Reagan on collision course with workers -PAGE 10

NOVEMBER 28, 1980 60 CENTS VOLUME 44/NUMBER 44

A SOCIALIST NEWSWEEKLY/PUBLISHED IN THE INTERESTS OF THE WORKING PEOPLE

Nat'l Black convention can The following statement was issued November 19 by Andrew Pulley. Pulley, a Chicago steelworker, was the 1980 Socialist Workers Party candidate for presi­ dent of the United States.

A license to kill. That's what the November 17 verdict in North Carolina has given the Klan, Nazis, and other right-wing terrorists. Four Klansmen and two Nazis were acquitted of all charges in the murders of five Communist Workers Party members at an anti-Klan demonstration last November. As Black leaders across the country are pointing out, ultra­ rightists have been given a green light to assassinate any who oppose what the KKK-Nazi bigots stand for. The time has come for mass action to end such atrocities. Working people should demonstrate across the country to protest this outrage. The North Carolina verdict follows a nationwide pattern of unchecked right-wing terror. Black people have been the prime targets. In Miami, the cop-killers of Arthur McDuffie got off scot­ Thousands marched in Greensboro last February. More pro­ free. Continued on page 6 tests needed now. March 16 trial date set in socialist suit against FBI crimes Capitalist justice. The meaning of these the tables on the FBI and its hired guns-to these operations has been FBI incitement of words was driven home November 17 when six put them on trial, not us. rightist groups and cover-up of their violent racist killers walked away free from the With this issue of the Militant, the SWP and activities. Greensboro, North Carolina, courtroom. Mean­ YSA are launching a national campaign to get In the wake of the Greensboro whitewash while, civil rights activists who survived the out the facts of our case. and the nationwide terror directed at Blacks, murderous Klan-Nazi assault last year still This lawsuit, filed seven years ago, is asking the March 16 trial will be a powerful weapon face trial. $40 million in damages and an end to decades for exposing the ties between racist assassins, But on March 16, 1981, the racist, anti- of spying, burglaries, frame-ups, deportation local police, and the federal government. orders, and other crimes against socialists by It will also be a major challenge to the new the U.S. government. Leonard Boudin, the Reagan administration and its arrogant foremost constitutional rights attorney in the threats against busing, affirmative-action quo­ country, is the SWP's chief attorney in the tas, and safety on the job, and moves to step case. up the Pentagon's arsenal of nuclear weapons. The suit has already forced the government Reagan's advisers say vigorous support to working class conspiracy of the U.S. govern­ to release thousands of pages of files showing the FBI will be a top priority. And the Carter ment, its cops, and right-wing collaborators how the FBI plotted against the Black move­ administration has already set in motion .. goes on trial in New York City. On that day, ment, how it tried to drive union militants legislation to expand FBI and CIA powers. the Socialist Workers Party and Young Social­ from their jobs, how it sought to discredit the The rulers of this country must intensify the ist Alliance lawsuit against FBI crimes is women's movement, how it tried to prevent the secret-police war against American workers. scheduled to begin. rise of a massive movement against the war in It's their indispensable weapon as they This is the biggest opportunity in decades Vietnam. attempt to slash deeper into our standard of for Blacks, trade unionists, and others to turn The files show that a consistent pattern in Continued on next page In Our Opinion VOLUME 44/NUMBER 44 NOVEMBER 28. 1980 CLOSING NEWS DATE-NOV. 19

coal miner, are currently facing the threat of deportation because they are socialists. The secret INS blacklist sheds new light on the role of U.S. embassies abroad. Documents released through the suit reveal how these spy Keep the dens work hand-in-hand with U.S. border cops ... FBI on trial to target non-citizens living here and block buses rolling! Continued from front page entry to this country to those whose views the On November 17 the U.S. Senate voted to living and drive toward war abroad. government opposes. cripple school desegregation. It passed a bill The capitalists know these policies are un­ It sheds new light on the drive begun last that would bar the Justice Department from popular. They know opposition will grow year to expel Iranian students from this coun­ using funds in court cases where busing is among workers and they are taking measures try and on the attempt to brand civil rights ordered to end unequal education for Blacks now to try to restrict or silence dissenting leader Jesse Jackson a "foreign agent" of and other minorities. views. Libya because he has spoken out in defense of The House, which has already passed a That's why they need to expand their use of Palestinian rights. similar bill, will now confer with the Senate on antilabor laws, frame-ups, FBI informers, Most significant is the fact that the INS the details. border cops, and CIA destabilization opera­ blacklist is based on the Attorney General's President-elect Reagan claimed that while tions. list of "subversive" organizations-the list he is "heart and soul" in favor of desegrega­ And they intend to make greater use of their supposedly abolished in the aftermath of Wa­ tion, he supports the bill. "Busing has been a extralegal weapons: the Ku Klux Klan, Nazis, tergate. failure," he said. Most of the liberal capitalist Omega 7, and other terrorist gangs aimed a~ The fact that the U.S. government secretly press has echoed this theme. unionists, Blacks, Latinos, Jews, and others. maintains this old witch-hunt operation un­ Liberals and conservatives alike are trying The March 16 trial will challenge their right derscores that the spying against socialists to obscure the issue. The simple fact is that to do so, and expose the "law and order," and others has not ended. This will be at the Blacks attend inferior schools in this country. "national security" justifications they use. heart of the trial. As long as housing remains segregated, and The trial will be international in scope, schools in the Black community continue to because the government's crimes are world­ * * * get unequal funding, there is no other way to wide. The Militant will be expanding our coverage achieve equal education except through bus­ The SWP will present evidence of a conspi­ on the lawsuit and the FBI leading up to the ing. racy to prevent socialists and others from trial. We will be bringing you weekly news of Take Boston. A 1964 report found that $350 extending solidarity to revolutionary struggles the case, exposes of FBI and right-wing activ­ was spent per white pupil per year and $110 around the world, from Iran to the Caribbean. ity, histories of the secret police war against less per Black pupil. Court-ordered busing has It will show how this conspiracy is linked to the Black and labor movements, articles about opened the doors to better educational oppor­ CIA sabotage operations all over the globe, how we can fight back. tunities for Blacks and Latinos in that city. from Cuba to Chile to Jamaica. And how the This coincides with the campaign of social­ Who's really responsible for the failure to U.S. government's greatest fear is the develop­ ist workers across the country, who will be implement desegregation? ment in this country of a broad solidarity getting out the facts to co-workers, community The blame lies with local school boards, movement in defense of fellow workers and groups, and women's organizations, urging which have openly sabotaged busing plans farmers resisting imperialism around the them to support the suit, contribute funds, and and encouraged antibusing violence, and with world. attend the trial. state and federal officials. Their efforts to In a pretrial victory on November 13, the To get out the truth, national leaders of the maintain separate and unequal schools is part socialists won the right to add another enemy SWP will tour the country during the trial to and parcel of their cutbacks in education for of working people to the list of defendants: the report to supporters. all working people. The attacks on Black Immigration and Naturalization Service, or la Once the trial begins, the Militant will be education and bilingual programs have come migra, as it is known to its millions of Latino reporting the day-to-day events in the court­ side by side with larger class sizes, fewer victims. room. We'll bring you the testimony of steel­ teachers-less education for all. This racist outfit, which brutalizes Haitian workers, auto workers, Black activists, Black leaders have already begun to speak refugees, jails them in concentration camps, women's rights fighters, and antiwar Gis. out against the Senate move. The AFL-CIO, and sweeps through Latino communities and They will explain how they became socialists, which is on record in support of busing, should workplaces in deportation raids, is central to how the FBI tried to stop them, and how the join in protest. the government's police network. FBI failed. We cannot allow the government to turn The socialist lawsuit has now revealed that And you'll be able to read the testimony of back this major gain won through the civil the INS :rp.aintains a blacklist of hundreds of the finks, informers, and high government rights battles of the past two decades. The organizations whose members are targets for officials who will have to answer for their antibusing bill is an attack on the rights of all deportation. crimes. young people in this country to free, quality The Socialist Workers Party is on that list. But don't wait until the trial begins. Sub­ education. Two of its members, Hector Marroquin, an scribe today to the Militant so you won't miss We must demand: "Keep the buses rolling!" undocumented worker, and Marian Bustin, a a single issue in this historic case.

Militant Highlights This Week The Militant

Editors: CINDY JAQUITH ANDY ROSE Business Manager: NANCY ROSENSTOCK International Socialist Review Editorial Staff: Nan Bailey, Fred Feldman, Suzanne Haig, Osborne Hart, Diane Jacobs, 3 W. Va. rally for political rights Harry Ring, Vivian Sahner, Priscilla Schenk, Stu Singer. 7 New Orleans cops gun down Blacks Published weekly by the Militant 8 Black leader urges anti-KKK fight (ISSN 0026-3885), 14 Charles Lane, 21 Steelworkers meet on women's rights Evolution vs. Creationism New York, N.Y. 10014. Telephone: 22 Sandinlsta youth confront capitalists Why have extreme right-wing groups like Editorial Office, (212) 243-6392; Busi­ 23 Women in Grenada Jerry Falwell's 'Moral Majority' made ness Office, (212) 929-3486. Correspondence concerning sub­ 24 British labor leader: No U.S. missiles Darwin's theory of evolution a special scriptions or changes of address 23 Solidarity With Central America target? Cliff Conner explains how the should be addressed to The Militant and the Caribbean human species evolved from lower animal Business Office, 14 Charles Lane, 25 The Great Society forms, and why the defense of science New York, N.Y. 10014. Women In Revolt What's Going On against irrationalism is important for Second-class postage paid at New York, N.Y. Subscriptions: U.S. $24.00 26 Our Revolutionary Heritage working people. Page 11. Letter,;s a year, outside U.S. $30.00. By first­ 27 Learning About Soc/a/Ism class mail: U.S., Canada, and Mexico: If You Like This Paper. . . $60.00. Write for airmail rates to all other countries. 9-20 International Socialist Review Signed articles by contributors do not neces­ sarily represent the Militant's views. These are expressed in editorials.

2 West Virginia rally for political rights ~An injury to one is an inju to all' By Vivian Sahner announced that that organization MORGANTOWN, W. Va.-Solidarity voted to send a telegram to the U.S. was the theme of a rally on "The Attorney General which said in part; Fight Against FBI and Government "Marian is a member of CARD and Harassment" held in Morgantown, an antidraft activist. We see this as a West Virginia, on November 11. It was threat not only against her rights but sponsored by the Socialist Workers also against all antidraft activists to Party and Young Socialist Alliance. express their political ideas. We de­ A major focus of the meeting was to mand that the Attorney General and protest attempts by the Immigration FBI and the INS cease the harassment and Naturalization Service to deport and violation of Marian Bustin's First Marian Bustin, a West Virginia coal Amendment rights." miner and member of United Mine Moriarty read messages of solidarity Workers Local 2095. from David Lee Smith, a former safety The INS is trying to deport Bustin, director for the UMW A International who was born in Scotland, solely be­ and currently on the safety committee cause she is a member of the SWP and at Eastern Associated Federal Mine YSA. No. II; Trudy Herod, executive director Tom Moriarty, who chaired the meet­ of the West Virginia American Civil ing, was the Socialist Workers 1980 Liberties Union; William Vehse, Phys­ candidate for West Virginia governor ics Department chair at West Virginia and is a member ofUMWA Local1949. University; and Rev. Robert Withers, He described how the SWP and First Baptist Church in Morgantown. YSA's seven-year lawsuit against the He reported that the Pittsburgh government has uncovered thousands Committee Against Registration and of pages of files documenting burglar­ the Draft sent a telegram to the Attor­ ies, phone taps, mail covers, and other ney General and the Pittsburgh N a­ illegal activities carried out by the tiona! Organization for Women sent government against socialists and him a petition with forty signatures their supporters. The suit is currently demanding that the harassment scheduled to come to trial in March, against Bustin be stopped. 1981. The final speaker at the rally was The combination of speakers, soli­ Bustin. She told the audience about the darity messages, and rally partici­ six-year effort by the government to pants indicate that the government is deport her. going to have a hard time drumming In her remarks she pointed to the up sympathy for their dirty tricks. attacks the government has directed One of the rally speakers was Hector against the union movement. Marroquin, who like Bustin, has been "I am speaking to you today as a targeted by the INS because of his member of the United Mine Workers of membership in the SWP and YSA. America. The UMWA has a long and Marroquin fled here in 1974 after the proud history of standing up to govern­ Mexican government framed him on ment attempts at strike-breaking," false charges of subversion and terror­ Bustin said. "By standing up to the ism. In 1979 the INS hauled him into a companies and the government, the deportation hearing in Houston, Rally speakers, clockwise from top left: Marian Bustin, Hector Marroquin, Tom UMW A has come out as one of the Texas. Moriarty, Stuart Fisk, Rudy Durci. most united and most democratic un­ There Immigration Judge James ions in this country today. Smith ordered Marroquin deported. In "Coal miners know about the Taft­ his ruling, Smith disparaged Marro­ and renewed his request for political After Marroquin spoke, Rudy Durci, Hartley Act and how the Attorney quin's socialist views and implied that asylum. a coal miner from Fairmont, West General invoked it on the miners in he should seek asylum in "Castro's "The capitalist government that ex­ Virginia and a member of UMWA the last contract strike," she said. Cuba" rather than the United States. ists in the U.S. today is undemocratic, Local 1949, explained why he thought "And the UMW A knew how to answer Marroquin has appealed this ruling whether the administration is in the it was important for working people to Taft-Hartley-miners overwhelmingly hands of the Democrats or Republi­ defend Marian Bustin. said, 'take it and shove it.' cans," Marroquin told the rally. "Be­ "Now the unions are seeing some "I don't believe that the government cause both represent the same interests very hard attacks by the employers has ever accepted the existence of of a few rich families and are incapa­ and the government. Right now the trade unions in the U.S.," Bustin ble of solving our most basic social union movement doesn't know exactly added. "The credit for organizing goes needs. what to do about it. We are in a state of to workers themselves. Everything "They not only do nothing to solve flux, things are changing/' Durci said. throughout American labor history, the question of racism, they foster it "And what we need is more democratic from the eight-hour day to workers' and protect the murderers of Blacks discussion among union members so compensation, was won through work­ and Latinos, condone and enforce the that we can come to some kind of ers struggling against the companies, discrimination and oppression of wom­ decision on what to do about these the courts, and the government." en, and lie on every other social ques­ attacks. She pointed out, "The labor move­ tion," he continued. "We must remember," he added, "if ment is not new to attacks by the "And those who dare to oppose this we let Marian be victimized by the government. But the unions have a situation and fight to change it," he INS, it will leave others in the union tradition that is stronger than any added, "are confronted with criminals, and the antinuclear and antidraft damage the FBI might want to make­ thieves, spies, and provocateurs of the movements open to various types of and that's that an injury to one is an FBI and racist and discriminatory victimization. That's why we must injury to all. We know that we must treatment from the INS. stop the INS dead in their tracks right unite for our interests if we are going "This should be energetically op­ here and right now." to win any gains." posed by every trade unionist, every Stuart Fisk, a member of the Mor­ During the meeting a collection was working person, and everyone con­ gantown chapter of the Committee taken up to help pay for the costs of cerned with political freedom." Against Registration and the Draft, the socialists' lawsuit.

Special offer Subscribe today to new readers 0 $2 for eight issues (new readers only) 0 $5 for three months 0 $24 for one year The Militant- 8 wceks/Si 0 New 0 Renewal Burglaries. Frame-ups. Deportations. Assassi­ Name nations. These are the tools of the trade for Address City ------the FBI's war against unionists, Blacks, State ______women's rights fighters .. But the Socialist Workers Party is putting the FBI on trial for its 14 Charles Lane. New York. New York 10014 'Positively un-American . . . they play by the crimes soon ... Keep up with the news by rules.' reading the Militant each week.

THE MILITANT/NOVEMBER 28, 1980 3 Authorities defend verdict, threaten protesters GREENSBORO, N.C.-When six CWP was on a recruitment drive, espe­ The mood of the "prosecuting" attor­ to the defense because he allegedly was Klansmen· and Nazis were acquitted of cially directed to "Blacks and Jews." neys was distinctly not one of defeat. afraid of them. And besides, "he of­ murder here November 17, authorities And he claimed the CWP "would like District Attorney Michael Schlosser fered absolutely nothing to our case." responded by defending the verdict an acquittal." insisted that "the state showed the Nothing except perhaps information and threatening any who take action Also issuing a warning prior to the jurors everything that could have been on police complicity in the murderous to protest it. verdict was Harold Covington, leader shown." attack-a subject the prosecution Indeed, their response seems to have of the Nazi Party. Standing in a hall­ He said the prosecution was "abso­ shunned throughout the trial. been readied long before the not-guilty way outside the courtroom here, he lutely void of political considerations, District Attorney Schlosser said he verdict was made public. had threatened that "anyone who of ideologies of the three hate groups." would announce later whether he will Greensboro police captain J.W. Hil­ messes with us will get what their This theme was repeated by jury prosecute any of the other KKK or liar!i revealed that a special plan for buddies got November 3." foreman Octavio Manduley, who said, Nazi members arrested for the killings. patroling the city at the trial's conclu­ Is this the voice of someone who "We do not condone the actions of any Meanwhile, several members and sion was prepared months ago. fears his members are about to be of these three groups." supporters of the CWP still face serious convicted of murder? Public Safety Director Hewitt Love- Throughout the trial the victims felony "riot" charges stemming from The official attempts to portray the the anti-Klan demonstration. lace said the plan included surveil­ CWP as eager to initiate a violent were lumped together with the crimi­ lance of the homes of Communist response to the verdict continued the nals in precisely this way. The Klan and Nazis were pleased Workers Party members and the frame-up of the group that has been Assistant DA James Coman also with the outcome, to say the least. CWP's local headquarters. The CWP pressed ·by news media and govern­ defended the selection of an all-white Jerry Paul Smith, one of the KKK organized the November 3, 1979, dem­ ment authorities ever since the No­ jury. "They said they could be fair and defendants, said, "We're all tickled onstration that was attacked by more vember 3 massacre. we had no reason to doubt them," he about it. We feel the system works." than two dozen Klansmen and Nazis. In press statements here and at its said. Nazi leader Covin{Jton said the ac­ A full week before the verdict came national office in New York, the CWP Another assistant DA, Rick Greeson, quittal "represents the wishes of the in, Lovelace had warned that it might condemned the verdict as "obscene tried to explain why the prosecution people of North Carolina." turn Greensboro into "another Miami and unjust" and the trial as a "sham." did not call on what should have been The verdict, he advised, "was a great or Chattanooga," according to the Contrary to some media reports, the a key witness: Edward Dawson, a victory for white America." November 11 Winston-Salem Journal. group made no threat of a violent police informer in the KKK. He said For the white rulers of America, for Lovelace had complained that the response. that Dawson would have been friendly sure. N.C. students and workers shocked, angry By Kate Daher An older Black worker, pointing to a GREENSBORO, N.C.-About sev­ newspaper headline that read "Mayor enty-five students at North Carolina calls for peace and tranquility," re­ A & T University gathered for a press sponded, "There can't be any peace conference here the morning after the now for a long time-they said they acquittal of the Klan-Nazi killers. were worried about race relations after Pam McCorkle, student government the shootings but now they let these president, called on the community to Klanners off scot-free." unite for freedom and justice. She During the lunch break, five urged national Black and community women~two white and three Black­ leaders to "join in unison with us in sat together to discuss the verdict. One condemning the jury's decision of not white woman exclaimed, "I think the guilty." verdict is great. Look who they were up Aubrey Eatmon of the National Or­ against-the communists." ganization of Black University and "It doesn't matter that they were College Students declared, "Blacks all communists, five human beings are over the country are threatened. Inno­ dead," a Black woman responded. The cent Black children are murdered in other white woman and the two Blacks the streets of Atlanta, Black men are mutilated in Buffalo, injustice has agreed. struck in Miami and Chattanooga, and One young Black union activist said now a not guilty verdict in our beloved he heard NAACP President Simkins .. on TV. "I hope the NAACP or someone Greensboro." \\ . : ~ A & T students were not alone in calls a big demonstration," the union­ KKKers prepare to murder demonstrators. Millions saw massacre on television and ist said. "That's what we need. All he voicing protest. Dr. George Simkins, know verdict is travesty of justice. has to do is call it." president of the Greensboro NAACP said, "I just think the verdict is tanta­ Another young white said he hadn't mount to giving the Klan and Nazis a followed the trial closely. "All I know license to kill." Ossie Ruth Beasley, chairwoman of One A & T student said, "The jury is I saw the TV film of the shootings Greensboro's Mayor Jim Melvin at­ the Resident's Council of the Morning­ claims they are innocent. There's five and to me it looks like they're guilty." tacked Simkins for his remarks. "I side Homes, where the shootings oc­ men dead-who did it then?" In nearby Winston-Salem the re­ really feel Dr. Simkins is out of touch curred, said, "I was shocked by the Socialist workers reported a tense sponse was the same. Khalid Fattah, with the community. He keeps on verdict. What if it had been six Blacks silence Tuesday among first-shift chairperson of the Winston-Salem Im­ talking that same tired old rhetoric of on trial? What kind of chance would workers at one of Greensboro's largest provement Association, told the Mili­ the 1960s." they have of getting off?" plants. As the morning passed, disbe­ tant he blames the federal government But is Simkins really out of touch? Rev. Prince Graves, pastor of one of lief turned to anger. for tolerating the Klan-Nazi violence. In interviews with men and women Greensboro's largest Black churches, One young white woman said, "I "This should be an eye-opener for heading to work in downtown Greens­ said, "I still can't comprehend the not always thought that no one could get those of us who have been divided over boro, the Greensboro Record reported guilty verdict. I just don't understand away with murder-not the Klan, not petty differences. We have to start "surprise, and, for the most part, dis­ it. Somebody is guilty because we do the CWP, or even the president. I guess coming together on things that affect agreement with the verdict." have five people dead." I was wrong." us all, like racist violence."

Black student group demands federal probe GREENSBORO, N.C.-The fol­ the Communist Workers Party in not guilty. Because by the jury's are. Because these times indeed are lowing statement was released any manner. We do not favor their acquittal of the defendants, conse­ crucial times. November 18 by the National political ideologies. But injustices quently minorities throughout the Blacks all over the country are Organization of Black Univer­ have been done to them and all country have been sentenced to an threatened-innocent Black children sity and College Students. citizens. undetermined time of fear. are murdered in the streets of Some people or organizations feel We are calling on President Carter Atlanta, Black men are mutilated in The National Organization of that if they get involved publicly by to send down a task force from Buffalo, injustice has struck Miami Black University and College Stu­ opposing the jury's verdict, they will Attorney General Benjamin Civilet­ and Chattanooga, and now a not dents (NOBUCS) unfortunately be labeled communist. That is what ti's office and the Justice Depart­ guilty verdict in our beloved Greens­ finds itself involved also in today's is being used to shade the actual ment to investigate the entire trial boro. press conference. Unfortunately be­ lSSUe. proceedings in the November 3 inci­ The decision of the Klan trial cause it is indeed a sad day when The issue is murder, whether or dent. affects all people regardless of their murderers are allowed to walk the not terrorist organizations can race. But yes, there is a greater effect streets of Greensboro. threaten the lives and welfare of all NOBUCS wants president-elect on the Black community. The late A judiciary precedent was set in citizens. Ronald Reagan, Gov. Jim Hunt, great Dr. Martin Luther King stated Greensboro yesterday, now it will be NOBUCS stands fully behind the Mayor Jim Melvin, and all area it best when he said, "Injustice any­ legal for Klansmen and Nazis to Student Government Association politicians to publicly condemn the where is a threat to justice every­ shoot people down in the streets. throughout this most unfortunate jury's decision. For we feel that if where." This may perhaps sound exagger­ ordeal. NOBUCS is asking all true you do not publicly condemn it then And there is injustice in Greens­ ated, but it's not. Because that's organizations, politicians, national you are truly an advocate of the boro today. We pray to God that exactly what happened November 3 Black leaders, and community lead­ decision. something is done immediately to of last year. ers to join in unison with us in Today there is an essential need to curtail what has occurred because NOBUCS is not associated with condemning the jury's decision of disclose who our foes and friends it's our future and we have to live it.

