The Workers' Advocate

WORKERS, OPPRESSED NATIONS AND PEOPLE OF THE WORLD, UNITE!

Vol. 6, No. 4 May 12, 1976 25ยข

P. O. BOX 11942, CHICAGO, ILL. 60611

[Front page: MAKE THE RICH PAY! DETROIT FINANCIAL CRISIS EXPOSES RAPID ALL-ROUND DECAY OF CAPITALIST SYSTEM;

ACTIVE RESISTANCE TO FASCISM--Louisville, Boston]

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Class struggle in China..................................................... pp. 6-7
10th Anniversary of Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution........................................................................ pp. 8-9
San Francisco Strike......................................................... p. 2
Cook County Crisis.......................................................... p. 3
May Day Statement.......................................................... p. 4
Canada: 6 years of CPC(M-L).......................................... p. 5
7th Anniversary of ACWM(M-L)...................................... p. 11
India: 7th Anniversary of CPI(M-L).................................. p. 13
African Liberation Day..................................................... pp.14-17
Arab People's Struggle..................................................... pp. 19-20
VICTORY TO THE SECOND ANTI-COLONIAL WAR OF THE ANGOLAN PEOPLE!............................. Centerfold




MAKE THE RICH PAY!

ACTIVE RESISTANCE TO FASCISM

SAN FRANCISCO WORKERS WAGE HARD-FOUGHT STRIKE

Cook County Government Tries to Shift Crisis Burden onto Workers

LONG LIVE MAY 1st - REVOLUTIONARY HOLIDAY OF THE INTERNATIONAL WORKING CLASS!

Six Years of CPC (M-L)

A GREAT REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT AGAINST REVISIONISM AND FOR PROLETARIAN REVOLUTION

Class Struggle in China

RESOLUTIONS OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF CHINA

COUNTER-REVOLUTIONARY POLITICAL INCIDENT AT TIEN AN MEN SQUARE

What Does the Incident at Tien An Men Square Show?

HAIL THE TENTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE GREAT PROLETARIAN CULTURAL REVOLUTION IN CHINA!

CIRCULAR OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY - May 16, 1966

HAIL THE SEVENTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FOUNDING OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA (MARXIST-LENINIST)!

AFRICAN LIBERATION DAY - MAY 25th

SUPPORT THE NATIONAL LIBERATION STRUGGLES OF THE AFRICAN PEOPLE!

Victory to the Second Anti-Colonial War of the Angolan People!

PRESS CONFERENCE WITH COMRADE SANGUMBA, MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF UNITA

Who Are the Real Collaborators with Western Imperialism in Angola?

UNITA CALLS FOR PEOPLE'S WAR AGAINST SOVIET-CUBAN INVADERS

COMMUNIQUE: UNITA FORCES PRESS FIGHTING IN ANGOLA

COMMUNIQUE: from Cuando-Cubango, Angola The Central Base Area of UNITA March 20, 1976

Forward march of the Arab People




MAKE THE RICH PAY!

DETROIT FINANCIAL CRISIS EXPOSES RAPID ALL-ROUND DECAY OF CAPITALIST SYSTEM

In the first four months of 1976, the U.S. monopoly capitalist class is still beset with the most severe economic crisis, industrial and financial,since World War II. It is attacking the wages and the working and living conditions of the workers in an effort to shift the burden onto the workers and make them pay for the crisis of the capitalist system. The capitalists want to maximize profits and maintain their positions at the working people's expense. The workers have answered these attacks with powerful strikes to defend their wages and working and living conditions. Recently 400,000 Teamsters went on an unprecedented three-day national strike, 70,000 rubber workers are on strike against the tire monopolies and workers for United Parcel Service have struck throughout the Midwest and Rocky Mountain states. Today the working class is carrying on a nationwide resistance movement against the criminal shifting of the burden of the economic crisis onto the workers backs by the capitalists.

To suppress this resistance struggle and enforce the increased exploitation of the workers, the monopoly capitalists are stepping up the all-around fascization of their state machine (government at all levels, consisting mainly of the police and armed forces and also including the bureaucracy). The monopoly capitalist state is arrogantly kicking aside union contracts and is breaking strikes with its lackey police. At the national level, the capitalist government threatened to invoke the fascist Taft-Hartley Act to suppress the Teamsters' strike and kept every stage of the negotiations under its control. The aim of the capitalists' fascization is to shift the entire burden of the crisis onto the workers while keeping a "quiet home front" for the world war they are preparing with the other imperialist superpower, the Soviet Union. The development of fascism by the state machine can be clearly seen in its suppression of the struggles of the public sector workers.

The present economic crisis has not only struck the capitalist enterprises in the private sector; it has also spread into the "public sector", hitting most sharply the state and local governments with an acute financial crisis. This is a further demonstration of the fact that U.S. imperialist society is thoroughly crisis-ridden and in a state of rapid decay. The public sector, which has historically been expanded by the monopoly capitalists as a bulwark against total economic collapse, has now become the arena of a very severe crisis itself. For example, in 1974 the New York City government, with a budget of over $10 billion, became financially unstable. Its budget was swelled by massive indebtedness to a handful of the country's largest. banks. The city was on the verge of financial default, being incapable of paying the tribute to the financiers in the form of debt-service payments, due to lack of revenues during the economic crisis and due to the weakening of the municipal bond market. The New York City crisis has had national impact.

Recently the finances of several states (New York State, Massachusetts, Michigan, etc.) and many large and medium-sized cities (Detroit, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Wilmington, etc.) have also been hit by financial crises. The monopoly financiers, their politicians and their local governments have proclaimed from coast to coast that the " solution" to the "fiscal crisis of the cities" is to attack the livelihood of the public sector workers and increase the tax burden on the working masses as a whole. Everywhere they are carrying out this program and attacking the masses. To oppose these attacks the public sector workers have mounted a vigorous struggle, rapidly organizing themselves into trade unions and waging strikes across the country. Most notable among these have been the innumerable teachers' strikes last fall and winter, the New York City sanitation workers' strike and the hard-fought strike struggle of the San Francisco municipal workers.

In Detroit, the capital of U.S. auto production, where the financial crisis has become particularly acute, the city government has been faithfully putting the monopoly capitalists' "solution" into practice. An examination of the financial (fiscal) crisis in Detroit will provide some insight into the crises now gripping the country's city and state governments.

I. LACKEY OF MONOPOLY CAPITAL DECLARES WAR ON DETROIT CITY WORKERS AND THE WORKING PEOPLE

To "solve" the crisis in Detroit on the terms of the monopoly capitalist class, the city government, headed by Mayor Coleman Young, has declared class war on the Detroit city workers and the entire working class and people. This "responsible" declaration has won Mr. Young the deepest "respect" as a "reasonable man" from the Wall Street financiers, the auto magnates and from the Federal and State government offices. Young's method of shifting the burden of Detroit's financial crisis onto the working class and people is part and parcel of the national campaign against the public sector workers and urban masses. Auto magnate John Riccardo, Chairman of Chrysler Corp., recently boasted: "What we do to help Detroit solve its current problems could become a model for cities across the country." Lackey Young's criminal offensive against the working masses of Detroit is taking place on three major fronts:

a) Attacks on the Livelihood of City Workers.

The first front of this attack is a drive to undermine the public sector workers' unions and attack the conditions of the workers through layoffs, cutting wages, and intensifying work-loads. An editorial in the Detroit News summed up the program of the monopoly capitalists: "Young must deal with a number of city unions which have proved obdurate about surrendering pay raises or fringe benefits.'' It added that he must have "the cooperation of all municipal unions... in the form of additional days off without pay, a moratorium on wages, and increased productivity. '' Young has been dutifully carrying this out.

Since the beginning of the economic crisis in 1973-74, there has been constant reduction of Detroit's city work force. In the past, city jobs have been known to be stable and secure. However, in the present deep crisis, public sector workers are in constant danger of being thrown into the streets along with the unemployed workers from the private sector. Aside from a hiring freeze on city employees there have been several massive lay-offs, the most recent one having taken place this April 4, when over 1,000 city employees were laid off. The largest sections of workers in this latest lay-off were health care workers, firemen, library staff and recreation workers. The city has also cut entire sections of so-called "fat" from the budget, for example, firing all 300 crossing guards for school children. (The 5,400 man police force is by far the largest in manpower and the most expensive part of the city's budget, yet there has been almost no decline of the uniformed police on the streets. When Mayor Young came into office he moved 500 police from doing paperwork jobs or non-essential jobs onto the streets, so despite a short work-week for police there is equivalent police strength to that before the fiscal crisis.)

In the present crisis, the monopoly capitalists are developing fascism in an attempt to push the entire burden onto the working class. The fascization of U.S. society on the political front serves to drive down the working class deeper into slavery and escalate its exploitation by the capitalists. The capitalists are trying to outlaw even ordinary trade-union activity, wiping out the basic defense organizations of the workers.

In the public sector, where the government assumes the role of employer as well as lawmaker and law-enforcer, there have been particularly fascist attacks against the workers' trade unions. In Detroit, as part of this program of fascization, the city government has made crude threats that it may sack thousands more workers right away by tearing up existing union contracts. The city has also withheld negotiated pay from the workers by not making $29 million in pension fund payments. The state legislature has made the sinister proposal that union contracts be "by-passed" or rescinded if the city deficit grows to a certain level. The legislature also proposed state-regulated pay and benefit scales for the city workers. There have been numerous proposed plans to destroy the union seniority system and increase job insecurity among the existing workers. Also, the government is trying to use unemployed workers on federal payroll as scab labor, to carry out fascist attacks on the unions. A U.S. Labor Department official and some city bureaucrats are trying to have the workers with many years seniority replaced by new employees whose wages would come from federal CETA funds (Comprehensive Employment Training Act). Faced with the problem that the workers would resist such a move, the Labor Department official suggested that the city establish separate public corporations with non-union labor and lay off the unionized city workers.

By smashing the organized resistance of the workers, the city government aims to squeeze more labor out of them. With the reduction in the city workforce through the hiring freeze and the lay-offs, the city government has been increasing the work-loads of the remaining workers to the maximum. Three years ago, five firemen used to man each truck whereas today there are often only three men on these trucks. This has increased the number of injuries suffered by the firemen and increased the time it takes to fight fires. Recently the Detroit city government has started an experiment to see if it can have one man per garbage truck instead of the present three-man trucks. Even though the city would have to buy 300 new garbage trucks to switch from three-man to one-man trucks, the city government is quite intent on developing ways to sweat the labor out of one worker that it normally takes three to do. Detroit's nearby model for this is Dearborn, Michigan, Henry Ford's private city. In Dearborn, one-man garbage trucks have been instituted, causing the elimination of many garbage workers' jobs and tremendous speed-up. In fact many older workers in Dearborn, who waged a 23-day strike in 1969 against one-man trucks, refuse to operate them. Dearborn's response to this is to have half of the one- man trucks operated by non-union workers paid by federal CETA funds at $3.60 an hour, nearly half of the union wages. As for other sections of Detroit city workers, workers at Detroit General Hospital have an unbearable work-load. The hospital has recently lost its accreditation mainly because of a lack of nurses and other employees to administer health care. But the monopoly capitalists are still not satisfied with the weight of the work-loads of the hospital workers. A recent study done by General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co., Wayne State University and the Mayor's Productivity Center has "proved" that the problem with Detroit General is the "high wages" and "inefficiencies" of the workers.

So the first major front of attack on the Detroit working class and people is the attack on the public sector workers. This attack takes the form of attempts to smash up the city workers' trade unions, lay-offs, reduced wages and benefits, as well as the speeding up of the remaining workers.

b. Increased Taxation on Working Masses.

Young's second front of attack against the working masses on behalf of the capitalist parasites is to increase taxes and levies. There have been numerous schemes proposed to suck even more revenues from the ever-more impoverished masses of Detroit. (The workers in the Detroit area, with the sharp crisis in the auto industry, have suffered some of the highest and most prolonged unemployment in the country.) Mayor Young is pushing for an increase in city income taxes from 2% to 3% for city residents and from.5% to 1.5% for non-residents who work in the city. Others suggest instituting a state nuisance tax on cigarettes and alcohol or a levy on automobile owners in the Detroit area and so on. The city has just imposed a charge on garbage pickup which will cost the masses some $15 to $20 million this year and also make a general increase in property taxes. Certain capitalist politicians are even proposing legalized casino gambling to swindle the masses (it could then be taxed).

c. Shifting the Funds to Best Serve Monopoly Capital

The third front of attack on the masses is the shifting of city government funds to best serve the needs of monopoly capital irrespective of the hardships placed on the masses. The funds are not being cut in general but are being concentrated in the sectors most needed by the capitalists during the present crisis. The police department is being continually beefed up, which is particularly needed to enforce the shifting of the economic crisis onto the working class and people. Also, there is an increase in city handouts to the capitalists for industrial enterprises (in the form of industrial parks, subsidies, etc.), for the banks ( in the form of ever-increasing tax-free bonds at high interest, etc.) and for the contractors and real estate entrepreneurs (in the form of expanding capital construction for a shopping center, a stadium, etc.). All these handouts are being expanded to lighten the burden of the capitalists' crisis on the capitalists themselves.

At the same time, expenditures in sectors affecting the people's well-being are cut mercilessly as soon as they stop offering opportunities for maximum profit.

Mayor Young's declaration of class war, this three-pronged attack on the Detroit city workers and the entire working class and people of the area, is a concentrated effort by the monopoly capitalists to shift the burden of the city financial crisis and the economic crisis in general onto the working masses. These attacks are a great injustice to the working people.

II. THE PRESENT CRISIS IS INHERENT IN CAPITALISM AND SHOWS ITS EXTREME DECAY

According to the monopoly bourgeoisie and their spokesmen, the city's fiscal crisis is caused by the city workers for being "obdurate about surrendering pay raises" and by the "greediness of the powerful city unions". The bourgeoisie claims to have been granting "overly generous handouts" to the unemployed and poor. They even claim that the crisis is caused by the very existence of the poor! For instance, a study done by GM, Ford, the Mayor's Productivity Center, et al, of Detroit General Hospital states that "half the higher costs are due to the kind of patient DGH serves: typically poor, generally unhealthy and requiring extended medical attention". How dare the poor slaves of the auto magnates get sick and cause such expenses!

But facts prove that economic crises are not caused by the workers but are inherent under the capitalist economic system. Ever since full-scale capitalism developed in the early 19th century, there have been periodic economic crises. By 1900, free competition had developed into monopoly capitalism, into imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism, the era of imperialist wars and of proletarian revolution. Following the first imperialist world war, WWI, and especially after the October Socialist Revolution in Russia in 1917, the world capitalist system became so weakened and decayed that it entered into the period of its general crisis, which will only end with the downfall of capitalism. This means that each specific economic crisis, like the Great Depression and like the present crisis, is much deeper than the crises of competitive capitalism, they occur more frequently and capitalism never fully recovers from one before it is beset with still another. Thus economic crises are inherent in the capitalist system and are not caused by the workers.

Further, experience shows that the city government (Like the state and federal governments) is merely an instrument of the capitalists for the oppression and exploitation of the working masses. The enormously bloated state machinery came about under conditions of imperialism and the general crisis of capitalism in an effort by the capitalists to stave off their doom. Tremendous class and national antagonisms and struggles required the imperialists to develop their military and police forces, as well as bureaucracy, to a gigantic extent. Since the Korean War, U.S. imperialism has been in rapid decline from its pinnacle on the top of the imperialist dung heap. To maintain its dark reactionary rule at home and to carry out aggression and plunder around the world, it has had to rapidly fascisize and militarize its state machine. The state apparatus grew dramatically in World Wars I and n and has developed at a far greater rate in the past 20 years. The monopoly capitalists used this state machine to avert total economic collapse -- enforcing stepped-up exploitation, and as an area of economic expansion itself. However, the state machine thus enormously expanded is still more parasitic and decayed and is bound to be afflicted with crises. In Detroit it is quite clear how the city government developed in service to the monopoly capitalists, step-by- step with their extreme decay, and is now in crisis as part of the capitalist system.

III. GROWTH OF DETROIT CITY GOVERNMENT AS INSTRUMENT OF BOURGEOIS FASCIST DICTATORSHIP

The fundamental purpose of Detroit city government and the state machine at all levels internal to the U.S. is to exercise the dictatorship of the monopoly capitalist class over the working class and other working people, over the Black people and over the other oppressed nationalities. The armed forces, police, jails (plus a massive bureaucracy) is the very backbone of the state as a whole. The particular mission of the state at this time is to develop fascism at home in order to:

1) enforce the shifting of the burden of the economic crisis onto the backs of the workers and

2) provide a quiet rear for U.S. imperialism in its aggressive adventures abroad, chiefly in its contention with the Soviet social-imperialists for world domination and its preparations for world war.

Over the last 25 years, there has been an enormous growth in the violent and repressive aspect of the Detroit city government as part of this national process. Today the Detroit police expenditures alone comprise over 35% of the entire city expenditures, while in 1950 they were under 7% of the city expenditures, a per-cent increase of five times. In 1967 the Black people of Detroit stood up in a heroic rebellion against racial discrimination and violent repression. To suppress such struggles, in this same period police expenditures more than doubled, increasing from $36 million in 1965 to $80 million in 1970. In the period since 1970 Detroit has had, on the one hand, the continuing resistance of the Black people (such as the rebellion in the Livernois area last July), the growing restlessness of the hundreds of thousands of auto and other workers, employed and unemployed, as well as the increasing dissemination of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought and the development of Marxist-Leninist organization. And, on the other hand, Detroit has had a steady growth of the policization and fascization of the city government, with police expenditures almost doubling again from $80 million in 1970 to $157 million in 1975. In 1971-3 the city government unleashed its police murder gang known as the STRESS squad to terrorize and gun down the Black people and youth. It has its "red squad" to attack the revolutionaries and has even developed an armed police air force consisting of 8 helicopters. In addition to attacking the masses with force, this tremendous growth of police apparatus has been a heavy financial burden on the people. While police costs were $10 per capita per year in 1950, in 1975 they were well over $100 per capita per year. It is clear that in Detroit there has been massive growth of the city government as an organ of violent dictatorship over the working masses.

IV. USE OF DETROIT CITY GOVERNMENT TO MAXIMIZE AND INSURE CAPITALISTS' PROFITS

The various capitalist parasites also use their state apparatus to maximize and insure maximum profits and as a field of investment. There are three important ways in which the Detroit city government gives "generous handouts" to the capitalists:

a) through construction and other contracts, real estate purchases and sales and various other commercial exchanges, the city government bureaucrats fork over huge sums of money extorted from the working people by taxation to the construction contractors, the real estate speculators and other private capitalists;

b) the city develops infrastructure for the capitalist enterprises. Instead of a capitalist building an industrial park or the retail monopolies building shopping centers, etc., the city government uses tax money to build them for the capitalists and then charges minimal rents;

c) the city government as an enterprise itself provides the big bankers and other financial institutions with a secure (almost always guaranteed by revenues collected from the masses) and tax-free investment. Today the big financial parasites own nearly $1 billion of Detroit debts in the form of bonds and notes. This spring the interest rate on these notes and bonds increased to 10%, which provides the coupon-clippers with what even Mayor Young considers an " extortionate rate on tax-exempt bonds". As the city increases its debts to cover the ever-growing deficit, more taxes are levied on the working people to pay the financiers their "extortionate" interest.

The big monopoly financiers have a virtual monopoly over the municipal bonds market. Therefore, they are in a position to determine the terms at which these tax-free bonds are sold. Not only do the bankers set the rate of interest but also directly dictate over the handling of the local government budgets, demanding, as in the case of Detroit, increased "productivity" from the workers, and so on. Through the control of government debts (the combined federal, state and local government debts totaled $647 billion in 1973) the financial oligarchy has another way in which it exercises its tyranny over the entire society. Detroit has not developed these handouts to the millionaires as rapidly as the police aspect of the city government and not nearly as rapidly as many local governments nationally. However, during the present financial crisis this aspect of the city budget has not been cut back and capital construction has increased. This April, when the city was cutting back in various sectors, it sold $4.5 million in urban renewal bonds, which was a relatively small handout to the capitalists.

These bonds are for road improvements in an industrial park and a housing project and for the purchase of property for a shopping center.

All this is a real boon for the real estate speculators, contractors, industrialists and chain store monopolists. At the same time, Northern Trust of Chicago, which bought the bonds, will receive $3.5 million dollars in tax-free interest from this $4.5 million loan. The city has plans for much more of this type of hand-out, including the construction of a $750 million rapid transit system and a $60 million stadium in the next several years.

Along with the development of the massive repressive machinery of the city government and the hand-outs to the millionaires, the government bureaucracy itself expands. Many of the high-level bureaucrats become very wealthy gobbling up the working masses' tax money, not only with their high salaries but also through the common practice of graft.

Thus the growth of these three aspects of the state apparatus, and not the "greediness of the city unions", accounts for the massive increase in the Detroit city budget over the last 25 years. In 1950, the city budget was $140 million, but by 1975 it had grown to $808 million, a 190% increase (allowing for 100% inflation of the dollar over that period). Over the same period, the population of Detroit has declined by 27%, making the increase in per capita expenditures by the city even more staggering. Also, jobs decreased over 37% between 1953 and 1970.

Thus the base on which to levy taxes declined greatly, making the burden all the heavier on the remaining, population. The vast majority of revenues for the swelling budget costs are extorted from the working masses by means of increases in the rate of taxation on property, the imposition of an income tax on the workers, and various other taxes and levies on the use of utilities, on sales, etc., etc. Another 20% of city revenues comes from state and federal taxes. This huge growth of the city budget has put an intolerable burden on the masses and has further impoverished them.

The present financial crisis in Detroit has been brought about by the industrial crisis. The industrial crisis has been expressed particularly sharply in Detroit with the collapse of the automobile market in the fall of 1973. As a result, on the one hand, the monopoly capitalists need an increase in city expenditures more than ever -- to maintain the police power of the government at a high level (to suppress the laid-off workers) and to use the public sector to cushion the effects of the present crisis on their profits. Thus, in the crisis years of 73-74 to 76-77 the city budget has grown from $533 million to $880 million. And, on the other hand, the crisis has increased the impoverishment of the masses, thus reducing the city's tax base, making it difficult for the monopoly capitalists to extort the ever-increasing revenues they require from the masses. The decline in industrial production has had a strong effect on city revenues. For example, Chrysler's two-week lay-off over the past Christmas alone is said to have caused a $275,000 loss in city income taxes. There has been massive unemployment of up to 60% in certain sections of Detroit and Mayor Young confesses that 80% of the young people are out of work. In the fiscal year 1975-1976, city revenues through local taxation were $6 million less than the previous year. The increased rates of taxation have not prevented the relative decline in revenues compared to the growth of the city budget. Young predicts that by the end of this year the city government will not be able to make $100 million of payments to the banks and that by 1980 there will be a $760 million deficit.

This deficit is being "covered" by selling more bonds and notes to the bankers, at rapidly increasing interest rates. However, Detroit is even having difficulty selling its tax-free bonds at 10% interest, double the pre-crisis rate. The municipal bonds market has been weakened in the general economic crisis and Detroit has become a relatively insecure investment. Mayor Young's offensive against the working masses of Detroit has as one of its stated aims stabilizing Detroit's finances so that the city can become a more secure investment and thus be able to sell more bonds to the bankers and further increase the city's indebtedness. Recently one of the Wall Street bond rating services, Standard and Poor's, lowered Detroit's bond rating to the lowest municipal rating in the country. But the vice- president of Standard and Poor's told Mayor Young that Detroit would still be able to sell its bonds to increase its indebtedness because the financiers are "impressed with the Mayor's forthrightness" and because "he doesn't pull any punches" in attacking the city workers and working masses. This stepping-up of the sale of very high-interest bonds simply means that some revenues are not collected from the masses today, but even more will be collected tomorrow in order to pay back the huge debt-service to the monopoly financiers. Increased deficit spending and the resulting increased taxation guarantees that the Detroit fiscal crisis will become ever more compounded in the future.

V. WHAT IS THIS NONSENSE ABOUT ''SAVING THE CITIES"?

The public sector in the U.S. has been expanded enormously by the monopoly capitalists in an attempt to insulate themselves from the effects of Economic crisis. Yet today the public sector is in severe financial crisis along with the entire capitalist economy of the U.S. and the world. Since the public sector is part of the capitalist system, this is inevitable. So what is all this talk by Mayor Young, other big city mayors and the "liberal" Democrats in Congress about "saving the cities"? According to these demagogues, the Ford administration has "turned its back on the plight of the cities", but if Hubert Humphrey had his way there would be no unemployment, no cut-backs or lay-offs and the cities would be "saved". This is political deception, pure and simple.

The various plans to "save the cities" are first and foremost a smokescreen. The "liberal" Democrats and the conservative Republicans have complete unanimity on the need for so-called "fiscal honesty" and a "realistic, hard hitting approach to fiscal matters". What this really means is illustrated by Detroit. There this "honest" program has been executed by the most "left" of "liberals" Coleman Young. His "fiscal honesty" meant to declare war on the city workers and the working people as a whole. In New York and other cities a similar "realistic approach" has been taken. Attacking the public sector workers and further impoverishing the masses, as an important part of shifting the burden of the economic crisis onto the working people, is the very heart of the program of the big city mayors and the "liberal" Democrats to "save the cities".

"Saving the cities" is also a component part of the extremely criminal and sinister over-all and strategic designs that the monopoly capitalist ruling circles have in store for the American people and the people of the world. The monopoly capitalists are feverishly developing fascist rule in this country as they prepare to plunge the world into a new world war even more terrible than the two previous world wars. However, U.S. imperialism is finding the going tougher and tougher. It has recently suffered total defeat at the hands of the heroic Indochinese people and is being pounded by the revolutionary struggles of the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America. Today, U.S. imperialism is losing ground to its superpower rival, Soviet social-imperialism, which is wildly ambitious and is the main source of a new world war. Gripped by the most severe economic crisis since WWII, the U.S. capitalists are trying to make the working people suffer the consequences, but they are meeting stiff resistance. The American working class and oppressed people are seething with discontent and long for the end of monopoly capitalist rule. In this situation, the old methods of exploitation and oppression will no longer suffice and new methods, more treacherous and tyrannical than before, are being developed.

Under the guise of being "pro-labor" and "against big business", the "liberal" Democrats are attempting to develop fascist state-monopoly capitalism. There is a whole series of programs being pushed in Congress to "end unemployment", to "prevent economic crisis through national planning", to "save the cities", plans for national health insurance and so on and so forth. These are proposals for a continuation and a higher development of massive expansion of the capitalist state machine (government) in an attempt to alleviate the burden of the present crisis on the capitalists and to further develop fascism. By concentrating various sectors of society under the direct control of the state, the monopoly capitalists hope to consolidate their own ranks and shift the entire burden of the crisis onto the working class and people. For instance, "national economic planning" would put the industrial trade unions fully into the hands of the state machine and turn the workers' defense organizations into state-monopoly institutions to enforce the increased exploitation of the workers. With the various jobs bills, the capitalists are trying to turn sections of the unemployed into scab labor under government pay-roll to replace and be used against organized workers. The plans to " save the cities" include various of these jobs and public works programs as well as the injection of even greater amounts of workers' tax dollars into the budgets of the city governments.

The "liberal" Democrats, with the aid of sections of the labor aristocracy (particularly the union misleaders) and various other opportunists within the workers' movement, are trying to win the support of the working class for this further development of fascism and state-monopoly and greater exploitation of the workers. According to these representatives of the bourgeoisie, the working class does not need to wage revolutionary class struggle to make the rich pay, to rise up in revolution, overthrow the monopoly capitalist class and smash up the existing state machine in order to win liberation. They are trying to convince the workers that salvation lies in various national programs to expand and perfect the state apparatus of the monopoly capitalist dictatorship, in order to expand and perfect the workers own exploitation. These "liberal" politicians and their programs are in no way the lesser evil as compared to the openly reactionary politicians such as Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan and their straight-forward fascist programs. The expansion and perfection of the state machine can only bring even greater exploitation and suffering and taxation to the working masses, bring imperialist wars and prolong the dark rule of the bourgeoisie. The only answer for the workers is to wage revolutionary class struggle to make the rich pay and thus to prepare for the proletarian revolution.

While one group of bourgeois politicians is calling for "national programs" to prop up the monopoly capitalist system, Gerald Ford, the chieftain of U.S. imperialism, is singing praises to its "vitality" and "strength". According to Ford's rhetoric, the public sector should not be expanded to solve the fiscal crisis of the cities, reduce unemployment and so on. He claims that the " solution" which will solve all these problems is simply to rely on the capitalist system to "recover" from its present crisis. (It is interesting how on the one hand this buffoon babbles about how the economy is "recovering", while, on the other hand, the financial crises at the state and local level are becoming ever more acute.)

During the present elections fraud, Ford is carrying out more and more political deception on the question of "big government" while he steps up federal spending. He is campaigning against "inflationary spending", "bureaucratic red tape" and even against "the tyranny of the federal government". What Ford actually means by "opposing inflationary spending' is that the wages of the public sector workers should be cut and the masses of unemployed and poor people left to starve in the streets so that more billions are available to the oil monopolies and other finance capitalists. Of course Ford does not intend to reduce the absolutely intolerable burden of the monopoly capitalists state machine on society. Despite the Republican dogma about "conservative spending', both the Nixon and Ford administrations have continued to expand the federal budget as the previous Democratic administrations had. Reagan, who is trying to outdo Ford in his demagogy "against" big government, behaved no differently when he was governor of California. Today, federal expenditures continue to rapidly swell as the monopoly capitalists attempt to use the public sector to extricate themselves from the present crisis, shift the burden of the crisis onto the workers, develop fascism and prepare for war. The monopoly capitalists will not and cannot provide cheap government. The masses have a strong desire to be free from the oppression of? the capitalists military, police, spy agencies, courts and prisons. There is great hatred for the huge bureaucracy which chokes the very lifeblood of the people, and hatred for the government which is used by the rich to suck the blood of the working people and reap maximum profits. However, the desire to be rid of this huge abscess can only be realized through a proletarian revolution which destroys the existing state and overthrows the capitalist system. Only a state of armed workers exercising the dictatorship of the proletariat, the vast majority, over the capitalist minority can bring about cheap and efficient government.

