The WorkersAdvocate

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

NEWSPAPER OF THE CENTRAL ORGANIZATION OF U.S. MARXIST-LENINISTS

P.O. Box 11942, Chicago, Ill. 60611

Vol. 6, No. 5 June 24, 1976 25¢

[Front page:

Bi-centennial Flops THE FRAUD OF AMERICAN "DEMOCRACY" CANNOT HIDE GROWING FASCISM!;

DOWN WITH THE SUPERPOWERS' ANTI - ARAB PLOTS TO DESTROY THE PALESTINIAN LIBERATION MOVEMENT AND ENSLAVE THE LEBANESE PEOPLE!;

OPPOSE GOVERNMENT-ORGANIZED RACIST ATTACKS AGAINST THE ARAB PEOPLE IN DETROIT]

CONTENTS

Bi-centennial Flops

THE FRAUD OF AMERICAN "DEMOCRACY" CANNOT HIDE GROWING FASCISM!

DOWN WITH THE SUPERPOWERS' ANTI-ARAB PLOTS TO DESTROY THE PALESTINIAN LIBERATION MOVEMENT AND ENSLAVE THE LEBANESE PEOPLE!

OPPOSE GOVERNMENT-ORGANIZED RACIST ATTACKS AGAINST THE ARAB PEOPLE IN DETROIT

U.S. IMPERIALIST PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES PROMOTE COLONIAL DOMINATION OF PANAMA

GLORIOUS UPRISING OF THE AZANIAN PEOPLE

HUMPREY-HAWKINS BILL: An Attack on the Working Class by the "Friends of Labor"

RUBBER WORKERS PERSIST IN NATIONAL STRIKE

For Your Reference: NEW YORK CITY FINANCIAL CRISIS

ATTEMPTS OF GOVERNMENT TO ORGANIZE FASCIST ANTI-BUSING MOVEMENT DENOUNCED IN CHICAGO

Six Years of CPC(M-L)

MURDEROUS RACISTS RUN FOR THEIR LIVES!

WHAT IS BEHIND THE RECENT SPONTANEOUS OUTBURSTS AGAINST THE INDIRA GANDHI GOVERNMENT?

THE GREAT CULTURAL REVOLUTION WILL SHINE FOR EVER

CARRY OUT ACTIVE RESISTANCE TO FASCISM!

New Defeats for Fascist Anti-Busing Movement in Louisville

• MASS MEETING SUPPORTS RESISTANCE, UPHOLDS "FASCISTS HAVE NO RIGHT TO SPEAK"
• SPEECH BY COMRADE JIM Bennet AT LOUISVILLE MASS MEETING
• RESOLUTION OF LOUISVILLE MASS MEETING SUPPORTING RESISTANCE
• COMRADE JIM BENNET STANDS FIRM AGAINST FASCIST COURT

COMMUNISTS DEFY REPRESSION AT RUTGERS-NEWARK

MBTA Police in Boston Attempt to Suppress Revolutionary Leaflet Exposing Fascist Anti-Busing Movement

Correspondence

UNITA U.N. OBSERVER ADDRESSES AFRICAN LIBERATION DAY RALLIES IN SEATTLE AND BUFFALO

Bi-centennial Flops

[Back to Top]

THE FRAUD OF AMERICAN "DEMOCRACY" CANNOT HIDE GROWING FASCISM!

On July 4th, the 200th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence of America from England, the U.S. monopoly capitalist ruling class will bring to a climax its feverish bicentennial propaganda campaign about the glories of American "democracy". But all this shouting by the capitalists betrays a bad case of nerves. Fearful of the struggles of the masses, the monopoly capitalists are imposing fascism on the people in order to suppress them. Today American "democracy" is a fraud which cannot hide the growing fascism which is being imposed in every sphere of life.

In the United States there is democracy only for the rich. For the workers and other oppressed people there is a violent dictatorship, which enforces man-eating exploitation on them by the capitalists. During the present economic crisis, this dictatorship is being further strengthened and this exploitation is being rapidly stepped up. And this dictatorship is what the capitalists want the workers to celebrate on July 4th!

The capitalists declared their plans for a "glorious celebration" of the bicentennial a few years ago. The sinister aim behind this campaign was to prepare public opinion for the growth of fascism in the U.S. The news media was filled with big schemes, but all of them have turned into one big flop. Even the capitalists realize that the workers don't care about their celebrations but instead they have their minds on important matters like the class struggle against the capitalists. So the big schemes have all been abandoned. On July 4th there will be some flag-waving in Philadelphia, a splash in the news media and the event will be forgotten. Even the spectacle of prominent Congressmen keeping $20,000-a-year prostitutes is drawing more attention than the bicentennial of the Republic, reflecting the fact that the capitalist class is completely degenerate, decadent and dying.

All progressive people should actively resist this growing fascism. Today the mass movements of the workers and oppressed people are breaking out on many fronts. The workers, the Afro-Americans and other oppressed nationalities, the youth and students are all beginning to stir. Revolutionary struggle is the path to combat fascism. To eliminate fascism and capitalist exploitation altogether, there must be an antifascist proletarian socialist revolution. This revolution will end the evil rule of the monopoly capitalists and replace it with a bright red socialist workers' republic of America.

THE MONOPOLY CAPITALISTS' PROGRAM OF ALL-ROUND DEVELOPMENT OF FASCISM

The U.S. monopoly capitalists are in trouble and are imposing fascism to save their skins. They are still mired deep in economic crisis. Their rivalry with Soviet social-imperialism is leading to a new world war between them, as each tries to overcome his difficulties by world domination. The peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America are fighting hard against exploitation and control by the superpowers. At home, the masses of workers and oppressed people are stepping up their struggles against capitalist exploitation and rule. In order to wage a war, the U.S. imperialists must first attack the American people and impose full-blown fascism here.

To do this, the monopoly capitalists are carrying out an all-round program of fascization of U.S. society. It has these characteristics:

1. Growth of the armed, repressive state machine (government) of the capitalists;

2. Increased violent terrorist attacks by the state on the masses;

3. Creation by the government of fascist mass movements to incite one section of the people to attack another;

4. Destruction of the livelihood of the workers and oppressed people through the most vicious exploitation and plunder;

5. Preparations for aggressive, imperialist war to re-divide the world and plunder other peoples; and

6. Development of a racist, national chauvinist and degenerate culture to sap the fighting will of the people.

Let us look at these points one by one.

GROWTH OF THE REPRESSIVE CAPITALIST STATE MACHINE

The capitalists proclaim that the U.S. is a glorious example of "government of the people, by the people and for the people". But this is a smokescreen to hide the build-up of the armed state machine, to hide the strengthening of the bourgeois dictatorship and the growth of fascism.

The state machine is the special, armed force which the capitalists wield to maintain their rule over the masses at home and abroad. It consists mainly of the military and police (including the FBI and CIA), together with courts, jails and a huge bureaucracy. Elected officials are merely servants of the capitalists; Congress is merely a talk shop. All important issues are settled by the capitalists behind the scenes and are carried out by their military-police apparatus or bureaucracy. Lenin correctly described the American government as "NOTHING BUT A MACHINE USED BY THE CAPITALISTS TO SUPPRESS THE WORKERS". ("The State")

For this purpose, the U.S. state has been turned into a huge apparatus. In the 60's, at home the Black people, the youth and students and the workers rose up in mighty struggles, while abroad the Indo-Chinese people served the U.S. imperialists an ignominious defeat. To suppress these struggles, the bourgeoisie vastly strengthened its military and police state apparatus. A relative lull set in in the mass movements after 1970, but the growth of the state machine continues to date. Nevertheless, today the workers' movement, the Afro-American struggle and the youth and student movement are breaking out anew, in spite of the gigantic state.

The growth of the state machine can be appreciated by noting that since 1938, the police budgets of the 25 largest U.S. cities, the focus of the class struggle, have multiplied about four times (allowing for inflation) although the population has not grown as fast. The overall military budget for the U.S. in 1975 was half again as expensive per person as the military budget of nazi Germany in 1938 (allowing for inflation). Political spying and "covert" actions against the people are also large-scale.

The bureaucracy, too, has grown gigantically.

One out of six workers is employed by federal, state or local government. It also weighs heavily down on the masses. Divorced from the people, operating by arbitrary rules and regulations and swamping the people in red tape, it is recognized as their enemy by the masses. This military-bureaucratic machine chokes every pore of society, sucking the people's blood in taxes and fines of every sort and subjecting them to the military discipline of "law and order".

As the state has grown, its repressive nature has become more clear to the masses. The struggle for the growing spoils of office between the capitalist political parties has heated up, with assassinations, scandals, pardons of "benefactors" an every-day event. The bourgeois elections are more openly a patent fraud; the votes are bought by the billionaires through advertising, etc., and the results are kicked aside whenever the capitalists please. Accordingly, the masses are recognizing that American "democracy" is a fascist fraud. Less than half the registered voters are ejected to vote in the presidential election this year.

The growing repressive capitalist state in the U.S. is a crucial part of fascization, and no amount of deceptive propaganda can hide this fact.

INCREASED TERRORIST ATTACKS OF THE STATE AGAINST THE WORKING MASSES

The monopoly capitalists built up their state to violently suppress the working masses. With its rapid growth, the capitalist state has abandoned all but the flimsiest mask of "democracy" and has stepped up its violent attacks on the masses to a fever pitch, reflecting the capitalists' fear of the masses' struggles.

The terrorist attacks of the state reached a new peak in the 1960's and early 70's. Well- known are the slaughters of countless Afro-American fighters in the great rebellions, of the members of the Black Panther Party (assassinated by the FBI's COINTELPRO program, which incited Black gangs and cultural nationalists to kill Black militants) and the assassinations of Black leaders Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and George Jackson. Even the struggle of the Afro-Americans for the most limited democratic rights, such as the integration of lunch counters and schools, was met with fascist violence. The youth and students were also attacked and massacred.

The bourgeoisie carried out these attacks using the police, National Guard and even the regular Army (not to mention the FBI and CIA). Modem weapons were employed against the masses. These attacks provoked the utmost indignation on the part of the masses, who fought back against them tit-for-tat and severely punished the bourgeoisie.

The terrorist state attacks reached a peak just after the U.S. imperialists invaded Cambodia in 1970. The revolutionary masses in the U.S. rose up in fury against this aggression, and the panicked U.S. imperialists gunned down white and Black students. On May 20, 1970, Chairman Mao Tsetung, leader of the communists and people of the world, issued a solemn statement declaring: "WHILE MASSACRING THE PEOPLE IN OTHER COUNTRIES, U.S. IMPERIALISM IS SLAUGHTERING THE WHITE AND BLACK PEOPLE IN ITS OWN COUNTRY. NIXON'S FASCIST ATROCITIES HAVE KINDLED THE RAGING FLAMES OF THE REVOLUTIONARY MASS MOVEMENT IN THE UNITED STATES. THE CHINESE PEOPLE FIRMLY SUPPORT THE REVOLUTIONARY STRUGGLE OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. I AM CONVINCED THAT THE AMERICAN PEOPLE WHO ARE FIGHTING VALIANTLY WILL ULTIMATELY WIN VICTORY AND THAT THE FASCIST RULE IN THE UNITED STATES WILL INEVITABLY BE DEFEATED." ("People of the World, Unite and Defeat the U.S. Aggressors and all their Running Dogs") Chairman Mao's statement lifted the spirits of the revolutionary people and encouraged them to intensify their struggle.

Today, in their bicentennial propaganda, the U.S. imperialists are singing the praises of bourgeois "democracy" in the U.S. Yet the situation described by Chairman Mao did not change with the removal of Nixon and with a few Congressional investigations. When the mass movements dropped to a lower level after 1970, the necessity for the largest-scale terrorist attacks lessened. Nevertheless, against the Black people and other oppressed nationalities, against the Native people, in the poorer white working-class communities and at the work-places in connection with strikes the violent attacks continued and at times were very acute. The Detroit police STRESS squad murdered 22 people nearly all of them Black between 1971 and 1973; in San Francisco the state machine carried out the racist police-state "Zebra" campaign against the Black community in 1974. The state continues to slander immigrant workers as "illegal aliens" and continues to round them up and deport them for the "crime" of enriching the capitalists by slaving at the lowest- paying jobs. The capitalists are promoting gun control and "crime suppression" to disarm the masses and beef up the police.

"Covert" actions against the revolutionary movement also continued. For example, the CIA's OPERATION CHAOS attempted to infiltrate and split the Marxist-Leninist movement with paid agents so as to prevent it from building the revolutionary party of the proletariat, which alone could lead the working masses to victory in revolution.

As the state has grown, so have its violent attacks against the broad masses. This too cannot be hidden by bicentennial propaganda.

GOVERNMENT-ORGANIZED FASCIST MASS MOVEMENTS TO ATTACK SECTIONS OF THE PEOPLE

Resistance by the masses to open state terrorist attacks became very powerful, especially in the Black rebellions and after the murder of the Kent and Jackson State students. So the capitalist government employed another tactic in developing fascism. It attempted to organize fascist movements to incite one section of the people to attack another and thereby do the repressive work of the state.

One example was the so-called "hard-hat" movement organized by the government through then Vice-President Agnew, Peter Brennan of the building trades union leadership and other labor lieutenants of monopoly capital in 1970. Its aim was to mobilize construction workers on a national chauvinist basis to support the U.S. imperialist aggression in Indo-China and violently attack the progressive movement. It carried out a brutal attack on an anti-war demonstration in New York. But the "hard-hat" movement collapsed soon after the comrades and supporters of the American Communist Workers Movement (Marxist-Leninist), a predecessor of the COUSML, together with the broad masses, counter-attacked and smashed it in Cleveland.

The most wide-scale and successful attempt by the government in recent years to build such a movement is the fascist anti-busing movement, which first broke out in Pontiac, Michigan, and has been centered in Boston and Louisville. This movement has been openly organized and protected by government officials and police in local areas with the public blessing of Presidents Nixon and Ford. It has also been organized by the "liberal" bourgeois politicians and judges who claim to support "civil rights" for Black people. Their sabotage of the democratic reform of school integration has aided the open organizers of the fascist movement, while their pleas for "peaceful desegregation" and "obedience to the law" have disarmed the progressive people in the face of racist attacks. Thus the fascist anti-busing movement is backed and organized by the entire monopoly capitalist class and its state machine.

This movement attempts to incite white workers to violently attack the Black people in order to deprive them of the democratic right to attend integrated public schools. It aims at more deeply splitting the working class and using a section of white workers as hangmen to drive the Black people back to the worst Jim Crow segregation. Thus this fascist movement is not only an attack on the Black people but is also an attack on the entire working class, an attack on its unify against its mortal enemy, the monopoly capitalist class. But this movement, too, is meeting with growing resistance from Marxist-Leninists and the broad masses in Louisville, Boston and elsewhere and is rapidly going on the skids.

INTENSIFIED ATTACKS ON THE LIVELIHOOD OF THE WORKERS AND OPPRESSED PEOPLE

The capitalist bicentennial propaganda claims that American workers have a "high" standard of living and that a "recovery" from the economic crisis is underway. But these, too, are nothing but lies to hide the vicious exploitation of the workers and especially the increase of exploitation as the capitalists shift the burden of the economic crisis onto the workers.

In fact, only a handful of workers in the labor aristocracy make high real wages. The masses of American workers are being steadily impoverished, when their wages are measured by what they can and must buy. Inflation, taxes, job insecurity, debt, soaring utility prices, the necessity to buy one or two cheaply-built, expensive cars every three or four years and to spend 20 years paying twice over for a cheaply-built, highly-expensive house, plus being forced to work so hard that you are worn out after 25 years -- these facts of the workers' life expose the so-called "high" American standard of living as a vicious hoax.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the yearly wages of more than half the American workers are $1000 or more below the amount officially deemed necessary to have a "lower" standard of living. In 1975 a "lower" standard for a family of four required $9,800. But the average worker in 1975 earned $8,843 per year (if he worked all year)--$1000 less than the "lower" standard. Such low wages require that increasingly both husband and wife must work to make ends meet.

Furthermore, the present economic crisis is the worst since the Great Depression. The monopoly capitalists are stepping up their exploitation of the workers to an unbearable level, in order to shift the entire burden of the crisis onto them. Although unemployment is officially 7.3% (in reality closer to 10%), the capitalists claim an economic "recovery" is underway. The only thing "recovering" is the capitalists' profits, which are rising. The reason for this is clear.

In the second and third quarters of 1975, the American workers' productivity (output of goods and services per man-hour) rose at an annual rate of 8% and 9.4% respectively, the fastest rate of increase since World War II. This means that while the capitalists have laid off or fired millions of workers, they have also increased tremendously the intensity of labor (by speed-up) of the remaining employed workers, holding over their heads the threat of unemployment.

Thus the capitalists have sucked maximum profits out of the employed workers' labor.

The workers are militantly resisting this increased exploitation, demanding an end to speedup and also higher wages to compensate for the additional labor they have performed and for inflation. A militant strike movement is underway, and unorganized workers such as municipal and hospital are striving to organize themselves for struggle against the capitalists. The capitalists, through their state, are viciously attempting to smash the struggles of the workers in order to enforce this increased exploitation. In the recent Teamsters' strike the government constantly threatened to suppress the strike using the Taft-Hartley Act. In Detroit the government issued an injunction to prevent the workers from continuing the strike and sent police to smash it. This way to a certain extent the capitalists are preventing the workers from recouping their losses.

The main allies of the bourgeoisie in this fascist program are the top union bureaucrats like Meany, Fitzsimmons, Woodcock and Abel, who have formed a united front with Capital against the workers and have tied the unions more firmly than ever to the capitalist state. The capitalists are chuckling with satisfaction at the "moderate" demands of "labor" and the "non-inflationary " contracts this year. These demands are not "moderate" because the workers want them to be, but only because the labor lieutenants who formulated them are collaborating with the capitalists and their state to enforce speed-up and other methods of increasing exploitation. For example, though the national Teamsters' strike was a heroic effort by the workers, union bosses criminally teamed up with the government and employers to undermine it and enforce a wage- cut contract.

The most "liberal" and social-democratic of the labor lieutenants -- the UAW leaders headed by Woodcock -- are promoting a special fascist scheme to do the same. It is called "National Economic Planning" and has been incorporated into the Humphrey-Hawkins Bill and the Democratic Party platform. It claims to drastically cut unemployment and eliminate crises. But actually this scheme will bring the unions under even tighter control of the capitalist state by having the unions, the government and the capitalists jointly "plan" production. Such "planning" of production can only mean more collaboration of the union bosses with Capital to plan speedup and wage-cuts for the workers in the name of "productivity". This "liberal", social-democratic scheme is a step on the road of the direct incorporation of the trade unions into the capitalist state which took place in fascist Italy under Mussolini and led to extreme exploitation of the workers.

In addition to intensified exploitation, the masses are facing wide-scale cutbacks on essential services and intensified plunder of their incomes on every front.

The fascist program of the U.S. bourgeoisie seeks to increase the exploitation of the workers beyond the bounds of endurance, to attack their livelihood in every way, in order to shift the entire burden of the crisis onto their backs. But in doing so the capitalists will arouse such resistance from the workers as will drive Capital itself to its grave.

INTENSIVE WAR PREPARATIONS AND AGGRESSIVE WAR ITSELF

The bourgeoisie's bicentennial propaganda is also stressing the so-called "unique" "destiny" of the U.S. which supposedly requires it to remain the "number one" power in the world. The cry has gone up from bourgeois of every stripe that the U.S. is "lagging behind" Russia in war preparations. A great call has gone out for militarization and increasing the arms race. President Ford has recently called this the doctrine of "peace through strength".

"Peace through strength" is a fascist program of war and aggression abroad in pursuit of world domination. It is hardly different from Hitler's call for "strength through joy" as nazi Germany made its feverish preparations for war. Hitler too, said he was for "peace". But both slogans openly glorify the "strength" of aggressive imperialism in its bid for world supremacy. This is the basic program of U.S. imperialist foreign policy.

U.S. imperialism is facing the challenge of its main rival, Soviet social-imperialism, which has become the most dangerous source of war. The contention between the superpowers for world domination is heating up and is leading the world into a new world war. U.S. imperialism also faces the rising of the oppressed nations and peoples of the Third World. A year ago the U.S. imperialists were ignominiously kicked out of Indo-China after more than 12 years of war had led them to utter defeat at the hands of the revolutionary masses. The struggles of the masses at home are also advancing. In such a situation U.S. imperialism is not about to give up its fascist program of war preparations, militarization and actual aggression. Instead, it is stepping it up and has even dropped its deceptive mask of "detente".

The ruling circles are actively preparing public opinion for war and aggression. Extreme jingoism is promoted by Reagan in the presidential primaries, enabling Ford to present the same program in deceptive terms and appear as a "moderate". The former U.S. ambassador to the U. N., Moynihan, slandered and threatened the peoples and governments of the Third World, indicating that their struggles are drawing blood from the U.S. exploiters.

Deeds also prove that the U.S. imperialists are stepping up their war preparations. The Army has been transformed from a relatively vulnerable force of draftees into a professional fascist army. Blacks are being eliminated from its ranks as "unreliable" in the event of Black rebellions. The Army is carrying on a hasty testing program for tanks in order to open a massive new production program. The nuclear arms race continues unabated and has even heated up since the SALT agreement gave it a virtual go-ahead.

In fact, the U.S. military budget has multiplied about 20 times (allowing for inflation) since 1938. Compared to the 1938 military budget of Nazi Germany (again allowing for inflation), the 1975 U.S. military budget cost half again as much per person as did the German budget -- $84.70 per capita for Germany in 1938 and $128 for the U.S. in 1975 ($426.50 in 1975 dollars). Considering that the U.S. population is more than three times as large as Germany's in 1938 (213 million to 65 million), the size of the military apparatus of U.S. imperialism can be appreciated.

The U.S. imperialists are even making violent attacks on national minority peoples in the U.S. who come from countries that are prime targets of U.S. aggression. For example, a wave of killings, assaults and home burnings is underway against the Palestinians and other Arabs in Detroit and Dearborn, Michigan. The Arabs in the U.S. would militantly oppose any U.S. or Israeli aggression in the Middle East where U.S. imperialism has great strategic "interests", and would alert the American people to the truth, upsetting the U.S. program of aggression and world domination.

Fascism is the most bestial national chauvinism, the most vicious hatred of other peoples.

It is war itself for the purpose of grabbing world domination. This is certainly U.S. imperialism's basic program in foreign policy. Its present aim is to strengthen its war machine and suppress the people at home in order to prepare them to fight aggressive wars for the maximum profits of monopoly capital. But remembering their great struggle against the U.S. war of aggression in Indo-China, the American people will never agree to be cannon fodder. If the U.S. imperialists and the Soviet social-imperialists go to war against each other, or if the U.S. attacks the oppressed nations, the American people will certainly rise up powerfully against their principal enemy, the U.S. monopoly capitalist class. Their enemy is at home.

FASCIST CULTURE SOFTENS UP THE PEOPLE FOR EXPLOITATION AND WAR

To soften up the masses for exploitation, repression and war, the monopoly capitalists have imposed a racist, national chauvinist and degenerate culture upon the working masses.

The capitalists do propaganda for an "American spirit" which somehow makes the U.S. "unique" and "superior" to any other country. This, too, is nothing but warmed-over nazism. Nazism exalted the so-called "spirit" of the German people to "prove" that the Germans were "superior" to other peoples. Its purpose was to justify aggression and war against other peoples by the nazi state. The U.S. imperialists promote their racism and national chauvinism for the same reason. First, they teach that America is a "white" country and all "nonwhites" are "inferior". Second, they say the American "nation" is "superior" and all non-American nationalities are "inferior". This is taught to the youth from the earliest age through the mass media, the educational system, etc. Today, with the bicentennial, the U.S. bourgeoisie is on the veritable warpath on this question.

Side by side with the "exalted purity" of the "American spirit" the bourgeoisie promotes the lowest, foulest degeneracy. Right from the highest levels of the U.S. government down to the neighborhood pornography theater, vicious sexual abuse of women is advertised as the "American way of life". To undermine the youth the U.S. imperialists have promoted the degenerate "counter-culture" of drugs, sex and mysticism for a number of years now. It was introduced on a massive scale in 1965 as the struggles against racial discrimination and the U.S. imperialist war in Viet Nam were gripping the masses. At that time the youth and students were rebelling strongly against the bourgeois values of self-promotion, elitism, racism etc., and were fighting against the decadent bourgeois educational system. The "counterculture" was nothing but old wine in a new bottle, aimed at getting the youth to forget class struggle and take up individual salvation through pleasure-seeking and anti-people violence. It attempted to confuse every issue, mystify the cause of exploitation and imperialist war and turn reality into a matter of opinion and interpretation. Today this reactionary "counterculture" is pushed in every working-class community and is aimed especially at undermining the struggles of the young workers, who are the key to revolution.

But American working youth and masses are rebelling against the reactionary culture and are participating in the class struggle. They will surely throw the entire cultural arsenal of the decadent U.S. bourgeoisie into the garbage heap.

FIGHT FASCISM WITH REVOLUTIONARY STRUGGLE

The aim of the monopoly capitalists' program of fascization is to preserve capitalist rule and insure maximum capitalist profits by shifting the entire burden of the economic crisis onto the backs of the workers and oppressed people in the U.S. and onto the people of the Third World, by waging an inter-imperialist war with Soviet social-imperialism to re-divide the world between the two superpowers, by waging wars of aggression against the oppressed nations in such places as the Middle East, and by smashing the revolutionary movement at home.

The capitalists are driven to carry out this desperate program by the basic economic law of monopoly capitalism, which governs all their activities. Stalin summed up this law as follows: "THE SECURING OF THE MAXIMUM CAPITALIST PROFIT THROUGH THE EXPLOITATION, RUIN AND IMPOVERISHMENT OF THE POPULATION OF THE GIVEN COUNTRY, THROUGH THE ENSLAVEMENT AND SYSTEMATIC ROBBERY OF THE PEOPLES OF OTHER COUNTRIES, ESPECIALLY BACKWARD COUNTRIES, AND, LASTLY, THROUGH WARS AND MILITARIZATION OF THE NATIONAL ECONOMY, WHICH ARE UTILIZED FOR THE OBTAINING OF THE HIGHEST PROFITS." (Economic Problems of Socialism in the U.S.S.R.)

But the workers and oppressed people will never take these fascist attacks lying down. They have consistently fought against the fascist program of the U.S. bourgeoisie and today these struggles are developing vigorously.

In the 1950's the U.S. imperialists claimed that the American people were "apathetic" and "apolitical". The rebellions and struggles of the ^'60's and early '70's gave them the shock of their lives. They went on an orgy of repression and frantically stepped up the fascization of their instruments of oppression. All this failed to suppress the masses.

Now the workers' movement is firing the opening salvos of a new wave of struggles. The Teamsters' strike, the San Francisco city workers' strike (which nearly led to a general strike) and the present rubber workers' strike are militant struggles by significant sectors of the U.S. industrial and service proletariat.

They herald a mounting struggle by the workers against the shifting of the burden of the economic crisis onto the workers' backs. The Afro- Americans are continuing their heroic struggles as they fight against the government-organized fascist anti-busing movement in Boston, Louisville and elsewhere. The youth and students have opened their fire against the shifting of the crisis in the form of cutbacks and tuition increases in the colleges. A trend of active resistance to fascism is once again emerging as revolutionary activists and masses fight back tit-for-tat against the fascist attacks, employing revolutionary violence to oppose counterrevolutionary violence.

All these mass movements are directed at the rule of the monopoly capitalists. The masses long to eliminate fascism, capitalist exploitation and imperialist war, to replace the present dictatorship of the bourgeoisie with real, proletarian democracy for the broad masses. This is only possible through revolution, an antifascist proletarian socialist revolution in which the working class and other oppressed people violently smash the repressive bourgeois state and replace it with the working class organized as the ruling class, with the dictatorship of the proletariat. Only with the proletarian dictatorship can the capitalists be suppressed and the working masses become the masters of society and eliminate the exploitation of man by man. Only through its own dictatorship over the capitalists can the working class have full democracy and proceed toward the elimination of classes, to communist society.

This is the program of the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists, which is building a new revolutionary party to bring it about. The COUSML holds that fascism can only be combated and monopoly capitalist rule eliminated by means of active, revolutionary struggle. But the bourgeoisie and its agents, the labor lieutenants and a whole host of opportunists, are counseling "moderation" and "reason", "obey the laws" of the bourgeois state, "don't disrupt economic 'recovery' " and work for "peaceful desegregation", etc., etc. They declare that revolutionary struggle, revolutionary methods of struggle, is "crazy" and brand revolutionary fighters as "troublemakers". They described the struggle led by the ACWM(M-L) to smash the fascist "hard-hats" and the struggle of the Louisville Branch of COUSML against the fascist anti-busing movement as "crazy". They say it is "crazy" for the workers to break the bourgeois laws in their struggles against capitalist exploitation. They say the Afro-Americans are "troublemakers" to struggle uncompromisingly against the attacks of the fascist anti-busing movement. The bourgeoisie and its servants are united behind the program of stepped-up exploitation, fascism and imperialist war of the U.S. imperialist state machine and are bent on attacking all who stand up to fight actively against it.

Yes, Messrs. Bourgeois and your tame household pets, revolutionary struggle is crazy. It means breaking the laws of the bourgeoisie, refusing to go through bourgeois "channels", rebelling outright against reactionaries, responding tit-for-tat to violent attacks and finally violently overthrowing the capitalists and their state machine. To your class which is doomed, of course this is "crazy". But the workers know that revolutionary struggle is the only thing which will defeat the fascist program of the monopoly capitalists, smash up their armed state machine and overthrow the capitalists altogether.

Revolutionary struggle is the answer of the class-conscious workers and other progressive people to the fascist bicentennial propaganda of the U.S. monopoly capitalists and is the method to combat their growing fascism. End.

[Back to Top]

DOWN WITH THE SUPERPOWERS' ANTI-ARAB PLOTS TO DESTROY THE PALESTINIAN LIBERATION MOVEMENT AND ENSLAVE THE LEBANESE PEOPLE!

