggression and internal subversion against the sovereignty of the Iranian people. Toward the Khomeini government the U.S. State Department strategists have been moving from two flanks. With the sole aim of restoring the previous status quo, the U.S. imperialists have activated its agents and other means against the Khomeini-Bani-Sadr government with the objective of toppling the government or at least bringing it completely to its knees on Washington's terms. And with the same aim, the U.S. imperialist strategists have worked to strike a deal with Khomeini and co. in order to work with the government against the popular revolution.

Under these conditions, the working class and the broad masses of the toiling and progressive Iranian masses are shouldering the task of carrying forward the revolutionary struggle for genuine freedom and democracy and genuine independence from imperialism and social-imperialism. And it is the Workers' and Peasants' Communist Party of Iran which has courageously raised aloft this banner of struggle.

The following are excerpts from a Joint Statement of the Workers' and Peasants' Communist Party of Iran and the Workers' Communist Party of France. The first section of this statement appeared in the April 15-30, 1980 issue of La Forge, Central Organ of the WCPF. The translation from the French is ours.

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From the Joint Statement of the Workers' and Peasants' Communist Party of Iran and the Workers' Communist Party of France:

The recent meeting between a delegation of the Central Committee of the Workers' and Peasants' Communist Party of Iran and a delegation of the Central Committee of the Workers' Communist Party of France was the occasion for our two Parties to exchange information and points of view on the different problems affecting the situation in our two countries and the international situation. That allowed ascertaining a total identity of views on all the problems and reflecting together about methods to bring into play to contribute to the Marxist-Leninist strengthening of the unity of the international communist movement. The two delegations decided to formulate in a joint statement some conclusions from this very happy and fruitful meeting.

1. On the Situation in Iran

For 70 years Iran has been placed under the influence of imperialism which appropriated all its resources (in particular oil) and developed there, in a dominant way, its politics.

The coup d'etat of 1953 liquidated the gains of the anti-imperialist popular struggle of 1950, which had resulted in the nationalization of oil. American imperialism then became the principal imperialism in Iran, where it penetrated with all its allies of Western Europe and Japan. Since the 1960's, the USSR also has its share (monopoly of gas...) and also introduced there its allies. When in their turn the Chinese revisionists got on good terms with the Americans, they also received their share.

The total enslavement of Iran on the economic plane which followed, had as a consequence the impossibility of the middle bourgeoisie developing as a national bourgeoisie. On the other hand, the plundering of the material and human resources of Iran by the imperialists and social-imperialists led to the quantitative and qualitative development of a strong working class of several million workers born from the rural exodus caused by the ruin of Iranian agriculture by the imperialists.

To maintain such a situation, a regime of terror was necessary; each voice had to be silenced, that of the communists above all.

However, the regime of the shah did not succeed in wiping out the resistance of the people. They utilized the universities and mosques as places of propaganda and meetings. Soon the movement became so strong that no one any longer had the power to control it. …

From the beginning, Khomeini's regime has had the objective of disarming the people. It said that the revolution is over, that Islam, repressed for 100 years, should take power, that the revolution wasn't waged to nationalize oil or to eat better, but for Islam,...that it was necessary to renew the contracts with foreigners.... As for "nationalizations," they gave money to societies installed in the country at the time of the shah, to wipe out the debts. There are thousands of agreements with the imperialists, Americans in particular. The regime doesn't want to denounce these agreements; it fears that the USA might break the contracts. Everything rests in the hands of the imperialists.

During this time the population is harshly repressed. One year ago Khomeini promulgated a law forbidding all publications which are not favorable to Islam. Our Party immediately understood the content of this law, that it was necessary to intervene against the fascist orientation of the regime. The first demonstration on the initiative of our Party was the scene of violent clashes with the "Revolutionary Guards" and the Phalange. Then, we didn't number 10,000; and two days later a half-million demonstrators came into the streets to demand democratic freedoms!

In Kurdistan, for 50 years the people have been demanding the same rights as the other peoples of Iran. After the revolution they wanted democracy. The peasants occupied the lands of the feudalists. Khomeini sent the army to shell and shoot thousands of people.... Naturally the people took up arms. The same in Turkmenistan..., on the shores of the Caspian Sea where some fishermen claimed the right to fish freely..., in Khouzistan, there where most of the oil fields are found and where the Arabic-speaking population is very repressed by the regime....