The only difference between the conservatives and "liberals" is a difference in method; they all have the same goal. All of the talk about "economic recovery" through stimulating the private sector by Ford, or by "saving the cities" and everything else by the "liberal" Democrats, is being proved idle chatter by real life. Both Nixon and Ford and the Democratic Congress have worked to expand federal expenditures to an extreme degree. Federal expenditures increased from $196 billion with a $2. 8 billion deficit in 1970 to $325 billion in 1975 with an expected deficit of $77 billion. In the same period the federal debt has increased from $382.6 billion while today it is estimated at $606 billion. Increased expenditures can only be paid for by increased direct taxation on the working masses or indirect taxation through increasing the debt and covering the deficit with the printing of dollars in excess of production, which in turn causes inflation and higher prices. Increasing taxes and inflation, however, only furthers the impoverishment of the masses, worsening the economic and fiscal crisis at all levels. No amount of juggling with the government budgets can prevent me capitalist system from being pounded by crisis in all fields. Attempts to stimulate the economy through increased federal spending have only intensified the over-all deep crisis of U.S. imperialism and are hastening its inevitable doom.

VI. MAKE THE RICH PAY!

The present deep economic crisis is bringing forth an upsurge in the workers' movement.

The capitalists are frantically seeking to lay off and speed up the workers and to cut their real wages through wage-cuts and by having the capitalist government inflate the currency. The workers are waging strike struggles and resisting the attacks of the capitalists and their state. The financial crisis of Detroit and other cities have resulted in the city and state governments declaring war on the public-sector workers under the slogans of "fiscal honesty" and "realistic, hard-hitting fiscal policies". Fascist measures are being employed to smash the unions of the public-sector workers. The public-sector workers are resisting those attacks, as shown by the recent strike in San Francisco.

The public-sector workers constitute 1 out of every 6 U.S. workers. The attacks on them are very sharp as they confront the state as employer. Their struggle is of great significance for the whole working class. Other struggles have occurred over cut-backs in city services affecting the well-being of city residents.

More and more sectors of workers have been joining the resistance movement against the attacks of the capitalists and their state. If the workers don't wish to be reduced to the status of mere slaves, they have no choice but to fight to make the rich pay for the crisis.

The capitalist politicians are trying to deceive the masses that "the cities can be saved", that the workers need not wage the resistance struggle but should instead support one group of political con-men or another. This is deception. There is no cure from the gods of plague. As long as capitalism exists, there will be crises. The "solutions" of the capitalist politicians, both "liberals" and " conservatives", are meant to increase fascization, smash the workers' unions, impoverish the workers and aid war preparations.

The "conservatives'" talk against "big government" is sheer fraud. They use it to create public opinion against the "high wages" of the public sector workers. Actually the "conservatives" just as much as the "liberals" are expanding the government as fast as possible and taxing the masses to the maximum. An increase of wages for public sector workers will decrease the funds available for distribution among the capitalists but not in general affect the tax rates.

The struggle against high taxes has the same target, the monopoly capitalist state, as the struggle of the public sector workers. The workers should fight high taxes too. In fact, why should the workers pay any tribute to the capitalist state at all?

The "liberals" are even more treacherous than the "conservatives" because they present themselves as friends of the workers and concerned for their welfare. The aim of their deception is to gain the confidence of a section of the workers, split their unity and undermine the workers' resistance movement. They call for developing state-monopoly capital so as to have the monopoly capitalists consolidate their ranks, while the unions are to be placed under government control through "national economic planning" and job programs developed to use the unemployed as scab labor to replace organized workers.

The workers are rejecting the capitalist politicians. The correct orientation for their struggle is to resist actively at the place of work, in their sector and as part of the entire working class against the attacks of the capitalists and the capitalist state. The immediate aim of the struggle is to make the rich pay while the ultimate aim is the overthrow of the capitalist system and the establishment of a socialist, workers' republic, that is, the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Workers know that others can help but the main brunt of the proletarian class struggle has to be borne by the workers themselves. In this era of imperialism and proletarian revolution, it is up to the workers to emancipate themselves. Those who produce everything and suffer so much from the exploitation and repression by the capitalists and their state cannot sit on the sidelines with folded arms waiting for some condescending savior or bourgeois liberal to save them. The only path for the workers is to fight the class war themselves, launch an offensive, and MAKE THE RICH PAY! End


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ACTIVE RESISTANCE TO FASCISM

Louisville

Reprinted below is an account of the resistance struggle being waged by a supporter of COUSML, Comrade Jim Bennet, who was fascistically attacked and arrested by the police in Louisville as he was distributing literature at a factory gate exposing the fascist anti-busing movement.

WHO IS JIM Bennet AND WHY ARE THE POLICE TRYING HIM FOR "ASSAULT"?

Jim Bennet is a young communist worker and supporter of the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists (COUSML). On March 11, comrade Jim was at the Philip Morris plant gate distributing a leaflet entitled "GET ORGANIZED TO FIGHT RACISM AND FASCISM", and talking with workers about the recent reactionary violence of the anti-busing movement. Right before the shift changed, when there were few workers around, a Louisville policeman approached Jim and belligerently asked him if he had a permit. When comrade Jim pointed out that this was ridiculous and that no permit was required to distribute leaflets this policeman suddenly assaulted comrade Jim, throwing him to the ground, cutting his face to the extent it required five stitches, and trying to bash his head into the wall. Of course comrade Jim quite justly resisted this assault and four more policemen rushed up to assist in arresting him and putting him into the police car. For comrade Jim 's just defense of the right to distribute revolutionary literature to the working class he was charged with ''disorderly conduct", ''assault", and "resisting arrest". He will soon be tried on these charges in the Louisville Police Court. Analysis of these charges shows that they are:

1) part of an over-all attempt by the state machine (courts, police, legislature, etc.) to suppress the distribution of revolutionary literature and especially to stop the exposure of the racist and fascist nature of the anti-busing movement and to prevent the communists from assisting the workers in getting organized to fight racism and fascism. And,

2) an attempt to cover up this fascist activity of the state machine by charging comrade Jim with "criminal" charges to make the trial appear to be a "criminal" trial and not a political trial, and charging comrade Jim with the actual crimes of the state machine, i.e. "assault", etc.

To understand this analysis and "who is Jim Bennet and why are the police trying him for 'assault'" it is necessary to look into the whole series of events leading up to the March 11 violent police attack.

Since the fall of 1975 comrade Jim has worked with the COUSML in carrying out propaganda against the anti-Black, anti-worker anti-busing movement. He has participated in various demonstrations, meetings and other events against the anti-busing movement and has been assisting his fellow workers to get organized to support the struggle against racial discrimination and violent repression. Since the fall of 1975 comrade Jim and the COUSML have frequently distributed revolutionary literature at Philip Morris and has been conducting discussion among the workers there on this busing issue.

The COUSML has pointed out that the issue is not busing per se but that the monopoly capitalists through their government are building a fascist mass movement to attack the democratic right of the Black people to attend integrated public schools and are thereby attacking the entire working class. The COUSML has pointed out that the monopoly capitalists are promoting busing in the most mutilated and disruptive way to create conditions for and to promote the rise of the anti-busing movement. The COUSML has pointed out that the anti-busing movement is neither "anti-government" nor is it fighting for "freedom and democracy", but in fact is an attack on the democratic rights of Black people, and an attempt to further split the working class and prepare conditions for the further fascization of the U.S. state. The COUSML has discussed these matters among the workers and has been assisting them to get organized to combat this growing racism and fascism.

Certain well-known racist bullies (members of the KKK. advocates of "anti-busing" and loyal lackeys of the U.S. monopoly capitalist class) who work as mechanics at Philip Morris were afraid to allow the workers to read the revolutionary literature of the COUSML. They were scared to death to even let the workers democratically discuss this busing issue with the communists and for this reason on February 25 they threatened and violently attacked comrade Jim and another comrade when they were at Philip Morris distributing the February issue of TheWorkers' Advocate (which featured a detailed exposure of the racist anti-busing movement). Although these bullies were much larger, the communists resisted their attack, gave them tit-for-tat, and when the fight paused for a moment, the two racist bullies ran off.

After the fight comrade Jim and the other comrade again began to distribute The Worker's Advocate and for another half hour talked about the fight with some fifty workers who stayed at the plant gate. Many of these workers denounced the attack by the bullies, warmly supported the stiff resistance of the communists and pointed out that these two-bit bullies were well-known racists who were afraid to have the paper distributed at Philip Morris because it told the truth about the anti-Black and anti-worker anti-busing movement.

Comrade Jim and other supporters of the COUSML returned to Philip Morris the very next day and distributed a leaflet denouncing the attack by the two bullies, heralding the resistance struggle and calling on the workers to RESIST RACIST ATTACKS OF THE ANTI-BUSING MOVEMENT. All that day one of the attackers known as Smokey had paraded around the plant trying to intimidate the workers and bragging that he had supposedly "beaten up the communists", so when the COUSML comrades arrived over 200 workers gathered at the main gate expecting another fight. Many of the workers were glad to see the communists return. They openly defied fascist intimidation, shook the comrades' hands, denounced the fascist attack of the day before and encouraged the communists to hold their ground. In fact, a number of workers said they were staying for the sole reason of fighting the racist bullies if they dared to launch another attack. Several police cars arrived at the plant. Several of the plant supervisors, a security guard, and a clique of fascist thugs gathered near the main gate. But seeing the resolve of the communists and the warm support they were receiving from the workers neither Philip Morris nor the police nor the fascist thugs dared to attack, and everyone waited to see if the fascists' champion, Smokey, dared to show his face. As the shift change ended word began to spread--Smokey had sneaked out the back door. Workers began to laugh, some taunted the fascists shouting "you'd better watch out for the communists" and most agreed that this was a fine event. Through active resistance the violent attack of the fascists had been turned into its opposite. The fascists attempted to coerce and bully the workers into not seeking the truth about the fascist anti-busing movement, had tried to isolate and attack the communists. But by actively resisting this fascist attack the communists won warm support among many of the workers and the fascist anti-busers were further exposed and so isolated among the workers that they did not even dare to show their face.

The monopoly capitalists were completely unnerved by this turn of events. It is because the fascist anti-busers were exposed and defeated at the plant gates that Philip Morris called in the police. First Smokey and the leaders of the anti-busing movement began a campaign of lies and distortions aimed at mystifying the struggle at Philip Morris and to prepare public opinion for further attacks on the communists, and then on March 11 the police violently attacked and arrested comrade Jim.

This has been the role of the police, as the armed wing of the state machine, since the beginning of the anti-busing movement. Since last September the anti-busing movement has launched numerous violent attacks on the people of Louisville including stoning buses full of school children, beatings, the bombing of a home, etc. In all of this the police have either not shown up, or stood idly by claiming nothing could be done to stop the fascists, or they have actually attacked the people themselves. When people have stood up and resisted the fascists, the police are always right there to suppress this resistance. When a bus driver used a club to chase away anti-busers who were stoning his bus full of children, the police rushed up and forced him back onto the bus. When Mr. Spain defended himself against an attack from a downtown anti-busing march of ULAB, and was giving his attackers tit-for-tat, the police suddenly appeared and arrested him for "disorderly conduct". Now when the communists resist the fascists and actually chase them off, it is again the police who appear to violently attack and arrest them.

But the anti-busing movement is a paper tiger. Its only strength rests in the fact that it is completely instigated, organized and backed by the state machine. The U.S. government is a tool of the monopoly capitalist class. It is their main instrument for perpetuating the exploitation and oppression of the American working class and people . The police are the armed wing of this government and their role is to violently suppress the just struggles of the workers, whether trade union struggles or the fight against racism and fascism. In Louisville, the police have acted to suppress the resistance to the anti-busing movement and they are the chief defenders of it.

But this attempt by the police to suppress the communists at Philip Morris has failed. On March 11 comrade Jim resisted the attack to the extent that four more policemen had to come to their partner's assistance and such a scene was created that many workers saw the attack with their own eyes and have come to understand that the police are the best defenders of the anti-busing movement. Another comrade who was at the plant gate on March 11 was completely undaunted by the attack and threats of the police, and continued to distribute leaflets and denounce their fascist attack. Comrades of the COUSML returned to the plant the next day and comrade Jim has distributed The Workers' Advocate and other revolutionary literature at the plant weekly since he was attacked.

So the first point is that the charges and upcoming trial of comrade Jim is an attempt to use the courts to do what the violent attacks by the anti-busing movement and the police have been unable to do: that is, suppress the distribution of revolutionary literature among the workers and especially to stop the exposure of the anti-Black, anti-worker anti-busing movement, and to prevent the communists from assisting the workers in organizing active resistance to racism and fascism.

The second point is that the monopoly capitalists want to hide the fact that the U.S. government is a fascist state and they wish to perpetuate the fraud that this is a bourgeois "democracy". They try and perpetuate this fraud of democracy by claiming that the workers have certain "democratic rights" like "freedom of speech" or "freedom of association". But if the workers try to practice these "democratic rights" by for instance, distributing revolutionary literature and politically organizing themselves to overthrow this fascist state, they are violently suppressed by the police, courts, etc.

It is a well known fact that the police use such charges as "disorderly conduct", "assault" and "resisting arrest" to arbitrarily arrest progressive people whenever they like.

So in order to perpetuate this fraud of "democracy" and conceal the fact that the state is actually bringing comrade Jim to trial for political reasons, the state is on the one hand bringing "Criminal" charges against comrade Jim and floating the myth that this is a criminal trial, and on the other hand they are charging Jim with the actual crimes of the police.

Was comrade Jim "disorderly"? No, he was simply passing out leaflets and talking with the workers at Philip Morris, something he has done frequently since last fall. It was the police who were completely disorderly and created a whole scene at Philip Morris by attacking Jim. Did comrade Jim "assault" the police? Certainly not. Comrades of the COUSML are a disciplined and organized bunch. If they had wanted to assault policemen they would have simply organized to go out and assault any of the hundreds of policemen which can be found all over the city.

It is absolutely ridiculous to think they would wait at Philip Morris in the hopes that some day a policeman would come there so that the communists could assault him, Communists are not terrorists. Communists understand that it is only the organized revolutionary action of the masses that will bring about change and not some incidental "assault" on some individual policeman. The political line of the COUSML and the social practice of the comrades flowing from that line have been quite clear. And that is to distribute revolutionary literature and expose the fascist anti-busing movement and its masters and sponsors -- the monopoly capitalist class and their state machine; unite with everyone that is actually opposing the anti-busing movement and the state machine, and participating in supporting the Afro-American and anti-fascist movement; defend the right to distribute revolutionary literature, actively resist all attacks of the fascist anti-busing movement and the state machine and clarify that it is only this road of active, tit-for-tat resistance that will arouse the Black people and the workers to unite against this anti-busing movement and lead them to go over to proletarian revolution to completely wipe out the source of racism and fascism in the U.S., the monopoly capitalist class.

Comrade Jim's only "crime" is that he has followed this political line to the letter, that he has defended the right to distribute revolutionary literature and has resisted the violent attack by the police and further that he has begun to win the support and unity of the workers for this political line. It is not comrade Jim who has "assaulted" the police, but it is the police that have assaulted comrade Jim in order to suppress this political line.

The final point on "Who is Jim Bennet and why are the police trying him for assault?" is that the monopoly capitalists and their anti-busing movement and their state machine are bound to fail. Exploitation and oppression gives rise to resistance. This is a law of history. The racial discrimination and violent repression by the anti-busing movement and the state machine are giving rise to resistance to racial discrimination and violent repression. The monopoly capitalists are attacking comrade Jim in an attempt to suppress the distribution of revolutionary literature and to prevent the workers from getting organized to actively resist this growing racism and fascism. But the actual effect of their hysterical attack has been to increase the revolutionary consciousness of the workers and to prepare them for revolutionary anti-fascist struggle. What the monopoly capitalists are doing after all, is to prepare for their own doom. Their fall and the victory of the working class are equally inevitable.

(Reprinted from the Louisville Red Banner, organ of the Louisville Branch of the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists, Vol. 3, No. 2, April 26, 1976.) End

Boston

Reprinted below is a leaflet issued by the Boston Branch of the COUSML denouncing the attacks on the Black people by the fascist anti-busing movement there. When the trotskyites and other opportunists capitulated to fascism and called off an anti-racist demonstration planned for April 24 in Boston, COUSML comrades that day distributed over 3,500 of this leaflet in working-class areas.

DENOUNCE THE REAL TROUBLEMAKERS!

From the very beginning, the "anti-busing" movement--ROAR--was a racist movement; it was organized and led by government officials, and it was aimed against the democratic rights of Black people. Now this racist movement has moved to organizing direct violent attacks on Black people themselves and is still being organized and led by representatives of the government. These recent attacks are part of a long and continuing series of such attacks against Afro-Americans and other national minority people, organized and led by this Hitlerite movement over the last one and a half years.

In recent weeks, the representatives of the aimed state machine (locally represented by Boston Mayor Kevin White and the city government, Governor Dukakis and the State government, the police forces, courts, etc.), the bourgeois media, the churches, and the monopoly capitalists themselves who boss over the entire arsenal -- have all leaped out in a big hysterical campaign to 1) create an atmosphere of hysteria over racist attacks, 2) blame the racist attacks on the working class and especially upon the Afro-American people, and 3) mystify what the problem is in Boston.

The problem in Boston is not busing; the problem here is the fascist anti-busing movement which attacks the Afro-American people and the entire working class. As part of their drive to further develop fascism in the U.S. the monopoly capitalists are organizing a fascist mass movement on the question of busing. This fascist anti-busing movement attempts to mobilize a section of the white working people to violently and in other ways attack the democratic right of Afro-American workers and other Afro-Americans to have their children attend integrated public schools together with the children of white workers and other laboring white people. The monopoly capitalists take the democratic demand for school integration, promote it in a mutilated and distorted way so as to stir up conflicts among the people to a high pitch, and, on this basis, organize the fascist mass movement not only to sabotage further integration but also to deprive Afro-Americans of the meager rights they won in the 1960's and to drive them backwards towards all the oldest and most barbaric features of the Jim Crow segregationist system. To carry this out, the monopoly capitalists attempt to mobilize a section of the white working people to go against their real class interests, to split the working class further, to take the side of the bloodthirsty capitalist class enemy and trample on the rights of the Afro-American people.

The source of the racist attacks is not the working class or the Afro-American people, but the government itself. From the very beginning, it has been plain to all that the fascist movement--ROAR--is organized and led by the monopoly capitalists' government. The leadership for this fascist movement has come directly from the chambers of the Boston City Council, the School Committee and the Police Department, from the thoroughly rotten circles of Louise Day Hicks and other such racist scum. Nationally, this racist and fascist movement has been consistently egged on by Gerald Ford and other major political representatives of the bourgeoisie.

However, the government presents two faces as it carries out the promotion of the fascist movement. One face is openly violent and racist, fascist and reactionary: this is the face that is to be seen openly backing the fascist movement and carrying out the racist attacks. But there is another face to the government of the monopoly capitalist class: this is a face that appears as humanitarian and kind. The agents of the bourgeoisie wearing this face rely more on political deception to promote the fascist mass movement and carry out the racist attacks. These "liberals" shout themselves hoarse about how they are for "equality" and "civil rights", all the while giving assistance to the fascist movement by disarming the people physically and ideologically from actively resisting racist attacks.

So, while the government talks about equality it is organizing the racist attacks and preaching that the Black people, and other progressive people have no right to oppose the racist attacks. For example, in the midst of this week's propaganda barrage, Kevin White is calling for "moderation and reason". What is this "moderation and reason"? While Theodore Landsmark was being beaten by racist thugs, Kevin White stood behind his window in City Hall and watched-- this is his "moderation and Reason"! What does it mean for the government to call for "moderation and reason" while it is actually organizing the racist attacks? It means that Afro-American people have no right to defend themselves against attacks, that the working class and progressive people have no right to oppose these attacks.

This is "moderation and reason".

In the Black community and among progressive people, there are opportunists who agree with Kevin White. Because the sentiment against the fascist anti-busing movement and the racist attacks is strong, these elements organized a demonstration to beg the government to integrate the schools and to stop the racist attacks -- the same government which is instigating the attacks. Then they canceled the demonstration because racist attacks are taking place. In other words, the opportunists organize surrender. These elements first make racism a moral issue instead of showing that it is a class issue, thus hiding the role of the state in organizing the racist attacks. Second, they advocate that Afro-American people have no right to defend themselves, and that working class and progressive people have no right to oppose the racist attacks; the only "right" they talk about is the right" to beg the government, the same government responsible for the attacks in the first place. In effect, they plead for a cure from the gods of plague!

So it is necessary to again and again point out that busing is not the problem in Boston, but fascism is. Today the government of the U.S. monopoly capitalist class is in big trouble. It is faced with deepening crisis on the economic, political, social and other fronts. It is having a very difficult time finding a way out of this situation, being met as it is with the growing resistance of the masses of workers against the shifting of the economic crisis onto their backs, and the all-round struggles of the people of Asia, Africa and Latin America against colonialism, imperialism and superpower hegemonism. In addition, the U.S. imperialists are fiercely contending with the other superpower, the Soviet Union, for world hegemony, and this is bound to lead to a new world war. In such a situation, what the U.S. monopoly capitalists desperately need is a way out, so as to be able to better prepare for war and shift the full burden of the crisis on the backs of the working masses. It is for this that the monopoly capitalists are at this time sponsoring the fascist mass movement: by doing propaganda and preparing public opinion for race war, they will be able to further split the working class, and thus have the necessary conditions for the full militarization of the society and the establishment of a terrorist dictatorship of the Hitler/Mussolini type.

In sum, the problem in Boston is not busing, nor is it"racial tension" and "irrational hatred". The problem is the fascist and racist anti-busing movement which is carrying out racist attacks, and is directly organized by the state machine of the monopoly capitalists. This is not a moral question, but a class question. The monopoly capitalists have launched this fascist mass movement and are doing active propaganda for race war so that they can develop more open, terroristic dictatorship over the working class and the people. The entire working class, all Afro-American people and other progressive people must stand up and resolutely oppose this fascist anti-busing movement!

DOWN WITH THE RACIST AND FASCIST "ANTI-BUSING" MOVEMENT!

DOWN WITH RACIST ATTACKS ORGANIZED BY THE MONOPOLY CAPITALISTS' STATE MACHINE!

LONG LIVE THE UNITY OF THE AMERICAN WORKING CLASS! End


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SAN FRANCISCO WORKERS WAGE HARD-FOUGHT STRIKE

[Photo: Workers must resist the shifting of the burden of the economic crisis onto them by the capitalists and their state. Here a striking San Francisco city worker resists an attack of the fascist police.]

The San Francisco city workers recently waged a hard-fought strike struggle to resist the city's financial crisis being shifted onto them. Their strike is an inspiration to the public sector workers across the country and to the working class and people as a whole, who are faced with the same task -- to resolutely oppose the shifting of the burden of the capitalist's crisis onto their shoulders and to make the rich pay for the economic crisis they have caused.

Confronted with a city ordinance passed by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and Mayor George Moscone which cut their collective wages by $5.7 million a year, the 1,900 city crafts workers struck on March 31. This wage-cut is a vicious attack on the living conditions of the workers, who include carpenters, electricians, janitors, laborers, machinists, sheet-metal workers, and street-sweepers. It amounts to an average annual cut of some $3,000 per worker, although for some of the workers the cut is as much as 30% of their total pay! United as one they defied the city government's fascist ruling that their strike was illegal. They persevered in their struggle for over a month, setting up picket lines throughout the city and staging militant demonstrations. The ordinance cutting the workers' pay was passed on March 29 -- before the expiration date of the old contracts. This unilateral abrogation of the union contracts is a fascist attack on the workers and their trade unions. It is well known that the San Francisco city government is deeply in debt to the finance capitalists (per capita debt is $1,225) and that it serves up huge sums of tax money to the finance capitalists in debt-service payments yearly. These millions of dollars of parasitic interest are left in the budget while the burden of the fiscal crisis has been shifted onto the city workers.

The city crafts workers' strike gained wide support. The 2,000 Muni workers (city bus and trolley car workers) honored the picket lines from the first day of the strike and they participated in the demonstrations against the city government's attack. As well, many other city workers from various departments honored picket lines and supported the strike. There were simultaneous strikes by San Francisco taxi-drivers and the commuter bus drivers who drive across the Golden Gate bridge. The ferry workers and the bridge repair workers refused to cross the picket lines of the commuter bus drivers, thus lending the strike still more strength. This shows that the will to fight among the Bay area workers is quite strong.

The vigor and solidarity among the workers is in striking contrast to the parasitism and decay of the gloomy San Francisco capitalists.

The city of San Francisco is an excellent illustration of the increasing parasitism and reaction that is so characteristic of U.S. imperialism. San Francisco is the west coast headquarters of finance capital. As befits such a "sophisticated" center of coupon-clipping and financial wheeling-and-dealing, the city has by now almost no productive base. There is almost no large-scale industry within the city while a high proportion of the economy is directly based on imperialist plunder of Asia, Africa and Latin America, finance-capitalist transactions, tourism, etc. Many attacks on the working class and people have originated from the capitalists of this Mecca of high finance.

One such attack was the "counter-culture" created by the bourgeoisie in the 1960's to attack and undermine the vigorous youth and student movement. Through the "counter-culture" the bourgeoisie pushed ideas of individual salvation and opposed revolutionary class struggle. The Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco was turned into a center for this counter-revolutionary corruption, where the bourgeoisie attempted to remold the youth and students in its own image -- into drug addicts, human vegetables, sexual perverts and thorough degenerates -- in order to save capitalism at the expense of the most inhuman oppression of the younger generation.

For their crimes against the city workers and the working class and people as a whole, the finance capitalists of San Francisco have gained the hatred of large numbers of workers and other oppressed people. The working class of San Francisco has a glorious history of fighting the bourgeoisie. The San Francisco general strike of 1934 was a great class battle. 150,000 workers from the Bay area waged the strike struggle to defeat the attempts by the capitalists to suppress the longshoremen and maritime workers' strike, and to thereby defend and strengthen the entire labor movement. As well, the strike was waged to avenge the two martyred strikers who had been brutally murdered by the police and national guard.

The recent militant strike of the San Francisco city workers is right in this tradition of struggle and is a sharp blow against the finance capitalists program of shifting the burden of the economic crisis, and particularly the fiscal crisis of the cities, onto the workers and oppressed people. End


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Cook County Government Tries to Shift Crisis Burden onto Workers

The Cook County (Illinois) Board recently passed this year's annual budget cutting out the cost-of-living increases of 11,000 county employees and limiting the wage increases of an additional 9,000 county hospital employees to 5.3% after a freeze on their wages last year.

County Board President George Dunne ordered county employees to "stand fast" while their cost-of-living increases are being cut and their wages are further deteriorating.

To justify the actions of the County Board against county employees, Dunne declared that a "budget crunch" had ruled out the pay increases. Yet the operating budget for this year set a new record of 173 million while the total budget for Cook County reached 364 million. By asserting that a budget crunch had ruled out pay increases for county employees, Dunne attempts to mystify and hide the class nature of the County Board. For the County Board is an organ of the state machine (governments at various levels, courts, laws, police, etc.) which is an instrument of the monopoly, capitalist class for carrying out exploitation and oppression and pushing the burden of the economic crisis onto the backs of the working class and oppressed people.

With the intensifying economic crisis in the U.S., a crisis which is also helping to propel the U.S. imperialists into a new world war with the Soviet social-imperialists, the monopoly capitalists are attempting to shift the burden of the economic crisis onto the backs of the working and oppressed people. The state machinery of the monopoly capitalists plays a key role in shifting the burden. And as both legislator and employer the state is in a good position to attack the living standard of its own employees through arbitrary wage freezes, wage cuts, hiring freezes and threats of layoffs because of threatened cutbacks in services.

County Board President Dunne further carried out the attack on county workers by promising to submit new tax proposals this year to generate funds for a cost-of-living raise for county employees for next year. For in making this promise he attempts to turn people of Cook County against the just demands by comity workers for an increase in wages by spreading the lie that wage increases of county employees will necessitate increased taxes for county taxpayers.

Yet as cost-of-living increases were cut from the wages of county workers a few weeks ago (besides the wage freeze on 9000 county hospital employees throughout last year), tax increase after increase was on property and one on new automobiles. So it was not an increase in wages which was forcing up the taxes. This deception that an increase in wages increases taxes is constantly used by the government at various levels in an effort to hold down the wages of their own employees in order to reserve maximum funds to provide services and subsidies to the monopoly capitalist class. The capitalist class and their lackeys always blame the people for the problems the capitalists themselves create. Comrade Marx pointed out (Capital p. 756) that it is growing public debt, a law of capitalism, which causes tax increases."As the national debt finds its support in the public revenue, which must cover the yearly payments for interest, etc., the modern system of taxation was the necessary compliment of the system of national loans. The loans enable the government to meet extraordinary expenses, without the taxpayer feeling it immediately, but they necessitate, as a consequence, increased taxes. On the other hand, the raising of taxation caused by the accumulation of debts contracted one after another, compels the government always to have recourse to new loans for new extraordinary expenses. Modem fiscality, whose pivot is formed by taxes on the most necessary means of subsistence (thereby increasing their price), thus contains within itself the germ of automatic progression. Over-taxation is not an incident, it is a principle."

And Lenin further makes the point (State andRevolution p. 13) that: "For the maintenance of the special public power standing above society, taxes and state loans are needed."

Thus, he shows that taxes serve to maintain the state machine of the monopoly capitalist class over the working and oppressed people.

How has the Cook County Board, an organ of the capitalist state machinery, been using tax dollars to subsidize and service the monopoly capitalists and most recently to cushion them from the effects of the economic crisis?

Beginning in 1949 the county government began pouring large amounts of money into superhighways. Then in the mid-fifties to the mid-sixties it began issuing even larger expressway bonds. This contributed to the building of the infrastructure for the monopoly capitalists to further expand in the area while creating massive debt for the taxpayers of Cook County. In one year, from '54 to '55, the bonded debt for Cook County rose from 76 million to 109.6 million. By 1960 the bonded debt had risen to 235 million, largely due to the expressway bonds which provided a much needed service to the monopoly capitalists.

Between 1957 and 1968 the county government issued a number of bonds for hospital improvements. Now they are talking of closing down large sections of the county hospital where millions of tax dollars were poured into the hands of construction companies for improvements.

In 1968 the County Board began issuing one bond after another for police equipment, "law enforcement", jails, criminal court complex, etc. The floating of these bonds also provided a needed service for the monopoly capitalists-- to suppress the mass movement of the Afro-American people against racial discrimination and violent repression and the youth and student movement against imperialist war and against the bourgeois culture and educational system, mass movements which were rapidly developing at that time.

