WfJltllEItS ",1NfJlJ,1It' 25¢ No. 190 :~: )(-~:1J 27 January 1978

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Ir .~• ~.~ .. ... t ._~.~,j lI-...... 4 The Call WV Pho·to Klonsky and Hua toast. "If the CCP elected a chimpanzee as chairman, Avakian at "Throw the Bum Out"rally. TheBum-Nlxon-wa8a Mao favorite. Klonsky would send him a telegram of support." r Gang of Four Purge Rip.s Ap'art Maoists I I.

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• I~ What was once the largest Maoist East Coast but also key chunks of its invocation of bureaucratic privilege. practices of this organization, many organization in the u.s. is ripping apart Midwest industrial concentration and Unity of the warring leaders against the RCP members are ignorant of what at the seams over the China question. the entire youth operation outside the membership is as organic to the RCP as really is happening in their own party. ~ Long-simmering clique warfare in the West Coast. Consequentdemoralization it is to the Chinese Communist Party or They ought to get the story straight and Revolutionary Communist Party will certainly produce additional resig­ any other Stalinist formation. At all political~no Mao-talk, no phony­ l (RCP~formerlyRevolutionary Union) nations. The RCP has been split and costs, those on top must prevent a baloney, no moralizing nonsense. And exploded last weekend in Cincinnati as wrecked by bureaucratic cynicism and critical discussion of political questions. they'll only get it here. i club-wielding supporters ofthe"Gangof political incapacity. For the RCP, the immediate question is i China. And any serious examination of ~ News of the split has traveled in ~ that question raises the dangerous One Divides Into Two ,~ shock waves through the ranks of the spectre of the "Russian question": the • organization. And no wonder they're nature of the USSR and Stalinism vs. In its factional explosion the RCP f. WV Exclusive shocked. Their party has been blasted f Trotskyism. The RCP tops must avoid ludicrously aped its mentors, the Chi­ [ THE INSIDE STORY apart and they have only the fuzziest this issue like the plague. But burning nese Maoists: the split was the final l idea what it's all about. As a matter of questions sometimes burn out of explosion of a prolonged clique war marked by secret positions held for conscious policy, both wings of the control. Four" had it out with backers of the leadership have worked to keep the The chasm separating the RCP from years. Its characteristics were the exiling I current HuaJTeng regime in Peking. ranks in the dark, with hints and rumors Leninist norms of democratic central­ of oppositionists to the sticks; leader­ This is the largest and deepest split in their only clue to the crisis shaking the ism is evident in the fact that many ofthe ships reshuffled by bureaucratic fiat; probation~with New Left Maoism since SDSfractured in organization. RCP ranks will learn of the most whole branches put on I scarcely a word to the bewildered party 1969. But unlike that split, from which Even when the Jarvis faction, after a wrenching internal struggle in the l ranks. [ emerged a "pro-working-class" wing as long underground existence, surfaced history of their own organization in the well as a hardened petty-bourgeois within the leadership following the mid­ pages of Workers Vanguard. But more The issue was, ofcourse, the mantle of nationalist current, the RCP has divided December Central Committee plenum, importantly, this is also the only way Maoism. The Avakian supporters solid-. along well established clique lines with the membership was shut out from the they will learn the political meaning of arize with the "Gang of Four" and, of no political left wing. Followers of RCP desperate struggle at the top. There were the split. For when the "discussion" does course, Mao (the Gang of Five?) while Chairman Bob Avakian in Californiaare the frantic whispers about secret meet­ at last trickle down to the ranks, it will the forces around Jarvis opt for the certainly no less reformist than the ings and hidden positions: "Bob's for be drained ofpolitical content, obscured present Peking regime and (need we faction grouped around Mickey Jarvis in the Gang"; "Mickey's backing Hua." by a tradition of Stalinist lies, packed add) Mao. The spectacle recalls the 1969 New York. But the severity of the crisis was not for with self-serving bureaucratic cover-up. SDS split in form, where both sides As we go to press it appears that the the ranks' tender ears. The RCP split is a dramaticshift in the waved the Little Red Book and furious- RCPwill lose more than a third ofits 600­ The purpose of this conspiracy of political landscape of the U.S. left. But 700 members~not only the bulk of the silence was more than the simple given the ultra-bureaucratic, Stalinist continued on page 2 J that while the arrest of the Gang of Four factionalizing was reaching epidemic Avakian put down the youth revolt only RCP... by Hua "looked like a bad thing," it proportions. A hot issue was the by putting the fear of Mao into the dual required "further investigation." This question of changing the name of the members about what would happen to (continued from page 1) enabled the center to publish its one and youth organization. Things had gone so them if they did not fight for the center's only statement on the Chinese events, far that while Avakian was pushing for a line at the mid-November youth confer­ Iy quoted Mao at one another. But in the 15 October 1976 Revolution article "communist" youth group, Jarvis was ence. This tactic was to eventually substance, the connection is that of which while, in Avakian's words, actively lining up the non-party youth backfire on Avakian. His heavy-handed tragedy and farce. The deepening "upholding socialist China had a clear against the center in favor of a "mass" approach to the youth members marked radicalization of the Vietnam war 'till' in the direction of the line of the organization. The real issue was power a watershed in Jarvis' decision to surface period propelled many thousands of Four." But with the rehabilitation of politics: the Jarvis clique's challenge to the faction and was to cause Avakian to impressionistic petty-bourgeois youth Teng Hsiao-ping and the 11th Party the Avakian Ieader-eult, as a document lose much of the RCYB in the split. toward New Left "anti-imperialism," Congress Jarvis became increasingly by "the Chairman" makes clear: but in the absence of a forceful Trotsky­ restive over the "tilt" and a "compro­ "... in many ways the Party as a whole "Rectification" ist alternative to discredited Communist mise even-handed" stance had to be has been effectively split for a year or Party (CP) reformism, they overwhelm­ taken. more. This has come out around ingly embraced Stalinism in its "Third various issues. including the questions Following the youth name-ehange With their only public statement involved in forming a young communist World"/ Maoist variant. Ten years later, confrontation, the Central Committee rendered moot by Teng's rehabilitation league. This went so far that some and other leading members were called the once-idealistic student youth who comrades took a factional attitude and Avakian and Jarvis unable to reach to Chicago in mid-December for a passed from collectives to "party­ a further "compromise," the RCPers toward the Party as a whole and a building" have become the demoralized hostile attitude toward the Chair. This meeting, ostensibly to set guidelines for spent the next year and a half crawling was objectively encouraged by Com- opening a discussion within the RCP on pawns of maneuverers like RCPers pink-faced through their public work. In Avakian and Jarvis, and Mike Klonsky, November of that year they managed to head of the "official" pro-Maoist organi­ get themselves in the ridiculous situa­ zation, the Communist Party (Marxist­ tion of holding a "Conference on the Leninist) [CP(ML}]. International Situation" where they The present RCP factional line-up were baited on all sides for having no reflects the RCP's origins in the New line on China. Left. A series of scattered Revolution­ For a while they could fake it. ary Union collectives was amalgamated Avakian was happy to say nothing in 1975 primarily through the patch­ which could make things worse for him work merger of Avakian's Bay Area in China. Jarvis, in his inimitable clique stronghold with the East Coast opera­ style, was sticking to the compromise tion built by Jarvis out of the crumbling whenever Avakian's agents were in remains of SDS's R YM II faction. earshot, while whispering his dissatis­ Avakian's RU was New Left Maoist factions on his own turf. This had the pure and simple. The clot headed by effect of landing some of the more naive Jarvis--a red-diaper baby who left the Jarvisites in periodic hot water as they CP in 1969 with a pro-China line-has occasionally tried to raise criticisms always tended toward a more classic through regular RCP "channels" only to Stalinist coloration based on sycophan­ get smashed by the Bob/ Mickey comboo cy toward the "one country" in which Avakian describes this period in a "socialism" was presumably being built. document: Hence the Jarvis clique is terrified of "It often happened that when things 'got "isolation" from the Peking regime, out of hand' and the Party center while the Avakian wing is more respon­ stepped in to struggle with these lines sive to the old "anti-imperialist" milieu and forces that Comrade Jarvis would then take part, even vigorously take whose admiration for China was badly part, in the struggle along with the shaken by Peking's role in Angola and center. But the effect of this was usually Mao and Lin Plao applaud Red Guard parade In 1966. embrace of NATO against the Soviet to produce in those forces he had "superpower." unleashed a feeling that he had 'punked rade Jarvis who at one pomt told the China. But by the time they arrived out' to the center and had, in fact, 'set Chair he had no right to speak on this While Mao was alive his authoritative them up'." Avakian had decided to wage his fight in bonapartist role between the wings of question because he hadn't investigated -"Central Committee Report." (in fact, the Chair had done some a more exclusive body, and the center the Chinese bureaucracy sufficed to (Volume 3. Number 1) investigation). and who. while uphold­ ordered the CCers to spend the weekend hold the RCP together. But with his As the months went by, events ing the line in some ways also 'floated' discussing the "Worker" newspapers. death, it soonsplit apart. Demonstrating continued to press down relentlessly on ideas to these comrades that encour­ With the organization paying the plane that the organization never transcended aged them in their wrong thinking and fares, the disgruntled cadres left Chica­ the RCP. Externally Peking was forcing their tendency to oppose the Party its initial federalism, both sides are the issue by granting its "franchise" to politically and organizationally." go muttering "No Taxation, No taking out roughly what they put in, with Klonsky. Internally the subterranean -Ibid. Representation." Avakian's stronghold remaining the Bay With their departure the real leader­ Area and Jarvis' New York. ship of both sides got down to business. In his documents Jarvis defined his Avakian began by introducing his faction as the right opposition to Maoist School of Falsification factional document, "Revisionists Are Avakian's "left idealist" tendency Revisionists and Must Not Be Support­ which, in "giving the Gang a home," was ed, Revolutionaries Are Revolutiona­ leading the party into "degeneration and ries and Must Be Supported," hot off isolation." For his part, Avakian had the press. Though prior to this the declared war on the "bourgeois head­ internal discussion on China had only quarters" headed up by Jarvis, the taken place in whispers among an elite "second center" in the RCP which had few, the document was rammed down been "intriguing, conspiring and work­ the body's throat. The vote was not ing for a split" for "years." The period of reassuring for Avakian. Only by ignor­ actual debate-of course restricted to ing the sizable "silent minority" who the RCP elite-was brief and quickly simply abstained could he claim a two­ resolved itself into tense confrontations to-one victory in the vote. (The Jarvis complete with bodyguards, and worse. faction ofcourse counts the abstentions Whereas in China the working people differently and arrives at an almost even learn of their leaders' magical transfor­ split.) mations from proletarian heroes to In any case Avakian got what he had "capitalist roaders" through wall post­ come for. At long last there was a ers pasted up after the fact, the RCP Hsinhua ranks have been kept entirely in the dark, expected to follow along when the time comes on the basis of whoever first W'lillEltS recruited them. 'ANII/ARI Marxist Working-Class Weekly RCP Ducks the China Question ofthe Spartacist League ofthe U.S.