In recent weeks, an extremely grave and dangerous situation for the Palestinian revolution and for the Arab people has developed in Lebanon. For fourteen months the bloody Lebanese civil war has been raging, a conflict brought about by meddling in the internal affairs of the Arab people by the U.S. imperialists and Soviet social-imperialists along with their client state of Israel. Now the two superpowers have instigated Syria to intervene in Lebanon in the name of bringing an end to the civil war, but in fact to slaughter the Palestinian people and liquidate the Palestinian revolution, suppress the Lebanese people and split the unity of the Arab people.

This is a treacherous anti-Arab plot by the two superpowers and the Israeli Zionists. Against the Syrian invasion the Palestinian guerrillas and their Lebanese comrades-in-arms have been fighting heroically, once again proving to the world that their just cause is invincible.

On June 16th, U.S. ambassador Meloy, one of his aides and his driver were gunned down in Beirut. Immediately, Washington has become full of noise about a possible U.S. military invasion in the guise of "evacuating U.S. citizens" but in reality to carry out further aggression and attempt to counter their Soviet rivals. U.S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism are both wildly adventurous, and the situation in Lebanon is growing ever more dangerous.

The responsibility for the tense situation, for the blood spilt in the Lebanese civil war and the ongoing Syrian invasion lies with the two superpowers and their running dog, Israel. To the superpowers, the Middle East is an extremely important area, both for its oil resources and its strategic position. For twenty years U.S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism have been engaged in a fierce rivalry for the domination of the Middle East while collaborating with each other to suppress the Arab people. The superpowers' main instrument of aggression against the Arab peoples is the racist, fascist state of Israel. U.S. imperialism and its British partners created the state of Israel by forcefully expelling the native Palestinian population and setting up an aggressive settler state in the Palestinian's national homeland. Today, Israel's lifeblood is billions of dollars from the U.S. and the constant flow of Jews dispatched from the Soviet Union to be used as cannon-fodder in Israel's continual aggressions against the Palestinians and other Arabs. Both superpowers bend over backwards to insure Israel's existence, and do their utmost to maintain a tense situation of "no war-no peace" in the Middle East, in order to facilitate their hegemonistic and expansionist designs and to control the Arab people. However, the main roadblock to the evil designs of the two superpowers is the Palestinian revolution, which is fighting valiantly to regain the Palestinian national homeland and rid the Arab world of the Zionist state of Israel.

The Lebanese civil war was initiated as part of a superpower-zionist scheme to crush the Palestinian revolution. In Lebanon there are some 500,000 uprooted Palestinians in refugee camps and villages. Lebanon is the one country in which the Palestinian guerrillas have been allowed relative freedom of movement to stage attacks against the Israeli occupiers. Therefore, it is an important base for the Palestinian's armed struggle to liberate their homeland. For several years the Zionists have tried to destroy the Palestinians' bases in Lebanon. They have carried out thousands of armed raids into Lebanon, bombing villages and camps, at times hundreds of miles north of the Lebanese border.

The raids are intended to split the Palestinian masses from the Fedayeen (guerrillas) and to split the Palestinians from the Lebanese. They also have the long-range purpose of "cleansing" south Lebanon of Arabs in preparation for annexing it to Israel. But the Zionist raids have failed miserably. The Palestinians only stepped up their armed struggle and the Palestinian and Lebanese masses united even more closely in the face of the Zionist aggressors. So, the imperialists and Zionists called on Lebanese reaction to do their bidding, to treacherously attack the Palestinians residing in Lebanon from within.

On March 6 of last year a commando unit of the Palestine Liberation Organization attacked the Zionist enemy in downtown Tel Aviv, in the heart of occupied Palestine. In the battle, the heroic commandos wiped out more than 50 Zionist soldiers and policemen and then sacrificed their lives. This terrified the Zionist authorities and they used the operation as a pretext to respond, not in their usual manner -- an open raid on Lebanon -- but by ordering their agents in Lebanon, the fascist Phalangists, to attack the commandos. In the Israeli Knesset (parliament), Zionist premier Rabin gave an explicit call for the Phalangist attacks on the Palestinians in Lebanon: "We have chosen not to reply to this operation because we are planning on and waiting for a confessional (religious) war to occur in Lebanon which would have the same result..."

Only a few days after Rabin's speech, the Phalangists started their terroristic attacks on the Palestinians, both commandos and women and children. However, the Phalangists did not aim their attacks on the Palestinians alone, but also attacked the Palestinian's close ally, the Lebanese patriotic masses. Constantly fueled by U.S. imperialism, Soviet social-imperialism and zionism, these attacks developed into a civil war gripping the whole of Lebanon. It was not a religious war, but a war between Lebanese reaction and its backers on the one hand, and the Palestinian resistance and the Lebanese national movement on the other.

As far back as last fall it was clear that the attempts to "subdue" the Palestinians and their Lebanese comrades had completely failed. But despite the tremendous suffering and destruction caused by the war, in which over 20,000 people have been killed, the two superpowers continued to pour gas on the fire and to hatch their plots against the Arab people. The U.S. imperialists have been working from the beginning to "internationalize" the situation so that they can stick in their bloody paws. Shedding crocodile tears over the civil war, Henry Kissinger has given his approval to certain outside forces (Syria, France and possibly the U.S. itself) invading Lebanon in the name of "restoring order". And, according to Kissinger, it is only after the conflict is settled satisfactorily to the U.S. imperialists that the Lebanese may ask the invaders to leave; "once there is an established government in Lebanon it can call for the withdrawal of outside forces." Kissinger has dispatched U.S. State Department "mediator" Dean Brown to Beirut to help execute U.S. imperialism's aggressive designs. This is the same Dean Brown who gained notoriety through his "mediation" of U.S. aggression in Indochina and who was U.S. ambassador to Jordan in 1970. He was one of the main architects of "Black September" when the reactionary Jordanian army carried out the treacherous massacre of the Palestinian guerrillas. The U.S. aircraft carrier "America" and several other ships have been stationed off the Lebanese coast "to be available for evacuation of U.S. citizens and to show American interest"., This is very reminiscent of 1958 when Eisenhower ordered the invasion of Lebanon by U.S. marines to suppress the Lebanese national movement in the name of "defending U.S. nationals" and "protecting American interests".

Moscow too, has been eager to "internationalize" the conflict and has threatened direct military intervention in Lebanon. Moscow's news agency, Tass, has brazenly declared that "What is taking place in Lebanon is ceasing to be an internal matter." In other words it is now a matter for the New Tsars. They are clamoring that "The Middle East is much closer to the Soviet Union than...(the U.S. and France) and, in any case, the Soviet Union is not less interested in how the situation in Lebanon and around it develops... Nobody should lose sight of this."! Soviet chieftains Kosygin and Podgomy have been hopping from one Arab capital to the other, intriguing and conspiring against the Arab people. Soviet warships have also been menacing the Lebanese coast in a show of strength.

Hypocritically talking about their desire for "peace" in Lebanon, the two superpowers have continually worked to aggravate and manipulate the situation to the detriment of the Arab people's interests in general and the Palestinian cause in particular. They want Arabs to slaughter Arabs and Arabs to slaughter Palestinians, to break up Arab unity and Arab support for the Palestinian revolution. Such a situation is the best protection for their puppet state of Israel and creates maximum conditions for imposing solutions which are favorable to the aggressive interests of the two superpowers.

After the Phalangists and Lebanese reaction failed to liquidate the Palestinians and "subdue" the Lebanese masses, the superpowers egged on Syria to do their dirty work for them. For several months now, the Syrians have been trying to bring the Palestine Liberation Organization, the leadership of the Palestinian revolution, and the Lebanese national movement under their control, while trying to impose a settlement in Lebanon which would only satisfy Washington, Moscow and Tel Aviv. This April, after weeks of consultations with Soviet diplomats and with the open approval of the U.S. State Department and the Israeli Zionists, Syria dispatched its troops and heavy armaments into Lebanon to exert pressure there. By the first of June, the Syrians had moved over 12,000 troops into Lebanon and over 300 tanks along with other sophisticated Russian-built armaments including MIG jets. The thrust of the Syrian invasion is aimed directly at the Palestinian resistance and the Lebanese patriotic forces.

Syria's intervention has filled the Zionists and the Lebanese reactionaries, as well as their U.S. and Soviet masters, with glee. They are all hoping that the invasion will turn out to be another "Black September" for the Palestinian revolution. Israeli Prime Minister Rabin is enthusiastically applauding Syria and says that he is "not shedding any tears over the military encounter between the Syrian Army and Arafat's terrorists" and that he "will not stand in the way of anyone who wants to subdue Arafat's terrorists". The Lebanese fascists have gone into a frenzy about "interference in Lebanese affairs" over the resolution of the Arab League to send a peacekeeping force to Lebanon in order to ensure an Arab solution to the conflict. But they are simply elated with the Syrian intervention which has as its avowed purpose the protection of the rule of comprador Lebanese reaction. The U.S. imperialists, who are trying to feign neutrality and a "hands-off" policy, cannot hide their satisfaction with their own handiwork. The White House says that the "Syrians have played a constructive role in Lebanon", i.e., have served well U.S. imperialism's interests. Dean Brown "paid tribute" to the Syrian armed forces "for playing a helpful role" and says he regrets that "we reigned in the Syrians too much to please the Israelis". Like the U.S. imperialists, the Soviet social-imperialists have acclaimed their support for Syria's so-called "efforts to bring peace" to Lebanon. The day after Syria's onslaught deep into Lebanese territory, Soviet premier Kosygin was in Damascus. There the Soviet chieftains and the Syrian leaders signed a joint Syrian-Soviet communique confirming their resolve "further to facilitate the ending of bloodshed, the restoration of security and peace in Lebanon". Considering the time at which this was signed, it could only mean that they confirmed their resolve to further stab the Palestinian revolution in the back and to continue to attack the Lebanese national movement.

According to press reports, the Syrian army has put its "full weight" into "pacifying" the Lebanese situation. Syrian troops and tanks have laid siege to Beirut and they have launched a massive invasion of southern Lebanon in an attempt to drive the Palestinian commandos out of their important bases near the Israeli border. They have also attacked the strongholds of the progressive Lebanese forces. However the Syrians have met extremely fierce resistance. Neither the Palestinians nor the Lebanese have any desire to fight their Syrian brothers, but they have no choice except to defend the Palestinian revolution and Lebanon's independence.

In defending themselves, the Palestinian guerrillas and their Lebanese comrades have fought gloriously, inflicting heavy blows on the superior Syrian forces including paralyzing entire Syrian tank columns and destroying large quantities of Syrian armor. The heavy beating taken by the Syrian forces and the condemnation of the intervention throughout the Arab world, has caused the instigators of the invasion to become quite nervous. Showing their dismay, U.S. State Department officials admit that the fighting capacity of the Palestinians was "miscalculated" and that they are at a loss for what to do. In an attempt to get out of a tight spot, Moscow has started to accuse Syria of not doing the job properly. As Tass news agency reported after the Syrians had become bogged down in heavy fighting; "Syria's intervention has led to additional bloodshed instead of curbing it." The Soviet social-imperialists would very much like the world to believe that they are not behind the Syrian invasion and to hide their bloody tracks. The superpowers and the Zionists are not only upset because the Palestinians and their allies are fighting so valiantly, but also because the fedayeen are becoming ever more steeled in battle. After every attempt to liquidate the Palestinian revolution, the Palestinian revolution emerges stronger than before. The Zionists are waiting in dread for the day that the Palestinian guerrillas¹ hands are free from the fighting in Lebanon.

Mordechai Gur, Lieutenant General of the Israeli "defense" forces, who is consumed with this dread, recently lamented; "so we must expect if the fighting ends in Lebanon, these forces (the Palestinian commandos) will be turned against us" and the northern border will become ever more difficult for the Israelis. Clearly, the two superpowers and their puppet state of Israel have lifted a rock only to drop it on their own feet.

Revolutionary workers and oppressed people in the U.S.: The Palestinian revolution is in a very dangerous situation. U.S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism, the common enemies of the American and Arab people, are attacking our Palestinian brothers and stabbing them in the back. Presently U.S. imperialism is threatening an invasion of Lebanon. In this grave situation, we must increase our support for the Palestinian revolution which stands in the van of anti-imperialist struggle. We must increase our struggle against the anti-Arab plots of the two superpowers.

DEATH TO U.S. IMPERIALISM, SOVIET SOCIAL-IMPERIALISM AND ISRAELI ZIONISM!

[Back to Top]

OPPOSE GOVERNMENT-ORGANIZED RACIST ATTACKS AGAINST THE ARAB PEOPLE IN DETROIT

(The following leaflet was distributed recently by the Detroit Branch of COUSML at auto plants and in working-class communities in Detroit.)

A racist campaign of harassment and violent physical attacks has been unleashed against the Arab community in Southwest Detroit and in South Dearborn. Racist gangs supported by the police launched a wave of violent attacks right after May 15th, when 1,500 Arabs and their American supporters demonstrated in downtown Dearborn in support of the Palestinian revolution and the Palestine Liberation Organization. Since May 15th, when the Dearborn city government hypocritically declared its so-called "support" for the Palestinians, within a three-week period: two Arab workers have been shot and killed and another Arab shot and wounded; several Arab homes have been burned; stores, restaurants and coffee houses have been shot into; Arab workers have been shot at, threatened and chased by cars attempting to run them down; and a wide-scale campaign of racist slander by the police, capitalist news media and by reactionary elements in the white community has been organized in order to "justify" and further inflame this racist campaign. At every point, the Detroit and Dearborn police have either turned their backs as the racists attacked, or stalled in arresting them, or even arrested the Arabs. But to the shock of the racists, the Arab community has met these attacks with vigorous resistance. Arabs have begun to organize to defend themselves and are ready to gather in numbers at any moment to defend each other. An Arab store-owner who was shot in the back in his own store defended himself and shot back, wounding two racist thugs, one severely. Other Arabs beat up and stabbed white racist youths who had provoked and violently attacked them.

Coming just as the Palestinian revolution is severely threatening the "interests" (profits) of the U.S. imperialists in the Middle East, this campaign of racist attacks in Detroit is part of the U.S. government's attempt to terrorize Arabs in the U.S. and turn the American people against them, so as to have a free hand to fight a war of aggression against the Arab people in the Middle East.

The fascist elements in the white community in the Detroit area, the capitalist police, and the capitalist news media are running a vicious slander campaign against the Arabs. Their aim is to 'justify' the racist attacks, incite ordinary white workers to attack the Arabs, and to deny the Arabs the right to resist the attacks. When the first major attacks broke out, before the news media reported them, Arabs noticed a sudden increase in racist slanders against them by some people in the Southwest Detroit area. At that time the capitalist news media deliberately created a news black-out, covering up the attacks. But when the Arabs defended themselves and wounded three white racists, then the capitalists' media suddenly decided to give the matter headline coverage and now they are distorting the situation in every possible way to slander the Arabs even further. The capitalist news media is only concerned now that the white racists are being beaten back. The newspapers want the rest of the American people to think that the Arabs are just pulling white people out of cars at random and beating them up. For example, in reporting the incident in which Arab workers beat up two white racist youths on Dix, the June 7 Free Press reported that Sgt. Barker of the Dearborn Police Department said that he believed the story of the white youths. They claimed that they were merely sitting peacefully at a red light when the Arabs attacked them. The police Sgt. refused to believe the many Arab witnesses who said that the white youths first provoked the Arabs and then, when the Arabs threw a few rocks, violently attacked them with clubs. The Arabs, who were justifiably sensitive after losing two Yemeni brothers to the racists, retaliated in self-defense. But the Dearborn government and the Free Press are announcing that the Arabs attacked the whites for no reason! This is an attempt to frame the Arabs for assault while they were only defending themselves.

It is also an exposure of the real motives of the Dearborn city government that only now, after two white racists were beaten, is the Dix area heavily patrolled by police. To protect whom? To protect the racist terrorists who might get unlucky enough to get caught by the Arab workers. When two Arabs were shot and killed in cold blood police patrols were not beefed up to protect the Arabs from attacks.

Just two weeks ago the Dearborn Chief of Police attended the funeral of the Arab worker Mohamed Balas and dared to call him "brother Moh". What hypocrisy! The Dearborn police, lackeys of auto capitalist Henry Ford, cannot hide their nature. They are well-known as racists to the Black people in Detroit and well-known as capitalist lackeys to all workers.

Further, the capitalist news media, as a tool of the monopoly capitalist government, is attempting to whip up a racist hysteria against the Arabs. One of the lies they spread is that these attacks are a result of Arab men "raping" white Southern women. Haven't we seen this trick before? This is the same tactic which has been used by the KKK and other fascists to lynch hundreds of Black men. The Detroit Free Press, the "liberal" paper, which ran this slander, has been working overtime to inflame racial conflicts. It also quotes extensively some Arabs saying it is the "white hillbillies" from S.W. Detroit doing this. This word originates not from the Arab community but from the monopoly capitalists themselves, who have a pet slander for every section of the workers, and now the capitalist press wants to use this name to cause conflicts between the Arab workers and Southern white workers. Another lie the capitalist press propagates is that the killings of the Arabs had to do with a conflict of white pimps and Arabs over white prostitutes. Other Arabs will verify that the two Arab workers who were shot and killed had no such dealings with prostitutes and pimps. Both were young Yemeni workers on their way to work. Both were shot cold-bloodedly in a most cowardly manner in the early morning hours. And anyway, how does this so-called fight with pimps explain the attacks on Arab families and the burning down of their homes in S.W. Detroit?!! The fascists try to isolate these attacks from each other, blaming them on personal fights. What a coincidence that all these so-called "personal fights" are happening now, and so many of them right after one another!! No -- these are not some angry individuals who want to kill Arabs over women or whatever else the fascists can think of. Let's look at some of these attacks and see who some of these fascist terrorists are. What are they doing? What role have the police played and why are the Arabs being attacked?

Some of the fascist attackers are well-known racist and anti-working class elements in S.W. Detroit. Others are white gang youths mobilized for the occasion by racist propaganda. What already existing fascist organizations did the government utilize for this campaign? Or did it organize a new one? Or did the government use its individual fascist connections? In Dearborn and Detroit, the racists have come in gangs with guns to attack businesses and homes, or in a small group to assassinate Arabs at night, in a cowardly manner. In most cases the police have not come when called in for help, but instead, when they do arrive, they harass the Arabs, sometimes arrest them, and in most cases let the racists get away.

In one incident, for example, on May 23 an Arab-owned store in S.W. Detroit operated by two Palestinian brothers was attacked with guns by known racists in the community who had viciously harassed other non-white national minorities in the past. They also harass and threaten other workers and are widely hated among honest white workers as well for they are the most anti-people elements in the community. These fascists had been harassing the Arabs, calling them racist names and trying to provoke them into fights. The two Palestinian brothers, however, were not easily provoked. They enjoyed the support of the white working people in the community. On some of these occasions the brothers called the police, and the racists even threatened to kill the Arabs in front of the police. So the police were well aware of the situation. On the day of the shooting attack, the racists sent in a young girl and a boy to provoke the Arabs. The brothers sensed trouble when later in the day they found their tires slashed. They called the police twice (the 4th precinct station is only three blocks away), but the police did not come. Then three armed racists entered the store. They hit one Arab brother in the face and shot the other in the back and in the foot. The wounded brother then got his gun and justifiably defended himself, shooting back and severely wounding one racist and slightly wounding a second. When the police finally arrived, they arrested eight of the Arabs who had come to help their Arab brothers. Included in the arrests were the two brothers themselves (the one who was shot in the back in his own store was handcuffed in the hospital for two days and a man from Pakistan who was a bystander but "looked like" an Arab to the police. None of the racists were arrested at the time.

In jail the Arabs were subjected to threats and provocations by the police. The federal immigration authorities were called in immediately as an intimidation tactic. The police lieutenant in charge even said that they were going to make sure the Arab store closed down. The Arabs were only released after spending the night in jail. The lie the fascists are now spreading in the area of the store is that one of the brothers supposedly slapped a pregnant girl, presumably the daughter of the leader of the racists and the one that came in earlier to provoke a fight. What fascist logic! Even if an Arab man had slapped a white woman, would this give her father or anyone the right to shoot Arabs, and in the back too?!! This is the same logic that the racist and fascist Andrew Bly, a Detroit bar owner, used when he shot and killed the young Black worker Aron Carl in the back (last summer on Livenois) for, as he claimed, "stealing a car". The government merely slapped Chinarian's hand and set him free to kill Black men again. But investigation always shows that the fascists make up these outrageous lies in order to justify killing a Black youth or an Arab man. Aron Carl was not stealing a car. Nor, in this case, did an Arab slap a pregnant woman. Instead, the Arab brothers were viciously harassed, then shot in the back and only then did they retaliate with guns.

In another case, several days later in the same area, an Arab home was attacked. The home was one block from the Arab store and just down the street from the police station. The racists attempted to break in and kill an Arab worker inside. The police were called during the attack, and when they finally arrived, they deliberately gave the racists enough time to get away while they questioned the Arab worker. (The Arab told the police that the attackers were still in his backyard!) The next night the home was burned down even though the police promised to watch the house.

Another Arab family whose home was burned had called the police (from the same 4th precinct) during an attack on their family (including women). The police arrived irritated that they were called for such a "small matter"!! A group of racists had gathered outside the home, and one racist told the police: "If these people stay in this house tonight we're going to bomb it". The police did nothing and about a week later, the house was set on fire.

It is quite clear what the role of the police is -- to give protection to the racists and to disarm and arrest the Arabs. All along it has been general policy for the police to stop Arabs and search them. If knives are found, they are confiscated, and the Arabs spend one month or more in jail. In the present campaign of attacks, the racist, anti-people nature of the police is even more clear. There can be no illusions about what the police are for. They are part of the armed state machine of the rich, of the monopoly capitalists. Their job is suppression of the workers and national minorities such as Arabs. They are no friends of the Arab people.

Why are the Arabs being attacked at this time? The police and the fascist gangs do not act alone; they are tools of the monopoly capitalists who are out to get the Arab people. Why is this? Because the U.S. monopoly capitalists are feverishly preparing for a war of aggression in the Middle East, and the Arab people in the U.S. stand in the way of their preparations. If the U.S. imperialists were to invade the Middle East, the Arab people in the U.S. would surely rise up militantly to oppose it and would inform the American people of the truth of the situation so that they too would oppose it.

The U.S. imperialists, like their superpower rivals, the Soviet social-imperialists, desperately need control of the Middle East to control the strategic oil resources there and use them to control Europe and get world domination. The Zionist state of Israel is their main instrument in this. U.S. Secretary of State Kissinger has declared that defense of the fascist, racist state of Israel is the "bottom line" of U.S. imperialist foreign policy. But the Palestinian and other Arab people are valiantly fighting with arms to liberate their lands from Zionist and superpower control. This has thrown the U.S. imperialists, as well as the Soviet social-imperialists, into a frenzy. The civil war in Lebanon, which the superpowers instigated in hopes of stamping out the Palestinian resistance, instead has aroused the Palestinian and Lebanese people to new fighting strength, as proven by their ability to resist the superpower-backed Syrian invasion. The present deep economic crisis of the capitalist world is driving the superpowers closer to war, and the U.S. monopoly capitalists are attacking the livelihood of the American workers, shifting the burden of the crisis onto them. The last thing the U.S. imperialists want is a militant, unconquerable mass of Arab workers in Detroit, right in their auto plants and industrial heartland, standing up against a U.S. aggressive war and for resistance to war and the economic crisis.

Thus the aim of this government-sponsored campaign of racist attacks and slanders against the Arabs of Detroit and Dearborn is:

1. To attempt to terrorize the Palestinian and other Arab people so as to silence opposition from them to U.S. imperialism's war activities in the Middle East, and

2. To incite the American workers against the Arab workers so as to divide the U.S. working class in the face of the economic crisis, hide the truth of U.S. imperialism's aggression abroad, and prepare the American workers to be cannon fodder in a war to preserve the fabulous oil profits of the monopoly capitalists.

Lest anyone believe that the U.S. government is not capable of unleashing a full-scale wave of assassinations and assaults while making it appear that they were only caused by "angry individuals", they should remember that recently even the government itself, through the Church Committee of the Senate, has admitted that the FBI organized Black gangs and cultural nationalist organizations to assassinate members of the Black Panthers when the revolutionary movement of the Black people was at a peak in the I960's. It is also well-known that the government organized the assassinations of Black leaders Malcolm X and Martin Luther King. Arabs are well aware of intense FBI activity in the Dix area. Only the government, through the FBI, the police, and their fascist connections, could organize such a sudden and widespread campaign of attacks as the Arabs are facing today.

But the heroic Arab people, who have faced the heaviest odds in their struggle in the Middle East, can never be intimidated. They will resist the racist attackers and defeat them by any means necessary. Nor wall the American workers and oppressed people be deceived by the rich war-mongers. Just as by the millions they resisted the U.S. aggressive war against Vietnam, the American people will rise up even more strongly to oppose any U.S. war of aggression in the Middle East and will fight against all capitalist attacks here at home. They will never tolerate their Arab brothers being slaughtered on the streets of Detroit.

Workers and oppressed people:

Oppose the Government-Organized Racist Attacks Against the Arab People in Detroit!

Support the Right of Arabs to Defend Them selves by Any Means Necessary!

Unite To Defend the Arab People!

Oppose the Preparations of the U.S. Imperialists for a War of Aggression in the Middle East, a War in which American Workers Would be Forced to be Cannon Fodder for the Profits of Capital!

[Back to Top]

U.S. IMPERIALIST PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES PROMOTE COLONIAL DOMINATION OF PANAMA

U.S. imperialism, through its chief lackey Gerald Ford and his colleague Ronald Reagan, has launched a "debate" over the issue of the Panama Canal Zone. Using the present elections fraud as a platform, these two flunkeys are putting forward their programs for the continuation of U.S. occupation and control of the Panama Canal. Reagan initiated this debate with statements against the negotiations for a new treaty between the U.S. and Panama, claiming that these talks are being used to secretly "give away" the Panama Canal. Reagan is pushing a so-called "hard-line" on the Panama issue as opposed to the supposedly "moderate", "even-handed" policy of Ford and his administration who counter Reagan charges with claims that if there are no negotiations, the U.S. will be driven out of Panama altogether. Both sides are pushing outright colonial programs for the U.S. imperialist subjugation and control of Panama.

What are these public relations men for U.S. imperialism trying to sell? Ford claims that the U.S. government must pursue negotiations for a new treaty with Panama while maintaining forever the U.S. military occupation of the Canal Zone. These negotiations were initiated by the Johnson administration following the massive uprisings of the Panamanian people to regain sovereignty over the Panama Canal Zone in 1964. For a dozen years now, both the Democratic and Republican administrations have pursued these negotiations in a vain effort to create illusions about a "peaceful solution" to the Panama Canal issue. Ford has been babbling away about how it would be "irresponsible" for the U.S. imperialists to give up the tactic of creating such illusions and has many times pointed out that they are absolutely necessary for maintaining U.S. colonial control of the canal. To give up the negotiations for a new treaty and the illusion of a "peaceful settlement", Ford admits, "would undoubtedly result in the kind of bloody warfare we had in Panama in 1964-65", it "would lead without question to guerrilla war" and "would turn all of South and Latin America against the United States."

The White House has openly stated on several occasions that these negotiations have nothing to do with the U.S. giving up its military occupation of the Canal Zone or giving up anything else. They crudely clamor that these talks are intended to "defend American interests" in Panama and "not to give up anything". Ford himself has arrogantly declared that "the U.S. will never give up its defense rights to the Panama Canal and will never give up its operational rights as far as Panama is concerned." Ford is clamoring that in negotiating a new treaty, the U.S. side "is going to insist during the period of the treaty (30 to 50 years) that we have the right to operate, maintain and defend" the Panama Canal. The character of this "peaceful solution" of the present administration is clearly illustrated by the State Department ceding to Panama so-called "titular sovereignty" over the canal, i.e., sovereignty in name only with U.S. military control in fact. Thus, Ford's program is to use the ploy of talks and worthless concessions for the sole purpose of blunting the fighting will of the Panamanian people and maintaining forever the armed U.S. occupation and control of the Panama Canal Zone. These dual tactics of "talks" and military occupation were also employed by the Johnson and Nixon administrations in Panama. This is also the avowed program of the leading Democratic presidential contender, Carter, who wants to change some of the most insulting words in the present treaty while "maintaining effective control" of the Panama Canal.

However, neither the troops and guns of the U.S. imperialists, nor their political deception of "talks" and "negotiations", have been able to suppress the Panamanian people's struggle to regain sovereignty over the Canal Zone. U.S. imperialism's counter-revolutionary dual tactics have not been able to put out the firestorm of revolutionary struggle which rages on throughout Latin America, Asia and Africa against the plunder and control of U.S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism. Surrounded on all sides by the revolutionary struggles of the people and locked in a life-and-death rivalry for world domination with Soviet social-imperialism, U.S. imperialism is presently gripped by severe all-round crisis. Like a cornered rat, U.S. imperialism is growing ever more frenzied in its futile efforts to hang on in Panama and elsewhere. Acting in desperation, the U.S. ruling circles have trotted out their pet jingo Ronald Reagan onto the stage to arrogantly abuse the Panamanian people with his rabid propaganda in support of U.S. imperialism's subjugation of Panama.

Reagan's campaign theme that there should be no negotiations with Panama, only tougher military control of the Canal Zone, is a continuation of the dual tactics of U.S. imperialism.

How could Gerald Ford, the chief of staff of the armed forces presently occupying Panamanian territory, pass himself off as "responsible" and "fair-minded" without the help of his "irresponsible" and "hot-headed" friend, Ronald Reagan? How could Ford sell his worthless stuff such as "titular sovereignty" and "the negotiation of a fair treaty", without Reagan prettifying this trash with his cries of "Ford is trying to give away the Canal", and "I will never negotiate!"? However, Reagan is not only helping to perpetuate the present fraud of "negotiations". Mainly, he is campaigning for the fundamental program of the U.S. imperialists regarding Panama, that is, the armed occupation and control of the Panama Canal Zone. This is the basic program of all the monopoly capitalist politicians. Is there any real difference between Reagan's desire to maintain the Canal Zone as "sovereign U.S. territory" and Ford's and Carter's plan to give Panama such things as "titular sovereignty" while "maintaining effective control of the canal" ? Clearly Reagan is speaking the mind of the monopoly capitalists as a whole.

