25«1: No.S89 3 December 1993

After NAFTA, Clinton Strongarms Japan, Europe

Wilson/NY Times Clinton and leaders of Pacific Rim countries meeting in Seattle at "Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation" forum. U.S. wants to use spectre of Pacific "free trade" as club against European imperialist rivals. u.s. Gears UP lor Trade War Hours after the North American Free Workers marched with red flags to protest ernment. The international airport at that the major unions in Belgium have Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was passed a three-year freeze on real wages and Brussels was shut down by pickets who called a general strike. by the U.S. Congress on November 17 massive cuts in social security decreed put up flaming barricades on the access • Spain: On November 25, hundreds by an unexpectedly wide margin, Presi­ by the Christian Democrat/Socialist gov- roads. This is the first time since 1936 of thousands of workers demonstrated dent Clinton shuttled off to Seattle where across Spain against "Socialist" prime he had convoked a meeting of the heads minister Felipe Gonzalez' proposed labor of government of the Pacific Rim coun­ law "reform" which would make it easier tries. The purpose: to use his NAFTA to fire workers at a time when official "win" to extract trade concessions from unemployment is almost 23 percent. The the Asian leaders, to be used in turn as workers' demonstrations, supported by a battering ram against the Europeans. students and community organizations, The aim of Clinton's pact with Canada were called by the Socialist Party-led and Mexico is to reinforce the American General Workers Union and the Work­ bourgeoisie's economic muscle against ers Commissions as a dry run for a its imperialist trade rivals by creating a general strike. U.S.-dominated free trade zone-"free" • France: Coal miners of the Lorraine for capitalist exploitation and immiser­ region in northeast France struck Wed­ ation of the workers. This is a step nesday against threatened layoffs, wag­ toward global trade war. ing pitched battles with police. Armed Washington's "New World Order" was with ax handles, the miners overran supposed to be an era of renewed U.S. police lines (47 cops were injured), over­ imperialist hegemony. heralded by the turned police cars, burned buildings and ruthless destruction of Iraq in the Gulf smashed up a local office of the min­ War. The terror bombing that slaughtered ister of industry. This explosion of tens of thousands of Iraqis was as much working-class anger comes one month intended as a warning to America's chief after a two-week strike by Air France imperialist rivals, Japan and Germany. ground crews, who battled cops on the With the restoration of capitalism inEast airport runways, forcing the right-wing Europe and the former Soviet Union', the cabinet to scrap its job-cutting plan Cold War cement which, held together (see "French Government Reeling-Air the post-World War II imperialist alliance France Strikers Ignite Class Struggle," has come unstuck, And as in the periods WV No, 587, 5 November), leading up to World Wars I and II, trade This powerful working-dass upsurge, wars for redivision of the world are ulti­ coming after mass marches by tens of mately decided by the imperialists in thousands of coal miners in Germany's shooting wars-only this time they will Ruhr region and militant factory occu,­ be armed with nuclear weapons. pations in southern Italy, took place As they gear up for an era of height­ simultaneously with big student strikes ened interimperialist competition, the in France, Spain and Italy. At the same capitalists on three continents are all time, amid burgeoning unemployment seeking to squeeze enhanced profit~ out and petty-bourgeois despair, fascist of the workers through speedup, wage­ forces are escalating their racist terror gouging and ruthless cuts in social serv­ attacks and gaining at the polls (notably ices, But the working class has the power in the recent Italian municipal elections), to turn the capitalists' trade war into a What is clearly posed is international class war against all the exploiters. This working-class struggle against the capi­ was dramatically underscored last week talists' reactionary attacks, But reformist by an upsurge of class struggle that misleaders have sidetracked labor pro­ ripped across Europe, where the bour­ tests into the dead end of protection­ geoisie is on a rampage to dismantle ism. The miners in Lorraine burned the so-called "welfare state" and tear imported coal on the docks and rail­ up hard-won union rights and working Metz, France, November 24: Striking while students took to the streets road sidings. German miners-many conditions. coal miners waged pitched battle with to demonstrate against education of them Turkish immigrants-have • Belgium: A one-day general strike cops as wave of class struggle cuts, Student protests also swept repeatedly demonstrated against im­ on November 26 completely shut down sweeps across Europe, A day later France, The militant Air France strike ported coal. This nationalist poison is a industry, transportation and even shops, in Belgium, the first general strike in two weeks earlier rattled French rul­ deadly obstacle to effective working­ nearly 60 years shut the country ers and raised spectre of a new May class struggle. down tight in protest against govern­ 1968, when a general strike nearly Similarly in the U.S., the AFL-CIO ment wage freeze, On November 27, toppled the regime and posed pros­ bureaucrats and their right-wing allies In Spain hundreds of thousands of pect of workers revolution, What's have pitched opposition to NAFTA in 49 workers marched threatening a gen­ needed: revolutionary vanguard par­ terms of protectionist tirades against I II eral strike. Italy was hit by strikes of ties to lead workers to victory over Mexican workers "taking American transport, auto and steel workers, capitalism. o 4470 81030 • I continued on page 14 Down with Germany's Ban on the Kurdish PKK! The following article.is adapted from selzmg bank accounts. Only a week Spartakist (No. /08. NovemberlDecem­ before, the French gQvernment likewise ber 1993). newspaper of the Spartakist launched an ass.ault against Kurdish mil­ Workers' Party of Germany. itants, rounding up III people "sus­ pected" of belonging to the PKK. The On Novernber26,. the German gov­ Turkish .government expressed "great ernment outlawed the Kurdish Workers satisfaction" with these raids. The Spar­ Party (PKK) and 35 other politic'al,cul­ takist Workers Party of Germany and the 100,000 Kurds demonstrate In Bonn last May. turaland news organizations of the Ligue Trotskyste de France issued urgent 450,000 Kurdish people living in Ger­ statements denouncing the anti-Kurdish this vile racist vendetta as a campaign In recent months, the Turkish govern­ many. The ban came as .German cops repression. Hands off the PKK and other to wipe out "foreign extremism" on Ger­ ment has dramatically escalated its war staged more· than a hundred raids on Kurdish organizations! man soil. In fact, it is part and parcel of against the Kurdish people, as 20 people Kurdish clubs, businesses and homes, Christian Democrat (CDU) interior the German bourgeoisie's unstinting a day are murdered. The Fourth Reich breaking into post office boxes and. minister Manfred Kanther tried to justify support to its junior partners,. in Ankara. continued on page 11

Freedom for Class-War Prisoners! In fighting to mobilize the working class in defense (){victimized black and labor mil­ itants, the Spartacist League and Partisan MDL/DAY APPEAL Defense Committee look to the tradition of the International Labor Defense founded by FDR CLASS-WAR James P. Cannon. In the face of revolution­ ary upheavals inspired by the 1917 Russian Revolution, the U.S. bourgeoisie escalated PR/SDNERS TROTSKY its persecution of working-class militants. LENIN notably through the notorious 1920 Palmer Raids. While the imperialists crow over the destruction of the Soviet Union, the class COME TO A FUNDRAISINfJ PARTY! struggle continues. as does the capitalist rulers' vendetta against fighters for the working class and black emancipation. In a 1921 article commemorating May Day, Music * Dancing * Food reprinted in the Prometheu~ Research Library's James P. Cannon and the Early Years of American Communism (1992), then Communist Party and later Trotskyist leader Saturday, Dec. 4, 9 p.m. Friday, Dec. 10,5-9:30 p.m. Cannon honored the class-war prisoners of u.s. imperialism and called on the workers Wetlands movement to fight for their freedom. Please call for information: (404) 659-0251 161 Hudson (at Laight) There is a definite purpose behind this persistent and systematic railroading of For information: (212) 406-4252 working class agitators. The money-sharks who rule America thought they would be able to break up the movement by taking away the leaders and intimidating the rank and file. But the revolutionary movement grows up out of the life needs of the workers and there is no power that can break it. Persecution is but the fire in which Sunday, Dec. 12,'-3-7 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 12, 1-4 p.m. it is tempered and hardened. When leaders go to prison others come forward out of UE Hall . Fort Mason Ctr., Bldg. A-1 the· ranks and take their places. When fainthearted followers desert, new recruits, 37 S. Ashland Ave. Marina at Laguna better suited for the stern requirements of the class war, are enlisted. For information: (312) 663-0719 For information: (510) 839-0852 The men who have gone to prison for the workers' cause-know this. That knowledge enables them to bear their confinement without complaint, oppressive as it is to men of independent spirit. They see the proletarian revolution still triumphant in Russia; they see it rising in aH the countries of Europe where capitalism has played out its string and cannot reorganize production; they know that we, who are on the outside of the jails, have not forgotten them nor our sacred obligation to appeal to the x:::- all-powerful workers in their behalf. The day is coming when the toiling masses of America will hear that appeal and it act upon it. Then the prison doors will be opened and the prisoners set free, for the r.=====------__ masses have an authority higher than that of any court. To redouble our efforts to ~ti.. n~ hasten on the day of liberation is the pledge we make to our imprisoned comrades CLASS-STRUGGLE ...... ittee . on this First of May. I -James P. Cannon, "The Political Prisoners" (May 1921) ~

No. 20 North America Fall/Wlnter 1993-94 Europe, AsIa ' Includes: For a Workers • North America. Europe, Asia: Fight Against For a Workers Fight Against Anti-Immigrant !!!!!!!~lIl!..'!..~!~!! ~ sAnti-Immigrant Racisml RaCism! DIRECTOR OF PARTY PUBLICATIONS: George Foster • • Holiday Appeal for ,...18 EDITOR: Jan Norden PRODUCTION MANAGER: Joan Parker .1 • ~~~::~~::::~s Denied CIRCULATION MANAGER: Karen Valdez F Parole-Again! EDITORIAL BOARD: Liz Gordon, Frank Hunter, Jane Kerrigan, Len Meyers, James Robertson, Joseph Seymour, Alison Spencer, Marjorie Stamberg • Letters from Prison- An Exchange with Bob Buck Holiday Appeal for Class-War Prisoners The Spartacist League is the U.S. Section of the International Communist League (Fourth ~e:~~';~imo Denied Paro!e-Againi . '" : : . . 2 Internationalist) . • New York City Rally Demands: New Vori< CIty ~Exchange With Bob Buck ...... : Workers Vanguard (USPS 098-770) published biweekly, except 2nd issue August and with 3-week interval December, Save Mumia Abu-Jamal! ands-5ave Mumia Abu-Jamal! ...... 10 by the Spartacist Publishing Co., 41 Warren Street, New York, NY 10007. Telephone: (212) 732-7862 (Editorial), (212) 732-7861 (Business). Address all correspondence to: Box 1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116. Domestic subscriptions: $7.00/24 issues. Second-class postage paid at New York, NY. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Workers Vanguard, Box 1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116. With your contribution of $5 or more receive a subscription to Opinions expressed in signed articles or letters do not necessarily express the editorial viewpoint. The closing date for news in this issue is Novemb~r 30. .~... For a Sing~~a~~~~r~f~~~eU~~~::e~~~e:~nd $1 to: . 1[1 Partisan Defense Committee. P.O. Box 99, Canal Street Station, NY, NY 10013 No. 589 3 December 1993

2 WORKERS VANGUARD Northern Ireland "Peace'! Plan Threatens Catholics

The following article is reprinted in slightly edited form from Workers Hammer (No. 138, November/December 1993), newspaper of the Spartacist League/Britain.

