.~~~ X-52] No. 469 ~ 20 January 1989
• • anos It was "Qaddafi IV," another Libya shoot-'em-up starring Ronnie Raygun and introducing "Poppy" Bush. Like one of those badly acted B-movies on Reagan/Bush: Imperialist Bullies late-night TV you've seen so many times you can recite the script from memory. The front page of the New York Times flashes an ominous report from anonymous "U.S. intelligence sources" about a new "Libyan threat," this time an alleged "chemical weap ons plant" being built by Libyan strongman Qaddafi. President Rea gan offhand~dly tells reporters he "would not rule out" a military strike against. Libya. And then, "Blam! Blam!"-two Libyan MIG-23s are shot out of the sky by American F-14s claiming "self-defense." The F-14s were from the carrier Kennedy, which just happened to be conducting "train ing exercises" off the Libyan coast. Latest U.S. military attack on Libya was carried out continued on page 13 by fighter planes from aircraft carrier Kennedy.
International Protests Demand:
FttA SOCIALlSJ ~A~ F£DUAlIOI.F IHEtIOUUST
Workers Hammer London, January 14-lranian leftist groups joined with Spartacist League/Britain in united-front demonstration outside Iranian embassy. a xeeulions in ran I JANUARY 16-In haifa dozen cities in issued an appeal, published in English, Iraq war, which took more than a olutionary Workers Organization (Ra Europe and North America this past French, German, Italian and Farsi (the mlliion lives. A recent article in the he Kargar), and militants among the week, chants of "Stop the Executions!" dominant language of Iran). Already, London Guardian (13 January) head oppressed Kurdish minority. As the resounded outside. offices of repTe the protests have drawn participation lined, "PolitiooI Executions Break All Guardian noted, "Most of those who sentatives of the Iranian mullah regime. from a range of Iranian left organiia Bounds," underscored the need for even have died have been leftwing political In Washington, D.C., Toronto, Lon tions. Further demonstrations will be broader and more powerful protest activists and sympathisers." Women don, Hamburg, and Paris and Lyon in held this week in Sydney and Mel actions. Reporting that thousands had and religious minorities are also being France, protesters sounded the alarm bourne, Australia; Milan, Italy; and already been executed, the Guardian executed, and even "disloyal" mullahs. over the massive wave of killings of outside the Iranian mission to the added that: In calling for an international cam leftist political prisoners and other United Nations in New York on Janu ..... it is difficult to escape the impres paign against the mass slaughter under dissidents in Khomeini's jails. They ary 19. The urgency of this campaign is sion that the Ayatollahs, through these way in Iran, the iSt and PDC sought a were responding to a call by the inter underlined by reports that the Islamic executions and the war of attrition just united protest by diverse groups. In such ended against Iraq, have embarked on national Spartacist tendency and the dictatorship is intent on executing every the decimation of an entire generation, a united front, each group can present Partisan Defense Committee for an imprisoned leftist in the country by apparently determined to kill off what its own political views while making emergency mobilization to "raise a February 12, the tenth anniversary of could have been-had it survived-the common cause around the central worldwide cry of outrage against these Khomeini's seizure of power. cream of tomorrow's intelligentsia." demand of "Stop the Executions in unspeakable crimes being commit The wave of executions began last The victims include supporters of Iran!" And in the event, various exile ted against opponents of the mullahs' August as the mullahs' regime sought to the Islamic populist Mujahedeen, the organizations of the Iranian left, bit dictatorship!" behead a potential social explosion in pro-Moscow Tudeh party, Fedayeen terly rent by fratricidal sectarianism, Sections of the iSt in seven countries the aftermath of the stalemated Iran- (Majority), Fedayeen (Minority), Rev~ continued on page 15 Defend Greg Wiggins! Drop the Charges! Support, Builds for Black Muni Worker
SAN FRANCISCO-Support is build Eugene Yoshii. Even the judge noted The cops have the green light from ing in Transport Workers Union Local "many discrepancies" between their tes Agnos and his police commission 250-A for Greg Wiggins, the black M uni timony and their reports filed just after . friends to do just as they please in bus driver brutally beaten by five SF the incident. As Wiggins' lawyer Tito yuppie San Francisco, and that spells cops while he was driving his bus last Torres pointed out in his hearing sum first and foremost violence and race October and then framed on assault mation, these guys have to lie to justify terror toward working people, blacks and other charges. U nioh officers and their obscene actions. and other minorities. Last September members have turned out for Wiggins' Greg Wiggins is in constant racking riot police nearly killed 52-year-old pretrial court appearances, and the pain from injuries to his back. neck, United Farm Workers vice president TWU local issued a special bulletin throat and hip as a result of the vicious Dolores Huerta at a demonstration, urging members to "show support and beating he received from the cops, who repeatedly hitting her with a baton, solidarity" in the courtroom. Now Muni shouted racist epithets all the while. breaking her ribs and rupturing her and other SF workers must come out for All-around sadist cop Eugene Y oshii spleen. No charges were brought against the trial, which begins on February 3, to is already in court on rape charges her attackers and the only result is new WV Photo Greg Wiggins show Mayor Agnos and his gangsters in brought by a female rookie partner "crowd control" guidelines for the blue that SF workers won't tolerate in 1987. The San Francisco Chronicle police. Meanwhile, SF cops routinely two-man crews in M uni, which would their racist police terror. Smash the (22 May 1987) reported: "According to rampage through the SF projects look give drivers added protection as well as frame-up of Greg Wiggins! affidavits filed by the rookie in San ing for "drug dealers" and beating up creating jobs for hundreds. The keenly On the witness stand at the Janu Francisco Superior Court, Yoshii phys black kids. felt outrage among SF unionists and ary 12 hearing, Muni supervisor Carl ically assaulted her, choked her uncon TWU Local 250-A president Bobbie others must be organized into mass Politis' story stank. Politis assisted the scious, repeatedly raped and sodomized Brown, who was present at the January labor action to defend Greg Wiggins. band of racist police in boarding Greg's her and forced her to have oral sex." The 12 pretrial hearing, told WV that he has Drop the charges! Jail the real crimi bus so they could beat him to within an article refers to ten misconduct com written to M uni management demand nals, the murderous cops! All out for inch of his life. Equally twisted was the plaints against Y oshii while he was a ing the charges against Wiggins be Greg's trial, February 3,9 a.m. at the SF testimony of the arresting cop, one training officer. dropped. The TWU must also fight for Hall of Justice. Be there! •
For Revolutionary Letter Integrationism! In putting forward the class-struggle program for hlack liheration, the Sparta cist League is indehted to the conception of revolutionary integration ism first devel "The Order" and the oped in the early-mid 1950s hy Richard Fraser. The forced segregation o/, black people at the hottom ofAmerican capital Manson Gang ist society can be ended onll' through TROTSKY assimilation into an egalitarian, socialist LENIN society. An early statement of Fraser's 8 January 1989 !atlOn. Manson convinced his vacant, position was given in two 1953 lectures for the Los Angeles branch o/, the Dear comrades, ex-hippie "children" that he was god on then-revolutionary Socialist Workers Party. earth, destined to rule over the "biOlogi The fascist commemoration outside cally inferior" black people after a race As an oppressed racial minority having no homeland other than the United States, Seattle of the murderous Order's dead war in which the entire white race-save the Negroes find driving force in their struggle for emancipation in the demand for fUhrer Robert Mathews underlined how the Family-would be exterminated by full equality: the right to complete integration and assimilation into American life. the KKK and skinhead killers are "some blacks. This fits to a tee the racist sce Revolutionary socialists stand squarely upon this program: for immediate and of the most debased human garbage on nario of the fascist "survivalists" like the unconditional economic, political and social equality. An important part of this the planet" ("Metzger's Skinheads and "Aryan Nations" types that spawned stand is to reject and condemn every proposal for the solution of the Negro question The Order," WVNo. 467,16 December The Order. through racial separation, whether it be the vicious segregationism of the bosses' 1988). Suit-and-tie fascists like Tom Another Manson victim was killed doctrine of "separate but equal" or the more subtle program of the Communist Party Metzger and David Duke may clean up decapitated and then carved up for "self-determination" for the Negro people. Both of these can qnly buttress the their language a bit when they're run because, among other things, he was a basic social system of Jim Crow whose main pillar of support is segregation .... ning in Democratic Party primaries, white man married to a black woman The "Negro Question" in the United States exists because of the failure of the but Metzger hails killer Mathews as a and Manson "had a thing" about inter capitalist class to solve the most elementary problems of the democratic revolution in "martyr" and Metzger's skinhead gangs racial marriage. Manson idolized Hit the South: the problems of land tenure and democratic rights. Thereby it has left the groove on beating, mutilating and kill ler as a "tuned-in guy who leveled the social heritage of color slavery intact as a malignant feature of social life. ing people in the most gruesome ways karma of the Jews." During the trial, But capitalism, even in the southern United States, has created the conditions they can (like driving nails and carving necessary for its own destruction. It has disrupted the old agrarian pattern, "tattoos" into their victims' bodies). undermined the privileged white middle class, thus weakening the whole fabric of For a flavor of what makes these social repression. It has created great industries, proletarianizing white, urbanizing "Aryan race purification" freaks tick, black. This process has centralized the Negro community in positions of great take a look at the Charles Manson strategic advantage in large city communities, whereas before they were dispersed "Family," which was responsible forthe over the country side. Capitalism has likewise created the conditions for the murder of upwards of 30 people, includ overthrow of race prejudice by working class solidarity. . ing the notorious Tate-LaBianca kill It falls upon the shoulders of the proletarian revolution, in which the American ings in Los Angeles, in the late 1960s. workers will join together with the Negro people in the abolition of capitalism, to Prosecuting attorney Vincent Bugliosi's uproot ,the Jim Crow system. It is our task to build the party to lead that revolution: stark account of the Manson murders, the Socialist Workers Party. Helter Skelter (1974), reveals a strik~ Charles - Richard S. Fraser, "The Negro Struggle and the Proletarian Revolution" ing affinity between the psychopathic, Manson (November 1953) Hitler-loving "Family" and "The Order" hailed by Metzger. The Order pumped a dozen bullets into Jewish talk-show host Alan Berg; the Family carried out a string of grue some murders, stabbing some of their victims 40 or 50 times. As Manson Manson carved a swastika into his fore "child" Susan Atkins plunged a Buck head, and his acolytes immediately fol !!Iw!!!,!~y '!.~!!'!..~!~.s~ knife into eight-months-pregnant ac lowed suit. DIRECTOR OF PARTY PUBLICATIONS: Liz Gordon tress ~Sharon Tate over and over, she In the 1930s, the fascists in Spain EDITOR: Jan Norden screamed at her victim: "Look, bitch, I proclaimed "Long live death!" A few PRODUCTION MANAGER: Jorge Ramirez don't care about you. I don't care if years later, Hitler's death camps were CIRCULATION MANAGER: Jon Lawrence you're going to have a baby .... You're murdering millions. From Manson to EDITORIAL BOARD: George Foster, Liz Gordon, Frank Hunter, Jane Kerrigan, Mathews to Metzger, these kill-crazy Len Meyers, Jan Norden, Jorge Ramirez, James Robertson, Reuben Samuels, going to die, and I don't feel anything Joseph Seymour, Alison Spencer, Marjorie Stamberg, Noah Wilner about it." Atkins later ghoulishly con racist terrorists are the dregs of a social system in its death throes. As the Workers Vanguard (USPS 098-770) published biweekly, except 2nd Issue August and with 3-week Interval December, fessed that she had tasted Sharon Tate's by the Spartaclst Publishing Co., 41 Warren Street, New York, NY 10007. Telephone: 732-7862 (EditOrial). 732-7861 November 5 victory in Philly over the (BUSiness). Address all correspondence to: Box 1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116. DomestiC subsCriphons: $7.00/24 blood and that they had also wanted to issues. Second-class postage paid at New York, NY. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Workers Vanguard. cut out the baby. Klan and skinheads showed, integrated Box 1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116. labor-centered struggle can and must Opinions expressed in signed articles or letters do not necessan/y express the editorial viewpOint. The murders-the more shocking the better-were to be blamed on blacks, sweep this filth into the sewers. No. 469 20 January 1989 thus precipitating "Helter Skelter," a Comradely, holocaust triggered by the whites' retal- Len Meyers 2 WORKERS VANGUARD