The story properly begins with the EDITOR: Jan Norden death of Chairman Mao, which found PRODUCTION MANAGER: Karen Allen the RCP leaders preoccupied above all CIRCULATION MANAGER: Mike Beech with keeping the reverberations of the EDITORIAL BOARD: Jon Brule. Charles shake-up in the Chinese regime from Burroughs, George Foster. Liz Gordon. James Robertson, Joseph Seymour. Michael affecting their own organization. Unlike Weinstein the RCP's more left-wing predecessor, Published weekly. except bi-weekly in August Progressive Labor (PL), which tried in and December, by the Spartacist Publishing an infantile way to cope with the Mao! Co, 260 West Broadway. New York, NY 10013. Telephone: 966-6841 (Editorial). 925-5665 Nixon alliance and, spinning off into the (Business). Address all correspondence to: realm of "left" anti-Leninism, actively Box 1377, GPO.. New York, NY 10001. Hsinhua dug its own political grave, the RCP Domestic subscriptions: $5.00 per year. :it~~*@l~A.'f.~n. ~t~J~. *!X~. x.l"it~. jrIj;~". tc!!~. Second-class postage paid at New York. NY tops simply stuck their heads in the /., '. x x x. x x. x x ff*~. ~ •. ~~~. ~~ •. ~.~.•~ •. ~~•. ~.$. ffi~•.••~~m~*~~. Opinions expressed in signed articles or sand. letters do not necessarily express the editorial In thefall of 1976 Avakian and Jarvis, Photograph of Mao memorial published in Peking press before (above) and viewpoint. playing for time, reached the agreement after (beloW) campaign against "Gang of Four" began In 1976. 2 WORKERS VANGUARD majority line and he could move against the Jarvis "headquarters." His "rectifi­ cation" campaign, patterned after the Chinese CP's "ideological criticism and self-criticism" campaigns used to justify revolving-door purges, called for "or­ RCP's "Secret" Position on China ganizational steps" against the opposi­ tion. In typical fashion Jarvis and his Excerpts from "Revisionists Are Revisionists there is no way we can carry out our duties as supporters voted for the "rectification," and Must Not Be Supported, Revolutionaries a Party or overcome demoralization that will which included throwing themselves off Are Revolutionaries and Must Be Support­ inevitably set in as it becomes more and more the Central Committee and exiling ed," pages 75·76 [emphases added], by the clear what road China is taking. Further we themselves from the major party cen­ Chairman [Bob Avakian], adopted by the should find the ways to do broader education ters. In a classic Stalinist statement, Avakian reported: Central Committee: on the crucial questions related to develop­ "The Central Committee has made ments in China without commenting directly arrangements for [Jarvis] to undertake IV. What Do We Do Based on a Correct on the situation there-for example articles work to make contributions to the Understanding of What Has Happened? Party, has assigned him some leading about the process and lessons of capitalist I have put forward in blunt terms what I responsibility in the Party and while restoration in the Soviet Union, articles about struggling with him has expressed every believe to be the undeniable truth about hope that he'll change in the course of the gains and lessons of the Cultural Revolu­ work and study." events in China. A revisionist coup has taken tion in China, etc. --Ibid. place, a serious blow has been delivered to Should we continue to work in U.S.-China the proletariat and its revolutionary leaders. [Peoples Friendship Association]? Yes, we RCP: Bureaucratic Nightmare The capitalist-roaders are not only still on the should, but we must recognize the obvious capitalist road, they have now usurped fact that it will be an extremely difficult task to After some debate in Chicago, it was supreme power and are taking China down carry out. In particular it will be extremely decided that China was a "tactical" the capitalist road.... question; thus, upon return to the difficult to balance building friendship for The situation presents us and genuine branches. there would be no more said China as a socialist country, which is still about Lhma. fhafs right--Avakian Marxists everywhere with many difficult and correct at this time, with not contributing to directed that there be no discussion of complicated questions.... Should we come bUilding up the current rulers in opposition to events in China: not in meetings, in out now and publicly support the Four and the Four (not to go along with the Associa­ corridors. in cars or closets. As for the denounce the current rulers? No.... Should tion's doing the latter will be impossible of regional leaders and branch chairmen we continue to put forward China as a who were simply to vanish after the course, and we should not put up struggle to Chicago meeting. not a word ofexplana­ socialist country? Yes, for now we should, try to prevent it from doing this, though we tion was to be given. These regulations because it is still an objective fact. But we should try to keep it from being the main led one baffled cadre to ask, "IfChina is should, in discussing China, put stress on thing the Association does, and as much as not a principled question for an organi­ Mao's line, the Cultural Revolution and the zation which claims to be Maoist, what possible we ourselves should not contribute fact that in socialist society classes exist, to it-as I said this will be extremely difficult). is?" In the RCP, as in China, the only class struggle is acute and the danger of "principled" question would appear to Careful guidance must be given to comrades be the survival ofone'sown bureaucratic capitalist restoration is ever-present and doing this work.... clique. great.... We should avoid as much as The Chicago meeting was the possible giving any support to the current * * • * * • • beginning of the end. The Jarvis people rulers of China and certainly continue not to Excerpts from Avakian's"Central Committee headed to New York for the holidays, congratulate them on any posts any of them Report," pages 9·10 [emphases added]: en route to their reassignments, and assume, and most definitely not on any of began furiously scribbling documents. Sliding over his vote for the "rectifica­ their victories over the proletariat-Le., the Public Stand on China tion," Jarvis wrote: smashing of the "gang of four." It is also important to grasp that, having "In looking over the rectification As far as our public position on China we taken this line internally, our purpose and bulletin one can say that the lack of should take the following approach. With the task is not to undertake an anti-China theoretical and political line is astound­ ing. One-half of the standing committee "general public"-that is people not close to crusade.... This means we will write articles is removed, one-half of the political us, inclUding opportunists-we should say in our press on such questions as stUdying committee removed. almost one-half of that there are obviously reasons for concern the restoration of capitalism in the USSR and the voting Central Committee members removed. suppressed or surrounded. about what is happening in China... but we on the gains of the working class under and not a word of explanation...." should put this in the context that China is a socialism-focusing on gains of the Cultural socialist country and that the class struggle ReVOlution, which now (though we won't go A SUSptCIOUS Avakian showed up in under socialism always goes on and at times into this) are under attack. These articles will ~ew York to ensure that the line voted becomes very acute. In short, we should stress political line, without being open in Chicago would be taken down to the uphold China as a socialist country while attacks on the Chinese leadership. membership; the task of the cadres was simply to "absorb" it, under the Stalinist pointing to problems and areas of struggle In talking to people outside the Party, we dictum, "unity of will. unity of action." and say that we are closely following and must draw distinctions. We can speak about According to Avakian only the majority continuing to study events in China. On Teng our whole line on this only to people who are document was to be discussed. only Hsiao-ping, since our last public statements very close to the Party and who can be sections at a time. only through regular on him (correctly) labelled him a counter­ trusted to grasp not only the line, but the RCP "channels" (with leading cadres required to present the center's line in revolutionary, but since he has since been reasons we are not expounding it publicly lower bodies) and only twice: restored to very high office, we should just (this should be explained to them) .... To "This report on China as well as on the say (to the "general public") that his return to others we work with, we should explain we revisionist line and headquarters of uphold China as socialist, answer their course represents the line of our Party. office has to be viewed in the overall context Leadership of all units has the task of of what is happening in China and that we are questions by saying that many of the gains of leading their units in study and struggle taking up the question of his return to office the working class are under attack now... and to grasp and apply this line. If there are any disagreements. they should be in that light and in the same spirit as we are then go on to explain even if restoration were raised for struggle only in the highest following and studying events in China in to occur, this would not mean you cannot body one belongs to. "For six weeks. beginning the first of the general, as summarized just above. Com­ win, but only that the historic mission of the vear. the discussion should center on the rades should keep in mind that what they say working class... can only be accomplished line on China in the accompanying report. One or at most two initial to workers and others whom we cannot count through twists and turns, temporary rever­ discussions of the part of the report on as being completely reliable have to be put sals, and hard struggle, but that it wilf dealing", ith rectification should be held during the period." in the category of statements to the "general inevitably be achieved...... "Central Committee Report." public," since they may very well become that The RCYB [youth organization], because (Volume 3. ,,"umher 1) (for example a worker may have contact with of its nature, should not have a line on this Mcam\hile the hyperactivism of the both us and the OL-CPML, and may not question (though, obviously, Party members RCP exemplified by campaigns such understand why he should not discuss with within it have a line). Only those closest to the as the "People's Bicentennial," Kent State and :\UWO. designed to keep the them what we tell him about our position on Party within the RCYB should be told our full members too busy to think-would be China). position, as outlined above. Within the RCYB stepped up: At the same time, as stressed before, we generally, our line on China should be the "\1ass work becomes our main empha­ must educate not only our own members but same as our broad public position. Articles sis. unlike in the period of forming the Part\'.·· reliable advanced workers and others close from our Party's press which touch on . 11'/(/. to us (those who will understand why they relevant line questions tan be used for RCYB should keep what we say to them about educationals on the victories of and the class Even in the RCP, Politics Will Out China confidential) about what is actually struggle under socialism, but in these discus­ The spectacular fracturing of the going on in China and give them the basis for sions all-around conclusions about China RCP over China is more than poetic grasping the real lessons of this. Otherwise should not be drawn.... continued on page 4 '\"", J

27 JANUARY 1978 3 Rep ... (continued from page 3) justice. It is a demonstration that even in the RCP-where absorption in idiot adventurism and stultifying workerism, as well as pervasive cynicism toward political questions, work against the drawing of political lines-political confrontation, though suppressed and distorted, cannot be indefinitely staved off. Certainly this redivision of the organ­ ization along old clique lines recalls previous splits in which disputes were papered over until the divergent group­ ings (e.g., the clot around guerrillai'st Bruce Franklin, which formed Vencere­ mos, or the Steve Hamilton grouping which was to become the Bay Area Communist Union) finally departed to go their own ways, without causing undue static in the rest of the organiza­ tion. But while Avakian's and Jarvis' efforts to shift the blame for various domestic disasters onto their clique rivals played no small part in the split, the China question-long shoved out of sight by mutual consent-finally pro­ voked the unstoppable escalation of the discussion and made a deep and bitter split inescapable. The Avakjan. and Jarvis wings of the Chou En-Ial with Teng Hsiao-ping. Chiang Ching with Chou. RCP have come up with two mutually exclusive attempts to escape the prob­ lem. Of course, the lengthy internal documents hastily produced by the two the no-win policy of public silence on praising him for 'upholding the red flag Avakian hails as "prophetic" Mao's the question of the present Chinese against all enemies within and without; statement that: sides on the China question never pose which in today's context of Chou being this problem directly, but it is the basis regime. praised in China for fighting the Four is "The right in power could utilize my Thus the line of Avakian's a back-door way of taking a position on words to become mighty for a while. for the morbidity of the RCP: Klonsky But then the left will be able to utilize has the China franchise. And that documents-now the officially adopted this struggle. While we have not officially repudiated that CC statement, others of my words and organize itself simple fact makes a Peking-loyal Mao­ line of the RCP-is that "a revisionist to overthrow the right." coup has taken place" in China. "The neither have we been repeating it, any ist RCP unviable-and not just the more than we have been repeating the The dilemma for Maoists in not being RCP, but all the formations outside the capitalist-roaders are not only still on Revolution article of October 15, the capitalist road, they have usurped able to communicate with the dead is CP(ML) who continue to back the 1976..." (our emphasis) evident in Avakian's document, whose ruling bureaucracy ofthe Chinese state. supreme power and are taking China -Ibid. down the capitalist road." And what is thesis that the "Gang of Four" repre­ To openly break from the Chinese for And they are going to preserve a discreet sents the continuity of orthodox Mao­ their only real "crime" in the eyes of a the RCP going to do about it? Well, they silence about China in public and even are going to publish articles about ism is now the official, thQugh secret, U.S. Maoist-not the suppression ofthe in their own youth organization(see box line of the Rep. Not that the "Great r:" ...... ~__ .... _ p._\"....