The last p~riod has seen a chilling increase in the level of communal ten­ sion and communalist killings in North­ ern Ireland, in which it has been the British troops oppressed Catholics who have taken the occupy Catholic most casualties, while the population, neighborhood both Catholic and Protestant, live in in Belfast, terror. Enraged by "peace" talks initi­ October 1993. ated by the "moderate" Catholic Social and Democratic Labour Party (SDLP) leader John Hume and Sinn Fein head Gerry Adams, the fascistic Protestant Loyalist/Unionist thugs intensified their campaign of wanton murders of Catho­ lence as an opportunity to foist an of the British Army's role when 60 shots and arrogant pretence that they are just lics. This generated widespread revul­ imperialist-imposed "peace" deal on were fired from an army Land Rover at trying to stop the tit-for-tat barbarities sion, and not only among Catholics. Northern Ireland. Any imperialist "deal" mourners outside the home of Thomas of the "uncivilised Irish" of all hues. All The mainly Protestant workers at Shorts will be bloody and brutal and will Begley, the IRA member killed in the of SDLP chief John Hume's initiatives, aerospace factory in Belfast struck over necessarily be at the expense of the Shankill bombing, wounding a promi­ including the talks and proposals with the murder of a Catholic worker. oppressed Catholic minority. And it nent Sinn Fein supporter. Elements of Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, are based On Saturday, 23 October, the Irish would not do any good for working-class the British security services are inter­ on the premise that British imperialism Republican Army (IRA), associated with Protestants either. penetrated with the fascistic Loyalist is somehow "neutral." All history and Sinn Fein, planted a bomb in a fish The bourgeois press, the Tory (Con­ paramilitaries. Brian Nelson, a British the graves of many Irish Catholics say shop beneath the offices of the Loyalist servative) government of Prime Minister agent and the intelligence chief for a otherwise. . paramilitary Ulster Defence Association John Major and Labour politicians have Loyalist gang, targeted RepUblicans for The Sinn Fein leaders are hell-bent on (UDA) on a crowded street in the heart whipped up a chauvinist frenzy against assassination and arranged substantial pressuring the imperialists, and thus of the Protestant working-class district "terrorism," which for them applies military shipments to the Loyalists from refuse to call for army withdrawal, waf­ of Shankill, Belfast, killing nine Protes­ always to the actions of the IRA, but the South African apartheid regime. fling on about total "demilitarisation" of tant shoppers and one of the IRA team never to the blood-soaked British Army, Beginning with the last Labour govern­ the situation-as if the armed forces of planting the bomb. In the week that fol­ which has 20,000 troops there, or the ment in the fate 1970s., the elite British the capitalist state are about to disarm lowed, Loyalist death squads imple­ viciously anti-Catholic sectarian Royal Army SAS (Special Air Services) killer themselves. The only people slated to be mented their grisly dictum "any Catholic Ulster Constabulary (RUC)!Royal Irish squads have been used to carry out assas­ demilitarised are the IRA, and in this will do." Two Catholic workers were Regiment (RIR). In fact, in recent years sinations of Republicans. process the Catholics are to be totally killed and five others injured at a council there has been a buildup of military and The essential assumption, explicit or subjugated. Lenin stressed that the pro­ sanitation depot in West Belfast. The next police personnel. There is one army/ implicit, in all the "peace" proposals letariat of the oppressor countries had a weekend six Catholics and one Protestant RUC member for every 3.7 Catholic being touted about is that the British special duty to combat in words and were gruesomely murdered in a rnachine­ males between the ages of 16 and 44. Army, with its shoot-to-kill policy, will deeds the chauvinism of its own rulers. gun attack on a predominantly Catholic The words of one Belfast Catholic are remain to police capitalist order, backed Today British revolutionaries have par­ pub in Greysteel, County Derry. . apt: "We will not be lectured by the likes up by the bloodthirsty Loyalist thugs . ticular responsibility to lead the English, Sections of the bourgeoisies in Lon­ of John Major whose army has been The British imperialists played divide Welsh and Scottish working class to don and Dublin, together with their responsible for the massacre of thou­ and rule in colonies like India and Pal­ struggle for the immediate withdrawal Labour and social-democratic lackeys, sands of innocent people all around the estine, and then on their way out sought of the British troops and the blacking have seized upon the widespread fear. world" (irish Times, 25-26 October). to wreck these places by whipping up [refusing to handle] of all military goods revulsion and despair over sectarian vio- Belfast Catholics got a bloody reminder communalism. Today they adopt a racist continued on page 12

IRA bombing of fish shop in Protestant Shankill was a crime which can only breed communal warfare (left). Sinn Fein head Gerry Adams carries coffin of IRA bomber who died. 3 DECEMBER 1993 3 The Honeel(er Show Trial . and the Berlin Wall

Part One (~r this article, dealing The centerpiece of the West Ger­ with the show trials offormer East man campaign to criminalize the GermalJ' officials hy the courts of East German workers state has the vindictive German hourgeoi­ been to portray the DDR as simply sie, was puhlished in WV No. 568 a police state, the "Stasi-Staat." So (29 January). naturally they went after the head November 9 is a fat.eful day in of the "Stasi," former minister of Germany. On that day in 1918, the state security Erich Mielke. But to Hohenzollern monarchy fell and charge him with police spying on the population, which was so extensive that it became a burden PART TWO OF TWO on the East German economy. would raise questions about the the republic was born, a tottering West German secret police (the bourgeois repUblic, initially pre­ euphemistically named "Office for sided over by the Social Demo­ the Protection of the Constitution") crats, which was able to establish which admits to having computer itself only by the bloody suppres­ files on over 600.000 West Ger­ sion of workers revolution and was mans. Instead they tried Mielke for subse'luently swept away by the supposed involvement in the 193 j victory of Hitler fascism in 1933. killing of two cops in front of the Again. on November 9 in 1938. Communist Party headquarter~. mobs of Nazi storm troopers staged These charges were first raised by anti-Jewish pogroms throughout a Nazi court in 1934, on the basis the Reich (empire), burning syn­ of "evidence" extracted under tor­ agogues and smashing store win­ ture by the Gestapo! Holding the dows in what became known as indictment of the blood-soaked "Kristallnacht," the night of shat­ fascist judges to be "credible," the tered glass. that foreshadowed the Berlin court on October 26'found genocidal Holocaust. On the same Mielke guilty of murder, and sen­ dBerlin Wall. Honecker and Mielke were tried Democratic Republic (DDR), the by the wrong class for the wrong East German bureaucratically de­ crimes. For their Stalinist repre,­ formed workers state. led by Erich sion of the working class and under­ Honecker. Defending the DDR Was No Crime, mining of the DDR. the revolution­ From then it was only four ary proletariat in power would call months until the decisive election~ them to account. Instead, they have of 18 March 1990 and the victory Selling It Out Was been persecuted by a revenge­ of the forces pushing for a rapid hungry bourgeoisie, which seeks to Anschluss (annexation) of the DDR make an example of them to intim- by the imperialist federal republic (West The proceedings turned into a "judi­ three were duly convicted, even though idate a conquered population and crim­ Germany). But far from the "blooming cial farce," as Der Spiegel termed it. Sick the judge remarked "they shot at no one" inalize the very idea of socialism. landscape" promised by Bonn chancellor old men were dragged before the court and "they didn't want any dead." Another prime target of this "revenge Helmut Kohl, the capitalist reunification in a grotesque public torture, and then The horder hetween East and West Ger­ justice" has been the former head of the of Germany has produced a devastated one by one were removed from the trial many was the front line of the Cold Wm: DDR's renowned intelligence service; wasteland in the East. The gains of the as they were physically unable to con­ "The Wall" stood as a barrier to the Markus Wolf. Accused of high treason, workers state have been steamrollered: tinue. To cut short the embarrassment, attempts by imperialism to "roll back" Wolf asked in his opening statement to women have been fired wholesale, for­ on January 12 a Berlin constitutional the Soviet bloc, or failing that, to under­ the court last May, "What country am I eign workers expelled, factories torn court ordered charges dropped against mine the DDR deformed·. workers state supposed to have betrayed?" As the down so that today only one job in four the cancer-stricken Honecker, who then by draining its skilled labor and hemor­ SpAD's newspaper Spartakist (No. 103, remains in what used to be the tenth­ went to Chile. But with the klieg lights rhaging its economy. That is why the cap­ May 1993) noted, "this can only mean largest industrial power in the world. In of international publicity turned aside, italists hated the Berlin Wall and why 'betrayal' of the Third Reich, which was part to divert discontent among the east the Honecker trial continued without we Trotskyists defended this hureaucratic smashed by the victory of the Red Army (and west) German population, the rulers Honecker. Former DDR defense minister measure in defense of the DDR economy. over German fascism. It was out of this of the triumphant Fourth Reich of Ger­ and member of the political bureau of The International Communist League victory that the DDR deformed workers man imperialism staged a monstrous the Socialist Unity Party (SED) Heinz and our German section, the Spartakist state was built. Not only did the (West) show trial, placing former DDR chief . Kessler, his deputy and secretary of the Workers Party (SpAD), fought tooth German Federal Republic designate Honecker and his principal aides in the National Defense Council Fritz Streletz, and nail against capitalist reunification. itself the legal successor state to the defendants' box. The charge: ordering and former SED district leader Hans And we have subsequently denounced Third Reich, but it took over Hitler's border guards to shoot those trying to Albrecht were accused of "manslaugh­ the anti-Communist witchhunt trials, entire 'Foreign Armies East' spy appa­ cross the Wall. ter." The defendants pointed out that this demanding freedom for Honecker, Kes­ ratus, the Gehlen organization, which In this blatant case of "victor's jus­ was a militarized border, where mines sler and the other leading DDR state offi­ became the core of the later BND [West tice," it was the DDR itself that was and armed patrols are normal. But after cials, as well as for individual Volks­ German intelligence]." Denouncing his put on "trial." ten memths of hearings~n September the armee (Peoples Army) border guards. seven-month treason trial as a political farce and a show trial, in which a guilty verdict was foreordained, Wolf declared with dignity in his closing statement: "Apparently no one who once believed in the possibility of another Germany with more social justice, a Germany without arrogance or nationalistic taint or the almighty dollar, is allowed to walk around any more with his head held high." -New York Times, 25 November "We Want Our On December 6. the court in DUssel­ Wall Back" reads dorf will pronounce sentence on Wolf. graffiti in east In a press release on November 27. the German town of Freienwalde after SpAD declared: "Markus Wolf did hi~ experiencing best to defend the DDR-now we must bitter realities defend him." of capitalist DDR Nostalgia and the Wall reunification. With the "other Germany" dead and gone. the one that remains is showing signs of social disintegratioQ. The capi­ talist economic crisis has led to a net 4 WORKERS VANGUARD cutting of three-quarters of a million For the official spokesmen of the Fourth jobs in 1993 alone. While tens of thou­ Reich, only a socialist "state of illegal­ sands of coal miners and steel workers ity" could ever restrict emigration by its march in the Ruhr, the social-democratic citizens. They might have considered union leaders guarantee that "things West Germany's own history. When the don't get out of hand." Mass unemploy­ federal republic was being formed, at a ment already numbers over six million, time of mass unemployment and hunger, the highest level reached in the Weimar there was a debate in the Parliamentary Republic before the Nazi takeover, and Council of the western occupation zones nationalist sentiment over loss of "Ger­ in September 1948 on the demand for man jobs" is fueling the xenophobic a basic right to emigration. This was ~ttacks on immigrants by fascists. The rejected. One of the delegates, Carlo number of· Jewish cemeteries defaced Schmid, warned of the danger of a last year 'alone (80) equaled the total mass exodus: "Germany today shares a number attacked between 1926 and c6mmon destiny, from which there may 1931. The ugly face of the Fourth Reich be no flight" (quoted in Peter Glotz, is that of Nazi racists who launched mur­ "We Accomplices" in Kursbuch 111: In derous firebomb attacks from Hoyers­ Sachen Erich Honecker [1993 D. He werda and Rostock in the east to MolIn urged the seizure of the belongings of and Solingen in the west. those who left. Republikflucht (flight As economic conditions deteriorate from the republic) wasn't just a crime and think tank experts warn of impend­ in Germany East, it turns out. ing social unrest, one effect of the West Germany's rulers never accepted pervasive malaise has been a grow­ that one-third of the reduced Reich had ing dissatisfaction with reunification. In been wrenched from capitalist domina­ the west, right-wingers blame "Ossis" tion by the victory of the Soviet Red for undermining prosperity: a supporter· Army. For years, West German authori­ of the fascist Republikaner in Bavaria ties denied the very existence of the grumbles, "Plenty of people, myself i ipa DDR, threatening to cut off relations to included, think they should put the 10 November 1989: Crowds at the Brandenburg Gate as the Berlin Wall was any country that recognized the East Ber­ wall back up and make it four meters opened amid mass upsurge in the DDR. lin government (the "Hall stein Doc­ higher" (Wall Street Journal Europe, 29 trine"), even referring to it exclusively October). In the east there is wide­ in East Germany!" and declaring "Work­ but the corruption .of the people," and as the "SBZ" (for "Soviet Occupation spread resentment against "Besser­ ers Soviets Must Rule in All Germany!" that "the small amount of national iden­ Zone"). After the erection of the Berlin wessis" (western know-it-alls), while But the incipient political revolution in tity that developed over the last two Wall in August 1961, anti-Communists graffiti proclaim "We want our wall the DDR was overwhelmed by German months will be drowned in West Berlin seized upon this as the symbol to dis­ back." On the third anniversary of formal imperialism's drive for Anschluss. In the chocolate" (New York Times, 13 Novem­ credit the DDR, calling it the "Mauer­ reunification on October 3, Kohl held a March 1990 Volkskammer (DDR parlia­ ber 1989). New Left groupings similarly staat" (walled state). By invoking the ceremony in Saarbrticken, about as far ment) elections, the SpAD ran under the complained that the DDR population had image of a gigantic concentration camp, west as you can get in Germany, while central slogan "No to Capitalist Reuni­ been bought off by bananas. they equated Stalinism with fascism several thousand pro-DDR demonstra­ fication!" In contrast, Alliance '90, many We warned at the time that the eco­ along the lines of the Cold Warrior tors marched in Berlin. of whose leaders had signed the Novem­ nomic consequences of the breaching of "totalitarianism" thesis, beloved of There is now a wave of nostalgia for ber 1989 manifesto "For Our Country" the Wall posed a challenge to the exist­ pseudo-liberals like Hannah Arendt and the DDR, dubbed "Ostalgie," including which called for a "socialist alternative" ence of the DDR, but did not necessarily Nazi apologists like Professor Ernst TV spots for the East German Club-Cola to West Germany, went along with the spell the doom of the workers state. Nolte, who gained notoriety in the late- showing Erich Honecker doing calisthen­ reunification drive. And subsequently, While open to individual travel, it could 1980s "Historians Debate" for insisting ics. A Dresden disco attracts big crowds while the Spartakists called for "Fourth remain as an instrument of exchange that Stalin was worse than, and respon­ with no cover charge for anyone wearing Reich Hands Off Honecker!" and free­ control, if combined with a convertible sible for, Hitler. the blue shirt of the SED's youth group dom for Kessler, Mielke and Markus DDR currency to act as a buffer to the Behind this terminology and imagery FDJ (Free German Youth); hundreds Wolf, the "citizens rights" advocates have world market. But even under the SED stood the determination of German im­ weep as the DDR flag unfurls to chants been the biggest pushers (along with the reformers, the Stalinist regime could not perialism and its parties (Christian Dem­ of "Peace! Freedom! Solidarity!" and rabidly anti-Communist SPD "justice" carry out such a program. The necessary ocratic, Free Democratic, Social Demo­ "DDR, my fatherland!" (London Guard­ minister of Berlin) of the anti-red witch­ economic defense measures-currency cratic alike) to reconquer the DDR for ian, 9 November). Interestingly, this hunt. Some "democracy"! reform, exchange controls, rationalizing capitalism. Against this counterrevolu­ yearning for the good old days under In the conflicted attitudes of the "cit­ subsidies-were only possible with the tionary drive, the Stalinists answered "Honi" has sparked complaints by former izens rights movement" toward the DDR political loyalty of the citizens, which with the pipe dream of "peaceful coex­ leaders of the East German "citizens one can see the failure of the "classless" "requires the establishment of a revolu­ istence" of the two contradictory social movement" which arose in the fall of perspective of these petty-bourgeois tionary workers soviet government" and systems. In his speech to the court, 1989. Filmmaker Konrad Weiss, now a democrats as opposed to the Marxists' "socialist international economic plan­ Honecker argued that the "situation of well-paid Bundestag deputy for Alliance proletarian-revolutionary program. No­ ning to replace nationalist bureaucratic tension in Germany.,. threatened world '90, lamented that "our peaceful revolu­ where is this clearer than in their attitude commandism" ("For a Red Germany peace. Humanity stood on the brink of tion failed" and denounced this "strange toward "The Wall." Thus in November in a Socialist Europe!" WV No. 491, an atomic war." If the Wall had not DDR nostalgia" as "downright perverse." 1989, following the million-strong dem­ 8 December 1989). been built "it would have resulted in The former dissident author Christa Wolf, onstration in East Berlin's Alexander­ The Spartacists defended the Wall as the deaths of thousands or millions." In just returned from Santa Monica, Cali­ platz and the opening of the Berlin Wall, an economic measure. For all their com­ an extended "cross-examination" of fornia, also rejected DDR nostalgia: after reiterating-that the Wall was erected plaints about Ulbricht and Honecker Honecker by two east German authors, as a barrier to capitalist reunification of "No one can make me think in retrospect treating the population like children, the Reinhold Ander and Wolfgang Herzberg, that everything about it was wonderful, Germany, we wrote: "citizens rights" movement joined the Der Sturz (Aufbau-Verlag, 1991), the but at the same time I can't find every­ "But what brought the Wall down in Stalinists in seeing the Wall as a means DDR leader said of building the Wall thing so wonderful now either. when the end was not imperialist revanchism, of preventing the "corruption of the that "we later heard that even [then West everything is being closed down and but social struggle by the East German people." done away with," masses. Today, free p.assage across the German chancellor] Adenauer as well as - The Week in Germany Wall can also serve as a springboard the American president" were "relieved (I October) for revolutionary unity and common The Berlin Wall and that we solved the problem in this way struggle by the working classes of the "Peaceful Coexistence" on the night of 13 August 1961, thus We Trotskyists, who consistently capitalist West and the East German contributing to securing peace." defended the DDR against counterrevo­ deformed workers state." In his speech to the Berlin court last There was certainly plenty of tension lution, also do not idealize the Stalinist­ -WV No. 490 December, Honecker noted: "How and in Germany threatening world peace. ruled deformed workers state. Following (24 November 1989) why it came to the building of the Wall Pursuing a "policy of strength," Adenau­ the fall of the Honecker government and Leaders of the "citizens movement," does not interest the state attorney .... er's government in Bonn was massively the opening of the Berlin Wall, we inter­ such as Sebastian Pflugbeil of Neues Erich Honecker built the Wall and upheld rearming, building up a Bundeswehr that vened to the limit of our forces in the Forum, however, lamented the opening it. Basta .... The Communist is branded was several times the size of the DDR's DDR, calling "For Political Revolution of the Wall, saying that this was "nothing a criminal and found guilty for that." Volksarmee as right-wing war minister Franz Josef Strauss was noisily demand­ ing tactical nuclear weapons. And while Washington was not trumpeting the "roll­ back" rhetoric of Eisenhower's secretary of state John Foster Dulles, the Kennedy administration. after its debacle at Cuba's Bay of Pigs, was trying to look tough From left: to the Soviets. At the June 1961 Vienna Markus Wolf, summit, Kennedy refused Soviet leader Heinz Kessler and Erich Khrushchev's call for a peace treaty on Mielke. Leading Germany. saying this was impossible DDR officials until tbere was a single German govern­ put on trial by ment. A National Security Council memo vengeful Fourth declared that the reason the U,S. and Reich rulers. its allies had "refused to recognize the so-called 'German Democratic Republic' is that there is in actuality' no such continued on page 6

