WfJltltEItS ,,1N(JIJI1It' 25¢ No. 143 4 February 1977 Francoist Clerical-Fascists Gun Down Leftists Spanish Workers Will Avenge Their Deadl

JANUARY 31~Last Monday night two right-wing gunmen burst in through the door of an apartment building office on Madrid's Antocha Street and opened fire. Those in the apartment were left­ wmg labor lawyers known for their defense of militants of the illegal Workers Commissions; only minutes before, a deiegation of a hundred transport workers had left the office. The assassins ordered the occupants to lie on the floor and then blazed away with their machine guns. Five were killed instantly ':rnd four more lay seriously wounded on a floor that was bathed with blood. As news of this cold-blooded murder spread through Madrid and reverberat­ ed throughout Spain it provoked an immediate and massive outpouring of anger. Every politician and public figure from conservative Christian Democrats to the extreme left saw that he could be next; many went into hiding. From around the world telegrams of condo­ lence poured in as socialists, Commu­ nists and leftists of every persuasion i denounced this vile act. They all [ und~rstood: it could have been them. • In the capital the working class gave its response in the streets. Over 200,000 people marched in a funeral procession Europa Press for three of the slain leftists, members of 200,000 people marched in funeral procession last Wednesday for three Communist lawyers assassinated by right­ the Communist Party (PCE). Periodi­ Wing terrorists. lcallv there would be bitter cries of "assassins!" and the crowds would strike These maSSive strikes and angry .., up the "Internationale," but PCE demonstrations expressed the seething LCft Begs State Crush Fascists marshals would quickly enforce silence. hatred of the Spanish proletariat for the Barcelona was paralyzed as 200,000 fascist scum who had brutally assassi­ worl<\ers went on strike, including a sit­ nated their class brothers. From the down strike that took over the giant remote mining regions to the industrial SEAIT' auto plant. belts and the university campuses there Fake-Trotskyists In the Basque country, industry and was a clear realization that this had been shipyards at Bilbao were brought to a an attack upon all the working people. standstill and barricades were erected in Even backward and relatively apolitical PamplOna to defend the workers quar­ regions participated in this somber Embrace Francoist ters flrom a police onslaught. Asturian outpouring of the workers' anguish and mim:rs struck, universities closed and grim determination to avenge their even the new Ford Motor Co. plant near martyred dead. "Democracy" Valel1lcia~builtaway from the militant industrial belts of Madrid and Barcelo­ Fascist Provocations FEBRUARY I-The current crisis in cah [i.e., bourgeois] legality." na pltecisely in order to avoid "labor I The Antocha attack was universally Spain, growing out of a wave of rightist Who, then, will lead the proletariat to l troubaes"-was shut down by its newly ( understood as a provocation by Franco- provocation, poses fundamental tests to crush the blue-shirted Falangist thugs hired -"select" workforce in protest over continued on page 10 all those who speak in the name ofthe and fascist gunmen, by overthrowing the murders. working class. If the Antocha murders the capitalist state which nurtures and showed the mortal danger of fascist protects them? The crisis of revolution­ terrorists who would drown the left in a ary leadership is posed point-blank in PART 1 OF 2 sea of blood, the angry response by Spain today. hundreds of thousands of protesters In the last few days the police have demonstrates the tremendous comba­ responded to the campaign of provoca­ On the Class Nature of the USSR tivity of the Spanish proletariat. tion by arresting upwards of 200 leftists -, The Stalinists and social democrats in Madrid alone. The detentions have join Francoist prime minister Suarez in reportedly fallen heavily on Maoist and Trotskyism Ys. "State calling on the working people to remain syndicalist groups. The response of ii, "serene"~i.e., to allow fascist butchers authentic communists must be to and their police protectors to command mobl1ize the workers in militant Capitalism": From the streets. This is only the continuation action~especially in the factories, of their treacherous popular-front where their strength as a class is policy during the civil war when the con¢entrated~to demand the rightist Kautsky to Mao 6 reformists paved the way to Franco's repression be halted and the lett-wmgers victory by tying the masses to "republi- continued on page 11

... Boycott "lpiTombi"1

"Happiness is an African musical the apartheid state to its foundations. called Ipi Tombi" beams the marquee of Any work of popular entertainment New York's Harkness Theatre. But that portrays the inhabitants of Vors­ there hasn't been much happiness at the ter's bantustans as living in a state of theater since the South African produc­ Garden of Eden innocence is at least tion opened on Broadway last month. tacit apologetics for the racist status Instead there has been raging controver­ quo. But even so, "Ipi Tombi" remains sy surrounding the boycott organized by primarily a cultural event rather than the Communist Party-led Patrice Lu­ pro-apartheid propaganda. It is signifi­ mumba Coalition, the Socialist Work­ cant that until the show opened in New ers Party (SWP) and sundry cheerlead­ York, although it had toured extensive­ ers for "Third Worldist" causes. The ly outside South Africa it was not demonstrations, which began with the attacked for its content. There are show's previews in late December, plenty of better targets for anti­ crested on opening night, January 12, apartheid protest. when a thousand protesters congregated outside the theater. Protest or Boycott? Ticket-holders on their way in are A work of art or popula! entertain­ barraged with pleas to boycott the ment can. of course. have reactionary production. On their way out they are political content and as such be a hzmdcd a Lumumba Coalition leaflet suitable focus for mas~ protest. John ftIled with unalloyed moralistic outrage Wayne's "Green Berets" movie was as the likes uf which have not been seen much an apology for C.S. imperialism's since :\C'\ Leftists threatened to napalm Vietnam war as a Lyndon Johnson press puppies in order to force people to take conference. A militant demonstration a stand against the Vietnam War. The on the opening night of "Green Berets" headline reads: "CONGRATULA­ would have been legitimate, effective TiONS. YOU'VE JUST HELPED TO and highly desirable. However, to MURDER AFRICAN CHIL­ organile a general boycott ofthe film, to DREN!!'!!!!!" It goes on to assail the demand that people not see it. would theater-goers for complicity with the have been an act of stupid. liberaL racist terror of the apartheid regime: totalitarian moralism. Those who went "While you were in the Harkness to see "Green Berets" were not by that Theatre, enjoying yourself. ... you never act any more or less supporters of the thought that you'd be an accomplice to Vietnam war than those who watched the next group of murders in South LBJ speeches on television or read the Africa did you? Think of that-you editorials in the New York Dail\' News participating in genocide. How or Chicago Tribune. They were not thrilling." thereby "accomplices in genocide." The show's producers have been It would be wrong and unfair to worried by the flagging attendance, at equate "Ipi Tombi" with "Green Ber­ least partly the result of boycott public­ ets." John Wayne's film was produced itv, and in the lobby they distribute a deliberately and purely as chauvinist h~ndbill proclaiming, "What They're pro-war agitation, while this musical's Saying About 'Ipi Tombi' is a Lie." The taeit support for apartheid is primarily Madison Avenue ad writers who obvi­ by omission. But even where the ously composed it state that the South Demonstrators call for a boycott of South African musical "Ipi Tombi." reactionary content is quite explicit and African government "has nothing what­ deliberate, the context is crucial in ever to do with this show," and assert to hit the U.S. from South Africa." The black families. As for cultural distor­ determining the appropriateness of that, while it is "an entertainment," it SWP's Mililant (14 January) says the tion, "South Pacific" with its "happy protest action. Thus. for example, the also deals with "menial work and lack of boycotters "blasted the show for its talking" islanders is probably a good American musical comedy "Pajama opportunity for the Blacks in South exploitation ofBlack African artists and deal worse than the up-beat renditions Game" is the most disgusting sentimen­ Africa." Plaintively, the flyer asks: culture as well as its false portrayal of of Zulu and Xhosa folk acts in "Ipi talization of labor struggles in the "How did we become the victims of this what life for Black people is like under Tombi," choreographed and arranged garment industry. In song, dance and attack when we share the same hopes for apartheid." In response the flyer put out to appeal to popular Western taste. dialogue it presents falling in love with liberation." by the producers says that two of the "Ipi Tombi" is a musical, and like the boss as the solution to a strike. When The furor spread to the entertainment songs in the production are banned in most musicals it sentimentalizes its "Pajama Game" played on Broadway it pages of NYC newspapers as well. The South Africa, and supporters of the subject matter. It is a collection of was' of course, not primarily political New York Post panned the show, show cite lyrics about "starvation in the dances and songs around the theme of propaganda for the garment bosses; but likening it to a Yiddish folk troupe city of gold." the uprooting of villagers, the corrup­ in the unlikely event that during a real­ touring out of Nazi Germany; the Wall We do not know the political views of tion of urban life and longing to return life strike it were played as a political Slreet Journal, on the other hand, the musical's white South African to traditional tribal life. However, these demonstration against the strikers, then lauded "a rousing African musical" for creator, Bertha Egnos, and what, if any, motifs are common to folk culture in it might be a suitable target for protest. its "beautifully conceived, well per­ message she intended to convey in "Ipi just about every area of the world that is Context is even important when formed, downright invigorating repre­ Tombi." The show's "happiness" theme undergoing industrialization, The sup­ dealing with a work of intentional sentation of something that has been certainly presents a false portrayal ofthe posed purity of village life is a favorite political propaganda presented in a happening in much of black Africa in miserable conditions on the dirt-poor theme of African nationalists in particu­ cultural medium. For example, Leni this century-that is, the acceptance of tribal "bantustans." In the opening lar, and most of the dances in "Ipi Reifenstahl's classic "Triumph of the new ideas without the surrender of old scene the narrator recalls life in "my Tombi" could have been performed by Will" is both a piece of Nazi propaganda ones." The New York Times' Clive village," remarking "It was a busy time any number of black African dance and an important film for its innova­ Barnes found the controversy regarding because we always seemed to be singing troupes. It appears, in fact, that the tions in documentary technique. If it the presentation "more interesting than and dancing." Even the more somber show played in Nigeria as well, under were shown at a campus film society the show itself," which he termed "a scenes of life in the mines don't go the auspices of the National Theatre, a there would be no reason to protest it, genial bore." beyond vague hints at the unrelieved point made by the defenders of "Ipi but if the same movie were shown at a What is all the uproar about? Is "Ipi brutalization and exploitation in the Tombi" which the boycotters never meeting of the American Nazi Party it Tombi" an apolitical frolicking musical labor compounds. The song "Workday answer. would not only be appropriate to or a vehicle for soft-core apartheid in the Mine" concludes with a lament: But South Africa is not Nigeria or demonstrate but even to bust up the propaganda from the murderous Vors­ "A man can stand strong, but still things Guinea. "Ipi Tombi" can be accused of event. ter regime? Is the audience merely support for apartheid, but mainly for go wrong; tell me, who is to blame?" Labor Dispute in London engaging in harmless entertainment, or This question-the most political point what it omits rather than what it are they really "accomplices in geno­ in the entire production-never receives actually says. To portray life in the The boycott question has been cide"? Should the show be boycotted, a direct answer, but the Zulu warrior "tribal homelands" without once men­ clouded by a labor dispute in the protested or ignored? In answering these beckoning from the horizon suggests tioning the word "bantustan" is a London production of "Ipi Tombi." questions, both the content and context one: the miner should never have left his distortion of reality; to talk of returning Last November on-stage demonstra­ of the production must be considered, village, to the village without even hinting at the tions over wages and working cQndi­ and above all the question of a general­ The boycotters say "Ipi Tombi" is fact that more than six million black tions led to the suspension of four cast ized, permanent boycott of all things racist and distorts African culture. But it South Africans have been forcibly members. According to the 4 December South African as