WfJ/iIlE/iS ,,1N'U,1/i, 25¢ No. 415 '.~)(-'23 7 November 1986 Reaganite Racists, Nazis, Zionists on ras' ers Defend Nicaragua!

NOVEMBER 3-ln northern Nicara­ gua, one mile south of the small village of Pantasrna, the daily truck transport was blown up by a land mine October 20, killing six people, including a seven­ year-old child, and wounding 40. Many of the victims were over 60, several were children; seven had to have limbs am­ putated. Two were evangelical pastors, one of whom lost his leg, the other his life. These are the latest casualties of the CIA's contra mercenaries, who have been unleashed against the radical­ nationalist Sandinista regime. Ronald (''I'm a Contra") Reagan calls his hired killers "freedom fighters." The Nicara­ guan people call them beasts. Over the last six years, the contras' U.S.-backed Contra terrorists dirty war has cost almost 15,000 (above) take their casualties, mostly civilians like those on orders from U.S. the crowded Pantasma transport. And war criminal-in-chief now, following mammoth exercises for Reagan, meeting with contra leaders a U.S. invasion of Central America, a at White House. senior officer of the 82nd Airborne Nicaraguan mothers Division remarked, "We hope Danny (below) display Ortega gets the message." photos of their In every battle with the Sandinista children killed in armed forces the contras just cut and CIA's dirty war. run. Like dictator Somoza's National Guard, from which the contra com­ mand was reconstituted, like the death squads that terrorize the oppressed throughout Latin America, they are East Europe and the Soviet Union to turn Angola and Mozambique into Democrats and Republicans alike, the only good for torturing and shooting occupied by Hitler's armies in World bantustans, to Afghan feudalists who Nicaraguan contras are on the front line unarmed civilians. They are Reagan's War II. Today they are the hit men for want to restore the veil and bride price, of the anti-Soviet war drive. Einsatzkommandos, the Nazi SSkillers the "Reagan Doctrine" of striking at the who murder teachers for teaching little The contras' specialty is blowing up who savagely murdered Jews, and Soviet Union through proxy wars, from girls to read and write. Now, with schools, childcare centers, health clinics, Communists throughout the areas of racist South Africa's contras Who want Washington's $100 million, voted for by continued on page 10

year has been a spectacular technologi­ cal failure. In August of 1985, a Titan America Needs Its Bolshevik Party rocket carrying the latest spy satellite for the CIA had to be destroyed by its controller when it veered off course. Then in January, one had on prime time television the blowing up of the Challenger space shuttle, killing all We Are the Party seven astronauts aboard. And two months later another Titan rocket carrying another spy satellite blew up, producing a half-billion-dollar fire­ works display over Vandenberg Air 01 the Russian Revolutionl Force Base. Well, comrades, let's face it: Reagan just can't get it up. November 7 is the 69th anniversary made a few years ago by the com­ Initiative, popularly known as "Star Nevertheless, Reagan's program to ofthe Bolshevik Revolution. To com­ mander in chief of the United States Wars," is precisely to win a nuclear war "outlaw Russia forever" decisively af­ memorate this world historic victory armed forces, a man who literally at against Russia. fects almost every aspect of American for the proletariat, we print below any time can press the button to start Supposedly, there will be space­ society and American foreign policy. excerpts from a talk by Spartacist nuclear World War III. Of course, based weaponry which will provide a Take the Wall Street panic, the week League Central Committee member Ronald Reagan said it was all a big kind of Gardol shield over the United before last. One might say, what the Joseph Seymour in San Francisco, joke, he didn't know that the micro­ States, so the United States can bomb hell does the stock market, its ups and September 20. phone was on for his weekly radio the hell out of Russia without fear of downs, have to do with the subject of "My fellow Americans. I'm pleased chat. It's not a joke. In a very crude retaliation. Star Wars is supposed to this talk, which is the Russian Revolu­ to tell you today that I've signed way it's the program, the goal, the be the most modern, state-of-the-art tion? The answer is quite a bit. You legislation that will outlaw Russia­ intent ofthe present American govern­ technology which will work with have all these right-wing Reaganite forever. We begin bombing in five ment. The intent of the multibillion­ pinpoint accuracy the first time. Yet types: they groove on Rambo movies, minutes." This is a statement actually dollar so-called Strategic Defense every aspect of this program in the last continued on page 8 .W.alter Act was a significant component of the red purges of the 1950s. This PiI.:rti!MI-u Defeu§e witchhunting legacy is reflected in the £o...... ittee . labor bureaucracy's prostration before union-busting givebacks. The just­ enacted immigration law will fill the hellish immigration jails with additional thousands of Guatemalans, Salvado­ rans and Haitians fleeing desperate poverty and government-sponsored terror at the hands of U.S. puppets. Smash the McCarran-Walter Act­ International class solidarity demands that the McCarran-Walter Act and racist immigration policies be smashed! Give General Dragunsky Full citizenship rights for all foreign- born workers! . A'Hero's Welcome! * * * ~ On September 21, for the second victim of and fighter against fascist Ramona Africa, the sole adult time, Soviet General David Dragunsky terror." survivor of the I3 May 1985 Philadel­ was denied permission to enter the phia MOVE massacre, informed us that Not only' Soviet officials are barred she has been told by a parole board United States to attend a dinner from the U.S. under the anti-commu­ representative that any offer of parole Proqress Publishers sponsored by Jewish Affairs magazine nist McCarran-Walter Act. On August in his honor. Earlier, in June 1985, one would impose the condition that she be General David Dragunsky, Hero of 28, Immigration and Naturalization barred from associating with MOVE the Soviet Union. month after Reagan saluted SS graves Service (INS) judge Martin Spiegel at Bitburg, Dragunsky and two other family members. Ramona stormed out ordered American-born, left-wing/ of the meeting. She has told us she contribution on September 27 defining prominent Soviet Jews, Lev Kaufman feminist author Margaret Randall to be our anti-sectarian defense policies and and Andrei Belaev, were denied entry would. not accept these inhumane deported because her writings "advo­ conditions. The PDC sent a letter rebuking PL for its own anti-solidarity visas to attend a celebration (also cate the doctrines of world commu- .. and history of physical attacks on other sponsored by Jewish Affairs) ofthe40th demanding her immediate uncondition­ nisrn." The PDC has contributed to her al release: "The condition that one not left organizations including the Sparta­ 'anniversary of V-E Day. Dragunsky, defense and- on September 9 sent cist League. PL returned this second twice decorated with the Hero of the be permitted to associate with family is another-telegram to the INS commis­ the hallmark of the world's most contribution without comment. Contri­ Soviet Union medal, lost his family to sioner protesting that, "Increasing use butions may be sent to: PLP Chicago Nazi terror in World. War II. The PDC barbaric societies, from the antebellum of anti-communist McCarran Act con­ South to apartheid South Africa." Fund, GPO Box 808, Brooklyn, NY sent the following telegram of protest to firms Administration's identification 11202. Secretary of S~ate George Shultz; Protests should be sent to: Herman with reviled Mcf.arthy era...." More Tartler, Board Secretary, Pennsylvania recently the U.S. government denied * * * . "23 September 1986 Board of Probation and Parole, 31()3 entry to Patricia Lara, a reporter for El North Front St., Harrisburg, PA 1711O. Attorney General Edwin Meese has PDC condemns second McCarthyite Tiempo, one of Colombia's leading Janet Holloway Africa and Consue­ leveled a new attack on the Constitution exclusion of Jewish Soviet,General newspapers. wella Dotson Africa have been added to and Supreme Court in the government's David Dragunsky, hero of Red Army The deportation of immigrant trade­ the class-war prisoners to whom the march toward turning public schools triumph over Hitler, as outrage to every union militants under the McCarran- ,PDCsends monthly stipends. They are into Jim Crow, fundamentalist Chris­ among the nine MOVE members still in tian parochial schools. Asserting that prison for defending themselves from Supreme Court decisions on constitu­ the 1978 attack by 600 cops ordered by tional issues may be disregarded by notorious racist mayor Frank Rizzo. legislators and lower courts, Meese singled out for attack the landmark The Russian October and Janet told the PDC that until recently she and other MOVE prisoners spent Topeka and Little Rock desegregation World Revolution the past three years in solitary! She cases of the 1950s. Meese's diatribe underlines the issues posed in the added, "since May 13th when this Govt, amicus In answer to the bloody carnage ofthe curiae brief submitted to the Supreme first imperialist world war, .the Russian dropped that bomb on our family, our financial situation is very poor so I Court Py the Spartacist League and Revolution of 1917 opened the road toa PDC opposing the State of Louisiana's socialist future for. mankind. Addressing really appreciate the donation that you sent me." attack on the teaching ofevolution. The the Petrograd Soviet on November 7 amicus brief points out, "The current (October 25 on the old-style Russian * * * battle poses the defense of the gains calendarJ, right after the Bolsheviks took of the American Revolution, Civil TROTSKY power, Lenin called upon the interna- l.ENIN Class-war prisoner Ruchell Magee War-and the Enlightenment." For a tional working class to wage war on the world capitalist system ofexploitation sent us the following election day copy of the brief send $4.00 to: Sparta­ and oppression.' message: cist, Box 1377 GPO, NY, NY 10116. Comrades, the workers' and peasants' revolution, about the necessity ofwhich the "Democrat or Republican? Some Bolsheviks have always spoken, has been accomplished. poor choke given the millions of * * * What is the significance of this workers' and peasants' revolution? Its significance working class. Flim/Flarn.... Voting The PDC has just published the is, first of all, that we shall have a Soviet government, our own organ of power, in these days has become like exchanging second issue of our newsletter, Class­ which the bourgeoisie will have no share whatsoever. The oppressed masses will one boot for another with spurs to kick Struggle Defense Notes, featuring up­ themselves create 11. power. The old state apparatus will be shattered to its your own self in the ass with ...." dates on class-war prisoners, including a foundations and a new administrative apparatus set up in the form of the Soviet letter from Geronimo Pratt. We urge organisations. * * * WV readers to continue to support and From now on, a new phase in the history of Russia begins, and this, the third Supporters of Progressive Labor/ build the POe. Sustaining contribu­ Russian revolution, should in the end lead to the victory of socialism. InCAR still face felony charges for tions, donations and requests for the .One of our urgent tasks is to put an immediate end to the war. It is clear to attempting to stop the fascists in the first two issues of the newsletter can be everybody that in order to end this war, which is closely bound up with the present streets of Chicago on June 28. On July sent to: Partisan Defense Committee, capitalist system, capital itself must be fought. 17the PDC sent a $100 contribution for P.O. Box 99, Canal Street Station, New We shall be helped in this by the world working-class movement, which is already their defense. We sent a second $100 York, NY 10013.• beginning to develop inItaly, Britain and Germany.... . We must now set about building a proletarian socialist state in Russia. No,85·1513

Long live the world socialist revolution! (Stormy applause.) . INTm 5UI'IlEME COURTOF mEUNnmSTATES -V.I. Lenin, "Report on the Tasks of the Soviet power" (7 November 1917) OCTOBER TERM, 19M

EDWIN W. EowAUI, in his officilill OIIP1KilY as G~fIlor 01'Louisiana. WILUAN W. Gus'n" Ja .. in his official capacity u Auomey Genual 01 Louit,lalll. LooISIMU. DUUTMUlT or EDlJCATION. and THOMAS G. Cu.USF.N, in his official capacity .. Suptrintmdtm of Education ofLoui5Lana.

DoH AGUILUI., LoUISIA-"" BoAI. OF [UMon.'" AND SUOND",,, EDUCATION, alLUNI PAIIsn SCIlOOL BOAaD,t.L. ifppellus.

ON AppEAl. FaGM THE U",ITW STATU CoUaT OF A'PEAU '!!'!'!~'!!.'Y~~S'!~~~~~'S~ rol ntl: FIFTII C •• CUIT DIRECTOR OF PARTY PUBLICATIONS: Liz Gordon BRIEF FORTIlE SPARTACIST l£\GUE AND EDITOR: Jan Norden pAll11SAN DEFENSE COMMITIU AS PRODUCTION MANAGER: Noah Wilner AMICUS CIJJIIAE ON BEHAlFOF APPEU.EES EDITORIAL BOARD: Bonnie Brodie, Jon Brule, George Foster, Liz Gordon, RACHU II. WOUD45TDN Jan Norden, James Robertson, Reuben Samuels, Joseph Seymour. Marjorie Stamberg, C",n-I Co..",'''. 5"."..." LftlCW 299Broadwa, Noah Wilner (Closing editor) . Nrw "ork;.l'Hw York 10U07 (212)2SS·188& Workers Vanguard (USP~ 098-770) published biweekly, except 2nd issue August and with 3-week Interv~i December, CCoun.e1 ulltccord) by the Spartacist Publishing Co.. 41 Warren Street. New York, NY 10007.Telephone: 732-7862 (Editorial), 732-7861 Order Yours Nowl VAUIl'£C. WISI' SI41/COI....'. ~ lNInw (Business). Address all correspondence to: Box 1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116. Domestic SUbscriptions: $5.00/24 Committ. issues. Second-class postage paid at New York, NY, POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Workers Vanguard, 299_.. Box 1377. GPO, New York, NY 10116. Nrw York.New YQ!I'Il. 10001 $4.00 (212)711-8271 Opinions expressed In signed ertic;Jes'or letters do not necessarily express the editorlel viewpoint. Make payable/mall to: Spartaclst, Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 No. 415 7 November 1986