~T ... Q\., IlV"\. \h~ ~)'s\en'"\atic "capitalist restoration" in the USSR, accompanying this article), except when they are going to commemorate the Helmsman's" last words matter, except betrayal of international revolutionary dealing with "those who will understand' to sycophants like Avakian or Jarvis. struggles, but the selection of the wrong "Great Proletarian Cultural Revolu­ why they should keep what we say to tion" whenever possible, they will seek Thus Avakian can only guess: American epigone for the "franchise"­ them about China confidential"! In "Infact there were, as subsequent events means that one is no closer to the seat of to avoid "contributing to building up other words, Avakian knows that for have made abundantly clear, powerful power anywhere in the world than is a the current rulers in opposition to the admitted Maoist Stalinists, the RCP's forces in the Chinese leadership who miserable "Trotskyite." But to refuse to Four" in the U.S.-China Peoples line on China is actually shameful; strongly opposed the campaign against Friendship Association. They will try to Teng and the right deviationist wind.... break deprives the RCP of any reason rather than fighting for it, they must But exactly because Mao threw his for independent existence outside avoid incidents like that ofthe appoint­ keep it secret. The staggering cynicism weight behind this campaign, these Klonsky's CP(ML). Neither wing of the ment calendar produced by RCPers in of these exhortations to secrecy is forces had to beat a temporary and RCP can escape this dilemma, for both Philadelphia, described by Avakian: matched only by the stupidity ofputting partial retreat and go along with 'This calendar is a factional calendar, them down in black and white. Perhaps knocking down Teng. But they certainly accept the Stalinist framework of a particularly because of how it handled were not about to allow one ofthe Four bureaucratic caste where policy and the Chou En-lai question when it was Mao backed by the armed forces could to become acting head of the Central privilege are determined by reshufflings well known to some that this was a very pull it off. Avakian can't-as our Committee and the country in effect. at the top, whose American "comrades" controversial question which would readers can read for themselves. Therefore they backed Hua, someone are selected not for their capacity to lead soon be summed up. It has two pictures who, as an analysis of his line and role of Chou-one of the type reserved only The Rep's Private Line has shown, was politically in their camp the U.S. working class to state power for the "Big 5"-Marx, Engels, Lenin, but was not such an easy target with long but for their slavish services as publicity Stalin and Mao. It printed the Central Trying to back the right horse has years of brazen revisionism to attack, like Teng. agents for whomever is currently topdog Committee statement on his death, never been easy in the Stalinist move­ in Peking. "U nder these conditions, with the ment, where heads have to roll to excuse balance of forces being what they were, Perhaps a less gutless Avakian might the defeats and betrayals which are the Mao had to go along with Hua's have seen in the purge of the "Gang of a Spartacist pamphlet 51.00 bureaucracy's stock-in-trade. But it is appointments.... ~Mao Four" a means for carving out a niche harder under the ghost of Mao than it knew that the deeper this struggle for himself by frontally challenging the against the right deviationist wind went ever was under the Stalin monolith. In a and the more thoroughly it was carried legitimacy of the Hua regime's claim to masterpiece of unintentional humor, out, the harder the blows at the rightists the mantle of Maoism. This would have and the more favorable the conditions meant an eventual split with those in his for the left.... And we have seen what organization for whom apologetics for China mean more than cultist devotion to Avakian. It would have meant Spartacus Youth League Pamphlet renunciation of the vicarious participa­ China's Alliance with tion in the perquisites ofpower in China which consoles American Maoists for U.S. Imperialism their irrelevance to the American Price: $1 Order from/pay to: Spartacus Youth working people. Publishing Co., P.O. Box 825, Worst ofall it would have brought the Canal SI. Station, New York, N.Y. 10013 RCP up against the spectre of Trotsky­ ism, for Stalinism without a country is unstable in the extreme, as Progressive Labor found out. Warding off that Marxist Bulletin No. 10 spectre, Progressive Labor embarked FROM MAOISM TO on the path of political slow death. The collapse of PL's impressionistic centrism TROTSKYISM and its reformist spiral into oblivion is Documents on the Development the unacknowledged deterrent for leftist of the Communist Working impulses in the RCP. But the PL Collective of Los Angeles. horrible example is probably superflu­ Price $2.50 ORDER NOW FROM: PRICE: $1.50 ous for Avakian, whose own New Left order from/pay to: parochialism would itself be sufficient order from/pay to: Spartacist Publishing Co. Spartacist Publishing Co. Spartacus Youth Publishing Co. to preclude any attempt at global Box 1377, G.P.O. Box 1377, G.P.O. Box 825, Canal Street Station New York, New York 10001 Stalinist revisionism in the style of the NY, NY 10001 New York, N.Y. 10013 old Progressive Labor. So he opts for

4 WORKERS VANGUARD happened to that struggle after Mao action against the Chiang Ching clique. to break the nationwide railway strike in So according to Avakian, instead of died-those who were actively leading In one sense Avakian is right. The mobilizing the masses against Lin Piao's it, the Four, were almost immediately January 1967). Mao declared in no smashed and the target of the struggle Chiang group were Mao's people, a uncertain terms that the PLA was off­ nefarious followers, Mao formed a bloc was shifted from the right to them, the clique whose positions of power de­ limits to this so-called "revolution": with the leading "rightist revisionist" in (genuine) left." pended solely on his personal sponsor­ "The army's prestige must be resolutely China and restored him to power. Thus ~-"Revisionists Are ship and protection. Thus they could be safeguarded and there can be no doubt in his own way Avakian acknowledges Revisionists ..." axed when the Chairman's corpse was about that. ... The chief danger of the that Mao was an opportunist bonapart­ Essentially the Jarvis document, scarcely cold. However, Avakian's moment is that some people want to ist whose options were defined by the "Uphold the 11th Party Constitution," beat down the PLA! ... There must be contention that Mao was engaged in a no chaos in the army." exigencies of bureaucratic rule. simply denies Avakian's assertions major struggle with Chou En-lai, Hua, -Survey ofthe China Mainland The "Great Proletarian Cultural about Mao's attitudes toward "the Yeh Chien-ying is no less fantastic than Press, 5 November 1967 Revolution" was not a revolution, and Four" and toward Chou En-lai and the counter-claim that he would have had even less to do with the proletariat asserts the opposite. Avakian claims With the liquidation of the Red purged the "Four" had he been healthy. Guards came the purge of those Cultur­ than it had with "culture" (see "Maoism Chiang Ching was carrying out Mao's As representatives of the Chinese Run Amok," Spartacist No.8, line against Chou, Teng, Hua, etc.; al Revolution leaders most closely Stalinist bureaucracy, Hua and Teng associated with them. In September November-December 1966). It was a Jarvis insists Mao and Chou were are also Mao's legitimate heirs. massive bureaucratic conflict which, united against "the Four": 1967 Wang Li and two associates were Hua/Teng can legitimately argue that purged from the Group in Charge ofthe provoked by the spectacular failure of "But even more underhanded is the the "Great Leap Forward," was extreme attempt to imply that Mao and the gang the purge of the "Gang of Four" is the Cultural Revolution as "ultra-leftists" were in fundamental unity. On the very logical culmination of a trend that who encouraged attacks on the army. In in form and ferocity. ThedominantMao points mentioned, it was with the gang began in late 1967 when Mao decided to 1971 a far more important Cultural forces mobilized student youth, backed that Mao had very sharp differences. suppress the Red Guards. Since late Revolution figure, Chen Po-ta, head of up and restrained by the army, on the On the necessity of stability and unity 1967 the most prominent victims of the basis of radical-sounding demagogy. and pushing the national economy the Group in Charge and Chiang forward, it was the gang who in fact Mao regime have been the original Ching's closest associate, was also When the deluded youth threatened to stood in the way of these correct thrusts leaders of the Cultural Revolution purged as an "ultra-leftist." Soon get out ofhand, Mao smashedthemwith by metaphysically opposing them to (Wang Li, Chen Po-ta, Lin Piao), while thereafter came the purge of Marshal the army. 'revolution' and 'class struggle'." most "capitalist roaders" purged in Lin Piao, Mao's officially designated For all wings of the RCP, the only -"Uphold the 11th Party 1966-67 have been reinstated. question is which part of the Maoist Constitution" successor. Mao, who had no intention As a result of his sponsorship of the of becoming overly dependent upon any bureaucracy to support. Even in his Where Avakian says that Mao support­ disastrous "Great Leap Forward" indictment of the incumbent Chinese ed the "Criticize Lin Piao and Confucius individual, clique or power bloc within (1958-61) Mao lost much of his authori­ the bureaucracy he headed, moved to regime, Avakian dares not flirt with the Campaign" as a means of attacking ty among the CCP old guard. In 1965, in only revolutionary alternative to the Chou, Jarvis says Mao prevented the destroy Lin's influence and in so doing alliance with Lin Piao, he moved to created a situation in which Teng and Maoist bureaucracy: political revolu­ Gang from using that campaign to restore his former dominance. This was tion by the Chinese proletariat to oust attack Chou: the other purged "capitalist roaders" the origin of the Cultural Revolution. were restored to power. all wings of the bureaucracy and "Once more rewriting history is used to But the veteran party cadre proved to establish democraticcontrol ofindustri­ say that the Lin Piao Confucius have considerable powers of resistance, Avakian himself is forced to admit al and governmental policy through Campaign was led by Mao and aimed at that Mao restored Teng in order to Chou. The truth is quite otherwise. The including the ability to mobilize groups proletarian soviets. Forthe gulfbetween gang distorted the Lin Piao Confucius of workers against the student-youth counter the influence of Lin's followers bureaucratic purge politics and the campaign to try and aim It at Chou and Red Guards. So in the end Mao had to in the PLA. He accepts this as a revolutionary action of the working their veteran cadres and at the justifiable tactical maneuver: masses.... The gang may have wanted retreat and come to terms with so-called masses under the leadership of the to aim at Chou, but what they did [was] "capitalist roaders" like Teng. Mao's "...after Lin Piao died and his closest authentic proletarian vanguard party is aim at Maoand theCCP. Maotold them personal authority remained sufficient co-conspirators alive were arrested, his !he gulf between Stalinismand Trotsky­ to stop it, to stop weakening the followers and the problems his camp Ism. to-through the mediation of Chou En­ created were far from cleared up, campaign." In a most revealing remark, Avakian -Ibid. lai-work out a rapprochement with the especially but not exclusively in the . old guard. armed forces. It should be remembered says: "A genuine revolution now can One of the most striking aspects of September 1967 was a decisive turn­ that the PLA played a huge role during only come from the 'bottom,' and Jarvis' and Avakian's documents is that ing point in the Cultural Revolution, the Cultural Revolution up to that frankly I don't expect to see such a point-army people were everywhere, both sides are utterly in the dark about when Mao moved sharply against the revolution in the near future." So he what really goes on in Forbidden in every major institution, in city and the Red Guards and their supporters in the countryside-playing a leadinil role, must hide in his closet ofsecretcriticism City. Lacking any substantial communi­ regime. Because of massive popular and this Mao had only begun to seriously of Hua/Teng while the real revolutiona­ cation with CCP leaders they are .",-.' ries, the Trotskyists, not cowed by the reduced to reading the tea leaves of ., magnitude of their task, struggle to Peking Review to find out who's on top build the international party ofproletar­ or what Mao really meant. To make ian revolution over the political corpses sense of it all they have to resort to of the Avakians, J arvi~es and Klonskys. bourgeois sources. Thus Avakian relies on a compilation of translations by the Hua's Friends U.S. government while Jarvis takes a A more seasoned Stalinist than particularly damning quote from Avakian, Jarvis has less difficulty than Chiang Ching from a CIA-connected Avakian in accepting the gyrations Taiwanese propaganda mouthpiece. which characterize a "flexible" Stalinist What else can they do-their own policy. If Avakian has on his side the' oracles are silent. evident empirical fact that Mao was the These polemics are rather reminiscent backer of the Gang of Four, Jarvis can of the Japanese film Rashomon, in counter that Mao (we might add, which several witnesses gave flatly supported by the Chiang Ching clique) conflicting accounts of a rape and liquidated the Cultural Revolution. murder. In the movie a medium contacts Jarvis correctly recognizes that the the murdered man's spirit (who presents Cultural Revolution was an exceptional yet another version). Since the RCPers episode incompatible with the normal posture at being Marxists (i.e., material­ mode of Stalinist bureaucratic rule: ists), they cannot claim to commune "...as an outburst of intense rebellion, with Mao's ghost. Even if they could, the GPCR could not continue indefin­ that ghost would oblige them only with itely without turning into its opposite­ more ofthe forked-tongue epigrams ofa anarchy and attacks on the masses." bonapartist balancing between the Poor Avakian is "stuck on the Cultural competing interests of bureaucratic Revolution": "The Cultural Revolution with its mass cliques and the empty moralizing about Red Guards display Mao's "Little Red Book" at Peking demonstration during character and rebellion against reac­ "revolution" designed to cover the the Cultural Revolution. tionary authority made Marxism ac­ systematic betrayal of the Chinese and ceptable to large numbers of petty international proletariats. resistance to the "radical" Maoist Red curo when the Lin Piao affair bourgeois revolutionaries. But these happened.... same forces summed up the Cultural Guards, particularly among the work­ Revolution without regard to condi­ "Cultural Revolution" ing class (e.g., the Shanghai general "While both [Mao and Chou] agreed Mystification that the immediate task was to clean up tion, time and place, and many within strike in January 1967), Mao had to call on the remaining problems left by the' our Party, as well as in China, have raised the forms and methods of the Ifthe "Gang ofFour" was so bad, why in the People's Liberation Army Lin Piao affair and thata certainamount (PLA) in early 1967 to "support the of'uniting all who