3 DECEMBER 1993 5 Honecker ... (continued from page 5) country" (quoted in Norman Gelb, The Berlin Wall: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and a Showdown in the Heart of Europe [Times Books, 1986]). Dulles was gone, but the Cold War was blowing hot and Dulles-style nuclear "brinkmanship" was still Washington's approach to Moscow. In a saber-rattling Cold War face-off TV speech in late July, Kennedy whipped .. at Checkpoint up a crisis atmosphere, announcing a Charlie in multibillion dollar increase in Pentagon August 1961. funding, sharply increased draft calls and reactivation of reserve and National Guard units. In the event of a new block­ ade of Berlin: U.S. plans included not just an airlift but sending military units up the Autobahns-i.e:, invading East Germany. U.S. war secretary Robert McNamara publicly declared, "We will 196 I, cannot be explained by the actions rialism, but they could only build at Checkpoint Charlie, but did not use nuclear weapons whenever we feel of Western agents alone. This exodus socialism by spreading revolution to the move. The German chancellor said little it's necessary to protect our vital inter­ was clearly the effect of the West Ger­ advanced capitalist countries. This was and stayed in Bonn. Does that mean ests." And JFK worried to aides about man federal republic's lead (estimated the watchword of the Soviet republic that Kennedy and Adenauer were "re­ command procedures: "If we're going to at roughly 25 percent) in production of under Lenin and Trotsky and of the early lieved," as Honecker claims? Hardly. In have to start a nuclear war, we'll have. consumer goods. . Communist International. But the pro­ Washington, Pentagon planners under to fix things so it will be started by the Ulbricht declared at the Fifth SED gram of world socialist revolution was Paul Nitze staged two "crisis simula­ President of the United States" rather Party Congress in 1958 that the "main reviled by the conservative, nationalist tion" war games, with players including than "a trigger-happy sergeant on a truck economic task" for the DDR was to bureaucracy-whose spokesman Stalin McGeorge Bundy and Henry Kissinger. convoy at a checkpoint in East Germany" "reach and surpass" West Germany in became-\\!hich sought a live-and-Iet­ The games showed, according to another (quoted in Peter Wyden, Wall: The Inside "the per capita consumption by the work­ live "coexistence" with imperialism. player, Daniel Ellsberg, "how quickly Story of Divided Berlin [Simon and ing population in all important foods and you were confronted wi~h the choice of Schuster, 1989]). consumer goods." But by 1961 it was What the Wall Did: Temporary using nuclear weapons or giving up." Stabilization of the DDR More effective than the imperialists' clear that this utopian program (linked Kennedy adviser Arthur Schlesinger Jr. military threats was West German eco­ to Khrushchev'S talk of surpassing the Well, it takes two to tango. The impe­ wrote that "Everyone agreed that we nomic warfare. In September 1960, USA by 1965) was not working, and rialists would coexist "peacefully" with might eventually have to go on to nuclear Bonn unilaterally canceled its trade despite substantial DDR growth the eco­ the Stalinist regimes (alternating be­ war." Eventually? Journalist Paul Wyden agreement with East Germany, under­ nomic gap with the West was expanding. tween Cold War hostility and "detente," in his book Wall debunks later claims by scoring that the DDR had become de­ Internally, the top level of the bureauc­ combined with a string of proxy wars in McNamara that use of nuclear weapons pendent on the West for various raw racy had a pretty accurate picture of the the Third World) only so long as they over Berlin was ruled out, reporting that materials, as well as intermediate goods situation. In recently released corre­ couldn't destroy these workers states, "the sneak-attack 'first strike' scenario ... including rolled steel. And as the Berlin spondence with Khrushchev during 1960 however bureaucratically degenerated had resurfaced, this time fleshed out by crisis escalated, so did the numbers of (Utopie kreativ, May-June 1993), the and deformed. The building of the Berlin military planners down to the altitudes East Germans crossing to West Berlin. DDR leader admitted that "fulfilling the Wall was a defeat for the Kremlin's and flight tactics of the attacking Amer­ Western propaganda blamed this flow main economic task by the end of 1961 attempts to negotiate recognition of the ican bombers." It was deemed feasible, across the unsecured border on the is proving more difficult than antici­ status quo in Europe with the Western but the likely U.S. casualties (3-15 mil­ "hardline" policies of the DDR regime pated," and later, "In the economic com­ imperialists. The DDR was hemorrhag­ lion dead from a Soviet second strike) headed by Walter Ulbricht, in particu­ petition between the DDR and West Ger­ ing badly, losing professionals (particu­ were considered too high. lar the collectivization of agriculture. many, West Germany expanded its lead larly doctors) to the West along with West Germany's "policy of strength" But the late 1950s were a period of in 1960." But they couldn't admit as young skilled workers enticed by the had failed. Khrushchev called Kennedy's rapid economk improvement in East much publicly because they couldn't image of prosperity they saw on Western bluff. So instead the imperialist propa­ Germany, including the elimination of explain it: it didn't square with the Sta­ TV. Key plants were in danger of pro­ ganda machine went into high gear, with rationing of meat, sugar an~ fat. And col­ linist program of "constructing socialism duction stoppages, food shortages were the usual "Iron Curtain" rhetoric about lectivization· was carried out in early in one country." growing. a totalitarian regime in East Germany. 1960, when the number of border cross­ A July 1960 Ulbricht letter to Khrush- Faced with this emergency, at least the But photographs show East Berlin fam­ ers was lower. What happened in the chev stated plaintively:· Stalinists were still able to act with deter­ ilies standing around watching the NVA summer of 1961 was Torschlusspanik "But West Germany is proving itself eco­ mination. A meeting of the top repre­ troops putting up the barriers around the nomically strong. Ultimately we cannot (panic over the door slamming shut) as sentatives of the Warsaw Pact states was Brandenburg Gate rather than desper­ choose whom we would like to test our ately "fleeing to freedom." Moreover, the "tough" talk from the West convinced strength with in competition. We are sim­ held in Moscow from 3 to 5 August 1961, many that it was now or never. More­ ply forced to stand against West Ger­ and called for the DDR to secure its since the 10,000 Volksarmee regular over, even the leading West German his­ many. Of course, the economic strength borders with West Germany. Marshal troops stationed in the Berlin area were torian of the DDR admits that the "West of the DDR alone is insufficient for Koniev (who together with Zhukov took insufficient for the operation, they were this .... Put plainly, without the closest supplemented by 12,000 factory militia­ G,rman mass media with sensational ties with the powerful economy of the Berlin in 1945) was named cOmmander headlines about numbers of refugees" USSR, our economy cannot develop of Soviet forces in the DDR to over­ men of the Betriehskampfgruppen (plant helped "swell the stream of refugees into overall." see the operation. Ulbricht's ambitious fighting groups) in Berlin, and thousands a flood" (Hermann Weber, Geschichte Empirically, this was a frank admission young protege Honecker, who was sec­ more were called up from Saxony. The del' DDR [DTV, 1985]). of the impossibility of building "social­ retary for security affairs of the SED cen­ reality was that everyone could see that East Germany's Stalinist rulers could ism" in half a country, particularly the tral committee, formed a staff to carry the existence of the DDR was at stake, not deal frankly with this phenomenon. . weaker half (or third) of a country fac­ out the operation which had been pre­ and those who defended it supported the DDR propaganda spoke of "headhunt­ . ing the most robust capitalist economy pared since the spring. There were no building of the Wall. This included many ers" and "smuggling of human beings," in the world. And despite early suc­ leaks; they caught the NATO imperialists pro-socialist intellectuals. In response to and they even caught some people cesses of the planned economy, even the napping, and in the early morning hours an open letter by West German SPD recruiting skilled workers in the Elektro­ Soviet bloc of countries could not with­ of August 13 the border was closed, first writer GUnter Grass, .declaring that in kohle Lichtenberg plant in East Berlin. stand the onslaught of the much more with barbed wire and later with the the face of the Wall "whoever is silent But mass flight of such proportions, powerful capitalist world market (com­ concrete wall. This is the "crime" for is guilty," DDR writer Stephan Hermlin totaling almost 2.7 million people (out bined with the relentless imperialist which the German bourgeoisie tried wrote: of a population of 17 million) from 1949 military pressure). The workers states Erich Honecker. "I did not send a telegram of thanks to my government on August 13, and I also until the border was closed in August could seek to hold out against impe- American and Soviet tanks faced off wouldn't define my inner feelings as 'joyful agreement,' as many are wont to do .... But I give my unlimited earnest ARBEITERPRESSEKORRESPONDENZ support to the measures of the German Democratic Republic ... to brake the most dangerous state in the world, the federal SPARTAKIST ~ repUblic, on its aggressive road." Hr. 17. . Ml.ttwoch, 10. Januar 1990 < 'f " ennlg - from Hans Werner Richter, Die Mauer, odeI' Del' 13. August (Rowohlt, 1961) The construction of the Wall did allow the DDR regime to stabilize economi­ cally. A "New Economic System of Plan­ ning and Management" (NOS) was intro­ duced in 1963, giving state-owned plants more autonomy. In the following years, there was a sharp increase in production of consumer goods. While the goals of the seven-year plan ending in 1965 were not met in many areas, the number of i autos and TV s tripled, the number of Berlin, 4 November 1989: During incipient proletarian political revolution, protesters marched with banner demanding washing machines increased five times "For Communist Ideals-No Privileges." German Spartakists intervened with daily press against West German imperialist and the number of refrig~rators six drive for capitalist counterrevolution. times. Larger numbers of women were 6 WORKERS VANGUARD drawn into the workforce, higher educa­ last analysis, productivity of labour is workers democracy, which would have each other, and wanted to keep down the tion and the technicalintelligentsil/. (but the most important, the principal thing threatened its privileged position. It saw cost of bugging the phone lines. not into the SED leadership) by pro­ for the victory of the new social system" in the Wall a guarantee of its immortal­ Perhaps the most famous example of viding essential services such as day ("A Great Beginning," July 1919). The ity. In 1986, DDR officialdom turned out failed Stalinist repression concerns West care, laundries and birth control, as fundamental material basis of socialism with much pomp and circumstance to German TV. For a long time, the DDR well as housing allotments for single is a level of abundance high enough to celebrate "25 Years of the Anti-Fascist tried to prevent the population from lis­ mothers. When the decentralized eco­ make possible a classless society. Karl Dike"(!), and early in 1989 Honecker tening to Western stations. They devised nomic system produced imbalances and Marx underlined in The German Ideology predicted that the Wall would last a special antenna which couldn't receive bottlenecks--e.g., manufacturing output (1845-46) that "the development of the another hundred years! But the ~'dike" signals from the West. When Honecker increased twice as fast as electrical productive forces ... is absolutely neces­ sprung a leak. was head of the FDJ, the youth group power generation, leading to power sary as a practical premise" of commu­ The Stalinist repressive content of the carried out "Operation Ochsenohr" cuts-in 1970 the NOS was scrapped nism, because, first, "without it only want DDR's policies can be seen even in their (Rabbit Ears), dimbing up on top of and the economy recentrlllized. is made general, and with want the strug­ success stories. Thus Honecker under­ apartment buildings throughout the After Honecker staged a palace coup gle for necessities and all the old crap took a massive program of housing con­ republic to take down the antennas that with the support of Brezhnev in 1970 to would necessarily be reproduced." And struction. From 1970 on, more than 3.2 were pointing West. In Halle at one point oust the aging Ulbricht, he put a partic­ secondly, "because only with this uni- million apartments were built, so that confiscated TV sets with their antennas ular emphasis on continually increasing . versal development of productive forces more than half of the DDR population broken were piled up 'in the market consumer 'goods production, which was is a universal intercourse between men lived in new accommodations. This was square as a lesson to the population. In largely achieved. Trying to compete with established." "Without this," he empha- more than double the per capita rate of the third grade, schoolchildren were sized, "communism could any other deformed workers state. and made to sign statements that they woulq Percentage of Families Owning only exist as a local event," even higherthani"n West Germany. A not watch Western TV. But then they and "each extension of decision was made not to throw scarce . went home to watch Big Bird on Sesame 1955 1966 1970 1975 1985 intercourse would abolish resources into renovating the central Street. What Ulbricht/HQIlecker & Co. local communism." areas of East German cities. While bour­ accomplished was to'turn nine-year-olds Television I 54 69 82 93 Here is the key to why geois criticscaU the new apartment into conscious lawbreakers! the relative stabilization blocks which were buHt "barracks" and Finally, they gave up trying to block Washing Machine 0.5 32 53 73 92 brought about by the "silos," they are generally comfortable Western TV, and so the whole of the DDR Refrigerator 0.4 31 56 86 99 Berlin Wall could not ulti­ and in some cases attractive. Such a could watch it at will. Except for the area mately save the DDR. vast effort was made possible by' the around Dresden, which is located in a Automobile 0.2 9 15 26 46 Even though Ulbricht and perfection of industrial prefab con~ depression that became popularly known Source: Hermann Weber, Die DDR. 1945·1986 (Oldenbourg. 1988) Honecker managed to sup­ struction techniques. Moreover, it was as the "Tal der Ahnungslosen" (the Valley ply the population with accomplished by appealing to socialist of Those Who Don't Have a Clue). So television sets, refrigera­ consciousnes.o;: the vast East Berlin in order to gain popularity, during the the West in terms of "consumerism" tors, washing machines and (to a lesser Plattenbau (slab construction) districts last years of the DDR, the local SED rather than communism, the DDR pro­ extent) cars, West German capital, of Hohenschonhausen, Marzahn and and city officials (Modrow and Bergho­ duced millions of pairs of jeans a year, because of its higher level of labor pro­ Hellersdorf were built by mobilizing fer) set up a cable system so the Dresden and when fashions changed, stone­ ductivity, could supply cheaper and better FDJ youth. There are notorious prob­ popUlation could watch Western televi­ washed jeans. There were still plenty of color TVs, faster and more comfortable lems of quality, captured by the ironic sion. Rather than relying on impotent examples of horrendous top-heavy mis~ automobiles, as well as new products like name of an East Berlin rock band, measures of information control, a management. In the interview in Der VCRs and food processors. Again Marx "Einsttirzende Neubauten" (Collapsing genuinely communist regime would pro­ Sturz, Honecker relates a case that was foresaw these developments, writing that New Buildings). mote openness of the media, with honest decided by the Politburo: "For example, "if in England a machine is invented" But the most notable deficiency is that news, frank discussions of problems at for a long time there were no women's such as a mechanical loom, this will these huge areas were built without any home, creative cultural development and panties to be bought, not in Berlin, not in far-off India and China "overturn commercial or social centers, because aggressive and believable reports on the in the whole republic. I heard that and the whole form of existence of these brought it up in the Politburo. Inge empires." Even the East German fasci­ Lange said: 'Well, don't you know that nation with bananas as a contributing fac­ the Women's League is now giving out tor to counterrevolution was prefigured patterns for sewing panties'." Honecker by Marx when he wrote, "take the case remarks it was "a scandal" that "a coun­ of sugar and coffee which have proved try with a big textile industry and enor­ their world-historical importance in the mous exports cannot produce enough nineteenth century by the fact that the women's panties." lack of these products, occasioned by the Even aside from such bureaucratic Napoleonic Continental system, caused absurdities, this did not produce all­ the Germans to rise against Napoleon .... " round satisfaction. In the first place, as Trotsky had predicted in the 1930s, with International Revolution Is Key the development of the economy the In his critique of the StalinIBukharin heavy hand of the bureaucracy increas­ draft program of the Comintern, The ingly held back improvements in quality. Third International After Lenin (1929), The most notorious example was the Leon Trotsky wrote: Trabant auto with its noisy, smoky two­ "The new doctrine proclaims that social­ stroke engine and fiberglass body which ism can be built on the basis of a national provided a bone-jarring ride. In the mid­ state if only there is no intervention. From this there can and must follow ... a '60s, Ulbricht actually decided against collaborationist policy towards the for­ producing a decent family car on the eign bourgeoisie with the object of avert­ order of the VW Golf sedan (at a time ing intervention .... The task of the par­ when VW was still producing the Beetle) ties in the CO.!1lintem assumes, therefore, because it would cost too much and an auxiliary character; their mission is to protect the U.S.S.R. from intervention would tend to "privatize" the population. and not to fight for the conquest of The logic: the bureaucracy knows best power." what the people need. . Thus the anti-Leninist, anti-Marxist na­ This same principle was behind pric­ tionalist dogma of "socialism in one Erich Honecker commemorates anniversary of Berlin Wall, August 1986. ing policies which bore no relation what­ country" at home was eventually codi­ reads, "25 Years of the Anti-Fascist Dike." . ever to production costs: to increase the fied in the class-collaboratim.list policy birth rate, everything from baby car­ of the "popular front" abroad, in which the Honecker regime feared any uncon­ reality of life under capitalism. The ironic riages to children's clothing was heavily the call for altying with sections of the trolled gathering of large numbers of its part of it is that West German tv is subsidized. On the other hand, some bourgeoisie was the excuse for heading population. In order to organize the bur­ almost as boring as was the DDR's, suf­ shortages were caused by the DDR tops' off proletarian revolution, for example geoning suburban population under the fused with boring talk shows and run by desperate efforts to obtain hard currency in Spain during the 1936-39 Civil War. domination ofthe dollar, American-style Lutheran pastors and Social/Christianl from export of consumer goods. Thus The Western Communist parties were to capitalism developed the mall, which has Free Democratic politicians determined the top-of-the-line East German camera be nothing but "border guards" for the subsequently become a social gathering to provide the population with what they model was extremely expensive and Stalinist-ruled Soviet Union. spot. But DDR Stalinism, contrary to its determine is good for it. hard to get in the DDR because it was And what better border guard than a communist claims, deliberately sought The revolutionary answer to the very produced almost exclusively for export wall? To Ulbricht/Honecker et aL, the to privatize the population by sending real Western ideological subversion to the West. The bureaucracy's arrogant Berlin Wall was the ultimate expression them horne after work. (On the other wasn't to tum the antennas the other way Bevormundung (treating the people like of the Stalinist false consciousness that hand, factories had extensive social and but to aim the broadcasts to the West to children) infuriated the DDR popUlation they could build "socialism" in their cultural facilities-including day-care undermine the capitalist federal republic. and estranged them from "those on top." country if only they could avoid Western centers, libraries, athletic clubs-which But that is something that the Stalinists But above all, as Ulbricht noted, military intervention. It went hand in are inconceivable in a capitalist enter­ were incapable of doing, for it ran head­ the DDR didn't get to choose who it hand with the development of a hyper­ prise.) The lack of social facilities in res­ long into their restriction of information competed against: the comparison was trophied internal secret police, which idential areas, along with the shutdown at home and their policies of "peaceful always to rich West Germany. And here went beyond the necessary combating of of all the FDJ youth clubs in the East coexistence" abroad. one comes back to the fundamental imperialist espionage and counterrevo­ after reunification, has played a role in The imperialists certainly never ac­ impossibility of the Stalinist pipe dream lutionary subversion to become general­ the rise of Nazi gangs among the youth. cepted coexistence with the workers of "socialism in one country," even in a ized snooping and intellectual suppres­ A similar overriding concern for social states. ,With their military and direct relatively advanced state like the DDR. sion. Many DDR reformers hoped that control was shown in the extremely lim­ economic subversion checkmated by the For even more threatening in the long the relative economic protection and ited development of the telephone net­ Berlin Wall, they adopted other methods. run than the danger of military interven­ stabilization which the Wall afforded work: only about a fifth ofthe population In an October 1962 lecture at Harvard tion is the inexorable power of cheap in the early years would lead to a pro­ had phones, and at most 10 percent of University, SPD leader Willy Brandt (and high-quality) commodities. gressive liberalization of the regime. But the workers. Honecker and Mielke didn't declared that "we must live with the Lenin repeatedly insisted that "In the the bureaucracy was viscerally hostile to want the workers communicating with continued on page 13 3 DECEMBER 1993 7 Young Sparlacus No to National Guard in Black D.C.l