I; t!l~l t: I f I' f-'i' .. ; ,t"1 i-ttl" U:l, Racists Threaten to "Celebrate" M.L. King Murder Klan ,Terror in the "New South" They claim Atlanta is the "city too KKK from organized mass protest, the busy to hate." But on the heels of authorities will be responsible when repeated acts of racist and anti-Semitic outraged citizens are left with nothing but the option of unorganized protest terror on the outskirts of Atlanta, the . Ku Klux Klan and skinhead thugs say actIOn. • .'. they are going to stage a "White But black labor in Atlanta is ham Supremacist" march through the city on strung by the ties to the Democratic city January 21. Their targets are blacks, administration, which oversees the Jews, unions, "reds," gays-and every financial and commercial "hub" of the one else who doesn't believe in slavery. Southeast on behalf of the racist ruling Taking aim at the Martin Luther King class. Atlanta's black popUlation has Jr. birthday celebrations, and sched repeatedly come up against the city uled the day after the inauguration of administration, from the bitter city George Bush, the KKK terrorists' prov workers strike broken a decade ago by ocation is an attempt to project their then-mayor Maynard Jackson, to the racist terror nationwide. The KKK's recent Democratic Party convention, deadly threat must be stopped! when Andrew Young razed the ply State officials and Atlanta police wood shacks of the homeless to guar spokesmen have told the press that lots antee Dukakis a pristine site for his of cops and even the National Guard nomination. will be on hand to "protect" Richard Wilkinson/Sygma Almost one-third of Atlanta's popu Barrett's fascists. They remember last KKK attacks King Day marchers in Forsyth County, Georgia, January 1987. lation lives below even the miserable July, when the racist lynchers and skin federal "poverty level," and huge sec head thugs of Barrett's "Nationalist protection in Pulaski, Tennessee, birth hoods and Confederate flags, in recent tions of the black workforce are paid so Movement" were stopped in the streets place of the Klan in 1866. In Phoenix, months Klan marches and anti-Semitic little that many are forced to work two by hundreds of anti-Klan demon Arizona skinheads marched against vandalism multiplied on the outskirts of jobs. At the M.L. King memorial, as strators at the Democratic National M.L. King Day, flaunting Confederate Atlanta. tourists line up to buy "I have a dream" Convention. The Atlanta demonstra flags with Nazi swastikas in the center. In September, 150 Klansmen in robes ashtrays, homeless blacks huddle right tion to "Stop the KKK" on January 21, The skinheads are psychos who make a and military fatigues marched against across the street. The glitter -cfthe "N ew initiated by the Partisan Defense Com- cult of random violence. In every city in Jews and the NAACP in Lawrenceville, South" is reserved for the Coca-Cola northeast of Atlanta. In October, the capitalists and fancy projects like the Hebrew Academy of Atlanta was spray "U nderground Atlanta" entertainment painted with swastikas and anti-Semitic and shopping complex. A highly visible slurs. This followed attacks on Jewish black middle class and a black city schools and community centers in administration are promoted, while Doraville, Sandy Springs and Cobb underneath lies the de facto segregation County by fascists earlier this year. On and grinding exploitation. November 12, the KKK, led by con Labor/black power must be un victed Birmingham church bomber J.B. leashed, and that requires breaking Stoner, terrorized members of the Mac from the "property party"-Democrats edonia Baptist Church in Powder and Republicans-and struggling for a Springs, in Cobb County. Protected by revolutionary workers party to lead all the police and the FBI, the Klan burned the oppressed. This must be a fight for a a 30-foot cross in front of the church to third American revolution, to "Finish "send a message" to this black congre the Civil War" and end once and for all gation in an integrated neighborhood. the racial and class oppression which Birmingham church bombing, The key to defending blacks, Jews underlie every aspect of American cap 1963: four little and all the intended victims of Klan/ italist society. black girls were skinhead terror lies in the strength of The Klan intends for their prov killed by Klan labor. Even in open-shop Georgia, the ocation on January 21 to take center terror. heavily black unions-in sanitation, stage in a national celebration of racist hospital, transit, longshore, airlines hatred. But mass mobilizations of labor have the power .to lead all the KKK's and minorities have successfully spiked intended victims and stop the fascists' KKK provocations, in Washington, attacks. That masses of people in D.C. in November 1982, in San Fran Atlanta would like to make a strong cisco, Chicago and elsewhere. Most response of defiance against the Klan recentty in Philadelphia, a KKK/skin mittee and endorsed by key Atlanta this country, blacks, gays and immi threat was suggested by the unprec head rally was called off when they came unions and tenant and student organi grants are the choice target for humili edented 100,000 people who turned out up against the massive support for the zations, aims to bring organized labor / ating insult and attack at the hands of January 16 for the city's annual King union-based November 5 Mobilization black power to bear against the deadly these thugs, but white mothers too know Day celebration. What is required is a to Stop the Klan. A mobilization of Klan/ skinhead threat. to grab their children and run the other leadership willing to mobilize that labor / black power to stop the racist Today's KKK hasjoinedforceswitha way when they see these sickos coming. strength in determined action against hideous "youth movement" of skin At Barrett's camp in Mississippi, his night riders in Atlanta can inspire in the Klan provocation. For if the gov tegrated class struggle across the coun head punks whose forces have grown skinhead followers received paramili ernment succeeds in sealing off the try. Act now! Stop the Klan!. ominously. Last Saturday 400 Klans tary training and took target practice at men and skinheads marched with police silhouettes of Martin Luther King Jr. > c o .0 KKK: A Century of Racist Terror ~ The KKK was born as the resurgent ~o terror arm of the defeated Confederacy rJ) Act Now! after the Civil War. The modern Klan was refounded in 1915 following the Stop the Klan lynching of Atlanta Jewish business man Leo Frank, when the Invisible in Atlanta! Empire of the Ku Klux Klan burned a Dig deep and give NOW. It'll take cross at Stone Mountain east of Atlan $$$ to stop the KKK in Atlanta. ta. Growing to hundreds of thousands in the 1920s, the Klan terrorized blacks, Trade unions, tenant and student ~ organizations have endorsed and immigrants, Catholics. In 1925,40,000 pledged support to ·the Partisan hooded Klansmen marched through the Defense Committee-initiated dem streets of Washington, D.C. Memphis onstration. Expenses are mount Today, the "reborn" Democratic Par sanitation workers ing-we need money for printing ty of Jimmy Carter and Jesse Jackson on strike in 1968. 80,000 leaflets and getting the word parades Atlanta as the capital of the Martin Luther King was assassinated out. Get your union, community "New South." But from the hail of rocks against black demonstratQrs in lily in Memphis and campus group to pledge. Send while supporting contributions to: white Forsyth County to the poverty of much of Atlanta's black popUlation, the the strike. Partisan Defense Committee "New South" is a paper-thin veneer on P.O. Box 99, Canal st. Station the same old grinding oppression and New York, NY 10013 racist terror. Leading up to the fascists' threat to invade Atlanta with their 20 JANUARY 1989 3 As Peking Encourages Capitalist Forces Racist Riots Erupt in China .The People's Republic of China, in terribly economically backward coun the tenth year of the Deng regime's try-the "old crap" is reviving with a "''attempts to "build socialism with cap vengeance. italist methods," has produced an explo For thousands of years, Imperial sion of racist mob violence. Deng's pro China (the Middle Kingdom) was a gram of decollectivization and private great and isolated center of civilization. production in the countryside and an The Chinese word for foreigner was "open door" (tax breaks plus cheap "barbarian." What we are seeing today labor, land and raw materials) for for is in part a return to Han Chinese eign capital has fostered a social cli xenophobia and racism. And it comes mate of cutthroat competition, chau from the top. The bureaucratic elite rul vinism and corruption. Thus at the end ing the People's Republic, u'nder both of December the world witnessed the Mao and Deng, are deeply nationalistic appalling spectacle of Chinese univer and dream of restoring a new Middle sity students on a racist rampage against Kingdom to its rightful place in the black African (and other dark-skinned) world. In 1984 Deng proposed to quad students studying at Chinese schools. ruple national output by the year 2000 On Saturday, December 24, at a par through rural free markets and an "open ty given by foreign students at Hehai door" to the imperialist West. When this University in Nanjing, long-simmering is achieved, declared Deng, "China's racial tensions exploded when a Chinese international influence will also be quite security guard refused entrance to two different, and our country's power will Chinese women and their African dates. become truly strong." A heated argument quickly escalated Deng's China looks toward the West into a near-pogrom. Chinese demon and japan as its allies and economic strators in Nanjing, sometimes num partners, no longer proclaiming "soli bering several thousand, threw rocks, darity" with the impoverished and smashed windows in dormitories where exploited Third World. Whereas Afri African students live, and shouted can and Asian heads of state used to be "black devils" and other racist slogans in lionized in Peking, now it is Wall Street clashes that began Saturday and con Chinese student youth terrorize black African students in racist, male and Frankfurt bankers and Japanese tinued for several days. The black stu chauvinist campaign. Police reportedly beat and tortured Africans while industrialists who are given the red dents, who had been joined in solidarity "protecting" them. carpet treatment when they visit China. by other foreign students including No wonder Chinese students display the Americans, were eventually able to take same racist contempt for black Afri refuge iwthe Nanjing railway station. cans to be found at Harvard or T odai On the following Monday night, U riiversity. police herded the besieged students to a Trotsky once said one of Stalin's hotel outside the city. This move, sup greatest crimes was turning countless posedly for the students' protection, was young revolutionary idealists into polit actually more a house arrest. where ical cynics. This is also one of the great reportedly Chinese police stripped a crimes of Chinese Stalinism, under both number of African students and beat Mao and Deng, played out on the scale them with their batons and tortured of an entire nation. But now it has gone them with electric cattle prods. For44 of far beyond political cynicism: a whole the African students it took a two-day layer of privileged Chinese student hunger strike, and an international youth, in this bureaucratically deformed storm of publicity highly embarrassing workers state with its emphasis on mar to the Chinese bureaucracy, to eventu ket competition being fostered by the ally get them freed. top leadership of the country, is The Hehai University explosion behaving like racist, chauvinist, grasp quickly triggered other racist incidents ing "socialist" yuppies. in eastern China. At Peking Languages Eroding the Gains of the Institute, where African students were Reuters carrying out a boycott of classes in Revolution with Capitalist protest against racial discrimination scholarships and better housing. Afri and backward. Not seeing a genuine Methods there and demanding freedom for the can students have a room to them communist alternative, these youth are The Chinese working class and any selves, while Chinese at Hehai Univer Nanjing students, hundreds of Chinese sity, where the weekend fracas began, taking on some of the most repellent other section of that society which main students demonstrated for hours on are housed eight to a room." aspects of Western bourgeois culture. tains a shred of a sense of international January 3 under slogans in Chinese and -New York Times, Up to the point in 1971 when Mao ism should crush these racist outrages English declaring, "We Demand a Safe 27 December 1988 sealed his alliance with U.S. imperial whetever they arise. But it is important Campus," "Hooligans Go Home," and In Deng's China there certainly is mas ism (as U.S. B-52s carpet-bombed Viet to understand at the same time that the "No Offend Women's Rights" (News sive privilege and inequality to resent nam), Chinese Stalinism was widely per present-day children of the Chinese day, 4 January). and attack, but what small benefits the ceived as the militant ally of the "Third Revolution are having their birthright At the Zhejiang Agricultural Univer foreign students (i.e., not just African World" against the major imperialist stolen from them and are victims of a sity in Hangzhou, the African students students) enjoy are only marginally bet powers. Pictures of Mao with the lead massive fraud. "Building socialism by (who are predominantly male and study ter than those of their Chinese counter-' ers of the emerging black nations of capitalist methods" has led not to the in China for as long as six years) were parts. At the top of the heap are the Africa were commonplace. Black Amer modernization of the country but rather SUbjected to new regulations restricting Chinese Stalinist bureaucracy, small ican radicals like Robert F. Williams to an explosion of petty capitalism and them to dating no more than one scale capitalists, and Western and Japa looked (mistakenly) to China as the way massive inequality in both town and Chinese woman, who must be officially nese businessmen, some of them oper forward and in the late '60s traveled country. registered with the authorities! Mean ating large enterprises. Yet the students there, where they felt they were treated Already by 1985 there was an extreme while, there is a systematic rumor cam are not demonstrating against the truly with the respect and dignity denied them disparity between rich and poor peas paign labeling African students as privileged in People's China. in racist America. And certainly, what ants, with the press regularly reporting AIDS carriers. This profoundly male There is doubtless very deep demor ever the brutal crimes and stupidities of peasants earning 10,000 yuan a year, chauvinist and racist campaign in the alization and frustration among youth the Red Guards, they did not engage in 20 to 30 times the national per capita name of "protecting our women" from in China. The millions of workers and race riots. income! The basic unit of production, the African students is pure reactionary peasants who believed they were "build The young Karl Marx, two years accounting and distribution had be filth. ing Communism" in the disastrous before the Communist Manifesto, come the individual peasant house Great Leap Forward, the student-youth wrote: "A development of the produc hold-the Chinese Stalinists turned the All the Old Crap Is Rising in who flocked to the Maoist Red Guards tive forces is the absolutely necessary calendar back 30 years to the very begin Deng's China during the "Cultural Revolution," have practical premise [ of communism], nings of agricultural collectivization. The Chinese students have "justi . become disillusioned with politics and because without it want is generalized, At the same time, tens of millions of fied" their mass racist attacks and hos absorbed in narrowly personal con and with want the struggle for neces poor peasants have poured into the cit tility toward the African students as cerns. Deng and Zhao Ziyang have sities begins again, and that means that ies in a futile search for gold. Rather resentment at the Africans' "privileged" promised gold at the end of the rainbow all the old crap must revive." In present than prosperity for the masses what one position: (to be achieved through hustling in the day China-the product of 40 years of finds in China today is ... all the old "Many Chinese students apparently marketplace and looking out for Num rule by a Stalinist bureaucracy attempt crap. In the southern Guangdong Prov resent the benefits that African stu ber One), but today's students are find ing to carry out the objectively impossi ince child labor has been resurrected. In dents enjoy as foreigners, such as larger ing their country still miserably poor ble goal of building "socialism" 'in one continued on page 12