4 Rights leaders condemn Greensboro acquittal Across the country, leaders of civil rights, labor, and women's rights organizations have con­ demned the acquittal of Ku Klux Klan and Nazi Party members in Greensboro. Below are statements obtained by the 'Militant' in the first two days following that ver­ dict.

Jesse Jackson director, Operation PUSH "The innocent verdict in the Greens­ Clockwise from lett: Wau­ boro massacre is a travesty of justice bun-lnini (Vernon Belle­ and discredits the judicial system. We court), Lucius Walker, Jesse call upon the Justice Department to Jackson, Joseph Lowery, immediately seek federal indictments Anne Braden, Herbert against those who committed these Daughtry, Joyce Miller. hideous and cold-blooded murders. "The issue is clouded even further by the press, which constantly referred to the assassinated victims as 'commu­ nists,' that is, as something less than human, and therefore without civil rights.. "All Americans, but especially Black Americans, must not be deceived by such attempts at distracting public attention away from the central issue, issued a statement "calling upon the "But ultimately what will make a and that central issue is the violation Horace Sheffield president, Detroit Coalition Department of Justice to prosecute the difference is thousands of people or­ of the civil rights of American citizens Nazi/Klan murderers for violation of ganizing. We must organize against of Black Trade Unionists by the Ku Klux Klan and the Nazis." the civil rights of the antiracist demon­ violence but also against all forms of United Auto Workers strators; requesting the U.S. Congress racism. "The Greensboro decision, in my to convene hearings investigating Na­ "We're convinced that the racists are judgement, represents a gross miscar­ zi/Klan activities and racist violence not the majority of the white people in Joyce Miller riage of justice and does not bode well president, Coalition of Labor in America; urging local communities this country. We who believe in free­ for the future of civil rights. to discuss and probe the implications dom and justice are the true majority Union Women "The decision, as I see it, will encour­ Executive Council, AFL-CIO of this acquittal and to organize in Greensboro and in the rest of the age the racist elements in this country against these increasing terrorist at­ country. If we organize we will have "There is no question in my mind who would act out their racism in its that justice was certainly not done." tacks and the spread of racist ideology; the strength to prevail." most ugly and violent form. and finally urging an independent Miller added that she is in favor of a "The climate that helped spawn that review of the case by the Justice De­ group of North Carolinians to imme­ kind of decision is dangerous, because diately call for the Justice Department Rev. Herbert Daughtry partment. it is not only Blacks who will be the to reopen the cases against these ter­ director, National Black victims. The whole gamut of liberal rorists." concerns in this country, labor, United Front "I think it's a terrible blatant miscar­ Rev. Joseph Lowery women's rights, all the things that Anne Braden we've been concerned about, that we riage of justice, and I think we can president, Southern Christian generally have accepted as part and co-chair, Southern Organizing anticipate more of the same. Leadership Conference parcel of a progressive nation, are Committee for Economic and "I believe it demonstrates again that "The acquittal of the KKK and Nazi threatened. Social Justice progressive people have got to form an killers in North Carolina; the threats "What happened in Greensboro this alliance to be able to resist the antici­ to wipe out affirmative action, to bring "These people wearing sheets are not week has created an emergency in this pated attacks coming in the future. a halt to school desegregation; the just by themselves. If we fail to under­ country. Whatever we were doing last The Reagan administration surely shooting of a Black youth in the back stand that, I think we are really m week, we cannot go on with business moves in that direction." in Indianapolis; the killings of four even greater trouble." as usual. This is a new situation and a Blacks in New Orleans all indicate perilous one. that the campaign against Blacks and Rev. Lucius Walker "What happened is that violent ra­ Waubun-lnini poor people at both the governmental director, National Anti-Klan cists have been given a green light to Anischinabe Nation and street levels have reached an Network kill those they disagree with. Only if (Vernon Bellecourt) epidemic stage. "America cannot stand still when we organize everywhere can we reverse "Justice is in a state of comatose in murders that are committed in the the path that has been tread in North representative, Council on Internal North Carolina and across the na­ broad daylight are being defined under Carolina this week. Affairs, American Indian Movement, tion." the cloak of self-defense. "We must demand that the U.S. National/International Office Lowery urged President Carter and "This acquittal must be seen as Justice Department indict the Klans­ "This jury decision is in fact a li­ Attorney General Benjamin Civiletti giving the Klan and Nazi's the license men and Nazis who were acquitted cense to gun down anyone who this "to prosecute Klansmen and Nazis in to shoot and kill any person, Black or and that there be a full congressional government or the police authorities North Carolina for violation of the ·white, who will stand against their investigation not only of Greensboro declare to be communist ... or who rights of the victims killed November racist proclamations." but of the rise of racist violence all opposes the policies of the American 3." The National Anti-Klan Network across the country. government." Trial evidence refutes claim of self-defense By Steve Craine one or more guns and knew that the without seeking cover, and blazing quoted the other as saying, "I got my GREENSBORO, N.C.-Jurors who others had weapons as well. away with shotguns. share." acquitted six Ku Klux Klan and Nazi After the racists' caravan of nine The anti-Klan demonstrators, in con­ Matthews· told police investigators, Party members of murder here claimed vehicles arrived at the scene, shouts trast, began to flee from the area as "Some innocent people were shot, but I that they "considered only the facts, and insults were exchanged, and a few soon as gunfire began. One reporter, was only shooting at niggers." the evidence, and applied the law." of the Klanners' cars were kicked and when asked what the demonstrators Two government informers operated But in this highly publicized case, in hit with sticks. were doing, replied, "They were falling in the local Nazi and Klan organiza­ which the murders were recorded on like flies." But defense and prosecution wit­ tions and helped plan and carry out film and televised across the country, Another key to the Klanners' self­ nesses agree that the first two shots the deadly attack of November 3. But millions of other people have also defense plea is the claim that they had were fired by KKKers at the head of their role was carefully avoided by considered the facts and seen the evi­ no way to escape from the confronta­ the caravan. both the prosecution and the defense dence. tion. Yet, other Klanners, and a local Then came three shots, which can­ throughout the trial. They know the verdict was a tra­ resident who had inadvertently driven not be pinpointed, but originated in an vesty of justice. into the caravan, were able to drive on The defense relied on innuendo and area where members of both sides were Self-defense was the only legal basis past or turn around and leave. There anti-communist prejudice rather than engaged in a stick fight. The defend­ of the defendants' case, and it was the was no reason the defendants could facts. They pictured their clients as ants then opened the trunk of one of jury's rationale for reaching its "not not have done the same. The defense patriotic family men who merely the cars and unloaded an arsenal of guilty" verdict. But the statements and never attempted to counter this evi­ wanted to sing "My Country 'tis of shotguns, rifles, and handguns. actions of the defendants themselves, dence. Thee" at the "communist" demonstra­ many of which are on film, refute the The videotapes, which the jury saw The defendants' comments imme­ tion. self-defense claim. over and over again in both normal diately after the shooting also contra­ The victims were portrayed as blood­ The six men just acquitted, plus and slow motion, show the racist gun­ dict the self-defense argument. Three thirsty people intent on creating a about thirty other racists from around men acting in an aggressive, not a witnesses quoted KKK "Knight Hawk" martyr for their unpopular cause. the state, traveled as much as 100 defensive, manner. David Wayne Matthews bragging, "I Since the facts do not support the miles to Greensboro to confront an Three of the defendants can be seen got three of them," at various times on jury's finding of self-defense, these anti-KKK rally sponsored by the Com­ running toward the demonstrators as November 3, 1979. other "arguments" apparently carried munist Workers Party. Most brought they fire. Others are standing erect, One of the two Nazis just acquitted more weight with the jury.

THE MILITANT/NOVEMBER 28, 1980 5 ... protest freeing of KKK murderers! Continued from front page Urban League President Vernon Jor­ dan was shot in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Ku Klux Klan snipers were acquitted

ing four Black women. An anonymous Ku Klux Klanner has taken credit for the murders of six Black men in Buffalo, New York. Sixteen Black children have been murdered or disappeared in Atlanta, Georgia. The ultra-right hit squads have claimed other victims. Police have done nothing to appre­ hend the murderers of Cuban diplomat Felix Garcia Rodriguez, assassinated in New York September 11, even though a well-known anti-Castro group claimed credit. Courts have just overturned the guilty verdict for those who killed Chilean exile leader Orlando Letelier .li in 1976. Marches and rallies like the February 2 anti-Klan protest in Greensboro can show that majority opposes Klan violence and government complicity. Fair game The message is clear: Anyone who their rights, white workers are worse wing attacks fits in with and aids this independent Black party with real demonstrates for union recognition or off, not better off. scheme. roots in the needs and struggles of the Black rights, or who holds socialist or It's no coincidence that Blacks are Nazi boss Harold Covington said the Black community. communist ideas, is fair game. the first targets of government attacks Greensboro verdict "represents the And government officials will and right-wing terror. Blacks have wishes of the people of North Carol­ Labor's stake stand by and let it happen. They'll been in the forefront of fighting not ina." We will not be alone. Thousands of even help it to happen-like the local only for civil rights but also for union Blacks, unionists, students, and others and federal cop informers who oper­ rights-in North Carolina, throughout Mobilize the majority have already protested racist terror in ated inside the North Carolina KKK the South, and across the country. Let's show who really represents the Greensboro, Atlanta, Buffalo, Miami, and Nazi outfit and helped to plan the majority! It's time to mobilize by the and other cities. I'm especially proud ambush last November. Role of politicians thousands across the country to stop that my union, the United Steel­ Ultra-right, anti-Black, anti-union this racist conspiracy. workers, joined in organizing an anti­ Victory for whom elements are getting encouragement We should demand a dragnet of Klan Klan rally in Uniontown, Pennsyl­ Several of the slain demonstrators from Democratic and Republican poli­ and right-wing groups-including the vania, last month. had been active in union organizing ticians alike. armed training camps they boast of­ USWA President Lloyd McBride and The incoming Reagan administra­ drives in textile and other plants in to question them on suspicion of the other top union officers explained tion is openly taking aim at busing, North Carolina. murder in the spate of Black assassi­ the stakes involved for labor in fight­ affirmative action, and social pro­ nations across the country. ing the KKK. The acquittal of their assassins was grams vital to Black survival, while We should demand federal prosecu­ "The Klan fully shares the views of a a victory for J.P. Stevens and other pushing for closer U.S. ties to South tion of the North Carolina Klan/Nazi union-hating ultraright-wing move­ union busters, who want a free hand to Africa. The lame-duck Democratic murderers and of the cops who have ment that seeks to destroy American break up any picket lines or demon­ Congress joins right in, voting huge gone free after killing Blacks in Miami, labor unions and the process of free strations. It was a victory for those budget cuts and moving to destroy the New Orleans, Indianapolis, and other collective bargaining in our country," who fear the new moods of struggle in Black community's right to use busing cities. they said. the South and who want to keep work­ to get an equal education. We should demand that the charges ing people divided and weak. Republican Senate leader Strom that have been brought against other Time to act! Nazi leader Harold Covington called Thurmond says the next target will be Communist Workers Party victims be What can we do to protest this new the verdict "a great victory for white the 1965 Voting Rights Act! dropped. outrage? America." The politicians of both parties are We should demand that the files of We can picket federal buildings. We making it abundantly clear that their the FBI, other federal agencies, and can march and rally. We can send But millions of American workers allegience is to the billionaires, whose local cops be opened to public inspec­ telegrams of protest to North Carolina recognize it as a defeat for our class­ profits depend on keeping Black people tion so that we can learn the facts officials. Black and white. down and keeping all working people about government collusion with the We can demand federal intervention If Blacks and Black rights support­ divided. terrorists. in the case. We can call together meet­ ers can be terrorized and stripped of Feeding and fostering violent right- ings of local community, union, and Black political party Black rights groups to discuss and The verdict in North Carolina gives plan a response. added significance to the gathering of We can organize news conferences of Black activists taking place this week­ local leaders and concerned citizens. end in Philadelphia. Racist and right-wing terror will end The convention has been called to only when millions of working people found an "independent Black political mobilize to say "enough" and to show party," recognizing that the Demo­ that we're willing to defend ourselves. cratic and Republican parties both Wherever racist and right-wing ter­ represent only big-business interests. ror raises its head, we should counter­ It is a call to action for Black work­ mobilize. ers, Black youth, and Black women to Whenever travesties of justice like fight for our rights with an independ­ the North Carolina verdict are handed ent political organization. down, we should voice our protest. Such a step can set a powerful exam­ That is the way to fight these at­ ple for other workers and for all the tacks, and that is how we put ourselves oppressed. in a position to more effectively fight It would be only fitting for this all moves to gut our social and eco­ gathering to take the lead in organiz­ nomic gains. ing a national campaign of action to The interests of all working people protest the acquittal in North Carolina are at stake. We must act now to and racist violence across the land. demand that the Klan-Nazi killers be That's the best way we can build an brought to justice.

The fight against Reagan ism and racist terrorism will be at the top of the agenda at the national convention of the Young Socialist Alliance.

To be held December 27-30 in Indianapolis, Indiana.

For more information on attending, check your local area in the directory on page 27, or write to: YSA

Box 471, Cooper Station MilitanVAndy Rose New York, New York 10003 Andrew Pulley, right, 1980 socialist candidate for president, talks to reporters outside Greensboro courtroom after visiting KKK-Nazi trial in September. 6 Reign of terror New Orleans cops gun down four Blacks By Naomi Bracey ·· · · · ·· · · ·· · · · NEW ORLEANS-Algiers, a section of this city's Black community, has experienced a reign of police terror. In a single night, three people-two men and a woman-were killed in their homes. Earlier, the cops shot another ~an. The killing came within days after a grand jury exonerated cops who had slain a Black youth last Labor Day who they falsely claimed had resisted arrest. The events in Algiers came after a cop was killed there. The cops moved in in full force. For five days they were kicking in doors, dragging people out of their homes, and throwing residents up against walls to search and grill them. The assault culminated early Thursday morning, November 13, in the three killings. The police insist they had warrants, knocked before entering the homes of the victims, and killed only after being fired on. But when you talk to neighbors of the victims, as we did, the police story ew I ...... n .. noUSIInQ nrf'lliAf"!l• falls apart. the victims, from top, were James Billy, Jr., Reginald Miles, and Sherry Singleton. Ronald Evans and Maxine Franklin told us they were lying in bed around 3:00 a.m. when they heard "Police! James Billy was dead, torn apart by Housing Projects in Algiers. Cops his home and told him to say nothing Freeze!" police bullets. claim they were arresting him on a about his beating. The cops, all in plain clothes, had Evans and Franklin don't believe drug charge and that he pulled a knife Massive complaints by Algiers resi­ just broken into the home of their Billy even had a gun. while they were trying to handcuff dents have led to an FBI probe. neighbor, Carolyn Anderson. Then the cops invaded the home of him. A witness insists that the knife Whether anything will come from it is "They were there for awhile," we Reginald Miles and Sherry Lynn Sin­ was sheathed and had been taken doubtful. were told, "and more kept steadily gleton. away from Ferdinand before he was All the residents we talked to believe coming, some coming through the al­ Neighbors heard gunshots. Then handcuffed. the cops should be tried for murder. ley, some down the street. Then they they heard Singleton pleading, "Please The killings came at a time when the came out of her house and went di­ don't shoot! Please don't shoot!" cops were running wild in the Fischer NEW ORLEAN~---. rectly next door." There were more shots. projects, breaking, entering, and seiz­ Later the cops explained they had The cops apparently killed Miles ing young Black men at will. Jail the entered Anderson's house by mistake. first and then Singleton. Neighbors killer cops! say she was getting ready to go to Ida Cambrice told us her eighteen­ Next door was the home of James year-old son was surprised by police Eyewitness reports of cop Billy, Jr. work when the cops broke in. They one night after jogging. murders of four Black Algiers "They kicked in the door," Evans shot her while she was in the bath­ residents. tub. He ran into the house. The cops, in and Franklin said. Friday, December 5, 8 p.m. Then one of them came out with Kim plain clothes, burst in, searching for One neighbor told us that when the Pathfinder Bookstore Landry, who also lives there, and her an alleged gun. cops came out, they were "laughing 3207 Dublin. Donation $1.50 baby. "About the time she hit the and shaking hands." They took her son to the homicide Auspices: Militant Forum. porch-pow, pow, pow, pow, pow, bam, division, where they put a paper bag bam, pow, pow." Again, the neighbors expressed For more information call (504) strong disbelief that Miles and Single­ over his head and beat him severely. They later released him a block from 486-8048. Naomi Bracey was the Socialist ton were armed. They believe Single­ Workers Party 1980 senatorial can­ ton was murdered because she wit­ didate in Louisiana. Also collaborat­ nessed the slaying of Miles. ing on this article were M. Dessa­ Two days earlier, cops murdered lines and John Williams. Raymond Ferdinand at the Fischer Cop killing of Black youth protested in Indianapolis By Dave Cahalane daily protests against Mit::hael Smith's Boston racists set back, INDIANAPOLIS-On the night of murder and to demand an end to the November 4 Michael Smith could have racist treatment of Blacks by police. been any fifteen-year-old Black youth A forty-car funeral procession No­ but huge school cuts loom walking alone in the street. To police, vember 8 for Smith stopped in front of BOSTON-The Black community slash some $40 million from the school he was a suspect in a hold-up more police headquarters to hold a protest has won a small but significant victory budget would force the layoff of one than five blocks away. meeting and lay a black wreath on the here in the continuing battle for qual­ third of Boston's teaching staff. It The law says a felony suspect like steps. ity desegregated education. would hit the Black and bilingual Michael can be shot if he tries to avoid On November 3, Paul Kennedy, act­ teachers the hardest. arrest. Every day the following week rallies ing superintendent of schools, an­ Michael, unarmed and returning were held outside police headquarters, The Boston Teachers Union has nounced that he was abandoning his home from a friend's house, chose to with people coming from many parts challenged White's budget cuts in the efforts to reorganize the school admin­ ignore the two plain-clothes cops sit­ of the city to demand justice. courts. They have won some initial istration. ting in the unmarked car that pulled A Black city government executive favorable rulings. The proposed reorganization would up beside him. sent letters to 250 Black city em­ have seriously downgraded the role of But city officials are using the pas­ That made him fair game for Jeffrey ployees, urging them to join the pro­ Black administrators. sage of Proposition 21j2- a right-wing Ritorto, the patrolman at the other end tests. Soon afterwards city workers in John O'Bryant, the only Black on "tax cut" measure-to bolster their of a .357 magnum who ended Michael shirts and light sweaters could be seen the school committee, had led the city's argument that no funds are available. Smith's life that night. marching with others outside the po­ Black politicians in denouncing the In a related development, Boston Smith was shot once in the back. lice building. reorganization as a blow to the deseg­ school bus drivers, organized into Uni­ Many have declared that this latest Police officials have backed up pa­ regation process. ted Steelworkers Local 8751, voted murder, or "police action shooting," as trolman Ritorto's action as standard Two Black school administrators November 2 to end their three-week officials prefer to call it, must be the procedure. Indianapolis Mayor Wil­ publically refused to accept posts in strike against ARA, Inc. last. liam Hu'cl.nut has asked Black com­ the reorganized system. While not winning all their de­ "We think he [Ritorto] should be off munity leaders to halt their protests. In addition, Marshall Simonds, the mands, the 500 striking drivers forced the force. He should be charged with Officer Ritorto, while off the streets school system's special counsel for the multinational union busting con­ murder," said Lorna M. Smith, seven­ pending an investigation referred to desegregation, warned Kennedy that glomerate ARA to back down on sev­ teen, Michael Smith's sister. the Justice Department, is still on the the uproar over desegregation had eral key points. In a November 7 statement, a coali­ city payroll. Police and city officials produced a "serious and adverse" im· All strike leaders were rehired, all tion of groups protested "the syste­ want to restore an atmosphere of busi­ pact on the case. jailed strikers were released, and a new matic and racist voluntary killing by ness as usual: more beatings, more Meanwhile, Federal Judge Arthur arbitration system was introduced. policemen against Black citizens under racist abuse, more killings by police Garrity, who ordered and is overseeing The drivers hope these gains will the guise of a uniform." "in the line of duty." school desegregation in Boston, has make it possible to eventually force The Concerned Ministers, Inc., Organizers of the protests have re­ condemned plans for drastic budget ARA to concede on the original de­ NAACP, Operation PUSH, the Indi­ fused to be intimidated by the mayor cuts as "an attack on the school sys­ mands that sparked the strike: de­ ana Southern Christian Leadership or police. Black leaders have an­ tem." mands for improved safety for the Conference, and the Interdenomina­ nounced that daily protests at police Mayor Kevin White's attempt to protection of children being bused. tional Ministers Alliance have led headquarters will continue.