In Azerbaidjan, where the resistance to the regime of the shah was very intense, the people rose up against the Khomeini regime. In Tabriz, the radio and television were occupied for entire days. But the regime broke the movement. There were many revolutionaries executed under the pretext that they were alcoholics or agents of the shah.

Unemployment is spreading in the whole country. Most of the factories are not operating. The standard of living has gotten worse. Corruption and speculation are flourishing. In the factories the "Islamic phalanges" police the workers. In spite of everything, each day strikes break out over wages.... In the oil field zones and elsewhere, the workers confine the representatives of the government. Some people, the best known as agents of the SAVAK, have been seized and judged. But the body of the SAVAK has not been destroyed. Its agents continue to collect their pay and Khomeini has granted them amnesty. The same with the police and the army, and they have availed themselves of the "purging" to get rid of the revolutionary soldiers. …

From the beginning, our Party has correctly analyzed the situation. Obviously it is young and has not yet succeeded in taking leadership of the Revolution. It was the only force organized in secrecy; from the time of the shah it always put out propaganda in good time. After the Revolution, it developed rapidly. Now it has a national scope. From the beginning, it considered it as its duty to expose the regime. Today many things can be confirmed. The Party organizes demonstrations in numerous cities for the defense of democratic freedoms, against the raising of prices.... After the invasion of Afghanistan by Soviet troops, it was the only organization to organize mass actions against this invasion, which were repressed by the Phalanges, the "Revolutionary Guards," and the Tudeh (revisionist) Party....

Our Party works to weave solid links with the masses, in particular the workers and the youth. On our program is inscribed the new Democratic Revolution.

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'Eurocommunism Is Anti-Communism' Comrade Enver Hoxha's New Book

[Photo.]

(The following are excerpts from a Zeri i Popullit editorial entitled "Work of Great Value in the Struggle of Marxism-Leninism Against Modem Revisionism" taken from Albanian Telegraphic Agency News Bulletin, May 21,1980.)

Comrade Enver Hoxha's new book Eurocommunism Is Anti-Communism came off the press these days. Alongside the other outstanding works of his, this book is another clear evidence of the unyielding principled struggle the Party of Labor of Albania has waged and is waging against modern revisionism of all shades, a new contribution of great value made by our Party and Comrade Enver Hoxha to this historic struggle. The book Eurocommunism Is Anti-Communism is divided in four chapters. The first chapter is devoted to the beginnings of the main trends of modern revisionism and its role in the strategy of imperialism. The second and third chapters deal at length with the problems which have to do with the formation, the anti- Marxist, reformist and opportunist essence and counter-revolutionary role of Eurocommunism in service of bourgeoisie and imperialism, as well as with the relations between the Eurocommunists and other trends of modern revisionism. While the fourth chapter treats some fundamental problems of the development of the Marxist-Leninist and revolutionary movement at the present time.

The book Eurocommunism is Anti-communism makes a profound scientific analysis of and powerfully exposes from Marxist-Leninist standpoints the opportunist-bourgeois theories and practices of the Eurocommunists, their counter-revolutionary aims and deceptive tactics. The book not only criticizes and refutes the viewpoints and actions of the Eurocommunist revisionists, mainly represented by the revisionist parties of Italy, Spain and France, but treats of and gives a way to solution to the great and acute problems preoccupying the revolutionary movement of the working class and the liberation struggle of the peoples today. Comrade Enver Hoxha's book Eurocommunism is Anti-Communism enriches and further deepens the analysis the Party of Labor of Albania has made to the various trends of modem revisionism, like Khrushchovite, Yugoslav, Chinese revisionism, etc.

The fundamental conclusion drawn by Comrade Enver Hoxha is that in order to carry forward the cause of the victory of the revolution, of socialism and the national liberation of the peoples, it is indispensable to resolutely fight to the end against all the currents of modern revisionism. No illusion should be cherished about any of the present-day revisionist variants, either Soviet, on the foundation of which lays the notorious course of the 20th Congress of the CP of the Soviet Union, or Chinese which is based on Mao Tse-tung Thought, either Yugoslav or Eurocommunist.

In the last chapter of his new book, Comrade Enver Hoxha treats of some fundamental problems which have to do with the development of the Marxist-Leninist movement, the strengthening and tempering of the revolutionary parties of the working class, parties which have set to themselves the task to raise and carry forward the banner of the revolution, of the liberation of the peoples and socialism, flung away by the revisionists.