4 WORKERS VANGUARD Labor Must Defend the Clinics! Abortion Rights Under Siege In the U.S. today, a showdown is coming over the question of abor tion rights. Terror bombings and arson against abortion clinics have been followed by mass mobilizations of fanatical "god squads" attacking the clinics and harassing women. Now the Reagan/ Bush administration has gotten the U.S. Supreme Court to review a Missouri anti-abortion law, which may well lead to the overturn of the court's 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision which legal ized abortion nationwide. There is a felt sense of crisis among those defending women's right to abortion that unless this reactionary wave is stopped, in another few months maybe there won't be any clinics left to defend. The Supreme Court majority that passed Roe vs. Wade has been whittled PDlICEi •• ··· L.INE. ~Qt...,lt::l\\t down to a razor-thin edge, so now one ,2:"''''"- black-robed justice's "swing vote" is WIJ Photos supposed to d-etermine one of the most Battle over NYC abortion clinics, January 13-14: pro-choice activists confronted Operation Rescue fanatics (right). intimate and private decisions for millions of women! At a demonstration So today the president-elect is "kind Stanford University "Operation Res ed. Yet the right to abortion is popular in New York City on January 10, held in er, gentler" George Bush, who said dur cue" leader Randall Terry was shouted and widely supported by the American a Greenwich Village back alley, Bill ing last fall's televised campaign debate down by students. people. A survey by the National Opin Tatum, publisher of the city's largest that "there's got to be some penalties" In Boston last October 29, some ion Research Center showed that sup black newspaper, the Amsterdam News, for women who have abortions. As 2,000 defenders of women's rights lined port for women's right to choose said, "I recognize this alley as the emer Ellen Goodman wrote, "By any esti Beacon Street, forcing the "Operation abortion has grown from 59 percent in gency room for women of my child- mate, 15 million American women have Rescuers" to drive to Rhode Island, but 1972 to 63 percent in 1987. In fact, the "pro-choice" activists were then despite the denunciations by the Catho treated to a Democratic Party election lic church hierarchy (!.ike NYC Cardi rally. So what have Dukakis and the nal O'Connor, who blesses the clinic Democrats done to defend women's blockaders) and "born-again" bigot rights? It was under Democratic pres preachers, the abortion rate for Catho ident Jimmy Carter that the Hyde lic women is 30 percent higher than for amendment was passed, cutting off fed Protestants, while one out of every six eral Medicaid funding for abortions. women who have abortions describes F or poor and working-class women, the herself as an evangelical Christian. So right of choice requires "free abortion the anti-abortion fanatics have turned on demand" linked to free, quality to direct physical intimidation, attempt health care for all. Yet bourgeois femi ing to make their unpopular reaction nists like the National Organization for ary program prevail as the law of the Women, Ms. magazine and the rest of land. the "you've come a long way, baby" What's needed to stop these reaction crowd will never fight for that. aries is first of all a break with the The NOW crowd are pressure groups Democratic Party that ties the op on the Democratic Party, playing the pressed to their oppressors. Independ sectoralist game, bringing out their ent labor-centered mobilizations have "constituency" at the polls in exchange the social power and class interest to for a few crumbs. They accept the defeat the anti-woman "god squads," framework of capitalist politics, includ the "gay-bashers," the racist terrorists. ing the bourgeoisie's "right" to exploit The Spartacist League and Partisan the working class, instead of waging a Defense Committee have shown the way fight against the all-sided reaction being by mobilizing unions, blacks, gays and imposed on the American people. The others against KKK and skinhead Democrats will not and cannot defend provocations. Massive support for our women's rights against the attacks on strategy of mobilizing labor/black Spartacist contingent in 1,000-strong protest against bigots' blockade of women carried out in the name of sacred power kept the Klan off Philadelphia's abortion clinics in New York last April. "family values." They share with the streets hist November 5. It will take a Reagan reactionaries a common com revolutionary vanguard party, acting as hood. Unless we fight, this will become had abortions since it's been legal. mitment to preserving the patriarchal· a tribune of the people, to lead the fight the emergency room of poor, black and Everyone knows someone who's had family unit, the bedrock of social for liberation of all the oppressed from Hispanic women of our future." Rabbi one. Would they be criminals in Bush's conservatism and the main social insti our common enemies. For labor defense Balfour Brickner of Manhattan's Ste America?" (Boston Globe, 4 October tution of women's oppression. of abortion clinics! Women's liberation phen Wise 'Free Synagogue stated, 1988). This is no abstract question. , Abortion rights activists feel isolat- through socialist revolution! • "We've been too genteel and are in dan Before abortion was legalized, at least ger of losing the battle for women's eleven states made women who sur rights" (Newsday, II January). vived illegal abortions into criminals, The sinister forces behind the anti with jail sentences of two to five years. abortion vigilantes of "Operation Res And in some states, doctors who per cue" are driving hard to inflict their formed abortions could get up to five reactionary program on everybody by years in jaiL Marxist Working-Class Biweekly of the Spartacist League force. And they take their cues from the Over the last couple of years, time Republican White House: they tar after time defenders of abortion rights geted Atlanta during the Democratic have found themselves penned in behind 0$7/24 issues of Workers Vanguard o $3/3 issues of Party convention, and repeatedly went police barriCades while the "right to (inclu~es English-language Spartacist) Women and Revolution o New 0 Renewal 0$2/10 introductory issues after abortion clinics in Brookline, lifers" terrorize women and block clinic International rates: Massachusetts, Dukakis' hometown. doors. But lately the religious fanatics $25124 issues-Airmail $7/24 issues-Seamail of Workers Vanguard (includes English-language Joe Scheidler of Chicago, who orches have been stopped here and there, and 0$214 issues of Spartacist (edicion en espanol) Spartacist) trated last spring's "Operation Rescue" there is a growing will to find a success attacks in New York City, was arrested ful strategy to fight back. In Chicago in Name ______in June 1986 for smashing up an already May 1988, a united front of abortion Address ______twice-bombed clinic in Pensacola, Flor activists and leftists including a large ida. And in California, some of the Spartacist contingent prevented Scheid ______Apt. # Phone (_) ______"right to lifers" who are regularly at ler's vigilantes from blocking a clinic. City State Zip ______--:= "Operation Rescue" blockades have In November, "pro-choice" demon 469 appeared on fascist Tom Metzger's TV strators in Redwood City, California Make checks payable/maillo: Spartacisl Publishing Co., Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 show. stopped the religious nuts, while at 20 JANUARY 1989· ,5 A Young Trotskyist Visits Gorbachev's Russia "Glasnost" has generated a ground with flowers. It's called the "hedgehog," was the Red Army that smashed Hitler most striking impression of the USSR swell of interest in the Soviet Union. We a 50-foot-high structure that resembles ite fascism. was the "absence of squalor." As the bus reprint below some impressions written the jacks kids play with-a giant replica The contrast with the rotting misery drove through Moscow to our hotel I by Nick I .. a young comrade who vis of the tank traps that surrounded the cit of Reagan's America hits you in the kept thinking, "this society, where ajob, ited the USSR in September (during the ies of European Russia during Hitler's face. The ghetto hellholes, the millions an education, a place to live is a right, Reagan-Gorbachev summit). focusing invasion. The monument is situated at of homeless, the unemployment lines, this is what the U.S. ruling class would on some of the striking contradictions of the point furthest east that the Nazis the rotting steel mills that cover the like to nuke out of existence." A huge, Soviet society. The overthrow of cap reached during their advance on Mos U.S.-you don't see these things in the modern industrial economy, without italism and the establishing ofa collec cow, and it reminds you right off that it USSR. My companion put it well: her the capitalists! tivized. planned economic system by the October 1917 Bolshevik Revolution is the mQst important international "Here lie Leningraders, victory ol the working class. Yet the Here citizens, men, women, children, parasitic bureaucracy which usurped Alongside them soldiers of the Red Army. political power in the 1920s and rules the With the whole of their lives USSR today undermines the gains of They defended you, Leningrad, the revolution by its economic misman Cradle of the Revolution. agement. heavy-handed suppression of Their noble names we cannot list here, So many of them are in the eternal shield political and cultural lile. and selling out of granite. struggles abroad in the nalJ1e o.f"peace But know, you who gaze upon these stones, ful coexistence" with the imperialists None is forgotten, and nothing forgotten!" v.·ho are hell-bent on restoring capital - Olga BerggoIts ism in the degenerated Soviet workers state. We Trotskyists defend the Soviet Union unconditionally against imperi alism and counterrevolution. and insist that only proletarian political revolu tion to oust the Stalinist bureaucracy and social revolution in the capitalist J Young Spartacus Photos countries can open the road to world socialism. Piskarevskoye Memorial As we drove from Sheremetyevo air Cemetery where a half port into Moscow we passed through million Leningraders lie in collective graves, victims the forests of white birch that cover of the gOO-day Nazi siege. much of the USSR. Alongside the road is a huge concrete monument piled high
Klan" of former "grand dragon" (and California Democratic "Klandidate") Metzger. The "new Klan" expresses its White Racist "Club": "white pride" the same way the "old" one did-with the burning cross, the lynch rope, and now the skinheads' "Doc Marten" boot. While the Tem A Threat to Temple Students ple NAACP intends to "monitor" the WSU's activities, Temple students, Something calling itself the "White dent Activity Center, and "N --- ERS cist skinhead outfit which according campus workers and faculty should Student Union" has crawled out of GO HOME" appeared in the Paley to a recent Anti-Defamation League take note: neither fascists nor the rac the sewer at Philadelphia's Temple library. The Temple NAACP re report is trying "to establish White ist punks on campus need "official University. While "White Student sponded with a leaflet which stated Student Unions on high school and recognition" or permits to carry out Union" vice president Harry Maryan that "we want to send a message to the college campuses to serve as forums their deadly program. ski whines that "there is really no person loud and clear that we cannot for Tom Metzger's views and recruit This racist and fascist filth must be expressive white pride" at Temple, the tolerate these ridiculous racist writ ing grounds for his organization." crushed-and fast. With the wave of group, which claims some 90 mem ings that are appearing throughout the' Where racist terrorists like the Klan racist attacks on college campuses over bers, is an open racist threat on this university." Far from being "ridicu and skinheads are involved, the issue is the past couple of years, black stu campus in a city the Ku Klux Klan lous," this filth is the language of not "free speech" for these fascists but dents have often found themselves and skinheads have openly targeted. would-be lynchers and a rallying call self-defense for their intended victims. besieged and isolated. But Temple has Last November 5, the Klan and skin to racist violence. On October 29 in a subway station in a substantial number of black and head fascists tried to hold a race-hate There is reason to believe that the New York City, skinheads from the other minority students. And allying "white pride" provocation in down group of "white pride" punks at Tem Philadelphia area attacked a white students with the power of labor has town Philly-an action that was ple is part of the KKK/skinheads' family who had objected to their rac scored real victories, not least in Phil spiked by a successful labor-centered avowed goal of "creeping ilp on Phila ist epithets, even trying to throw their adelphia itself. Temple students played united-front mobilization initiated by delphia." Just a month after Temple's baby down a flight of stairs. And on an important role in mobilizing the Partisan Defense Committee. recognition of the racist student group, November 13 in Portland, Oregon against the KKK/skinheads' planned Even before the Temple adminis the Ku Klux Klan (represented in skinheads beat and killed a ,black November 5 provocation in Philly, but tration announced recognition in late court by the ACL U) won the "right" to Ethiopian worker. some of the student groups who November of the "White Student "hand out literature" at Stockton State According to the Temple admin initially helped to build the successful Union" on ludicrous "free speech" College in Pomona, New Jersey, just istration itself, "The stated purpose anti-Klan action backed away from it grounds, some revolting and obscene across the state line from Philadel of the White Student Union is to in the days leading up to November 5. "expressions of white pride" began phia. The KKK crawled out of the 'preserve and promote white racial Anti-communist sectarianism can only appearing around campus. According sewer there after the racist and anti culture and pride, and to abolish embolden the fascists. The Novem to the Temple NAACP, on October 27 Semitic rag of Tom Metzger's "White affirmative action'" (Phi/adelphia In ber 5 victory over the Klan has to be the words "We white people need pro Aryan Resistance" was stuffed inside quirer, 4 December 1988). So-called carried forward. The fascists and their tection from you n---ers" were found the campus newspaper in 1986. Metz "reverse discrimination" has been a racist punk understudies in the "White in Jones Hall. On November 9 some ger's 20-year-old son John heads up battle cry of 1980s racism, from Rea Student Union" must not be allowed a one scrawled a racist epithet in the Stu- the "Aryan Youth Movement," a fas- gan and Bush to the yuppified "new foothold at Temple!