2 WORKERS VANGUARD I ~'-ooo Out in Northern California Kaiser Hospital Strike: Stop the Scabs!

OAKLAND, November I-Ten thou­ their strike vote meeting. And so far sand hospital workers have struck the ten strikers have taken subscriptions Kaiser Foundation Health Plan in an to wv. important labor battle against union­ The Partisan Defense Committee has busting givebacks. Kaiser is the grand­ sent SEIU Local 250 a telegram sup­ daddy of the "health maintenance porting their strike. This union has organizations" (H M0), and its first come forward on numerous occasions concern is not health care but making to support striking workers and defend big bucks. They're trying to ram a two­ victimized militants. In December 1984 tier pay structure down the workers' Local 250 made a solid $500 donation to throats, with a whopping 30 percent pay striking British miners. In November cut for new hires outside the Bay Area, a 1983 they donated $200 to the Phone wage freeze for all existing employees Strikers Defense Committee's success­ and gutting seniority protection. But the ful defense of Lauren Mozee and Ray strikers, mainly organized in SEW Palmiero. These CW A members were Local 250 Hospital and Institutional facing a racist frame-up for defending Workers Union, voted down this rotten their picket line against an assault by a proposal 4-to-l. Local 250, encompass­ racist scab supervisor during a national ing clerical and housekeeping workers, phone strike. Local 250 also donated LVNs and medical technicians, as well generously to PDC campaigns to defend as the striking Optical Workers Lo­ Chilean working-class militants Mario cal 505 and engineers and scientists Munoz and Fernando Marcos against (M EBA), make up nearly half of Kaiser the bloodthirsty Pinochet dictatorship. employees. The strikers, 80 percent The Local 250 strikers want to win women and 40 percent minorities, have this battle. A black woman picket set up large and spirited picket lines at captain with 20 years at Kaiser ex­ 27 Kaiser facilities throughout North­ WV Photo pressed the sentiment of many unionists "Let's Win This One!" WV supplement calling for mililant class struggle when she told WV: "This strike could be ern California. against union-busting was welcomed by striking Kaiser workers. Kaiser services 2.2 million residents a landmark, if we win, to fight the two­ here, including 650,000 union members This strike is an important battle to predominantly black have taken stacks tier thing. They are trying to break the and their families, and this strike has defend organized labor in the medical of supplements to distribute to other union. I refuse to give back 20 years of evoked widespread support. Workers industry. Kaiser workers must stand fast shifts of picketers. A xerox blowup of hard work and benefits. My seniors know that as bad as Kaiser hospitals can against concessions and all of Bay Area Jack London's definition ofa scab from fought and died for the union and now be they'll get a lot worse if Local 250 labor must back them up, not with our supplement was prominently dis­ it's my turn to fight for the unions for the loses. An impressive number of mem­ empty words of "solidarity" but on the played outside the room where Kaiser next generation." Victory to the Kaiser bers of the eight non-striking unions at picket line. Let some fancy-dan doctor workers in San Francisco gathered for strikers! • Kaiser are honoring the picket lines. An try gunning his Mercedes at a burly estimated 75 percent of the registered contingent of longshoremen and Team­ nurses are staying out, in the face of a sters. A few scabs hobbling around on ruling handed down by the NLRB crutches will quickly spread the word against the California Nurses Associa­ that scabbing is hazardous to your tion. The sentiment for a united strike of health. labor's strength is in its num­ Strikebreaking Mercenaries all Kaiser workers runs deep. Even the bers, organization and discipline. Kaiser more conservative craft unions, the must be shut down tight by mass picket Carpenters and Stationary Engineers, lines that nobody dares cross. have given ten-day strike notice, but in The strike leadership, however, is in the Coal .Fields the meantime their misleaders are, engaging in a variant of consumer despicably telling the members to cross boycott and "corporate campaign" Volunteering for hire abroad in the picket lines and work. strategy to bring pressure on Kaiser. Reagan's worldwide crusade against In Oakland many truck deliveries They've been encouraging patients to communism can bea risky business, have been turned away as the pickets cross the picket .ines and demand as Eugene Hasenfus might testify. know that food, linen, etc. is what benefits due them and calling on unions But professional strikebreaking in Kaiser needs to keep operating. On cue to get their members 0 drop Kaiser the u.s. is a lucrative and growing the cops and courts have moved in to aid coverage if Kaiser refuses to settle. But business. During the bitter 15-month the Kaiser bosses. The cops have strikes are won or lost a 1 the picket line! battle between the United Mine arrested numerous strikers and are Ever since the union bureaucrats let Workers and the A.T. Massey Coal issuing citations for obstruction, jay­ PA TCO be smashed rather than call out Company, imperialism's clogs of war walking and "public nuisance." On the Machinists and Pilots unions­ flocked into West Virginia and October 31 Kaiser got. an injunction backed by the full strength of labor-to Kentucky to enlist for some big-time limiting pickets to four per entrance, shut down the airports, the bosses have union-busting. only one of whom may actually picket! been waging a one-sided class war In addition to the usual services Some scab supervisors and doctors have against labor. The pro-capitalist union rendered free of charge by the cops, plowed their cars through the lines and leadership in this country consistently Massey spent millions of dollars to struck several strikers. One picket capitulates to injunctions and restrain­ train and arm a private army of reportedly suffered a broken knee. Bay ing orders against strikes and mass scabherders. The company sur­ Area workers remember 20-year-old pickets instead of rendering them rounded its mines with miles ofchain Gregory Goobic, brutally run down and worthless scraps of paper by mobilizing link fence, with cement observation murdered on the picket line by a scab the heavy battalions of labor. Remem­ posts manned by uniformed guards truck driver in the 1984 Union Oil strike ber, the only "illegal" strike is one that with cameras, M 16s and reportedly a retired Special Forces captain. in Rodeo. loses! machine guns. Massey also deployed Each unit had at least one or two helicopters, armored personnel carri­ Green Beret veterans assigned, Despite the militancy and cornbativi­ sources said'. and several veterans of ty displayed by' Hormel meatpackers, ers and an armored locomotive nick­ Rhodesia. Central America and the Phelps Dodge copper miners, PATCO named the "Bull Moose Special." Middle East-soldiers of fortune Spa rtacist League air controllers and TWA flight atten­ The September issue of Soldier of and veterans of foreign armies­ dants, their strikes lost because the un­ Fortune, in an article entitled "Guer­ were sprinkled among the Vance Public Offices ranks." ion misleaders are committed to playing rilla War in the Hills-Mercs Come -MARXIST LlTERATURE­ by the bosses' rules and relying on-the to Appalachia," gives an insider's Imperialism's mercenaries in dirty, losing colonial wars come back home Bay Area Democratic Party. But the Democrats view of the operation. Fri.: 5:00-8:00 p.m., Sat.: 3:00-6:00 p,m. as well as the Republicans are commit­ Apparently Massey fired Pinker­ to make the U.S. "free" of unions. We 1634 Telegraph, 3rd Floor (near 17th Street) ton and contracted with Vance recall that Lieutenant Calley's first Oakland, California Phone: (415) 839-0851 ted to cutting jobs, slashing social benefits like medical care and attacking. International to handle its "secu­ public act was as a strikebreaker on Chicago the unions as part of their anti-Soviet rity." Vance is headed by Chuck the railroads in Florida. From there Tues.: 5:00-9:00 p.rn., Sat.: 11:00 a.m.-2:00 p.m. war drive. Vance, a former Secret Service agent it was a short step to butchering 161 W. Harrison St., 10th Floor Vietnamese women and children at Chicago, Illinois Phone: (312) 663-0715 Workers Vanguard has been well who later married Gerald Ford's received on the picket lines. Hundreds daughter. No doubt utilizing his My Lai. American miners should New York Cily take note: the anti-Soviet war drive Tues.: 6:00-9:00 p.rn., Sat.: 1:00-5:00 p.m. of the WV supplements "Let's Win This "contacts," Vance selected his gun­ 41 Warren St. (one block below One!" with our call for militant class toting scabherders: means war on workers at home. Chambers St. near Church St.) "One Massey mine at Oceana had 30 Same enemy, same fight-workers of New York, N.Y. Phone: (212) 267-1025 struggle to bust the union-busters have been distributed to strikers. Picket Vance guards under the direction of the world unite! captains in Oakland where the lines are 7 NOVEMBER 1986 3 Young Sparlacus Join Us in the Fight for a Socialist Future I Young Spartacus is pleased to an­ together politically and I was won over nounce the formation of Spartacus to his program of tactical militancy and struggle against the various CIS PES/ Youth Clubs in Chicago and Madison. DSA/pacifist types who just wanted to Through organizing a protest against Chicago, Madison get it all over with as quickly as possible CIA recruiters at the University of by sitting down and getting arrested Wisconsin campus, reading Workers singing 'We Shall Overcome Someday' for the 40th time. The pressures of this Vanguard and the Marxist classics, and Spartacus Youth Clubs Founded situation spun us into a pretty classic through their' political experiences as left centrist trajectory, until finally individual radicals, several new com­ we started to split out of the divest­ rades have been won to the politics of ment stuff and work to present propa­ I gained a great knowledgeabout other in October, 1917 and will, 1hope, do so ganda with an openly revolutionary proletarian revolution. We print below parties and realized that the Spartacists again. The first step for me is to join the perspective. selections from their application letters. were THE only revolutionary party.... youth club." "Reading What Is To Be Done on 'Am­ Active in building a united-front dem­ "So now I want to do more work. I want Another student activist at Yale, par­ ateurishness' convinced me that it was to, especially, come into more contact necessaryto go beyond infantile student onstration against CIA recruiters in ticularly involved with anti-apartheid Madison on September 22, comrade with workers and minorities. I want groupings and work with an experi­ to get other students interested in protests, had earlier worked in the enced revolutionary group.... Marxism Judith-formerly of the Progressive Trotskyist-Leninist politics before they does not exist today because some Student Network-explained in her give up the struggle.. " 1agree with the professor assigns the 1844 Manuscripts, application: program and will abide by the disci­ but because there are a few hundred "In putting together the anti-CIA dem­ pline. Does this make me a comrade?" Spartacists around the globe diligently onstration ... I too had to learn how to A long-time subscriber to Workers fighting for independent, revolutionary working class politics." defend my politics against liberal anti­ Vanguard, Nick was one of the "Yale communism. It was tough because I So-called left organizations working witnessed a lot of my acquaintances Six" students arrested for protesting turn into enemies on a level I never CIA recruiters. Previously, during the at Yale and peddling their respective expected-POLITICAL enemies, peo­ 1984 Yale campus workers strike, he reformist schemes turned out to be ple with no spine, people who aren't refused to cross the workers' picket lines "frauds"according to Jonathan-but he even willing to argue.... did check them out. "The ISO, for all its "I got good advice. I was told to read unlike the rest of the campus "left" Ten Davs That Shook the World, The which scabbed on the strike. Noting that grad student pretension, was a pack of Revolution Betraved and Socialism: what attracted him to Spartacist politics know-nothings and liars. SPARK wasa Utopian and Scientific. Accompanied was our "Leninist program and mode of weird moralistic crew who could not with mountains of Workers Vanguard, organization," Nick explained that: explain their fake positions on the de­ "Leninist intransigence did not giveway formed workers' states and who think to stupidity or adventurism. As I talked workers are children. The RCP [Revo­ with comrades, watched them sell pa­ lutionary Communist Party], Workers pers to workers and students at Yale. I League and SWP [Socialist Workers realized that the SL knew not only what program to win people to, but also how Party] were simply not interested in to do it.. .. Young Spartacus talking to anyone who asked hard "The SL and WV had a sense of Madison Spartacus Youth Club pro­ questions." humor-I laughed at the jokes. This tests CIA recruiters, September 22. was important to me because the fact In Chicago, a city targeted by the that I shared the same sense of humor campaign for Democratic' Chicago racist terrorists of the Ku Klux Klan for meant that I shared its elements: a mayor Harold Washington. In his recruitment and the fomenting of race certain sense of irony about history and war, it is crucial to win young fighters to the way things are, and a certain vision application, comrade Jonathan dis­ of how I really want things to be.... cusses both of these experiences. After our program. In 1982, a Spartacist­ There wasn't any big turning point for Washington's election to office: initiated labor/black mobilization was me, more like a lot of little ones.... "I becamedimly aware that the machine able to stop a Nazi provocation against "At a certain point I realized that these was going to stay intact.... Harold Gay Pride Day. Such .anti-fascist ac­ ideas that I had been struggling with Washington was not lifting a finger to and that had been shaping my political tions are urgently necessary today. We fight the Klan or defend the right of solidarize with comrade Jonathan's understanding were necessarilyembod­ black Chicagoans to live where they ied in a party. Without a party they choose.... concluding remarks: "For a fighting would have no meaningful existence­ youth club and the rebirth of the no way of developing further or im­ At Yale: Youth League! For the rebirth of the Young Spartacus pacting on individuals like myself, on "As divestment activity heated up Spartacist youth activist on picket the workingclass or humankind.... I through the building of shanties and the Fourth International!"-that is, the in­ line during Yale campus workers want to build that party and program administration's threats to suspend and ternational party of world socialist strike, 1984. that led a workers revolutionto victory arrest us all, Nick and I began to work revolution.•

41>~ ...... ";;,,."...... •..' .

c.: J CIA Off Campusl ""J·tr"lf"

OBERLIN-On September 23, some bourgeoisie!" while a group of would-be 60 students rallied in Oberlin College's flower children solemnly murmured Wilder Bowl to protest against CIA "Love, not hate." September 23: recruitment on the Oberlin campus. The Oberlin Spartacus Youth Club Oberlin Spartacus Chanting "CIA Off Campus!" the was the only organization to actively Youth Club demonstrates demonstrators marched to Peters Hall participate in the protest, and surpris­ against CIA where the recruiter was doing his dirty ingly few students from 'last year's recruiters for work. Oberlin's top cop Chief McDan­ successful anti-CIA demonstration were counterrevolution iels stood guard, blocking militants present. The demonstration was built by from Nicaragua from entering the placement office. A a group of freshmen who picked up the to Angola to f number of students picked up the­ ball and energetically covered the Afghanistan. Spartacus Youth Club's chant, "Drive campus with flyers and large posters the contras into the sea! Overthrow the continued on page 5 4 WORKERS VANGUARD Support Builds for Guillermo at S.F. State Spartacist activist Guillermo Bermu­ panics, Jews and leftists last school year. and, in the spirit of debate and discus­ are the powers that be so intent on dez is to go on trial for 'the "crime" of When the largely Hispanic student sion, introduced comrade Guillermo. prosecuting this case? "What they are passing out a Marxist leaflet on the San government was targeted for a potential "Guillermo Bermudez... has been on afraid of especially is that when this Francisco State University campus. fascistic mobilization, we turned out a the news most recently because of a country invades Central America ... Guillermo was slapped with a South number of trade unionists who, along violent act that was committed against they don't 'want students to protest. Africa-style "banning" order in Novem­ with concerned community members, him. His arm was broken by a police­ They don't want workers to go on ber 1984. SFSU's "ban" came on the were determined to defend the student man in Berkeley about a year ago when strike. " heels of arresting Guillermo and other government meeting. This fall, the he was demonstrating against a table set Guillermo explained that the SFSU members of the Red Avengers of the president of the Associated Students up by Marines on UC Berkeley cam­ witchhunters were enraged in 1984 by underground Spartacus Youth League reserved a room for a Spartacist event pus," Baron explained. He was referring our intransigent defense of the Soviet for rallying in defense of Nicaragua. on campus when we were being subject­ to the now infamous case in which bureaucratically degenerated workers (The Red Avengers were born in a ed to petty administration harassment, a trumped-up charges of "assault on a state-the ultimate target of Reagan fight against the anti-red witch hunt democratic gesture inconceivable two police officer" were brought against and the Democrats' war drive-as well unleashed by the SFSU administra­ years ago, when the student bureaucrats Guillermo at Berkeley. In a hard-fought as our Marxist opposition to the racist, tion, student bureaucrats, "progressive" imperialist Democratic Party and its '":::J Democratic Party careerists and their o candidate Walter "Quarantine Nicara­ fake-left camp followers.) While the S gua" Mondale. A lively discussion fol­ ~ charges have been dropped against all II) lowed Guillermo's presentation, which ell the other Red Avengers who were c: smoked out some supporters of the arrested or "banned" in the course of o:::J slavishly pro-Democratic Party League >- their just struggle against beansprout of Revolutionary Struggle/ Unity. totalitarianism, the bourgeois authori­ It took repeated prompting from ties continue to prosecute Guillermo. Baron before the Unity supporters On November 10, he goes back to court would finally speak up. When a Unity to set a new date for trial. Guillermo at supporter finally took the floor, it was to In a letter to the campus newspaper, March 1985 defend the Democrats: according to her, SFSU faculty member Sam Wellbaum, Berkeley Democrat Jesse Jackson, the shill for a lecturer in the Speech Department, rally against Mondale, ran a "significant campaign; wrote: apartheid that's where a lot of people were at." "I propose that the administration butchery Virulently anti-Soviet, Unity has sup­ withdraw its charges (a simple enough and UC cop ported the South African/CIA-backed step, one would think) and I propose rampage. further that this campus rally around puppet army of Joseph Savimbi against the Bermudez case, not because it loves the Cuban troops defending black SYL, but because it loves civil liberties. Angola. Here, too, Unity finds itself In a time of growing campus protest over President Reagan's Central Ameri­ where a "lot of people" are at: with ca and South African policies, it is were in a frenzy to drive us off the victory, these charges were beaten back Reagan against Russia and in bed with particularly important to protest out­ campus. in court. That fight was important to all Botha. In contrast to these Maoist has­ rages like the Bermudez prosecution. If On October 9 Carlos Baron, a Chile­ student activists at Berkeley, hundreds beens, the SL's. forthright call for a a little group of radical Trotskyists can an instructor in La Raza Studies at of whom were beaten and arrested in a socialist revolution in this country led be squelched today, more 'respectable' protesters will be tomorrow. That's one SFSU, invited Guillermo to speak be­ massive cop rampage against 'anti­ one student to comment that, despite of those lessons of history we forget at fore his class. Baron recalled that in apartheid protest. Vindictive in defeat, differences with us, "I do like the fact our peril." Chile, following Pinochet's rightist mil­ UC Reichschancellor Ira Heyman sus­ that unlike a lot of other groups on the -Golden Gater, 21 October itary coup against the Allende Unidad pended Guillermo despite the fact that left you guys do have the balls to say, The witchhunt against us in 1984was Popular government in 1973, his own the university's case had failed in court. 'Hey, we want a Soviet America'." enthusiastically joined by all manner of home "became the safety house for Guillermo discussed the context of his Urgently needed funds for Guiller­ racists and bigots and paved the way for different people" from a number of left case at SFSU, noting that it's "impor­ mo's defense should be made payable/ the emergence on campus of the racist groups including the Communist Party tant because it affects everyone here and mailed to the Partisan Defense Com­ punk "Residents' Liberation Army." and MIR. "Dialogue that should have it affects your rights to protest, to voice mittee, Box 99 Canal Street Station, We took on the RLA scum and their taken place long before the military your opinions against the criminal New York, NY 10013, earmarked for provocations agaiqst blacks, gays, His- coup was taking place after," he noted policies of the U.S. government." Why Bermudez defense.•