Comrade Enver Hoxha devotes special attention to the work of the Marxist-Leninist parties with the masses so as to prepare them for the future revolutionary battles, to the work in the ranks of the working class and the stand of the party towards the trade union movement for the attainment of the unity of the working class, in struggle both against the opportunist and liberal views, and the sectarian ones, to the work of the party in the ranks of the bourgeois army, etc.

The revolution and socialism, stresses Comrade Enver Hoxha in conclusion, represent the only key the proletariat and the masses are in need of to solve the irreconcilable contradictions of the capitalist society, to put an end to their oppression and exploitation, to establish the genuine freedom and equality. "Capitalism," he writes, "is doomed by history to be liquidated. Nothing, neither the frenzied resistance of the bourgeoisie, nor the betrayal of the modern revisionists can save it from its inevitable doom. The future belongs to socialism and communism."

With the publishing of Comrade Enver Hoxha's book Eurocommunism Is Anti-Communism which is another important event in the ideological life of our Party and country, our communists and working people have in their hands a powerful weapon for their ideo-political elevation, which will assist them to raise to a new height and to make more effective their struggle against modern revisionism, to understand still more profoundly the line of the Party and the situations in the world today, to always accomplish with success their great tasks in the construction of socialism and the defense of the homeland.

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FROM THE TEXT OF "EUROCOMMUNISM IS ANTI-COMMUNISM"

"The Western bourgeoisie does not conceal its enthusiasm over the fact that now the Eurocommunist revisionists have lined themselves up with the social-democrats and the fascists to attack the revolution, Marxism-Leninism and communism jointly, with all their weapons. The capitalists are overjoyed that they are preparing new administrators of their affairs to gradually replace the social-democrats, whose long service in the apparatuses of the bourgeois state and open struggle against the working class and the cause of socialism in many countries, has led them into the ranks of extreme reaction and compromised them deeply in the eyes of the workers. Today the social-democrats have become identified, not only ideologically and politically, but also from the social viewpoint, with the big bourgeoisie. Now the bourgeoisie has great hopes that the Eurocommunist revisionists will become the main warders of the capitalist order, the banner-bearers of counter-revolution. But the great lords of capital are a little hasty in beating the victory drum." (from the Introduction)

"At first sight, it seems that the working class in Western Europe is bound tight in the chains which social-democracy and the revisionists called Eurocommunists have rivetted on to it, and that the workers' movement is strongly under the influence of bourgeois and revisionist ideology. However, this appearance does not reflect the reality. Moreover, it does not indicate the tendencies of social development, the processes which are seething in the ranks of the working masses, the historical necessity and imperative demands of the time.

"The bourgeoisie, the revisionists and all the other opportunists are trying to restrain the revolution and to extinguish the communist ideal. At given stages and in special historical conditions, they even manage to bemuse and confuse the proletariat and working masses, and to obscure the prospects of the socialist future to some degree. But this is a temporary and passing phenomenon. The revolution and socialism as a theory and practical activity cannot be imposed on the masses from outside by isolated individuals or groups of people. The revolution and socialism represent the only key which the proletariat and the masses need to solve the irreconcilable contradictions of capitalist society, to put an end to their exploitation and oppression and establish genuine freedom and equality. As long as there is oppression and exploitation, as long as capitalism exists, the thinking and struggle of the masses will always be directed towards the revolution and socialism.

"The Eurocommunists have rejected the banner of Marxism-Leninism, the revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat. They preach class peace and sing hymns to bourgeois democracy. However, the ills of bourgeois society are not cured and its contradictions are not resolved with sermons and hymns. History has already proved this and its lessons cannot be set aside. The proletariat, the oppressed and the exploited are moving naturally towards the revolution, towards the dictatorship of the proletariat and socialism. Just as naturally they are seeking the road which leads to the fulfillment of these historical aspirations, the road which the immortal theory of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin shows them. It is the duty of the new Marxist-Leninist communist parties to take over the leadership of class battles which the Eurocommunists have abandoned, to provide the proletariat and the masses with that militant fighting vanguard which they are seeking and accept as their leadership. "The situation is not easy, but let us recall the optimistic words of Stalin, that "there is no fortress which the communists cannot take." This revolutionary optimism stems from the objective laws of the development of society. Capitalism is an order condemned by history to liquidation. Nothing, neither the frenzied resistance of the bourgeoisie nor the treachery of modern revisionists can save it from its inevitable doom. The future belongs to socialism and communism." (from the final chapter)

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The Italian Eurorevisionists and the Chinese Revisionists are united by the same counter-revolutionary aim

[Zeri i Popullit masthead.]