Washington, D.C. mayor Sharon Pratt Kelly is pushing for a massive escalation of police terror against the population of thi~ majority black city. In October. she 12,000 National asked President Clinton to deploy 3,000 Guard and Army National Guardsmen on the streets, espe­ troops occupied cially in the overwhelmingly black and Washington, D.C. poor Northeast and Anacostia neighbor­ as city exploded hoods. Clinton passed the buck to Con­ following gress. Whether the Guard is unleashed assassination of on D.C. or not, Kelly has gotten prom­ Martin Luther ises from Attorney General Janet Reno, King Jr. in 1968. Secretary of Defense Les Aspin and drug czar Lee Brown to help occupy black neighborhoods with more feds and cops from a whole panoply of police a representative who is utterly power­ old children as adults (Washington Post, D.C., the bourgeois media worried agencies-including the Secret Service, less-as all decisions are made by 26 October). openly that this city was a powder keg FBI, the BATF of Waco infamy, the Drug Congress. For Kelly to talk about fighting crime ready to blow. Since 1968, when the city Enforcement Agency, U,S. Park Police, While D.C. statehood got slammed, is a disgusting affront to the working was engulfed in flames in the riots that U.S. Marshals and the U.S. Capitol Clinton's draconian $22 billion "crime people and black and Hispanic youth followed the assassination of Martin Police. package" breezed through both the victimized daily by the criminals in Luther King Jr., the White House has Washington, D.C. has more cops per House arid the Senate with one of the blue uniforms. Salvadoran immigrants feared the disenfranchised black popu­ capita than most major cities in America, most overwhelming majorities in Con­ in D.C. compare the cops to the jack­ lation of this city. On the heels of the a statement about the force and violence gressional history. Aimed at vastly rein­ booted National Guard death squads of Rodney King upheaval, black and His­ the ruling class feels is necessary to lord forcing the government's monopoly on the U.S.-backed dictatorship at home. panic D.C. residents exploded in anger it over a popUlation that is trapped in force and violence, the bill would expand City labor unions are also in Kelly's over their routine regimen of racist cop poverty and stripped even of the elemen­ the racist death penalty, restrict the pop­ crosshairs-3,200 city workers were terror. tary right to vote. The federal govern­ ulation's right to bear arms through even recently laid off. Among the homeless, Despite its resounding rejection by ment is the c.le facto colonial master of more stringent gun control laws, make she's earned the nickname "the black city voters last fall, the death penalty is Marie Antoinette" for her haughty "let being sought in D.C. as a weapon in the them eat cake" attitude. Under the guise bogus "war on drugs" which is nothing of a "war on drugs," D.C.'s paramilitary but a pretext for more police terror "RDUs" (rapid deployment units) ram­ against the black and Hispanic popula­ page through the streets, using the tion. Reno, who made her bones by over­ bloody martial-law tactics that Bill Clin­ seeing the murder of 86 people in Waco, ton has unleashed on Somali women and Texas, is leading the charge. Wayne children in Mogadishu. Last June in Anthony Perry is being tried under fed­ Hyattsville, Maryland, a black man, eral law in order to bring the death pen­ Archie Elliott III, was killed by police alty against him in the District's first who had arrested him for "drunk driv­ death penalty case since 1971. The state ing." It didn't matter that he was the son of Maryland is set to gas its first victim of a District Court judge. The 24-year­ in 32 years, and in Virginia a mentally old Elliott was shot 14 times while retarded black man, Earl Washington Jr., strapped into a seatbelt and handcuffed! faces execution. Capital punishment is If National Guard units are deployed state murder, racist "legal" lynching that in D.C., there will be an increase in racist reveals the impulse toward genocide in police terror against black and Hispanic a racist society that offers' its youth a youth and working people. In 1967, the downsized "future" of non-union jobs as National Guard rolled through the streets low-paid wage-slaves, or, more likely, of black Detroit in tanks, killing 43 peo­ life on the streets, in jailor in the ple. The D.C. Guard units were among military. the first sent to massacre Iraqis in the The multiracial working class, which "Desert Storm" slaughter in the Persian keeps the capital city going, must be Gulf two years ago. And you better mobilized to use its social power to com­ believe that the Guard won't stop to dis­ bat the onslaught of anti-working-c1ass , Carey/l.A. Times California National Guard "practices" crowd control EI Salvador-style in Los tinguish between "respectable" Howard measures sought by Kelly, Clinton and Angeles last F~bruary. students and "boys in the 'hood." Any Congress. Transit workers in particular, gathering of black youth frightens this who've been hit hard by layoffs and cut­ this vast plantation-the district can't membership in street gangs a federal trigger-happy ruling class. In 1990, hun­ backs, must defend the oppressed black even schedule garbage pick-ups without offense under the RICO conspiracy law, dreds of Howard students were met with and Hispanic masses against escalating Congressional approval! A proposal for put tens of thousands more cops On the a full-scale cop riot while waiting to get police-state repression. The Spartacist D,C. statehood was trounced in the streets and build thousands more jail into a school basketball game. In 1989, League and the Spartacus Youth Clubs House on November 21 amid racist cells to fill with the victims of capitalist Virginia police backed up by National are committed to building a party that appeals for "law and order" in black D,C. "justice." And all these new prisons Guard units terrorized hundreds of black can mobilize this social power to fight One Texas Congressman raved that the and cops are to be funded by cuts in college students at a Labor Day week­ racist oppression and capitalist exploita­ district "is a liberal bastion of corruption Head Start and drug treatment programs, end "Greekfest" in Virginia Beach. And tion. While the Kellys and Clintons of and crime, Let's take it back and clean among others. no one should forget the massive, mur­ this world see in Northeast and Ana­ it up" (New York Times, 22 November), Kelly is demanding her cut of this derous show of police force, including costia unruly subjects they seek to Until 1964, D.C. residents were denied deployment of police-state terror for the National Guardsmen, unleashed against repress, we see in Anacostia the home the right to vote in presidential elections; District of Columbia. Besides bringing the poor of Los Angeles to put down the of Frederick Douglass-an inspiration now they live under the sham of "home in the National Guard, Kelly wants to multiracial upheaval of outrage at the to the disenfranchised of the city to rule," which operates much like the bring retired officers back into service, acquittal of the cops who beat Rodney complete the Civil War's unfu.lfilled bogus "independence" for the Ciskei, a . build more prisons, reclassify handgun King . promise of black freedom. Finish the South African apartheid "homeland." possession from a misdemeanor to a fel­ The Los Angeles explosion terrified Civil War! Black liberation' through D,C. residents have the "right" to elect ony and allow prosecutors to try 14-year- the capitalist ruling class. In Washington, socialist revolution! _ 8 WORKERS VANGUARD Defend the Spartacus Youth Club!