advocated by various should not be surprising that a show of returned to the "homelands" by police News Line (the British Healyite newspa­ liberals and reformists. this genre is filled with racist stereo­ round-ups is to prettify the white per), one of the suspended leaders ofthe supremacist terror. The implicit politi­ protest, Trusty Ntuli, returned to South Entertainment or Apartheid types; it is hard to think of a popular entertainment about blacks in America cal content of "Ipi Tombi" particularly Africa where he was arrested. This Propaganda? that is not, from "Superfly" films stands out now after the Soweto sparked a December 3demonstration in The boycott literature calls "Ipi glorifying ghetto drug pushers to TV massacre when the heroic struggles of London outside South Africa House. Tombi" the "latest propaganda project shows about "happy" middle-class the black and "coloured" masses shook And when the rest of the cast was 2 WORKERS VANGUARD ordered to return to South Africa to because the Transkei was on their "begin rehearsals" for the New York boycott list. run, a number understandably refused In an article in defense of Kani and WL/SL Exchange on Workers to do so. They were then dropped from Ntshona when they were jailed by the cast and new performers were hired Vorster's regime we wrote: Democracy to replace them. "It is not only a good thing that anti­ As a result of these anti-labor actions, apartheid plays be performed on some cast members wrote to the Broadway.... They must also be per­ American black-oriented women's mag­ formed before the victims of apartheid who are systematically deprived of azine Essence, suggesting a protest on cultural (or any other) means of Look Who's Calling the New York opening night. This expressing their outrage at their condi­ would have been supportable, but it is tion. For their courageous choice to not what happened. No signs at the perform their work under trying and Us Comrade . demonstrations appeated demanding dangerous conditions imposed by the VICIOUS Vorster regime, Kani and the rehiring of the London actors (who Ntshona -deserve the applause, not the have since gone on to form their own criticism. of foes of apartheid." New York. N.Y. separate company). Nor were any of the - WV No. 130. 22 October 1976 January 23. 1977 victimized cast members mentioned in The advocates of boycotting South Dear Cde. Robertson: signs or chants. The New Left Guardian Africa take the same line against the coverage and support of the boycott anti-apartheid work "Sizwe Banzi Is I wish to call to your attention that in failed to mention the labor question at Dead" as they do against "Ipi Tombi." recent weeks members of your organiza­ all, and most telling, the Lumumba The difference is that it is easier to rally tion have sought to disrupt both the Coalition wrote in its leaflet that the support for boycotting "Ipi Tombi" political work and public meetings of group had plans to boycott the show for because of its implicit acceptance of the the Workers League and Young a month prior to learning about the racist status quo. While it does prettify Socialists. London dispute, adding: "The issue we the bantustan system. "Ipi Tombi" is not On Saturday. December 4. 1976. your are raising here is not the wage scale or a deliberate and important statement in organization staged a provocative dem­ differential of the cast in this favor of apartheid. This fact, combined onstration outside the election head­ production." with our opposition to a general boycott quarters of the Workers League in Los This boycott has nothing to do with of South Africa and to political censor­ Angeles. One of our members was the London labor dispute. At most the ship of culture, is whv we do not involve physically attacked and thrown through boycotting groups use it as a cynical ourselves in the ca~paign against "Ipi a pane-glass window. The actions of fallback argument to appeal to trade Tombi." your organization resulted in bringing ; '", unionists. A contrast to the "Ipi Tombi" boycott the police to the scene. As you know, the .., was provided by the principled and police raided these election headquar­ ters over the summer, and your demon­ Against a Cultural Boycott of effective protest action last March by South Africa! the Spartacist League and others (not­ stration gave them still another oppor­ ably Communist Party-led Chile com­ tunity to harass our members. The present action against "Ipi mittees) against the Chilean singing Less than a week later, in Toronto, WV Photo two members of the Canadian Workers In L.A., December 4, WL goon Tombi" is part of a general policy of group, Los Huasos Quincheros. These screams: "Get that camera!" boycotting everything South African, scum had gone on Chilean national League were physically attacked by 12 from diamonds to dance-a policy television immediately after the bloody Spartacist members-some of them a provocation designed to facilitate advocated by the Stalinists and certain 1973 coup to swear allegiance to the Americans-as they attempted to diS­ frame-up attempts by you in connivance left liberals. This is a completely utopian reactionary Pinochet junta. They were tribute leaflets on the university campus with bourgeois police authorities, scheme reflecting, at bottom, liberal officially sponsored in a propaganda to advertise a public meeting. and/or (b) a tacit announcement, moralism. To the extent that it is effort to counteract the popularity of On Wednesday, January 19, 1977, 13 possibly as a result of the current successful, such an economic boycott other Chilean folksinging groups, nota­ members of Spartacist physically relationship of forces between us, that would foster unemployment for the bly the Inti llimani, that had toured threatened members of the Young your organization is contemplating oppressed non-white working people worldwide in benefits and concerts Socialists and prevented them from some change in your years-long stand­ and thereby indirectly strengthen the protesting the junta. Tickets were holding a meeting at California State ard practice against us (as well as other University in Los Angeles. socialists). Both in the U.S. and abroad Such provocations and use of this has consisted of. the eager use of -, violence play into the hands ofthe police your own violence, limitless slander, and the most reactionary class forces. and where possible. the employment of They can only damage the socialist the police to do your dirty work. These movement. I urge you to abandon this are facts which can. for example, be provocative policy and call your mem­ testified to first hand by sellers of any bers to order. other socialist newspaper at your meetings over the years. Fraternally. We have commented as appropriate David North. in our public press on the motives and National Secretary, Workers League purposes behind your long and unbro­ ken record of all-sided attempts to New York. N.Y. suppress and destroy the processes of 27 January 1977 workers democracy and we see no reason to pursue these matters here. D. North, As for the particulars which you Workers League. presently allege, our Workers Vanguard Dear Comrade, has already noted the very different reality of such incidents (and many 'We have received your letter of 23 others). January. It is evidently either (a) itself WV hoto Especially significant is the fact that Militant pickets jeer junta-supporters outside concert sponsored by the the last two major assaults by your Chilean junta in New York last year. people that we know of were centrally against cameramen in front of Healyite apartheid system. We do not begrudge distributed by the Chilean embassy and meetings. These comrades were at­ the 25 black South African actors and consulate, and it was reactionaries who tempting to deter or failing that docu- actresses of the "Ipi Tombi" company came to express their support for the opportunity to get out of the white Pinochet. continued on page 10 supremacist hellhole, to earn several The momios (mummies), as they are hundred dollars'a week to take back called in Chile, were jeered by the with them or, if they choose, to refuse to demonstrators. We did not care that go back. It is certainly anomalous for some of these reactionary junta backers WfJRIlUlS the left to tell them to go home. could not get through the line of fist­ South Africa's black masses need waving demonstrators to see their broad international contact, not cultu­ "cultural event." This was no culturill ,,1NtiO,1'D ral isolation. In this regard, it will help event. It was not the musical content but Marxist Working-Class Weekly put the "Ipi Tombi" controversy in the understood political purpose of the of the Spartacist League of the U.S. perspective to recall the Stalinists' performance that made a one-time response to the South African play protest action, not a boycott, effective as EDITOR: Jan Norden "Sizwe Banzi Is Dead." The Stalinist-led a statement of outrage and an exposure PRODUCTION MANAGER: Karen Allen African National Congress attacked the of the terror policies of the Pinochet CIRCULATION MANAGER: Anne Kelley actors of "Sizwe," John Kani and regime. EDITORIAL BOARD: Charles Burroughs, It is possible that another cultural George Foster, liz Gordon, Chris Knox, James Winston Ntshona, for failing to respect Robertson, Joseph Seymour the ANC's call for a "complete, total event will serve as a demonstration of Published weekly, except bi-weekly in August economic, athletic, cultural boycott of solidarity with the bloody Vorster and December, by the Spartacist Publishing South Africa." regime in South Africa. In that case, we Co., 260 West Broadway, New York, N.Y What had the actors done to deserve will again be in the front line of 10013. Telephone: 966-6841 (Editorial). 925-5665 (Business). Address all correspond­ this criticism? They performed a moving protesters against any celebration of ence to: Box 1377, G.P.O., New York, N.Y. dramatic statement against apartheid apartheid terror. But "Ipi Tombi" is not 10001. Domestic subscriptions: $5.00 per year. Second-class postage paid at New York, N.Y. and the bantustan system in the Trans­ that. and by attending it theater-goers WV Photo kei bantustan itself. Although they were do not become scabs or supporters of WL thug (holding club) threatens Opinions expressed in signed articles or letters do not necessarily express the editorial arrested for their defiant performance, white supremacy. They just waste their WV salesman and SL supporters in viewpoint. they earned the wrath of the ANC money.• L.A. 4 FEBRUARY 1977 3 / ! New York SlH'rtacist forum I I Reforge the Fourth Internationall I It Close to 200 Spartacist supporters pitiful, rotten and disgusting fascist The PST has now gone on to found • For military support to petty­ .. and a scattering ofopponents attended a movements of any of the major imperi­ the "Bolshevik Tendency" with much of bourgeois nationalist forces fighting i New York City forum last Saturday to alist countries." the Spanish-speaking component of the imperialism, but absolutely no political hear James Robertson, national chair­ Contrasting the American AFL-CIO splintered USec. Because of the bloody support to such forces; for Trotskyist man of the Spartacist League! U.S., with the French Stalinist labor bu­ repression which the Argentine left now parties in every country; speak on the topic, "Toward the Rebirth reaucracy-a sophisticated apparatus faces, "the PST cannot swallow the pure • For unconditional defense ofall the of the Fourth International." with roots going back to the Paris legalism, constitutionalism, passivity, deformed! degenerated workers states Evaluating the state of the class Commune and quite competent at pacifism of the would-be social­ against imperialism; for political revolu­ struggle in different regions of the rescuing the bourgeoisie from revolu­ democratic SWP. How can you believe tion against the bureaucracies; no I world, the speaker began by noting a tionary crises such as that posed by the in pure legality when agents of that political support to competing Stalinist reported breaking down of traditional 1968 general strike-the speaker re­ legality are killing you?" cliques and factions; paternalistic relations which have marked on the brittleness and rigidity of Observing that the Bolshevik Tenden­ • Against violence within the bound the Japanese proletariat to its the U.S. union bureaucracy. "Can you cy has positions on Angola, Portugal workers movement; industrial masters. While noting the imagine the AFL-CIO dealing with and elsewhere which formally parallel • For communist fractions in the historic failure of Trotskyism to root general strikes?" those of the international Spartacist unions, based on the Transitional itself in this nation, the economic pivot He added, "The principal grievance tendency (iSt), the speaker recounted Program; . of Asia, he predicted the opening of a we have with'organizations in this PST leader Nahuel Moreno's sordid • For the communist tactic of the period of intensified class united front from above; for the tactic of confrontation. regroupment to unite subjective revolu­ Comrade Robertson characterized tionists in the vanguard party; for the revolutionary turbulence in the intransigent exposure of centrism; Mediterranean region of Greece, Italy • Rejection of the claims of and Iberia "which are historically im­ ostensibly Trotskyist Internationals to poverished, undercapitalized ... and un­ speak for the Fourth International, stable from the standpoint of a revolu­ destroyed by Pabloism in 1951-1953; tionary proletarian assault. Therefore • For the reforging of a democratic­ this is right now the region par excel­ centralist Fourth International which lence of the popular front. An old­ will stop at nothing short of the fashioned stable coalition of social­ dictatorship of the proletariat. democratic labourites and liberal Comrade Robertson noted the rich bourgeoisie isn't good enough," he opportunities open to the iSt as a result added. "You've got to have revolution­ of the decomposition ofthe USec and of ary slogans in order to deceive the the evident disorientation of much of masses, because the conditions of life the Maoist movement, but observed are qualitatively less tolerable. So you that most of these opportunities present find popular frontism: into the rest of themselves where our forces are quali­ the sellout broth you drop a hammer tatively weaker, outside of North and sickle." America. "In the U.S. we regrouped "In Italy, the great hope is that the ourselves out of chances to have fusions Pope and the Communist Party will WV Photo with forces that are close to us." make a deal. It's called the Historic Discussion period at Spartacist League public forum held January 29. Unlike the SL!U.S.'s opponents, Compromise." which have undergone considerable country such as the Communist Party past: how he for several years put out a fragmentation in the last, relatively The speakerdescribed the safety valve and the Socialist Workers Party is that newspaper whose masthead proclaimed unfruitful period, the Spartacist League mechanisms which have tended to they're all geared up to play the role of it was published "under the revolution­ has demonstrated its political and deflect the impact of the economic rendering it less brittle, more elastic, ary discipline of General Peron"; how programmatic cohesion. "Mercifully, contradictions in Germany, France and more flexible." The SWP has used its the PST pledged its support to the the Scandinavian countries where pow­ Young Socialist Alliance to prepare "continuity" and "institutionalization" for a number of years we have had no erful social-democratic and Stalinist "one thousand youth instantly to be of the second Peronist regime. It is the significant forces in our organization that want to insurrect against either the parties have kept the organized workers hired as assistant educational directors record of an inveterate reformist. The party program or the party administra­ under control while the problem of and assistant editors of union newspa­ fact that the PST can sound like tion." The speaker cited the recent trade unemployment is solved by deporting pers" in its ambitions to serve as social­ Marxists on Angola or Portugal (just union Active Workers Conference as immigrant workers back to the villages democratic handmaiden to the labor like Moreno's earlier, very orthodox­ evidence that "It's clear that particularly of the Mediterranean basin. Britain, bureaucracy. sounding polemic against Guillermo over the last five years of intensive however, hovers on the edge ofeconom­ Comrade Robertson reported on the Lora on the Bolivian Popular Assem­ industrialization, proletarianization, ic collapse, with all the objective most recent developments in the bly) shows not that they are misguided that we have already acquired a signifi­ preconditions for a working-class faction-ridden "United" Secretariat but rather the opposite: that they are cant, effective and strong "cadre of upheaval. (USec). He noted with particular inter­ fully conscious renegades from communist trade-union militants who ~ The British left, historically accus­ est the "Self-Criticism on Latin Ameri­ Trotskyism. can act as a corrective in this tomed to the political hegemony of the While excoriating all three wings of ca" by the steering committee of the organization... fossilized British Labour Party, cannot International Majority Tendency led by competing revisionism, Robertson conceive of the possibility which we Ernest Mandel et aI., whose vicarious pointed out that "the USec is the In his presentation, Robertson had seek-the polarization and destruction guerrillaism the speaker described as principal ostensible international repos­ noted the replication within the ostensi­ of this reformist obstacle. The interna­ "catering to the impressionism of South itory of what claims to be Trotskyism. bly Trotskyist movement of all those tional bankers are more far-sighted: the American and European youth who And therefore we have the not overly revisions and mutilations of the revolu­ speaker quoted a New York Times thought that you go out and pick up the happy task of pointing out that this is tionary program which have plagued editorial page article of 6 December gun and a bit ofplastique and preferably not Trotskyism." If, he added, under the the workers movement for over a 1976 which envisaged just this some stereotyped peasants, and away pressure of revolutionary events such as century. Today especially, "Trotskyism possibility. you go. Lenin and Trotsky were really might have developed in Portugal, a has become an 'in' word" among those "The response of foreign lenders has to old hat, if they weren't crypto­ wing of the USec were to polarize who would adopt a radical posture free be finely calibrated: Massive austerity around genuine opposition to popular from the taint of Stalinist betrayals, but could produce a violent reaction that opportunist." In their self-critique, the would be harmful to both major IMT honchos renounce their previous frontism and in favor ofdual power and whose politics are in fact quite remote parties.... A return of the Tories with tailing of Guev~rist adventurers and a Leninist party, our tendency would from those of Trotsky and his heirs. As mounting unemployment could well proclaim that the SWP-Ied reformist welcome the opportunity to join with if to illustrate this point, the discussion turn the hope of social peace to the minority had been right all along on such elements in common opposition to period was punctuated by an indignant certainty of social conflict. The Labor hue and cry from two such groupings, Party might finally split; a new socialist Latin America. In response the minority the reformist and centrist USec party, with a Trotskyist core and its has now proposed to dissolve its own leadership. who-despite diametrically opposed class anger, would constitute the most faction! As a model for the principled pro­ differences with the essential core of radical party in Europe." Concerning this latter tendency the grammatic basis necessary for such a Trotskyism-united for the occasion to On the U.S.:the speaker commented: speaker remarked: "The Socialist regroupment, the speaker outlined the condemn the SL from the standpoint of "The very nakedness of this govern­ Workers Party-write them off. Sim­ key points of a draft declaration by cheerleaders for petty-bourgeois ment's lying and hypocrisy, the greed of ply, unconditionally, totally; as an Trotskyists expelled and driven out of nationalism. the bourgeoisie and the inability to do organization, write them off. They are the USec who now adhere to or support Unable to respond to the revolution­ anything about it in any apparent way reformists. They are locked hopelessly the iSt: ary proletarian program ofthe iSt, these have created an enormous amount of into bourgeois democracy, constitution­ • No political or electoral support to charlatans charged the SL with "racism" explosive social material in America al processes and a touching faith in all popular fronts; for conditional opposi­ because the speaker referred to anti­ looking for an outlet." While this also capitalist cops, courts and judges." He tion to workers parties in open or impli­ Semitic prejudices of many ghetto leaves open the possibility for the pointed out their actual motive for cit class-collaborationist coalitions; black's and the prevalent tendency for growth of fascism, Robertson observed offering peace to the IMT: they lost all • Uphold the Trotskyist theory of lumpen blacks to identify Jewish shop­ that, unlike its European counterparts, hope of acquiring a: majority themselves permanent revolution; for proletarian keepers as the class enemy. The League the American fascist movement is when their bloc with the Argentine PST leadership of the national! social continued on page 9 "happily one of the smallest and most fell apart. struggle; 4 WORKE.RS VANGUARD. Bandaranaike Breaks Island-Wide Strikes in Sri Lanka by Edmund Samarakkody

COLOMBO, January 16--The railway However, what was dramaticallv a loan of Rs. 500 to meet especially the In this context, there was a real workers strike which paralysed the manifest in these strikes was that th~ high costs of school books for their possibility ofthe strikes being developed railway services for nearly 30 days, and ever-rising cost of living in conditions of children, and also the rising costs of into a general strike against the govern­ the strikes in other government depart­ virtual wage freeze had reached the food and other essential consumer ment on economic as well as political ments and workplaces-invoiving in all breaking point for workers and wage goods, soon became a strike .of all issues, such as ending of the State of over 75,000 employees on the issues of earners, both in the government and workers in the workshops at this factory Emergency and the restoration of loans, wage increases, etc.-ended in the private sectors, and that large sections on December 15, involving over 5,000 democratic rights, and the release of all face of severe repression by the of the workers in the trade unions had workers. political prisoners, which were the SLFP/ CP [Sri Lanka Freedom Par­ taken the first steps to bypass their Within a week, this strike spread to subject matter of previous agitation ty! Communist Party] coalition regime, reformist leaders, to take the road of the other railway workshops in Colom­ especially by the LSSP and other left facilitated by the treachery of the CP struggle as the means of winning their bo and the out-lying stations; simultane­ parties and groups outside the coalition and SLFP trade-union leaders, and the pressing demands. ously, engine drivers, railway guards, alliance. failure of the LSSP [Lanka Sarna What commenced as agitation by a station masters and other sections of The reaction of the Bandaranaike Samaja Party] to sustain and develop group of workers in the major railway railway workers-in all, over 26,000 government to the strikes was not Ir the strike movement. workshops (Ratmalana) on the issue of workers-brought the railway services difficult to guess. Far from being ready to a complete standstill on December to grant any wage concessions to the 21. workers, the government was categori­ The strike at this stage was sponsored cal in its denunciation of the strikes as 20 Y~~rs A!Jer Serving Sentence by the United Front of the Railway unreasonable and unjustified, and tbat Trade Unions, and the issue was not the they were politically motivated. On the single demand of a loan. Eight other other hand, as the smashing of the trade demands, including wage demands, unions and the left movement was the "Tokyo Rose" Pardoned were raised by the striking unions. government's perspective, these strikes That the issue of increased wages was could well be an opportunity to take As Gerald Ford left office he chauvinist hysteria. She and her a burning question for all government some meaningful steps in that rcg

The following is the introduction of a theories, had attained a more-or-less forthcoming Spartacus Youth League stable alignment. Newly formed groups pamphlet which brings together several were inexorably drawn into one of the recent articles from Workers Vanguard fundamental historic tendencies. For and Young Spartacus on Maoist econ­ example, those factions which split to omics. attempts by apologists for the the right from the Trotskyist Fourth Chinese bureaucracy to explain a International over the Russian question supposed "restoration ofcapitalism" in (e.g., Max Shachtman and Tony Cliff) the post-Stalin USSR and theories of drifted into the camp ofsocial democra­ "state capitalism" generally. cy; others who split to the left (e.g., J.R. Johnson and Grandizo Munis) became Ever since the Bolshevik Revolution, anarcho-syndicalists in all but name. differences over the nature of the Soviet The political! theoretical alignment Union have been the single most on the Russian question which was important question underlying the established in the 1930's has now been principal divisions within the interna­ disturbed by new fanatical converts to tional workers movement. Almost the doctrine that the USSR is "state capitalist"-the Maoists. China's post­ 1971 de facto alliance with U.S. imperi­ alism against Brezhnev's Russia is PART 1 OF 2 justified by the contention that the latter has become a "social-imperialist super­ immediately after October the social power," which is "more dangerous" democrats condemned Lenin's soviet than the older capitalist states. Today government as a historic step backwards the most aggressive, shrill campaigners from bourgeois democracy. As early as for the view that the Soviet Union is an 1919, Kautsky declared the USSR to be exploitative class society are no longer "state capitalist," ruled by a "new class" the social democrats or anarcho­ of bureaucrats. syndicalists; rather, they are the Mao­ A few years later disillusion set in ists, acting in the name of orthodox among the anarchists, particularly over Stalinism. Kronstadt. They denounced Lenin's The Maoist diatribes against Soviet centralist regime as a "dictatorship of "state capitalism" have their ironies. the party" and repeated the Bakuninist Those tendencies on the left which dictum that the state is the fundamental considered themselves the most impla­ source of all social oppression. Then, cable enemies of Stalinism, which after the institution ofthe New Econom­ accused the Trotskyists of being soft on ic Policy (NEP) in 1921 and with the Stalinism, now hear their arguments emerging Stalinist bureaucratization, from