(The following article is reprinted from Albanian Telegraphic Agency News Bulletin, May 14,1980.)

Under the title "The Same Counter-Revolutionary aim unites the Italian Eurorevisionists with the Chinese Revisionists," the newspaper Zeri i Popullit publishes today an editorial which reads:

As it has been reported, a delegation of the Italian revisionist party, headed by its General Secretary Berlinguer, visited China from April 14 to 23, where it met and had talks with all the main leaders of the Chinese party and state.

The Beijing leaders received their guests with an unusual pomposity and publicity.

Addressing himself to his Italian colleagues, Deng Xiaoping said: "You have had changes, and so do we. Now our two parties have finally come together." Both sides proclaimed that everything united them by now, that what divided them were only some small, ordinary disagreements "which can occur also in the family."

--The forecasts of the PLA that the Chinese Communist Party would pass into the positions of an overt struggle against Marxism-Leninism and that it would unite with other trends of modern revisionism, in particular with the Titoite and Eurocommunist ones, were fully confirmed by time.

The rapprochement between the Chinese and Italian revisionists is not something unexpected for us, Albanian communists. An overt collaboration between the two revisionist parties would take place for certain, if not today, tomorrow. Now, this is an accomplished fact. The forecasts of our Party, warning that the Chinese Communist Party would pass into the positions of an overt struggle against Marxism-Leninism and that it would unite with the other trends of modern revisionism, in particular with the Titoite and Eurocommunist ones, were fully confirmed by time. Speaking about the meeting of the Chinese revisionists with Carrillo in Beijing, Comrade Enver Hoxha writes in his political diary Reflections on China on November 19, 1971: "Now it is clear that the Communist Party of China began the contacts, the talks and, why not, even the agreements. For the time being, perhaps these may be on certain problems, until they reach agreement on everything. After this meeting comes the turn of meetings with other revisionist parties, the Italian, French, British, Dutch, etc. This is a whole process in development."

And now the process of a more complete, more overt and more cordial rapprochement and collaboration between the Chinese revisionists and Eurocommunists is quickly forging ahead.

--The Italian revisionist party and the Chinese one fully comply in the struggle they wage against Marxism-Leninism, the revolution and socialism.

Now the Italian party and the Chinese one are in full agreement with one another both in politics and in ideology, no matter that Berlinguer allegedly upholds the view that the war might be avoided, whereas Deng Xiaoping fans its hysteria and prays to god that the others burst it out [so China can] draw the chestnuts from the fire.

First of all, these two parties fully comply in the struggle they wage against Marxism-Leninism, the revolution and socialism. During Berlinguer's visit, the Chinese press brought into evidence with great pomp the anti-Marxist theses of the Italian revisionists on the so-called peaceful road of the transition to socialism and the support for Eurocommunism, which was advertised by it as an ideal solution "to introduce Italy and other industrialized countries of Western Europe onto the road of socialism."

--Friendship with American imperialism -- important factor which links and unites these two revisionist parties.

The Chinese revisionist leaders supported all the bargainings, unprincipled compromises and alliances of the Italian revisionist party with the bourgeois parties. In particular, they highly assessed the stand adopted by this party towards American imperialism, NATO and the Common Market. The friendship with American imperialism, which was openly expressed by Berlinguer to his pro-American friends in Beijing when he stated that "the Italian Communist Party seeks to maintain good relations with the United States of America," is an important factor which links and unites these two revisionist parties. Just as the Chinese revisionist seek the strengthening of the aggressive Atlantic pact, the Italian revisionist party, too, is in favor of its country's membership in NATO and the preservation of the U.S. military bases in Italy. The Chinese and Italian revisionists are champions of the installation of new U.S. nuclear missiles in Europe, which incite still more the armaments race between the two superpowers.

--The rapprochement with China responds not only to the interests of Italian capital, but it is in harmony with the Sino-American policy of political, economic and military collaboration against the social-imperialist Soviet Union.

The Chinese policy stands for a rapprochement and broad collaboration with capitalist Italy. Big Italian companies such as Eni, Fiat, etc., have made and are making numerous investments in China. The interests of big Italian capital in China are great, therefore, the Italian governments, too, of whatever kind of coalition they may be, want that such relations are developed still more.

