The Workers' Advocate

WORKERS OF ALL COUNTRIES, UNITE! 25¢

Volume 10, Number 8

VOICE OF THE MARXIST-LENINIST PARTY OF THE USA

October 20, 1980

[Front page:

DON'T VOTE!--Demonstrations denounce the capitalist parties;

Oppose the Iraqi invasion of Iran and the fratricidal war! Down with U.S. imperialism's drive to strangle the Iranian revolution! Superpowers, get out of the Persian Gulf!;

The common program of the parties of the rich to make the workers pay for the crisis--DOWN WITH CAPITALIST 'REINDUSTRIALIZATION'!;

University of California at Berkeley: The struggle against nuclear weapons research at the Lawrence Livermore Labs;

Down with the Bestial Atrocities Against Blacks in Buffalo, New York! Take the Path of Mass Action to Fight the Racist Murderers!]

IN THIS ISSUE

DON'T VOTE!

Oppose the Iraqi invasion of Iran and the fratricidal war!

The common program of the parties of the rich to make the workers pay for the crisis

DOWN WITH CAPITALIST 'REINDUSTRIALIZATION'!

University of California at Berkeley:

The struggle against nuclear weapons research at the Lawrence Livermore Labs

Down with the Bestial Atrocities Against Blacks in Buffalo, New York!

Take the Path of Mass Action to Fight the Racist Murderers!

The Libertarian Party - sugar-coated Reaganites

On the Love Affair of the Citizens Party and the "CPML":

Pacifists and Warmongers Hand in Hand

The Citizens Party is nothing but warmed-over Carter stew

Down with "government, business, labor cooperation"!

A new tripartite 'partnership' to plunder pension funds and suppress the workers

FIGHT THE CAPITALIST WAGE CUTTING!

KAISER STEEL WORKERS BROKEN AWAY FROM THE BASIC STEEL AGREEMENT

THE MASTER FREIGHT AGREEMENT IS BEING TORN UP WITH THE TEAMSTER BUREAUCRATS' BLESSINGS

USWA CHIEFTAINS SIGN AWAY ALUMINUM WORKERS' WAGES

WAGE CUTS AT WHEELING-PITTSBURGH

On the Closing of Wisconsin Steel in Chicago:

Workers launch mass actions to regain their stolen wages and their jobs

NO CONCESSIONS TO THE McLOUTH STEEL CAPITALISTS!

900 Michigan steelworkers on strike in defiance of "concessions" demands

No Mr. Fraser, the auto workers have no "common interests" with their exploiters!

Determined Strike of the Copper Workers

Support the strikes of the school teachers!

New York transit workers: Fight the contract givebacks!

Why the workers are on strike at an "employee-owned" factory

Militant fight of the Philadelphia school teachers against layoffs

SUPPORT THE STRIKE OF THE PHILADELPHIA TEACHERS!

No to the Draft!

Letter to the anti-draft activists and youth in the Chicago area from the Chicago Branch of the MLP, USA

Union of Anti-Imperialist Students/ Buffalo

Union of Anti-Imperialist Activists Founded in Syracuse

FISUS holds meeting in solidarity with the Iranian people

The bloody hand of U.S. imperialism lies behind the fascist coup in Turkey

STATEMENT OF THE COMMITTEE AGAINST COUP D'ETAT IN TURKEY-

A day of revolutionary activities held in the West Indian community in Brooklyn

Hail the 10th Anniversary of the Mass Uprising in Trinidad and Tobago!

A letter from the Steering Committee of the Caribbean Progressive Study Group to the Central Committee of the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA

One year after the mass outburst against the police murder of Luis Baez:

MASS STRUGGLE IS THE ANSWER TO RACIST ATTACKS!

Denver:

The whitewash of the racist police murder of Jeffery Cordova and Juan Garcia

Harlem residents fight closing of Sydenham Hospital

WELCOME THE ENGLISH-LANGUAGE EDITION OF

ENVER HOXHA'S SELECTED WORKS-VOLUME III

On Comrade Enver Hoxha's new book

"The Khrushchovites"

Communist Party of Colombia (M-L):

"Let us continue the struggle arms in hand"

Communist Party (M-L) of Ecuador:

Against the creation of an Andes Pact military force

CHILE:

Pinochet's fascist constitution farce

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

Leninism and the Struggle Against Social-Chauvinism

TWO SONGS RIDICULING THE CAPITALIST ELECTION CIRCUS

DON'T VOTE!

Demonstrations denounce the capitalist parties

Democrat or Republican, Carter or Reagan, they're all the same. All the candidates in the presidential election are candidates of the monopolies and the billionaires. They have a single program: world domination a- broad and exploitation at home. All of them are enthusiasts of the capitalist offensive of wage cutting, unemployment, racist attacks and militarization. All of them preach "sacrifice" and "restraint" for the workers and huge "reindustrialization" subsidies for the monopolies. The only choice in this election is which representative of the rich will become the head slave driver and crack the whip over the people for the next four years.

In this election the masses are burning with indignation against Carter and Reagan. The task for the workers in this election is to use this disgust to assist the independent political motion of the masses and to help emancipate them from illusions about the capitalist parties. It is a time to denounce the capitalist program of starvation, fascism and war, of "reindustrialization" and imperialism, of racial discrimination and reaction. It is a time to hold the smooth-talking political liars to account for their crimes and to compare their promises with their deed.

To do this, refuse to vote! Manifest contempt for the capitalist parties. But moreover one should not just simply leave it at not voting, but should go on to take part in organized mass actions against the capitalist parties. Organize meetings and rallies to denounce the capitalist parties and set forward the path of struggle. Take demonstrations throughout the working class communities and engage in widescale leafletting and discussions! Draw the masses of workers and activists into the struggle against the capitalist parties!

[Photo: MLP comrades and supporters denounce Ronald Reagan at his Republican rally held in suburban Detroit on October 16. More pictures on the back page.]

[Back to Top]

Oppose the Iraqi invasion of Iran and the fratricidal war!

Down with U.S. imperialism's drive to strangle the Iranian revolution!

Superpowers, get out of the Persian Gulf!

In the last week of September, 50,000 Iraqi troops crossed the border into Iran along a 350 mile front. And now a fierce war is being waged between the Iraqi invaders and the Iranian defenders over the control of cities and towns as far as 60 miles into Iranian territory.

It is clear that it is U.S. imperialism and the other western imperialisms as well as Soviet social-imperialism and the reactionary allies of these monsters who are trying to gain from the Iraqi invasion. In particular, it is the imperialists' ravenous hunger for oil, for control of the vast oil riches of the Persian Gulf which is the cause of the bloodshed. In this context, imperialism, with U.S. imperialism in the forefront, has placed bringing the struggling people of Iran to their knees as their foremost objective.

For these reasons the Iraqi invasion of Iran and the fratricidal war must be firmly opposed; U.S. imperialism's frenzied drive to strangle the Iranian revolution must be vigorously condemned; and U.S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism, who are responsible for this dangerous war, must be driven out of the Persian Gulf!

Down with U.S. Imperialism's Drive to Strangle the Iranian Revolution!

In January 1979, the tyrannical Shah of Iran was overthrown through a powerful popular revolution. This revolution was a terrible defeat for world imperialism, particularly U.S. imperialism, Exxon and the other multinational oil corporations. The Wall Street financiers had invested billions in the fascist monarchy of the Shah and the imperialist sharks got back countless more billions in super-profits from the plunder and exploitation of the Iranian people. And the Pentagon generals openly groomed the Shah's murderous dictatorship as the " policeman" for U.S. imperialist oil interests throughout the Persian Gulf.

But the Iranian people in their millions rose to their feet in revolution and smashed the fascist Shah's monarchy to smithereens. From a bastion of imperialism and a vast dungeon for the people, Iran was transformed into a cauldron of anti-imperialist struggle and an inspiration for all the peoples of the region.

The U.S. imperialists cannot reconcile themselves to the "loss" of the "paradise" that they had created under the jackboots of the Shah's SAVAK torturers and executioners. Therefore, they are doing everything in their power to strangle the revolutionary struggle of the Iranian working class and people. The U.S. imperialists are striving with might and main to force the government of Khomeini and Bani-Sadr to capitulate and come to terms with U.S. imperialism or to destroy this regime outright in order to replace it with their loyal henchmen.

Towards this end, U.S. imperialism has resorted to every conceivable means of blackmail, economic strangulation and superpower pressure. Since Carter ordered his infamous military raid last April, the Pentagon and State Department strategists have made no secret of the fact that they are planning further attempts at counter-revolutionary coup d'etats and further military adventures against Iran.

Oppose the Iraqi Invasion of Iran and the Fratricidal War!

In this situation Iraqi President Saddam Hussein gave the orders for the massive invasion of Iran with crack troops and huge quantities of heavy armor. The Iraqi invasion has already brought terrible destruction and loss of life. The burning of the giant Abadan oil refinery and other oil facilities and other devastation will mean tremendous economic dislocation for Iran which was already confronted with a critical economic crisis. Every day of the continued fighting is bringing further devastation and suffering to both the Iranian and Iraqi people.

While claiming to be fighting solely for some minor territorial claims, for which there could be no justifiable reason to go to war, the Iraqi government's real counter-revolutionary objectives in Iran are hardly a secret. For instance, the former Shah's martial law commander. General Gholam Ali Oveissi, who is despised by the masses as the infamous "Butcher of Tehran," along with the Shah's last Prime Minister, Bakhtiar, have set up radio stations in Iraq. It is also reported that the Iraqi government is providing the funds to equip and train several thousand of the ex-Shah's monarchist officers to be led into battle by the executioner Oveissi when the time is ripe. The Iraqi government's objectives in Iran are no less than a counter-revolutionary restoration and to serve up a weakened and broken Iran to the imperialist vultures.

Carter's Claims to "Neutrality" Are a Fraud to Hide the Bloody Tracks of U.S. Imperialism

Meanwhile U.S. imperialist chieftain Carter is sitting back like a peace-loving angel declaring that "the United States is in no way involved" in the Iran-Iraq war. Such claims of "neutrality" and innocence are pure fraud.

In fact, the bloody claws of U.S. imperialism are sunk deeply into the Persian Gulf region. U.S. imperialism is one of the principal instigators of the Iraqi invasion. The warmongering chieftains of U.S. imperialism are quite obviously very pleased with the war and destruction that they have unleashed. The capitalist media is speculating on "Iraqi victories" with gushing enthusiasm.

While the Carter administration is trying to hide its hand, Iraq would not and did not launch its invasion without the permission and backing of U.S. imperialism. In fact, by every indication U.S. imperialism was deeply involved in the Iraqi's plans. Inside Iraq the U.S. CIA has been working directly with the butchers Oveissi and Bakhtiar in their counter-revolutionary plotting.

It is known also that before Saddam Hussein launched his military adventure he first received the blessings of King Khalid of Saudi Arabia, U.S. imperialism's most intimate ally in the Persian Gulf.

While U.S. imperialism is not openly supplying the Iraqi army (an army fitted mainly with Soviet and European hardware which makes U.S. supplies ' difficult to employ) at the same time it is giving the Iraqis every sort of indirect assistance. After the first week of fighting and after the Iraqi offensive in Iran became bogged down, the Pentagon has been offering unlimited quantities of military hardware to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the other reactionary Persian Gulf states which are presently backing Iraq. Supposedly this military hardware is required for "defense from an Iranian attack"! Already four ultra-sophisticated AWAC radar and control planes along with several hundred U.S. military personnel have been dispatched to Saudi Arabia. These AWAC's have been put into the sky above the Persian Gulf in order to gather reconnaissance for Iraq's ally.

Besides backing Saudi Arabia and the other reactionary regimes which are assisting Iraq to the hilt, the U.S. imperialists are beefing up their military presence in the Middle East in other ways as well. Exercises pf U.S. "rapid deployment forces" are intensifying on bases in Egypt. The gigantic U.S. naval flotilla in the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf has grown to 33 warships with over 160 warplanes aboard three aircraft carriers as well as amphibious armor and several thousand marines ready to land at a moment's notice. Moreover, with unbridled arrogance Carter has declared over and over again that he will unleash this colossal military force against Iran in the case of any "infringement" on the passage of oil tankers and warships through the Straights of Hormuz or any other "vital interest" of the U.S. imperialist overlords. Such is the "non-involvement" and "neutrality" of U.S. imperialism!

As Deputy Secretary of State Warren Christopher explained: "Neutrality does not mean American indifference. We will defend our vital interests in the Persian Gulf region." And to protect the "vital interests" of the U.S. multinational corporations the U.S. imperialists are inciting Iraq in its destruction of Iranian cities and towns; they are pursuing a dangerous policy of aircraft carrier blackmail and brinkmanship; and they are trying to turn the entire Persian Gulf region into a militarized war zone. This is the "Carter doctrine" of naked imperialism in action.

Brezhnev's "Neutrality" Is No Different than Carter's

Like Carter, Brezhnev has also pledged "neutrality" in the Iran-Iraq war. But Soviet social-imperialism's "neutrality" is no different than that of U.S. imperialism. After holding discussion on the war with Soviet Foreign Minister Gromyko, Secretary of State Muskie pointed out that the White House and the Kremlin are "follow(ing) parallel courses of actions." In other words, both superpowers are hiding their hands while jointly fomenting the Iran-Iraq war as a means to exert pressure in all directions and to strengthen their positions in the region. The principal direction of the "parallel course" which the superpowers have taken is towards jointly strangling Iran. Among other things, despite the repeated requests of the Iranian government to desist, the "neutral" Soviet social-imperialists are continuing to massively resupply the Iraqi war machine. As well, the Soviet new tsars have dispatched a flotilla of 28 warships to the Gulf region, and Soviet troops have been massed on Iran's long borders with both the Soviet Union and Afghanistan. This completes the other side of the vise to force Iran into submission.

The French, British and other West European imperialisms are also playing a dirty role in the Persian Gulf war. It is noteworthy that the top level Iraqi delegation which, upon the outbreak of the fighting, went to receive the blessings for Iraq's military adventure from the Soviet new tsars, immediately got on a plane from Moscow to Paris in order to discuss strategy with the French imperialists who have made numerous neo-colonial links with Iraq. Furthermore, it was the French foreign minister who was the first to publicly propose a joint U.S., French, British fleet to police the Persian Gulf. Recently, 30 French, British and Australian warships have joined the American flotilla in the Arabian Sea. And joint British-U.S. naval maneuvers off the coast of Iran in the Persian Gulf are planned for the end of this month.

Thus, the U.S. imperialists, Soviet social-imperialists along with the other imperialist powers are engaged in the notorious stratagem of "divide and rule." They have succeeded in fomenting a dangerous regional conflict, hurling the oppressed people into battle to slaughter one another in order to create a situation for the imperialist big guns to enter the conflict in force under the signboard of "peace" and "international security."

The Iraqi Government Is Playing into the Imperialist Stratagem of "Divide and Rule"

In this barbarous stratagem imperialism has found a useful weapon in the reactionary government of Iraq. The Baghdad clique of Saddam Hussein has its own chauvinist ambitions to replace the former Shah of Iran as the dominant power and policeman of the Persian Gulf. In order to emerge as an Arab and Gulf power to be reckoned with, Iraqi plans for the invasion of Iran had long been in the making, waiting only for the green light from the U.S. and other imperialists. However, things have not turned out on the battlefield as Saddam Hussein had hoped. The well-equipped and well-drilled Iraqi troops have met strong resistance from the Iranian defenders, both the Iranian soldiers and civilians alike.

The imperialists and social-imperialists have incited Iraq's chauvinist ambitions for the realization of their own objectives. All the imperialist wolves hope to tear Iran apart with the assistance of the Iraqi invasion. At the same time, U.S. imperialism, Soviet social- imperialism and the other imperialisms are hoping that this war will badly weaken Iraq also and in this way allow them to sink their claws deeper into the flesh of the Iraqi people. This is another of the motives behind the positions of so-called "neutrality" adopted by the superpowers. And this explains why the U.S. imperialists and their most obedient servants, the Saudi Arabians, have not thrown themselves without reserve behind the Iraqi invaders, as for example the arch-reactionary King Hussein of Jordan has done. Rather the U.S. imperialist strategy is to use the fratricidal war in the Persian Gulf to place pressure on Iraq also; to wring concessions from Baghdad in the direction of severing its links with Soviet social-imperialism, etc.

The Iraqi invasion of Iran benefits no one except the common enemies of both the oppressed Iranian and Iraqi masses. These enemies are the U.S. imperialists, the Soviet social-imperialists, the other imperialists and the Israeli Zionists, as well as the sold-out reactionaries who have joined the camp of these enemies. The fraternal revolutionary masses of Iran and Iraq and of the whole strife-torn region should close their ranks in a common struggle to oust the superpowers, the zionists and all their flunkeys from their homelands. The fratricidal war in the Persian Gulf can only fill the hearts of the enemies of both the Iranian and Iraqi peoples with glee. Therefore the only just resolution of the Iran-Iraq conflict is for the Iraqis to pull back behind their borders and for the Iraqis and Iranians to settle their differences without bloodshed.

Defend the Iranian Revolution!

The situation within Iran itself is quite complex. The insurrection which overthrew the Shah's tyrannical monarchy was carried out by the working class and the oppressed masses. But the working masses were not able to come to power. Instead Khomeini and his men came to power on the crest of the people's revolution. From the outset the new government in Tehran has shown that it is committed to stopping the revolution halfway and to restricting the freedoms and other objectives for which the working class and the exploited fought and died.

There is no question but that the government of Khomeini and Bani-Sadr is utilizing the conflict with Iraq for its own ends. Through the war the government is striving to boost its sagging prestige and strengthen its positions at the expense of the interests of the working masses. This situation further underscores the significance of the stand of the Workers' and Peasants' Communist Party of Iran which holds that the anti-imperialist struggle must be closely bound up with the struggle of the working class and other toilers for their democratic and economic rights and that the revolution must be carried through to the end.

However, the class nature of the Khomeini government does not mean that the working class and progressive people the world over should hesitate in coming to the defense of the victories of the Iranian revolution. On the contrary, they should firmly oppose the efforts of imperialism and the counter-revolution to restore the former status quo and to crush Iran whose people have risen in anti-imperialist struggle.

U.S. Imperialism and Soviet Social-imperialism, Get Out of the Persian Gulf!

In fomenting this war in the Persian Gulf the two warmongering superpowers have created a very dangerous situation for the Iranian people and the other peoples of the region and for the entire world. The present conflict threatens military clashes of much broader proportions. With each passing day the Pentagon dispatches more warships and warplanes and combat-ready troops to the region; and the Kremlin is doing the same. Blood is being spilled and catastrophic war is being threatened for no other reason than to satisfy the insatiable thirst of these international marauders for oil and super-profits.

Last January, following the Russian imperialists' barbaric invasion of Afghanistan, Carter proclaimed his new "Carter doctrine." According to this "doctrine" the domination and plunder of the Persian Gulf region is a matter of "vital interest" to U.S. imperialism which is to be guarded by U.S. military force. Since that time the roar of chauvinist and jingoist hysteria against the Iranian revolution has grown even more deafening, and the warmongering against Soviet social-imperialism has also been raised to a fever pitch. In July the 19-20 year old youth were registered for the military draft. And now a grave military conflict has been instigated by U.S. imperialism in order to bring Iran to its knees.

The ominous meaning of these events has not been lost on the American working class and people. The working masses of this country strongly oppose being plunged into a new war to "defend the vital interests" of the U.S. multinational oil corporations and the other imperialist sharks. The masses are turning towards active struggle against the war preparations of U.S. imperialism. The present Iraqi invasion of Iran brings home the necessity to push forward the struggle against the imperialist warmongers.

Part and parcel of the anti-war struggle is the demonstration of solidarity with the liberation struggle of the toiling masses of Iran and the other peoples of the Persian Gulf. The peace and security of the Persian Gulf can only be ensured through the liberation struggle of the people; the struggle to put an end to the plunder and control of the oil resources and the other declared "vital interests" of imperialism -- all of which belong entirely to the peoples who live there. The U.S. imperialists, the Soviet social-imperialists, and the other imperialists must get their bloody claws out of the Persian Gulf!

[Back to Top]

The common program of the parties of the rich to make the workers pay for the crisis

DOWN WITH CAPITALIST 'REINDUSTRIALIZATION'!

Both the Carter and Reagan camps have unveiled their latest election year schemes for "economic recovery" and "balanced growth." On August 28, the White House released an "economic revitalization program for the 1980's." This was Carter's third major economic program announced in the last eight months and his fifth since taking office. A few days later, on September 9, Reagan spelled out his much advertised "five year economic program" to "get America working again."

A comparison of these two programs shows that both the Democratic and the Republican Parties have in fact one common economic program. The common theme song of this common program is enormous tax breaks and other handouts to the capitalist corporations in order to provide them with the "necessary incentives" to "increase productivity." In other words to further ruin the workers through murderous productivity drives and speedup, through layoffs and plant closings, and real wage cuts and real tax increases. This is the heart of the billionaire monopolists' program for "reindustrialization" and "balanced growth" as spelled out by their twin mouthpieces, Carter and Reagan.

Carter's Tax "Incentives" for the Capitalists' Productivity Drives

The new slogan of Carter's economic policy is "Rebuilding American Industry by Increasing Economic Productivity." Under this signboard Carter is engaged in a footrace with Reagan as to which presidential contender can devise a program with the greatest amount of tax cuts, loans, grants and other handouts to the capitalist corporations. In particular, Carter's "revitalization" is aimed at providing the monopolies with tens of billions of dollars of "incentives" and "capital stimulus" to accelerate their productivity drives and rationalization programs. As Carter himself boasts, his new program is not a "traditional stimulus program." Rather it is centered on "raising productivity" through handouts to the capitalist employers for investing in new plants and equipment, in further modernizing and automating production. In other words, its primary objective is to speed up and exploit the workers to the bone, to get more work out of fewer workers and to cut back work forces and eliminate jobs.

In total, Carter's new program will cost the 1981 budget about $30 billion, with $27.6 billion of that in the form of tax cuts and tax credits. Most significantly Carter has proposed a major overhaul of the depreciation tax credit which corporations receive on their investments towards new plants and equipment. Carter's proposal to increase depreciation rates by 40% would mean a $6.3 billion savings for the capitalists in 1981. But over time this figure would rapidly multiply such that by 1985 it would amount to some $25 billion a year. Carter has also proposed to extend investment tax credits to companies which are reporting no profits and therefore pay no income taxes. This will amount to another $2.4 billion in the form of cash payments. Added to this are "special investment tax credits" of another $1 billion to be doled out to companies operating in high unemployment areas. Carter also plans to spend another $1 billion in direct loans and grants to finance "industrial development" and a further $600 million towards corporate research and development projects.

Contrary to the traditional election year tax cut which usually allots around 30% of the tax reduction towards corporate taxes, Carter has designated some 55% of his tax cut to go towards the corporate bank vaults. This is part of the historical trend whereby over the last decade corporate taxes have been reduced from 20% to a mere 14% of federal income tax revenues. Moreover, the bulk of these corporate tax cuts are in the form of new measures to provide subsidies directly for new plants and equipment.

Reagan Is Campaigning for the Same "Incentives" for the Rich as Carter

For his part, Ronald Reagan is complaining that Carter has unfairly stolen from Reagan's economic program as an election year ploy. Reagan is proposing a similar $36 billion tax reduction for 1981 which includes the very same depreciation tax credit that Carter is proposing.

The only difference between Reagan's program and Carter's is that while Reagan favors a 10% tax cut across the board each year for the next three years, Carter is proposing an 8% tax credit for only one or two years to be applied towards the increased Social Security taxes. Carter charges that Reagan's tax cut will only provide "tax relief for the rich" because an across-the-board tax cut means the greatest tax cuts go to the millionaires. To this Reagan counter-charges that Carter is the one opposed to "tax relief for the common man" because over half ($6.6 billion of Carter's tax credit for Social Security tax increases will go towards cutting payroll taxes paid by employers.

It just so happens that on this point both Carter's charges and Reagan's counter-charges have more than a grain of truth. Both of their promises for "tax relief" are a fraud and a swindle. Neither Carter's nor Reagan's tax cut will fully offset the increase in Social Security payroll taxes paid by the workers, much less the $22 billion in additional income taxes which will be plundered from the masses in 1981 alone due to inflation pushing wages into higher tax brackets. Under either program the working masses will be crushed by a heavier and more unbearable tax burden and the millionaires and corporations will enjoy tens of billions in "incentives" to "stimulate" their drive for maximum profits by exploiting the workers to the bone.

A "Business, Labor and Government Partnership" in Service to the Capitalist Money-Grubbers

In outlining his new economic program Carter stressed that: "To help us revitalize American industry, business, labor and the government must form a new and a vital partnership."

Similarly Reagan, in spelling out his five year economic plan, declared that: "This strategy of economic growth includes the growth that will come from the cooperation of business and labor."

These declarations show that a key ingredient to the capitalist strategy of "reindustrialization" is the creation of new forms of "cooperation" and "partnership" between the capitalist government, the corporate chieftains and the labor traitors of the AFL-CIO and the other capitalist trade unions. This is because the greatest potential obstacle to the capitalists' "revitalization" strategies is the powerful mass resistance of the workers to the productivity drives and speedup, layoffs and unemployment, wage cuts and economic ruin. Capitalist "reindustrialization" requires the suppression of strikes and every other disturbance of "labor peace." The government and the employers are therefore striving to enmesh their always faithful flunkeys at the head of the trade unions, the so-called "labor leaders," into countless new forms of tripartite (government, capitalist and "labor") as well as bipartite ("labor-management") cooperation.

Towards this end Carter is setting up a "President's Economic Revitalization Board." At the head of this advisory board Carter has placed Irving Shapiro, chairman and chief executive of the duPont conglomerate, and AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland. The big monopoly capitalist Shapiro has acclaimed Carter's new board for having "the potential for creating a major change in the relationship of government, industry and labor, of getting the adversary quality out of the relationship." Echoing the sympathies of this notorious capitalist billionaire, Lane Kirkland is positively ecstatic about Carter's new board which will "make labor and management partners with their government in the important economic revitalization program." Kirkland even boasts that Carter's board is patterned after the AFL- CIO's own proposal.

One of the main tasks of this board is to draw up plans for a tripartite controlled industrial development authority along the lines of a Reindustrialization Finance Corporation (RFC). According to the White House, the RFC would be set up to provide funding for "industrial development and economic revitalization." For this purpose the RFC "would draw on both public and private funds, and would provide investment opportunities for pension funds."

In other words, Carter is rigging up an RFC under the auspices of the corporate moneybags and trade union hacks for the sole purpose of funneling more tens of billions of dollars of tax money and additional billions plundered from the workers' pension funds into the retooling schemes and productivity drives of the monopolies.

What a splendid "new and vital partnership" in the service of the capitalist money-grubbers!

The Capitalist Parties Have No Solution for the Crisis

The economic crisis has again broken out in force. During the first half of 1980, industrial production fell 9.6%, which represents the sharpest six- month drop in industrial output since the end of World War II. Once again there is 8% unemployment which means that there are over eight million jobless workers. And double-digit inflation continues to soar out of sight.

The capitalist politicians have no solution for the crisis. The present massive layoffs and the 14% inflation and astronomical interest rates, as well as the underlying economic stagnation and decay, cannot be overcome by the election year promises of the likes of Carter or Reagan or any other two- faced politician in the pay of the monopolies.

Of course, the capitalist elections circus would not be the farce that it is without lying politicians and lying election year promises. But in this election, held in the midst of the third major recession during a decade of severe industrial stagnation, record inflation and unemployment, even the false promises have lost some of their glow. All of the candidates are imploring the masses to not have too high expectations for the near future, that "rough times" and a period of "hard sacrifices" lie ahead.

Four years ago, Carter was elected to office under a mountain of promises that he would provide jobs. At that time Carter campaigned against the 8% unemployment and 5% inflation which he castigated as the shameful products of eight years of Republican administration. Today Carter's false sermons about "full employment" and "controlling inflation" have become much quieter as unemployment has again reached 8% and inflation roars at nearly three times the pace of when Carter took office. Reagan too has toned down his fantastic fairy tales about the economic miracles a Reagan administration would create. Reagan's advisors have even projected that by 1985 -- that is after four years of Reagan's economic plan -- inflation would remain at 8% and unemployment levels at 5.7%. What all this demonstrates is the total bankruptcy of the capitalist political parties in regard to coping with the powerful economic crisis which has the monopoly capitalist system in its clutches.

Nevertheless, the bourgeoisie and the slick capitalist politicians are striving to bedazzle public opinion with highfalutin talk of "reindustrialization" and "rebuilding the industrial base." But behind all this fancy chatter lies a most cynical and ruthless policy of unbridled plunder and exploitation of the working masses.

Economic Policy Based on the Cynical Principle that "What Is Good for General Motors Is Good for the Country"

Both Carter and Reagan are openly pursuing the notorious principle that "what is good for General Motors is good for the country." That is to say, these mouthpieces of the billionaires are telling the workers whose livelihoods are being ruined at the hands of the capitalist exploiters that the sole solution to their problems lies in "revitalizing" these same man-eating capitalists, in making their operations "competitive" and "profitable." In particular, allegedly by "raising productiveness" and bringing down the capitalists' costs of production to the minimum through automation, speedup, reduction of work forces and wage cuts, the masses will be able to harvest the fruits of an "economic rebirth." Inflation will subside and jobs, or as Carter puts it, "millions of jobs" will come into being.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Under capitalism, where the workers operate the machines and man the assembly lines as the wage slaves of the capitalist owners, cutting the costs of production by raising the productivity of the workers will never serve to lighten the burden of exploitation on the workers' shoulders. Quite the opposite. Each measure taken by the capitalists to raise productivity through the introduction of new machinery, the rationalization of production lines, etc., is a step towards more efficient and thorough exploitation, towards increasing the vast ranks of the army of unemployed, towards even worse slavery and impoverishment for the workers.

"Reindustrialization" Can Only Deepen the Crisis of a System Which Is Rotting Alive

"Restoring productiveness through reindustrialization." This is what Carter and Reagan and all the other capitalist politicians are trying to hawk, under one label or another, as the newly discovered miracle cure for all the grave ills of the capitalist economy. Of course, there is no such remedy capable of "revitalizing" the crisis- ridden and decaying monopoly capitalist system.

In fact, "reindustrialization" is simply a star-spangled propaganda slogan for forcing the working class to pay for the capitalist economic crisis. It is a slogan for imposing "labor peace" by ruthlessly breaking strikes and imposing wage controls and wage cuts and robbing the workers of all sorts of "concessions." It is a slogan for productivity drives, automation and speedup and massive layoffs and plant closings. And it is a slogan for forking over the workers' tax money to the monopolies in order to finance this rationalization program. Thus, what "reindustrialization" amounts to is an elixir for the health of the profit margins of the big corporations and banks, while for the workers it is pure poison.

However, these measures to enrich the moneybags and ruin the workers cannot restore the health of the disease-stricken capitalist system which is already rotting alive. The industrial crisis of overproduction and the industrial stagnation, the eight million unemployed and double-digit inflation, are the result of the contradictions inherent within the monopoly capitalist mode of production. The fundamental contradiction which has brought about this comprehensive crisis is the contradiction between the social character of production (with tens of thousands of workers being brought together in large-scale industry) and the private character of ownership (with the factories and machines in the clutches of a relative handful of capitalist exploiters) -- a contradiction which is manifested in the class struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie.

Each new measure to more thoroughly exploit and ruthlessly plunder the workers can only aggravate the underlying contradictions which are already wreaking havoc. Thus, the "revitalization" measures can only pave the way for yet deeper crisis, guaranteeing that the next industrial recession will come that much sooner and break out with that much more catastrophic force.

Moreover, far from ensuring the "class peace" which the exploiters dream of, the capitalists' "reindustrialization" measures will inevitably result in ever more powerful class struggle. The working class is not about to be trampled upon like a wretched and broken slave. Already there are stirrings of the mass struggles of the workers against the productivity drives, wage cuts and layoffs. And such stirrings herald the inevitable storm of revolt of the working class and oppressed masses against the man-eating exploitation and tyranny of monopoly capital. It is only the proletarian socialist revolution, which will expropriate the capitalist exploiters and replace the rule of the monopolies and billionaires with the rule of the workers, that can put an end to the present great crisis.

[Back to Top]

University of California at Berkeley:

The struggle against nuclear weapons research at the Lawrence Livermore Labs

[Photo: On September 19, a militant demonstration was organized to denounce the University of California Nuclear Weapons Labs in Berkeley, California. Comrades and supporters of the San Francisco Bay Area Branch of the MLP,USA vigorously participated in this and issued the following leaflet.]

Today, the warmongers of Washington are carrying out the most feverish militarization of American society in preparation to launch aggressive wars. Carter has reinstituted registration for the hated draft in order to begin press-ganging the youth into the U.S. imperialist armed forces. The new five-year "defense" program provides the military with an additional $90 billion over already bloated levels. Big new armament projects are underway, such as the "undetectable bomber" to replace the B-52 fleet, the "fire-and-forget" missiles, and so on.

A program to modernize the nuclear arsenal is underway and plays a key part in imperialist arming and rearming. In addition to the $500 million being allocated for warhead refurbishing, construction has begun on new systems such as the $100 billion! MX mobile missile, one of the most expensive projects in U.S. history.

This nuclear program includes putting breeder reactor technology into production in order to increase supplies of the plutonium needed to make nuclear bombs, as well as the rapid expansion of the conventional reactor program. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's issuance last month of the final operating license for the Virginia Electric Power Company reactor is an initial step in bringing on-line all the completed reactors nationwide -- including Diablo Canyon and San Onofre 2 in California. This is part of the frenzied imperialist stockpiling of all energy resources for war. The rapid expansion of the nuclear program and other armament developments are the 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" whose purpose is to protect the "vital interests" of the Wall Street billionaires in the face of the revolutionary struggles of the world's people, such as the Iranian revolution, and in the face of increased competition for world domination with rival imperialist superpower, Soviet social-imperialism.

In this program of modernizing the nuclear arsenal, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories -- also known as the U.C. Nuclear Weapons Labs -- play a most important role in research and development of nuclear and conventional weapons. Livermore is a straight-out weapons facility which was opened in 1952 to assist U.C.'s Lawrence Berkeley and Los Alamos labs in the race to provide the U.S. imperialists with a hydrogen bomb. Throughout their history these labs, the final operating license for the Virginia Electric Power Company reactor is an initial step in bringing on-line all the completed reactors nationwide -- including Diablo Canyon and San Onofre 2 in California. This is part of the frenzied imperialist stockpiling of all energy resources for war. The rapid expansion of the nuclear program and other armament developments are the 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" whose purpose is to protect the "vital interests" of the Wall Street billionaires in the face of the revolutionary struggles of the world's people, such as the Iranian revolution, and in the face of increased competition for world domination with rival imperialist superpower, Soviet social-imperialism.