Let's further examine Reagan's so-called hardline. Firstly, in various campaign speeches, Reagan has been frothing at the mouth and spouting that the Panama Canal is the "property of the U.S.", arrogantly pronouncing, "we bought it, we paid for it, we built it and we intend to keep it." This is a completely absurd claim, as everyone knows that it is absolutely impossible to "buy" or "pay for" any part of Panama. Panama is a sovereign, independent state which belongs in its entirety to the heroic Panamanian people. No amount of dollars can "buy" or "pay for" the independence of Panama. So what is this reference to the Panama Canal Zone being "bought and paid for" by the United States?

At the turn of the century, the U.S. emerged as an imperialist power competing with the other "great powers" for territory and world domination. For both aggressive-military and commercial reasons, the U.S. imperialists set out to build and control a canal across Panama. A canal linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans was important for the development of a powerful two-ocean navy capable of dominating the high seas and carrying out aggression around the world. Also, control of such a canal would provide a base for dominating all of Panama as well as a staging ground for U.S. aggression throughout the Caribbean and Central and South America. In 1903, Panama was one of the provinces of the Union of Columbia. The U.S. government went to the Colombian government and offered to lease a zone (roughly the same area as the Canal Zone today) for a 100-year period at a cost of $10 million and a $250,000 annual rent. Of course, Columbia, like any sovereign state, was not about to "rent" a section of her territory and refused the offer. (For this refusal, the then president T. Roosevelt branded the Colombians "contemptible little creatures" and "homicidal corruptionists".

Two months after the Colombian refusal, the U.S. government dispatched its warships and marines to Panama to carry out what was later called by the imperialists "the founding of Panama". The U.S. imperialists, backed up by their gunboats and troops (politely described as "with the benevolent protection of the United States"), organized the government of Panama which declared independence from Columbia on November 3,1903. Within three days the U.S. had recognized Panama, and by November 18, it imposed on Panama a treaty whereby the U.S. would control a ten-mile-wide zone across Panama, control the canal which was to be built in that zone, and have innumerable exclusive privileges in the rest of Panama. The terms of the lease on the Canal Zone were generally the same as those rejected by Columbia except that instead of lasting 100 years, the Panama treaty, which is still in effect, is to last "in perpetuity". In order to "remove all misunderstandings" about the seizure of the province of Panama from the Union of Colombia, the U.S. government later paid the Colombian government a $25 million indemnity.

Thus, the U.S. "acquired" the Panama Canal Zone by first forcefully severing Panama from Columbia and then secondly forcing an unequal treaty, signed at the point of a bayonet, on the Panamanian government. In an attempt to give this atrocious act of imperialist aggression and conquest an aura of commercial legitimacy, the U.S. government passed out a few dollars to their victims. Today, U.S. imperialism's wild aggression against Columbia and Panama and the seizure of the Canal Zone as its colony, Reagan "innocently" and repeatedly refers to as simply a good business transaction; the U.S. "bought" and "paid for" the Panama Canal Zone.

Secondly, the government of Panama, headed by Col. Omar Torrijos, has repeatedly made the entirely just demand that Panama must exercise sovereignty over the Panama Canal Zone which is illegally occupied by the U.S. and its armed forces. Showing the extreme arrogance of the U.S. imperialist despots, Reagan responds to this just demand: "We should tell Panama's tin-homed dictator just what he can do with his demands for sovereignty over the Canal Zone. We bought it, we paid for it, and he can't have it." Who is calling who a tin-horned dictator? U.S. imperialism has always considered Latin America its private domain and has carried out the most ruthless exploitation and oppression of the people there. In Nicaragua, Haiti, Chile, Guatemala and throughout Latin America, the U.S. government has dispatched its marines and used its CIA to set up puppet dictatorships to brutally suppress their peoples at the beck and call of their U.S. imperialist masters. Yet the head of the Panamanian government, which has simply requested sovereignty over Panamanian territory, has been accused of being a "tin-horned dictator" by the arch-fascist Ronald Reagan himself! No amount of such foul abuse can change the fact that the Panamanian people are fighting for a just and patriotic cause. It can only deepen the people's hatred for U.S. imperialism, one of the two most tyrannical despots of them all.

The third point on Reagan's "hard-line" on Panama, is his claim that the Panama Canal. Zone "is sovereign U.S. territory every bit the same as Alaska and all the states that were carved from the Louisiana Purchase". Indeed, Mr. Reagan! This is a naked exposure of your imperialist thinking. Since this is the bicentennial, perhaps we should remind you of someAmerican history. Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Guam, the southwest of the United States, the oppressed Black nation and others must also be added to your list. The present "sovereign territory" of the U.S. state was seized in aggressive wars, through unequal treaties and treaties between the U.S. and other colonial powers. The U.S. waged a series of genocidal wars against the native Indian inhabitants of America. The U.S. seized Alaska by "buying" it from the Russian Tsar in complete disregard for the local population, the Aleuts and Eskimos. The entire Southwest of the U.S. including California and Texas was robbed from Mexico in a series of aggressive acts culminating in the aggressive Mexican-American war. Puerto Rico, Guam and numerous other islands have been seized as direct colonies of U.S. imperialism. The American workers and other oppressed people who suffer under the savage dictatorship of the U.S. monopoly capitalist class and their state machine are completely opposed to the forcible seizure and subjugation of nations and territories by the U.S. state. The American working class is in firm solidarity with the national liberation struggle of the Puerto Rican people who are fighting for their independence, they are on the side of the Panamanian people struggling to regain sovereignty over the Panama Canal Zone, and they support the struggles of all oppressed nationalities inside the U.S. The working class does not regard the present enlarged borders of U.S. "sovereignty" as sacred. When the revolutionary proletariat seizes state power it will end national oppression, allow the self-determination of nations and establish relations between nations and peoples based on equality and proletarian internationalism and not on imperialist subjugation. For Reagan to bring up this question of Alaska and so on, has only further exposed the fact that he is pushing colonialism pure and simple.

The present "debate" over the Panama Canal issue is further evidence that U.S. imperialism will never voluntarily abandon its colonial privileges in Panama and Latin America, and it will stop at nothing in carrying out its aggressive designs against the people. History has proved this over and over again. For seventy-three years the U.S. imperialists have militarily occupied the Panama Canal Zone, making use of an unequal treaty forced on Panama. This same treaty grants the U.S. the "authority" for the "maintenance of public order" throughout Panama. Exercising this illegal "authority", the U.S. imperialists have dispatched their troops innumerable times to slaughter the Panamanian people, acting as the colonial overlord of the entire country. There are today over 10,000 U.S. occupation troops on Panamanian soil, one U.S. soldier for every 150 Panamanian citizens. Within the Canal Zone is the headquarters of the U.S. "Southern Command", the central base for launching military aggressions throughout Latin America and a training ground for "counter-insurgency" warfare against the peoples of Latin America as well as Asia and Africa. Furthermore, with the two superpowers preparing for world war, U.S. imperialism is trying to hang on to its strategic bases such as Panama harder than ever. This aggressive position the U.S. maintains in Panama clearly exposes the fraud of any talk of a negotiated settlement. U.S. imperialism with its "peaceful solution" is like the bandit who puts a gun to his victim's head and then says "take it easy, keep calm and nobody will get hurt".

Despite the ferocious countenance of U.S. imperialism in Panama, for seventy-three years it has never been able to crush the fighting will of the heroic Panamanian people. It is the U.S. imperialists and their designs to hang on in Panama which will inevitably be smashed by the Panamanian people. In the present "debate", the Ford administration has shown itself to be panic-stricken by the very idea of the Panamanian people rising in struggle and taking the destiny of their country into their own hands. The American people who fought valiantly against the U.S. imperialist war of aggression in Indochina are a firm ally of the Panamanian people and fully support their just cause. In solidarity with the other Latin American people, the North American people and the people of the world, the Panamanian people will surely drive out the U.S. aggressors from their territory and recover sovereignty over the Panama Canal Zone. The Panama Canal belongs to the Panamanian people! U.S. imperialism must get out of Panama!End.

[Back to Top]

GLORIOUS UPRISING OF THE AZANIAN PEOPLE

[Photo: 10,000 Azanian people in Soweto rise up]

Beginning June 16, the people of Azania have stood up in a powerful uprising against the racist and fascist apartheid regime of South Africa. The African masses have been fighting gloriously, defying death, meeting reactionary violence with revolutionary violence, and persevering in their struggle. This powerful uprising has thrown the South African authorities and their backers, the U.S. imperialists and others, into a panic. Gripped with mortal fear, the South African authorities have resorted to wholesale slaughter of the African masses, firing their automatic weapons directly into unarmed demonstrations killing over 140 Africans. The fascist atrocities of the South African government have brought universal condemnation from the people of the world. But this reactionary violence has not intimidated the Azanian people, who have answered it tit-for-tat and have fought on heroically. The heroism and fighting will of the Azanian people is a great inspiration for the struggling masses everywhere.

According to press reports, the uprising began June 16 with a protest by the Azanian people against the mandatory use of the Afrikaans language in their schools. Afrikaans is the despised language of the Boers, who are part of the ruling white minority. The use of Afrikaans in the schools means that the African children, who already speak their African language, must also learn the two languages of the colonialists, English and the hated Afrikaans, in order to go to school. Against this vicious policy, 10,000 high school students in Soweto, an African working-class township outside of Johannesburg, staged a militant protest. The police attacked the demonstration with dogs and tear gas and then ruthlessly opened fire with automatic weapons on the students, killing and wounding a large number. But the African youth were not to be cowed and they only intensified their struggle, fighting back with knives, clubs, axes and rocks, bravely defying the bullets of the racist police. As they fought, according to press reports, the Black youth raised their clenched fists and shouted, "Power! Power!" When the racist authorities sent police dogs to attack the masses, the masses hacked them to death.

Quickly the uprising spread to several other industrial and mining townships around Johannesburg. The African masses stormed the police stations and government administration buildings aiming their powerful blows at the state institutions of the racist authorities, destroying many of them. Despite Prime Minister Vorster's orders to suppress the Black people at all costs, everything the police have attacked them with has only further aroused the heroic African people to fight. After four days of pitched battles, the uprising continues to rage in the industrial areas around Johannesburg and has spread throughout the country.

Fighting has broken out in numerous African townships as well as in Durban and Ngoye, where the African masses stormed the universities, razing the headquarters of one university to the ground. In downtown Johannesburg itself, Black and white youth demonstrated arm-in-arm in solidarity with the uprising and were ferociously attacked by, racist gangs and police.

The frantic authorities have closed all the universities and banned all public gatherings across the country. The breadth and strength of the present uprising is writing a glorious page in the history of the Azanian people's struggle against colonialism, racism and imperialism.

The Azanian people will surely be victorious in the struggle to topple the racist and fascist rule of the white minority. The South African regime, South African colonial rule in Namibia and the racist regime of Rhodesia are the last strongholds of white racist rule in Africa and they will not last long. Throughout Africa revolutionary struggles are raging, and all of Africa is standing up. The present uprising of the Azanian people is further proof of this. It is a glorious event!

The racist regimes of Southern Africa are in fury against the South African regime, U.S. imperialism's main foothold in Africa and it is desperately trying to prop them up. On June 23, Secretary of State Kissinger is going to meet South African Prime Minister Vorster in West Germany to discuss what can be done to save racist South African rule from extinction. But nothing they can cook up can rob the Azanian people of victory.

The American people, who suffer under the reactionary rule of U.S. imperialism, firmly support the Azanian people valiantly fighting the racist apartheid regime of South Africa.

The Black people in the U.S. are of African descent and suffer racial discrimination and violent repression similar to that of the Azanian people. The present uprising of the Azanian people is a great inspiration to the Black people's struggle here in the U.S., as well as for the struggle of the entire working class and people against the monopoly capitalists. The American working class and oppressed people hail the glorious uprising of the Azanian people.

DEATH TO THE RACIST REGIME OF SOUTH AFRICA !

LONG LIVETHE GLORIOUS UPRISINGOF THE AZANIAN PEOPLE !

DEATH TO U.S. IMPERIALISM, COMMON ENEMY OF THE AZANIAN AND AMERICAN PEOPLE! End.

[Back to Top]

HUMPREY-HAWKINS BILL: An Attack on the Working Class by the "Friends of Labor"

On March 12,1976, Senator Hubert Humphrey and Representative Augustus Hawkins (D) California, introduced into Congress a revised version of their "full employment" bill entitled the Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act of 1976. Examination of this bill and how it came about will show how our "liberal" Democrats and labor misleaders undermine the workers' struggle against unemployment and how these "friends of the workers" help the capitalists shift the burden of the economic crisis onto the backs of the workers and develop fascism.

The sponsors of this bill tell the workers that if only they will elect a Democratic President and enough Democratic "friends of labor" to Congress, the Humphrey-Hawkins Bill will be passed and eureka, unemployment will disappear! In fact, the only reason unemployment exists (according to these "friends of labor") is that certain politicians don't understand that it hurts the capitalists as well as the workers and that with a little planning and spending this monopoly capitalist government will eliminate it. (Well, according to the latest revision of the bill, at least reduce it to 3% -- see how these tricksters have already watered down their promises!)

This is sheer political deception. Unemployment is absolutely necessary for capitalist exploitation. Unemployment causes the competition among the workers for jobs and enables the monopoly capitalists to exploit the workers (if there were a shortage of workers instead of jobs, the workers could get their own price from the capitalists for their labor-power). High unemployment, as in the present economic crisis, intensifies this competition and helps the capitalists increase the exploitation of the workers, who face a greater threat of firing.

It is ridiculous to think the monopoly capitalist government would destroy this tool for exploiting the workers or even reduce it. In fact, Humphrey, Hawkins and other proponents of this bill have no such thing in mind. What they are proposing is that instead of receiving unemployment compensation the unemployed workers should be offered public service jobs at wages at least the minimum wage but low enough to "encourage" the workers to look elsewhere for employment, i, e. at the minimum wage, pure starvation level.

An example of how this encouragement "benefits" the workers can be seen from the use of funds from the CETA program of 1973 in Dearborn, Michigan. (CETA, the Comprehensive Employment Training Act, is the predecessor of the Humphrey-Hawkins Bill.) There, unionized garbage workers are being replaced by non-unionized workers hired with CETA funds. The workers on the CETA program are paid about half the wages of the regular workers.

This is what Humphrey means when he says "work and productivity are better than welfare and waste", or what Congressman Hawkins means when he says, "the impact of this proposed legislation would also drastically change the present welfare, manpower training, unemployment compensation, and other social benefit programs."

The bill itself calls for integration of "existing income maintenance and welfare programs with the Full Employment Act" wherever possible substituting work for welfare. That is, it means converting welfare and unemployment compensation into funnels which force the workers into near-slave labor conditions.

The Humphrey-Hawkins Bill of 1976 is a combination of the original Hawkins Bill introduced in 1974 and the National Economic Planning Bill introduced by Humphrey and Javits in 1975. The Humphrey-Hawkins Bill not only attacks the unemployed workers but also establishes a "national economic planning" apparatus. The purpose of this apparatus is to more efficiently subsidize the monopoly capitalists as well as to suppress the workers' economic struggles and develop policies for further suppressing them.

According to the bill, the President would have a staff to make detailed plans for the entire economy establishing numerical goals for employment, production and purchasing power and to develop long-range policies and programs to reach these goals. What in practice this means is that the monopoly capitalists will be able to utilize the state more efficiently to subsidize their investments and underwrite their markets. This has been admitted in so many words by the proponents of the Humphrey-Hawkins Bill. In an article in Business Week, Hubert Humphrey says: "the question is how we make the government a good working partner, not a dictator, of the private economy". And further, that he is "very concerned about capital formation" and that "capital requirements to boost employment in the future are going to be much heavier than they were in the past and they will not be met simply by getting the economy on its feet again." What Mr. Humphrey is saying here is that the state machine must more efficiently serve the needs of the monopoly capitalists. It must directly subsidize the capitalists' investments, through tax monies extorted from the workers, in a much bigger way than before.

Further,"national economic planning" means that the top union bureaucrats would sit on joint bodies with representatives of the capitalist government and the capitalists themselves to "plan" the economy. This means even tighter control by the bourgeois state over the union apparatus in order to enforce speed-up, wage-cuts and other forms of increased exploitation onto the workers. This is a fascist set-up, a step in the direction of Mussolini's corporate state. In fact, "national economic planning" was first proposed before WWI by George Perkins of the Morgan finance capitalists and was promoted in the 1930's by Joseph Kennedy and General Electric, big supporters of Hitler.

Finally, the bill calls for the President to develop policies to "prevent" a new round of inflation. What this means is permanent wage-price controls. Outright wage-price "guidelines" have been dropped from the bill to fool the workers. But the words of Robert Lekachman, one of the leading economists promoting this legislation, show what the "liberals" are planning. He said that one of the prerequisites for price stability in a "full employment economy" is "an incomes policy (including mandatory controls) focused upon large corporations, professional societies and unions as powerful and permanent as the organizations which necessitate this public check". Thus not only are our Democratic "friends of the workers" planning attacks on the conditions of the unemployed workers, more subsidies for the monopoly capitalists and fascist state control of the unions, but they are also preparing to attack the basic right of the workers to strike for higher wages.

Since the end of World War II until recently the U.S. monopoly capitalists have been able to maintain a relatively stable economy. Until the present one, the economic crises have not been very severe. The main factors in maintaining the stability of this economy have been the exploitation and plunder of the countries and peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America, as well as the domination of the weaker capitalist countries. The other major factor has been the use of the state, mainly the federal government, to subsidize the capitalists with tax incentives" (credits), with high government expenditures in such profitable fields as military production and highway construction, and with social welfare payments to maintain the market for consumer goods. All this has involved huge deficit spending which hands lucrative, safe government debt to the big banks. However, by the beginning of the 1970's this stability was seriously undermined. The U.S. imperialists had suffered numerous defeats at the hands of the world's people and were forced to contend more sharply with the other superpower, Soviet social-imperialism, for world hegemony. In 1973-4 a severe economic crisis broke out. The old policies of the state to underwrite and subsidize the monopoly capitalists were no longer sufficient. The monopoly capitalists began to realize the need for more efficient ways to shift the burden of the economic crisis onto the backs of the workers and people and to use the state to subsidize their markets and especially their investments. As well, the monopoly capitalists were seeking new ways to deceive the workers, who were struggling against the capitalists' exploitation.

The Humphrey-Hawkins Bill is the "liberal" Democrats' proposal to solve these problems for the monopoly capitalist class.

The work of preparing public opinion for the Humphrey-Hawkins Bill and the proposals involved in it has been carried out by two committees consisting of monopoly capitalists, "liberal" Democratic politicians, trade union bureaucrats and social-democratic economists. The first is the "National Committee for Full Employment Without Inflation" formed in the summer of 1974, only a few months before the full force of economic crisis set in. This committee is headed by Mrs. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Murray Findlay, president of Amalgamated Clothing Workers. Its members include such notables as Senators Kennedy, Javits and Mondale, Leonard Woodcock, president of UAW, Mayor Thomas Bradley of Los Angeles, Gloria Steinhem and others. The second committee is the "Initiative Committee for National Economic Planning", formed in October 1974, one month before the collapse of the auto industry. Its members include Woodcock, Humphrey, economists Lekachman, Wassily Leontieff and J.K. Galbraith. Other supporters of "national economic planning" include such monopoly capitalists as Henry Ford, H. R. Roosa of Brown Brothers Harriman, Robert MacNamara (Secretary of Defense in the Viet Nam war), M. Blumenthal of Bendix and J. Erwin Miller of Cummins Engine; former Kennedy adviser Arthur Shlesinger; and union bosses Jerry Wurf of American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and Arnold Miller of the United Mine Workers.

Since the formation of these committees Woodcock, Wurf and other union bosses involved in them, as well as Humphrey, Hawkins and other "liberal" Democrats, plus all the social-democratic economists, have been carrying out a campaign to promote "full-employment" legislation and "national economic planning" as the solution to the evil of unemployment. Crying crocodile tears for the unemployed workers, Woodcock and others have been touring the country and using their union newspapers to promote these programs among the workers. By March 1976, the entire AFL-CIO leadership endorsed the Humphrey-Hawkins Bill, now its principles are written into the Democratic Party platform, and it has received the blessing of Jimmy Carter. It is also supported by the Congressional Black Caucus.

What this shows is that in the midst of the monopoly capitalists' economic crisis the "liberal" Democrats, trade union bureaucrats, social-democratic economists and various big monopoly capitalists collaborate to work out plans to solve the problems of the capitalists, tighten the fascist state control of the unions, shift the burden of the crisis onto the workers and divert the struggle against unemployment that they know the workers are bound to wage. Most despicable in all this is the role of the union misleaders who consciously betray the interests of the workers and work out plans to deceive them -- all for a few government jobs. In fact, the only jobs really guaranteed by the Full Employment Bill are jobs on committees for labor aristocrats and economists to administer the program. At the same time as they are carrying out political deception, these labor misleaders are opposing the actual struggle the workers have been waging against layoffs and for jobs.

But the workers will never beg this cabal of bigwigs for a few slave-wage jobs. They will never accept the bondage deceptively proposed by the sponsors of the Humphrey-Hawkins Bill. Instead they will fight against lay-offs, against unemployment, against speed-up and overtime. They will fight for higher wages. They will fight to make the capitalists, not the workers, pay for the crisis caused by capitalism. They will fight on to the proletarian revolution in which they will overthrow the capitalists altogether. End.

[Back to Top]

RUBBER WORKERS PERSIST IN NATIONAL STRIKE

At present, 68,000 rubber workers at 47 plants across the country are striking against the Big Four rubber companies, Firestone, Goodyear, B. F. Goodrich and Uniroyal. Since it began April 21, the members of the United Rubber Workers have carried on the strike for two months and are militantly determined to continue until victory.

The rubber workers are mainly fighting against the massive wage-cuts they have suffered at the hands of the capitalists in past years. Due to rapid inflation and the 1973 contract, when the URW leadership yielded to the pressure of the capitalists' federal wage controls, since 1965 the rubber workers have seen their real wages decline by at least 11.5%.

Looking at the situation since 1973 shows just what the effects of inflation and federal wage controls are on the rubber workers' conditions. For example, in 1973 the average rubber worker's hourly wage for straight-time work was $4.80 an hour. Today, three years later, the average wage is only $5.60, while inflation has brought about an increase in prices of 29% at the minimum (figured on the basis of the government's Consumer Price Index, which minimizes inflation by including luxury items which workers don't buy and which don't rise in price as rapidly as the workers' necessities of life and thereby bring the index down). This means that a wage of at least $6.19 would be required by now, only to keep from losing further ground relative to 1973. Estimating minimum inflation for the next three years at 6% per year, the workers need a raise of at least $1.70 an hour only to regain their situation of 1973. And since in 1973 they had already been losing in real wages for eight years, even this would not be enough.

In light of this background of wage-cuts and the inevitability of future inflation, the companies' latest offer of $1.15 over three years would leave the workers even further behind their 1973 position than they were before. (This year they were 59¢ behind 1973; by 1976, if they accepted the companies' offer, they would be at least 65¢ behind 1973.) And the companies' offer of a cost-of-living escalator only in the third year and only if inflation exceeds 7% in that year (in other words, no COLA at all) would obviously not change things. Thus the present offer of the companies amounts to an "offer" of a new wage-cut, and not a raise at all. In addition, to add insult to injury, the capitalists have "offered" the workers a seven-day, continuous-operation work week. This is why the workers have not accepted the companies' offer and are militantly continuing to strike.

The workers are demanding that wages of the rubber workers be raised to equivalent of auto workers (rubber workers are now $1.35 an hour behind auto workers, while in 1965 they made 22¢ an hour more). Even this is a most modest demand, considering that auto workers also cannot make ends meet and are facing rapid impoverishment as the capitalists shift the burden of the economic crisis onto the workers through inflation, etc.

To bring pressure on the wages of the organized rubber workers of Akron and other parts of the north, and to get higher profits from unorganized, cheaper labor and from use of newer facilities, in recent years the rubber capitalists have been moving their U.S. plants out of these old rubber centers to the south and west as well as expanding operations to Canada, Europe and countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. The movement of rubber production away from Akron has reached immense proportions in the last six years and has caused tremendous job insecurity and unemployment among the rubber workers. At their new plants in the south and west, the rubber monopolists do everything in their power to prevent the workers from unionizing, and where the workers do get organized, the capitalists try to prevent the local unions from being covered by the national contract, thus enabling them to pay lower wages in those places. As a result of this policy, coupled with the fact that the union bosses have not called out on strike the workers for the smaller rubber companies, the current strike affects only 50-60% of U.S. tire production. The rubber companies threaten to move out rubber operations from northern locations if the workers do not accept lower wages and increased work loads. This is how the rubber capitalists use the threat of unemployment as a club against the workers to increase their exploitation.

Outraged by their worsening conditions, this year the militant workers put an end to the policy of the union bosses of striking only one of the rubber companies at a time, which allowed the others to continue to operate while helping the struck company financially. This time all four were struck. The workers at the B. F. Goodrich plant in Akron, who struck alone in 1973, were so vehement in the demand that the URW leadership call a united strike that they refused to walk out until they were sure that all four of the big rubber companies were being struck. Workers at the Mansfield tire company, one of the companies still operating, recently walked out on a wildcat in solidarity with the striking workers, displaying their unity with the striking workers until the union bosses forced them back to work.

The rubber workers' struggle has won the support of workers in other industries in the U.S. as well as workers of other countries. In the U.S. other sections of the workers look to the rubber workers' strike as the present focus of their resistance movement against the shifting of the burden of the economic crisis onto their backs. Representatives of rubber workers in 16 countries met in Geneva April 27 to support the U.S. rubber workers. Rubber workers in subsidiary plants of the Big Four in Britain, France, West Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Austria, Japan and Canada have agreed not to work overtime during the strike, blocking attempts of the rubber capitalists to shift production overseas. The workers of these countries have also taken measures so that special shipments of tires don't go out to the regular customers of the U.S. plants.

The strike is exerting heavy pressure on the Big Four rubber companies to avoid big losses and to supply the market for replacement tires as well as tires for new car production. At the same time, capitalists of other sections of industry are worried that a wage increase in rubber which improves the workers' position even slightly will inspire the auto workers and workers in other industries whose contracts come up this year to struggle harder. Thus the capitalists are nervously watching this strike and are using their state machine to suppress it, attacking the workers with injunctions limiting picketing in order to permit work to go on in struck plants with white-collar personnel, and even arresting militant pickets. But the workers are not intimidated and are determined to continue their struggle no matter what. Workers in other operating plants besides the Mansfield plant have declared their support for the striking workers. The spirits of the striking workers are high. On June 18, in Akron, 1000 striking workers held a demonstration and rally in support of the strike.

The persistent strike struggle of the rubber workers is a big blow against the monopoly capitalists' program of shifting the burden of the economic crisis onto the workers through increased exploitation and a big encouragement to the other sections of the working class as they too fight against Capital. The rubber workers' strike deserves the support of all workers. End.

[Back to Top]

For Your Reference: NEW YORK CITY FINANCIAL CRISIS

For over a year, New York City, the headquarters of the U.S. financial oligarchy, has been in the gripsof a severe financial crisis. Since June of last year the city has been on the verge of bankruptcy. This crisis is a sharp manifestation of the overall deep crisis and decay of U.S. imperialism. The U.S. is in its worst (its sixth) economic crisis since World War II, a crisis which has become very deep and widespread. Since the fall of 1973 the crisis has spread to many areas of the U.S. monopoly capitalist economy, which has been racked with severe inflation of the dollar, the energy crisis in the winter of 73-74, a severe over-production crisis in industry, the failure of several banks and companies and, most recently, the crisis in the finances of the public sector, particularly the governments at the state and local levels.

The public sector has historically been expanded by the monopoly capitalists as a bulwark against total economic collapse. The fact that this sector, then, is in crisis plainly exposes that the U.S. monopoly capitalist system is thoroughly crisis-ridden and in rapid decay. The program of the finance capitalists in attempting to alleviate the financial crisis in New York City has been to perpetrate fascist attacks against the city workers and to shift the burden of their crisis onto the city workers, the oppressed nationalities, the students and the working people as a whole.

NEW YORK CITY GOVERNMENT LAUNCHES ONSLAUGHT AGAINST CITY WORKERS AND BROAD MASSES

Since the onset of the crisis the capitalist government has launched many attacks on the livelihood of the New York city workers and broad masses in its effort to make the working people bear the brunt of the crisis. The city government has carried out fascist attacks on the city workers' trade unions by unilaterally breaking the union contracts, declaring the city workers' wages frozen at the pre-June 1975 level and annulling scheduled wage increases. Furthermore, a 2.3% cut in take-home pay has been imposed by the city government decreasing its payments into the city workers' pension funds, while the workers' payments into them were increased. Some 46,000 city workers jobs have been eliminated out of an original 300,000, both throughattrition and direct layoffs, throwing tens of thousands of workers into the ranks of the unemployed. As well, the city has seized the city workers' pension funds and is using the workers' money to back the city's debts and to buy city bonds. All interest earned by these funds above 4% is being siphoned off as additional revenues for the city government. This last measure amounts to robbing over $100 million a year out of pension funds which are already in danger of running out in ten years.

The remaining employed city workers have had their labor enormously speeded up. For instance, since June 1975 the number of teachers has been decreased by 20% -- only 44,000 out of 55,000 remain. As a consequence, class size has increased to between 45 and 60 students per class, and the teachers have a much heavier work-load. The sanitation workers have been put on smaller work crews and have higher collection quotas per crew. In the city hospitals the nursing staff has been reduced down to one nurse per ward. In the Parks Department, 3,713 workers now do the work formerly done by 6,107.