The rapprochement with China responds not only to the interests of Italian capital, but it is in harmony also with the Sino-American policy of political, economic and military collaboration against the social-imperialist Soviet Union. Under these passing circumstances, Berlinguer's visit strengthens this favorable situation of collaboration between Chinese and Italian capitalism.

--The Italian revisionist party stands in no way for the revolution. Berlinguer's visit to Beijing aims at further consolidating the positions of his party in Italy.

Besides this, Berlinguer, who represents Italian revisionism, finds still difficulties with his program of open collaboration with Italian capital. He is opposed especially by the Christian- Democratic Party, which still does not accept or doesn't think that the moment has come for the Italian revisionist party to join the government together with the other parties of the bourgeoisie.

As it is clearly seen from its reformist programs, the Italian revisionist party stands in no way for the revolution. The strikes called in the streets and the demagogic rallies serve it to cover up its treachery to the working class, to conceal its loyalty to the bourgeoisie. Despite all these services the revisionist party is making to the bourgeoisie, it is kept out of the government.

Berlinguer's visit to Beijing is aimed at further consolidating the positions of his party in Italy, that is, to make the Italian capitalists, who have invested and are investing in China, understand that another factor for the development of these investments should be considered the Italian Communist Party, too, which has a great political and ideological credit in China, in the Communist Party of China, and not a little experience in its relations and transactions with the Soviet Union and the revisionist countries of Eastern Europe to open the way to Italian capital.

--The aim of visit is that China assure the USA of the loyalty of the Italian revisionist party to NATO, the United States of America and Italian capitalism.

Berlinguer is also seeking to strengthen the positions of his revisionist party in the international arena, namely, to ensure the U.S. support for the policy of his party, support which he has failed to ensure so far. In other words, the aim of Berlinguer's visit to Beijing is that China say a word to and assure the USA of the loyalty of the Italian revisionist party to NATO, the USA and Italian capitalism, assure it that U.S. capital in the Italian revisionist party will not have an opponent, something which it has never had, but a friend and faithful collaborator, as is also China towards U.S. imperialism, NATO and the Common Market.

Berlinguer's visit aims also to consolidate the positions of Chinese revisionism itself either at home or on the international arena.

--Attempts to strengthen the positions of the Italian revisionist party as allegedly being "independent'' from the Soviet social-imperialists.

Berlinguer's meetings in China are an attempt to consolidate the positions of the Italian revisionist party, as allegedly being "independent" from the Soviet social-imperialists. It seeks to make the Christian-Democrats understand that being in alliance, in friendship and having the same world outlook with Hua Guofeng's China, which is developing a fierce anti-Soviet policy, Berlinguer's party, too, consequently, is not under Soviet dependence.

--Berlinguer's visit to Beijing had also as its aim to closely study the various trends of the current policy of China and the possible eventual turns.

The visit of the group of the Italian revisionist party to Beijing with Berlinguer at the head had also as its aim to closely study the various trends of the current policy of China, their perseverance in the present positions and the possible eventual turns, linked with the chaotic passing circumstances of the international policy of the superpowers, in which China, too, aims at playing the role of a superpower, which, irrespective that it does not possess even that economic, military and technical potential, has developed the arrogance and the cult of majesty and world hegemony of the big state to a culminating point.

U.S. imperialism and world capitalism are eagerly watching China so as to exploit it, but they are also watching it with doubt in the turns it has made and makes easily. Today China advertizes itself as pro-U.S. and pro-Western, tomorrow it might become pro- Soviet and pro-Eastern. Never it has been socialist in pursuing this imperialist "de bascule" [seesaw -- ed.] policy.

The Italian revisionist party is master in this chameleon policy and has a developed sense of smelling the bad winds in policy which permit it to occupy the corners bringing in more funds and material subventions and political credit.

--Visit assisting the two currents of the Italian revisionist party, both the pro-American and the pro-Soviet.

The Italian revisionist party is full of factions, which have nothing principled and pro-worker, but which have political cosmopolitanism as a principle, which appear with various faces, some in action and dominant for a period of time, some others active in the background, assuming superiority in the opportune moment. In order to participate in the bourgeois government, actually Berlinguer's faction does its utmost to present itself at a certain extent as a dosed "anti- Soviet" and a "democratised" pro-American. The going of Berlinguer's group to China assists the two currents of his party, both the pro-American and the pro-Soviet.