In the current 1976 operating budget "Protection of Persons and Property" (police, jails, courts, etc.) is 69% or 119.2 million dollars.

Ten years ago the budget for this was 25. 8 million. Within a period of ten years direct subsidies into "Protection of Persons and Properties" have increased 6 fold and this does not even include the bonds floated or construction projects in this area. This year alone 22 new trial courts will be opened in the county.

With the upsurges of the mass movements in the late '60s and early '70s and with the deepening of the economic crisis, a steadily increasing amount of tax dollars has been channeled into suppressing the struggles of the Afro-American people and other national minorities, the youth and students and the working class. This money being channeled into the violent arm of the state machinery clearly shows the role of the state machinery as an organ for maintaining the rule of the monopoly capitalists. Today with the growing contention between the two superpowers, U.S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism, the danger of a third world war is rapidly in creasing. With the growing danger of a third world war grows the need for the U.S. imperialists to prepare for this war by trying to make a quiet rear at home by building fascism within the United States.

So the first point on how the County Board is using tax dollars to subsidize and service the monopoly capitalists is that the county government has contributed to developing the infrastructure for expansion for the monopoly capitalists. Secondly from the floating of securities and bonds the finance capitalists reap huge interest payments. Furthermore, large deposits of tax dollars are made available for use by the finance capitalists. As the county treasurer boasts, the county budget is a real "utopia for bankers". Thirdly, the County Board contributes to the building of fascism by beefing up the police force, courts, etc. U.S. imperialism needs this in order to develop a quiet rear to aid its contention with Soviet social-imperialism for world hegemony. The fourth point is that the county government hands out subsidies to the monopoly capitalists. For example, at the county hospitals, while cutting down on the number of beds, freezing the wages of county hospital workers and putting a freeze on the hiring of workers, a steadily increasing amount of money is being passed through the hospitals and into the hands of the monopoly capitalists who own the hospital supply, hospital equipment, hospital machinery companies and the huge drug companies.

The state plays a key role in shifting the burden of the economic crisis onto the working class. As an organ of the state machine, the county government is attacking the working class and particularly its own employees while expanding its subsidies and services to the monopoly capitalists in order to cushion them from the effects of the economic crisis and to serve their preparations for world war.

Only by uniting in struggle, consciously opposing the political deception of the county government and actively resisting the shifting of the burden of the economic crisis onto themselves can county workers limit their exploitation. The working class must not be deceived by the deception of the County Board. An increase in wages for county workers would not mean an increase in taxes, but rather it would mean that the County Board would have less money to distribute to the monopoly capitalists in services and subsidies. End


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LONG LIVE MAY 1st - REVOLUTIONARY HOLIDAY OF THE INTERNATIONAL WORKING CLASS!

May 1st was May Day, the revolutionary holiday of the international working class. On May 1st the workers of the world celebrate the victories of their struggles and prepare to carry the proletarian revolution through to the end, emancipating themselves together with all oppressed classes and nations and eliminating classes entirely.

In the U.S. today the monopoly capitalist class is the ruling class and viciously exploits and oppresses the working class and the broad masses of the people. The working class is struggling against this oppression and is preparing to overthrow the monopoly capitalists. The capitalists have attempted to eliminate May Day for the U.S. working class and replace it with "Law Day", a day on which the workers are supposed to kneel down before the capitalist government and its laws which enforce the workers' wage-slavery. But where there is oppression there is resistance, and the U.S. working class also celebrated its May Day amidst the fires of class struggle.

Today the U.S. monopoly capitalists are still deep in economic crisis and are feverishly shifting its burden onto the backs of the workers.

The crisis has spread from industry into the city and state governments. The workers are suffering stepped-up exploitation and oppression all along the line. Massive unemployment, outright wage-cuts, inflation, speed-up, hazardous conditions, tax increases, decreases in welfare and food stamps, cuts in services -- this is the lot of the working and oppressed masses.

Against this stepped-up exploitation, the working class today is waging a vigorous resistance movement. The present militant strike movement, including the Teamsters' strike, the rubber workers' strike and the San Francisco cityworkers' strike, is causing great consternation to the capitalists.

In order to enforce this exploitation and to keep a quiet home front for imperialist world war, the monopoly capitalists are rapidly fascisizing their state machine (government at all levels, including police, courts, jails, armed forces and bureaucracy), thus strengthening their armed dictatorship. The capitalist government is also organizing the fascist anti-busing movement among the people, to attack and divide the working class by attacking the doubly-oppressed Black people. Thus, on top of increased exploitation, the workers face the development of naked violent fascist rule by their oppressors. Against this, too, the masses are heroically resisting, as for example the Black workers and people and their supporters in Louisville and Boston.

Assisting the monopoly capitalists in their suppression of the working masses are the upper sections of the labor aristocracy, especially the union misleaders, sold-out intellectuals and the opportunist political organizations which represent them -- the revisionists, trotskyites and their like. They attempt to smash every struggle of the masses with reformism, terrorism, etc. They are better defenders of the bourgeoisie than the bourgeoisie itself and are the main obstacle to the developing struggles of the broad masses.

Driven by its need for maximum profits, the U.S. monopoly capitalist class is also shifting the burden of its crisis onto the oppressed nations of Asia, Africa and Latin America and intensifying its exploitation of them. In return, the people of these countries are escalating their struggles for national liberation. One year ago the people of Indochina defeated U.S. imperialism, sending it further into decline. Today the Palestinian people, the people of southern Africa and others are waging armed struggles for national liberation, battering the U.S. imperialists, who are also enemies of the U.S. working class.

Today capitalism has been restored in the Soviet Union and the once-socialist Soviet state has become an evil social-imperialist superpower.

For the same reasons as the U.S. imperialists, it too is oppressing and plundering the oppressed nations and is contending furiously with U.S. imperialism for world domination. In its wild expansion it has turned Eastern Europe into its colony, invaded Czechoslovakia, dismembered Pakistan, plundered India, interfered in Portugal, and now has sent its Cuban puppets to invade and occupy Angola -- all in the name of " socialism". It is trying to edge out U.S. imperialism everywhere, while U.S. imperialism is desperately trying to hold onto its ill-gotten booty.

The contention between the superpowers is becoming sharper and sharper and is leading the world into a new world war, a war of conquest and plunder by the superpowers. But the struggles of the workers, oppressed nations and people of the world are converging on the two superpowers and their running dogs. The workers in the capitalist and revisionist countries are rising. The liberation struggles of the oppressed nations are developing vigorously. The Angolan people are heroically fighting their second Anti-Colonial War to kick out the Soviet aggressors. In China, personally led by Chairman Mao Tsetung and the Central Committee of the Communist Party, the working class and people are struggling militantly against the bourgeoisie inside and outside the Party so as to defeat its attempts at capitalist restoration. An international united front against the superpowers consisting of countries fighting for independence, nations fighting for liberation and people fighting for revolution is developing under the leadership of Chairman Mao. Either war will give rise to revolution or revolution will prevent the war; either way, although the road is difficult, the future is bright and the imperialist system is doomed.

Workers of the U.S.!

To resist and defeat the U.S. monopoly capitalists, our main enemies, we must wage revolutionary class struggles!

We must resist the shifting of the burden of the economic crisis onto our shoulders and get prepared to go on an offensive to make the rich pay!

We must actively resist fascism, defy the capitalist government and its "law and order", defend the Afro-American people and other oppressed nationalities and unite for the proletarian revolution!

We must oppose the war preparations of the superpowers and support the national liberation struggles of the people of Asia, Africa and Latin America and support the struggle of all people plundered and bullied by the superpowers and other reactionaries!

We must oppose the opportunists, prepare to overthrow the U.S. monopoly capitalists, smash their government (state machine) and establish the working class as the ruling class, that is, the dictatorship of the proletariat, liberating all the oppressed people in the U.S. and ridding the world of U.S. imperialism!

The Marxist-Leninists and other revolutionary workers and people must unite to build the revolutionary party of the proletariat, a Marxist-Leninist Communist Party, on the basis of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought and the Marxist-Leninist political line. They must defeat opportunism on the theoretical front and solve the initial theoretical problems of the U.S. revolution, and they must establish deep ties with the working class and oppressed masses.

Only revolutionary class struggle can lead to the proletarian revolution. Only proletarian revolution can save the working class and oppressed people. Let us prepare for struggle!

OPPOSE THE SHIFTING OF THE BURDEN OF THE ECONOMIC CRISIS ONTO THE WORKERS -- MAKE THE RICH PAY!

OPPOSE THE GOVERNMENT-ORGANIZED FASCIST ANTI-BUSING MOVEMENT!

DOWN WITH THE U.S. MONOPOLY CAPITALIST CLASS, COMMON ENEMY OF THE WORKERS, OPPRESSED NATIONALITIES AND PROGRESSIVE PEOPLE!

OPPOSE THE TWO SUPERPOWERS AND THEIR WAR PREPARATIONS!

SUPPORT THE NATIONAL LIBERATION STRUGGLES OF THE PEOPLE OF ASIA, AFRICA AND LATIN AMERICA!

DENOUNCE INTERNATIONAL OPPORTUNISM, INCLUDING THE PRO-SOVIET SOCIAL- IMPERIALIST FRONT OF AGENTS OF THE NEW TSARS!

SOVIET SOCIAL-IMPERIALISM, GET OUT OF ANGOLA!

HAIL THE FIRST ANNIVERSARY OF THE LIBERATION OF VIET NAM AND CAMBODIA!

HAIL PEOPLE'S CHINA, BASTION OF WORLD REVOLUTION!

HAIL THE CONTINUING AND DEEPENING OF CHINA'S GREAT PROLETARIAN CULTURAL REVOLUTION!

LONG LIVE MARXISM-LENINISM-MAO TSETUNG THOUGHT, IDEOLOGY OF THE MODERN PROLETARIAT!

LONG LIVE CHAIRMAN MAO!

WORKERS, OPPRESSED NATIONS AND PEOPLE OF THE WORLD, UNITE!


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Six Years of CPC (M-L)

A GREAT REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT AGAINST REVISIONISM AND FOR PROLETARIAN REVOLUTION

By Hardial Bains

(Note: The Montreal Branch of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) organised a private meeting of comrades of the Party to hail the Sixth Anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) in Montreal on March 31st, 1976. Comrade Bains addressed thetwo sessions which were attended by over two hundred comrades from the Montreal area.We are reproducing the text of the speech delivered by Comrade Bains at the meeting. The text is edited by the author for publication).

Comrades:

The Party was founded after a three month discussion on a document circulated to all the comrades who had come forward to join the Canadian Communist Movement (Marxist-Leninist). The same document was also presented for discussion to the delegates who attended the revolutionary conference held in Vancouver from December 26th to December 31st, 1969. The founding of the Party was declared at the Patriot's Conference held in Montreal on March 31st, 1970. Thirteen members were nominated to the Central Organising Committee of the Party (a majority of whom are still working in the Party). The First Congress of the Party was held in Guelph, Ontario from May 8, 1971 to May 22nd. The Constitution of the Party was adopted during the Congress and the Central Committee was elected. The Second Congress of the Party, held in March of 1973, adopted the Political Report and the Constitution. The Second CC of the Party was elected there. The Third Congress of the Party will be held when the time is suitable in the not too distant future.

I am going to speak on three basic points.

Various individuals and groups have raised the question: Why did we organise? Certain opportunists have even advanced various theories as to why we should not have organised the Party. They advance the thesis that everything which came into existence before their arrival onto the scene has been "premature". The founding of our Party was "premature". So they are organising "Struggle Organisation to Build the Party". Thus the material conditions are "mature" to build the "Struggle Organisation to Build the Party" while "premature" to build the Party. In short, the thesis is that material conditions are "mature" for the opportunists to establish anything they like while material conditions are always "premature" for Marxist-Leninists to organise anything. One of the opportunist groups asked us during discussions as to why did we organise in 1970.

Our comrades resolutely pointed out that founding the Party was absolutely necessary to fight revisionism. Without a revolutionary Party based on Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung thought, it would have been impossible to fight and combat revisionism.. This group couldn't see why a Party should be organised to fight revisionism. They went to such absurdities that revisionism is not the "issue" in Canada because it is not "strong" and is "irrelevant" as far as Canada is concerned. More particularly, revisionism does not have much influence in Quebec etc. Further they put forward the erroneous thesis that Party should be "declared" when it is already "full blown". I pointed out to my comrades during the summation of our meeting with this group that even though the meeting with the group was a positive step and we should carry on discussions seriously, the content of their views on Party building is "wind-baggery of the first order".

A Communist Party is not a corporation with its board of directors and with a franchise to "lead" the working class with its already incorporated "aims and objects". Founding of the Communist Party is a declaration, a manifesto on the part of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie. But the Communist Party itself is not just a declaration and a manifesto. It is more than that. It is a vehicle, an organised detachment of the most advanced section of the proletariat, a political organisation of the proletariat which has the historical mission "the seizure of political power by revolutionary violence, guiding the proletariat in its struggle to overthrow the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat so as to achieve communism." The Communist Party is the instrument of establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat where it does not exist and of consolidating and expanding it where it does exist.

In the series of articles refuting revisionism in 1973, I wrote: "In the 1950's the opportunists took over the Party completely and degenerated very quickly to the level of actually revising the theories of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin. The 1954 Party Program is a water shed in this respect and contains all the basic anti-Marxist ideas on the state which the revisionists of all time have held: "To regain control of our country and its government, the people will elect a parliamentary majority pledged to re-establish Canadian independence." This program speaks of fundamental changes in the old relations of production coming into being "by constitutional processes". It rattles on about the "transformation of Parliament". These bogus ideas go against everything that Marx and Lenin taught -- the cornerstone of their teaching was that the state is a class institution and that the proletariat cannot merely take over the state of the bourgeoisie but must resolutely smash up and destroy the old state in order to build a new proletarian state. Thus the Canadian revisionists began to attack the very core of Marxism-Leninism.

The 1958 Draft Program of the revisionist clique revised the basic theses of Lenin and Stalin on imperialism and cold war. The Canadian revisionists wrote: 'The deep-going permanent shift in the relative strengths of the forces of capitalism and socialism on a world scale, in favour of socialism, is the foremost of the new favourable conditions which assist the forces of socialism in Canada. War...is no longer inevitable because the forces for peace are, for the first time in history, powerful enough to prevent war." What are these forces for 'peace'? For the revisionists 'forces of peace' are not revolutionary struggles for national liberation and revolutionary class wars but policies of superpower politics of Khrushchov and Co. When U.S. imperialism was launching wars against the real 'forces of peace', the revolutionary struggles for national liberation,and against revolutionary class wars under the slogan of 'defence of the free world', everywhere in Korea, in Iran, in Guatemala, Lebanon, Viet Nam, etc. the revisionists were talking about 'War ...is no longer inevitable because the forces of peace, are for the first time in history, powerful enough to prevent war'. This distortion of Marxism-Leninism makes the question of war into a policywhich the imperialists may or may not implement, depending on their whims and fancy. Comrade Stalin pointed out in 1952 that war is an essential component of imperialism and the only way that the revisionists have been able to forget this is that it serves their class collaborationist policies to do so. Stalin pointed out: 'To eliminate the inevitability of war, it is necessary to abolish imperialism'.

Why did the revisionists write such trash as 'War...is no longer inevitable'? In fact, the purpose of writing it is to undermine the struggle to establish socialism around the world. By saying that socialism has won and capitalism has for all intents and purposes been defeated, the revisionists wanted to convince the people to stop struggling and to accommodate themselves to the revisionists' version of 'peaceful coexistence': collusion and contention with the U.S. imperialists.

What the revisionists hide from the people is that the stronger the forces of socialism become the more vicious and bellicose will the forces of imperialism become. On their deathbeds the imperialists are capable of genocide against the people of Viet Nam, are capable of trying to start a world war for the purpose of saving their class. Does this mean, as the revisionists say, that we should therefore stay quite still and not resist at all? This revisionist line tries to say that the people are the cause of war because if people rise up in revolution, the imperialists will unleash a world war. Therefore concludes the revisionist philistine, the people should not make revolution, should avoid armed conflict, because 'any small "local war" might spark off the conflagration of a world war' and 'today any sort of war, though it may break out as an ordinary non-nuclear war, is likely to develop into a destructive nuclear-missile conflagration'. With this sophistry, the Soviet and Canadian revisionists have found the rationale for opposing revolution. We should oppose revolution, they say, because the imperialists might use it as an excuse to unleash world war. That is the real meaning of the statements of the Canadian revisionists on the strength of the forces of socialism and peace.

"The rise of revisionism in Canada was facilitated by the betrayal of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union by Khrushchov and others who transformed the CPSU into an anti-Leninist Party. The CPSU then launched an all out offensive both against Marxism- Leninism and against the other Marxist-Leninist parties in the world. The struggle against modern revisionism of the Khrushchovite type was led by the Communist Party of China and the Albanian Party of Labour. Inspired by this struggle, Marxist-Leninists the world over began to oppose the betrayal of the working class and of the revolutionary principles of Marxism-Leninism. In Canada too the period of the early sixties was a turning point in the communist movement." (1)

Thus, one can see that the revisionist leaders of the Communist Party took the revolutionary content, the manifesto of "the seizure of political power by revolutionary violence, guiding the proletariat in its struggle to overthrow the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat so as to achieve communism", out and threw it away while keeping the shell, the name "Communist Party" and tied the proletariat to the chariot wheel of "bourgeois democracy". So the question facing the Marxist-Leninists was the restoration of this content, that is reorganisation of the Party on the basis of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought as its first task. We vigorously undertook this task. Founding of the Party was a declaration, a manifesto, a clarion call against revisionism. The Party was established to carry this manifesto through to the end, that is struggle against revisionism through to the end. But this opportunist group couldn't see why the Party should have been founded just to oppose revisionism.

Referring to groups and sects like the one I just referred to who couldn't comprehend why we did organise in 1970, I pointed out on the morning of January 1st, 1975 in a celebration organised to usher in the New Year: "So comrades, even if these events look very innocent, behind them is a sinister campaign to undo the gains the revolutionary people, especially the communist movement have made over the past 10 to 15 years, since the criticism and repudiation of revisionism. And they are trying to float revisionism and provide an opportunist line" (2) A few months later all these groups and sects exposed themselves by actually providing an opportunist position on all questions. It is no wonder that some of these groups could not see how a Party could be organised by simply basing itself on opposition to revisionism.

These groups and sects which are taking the revisionist road pretend that they are "Marxist-Leninists", "genuine" Marxist-Leninists at that. But for them to say that they are "Marxist- Leninist" is merely to strike a posture, a frill, like adorning their hats with plumes, but in essence, they are the same -- reformists, terrorists, anarcho-syndicalists -- you name it. And their social base is petty bourgeoisie and lumpen proletariat.

There is a struggle against capitalist restoration and right-deviationist tendencies going on in China at this time. These groups and sects are for capitalist restoration in China and have been given legitimacy by international opportunism. It is international opportunism mainly comprising Anglo-American chauvinism which is inciting these individuals, groups and sects to attack Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought and they have encouragement from the forces for capitalist restoration, those who are following right deviationist line in China. Finally, they are united with all the opportunist forces internationally which are apologists for Soviet social-imperialism.

I have repeatedly pointed out that Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought belongs not just to the proletariat of China but to the international proletariat. Opportunism, on the other hand, belongs to the international bourgeoisie. These individuals, groups and sects which came into being on the orders of international opportunism are a bit too hasty in declaring their "victories" and too impatient about attacking Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought. But they should know that if international opportunism is united, is providing sympathy, support and encouragement to one another and inciting them to attack us. Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought is also united internationally and various Marxist-Leninist parties, groups and organisations are also providing sympathy, support and encouragement to one another. These opportunists should never forget that while Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought is progressive and bound to win out, opportunism is only retrogressive and bound to lose. Furthermore, opportunism is riddled with innumerable internal contradictions. Life is extremely bad tor all opportunist groups and sects while for the Marxist-Leninists life is getting better with every passing day. In this era of imperialism and proletarian revolution, Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought is bound to win one epochal victory after another. It can also be said that this is the epoch of victory of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought on the world scale.

I also pointed out in my speech of New Year's 1975 that: "...just as on previous occasions, the opportunist line is sanctioned not in Canada, but from somewhere else. According to the opportunists spreading these ideas, the correctness or incorrectness of ideological and political lines has to be ascertained not by analysing the concrete conditions of Canada and the actual situation prevailing on the world scale, but by whether or not some foreign official of Partyagrees with the line." (3) It is no accident that opportunists have to seek sponsors abroad as, on the basis of their own work, they will have a very difficult time to makehead-way here. Opportunism has always been imported into Canada. Besides straight-forward ruffians and hooligans coming to Canada from the U.S., we also have so-called Marxist-Leninists in the U.S. trying to do dirty work for U.S. imperialism here. The Progressive Labour Party organised its branch plant in Canada in order to disrupt the revolutionary movement here. Currently, certain organisations are desperately trying to establish their agencies in Montreal. But opportunism is an alien trend to the communist and workers' movement and is bound to be defeated.

Over the past year, particularly, opportunists from Canada have been running around seeking sponsorship and legitimacy abroad. Furthermore, we have a certain organisation in Britain which has been sending its decadent forces to cause trouble in the revolutionary movement of this country. We have also seen the reorganisation of the "left"-sloganeering front of Khrushchovite revisionism in Montreal as an agency to carry out propaganda against Armed Agrarian Revolution in India, against CPC(M-L) in Canada and against various national liberation organisations in Southern Africa.

For over six years, we have faced the disruption of the revolutionary movement in this country from abroad and we have opposed it tooth and nail and we have succeeded in driving the disruptors out. We are not going to stop opposing the disruption of the revolutionary movement organised from abroad now. If Castroism bit the dust in the 1960's at the hands of the Internationalists, the current opportunists will suffer the same fate. It does not matter how much they scare certain innocent bystanders to the revolutionary movement, the revolutionary movement of this country will cast them aside.

"C"P, the so-called "Communist" Party wouldn't last for a day in this country if it did not have sponsorship from Soviet social-imperialism. Trotskyism ekes out a living at the mercy of imperialism and the blessings of social-imperialism. The current opportunists are no different than revisionists and trotskyists. Their lot will be no different than that of the revisionists and trotskyists.

Only the CPC(M-L) has been organised at the call of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and grounded in the history and tradition of the communist and workers' movement of this country. It does not matter how much Anglo-American chauvinists squirm and their agents in Canada whimper that Hardial Bains is not "Canadian", the facts remain for all to see that the CPC(M-L) is the only legitimate organisation of the Canadian proletariat which came up at the crucial historical juncture when revisionism had converted the Communist Party into a revisionist and a fascist party and Progressive Workers Movement had espoused neo-revisionism. To understand how the Party was reorganised on the theoretical foundation of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought is to understand the many, many struggles which our comrades waged against all forms of opportunism and against many historical problems facing the communist movement. It is this history of the 1960's and early 1970's which the opportunists have declared out of bounds for the proletariat and the revolutionary forces of this country. The opportunists have a very negative view of the past. For them nothing existed until they came along. The story of rebuilding the Communist Party in this country is the story of militantly and vigorously facing storms, scaling the heights which no one had scaled before, overcoming difficulties which came in the path and facing many totally new and unpredicted situations. But we marched on. Now that the Communist Party is re-established, its caricature has come into being to chide us about primitive forms of organisations we established in the past, about twists and turns we had to go through in order to re-establish the Party.

It is appropriate here to reprint the quote I gave from Lenin in my speech to the Second Congress of the Party. Lenin states: "Picture to yourself a man ascending a very high, steep and hitherto unexplored mountain. Let us assume that after overcoming unprecedented difficulties and dangers, he has succeeded in rising higher than any of his predecessors, but that he has not yet reached the summit. He is in the position where it is not only difficult and dangerous to proceed in the direction and along the path he selected, but positively impossible. He has to turn back, descend, seek another path, longer, perhaps, but one which will enable him to reach the summit. The descent from this height, unreached by any one before, proves to be more dangerous and difficult for our imaginary traveler than the ascent: it is easier to slip; it is not so easy to choose the spot on which to get a footing; there is not that elevation of spirit that one feels in going upwards, straight to the goal, etc. One has to tie a rope around oneself, spend hours with a mountaineer's pick in cutting footholds, or a projection, to which the rope could be tied tightly; one has to move at a tortoise pace, and move downwards, descend, away from the goal; and still one does not know whether this extremely dangerous and painful descent is coming to an end, or whether a fairly safe detour can be made by which one can ascend more boldly, more quickly and more directly to the summit.

It would be almost unnatural to suppose that, notwithstanding the fact that he had risen to such an unprecedented height, a man who finds himself in such a position does not feel moments of despondency. And in all probability these moments would be more numerous, frequent and harder to bear if he could hear the voices from below of those who, through a telescope, and from a safe distance, are watching this dangerous descent, which cannot even be called what the 'Smenovekhists' call 'descending with the brakes on'; for brakes presuppose a well-planned road, one that had already been traversed by some vehicle, a road prepared beforehand, already tested by some mechanism. In this case, however, there is no vehicle, no road, absolutely nothing that had been tested before!

The voices from below are gloating voices. They gloat openly, chuckle gleefully, shout: 'You'll fall in a minute! Serve him right, the madman!' Others try to conceal their malicious glee and behave mainly like a Judas Golover. They moan and raise their eyes to heaven in sorrow, as if to say: 'It grieves us sorely to see that our worst fears are being justified! But did not we, who all our lives have been engaged in drawing up a reasonable plan for ascending this mountain, demand that the ascent be postponed until our plan was complete? And if we so passionately opposed the path from which this madman is now retreating -- Look! Look! He has gone back! He is descending ! He is spending hours in preparing the possibility of moving forward a mere yard! And yet we were treated with frightful abuse when we systematically demanded moderation and accuracy! -- if we so fervently censured the madman and warned everybody against imitating and helping him, we did it entirely because of our devotion to the great plan of ascending this mountain, and in order to prevent this great plan from being discredited!(4)

The declarations of the opportunists issued during 1974-75 are the declarations like the"voices from below"of which Lenin writes "They gloat openly, chuckle gleefully, shout, 'You'll fall in a minute! Serve him right, the madman!' "

I pointed out at that time that our progress from the Second Congress on will be slow and very difficult. What I said at that time has come true. The "voices from below"; the opportunist declarations have raised lots of dust and we have courageously persisted to keep the proletarian revolutionary line dear. Now that the "voices from below"have played out their role, the Party must advance further.

Those who under-estimate the question of opposing revisionism are actual conciliators with revisionism. To these opportunists, opposition to revisionism is not a life-death struggle. If revisionism seizes control of the Communist Party of China and capitalism is restored there, it will bring not only disaster to the Chinese nation but also to the communist and workers' movement on the world scale. Even though the setback will be temporary it will be of grave consequence to the entire world. The possibility of a third world war will become an actuality. What Chairman Mao has said, that either "war will give rise to revolution"or "revolution will prevent war" will come true. Stopping the capitalist restoration and opposing the right deviationist tendency is preventing war. This struggle against capitalist restoration and against revisionism is also not confined to China, it is also international and has to be waged on the international scale.

We are a contingent of the international proletariat, international communist movement. It is incumbent upon us that we also make a contribution against revisionism. Those groups and individuals who do not see the necessity of building the Party on the sound proletarian revolutionary line of opposing revisionism have forgotten that not opposing revisionism in Indonesia led to the slaughter of thousands upon thousands of progressive Indonesians. They have also forgotten that revisionism brought about the fascist regime in Chile and caused slaughter of thousands of progressive people there. Not opposing revisionism in this country and countries of North America and Europe means assisting the rise of fascism in these countries. Conciliation with revisionism and not opposing it vigorously and not carrying this struggle through to the end means exposing the people of the country to the real fascist danger. There is real danger of re- emergence of fascism in Europe and emergence of it in North America and the revisionist parties are the main tool of bringing this about. Opposing fascism, its emergence and organising resistance to it is the real practical task of every Marxist-Leninist but to oppose emergence of fascism necessarily means opposing revisionism.

So comrades what should we have done in the late 1966's and in 1970 except to build the political party of the proletariat, the CPC(M-L), against revisionism? The only reason for organising the Party in 1970 was to oppose revisionism and once this reason is abandoned then we may ask: for what other reason would we have organised the Party? The concrete condition of the Canadian communist movement demanded that we establish the political party of the proletariat, the Communist Party, against revisionism. Not to recognize this much is to be blind and not to see anything concrete at all.

Comrades, we, the Internationalists, the Marxist-Leninists, the organisers of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist), by basing ourselves on the concrete conditions right here, organised the Party in opposition to the parliamentary and peaceful swindle of the revisionists and this is why the CPC(M-L) was viciously attacked from all sides. Every kind of reactionary force save direct armed suppression and extermination was used against us. A holy alliance of revisionists, trotskyists, and police came into being. This alliance attacked us from all fronts. We responded to these attacks in like kind. We gloriously opposed the holy alliance and the police attacks. Hundreds of our comrades courageously faced the bourgeois courts and went to the enemy's prisons. Very few of our comrades broke down in the face of these attacks and those who did are cherished by the "genuine" Marxist-Leninists. We were vilified by the opportunists and told that to resist the state is to be "ultra-left". We contemptuously rejected this spinelessness and carried on the proletarian revolutionary path of resistance and revolution.

We also organised LEARN FROM PEOPLE CAMPAIGNS under the slogan: DIVIDE THE FORCES TO AROUSE THE MASSES. These campaigns were unprecedented in Canada and yielded tremendous positive results. Certain opportunists are ridiculing us that we used to "run around the country", at the same time, they cannot grasp why the CPC(M-L) is the only political party of the proletariat organised coast to coast. They have some devious theories to explain away the fact that the Party is organised nationally and they do not concede that the reason the Party is established all across Canada is because of its resolute opposition to revisionism. In practical terms we opposed revisionism on two fronts: 1. We did not capitulate to the bourgeois state. The essence of revisionism is class-collaboration and capitulation to the bourgeois state. We resolutely opposed both. 2. We always put daring in command from the day we organised a discussion group in 1963 to the day the Party was founded in 1970 and six years from that time on. DARE TO STRUGGLE AND DARE TO WIN was and is still our guideline. But opportunists capitulate to the state and are opposed to daring. They dare only at the beck and call of international opportunism and internal reaction.