can be united' against Cultural Revolution as an idealist 'best' did Mao tolerate them-if not actively method of carrying on the class revolutionary rebels." The conservative Lin's forces and line was necessary, they support them-in positions of power? disagreed over how much this should go struggle. In any and all circumstances. This is the main theme of Avakian's PLA officer corps, of the same flesh as They have in a word, gotten stuck." on and how far to take it. ... -"Uphold the 11th Party document, to which he returns again the civilian party and government bureaucracy, naturally neutralized rath­ "Prominent in all this is the question of Constitution" and again. Teng Hsiao Ping. I believe that Mao The key concern of the Jarvis wing of er than supported these "rebels." Frus­ and Chou agreed that it was necessary It is indeed an awkward question for the RCP, however, is not to be found in Peking's present rulers. The Hua regime trated by the nature of the PLA's to bring back Teng at that time-his return began in 1972, very shortly after his reply to Avakian's China document, has been compelled to supply a series of intervention, some Red Guard groups came out for extending the Cultural Lin Piao crashed. ... Mao, I am but rather in his accompanying opus, not very convincing answers. For one convinced, did not trust Teng and Revolution into the army, mobilizing which appeals to the ranks on the basis thing, they claim that the Gang's crimes recognized that upon returning to office of organizational atrocities and domest­ escalated sharply in the last months of the soldiers against the officers. Teng was likely to resume his old ways. Mao agreed to his rehabilitation for the ic disasters (to be discussed in more Mao's life. Second, Mao was, as all The army is the core of bureaucratic reason that Teng would be a powerful­ detail in our next article). In the first Maoists know, the very soul of com­ rule in China. As a representative of the and at that time necessary-force in page of this hodge-podge document he radely tolerance, and was patiently bureaucracy, Mao was committed to cleaning up the remnants of the Lin attacks Avakian's appeals to take "the Piao forces, especially in the PLA where seeking to get the Gang to change its evil maintaining the army as an effective high road" as "the road of rationalizing repressive apparatus against the poten­ Teng has long and many close ties with ways. And third, Hua supporters key commanders." further isolation from our fellow work­ contend that if Mao had not been ill or tially rebellious Chinese workers and --"Revisionists Are ers than conditions demand." Counter- had lived longer he would have taken peasants (e.g., the army was brought in Revisionists..." continued on page 8 27 JANUARY 1978 5 LCR Dissident Denounces Class Collaboration French Pabloists in the Camp of the Popular Front

We reprint below an open letter and the reformist parties of the Union of the leaflet distributed in Paris last week to a Left rejected the Common Program national meeting of the 'tar-left" elec­ which serves as the framework for the toral bloc made up of the fake­ Popular Front? No! The Popular Front Trotskyist Ugue Communiste Revqlu­ still exists. tionnaire (LCR-de facto leader ofthe I have been a member of the LCR United Secretariat [USec] "main­ (and its predecessors) since February stream"), the Maoist Organisation 1969; I belonged, in succession, to the Communiste des Travailleurs (OCT) "Against the Stream" tendency (1973­ and the Comites Communistes pour 74), to Tendency 4 (first Congress ofthe [,Autogestion (CCA-Communist LCR, 1974), to Tendency C and then to Committeesfor Self-Management). The the unified Tendency A (second Con­ CCA is composed of followers of gress of the LCR, 1976). I have Michel Pablo who split from the left­ submitted two documents to the LCR social-democratic Parti Socialiste Uni­ Political Bureau. My first document fie (PSU) last year to regroup with ("The Situation in the International elements breaking to the right from the After the Dissolution of the Leninist­ LCR. In the election meeting this leaflet Trotskyist Faction: What Perspectives was widely discussed andeagerlypassed for a Trotskyist Opposition?") pointed from hand to hand. out that oppositionists in the LCR, The fact that a long-time member of including those within the LTF who had the LCR is reduced to publicly distribut­ joined with the reformist American ing his document in opposition to the SWP have been incapable of presenting LCR's electoral bloc is itself a signifi­ a Trotskyist opposition to centrists like cant statement concerning the internal Mandel, Krivine and Yvetot. Today, the life of the USee. USec claims to be the Fourth Interna­ In the French electoral svstem there tional; in fact, it was their Pabloism are two rounds of voting. if no candi­ which destroyed the Fourth Interna­ date wins an absolute majority on the tional. Pabloism is the revisionist theory first round, there is a second round, which consists of hunting for a substi­ generally between the two candidates tute for the working class led by the with the largest vote totals on the first Trotskyist Party to make the revolution. round. The question of which candi­ Der'Spiilgel The substitutes have been many and Union of the Left leaders Marchais, center, and Mitterrand, center left, lead dates withdraw on the second round is varied: capitulating to the Popular march in Paris last year. therefore very important. The Socialist Front is only the most recent. Party (PS) has proposed the automatic Comrade Puech told me that last took in 1935-36: Pivert explicitly fought withdrawal of the Union of the Left weekend's Central Committee meeting For a Trotskyist for a "fighting popular front." candidates with fewer votes, while the would fix a date for the publication of Communist Party (PC) has ostenta­ my documents. But it didn't discuss this Opposition to the "FURism" ' tiously refused to commit itself(though question: and it was not just due to the it will undoubtedlyfollow this guideline Central Committee's well-known in­ Popular Front! The LCR, the OCT and the CCA in practice). This jockeyingforposition competence that this point wasn't put on formed this electoral bloc in the tradi­ has been reflected in the debates among the agenda. The LCR leadership wants "The question of questions at present is tion ofthe Portuguese FUR, Democraz­ the centrists, with the OCI making the above all not to be bothered by a the People's Front. The left centrists ia Proletaria in Italy and the Spanish central issue ofits electoralpropaganda discussion over the difference between seek to present this question as a tactical FUT. Far from offering a means to the campaignfor automatic withdrawal an opportunist policy of pressuring the or even as a technical maneuver, so as to express some kind of "mistrust," this be able to peddle their wares in the ("desistement"). This is only the most popular front and revolutionary opposi­ shadow ofthe People's Front. In reality, bloc subordinates any programmatic grotesque example ofthe capitulation of tion to it. I am distributing this the People's Front is the main question consideration to the hopes that if it can the French 'tar-left" to the popular document tonight in order to maximize of proletarian class strategy for this get enough people together, it can wheel frontism of the reformist workers the possibility for all members of the epoch. It also offers the best criterion and deal with some future popular front for the difference between Bolshevism parties under the guise of "unity" for LCR to understand where the leader­ and Menshevism." government. Flattering itself with the unity's sake. While aping the Union of ship is taking them. -Leon Trotsky, "The Dutch illusion of national influence, and the Left through their own "revolution­ Comrades: remember the slogan you Section and the International," claiming that a vote for the bloc would ary'" electoral blocs, the centrists give shouted in demonstrations after the (July, 1936), Writings, 1935-36, represent a warning to Marchais and "critical" support to popular frontism September 1973 massacre: "France will p.370 Mitterand, ,the bloc promises that its by calling for votes to the Union ofthe not become Chile!" The incorrigible The core of my opposition to the opposition to the Popular Front will be Left or its working-class components. leaderships ofthe LCR and the USec are LCR's electoral policy can be com­ a loyal opposition: "defeat the right on going to apply the very policy which pressed to the following: to call for a the second round" actually means bring allowed the Chilean reformists to open vote for the Communist and Socialist the Popular Front to power. Open Letter to the the door to the massacre, which allowed parties-which are today still tied to the the Portuguese reformists to smash the Left Radicals and which have still not What is the Program of this Bloc? LCR forward motion of the Portuguese repudiated their commitment to the Comrades, this evening's meeting is proletariat. Common Program-is to vote for the This miniature "common program of being held under the slogan "Defeat the -Comrades! Demand that this meeting candidates of a Popular Front, i.e., a the far left" contains a characterization right!" This slogan totally abandons be transformed into a ;eal political bourgeois formation. All the "critical" of a Union of the Left government any revolutionary opposition to the debate on the burning question facing remarks and suggestions made in Rouge which at least is correct: "Such a gov­ Popular Front, as the LCR has so often the working-class movement: the ques­ for "improving" the Union of the Left ernment ... would be nothing but a done in the past and as the United tion of the Popular Front! do not in the least change the fact that bourgeois government" (Joint Platform, Secretariat, did in Chile, Portugal and -Demand that debates be immediately what the LCR leadership is doing by point 2). For years the LCR leadership Spain. The only effect of the LCR's organized in the cells! calling for this vote is using what little has refused to say that the Union of the electoral bloc with the OCT and the - Demand an immediat~ break with the social influence it has to insure the Left is a bourgeois formation; it has CCA is to mobilize elements which are LCR-OCT-CCA electoral bloc, whose victory of the Popular Front. And that, used the formulation "global reformist subjectively to the left of the reformists function is to bring the Popular Front to comrades, is purely and simply a alternative"; and it still refuses to say it is around support to the Union ofthe Left. power.' betrayal. Today's call for such a vote a popular front. Five years of urging a Rouge has made a great to-do over 10 January 1978 justifies the prediction that tomorrow, if vote for the Popular Front have so the Communist Party's announcement the Union of the Left wins the elections, dulled the political sensibiliti~s of LCR ("definitively" for the moment) that it LE BOLCHEVIK the attitude of the LCR leadership will militants that the LCR leadership's would not make any agreement con­ Organe de fa Ligue Trotskyste de not be one of revolutionary opposition explicit declaration that a Left govern­ cerning withdrawal prior to the second France to this capitalist government, but one of ment will in fact be bourgeois now round. Does that mean that the Union section sympathisante de la tendance pressure, in one form or another, on the merely aids it to better pressure this spartaciste internationale of the Left is now but a memory? Does Popular Front. This was the Chilean bourgeois government. As to its so­ that mean that Marchais has given up 2,00 F.I$.50 MIR's attitude toward Allende's Popu­ called principled opposition to voting his goal of administering the capitalist Pour toute commande: lar Unity: and we know what came of for the bourgeois candidates of the state in alliance with a bourgeois party, Le BolchElVik, B.P. 421 09 that. This was also the attitude which Union of the Left, it is enough to recall 75424 Paris CEDEX 09, France be it Radical or Gaullist? Has either of Marceau Pivert's Revolutionary Left that in the [spring 1977] municipal 6 WORKERS VANGUARD elections the LCR also called for a vote which stands above the interests of for Union of the Left slates including revolutionary struggle.... The condi­ AC Transit Strikers Reject Sellout bourgeois candidates, except when the tion for the victory of the proletariat is the liquidation of the present leader­ slate·was headed by one of them. ship. The slogan of 'unity' becomes Alain Krivine, intervening in the under these conditions not only a name of the LCR's Political Burei:J'J in stupidity but a crime." the debate o'er nationalizaL';.ls, was -"The Peoples' Front and Action Committees," 26 Shut Down BARTl concerned only about the extcr. of November 1935 nationalizations, whereas the quest: m, OAKLAND-Members of the Amal­ BART must be shut down by mass above all, is to know who should The LCR and the OCI raise the gamated Transit Union (ATU) East Bay picketing of Local 192 members! Local nationalize (a workers government) and slogan "for a PCI PS government." But Local 192 delivered a sharp rebuke to 1555 ranks must go out in solidarity how (without compensation). He pro­ this is at best a parliamentarist bastardi­ their union leadership January 15 when with their brothers and sisters in Local posed establishing "a minimum thresh­ zation of the Transitional Program; in they voted to continue their two-month 1921 old of nationalizations that will change no case do they put forward this demand strike against AC Transit, heavily When the Berkeley school board the logic of the capitalist system" (Le in a manner that counterposes to the rejecting the tentative pact endorsed by recently appropriated money to use Monde, 29 September 1977). Even this Popular Front a revolutionary workers Local president John Wesley. elementary school bus drivers to trans­ reformist conception of nationaliza­ government based on working-class The "no" vote of697 to 397 came after port junior and senior high school tions is nowhere to be found in the LCR­ organs of dual power (such as strike Wesley barely managed to get an eight­ students, who would normally use AC OCT-CCA program, which raises the committees in a general strike situa­ to-seven approval for the pact from the Transit buses, Groulx announced the question of nationalizing businesses tion). The OCI's latest act ofparliamen­ union's negotiating committee. The setting up of a so-called "informational only "when the private owners turn out tary cretinism-after having asserted strikers were particularly angered by picket line." Nothing has been done to to be incapable ofproviding the workers that a left electoral majority would Wesley's sending ATU maintenance prevent members ofthe Berkeley Feder­ with jobs" (Platform, point 4-1). sweep the Fifth Republic away, after workers across union picket lines to ation of Teachers from crossing it. The It is impossible not to point out also having refused to run its own candidates prepare the transit buses even before the ATU must mobilize pickets to stop the the following little sentence on the and then having launched a hysterical membership vote on the new proposal! scabbing in Berkeley and demand that Rt:ssian question from the manifesto of campaign for [automatic] with­ When a woman driver attending the these picket lines be respected! this bloc between pseudo-Trotskyists, drawal-is Stephane Just's statement: union meeting protested this scabbing Instead of pursuing such policies, Maoists, and advocates of "self­ "... and even a PS electoral victory order, Wesley responded, "We've got to however, the Wesley leadership ofLocal management": "In countries like the would, despite itself, immediately call get those buses rolling.... Tell what's­ 192 has followed policies that can only USSR or Eastern Europe, the existing into question the institutions and her-name she can leave ifshe doesn't like demoralize the membership. From the regimes have nnthieg to do with functioning of the Fifth Republic" (La it!" very beginning ofnegotiations last June, Verite, No. 579). socialism" (Platform, point 5). In order Throughout the negotiations AC militants demanded that contract pro­ to be able to make this bloc with the In these elections, the call for a PC! management has treated the union with posals be put toavote ofthe membership OCT and the CCA, the LCR leadership PS government has nothing to do with a utter contempt. The "new" offer was at a mass meeting and that negotiations "disappeared" the class characterization "class against class" policy. In the virtually the same package offered be open to permit the rank and file to of the USSR and thus also the Trotsky­ framework of the present relationship of seven months ago, with only a minor remain accurately informed. Wesley forces, with the working class' preva­ ist demand of unconditional military redistribution of money. As bait the AC and his lieutenants beat back every defense of the deformed and degenerat­ lent illusions and without a definitive bosses offered a slight improvement in attempt to establish any kind of demo­ ed workers states. And this is perfectly break by the reformists with the Popular pensions and a paltry $145 per worker cratic control by the ranks, including logical: tailing after the ecologists, the Front, this call cannot be anything but a provided the union returned to work refusing to publish contract proposals LCR calls on "all the workers states to promise not to hinder the electoral within 14 days. for the membership to read. unilaterally destroy their nuclear arse­ .victory of the bourgeois Popular Front. In return, however, drivers would get The current AC Transit strike is only nals" (Soldat- Travailleur No.7, Sept.­ While it is possible to envisage, under a worsened sick-benefit plan, no wage. the most recent of a series of long strike Oct. J977). This position will please the certain conditions, critical support to a increase and no retroactive payment of battles fought by the Local 192 member­ reformist American SWP which, in its workers party which campaigns inde­ cost-of-living increases lost since the ship. Four years ago the union went out campaign to present itself as American pendently of a bourgeois party, it is contract expired. On top of this, for 66 days; other strikes in recent years social democracy, has abandoned de totally out of the question to currently management attempted to create a layer lasted 76 days, 31 days and 18 days. facto its position ofdefense ofthe USSR apply this in France. As a minimum of second-class union members by Unable to win real victories because of precondition for thtir possible electoral in order to echo Jimmy Carter's "human instituting a wage cut for new hires, its class-eollaborationist policies, the rights" crusade. support the workers must insist that the while lengthening the probation period Local 192 leadership "prepared" for this PCF and PS break with their bourgeois The creation of this bloc was accom­ so it would take three years for a new present battle by attempting to convince electoral partners and with the Com­ hire to qualify for full pay. the ranks that strikes weren't necessary. panied by a violent polemic against mon Program which serves as the Lutte Ouvriere [LO] which has refused Predictably, AC Transit is pleading Wesley campaigned for office on pre­ framework for this class­ poverty, claiming a "projected deficit" cisely this anti-strike view. In a flyer to renew the agreement made for the collaborationist alliance. municipal elections. In fact, what LO of $4.5 million in transit funds. Since the passed out last February, he stated: "We should be criticized for is having For a Trotskyist Opposition to strike began it has been raking in an don't advocate going on strike for we accepted this deal in 1977 and also the Popular Frontl estimated $650,000 a week from tax feel, with your cooperation, our con­ because its currently projected cam­ revenues, without having to payout a tract can be settled long before that paign, addressed to the least politically Comrades, in order to present a single penny in wages, benefits or date." conscious workers, does not project Trotskyist opposition to the Popular operating costs. Management strategy Wesley and his gang counseled that fighting on the Transitional Program Front, one must begin by demanding an has obviously been to wait it out-i.e., the union could win its demands by and for a workers government, but is immediate break from the LCR-OCT­ stall-and then use some of these wheedling concessions out of Demo­ based, rather, on rank-and-file econo­ CCA electoral bloc. In these elections, accumulated revenues to provide a sop cratic Party politicians. This strategy mism. No doubt LO will also vote for real revolutionaries must present, in to entice back cash-starved strikers. has blown apart in the current strike, as the candidates of the Union of the Left proportion to their forces, candidates of AC Transit normally carries about the Bay Area bourgeoisie, whose pos­ Popular Front on the second round. their own party, unconstrained by any 115,000 passengers every day. Part of ture has become increasingly hard-line propaganda blocs, "broad vanguards" the vacuum during the strike has been in the wake of the San Francisco city What Unity? In the Name of and other centrist baubles, which serve filled by BART, the cross-Bay rapid craft workers and Alameda County What? Against Whom? only to mask their rejection ofa head-on transit system. Although BART is also workers' strikes in 1976, has once again After the falling-out in September confrontation with the Popular Front/ organized by the ATU, both the ATU bared its teeth toward the labor move­ among the Radicals, Socialists and Union of the Left, governments it la Local 1555 misleaders of the BART ment. The bosses have shown that they Communists, Rouge demanded that the Gon9alves, or the Moncloa pact. operators' union and the Alameda are in no mood to be sweet-talked into bureaucrats unite "in order not to betray In addition to immediate economic County Central Labor Council (CLC) concessions. demands, a Trotskyist candidate would have made no move to halt service. This the workers' trust" since "at present the Recently Tom Bates, a local Demo­ workers are worried by the division, take up the essential elements of the contrasts sharply with CLC leader Transitional Program, including the call Richard Groulx's action several months cratic Party assemblyman and reputed feeling powerless" (Rouge, 24 Septem­ "friend oflabor," introduced a bill to cut ber 1977). This appeal for "unity" was for a workers government based on ago when he created massive trafficjams workers councils to expropriate the by unexpectedly shutting down BART off all state tax revenues to AC Transit also concretized by the proposal to hold for the period of the strike. While Bates assemblies "where all the unions and all capitalist class. in order to honor the picket lines of The LCR-OCT-CCA manifesto's transit cops who had struck. Groulx feigned neutrality, claiming that "both the workers' parties explain their posi­ sides are stonewalling" (San Francisco tions. After a democratic debate, the demand for "purging the adminstration feels more solidarity with the armed and dismantling the military hierarchy" agents of the bourgeoisie-professional Chronicle, 6 January), his maneuver workers will vote [on the discussion], was clearly designed to enable AC and the PCF and the PS should commit shows how far this program is from strikebreakers-than with transit being revolutionary. This is purely workers. Transit to plead poverty and force the themselves to taking their opinion into union to accept a rotten settlement. account" (Rouge, 26 September 1977). reformist! Moreover, while the struggle Under the pretext of "unity" and for the democratic rights of soldiers is O-EBATE If the Local 192 strikers are to win, "workers democracy," the LCR leader­ altogether legitimate, revolutionaries between the they must reject the class­ ship is no longer pushing merely a are for the destruction of the bourgeois Spartacist League collaborationist policies of the Wesley "fighting popular front," but a demo­ army. A Trotskyist program would and the leadership. Democratically elected cratic popular front, and actual pro­ include a call for the formation of Revolutionary Socialist League strike committees must be established, posals to become part of it! As Trotsky workers militias, as an outgrowth of and mass picket lines set up to halt explained regarding Marceau Pivert's picket lines to protect militants (such as Revolutionary Leadership scabbing in Berkeley. BART must be Revolutionary Left: Pierre Maitre), workers organizations and the Struggle Against shut down by mass picketing. The union "This grouping is characterized by a and their offices, to confront tomor­ the Oppression of Gay must mobilize the sympathies of poor complete lack of understanding of the row's fascist bands-to constitute "the People and working people by demanding free laws that govern the movement of the proletarian vanguard for seizing power public transit, a position which Local revolutionary masses. No matter how Sunday. January 29 at 2:30 p.m. when the hour strikes." Another impor­ YMCA 192 has long held but never taken action much the centrists babble about the tant demand should be to exclude the on. AC Transit drivers do not need 'masses' they always orient themselves Dunbaugh Room police from the trade-union movement, misleaders who preach reliance on the to the reformist apparatus.... At a time 2nd Floor when it is a life-and-death question for since the Popular Front, in the name of bourgeois state; they need instead a the masses to smash the opposition of 826 S. Wabash the pact concluded with the bourgeoisie, CHICAGO class-struggle leadership to mobilize the the united social-patriotic apparatuses, will use them to break strikes. Blum's union against the bosses and their the left centrists consider the 'unity' of For more information call (312) 427-0003 these apparatuses as the absolute 'good' continued on page 8 strikebreaking government. • 27 JANUARY 1978 7 source of war. the main danger to the With the isolation of the world's first being in the main apolitical, focusing on world's people. etc." proletarian state power and the relent~ Rep ... -"Revisionists Are the meager results of past opportunisms (continued from page 5) Revisionists...." less pressure of imperialism upon the in the V.S. and the dangers of "isola­ VSSR, a Stalinist bureaucratic caste tion" from the Chinese regime, Avaki­ posing a more classic Stalinist pitch to What this indicates is that Avakian­ emerged within the Soviet Union. The an's support to the defeated side in Avakian's New Leftist "leftism," his the New Leftist whose historic line has consolidation of that caste wrested China tends to give him the appearance urgings combine the craving for a more been the so-called "Vnited Front political power from the Russian prole­ of having vestiges of "principle." Thus, "mass" line at home with a pitch to Against Imperialism"-can view with tariat and transformed the Communist insofar as the ranks are not choosing on remain in the Maoist mainstream: equanimity the Maoists' campaign "While it will certainly take a different International from a revolutionary the basis of personality, Avakian will form for the RCP, the ideological and against the VSSR so long as he can hang world party into an instrument of tend to get the people who favor a more political line of the Gang now being loose from a "united front" between the pressure on the "democratic" bourgeoi­ RCP and V.S. imperialism's "hawks." critical posture. embraced ('Give the Gang a home', as it sies for "peaceful coexistence." The is being said) cannot help but lead to Avakian and Jarvis also share the Of course, this will not be many. The ideology of that caste was "socialism in political degeneration and isolation Maoist idealism which is a necessary RCP has been built around cultist from the working class. For the Gang it one country"-the ideology of Stalin/ underpinning of the concept of"capital­ loyalty to the megalomaniac who walks meant becoming the target of the hatred Khrushchev and Mao, whose differ­ ist roaders." JarVis is appalled by the around like the reincarnation of Mao, of the Chinese working class and ences over which was the "one country" peasants and the hatred of millions of heresy of Avakian's characterization of refers to himself as "the Chair" and made the Sino-Soviet split inevitable. genuine communists of the CCP. For the Chinese constitution as "fascist," but accuses the minority of trying to "get to To be sure, the existence of a our Party it will certainly cause less has no quarrel with the notion that the him" through his wife, whom he actually emotion from the U.S. working class but nationalist bureaucracy-with its disor­ class character of a state resides in the honored with the post of "head of in some ways it can be more tragic­ ganization ofthe economy, its demorali­ ideas of its leaders, as summed up in culture." Ms. Avakian is nicknamed stripping the U.S. working class of its zation of the proletariat, its foreign Communist Party." Mao's dictum, "the rise to power of "Chiang Ching" by her enemies; so high policy sellouts that work against the revisionism means the rise to power of does emotion run on this question that extension ofthe revolution (which alone the bourgeoisie." Avakian's loss of much of the member­ "Two-Line Struggle"? can protect and extend the dictatorship The notion that under "socialism" ship in his own Chicago national center The magnitude and ferocity of the of the proletariat which still exists in the classes are defined by the thoughts of is alleged to be due largely to personal RCP split is testimony to the preexisting deformed workers states)-creates pow­ individuals poses certain difficulties. animosities toward his wife. instability of the organization more erful forces toward capitalist restora­ Avakian explains: An unstable, New Left, demagogic than to the seriousness of the differ­ tion. But the fundamental class trans­ "In capitalist society if someone tendency, the Avakian faction is capabk ences. For indeed the Avakian and occupies a certain material position­ formation from workers state to of both extreme adventurism and Jarvis wings of the RCP have a lot in for example President of a corpora­ capitalist state cannot occur slavish capitulation to the worst back­ common. They share not merely the tion, or head of the finance department peacefully-through a factional wardness ofthe working class. The post­ responsibility for the theoretical inept­ of the state-it is easy to identify such a struggle, a palace coup or any reshuf­ person as part of the bourgeoisie. But in split RCP will likely be simply a ness, anti-democratic corruption, econ­ socialist society the matter turns not fling of personnel at the top-any more personality cult, crassly opportunist, omist practice and gangsterism of the only and not even mainly on social than capitalist property relations can be violently sectarian and programmatical­ RCP, but also a common anti-Marxist position but on line-that is, the head of destroyed through such changes in the ly extremely unstable. It could go a ministry or manager of a big plant is analysis and anti-revolutionary composition of the bourgeois state; anywhere-from trying to seize Solidari­ program. certainly not part of the bourgeoisie by those who postulate a peaceful, gradual mere virtue of occupying such a ty House to blocking with the Ku Klux It is notable that both Avakian and position. but becomes part of the return to capitalism in the deformed Klan (as it did in hailing the anti-busing Jarvis understand that China's foreign bourgeoisie only if and when he workers states are merely, to quote Leon policy-defined first and foremost by implements a revisionist line and more Trotsky, "unrolling the film of reform­ the alliance with V.S. imperialism than that persists in taking the capitalist ism in reverse." road." against the VSSR-is Pandora's box. A precondition for capitalist Had they undertaken a conscious This idealist gobbledygook, according counterrevolution is the growth of an French conspiracy to divert attention away to which class struggle is held to economically-based capitalist class, from the atrocities which have shaken intensify under socialism (the achieve­ through the disintegration and disem­ Pabloists... the American Maoist movement (Pek­ ment of which is moreover divorced bowelling of the col1ectivized planned (continued from page 7) ing's support to V.S./South Africa in from economic advancement, material economy. A capitalist restorationist government had the friends of Marceau Angola, its courting of the bloody plenty and the "withering away of the movement would be visible and aggres­ Pivert beaten up and assassinated by the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile, China's state"), is central to Maoist ideology. sive, challenging the regime, polarizing "democratic" police at Clichy in 1937. scandalous backing of the Shah of Iran, The concept of "capitalist roaders" is society. In the face of such a movement Trotskyists must absolutely and inse­ and its repeated calls for a strong not merely the justification for bureau­ the Stalinist bureaucracy-a brittle cratic in-fighting in China; it provides privileged layer--would split, with parably include in their program-and NATO), the silence could scarcely be in particular put forward in the the means for evading a class analysis of a conservative wing seeking to pre­ more complete. About the only thing unions-a call for the immediate and the Soviet Union. For a real attempt to serve their parasitic social position that seems to upset Avakian, who holds unconditional break of the mass [work­ apply scientific Marxism-objective and another wing going over directly to no brieffor the Hua regime, is that China ers] organizations with the V nion of the class criteria-to the "Russian ques­ the camp of counterrevolution. But the has "reversed the verdict on Yugoslavia" Left. tion" would make an examination of workers would move to defend their by establishing diplomatic relations with If they had the electoral strength Trotskyism mandatory for any serious Tito. Of course, this discretion is indeed interests from the growing restorationist Trotskyists would maintain their candi­ revolutionist. But not even the com­ danger. Capitalism could triumph only the better part of valor for the RCP, dates on the second round as the only bined efforts of Avakian/Jarvis and the through a civil war in which the class­ which like any other Maoist sect would independent representatives of their reformist ex-"Trotskyist" Socialist conscious proletarian elements were have an uncomfortable timedetermining class. Workers Party can innoculate the defeated in the course oftheir struggle to where to locate a "degeneration" of Trotskyists do all they can to prevent ranks against Trotskyism, The Maoist defend collectivized property as the Chinese foreIgn policy. From Sukarno's the workers from repeating the disas­ movement is being shaken apart by its economic basis for the transition to decimation of the Indonesian CP to trous experience of popular-front gov­ inability to address the fundamental Bandaranaike's massacre of Ceylonese socialism. ernments: France 1934-36, Spain 1936­ youth rebels, the Maoists never allowed questions which confront its cadres at Neither Avakian nor Jarvis can 37. France 1944-47, Chile 1970-73, bloody repression to dampen their every turn. challenge the anti-Leninist doctrine of Portugal. In contrast, centrists of all enthusiasm for "anti-imperialist" dicta­ "\ "socialism in one country" which, in stripes are ready to relive the experience. tors so long as they maintained friendly response to the narrow needs of a Such is the framework and the state relations with China. privileged, nationalistic stratum, sets program on which the LCR is getting Avakian does attempt to distance itself against the urgent needs of the ready to "pressure" the Popular Front himself a little from the "Soviet social working people of China and the whole government which might issue from the imperialism" line: world. These needs include the defense 1978 elections: its only content is "It is correct, as our Party has consis­ of all the deformed workers states, betrayal of the proletariat's interests. tently pointed out, for the Chinese to .... . (415) 835-1535 including China and the Soviet V nion, Comrades, will you accept being target the Soviets as the main danger to against rapacious imperialism. Avaki­ them and to make use of certain .. (617) 492-3928 accomplices? contradictions on that basis; but there an's and Jarvis' commitment to the Comrades, have you already forgot­ does seem to have been a tendency on Stalinist bureaucratic framework in ten the last desperate act of the Chilean the part of the Four and Mao (as well as China allies them not only with the cordones industriales, calling on the the line of the latest major articles from Stalinist traitors who undermine the China) to take this as far as saying majority leaderships of their class, in the Soviets are the most dangerous defense of their own deformed workers September 1973, to "Break with the state and sell out the working masses of bourgeoisie!"? It is not for pedagogical the world from Chile to Iran, but also' reasons that the LCR and the OCI have "\ with V. S. imperialism in its ultimate aim SL/SYL PUBLIC OFFICES refused to put forward this demand, of bloody reconquest of the VSSR. preferring instead the slogan "PCjPS Marxist Literature Whither the Rep? government," and the OCI simply "PCj BAY AREA PS parliamentary majority." It is to Now that the split has smashed to place themselves on the terrain of the Friday and Saturday 3:00-6:00 p.m. smithereens any utopian dream Avaki­ 1634 Telegraph. 3rd floor Vnion of the Left-because, according (near 17th Street) an had of keeping the RCP's China to them, this is a "necessary stage" on Oakland, California position in the closet, his choices are Phone 835-1535 the road to socialism. limited to the "high road" to PL-style -For a Trotskyist opposition to the CHICAGO oblivion or the "low road" to "socialist Popular Front! Tuesday 4:30-8:00 Albania." And while Enver Hoxha may -For a workers government to expro­ Saturday 2:00-5:30 p.m. claim to be the guiding light to the priate the bourgeoisie! 523 South Plymouth Court. 3rd floor peoples of the Adriatic, he is surely the Chicago. Illinois - Workers organizations. break with Phone 427-0003 kiss of sectlet death for the RCP. the Union of the Left and with the NEW YORK Avakian remains essentially an unrec­ Common Program! Monday-Friday 630-9:00 p.m. onstructed New Leftist whose formative -No vote for any ofthe Popular Front Saturday 1:00-4:00 p.m. political experience was vicarious candidates! 260 West Broadway. Room 522 (604) 291-8993 identification with the Red Guards of -Against the LCR-OCT-CCA bloc! New York, New York the Cultural Revolution. With the Phone 925-5665 ~ Jarvis faction's criticisms of his line Cranac'h, 7 January 1978

8 WORKERS VANGUARD mobilizations in Boston and Louisville as "fightback"). Free All Political Prisoners? In background, training and appetite Jarvis has always stood politically closer to Klonsky than to Avakian. Less inclined toward flashy cultism~though No Amnesty for Nazi Hess! not above it~he seems to tend more toward blocs with the bureaucracy and Rudolf Hess's golden wedding anni­ penny-ante shop-floor organizing than versary last month provided an occasion toward Avakian's pan-union gimmicks. for those who have sought to make the His group probably contains a consider­ vicious old Nazi in Spandau Prison a able spread on China, running from gut prominent tragic figure. While formerly level anti-Avakianism to fawning Pek­ the clamor for Hess's release was pretty ing sycophancy to those who support well restricted to "humanitarians" ofthe the purge of the "Gang" but have far-right (and officials of the West remaining criticisms of Chinese foreign German government), the advent of policy along the lines of the Guardian. Carter's anti-Soviet "human rights" This faction will either find a niche in the campaign has brought respectability to CP(ML) or become an irrelevant anti­ the "free Hess" claque. Liberals' as well Klonsky sect of Peking-loyal Maoism. as Nazis' hearts now bleed for the The CP(ML) is already hot on the imprisoned fascist, and recently U.S. scent, with an appeal for a "Marxist­ secretary of state Cyrus Vance pledged Leninist unity committee" ("The Road to work to get Hess freed. Hess, Hitler's to Communist Unity," The Call, 26 deputy and officially second-in­ December 1977). 'fhe RCP's foam­ command after Goring in the Nazi flecked reply, "Repudiate the Call for Reich, was condemned to life imprison­ Menshevik Unity," in the January 1978 ment at the 1946 Nuremburg Trials. issue of Revolution, contained a few Today at 83, he remains the only aesopian slaps at the Jarvisites: prisoner in the Spandau Prison in "Those who would like to embrace only Berlin. ~ one aspect of the CP(ML)'s revisionism For some time now the Western will find that it comes in a package-if you take one bite you will be forced to bourgeoisie has sought to use Hess's swallow and choke on all of it. incarceration as a symbol of Soviet 'The CL(ML)'s proposed 'unity confer­ inhumanity, since the only reason Hess ence; if it comes up at all, will be like the is not today a free man is that the MacMillan founding of a new conglomerate-each Russians~who together with Brit­ comes in with a certain amount of Rudolf Hess with Hitler. capital and in return receives an ish, French and American authorities appropriate number of shares in the administer Spandau-have consistently Behind this "fanatic deed" was a fanatic protected and even hailed as noble anti~ new enterprise. This is the basic theme refused to let this unregenerate Nazi determination that Operation Barba­ communist fighters. For those who are that Klonsky hopes will appeal to other leader go. The other three powers have opportunist 'leaders': no one is so rossa against the Soviet Union succeed concerned about Hess's solitary con­ famous that we can't all share the made repeated pleas on "humanitarian" at any cost. finement, we can suggest a rather long pie...... grounds to let him off. "We remember everything about the list of Nazi criminals who should join This Christmas the usual crop of Needless to say, Revolution contained past," Soviet authorities said in refusing him in Spandau, including a large "heartrending" stories about "poor old nothing else that could possibly be to release Hess last May. The Mos­ number in the U.S.-like Valerian Trifa Hess" appeared in the press, along with interpreted as a reflection of its split. cow publication Literaturnaya Gazeta of the Rumanian Iron Guard, today a pitiful tales of how his wife (herself a The Jarvis grouping's intentions asked: "Is it necessary to be merciful to respected bishop in Detroit; Andrija former Nazi) was allowed to see him toward the CP(ML) are not at all clear. one of those who wanted to drown Artukovic of the Croatian Ustashi; only for a half hour on their fiftieth His characterization of the Klonsky humanity in blood and establish in its Boleslavs Maikovskis; Tscherim Soob­ wedding anniversary. Both the New group as "careerists" who claim "there is place the I,OOO-year Reich of the zokov, and Vilis Hazners. In Europe York Times and Manchester Guardian no class struggle in China" would not fascists?" It would indeed be a vile insult there is Helmut Kappler, who recently Weekly published editorial statements seem devastating enough to preclude an to those survivors of the Nazi terror to made a spectacular escape from an on his plight, on how he's suffered eventual deal. Some of the ambiguity of release Hess, one of the principal Italian prison and now enjoys West enough, the cruelty ofthe Russians, how the situation revolves around specula­ architects of the Nazi Reich. German state protection. his suffering reflects on all "civilized" tions that a venerable old man of the Hess embodies the perfect refutation Bourgeois preoccupauon with Hess is people who allow it to continue and so Jarvis clique may be the means for of the classless liberal slogan "Free all no accident. The fascists have always on. brokering a rapprochement between political prisoners!" A devoted disciple_ been the shock troops of bourgeois Jarvis and the Chinese which would There were also the usual maudlin of Hitler since 1921 who once led a reaction, a reserve force to be brought probably entail some kind of perspec­ accounts of Hess's stomach pains, his student Storm Trooper brigade, Hess out and let loose against the working tive toward the CP(ML). On the other grieving relatives trying to see him and remains to this day a heroic martyr in class when the bourgeoisie itself is in hand, even the damaged ex-RCP cadres his attempted suicides. (Hess must be the eyes of contemporary Nazi organi­ crisis. Hess's release would be an might have difficulty swallowing orders the most spectacularly unsuccessful zations, commemorated in their "Ru­ emboldening propaganda victory for from the man of whom RCP honcho man ever to attempt suicide in prison, dolf Hess bookstores" (such as the one those fascist terrorist groups which are Clark Kissinger once said: "if the CCP since he's apparently been trying to do which recently opened in San Francis­ today again raising their heads and a vile elected a chimpanzee as chairman, Mike away with himself since the 1940's-in co), "Rudolf Hess awards," etc. Some of insult to the working class, Jews and the Klonsky would send it a telegram of contrast to left-wing prisoners, most his outstanding accomplishments In­ millions who perished in the Nazi support." While backing Hua, Jarvis notably those of the Red Army Faction, clude plotting and commanding the holocaust.