Berlinguer played in Beijing both cards, both openly with discourse of a bourgeois rhetorician, and secretly as an anti-worker intriguer. Chinese and Italians "have found their match."

--The Italian Communist Party did not take part at the Paris masquerade meeting because it was not to the liking of the Italian bourgeoisie, the USA and China.

The non-participation of the Italian Communist Party at the meeting organized by Ponomaryov in Paris was not out of principled reasons. This meeting was not to the liking of the Italian bourgeoisie, the United States of America and China, therefore this party did not participate at the Paris masquerade meeting.

It was the French Communist Party which allegedly organized this meeting, because it suited the French bourgeoisie and Soviet social-imperialism. After Mr. Giscard d'Estaing's visit to Beijing, the possibility exists that Georges Marchais or the one who may eventually replace him, go there.

It seems as if quarrel has arisen among the Eurocommunists in this anti-worker game. Certainly, there is quarrel, there are contradictions, pirouettes and there will continue to be plenty of them, because Eurocommunism is anti-communism.

Therefore it is clear that Berlinguer's visit to China was made for many ideological, political and economic reasons, to strengthen, both in appearance and in content, the relations between the two parties which have the same revisionist ideology, irrespective of certain different tactics.

--In particular, Berlinguer's visit to China was enthusiastically hailed by the Yugoslav revisionists.

All their close friends and allies made haste to hail the close rapprochement and collaboration between the Italian and the Chinese revisionists. The Italian bourgeois press made a clamorous repercussion of this meeting, considering it as a new contribution to the rapprochement and strengthening of China's collaboration with big Italian capital and the West as a whole. But in particular, this visit was enthusiastically hailed by the Yugoslav revisionists, who as it is known, have long since become close allies with the Chinese revisionists in their common activity against the liberation struggle of the peoples, the revolution and socialism.

The meetings and talks held in Beijing between the Italian Eurocommunist revisionists and the Chinese revisionist leaders are part of the common efforts being made by imperialism and modern revisionism to fight Marxism-Leninism, to quell the revolutionary movement of the proletariat, to sabotage the liberation struggle of the peoples.

But whatever the attempts of the revisionists, they cannot stop the great processes of the development of the class struggles that are taking place today on a national and international scale, cannot prevent the fall and overthrow of the bourgeoisie, cannot prevent the liberation of the peoples and the triumph of socialism.

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Radio Tirana on Carter's Budget

A Budget in the Service of War and Aggression

On June 12, the chieftain of American imperialism, Carter, proposed to the American Congress a military budget of $158.2 billion for the fiscal year 1980-81. This decision of the unrestrained inflation of the military budget indicates that, under the disguise of the preservation of equilibrium (and, according to Carter, only military equilibrium with the Soviet social-imperialists will secure peace in the world), American imperialism is trying to achieve its aggressive and warmongering plans. The bandit-like blackmail and threats exercised by American imperialism, the fascist attack against Iran, and, on the other hand, the barbarous occupation of Afghanistan by the Soviet social-imperialists, are proving, day by day, the aims of this "equilibrium." At the same time, the mask of the so-called "equilibrium" has been torn to shreds by the successive efforts of American imperialism for the ceaseless strengthening and modernization of the aggressive NATO bloc and for the deployment of further nuclear missiles on the territory of Western Europe, just as the social-imperialist Soviet Union is operating in the East.

There is no doubt that the feverish military preparations are being made to the pay of billions of dollars which the Pentagon spends on cannons, tanks, missiles and war cruisers. In this context the successive proposals for the increase in the military budgets are not accidental. This is closely linked with the implementation of the so-called "Carter doctrine," the prologue of which was the notorious criminal aggression of April 25 against Iran which failed ignominiously. The force of arms and the policy of intervention is the main method which American imperialism pursues in international relations. To this end, by according the sum of $158.2 billion for the new military budget, the chieftain of the White House clearly and unequivocally stressed that this sum of money is linked with the indispensability of the strengthening of the American aggressive army and the NATO military bloc as a basic instrument of American imperialist aggression.