When the bourgeois state was attacking us, these opportunists prepared reactionary public opinion that the CPC(M-L) "provokes police". Last year, a number of opportunist sects sang songs in praise of "bourgeois democracy". The revisionist and opportunist line on bourgeois state attacks on us is: Long Live Police Attacks on CPC(M-L)! Down With "Provocations" of CPC(M-L) Against Police! Long Live Bourgeois Democracy!It is a very interesting point to note that when all these sects and groups, at the call of international opportunism, were writing tracts against the "revisionism" and "opportunism" of the CPC(M-L), they did not write a single word against revisionism. Most significantly, they did not denounce the peaceful and parliamentary road of revisionism and, in fact, praised bourgeois democracy to the skies. They vilified the CPC(M-L) for upholding the line that the bourgeois state is reactionary and fascist etc. They did not write a single word on the basic line of "seizure of political power by revolutionary violence, guiding the proletariat in its struggle to overthrow the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat so as to achieve communism". One group falsely asserted that the CPC(M-L) is "against dictatorship of the proletariat" but did not write a word about revisionism and in opposition to it. The same group has recently written a sermon against "individual acts of terrorism" when no such terrorism exists at this time. Wouldn't your mind boggle for a minute as to why at this time when there are no individual acts of terrorism anywhere they are writing treatises about it? Or could it be that they are telling the bourgeoisie that they will behave themselves at the time when economic crisis is broadening and deepening and every day bourgeois reactionary leaders are issuing one threat of reactionary violence after another against the proletariat. When the bourgeois reactionaries are threatening the proletariat with draconian laws and threaten individual progressives, these individuals are writing essays against "individual acts of terrorism" in order to save their skins. Instead of writing such trash, it would have been better if they had preached against turning the other cheek.

The thesis that the Party will come "full-blown" from the heavens is entirely wrong as well. The founding of the Communist Party is a declaration, a manifesto but the Party has yet to be established in the masses of proletarians and oppressed people. Establishing the Party in the masses is the whole historic period of preparation for social revolution which means that the masses have to grasp "the correct ideas characteristic of the advanced class" and then "these ideas turn into a material force which changes society and changes the world." This means that the Party has to wage incessant revolutionary struggles during the preparatory period through which the masses will grasp "the correct ideas characteristic of the advanced class". This entire period has to be objectively led by the Party. A Party may be big or small which depends on the circumstances but it must carry the proletarian revolutionary line on all questions in the masses. The declaration of the founding of the Party in 1970 was a manifesto against revisionism. The Communist Party of Canada (Marxist- Leninist) was founded on the politics of opposing revisionism. ("6 YRS OF CPC(M-L)" cont'd next issue)


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Class Struggle in China

STATEMENT OF THE NATIONAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE CENTRAL ORGANIZATION OF U.S. MARXIST-LENINISTS HAILING THE NEW VICTORIES OF THE CHINESE PEOPLE IN THE STRUGGLE AGAINST THE RIGHT DEVIATIONIST WIND

The National Executive Committee of the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists enthusiastically hails the new victories of the Chinese people and Chinese Communist Party, under the leadership of Chairman Mao Tsetung, in beating back the right-deviationist wind to reverse correct verdicts. The struggle against the right-deviationist wind is a continuation and deepening of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and is of universal significance to all Marxist-Leninists the world over. The NEC resolutely denounces the counter-revolutionary revisionist crimes of Teng Hsiao-ping and the other capitalist-roaders who are attempting to overthrow the dictatorship of the proletariat and turn the glorious People's Republic of China, the bastion of world revolution, into a dark, fascist capitalist state. We warmly hail the smashing of the handful of counter-revolutionary elements who staged the riot in Tien An Men Square in Peking by the proletarian dictatorship. We hail the decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China to "dismiss Teng Hsiao-ping from all posts both inside and outside the Party while allowing him to keep his Party membership so as to see how he will behave in the future" and the decision to appoint Comrade Hua Kuo-Feng as First Vice-Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and Premier of the State Council. We convey our warm greetings to Comrade Hua Kuo-Feng upon his appointment. We are confident that the great Chinese people will persevere in following Chairman Mao's proletarian revolutionary line throughout a protracted and tortuous struggle and will carry the struggle against the right-deviationist wind and all attempts at capitalist restoration through to the end.

We U.S. Marxist-Leninists are also sons and daughters of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, nurtured on Mao Tsetung Thought, the Marxism-Leninism of our era. In the U.S. too it is necessary to staunchly oppose revisionism and beat back the right-deviationist wind trying to corrode the American Marxist-Leninist movement from within. We vigorously denounce the revisionists in the U.S., both hidden and open, who are trying to reverse the verdict of the international communist movement against Soviet revisionist social-imperialism, portraying its fascist aggression in Angola as "socialist aid". These revisionists are nothing but a bunch of American right-deviationist elements, American Liu Shao-chi's, Lin Piao's and Teng Hsiao-ping's, who have all along opposed the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought, who have sought to reverse the verdicts of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution by describing it as "ultra-left" and by describing the revisionist renegade Lin Piao, aptly and correctly denounced in the Report to the Tenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China as an "ultra- Rightist" and a "superspy" for Soviet social-imperialism, as "ultra-left?'. In allying themselves with the capitalist-roaders in China these bad eggs are not only trying to assist them in restoring capitalism there but are also trying to prevent proletarian revolution in the U.S. and preserve the rule of the U.S. monopoly capitalist class, since revolution in the U.S. cannot be led to victory unless the Marxist-Leninists build a Party which firmly adheres to Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought and applies the lessons of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution to defeating revisionism.

The struggle against opportunism, particularly revisionism, is international. We pledge to do our part in the great struggle against modem revisionism so as to help bring the world proletarian socialist revolution, through protracted struggles, to the final victory of communism.

National Executive Committee

Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists

[Photo: Comrade Hua Kuo-Feng]


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RESOLUTIONS OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF CHINA

-- On Appointing Comrade Hua Kuo-feng First Vice-Chairman of C.P.C. Central Committee and Premier of State Council

On the proposal of our great leader Chairman Mao, the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China unanimously agrees to appoint Comrade Hua Kuo-feng First Vice-Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and Premier of the State Council of the People's Republic of China.

The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China April 7, 1976

--On Dismissing Teng Hsiao-ping From All Posts Both Inside and Outside Party

Having discussed the counter-revolutionary incident which took place at Tien An Men Square and Teng Hsiao-ping's latest behavior, the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China holds that the nature of the Teng Hsiao-ping problem has turned into one of antagonistic contradiction. On the proposal of our great leader Chairman Mao, the Political Bureau unanimously agrees to dismiss Teng Hsiao-ping from all posts both inside and outside the Party while allowing him to keep his Party membership so as to see how he will behave in the future.

The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China April 7, 1976

(Reprinted from Peking Review. No. 15, April 9, 1976.)


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COUNTER-REVOLUTIONARY POLITICAL INCIDENT AT TIEN AN MEN SQUARE

EARLY April, a handful of class enemies, under the guise of commemorating the late Premier Chou during the Ching Ming Festival, engineered an organized, premeditated and planned counter-revolutionary political incident at Tien An Men Square in the capital. They flagrantly made reactionary speeches, posted reactionary poems and slogans, distributed reactionary leaflets and agitated for the setting up of counter-revolutionary organizations. By means of insinuation and overt counter-revolutionary language, they brazenly clamoured that "the era of Chin Shih Huang is gone." Openly hoisting the ensign of supporting Teng Hsiao-ping, they frenziedly directed their spearhead at our great leader Chairman Mao, attempted to split the Party Central Committee headed by Chairman Mao, tried to change the general orientation of the current struggle to criticize Teng Hsiao-ping and counterattack the Right deviationist attempt to reverse correct verdicts, and engaged in counter-revolutionary activities.

The counter-revolutionary activities culminated on April 5. At about 8 a.m., a loudspeaker car of the municipal Public Security Bureau was overturned, the body of the car and its loudspeakers smashed. After 9 a.m., more than 10,000 people gathered in front of the Great Hall of the People. At its maximum the crowd at Tien An Men Square numbered about 100,000 people. Except for a handful of bad elements who were bent on creating disturbances, the majority of the people were passers-by who came over to see what was happening. Some of the people were around the Monument to the People's Heroes; the majority were concentrated on the west side of the square near the eastern entrance to the Great Hall of the People. A dozen young people were surrounded and beaten up by some bad elements, receiving cuts and bruises on their heads with blood trickling down their swollen faces. The hooligans shouted: "Beat them to death! Beat them to death!" An army guard who tried to stop the hooligans by persuasion had his insignia pulled off, uniform torn and his face beaten to bleed. The bad elements exclaimed: "Who can put this situation under control? Nobody in the Central Committee can. Should he come today he would not be able to return!" Their counter-revolutionary arrogance was unbridled to the extreme. The masses were infuriated and many of them said: "Ever since liberation, Tien An Men Square has always been the placewhere our greatleader Chairman Mao reviews parades of the revolutionary masses. We'll absolutely not tolerate such counter-revolutionary acts happening here!" Several hundred worker-militiamen who went up the flight of steps leading to the Great Hall of the People to stand guard were broken up into several sections by the hooligans. The latter repeatedly shouted reactionary slogans and savagely beat up anyone in the crowd who opposed them. Some of those who got beaten up were dragged to the monument and forced to kneel down and "confess their crimes."

At 11:05 a.m., many people surged towards the Museum of Chinese History on the east side of Tien An Men Square. In front of the museum, a woman comrade who came forward to dissuade them was immediately manhandled. At this moment, a bunch of bad elements besieged a People's Liberation Army barracks by the clock tower in the southeast corner of the square. They crushed the door, broke into the building and occupied it. A few bad elements, sporting a crew cut, took turns to incite the people, shouting themselves hoarse through a transistor megaphone. Towards noon, some of the trouble-makers proclaimed the inauguration of what they called "committee of the people of the capital for commemorating the Premier." A bad element wearing spectacles had the impudence to announce that the Public Security Bureau must give a reply in ten minutes. He threatened that if their demands were not met, they would smash the public security department.

At 12:30, the P.L.A. fighters on guard duty at Tien An Men Square marched in formation towards their barracks to guard it. The bad elements who were making disturbances shouted in instigation: "The people's army should stand on the side of the people!" and "Those befuddled by others are innocent!" Later, they overturned a Shanghai sedan car and set it on fire. The firemen and P.L.A. guards who came to the rescue were blocked, and a fire-engine was wrecked. These bad elements said that putting out the fire meant "suppressing the mass movement." Several members of the fire-brigade were beaten to bleed.

At 12:45, a detachment of people's police came as reinforcement. But they too were taunted and stopped. The caps of several policemen were snatched by the rioters and thrown to the air. Some even threw knives and daggers at the people's police. Several policemen were surrounded and beaten up.

In the afternoon, the sabotage activities of this handful of counter-revolutionaries became still more frenzied. They burnt up four motor vehicles bringing water and food to the worker-militiamen on duty or belonging to the public security department. Around 5 o'clock in the afternoon, this gang of bad elements again broke into that barracks, abducted and beat up the sentries, smashed the windows and doors on the ground floor and looted everything in the rooms. Radios, quilts, bed sheets, clothing and books were all thrown into the fire by this gang of counter-revolutionaries. They also burnt and smashed dozens of bicycles of the Peking worker-militiamen. Black smoke rose to the sky amid a hubbub of counterrevolutionary clamours. Nearly all the window panes in the barracks were smashed. Then they set the barracks on fire.

The revolutionary masses showed their utmost hatred for this counter-revolutionary political incident. Yet the handful of bad elements said glibly: "It manifests the strength of the masses." They went so far as to claim brazenly that "the situation has now got out of hand and it would be of no use even if a regiment or an army was called in," and so on and so forth, showing their unbridled reactionary arrogance.

See how these counter-revolutionaries use extremely decadent and reactionary language and the trick of insinuation to viciously attack and slander our, great leader Chairman Mao and other leading comrades on the Party Central Committee:

"Devils howl as we pour out our grief, we weep but the wolves laugh. We spill our blood in memory. of the hero; raising our brows, we unsheathe our swords. China is no longer the China of yore, and the people are no longer wrapped in sheer ignorance; gone for good is Chin Shih Huang's feudal society. We believe in Marxism-Leninism, to hell with those scholars who emasculate Marxism-Leninism! What we want is genuine Marxism-Leninism. For the sake of genuine Marxism-Leninism, we fear not shedding our blood and laying down our lives; the day modernization in four fields is realized, we will come back to offer libations and sacrifices."

The clamours of these counter-revolutionaries about combating "Chin Shih Huang" and demanding "genuine Marxism-Leninism" were out-and-out counter-revolutionary agitation in the same vein as the language used in Lin Piao's plan for a counter-revolutionary coup d'etat, "Outline of Project 1." By directing their spearhead at our great leader Chairman Mao and the Party Central Committee headed by Chairman Mao, and lauding Teng Hsiao-ping's counter-revolutionary revisionist line, these counter-revolutionaries further laid bare their criminal aim to practise revisionism and restore capitalism in China.

In the past few days these elements not only wrote reactionary poems but put up reactionary posters. They lauded Teng Hsiao-ping and attempted to nominate him to play the role of Nagy, the chieftain of the counter-revolutionary incident in Hungary. They raved that "with Teng Hsiao-ping in charge of the work of the Central Committee, the struggle has won decisive victory" "to the great satisfaction of the people throughout the country." They uttered vile slanders, saying that "the recent so-called anti-Right deviationist struggle is the act of a handful of careerists to reverse verdicts." They openly opposed the great struggle initiated and led by Chairman Mao to repulse the Right deviationist attempt to reverse correct verdicts; their counter-revolutionary arrogance was inflated to the utmost.

However, the time when these counter-revolutionary elements ran rampant coincided with the day of their downfall. Going against the will of the people, they were extremely isolated. As these bad elements were making disturbances, perpetrating acts of violence and sabotage, many revolutionary people courageously stepped forward to denounce their counter-revolutionary acts and struggled against them. The Peking worker-militia, people's police and army guards on duty at the square and the revolutionary people present at the time worked in close co-operation, and fought bravely in defence of Chairman Mao, the Party Central Committee, Chairman Mao's revolutionary line and the great capital of our socialist motherland.

When the handful of bad elements again set fire to the barracks at 5 p.m., the army guards put out the fire at the risk of their own lives. To safeguard the Great Hall of the People, more than 100 Peking worker-militiamen were injured, a dozen of them seriously wounded. Six army guards were abducted and many wounded. Risking dangers, the people's police persevered in fighting. Although the barracks was besieged and fire was engulfing the first floor leading comrades of the Peking worker-militia command post persevered in the struggle on the second floor. At this critical moment, the switchboard operator calmly reported the news to leading departments concerned.

At 6:30 p.m., after Comrade Wu Teh's speech was broadcast, most of the onlookers and the masses who had been taken in quickly dispersed. But a handful of counter-revolutionaries continued their desperate resistance and again posted some reactionary poems around the Monument to the People's Heroes. Three hours later, on receiving an order from the Peking Municipal Revolutionary Committee, tens of thousands of worker-militiamen, in co-ordination with the people's police and P.L.A. guards, took resolute measures and enforced proletarian dictatorship. In high morale, the heroic Peking militiamen valiantly filed into Tien An Men Square and mounted powerful counterattacks. They encircled those bad elements who were still creating disturbances and committing crimes in the vicinity of the Monument to the People's Heroes. They detained the active criminals and major suspects for examination. In the face of powerful proletarian dictatorship, the handful of rampant rioters could not withstand even a single blow. They squatted down, trembling like stray dogs. Some hurriedly handed over their daggers, knives and notebooks on which they had copied the reactionary poems. Several criminals who pulled out their daggers in a vain attempt to put up a last-ditch fight were duly punished.

The revolutionary masses and people of the whole city heartily supported and acclaimed the revolutionary action of the Peking worker-militia, the people's police and P.L.A. Guards.

("Renmin Ribao" correspondents andstaffcorrespondents)

Peking Review No. 15 April 9, 1976


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What Does the Incident at Tien An Men Square Show?

UNDERthe leadership of the Party Central Committee headed by our great leader Chairman Mao, the heroic people in the capital crushed at one stroke the counter-revolutionary political incident that took place at Tien An Men Square. Through this soul-stirring struggle, Tien An Men Square looks more imposing and magnificent than ever. The five-star red flag flutters in the breeze, the Great Hall of the People stands majestically and the Monument to the People's Heroes towers over the square in great splendour. The whole nation warmly supports the two resolutions of the Party Central Committee, vehemently denounces the counterrevolutionary activities of a handful of class enemies, and indignantly criticizes the crimes of Teng Hsiao-ping in attempting to subvert the dictatorship of the proletariat and restore capitalism. The hearts of the people, the Party and the Party members all turn to Chairman Mao and the Party Central Committee as sunflowers do to the sun. The revolutionary current of hundreds of millions of army men and people determined to continue the revolution and oppose restoration and retrogression is irresistible. The class enemies tremble with fear. The small number of people who were duped have come to a quick awakening. The situation is excellent.

The counter-revolutionary political incident at Tien An Men Square is very good teaching material by negative example. It sharply reveals the law governing class struggle in the historical period of socialism and its characteristics. We can use this negative example to carry out living education among the people of the whole country in consolidating proletarian dictatorship and opposing capitalist restoration.

First, it further shows that the bourgeoisie is right in the Communist Party. The two-line struggle in the Party is a life-and-death struggle between the two antagonistic classes -- the proletariat and the bourgeoisie.

Chairman Mao has pointed out: "You are making the socialist revolution, and yet don't know where the bourgeoisie is. It is right in the Communist Party -- those in power taking the capitalist road. The capitalist-roaders are still on the capitalist road."If some people did not comprehend before that capitalist-roaders are the bourgeoisie in the Party and are the main target of continued revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat, then the counter-revolutionary political incident at Tien An Men Square should serve as an eye-opener. Why did these counter-revolutionary elements try to cast Teng Hsiao-ping in the role of Nagy, the ringleader of the counter-revolutionary coup in Hungary? This is because Teng Hsiao-ping is the arch unrepentant capitalist-roader in the Party and the general behind-the-scenes promoter of the Right deviationist attempt to reverse correct verdicts. The counter-revolutionary revisionist line he pushed represented in a concentrated form the interests of the old and new bourgeoisie both inside and outside the Party as well as the interests of unreformed landlords, rich peasants, counter-revolutionaries, bad elements and Rightists. Therefore, the bourgeoisie and all class enemies pinned their hopes of restoration on him. Just imagine how elated they were around last summer when Teng Hsiao-ping feverishly fanned up the Right deviationist wind! When the struggle against the Right deviationist wind began and Teng Hsiao-ping was criticized, they took up the cudgels for him and went so far as to openly engage in counter-revolutionary sabotage activities. This shows that the struggle against the Right deviationist wind had stung the bourgeoisie to the quick and hit the handful of class enemies where it really hurt, and they were bound to put Up a desperate struggle and make a frenzied counterattack. The unrepentant capitalist-roaders in the Party like Teng Hsiao-ping have become bourgeois protagonists and the main force of the bourgeoisie in the trial of strength with the proletariat and in trying to restore capitalism in China.

Chairman Mao has penetrating insight into everything. Last year, a few persons in Tsinghua University wrote letters containing framed-up charges, directing the spearhead of their attack at Chairman Mao. Chairman Mao immediately discovered that Teng Hsiao-ping was the wire-puller and that Teng Hsiao-ping was launching an all-out attack on the proletariat Hitting the nail on the head, Chairman Mao said: "The question involved in Tsinghua is not an isolated question but a reflection of the current two-line struggle."The development of class struggle has fully borne out Chairman Mao's conclusion. Everything that has happened, from the framed-up charges made by a few persons in Tsinghua to the counter-revolutionary political incident at Tien An Men Square, has profound political background and deep class roots and all originated with Teng Hsiao-ping. Our struggle against Teng Hsiao-ping is precisely a class struggle of such serious nature.

Second, it fully shows that there really are counterrevolutionaries whose counter-revolutionary activities are closely linked with the schemes of capitalist-roaders in the Party to bring about restoration and retrogression.

The counter-revolutionary political incident at Tien An Men Square had been deliberately planned over a long period of time. New and old bourgeois elements, reactionary men of letters who juggled with words and desperadoes who broke the law and committed evils all played their part to the full. They created a spate of counter-revolutionary public opinion by spreading political rumours as far back as last July, August and September. Around the Ching Ming Festival this year, they again came out with all manner of counter-revolutionary sabotage activities. Some went about establishing extensive contacts and surreptitiously plotted to write letters to the Party Central Committee demanding that Teng Hsiao-ping "be the premier;" some abetted Teng Hsiao-ping by extolling his counter-revolutionary revisionist line; others conspired on the sly in an effort to back up the hooligans in creating disturbances; and still others carried out activities in public, putting up reactionary slogans and poems and making reactionary speeches, wildly spouting counter-revolutionary venom. They viciously attacked our great leader Chairman Mao and leading comrades on the Party Central Committee in a vain attempt to subvert the dictatorship of the proletariat and restore capitalism. They are a band of counter-revolutionaries hostile to the Communist Party, the people and socialism. The target of their attack and their criminal aim were entirely at one with Teng Hsiao-ping's. The general representative of these counter-revolutionaries is Teng Hsiao-ping. As long as there are capitalist-roaders like Teng Hsiao-ping in the Party, the demons and monsters in society will stir up trouble and launch attacks on the proletariat, while the imperialists, revisionists and reactionaries will act in response to them. This time the Soviet revisionist renegade clique was indeed beside itself with joy for a while, thinking that its so-called "healthy forces" would pull off something big. However, it never expected that Teng Hsiao-ping would meet his defeat so quickly, and so it deflated even before it had a chance to applaud Teng Hsiao-ping. All people with good intentions should from this incident raise their understanding and be more clear-sighted.

Third, it shows once again that all counterrevolution is short-lived and can't go far. The masses of the people want revolution and will never tolerate counter-revolutionary activities.

Ten years ago, Chairman Mao clearly pointed out:

"If the Rightists stage an anti-Communist coup d'etat in China, I am sure they will know no peace either and their rule will most probably be short-lived because it will not be tolerated by the revolutionaries, who represent the interests of the people making up more than 90 per cent of the population."

In carrying out their counter-revolutionary activities at Tien An Men Square, the handful of class enemies appeared to be arrogant but were actually very feeble. The fact that they staked everything on this move shows that they belong to the decadent class which is defeated, moribund and in utter despair. Filled with rage at their perverse actions, the masses of the people resolutely demanded the enforcement of proletarian dictatorship over them and took up weapons to wage a heroic struggle against them. Within a very short time, these rampant hooligans collapsed and fell apart at the first encounter with the iron fists of the people and became objects of mass condemnation. In future, anyone who dares repeat this kind of incident is destined to come to the same ignominious end.

Poisonous weeds can be transformed into fertilizer. The counter-revolutionary political incident at Tien An Men Square is a bad thing, but it is a good thing as well. It exposed the enemy and educated the cadres and masses. We must conscientiously study Chairman Mao's theory on classes, class contradictions and class struggle in the period of socialism. We must raise our consciousness of class struggle and the struggle between the two lines and our awareness of the need to continue the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat. It is imperative to suppress the handful of counter-revolutionaries who attack Chairman Mao, try to split the Party Central Committee and undermine the struggle against the Right deviationist attempt to reverse correct verdicts, put up counter-revolutionary slogans, distribute counter-revolutionary leaflets, fabricate counter-revolutionary political rumours, mail counter-revolutionary anonymous letters and organize counter-revolutionary groups, and it is imperative to suppress those who engage in beating, smashing and looting. We must have faith in the masses and rely on them. It is necessary to strictly distinguish and correctly handle the two different types of contradictions. It is essential to continue to do ideological work well among the small number of people who believed rumours and were taken in, to help them raise their consciousness and draw a clear line of demarcation between ourselves and the enemy and eliminate the pernicious influence of the enemy.

Revolutionary comrades, let us all firmly keep to the general orientation of the struggle, unite as one in our struggle against the enemy and bring the criticism of Teng Hsiao-ping and the struggle to beat back the Right deviationist attempt to reverse correct verdicts to a new height.

("Renmin" editorial, April 18)

Peking Review, No. 17 April 1976


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HAIL THE TENTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE GREAT PROLETARIAN CULTURAL REVOLUTION IN CHINA!

May 16, 1966 - May 16, 1976

May 16, 1976, marks the tenth anniversary of the historic May 16, 1966 Circular of theCentral Committee of the Chinese CommunistParty. This great historic document, drawn up under the personal guidance of Chairman Mao Tsetung laid down the theory, line, principles and policies for the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and constituted its great program. The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was an important sign that Marxism- Leninism had developed to an entirely new stage, that of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought.

Why are cultural revolutions necessary? The Soviet Union was the land of the Great October Socialist Revolution and the land of the Communist Party of Lenin and Stalin. But after Stalin's death a clique of revisionists led first by Khrushchov and now by Kosygin and Brezhnev staged a counter-revolutionary coup d'etat and restored capitalism. To hide his crimes, Khrushchov advocated the theory of the "dying out of class struggle", claiming that there were no longer hostile classes and class struggle in the Soviet Union, and hence the dictatorship of the proletariat should be packed up and replaced by "the state of the whole people" while the Communist Party should become "the party of the entire people". Under the signboard of these revisionist theories of class peace, Khrushchov in fact waged a most intense class struggle against the Soviet workers and peasants in the interests of a new-type bureaucrat monopoly capitalist class. Chairman Mao cut to the core of the matter by pointing out: "THE RISE TO POWER OF REVISIONISM MEANS THE RISE TO POWER OF THE BOURGEOISIE" and "THE SOVIET UNION TODAY IS UNDER THE DICTATORSHIP OF THE BOURGEOISIE, A DICTATORSHIP OF THE GERMAN FASCIST TYPE, A DICTATORSHIP OF THE HITLER TYPE." Thus the Soviet Union has become a dark fascist, social-imperialist state which is contending for world hegemony with U.S. imperialism and is making all-out preparations for an aggressive world war. This restoration of capitalism in the Soviet Union was a big set-back for the world working-class movement and a valuable lesson by negative example. Chairman Mao paid close attention to the historical experience of the Soviet Union and solved the theoretical and practical questions of continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat and preventing a restoration of capitalism.

In China, too, a bunch of counter-revolutionary revisionists infiltrated the Party on behalf of the bourgeoisie and other exploiting classes. These people in power taking the capitalist road sought to corrode the Party from within. The bourgeoisie particularly used its traditional domain, the cultural superstructure, to create public opinion for capitalist restoration. Chairman Mao has pointed out: "TO OVERTHROW A POLITICAL POWER, IT IS ALWAYS NECESSARY FIRST OF ALL TO CREATE PUBLIC OPINION, TO DO WORK IN THE IDEOLOGICAL SPHERE. THIS IS TRUE FOR THE REVOLUTIONARY CLASS AS WELL AS FOR THE COUNTERREVOLUTIONARY CLASS." Although the bourgeoisie was overthrown, it was still trying to use the old ideas, culture, customs and habits of the exploiting classes to corrupt the masses, capture their minds and endeavor to stage a come-back. Class struggle still exists under socialism and becomes very acute at times. Thus the proletariat must exercise dictatorship in the superstructure, including all fields of culture, art, education, press, health, etc. "THE WORKING CLASS MUST EXERCISE LEADERSHIP IN EVERYTHING." (Chairman Mao). The socialist transformation on the economic front (in the ownership of the means of production) is thus insufficient by itself and cannot be consolidated by itself. There must also be a thorough socialist revolution on the political and ideological fronts. This shows the necessity of waging cultural revolutions.

Chairman Mao always attached major importance to the struggle on the ideological front. He criticized those departments of literature and art controlled by China's Khrushchov, Liu Shao-chi, as "STILL DOMINATED BY 'THE DEAD' " and said of the Ministry of Culture, "IF IT REFUSES TO CHANGE, IT SHOULD BE RENAMED THE MINISTRY OF EMPERORS, KINGS, GENERALS AND MINISTERS, THE MINISTRY OF TALENTS AND BEAUTIES OR THE MINISTRY OF FOREIGN MUMMIES", while the Ministry of Health should be renamed the "MINISTRY OF HEALTH FOR URBAN OVERLORDS". With regard to the field of education, Chairman Mao pointed out: "THE DOMINATION OF OUR SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES BY BOURGEOIS INTELLECTUALS SHOULD NOT BE TOLERATED ANY LONGER." Chairman Mao led many struggles against the bourgeoisie inside the Party. In February, 1967, in the midst of the Cultural Revolution, he pointed out that: "IN THE PAST WE WAGED STRUGGLES IN RURAL AREAS, IN FACTORIES, IN THE CULTURAL FIELD, AND WE CARRIED OUT THE SOCIALIST EDUCATION MOVEMENT. BUT ALL THIS FAILED TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM BECAUSE WE DID NOT FIND A FORM, A METHOD, TO AROUSE THE BROAD MASSES TO EXPOSE OUR DARK ASPECT OPENLY, IN AN ALL-ROUND WAY AND FROM BELOW.?' The Political Report to the Ninth National Congress of the Communist Party of China pointed out: "Now we have found this form -- it is the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. It is only by arousing the masses in their hundreds of millions to air their views freely, write big-character posters and hold great debates that the renegades, enemy agents and capitalist-roaders in power who have wormed their way into the Party can be exposed and their plots to restore capitalism smashed." Chairman Mao has pointed out: "NEVER BEFORE IN ANY MASS MOVEMENT HAVE THE MASSES BEEN AROUSED SO THOROUGHLY AND ON SO BROAD A SCALE."