THE MILITANT/NOVEMBER 28, 1980 7 'We're taking on U.S. gov't' City council member urges anti-Klan fight

Seaside,Mel Mason California, is a membera majority-Black of the city city council on thein 'Ill f.··.··-.·····. .. ·.·.··· FBI.When No. we take on the Ku Klux Klan, we will in the Monterey Peninsula south of San Francisco. . . same breath be taking on the United States govern- He's a Black elected official with a difference. ·. · ment. Mason is a staunch opponent of both the Demo- If they didn't want the Klan around-if the Klan cratic and Republican parties. He says the only way somehow ran counter to Uncle Sam's interest-you Black people-and other workers-can make real can bet that the only way our children would be social progress is to break from these parties. able to see a Klansman would be if someone stuffed He will be participating in the National Black one and had it mounted in the Smithsonian Insti- Political Convention in Philadelphia November 21- tute, horns and all. 23 to promote such a break. It's no accident that the Klan has suddenly Mel Mason is also a socialist. He was elected last experienced a rebirth in this country. At a time April despite the fact that his public support for the when the U.S. economy is in one of its most drastic Socialist Workers Party made him the target of red- slumps it is necessary for the rulers of this country baiting and racist attacks. to take back the rights that have been won by His beliefs are the result of lessons drawn from · national minorities, by women, and by working the struggles of Black people during the 1960's and people in general. 1970's-struggles in which he played an active part. How convenient for the rulers to have hooded An air force veteran and All-American basketball henchmen to do their dirty work for them. How player, Mason got in trouble with racist authorities convenient for them to have Tom Metzger running in the military, in school, and in sports. for the Congress [in California] as a member of the In 1968, he joined the Black Panther Party. He Democratic Party. became a Panther labor organizer, helping to estab- I've supported the Socialist Workers Party for lish and coordinate Black caucuses at area plants. years. I'm a socialist. In 1970 he briefly joined the Nation of Islam. You tell me why the Socialist Workers Party He is a long-time activist in various Seaside couldn't get on the ballot in California and Tom community struggles. As a result of these activities Metzger had no trouble. Mason has had to consider how the Black commun- about their plans. One in particular [Gary Rowe] We did everything you're supposed to do to get on ity can best defend itself against the Ku Klux Klan detailed how he, in the early '60s, sat in on plan- the ballot for the November elections and then we and other right-wing organizations. ning sessions of the Klan's attacks on civil rights had some judge rule us off. And all Tom Metzger At Laney College in Oakland, California, on workers. had to do was say "hey, here I am, a Klansman and October 14, Mason-along with Mark Friedman, the And recently in Greensboro one government a Democrat" and bing-he's on right away. Socialist Workers 1980 candidate for Congress- informant admitted to being in on planning the We must demonstrate and educate and hold was among those addressing a speakout against the assault on the anti-Klan demonstrators. rallies and other kinds of educational type seminars Klan. I refuse to believe Carter and others when they as we're doing here tonight. We must educate our Excerpts of his speech are printed below say that we should fight the Klan by using what people as to the true meaning of the Ku Klux Klan- some of us in the street used to call the social what the KKK really represents. * * * disease attitude. That is if we pretend that the Klan People must realize that groups like the KKK are just isn't around-that if we give it no recognition- the internal shock troops of this system, the inter- The Klan and the FBI are blood brothers. then it will all of a sudden go away. nal shock troops of capitalism. If you don't believe that, then all you have to do is And I damn sure don't believe Carter and others And only in a workers state would the Klan meet flashback on all the so-called undercover infiltra­ when they tell us that the way to fight the Klan is true justice-by being prosecuted for all their crimes tions that the FBI did inside the Klan. by registering a complaint with the office of civil against liberty and humanity. Some of the undercover agents even wrote books rights, which by the way is housed next door to the Let's keep up the fight! FBl at work: frame-ups, theft, murder "People are into a fantasy world when they department. There was no need for my services." The other case Perry spoke of was the frame-up of believe that the Federal Bureau of Investigation When Noble asked the number of informants Elmer "Geronimo" Pratt, a Panther leader who was finds out what it finds out through the method of working in Los Angeles during the late 1960s, Perry sent to jail nine years ago on a murder charge and scientific investigation.... That's not the name of answered, "In a city like LA, which was a large is still there today. At the time of the frame-up Pratt the game." concentrated area of Blacks, we're talking about 300 was the head of the southern California Black Darthead Perry ought to-know. He was an FBI to 400 people. San Francisco probably the same Panthers. informer for more than seven years. He infiltrated thing-wherever there was a large concentration of "The murder happened in Los Angeles. Pratt was the Black Panther Party and other Black organiza­ Blacks or large concentration of minorities." in Oakland," Perry told Noble. "Elmer Pratt was tions during the late 1960s and early 1970s. under twenty-four-hour surveillance, both physical What did the informers do once inside these Perry was part of the FBI's Cointelpro (counterin­ and electronic. The bureau at any time ... could groups? telligence program), a vast government conspiracy have gone down there and said, hey look, you made to disrupt and discredit the Black movement as well a mistake. The guy was in Oakland. They didn't. as anti-Vietnam War groups, socialists, women's Arson, burglaries, theft They sat back and let it happen because they rights fighters, and others. Perry admitted to arson, illegal entries, stealing wanted the man out of the way. Cointelpro files have documented an all-out effort weapons, and the selling of explosives. The in­ "It's sick," Perry continued, "here's a man that by the FBI to politically and physically destroy formers were used to set up and jail or murder Black got a bronze star and a silver star, who when he got Black organizations and leaders. Malcolm X and liberation fighters. out of the service joined the Black Panther Party Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., were both central Perry recalled one situation when he was an in­ because it was a cause that he thought was just .. targets of Cointelpro operations. former in a Los Angeles Black group. The FBI he was set up. He was railroaded from the git." On November 2 WABC-TV's "Like It Is," hosted provided him with plans for how the group could by Gil Noble, aired an interview with Perry, who rob a military armory. Pratt frame-up appealed "The bureau made sure that there would be no Today Pratt's case is before the California Court guard," Perry related. "That was the thing that of Appeals. In his request for a new trial Pratt kind of made me nervous ... it looks kind of phony points out that the key witness against him and at when you go to an armory on a military base least three members of his own defense team are located near the Compton-Watts area and there is now known to be FBI informants. As I see it no guard in there with the weapons. "The bureau was vecy into controlled situations­ * * * functioned in the Panthers under the name of Ed you know who has what and what they intend to do Riggs. with it," he added. It's arguable how much the word of an ex-FBI Perry told Noble that he joined the FBI in 1968 Noble asked if the FBI would then try to entrap informer like Perry is worth. What isn't debatable after being framed up by the police and threatened such groups into committing some illegal activity. are the thousands of pages of FBI documents that with a jail sentence if he didn't cooperate. He was "Yes, a set-up," Perry replied. spell out the government's campaign of repression. trained for several weeks to use a camera and other Perry went on to describe events which he says Dozen's of Panther members were murdered, do­ electronic equipment, including a parabolic reflec­ convinced him that he could no longer function as zens more like Pratt were framed up and sent to jail. tor, an instrument capable of picking up a conversa­ an FBI informer. Many Blacks are convinced that the Ku Klux tion from 500 yards away. Klan or a similar group is responsible for the His starting salary was $200 per week but zoomed George Jackson murder accelerated murders of Blacks in cities such as to $800 per week after he got experienced at spying One was the murder of George Jackson, the Atlanta and Buffalo today. on and framing up Panther members. According to prominent Black prison militant who wrote Soledad The question is posed-are these racist outfits Perry, at the heart of FBI tactics was the use of Brother. Jackson was gunned down by San Quen­ acting alone? informers-"getting next to the man or organiza­ tin prison guards in 1971. The guards claimed they The Klan and Nazis didn't act alone when they tion." shot him because he tried to escape. Perry believes gunned down civil rights activists in Greensboro, Perry said that he was sent to New York City to the FBI organized the whole thing. North Carolina, last year. A federal agent and a infiltrate the Queens chapter of the Panthers but "There are so many ways you can set up a man in local cop helped set up the murders. left after only two days. "We found out then that it prison," Perry told Noble. "If they want you they So who's helping the racist killers today? was infiltrated heavily by the New York City police will get you." -Vivian Sahner

8 MONTHLY MAGAZINE SUPPLEMENT TO THE MILITAB!

NOVEMBER 1980

In Defense of Scientific Thinking BJ Cliff Conner (INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW! PAGE 2)

part of a war of nerves against the American Their warlike rhetoric and policies are working people. The aim is to head off and suited to the drive of a weakening imperialism isolate resistance to the coming attacks by to stem a rising tide of revolution. Many a TIIBIIOITB proclaiming Reagan's reactionary proposals Washington-backed dictator has been com­ to be "the voice of the people." pelled to seek other employment. From Indo­ This is a calculated lie. The election china to Southern Africa, from the Middle IIBIVIB\V showed that millions were fed up with Car­ East to Central America, workers and farmers ter's assault on our living standards, not that have scored gains in breaking the strangle­ millions will welcome the same and worse hold of Washington and Wall Street. Beagan on a from Reagan. In fact, knowing the unpopular­ The Reagan program is a challenge to the ity of his extreme right-wing platform, Reagan life-and-death interests of American working ~systematically obscured it during much of the people. But like his desire to drive back the Collision Course campaign behind promises of peace and workers and farmers of the rest of the world, Policy statements and trial balloons from prosperity. it is easier said than done. President-elect Ronald Reagan, his transition team, and congressional aides leave no room Reagan's post-election stance is not simply The attempt to implement these policies for doubt. The incoming administration is on the aberration of a racist, reactionary indivi­ will inspire resistance, because they are just a collision course with American working dual. The billionaires who rule this country the opposite of what the overwhelming major­ people-and with workers and farmers desperately need to impose the brutal pro­ ity want. around the world. gram that Reagan proposes. They are im­ We want peace, jobs, decent living stand­ The capitalists are seeking to use Reagan's pelled to try to make us pay for inflation and ards, a livable environment, safe workplaces, election to massively escalate attacks on our intensifying international competition, eco­ equality, and human rights. The contrast living standards and human rights. nomic dislocations and breakdowns, declin­ between our needs and those of the billion­ The attacks include plans to: ing profit rates, and all the other ills built into aires that Reagan repre13ents means sharper • Cut Social Security benefits. a declining capitalist system. class struggle and broader confrontations in • Slash up to $40 billion from the budget. That's why the attacks are bipartisan. Even the weeks and months ahead. (Howard Baker, the likely Senate Majority verbal differences between liberals and con­ leader, suggested that social programs can servatives are narrowing rapidly as Demo­ Rely on ourselves be cut by 25 percent or more.) cratic and Republican politicians close ranks The coming together of Republican and • Reduce the minimum wage for youth and in defense of the needs of capitalism. One Democratic politicians behind Reagan's pro­ repeal the Davis-Bacon Act, which mandates Carter administration official told the Wall gram, in the wake of four years of reactionary union wages for workers on federal construc­ Street Journal it was "unlikely that any liberal Carter policies, shows that these parties won't tion sites. Democrats will raise the banner for labor" stop the reactionary drive. Whatever their • Speed building of nuclear power plants, against Reagan's policies. tactical differences over how fast to proceed, including breeder reactors. The lame-duck Democratic-controlled Con­ they all serve big business and view us as the The cutting edge is an assault on civil gress is doing its bit to fuel the reactionary enemy. rights won in the past by Blacks, Latinos, and drive. On November 17 the Senate approved a women. The rulers want these millions to Working people will have to rely on our House proposal to ban busing suits by the continue to provide a reserve army of chroni­ own strength to hold on to what we have and Justice Department. The next day the House cally unemployed cheap labor. And they want move on to new gains. approved a proposal to incorporate a 2 per­ to weaken the fighting capacity of all working First and foremost, we need to oppose the cent spending reduction in every area except people by reinforcing racist and sexist dis­ divide-and-rule tactics of the Reagan team by the military in the 1981 budget. crimination. opposing racist terror and defending busing, W. Allen Wallis, chancellor of the University affirmative action, the Equal Rights Amend­ of Rochester, who advises Reagan on educa­ New Vietnams ment, and all the human rights of Blacks, tion, called for "discontinuing affirmative-ac­ The profit drive of the oil companies, Latinos, and women. tion programs," reported the November 11 banks, and other big corporations is interna­ Reagan's reactionary proposals strike at New York Times. Wallis has no qualms toss­ tional. And the ultimate sacrifice demanded every sector of the working class, from unem­ ing off such phrases as "Blacks in the inner of us to help them maintain their investments ployed Black youth to the better-paid skilled city are ignorant." and markets is war. construction workers to the working farmer. Reagan advisers promise a "cautious ap­ For starters, Reagan and Texas Sen. John They are a reminder of the truth of the labor proach to enforcement of civil rights," the Tower are preparing to tack on another $3 adage that an injury to one is an injury to all. November 15 Times reported. Instead the billion to Carter's record $157.5 billion arms focus of the Justice Department is to be on We need to rely on ourselves, on mobilizing budget for 1981. "street crime." What "caution" means was the enormous power of tens of millions of Reagan's national security advisers ·have signaled when Sen. Strom Thurmond of working people who keep this country run­ openly declared the whole globe to be their South Carolina, who will become chairman of ning. We need a labor party that can give our province. "No area of the world is beyond the the Judiciary Committee, announced he class political voice and win political power. scope of American interest," they declared, might push for repeal of the 1965 Voting calling for "sufficient military standing to The last two years have seen some initial Rights Act. cope with any level of violence." steps toward the kind of united fightback that No wonder racist murderers in Buffalo, is needed: the miners' strike of 1977-78 that Atlanta, New Orleans, and Greensboro feel a They explain that this "requires a structure pushed back the coal bosses' union-busting surge of confidence. They know that the of overseas bases and access rights able to effort; the anti-Klan march that drew 7,000 to murder of Black children or anti-Klan demon­ assist ground, naval and air forces in support­ Greensboro on February 2; the May 10 march strators won't be the kind of "street crime" ing U.S. interests anywhere in the world." for the Equal Rights Amendment in Chicago, that Reagan's cops go after. There's a formula for new Vietnams! preceded by the April 26 labor conference for The rights of women are also in the new The push for stepped-up military interven­ the ERA; and the Labor Conference for Safe president's gunsights. Reagan has reiterated tion abroad. requires that American youth be Energy and Full Employment in October, support for a constitutional amendment to subject to the draft. And so Senator Tower let where more than 900 unionists, including ban abortions and opposition to the Equal it be know that the Senate probably wouldn't close to 200 coal miners, challenged the oil Rights Amendment. repeal Carter's draft registration edict, even companies and nuclear power combines. though the Republican platform opposed it. Millions of working people-unionists, What mandate? The arrogant tone of the Reagan team's Blacks, women, and farmers-have it within The media joined Reagan in proclaiming foreign policy pronoucements should not be our power to shatter all the well-laid plans of his election as a mandate. This pretense is mistaken for strength, however. Reagan and his transition team.

COITBITS

Evolution vs. Creationism Hollywood Witch-hunt Editor: Fred Feldman By Cliff Conner ...... 3 By Lorraine Sockaci Contributing Editor: George Novack and Morris Starsky ...... 11 Design: Diane Jacobs REVIEWS: The International Socialist Review ap­ Law and Marxism pears in the Militant monthly except Jan­ Working People in the uary. French Revolution By Michael Smith Copyright © 1980 The Militant By Paul Siegel ...... 11 and Eric Poulos ...... 12

"10 (NOVEMBER 1980) (PAGE 3/INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW)

Bvolution vs. reationism: In Defense of Scientific Thinking Top left, evolution of the three skeletal segments. Right, Charles Darwin in about 1880.

growing religious fundamentalist groups. This schools. Today they are trying to muddy the spring a rally of fundamentalist Christians in waters as much as they can, and introduce as BJ Oliff Conner Washington, D.C., according to the report in the much confusion and irrationalism as possible New York Times, was attended by some 200,000 into the curriculum through their attempts to The Scopes Trial-also known as the "Tennes­ people from all over the country. gain "equal time" with the verified findings of see Monkey Trial"-has become a symbol of This is not purely or even primarily a religious modern science. irrationalism and backwardness in American phenomenon. It is part of the political polariza­ culture. John Scopes was a young high school tion of the social classes that is taking place in The 'Equal Time' Ploy biology teacher who was convicted in 1925 of this country. Their "equal time" ploy is bogus from the start. violating Tennessee's law against teaching Dar­ On the one side are the working people, who The creationists are historically opposed to free­ win's theory of evolution. The adverse effects of increasingly see the need to change society in dom of speech and freedom of scientific inquiry. that trial were long-lasting. Anti-Darwinism their interests. On the other side are the capital­ The real issue at stake is not whether their continued to have a chilling effect on the teach­ ists and the right-wing forces they can organize viewpoint is being undemocratically suppressed, ing of biology in the public schools. Throughout or inspire. but whether a biologist who is writing a textbook the 1930s the name "Darwin" or the word "evolu­ In Alaska, for example, one of these fundamen­ or giving a lecture will be forced to present as tion" was not to be found in most biology text­ talist right-wing groups managed to dominate equally valid a doctrine that he or she does not books. the convention of the state's Republican Party. consider to be valid at all-and whether students But over the years, the tide turned, and Dar­ Calling itself the Moral Majority, it went on to will be forced to absorb a religious doctrine win's theories were so universally accepted that play an active role in supporting Reagan and falsely presented as science. · they seemed, at last, to have triumphed over the other Republican candidates. Forcing creationism into the curriculum on an forces of obscurantism. Its literature says things like: "Our country is equal footing with Darwin would be highly Today, however, the anti-Darwinists are still turning into a 20th century Sodom and Gomor­ destructive of scientific education. "For a biolo­ around and as loud and aggressive as ever. But rah.... " "Advocates of abortion on demand, gist, the alternative to thinking in evolutionary now they've found it expedient to make a tactical recognition of homosexuals. as a bona fide mino­ terms is not to think at all."1 retreat. Instead of demanding that Darwin be · rity ... are destroying this country." "The free Big money is rolling into the foundations banned, they demand that their "theory"-which enterprise system is endangered by the advent of promoting anti-Darwin propaganda. Bills requir­ they call "scientific creationism" -be given equal socialism." ing equal time for creation theory have been time in the schools and universities and text­ This group is also against the Equal Rights presented in state legislatures in Florida, Illinois, books. Amendment and welfare, for increasing the war New York, and many other states. Such a bill budget, and staunchly in favor of parents spank­ was actually passed in Tennessee. Reagan's View ing their children. On the other hand, the American capitalists President-elect Ronald Reagan injected this The rise of such groups is a reflection of the are engaged in economic competition with their issue into the presidential campaign, saying that social and economic crisis which the capitalist European and Japanese counterparts and are he sees "great flaws" in the theory of evolution. system faces. So, on the opposite side, is the rise dependent upon technological advances to help It is "theory only," the Republican candidate of discontent and militancy among young work­ them come out ahead in the productivity race. said, "and it has in recent years been challenged ers and the Black community. Weakening scientific education in this country in the world of science. . . . If it was going to be A very important part of the ideology of the would tend to give their competitors (not to taught in the schools, then I would think that right-wing fundamentalist groups is anti­ mention the Soviet Union) a technological ad­ also the biblical theory of creation, which is not a Darwinism. They claim that the creation myths vantage. Thus the New York Times and similar theory but the biblical story of creation, should ·recorded in the book of Genesis are literally true. ruling-class opinion makers have come out also be taught." "The Bible is God," they say, "and God is the against the creationists' demands for equal time. "Scientific creationism" is a well-financed, supreme scientist." The courts, so far, have ruled against the anti­ well-organized right-wing ideological campaign One might ask, "So what? Can't these right­ Darwin forces. The Tennessee "equal time" law, that has something of a mass base among the wingers be fought on abortion rights, and the for instance, was overturned by a federal court ERA, and gay rights? Why do we have to worry on the grounds that it violated the constitutional about their anti-evolution idiocy?" guarantee of separation of church and state. Cliff Conner, a frequent contributor to the ISR, is For one thing, this assault on secular educa­ The judge made a valid point. He said, in the author of 'Albert Einstein and the Revolution tion has become a serious political issue in its effect, that if equal time is to be granted to the in Modern Science,' which appeared in the De­ own right. In the "good old days" the creationists Christians' creation myth, then equal time cember 1979 issue. could get the courts to ban Darwin from the should be provided for the creation myths of all

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the other religions as well.2 To force the Adam­ absolute, fixed, or final. That is, the process of and-Eve story into public school biology courses To the creationists, new acquiring knowledge cannot come to an end­ would be very much like imposing Christianity there is no stopping point; it is infinite. The as a state religion. facts and discoveries are notion that human intelligence may someday Defending Darwin is nothing new for social­ not the starting points of comprehend everything is simply meaningless. ists. The socialist movement recognized Darwin­ The object of our knowledge-the material ism as an important element in its general new knowledge; they are world-is infinitely complex, and the deeper we world outlook right from the start. When Darwin troublesome things that probe into its mysteries, the more new mysteries published his Origin of Species in 1859, Karl we uncover. Every old problem that is solved Marx wrote a letter to Frederick Engels in which have to be explained away. raises new ones. That is how science progresses. he said: " . . . this is the book which contains So science, by its very nature, will always the basis in natural history for our view." have questions that it has not yet answered. The Darwin revolutionized scientific thought. He notion of absolute certainty, or absolute knowl­ shattered the traditional view that all of the life edge, is itself characteristic of religious thought. forms on earth had always been just the way But of course, the "absolute truths" based on they are today; that humans had always been religious faith are nothing more than self-decep­ humans, horses had always been horses, oak tions. trees had always been oak trees. . By establishing the fact that species have Questions of Origin changed into qualitatively new ones over time, Some of the questions that are central to the Darwin replaced a static view of nature with a evolutionary outlook illustrate these points very dynamic one. He introduced a historical perspec­ well. They are the general questions of origins. tive into natural science, which has since spread How did things begin? Where did they come beyond biology and conquered other fields. from? For one example: where once the stars were Let us consider a series of these questions, considered fixed in an orderly pattern in the starting with the universe as a whole: heavens, now it is known that they are in a • What was the origin of the universe? continuous state of turmoil, with stars being • What was the origin of the material that born, developing through stages, exploding all makes up the universe, the elements? the time. • What was the origin of the solar system, For a second example: only a few years ago including the earth? geologists believed that the continents of the • What was the origin of organic matter? earth had been fixed in their present positions for • What was the origin of life on earth? billions of years; now the new knowledge of plate • What was the origin of the tremendous tectonics has revealed that the continents have diversity of life on earth? been moving and changing throughout the whole • What was the origin of human life? history of the planet. Some may have occurred to you when you were As Engels put it, Darwin opened the way for a a child. What kind of answers did you get? Most new view of nature where "all rigidity was likely they fell into one of two categories. Either dissolved, all fixity dissipated, . . . the whole of · you were told, "I don't know, don't bother me," or nature shown as moving in eternal flux ...." you were told, "God created it all." This. view of nature is both materialist and These two types of answers are really equival­ dialectical, so it is obvious why Marx and En­ ent. The answer "god created everything" is no gels, despite certain reservations, so enthusiasti­ answer at all-it is avoiding an answer. If it is cally embraced it as "the basis in natural history accepted as an answer, then there is no need to for our view." go any further, no need to make any observa­ tions, no need to do any experiments-because Evolution and Class Struggle single article, but it is possible to cover the after all, any facts that are learned will only get It is not only for biologists that "the alterna­ general types of evidence. Before that it is worth in the way and clutter up the absolute knowledge tive to thinking in evolutionary terms is not to considering the objections usually raised against that has already been attained. The answer "god think at all." That holds for every field of Darwinism. created it" signifies an end to inquiry. scientific investigation, from astrophysics to poli­ The creationists' arguments can be reduced to That is the position the creationists are in. tics. two basic themes. The first theme is an appeal to New facts and discoveries are not the starting This explains the connection between right­ a usually legitimate sentiment-distrust of au­ points of new knowledge; they are troublesome wing politics and anti-evolutionism._ The right thority and official institutions. The creationists things that have to be explained away. wing-the most vociferous advocates of the capi­ say that Darwinism is an unproven dogma that Scientific investigation has provided us with talist system-are defenders of the status quo. is upheld by a caste of official scientists. some answers to the series of questions about They are bitterly opposed to fundamental social This is nothing but a demagogic tactic aimed natural origins. These answers do not pretend to change. As far as they are concerned, the "free at discrediting scientific knowledge through represent finalized knowledge. But we can be enterprise" profit system has always existed and "guilt by association" with scientists who are sure that they do represent a growing m.easure of always will exist as a part of the natural order of often perceived by the public as an inaccessible genuine knowledge about the real world-an things, and any other way of thinking consti­ elite. But Darwin's-or any theory-stands or approximation to the truth-and that further tutes a threat. falls on the evidence provided by the material investigation will bring us closer and closer to A historical view shows that capitalism had a world. the full truth. beginning. An evolutionary view shows that it Scientific questions must not be left to "experts The important point to note is that these are has developed and changed over time, and indi­ only" -the debate over nuclear power provides a materialist answers. They may prove in the cates that it will have an end and a successor. good example-but to discard the collective con­ course of further scientific development to have This is intolerable to defenders of the status quo. clusions of professional scientists is obvious non­ been incorrect on this or that detail. But they The issues at stake are therefore big ones. By sense. clearly show that the world as we know it today fostering irrational and antiscientific thinking, The creationists' second theme actually con­ is capable of being explained in terms of the the right-wing fundamentalists serve as an in­ sists of a whole multitude of arguments, some of causal relationships that scientists have ab­ strument of the ruling rich, rallying forces to which are very sophisticated, but all of which stracted from their study of the material world­ fight for the preservation of the old and· out­ reduce to a single jdea. There are many impor­ the laws of nature. These explanations are con­ moded capitalist order-even though the rulers tant questions that science has not yet been able vincing and can be made without recourse to now reject many of the most extreme right-wing to answer, and the creationists will focus on one supernatural forces of any kind, including gods. demands. of them and in effect say, "Aha! You can't The series of questions I have posed about By defending Darwinism, working people answer this question? Then your theory is not beginnings in natural history implies an overall strengthen their defenses against the attacks of perfect. Therefore your theory is false. Therefore view of universal evolution. This goes far beyond these reactionary outfits, and prepare the way for the theory of creationism is just as good!" the scope of Darwin's investigations, which the transformation of the social order. We will consider some specific examples of this concentrated only on one point: the origin of the This is part of a broad class struggle which, kind of argument. The main thing to notice, vast diversity of life forms, or, as he put it in the somewhere down the road, will culminate either though, is that it is purely negative. Creationism, title of his major work, The Origin of Species.3 in the socialist revolution or in the crushing of claiming to be a scientific theory, cannot explain' So let us start at the beginning, taking what the working class by a fascist movement. anything specific about natural phenomena. It will be an extremely long view of history. The defense of Darwinism, then, reaches far has nothing to add to our knowledge of the real beyond the question of the origin of species. The world and its development. It cannot counterpose Origin of·the Universe creationists' attack on the evolutionary outlook even a slight body of counter-evidence that sup­ What is known about how the universe began? has to be countered in every field of science. ports its view to the vast and varied body of Astronomers have learned that the largest parts Since they have particularly targeted Darwin, evidence supporting evolution. For that reason, of the universe as we know it-the galaxies and much of this article will focus on defending his the creationists are left with only one weak galaxy clusters-are flying away from each other theory of natural selection, but it cannot be weapon, and that is to point to the current limits at enormous speeds. The galaxies are moving in limited to that. It will be necessary to also show of legitimate science and criticize it for not a way that suggests that at some remote time in how evolutionary thinking has penetrated and having gone further. the past they were in a very compact region of advanced other areas of human knowledge. It is certainly no disgrace to acknowledge that space, and then exploded. This is the essence of there are questions science has not been able to the prevailing "big bang" theory. Creationist Arguments answer. Dialectical materialists are aware that In 1965, radio astronomers discovered a tiny The evidence supporting Darwin's theory is so everything changes. Nothing stays the same; but definite amount of microwave radiation extensive that it not only fills books, it fills everything develops, including human knowl­ coming at us from all directions. This has since libraries. Only an outline can be given in a edge. Our knowledge is not, and can never be, been shown to be the "cosmic background radia-