cited the CIA's crimes, showed true DSAer Perry was reminded of this by the blood of workers and peasants, DSA colors when he claimed that the the Oberlin powers that be after naively saying to the disciplinary hearing that "1 Oberlin ... U.S. needed an "information" agency signing up for an interview in hopes of spilled my blood in solidarity with the (continued from page 4) because it is an "evil world" out there. "debating" the CIA recruiter. The CIA's victims." Both Perry and Jaffee As Spartacus Youth Club spokesman recruiter, however, was not there to were put on disciplinary probation. describing the CIA's murderous crimes. Dave Cardarelli pointed out, what was debate, but to sign up future cloak-and­ Down with Oberlin's reprisals against A statement of purpose drafted by some at stake was not a question of "free dagger assassins. After a brief "inter­ Perry and Jaffee! of these students concluded, "Because speech," but taking a side with the' view," Perry spilled a container of a Several students expressed frustra­ we feel strongly that the CIA should not world's workers and peasants who are mixture of ketchup and his own blood tion that driving the CIA off campus be allowed to continue its acts of the victims of bloody CIA terror. Dave on the table. In its determination that wouldn't stop the activities of the CIA. international terrorism, we are willing argued that driving the CIA off campus the CIA be able to recruit at Oberlin for That's why it's important for students to to try to keep it from recruiting today would strike a real if symbolic blow in its bloody terror and murder cam­ link up with the power of the working and from returning tomorrow." defense of the oppressed. paigns, the administration brought class in socialist revolution to put an end Oberlin DSA (Democratic Socialists These debates continued throughout Perry and WOBC reporter Dan Jaffee to the CIA's heinous crimes once and for of America) honcho Kevin Brown had and even after the demonstration. Stu­ (whom Perry had asked to record the all. lamented that Oberlin students were too dent protesters questioned the career interview for possible broadcast) up The Spartacus Youth Club's forth­ "uninformed" to want to demonstrate placement director as to why the ad­ before the "Judicial Board" on charges right opposition to the CIA and pro­ against the CIA, but the students' ministration would help the CIA. A of "interference with the essential gram for class struggle against U.S. activities belied the DSA's attempt to Spartacist supporter pointed out that educational process of the College"! imperialism has struck a chord among justify its own default. One lone DSAer, the Oberlin administration was not They also demanded that Perry clean up Oberlin student militants. Many have Jonathan Perry, broke ranks to build "neutral" when it came to the CIA. The the mess in the recruitment office, bought subscriptions to Workers Van­ the anti-CIA protest, but as a group, universities and colleges are very much a which, to his credit, he refused to do. guard and Women & Revolution; some these "State Department Socialists" part of the capitalist system and are a While Perry's moralistic protest is not ten have registered for our class, "The limited their "actions" to a teach-in, and training ground for capitalist managers, our strategy, he did graphically point Fight for Socialism." Join the Oberlin were notable only for their conspicu­ technicians, ideologues, and spies. out that the CIA is up to its eyebrows in Spartacus Youth Club!. ous stayaway from the demonstration against these killer spies. Hatred of the CIA, the government's Oberlin Spartacus Youth Club Young Spartacus Club Spartacus Youth Class Series terrorist "Murder, Incorporated," is Class Series Class Series widespread on the Oberlin campus, but Principles of a division exists between those militants The Fight for ABCs of who wanted to send the imperialist Communism henchmen packing and other students Socialism Communism constrained by liberal moralism and Alternate Saturdays, 2:00 p.m. Alternate Tuesdays, 8:30 p.m. patriotic illusions in the "American Alternate Tuesdays, 7:30 p.m. Next class: November 8 Next class: November 18 Next class: November 18 way." One student called for defending Baldwin Lounge, Tubman Quad the CIA's right to "free speech." This King 235 Student Union, Room B-119 Howard University was angrily contested by Oberlin activist Oberlin College SF State University Jon Nissenbaum who said that that view For more information: (202) 636-3537 distorted what the CIA is all about. For more information: (216) 621-5138 For more information: (415) 863-6963 Another student thought the CIA could be reformed if some "good people" OBERLIN SAN FRANCISCO WASHINGTON, D.C. joined it. And Perry, who had earlier 7 NOVEMBER 1986 5 Seymour Hersh Joins Reagan's Cover-Up

As soon as it became known that Shootdown: in six snotty paragraphs Korean Air Lines (KAL) Flight 007 had the reviewer dismisses Johnson's mas­ been shot down by a Soviet fighter on sive research on the grounds that the the night of 31 August-I September author's "strident tone" shows that he 1983, the White House began screaming "treats the major figures in the Reagan about the "barbarism" of the Soviet THE Administration with disdain bordering "Evil Empire." Brushing aside the fact on contempt"! The Times prefers to kiss that the unidentified intruder had Reagan's keister. Even detente-minded overflown key Soviet air and naval liberal muckrakers have shied away bases on Kamchatka Peninsula and from KAL 007 because it goes to the Sakhalin island, refusing all Soviet heart of the bipartisan anti-Soviet war attempts to warn the craft, Reagan SPECTRE drive-and exposing a lie so monstrous hypocritically declared that "shooting would threaten the imperial presidency down ... hundreds of innocent men, still trying to recover from Watergate women, children and babies, is part of and Vietnam. R.W. Johnson confesses their normal procedure." This line, now in the foreword to his book: "I was also known as "spin" in Reaganspeak, was undoubtedly guilty of the normal codified in a secret 5 September Nation­ cowardice which suggests that a reputa­ al Security Decision Directive 102 tion for objectivity in the West means calling for using the "opportunity" to one has to avoid reliance on Soviet expose so-called "Soviet brutality." It sources." was the disinformation job of the Moreover, the Reagan administra­ decade. tion has made it clear that the cover-up Immediately, the entire American is to be enforced by the mailed fist of the media and both parties began blaring OF KAL007 state. When in September 1983 two out the administration's Russians-eat­ former Air Force intelligence officers babies-for-breakfast lies. Most of the revealed that the American RC-135 spy fake "left" fell into lock step behind the planes (one of which rendezvoused with anti-Soviet marching band. In those tation Safety Board was ordered off the it. The article "KAL 007 Was U.S. Spy KAL 007) regularly monitor Soviet first few weeks and months we were case, why the Federal Aviation Agency Plane" (WV No. 379, 17 May 1985) electronic activity in "real time" (i.e., the virtually alone in pinning the blame for told Anchorage air controllers to keep provided a point-by-point exposure of U.S. had to know), they received the tragedy on the criminals in Washing­ quiet. They conclude that "the moral the lies written by that "journalist"-for­ threatening visits from the FBI. More ton. "Reagan's Story Stinks!" we integrity of the current Administration hire Murray Sayle in his New York recently, CIA director William Casey headlined our' first article on the crisis must be seriously questioned. We feel Review ofBooks piece intended to serve has taken the unprecedented step of (WV No. 337, 9 September 1983), betrayed by our government whose as a government white paper/white­ phoning authors and publishers of sketching the outlines of a provocative silence in this case ... is beginning to wash. And in "Skeletons in the White books about KAL 007 to "warn" them U.S. intelligence mission directed resemble a deliberate cover-up." House Basement" (WV No. 394, 3 they could be "violating the law." Casey against the Soviet Union. Where the January 1986) we sketched out the noted that Shootdown was on the list of KAL 007 Was U.S. Spy Plane Communist Party's Daily World initial­ sinister connections between former items to "look at" for "violations." And ly denied the Soviets had downed the A mountain of evidence has now .National Security Adviser William Johnson noted that even before his plane, we published the TASS press accumulated reinforcing our charges Clark and the 007 affair. book was published he "received a releases pointing to a U.S. mission and filling in critical holes in the puzzle. In May 1986, Oxford scholar R.W. strongly denunciatory letter from Mr provocation. That October we issued It took a year for the first peep of protest Johnson published Shootdown, a well­ Tom Maertens of the US State Depart­ our pamphlet, KAL 007: U.S. War from American liberals, when Yale researched book which remarkably ment.... It was not clear how Mr Provocation. It was clear the trail led to scholar David Pearson's painstaking verifies what we have been saying about Maertens had read my book before it' the White House, even though all the examination in the Nation demonstrat­ the KAL incident, including pinpoint­ was published" (Time Out, London, 30 pieces of the puzzle were not yet in place. ed that the errant course of KAL 007 ing the likely target: the Soviets' July-5 August). Over time, doubts have spread over could not possibly have been an "acci­ powerful new radar at Abalakova in the Reaganites' Big Lie. One particular dent." By 1985 two books had come central Siberia. (However. Johnson SMERSH Hersh, or doesn't deal with the purpose of this Why Can't Seymour See More? probe, to map Soviet radar as part of Reagan's "Star Wars" nuclear first­ Finally the long-announced book on strike plans.) Drawing on massive KAL 007 by Pulitzer Prize winning R.W. Johnson's evidence from numerous sources, the journalist Seymour Hersh has ap­ Shootdown book demonstrates that the flight of peared. Hersh, the dean of Washington was panned KAL 007 was calculated to serve as "a muckrakers, is highly respected by the in media for passive probe aimed at getting the media establishment and liberal intelli­ telling truth Russians to turn on -radars further gentsia for his Vietnam-era exposes of about Reagan's toward the Soviet interior, radars about government cover-ups-including .the KAL 007 plot. which previous 'tickling' had failed to My Lai massacre and Nixon's use of the "Free but responsible" provide any information." Johnson's CIA against antiwar protesters. His new press praised American publishers, Viking Penguin, book, The Target Is Destroyed, was Hersh for took out a large ad rn the New York billed as the final word on the KAL plot. covering up Times boldly accusing the White House: Instead, Hersh advances the most White 'House "The evidence is overwhelming. It minimal criticism of the Reagan admin­ complicity. points to one inevitable conclusion: the istration, with the transparent purpose Reagan Administration deliberately provoked a Russian response by send­ of absolving the White House of the ing a Korean airliner with 269 un­ more serious charges. Like the RCA suspecting passengers on' a perilous Victor dog, he has his head cocked for group has grown increasingly bitter at out-one . by anti-Soviet academic mission deep inside sensitive Soviet his master's voice, and that master isthe airspace." the U.S. government: the Families of Alexander Dallin and another by American ruling class. Hersh labored American Victims of the KAL 007 political science professor Oliver "If you're not convinced" by the book, mightily, and produced a cover-up for Tragedy. This past August 31, the group Clubb-suggesting that the provocative the ad promised, "we'll give you your Reagan that has as many holes as a held a third anniversary memorial flight was part of a U.S. plot. But money back." Swiss cheese. service at the Cathedral Church of St. readers of Workers Vanguard have been Yet the American media do their best Hersh says the Soviets "did not John the Divine in Manhattan. Several able to get the truth from the beginning. to keep the lid on the KAL Pandora's know" they were shooting at a civilian relatives rose to give moving personal As Trotskyists, who defend the Soviet box, seeing it as a matter of "national airliner-they thought it was a U.S. accounts, and complained of KAL degenerated workers state against impe­ security." Typical was the New York military craft invading their airspace. and State Department disinformation. rialism while denouncing the bureaucra­ Times Book Review (20 July) on And that the Reagan White House soon Nan Oldham asked some pointed cy's dangerous detente illusions, we questions: were able to penetrate the smokescreen "Your children and my son were torn of war propaganda over KAL ~007. from the skies over a Soviet military We followed up our October 1983 Memorial base. My peace-loving son, who had pamphlet with an article, "Reagan's studied Chinese and French. econom­ service for ics. politics and law. in order to be able KAL 007 Plot Unravels" (WV No. 350, KAL 007 dead to help this world to be a better place for 16 March 1984), providing evidence that in New York, all of us to live. was discovered flying the KAL 007 flight was coordinated August 31. above a Russian military base. How did with a U.S. spy satellite (as the Soviets Families of this happen'? What chain of events took victims say U.S. those precious children there'? Our had alleged). In WV No. 357 (22 June 1984) we published corroboration that government children died during peacetime above silence "is the most critical military site in all of the American space shuttle was also Russia. Why'! How'?" beginning to involved in the plot. In WVNo. 362 (14 resemble a In their press release, the families ask September 1984) and WV No. 369 (21 deliberate why the U.S. claimed in court the' December 1984) we reported on "Na­ cover-up." relevant Air Force radar tapes had been tion Liberals Hit KAL 007 Cover-Up," destroyed. why the National Transpor- and why the Democrats went along with 6 WORKERS VANGUARD learned this but chose to "look the other eye of an "unwary" Russian radar way," continuing to spread the lie that operator. Hersh, however, admits there the Russians deliberately "murdered" were at least three separate Soviet'ra­ civilians for the sheer pleasure of it. But dars tracking KAL 007 at that point (not the New York Times admitted as far to mention the Japanese radars, which back as 7 October 1983 that "U.S. also recorded the turn, as reported in the Experts Say Soviets Didn't See Jet Was evening edition of the Tokyo Asahi Civilian"... which didn't keep the Times Shimbun the next day). This destroys from joining the anti-Soviet slanderfest. Murray Sayle's "accident" hypothesis. Hersh dredges up this old news just to Enter Harold Ewing, billed by Hersh as establish his anti-Reagan credentials for an experienced pilot in the Far East, the main purpose of the book, to who conjures up a new "accident" permanently lay to rest all "conspiracy scenario. Supposedly the turn over theories't-c-something only an ostensi­ Sakhalin was caused by computers of ble "critic" could do. Not surprisingly, the plane's Inertial Navigation System, the media which gave Johnson's book with the help of an incredible series of short shrift have enthusiastically em­ "mistakes" by the cockpit crew. This braced Hersh's opus for "its sense of "explains Flight 007 in terms of what is responsibility" (Washington Post, 14 known and what has not yet been September). revealed," says the inscrutable Hersh. Hersh's book is not a serious investi­ Soviet Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov at 9 September 1983 Moscow news con­ ference' pointing to provocative rendezvous of KAL 007 with American The Ewing/Hersh thesis. is such a gation of the facts at all. It is a giant, self­ RC-135 spy plane. bizarre concoction it makes Sayle look serving "leak" of supposedly secret almost rational in comparison. It begins information fed him by an anonymous his hero, Major General James C. gence community" contacts allege hav­ with "the fatal finger error" as the KAL crowd of intelligence officials and Pfautz, then commander of U.S. Air ing no pre-knowledge of the KAL 007 flight engineer enters the wrong coordi­ operatives. Much of the "leaked" Force Intelligence, who reportedly flight proves nothjng, even if they're nates into the captain's INS computerat information comes from the National claims that it was all the result of Soviet telling the truth. Only a relative handful the start of the flight; then during the Security Agency (NSA), which should sloppiness in confusing KAL 007 with of people at the top would "need to flight Captain Chun decides to take a raise eyebrows right away, since the the RC-135 spy plane. Hersh tells us that know"; the rest would merely go about minor shortcut by entering an extra, NSA has always been the most secretive American technicians searched through their normal activities ofmonitoring the unauthorized waypoint into his com­ of all U.S. intelligence agencies. So now, "thousands of feet of NSA recordings" Soviet Union (which were heightened by puter in order to save on fuel; and when in a period when the Reagan/ Meese and could find no "side by side flying" of an expected' Soviet missile test that putting in the additional waypoint, gang are threatening ordinary reporters the planes as Soviet Marshal Nikolai night). Chun gets the coordinates wrong. with prosecution under the Espionage Ogarkov claimed in the' Moscow press Seymour Hersh certainly didn't have "Ewing acknowledged that his scenario Act, we are supposed to believe that a conference. So where are these "thou- to skulk around Watergate garages to calls for a leap of faith at this point," / Hersh says. That's a leap that would make Baryshnikov blush. To explain the failure to notice the compounding errors through nine checkpoints when amber lights go off on the INS, Hersh has the captain taking a powder from the cockpit for five hours. (As in Sayle's tale, he supposedly gets caught up in conversation with ultrarightist Con­ gressman Larry McDonald who was traveling on board.) With this kind of "investigation" one could discover the moon is made of green cheese. Even columnist Tom Wicker, desperate to get off the hot seat for being one of the rare voices to question the Reagan line on KAL 007, while hailing the Hersh book admitted UPI he found the loony Ewing scenario "less Reagan surveys North Korean defenses in 1983 (above). From "Star Wars" than satisfying" (New York Times, 21 space weapons to high-tech mUltiple launch rockets (right), White House September). A far simpler explanation is planning nuclear blitzkrieg. for the plane's deviation is that it was deliberate. But this is the one hypothesis crowd of NSAers and other intelligence sands of feet" of tapes? When the get this kind of disinformation. He Hersh refuses to even entertain. Why? people decided to open their hearts to families of the KAL victims suing the could have walked in through the front And why should NSA and CIA types Seymour Hersh. U.S. government asked for Air Force door of Fort Meade, which is probably tell him the truth where the government Predictably, the "leaked" information radar tapes in court, government law­ what he did. . has stonewalled to the hilt? Hersh claims is supposed to show that the NSA had yers claimed they had been "accidental­ in his introduction that "Those who no pre-knowledge of KAL OO1's aber­ ly" erased! You just have to take "Leap of Faith" ... in Reagan chose to talk to me did so out of a rant flight, Washington was in the dark Langley/Fort Meade/Hersh's word for Those who claim the provocative conviction that political abuse of com­ as it was occurring, and was unable to it, because the government won't release flight of KAL 007 was an "accident" munications intelligence has become a figure out what happened until after the one inch. must explain away the embarrassing reality in the Reagan administration." fact, when they reviewed their tape In September 1983 Soviet air marshal deviations from a straight course made Supposedly, the White House had been recordings. In other words, the prime Pyotr Kirsanov noted the presence of a by the plane that night, especially the playing by Marquis of Queensbury rules suspects claim they're "innocent"-big U.S. "ferret" spy satellite coordinated sharp right turn and evasive maneuvers until the Great Corrupter came along. news!-and we're supposed to simply with the flight ofKAL007. Independent over Sakhalin island. Murray Sayle (What about the mythical "missile gap," take their word for it. Even NSA Western experts have verified that at stupidly tried to claim the turn never for instance, which served as JFK's technicians in the ultrasecret· Project least one such U.S. "ferret," with the happened, it was just an illusion in the continued on page 12 CLEF, stationed at the Wakkanai international designation 1982-4 IC, fit intelligence base in Japan (allegedly the Soviet description (Stockholm without the knowledge of top Japanese International Peace Research Institute, government officials) and who admit­ SIPRI Yearbook 1985). We have also tedly did monitor the flight and shoot­ shown that at least one other U.S. down of KAL 007 in "real time," were "ferret" (designated 1983-60C) was unable to alert anybody in time, we are launched from a Big Bird satellite put up told-though Japanese Defense Agency specifically to look at the Abalakova Order operatives were "just a few feet away"! radar, barely two months before OO1's The many other U.S. "assets" in the flight. But Hersh baldly claims: "there Your region that night are simply disappeared was no American reconnaissance satel­ from Hersh's book: the massive phased­ lite orbiting within range ofSakhalin" at Copy array radar known as Cobra Dane and the time of KAL OO1's intrusion. Again Now! the over-the-horizon radar Cobra Talon no proof, no refutation of the published on Shemya Island in the Aleutians; the claims to the contrary. Hersh's sources U.S. Navy's radar spy ship Observation told him so, and so be it. ' Island in the North Pacific; the U.S. Hersh simply dismisses any possibili­ 50¢ "ferret" spy satellite orbiting overhead; ty of a U.S. conspiracy in a footnote, (24 pages) the U.S. Navy frigate Badger on combat claiming there was "no evidence of any patrol off Vladivostok; the U.S. Orion advance word on the Korean flight." P-3 search planes in the Sea of Japan, When Soviet Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov Make checks the Sea of Okhotsk and off Kamchatka; and Deputy Foreign Minister Georgi payable/mail to: the several additional RC-I35 spy Kornienko, interviewed at the start of Spartacist planes (besides the one Hersh acknowl­ his "investigation" in May 1984, sug­ Publishing Co. edges) reported by the Soviets to be aloft gested investigating the "CIA's role," Box 1377 GPO in the region in those five-plus hours; Hersh says he responded "with a laugh" New York, NY and so on. about their "trying to be my editor." So 10116 Omitting all that and more, Hersh much for the thorough "investigative instead spends endless pages building up reporter." The fact that Hersh's "intelli- 7 NOVEMBER 1986 7 thinks for example of the founding leader of the Chinese Communist Party, Ch'en Tu-hsiu, who saw in Russian Bolshevism a model for the liberation of his own country. But while the Bolshevik Revolution inspired revolutionary movements around the world, these movements did not succeed in taking and consolidating state power. The central reason is that there did not exist outside of Russia a party like the Bolsheviks, a party which had been built over the course of a decade and a half precisely to take advantage of a revolutionary crisis. A party with a revolutionary program, a tested leadership, a hardened cadre, a solid organization. Throughout Europe in the wake of World War I there was enormous revolutionary ferment, but the revolutionary energy of the masses tended to be dissipated because there was not a central guiding force to direct it in the seizure of power. Now within Soviet Russia the impact of the failure of the revolutionary wave i/lj. to extend itself beyond Russia was Leon Trotsky (center) speaking in Moscow's Red Square, 1920. catastrophic. That is, the Bolsheviks won the civil war-they drove out the 14 imperialist armed forces, including that of the United States, which aided the White armies, the counterrevolutionary armies-but they were victors over a devastated and broken country. The (continued from page 1) Reagan fanatically so, is hostile to the Reagan and the rest of them hate economy was shattered. Industrial Soviet Union and sees Russia as the Russia. production was a mere fraction in 1921 they love Jeane Kirkpatrick's speeches, enemy on all fronts. What we want to In Reagan's America of 1986, there's of what it was in 1914. Famine and they're all gung-ho for a crusade against talk about is why. 'What is the nature of a point worth emphasizing: that the pestilence stalked the country, in some Russia. Except they don't want to pay the Cold War? Is the Cold War, as the liberating effect of the Bolshevik Revo­ regions cannibalism appeared. for it. I mean, they hate Communism, American ruling class says, a war be­ lution went far beyond the narrow So there opened up in the early 1920s true, but they hate taxes even more. As tween democracy and police-state total­ conceptions of politics and economics. a seemingly unbridgeable gulf between far as I can tell, all the right-wing itarianism? Is it a conflict between two Take for example sex. A few months the liberating goals of the Russian Rev­ students I've known are all majoring in equally militaristic, equally imperialist ago, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the olution and the stark everyday reality tax dodging. world powers? In West Europe this is a outlawing of sodomy. And then there is of Russia. A government which pro­ So that here you have the biggest fairly common view, especially in social­ all this hysteria about AIDS: in Califor­ claimed itself, in Marx's words, to be the military buildup in American history, democratic circles; a kind of curse on nia there's a genuinely fascistic referen­ first step in the transition from the realm financed to a large extent through both your houses, yes, America is bad dum to put AIDS victims in concentra­ of necessity to the realm of freedom, was foreign borrowing. Reagan's America, in Central America and the Soviets are tion camps. You want to know what was forced to sell religious artifacts to the not Brazil, not Mexico, is the world's bad in Afghanistan. You know, the two the first country to outlaw all laws West, to appeal to Western charities, biggest international debtor. Well, after biggest bullies on the block theory of the against . homosexuality, against so­ simply in order to feed its own people. a while foreign investors, the Japanese, Cold War. What we want to assert is called sexual deviation? Soviet Russia, And under these conditions you began the Germans are beginning to wonder that the Cold War, which really began in in 1920 or '21. to get a tendency toward demoralization whether it's a good investment. So what Russia in 1917, is at bottom a class war Now, the Russian Revolution, the and depoliticization on the part of the Bolshevik Revolution, was made in masses. Within the leadership of the G) c Russia. It was not, however, made revolution, you began under those same cr Z simplyfor Russia. It was not just the top conditions to develop a tendency to­ <­ OJ leaders of the Bolshevik Party-Lenin, ward complacency, corruption to a cer­ "U n' Trotsky, Bukharin, Sverdlov-but the tain degree, bureaucratic commandism. c South African advanced workers of Russia themselves And that tendency culminated in a ~ black militants who saw themselves beginning the factional struggle within the leadership carry red flag of world socialist revolution, that is, communism. of the Soviet Union, a factional struggle Russian breaking imperialism at its weakest link. which pitted a bureaucratic nationalist Revolution The Bolshevik Revolution, as no event faction, which came to be headed by continues to before or since, inspired the workers of Joseph Stalin, against a revolutionary inspire struggles the world, even in the United States internationalist faction led by Leon of the oppressed where the working class was relatively Trotsky. Predominantly for objective throughout the backward. reasons, the bureaucratic nationalist world. Moreover, the impact of the Russian faction won, in what Trotsky later Revolution was not limited to the U.S. termed a political counterrevolution, in and Europe. One of the weaknesses of 1924. He called it "political" because the happened last week is that the Germans between world capitalism and proletari­ the working-class socialist movement overthrow of capitalist property, the and the Japanese refused to roll over an revolution. before World War I was that it was socialization of the means of produc­ their loans to the U.S. government limited to the imperialist countries, it tion, that is, the objective basis for the unless the Treasury paid them a lot Bolshevik Revolution did not extend to the colonial masses. transition to socialism, still existed. higher interest, and that's what triggered Shakes the World But the impact of the Bolshevik Revolu­ Trotsky himself was first exiled to the stock market panic. tion not only went West but it also went Soviet Central Asia and in 1929expelled Communism as a reality-not simply East. No event awakened the colonial from Russia altogether. He spent the Everywhere you look, you find the as a program, an idea-begins in Russia masses in the struggle against imperial­ next decade seeking to build the world Russian question. South Africa is a in 1917. For the first time the program ism and their own anciens regimes more party of socialist revolution, the Fourth totalitarian police state, the likes of of socialist revolution, which many than did the Russian Revolution. One International. In 1940 Trotsky was which has never existed on the face of generations of workers had fought for this earth. This is a country in which the and died for, and which the ruling class black African majority are stripped of had dismissed as pie in the sky, the every democratic right and human second coming of Christ, just a pipe dignity. Yet South Africa is an impor­ dream, was realized in reality in Russia, tant part of the "free world," indeed, it is a backward but important country in the leading U.S. ally in that part of the Europe. For the first time the workers world. What's behind itis that in South took political power into ~their own American, Africa, as in everywhere else, Russia is hands, in the form of soviets, which is French, British seen as the main enemy. In Reagan's simply the Russian word for councils­ and Japanese major speech on South Africa last July, workers, peasants and soldiers councils. forces inter­ he made this quite clear: "If this rising vene to crush For the first time (granted, under the Vladivostok hostility in southern Africa between worst possible conditions of war and Soviet, 1918. Pretoria and the front line states civil war and terrible economic devasta­ Trotsky's Red explodes, the Soviet Union will be the tion) the capitalist class was expropriat­ Army drove main beneficiary and the critical ocean ed and a government consciously con­ imperialist corridor ofr South Africa and the trolled the economy in the interest of the invaders out strategic minerals of the region would be toilers. So that the Bolshevik Revolu­ of Russia. at risk." tion was the greatest victory for the You already know the American proletariat in history and the greatest government in general, and Ronald defeat for the bourgeoisie. That's why