There have been many cut-backs in areas of the city budget which are not so vital to the capitalists at this time. This is causing great hardship to the working masses. The cut-backs in the Education budget -- lay-offs of 11,000 teachers as well as the closing of several schools -- have severely affected elementary and high school education. The budget has been cut in the city university system (CUNY) -- a system including 20 colleges with a 75-76 enrollment of some 270,000 students - and the burden of the crisis placed squarely on the students and their families. The budget cut and reorganization of the university system has meant an end to the open enrollment policy (where any high school graduate could enter the city university system), and the institution of an annual tuition fee of an estimated $750 to $900 per year while until now there has been no tuition fee.

It is estimated that enrollment in September 1976 will be reduced by at least 10,000 students from that of a year ago as a result of the budget cut. The health care budget has been cut. One hospital and whole wings of others have already been closed and plans have been made to close at least four more hospitals. Ambulance service has been cut. Out-patient schedules are running 4 months behind. Welfare and Medicaid coverage are being cut back and plans have been proposed to remove a substantial number of people from the welfare rolls.

Along with the lay-offs, wage freeze and cutbacks in various services, there has been a $550 million increase in city taxes since June 1975.

THE MASSES RESIST THE SHIFTING OF THE CRISIS BURDEN

The city workers and masses have many times responded to these attacks on their living conditions with stiff resistance. The 10,000 sanitation workers, almost 3,000 of whom were among the 19,000 city workers laid-off last July 1, waged a militant strike struggle in response to these lay-offs and heavier work-loads.

As well, many other city workers staged work slow-downs or called in sick to combat the layoffs. The city nurses have also struck the city.

In September, the 55,000 city teachers waged a strike struggle in response to drastic elimination of teachers' jobs and attacks on working conditions such as increased class size, reduced sick leave, longer work week and so forth. Repeated demonstrations have taken place by students, faculty and workers opposing the undermining of the City University system as well as cut-backs in other areas.

BRIEF HISTORY OF THE CAUSE AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE CRISIS

The New York City fiscal crisis broke out when the revenues extorted from the impoverished masses could no longer pay the finance capitalists their ever-increasing amounts of tribute, particularly the debt-service payments to the big banks. The New York City government greatly increased its spending throughout the 1960's -- more than doubling the total budget from 1965 to 1970 alone. The purpose of this was to develop government spending as an area from which the monopoly capitalists could extract maximum profits. This is done in several ways:

1) large sums of tax money are handed out in government contracts to various construction contractors, real estate speculators, etc.;

2) welfare payments and health expenditures serve to bolster the consumer markets for the monopoly capitalists who produce the basic necessities of life, since the masses who received these payments must immediately spend them for these commodities;

3) the parasitic bankers harvest millions of working people's tax dollars per year in interest alone on the municipal bonds of New York City. Municipal bonds are tax-free, so actually are much more profitable than they appear. The finance capitalists have found them so profitable, that they now hold, on a national scale, over $500 billion of tax-free municipal bonds. (According to Fortune magazine, Dec. 1975, for a big finance capitalist a tax-free municipal bond yielding 7.4% interest can be as profitable as a taxable bond yielding 25% interest!);

4) the monopoly capitalists are supplied with many services such as roads, shipping ports, etc. This massive government spending was to act as a stabilizing cushion to save the capitalists from total economic collapse during times of economic crisis. Their cushion, however, has turned into an area of crisis itself.

At the same time as the city government was greatly increasing its spending, its tax base was eroding. That is, the total value which the city government taxes (income, property, sales, etc.) was decreasing in relation to expenditures. The ever-growing impoverishment of the masses, an inherent feature of capitalism, but stepped up in the last two years due to the burden of the present economic crisis, has made it difficult for the city government to extort ever-increasing tribute from them. The parasitism and decay of U.S. imperialism has been developed to an extreme degree in New York City, which is the headquarters of U.S. finance capital. The economic base of the city is characterized by a preponderance of service and finance. Over the last thirty years, the number of manufacturing jobs in the city has decreased by over 500,000, a drop of nearly 50% of the total. What industry there is in the city is in light manufacturing, principally garment and related sectors, and takes place in small shops which are especially susceptible to collapse in times of economic crisis. One eighth of the population has been forced onto welfare and there is a high rate of unemployment (officially 12.2% in Jan. '76).

Also there has been a decline in population. In order to pay for its increasing expenditures the city has put a heavier and heavier tax burden on the masses (who are the most heavily taxed in the entire country) and has accumulated a massive indebtedness to the big banks - - a debt which now totals some $ 13 billion.

From June of 1975 to the present, the New York City financial crisis has been extremely acute and there is still the possibility of bankruptcy. The city has been selling bonds to cover debt-service on other bonds for several years. New York City has sold large quantities of short-term notes (as opposed to long-term bonds). As a consequence, it has experienced repeated crises when it has found that needed cash is not in hand to meet the maturing of billions of dollars of short-term notes. As early as the latter part of 1974 the city was selling bonds at 9 1/2% interest due to the high risk of the investment. Finally, in March 1975, the big banks refused any further credit to the city, preventing it from meeting its payments.

WHAT IS THE "SOLUTION" OF THE FINANCE CAPITALISTS?

On June 10 of last year, the night before the city was to default, the Municipal Assistance Corporation was set up by the State Legislature. In September, another extra-governmental body, the Emergency Finance Control Board was established. These two bodies, which are made up directly of the big New York bankers, were set up to "solve" the city's fiscal crisis. Under conditions of crisis the financial oligarchy, in order to implement its program, threw out the existing government apparatus and superseded it with the establishment of these extra-ordinary bodies. This shows the illusory nature of the bourgeois "democratic" apparatus, which is kicked aside by finance capital at will. A look at the programs of these two bodies makes clear what the "solution" of the finance capitalists is.

The main points of the Municipal Assistance Corporation plan were: 1) the conversion of a sizable portion of short-term debt, payments which the city couldn't meet, into long-term debt at higher interest rates. This would temporarily relieve the immediate crisis, ensuring that the finance capitalists would reap their profits and in fact would deliver even higher profits to them, while at the same time requiring higher taxes on the working population in the future (thus paving the way for deeper crises); 2) authority to issue $3 billion of bonds on behalf of the city; 3) the seizure of 9% of the city's revenues to guarantee MAC bonds; 4) MAC veto power over the issuance of future short-term notes by the city.

The Emergency Finance Control Board plan provided for: 1) all budgetary powers removed from the city administration and vested with the EFCB, composed of the Governor, the Mayor, and four finance capitalists; 2) the budget was to be balanced in three years through massive cut-backs; 3) the portion of city revenues seized by MAC, previously 9%, was raised to 14%; 4) MAC's charter was amended to allow $2 billion more in bond offerings; and 5) a default contingency plan providing for full payment to the city's creditors.

What is the essence of these programs and what are their consequences? Their program is to further increase the city's over-all indebtedness. This can only cause hardship and grief for the masses of people who must pay the millions of dollars of purely parasitic interest as high as 11%) on the bonds to the financial oligarchs through heavier and heavier taxes. To "balance the budget through massive cut-backs" means to throw 46,000 city workers out of work, place heavier work loads on £he remaining workers and cut their wages. It also means to impose great hardship on the masses by cutting various areas of the budget. Furthermore, the program guarantees full payment to the city's creditors in case of default by hoarding millions of tax dollars to insure their investments, thus insuring that finance capital^'s profits go unscathed by the crisis that they themselves and their social system brought about.

The cause of the financial crisis in New York City is not "mismanagement", as the capitalists claim, but it is an inevitable outcome of the over-all crisis of the monopoly capitalist system. No amount of extra-governmental bodies with their criminal programs against the city workers and the working masses can avert such crises. The present financial crisis in New York City is an important part of the general crisis which is gripping the entire imperialist world. End.

[Back to Top]

ATTEMPTS OF GOVERNMENT TO ORGANIZE FASCIST ANTI-BUSING MOVEMENT DENOUNCED IN CHICAGO

(The following leaflet was distributed recently by the Chicago Branch of COUSML at factories and other work places and in working class areas in Chicago.)

OPPOSE THE FASCIST "ANTI-BUSING" MOVEMENT!

The working class and people of Chicago are faced with a very serious problem - that is, the attempts by the monopoly capitalist class to organize a violent fascist, anti-Black, anti-working class movement as they have been doing in Boston and Louisville.

Last February, the State Board of Education and Illinois Superintendent of Schools Joseph Cronin ordered the Chicago School Board to present a plan for school integration. In April a plan was presented by the Chicago Board of Education. It was rejected by the State Board and the Chicago Board was placed on probation for one year with the threat of losing $150 million in state and federal funds if an acceptable plan is not presented in that time.

As soon as these actions were announced, various open and not so open racist flunkeys of monopoly capitalism, ranging from the Nazis to Mayor Daley, began demagogic propaganda against school integration and began organizing the fascist "anti-busing" movement.

On the surface this can look rather confusing. One section of the state machine, in this case the Illinois State Board of Education, which is controlled by the monopoly capitalist class, appears to be trying to force another section of the state machine, the Chicago Board of Education, which is just as much controlled by monopoly capital, to do something in the interest of the people, namely integrate the schools. There is vicious deception going on. In fact, the monopoly capitalist class is united in a vile scheme to organize a fascist movement to divide the working class, pit white workers against their Afro-American class brothers, and violently attack the Afro-American people. With their "liberal" hand the monopoly capitalists appear to support integration while actually setting up maximum conditions for their other hand, the open racists and fascists, to organize a fascist movement.

School integration was one of the democratic demands of the Afro-American people's movement against racial discrimination and violent repression of the 50's, 60's and 70's. Important struggles against school segregation took place in Chicago in the early 60's, such as the struggle against the use of mobile classrooms to maintain school segregation. Long and bitter experience has proved to the Afro-American people that segregated education is inevitably unequal and thus they fought against it. Now, when the mass movement against racial discrimination is at a low level, the "liberals" all of a sudden start pushing school integration. They propose "busing" and carry it out in such a way as to arouse maximum confusion and opposition among white workers. These "liberals" refuse to explain the democratic nature of the demand for school integration and instead call for everyone to obey the "law". Most workers know that this "law" represents their oppressors - the monopoly capitalist class. This call to obey the "law" therefore allows the open racists to take workers' class hatred for the monopoly capitalist state machine and try to turn it into opposition to the Afro-American people.

The monopoly capitalists have very specific reasons for trying to organize a fascist mass movement to attack and divide the American working class and people at this time. In the first place the entire capitalist, imperialist world is in the grip of a serious and deepening economic crisis, the sixth and worst since the end of World War II. Secondly, U.S. imperialism is in ever sharpening contention with the other imperialist superpower, Soviet social-imperialism (socialist in words, imperialist in deeds) over spheres of influence. This contention is inevitably leading to a new world war. Racial discrimination and violent repression is inherent in the monopoly capitalist system. At this time the monopoly capitalists have additional reasons for instigating the fascist "anti-busing" movement. They want to 1) undermine resistance to their attempts to shift the burden of economic crisis onto the backs of the working class, and 2) suppress all resistance by the American people to their preparations for a new world war.

The fascist "anti-busing" movement is trying to bring this about by organizing around a number of slogans which mystify its own fascist and racist nature and which obscure the class interest of the working class to support equality for the Black people. They are raising everything but that they are opposed to integration and to Blacks. Everywhere they make a big stink about "busing", "quality education", "neighborhood schools", and the "law". So that workers will grasp their own class interest and see the fascist and racist nature of the "anti-busing" movement, we will go into these slogans.

Buses are a modem means of transportation. Millions of people, including public school students, take them to school, work, and many other places. Yet, all the anti-integration forces are howling in chorus that "busing" is the issue. The "liberals" shout that it is the issue because it is the "law". The open fascists and racists of the "anti-busing" movement whine that it is the issue because it does not increase "qualify education" and destroys "neighborhood schools". "Busing" is not the issue, but racial discrimination and violent repression against Afro-American people are the issue. Buses are simply a necessary means to integrate schools because housing is segregated. Anti-integration forces are trying to make "busing" itself the issue to mystify the democratic nature of the demand for integration and their own racist and fascist stand. The serious question facing the Black people and the working class as a whole is opposing racial discrimination and violent repression of Afro-Americans and opposing the fascist "anti-busing" movement.

The racists are clouding the air with the slogan of preserving "neighborhood schools". This slogan is a code for preserving white segregated schools and neighborhoods and for preventing, by force, the Black people from leaving "their" segregated schools and neighborhoods. The fascist "logic" behind this is to blame Black people for the racial discrimination forced on them by monopoly capitalism which confines them to deteriorated neighborhoods and to the worst schools. The racist spokesmen try to protect monopoly capitalism by trying to trick white workers into attacking their Afro- American class brothers rather than monopoly capitalism as the source of such problems as deteriorating neighborhoods.

In the slogan of "qualify education", the same fascist "logic" and mystification of the issue is carried out. For example Mayor Daley says integration is O. K. "if that's a step in the improvement of education". The racists claim there is a conflict between "quality education" and integration. However, in the first place, segregated education means lower qualify education for Afro-American people. In the second place, it is just a racist lie to say that having Black and white students in the same school reduces the quality of education. In fact, it is an "improvement in education" for Black and white working class youth, by being in school together, to learn to unite in struggle against the fascist "authorities". Also without fighting for the democratic right of Afro- American people to equality of education, the working class can not unite to struggle to improve the qualify of education.

In conclusion, as pointed out by The Workers' Advocate, newspaper of the COUSML, in the Feb. 1,1976 issue, "Today their (the monopoly capitalists') attempt to develop a fascist mass movement of attack on the Afro- Americans, to drive them backwards towards the barbaric Jim Crow system once again and in so doing split the working class, is the cutting edge of the U.S. monopoly capitalists' drive to the consolidation of fascism in the United States. Their aim is to smash the resistance of the working masses, shift the entire burden of the economic crisis onto them, and create a secure home base for the world war they are preparing to slaughter the world's people." This grave challenge poses especially serious responsibilities for white workers, first because it is on them that monopoly capital is pinning its hopes for building the fascist movement, and second because only by white workers taking up the Afro-American people's struggle as their own can the wall of distrust be smashed and the Afro-American people be won as the strong ally of the entire working class. Black and white workers, Afro-American and all progressive people! Let us unite to oppose and smash this barbaric fascist movement! This will surely give great impetus to an unprecedented upsurge in revolutionary struggle throughout U.S. society and will bring closer the day of proletarian revolution which smashes the rule of capital and its state and which alone can completely emancipate the Afro-American people and the entire working class.

OPPOSE THE FASCIST ANTI-BUSING MOVEMENT!

THE WORKING CLASS MUST TAKE UP THE AFRO-AMERICAN STRUGGLE AS ITS OWN! End.

[Back to Top]

Six Years of CPC(M-L)

A GREAT REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT AGAINST REVISIONISM AND FOR PROLETARIAN REVOLUTION

By Hardial Bains

Below we reprint the concluding part of an important speech by Comrade Hardial Bains, Chairman of our fraternal party, the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist). This speech was delivered at a private meeting of comrades in Montreal on March 31,1976 to hail the 6th anniversary of the founding of CPC(M-L). (The first part was printed in the last issue of The Workers^' Advocate.)

The CPC(M-L) is the party of the Canadian proletariat. It unites essentially all Canadian Marxist-Leninists. All progressive Americans should support the struggle of the Canadian people against U.S. imperialist domination and the monopoly capitalist system itself and enthusiastically support the CPC(M-L).

I would like to remark in passing that these opportunists who are dreaming about a "full-blown" Party coming into being before it is "declared" to the world also have an eclectical attitude towards revolutionary theory. The opportunist group writes in one of its recent publications: "Last January, we started a political campaign against Trudeau measures, using a poster, and in particular, a slogan which read 'to overcome the capitalist crisis, as- simulate Marxism-Leninism!' put this slogan does not suit the role which it is supposed to play: to enlighten the proletariat on its immediate and long term objectives: towards what it should aim. To be sure it is always correct to say that we must assimilate Marxism-Leninism, but it is in itself incomplete. Because, to learn for the sake of learning, and to assimilate principles merely for contemplation will never overcome the capitalist crisis, or anything else for that matter. Our slogan did not show that theory is at the service of practice. For, proletarian theory, in effect, is revolutionary precisely because it is synthesis of the practice of the international workers movement; a result of the concentration of the correct ideas of the masses." First, this gang of opportunists take up an issue which is not the issue at all, that is "to Overcome the Capitalist Crisis, Assimilate Marxism-Leninism!" because to overcome capitalist crisis is the task of the bourgeoisie while the task of the proletariat is to overthrow the capitalist system. Capitalism has faced crisis many times since its birth and it is ridiculous to give the call "to overcome capitalist crisis". Furthermore, to overthrow the capitalist system is the real issue and the proletariat participates in three forms of proletarian struggle (there are others as well but they are secondary) one of which is theoretical form. As the capitalist crisis deepens and broadens this theoretical form of proletarian struggle is playing a very concrete and decisive role at this time. To wage this struggle in the manner suggested by this opportunist group is to evade difficulties, as is the habit of these opportunists, by putting forward a dodge, a trick, a diversion. "Assimilate Marxism-Leninism" is such a dodge, a trick and a diversion. Finally, after being caught by their own eclecticism, these opportunists then run in a haste to "rectify". Thus they come out with their nonsense that "Our slogan did not show that theory is at the service of practice". Your slogan, sirs, did not just have this "weakness" that "theory is at the service of practice" because in itself this is wrong as well because "theory is based on practice and in turn serves practice". The problem with your slogan is that you have no line what-so-ever to give to your loyalists so you come out with this gibber. You have reduced the theoretical form of proletarian struggle into a matter of just "assimilating" Marxism-Leninism and you have no practical guidelines as to what your followers should do to respond to the present situation in a proletarian revolutionary manner. You are further caught in your eclecticism when you end up your nonsensical statement that "For, proletarian theory, in effect, is revolutionary precisely because it is synthesis of the practice of the international workers movement; a result of concentration of the correct ideas of the masses." It is "precisely" this reason why you absolutely abandoned theoretical form of proletarian struggle. Chairman Mao teaches: "The Marxist philosophy of dialectical materialism has two outstanding characteristics. One is its class nature: it openly avows that dialectical materialism is in the service of the proletariat. The other is its practicality: it in turn serves practice". But it seems your "theory" does not have a bit of "Marxist philosophy of dialectical materialism" because it is for this reason that whenever you are faced with the situation you have to concoct a gibber like your paragraph cited above and pass it off as "Marxist-Leninist", and "genuine" and "revolutionary" line. You opportunists are peddling such absurdity that by "assimilating" Marxism-Leninism you "become" Marxist-Leninist. I may ask: what do you become when you assimilate Coke? A Coke! Here is something for you to "assimilate"!

The second point I would like to elaborate on is: the basic programme of the Party and "our tactical policy and plan". In my speech to the Political Economy Conference held in Montreal on May 24th, 1975, I pointed out: "We are organised as the political party of the proletariat which has as its basic programme the 'seizure of political power by revolutionary violence, guiding the proletariat in its struggle to overthrow the bourgeoisie and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat so as to achieve communism.' Our immediate task is to work out our tactical policy and plan in order to prepare to fulfill our basic programme. It is this immediate programme which the opportunists of all hues are trying to undermine and it is the duty of Marxist-Leninists to oppose these opportunists."(6) For the last three years since August, 1973, our Party has been working hard to develop its "tactical policy and plan" and this "tactical policy and plan" has now been advanced.

Before I go further on this point, I would like to elaborate on the "tactical policy and plan" of the "genuine" Marxist-Leninists to show that they do not have a revolutionary tactical policy and plan and they are bellowing from the same marsh of opportunism as the revisionists and the Trotskyists.

To oppose and denounce the treachery of these sects we will analyse the slogans advanced by the "genuine Marxist-Leninists", the anarcho-fascists. We will seek truth from what they say as well as from their objective role. At the March 22nd demonstration of the workers on Parliament Hill, the anarcho-fascists advanced four slogans. Number one and four of the four slogans are:

Let's struggle against Trudeau Law!

Strengthen the fight back movement by preparing the general strike!

Then to fool people they added slogan No. 2:Reject false reformist solutions!Slogan number three is added there for the purposes of self-exposure:Let's mobilise the masses of the Canadian people around the working class!

We call these "genuine Marxist-Leninists" anarcho-fascists for the same reasons we call some groups fascists. They actually are fascists but because of their pretensions to be "genuine Marxist-Leninists" they end up with the title: anarcho-fascists. There are three reasons why we call them anarcho-fascists: 1. They mystify everything 2. They are anti-communists, racists and anti-working class and 3. They use reactionary violence against the Marxist-Leninists. Let us just take point one that they mystify everything.

Their main slogan Let's struggle against Trudeau Law!is a straight-forward reformist slogan. But knowing that it is a reformist slogan they had to mystify it by their slogan No. 2: Reject false reformist solutions!What these false reformist solutions are, they do not tell. Instead, they breast-beat about certain organisations. They merely assert that the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) is a "counter-revolutionary gang which walks hand in hand with the bourgeoisie".

But a mystifier will not study a thing in itself. Only by studying a thing in itself can one then study its inter-relationships. The issue here is Bill C-73. Their solution is: Let's struggle against Trudeau Law. What is this slogan in itself if not the same as the revisionist slogan Abolish Bill C-73 or the trotskyist slogan Action program to defeat the wage controls or the CLC slogan Withdraw Bill C-73. Once cornered by the fact that their slogan is no more revolutionary than the slogans of the CLC, revisionists and trotskyists, these anarcho-fascists have to strike a posture in order to draw "clear lines" between themselves and the CLC, revisionists and the trotskyists. So out came the slogan No 2: Reject false reformist solutions.

Withdrawal of Bill C-73 is a reform and it is part of the bourgeois trade union politics. It does not matter, how much mystification the anarcho-fascists create about this slogan, the fact remains that it is a reformist slogan. When we study the slogan Reject false reformist solutions, in itself, the anarcho-fascists could mean one of three things: 1. The anarcho-fascists consider all reform as false solution or 2. There are those who are advocating false reformist solutions in opposition to 3. Their own genuine reformist solutions. Now if they claim that their slogan No. 2 means that "all reform" is "false solution" then their advancing of slogan No. 1 Let's struggle against Trudeau law is outright treachery and deception because struggle against Trudeau Law is reformism. Further if they claim that their slogan is "genuine" while the slogans of the CLC, revisionists and trotskyists are false then it is clear that their slogan too calls for genuine reformist solutions. Thus the reader can see that in actual fact they are just simple reformists but they have to give the slogan in such a manner as to advance a reform with revolutionary pretensions. Thus if we analyse that they are against reforms, they are anarchists and if we analyse that they are for reform, they are reformists.

The same charlatanism and mystification is found in their proposed method of struggle: Mobilise masses of the people around the working class! This slogan No. 3 is their self-exposure in the sense they admit that they have nothing to do with the working class. These mystifiers are caught here as eighty per cent or more of Canadian people comprise the working class. These "genuine Marxist-Leninists" are not going to organise the working class but the "people" around the "working class". One can visualize graphically these "people" running around the working class. The slogan of "general strike" and "preparing for general strike" is also an anarchist slogan as there is nothing revolutionary in this form of struggle in itself.

Thus we find that these anarcho-fascists are advancing a straight-forward reformist slogan but they are deathly afraid of being exposed for what they are, reformists. So they jump up, down and sideways and then end up in smoke like ants on a hot pan. Let us go further. What attitude should one take towards reformist issues and bourgeois trade union politics? Marxist-Leninists are not against all reforms but they are opposed to bourgeois trade union politics. There are reforms and there are reforms. Certain reforms advance proletarian struggle against the bourgeoisie and others do not. This leads us to unmask these anarcho-fascists further. Their slogan Reject false reformist solutions! truly exposes their mystification and deception. Now, when they talk about "false reformist solutions", they must have "genuine reformist solutions" in mind. Thus they exposed themselves brilliantly. We deduce that they are genuine reformists and are fighting for genuine reformist solutions. So their fight back movement is the movement of genuine reformist solutions.

From the four slogans given by them, we find that

-- they want to struggle against Trudeau Law,

---they are against "false reformist solutions",

---they pledged to mobilise their "people" around the working class, and

---they want to strengthen the "fight back movement", that is the movement for "genuine reformist solutions" by "preparing for general strike".

Thus they have detached economic struggle from political struggle and are desperately trying to "lend economic struggle a political character". These anarcho-fascists do not believe that Politics is the Commander. They detach economic struggle from political struggle exactly in the same manner revisionists and trotskyists do. For these unprincipled eclectics everything exists in detached, ahistorical, isolated form. This is why they land themselves into such mire.

Economic, political and theoretical are three forms of proletarian struggle against the bourgeoisie. These are an integrated whole commanded by the struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie, that is class against class, that is class struggle. But the anarcho-fascists neither consider economic struggle as part of the whole proletarian struggle against the bourgeoisie nor do they advance a proletarian revolutionary line which will command all three forms of proletarian struggle, that is economic, political and theoretical. Thus neither do they assist any part of the proletarian struggle nor do they assist the entire proletarian struggle. Thus, they have to go around economic struggle and prove their "revolutionary credentials" by shouting a few "revolutionary" slogans or write such gems as their yellow journalism in order to go near the communist movement so that they can disrupt it.

The CPC(M-L) stands for certain reforms like abolishing Bill C- 73. But our slogan to the workers' movement, that is, the slogan commanding the proletarian struggle on all three fronts, economic, political and theoretical is Make the rich pay! This slogan is the organiser, mobiliser and unifier of the proletariat as it is based on Class struggle as tactics as Lenin puts it or Class struggle as the key link as Chairman Mao Tsetung teaches. Once the Class struggle as the tactics - Class struggle as the key link is forgotten, opportunism creeps into an organisation. These anarcho-fascists who claim themselves to be "genuine Marxist-Leninists" never took up Class struggle as the tactics - Class struggle as the key link.

That is why they have been disruptive and are disruptive in the workers' movement-and in the communist movement. These anarcho-fascists serve international opportunism and Anglo-American chauvinism and they are supporters of restoration of capitalism in China. They are the real Lin Piaoists as well because they wave the red flag to oppose the red flag.

Because they do not take up Class struggle as the tactics - Class struggle as the key link, their slogans are empty, devoid of any content and their form is sterile and woody and also devoid of any content. The four slogans they advanced are typical slogans of anarchists. Anarchists always get excited about general strike. According to the anarchists general strike is revolutionary in itself and actually is the only revolutionary activity. The anarcho-fascists also think in this manner that they have "proven their revolutionary" credentials by muttering something about it.

The Make the rich pay slogan has class content and as this tactic develops, proletarians will also give rise to forms consistent with the tactic. We are absolutely opposed to concocting forms without having any material basis, without actually organising struggle first and generalising these struggles later. The anarcho-fascists have merely picked up some forms of struggles from past history of the international proletariat as a show-off and they are bound to land themselves into further mire. They can yell "general strike, general strike" or "prepare for general strike" as much as they like. All this yelling is not going to teach them how to achieve immediate demands, that is, immediate class demands of which they have none and how to fulfill the class aim of overthrowing the capitalist system and establishing dictatorship of the proletariat.

The CPC(M-L) does participate in trade union struggle and there, again, by taking up Class struggle as the tactics - Class struggle as the key link. Make the rich pay slogan commands and guides our work there as well. We are organised as the political Party of the proletariat which has as its basic programme 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. Our immediate task is to work out our tactical policy and plan in order to fulfill our basic programme. Make the rich pay is our tactical policy and plan. It is based on Class struggle as the tactics - Class struggle as the key link. It is this immediate programme which the opportunists of all hues are trying to undermine and it is the duty of all Marxist-Leninists to oppose these opportunists.

But the anarcho-fascists do not have tactical policy and plan. Sooner or later they will mimic our tactical policy and plan to get out of the perpetual crisis of "line" they find themselves in. Over the years since the founding of the Party on March 31,1970, we have not only sorted out the problem of establishing instruments of working class propaganda, and the building of the centralised organ of the Party but have also sorted out the question of Our tactical policy and plan. In the coming years, we will sort out the questions relating to actual struggle To make the rich pay and we will Make the rich pay. Anarcho-fascists are still stuck with "struggle organisation to build the Party" and they have neither basic programme nor tactical programme. Their basic programme is disruption of the communist movement and their tactics in real life bear witness to it.

For the CLC not to recognise class struggle is quite understandable. Political line of the CLC comes from NDP and "C"P, twoclass-collaborationist organisations. The hegemony of the NDP and "C"P over the CLC has to be smashed. Thus the CLC's line of not recognising class struggle and basing itself on Class collaboration as the tactic is not a matter of denouncing CLC but a matter of defeating the NDP and revisionist influence in the organised labour movement. But anarcho-fascists first take up Class-collaboration as the tacticthemselves, and then disrupt the workers' movement to the maximum by their constant shrills against this or that "Labour aristocrat". For them every trade union official is a "labour aristocrat" and labour aristocracy is not the upper ranks of the working class movement". These anarcho-fascists who are zeroes in theory and zeroes in practice run amuck everywhere with their nonsense, which is actually a much more blatant class-collaborationist position than what the "labour aristocrats" advocate. These anarcho-fascists have done absolutely nothing to oppose labour aristocracy and revisionism but have taken the single over-all police mission: Smash CPC(M-L).

The anarcho-fascists recognise class struggle only on behalf of the bourgeoisie. Their position on the state of the bourgeoisie further exposes them. They consider Canada as a "bourgeois democracy ", that is, it is not the armed organisation of the bourgeoisie, the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie over the proletariat but democracy in general. They accuse the CPC(M-L) of "inciting" police and whenever the state attacks the Party, they are there to do the dirty work for the state.

Revisionists, trotskyists and anarcho-fascists are fooling the people on the two basic questions of class struggle and dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. Their struggle for reform is the sum total of their "class struggle" and they try to cover this up through revolutionary verbiage. For example, the revisionists state:

"I here will be no relief for the working people until the present disastrous so-called anti-inflation policies of the government are changed and replaced by new policies, radical anti-monopoly policies which are geared to effectively combating inflation, ensuring high employment and rising standards in a world of peace."