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tion" that physicists had suggested would be a lets us know that the galaxies are moving away atoms begin fusing with each other to make residue of the big bang. Since the background from us in all directions. It also provides a means many of the other lighter elements, such as be­ radiation had been theoretically predicted before of estimating how fast they are flying apart from ryllium and carbon. it was actually discovered, and since it so closely one another. Eventually the helium supply runs low, and matched the prediction, it provided strong evi­ With that knowledge it is possible to take the process more or less repeats itself. Another dence in favor of the big bang theory. another step and figure out how long the galax­ gravitational collapse takes place, but this time By applying well known laws of statistical ies have been traveling outward since the big the temperature goes above a billion degrees, at mechanics to what is known about the cosmic bang. In other words, an estimate of the age of which point the lighter atoms fuse to make all background radiation, astrophysicists have been the universe is possible, and it has been put at the elements up to iron. able to develop a hypothesis as to what proper­ about ten to fifteen billion years. This tentative ties the universe had as early as one one­ estimate has been shown to be consistent with Larger Stars hundredth of a second after the big bang. estimates derived by other methods. In relatively small stars, this might be the end At first, according to this hypothesis, it con­ Analysis of starlight has shown that most of of the road. Some of the heavier elements they sisted of an undifferentiated soup of subatomic the atoms in the universe, by far, are hydrogen produced will have been thrown off in the transi­ particles and radiation. But after about 700,000 atoms. Most of the rest are helium atoms. The tional explosions, but most will remain and the years the temperature of the universe had kinds of atoms present here on earth are in a tiny star will eventually burn out. dropped to about 3,000 degrees Kelvin, at which minority. Larger stars, however, beginning with those point electrons and atomic nuclei were able to After the temperature of the universe dropped about one and a half times as massive as our sun, begin uniting to form stable atoms. 4 enough for subatomic particles to get together, are too big to simply fizzle out. In these, there is large clouds of hydrogen atoms formed. Gravita­ an ultimate collapse that leads to an explosion so Analysis of Light tional forces caused the atoms to pull each other powerful that the whole thing blows up in a One important source of knowledge about the together, eventually tightly enough to make a massive helium bomb. universe comes frorp the fact that astronomers compact mass. In this way stars and great This blow-up is called a supernova, and it can analyze the light from distant stars and tell systems of stars, the galaxies, were formed. produces pressures and temperatures so extreme what elements and combinations of elements In the formation of an individual clump of that all of the heaviest elements, up to and they're made of. When atoms get very hot-when matter, if there is enough mass involved, the beyond uranium, are created. Then much of this they absorb energy in the form of heat-they in gravity can produce energy enough to create matter is dispersed in all directions by the super­ turn release energy in the form of light, and temperatures reaching 15 million degrees, at nova explosion. That which is left behind has every different kind of atom emits light of a which point hydrogen atoms begin to fuse into been tightly compressed into superdense material different frequency, or color. So light from ex­ helium atoms. That fusion itself releases more (imagine the earth crushed down to the size of a cited hydrogen atoms can be distinguished from energy, which helps to fuse more hydrogen gQlf ball) producing a "neutron star," or, given the light produced by helium atoms or any other. atoms, and so forth. This chain reaction that sufficient mass, a "black hole." Another very important kind of information fuels the stars is the same reaction that produces can be gleaned from the analysis of starlight. a hydrogen-bomb explosion. Dialectical Laws The frequency of the light changes in a measure­ Eventually a star burns up most of its hydro­ This process is known as stellar evolution. The able way proportional to the speed of its source. gen and turns it into helium. In so doing, it stead­ German philosopher G. W. F. Hegel had no We see the light of a star moving rapidly toward ily runs out of fuel and gradually loses energy. At knowledge of stellar evolution, but it is a perfect the earth as slightly "bluer" and the light of a the start, its energy output creates a pressure illustration of certain laws of dialectical motion star moving rapidly away as slightly "redder." that counterbalances its gravitational pull, but that he formulated. Individual atoms fuse, and (These color differences cannot be detected by the when its fusion power begins to lose strength the after a certain quantity of them have done so, the naked eye; to be measurable the white starlight gravitation gets the upper hand. Then the whole whole star suddenly experiences a qualitative has to be divided into the individual wavelengths thing collapses violently again, producing an change-a revolutionary transformation-as it that make it up.) explosion called a nova. collapses and explodes and begins a whole new It so happens that virtually all galaxies appear An immense burst of energy is released, rais­ mode of element production on a new level. "redder" than they would if they were standing ing the temperature to hundreds of millions of The star is a unity of conflicting forces-th,e still relative to the earth. This "red shift" is what degrees, and at that temperature the helium outward push of the fusion energy against the

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13 (INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW/PAGE 6)

inward pull of gravity. The struggle between that it will never be able to pinpoint the day, the somewhat, the oldest earth rocks that have been these opposing internal forces eventually erupts hour, the minute, or the second that a three-bil­ found are less than 4 billion years old. The moon and transforms the star into a qualitatively lion-year-old rock was formed. On the other rocks and meteorites are about a billion years different kind of star. And at some point, it hand, the method is certainly adequate to prove older, going back to nearly five billion years. negates the star. that the earth is well over six thousand years old, This account of stellar evolution provides an which is what the creationists object to. Origin of Life explanation of where the atoms in your body, There are other methods of estimating the age We now come to a key question for evolution· and in everything else on earth, came from. At of the solar system. One of these consists of ists: How did life originate on earth? DarwiP some time in the past there were supernova figuring out how much hydrogen has been fused consciously avoided this question, and rightly so explosions in our galaxy, after which a dense into helium by the sun and determining how because there was almost no evidence availablf cloud of the debris of hydrogen and other atoms much time that would have taken. The fact that at that time on which a theory could have been started swirling around again and eventually various independent methods provide compara­ based. Since Darwin's time, however, a grea1 condensed to form a new star-the sun. ble results is a strong indication of the approxi­ deal of evidence has been discovered, and a Some smaller pockets of atoms around the sun mate correctness of the estimates. convincing materialist answer to the question is condensed to form bodies that were not big As previously noted, the estimates for the age now possible. enough to have the kind of gravitation that of the solar system and the earth come out to The pioneer scientists in this field of investiga· would ignite fusion reactions. These became the around four and a half to five billion years. Since tion, it so happens, were dialectical materialists. earth and the other planets. That, in a nutshell, rocks didn't form until the earth cooled down The central figure is the Soviet biochemist A. I. accounts for the origin of the solar system. The Earth The matter that came together to form the earth was not, for the most part, in the form of naked atoms. By this time the atoms had com­ bined into molecules. Some had been in molecu­ The object of 01 lar form even in the stars. In any event, these atoms and molecules formed a sphere of a certain material world­ mass. After its gravitational collapse, this sphere was complex, and tl very hot; not hot enough to produce a star, but hot enough so that nothing was in a solid state. into its mysteri. The heaviest molecules tended to sink toward the mysteries we Ul center of the sphere, and the lightest ones drifted off into space, never to return, because the problem that is earth's gravitation was too weak to hold theni. This selection process left the earth, its surface, ones. That is h4 and its atmosphere with a certain specific combi­ nation of elements. The core of the earth re­ progresses. mained hot; the surface cooled. Volcanic action brought some of the heavier elements back to the surface. The stage was set for the development of life. When did all of this happen? That is the same as asking: How old is the earth? Several inde­ pendent methods estimate the age of our planet at about four and a half to five billion years. This fact is of central importance to evolution­ ary theory. The creationists dispute it. To uphold the bible as literal truth, they are compelled to believe that the earth is only about six thousand years old. Some even claim to know exactly when god created everything: 4004 B.C.5 Science does not appeal to a written text; it examines objective reality. The main technique for obtaining an estimate of the earth's age is known as radioactive dating. By examining pieces of the earth, and rocks from the moon, and the meteorites that hit the earth, it can be determined how long ago they were formed, and that gives an estimate of the age of the solar system, including the earth. How Radioactive Dating Works Radioactive dating works like this: certain forms (isotopes) of certain elements-such as uranium, potassium, and thorium are known to be radioactive. That is, their atoms tend to break down spontaneously by giving up little pieces of themselves. In the process, they turn into the atoms of other elements. Uranium and thorium, for example, turn into lead. Potassium turns into argon.. It has been determined by observation that each one of these radioactive transformations proceeds at an extremely regular rate. They are so regular that they provide a highly accurate way to measure time. No extremes of pressure or temperature have been known to slow down or speed up these transformations, so they act as a very reliable clock. A rock found below the surface of the earth can be analyzed to determine how much potassium and how much argon it contains. Geologists are able to estimate how much argon, if any, was originally in the rock when it was formed. It is therefore possible to measure how much of the rock's argon was produced by the radioactive decay of potassium. Since the time it takes for this transformation to take place is well known, the age of the rock can be determined. These measurements, of course, are approxi­ mate. A rock may be shown to be 3 billion years old, give or take a hundred million. The creation­ ists then exclaim, "Aha! You don't know exactly how old the rock is? Then something is obviously wrong with your method, and it should be dis­ carded!" The technique of radioactive dating will surely become sharper and sharper, but it is safe to say

14 (NOVEMBER 1980) (PAGE 7/lNTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW)

Oparin. The next two most important figures in philosophy can follow only a single path in the Today, the production of organic compounds is origin-of-life research were the British Marxists attempt to solve the problem of the origin of life. a commonplace practical activity of human J.D. Bernal and J. B.S. Haldane. Life has neither arisen spontaneously nor has it society; our society is dependent upon industrial­ In his classic work Origin of Life,6 Oparin existed eternally. It must have, therefore, re­ ized organic chemical reactions. explains that for thousands of years people sulted from a long evolution of matter, its origin It has since been shown that simple organic believed that life could arise spontaneously, at being merely one step in the course of its histori­ compounds exist even in the cooler stars, as the any time, out of non-living matter. For instance, cal development." result of a natural process of stellar evolution, it was believed that flies were spontaneously Engels, as usual, was way ahead of his time. and in dense clouds in interstellar space. And produced out of decaying meat. But when Louis By following this line of inquiry, Oparin suc­ more complex organic compounds existed in the Pasteur disproved the possibility of spontaneous ceeded in giving a detailed answer to the ques­ primitive atmosphere and oceans of the earth, as generation, science was left without any theory tion: How did non-living matter evolve into we shall see. _of how life began. The most popular theory then living matter? If we look at how his answer has became the idea that life had always existed, stood up over several decades to the test of new Organic molecules throughout all time. discoveries, we can learn a very important lesson But where did the much more complex organic But Oparin's investigations followed a differ­ about the nature of scientific knowledge and how molecules necessary for life come from? Let us ent approach, one that had earlier been sug­ it develops. consider protein molecules, which are the basic gested by Frederick Engels. Oparin explained: Oparin's Origin of Life was published in 1935. mate!'ial of living matter. A typical protein "Engels shows that a consistent materialist In 1978, the editor of a compilation of Scientific molecule contains about 10,000 atoms-mostly American articles on the subject gave this assess­ carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen atoms. ment 9f the work of Oparin together with that of Here is where the creationists bring in one of J.D. Bernal: their trump arguments. They say that protein "A. I. Oparin and J.D. Bernal were among the molecules are so complex that they must have first contemporary scientists to attempt explana­ been designed and put together by some supreme tions. of life's origins. They did so, of necessity, intelligence. To think that 10,000 carbon, hydro­ knowledge-the within the constructs of the sciences of their gen, oxygen, and nitrogen atoms could just time. Since then, our ideas of the universe have randomly come together to form a protein mole­ infinitely changed drastically. We retain the wondrous cule by chance is, they say, impossible. The odds heritage of their central ideas, which continue to against such a thing, they claim, are greater leeper we probe bear fruit for this field of study." than if you took a clock apart piece by piece, put This author goes on to make a very important all the pieces in a box, shook up the box, and the more new point: found that the clock parts had randomly fallen ~ver. Every old . "Every time we examine the specifics of the back into place and become a clock again. theories presented by Oparin and Bernal, current This argument sounds impressive at first hear­ lved raises new information seems to contradict them. Yet, in the ing, but it doesn't hold water. First of all, pro­ • main, they were right. How can one be both right teins are not just random assortments of atoms . science and wrong? Easy-we do it all the time. Any They are actually chains of smaller molecules, explanation of a complex issue invariably has called amino acids, that link together to form two components: the tru~h and the details. proteins. Different arrangements of amino acids Oparin and Bernal were deficient in their details make different proteins. because, at that time, astronomy and geology Then it is necessary to ask: Are the amino had barely any to supply. But their truth still acids just random assortments of atoms? Again, stands."7 the answer is no. Oparin reported on experimental evidence that Top left, a full complement of land Science vs. Positivism mammals evolved independently of proved that the production of amino acids occurs one another in both North and This is a clear illustration of how a scientific by purely natural processes. It has been done South America before formation of theory can embody real, genuine knowledge repeatedly in the laboratory with a straightfor­ Panama land bridge some two mil­ without having to claim completed knowledge. ward procedure: Make a mixture of some of the lion years ago. These similar mam­ Oparin's theory contained an essential core of organic compounds that are known to have been mals played the same ecological truth, but it was not a final theory that could not in the primitive oceans of the earth-methane

role on each continent. Left, mother be improved. It has been improved by further (CH 4) and ammonia (NH.), for example-with and baby gorillas. Knuckle-walking investigation, and its central core of truth has water. Then add some energy in the form of an was a transitional stage toward up­ thereby been strengthened. electric spark (to simulate a lightning flash in right posture, which permitted use This may seem very obvious, yet it goes the primitive atmosphere). Guess what happens? of tools; and tool use made possible against the philosophical outlook (or bias) that Amino acids and nucleic acids and sugars and the ultimate evolution of human dominates American intellectual circles. That is, fatty acids and other complex compounds neces­ intelligence. Below, Stegosaurus, a the positivist outlook that sees theories as more sary for life begin to form spontaneously. large herbivorous dinosaur of Juras­ or less useful tools that can never actually be By way of analogy, consider this familiar high­ sic period. considered objectively "true." school science experiment: Put hydrogen gas and This semi-skeptical attitude plays into the oxygen gas together and shoot a spark through it hands of the creationists, who insist that all of and water molecules tend to self-assemble. It is scientific knowledge is merely tentative and no mystery at all. The process is completely highly questionable because science has not understood and can be explained by quantum attained absolute truth. mechanics as a function of the nature of hydro- The dialectical materialist theory of knowledge gen and oxygen atoms. · enables us to accept that theories such as New­ Likewise, if you put methane and ammonia ton's, Darwin's; Einstein's and Oparin's repre­ together with water and hit it with a spark, you sent genuine knowledge and a better approxima­ will get amino acids, among other things. Some­ tion to truth than their precursors, without being one recently did this experiment and produced the final word on their respective subjects. amino acids without even using a spark-just sunlight. Oparin's Theory Amino acids link up to form proteins, but it is / Oparin's view was that the simplest organic still a long way from proteins to a living cell. molecules, such as the hydrocarbons, over Oparin's explanation is that there was a process hundreds of millions of years formed combina- of chemical evolution in the primitive oceans­ . tions of a more and more complex nature until spanning perhaps hundreds of millions of amino acids and nucleic acids organized them­ years-that resulted in more and more complex selves in such a way as to form the first living substances. He reported experiments that showed cells. that some of these complex substances tended to This self-organization of matter did not require form droplets within a solution of water. Then the guiding hand of a supernatural intelligence; some of these droplets would go further and form it took place as a result of natural processes, a membrane separating themselves from the rest some of which Oparin described, some of which of the solution. have been described by other scientists follow­ Both the tendency to form droplets and the ing Oparin's lead, and some of which have yet to tendency to form membranes are a result of the be described. physical phenomenon known as surface tension First of all, where did the original organic of liquids. matter-the simple hydrocarbons and so forth­ Then, Oparin says, "as soon as these droplets come from? Not too long ago, it was believed that became separated from the surrounding medium organic matter (combinations of chemicals con­ by a more or less definite border, they at once taining the element carbon) could only be pro­ acquired a certain degree of individuality. The 'The classical religious view had duced by living organisms. always been that since god created future history of [these] droplets could now follow If that were true, it would raise the ultimate different courses." ~=·· every species perfectly, it wouldn't make sense for him to have let any "chicken-or-egg" dilemma: "Which came first, Some just dissolve back into the water, but of them perish; therefore, there life or its organic-matter byproducts?" The impli­ others don't. In other words, some cease to exist could be no such thing as an extincl cation would be that life either had existed while others survive as individual droplets. The species. The bones of dinosaurs, eternally, or had had a supernatural origin. But ones that survive then go ahead to play a further and the fossils of literally millions of this problem was laid to rest in 1828 when it was role in chemical evolution. The membranes be­ extinct species have laid that argu­ discovered that organic compounds could be come selective, allowing some chemicals in and ment to rest.' synthesized in the laboratory. keeping others out.

15 Some droplets, then, tend to get larger. At a inheritance are now very well known. The study How can these facts be accounted for? If certain point, they get so large that they disinte­ of those laws has become a field of science unto someone were to assert that the Spanish and ~,~ grate under their own weight, or they divide into itself: the field of genetics . English languages originated and developed ,.. two or more droplets. The ones that disintegrate Genetics as a scientific discipline has grown completely separ-ately, arid the many cognates •;"! cease to exist. The ones that divide go on to very fast in the twentieth century. It has passed they share are merely a huge coincidence, they further evolution. And so it goes. beyond the passive stage of observation and would not be taken seriously. On the other hand, prediction to the active stage of foresight and the absence of cognates between English and More Organized Substances Chinese is evidence of separate origins and devel­ II manipulation. The phrase "genetic engineering" What this leads to is a gradual increase, in the opment. ~I is a common one, which acknowledges that primitive oceans, of more and more highly organ­ genetics has entered the realm of practical activ­ The same sort of reasoning applies to homolo­ ized substances. The demise of the less well­ ity on the part of human beings.9 That, said gous structures in different species, but with this adapted droplets and the survival of the better Frederick Engels, is the ultimate test of the truth exception: there is no species on earth that is not adapted droplets is a form of selection, analogous of a theory-when it can be translated into linked together with all others by homologous (but not equivalent) to the process Darwin discov­ practical activity that produces prescribed re­ structures. A study of these similar structures ered as the basis of the evolution of living matter. sults. That is the basis of dialectical material­ shows that while the many species differ from Oparin's droplets were already mimicking­ ism's theory of knowledge. each other, taken all together they exhibit pro­ and anticipating-some of the activities of living Whether genetic engineering should be carried gressions of interconnected changes, all the way cells. When they got bigger, they looked like they on is a controversial question. Nevertheless, the from single-celled organisms to elephants or were "growing," and when they divided, they reallty of gene-splicing, or recombinant DNA giant redwood trees. appeared to be "reproducing." technology, serves to prove the truthof genetic But Oparin was the first to acknowledge that theory, which is inseparable from Darwin's the­ Similar Blood Types these droplets had a long, long way to go before ory of the evolution of species. Blood types provide an example of homologous they could approach the complexity of the sim­ One author describes the general importance of structures. Although all of us homo sapiens are plest living cell. What he did was to demonstrate Darwin's theory like this: "The modern theory of members of the same species, we can be classi­ that this was a natural process heading in that evolution is the basis of biological science. It is fied into four very clearcut variants by our blood. direction, and he was thereby able in principle to an idea that unifies and directs work in all sorts Your blood type is either A, B, AB, or 0. There provide a convincing materialist answer to the of specialized fields, from medicine to geology."10 are no intermediate types. question of how living matter evolved from non­ What this means is that the question of the The human blood groups are also found in living matter. evolution of species cannot be isolated from the chimpanzees. "Hence comes the paradoxical whole complex of modern knowledge, as the fact," writes J. B.S. Haldane, "that it may be no Darwin creationists try to do. Darwin's theory is a more dangerous to have a transfusion of blood That brings us to Darwin. Where did the foundation upon which many fields of science from a chimpanzee than from your own immense diversity of life forms-plants, mam­ and technology are based. Darwin can't be brother.... " 11 mals, insects, fish, birds, bacteria-come from? repudiated without throwing out the tangible If chimpanzees originated entirely separately Darwin wasn't the first to suggest that the achievements of the biological sciences, includ­ from humans, how in the world could it be various species evolved from earlier species. The ing medical science, over the last hundred years. explained that both species have such similar problem was that while many people suspected But let us go back to Darwin's time and blood? this to be true, they were unable to explain how consider what kind of evidence was then avail­ This is just one of millions of similar facts that such a process might have happened. able that led him to his revolutionary conclu­ can be explained by the simple proposition that That was Darwin's contribution. He put evolu­ sions. all species are related by ancestry. This generali­ tion on a materialist foundation by showing that zation is central to one kind of practical activity a natural process could explain the development Selective Breeding that is very familiar and important to all of us: of the various species. He called the process For one thing, there was the common practice medical research. If animals and humans were natural selection. of selective breeding. People would breed pigeons, not made up of homologous organs and tissues, Take a single organism-a fish, for example. A and roses, and dogs, and all kinds of vegetables, medical experimentation on animals would not female fish may lay millions of eggs. Only a and through this practical activity they had be of much value to us. handful will produce fish that survive to adult­ clearly shown that a species could be made to Returning to the analogy with languages: some hood. change in dramatic ways. languages, such as Chinese and English, show no The survival or failure to survive of any One could start with a couple of litters of similar word origins, so they show no evidence of individual fish is not inexplicable. Darwin no­ average-size dogs, breed the smaller ones to­ having had any kinship in the past. If it were ticed that in large populations, even of offspring gether and the larger ones together, keep doing true that species were created, or arose, separ­ of the same parents, there is a great deal of this for many generations, and eventually get ately and independently of each other, would it variation. The individual offspring differ in something like St. Bernards from one group and not be expected that at least one species could be many ways. Some will be larger and some will be chihuahuas from the other. · found, somewhere in the world, that would be smaller, some will be faster and others will be Although Darwin wasn't able to cite any completely unique? slower, and so forth. examples of selective breeding that had resulted In fact, of the millions of species on this planet Some of these characteristics may give some of in the development of an entirely distinct species there is not a single one that is completely these organisms a survival advantage over their (chihuahuas and St. Bernards are both of the unique; that has no homologous features in brothers and sisters. Their particular blend of same species), this has since become common­ common with other species. The implication, of characteristics helps them to adapt to their place. The species of wheat in most of the bread course, is inescapable: No species gives any environment better. By virtue of the fact that we eat were developed in laboratories. Again, indication of having been created or having they survive to adulthood, these individuals are practical activity of this sort provides the strong­ arisen separately from all the rest. the ones that reproduce and have more offspring, est proof of the validity of evolutionary theory. Furthermore-and this is one of the critically so those characteristics that favor survival tend Darwin was also unable to document any important things that have been learned since to be passed on to subsequent generations in directly observed process of natural selection, Darwin's time-every species has some very greater and greater proportions. because by definition it is a process that operates important homologous features in common with This leads, over many generations, to large over long stretches of time. But enough time has every other species. changes in the average characteristics of the passed by now, and many examples of natural What, you might wonder, does a human being population as a whole, so new generations can be selection have been observed, both in nature and have in common with sponges, or bacteria? For very different from their ancestors. in laboratory experiments. one thing, every living thing is made up of cells, This process can work in more than one Three fields of study that provided Darwin and those cells have a great deal of similarity. direction at once, producing a divergence, where with evidence for evolution were homology, pa­ The most important homologous feature has to a parent species produces two or more groups of leontology, and embryology. First: homology­ do with the genetic mechanism itself-the equip­ offspring, many generations removed, that have the study of the similarities among various spe­ ment through which we reproduce and transmit become so different from each other that they cies. our hereditary material to our offspring. The can no longer interbreed. Then, by definition, basic material that contains the genetic code for they have become different species. This is most Similarities Between Species every species is essentially the same: it is the likely to happen when two groups belonging to Elephants and tigers, for example, are quite very complicated molecule called dioxyribonu­ the same species become geographically separ­ different animals, but they do have a lot in cleic acid, or DNA for short. ated. common, and those things these animals have in This fact ties the entire world of living orga­ The evolution of species by natural selection, common-such as skeletons, hearts, blood, two nisms together. There is not a single species then, is a process of relatively small changes8 eyes, two ears (the list is virtually endless)-are whose origin cannot be explained as a result of a accumulating to produce a decisive qualitative called homologous structures. variation of its genetic code; of its DNA. No change. Leon Trotsky called this discovery by "It is notorious," Darwin wrote in The Descent species shows any reason to believe that it was Darwin "the highest triumph of the dialectic in of Man, "that man is constructed on the same "specially created" separately from all the rest.l 2 the whole field of organic matter." general type or model as other mammals. All the Darwin's theory is one ·that, like Oparin's, bones of his skeleton can be compared with Fossil Record contained an enduring central core of truth, corresponding bones in a monkey, bat, or seal. So The comparison of homologous structures pro­ giving a correct answer to a major question while it is with his muscles, nerves, blood vessels, and vides a strong logical case for accepting .evolu­ leaving many, many subsidiary related questions internal viscera. The brain, the most important tion, but it is not enough, because evolution unanswered. of all organs, follows the same law." includes a time factor. The evidence for the time For example, Darwin knew that individuals By way of analogy, consider the differences factor comes from the existence of fossils-the within a species could transmit to their offspring and similarities of certain languages. Though remains of living organisms of all kinds, pre­ those characteristics that made them different. Spanish and English are different languages, served mainly in rock, over thousands, and Although he knew this for a fact, he admitted they have many, many root words in common­ millions, and in some cases even billions of that he had no idea how it happened. "The laws cognates-such as "revolution" and "revolu­ years. The study of fossils is called paleontology. governing inheritance," he wrote, "are quite un­ ci6n." On the other hand, there are languages Among these fossils, many millions of extinct known." that have virtually no cognates with English­ species have been identified, all the way from That is no longer the case. The law!l governing Chinese, for example. bacteria to dinosaurs. Again, as with living