COLUMBiA AND BARNARD

STUDENTS SA r STOP THE KKK AND THE RAe 1ST SKINHEAD THUG!

Young Spartacus photos Spartacus Youth Club breaks the ban at Columbia. Left: Spartacist forum "Yeltsin's Coup Serves Washington," October 26. Right: Spartacus Youth Club militants organized to bring Columbia students to Labor/Black Mobilization that stopped the fascists in Philadelphia, November 1988.

The New York Spartacus Youth Club in and interrogated about the extent strategic planners and other "academi­ we mobilized a bus of Columbia stu­ is fighting for its rights against anti­ to which each member actively takes cians." Columbia is a preeminent agency dents to participate in a successful labor/ communist witchhunters at Columbia part in club activities. Nor do we in the service of U.S. imperialism. Dur­ black mobilization which stopped the Ku University. We reprint here the SYC leaf­ presume that the College Republicans ing World War II, Columbia played a Klux Klan and skinheads from staging let which was issued on November 16. decide which candidates to support key role in the development of the a white supremacist provocation at the independently of off-campus political atomic bomb which was ijsed to slaugh­ Liberty Bell in Philadelphia. During the On November II, while setting up a organizations like the Republican Na­ ter hundreds of thousands of Japanese Eastern strike, we took students off cam­ literature table on College Walk, a tional Committee. The reinstatement of civilians. After the war, Columbia helped pus to walk picket lines at the New York female supporter of the Spartacus Youth the FOSYC is an act of elementary self­ spirit Nazi technicians and war criminals airports-and we are the only group that Club was attacked by right-wing male defense for Columbia students, faculty out of Germany through the infamous has built support for Columbia's workers student Mircea Murnu. Murnu grabbed and campus workers against an assault "rat line." In the 1970s, Columbia was by honoring the principle that picket literature off the table and threw it to the on your democratic rights of free exposed as the CIA's prime research facil­ lines mean don't cross. We initiated the ground while shouting anti-communist political association by the junior Joe ity for project "MK-ULTRA," a sinister successful united-front campaign that epithets. When our comrade reached McCarthys of the SGB. program of mind control experiments. kept war criminal Kissinger from don­ to pick up the papers, Murnu kidney­ "Outside agitator" is a time-worn slur The Columbia administration has wel­ ning the respectable robes of academia punched her from behind. This violent used to set up and persecute those who comed with open arms "outsiders" who at Columbia. We've, initiated student physical assault by an anti-communist fight against racism, exploitation and stand out as a virtual rogues' gallery of protest against NSA and CIA recruiting thug comes only weeks after the Student injustice-from militant labor organiz­ labor-haters and henchmen of imperial­ efforts and fought for the defense of the Governing Board of Earl Hall "banned" ers, to integrated teams of civil rights ism. In 1977, only seven years after Soviet Union and the workers states of the Friends of the Spartacus Youth Club, organizers, to the blacks and leftists who the saturation bombing of-Cambodia, Eastern Europe when it counted, warning declaring them persona non grata on the took part in the takeover of Hamilton Henry Kissinger-the architectbf Amer­ that capitalist counterrevolution would pretext that the group was dominated Hall in 1968. Indeed there are dangerous ica's dirty war to suppress the revolu­ bring fratricidal wars and immiseration by "outside agitators." Bad things tend "outsiders" wbo insinuate themselves tionary masses of Southeast Asia-was of working people. to happen to people who have been and usurp control of the Columbia cam­ offered academic haven with a presti­ Presently, we are fighting against rac­ declared without rights. pus-but it's not who the SGB has gious post at Columbia. Columbia alum­ ist "legal lynching" and the speed up on The Friends of the Spartacus'Youth in its sights. The School of International nus and union-buster Frank Lorenzo death row in America. We champion the Club is just that: a gr.oup of students Affairs' Russian Institute is crawling was bestowed a special award for "dis­ case of death row political prisoner who agree that revolutionary Marxists with "non-student" CIA spooks and high­ tinguished professional achievement" at Mumia Abu-Jamal, a former Black Pan­ have a right to openly advocate their level NSC aides and operatives. The the height of the strike against Eastern ther, MOVE supporter, and former pres­ views on campus. The FOSYC was Board of Trustees is a veritable who's Airlines. And symbolic of Columbia's ident of the Philadelphia Association of singled out for harassment and suppres­ who of the major real estate mogUls, bour­ many contributions to counterrevolution Black Journalists. Jamal is the first polit­ sion for a purpose that has nothing to geois media czars, and financiers who in the former Soviet Union was would-be ical prisoner on death row since Julius do with supposed violations of petty preside over a capitalist system that is czar Boris Yeltsin's reception by New and Ethel Rosenberg. Now Columbia bureaucratic bylaws. The members of the bleeding the poor and minorities of this York's high rollers at Low Library in University and the Earl Hall in loco Earl Hall Chess Club are not hauled city to death. 1989. parentis board aim to silence those who Chartered before the American Rev­ Meanwhile, the university has used its organize and speak out in defense of olution as Kings College, Columbia extensive real estate holdings and armed Jamal, a man known as "the voice of thinks itself above the laws that nomi­ security officers to push around the black the voiceless." We will break the anti­ Spartacist League nally accord democtatic rights-rights and Hispanic residents of neighboring communist ban so that Jamal's voice will which were wrested through hard strug­ Harlem. The exclusion of the black be heard and students will retain their Public Offices gles by working people against the arro­ community from Columbia's proposed right to organize for cases and causes in -MARXIST LlTERATURE­ gant ruling class. Columbia has trained gymnasium sparked the militant student the interests of the working people. generation after generation of the ,ideo­ revolt in 1968. Last year, Columbia These acts of political censorship and Ba, Area logues, technicians and administr;ators students occupied Hamilton Hall again anti-communist thuggery now directed Thurs.: 5:30-8:00 p.m., Sat.: 1:00-5:00 p.m. who run American society for the profit 'to protest the university'S razing of at us, contain an implicit threat: Who 1634 Telegraph, 3rd Floor (near 17th Street) will be next? Black students at Columbia Oakland, California Phone: (510) 839-0851 of the few. The ultimate defeat of the the Audubon Ballroom-the historic "outside agitator" bans at bastions of Harlem building where Malcolm X was "mistaken" for residents of surrounding Chicago bourgeois privilege such as Columbia assassinated. Harlem? Campus workers who express Tues.: 5:00-9:00 p.m. will come the day that these schools are The Spartacus Youth Club at Colum­ solidarity with "outside" unionists? Gay Sat.: 11 :00 a.m.-2:00 p.m. students who were harassed with anti­ 161 W. Harrison St., 10th Floor nationalized and opened up to the sons bia is looking for a few good class Chicago, Illinois Phone: (312) 663-0715 and daughters of the working class with traitors-students who will dedicate gay graffiti on the very day our comrade open admissions and free tuition. themselves to a lifetime of partisanship was attacked on College Walk? An injury New York City As profits for America's ruling class of the working class and its strug­ to one is an injury to all! Join the Tues.: 6:30-9:00 p.m., Sat.: 1:00-5:00 p.m. "banned" Friends of the Spartacus Youth 41 Warren St. (one block below have become more and more dependent gles. The Spartacus Youth Club brings Chambers St. near Church St.) on the global military hegemony of U.S. to Columbia the fight for a social­ Club! Defeat the Earl Hall witchhunters! New York, NY Phone: (212) 267-1025 -capital, the imperialists have come to rely ist future-an end to imperialist war, Spartacus Youth Club more and more on weapons researchers, atrocities and racial oppression. In 1988, 16 November 1993 3 DECEMBER 1993 9 NEW HOPE. Pennsylvania-As 200 against the Nazi scum, more often anti-fascist protesters lined the road out­ this amounts to impotent posturing, side Washington Crossing Park Novem­ and in all cases it relies directly or in­ ber 6, some 50 racist terrorists of the directly on the forces of the capitalist "USA Nationalist Party" and the KKK state. staged an anti-gay, racist provocation in Cops Protect Nazis But it was clear to everyone at New the woods outside this eastern Pennsyl­ Hope that "mote militancy" and "unity" vania town. Facing off against the anti~ wasn't going to stop the Nazis, as they Nazi protesters were 300 state troopers, carned out their provocation protected including a squad of mounted cops, by the bourgeois state. What the-cynical who had, been mobilized to protect the in New Hope RWL leadership means by "militancy" fascists. . was demonstrated when they started Two days' earlier, the Nazis held a . chanting "militant action" ill an attempt joint press conference with the police to drown out a transit worker and Spar­ to announce tbat"for teasons of safety" . tacist League supporter from New York they were abandoning their threatened . who called on a bullhorn for mobilizing "Gay Bash '93" march through New laborlblackpower. What else can you Hope. It wasexpected tha~ crowds of gay, . expect from an outfit like the RWL minority and leftist YOl\th .would have which "militantly" defends crossing jammed the narrow streets of this heavily picket lines? ' gay tourist town on the Delaware River, . In a report on New Hope, the reformists about 30 miles from Philadelphia, and of the ISO explicitly amnestied the the fascist scum would have needed thou­ role of the cops, claiming, "The cops' sands of cops to emerge unscathed. main function' at the demonstration was So instead, under heavy police protec­ not to protect the 40 Nazis from· the tion, the racists slithered. into tbe park 200 counter-demonstrators" (Columbia four miles away and held their provoca­ Daily Spectator, 15 November). The tion, drawing a few dozen skinhead RWL/NWROC made 'their own illu­ thugs and KKKers from Delaware. As sions in the capitalist state disgustingly state troopers .sealed off the park, anti­ clear throughout the day at New Hope. fascist protesters were left to chant at They hysterically denounced the SL for the Nazis across a 50-foot-wide canal. our opposition to gun control and our Meanwhile, a liberal "Stop the Hate" denunciation of the feds 1 slaughter of diversion several miles away was almost 100 people in Waco, Texas and sparsely attended. the set-up and murder of fascistic sur­ From California to the Midwest and vivalists in Idaho simply because they New York there has been an ominous Hundreds of Pennsylvania state police line the road against exercised their right to bear arms. Like rise in provocations by the deadly fascist protesters on November 6. the liberals who want to see the working marauders. Their campaign of racist ter­ class and blacks disarmed, it is com­ ror is stoked by the "respectable"racism. pletely alien to the RWL to defend this anti-immigrant' hysteria and anti-gay vital right. In New Hope, members of bigotry of the Republicans and Demo­ NWROC grotesquely screamed, "Fuck crats. The fascists are the capitalists' RWL Strategy: Militant Liberalism Waco, let 'em burn!" and pushed Clinton dogs of war; protected by the forces of and Reno's lie that "They incinerated repression and held in reserve to be used themselves. " in times of deep capitalist crisis against League has successfully called on the League (RWL) and its National Women's In their paper program, RWL/ minorities and the organizations of the unions allied with minorities, gays, Rights Organizing Coalition (NWROC) NWROC calls for developing an "alter­ working class. immigrants-all the fascists' intended froin Detroit and upstate New York. Some native locus of power in our society" The integrated working class is the victims-in labor/black mobilizations to reformists like the Socialist Workers as the road to liberation. But the ruling one force with the social power to crush stop the Nazis and Klan. Party camped out with the liberals, while class won't brook an "alternative" to the fascist gangs while they are still In New Hope, the anti-fascist protest others like the International Socialist its monopoly on armed force, as they small and to sweep away their capitalist was called by a collection of anarchists, Organization (ISO) builtthe liberal diver­ showed with fire and blood at Waco. The masters. In major black and proletarian many organized in "Love and Rage," and sion and attended both rallies. RWL's idea is nothing but the liberal centers around the country, the Spartacist members of the Revolutionary Workers In a revealing report on New Hope, belief in the "neutrality" of the bourgeois "Love and Rage" in Detroit writes that, state. It is what leads them to herd their "considering the fact that we couldn't supporters through police searches and even get a few licks in," chanting "Death into "pens" which were a set-up for vic­ to the Nazis" across a wide canal "didn't timization of anti-fascist demonstrators, seem to be particularly threatening." as in Indianapolis and Columbus .in Hostile to organizing the necessary labor/ October (see "Stop the Fascists Through black mobilizations which can stop the Labor/Black Mobilization!" WV No. fascists and back down the forces of 587,5 November). The fight against fas­ repression, the anarchists and the RWL/ cist terror must be based on the clear NWROC can offer nothing more than understanding that the capitalist state is a vague program of "militancy." While not a neutral arbiter in society, but the sometimes landing well-deserved blows enemy of workers and minorities .•

Striking workers attending the basic working-class principles are at Caterpillar UAW Local 75 I meeting best empty words. SPARTACIST LEAIUE/U.S. LOCAL DIRECTORY in Decatur, H1inois on November 14 But if hypocritical lip service to the National Office: Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 • (212) 732-7860 were handed a flyer signed by a couple class struggle is what you're looking of Detroit-area union caucuses and for; thi.s is the group for you. The Atlanta Detroit Norfolk . the National Women's Rights Organ­ flyer calls for "mass, militant picket Box 4012 Box 441043 Box 1972, Main PO izing Coalition (NWROC). Calling lines to stop scabbing-by any means Atlanta, GA 30302 Detroit, MI 48244 Norfolk, VA 23501 the brief strike "the key battle for necessary!" An excellent demand! (404) 521-9338 Los Angeles Oakland American labor," NWROC argued Funny they didn't raise it last fall, Boston Box 29574, Los Feliz Sta. Box 29497 that it could "force the cowardly [?], when they crossed picket lines of Box 390840, Central Sta. Oakland,CA 94604 pro-business courts to declare-final­ striking teaching assistants in Berke­ Los Angeles, CA 90029 Cambridge, MA 02139 (213) 380-8239 (510) 839-0851 Iy!-that CAT's union-busting has ley! In fact, this group has been slink­ (617) 492-3928 San Francisco been illegal!" Sure, and after the ing across picket lines since its MadIson Chicago Boxn494 courts slap CAT boss Donald Fires inception, a scabbing policy they Box 1492 in jail they can declare capitalism defended at great length in the very Box 6441, Main PO San Francisco,CA 94107 Chicago, IL 60680 Madison, WI 53701 (415) 7n-9367 unconstitutional! Earth to NWROC: first issue of their increasingly infr~­ (312) 663-0715 busting unions is perfectly legal in quent newspaper, Fighting Worker. New York Washington, D.C. Ointon's America. Defendingcapi­ In the Transitional Program, Trot­ Cleveland Box 444, Canal st. Sta. Box 75073 talism is what the capitalist state is sky wrote that "Strike pickets are the Box 91037 New York, NY 10013 Washington, D.C. 20013 there for. basic nuclei of the proletarian army" Cleveland, OH 44101 (212) 267-1025 (202) 872-8240 The fact that the leaflet lacked a needed to sweep away the fascist union bug and was presumably terrorists. Little wonder that with printed in a scab shop shouldn't sur­ their blatant disregard for picket lines, TROTSKYIST LEAGUE OF CAIADA/LiGUE TROTSKYSTE DU CAIADA prise anyone familiar with this crowd: the occasionally radical-sounding lib­ Toronto Montreal Vancouver NWROC is a front for the Revolu­ erals of the RWL are equally dismis­ Box 7198, Station A C.P. Les Atriums Box 2717, Main P.O. tionary Workers League (RWL), an sive of a labor-centered strategy for Toronto, ON M5W lX8 B.P.32066 Vancouver, BC V6B 3X2 opportunist outfit for which the most fighting fascism. (416) 593-4138 Montreal, QC H2L 4V5 (604) 687-0353