The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was personally initiated and led by Chairman Mao. Chairman Mao solved a whole series of questions, including: "Are there still classes and class struggle in a socialist society, particularly after the socialist transformation of the ownership of the means of production has in the main been accomplished? Do all the class struggles in society still center around the question of the fight over political power? Under the conditions of the dictatorship of the proletariat, do we still have to make revolution? Against whom should we make revolution? And how should we carry out the revolution? Marx and Engels could not possibly solve this series of major theoretical problems at their time. Lenin saw that after the proletariat seized power, the defeated bourgeoisie remained stronger than the proletariat and was always trying to stage a come-back. At the same time, small production continuously engendered capitalism and the bourgeoisie anew, thus posing a threat to the dictatorship of the proletariat. In order to cope with this counter-revolutionary threat and overcome it, it was therefore necessary to strengthen the dictatorship of the proletariat over a long period of time. There was no other way. However, Lenin died before he could solve these problems in practice. Stalin was a great Marxist-Leninist who actually cleared out a large number of counter-revolutionary representatives of the bourgeoisie who had sneaked into the Party, including Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Radek, Bukharin, Rykov and their like. But where he failed was in not recognizing, on the level of theory, that classes and class struggle exist in society throughout the historical period of the dictatorship of the proletariat and that the question of who will win in the revolution has yet to be finally settled; in other words, if all this is not handled properly there is the possibility of a comeback by the bourgeoisie. The year before he died, Stalin became aware of this point and stated that contradictions do exist in socialist society and if not properly handled might turn into antagonistic ones. Comrade Mao Tsetung has given full attention to the whole historical experience of the Soviet Union. He has correctly solved this series of problems in a whole number of important writings and instructions, in this great historic document (the May 16,1966 Circular -- ed.) and in the most significant practice of the proletarian cultural revolution personally initiated and led by him. This is a most important sign indicating that Marxism has developed to an entirely new stage. In the early years of the twentieth century, Marxism developed into the stage of Leninism. In the present era, it has developed further into the stage of Mao Tse-tung's thought." (1)

The lessons of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution are of universal significance. A fresh wave swept through the international communist movement, giving rise to new Marxist-Leninist parties and anti-revisionist centers in many countries. In India, Comrade Charu Mazumdar, martyred leader of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) and organizer of the Naxalbari uprising, pointed out: "Naxalbari represented the first ever application of Mao Tsetung Thought on the soil of India. It was in Naxalbari that the peasants for the first time launched their struggle for the seizure of power. For this reason, Naxalbari symbolizes the path of liberation for the exploited masses of the Indian people, thus ushering in a new era in the political history of India." In the Philippines, the Communist Party of the Philippines and the New People's Army were re-established on the basis of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought. And in many other countries the communist movement surged forward. North America was no exception. In Canada, The Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist),was founded at the call of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. In the U.S., the American Communist Workers Movement (Marxist-Leninist), a predecessor of the COUSML, was founded as the first national center for the dissemination of Mao Tsetung Thought. The imperialist cultural counter-revolution of the 60's, used to undermine the youth and student movement, also gave particular urgency to the study of the lessons of the Proletarian Cultural Revolution.

Thus the victories of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, which were summed up at the Ninth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, had great significance both for China and for the entire international communist movement. But Chairman Mao had already pointed out that the issue of who will win in the revolution can only be settled over a long historical period. Not one or two, or even three or four Cultural Revolutions will suffice to settle everything. The proletarian revolutionaries must remain very much on the alert and never lose vigilance. Thus the class struggle in China did not stop with the defeat of China's Khrushchev, Liu Shao-chi. Lin Piao, the ultra-rightist and superspy for Soviet social-imperialism, jumped out for a trial of strength with the proletariat. Lin Piao regarded the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution as "ultra-left" and cursed the socialist new things that had come into being. The Lin Piao anti-Party clique slandered intellectuals integrating themselves with the workers and peasants and going to the countryside as "reform through forced labor in a disguised form", slandered the communist spirit displayed by the working class in criticizing the revisionist "material incentives" as "exploitation in a disguised form" and slandered office cadre going to May 7 cadre schools as "unemployment in a disguised form". Lin Piao was so rabid about these things because they blocked his ambitions to restore capitalism in China and set up a fascist Lin dynasty ruling China in the interests of the New Tsars of Russia. The Tenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China summed up the great victory of the Chinese people in smashing the Lin Piao anti-Party clique.

Today, on the tenth anniversary of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, a profound revolutionary mass movement is stirring all across China, a movement to defeat the right-deviationist wind and denounce the arch-unrepentant capitalist-roader, Teng Hsiao-ping.

Teng Hsiao-ping had worked in collaboration with China's Khrushchev, Liu Shao-chi, in pushing a counter-revolutionary revisionist line. Criticized during the Cultural Revolution, he expressed his willingness to mend his ways and declared that he would "never reverse the verdict". Yet once back in a position to wield some power, he relapsed into a counter-revolutionary revisionist line. The right-deviationist wind fanned up by him sought to reverse the correct verdicts passed by the masses in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and to negate the Cultural Revolution itself. The sorrow shown by the Soviet revisionists upon the dismissal of Teng Hsiao-ping from all posts inside and outside the party is eloquent testimony concerning whose class interests the right-deviationist wind serves! Chairman Mao has penetrated to the essence of the matter and defending and developing Marxism, has pointed out: "WITH THE SOCIALIST REVOLUTION THEY THEMSELVES COME UNDER FIRE. AT THE TIME OF THE CO-OPERATIVE TRANSFORMATION OF AGRICULTURE THERE WERE PEOPLE WHO OPPOSED IT, AND WHEN IT COMES TO CRITICIZING BOURGEOIS RIGHT, THEY RESENT IT. YOU ARE MAKING THE SOCIALIST REVOLUTION, AND YET DON'T KNOW WHERE THE BOURGEOISIE IS. IT IS RIGHT IN THE COMMUNIST PARTY -- THOSE IN POWER TAKING THE CAPITALIST ROAD. THE CAPITALIST-ROADERS ARE STILL ON THE CAPITALIST ROAD."

The struggle against the right-deviationist wind in China is a continuation and deepening of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. It is of great significance to the U.S. Opportunism is international and the revisionists, hidden and open, corroding the American people's revolutionary movement from within are sympathizers with the right-deviationist wind in China. These bad elements resented the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, some are American Lin Piao's calling the Cultural Revolution "ultra-left", others attempt to reverse correct verdicts of the international communist movement concerning Soviet social-imperialism, and all of them have directed the spearhead of their attack at Chairman Mao and the universally applicable theory of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought. They have tried their best to prevent the American workers, oppressed nationalities and other progressive people from hearing Chairman Mao's important statements and instructions and have concocted the theory that "Peking Review is not suitable for American workers". These revisionists are seeking to undo the gains of the past period -- the recognition by the revolutionary activists from the mass movement that only Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought can be the foundations of the proletarian party and lead the American revolution to victory. On this 10th Anniversary of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, all revolutionaries should rededicate themselves resolutely to oppose revisionism and opportunism and hold high the bright red banner of Marxism- Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought!

(1) fromA GREAT HISTORIC DOCUMENT, by the Editorial Departments of Hongqui (Red Flag) andRenmin Ribao (People's Daily) May 18, 1967 End


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CIRCULAR OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY - May 16, 1966

To all regional bureaus of the Central Committee, all provincial, municipal and autonomous region Party committees, all departments and commissions under the Central Committee, all leading Party members' groups and Party committees in government departments and people's organizations, and the General Political Department of the People's Liberation Army:

The Central Committee has decided to revoke the Outline Report on the Current Academic Discussion made by the "Group of Five in Charge of the Cultural Revolution" which was approved for distribution on February 12, 1966, to dissolve the "Group of Five in Charge of the Cultural Revolution" and its offices, and to set up a new Cultural Revolution Group directly under the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau. The so-called Outline Report by the "Group of Five" is fundamentally wrong. It runs counter to the line of the socialist cultural revolution set forth by the Central Committee and Comrade Mao Tsetung and to the guiding principles formulated at the Tenth Plenary Session of the Eighth Central Committee of the Party in 1962 on the question of classes and class struggle in socialist society. While feigning compliance, the Report actually opposes and stubbornly resists the Great Cultural Revolution personally initiated and led by Comrade Mao Tsetung, as well as the instructions regarding the criticism of Wu Han which he gave at the working conference of the Central Committee in September and October of 1965 (that is, at the session of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee which was also attended by the leading comrades of all the regional bureaus of the Central Committee).

The so-called Outline Report by the "Group of Five" is actually the Report of Peng Chen alone. He concocted it according to his own ideas behind the backs of Comrade Kang Sheng, a member of the "Group of Five", and other comrades. In handling a document of this kind regarding important questions which affect the overall situation in the socialist revolution, Peng Chen held no discussion or exchange of views at all within the "Group of Five". He did not ask any local Party committee for its opinion, nor did he make it clear that the Outline Report would be sent to the Central Committee for examination as an official document, and still less did he get the approval of Comrade Mao Tsetung, Chairman of the Central Committee. Employing the most dishonest methods, he acted arbitrarily, abused his powers and, usurping the name of the Central Committee, hurriedly issued the Outline Report to the whole Party.

The main errors of the Outline Report are as follows:

1) Proceeding from a bourgeois stand and the bourgeois world outlook, the Report completely transposes the enemy and ourselves, putting the one into the position of the other, in its appraisal of the situation and the character of the present academic criticism. Our country is now in an upsurge of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution which is pounding at all the decadent ideological and cultural positions still held by the bourgeoisie and the remnants of feudalism. Instead of encouraging the entire Party boldly to arouse the broad masses of workers, peasants and soldiers and the fighters for proletarian culture so that they can continue to charge ahead, the Report does its best to turn the movement to the Right. Using muddled self-contradictory and hypocritical language, it obscures the sharp class struggle that is taking place on the cultural and ideological front. In particular, it obscures the aim of this great struggle, which is to criticize and repudiate Wu Han and the considerable number of other anti-Party and anti-socialist representatives of the bourgeoisie (there are a number of them in the Central Committee and in Party, government and other departments at the central as well as at the provincial, municipal and autonomous region levels). By avoiding any mention of the fact repeatedly pointed out by Chairman Mao, namely, that the heart of Wu Han's drama Hai Jui Dismissed from Office is the question of dismissal from office, the Report covers up the serious political nature of the Struggle.

2) The Report violates the basic Marxist thesis that all class struggles are political struggles. When the press began to touch on the political issues involved in Wu Han's Hai Jui Dismissed from Office, the authors of the Report went so far as to say: "The discussion in the press should not be confined to political questions, but should go fully into the various academic and theoretical questions involved." Regarding the criticism of Wu Han, they declared on various occasions that it was impermissible to deal with the heart of the matter, namely, the dismissal of the Right opportunists at the Lushan Meeting in 1959 and the opposition of Wu Han and others to the Party and socialism. Comrade Mao Tsetung has often told us that the ideological struggle against the bourgeoisie is a protracted class struggle which cannot be resolved by drawing hasty political conclusions. However, Peng Chen deliberately spread rumours, telling many people that Chairman Mao believed political conclusions on the criticism of Wu Han could be drawn after two months. Peng Chen also said that the political issues could be discussed two months later. His purpose was to channel the political struggle in the cultural sphere into so-called pure academic discussion, as frequently advocated by the bourgeoisie. Clearly, this means giving prominence to bourgeois politics, while opposing giving prominence to proletarian politics.

3) The Report lays special emphasis on what it calls "opening wide". But, playing a sly trick, it grossly distorts the policy of "opening wide" expounded by Comrade Mao Tsetung at the Party's National Conference on Propaganda Work in March 1957 and negates the class content of "opening wide". It was in dealing with this question that Comrade Mao Tsetung pointed out:

We still have to wage a protracted struggle against bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideology. It is wrong not to understand this and to give up ideological struggle. All erroneous ideas, all poisonous weeds, all ghosts and monsters, must be subjected to criticism; in no circumstance should they be allowed to spread unchecked.

Comrade Mao Tsetung also said,

To "open wide" means to let all people express their opinions freely, so that they dare to speak, dare to criticize and dare to debate...

This Report, however, poses "opening wide" against the proletariat's exposure of the bourgeoisie's reactionary stand. What it means by "opening wide" is bourgeois liberalization, which would allow only the bourgeoisie to "open wide", but would not allow the proletariat to "open wide" and hit back at the bourgeoisie; in other words, it is a shield for such reactionary representatives of the bourgeoisie as Wu Han. The "opening wide" of this Report is opposed to Mao Tsetung Thought and caters to the needs of the bourgeoisie.

4) Just when we began the counteroffensive against the wild attacks of the bourgeoisie, the authors of the Report raised the slogan: "Everyone is equal before the truth." This is a bourgeois slogan. Completely negating the class nature of truth, they use this slogan to protect the bourgeoisie and oppose the proletariat, oppose Marxism-Leninism and oppose Mao Tsetung Thought. In the struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, between the truth of Marxism and the fallacies of the bourgeoisie and all other exploiting classes, either the East Wind prevails over the West Wind or the West Wind prevails over the East Wind, and there is absolutely no such thing as equality. Can equality be permitted on such basic questions as the struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie, the dictatorship of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie, the dictatorship of the proletariat in the superstructure, including all the various spheres of culture, and the continued efforts of the proletariat to weed out those representatives of the bourgeoisie who have sneaked into the Communist Party and who wave "red flags" to oppose the red flag? For decades the old-line Social Democrats, and for over ten years the modern revisionists, have never allowed the proletariat equality with the bourgeoisie. They completely deny that the several thousand years of human history are a history of class struggle. They completely deny the class struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie, the proletarian revolution against the bourgeoisie and the dictatorship of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie. On the contrary, they are faithful lackeys of the bourgeoisie and the imperialists. Together with the bourgeoisie and the imperialists, they cling to the bourgeois ideology of oppression and exploitation of the proletariat and to the capitalist system, and they oppose Marxist-Leninist ideology and the socialist system. They arc a bunch of counterrevolutionaries opposing, the Communist Party and the people. Their struggle against us is one of life and death, and there is no question of equality. Therefore, our struggle against them, too, can be nothing but a life-and-death struggle, and our relationship with them can in no way be one of equality. On the contrary, it is a relationship in which one class oppresses another, that is, the dictatorship of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie. There can be no other type of relationship, such as a so-called relationship of equality or of peaceful coexistence between exploiting and exploited classes, or of kindness or magnanimity.

5) The report states, it is necessary not only to beat the other side politically, but also truly to surpass and beat it by a wide margin by academic and professional standards." This concept which makes no class distinction on academic matters is also very wrong. The truth on academic questions, the truth of Marxism-Leninism, of Mao Tsetung Thought -- which the proletariat has grasped -- has already far surpassed and beaten the bourgeoisie. The formulation in the Report shows that its authors laud the bourgeois academic so-called authorities and try to boost their prestige, and that they hate and repress the militant new forces representative of the proletariat in academic circles.

6) Chairman Mao often says that there is no construction without destruction. Destruction means criticism and repudiation, it means revolution. It involves reasoning things out, which is construction. Put destruction first, and in the process you have construction. Marxism-Leninism, Mao Tsetung Thought, was founded and has constantly developed in the course of the struggle to destroy bourgeois ideology. But this Report emphasizes that "without construction, there can be no real and thorough destruction". This amounts to prohibiting the destruction of bourgeois ideology and prohibiting the construction of proletarian ideology. It is diametrically opposed to Chairman Mao's thought. It runs counter to the revolutionary struggle we have been waging on the cultural front for the large-scale destruction of bourgeois ideology. And it amounts to prohibiting the proletariat from making any revolution.

7) The Report states that "we must not behave like scholar-tyrants who always act arbitrarily and try to overwhelm people with their power" and that "we should guard against any tendency by academic workers of the Leftto takethe road of bourgeois experts and scholar-tyrants". What is really meant by "scholar-tyrants"? Who are the "scholar-tyrants"? Should the proletariat not exercise dictatorship and overwhelm the bourgeoisie? Should the academic work of the proletariat not overwhelm and eradicate that of the bourgeoisie? And if proletarian academic work overwhelms and eradicates bourgeois academic work, can this be regarded as an act of "scholar-tyrants"? The Report directs its spearhead against the proletarian Left. Obviously, its aim is to label the Marxist-Leninists "scholar-tyrants" and thus to support the real, bourgeois scholar-tyrants and prop up their tottering monopoly position in academic circles. As a matter of fact, those Party persons in power taking the capitalist road who support the bourgeois scholar-tyrants and those bourgeois representatives who have sneaked into the Party and protect the bourgeois scholar-tyrants arc big Party tyrants who have usurped the name of the Party. They do not read books, do not read the daily press, have no contact with the masses, have no learning at all, and rely solely on "acting arbitrarily and trying to overwhelm people with their power".

8) For their own ulterior purposes, the authors of the Report demand a "rectification campaign" against the staunch Left in a deliberate effort to create confusion, blur class alignments and divert people from the target of struggle. Their main purpose in dishing up the Report in such a hurry was to attack the proletarian Left. They have gone out of their way to build up dossiers about the Left, tried to find all sorts of pretexts for attacking it, and intended to launch further attacks on it by means of a "rectification campaign", in the vain hope of disintegrating its ranks. They openly resist the policy explicitly put forward by Chairman Mao of protecting and supporting the Left and giving serious attention to building it up and expanding its ranks. On the other hand, they have conferred the title of "staunch Left" on those bourgeois representatives, revisionists and renegades who have sneaked into the Party, so as to shield them. In these ways, they are trying to inflate the arrogance of the bourgeois rightists and to dampen the spirits of the proletarian Left. They are filled with hatred for the proletariat and love for the bourgeoisie. Such is the bourgeois conception of brotherhood held by the authors of the Report.

9) At a time when the new and fierce struggle of the proletariat against the representatives of the bourgeoisie on the ideological front has only just begun -- in many spheres and places it has not even started, or if it has started, most Party committees concerned have a very poor understanding of the task of leadership in this great struggle and their leadership is far from conscientious and effective -- the Report stresses again and again that the struggle must be conducted "under direction", "with prudence", "with caution", and "with the approval of the leading bodies concerned". All this serves to place restrictions on the proletarian Left, to impose taboos and commandments in order to tie its hands, and to place all sorts of obstacles in the way of the Proletarian Cultural Revolution. In a word, the authors of the Report are rushing to apply the brakes and launch a vindictive counter-attack. As for the articles written by the proletarian Left in refuting the reactionary bourgeois "authorities", they nurse bitter hatred against those already published and are suppressing those not yet published. On the other hand, they give free rein to all the ghosts and monsters who for many years have abounded in our press, radio, magazines, books, text-books, platforms, works of literature, cinema, drama, ballads and stories, the fine arts, music, the dance, etc., and in doing so they never advocate proletarian leadership or stress any need for approval. The contrast here shows where the authors of the Report really stand.

10) The present struggle centres around the issue of implementation of or resistance to Comrade Mao Tsetung's line on the Cultural Revolution. Yet the Report states: "Through this struggle, and under the guidance of Mao Tsetung Thought, we shall open up the way for the solution of this problem [that is, 'the thorough liquidation of bourgeois ideas in the realm of academic work']." Comrade Mao Tsetung opened up the way for the proletariat on the cultural and ideological front long ago, in his On Democracy, Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art, Letter to the Yenan Peking Opera Theatre,After Seeing to Join the Liangshan Mountain, On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People, and Speech at the Chinese Communist Party's National Conference on Propaganda Work. Yet the Report maintains that Mao Tsetung Thought has not yet opened up the way for us and that it has to be opened up anew. Using the banner of "under the guidance of Mao Tsetung Thought" as a cover, the Report actually attempts to open up a way opposed to Mao Tsetung Thought, that is, the way of modern revisionism, the way to the restoration of capitalism.

In short, the Report opposes carrying the socialist revolution through to the end, opposes the line on the Cultural Revolution pursued by the Central Committee of the Party headed by Comrade Mao Tsetung, attacks the proletarian Left and shields the bourgeois Right, thereby preparing public opinion for the restoration of capitalism. It is a reflection of bourgeois ideology in the Party; it is out-and-out revisionism. Far from being a minor issue, the struggle against this revisionist line is an issue of prime importance having a vital bearing on the destiny and future of our Party and state, on the future complexion of our Party and state, and on the world revolution.

Party committees at all levels must immediately stop carrying out the Outline Report on the Current Academic Discussion Made by the "Group of Five in Charge of the Cultural Revolution". The whole Party must follow Comrade Mao Tsetung's instructions, hold high the great banner of the Proletarian Cultural Revolution, thoroughly expose the reactionary bourgeois stand of those so-called academic authorities who oppose the Party and socialism, thoroughly criticize and repudiate reactionary bourgeois ideas in the sphere of academic work, education, journalism, literature and art and publishing, and seize the leadership in these cultural spheres. To achieve this, it is at the same time necessary to criticize and repudiate those representatives of the bourgeoisie who have sneaked into the Party, the government, the army and all spheres of culture, and to clear them out or transfer some of them to other positions. Above all, we must not entrust these people with the work of leading the Cultural Revolution. In fact many of them have done and are still doing such work, and this is extremely dangerous.

Those representatives of the bourgeoisie who have sneaked into the Party, the government, the army and various spheres of culture are a bunch of counterrevolutionary revisionists. Once conditions are ripe, they will seize political power and turn the dictatorship of the proletariat into a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. Some of them we have already seen through, others we have not. Some are still trusted by us and are being trained as our successors, persons like Khrushchov, for example, who are still nestling beside us. Party committees at all levels must pay full attention to this matter.

This Circular, together with the erroneous document issued by the Central Committee on February 12, 1966, is to be sent down to the level of county Party committees, Party committees in the cultural organizations and Party committees at regimental level in the army. These committees are asked to discuss which of the two documents is wrong and which is correct, their understanding of these documents, and their achievements and mistakes. End


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HAIL THE SEVENTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FOUNDING OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA (MARXIST-LENINIST)!

APRIL 22,1969-APRIL 22, 1976

April 22nd of this year will mark the Seventh Anniversary of the Founding of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist). This seven year experience of the Party against the backdrop of more than 50 years of the Indian Communist movement has verified time and again the correctness of the Party's general and tactical line as adopted at the 8th Party Congress in 1970. The line of Armed Agrarian Revolution as the main content of the People's Democratic Revolution leading to the overthrow of the Indian ruling classes backed by imperialism and social-imperialism and the tactical line of Annihilation of Class Enemies, the crushing of the big landlords' political power and prestige, combating their reactionary violence and suppression of the general masses of our people, the peasantry, by revolutionary violence as the first stage of Armed Agrarian Revolution have been verified as correct and valid for the Indian revolution.

The seven year history of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) is the history of struggle between the two lines. An intense struggle between the two lines has been going on for a long time inside the Indian Communist Movement. The struggle has centered on the question of which road the Indian revolution ought to take. This is the key issue upon which the success or failure of the Indian revolution hinges. The history of the struggle between the line of class struggle and the line of class collaboration and treachery, between the revolutionary rank and file and the bourgeois reactionary leadership, between the proletarian revolutionary line of seizure of state power by revolutionary violence and the reactionary revisionist line of "peaceful transition'', the line of the "parliamentary road'' to socialism.

This struggle has manifested itself time and again, now open and then hidden, leading to at one time a great advance of the revolutionary movement and at another time, passivity, spinelessness and confusion. For the revolutionary masses of India this struggle is the most decisive struggle -- whether the struggling and toiling masses will have correct leadership in the form of a revolutionary Party built on Marxist-Leninist theory and in the Marxist-Leninist revolutionary style integrating the universal principles of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought to the concrete conditions of India or will the bourgeois reactionaries and adventurers seize control of the revolutionary headquarters and hire themselves out to preserve the reactionary rule of the Indian ruling classes, imperialism and social-imperialism. For Indian revolutionaries in the Indian Communist Movement this has been the issue.

The wars of British colonialism, the unspeakable brutalities, torture and murder of the toiling people set in motion for the first time in India, the forces of social revolution on a mass scale. New classes appeared on the Indian scene. The new landlord (zamindar) class imposed by the British colonisers to act as their accomplice and agent in the general exploitation of the people and the landless peasant, a class hitherto unheard of, but now appearing in ever increasing numbers, wielding a new weapon of armed peasant uprisings to combat their new found misery and oppression. The anti-colonial struggle merged with the agrarian revolution and the struggle of oppressed nationalities, both based on liberating the mass of the peasantry from the oppression of the new landlord class and British rule.

Thereafter the sky of India was lit with the flames of numerous and uninterrupted armed peasant uprisings. One after another the wave of armed peasant uprisings swept India. The 1855 Santhal peasant uprising, the 1860 Indigo Planters' Strike, the 1875-76great Maratha peasant uprising in Ahmednagar and Poona, the 1836-96 sixty year long Moplah peasant uprisings and the great Bengal peasant uprisings of 1872 in Pabna and Bogra. Hundreds of thousands were martyred but all these failed to shake the foundations of British rule. What was lacking was a scientific theory and based on it a scientific organisation which could achieve the overthrow of British colonialism and the seizure of state power by revolutionary violence.

Then came October 1917. The workers and peasants of Russia under the leadership of great Lenin overthrew the czar, seized state power and smashed through the weakest link in the world imperialist system to establish the first Soviet republic leading to the first socialist state under the dictatorship of the proletariat. The rays of the earth shaking Bolshevik revolution alighted on India. For the toiling masses of India groaning under the enslavement of British colonialism and straining to find a way to smash the chains and liberate India, a new path was shown. The scientific truths of Marxism-Leninism came to India and in 1925 the Communist Party of India was founded. The general headquarters of Indian revolution was established.

No sooner was this revolutionary headquarters established, then a bourgeois reactionary leadership took over. Centrism, the worst form of revisionism became the dominant line of the leadership. Countless times, the revolutionary rank and file forced the leadership to adopt a revolutionary line only to have the reactionary leadership liquidate it in practice. Such was the case of the 1930 Draft Platform of Action. It stated quite correctly and clearly that: "An agrarian revolution against British capitalism and landlordism must be the basis for the revolutionary emancipation of India." Centrism seized the victory that the implementation of this Correct political line would have brought and imposed defeat. In loyalty to the Indian ruling classes and British colonialism, the centrist leadership of the CPI refused to implement this correct political line of the 1930 Draft Platform of Action.

Thereafter, the Indian people's anti-colonial struggle reached lofty heights. Side by side the two line struggle became extremely acute as the revisionist leadership liquidated one struggle after another, surrendering important victories to the Indian National Congress, organisation of the big landlords and the comprador- bourgeoisie in India and chief accomplice and agent of British colonialism. The revisionist leadership liquidated the struggle of the Anti-Fascist United Front, surrendered the glorious Telengana struggle and pacified the Trebhaga uprisings. By the early 1950's, the revisionist leadership of the "C"PI transformed the Party into a parliamentary Party. Chiming in with the Khrushchovite revisionist restoration in the Soviet Union, the revisionist leadership took up the "parliamentary path to socialism" and displayed their electoral victory in Kerala as an example of their degenerate road. But the Kerala government was declared illegal by the Congress and this found the revisionist leadership of "C"PI on their knees. Nehru, chief spokesman of the Indian ruling classes at once pressed them into service. In 1962 the Indian expansionist government at the urging of U.S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism attacked the People's Republic of China. The Indian revisionists quickly became the most vigorous supporters of national chauvinism and the Indian reactionary attack of socialist China at the behest of world imperialism and reaction. The revolutionary rank and file revolted at this

most abject and blatant betrayal of the Indian people and the international communist movement. "C"PI split in 1964 and the first anti-revisionist headquarter was established in the Communist Party (Marxist). But even this anti-revisionist headquarter was taken over by neo-revisionists who at once began hiring themselves out to the Indian ruling classes. Revisionist "C"PI(M) also took up the parliamentary path and organised the so-called "Non-Congress" governments of Kerala and West Bengal in 1967. At a time when the Congress Party was being defeated and isolated everywhere, the neo-revisionists of "C"PI(M) provided the "bridge to survival" for the Indian ruling classes. The "Non-Congress" governments of Kerala and West Bengal were the last illusions foisted by the revisionists onto the shoulders of the Indian revolutionaries. When the Congress government was on the run, when it was universally unpopular, it was the revisionists and neo-revisionists in the CPI(M) who kept propagating the illusion that the parliamentary solution might work. For this reason, the Indian ruling classes tolerated them and encouraged them. Because they knew full well, that once the Indian Communist Movement is cut from the moorings of the "parliamentary path", from the narrow confines of cretinism, then the revolutionary path remains the only path. The "C"PI(M) were loyal accomplices of the Indian ruling classes and partners in their exploitation and subjugation of the Indian people.

It was in this atmosphere of revisionist betrayal and treachery and all-round confusion that the Spring Thunder of Naxalbaribroke out. Smashing the trammels of revisionist treachery, the Communist revolutionaries went among the masses of the revolutionary peasantry to organise them for the seizure of state power by armed force. As Comrade Charu Mazumdar leader of the Naxalbari movement, and leader of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) has pointed out: "Naxalbari represented the first ever application of Mao Tsetung Thought on the soil of India. It was in Naxalbari that the peasants for the first time launched their struggle for the seizure of power. For this reason, Naxalbari symbolises the path of liberation for the exploited masses of the Indian people, thus ushering in a new era in the political history of India."

Naxalbari was a historic turning point in the Indian Communist Movement. For the first time Indian revolutionaries were able to correct the orientation of Indian revolution. For the first time Indian communist revolutionaries began to implement the fundamental Marxist-Leninist principle as enunciated by Chairman Mao Tsetung:"The seizure of power by armed force, the settlement of the issue by war, is the central task and the highest form of revolution. This Marxist-Leninist principle holds good universally, for China and for all other countries."Smashing the parliamentary cretinism of the Dange-Namboodiripad clique of revisionists and kicking out "parliamentary road to socialism", Indian communist revolutionaries embraced Armed Agrarian Revolution as the basic task of the People's Democratic Revolution, a revolution which is inevitably an armed peasant revolution.

Armed revolution had begun its battle with armed counter-revolution in India. But this revolutionary war needed leadership, a general staff to direct the revolutionary war and channel the myriad other struggles of the Indian people to support this war. For this reason, on April 22, 1969 the communist movement in India was reorganised under the banner of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist). As Comrade Charu Mazumdar has put it: "A correct leadership is essential for waging this revolutionary war successfully. It is precisely for this reason thatthe Communist Party of India (Marxist- Leninist) has been established. Unless we understand this new situation in India, we can have no understanding of the significance and work of the revolutionary Party. This is why our Party is the Party of armed struggle, the Party which will lead the Indian people's revolution to victory."

With the Naxalbari event and the formation of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), the Indian people's revolutionary movement made a tremendous advance. However the dying Indian ruling classes backed by imperialism and social-imperialism who had for so long held an iron grip on the Indian Communist Movement through the shameful renegade Dange-Namboodiripad-Jyoti Basu gang, did not give up so easily. The two line struggle became more acute and sharp. The revisionist line, the line of the Indian ruling classes and imperialism and social-imperialism had been overthrown and discredited by the correctness and brilliance of the line of the glorious 8th Congress of the Party. But the war was far from being won. Imperialism, social-imperialism and the Indian ruling classes once again launched a powerful reactionary and revisionist offensive to usurp the leadership of the communist movement so recently freed from their clutches. All sorts of revisionist monsters and ghosts who had lain low, lain hidden in the Party now jumped out. Four months after agreeing with the general line of the Party Congress, arch revisionist splitter renegade and traitor S.N. Singh called for the overthrow of the central leadership. Using the period of setback imposed on the Party and its organisation by the powerful attack of the Indian state backed by the full might of imperialism and social-imperialism and assisted by the infancy of the Party and its lack of experience in conducting armed struggle and the organisational and political hangovers form the long revisionist night, the revisionist splitters, liquidators and renegades led by S.N. Singh declared a war against the general line of the Party.