In this program of modernizing the nuclear arsenal, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories -- also known as the U.C. Nuclear Weapons Labs -- play a most important role in research and development of nuclear and conventional weapons. Livermore is a straight-out weapons facility which was opened in 1952 to assist U.C.'s Lawrence Berkeley and Los Alamos labs in the race to provide the U.S. imperialists with a hydrogen bomb. Throughout their history these labs, nurtured by the highest organizations of the imperialist state (Atomic Energy Commission, Departments of Defense and Energy, University of California, etc.), have met every whim of the Washington warmongers for evermore sophisticated weapons of mass destruction and nuclear blackmail. This enterprise has become so vast, involving over a billion dollars in 1979 alone, that the nuclear weapons labs truly dwarf the U.C. Berkeley itself.

Livermore and U.C. have been instrumental in developing many of the warmongering measures being introduced at this time. They are responsible for the design and built the prototype of the MX warhead, as well as the warheads for the new Cruise missiles and for the deadly Trident submarine-launched missile. Livermore scientists supervise the continual testing and perfection of new weapons at the Nevada Test Site -- work which has resulted in mass poisoning of the people of Nevada and Utah. Livermore designed the warhead for the 500 additional Pershing missiles being deployed over the next year by the U.S. imperialist NATO alliance against the will of the European peoples. The huge computer complex at Livermore (among the world's largest) has given birth to such deadly breakthroughs as the MIRV (multiple warhead) missile and the notorious neutron bomb -- which "only" kills people and leaves property untouched.

The Lie of "Peaceful Research" Cannot Hide Livermore's Role in U.S. Imperialist War Preparations

The government of the rich itself admits that Livermore's only reason for being is weapons. Therefore, all so- called non-weapons research must have a "synergistic" (i.e., complementary) connection with weapons research, as defined by strict Department of Energy criteria: "Non-weapons work is not to unduly hamper weapons work"; "Non-weapons work undertaken should complement weapons work"; "The capability should be retained to transfer the resources from non-weapons to weapons work"; etc. Such criteria is quite explicit and ensures that nothing can get in the way of the U.S. imperialists' frenzied armaments program.

However, for purposes of political deception lab officials such as U.C. President Saxon claim that "peaceful research" takes upwards of 40% of the budgets of Livermore and Los Alamos, and that we should support the labs' various "good works," such as Livermore's "significant contribution to environmental research." Sweet lullabies for the gullible! The claim that Livermore uses only 60% of its budget- for weapons work is a fraud. This figure consciously excludes nuclear and other energy research which has both direct military application and also serves the energy stockpiling for war which imperialist chieftain Carter outlined in his warmongering State of the Union speech. This "peaceful research" includes such projects as studying the effects of nuclear testing and warfare on plants and animals, studying the victims of Livermore's own activity. This is what Saxon means with his nonsense about the lab's "contribution" to environmental research. All such talk about the pure science and environmental work at Livermore casts the labs in a "very rosy light" indeed and demonstrates to what extent the U.S. imperialists will go to cover up their weapons development at U.C. and elsewhere.

The U.C. labs also play an important role in the rapid expansion of the domestic reactor program. At the Climax mine project on the Nevada Test Site, Livermore scientists are experimenting with various short-term storage methods as part of the U.S. imperialist nuclear "waste management program." This waste management is not designed to solve any of the key questions dealing with the dangerous problem of radioactive wastes but is part of the Department of Energy program to reprocess spent nuclear fuel to feed the fast-breeder reactors and produce plutonium. Such "peaceful" projects, clad in gaudy "waste management" colors, serve nothing but imperialist weapons production. Livermore's $22.5 million "Safeguard" program (funded by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission) is designed in large part to whitewash the dangers of the nuclear reactor program at the taxpayers' expense, just as the President's Kemeny Commission set out to do after Three Mile Island. Safeguard includes research into "proving" that reactors can operate safely on top of active earthquake faults. This research is useful in bringing Diablo Canyon online and is designed to help the PG&E (Pacific Gas and Electric) monopolists "define away" the problem of siesmic vibrations and whitewash the dangers of Diablo. Livermore projects like Climax and Safeguard have nothing peaceful about them and are designed to tidy up the shortcomings of the U.S. nuclear program so that it may be rapidly expanded without opposition from the people.

Livermore endangers the lives of its workers and surrounding residents. All the U.C. nuclear facilities are operated with total disregard for the health and safety of the people. Lawrence Livermore's history is one of "accidents" -- tritium releases and plutonium leaks, earthquakes and a plutonium fire, radioactive contamination of the surrounding area and an alarming rate of cancers amongst lab workers and neighbors. The January 24 and 26 earthquakes this year, which resulted in significant structural damage of the labs and a major tritium leak, highlighted the issue of safety once again. The 47,500 drums of Livermore's nuclear waste dumped in the ocean off the Farallons pose a great danger to the people of the Bay Area as they slowly leak plutonium. Together with this criminal poisoning, the nuclear program burdens the masses of people with its heavy taxation and constant electricity rate hikes. But total disregard for the well-being of the people is to be expected from the U.S. imperialist gangsters who have committed such genocidal aggression and murder as in Viet Nam, Iran and many other countries.

Mass Struggle Against U.S. Imperialism and Its Lackeys Is the Only Way to Fight Against the Nuclear Weapons Labs

Against the frenzied imperialist war preparations the people are waging mass struggles. All across the country mass demonstrations, protests and big rallies have taken place in opposition to the re-institution of the draft, against nuclear power plants and nuclear weapons facilities, against the entire energy program of the rich and against U.S. aggression in Iran. On May 5, 1979, one thousand people gathered in Livermore to denounce the weapons labs and demand that they be shut down. These mass struggles are a continuation of the glorious legacy of struggles waged by the American people against the U.S. imperialists and their aggression in Indochina in the 1960's and 70's. For example, on February 10, 1971, thousands of Berkeley students marched against the U.C. nuclear weapons labs in solidarity with the national liberation struggles of the Indochinese peoples against their common enemy, the U.S. imperialist bloodsuckers. This demonstrates the essential link which the activists drew between opposition to Pentagon research at home and to U.S. imperialist aggression abroad. This mass movement continues today drawing thousands upon thousands of people, delivering blows to U.S. imperialism and its war preparations. For this reason, the mass movement is encountering every conceivable opposition from the U.S. capitalist ruling class and its government. Using not only open fascist violence against the people as at Seabrook, N.H., they also use sweet-talking politicians like Jerry Brown and a motley crew, of "left-wing" Democratic Party hacks who attempt to organize a crusade designed to give imperialism and war preparations a "human face." Their basic aim is to try to get the masses to join them in this crusade and thereby liquidate the mass struggle of the people altogether.

Maneuvering to smash the movement against the Lawrence Livermore Labs, a sham debate has been organized by the Regents over whether or not U.C. will continue to manage the weapons labs. This plot was engineered by Brown and his cronies last year to serve their U.S. imperialist masters who pay them well. This sham debate has a dual purpose: it serves to legitimize U.C.'s complete and vigorous participation in war preparations in general and in managing the nuclear weapons labs in particular. Creating a big fanfare about this so-called "open debate" where they even let some people speak out against U.S.'s ties, the Regents want to promote the deception that the contract renewal and other warmongering policies of U.C. are based on a "democratic" process involving administration, faculty and students. What a cruel joke! The University's policy is not democratically voted on by the people but is dictated by the U.S. imperialists who rule this country politically, economically and socially. The University of California system exists to serve the U.S. imperialists and to perpetuate their rule at home and domination abroad. This is why U.C. is so actively involved in all aspects of war preparations, and the myth that U.C. is an open, independent educational institution is just that -- a myth.

Step Up the Fight Against the Weapons Labs and Further Militarization of U.C.!

The University of California is itself a major imperialist institution and hotbed of war preparations, and is an eager partner in the profitable Livermore venture. In addition to the billion dollars U.C. receives to operate the labs, the Regents pocket a cool $4 million per year from the Department of Energy for their "discretionary" use. For the Navy, the University also runs a biological testing unit at the Oakland Naval Supply Center where "research" with various toxins is conducted. U.C. trains whole generations of scientists and engineers to work on government weapons development and in California's giant arms industry. The Regents have invested some $278 million of taxpayer and employee funds in the nuclear industry and even operate their own nuclear reactor in Etcheverry Hall, right in downtown Berkeley. Personnel regularly shuttle between Sproul Hall, the Pentagon, private industry and the weapons lab: U.S. imperialist Secretary of War Harold Brown and nuclear war advocate Edward Teller are just two such products of U.C.

The University is more than willing to harbor the ROTC and various military recruiters on campus and tries to ingrain students with imperialist politics, economics and social norms. The U.C. administration is quite notorious among students for dispatching the fascist campus police to suppress the anti-imperialist activities of students. While the University forces out progressive faculty and seeks to impose starvation wages on its staff and service workers, it provides fat salaries and armchair jobs to legions of pro-imperialist ideologues, "former" espionage agents, warmongering publicists and anti-working class "sociologists." Clearly, the University of California is completely in service to U.S. imperialism, and the struggle against the labs and against U.C. is one fight, a fight against imperialism.

By prolonging and "opening up" the process of contract renewal for the labs, Jerry Brown, the Department of Energy and the Regents are attempting to sucker the honest, militant activists into sham debates, legalism, moral appeals and pleas to trickster Brown to appoint more "left-wing" hacks as Regents. But as the September 19 Regents' hearings showed, these intrigues will be met with militant demonstrations by the students and progressive working masses who want to fight and not to "reason" with the U.S. imperialists and their political spokesmen. This initial failure to subvert the students' wrath over the U.C. weapons labs forced the Regents to drop their "humanitarian" masks and take up the cudgel. While President Saxon delivered an outright warmongering lecture on the need to defend the "national security" of the oil billionaires, other Regents threatened the students with retaliation for their just stand through fee hikes and other reactionary measures. But neither the imperialists' hangmen nor their "left-wing" priests are powerful enough to stop the struggles of the students and American working people once they embark on the road of waging mass struggles against the U.S. imperialists and their barbaric war preparations.

Down with the Lawrence Livermore Labs!

Down with all U.S imperialist war preparations!

(Leaflet issued by the San Francisco Bay Area Branch of the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA, on September 30, 1980.)

[Back to Top]

Down with the Bestial Atrocities Against Blacks in Buffalo, New York!

Take the Path of Mass Action to Fight the Racist Murderers!

(The following article is adapted from the Buffalo Workers' Voice, newspaper of the Buffalo Branch of the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA, October 15, 1980.)

A murderous, racist onslaught against the black people in Buffalo is underway. Last week, Parlour Edwards and Ernst Jones were brutally murdered and their bodies mutilated. And a black patient at the Erie County Medical Center was nearly strangled to death by a racist assailant who declared to him: "I hate all black people." These latest atrocities follow the earlier racist executions last month of four black men by the ".22 calibre killer."

Hand in hand with these murders, other attacks against the black masses are being carried out. A black auto worker was assaulted on his way home from work by two racist thugs. A gang of KKK racists harassed the mourners at the funeral of one of the victims of the ".22 calibre killer." A witness to another of the ".22 calibre" murders was threatened by two racists if she testified. And three cross burnings have taken place in the past week.

It is unmistakeably clear that a systematic and conscious campaign of the most brutal and vicious racist murder and terror has been organized against the black people in Buffalo. Many people have expressed the belief that the KKK is responsible for these heinous racist crimes. But the police and government are trying to cover up the fact that there is a systematic campaign of murder and terror being carried out against the black people. District Attorney Cosgrove has even denied that the KKK exists in Buffalo -- a fact which is well known to all. The police are insisting that these murders are the work of one or several unconnected "lunatics." Indeed, in order to cover up and protect the Klan, the police have even gone to the length of blaming the black people for the cross burnings -- charging that "black agitators" are responsible.

The Government Is the Organizer of the Klan and Other Fascist Scum

The police, the entire local government apparatus and the FBI are, in fact, conducting a conscious cover-up. In particular, they are anxious to conceal the existence of the KKK in Buffalo because they know that any serious investigation into its existence and activity will lead squarely back to the police department itself and into the office of the mayor, racist Jimmy Griffin.

It was the Buffalo police department which organized and recruited for the local KKK group in 1974-75 during the height of the government-organized fascist anti-busing movement nationally. At that time, racist and fascist "white power" literature was openly displayed and distributed from police precincts and the downtown police headquarters. The police also aided the local KKK to set up their "white power bookstore" on Bailey Avenue -- in particular, providing special protection for these fascist scum to save them from the wrath of the masses.

Moreover, the racist Mayor Griffin has direct ties to the local KKK. It was out of a split in his own party, the Conservative Party of Western New York, that the two local leaders of the KKK, Whiteside and Hand, emerged. These nazi vermin formed the "White People's Party" in 1974-75, which later became the local KKK. Mr. Griffin not only sat in the same political party with these two notorious racist gangsters, but he enjoyed their enthusiastic support when he ran for mayor in 1977. Why, the "white power bookstore" nazis even celebrated Griffin's election as mayor by shooting a young black man and burning campaign posters of the black politician who Griffin defeated in the election. Mr. Griffin never even bothered to verbally disavow this support of the open racists and fascists. Rather, he encouraged it, since he ran his own campaign for mayor on a racist basis in the first place.

Thus, when DA Cosgrove, Police Commissioner Cunningham and Mayor Griffin deny the existence of the KKK in Buffalo; when they deny that the current terror campaign is organized by a group of racist criminals; they have a very clear motive. Their motive is to protect their friends, the racist gang which they organized. Their motive is to keep the truth that the KKK and other racists are directly organized by the government hidden from the masses of people.

The current campaign of racist murder and terror in Buffalo is part of the national onslaught of savage police and KKK terror against the black people in the U.S. It is taking place under the Democratic administration of Jimmy Carter. And, of course, it also enjoys the "bipartisan" support of the KKK-endorsed Republican Party and its presidential candidate, the notorious racist reactionary Ronald Reagan. Across the country, the police are carrying out wanton murders and beatings of the black masses, especially the youth. The murder of Arthur McDuffie by the Miami police and the exoneration of these bestial criminals by the courts is not an exceptional "breakdown of justice" but a typical example of the racist "justice" enforced in cities and towns across the country. The government is also working harder than ever to organize and activate their gangs of racist thugs such as the KKK and other fascist scum. In Greensboro and Chattanooga and throughout the country, the Klan and other racist gangsters are carrying out terroristic atrocities against the masses with the full blessings and backing of the government authorities. And the capitalist news media is providing the Klan with maximum exposure and promotion.

Mass Struggle Is the Only Answer to the Racist Murder and Terror Campaign

The black people have answered these racist attacks by mounting powerful mass struggles against the government. The recent rebellions of the black people in Miami, Orlando, Chattanooga and elsewhere mark a new upsurge in the struggle of the black people in the U.S. The further development of mass struggle is the correct way to respond to the racist attacks of the KKK fascists and the government. Any suppression of the KKK racists and any protection of the black masses from racist murder and terror can only come from this mass struggle. The same government which organizes the racist gangs and itself directly carries out racist attacks against the blacks every day -- this government will never itself suppress the KKK, bring the racist murderers to justice or protect the black masses. No. The only fighting response is for the masses to organize -- consciously and systematically organize -- their mass struggle against the racist atrocities, the racist gangs and the government. Only this bars the way to even further and more brutal attacks and suppression.

The black people of Buffalo have a powerful sentiment for the mass struggle. They know that they must rely upon their own efforts, the efforts and struggle of the masses themselves, to put a stop to these brutal murders and protect the black masses from further atrocities. Just as in Miami and Chattanooga, the racist police department of Cosgrove and Cunningham, the racist local government of Jimmy Griffin, and the racist national administration of Jimmy Carter will never provide justice to the black masses. If the criminal assassins of the black people are to be brought to justice, it is only the masses of working people who will accomplish this.

For example, several days ago a racist goon hung a beef heart with a "KKK" sign attached to it in the locker room at Bethlehem Steel. The workers themselves delivered this racist hoodlum the proper response. As the police reported, he was "fortunate" to escape with his life. And again, in 1977 when the black youth destroyed the "white power bookstore" on Bailey Avenue to avenge the shooting of a black youth, it was this mass action which succeeded in driving these racist vermin underground for several years. These two examples show that the workers and black masses of Buffalo know what is required to deal out justice to racist criminals: mass struggle, the militant actions of the masses themselves.

The Democratic Party Is Telling the Black Community to Sit on Its Hands

Clearly, organizing the mass struggle against the current racist onslaught is absolutely correct and necessary. But certain so-called "leaders" are doing the dirty work for the Democratic Party. These Democratic Party hacks, local Jesse Jacksons and Andrew Youngs, have not made one single step toward assisting the masses to get organized for struggle which they so fervently desire. Rather than lift a single finger to organize the masses for struggle against these attacks, their entire effort has been concentrated on feverishly trying to prevent and suppress the mass struggle. Why, they have made their main demand -- a plea to the governor to call in the national guard to Buffalo in order to "prevent a riot."

The government is making full use of these so-called "leaders" to help them "keep the black masses in their place." They have even hurriedly flown the well-known "riot stopper" Jesse Jackson into town and sent him into the black community to help put out the sparks of revolt. Addressing a rally of 600 people on last Friday evening -- 600 people who came because they wanted to get organized to fight these attacks -- Jackson never once called on the masses to fight. He did not provide the masses with a single means for fighting. Far from it. He preached sub mission. He concentrated all his fire against the mass struggle and demanded that the masses rely on the government authorities to deal with the situation! Jackson is so blatant a traitor to the black people that he even denounced the 1968 rebellions of the black people to avenge the murder of Martin Luther King -- charging that these glorious rebellions were the reason for the "rise of fascism" with the election of Nixon as president. What a shameless traitor and Judas priest! To denounce the masses who rose in struggle against a most vile racist and fascist assassination as the cause of fascism! To preach instead that the black masses should simply allow themselves to be slaughtered at will in cold blood and should just "keep cool," just "sit back and relax"!

But Jackson's treachery knows no bounds. He went further to denounce the masses for "getting diverted" by such an issue as six racist murders when they should be concentrating all their efforts on getting Jimmy Carter elected! The same Jimmy Carter who the fighting masses of Miami greeted with rocks and bottles and chants of "Hail to the Chief Racist!"

But the black masses will never go down on their knees to Carter and the Democratic Party and their servants who preach submission towards racist murder. The black people in the U.S. won the respect and admiration of the entire working class in the U.S. and of world public opinion because they have never submitted to even the most brutal and violent suppression of the racist U.S. imperialist government and the KKK and other racist terror squads it organizes. The entire history of the black people in the U.S. is a glorious history of the most militant and heroic mass struggle to win freedom and justice. The black masses will not commit suicide by going down on their knees in the face of racist murderers and begging protection from the racist government.

The MLP/Buffalo Branch stands for active resistance to racist and fascist attacks. We call upon the workers and all progressive and revolutionary people to render full and active support to the black people's struggle against these racist murders and terror campaign.

Down with the racist and fascist gangs!

Down with the flunkeys of the Democratic Party that preach submission to racism!

Mass active resistance to the racist atrocities!

[Back to Top]

The Libertarian Party - sugar-coated Reaganites

The Libertarians are ideological Reaganites. But they carry the usual "conservative" Republican trick of supporting big business hypocritically by railing against "big government" to anarchist extremes. They stand for the direct power of the corporations and absolute protection of the property rights of the rich. So it is no wonder that in practice their fantastic anarchist schemes always turn out to be a prettification of the actual capitalist offensive against the workers carried out by the rich and their government.

The Libertarians try to gain popularity among the masses by railing at this or that policy of the government. They do their best to downplay their reactionary Reaganite policies. Thus their popular literature and their election campaigning is silent about their platform of letting the unemployed starve, and instead makes a pretext of opposing the unpopular warmongering policies of Carter and Reagan. They pretend to oppose U.S. intervention in other countries, the U.S. world empire, militarism and even flirt with the word imperialism. Undoubtedly many, if not the big majority, of the votes it receives in this election will be cast as a protest against U.S. imperialism.

But the Libertarian Party is engaging in a crude fraud. It is in favor of the large corporations and their unrestricted right to plunder, abroad as well as in the U.S. And the world will not agree to be peacefully plundered by the bloodsucking U.S. multinational corporations. Thus the Libertarian dream of ensuring exploitation with peace, or at least with a somewhat smaller army and military budget than at present, is a pipe-dream. All its talk of opposing militarism and reducing the army is based on its assertion that U.S. power will not thereby be harmed. Thus the 1980 Libertarian Platform begins the section on the "military" by recognizing "the necessity for maintaining a sufficient military force to defend the United States against aggression." Aggression, of course, is the lying politician's stock phrase for anything that opposes U.S. imperialism. Hence in the big print the Libertarians assure the public that as a matter of principle they are opposed to the draft, foreign military bases and so on, while in the fine print they state that, of course, should their proposals be unable to ensure the defense of the profits and property rights of the corporate exploiters, then they will do whatever is necessary to ensure a strong U.S. imperialism.

The Libertarians carry out their fraud by denying that the present overgrown, oppressive government and huge military apparatus is a tool of the rich and the giant monopolies. Oh no. According to the Libertarian liars, the present government allegedly oppresses rich and poor equally, rather than being a tool of the rich to oppress the poor. Indeed, they work themselves up to the height of reactionary Republican rhetoric when they imply that the government oppresses the rich even more than the poor, for the poor are part of "an entrenched privileged class -- those with access to tax money" while most of the rich are "an exploited class -- those who are net taxpayers." (1980 Libertarian Party Platform, Trade and the Economy)

Thus the Libertarians cry crocodile tears over the "coercive monopoly" of government while supporting the exact same coercion and oppression if it is done directly by the corporations. For them, even segregation and pushing women into prostitution are shining examples of "free" will, the "rights of the individual" and of "voluntary association," so long as they are carried out in the marketplace and are free from all government regulation. For that matter, they even defend the very intervention in other countries that they supposedly condemn when done by the U.S. government, if it is done by the corporations. Thus the section of their Draft Platform on the Middle East denounces all military and economic aid from the U.S. government, while supporting freedom for "private foreign aid, both military and economic." Thus they presumably endorse the marauding armies of white mercenaries roaming around Africa, for those hired racist thugs have been bought "freely" in the marketplace.

The Libertarians have no grudge against corporate monopoly. They regard only government action as "coercive monopoly," while they deny that the corporations coerce and bludgeon the working masses. Hence, with a straight face, they assure the people that the problem of monopolization will be solved by the removal of all government regulations on the corporations. Thus, according*to them, high gasoline prices regulated by the government for the sake of the oil monopolies is "coercive," but high gasoline prices extorted directly by the U.S. oil barons is sacred freedom and human rights. The revolutionary proletariat will not, however, agree to either form of exploitation by the rich and will solve the problem of monopolies in its own way by expropriating the rich and replacing the capitalist government by the workers' state power.

Indeed, it is quite appropriate that the Libertarian candidate for president, Ed Clark, is an anti-trust corporation lawyer for Atlantic Richfield (ARCO). Ideologically the Libertarians can be described as the big oil party or the big money party. They appeal to the little man against "coercive monopoly," but in fact they are a party of brutal corporate tyranny.

Big oil and the other giant monopolies are really veritable governments in themselves, with larger budgets and bigger numbers of employees than numerous allegedly sovereign states, states that are really controlled and run by the multinational companies. Therefore the Libertarian's anarchism consists of playfully dreaming of the big monopolies exercising sovereignty directly, without the nuisance posed by governments, elections, or the facade of public accountability.

The Libertarians parade themselves as the only "principled" party, but their program, as expressed in their 1980 Platform, is a typical grab bag of politician's tricks and a mass of contradictions. For example, it pledges support for "the eventual repeal of all taxation," while advocating the maintenance of a powerful army, the various local police forces (to protect the property rights of the rich), the court system and so forth. Nice trick!

Underneath such absurdities, the real essence of the Libertarian Platform is support for the present capitalist program of the Democrats and the Republicans, only expressed in a somewhat fantastic form. For example, on economic matters, the Libertarians are open ultra-Reaganites. They are on principle opposed to welfare, unemployment insurance, social security programs, minimum wage laws, safety regulations and so forth. They hold that the only role of government is to protect the property rights of the rich from theft or from the violence of the oppressed. They even oppose the public school system and all "government ownership, operation, regulation and subsidy of schools and colleges," and even demand "the privatization of the inland waterways," and of "the public roads and national highway system." The unemployed and the poor are to make shift for themselves, the Libertarians assuring them that economic crisis will magically disappear and an era of full employment and prosperity appear if only the government leaves everything to the corporations.

These stands by the Libertarians are in accord with the cutbacks in social programs by the present government, only what the other politicians call the necessity to sacrifice, the Libertarians present as the triumph of individual rights.

As well, the Libertarian call for eliminating all taxation is the prettification of the present process of eliminating all taxation of the corporations and shifting the entire burden onto the working masses. Indeed, the Libertarians are willing to compromise and put off the total elimination of taxation until the future, while eliminating immediately "all personal and corporate income taxation, including capital gains taxes." Thus taxes on the corporations and all graduated taxes are to be eliminated, while some variant of the more regressive taxes that bear disproportionately on the poor are to be used. Hence it can be seen why the May-June 1980 issue of the "Clark for President News" stated that "Many of his [Reagan's -- ed.] stated positions [on economic issues --ed.] bear a resemblance to those taken by Libertarian presidential candidate Ed Clark." It therefore interviewed Clark "to determine the extent of the differences between Clark and Reagan on economic issues." In the interview, Clark denounces Reagan for only paying "lip service" to "the concept of free enterprise." Hence Clark is an ultra-Reaganite who denounces Reagan for not being extreme enough in his defense of the rights of the corporation.

The Libertarian program is also Reaganite not just on economic matters, but also in its stand towards the oppressed nationalities. The Libertarians engage in all the racist rhetoric about "reverse discrimination" and "forced busing." They are against any denial of the rights of the corporations or the rich to practice racial discrimination or to hire only whites and so forth as an infringement on the right of "voluntary association." They are against any prohibition of the rich to organize reactionary and fascist gangs. Here too the Libertarian program is fully in line with the racism and fascism of Reagan and Carter, only using the Reaganite catchwords rather than the Carterite ones.

As a matter of fact, the Libertarian fight against the state is an utter sham. While the Republicans and the Reaganites talk of "small government" and "fiscal responsibility" and so forth, they always produce just as rapid an expansion of the oppressive capitalist government as the Democrats. The Libertarians too fully support the court system and the need to have a state system to protect the rich from violence and violation of their property rights. Furthermore, the only way to fight the power of the rich, whether this power is expressed directly through the corporations and the marketplace, or indirectly through the lap dogs of the corporations in the government, is through the development of the revolutionary working class movement. But the Libertarian Party is the bitter enemy of all revolutionary action and of the class struggle as violations of "freedom" for property rights. They will only admit individual moral actions as legitimate. They are even opponents of trade union struggle, being "for" the rights of unions only provided that scabs are allowed to cross picket lines unhindered. They regard the socialist revolution and the expropriation of the rich as the ultimate horror. In practical politics, they simply serve as a sugarcoating for the right wing of the Republican Party.

[Back to Top]

On the Love Affair of the Citizens Party and the "CPML":

Pacifists and Warmongers Hand in Hand

The Citizens Party claims to be the party of "peace." But in fact it opposes the revolutionary struggle against imperialism and instead calls for "a truly strong United States." It covers over the crimes of U.S. imperialism with pacifist platitudes against all violence, whether by the oppressed or the oppressor. Indeed it has gotten these platitudes from Carter and the lying catchwords of American diplomacy, including "disarmament," SALT and "human rights." The imperialist nature of such pacifism is vividly illustrated by the political alliances of the Citizens Party. The Citizens Party has sought and received the support of such rabid advocates of militarism and arming to the teeth as The Call. Barry Commoner himself granted an interview to this paper in which he asked for their support. The Citizens Party and the warmongers are marching hand in hand.

What is the political complexion of The Call, this ally and collaborator of Commoner's? The Call, newspaper of the so-called "Communist Party (M- L)," is a fervent adherent of "three worlds-ism" and Chinese revisionism and has nothing to do with genuine communism. It regards the central issue today as "directing the main blow at Soviet social-imperialism." This means that The Call has given up the struggle against U.S. imperialism in favor of allying with U.S. imperialism in the struggle against U.S. imperialism's chief rival, the Soviet social-imperialists. The Call has taken sides in this deadly inter-imperialist rivalry between the two superpowers, the two greatest hangmen and warmongers in today's world. It holds that the American proletariat should not strike its main blow at "its own" exploiters, but instead join the American monopoly capitalist bloodsuckers in fighting for U.S. world hegemony. Hence The Call is full of articles demanding the building of B-l bombers, the construction of yet more Trident nuclear submarines, the production of more arms and yet more arms again. It criticizes the Carter government from the right, from the Nixonite and Reaganite standpoint of demanding that the aggressive Carter government is not doing enough to militarize society and build a bigger and bigger army, navy and air force. Its basic criticism of Ronald Reagan is that he doesn't show enough enthusiasm for the warmongering U.S.-China axis. The Call does its best to create war hysteria and is presently conducting in its pages a debate on "should Johnny get his gun."

For these reasons, The Call and other "three worlders" have been justly branded as nothing but a bunch of contemptible Pentagon-socialists. That is, they are socialists only in words, but in deeds they are "left" public relations men for the Pentagon.

Clearly anyone who wishes to fight against the imperialist plans for war can have nothing to do with jingoes of the like of The Call. Clearly The Call, which regards even Carter as an "appeaser" who is not doing enough to arm, could have no sympathy at all for anyone who opposes U.S. imperialism and its fiendish warmongering.

But these advocates of arming to the teeth, The Call, enthusiastically support the sanctimonious pacifists of the Citizens Party. The April 21, 1980 issue of The Call jubilantly hailed the founding of the Citizens Party and carried pictures of its convention and of Barry Commoner and LaDonna Harris, its presidential and vice-presidential candidates. The Call wrote that if the Citizens Party can "resolve its internal problems and the obstacle of its narrow base," then "this formation could be the forerunner of a major independent break-away from the two major political parties." It hailed the formation of the Citizens Party as "overall...a bold endeavor." Since then The Call has continued to carry progress reports on Commoner's campaign and, in its issue for August 18-September 7, 1980, an interview with Commoner.

The Call's support for the Citizens Party speaks volumes about the real nature of Commoner's party. Clearly The Call is convinced of the utter emptiness of the Citizens Party's phrasemongering about "disarmament" and paring down the military budget. The Call understands quite well the meaning of the Citizens Party call for "a truly strong United States" and grasps the imperialist character of the program of the Citizens Party. The Call recognizes that, in order to attract the masses, the pro-imperialist politicians must hide their imperialism slightly under sighs about the evils of war. The Call knows that these sighs are entirely meaningless if there is no call to anti-imperialist struggle. The Call itself discusses in its pages the problem of how to work inside the anti-draft movement while advocating that the struggle against U.S. imperialism should be ended and the "main blow" struck at the Soviet Union. (For example, see "How should we oppose the draft?" in The Call for February 18, 1980.)

The Call feels, and correctly so, that the Citizens Party is its close comrade in the endeavor to remove all revolutionary spirit and anti-imperialist character from the mass movement. It understands that pacifist words are of no harm to the warmongers and may in fact serve as the best screen, for stepped-up arming.

For its part, the Citizens Party, far from denouncing The Call or even being embarrassed by its support, is actively seeking support from such ultra-chauvinists. In his interview in The Call, Commoner stated that the followers of The Call and similar groups "ought to vote for us." More recently, The Call gave prominence to a letter from a "Citizens Party activist" begging for votes. The Call approved this appeal with a big headline on page two: "Reader says 'We should vote for the Citizens Party.' " This letter posed as a "reply" to a previous article, but that article itself was the laudatory interview with Commoner carried in The Call.

Well, just imagine that! Commoner claims to be opposed to U.S. government support for dictatorial governments, but he seeks the support of The Call, which is notorious for supporting the most reactionary, bloodstained dictator^, including Pinochet of Chile, the former Shah of Iran, and Marcos of the Philippines, on the plea that they oppose the Soviet social-imperialists. Commoner claims to be for trimming the military budget, but he asks for the votes of those who want more missiles, bombers and submarines. Just look at the unprincipled political opportunism of Commoner and the filthy political corruption pervading the Citizens Party! When the Citizens Party appeals to the masses it pretends to oppose this or that aspect of U.S. foreign policy. True, its "opposition" is so feeble that even tired-out political hacks from the Democratic or Republican Parties have used stronger, if equally hypocritical, words. Still, the Citizens Party pretends to oppose at least a few of the most discredited excesses of imperialism. But then the Citizens Party eats its own words and joins in holy matrimony with the worst chauvinists. It begs the chauvinists for votes.

Hence the rabid imperialism and chauvinism of the Citizens Party cannot be concealed by its thin facade of sweet pacifist words. Not hypocritical pacifist phrases, but anti-imperialist struggle and the building of the mass revolutionary movement, is the path forward for struggle against the draft, the nuclear program, the aggression against Iran and all U.S. imperialist war preparations and aggression.

[Back to Top]

The Citizens Party is nothing but warmed-over Carter stew

The following is the second and concluding portion of an article exposing the utterly corrupt and Carterite nature of Barry Commoner's Citizens Party. The first part was carried in the August 25 issue of The Workers' Advocate. The complete article has also been produced and is available as a pamphlet.

The Citizens Party Conceals Its Chauvinist Imperialism Behind Sanctimonious Pacifist Phrases

The Citizens Party tries to conceal its imperialism and chauvinism behind a thin mask of empty pacifist words. It hides its opposition to the struggle against U.S. imperialism behind the trumpeting of "disarmament." It shields the crimes of the imperialist warmongers behind tons of impotent, pious phrases about "peace" and "human rights." It mumbles dozens of platitudes about the virtues of peace, such as that "there is no goal more important than world peace, a genuine peace -- not merely the absence of war...." (point 84), that "international disputes can and must be settled without force of arms" (point 87) and so forth.

But to talk about "peace" without exposing the causes of war is a fraud. The Citizens Party remains absolutely silent on what are the causes of wars. It denies that to work for peace one must fight the imperialist warmongers. It denies that to secure stable world peace one must overthrow the imperialist fiends and eliminate the capitalist system of man-eating exploitation via the socialist revolution. Nor does the Citizens Party distinguish between unjust wars of imperialist aggression and plunder and just, progressive, liberating wars such as wars of national liberation or civil wars against the exploiters. But this means to condemn the anti-imperialist wars against U.S. imperialism, the revolutionary struggle in Central America, the national liberation war against U.S. aggression in Indochina, and so forth, for -- horrors -- the oppressed peoples made use of force in order to solve "international disputes."

When the pro-imperialist politicians talk of "peace," then one knows that they are preparing for war. This is what is called "imperialist pacifism." The Citizens Party shouts about "disarmament" while in the meantime it "seeks a truly strong United States" (point 83) and even supports the continued existence of the various U.S. military intelligence agencies for overthrowing foreign governments and subverting revolutionary movements (point 96).