the mouths of the most unregener­ ate, hard-line Stalin cultists. In turn, the Maoists could have lifted their denun­ ciations of Brezhnev's Russia almost word-for-word from Kautskyan and libertarian polemics' against Stalin's regIme. In fact, some of the more eclectic New Left Maoist intellectuals are even willing to turn to social-democratic revisionists to beef up their poor theoretical armory. An Italian sympa­ thizer of the "Chinese road to social­ Navasti Press ism," Antonio Carlo, maintains that The Dnieper hydroelectric station planned under the 1920 "Plan for the Russia under Stalin was "bureaucratic Electrification of Russia" and completed in 1932. collectivist" ("The Socio-Economic Nature of the USSR," Telos, Fall 1974). between Stalin and those who con­ capitalist" were the social democrats. One supporter of the academic mao-oid demned him as the ruler of an exploita­ This followed logically from the Monthly Review agrees with its editor tive class society. For example, in one of Kautskyan! Menshevik dogma that Paul Sweezy that the Soviet bureaucra­ Trotsky's last polemics on the question Russia was too backward to support an cy is a ruling class, but finds the notion he wrote: economic system more advanced than that the USSR is capitalist unconvinc­ "Shachtman revises not only the present capitalism. The assertion that Lenin's ing. He suggests that the analyses of policy of the Fourth International but Russia was capitalist was a necessary Archiv Karl Kautsky Shachtman and Rudolf Hilferding are also the past. Since we are against Stalin we must therefore be against the USSR component of the Second Internation­ more germane: too. Stalin has long held this opinion. al's reformist worldview. ultra-left tendencies in the Third Inter­ "The socially stratified, bureaucratical­ Shachtman arrived at it only recently. national, notably Gorter/ Pannekoek in ly planned societies of the Soviet bloc From his rejection of the Kremlin's Karl Kautsky's 1919 polemic Terror­ Holland and the German KAPD, are class systems, and if we could raise politics flows complete and indivisible ism and Communism lays out all the concluded that capitalism had been Marx from the grave he would say so. defeatism." basic arguments which social democra­ Marxists have defined these planned -"From a Scratch-To the restored in Russia. societies in various ways: bureaucratic Danger of Gangrene," 1940 cy subsequently employed to denounce During the 1930's Leon Trotsky the USSR as more distant from social­ collectivism (Shachtman), totalitarian Stalin and Shachtman shared a developed the position that the USSR states (Hilferding), state socialism ism than bourgeois democracy. Kautsky common identification of the political was a bureaucratically degenerated (Naville). Whatever the correct name identifies democracy with parliamen­ for these societies, one feature is c1ear­ character of the ruling party or group workers state. The maintenance of a tarianism and condemns the rule of the bureaucracy is a class." with the dominant social class repre­ collectivized planned economy indicat­ workers councils (soviets) as itself a -Ross Gandy, "More on the sented by the state. ed the proletarian, anti-capitalist nature Nature of Soviet Society," violation of socialist principle. He Despite individual variation and of the state. Stalin's totalitarian terror Monthly Review, March 1976 defines Lenin's Russia as "state capital­ overlapping argumentation, there re­ rested on a parasitic bureaucratic caste, We will not comment on the scientific ist," a condition which was worse for the main three distinct ideological ap­ which had to be ousted by the working merit ofan author who claims the Soviet workers than tsarist rule! proaches to "state capitalism," each class in order to open the road to Union is a class society but does not "In order to save industry, therefore, a corresponding to the major political socialism. Of all the opponents of know what kind of class society it is. new class of officials had to be formed tendencies upholding this position: and put in authority over the workers. Stalinism within the workers move­ The intellectual convergence between This new class gradually appropriated ment, only the Trotskyists regarded the the traditional social-democratic and social democracy, anarcho-syndicalism and now Mao-Stalinism. to itself all actual and virtual control, Soviet Union as a continuing, albeit anarcho-syndicalist attitude toward the and transformed the freedom of the qualitatively deformed, expression of USSR and the Maoist-Stalinists comes Social-Democratic Liberalism workers into a mere illusorv the dictatorship of the proletariat. as no surprise to Trotskyists. In his freedom.... . and Economism "The absolutism of the old bureaucracv By the eve of World War II the basic many polemics on the Russian question, has come again to life in a new but ... by political divisions over "the Russian Trotsky on numerous occasions pointed Predictably, the first exponents ofthe no means improved form; and along­ question," each with its characteristic out the methodological parallelism view that Soviet Russia was "state side of this absolutism are being formed 6 WORKERS VANGUARD l, I I I : I I I ! I , • • From K~utsky to Mao

the seeds of a new capitalism ... which accumulation at the expense ofworkers' in reality stands on a much lower level both knowledgeable enough and honest concrete, particular nature of Soviet than the industrial capitalism offormer wages. enough to make this revision of Marx society and its evolution from Lenin to days. It is only the ancient feudal land The most prominent-but by no explicit: Stalin, or from Stalin to Brezhnev. He estate which exists no more. For its means earliest-exponent of the "Sta­ "The Marxist sectarian cannot grasp and his fellow anarcho-syndicalists have abolition conditions in Russia were linist industrialization equals capital­ the idea that present-day state power, a simple-minded definition of class as ripe. But they were not ripe for the ism" school is Tony Cliff, a renegade having achieved independence, is un­ abolition of capitalism. This latter folding its enormous strength according any distinct group of political or system is now undergoing resuscitation, from Trotskyism who heads the British to its own laws, subjecting social forces economic administrators. In other nevertheless in forms which, for the International Socialists group. For a and compelling them to serve its ends words, for them the basic division in proletariat. are more oppressing and comprehensive exposition of the fraud­ for a short or long period of time. society is between the order-givers and more harmful than those of yore.... ulent and economistic Cliffite theory 'Therefore neither the Russian nor the Industrial capitalism, from being a the order-takers: of state capitalism, see "The Anti­ totalitarian system in general is deter­ private system, has now become State mined by the character of the economy. "We also hold that the means of capitalism. Formerly the bureaucrats of Marxist Theory of 'State Capitalism'­ On the contrary, it is the economy that production may change hands (passing the State and those of private capital A Trotskyist Critique," in Young is determined by the policy of the ruling for instance from private hands into were often very critical, if not directly Spartacus Nos. 51 and 52, February and power and subjected to the aims and those of a bureaucracy, which collec­ hostile, towards one another. ... Today, March 1977. purposes of this power. The totalitarian tively owns them) without this revolu­ however, both State and capitalist power lives by the economy, but not for tionising the relations of production. bureaucracy have merged into one At bottom the "accumulation equals the economy or even for the class ruling Under such circumstances ... the society system. That is the final result of the capitalism" argument is a workerist the economy-as is the case of the is still a class society, for great Socialist upheaval which the and/ or demagogic identification of the bourgeois state...." production is still managed by an Bolsheviks have introduced. It repre­ physical means of production with -Ibid. agency other than the producers sents the must uppressive ofall forms of themselves." capital (the means of production as despotism that Russia has ever had." For Brinton and his co-thinkers the [our emphasis] privately owned commodities). Marx's The theory of "bureaucratic collectivism," which also arose at this ultimate goal is not liberating mankind All later theories of state capitalism are classic exposition on the nature and time, is very close in spirit to Hilfer­ from economic scarcity and arduous built on foundations anticipated by "the organization of a workers state, the ding's "totalitarian state." The seminal toil, but the relatively trivial one of renegade Kautsky" less than two years "Critique of the Gotha Program" expression was by Bruno Rizzi, an eliminating hierarchical relations at the after the Bolsheviks had come to power. (1875), contained a polemic against the Italian ex-Trotskyist who in 1939 wrote point of production: This fact in itself points to the reformist Lasallean notion that "every worker The Bureaucratization of the World. "Workers' management of pro­ ideological premises inherent in the must receive the 'undiminished proceeds duction implying as it does the Like Hilferding, Rizzi identified Stalin's notion of "state capitalism." of labour'." In it he clearly total domination of the producer over regime with the rise of fascism and With the onset of Stalin's stated that part of the surplus over the prOductive process-is not for us a (unlike the social democrat Hilferding) marginal matter. It is the core of our industrialization drive in 1929, social­ consumption would be devoted to accumulating additional means of with Roosevelt's New Deal. "Bureau­ politics. It is the only means whereby democratic ideologues added another authoritarian (order-giving, order­ production: cratic collectivism" was seen as a world­ argument to their basic "parliamentary taking) relations in production can be historic phenomenon, the rational democracy is the road to socialism" "Let us take first of all the words transcended and a free, communist or 'proceeds of labour' in the sense of the solution to the anarchy of capitalist anarchist, society introduced." position. Stalin's unbalanced concen­ product of labour; then the co-operative production. tration on producer goods and break­ proceeds of labour are the total social At bottom, this type of simplistic II neck industrialization tempo led to a product. The concept of "bureaucratic collec­ libertarianism is a utopian desire to drastic fall in the living standards of the "From this must now be deducted: tivism" was taken over and popularized return to the "free" artisan status ofpre­ , "First, cover for replacement of the industrial society. Brinton's polemic .., Russian masses. This enabled social­ by the American renegade from Trot­ I means of production used up. against Bolshevism was fully answered democratic spokesmen to declare Rus­ "Secondly, additional portion for ex­ skyism, Max Shachtman. With the over a hundred years ago by Engels in sia "capitalist" because it maximized pansion ofproduction." [our emphasis] defeat of the fascist powers in World I War II, Shachtman drew the conclu­ his classic anti-anarchist tract On I If accumulation of the means of I sions of his growing conviction that Authority (1873), where he pointed out: production is the programmatic norm "bureaucratic collectivism" (i.e., Stalin­ "Wanting to abolish authority in large­ for a model workers state, how much scale industry is tantamount to wanting ism) was a greater threat to a socialist F more important and rapid must accu­ to abolish industry itself, to destroy the IE future than bourgeois democracy, and power loom in order to return to the • mulation be in a backwardworkers state spinning wheel." facing imperialist encirclement? was therefore inexorably drawn into the Stalin's purges in the late 1930's fanatical anti-communism of official We really have nothing new to add. American social democracy. provoked a new class of theories which The Bolshevik Revolution gave rise to focused on the rise of the "totalitarian a current of ultra-left communists who state," an ideological tradition culmi­ The totalitarian state theories which shared many of the premises of the nating in the unrelieved historic pessi­ burgeoned in the late 1930's all stand in traditional anarcho-syndicalists. Partly mism of George Orwell's 1984. Stalin's the social-democratic tradition in that in response to the capitalist features of they imply (even when they don't II purges seemed to represent the existence NEP and partly reacting against the explicitly assert) that Stalinist Russia, of an omnipotent, arbitrary state power emerging Stalinist bureaucratization, like Nazi Germany, is a historical unconcerned with rational economic these ultra-left tendencies split from the purpose; Russia was a giant Gulag. retrogression from the most advanced Third International, denouncing Russia capitalist democracy. Rudolf Hilferding, the most talented as capitalist. The most important figures theorist of inter-war social democracy, in this tendency were the Italian ISR Max Shachtman argued that Stalin's Russia represented The Reactionary Utopias of Amadeo Bordiga and the German Hugo a new historical phenomenon, totally Anarcho-Syndicalism Urbahns. unanticipated by traditional Marxist Bordiga mocked the demagogic theory and categories. In a 1940 essay he In discussing the anarcho-syndicalist workerist view that Stalin's Russia was put forth a brilliant criticism of the attitude toward the USSR it is useful to capitalist because factory directors i concept of "state capitalism" as applied distinguish between those claiming the drove big cars. But his own theory is no to the USSR. He also rejected the classic Bakuninite tradition and the less simplistic: notion that the bureaucracy was a ruling ultra-left communists who supported "It [the bureaucracy] obtains these class with a sound argument that the Lenin's Third International and claim to commodities in exchange for rectangu­ individuals comprising the bureaucracy be Marxists. lar pieces of paper which it folds up into ~' had no institutional means for appropri­ The traditional anarcho-syndicalists wads that are held close to its heart in I small leather purses called billfolds. ating a definite share of the surplus condemned the Bolsheviks for carrying These paper rectangles are money, product, or even maintaining their out the Marxist policy of state owner­ rubles in Russian: therefore, this is a positions in the social hierarchy. He ship of the means of production dnd bureaucracy of a capitalist mode of correctly observed that the Soviet economic centralism. A recent effective production." bureaucracy, "is in fact subordinate to restatement of the classic anarcho­ -"Le trotskysme," in Pro­ gramme Communiste, the government to the same extent as are syndicalist case against Lenin's Russia is October-December 1972 the rest of the people" ("State Capital­ Maurice Brinton's The Bolsheviks and ism or Totalitarian State Economy," in Workers Control. 