8 WORKERS VANGUARD Kennedy and Johnson. Oakland. So it is the Democratic Party Why is it that the so-called liberal i1H1I61/ S.O-I. REtQli,Pi'i' which forms the key link between the t lU:ll'f ee~D IN. party of American capitalism is the war black ghetto and organized labor and /' party and not the rightists? In fact, the the Pentagon war machine. Whenever I Democratic Party can mobilize those argue about the Democrats and Re­ sections of the population who are most publicans, I'm always reminded of a likely to oppose those wars. I think this Woody Allen joke, in his "Speech to the is most striking when we come to the Graduating Class": "Today mankind question of blacks in the United States stands on a crossroads. One path leads today. In the past presidential election, to demoralization and despair. The 1lf15 FUW GJ(BA~V 90 percent of blacks voted for the other to total annihilation." Except in GJie- UP , Democrat Mondale, in part because this case they both lead to total W/1H HIf7 . Jesse Jackson campaigned for him, in a annihilation. ' ~wrtAT1U7 PCSITIOfJ, half-hearted way. At the same time, if Reagan's program of "outlawing the you look' at the American army, Soviet Union forever" brings with it not especially the combat units, it's very merely the danger of total annihilation disproportionately black, in some cases or a bloody military adventure in 20 and 25 percent blacks. Is it because Central America like that of Vietnam, blacks are gung-ho Rambo types, just but it also means a Cold War at home assassinated by a Stalinist agent In try to conciliate imperialism, no matter itching to fight for Reagan? Quite the against increasingly large sections of Mexico. how hard they try to maintain the status contrary, blacks are the least anti­ the American population. First and quo, and promise they will not upset the Soviet, the least anti-Communist and most immediately under attack are the The Revolution Betrayed bourgeois order, world capitalism is not the most anti-Reagan. black and Hispanic poor. We have seen So why do they join the army? in the Reagan years that the limited and The Stalinist political counterrevolu­ conciliated. They will not accept peace­ Because the conditions of ghetto life are even the token gains of the civil rights tion was carried out under the slogan of ful coexistence. In the late '30s, Trotsky so hellish, so desperate, that it's the one movement, and in some cases of the "socialism in one country," a slogan wrote: group to whom the army looks good. Civil War, have come under attack, diametrically counterposed to the pro­ "For the bourgeoisie-fascist as well as democratic-isolated counterrevolu­ At least they get a chance to learn ajob have been reversed. This is-captured in a gram of the Bolshevik Revolution. At tiouary exploits of Stalin do not suffice; skill, earn three square meals a day and nice cartoon I saw. There's a bus one level this was a travesty of what it needsa completecounterrevolution in carrying a bunch of black people, and everyone had always regarded as social­ the relations of production and the get a warm place to sleep. You know, alongside the bus is this car with a bunch ism, not only Marxists but non­ opening of the Russian market. So long your Reaganite college youth don't as this is not the case, the bourgeoisie of white racists who are stoning the bus. Marxists. That is; a socialist society was want to join the army. This creates a One of the blacks says, "Call the Civil conceived of as a society of social Rights Commission." And another equality and economic plenty in which Lenin's General Staff of 1917 black replies, "What do you mean, that there was no state coercion-in Engels' is the Civil Rights Commission." words, the state had withered away. It STALIN, THE EXECUTIONER, ALONE REMAINS was also conceived of as an internation­ al order in which there was no war, no Avenge PATCO-Bring Down threat of war, no mass organized Reagan with Labor Action! violence. Stalin promised to build socialism in a country far more back­ If blacks had no illusions about what ward, still largely peasant, than West Reagan meant, many white workers Europe, under conditions of hostile certainly did. He got about half the encirclement in which the threat ofwar votes of white, unionized workers in totally dominated the life of the Soviet 1980. One of the few unions who Union, as it still does today. And in fact actually endorsed Reagan was the air war did come to the Soviet Union in controllers union, PATCO. That is, this 1940. So this was a cruel parody of was a union of predominantly, over­ socialism. whelmingly white, highly skilled people. They thought they were Reagan's Trotsky also pointed out that the people. So shortly after Reagan took program of "socialism in one country" office, they went on strike. Next thing in a sense represented social reality as you know, Reagan has leaders literally perceived by the new Soviet bureaucra­ in chains like antebellum slaves and fires cy. They no longer believed in, to be The Cenlrlal Cc;mmlth,e vI The lle,lshe"lt1 lJilrty In I!)I] the entire 13,000 membership of that more precise, they feared proletarian union. Why did Reagan act so brutally revolution in the West, in West Europe, Socialist Appeal to what appears to be his own constitu­ in the United States, in Germany. So American Trotskyists' Socialist ~Q~eal (1938) documented Stalin's ~xter­ ency? It was also a message to the they sought to neutralize the imperialist mination of the Bolshevik leadership that made the October Revolution. Russians, to the Nicaraguans. It says, threat, to buy peaceful coexistence. considers the Soviet state hostile to it. certain problem for U.S. imperialism. It look, if I'm going to do this to skilled Now as every capitalist knows, in order And it is right." means that if the United States invades white workers, Americans, imagine to buy something, you have to sell -"Not a Workers' and Nicaragua, for example, it is much more what you're going to get from me. something. What did the Soviet bu­ Not a Bourgeois State')" effective to have Jesse Jackson.as U.N. (November 1937) The PATCO strike was a turning reaucracy have to sell to the Western ambassador justifying this policy than point in recent American labor and imperialists? Well, as a result of the In Reagan's America the truth of this to have Jeane Kirkpatrick or Vernon social history. It was intended to be a Bolshevik Revolution there were position is, I think, undeniable and Walters justifying this policy. throughout the world mass parties and indisputable.' brutal, frontal challenge to the entire To generalize, U.S. imperialism movements loyal to' Russia. So, the organized labor movement. I remember cannot in the present conceivable period we sold Workers Vanguard with the Soviet bureaucracy sold other' people's The Klan Doesn't Ride effectively conduct a war, if we leave headline: "Labor: Shut Down the revolutions. in Moscow aside nuclear Armageddon, without the Airports!" at a big labor rally on Labor One of the most extreme and impor­ have talked about "Reagan's support of the black Democrats. It is Day in New York City, and then a half­ tant cases was that of Spain during the America." Reagan is, after all, the simply impossible. Just as U.S. imperi­ million labor rally in Washington, D.C. mid-1930s. Here was probably the supreme commander of U.S. imperial­ alism cannot administer the big cities, a few weeks later. And I saw that there greatest opportunity for proletarian ism and undoubtedly the most single­ cannot impose all the racist cutbacks were hundreds of thousands of workers, revolution in Europe in that period. mindedly, fanatically anti-Soviet presi­ without black Democratic mayors. many of them quite socially and However, Stalin wanted an alliance with dent in American history. Partly for that Look at the mayors of the big cities: politically backward, many of them Britain and France against Nazi Ger­ reason there are many people, especially Wilson Goode of Philadelphia, who flag-waving people who hated Russia. many, so he was anxious to assure the black people, who hate and fear Reagan ordered the MOVE bombing; Harold But at that moment, they were enraged British and the French ruling classes and they look to the Democratic Party Washington in Chicago, Coleman about what Reagan was doing to their that he was not going to export as an alternative. Young in Detroit, Lionel Wilson in continued on page 12 communism to Spain, that the Spanish Now, it's hard to make an argument Revolution would not go beyond the that the Democratic Party is in opposi­ bounds of liberal democracy. As a result tion to Reagan's policies on Russia. of which, the Stalinists set up an They voted for everything, the Nicara­ apparatus of terror in Spain, they killed guan contras, the Afghan contras, the scores of militant Spanish workers, Angolan contras, you name it. They assassinated some of the more radical voted for Star Wars, for the MX, fight leaders of the Spanish proletariat, down the list.' But you still get the lesser suppressed any attempts at organs of evil argument. Those of us radicals who proletarian power. This paved the way were, around during the Vietnam War Detroit city for Franco's victory and therefore don't buy it because we remember workers strike strengthened and emboldened Nazi Kennedy and Johnson launched the last July Germany. But proletarian revolution in Vietnam War and the Bay of Pigs. And against Mayor Spain could well have set off a chain of if you look at it, every war that the Coleman Young, events that would have overthrown United States has fought in the 20th black Democratic Hitler before he launched Operation century has been fought under a liberal front man for Barbarossa. Democratic president. World War I Reagan's racist There is a fundamental truth and a under Woodrow Wilson, World War II cutbacks. fundamental lesson here. Which is that under Franklin Roosevelt, the Korean no matter how hard the Kremlin War under Harry Truman, and Viet­ bureaucracy and the parties loyal to it nam, its initial major stages under