In fact, the imperialist pacifism of the Citizens Party is just an echo of Carter's policy. The Citizens Party follows Carter to a tee, down to reiterating his catch phrases about "human rights," which is the newest twist to U.S. imperialism's claim that its vast neo-colonial empire is really just a "free world." Indeed Carter ran his 1976 election campaign with the same type of rhetoric as the 1980 platform of the Citizens Party. Carter talked of a world without nuclear weapons, of a reduction of arms sales, of reducing military spending, and so on and so. forth. Carter' won the election. And what was the result? Today the shining knight of a "world without nuclear weapons" is busy competing with Reagan to see who is the biggest warmonger. The man who promised reducing military budgets has in fact introduced record military budgets year after year. The man who promised to cut U.S.. arms sales has in fact escalated these Sales to new heights. This is vivid proof that all talk about "peace" that is not inseparably connected with the struggle against imperialism is just a fraud, a politician's trick, a cynical deception of the peace-loving masses. Yet the Citizens Party wishes to feed the people on this warmed-over Carter stew and present it as the "alternative" for 1980!

The Citizens Party calls for "a genuine and untiring effort towards mutual, step-by-step disarmament worldwide." (point 85) In brief, the Citizens Party supports the SALT treaties of Carter and Nixon. For years, the two rapacious superpowers and world gendarmes, U.S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism, have used the fraud of striving for "mutual, step-by-step disarmament" as the camouflage coloring for the murderous arms race. This is presently embodied in the SALT negotiations. Under mountains of sickly sweet phrases about reducing armaments, the SALT treaties have- turned out to be treaties to promote the stepping up of arms production to the maximum. As well, with the SALT treaties and "human rights" covenants, the bourgeois politicians tell the masses that there is nothing that the people or their mass struggle can accomplish -- they must sit back and be fatalist observers of the wheelings and dealings between the chieftains of nuclear diplomacy. The fraud of "disarmament" negotiations between the superpowers is being used to divert the masses away from the anti-imperialist struggle. The activists are told to sit on their hands, to trust in the reasonableness and good sense of the imperialist criminals, and to vote for the "liberal" imperialists. The Citizens Party wants this to be the plan for solving all world problems. So they support not only the "disarmament" fraud but even the cynical "international human rights covenants." (point 91)

Commoner -- Apologist for the "Carter Doctrine"

On one concrete issue after another, the pious general phrases of the Citizens Party about sweetness and light in international relations prove to be in fact nothing but cover-ups of the crimes of U.S. imperialism. A typical example of this is the Citizens Party's attitude to the aggressive "Carter doctrine." On January 23, 1980, in his State of the Union Address, Carter unveiled the "Carter doctrine." He declared a U.S. sphere of influence in the "Persian Gulf region" and announced that it would be defended "by any means necessary, including military force." This doctrine is a barefaced declaration of imperialist hegemonism and warmongering. This doctrine is a gun put to the head of the Iranian and Arab peoples. It is a policy of plunder of oil and subjugation of peoples. It is a doctrine of adventurous inter-imperialist rivalry with the Soviet social-imperialists. And it is a doctrine to fan up war hysteria.

But Commoner refuses to denounce the "Carter doctrine" as a policy of imperialist slavery and war. Oh no. Commoner claims that the "Carter doctrine" is just a harmless domestic "political ploy," a mere "conceit," a "phoney," and that not the Iranian and Arab peoples but Senator Edward Kennedy is the target of this doctrine. In Commoner's interview with In These Times, responding to the question "What do you think of the Carter Doctrine?," he stressed that: "...first, it's clear the Carter doctrine is a phoney, a conceit. Carter wasn't responding to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan when he said he would defend the oil fields with force, but to Kennedy's invasion of New England.... In other words, it was a political ploy."

This is straightforward whitewashing of U.S. imperialism! Commoner, thoroughly saturated with disgusting chauvinism, was more concerned with the Carter doctrine's impact on Kennedy's election chances than with the brutal U.S. aggression against the Iranian and Arab peoples. (By the way, Commoner is also whitewashing Kennedy, for in an interview with the Washington Post published January 20, 1980, a few days prior to Carter's announcement of the "Carter doctrine," Kennedy himself demanded the same policy as the "Carter doctrine" and in almost identical words.)

Commoner goes to truly astonishing lengths to pooh-pooh the "Carter doctrine." He proceeds to deny that world imperialism has fought over the Iranian and Arab oil fields, enslaved whole peoples and instigated predatory wars. Oh no, as Commoner explains: "The other thing [besides the fact that the Carter doctrine is allegedly merely a "political ploy" or "conceit" -- ed.] about it is that it is dumb. Nobody is going to defend oil fields. They are terribly vulnerable to anything from a saboteur to a missile."

Commoner repeated the same theme in his bid to be endorsed by the CPPAX (Citizens for Participation in Political Action, a Massachusetts group that endorsed Kennedy) conference. He stated: "Military action can only destroy oil fields, not preserve them." (Cited in "The Search for a Lifeboat," The Village Voice, February 4, 1980)

What a magician Mr. Commoner is! For decades imperialism has been fighting over the oil fields of the Middle East, but now Commoner laughs off this murderous struggle and claims that it is just a "dumb" idea of Carter's. Commoner does not fight in defense of the peoples of the Middle East against imperialist aggression. Instead he denies the fact of imperialist aggression, he "proves" that imperialist aggression is allegedly impossible. Commoner whitewashes imperialism, diverts people's attention away from it, and tries to prove that all the fuss is just an unfortunate mistake, as oil fields are allegedly oh so hard to dominate. In short, Commoner is licking the blood off the jackboots of international imperialism. And, true to form, he is in particular kneeling in front of Carter, claiming that Carter is not an aggressor, not an imperialist -- how could an American president be such a thing? -- oh no, he is simply a "dumb" cluck. Commoner doesn't fight imperialism, but instead consoles his listeners with amusing hand-wringing moralisms about how "terribly vulnerable" imperialist domination is, how unstable military domination of the oil fields is, and so forth.

Naturally, since the Citizens Party thinks that the "Carter doctrine" is a mere "ploy," it does not bother to denounce it in its Draft Platform. The self-proclaimed "peace" party is silent about Carter's outrageous saber- rattling!

Citizens Party -- Apologists and Defenders of the CIA

The Draft Platform of the Citizens Party also whitewashes U.S. imperialism's spy networks and agencies of subversion and covert aggression. With reference to the CIA and other "intelligence agencies," two alternative platform planks are given in point 96. One version, 96A, is for abolishing the CIA while retaining the other intelligence agencies, such as the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and a whole host of others. What a fraud! The other alternative is 96B which retains all the intelligence agencies, the CIA included, under the fraud of their being "rigorously overseen by Congress." Clearly both alternatives are the same. They both mean maintaining the present situation, down to the Congressional oversight committees, although 96A does require renaming the CIA.

But what is of special interest to us here is the rationale given in 96B for its proposal. In order to put a good face on giving up the demand of 96A of "abolishing" (renaming) the CIA, 96B states: "We believe that covert activities and espionage should be abolished, since the gains are usually illusory while the costs, in terms of violated principles, are all too real."

Thus the Citizens Party opposes certain activities of the CIA only because it holds that such activities are ineffective and the "gains" too often "illusory." According to the Citizens Party, the CIA violates principles but otherwise has little effect. What a cover-up by the Citizens Party! Loyalty to the U.S. imperialists can go no further! The well-known crimes of the CIA and other U.S. secret agencies include:

-- organized the military coup of 1973 in Chile that overthrew the Allende regime and instituted a notorious reign of terror that killed over 30,000 Chileans in the first six months alone and forced over a half million Chileans into exile (in a country with a total population of only 10 or 11 million)

-- involvement in the 1965 coup in Indonesia in which half a million people were murdered

-- organized the 1953 coup in Iran that overthrew the Mossadegh government and reinstalled the infamous hangman and butcher the Shah of Iran

-- overthrew the Arbenz government in Guatemala in 1954

-- carried out the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961

-- slaughtered hundreds of thousands of civilians in Viet Nam under the Operation Phoenix program; and so on and so forth. These crimes continue to today. As was revealed as a result of Carter's unsuccessful military raid on Iran, the U.S. is attempting to build up a network of agents in Iran to strangle the Iranian revolution from within.

Many of the crimes of the CIA are openly spoken of, or boasted of, in the bourgeois press, to say nothing of being listed in detail in books by even tame liberal journalists. But the Citizens Party seeks to divert attention away from these towering crimes, to say nothing of calling for a more effective CIA, by complaining about the "illusory" nature of the "gains" of the CIA's operations. The Citizens Party opposes the struggle against the CIA and similar agencies and covers up for their crimes, which it regards as merely "illusory." The Citizens Party presents the issue of the CIA as a moral dilemma over whether the ends justify the means. They ponder over whether the degree of success of the CIA in achieving its goals ("the gains") justifies the means of the CIA ("violated principles"). This means that the Citizens Party is emphasizing its agreement with the "ends," with the goals and aims of the CIA: U.S. imperialist world hegemony, brutal dictation of the U.S. mandate to other countries, and the iron suppression of the revolution.

By the way, it is notable that the Platform Subcommittee of the Citizens Party opposed even the very thought of abandoning the CIA. It recommended against 96A on the basis of its first sentence, namely, "The CIA must be abolished." It said that "...the first sentence of 96A, while perhaps commendable as an eventual goal, [mind you, the Platform Subcommittee wasn't even sure that this was a good eventual goal, and so used the word "perhaps" --ed.] is light years ahead of American public opinion at this time and could be used to ridicule the party." Here we have the full measure of the pacifism of the Citizens Party. Only meaningless pious phrases are to be used, especially ones that are utterly general and empty, while nothing is to be proposed that is not acceptable to current-day bourgeois public opinion. Nothing is to be put in the platform that could alarm the imperialists in the slightest or cause the loss of votes. The Platform Subcommittee is quite aware that phrases about "peace," "disarmament," "human rights" and so forth are, generally speaking, acceptable to even the most warmongering supporters of the CIA or to Defense Secretary Harold Brown and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It is, however, afraid that they might misunderstand the call to abolish the CIA.

As well, it should be noted that the Citizens Party, in both points 96A and 96B, shows great faith in "Congressional oversight." This shows how utterly empty are the denunciations of the government and the Democrats and Republicans by the Citizens Party. In point 1 the Citizens Party claims that "The politicians of the two old parties have lost [lost? When were they independent of the capitalists? -- ed.] their independence. Congress itself is immobilized." While in point 7 it proclaims: "We know who influences Congress, the economy, the media. We know who writes the laws, who determines which Americans profit from inflation and unemployment...." Mind you, the Platform doesn't say just who this mysterious "who" is. But whoever it is, the Citizens Party thinks that it is just fine that this "who" should exercise "rigorous control" over the CIA, and then the CIA will presumably be a proper tool of peace, democracy, and "human rights." The Citizens Party knows who "influences Congress," but it calls on this same Congress to become more active and stop being "immobilized," and then "corporate control" will be vanquished in America. What touching faith in the poor "immobilized" imperialists!

The Citizens Party Seeks to Cool Down the Anti-Draft and Anti-Nuclear Movements, to Downplay the Mass Actions and to Divert Them Away from the Anti-Imperialist Orientation

As a chauvinist and imperialist party, the Citizens Party is opposed to the anti-imperialist movement. It stands opposed to the rise of the mass actions and protests against U.S. imperialism. Hence its stand in the anti-draft and anti-nuclear movements is to strive to divert these movements from the anti-imperialist struggle, to pooh-pooh the demonstrations and actions, and to divert the activists into support for minor tampering with the present system. The Citizens Party wants to convert the mass movement into an electoral pressure group to elect "liberal" Democrats and Citizens Party politicians. In short, the Citizens Party has the same program for the anti-draft and anti-nuclear movements as do the lying politicians of the "left" wing of the Democratic Party.

The Citizens Party Versus the Anti-Nuclear Movement

Consider the anti-nuclear movement. The issue of imperialism has always been at the center of the U.S. nuclear energy program. From the beginning the U.S. imperialists have developed nuclear power as part of their program to blackmail and dominate the world's people and to prepare for mass slaughter and world war. The cause of the problem of nuclear power does not lie in nuclear technology in and of itself. Nuclear power is simply another means of large-scale production, which sooner or later will be mastered by mankind. But in the hands of the imperialists, nuclear energy has always been connected with the nuclear weapons program. It is also a source of wild profiteering, a source of dangerous poisoning and a method to enforce the neo-colonial subjugation of other countries through control of their energy supplies. It is not surprising in the least that hundreds of thousands of people have risen up in demonstrations and other mass actions all across the country to fight the nuclear program. The masses are right to demand that the U.S. imperialist nuclear program be scrapped lock, stock and barrel. In this fight, the struggle, to be effective, must be directed against imperialism and the billionaire exploiters.

Commoner and the Citizens Party have sought to cool down and liquidate this mass struggle. Utilizing his reputation as an ecologist, Commoner has been touring the country and at times speaking from the platforms of the anti-nuclear movement. But instead of calling for the stepping up of this struggle and the exposure of the imperialists, he has downplayed the mass actions and reduced everything to voting for the Citizens Party. He neither calls for the further development of the mass struggle, nor does he call for anti-imperialist struggle. Instead he appeals to the activists to get on the Citizens Party bandwagon to pass legislation to carry out Carter's energy program under the catchwords of "conservation" and "alternative energy." The Citizens Party moans that Carter only pays "lip service" to his own energy program. It is the Citizens Party's sad fate to be more Carterite than Carter.

Commoner does not denounce imperialism, but only complains, oh so meekly, that nuclear power costs too much money and is unsafe, so it should be "phased out" and replaced with solar power, alternative energy and chopping wood. But the Citizens Party's call for the "phasing out" of nuclear power is no different from the platform of the Democratic Party itself. The Democratic Party and Carter himself are quite aware that all the pledges to phase out the nuclear program are so much eyewash, so long as there is no anti-imperialist struggle. It is simply one more lying politician's trick to buy time to cool down the movement. Carter himself in 1976 promised an end to the nuclear program.

This year, faced with the growing anti-imperialist ferment, in a effort to bring the anti-nuclear activists into the fold of the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party platform has also called for the "phasing out" of nuclear power production. At the same time as Carter was in Europe declaring at the Venice conference the necessity to step up the nuclear program, the Democratic Party Platform Committee adopted the plank which would be passed at the convention which declared that: "We must make conservation and renewable energy our nation's energy priorities for the future. Through the Federal Government's commitment to renewable energy sources and energy efficiency, as alternative fuels become available in the future, we will retire nuclear power plants in an orderly manner." True, the Citizens Party's Draft Platform calls for the phasing out of nuclear power in five years, while the Democratic Party sets no time limit. But out- of-office politicians always promise the sun. The platform of the Democratic Party shows that the call for "alternative energy" and "conservation" and so forth are just the catchwords being used today to justify the nuclear energy program and indeed the entire Carter energy program.

The Citizens Party Versus the Anti-Draft Movement

Commoner and the Citizens Party are just as opposed to mass actions or an anti-imperialist orientation in the anti-draft movement as in the anti- nuclear movement. They echo the stand of the "left" wing of the Democratic Party. The flunkeys of the Democratic Party try to infiltrate and liquidate the anti-draft movement. They are opposed to condemning the U.S. armed forces as forces of aggression and slavery, but instead try,to divert the issue into what plan is best for strengthening U.S. imperialism. They debate whether the present army is "adequate" to "defend" U.S. imperialism, whether there should be a "peacetime draft" or a better paid "volunteer army," and so on.

The Citizens Party too is concerned with how to maintain "a truly strong U.S." Hence it too does its best to divert attention from the basic issue, which is, "the draft for what?," the draft into what sort of army and for what purposes. It does not denounce the U.S. aggressor army, but instead opposes only "a peacetime draft." (point 95) Hence the Citizens Party indicates that it supports press-ganging the youth into cannon fodder to defend the profits of the multinational corporations -- provided war has already been declared or it is a time of crisis.

Imagine the hypocrisy of the Citizens Party. It claims to believe that "both the Soviet Union and the United States continually seek to expand their spheres of influence." (point 89) It pretends to oppose the propping up of military dictators, the "undemocratic" foreign policy, etc. But then it indicates that it will support the struggle against the draft only in peacetime. The Citizens Party is saying that, when push comes to shove and military operations have begun or are imminent, it will support American aggression. Consider the struggle during the war of aggression against Viet Nam. The draft at that time was a "wartime" draft. Millions opposed this draft anyway. Indeed they opposed it precisely because it was a draft during wartime, for it was a draft to provide manpower for a hated war of conquest. Draft resistance was one part of the overall struggle against U.S. imperialist aggression. But presumably the Citizens Party is in favor of a draft such as that which conscripted men for service in Viet Nam, for that is not a "peacetime draft." But for now, when the Citizens Party feels that the U.S. has sufficient nuclear weapons, manpower and military strength, the Citizens Party will for the time being oppose a "peacetime draft" and even shout about closing "inefficient and obsolete production facilities, including portions of our defense industries." (point 40) Down with obsolete weapons and useless expenditures -- for supporting U.S. imperialism when it counts! Long live peace -- except of course in times of war! Such is the "peace" program of the Citizens Party.

Thus the Citizens Party is a party that seeks to tone down the anti- nuclear and anti-draft actions and render them harmless to the imperialists. It has the same position on these as the "left" wing of the Democratic Party.

Citizens Party -- Tail End of the Democratic Party Donkey

Hence we have seen that on every issue the Citizens Party trails along behind the Democratic Party. Above we have examined the stand of the Citizens Party on questions of such vital importance for the development of the independent political movement of the working class as: the class struggle, the development of mass revolutionary struggle, and the stand towards imperialism. We have shown that the Citizens Party is not a party of class struggle against the exploiters, but a party dedicated to protecting the profits of the capitalists and to stepping up the capitalist productivity and "reindustrialization" campaigns. It is not a party to develop the mass revolutionary struggle, but a party of labor bureaucrats, political hacks and opportunists, a party that seeks to cool down and smother the mass actions and convert the mass movement into a pressure group to force the government to carry through the Democratic Party program and stop paying only "lip service" to it. It is not a party of struggle against imperialism, but a rabid chauvinist party afraid of the very mention of the phrase "U.S. imperialism." In brief, the Citizens Party does not represent political independence, but servile flunkey ism./It is nothing but warmed-over Carter stew with a dash of Kennedy sauce for flavoring.

The Citizens Party is a model of social-democratic politics. The social-democratic parties have as their role to give a "socialist" coloring to capitalist reaction and exploitation, to fascization and imperialism. In most of the capitalist world there are social-democratic parties. In some countries the capitalists have even entrusted them with the running of the government. At present in the U.S., social-democracy centers its activity on giving a "socialist" or "radical" tinge to the policies of the Democratic Party. The type of "socialism" supported by the social-democrats can be seen in their support for wage controls and the productivity drive. The type of "democracy" that they flaunt can be seen in their support for Kennedy, the main backer of the fascist federal criminal code "reform," bill S-1722, the so- called "grandson" of Nixon's notorious S-l bill. It can also be seen in their support for Carter's Labor Law Reform Act, which provides draconic penalties for wildcat and sympathy strikes and seeks to smash the coal miners' movement.

The social-democrats and various other flunkeys of the Democratic Party are working to infiltrate and subvert the mass movement. They are opposed to the emancipation of the masses from the bourgeois parties. They are therefore working in two main directions to keep the working and oppressed people under the influence of these parties. From one side, the "Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee," the bulk of the trade union bureaucrats, the "left" wing of the Democratic Party and so forth are working to restore faith in the Democratic Party, the alleged "lesser of two evils." They are working to tie the workers' movement and the mass ferment directly to the Democratic Party.

On the other hand, such groups as the Citizens Party make a show of allegedly being outside the Democratic Party in order to keep the activists in tow to the same program and platform as that advocated by the Democratic Party. Their underlying motive, which is also the declared goal of a number of the social-democratic groups inside the Democratic Party, is the separation of the "left" wing of the Democratic Party into a new, separate bourgeois party. The models for such a party are such notorious cesspools of political corruption as the New Democratic Party in Canada and the Labor Party in Britain.

These two methods of approach by the social-democrats are not contradictory. They are complementary. Such groups as the Citizens Party are in reality completely intertwined with the "left" wing of the Democratic Party. This is not only our assessment. It is the assessment by the social-democrats themselves. When demagogically shouting from the speakers' platforms, they trumpet their so-called "independence." This is nothing but a ploy to fool the naive. In their own assessment of their activities given in their own party journals, they tell quite a different story and reveal quite a peculiar definition of "independence."

Consider the assessment of the Citizens Party in the social-democratic journal In These Times. In These Times is one of the leading lights of social-democracy. It is published by the Institute for Policy Studies, a bourgeois social-democratic "think tank" which was founded by government officials from the Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations. In These Times calls itself an "independent socialist newspaper," although we shall see that it is in fact independent of socialism and entirely dependent on the Democratic Party. Barry Commoner himself has been one of the sponsors of this journal since 1976. Thus In These Times not only shares the same basic standpoint of the Citizens Party, but it is supported by the presidential standard-bearer of the Citizens Party. As well, Richard Barnet, co-director of the Institute for Policy Studies, was one of the founders of the Citizens Party. In the issue of In These Times for May 21-27, 1980, there is an editorial entitled "It's time for political realignment." First we shall see what this "realignment" is and then examine what role the Citizens Party is assigned to play in this "realignment."

The editorial talks of the "crisis of the existing parties." But despite their crisis, In These Times is still loyally looking to these parties, in particular the Democratic Party, for salvation. In These Times does not call for helping the masses to break with these parties and their common program of the capitalist offensive, but for a "realignment" within the confines of these parties. Presumably this "realignment" will help these parties overcome their crisis.

In These Times stresses this realignment is needed in order to allow the U.S. government to play a bigger role. In These Times does not call for struggle against the government apparatus, against this machine at the command of the modern-day slave owners, this monstrous bloodstained hangman and murderer of the protesters at home and the revolutions abroad. On the contrary, In These Times, echoing the complaint of the Citizens Party that Congress is "immobilized," calls for helping the government to act more vigorously. It wants a bigger role for the government. It complains about "the widespread acceptance of anti-big government rhetoric" and stresses that "...at every turn...the only place to turn for aid is to the government." To avoid being exposed as a total toady of the rich, In These Times mildly adds that "a government controlled by giant corporations and subservient to them cannot address the cause of our problems." But political "realignment" will allegedly solve this problem.

In These Times then raises the question of how to bring about this "realignment," whose purpose is to strengthen the capitalist government. It says, "...but there is as yet no practical basis for cooperation except within the Democratic Party.... For the unions, [that is, the trade union bureaucrats -- ed.] and also for others, realignment is a process that will go forward primarily within the Democratic Party."

In These Times then goes on to hail the Citizens Party as a force that will help strengthen the "realignment" inside the Democratic Party and be subservient to this "realignment." It views the role of the Citizens Party as organizing support for "realignment" from among those who cannot swallow the Democratic Party. It views the Citizens Party as essential for keeping such activists working in the confines of the "realignment" of the Democratic Party.

Thus the editorial states, right after stressing that all work must primarily be within the Democratic Party, that:

"That does not mean, however, that any group that chooses to advance this process from outside the Democratic Party should be seen by other leftists as competitors or as a diversion. To the degree that the Citizens Party can develop popular support for a politics that puts social rationality about [above] profit rationality it will strengthen the hand of those within the Democratic Party with similar goals. And to the degree that the new party can bring people who cannot bring themselves to be active within the Democratic Party into political life, it will be strengthening the left and accelerate the process of realignment." (emphasis added)

Thus In These Times believes that the Citizens Party is a good device to strengthen the "left" wing of the Democratic Party and to bring those who are disgusted with Carter and Kennedy back under the influence of the policies of the Democratic Party.

Commoner himself describes the closeness of the Citizens Party to the Kennedy program and the Kennedy forces. He puts forward the plan of Democratic Party hacks running as joint Democratic Party-Citizens Party candidates in the election. In an interview with a sympathetic paper he stated:

"We have been approached by a number of Kennedy Democrats. Some are interested in running jointly, locally, on the Citizens and Democratic line on the ballot. This is because, in many ways, our platform is closer to Kennedy's than Kennedy's is to Carter's. For instance, Kennedy's position has shifted over to our position on phasing out nuclear power. There is interest in us because Kennedy's supporters felt that when he loses [at,the Democratic Convention -- ed.] they're going to be orphans." (The Call, Aug. 18-Sept. 7, 1980)

Hence the Citizens Party is, among other things, a vehicle for reinforcing the Kennedy forces in the Democratic Party. As well, Commoner himself gives his own measure of the exact degree of independence of the Citizens Party from the Democratic Party. The Citizens Party is, in Commoner's estimate, "in many ways" closer to Kennedy than Kennedy is to Carter! What marvelous political independence from the Democratic Party! Commoner himself is interested in having professional politicians run as Citizens Party candidates while maintaining their affiliation with the Democratic Party. How independent! What an admission that the program and guiding ideas of the Citizens Party are perfectly compatible with adherence to the Democratic Party!

Indeed it is no secret that the Citizens Party has made big efforts to secure the support of Democratic Party politicians or to run them as candidates. It has not achieved the success it was after. Nevertheless, it is no accident that vice-presidential candidate La-Donna Harris is an activist from Democratic Party circles. As well, her husband and political collaborator, Fred Harris, the former Democratic Party senator from Oklahoma, also supports the Citizens Party.

The close connection between the Citizens Party and the Democratic Party has been pointed out in other statements by Commoner. In These Times quotes Commoner as follows: "Commoner himself admits that the party must attract 'non-mainline Democrats who believe in the Democratic Party as a force for progress,' but he insists that the Party's main base will be among 'people who don't vote.'" (John Judis, "Carter-Reagan race can give Citizens Party space," April 2-8, 1980) The Citizens Party doesn't aim to break these people's faith in the Democratic Party, but to attract and live with the "left" wing of the Democratic Party. Its role is to mobilize those who "don't vote" or who have lost faith with the Democratic Party back into the same type of politics and even into voting for the Democratic Party candidates running on joint tickets.

Don Rose's career also illustrates the connection of the Citizens Party and the Democratic Party. Don Rose, a member of the Executive Committee of the Citizens Party, has been proudly displayed by the Citizens Party as "a founder of the Citizens Party, [who] was Chicago Mayor Jane Byrne's campaign manager." The Citizens Committee circulated an article of Rose's that appeared in the Los Angeles Times on October 4, 1979.

This article boasted of the close connection between "third parties" and the Democratic Party. It stated that: "The Socialist Party of Norman Thomas was the true creator of the New Deal; its platform was realized by 1938 to a greater extent than the Democratic platform of 1932. The Progressive movement of Robert LaFollette was an intellectual and legislative stimulus during the second quarter of this century, while the Progressive Party of Henry Wallace in 1948 moved Harry S Truman toward the liberal end [you have to be pretty far right to regard the warmonger and fascist Truman as a "liberal" -- ed.] of the political spectrum."

However, Don Rose says, the Citizens Party is different. It is a "new party" not a "third party" because "our goal is nothing less than a realignment of American politics." Naturally this "realignment" is left at the level of an empty phrase. As we have seen, "realignment" is the slogan of In These Times, which points out that this "realignment" is "a process that will go forward primarily within the Democratic Party."

Indeed, we may take Don Rose's role in the election of Chicago Mayor Jane Byrne as a model of "realignment." Jane Byrne was a professional machine politician from the apparatus of the late infamous Mayor Daley. Don Rose managed her campaign for mayor on the Democratic ticket and packaged her as a veritable populist. Jane Byrne was highly promoted in social-democratic circles. But, after all this fuss, Jane Byrne as mayor has proved to be a notorious strikebreaker. Furthermore, just like her predecessors, she is a racist, an autocrat and a corrupt politician in the grand Chicago style. In brief, she is a typical Democratic Party politician and a worthy successor to the hated Mayor Daley.

So here we have the politics of "realignment" in action! It is nothing but dressing up the Democratic Party program and even Democratic Party hack politicians in extravagant "independent" and "populist" colors!

Commoner himself admits that it is possible to run an election campaign outside a party in order to keep the masses under the influence of that party. Thus he denounces the "independent" Anderson, saying: "Anderson is going to run as an independent in order to rehabilitate the Republican Party, and I think that there are some independents who don't want to rehabilitate the Republican Party." (Interview in In These Times, April 23-29, 1980) Commoner is close to the truth. Anderson openly proclaims that his campaign goal is to maintain faith in the two-party system. But is it not clear that by the same token the Citizens Party "is going to run as an independent in order to rehabilitate" the program and policies of the Democratic Party?

Another aspect of the dependence of the Citizens Party on the "left" wing of the Democratic Party and on bourgeois politics is its connections with the capitalist philanthropists. Such figures play an important role in the Citizens Party. Part of the story about the role of the liberal philanthropists in the formation of the Citizens Party is recounted in the article "The Politics of 1980, A New Party Nears Birth" by Alexander Cockburn and James Ridgeway in The Village Voice (May 21, 1979). This article identifies the following philanthropists as particularly active in the plans for the formation of the Citizens Party: Archibald L. Gillies, president of the John Hay Whitney Foundation; David Hunter, executive director of the Stern Fund; and businessman Stanley Weiss (who became the treasurer of the Citizens Party). However, because of the present election laws, these philanthropists had to separate their support for the Citizens Party from direct connection with their official foundation activities. Nevertheless, Cockburn and Ridgeway mock the Citizens Party as "a group willed into being by philanthropists and businessmen."

Actually The Village Voice is not hostile to the Citizens Party but is sympathetic to social-democratic politics. Nevertheless, in the cynical tone typical of The Village Voice, Cockburn and Ridgeway briefly referred to a fact of general significance. They pointed out in passing that the foundations and philanthropists have been quite active in financing numerous other "left" projects as well. They stated: "...among foundations and the distributers of largesse therein, Gillies and Hunter -- but particularly Hunter -- have been extremely active in supporting progressive and even radical projects." In fact, the floating or financing of opportunism dressed up in "progressive and even radical" colors is one of the favorite ways that "enlightened" liberal capitalists fight against the development of the political independence of the working class, against the development of a genuinely revolutionary movement and against the growing influence of Marxism-Leninism. The role of the capitalist philanthropists in the Citizens Party is just another seamy side to the politics characteristic of the "left" wing of the Democratic Party. It further punctures the self-proclaimed image of the Citizens Party as allegedly a party of the masses of people that is independent of the corporate powers that be.

For the Independent Political Movement of the Working Class

Carter and the Democratic Party have been increasingly discredited in the eyes of the working masses. There is widespread skepticism towards the government and the main capitalist parties. The working people sense that lurking behind the Democratic and Republican Parties, behind their elaborate parade of candidates and their charade of empty policy debates, stand only the sacred interests of the profit-hungry billionaires.

The masses are turning their backs on the Carters and Reagans. They are seeking out, in their own way, an alternative to the impoverishment and misery that they suffer under the rule of the monopoly capitalist dictators. The recent rebellions against racial discrimination in Miami, Orlando, Chattanooga and elsewhere; the countrywide demonstrations against the draft and the imperialist nuclear energy program; the strikes in defiance of Carter's wage controls and the mass actions against unemployment are all manifestations of the ferment that is growing from deep within the working masses. The workers' movement is preparing to burst forth once again in another upsurge. These are signs that the masses are stirring and feeling their own way to the development of the independent political life, independent of and against the rich and their parties.

The capitalists are frantically trying every trick in the book to subvert the independent motion of the workers and oppressed masses. One of their time-honored tricks is the development of social-democratic politics to give a popular tinge to the reactionary policies of starvation, fascism and war of the Democratic Party. The Citizens Party is but the newest twist to this old, old policy.

A real alternative to the Democratic and Republican Parties is quite a different matter. There can be no talk of genuine "independence" at all if it does not involve inspiring a noble passion among the masses against the Democratic Party, its "left" wing and its social-democratic flunkeys, as well as against the Republican Party. A truly independent party is a class party for the working class. It encourages, gives conscious direction to and organizes the independent political movement of the proletariat, such a party must be:

A party that develops the class struggle, approaching every question from the angle of the battle of the working class against the rich.

A party that encourages the initiative of the broad working masses. It does not lull the people to sleep with panaceas, but arouses them to mass action.

A party that opposes the warmongering superpower patriotism of the rich and their brutal hatred for and oppression of the people of other countries. It does not paint U.S. imperialism and its preparations for war in "human rights" colors, but leads the fight against it.

A party that fights the soldout trade union bureaucrats, the government-paid functionaries and "riot stoppers" and all of the official "respectable" leaders who act as fire fighters against the flames of struggle of the workers and oppressed people.

A party that tells the truth about the subordination of the state to the monopolies. It does not hide this connection behind petty tinkering and promises of government control of the monopolies, but organizes the working people to advance in struggle against the capitalists and their repressive state machine.

The Marxist-Leninist Party is such a party. It works everywhere for the interests of the workers. It stands for revolutionary struggle and socialism.

[Cartoon.]

[Back to Top]

Down with "government, business, labor cooperation"!

A new tripartite 'partnership' to plunder pension funds and suppress the workers

Last month, the chieftains of the AFL-CIO held a meeting of their General Board. This meeting was a most disgusting orgy of betrayal of the workers. These august "labor leaders" pronounced themselves as the most servile flunkeys of the capitalists in their "reindustrialization" drive to saddle the workers with speedup, automation, layoffs and plant closings. In particular, the trade union sellouts fell over themselves to endorse the Carter administration's latest plans for tripartite (government, capitalist and "labor") cooperation, including Carter's new scheme to plunder the workers' pension funds in order to finance the capitalists' productivity drives.

Carter was invited to the General Board meeting where he stumped for his new economic plan. Carter thanked his hosts for having "helped write" the administration's new "reindustrialization program." And this program, Carter explained to his adoring audience, "provides the machinery for an unprecedented equal partnership of government, labor and business for a fundamental rebuilding of our nation's industrial base." (AFL-CIO News, September 6, 1980)

In turn, the General Board thanked capitalist chieftain Carter by "resolving) to undertake the most complete and exhaustive campaign in the history of the labor movement to generate maximum support for the Carter-Mondale ticket." (Ibid.) Moreover, AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland pointed out that Carter's "bold and innovative program" and especially his plans for a "new partnership" were the reason behind their "highest priority" support for Carter.

So let's look at just what type of "machinery for partnership" this is which has Kirkland and his cronies so flushed with enthusiasm.

A "Partnership" for Plundering Pension Funds and Other Means of Robbing the Workers

Kirkland is particularly pleased with the new Economic Revitalization Board which he claims is the "most innovative" part of Carter's economic plan. According to Kirkland this board is patterned after an AFL-CIO proposal. As the two co-chairmen of this board Carter has appointed Lane Kirkland and Irving Shapiro, infamous union-busting billionaire and chairman of the DuPont chemicals conglomerate. The purpose of this tripartite board is to advise the administration in all spheres of "industrial revitalization" such as the best means to raise worker productivity through speedup, retooling production lines, shutting down inefficient plants, etc.; relocating and retraining workers when their plants are shut down; "reducing costs" by eliminating "unnecessary" health, safety and environmental regulations; and so forth. But the most immediate task of this Revitalization Board is to draw up the plans for another tripartite body to be set up along the lines of a Reindustrialization Finance Corporation (RFC). The RFC would provide the capital (mainly in the form of loans) to finance the plant retooling and other major investments of the capitalist corporations. As for how to finance the RFC, Carter has adopted the "innovative proposal" of the AFL-CIO chieftains.