16 (NOVEMBER 1980) (PAGE 9/INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW)

species, no species among the fossils has ever gap between horses and rhinoceroses is filled by recently in geological terms-something hap­ been found that is entirely novel; that doesn't fit an extensive series of fossils. pened and all of a sudden new life forms began into the classification framework of living spe­ developing like crazy. Within the very short span cies. Microfossils of a few million years most of the major phyla of Since Darwin's time, a whole new world of invertebrate animals came into being. The main value of the fossil record comes from fossil evidence has opened up in the collection This event is known as the "Cambrian explo­ the fact that fossils can often be dated. That is, it and analysis of microfossils. The oldest fossils sion." Compared to that revolutionary turning is possible to tell how long ago a fossil plant or that have ever been found are, as would be point, everything else that has happened since in animal lived because fossils are preserved in expected, very primitive single-cell organisms. biological evolution has been relatively minor. geologic layers-different layers of rock that What accounts for this unequal rate of develop­ formed at different periods in the geologic devel­ One of the surprises in the fossil record is the ment? One reason life seems not to have evolved opment of the earth. The oldest layers, of course, speed with which life developed on earth. Rocks very much during its first three billion years is are the deepest. And the rocks themselves can be containing microfossils have been found dating that the reproduction process was asexual. When dated by the radioactivity techniques described back 3. 7 billion years. That indicates that life the blue-green algae produced offspring, the previously. appeared on earth very quickly after the planet offspring were just clones of single, sexless cooled off enough for solid rocks to forin-during parent cells. In other words, all of these orga­ One thing that was noticed a long time ago the first billion years of the existence of the solar nisms were virtually identical to each other was that the fossils from the higher (younger) system. genetically. Evolution by natural selection re­ rock layers were more similar to modem forms of The first organisms were apparently single­ quires diversity among organisms, but the blue­ life than were those fossils from the deeper, older green algae were almost all alike so there was cell creatures very similar to species of blue­ layers. very little basis for selection. green algae that still exist today. These cells But eventually these primitive cells did evolve The fossil record, then, in general, shows an were more primitive than the cells that make up into cells with nuclei, which enabled them to orderly progression: those organisms that are our bodies and almost all living things today; combine and divide sexually. simplest in organization, like bacteria, appear they were cells \\ithout nuclei. Most living cells The beginning of sexual reproduction ushered before more highly organized things like worms, today (but not all) are of the more advanced kind and these, in tum, appear before flowering plants that have nuclei. in new opportunities. Two cells then could com­ or land vertebrates. So the fossil record demon­ bine their genetic material to form offspring that strates a progression through time, which can be The second big surprise in the fossil record is wouldn't be genetically identical to either one. defined in terms of the development of homolo­ that after getting off to such a fast start, the Thus the offspring would carry genes from both gous features. development of life on earth slowed down to parents, shuffle them up, and deal out a new almost a standstill for the next two or three combination to its offspring. The advent of Another type of evidence that the fossil record billion years. Apparently blue-green algae and sexual reproduction led to an upsurge of diversity provides is that in several animal and plant some primitive bacteria were everywhere, but among organisms and natural selection could groups enough fossils are known to bridge the that was about all. take over from there. gaps between existing species. For example, the Then, about 570 million years ago-fairly Embryology Another field of study that provides evidence for evolution is embryology-the study of em­ bryos, or the early stages of individual develop­ 'The modern theory of evolution is the basis ment. of biological science. It is an idea that First of all, the creationists say that it is ridiculous to suppose that organisms as complex unifies and directs work in all sorts of as human beings could have evolved from simple specialized fields, from medicine to geology.' single-cell organisms. But if it is remembered that every human being has, as an individual, developed from a single cell in just a few months time, it certainly doesn't seem ridiculous at all that our species could have followed a somewhat similar path of develop­ ment, especially given hundreds of millions of years. Furthermore, our development between the sin­ gle-cell stage and the time we're hom is a very . strange process. At one point when you were a fetus in your mother's womb you had a hairy coat and a tail. You also had gills, just like a fish. If you think you needed the gills to keep from drowning in the amniotic fluid, that is not the case. You got all the oxygen you needed from your mother through the umbilical cord. Your gills served no known function. The only expla­ nation that seems to make sense is that the gills are a vestige in the human species from a much earlier stage of development. These gills cause a real problem for the crea­ tionists, because their position is based on the idea that organisms were consciously designed by a supreme intelligence, and that these designs are perfect. But the gills in human fetuses are just one example among millions of design im­ perfections. Extinction As for the idea that species were perfectly designed by a supreme intelligence, J.B.S. Hal­ dane cites evidence from the fossil record that shows numerous occasions where related species have gone through very similar changes on their way to becoming extinct. From this he concludes that if these species were designed, then the "designer" is "not intelligent enough to leam from its own mistakes."13 In fact, the classical religious view had always been that since god created every species per­ fectly, it wouldn't make sense for him to have let· any of them perish; therefore, there could be no such thing as an extinct species. The bones of dinosaurs and the fossils of literally millions of extinct species have laid that argument to rest. The creationists today have been forced to admit that there are many extinct species, but they say they must have been wiped out during the great flood. Noah just couldn't fit all of them on the ark. (And what about the aquatic species?) The Monkey Lineage Top right, magnified white blood cell. When stimulated by a virus, these cells produce substance called Interferon to bolster body's defenses. Above, mass production of interferon in the laboratory through gene The similarity of chimpanzee blood to human splicing-insertion of interferon gene h~to fast-reproducing E. coli bacteria. Although gene splicing Is blood was noted earlier. Historically, the crea­ controversial, the fact that It can be done Is powerful evidence for evolution. tionists have been especially touchy when it

17 (INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW/PAGE 10)

comes to monkeys. Just as the right-to-lifers hold challenge to evolutionary tfieory is to explain was dominant but not unanimous, even before up their horror-pictures of fetuses, the creation­ how those differences came about. the discovery of Java man. Paleontologist Ste­ ists' bugaboo is that there might be an ape in In Origin of Species Darwin only hinted, very phen Jay Gould explains that "the nineteenth their family tree. cautiously, that humans had descended from century produced a brilliant expose from a source The theological way of looking at things has apes. In his later Descent of Man, however, he that will no doubt surprise most readers­ always been that god created human beings and argued forcefully for the hypothesis that our Friedrich Engels. . . . In 1876, Engels wrote an put us at the center of the universe, and every­ closest ancestors were African apes, such as essay entitled The Part Played by Labor in the Transition from Ape to Man."17 thing else was created for our benefit. chimpanzees. In that essay, Engels explained that the devel­ The whole history of science, especially since This was controversial even among scientists who accepted the general evolutionary outlook. opment of "erect posture in walking" was "the Copernicus, has been cruelly damaging to that decisive step in the transition from ape to man" outlook. The biggest blow of all came when Some believed that humans stemmed from tarsi­ ers or some other primitive mammal. These (his emphasis). Only then could the hands be free Darwin's theory suggested that humans, far to begin using tools to reshape the environment from being unique, had a lot in common with to meet newly developing "human" needs. It was apes, including ancestry. 'The alternative to thinking through this process-labor and its progressive Today there are powerful new techniques for development-that human intelligence arose and investigating evolutionary relationships that in evolutionary terms is not brain size increased. were not available to Darwin. One method is Engels criticized the brain-first theory as an based on a comparison of genetic material taken to think at all.' extension of the false idealist view of history; from different species. This hereditary material that is, that what humans think is more impor­ contains the record of evolution, and the record tant to their development than their material has been found to be decipherable. needs and the labor they engage in to satisfy those needs. Genetic Code Engels' position was confirmed with the dis­ The genetic code contained in the DNA is a covery of the fossilized remains of Australopithe­ blueprint for constructing proteins, which are the cus in southern Africa in the 1920s. "The confir­ mation was complete beyond all scientific doubt. basic raw materials of living things. Proteins are chains of amino acids. There are only about The African creatures being unearthed had brains no larger than those of the apes. They had twenty different amino acids, but the sequence­ the order in which they're linked together-is walked and run like humans. The foot differed little from that of modem man, and the hand what makes each protein different. Methods have been developed for analyzing was halfway to human conformation. The aus­ proteins and finding out what sequence of amino tralopithecines had been tool-users, toolmakers, acids makes them up. So it is possible to take and hunters for a period that had extended over homologous tissues from different kinds of ani­ at least 3 million years ...." 18 Fossil skull of prehistoric humanoid (Australo­ mals, analyze them, and learn from that how 'Nineteenth-century Theories' different their basic genetic material is. This is plthecus), one of transitional creatures between an indication of how close or far apart these apes and us. Many professional scholars will call an idea a particular animals are to each other on the big "nineteenth-century theory" if they want to arguments persisted for a hundred years until belittle it and prejudice their audience against it. "family tree" of evolution. the new discoveries in molecular biology settled Anthropology professors use it against Morgan, Studies of this sort comparing various primate the question and proved Darwin indisputably philosophy professors use it against dialectical species show that chimpanzees are much closer correct. materialism, and economics professors use it to humans than they are to orangutans. One But the question remains: how did the human against the labor theory of value. race arise from the African apes? author states: "In genetic terms, we are hardly All of these pioneering approaches, together It .was almost universally assumed that the key more distinct from chimpanzees than are subspe­ with nineteenth-century Darwinism, are cut from factor was the development of the brain. The size the same cloth, and all are proving to be of cies in other groups of animals. This conclusion of an ape's brain (by volume) ranges from 400 to continuing benefit to scientific understanding of is something of a shock to our views on the 600 cubic centimeters; the human brain is 1,200 the world we live in. While it would be a mistake uniqueness of man.... "1 4 to 1,500 cc. to look backward to some golden era of science in Human and chimpanzee have been shown to Since intelligence is the main factor dividing the past, it is necessary to recognize that scien­ be "as close as sheep and goat (and) more closely apes from humans, it seemed reasonable to tific knowledge often advances by using the related than horse and donkey, cape buffalo and assume that if a fossilized "missing link" were approximations of the past as guideposts and water buffalo, cat and lion, or dog and fox .... found, it would be essentially apelike, but with a building on their central cores of truth. Most notably this identification did not rest on larger brain. We learn from the work of Darwin, Marx and opinion or interpretation. It was based instead on In particular, it was assumed that the develop­ Engels, Oparin, Einstein, and their like that the measureable, countable differences."15 ment of the brain occurred before the attainment real world exists, that it exists as matter in According to an article in the New York Times of upright posture. motion, that its laws are knowable, and that to (July 8, 1980), new studies have shown that According to this view, intelligence came first, know the laws of matter in motion is to be able to "nearly 99 percent of the DNA in humans allowing early humanoid creatures to figure out use them. That is our aim as scientists, as Marx matches that of chimpanzees.... " that they would be better off walking on two legs said: not merely to intepret the world but to rather than four so they could use their hands for change it. Although the creationists' "scientific" argu­ better purposes. As revolutionary socialists, our primary con­ ments concerning humans and apes can be The first "missing link" fossil to be discov­ cern is with the laws of motion as they operate easily disposed of, there is another important ered-"Java man," by Eugene Dubois in 1890- on the level of human history and society. But aspect that must be considered. That is, the provided counterevidence to this view. Java man our outlook must be broader than that; it must emotional appeal based on the false claim that appeared to be a half-ape, half-human creature, encompass, as Lenin said, "the whole inheri­ evolutionary thinking recognizes "no difference" but with the brain size of an ape. tance of human knowledge." between apes and humans. This discovery outraged scientific opinion of And of all those eminent researchers of the To understand the animal origins of human­ the time. "The uproar of dissent was so great nineteenth century who have left us such a rich kind is not to deny its uniqueness. Although that Dubois withdrew-his Java finds from scien­ heritage of knowledge, we are especially grateful humans were not "specially created," there cer­ tific exhibition and locked them away in a to Charles Darwin for opening our way to an tainly are qualitative differences that set us museum strong box for nearly thirty years."16 evolutionary, dialectical understanding of na­ apart from the rest of the animal world. The The "brain-first" theory of human evolution ture.

1. The Life Science, P.B. Medawar and J.S. Medawar, 8. The absolute size of the changes is a disputed "'Calmodulin is in every cell from the most primitive Harper & Row, 1977, question. Until recently, the consensus was that ex­ plant or animal to man,' says Anthony R. Means of tremely small mutations add up very slowly to produce Baylor College of Medicine in Houston .... 2. There are actually two distinct creation myths in the smooth, gradual changes in populations, and new "The similarity of calmodulin throughout the animal book of Genesis, and they are incompatible. The "six species arise through the process of "population drift." kingdom is clear in its amino acid sequence. The day" version (wherein animals are created before A growing challenge to this view has developed, led by protein is a string of 148 amino acids-142 are exactly humans) appears first in the text, but was written 300 paleontologists Niles Eldridge and Stephen Jay Gould. the same in rats, cows and the sea pansy, a marine years later than the "Adam and Eve" version (in which Their model, called "punctuated equilibrium," holds coelenterate. . . . Means says, 'Calmodulin is as ex­ humans are created before animals). that new species do not arise gradually but in sudden tremely highly conserved as any protein in evolution.'" 3. Darwin also considered the origin of human life in bursts of evolutionary activity. -Science News, August 23, 1980. another book published twelve years later (1871), The Descent of Man. 9. "The most exciting advances in recombinant DNA 13. Haldane, op. cit. technology have come during the past three years as 4. See Steven Weinberg's The First Three Minutes: A molecular biologists . . . have harvested human genes 14. Patterson, op. cit. Italics added. Modern View of the Origin of the Universe, Bantam and human gene products of great potential value to Books, 1979. 15. S.L. Washburn and Ruth Moore, Ape Into Man: A clinical medicine. These products include insulin, Study of Human Evolution, Little, Brown & Co., 1974. 5. Bishop James Ussher, a seventeenth-century theolo­ growth hormone, interferon, urokinase, and beta­ gian, carefully analyzed the first five books of the bible endorphin." -Science News, August 30, 1980. 16. Washburn and Moore, op. cit. and calculated that creation occurred on Thursday, 17. From Natural History magazine, reprinted in Ever May 6, 4004 B.C. at 8:00 a.m. (That would presumably 10. Evolution, Colin Patterson, Cornell University Since Darwin: Reflections in Natural History, Stephen be Greenwich Mean Time since the bishop lived in Eng­ Press, 1978. Jay Gould, Norton & Co., 1977. I highly recommend land.) 11. Causes of Evolution, J.B.S. Haldane, 1932. this excellent collection of essays as well as Gould's 6. It is still in print in English in an edition by Dover recently published The Panda's Thumb, Norton & Co., Books, copyright 1953. 12. DNA is only one of many, many homologous links 1980. between species at the molecular level. This account of 7. Life: Origin and Evolution, Readings from Scientific a recently discovered substance provides a cogent 18. Washburn and Moore, op. cit. American, W.H. Freeman & Co., 1978. example:

18 (NOVEMBER 1980) (PAGE 11/INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW)

been the subject of many books and a few movies and plays. These works were generally sympa­ thetic to the victims and informative to some extent. Until the publication of this book there was no well-documented histoey of the events in BOOIS the late 1940s and early 1950s that places them in the context of pre-witch-hunt Hollywood poli­ tics, examining the role of the Communist Party in the screen guilds and the "progressive" organ­ Workinc People izations. It also focuses in on the attempts of the screen industey moguls and the U.S. government to stifle union militancy and political activism in in the French the film industey. The most politically interesting sections of the book are those dealing with the Communist Revolution Party in southern California, particularly the Hollywood "talent branches" in which the screen By Paul Siegel artists were concentrated. Much of the material in these chapters is based on interviews with Class Struggle in the First French Republic: Dorothy Healey, who was the Communist Party Bourgeois and Bras Nus 1793-1795. By Daniel Los Angeles County chairperson for many years, Guerin. London, Pluto Press, 1977. 295 pp., $6.60. and with some screen artists who were long-time CP members. Daniel Guerin is the veteran French Marxist The authors provide us with a pretty accurate who wrote Fascism and Big Business, a penetrat­ picture of the CP's slavish following of a twisting ing analysis of the social roots of Italian and political line made in Moscow. German fascism, and Negroes on the March, a study, written in the 1950s, of the development of Gracchus Babeuf, communist predecessor of They criticize the CP for hailing the suppres­ the movement for equality among the American Marx,/ realized class struggle would not end until sion of democratic rights when the Socialist Black masses. working people were victorious. Workers Party was attacked and its leaders In Class Struggle in the First French Republic jailed under the notorious Smith Act in the early unless it is of the Boston Tea-party kind-and, 1940s. he turns to a decisive moment in the histoey of like the Franch bras nus, gave an impetus to the his native land, the revolution through which The Communist Party was at its height in bourgeois revolution that brought it to comple­ Hollywood from the outbreak of the Spanish Civ­ modem bourgeois France was born. tion. This work is of significance for those of all il War in 1936 to the first wave of subpeonas The same was true of the artisans and mechan­ from the House Committee on Un-American countries who are concerned with understanding ics of the English bourgeois revolution of the the social revolution in our own time. Activities (HUAC). seventeenth centuey. This seems to be a law of The authors trace the establishment, composi­ Guerin shows how the Girondins, the conserva­ bourgeois revolution. tives among the forces of the French Revolution, tion, activities, and evolution of several of the With the completion of the French revolution, more important popular-front organizations. were supported by the bourgeoisie engaged in the the bourgeoisie turned against the bras nus. It production, trade, and export of consumer goods. had used the bras nus against the aristocrats: These were not narrow paper organizations Its conflict with the more radical and plebeian now it used bands of royalist youth armed with limited to CP members and close sympathizers. Montagnards sharpened in the context of a bludgeons against the bras nus. Nor were they "front groups" in HUAC's sense, counterrevolutionarY war launched by Britain. This was Thermidor, the reaction that set in that is, mere facades behind which the CP hid, Hurt by the English blockade, the scarcity of July 1794 when Robespierre's wing of the Jacob­ exercising its control primarily through secret labor as a result of the expansion of the army, ins was driven from power. At the end of it, the methods. wartime scarcities, and the priority given to war bourgeoisie emerged supreme as the ruling class These organizations attracted nearly eveey industey, the Girondin bourgeoisie tired of the of a stabilized society. politically active liberal in Hollywood, and these war. It particularly opposed the concessions to The masses who had made the French revolu­ greatly outnumbered the CP members. Their the masses which its prosecution entailed. tion suffered a crushing defeat, but some leaders liberal, pro-Roosevelt policies-and their advo­ The Montagnards, the radicals of the French began to draw the lessons of the defeat. Earlier cacy of "collective security" arrangements with Revolution, were supported by the bourgeoisie, they had begun to understand the illusoey nature Stalin-were a genuine reflection of the composi­ which had acquired church and crown lands, of the slogan of the revolution, "Liberty, Equal­ tion and views of the "front'; members as well as was engaged in supplying the army, and gained ity, Fraternity," for which they had fought and of the Communist Party. immensely from the wartime inflation. died. As Phillip Dunne, a liberal active in many of Its Jacobin leaders were in close contact with In a protest against the growing wealth of the these organizations, remarked: the masses, whom they manipulated at the cost bourgeoisie, they had stated: "Liberty is a mere "Melvyn Douglas and thousands of liberals of making them many concessions. illusion when one class of men can allow the like him travelled the same road as the Commu­ As one of them put it, referring to measures other to starve with impunity. Equality is a mere nists, not from choice, but because the Commu­ such as guaranteeing cheap bread to the Pari­ illusion when through their economic monopolies nists were hitchhiking on the liberal band­ sian masses, "It is absolutely essential to keep the rich hold the power of life and death over wagon. The Communists were the fellow the. poor alive if you want them to help you win their fellow men. The republic is a mere illusion travelers, not the liberals." the revolution." when counter-revolution is taking place day by The authors show that when the interests of The heterogeneous masses of the city poor, day through the price of food, which three-quar­ liberals and Stalinists diverged after World War "cobblers, ragmen, porters and footmen," as they ters of the citizens cannot afford without suffer­ II, the liberals simply pulled out, leaving the CP were scornfully described_ by a counterrevolution­ ing." in control of empty shells. And many of them ist, were know as the sansculottes (the ragged In the prisons of reaction, Babeuf, the socialist then signed up as part of the brutal witch-hunt "trouserless" ). predecessor of Marx, and his associates among against the CP. The bras nus (workers with "bare arms") were the Equals came to perceive more fully that The weakest part of the book is the analysis of those among the sansculottes who performed democracy must be seen not abstractly but in the repression following World War II and the hard physical labor-masons, iron workers, prin­ relation to the inequality existing between social CP-liberal split that accompanied the cold war. ters, and other needy artisans, who constituted clt'lsses. They perceived, moreover, that the class The authors attribute the decline of cold war an incipient proletariat. They also included work­ struggle would not end until a victory of the anti-communism in the 1960s to the resurgence of ers in the armaments factories, the first represen­ oppressed classes would bring an end to class the liberals and the election of John F. Kennedy tatives of a real proletariat. society. "The French revolution," stated the as president. Not a word about the civil rights Guerin analyzes the complex relationship be­ Manifesto of Equals prophetically, "is only the movement, the spread of the colonial revolution tween the Jacobina and the bras nus in which forerunner of another greater, more serious and (notably the victoey of the Cuban revolution), the Jacobina, while riding the restive populace, impressive revolution, which will be the last." and the anti-Vietnam War movement. were driven by it to expropriate feudal property This is a useful book, informative and enjoy­ and to establish the republic and universal suf­ able to read. The authors openly state their frage. opposition to many Stalinist policies. They quote Such measures completed the bourgeois revolu­ Trotskyist sources. to show that opposition to tion, but the timid, temporizing bourgeoisie Bollrwood these policies need not come from the right. would not have carried them out on its own. In They criticize the way many CP members the words of a contemporaey observer, "The rationalized their submission to the Kremlin bourgeoisie is naturally peaceloving, and any­ Witch-hunt bureaucracy for so long. But they indicate respect way not sufficiently numerous for such large­ for the commitment of the CP members. scale operations." By Lorraine Sockaci More importantly, they defend the rights of Although Guerin does not draw the parallel, and Morris Starsky Communists and others to express their views our own American revolution took a somewhat without 'government-sponsored harassment, in­ similar course. Sam Adam's "vulgar men," arti­ The Inquisition in Hollywood. Politics in the timidation, or blacklisting. sans and mechanics, drove ,the conflict with Film Community 1930-1960. By Larey Ceplair England forward despite the attempt of the New and Steven Englund. Garden City, New York. Morris Starsky and Lorraine Sockaci are England merchants to come to terms. They Anchor/Doubleday, 1980. 536 pp., cloth $17.50. members of the Socialist Workers Party. Starsky understood that a revolution is not a tea-party- was the target of a witch-hunting drive by the The Hollywood anti-Communist witch-hunt Arizona Board of Regents while a teacher at Paul Siegel is a frequent contributor to the !SR. and blacklisting of film industey workers have Arizona State University.