1917 to 1921 (1970). Bordiga demonstrates that socialism, Irving Howe, ed., Essential Works of In this well researched and fairly objec­ the lower stage ofcommunism, does not Socialism [1970)). tive historical essay, Brinton correctly exist in the USSR: classes continue to Hilferding reverted to an essentially asserts that the Bolsheviks were always exist, as do commodity production, anarchist conception of the state as the committed to centralized management money and wage labor. It is not a dominant and autonomous institution and that their guarded acceptance of socialist mode of production, he con­ in society, rejecting the Marxist position workers' self-management in 1917-18 cludes; therefore it is capitalist. that the state power defends the pro­ had a conjunctural tactical purpose. As the foremost opponent of ever Socialist Worker Tony Cliff perty interests of a distinct group (i.e., Brinton's essentially pre-Marxian participating in bourgeois parliaments, class) central to economic life. He was outlook makes him indifferent to the continued on page 8 -, 4 FEBRUARY 1977 7

, -" 100 in U.S. Jails Face Tonton Macoute Torturers From Kautsky to Mao ... (continued/rom page 7) Bordiga fancied himself the most No Deportations of Haitian ferocious defender ofthe dictatorship of the proletariat. But he denied any economic content to this class dictator­ ship; it was simply and exclusively a question of who held state power. ~~ Economically there was no transition Refugeesl period between capitalism and socialism in his view; the revolutionary party of A week of protest dramatizing the / " , the proletariat may rule but capitalism plight of Haitian refugees in the US ..."" remains until money, wage labor and was held in Washington, D.C., last week commodity production are eliminated. under the auspices of the Haitian "In Russia," he wrote, "... capital was (Catholic) Fathers and the National never destroyed, because it could not be: Council of Churches. Over 1,500 refu­ it was simply controlled for an instant gees from the blood-drenched Caribbe­ [during the period of so-called 'war an dictatorship who arrived in Miami communism'] by the dictatorship of the within the last three years have been Bolshevik party; then it destroyed this denied political asylum by the U.S. party" (our emphasis). Immigration and l\aturalization Serv­ This thesis is a frontal assault on the ice (INS). The State Department has the Marxist theory of the state, by denying gall to claim that Haiti is no longer a that it has any economic content, that "totalitarian state" since the 1971 death state power is based on armed bodies of of right-wing despot Fran90is ("Papa men defending certain property forms. Doc") Duvalier and the succession of his The collectivist economy (abolition of son Jean-Claude ("Baby Doc") Duva­ private ownership of the means of I lier. Thus Haitians arriving in the US production, planned production) count I are refused classification as political for nothing. It is not surprising, there­ refugees. Like the thousands of migrant fore, that Bordiga not only rejected Mexican workers who enter the U.S. Trotsky's theory of a degenerated each y:?ar, they are considered "illegal workers state under Stalin, but ex­ ahens. pressed his distaste for the term worker.1 I At the Januarv 28 rallv concluding slate. Although his argumentation was the week of prote'sts, spokesmen for th~ complex, the reason was straightfor­ refugees described how thousands have ward: he wanted to deny that there was ned Haiti for their lives. Manv bear the anything for the workers to defend in scars from blows of the' Tontons the Soviet Union. Macoutes (the Duvaliers' private army) There are no significant anarcho­ on their backs; others have seen their syndicalist or ultra-left communist families dragged off before their eyes. groups in the English-speaking world. Far from simple "job seekers," almost In marked contrast to Latin Europe and all of the Haitian refugees who have also Japan, in the U.S. the notion of been denied asylum are either members Soviet "state capitalism" is generally of underground opposition groups, associated with social-democratic and innocent victims of the Tontons' whims now Maoist reformism, and with who protested too loudly. or friends and support to American imperialism as the relatives of someone in the first two lesser evil as against the USSR. categories who are threatened because One articulate exponent of the left of ,that relationship. version of "state capitalism" in the U.S. The speakers described the odyssey of is Raya Dunayevskaya. Of Russian refugees who sail more than 800 miles to origin, Dunayevskaya entered the Trot- Miami, many in leaky fishing boats so ____tClIiI IIiIRiI-Ii'M'M· primitive and poorly stocked that new Ii arrivals often have to be immediate1y ~ hospitalized. Once in Miami-usually unable to read, write or speak English~ Sadlowski... they are easy prey for the Immigration (continuedfrom page 12) agents and a network of parasites who live off the plight of the "illegals" by E:\A but has already committcd himself providing smail but crucial "favors." to enforcing it until it expires three years When interrogated by the INS the real from now. He rants against the power of facts of the refugees' situations are Big Steel but opposes its nationali;a­ further concealed because, accordmg to tion. He moans about unemployment the speakers, the INS translator in but has not lifted a finger to fight sizable Miami is notorious for his familv's close layoffs in his own district, while calling connections to the Duvalier regi~e! The for reducing the steel workforce by three long arm of the Tontons Macoutes quarters. He says that the union must be reaches into the sizeable Haitian com­ controlled by the ranks yet gives the munity in the U.S., so that new arrivals green light to the government to directly would risk kidnapping and death (not to police USWA affairs. Daniel Laine mention victimization of their friends The hated "tontons macoutes," the national police force On not olle single issue does and relatives at home) if they reveal to Sadlowski hreak from the class col/ah­ U. S. authorities their oppositionist 1976). Moreover, in the past year AI has by Jean-Claude himself). The most orationism of the mainstream labor activities against the Duvalierist documented a wave of arrests of elementary signs of political opposition hureaucracy. He is nothing but a 1970's dictatorship. returned exiles whom the regime sus­ are still mercilessly wiped out through version of the Reutherite liberal bureau­ Over 95 Haitian refugees are present­ pects of opposition activities. Exiles beatings, imprisonment and murder. crats who have so firmly subordinated ly being held in jails in Immokalle, sometimes prefer death to returning to Since 1954 when the Duvaliers came the once-militant UAW to the auto Florida, and EI Paso, Texas. Some Haiti, as was horribly demonstrated by to power, 40,000 people have been companies. Only by forging an inde­ spend up to 16 months in prison until the 1974 suicide of Turenne De Ville in assassinated. Trade unions are still pendent opposition within the union bail is raised by the Council ofChurches his Miami jail cell only hours before he outlawed and immediate death is still that consistently defends working-class and release is arranged. On the outside was to be deported. Since then two other the penalty for anyone found associated independence and fights for militant without working papers, some get jobs prison suicides have been reported. with any sort of "communist activity." class-struggle policies---both on immed­ as maids or field hands while others live Haiti under the Duvaliers is one ofthe Today the cycle of life in Haiti remains iate trade-union questions and in the on handouts from relief organizations. world's most backward, corrupt and one of famine, corruption, theft, rape fundamental political questions which Many have deportation proceedings barbaric regimes. It is reported that and traffic in blood, drugs and corpses. affect all workers~-can steel workers hanging over their heads. "Papa Doc" once/had the skull ofa rival The poorest country in the Western take the struggle forward to victory. Contrary to the smug insistance by brought to his office where he interro­ hemisphere, it has an average per capita Remember: in 1965 I. W. Abel the Haitian ambassador to the U.S. that gated 'it for several hours. Perhaps after income of $70 a year. Ninety percent of campaigned against McDonald on the those returning to Haiti will not be the token cosmetic facelifting instituted the population is illiterate, life expectan­ slogan of dumping "tuxedo unionism." penalized, Amnesty International (AI) by "Baby Doc" to please his American cy is 35 years and half the children die It was tough talk, but there was no reports that Haitians who acted on mentors, they no longer behead corpses before the age of four. Despite claims program to back it up. This year reports in the American press that the in Haiti. But the population still lives in that industry is picking up under the Sadlowski---another labor faker on the Duvalier regime had liberalized are terror ofthe Tontons-now euphemisti­ new regime, sales of human blood (for make-blasts Abel for sipping martinis sometimes taken to prison minutes after cally called "Volunteers for National which Haitians are paid $4/liter as with the bosses, but his program is no they touch down at the Port-au-Prince Security"-and the still more elite opposed to the going rate of $20/ pint in better than McBride's. Don't be airport (Guardian [London], 6 June squad, the Leopards (formerly headed continued on page 10 fooled! • 8 WORKERS VANGUARD skyist movement in the 1930's. She split term but money as the price expression the strike to meet the government from the Fourth International in the late of value." repression that had begun. While the CP 1940's as part of an essentially syndicalist What Dunayevskaya neglected to Sri Lanka ... was in the coalition alliance and was faction led by the West Indian J.R. mention is that "to each according to his (continued from page 5) giving Sirima Baildaranaik.e full support Johnson and loosely tied to the Spani­ need" is the capsule description offull However, while the CP leader and to launch repression (thus making it ard Grandizo Munis. communism. As Marx clearly stated in Housing Minister Keuneman gave full part of the forces of repression), the An early, brief and cogent statement the "Critique of the Gotha Program," support to the Bandaranaike cabinet to LSSP which was reputed to be in "the of Dunayevskaya's position is "A New the transitional epoch is characterized smash the strike through severe repres­ opposition" totally failed to do anything Revision of Marxian Economics" pub­ by economic scarcity and therefore by sive measures, CP leaders in the strike to counter governmental measures to lished in (of all places) the American differential wage labor. Wage labor in a committees did everything possible to break the strike. Economic Review (September 1944). workers sfate serves to allocate different contain, weaken the strikes and dis­ Taking account of the green light (She is polemicizing here against a types of labor, ration scare consumables courage the workers from continuing given by the trade-union leaders, by the Russian Stalinist economist who main­ and ensure an external compulsion to the strikes. This treacherous role of the LSSP and all other trade-union leader­ tains that the law ofvalue prevails under work. CP could not be concealed from the ships not in the strike, the government "socialism",-whence the title.) This is If the economy is based on wage workers and several leading CPers in the took the necessary follow-up actions. the heart of Dunayevskaya's position: labor, then the money cost of produc­ strike committees suffered physical Thus on January 6 the government "There is incontrovertible evidence that tion must be the key index ofeconomic assaults at the hands of the strikers. refused to allow the use of loudspeakers there exists in Russia at present a sharp accounting and calculation. The money While the LSSP had a need to for the rally ofthe LSSP-Ied federations class differentiation based upon a cost of production is the only common strengthen its trade-union base, espe­ in support of the strikes. The LSSP division of function between the work­ cially since its sacking from the coalition ers, on the one hand, and the managers denominator (though a highly imperfect leaders meekly conformed to police of industry, millionaire kolkhozniki one) which allows comparison of alliance in September 1975, the leader­ orders, and their workers rally was [collective farmers], political leaders different kinds of resources expended ship ofthis party (like that ofthe CPand virtually disrupted without the use of and the intelligentsia in general, on the on physically heterogeneous goods and other reformist parties and trade un­ loudspeakers. other.... This distinction between the services. Contrary to Dunayevskaya, ions) was only ready to countenance intelligentsia and the mass of the Other repressive measures followed workers has found its economic expres­ economic calculation based on labor limited strikes and not at all any strike swiftly. Following cabinet directions the f sion in the formula: 'From each accord­ costs in terms of money outlay does not movement that had potentialities of police drove out strikers when they I ing to his abilities, to each according to mean the predominance of the law of leading to anything like a confrontation gathered, even in small groups, in the • his labor.' This formula should be value in the economy. with the bourgeois state. The real vicinity of strikebound places. Police I compared with the traditional Marxist I formula: 'From each according to his What is the positive program implied problem for the LSSP in this strike also arrested hundreds of strikers even ~ ability, to each according to his need.' by the anarcho-syndicalist and left com­ movement was to create the impression in private premises if these places were 'Each according to his need' has always munist contention that the USSR is that it was in the leadership while doing close to the workplaces where strikes ~ been considered a repudiation of the I state capitalist? For the former, it is nothing to sustain or widen it. had occurred. I law of value. The document, however, producer cooperatives necessarily lt was pressure from the ranks of the In order to expedite the disruption of -\ states that 'distribution according to -, linked through market relations; for the government clerical services that pushed the railway and 'bus' workers strike, the II labor' is to be effected through the I' instrumentality of money. This money latter, it is a purely administrative the LSSP-Ied Government Clerical police visited the homes of strikers who I is not script notes or some bookkeeping economy, an idealized version of the Services Union, jointly with other were dragged out and compelled at I "war communism" of 1918-21. Both clerical unions, to launch strike action bayonet-point to resume work under the ~: these programs are reactionary utopias. on January 6. It was in order to launch supervision of the armed forces They cannot exist as stable economic this strike that the LSSP-led trade union personnel. systems, and attempts to implement federations-the Ceylon Federation of When the government said that its f Reforge the such programs will lead to economic Labour, the Government Clerical Serv­ repression was being carried out accord­ I collapse. ices Union, and the Government Work­ ing to plan, and that the trade-union I A system of producer cooperatives ers Trade Union Federation-held the leaders were not ready for any counter­ ( Fourth would in short order degenerate into only workers rally in support of the measures through the mobilisation of • capitalist exploitation. In the absence of strikes. the workers, it hastened to give the'coup International! • • • state restriction, the more profitable Nor was it just sectarianism on its part de grace' to the strike by finally cooperatives would buyout bankrupt that prevented the LSSP from taking clamping a press censorship of all news (continued from page 5) ones and exploit the former cooperative steps to win the participation of other regarding the strike. members as wage labor. The immanent big trade unions and federations under F for a Revolutionary Party, Sy Landy's It was obvious to the strikers that tendency ofworkers management under different leaderships in this struggle. r latest clique spinoff from the Shacht­ under these conditions, their strike market conditions to transform unprof­ The truth is that the LSSP did not want manite RSL, writhing with what Ro­ movement could not continue. About itable enterprises into spheres ofcapital­ to broaden this strike. It had no bertson termed its "vicarious closet January 15 the strikers, who had shown I ist exploitation is generally recognized perspectives ofa general strike although black nationalism," was horrified by the great courage and determination in in Yugoslavia. The leading Titoist its paper Janadina frequently referred to SL's recognition of the need to fight regard to theirstruggle, understood that theoretician, Eduard Kardelj, explains the need for a general strike in the lumpenism as an obstacle to the attain­ the wisest course of action was to end that only strict government control situation. The LSSP long ago lost all f ment of revolutionary consciousness by the strike. The leaders of the trade prevents profitable enterprises from perspective of mass struggle against the unions who had played a treacherous the black masses. taking over financially weak ones and capitalist class and the capitalist state. To its glorification of lumpen rage, role, including the leaders of the LSSP­ exploiting the latter's labor in a fully That is why the LSSP failed even to the speaker responded: "This is a racist led unions, were relieved that the capitalist manner (see his "Toward make a pretense of calling together the country. You'vegot to speak the truth strikers were ready to have the strikes Higher Forms of Integration," Socialist unions and federations of the JCTUO about what it's like in this country. The called off. These leaders could well say Thought and Practice, April-June (Joint Council of Trade Union Organi­ that the strikers were not ready to blacks and whites don't trust each other. Ir 1967). sations-the coalition trade-union cen­ They don't like each other. The van­ continue their strikes, and that it was Ifproducer cooperatives are a road to tre) which was disrupted by Sirima guard, if it refuses to face this, can never not they who called off the strikes, but capitalist restoration, then the idea ofa Bandaranaike after the 20 February build an interracial Leninist party." the workers themselves! moneyless, marketless, totally adminis­ 1976 token general strike. Other SL speakers exposed the true Thus a powerful government workers trative economy under conditions of The government also took note that appetites of these Shachtmanites' petty­ strike movement which could well have scarcity is a reactionary utopia pure and the unions and federations under other bourgeois moralism in their refusal to been developed into a general strike simple. The .5oviet mas~s, who suffered leaderships-Bala Tampoe, Thonda­ defend busing (the defeat of which can against the capitalist SLFP-CP govern­ the militarization of labor under Stalin, man, Shanmugadasan (CP-Peking) and only embolden forces ofracist reaction), ment and the capitalist class, was who still wait in line hours every week others-would not go beyond giving lip­ their support for "reform" trade-union broken up without the workers winning for goods in short supply, will not take service to this strike movement. bureaucrats like Arnold Miller and their any of their demands, by the unprece­ kindly to programs for allocating labor Of course, the "revolutionary leader" consistent refusal to defend the gains of dented repression of the SLFP-CP by administrative fiat and rationing of the Ceylon Mercantile Union the Russian Revolution which, despite regime, the treachery of the SLFP-CP consumables in physical units. While (Tampoe), Thondaman and the rest did qualitative degeneration under Stalinist trade union leaders and the virtual the ultra-left communist program will something in this regard. Through their bureaucratic rule, have survived in the abandonment of the strikes by the [ never be a serious contender for power coordinating committee, the TUCC collectivized property forms. LSSP. J against the Stalinist regime, such utopi­ (Trade Union Coordinating Commit­ ( If indeed even a section of the I Derisively a Communist Cadre an fantasies may seduce idealistic tee) these leaders wrote a letter to the working class has understood that what spokesman remarked, "Your glorifica­ radical youth, the potential cadre of a prime minister! In this letter, these basically led to the collapse ofthe strike tion of the SWP tradition really shows revolutionary Marxist vanguard. leaders called upon the "government to where you're at. You're the real Can­ movement was the t;eachery and the do­ I settle the strike democratically"! r [TO BE CONTINUED] nothing policy oftheir reformist leaders, f nonites and the SWP has betrayed It was in this context, that the then it could well be said that the E Cannonism. Well, Trotsky was stuck government decided to break the strike. ! working class has made important gains ~ with Cannon...." On being accused of On January 4, the government SL/SYL PUBLIC OFfiCES in this strike. This would mean that the I Cannonism, Spartacist supporters in clamped on the "essential services I unpostponable task of driving out their r the audience broke into applause. Revolutionary Literature order" by which the strikes became reformist leaders and the forging of the The forum was concluded with a illegal. It is true that the workers on BAY AREA new revolutionary leadership has al­ defense of Cannonism by the speaker. strike defied this order. But the leader­ Friday and Saturday 3:00-6:00 p.m. ready been sharply posed for the Tracing the development of the post­ ships of the striking unions did nothing 1634 Telegraph, 3rd floor workers of Sri Lanka.• Leninist Comintern in various coun­ (near 17th Street) to mobilise the strikers and other tries, where repression, splits, capitula­ Oakland, California sections of the workers not involved in tions and revisionism destroyed or Phone 835-1535 Australasian ~ crippled those movements, he pointed CHICAGO E out: "Only in the United States... was Tuesday 4:30-6:00 p.m. SPARTACIST f Saturday 2:00-5:30 p.m. China's Alliance with there a continuous Leninist-Trotskyist a monthly organ of revolutionary Marxism for [ 650 South Clark 2nd floor U.S. Imperialism the rebirth of the Fourth International " tradition embodied in an organization Chicago, Illinois A Spartacus Youth League published by Spartacist Publications for the I Phone 427-0003 Central Committee of the Spartacist League of I and a cadre. And however critically we Pamphlet Australia and New Zealand, section of the look at the history of the American NEW YORK international Spartacist tendency I section, for 30 years before us we have Monday-Friday 6:30-9:00 p.m. Price: $1 U.S. $5-12 Issues (airmail) had the privilege, if we use it well, of the Saturday 1:00-4:00 p.m. U.S. $2-12 Issues (surface mall) 260 West Broadway, Room 522 Order from/pay to: Spartacus Youth PUblishing Co., P. O. Box 625, Canal St. only continuous revolutionary Marxist New York, New York Order from/pay to: Spartacist Publications, Station, New Y011l, N.Y. 10013 GPO Box 3473, Sydney, NSW 2001, Australia experience on the face of the planet. Phone 925-5665 That's what Cannonism means.". .. 4 FEBRUARY 1977 9 -' Since coming to office last July, the regime is the continuation of the Spaniards" and echoed the traditional government of Prime Minister Adolfo bonapartist dictatorship of Francisco Falangist salute. "Viva Espana!" (New Spanish Suarez has sought to give the impression Franco: and like the Generalissimo's York Times, 27 January). Another PCE of gradual democratic reform of the reign, its power rests on the narrow leader. Luis Lucio Lobato, went so far Workers ... encrusted Francoist state apparatus social base of the state apparatus. With as to advocate that any granting of while maintaining political "stability" sections of the repressive apparatus in amnesty be extended to include the (continued fro 111 page 1) based on forcible repression of the left. more or less continual insubordination, fascist assassins (£1 Pais [Madrid], 27 ist ultras to force military intervention Suarez' phony "constitutional" referen­ the Suarez government's program of January). against what they perceive to be the dum in December was a qualified Francoist "reform" is stymied for lack of The PCE reformists have seized upon government's drift into the arms of success. and early last month West organized popular support. Politically the fragility of the regime in the hope of "godless Communism." It came only German chancellor Helmut Schmidt. the most important result of the Anto­ establishing themselves and their half a day after the kidnapping of the first social-democratic head of state cha murders has been that the govern­ popular-front allies as the main bulwark General E~ilio Villaescusa. the head of to visit Spain since the civil war. ment for the first time openly sought the of "Spanish democracy." This was made the Supreme Council of Military Justice expressed the "confidence ofdemocratic support of the so-called "democratic explicit when on the day after the and a reputed "Bunker" hardliner opposition"-and got it, proving that assassinations a joint communique within the army. Credit for the kidnap­ this cabal of pusillanimous conserva­ appealing for "serenity and civic respon­ ping was claimed by an obscure terrorist tives, liberals and reformists is neither sibilities" was signed by Prime Minister group. the GRAPO ("First of October democratic nor a real opposition. Suarez and six representatives of the Anti-Fascist Resistance Group"). which For years the Spanish Communist "democratic opposition." The statement claims to be leftist. However. left groups Party has been seeking a "reconcilia­ expressed "identity of views in con­ disclaim any knowledge of the G RAPO tion" with the bourgeoisie and a demning political extremism which. and many insist that it is merely a cover "healing" of divisions wrought by the because of its violence, threatens to halt for fascist provocateurs bent on carry­ bloody civil war. In the early 1970's it the ongoing process of democratic ing out a "strategy of tension." gave organizational form to these class­ normalization of Spain" (Le Mandl'. 