According to the proposal of the AFL-CIO Executive Council: "to provide the capital necessary to stimulate the development of new job-creating industries and/or to support modernization... (and) to increase productivity...will require the cooperation of everyone in society: taxpayers, through the government, would bear the burden of direct and indirect financial outlays; business would invest capital in needed expansion and modernization, and the pension funds of the workers would be used to invest in future economic health."

Such is the labor traitors' idea of "cooperation". The working masses bear the burden of shelling out more tens of billions of dollars in the form of government handouts to the corporations for their retooling programs. Meanwhile the capitalists do their part by shouldering the terrible chore of continuing to invest in modernizing their plants as part of their oh-so- dreary business of making money by exploiting the workers to the bone.

The AFL-CIO chieftains, however, are just not satisfied with the present level of tribute to the corporate magnates. So they have offered to hand over part of the $600 billion in the workers' pension funds to invest in the capitalists' "economic health." Presently, according to the laws regulating pension funds, the employers generally cannot utilize their employees' pension funds for their own money-making ventures. But under Carter's proposed RFC, part of the pension funds will be channeled directly into the capitalists' productivity drives. As the AFL-CIO Executive Council put it: "pension fund investments offer an effective way to meet the capital needs of such industries as construction, transportation, maritime and manufacturing." (AFL-CIO News, August 30, 1980) What a marvelous "innovation" for financing the capitalists' "reindustrialization" offensive against the workers!

This proposal is an example of just what type of "machinery for partnership" it is that the exploiters and their loyal bootlickers are rigging up: "true cooperation" in plundering the working masses twice and three times over in order to stuff the pockets of the monopolists and billionaires. Such is the nature of the "new partnership of government, business and labor" which Carter, Kirkland and their Wall Street masters are trumpeting far and wide.

New Forms of Tripartite "Cooperation" to Suppress the Working Class Movement

The new Economic Revitalization Board and the proposed Reindustrialization Finance Corporation are part of a whole slew of new forms of tripartite "government, labor and business cooperation." The door was opened wide for these latest anti-worker schemes by the "National Accord" signed by the top trade union chieftains and the national employers' associations with the Carter administration last year. The "National Accord" had the specific objective of facilitating "cooperation in the fight against inflation" by holding down the workers' wages. However, since the signing of the "National Accord" all the mouthpieces and flunkeys of the big capitalists, with the trade union sellouts in the lead, have been proclaiming from the rooftops that the "adversary relationship" between the workers and the capitalists has had its day. In its place a new era of "a new partnership" based on "a new social contract" and the principle of class collaboration has begun.

Tripartite committees and boards of all types are being rigged up everywhere: at the national level and at the plant and shop floor level. In recent months new industry-wide tripartite committees have been set up in steel, auto, construction and other industries. Besides tripartite bodies, other forms of class collaboration are being experimented with as well. For example, social-democratic hack Doug Fraser of the UAW has been placed on the Chrysler Corporation board of directors. And Fraser is lobbying for union representation in corporation management to become a general practice.

Allegedly, all these various forms of "cooperation" provide the workers with "a voice in economic policy making," "a say in management," etc. But this is a monstrous hoax. In reality, tripartism and "labor-management cooperation" is becoming an increasingly important weapon in the capitalists' "reindustrialization" offensive against the workers' livelihood. The "labor leaders" of the capitalist trade unions are being brought into the closest possible coordination and collaboration with the exploiters in order to more effectively suppress the revolt of the workers against impoverishment and ruin. Tripartism is no more than a means of suppressing strikes and combatting every step of the workers' mass revolutionary action.

It is not the workers who are "getting a voice" through tripartite "cooperation." Rather it is the sellout bureaucrats and parasites at the head of the unions who have pulled their chairs closer yet to the capitalists' banquet table to jointly feast on the growing exploitation of the workers.

[Back to Top]

FIGHT THE CAPITALIST WAGE CUTTING!

The capitalists are on a wage-cutting offensive. Especially since Carter introduced government wage controls in the spring of 1978, and with inflation soaring into double-digit figures, the workers' pay has been cut left and right. Only because the workers launched many strikes in defiance of Carter's pay-cutting controls were they able to slow down the deterioration of their living standard and in some cases maintain wages at a level even close to what they were in years past.

But with the onset of the current recession the capitalists have been employing additional tactics to slash the workers' pay with a vengeance. Pleading that their monopoly corporations are in crisis, the capitalists demand that the workers take huge wage cuts and make other "sacrifices" to help "save" and "reindustrialize" the capitalists' factories. The billionaires and their government threaten that if the workers don't make concessions then the factories will be shut down and the workers will be thrown into the streets without jobs. The belly-crawling trade union bureaucrats have joined in the chorus claiming that the only way the workers can save their jobs is to accept enormous wage cuts and join in a "new partnership" to help the capitalists modernize, automate and overwork the workers to an early grave.

Faced with this blackmail of the capitalists and the disgusting sabotage and betrayal of the trade union bureaucracy, the workers' strike movement has suffered ' a number of set-backs in the last year. Nevertheless, the workers are seething with anger at the destruction of their livelihood. And they are fighting mad about the despicable sellout by the trade union bureaucrats. Strikes and many other struggles are starting up against the wage cuts and other concessions and, as well, the workers are going into action to fight the unemployment, speedup and overwork. Experience is teaching the workers the lesson that their jobs can't be preserved by sacrificing to save the capitalists, but only by using the mass outrage at the devastating economic crisis as a time to step up the fight against them.

Wage Cutting with a Vengeance

The workers' pay is being slashed to the bone. Figures released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that in 1978, the real earnings of the industrial workers, as adjusted for the ravages of inflation and the constant increases in social security and income taxes, fell by about 1%. In 1979 these plummeted another 6%. And in the first five months of 1980 alone the workers' real earnings plunged an additional 7.6%. By May of this year the real weekly income of the manufacturing workers was lower than the average for any year since 1963. And these figures underestimate the actual impoverishment of the workers. They are largely based on price increases as measured by the Consumer Price Index which does not properly reflect the much higher price increases of basic necessities such as food and fuel which claim a big percentage of the workers' paychecks.

Only the mass struggle of the workers has provided any brake on the ruthless wage cutting of the capitalists. In 1978 and 1979, the workers launched numerous strikes including those by the 570,000 postal workers; the 27,000 pulp and paper workers; 300,000 teamster truck drivers; 18,000 airline mechanics; 37,500 Westinghouse workers; 8,300 Uniroyal rubber workers; 75,000 farm implement workers from Caterpillar and International Harvester; and many other sections of the workers. Through many of these strikes wage settlements were achieved that surpassed the wage limits set under the Carter government's wage control program. In some cases, like that of the rubber workers, wage increases were won that nearly kept up with the skyrocketing inflation. Only this mass struggle of the workers slowed down the deterioration of the level of wages and gave the workers any hope of defending themselves from the savage attacks of the capitalists.

But as the current recession set in, the capitalist moneybags launched a new phase of their wage-cutting offensive. To maintain their profits the capitalists reduced production, shut down a large number of factories and laid off thousands of the workers until today over eight million workers are unemployed. At the same time they have been threatening to shut down even more factories unless the workers give up enormous "concessions" in wages and benefits.

This phase of the wage cutting began especially with the notorious attack on the Chrysler workers in the fall of 1979. Since that time it has spread like a plague to the steel, rubber, trucking, aluminum and many other industries. In these industries in the last year wage freezes, cuts in cost-of-living allowances, pension fund giveaways, work rule changes and so forth have been forced onto the workers.

In 1980, inflation zoomed up reaching as much as an annual rate of 18%. This made a mockery of contract settlements won by the workers only last year. As well, the enormous unemployment has created great pressure on the workers. And the capitalists have seized on this situation to step up their wage-cutting drive. These factors combined with the dirty sellout by the trade union bureaucrats led to the tremendous deterioration of the workers' earnings this year.

Forcing the workers to pay for the capitalist economic crisis is the official policy of the Carter government, which has headed up the capitalists' wage-cutting offensive since Carter came to office. But Reagan and every other presidential candidate in this year's election supports this same policy. In fact, merciless wage cutting is an integral part of the much heralded "reindustrialization" programs of the Democrats and Republicans. Today, to defend their livelihood the workers must not only defy the government's wage controls, but they must also fight the "reindustrialization" schemes of the capitalist billionaires.

The Trade Union Bureaucrats Are the Shock Troops of the Capitalists' Wage-Cutting Offensive

A big obstacle to the struggle of the workers is the sabotage and betrayal by the trade union bureaucrats. Today all of the top union hacks -- from Kirkland, Bommarito, McBride, Winpisinger, and so forth of the AFL-CIO to Fraser of the UAW and Fitzsimmons of the Teamsters -- are engaging in a filthy orgy of class collaboration with the capitalist billionaires. Not only have they stopped the workers from striking against the wage cuts in such industries as auto and steel, but mother industries like rubber and trucking the top union hacks are even tearing up the contracts already won through struggle, to shove enormous pay cuts down the workers' throats.

Among the greatest treachery of these labor traitors has been their agreements with the capitalists to break off many sections of the workers from the national contracts. Claiming that certain companies like Chrysler and Uniroyal are in danger of bankruptcy, the top union sellouts agreed to sever the workers of these corporations from the national model contract agreements and to grant special "concessions" to help save these capitalists. But even in corporations which are making enormous profits, the union hacks have agreed to split off from the national contracts the workers in individual factories because the capitalists consider these plants to be "non-competitive." With these agreements with the capitalist moneybags, the soldout trade union heads are trying to split up the workers and sabotage any industry-wide struggle so that the capitalists can attack the workers company by company and plant by plant.

For the workers to defend their standard of living they have to take matters into their own hands, organize themselves against the class betrayal of the union bureaucrats and step up the mass struggle against the capitalist exploiters.

Mass Struggle -- the Only Cure for the Wage-Cutting Epidemic

The betrayal of the trade union bureaucrats has damaged the strike movement of the workers and thrown the door wide open to the wage-cutting onslaught of the capitalists. But these billionaires should not start their victory celebrations too soon. Already strikes have been launched against the capitalists' "concession" demands in the copper industry, at various steel mills and other factories across the country. Mass actions, like those of the Wisconsin Steel workers, are starting to develop against the plant closings and layoffs. And against the merciless capitalist productivity drives the workers are organizing walkouts, slowdowns and other job actions.

These struggles show that the workers' fighting spirit has not been broken and far greater struggles are on the horizon. The severe ruination of the workers' livelihood is awakening a murderous hatred for the rich and the entire capitalist system. The disgusting sellout by the trade union bureaucrats is clearing away the illusion that they are anything other than the bought and paid for lap dogs of the billionaires. A revolutionary ferment is underway among the millions and millions of working masses. And tomorrow this will boil over in a powerful working class revolution which will put the capitalist exploiters and their entire man-eating system in its grave.

[Back to Top]

KAISER STEEL WORKERS BROKEN AWAY FROM THE BASIC STEEL AGREEMENT

Since 1959 the workers at the Kaiser steel mill in Fontana, California have been under the same contract as the Basic Steel Agreement of the big nine steel companies. But, under the threat that the mill would be closed, the USWA bureaucrats agreed in July, e^en before the 1980 Basic Steel Agreement was negotiated, to cut the Kaiser workers' fringe benefit raises under those of the workers in Basic Steel. This amounted to an 8¢ per hour cut for the Kaiser workers.

Nevertheless, the bloodsucking Kaiser capitalists said that this was not a sufficient "sacrifice" for the workers and continued to threaten to close the plant.

Even though the contract had just been signed, the utterly shameless USWA leaders began a campaign for another, much bigger "giveback." They told the workers this was necessary in order to boost profits and thereby "save jobs." This second concession, effected in September, consisted of a $1.00 per hour wage cut plus a limit on future cost-of-living raises. This will cost each worker roughly $2,500 in lost wages each year and will put $9 to $10 million into the Kaiser capitalists' pockets.

This huge sum of money extorted on the threat of closing down the' plant is being invested in further Kaiser "reindustrialization," Kaiser had already introduced modern basic oxygen furnaces and continuous casting equipment. It now will modernize its line pipe and steel plate operations to enable it to fill lucrative contracts to provide steel for pipelines, huge synthetic fuel plants, and for oil and gas drilling that is being stepped up in the region.

Here is a clear illustration of the real "benefits" of the union bureaucrats' wage-cutting class collaboration: tremendously increased profits for the "poor" steel barons, while the workers foot the bill for the new job-elimination technology!

[Back to Top]

THE MASTER FREIGHT AGREEMENT IS BEING TORN UP WITH THE TEAMSTER BUREAUCRATS' BLESSINGS

The Teamsters union bureaucrats -- these open supporters of Nixon and Reagan, this cabal of gangsters, racketeers and embezzlers of the workers' funds -- have always used claims of being "militant" fighters for the workers' economic interests to promote themselves as supposedly great champions of the workers. However, the real sellout nature of Fitzsimmons and co. was again recently revealed. The Teamsters hacks have agreed to tear up the 1979 Master Freight Agreement and grant huge concessions to the trucking capitalists. This is a blatant betrayal of the workers who waged a major national strike in 1979 to win this contract.

These concessions to the capitalist trucking owners have to do with the "deregulation" of the trucking industry. In the current economic crisis the trucking business is way down. Tonnage is 30% below last year and about 60,000 Teamsters union truck drivers and warehousemen are laid off. In this situation some companies are going bankrupt and the stronger trucking monopolies are wiping out and taking over the smaller capitalists. As a result there is a massive rationalization of the trucking industry taking place. Facilities and routes are being consolidated, jobs are being eliminated and the workers are being sped up and overworked. The federal deregulation law which Carter signed in July facilitates the rationalization process and the further monopolization of the trucking industry.

Before the deregulation bill was signed July 1, the Teamsters' Executive Board had already quietly agreed to the idea of extensive wage cuts and work rule changes. Then, when the bill was signed, Fitzsimmons and the Executive Board agreed to talks, in Chicago to reopen the national contract and in particular to discuss eliminating the next two COLA raises. The master labor faker Fitzsimmons used these talks to make a big show of phoney militancy and to cover his real plans. He made noisy statements that the carriers "hadn't proven their case" to "his satisfaction" and there would be "no reopening" of the national contract. But all this was just lies to put the workers off guard. Behind all this playacting the Teamsters bureaucrats did in fact agree to a piecemeal, local by local and committee by committee reopening of the contract. Under this agreement, each capitalist carrier can get the concessions he wants, tailored to his particular profit-increasing needs.

Last year 300,000 truckers defied the wage controls of the Carter government and waged the longest strike in the history of the U.S. trucking industry. This year, Fitzsimmons is tearing to shreds the contract won in this strike, and he is trying to split up the workers into many small groups to each separately face the wage-cutting offensive of the capitalists. Such treachery by the Teamsters bureaucrats will not go unanswered by the fighting truckers.

[Back to Top]

USWA CHIEFTAINS SIGN AWAY ALUMINUM WORKERS' WAGES

Continuing their disgusting orgy of "labor-management cooperation," the USWA bureaucrats engineered a big sellout in the overall 1980 aluminum industry contract. But the labor traitors did not stop at that. Various of the aluminum monopolists complained that some of their plants were "noncompetitive." These employers demanded that the workers at these facilities swallow lesser terms than the rest of the industry. So, in the traitorous spirit of defending the interests of capital against the proletariat, the USWA chieftains eagerly signed away the workers' wages at five plants -- Alcoa's Richmond, Indiana plant and Mantahola Power and Light Company in Franklin, North Carolina; Kaiser's Dalton, Illinois and Toledo, Ohio plants; and Reynold's Torrance, California plant. At these facilities the workers' Annual Escalator Adjustments will be limited to a maximum of 35¢ an hour, while their general wage increases are limited to 10¢ per hour (plus incremental increases). And not satisfied with this big wage cut, the steel union bureaucrats also agreed to cut the workers' benefits. According to the "giveback" deal, the workers at these five plants will receive only 50% of the meager improvements in pension, sickness and accident benefits in the 1980 contract for the rest of the aluminum industry!

On top of all this, the USWA hacks agreed to rig up a permanent "joint committee" of the union heads and the aluminum billionaires, including possibly "plant level bodies." With this committee they will work jointly to suppress the workers' struggles and ensure the smooth implementation of the wage-cutting contract. The USWA leaders are abandoning even any pretense of an "adversary relationship" and are coming out into the open as the shock troops for the wage-cutting drive of the capitalist billionaires.

[Back to Top]

WAGE CUTS AT WHEELING-PITTSBURGH

McBride and the other soldout USWA leaders have collaborated with the Wheeling-Pittsburgh capitalists to force the workers to cough up huge wage concessions. In December, 1979 the multimillionaire owners raised a big hue and cry that the Wheeling-Pittsburgh workers had higher incentive pay than the industry average. They declared that if the workers did not accept a big incentive pay cut, the tube and sheet mill in Allenport, Pennsylvania would be closed.

The steel union bureaucrats utilized two ploys to foist a pay cut onto the workers in February, 1980. First they used the example of the big U.S. Steel plant closings that took place early this year, not as an example of the need to fight, but as a threat with which to blackmail the workers. Secondly, they made an agreement with the company that the workers' wage cuts would go solely to modernizing the Allenport mill. This promise was advertised by the union as supposedly a "guarantee" that the wage cuts would go to "saving" the workers' jobs. However, in reality all it meant was that the big cuts in incentive pay, totaling $3.2 million of the workers' money, would go to buying new machinery in order to eliminate more jobs and speed up the workers at this mill.

Even so, the Wheeling-Pittsburgh capitalists still did not promise to keep the plant open and soon they began to blackmail the workers for much heavier sacrifices. Needless to say, the workers were now quite skeptical about the claims of poverty made by the steel barons. It was here that the USWA chieftains provided the capitalist bosses further service. They had their own union accountants examine the company's books and declared that new concessions were urgently "necessary" to, again, "save jobs." Under this pressure, on August 21, the union forced through a vote to defer two cost-of-living increases until February 1, 1981 and to defer until December 15, 1981 the $150 bonus that was due each worker under the ENA agreement not to strike in 1980. This gave the company an additional $6.3 million of the workers' money for a total of $9.5 million extorted from the workers.

The real results of these wage concessions for the workers is similar to having drunk poison to cure a thirst. Rather than "save jobs" it has only strengthened the capitalist employers against the ever more impoverished workers and provided funds to accelerate Wheeling-Pittsbugh's "reindustrialization" productivity drive to eliminate jobs.

[Back to Top]

On the Closing of Wisconsin Steel in Chicago:

Workers launch mass actions to regain their stolen wages and their jobs

Since the spring of this year the workers from the Wisconsin Steel mill in Chicago have launched one mass action after another to regain their jobs and the money robbed from them by the multi-billionaires of Chase Manhattan Bank and International Harvester.

On March 28, the International Harvester capitalists decided that their search for maximum profit would be best served by closing down Wisconsin Steel mill, throwing about 3,500 workers out on the streets. At the same time Chase Manhattan Bank compounded the attack by freezing the payroll accounts, robbing the workers of their last two weeks pay. Furthermore the' Wisconsin Steel workers have been deprived of severance pay and pay for vacation time. Many of these workers have been robbed of thousands of dollars, some of them up to $14,000. If all of this wasn't enough, their credit union was shut down and most of the money they had on deposit there was frozen. They never saw any of the Supplemental Unemployment Benefits that had been guaranteed them in their contract, leaving them to try to eke out an existence on meager unemployment compensation payments. After May 2, their insurance was cancelled. Their pension funds are supposed to be guaranteed but are being held up by arguments over who is responsible for paying them. Even the pending workmen's compensation claims are being delayed.

The Wisconsin Steel workers have refused to accept these outrages lying down. Despite the sabotage of their struggle by the trade union hacks from the company union, the so-called Progressive Steelworkers Union, and the maneuvers of the billionaires and the capitalist government, the workers have persisted in their struggle, organizing numerous mass pickets at the mill, demonstrations and protest meetings. The militant struggle of these steel workers is a manifestation of the growing fight against the merciless plant closings and layoffs by the capitalist billionaires. It shows that the savage attacks by the capitalist exploiters have not subdued the workers, but that they are rising in active mass resistance to defend their jobs and livelihood. Below, The Workers' Advocate carries a brief chronology of some of the highlights of the struggle waged by the Wisconsin Steel workers adapted from several leaflets produced by the Chicago Branch of the MLP.

Chronology of the Wisconsin Steel Workers' Struggle

Wisconsin Steel is an old mill dating back to before 1900. International Harvester owned the mill until 1977 but was unwilling to invest enough of its own money in the mill to replace the old blast furnace and other major equipment with modern equipment that would be necessary to more efficiently exploit the workers. So International Harvester worked out a shady deal where a tiny company named Envirodyne "bought" Wisconsin Steel for an IOU, and then the federal government guaranteed loans of $90 million with tax dollars to Envirodyne to modernize the mill and install pollution controls. By the time Wisconsin Steel was closed, $55 million of the loans had been used. But by the end of March, 1980, the coldblooded calculations of the International Harvester capitalists were that they would come out with the greatest profits by closing down the mill.

According to the Chicago Tribune (June 8, 1980) International Harvester made a net gain of about $130 million by the manipulations it has carried out with Wisconsin Steel since 1977. At the same time Chase Manhattan Bank has profited from the interest payments on loans and has lost nothing from the plant closing since its loans to Wisconsin Steel are guaranteed 90% by the taxpayers and the other 10% by International Harvester. Besides the other enormous profits made by International Harvester, it has protected its money by seizing back various Wisconsin Steel property that was pledged as collateral.

This history exposes the hoax of "saving jobs" through giving massive handouts to the capitalists to reindustrialize. At Wisconsin Steel the billionaires made hundreds of millions from the tax handouts and the exploitation of the steel workers. But having squeezed the workers to the utmost, they were thrown jobless into the streets, with even their pay and benefits robbed, while the banks and International Harvester are raking in still more loot through the bankruptcy proceedings.

Even before the mill was shut down Tony Roque, the president of the company union was busy selling out the workers. Very rarely had he ever called a general membership meeting, but on March 27, the union and the top company officials held a general meeting to reassure the workers that the rumors flying around the mill of an immanent closing of Wisconsin Steel were false. The next day the mill was shut down. This shows the lengths to which the union hacks have gone in attempting to prevent any mass upheaval among the workers. Roque became unavailable after the plant was closed, and only appeared three weeks later when the workers organized a community meeting to deal with the plant closing. Here again Roque tried to keep the workers from getting organized for struggle by telling the lie that the mill would probably reopen in another three weeks.

Despite this sabotage, the workers began to organize themselves and started launching mass actions demanding the reopening of the plant and the money robbed from them.

On May 2, they organized their first picketing of the mill. This first action was held to withdraw the last few union workers from the mill and to protest the cutoff of insurance.

On July 18, the Chase Manhattan Bank made a crude attempt to bribe the Wisconsin Steel workers to give up their struggle. They offered the workers half of their back wages and vacation pay with the promise of the other half to come later. For this bribe the workers were to allow Chase Manhattan to ship out and sell off the plant inventory of steel and raw materials. The steel workers overwhelmingly rejected this ploy.

On July 21, the workers organized a mass picket at the mill to prevent Chase Manhattan Bank from taking out the inventory without paying the workers their back wages.

Continuing their struggle, on August 4, the workers organized a demonstration of 200 which marched from the International Harvester headquarters to the Federal Building protesting the plant closing at a hearing on the Wisconsin Steel case in the bankruptcy court.

On August 6, another picket was organized at the steel mill to prevent the removal of a crane.

Following this Chase Manhattan Bank made a deal with Tony Roque for the workers to get 75% of their back wages and the other 25% later. In exchange the workers were to allow Chase Manhattan to remove from the mill and sell 3,000 tons of finished steel rods. And the court put its stamp of approval on this rotten attempt to steal the back pay of the workers by ordering an injunction allowing Chase Manhattan to remove the steel.

On August 28, hundreds of workers rallied at a meeting to protest this vicious attack by the billionaires, the government and the union.

On August 29, three hundred steel workers marched on Wisconsin Steel and then on their union office to denounce the union's sellout agreement with Chase Manhattan Bank. The union officials surrounded the office with eight police cars and 20 police and barricaded themselves in. The president of the union said, "I don't want to deal with a mass crowd like that." He then justified the agreement made with Chase Manhattan without the consent of the workers by stating that, "technically, there are no members in good standing as we have no dues coming in...read your by-laws." However, the workers pointed out that it is the union officials who are not in good standing with them and they have no business making agreements for the workers or continuing to betray them.

On September 2, the first day the steel bars were shipped out, the workers continued their struggle by marching to the mill in protest.

On September 8, workers organized a car caravan to the court to continue their struggle for full back wages and the reopening of the mill.

[Back to Top]

NO CONCESSIONS TO THE McLOUTH STEEL CAPITALISTS!

The McLouth workers went on strike for three days beginning on October 1. As a result they defeated the demands of the McLouth capitalists for a wage and benefit freeze and won a contract that is the same as the Basic Steel Agreement (BSA). Of course, the USWA hacks are still working with the capitalists against the workers. The BSA itself has meant the workers' pay is being eaten away by the soaring inflation. As well, at McLouth the USWA hacks may have agreed to cuts in incentive pay which is not covered by the BSA. Through struggle the McLouth workers defeated the most savage "concession'' demands of the capitalists.

Below is reprinted a leaflet issued by the Detroit Branch of the MLP, USA on September 29, 1980, on the struggle of the McLouth workers.

The contract covering 3,600 hourly workers at the McLouth Steel Corporation in Trenton, Detroit, and Gibraltar, Michigan, expires on October 1. In the past the McLouth workers' contracts have been patterned after the Basic Steel Agreement negotiated with the "Big Nine" steel companies, this time, however, the McLouth capitalists are demanding a one year wage and benefits freeze. With inflation running at 14% a year, this amounts to a severe wage cut. The McLouth capitalists are seeking to impose these "concessions" on the workers under the hoax that this is the workers' only hope for preserving their jobs.

This attack is part of the program of the steel barons and the Carter government to "save" the U.S. steel industry through stepped-up plunder of the workers. All the steel capitalists are engaged in a frenzied modernization and productivity drive. They are closing old plants in record numbers, introducing new technology to eliminate jobs, and they are ruthlessly driving the workers still employed to produce more steel with fewer workers.

The chieftains of the USWA headed by Lloyd McBride have completely betrayed the steel workers under the banner of "saving the steel industry." They have accepted the layoff of 70,000 workers without a peep. They endorse the closing of "unprofitable" plants. They set up labor-management committees to revise work and safety rules, to enforce labor discipline and to increase production. In addition to assisting the industry-wide productivity drive, McBride and his men have also set up the workers in the steel fabricating, subsidiary and smaller mills, like McLouth, for special attack. McLouth is the number 11 steel producer and therefore, by McBride's logic, the workers must make special sacrifices to help this poor, unfortunate capitalist to modernize.

But will the concessions extracted from the workers somehow provide for job security? No! Strengthening the capitalist will only ensure further attacks on the workers, If anyone has any doubts, just let him ask the Chrysler workers what concessions have meant for their job security. The UAW contract imposed $450 million in concessions on the Chrysler workers. This sum was simply added to the Chrysler fund for investment in massive retooling, computers and robots. Chrysler closed more plants and eliminated more jobs, throwing tens of thousands more workers onto the street. As well, those still working are being sped up and overworked to the maximum. The Chrysler workers have suffered cruelly under this yoke of "concessions to save jobs."

Concessions to McLouth will only lead to the same kind of attacks. The McLouth capitalists have no interest whatsoever in protecting the livelihood of the workers. Why, just look at the vicious attacks the McLouth workers have suffered so far. About half of the McLouth steel workers are laid off. TRA (Trade Readjustment Act) and SUB (Supplemental Unemployment Benefits) payments have been cut off. These workers must now survive on the starvation level unemployment compensation checks which also will soon run out. After already driving the workers into poverty the steel capitalists now demand "concessions," threatening that the company will go out of business and all the workers will lose their jobs.

But the McLouth workers are fighting back. They have refused to submit to this blackmail. They are not meek and willing slaves, grateful for any crumb from the bosses' banquet table. They have taken a unanimous strike vote and denounced the call for "concessions." The McLouth workers have a tradition of mass struggle -- striking for two months in 1968 and three weeks in 1977 as well as waging various wildcat strikes over working conditions. Relying on the strength of their combined numbers and on their own efforts, they have the means to deal the rich a heavy blow.

The McLouth workers have no interest in saving the profits of the steel millionaires. The workers' interest is to fight against wage and benefit cuts, elimination of COLA, speedup, overwork and plant closings. Across the country the workers are pushing forward their mass struggles against the capitalist offensive. This is the path the McLouth workers also must take. No concessions to the McLouth capitalists!

[Back to Top]

900 Michigan steelworkers on strike in defiance of "concessions" demands

On September 1, 1980, nine hundred steel workers at Whitehead and Kales struck when their contract expired. This company manufactures railroad cars in River Rouge, Michigan. In the past, workers in such steel fabricating plants have had contracts inferior to those in basic steel. Workers at Whitehead and Kales, for example, now make $2.00 per hour less than their counterparts in basic steel. But this year USWA President Lloyd McBride has given the green light to steel fabricating and subsidiary firms to break their workers even further away from the basic steel pattern. In this, McBride's concern is to make the unionized companies more "competitive" by cutting the workers' wages and benefits to the level of the nonunion sweatshops. McBride and company have engineered such sellouts at American Bridge (a U.S. Steel subsidiary in Pennsylvania) and elsewhere and are seeking to impose them widely on a plant by plant basis.

At Whitehead and Kales the capitalists are demanding the most outrageous "concessions" in order to fatten their profits. They want to eliminate COLA (Cost of Living Allowance) and to freeze wages for three years. They threatened to lay off all but 150 workers to frighten them into accepting "concessions." And in their latest attack, the company is refusing to abide by the agreements of the last contract which guaranteed COLA payments in September 1980 and March 1981. These capitalists are going all out to rob the workers in every possible direction.

But the workers are fighting mad. They have stopped production, cutting off the capitalists' "sacred" profits and have vowed to keep the plant shut indefinitely rather than bow down to the arrogant demands of the moneybags. The capitalists have broken off negotiations, but this has not scared the workers. To show their defiance, they organized a militant mass picket of 200 workers on September 12. Steel workers from McLouth, Great Lakes Steel and other plants also attended to show solidarity with their class brothers.

The stand of the Whitehead and Kales workers deserves the active support and encouragement of the entire working class. The rich are using the present economic crisis to further impoverish the workers and enrich themselves. The sellout trade union chieftains like Lloyd McBride have gone all out to aid the rich and to stab the workers in the back. Therefore it is absolutely necessary for the workers to rely on themselves to wage the mass struggle. Only a determined fight can save the workers from ruin at the hands of the rich.

Support the Whitehead and Kales strikers!

(Taken from a leaflet issued by the Detroit Branch of the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA on September 29, 1980.)

[Back to Top]

No Mr. Fraser, the auto workers have no "common interests" with their exploiters!

On August 15, 263 more auto workers were laid off from the Chevy-Tonawanda motor plant. This increases the number of laid off workers at the motor plant alone to 1,200. Nationally, the auto industry is one of the hardest hit by the current economic crisis, with over 300,000 auto workers on indefinite layoff and thousands more fired as a result of plant shutdowns. As well, many plants frequently conduct temporary layoffs. But the auto billionaires are not only attacking the workers with layoffs and plant closings, they are also forcing those who remain on the job to face the living hell of speedup and overwork.

In this situation, the workers must unite for mass struggle against the attacks of the auto capitalists. More and more, from their own experience, the auto workers are realizing that there is no other way for them to defend their jobs and their livelihood. 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 40%. This path of mass struggle and resolute opposition to the attacks of the auto billionaires is the only way forward!

But in this situation, the UAW bureaucrats headed up by Douglas Fraser are not calling on the auto workers to step up their struggle. No -- they are telling the workers that they should not fight against the layoffs and productivity drives which are ruining them. Instead, they are calling on the workers to cooperate with their oppressors and to make "sacrifices" so that the auto monopolies can be more competitive. This is utter betrayal of the workers! At a time when the capitalists are viciously attacking the auto workers, all in order to shore up their fabulous profits -- at such a time the UAW labor "leaders" are going far and wide preaching that the auto workers have "common interests" with their capitalist exploiters, and that they should cooperate with these bloodsuckers for the "good of the industry."

Recently, UAW President Fraser met with the auto capitalists and Carter to work out a plan to "get the auto industry out of its present crisis." At this meeting, steps were taken to establish a "permanent partnership" between government, capitalists and UAW labor bureaucrats. An ongoing, high-level committee of these "three partners" was established to continue to work out plans and enact measures to "assist the auto industry to recover." Exactly what type of plan do these three partners have in mind? Carter, Fraser and the auto magnates are enthusiastically uniting around a program of increased handouts to the auto capitalists. Recently, Fraser shamelessly endorsed Carter's "revitalization program" as a "giant step forward" because it "contains a lot of principles we've [the UAW] been espousing for years." One of these principles that Fraser mentions is "incentives" to industry.

It is the workers who are made to pay for the handouts through increased tax dollars. Not only this, but these handouts to the auto billionaires are then used to further attack the workers. The subsidies and "incentives" are poured into rationalizing the auto industry -- automating, retooling, and shutting down inefficient plants -- which results in more layoffs and increased exploitation of the remaining workers. This "cooperation" then to serve so-called "mutual interests" is just a cover for increasing the exploitation of the working class by the capitalist class. It is a means for increased integration of the UAW labor bureaucracy into the plans and organization of the monopoly capitalists and their state in order to carry out the full-scale offensive against the workers' living and working conditions.

The workers at Chevy-Tonawanda are being faced with increased attacks as GM capitalists are retooling and automating their plants as they downsize their cars. The line assembling V6 60 degree engines for the Chevy Citation moves 30% faster than the two lines currently assembling the V8 engine at the same plant. Further, in assembling the V6 engines, GM has introduced increased automation to perform a whole series of operations previously done manually and thus eliminated a large number of jobs. The production of smaller cars requires fewer workers who are worked at a faster rate. In fact, UAW officials have admitted that the changeover to smaller cars -- which is an important part of the rationalization of the auto industry -- could mean the elimination of half the present workforce by 1990.

This anti-worker line of cooperation between the workers and their enemies is also being propagated right inside the auto plants by the UAW bureaucrats. At Chevy-Tonawanda, the UAW is collaborating with GM management to promote the "Quality of Worklife" program. The aim of this program is to promote "class peace" and "harmony" while the auto capitalists are carrying out their increasing attacks. The UAW bureaucrats are saying that the reason the workers are unhappy is because "a few" supervisors don't treat the workers with "respect" and "dignity." What a white-® wash! The issue is not the different personalities of the foremen, but that the workers must organize to fight against the layoffs, speedup, overtime, and other attacks against them by the capitalists. At special "QWL" sessions, management takes off their ties and acts like "friends" to the workers -- so that the workers can have big smiles on their faces while they are being exploited and their brothers and sisters are being laid off!