For the revisionists, the same state whose executive committee has implemented "the present disastrous so-called anti-inflation policies" will, one day, have an executive committee which will implement "new policies, radical anti-monopoly policies which are geared to effectively combating inflation, ensuring high employment and rising standards in a world of peace."

Revisionists, also like the anarcho-fascists, do not want to be exposed as class-collaborators. So right after giving the policy of class collaboration, the policy of capitulation to the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, they put forward revolutionary verbiage to obscure the issue. They write: "there will be no serious advances for the working class and trade union movement until right wing policies of class-collaboration are replaced by left wing policies of class struggle." We ask: who is putting forward the "right wing policies of class-collaboration"? Could it be you revisionists yourselves? How much more right wing can one get and how much more class-collaborationist policies can one present than your own? It is class-collaboration and betrayal of the first order to advocate that the state is above classes and it can be transformed and can be made use of by the proletariat without smashing it up and establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Make the rich pay! is the "Left wing policies of class struggle" but you are opposed to this revolutionary slogan. So the revisionists have done the same thing as the anarcho-fascists. First the anarcho-fascists advance their reformist slogan: Let's struggle against Trudeau Law! Then, in order to fool people, they come up with the slogan: Reject the false reformist solutions. In the same way the revisionists first advance the policy of class collaboration and then themselves pretend to oppose it.

But the proof of the pudding is in the eating. The revisionists, trotskyists and anarcho-fascists besides advancing reformist and class-collaborationist slogans are responsible for disruption of the workers' movement and communist movement in many places. Their social practice is one of disrupting the revolutionary workers' movement and the communist movement. While they do not take up Class struggle as the tactics, Class struggle as the key linkproletarian revolutionary line, they are opposed to the dictatorship of the proletariat. Neither do they recognise the existence of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie nor do they aim at establishing dictatorship of the proletariat as the goal.

In conclusion, it is not the CLC which is to be blamed for not recognising class struggle and dictatorship of the bourgeoisie but it is the so-called "leftists", a whole host of them, which have to be blamed and struggled against. These sects and groups come up with various masks but they were all unmasked at Parliament Hill on March 22nd. They all took up a reformist slogan and tried to pass it off as something very "revolutionary".

We must always put Politics in Command. When working in the trade unions, it is revolutionary politics which must be advanced but if there is no Tactical policy and planthen what can one do except pursue bourgeois trade union politics. Make the rich payis the only Tactical policy and planand we must not waste time in secondary issues like attacking the CLC or someone else for the failure of the revolutionary movement. It is opportunism which must be opposed. We must never forget class struggle and dictatorship of the proletariat. We must develop class struggle to make the rich pay.

Comrades, on this historic day, the day we are celebrating the Sixth Anniversary of the Founding of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist). I declare to you that we have sorted out the question of "tactical policy and plan". The slogan MAKE THE RICH PAY! embodies the entire tactical policy and plan for this period. MAKE THE RICH PAY! means waging a vigorous proletarian struggle for national independence, against U.S. imperialist domination of Canada and against the bourgeoisie of this country. It is a short-range programme. This tactical policy and plan sums up as well as concentrates the revolutionary experience and work of the Party during the past six years. It is a refutation of those who are trying to "assimilate" Marxism-Leninism, and through this method are trying to get over their difficulties concerning the basic programme as well as the tactical policy and plan.

The third point I would like to take up is on the question of "correctness of our own political line and the solidity of our own organisation". Starting literally from scratch and very little revolutionary experience, we have comrades who have come forward with revolutionary style, who made radical rupture with traditional ideas and have revolutionary experience in organising the social revolution in Canada. They do not aspire for any careers within the capitalist system or work for socialism for the purposes of striking a career then. They are self-sacrificing and they are loyal to Marxism-Leninism-Mao tsetung Thought. They follow Marxist orthodoxy and many of them are currently engaged in studying seriously the Marxist-Leninist classics in order to vigorously develop the theoretical form of proletarian struggle. MAKE THE RICH PAY! is our tactical policy and plan and we need comrades who can explain and elaborate the slogan on the theoretical front and hit hard at the confusion-making of the bourgeoisie and the opportunists.

We have also rectified our serious error concerning style of work. We laid too much emphasis on fighting opportunism inside the Party in the past. Comrade Stalin clearly explains in his celebrated pamphlet Foundations of Leninismthat "The theory of 'defeating' opportunist elements by ideological struggle within the Party, the theory of 'overcoming' these elements within the confines of a single party, is a rotten and dangerous theory, which threatens to condemn the Party to paralysis and chronic infirmity, threatens to make the Party a prey to opportunism, threatens to leave the proletariat without a revolutionary party, threatens to deprive the proletariat of its main weapon in the fight against imperialism." Since we introduced this rectification many opportunists from the Party have "flit and flew away" and life is vigorously growing in the Party. It is interesting to note that the entire programme of the opportunist sects in the 1974-75 period, the period when we took action against this theory, has been one of adopting this "rotten and dangerous theory" of "defeating' opportunist elements by ideological struggle within the Party". It is also interesting to note that through this mechanism all these "opportunist elements" have carved themselves a place, a niche in their so-called "genuine Marxist-Leninist movement". Under the slogan of "freedom of criticism ", this theory was being pushed by "Left"-sloganeering front of Khrushchovite revisionism in the summer of 1971. Under the same theory, the opportunist elements recognize only groups and not Parties and wherever they get a chance they give birth to factions. By establishing factions, these opportunist elements then can incite people to attack Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought. Various factions in India vilify Comrade Charu Mazumdar and the armed agrarian revolution and internationally they are quite vociferous in promoting a hodge-podge of so-called "revolutionary theoreticians" from many lands. They advocate polycentrism on theoretical questions and factionalism on organisational questions.

Our Party is based on democratic centralism. We are opposed to spurious theories of polycentrism and factionalism. We are materialists: first and foremost, we recognize firmly that there is real life. This is our starting point, not books nor system of ideas but real life. We are dialectical and historical materialists. We are aware that this life has come into being from the past and that the contradictions inherent in life at this time go back to their origins., We recognise class struggle and not a system of ideas as the decisive force in history. This is why we take up our basic programme and our tactical policy and plan from the standpoint of CLASSES AND CLASS STRUGGLE AND CLASS STRUGGLE AS TACTIC OR CLASS STRUGGLE AS THE KEY LINK. Every incident inside and outside of the Party, inside and outside of the proletariat and inside and outside of Canada is looked at from class point of view. But "all these opportunists base their politics not on classes and class struggle but on policy". That is why they have "crisis of line" all the time. A little bit of complication and they won't know what to say or do.

For some, Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought is fine in "theory" but in practice it is useless. We are opposed to such so-called "Marxist-Leninists". We believe in the unity of theory and practice and motive and effect. That is why we have the Party which is based on the "correctness of our own political line and solidity of our own organisation". We regenerate on the basis of our own efforts. We are not like those who were the greatest "supporters" of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution yesterday but curse and swear at it today or those who cursed and swore at the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution yesterday but today they do not "mind". Our Party is not based on some fads and fashions and whatever is in vogue today we get swayed by it. If we said yesterday CHINA'S CHAIRMAN IS OUR CHAIRMAN and CHINA'S PATH IS OUR PATH we still say it today. Those who have turned their backs on China's Chairman and those who have found nothing of revolutionary value from China's path especially from the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, they are opportunists of the first order. Our comrades should not be swayed by them. Some of these individuals who became "creative" when revolutionary tide was down and did not believe that Mao Tsetung Thought is Marxism-Leninism of our era, are today inciting people to attack those who carry such beliefs.

We believe in the independence and integrity of our Party. If a Party becomes a public relations organ for another and bids goodbye to revolutionary style, that Party is not worthy of the name "Communist". We are friends of friends and enemies of enemies and we guide our support on the basis of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought and proletarian internationalism. We established this Party on the basis of our own efforts and we will carry this line through to the end. Let the fake "proletarian internationalists" enjoy themselves for the services rendered to international opportunism.

Internationally, the two superpowers are furiously contending with one another for world hegemony. This is the source of third world war and one superpower which flaunts the banner of "socialism" is the more treacherous of the two. There is economic crisis deepening and broadening all over the capitalist-imperialist and revisionist world and in their colonies and neo-colonies. There is revolutionary struggle for national liberation raging in several countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America and there is a struggle against hegemonism of the two superpowers. The proletariat of the capitalist-imperialist world and of the revisionist world is fighting courageously against the shifting of the burden of the economic crisis onto their backs. In certain European countries like Spain, the Marxist-Leninist Party, the Communist Party of Spain (Marxist-Leninist) is leading a struggle against U.S. imperialism and fascism. The Marxist-Leninist Party of Portugal, the Communist Party of Portugal (Reconstituted) is waging struggle against the two superpowers and the internalcollaborators. The struggle of the Irish people against British imperialism and for national unification is developing vigorously. Under such circumstances, a new form of revisionism, a revisionism of greater treachery than the betrayal of Khruschovite revisionism is emerging on the international scale. In capitalist-imperialist countries, its main thesis is that to talk about social revolution here is to be "ultra-left" while their line for other countries is becoming increasing dubious. Our comrades should maintain a high level of vigilance against this revisionism and all other forms and not deviate from the staunch anti-revisionist stand and do not give an inch to revisionism. This can be done on the basis of building the Party on the basis of "correctness of our own political line and the solidity of our own organisation" and not vacillating on the fundamental questions of state and proletarian revolution. Those who are deliberately and vainly trying to brow-beat the CPC(M-L) to "change" its line on account of their connections with international opportunism, beware! We will never change our basic programme or tactical policy and plan or change our theoretical basis of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought and proletarian internationalism.

The four contradictions on the world scale are sharpening and revolution remains the main trend. But there is a danger of world war and there are possibilities of social revolutions breaking out in one or several countries. Our contribution against the two superpowers and against the third world war can only be made on the basis of organising social revolution here. MAKE THE RICH PAY! is the tactical policy and the plan against the two superpowers and against third world war as well.

Our Party is established all across Canada. Soon you will have the branches which are solely composed of proletarians, the industrial proletarians. These industrial proletarians will soon make up the large portions of the central leadership. We have established the centralized organs of the Party and we have made head-way on various fronts, especially on the front of theory. The task is to implement the slogan MAKE THE RICH PAY! Let this slogan be taken up all over Canada by the proletarians!

To conclude comrades: CPC(M-L) is the political party of the proletariat. It is a contingent of the international communist movement. We are based on the theory of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought. We have established links with several brethren communist parties and we will support all Communist Parties which are fighting on the common front against common enemies.

LET US SALUTE THE GREAT REVOLUTIONARY LEADERS OF OUR TIME, CHAIRMAN MAO TSETUNG AND COMRADE ENVER HOXHA,without the leadership of whom this great revolutionary movement against revisionism and for social revolution would not have been possible.

*****

1. Four Articles Against Canadian Revisionism, Hardial Bains, Norman Bethune Institute, 1975, pp. 66-69.

2. Usher in the First Year of the Last Quarter of the Glorious Twentieth Century, Hardial Bains, Norman Bethune Institute 1975, pg. 26.

3. Ibid., pg. 25.

4. Selected Works, Volume X, The Communist International, "Notes of a Publicist", V.I. Lenin, International Publishers, 1938 pg. 306

5. Selected Works, Volume I, "On Practice", Mao Tsetung Foreign Languages Press, 1975, pg. 297.

6. Mass Line, Volume 5, Number 55, May 25,1975, "Against Opportunism", by Hardial Bains, People's Canada Publishing House Pg-9

[Back to Top]

MURDEROUS RACISTS RUN FOR THEIR LIVES!

Two East Indians Heroically Snatch Back Weapons From Racist Attackers

On the evening of Saturday, June 6, 1976, two East Indians were attacked by a gang of three racists armed with car jack and steel pipes. The two East Indians stood their ground, repulsed the attackers with bare hands without allowing the racists even one strike with the weapons and heroically snatched back the weapons from the racist attackers. The moment the weapons went into the hands of the East Indians, the racists knew that their lives were in danger and ran for their lives. The East Indians swung their weapons at the car in which one of the racists was trying to flee and chipped off the window glass. The other two ran away in an effort to escape from the wrath of the two angry East Indians, now armed with the pipe and car jack. This incident happened in the Lansdowne and Queen area of Toronto.

The heroic fight put up by the East Indians is a reflection of the growing trend amongst the masses of the people of the community to vigorously fight back against racist attacks. This incident is a glorious incident, part of the new trend in the community which has come into being on a wide scale with the founding of the East Indian Defence Committee. This incident, where unarmed East Indians snatched the attackers' weapons and went on the offensive is a pace-setter for the people of our community to more actively take up the line of self-defence being popularised by the East Indian Defence Committee. This incident is fully in keeping with the heroic traditions of the East Indian community here in Canada, which has a glorious history of fighting back against the state organised racist attacks ever since the East Indians first came to Canada in 1902.

The two East Indians who fought heroically are also members of the East Indian Defence Committee in Toronto. Soon after the incident, the two contacted the EIDC and gave a detailed account of the events to a correspondent of Lok Awaz.

In their report, the two repeatedly emphasised that what was decisive in turning a defensive situation into an offensive one was implementation of the line of EIDC -- the line of vigorously fighting back against racist attacks. One of them said "What was foremost in my mind at the time of the fight was the fact that the fight involved defending the honour and dignity of the entire community, apart from the fact that I had to stand there and defend myself. The line of EIDC -- that of the entire community rising up to fight back against the racist attacks came to my mind. I said to myself, each individual member of the community has to pay serious attention to the line of EIDC and implement it. An individual's safety alone is not the issue because any East Indian can be picked out by these racists for attack. Every East Indian has to grasp this thing about fighting back against these attacks. On the surface of it, the situation did seem hopeless, the racists charging at you with murderous weapons. But the will to fight back as a member of the community is what inspired me to teach the racists a good lesson and give them the scare of their lives. I am sure that those racists would not dare to attack any East Indian. They would think of their own safety ten times over before they muster any courage to have a fight with any member of our community. "

Lok Awaz is immensely proud of the heroic spirit of the East Indian community to fight back against racist attacks which is reflected in this incident in a concentrated form. The following are the details of the incident:

FIRST -- FIST FIGHTS

The whole thing started when the gang of racist punks arrogantly came out of their car hoping to beat up the two East Indians. Their arrogance came to naught in the first few minutes of the fist fight. One of the punks was bodily lifted by one of the East Indians and thrown from one sidewalk to the sidewalk across the street. Looking at the fact that three of them were no match to the two East Indians, the racists beat retreat in their car.

ARMED WITH WEAPONS

Hoping that weapons such as car jack and steel pipes would give them a chance to get at the two East Indians, the three racists came back in their car to launch another attack. Noticing the murderous racists charging at them with weapons, the East Indians said to themselves 'come what may, but these punks have to be taught a good lesson. They stood their ground, and when the racists launched the attack, they heroically fought back with bare hands, not for a moment letting the racists use the weapons they had with them. The East Indians heroically held onto the weapons and snatched them back out of the hands of the racists.

RACISTS RUN FOR THEIR LIVES!

Watching the East Indians now armed with car jack and steel pipe, the racists had no doubt that their lives were in danger. Two of them took off on their feet and the third one in the car.

MASSES VIGOROUSLY DENOUNCE THE RACISTS

A large number of immigrants from the Caribbean and India live in the Lansdowne area. Some people saw the heroic fight put up by the East Indians and were very inspired by it. Some Canadians also came forward and expressed their indignation at the racist attackers, and their unprovoked and murderous attacks.

ROLE OF THE POLICE

Within seconds of the running away of the racists, several police cars arrived on the scene, ostensibly 'to look for a speeding car' that belonged to the racists. The police picked up the two East Indians and started asking their whereabouts, identification etc. Several people who had witnessed the incident also came by. The East Indians said that they had just defended themselves from the racists who attacked them. The police showed their "concern" by asking for description of the racists.

Some of the people who had witnessed the attack, volunteered information on the racists, but the police refused to listen to them. This showed very clearly that the police had no intention of catching the racists and were in fact on the side of the racists by not taking any action.

Many people then came down and asked the two East Indians as to what the police were going to do about the racists. The East Indians explained to them the attitude of the police and said that the East Indians and other national minority people have to rely on themselves by fighting back against racist attacks. Several people, including many Caribbeans, wholeheartedly agreed and expressed their pleasure at the fact that the racists who came with weapons had to run for their lives. End.

[Box: Lok Awaz is the newspaper of the East Indian community in Canada. It militantly defends the interests of the community and boldly carries right on its masthead the slogans "Fight State Organized Racist Attacks Through Revolutionary Struggle" and "Support the Struggle for People's Democratic India". It is available from Lok Awaz, P.O. Box 67617, Station "O", Vancouver 15, B. C. (Single issue, 40 cents, half yearly $5.00, English and Punjabi editorials published every alternative week) The East Indian Defence Committee is the self-defence organization of the community against racist attacks.

The 1967 Naxalbari revolt organized by Comrade Charu Mazumdar was the spark of armed agrarian revolution that set India aflame. The Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) was organized on the basis of Naxalbari. Armed agrarian revolution is the main content of the People's Democratic Revolution.]

[Back to Top]

WHAT IS BEHIND THE RECENT SPONTANEOUS OUTBURSTS AGAINST THE INDIRA GANDHI GOVERNMENT?

Events are moving at a very fast pace within India. Massive jail breaks have taken place in Delhi, Calcutta and Bihar. Prisons are being converted into battlegrounds against the Indira Gandhi government. The safest strongholds of the Indian government, the prisons, have become unsafe and dangerous for them. Then we have the Baroda dynamite case. Hundreds of sticks of dynamite were discovered in an attempt to blow up the installations of the Indian government. Thousands of people battled the Delhi police and killed 20 to 30 of them on the streets of Delhi in April. Now the news comes that more judges and prosecutors are going to be hired and more jails are being built. The government is daily issuing statements about the widespread sabotage, explosions, jail breaks and work slowdowns in India. What is behind these spontaneous outbursts in India?

The government has imposed a terroristic dictatorship on the people of India and the people of India have no other choice but to oppose this terror by armed force. That is why all the recent outbursts are armed and directed against the state. And this is the main point. No longer are people content with issuing leaflets or petitions or some bulletins. Now people are taking action themselves.

How did this situation come about? In other words, how is it that the main trend is to give up the path of compromise with the Indian ruling classes? Can we say that this is strange phenomena ? Or does it have some social and political basis in India? The truth of the matter is that this situation has come about due to some very basic changes in the Indian body politics. For years, the "Communist" Party of India led the opposition in terms of a viable and real alternative for the people. But this "CPI was basically against revolution and ended up by being a faithful toady of the Indian ruling classes. Today it is one of the great supporters of the Indian government. Moreover as the Soviet Union became an imperialist power after the death of the great revolutionary and friend of the Indian people, Comrade Stalin, so also the Indian ruling classes came more and more to depend on the strength of an imperialist Soviet Union for their continued survival. So it was not until the Naxalbari event of 1967 that the Indian people were presented with a real revolutionary alternative. And what was the real significance of the Naxalbari events? It was this. That the real opposition to the Indian government can only be organised by the armed overthrow of the Indian state. Right after, the character of the spontaneous outbursts changed, radically. No more petitions, or useless processions. But this time real fighting -- armed combat against the state forces. The Provincial Armed Constabulary revolt in 1973, the Gujarat people's uprising and the Bihar movement and the recent killing of 20-30 policemen by people of Delhi all have this in common.

Behind these spontaneous outbursts, particularly the fact that these are armed struggles against the Indian state, lie the very widespread and popular hold of the general line of the Naxalbari movement. That is, armed overthrow of the Indian state. It is for this reason, that the Indian government is extremely panicky about the situation. Today it has greatly increased the repressive apparatus of the Indian state. The army of India is the third largest in the world and is being used mainly for internal security purposes. The other tiers of the security apparatus, such as Border Security Force, the Central Reserve Police and the Research and Analysis Wing of the Central Bureau of Investigation are all being reinforced.

The momentum of these spontaneous outbursts is just beginning. At the same time these spontaneous outbursts are not taking place by themselves. The Indian government has acknowledged that armed struggle led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) is taking place in six states of India. Armed struggle led by the communist revolutionaries coupled with the high level of spontaneous outbursts against the Indian government are an excellent combination in favour of the people's liberation. Together, these two vital forces can devastate the Indian state and its backers in the Soviet Union.

These spontaneous outbursts are like fresh rain on the land. New and fresh shoots are bound to come up in the fertile soil of resistance to the Indian state. All glory and welcome to the new wave of spontaneous outbursts! Long live the high spirit of resistance, the great courage and fighting resolve of the Indian people!

[Back to Top]

THE GREAT CULTURAL REVOLUTION WILL SHINE FOR EVER

-- In commemoration of the 10th anniversary of the May 16, 1966

by the Editorial Departments of "Renmin Ribao"

"Circular" of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China"Hongqi" and "Jiefangjun Bao"

TEN years ago, the May 16 Circular of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China was drawn up under the personal guidance of our great leader Chairman Mao. This brilliant Marxist document sounded the clarion call for the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and illuminated the course of its triumphant advance. Today, having won great victories in the struggle to criticize Teng Hsiao-ping and repulse the Right deviationist wind to reverse correct verdicts, we warmly celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Great Cultural Revolution and restudy the Circular, which gives us a deeper understanding of the necessity and far-reaching significance of the revolution and greater confidence to persevere in continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat.

The Circular was drawn up in the fierce struggle between the proletarian headquarters headed by Chairman Mao and the bourgeois headquarters with Liu Shao-chi as its chieftain. It incisively criticized Liu Shao-chi's counter-revolutionary revisionist line, exposed the reactionary essence of the "February Outline Report," refuted the fallacies against the Great Cultural Revolution spread by those Party persons in power taking the capitalist road, armed the whole Party with the Marxist-Leninist theory of class struggle and proletarian dictatorship, and called on us to expose and criticize the bourgeois representatives in the Party and seize that portion of leadership they had usurped. The formulation of the Circular proclaimed the bankruptcy of the "February Outline Report." Since then the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution has been forging ahead vigorously.

Chairman Mao has pointed out: "We couldn't dowithout the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution."

This great revolution, which had been brewing for a long time, was the inevitable outcome of the acute struggle between the two classes, the two roads and the two lines. For years the renegade, hidden traitor and scab Liu Shao-chi and company had made frenzied efforts to push the counter-revolutionary revisionist line and stubbornly stuck to the capitalist road. They did their utmost to oppose Chairman Mao's revolutionary line on all fronts: clamouring about capitalists "having merits in carrying out exploitation" and about "consolidating the new-democratic order"; drastically slashing the number of co-operatives and practising san zi yi bao**;lauding to the skies the reactionary films Inside Story of the Ching Court and The Life Hsun;and resisting the criticism of the play Hai Jui Dismissed From Office. For a period of time Liu Shao-chi's bourgeois headquarters was in control of Party power and the power in the cultural and propaganda fields and in many localities. Capitalism and revisionism were rampant in the ideological and cultural departments under its control. Hordes of ghosts and monsters came out into the open and filled our press, radio, booksand works of literature and art. A grave situation in which the bourgeoisie exercised dictatorship over the proletariat developed in certain spheres in the superstructure. Material incentives and "bonuses in command" were widely practised to lure people to the capitalist road. In a fairly large majority of factories and enterprises, leadership was not in the hands of real Marxists and the masses of workers. Our socialist economic base was not solid. If the Great Cultural Revolution had not taken place, it would not have taken long before a counter-revolutionary restoration on a national scale would inevitably occur, our Party would turn into a revisionist party, and the whole of China would change its political colour.

With great Marxist-Leninist insight, Chairman Mao perceived in good time the grave danger that the capitalist-roaders in the Party were subverting the dictatorship of the proletariat. Chairman Mao pointed out in the Circular:"Those representatives of the bourgeoisie who have sneaked into the Party, the government, the army and various spheres of culture are a bunch of counter-revolutionary revisionists. Once conditions are ripe, they will seize political power and turn the dictatorship of the proletariat into a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie."In the course of the present struggle to beat back the Right deviationist attempt to reverse correct verdicts, Chairman Mao has again 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."In these important instructions, Chairman Mao has profoundly analysed the changes in the class relations and the characteristics of class struggle during the period of socialism, advanced the scientific thesis that the bourgeoisie is in the Communist Party, developed Marxism-Leninism and further clarified for us the orientation for continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat.

In the past decade we have waged struggles against Liu Shao-chi, Lin Piao and Teng Hsiao-ping. All these struggles have proved that the bourgeoisie is indeed inside the Communist Party. The capitalist-roaders in the Party are the bourgeoisie's main force in its trial of strength with the proletariat and in its efforts to restore capitalism. The crux of the matter here lies in the fact that these capitalist-roaders are persons in power who have sneaked into the very structure of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Chieftains of the revisionist line, like Liu Shao-chi, Lin Piao and Teng Hsiao-ping, hold a very large proportion of the Party and state power. They are thus in a position to turn instruments of the dictatorship of the proletariat into instruments for exercising dictatorship over the proletariat, and they are therefore even more ruthless in their efforts to restore capitalism than the bourgeoisie outside the Party. They could use the power in their hands to recruit deserters and renegades, form cliques to pursue their own selfish interests, rig up a bourgeois headquarters, work out a revisionist line and push it from top to bottom. They could consolidate and extend bourgeois right, protect their own interests, namely, the interests of the "high officials" who practise revisionism, embezzle and squander huge amounts of social wealth, energetically engage in capitalist activities, undermine and disrupt the socialistrelations of production. Donning the cloak of Marxism-Leninism and flaunting all sorts of ensigns, they are able to mislead for a time a number of people who lack an understanding of the real situation and do not have a high level of consciousness, deceiving them into following their revisionist line. In short, they are political representatives of the bourgeoisie and, in their trial of strength with the proletariat, they are commanders of all social forces and cliques that resist the socialist revolution and oppose and undermine socialist construction.

* The "February Outline Report" refers to 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 the whole Party by the counter-revolutionary revisionist Peng Chen who employed the most dishonest methods, acted arbitrarily, abused his powers and usurped the name of the Party Central Committee. This outline report opposed carrying the socialist revolution through to the end, opposed the line formulated by the Central Committee of the Party headed by Comrade Mao Tsetung for carrying out the Cultural Revolution, attacked the proletarian Left and shielded the bourgeois Rightists, and its aim was to prepare public opinion for the restoration of capitalism. It was a reflection of bourgeois ideology in the Party and was out-and-out revisionism. -- Tr.

** This refers to the extension of plots for private use and of free markets, the increase of small enterprises with sole responsibility for their own profits or losses, and the fixing of farm output quotas for individual households with each on its own. -- Tr.

Teng Hsiao-ping, the arch unrepentant capitalist-roader in the Party, played the commander's role in vehemently stirring up the Right deviationist wind which culminated in the counter-revolutionary political incident at Tien An Men Square. Before the Great Cultural Revolution he was the No. 2 chieftain of Liu Shao-chi's bourgeois headquarters. The two bourgeois headquarters of Liu Shao-chi and Lin Piao were smashed during the Great Cultural Revolution and, when Teng Hsiao-ping was criticized by the masses, his words flowed in a spate of vows, such as "I'll mend my ways" and "I'll never reverse the verdict." But, once he resumed work and was in power, he threw off his disguise and, with hatred grown tenfold and frenzy increased a hundredfold, brought all his experience in counter-revolutionary political struggle into play, cooking up a programme, preparing public opinion and mounting an organized and planned attack on the Party, with the spearhead directed at our great leader Chairman Mao.

"Take the three directives as the key link"--this was Teng Hsiao-ping's political programme for reversing correct verdicts and restoring capitalism. Preaching the theory of the dying out of class struggle and the theory of productive forces, this revisionist programme opposes taking class struggle as the key link and denies the Party's basic line and the necessity for the Great Cultural Revolution. Teng Hsiao-ping attempted to make it the "general programme for all work" for a long time to come and to impose it on the whole Party and the people throughout the country in order to pave the way for an all-round restoration of capitalism.

"Seize ideological positions" -- this, was a move Teng Hsiao-ping took to prepare public opinion for his scheme to reverse correct verdicts and restore capitalism. After he came to power, especially during last July, August and September and afterwards, political rumours were afloat and strange tales passed around here, there and everywhere in society. All these rumours and strange tales originated with Teng Hsiao-ping and were fabricated by Teng's rumour-mongering company. Teng Hsiao-ping and his followers feverishly created counterrevolutionary public opinions by various base means to hoodwink the people and create splits. In doing this, they spearheaded their attack at the Party Central Committee headed by Chairman Mao and raised a hue and cry to clear the way for Teng Hsiao-ping to usurp the Party leadership and seize state power.

"The first and foremost thing is to grasp leading bodies" -- this was the organizational measure Teng Hsiao-ping adopted in his attempt to reverse correct verdicts and restore capitalism. He opposed the setting up of "three-in-one" revolutionary leading bodies, attacked and pushed aside the old, middle-aged and young cadres who upheld Chairman Mao's revolutionary line, mustered unrepentant capitalist-roaders and put them in important positions, and knocked together "restorationist legions" in his attempt to reverse correct verdicts and restore capitalism. He did his utmost to keep in the Party renegades and special agents, who had been identified as such during the Great Cultural Revolution, so that they could stage a comeback sometime in the future.

"Carry out all-round rectification" -- this was the plan of action Teng Hsiao-ping mapped out for his scheme to reverse correct verdicts and restore capitalism. The moment he issued the order for "rectification," the sinister wind to reverse correct verdicts sprang up. Through "rectification" he aimed at making a clean sweep of Chairman Mao s revolutionary line and policies, the achievements of the Great Cultural Revolution and the superiority of the socialist system. The so-called rectification was in essence an attack on the proletariat by the bourgeoisie and an attempt at capitalist restoration.