10 WORKERS VANGUARD

II Latino Students Protest Racist Vandalism On Friday, November 19, more than demands for "private" negotiating ses­ 100 Latino and black students at Cornell sions with a small hand-picked group of University seized the university admin­ student leaders, the administration grew istration building to protest the dese­ antsy and surrounded the building with cration of an Hispanic art exhibit on armed phalanxes of police officers. More campus. The exhibition, entitled Reve­ students then flocked to the protest, scuf­ laciones (Revelations) consists of works fled with the cops and stormed inside to by eight different Hispanic artists and bolster the occupation. The administra­ was defaced with racist epithets, includ­ tion responded by suspending some 40 ing a fascist swastika. "We feel that just student participants from school and' as this work of art has been attacked and refusing to negotiate with the students violated, so we also have been attacked' until the building was vacated by the and violated," said Ricardo Roman, one protesters. of the organizer~ of the protest. Eduardo Penalver, one of the protest The provocation against Latino stu­ organizers, responded, "We intend to Okoniewski/NY Times After fascists defaced Latino art show, Cornell students occupy administration dents was perceived as a threat against stay here until they drag us out, or until building. all minorities at Cornell and black, Asian they agree to an open meeting." Among and gay students quickly rallied to sup­ the demands raised by the students were: with the protest still growing in strength, student/labor action to smash racist port and join the building occupation. no reprisals against the protesters and the administration blinked and rescinded attacks! Increase minority enrollment Locked out of their own offices and increased minority student enrollment the suspensions and agreed to negotiate. through open admissions and free unable to get the students to bend to their and employment. On "Day Four" and Hasta fa victoria! For militant, mass tuition! _

other repressive measures, the SPD was fensible. At the same time, we vehe­ won to this perspective, through the PKK ... denouncing the Christian Democratic mently oppose the German government's struggle for an internationalist revolu­ Kohl regime for not having outlawed the anti-Kurdish repression. tionary workers party to bring down the (continued from page 2) PKK long ago. During its consulate occupation in murderous Turkish NATO regime. The is the godfather of this genocidal war Concerning the anti-Turkish attacks, June, the PKK begged Fourth Reich liberation of the Kurds requires the against the Kurds, through its support to in a November 4 press release the PKK's chancellor Kohl to establish "peace" in smashing of four capitalist states. What its NATO partner in Ankara and partic­ European representative said, "These Kurdistan. The flip side of guerrilla war is needed to bring that about is a revo­ ularly through generous weapons deliv­ incidents 'do not have any connection and terrorism is appeals to the imperial­ lutionary alliance of the Kurdish, Turk­ eries and training of Turkish army coun­ with our party." The statement neverthe­ ists or their neocolonial lackeys to ish, Arab, Persian and Hebrew-speaking terinsurgency units. With the demise of less justified the "attacks by Kurds on arrange a "political solution." In the best workers in struggle for a federation of the neighboring Soviet Union, and with Turkish institutions" as "natural and un­ of circumstances, this would lead to a workers republics of the Near East, Ankara's German military ally providing derstandable reactions against the mas­ Kurdish "bantustan," as has so tragically including a socialist republic of united protection, Turkish chief of staff Gtires sacre and extermination of a nation." Yet proved to be the case recently for the Kurdistan. declares: "We will kill the Kurds. By the these were not simply attacks against Palestinians, where the PLO is being Common action by Turkish and Kurd­ spring of 1994 we will have liquidated symbols of the genocidal regime, but also installed as cops for the Israeli occupy­ ish workers against fascist terror in Ger­ them. We will also liquidate them in indiscriminate nationalist terror against ing power. many can go a long way toward forging Europe." all Turks. The innkeeper at "Hermann­ Social Democracy serves the masters proletarian unity in Turkey itself. This According to reports, 1.7 million seck" in Wiesbaden is a Kurd. As immi­ of German imperialism by inciting west potential for united struggle was shown Kurds have been driven from their grants sat drinking tea in his restaurant, Germans against east Germans, Germans by the protests against the Islamic fun­ homes and 778 villages have been Molotov cocktails crashed through the against immigrants, men againstwomen. damentalists and the Turkish regime destroyed by flame throwers and tanks. windows. One 31-year-old Turk was so And the PKK covers the SPD's flank by following the fundamentalist pogrom in Simultaneously the Ankara regime has paralyzed by shock that he was unable organizing Kurdish workers on a nation­ the Turkish city of Sivas in July. Dozens strengthened Article 8 of the "anti-terror to get out and burned to death in agony. alist basis and preventing joint class were killed as a mob of Islamic fanat­ law," which bans the playing of Kurgish As Leninists we reject the substi­ struggle with Turks and other workers ics attacked a cultural festival which music, speaking in Kurdish or identify­ tutionalist strategy of individual terror. against the common enemy. Following included the famous secularist poet Aziz ing oneself as a Kurd, 'and designates Only the mobilization of the working the fascist firebombing in Molin, the Nesin, whose newspaper published ex­ "collective work stoppages" as acts of class is capable of smashing racist terror PKK consciously decided not to fight cerpts from Salman Rushdie's Satanic terror. The Kurdish town of Lice was and sweeping away bloodsoaked German against the Nazis, characterizing the sub­ Verses. In response, hundreds of thou­ razed to the ground, with hundreds killed imperialism and Turkish capitalism. But sequent murderous Nazi arson attack on sands-Turks and Kurds together for the there alone. Its fate brings to everyone's those who strike out against their capi­ Turkish women and girls in Solingen as first time in years-took to the streets mind the Nazi destruction of the Czech talist and nationalist oppressors must be a "diversion." And the current indiscrim­ from Istanbul to Cologne, chanting: "In town of Lidice (as an act of "collective defended against bourgeois repression. inate attacks on Turks in Europe have Sivas Islamic reactionaries, in Solingen punishment") during World War II. When last June Kurds occupied a con­ only worsened the situation. The fascist the skinheads." In response to the genocidal on­ sulate of the Turkish state-butcher of stormtroopers of this bourgeoisie make In Germany today class-struggle unity slaught, on November 3 Turkish estab­ the Kurdish people-we defended them absolutely no distinction between Turks is more urgent than ever, because the lishments in over 25 cities in Germany, against state repression. The Spartakist and Kurds. German bourgeoisie is now carrying out Switzerland, France, Denmark and Brit­ Workers Party (SpAD) denounces the In the face of mounting racist terror, an all-sided war against the working ain were subjected to attacks and fire­ ban on the PKK and demands an end to the Spartakists fight for worker/immi­ class. The explosion of racist terror bombings. These attacks targeted not the monstrous show trials of the PKK. grant mobilizations to smash the Nazis. in Germany is directly fueled by the only consulates and other symbols of the The SpAD also opposes the ban on the Especially after Molin, there were sig­ capitalist reunification which devastated Turkish ruling class, but also vegetable Turkish left group Devrimci Sol, and nificant discussions~and even some the former DDR (East Germany) and stores and restaurants. One man was calls for freedom for all imprisoned mem- modest efforts-in the factories aimed destroyed jobs and social programs killed and dozens of peoplc were injured. bers of the Red Army Faction. , at mobilizing the unions against Nazi ter­ throughout Germany. The Spartakists That same night, German cops seized But the PKK's attacks on travel ror. In Solingen it was above all Turkish fight for a revolutionary workers party on the attacks to launch a series of anti­ agencies and kidnapping of tourists is and Kurdish protesters who drove off that can unite and lead Kurdish, Turk­ Kurdish raids, breaking into 29 immi­ another matter-i.e., indiscriminate ter­ nationalists who had attacked the dem­ ish and other immigrant workers along grant organizations, cultural centers and ror against those who are deemed an onstration waving Turkish flags and with their German class brothers and sis­ meeting places and confiscating files and "enemy" people. This reflects the geno­ shouting "Down with the PKK!" Espe­ ters in a fight against the ravaging leaflets. A total of 46 "Turks of Kurdish cidal logic of nationalism, which iden­ cially with Ankara waging a war of onslaught of German imperialism, which origin" were reportedly arrested. The tifies entire peoples as the enemy rather extermination against the Kurdish peo­ can only be brought down by proletarian pretext of "terrorism" has been used to than the bloody ruling class. Driven to ple, it is important for Kurdish workers revolution. launch another racist campaign against the wall by the genocidal attacks of the to defend Turkish immigrants in Ger­ Down with the han on the PKK! immigrants, directed in the first instance Turkish regime, Kurdish nationalists many in order to frustrate the chauvinist For immediate freedom for imprisoned against Kurds and Turks, with the Social have desperately lashed out against any­ appeals of the Turkish rulers. Kurds! No extradition--Stop all attempts Democrats (SPD) running point. Even thing Turkish, including restaurants and This kind of unity must necessarily be at deportation! Defend the right of as Kanther declared a ban on meet­ cultural centers. Such random terror based on the right of self-determination asylum! Full citizenship rights for ings and freedom of travel, as well as against innocent people is utterly inde- for Kurds. The Turkish workers must be immigrants! _ 3 DECEMBER 1993 11 with the apartheid butchers. In effect, uphold the Green nationalist claim that Wolfe Tone (leader of the 1794 United Ireland ... the Palestinians have been granted "com­ Dublin has an inalienable right to rule Irishmen revolt against British rule), munity control" over a couple of impov­ the whole island. However, Spring is carrying a banner "Break the connection (continued from page 3) erished slums, hounded and terrorised by anxious to stitch up a deal with Britain, with capitalism." This was an anti­ and transport bound for Northern Ire­ the Israeli army and heavily armed Zion­ including granting the Unionists a veto imperialist, anti-capitalist act by Protes­ land. In itself, withdrawal of troops does ist zealots. The PLO has been promised over Northern Ireland while demanding tant workers, who were rebuffed by the not constitute a solution, but it is an its own cops to help suppress the Pales­ that the IRA lay down its arms before IRA. essential prerequisite for any just reso­ tinians, but that hasn't happened yet. The getting anywhere near the negotiating In recent months there have been large lution to the conflict. U.S. imperialist-orchestrated '~peace" in table. This fits well with Ulster Unionist demonstrations of both Protestant and Within Northern Ireland, the Catho­ the Middle East and the ANC rapproche­ Party (UUP) leader Jim Molyneaux's Catholic workers against the proposal lics, part of the Irish nation, are an ment with the racist South African call for a "period of quarantine" for the for the Royal Victoria Hospital to "opt oppressed minority. But they live within regime is a product of the destruction of IRA. Among Catholics in the North there out" of the National Health Service. Sit­ the same territory as the Protestants, who uated in the predominantly Catholic are a ,distinct community which very Falls Road, the RVH is the second largest much defines itself against the Irish employer in Northern Ireland, employ­ Catholic nation, and who fear becom­ ing 5,700 workers, 3,000 of whom are ing a minority which would in turn drawn from the Falls and Shankill be oppressed, and discriminated against Roads. The industrial decay of British within a capitalist united Ireland. And imperialism has particularly impacted on finally there is the pres~nce of the British Northern Ireland. In some Protestant imperialist butchers, whose rule sprang working-class slums, male unemploy­ out of 800 years of bloody English dom­ ment can be as high as 50 per cent. and ination of all Ireland. In such situations it is even higher among Catholics., of interpenetrated peoples there can be Most of the killings in Northern Ire­ no just solution to national oppression land this year have been carried out by outside the overthrow of capitalism and Protestant paramilitaries, mainly target­ the establishment of workers rule. ing Catholics not connected with any organisation. These acts are not only Imperialist aimed at disrupting the "peace negotia­ "Peace" Manoeuvres tions" but are also pre-emptive blows In the mid-1980s, an attempt to break designed to undercut the possibility of the stalemate which had developed in joint class struggle. The fascistic thugs Northern Ireland was made with the explicitly motivate their attacks as "mass Anglo-Iris-h Accord. It was a Cold War, murder" intended to totally intimidate pro-NATO deal, which granted the the Catholic population. southern clerical state' a "say" in the run­ We Marxists consider the tactic of ning of the North and tried to cajole the individual terror antithetical to the tasks pro-imperialist Protestant Unionists into of the liberating struggle of the proletar­ "power-sharing," in return for which Ire­ iat as well as oppressed nationalities, land was to be made into a nuclear air­ because small groups of individuals can­ craft carrier for NATO against the Soviet .. not replace the masses. Thus the Russian Union. There were promises of "finan­ • Marxists of Lenin's time ruthlessly P Michael i cial aid," which included the "National criticised the Narodniks (populists) for Bloody Sunday, 30 January 1972: Brltl$h troops open fire on march of 6,000 their petty-bourgeois strategy of individ­ Endowment for Democracy," a CIA con­ Catholic civil rights protesters, killing 13 unarmed civilians. duit, pouring money into the SDLP. This ual terrorism and assassination. How­ "peace deal" saw 100,000 outraged Loy­ the Soviet Union through counterrevo­ is a strong feeling of betrayal by the Dub­ ever, out of solidarity with those who alists marching through Belfast, a big lution. As we noted: lin politicians, and although Sinn Fein's fought against the tsarist oppressor, crackdown on the IRA and more British "So long as the Soviet degenerated work­ electoral support in the South is currently albeit in a misguided way, the Marxists troops in Northern Ireland. Underscoring ers state existed as a counterweight to low, there remain large residues of sol­ defended against state persecution those U.S. imperialism, this allowed petty­ the fact that the Unionists are not simply idarity with the northern Catholics. who carried out such terrorist acts. Sim­ bourgeois nationalists like the PLO and ilarly, the IRA policy of blowing away a creature of British imperialism, Loy­ ANC and the bourgeoisies of the semi­ The spectre of the southern state­ alist mobs burryed effigies of then British colonial countries to jockey for position where workers struggles are attacked and a Lord Mountbatten or an Airey Neave Conservative Prime Minister Thatcher. between the two 'superpowers' .... Now the bourgeois parties, along with Labour is not our policy. But when the IRA The victory of capitalist counterrev­ faced with a 'one superpower' world, the and petty-bourgeois Republican politi­ strikes a blow against the imperialist various nationalist movements see no oppressor or the Loyalist fascistic thugs, olution in the Soviet Union undercut option but to go begging hat in hand for cians, pander to reactionary and clerical the Cold War imperatives of the Anglo­ any crumbs the U.S. is willing to forces over questions of women's rights we defend the perpetrators against cap­ Irish Accord. At the same time, British dispense." and education-helps to cement the hold italist retribution. imperialism was becoming increasingly - WV No. 583, 10 September of reactionary Loyalist politicians on the However, it is different with indis­ concerned about its overheads for the Among the foremost enthusiasts for Protestant masses. The Protestants are criminate terror such as the EnniskiIIen, situation in Northern Ireland. In a No­ both the Anglo-Irish Accord and cur­ neither a colonial administration (i.e., Teebane, Warrington and pub bombings, vember 1990 speech Thatcher's Northern rent "peace" negotiations is the Irish mere agents of British imperialism), nor as well as the recent Shankill bombing. Ireland secretary, Peter Brooke, declared Labour Party leadership, part of the even a closed colour caste like the South The rationale behind the latter mass that Britain had "no selfish, strategic Dublin Fianna Fail/Labour coalition African whites, but a distinct, million­ bombings is ultimately genocidal nation­ or economic interest" in remaining in government, which is vehemently anti­ strong community, differ:entiated by alism, and they are simply crimes from Northern Ireland. And although Thatcher Republican, anti-women and anti­ class as much as Irish Catholics. Argu­ the standpoint of the working class. successor John Major is in a corri­ working-class. Irish president Mary Rob­ ments that the Protestants should be Those ostensible Marxists who do not dor coalition with the Ulster Unionists, inson actually resigned from the Labour accorded no democratic rights because make this distinction render themselves while simultaneously manoeuvring with Party in sympathy with the Protestant Northern Ireland is an artificial impe­ apologists either for the nationalists or the Dublin government, he' has now Loyalists, but the Labour Party still rialist creation are based ultimately for the imperialists. announced that there is a role at the backed her for the presidency. Irish on reactionary notions of nationalist The context of the IRA's Shankill negotiating table for Sinn Fein if they' Labour leader and foreign minister Dick irredentism. bombing was the murderous onslaught renounce violence for good. Spring was vitriolic in his denunciation Any attempt by the Catholic bourgeoi­ by the UDA and Ulster Freedom Fighters In the "New World Order" Sinn Fein of "IRA terrorism," of Gerry Adams. and sie to forcibly incorporate this large and (UFF) on Catholics in the preceding has junked most of its rhetoric about even of John Hume, who is a darling relatively well-armed community into a period. The IRA was under great pres­ "socialism" and enthused over Bill Clin­ of the imperialists. Spring proposed a common state could only precipitate a sure from the embattled Catholics to do ton, butcher of Somalia. (Major slapped harsher version of "Pax Britannica." bloody communal conflict. At the same something to stop the Loyalist killers. an exclusion order on Adams preventing Dublin has made conciliatory gestures time, the Protestants have not crystal­ The UFFIUDA have close ties to hard­ him from entering Britain, and Clinton toward the Loyalists over the Irish Con­ lised into a separate nation, and the core British fascists like the Hitler-lovers followed suit by barring him from the stitution's Articles 2 and 3, which outline establishment of an independent Ulster of "Combat 18," and are the equivalent U.S.) The Hume/Adams talks have been the nationalist claim to Northern Ireland. would necessarily be oppressive of the of the race-terrorist Afrikaner Resistance inspired by the PLO "deal" with the As Leninists, we oppose forcible reuni­ Catholic minority and likely accompa­ Movement (AWB) in South Africa or the Zionists and Mandela's negotiations fication of Ireland, and therefore do not nied by the expulsion and slaughter of fascistic Zionist followers of the late the Catholics. unlamented Meir Kahane. In the history of the Irish labour move­ The IRA's plan was to leave the bomb ment there have been examples of sig­ in the fish shop on a Saturday morning nificant workers solidarity. which has when passing working-class shoppers temporarily cut across sectarian divi­ were bound to be killed, even had the sions. Invariably. as in the case of the bomb not gone off prematurely. Their 1919 Belfast engineers strike and the excuses about issuing a warning so that mass unemployment marches in the innocent passers-by could be cleared 1930s. they have been countered with away are not plausible, even leaving massive sectarian mobilisations intended aside the criminal reliance this places to wipe out the fragile proletarian unity. on the hated RUC/British Army. Nine The defeat of the 1919 strike and the working-class shoppers died. while the subsequent expUlsion of Catholic work­ UDA tops had left well before. At bot­ ers from the engineering industry helped tom, this bombing cannot be divorced lay the basis for Partition (which divided from the IRA's nationalist politics. Dead Ireland into a repUblican South and British and Protestant workers are a Der Spiegel the British-controlled North). In 1934 matter of indifference to them. Thousands of Irish women protest Dublin's reactionary anti-abortion law, Protestant workers marched from the Two weeks before the Shankill bomb February 1992. Shankill to join a commemoration for over 1,000 mainly Protestant workers 12 WORKERS VANGUARD for example during the mid-1970s in the in the constitutions of these states, the ist" DDR had an elitist petty-bourgeois aftermath of the 1968 European-wide freedom of opinions, information and program that, no less than the petty­ Honecker ... organization, would be practically real­ upheavals and U.S. imperialism's humil­ bourgeois bureaucracy, relied on the (continued from page 7) ized. All limitations on travel would iating defeat in Vietnam. The much­ be lifted. A wonderful blooming of art Wall-once it was breached they had no Wall," but added: "In Berlin, where the persecuted DDR left-wing oppositionist and science would have begun, unfold­ perspective and quickly faded from the ing freely without the narrow-minded division of the world has become petri­ Robert Havemann, who refused pres­ scene except as drumbeaters for the anti­ sures by the regime to emigrate to the tutoring by half-educated official phil­ Communist witchhunt. fied ... precisely there the demand arises istines. In a word, let's 'assume that that true coexistence cannot simply be West, captured something of this per­ socialism had broken out in the socialist Like Ulbricht in 1961, Honecker also equated with the maintenance of the sta­ spective in a response he wrote in 1975 states! Yes, then we would not have was able, after the fact, to empirically tus quo" (from Peter Brandt and Herbert on the question of the Wall and German needed the Wall anymore, and the road register the ultimate dead end of the to a peaceful reunification would not be Ammon, eds., Die Un"e und die natio­ unity: DDR, even in the framework of the "In Germany as well the border fortifi­ far off." naIl' Frage [Rowohlt, 1981 D. In addition -from Die Linke und die Soviet bloc. In his 1992 booklet Zu cations will fall. The question is, which dramatischen Ereignissen (On Dramatic to the decades-long espionage activi­ side will tear them down. Of all the pos­ nationale Frage Events), he noted: ties for the CIA carried out by the sibilities to be considered, the most Instead, Stalinism's dead hand stran­ SPD's O,sf-Bliro (whose files are still favorable would be if it was the builders gled every attempt to break out of the "The DDR with its achievements as with closed while the witchhunters rummage themselves who then dismantled it. That its limitations was closely bound up with would be possible if the economic and bureaucratic grip, from the quickly sup­ the Comecon [the Soviet bloc "common through the Stasi's leftovers), the social political conditions in Germany had pressed workers political revolution of market"] and its possibilities. Comecon's democrats sought to use "peaceful coex­ developed to the benefit of the DDR to 17 June 1953 to the systematically potential was not sufficient to keep istence" to undermine the status quo. such an extent that there was no more purged, jailed and exiled socialist oppo­ up with international development. For Honecker described the Helsinki "human one-sided stream of people out of the example, the entire socialist camp only DDR into the federal republic. Already sitionists inside and outside the SED. So belatedly recognized the challenge pre­ rights" accord as "a codex of peaceful today the DDR exercises a growing when the regime collapsed under the sented by the scientific-technical revolu­ coexistence for our continent." Yet the attraction on many in West Germany, relentless imperialist pressure, as Soviet tion growing out of the development of imperialists used the DDR's signature while as a result of the intensifying cap­ leader Gorbachev withdrew his support high technology in a few advanced cap­ of the Helsinki agreement's supposed italist crisis the attractive power of the for Honecker in October 1989 and then italist countries." right to freedom of travel as a spear­ federal republic on the citizens of the DDR is diminishing. in January 1990 gave the green light for. But why the bureaucratically degener­ head of their ideological assault on the "Let's assume for a moment that in capitalist reunification, it was the right­ ated/deformed workers states couldn't Wall. the DDR and also in other socialist wing and openly counterrevolutionary keep pace· with advanced capitalism And as we repeatedly warned, the SPD states, and also in the Soviet Union, a forces that exploited the opening. Even remains a book with seven seals for the was the Trojan horse of counterrevolu­ great political change had taken place. Stalinist reformists. They, and most of Instead of bureaucratic centralism gen­ many of those pro-socialist intellectu­ tion in the final destruction of the DDR. uine socialist democracy had come als who issued the appeal "For Our the leftist dissidents as well, could not The 1989 events were begun by the about. What is already today decreed Country" seeking a "democratic social- conceive of socialist revolution in the opening of the Hungarian border to Aus­ West. Particularly since Ulbricht and tria, which attracted thousands from the Honecker themselves came to power not DDR during their summer vacations. through working-class revolution but as This development was the result of a a consequence of the Soviet victory over visit by the foreign minister of the new Hitler fascism, this is hardly surprising. social-democratic-oriented Hungarian In fact, the Stalinist bureaucracy regime, who in the spring of 1989 visited strangled every attempt to spread work­ SPD leaders in Bonn, who passed him ers revolution to the West, notably in on to officials of the Kohl regime. And After collapse of 1945-47, when millions of workers, East after the deed was done, Kohl presented Soviet Union, and West, were calling for a socialist the Hungarian prime minister with West Honecker was Germany; and in June 1953, when insur­ Germany's highest military award for brought back gent East German workers called on their services rendered to counterrevolution, to Berlin for Western brothers to "clean house" in plus generous credits of 500 million show trial in ' Bonn as well. It would take a fundamen­ D-marksl July 1992. tal reckoning going to the roots of the We Spartacists of the International Spartakists at Stalinist perversion of Leninism, as Trot­ Communist League, while opposing Tegel Airport in sky did and we Spartacists seek to con­ capitalist reunification, stood for the Berlin demand "Fourth Reich tinue, to overcome the bureaucracy's revolutionary reunUicatiof1 of Germany, Hands Off Erich greatest crime of all: the destruction of through anti-bureaucratic proletarian po­ Honecker!" working-class revolutionary conscious­ litical revolution in the DDR and social­ ness. It is to that necessary Marxist ist revolution in the capitalist West. This rearming of a proletarian vanguard that was hardly an impossible perspective, the ICL dedicates its efforts today. _