6 WORKERS VANGUARD GorbachevT The man replies, 'No, the the fact that, for the first time since the line was too long'." revolution, there might be unemploy ment in the USSR. "That's good," he * * * replied. "It will get the lazy buggers off It's disturbing how little the Intourist their asses." guides say about the October Revolu Boris carries around a Bible with him, tion and how much they say about the although he treats it more like a fashion renaissance of the Orthodox church, accessory than a religious artifact. He one of the most oppressive, anti knows his Russian history backwards Semitic, anti-woman institutions in his and forwards, but my questions about tory. Our guide gleefully pointed out the October elicited minimal responses. He site where a new church is to be built on reserves his eloquence to describe the land granted free by the state. Many of palaces of the tsars, the Faberge eggs, the older women on our tour were etc. "I was born in the wrong time," straining at the bit to visit a functioning Boris was fond of saying. Boris is; of church. When they finally got the course, a member of the Komsomol and chance in Irkutsk, most of them were is applying for Party membership this turned away at the door because they year. were wearing pants and not skirts. Well, * * ng Spartacus they wanted the Russian Orthodox * TASS billboard hypes Reagan-Gorbachev Moscow summit. Bureaucrats church, and they got it! It was in Uzbekistan that the nature of push "peaceful coexistence" with warmongering imperialists. Boris, our guide, was an interesting the revolutionary gains we defend hit me character. He is very consciously a part the hardest. I n this part of the world that The government's summit hype is another curnmtjoke: "A man is waiting of the Soviet elite. He recently pur was positively medieval in 1917, people everywhere. People in the street are to buy vodka in one of the 'booze lines' chased a pedigreed English cocker span appear to have as high a standard of waving star-spangled summit buttons, which are so common in Soviet cities. iel which he plans to enter in dog shows, living as in Moscow. Where Islam once carrying summit shopping bags with After two hours he gets fed up and says explaining that pedigreed hounds are all ruled and women were bought and sold U.S. and Soviet flags on them. There are to the guy in front of him, 'I've had it! the rage among Moscow snobs. Boris as virtual chattel, you now see women summit T-shirts with Reagan's and Gor I'm going to punch Gorbachev!' and got a deferment from military service integrated into the society at all levels. bachev's signatures on them, pictures of stomps off in the direction of the Krem because he was in a special language And there are light-skinned Europeans Reagan and Gorby in the shops. In lin. About an hour later he relurns. The program, yet he holds the rank of lieu and dark Uzbeks, but you can't find the Irkutsk, Siberia I even saw a working guy who remained in line asks him, tenant in the Red Army anyway. I asked color line in Bukhara or Tashkent. You woman wearing a button with just a pic 'Well, what happened? Did you punch him what he thought of perestroika and see mixed couples walking down the ture of Reagan on it! (I haven't even seen street without fear of harassment. that in the U.S.) Gorbachev's line is that Here we didn't get the kind of church Reagan is a peacemaker, a friend of the mongering that we got in Moscow. Peo Soviet people. The flip side of detente is ple here know what Islam is about and of course the disappearing of any hint they don't want to turn back the clocks. of international class struggle against I did not see a single woman wearing the imperialism. There are no placards, no veil. Most of the mosques are museums newspaper articles, no speeches, that or tea shops although a few are still even pay lip service to anti-imperialism functioning. Our guide in Tashkent or internationalism. I saw one sign of Orator in pointed out the old Madrasa (Koranic the Afghanistan war: a billboard in a Push kin Square, school, now a museum), "from the Moscow park with photos of the Soviet Moscow. minarets of which they used to throw troops leaving. The inscription read, Glasnost has women who had committed adultery." "The limited contingent of Soviet troops sparked political She then pointed to a tall modern build in Afghanistan has already begun to ferment in USSR. ing across the street and went on, "And withdraw." When the U.S. Navy shot this is the Moscow Hotel, the tallest down the Iranian airliner, murdering building in Tashkent. After the revolu some 290 innocent civilians, the story tion the women considered throwing was buried in the Soviet press and the adulterous men off the top but they meager reports termed this atrocity "an decided it would make too big a pile." • accident." People find it hard to believe the pic ture I paint of the oppression and pov erty in the U.S. But a popular joke we heard about defectors reflects the Soviet people's understanding of the hypocrisy and inequalities of capitalism: "A man Defend Anti-CIA Protester I dies and goes to hell. He takes a look around: it's hot, it's nasty and he doesn't MADISON-On December 8, the Uni protest the CIA. As CIA-man Bush like what he sees. So he asks god, 'Lis versity of Wisconsin campus cops prepares to enter the White House, ten, do you think just once, before I staged a violent attack against students Madison Shalala and the university administra spend all eternity roasting, that you protesting CIA recruitment here. Chief tion are trying to send all students a mes could send me on a two-week vacation Ralph Hansen led the roughing-up of month later he has yet to be formally sage: Stay in line like good careerist to heavenT God thinks about it and anti-CIA protesters and the arrest on arraigned and charged, as the D.A.'s sheep or else it's off to the slammer. decides to grant the request. The man trumped-up charges of one protester office plays a cruel game of suspense. Drop the charges against James Carl! goes to heaven and has a great time, eat who may face years injail. Cop Hansen The victimization and attempted Cops and CIA off campus! There must ing, drinking, screwing to his heart's has overseen the cracking of leftists' frame-up of James Carl is orchestrated be a massive outpouring of support for content. The accommodations, the skulls since the '60s, notably including by the administration of "progressive" Jim Carl-an injury to one is an injury food, the people are incredible. But at the beating of anti-CIA protesters in chancellor Donna Shalala. Her "Madi to all. A l1}ass united-front mobiliza the end of two weeks he finds himself, October 1985. son Plan" includes a carte blanche for tion of students and labor could spike once again, at the gates of hell. 'God: At the December 8 protest some the CIA terrorists, and cop violence and this frame-up and the intended intimi he says, 'look, why don't you just make 25 students, including members and the threat of jail for those who would dation of student protest.. an exception and send me to heaven supporters of the Madison Spartacus for good? What do you say?' Again, Youth Club, lined the halls of the Engi god decided to' grant his request. The neering Placement Building where the man goes to heaven, and· is immedi CIA was interviewing. According to a ately put to work cleaning toilets from witness, grad student Doug Sherry, dawn till dusk. 'God: he asks, 'the "Police started pushing two people on first time I came up here everything the opposite side of the police. They was just beautiful and now they put threw one woman to the ground. me to work cleaning toilets-what's Another fellow was ... tackled and ar the dealT 'Well: says god, 'now you rested. . .. One policeman took out a know the difference between tourism blackjack and started to swing it and defection'." around. This was without provocation" As for the supposed Soviet "police (Badger Herald, 9 December 1988). state," you see far fewer cops on the The arrested man was grad student street than you do in Chicago. The gen James Carl. After being roughed upby eral puritanism and oppressiveness of the cops, he was charged with resisting the Brezhnev years is noticeably absent. arrest, disorderly conduct and attempt Gorbachev's speech to the conference is ing to disarm an officer! Although Carl live on television, but Wimbledon and a was released on bail, if convicted of the documentary about seals are playing last charge, a felony, he faces the possi opposite him on other channels. There is bility of many years behind bars. "I did plenty of rock 'n' roll on TV, and even a not attempt to disarm an officer, and I Soviet version of the "Solid Gold danc did not see any weapons out of their ers." Gorbachev's anti-alcohol cam holsters," James Carl told the Daily UW cops rough up Madison anti-CIA paign, a massively unpopular move to Cardinal (13 December 1988). Over a protesters last December. discipline the Soviet workers, is the notable exception and the brunt of 20 JANUARY 1989 7 Richard, Fraser Memorial to a Veteran American Trotskyist
Comrade Richard S. Fraser died on November 27, founding conference of the Spartacist League/ U.S. in 1988 at the age of75. On January 8, we held a memorial 1966, over the years Dick continued to develop his rela meeting in Los Angeles to honor the life and work of tions with the SL, leading to a close and invaluable col this veteran American Trotskyist who above all estab laboration in our work to establish organizations of lished his mark as a tenacious fighter for black libera labor/black defense. The author of "For the Material tion. Some 85 people came out to pay tribute with their ist Conception of the Negro Struggle," Richard Fraser memories of Dick Fraser, from old comrades and was a theoretical mentor, cherished friend and in the friends going back over 50 years when Dickjoined the end a comrade of the Spartacist League. Trotskyist movement to a younger generation which Dick Fraser was a veteran of the old revolutionary included many members of the Spartacist League. SWP. Together with other veterans of the party that Also present was his son Jonny, whom Dick cherished. James P. Cannon and Trotsky had built, he taught us A beautiful display of photographs and other some of the things that make us what we are today. materials showing Dick's life was assembled by com Above all what emerged from the tributes and rades from the West Coast, many of whom had worked memories of Dick Fraser at the memorial meeting was with and cared for Dick during his last years as he the thread of revolutionary continuity which his life courageously fought to overcome many painful and embodied, from the tradition of western radicalism debilitating illnesses to carryon his life's work. The represented by the W obblies which, refracted through speeches and messages to the memorial meeting were the experience of the great Russian Revolution of as rich in their diversity as was the man they spoke of. 1917, led to the formation of the American Com Dick Fraser was a talented violinist, an expert in the munist Party and later to the foundation of American trade of plaster pattern making, a seaman who was a Trotskyism by Cannon and other leading cadre out of member of the National Maritime Union, an inno the CP to carry forward the program of Leninism. vative although untrained scientist many of whose Both Frank Krasnowsky, who was a longtime com works were patented. But above all else Dick Fraser rade and collaborator of Dick's in Seattle, and the SL's was a devoted communist. Although lacking much Jim Robertson remarked at the memorial meeting that formal education Dick dedicated himself to the study they would have liked to have had the time to speak of the black question in America, and he enriched about the reformist degeneration of the SWP and all the program of Marxism with his understanding that those who scorned Dick Fraser and his invaluable con emancipation of blacks in this country will only come tribution to a revolutionary program for black libera through integrated revolutionary struggle for prole tion. The sequel came with Jack Barnes driving out and tarian socialist rule. expelling the last longtime party veterans, laying to rest For close to 30 years Dick was a leading member of ~ any ghost of a claim to continuity between the anti the Socialist Workers Party, where he began his life Trotskyists of Barnes' organization and the revolu long work on the program of revolutionary integra 1913·1988 tionary SWP. tionism as the road to black freedom. Later, he was a The Spartacist League is fortunate to be the heirs to founder of the Seattle-based Freedom Socialist Party an unbroken revolutionary tradition which goes back and an editor together with Arne Swabeck of the jour to Lenin and Trotsky's Communist International. nal Revolutionary Age. After a split in the FSP he went Dick Fraser was an important part of that continuity into the New American Movement hoping to educate The American attack on Libya was decisive in and it is in this spirit that we are reprinting in full some of these young New Leftists in the old Leninist breaking the contradiction between Dick's fervent the speeches and messages to his memorial meeting, school and was subsequently carried into the Demo political beliefs and his formal membership in the serially in this and the coming issues of Workers cratic Socialists of America. DSA. A co-reporter on the black question at the Vanguard.
Karen Wyatt bar will be open and you can look at all the displays end of black nationalism. From its inception the Los Angeles Spartacist League that have been done. We'll also be playing music that Spartacist League's adoption of Richard Fraser's pro Dick particularly liked .. Included in this'is some music gram of revolutionary integrationism has been the cor We're here today to honor the life of Richard Fra that was written, orchestrated and played by Dick's nerstone of Spartacisi's program of black liberation ser. Dickjoined the Trotskyist movement at the age of son Jonny who is here today. Dick's love for his son through socialist revolution. Our mganization, the 21 in 1934 and was an active participant in the socialist was very great. Even after eleven hours of surgery the Labor Black League for Social Defense, grew out of movement until his death on November 27,1988. The mention of Jonny's name would light up his eyes, and the SL's successful November 27, 1982 mobilization attendance here today I think is a testimony to his deep he was very proud of his music. that stopped the KKK. and lasting friendships as well as the political impact he We honor our friend and teacher Richard Fraser had on his own and on younger generations. We'll have most of all by continuing his fight. Forward to the seven speakers as well as twelve messages from com * * * * * Don Andrews Third American Revolution to Finish the Civil War! rades and friends who couldn't attend today. After that Hail Richard S. Fraser, fighter for black freedom! we will conclude with the singing ofthe Internationale. reading statement ofthe Bay Area Labor Black League for Social Defense Now you're all welcome to stay following that. The * * * * * We in the Labor Black League for Social Defense salute Richard S. Fraser, historic American Trotsky ."" "" ist, who died today, 27 November 1988. Richard Fra
are in life the verification of Richard Fraser's historic WV Photo contribution to history: for revolutionary integration Labor Black Leagues embody concept of revolu Don Andrews of Bay Area Labor Black League for ism as the road to the emancipation of the American tionary transitional organizations advocated by Social Defense. proletariat-white and black-as opposed to the dead Dick Fraser in the SWP 30 years ago.