19 (INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST REVIEW/PAGE 12) Law and By Michael Smith and Eric Poulos

Law and Marxism: A General Theory. By Ev­ geny B. Pashukanis. Introduction and editorial notes by Chris Arthur. London, Ink Links Press, 1978. 195 pp., $15.00.

Lithuanian lawyer Evgeny Pashukanis joined the Bolshevik party at the age of 21, in 1912, five years before the Russian revolution. He wrote Law and Marxism: A General Theory (1924) in a period when society and the science of society recorded extraordinary advances and when a social scientist could peer into the forge where future social relations were being fash­ ioned. This pioneer book is still the most significant Marxist work on the law. It concerns what brings legal forms about and under what conditions they and the state that upholds them will wither away. Pashukanis doesn't simply criticize the internal workings of the law or its particular abuses but treats it in historical perspective. The publication of this slim volume is a contri­ Law under capitalism protects profits and property of the rich bution to the process of recovering the heritage of Marxist thought. Its appearance, for the first time in English, with an excellent introduction fair to both sides. introduction to Law and Marxism, " ... helps by Chris Arthur, forms part of the current But it really masks a relation of inequality to deprive it of the capacity to mystify the social renaissance in Marxist thinking. because the worker produces more value in the relationships out of which it grew and to make Following Marx, Pashukanis puts forward process of production than he is paid for. That is possible a scientific politics." what subsequently became known as the com­ the source of his exploitation. Bourgeois law The legal theorists of the Stalinist school are modity theory of the law. He maintained that the justifies this unjust state of affairs. no help in this regard. material premises of prevailing legal relations Since commodity relations continue to persist For the theoretical apologists of Stalinism, were discovered by Marx in Capital. in the societies transitional from capitalism to substituting proletarian political and judicial communism, Pashukanis maintained, as Marx personnel is sufficient to change the class con­ did, that their laws would continue to reflect tent of law. The role of continued inequality and bourgeois norms, however mitigated, because of privileges during the transition period is dis­ unavoidable inequalities. missed-and opposition to these privileges and He wrote that " ... in the future the vestiges inequality is placed under a ban. of equivalent exchange in the sphere of distribu­ Above all, the Marxist and Leninist idea that BOOIS the state withers away as rising production tion, which will be retained even in a socialist The legal system, swollen with codes, courts, organization of production (until the transition to under the rule of the workers eliminates the law schools, law-making bodies, prisons, and developed communism), will compel socialist foundations of inequality is anathema to the publications, is based on transactions bound up society to enclose itself within the 'narrow ho­ Stalinists. The bureaucratic caste that rules the with production of articles for exchange, money, rizon of bourgeois law' for a time, as Marx Soviet Union today fears such conceptions which and the rights of private property. himself foresaw." undermine its claims to legitimacy. Individuals under capitalism's system of gener­ The state and the law it upholds will become They prefer theories which portray the swollen alized commodity production became legal sub­ unnecessary only when there is such an abun­ privileges of the Kremlin bureaucrats and the jects having rights, especially contractual rights dance of goods that individual exchange of subordination of the workers to them as lasting to buy and sell commodities, including the power equivalents through the market becomes unne­ right through communism-forever, in fact. of labor, which itself is a commodity. The buyer cessary. Legal institutions, as we know them, This theory is conservative. It accepts law as and the seller exchange equivalents, things and the juridical element in social relations must supra-historical; it regards tran.sitional forms as which are equal in value. Law regulates this gradually disappear as commodity relations die stable social formations; and it neglects the exchange and the state enforces the law. out. whole question of the evolution of the Soviet An equal standard is applied. No allowance is The rule becomes: From each according to their state which as Trotsky remarked with reference made for natural inequality of individual talent. ability, to each according to their need. There to the Soviet Union in the 1930s "is strangling As Marx wrote, "A given amount of labour in one will be no need for law, and human relations will others, but gives no sign of withering." form is exchanged for an equal amount of labour become regulated by custom, as they once were Law and Marxism was originally published in in another form." before the advent of class society. the Soviet Union before the onslaught of Stalin­ However, Marx concludes that bourgeois right, The value of his book is that it helps to ist reformism to which even Pashukanis later embedded in market relations, is superficial and demolish the idealization and worship of "the bowed. In 1930 he published an article correcting formal. It is restricted and negated by the exist­ law" and exposes the apologetic and obscurantist his "errors"-it didn't save him. ing social and economic inequalities between the role this notion plays in upholding the status "Pashukanis," Trotsky wrote in a 1939 essay classes. quo. on "The Bonapartist Philosophy of the State," The ruling minority of the rich monopolize the The frauds of formal equality of rights and the [was] removed and crushed for having repeated means of production while the working people apparent neutrality of judges are pierced. As the ideas of Marx, Engels, and Lenin to the effect are dispossessed. In order to live they must sell Anatole France once remarked, the law in all its that socialism implies a gradual withering away their labor power to a boss at the prevailing wage majesty forbids all persons, whether rich or poor, of the state. This theory cannot possibly be rates. This transaction which conforms to the from sleeping under bridges. accepted by the reigning Kremlin. rules of the market and the legal code appears Law thus exposed, wrote Chris Arthur in his Acting as Stalin's mouthpiece, the infamous Andrei Vyshinsky, who was to condemn Lenin's comrades-in-arms to death in the Moscow purge trials, prosecuted the luckless Pashukanis. This former Vice-commissar of Justice was designated a "wrecker," a "spy," a "traitor," the propounder of a "rotten theory," and finally a "Trotsky-Bukharin fascist agent." He was liqui­ dated in 1937. Law and Marxism was, and remains, sup­ pressed in the Soviet Union. It was eventually superseded by The Law of the Soviet Union, written by none other than Vyshinsky, who had been an opponent of the revolution until 1920 and a one-time lawyer for the oil magnates in the Caucasus. Vyshinsky's negative position on Pashukanis' work is still endorsed in the Soviet Union.

Michael Smith and Eric Poulos practice law in Buying bread in Moscow bakery. Scarcity is main cause of continuing inequality and bourgeois legal New York and are members of the Legal Services norms after capitalism has been overthrown. With the end of scarcity, the state and law will wither away. Staff Association, District 65, United Auto Work­ In Soviet Union, bureaucratic caste blocks advances in this direction in order to preserve its privileges. ers.

20 Iron Range steelworkers Arizona Farm Workers meet on women's rights win a recognition fight By Kirsten Murati giant company to make decisions af­ DULUTH, Minn.-United Steel­ fecting our lives based on their profit workers District 33 held its first needs. She posed the question of shut­ women's rights conference here No­ downs and workers control. "Are work­ vember 1. ers capable of running an industry? The seventy-five delegates who at­ Should high profits be the only reason tended came from Lander, Wyoming; a corporation continues to exist?" the upper peninsula of Michigan; and Another speaker was Iron Range Duluth, the Twin Cities, and the Iron Local1938 President Joe Samargia. He Range in Minnesota. spoke of fights against discrimination Guests included a number of women at the giant U.S. Steel Minntac Mine steelworkers from the Chicago-Gary on the Iron Range as "not so much area. what the union has done, but what District 33 Director Linus Wampler women have done for themselves." opened the conference, saying he Another speaker was Sharon Stiller, hoped it would be an annual event. one of the leaders of the strike against One of the best received speakers NIPSCo in northern Indiana, which is was Alice Peurala, presldent of Local in its fifth month. 65 at U.S. Steel's South Works in In a workshop "On the job and in Chicago. She is the first woman presi­ the union," Marsha Zakowski of the dent of a basic steel local. international union's civil rights de­ Peurala stressed that women organ­ partment discussed affirmative action, izing within the unions strengthens child care, the pregnancy benefits law, By Ellie Garc{a Employment Board or the Arizona the unions. It is not divisive, as some and sexual harassment, which she PHOENIX-Undocumented citrus Employment Relations Act, which pro­ have charged. She outlined the steel termed the "number one issue of work- strikers marched for and won umon hibits boycotts, strikes, or union organ­ industry's delaying tactics on comply­ ing women." recognition here October 24. izing during the harvest. This law has ing with federal pregnancy benefits The women steelworkers left eager to About 120 farm workers marched been effective in practically eliminat­ and health and safety regulations. She take their enthusiasm back to other from El Mirage to Mesa demanding ing farm worker organizing in this encouraged women to get active in our women steelworkers and their local recognition of the Arizona Farm Work­ state. unions, "get angry and make ourselves unions. A male delegate to the confer­ ers Union (AFW) and protesting the The victorious struggle of the work­ heard." ence from Local 1938 reported back to government-sanctioned hiring of Mexi­ ers is recognized at home and abroad. Peurala questioned the right of the the union meeting that he has a new can workers as strikebreakers by the Mexican President Lopez Portillo sent understanding of the need for the Mesa Citrus Growers Association. his congratulations to the AFW and stated his support to the continuing Kirsten Murati is a millwright ap­ union to back up women members. The AFW struck the association last struggle. prentice at U.S. Steel's Minntac As Sharon Stiller said, "I was born a June for union recognition but was Meanwhile, spirits are high among Mine and a member of Steelworkers woman, but I chose to be a unionist unable to force the growers to nego­ 250 undocumented citrus workers who Local 1938. . .. and I'm damn proud I did." tiate then because it was the end of the have been on strike since October 2 at season. Fletcher's Farms here. When the strikers returned in Oc­ The workers, also AFW members, tober, the beginning of the season, have been forced from their campsite they found workers had been brought to the roadside by court order. They Hershey picket run down in from Mexico under the federal H-2 By Noel Green 464 gains. have been deprived of their food, cook­ regulation-even though H-2 sup­ HERSHEY, Pa.-A striking choco- On November 11 a solidarity rally ing utensils, and personal belongings posedly does not allow importing work­ late worker was run over by a garbage sponsored by the Harrisburg Central still stored in the grove. ers to break a strike. truck while picketing the H. B. Reese Labor Council was held outside the The demonstrators had planned to Issues forcing the strike are wages of Candy Company on November 10. Reese's plant to protest management's march forty miles but the growers ten dollars or less for an eight-hour The injured striker, Jerry Yeagley, is tactics and the attack on Yeagley. day and inhuman conditions. Workers in serious condition with a fractured When more than 400 unionists turned agreed to the workers' demands half­ way through the march. are compelled to live under the trees skull. out, riot police from a dozen areas were and drink and bathe in water contami­ Yeagley was one of four "legal" pick- called in. Although most of the strikers are nated by DBCP, a pesticide known to ets from Chocolate Workers Local 464, Following the rally, Hershey Foods undocumented Mexican workers, the cause cancer and sterility. on strike for a new contract since obtained an injunction depriving the despised migra (Immigration Service) AFW leader Lupe Sanchez said: November 1 against Hershey Choco- union of the democratic right to hold agents never showed up. Faced with "This is the beginning of a movement late Company. demonstrations near the Reese's plant. the workers' unity, they evidently for civil rights and union representa­ Reese, a Hershey Foods subsidiary is The corporation is also trying to have feared the negative publicity that could tion for the seven to nine million a non-union plant which Local464 has the Taft-Hartley Act invoked to remove result. undocumented workers in this country. tried to organize for fourteen years. the four pickets. Lupe Sanchez, director of the Ariz­ The company has repeatedly bribed Yet the spirit in the union is firm as ona Farm Workers Union, said the "The workers here know that they its 900 workers to keep out the union shown by Jerry Yeagley's message Mesa Citrus Growers Association had are leading the way for the others, and by guaranteeing them pay and condi- from his hospital bed, urging his broth- agreed to four points: they tell me whether they win or lose tiona comparable to whatever Local ers and sisters to fight on. • access to all campsites and work­ the strike is not the issue, but that they sites by union organizers; are out in the open fighting." • recognition of cards signed by the The AFW urgently needs funds as workers authorizing the AFW to re­ well as blankets, shoes, clothing, and Vt. rally for UA W strike present them; jackets for the strikers. Donations can By Jon Flanders cal 303. • negotiations; be sent to Arizona Farm Workers Un­ and Bruce Boyle IPGCU members are facing the • a pledge by the growers not to ion, P.O. Box 819, El Mirage, Arizona RANDOLPH, Vt.-Seventy-five same union-busting tactics in their invoke interference by the Arizona 85335. cheering, singing demonstrators gath­ month-long strike against the Rutland ered in front of the Waterbury Plastics Herald, the state's second largest Company plant here November 8 to newspaper. support United Auto Workers Local "We are here to show our support for 2133's six-month fight for union recog­ your struggle," Kingsley said at the nition. rally, "and to show these multi-nation­ Wisconsin CLUW holds The rally reflected the growing sup­ al corporations that they are not going port from labor and community groups to deny working people in Vermont the first state conference in Vermont for Local 2133. right to organize unions and make a By Nancy Cole committees can do. Speakers at the rally included Carla decent living." MILWAUKEE-More than 200 One woman explained a different Thomas, president of the Central Ver­ On November 5 a strike support women unionists from throughout the kind of problem: that of a majority­ mont Labor Council, and Robert committee was formed in Burlington to state met here October 31-November 1 woman factory with an open shop. The Kingsley, president of Printing and organize more solidarity actions across for the first annual conference of the issue there was how to get women to Graphics Communications Union Lo- northern Vermont. Wisconsin Coalition of Labor Union first join and then become active in the Women. union. Until now, the only CLUW chapter Much workshop discussion was de­ in the state was in Milwaukee, and a voted to this question of getting majority of women here were not yet women, and men, more active in their members of CLUW. Conference organ­ unions. Outside speakers, newsletters, izers cut short the last session so that education on labor history, and mem­ women from seven different areas of bership committees were all suggested. the state could get together and make Others proposed that providing child plans to set up CLUW chapters. care would go a long way in enabling The conference consisted of a series more women to attend union meetings. of workshops, at which women dis­ And some pointed to how people do cussed such problems as discrimina­ come when there is an issue they have tory layoffs, sexual harassment on the a stake in. · job, and the part unions can play in Taking the chance to sum things up the fight for the Equal Rights Amend­ at the end of the last workshop, a CW A ment and better child care. member declared, "I hope we all go A popular topic of the workshops back intent on doing something and was the union women's committee: not taking a back seat for anything or how to establish one and what these anybody."

THE MILITANT/NOVEMBER 28, 1980 21 Sandinista youth confront capitalist revocations By Lorraine Thiebaud broken and papers burned. MANAGUA-The Nicaraguan Dem­ On Monday, November 10, an editor­ ocratic Movement (MDN) has filed ial in La Prensa laid full blame for the charges in the courts here against the vandalism on the JS-19. The MDN July 19 Sandinista Youth (JS-19) for then filed charges against the organi­ damages done to the MDN's headquar­ zation. ters on Sunday, November 9. That the bourgeois forces would di­ JS-19 respond rect their fire against the Sandinista The Sandinista Youth responded Youth came as no surprise. quickly. Meetings were held in high After all, the participation of young schools throughout Managua, ad­ people in the liberation war against dressed by Sandinista leaders Carlos Somoza was decisive to the victory. Carri6n and Fernando Cardenal and by Commander of the Revolution Luis Provocations Carri6n. Events on Friday, November 7, at Ivette Fonseca, organizational secre­ the Colegio Franciscano, a Managua tary of the JS-19, denounced the high school, prepared the way for the MDN's attempts to blame her organi­ MDN's charges against the Sandinista zation for the damage done to its head­ Youth. quarters. During a school assembly to com­ Fernando Cardenal, speaking at the memorate the 1976 death of Sandinista Colegio Manuel Olivares, asked if National Liberation Front (FSLN) anyone had ever seen the MDN's flag founder Carlos Fonseca, several flying over a street barricade or a high members of the MDN's youth affiliate school during the war against Somoza. climbed atop the school's water tower and unfurled an MDN flag. "No!" the crowd shouted. A scuffle ensued, in which MDN Sandinista youth in front of a Sandinista Defense Committee office. "And where were those youth during youth reportedly trampled on an FSLN the war?" Cardenal asked. banner. Further trouble was prevented afternoon, November 8. MDN headquarters. Members of the "In the United States!" by the school principal. When demonstrators arrived with JS-19 and the Association of Nicara­ Carlos Carri6n said the MDN's Similar provocations by MDN youth placards and banners, they found the guan Women (AMNLAE) formed hu­ charges were "a reactionary maneuver reportedly took place at other high building covered with a gigantic blue­ man chains to prevent anyone from aimed at sabotaging the harvests of schools in Managua and Le6n. and-white Nicaraguan flag with a entering the building. agricultural exports and the plans for To protest these actions and the black mourning band diagonally Various groups of anti-MDN demon­ reconstruction." If the MDN youth desecration of FSLN symbols, the July across it. strators continued to gather through­ wanted to compete with the JS-19, 19 Sandinista Youth organized a dem­ Later that day, two more demonstra­ out the night. On Sunday morning, Carri6n said, they should do so by onstration in front of the MDN's head­ tions organized by the Sandinista De­ November 9, an angry crowd did enter forming more brigades to pick coffee. quarters in Managua on Saturday fense Committees took place at the the MDN's offices. Some windows were From Intercontinental Press

Junta member Sergio Ramirez ex­ [national unity] what it means is the crowd answered with him: "Because ... Nicaragua plained why the capitalist representa­ subordination of all the forces of the the Sandinista Front has no interests Continued from back page tives had walked out of the Council of country to their dictates." separate from those of the people them­ this is an expression of confidence in State. "We cannot delude ourselves Sergio Ramirez answered Robelo selves." the Sandinista Front and the govern­ about what is occurring at bottom," he directly at the November 13 meeting. "Without the hegemony of the Sandi­ ment; that the people now feel free to said. "In Nicaragua now there is a "Yes," he said, "we should declare nista Front one cannot speak of na­ express their discontent. Such liberty dispute over power. proudly that the FSLN wants unity tional unity in Nicaragua," Ramirez is a conquest guaranteed by the FSLN "On July 19 [1979] we saw the So­ around its own interests. Why? Per­ concluded. and the government." mozaist National Guard fleeing, de­ haps because the Sandinista leaders That doesn't mean that the FSLN At another meeting the same day, feated, and other Somozaists who ran have used their positions to make mo­ and the government are not prepared off with their millions. But there were ney?" to hold discussions with the groups others who were also defeated-those "No!" the demonstrators responded. that walked out of the Council of State. who couldn't impose their own inter­ "Perhaps the Sandinista leaders ests." have bought farms and factories, or "The government is open to a dia­ FMLN have sent their money off to Miami?" logue," Sergio Ramirez said. "But so Who holds power? "No!" long as those gentlemen do not return Ramirez explained how the second "Perhaps because we have used our to take their seats in the Council of strengthened in defeat came about: "It was very impor­ power to enrich ourselves?" State, there is no possible room for a tant to them that the National Guard "No!" dialogue." El Salvador not be totally defeated, that part of the "Why not?" Ramirez asked. And the From Intercontinental Press The following information is from Somozaist Guard remain in place and a November 10 news release from help to establish their power-the the Coordinating Committee in Soli­ power of the ones who are now seeking darity with the People of El Salva­ provocations." dor in New York. The capitalist forces "do not hold Why Sandinistas Five of the sixteen electrical union power in Nicaragua," Ramirez said. members arrested during an August "They forget-and it is a grave error­ banned capitalist rally strike were freed November 8. The that here the power was conquered in a MANAGUA-The Nicaraguan meeting in N andaime. other eleven remain in jail. war that was very costly for the people. Democratic Movement (MDN), the Despite the efforts to persuade The prisoners include Hector Ber­ "So the only way for this power of country's most important capitalist Robelo to suspend the rally, how­ nabe Recinos, president of the N a­ the people to be transferred would be to political party, had planned to stage ever, he and the MDN insisted that tiona! Union Federation of Salva­ change the hands that hold the wea­ a big rally Sunday, November 9, at they would hoid it. That was when doran Workers, FENASTRAS. The pons that defend this popular Nandaime, a town about thirty miles the government decided to invoke labor federation has 50,000 members power.... south of here. Decree No. 513 and ban the rally. in thirty unions. "What they want is to erase this The reactionary daily La Prensa At least one of the expected coun­ The Farabundo Marti National revolution from the map. That is the carried out a big publicity campaign terrevolutionary attacks did take Liberation Front (FMLN) an­ most infantile dream they could for the rally, indicating that it was place on November 9 in the village nounced November 3 that the Armed have-because we are not in Jamaica, being planned as the start of a of Santa Maria, on the border with Forces of National Resistance we are not in Chile in 1973 or Guate­ general political offensive by the Honduras. (FARN) has joined the FMLN. This mala in 1954: We are in liberated Nica­ bourgeoisie against the FSLN and Santa Maria was attacked by be­ unites all the forces fighting the ragua." the revolutionary government. tween forty and fifty well-armed military junta in the country. All the rallies and meetings con­ But the rally never took place. It men. One member of the Sandinista The revolutionary fighters are cluded with a call for taking the offen­ was banned by the government People's Army was killed and at showing their increased strength in sive against the efforts of the capital­ under Decree No. 513, which was least one militia member seriously a number of ways. ists to undermine support for the adopted in August and prohibits all injured. On November 7 an FMLN com­ FSLN and the revolution. electoral campaigning until 1984. One of the counterrevolutionaries mando team attacked the headquar­ "This is an ideological struggle in At a November 10 news confer­ was also killed. He was wearing a ters of the government's First Infan­ which we must not ignore even a ence, Interior Minister Tomas Borge uniform of the type used by Somo­ try Brigade in San Salvador. single argument of the bourgeoisie," and Defense Minister Humberto Or­ za's National Guard and by the The government troops suffered Moises Hassan said. "That is the only tega explained that more was in­ Honduran army. twenty casualties. The guerrilla way we can explain and clarify things volved than a simple political cam­ When a helicopter from the Sandi­ fighters were armed with automatic for those who may still be confused paign. nista air force arrived on the scene, weapons and artillery. about the aims of these gentlemen." They reported that Sandinista se­ the counterrevolutionaries fled to­ The city of Apope, ten kilometers curity forces had received informa­ ward the Honduran border. from San Salvador, was temporar­ Unity tion that counterrevolutionary at­ Commander Ortega reported that ily taken over by a force of seventy­ One of the complaints of the COSEP tacks had been planned to coincide the attack on Santa Maria was not five guerrillas. The police headquar­ and the bourgeois parties is that the with the MDN rally. an isolated incident. Almost every ters was kept under siege for hours. Sandinistas have violated their own Borge said that he had spoken day during the past two months While this was happening, a radio call for "national unity." with MDN leader Robelo several some incident has taken place, in­ station in San Salvador was occu­ Alfonso Robelo of the Nicaraguan days earlier to inform him of the cluding frequent penetration by for­ pied and an FMLN communique Democratic Movement said November counterrevolutionary plan and to eign aircraft of various kinds. read over the air. 12 that "it is necessary to understand urge him not to go ahead with the -Lars Palmgren that when the FSLN uses those words