All these acts by Teng Hsiao-ping were a continuation and development of the reactionary "February Outline Report," which Chairman Mao had already criticized in the Circular.Teng Hsiao-ping's "taking the three directives as the key link" is a carbon copy of the revisionist line which the Circular describes as"completely denying the class struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie, the proletarian revolution against the bourgeoisie and the dictatorship of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie." The Circular exposes Peng Chen for deliberately spreading rumours to divert people from the target of the struggle and scathingly denounces his "rectification campaign" as one aimed at attacking the proletarian Left and shielding the bourgeois Rightists. Teng Hsiao-ping went still further. His line is a continuation of the counter-revolutionary revisionist line pushed by Liu Shao-chi and Lin Piao. If this line were followed, not only would the achievements of the Great Cultural Revolution be nullified but those of the Chinese revolution as a whole would also go by the board. The capitalist road taken by Teng Hsiao-ping would lead back to the semi-colonial and semi-feudal old China and reduce China to an appendage of imperialism and social-imperialism. As Chairman Mao pointed out in the Circular when he criticized the representatives of the bourgeoisie: "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"; "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."

The tremendous historic merits of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution personally initiated and led byChairman Mao lie in the fact that the scheme of the bourgeoisie inside the Party do restore capitalism was smashed resolutely and in good time, its counter-revolutionary revisionist line was criticized and that portion of the Party and state leadership it had usurped was seized back, thereby ensuring that our country continues to advance along Chairman Mao's revolutionary line. The Great Cultural Revolution's merits also lie in solving, in both theory and practice, the cardinal question in the contemporary international communist movement, namely, how to consolidate the dictatorship of the proletariat and prevent the restoration of capitalism. Hundreds of millions of workers, peasants and soldiers, revolutionary cadres and revolutionary intellectuals have come to realize ever more deeply that the Great Cultural Revolution "is absolutely necessary and most timely." They warmly hail: "The Great Cultural Revolution is excellent!" Only unrepentant capitalist-roaders like Teng Hsiao-ping harbour bitter hatred for it. Bent on settling old scores and reversing the correct appraisal of the Great Cultural Revolution, he offended the great majority of people. They do not agree with him nor will they allow him to carry on. "Reversing correct verdicts goes against the will of the people."The will of the people, the Party and the Party members is for continuing the revolution and against restoration and retrogression. It is precisely for this reason that the great struggle personally initiated and led by Chairman Mao to repulse the Right deviationist attempt, to reverse correct verdicts has won the wholehearted support of the entire Party, the whole army and the people throughout the country. The struggle has thefull approval of the people and is to their great satisfaction. Those who attempted to reverse correct verdicts and settle old scores were extremely isolated and were soon brought to defeat.

We have won great victories, but the struggle has not come to an end. The struggle to criticize Teng Hsiao-ping's counter-revolutionary revisionist line must be carried on in depth. We must never slacken our fighting will. The handful of class enemies will not be reconciled to their defeat. Drawing lessons from their failure, they are studying tactics and methods of how to deal with us. The revolutionary people must be soberly aware of this.

Chairman Mao has pointed out: "Lenin spoke of building a bourgeois state without capitalists to safeguard bourgeois right. We ourselves have built just such a state, not much different from the old society: there are ranks and grades, eight grades of wages, distribution according to work, and exchange of equal values." As long as these conditions still exist, as long as-classes, class contradictions and class struggle exist and as long as the influences of the bourgeoisie and international imperialism and revisionism exist, the historical phenomenon that "the capitalist-roaders are still on the capitalist road"will remain for a long time to come. On the first anniversary of the Circular,Chairman Mao gave us this admonition: "The present Great Cultural Revolution is only the first; there will inevitably be many more in the future."During the current struggle to repulse the Right deviationist attempt to reverse correct verdicts, Chairman Mao has again pointed out: "After the democratic revolution the workers and the poor and lower-middle peasants did not stand still, they want revolution. On the other hand, a number of Party members do not want to go forward; some have moved backward and opposed the revolution. Why? Because they have become high officials and want to protect the interests of the high officials.""Will there be need for revolution a hundred years from now? Will there still be need for revolution a thousand years from now? There is always need for revolution. There are always sections of the people who feel themselves oppressed; junior officials, students, workers, peasants and soldiers don't like bigshots oppressing them. That's why they want revolution. Will contradictions no longer be seen ten thousand years from now? Why not? They will still be seen."Therefore, we must prepare, ourselves ideologically for a protracted struggle against the capitalist-roaders and for continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Chairman Mao said at the beginning of this year: "Without struggle, thereis no progress.""Can 800 million people manage without struggle?!"The tenyears of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was a decade in which we advanced through struggle and brought tremendous changes to our country. Studying Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought in the course of struggle, hundreds of millions of people have greatly raised their consciousness in combating and preventing revisionism and continuing the revolution; Chairman Mao's proletarian revolutionary line has found its way even deeper into the hearts of the people. By getting rid of the stale and taking in the fresh, our Party has grown in strength and become more vigorous than ever. Our army has grown stronger, after going through new tests and making fresh contributions to the people in "supporting industry, supporting agriculture, supporting the broad masses of the Left, exercising military control, and giving political and military training." The militia has contributed to the consolidation of proletarian dictatorship through participation in the struggle to defend the motherland and in class struggle in society. The "three-in-one" combination of the old, middle-aged and young has been adopted in the leading bodies at all levels, and millions upon millions of successors to the proletarian revolutionary cause are steeling themselves and maturing in the course of struggle in accordance with the five requirements put forward by Chairman Mao. The socialist revolution in education, literature and art, medical and health work science and technology has advanced in giant strides in the course of the acute struggle between the two lines. Vast numbers of educated youth have gone eagerly tosettle in the countryside, and cadres at all levels have persevered in taking the May 7 road. The mass movements to learn from Tachai in agriculture and to learn from Taching in industry have surged ahead. Agriculture, industry and the entire national economy are thriving. Our great motherland is a flourishing scene of prosperity. The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution has further released the energies of the people in their hundreds of millions. The tremendous impact of this revolution, which is just beginning to show itself, will make itself felt with greater force with the deepening of the revolution.

We must continue our triumphant advance and carry forward the excellent situation. The broad masses of Party members, cadres and other people must conscientiously study Chairman Mao's important instructions concerning the Great Cultural Revolution and the struggle to repulse the Right deviationist attempt, study, the theory of continuing the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat, get a clear understanding of the questions of where the bourgeoisie is to be found and enforcing all-round dictatorship over the bourgeoisie,and persist in combating and preventing revisionism and continuing the revolution. We must acquire a profound understanding of the brilliant victories and tremendous significance of the Great Cultural Revolution, wholeheartedly support the socialist new things, and consolidate and develop the achievements ofthe Great Cultural Revolution. We must deepen the criticism of Teng Hsiao-ping, beat back the Right deviationist attempt to reverse correct verdicts and deal resolute blows at all counter-revolutionary disruptive activities. We must unite over 95 per cent of the cadres and of the masses under the general objective of criticizing Teng Hsiao-ping, and continue to do a good job in the revolution in the superstructure and the economic base. Wemust "grasp revolution, promote production and other work and preparedness against war" and continuously advance socialist construction in all fields.

The proletariat is full of revolutionary optimism. We have faith in dialectics. We firmly believe that "the supersession of the old by the new is a general, eternal and inviolable law of the universe." (Mao Tsetung:OnContradiction.)However many twists and turns there are on the road of revolution and however many ups and downs it encounters, the truth of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought is irresistible and the masses of the people who account for over 95 per cent of the population invariably want revolution. Revolution will inevitably triumph over reaction and the newborn over the decadent -- this is a law of history. It is just over a century since the founding of Marxism, and the old world has been shattered to pieces. Today, capitalismand revisionism are declining like "a setting sun in thewest wind." The clowns who go against the tide of historymay have their own way for a time but will eventuallybe swept on to the garbage heap of history by the people. As Marx and Engels stated,"Its [the bourgeoisie's]fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable."(Manifesto of the Communist Party.)While commemorating the 10th anniversary of theCircular,we are full of revolutionary pride as we look back on the course of struggle of the Great Cultural Revolution, view the excellent situation in which "orioles sing, swallows dart," and look forward to the bright future when "the world is being turned upside down." Under the leadership of the Party Central Committee headed by Chairman Mao, we are determined to persevere in taking class struggle as the key link and carry the continued revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat through to the end.

Chairman Mao's proletarian revolutionary line is invincible, and our advance cannot be stopped !

The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution will shine-for ever!

(May 16, 1976)

Peking Review, No. 21, May 1976

[Box: Mao Tsetung Thought, the guiding light of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, belongs not just to the Chinese people but to the entire international proletariat. Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought is the theoretical basis guiding the thinking of the Marxist-Leninist parties the world over. Likewise it is fully applicable to the United States and is the indispensable guide of the U.S. Marxist-Leninists. In this issue of Workers' Advocate, we continue our policy of printing the important documents of the class struggle led by Chairman Mao against the capitalist roaders in China. The article reprinted here, "The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution Will Shine Forever", commemorates the May 16, 1966 Circular of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, which was an important document in laying down Chairman Mao's line and policies for the cultural revolution. In the May 12,1976 issue of The Workers' Advocate we reprinted the May 16 Circular itself.]

[Back to Top]

CARRY OUT ACTIVE RESISTANCE TO FASCISM!

What is Active Resistance to Fascism?

The intensified oppression of the working class, oppressed nationalities and progressive people by the monopoly capitalists during the present economic crisis is inevitably giving rise to a new storm of resistance. Already the masses of the American people are beginning to stir. In April and May the San Francisco municipal workers waged a month-long struggle against the attempts of the capitalists to implement huge wage-cuts, destroy the workers' livelihood and shift the entire burden of the crisis onto their backs; this year the Teamsters broke through government suppression as well as betrayal by the top trade union officials to wage for three days their first national Teamsters' strike; today the rubber workers are entering the third month of their strike; and tomorrow the auto workers may go out. Students at many colleges and universities are staging protests against cut-backs and tuition hikes. The masses also are resisting the government-organized fascist movements and racist attacks.

In Detroit, the Arab community has punished some of the fascists who have engaged in cowardly gangster-style attacks on the Arab population into the intensive-care section of hospitals. In Louisville, the city where the racist school boycott against integration was broken by the vigorous action of Afro-Americans and progressive whites, a successful "public hearing" was held to support active resistance. The 60 progressive people put active resistance into practice right at this mass meeting by defeating the attempts of a mob of 100 supporters of the fascist anti-busing movement to invade and disrupt the meeting. All over the U.S., there are many acts of heroism by the broad masses in defending themselves against fascist attacks. But the scattered and unsystematic, although very wide-spread and deeply felt, desire of the masses to resist oppression cannot go beyond a certain point unless the Marxist-Leninists play an active role in the resistance movement and concentrate the correct ideas of the masses into a powerful political line. This gives added significance to the reports in this issue of The Workers' Advocate of the resistance struggles waged by the comrades of the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists in Newark, Boston and Louisville.

While the mass movements are stirring, the U.S. monopoly capitalist class is preparing for the bicentennial of the U.S. government. Today the monopoly capitalists rule the U.S. The capitalist system is rotting alive. The political program of the big bourgeoisie is to increase the exploitation of the masses to the maximum in order to have the American working class and people bear the full burden of the crisis and to prepare for a new imperialist world war with the Soviet social-imperialists by fascizing the state (government) to the maximum and launching new attacks on the American people. Chairman Mao pointed out in 1947: "TO START A WAR, THE U.S. REACTIONARIES MUST FIRST ATTACK THE AMERICAN PEOPLE". This is equally true today. For this reason the monopoly capitalists have used their state apparatus to launch fascist movements such as the fascist anti-busing movement. They are attacking the Arab people in order to prepare for further intervention in the Middle East, further attacks on the Palestinian liberation movement and more support for the tottering Zionist state of "Israel". They are attacking immigrants in order to prepare conditions for attacks on all workers. The U.S. imperialists had hoped to use the bicentennial to promote rabid national chauvinism.

But U.S. capitalism is in such a rapid, all-round decay and crisis -- industrial, financial, cultural, balance of trade, foreign affairs, etc. etc.--that the capitalists can only exude an atmosphere of doom and gloom. Accordingly the bicentennial has been reduced mainly to a token ceremony, to be nervously guarded by thousands of troops, in that "birthplace" of America, Philadelphia -- whose present mayor, the open reactionary Frank Rizzo, is currently facing a recall petition while the municipal workers are threatening to strike. In irreconcilable opposition to the monopoly capitalists stands the vigorous and fresh class, the working class.

The political program of the working class is the seizure of power by revolutionary violence and the overthrow of the increasingly fascistic state of the monopoly capitalists and its replacement by the dictatorship of the proletariat with the aim of establishing first socialism and eventually communism. It is the historic task of the working class to unite the overwhelming majority of the American people around this program in order to smash the resistance of the big bourgeoisie.

In carrying out their political program, the monopoly capitalists are launching repeated attacks on the American people, destroying their livelihood and launching fascist mass movements. What is the path the people should take to oppose the dark plans of the big bourgeoisie? Active resistance, meeting reactionary violence with revolutionary violence, or surrender? The sold-out capitalist politicians advocate that the masses should slavishly submit to be starved, racially discriminated against, abused and murdered. No oppressor can rule by force alone, so the monopoly capitalists resort to political deception as well. At the same time as the government organizes the fascist anti-busing movement with its beatings of Afro-Americans and stonings of buses of schoolchildren, it turns around and tells the outraged progressive masses to exercise "moderation and reason", "obey the law" and piously raises its hands to heaven intoning prayers for "peaceful desegregation". The fascists are given full freedom to terrorize and attack the people, while the bourgeoisie holds that the progressive masses should turn the other cheek, call for "more police protection" and submit to "gun control". "Liberal" Mayor Kevin White of Boston showed the essence of that "moderation and reason" he likes to call for by "moderately" and "peacefully" watching out the window while some racist ruffians beat up Theodore Landsmark on the steps of City Hall just because he was Afro-American. When the masses rise up to protect themselves and teach the fascists a lesson or two, the government then realizes that things "have gone too far" and proceeds to protect the "peace" and ensure "law and order" by bringing in the police and troops to attack the masses. In Boston last year the police attacked the Afro-Americans defending themselves at the Columbia Point housing project, while in Louisville this year the police engage in wanton shooting against the Black community while the judges call on the masses to "obey the law". That is how the monopoly capitalist state works: first it organizes terrorist attacks on the people, then it calls for "peace" while it brings in the police and troops to attack the masses.

In opposition to the path of capitulation stands the path of active resistance. It is active resistance that releases the revolutionary initiative of the masses. Active resistance is not terrorism of a small handful -- and is in fact the most fitting reply to that most widespread and the overwhelmingly most predominant form of terrorism, the terrorist attacks and pogroms of the state itself. Nor should active resistance be confused with the neo-revisionist practice of calling on the masses to "fight", independent of political line, of eulogizing "fighting" while negating politics, of gazing dumbstruck in awe at the "militance" of the workers while being afraid they are too "backward" to be mobilized around the revolutionary political line; such practices have always led the neo-revisionists to alliances with backward and even fascist forces, including in some cases the fascist anti-busing movement. No! Active resistance stands gloriously opposed to all this -- it is indissolubly linked with mobilizing and organizing the masses on matters of vital concern to them around the revolutionary, anti-fascist political line. For example, the comrades in the Louisville Branch of the COUSML, working in a city that the monopoly capitalists wanted to turn into a second national center, after Boston, of the fascist anti-busing movement, strove to concentrate the correct sentiment of the masses against the fascist movement and to disseminate the revolutionary political line. Whether they were participating in "large" demonstrations or distributing leaflets and selling The Workers' Advocate or Louisville Red Banner"by themselves" in front of the factory gates, they were in fact in the thick of the struggle raging among the masses. That is why hundreds of workers were stirred by their just resistance against suppression by the fascists. While on the other hand that is why the fascist newspaper of the anti-busing movement, called N.A.P.F. repeatedly attacked them, starting in its very first issue in October 1975, it is why the U.S. political police agencies have spread the vile slanders and lies via the opportunist circles that the Louisville Branch is a "police organization", and it is why the local Louisville police singled out Comrade Jim Bennet of the COUSML for attack at the factory gates of Phillip Morris when they managed to find him at a time when few workers were around.

Thus active resistance to fascism is a revolutionary method of struggle that unites the masses in irreconcilable opposition to the monopoly capitalist state. Among politically active people in the working class movement, there are three stands towards the state: to organize in opposition to the state; to refuse to oppose the state; or to collaborate with the state. The Marxist-Leninist stand is irreconcilable opposition to the state. Those who persist in refusing to oppose the state and refusing to oppose fascism will end up collaborating with the state and contributing to fascism.

Among those calling themselves Marxist-Leninists and communists, all three stands are to be found. This shows the influence of revisionism and opportunism. The revisionists oppose active resistance and collaborate with the state. They promote capitulation and defeatism in every struggle, organize to tell the people how "strong" the bourgeoisie is, and seek to split the mass movements and liquidate them. They denounce resistance as "ultra-left", "crazy" and "provoking" the bourgeoisie. In this way they try to create public opinion in favor of the state suppressing the revolutionaries as well as taking part in this suppression themselves. This revisionism comes up in several forms. There are those who give pious lectures on how they recognize armed struggle for the insurrection during Judgment Day, but for today these worthies want peace and quiet and denounce resistance as "adventurist". And there are those great "theoreticians" who sneer at the struggling masses and contemptuously remark: "even the narrow nationalists can fight the Ku Klux Klan, the role of communists is to develop theory". Theory comes out of practice and in turn serves practice. The "theory" of those who refrain from opposing the state will be "theory" that renders more "profound" the practice of capitulating to the bourgeoisie; while it is only those who are right in the thick of struggle who will see the need for Marxist-Leninist theory and who will develop theory that serves to advance the struggle. These revisionist and opportunist theories and practices can be opposed by persisting in uniting the masses for revolutionary struggle against the state.

At a time when growing fascism means increasing attacks on the masses, the path forward for the working class and people is revolutionary struggle against the terrorist attacks of the state machine. Reactionary violence should be met by the revolutionary violence of the masses. Capitulation to the fascist attacks and reliance on the sensibility of the police and courts, who are in fact organizing the attacks, only increases the arrogance of the small handful of bad elements who participate in the terrorist attacks and carry out the dirty work for the state machine. It is active resistance to fascism that reflects the basic aspirations of the masses and leads them forward towards realizing the political program of the working class, the seizure of state power. End.

[Back to Top]

New Defeats for Fascist Anti-Busing Movement in Louisville

MASS MEETING SUPPORTS RESISTANCE, UPHOLDS "FASCISTS HAVE NO RIGHT TO SPEAK"

In Louisville on May 15th the fascist anti-busing movement suffered another defeat. A militant mass meeting was held to uphold active resistance to fascism and was addressed by resistance fighters from the masses. The stand of active resistance was put into practice right at the meeting itself in defeating an attempt to invade and disrupt the meeting by some one hundred supporters of eight different anti-busing organizations.

For several months the government and its fascist anti-busing movement have carried out numerous violent attacks against the Black people and other progressive people in the schools and communities of Louisville. Against these attacks many people have been fighting back. The May 15th meeting was organized by a number of organizations including the COUSML to support these heroic anti-fascist fighters and to encourage and develop the revolutionary trend of active resistance to racism and fascism.

When confronted with a belligerent and intimidating anti-busing mob at the meeting, the meeting organizers and 60 progressive people attending again put their ideas into practice. They resisted the fascist threats, resolutely stood up for the correct policy that fascists have no rightto speak, and forced the "ferocious" anti-busers to sit like beaten dogs as their crimes against the Black people and the entire working class were denounced by speaker after speaker.

This new victory for the progressive Black and white people has again exploded the myth of the "invincibility" of the "ferocious" anti-busing movement. It has revealed that the revolutionary masses are invincible, provided they rely on their own efforts and pursue active resistance to fascism.

FASCISTS HAVE NO RIGHT TO SPEAK

Before the meeting began the anti-busers came swaggering up to try and claim that they had the "right" to attack the meeting and turn it into a platform for their fascist demagogy. First they raised the hoax that the meeting was advertised as a "public hearing" at which "all are invited to speak out". The anti-busing movement always engages in fascist and terrorist acts while claiming that it is fighting for democracy. Again at this meeting its representatives tried to claim that the hearing would not be "democratic" if they were not allowed to disrupt it. They tried to claim, as well, that a section of them is also "opposed to racist attacks" and that they had come to lecture people who have been fighting racism on "who is actually behind the active racist movement". But the people of Louisville have a great deal of experience with the "anti-busing" kind of "democracy" and the "anti-busing" kind of "opposing racism", and they are quite opposed to it. For example, last fall the head of the county government, Judge Todd Hollenback, organized a series of "public forums" to oppose the integration of the schools under the guise of "alternatives to busing". In two of these meetings, when progressive people tried to speak out to condemn Hollenback's segregationist plans, they were shouted down, not allowed to speak and even violently attacked by the anti-busers. The county judge had completely connived in this fascist suppression, consulting frequently with the anti-busing leaders throughout the meetings and making sure that they would speak up to promote every racist rumor and slander through the forums. Under the dictatorship of the monopoly capitalists' government, "democracy" can only be the "right" for the capitalists and their lackeys to promote racism and fascism and no rights for the working class and Black people to oppose them. The aim of the fascist anti-busing elements at the May 15th meeting was to disrupt the meeting and suppress the anti-fascist, anti-racist struggle.

The progressive people present were not impressed with the ravings of the anti-busing movement and simply told them in no uncertain terms that fascists would not be allowed to speak.

Becoming frenzied at the staunch stand of the progressive people and still hoping to run roughshod over the meeting, the anti-busers broke into a loud debate among themselves. One racist anti-busing leader, Bob Depote, loudly denounced another racist anti-busing leader, Lowell Huff, for being too openly a "racist" and a "nazi", while Huff in turn chided Depote for trying to conceal his racism, calling him "a communist" and a "supporter" of the meeting. Quickly an end was put to this farce when they were both told to shut up or they would be thrown out on the spot. Then these two "daring" leaders of the anti-busing mob fell silent. (Incidentally, it was Depote who challenged the COUSML, through his paper. N.A.P. F., to fight his fascists at a plant gate. Where was all his fire and brimstone when he came fact to face with the communists of COUSML at this meeting?

If the fascists had any remaining hopes of taking over the meeting, these were destroyed by the chairman of the meeting in her opening remarks. She declared that "Anyone present under the guise that the leaflet calling for this meeting is unclear, should not be confused. This meeting is to support active resistance to the racist attacks of the anti-busing movement and the government... Promotion of racism and 'anti-busing' will not be allowed!" With their exaggerated dreams punctured by the clear statement of the chairman and seeing the resolve of the some sixty progressive people in attendance at the meeting, the "ferocious" anti-busing mob completely collapsed. Depote begged permission to ask his organization to withdraw and he crept out of the meeting moaning that he, at least, "still believes in democracy". The rest of the anti-busers were virtually struck dumb and were forced to sit without making a peep as the meeting proceeded to denounce them and their monopoly capitalist sponsors for their crimes against the people of Louisville.

GOVERNMENT DENOUNCED FOR ORGANIZING RACIST ATTACKS

Besides the meeting's chairman, seven people who have waged struggles against the anti-busing movement and the police spoke up to soundly denounce the U.S. government and its fascist anti-busing movement for their violent attacks against the Black people. The speakers concretely showed that the government is the main prop and defender of the anti-busing movement, and they gave a number of examples exposing the two faces of the state machine. They pointed out that on the one hand the government is intensifying its racial discrimination and suspending large numbers of Black students from the schools and is sending its police to violently attack people in the Black community. They showed that on the other hand the government has been calling for "humanitarian" opposition to racism, "peaceful desegregation", etc., and has been setting up fact-finding commissions and public hearings to deceive the people and blame them for the government's own crimes. Talking about the city and county governments' recent petition campaign for a "Declaration of Independence from Bigotry", the meeting chairman pointed out: "The deception and duplicity of the city and county government in this regard Is really astounding. On the one hand the mayor and county judge raise the notion that the citizens are 'silent' in the face of 'bigotry'. (This is to say 'you must rely on us, the government to carry out any defense against racism'). On the other hand, the courts are being filled with young people and grown-ups who have actually fought against 'bigotry', racial discrimination and repression in the real world and not just on paper." Comrade Jim Bennet, a supporter of the COUSML who has resisted attacks by the anti-busing movement and by the police and who is still facing a court trial for his just struggle, summed up the experience of the people in relying on their own efforts to oppose racism and fascism and pointed out that "resisting these attacks is just" and it is "this resistance that is changing the situation" in the city.

Following the speakers a resolution which summarized the main points of the meeting and gave militant support to active resistance to racist attacks was read and passed unanimously by the progressive people at the meeting. A long round of applause followed its passage.

As the meeting was ending the local leader of the fascist ROAR made one last effort to sneak his anti-busing venom into the meeting, but he was so frightened and shaky that after babbling for a few minutes he admitted that he had forgotten what he wanted to say. Nevertheless several people rose to denounce him and his anti-busing movement, pointing out that they were not only attacking Black people, but were splitting the working class in the face of the monopoly capitalists' shifting the burden of the economic crisis onto the workers' backs.

Thus the meeting ended in the same militant spirit as it had begun, with the suppression and complete defeat of the anti-busing movement and a resounding victory for the Black and white people of Louisville. People stayed around the meeting room for another hour vigorously discussing the meeting and the victory over the attack by the anti-busing movement.

FASCIST ANTI-BUSING MOVEMENT ON THE SKIDS IN LOUISVILLE

The monopoly capitalists have been organizing the anti-busing movement in Louisville since 1974, and recently President Gerald Ford and other leading capitalist spokesmen have been working overtime to prop up their fascist movement and to try and extend it into other cities. Beset with its worst economic crisis since World War II and facing the rising resistance of the American working class to capitalist exploitation and wage slavery; pounded by growing struggle of the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America against imperialism, colonialism and superpower hegemonism; and caught up in the feverish contention for spheres of influence with Soviet social- imperialism, which is leading to another world war; the U.S. monopoly capitalists are resorting to organizing fascism against the American people. The anti-busing movement, which is attacking the Black people and mobilizing white workers for their racist schemes, is a key part of this over-all fascist drive of the ruling class.

But the monopoly capitalists are finding the going tougher and tougher. Last September they were able to whip up an hysteria that brought 10,000 people out to riot against busing. But many Black and white people all along resisted the anti-busing movement. They fought against its acts of terror. They massively rejected the racist school boycott which was broken. They demonstrated against the fascist movement in large numbers. The communists of COUSML fought klansmen at the gates of the Phillip Morris factory over the right to denounce and expose the anti-busing movement, winning wide support from the workers. This struggle upset the monopoly capitalists enough so that they sent their police to violently attack and arrest COUSML comrade Jim Bennet. Wide-scale propaganda expo sing the fascist, government-organized character of the anti-busing movement was done by COUSML. As a result of this trend of resistance,by this spring, with the united effort of eight anti-busing organizations, the fascists were only able to mobilize 100 people to attack the May 15 anti-racist meeting and they weren't even able to make a success of that.

Although the anti-busing movement is still dangerous and is still able to sow confusion and launch attacks, it is the rising initiative of the revolutionary masses that is most significant.

The experience of the May 15th meeting shows that by relying on their own efforts and pursuing a line of active resistance to racism and fascism the oppressed Black and white people are bound to win victory, while the anti-busing movement and its sponsor the monopoly capitalist class and government are doomed to go down in defeat.

SPEECH BY COMRADE JIM Bennet AT LOUISVILLE MASS MEETING

(Reprinted below is the speech by Comrade Jim Bennet given at the mass meeting in Louisville May 15,1976.)

I am a supporter of COUSML, and we hold the view that the struggle against racial discrimination, intimidation and terror is a just struggle which all progressive people should fully support. As part of this, I would like to make a contribution by relating our experience in attempting to do this.

Two events -- first, on February 25, I and another member of COUSML were at Phillip Morris selling our paper, Workers Advocate, which contained a lead article exposing the racist and fascist nature of the anti-busing movement. In the course of this, two workers, known racists and members of the Ku Klux Klan attacked us -- to stop us from distributing this literature and to stop us from talking to the workers there. We resisted this attack, and the final result was that the attackers ran off.

The next day we returned. All day the two KKK members had bragged how they had beaten up two communists, so when the shift changed, many workers stayed, expecting to see another fight; also many stayed to oppose these fascists should they again start a fight. They knew about the KKK, and said we were entirely right not to let them scare us off. The outcome was that in the face of this support for resistance and opposition to the Ku Klux Klan, they didn't even show their faces -- they snuck out the back door.

The second event took place on March 11, at night, at a time when few workers were around. This time it was the police, not the KKK, who came up to attack us and try to scare us away.

A policeman came up to me and demanded to see a permit. Everybody knows you don't need a permit and that's what I told him. His response was to assault me and then arrest me for his crimes of disorderly conduct, assault, and resisting arrest.

The first point is that the resolution states that the government is the major defender and supporter of the anti-busing movement. This is quite right -- my experience for example at Phillip Morris, when the KKK attacked us and tried to scare us away, the police were brought in to attempt the same thing. Both had the same mission, and when the police failed, they are now trying to again suppress us through the courts.

So the point is that while the government appears to be neutral or even against racism, their practice at all levels is the opposite. For example, at the S & H press conference they said they were against racist ideas, yet as speakers there were known anti-busers and even a nazi. Similarly in the courts -- the practice of Judge Ray's truancy court is to give full support to the school boycott. Judge Gordon on one hand gave out the order for the busing plan, and on the other created maximum conditions for its sabotage by the school board, and for the development of the anti-busing movement. The theory about it is that it is the same thing that the government and the anti-busing movement say: they say busing, and Black people, are the cause of increased racial tension. That is, they say Black people are provoking racism. Of course this is all wrong. You don't have to provoke racists into attacking you. So it is just to resist.