The working class has no common interests with the capitalist exploiters. The road of class collaboration, of "labor-management cooperation" to rationalize the auto industry is the road of ruining the auto workers and fattening the profits of the auto capitalists. Mass struggle against the rich exploiters and their productivity drives, layoffs, plant closings and other attacks is the only way for the workers to defend their vital interests.

(Leaflet issued by the Buffalo Branch of the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA on September 11, 1980.)

[Back to Top]

Determined Strike of the Copper Workers

Workers in the copper industry have been waging a protracted strike struggle, steadfastly refusing to submit to the wage-cutting demands of the copper monopolies. Workers began walking out July 1. By August 1, a total of 40,000 copper miners and mill workers were on strike against the major copper corporations across the U.S. Thus far, workers at Kennecott Copper and four other companies have defeated the arrogant wage-cut demands of the copper monopolies. However, workers at several large copper monopolies remain on strike. They have persisted in their struggle for well over 100 days now, in spite of the difficult conditions. This struggle by the copper workers is a big setback to the wage-cutting offensive of the monopoly capitalists.

The copper workers are organized in a group of 26 different international unions, of which the USWA is the main union representing the workers. The demands against the capitalists placed by the USWA bureaucrats were very meager, being described by the USWA leadership as "somewhere between the bask steel agreement and the aluminum contract." But the copper monopolists brutally demanded big wage cuts even from these demands. The copper monopolists were encouraged in these demands by the trail of wage-cutting concessions which the USWA labor bureaucrats, as well as Fraser of the UAW, Bommarito of the URW, the Teamster bureaucrats and others, have been forcing on the workers on the plea of "imminent bankruptcy" of this or that "poor" company. The bourgeois economists have been gloating that these concessions would weaken the positions of the working class as a whole and soon lead to even the most profitable corporations demanding "equal rights" to wage cutting. And this is precisely what has happened with the copper industry.

When the copper industry contract expired June 30, the capitalist employers arrogantly demanded that the workers accept substantial wage cuts. These demands were that the workers concede a future cost-of-living raise to the tune of 28<t per hour (or at least $582 per worker per year). The capitalists declared that only by giving up these wages could the workers "buy" any improvement in their pension benefits. As well, the copper corporations demanded that new hires should not receive any cost-of-living payments for their first year of employment. The workers, for their part, absolutely refused to swallow these wage cuts aimed at destroying their livelihood, and launched their struggle.

The copper monopolists have desperately tried to break this strike and impose their will on the copper workers. The copper monopolies have used numerous means of putting pressure upon the workers. In the first place, in anticipation of the strike, the companies built up huge stockpiles of copper, sufficient to last at least the remainder of the summer from June 30. This handful of big monopolies control the copper production in the U.S. Thus it was an easy matter for these companies, together with the Wall Street speculators, to manipulate the market and utilize fears of a shortage during the strike to drive up the price of copper and copper futures for a time. At the same time the copper capitalists utilized the period of the strike to hire non-union contractors to do mine maintenance and refurbish many of the older smelters.

As well the copper monopolists are using other despicable tactics to try to starve the workers into submission including: cutting off the workers' health insurance payments as soon as the strike began, denial of credit to strikers and their families at company- owned stores, and having the government deny the strikers food stamps and other benefits. In general, the capitalists figured on a long strike and carried out these various measures to minimize the cost of the strike to themselves, while putting maximum pressure on the workers so as to force the workers to submit to the concession demands.

However, the copper workers, for their part, are accustomed to such tactics on the part of the owners. Since 1950, I workers' strikes have taken place every three years in the copper industry and have averaged eight weeks apiece. Naturally, despite such abundant warning, the USWA bureaucrats have taken no steps to thwart this stockpiling tactic of the copper capitalists. Nevertheless, the copper workers are proving to be more stubborn and determined than the capitalists. The workers have persisted in their strike, and eventually the capitalists' stock-piles have begun to dwindle at one company after another. Meanwhile the costs to the capitalists of maintaining expensive idled equipment have mounted.

Thus the capitalists' arrogance is being shattered in the face of the workers' struggle. At the end of August, Kennecott Copper, the largest U.S. copper monopoly, having lost money to the tune of 62.5 million dollars over the first 10 weeks of the strike, gave up its concession demands and signed a contract. Then, in the fifteenth week of the strike, four other monopolies also gave up their arrogant concession demands and signed a similar contract. These four are Phelps Dodge, Louisiana Land and Exploration Co., AMAX, and Pennzoil's Duval unit. The remainder of the copper workers, who work at such huge corporations as Magma, Anaconda and ASARCO, are continuing their struggle into the 17th week, determined to resist the wage-cutting demands of the owners no matter how long it takes.

While the copper workers are setting a fine example of struggle, the USWA labor bureaucrats are continuing their sabotage. They have concocted new class collaborationist schemes to put further shackles on the workers' struggle. Thus in the new Kennecott contract, the USWA .bosses have agreed to a provision for a "permanent arbitration umpire, a select panel of arbitrators, and an expansion of the mini-arbitration process." The USWA chiefs call these arbitration schemes "new and innovative ideas," just as they call the Experimental Negotiating Agreement that bans strikes in steel as allegedly "revolutionary," but in reality these schemes are merely timeworn capitalist tactics. It is an attempt to prevent the struggle of the workers via the so-called "neutral" arbitration which dictates to the workers the resolution of their grievances against the capitalists. This agreement shows that the copper workers will continue to face a fierce struggle against the sabotage of the labor bureaucrats as well as resistance of the capitalists.

The mass struggle is the workers' answer to the wage-cutting offensive. The capitalist offensive is sharpening the class struggle and setting the stage for a new upsurge in the workers' movement.

[Back to Top]

Support the strikes of the school teachers!

At the opening of school in September, tens of thousands of teachers and other school employees waged strikes to defend their livelihood. School employees walked out in over 60 districts in 11 states and Puerto Rico, affecting more than 550,000 students. The largest number of work stoppages was in Michigan, where some 23 districts were struck, followed by about 17 in Pennsylvania and 11 in Illinois. School employees also walked out in Ohio, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Washington state, California, Arizona, and Iowa. The scale of the strikes ranged from 23,000 employees in Philadelphia, the fourth largest district in the country, to medium-sized cities like Newark, N.J.; Rochester, N.Y.; Grand Rapids, Mich.; and San Jose, Calif., to smaller districts with only a few hundred teachers.

The school employees went into battle again this year to fight for higher wages in the face of continuing 14% inflation. In many areas they fought against attempts to increase their workload and lengthen their working day through enlarging class sizes and taking away preparation time during school hours. In Philadelphia in particular, the striking teachers took up the fight against layoffs. They demanded and won the rehiring of some 2,000 fellow teachers laid off last spring by the school board in the name of "balancing the budget."

Many of the strikes were characterized by militant solidarity among the teachers and other school employees, as well as by spirited defiance in the face of attacks by the capitalist government. In Rochester, N.Y., teachers struck for the first time in the city's history and defied court injunctions banning the strike and limiting mass picketing. Their staunch picket lines blocked scabs, substitutes and delivery vehicles, forcing the schools to close down. In Sierra Vista, Ariz., the reactionary school board tried to break the teachers' strike by hiring a large number of scabs. Then, using the Chamber of Commerce as a "neutral" mediator, they offered the teachers a. settlement which included recording in the teachers' files their participation in the strike and monitoring their classes to prevent "strike-related activities." The teachers angrily denounced these attacks and persisted in their struggle. In Westerly, Rhode Island, when 35 custodians walked out, the teachers honored their picket line. This solidarity effectively shut down the schools and strengthened the custodians' struggle.

Seeking to isolate the teachers and undermine their struggle, government officials and the capitalist news media tried to mobilize students and parents against the teachers with tear-jerking appeals that the teachers were being "selfish" and were "disrupting the educational process."

This is turning truth upside down. It is the capitalists and their government who are attacking the education of the youth in their attempt to make the people bear the burden of the economic crisis. Under the hoax of "no money," they are closing schools, laying off teachers, increasing class sizes, cutting back on educational programs, trying to impose wage freezes, and carrying on every other manner of "disruption." In spite of this propaganda to blame the teachers for the crimes of the rich, the teachers received widespread support as shown by demonstrations, rallies and other manifestations of solidarity.

Today the oppression of the monopoly capitalists and their government over the whole society is becoming more and more intolerable.

Ever wider sections of the working people are awakening to militancy and entering into struggle against these rich exploiters. The vigorous strikes of the teachers and other school employees are part and parcel of the growing movement of the working class and people to resist the effects of the capitalist economic crisis. These strikes deal blows against the capitalists, the bankers and their government and are an inspiration to all working people.

[Photo: Mass picket of over 1,500 Philadelphia teachers on September 2 closes down the school administration building.]

[Back to Top]

New York transit workers: Fight the contract givebacks!

(The following article is taken from a leaflet issued by the New York Metro Branch of the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA, on September 9, 1980.)

On July 30, the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) announced its intentions of implementing a major work rule change utilizing a "giveback" swindled from the transit workers in the contract struggle last March. This major work rule change amounts to cutting 20 minutes from the subway and bus workers' paid free time and turning it into unpaid productive time! This giveback was a major concession to the MTA by the soldout labor traitors of the Transit Workers Union (TWU) and demonstrates the sellout nature of the notorious contract swindle.

The working conditions that the transit workers already face are notoriously hazardous and worsening every day due to speedups, reductions in the work force, and poor equipment, etc. Two workers have already died on the job since the transit workers returned to work after the strike. Yet the bloodsucking MTA is never satisfied with the amount of labor extracted from the workers. Thus, it is now planning to eliminate 20 minutes of break time and force additional work without pay.

The MTA has announced three different possible schemes, all equally vicious, to accomplish this contract giveback. The first plan involves cutting 20 minutes from the workers' half hour lunch. Thus, as if the working conditions aren't bad enough, the MTA is demanding that the workers work an entire day with a mere ten minute lunch break!! Whether this plan is implemented or not, the fact that the MTA can conceive of such a plan shows the utter contempt and total disregard the rich have for the workers. The second scheme involves saving up the 20 minutes a day on paper and then, after 24 days forcing the workers to work on a regular day off for the MTA without pay! Presently the workers get time and a half for working a scheduled day off, so in fact this amounts to losing a regular day off plus a day and a half's pay! The third possible plan involves eliminating coffee breaks, wash-up time and tool cleaning time amounting to 20 minutes a day for workers in the maintenance yards. Whichever one of these plans gets implemented it will amount to the same thing -- sweating more labor out of the workers and intensifying their exploitation through a vicious productivity drive.

The MTA has stated that it intends to save $45 million over two years just from eliminating 20 minutes of paid break time a day. This is not only an intense speedup for the workers, it is also a vicious wage cut. Forcing the workers to work an additional 20 minutes a day with no extra pay is the same as a 4% cut in wages.

The significance of this giveback wrested from the workers by the MTA is not simply that it means a further deterioration of the working conditions, lengthening of the working day and a wage cut. But this is the first giveback ever that the MTA has been able to steal from the workers. It sets a dangerous precedent, opening the door to more. At the beginning of the contract negotiations in March the MTA arrogantly put forth a list of 41 givebacks which it sought to shove down the workers' throats. The transit workers cannot let this situation go any further. They must take a stand today and wage vigorous mass struggles in defense of their vital interests.

While speaking of "more efficiency" and "better service" the MTA arrogantly admits that the planned productivity savings sweated from the workers will not mean any improvement in service for the passengers. Far from it. This latest attack on the workers, along with continuing cuts in service and higher fares for the passengers, is simply part of the plan to make both passengers and workers pay for the New York City fiscal crisis.

Today the transit workers are faced with the question of fighting these attacks of the MTA, carrying through the fight against the sellout contract, and overcoming all obstacles placed in their path. How is it that John Lawe and the official trade union apparatus are advocating to fight the MTA on the question of this contract giveback? Lawe plans to "take all necessary action to uphold our agreement" with the MTA. For Lawe and his cronies the sellout contract is just fine but the MTA should just abide by it. This is truly disgusting because it is actually the Ravitch-Lawe sellout contract swindle which laid the grounds for implementing all these givebacks. After having collaborated with Ravitch and swindling the workers into a sellout contract filled with givebacks and real wage cuts, once again Lawe is advocating "upholding" the contract and continued capitulation to the MTA.

Lawe also says that "we will take all action necessary" to defend the contract. But Lawe is not speaking about the workers taking any action. He means submitting this disagreement with the MTA over where the 20 minutes will be cut, to an "impartial" arbitrator. The "impartial" arbitrator will simply remind Lawe that this giveback was in the original contract he negotiated and pledges to uphold! Waiting for an "impartial" arbitrator to paint this attack in rosy colors means capitulation to this attack. Finally, Lawe calls on the workers to resist individually by sneaking off and taking the 20 minutes at some other part of the day. This also plays right into the hands of the MTA, which is seeking "personnel reductions," because this just sets up the workers one by one for getting fired and again robs them of the weapon of united mass struggle.

The transit workers must reject all of these attempts to tie them to the needs of the MTA. They must take a united and militant stand against the 20 minute giveback. The transit workers must not rely on the flimsy "actions" of the TWU bureaucrats, but must organize themselves independently and through their own efforts to make the MTA feel the mighty fist of the workers' mass action once again.

[Back to Top]

Why the workers are on strike at an "employee-owned" factory

On August 25, some 309 workers at South Bend Lathe in South Bend, Indiana, went out on strike against the company. South Bend Lathe is an example of several thousand so-called "employee-owned" enterprises in the U.S. today. The workers at this plant are fighting for an unrestricted cost of living allowance to protect them from skyrocketing inflation. As well, they are demanding the restoration of pension benefits which were stolen from them in 1975 when this company was converted from an openly capitalist enterprise to a so-called "employee-owned" one.

The struggle of the workers at this small Indiana factory teaches some valuable lessons for the entire working class. This is because "employee ownership" is one of various schemes of "economic democracy" that are being widely promoted today as alleged reforms which will do away with capitalist exploitation.

The social-democrats are in the fore of the promotion of these schemes of "economic democracy." They claim that such schemes can substitute for the revolutionary class struggle against unemployment, plant closings and other anti-worker measures of the rich. And they also make the outlandish claims that these schemes eliminate the need for the establishment of Marxist socialism, which is the goal of the revolutionary struggle.

Thus, when the Chrysler workers were faced with widescale layoffs and plant closings, wage cuts and speedup, the social-democratic chieftains of the United Auto Workers counseled the workers: don't take up mass struggle against the Chrysler billionaires, but give in to the .concessions they demand in return for the greater benefit of "workers' participation in management." This turned out to be a seat on the Chrysler Board of Directors for UAW chieftain Fraser. Meanwhile, the Chrysler workers were saddled with continuing layoffs and plant closings, and increased speedup and productivity drives.

Similarly when the capitalists are closing down plants in a whole series of industries today, throwing thousands out of work, the social-democrats advise the workers to stay away from militant mass struggles against the rich and instead take up various schemes of "buying out" the plants being shut down and establish "employee-owned" companies. The social-democrats claim this will not only deal with the immediate problems of unemployment, etc., but also bring in a structural change in society, upsetting the power of the monopoly capitalists who dominate the economy.

The strike of the South Bend Lathe workers shows the utterly fraudulent character of these schemes. It shows in particular that "employee ownership" does not in the least bit do away with capitalist exploitation but only intensifies it further. It also demonstrates that such schemes are doomed to fail in the attempt of the bourgeoisie and the social-democrats to suppress the class struggle. For here, too, in the "employee-owned" companies, the inevitable struggle between capital and labor breaks out.

Employee ownership is a swindle from top to bottom. It is no different than various schemes of "profit-sharing" that exist in a large number of capitalist enterprises. In fact, South Bend Lathe is only an example of a 100% "employee stock ownership plan" (ESOP), while ther6 are several thousand other ESOP's where a smaller percentage of the stock is "provided" to the workers. In fact, with the federal government's bailout of Chrysler, this giant monopoly also had to adopt an ESOP.

But whether it is, Chrysler where a very small percentage of the stock is "owned" by the workers, or South Bend, where 100% is employee "owned," all these schemes are based on the perpetuation of the profit system, the exploitation of surplus value from the workers, which is at the foundation of capitalism. In all these schemes, a myth of "sharing profits" or "employee ownership" is promoted for the sole purpose of hoodwinking the workers into slaving even harder because they are the alleged owners of these enterprises. Meanwhile the capitalists continue to rake in huge profits from the sweat and toil of the workers.

Examine, for instance, what took place at South Bend Lathe. In 1975 Amsted Industries announced its plan to close down South Bend Lathe. At the urging of various social-democrats, the federal government's Economic Development Corporation (EDC) came in to promote its brainchild, the ESOP. In collaboration with the city of South Bend, the company was converted into a 100% ESOP. In return for participation in this plan, Amsted Industries received compensation for its plant and was awarded tax breaks from the government.

What 100% "employee ownership" actually meant was that the stock nominally went to the workers, but actually went into a trust organized through $10 million in loans from the federal government and private banks. Real control of the company remained in the hands of the president and the other capitalists on the Board of Directors. For the workers it was a complete swindle. They were tricked into giving up the pension benefits they had won through previous struggles under the hoax that their stocks would provide them with greater benefits in the long run. And they were also hoodwinked into slaving even harder under the hoax that they were really working for themselves; productivity rose 25% in the first year alone.

All in all, this turned out to be quite lucrative for the capitalists. Amsted Industries was awarded with lucrative compensation, the bankers continue to receive interest on their loans and the capitalists on the Board of Directors of South Bend Lathe have hit a gold mine. In fact, the president of the company is busy using the profits from the company to establish his own small industrial empire.

The workers have quite justly taken the path of striking against the capitalist bloodsuckers. Within a few short years, they recognized the fraud that was perpetrated on them. The workers are today pointing out that the real ownership of the company is in the hands of the capitalist, "who decides how the company invests its money, how; the profits are divided, and who will be hired or fired." Exactly like any other capitalist enterprise. The response of the company president to seeing the whole devious game exposed has been to complain that the workers "are refusing to act like owners!"

South Bend Lathe is not unique but a typical example of "employee-owned" companies. This is even admitted by the federal government's own accounting office. A recent survey from them shows that the capitalist managers of these enterprises have simply used the assets of these companies to accumulate wealth, while the workers fare no better than the workers of any other capitalist enterprise.

Thus contrary to the claims of the heroes of the social-democratic "left" wing of the Democratic Party such as the Frasers, Harringtons, Tom Haydens and Barry Commoners, there can be no "economic democracy" under capitalism. There is no way to do away with the evils of capitalist exploitation by tinkering here and there with certain aspects of the capitalist system. To put an end to the miseries of exploitation, capitalism itself must go.

To deal with the problems of plant closings, unemployment, productivity drives, etc., the workers have to fight the capitalist exploiters. They have to take up mass struggle. And in the course of waging the mass struggle, the workers must unite all their ranks, take up leadership of all the oppressed masses and carry out the proletarian socialist revolution.

Not the "buying out" of old plants, but the revolutionary expropriation of capital! Not "employee ownership," but socialization of all the means of production under the dictatorship of the working class! Only under a true socialist system will the working class become the master of society, concentrating all the economic and political power in its own hands, and building a social order which runs not on the motive of maximum profit for the exploiters but for the constant improvement of the material and cultural needs of the working masses.

Schemes like "employee ownership" are only promoted by the bourgeoisie and the social-democrats to divert the masses away from the class struggle and the socialist revolution. They are schemes of class collaboration and perpetuation of the capitalist order. For the workers to fight the wage cuts, speedup and overwork, layoffs and plant closings; all schemes of class peace must be rejected. In order to fight the capitalists, it is essential to wage an uncompromising war against the shameful deception of the workers carried out by tho social-democrats

[Photo: Photo shows workers at so-called "employee-owned" company in South Bend, Indiana on strike. Picket signs mock fraudulent "Employee Stock Ownership Plan" (ESOP) as "ESOP fables" and declare "Employee Owners on Strike."]

[Back to Top]

Militant fight of the Philadelphia school teachers against layoffs

The 23,000 teachers and other school employees in Philadelphia recently concluded a 22-day spirited strike against the program of layoffs and speedup of the city school board. Through their mass action they won the rehiring of 2,000 teachers laid off last spring under the school board's "cost-cutting" program and successfully fought attempts to increase their workload. This strike was a continuation of the tradition of militant mass struggle which the Philadelphia school employees have developed, particularly in the last decade. They have struck four times since 1970, including an 11-week walkout in 1972-73, and a week-long strike in 1978 which the state sought to suppress through numerous arrests. The teachers' persistent struggle has raised their annual average pay from being among the lowest of all big city school districts in 1965, to among the highest in the country today.

The roots of this latest strike lie in the continuing attempts of the finance capitalists to make the school employees pay for the financial crisis of the Philadelphia school system. Three years ago a group of banks and insurance companies virtually took control of the Philadelphia schools in exchange for providing loans to the financially troubled system. This junta of finance capitalists dictated sharp cutbacks in school services, including teacher layoffs and a 7% "no-growth" ceiling on school district budgets for five years. Last spring, in the name of balancing a $757 million budget so as to be able to pay off the banks, the school board laid off 2,300 teachers and other employees. At the same time they increased the workload of the remaining teachers by expanding the average class size from 33 to 35 and reducing teacher preparation time during school hours. Then when negotiations opened for the new 1980-82 contract, the city government and school board demanded absolute authority over layoffs, transfers and elimination of educational programs. They also claimed they had "no money" because they were trying to "balance the budget."

The school employees resisted this vicious attack on their livelihood and on the education of the youth, and the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers (PFT) went out on strike on September 1 with a mass picket of 400 teachers at the school 'administration building. The following day, over 1,500 school employees encircled the building for eight hours, turning away hundreds of people who work there. To try to suppress the teachers the school board secured a court injunction forbidding more than six pickets at any building entrance. Nevertheless, the teachers took up mass picketing at over ^00 schools and other sites. On the first day of school, only 211 employees of the 23,000 crossed the picket lines, and nearly 200,000 of the 230,000 students stayed out of school. The determination and solidity of the strikers and the support by students and their parents forced the board of education to close down the schools.

On September 19 striking school employees and their supporters, including students, held a mass demonstration to press their demands. Beginning at 9 a.m., 50 demonstrators sat down in the street at 15th and Market near Philadelphia City Hall, blocking traffic. By 11:30 the demonstration had swelled to 10,000 people. They circled City Hall four times and held a spirited rally. On September 21 the PFT reached a tentative agreement with the school board, which was ratified the following day.

Through their mass struggle the school employees won the rehiring of laid off teachers and no layoffs in the first year of the contract. They also achieved the reduction of class size from 35 to 33, restoration of all teacher preparation time, a 9.5% wage increase in the second year, and full payment of medical benefits. However, a wage freeze was imposed on them during the first year, and in the second year of the contract the school employees will be subject to layoffs in conjunction with any decline in student enrollment. While the contract calls for the retraining, at the city's expense, of any teachers laid off, the only real defense for the teachers' livelihood is to remain vigilant and again wield the powerful weapon of direct mass action. It is only through their mass struggle that the school employees will be able to defend what they have won and to resist renewed attacks against them by the rich and their government.

[Back to Top]

SUPPORT THE STRIKE OF THE PHILADELPHIA TEACHERS!

During the school employees strike the Philadelphia Committee Against Social-Chauvinism went among the working people of the city with agitation in support of this struggle. Following are excerpts from their leaflet. Once again the 20,000 members of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers (PFT) are waging a determined struggle to defend their basic interests. Just as in 1972, 1976, 1978, so this year the teachers are being forced to fight wage and benefit cuts. The school administration as in past years, is attempting to take back concessions won by the teachers and other school workers through their long and hard struggles. Some of these concessions include smaller class size, teacher preparation time, layoffs, decent wages and protection from the ravages of inflation.

At the heart of the situation facing the teachers is a question being faced by the entire working class and people. The question of wage-cutting contracts, who is to bear the burden of the current economic crisis. This crisis is further intensified by the city's payment of exorbitant interest to the banks and increased funding for the repressive police force which demonstrates the priorities of the capitalist-controlled city government.

The role of the media has been to oppose the just struggle of the teachers in defense of their standard of living and working conditions. The propaganda of the media has been to portray the teachers as selfish, overpaid and disinterested in the welfare of the children. This could not be further from the truth. In fact, the teachers' mass struggle against the burden of the capitalist economic crisis is the greatest lesson being taught the students.

We call on all workers and progressive people to support the just struggle of the Philadelphia Federation of Teachers union!

[Back to Top]

No to the Draft!

[Photos: Extensive activities against draft registration and U.S. imperialist war preparations were organized by the MLP,USA during the period of draft registration in July and August. These activities were reported on in The Workers' Advocate of August 25. This vigorous activity is continuing. Above are two pictures of an anti-draft march and picket organized by the MLP in Brooklyn, N.Y. which met with the enthusiastic support of the masses. Below are excerpts from a letter of the Chicago Branch of the MLP to the anti-draft activists and youth in the Chicago area. It sums up the experience of the work during the two weeks of draft registration and points the way forward for the anti-draft movement.]

[Back to Top]

Letter to the anti-draft activists and youth in the Chicago area from the Chicago Branch of the MLP, USA

Dear Friends,

As everyone knows, the two weeks of July 21-August 2 were a period when the Carter administration was compelling over four million youth under penalty of the full force of the law to register for the hated military draft. But, as well, these two weeks were a period of vigorous struggle and mass actions by thousands of anti-draft activists across the country and in Chicago against this new step on the part of the U.S. imperialists in their preparations for launching aggressive war.

The Chicago Branch of the Marxist-Leninist Party is writing this letter to the anti-draft activists and youth in the Chicago area to discuss the recent developments in the struggle against the reintroduction of the draft, especially during the days of registration. The mass struggle which unfolded during the days of registration swept the length and breadth of the country. This mass struggle showed that the masses of people are against the war preparations of U.S. imperialism and are ready to go into action against them. But this mass struggle did not proceed without opposition both by the government and the open reactionaries and by hidden saboteurs in the movement itself. Because of the mass experience gained in the course of this struggle many extremely important lessons can be derived for the further development and strengthening of the movement against the imperialist war preparations. The purpose of this letter is to assist in summing up this experience and pointing the way forward for the movement to advance.

Struggle During the Days of Registration

During the days of registration a big struggle was carried out by the activists all across the country. The post offices where the youth were being forced to register became a center of the struggle. Mass pickets and demonstrations were organized at large numbers of the post offices in Chicago and throughout the country. Thousands of pieces of literature were distributed. Thousands of people were reached and spoken to and many participated in the mass actions themselves.

In the course of this work the activists faced a tenacious struggle. The Carter administration sought to impose draft registration in the summer months while school was not in session and the ability of the activists to organize themselves was decreased. Just prior to registration the government created a big hoopla about the possibility of the courts overturning registration. All of this activity was designed to disarm and disorganize the movement. During the days of registration themselves, in the large demonstrations the government sent undercover agents to spy on the activists. The activists were slandered as cowards and were subjected to harassment by the police and government officials, including in some cases military recruiters. Many activists were arrested. The news media controlled by the capitalists completely negated the vigorous work of the activists at the post offices and where they did report on it they distorted it in the eyes of the people. In the face of all these attacks, the activists overcame them and waged a continuous and sustained struggle to achieve their goal of reaching thousands of people in Chicago and throughout the country.

Our Party, the Marxist-Leninist Party, participated vigorously in the struggle during the days of registration. In the Chicago area we distributed about 16,000 pieces of revolutionary literature, put up 1,500 posters around the post offices and close to 2,000 stickers against the draft all throughout the city. In some cases our contingents carried out work alone and in other cases they linked up with other activists to wage the struggle. Besides mass literature distribution at the post offices, our Party conducted work among the masses in the parks, at the beaches, at the factory gates, in the communities and at various universities. Our Party organized anti-imperialist contingents to participate in all the major demonstrations in the area. Nationally our Party put out a special issue of its newspaper, The Workers' Advocate, with a run of 100,000 copies with which it conducted similar work all across the country. Our Party understands well the vigorous struggle and self-sacrifice of the activists during the days of registration and salutes these efforts as a real achievement for the struggle against the war preparations of the imperialists.

The work of the activists in spreading the struggle to other sections of the people has been a real victory for the movement. The mass struggle, where the activists did not spend time appealing to the rich and their lying politicians in the halls of Congress, but instead spent time in appealing to the working class and people as the only genuine force against imperialist war was a concrete blow to the imperialists and their war preparations.

On the Experience of the Work of Our Party Among the Masses

In the course of the work conducted by our Party at the post offices and throughout the city, we found that the youth do not want to fight in a war for the rich oil billionaires. Some of the youth we met told us this outright. Others, when we explained to them that the source of the present war preparations was for the interests of the profit and plunder of the rich monopoly billionaires, expressed serious interest to investigate the anti-imperialist politics. We found as well that many of the youth were conscious of the conditions of life that they are facing. They told us that what the rich are calling upon them to defend is the mass unemployment, lack of education, racial discrimination, and high prices and taxes imposed upon the people by the monopoly billionaires. Other sections of the youth came to the post offices looking precisely for people to be at the post offices opposing the draft. These youth came looking for the political movement, for the anti-imperialist movement. They denounced the war preparations against the Iranian revolution. Many of these youth were conscious of the history of U.S. imperialism, especially from the war of aggression against the Indochinese people in the 1960's and the massive opposition to it. They were also aware of the recent developments of the anti-draft and anti-nuclear movements. They expressed interest in participating in demonstrations and other mass actions against the war preparations.

This experience shows many important things. First, that the conditions of life being imposed upon the youth are already developing among them a burning hatred for the oppression that the rich are imposing upon the people. Secondly, that the youth are desirous and see the need for increased political education. Thirdly, that the youth want and see the need for a militant mass movement and struggle against the imperialist war preparations. By the activists taking up the line of mass struggle at the post offices, a big assistance to the further development of the movement could take place. The youth coming to the post offices were greatly encouraged by the mass struggle and extremely desirous to unite and participate in the movement against the imperialist war preparations.

In the course of the work conducted our Party at the post offices we also found out that the rich through their news media sought to create confusion by raising the issue to the youth that the sole issue facing them was to register or not. In this way the rich sought to place the burden upon the youth as individuals and to deny that the fundamental issue was a political question faced by the entire people. And that the answer to this question was to get organized to oppose the imperialist war preparations of which the draft was a part. Because of this confusion a section of the youth who felt compelled to register because of the severe penalties felt that the activists in front of the post offices were only there to stop people from registering and consequently felt embarrassed to speak with the activists. When it was clarified among this section of the youth that the issue facing the people was a political question and when the youth were told of the need to get organized to oppose the imperialist war preparations, many wanted to participate in the anti-imperialist movement. When the issue was discussed with them they could see clearly that the issue was a common problem faced by all the youth and the entire people of the war preparations of the rich billionaires and not their individual problem.

The propaganda of the rich that the issue facing the youth was registration or not also had an effect upon other sections of the people. Among these sections many pointed out that they were not of draft age and consequently were unaffected by the registration drive. When the issue of the war preparations of the imperialists was brought out, these sections as well could see that the issue was a common problem faced by the entire working class and people. We spoke with the parents and grandparents of the youth who denounced the rich for preparing to slaughter the youth for the profits of the oil billionaires. Many recounted that the rich were at it again and denounced them for their past aggressions and slaughter of the youth for the profits and plunder of the billionaires in the wars of aggression against the Korean people and the Indochinese people. Many took extra copies of literature for their relatives. Among other people when we explained to them that the war being prepared was for the profits of the oil billionaires, they told us that,if this is the case then we all have to fight against it. We met veterans from the war of aggression in Indochina as well. They denounced the present war preparations and recounted bitterly their experience of the U.S. aggression and life in the imperialist armed forces. We also met people presently on leave from the military. They also denounced the war preparations and were happy to see the movement developing against them. Many activists from the 1960's also came by the post offices. They recounted their experience from the movement against U.S. imperialist aggression in Indochina and their desire to get reactivated and participate in the anti-imperialist movement today. We spoke with a number of workers who came by the post offices. They also denounced the war preparations of the imperialists and some of them connected them with the conditions of life and work of being sweated to the bone in the factories and taxed to death for the sake of the profits and war preparations of the rich. Many told us that if they are being forced to suffer this much during the preparations for war, when the war actually comes they will be forced to suffer even more. Many pointed out that these facts of life exposed the lie of the imperialists that a war would bolster the economy.

What can be seen is that the people are conscious of their conditions of life and for this reason already have a burning hatred for the imperialist system which is oppressing them. The people do not want a war for the interests of the rich billionaires, for their profits, plunder and world domination. As well, the people see the significance of the anti-imperialist politics and the need for the mass struggle against the imperialist war preparations. What can be seen further is the common opposition of the people to the common problem of the imperialist war preparations.

Our Party has continuously fought to put opposition to imperialism at the center of the anti-draft movement. The imperialist economic and political system is the source of war and is the source of the exploitation and plunder of the people at home and abroad. Opposition to imperialism links the oppression of the masses at home and a- broad, unites the masses of people and brings them into action. Putting opposition to imperialism at the center of the anti-draft movement explains the reasons why the draft is being implemented, why the U.S. is launching attacks against Iran, and why the U.S. and Soviet imperialists are fighting with each other. It is because all the imperialists want to plunder the people and are striving for world domination.

Our Party has fought vigorously against the "left-wing" flunkeys of the Democratic Party who are desperately trying to oppose the anti-imperialist politics in the anti-draft movement. These "left-wing" agents call opposition to imperialism sectarian. In fact, they claim that no politics should be brought into the anti-draft movement. They are claiming that the broadest possible unity can be built by uniting all who are allegedly against the draft, as the only issue. In this way they bring into the movement the Reaganites and the Kennedyites whose opposition to the draft has nothing to do with opposition to imperialism and imperialist war, but in fact who are for both. The opposition of the Reaganites and the Kennedyites to the draft is only that they believe that other measures are more important for preparing for imperialist war at this time and who are only against the draft now because of the mass opposition it is causing among the people to the imperialist war preparations. In this way they seek to allow the very enemies which the anti-draft movement is fighting into the movement itself.

So what can be seen by the charge of these "left-wing" flunkeys of the Democratic Party that opposition to imperialism is sectarian is that it eliminates the imperialists and their politics from the anti-draft movement. These "left-wing" flunkeys feverishly oppose dealing with the issues of what is behind the reintroduction of the draft, what is the nature of the U.S. armed forces, and what is the source of the war preparations that are taking place. It is only opposition to imperialism which explains these issues and consciously unites the people against the common enemy. These "left-wing" flunkeys are seeking to weaken the movement and prevent the development of the real and genuine unity of the people, unity against imperialism and imperialist war.

The Present Stage of the Movement and the Tasks Facing It

Since the movement has won big victories during the days of registration, firstly in spreading the struggle ever wider and secondly in achieving a significant mass refusal which is inspiring the movement further, the movement cannot on this account become complacent and lay down its vigilance. The movement has only won these victories through vigorous struggle, not only against the war moves of the imperialists but also against the sabotage of the "left-wing" flunkeys of the Democratic Party.