22 Interview with Phy_llis Coard Growing role of women in Grenada By Colleen Levis Coard gave the example of women wrote back to say they felt this would of this. So we've been very happy to ST. GEORGE'S-Phyllis Coard is a agricultural workers, who earned constitute discrimination against change that in the final law." central leader of the Grenada revolu­ EC$5.50 a day (one East Caribbean women and that they were not in favor Continued on next page tion. She has just been named secre­ dollar is equivalent to US$0.38), while tary of women's affairs in the Ministry men earned EC$6.50. of Education, Youth, and Social Af­ One of the first measures of the fairs. She is also national coordinator People's Revolutionary Government of the New Jewel Movement National was to introduce legislation outlawing Women's Organisation (NWO). this practice. On September 23 I had a chance to But, Coard explained, it takes more talk to her at the Women's Desk of the than laws to correct the situation. Ministry of Education in St. George's, Particularly among agricultural work­ the capital of Grenada. ers, both men and women, there were I started by asking Coard to describe different opinions about what consti­ the situation women faced under the tuted equal work. Were two jobs equal regime of ousted dictator Eric Gairy. only if they involved the same amount "Basically it was extremely dread, as of physical labor? we say. There was a lot of sexual "For instance," Coard explained, "in exploitation. Women were desperate the nutmeg pools, the cracking and Troops on Vieques threaten El Salvador for jobs. Some 69 percent of women peeling of nutmegs is done by women. between fifteen and thirty years old This is not physically as exhausting According to the November 9 weekly Granma, thousands of troops from were unemployed," she told me. because it doesn't involve lifting heavy Costa Rica, Columbia, and Venezuela are being trained on the Puerto Women were forced to sleep with weights. But it is extremely wearing on Rican Island of Vieques to attack El Salvador. The training, called the goverment officials in order to get jobs. the eyes. And most women, after a Centauro Plan, was exposed by Roberto Cuellar, a spokesman for the "With the revolution," she said, this period of two or three years, are forced Legal Aid Fund of the Archbishop's office in San Salvador. deeply resented practice was "put a to wear glasses. So in fact, I think they The New York Committee in Support of Vieques held an evening stop to completely and abruptly." more than deserve the equal pay for solidarity program November 14. The meeting commemorated the death a "Another problem that women faced equal work." year ago of Vieques activist Angel Rodriguez CristObal. Sentenced to six was unequal -pay for equal work." Through discussion these differences months in jail for "trespassing on U.S. Navy territory" on Vieques, were cleared up, and many of those CristObal was found dead in a solitary confinement cell in Florida. who were initially uncertain about The New York Committee in Support ofVieques can be reached at 391 what constituted equal work realized E. 149 Street, Room 216, Bronx, New York 10455. Telephone: (212) 292- IF YOU KNOW that the degree of physical exertion 1136. _ TEACH, # was not really an accurate criterion. National debate Cubans speak in U.S. "By the nature of our government," About 100 people attended a meeting in New York City November 13 to Coard said, "we do not impose on hear Eugenio Rodriguez Balari, head of the Cuban Institute for Consumer people laws which they do not wish. Research and Planning. Also speaking briefly at the meeting was Manuel Our style of government is to raise this Lee of the Cuban Institute for Friendship with the People. Both Balari in a national debate, to talk with women and men about it, and so allow the people to put their point, and to gradually arrive at a common position before implementation." The government is also taking mea­ sures to provide paid maternity leaves, to ensure that no women will be fired because they become pregnant, and to increase child-care facilities. "These three problems are very closely linked," said Coard, because "women want to enter into social pro­ duction." and Lee have spoken in a number of cities throughout the country. The government also encouraged a Balari's presentation explained some of the planning methods involved debate on the maternity leave ques­ in consumer goods production, distribution, and pricing in Cuba. He tion. Because of some opposition, the explained some changes being put into practice in the economy involving initial draft of the maternity leave law small-scale private market relations such as farmers markets. did not include unmarried teachers Balari assured the meeting, sponsored by the Center for Cuban Studies, and nurses. that these changes do not represent a danger of capitalism developing. He "There's a high rate of illegitimacy explained a number of ways in which these private market operations can in Grenada, and therefore this ex­ be used to improve state planning procedures. cluded a majority of women teachers. The Center for Cuban Studies just published a supplement to Cuba The position of our party and of our Update with an edited transcript of a meeting between Balari and a group government is that all women should of visitors to Cuba from the University of New Mexico Latin American be treated equally. And all children Studies Institute in June 1980. It is available for 25 cents from the Center, also for that matter," Coard stated. 220 E. 23rd Street, New York, New York 10010. "We made it clear to the teachers' union and to the other trade unions and women's organizations that we El Salvador solidarity picket in Phoenix Militant/Colleen Levis wanted their views. And we were really Seth Galinsky from Phoenix wrote to report on a demonstration there PHYLLIS COARD very pleased, because the vast majority November 8 which demanded political asylum for Salvadoran refugees and no U.S. aid to El Salvador. The movie El Salvador-Revolution or Death, was shown November 13 at Columbia University in New York. More than 200 people saw it there. This excellent film can be obtained from Unifilm, 419 Park Avenue New maternity law aids women South, New York, New York 10016. Telephone: (212) 686-9890. A law providing for paid mater­ Women who are paid on a daily nity leave for women workers was basis will receive about two-and-a­ officially adopted in Grenada in half months pay, since if they lose Grenada official Burke on U.S. tour early October. work earlier in the pregnancy' be­ Grenada's Consul General for North America, Joseph Kanute Burke, is Originally drafted in April, it was cause of illness they are not covered on a U.S. speaking tour. The meetings which have taken place and are circulated to women's groups, trade by the usual sick pay. planned involve a very broad list of sponsors representing the Black unions, community organizations, The employers are required to community, unions, and many other groups. employers associations, and profes­ shoulder the maternity leave pay. A two week tour in the San Francisco Bay Area will include numerous sional groups for discussion and sug­ For small businesses employing less speaking engagements, television and newspaper interviews, and meet­ gestions. than five- people, the government ings with labor, religious, and Black community organizations. will pick up half of the tab. Tour sponsors there include Congressman Ron Dellums, Sun Reporter "Many of their suggestions influ­ The maternity law also guarantees publisher Dr. Carlton Goodlet, Berkeley Mayor Gus Newport, California enced greatly the final draft of the women the right to be reemployed by law," said Phyllis Coard, the secre­ Federation of Teachers President Raoul Tielhet, and NAACP Northern the same employer after the three California Chairman Joseph Hall. tary of women's affairs. months leave. The law provides for three-months In the Bay Area, contact Gretchen Mackler, president of the Alameda Employers found guilty of refusing Federation of Teachers, (415) 530-1031 or 530-1035. maternity leave for all regularly women workers maternity leave or employed women workers, with two pay are liable to face a EC$1,000 fine -Stu Singer of the three months fully paid for (US$380) or six months in jail. Those those who have worked at least found guilty of firing a woman eighteen months for the same em­ worker ·because of pregnancy face a Please send contributions on activities in your area to: Osborne Hart, 14 ployer. EC$2,000 fine or one year in prison. Charles Lane, New York, New York 10014.

THE MILITANT/NOVEMBER 28, 1980 23 British Labor Party head: ~No U.S. missiles' By Suzanne Haig ented last December by the North would all increase military spending achieved only with further cuts in Opposition to serving as a launching Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). by 3 percent above the rate of inflation social spending, which means risking pad for U.S. nuclear missiles is mount­ He has said that if he becomes prime each year through 1986. At tremendous even sharper confrontations with the ing throughout Europe. Workers and minister, he would "send them back." cost to American workers in higher working class. students are fighting their govern­ Foot's election came on the heels of a taxes and reduced social services, the As a result, Chancellor Helmut ments' military buildup, which demonstration of 80,000 in London, Carter administration has done that Schmidt has backed off the pledge to heightens the war danger and means demanding "No Cruise, No Trident, and more-jacking up war spending boost West Germany's military spend­ further blows to their living standards. cut arms spending." from $105 billion in fiscal 1978 to $160 ing by 3 percent. Along with Belgium On November 10 Michael Foot, who In Athens, nearly a half million billion in fiscal 1981. Reagan has and the Netherlands, West Germany has been identified with the British people marched October 22 to protest called for even higher military outlays, now says its increase may be less than Labor Party's left wing, was elected the. Greek government's decision to and the latest projection from the 2 percent, and Denmark may not in­ party leader. Foot is a vocal advocate reenter NATO. Slogans included "Out Carter White House is for an incredible crease its military budget at all, ac­ of unilateral nuclear disarmament for of NATO forever" and "Out with the $200 billion in 1982. cording to the November 10 New York Britain. He succeeded James Cal­ murderous U.S. base·s." Democrats and Republicans alike Times. laghan, who opposed unilateral disar­ In the past year tens of thousands demand that their European capitalist mament. have also demonstrated in the Nether­ allies kick in their share. The Times added that in the White Foot's election by the Parliamentary lands, Belgium, France, and other But working-class opposition to both House there is "a growing inclination Labor Party was an attempt to pacify countries against NATO's nuclear mis­ war and austerity is so great that the to have a showdown" with Schmidt the party's growing left wing. The sile escalation plans. West European governments are being over the issue. Labor members of Parliament feared At the same time, Washington is forced to adjust their plans. A spread­ These developments should · be that a more right-wing choice would pressing these capitalist governments ing economic recession, beginning in closely followed by antiwar and anti­ have strengthened demands that elec­ to shoulder more of the financial and West Germany, adds to the European draft activists in this country. The tion of the party leader be taken out of political costs of defending imperialist capitalists' reluctance to pour more growing opposition to military escala­ their exclusive control. interests against revolutionary up­ money into arms.· tion among European workers and Foot opposes the idea of stationing surges around the world. These governments are caught in a students represents a powerful addi­ American Cruise and Pershing mis­ In 1978 the Carter administration bind. In worsening economic condi­ tion on a world scale to the fight siles in Britain-part of a plan pres- got its NATO allies to agree that they tions, more military spending can be against the U.S. war drive.

I asked Coard about the functions of On that day, counterrevolutionary will we be able to maintain the people's the Women's Desk. She explained that terrorists planted a bomb at a rally, power. Women in the militia will be ... Grenada the desk, set up in June 1979, was intending to wipe out the leadership of .receiving political education and mil­ Continued from preceding page chat;ged with looking at the laws that the revolution. Two young girls were itary training, as well as skills where I mentioned to Coard that I had affect women to see which discrimi­ killed when it went off, and a third this is at all possible." spoken to one young woman who nated against women, and to make died from her injuries a few weeks "We want to ensure that our militia wanted to be a plumber, and who was proposals to change them. later. is politically very conscious," she con­ arguing with a group of men that Another task "is to ensure that tinued. "They must always know what women could do such jobs. I asked "Following that incident, slightly women take a full part in all the they're fighting for, not just who Coard whether this was something over 50 percent of all the new militia national programs." they're fighting for-what are the pro­ new. volunteers were women," Coard said grams and policies which will benefit "Yes," she replied. "I think it's all A third task, she said, "is to try to proudly. the working people of Grenada. These part of the national debate which has forge a very broad unity among all the She stressed the importance of the are the programs and policies they been stimulated about what women's women's organizations in Grenada." militia for the revolution. "Only must be prepared to defend with their role in society is. Women really are She explained that there now were through the people holding power, lives." starting to think about being plumbers some twenty-three women's groups in holding the weapons in their hands, From Intercontinental Press and carpenters and things like that. A the country. furniture cooperative for making furni­ While the NJM's National Women's ture for day-care centers IS being Organisation is the largest, with started." thirty-six chapters, "we think the other women's organizations have a lot to contribute to the building of Grenada and we are shortly going to be meeting As of November 15, 1980 with them to discuss ways in which they would like to participate in the MILITANT SUBS PM SUBS TOTAL TOTAL revolution." AREA GOAL REC'D GOAL REC'D GOAL REC'D %

Defense of revolution *Piedmont 125 151 0 1 125 152 122 Coard also discussed the growing *Dallas 115 131 35 36 150 167 111 role of women in the revolution, partic­ *Milwaukee 175 199 25 19 200 218 109 ularly in its defense. *Atlanta 140 159 10 2 150 161 107 *Phoenix 80 83 20 21 100 104 104 "On the first day of the revolution," Birmingham 50 51 0 0 50 51 102 she said, "the people who turned out to Toledo 60 61 0 0 60 61 102 actually pick up guns to fight against *Kansas City 115 120 10 6 125 126 101 the dictatorship were all men. There San Antonio 60 77 30 13 90 90 100 was only one woman in the [People's *Baltimore 135 129 5 9 140 138 99 Revolutionary] Army before the revolu­ *Detroit 205 206 15 12 220 218 99 tion." *Gary 100 106 15 8 115 114 99 Twin Cities 190 191 10 7 200 198 99 This situation changed after June 19 Albuquerque 60 68 20 10 80 78 98 of this year. *Louisville 105 87 0 14 105 101 96 Denver 85 94 15 100 95 95 *Salt Lake City 135 132 15 11 150 143 95 Miami 75 77 15 8 90 85 94 New Orleans 90 90 10 3 100 93 93 Socialist miners extend Pittsburgh 165 156 10 6 175 162 93 Iron Range 90 77 0 5 90 82 91 Morgantown 100 91 0 0 100 91 91 *Tidewater 150 135 0 1 150 136 91 drive for subscriptions Newark 240 241 60 28 300 269 90 By Nancy Rosenstock the YSA National Convention in Indi­ *Indianapolis 140 111 10 23 150 134 89 A meeting of socialist coal miners anapolis December 27-30. Manhattan 300 288 200 150 500 438 88 took place in Pittsburgh November 8-9. In December SWP branches will be San Diego 70 74 30 14 100 88 88 Oakland 125 117 25 10 150 127 85 A big part of their discussions centered working with YSA chapters in selling on winning support for Marian Bustin. *Washington D.C. 110 116 45 15 155 131 85 the YS to build the convention. The Los Angeles 200 234 150 56 350 290 83 Bustin is a coal miner threatened with Milwaukee branch and YSA have al­ deportation because of her membership Portland 95 76 0 1 95 77 81 ready set a goal of 300. Philadelphia 18 150 118 79 in the Socialist Workers Party and 115 100 35 *Capital District 90 70 10 7 100 77 77 Young Socialist Alliance. As we wrap up our fall subscription Cleveland 100 90 30 9 130 99 76 The miners decided that the best drive, attention should be paid to fol­ Brooklyn 300 252 100 47 400 299 75 way to win support for Bustin as well lowing up on the new subscribers to Seattle 210 158 15 4 225 162 72 as for the SWP and YSA lawsuit the Militant and PM. Detroit socialists Cincinnati 120 80 0 2 120 82 68 against the FBI and other government are planning to arrange visits with Chicago 300 172 50 33 350 205 59 agencies was to win more new readers interested subscribers to discuss the St. Louis 120 67 0 2 120 69 58 to the Militant. issues in the socialist papers. Boston 180 102 20 4 200 106 53 The number of subscriptions sold to The accompanying scoreboard San Jose 50 25 35 18 85 43 51 50 36 workers was seen as the best barome­ shows results for the first nine weeks Houston 105 41 35 9 140 San Francisco 100 24 100 5 200 29 15 ter of how well the miners are doing in of the fall subscription drive. Nine TOTAL 5675 5109 1210 648 6885 5757 84 gaining new support for the Bustin areas have surpassed their goals. The case. Dallas branch leads in per capita sales Miscellaneous 82 16 115 98 85 The miners will also be selling the with 9.3 subs per member. National Teams 466 9 1000 475 48 Young Socialist, the monthly news­ The final scoreboard for the fall. GRAND TOTAL 5675 5657 1210 673 8000 6330 79 paper of the Young Socialist Alliance. drive will be compiled December 2. All SHOULD BE 5108 1089 7200 90 The current issue features a two-page areas should send in their subscrip­ article on Bustin. The miners will be tions to the Circulation Office by No­ *indicates area that has raised goal urging young people to join Bustin at vember 29. 24 The Great Society Harry.Ring

/ Prosperity around the corner­ Clear crystal ball-Various clair­ they're afraid of radioactivity, and suggestion in Newsweek that all Rubin Stanford Institute researchers predict voyants entered their predictions on besides, they don't trust the plant wanted was a nice cushy job. "I do not that by 1985, unemployment will be 15 who would win the presidential race. managers under emergency conditions. have 'a nice cushy job,'" Rubin re­ percent, with pockets as high as 35 But not O'Fur, a New York star gazer. sponded. "I work hard as a venture percent, plus uncontrolled inflation. He insisted, "It doesn't matter which banker ... struggling through eight­ However, they see prosperous times in one wins-all the very same things Consolation prizes?-To help per­ een-hour days, working to help finance the middle of the 21st century. will happen." suade people to vote, Broward County, companies of the future." Florida, business people put up such Relax carefully-Returning to the items as shoes, shrimp, free haircuts, Things are tough all over-The problem of sex, the pope declared that Sounds sensible-Members of the etc., for a raffle to be based on lists of government is being urged to up the spontaneity in sexual relations does Lower Alloways Creek, New Jersey, those who went to the polls. wage of federal judges from $54,500 to not conflict with Christian morality. volunteer fire department voted to $95,000. This is needed, it is said, to "Deep and mature spontaneity," he ignore fire alarms at the Salem nuclear Could use a union-Ex-Yippie counter the effect of inflation, as well explained, "comes only with self­ power plant there. They said they're Jerry Rubin, now on Wall Street, as "bitter discontent" among the control." not trained to handle such fires, waxed indignant at a John Lennon bench warmers. Women in Revolt Suzanne Haig Grim news for Chicago women This week's column is by Kathy Mickells. Cook County officials moved rapidly to deny "America is supposed to be the home of the free women their right to abortion. and the brave," Dovey Thurman of the Illinois CHICAGO-Women's rights supporters in Illinois And the results? Welfare Rights Coalition told a cheering crowd at refused to stand quietly by last month while George Thirty-six young Black and Latina women were the board meeting, "but it's really the home of the Dunne, president of the Cook County Board of literally turned away at the doors of the Cook rich." Commissioners, banned all abortions at Cook County Hospital Clinic. They were told they would Cook County Hospital has performed 3,500 abor­ County Hospital, except those necessary to save the have to seek abortions elsewhere and were given a tions per year. This was a limit established by the life of the woman. list of private clinics that charge for the operation. board. There are anywhere from 20,000 to 23,000 And the fight is still going on. According to Jane Wilson of Planned Parent­ poor women per year in this area who need an On October 9, Dunne-referring to the hospital as hood, 160 to 180 women scheduled for abortions in abortion. The existing clinics doubt they will be an "abortion mill"-issued a decree to Cook County that week at County Hospital were sent away and able to meet the demand that the closing of the Hospital personnel banning all abortions there. told they would have to find $250 to $735 in the next Cook County Clinic will place on their already over­ This decree not only affected those seeking county weeks to be able to obtain an abortion. burdened facilities. Women will be forced to seek other means to funds for abortion, but also those who could pay for In response to this, the Coalition to Save Abor­ one. acquire an abortion. Before the services were legal­ tions at Cook County Hospital was formed to fight ized and performed at County Hospital, sixty Nor was the cut off of abortion funding limited to to reverse the new law, and 200 abortion rights women were admitted daily for treatment of septic Cook County. On October 9, the Illinois Public Aid advocates expressed their outrage at the October 20 abortions. Doctors, nurses, Black and women's Department moved to enforce a 1977 Illinois law Cook County Board meeting. groups fear that this will again be the case. cutting off state funds for abortion even in the case A resolution passed by the Hospital Staff Associa­ Dr. Quentin Young of the Cook County Hospital of rape or incest. tion stated that "this action results in the denial of Staff Association, has reported that the hospital Public Aid could get away with foisting this law a medical service to our patients, who are in has already seen its first two septic abortions since on poor working-class women because of a provi­ particular Black, Latino, poor and young the restrictive law. sion of the federal appropriations bill signed by women .... This action represents an attack on the What is happening in Illinois is no different from President Carter on October 2 allowing states to basic principles of this hospital; it is a time when the plight of women across the country, victims of institute such laws. services should be expanded rather than de­ the federal government's almost total restrictions Given the federal green light, both Illinois and creased." on abortion funding. What's Going On ALABAMA Janet Goldwasser, plaintiff in Red Squad suit; OHIO REVOLUTIONS IN THE CARIBBEAN AND CEN­ Richard Scott, Michigan Legal Services; Mo Gerry, TRAL AMERICA. Sat-Sun., Dec. 6-7. University of BIRMINGHAM Socialist Workers Party. Sun., Dec. 7, 7 p.m. 6404 CINCINNATI Pennsylvania, Stiteler Hall, 37th and Locust Sat, THE FIGHT AGAINST FBI AND GOVERNMENT Woodward Ave. Donation: $1.50. Ausp: Militant REVOLT AND REPRESSION IN EL SALVADOR. Dec. 6, 1 p.m. "Cuba: Its Revolutionary Role," HARASSMENT. Speakers: Bernard Bray, chairper­ Forum. For more information call (313) 875-5322. Speakers: representatives from the Central Ameri­ Speakers: Richard Fawkes, Young Socialist Al­ son, Civil Liberties Union of Alabama; Mohammed can Task Force and recent slide show from El liance. 3:30 p.m. "Nicaragua: The Challenge of Oliver, plaintiff in Socialist Workers Party suit Salvador. Sun., Nov. 23, 7:30p.m. 2531 Gilbert Ave. Revolution," slide show prepared by members of against the government; Jack Zylman, co-chair, Donation: $1.50. Ausp: Militant Labor Forum. For the Coalition for a Free Nicaragua. Birmingham chapter, National Alliance Against MINNESOTA more information call (513) 751-2636. Sun., Dec. 7, 1 p.m. "Grenada and Jamaica: Racist and Political Repression; Deborah Gordan­ Which Way for the Caribbean Revolution?" Hellman, Safe Energy Alliance; representative of TWIN CITIES THE NESTLE BABY FORMULA SCANDAL: COR­ Speaker: Ernest Harsch, staff writer for Interconti­ Young Socialist Alliance. 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THE MILITANT/NOVEMBER 28, 1980 25 Our Revolutionary Heritage Letters Grasping at straws [Communist Party] run this The Black As per your request for news year? It might be interesting to clippings that report the readers. Socialist Workers Party's F. B. votes, here is one for Allen Chicago, Illinois County, Indiana. You will see there were thirty-one votes! Many young people in this Did workers vote? area who were against the Your newspaper is usually draft voted for the reactionary very good. It normally does a Libertarians, Anderson, or great job of providing a class even Reagan-just because of analysis. that one issue, not knowing However, your editorial on about the SWP. the Reagan victory somehow I suppose that's comparable missed the boat. Nowhere did to the powerful one-issue right­ you even mention that the wing reactionary groups such majority of the working class as anti-abortion, prayer in did not bother to vote. They schools, etc., who swept this recognized the fall election as a election. complete fraud and stayed I think it shows the people away from the polls. That our are grasping at straws for class did not vote is the The National Black Agenda was the now serving ghetto communities, includ­ constructive change, although missing key to interpreting the political document approved at the 1972 ing public transportation and communica­ many seem to feel that going phony democratic election. National Black Political Convention held tion systems, day care and health centers, back to yesterday is the In failing to mention this in Gary, Indiana. housing, educational and commercial and answer. But they just don't fact you then imply that the Eight thousand delegates and observers financial institutions." realize that the capitalist working class somehow elected attended the convention, making it one of On education, the Agenda demands: system is our common enemy, Reagan. This is incorrect. It the most significant gatherings of Black "The development of mechanisms for which cleverly pits us against was the affluent upper-middle people in many years. Black control of the schools where Black each other. class that elected Reagan. Representatives of community organiza­ children are educated, moving beyond the It is time for mass education If you had observed the truth tions, student groups, as well as welfare­ sterile issue of 'busing' to the basic issue and revolution. about the election then rights activists, union officials, and Dem­ of the redistribution of educational wealth Let's get at it. everything is very clear. The ocratic and Republican politicians and control." Michael Delez Republican upswing can be attended. In addition the convention endorsed the Fort Wayne, Indiana understood as an attack on the The Agenda raised demands that re­ right of Blacks to utilize busing programs working class. It is difficult to flected the sentiments and the political for immediate educational gains. believe that the voters were not interests of masses of Black Americans. It The Agenda called for billions of dollars aware of Reagan's racism and challenged the policies of the twin parties in reparations for the hundreds of years of What about CP? reactionary views. Far from it, of big business-the Democrats and Re­ exploitation Black people have faced. It Please extend my sub one they were voting for such publicans. added that "full economic development for more year. My weekly paper is conservative ideas. The 1972 Black Political Convention did us cannot take place without radical like a sorely needed fix. The What the Militant seemed to not adopt a course of action to implement transformation of the economic system." quality of the paper, like our have forgotten is that the the program of the Black Agenda. It demanded "free public transporta­ campaigns, continues to rise. proletarian majority, unaware But this document remains a significant tion"; abolition of taxes on incomes under By the way, what kind of of the Socialist Workers Party, contribution to the discussion of the $10,000 a year ... and withdrawal by the campaign has the CP has abandoned the elections · meaning of independent political action. U.S. government of "all corporations, It is worth review by those interested in military bases, communications facilities pursuing a course of independent Black and other institutions which contribute to and labor political action today. the dehumanization and or subjugation of Boeing settlement Below are excerpts from "The Meaning African and Third World peoples." I thought Militant readers shop. This was recognition of the Black Political Agenda," an article These are the type of demands that might like to know the out­ of the fact that all new hires which summarized its contents, by Tony reflect the problems and interests of the come of the three-year con­ have been joining the union. Thomas. It was published in the May 1972 masses of Black people. Many of these tract Boeing workers voted It does not affect the hard- issue of the International Socialist Re­ demands have already been raised in on in October. It set the core non-union members v,ew. struggles for community control, in strug­ pattern for the aerospace who are in the shop. gles of Black workers, welfare activists, contracts discussed in the If Boeing workers voted * * * and students. "Union Talk" column No­ yes, it was not because The Agenda proposes that the resources vember 7. many of us thought it was a of this society be utilized to meet the According to union figures good contract. In the days The National Black Agenda passed at educational, social, cultural, and economic the contract signed by Boe­ after the vote, it was hard to the March 10-12 National Black Political needs of the Black community rather that ing and the International find someone who defended Convention held in Gary, Indiana, marks the profits of "white capitalism." Association of Machinists the contract in the heated an important step toward codifying · a As the Black Agenda states several was ratified by 75 percent of discussions that were going program for the struggle for Black libera­ times, these demands can only be gained the membership who voted. on all over the plant. tion. by replacing the system. They run directly Over 20,000 of the lAM's Why then the vote? The Agenda charts a Black nationalist against the interests and desires of the big 32,000 members out here Many people figured, what course of self-reliance. It refers to Afro­ industrialists and financiers who control turned out for the meeting is the use of going out on Americans as a Black Nation and states: the Democratic and Republican parties. where the contract was pre­ strike if you will eventually " . . . no one else is going to represent our The Agenda reflects the growing hostility sented. go back to work on basically interests but ourselves. The society we of Black people at the do-nothing politics With such a plurality, one the same terms you were seek cannot come unless Black people of these parties: ' might think the contract offered when you went out? organize to advance its coming." (Empha­ "Both parties have betrayed us when­ was a big gain for aerospace Workers had no confi­ sis in original.) ever their interests conflicted with ours workers, in line with the dence that the leadership In the section entitled "The Direction" (which was most of the time) ...." ambitious projections set by was capable of a fight for following the preamble, the Agenda The problems for Black people, accord­ the lAM aerospace confer­ real gains. states: ing to the Black Political Agenda, "will ence last spring. In the discussions I had at "The Black politics we need goes far not be significantly affected by new faces That isn't the case. work, some people called the beyond electoral politics and far beyond in the old places in Washington, D.C." The annual wage in­ agreement a sell-out. The 1972. We need a permanent political move­ Instead, "To accept that challenge is to creases of 7 percent the first real problem, however, is ment that addresses itself to the basic move to independent Black politics." year and 3 percent each· of that from square one the control and reshaping of American insti­ The Black Agenda, and the rise in the following two years are union leadership accepted tutions that currently exploit Black Amer­ Black political consciousness it signifies, essentially the same as the the framework for negotia­ ica and threaten the whole society. The gives signs of important opportunities for wage increases granted tions laid down by Boeing: unifying objective of this political move­ the entire Black struggle. While the words under the 1977 contract. Times are tough, competi­ ment must be the empowerment of the of the Agenaa stop short of proclaiming Over the life of that contract tion fierce, wages cause in­ Black community, not simply its represen­ the need for a Black pplitical party and we lost at least 5 percent in flation, if you ask for too tatives. It must offer basic alternatives to for ·a mass struggle for Black control of real wages-despite COLA, much you may not have a all existing American political, economic the Black community, the essence of the which we have succeeded in job next year, to get a raise and cultural systems." (Emphasis in origi­ demands and the nationalist language of maintaining intact in the you have to give up some­ nal.) the Black,Political Agenda are consistent new contract. thing else, etc. The Black Political Agenda proposes with these two courses of action. In return for the certainty If you accept all those Black control of the Black community and This can only help expose the bank­ of a further cut in real arguments from the com­ the institutions affecting it. ruptcy of those who urge that the Black wages, rate progression pany, there is no way In the section on economics, the Agenda liberation struggle support the Democratic schedules have been altered anyone could come up with demands the establishment through fed­ Party. More significantly, the prominence for new hires, extending con­ a contract that maintains, eral funds of a "Black development of the Black Agenda-passed by the most siderably the length of time much less improv~s, our agency . . . under Black leadership and representative gathering of Black people it takes them to reach maxi­ standard of living. control for the purpose of facilitating in years-can give added confidence and mum pay grades. John Votava Black ownership and/or control of the full legitimacy to those who fully support its We got a modified union Seattle, Washington range of business and service enterprises demands.