7 NOVEMBER 1986 9 Contras' Godfathers... (continued/rom page 1) buses ... and trucks. Patricia Manning, a Witness for Peace volunteer, arrived on the scene two hours after the blast at Pantasma: "Seeing the truck absolutely destroyed. the scene littered with clothes. pieces of broken shoes, everything soaked in blood, And I'm thinking. why isn't anyone covering the war here. they're all Der Spiegel sitting in a comfortable room in Mana­ gua listening to an American talk about General John Singlaub (left) with contra henchman Enrique happening to get shot down while be's Bermudez. Singlaub's World Anti-Communist League-cabal of transporting arms that wreak this kind leftover Nazis, Kuomintang and South Korean thugs, and Latin of carnage." American death squad hit men-meeting In Dallas, 1985. -WBAI News. 31 October World attention is currently focused on Council. A clear chain of command, tion of the racists and anti-Semites" salted it away in Swiss bank accounts the trial, before an Anti-Somozaist except that when Congress cut offdirect (New York Times, 14 October). 1981 and Miami condos), Washington put People's Tribunal, of American merce­ U.S. military support to the contras two was when an earlier B'nai B'rith report the arm on its Zionist allies in the Near nary Eugene Hasenfus, for runningguns years' ago, after the CIA got caught had denounced the WACL as a nest of East to take up the slack. "Senior to the contras, Not even this dog of war "secretly" mining Nicaraguan harbors, anti-Semitic vipers, and also when Reagan administration officials" told contests his guilt: Hasenfus told Time (3 the Reagan administration supposedly Singlaub took command. the New York Times (21 July 1983): November), "I was caught helping the "privatized" the war. Finally, Hasenfus The World Anti-Communist League "Israel, at the request of the United enemy (of the Sandinistas), killing their got the word from Washington, through cleansed of anti-Semitism and racism? States, has agreed to send weapons people through this aid." But when 19­ "Reagan's Democrat" Griffin Bell, to Impossible. Not only does the ACL captured from the Palestine Liberation vv Organization to Honduras for eventu­ year-old Sandinista soldier Jose Fer­ keep his trap shut, or else. But by then it incorporate the rhetoric of Hitler', Anti­ al" use by the Nicaraguan rebels.. ". nando Canales shot the American cargo was too late. Comintern Pact, but it's the biggest The arms shipments, which began re­ plane out of the sky with a hand-held Trying to get off the hot seat, Reagan collection-of fascist killers in the world. cently, include artillery pieces, mortar Soviet SAM rocket launcher, they not administration officials talked of a What about Ukrainian fascist leader rounds. mines, hand grenades and ammunition." only bagged' this contract "mere." The "good ole boys" network offormer CIA Yaroslav Stetsko, premier of the Nazi documents strewn on the ground and employees left over from Vietnam days, puppet regime responsible for the mass According to the North American Hasenfus' testimony exposed the whole and pointed the finger at retired Army murder of 7,000 Jews at Lvev in 1941? Congress on Latin America," these international network of CIA killers, Major General John Singlaub, head of Stetsko is head of the Anti-Bolshevik shipments included an estimated 2,000­ European fascists and Latin American the World Anti-Communist League Bloc of Nations and a leading member 3;000 Soviet AK-47 assault rifles cap­ death squad terrorists who make up the (W ACL). Singlaub denied all: his of the WACL. And then there is Chirila tured from the PLO in Lebanon Ciuntu, a former member of the fascist (NACLA Report on the Americas, Romanian Iron Guard who participated July/August 1986). And Time (7 May in the notorious January 1941 destruc­ 1984) reported: - tion of the Jewish ghetto of Bucharest in "Israeli intelligence experts have helped the CIA train the contras and retired or which 800 were slaughtered with axes, reserve Israeli Army commandos have knives and meat hooks and many been hired by shadowy private firms to burned to death. And the Croatian assist the rebels. 'The Israelis: says a Liberation Movement, leftovers from U.S. intelligence expert. 'know how to the fascist Ustashi who butchered a run a secret operation'." million Serbs, Muslims and Jews, is also Inearly 1984, according to Americans a section of the WACL. This is what the for Middle East Understanding, former ADL gives its stamp of approval to! CIA deputy director Vernon Walters, According to Inside the League then Reagan's roving ambassador and (1986) by Scott Anderson and Jon Lee now chief U.S. delegate at the UN, met Anderson, its Central American leading with Israel's ambassador in Washing­ Morrison/AFP lights were Mario Sandoval Alarcon, ton, Meir Rosenne, to press for greater Reagan's unlucky Hasenfus head of the Guatemalan MLN, known Israeli involvement in "defending the (above), after mercenary as "Godfather" for his role in spawning free world" on the Central American plane supplying arms to contra terrorists was shot other terrorist outfits; and his student battleground (Link, November 1985). down by Sandlnlstas. Roberto D'Aubuisson, head of theSal­ This was when the U.S. Congress was vadoran fascistic ARENA party, known cutting off the CIA's contra funds, and as "Blowtorch Bob" for his favorite after the Argentine generals pulled out support network that's run straight Council for World Freedom (CWF) interrogation instrument. In Argentina, their "trainers" following the junta's from the White House. front only sent 8,000 "freedom fighter the WACL affiliate was the Argentine defeat in the Falklands/Malvinas war. Hasenfus admitted working for the kits" to the contras, containing shaving Anti-Communist Alliance (AAA), no­ Other U.S. allies who pitched in CIA, based in the heavily guarded cream, non-melting candy and Bibles torious for waging the "dirty war" include Taiwan, South Korea and Ilopango air base in EI Salvador. His (admitting transporting arms and am­ responsible for the "disappearances" South Africa. Christian fundamentalist boss was "Max Gomez" (aka Felix munition to.the contras could affect the and murders of thousands of leftists televangelist Pat Robertson, the big:' Ismael Rodriguez, "EI Condor"), a CWF's tax-exempt status). While Sing­ (and many Jews), both under the Videla mouth bigot now running for president, gusano veteran of the failed Bay.of Pigs laub was a convenient decoy, there's no junta and the preceding Peron regime. boasted to reporters earlier this year: invasion, who later worked for the CIA doubt about the existence of a network Plus a myriad of fascist terrorists "The contras are being supplied by during its Vietnam 'debacle. "Gomez" of "private" aid groups run' by former including Klaus Barbie, the Nazi Butch­ Israel and South Africa" to serve the was put in place by the former CIA top-level military officers and intelli­ er of Lyons, and Stefano DelieChiaie, cause of "defeating communism world­ Saigon station chief, Donald Gregg, gence operatives, Cuban gusanos and author ofthe 1980 Bologna train station wide" by the end of the 20th century" now national security adviser to (ex­ ultrarightist political groups. Reagan bombing. (PCNA Monthly, September/October CIA boss) Vice President Bush; he tried to compare them with the Abra­ So why is the B'nai B'rith Anti­ 1986). The Tel Aviv/Pretoria axis has currently reports to Marine Lt. Colonel ham Lincoln Brigade which fought for Defamation League so anxious to long been a key link in the "free world." Oliver North, in the National Security the Spanish Republic against Franco in whitewash this gang? It's all in the great Rather less to the Israelis' liking was the 1930s. With his usual historical anti-Soviet crusade, you see. After all, that Washington also muscled Saudi accuracy, no doubt he got them mixed Israel is a major arms supplier and Arabia into funneling several million to up with Hitler's Condor Legion. military trainerfor the contra terrorists. the contras, as a kickback for the . Spartacist ~ Forum When Congress began to balk at giving AWACS radar plane deal. (The Saudi Zionists Whitewash Nazis more dollars to the contra leaders (who monarchyalso kicked in an estimated U.S. Workers: In the center ofthe bewildering array of shadowy organizations is the World Smash. the War Anti-Communist League. The WACL was originally founded in 1966 as a on Nicaragua! propaganda outlet for two ofthe world's more savage police states, South Korea Speakers: and Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang Jan Norden, editor, regime in Taiwan. Moreover, it is Workers Vanguard crawling with leftover Nazis and vio­ Tom Janota, WV correspondent, lent fascist torturers and killers, to the with slide show on Nicaragua point that it is known in Latin America as the Death Squad International. Saturday, November 22, 4:00 p.m. Belatedly, someone on the White House Borough of Manhattan "spin patrol" figured out that this gang Community College, Room N402 199 Chambers St. could bean embarrassment to the (Take any train to Chambers, walk west) administration. So... in jumped the B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation League to For more information: (212) 267-1025 25¢ (16 pages) 75¢ (32 pages) 75¢ (32 pages) declare that "We are satisfied at the very NEW YORK CITY least that substantial progress has been Make checks payable/mall to: Spartaclst Publishing Co., Box 1377 GPO, NY, NY 10116 made since 1981·in ridding the organiza- 10 WORKERS VANGUARD $250 million a year to the Afghan­ ""'_lW,~¥~J'~'"!Ji!!IIII~I'.~~~•••••••:::;... opening the way to bring in American contras' war chest.) DEFEND NICARAGUA! forces. Already the Hondurans are So while B'nai B'rith apologizes for Complete the Revolu1:ionL being offered advanced U.S. F-5E the WACL anti-Soviet fascist cabal, fighters or the Israeli-built Kfir (which Israel is supplying guns and advisers to KILL THE INVADERS' that dirt poor banana republic couldn't the contra terrorists along with just SPARTACISTLEACUI ' • possibly buy on their own). And the about every racist, fascistic and feudalist lJ.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division regime in the.world. But this unholy hasjust completed its "most extensive" alliance of Zionists and anti-Semites is exercise in 15 years, preparing for a nothing new, In the 1930s the Zionist Spartacists "forced entry" into a Central American "Revisionists" collaborated with Mus:' say: Defend, country (guess which). solini, and a leader of the Stern Gang, complete, Still, they've got a big obstacle in this Yitzhak Shamir, today Israeli premier, extend the war drive on the home front. From offered to Berlin to forge a Zionist"New Nicaraguan liberals proclaiming "sister city" ar­ Revolution! Order" in Palestine on the model of the rangements with Nicaraguan towns to Third Reich. No less sordid were the Puerto Rican nationalists bombing "Labor" Zionists, who collaborated army bases to protest plans for training directly with the Nazis. Shortly after contras on the island, there is little Hitler took power in 1933, for example, support for Reagan's terrorists. And Histadrut secretary Chaim Arlosoroff ter in Israel. Israel's present friends and losers. The people who lost World War even less for anything that smacks of concluded an agreement on behalfof the allies-Singlaub's WACL, the Nazi­ II, who lost China, who lost the Vietnam dragging the U.S. into another Third World Zionist Organization, whereby loving Afrikaner Nationalists in Preto­ War, are now united in backing the World adventure, like Vietnam. While Nazi Germany would transfer a million ria, Christian fundamentalist bigot Pat contras, who even with their WACL Democrats and Republicans vote $100 reichsmarks to Zionist settlements in Robertson-would also like to see a Bibles haven't got a prayer against the million in contra aid, the mass of the Palestine. Hitler, however, had a differ­ world without Jews, if only they could Sandinista army and a population population is consistently against it. The ent "final solution" to the Jewish get rid of the reds first. determined to defend their revolution. Spartacist League looks to the working question in mind. "$100 Million Won't Begin to Buy a class to smash the war on Nicaragua and Today, anti-Semitic propaganda is The Loser International Contra Victory," headlined Business the anti-Soviet War drive before the broadcast into the Soviet Union on the They're plenty sinister, but this spi­ Week (25 August). All this only makes imperialists trigger a thermonuclear CIA's Radio Liberty ... from a transmit- der's web of intrigue is a c.ollection of sense as preparation to a provocation, holocaust. • WV Sub Drive Over the Top!