• has remained agnostic on the return of who are regularly reported to be found purge of Ernst Roehm and Gregor Teng, perhaps to preserve a reason to dead in their cells.) Strasser in 1934; attempting an assassi­ avoid becoming a Klonskyite. The English and American bourgeoi­ nation plot against Von Papen, ambas­ SUBSCRIBE '"" sies are particularlv fond of Hess Is there a chance that some segment of sador to Vienna, in order to set the stage YOUNG SPARTACUS the Rep, shaken in their smug anti­ because of his spectacular 1941 flight to for a Nazi coup; the imposition of Trotskyist prejudices by the manifest Scotland to singlehandedly make peace censorship in German schools; the 1935 monthly paper of the bankruptcy of their clique-leaders, can with Britain. In Winston Churchill's Ntirnberg Laws, which took away Spartacus Youth League be salvaged for the revolutionary cause? words: "Whatever may be the. moral civil rights and legalized the racial $2/10 Issues Certainly there is a chance, but the guilt of a German who stood near to persecution ofJews; and a special role as Make payable/mail to: Spartacus Youth prognosis is not good. The much­ Hitler, Hess had, in my view, atoned for overseer of the German courts, empow­ Publishing Co., Box 825, Canal Street P.O., \.. New York, New York 10013 abused cadres of the RCP have gone this by his completely devoted and ered to take "merciless action" against j very far down the road to cynical fanatic deed of lunatic benevolence." those whom the Nazis felt had gotten off destruction of any subjectively revolu­ too lightly. The usual result of Hess's tionary fibre. It is a genuine tragedy that intervention was the sentencing of his virtually an entire radical generation of victims to concentration camps or Protest the Arrest of "anti-imperialist" youth have had their Workers death. This is the "poor old man" for Sandor John consciousness systematically attacked whom mercy is asked! Panel Discussion on Administration by Maoist shysters, their revolutionary Of course the bourgeoisie have a Harassment optimism eroded by taking the pronun­ Vanguard point-it is something of a historical January 30 12 noon MARXIST WORKING-CLASS WEEKLY OF ciamentos of the "Great Helmsman" for anomaly that Hess is still in jail when so University of Illinois Circle Campus THE SPARTACIST LEAGUE Leninism, their energy consumed by many of his fellow fascists are today Room to be posted. leading comfortable lives in the West, trying to run an organization on the One year subscflphon (48 Issues) $5­ Sponsored by the rationalizations of a petty-bourgeois Introductory offer (16 Issues) $2 Interna­ lIoned rates 48 Issues-$20 drrmarl/$5 sea Ad Hoc Committee to caste committed to the building of mal!. 16 :ntroductory Issues-$5 arrmarl Eyewitness Report Stop Administration Harassment "socialism in one country." But if in its Make checks payable/marl to Sparlaclst grotesque death agony the RCP has Publishing Co, Box 1377 GPO, New York, Speakers: NY 10001 UMWA FIGHTS FOR ITS LIFE ACLU representative served to shake up even a few of its Paul Sigman-Region vice president of the -Includes SPARTACIST supporters enough to impel them Speaker: Mark Lance National Lawyers Guild Workers Vanguard correspondent Circle Women's Liberation Union Name _ toward an examination of in West Virginia and Martha Freedman, Partisan Defense Committee Trotskyism~the revolutionary Marx­ Stearns, Kentucky Richard Rubenstein-Associate Professor of Address _~ _ ism ofour time~thenthe RCP will have Political Science, Roosevelt University Thursday, February 2 7:30 p.m. Spartacus Youth League ~ performed one useful service in the years Clty _ -_._~- 1914 Lounge, Thwing Hall David Thomas, counsel, Sandor Jon defense Case Western Reserve University Young Socialist Alliance of frantic opportunism which preceded ___ Zlp _ State ~ - ---- 190 its demise. Sponsored by Spartacus Youth League For more information call (312) 427-0003 [TO BE CONTINUED] SUBSCRIBE NOW! "- CLEVELAND CHICAGO

27 JANUARY 1978 9 tears coming from one of the principal Christian ideology. They asked that it be from the fascists through General Leigh Pinochet authors of the present situation in Chile suspended "for the prestige of the junta to the DC should not be surprising. and the main counterrevolutionary and the Armed Forces." In this way they Both Patria y Libertad and the Chris­ force on a world scale; and at the same wished to show that their concerns were tian Democrats have received fabulous Plebiscite ... time rejecting the jingoism of the in no way intended to question the sums from the U.S, in the past, and Frei (continued from page 12) "consul" Augusto Pinochet. military regime. (together with other DC leaders) started In this framework of "defending The controller general, Hector his political career in the fascistic it differs from a traditional Latin Chile," the ballot paper for the "yes" Humeres, who has held this post for 11 Falange. During the Allende period the American caudillo (from Rosas to vote bears the colors of the national flag years-under Frei, Allende and Pino­ DC's ties to the gremios provided the Somoza or Stroessner) in that the and the following text: chet, rejected the plebiscite decree, meeting ground between these enthu­ officer corps of the armed forces-the "Against the international aggression saying it lacked sufficient legal grounds. siasts ofthe"Alliance for Progress," the very essence of the state-directly unleashed against the government of Of course, this act caused Humeres' CIA and open fascists, our fatherland, I support President assumed governmental power in the immediate removal, with labor minister Pinochet in his defense of the dignity of The Left and the Plnochet face ofincreasingly sharp class conflicts. Chile and reaffirm the legitimacy of the Sergio Fernandez, who naturally had no Moreover, the junta's economic government of the republic to conduct objection to the plebiscite decree, Plebiscite model is sharply different from the Likewise the parties ofthe UPand the corporatist regimes of fascist Italy and MIR came out against the plebiscite at Germany. The "shock treatment" of various levels, According to press Nobel Prize winner Milton Friedman, reports the Communist Party, the MIR based on a program of "free market" and the Radical Party called for a "no" liberalism (free trade and export stimu­ vote, while the Socialist Party called for lation, devaluations "mini" and other­ a boycott of the plebiscite. A joint wise), has been unable to overcome statement of the UP (signed by the runaway inflation and despite optimis­ PCCh, the Radicals, MAPU [United tic government figures the foreign debt Popular Action Movement-a is reaching mammoth proportions. It all "Marxist-Leninist" split-off from the comes down to unloading the burden of DC]. the IC [Christian Left-a later the budget deficits on the backs of the Christian Democratic split from the working class and petty bourgeoisie. DC] and independents) denounced the While benehtmg a few monopolies "vote" as "a simple masquerade of the and of course the "multinationals," this purest Hitler-Franco variety." How­ policy has led to a serious decline in ever, the UP; like Frei, made clear that industrial production and large num­ its orientation was toward the opposi­ bers of bankruptcies. Thus the policy of tion against Pinochefs maneuver within the "hard-line" sectors ofthejunta-i.e., the junta. "The armed forces," it said, Pinochet-is being challenged by im­ "cannot continue lending their support portant sectors of the bourgeoisie and to this demented policy, which has by small businessmen and property brought about such a dangerous situa­ owners. Ironically these are many ofthe tion ... choosing the path of provoking same forces who actively worked for the the international community" (quoted 1973 coup through their "destabiliza­ Abril Press in Mundo Obrero [Madrid], 5-11 tion" (employers' work stoppages by Leftists demonstrate in Chile capital January 3 for first "meIince 1973coup. January 1978). truck owners, shop owners, profession­ The Communist Party called for als, etc.). The DC proposes to lead this abstention or a "no" vote. In an movement and with his document, in a sovereign manner the process of assuming the post. interview, PCCh general secretary Luis "This Is My Reply," Eduardo Frei made institutionalizing the country." Corvahin stated that "the majority of his public debut on the field of opposi­ The Christian Democrats came out The muzzled Chilean press, entirely pro­ against the referendum because it was our compatriots intend not to vote orto tion. Even the criminal ultra-rightist vote 'no.' The people will discover and organization Patria y Libertad (Father­ government to one degree or another, not "clear and legitimate, nor does was flooded with propaganda for a it represent the sovereign will of the apply other forms of protest which it land and Freedom) is now opposing the considers appropriate and possible" junta. "yes" vote. The threat of violence people," Frei declared that the referen­ against opponents of the regime was dum was not clear because the electorate (Excelsior [Mexico], 4 January). BUl the The different pressures resulting from barely disguised. To prevent a massive was forced to reply to two questions: if it Stalinists' main concern is to pursue the current situation are reflected within boycott voting was made obligatory. At supports the president, and if it reaf­ Frei and other influential sectors of the thejunta, and we see Pinochet balancing the time of casting a ballot each firms the government's legitimacy. He bourgeoisie in order to seal a Chilean on a trapeze that is already rather individual's identity card would be added that "there could be people who "historic compromise," Pinochet can­ frayed. Both General Leigh and Admi­ punched and marked with a special answer the first question in the affirma­ not. said Corvalbourgeoisies-in which the representa­ internationally." tives of the ruling bureaucracies of the On the other hand the church. degenerated and deformed workers represented by the permanent commit­ states also participate. Moreover, this tee of the Chilean Bishops Confer­ U?'\' resolution is part of Jimmy Carter's ence, asked Pmochet to postpone or anti-communist campaign of defense of suspend the plebiscite until conditions "human rights." The principal target of were more favorable. Although this this campaign is the Soviet Union and attitude was widely interpreted as its satellites, and its aim is to "morally" opposition to the "consultation." they rearm Yankee imperialism, weakened argued that they wanted to contribute to Wide World after its humiliating defeat in Indochina. the unity of all Chileans, declaring the Christian Democratic youth clash with police in Santiago while leaflettingfor In this context we reject the crocodile "vote" positive and in accordance with "no" Yote in plebiscite. 10 WORKERS VANGUARD nounced that whoever did not partici­ among them one ofthe most prominent the 12-day strike by the El Teniente agrarian reform, for instance). There­ pate in the referendum would thereby was ... Augusto Pinochet. copper miners in November. This fore we simultaneously call on the void his identity card. A general slogan The UP is seeking an alliance with walkout involving hundreds of workers proletariat to struggle for the total of boycott could bring serious conse­ Frei and the Christian Democratsjustas took place against the efforts of the eradication of the latifundia through quences, involving isolation from work­ they did in the last months before the puppet "union" leaders imposed by the agrarian revolution, expropriating the places and legally could also lead to coup. But the MIR, which still wants to junta. While granting demands for estates and handing over the land to prison and/or deportation. Where it is play at "ultra-leftism," is also a vital part payment of productivity bonuses due poor peasants and agricultural workers; not possible to boycott the plebiscite, of this anti-working-class chorus. In a the workers, Pinochet subsequently for the expropFiation of industry and the proletariat and all the exploited MIR bulletin of September 1977 we exiled several of the Christian Demo­ finance; for workers control of produc­ should express their rejection of the read: "The interior secretariat of the cratic miners union leaders to the far tion; for a soviet workers government. Pinochet farce by casting a blank ballot. MIR ... renews its call to the parties of north of the country. Today the reform­ Build a Chilean Revolutionary In no case can we vote "no" since this the UP and democratic sectors of the ists and centrists hail the latest El Trotskyist Partyl would endorse the electoral procedure. PDC to make the greatest effort so that Teniente strike as a symbol of "the The working masses cannot spon­ It is basically the political and 1977 can be the year of the definitive resistance." Yet the Stalinists and social taneously achieve these things; it is organizational situation of the working consolidation of the unity of the people democrats raise no demands for essential first of all to break from the class which at present makes it impossi­ and of the resistance." The Chilean working-class struggle, such as the fight class-collaborationist bureaucracies ble to advance more resolutely in Castroists think they can fool the for a sliding scale ofwages and hours to who are reponsible for the defeat, with mobilizing against the junta. And it is proletariat with references to the "dem­ protect against inflation and open jobs those who delivered the proletariat, due to the betrayals of the workers' ocratic sectors" of the DC. But didn't for the unemployed. bound hand and foot, to the butchers of leaders who seek an alliance with the these "democrats" participate, directly When the El Teniente workers struck the junta. In the struggle to construct an bourgeoisie that the proletariat today or indirectly, in the preparation of the during the UP regime (April-May 1973) authentic Trotskyist leadership a major finds itself politically disorganized. military coup? If one didn't already in defense of their sliding scale of wages obstacle is the centrist conglomeration, know the politics ofthese appendages of (cost-of-living escalator), the Trotsky­ Frei and His Stalinist Cohort those half-way "critics" of popular Stalinism one could think that they had ists of the international Spartacist frontism who are afraid to make a sharp been hoodwinked. Not at all! Comrades tendency were among the very few break with the reformist traitors. Thus The policies of the reformist mass of the MIR, one does not fight the parties, the PCCh and the PS, following 2; II while the MIR continually tailed the bourgeoisie with a bourgeois program, the lines of the Menshevik-Stalinist UP, the Liga Comunista de Chile and it is just such a minimum program concept ofrevolution by stages, pose the (LCCh-a group created out of thin air which you signed with the UP in August "anti-fascist struggle" as the objective by the United Secretariat of Ernest 1977. Falling into line with the Christian for this period. To accomplish this Mandel) crawled after the MIR. The Democrats' call for a glorified Duma, LCCh refuses to characterize the Uni­ objective their plan is to broaden class this joint platform even dropped the collaboration through an alliance with dad Popular as a popular front (labeling revolutionary democratic demand for a it reformist), and