The third point is resistance is not just a matter of a few individuals or even just the people here, that it is taking place throughout the community. This resistance is changing the situation. For example, it was the organized resistance of parents and students -- and not Judge Gordon and the National Guard -- that opposed the sabotage of the busing plan by the school board and forced the integration of the schools. Similarly at Phillip Morris the KKK tried to attack us, scare us away, and isolate us from the workers, yet through our resistance they were the ones who ran off, and were exposed and isolated. So at this time, it is said that the anti-busing movement is losing strength and I think it is true. The reason for this is both that it is daily exposing itself more and more as not just anti-busing, but racist and fascist, and also that it is being daily opposed and resisted, and the resisters are just some crazy wild people fighting it out. So why do these attacks take place, and resistance to them? Is it a matter of a few crazy people? No. We say it is a class question -- the attacks serve the capitalist class, and the resistance serves the working class. The reason for saying this is that the capitalist class faces economic crisis now, it is having great difficulty increasing its profits. To save itself, it has to shift this burden onto the workers, and two ways of doing this are unemployment and inflation -- attacks on trade unions, etc. Likewise abroad the capitalists are facing problems and the threat of war with the Soviet Union is very strong, for example, in Africa the U.S. and U.S.S.R. are battling to see how the continent will be redivided.

To solve these problems of economic crisis and war preparations, the capitalists must have no opposition from the people of this country, and it is for this reason that the anti-busing movement, and these attacks in general, take place. They are an attempt to divide the working class, split it along racial lines, impose fascism, and above all insure the working class is not united in its resistance.

So the attackers and the resisters are not simply some crazy people. The attackers serve monopoly capitalism while the resistance serves the people.

The final point is that we have noticed that the anti-busing movement -- side by side with racist attacks, spreads their ideas, to justify themselves, confuse people, and to make racism appear acceptable.

This meeting is a good example of how the resistance movement is also using dual tactics.

Side by side with its resistance, this meeting is a good opportunity to promote our ideas, and to clarify the nature of the situation, why the source of these problems is the government and not the people.

So in words the government says one thing -- in deeds, through its full support for the anti-busing movement, it does the opposite. While it says it is against racism, it shows the opposite. The clearest example is the activity of its own police. End.

RESOLUTION OF LOUISVILLE MASS MEETING SUPPORTING RESISTANCE

(Reprinted below is the resolution passed by the mass meeting in Louisville.)

1. Recent weeks have witnessed an escalation of intimidation, harassment and violent attacks by both the anti-busing movement and the police on the Black community and anyone who supports desegregation. These attacks include dynamiting of homes, firebombing of schools, cross burnings, midnight phone calls, and vicious hate mail. Black students are subjected to attack in and on their way to and from their schools. There has been a rash of police assaults, including a March 31 rampage in the West End by several policemen, leaving one woman seriously injured and extensive property damage.

2. These attacks are a continuation of the violence begun in September by the anti-busing movement and are aimed at stopping desegregation of the schools. They reveal that the anti- busing movement is not just against busing, but it is also for racial discrimination and violent attacks on Black people and progressive white people, and for the spread of reaction throughout the community. Beset with all kinds of problems, it is trying to make a comeback by launching its attacks with the help of the police -- we must be on guard and respond and must resist.

3. Their immediate aim is to stop the struggle against racism by generating a climate of fear and hysteria among the people, and to directly repress those who are fighting against racism. The purpose of these attacks is to split Black and white people in their schools, communities, and factories, and thus preserve the rule of the rich.

4. This escalation of violent attacks has been met with an escalation of Black-white unity in the struggle against racial discrimination and intimidation. Just as in September when the resistance to cross burnings, stoning of school buses full of children, and general intimidation broke the racist school boycott and achieved initial integration of the schools, now the present resistance is fully revealing the weakness of the anti-busing movement and the strength of the people fighting racism.

5. The government stands fully exposed as being fully behind the anti-busing movement--its chief defender and supporter. While Hollenback and Sloane declare they are against bigotry, they openly oppose busing, which in Jefferson County is the only way to achieve school desegregation. While the government says it can do nothing to stop the attacks and arrest the thugs, its own police engage in wanton shooting against the Black community. While the government tells the people to "obey the law", its own judges assist the school boycotters in breaking the law. This shows that to end racial discrimination and violent attacks by the anti-busing movement and the government, the people have to rely on their own efforts--their own organized struggle.

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED:

1) We resolutely oppose racial discrimination and racist attacks by the anti-busing movement and the government.

2) We demand that the government stop racial discrimination, intimidation, and violent attacks by both itself and the anti-busing movement.

3) We fully support active resistance to racial discrimination, intimidation, and racist attacks.

COMRADE JIM BENNET STANDS FIRM AGAINST FASCIST COURT

Comrade Jim Bennet, a supporter of the Louisville Branch of the COUSML, was convicted by the bourgeois court of "disorderly conduct", "assault" and "resisting arrest" in a trial June 10. He was given sentences of three months and fines of $250 for each of the three counts. The judge had not made up his mind by press time whether or not the jail sentences would be served concurrently.

Comrade Jim was tried and convicted because he militantly resisted the attacks of the Louisville police, who were trying to stop COUSML from distributing revolutionary literature to the workers at the Phillip Morris plant. The literature strongly denounced the fascist anti-busing movement as an attack on the Afro-American people and on the entire working class. The trial shows, once again, that the capitalist government is the organizer and protector of the fascist anti-busing movement.

From this spring to date, the Louisville Branch of the COUSML has been engaged in a struggle to distribute revolutionary literature and mobilize the workers of the Phillip Morris plant against the fascist movement and for proletarian revolution. On February 25 comrades of the COUSML fought hand-to-hand against the attacks of several racists of the KKK who worked at the plant and, with the support of masses of workers, defeated their attempt to suppress revolutionary political work. Following this defeat of the fascists, the capitalists called in their state machine and sent the police to arrest Comrade Jim. The police approached Comrade Jim and arrogantly asserted that he had to have a permit in order to distribute literature. Comrade Jim told them that this was ridiculous, everyone knew it wasn't necessary. Immediately the four police violently attacked the comrade, who fought back vigorously. For this he was put on trial by the bourgeois court.

It is only by vigorous active resistance that fascist attacks can be defeated. The bourgeoisie attempts to intimidate the masses by sending its "civilian" fascists, and then its police, to suppress them. But if the revolutionary people hold their ground and wage active resistance the broad masses will be aroused and inspired to struggle and the reactionaries can be defeated.

Comrade Jim's trial was attended by 10 or so progressive people who supported his stand. Comrade Jim defended himself in the trial. During the jury selection, he persistently raised the political issues involved in the case. When the prosecution witnesses, two policemen and a Phillip Morris security guard, testified, Comrade Jim sharply cross-examined them. What this revealed was interesting. The police, it turned out, were not even on duty when four of them attacked Comrade Jim. Instead, they had actually been hired as private thugs by the Phillip Morris company to "defend" its property.

The "explanation" the police gave of their conduct was typical Hitler logic, blaming the victim for the crime. According to them, they were called to the scene by the security guard, who had been told by some workers that they were going to kill the comrade. Therefore, they claimed, they were coming to arrest Jim only to protect him! Since they had to find some explanation for the fight, they claimed that Comrade Jim then got wild, claimed he had the right to do anything and everything, and attacked the police! But the falsity of this story was admitted by the prosecution witnesses themselves. The next witness, the security guard who had called the police, admitted that he had not heard any threat against Jim but had called the police simply in order to suppress the communists from distributing their literature at the plant. Thus the whole logic of the fascists tripped and fell down over a single fact.

(Also, daring the course of the trial it was revealed that the company has TV cameras mounted on the roof to survey the area so as to be able to single out progressive workers and attack them. Using this camera it singled out and fired eight workers during the wildcat strike at the plant last fall.)

At this point, Comrade Jim himself testified for the defense. He pointed out that the basic issue was the right to distribute revolutionary literature among the workers. He pointed out that it was only after the comrades of COUSML stood up to and defeated the fascists at the plant gate with active resistance, that the capitalists sent their police to protect the fascists and suppress the communists. He pointed out that this proved clearly that the government is the organizer and protector of the fascist anti-busing movement.

After this, two workers from Phillip Morris testified. The first of them pointed out that she had seen the police attacking Comrade Jim. She said that the workers at the plant were very angry at these attacks. She declared that people have every right to distribute literature to the workers. The second worker pointed out that she had seen the COUSML supporters distributing literature at the plant both before and after the police attack on Comrade Jim, and that they had never harassed anybody. She added that the local politicians frequently distribute literature there, but they had never been attacked by the police.

The last witness was another supporter of COUSML. He pointed out that the incident clearly illustrated the role of the police. He said that they are part of the armed wing of the bourgeois state. Their function is to suppress revolutionary struggles of the masses and, particularly in this case, to suppress the distribution of revolutionary literature.

The progressive people present were outraged at the verdict of guilty and at the sentences given, which were higher than are customary in the area for the same charges. Once the workers at Phillip Morris plant heard about the case, they too expressed their anger. An article reporting Comrade Jim's trial appeared in the Louisville Courier Journal right next to an article reporting that charges against a member of the anti-busing movement, who had shot a policeman with a slingshot and had put out his eye, had been dropped on the excuse that the government "would not be able" to get a prosecution. Workers pointed out the contrast between the encouragement given by the state to the fascist, and the severe sentence given to Comrade Jim, and expressed great anger towards the government.

Comrade Jim's stand of active resistance to the attacks of the fascist anti-busing movement and the fascist police and his militant stand of upholding principle in the court, are just what is needed to advance the revolutionary struggles of the masses. While the revisionists promote capitulation to the bourgeois state and whine about how "terrible" repression is, Marxist-Leninists like Comrade Jim firmly stand up and fight for the cause of the proletariat. End.

[Back to Top]

COMMUNISTS DEFY REPRESSION AT RUTGERS-NEWARK

On April 1,1976, Comrade Karl Fallon, a staunch supporter of the Central Organization of U.S. Marxist-Leninists, was arrested at the Rutgers-Newark Campus for taking part in the work of a student organization, the Political Affairs Discussion Group, distributing communist literature and having political discussion with the students. This was another in a series of attempts by the administration to suppress the communists, disrupt the PADG, and destroy the student movement at Rutgers-Newark.

The PADG was established at Rutgers-Newark by the Newark Student Movement under the leadership of COUSML in January 1976. At that time, as now, the monopoly capitalists were intensifying attacks on the American working class and people, particularly on the economic front, and the mass movement of students was again beginning to stir. The PADG carried out a program aimed at encouraging serious political discussion. It has conducted extensive propaganda in support of the national liberation struggles, particularly in southern Africa, and exposed the policy of aggression and contention for world hegemony of both U.S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism. This has met with the warm support of the students, who are actively seeking guidance on how to resist the attacks of the capitalists. But the administration, -as representative of the dying monopoly capitalist class, inevitably seeks to stifle and destroy anything alive and honest on campus. Just as in Sept. 1975 Director Jones and Campus Patrolman Wilder had tried to stop the discussions of the Newark Student Movement with the students on the question of opposing the war preparations of the superpowers, so they did not take long to oppose the PADG.

The first attack on the PADG came when the administration went into a frenzy to prop up the Zionists. Just as the Israeli Zionists are the main prop of U.S. imperialism's scheme to dominate the Middle East, so the local Zionists support everything backward. The Zionists on campus went wild when the Newark Student Movement and PADG did propaganda in support of the national liberation struggle of Angola, in support of UNITA, which is gloriously leading the Angolan people, and denounced the two superpowers. The Zionists tried to disrupt discussions through verbal confrontations. Giving the Zionists tit-for-tat, the Newark Student Movement countered by putting up a big, clear poster "ZIONISM IS RACISM, FASCISM, ANTI-SEMITISM IN THE SERVICE OF IMPERIALISM". The Zionists could not refute their exposure and, once again showing their fascist nature, physically attacked the comrades. All these activities of the Zionists were fine with the administration, except that the Zionists were defeated. With the defeat of the Zionists, the administration and police came up at this time posing as "neutral mediators" but in deeds supporting the attacks of the Zionists and opposing the resistance to these attacks.

PADG began to be denied a literature table, its constitution was suddenly called up for question, a letter was sent by Director Jones of the Robeson Campus Center demanding the end of mass democratic discussions. ID checks of PADG comrades were made often and on a totally arbitrary basis -- but all this constant harassment by the administration, police and Zionists was met with staunch opposition by the PADG.

The PADG, always upholding the line that the masses should sort out these questions of who is right and who is wrong, widely exposed the reactionary activities of the administration and won wide support among the students.

On April 1 Comrade Fallon was engaged in discussion with students in support of the Zimbabwe people's armed struggle against the racist regime of "Rhodesia". In the midst of this discussion Patrolman Wilder, using the sham excuses of looking for high school students playing "hooky" and being hot on the trail of a rapist, picked Comrade Fallon out from a great number of students to make a "chance" ID check. This sorry sham of an excuse shows the depths to which reactionaries will go. For one thing Patrolman Wilder was quite aware of who Comrade Fallon was since Patrolman Wilder had himself harassed Comrade Fallon during the anti-zionist struggle for resisting an open attack of the Zionists. Declaring the identification shown by Comrade Fallon to be insufficient, Wilder arrested Comrade Fallon. Comrade Fallon staunchly denounced the activities of the campus police during his arrest, demanding that they explain their actions to the masses of students present and have the masses decide the question of right and wrong. He boldly summed up the class nature of the police as members of the fascist state machine, watchdogs of the monopoly capitalist class, carrying out their duty of attacking the Marxist-Leninists and trying to suppress political discussion among the masses. The campus police were frenzied at the thought that the masses of students should decide and, in an attempt to try and rush the comrade away from the masses, grabbed the comrade by the arm. The police became still more frightened when the comrade pulled his arm back and continued to denounce their activities. Grabbing the comrade the police proceeded to run from the building, refusing to answer the questions of the students and of the members of the PADG as to the nature of their actions. Subsequently the police charged Comrade Fallon with (1) trespassing, (2) loud and abusive language, and (3) resisting arrest. The comrade was jailed and bail was set at $500.

This outrageous arrest was not some accident, or individual quirk of Patrolman Wilder. It was the continuation of the campaign of harassment of the Marxist-Leninists. It was also not a chance coincidence that on the very same day that the police were arresting Comrade Fallon to ensure a "quiet?' campus, that Marine recruiters were brought back on campus, after hiding since last year's protest, and the administration revealed a new "solution" to the "problem of trespassers", namely the plan of "guest passes" in which anyone wishing to go on campus would be screened and permitted only by the campus patrol.

The Newark Student Movement was not intimidated by these new attacks of the administration nor did it take the path of asking the bourgeoisie and courts to be "reasonable". Instead the communists used the occasion to heighten the political consciousness of the students concerning fascization in the U.S., to expose the plans of the administration, and to mobilize support for Comrade Fallon's just stand. Comrade Fallon himself boldly declared: "The issue of the arrest and trial is not whether or not I violated the fascist rules and regulations of Rutgers-Newark, the issue is what class stand various people and institutions take in the world. It is a just, principled stand to support the national liberation struggles against colonialism and superpower interference. It is just to discuss this question with the masses of students. When the monopoly capitalist state machine attacks the communists on this basis, they place themselves on trial. It is they who must answer for their class stand, their support of U.S. imperialism and Soviet social-imperialism. Let allfascists be warned; the American working classand people will surely sit in judgment of you!" Comrade Fallon continued his militant stance into the courtroom. He sought to conduct a political trial and requested merely technical legal assistance from various lawyers. However the bourgeois lawyers would not give technical assistance to a political trial. The so-called "revolutionary lawyers" were no different in their attitude, except that their hypocrisy was many times greater. One of these "revolutionary" lawyers literally wore a hammer and sickle on his belt buckle, while another had a poster from People's China depicting armed struggle in his office, yet these lawyers were the most servile before the state machine and the reactionaries.

They would only have something to do with the case under the unacceptable condition that Comrade Fallon should let these worthy gentlemen conduct the trial their way, i. e. in the path of straight-forward capitulation and cringing servility to the reactionary courts and fascist "justice" of the monopoly capitalists. Comrade Fallon dispensed with the help of these worthies and instead defended himself, made the trial into a political trial, and exposed the administration and the monopoly capitalist state machine.

Faced with the militant stand of Comrade Fallon and the Newark Student Movement, the administration faced isolation on campus and was forced to make a retreat during the trial on April 23. Comrade Fallon was cleared of all charges. The judge did not do this out of concern for "justice", but to help the administration from flopping on its face. The judge exposed the nature of the capitalist courts by constantly trying to suppress the true facts of the case. The judge tried to prevent Comrade Fallon from clarifying the political nature of the arrest. The judge refused to allow Patrolman Wilder to be questioned about the plan of the police and the Director of Robeson Campus Center, William Jones, to "get the communists". The judge tried to restrict everything to legal technicalities of the bourgeois law; on this basis the bourgeois courts can use the most arbitrary justifications to cover up the real reasons for their actions.

The judge paved the way for future fascist attacks by pretending the whole problem was the "honest mistake" of one overzealous officer, that the trespassing law was "unclear" and the judge made bold to advise the patrolman on the "proper" way to make fascist arrests in the future.

Comrade Fallon's correct and brave stand thus frustrated yet another attempt of the Rutgers administration to repress the student movement. Summing up the struggle in the publication of the Newark Student Movement, Newark Student, the communists on Rutgers-Newark campus pledged "to always maintain active resistance to the monopoly capitalist state machine in order to carry on the vital day-to-day struggles, and to work for the overthrow of the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and its replacement with the dictatorship of the proletariat". End.

[Back to Top]

MBTA Police in Boston Attempt to Suppress Revolutionary Leaflet Exposing Fascist Anti-Busing Movement

On April 28th, the Metropolitan Boston Transit Authority police, part of the monopoly capitalist state machine (government) in Boston, attacked three communists of the COUSML while they were distributing leaflets opposing the fascist anti-busing movement in Boston.

Why were these three young communists attacked by the state? What did these comrades do about the reactionary violence of the state ?

The reason why the state attacked was because COUSML, as it has always done, was among the people giving communist analysis of the problems confronting the people. In particular, on this occasion, they were among the Afro-American people at one of the transportation centers in the heart of the Afro-American community exposing who the real trouble-makers in Boston are. A major problem facing the American working class and the entire Afro-American people and all progressive people at this time is to defeat the racist and fascist anti-busing movement. In order to do so it is necessary to point out who are the organizers of this movement. The real trouble-makers are the monopoly capitalist class and its state machine who have created the conditions for this movement, furnished city counsellors, school committeemen and state representatives to lead it, and guaranteed it certain "victories" by retreating before the fascist threats of the scum who compose R.O.A.R. and the other racist anti-busing groups. The political representatives of the monopoly capitalist class have worked overtime to do this. "Liberal" Boston mayor Kevin White has acted as town booster for the racists, attempting every liberal bourgeois political deception at his command to "prove" that integration of the schools is a failure. Monopoly capitalist chieftain Gerald Ford is continually mumbling that he, too, has always been against "forced busing".

The purpose of this racist and fascist anti-busing movement is to attack the Afro-American people, as well as the entire working class. The monopoly capitalist ruling class wishes to strip the Afro-American people of all their hard-fought gains achieved through two decades of glorious struggle waged since the Montgomery bus boycott. In particular they want to turn the clock back on the process of integrating the public schools, return to "separate but equal" segregation and weaken the forward march of the entire working class toward united struggle against their class enemy. By organizing the fascist anti-busing movement the U.S. monopoly capitalist class and their state machine stir up contradictions and confusion among the people thereby making it easier to escalate their economic and political attacks on the working class, which includes using the sons and daughters of American workers, Black and white, as cannon fodder in the imperialist war they are preparing against the other imperialist superpower.

Two days before the police attacks on COUSML, close to 4000 leaflets denouncing the fascist anti-busing movement and exposing who the real trouble-makers are had been distributed in many areas of Boston and Cambridge.

(The leaflet was reproduced in the last issue of The Workers' Advocate.) This militant mass work was done on April 26th. Because of the worm response of the people COUSML decided to return to certain areas and continue the mass distribution of the same leaflet. After about 15 minutes of mass work by three comrades at the transportation center in Roxbury, right in the heart of the Afro-American "ghetto" in Boston, and while the comrades were holding brief discussions with people from the area, the MBTA police approached the comrades and told them to leave and began pushing and shoving one comrade.

How did the COUSML supporters respond to this unprovoked fascist attack? The comrade being pushed took a resolute stand and refused to be intimidated. The comrades all denounced the police and told them to move on and that the American working class had the right to read the Marxist-Leninist analysis of the fascist anti-busing movement. This simple refusal to be intimidated threw the police into utter confusion and they quickly left. After another 10 minutes of leafleting the same two MBTA police returned in a Boston Police cruiser with two reinforcements. The three supporters of COUSML had made a conscious decision to stand firm, had made their plans to defend themselves against the coming attack, and many Afro-American people and other national minority people began to gather near the area where the three stood. The COUSML supporters continued calling out militant slogans denouncing the racist and fascist anti-busing movement and more leaflets were distributed. The four police goons approached one of the comrades, Comrade Michael Campbell, and told him to leave or he would be arrested. The comrade demanded the police explain to the people why the communists were not allowed to expose the nature of the fascist anti-busing movement to the people. The four police could not utter a word and began to go into a frenzy; they lunged at the young communist and knocked his leaflets to the ground. Suddenly Afro-American youth began picking up the leaflets and started shouting to the comrade; "We're with you!", "Fight them, fight them!"

And when the four police surrounded the comrade and started physically assaulting him the comrade fought back. As the fight went on, the other comrades continued distributing the leaflet and organized a small mass democracy with the 40 or so people that gathered around. One of the comrades explained to the people why the communist was being attacked and that it is right to stand up against the monopoly capitalist state machine. As the fight went on, militant Afro-American youth darted in and out of the fighting yelling support to the comrade telling him especially to keep on fighting.

Finally, the four police managed to get the comrade on the ground and hand-cuff him at which point he took breath and shouted; "Long live the American working class, Long live the unity of the Afro-American people and the entire American working class!" More police had arrived on the scene by which time it had become amply clear that communist resistance and tit-- for-tat struggle against the state wins warm and abundant support from the people and puts the reactionary forces of the monopoly capitalist state in complete disarray. Even after the fight when Comrade Campbell had been put in a police car, Afro-American youth surrounded the car with warm smiles giving the revolutionary fist sign.

The attack on the three young comrades once again proved in front of the people that the fascist anti-busing movement is state-organized and protected and that the state will have to be opposed to defeat this fascist movement. The comrades were all greatly inspired by the militant spirit and response of the Afro-American people to their leaflet and to their method of work in doing revolutionary propaganda.

For opposing the fascist anti-busing movement, Comrade Campbell was charged with trespassing, resisting arrest and assault and battery on a police officer.

In district court, where these unjust charges were tried, the comrade held that, as a communist, the best way to handle the trial would be to defend himself rather than use a lawyer. He did not beg or bargain for a good deal and did not take the position of cowering and hoping the state would not notice our politics. Throughout the trial, he was openly communist and upheld the right to go among the masses to disseminate anti-fascist literature. By defending himself in court, the comrade was able to develop further the position taken at the time of the arrest; that the fascists have no right to attack and arrest those who are opposing racism and fascism. The comrade upheld forthrightly that he would defend himself even though the judge repeatedly warned him against it. The comrade stated, "I am a communist and I intend to defend myself."

The basic point on which the trial was conducted by the comrade was that the arrest had been made because of the content of the leaflet, because it was anti-racist and anti-fascist, and that it directly opposed and exposed the government-organized anti-busing movement. The leaflet served to clear up one or two points for the masses about the state-organized nature of the fascist anti-busing movement. The fascists' entire campaign in the anti-busing movement is based on mystifying just who are the real troublemakers and, thereby, they create maximum conditions for sections of the working class to fight each other. During the trial the comrade staunchly upheld that the arrest had been entirely arbitrary and was based on the police knowing full well that the content of the leaflet was, as the police put it at the arraignment, "pro-busing".

The testimony of the police was put forward in the most deceitful and sniveling manner; how the comrade had "lunged" at him and "struck!' him. The comrade asked him to explain why in all the previous hours of leafleting the communists had not "lunged at" or "struck" anyone and yet chose him. He had no answer for this and simply moaned further about his "broken glasses".

Also during the trial the attorney for the state attempted to oppose the point that the content of the leaflet was a decisive factor in the attack. He jumped up, attempting to discredit the comrade's testimony, and argued that the police were making the arrest simply for trespassing and had no knowledge of the content of the leaflet. We have only to look back on the crowd on the day of the arrest. The masses fully supported the comrade and his fighting spirit against the fascists and fully opposed the police and their response to the fight had been to rush to pick up the spilled leaflets from the ground, many of which were wet and soiled, in order to read the content. It was completely clear to the masses that there must be something in the leaflet which would cause the police to act so viciously and they wanted to see it! It was this content, a vigorous denunciation of the government-organized fascist anti-busing movement, that was the key factor to the support of the masses for the comrades and also explains the arrest.

The trial ended with the court legalizing the terrorist police attack on Comrade Campbell by finding him guilty of one charge, "trespassing", and fining him $100. This further exposed how the police and courts grant all privileges to the open reactionaries to organize, spread racist propaganda and go on pogroms against the Afro-American people, while concocting one arbitrary rule and regulation after another to justify fascist suppression of the resistance of the broad masses and particularly of the exposure of the fascist and state-organized nature of the anti- busing movement. The comrades of the Boston Branch of the COUSML pledged themselves to continue their struggle to make analysis of this anti-people movement and to disseminate this analysis militantly until all the liberal mystifications and confusions disappear and the fascist anti-busing movement, directly organized by the state, is thoroughly smashed up and destroyed. End.

[Back to Top]

Correspondence

April 8, 1976

Comrades,

You are to be applauded loudly for the March 15 issue of The Workers' Advocate, it is excellent. After reading the continued coverage by the Advocate on the heroic struggle of the Angolan people and all of Africa, we here can no longer stomach the lies and slanders of such revisionists as the Guardian. Wilfred Burchett's sensationalism in regard to UNITA shows that he in no way is a Marxist. There has not been one ounce of Marxism in their coverage.

We look forward to the next issue of the Workers' Advocate.

Comradely, (name withheld) Spokane, Wa.

June 10, 1976

Comrades,

Your UNITA supplement was very helpful--

I am engaged in struggle with comrades here over Angola, the nature and role of the Soviet Union, and China's foreign policy. Your militant communist spirit is excellent! I enclose $3 for a 1-year subscription to Workers' Advocate.

Solidarity,

(name with-held)

SF, CA.

Down with the new Tsars!

Defend the victories of the past decade!

The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution will Shine forever!

Long Live Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought!

(The following article was submitted by a subscriber to Workers' Advocate)

On May the 9th 1976, local reactionaries, of the Eagle Bay, Moss Lake area N. Y., staged a racist demonstration against the Native People, who had come to reclaim land which was rightfully theirs by a 1794 treaty with the U.S. Government. It was led by a fascist group calling itself "The Concerned Persons of the Central Adirondacks".

Also sponsoring the demonstration were various New York State politicians: State Senator James H. Donovan, Assemblyman William R. Sears and a hotel and restaurant owner, Doug Bennett. These local reactionaries want the Native People evicted, and claim to be doing it in the best "interests" of the local residents. These cold blooded fascists used the local residents as cannon fodder for the demonstration, and were trying to pit the Native People and local residents against each other. The bourgeois press gave it lots of coverage.

Racist and demagogic statements were made referring to the Native People as "renegades" by fascist criminals like Assemblyman William R. Sears. It's no other (but) he who is one! The racist also carried placards quoting hypocritical statements saying: "Justice for All", "One Way Law", "Where is 'Equal Law'".

In 1794 a treaty was signed between the Six Nation Confederacy (Iroquois) and the U.S. Government guaranteeing the Native People this land called Genienkeh (Land of the Flint). Through deception and trickery New York State stole this land away from them; where is "Justice for All" here? By the beginning of the 19th century, New York State stole all this away from them; where is "equal law" here? Isn't all this too "one way law" ? If so then what are these racists demonstrating for in the first place!

Over the years this area was used as a girl scout camp, until the state bought it in 1973. On May 13th 1974, the Mohawk people came from Canada to reclaim it. It is sacred land to the Native People, and was not owned (by) or causing any harm to the local residents. The bourgeois press preached propaganda against the Native People being there, and fascists like the John Birch Society, and off-duty state police carried out acts of hostility against them e.g. shootings etc. In one incident, a man with his daughter went up near Genienkeh, in his car, and fired into their encampment. The Native People retaliated, and fired back; the girl was hit, and wounded. The bourgeois press lied and cheated by saying that the Native People fired at him as he was passing Genienkeh. As it was later found out, this man was an off-duty state trooper hired by fascist thugs for this purpose.

The struggle of the Native People to reclaim their land at Genienkeh is the same struggle of Native People, nation wide, in Canada and Latin America doing the same thing.

It's identical to the struggle now being waged by 2nd and 3rd world countries against superpower hegemony.

Local reactionaries, like State Senator Donovan, Assemblyman Sears and Doug Bennett, are only picking up a stone only to drop it on one's foot; if they persist in it any longer, they'll come to a no good end.

People want revolution; countries want liberation, including Genienkeh. This is an irreversible trend.

Long Live Genienkeh!

Smash All Reactionary Schemes of the State to Evict Them!

Dump All Reactionaries Like Donovan, Sears, Bennett and So-Called "Concerned Persons of the Central Adirondacks" Into the Garbage Can of History!

[Back to Top]

UNITA U.N. OBSERVER ADDRESSES AFRICAN LIBERATION DAY RALLIES IN SEATTLE AND BUFFALO

[Photo: Comrade J.K. Chitunda, UNITA's U.N. observer, is welcomed to African Liberation Day celebration in Seattle May 29.]

Today Angola is a pathfinder for all Africa. The Angolan people, having defeated the U.S. imperialist-backed Portuguese colonialists, are now fighting on heroically in the SECOND ANTICOLONIAL WAR OF THE ANGOLAN PEOPLE -- this time against Soviet social-imperialism and the Soviet-Cuban army of occupation. Angola may have the honor of being the first country to defeat the armed forces of both superpowers and their lackeys on the battlefield. This will be a momentous milestone in the world proletarian socialist revolution. The struggle of the Angolan people is a powerful deterrent to the war preparations of the two superpowers, a great force for the liberation of all of southern Africa, and a mighty assistance to the revolutionary struggle of the people in the U.S.