26 Learning About Socialism and left the process up to an increasingly conservative petty-bourgeoisie. Engels on Ireland and Labor Party Ronald Sims The hunger strike of the Northern Ireland H-Block prison- $3.25. Enclose $.75 for postage. Worthington, Ohio ers is having a big impact in Ireland, Britain, and the Below are excerpts. United States. The prisoners are desperately protesting -Stu Singer inhuman treatment. * * * The torture and humiliation they are subjected to by the London, November 14, 1872 An tid raft British government continues a centuries-old policy of The Liberal English Government has at the moment no Last October 26 the Coalition repression. less than 42 Irish political prisoners in its prisons and treats for Consumer Justice (CCJ) Since the time of Marx and Engels, revolutionary social­ them with quite exceptional cruelty, far worse than thieves voted to make antidraft work ists have been deeply involved in support for the Irish and murderers. one of that organization's struggle. The Irish members of the International in London decided priority issues during the In November 1872-108 years ago-Karl Marx, Fredrick to organize a giant demonstration in Hyde Park (the largest coming year. Engels, and the other members of the International Work­ public park in London, where all the big popular meetings The decision was made at ing Men's Association helped organize a demonstration of take place during political campaigns) to demand a general CCJ's fourth annual 30,000 in London to demand a general amnesty for the Irish amnesty. They contacted all London's democratic organiza­ convention, which was political prisoners of that time. attended by over 1,000 people. tions and formed a committee which included MacDonnell These were the prisoners from the 1867 Fenian Rebellion. (an Irishman), Murray (an Englishma11) and Lessner (a CCJ is the largest statewide That uprising for Irish independence failed, and 169 partici­ multi-issue organization of German)-all members of the last General Council of the pants were brought to trial. Half were sentenced to hard community activists in Rhode International. labor. Island. Since its founding, the A difficulty arose: at the last session of Parliament the group has fought utility rate The British elections of 1868 were won by the Liberal government passed a law which gave it the right to regulate increases, for increased social Party, headed by William Gladstone. Gladstone called for a public meetings in London's parks. It made use of this and services for handicapped and radical change in policy toward Ireland and claimed to be a had the regulation posted up to warn those who wanted to retired people, for bilingual supporter of the Fenian prisoners before he became prime hold such a public meeting that they must give a written education, and against nuclear minister. The mistreatment of the prisoners in British jails notification to the police two days prior to calling it, power and hazardous waste. was an international scandal. indicating the names of the speakers. This regulation The fact that a group like carefully kept hidden from the London press destroyed with this has joined the movement But after the election Gladstone did nothing. A mass one stroke of the pen one of the most precious rights of against registration and the movement developed to demand amnesty for the prisoners. London's working people-the right to hold meetings in draft is one more indication This was before the establishment of the British Labor parks when and how they please. To submit to this regula­ that sentiment against Party. Most workers still supported the capitalist Liberal tion would be to sacrifice one of the people's rights. registration and against Party. The Irish, who represent the most revolutionary element further U.S. military The Irish struggle helped inspire the development of the of the population, were not men to display such weakness. adventures abroad is Labor Party. In the British parliament elected in 1874, fifty The committee unanimously decided to act as if it did not widespread among the working representatives from Ireland blocked together to form what know of the existence of this regulation and to hold their class. Engels described as a "well-knit Irish party." They called meeting in defiance of the government's decree. Annette D. Gagne for "home rule" for Ireland. Last Sunday at about three o'clock in the afternoon two Providence, Rhode Island Two workers, both coal miners, had also been elected. The enormous processions with bands and banners marched effectiveness of the home rule supporters became an exam­ towards Hyde Park. The bands played Irish songs and the ple for those fighting to win the British trade unions to Marseillaise; almost all the banners were Irish (green with a support for a labor party. gold harp in the middle) or red. There were only a few police agents at the entrances to the park and the columns of In an article in a German paper in March 1874, Engels demonstrators marched in without meeting with any resist­ summed up the recent British election as follows: ance. They assembled at the appointed place and the speeches began. Max Roach "Thus both motive forces of English political development have now entered Parliament: on the one side the workers, The spectators numbered at least thirty thousand and at I was very pleased to see the least half had a green ribbon or a green leaf in their article on drummer Max Roach on the other the Irish as a compact national party. And even if they may hardly be expected to play a big role in this buttonhole to show they were Irish; the rest were English, which appeared in your German and French. November 14 issue. Parliament-the workers will certainly not-the elections of 1874 have indisputably ushered in a new phase in English This is the first time an Irish demonstration has been For those who would like to held in Hyde Park; it was very successful and even the listen to the "Freedom Now political development." London bourgeois press cannot deny this. It is also the first Suite" which was referred to in These developments turned out to be slower than Engels time the English and Irish sections of our population have the article, it has recently been hoped in 1874. An economic depression temporarily dam­ united in friendship. These two elements of the working reissued by Columbia Records pened working-class militancy. But they did lead later to the on its Contemporary Masters founding of the Labor Party. class, whose enmity towards each other was so much in the Series, number JC 36390. interest of the government and wealthy classes, are now Walter Lippmann Engels wrote a report about how the November 3, 1872, offering one another the hand of friendship; this gratifying Los Angeles, California demonstration to support the Irish political prisoners was fact is due principally to the influence of the last General built. Written for an Italian workers' newspaper, La Plebe, it Council of the International, which has always directed all is reprinted in Ireland and the Irish Question: A Collection its efforts to unite the workers of both peoples on a basis of of Writings by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. The book is complete equality. This meeting, of the 3rd of November, available from the offices listed below or from Pathfinder will usher in a new era in the history of London's working­ Correction Press, 410 West Street, New York, New York 10014. It costs class movement. A typographical error in last week's review of Trotsky's His­ tory of the Russian Revolution gave an odd twist to his refer­ ence to the scientific laws of If You Like This Paper, Look Us Up historical development. The quotation from Trotsky should Where to find the Socialist Workers Party, Young Socialist Alliance, and soceallst books and pamphlets have read as follows: "The ALABAMA: Birmingham: SWP, YSA, 205 18th St. S. Zip: 01002. Tel: (413) 546-5942. Boston: SWP, OREGON: Portland: SWP, YSA, 711 NW Everett. serious and critical reader will Tel: (205) 323-3079. Send mail to P.O. Box 3382- YSA, 510 Commonwealth Ave., 4th Floor. Zip: Zip: 97209. Tel: (503) 222-7225. A. Zip: 35255. 02215. Tel: (617) 262-4621. PENNSYLVANIA: Edinboro: YSA, Edinboro State not want a treacherous impar­ ARIZONA: Phoenix: SWP, YSA, 1243 E. McDowell. MICHIGAN: Ann Arbor: YSA, 4120 Michigan Union, College. Zip: 16444. Tel: (215) 734-4415. Phila-:tel­ tiality, which offers him a cup Zip: 85006. Tel: (602) 255-0450. U. of M. Zip: 48109. Detroit: SWP, YSA, 6404 phla: SWP, YSA, 5811 N. Broad St. Z; • "9141. of conciliation with a well­ CALIFORNIA: Oakland: SWP, YSA, 2864 Telegraph Woodward Ave. Zip: 48202. Tel: (313) 875-5322. Tel: (215) 927-4747 or 927-4748. PlttsbUIIJh: SWP, Ave. Zip: 94609. Tel: (415) 763-3792. Los Angeles: MINNESOTA: Mesabi Iron Range: SWP, YSA, 1012 YSA, 1210 E. Carson St. Zip: 15203. Tel: (412) settled poison of reactionary SWP, YSA, 2211 N. Broadway. Zip: 90031. Tel: 2nd Ave. South, Virginia, Minn. Send mail to P.O. 488-7000. State College: YSA, c/o Bill Donovan, hate at the bottom, but a scien­ (213) 225-3126. San Diego: SWP, YSA, 1053 15th Box 1287. Zip: 55792. Tel:(218) 749-6327. Twin 1240 E. Branch Rd. Zip: 16801. Tel: (814) 234- tific conscientiousness, which St. Zip: 92101. Tel: (714) 234-4630. San Francisco: Cities: SWP, YSA, 508 N. Snelling Ave., St. Paul. 6655. for its sympathies and antipa­ SWP, YSA, 3284 23rd St. Zip: 94110. Tel: (415) Zip: 55104. Tel: (612) 644-6325. RHODE ISLAND: Providence: YSA, P.O. Box 1322, 824-1992. San Jose: SWP, YSA, 201 N. 9th St. Zip: MISSOURI: Kansas City: SWP, YSA, 4715A Troost. Annex Station. Zip: 02901. thies-open and undisguised­ 951.12. Tel: (408) 998-4007. Zip: 64110. Tel: (816) 753-0404. St. Louis: SWP, TEXAS: Austin: YSA, c/o Mike Rose, 7409 Berkman seeks support in an honest COLORADO: Denver: SWP, YSA, 126 W. 12th Ave. YSA, 6223 Delmar Blvd. Zip: 63130. Tel: (314) Dr. Zip: 78752. Dallas: SWP, YSA, 5442 E. Grand. study of the facts, a determina­ Zip: 80204. Tel: (303) 534-8954. 725-1570: Zip: 75223. Tel: (214) 826-4711. Houston: SWP, FLORIDA: Miami: SWP, YSA, 8171 NE 2nd Ave. Zip: NEW JERSEY: Newark: SWP, YSA, 11-A Central YSA, 806 Elgin St. #1. Zip: 77006. Tel: (713) 524- tion of their real connections, 33138. Tel: (305) 756-8358. Ave. Zip: 07102. Tel: (201) 643-3341. 8761. San Antonio: SWP, YSA, 1406 N. Flores Rd. an exposure to the causal laws GEORGIA: Atlanta: SWP, YSA, 509 Peachtree St. NEW MEXICO: Albuquerque: SWP, YSA, 1417 Zip: 78212. Tel: (512) 222-8398. of their movement." NE. Zip: 30308. Tel: (404) 872-7229. Central Ave. NE. Zip: 87106. Tel: (505) 842-0954. UTAH: Salt Lake City: SWP, YSA, 677 S. 7th East, ILLINOIS: Champaign-Urbana: YSA, 284 lllini Un­ NEW YORK: Capital District (Schenectady): SWP, 2nd Floor. Zip: 84102. Tel: (801) 355-1124. ion, Urbana. Zip: 61801. Chicago: SWP, YSA, 434 YSA, 323 State St. Zip: 12305. Tel: (518) 374-1494. VIRGINIA: Tidewater Area (Newport News): SWP, S. Wabash, Room 700. Zip: 60605. 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27 THE MILITANT/NOVEMBER 28, 1980 THE MILITANT Terrorists kill five in Grenada, ousted dictator plots in U.S. By Stu Singer from Los Angeles. He is on a tour of a Five people were killed and one number of U.S. cities speaking at pub­ wounded November 17 in two separate lic meetings about the revolution in terrorist attacks in the Black Carib­ Grenada. bean island nation of Grenada. Burke said, "The forces behind this The killings took place around 11 ambush are among those who support p.m. as thirty bullets were pumped into Eric Gairy [the ousted Grenadian dic­ a car near the Pearl's airport. tator]. Killed were Dennis Stanisclaus, who "Gairy is sheltered by the U.S. gov­ was in charge of the People's Revolu­ ernment. His visa was just extended tionary Army detachment at the air­ eight weeks ago. He lives in San Diego port; his brother Donald, who had just and is openly raising funds to recruit returned from England; and three counterrevolutionaries to attack Gre­ members of the militia. They were nada. eighteen-year-old Steven Lasie, Andy "He represents the same forces that Courtnay, and Eban Charles. support acts like the freeing of the Ku The second attack was against a Klux Klan people who committed the militia base. One militia member was dastardly action against our brothers." wounded. Grenada's population of about Joseph Kanute Burke, Grenadian 100,000 is Black and English-speaking. consul general to North America, The repressive Gairy regime, which spoke to the Militant November 19 was subservient to Washington and London, was overthrown in March 1979 by revolutionaries of the New Jewel Movement. The new People's Revolutionary Government has established close ties with Cuba. It has launched ambitious campaigns for literacy, women's rights, promoting trade unions and economic development. This has met sharp opposition from Mil11'r; mll:,..;om the U.S. government and the capitalist People's Revolutionary Army at demonstration in Grenada November 6. news media. Foreign aid was refused and steps have been taken to discour­ age tourism, the biggest industry in tory, Prime Minister Tom Adams of Affairs, this was only the latest in a Grenada. the nearby island of Barbados series of such incidents. is On June 19 a bomb was set off at a launched a serious verbal attack Prime Minister Maurice Bishop re­ political rally there. Although the against Grenada. sponded in strong language to "Uncle a(fa ~- ... · ...... ·.. •·····.··············· target was Prime Minister Maurice This was followed November 8 when Tom" Adams's charges: "Like an ex­ ··~•.... mu:~•'•·····•···••··••············i•·······•·····.·...•. ·.•···•··i ? Bishop and other government leaders, Unison Whiteman, the Grenadian Min: pectant dog barking for his supper Th•,········ salct .. ··.··~·tl)~i·· ~.~; the three people killed were young ister of Agriculture, Fisheries, Land [Adams] rushes in to please his new ._.,••••• ~~······ ~.,irtefil women attending the rally. Other peo­ and Tourism, and his personal assist­ master Reagan like a good old yard­ ~Its ., ••.• ·... ~e. d•mfll)cJ th~t Ef'iC' ple were injured. ant Rudolph Hagley were physically fowl by attacking Grenada." ·. Gairy.beextraliited&>a~~to The results of the Jamaican and U.S. intimidated and harassed while in The November 17 killings come in elections have further emboldened the transit at the Barbados airport. the context of these mounting attacks n~a ..•.. to ..staf1d·.triat •. ·...... •• ····•·····.····•·•·•<••···•i '!U;.S~ hands off Grenada enemies of Grenada. According to a protest statement by against revolutionary Grenada, the The day after Reagan's election vic- the Grenadian Ministry of External first free Black country in the world.

Nicaragua is 'not a Jamaica or Chile' FSLN mobilizes against capitalist attacks By Lars Palmgren ' Among the letters received was one quest as a special point at the end of to the CTN, said: "The CTN's with- MANAGUA-All the representatives from each of the bourgeois parties the day's agenda. And that was when drawal from the Council of State con- of the Superior Council of Private protesting the banning of a Nicara- the bourgeois delegates walked out. firms that it defends the interests of Enterprise (COSEP) and the bourgeois guan Democratic Movement (MDN) As a result, Nunez decided to sus- the bourgeoisie." parties staged a walkout from Nicara- rally and complaining about demon- pend the session. The union members at the Aceitera gua's Council of State here on No- strations that had taken place outside Corona, together with other workers vember 12. the MDN's headquarters in Managua. Forgot the revolution belonging to the CTN, are planning to Joining them were the delegates Another letter from Interior Minister The dominant sector of the bourgeoi- hold an assembly to discuss the mat- from two small trade-union federations Tomas Borg~ explained the considera- sie in Nicaragua is on the warpath. ter. whose leaders identify with the capital- tions involved in prohibiting the MDN But they seem to have forgotten that ist forces. rally. there has been a revolution here, a Sandinista rallies The walkout was planned well in MDN representative Alvaro Jerez revolution made not by them but by Following the walkout from the advance. COSEP representative Jaime demanded the floor for an immediate the workers and peasants. Council of State, mass organizations Montealegre even read and distributed response to Borge's letter. This was led by the Sandinista National Libera­ As Eloisa Corrales, a chemical a printed document that explained denied by the Council's president, tion Front (FSLN) quickly organized why the bourgeois delegates and union Commander Carlos Nunez. worker, said, "If we fought once for a rallies, demonstrations, and meetings bureaucrats were leaving the Council. free homeland, we will struggle to the in cities and towns throughout the The Council of State is a consulta- At the top of the Council's agenda end to defend this process, because it country to reject the bourgeoisie's prov­ tive and legislative subordinate to the for the day was an important discus­ has given us the opportunity to partici­ ocations. executive branch of the revolutionary sion on proposed improvements in the pate in the government that represents The capitalist forces "are mistaken government, the Junta of National wages and working conditions of farm all the workers." about many things," Moises Hassan of Reconstruction (JRN). The bourgeois workers involved in the coffee harvest. The fact that the delegates from the the Junta of National Reconstruction forces were allocated a minority of Nunez explained that the urgency of Confederation of Nicaraguan Workers told one of the rallies in Managua on seats in the Council when it was set up coming to decisions about those prop­ (CTN) and Confederation of Trade November 13. "They think that when last May. osals before the beginning of the harv­ Union Unification (CUS) left their there are expressions of discontent est was more important that the seats in solidarity with the bourgeois among our people, when the people Capitalist protests MDN's complaints against Borge. In representatives has caused strong reac­ complain and raise demands ... that The November 12 session of the addition, the Council's own bylaws tions among the ranks of the unions this signifies support" for the capital­ Council of State had begun in the prohibit alterations to the agenda once that make up those two federations. ists. usual way, with the week's correspon­ it has been adopted. Fabio Galo Gonzalez, who works at "But they are mistaken," Hassan dence being read by the presiding com­ Taking a flexible attitude, however, the Aceitera Corona, a cotton-oil pro­ said. "They do not understand that mittee. Nunez proposed including Jerez's. re- cessing plant where the union belongs Continued on page 22