The present movement requires the strengthening of the political consciousness and organization of the masses and the stepping up of the mass struggle. This is how the movement has advanced to date and only with this orientation can it advance further. It is only by continuing to step up the struggle against imperialism and its war preparations that the movement can build upon its present strength. It must never be forgotten that,imperialism means war and aggression.

Since the days of registration, the imperialists have continued to develop their preparations for war. They have introduced new weapons of mass destruction for this purpose with the "Stealth" radar resistant plane. They have secured new military bases in northern Africa. They have introduced a new nuclear strategy designed to fight a "limited" nuclear war. They are carrying out massive war exercises in Western Europe with the "Reforger" war games. Besides this, the imperialists are using the presidential elections to Step up their propaganda for chauvinism and imperialist war. And the imperialists are continuing to speculate on committing further aggression against the Iranian revolution.

Our Party has put opposition to imperialism at the center of the movement against the draft. It is this line of march which shows the way forward for the movement, which gives the movement the vigilance and strength it needs to overcome all difficulties and problems. It is opposition to imperialism which brings out the significance of the mass struggle, which unites the masses and brings them into action. It is opposition to imperialism which further strengthens the independent politics of the working class. Our Party is the only political party which advocates this line and is opposed to all imperialisms be they U.S., Soviet or Chinese, or any other imperialism.

To further assist in the strengthening of the movement our Party is organizing anti-imperialist groups for the purpose of meeting the needs of the struggle and advancing it. The experience of the recent struggle shows that the masses of people are increasingly ready to fight the imperialist war preparations. Our Party is organizing these groups to reach the masses of people and provide them with ways and means to participate in the anti-imperialist movement. Our Party is organizing groups to carry out the distribution of revolutionary literature, to carry out postering of the city with anti-imperialist slogans, posters and stickers. We are organizing groups as well to study and discuss the anti- imperialist politics and groups to study the revolutionary theory of Marxism- Leninism, to increase the political consciousness of the movement. As well, we are organizing groups to carry out mass struggles against the imperialist war preparations and for the denunciation and exposure of the imperialist politicians. Our Party calls upon all the anti-draft activists in the Chicago area to work closely with our Party in this work.

Sincerely,

Marxist-Leninist Party, Chicago Branch September 4, 1980

[Back to Top]

Union of Anti-Imperialist Students/ Buffalo

An organization of anti-imperialist struggle

The Workers' Advocate has received Issue # 1 of The Buffalo Anti-Imperialist Newsletter, dated September 29, 1980. This is the newsletter of the Union of Anti-Imperialist Students in Buffalo. In its first issue it carried the following articles: "UAIS -- An Organization of Anti-Imperialist Struggle" (printed below); "Union of Anti-

Imperialist Activists Founded in Syracuse" (also printed below); "Support Iranian Revolution Against U.S. Imperialism!"; "Mass Opposition to Draft Registration"; and "SUNY Teaching Assistants Under Attack.

[THE BUFFALO ANTI-IMPERIALIST NEWSLETTER masthead.]

The Union of Anti-Imperialist Students (UAIS) is an organization of the anti-imperialist movement in Buffalo. It emerged at the height of the upsurge in the mass movement against the draft and other war preparations in early 1980 and was then known as the Student Peace Coalition (SPC). The SPC was an active force at UB (State University of New York at Buffalo) throughout the spring when many actions were organized to oppose the draft. On May 3, the SPC together with the Buffalo Branch of the Marxist-Leninist Party organized a demonstration of over 125 people in downtown Buffalo under the slogans: No draft! No imperialist war!; U.S. imperialism, hands off Iran!; Down With the Carter doctrine! and others. This demonstration marked an important advance in the movement locally because it clearly raised the anti-imperialist politics right among the masses. On June 7, the Buffalo Conference of Anti-Imperialist Activists was organized by the Buffalo Branch of the Marxist-Leninist Party, in which the SPC was a participating organization. The conference was organized under the slogan: No to U.S. imperialist war preparations! and it played an important role in developing the analysis of the war preparations and setting out the orientation for the anti-imperialist struggle.

Throughout this period, the activists fought to consolidate the organization on a firm anti-imperialist Inundation and worked hard to take anti-imperialist politics among the broadest masses of people in all sections of the society. This fight was waged especially against the view that it was impossible, foolish, wrong, even suicidal to dare to take anti-imperialist politics among the masses. Some said the masses of people could never understand the need to oppose imperialism, and others said the masses of people supported imperialism and even benefited from it. But the activists were not intimidated, fought against these liquidationist views -- dared to tell the truth that imperialism is the source of war and must be fought against in order for the struggle against the war preparations to advance. The experience of the activists in carrying out this work confirmed the correctness of taking anti-imperialist politics to the masses of people. Everywhere the agitations were warmly received and there was great interest in discussing the source of the war preparations of the Carter government and how they could be fought. Furthermore, this firm anti-imperialist stand was especially important in the situation where a. flabby "left-wing" section of the Democratic Party was trying to infiltrate the anti-draft movement. These "left wingers" from warmonger Carter's own Democratic Party were trying to turn the opposition to the draft from the road of struggle against imperialist war preparations to the road of debating "better ways" to defend the U.S. imperialist world empire. The stand of the activists in SPC was crucial to defending the movement from this infiltration. The SPC was strengthened and consolidated on the basis of this struggle. Its name was changed to the Union of Anti-Imperialist Students, because this name reflected the most important lesson of the struggle thus far -- that in the movement against the draft and all the features of the war preparations, opposition to imperialism must be put in the center.

During the summer the UAIS maintained a vigorous program of opposition to U.S. imperialist war preparations. From July 21 until August 1 when the Carter government was implementing its program of registration of all 19 and 20 year olds for the military draft, the UAIS leafletted widely at post offices, universities, high schools, work places and in the community and participated in numerous actions against draft registration. With the opening of the new school year, the UAIS has been carrying out daily agitation against U.S. imperialist war preparations, organizing actions at the universities and working to unite the anti-imperialist activists to advance the struggle. The UAIS is growing.

With this issue, the UAIS is initiating the publication of a regular newsletter, The Buffalo Anti-Imperialist Newsletter. This newsletter is being produced to assist and advance the struggle against the draft and all U.S. imperialist war preparations. It will carry articles which clarify the anti-imperialist analysis of important issues facing the movement. It will report on developments in the anti-imperialist struggle, locally, nationally and internationally and address events which require the attention of all anti-imperialist activists. The aim of the newsletter is to provide a voice for the anti-imperialist forces in our area.

The UAIS is an organization of activists, an organization for mass struggle against U.S. imperialist war preparations, an organization for the clarification of the anti-imperialist politics. In the coming weeks, we will be organizing further activities, including a discussion series, literature tables, and the distribution of this newsletter. We call on all anti-imperialist activists to participate in this work, to rally to the UAIS!

[Back to Top]

Union of Anti-Imperialist Activists Founded in Syracuse

The following is a statement which was delivered by a representative of the Union of Anti-Imperialist Activists to the public meeting organized at UB (State University of New York at Buffalo) on September 17 by the UAIS.

Comrades and friends,

In Syracuse, the anti-imperialist activists have been paying attention to the political movement in Buffalo, in particular to the work of the Union of Anti-Imperialist Students against imperialist war preparations. Activists from Syracuse participated in the militant anti-imperialist demonstration here in May. Many of us attended the Buffalo anti-imperialist activists' conference in June, sponsored by the Buffalo Branch of the Marxist-Leninist Party with the participation of the Syracuse Committee Against Social-Chauvinism and the UAIS. The Marxist-Leninist Party has led in strengthening the mass movement with its analysis of the character of the movement and with its firm anti-imperialist politics.

Out of the enthusiasm for the politics of the conference, its clear and sound direction, the Union of Anti-Imperialist Activists was founded on August 29. After studying the conference documents, we decided that the resolutions of the activists' conference were a sound political basis for our organization.

We started off the school year at Syracuse University with leafletting and a propaganda march on campus to take the anti-imperialist politics to the students and to announce the founding of the UAIA. The response of the students was one of serious interest in the anti-imperialist politics and in the founding of the UAIA. The work was extended to the other college campuses as well as to some of the high schools, and this work too went well. The purpose of our work is to strengthen the anti-imperialist current in the, mass movement, to put the struggle against imperialism squarely in the center, to develop the oppositional character of the mass movement and provide a center for the anti-imperialist activists.

The UAIA is very pleased to participate in this meeting organized by the UAIS against war preparations. We want to express our firm support and unity with all genuine anti-imperialist activists in the fight against all imperialism and imperialist war preparations! Long live the unity of all genuine anti-imperialist forces!

[Back to Top]

FISUS holds meeting in solidarity with the Iranian people

On October 4, the Iranian Student Association of New York (FISUS) organized a meeting in solidarity with the Iranian people's revolution. The MLP, USA participated in this internationalist event and a representative of the New York Metro Branch of the Party addressed the meeting. The following excerpts have been taken from his message of solidarity.

Tonight's meeting, which has been organized by the Federation of Iranian Students in the U.S. is attended by progressive Iranians as well as workers, students and other progressive people. This meeting manifests the determination of the Iranian people to persevere in their just struggle until final victory, it manifests the support of the American working class for the Iranian revolution and its rejection of the chauvinist warmongering and imperialist war preparations of the U.S. imperialists. It manifests the common struggle of both against U.S. imperialism and all reaction and has significance for both the Iranian revolution and the anti-imperialist movement in this country which is rapidly developing. We are very glad to be participating in it and to take this opportunity to present the stand of the American proletariat.

Comrades and friends, two weeks ago the reactionary Iraqi regime launched an armed invasion of Iran. The Iraqi armed forces have occupied parts of Khuzistan and have inflicted serious damage on the oil facilities in Abadan and elsewhere. Fierce fighting continues throughout the Khuzistan area, especially in the cities.

This conflict is a serious development in the complex plotting of the imperialists against the Iranian revolution. We condemn the Iraqi invasion of Iran as a maneuver of imperialism to strangle the Iranian revolution.

A remarkable feature of this war is the loudly self-proclaimed innocence of U.S. imperialism. U.S. imperialism has no hand in this conflict. It is completely neutral; it is as innocent as a newborn babe. Just like pigs have wings and water flows uphill.

Comrades and friends, if pious proclamations of innocence made angels, U.S. imperialism would be in heaven playing a harp. But this is a material world in which men's deeds, and not their words alone are important. This is a material world and U.S. imperialism is not in heaven but still very much with us here.

And so long as U.S. imperialism remains in this world, it is going to continue its plotting and aggression, against the revolution and the people. This is a simple truth, and a thousand celestial choruses made up of Mondales and Muskies cannot change it. It will only change come the day when the flames of revolution send U.S. imperialism to hell.

This is how reactionaries maneuver. Take the case of the Pahlavi family of the former Shah. They have issued a call to the Iranian people to overthrow the Khomeini government, because it is incapable of defending Iran against the Iraqi invasion. Meanwhile they are assembling their monarchist forces -- in Iraq, behind the rear lines of the Iraqi army.

The U.S. is playing the same game on a larger scale. Its loudly proclaimed "neutrality" is a thin veil to cover the most feverish intrigue and maneuver. The Carter government is shifting its tactics daily, looking for the best opening, the best breach. What is consistent behind all of the intrigues and maneuvers of U.S. imperialism is that its target is the Iranian revolution, which it seeks to throttle.

[Back to Top]

The bloody hand of U.S. imperialism lies behind the fascist coup in Turkey

On September 12 a fascist band of five generals led by General Evren seized power. This was one day after the beginning of NATO maneuvers in Turkey. Replacing the fascist civilian government of Demirel, the military junta abolished all the fraudulent outward trappings of "democracy" and unleashed a brutal wave of repression against the revolutionaries and the toiling masses.

The military coup was organized by U.S. imperialism and the domestic exploiting classes in Turkey as a desperate measure to save the tottering Turkish state. Its aim is to crush the powerful revolutionary movement of the workers, peasants and youth with unlimited fascist terror. For years now, a vigorous revolutionary movement has developed in Turkey which has thrown the Turkish ruling classes into acute crisis.

In recent months many fierce battles have broken out against the government's "austerity" program, against fascist terror and the martial law. The Turkish workers have waged many strikes which have turned into pitched battles with the troops. A glorious episode of this struggle was written in January this year in Izmir where 10,000 workers occupied their factory for several weeks to fight the government's attempts to dismiss the workers and replace them with militia. The workers beat back several seizure attempts by the military with the help of the broad anti-fascist masses of the city who erected street barricades and shot at the troops advancing on the factory. It finally took 50,000 troops to break the occupation. Similarly barricade fighting has gone on in other cities. This summer a two-day general strike of one million workers protested the government's savage economic measures followed by a protest of 100,000 against the fascist repression of the Demirel government.

In order to crush the mass struggle of such big proportions, the Turkish government has not only unleashed hitlerite terrorist bands to murder and terrorize the masses but also implemented martial law in 13 provinces two years ago. But even these measures could not stem the rising tide of revolutionary struggle.

It is no secret that the military coup was organized by U.S. imperialism, which has given it full blessing. The capitalists in the U.S. are lavishing all kinds of praise on this regime. The news media even boasts how General Evren has been a long-time hired gunman for the U.S., going back to the days when Evren's troops fought alongside the U.S. imperialist aggressors in the Korean War.

The U.S. has organized this coup because the revolutionary movement threatens to remove Turkey from the U.S. neo-colonial empire. Turkey is an important part of this empire. It is part of the NATO pact. In particular it is a base area to enforce U.S. imperialist domination in the Middle East. Today. With development of the Iranian revolution and the loss of the Shah's regime, Turkey has become even more vital for the U.S. It is a base area for the launching of U.S. plots against Iran, and the U.S. seeks to groom it as a replacement for the role that Iran used to play in the region.

But neither the fascist terror of the Shah nor its backing by U.S. imperialism could save it from collapse at the hands of the revolution. So, too, no matter what measures the fascist Evren regime takes, it cannot but accelerate the inevitable overthrow of the reactionary order in Turkey. Just as how the martial law with plenty of repressive laws, murders and torture proved to be helpless, the fascist junta will fail too. The working masses of Turkey, with powerful revolutionary traditions, will certainly overthrow this regime and put an end to the rule of imperialism and the domestic reaction.

Already the revolutionary and Marxist-Leninist fighters in Turkey have plunged among the workers, peasants and youth to intensify the struggle against fascism and imperialism for freedom, democracy and socialism. The Workers' Advocate salutes the courageous anti-fascist fighters in Turkey and condemns the U.S. imperialist-backed fascist coup in Turkey. Below we carry excerpts from a statement from the Committee Against the Coup d'Etat-Turkish Students Association in the U.S.

[Back to Top]

STATEMENT OF THE COMMITTEE AGAINST COUP D'ETAT IN TURKEY-

TURKISH STUDENTS ASSOCIATION

(The following are excerpts from a statement of the Committee Against Coup d'Etat in Turkey-Turkish Students Association.)

On the morning of September 12, the Turkish armed forces seized power. The National Security Council, consisting of the Chief of Staff, and the commanders of the army, air, and gendarmerie forces, was established as the supreme governing body. This action was claimed to be in accordance with the responsibility of the armed forces to "protect the authority and esteem of the Turkish state, to put an end to the destructive and divisive activities instigated by foreign ideologies, and to provide for stability, national unity, security of property and life, and work peace." The constitution, parliament and the government were suspended as "a result of the inability of the political parties, and the government to govern effectively." In addition, all democratic mass organizations and trade unions were closed, and freedom of the press and all political activity was suspended. The National Security Council has divided the country into thirteen martial law districts, each under the command of military governors with full powers of discretion.

The U.S. government, through the State Department and the news media, has given full support to the military coup, and has indicated that this is considered a favorable development. The National Security Council has been characterized as trustworthy and sincere....

The attempts to portray the military dictatorship as a neutral authority above class antagonisms, striving to free the country from the wrath of corrupt politicians and "terrorists," are aimed at hiding the fact that this is nothing other than the militarization of the fascist state. This was necessitated by the inability of the ruling classes to deal with the intensifying class struggle in the presence of even minimal democratic institutions and rights. The Turkish state is characterized by oppression, torture, crimes against humanity, a legal code adopted from Mussolini's Italy, fascist terror gangs (the Grey Wolves), and secret police (the CIA-organized National Intelligence Agency: MIT) and counterinsurgency, all aimed against the fundamental rights and freedoms of the people.

This is not the first time the Turkish armed forces have intervened in recent history. The coups of 1960 and 1971 yield valuable insights into the role of the military and give an indication of what could be expected from this most recent junta.... (The statement of the Turkish Students Association goes on to describe the social conditions in which the 1960 and 1971 military coups were organized, the brutal exploitation and repression unleashed by the military regimes, and the resistance struggles of the toiling masses against fascism and imperialism.)

Partly resolving the contradiction within itself with the 1971 coup, the comprador monopoly bourgeoisie and semi-feudal landlords were able to repress popular opposition, but only temporarily. This opposition began to seriously develop in 1974 and achieved a new dimension by 1976. Progressive and revolutionary forces carried antifascist organizing even into the smallest villages, helping the townspeople resist the attacks of state forces and civilian fascists. Strikes against repressive laws and their implementation occurred everywhere. Small producers were again protesting base prices and repression in not rare meetings. Land seizures by peasants were again in the picture. It was in such a period that the ruling classes began to actively use the civilian fascist groups, which the state itself aided and established, to shatter the popular organized resistance. The state security forces such as the police and army not only protected the attackers, but swept up the people defending themselves into torture chambers and slaughtered them.

...Being in its deepest crisis ever, the ruling classes bailed out themselves and, so they thought, the economy through agreements with the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and OECD (Organization of European Community Development). The government now had to carry out the political and economic dictates of their imperial masters. The austerity program, ordered by the IMF, OECD (Multinational Organizations) was attempted by their national flunkeys through every kind of government, every possible coalition.

The bail-out measures dictated that workers' wages be frozen, base prices for farm products kept low, state enterprises (KIT's) transformed into private ones, the state's bureaucratic spending cut, etc. When the ruling classes tried to carry out these orders using first the Ecevit government and then the Demirel government supported by National Party (MSP) and the National Movement Party (MHP), the people being alert and schooled in the lessons of capitalist economic crises, resisted.

Millions demonstrated against the austerity program. In the last two years, millions of workers from different industries went on strike. Recently, on July 23-24, 1980 alone, one million workers struck in a general strike. On July 25th, 100,000 workers struck specifically to protest fascist murder and torture.

The shift to an openly fascist dictatorship in Turkey can be better understood if seen in context with recent developments in the Middle East. The deep economic crisis of the imperialist and revisionist countries and the heightening of the inter-imperialist struggle to obtain secure economic markets and military strongholds and bases, although manifested internationally, have revealed their true character in the Middle East.

After losing their most important stronghold in the area with the overthrow of the Shah of Iran, and unsettled by the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviets, Western imperialists have turned their attention to Turkey. To counter the dissolution of CENTO after the Iranian Revolution, efforts to build a military alliance among Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey (of course inclusion of Israel is planned) are continuing. As part of this new maneuver, the United States signed a bilateral pact which reduces Turkey to slavery, under the name "Defense and Economic Pact" (SIA). Without a doubt, the presence of an anti-imperialist, anti-fascist people's movement in Turkey was not a situation preferred by American imperialism, which desperately needs a safe, dependable bastion in the Middle East.

Turkey's military dictatorship is not only pro-American, but a creation of the United States State Department. A few days before the coup, the Commander of the Air Force arrived in Washington, D.C., and returned on the 10th, one day before the takeover, presumably with permission and plans in hand. The American government finds itself bound, however, by a contradiction. Although the coup was "just what the doctor ordered" for American interests in the Middle East, they know that the American public won't swallow the claim that a military dictatorship can be the savior of democracy. So to cleanse themselves of any taint the U.S. government has disavowed any relationship with the coup whatsoever. They further go on to describe each of the Turkish military's coups as completely different in character from the coups in Greece and Latin America. No mean feat of semantics, coming as the statement did just days after Chilean strongman Pinochet's referendum. American imperialists and the Turkish junta are prescribing the wrong lenses, using the pen of the world news media, in order to distort the truth about Turkey.

For years, Turkey's ruling classes have decried the "clash" between the extreme right and left as the cause of the country's economic and social crisis. There have been, and continue to be, documented attacks (by such rights groups as Amnesty International) on working people by the state security forces and civilian fascists. The struggle against a fascist government has not been between small numbers of extremists, as distorted in the press, but between organized paramilitary groups and the state's armed forces, and the inhabitants of entire towns, workers inside factories, and students within universities. One such battle, which received much press coverage here in the United States as an example of extreme politico-religious sectarian fighting, was the 1978 Kahramanmaras massacre. In an early staging of the "necessity" of a military dictatorship, fascists stormed the town and over a period of days attacked the working people there, wounding thousands and killing hundreds, destroying homes, stores, and property. As a result, in 19 provinces, the martial law was declared.... (The TSA statement then reviews some of the most widely known and infamous examples of fascist terror unleashed by the civilian fascist gangs and the armed forces over the last two years. It also describes the heroic and self-sacrificing struggles of the broad masses against the fascists.)

The preparation of the groundwork to make conditions ripe for a coup began in 1978. One of the reasons for the escalation of fascist terror was exactly this preparation process. Fascists attacked both in order to quell popular protest and resistance, and to provoke a call for a strong state response. They partly accomplished this imposition of the state's authority, but without a popular call for it, with the Kahramanmaras massacre, after which the Ecevit government declared martial law in 17 provinces. Twenty-three provinces finally came under martial law at the time of the September 11 coup.

The comprador monopoly bourgeoisie and landlords entered 1980 in a state of economic and political bankruptcy. Their paramilitary and armed forces had disastrously backfired in the plan to awaken a desire for "strong authority." It was no longer a question of this or that party's viability in danger, but the entire economic, political system's breakdown. The ruling classes saw only two alternatives to stave off the collapse: a coalition government of the CHP and AP (Ecevit and Demirel) or military takeover.

The CHP-AP coalition was a formula to politically relay the system temporarily. But even the eleventh-hour desperation of the ruling classes could not bring into being this coalition. Long meetings brought agreement on some law drafts, suggested by the imperialists who had bailed out the country financially, but remained fruitless due to disagreement on how to enact these fascist policies. All during this maneuvering the economic crisis deepened, life for the Turkish people became unbearably hard. Antagonism toward the state, its organs, and the economic system it rested upon and represented reached a life-threatening level for the ruling classes. The imposition of military dictatorships was seen as still leaving too many open avenues for the expression of popular hostility. Thus, the parliament was abolished -- something not even done in 1971 -- and the activity of all political parties suspended. Immediately after the coup, General Kenan Evren viciously attacked these most holy of institutions of the bourgeois state.

The mission of the coup d'etat is not to eliminate the obstacles hindering the operation of democracy, as it was alleged, but rather to escalate the exploitation and oppression of the toiling people of Turkey.... (The TSA statement then exposes the Turkish military forces as an armed force trained and established by imperialism and the domestic exploiters to be an army integrated into the capitalist order, protector of the interests of capitalism. The statement points out that this army, far from "preparing conditions for the restoration of democracy,'' will in fact carry out an entire arsenal of anti-popular and anti-worker measures directed against every section of the toiling masses.)

As a brief review of its policies indicate, the army is not planning to step aside in the short run. In fact, it is very decisive to prevent any protests arising from worsening living and working conditions and impoverishment of the people with their demands "Work, Bread, Land, Freedom, and Socialism."

The army will be compelled to step aside only if the people's movement continues with a momentum it gained over the recent years and the isolation of the coup in the international arena by the freedom-loving and democratic and progressive individuals, organizations of the world public opinion.

We, as the Committee Against Coup d'Etat-Turkish Students Association, are determined to carry out our efforts and activities to expose and to isolate the fascist military coup d'etat in Turkey. We believe that we reflect the true aspirations of the Turkish working class and toiling masses.

[Photo: Turkish workers in struggle, June 1979.]

[Back to Top]

A day of revolutionary activities held in the West Indian community in Brooklyn

(The following has been taken from an account by the Caribbean Progressive Study Group.)

On September 27, 1980, a day of revolutionary activities was successfully held in the West Indian community in Brooklyn, New York. These activities were organized by the comrades and supporters of the Caribbean Progressive Study Group, the revolutionary organization of the West Indian community.

The highlights of the day were a meeting held to commemorate "The 10th Anniversary of the 1970 Mass Upsurge Against U.S. Imperialist Domination in Trinidad and Tobago," followed by the holding of "The 2nd Annual Calypso and Cultural Tent of the West Indian Community."

These events were attended by over 100 persons and were marked by a militant and jubilant spirit of struggle against the exploitation and oppression of the rich. The meeting rooms were decorated with the bold red banners: Hail the 10th Anniversary of the 1970 Mass Upsurge in Trinidad and Tobago!; Culture for the Masses -- Not the Exploiters; and Wage Mass Struggle Against Government-Organized Racist Attacks.

A special feature too, was an enlarged photo display of the heroic masses of Trinidad and Tobago in action in the course of the 1970 mass upsurge, a powerful rebellion, which the imperialist enemies of the people and the local capitalist exploiters and reactionaries will always recall with great fear. A young West Indian girl, inspired by the bold work of the CPSG in the community, added to the display a very well done charcoal portrait of the great Marxist-Leninist J.V. Stalin, and one of Beverly Jones a 17 year old anti-imperialist youth, who was brutally shot and killed by the "Flying Squad" police in Trinidad and Tobago in 1973. On display too was the yet unclaimed jacket worn by James Kelly, the leader of the racist gang called the "South Boston Marshalls," which he had hurriedly left behind after being soundly thrashed when his racist outfit at tempted to break up a public meeting called by the COUSML (the predecessor organization of the MLP, USA) in Boston on April 21,1978.

The participants at the meeting and cultural performances eagerly poured over the items on display and discussed the events captured in the display.

Organizing the Activities

In organizing this day of revolutionary activities, the members and supporters of the CPSG with the assistance of the MLP, USA conducted a broad campaign throughout several communities in Brooklyn and other parts of the city, and to several factories, schools and circles of activists. Twenty-five thousand pieces of literature were distributed. This included a large, attractive commemorative poster of the event which was put up all over.

In the weeks before, lively discussions were held in the living rooms of scores of working families and progressive West Indians, as the comrades took the news and politics of the event broadly among the masses. Everywhere this was warmly received and encouraged by the working masses.

Revolutionary individuals, particularly working class youth, came forward to take up the call of the CPSG to organize the event broadly among the masses. Progressive elements came forward to join teams for distribution, postering and discussions. Several came forward to do the cultural performances themselves. Others came forward to make financial contributions to cover the costs. Others to offer to mobilize their friends and families and still others to assist the practical arrangements for the day.

This work enlivened many revolutionary and progressive forces in the West Indian community and struck pride and respect among the broad masses of people who saw their youth embrace the call of the CPSG and take up the banner of struggle and liberation. This work further shows that the activity of the CPSG has deep roots among the working masses in the community and is going deeper. For the CPSG upholds the banner of struggle against the racist attacks of the rich and is a vigorous participant in the mass movements of the entire working class and people and it is the CPSG that is known by the masses in the West Indian community to oppose all imperialist domination of the countries of the West Indies and which stands on the side of the people there in their fight for national liberation, genuine independence and socialism.

* * *

The participants at the day's activities heard important speeches and solidarity statements from the New York Metro Branch of the MLP,USA, the Federation of Iranian Students in the U.S. (FISUS) and the Turkish Students Association (TSA). And a keynote speech was delivered by a representative of the CPSG.

In its speech the New York Metro Branch of the MLP, USA hailed the 1970 uprising in Trinidad and Tobago which was a powerful blow against U.S. imperialism in the Caribbean. The speech saluted the bold work of the CPSG in waging this commemorative campaign which again shows that it is the CPSG which upholds the revolutionary traditions of the West Indian people in the community. The MLP speaker also explained the Party's current campaign against the capitalist election circus.

Important solidarity statements were delivered by a representative of FISUS and a representative of the TSA which hailed the 10th Anniversary of the 1970 upsurge in Trinidad and Tobago and expressed firm conviction that the people would eventually win victory in their struggle. The statements discussed the situation of the working people in Iran and Turkey respectively and firmly denounced imperialism and reaction and resolutely stood on the side of their respective peoples in the fight for liberation and emancipation.

The representative of the CPSG, in delivering the main speech, discussed in detail the course of the 1970 mass upsurge in Trinidad and Tobago against U.S. imperialism and the local capitalist and reactionary classes. The speech showed in a concrete manner the courage and determination with which the working class and people stood up in their tens of thousands and rallied for the cause of freedom and genuine independence. The comrade showed that the mass upsurge in 1970 was a continuation of the anti-imperialist struggles which were waged by the revolutionary masses against colonialism and neo-colonialism in which they faced the jails, prisons, tear gas and repressive laws of the local reactionaries backed by imperialism. The comrade pointed out that it is out of fear of these struggles and in order to attempt to break the will of the working class and people that the regime, the imperialist scholars and the traitors to the 1970 mass upsurge, called the upsurge a struggle for "black power. As the speech traced in detail the course of events in the mass upsurge it exposed the colossal betrayal by the "black power" and revisionist chieftains at the crucial point, which served to paralyze the upsurge and gave the regime of Eric Williams the opportunity to move in and mop up the pockets of resistance across the country. The speaker pointed out that the experience of 1970 is an utter condemnation of the traitorous politics of reformism and revisionism. Despite repression and betrayal, the speech pointed out, the working class and people had written another memorable chapter in their struggle for freedom, genuine independence and socialism, and the will of the working class was not broken. The comrade pointed out that the most determined revolutionary elements fought the betrayal of the people's struggle and took up the banner of revolution and socialism and Marxism-Leninism in the country and have scored many important victories since the 1970 mass upsurge.

The speeches and solidarity statements received standing ovations from the participants, they were filled with vigor and set the stage for the cultural section of the day's program.

Following the meeting informal discussions were held among the participants, the displays and literature tables were visited and food served.

After this the 2nd Annual Calypso and Cultural Tent was convened featuring cultural performances for almost three hours. Altogether 25 revolutionary songs were performed and a revolutionary sugar workers' dance performed by supporters of the CPSG, in traditional style of West Indian folk culture backed by drums and the singing of the song "Let's Free Our Land."

Supporters and friends of the CPSG, equipped with skin drums, steel drums, a flute and guitar, opened with a set of five calypsos and folk songs in solidarity with the struggles for national liberation in the West Indies. This set included four newly written songs: "Traitors Sell Out," "Fisherman's Wail," "Socialist in Words -- Imperialist in Deeds" and "Thank-you Mr. Carter." These songs gave a stirring call to carry forward the revolutionary struggle to drive imperialism from the shores of the West Indies and to win freedom and liberation for the people. The new song "Thank-you Mr. Carter" exposes the phoney humanitarianism floated by U.S. imperialism towards the peoples in the Dominican Republic recently struck by the hurricane and compares this with their savage invasion of the country and slaughter of the people in 1965 -- pointing out that in case of hurricanes you are on your own, but if liberation is ever close at hand, U.S. imperialism won't leave you alone.

This was followed by a set of four songs performed by supporters and friends of the MLP,USA hailing socialist Albania -- the towering beacon and example of the goal for which the oppressed of the world go into battle against all imperialism and reaction.

This was followed by the spirited revolutionary sugar workers' dance performed by the supporters of the CPSG. Then the comrades of FISUS did two revolutionary songs from the Iranian people's struggle against imperialism.

Another set was then performed by the supporters of the CPSG, with a new calypso "Long Live the Iranian Revolution" and three other calypsos against the racist attacks which saluted the trend of rebellion of the black people across the U.S.

Following this, the supporters and friends of the MLP, USA performed four songs against U.S. imperialist war preparations and a new song called "Haitian Lament" which graphically captures the oppression faced by the Haitian people under Papa Doc's son-- Baby Doc, in Haiti and under Baby Doc's papa -- U.S. imperialism, in the United States. The final song of this set, "The Marxist-Leninist Party Is Born," hails the founding of the MLP, USA on January 1,1980.

The final set was done by CPSG supporters -- "Humanity," "War Is War," "Thousands More to Come" (newly written on the 1970 mass upsurge in Trinidad and Tobago), "Tweedledee and Tweedledum -- Democrat and Republican," and the popular calypso "Albania You Are the Bastion of World Revolution and Socialism."

All these cultural items generated tremendous enthusiasm among the participants who joined in to sing several of the choruses which they learned on the spot, heartily applauded the performances, stood up, shook their fists and embraced the spirit of the cultural items, calling for encores up to the final minute when it was necessary to bring the performances to a close. It was a brilliant display of people's culture voicing the call of the people for struggle against their enemies and celebrating the future victory of the working class and people over their exploiters and oppressors.

The outpouring of enthusiasm shows that the ideals of revolution and of the overthrow of the rich and their barbaric system of exploitation and the ideals of the socialist future and of Marxism-Leninism are deeply embedded and remain unshakeable among the revolutionary masses.

The successful holding of the 2nd Annual Calypso and Cultural Tent is an important contribution to the struggle of the West Indian community and the whole working class and people. It inspires the masses further along the path of struggle against the capitalist exploiters, against the parties and representatives of the rich. It helps in putting forward the independent politics of the working class and people of the overthrow of the rich. And it is a step forward for the West Indian community in getting organized for struggle against the racist and other attacks of the rich.

[Photo: Comrades and supporters of the Caribbean Progressive Study Group performing a revolutionary calypso at the 2nd Annual Calypso and Cultural Tent of the West Indian Community in New York.]

[Back to Top]

Hail the 10th Anniversary of the Mass Uprising in Trinidad and Tobago!

[Photo: Working masses enter the Caroni sugar fields owned by the British imperialist Tate and Lyle Company, demanding that they get out of Trinidad and Tobago -- March 12,1970.]

[Photo: A powerful unity march of the sugar workers enters the cane fields in Caroni.]

(Following are excerpts from the keynote speech delivered by a representative of the CPSG at the meeting to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the 1970 mass uprising in Trinidad and Tobago.)

...Comrades and friends,

Today the storm of popular protest is brewing in the countries of the West Indies. There is no longer a single country in which things are absolutely tranquil, without revolutionary upheavals, where the neo-colonial order of plunder and robbery has stability and security.

The decade of the 1970's saw several important upheavals by the laboring masses in the West Indies to throw out the imperialists and the local exploiters from the luxurious paradise they so enjoy and put an end to the great suffering inflicted on the masses of people. …

Ten years ago, in 1970, the masses of people, of Trinidad and Tobago staged an upsurge against the imperialist domination and the rule of the local rich. This upsurge was a powerful manifestation of the hatred of the people for local and foreign exploiters and for the regime of Eric Williams, a regime of national betrayal. The rebellion struck deep fear in the enemies of the people and proved to be a rebellion which the imperialist enemies and the traitors to the people will always remember with alarm.

Occurring in the early months of 1970, the events in Trinidad and Tobago, in their own right, carried living proof, if anyone wanted, that in the 1970's important upheavals would break out in the West Indies.