Setting up a parallel Central Committee, "expelling" Comrade Charu Mazumdar and declaring him, the first General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), the person who led the fight against revisionism, organised the Naxalbari struggle, organised the All India Coordinating Committee of Communist Revolutionaries and later organised the founding of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), this arch-revisionist renegade S.N. Singh declared him to be a "trotskyite renegade". The revisionist renegades and splitters caused no end of damage to the revolutionary movement India. At a time when the Party was under the severest attack by the Indian state, when thousands of Party cadres were being murdered by the fascist dictatorship of Mrs. Gandhi, the S.N. Singh gang of splitters and liquidators came up to do Indira Gandhi's dirty work by splitting the Party, taking up the revisionist path of ending armed struggle by building reformist "mass movements", the S.N. Singh gang represented the right deviationist wind which sought to recover the lost paradise of revisionism within the ranks of the CPI(M-L). This splitter and liquidator represented the cowardly vacillating petty-bourgeoisie, who scamper for cover at the mere sight of the heinous features of the Indian state. Utter reactionaries all, the S.N. Singh gang cut off from the real life of the revolutionary struggle, and reduced to writing daily prescriptions for revolution, withered on the vine. Isolated into a handful of poetry journals, this gang of splitters and renegades soon became a phantom of their previous boasts.

The revisionist and opportunist trend did not end with S.N. Singh. The Central Organising Committee (COC) who called themselves defenders of Charu Mazumdar soon began to attack the proletarian revolutionary line of Comrade Charu Mazumdar under the guise that Comrade Charu Mazumdar made "some mistakes". Under this cover, the COC also gave up the path of armed struggle and took up the openly revisionist path blazed earlier by S.N. Singh, the path of building "genuine mass organisations". Pursuing this theory of "some mistakes" of Comrade Charu Mazumdar, the revisionist COC capitulated whole sale to the right opportunism led by S.N. Singh. Soon, a practical and later a theoretical compromise was worked out between the revisionist chieftain -- S.N. Singh and COC -- Suniti Ghosh, Sharma clique. S.N. Singh quite shamelessly "withdrew" his so-called "expulsion" of Comrade Charu Mazumdar and Suniti Ghosh just so that Suniti Ghosh could also join the opportunist choir led by S.N. Singh. Thus the circle was completed.

The period from July 1972, after the death of Comrade Charu Mazumdar to the present, is characterised by a tremendous upsurge in the spontaneous struggles of the Indian people, by a resolute attempt by communist revolutionaries to re-organise the Party in the process of conducting armed struggle and by an ever-increasing exposure of the revisionists and opportunists masquerading as Marxist-Leninists. With every passing day the opportunists, anchored in the class interests of the ruling classes, grew weaker, while the Marxist-Leninists' position grew stronger. The line of demarcation grew sharper, and the contradiction more acute. The opportunists gave up one shaky position after another, always justifying it in the name of Marxism-Leninism.

The opportunists led by arch-revisionist splitter and traitor S.N. Singh did everything. One day they were building "civil rights" committees to prolong the illusion that there were any civil rights to be had. The next day they were hiding under the dhoti of J.P. Narayan, arch U.S. imperialist agent, under the theory that J.P. was "progressive". Poetry; journals and literary journals were the absolute rage of the opportunists, all in the name of "actual level of class struggle". Every revisionist activity, everything that the revisionists had done over the years in lieu of building a revolutionary Party was being put forth again as revolutionary activity and all was being justified in the name of Marxism- Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought. To such depths had the opportunists sunk!

The end result of opportunism is self-exposure and final demise. The spontaneous struggles of the Indian people from 1973 onwards left them with no room to manoeuvre. The 1973 P.A.C. revolt when the P.A.C., sent to suppress the struggles of students in Lucknow, joined the students and turned their guns on the state, followed closely by the Gujarat people's struggle forcing the Indian ruling classes to dismiss the Congress government in Gujarat and then the Bihar people's struggle -- all showed that the spontaneous struggles after Naxalbari were of a different character than before. No longer did these spontaneous struggles grovel for mercy and plead for concessions. Now these struggles showed a militancy and resoluteness not encountered before.

The opportunists' prescription for these spontaneous struggles was to build more of their so-called "mass movements" so as to sap the vitality and militancy of these spontaneous struggles. Their line of building "mass organisations" led them straight into the camp of the arch U.S. imperialist agent J.P. Narayan. This anti-communist U.S. imperialist agent had been, since 1974, trying to float a movement, whose primary aim was to push U.S. imperialist interests in India, in contradiction with Soviet social-imperialist interests To this end the U.S. imperialists andtheir agents led by J.P. Narayan organised a campaign to overthrow Mrs. Gandhi.

Using every kind of demagogy, every kind of "socialist" slogans J.P. Narayan tried to float up on the rising tide of people's resistance. Being a movement led by the ruling classes, the J.P. movement followed the "strict guidelines of non-violence", the method which another arch traitor Gandhi had used to save the British colonial regime from certain extinction. J.P. was organising counter-revolution, a movement to bring India under the domination of another superpower, the U.S. imperialists. And in this counterrevolutionary adventure, he had a most apt and suitable camp follower -- none other than the great "Marxist-Leninist", the arch splitter and traitor S.N. Singh. From the opportunist camp of S.N. Singh flowed a constant stream of directives eulogising the great "revolutionary", in fact, chief U.S. imperialist agent J.P. Narayan. This was, according to arch-revisionist S.N. Singh, the "actual level" of class struggle, and all revolutionaries should become the camp followers of the leading U.S. imperialist agent J.P. Narayan.

What was the real situation? The upsurge in the spontaneous struggles had hammered at the foundations of the Indian state and the ruling classes were split on how to deal with this upsurge. One section led by J.P. Narayan tried to use this period to launch a movement to unseat Mrs. Gandhi. Superpower contention reflected itself directly in the alignment and orientation of the Indian ruling classes. J.P. Narayan in the U.S. imperialist camp and Mrs. Gandhi in the Soviet social-imperialist camp, both fighting for state power. In this ensuing dogfight, the arch revisionist, splitter and traitor S.N. Singh offered himself as the propagandist and camp follower of U.S. imperialism. No one can forget his harangues for the J.P. movement, his active collaboration in the U.S. imperialist conspiracy. No one can forget the straightforward opportunist line that the J.P. movement was a "mass movement" just because the J.P. movement had numbers, or, that once inside the J.P. movement, the masses who follow J.P. can be politicised into Marxist-Leninist politics, or that the leadership of the J.P. movement may be U.S. imperialist agents but the masses are revolutionary. All these stock revisionist lines, like ghosts from the past were dragged out to justify the active counterrevolution of the S.N. Singh clique. It was under these same slogans that the old "C"PI joined with the so-called "left wing" of the Indian National Congress back in the 1930s and formed the Kisan Sabha only to hand over the leadership of the peasant organisations to the rich peasants and landlords. It was under this slogan that the revisionists in the old "C"PI joined the Indian National Congress at the time of the anti-colonial upsurge, under the theory that although Gandhi was a British agent, the people in the Congress are revolutionary. These are same shop-worn arguments, discredited and discarded, which are being refurbished today as Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought. Such is the bankruptcy of the S.N. Singh clique!

The decidedness of life always intervenes in opportunist fantasies. Mrs. Gandhi on June 26, 1975 declared the "National Emergency", and with one stroke of her pen made all the fancy "mass organisations" which the arch revisionist, splitter and traitor S.N. Singh had been cultivating, null and void. All the pet revisionist theories of "armed struggle'' through mass organisations fizzled into thin air. All of the "great mass organisations" which S.N. Singh had fantasy about, simply disappeared into thin air. The final proof, if one needed any, that reformist mass organisations do not under any circumstances beget revolution, was all too clear to see.

The opposition to the "National Emergency" is of two kinds. One is the opposition which the ruling classes are putting up and the other is the opposition of the people, the mass of peasantry led by the Marxist-Leninists. The ruling classes who have so recently been disenfranchised, so recently been banished from power, people like Fernandes, Madhoo Limay, Piloo Mody and J.P. himself, have launched a movement which is more or less a continuation of the pre-"National Emergency" days. A movement which is prescribed within strict limits, and held more in being than in fact. A movement whose actual or imagined potential can be used to bargain for concessions from the Indira Gandhi section of the ruling class. Hence this movement is limited to the urban areas and to the urban petty bourgeoisie. The opposition of the ruling class or that section which is loyal to U.S. imperialism, is therefore extremely weak and it is not at all surprising that their leaders, particularly those like Fernandes are often complaining at the "lack of resistance", to the naked fascist terror of the Indira Gandhi government. However, this section of the ruling class is backed by U.S. imperialism and is preparing new conspiracies and plots for the overthrow of Indira Gandhi. Coming from the same ruling class as Indira Gandhi, it is pitching to the same class which Indira Gandhi now holds in sway, of a brighter future under U.S. imperialist domination. It is for this reason that U.S. imperialism has cut off the "aid" money, has disconnected the satellite service and a whole host of small and not so small moves aimed at 'destabilising' the Indira Gandhi regime. This escalating struggle between the two superpowers is causing a great deal of political disruption in India. The ruling class is being forced to choose its loyalties and its masters and a period of great confusion and chaos is beginning for the ruling classes.

This period of political disorder and chaos is an excellent period for Indian revolutionaries and Marxist-Leninists to organise the masses of people along the path of armed struggle, along the path of building the Party in the process of armed struggle. The Marxist-Leninist position is tremendously stronger and the opportunists and revisionists have been reduced from outright supporters of the fascist rule of Indira Gandhi like the Dangeite clique to the U.S. imperialist agents like S.N. Singh, offering one panacea after another for revolution.

For Indian Marxist-Leninists abroad, the issue is much the same. And this issue has clearly been to build unity among Indians resident abroad on the basis of supporting the Armed Agrarian Revolution led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) under the guidance of the proletarian revolutionary line of Comrade Charu Mazumdar. The Hindustani Ghadar Party -- Organisation of Indian Marxist-Leninists Abroad, under the leadership of Comrade Hardial Bains, has been gloriously implementing this programme. Whereas, Khrushchovite revisionists led by the opportunist, splitter and renegade professor in Montreal have always taken up, as their mission, the task of sowing confusion and factionalism, promoting one illusion after another such as the one of "parliamentary democracy", or supporting U.S. imperialist agents like J.P. Narayan or theoretically justifying their practical compromise with the U.S. imperialist and fascist Party Jan Sangh as on the basis of Jan Sangh being the party of the so-called "national bourgeoisie". The Khrushchovite revisionist splitter and renegade professor in Montreal is the genuine representative of the S.N. Singh opportunist and revisionist trend in India. In 1971 S.N. Singh split the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) and in the same year and at approximately the same time this Khrushchovite revisionist also split from the Hindustani Ghadar Party -- Organisation of Indian Marxist-Leninists Abroad. S.N. Singh split from the Party on the basis that there was no need to build the Party in the process of organising armed struggle, whereas, the opportunist professor split on the basis that there was no need to organise Indians resident abroad as a base of support for the Indian revolution. Today S.N. Singh is again preaching "unity" on the same opportunist basis on which he split, while the Khrushchovite revisionist professor is back at "organising" a so-called "people's association". S.N. Singh has collected the dung heap of the Indian opportunists all opposed to the proletarian revolutionary line of Comrade Charu Mazumdar, while this Khrushchovite revisionist professor has collected every adventurer charlatan and trickster with only one thing in common and that is opposition to the political and organisational line of the Hindustani Ghadar Party -- Organisation of Indian Marxist- Leninists Abroad. The Khrushchovite revisionist professor from Montreal is in every way the genuine representative of the S.N. Singh renegade clique.

Over these years, the fate of these opportunist circles has also been much the same. Every year they have been steadily exposed. S.N. Singh has been clearly shown by the force of power, of the Indian revolutionary movement to be nothing more than an apologist for U.S. imperialism. As for the Khrushchovite revisionist professor in Montreal, the developing strength of the Marxist-Leninist politics among Indians resident abroad and the growth of the Hindustani Ghadar Party -- Organisation of Indian Marxist-Leninists Abroad, has also isolated this little clique as a gang of open revisionists who have allied themselves with exactly the same forces that S.N. Singh has found comfort with. Both the opportunist circles are in a sorry state of disarray and confusion. Such is the strength of Marxism- Leninism, the correct politics of Armed Agrarian Revolution.

The seven year history of the party has shown that as hard as the opportunists and revisionists have tried, they have been unable to take over the Party. With the full force of the reactionary Indian state at their disposal, these renegades and splitters have been thoroughly frustrated from taking over the Communist Party of India (Marxist- Leninist). Their efforts have totally failed. Mainly because the Marxist-Leninists have persevered and with great revolutionary resolve have performed the herculean tasks of preserving the Party and re-organising it in the process of organising armed struggle. Abroad, the headquarters of the revolutionary line, the Hindustani Ghadar Party -- Organisation of Indian Marxist-Leninists Abroad has grown from strength to strength. As the Indian revolution enters the eighth year of the Party, the future is indeed bright for the Indian revolutionaries. The Indian ruling classes are isolated as never before. Split and divided, it cannot get together on any single issue, reflecting the fierce contention between the two superpowers. The opportunists and splitters are like beached whales, slowly rotting in the sun. Only the Marxist-Leninists under the banner of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) have a future and path to develop.

In these seven years, the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) has written only the first few chapters of the Indian revolution. Many glorious deeds, those that will move the Indian people to storm the heavens have yet to be written in the sacrifice and blood of Indian revolutionaries. As Chairman Mao Tsetung has put it: "Bitter sacrifice strengthens bold resolve which dares to make sun and moon shine in the new sky". Such is the future of Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) as it enters the eighth year of its profound Marxist- Leninist activity in combat against the Indian ruling classes, imperialism and social-imperialism and their faithful agents, the opportunists and renegades, holding high the bright red banner of Armed Agrarian Revolution made crimson with the blood of thousands of martyrs to the revolutionary cause.

Long live the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist)!

Long live Armed Agrarian Revolution!

Long live the proletarian revolutionary line of Comrade Charu Mazumdar!

End item.

(Reprinted from Lok Awaz, newspaper of the East Indian community, Vol. 3, No. 6, April 16, 1976)


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AFRICAN LIBERATION DAY - MAY 25th

SUPPORT THE NATIONAL LIBERATION STRUGGLES OF THE AFRICAN PEOPLE!

May 25th is African Liberation Day, a day to celebrate the victories of the African people in their revolutionary struggles against colonialism, imperialism and superpower hegemonism, a day of international solidarity of the people of the world with the national liberation struggles of the African people. It is also a day on which the African people prepare to carry their struggle for the liberation of Africa through to the end.

African Liberation Day was proclaimed on May 25,1963, as the first act of the newly-formed Organization of African Unity. The African revolution had made tremendous advances in the two decades since World War II. Since 1963, even greater victories have been won.

African Liberation Day in 1976 takes place as the international class struggle is developing in a direction more and more favorable to the working class and oppressed nations and peoples and more and more unfavorable to the two superpowers and all reactionaries. In Africa, the people's revolutionary struggles are raging and all Africa is standing up. But the African people still face continued and intensified oppression and aggression from the superpowers, other imperialists and reactionaries. In particular, they face the aggressive attempts of the Soviet social-imperialist tiger to recolonize Africa by the back door while the U.S. and other imperialist wolves are attempting to hang on at the front gate. Thus African Liberation Day this year will be celebrated in both a festive and a militant mood.

Africa's territory was almost entirely seized by the western imperialist powers and the African people were subjected to the worst enslavement by the last quarter of the 19th century.

Then capitalism in Europe and America developed into ultra-reactionary imperialism and a handful of financially-gorged "Great Powers" came to rule and exploit the entire population of the globe. By the time World War II broke out, only Egypt, Ethiopia and Liberia had gained formal political independence and they were still enslaved financially. Following the victory in the War by the anti-fascist coalition led by Stalin's Soviet Union, and the victory of the Chinese Revolution in 1949, the national liberation movement of the African people rushed forward with the force of an avalanche. To date, 48 African countries have achieved at least formal political independence, representing over 94% of Africa's territory and over 90% of its people.

The proletariat and oppressed people of the world will never forget the struggles which made made this historical advance possible: the resolute armed struggle of the Congolese people, led by the great African patriot Patrice Lumumba, against U.S. and Belgian imperialism (who were aided in their crimes by Khruschev who personally supported the dispatch of U.S.-controlled U. N. troops to slaughter the Congolese people); the protracted armed struggle of the Algerian people against French colonialism (again Khruschev aided the imperialists, alleging that the Algerian national liberation struggle was an "internal affair" of France); the revolutionary violence of the Mau-Mau of Kenya, which so terrified the imperialist bourgeoisie and the revisionists; the struggle of the people of Azania ("South Africa"), led by the Pan-Africanist Congress of Azania, against apartheid racist rule, a struggle which the racists impotently tried to suppress with the Sharpesville massacre; the Chimurenga (war of national liberation) of the Zimbabwe ("Rhodesia") people led by ZANU (Zimbabwe African National Union); the prolonged armed struggles of the peoples of Angola, Mozambique and Guinea (Bissau), which resulted in the collapse of U.S. imperialist-backed Portuguese colonialism in 1975; and many many others.

But while the African people have made tremendous advances, the struggle to liberate the African continent from imperialism and colonialism is by no means over. In some countries, outright colonial rule of the old type continues to east. In many countries, formal political independence has been won from the European colonial powers, but U.S. imperialism has stepped into the shoes of old colonialism and has imposed varying degrees of domination on these countries by every possible underhanded means, reducing many of them to semi-colonies and new-type colonies (neo-colonies), having a flag of their own but nevertheless controlled by the Yankee dollar and gun. Finally, after the restoration of capitalism by the revisionist clique in the Soviet Union, Russia has become a social-imperialist power and is greedily attempting to replace U.S. imperialism as the dominant colonial power in Africa. All this means that Africa is not yet liberated and the African people must fight on.

In 1975, Angola, Mozambique, the Comoro Islands and Sao Tome and Principe won their political independence. But in the case of Angola, this independence was tom to shreds as soon as it came into existence by the invasion of over 15,000 Cuban and other troops, puppets of the Soviet New Tsars. On February 27, 1975, the people of Western Sahara, led by the Polisario Front, established the Saharan Arab Democratic Republic and are waging an armed struggle to defend their independence against Morocco and Mauritania. Thus, in addition to Angola, the countries still under colonial rule include: Zimbabwe ("Rhodesia"), Azania ("South Africa"), Namibia ("South West Africa") (all dominated by U.S.-backed white racist minority regimes), Eritrea (dominated by Ethiopia, which is backed by U.S. imperialism), the Sinai peninsula of Egypt (controlled by U.S. -backed Israeli Zionism), Territory of Afars and Issas (Djibouti -- French-dominated), Canary Islands (Spain), Reunion Islands (France), Azores Islands (Portugal), Madeira Is. (Portugal), Ascension Is. (Britain), St. Helena Island (Britain) and Seychelles Island (Britain).

Revolutionary people's wars for national liberation are presently surging forward powerfully in Zimbabwe (led by ZANU), Namibia (led by SWAPO, South West African Peoples Organization), Eritrea (led by EPLF, Eritrean People's Liberation Forces), and the Sahara (led by Polisario Front). The Azanian masses, led by PAC,are developing their struggles. Egypt is combating both superpowers and Zionism. And the Angolan people, led by UNITA (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola), have militantly embarked on their second anti-colonial war, this time against Soviet social-imperialism and its running dogs. Despite the adventures of the New Tsars and the attempts of U.S. imperialism to hang onto its indirect colonies, the end of old colonialism and the achievement of at least formal political independence for all of Africa is certainly not far off.

But even where formal political independence has been won, the battle for the liberation of the oppressed nations from imperialism is by no means over. Unless imperialist rule and control in every sphere -- political, economic and cultural -- is thrown off, political independence will inevitably become independence only in name, a mask to hide the real enslavement of a nation by new-type colonialism, by the neocolonialism of an imperialist power. Chairman Mao Tsetung's theory of new-democratic revolution lights the path for thorough-going anti-imperialist revolution in the colonies and semi-colonies

The African people are determined not to become slaves of a new master once the old master has been eliminated. For example, the people of the Congo (Kinshasa) are fighting on against U.S. and Belgian neo-colonialism in the great tradition of Lumumba. Led by the Marxist Revolutionary Party of the Congo, which is guided by Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought, they are waging a revolutionary people's war and have already liberated vast base areas in the countryside. In Ethiopia, too, the broad masses of workers and peasants are fighting under the leadership of the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Party against U.S. imperialist domination, feudalism and fascism. They have formed firm ties with the Eritrean people who are fighting a war of national liberation against Ethiopian domination, led by the Eritrean People's Liberation Forces. Like old colonialism, neo-colonialism in Africa is also doomed.

In the African countries extremely broad sections of the people refuse to be slaves of imperialism. This is also reflected in the struggles of the independent African countries against the hegemonism of the two superpowers. Since 1963 the Organization of African Unity has taken many steps against the colonialists, imperialists and the superpowers in defense of the independent African countries and in support of the armed national liberation struggles in the countries still facing old colonialism. African countries have played a major role in the struggle of the Third World countries against superpower hegemonism. They have vigorously participated in the struggle of raw materials producing countries to combat imperialist plunder of their natural resources by taking control of them and by raising their prices. In 1975 African countries took part in a group of 46 developing countries which forced some imperialist countries (not including the superpowers) to sign the Lome Convention. The Lome Convention stipulated that the developed capitalist countries must compensate raw materials-producing countries for any fall in the market price of raw materials or for any rise in the price of industrial goods made in the developed countries, This combated the well-known "scissors differential" which squeezes the developing countries between the low prices of the raw materials they produce and the high prices of industrial goods produced by the developed countries, for which the developing countries must exchange their raw materials. Also in 1975, 36 African countries formed the West African Economic Community. In addition to economic demands, this organization demanded that the superpowers remove their aggressive fleets and nuclear weapons from the Indian Ocean and that it be declared a nuclear-free zone of peace.

The African countries have also taken steps to defend their jurisdiction over their coastal waters and have strengthened Arab-African cooperation against the common enemies. The struggle of the independent African countries to consolidate and defend their independence and develop their national economies is a just struggle which hurts the superpowers and assists the final liberation of the people.

Most of all, 1975-6 was the time when the Soviet social-imperialist tiger intensified its attempts to enter Africa by the back door and re-colonize it just when the African people were kicking out the U.S. and other imperialist wolves at the front gate. This development caught the attention of the whole world in Angola. The Soviet Union stood by with folded arms as the Angolan people defeated U.S.-backed Portuguese colonialism in their 14-year war of national liberation. But once independence was won the New Tsars arrogantly stepped in, slandered two of the Angolan liberation organizations as "reactionary" and "U.S. imperialist CIA agents" while arming a third to the teeth with heavy weapons. Thus the New Tsars single-handedly provoked a civil war in Angola. Then they sent their Cuban puppets, 15,000 strong, to invade Angola and make it a Soviet base. Taking advantage of the Angolan people's difficulties, the U.S.-backed racist authorities of South Africa also invaded Angola after the Soviet invasion was well underway. The Soviet New Tsars then "justified" their invasion of Angola by the South African invasion, concealing the fact that they invaded first. Actually the Soviet-Cuban invaders never fought the South African troops, while UNITA did. Now these invaders and their Angolan government of national betrayal have even made a deal with South Africa to protect South Africa's interests in the Cunene Dam in Angola and have promised the racists to try and stop the Namibian freedom fighters from using UNITA's bases in southern Angola to launch attacks on the South African rule in Namibia! Meanwhile, hiding under a false banner of "anti-racism", the Soviet New Tsars and their puppets slaughtered the Angolan people, massacring over 150,000. But this massive aggression did not intimidate the militant Angolan people. Led by UNITA, they marched into combat to wage a protracted people's war against the Soviet-Cuban aggressors. Thus the heroic Angolan people are standing in the vanguard of the African revolution and will become the first nation to defeat in combat the troops and puppets of both superpowers.

Elsewhere in Africa, the New Tsars also stepped up their efforts at penetration, aiming at seizing strategic points, establishing military bases and grabbing sources of raw materials in their frenzied contention with U.S. imperialism for world hegemony. In southern Africa, the New Tsars floated rumors that they would send Cuban puppets to "liberate", i.e., enslave, the Zimbabwean people. But this has met with the opposition of the Zimbabwean and the Mozambican people, who are fighting in unity against the aggressive white racist minority regime of Ian Smith.

Throughout Africa the New Tsars are making outrageous demands for military and naval bases, using "aid" and weapons sales as a lever. They aim at capturing strategic points from which they can cut the supply lines to Europe in the world war the superpowers are preparing. Once established, these bases become "sovereign" Soviet states, violating the sovereignty of African countries, carrying on spying and subversion and acting as potential staging areas for military actions against the African people and for world war. Over 1000 KGB agents now operate in Africa. The New Tsars sell outmoded weaponry to African countries at exorbitant prices and press for early re-payment of high-interest loans. According to incomplete statistics, the social-imperialists have exported over $3 billion in capital to Africa from 1954 to 1974, seizing sources of raw materials in oil-rich North Africa and in West Africa which is rich in mineral resources. This is accomplished under the guise of "socialist aid" and by means of "joint-stock enterprises", i. e. capitalist monopolies no different from their American counterparts. By these means the Soviet revisionists have seized over $4.7 billion worth of food and agricultural and mineral materials from Africa between 1960 and 1974. Babbling about an "international division of labor" and an "international worker-peasant alliance", the Soviet revisionists, like the U.S. imperialists, enforce backward, one-sided agricultural and raw materials-producing economies on the African countries, forcing them to exchange their low-priced products for increasingly high-priced industrial goods. For example, in 1955 1.8 tons of African coffee' could be exchanged for a Soviet metal-cutting lathe, but in 1974 the New Tsars extorted 4.2 tons of coffee for the same machine.

Against the Soviet neo-colonial designs, the African people are rising up in struggle. The Angolan people are in the forefront. Last month the government of Egypt terminated the Egyptian-Soviet "treaty of friendship and cooperation" which had bound it hand and foot, holding back its struggle to liberate its occupied territories from U.S. -backed Israeli Zionism.

Like the struggles against old colonialism and U.S. neo-colonialism, the struggle of the African people against the neo-colonialism of the Soviet New Tsars is also bound to win complete victory.

The national liberation movement of the African people is part of and a great ally to the world proletarian socialist revolution. The blows which the African people strike against the superpowers and other reactionaries are mighty hammer-blows to the main enemies of the people of the whole world. In particular, the U.S. imperialists, "our own" exploiters, are still the biggest neo-colonial power in Africa today and the African people's struggles are weakening their rule over the working class and oppressed people at home. By weakening the superpowers the revolutionary struggles of the African people bring closer the day when the U.S. imperialists and the Soviet social-imperialists are overthrown by the U.S. and Soviet working classes. Especially the Afro-American people, kidnapped from Africa long ago by the U.S. colonialists, are keenly aware that their struggle against the U.S. monopoly capitalists is closely linked to that of their African brothers. Therefore, the U.S. working class, the Black people and other oppressed nationalities and people owe their firmest support to the African revolution.

In fact, American Marxist-Leninists, other revolutionary workers and masses of Afro-Americans have come forward many times to support the struggles of the African people. W.E.B. DuBois, the great Afro-American leader, organized Pan-African Congresses in 1911, 1918, 1923, 1927 and 1945 to unite Black people in the U.S. and the Americas with the African people in a common struggle against imperialism. In 1924, the Communist Party U.S.A., then still a revolutionary party, issued a statement signed by Charles E. Ruthenberg and William Z. Foster, the two foremost leaders of the U.S. proletariat, declaring: "We stand for driving the imperialist powers out of Africa and for the right of self-determination of the peoples of Africa." The protracted struggle by the Communist Party to defend the Scottsboro Boys, young Afro-Americans who faced legal lynching by the U.S. ruling class, became known throughout Africa and the rest of the colonial world. Malcolm X, the uncompromising Afro-American fighter, worked tirelessly to link the Afro-American struggle with the African struggle and forged close personal ties between the two, pointing out that the example of the armed struggle of the Kenyan Mau-Mau should be followed by Blacks in the U.S. In 1972 Afro-Americans and other Black people in the Americas and Canada held demonstrations in support of the African liberation movement in many cities involving over 65,000 people. At that time they raised over $38,270 to contribute to the African liberation movements and in 1973 a representative of the African Liberation Support Committee made a 1000-mile round trip on foot into Angola to deliver $7,200 to UNITA. Thus close historical links exist between the U.S. proletariat and Afro-American people and the great African people in the common struggle against imperialism. These feelings were eloquently expressed by W.E.B. DuBois in the following statement made by him at the First All-African Peoples Conference in Accra, Ghana, in 1958:

"Strive against Colonialism and Imperialism with every fibre of your bodies and souls! A body of local private capitalists, even if they are black, can never free Africa. They will simply sell it into new slavery to old masters overseas.

"Which way shall Africa go? First I would emphasize the fact that today Africa has no choice between capitalism and socialism. The whole world, including capitalist countries, is moving towards socialism, inevitably, inexorably. You can choose between blocs of military alliance, you can choose between groups of political union, you cannot choose between socialism and capitalism because capitalism is doomed!

"Your nearest friends and neighbors are the people of China and Asia, the Middle East and the Sea Isles, once close bound to the heart of Africa and now long severed by the greed of Europe. Your bond is not mere colour of skin but the deeper experience of wage slavery and contempt. So too your bond with the white world is closest to those who support and defend China and not those who exploit the Middle East and South America."

As African Liberation Day of 1976 arrives, let the revolutionary people in the U.S. strengthen these ties by stepping up their support for the struggling African people, who are fighting our common enemies, and by working to overthrow the U.S. imperialists right in their heartland! End


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Victory to the Second Anti-Colonial War of the Angolan People!