8 WORKERS VANGUARD a possibility of participating in a strike, wherever there was a problem in the working class you could expect Dick to be there. N ow I lived in Minneapolis. I went to the university during the great strikes. And we were sitting around with Max Geldman-unfortunately this has been a period where we've lost a number of the comrades that have had 50 years in the movement or more. A good part of that generation-I'm glad I'm a lot younger but a good part of that generation has left us. But we were sitting around the table, Max Geldman had just come from the convention in '38, which was the found ing of the Socialist Workers Party. He was -much wealthier-he took a bus or a train, I don't remember. And about three or four days later, in came Dick. A knock at the door and this man with a gentle face, as he's been described by Charlie, 5' 10" or 5' II", I guess, came in. And I said, "Well, how did you get here?" He said, "a very cheap form of transportation." I asked him what it was and he said, "Well, I found that the boxcar and the thumb were one way you can get almost anywhere in the country." That was Dick Fraser. I didn't meet Dick again-although I heard that he had become a seaman, he was a seaman for about four years-until I came to Los Angeles. I had heard from Charles Curtiss, who was L.A. organizer of the Trotskyist Communist League of America in the early Asher the story that Charlie told you, about the fact 1930s, addresses memorial meeting. that Dick had been a violinist, that he was with the San Diego symphony orchestra for a period of time. Peo Charles Curtiss Myra Tanner Weiss ple wanted him to go on to study with leading musi who knew Dick Fraser for 55 years and was Los former longtime member of the Socialist Workers cians. But once he had seen the vision, the socialist Angeles organizer of the Communist League of Party sent the following greetings vision, once he had seen the idea of internationalism, of America when Dick joined Dick Fraser lived his whole life as a socialist. How an independent working class, of a type of party that I am here in' two capacities. From the Los Angeles ever important the differences we had between us, we was necessary to make a revolution in this country, Socialist Party I bring condolences to the family, shared the desire for a socialist society and Dick strug Dick put away his violin and joined the socialist friends and comrades of Dick Fraser. But I'm also here gled always to organize the working class and to raise movement. in a personal capacity, for the ties that link Dick Fra its political consciousness. My special sympathy for And in Los Angeles, the thing that I remember about ser and me go back more than a half century. On count our loss goes to those of you who not only lost a com Dick is that there was no task that Dick wouldn't do. I ing back it was about 55 years ago that I first met Dick rade but a close political collaborator and friend as was telling Karen when I talked to her that if the office in San Diego. We were obviously considerably young well. He can never be replaced in your hearts. Dick was had to be cleaned up, Dick would clean it up. If there er then. Together we studied the fundamentals of inter always certain of the socialist victory for which he was a strike to go to, Dick would go and provide what nationalist socialism, the class struggle and its final devoted his life. And so are we. In revolutionary ever leadership. If there was a struggle, any type of outcome in socialism. We pondered over the sources of solidarity, Myra Tanner Weiss. struggle of the working class, you could depend on surplus value, class exploitation and its termination in Dick to be there. a socialist society of abundance for all with production * * * * * And that was one of the reasons that I wanted to for use not profit. We analyzed the cruelty and the absurdity of unem ~ 1'- JI ployment, of want and suffering in the midst of plenty. This was in the very depths of the Depression. We probed the economic and political roots of war and .. imperialism, and how to eradicate them and establish an economic order internationally where the antago nism between classes vanishes, the hostility of one nation to another will come to an end. We learned and we were also active. We fought against fascism in demonstrations. We battled in dis cussion with individual members of the Communist Party and its supporters against Stalinism and for the internationalist essential of socialism as against the monstrosity of the theory of "socialism in one coun try." And he, we, responded "present" with enthusi asm on picket lines, as volunteers in supporting union efforts, in backing the movements of the unemployed and the oppressed segments of our society for human rights. Dick Fraser .. Dick had a constant and loved companion-his studied to be a .. fiddle. He was a sensitive musician, a talented and violinist and devoted violinist. For it is well to remember that we, never lost his young people, many of us in our teens, brought into the love of music. socialist movement music and literature. We had choral groups and we heard recitals at our socials. We formed drama groups and Dick among others gave much here. There was a kindliness and generosity in Dick that surmounted even the bitterness of the factionalism that marked the socialist movement and that asserted itself, despite the torturous pain he was suffering. And this kindliness and generosity, as so often happens, called Dave Cooper speak. Because in this tradition of a number of com forth kindliness and generosity in turn in those he member of Socialist Action who first met Dick Fraser rades that have left us-I must tell you that I talked this touched, whether briefly or for long periods of time. in the SWP in Minneapolis in 1938 morning to a woman who was one of the leading com There is guidance in this thought. Dick in his integrity, rades on the East Coast and she said, "What have we his giving of himself without stint in the daily work for I was listening to a tape recording this morning of achieved? We've had Dick and Max [Shachtman] and socialism, his respect for clarity and knowledge in the the history of the IWW. Now Dick was never a mem [James] Cannon and all these people. Where are we realm of thought, his artistry, his magnanimity, was a ber of the IWW. But if you knew Dick Fraser you knew now?" And I smiled to myself as I said to her on the forerunner of the person of the human future of asso that his roots were in the IWW. What do I mean by phone: Where was the working class in 1917? Where is ciated labor in which the free development of each is a that? I mean, Dick may not have had a penny in his the working class of the world today? Where is the cap pocket, but he might have heard that there was a con condition for the free development of all. italist class today? It's in a blind alley. These comrades As I visited him in the last months of his life, and tact a hundred miles away. And Dick kQew how to go left us with a great and a historic tradition and we will the cheapest way-..J.thumb or railroad. these visits were harrowing for he was very sick, I bear link up with the revolutionaries of England, France, of One of the comrades I talked to, Asher Harer, who witness that he remained true to the ideals and goals Africa, Latin America. was recruited by Dick, said they had a peace demon and values he consciously adopted 55 and more years Yes, great were the contributions that these com ago. The thoughts of youth were for him long. long stration where Asher went to school, and who showed up but Dick Fraser. And when he showed up, Asher rades made and we will live to see younger comrades thoughts. With all the setbacks of the intervening years coming in, taking up the cudgels and becoming part of and with all the pain of his illnesses, Dick stood fast as said, "Do you have any money?" "Hmm, yes," he said, "I have five dollars." Now he had to go about 150 miles, that fight. And you young comrades who are not part an internationalist socialist to the very last day of his of the movement yet, you must take up where Dick and life. This memory he left us and it is precious. but he heard that there was a peace demonstration and there might be a possibility of a recruit. So wherever many of the others left off and carry this struggle on. * * * * * there was a possibility of recruiting, wherever there was continued on page 10
20 JANUARY 1989 9 c I met Dick in 1985 and had a couple of talks with him Democratic Party 2 Fraser Memorial ... concerning a book that he was in the process of writ poster in 1868, ~ (continued from page 9) ing. At the time, the title of the book was "The Rise and (right). In post- 8 Fall of the Slave Power," but was changed in June Civil War period e> ::J Because there is no question, there is a socialist vision 1986, because a Senator Wilson used the same name the Democrats .0 E and there is a socialist movement. And if you believe in about a century ago. campaigned o .c: the socialist vision, you must become a part of that to restore white u In our conversation, Dick told me that I would be (/) socialist movement. Thank you. surprised how many black people do not know the supremacist rule complete truth about slavery in the United States. Dick in the South * * * * * through said, "My book will be written for scholars, teachers, KKK terror. Dorothy Ray Healey students and for anybody who wants to read the X'" ...... ".. ol the Democratic Socialists ol America sent the book." }:. • 10 WORKERS VANGUARD Spain: "Socialist" Regime H'it by Protest Strike On December 14, Spain was shut notorious "beautiful people" of his plenty of pickets (80,000, according to strike would let Gonzalez "stop feeling down by a massive one-day general PSOE (Socialist Workers Party) gov El Pais). But as a correspondent in imprisoned by the de facto powers" such work stoppage protesting pro-business ernment. She had ordered broadcasts to Barcelona reports, "the 'information' as the army and the banks. But from tne economic policies which have brought continue throughout the 14th. But at 12 they gave out was that everything was beginning of his reign, the "Socialist" massive unemployment and falling midnight, just as the announcer on the closed." Throughout the industrial belt prime minister has tried to show him wages for the workers and fabulous news program declared that minimum of the Baix Llobregat and Valles, self the handmaiden of the capitalists profits for the bosses. Almost eight services would be maintained, techni factories were shut down with handfuls and militarists, bringing Spain into the million workers, 90 percent of the cians pulled the plug and TV screens of pickets. Militants drove around Common Market and NATO against working class, struck against the "so went blank throughout the country. looking for plants that were open and massive popular opposition. cialist" government of Felipe Gonzalez. And exactly a month later Mira was picketed them out. Moreover, the Spanish general strike The response exceeded the most opti sacked after ajudge ordered her to repay There were also major labor mobi is part of a growing trend in West mistic expectations of the Socialist-led over $30,000 which she had taken from lizations during the strike week, the Europe of workers' opposition to the UGT (General Workers Union) and Communist-led Comisiones Obreras (CC.OO.-Workers Commissions) un ion leaders who called it. It was the first time in more than half a century, since before the Civil War of the 1930s, that Spain had seen united strike action by the entire proletariat. The workers were lashing out at Gonzalez' program to "modernize" the Spanish working country by attracti·ng international cap class showed its ital with "free market" policies. With power. General this policy of economic growth through work stoppage high tech and low pay, the yuppie social on December 14 shut down democratic planners did produce an 95 percent investment boom. Joining the Com of industry, mon Market in 1986, Spain outstripped construction and most of Western Europe in economic transport. growth. But in "restructuring" indus try by dismantling unprofitable state owned companies, unemployment shot up to the highest level in Europe, almost 22 percent in 1985 and double that for youth under 25. So Gonzalez intro duced a plan to pay employers for hir the RTVE treasury to pay for expen largest in years. On Wednesday (De Reaganite/Thatcherite economic pro ing youth at the minimum wage, while sive clothes and jewelry. cember 14), more than 200,000 demon gram being carried out by social "flexibilizing" (removing) controls on "The main symbol of the wide sup strated in Barcelona even though, democratic regimes. Next door in firing workers. port for the strike was the closing despite the government's "minimum France, the Socialist Party government After years of tightening their belts so of small shops," reported El Pais services" order, there was no public of Mittetrand/Maurois was hit last fall that companies could rake in mil (19 December 1988). Even in Madrid's transportation at all to bring them in by the biggest strike wave in years, cen lions, and now facing the prospect of posh Salamanca barrio, where nostalgic from the workers' towns. And on Fri tering on government employees. On government-subsidized mass layoffs, F rancoists give the stiff-arm fascist day, half a million marched in triumph November 30, they brought in the army Spanish workers have had it. The last salute on the anniversary of the dic through the center of Madrid, converg for the first time in years to break a Paris attempt at a general strike (in June 1984) tator's death, shutters were closed. Soc ing on the Puerta del Sol. A giant transit strike, yet even then it dragged on had spotty results, as Comisiones cer matches were canceled as star teams papier-mache float was burned which to the end of the month. But while Obreras went it alone. This time dis like the Barc;a and Real Madrid joined showed Gonzalez and his hardline dep Gonzalez and Maurois denounce the content among labor was so strong that the strike. In Barcelona 75 percent of the uty Alfonso Guerra clutching wads of strikes as political, the reformist union the UGT joined in. The result was a total bordellos reportedly dosed. The few money while starving workers holding and C P misleaders refuse to wage a shutdown. Even though only 12 per clashes came outside the department red .roses (the Socialist Party symbol) politica/fight against the anti-working cent of the labor force is unionized, 95 stores of the Corte Ingles chain, which looked on. Police helicopters circled class regimes they helped put in office. percent of industry, construction and has a company union and vowed to stay overhead, and at the end riot cops laid In his terse televised statement, Felipe transport stopped work. Government open. But although scabs came to work, into the dispersing crowd. Gonzalez stated the obvious: "By defini offices closed, newspapers didn't pub they were forced to shut down by tion, a general strike is political. Trying lish. The streets were deserted as small midday because of the large picket lines General Strike Poses to pretend otherwise is a waste of time." shops kept their shutters down. Even and lack of customers. Fight for Power Yet having demonstrated the backing agricultural workers refused