Congratulations to all the comrades major industrial union like the ILA regional campuses, while ,156-1/2 points were sold, including 97 at the University who contributed to the success of the really take on the union-busters and the were sold to transit workers. Door-to­ of Oregon, 54 at Reed College and 45 at 1986 'Workers Vanguard subscription racist labor-hating Reagan government. door work in Queens- netted 95-1/2 Evergreen State. drive. The six-weekcampaign brought Subs sold through this work totaled 211 points. New York's points included 24 Included in the points listed in the in 4,182-1/2 points in new and renewal points: 29 in the North, 170in the South subs to Spanish Spartacist. chart as "At-large" are 202-1/2 points in subs to our press: WV, Women and and an additional 12 points from people Door-to-door work in the Engelwood subs to SL/U.S. publications sold by Revolution, and the Spanish-language who clipped the coupon and subscribed section of Chicago yielded 83 points, comrades of the Trotskyist League of Spartacist. This figure is 139 percent of by mail. while Chicago transit workers bought Canada as part of their WV/ Spartacist the national quota. Comrades who sold subs on cam­ 51 points. Chicago comrades sold 57 Canada sub drive. The WV sub drive is an annual event puses noted that "this was a rather points at in-city campuses and 69 in In the comradely competition for which coincides with the opening of less activist year than last." Last fall, a Madison, Wisconsin. Comrades from most points, the winner was comrade schools. Every year after quotas are set, significant number of students wanted Cleveland, Chicago and Toronto joined Paula from SF with 124-1/2 points. each local establishes its priorities and to "do something" about the apartheid forces to sell 107 points in Ann Arbor, . Honorable mention: Guillermo, Oak­ regime in South Africa, but now that Michigan. Two trips to Detroit by land (93-1/2 points); San, Oakland (92); university administrations have adopt­ Cleveland comrades brought in 42 Debbie H., New York (87); Janis, ed the program of "divestment," one points; 51 points were sold at Oberlin. Oakland (77); and Marc V., Chicago comrade noted, this milieu "doesn't Los Angeles' best campus was UCLA (72). Special thanks also to the sympa­ have much to do except applaud the with 85-1/2 points. One comrade from thizers who participated in making the college's moral progress." A report on L.A., one from San Francisco and three sub drive a success, led by Gordy with 65 the Boston sub drive noted that com­ from Oakland toured campuses in the points. rades' attempts to open up a conversa- . Pacific Northwest, where 237-1/2 points We welcome our new readers.• tion by raising South Africa were often met with an "indifferent shrug." The report added: "But if there was indifference, there was Final Totals also serious concern on the part of many students about racist terror, Reagan's war drive, thedrug witchhunt and the Quota Final Local "10 insidious undermining of science ["cre­ (in points) Totals ationism"]. ... Subs were also sold on the basis of getting the truth. People Atlanta 125 273 218 " were aware of Seymour Hersh's 'new Boston 250 312 125 . revelations' on KAL 007 and liked the Chicago 350 483 138 fact that we had told the real story long Cleveland 200 311Y2 156 before any of the bourgeois liberals had Los Angeles 125 186'h 149 decided to dissent from a few of New York 900 1,117'h 124 Reagan's - more egregious lies. Our Oakland 550 709'h 129 coverage of the Daniloff case and the San Francisco 350 385 110 disinformation flap intersected gnawing Washington, D.C.. 150 172'h 115 suspicions...about the role of the At-large 232 makes a schedule for the different kinds media in abetting Reagan's plotting for of necessary work: trips to important war." National Total 3,000 4,182 139 regional campuses, contacting subscrib­ Among Boston-area campuses, the '/a ers for renewal subs, door-to-door work most lucrative were Harvard (74 points) in selected neighborhoods, etc. This and U Mass Amherst (53-1/2). Door-to­ year, though, the best-laid plans of the door work in Mattapan, Roxbury and East Coast comrades in particular went Dorchester yielded 44 points. Washing­ ---- Subscribe Now! --'-, out the window when tile International ton, D.C. got 79-1/2 points at Howard Name --C:... _ Longshoremen's Association went on University and sold 28-1/2 on trips to the strike. Tidewater, Virginia area. Address _ The ILA is a strategic union and, Atlanta led all locals by selling 418 especially' in the South, historically a percent of its quota. At Atlanta Univer­ ______Phone ( stronghold of black workers' power. sity, 92-1/2 points were sold. In addi­ City State Zip _ WV crashed out a special four-page tion, comrades from Atlanta, Boston 415 supplement, "Let's Win This One'" and New York sold 102 points on a tour SPECIAL! A free packet of Spartacist literature or pamphlet with full Teams of Spartacist supporters hit the to North Carolina campuses; 80-1/2 subscriptions to both Workers Vanguard and Women and Revolution. streets and union halls and distributed a points were sold at Chapel Hill. . quarter-million copies. Black ILAers in The New York sub drive got off to a o $5/24 issues of Workers Vanguard o $2/4 issues of particular were friendly and many were good start on Caribbean Day: 31-1/2 (includes Spartacist) Women and Revolution I enthusiastic about the supplement, points and 375 individual pieces of o New 0 Renewal I $2/10 introductory issues of while many other working people in all literature. Of New York's 1,117-1/2 total o I o $2/4 issues of Workers Vanguard I parts of the country were itching to see a P?ints, 436 came from in-city and Spartacist, edicion en espanol (includes Spartacist) I L Make payable/mail to: Spartacist Publishing Co., Box 1377 GPO, New York, New York 10116 JI

7 NOVEMBER 1986 11 Russian

Revolution ••• Left: During 1981 (continued from page 9) PATCO strike, labor class brothers and they wanted to bring should have stopped him down. -unlon-buster Reagan And it would not have been hard, by shutting down because if anyone of three unions-the the airports. Right: A taste of Teamsters, the Machinists or the workers power- pilots-had honored the air controllers' ILA strikers educate picket lines, you would have had a scabs while shutting national airlines strike in this country. (I down East Coast ports think the-refusal of the Machinists was last month. particularly worth commenting on, because the head of that union, William Winpisinger, is also a leader of the Democratic Socialists of America.) the place, all these business meetings . demands. A defeat for Reagan, by injustice, for big class struggle, big social Imagine the impact of a national air and million-dollar deals would be total­ labor, at that moment and in that way, struggle. In the black ghettos there is a strike, of shutting down the airports, on ly disrupted. It would probably take would have gone far beyond what is deep-felt hatred of Reagan and every­ the American economy, especially on less thana week and Reagan would have called "labor relations." It would have thing he stands for. In the past year or the ruling class. I mean, they fly all over rehired these people and bowed to their helped derail the entire program of so, we've seen some very hard-bitten, political and social reaction, from the long, bitter strikes, mainly defensive­ arms buildup against Russia to the the Hormel meatpackers battling the attack on abortion rights, the whole bit. National Guard and scabs for months, Why didn't the labor bureaucracy do the mainly Mexican women cannery anything, why did they let PATCO go workers in Watsonville. Certainly the PAlCO and Russia down the tubes? It's because they will to fight, the.kind of diehard will to understood that to humiliate the Presi­ fight, is there. What's lacking is how to Reagan's destruction of the PAT­ off the job in violation oftheir oath, dent of the·U nited States, to defeat and win. So all these struggles and the CO air controllers in 1981, a few and they're not welcome back.' And nobody thought he could make that humiliate him in a massive show of potential for struggle have been atom­ months after taking office, was also stick, but he did. So, everybody labor power, would open up a period of ized, isolated, misled and betrayed. And intended as a message to Moscow learned a lesson, and it has been a very considerable social struggle which it is here that a revolutionary party is that the American president is out to marker throughout his presidency. they could not control and which could indispensable. break anyone who gets in his way. And maybe the Russians learned a lesson in this, too." well sweep them away. So that they A party of the kind that the Bolshe­ The imperial president wants to bust would rather see the unions broken and viks created in tsarist Russia, because the Soviet Union and to bust the un­ The mark of the Reagan presidency is defeated than to disrupt capitalist law only such a party can take the raw ions at home. Discussing the Rey­ that the gang in the White House and order. The outcome of the PATCO material of anger and desperation, the kjavik summit on ABC's Nightline thinks it can get its way by bullying strike was a green light for the American partial, militant, explosive struggles, (14 October), Secretary of State everybody. But ifthe American labor capitalist class to have open season on and weld together the potential mili­ Shultz bragged that PArCO first movement had shut down the air- , the unions. In the pastfour or five years, tancy and combativity of the working learned the "lesson" of how Reagan ports to defend the striking, air four million workers have gotten give­ class with the anger and hatred of the "negotiates": controllers, Reagan would have back contracts, their wages have been black ghetto, and direct it against its "And the first people to learn it were learned a lesson about workers cut, their benefits have been cut. Union real enemies on Wall Street and in the air-controllers, who felt they had power. There's another lesson he the country right in their hands all gains won over the course of decades Washington. the time. And you remember they should keep in mind, too: Russia isn't have been taken away. ' We are the party of the Russian walked off the job, and the President PATCO. Remember what happened There exists in this country the raw Revolution because we intend to be said, 'It's very simple, they walked to Adolf Hitler! material, the anger, the economic the party of the American Revolution. desperation, the sense of oppression and Join us!.

Johnson commented: historical dialectic ... withdraws 'rea­ . "outlawing Russia forever" and pushing "The comparison which does come to son' from historical institutions that the button to destroy the Soviet "Evil KAL 007... mind for me is the Lusitania disaster have outlived themselves and condemns (continued from page 7) their defenders to failure." Empire" in "five minutes." during the First World War-innocent In the death agony of imperialism, the excuse for a nuclear arms buildup?) civilian craft, torpedoed by the Ger­ mans, terrible loss of life, major thing . He described the final days of the American rulers are truly war crazy. Seymour Hersh has always served the behind the ultimate American entry Russian autocracy, when the "spirit of Suffering a humiliating defeat in Viet­ interests of u.s. imperialism. Along into the war. The Germans at the time medievalism thickened" in the empire, nam, the wounded beast lashes out with Watergate reporters Woodward said it was loaded with munitions. This the imperial court was consumed in wildly, sending more than 200 innocent and Bernstein, he helped the liberal got no sort of hearing at all-it was frenzied.frivolity, the tsarina bewitched passengers plunging to a watery grave, Democrats restore the leash on the 'German propaganda.' And so on. It took many, many years before we by a degenerate Black Hundreds priest, threatening and attacking Soviet "sur­ "rogue" intelligence agencies, which had discovered that in fact the British had the tsar embarked on a European war rogates" from Nicaragua to Libya, gotten out of hand under Nixon. Their loaded it with munitions." Russia could not win. Today for the thinking it can intimidate the Russian services culminated in the Church Reagan's KAL provocation ranks up mad priest Rasputin 'the Reaganites bear with an endless stream of provoca­ committee and similar investigatory there with all the other infamous have the likes of Jerry Falwell who tions, hallucinating about "victory" in a "reforms" of the CIA/NSA/FBI.Today fabricated incidents that have served as preaches the imminence of a nuclear nuclear first strike. As Trotsky noted of pretexts for imperialist war. Then, as Armageddonin which "Russia will be imperial Russia, perishing in the car­ now, the "free but responsible" press did ... ultimately totally destroyed" while nage of the first imperialist world war, the' bidding of their warmongering Christian "true" believers will be saved. the slaughter will not be stopped by the capitalist masters. The head of the Pentagon vows to ousting of a single madman, but only by "prevail" in a thermonuclear war, and sweeping away the dying capitalist class, Seeking justice for their deceased kin, the imperial president "jokes" about through world proletarian revolution.• the Families of American Victims of the KAL 007 Tragedy have gone along with the strategy of the liberal Fund for Constitutional Government which seeks SPARTACIST LEAGUE/U.S. LOCAL DIRECTORY a Congressional investigation. But to no National Office: Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 • (212) 732-7860 avail. At their September I discussion, two, of the four panelists expressed Atlanta Detroit Norfolk misgivings about appealing to Con­ Box 4012 Box 32717 Box 1972, Main PO gress, calling instead for a presidential Atlanta, GA 30302 Detroit, MI 48232 Norfolk, VA 23501 'commission of "experts," like the one Boston Los Angeles Oakland which investigated the Challenger disas­ ter. This is even more futile-do they Box 840, Central Sta. Box 29574, Los Feliz, Sta. Box 32552 Cambridge, MA 02139 Los Angeles, CA 90029 Oakland, CA 94604 expect Reagan to investigate himself? (617) 492-3928 (213) 384-9716 (415) 839-0851 (The Challenger commission issued a " ,'nt. Der Spiegel blatant whitewash.) These liberals Chicago Madison San Francisco Japanese military radar at Wakkanai cannot face the central reality: it is Box 6441, Main PO c/o SYL, Box 2074 Box 5712 was locked onto KAL 007. impossible to raise the issue of KAL 007 Chicago, IL60680 Madison, WI 53701 San Francisco, CA 94101 (312) 663-0715 (608) 257-8625 (415) 863-6963 the Democrats march to Reagan's beat, without challenging the anti-Soviet although they would perhaps prefer a "consensus." For the Reagan regime Cleveland New York Washington, D.C. more measured pace in the march sacrificed the innocent passengers on Box 91037 Box 444, Canal St. Sta. Box 75073 toward war. So Hersh gets his assign­ that ill-fated flight to stoke the flames of Cleveland, OH 44101 New York, NY 10013 Washington, D.C. 20013 ment: pull the reins a little on the war. (216) 621-5138 (212) 267-1025 (202) 636-3537 Reagan bandwagon, but don't tip it In his History ofthe Russian Revolu- over. tion (1932), Leon Trotsky wrote: Toronto The KAL 007 affair is a propaganda "~hen the ancients said that Jupiter TROTSKYIST LEAGUE first makes mad those whom he wishes 'Box 7198, Station A landmark on the road toWorld War III. to destroy, they summed up in supersti­ OF CANADA Toronto, Ontario M5W 1Xi In a panel discussion in New York on tious form a profound historic observa­ (416) 593-4138 September I, Shootdown author R.W. tion .... The impersonal Jupiter of the 12 WORKERS VANGUARD South African Workers Strike for Their Jobs South African black auto workers have struck General Motors in the wake of GM's announcement that it was General Motors Divests "divesting" itself of its operations there. Following a meeting with GM's manag­ ing director Robert White on October does not mean it is pulling out of South held cheap. 29, some 2,000 workers staged a sit-in Africa. GM cars that are assembled in The announcement by General Mo­ at the company's two plants in Port Eliz- South African plants will still be in the tors and IBM that they are selling off . abeth. Called by the National Auto­ showrooms, and the company said it their South African operations has been mobile and Allied Workers Union will continue to sell automotive compo­ hailed by American liberals and refor­ (NAAWU) and joined by members of nents to its former subsidiary. mists as a great triumph for their the Motor Assembly and Component Smith obscenely justified GM's 60­ divestment campaign. Similarly with Workers of South Africa, the strike ef­ year history of superexploitation of Congress' recent override of Reagan's fectively shut down GM's production in South African black labor: "We believe veto of sanctions against South Africa. Port Elizabeth. our efforts to promote social progress Behind all the divestment/sanctions Now that "divestment" is here, the and racial equality justified our being business is the attempt to imbue U.S. first effect is that the workers are fight­ there." He was talking about a "code of imperialism-the greatest exploiter and ing for their jobs. While GM says no ethics" devised by the Rev. Leon Sul­ oppressor on the face of the planet­ jobs will be lost through the sale of its livan, black Philadelphia clergyman and with a "moral mission" in the world. As operations to a South African outfit, the General Motors board member, in revolutionary socialists, the only "di­ workers rightly don't trust such "assur­ which American companies doing vestment" we fight for is the divestment ances." There is, moreover, no guaran­ business in South Africa were supposed of the American capitalists and their Jordan/Time tee the new owners will recognize the to improve housing, health care and South African junior partners by the On the line at GM Port Elizabeth union. The union is also demanding other social services for black workers. working class in power. plant. payment of pension funds, and sever­ Well, so much for the "Sullivan Princi­ In South Africa a number of black ance pay of one month for each year ples," smashed up on the bedrock of unions have been equivocal about the gram of proletarian internationalism. worked for GM upon its withdrawal. In capitalist profits. effects of 9ivestment. Alec Erwin, American auto workers' best defense the face of the strikers' militancy, the The ruthless drive for capitalist former organizer for FOSATU~ now of their striking black union brothers in company is reportedly hardlining it, profits routinely kills black workersjust merged into the giant COSATUblack South Africa is militant labor action trying to get the apartheid rulers to as surely as if they had been executed. In union federation, explained that his. against the auto magnates at home. declare the strike illegal. September, 177miners were killed when organization opposed the withdrawal of From Durban to Detroit, workers to In an Op-Ed column in the New York poisonous gas from a fire filled a mine assets from South Africa "because we power! Not imperialist "sanctions" and Times (30 October), General Motors' shaft. Only last week another six black view them not as the simple property of capitalist "divestment" fraud, but ex­ chairman of the board Roger B. Smith miners were crushed to death when an foreign companies, but as assets which propriation of capitalism by a victori­ said GM was quitting South Africa, elevator cable snapped, sending a cage have been built up through the sweat ous workers revolution. To paraphrase deploring Botha's efforts to end apart­ and tons of cable plunging half a mile to and labour of South African work­ Marx, apartheid has created in a six­ heid as "too little too late.". But the the bottom of the shaft. How could this ers...." Nonetheless,. black unionists million-strong black, coloured and In­ bottom line is the dollar sign. "The basic happen? Clearly no inspection, no have in large part supported sanctions dian proletariat its own gravedigger. problem," Smith said, "one which all testing, no back-up safety devices. due to the ideological hold of petty­ The wealth of South Africa belongs not corporations must pay attention to-is Whether South Africa's mines and bourgeois nationalism on the black to the capitalists, be 'they Wall Street, the fact that our South African opera­ factories are owned by Americans, trade-union movement. Revolutionar­ Frankfurt and London bankers or Jo­ tions have been losing money for several British or Afrikaners, the lives of the ies must fight to win black anti­ hannesburg industrialists-but to the years." In any case, GM's "divestment" superexploited black workers will be apartheid fighters instead to the pro- toilers belong the fruits of their labor! •