Today the Angolan people led by UNITA, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola, are heroically and gloriously fighting for the freedom of their homeland against the Soviet-Cuban army of occupation. The "end" of the war announced by the Soviet aggressors and the obliging U.S. imperialist news agencies only meant that the Angolan people had shifted from fighting a conventional war -- in which heavy, sophisticated weaponry including jet aircraft, rocket artillery, tanks and missiles can compensate for a while for a lack of popular support -- to the warfare perfected by the Angolan people in their war of national liberation against U.S. imperialist-backed Portuguese colonialism. There is no longer a civil war in Angola. As Comrade Sangumba, Minister of Foreign Affairs of UNITA, points out in the interview below: "MPLA is no longer fighting UNITA and the FNLA, but Cuban mercenaries are fighting the people of Angola on behalf of Russian social- imperialism." The war in Angola is now the second anti-colonial struggle of the Angolan people -- the Angolan people who never ceased struggling for 500 years against Portuguese colonialism are now fighting Russian colonialism. The Soviet aggressors should not be too overjoyed at their "victory" -- they have lifted a big rock only to drop it on their own feet!

It is very significant that those Americans who refused to oppose Soviet social-imperialism but instead became the public-relations men and agents for Soviet aggression in Angola, have in fact thereby capitulated in front of U.S. imperialism also. A liberated and totally independent Angola would be outside the sphere of imperialist exploitation and U.S.-Soviet contention.

The U.S. imperialists have therefore preferred a colonial government of national betrayal dominated by the Soviet social-imperialists to a truly liberated Angola. Comrade Sangumba points out below that "the multi-national corporations, which during the struggle against Portuguese colonialism financed the Portuguese colonial army, are now financing the Soviet and Cuban armies. Last week, Gulf Oil paid to the MPLA-Luanda government $102 million and the other multi-national corporations are about to do the same." Thus the U.S. imperialists have colluded with the Soviet social-imperialists in Angola in order to serve the interests of their ever-fiercer contention with the Soviet New Tsars for hegemony in Southern Africa and the whole world. And the U.S. imperialists have not been mistaken in their estimate of the nature of a government of national betrayal. The Communiques from UNITA (reprinted below) show that the government of national betrayal has concluded a shameful deal with the U.S. imperialist-backed racist regime of the Union of South Africa and have pledged themselves to protect South African interests in the Cunene Dam as well as to betray the cause of the Namibian freedom fighters by trying to prevent their use of (UNITA) bases in Southern Angola. It is a lesson written in the blood of the Angolan and Namibian patriots that whoever wishes to oppose U.S. imperialism must, in this day and age, oppose both superpowers, both U.S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism.

Angola is a small country, but it is proving to be a great pathfinder for Asia, Africa and Latin America. The victory of the Angolan people will be a defeat for both U.S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism. The Workers'Advocate calls on all progressive people to give full support to the Second Anti-Colonial War of the Angolan people.

THE ANGOLAN PEOPLE WILL WIN! End


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PRESS CONFERENCE WITH COMRADE SANGUMBA, MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF UNITA

The chairman of the meeting, a member or the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist), introduced Tony Fernandes, a founding member and Minister of Information of UNITA and Jorge Sangumba, Minister of Foreign Affairs of UNITA. Jorge Sangumba began the press conference by reading a prepared press statement issued by UNITA on March 13. The two representatives then answered questions for the reporters present at the press conference. The basic text of the press conference follows:

Comrade Sangumba:

Members of the press, Ladies and Gentlemen:

Now the Soviet-inspired civil war in Angola is over. The armed struggle has clearly become one of the Angolan people against the Russian army of colonial occupation. MPLA is no longer fighting UNITA and the FNLA, but Cuban mercenaries are fighting the people of Angola on behalf of Russian social-imperialism. There is now in Angola an army of occupation of fifteen thousand Cubans, and more than 1,500 Russian, Czech and East German military advisors. The first liberation struggle was against the occupation of our country by the Portuguese colonialists, armed and financed by all the NATO countries and racist minority regimes in Southern Africa. During the fifteen years of liberation struggle, the People's Republic of China provided major support to all the three Angolan liberation movements. Russian support was given to only one of the movements, MPLA. This same Russian support to MPLA was relatively slight when the enemy of Angola was colonial Portugal. The American support was naturally zero. In fact through its support to its NATO ally, Portugal, the United States actually supported the colonialist oppressor of Angola, directly by its administration and through multi-national corporations such as Gulf Oil.

Now, since the war against the Portuguese colonialists has ended, why have so many Soviet weapons been sent to MPLA? To kill whom? Naturally, the Angolan people, and to impose by sheer force of arms a pro-Soviet regime which will be used as a springboard to interfere with and attack other African States, thus creating a series of satellites far beyond the Russian zone frontiers. The USSR also laid its sights in Angola, regardless of all the consequences, in order to exploit Angola's abundant minerals, from oil to diamonds, and also to set up a reactionary global strategy to seek world hegemony.

Today, USSR ships have seized the port of Luanda, Lobito, and Mocamedes to transform them into naval bases and thereby to threaten the oil passage by sea, of United States and Western European countries from the east and south and dominate the southern flank. Consequently, taking Angola as a spring-board for expansion in Central and Southern Africa, the Soviet Union also attempts to further sabotage the national liberation movement in the whole of Southern Africa, and grab the strategic resources in the region. This is what UNITA considers in concrete terms, to be Soviet social-imperialism. The Angolan people surely, through the armed struggle that we decided a few weeks ago to wage, will resist and defeat Russian imperialism in Angola.

Now the issue of South Africa's involvement in the civil war of Angola, as a pretext of Soviet and Cuban invasion of Angola, is a false one. The South African question was manipulated by the Soviet Union in order to gain diplomatic support for the MPLA in the African and Third World countries. They succeeded temporarily. UNITA is no less an enemy of South African racist minority regime than is MPLA. In fact UNITA has been fighting against South African racist regimes and the abominable South African idea of Bantustan in concrete terms. From 1968, UNITA has been supporting the freedom fighters of Namibia through SWAPO. SWAPO does not have a single military camp inside Namibia, which means that all the activities have been done from the Angolan soil. Not from Luanda, not from the centre, but the southern part of Angola where UNITA has its military bases. UNITA shall continue to support all the just struggles and genuine liberation movements in Southern Africa. Not only against Western imperialism, but also against Soviet social-imperialism.

Also, it has been reported that UNITA and the other friendly organisations have been recruiting mercenaries to fight in Angola alongside UNITA. UNITA never had, does not have, and will never accept mercenaries of any kind, to fight for us. Furthermore, the idea of mercenaries contradicts the very concept of guerrilla warfare which is based on people's support inside the country. The question of mercenaries was another Soviet propaganda gimmick to denigrate UNITA and divert attention from the main issue, that of Soviet and Cuban invasion.

The third stage of our liberation struggle is the guerrilla warfare against the Cuban army and the Soviet advisors who have been recolonising Angola. The Cuban soldiers are not only looting houses, and raping Angolan women, but also taking over the shops, smuggling diamonds, and settling the most fertile areas of Angola, such as in the area of Sela. Recently, the League of the Angolan women shot 17 Cubans for raping some of the Women's League. Two weeks ago, the guerrillas of UNITA destroyed 12 Soviet tanks, and armed cars such as T54's, T34's and captured 25 Cubans. The Cubans in Angola, apart from settling, are bringing over their families, and the MPLA in April 1976 intends to extend to all of the Cubans, Angolan citizenship.

The multi-national corporations, which during the struggle against Portuguese colonialism financed the Portuguese colonial army, are now financing the Soviet and Cuban armies. Last week, Gulf Oil paid to the MPLA-Luanda government $102 million and the other multi-national corporations are about to do the same.

This second war of liberation against Russian and Cuban soldiers will and must continue until the last Cuban and Russian is driven from the Angolan soil. UNITA calls upon all the peace-loving and revolutionary organisations to fight together in all fields in such a way the Russian imperialism will suffer the same fate as U.S. imperialism suffered in Viet Nam. This is the end of the statement, that we could use. So if the members of the press or friends have any questions, we are ready to answer.

Question: What is UNITA's connection with the Communist Party of Canada, which I gather is sponsoring this?

Answer: The relations between UNITA and the Internationalists were formalised at the historic Necessity for Change Conference in London, England in August, 1967. More than 25 liberation organisations participated in this conference. UNITA and the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) were two of them. The Canadian Internationalists, an anti-imperialist youth and student movement founded in Vancouver in 1963 who later founded the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) sent a delegation to the conference.

Question: UNITA though is not a democratic movement for the liberation of Angola?

Answer: Of course UNITA is a democratic movement, not only from our point of view, because all the Western reporters have been unanimous on Angola. If we had elections in October last year, UNITA comfortably could have over 75% of the total vote. In other words, it means that we are really a movement of majority -- in other words a democratic movement.

Question: You're saying in your statement you support other nationalistic movements in Africa or South Africa. What would be the next ground for the nationalist movement? Would Rhodesia be an example?

Answer: For our support? Well. Rhodesia--the only support that you can give to them, is not by sending an expeditionary army to Rhodesia. This you cannot do. As far as SWAPO is concerned, we occupy the same geo-political position. SWAPO is our neighbour.

The people in the northern part of Namibia are the same as the people in the southern part of Angola, the Quanyama people, the Ovambolan. So we think that whenever we can assist them, we are ready to support them. But one thing UNITA will never do, that is, to dictate what type of struggle SWAPO should wage. If SWAPO thinks that through the United Nations, they are going to get total liberation of Namibia, it is up to them to decide. If they think that they are going to wage an armed struggle against the South African racist minority in Namibia, it is up to them to decide. Secondly, we want to help the brothers of Namibia, not in isolation but through other African states, by consulting them and finding out what is the best way of supporting them.

Question: You made no mention of South African troops. You talked about no mercenaries being involved in UNITA but there were South African regiments fighting along the....

Answer: Well, this is exactly what the Western press unitedly say. They have been saying recently that South Africans were involved along side with UNITA and the FNLA. And, later on we discovered it was a very intelligent plot to help the Russians. In fact, the liberals in Western countries have been the best lobbies of the Russians and the Cubans. There is no question about that.

Question: Must have been pretty artistically done, because we have seen films of the South African troops fighting in grounds near UNITA.

Answer: Well, I submit to you myself being in Zambia, I was the only organiser of western journalists going in UNITA areas. I wonder, whether one day we will really organise a trip, whether for you or other men, to go to UNITA areas and to film UNITA fighting with the South Africans. As far as I remember, I don't recollect any incident like that. But let us analyse the problem of South Africa. It is not just the question of reporting, because reporters can report anything for the market in order to sell their newspapers better. Because, the issue of South Africa, in the past three months, was very exciting to sell newspapers. Is South Africa a superpower? South Africa is not a superpower. So, who could effectively fight the Russians in Angola? It is not South Africa!

South Africa alone cannot effectively fight the Soviet Union. It cannot! So, really it was a false issue. Secondly, when did South Africa come to Angola? Reporters have been saying that it was UNITA and FNLA who called South Africans to Angola. This is false! It is against history! South Africa came to Angola in 1969, under a contract between the Portuguese colonialists and South Africans, when South Africans started to build up the Cuene Dam in Angola. The Cuene Dam is a counterpart of the Cabora Bassa. In 1969, South Africa put troops in the southern part of Angola. Now, when we formed the transition government, we had the three armies of MPLA, UNITA and FNLA facing the South Africans five kilometers apart from each other. Not a single shot was fired against South Africa at the time. Mind you; it was immediately after we came from Portugal in January. Now the civil war started in March 1975, and the issue of South Africa started to appear in the press around June, July, August, September. Why, only in that period did people discover South Africans were in Angola, if South Africans have been in Angola since 1969!? We come to the conclusion that the South African issue was the only emotional issue, which could unite the liberals outside, because they could appeal to something, to help the "niggers" in some way in Africa, and that was the only issue that could unite all the African countries, and Third World countries despite their contradictions. And I think the Soviet Union succeeded in having a diplomatic victory for MPLA around the issue of South Africa. But mind you, this is only a temporary diplomatic victory, because the situation will be reversed.

Question: So you are telling me that UNITA and South African troops never fought side-by-side, never supported each other in the war against MPLA?

Answer: This is exactly what I am saying.

Question: So, where does the UNITA support come from?

Answer: From 1966-74, UNITA never received a single penny from the OAU, because UNITA was not recognised by the OAU until January 1975. In other words, OAU ignored UNITA for nine years. Finally, people said how come these people have been surviving inside Angola without OAU support, without Cuban support, without American support, without outside support? The story is very simple. We relied mainly on our people.

In terms of weapons we captured a lot of weapons from the Portuguese, and we also did a lot of underground work buying weapons and bringing them into the country. This was in the first stage of the struggle. As far as the second stage of the struggle, we have met a lot of friends recently, in the Western world and in Africa who gave us support and they are going to continue to give us financial, diplomatic and military support.

Question: This will be to raise funds for your campaign?

Answer: Not this time.

Question: Will you be visiting the United States?

Answer: I have already been in the United States and I am going back home next Tuesday.

Question: And you have already been to Europe as well?

Answer: We have a representative in Europe. He is my brother here, Tony Fernandes. He is based in Europe, so his job is to brief people in Europe about what is taking place in Angola.

Question: How much longer do you expect Zambia to provide support?

Answer: Zambia never supported us militarily.

Question: Offices?

Answer: Even officers. And we will never accept Zambian officers coming to our land to fight for us. This we will never do. Offices or officers? -- (the question was of offices) We don't really have offices as such. At the moment that UNITA ceased to be a liberation movement on the 11th of November 1975, when Angola became independent; UNITA, FNLA and MPLA all ceased to be liberation movements. Therefore, they would not have offices like SWAPO and CAPAC and so forth. Really, we are there as individuals operating in their house.

Question: What will happen if Dr. Kuanda withdraws his support from UNITA?

Answer: I said that Dr. Kuanda never gave military support. Dr. Kuanda only gave us political support. And I think that in Africa he has been one of the most consistent men, the men of principle. You may have heard about his press statement; he said, "That, Angola today is a land under occupation of Russians and Cubans". So he does not see why Zambia should recognise an occupation, an occupied country. Zambia has consistently been supporting the idea of stopping the war and putting all the foreigners out of Angola, from South Africans to the Soviet Union and the Cubans. He has supported the formation of a government of national union and wants Angolans to settle their own affairs. Up to today he has been consistent; I don't know if it is going to change tomorrow.

Question: The U.S. also supported the recognition of MPLA, did it not?

Answer: I don't know about that. But whether the U.S. recognises the MPLA or not does not change anything.

Question: Can you comment on UNITA's relationship with Zaire?

Answer: Well, our relationship with Zaire is exactly the same as the relationship we have with Zambia, with Kenya, with Gabon, with Ivory Coast, with Senegal, with Cameroon, or with any African state. Of course with Zaire we have a special relationship in the sense that Zaire is our neighbour. Zaire shares with Angola more than 200 kilometres of frontier. In Zaire, there are more than one million Angolan refugees. During the armed struggle with the Portuguese, and now during the civil war, Angolans are still running away to Zaire. Therefore it is only normal not only to have a political relationship, but to have a special relationship with Zaire.

Question:There have been reports here that Zaire asked UNITA, and FNLA, to leave the country. Now, would you want to comment on that, in view of what you just said?

Answer:Yes, such a thing may have affected the FNLA, but not UNITA because UNITA does not have an official office in Zaire, UNITA does not have a single military camp in Zaire -- has never had one in the past and will never have one in the future. UNITA does not have a single military camp outside Angola. So, when an African state will say, well, UNITA and FNLA, close down your houses, will this change the situation inside the country? It will not change it. What I am saying is that the reports you are giving are being a little bit dramatised. UNITA does not have offices officially in Zaire, it does not have headquarters in Zaire. So therefore, when they said that Mobutu asked UNITA to leave Zaire, this doesn't really give you any news at all. Possibly it affects FNLA, because FNLA has a big office headquarters in Kinshasa, but not UNITA. Our headquarters is inside Angola.

Question:But if the MPLA is the government of Angola, officially recognised by Zaire, how could you have a special relationship with President Mobutu's government?

Answer:Well. Are you saying that Zaire diplomatically recognised MPLA? Well....

Question:Last week!

Answer:Last week! When they met in Brazzaville?

Question:Yes.

Answer:No! Your information is wrong. Zaire met Dr. Neto in Brazzaville and the two parties decided to normalise their relations. That was the exact text of the communique. An equal number of representatives of each side are going to form a committee to study other problems, which is then going to lead to full diplomatic relations. This is exactly what the communique says. But UNITA is an Angolan liberation movement. So I don't see why MPLA is to have a monopoly on having a special relationship with Zaire. Both UNITA and FNLA being Angolan movements have to have relationships with Zaire. We have to.

Question:But wouldn't the M.'LA, as part of the negotiations, insist that it be the sole recognised governing party in Angola; wouldn't it insist that Zaire not have any special relationship with any other group in Angola?

Answer: Yes, they may, they may. MPLA is definitely asking that. But there are 1,000,000 refugees in Zaire, members of FNLA. It is a problem. Of course, for us it is not. They are members of FNLA: how are these refugees going to go back to MPLA and MPLA control? This is not our problem. But since the controversy in Angola is not over yet, we think that UNITA has to maintain good relations with the neighbouring countries, Zaire and Zambia, no matter who forms the regime in Luanda.

Question: How do you justify the statement that the controversy in Angola is not over when the OAU has recognised the MPLA government, and countries from East and West have also recognised the MPLA?

Answer:You see the recognition which counts in Angola is the recognition from the Angolan people. The question is, did our own people recognize MPLA? I think that you yourself know that the answer is "No". How do we measure that the Angolan people recognise MPLA? Because of Soviet guns? The answer is no! Diplomatic recognition -- what does it mean? How many countries recognised Chiang Kai-shek for the past thirty or forty years? What happened. Where is Chiang Kai-shek now? So you see, this is the problem. That as long as the Angolan people do not recognise a particular liberation movement, it does not matter how many recognitions you have in the world. It cannot succeed. Our people have said that the Cubans and the Russians have to leave Angola. This struggle is legitimate and they should continue the resistance. And if we succeed, OAU will change. And you know already how often they change their mind.

Question:What is the status of the FNLA at the moment? Are you associated with them, or do you consider them a dead cause?

Answer:No, we don't consider them a dead cause. They are still in Kinshasa, and still have some forces inside Angola. But they are facing a lot of difficulties. They had problems in the northern part of Angola after the collapse of Negage, their headquarters. Later on they had further problems with the mercenaries. But I think that FNLA is not a dead issue yet. The alliance of FNLA with UNITA was within the spirit of the formation of the government of national union. We thought that later on they might join us, but they have refused to join us. Also, we have to clarify here that the issue of FNLA was also used against UNITA by people who do not know anything about Angola, but parade around as experts on Angolan affairs. They have forgotten that in 1972, MPLA made an alliance with FNLA. Everyone following the whole development remembers that. There was an agreement signed in Kinshasa, whereby FNLA and MPLA would form a political and a military commission. Dota Gushinet was elected leader of the military commission and Holden Roberto the leader of the political commission. Of course, at that time, the alliance was a "progressive" alliance, because it was made by MPLA. Three years later, the same alliance made between UNITA and FNLA was a "reactionary" alliance.

Secondly, we have already had an alliance between the three movements, through the Mombasa Agreement, through the Alvor Agreement and through the Nakuru Agreement last year. And finally, we had a tripartite alliance between the three Angolan liberation movements during the transitional government, whereby the liberation movements would share a similar or same number of portfolios for the administration of the country. Of course, at that time people thought the alliance was progressive, but when the MPLA left the alliance, people then said the alliance was reactionary.

Question:Reports we have received here indicate that the war is all but over. Is that the situation?

Answer:No! I think that what people are trying to do by saying that the war is over is to discourage UNITA from fighting and to discourage people from giving support to UNITA. The war is not really over. In fact, it is the beginning of a very serious confrontation. It is no longer against our MPLA brothers. It is now against an army of occupation, 15,000 Cubans, 1,500 Russians, Czechs and East Germans. Today in Angola, the Cubans are settling in Angola, occupying the most fertile lands, the area of Sela for example, and bringing their families to settle. Apparently in April, next month, citizenship will be extended to them.

Question:How do you fight a power which seems to be much larger than Angola?

Answer:Like the Soviet Union? Well, the United States lost in Viet Nam and I think that is another superpower. But I will explain to you how we are going to fight and how we are going to succeed. First, we have the people.

Question:How many people?

Answer:Over four million people. This is exactly the number. Over four million people.

Question:Is that based on a tribal basis or what?

Answer:No. In Angola, among the four million people you will find more than forty different tribes. It is not tribal support.

So (back to the original question) the people are the most essential thing. We don't claim to have support from the whole of Angola, this would not be true; mainly from the 11th parallel. If you go to a map of Angola, it is exactly between Porto Amboin and the Novo Redondo (UNITA's support base). People there are giving political support to UNITA.

Secondly, we are better armed than we were against the Portuguese colonialists. In other words, the civil war, the short-lived civil war, allowed UNITA to get weapons and to be better armed, better equipped and better trained. Our army is also much more politicised than before. We had much more time to politicise the army. From the other side, when we fought against the Portuguese, the Portuguese had 600,000 colonialists in Angola. Some of them were born in Angola, but most of them came from Portugal. These people controlled the economy of the country, the commerce and the industry. So this meant that local people, for their very survival depended on the local Portuguese shop. Thus they were automatically subservient to the Portuguese as such. Secondly, the Portuguese had a sophisticated police state, called PIDE, of the Gestapo type. The PIDE had tentacles not only in the towns but even in the villages. What does this mean? It means that when a guerrilla, during colonial times, arrived at the village, you were not sure whether your father, your mother, your cousin or your brother was not a member of the Portuguese Secret Police.

Now during the civil war, we discovered that the country was divided in three. People who gave political support to FNLA were in the northern part of Angola. People who gave support to MPLA were around the Luanda-Malange corridor. And people who gave support to UNITA started from the 11th parallel.

We don't think that the Soviets and the Cubans, for the next twenty years will succeed in building up a police state and an infrastructure like that the Portuguese built over five centuries. This is why we think that the objective conditions for our success against the Russians and Cubans are much more appropriate. Furthermore, the Cubans don't speak the language. They speak Spanish -- smoke a big cigar! Also they don't know the terrain. It is really a foreign terrain. The Cubans are only in the towns. They are not occupying the simple village and they are not in the countryside. So what this means is that our target and our objective is much more precise and much more limited than it was when we fought against the Portuguese colonialists. So, we don't see why we are not going to succeed.

Question: What proof do you have that citizenship is going to be extended to the Cubans?

Answer:This was the declaration made in Congo-Brazzaville by Dr. Neto.

Question:When was the declaration made?

Answer:About three weeks ago.

Question:Could you tell us the purpose of your visit to Canada?

Answer:To visit our comrades in Canada, the United States and all over Western Europe to brief them about the new stage of the second liberation struggle we have undertaken and what is going to be the next strategy and tactics to adopt against Soviet social-imperialism.

Question:Have you made any approaches to the Canadian government for recognition?

Answer:No.

Question:Do you intend to?

Answer: I don't have time for any meeting now after this press conference. But the Canadian government is the government of a sovereign country and state and it can take any position it likes on Angola. I think for the people who did not take this position in the past, for political reasons, possibly it's too late. Because now nobody is going to convince us that we should not resist any more. So, if the Canadian government thinks we should resist, their assistance will be welcome. But if they want to recognise MPLA, good luck to them.

Question:On the question of guerrilla warfare -- how many people would you actually have fighting for your cause? You mentioned the people of Angola, but how many people have you actually got?

Answer:During the civil war, we had over 22,000 fighters. When we decided to have guerrilla activities, we decided to make a force of 15,000 soldiers--a hard core, compact force of 15,000 young men that were going to be distributed in all provinces of Angola where UNITA had political support. We are not claiming to be engaged in guerrilla warfare on a national scale. There are areas where we do not have political support. And a guerrilla without the support of the local population is no longer a guerrilla. He is a vagabond. Unless you form a Sierra Maestra and from there you organise a base area. But in Angola we don't have a Sierra Maestra. The guerrillas have to rely on the people, and then they are going to succeed.

Question:You mentioned you were better off now than you were during the war earlier on. Can you tell us where you acquired your arms from?

Answer:Well, I deal with foreign affairs. These answers the General Command of UNITA can give you. Some of the weapons we are getting -- I haven't any idea where they are coming from.

Question:Let me put it another way. Have you been receiving any financial support to buy these arms with?

Answer:From abroad? Yes, from African states and from other friendly countries. And don't forget -- Angola is very rich in material resources. We don't have any reluctance to use our gold or our diamonds to get finances and then to buy weapons.

Question:Can you tell me which African countries have given you...?

Answer:No. I don't think that would be proper. The list is too long. Idon't think you are going to publish all of them.

Question:How many countries? Can you put a figure on the countries?

Answer:You remember when we went to the OAU, for that extraordinary meeting on Angola. We had 22 countries in favour of a government of national union. Remember? In other words the UNITA line. And 22 countries in favour of the Soviet line. I think there are 22 countries. This is why I said the list is too long. Will you publish the 22 countries in your newspaper?

Question:If they were split, you know, 50-50, how come the OAU accords recognition to the MPLA?

Answer:It is a simple majority. At the moment it is not 50-50. There are 22 countries. There are 46 African states. If MPLA gets 23 countries, it is a simple majority, period.

Question: How much money do you need to continue your campaign?

Answer:How much money? I do not really know how much money. It would be a lot of money. It depends on our needs and also on future developments. And also, don't forget, we are going to capture a lot of weapons from the Cubans, and this has already begun to happen. We are not going to depend mainly on outside assistance. We have always said right from the beginning that UNITA is essentially a self-reliant organisation. Because we know that outside assistance sometimes is very opportunistic and uncertain; that, at the moment you need or expect to have external assistance, it is exactly that moment the external assistance does not come. The moment we said: "To Hell with external assistance!" we found that a lot of friends were willing to give us things that we needed. So, you have to rely first and foremost on your own human and material resources, and then the outside assistance will be only a complement to the things that you really don't have inside the country. So, we don't expect very much from outside.

Question:You said earlier that you were forming a group of 50,000 or 15,000?

Answer: 15,000.

Question:Have you any long-range ideas on how long it will take to win your struggle?

Answer:No. This depends very much on the development of objective conditions. We see only two possibilities that can come from this type of war. First, since we are now going to hit hard at the Cubans inside Angola, the Russians might convince Dr. Neto to make a political compromise to solve the "crisis". UNITA will goalong with any political compromise, as long as the Russians and Cubans are out of Angola. The second alternative is that if the Soviet Union should insist that MPLA should keep the Cubans and Russians, then the country will be divided for some time into two parts, most likely along the eleventh parallel. And such a thingwould be most unfortunate. This would be the situation until the time comes that the country is re-unified again, either by political or military means. We don't see any alternatives besides these two. But we think that the best solution would be a political solution. But this political solution is only possible if foreigners do not interfere in Angolan internal affairs. And we already have a lot of experience on this question. The reason that UNITA, MPLA and FNLA were able for the first time in our history to reach agreements in Mombase, Alvor and Nakuru, was that we did not have a single Cuban, Russian or any foreigner advising the liberation movements. We sat down in a room like this one for five days, quarreling with each other, insulting each other without a foreign representative -- not even an African leader present. The meetings took place in Kenya, for instance, Nakuru and Mombasa. Kenyatta was not in the room. Kenyatta attended the first session in which the session was opened, and the last one for signing the documents. But not a single Kenyan or OAU delegation was allowed to be in the room during the actual discussions. This is why we reached an agreement. So, I assure you, if Russians, Cubans and all other foreigners leave Angola, we are going to see that in less than five months, Angola is going to find a political solution. But as long as these people are there--we are not going to find any solution.

Question: You mentioned the possibility of a divided country. Are you suggesting that the country should be partitioned or do you mean divided politically?

Answer: No, I am not saying that. You see the map of Angola up here, (points to map) This one is a map divided in two. It was not divided by us. It was divided by the Portuguese. This is the northern part of Angola-Cabinda in the north. You see Luanda there, then the other half. The eleventh parallel is this line here.

Question: Do you have your support in the south?

Answer: Exactly. From Novo Redondo to Pareira there is, let us say, more than half of the country. The people of this area politically support UNITA. Without exaggerating, you can see from the spots on the map there that it is the most populated area, an area of the most dense population in Angola. Here is exactly why MPLA fears an election and the Russians fear an election. Three-quarters of 600,000 Portuguese settlers in Angola, mainly the little businessmen, were supporting UNITA. This is why they created conditions of civil war in order to force all the Portuguese to leave Angola. And they succeeded in sabotaging the election. Now, if MPLA is really the vanguard of the people, as some people have been saying, or if it is a progressive movement, why does MPLA fear people? And if UNITA is a "reactionary" movement, as the Soviets and Cubans are saying, how is it that UNITA has popular support? This is a contradiction in terms. People do not follow reactionary things. This is exactly what I mean. I am not advocating the partition of Angola. I am describing the possible alternatives. The first alternative is a political solution.

Question:Which you consider the best one, right?

Answer: Yes, the best one. If the Cubans and the Russians leave, we will reach that compromise. But if the Cubans and Russians remain in Angola, forcing us to solve the problem militarily, then the second alternative will be the partition of Angola into two parts until we are able to reunify Angola either politically or militarily.

Question:Will this coalition be between all the factions, or will you be selective in that?

Answer: It will be between all the factions. Because UNITA is not for excluding other people. These people who are against FNLA don't know what they are talking about. These so-called experts on Angolan affairs, know nothing about Angola. FNLA, despite the contradictions we have with them, made a historical contribution to the liberation of Angola. Who started the armed struggle in 1961? It was not MPLA. It was FNLA. Only in 1963 did FNLA start to go astray. But FNLA made a historic contribution to the liberation of our country. Therefore, Angolans should give respect to them.

Question:MPLA as well?

Answer:Exactly. All three liberation movements made historical contributions. This is why UNITA is in favour of a coalition of all Angolan liberation movements and all patriotic forces or individuals. They should form a government of national union. But the Soviet Union said no.

Question:Are you disappointed that the U.S. Congress would not allow U.S. aid to come to Angola?