The mass upsurge of the people unfolded in the form of mass demonstrations, several strikes, other actions and clashes with the police. At its high point, a big mutiny took place in the army as the soldiers, anticipating being ordered out onto the streets to shoot down the people, turned their guns on their officers. For two full months from February 26 to April 24, as many as 100,000 of the working class youth, students and women -- fully one-tenth of the population at the time -- came out onto the streets of Port-of-Spain, the capital, and other towns, and shook their fists at the imperialist enemies and brought the Williams government to stare dumbstruck at its own grave....

But the 1970 rebellion failed. Most importantly, it was utterly betrayed.

Much has been written about this powerful upsurge. Bourgeois scholars and the traitors who sold out the struggle of the people are quick and cunning to write fat books filled with erroneous claims about the rebellion which they also erroneously call the "Black Power Revolution." Indeed in the midst of the rebellion the fascist historian and architect of the U.S. imperialist domination of Trinidad and Tobago, Eric Williams, he too was quick to remind everyone that he was for "Black Power."

And this was done for the sole purpose of allowing the imperialist dominators and the local rich of the country to dodge the blows of the working class and people....

In reality the working class and people rose up in a powerful wave of struggle against both the sellout of the country to the foreign exploiters and against the local capitalist oppression. The workers, farmers, youth and students rose up with the purest hatred for all exploiters regardless of their origin and to rid their country of the imperialist yoke. It is true that many sincere elements came under the influence of Black Power ideas and this was so because it was this that was promoted as the path for revolution. The course of events in 1970 and since that time proved otherwise. But nonetheless it was the sentiment of the people for revolution against the savage domination of foreign and local exploiters that led to the powerful mass upsurge of the people.

The 1970 rebellion was the continuation of the struggles waged by the working masses of town and country against the neo-colonial domination of U.S. imperialism which started to sharpen during the days of World War II when thousands of U.S. imperialist troops occupied the country and set up military bases to suppress any revolt among the laboring masses. And this struggle continued and became more intense after the granting of the fraudulent independence in 1962. As well, the 1970 rebellion continued the traditions of struggle against British colonialism such as in the great strikes in 1919 and in the 1930's, 1940's and 1950's.

The mass demonstrations against American military occupation, the powerful strikes of the oil and sugar workers in the late 1940's and 50's, the strike actions by workers in almost every single industry in 1964 -- a time when every single injustice and violation of agreements resulted in immediate and total strikes, right up to the important strike by the transport workers in 1969, it was these struggles against the increasingly savage domination of the foreign and local rich, which continued despite the so-called independence, that paved the way for the 1970 upsurge.

The workers had seen 600 of their fighters thrown into jail in the strike of 1947 and a state of emergency declared. They had faced the tightening of the Sedition Act in 1950 which outlawed them from publishing, distributing or importing any material that "promoted hostility and ill will between classes." And again hundreds of workers were jailed in response to the strikes in 1964. The Williams government had set up a commission of inquiry into the "subversive activities" of the workers in 1962 and by 1963 launched a big anti-communist witch hunt in the trade unions. The workers again were faced with a state of emergency and the army and police were brought out to occupy the sugar lands in 1965, and again they were arrested in their hundreds in 1969 -- the eve of the 1970 rebellion. Through the struggles that preceded it the working class and people had repeatedly demonstrated their resistance to the "independent" domination of U.S. imperialism and the other imperialists. The clashes had served to strengthen the determination of the entire people to continually go into battle until the foreign and local exploiters were driven from the shores and drowned in the very Caribbean Sea they so liked.

These struggles had served as well to unmask the People's National Movement regime of Eric Williams which had betrayed the anti-colonial struggles of the people and opened the door to U.S. domination. For example, in 1956 80% of the electorate went to the polls. In 1958 the figure dropped to 73%, then to 65% in 1966, four years after the so-called independence, and further down to 34% in 1968. And while they won 51% of the votes in 1961 just before independence, this anti-popular ruling party received only 18% of the total votes in the 1968 by-elections. And the stage was set for 1970.

A series of events took place which precipitated the situation in the country and was to lead to the first demonstrations that kicked off the rebellion.

In 1969, in Montreal, Canada, 97 students -- 41 of whom were black -- were arrested at the Sir George Williams University after a two week takeover of the Computer Center of the University, protesting racial discrimination against black students, an official policy of the University administration. The reactionary Canadian state sent in a large police force to forcibly evict and arrest the students. In the course of the police attack the Computer Center went up in flames, with damage to the tune of over $2 million.

The Canadian government moved to slap heavy fines and imprisonment on the students, among whom were six West Indian students. The action of the students quickly became well known and received wide sympathy and support in the West Indies. And at the University of the West Indies (UWI) campuses, students angrily denounced the Canadian state which was as well a major exploiter of the resources and people in the West Indies.

At the UWI campus in Trinidad, for example, when Governor General Michener of Canada attempted to enter the University on a state visit in 1969, he was met by a large body of students who closed down the campus and forced him to turn back. The students denounced the Canadian exploiters as imperialist and racist. This action of the students was a big embarrassment for Eric Williams, for he had sent his friend to see this University for which he was pro-chancellor. Among the demands of the students was that the government of Trinidad and Tobago must secure the immediate release of its citizens (the students) from the Canadian prisons and take firm action against the Canadian imperialist holdings in Trinidad and Tobago.

These events sparked off the first student demonstrations.

It is not correct to say that the 1970 mass upsurge took place because of the incidents in Canada. As we pointed out, the powerful anti-imperialist struggles of the people raged continually in the 1950's and 1960's. The incidents in Canada took place at a time when these struggles were mounting. Those incidents, along with the forceful rebellions of the black people against racial discrimination and violent repression here in the U.S. and the massive outpouring of protest by the masses in the U.S. against U.S. aggression in Viet Nam, and other struggles of the time together indicated a favorable external climate for waging mass struggle in Trinidad and Tobago.

On February 26 the demonstrations started. Several hundred people marched on the offices of the Canadian High Commission and the Royal Bank of Canada. A section of the demonstration invaded and occupied the Roman Catholic Cathedral, denouncing the reactionary clergy in the country which has always been a most dependable prop of the foreign and local exploiters and a big-time property owner in its own right.

The media wildly speculated and hoped that the movement would have lost support with that assault on this sacred institution of the rich.

But they had spoken too soon.

By March 5 well over 10,000 demonstrators filled the streets of downtown Port-of-Spain, and marched on the "Red House," the offices of the reactionary parliament.

Already the demonstrations had drawn out the masses of town and country. Workers from most industries and factories, students including hundreds of primary school children not even in their teens, unemployed youth, the women, office, bank, media and civil service employees poured out onto the streets motivated by their utter hatred for the neo-colonial regime and the imperialist enemies.

The demonstrators already, too, targeted all the symbols of the capitalists, both local and foreign, singling out all the institutions of the rich to stop and denounce them and calling on their workers to defy them and join the demonstration. Many did. The rich businessmen were forced to hurriedly close down and get out of the city to the safety of the luxurious spreads in St. Clair, Elesdie Park, Federation Park -- or so they thought....

March 6 -- another mass demonstration larger than before took to the streets. The police launched attacks and arrests. The masses responded by firebombing a series of local businesses and foreign banks. Homemade bombs lit the homes of the American vice-counsel and of the Minister of Education and Cultural Affairs, Donald Pierre.

Members of the upper classes gave up on the idea of the sanctuary and safety of their homes and hopped planes within hours -- for "extended vacations" abroad. Despite the tear gas and arrests the demonstrations continued at a rapid pace and spontaneous gatherings of hundreds daily occupied Woodford Square.

March 12 -- several thousands marched from Port-of-Spain to central Trinidad, a 28 mile march, as a show of unity with the militant Indian sugar workers enslaved in the Caroni cane-fields. Bottles, stones and molotov cocktails kept the police forces busy from one end of the city to the other.

March 26 -- A big demonstration marched on the American embassy and cursed the star-spangled banner.

On April 3-5, -- the demonstrations spread to the island of Tobago where half the entire population came out to rally in opposition to U.S. imperialism and the Williams government which is notorious for the savage subjugation of the people there.

In Tobago over 70% of the lands had been seized for foreign hotel firms and converted to golf courses for tourists on their escapades to the island, and to house the estates of big landlords. The people of Tobago could not set foot on these lands. The best beaches were fenced down to the water for the exclusive use of tourists and the rich.

April 9 saw the biggest demonstrations ever as 100,000 people took to the streets to protest the police murder of a 17 year old youth who participated in the demonstrations. The police headquarters were surrounded, clashes and arrests ensued. The youth's funeral was the scene of the biggest manifestation of the unity and resolve of the working class, youth, students, women, etc.

The demonstrations had grown in size from several hundred to several tens of thousands in the two month course. It drew its largest participants from the working class of town and country. The youth from the working class districts poured out in their thousands, the students, particularly from the primary and high schools, peasants and small farmers. The mass movement had drawn into struggle strata of the population that were not previously in motion such as bank, civil service employees, teachers, low level functionaries, etc., etc.

The impact of the strength of the working class was shown in the slogans thrown up by the popular masses who targeted the imperialist concerns, and the local rich and police, and denounced them on the placards. Strikes had broken out in several industries as workers downed tools, placed their demands on the capitalist bosses and went out to join the demonstrations....

In April, signs of panic were seen in the government. The regime announced government-sponsored work and increased taxation on foreign companies, an effort to have the masses give up their struggle. This failed miserably and a political dogfight amongst the lackey politicians brewed as the Deputy Prime Minister, deputy leader of the People's National Movement resigned his cabinet position, claiming to be supportive of the mass movement. The regime was searching for a way out, to offer up some concession such that would safeguard its position and block the masses from carrying through to the end.

Along with the political deception, the regime was carrying out repression and was preparing to declare a state of emergency. This was well known by everyone.

At that stage of things the burning sentiment of the masses and the forceful impact of the workers set the scene for various trade union leaders including George Weekes, Joe Young, Clive Nunez along with Geddes Granger, the leader of the National Joint Action Committee, which dominated the movement, to issue the call for a massive strike.

Granger, the chief Black Power spokesman had declared two weeks earlier, that if the government had declared an emergency the response would be to defy it and march in the thousands. The other trade union leaders said "Amen." But all this was to be a mere bluff for which the movement paid dearly, and gave the regime time to gain the upper hand in things for the first time throughout the two months of demonstrations.

On April 19, the labor leaders and Granger announced the massive strike for Tuesday, April 21, involving the most important and vital sections of the working class, the sections that were most concentrated and experienced in struggle against the imperialist exploiters. The oil, sugar, transport, and electricity workers along with the youth, women and students were to march. Demonstrating preparedness to go into battle, 600 sugar workers at Brechin Castle immediately downed tools on April 19. A turn of events was in the making that threatened to topple the entire government.

The Williams government moved to declare a state of emergency. The proclamation ordering the country into a state of emergency was signed secretly by Governor General Sir Arthur McLaine on April 20.

Early in the morning of Tuesday, April 21, news of the emergency was blasted over the radio stations. It was no surprise, everyone expected it. But as well, the Williams government had already sent out the police forces to make arrests. Fourteen of the prominent leaders were arrested in predawn raids, except the chief one, Geddes Granger, who was not found until two days later.

And at 8:00 a.m. soldiers numbering about half of the entire army size at the time -- expecting orders to go to town to suppress the demonstrations -- launched a surprise attack on their officers, turned their guns on them, took them prisoner, and seized the entire arsenal of the defense force. They loaded the arsenal onto a long convoy and started making their way to Port-of-Spain from their base.

Because of what took place it is important for all comrades and friends to understand the utter betrayal and dangerous falsehood of the line of Black Power spokesmen and the labor leaders.

On the morning of April 21, after taking over at the base, the soldiers making their way to Port-of-Spain were blocked off by a Coast Guard vessel, which from the coast shelled the road being used by the convoy. The soldiers were forced to temporarily retreat and took to the hills.

The trade union leaders refused to call the workers out on strike as planned.

With the mutiny and the massive strikes expected, the Williams government desperately called on the governments of the U.S., Venezuela, Guyana and Jamaica for all the assistance they could provide. This was backed by the U.S.-Trinidad Accord, signed after the so-called "independence" had been granted, and by the intervention clause in the Organization of American States agreement that provides for member countries to send military assistance, including troops to occupy any other member country upon "request."

Within a few hours of this "request" by the Williams government the U.S. government shipped in 75,000 rounds of ammunition, and six American warships loaded with marines were on their way to Trinidad and Tobago from their base in Puerto Rico. Within hours as well, the Venezuelan government had shipped in tons of arms and equipment for the police forces.

In face of the threat of foreign intervention, the trade union leaders had capitulated completely. They ordered all workers on strike to return to work and all who had planned to strike, to abandon this. But, among the masses the burning anti-imperialist sentiment led to some skirmishes and clashes with the police forces in the city, as well as in central Trinidad.

Intervention itself proved to be a greater threat to the government, for it bore the possibility that the entire population would swing against the government.

The rest of the army that was under the control of the officers was in disarray and demoralized, the remaining soldiers unwilling to go after their colleagues with whom they had shared everything in the past, including daily abuse by the officers, the lifers, professional and well-fed army hierarchy. The remaining soldiers, on hearing of the American vessels anchored offshore, reportedly declared that if the foreign troops landed they would not join them to pursue their fellow soldiers involved in the mutiny.

But the crucial factor was the refusal of the labor bureaucrats and the Black Power leaders of the day to call the masses out into the streets, when the mutiny and planned strikes by the most militant workers, powerful forces were lined up for struggle and the regime had received the most damaging blows in the two months of demonstrations.

This capitulation took place at the crucial time when it hurt the most, and served to paralyze the mass movement long enough to allow the regime of Eric Williams to recover from the blows it was dealt. Several factors prove this:

1. The mass motion was at its highest point. The largest demonstrations ever in Trinidad and Tobago took place two weeks before. No section of people stood outside this motion.

2. The government was beginning to go into crisis -- resignations and dogfights were brewing.

3. The mutiny by half the army meant that the bulwark and reserve of the government was coming over to the side of the people, with the other half demoralized and refusing to fight.

4. The most militant, experienced and determined workers in the country were prepared to take strike action and launch a political march.

5. The international climate at the time was favorable.

The capitulation which took place served to rob the movement of the elements of initiative and moral ascendancy; it paralyzed the movement, took away the important weapon of mass action. The betrayal allowed the government:

1. Time to act, bring in arms and ammunition, maneuver the police forces (not tied up in the city because of no strikes) to take over from the demoralized army.

2. To frustrate the mutiny attempt by isolating the soldiers.

3. Clamp down on the movement, all gatherings, meetings; to declare a dusk to dawn curfew.

4. Patch up the splits brewing in its ranks.

The 1970 mass upsurge of the people of Trinidad and Tobago did not die a natural death, so to speak. Quite the contrary; the issue in those days of April was not the difficulty of sustaining the movement, because as we have seen before, several favorable factors had come together inside in the country. Instead the upsurge was utterly betrayed and the government moved in to mop up -- launched mass arrests, filled up Nelson Island Prison. Hundreds of students were expelled from schools and several hundreds of workers fired from their jobs. The soldiers faced a two year trial for treason and sedition, and were dished out sentences ranging up to 17 years.

Revisionists and traitors to the people may claim that "well, with the state of emergency, the threat of foreign intervention, what else could have been done before the almighty forces of the Williams government backed by the guns of American imperialism?"

On April 14, aware that Williams was preparing to declare a state of emergency, Granger had declared: "Do not bow to it.... By god we will fight fire with fire.... If you bow to a state of emergency, mark my word here tonight, your children will curse the day you were born. Your children will not respect you. We will not retreat one single inch. This is war. This is war."

As it turns out, Granger did not even convince himself of his fine words and he did not bluff himself into defying the emergency despite the fact that he was picked up on April 23 in the deep south of the country. And it is he that is cursed today by the children of 1970, not the gallant workers of oil, sugar, transport, not the suffering farmers, the youth, women and student children who filled the ranks of the demonstrations and advanced wide-eyed and defiantly on the hired guns of the imperialists and local exploiters, in the powerful demonstrations from late February to late April.

Traitors of every description argue of the insurmountable dangers of foreign intervention in order to cover their betrayal of the lofty cause of the working class and people. It means to misrepresent the role which the external factor plays in the revolutionary upheavals. Yesterday and today, the traitors preach that the triumph of the revolution, independence and socialism is the outcome in the first place of the external factor, and particularly of the role of the influence of the social- imperialist Soviet Union, Cuba, etc. They preach that in today's conditions of the existence of political and military alliances among the capitalist states, revolution would be "dangerous," "playing with fire," doomed to end in defeat as a result of foreign intervention. The aim of these preachings is to intimidate the masses and sabotage the revolution, and make imperialism appear invincible.

Were the people to pin their hopes on this and follow this advice they would lose faith in their own revolutionary strength, and the struggle they wage to throw off the imperialist yoke would not serve the cause of freedom, independence and socialism, but the interests of Soviet social-imperialism, which poses as the friend and supporter of the fighting peoples solely for the purpose of establishing their own foothold to dominate the people anew.

But while not underrating the dangers in foreign intervention, it is the revolutionary forces inside of each country which have to take advantage of the conditions and transform the possibilities into reality. The danger of foreign military intervention faces every revolution, because the triumph of revolution in any country is a blow to all imperialism and reaction worldwide. But this threat has not closed the door to revolution and can never do so despite the sermons of the revisionists and traitors. History has repeatedly demonstrated this.

The 1970 rebellion shows in the first place that the question of revolution remains now, as then, a problem for solution....

Despite the betrayal which took place in 1970, the revolutionary masses wrote a memorable chapter in their struggles. And imperialism did not succeed in turning the working class and people into its obedient slaves. In the 1970's the working class again launched several important struggles and broke the back of certain laws of the ruling class and its industrial court. For example, the cane farmers in Trinidad and Tobago struck for three years from 1972-75, faced murder, police troops and several jailings, and forced the repeal of a section of the repressive Industrial Relations Act. This and several other struggles showed that the ideas of liberation and emancipation cannot be driven from the breasts of the working class and people by any amount of lies and demagogy by the imperialist spokesmen.

1970 showed that imperialism, be it U.S. today or any other tomorrow, remains. the mortal enemy of the people against which they must wage struggle to the end. But particularly, 1970 showed too that opposition to imperialism is a mere bluff which will not stand the test of time if an uncompromising attitude is not taken to the local capitalist bloodsuckers. In the 1970 upsurge and since that time the reformist traitors strove as they do today to apologize for the big capitalist exploiters of the people. …

Furthermore, the 1970 upsurge showed that the struggle against imperialist domination must also firmly oppose the opportunists and traitors who play the role of fighting the revolution from within, to prevent it from breaking out, and in case it does, to act as the firemen to put it out and the scabs to surrender the forces into the waiting arms of the enemy, and to break the will of the working class and people.

The experience of the 1970 upsurge shows that it is only the working class which can lead in the struggle for emancipation and is capable of fighting with the most determination and of drawing into struggle the broad masses of people.

Learning from the experience of the 1970 rebellion the most determined elements came forward to fight betrayal and treachery to the cause of the working class and people, and to carry forward the banner of revolution.... (The speech went on to describe the taking up of Marxism-Leninism by the revolutionaries in Trinidad and Tobago.)

Hail the 10th anniversary of the 1970 mass upsurge in Trinidad and Tobago!

Long live the proletariat and people of Trinidad and Tobago!

U.S. imperialism, Soviet social-imperialism, out of the Caribbean!

[Photos: Above: Demonstrators converge on the U.S. imperialist embassy with clenched fists in the air. Left: Demonstration in front of a symbol of Canadian imperialism.]

[Back to Top]

A letter from the Steering Committee of the Caribbean Progressive Study Group to the Central Committee of the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA

Central Committee Marxist-Leninist Party, USA

Dear Comrades,

On August 15, 1980, the Caribbean Progressive Study Group convened an Internal Conference which assessed the two years of successful work since the founding of our organization. The Internal Conference set forward the orientation for the further development of the work of the CPSG and elected the leading body of the organization.

On this important occasion in the life of the CPSG, we enthusiastically hail the work of the MLP,USA and reaffirm the pro-party character of the CPSG and send warm greetings to the MLP,USA.

During its two years of work the CPSG has made important strides in carrying its work in the West Indian community against the racist attacks and has been a vigorous participant in the other mass movements of the working class and people. As well, in the community the CPSG has carried the banner of support for the struggles for national liberation in the West Indies. The CPSG launched the newspaper, The West Indian Voice, established regular distribution to the broad masses in the communities, held several public meetings and rallies, concentrated its work in selected areas and participated in all the significant mass actions of the working class and people in the New York area. As well we have paid close attention to maintaining a vigorous internal life.

Through this work the CPSG gained political experience and consistently took measures to strengthen itself. The CPSG has grown in its ties among the working masses in the community and strengthened its ability to speak in a concrete manner to several important issues facing our community.

The Internal Conference outlined basic measures for the further development and strengthening of the work of the CPSG, and expressed enthusiasm for the growing rebellion which is seething among the broad masses of working people, the youth, women and national minorities against the criminal policies, the parties and the rule of the capitalist millionaires and billionaires. The Internal Conference took up the call of the Party to utilize the emerging mass motion to develop the independent political movement of the working class and people in opposition to the rich, and the program and parties of the rich. And the Conference addressed measures to conduct the work of the CPSG in this context.

On this important occasion in the life of the CPSG, the Internal Conference assessed that throughout the two years of work of the CPSG the Party has been sure in assisting the strengthening and growth of our organization. The CPSG conducted its work along a principled course -- in the spirit of establishing the closest possible ties with the genuine Marxist- Leninist revolutionaries of the MLP, USA, in order to have the benefit of the advice of the Party.

The Internal Conference regards the entire experience and history of the CPSG as living testimony that progressive activity can be consistent, be sustained and make its full effect only when it is conducted in the closest connection with the line and work of the Party. We regard this stand as a merit and the primary source of the strength of our organization, and consider our relationship to the party of the proletariat, the MLP,USA, as a powerful decisive factor to all our work.

The Internal Conference analyzed that the future will see the still further strengthening and growth of the CPSG fighting in the ranks of the broad masses led by the working class and its party, the Marxist-Leninist Party of the USA.

Our warm and sincere regards,

Steering Committee

Caribbean Progressive Study Group

August 15,1980

[Back to Top]

One year after the mass outburst against the police murder of Luis Baez:

MASS STRUGGLE IS THE ANSWER TO RACIST ATTACKS!

The New York Metro Branch of the MLP has been conducting a spirited campaign to commemorate the class struggle that broke out in response to the brutal police murder of Luis Baez.

Luis Baez was a young Puerto Rican man who was chased, beaten and then shot 21 times by five cops of the New York City Police Department on August 23, 1979 in Brooklyn. Luis Baez had a mental disorder and his mother had gone to the police simply seeking help in taking him to the hospital. Instead the police murdered him in the style of a firing squad. Through the campaign, the New York Metro Branch has provided orientation for the movement against the racist attacks organized by the capitalist authorities and has called on the working class and oppressed people to answer the racist attacks of the state with mass struggle.

The savage racist murder of Luis Baez enraged the progressive masses who rose up in a powerful outburst against it. The uprising was not only in response to the Baez murder but also to the systematic terror of the police, who in the previous months had murdered many workers and national minority people. A militant demonstration of some 2,000 was organized to condemn the vicious murder. As the demonstration marched through the Bedford-Stuyvesant community, the police launched an unprovoked assault on the marchers in an attempt to disperse them. The police tried to bulldoze the marchers with a caravan of police cars and began beating and clubbing anyone they could catch.

But the demonstrators resolutely defended their march and severely punished the police criminals. Using rocks, bottles and sticks, the demonstrators bravely battled the armed thugs of the rich, leaving ten of them injured and demolishing a number of police cars. The militant resistance lasted six hours and spread to a number of side streets where the residents of the community joined the marchers in counter-attacking the police. The fierce resistance of the people eventually forced the police to cease their assaults and retreat to lick their wounds.

Since the murder of Luis Baez, the various government authorities have sought to whitewash the crime and provide justification for the racist police murders. First, the cops who murdered Baez were cleared of all wrongdoing by an inquiry of the police department, and later a grand jury investigation followed suit. Then, the mayor of New York, Koch, who with his call to restore "law and order" had unleashed the police attack on the anti-racist demonstration, hypocritically called for a federal investigation of the Baez incident. The Carter administration completed the whitewash, found the police murderers innocent, and in their decision even encouraged the police to fire their weapons earlier when launching their terrorist attacks. The firm support given to the police murderers at all levels of the government shows that the racist violence is not just an aberration caused by a handful of "bad cops," but that it is the official policy of the rule of the capitalist billionaires.

The "innocent" verdict further highlights the correctness of the path of mass revolutionary struggle advocated by the MLP. The verdict shows that the phoney "investigations" and "inquiries" staged by the capitalist authorities will never stop the racist attacks because racist attacks are the policy of the capitalist authorities themselves. To fight against the racist attacks it is necessary to fight the government of the rich which is the organizer of these attacks. This was the path taken by the mass resistance in Brooklyn in response to the Baez murder. And it is the path that has also been taken by the heroic masses of Miami, Oakland, Chattanooga, Philadelphia and elsewhere. As the New York Metro Branch has pointed out in its recent campaign: Mass struggle is the answer to racist attacks!

[Photos: Photos show march and picket organized on August 30, 1980 by the Caribbean Progressive Study Group in association with the MLP to commemorate the mass uprising against the murder of Luis Baez.]

[Back to Top]

Denver:

The whitewash of the racist police murder of Jeffery Cordova and Juan Garcia

(The following article is taken from a leaflet issued by the Denver Branch of the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA on September 21, 1980.)

Three weeks after Longmont police murdered two Mexican nationality men, Jeffery Cordova and Juan Garcia, the official whitewash is well underway.

The Boulder District Attorney has accepted the coroner's inquest recommendation and filed the ridiculously low charge of manslaughter against one of the policemen involved, Glen Herner, for the murder of Cordova only. The DA states that the murder of Garcia was "justified" and therefore no charges will be filed.

The facts show however, that the murders of both men were coldblooded murder. Cordova and Garcia intervened while the police were beating up a companion. Garcia was then shot point-blank in the chest and moments later, Cordova was shot in the back.

The District Attorney's decision proves that the flurry of "concern for police-community relations, possible racial discrimination in Longmont," etc., expressed by police officials, city council and state and federal government representatives has been nothing but a farce. Further, it exposes the role of the self-styled Chicano leaders like the Chicano Legislative Caucus, who have spent the last three weeks worrying about "the community's loss of confidence in its criminal-justice system," and urging the Mexican nationality people to stay cool and rely on the state and federal courts or the FBI for justice.

No justice can be done by the government, courts or agencies of the rich capitalists because it is the capitalist class which organizes the fascist and racist attacks against the masses in the first place.

Testimony at the coroner's inquest into the Longmont murders revealed what everybody already knew -- that the police have always carried out vicious attacks against the Mexican nationality people. Harassment, arrests, racist "jokes" (like Herner's comment about cutting two notches in his gun), beatings and more are everyday occurrences.

The murders in Longmont are but an example of racist terror of the capitalist government throughout the Southwest. In decades past the Texas Rangers, Pinkertons and wealthy ranchers' vigilante gangs enforced the will of U.S. imperialism by violently attacking the working class movement and especially the Mexican nationality people (both American-born and immigrant). And today the government of the rich imperialists is still organizing vicious racial discrimination, suppression of language and culture. In housing, employment and education blatant discrimination exists and is not improving despite the empty promises of progress from government officials. The immigration police are used to harass and intimidate the people of Mexican nationality in the barrios, fields and factories. The KKK is organized to help the immigration police patrol the Mexican border looking for Mexican nationality people to torture and assassinate. And police murders like that of Joe Rodriquez in Denver; Jose Torres in Houston, where the police murderers were fined $1.00 each for his death; and the recent Longmont killings are commonplace.

The only solution to the racist and fascist attacks organized by the rich is for the workers and oppressed masses to rely on their own strength and to carry out mass active resistance. This is the path to organize the masses in the course of struggle. It is the path to train the workers and people for socialist revolution which will overthrow the rule of the capitalists, replace it with the rule of the working class and bring an end to the racial discrimination and violent repression of the masses once and for all.

[Back to Top]

Harlem residents fight closing of Sydenham Hospital

On September 16, the New York City government ordered the shutdown of the Emergency Room at Sydenham Hospital in Harlem to prepare to close down the hospital altogether. This is an outrage against the people of Harlem, an area which is even officially characterized as one of the "most medically deprived areas" in the U.S.

The working and poor people of Harlem have met this attack with indignation and launched a vigorous fight against it. For 11 days a section of Sydenham Hospital was occupied by protesters, while hundreds of people held daily demonstrations outside. On September 20, after making all kinds of threats and bluster about "mob rule," Mayor Koch sent hundreds of police to launch a brutal attack on the demonstrators.

But the masses vigorously fought back against this fascist attack. They used rocks, bottles, sticks, folding chairs and even sections of the police barricades to fight back. People from surrounding rooftops hurled debris down on the police. Almost a dozen of the police gangsters were injured. Far from squashing the spirit of struggle of the people, the attack aroused the masses even further. Several thousand showed up for the demonstration on the next day.

This struggle against the closing of Sydenham and resistance against the police attacks shows the fighting spirit of the people of Harlem against racial discrimination and capitalist oppression. The closing of Sydenham, coming after a number of hospital closings in Harlem already, will only further reduce the already atrocious health care facilities available to the people of this community which is overwhelmingly composed of poor black and Puerto Rican people.

The closing of Sydenham is the result of the systematic policy of the government to make the working people of New York pay for the fiscal crisis of the city. So, while since 1976, 23 hospitals have been shut down and all kinds of other attacks carried out against the working people of New York, the government has at the same time ensured that the Wall Street bankers received almost a fifth of the city's budget as tribute. The billionaires are reaping fantastic profits out of the suffering of the workers and poor.

But the working and oppressed people have no interest in sacrificing for the greater profits of the rich. More and more they are taking up the weapon of mass action to defend their interests.

[Photo: Harlem residents fighting back against the brutal police attack on a demonstration protesting the plan of the New York City government to shut down Sydenham Hospital.]

[Back to Top]

WELCOME THE ENGLISH-LANGUAGE EDITION OF

ENVER HOXHA'S SELECTED WORKS-VOLUME III

Volume III of Comrade Enver Hoxha'sSelected Worksin the English language has recently been published.The Workers' Advocatewelcomes the publication of this volume, which, like the first two volumes, contains invaluable material reflecting the rich experience of the Party of Labor of Albania with Comrade Enver Hoxha at the head on the triumphant road of Marxism-Leninism. In particular, this volume contains materials on the courageous and uncompromising struggle of the PLA against the Soviet revisionist traitors. It also contains Marxist-Leninist theses of Comrade Enver Hoxha on problems of the complete construction of socialist society. The following is the Foreword to this volume which was written by the publishers, the Institute of Marxist-Leninist Studies at the Central Committee of the Party of Labor of Albania.

The third volume of the Selected Works of Comrade Enver Hoxha in English includes materials from the period 1960-1965.

Basing himself firmly on the fundamental principles of Marxism-Leninism, as well as on the experience gained by the PLA, during this period Comrade Enver Hoxha elaborated a series of theses of theoretical and practical value which have to do with the consolidation and further development of the gains of socialism in Albania. At the same time, these theses constitute a resolute defense of Marxism-Leninism on the international plane.

Internally, 1960 marks the dividing line between two stages of the construction of socialism in Albania: the successful conclusion of the construction of the economic base of socialism and the commencement of the new historical stage -- the complete construction of socialist society. In the works included in this volume, Comrade Enver Hoxha sums up the revolutionary experience of the PLA and the results achieved in the first stage, but he devotes his main attention to the elaboration and carrying out of the fundamental tasks of the new stage. The orientations for the development of the country in this stage were given by the 4th Congress of the PLA in February 1961, at which, along with continuing the revolutionary perfecting of socialist relations of production, the task for the complete construction of the material-technical base of socialism was laid down.

In this period, the great Marxist-Leninist principle of self-reliance, which the PLA has always applied in all the stages of the revolution and the socialist construction of the country, was materialized more thoroughly in practice.

The problems of the revolutionary ideological and moral education of the working people occupy a special place in the materials of this volume. The raising of the revolutionary consciousness of the people was dictated, first of all, by the new stage of development of our society in the course of the complete construction of socialist society, but also by the need to cope with the imperialist and revisionist ideological pressure against our country, which in the 60's took the form of a real aggression. The experience of the restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union had confirmed that socialism, triumphant in one or the other country, was in danger, not only from the armed imperialist intervention from abroad, but also from the internal peaceful counter-revolution. The revolutionary Marxist- Leninist tempering of people, their formation as communists, was to play a major role in destroying the soil for this counter-revolution and forestalling the danger of the restoration of capitalism.

On the external plane, the years 1960-1965 have gone down in history as the years when the Party of Labor of Albania, besides its struggle against world imperialism, headed by American imperialism, came into head-on confrontation with Khrushchovite revisionism, and rose with all its strength in open struggle against it, a struggle which became more and more pronounced and more intense as time went on.

The materials in this volume are clear evidence of this courageous and principled struggle of the PLA to expose the counter-revolutionary, chauvinist policy and ideology of the Khrushchovite leadership of the Soviet Union, and the anti-Marxist views and practices of modern revisionism, this agency of the bourgeoisie in the communist and workers' movement. The PLA centered its struggle on the defense of the fundamental principles of the Marxist-Leninist theory about the hegemonic role of the working class and the leadership of its party in the construction of socialist and communist society, about the ways of transition to socialism, about the socialist revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat, about classes and the class struggle, about Leninist peaceful coexistence, etc., opposing its revolutionary views to the anti-Marxist theses of the 20th Congress and the program approved by the 22nd Congress of the CPSU, which constitute the "code" of modern revisionism.

At the Meetings of Bucharest and Moscow in 1960, among other things, the PLA defended the Leninist principles and norms which govern relations between communist parties. From these positions, it resolutely opposed the anti-Marxist methods which Khrushchov used for the condemnation of the CP of China. There the PLA stood beside the CP of China, believing that it was a communist party. Later, time showed that this was not so, and that the Chinese leadership fought Khrushchov from positions and for aims quite contrary to Marxism-Leninism, by which the policy and struggle of the PLA were guided.

In the conditions when the Khrushchovite revisionists had begun their frontal attack on Marxism-Leninism, the PLA and Comrade Enver Hoxha, contrary to the vacillations and the desires of the Chinese leadership to pursue the opportunist policy of "sitting on the fence," launched the slogan of finally breaking with the revisionists in all fields, regardless of the difficulties and obstacles that would arise.