the American war on Vietnam. Today, Philippines... as the axis of the ASEAN alliance of anti-Communist Southeast Asian re­ (continued from page 16) gimes, one of their key tasks is to keep' '''It was like switching from Coca Cola Soviet naval forces from using Cam to Pepsi Cola: said one disappointed Ranh Bay to break out of U.S. encircle­ Cory fan." ment. No bourgeois regime will be Corazon Aquino is herself a member allowed to close down these bases. of the old landed aristocracy which has Indeed, Washington dumped Marcos dominated Filipino society for centu­ for Aquino hoping that Cory's populari­ ries, both under Spanish and American ty would make the bases more secure. But the U.S. bases have become a colonial rule and following "independ­ 22,000 workers ence." Cory .is a Cojuangco, and the lightning rod for popular protest pitting struck Clark AFB the Philippine masses against the family estate "Luisita" is one of the and Subic Bay largest haciendas in the country, with Naval Station Aquino regime. On July 4, a rally of more than 7,000 hectares, 6,100 work­ . last March. 5,000outside the U.S. embassy demand­ ers, a golf course and racetrack. During ing removal of the bases was dispersed the election campaign, Aquino prom­ by police. ised to make Luisita a model oftand The economic ties of the Philippines reform, but later reneged. Meanwhile, to U.S. imperialism are no less binding the Jacintos got back their steel facto­ than the military ones. American subjugated nation, above all of its ries, the Lopez family recovered its TV puppet could no longer keep things capitalists hold over half of all foreign under control. When Ninoy was gunned peasant masses." stations, newspaper and banks seized by investment and rake off two-thirds of all down on the tarmac at Manila airport in -L.D. Trotsky, The Permanent Marcos. Terzani summed up: Revolution (1929) profits in manufacturing. While Aquino 1983,Cory took his place. ByNovember "Rather than a revolution, what oc­ begs handouts from Reagan and Con­ 1984,the National Security Council was In order to complete the democratic curred in Manila last February was a tasks, in particular agrarian revolu­ gress, half of all the country's foreign restoration: the reinstatement of the old calling for Marcos "to set the stage for a tion to abolish the feudal-derived servi­ exchange earnings go to payoff Wall aristocratic oligarchy of Spanish de­ peaceful and eventual transition to a Street, the City of London and Tokyo scent. with which Marcos clashed and successor government." And that's what tude of the peasantry, the proletariat in . which he partly replaced by his own power, led by its communist party, will banks just for the interest on the clique of relatives and hangers-on." eventually happened, though it took , Philippines' $25 billion foreign debt. some hard talk from the White House to necessarily undertake "deep inroads One of the popular slogans of leftist into the rights of bourgeois property. Much of this debt was built up to pay for shoehorn the aging dictator out of Marcos' corrupt and brutal regime, yet demonstrators before the overthrow Malacafiang Palace. The democratic revolution grows over of Marcos was "Yesterday Nicaragua, directly into the socialist revolution it is unthinkable that Aquino would tomorrow Philippines." Instead, it's as However, the fraud of "people pow­ and thereby becomes a permanent repudiate this debt and stop paying the if Somoza was replaced not by the er" is not just the product of the Aqui­ revolution." blood money sucked by foreign bankers radical-nationalist Sandinistas but by nos' intimate relations with the CIA and Nowhere is this more vividly con­ from the Filipino workers and peasants; the Chamorro oligarchy, with the direct of Cory belonging to the landlord/ firmed than in the Philippines to­ To break the chains of imperialism will backing of the U.S. capitalist oligarchy. In the epoch of day. Aquino's "February revolution" require a socialist revolution whose Cory is the widow of Benigno capitalism's decay, the native bourgeoi­ achieved neither democracy nor agrari­ influence would quickly spread through Aquino, a millionaire bourgeois politi­ sies of the colonial and semi-colonial an reform (much less revolution), and the region and hit at the imperialist cian assassinated by the Marcos regime countries, junior partners of the imperi­ talk of national emancipation is a hoax, countries themselves, from second-rate in 1983. "Ninoy" spent practically his alists, are incapable of carrying out Conquered by emerging U.S. imperial­ powers like Australia to Japan and the entire career working for the American the historic tasks of the bourgeois­ ism in the Spanish-American War of United States.. democratic revolution. As Leon Trot­ Central Intelligence Agency, first help­ 1898,ever since "independence" in 1946 Philippine Stalinism in Disarray ing them crush the Communist-led sky summed up the experience of the the Philippines has been a very special Hukbalahap rebellion in the late 1940s­ three Russian Revolutions (1905, Feb­ American neocolony in the. Far East. The present crisis of the Philippine early '50s, and later attending the CIA's ruary 1917 and October 1917): Ninety percent of the Philippine officer bourgeois order will be resolved by elite school in Quantico, Virginia. After " ... the complete and genuine solution corps have trained in the U.S. There are revolution or counterrevolution-there of their tasks'of achieving democracy Marcos declared martial law in 1972, and national emancipation is conceiv­ 40,000 U.S. military and support per­ is no middle way. And thus it has led to a Washington carefully cultivated Aqui­ able only through the dictatorship of sonnel at Subic Bay and Clark Air Force crisis of Philippine Stalinism,'which in no to run the Philippines in case their the proletariat as the leader of the Base, which were main staging areas for continued on page 14 7 NOVEMBER 1986 13 launched a "correction" faction to join to see. To oppose Aquino while still wide we/gang boyan ("people's strike") Philippines... the "people power" mass movement, seeking a bloc with the mythical "pro- . against the dictator-who fled on i.e., to hop in bed with Cory. The result gressive" bourgeoisie is to place oneself Reagan's orders the night before. (continued from page 13) was a public self-criticism in the May in a political no man's land. The only However, on May Day this year when its own way is tied to the landlord/ issue of the party organ, Ang Bayan, progressive alternative to Aquino and the KMU mobilized for a huge rally capitalist regime. During the last- years which "characterized the boycott policy Emile is a workers and peasants gov­ estimated at 250,000 in Manila, on the of Marcos' rule, growing popular op­ as a major political blunder": ernment. And this is a burning issue platform together with CPP leaders position provided an increasing stream "In large measure the Party and its today as the workers and peasants Sison and Buscayno sat Cory Aquino of recruits for the New People's Army, forces were on the sidelines. unable to have massively undertaken to struggle and General Ramos! The May issue of lead or influence the hundreds of against their exploiters and oppressors. the CPP's Ang Bayan declares, "Part of military arm of the Communist Party of thousands of people who moved with the Philippines (CPP). By late 1984, the amazing speed and decisiveness to the workers' antiirnperialist struggles is NPA claimed 20,000 full- and part-time overthrow the regime." Filipino Workers,Peasants alliance with national capitalists," and fighters in 45 guerrilla fronts operating Instead, they advocated "critically par­ On the Move calls for "a bigger voice for the national in 56 provinces, The purpose of this ticipating in the snap election"-i.e., bourgeoisie in the economy and in the The upsurge in labor activity led by formulation of economic policies"! In armed struggle, however, was not to voting for Aquino. "The people were avowed leftists has both the Philippines achieve a military victory that would almost entirely left out from the compo­ the concrete, rather than mobilizing bourgeoisie and its American big political strike action to achieve the sweep aside landlord/capitalist rule, but sition of the new government," they brothers worried. Business Week (15 as pressure for a popular front with the lamented the next month. The new CPP workers' demands, the KMU has called September) headlined "The Philippine for defending Labor Minister Sanchez anti-Marcos bourgeois opposition.. line was for a "democratic coalition gov­ Left Has Washington Spooked," com­ While the NPA insurgency along with ernment" which would achieve "eman­ and ousting Defense Minister Emile. plaining of illegal strikes and unions Meanwhile, peasants are demanding mass protests and workers strikes in the' cipation of the people from imperialism conducting "Marxist teach-ins": cities fatally undermined the Marcos and feudalism" (Ang Bayan, June 1986). land reform, a touchy subject for "The leftist gains are far more serious Aquino. When 20,000 supporters of the regime, the Aquino opposition was Apparently, Sison & Co. think the than the fading challenge from diehard National Peasant Movement of the expressly aimed at excluding leftist boycott cost them cabinet posts. But Marcos supporters .... In addition to their rural insurgency, the leftists are Philippines recently marched on the influence. When, under pressure from they aren't giving up. In pursuit of this taking advantage of what they call the presidential palace, their way was Washington, Marcos called a "snap goal, the CPP has recently set up the 'democratic space' .... The left is scoring blocked by thousands of heavily armed election" for February 7 in order to Partido ng Bayan (People's Party), its biggest gains in labor. More strikes soldiers behind barbed wire barricades, legitimize his rule, the Communist Party which, said Sison during a recent have occurred so far this year than all of recalling the tumultuous anti-Marcos was caught in a dilemma. Damned if it speaking tour in Australia, "will seek to last year under Marcos." protests. A spokesman for the demon­ did and damned if it didn't in terms of take over the reins of government or The head of the American Chamber of strators said of Aquino: "We feel that bourgeois electoral politics, the CPP share power in a coalition government Commerce vituperated against '''people she is not listening, and that instead, she leadership narrowly decided to boycott through elections and other legal power' run amok." The principal object is worrying about losing Hacienda means" (Sydney Morning Herald, I of the capitalists' ire is the leftist labor Luisita" (Philadelphia Inquirer, 22 September). But this right turn has not federation Kilusang Mayo Uno (K MU), or May 1st Movement, which has October). It's all in the family: her close gone down without strong internal relative Eduardo Cojuangco was the resistance. Two reputed hardliners in' mushroomed from 35,000 members in 1980 to over 600,000 today. That makes "coconut king" under Marcos, and the CPP leadership, chairman Rodolfo owned 25,000 acres on Negros policed Salas and secretary general Rafael it three times as large as theTrade Union Congress of the Philippines (TUCP), by his private army. The Aquino Baylosis, were deposed as a result of the agrarian "reform" plan calls for reduc­ "rectification" campaign. (Salas was notorious for its ties to the Marcos dictatorship and sweetheart contracts ing landowners' debt by recovering arrested in Manila in late September money illegally skimmed off profits of and remains in prison.) Opposition to with employers. The TU CP is also a the sugar marketing board by Marcos the pro-Aquino line is apparently also major recipient of U.S. dollars via the cronies, and selling idle land to landless strong among sections of the party AFL-CIO's Asian-American Free La­ rural workers! cadres and ranks. If pressure continues bor Institute, a known CIA front. In the countryside, things are at the to build in the Philippines, the CPP With hundreds of walkouts since point ofexplosion on the sugar island of could undergo a major left split. February, Manila has become strike Negros. Bacolod bishop Antonio For­ From its origins in 1968 as a pro­ city. The origins are directly economic: Philippines workers are the lowest-paid tich calls it a "social volcano.' As the Chinese split from the old Moscow-line price of sugar fell from 65 cents a pound Philippines Communist Party (PCP), in the Pacific Rim. Most do not receive AP even the minimum wage of 57 pesos (less in 1974 tofour cents today, a third of the U.S. imperialism's darling Corazon the initially Maoist CPP has always actual production cost, the planters been wedded to the Stalinist schema of a than $3) a day-32 pesos for agricultur­ Aquino with Stalinist nationalist al workers-and real wages have been have fired tens ofthousands of workers. Jose Sison. "two-stage" revolution. Indeed, Sison But social unrest has spread apace. In earlier criticized the PCP for over­ falling under the hammer blows of inflation. Aquino's labor minister, the last few years the National Federa­ the vote, which the party's legal front, emphasizing the class struggle at the tion of Sugar Workers (N FSW), affiliat­ the National Democratic Front (NDF), expense of Filipino nationalism: "the Augusto Sanchez, a "human rights" lawyer, has been reluctant to move ed to the KMU, has grown rapidly ~alled a "sham, that is mainly designed matter of national liberation was ob­ among the 300,000 sugar workers o blunt a rapidly developing popular scured by the slogans of class struggle against strikers, hoping that the strike wave will fizzle out. But businessmen on Negros. Protection by the NPA protest movement." Nonetheless, some between the capitalist class and the guerrillas has been essential for the prominent CPP supporters and fellow working class" (Struggle for National have been getting restless, and in late July Emile ordered the army in as NFSW facing the planters' hired guns travelers in the Bayan coalition cam­ Democracy [1967]). "We should not who regularly "salvage" (disappear) paigned as individuals for Aquino. confuse the national-democratic stage strikebreakers. On August I, strikers at Pepsi-Cola's Metro Manila bottling union organizers. The San Francisco What Marcos intended was indeed a and the socialist phase of the Philippine Examiner (II August) reports that in sham election, but when as usual he Revolution," he declared in 1970 in his plant fought a pitched "battle with company goons. The next day, armed "the southern half of the island [Ne­ stole it, the Philippines erupted in mass . major political work, Philippine Society gros], the NPA controls large parts of protests. When the Aquino forces and and Revolution (written under the name soldiers moved on transit strikers south of the capital. The military has also been the countryside, according to local their American patrons moved to get rid Amado Guerrero). "Only after the priests." . of the tottering dictator, the CPP found national-democratic stage has been used against garment workers, hotel workers, phosphate workers and to itself on the sidelines and'hardly completed can the proletarian revolu­ Cease-Fire with the NPA? intervened at all. Commenting on the tionary leadership carry out the socialist militarize sugar estates on the island of Stalinists' disarray at the time we wrote: revolution as the transitional stage Negros. The "counterinsurgency" experts at "The reason for this confusion is simple: towards communism." KMU general secretary Rolando the U.S. embassy had hoped that with fighting not for a socialist program but Olalia told the Far Eastern Economic From Chiang Kai-shek's China in the Marcos out of the way, the guerrillas on a purely 'democratic' platform, the Review (28 August) his union's goal was 1920s to Allende's Chile, this anti­ would stream down from the hills, main left groups had difficulty explain­ "socialism." And the May 1st Move­ leaving only a "hard core" that could be ing their political differences with Marxist call for "democracy now, ment . repeatedly spearheaded mass easily wiped out. Wasn't Marcos the [Aquino's} Laban. Yet they could not socialism later" has led to bloody defeat protests against the tyrant Marcos. Last "best recruiter" for the Communists, participate, because the whole sham for the workers. Many a Third World 'democratic exercise' was designed to February 26, it had scheduled a nation- having driven even bourgeois opposi- defeat the Communists. And in fact, the nationalist regime has sought to protect yellow flags of Aquino/ Laurel managed its left flank by bringing the Commu­ to gain ascendancy over the red flags of nists into a "democratic (or anti-fascist, the left in the streets of Manila and anti-imperialist, etc.) coalition govern­ elsewhere." -"Reagan Pulls Plug on ment," only to set them. up for a Marcos." WV No. 398, massacre on the morrow. Would-be 28 February communists in the Philippines need only Left out in the cold; some Communist look next door to Indonesia and recall Party leaders defended the February the 1965 slaughter of halfa million or boycott, denouncing Aquino as little more Communists, the bloody tab for the PKI's participation in the Sukarno October: more than an American stooge. But Police upon being released from prison, CPP regime. Significantly, as the situation block 20,000 founding leader Jose Maria Sison heats up in the Philippines, in October protesting declared, "The Aquino Government has the Suharto regime in Jakarta executed Philippine done a lot in just a few days to 17 of the Communist prisoners who had peasants, in democratize the situation," adding, "I languished in jail these last 21 years largest leftist might even volunteer my help to her (Asiaweek, 19 October). demonstration Government" (New York Times, 6 If Sison and his "correction faction" in Manila March). are pushing for a coalition with Aquino, since Aquino came to power The contradiction between the Stalin­ . what perspective can CPP dissidents last February. ists' appetite to cohabit with the "pro­ offer? A purer version of a "national­ gressive" bourgeoisie and Aquino's CIA ~ democratic" government? The present anti-Communism has since produced a regime is the closest thing to bourgeois seismic rift within the CPP. Sison democracy the Philippines is ever likely 14 WORKERS VANGUARD grown increasingly desperate to hitch besmirch the tradition of Trotskyism their cart to Cory's ox. Thus the have grievously failed to call for a struggles of the worker-peasant masses program of permanent revolution in the have not been guided by a revolutionary Philippines. today. Thus Ernest Man­ program, but undercut by their leaders' del's "United Secretariat of the Fourth reformist capitulation to the CIA's International" issued a declaration on latest puppet. What is dramatically clear March 2 which nowhere mentions is the absence of a Bolshevik-Leninist proletarian revolution-or the need for vanguard fighting to turn the phony a Trotskyist party-and only calls on "February revolution" into an authentic "the democratic and anti-imperialist Philippines October. movement" to "continue to organize Upon his release from Marcos' and struggle for its aims" (Interconti­ prison, CPP leaderSison declared that nental Press, 7 April). Ceneta/Black "he was prepared to support the The American Socialist Workers Leftist guerrillas of New 'positive aspects' of the Government of Party, in turn, which today denounces People's Army control an President Corazon C. Aquino" (New Trotskyism as "ultraleft" and cheerleads estimated 20 percent of York Times, 6 March). This is precisely for the petty-bourgeois nationalist Philippine countryside. the line taken by Stalin and Kamenev in Sandinista leadership in Nicaragua, 1917 toward the "democratic" Provi­ calls for "extending" the Aquino "revo­ Insurgency in sional Government in Russia following lution" of "people power" (ibid.). And the Philippines the overthrow of the tsar, which unlike the U.S. Workers League publishes a Sporadically active in large areas of the the February coup d'etat in Manila was four-part series by Nick Beams, Aus­ Philippines. the New peoples Army. Moro a genuine political revolution. Lenin tralian acolyte of the' WL's dubious National Liberation Front and CordHlera Peoples Liberation Army are composed cabled on March 6 from Switzerland David North, which after much verbi­ mainly of small guerrilla units. Except for with a counterposed line of revolution­ age about the "Fight for Trotskyism" the city of Marawi on Mindanao. guerrilla activity is confined to the countryside. ary opposition: "Our tactics: no trust in advocates "a critical vote for Aquino" in and no support of the new government; the February elections (Bulletin, 20 Active presence of New Peoples •. Army (Communist) Kerensky is especially suspect; arming May)! This parliamentary cretinist of the proletariat is the only guaran­ support for the bourgeois, pro­ Active presence of Moro National • Liberation Front (Mostem) tee ...." Upon arriving in Petrograd, imperialist standard-bearer of CIA Lenin went on to state in his famous "democracy" is counterposed to every­ ~~ Active presence of Cordillera ~~ Peoples Liberation Army (local "April Theses": thing Lenin and Trotsky ever fought for. insurgency led by a former priest) 'The specific feature of the present In contrast, we wrote at the time: situation in Russia is that the country is "But for the Filipino people, the re­ New York Times passing from the first stage of the placement of the corrupt, brutal Mar­ revolution-which, owing to the insuf­ cos dictatorship with the 'clean team' of tionists into the arms of the CPP? future. So while the government is using ficient class-consciousness and organi­ Aquino and [vice president] Salvador However, the amnesty netted only some negotiations to buy time, the CPP is sation of the proletariat, placed power Laurel will mean the substitution of one 100 guerrillas, most of them probably using them as a pressure tactic to gain a in the hands of the bourgeoisie-to its set of American lackeys for another. previously planted "zombies" (agents). "popular front" with liberal elements of secondstage, which must place power in Marxists say: beware of coups 'Made in the Aquino regime. the hands of the proletariat and the -U.S.A.' ... Guerrilla operations have continued, poorest sections of the peasants." "A fight against imperialist domination .from Cagayan province in northern Where Stalinist/nationalist guerrilla -V.1. Lenin, "The Tasks of the and the anti-Soviet war drive which Luzon to the island of Mindanao in the struggles have reached the level of civil Proletariat in the Present determines the 'life of the Philippines. south, though at a reduced level. war, proletarian revolutionaries give Revolution" (7 April 1.917) described by the London Economist as Meanwhile, Pentagon estimates ofNPA military support to the leftist insurgents an 'archipelagic aircraft carrier,' re­ Where Lenin warned in his March quires class struggle against popular­ strength have grown from 16,000 to against the bloody armies of bourgeois telegram, "no rapprochement with front illusions and for workers revolu­ 22,000, controlling an estimated 20 reaction and imperialism. But we give other parties," today the CPP calls for tion, led by Trotskyist parties. from the percent of the countryside. no political support to their petty­ a "democratic coalition government" Philippines to the U.S." The military has also continued its bourgeois leaderships. The Trotskyists with Aquino herself plus assorted -WV No. 398, 28 February customary bombing, strafing, shelling seek instead a socialist revolution impotent liberals. The Stalinist program of "two-stage" and burning villages, killing and looting centered on the urban working class and (When some months later, the tsarist revolution seeks to resuscitate the the peasantry. In late September, NPA based on organs of proletarian power general Kornilov marched on Petrograd Menshevik line in tsarist Russia, whose top military commander Rodolfo Salas (soviets, factory committees, workers to overthrow the weak Kerensky re­ bankruptcy was demonstrated by the was arrested when he was in Manila in militias). InEI Salvador we call for gime, aiming to crush the soviets and the Bolshevik October Revoiution-e-the connection with cease-fire negotiations. military victory to the leftist insurgents left, the Bolsheviks took.the lead in greatest victory for the international Clearly this was a move by Enrile/ of .. the Farabundo Marti National mobilizing the workers against the proletariat in history. In the imperialist Ramos to scuttle Aquino's attempt at Liberation Front(FMLN), to smash the rightist threat. This set the stage for the epoch, there is no room for the emer­ negotiations with the rebels. They want armed first of the bourgeois state and Bolsheviks. to take power, ousting gence of an independent national a free hand for a bloodbath.rusing an open the road to proletarian revolution. army whose officers from top to bottom (However, the popular-frontist FMLN are still running rackets while their sol­ leaders are instead bent on pursuing an diers often have no boots, little food and illusory "negotiated solution" with defective equipment. The Armed Forces Duarte's death squad "democracy.") of the Philippines (AFP) of Emile/ In the Philippines, the NPA's peasant Ramos invites comparison with the insurgency remains at the level of wide­ puppet army of Thieu/Ky which was spread but relatively small-scale guerril­ routed in South Vietnam. "It will take a la operations, and the center of social ·Iot more time before they have a ca­ conflict has shifted to the working class, pable combat force they need," com­ both urban and rural. Were the CPP's mented U.S. ambassador Richard, Bos­ hoped-for "national democratic coali­ worth (San Francisco Examiner.' 24 tion government" to materialize, it September). would strengthen the bourgeois state, Given Marcos' failure to crush the leading in time to savage repression NPA despite a bloated 250,000-strong against the workers movement as wellas army and a dozen years of martial law, Communist cadres. A general truce or the Aquino forces aim to isolate the cease-fire by the NPA would take the Communists politically and use the pressure off the army and give Philip­ cease-fire negotiations to buy time. But pine capitalism a breathing space to if Aquino lacks the military wherewithal restabilize. As long as the present to crush the NPA, neither does she have situation of neither-peace-nor-war con­ Tom Fawthrop the political and economic means to buy tinues, with the NPA holding down the Embattled sugar workers on island of Negros show fighting spirit, May Day them off. Not that the nationalist neocolonial army in the countryside and 1984. Stalinists of the CPP won't play, ball. prolonging the state of disarray, it will Kerensky, within a matter of weeks. capitalism, and all the more so in Sison has called for a "lasting cease-fire buy precious time for the proletariat to Likewise, in the Philippines the working America's Philippine neocolony where in connection with the formation of a take advantage of the limited "demo­ class and its allies must mobilize Kennedy liberals intertwine with the old coalition government," suggesting that cratic" opening, which cannot last for independently to quash any. coup landlord families. But at the same time, the NPA could become a "strength in long, to organize for seizing state power. attempt by Emile and his fellow right­ uneven and combined development has reserve" to defend Aquino "in the face of wing militarists whose aim is to unleash produced a modern working class an armed forces that she does not fully For a Philippines October! '~ a bloodbath of the left, labor and alongside the age-old exploitation of the control", (Washington Post, 6 June). peasant guerrillas.) peasantry, The bloody U.S. imperial­ The CPP leader even said, while touring When the U.S. Air Force flew Lenin's call in the April Theses for ists, who slaughtered two million in Australia, that his party would retain Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos and their constructing "a state of the Paris Com­ Indochina, will not let their Philippine the U.S. bases, only demanding that the numerous retinue to Hawaii, with mune type," a government of the Soviets fortress go lightly. Thus victorious Pentagon cut back its personnel! another cargo jet to haul the crates of of Workers and Soldiers Deputies, was workers revolution in the Philippines Washington's instructions to Cory, bonds, currency and shoes, the rulers in congruent with views earlier advanced would strike a powerful blow against the emphatically reiterated during her re­ Manila and Washington breathed a by Trotsky, whose theory of permanent global anti-Soviet war drive, smash the cent trip to the U.S. where she begged collective sigh of relief. But in the revolution envisioned a dictatorship of imperialist encirclement of heroic Viet­ Congress for more aid, are to crush the aftermath, class polarization in the the proletariat, supported by the peas­ nam, and sparka revolutionary upsurge leftist insurgency. For the CPP/NPA to Philippines has progressively sharp­ antry, to carry out the democratic tasks throughout the region. . lay down their arms for the mere ened. Yet, ironically, as the Filipino of the bourgeois revolution and conse­ For a workers and peasants govern­ promise of amnesty would be suicidal, -masses have grown increasingly disillu­ quently undertake the socialist tasks of ment in the Philippines! Forge a Trot­ especially when Aquino could be ousted sioned in the hoax of "people power," the proletarian revolution. It is striking skyist party, Philippines section of a by a right-wing military coup in the near the bulk of the Philippines left has that those. forces internationally who reborn Fourth Internationalljs 7 NOVEMBER 1986 15 W'IIIlEIiS ""'(JIll' A-quino Regime Unraveling Philippines Workers Must Fight for Power!