The ceaseless increase in war budgets to purchase armaments shows that the armaments race and the inter-imperialist rivalry are becoming more acute day by day. As usual, aggression and war continue to be the basic principle of the imperialist policy of the superpowers. There have never been and will never be military budgets for defensive aims as long as the states which approve them are imperialist states and the policies they follow are aggressive and warmongering policies. The aim of the ceaseless arming of both American imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism has always been closely linked with the preparations and launching of new aggressions. The superpowers do not take all the measures for military strengthening merely to establish a balance of power or to defend the peoples from the attacks of one or the other superpower. These measures are taken only to defend the hegemonic interests of the United States of America and the Soviet Union, and to place their enslaving imperialist jackboots over the people.

Today, when the world is seething like a cauldron, no one could believe that peace is derived from the inflation of the military budgets by the imperialist warmongers. The truth reveals the opposite, and this makes it clear to the peoples that the interests of their freedom and independence are linked with their struggle against imperialism and social-imperialism, against all the criminal plans they have hatched up, against their preparations for war.

(From a Radio Tirana broadcast June 20, 1980, transcribed by PCDN.)

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Nothing can subdue the resistance of the Afghan people against Soviet invaders

(The following article is reprinted from Albanian Telegraphic Agency News Bulletin, June 14, 1980.)

The resistance against the Soviet invaders in Afghanistan is assuming ever broader proportions. Even the main cities, especially Kabul, have in many cases become fighting zones. Fierce fighting has been recently staged in the mountains of Paghman, in the mountainous localities of Banian, Carikor, Parvan, etc., where the occupation troops have engaged numerous forces and military material. All the attempts of the Soviet troops to liquidate the bases of the insurgent forces in the zones of Kabul have failed.

A powerful support for the armed liberation struggle are the people's protests in the Afghan cities where the inhabitants, despite the savage control and repression, make use of any occasion to express their indignation and hatred against the Soviet aggressors and their crimes. Successive manifestations of protest have been staged in the cities of Herat and Kandahar, where the situation has been very grave. After the last protests, the military law which provides full freedom of action to the Soviet troops was passed in Herat and Kandahar. The Soviet troops do not allow anyone to enter or leave these cities; they are patrolling the roads with tanks and armored cars while they have begun a campaign of arrests and house searches which in many cases have been accompanied even with the killing of the local inhabitants. Kabul, too, is increasingly coming out of the Soviet forces' control. Manifestations of protest burst out from time to time, while the students and pupils continue to boycott the classes. The situation in Afghanistan shows that neither the mass presence of the Soviet troops nor their savage criminal activity will be able to subdue the resistance of the Afghan people.

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ANTI-NUCLEAR SONG:

"Down with the U.S. Nuclear Energy Program"

[Sheet music.]

In 1979, at Three Mile Island Station,

The U.S. nuclear program was laid bare;

For poisonous gas and buried wastes

Unleashed a wave of protests

That is sweeping cross the country like a storm.

For years the capitalists did sing their lullaby of peace

To close the people's eyes to their crimes;

But when they rattle nuclear bombs

And start their draft machinery

It is clear they plan for war all the time.

CHORUS:

Down with the U.S. nuclear schemes!

We will smash to smithereens

Their plans for fascism and war!

As the movement takes the fight up

Against imperialism.

Our struggles will dig the capitalists grave.

They tried to sell their nuclear plants with energy shortage frauds.

That oil and gas and coal would soon run dry;

But once the money's rollin' in

And oil stockpiled for war,

The shortage disappears into thin air.

To stem the tide of protests against the nuclear program

Capitalist lackeys did appear with axe in hand;

"Chop some wood, it do some good,'' they say,

"And start your windmills turnin'."

They don 't want us to rise up and smash their plans!

CHORUS

Some say the nuclear program is a minor aberration,

That the capitalists can be made to see;

But if that's so we d like to know

Just why the people s protests

Meet fascist suppression by the bourgeoisie!

Democratic Party flunkeys are in the bourgeoisie's back pocket

These liars serve the imperialist drive for war

The Marxist-Leninist Party shows

That mass revolutionary struggle

Will shake their rotten system to the core!

CHORUS (twice)

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Vigorous Demonstrations and Rallies Mark International Working Class Day-May 1

[Photos: Photos 1-5 show scenes from the vigorous May Day demonstration led by the Marxist-Leninist Party of the USA as it passed through working class districts of New York City. As the demonstration passed through the neighborhoods and shopping districts, it was warmly greeted by scores of workers and youths.

Militant rallies in New York City (photo 6) and Buffalo, N.Y. (photo 7) were held to celebrate May 1, International Working Class Day.