Many of the materials in this volume bring out the grave internal crisis which had affected the Khrushchovite revisionists and which reached its culmination in 1964. This crisis was the result of the principled struggle of the Marxist-Leninist parties and all genuine communists against the Khrushchovite revisionists and the exposure and discrediting they suffered in the eyes of the peoples of the world. It was also the result of the contradictions and the struggle for power in the ranks of the Soviet leadership. To save themselves from the crisis and further discredit, the revisionist chiefs were obliged to remove from the political stage their chief and the architect of the revisionist course of the 20th and 22nd Congresses of the CPSU, Khrushchov. The PLA described the inglorious end of Khrushchov as a heavy blow to the revisionist staff and a victory for Marxism-Leninism, while warning at the same time that with his fall, Khrushchovite revisionism had by no means come to an end. At no time did it nurture illusions, as the Chinese leaders did, about the "new" leadership and the "radical change" which had allegedly occurred in the Soviet Union.

This volume also includes some articles from the respective period drawn from the book Reflections on China,Volume I, which reflect the efforts of the PLA to help the CP of China. Opinions critical of what was occurring in China are expressed in them. The PLA could not make these opinions public at that time, but through party channels, in a comradely way and at the proper time, it expressed them to the Chinese leadership, in the hope that it would put itself on the right road.

Like every historical work, the materials included in this volume bear the brand of their time, therefore it is necessary that the reader should keep in mind the time in which they were written.

In Volume III, as in the preceding volumes, some of the materials are published in an abridged form.

[Photo: The above painting depicts Comrade Enver Hoxha delivering his speech in the name of the Party of Labor of Albania at the meeting of 81 Communist and Workers' Parties in Moscow, November 16, 1960. In his speech Comrade Enver Hoxha scathingly condemned the treachery of the Khrushchovite revisionist clique and thoroughly exposed their anti-Marxist-Leninist line and practice. November 1980 is the twentieth anniversary of the historic Moscow Meeting which marked the beginning of the open polemic against the Soviet modern revisionists. The courageous and principled stand of Comrade Enver Hoxha and the PLA at this critical juncture will remain a great example and inspiration to the world's Marxist-Leninists in carrying the struggle against Soviet modern revisionism and all revisionism and opportunism through to the end.]

[Back to Top]

On Comrade Enver Hoxha's new book

"The Khrushchovites"

[Photo.]

(Following are excerpts from a Radio Tirana commentary on Comrade Enver Hoxha's new book The Khrushchovites. The commentary was broadcast over Radio Tirana October 5, 1980; transcribed by PCDN.)

These days the book The Khrushchovites: Memoirs by Enver Hoxha came off the press. This is another work in the series of memoirs of the author following the book entitled With Stalin which was published in December 1979. Through the impressions and memoirs of the author of contacts with the leaders of the Communist Party of the Soviet Upon and of the other communist and workers' parties, the book The Khrushchovitesprovides a vivid and clear-cut picture on the development of the relations of the Party of Labor of Albania with those parties during the period from 1953 to 1961, i.e. from the death of Stalin until the final severance of the relations of our Party with the Khrushchovites. The thoughts on the talks during this critical period on the international economic, political and military problems constitute the basic material of this book.

Speaking about the Soviet leaders who came to power following Stalin's death, besides the political and ideological analysis of their activities, an analysis which has been made in other works as well, in this book Comrade Enver Hoxha through his personal knowledge discovers and portrays the characters of the unscrupulous and brazen politicians who did not hesitate to employ promises for aid combined with the threats of the super-state, to employ the false declarations about internationalism combined with a blockade of hunger. In the book The Khrushchovites, the memoirs of a period full of analyzing, reflections both of that period and of the later period have been organically combined. Through the vivid description of the facts, the author unfolds his views on the factors which caused the great tragedy in the Soviet Union, and this has played a great theoretical and practical role in the struggle of the Party of Labor of Albania to recognize and expose at the proper time the modern revisionists.

This fine study of Comrade Enver Hoxha has served especially not to allow a similar revisionist retrogression in our country as happened in other formerly socialist countries: bureaucratism and technocratism, the lack of revolutionary vigilance, the domination of the bureaucratic apparatus over the Party and the state, the creation of the new bourgeois class, the sense of euphoria, the running after privileges, and above all the abandonment of the guiding Marxist-Leninist compass, are some of the evil works underlined in this book.

Stressing that the line of Stalin was a correct Marxist-Leninist line, Comrade Enver Hoxha reveals the counterrevolutionary role of Khrushchov, Mikoyan and company who deliberately created a situation of euphoria in the Party, elevated the cult of Stalin, thus, in fact, distorted his directives and secretly hatched up their counter-revolutionary plot. Their road to the seizure of power was the road of intrigues, putsches, the road of eliminating the opponents through scrounging and misapplied orders. The success of their plot was favored by the stand of the old guard of the Soviet Union who were confident fighters with Stalin, but who had lost their revolutionary spirit, who had politically decayed.

Through argument and facts, the book The Khrushchovites describes the relations of the Party of Labor of Albania with the Soviet leadership. This relation was characterized by doubt which emerged immediately after the death of Stalin and which continued to recur and crystallize the more the revisionist line of the Soviet leaders crystallized.

At the 1957 and 1960 Moscow meetings, in the talks and meetings with the Soviet leaders, at the Bucharest meeting, and elsewhere, the principled and unwavering stand of the Party of Labor of Albania has been openly expressed. Comrade Enver Hoxha reveals all the methods and ways the Khrushchov group in power employed to break this correct stand of the Party of Labor of Albania: the official pacts, the communications for so-called vacations, the occasional meetings with factions and false hospitality, the hypocrisy, the violence, the KGB agents, the open provocations and blackmail were the preferred weapons of the Machiavellian policy of the Khrushchovites.

However, these tools which were successful in other countries and which eliminated the sound elements in the communist and workers' parties and left power to the followers of Khrushchov, they did not succeed in Albania. The efforts of the Soviet revisionist leadership to subdue our country were a continuation of their policy to transform the socialist countries into dependent provinces of the Soviet Union. In order to realize these aims, the Khrushchov group carried out a feverish activity for the elimination of the revolutionary movement, encouraged the anti-Marxist elements.in the other parties and brought them to power.

An important place in this book is devoted to the events of 1960 which unfolded at the Bucharest and Moscow meetings, in which the Party of Labor of Albania openly attacked Khrushchovite revisionism. Speaking about the anti-Marxist plot at Bucharest, Comrade Enver Hoxha emphasizes that the principled stand of the Party of Labor of Albania which has been fully corroborated by time was not conditioned from pragmatist economic, financial and military interests. The Marxist-Leninist positions of the Party of Labor of Albania, courageously and truthfully expressed by Comrade Hysni Kapo, who represented the Party of Labor of Albania at the Bucharest meeting, were dictated by the lofty aims to defend the Marxist-Leninist norms and to oppose the Khrushchovite dictate. This resolute opposition in the Moscow meeting was transformed into a heavy blow against modern revisionism which had seized power in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and in many other communist and workers' parties.

The relations of the Party of Labor of Albania and the Albanian government with the other socialist parties and countries are also described in the book through the visits, meetings and contacts the author had had with many leaders of those countries and the lasting impressions he has had of those leaders.

The new work of Comrade Enver, Hoxha, The Khrushchovites, is another testimony to the principled struggle of the Party of Labor of Albania against revisionism of every hue in defense of the purity of Marxism-Leninism. This book will appear in several foreign languages soon.

[Back to Top]

Communist Party of Colombia (M-L):

"Let us continue the struggle arms in hand"

In one of its recent issues the newspaper Revolucion, organ of the Communist Party of Colombia (M-L) publishes a material on the situation in Colombia and the struggle of the Colombian masses.

The newspaper writes about the deep and general crisis in various sectors of the economy and condemns the maneuvers of the ruling classes to shift the burden of the crisis onto the shoulders of the working people. It exposes the oppression on the part of the government of Turbai and the tactics of the social-democrats, who, the newspaper points out, play the game of the imperialist and oligarchic policy.

Revolucion stresses that the tactics of the social-democrats are suffering defeat just as the oppression, tortures and official terror have suffered defeat in an attempt to hold back the struggles of the Colombian masses.

The newspaper exposes further on the aims of amnesty proposed by the oligarchy.

The Central Executive Committee of our Party, says the article of the newspaper Revolucion,clearly defined in its recent meeting the stand that should be adopted towards the amnesty proposed by the government. Our Party and people's liberation army turn down the proposal for handing in the weapons and consider it reactionary. We will continue to fight arms in hand till we will achieve our national and social liberation and we will not yield before the sweetened proposals and official barbarism.

Our response to amnesty is: to continue the struggle arms in hand, stresses the newspaper Revolucion, which writes further on:

In front of the savage violence of the regime, the high cost of living, the fresh threats deriving from the economic crisis, our Party sounds the clarion call about the extension of our military activity, the consolidation of the ranks of the people's liberation army, to turn down the demagogic proposals of the regime.

The newspaper concludes pointing out the road that should be pursued to achieve the victory through the general uprising.

(Reprinted fromAlbanian Telegraphic Agency News Bulletin, September 22, 1980.)

[Back to Top]

Communist Party (M-L) of Ecuador:

Against the creation of an Andes Pact military force

The newspaper En Marc ha,organ of the Communist Party (M-L) of Ecuador writes in a recent article:

U.S. imperialism is trying to use the bloc of the countries which form the Andes Pact, including also Ecuador, as a tool to openly interfere not only economically and politically, but also militarily.

The Andes Pact, which was founded by U.S. imperialism in agreement with the pro-imperialist bourgeoisie of the countries which form this bloc, is a tool for the penetration of foreign monopoly capital in various branches of economy, mainly in industry, where the surplus, drawn from the Latin American working people, ensures to them ever greater profits.

Further on the article says that there where the foreign monopoly capital is present, the subjugation of the country is greater, the oppression of the peoples is greater. The more foreign capital is invested in a country, the heavier the dependence on and the fiercer the political and other measures (mainly military) become to defend this capital, these profits, these privileges and this way of domination and exploitation.

Therefore, today they are using the Andes Pact, as the Organization of American States was used long ago, as a tool of the Pentagon and the White House, which due to the people's war, has been exposed and is hated by the masses.

In the face of the persistence and the development of the revolutionary struggles of the peoples, mainly the peoples of Central America, the article continues, U.S. imperialism is trying to turn the member countries of the pact, into a military unit, into an oppressive and counter-revolutionary section, against the Latin American masses, who are rising arms in hand and are fighting for freedom and independence.

In the end, the newspaper writes that only the people's struggle will hinder the armed forces of various countries of the pact to be turned into hangmen of our peoples. We should raise ever higher the boundless solidarity with the struggles of all the Latin American peoples and particularly today with the struggle of the Salvadorian people, with the struggle of the peoples of Central America, the revolutionary process of which is being threatened by this pact.

(Reprinted fromAlbanian Telegraphic Agency News Bulletin, September 30, 1980.)

[Back to Top]

CHILE:

Pinochet's fascist constitution farce

(The following is from an article in the newspaper Zeri i Popullit, the Central Organ of the Central Committee of the Party of Labor of Albania, as carried by the Albanian Telegraphic Agency News Bulletin, September 17, 1980.)

Pinochet's constitution is inspired by the fascist doctrine, writes the newspaper Zeri i Popullit in an article exposing the great demagogical fuss being made now by the Chilean military junta about a new constitution imposed by this junta on the Chilean people under the threat of bayonets, arrests and persecution.

Pinochet's constitution, the newspaper Zeri i Popullit writes, tramples under foot the most elementary democratic rights of the Chilean people. Its main target is to legalize the domination of the military dictatorship, to polish it with a somewhat democratic color and to strengthen the dictatorial power of Pinochet. According to it, the "suitable conditions" for "free" elections will be created in Chile only in 1997.

This constitution considers as illegal the activity of the democratic parties, while under a special article, the armed forces enjoy the right to "legally" interfere in the public life of the country whenever the government is not in position to implement the law and order in the country.

The new constitution has also a pronounced diversionist character. The promises and the articles of this constitution to allegedly ensure "a gradual turn back to the civil power," about "the transitory period towards the establishment of democracy," etc., aim at deceiving the Chilean working people, at diverting them from the road of the class struggle and at creating in them the illusions that freedom and democracy, about which they are aspiring and fighting, can be ensured even without bloodshed, through constitutional reforms.

But the Chilean people and the other freedom-loving peoples of the world, Zeri i Popullit continues, know well the unchanged, savage and repressive nature of the sanguinary regime of Pinochet, the numerous sufferings and miseries it has brought to the working masses of that country.

The Chilean working people, Zeri i Popullit writes in conclusion, do not expect a genuine democracy for which they have always aspired, from the demagogic promises and constitutions of Pinochet, but they will achieve it through a resolute struggle to the end both against the local regime and U.S. imperialism, Chinese social-imperialism and all the forces of reaction, which back up and support this savage fascist dictatorship.

[Back to Top]

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

Leninism and the Struggle Against Social-Chauvinism

-- PART II --

[Graphic.]

It is revolutionary Marxism-Leninism that provides the answers to the burning questions of the revolution. This article is the fourth in a series written in honor of the 110th anniversary of Lenin. It continues the elaboration of the Leninist teachings on the struggle against social-chauvinism from the previous article in The Workers' Advocate of August 25, 1980.

The Leninist Struggle Against Social-Chauvinism Requires a Fight Against Centrism and Conciliationism as Well

Lenin fought against not only the open social-chauvinists, but against the Kautskyite "center," the conciliators, as well.

The "center" is willing to give up this or that formulation of the open social-chauvinists. It is, when it sees which way the wind is blowing, "against" social-chauvinism, "against" the discredited warmongering of the open social-chauvinists, and even at times "for" any number of Marxist formulations. In fact, the "center" may at one time or another agree to just about anything, but just so long as:

1. Unity is preserved with the opportunists or at least that the struggle against opportunism is stopped or not waged with the Leninist intensity. The "center" need not always openly call for unity with the opportunists. It suffices to establish a tacit or covert coexistence with the opportunists. The "center" will agree to any criticism of the opportunists, but it is opposed to the Leninist principle of building the proletarian party without the opportunists and social-chauvinists and against them.

2. The struggle against social-chauvinism does not proceed to the revolutionary regeneration of all the fronts of work of the working class movement.

The "center" wants to keep everything reduced to the realm of pretty resolutions and pious wishes. It wants to reduce the struggle to a mere changing of signboards, while business as usual reigns for the work of the party and of the mass movement.

Lenin repeatedly denounced the fraud of the centrist policy. He directed the struggle at the centrists as well as at the social-chauvinists. He scathingly exposed the policy of the Kautskyite "center" as follows:

"Sensing that the masses are swinging towards the Left, these 'authorities' [Kautsky, Bernstein and company -- ed.] are proposing peace to the Left Social-Democrats [the revolutionary Marxists -- ed.] on the tacit condition of peace with the Sudekums. [Sudekum was a notorious German social-chauvinist -- ed.] …

"We consider this leftward turn by the leader of the opportunists [Bernstein, who however took a bourgeois pacifist stand with regard to World War I -- ed.] and the leader of the hypocritical chauvinists of the 'radical camp' [i.e., Kautsky -- ed.] a farce designed to save what is rotten in Social-Democracy by means of a bow towards the Left, with the aim of bolstering the national liberal-lab our policies at the price of petty verbal concessions to the 'Lefts.'" ("State of Affairs in Russian Social-Democracy," Collected Works, Vol. 21, p. 285)

How Lenin penetrated to the very essence of centrism and conciliationism! It is the policy, faced by the increasing revolutionary pressure from the masses, of "sav(ing what is rotten" in the revolutionary movement "at the price of petty verbal concessions to the 'Lefts.''' Lenin further noted that the "center" need not always openly support the social-chauvinists, but that all it needed was "the tacit condition of peace." Open unity can follow a little later, once the "Lefts" are thoroughly compromised. Summing up, Lenin stressed:

"Either aid the growth and development of revolutionary action against one's own bourgeoisie and one's own government, or else hamper, soothe and extinguish the revolutionary temper -- this is the only practical way in which the issue now stands. To achieve the latter of these alternatives, the liberal bourgeoisie and the opportunists will agree (and from the standpoint of their interests must agree) to any verbal concessions to the Left, to any number of promises concerning disarmament, peace, the repudiation of annexations, reforms of every kind, anything under the sun, if only a rupture between the masses and their opportunist and a resumption of more and more serious revolutionary action can be averted.

"Do not trust any high-sounding programmes, we say to the masses; rely on your own mass revolutionary action against your governments and your bourgeoisie and try to build up such action...." (Ibid., emphasis added except for the first three words)

Lenin regarded the Kautskyite "center" as a great danger to the working class movement. He stressed:

"Avowed opportunism is openly and directly opposed to revolution and to the incipient revolutionary movement and outbursts. It is in direct alliance with the governments, varied as the forms of this alliance may be.... The masked opportunists, the Kautskyites, are much more harmful and dangerous to the labour movement, because they hide their advocacy of alliance with the former under a cloak of plausible, pseudo-'Marxist' catchwords and pacifist slogans. The fight against both these forms of prevailing opportunism must be conducted in all fields of proletarian politics: parliament, the trade unions, strikes, the armed forces, etc." ("The Military Programme of the Proletarian Revolution," Collected Works, Vol. 23, p. 84, emphasis added except for the word "all")

The policy of the "center" was itself a continuation of the whole policy that ate away at, degenerated and finally killed the Second International, turning it into a prostituted plaything of the rich. Lenin pointed to the similarity between the policy of the "center" and that of the Second International. He stated:

"A 'practical business' conciliation [between the centrists and the social-chauvinists -- ed.] by mechanically combining loud revolutionary phrases... with opportunist and pacifist practice. That is what happened in the Second International. The arch-revolutionary phrases in the manifestoes of Huysmans and Vandervelde and in certain congress resolutions merely served as a screen for the arch-opportunist practice of the majority of the European parties, but they did not change, disrupt or combat this practice." ("Bourgeois Pacifism and Socialist Pacifism," Ch. IV, Collected Works, Vol. 23, p. 193)

Lenin repeatedly pointed at this corrupt practice of the Second International, stating:

"On the one hand, the most 'Left' and arch-revolutionary resolutions, and on the other, the most shameless forgetfulness or renunciation of these resolutions -- this is one of the most striking manifestations of the International's collapse, and at the same time a most convincing proof that only those whose rare simplicity borders on a cunning desire to perpetuate the former hypocrisy can believe that socialism can be 'rectified' and 'its line straightened out' by means of resolutions alone." ("The Collapse of the Second International," Collected Works, Vol. 21, p. 209)

Hence it is necessary to fight not only the social-chauvinists, but also the conciliators of social-chauvinism. Centrism or conciliationism strives to maintain the same rotten opportunist politics that gave rise to social-chauvinism, to neither split with the opportunists nor to regenerate the proletarian party, by concealing everything and reconciling everything with some empty phrasemongering to throw dust in the eyes of the indignant revolutionaries and to gain time to let everything cool down. This centrism is in fact the old, old policy of the Second International of combining opportunism and the revolutionary elements in a single party.

Furthermore, the struggle against conciliationism holds true not only in the fight against social-chauvinism, but in the struggle against opportunism and various deviations generally. Stalin, discussing the struggle against the Right deviation in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolshevik) in 1928, stressed that:

"I am speaking, of course, of a real fight against the Right deviation, not a verbal, paper fight. There are people in our Party, who, to soothe their conscience, are quite willing to proclaim a fight against the Right danger in the same way as priests sometimes cry, 'Hallelujah! Hallelujah!' But they will not undertake any practical measures at all to organise the fight against the Right deviation on a firm basis, and to overcome this deviation in actual fact. We call this tendency a conciliatory tendency towards the Right, frankly opportunist, deviation. It is not difficult to understand that the fight against this conciliatory tendency is an integral part of the general fight against the Right deviation, against the Right danger. For it is impossible to overcome the Right, opportunist deviation without waging a systematic fight against the conciliatory tendency, which takes the opportunists under its wing." ("The Right Danger in the C.P.S.U. (B.)," Works, Vol. 11, p. 244)

Struggle Against "One's Own" Bourgeoisie and "One's Own" Opportunists Is a Fundamental Principle of the Leninist Struggle Against Social-Chauvinism

The fight against social-chauvinism is a fraud unless it centers on the fight against one's own bourgeoisie and one's own opportunists. The opportunists and the bourgeoisie itself always find it convenient to denounce the bourgeoisie of other lands, the bourgeoisie of the "enemy" country, and to expose its imperialism. Indeed the opportunists may even denounce the foreign opportunists for capitulating to such a vile bourgeoisie as the foreign bourgeoisie. But the opportunists refuse to fight their own bourgeoisie. Thus today's "directors of the main blow against Soviet social-imperialism" have elevated collaboration with their own bourgeoisie in the fight against the foreign bourgeoisie into a principle, their guiding principle, their so-called "main blow against Soviet social-imperialism." They are always ready to shout about Soviet social-imperialism. But they are in alliance with their own bourgeoisie and are cheerleaders for their own country's imperialism. This proves that there is not a drop of Marxism in their denunciation of the foreign bourgeoisie, but only reactionary national chauvinism.

The centrists too make extensive use of the denunciation of foreign opportunism in order to hide their tacit or open alliance with domestic opportunism. Lenin was quite abusive against the Kautskyite "center" for its fraud of hypocritically condemning the social-chauvinists of other lands, while seeking unity with its own opportunists and social-chauvinists. Lenin held this centrist position up to biting ridicule and wrote of the "internationalism for export" of the Kautskyites as follows:

"...Kautsky once again swears to be a Marxist in the coming epoch of ultra-imperialism, which may or may not arrive! In short, any number of promises to be a Marxist in another epoch, not now, not under present conditions, not this epoch! Marxism on credit, Marxism promises, Marxism tomorrow, a petty-bourgeois, opportunist theory -- and not only a theory -- of blunting contradictions today. This is something like the internationalism for export which is very popular today with ardent -- oh, so ardent! -- internationalists and Marxists' who sympathise with every manifestation of internationalism -- in the enemy camp, anywhere, but not at home, not among their allies-- In a word, it is one of the 1,001 varieties of hypocrisy." ("Preface to N. Bukharin's Pamphlet, Imperialism and the World Economy," Collected Works, Vol. 22, p. 107)

Indeed the fight against one's own domestic opportunists does not just apply in the struggle against social- chauvinism, but in the struggle against opportunism generally. It is a fundamental principle of Marxism- Leninism. Elaborating on this theme, and linking it up with the need to judge parties and revolutionaries on the basis of their deeds, not merely their words, Stalin wrote:

"Furthermore, history knows not a few Socialists who, foaming at the mouth, called upon the workers' parties of other countries to perform the most revolutionary actions imaginable. But that does not mean that they did not in their own party, or in their own country, shrink from fighting their own bourgeoisie. Is not this why Lenin taught us to test revolutionary parties, trends and leaders, not by their declarations and resolutions, but by their deeds?'' ("Some Questions Concerning the History of Bolshevism," Works, Vol. 13, p. 99)

Lenin further elaborated on this question in his famous book Left-Wing Communism, An Infantile Disorder. Near the beginning of Chapter X, which is entitled "Some Conclusions," Lenin stresses:

"More. The history of the working-class movement now shows that in all countries it is about to experience (and has already begun to experience) a struggle between Communism, which is growing, gaining strength and marching towards victory, and, first and foremost, its own (in each country) 'Menshevism,' i.e., opportunism and social-chauvinism, and, secondly -- as a supplement so to say -- 'Left-wing' Communism."

These teachings remain a cornerstone of the present struggle against social-chauvinism. It is absolutely necessary to fight the international currents of opportunism and revisionism, such as modern Soviet revisionism, Chinese revisionism and Mao Zedong Thought, Yugoslav revisionism or Titoism, Eurocommunism and so forth. But such a struggle remains nothing but a fraud and an empty phrase unless one centers one's struggle against the particular manifestations of opportunism in one's own country, and takes account of the specific features which the struggle against the international currents of opportunism takes among "one's own" opportunists. To rave against the international currents of opportunism while being in an open alliance or tacit coexistence with one's own opportunists or while one is calling for the end to the domestic ideological struggle between revolutionary Marxism-Leninism and opportunism in one's own country is an outright negation of Leninism and a sickening manifestation of hypocrisy.

The Struggle Against Social-Chauvinism Is a Powerful Invigorating Force for the Revolutionary Marxist-Leninist and Working Class Movements

The struggle against social-chauvinism must not simply be regarded as a sad necessity, something like taking castor oil, something to be gotten over with as quickly as possible. It is not, as the centrists advocate, a mere diversion, something that will go away if we close our eyes. On the contrary, the struggle against social-chauvinism is a powerful force that is absolutely necessary both for the revolution in general and for the strengthening of the proletarian party in particular. It will not go away, but is part of the ongoing struggle against opportunism. In recent years, this struggle has centered on the struggle against social-chauvinism. Presently the struggle against social-democracy is also intensifying. In one form or other, the struggle against opportunism will continue and intensify as long as the revolutionary movement lives and struggles against the class enemy. As Leninism teaches:

"It is in the struggle between these two tendencies ["of the bourgeoisie and the opportunists" and "of the masses" -- ed.] that the history of the labour movement will now inevitably develop." ("Imperialism and the Split in Socialism," Collected Works, Vol. 23, p. 116)

"The fact is that 'bourgeois labour parties,' as a political phenomenon, have already been formed in all the foremost capitalist countries, and that unless a determined and relentless struggle is waged all along the line against these parties -- or groups, trends, etc., it is all the same -- there can be no question of a struggle against imperialism, or of Marxism, or of a socialist labour movement.... There is not the slightest reason for thinking that these parties will disappear before the social revolution. On the contrary, the nearer the revolution approaches, the more strongly it flares up and the more sudden and violent the transitions and leaps in its progress, the greater will be the part the struggle of the revolutionary mass stream against the opportunist petty-bourgeois stream will play in the labour movement."(Ibid., pp. 118-19)

Not only is the struggle against social-chauvinism and opportunism an absolute necessity, but it has a truly invigorating effect on the revolutionary Marxist-Leninist and workers' movement. In this struggle, the revolutionary movement throws off the corruption and rust that has found its way into various nooks and crannies. This struggle brings to the light of day the opportunism that has been festering, the opportunism that has been especially demoralizing and oppressive to the revolutionary masses as long as it has remained hidden and impossible for the masses to clearly discern so that the reasons for disunity and setbacks to the revolutionary organization of the proletariat were rather felt than understood. The open clash purges the revolutionary ranks, revives the revolutionary spirit in the working class movement and helps put everything into fighting trim. It is one of the favorable factors for the development of the proletarian party.

Indeed it is the struggle against social-chauvinism and opportunism at the time of World War I that played a big role in the formation of a number of communist parties and of the Third, Communist International itself. Lenin states:

"The Third International actually emerged in 1918, when the long years of struggle against opportunism and social-chauvinism, especially during the war, led to the formation of Communist Parties in a number of countries." ("The Third International and Its Place in History," Collected Works, Vol. 29, p. 306)

Today too the genuine Marxist-Leninist parties are tempering themselves and new ones being formed in the international struggle against modern revisionism. Comrade Agim Popa pointed out at the Scientific Sessions in Albania in 1978 that:

"In the struggle against Chinese revisionism, too, just as in the struggle against Khrushchevite revisionism, new Marxist-Leninist revolutionary parties of the working class will emerge and grow where such parties do not yet exist, or where the existing parties have deviated from the road of Marxism-Leninism and the revolution.

"The formation and tempering of proletarian parties as Leninist-Stalinist parties of the new type is a continuous and many-sided process which takes place in the fire of their ceaseless revolutionary activity." (Problems of Current World Development, Tirana, 1979, p. 79)

In the U.S. as well the struggle against social-chauvinism has centered to a large extent on the question of the party and the party concept. Right from the start, The Workers' Advocate stated that this struggle was leading irresistibly to the reconstitution of the genuine communist party of the American proletariat. Verifying this prediction, the Marxist-Leninist Party of the USA was founded this year on January 1, 1980.

Hence all around the world the genuine Marxist-Leninist parties and organizations do not whine about the struggle against opportunism and seek to avoid it, dampen it or extinguish it. On the contrary, they utilize this struggle to develop among the masses an irreconcilable spirit against the bourgeoisie and ability to carry out their great revolutionary mission. They follow the Leninist teaching:

"Hard as the struggle may be, in individual cases, against the opportunists who predominate in many organizations, whatever the specific nature of the process of purging the workers' parties of opportunists may be in individual countries, this process is inevitable and fruitful. Reformist Socialism is dying; regenerated Socialism will be revolutionary, uncompromising and insurrectionary...." ("Socialism and War," Ch. I, Collected Works, Vol. 21, p. 311)

Hence it is not for nothing that Lenin eulogized the struggle against opportunism. In his celebrated work What Is To Be Done?, Lenin raised the following magnificent perspective for the struggle against opportunism. He wrote:

"Perhaps in this first really international battle with socialist opportunism, international revolutionary Social-Democracy will become sufficiently strengthened to put an end to the political reaction that has long reigned in Europe?" (Note at the beginning of Chapter I)

He repeated this splendid vista in his work Marxism and Revisionism in 1908:

"The ideological struggle waged by revolutionary Marxism against revisionism at the end of the nineteenth century is but the prelude to the great revolutionary battles of the proletariat, which is marching forward to the complete victory of its cause despite all the waverings and weakness of the petty bourgeoisie." (Collected Works, Vol. 15, p. 39)

Lenin's perspective has been verified repeatedly. It has been verified by the Great October Socialist Revolution, by the socialist construction in the Soviet Union of the days of Lenin and Stalin, by the great victory in the anti-fascist war against the Hitlerites and the Axis fascists, and by the forward march by the shining bastion of socialism in today's world, the People's Socialist Republic of Albania. It is verified by the triumph of revolutionary Leninism itself, for as Stalin teaches:

"Everyone knows that Leninism was born, grew up and became strong in relentless struggle against opportunism of every brand...." ("Some Questions Concerning the History of Bolshevism," Works, Vol. 13, p. 87)

[Photo: Lenin at the Second Congress of the Communist International: "It has been shown in practice that working-class activists who follow the opportunist trend are better defenders of the bourgeoisie than the bourgeois themselves. Without their leadership of the workers, the bourgeoisie could not remain in power.... This is where our principal enemy is, an enemy we must overcome. We must leave this Congress firmly resolved to carry on this struggle to the very end, in all parties. That is our main task." (July 19,1920)]

[Back to Top]

TWO SONGS RIDICULING THE CAPITALIST ELECTION CIRCUS

DON'T VOTE! THEY'RE ALL THE SAME!

(From the San Francisco Bay Area Branch of the MLP,USA)

The political parties of the rich are all the same

"Human Rights" Carter and Reagan just the same

And the program they're all for,

Is starvation, fascism and war

To hell with the capitalist parties they 're all the same!

Ronnie "Hollywood" Reagan is Wall Street's man

His program is endorsed by the racist Klan

He says the capitalists need so much more,

And starvation builds the character of the poor,

To hell with the imperialist cowboy and his fascist plan!

But "friend of labor Carter wears a mask

Like all good Democrats deception is his task

He puts the Chryslers on the dole,

And workers by the millions in the hole

To hell with this smiling toady of the bourgeois class!

Talk about war preparations they're all the same

For the draft, the nukes, MX, they 're all to blame

They 're mobilizing against Iran

To save the profits of Exxon

When it comes to war preparations they 're all the same!

Now the "Anderson difference can't stand the light of day

Just take a look at what he has to say

Add fifty cents to gasoline

Put MX on a submarine

To hell with this difference a fraud in every way!

Social-democrat Barry Commoner he's the same

To sabotage the mass movements is his foul aim

He prettifies the Democrats' crimes

To bring the workers back in line

This warmed-over Carter stew it's just the same!

Look out Jimmy, and Ronnie, and Johnnie too

The people's mass movements are advancing upon you

The workers are bound to rise

And crush the rich whom they despise

They 're breaking with the old parties to build the new!

It's right to say Don't Vote they re all the same

To hell with the capitalist parties they 're all the same

Use disgust for the bourgeoisie

To organize independently

Led by the Marxist-Leninist Party we'll achieve this aim!

TWEEDLEDEE AND TWEEDLEDUM -- DEMOCRAT AND REPUBLICAN

(From the New York Metro Branch of the MLP,USA)

Sung to the tune of "Ham Bone"

Tweedledee and Tweedledum

Democrat and Republican

Each may use a different name

But underneath they're all the same

Freeze wages while profits, soar

Repress the people and prepare for war

Starvation, war and fascism

Tweedledee and Tweedledum

Tweedledee and Tweedledum

Tweedledee and Tweedledum

Parties of exploitation

Parties of the capitalists

Oppressing the people for the rich

They promise you the stars and more

Deliver starvation, fascism and war

Democrat and Republican

Tweedledee and Tweedledum

Tweedledee and Tweedledum

Carter and Ronald Reagan

Tweedledee and Tweedledum

Half and half makes Anderson

Tweedledee and Tweedledum

The richest is Ted Kennedy

Tweedledum and Tweedledee

Capitalist politicians

Tweedledee and Tweedledum

Tweedledee and Tweedledum

Parties of exploitation

Tweedledee and Tweedledum

Parties of war preparation

Tweedledee and Tweedledum

Parties of repression

Tweedledee and Tweedledum

Starvation, war and fascism

Tweedledee and Tweedledum

Tweedledee and Tweedledum

Tweedledum and Tweedledee

Parties of the bourgeoisie

No change of administration

Can end the people oppression

The only thing to be done

Is to launch militant mass action

And prepare for revolution

Against Tweedledee and Tweedledum

Tweedledee and Tweedledum

Don't Vote! They re all the same!

[Photos: Don't vote! 1. On October 1, MLP comrades and supporters demonstrated against Carter when he spoke at the convention of the Civil Service Employees Association in Niagara Falls, New York. 2. On September 23, MLP comrades and supporters hold a militant picket against the Carter-Kennedy "Unity Rally" in San Francisco, California. 3. MLP contingent carries banner against the capitalist parties in a demonstration against the U.S. imperialist nuclear energy program in Lansing, Michigan on October 5.]

[Poster: DON'T VOTE

the capitalist parties are all the same!

(Graphic.)

Build the independent political movement of the working class!

WAGE MASS REVOLUTIONARY STRUGGLE AGAINST STARVATION, FASCISM AND WAR!

*Fight the capitalist offensive against the workers' livelihood!

Take mass action against the productivity drives, unemployment and wage cuts!

*Combat racial discrimination!

Active resistance to police terror and the racist and fascist gangs!

*No to the draft! No to the nuclear program! Fight all U.S. imperialist war preparations!

*U.S. imperialism, hands off Iran! U.S. imperialism out of El Salvador!

Soviet social-imperialism out of Afghanistan!

Down with NATO and the warmongering U.S.-China alliance!

FORGE REVOLUTIONARY GROUPS IN THE FACTORIES, COMMUNITIES, SCHOOLS AND WHEREVER THE CLASS STRUGGLE RAGES!

RALLY TO THE BANNER OF THE MARXIST-LENINIST PARTY, THE PARTY OF REVOLUTIONARY STRUGGLE AND SOCIALISM!

(Details about public meetings and demonstrations in Boston, Buffalo, Chicago, Denver, Detroit, Louisville, New York City, San Francisco Bay Area and Seattle.)]

[Back to Top]