to go into The government raised a hue and cry of eight million workers, the UGT / the fields, and many of the government over fears of picket line violence. Before The day after the walkout, Felipe Gonzalez issued a statement recogniz CC.OO. tops demanded the govern ordered "minimum services" stopped as the strike they even set up a hot line so ment fulfill ::r pitiful minimum program well. finks could help the police by calling in. ing "the political success of the general strike, as well as the heavy blow it means of a 2 percent wage increase, withdraw A dramatic showdown came at The labor tops, themselves fearful of ing the misnamed "youth employment R TV E, the state broadcast network run strike militancy, responded by declar for the government" (El Pais, 16 De cember 1988). For the last month, plan," indexing pensions for inflation by Pilar M ira, a close personal friend of ing that pickets would only be "infor and increasing the number of those eligi the prime minister and one of the most matiomil." On the 14th, there were government and PSOE leaders went all out in red baiting and violence ble for unemployment benefits from mongering in an attempt to break the under a third to barely half of the job momentum. They tried to split the less! Easily affordable-but a month £2.50/$5 UGT, whereupon dozens of union lead after the strike, talks broke down as the Just Received ers who opposed the strike were ousted. government refused to meet even a fifth Already in 1987, UGT chief Nicolas of the unions' demands. So much for Volume 1, No.3 $5 Gonzalez' "social turn"! (Autumn 1988) (48 pages) Redondo had resigned his parliamen , tary seat as a PSOE deputy; the strike Rather than fighting for powerful Includes: formalized the division in the "Socialist working-class action to kick out the family." But without a revolutionary pro-business government, the fake • Jean-Paul Joubert on: leadership, the tremendous social mobi Communists are treating the December "Revolutionary Defeatism" lization will only serve as a pressure 14 strike as a popularity poll on the • Sam Levy on: tactic for a slight shift in government Gonzalez regime and looking to the "The Proletarian Military Policy policy, the so-called "social turn." next elections. And to increase their Revisited" The reformist leaders of the UGT and vote, they are trying to reconstitute the • Rodolphe Prager on: CC.OO. underlined this in a statement splintered PCE by bringing back the "The Fourth International in which they showed their "concern "ex-pro-Soviet" Stalinists of Ignacio During the Second World War" over the tremendous strength and power Gallego's PCPE (Communist Party of • and more that we have today, which requires us to the Peoples of Spain), while leaving ex administer the success with great cau CP caudillo Santiago Carrillo's PTE (Back issues Nos. 1 and 2 tion. We do not in any way seek the (Workers Party) out in the cold. Also also available) fall of the government" (El Periodico, absent from this lash-up is the PCC Order from: 15 December 1988). Likewise the gen (Catalan Communist Party), the former Spartacist Publishing Co., Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 eral secretary of the Communist Party a.fganos who formed as a hard line (PCE), Juan Anguita, stresse.d that the continued on page 12 20 JANUARY 1989 11 China ... (continuedfrom page 4) Peking homeless live on handouts and others steal to live. In southern Canton there now exists a small army of beg gars by day, many of whom turn to gam bling and prostitution by night. The Chinese economy and Chinese society after 40 years of Stalinist zig zaogs and adventurism is in a shambles. Inflation is running close to 50 percent a year. The foreign debt is $40 billion. And the government is "considering" retrenchment and redeployment (read layoffs) of 2.5 million workers cur rently on the state payroll. The prospect of mass layoffs (and unemployment) is the inevitable result of the erosion of centralized planning and an emphasis on competition among the various enterprises and regions. As the London Guardian (19 October 1988) noted: "T 0 put Chinese factories on a com rna mercial footing would mean sacking up Deng'~ program of "building socialism with capitalist methods" encourages emulation of imperialist West, including to 30 million workers, or 20 to 30 per Madison Avenue-style hype and promoting of social inequality. cent of the urban industrial workforce. To really allow the market to set prices would inevitably mean real hardship for prominent economists with close ties to Barbaric practices rooted in the old imperialist economic penetration and millions." the Deng regime have proposed to Confucian order, such as the binding of pressure, pressure which is especially Indications are that the Chinese "transfer ownership of all of China's women's feet, were abolished. A nation heavy given China's backwardness. working class is fighting back against state-owned companies to shareholders which had been ravished and divided by The alternative to "opening" China to rocketing inflation and government that would include individuals, univer foreign powers for a century was uni capitalism is not national autarky along attempts to break the lifetime job sities, institutions and local govern fied and freed from imperialist subjuga the lines of Mao's Great Leap Forward, security (the "iron rice bowl") that has ments" (New York Times, 10 January). tiQn. These fundamental gains of the but genuine international socialist plan become traditional since the revolu However, the restoration of capitalism Chinese Revolution will be defended by ning. And that requires socialist revolu tion. For example, in November dock in China cannot take place simply the workers and poor peasants, and can tion in the advanced capitalist coun workers at Tanggu (a major port about through bureaucratic fiat, passing new be overturned only by civil war, a tries and proletarian political revolution 100 miles southwest of Peking) began a regulations and the like. massive social cataclysm. against the Stalinist bureaucracies not go-slow work action that paralyzed the The Chinese Revolution which tri But what the bureaucracy is doing only in Peking but also in Moscow. A port. This action is part of a sharply ris umphed in 1949 on the bayonets of does endanger and erode the gains of the revolutionary workers government in ing line of workers struggles that Mao's Red Army and without the revolution, thus powerfully strengthen China, based on soviet democracy, between January and July last year participation of the working class, was, ing capitalist-restorationist forces. Vis would promote balanced economic resulted in 49 strikes by official figures despite its profound bureaucratic defor cerally hostile to the Leninist program growth, ensuring a steadily rising stan (the real figure is doubtless much mation, a world-historic event. Hun of world socialist revolution, the nation dard of living for the population. But higher). dreds of millions of peasants rose up and alist Stalinist bureaucracies from Mos this cannot be done solely on the basis of seized the land on which their forebears cow to Peking seek a modus vivendi the resources available in China. The For Proletarian Political had been cruelly exploited since time with the imperialists. The Deng regime modernization of China, the world's Revolution! immemorial. The rule of the murderous has gone further, allying China to largest nation with its rich and ancient There have now emerged openly pro warlords and bloodsucking money American imperialism (for example, in culture, is a great task for the interna capitalist elements within the Chinese lenders, the rapacious landlords and attacking and besieging Vietnam). It has tional proletarian revolution and global Stalinist bureaucracy. Recently, three wretched bourgeoisie, was destroyed. also opened the country to ever greater socialist order.- election of social-democrat Gonzalez in question that the Spanish "Commu three months later in Russia-a Lenin Spain ... 1982 as a "workers victory." Mean nists," including afgano militants prom ist vanguard party, tested in battle and while the LCR (Revolutionary Com inent in the labor movement, refused to forged in the political struggle for (continued/rom page 11) munist League), supporters of Ernest call a general strike during 1975-77 after authentic Marxism. opposition to Carrillo's "Eurocommu Mandel, have dissipated into every con Franco's death when shaky govern As Trotsky noted in his repeated nism." But especially as Soviet leader ceivable petty-bourgeois milieu. At the ments survived only because of pacts warnings during the 1936-39 Civil Gorbachev takes up many of the themes end of the Barcelona march on Decem with the UGT and Comisiones. A War, in the absence of such a party, the of yesterday's "Euros," while with ber 14 the LCR distinguished itself by "strike offolded arms" will not suffice to heroic efforts of the Spanish proletar drawing from Afghanistan in the face being the only ones to sing the Catalan defeat the ruling class. This was the les iat to defeat Franco and the fascists of Reagan's mujahedin, these "ex-pro nationalist anthem. son of the general strike fetishism of the were held back by the Popular Front of Soviets" have no independent program Any real general strike inevitably Spanish anarchists during and after class collaboration. The struggle for a either nationally or internationally. raises the question of who will rule, WW I, and of the failed August 1917 Leninist-Trotskyist party in Spain to the bourgeoisie or the proletariat. The general strike against the Bourbon day, as part of the fight to reforge the For a Trotskyist Party in Spain! Spanish "general work stoppage" was, monarchy. What was lacking then was Fourth International, remains the key As for the ostensible Trotskyists, they as Leon Trotsky wrote of France in precisely the key which led to victory to victory._ are hardly more militant than the Sta February 1934, "not a general strike in linist or social-democratic reformists. the proper meaning of the term, but only F or the December 14 general strike, the a 24-hour demonstration." While the PST (Socialist Workers Party), follow Stalinist leaders temporized, seeking to SPARTACIST LEAGUE/U.S. LOCAL DIRECTORY ers of the late Argentine adventurer avoid at all costs a struggle for state Nahuel Moreno, in no way posed the power, Trotsky emphasized: National Office: New York question of power, calling only to 'The fundamental importance of the Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 Box 444, Canal st. Sta. "defeat the economic and social policy general strike, independent of the par (212) 732-7860 New York, NY 10013 tial successes which it may and then (212) 267-1025 of the government" (La Verdad Social again may not provide, lies in the fact ista, 15 November 1988). And no won that it poses the question of power in Atlanta Detroit Norfolk der, since Moreno & Co. hailed the a revolutionary manner. By shutting Box 4012 Box 441794 Box 1972, Main PO down the factories, transport, gener Atlanta, GA 30302 Detroit, MI 48244 Norfolk, VA 23501 ally all the means of communication, power stations, etc., the proletariat by Boston Ithaca Oakland this very act paralyzes not only produc Box 840, Central Sta. Box 32552 tion but also the government. The state Box 6767 Spartacist League Cambridge, MA 02139 Ithaca, NY 14850 Oakland, CA 94604 power remains suspended in mid-air. It (617) 492-3928 (415) 839-0851 Public Offices must either subjugate the proletariat by famine and force and constrain it to set Los Angeles -MARXIST L1TERATURE Chicago San Francisco the apparatus of the b!lurgeois state Aox 6441, Main PO Box 29574, Los Feliz Sta. Box 5712 once again in motion, or' retreat before Bay Area Chicago, IL 60680 Los Angeles, CA 90029 San Francisco, CA 94101 the proletariat. (21~) 380-8239 Thurs.: 5:30-8:00 p.m., Sat.: 1:00-5:00 p.m. "Whatever may be the slogans and the (312) 663-0715 (415) 863-6963 1634 Telegraph, 3rd Floor (near 17th Street) motive for which the general strike is Oakland, California Phone: (415) 839-0851 Cleveland Madison Washington, D.C. initiated, if it includes the genuine Chicago- masses, and if these masses are quite Box 91037 Box 2074 Box 75073 Tues.: 5:00-9:00 p.m., Sat.: 11:00 a.m.-2:00 p.m. resolved to struggle, the general strike Cleveland, OH 44101 Madison, WI 53701 Washington, D.C. 20013 161 W. Harrison St.. 10th Floor inevitably poses before all the classes in (216) 781-7500. (608) 255-8068 (202) 636-3537 Chicago, Illinois Phone: (312) 663-0715 the nation the question: Who will be the master of the house?" New York City -Leon Trotsky, "Once Again, Tues.: 6:00-9:00 p.m., Sat.: 1:00-5:00 p.m. Toronto 41 Warren St. (one block below Whither France?" TROTSKYIST LEAGUE Box 7198, Station A (March 1935) Chambers St. near Church St.) Of CANADA Toronto, Ontario M5W 1X8 New York, N.Y. Phone: (212) 267-1025 It was because they were not prepared (416) 593-4138 to give a revolutionary answer to this 12 WORKERS VANGUARD Libya ... (continued from page 1) You could almost see Reagan swag gering about the White House "imper sonating a Western gunfighter drawing his six-shooters," as he reportedly did back in 1981 when the U.S. also shot down two Libyan planes. It was Rea gan's last parting shot from office, a bit of cheap bravado to set the tone for the incoming administration of his disciple Bush-in short, a demonstration of unbridled imperialist arrogance from the White House, which thinks it has the right to bomb anyone in the world, any time, to satisfy the obsessions of a dying empire. The Reagan/ Bush gang has made Qaddafi's Libya, a "radical" Arab regime and Soviet military client, the Libyan capital of TripOli was bombed by U.S. warplanes in 1986 in attempt to murder Qaddafi.lnternational Spartacist number one target for U.S. state terror tendency protested Reagan/Bush state terrorism. . ism. Colonel Muammar al-Qaddafi, an idiosyncratic nationalist demagogue, is aryl against being misled by the White Soviet bloc and over disgruntlement in sians, who under Gorbachev are fool portrayed as the evil genius orchestrat House: Bonn with NATO policy. West Ger ishly undermining the defense of the ing every terrorist act on the face of the "The only reason for being at all many has been increasingly aggressive Soviet degenerated workers state by cautious about the Pentagon version is planet. In 1986 the White House falsely in pursuing its own imperialist inter conciliating the imperialists at every that once, referring to a Libyan assassi ests, including secretly developing nu accused the Libyan strongman of engi nation plot against President Reagan, turn, from Afghanistan to Angola. In neering the bombing of a West Berlin and once in blaming the Libyans clear weapons with South Africa. this latest incident, the Soviets at first disco frequented by U.S. servicemen. for blowing up a cafe in Berlin, the Resentful of American arm-twisting, appeared to put up at least a verbally Reagan administration misrepresented In "retaliation" U.S. warplanes bombed Bonn reportedly told the Reaganites strong defensive reflex by denouncing the facts. The assassination plot later that West Germany was not a "banana the American action as "state terror Tripoli in a deliberate attempt to turned out to be deliberate disinforma assassinate