26 Immediately following the killings collaborationist aspirations by signing a January). With this treacherous declar­ there were comparisons to 1936 and "Pact for Liberty" with several bour­ ation of support for the Juan Car­ widespread talk of an "Argentinization" geois "progressive" notables and form­ los Suarez government policies, all the of Spain. The clerical-fascist gunmen ing the popular-front Assembly of PCE's blustering against "Francoist who carried out the Antocha massacre Catalonia. In mid-I975 this was repli­ reformism" is revealed as empty talk. st\led themselves the Anti-Communist cated on the national scale with the They will find out soon enough that this A'postolic Alliance (AAA-recalling the formation of the Junta Democratica; a piece of paper will not protect them notorious Argentine death squads); they year later this PCE-dominated coalition against the bullets of the police and threatened to unleash a "night of the joined with a Socialist-led counterpart fascist terrorists. long knives" to wipe out the left should to form the Coordinacion Democratica. Memories of the civil war run deep in anything happen to Villaescusa or to During the past year the PCE's firm Spain. Major sections of the Spanish Antonio Maria Oriol (the president of commitment to popular frontism has bourgeoisie are not prepared to allow the state council and a close friend of been expressed in the streets as the governmental participation by the PCE King Juan Carlos), also kidnapped by AFP Communist leadership has time after or even its full legalization, because they the "GRAPO." Spanish CP leader Santiago Carrillo time refused to mobilize the key centers fear that concessions would fuel a new Meanwhile, the more familiar fascist of proletarian militancy in a national working-class upheaval. From the hard­ Europe in the Madrid government" (LR groups were also running wild. as were general strike against the dictatorship. line Francoist Bunker to the capitalist the police. In addition to the five victims Monde. 8 January 1977). As proof of Likewise, on every key political ques­ financiers of the myriad fascist gangs, this confidence and to buttress the shaky gunned down by the AAA, two students tion the PCE has endlessly demonstrat­ the Spanish bourgeoisie remains deter­ were also murdered last week. A 19­ Suarez regime, he invited the Spanish ed its "reasonableness." In November mined to defend its class rule through year-old was fatally shot in the back at bourgeoisie to join its imperialist breth­ 1975, at the time ofthe Caudillo's death, the use of naked terror. By fostering ren in ~ ATO and the Common Market. Madrid University during a demonstra­ Mundo Obrero (the party newspaper) illusions in the capacity of the Francoist tion for amnesty of political prisoners Internally the government has sought headlines demanded "No to the Franco­ dictatorship-a barbarous regime built and refugees; before pulling the trigger, to balance between the Francoist ist Monarchy!" Now, in a recent New on the corpses of hundreds ofthousands the assailant cried out "Long live Christ Bunker and the centerI left "democratic York Times (16 January 1977) inter­ of workers and peasants-to reform opposition." Having pushed through a the king." the battle cry of the Guerri­ view, Carrillo says that if a majority of itself, the PCE and its "left" camp reform of the Cortes (parliament) to lleros del Cristo Rey. A vicious police the Spanish people accepts a monarchy, followers disarm the proletariat before assault against the demonstrators fol­ break the hold of appointed notables of "we will work inside the monarchy." In the fascist death squads. It is by ~ational lowed. during which a woman student the Falangist Movement. by now typical "Eurocommunist" style, overthrowing these false leaders that the was hit in the face by a tear gas Suarez scheduled legislative elections the interview goes on to say, "I ... accept militant Spanish workers will prepare to cannister: she died the next day. for some time in the spring. There was American bases in Spain" and "If the avenge their fallen comrades! • Communi~ts talk that even would be Spanish Parliament votes entry into permitted to run "as individuals." But NATO, we obviously will accept it." then in late December the police tried to In the course of the last week's events, force the regime's hand by arresting the PCE's popular frontism has system­ PCE leader Santiago Carrillo (instead atically held back the popular outrage. Haitian WL/SL of deporting him in accordance with their standing orders). Exchange ... Suarez responded to this insubordi­ Refugees ... nation by abolishing the draconian (continued from page 8) (continued/rom page 3) Tribunal of Public Order, placing New York) remains a principal export. ment \our calculated violence against political cases under the jurisdiction of In 1974. 6,000 donors were being bled other 'socialists (see WV:\ o. 130, 22 civilian courts and dismissing the head one liter every seven days with six tons October 1976 and WV :\0. 137. 10 of the Guardia Civil. The armed forces of blood being delivered monthly to the December 1976). command in early January published a U. S. in Haitian government planes! To the extent that your organization statement affirming their allegiance to While many among the several does not continue to try to deprive us of the constituted authorities. But the hundred thousand Haitian immigrants those rights necessary to the socialist police were not cowed, and as 200,000 living in the U.S. have left the impover­ and labor movements, you can assure protesters marched in the streets of-­ ished island for essentially economic vourselves that the concerns so hypo­ Madrid last Tuesday a one-month reasons, the vast majority of those who critically expressed in your letter will "emergency" was proclaimed and the undergo tremendous hardships, risk of automatically disappear. And we note repressive apparatus mobilized against death and possible deportation to enter that in any case 'we will continue to the left. Militants of Maoist, "Trotsky­ this country clandestinely are clearly defend yo'ur own legitimate rights ist" and syndicalist organizations were political refugees from the Duvalierist should they be threatened from any rounded up, demonstrations were torture regime. Yet while these victims quarter. banned. stringent gun controls were of rightist terror are denied access to the Corresponding to your violence enacted and the police were authorized U. S., political asylum is routinely against us has been your previous to burst into any home and throw granted to thousands upon thousands of justification that we are "police agents." anyone in jail for up to ten days without reactionaries fleeing the deformed "fingermen of the world bourgeoisie," charges. workers states of Vietnam and Cuba. etc. (]ust try physical assault on genuine As a token gesture of "even­ Using Gestapo-like police-state tac­ police agents sometime!) We therefore handedness," the government deported tics, INS agents every year deport find your closing paragraph. with its several Latin American ultra-rightists more than one million so-called "illegal appeal to us as fellow socialists to stand and sought to portray the Antocha aliens" from the U.S. Class-conscious against provocations and violence, killings as the work of crazed Argentine RoyallTime workers must demand that all the particularly obnoxious and hypocriti­ fascists. But at the same time it released Adolfo Suarez deportations be stopped immediately! cal. Trulv your situation must be Mariano Sanchez Covisa, head of the At the same time that we are the precariou~ {or you to certify our fascist Guerrilleros del Cristo Rey From the marshals who silenced chants strongest fighters to win legal status for "socialist" legitimacy. In any case. and (whose ties with the Guardia Civil are and hymns to a "strike" call by the PCE­ Haitian refugees, we have pointed out in honor of our present elevation by notorious). as well as the assassins of led labor coordinating committee that that the demand for "blanket amnesty" \'ou. we too are giving salutations to you two Carlists shot during a public emphasized the need to stay at home made by the Haitian Fathers and the ~s "comrade" and "fraternally." al­ meeting of the populist-monarchist and avoid confrontations with the National Council of Churches is inade­ though since you also identify us as group last spring. Last summer's much fascists, these reformists have allowed quate. Even with the alien's "green heralded "Spanish road to democracy" accomplices to the SWP leaders who are the police and Francoist gunmen to card," such individuals face the threat of appeared to be at a dead end. "GPL accomplices" according to your control the streets. Communist spokes­ deportation at any moment for such acts currently most active slander campaign. From the Popular Front to man Simon Sanchez Montero spoke of as joining a trade union or participating we do so with repugnance. Francoist "Reform" the murder of five party comrades only in politics. The workers movement must Fraternally. Despite its transparent "democratic" in terms of "convert[ing] these vile fight for the extension of full citilenshir .1. Robertson pretensions, the Juan Carlos Suarez murders into a reconciliation of all rights to all foreign workers! •

10 WORKERS VANGUARD breakthrough"~a pact with the govern­ Fake-Trotskyists ment to achieve a peaceful transition from bonapartist dictatorship to hour­ geois democracy! The Infamous Barcelona Embrace We find among the signatories to this popular-frontist declaration not only Communique the Republican Esguerra, the Carlists The undersigned parties: Francoist and the Assembly of Catalonia--all First, condemn the attacks which resulted in the deaths of three bourgeois formations~butalso most of policemen [in Madrid on January 28]. . the "extreme left," from the Maoist; "Democracy" Second, consider that the measures decreed by the CounCil of syndicalists to the Liga Comunista (continued from page 1) Ministers do not contribute to the regulation of the present situation. Revolucionaria (LCR~a Spanish sym­ Third, energetically condemn the arbitrary detentions of numerous arrested in the police raids be immedi­ pathizing section of the USee). This is members of democratic parties and the violent raids upon their homes. ately released. indeed a "chastening" of the once They reaffirm their democratic will and that they bear no responsibility However, in an act that is simul­ ferociously guerrillaist LCR. Gone are for the Madrid attacks. taneously a betrayal of the working the days when it gave "total" support to Fourth, as a result they demand: class, lethal idiocy and an example of the Basque nationalist bomb assassina­ a) the immediate freeing of democratic militants who have been reformist cowardice, the Spanish "cx­ tion of Prime Minister Carrero Blanco. detained and a halt to the utilization of arbitrary measures; treme left" has sought the "protection" Gone, too, are the davs when the LCR's b) immediate action against the real culprits in the present situation, of bourgeois liberals and ofthe Franco­ single crowning dem~nd was the mythi­ i.e., the fascist and para-police organizations. ist state itself! While the dominant cal "HGR"---the Revolutionary Gener­ Stalinists and social democrats signcd a Fifth, reaffirm that only the reestablishment of all democratic and al Strike which would explode one day national rights, notably that of unrestricted amnesty, would allow joint appeal for calm with the head of with the sole demand of overthrowing advance in a climate of democratic tolerance. With these goals in view, government, their "left" camp followers the Franco regime. they demand the firmest unity and responsibility of all people in the vesterdav issued a joint communique But the Spanish Mandelites did not (see ho~) in Barcelona that totally framework of this democratic statement and condemnation of all the stop at giving up their terrorist murders committed. embraces reformist illusions of Franco­ spontaneist myths. They went on to ist "democracy" through self-reform of adopt the most wretched aspects of the [Signed] the bloody dictatorship. legalistic reformism of their opponents Partido del Trabajo (Comite de Cataluna), Esquerra Repubii9ana de The press statement which was inside the LSec. Who among those that Cataluna. Frente Nacional de Cataluna, Asamblea de Cataluna, Liga reprinted without comment in Ruugc, have followed the interminahle squah­ Comunista Revolucionaria, Movimiento Comunista de Cataluna, the organ of the French section of the bling in the "United" Secretariat does Organizacion Revolucionaria de los Trabajadores, Partido Carlist,a, fake-Trotskyist "U nited Secretaria t" nut remember the vehemence and scorn Partido Comunista de Espana (Marxista-Leninista). Organizacion --, (USee) led hy Ernest Mandrl­ wit11 which the Mandel-led majority Comunista de Espana (BR), Partido Comunista (Unitario) condemned the killing of three police­ condemned the Argentine PST for -Rouge. 30 January 1977 men in Madrid (claimed by the mysteri­ pledging support to the "institutionali­ ous "GRAPO") as well as the arrests of zation" of the murderous Peronist ...... -..._~---_.