On May 3, more than 150 people demonstrated in the streets of downtown Buffalo, N.Y. (photo 8) denouncing U.S. imperialist war preparations.]

In the U.S. this year, as in countries all over the world, the workers greeted International Working Class Day with celebrations and militant demonstrations. The Marxist-Leninist Party organized demonstrations of the workers on May 3 in New York City and Buffalo. Rallies and meetings were held by the Party in six cities across the country. This year's May Day celebrations were marked by the militant demand: U.S. Imperialism, Hands Off Iran! as the workers demonstrated their solidarity with the anti-imperialist revolution of Iran and pledged to step up their fight against U.S. imperialism. At the May Day demonstrations and rallies bright red banners were raised high aloft bearing the fighting slogans: 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 and all reaction! Glory to socialism in Albania! and Workers of all countries, unite! And over and over the workers shouted these slogans in unison, declaring their determination to emancipate themselves from the shackles of wage slavery and the bloodstained monopoly capitalist system. May Day this year was an especially joyous event for the workers because it was the first to be held since the founding of the Marxist- Leninist Party on January 1,1980. And the chant most often heard at the celebrations was the call "Rally to the Red Banner of the Marxist-Leninist Party, the Party of Revolutionary Struggle and Socialism!"

For some time prior to the celebrations, revolutionary activists distributed tens of thousands of the special bulletin of The Workers' Advocate which hailed International Working Class Day and set out the fighting tasks for the revolutionary workers. Everywhere, in the factories, the schools and in the communities from coast to coast these Workers' Advocates were greeted with great interest by the working masses. The workers and oppressed people are seething with indignation at the brutal oppression they suffer at the hands of the monopoly capitalists and they are dead set against the warmongering plans of the Carter government. They are searching for an alternative and were eager to receive the clear and revolutionary truth which The Workers' Advocate explains.

In Buffalo, May 3, the day was begun with a militant demonstration against the draft and against all U.S. imperialist war preparations. The march was sponsored jointly by the Buffalo Branch of the MLP and by the Union of Anti-Imperialist Students (formerly the Student Peace Coalition) and it advanced a clear anti-imperialist orientation for the movement against the warmongering schemes of the rich. As the 150 demonstrators marched into the center of downtown Buffalo, all business came to a halt. The masses of working people left their jobs and gathered on the sidewalks to cheer on the militant procession. Many people joined the march, and still many more raised their clenched fists high and joined the marchers in shouting U.S. imperialism, hands off Iran!, No to the draft!, Down with U.S. imperialist war preparations!, U.S. out of Iran, Soviets out of Afghanistan!, and other militant, anti-imperialist slogans.

The May Day march in New York was also enthusiastically welcomed by the masses of working people. At the front of the demonstration was a vivid red and gold banner declaring: "Hail May 1st, International Working Class Day!" followed by the banner of the MLP and large portraits of the great leaders of the international working class, Comrades Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin. Over 110 people participated in the two-hour march carrying red flags and placards inscribed with the slogans of the MLP in both English and Spanish. As the march swung through a working class district the masses came flooding out of their apartments and shops to greet the demonstrators. The workers and youth saluted the demonstration with their fists raised high and they shouted out together the revolutionary slogans that were inscribed on the banners. All along the route people joined the demonstration, taking up red flags or placards and raising them up proudly for all to see. And before the march was over, more than 3000 copies of the special May Day bulletin of The Workers' Advocate had been handed out to the working people along the march route.

Rallies and meetings were held in Oakland, Denver, Louisville, Buffalo, Boston and New York City. At these meetings the representatives of the MLP set out clearly the fighting tasks of the Party and the revolutionary movement and pointed to socialist Albania as the model society for which all the workers aspire. The enthusiastic response to the speeches by the Party comrades, the jubilant singing of revolutionary songs, and the militant shouting of the Party's slogans all manifest the revolutionary spirit which the Party inspires in the workers. An important contribution to the New York meetings were the revolutionary messages presented by the representatives of the Caribbean Progressive Study Group, the Federation of Iranian Students in the U.S., the Turkish Student Association, the Turkish Women's Study Group, and others. These statements lent concreteness to the revolutionary slogan of Karl Marx, "Workers of all countries, unite!" and they assisted to bring out the spirit of May Day, the spirit of the great international struggle for the emancipation of the working class.

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