Qaddafi. They succeeded in tion; the cafe bombing was later report republic." But after weeks of denying ism." Krasnya Zvezda (Red Star), the killing his adopteo baby daughter and edly linked to the Syrians. In any event any link between Imhausen and Libya, Soviet Army newspaper, called it "ban killing and maiming over 100 Libyan the rest of the world is treating today's the conservative Kohl regime shame ditry" and "piracy," a return tothe U.S.' story with restraint." civilians. In solidarity with the Libyan facedly backtracked. notorious "aircraft carrier diplomacy." victims of this cowardly imperialist When the U.S. tried to "prove" its Not coincidentally, the U.S. propa But at the UN they caved in, agreeing to attack, the international Spartacist ten planes had been attacked by releasing a ganda campaign against the alleged poi see some of the U.S. "evidence" in dency sent a journalistic team to Tripoli videotape of the clash, the editor of the son gas plant came on the eve of the private. right after the U.S. bombing. respected military publication Jane's Paris meeting of 145 nations to discuss The latest U.S. attack comes directly Given the rising crescendo of threats A vionics yearbook, David Brinkman, the question of chemical warfare. Sec in the wake of Gorbachev's visit to the from Washington in recent weeks, the remarked, "The video doesn't prove it to retary of State George Shultz came to U.S., his announcement at the United Libyans had every reason to believe me .... " "It could have beenjust an inno pontificate on the dangers of the spread Nations of a unilateral cut in Soviet another bombing attack was imminent. cent wish to investigate what was out of chemical weapons to the Third armed forces, and other concessions. All A second aircraft carrier, appropriately there," he said of the Libyan planes' World, and everyone knew he meant this has only emboldened the warmon named the USS Theodore Roosevelt, course from their airbase out toward the Libya, not U.S. allies like Egypt and gers in Washington. Some of the franker was heading for the Mediterraneari. American carrier group offshore (News Israel, both of which have chemical American strategists are admitting as Moreover, in a little-noticed admis day, 7 January). weapons. Indeed,,if one wants to pin much. As one imperialist think-tank sion, the Pentagon has stated that point murderous outlaw states in the analyst, Stephen Sestanovich, noted in U.S. fighter-bombers were "engaged in N ear East, Israel is certainly at the top of an article titled "Gorbachev: Giving bombing practice Wednesday 70 miles the ·list. It has carried out bombing Away the Store?": off the coast of Libya-dropping smoke attacks against other nations in the "Gorbachev's is a foreign policy of con cessions ... offering one new formula bombs and then performing bombing region at will, from the 1981 attack on the Iraqi nuclear reactor to the bomb after" another, often without receiving runs on the columns of smoke-when offsetting concessions from the other two Libyan MiG-23 fighters were ing of Lebanon in 1982 to the 1,500-mile side .... detected" (San Franciscu Examiner, bomber raid on Tunisia in 1985. "But other governments are bound to 5 January). Sending up a couple of Israel has stockpiled mustard gas and ask the obvious question: Why recip nerve gas, as well as a massive arsenal of rocate, rather than simply wait for M IGs for reconnaissance was a mini another concession? Why not add new mally prudent step on the part of the nuclear weapons, without so much as a demands? There's a dawning sense that Libyans. peep of protest from Washington-a Gorbachev may be a man who can be The Pentagon claims these MIGs fact not lost on Arab states at the Paris had .... " -Washington Post, attacked the U.S. planes, which first conference who note that chemical weapons are the "poor man's atom II December 1988 took "evasive maneuvers." But even the Rather than being the road to New York Times (6 January) printed a bomb." IfQaddafi has managed to build a poison gas factory with West German "peace," Gorbachev's detente is only diagram of the "U .S. Pilots' Version" fueling the American imperialists' drive which shows that the first thing the two help, it could be considered a prudent toward war. Cuban leader Fidel Castro American fighters did after picking up deterrent against demonstrated Israeli/ U.S. aggression. (Despite Qaddafi's is worried that "detente between the the Libyan MIGs on radar was to turn United States and the Soviet Union, 180 degrees and "head toward them." braggadocio, his minuscule military Chemical warfare: U.S. Air Force does not necessarily_ mean that there is Some "evasive maneuver"! And then force has never gotten further than dropped 19 million gallons of ~'her going to be peace for us" (New York they quickly dove to a very low altitude, Chad, and didn't fare very well even bicides," including deadly Agent there.) Times, II January). And detente won't knowing that the MIGs' radar has dif Orange, on South Vietnam. bring peace to the Soviet Union either. ficulty detecting planes below them, In any case, it takes a lot of chutzpah for the U.S. to lecture the rest of the As the Soviet bureaucracy throws its which gave the F-14s the advantage for Not surprisingly, administration at allies (such as Afghanistan) to the an attack. tempts to line up its allies on this one world on this subject: the U.S. has one of the largest stockpiles of chemical imperialist wolves in the name of didn't fare so well. In Europe only detente, it will find itself completely Who Buys White House Lies? Thatcher's Britain backed the U.S., but warfare agents in the world. In fact it was Vice President George Bush who isolated when the wolves finally turn After eight years of practice, the the Manchester Guardian Weekly (15 on Moscow. Remember June 194I! January) astutely observed that "In the broke the tie in the Senate in 1986 to Congressional Democratic "opposi resume production of nerve gas. Dur Stalin almost lost the Soviet Union to' tion" no longer even stumbles over their minds of many Americans a US strike Hitler's armies because of the same on the plant would be in revenge for the ing the Vietnam War, the U.S. Air Reaganaut lines. Senator Christopher Force dropped over 19 million gal sort of blind faith in paper agreements Dodd instantly praised the shootdown Pan Am sabotage at Lockerbie"-for with the capitalist powers. And now which there are no known credible lons of "herbicides," including the as "appropriate defensive action." Les deadly Agent Orange, over Viet Cong Stalin's heirs are repeating the same Aspin, liberal Democratic chairman of suspects. At the United Nations Securi fatal error. ty Council, no one was buying the U.S. controlled territory. The Vietnamese are the House Armed Services Committee, still paying for this mass poisoning, Reagan/Bush celebrate the repeated went on at length about the "paranoid" representative's inkblot test-a dark, attacks on Libya, like the 1983 invasion blurry photo of a Libyan jet which, it especially with large numbers of birth Qaddafi. Of course the yellow press like defects. It was only in 1975 that of tiny black Grenada, as military vic the New York Post ran flag-waving was claimed, showed the plane was tories on the cheap. Bullying this small, armed (so what?). Only vetoes from the Washington finally signed the 1925 headlines about the "Top Guns" of the Geneva protocol banning the use of weak Arab country is intended to U.S. Navy who managed to push the U.S./Britain axis blocked the con overcome "the Vietnam syndrome" in demnation of the American action. chemical warfare agents. And then it right buttons on some millions of had the gall to add a caveat exempting preparing the American people for new, dollars' worth of high-tech gear to shoot so-called military "herbicides." This was bigger military adventures-like send down reconnaissance planes which The Pentagon and Chemical Warfare done because the U.S. government ing U.S. troops into Central America, never fired a shot. wants to claim that what they did in perhaps starting with Panama. The But after eight years of Reagan/ Bush The Reaganites' accusation that the Vietnam was not chemical warfare! imperialists' drive toward war can only lies, many of which came apart in the firm of Imhausen-Chemie was supply be stopped by revolutionary class strug Iran/contra affair despite the best ing the alJeged poison gas plant in Libya gle. The working people of America, efforts of Congress to cover it all up, has heated up relations between the U.S. Once Again, Gorbachev Bows to U.S. Imperialism united with their class brothers around media skepticism was massive. Even and its West German ally. Washington the world, must disarm the terrorists of ABC's Ted Koppel, no liberal muck is pressuring West Germany over its If anything, these continued U.S. Washington by smashing capitalist rule raker he, warned on Nightline (4 Janu- sales of high-tech equipment to the provocations ought to wake up the Rus- and establishing workers power .. - 20 JANUARY 1989 13 knew that executed leftists were usually buried in a cemetery in Jadeh Kha varan," the infamous "Graveyard of Bloody Horror in Khomeini's Iran the Damned" where non-Muslims are buried. When Entazari went there she found. an insane gravedigger who pointed at some newly dug graves, filled with bodies that had arrived the previ The Graveyard of the Damned ous evening from Qum, Khomeini's headquarters. She began digging with As news began filtering out about the in Iranian gaols. die of clothes. "She had to sign a state her hands: massacre now going on in Iranian jails, "The first, still in operation, was the ·ment that the family would not stage "It was shocking and horrific. I un particularly of leftist political prison rape of virgin girls through forced 'mar earthed the body of a young man, 26 or riages' to prison guards, so that an any funeral ceremonies:" Mahin and 27 years of age. He was clothed and ers, several relatives and friends of those obscure religious sanction against the her husband were both supporters of wrapped in a blanker. His face was executed who had managed to escape to execution of virgins could be overcome. Komala, and he had been injail for three bloody, his eyes had popped out of their Europe told of the reign of terror in "The second ... was to test 'converted' years under the shah. One night in 1981, sockets. His feet were swollen and there Khomeini's "Islamic Republic." prisoners' loyalty by using them in fir the pasdaran showed up at the door and was blood between his toes. The body ing squads aiming at other inmates. was dumped and covered with only a Farhad Moghaddam wrote in the "This ploy backfired when 'tested' dragged Reza away. He was given 20 few centimeters of earth. He was not my London Guardian (13 January) of inmates opened fire on prison officials years as a "Communist" and "blasphem husband, but he was someone's loved Masoomeh, a young woman he had including Ladjevardi himself, before er." Reza was arrested shortly after his one." committing suicide." known in Tabriz who was among those son was born, and they hadn't had time Marvam Entazari decided to leave recently killed. She was arrested at the Khomeini declared that "Islam does not to pick his name. Mahin tried to tell him Iran with her children. And she wanted age of 16 and, although sentenced to believe in prisons," so now the prison during prison visits, but they could only to tell the outside world of the horror four years, was not released until six ers would become corpses, and those "communicate" through sign language. that is going on in Iran. "This is a regime years later in November 1987. Follow earlier released would be rearrested. In early December Reza was executed of murderers," she writes. "Please print ing the August 1988 cease-fire in the Among them was Masoomeh. In De without learning the name of his son, my words. Tell the people of Britain that Iran-Iraq war, Moghaddam learned cember, she was executed. Said. the Iranian people are captives in their from her relatives that: In Berlin, Mahin Esmati told Die Marvam Entazari's husband was also own land. They are at the mercy of crim "All visits to political prisoners were Tageszeitung (16 December 1988) that among those recently executed. "I inals who kill indiscriminately. Even cancelled and Ladjevardi, better known as the butcher of Evin. was returned to she had learned of the execution of her insisted on knowing his place of burial," young children are not spared. Please his old job. He is especially remem husband Reza when her mother-in-law she wrote in the New Statesman (13 tell them this. Ask them to put pressure bered for two widely used innovations was called to the prison to pick up a bun- January). "They wouldn't tell me. I on the regime to stop the murders.". f .. '~_'t- ~ ;.:.... :'" ... bbas/Gamma-Liaison Guardian [London] "Islamic Revolution" means women in veils, bloody repression of working class and national minorities (left). Pasdaran ("Revolutionary Guards") in Teheran (right). party leader, what have you got against this organization? He said, Afghanistan: Soviet Withdrawal 'Khomeini is saying the same as the Communist Party about the revolu tion.So we want to continue with Means Bloodbath for Women, Leftists Khomeini.' That is very important, because there was no revolution. And At the January II protest in Ham bath, and has won us respect among know the organization at all-wrote a Kianuri said, 'the whole party is going burg against the mass executions in thoughtful militants, our warnings of declaration, 'Down with the Mullahs! home, we have supported Khomeini Iran, supporters of the Trotzkistische the impending nightmare of funda Down with the Shah!' This statement Liga Deutschlands (TLD) carried the mentalist ten:or hanging over Afghan .. impressed me greatly. At the Tech there, although Khomeini spoke on sign, "Afghanistan: Soviet Withdraw istan have increasingly gained a nical University there was a prom the radio about Islamic law.' We had to learn from Tudeh how to defend the al Means Bloodbath for Women and hearing. At a December 3 TLD forum inent action by a couple of people from revolution. Leftists." A TLD speaker declared, in Berlin titled "We Are the Party of the TLD, and unfortunately the Irani "And what do we have now? The "'t is not an accident that this blood the Russian Revolytion," an Iranian ans pushed them away, reacting very party has been destroyed. Thousands bath in Iran comes now, as the Red militant underlined this connection as sharply against the action. I even heard have been executed, and recently, two Army is withdrawing from Afghani he recalled th~ time of Khomeini's that they said these people were CIA or three days ago, we heard that 33 stan. The regime in Teheran is giving triumph in 1979. agents. Then we spoke with the more members of the Central Com us a foretaste of what the jihad "After a week, the TLD-I didn't [Tudeh] party, and asked Kianuri, the mittee were executed. [Islamic holy war] in Afghanistan has promised." a.. "In another article I read about the <{ withdrawal of the Red Army from At the beginning of the '80s the Afghanistan. What will happen when international Spartacist tendency'S the Red Army is out of Afghanistan? support for Soviet intervention in As an Iranian, I tell you: that means Afghanistan against mullah-led coun the annihilation of the revolution. terrevolution ("Hail Red Army in That means the annihilation of the Afghanistan!") led to howls of out entire popUlation of Afghanistan, 15 rage from Western leftists sucked million or so. Don't make a mistake into Washington's anti-Soviet "human As mass like our mistakes. It's very important rights" crusade. In Germany, Islamic executions what is being said here. I don't know reactionaries stabbed a leader of the proceed in Iran, your organization, but the whole Soviet leader TLD for our forthright opposition to movement here is about Trotskyism. I the CIA-financed terrorists. Gorbachev woos bloody Khomeini think that if we had understood the But just as our call "Down with the regime. TLD back then, or wanted to, then the Shah! Down with the Mullahs!" in party wouldn't have been annihilated Iran proved tragically prophetic of a at all. Then we could now say out loud decade of Khomeini's repressive re that the revolution must be made and gime, culminating in today's blood- not destroyed." 