---,----_ ...... _------~------, numerous members of opposition regime?! :'\low the majority follows suit. popular-frontist "Revolutionary Uniteo ._----.._-~ groups, and demanded from the gO\Trn­ The Barcelona communique proves Front" (FUR) statement supporting the ment "immediate action against ... the once again the complete inability of Armed Forces Movement, proves once SPARTACIST LEAGUE , fascist and para-police organizations." these revisionists and renegades from again t he urgency of the struggle for the LOCAL DIRECTORY :: What fools! They are calling on the Trotskyism to withstand the tests of reforging of the Fourth International. ANN ARBOR (313) 769-6376 I c/o SYL. Room 4316 Guardia Civil to repress the clerical­ turbulent class struggles. The LCR's Only through constructing sections of Michigan Union, U of Michigan • fascist terrorists, many of whom are snivelling capitulation at the first the international Spartacist tendency in Ann Arbor, MI 48109 simply the same Guardia Civil out of BERKELEY; provocation is a carbon copy of the Portugal and Spain can the banner of OAKLAND...... (415) 835-1535 uniform! And the state has "answered" PST's bowing and scraping before revolutionary Trotskyism be raised and Box 23372 their call, by declaring an emergency for Peron. This pitiful declaration, like the the Iberian proletariat unite behind a Oakland, CA 94623 BOSTON...... (617) 492-3928 the avowed purpose of suppressing the Portuguese LeTs 1975 signature of the Leninist leadership.• Box 188 M. iT Station terrorists. Of course, under the cover of _ illY this decree what has occurred is a Cambridge. MA 02139 = CHICAGO.. . .. (312) 427-0003 massive crackdown against the left. Box 6441. Main PO il Here is the point where reformist Chicago, IL 60680 CLEVELAND...... (216) 281-4781 illusions in the "neutrality" of the CORRECTIONS Box 676~ bourgeois state become positively sui­ Cleveland, OH 44101 , Young In our last issue (WV No. 142, 28 cidal. Marxists call instead for the DETROIT (313) 869-1551 .. January) there were several transcrip­ Box 663A. General P.O. Detroit. MI 48232 tion errors in the telephone transmission Spartacus HOUSTON I of articles. In the article "British Union Box 26474 f Tops Knife Anti-Apartheid Protest," Houston. TX 77207 I Subscription LOS ANGELES (213) 385-1962 ! there is a reference to the role of the Box 26282. Edendale Statior. I "lower lords." This should have read Los Angeles. CA 90026 ",I Drive "Law Lords," referring to II members MADISON -', c/o SYL. Box 3334 .. of the House of Lords who hear appeals Madison, WI 53704 of disputed cases from the courts. The NEW YORK (212) 925-2426 Box 1377. G.P.O. February 1 same article refers to Lord Benning of New York. NY 10001 the Appeal Court; Lord Denning is the PHILADELPHIA to correct spelling. In the article on the P.O. Box 13138 Philadelphia. PA 19101 frame-up conviction of Wendy Yoshi­ February 28 SAN DIEGO mura, a quote from the 21 January San P.O. Box 2034 Francisco Chronicle refers to the "sullen Chula Vista. CA 92012 SAN FRANCiSCO (415) 564-2845 look" of Yoshimura at the jurors inste~d Box 5712 of her "solemn" look. San Francisco. CA 94101 YOUNG TROTSKYIST LEAGUE r SPARTACIST edition fran~aise OF CANADA TORONTO (416) 366-4107 SPARTACUS pour toute commande s'adresser a: Box 7198. Station A Pascal Alessandri Spartacist Publishing Co. Toronto. Ontario Current Issue Includes: B.P. 336 Box 1377, GPO VANCOUVER (604) 291-8993 75011 Paris New York. N.Y. 10001 Box 26. Station A FRANCE USA Vancouver. B.C. 3,00 F. F. $.75 US/Canada Guardia Civil • China: Teng Returns \.. ..J • Carter's Amnesty Fraud organization of workers militias to • Lessons of Lebanon defend the workers movement and to • The Anti-Marxist Theory of crush the reactionary gunmen. "State Capitalism" But there is more: the document • Political Cannibalism in affirms that the "reestablishment of all Weather Underground WfJIIIIEIiS democratic and national rights, notably that of unrestricted amnesty, would allow advance in a climate of democratic tolerance"; and it ends with SUBSCRIBE NOW! a call for "unity and responsibility of all $2/11 issues 11,1""111} people in the framework of this demo­ cratic statement." 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4 FEBRUARY 1977 11 WflfillEfiS VIINfitJllfilJ Steelworkers: Don't Be Fooled! Neither Sadlowski Nor McBride!

As the February 8 voting date for the tributors came from cities like Boston United Steelworkers of America and Cambridge, Massachusetts; New (USWA) presidential elections ap­ York: Washington, D.C.: Evanston, proaches, the campaign temperature Illinois: and San Francisco, Berkeley rises day by day. In mid-January aging and Los Angeles, California (Wall AFL-CIO potentate George Meany Street Journal, 21 January). entered the fray ranting against the These areas are hardly centers of "outside influence" of "limousine liber­ USWA membership. The breakdown als" who back challenger Ed Sadlowski. indicates, rather, that Sadlowski has Sadlowski countered by telling Meany been able to milk the liberal intellectual to "go apply for a job at U.S. Steel" to fund raising network. The computerized find out what conditions are really like analysis of zip codes done by McBride's in the plants. and jabbed at USWA staff showed that Sadlowski received 54 incumbent president I. W. Abel for contributions totaling $ I,346 from zone "spend[ing] too damn much time 02138. which comprises Harvard Uni­ drinking martinis" with steel company versity and its environs. A total of executives. $8,400 was received from Manhattan, "Personally." said the "rebel" bureau­ with a sizable portion originating in the crat who is director of the USWA's posh Upper East Side. On the other Chicago-Gary District 31. 'Td rather hand. upstate New York steel centers drink a beer down here with th~ boys." like Buffalo and Lackawanna showed But with a minimum of effort, the only 14 individual contributions worth campaign staff for Abel-loyalist candi­ $129. date Lloyd McBride was able to prove The Washington, D.C., area with a that Sadlowski spends plenty of cam­ minuscule amount ofindustry produced paign time raising funds on the cocktail $7,500, the Bay Area yielded $6,000 with Mark PoKempner party circuit. Los Angeles accounting for almost Tough talking, left-supported Sadlowski has failed to break from capitalism A significant spectrum of liberal $10,000, mostlv from fashionable ad­ on any key issue facing steelworkers. journalists, lawyers and academics dresses like Be~erly Hills and Malibu. geois politicians as a smokescreen to ment than McBride, questions of along with ostensible socialists put To the totals of direct contributions justify rabid anti-labor laws like Taft­ outside funding could become decisive. Sadlowski forward as a fresh new breeze could be added such forms ofassistance Hartley and Landrum-Griffin. These to blowout the sclerotic Abel! Meany as the use of fund raising mailing lists It is not necessary to assert that a union-busting laws, passed with the school of conservative business union­ from left-liberal periodicals like the Sadlowski or a Miller are simply justification of "cleaning up the labor ism. But the Abel! McBride gang has Nation, Progressive and New York bought-and-paid-for tools of particular movement" from "Mafia influence" and managed to turn the question of Review of Books; from past political employers or sectors in the ruling class. "subversion," are used to smash strikes, "outside" financing into the sharpest campaigns of Democrats like Fred Rather, there is a convergence between purge militants and generally chain the election issue and put the challenger on Harris and Ramsey Clark, and from the personal ambitions and reformist unions to the profit needs of corporate the defensive. In his opening salvo organizations like the American Civil views of these so-called "progressive" monopolies by banning powerful strike against Sadlowski on Sunday's "Meet Liberties Union. bureaucrats and the perceived interests tactics. The "public interest" in the the Press" TV show, McBride waxed of "enlightened" sections of the bour­ mouths of liberals like Rauh is the indignant: "Our membership are identi­ Rauh Defends Buying Union geoisie. Long-time Socialist Party head interest of the capitalist exploiters. fied with the union and they support the Elections Norman Thomas, a man of undoubted Rauh doesn't even try to disguise the union and I think that they reject the personal integrity, was once asked why Sadlowski tries to deflect the "outside fact that he is claiming a right of idea that people outside the union it was that so many organizations with influence" charge with beerhall folksi­ capitalists to buy union elections. "Who should interfere in our election process." which he was involved were connected ness (he recently told one reporter that or what is an 'employer'?" he asks The hypocritical character of to the CIA. The questioner's implication union members are saying, "If that disingenuously. Why, this could include Meany' Abel McBride charges of em­ was that Thomas himself was in the pay Polack from the South Side of Chicago as a forbidden contributor"anyone who ployer support to Sadlowski is obvious. of the spy agency. Thomas' candid but is smart enough to get that money from employs a maid, laundress or babysit­ Never have the AFL-CIO hacks shown revealing response was that the CIAjust the rich on the North Side, that's the guy ter." Far from seeing employer contri­ any compunction about accepting CIA happened to support many of the same I'm looking for"). Meanwhile, the butions to union election campaigns as a money to "fight communism" through causes he did. liberal backers of this touted "steel threat to the labor movement, he Sadlowski, with his court suits the American Institute for Free Labor rebel" are brazenly asserting their especially advocates such financing against the union, his pledge to enforce Development, or about mobilizing the supposed right to meddle in the unions. since '''employer,' so defined encom­ the no-strike Experimental Negotiating unions' resources for political candi­ The clearest example to date is an article passes the entire public able to make a Agreement (ENA) and support to dates of big business parties. Taking of entitled "Outsiders' Assistance in Union financial contribution"! Rauh's article is bourgeois politicians (including Jimmy employer kickbacks is notorious in Elections" by Joseph Rauh, J r. in the 17 an unadorned bid to liberals to buy into Carter for U.S. president last fall), Meanyite construction unions, and even January New York Times. the labor bureaucracy. Behind it stands would represent a brake on the class "progressives" like the UAW's Wood­ Rauh, who serves as Sadlowksi's legal a desire to undercut the conservative cock join wage control boards and angle struggle even if he did not get a penny counsel and was also lawyer for Arnold influence of Meany in the Democratic for more respectable payoffs like gov­ from Xerox and Stop and Shop execu­ Miller when that "reform" bureaucrat Party, and to install more "flexible" ernment posts. tives, Pillsbury heiresses or bourgeois ran for and won the presidency of the union leaders who because of their economists. But the campaign contribu­ 02138 United Mine Workers, argues: "With­ rhetoric of "social concern" would be tions, like his reliance on the govern­ out support from the public-financial better able to defuse potential eruptions ment, signify a further undermining of Nevertheless, the heavy dependence contributors, volunteer workers, public­ of class struggle. the class independence of the trade of the Sadlowski campaign on support interest lawyers-the challenger to the It is one thing to accept and solicit unions. from establishment liberal warhorses union hierarchy would never have a financial and other aid from outside the In the upcoming USWA presidential has proved embarrassing to "Oilcan chance." Since challengers are usually labor movement to support specific campaign there is no choice for steel Eddie" with his populist rhetoric and men "with no personal means," he union struggles such as 'organizing workers who wish to put their union on just-one-of-the-boys image. At cam­ concludes: "Building an outside coun­ drives, defense cases or hard-fought the road of class struggle. The McBride paign rallies before union members he terforce to provide funds and assistance strikes. Even in this case it is necessary gang is the same bunch of pro-company has claimed that 85 percent of his to the rank-and-file challengers is the to vigilantly assure that union policies sellouts who gave away the right to contributions have come from "people onlv course that offers even the possibil­ are not adapted to suit the tastes of strike, do nothing about dangerous such as yourselves," yet the financial ity of the reform group prevailing." donors. However, when liberal benefac­ working conditions and whose "solu­ data supplied under court order suggest Rauh's most general premise is that tors bankroll candidates for union office tion" to the workers' needs is divisive that this accounting is less than accu­ "The trade-union movement is not an because of their political viewpoint, it is protectionism·and buttering up capital­ rate. According to a breakdown by island unto itself, the only major force a direct attack on working-class inde­ ist politicians. McBride supporters, more than half the beyond public influence." Ofcourse, it is pendence. While in the present case, Sadlowski, for his part, criticizes the total of $100,000 received by the precisely "defense of the public interest" Sadlowski is no more or less an agent of continued on page 8 Sadlowski campaign from named con- that has time and again served bour- the bourgeoisie within the labor move- 12 4 FEBRUARY 1977