international debt, have led to an upsurge in labor struggle, both in urban u.s. Bases Out! and rural areas. In Metro Manila, there is an explosive strike wave, including transit workers, air traffic controllers, NOVEMBER I-The Philippines is garment workers, hotel workers. And in today the weak link of U.S. imperialism the outlying provinces, sugar workers in the Far East. Last February, Wash­ unions on Negros are rapidly extending ington dumped its long-time puppet their organization, banana. plantation dictator Ferdinand Marcos when popu­ workers walk out on Mindanao, indus­ lar hatred for his corrupt and brutal rule trial and service workers strike in Cebu threatened to get totally out 'of hand. City. Most unnerving for U.S. imperial­ Hundreds of thousands swarmed into ism was an eleven-day strike last March the streets of Manila under the slogan of of 22,000 workers at the Pentagon's "people power," but the White House giant Subic Naval Station and Clark Air was pulling the strings, engineering the Force Base, the linchpin of the anti­ rebellion by top military leaders and Soviet war drive in the Pacific. Sensing removing Marcos at the crucial mo­ the weakness of the Aquino regime, the ment. His replacement, the "liberal" Filipino masses have moved against Corazon Aquino, is beholden to the their oppressors and exploiters. United States and the army for putting In short, there now exists in the her in power. All wings of the American Philippines a rare moment and excep­ ruling class were exultant over this tionally favorable opportunity to organ­ happy outcome. Secretary of State ize for proletarian socialist revolution. Shultz declared he was "bullish about The ruling class and its state apparatus the Philippines." Liberal Democrats are unable to rule as before, while the congratulated Reagan for bringing masses are no longer willing to live in "democracy" to the former American Edwin Tuyay misery and are fighting as best they can colony and site of the two largest U.S. May Day In Manila: workers march under red banners. Fall of Marcos for a better future. But the present military bases in the world outside dictatorship aroused expectations among masses which cannot be prerevolutionary situation is fragile in North America. fulfilled short of socialist revolution.. the extreme, and will not last for long. However, Aquino's "February revo­ months, many of our problems would islands denouncing Aquino as "soft" on Under orders from Washington, the lution" is now in deep trouble, and be s·olved. I guess this has disappointed the guerrillas. While the American Philippine military will move to restore Washington is worried. The bourgeois some of them" (Washington Post, 14 embassy and State Department declare capitalist order by seeking to crush both state apparatus has been thrown into September). To say the least! Mass "complete and unequivocal" .U .S. sup­ the militant workers movement and disarray by clashes between Aquino peasant and worker unrest is mounting port for Aquino, Emile wouldn't be up leftist insurgents. The only question is supporters and Marcos loyalists as well while the leftist insurgency is now to these tricks without backing from whether Aquino, like El Salvador's as squabbling in the cabinet, a den of rooted in 62 of the 73 provinces. .some section of the Reagan administra­ Duarte, will serve as a "democratic" Byzantine intrigue made up of hardline Currently, Manila is nervously watch­ tion. And while "Cory" tries to make up figurehead for the right-wing butchers, militarists, conservative businessmen ing a power play by Defense Min­ with "Johnny," making a show oftough or be overthrown by the military. The and liberal reformers. At the same time, ister Juan Ponce Enrile, a long-time talk to the NPA in order to appeal for situation cries out for a revolutionary the end of Marcos' 20-year reign has Marcos crony. Emile has demanded military support, all eyes turn to armed vanguard party, such as the Bolsheviks aroused expectations in the masses that liberals in the cabinet be fired and forces chief Fidel Ramos, another forged in Russia, to lead the Filipino which cannot begin to be satisfied short cease-fire talks with the Communist-led former Marcos henchman, to see which proletariat, supported by the peasantry, of socialist revolution. After eight .New People's Army (NPA) be broken way he will jump. to fight for its own class rule. months of "people power," 40 percent of off. He has made no secret of his At the top of Philippine society, the the working population is still unem­ ambitions to be a new Marcos, and his government is unraveling. In the coun­ The Fraud of "People Power" ployed and three-quarters of all Filipi­ people in the officer corps are full of tryside, the state apparatus has been up­ Last summer the liberal West German nos go to bed hungry every night. Cory coup talk. Enrile has threatened to ended with Aquino's wholesale appoint­ Aquino herself admits: "Many people resign and "do a Rambo" if his demands ment of "officers in charge" to replace Der Spiegel (7 July) published a perceptive article titled, "Philippines: believed that in the short space of six are not met, and recently toured the Marcos' local flunkeys. The OICs have little power against the entrenched The Revolution That Wasn't." (The author, Tiziano Terzani, was the Spiegel -l c patronage bosses and warlords, who o correspondent in Indochina both during o commonly retain private armies of .~ thugs. When these goons terrorize the U.S.' dirty colonial war and after the III victory of the Vietnamese Revolution in 3 Aquino's appointees, the army just 3 1975.) Pointing to the crowd of hawkers 'l' stands aside. Meanwhile, the NPA r around the Malacafiang Palace selling iii· guerrillas are more than holding their ~. own against the corrupt and demoral­ T-shirts with the slogan "People Pow­ ::l er," the article notes that these ·cost 35 ized military. Last June, Pentagon pesos apiece, a full day's wages for the spokesman Richard Armitage told a Defense minister average worker in Manila. So most of Senate committee that the "military Juan Ponce the poor are' still wearing the shirts situation [in the Philippines] is serious Enrile (center) handed out by the old regime by the threatens to "do and getting worse, with Communists thousands during the last - election a Rambo" if enjoying the initiative and assuming de campaign with the slogan, "Vote smart, Aquino doesn't facto control in areas where government crack down on influence has eroded over the years" Vote Marcos." Clearly, it was not the Communist-led (Philippine Report, June-July 1986). people who came to power in February: insurgency. "The social order has remained invio­ The disarray of the state apparatus, late. Those who were on the bottom along with severe economic distress have not come to the top. The rich are caused by falling commodity prices on still rich, the poor are still 'poor. the world market and an enormous continued on page 13 16 7 NOVEMBER 1986