14 WORKERS VANGUAR[ Iran Executions ... ~1..lC1 (continuedfrom page 1) ...:., I,);..; I \ found in the Spartacist-initiated pro .."I •• .., ..,/ tests their first opportunity to cooper ate in a joint action protesting the , "" .'. bloodbath unleashed by the ayatollah's ....~~~ "'" regime. Hamburg, West Germany Some 100 people, including scores of Iranian exiles, turned out in Hamburg January II outside the General Consul ate of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Joining with the Trotzkistische Liga Deutschlands (TLD) were the Com munist Party of Iran (CPI)/Komala, Rahe Kargar, the Fedayeen Central Committee of Minority Cells, and sym pathizers of the former Peykar organi zation. Demands at the rally included: "Stop [Interior Minister] Zimmer mann's Deportation Program!" "Polit ical Asylum for Refugees from Reac tionary Terror" and "Deportation Is Murder!" A CPI/Komala speaker linked the wave of executions to the Islamic regime's pursuit of better rela tions with the Western imperialist pow ers and specifically to West German for eign minister Genscher's visit to Iran in late November: "Herr Genscher travels to Teheran to boost the hangmen." The TLD speaker stressed the urgent need for united-front defense to stop the executioner's ax, pointing out that to day Khomeini "is attacking everybody, including those who ten years ago had open illusions in the mullahs and also served Khomeini. It is easy today to be against Islamic reaction. But in 1978 and '79, it wasn't so easy. Then, the international Spartacist tendency stood alone. We told the truth: 'Down with the Shah! Down with the Mullahs! For Workers Revolution in Iran!'" The demonstration concluded with the sing ing of the Internationale in German, Farsi and Serbo-Croatian. . WV Photo Campaign initiated by the international Spartacist tendency: Paris (top); Hamburg (bottom left); Washington, D.C. Paris and Lyon, France (bottom right). Sign in Farsi says, "Stop the Executions in Iran!" . Also on January I I, 140 demon strators gathered outside the offices of Iran Air on the Champs Elysees in Paris. ests Section located in the Algerian Minority, Committee for the Defence of call to stop the executions. However, The Ligue Trotskyste de France (LTF), embassy on the outskirts of Washing the Iranian People's Rights, and Com a Tudeh representative did speak, as initiators of the protest, had distributed ton. In addition to denouncing the exe mittee Against Political Executions in did Janet Yip, a member of the Cana 10,000 leaflets at various universities in cutions in Iran, they chanted "U.S. Iran. dian Union of Postal Workers. After three days, and numerous Iranian hands off Libya! Down with U.S. war The police prevented a number of Ira wards, the demonstrators marched to groups responded to the call. Speakers moves!" A speaker for the Spartacist nian militants from joining the protest a nearby Tudeh hunger-strike protest at the protest included a representative League/U.S. declared: "As American by threatening to arrest them if they where a TLC spokesman addressed the of the Committee Against Political Exe revolutionaries, it's incumbent upon us refused to remove head wear covering protesters. cutions in Iran, and sympathizers of the to fight our own bourgeoisie. And we their faces and thus expose themselves From Germany to the U.S., these CPI/Komala and the Fedayeen Minor say: U.S. out of the Persian Gulf! to the agents of Khomeini's murderous protests were a statement of proletarian ity. Also participating in the protest Remember Iran Air Flight 655-the 290 regime. A Spartacist representative de internationalism. In response to the hid were Rahe Kargar, the Fedayeen Ma people who were killed, victims of U.S. nounced this provocation as "an outrag eous massacre in Iran, the international jority, supporters of the Iranian journal war moves." eous example of collaboration between Spartacist tendency has simply carried Recommencement, and the Muslim the British state and the Iranian state." out the duty of communists to cham group, Ershad. Three supporters of London, England The spokesman from the IPPAC pion the o{?pressed as part of the strug Tudeh also joined the demonstration. On January 14, over 60 demonstra quoted a letter he had received from gle for world socialist revolution. As the The next day, January 12, some 45 tors joined with the Spartacist League of Iran: "Everyone you know, anyone TLD speaker in Hamburg concluded: people demonstrated in Lyon, includ Britain (SL/B) in picketing outside the whose name you know, has been exe "Iran is very similar to the Russian ing a number of Iranian women and Iranian embassy in London. Speakers cuted." The SL/B speaker drew atten empire under the tsar-a huge prison members of the Kurdish and Azeri included an Iranian activist and a tion to the bloodbath which looms fol house of peoples. Equality for women, national minorities. The Iranian women London-Islington branch official of the lowing the Red Army's withdrawal from liberation for the Kurds, Baluchis, for enthusiastically joined in L TF chants National Union of Public Employees, Af'ghanistan: "Iran shows clearly what is the other peoples, an end to the op of "Down with the veil! Down with as well as spokesmen for the Brit planned by the jihad [Islamic holy war] pression of the religious minorities like Islamic reaction!" ish "Leninist" organization, Iranian Po in Afghanistan against leftists and the Bahais-the bourgeoisie can bring litical Prisoners Action Committee against women." The protest conclud none of this. But in Russia there was one Washington, D.C. (lPPAC) and the SL/B. Also partici ed with the singing of the Internatio thing that does not exist in Iran and On January 13, some 20 protesters pating were supporters of the CPI/ nale and a final defiant chant: "Down which did not exist ten years ago, when demonstrated outside the Iranian Inter- Komala, Fedayeen Majority, Fedayeen with Khomeini! Workers to power!" the question of revolution was posed. This was a revolutionary party of the Toronto, Canada working class. "Comrades, proletarian revolution is A protest~ called by the Trotskyist what is necessary to open the doors of League of Canada (TLC) in Toronto the the prisons, for freedom for the Kurdish same day attracted 60 people to Speak people, for the other peoples, for the ers Corner at City Hall. Cosponsors peoples living in Afghanistaii. This gen included supporters of Tudeh and the eration of Iranian leftists must be saved. Fedayeen (Majority) in Canada and the What is necessary is a powerful outcry Volume 19: WV Nos. 443-467, 1 Jan. -16 Dec. 1988 Toronto South Asian Women's Group. from the whole left, from the workers Also Available: Vols. 1-18, Nov. 1970-0ec. 1987 Also participating were supporters of organizations, above all from the trade Fedayeen Majority, CPI/Komala and unions, and from all organizations who $25.00 per volume Also available in microfilm. the Democratic Organization of Ira defend democratic rights. We must Order from/make checks payable to: Spartacist Publishing Company nian Women. The Tudeh supporters stand together to demand an end to the Box 1377 GPO, New York, New York 10116 pulled out early on, objecting to groups executions in Iran. Stop the executions carrying any slogans other than the in Iran!". 20 JANUARY 1989 15 ~, j ., ..., r .. .- ~I' l' t ." .. tJ l,,"" .... 141 'r 1"' •• " i.,. WfJllltEIiS ''''''lilli' Atlanta: Saturday, Jan. 21 at 12 noon Central City Park near Five Points We reprint here the demonstration call initiated by the Partisan Defense Committee on 11 January 1989. The KKK and skinhead racists say they are going to march through the streets of downtown Atlanta, from the state capitol to the Omni, on January 21. The slogan of Richard Barrett's sinister "Nationalist Movement" from. Mississippi is "N 0 King Over Us." These fascists are trying to celebrate the mur der of Martin Luther King J r. and they have the working people of this city lined up in their sights. Anyone who thinks it is a question of "free speech" for the likes of Barrett and J. B. Stoner had better remember the four black lit tle girls murdered in the Birmingham church bombing. j Public Employee Fatalism in the Face of a Atlanta city workers protest at City Hall last February. Deadly Threat Can Be Fatal wants to really shove it to the people of thirsts to drive down wages and increase labor majority, many of whom took The official presidential selection Atlanta. work until we reach the point .that the lead in smashing Jim Crow. And process could be pretty discouraging to We've always known that the so nobody can live anymore. labor's social power can stop the KKK/ everybody who is on the receiving end of called "New South" ends at the city The country has lurched to the right, skinhead marauders in their tracks! the bad stuff this society dishes out. It's limits-but now they are threatening but we can stop these genocide-lovers in Let's do it. shifted from Jesse Jackson to Michael to invade Atlanta with their white the city of Atlanta. Arch-capitalist Bush Act now! Stop the Klan! Dukakis to Lloyd Bentsen to "Poppy" hoods, swastikas and Confederate flags. has a hard row to hoe-maybe if we act Bush to Dan Quayle; Bush the oil man The fascists are poison to every kind of strongly here we can start reversing this Initiated by the and ex-CIA chief came out on top. Now integrated social struggle-like union willful, deliberate increase in the misery Partisan Defense Committee the day after the presidential inaugura organizing and winning strikes. Behind of people, especially poor blacks but in P.O. Box 3132 tion. Barrett. a particularly virulent the Klan with their gut hatred of unions fact practically everybody. Atlanta, GA 30302 Klan/Nazi/skinhead would-be fUhrer. stands a greedy racist ruling class which Atlanta is a city with a black and (404) 659-3088 "We endorse and will help build a demonstration against the Ku Klux Klan/Nationalist Movement/skinheads in Atlanta on January 21, 1989." Partial List' of Endorsers as of 14 January 1989 Randy Johnese, Senior Field Repfesentative, SEIU Local 535: San Francisco Black Fire Fighters ASSOCiation, San Francisco, CA Oakland, CA SEIU Local 679, Atlanta, GA Rev. Nelson N. Johnson, President, Theologue Fellowship, Margie Smith, President, Techwood/Clark Howell Tenants AFSCME Local 1644, Atlanta, GA Virginia Union University: Richmond, VA Association,' Atlanta, GA AFSCME Local 1644, City Chapter (City Employees), Atlanta, GA Melvin C. Jones, Chairman, Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, Spartacist League of the U.S. AFSCME Local 1644, Grady Chapter (Hospital), Atlanta, GA Atlanta Chapter: Atlanta, GA David Stewart, Vice President, Northern California Chapter, Amalgamated Transit Union Local 732, Atlanta, GA Jonesboro Tenant ASSOCiation, Atlanta, GA Coalition of Black Trade Unionists: Berkeley, CA Anti-Apartheid Committee, AFSCME Local 1644, Atlanta, GA Mel King, Massachusetts Institute of Technology,' Cambridge, MA Student Government Association, Clark College: Atlanta, GA Bomani Bakari, Producer/Host, '''Round Midnight," WRFG: Labor Black League for Social Defense, Oakland, CA Bob D. Taylor, General Chairman, lAM District No. 100: Atlanta, GA Labor Black Struggle League, Chicago, IL College Park, GA Derrick T. Boazman, President, Student Government ASSOCiation, George Lach, Executive Board member, AFSCME Local 2203,' Ron Teninty, President, Teamsters Local 315: Martinez, CA Morris Brown College,' Atlanta, GA Baltimore, MD Stanley E. Tolliver, Sr., Attorney-at-Law and member, Jackie B. Breckenridge, International Vice President, Susan Lantz, Director, Labor and Community Affairs, Independent Cleveland Board of Education,' Cleveland, OH Amalgamated Transit Union: Chicago, IL Federation of Flight Attendants: Forest Hills, NY Ronald A. Tyree, Vice President, CWA Local 1150: New York, NY Harry G. Britt, President, Board of Supervisors,' San FranCisco, CA Fannie Maddox, President, University/John Hope Tenant Associ~tion, United Food and Commercial Workers Local 442, Atlanta, GA Sadie Campbetl, Business Agent, CWA Local 1150: Bronx, NY Atlanta, GA :. .- University/John Hope Tenant Association, Atlanta, GA Centro Presente, Cambridge, MA Martin St. Plaza (Tenants Association), Atlanta, GA Lloyd K. Vandever, President, UE Local 1412: Oakland, CA Ronald V. Detlums, Member of Congress: Oakland, CA Thecla A. McCulloh, President, Black Student Alliance, Ben Visnick, Executive Board member, Oakland Education John J. DIPaola, President, lAM Local 1018: Ronkonkoma, NY Georgia State University: Atlanta, GA Association/CTA/NEA,' Kensington, CA Michael B. Drake, Chief Steward, lAM Local 1690: Riverdale, GA Jean M. McGuire, Treasurer, Boston School Committee,' Roxbury, MA J. Lowell Ware, Editor/Publisher, The Atlanta Voice Newspaper,' Rev. Graylan S. Ellis-Hagler, Pastor, Church of the Franz Mlnuty, Host, Caribbean Forum, WZBC Radio,' Mattapan, MA Atlanta, GA United Community: Roxbury, MA Delois Payne, President, Hollywood Ct. Tenants Association, LeRoy Washington, General Chairman, lAM District No. 100: M.J. Flynn, President, lAM Local 1690,' Forest Park, GA Atlanta, GA Lynbrook, NY Freedom Socialist Party Radical Women Bob Zimmerman, Secretary, AFT Local 1474: Berkeley, CA Francis R. Grlnnon, Jr., Business Representative, ORTT/IBEW Larry Regan, President, USWA Local 1014: Gary, IN ·Organizational affiliation for identification purposes only. Local 1011: Oakland, CA J.C. Reynolds, President, Amalgamated Transit Union Local 732, Hattie Harrison, President, Martin S1. Plaza (Tenants Association), Atlanta, GA Atlanta, GA James Richardson, Financial Secretary, USWA Local 8751: Gene Hoffman, General Chairman, lAM District No. 100: Jamaica Plain, MA We want to make it very clear that endorsers of the Lynbrook, NY Harold Rogers, Assistant to the President, Coalition of Black demonstration against the KKK/Nationalist Movement! Calvin Holland, President, Jonesboro Tenant Association, Atlanta, GA Trade Unionists: Chicago, IL skinheads do not necessarily agree in any particular with Hollywood CI. Tenants Association, Atlanta, GA Malcolm Samuels, Senior Representative, Hotel and Restaurant the anti-Klan call by the Partisan Defense Committee Hometowns Against Shutdowns, Freehold, NJ Employees Local 28,' Oakland, CA printed above. 16 20 JANUARY 1989