In the U.S. today the revisionists, hidden and open, are using slanders and sensational but empty charges concocted by the KGB rumor-mills in order to split the solidarity of the Angolan and American people. The revisionists are doing this at the behest of their Soviet social-imperialist masters and they are assisted by the lying Western bourgeois press. UNITA, which is leading the national liberation struggle of the Angolan people and which stands opposed to both superpowers and all imperialism, naturally is taking the brunt of this propaganda. But sooner or later the truth is bound to emerge and the American people will not easily forget about those opportunists that consciously sought to mislead them.

This year Comrade J.K. Chitunda, UNITA's observer at the U.N., received very warm invitations to speak at African Liberation Day celebrations in Seattle, Washington and Buffalo, New York, where he addressed over 70 people, and 50 people, respectively. Below we reprint a partial verbatim text of the well-received speech given by Comrade Chitunda to the African Liberation Day celebration in Seattle on May 29,1976.

SPEECH BY COMRADE J.K. Chitunda, UNITA'S OBSERVER TO THE UNITED NATIONS, DELIVERED IN SEATTLE MAY 29.

I thank you very much, comrades and friends, for your very warm invitation to us to be here. Tonight, I am very happy with the very warm welcome you all gave me, for it is not very usual for us of UNITA these days to find such friendly warm faces. So I am indeed quite refreshed. I thank very specifically the comrades of COUSML and of Afro-Asian Latin American People's Solidarity Forum for this invitation. In fact, we have been grateful for this type of solidarity for quite some time now. COUSML, Afro-Asian-Latin American People's Solidarity Forum, and CPC(M-L) (the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) ), these organizations have comforted us several times with a solidarity that is really invigorating in these troubled days. I was very happy to hear the first speakers. Most of them have already summed up what we are all here about, what kind of day is this. But I would like to refer, before anything else to the message of my sister comrade, the Afro-American who spoke, because of the magnitude, because of this significance of the Afro-American people in our understanding of Pan-Africanism since we know quite well it was Black America that gave birth to Pan Africanism itself and for us of UNITA the Black American community has a lot of significance because, way back in the early '70's, the media was trying all the time to suppress the facts about the armed struggle in Angola against Portuguese colonialism, about the presence of UNITA in the bush, about the guerrilla warfare of UNITA. When UNITA was being condemned as a non-existent entity, it was Black America that for the first time sent out representatives to find out for themselves what was going on in Angola, how were the Angolanpeople fighting against Portuguese colonialism. These representatives from the various communities, sent delegates and they found out for themselves, and struggle by UNITA and from that time on more facts came to the surface, more people tried to follow up and we were all very happy. The contribution of Black Americans to the progress and development of Africa is great and much more is expected from them and they are part of this overall process.

These days we have been celebrating African Liberation Day. It is a glorious occasion for the African and friend of the African, as we assess together Africa's past achievements in her struggle against colonial domination as well as Africa's continuing struggle against neocolonialism, imperialism, social-imperialism and all other forms of man by man exploitation, material poverty and disease, in search for progress with socialism. Indeed, impressive and dramatic victories over colonialism in Africa have been achieved, as some speakers have already referred to. Comrade Paul made clear references to Africa's past achievements over colonialism and this will soon be complemented with the impending victories of the African peoples of Zimbabwe, Namibia and finally of Azania, and colonialism will finally be wiped out in Africa. But the enormity of the task that still lies ahead for Africa is such that it becomes practically inopportune to bask now in the glories of victories over colonialism. The struggle ahead against imperialism, social-imperialism and neo-colonialism must be waged courageously, determinedly and intelligently. Africans and friends of the Africans alike, African national liberation organizations as well as Africa liberation support committees should therefore take this occasion of Africa Liberation Day to review their programs and positions with respect to the continuing struggle in Africa to avoid relaxation of vigilance and combativeness at Africa's crucial historic moment.

The continuing struggle in southern Africa is part and parcel of the struggle of the oppressed peoples the world over yearning to breathe free. For no nation is truly free until Zimbabwe, Namibia and Azania are free and there is no more exploitative racism on the face of the earth; and no nation is securely socialist and progressive, until there are no more imperialist and social-imperialist expeditionary armies scattered around the world to occupy, plunder and devastate other countries. Armed struggle was essential for the Vietnamese and Cambodian peoples against U.S. (and Soviet) aggression, but the solidarity of all anti-imperialist, anti-social- imperialist and peace-loving peoples was a necessary catalyst that wore out the enemy in his various manifestations around the world.

The people of Angola, under the leadership of UNITA in their continuing struggles against imperialism and social-imperialism, are very proud to be a part and parcel of this dialectical relationship in the glorious task of building a better world for men and women.

The case of Angola is unique in today's Africa and world; the role played by the imperialist superpowers and opportunists in Angola has been uniquely devastating; and UNITA's predicaments in its revolutionary duty in Angola have been enormous. We therefore would like to take this occasion to review with you the setbacks and progress in the Angolan revolutionary struggle.

Naturally, there have been twists and turns, victories and losses, setbacks and progress.

But to us of UNITA these are all viewed as tactical, temporary losses of a battle or battles, and definitely not of the WAR. For in any earnest revolutionary struggle, temporary defeats and temporary victories are ultimately of equal value: both enrich the revolutionary experience; both help to temper the attitude and sharpen the farsightedness of the vanguard; both help to weed out the opportunist muddle-heads who switch allegiance to whichever side appears to win a battle; both help to sharpen the class consciousness and hasten the transformation of the individual and of the society; and both add meaning to the final victory of the oppressed and exploited classes.

In reviewing the evolution of the revolutionary process in Angola -- and we believe there is nothing contradictory about "evolution" of a "revolution" -- we must consider several points:

Number one: the wars of occupation and colonialism. In 1492 the Portuguese set foot for the first time on what was to become Angola. It all happened at the moment the Portuguese navigator Diogo Cao set foot on the territory of the ancient Congo Kingdom in northern Angola and erected a landmark claiming the land to the king of Portugal. However, in the three intervening centuries, the Portuguese settlers confined themselves mostly to coastal trading posts where they thrived in slave trade, until the 18th century when they massively started venturing out into the interior to expand trade, occupy land and settle. These newcomers, the Portuguese, were humiliatingly arrogant and displayed utter disrespect for the indigenous people and culture. They became resented, unwanted and resisted. Thus the so-called Wars of Occupation began and lasted more than two decades, or until 1913 when the last tribe surrendered to the invaders' military superiority.

Portugal's colonialism in Angola, therefore, historically started in 1492. Officially, perhaps colonialism started only after the 1882 Berlin Conference in which the European powers partitioned Africa among themselves, and Portugal was then allowed to carve out her oversize chunks of Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau and the islands of Sao Tome and Principe and Cape Verde. But colonialism was effectively imposed and consolidated only in the early 1900's in the aftermath of Portugal's victory in the Wars of Occupation.

Colonialism was, therefore, a virtual military occupation, later on crystallized in all forms of politico-socio-economic abuses by Portugal.

The second point is the emergence of nationalism. In retrospect, until the Berlin Conference of the Partition of Africa, Angola did not exist as such. There were, instead, relatively vast sovereign kingdoms, some of which were allied with one another by tradition or treaty.

In fighting the Wars of Occupation, each kingdom fought separately, though often military alliances of neighboring kingdoms were formed.

It is also true that the indigenous peoples fought simply to preserve the territorial integrity of their kingdoms as well as their material wealth and cultural values. They fought to maintain the status quo. It was a war of resistance to the invader or to change. It was not an Angolan national liberation struggle. Not yet.

Soon, however, Angola emerged as a Nation, by a natural evolution of various politico-socio-historical facts which included: (a) the general cultural identity of the people; (b) the unification of the people by the common predicaments under colonial rule; (c) the acceptance of the territorial lines demarcated by the colonialists; (d) the acceptance of the Portuguese language and assimilation of certain Portuguese cultural values; (e) the birth and spread of Pan-Africanism emphasizing the cultural, historical and social oneness of the African peoples as well as their common destiny; and (f) the triggering into action of the already ripe people's desire to rid themselves of colonial oppression and live as a free independent nation.

The third point is the national liberation and the progressive revolutionary struggle in Angola. Since 1961 when the armed struggle against colonialism started, FNLA, MPLA and UNITA emerged and stepped forward to organize and lead the people in their struggle for independence.

These are nationalist organizations of patriotic people committed primarily to defeating colonialism and achieving independence.

In fact, in the beginning of this national liberation struggle, it appeared, at least for the general public, irrelevant for the general public to ponder whether a capitalist or socialist state should be born on the date of the proclamation of independence. The enemy was the colonialist. We should understand that the psychology of the oppressed, when it is not illuminated by Marx' scientific approach of class struggle, reveals that in general the oppressed will internalize the oppressor; in other words, the oppressed people will yearn and wish to be like his oppressor: powerful, bossy, unchallengeable, rich, leisurely, with plenty of people around for him to brutalize, dehumanize and emasculate at will; to the oppressed, these hallucinatory splendors which the oppressor obtains through a totally unjust politico-economic system may yet symbolize what "good life" should look like. To the unenlightened oppressed, therefore, the illusory good life the oppressor enjoyed from his rotten politico-economic philosophy and institutions was something to be envied, and not despised; something to strive for, and not to repudiate.

And the attainment of independence would therefore mean the taking over -- and not the smashing -- of these decadent colonial systems; it would bring a chance to revenge rather than to change for a better life.

It was therefore necessary, in the course of the armed struggle, to raise the national consciousness to perceive to a greater depth the causes and nature of social misery as perpetrated by colonialism. It was a fundamental duty of the leaders and cadres to analyze thoroughly the various contradictions involved, explaining them to the masses and formulating the guiding principles and objectives for the national struggle.

It meant to carry out a systematic, progressive revolutionary struggle which could not necessarily end on the day of the defeat of colonialism, but would have to continue until total individual and sociological transformation is achieved for lasting peace and freedom. This is the way UNITA understood the meaning and necessity of a progressive revolutionary struggle.

I will elaborate this by going into point 4, which I call: meeting Angola's specific conditions in order to carry out successfully, objectively, Angola's revolution. When UNITA held its first Congress in March 1966, the general situation was analyzed as follows:

1. Angola has its specific conditions which include:

a) a society numerically predominated by the classes of peasants and workers who are Black and make up 85% of the population, but politically and economically by the class of the whites and mulatto who make up 12% of the population, plus a small class of Black bourgeois and intellectuals comprising less than 1% of the population;

b) complete lack of manufacturing industry in the countryside, and the predominance of a primitive style agrarian economy;

c) the high illiteracy level of 90% and an overwhelmingly illiterate peasantry;

d) the atrocious, oppressive rule of a foreign minority;

e) the ethnic diversity (which has already been extensively exploited by the enemy to divide and weaken the people);

f) the significance of the Catholic and Protestant backgrounds of most intellectuals;

g) the existence of two other antagonistic national liberation movements already operating in the country;

h) the presence of a formidable vast network of the colonial secret service (PIDE) infiltrating and undermining the morale of every social echelon, village or group;

I) the geopolitics of the region, i. e., the significance of having neighboring independent African countries across the border;

j) a fairly favorable terrain for guerrilla warfare in rural areas.

2. The enemy are very powerful -- the Portuguese are not alone: they are backed by the powerful NATO as well as by the white minority governments of South Africa and Rhodesia. The enemy are united and powerful; we should therefore strive to train and unite our people as fundamental to our strength in a war which may last a long, long time.

3. The struggle must be carried out by the people and with the people, and completely from within the country. We must therefore resolve expeditiously: the hard problems of illiteracy, health and hygiene by setting up clinics and schools; cultivate the land to ensure adequate food supplies; organize the people's militia for village self-defense; intensify political education to enlighten the masses on our national objectives, goals and methods of struggle; institutionalize criticism and self-criticism to make everyone feel responsible for the collective welfare. We should not count on outside help.

4. We must lead the people into a number of military victories without much delay; this will bolster their confidence in themselves and make them believe that with courage, determination and a few weapons they can prove that the mighty colonial armed forces are indeed "paper tiger".

5. It is understood that peace and progress in a free Angola will not be achieved by building upon a colonial-style man-by-man exploitation system. There would be a government that could plan scientifically the national socio-economic development, training and organizing the people to produce effectively, collectively and abundantly. A just government will have to allow and motivate every citizen to produce at his ability and capacity, while providing every citizen with the essentials for his comfort, happiness and collective social decency. The most oppressed and most exploited classes -- the peasants and workers -- ought to rise and become the dominant political force in a collective leadership fashion. Education would have to cease being a privilege of a few and become the right of every citizen.

6. The Party must strengthen itself systematically and determinedly, lest we perish before the basis of socialism is created. Every state being a weapon of class struggle -- a machine by means of which one class imposes itself upon other classes -- let the state of independent Angola become a weapon of the hitherto oppressed and exploited peasants and workers who must seek not revenge but the power to transform man and the society for justice, equality, and prosperity.

In formulating UNITA's principles, policies and programs, the founding members were guided by the experience and revolutionary theories brilliantly espoused by contemporary thinkers and fighters like Mao Tsetung, Ho Chi Minh, Che Guevara and others. Due to Angola's specific conditions, naturally any policy or program had to be almost an entirely new creation to be tried and tested by practice in Angola.

The fifth point is what I call false ideological cloaks. FNLA, MPLA, and UNITA had different understanding and clarity on Angola's internal and external contradictions, class character, class historical role, class basis as well as methods of struggle. Accordingly, the three liberation movements developed different revolutionary postures.

It is immaterial to ask which of the three appears to benefit most from the application of the principles of Marxism-Leninism, for we always sought unity and reconciliation, hoping the people to make the ultimate judgment.

Unfortunately, this is a world ridden of political deception and demagoguery. Krushchov used to extoll the achievements of U.S. capitalism by calling it "the Communism of the American ways of life". Such "communism" or "socialism" is false, and it is simply another name of capitalism. It is a skillful bourgeois way of advertising to the socialist and communist audiences. In ridiculing such revisionist utterances of Marxism to cover up a reactionary motive, Lenin said: "Wherever Marxism is popular among the workers and peasants, a bourgeois labor party will swear by the name of Marx. It cannot be prohibited, just as a trading firm cannot be prohibited from adopting any particular label for its advertising purposes..."

But all oppressed peoples of the world can readily grasp the simple but profound scientific teachings of Marx, Lenin and Chairman Mao. Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought can rapidly become popular among the oppressed. And like emperor Constantine who artfully adopted the Cross as his symbol in order to enable himself to manage the wide spreading Christian masses, so has it become fashionable nowadays to hear so many bourgeois and fascist politicians quoting profusely Marx and Lenin to confuse, mislead and subdue the struggling masses, or to win support from progressive countries.

However, once in power, these bourgeois elites, disguised as Marxists, can certainly retain or restore their class privileges in detriment to the peasants and workers.

This has been Angola's experience with MPLA.

Today there are repressions of all kinds in Angola by the installed, widely-recognized government in Luanda. No freedom is allowed for the expression of the people. The workers have been demonstrating already for the betterment of their conditions of life; they have been intimidated, put in jails, there have been executions. UNITA was banned (put that in quotes) by the MPLA; the nerve of those people! And that same arrogance continues, that we used to see among the Portuguese rulers, has come right back to life. The people are once again frightened; the people are once again faced with fascism. In the name of what? Wouldn't you say that those people are there, showing hammers and sickles on their chest and something else in their hearts, and they ought to get killed just the same? (applause)

And what is it that has characterized most of UNITA's predicaments during the previous phase of the civil war? We know how the whole thing has evolved about South Africa. No profound understanding has been searched by the world regarding the issue of South African involvement in Angola and we see that concealed in this drama, these ordeals, is a test of sorts for all humanity. South Africa came into Angola in July for the first time, at a time when the three liberation movements were guarding the Cunene Dam in southern Angola. The dam site was previously guarded by Portuguese troops.

The Portuguese were withdrawing according to the plan for de-colonization. The transitional government, by unanimous approval of the three liberation movements, had decided to dispatch to the area an integrated contingent of troops which included troops of UNITA, the FNLA and MPLA and a unified command in order to protect the dam site. In the meantime, the civil war, the civil conflict had already become generalized and before anyone knew it, those troops, those integrated soldiers at the dam site, started fighting among themselves. Instead of safeguarding the dam site, it became a hazard. This is a $400 million project and most of this capital is South Africa's. This is the time, of course, when South Africa entered in full in the Cunene Dam area, fought vigorously against the forces of the three liberation movements, and South Africa won. MPLA withdrew its troops, FNLA withdrew its troops, UNITA withdrew its troops. No one could put up to South Africa's invasion at that time. South Africa came and occupied that dam site and part of that province of Cunene. Did the media make any big thing out of that? Silent, everybody was quiet about it, though humiliated by the defeat by South African armed forces. And a little while later the entire province had been declared a no-man's land, because it did not belong to UNITA, did not belong to MPLA, nor to FNLA. By August UNITA had become involved in the civil war as a means of resistance to the very intensified rate of aggression by the MPLA. We had already been expelled from Luanda, but there was aggression everywhere, there was hostilities everywhere. The people were becoming quite disenchanted, so UNITA had no choice but to of course get involved in the civil war. In August, when UNITA fought against MPLA positions in Luso, the Cubans and Katanganese soldiers were already there on the Angolan soil. When we fought in Benguela, the Cubans and Katanganese were already there. Cubans were the first foreign interventionists, the first force to come onto Angolan soil. There were already more than 4000 at that time. The situation became mystified because by October there was a more obvious involvement of South African regular forces which had crossed all the way from the border up north, hitting at certain positions of the MPLA and Cuban expeditionary forces. Now the question is, what was the purpose of these South African forces in Angola? Certainly not to defeat 15,000 Cuban troops, certainly not to resist the highly sophisticated military presence of the Soviet Union in our country. I think just a little bit of analysis in this situation would have revealed quite clearly that South Africa would not have come into Angola to help UNITA.

Under what conditions could South Africa dispatch its forces to Angola to attack UNITA? Because UNITA's forces were few, ill-equipped and it was potentially possible at that time in Angola for UNITA to go to war with just about a whole array of groups and factions inside the country. UNITA at that time, even though neutral, already saw the guns of the MPLA, of the Cubans, of the FNLA, of the Katanganese pointed to her. Everyone was ready to wage war against UNITA. Then came South Africa on the scene. It wouldn't have taken much, just one little mistake by UNITA would have been enough for South Africa to wipe out UNITA, because that may have been the purpose, as the stories being told now reveal more and more clearly, by the organizers of this whole conspiracy. …

Now, South African forces withdrew, a pact was signed between MPLA and South Africa on March 26th. United Kingdom and the Soviet Union mediated, and according to the pact, in exchange for political recognition of South Africa, MPLA would protect South Africa's economic interests in Angola, namely the Cunene Dam and diamond mines. MPLA would safeguard the border and see to it that no subversive elements would cross the border and attack South Africa which is tantamount to MPLA recognition of South African sovereignty in Namibia. There was no uproar. A few journalists commented on it when they published these facts about the pact, but the world maintained itself silent about it. There was nobody there to denounce MPLA for signing such a pact of friendship with South Africa, betraying the revolution, betraying the Namibian people. Things are pretty much quiet because that is what everybody else has wanted. And today the Cunene dam is being patrolled jointly by Cuban and South African forces in the Cunene Province. You do not read about it in the paper because no one has the courage to denounce a "progressive" pro-Soviet organization.

Cuban and South African forces are patrolling together the Cunene Dam site, smoking together, drinking together and hunting together for the so-called "rebels" in the southern part of Angola. No journalist can go there and take pictures of the site, and even if they did it would not be believed. So we see that what the Soviet Union projects, what the Soviet Union wants to do with the so-called progressive world, that is what is going to prevail. It is becoming very fashionable today throughout the world for every petty dictator, tyrant, fascist, no matter how cruel he is or unpopular, as head of state he may insure himself, shield himself against criticism by simply leaning to the Soviet Union, by simply going to get his guns and money from the Soviet Union. If Idi Amin gets all his airplanes from the Soviet Union, who talks about him being a buffoon, this or that? But if he breaks relations with the Soviet Union, he is projected in all the western media as a clown, on his knees or that and so on. Macias Nguema of Equatorial Guinea, another dictator, and many others, throughout, are embarking on fascist policies and rules, but they are not denounced. So I think that a great deal will have to depend on a much broader initiative of the people, the masses, because what is called social-imperialism, what is called sickle and hammer on the chest and fascism in the heart, these are real things.

It is a dreadful reality the people are suffering from, something that is tearing the fabric of solidarity groups. Countries have been tom apart, brother and sister, sister and sister have been divided, the whole world has been tom into groups.

Now it is probably possible to say that it is just a question of opportunism, but there have been so many who have been innocently opportunistic about the situation. Because they are simply being completely mislead and used, they are being had. Our struggle will continue. Consider this just a facet. Rougher days may yet come for UNITA. And I would like to refer to the sixth point, which is the question of the Civil War in Angola.

The victorious end of colonialism in Angola was celebrated amidst an already full-blown bloody civil war fanned by the superpowers and international conspirators who wished to "fill the vacuum" left by the departed Portuguese exploiters. The characteristic quest of the superpowers for world hegemony found a perfect arena in Angola where there were already one long time client liberation movement for each superpower. (UNITA's conditions and methods of struggle precluded all along the possibility of collusion with the superpowers). It is, however, obvious that this calamity must be imputed directly to the Soviet Union.

We saw, in Angola how the weapons started coming in massively. I was a member of the ill-fated transitional government. Days and days were spent trying to intercept those airplanes and ships that were bringing in loads of weapons for the MPLA. All of this to no avail. This at a time when the transitional government was functioning, when the possibility of civil war was being completely discounted.

When the Alvor Agreement was very much in force, weapons were coming in day and night.

In January 1975, at the Alvor Conference, which was celebrated in Portugal by FNLA, MPLA, UNITA and Portugal herself, it had been agreed that the instruments of Angola's sovereignty would be transferred to an elected government in which the three liberation movements would participate proportionately to their respective strength polled from general elections set for October 1975, that is, prior to the proclamation of independence on November 11, 1975. However, a preliminary survey made in March 1975 by the Portuguese armed forces revealed a popular support of 45% for UNITA, 20% for FNLA and 15% for MPLA. Now needless to say this procedure, these surveys were again taken in April and May, also in June, they varied from month to month. For instance, in April UNITA had gone up to 55%, FNLA had remained at 20%, MPLA had gone up to 20%. In May, the situation had changed. UNITA had come down from 55% to 50%, MPLA had gone up to 25%, and FNLA had remained at 20%. This also followed the trend of armed confrontation going on inside the country. For instance, in March, when everything was relatively quiet, the polls were 55-20 and 15 for UNITA, FNLA, and MPLA respectively. In April, when armed confrontation was already one month old between FNLA and MPLA, what do we see? UNITA was not involved, but intensifying its campaigns for peace, reconciliation and stability. The people liked this very much. UNITA's popular support had gone up. It is also understood that MPLA was having some relative success during this confrontation with FNLA, FNLA was losing so her popularity had gone down. In May, the same thing happened.

The population was becoming very impatient with UNITA's non-involvement in the armed confrontation and we can see this reflected in the polls, from 55 to 50%. But what I am trying to say here is that throughout these preliminary surveys, UNITA's popular strength was always more than MPLA's and FNLA's strength put together.

It was therefore sensed that if elections were held, MPLA would come out the sure loser. This is the time when the intensification of the civil war became more apparent, more weapons are coming in, it was all very incredible and thus we see that the Soviet Union moved in very swiftly to shape and impose a military solution on the Angolan people.

Russia amassed 15,000 troops from Cuba and 5,000 from other countries, along with vast quantities of highly sophisticated military equipment including 122mm rockets, SA-7 missiles, modem tanks, warships, helicopters and MIG aircraft bombers. Thus the Soviet Union plunged Angola into the civil war, luring other nefarious foreign interventionists into the arena of confrontation. In retrospect, it now appears clear that all such interventionists danced to the Soviet tune, from Pretoria to Havana, from Washington to Moscow.

Last February, unable to resist the Soviet-Cuban military superiority by means of regular, positional warfare methods, and having suffered heavily from the treacherous United States intervention, and general western media, world media, the massive slanders, accusations, of UNITA collaborating with South Africa. CIA involvement was a very fashionable thing that all journalists were preying on. Mercenary recruitment in the United States and all these issues, which, as much as we tried to respond by giving a detailed account of where UNITA was, did not gain any publicity by the media. So, at a time when UNITA faced all of these frustrations, we had to withdraw from the cities into the bush to reorganize and resume a combination of guerrilla and mobile warfare. Having reorganized and resumed the struggle, UNITA continues shouldering proudly the glorious responsibility of leading the people1 s struggle until final victory.

Today the growing intensity of the struggle has compelled the Cuban mercenary troops to confine themselves to the relative safety of the larger towns. Cubans don't venture out into the countryside where the village militia render the land untrespassable. Of course the Soviet MiG's are now back into action, bombing and devastating villages. The fighting is carried out almost exclusively by Cubans; it is Castro's and Brezhnev's war, and nobody else's.

Recently it has been stated that Castro is going to withdraw his troops. Some reports say he intends to withdraw them at a rate of 200 men per week, which means it will take three years to withdraw the 30,000-man Cuban army, while other reporters say he intends to withdraw them all by this year's end. We think the information is deliberately inconsistent and misleading because it is a hoax. But if they indeed intend to get out of Angola, we think they had better get out fast, otherwise they'll get back home in coffins... (applause) I say this seriously, unless the withdrawal is complemented by a responsible attitude of the international community to encourage and help to bring a just, representative government which can unify the country and the people, it will be like putting out the fire after the house is burnt; the purpose of the Cuban forces in Angola was to install by force a puppet government for the Soviet Union; the massive military presence of Russia/Cuba in Angola changed what was called a civil conflict into an outright aggression which we could not resist. The international community approved the Soviet-Cuban action by recognizing the MPLA puppet government. This puppet government, due to its obvious unpopularity in the country, has now embarked on brutal repression, intimidation and terror against the masses suspect of sympathizing with UNITA.

There are mass arrests and executions, as I have referred to before, pure fascism, and the situation is no less unlivable than that under Portuguese colonialism. Talk about withdrawal is therefore irrelevant, without talking about the creation of a legitimate government. This is the issue, not the withdrawal of Cuban troops alone. After all, with the kind of twists and turns the Angolan revolution has known, it would not be surprising, and also by the kind of rapprochement, reconciliation, friendliness, perhaps the fruits of detente, where we see Moscow and Washington come closer and closer on Angola.

It was Secretary of State Kissinger who said that if Cubans were withdrawn the U.S. would consider recognition of the MPLA government and also aid. If Moscow wants to get some load off its back of supporting the MPLA government, Moscow can quite readily encourage the MPLA government to maybe put up a ploy of some kind, or perhaps get rid of a few Cubans just so as to get U.S. recognition and U.S. aid. And with that kind of a thing of the two superpowers conspiring, it would not be surprising if we saw the Cuban troops withdrawn only to be replaced immediately by American GI's to protect that very same faction, the MPLA. Because we see the kind of agreements that are possible in Angola. Let the Soviets have the monopoly, hegemony, over Angola's military strategic area and Angola's politics, and let the U.S. have the hegemony over Angola's economics. Gulf Oil is already there to set the pace and pave the way and everything is possible.

The international community must understand that nobody, no politician and nothing can wipe UNITA out of the people of Angola, and no government can function unless it fully includes UNITA as UNITA.

I would like to briefly refer to some of the characteristics, some conditions under which UNITA is fighting today.

1) The new guerrilla war tactics have been enriched by the experience acquired from the six-month conventional warfare. This permits greater flexibility in combining guerrilla with mobile warfare.

2) The enormous Party growth in popular support registered during 1975 is glorifying but also brought along tougher challenges to this phase of the struggle: (a) the Party now operates over an area ten times the liberated area of the anti-colonial war days, which poses logistical, communications and transportation problems; (b) the army is five times that used in anti-colonial war, which means that most of the present guerrillas have never fought guerrilla warfare before; (c) the political cadres include those who had less than one year of solid exposure to the Party policies, structure and discipline. All of these problems are solvable of course, but they must be appreciated because they affect our revolutionary struggle.

3) The peasant-worker base of support has become vaster, stronger and more committed, transforming the entire countryside into untrespassable ground to the enemy. In fact, very brave, very courageous, very successful military activities are being undertaken by the village militia, by men and women, by children, in tracking Cubans everywhere and they do not want to go into the countryside. This is a very glorious achievement.

4) The struggle is being waged against foreign forces of occupation which have promoted to power a puppet government. This strongly unites the people behind UNITA; but, unlike the Portuguese colonial army, the Soviet/Cuban armed forces of occupation, by means of political and ideological deception, have not been condemned by the international community. On the other hand, the recognition of the puppet government of MPLA by many countries further isolates treacherously the struggling Angolan people.

5) The Soviet social-imperialists, posing as "friends of the African people", have undermined and poisoned much of the international solidarity groups of the oppressed. And all of these problems are historically important in allowing us to sharpen and understand better the intricacy of the situation in which we are fighting.

I think this is what I had to tell you and I thank you very much for your attention, (long applause)

(slogans led by Committee for African Liberation Day):

LONG LIVE THE SECOND ANTI-COLONIAL WAR OF THE ANGOLAN PEOPLE!

DOWN WITH THE INTERVENTION OF THE SOVIET/CUBAN AGGRESSOR TROOPS!

LONG LIVE UNITA!

LONG LIVE JONAS SAVIMBI!

HAIL AFRICA LIBERATION DAY 1976!

U.S. IMPERIALISM AND SOVIET SOCIAL-IMPERIALISM--GET OUT OF AFRICA!

VICTORY TO THE NATIONAL LIBERATION STRUGGLES!

DEATH TO INTERNATIONAL OPPORTUNISM!

LONG LIVE THE MILITANT SOLIDARITY BETWEEN THE AFRICAN AND AMERICAN PEOPLES! End.

[Back to Top]