Answer:Well, I am not disappointed. Why should I be disappointed? Did the U.S.A., I mean, imperialism, help us during the Angolan liberation struggle? What type of assistance did we get from that government? We got nothing. In fact, the U.S. was helping the Portuguese. And you know this story. So there's no reason why Ishould be disappointed. I should be disappointed only if in the past the U.S. gave us assistance against the Portuguese, and in the end changed their minds, and told us, "No, we cannot support you against the Russians". But I am not disappointed. But also, we should not rule out the possibility of superpower hegemony tactics. Possibly there is a deal somewhere between the two superpowers over the question of Angola. I am not going to elaborate more. This is really just food for thought.

Question:You think there is a deal?

Answer: We don't exclude this possibility.

Question:Could you speak up sir?

Answer:You heard properly.

Question:No, I didn't honestly.

Answer:I said that we should not exclude the possibility of a deal between the United States and the Soviet Union over the question of Angola. In fact, just read the statement from Mr. Kissinger. What do you think Mr. Kissinger is saying? That the U.S. will never again tolerate another Angolan situation. Isn't that what Mr. Kissinger is saying? He said that the U.S. would never tolerate again another Cuban and Russian invasion like the invasion of Angola. So what this means is that the adventure in Angola was tolerated.

Question:Do you think this sort of deal would be a kind of compromise in which all powers would stay out of Angola?

Answer: I do not know. But it smells like a deal.

Question:Good or bad?

Answer:Very good! (laughter)

(Comrade Jorge Sangumba is referring to the exposure of the two superpowers. The press used this last comment of his out of context to suggest that Comrade Sangumba was relying on superpower deals.)

Chairman:We'll take one more question.

There were no more questions, and the press conference was concluded.

[Photo: Comrade Jorge Sangumba, Minister of Foreign Affairs of UNITA, and Comrade Tony Fernandes, Minister of Information, at the press conference held March 14, 1976, in Toronto, Canada.]


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Who Are the Real Collaborators with Western Imperialism in Angola?

Recent events in Angola show exactly who in Angola are the real agents of foreign imperialism and reaction. In two communiques issued by UNITA on March 31, 1975 a March 26 pact signed by MPLA with the South African racist regime was denounced and exposed. In a communique entitled "South Africa Gains in MPLA- Pretoria Pact", UNITA points out that in return for South African withdrawal, MPLA has not only agreed to protect South Africa's interests in the Cunene Dam on Angolan soil, but it has also agreed to try to prevent Namibian freedom fighters from using Southern Angola as a spring board in their national liberation struggle against South Africa.

Jose Ndele, a high ranking UNITA official, was quoted as saying: "UNITA decries this attempt by South Africa and MPLA to barter off Angola's economic resources in exchange for political recognition. MPLA, in seeking out recognition from the developed nations in exchange for rights at economic exploitation, contradicts all that African liberation stands for."

Ndele promised that UNITA will continue to support and aid the Namibian liberation movement now operating against the South African racist regime from UNITA guerrilla bases in Southern Angola despite the MPLA-South African agreement.

The communique points out that: "MPLA's guarantee to protect South African interests in Angola must be vigorously opposed. Such protection is also tantamount to support for South Africa's apartheid regime. MPLA's accommodation with South Africa betrays Russia's dependence on South Africa's marketing monopoly for distributing Russian diamonds. In addition to the multi-million dollar hydroelectric Cunene Dam, South African economic interests in Angola include diamond mining."

The entire question of South African presence in Angola is explained in the second communique. It is a bogey-man created by MPLA to rationalise the use of 15,000 Cuban mercenary troops by claiming that the mercenaries were fighting South Africans. The communique points out that "The Cubans did not fight the South Africans although through a greatly more sophisticated propaganda mechanism, they were able to convince the world otherwise." The real reason for the presence of Cuban troops was to try to crush UNITA.

As the communique points out:

"During the period of the Angolan Transitional Government formed in January 1975 to lead the country to independence, polls taken by the Portuguese Armed Forces Movement on a monthly basis confirmed that electoral support for UNITA was 65%, MPLA 20% and FNLA 15%. This statistical reality of UNITA's widespread support was one of the principal factors in the civil war. National democratic elections had been slated for October 1975, but MPLA, the Soviet-backed movement, fearful of humiliation at the polls, provoked fighting first within Luanda and then throughout the country. It did so with the promise of limitless support by the Soviet Union which is anxious to establish its own sphere of influence in Southern Africa. Russia then imported 15,000 Cuban troops to do the fighting for them."

So under the hoax of opposing South African intervention, the Soviet Union itself committed aggression against the Angolan people and imposed upon them the necessity to wage a second revolutionary anti-colonial struggle. This struggle is being waged with increasing success by the UNITA guerrilla fighters.

The Communique continues:

"UNITA, representing the nationalist sentiments of the majority of Angola's population feels that not only must all South African troops leave Angolan soil, but that their exploitation of the country must also cease immediately."... "UNITA must also oppose any agreement which will call for Angolans to exploit their own country on behalf of a foreign power as is the case with the MPLA-Pretoria pact."

"The Angolan people fought a 14 year armed struggle against Portuguese minority rule for the sake of expelling foreign powers and those who represent their exploitative interests from Angolan soil. UNITA continues this struggle today against another minority regime, MPLA, which refused the call for elections that would allow the Angolan people themselves to decide democratically who should control their country," the communique concludes.

(Reprinted fromPeople's Canada Daily News, Vol. 6, No.40, April 3, 1976) END


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UNITA CALLS FOR PEOPLE'S WAR AGAINST SOVIET-CUBAN INVADERS

The following communique was issued by the Political Bureau and Central Committee of UNITA after the fall of Huambo, UNITA's capitol, to the heavily-armed Soviet-Cuban aggressors. The Angolan people rose to the call of the communique and launched their Second Anti-Colonial War. Today they are fighting heroically.

The communique also won the warm support of the revolutionary people all over the world. Peking Review No. 10, dated March 5,1976, quoted point 5 of the communique, which calls upon the people to wage a people's war against the Soviet-Cuban aggressors, and declared: ''This is the Angolan people's best reply to the Soviet neo-colonialists who are trying to enslave again the Angolan people in place of the old colonialists."

The political and military situation in our country has undergone a rapid evolution which has made it necessary for the Political Bureau and the Military Command to reappraise the situation and decide on the following new guidelines.

The armed forces that the MPLA has used against UNITA and indeed against the Angolan people are not Angolan. We are facing a regular army of Cubans, Czechs, Guineans and Russians with modern and highly sophisticated weapons.

No army in Africa outside Egypt has had to face a war machine of such dimensions as those of the army now invading our country. Our allies who could help us to change the situation, lacked political courage. But we want to make clear, in this communique, our gratitude to the African countries that backed the policy of the formation of a Government of National Unity for Angola.

We single out the Republic of Senegal and President Senghor, the Republic of Ivory Coast and President Boigny, the Republic of Zaire and President Mobutu Sese Seko, the Kingdom of Morocco and King Hassan II, the United Arab Republic and President Sadat, the Republic of Gabon and President Bongo, as well as the Republic of Zambia and President Kenneth Kuanda, and other leaders and countries. Our gratitude also goes to the current Chairman of the OAU, Field Marshal Idi Amin Dada.

The meeting has decided:

1. To save the UNITA army from annihilation at the hands of the regular Cuban, Czech, Guinea and Russian army, and its sophisticated weaponry.

2. To convert with the utmost speed UNITA's army into a guerrilla force.

3. To intensify the mobilisation of the Angolan people against the invasion of our country by foreign forces from Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Guinea and the Soviet Union, which will never be able to occupy our country indefinitely.

4. To reach conclusions about the unfulfilled promises of help, which led to sacrifice of many hundreds of our best soldiers. External help is going to be necessary and we appeal to the conscience of free men and democratic countries, to identify themselves with justice, democracy and socialism.

5. For our freedom and our country we are determined to continue fighting -- in the fields, in the mountains, and valleys, until such time as the Cuban and Russian invaders suffer the same final fate as the former Portuguese colonisers in Angola.

6. We appeal to our internal and external 'cadres' to strengthen unity, for it is only human beings who can make history and freedom for the others.

7. Those who have taken the alleged invasion of Angola by South African troops as a pretext to justify their own enslavement of our country are no more than lackeys of social-imperialism.

And those who have been duped by the non-existent popularity of MPLA and by the sincerity and unselfishness of Russian social-imperialism in Angola will very quickly understand that they have only managed to impose a minority as the rulers of our people, thus creating a satellite of Russian expansionism in Southern Africa.

But Russian social-imperialism shall be defeated in Angola.

The Central Committee, The Political Bureau and High Command of UNITA.


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COMMUNIQUE: UNITA FORCES PRESS FIGHTING IN ANGOLA

Background

(Below are reprinted two communiques issued by UNITA and made available by the UNITA U.N. Observer, J.K. Chitunda, 347 East 53d Street, New York, N.Y. 10022.)

According to a communique issued in Huando-Cubango, Angola on March 20,1976 UNITA guerrilla forces have intensified raids against the Soviet-backed Cuban army of occupation.

The 15,000 man Cuban force now occupies certain cities of Central and Southern Angola from the time of the fall of Huambo, UNITA's administrative capital on February 8,1976. The countryside surrounding these cities are still UNITA strongholds. The struggle for majority rule in Angola begun in 1961 against the Portuguese colonial regime is now being directed against the MPLA's attempt to impose militarily a minority regime upon the Angolan people.

UNITA which was formed in the centre of Angola in March 1966 was the only one of the Angolan movements whose leadership was based permanently inside the country during the war against the Portuguese. Through day-to-day contact with the rural population, UNITA succeeded in integrating large segments of the peasant population into its armed forces. It was also able to construct a solid infrastructure of national reconstruction in areas under its control, including rudimentary schools, medical clinics and agricultural cooperatives to increase crop productivity. UNITA's support base in Angola today encompasses more than 50% of the country geographically and well over 65% of the population. It is a predominantly peasant based movement in a country with a 90% rural majority.

During the period of the Angolan Transitional Government formed in January 1975 to lead the country to independence, polls taken by me Portuguese Armed Forces Movement on a monthly basis confirmed that electoral support for UNITA was 65%,MPLA 20% and FNLA 15%. This statistical reality of UNITA's widespread support was one of the principal factors in the civil war which erupted between MPLA and FNLA from March 1975. National democratic elections had been slated for October 1975 but with MPLA, the Soviet-backed movement fearful of humiliation at the polls, it provoked fighting first within Luanda and then throughout the country. It did so with the promise of limitless support by the Soviet Union which is anxious to establish its own sphere of influence in Southern Africa. UNITA did not enter the war until August 1975 when a series of ceasefire agreements were broken by MPLA who then attacked the plane on which UNITA's President, Dr. Jonas Savimbi was traveling. UNITA was not able to sustain fighting in the conventional war which ensued because of its lack of sophisticated weaponry.

The Armed forces of UNITA (FALA) recognized early in this phase of conventional civil war that without weapons equivalent to the Soviet MiG's, "Stalin organs", T-54 and T-34 tanks, it would have to return to the bush and launch full-scale guerrilla warfare. This technique of struggle whereby a scantily-armed majority can defeat the military might of a more well-armed minority, is what UNITA knew best through their struggle against the the Portuguese colonialists earlier. Therefore the populations of the major cities in UNITA controlled territories were evacuated and redistributed to the villages of the surrounding countryside (80,000 people were evacuated from Huambo alone).

With the support of the rural population, UNITA raids against the Cuban occupying force have been successful and intensifying. The morale of the soldiers is particularly high with the recognition that 15,000 Cuban soldiers are incapable of pacifying the Angolan countryside which the Portuguese army of over 100,000 were unable to control during the colonial war.

UNITA's aim in the present fighting is to press for the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Angolan soil. The issue of who shall control Angola must become the decision of the Angolan people themselves, demonstrated through the mechanism of democratic national elections and not through the military might of any foreign power.


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COMMUNIQUE: from Cuando-Cubango, Angola The Central Base Area of UNITA March 20, 1976

UNITA forces continued to inflict severe punishment on the Soviet-backed Cuban army of occupation fighting in Southern Angola, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) announced last week. As the fourth week of intensifying guerrilla warfare drew to a close, UNITA claimed victories in Andulo and Camacupa, Bie province and in Moxico province.

In the area of Andulo a FALA (Armed Forces for the Liberation of Angola -- UNITA's military wing) mobile detachment under the command of Col. Molowini and Lt. Col. Kahali engaged Cuban forces in a 45-minute battle. Under cover of darkness UNITA forces killed 35 Cuban soldiers and destroyed 3 armored cars and one T-34 tank. The FALA detachment reported eight soldiers lost.

Ten Cuban mercenaries were killed and another 17 wounded in a lightning attack near Camaeupta, Bie. The Cubans travelling in a convoy of trucks fell into an ambush of machine guns, mortars, rocket launchers and cannon. Three Cuban trucks were destroyed.

A FALA guerrilla unit operating in Moxico province killed six Cuban soldiers and wounded ten. Six Soviet-made machine guns were captured and one Cuban infantryman.

Dr. Jonas Savimbi, President of UNITA, extended an invitation to the OAU (Organization of African Unity) and the United Nations to visit prisoners of war held at UNITA bases. Popular Movement leaders Joaquim Kapango, Alvaro Machado, Assis Junior and Commander Bandeira along with 75 others, reportedly killed in Silva Porto early last month, are being held in military custody, Dr. Savimbi said. End

[Photo: UNITA guerrilla forces in Cuando-Cubango, Angola, preparing for action against Soviet-Cuban occupation forces.]


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Forward march of the Arab People

GREAT UPRISING OF THE PALESTINAN PEOPLE

Since last January the Palestinian people on the West Bank of the Jordan River have been rising up and waging powerful mass struggles against the Israeli Zionist occupiers and demanding the liberation of the Palestinian nation. They have demonstrated and marched by the hundreds and thousands. They have fought pitched battles against the reactionary Zionist police and troops, fearing neither sacrifice nor death. Several Palestinian youth and adults have laid down their lives in the struggle; still others have been severely wounded by the Zionist authorities. The Palestinian guerrillas, the fighting arm of the Palestinian nation, led by the Palestine Liberation Organization, have carried out armed attacks on the Zionists in coordination and support of the mass struggles. The struggle has also spread to the Galilee and Negev areas, occupied by the Zionists as long ago as 1948, and and demonstrations have even been held in the Zionist nerve center of Tel Aviv. Everywhere the masses of Palestinians declared their support for the PLO, the leadership of the Palestinian revolution. This is a glorious development in the Palestinian people's struggle for the liberation of their usurped homeland and a great contribution to the struggle of the world's people against the superpowers and their war preparations, against imperialism, colonialism, Zionism and racism.

The recent struggles of the Palestinian people on the West Bank of the Jordan have been directed against the seizure of Palestinian land by the Zionist settlers and the building of Zionist settlements on it; against the violation of the A1 Aqsa Mosque by the Zionist authorities, who have deliberately led Jews to worship there, violating the Moslem religion; against the violent repressive measures the authorities have used to suppress the Palestinian students and other demonstrators; and against the occupation of the West Bank by the Zionists since 1967 and the occupation of the rest of Palestine since 1948.

The West Bank of the Jordan River (part of Palestine) was invaded and occupied by the Israeli Zionists in their June 1967 war of aggression against the Arab countries and people. The state of Israel, founded in 1948, is the fascist and racist settlement created by western imperialism. Since 1948, Israel, with the backing and instigation of imperialism, has waged four wars of conquest against the Arab people. Israel is used today by the two superpowers as a base for launching aggression against the Arab people. The reactionary tactics of the superpowers are to collude with each other to suppress and attack the Arab people and to contend against each other for control of the Middle East, each seeking to plunder its rich oil resources and use its strategic position on the trade routes between Europe, Africa and Asia in order to dominate Europe and also Africa. Both superpowers collude with each other to maintain the existence of the racist state of Israel.

The U.S. imperialists do so by supplying money and guns. The Soviet social-imperialists do so by supplying manpower in the form of Jewish emigrants from the Soviet Union and by disrupting the struggle of the Arab people while posing as their "natural friend". As a result of its aggressive wars, the Zionist state of Israel today consists of occupied Palestine, the Sinai peninsula (seized from Egypt in 1967) and the Golan Heights (seized from Syria in 1967). Internally, Israel is a fascist military state which practises vicious racial discrimination and violent repression against the Palestinian Arab people and denies them political rights in their own homeland.

Since 1967, the Zionists have arrogantly builtJewish settlements on thousands of acres of Palestinian land in the West Bank in order to squeeze out more of the Arab population, perpetuate the fraud of "the Jewish homeland" and render Zionist occupation of the area permanent. In Jerusalem alone, 18 Jewish quarters have been built. 10,000 Zionist settler families have been placed on usurped land east of Jerusalem. The number of Arab inhabitants of Jerusalem has been reduced from 140,000 to 70,000 since 1948 through suppression, expulsion and confiscation. It was against the confiscation of further large tracts of land in the Galilee that many of the recent struggles of the Palestinian people broke out.

To add insult to injury, the Zionist "municipal council" in Jerusalem has been leading groups of Jews to pray at the Al Aqsa Mosque, deliberately violating the holy place of the Moslem Arabs. This activity has aroused a furious protest by the Palestinian people. Facts show that the Zionists are not doing this out of feelings for the Jewish religion at all. Their aim is purely to push their aggressive expansion and domination of occupied Palestine, eliminate its Moslem character and drive out the Palestinian people in order to occupy thecountry permanently. For example, beneath the Al Aqsa Mosque lie some of the ruins of King Solomon's temple, a holy place in the Jewish religion. But due to the sanctity of the site in Jewish religion, Jews are forbidden by their own religious laws to pray there. Yet the Zionists have been leading Jewish prayers at this very spot! Clearly this has nothing to do with Judaism and everything to do with aggression and expansion.

Against such crimes the Palestinian people rose up heroically. The struggles reached a peak in mid-March and are still continuing. Following the violation of the A1 Aqsa Mosque on February 28, masses of Palestinians demonstrated in many places and were violently repressed by the Zionist police. In response to the suppression by soldiers of Arab students demonstrating at Bir Zeit College, the Arab mayors and city councilmen in Ramallah, El Bira and Bir Zeit all resigned in protest. From March 1-10 in Nablus and El Bira, Palestinians demonstrated against the building of new settlements in that area and against the suppression of students. 24 people were injured by police. A general strike of shopkeepers was held and almost all students and teachers in several towns boycotted classes. Zionist troops were called out to suppress the struggle, in Tel Aviv, on March 10, outside a building where the Zionist cabinet was meeting, 4000 Arab masses demonstrated against the decision of the Cabinet to seize 1.5 million donums (over 330,000 acres) of land in the Galilee and triangle regions in northern Palestine (in areas seized by the Zionists in 1948).

On March 14, Palestinian students in Ramallah demonstrated all day against Zionist occupation of the West Bank. They put up barricades to resist police and troops sent to suppress them. Curfews lasting many days were imposed by the authorities on Ramallah and El Bira. Bethlehem University students barricaded themselves in a building and ran up two Palestinian flags while their comrades marched outside shouting: "PLO only!", "No to occupation!"

On March 14, Palestinian students in Ramallah demonstrated all day against Zionist occupation of the West Bank. They put up barricades to resist police and troops sent to suppress them. Curfews lasting many days were imposed by the authorities on Ramallah and El Bira. Bethlehem University students barricaded themselves in a building and ran up two Palestinian flags while their comrades marched outside shouting:

The next day young school children in Ramallah went from school to school to organize a school boycott in protest of occupation. 200 marched through the streets shouting anti-Zionist slogans and singing Palestinian songs. When charged by the police wielding clubs they took to the rooftops and fought the reactionary troops with rocks. On March 17, demonstrations against occupation were held in the Old City, Hebron, Bethlehem, Jericho and Halhoul. The demonstrators fought the police and soldiers with stones. Three Arab students were shot. A 10-year-old boy was shot and killed by the troops in Abu Dis while throwing rocks at them for beating his eight-year-old sister. The Zionists were so terrified of the protest of the Arab masses that they closed off the village and limited the crowd attending the boy's services to 50. Nevertheless, on March 23 several hundred Palestinians marched through the town protesting the murder of the boy, shouting "Palestine is Arab!". In Hebron the same day, several hundred youths protested occupation, erected barricades across main roads and stoned Zionist police. In Jerusalem, Nablus and Hebron, Arab merchants staged general strikes throughout the month of March.

During the mass struggles and in support of them, the PLO carried out many armed operations against the Zionist occupiers on the West Bank, wiping out many Zionist troops and a number of military and police vehicles which were on their way to suppress the uprisings. On March 10, in Nablus, a commando unit placed powerful explosive charges amidst a large number of enemy vehicles in the central square of the city. A number of troops were killed and wounded and vehicles were damaged. On the same day Zionist vehicles en route to suppress demonstrations in Tulkarim ran into mines planted by the PLO, resulting in several Zionist troops killed and wounded and several vehicles damaged.

The great uprising of the Palestinian people on the West Bank of the Jordan River has received worldwide support. The Israeli Zionists and their backers have become even further isolated. Revealing its role as sponsor of the Zionists, U.S. imperialism arrogantly vetoed a U. N. Security Council resolution censuring the Zionists for their aggressive settlements and their violation of the Palestinian people's religious rights, unjustly reversing a 14-1 vote in favor of the resolution. The uprising of the Palestinian people also has exposed the Zionist lie that "life is fine and democratic for the Arabs living inside Israel" and has proven conclusively that the Palestinian people inside as well as outside occupied Palestine support the PLO and are determined to fight on until victory -- the elimination of the fascist and racist state of Israel and the creation of a democratic, secular state embracing all religions in Palestine. Their struggle is making a glorious contribution to the struggle of the world's people against the superpowers and their war preparations and against all reaction. In particular it is hitting a hard blow against the oppressor of the U.S. working class -- the U.S. monopoly capitalist class, which backs and sponsors the Zionists. The Workers' Advocate, in the name of the workers and oppressed people in the United States, enthusiastically greets the great uprising of the Palestinian people and wishes them continual successes until final victory is won in their armed struggle for national liberation.

[Photo: 150 Arabs demonstrated recently in downtown Detroit denouncing Israeli Zionism and supporting the national liberation struggle of the Palestinian people.]

[Photo: Palestinian Arabs, defying Zionist suppression, march carrying the coffin of an Arab demonstrator killed by the Zionist police.]

[Photo: On March 30, Palestine's "Day of the Land", Palestinians throughout their nation staged strikes and demonstrations. The guerrilla organization Al Fateh issued a statement which read: "The heroic and admirable attitude of the Palestinian people manifested by students, peasants and workers who take up stones today and will take up arms tomorrow, is bound to completely smash the attempts of the Zionists and imperialists to put down and crush Palestine's heroic revolution."]

EGYPT COMBATS SOVIET HEGEMONISM

On March 15th, the government of Egypt terminated the so-called "treaty of friendship and co-operation" with the Soviet Union. The Soviet social-imperialist rulers had never honored a single one of the treaty's commitments to aid the Egyptian people in their struggle to liberate their lands which are occupied by the U.S. -backed Israeli Zionists. By this criminal sabotage, the Soviet New Tsars turned the treaty into a mere scrap of paper. Outraged, the Egyptian people tore up the treaty and threw it into the trash pile where it belongs, thus freeing their hands of a heavy chain which held them back from liberating their country. For good measure, the Egyptian people closed their port facilities to the aggressive Soviet navy. These just actions by the Egyptian government and people mark a significant victory for the Egyptian people in safeguarding their national sovereignty and in advancing their struggle for complete national independence. They are also a sharp blow to the war preparations of the two superpowers, especially those of the Soviet Union which is stretching out its tentacles everywhere in search of alliances and bases, jockeying for position in preparation for the world war it and U.S. imperialism are organizing.

The Egyptian-Soviet "treaty of friendship and co-operation" was a heavy chain locked onto the Egyptian people by the New Tsars of the Kremlin. In May of 1971, when the treaty was first signed, Egypt was badly in need of arms with which to fight the U.S.-backed Israeli Zionists, who had seized vast tracts of Egyptian national territory in the Sinai Peninsula in their aggressive war of June 1967. Egyptian President Sadatdesignated 1971 as "The Year of Decision" during which the Egyptian people planned to fight a decisive battle with the Zionist aggressors. Taking advantage of Egypt's difficulties, the Soviet revisionist boss Podgomy went to Cairo and pressured Egypt into signing the treaty.

Right from the beginning, the Soviet revisionists ignored the solemn commitments they had made in the treaty. A shipment of arms which had been promised for within five days of Podgomy's visit never materialized, even after repeated appeals from the Egyptian government. Instead, shipments of other high-priced but outmoded weaponry were sent. Training in the use and repair of much of the weaponry was refused by the Soviets. Further, the social-imperialists stipulated that the weapons could be manned only by Soviet personnel and could be used only with the permission of the Soviet rulers. Some shipments even contained personal notes from Brezhnev ordering them not to be used for purposes of regaining occupied Arab lands.

Meanwhile, the New Tsars used the treaty's provision on "military co-operation" to send large numbers of Soviet military personnel to Egypt to grab military bases and political privileges in an attempt to turn Egypt into a Soviet colony. These personnel flagrantly spied on Egypt and other Arab countries and carried on subversive activities under the protection of the treaty. In fact, military installations the New Tsars grabbed were made off-limits to Egyptian military officers and even to top Egyptian government officials, thus creating an aggressive Soviet state within the Egyptian national boundaries. Together with the interference with weapons supplies, these acts were an outrageous violation of Egypt's national sovereignty and dignity.

These activities by the Soviet social-imperialists did not come as a surprise to the Egyptian people. As early as 1968, right in the wake of the Zionists' aggressive 1967 war, the New Tsars gained access to Egypt's ports using much-needed arms supplies as a lever to force open the door. The arrogant social-imperialists even demanded a command post in Alexandria to be guarded by Soviet marines and demanded that the whole area be given it to occupy under the Soviet flag! Then-Egyptian President and respected Arab patriot Gamal Abdel Nasser indignantly refused the latter demands. "This is an act of imperialism, pure and simple," he declared. But it was not until 1976 that the Soviet navy was finally ejected from the Egyptian ports.

The subversive and disruptive activities of the New Tsars via their military installations aroused the righteous anger of the Egyptian people, and in 1972 President Sadat kicked 20,000 Soviet military personnel out on their ears.

This was a big victory in the struggle of the Egyptian and other Arab people to master their own destiny. It freed their hands to break through the "no war--no peace" situation imposed on the Middle East by the superpowers and wage the heroic October 1973 war together with the Syrian and Palestinian people to liberate the occupied Arab territories and Palestine itself. Fighting valiantly, the Arab armies smashed the myth of the invincibility of the Zionist army. But just as the Egyptian troops were advancing victoriously in the Sinai, the Soviet revisionists again came to the aid of Israel, flouted their solemn treaty obligations and refused to replenish arms and ammunition to Egypt. Furthermore, the Soviet social-imperialists collaborated with the U.S. imperialists to jam a cease-fire through the U.N. Security Council and forced Egypt to accept it and stop its advance. The Zionists used the ceasefire to encircle some of the Egyptian troops and maintain their precarious foothold across the Suez Canal. Before, during and after the war the New Tsars continually sent thousands of Jewish emigrants to Israel to bolster its war machine. Finally, after the October War the New Tsars refused to provide urgently needed weapons and parts for Soviet-made equipment for which Egypt had paid a tremendous sum. Recently, under Soviet pressure, the Soviet-backed reactionary government of India also refused to supply Egypt with spare parts. President Sadat pointed out this year that this criminal sabotage of Egypt's military apparatus meant that in one to one and one-half years, all the arms Egypt has (including Soviet MIG-21's) would turn into useless scrap.

While refusing Egypt sufficient arms and parts, the Soviet social-imperialists repeatedly exerted pressure on Egypt to repay the loans it had made to Egypt at exorbitant rates of interest, always refused to re-schedule the debts when Egypt had trouble paying them and extracted huge increases in interest for delays in repayment. Egypt pays an average of $400 million per year in interest alone to the Soviets, who are no different at all from the western monopoly capitalist financiers. The New Tsars even force Egypt to sell one-fourth of its cotton and other export commodities at cheap prices to the Soviet Union, which the Soviet Union then turns around and re-sells internationally at higher prices, squeezing Egypt out of its own market.

Such are the aggressive tactics of the Soviet social-imperialists which lay behind the honeyed name of the Egyptian-Soviet "treaty of friendship and co-operation". As President Sadat described them, they amounted to "an economic blockade and military pressure".

No sooner had the Egyptian government terminated the treaty than the Soviet government sent it a bullying note, declaring threateningly that responsibility for the consequences of the termination of the treaty "rests entirely with the Egyptian side". What is this but a blatant threat of further interference by the Soviet revisionists?

These criminal actions fully expose the features of the ruling Brezhnev clique in the Soviet Union and the present social system there as socialist only in words, imperialist in deeds.

The actions of the Egyptian government are entirely just. In their bullying note, the New Tsars bragged about their "noble and selfless aid to Egypt" and the "decisive role" played by Soviet arms in the October 1973 war. They said that Egypt should be "grateful" to the Soviet Union for "coming to their rescue" but that instead by terminating the treaty Egypt "has given up the struggle against imperialism and colonialism", has "split Arab unity" and has "acted in open collaboration with Israel". What shameless hypocrisy! Clearly it is the Soviet New Tsars themselves who have committed all these crimes for which they blame Egypt. In fact, the experience of the Egyptian people in dealing with the Soviet New Tsars, as well as with the Israeli Zionists and their other backer U.S. imperialism, shows that the Soviet Union is by no means a socialist country but is an imperialist superpower equally as aggressive as U.S. imperialism. In fact, because it hides behind a mask of "socialist aid" it is even more dangerous that U.S. imperialism. (For a further exposure of the New Tsars' sham aid and real control, look at an example of true socialist aid. In mid-April, after termination of the treaty with the Soviet Union, the Egyptian Vice-President traveled to People's China. Following the guidance of Chairman Mao to give resolute, selfless support to the liberation struggles of the oppressed nations, the Chinese government promised to provide Egypt with all the desperately needed engines and spare parts for her MIG-21's absolutely free of charge.)

A still further lesson that can be drawn from the Egyptian people's experience with the New Tsars is that in order to fight Zionism and U.S. imperialism, it is necessary also to fight Soviet social-imperialism, while to give up the fight against Soviet social-imperialism is also to give up the struggle against U.S. imperialism.

The American workers and oppressed people should fully support the struggle of the Egyptian people against the two superpowers, and their Zionist running dogs, especially their present struggle against Soviet social-imperialism, and warmly welcome their new victories. End


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