follows the line oftheir the Christian Democracy. Thus in the constituent assembly. case of the plebiscite they chimed in with French comrades, the LCR, who will The proletariat must not allow itself the same slogans as the DC. These call for votes to candidates of the Union to be dragged down by popular front­ traitors to the working class stealthily of the Left in the March elections. The ism. Democratic and trade-union rights watch the development of the class Mandelites' periodic adventurist ex­ will not be voluntarily granted by the struggle and the workers movement cesses, such as calling for a "revolution­ bourgeoisie, but must be wrenched from from behind the priests' cassocks. In the ary general strike" in the period after the them by the workers mobilized together same way they chased after the demon­ coup, only serve to cover their political with all the exploited. We demand strations against the plebiscite organ­ Former president Eduardo Frei capitulation. freedom for all prisoners held under the ized by the falangist Christian Demo­ On the other hand, the pseudo­ rightist repression, legalization of the cratic youth of Frei. working-class organizations which de­ Trotskyists of the former POMR, now workers' political and trade-union On October 12 the DC issued its first fended the miners' just struggle to called the "Contact Committee of organizations, as well as amnesty and formal declaration of opposition to protect this union gain, won from the Chilean Trotskyist Militants" (part of the right to return to Chile for all those Pinochet, entitled "Patria Para Todos" former U.S. bosses through hard fights, the Organizing Committee for the forced into exile by the junta's repres­ (Fatherland for All). This statement against the popular front's anti­ Reconstruction of the Fourth Interna­ sion. Counterposed to reformist adapta­ working-class austerity and speed-up tional of Pierre Lambert) label the UP a calls for a gradual transfer of power to a tions to the bourgeoisie's program, as civilian government, the first step being program (see "Defend Chilean Miners' popular front ... yet declare that the Trotskyists we raise the demand for a Strike," WV No. 23,22 June 1973). A 1970 vote for Allende was a "class constituent assembly with full powers, revolutionary leadership of the unions against class vote." They are right in one directly and secretly elected by universal would have extended the strike, de­ sense: it was a vote for the bourgeoisie suffrage. A genuine constituent assem­ manding a workers government and against the working class! The Chilean bly by definition could only be con­ expropriation of all industry. This Lambertists currently center their pro­ voked under conditions of full demo­ would quickly scuttle the reactionaries' gram on democratic demands, especial­ cratic liberties, permitting the attempts to use the strike for their own ly the constituent assembly, rather than participation of all the parties of the purposes. In contrast, Allende de­ embedding them in a transitional working class. Thus it requires as a nounced the strikers as a "privileged program for workers power. And precondition the revolutionary over­ sector" while the Stalinists called them following the dictates of their French throw of the junta, something which the out-and-out "fascists" and told their mentors, they would have the political DC and the reformists, despite their militants to break the strike. Thus only reorganization of the Chilean workers lengthy list of democratic demands, fail the Trotskyists can stand before the El movement pass through the PS, which is to mention. Teniente miners today and tell them to their concept of "constructing the party Not Dy Democratic Demands place no confidence in their Christian in the class." Thus they defend the Alone ... Democratic misleaders; the parties of party/swamp which has been one ofthe The proletariat does not turn its back the UP and the MIR would simply be main forces for class collaboration in on other social sectors that want to dismissed as scabs. Chile for the last 40 years! struggle alongside it. However, our For Leninists democratic demands As Chilean Leninists our struggle is espousal of revolutionary democratic are a subordinate part of the workers' based on the application of Trotsky's demands is set in the framework of a class program. As Trotsky wrote of the theory of permanent revolution, the program of transitional demands incor­ role of democratic demands in fascist­ understanding that only the proletariat Carlos Altamirano porating the needs and aspirations of ruled countries: "But the formulas of under a revolutionary leadership can the peasantry and other exploited democracy (freedom of press, the right accomplish the fundamental democratic the lifting of the state of siege. While sectors of the petty bourgeoisie and to unionize, etc.) mean for us only tasks-beginning with the revolution­ rejecting any "illegal conspiracy" leading to the historic objectives of the incidental or episodic slogans in the ary overthrow of the murderous Pino­ against the regime, it says a constitu­ proletariat: destruction ofthe bourgeois independent movement of the proletari­ chet junta-and achieve socialism tional assembly should be called within state through the taking of power by the at and not a democratic noose fastened through an uninterrupted process of a year to reform the 1925 constitution. workers and the establishment of the to the neck of the proletariat by the struggle against capitalism. The revolu­ Following this a new government would dictatorship of the proletariat. bourgeoisie's agents (Spain!)" (Transi­ tionary vanguard of the working class be elected to succeed the junta. In other We fight for the power of soviets, or tional Program). In countries with a will be constructed by wrenching the words, the military dictatorship would workers and peasants councils. This bourgeois-democratic tradition and a masses from the reformists, not by be recognized as legitimate and it would type of class organization was politically advanced working class, such capitulating to them as do the centrists. continue to rule throughout this period! represented in embryo in· Chile by the as Chile, the demand for a constituent The demand "Break with the The "constitutional assembly" proposed cordones industriales (industrial belts) assembly is not a fundamental part of bourgeoisie!"-raised in a contradicto­ by Frei would have no more power than which arose after November 1972. But the proletarian program. Thus follow­ ry manner by the cordones industriales the tsarist Dumas; when the autocratic the cordones appeared at a time of ing the junta takeover, the iSt did not in the last few weeks before the coup-is regime which holds the reins of power mounting workers struggles (and de­ raise this slogan. We raise it tactically at a call to break the working class from digs in its heels, this sand-box assembly spite the treacherous misleaders). Con­ present against the bourgeoisie's efforts, the death-grip of the social-traitors and could either acquiesce or be dissolved. ditions prevailing in Chile today are aided by their agents in the workers embrace the program of permanent In response to the Christian very different from what existed in early movement, to make a pact with sectors revolution. Democrats' "Patria Para Todos" decla­ 1973; we presently face the full fury of a of the military. Our purpose is to expose -No To Pinochet's Electoral Farce! ration, Corvahin, speaking in Paris in counterrevolutionary regime, under the bourgeoisie's fear of revolutionary -For a Constituent Assembly-Smash December, proposed the following: which even the most minimal democrat­ democracy. the Junta Through Workers "... a democratic government, widely ic liberties have been abolished. Under While calling for a constituent assem­ Revolution! representative, on the basis of an one of the harshest reactionary dictator­ bly, Marxists must point out that the - Build a Chilean Revolutionary Trot­ understanding, an alliance between the ships history has known, the political bourgeoisie fears this revolutionary skyist Party! Toward the Rebirth of UP and the DC, and with the participa­ reorganization of the working class democratic demand, preferring deals the Fourth International! tion of democratic sectors of the Armed must take place against the bourgeoisie with the "democratic" generals; and that even if it were convened, the exploiters Organization Trotskista Forces." This is the same treacherous which is supported by the reformist Revolucionaria de Chile, line which these gentlemen imposed bureaucracies. would seek to frustrate even the most during the Allende government, only A dramatic proof that the struggle fundamental democratic measures until sympathizing section of the then it was the "constitutionalist" against the junta cannot be limited to their class dictatorship is finally broken international Spartacist tendency officers who received their praise; democratic demands was provided by (witness the fate ofthe timid Portuguese January 1978 27 JANUARY 1978 11 WfJliNEIiS ,,1NfilJl1li'

Reformists Chase After "Democratic" Junta Generals Condemn Pinochet

Plebiscite' by the Organizacion Trotskista Revolucionaria de Chile The January 4 plebiscite orchestrated by General Pinochet, brutish Caesar of the military junta which for the past four years has ravaged the working people of Chile, is a clear indication of the deepening isolation of the bonapartist regime and particularly of its strong­ man. The rigged results were universally discounted, even by the U.S. State Department, given the obvious impossi­ bility of anything even pretending to be an expression of the popular will under present conditions in Chile. Rather than masking the dictatorship with a veil of democratic approval, the stacked "vote" only succeeded in recalling other unsa­ vory plebiscitary regimes (from Napole­ on III, who had his 1851 coup "ap­ proved" and himself declared emperor, to similar "consultations" ratifying acts of force by the Nazis). Most importantly the hopeless attempt to "legitimize" the pinochetista dictatorship unleashed the first open anti-junta demonstrations since the bloody 1973 coup drove all opposition underground. Just in recent months the first limited expressions of mass discon­ tent saw the light of day, braving the ever present threat of deadly repression. Pinochet reviews troops before the vote. In November copper miners at the huge EI Teniente mine went on strike, zation" of the regime, roughly analo­ frontist line crystallized in the so-called obtaining payment of bonuses due to gous to the Caetano continuation of the "Chilean road to socialism," which them. A week later 100 relatives of Salazarist dictatorship in Portugal. proved incapable of holding back the "disappeared" detainees gathered out­ It is our duty as revolutionaries ofthe working class, together with the inca­ side the foreign ministry. In response to working class to warn the tragically pacity of the bourgeois parties to solve the announcement of the plebiscite, for suffering laboring masses of Chile and the deepening crisis. four straight days supporters of the the entire world proletariat of the threat The military junta which took power Christian Democratic Party (DC) leaf­ posed by the reformists' plans. Talk ofa through spilling the workers' blood and letted for a "no" vote, producing some "peaceful transition to democracy" is a destroying democratic and trade-union arrests and small confrontations with deceitful lie! Do not forget where the liberties has the task of pulling the the police. And on January 3 an "peaceful road to socialism" led to: II bourgeoisie's chestnuts out of the fire. estimated 500 leftists marched through September 1973 and the massacre of The Stalinists and social democrats downtown Santiago and demonstrated thousands of unarmed leaderless work­ falsely label it "fascist" in order to in front of La Moneda [the burned-out ers. The bourgeoisie will not make a excuse their "anti-fascist" fronts with former presidential palace]. present of the democratic liberties so sectors of the bourgeoisie. But although The farcical "national consultation" fervently desired by the Chilean masses, the II September coup was applauded of the tyrant Pinochet constituted a for it fears above all the revolutionary by the imperialists and the domestic setback for his ambitions of personal potential of an aroused working class. bourgeoisie, along with important grandeur and discredited the junta as a That is why it overwhelmingly backed segments of the petty bourgeoisie, the whole. The exercise laid bare the the 1973 coup and will call forth another military government has never enjoyed bankruptcy of a regime which has counterrevolutionary slaughter if neces­ a broad base of active social support, in embarked on a deliberate program of sary to prevent the masses from "going contrast to the fascist movements which deindustrialization, perhaps the only too far" in the course of overthrowing took power in Italy and Germany based country in the world where a govern­ the murderous junta. The watchword of on the mass mobilization of enraged ment has produced large-scale starva­ Leninist revolutionaries is and must petty bourgeois. Similarly the label tion among the' poor as a conscious wv Photo remain: Smash the bloody junta "gorila [militarist] government"­ policy; of a dictatorship which openly Luis Corvalin through workers revolution! supposedly more "popular" and "easier imitated the Nazi Reich, concentration to understand"-is simply an attempt to camps and all, in its policies of extermi­ Junta Rule Frays avoid the problem of giving a scientific nating left-wing opponents. This failure characterization of the present regime. for the government will hearten oppo­ chains to tie the Chilean workers to the The military junta which governs For Marxists the Pinochet junta is a nents of the junta, and revolutionaries class enemy. This time the alliance is to Chile today, made up of representatives bonapartist regime, in which a narrow ':i­ include not only the Radicals and ofthe three branches ofthe armed forces I must make use of this to work for the group or even a single individual political reawakening and rearmament dissident Christian Democrats but the along with the national police, assumed attempts to set itself above the normal power through blood and fire as a result of the Chilean proletariat. DC itself, including ex-president Frei tugging and pulling of competing class of the class-collaborationist policies of However, far from awakening this who played a key role in fomenting the forces, expressed through the mechan­ the traditional working-class leader­ powerful giant, the only social force 1973 coup; and "democratic sectors" of isms of bourgeois democracy, to act as ships, concretized in Salvador Allende's which can put an end to military the officer corps, meaning any of the supreme arbiter and protector of capi­ popular front, the Unidad Popular dictatorships, the reformist Communist blood-soaked generals and admirals talist class interests. In the present case, who are willing to ditch the sinking (UP). The armed forces coup was the (PCCh) and Socialist (PS) parties are continued on page 10 working at a frenzied pace to forge new Pinochet and agree to a limited "Iiberali- result of the bankruptcy of the popular- 12 27 JANUARY 1978