walked out of Shorts in Belfast in protest ties would undoubtedly arise for a class that they want to organise a 15-minute containing large numbers of Irish Cath­ at the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) mur­ determination of the question. protest rather than a half-day stop­ olics, Bengalis, Sikhs, Pakistanis, West der of a Catholic worker in their factory. TheCliffite Socialist Workers Party page against "violence" (Derry Journal, Indian blacks and other national and This was an opening which communists (SWP), whining that "Major Slams Door 12 November). ethnic minorities. But a revolutionary would seek to exploit in order to tran­ on Peace;" effectively endorses the idea The Militant calls for factory and com­ perspective requires a relentless struggle scend the sectarian spiral. The IRA's of an imperialist-brokered solution, say­ munity-based "anti-sectarian commit­ to purge from the British workers move­ Shankill bomb blasted that opening to ing "The one thing Major could do is tees ... to provide defence against attack." ment all traces of chauvinism. A century hell, as the same Protestant workers went immediately meet representatives of all However, in the absence 'of a call for ago Karl Marx emphasised that the into the streets cursing the IRA and sides" (Socialist Worker, 6 November). immediate withdrawal of the British British proletariat would never be free Catholics in general. There is a burning This is nothing new for these birds, who Army and with its effective equation of as long as Ireland remained in thrall. necessity for programmatically-based welcomed the British Army sent to the IRA and the fascistic Loyalist thugs, What is necessary today is the forging anti-sectarian, anti-imperialist workers Northern Ireland by the Labour govern­ such "workers militias" as envisioned by of a revolutionary workers party by militias to combat Orange and Green ter­ ment in 1969 on the grounds that it Militant would simply become an armed splitting the Labour Party. The British ror and imperialist rampage. Not Orange would provide a "breathing space" for adjunct to the British state. social democracy is the strategic obstacle against Green but class against class! ·Catholics. The Irish Workers Group (IWG), con­ to socialist revolution throughout the For years, the Militant group has nected to Workers Power in Britain, British Isles. Fake Left Capitulates refused to call for British troops out of attacks the SWM for capitulating to The southern Catholic proletariat, to Imperialism the North. Now, in response to the the ICTU's "peace chorus." But a 12 which in recent years has shown a The fake left either capitulates to chauvinist hysteria whipped up by the November IWG statement is uncritical greater measure of class consciousness, British imperialism or Green national­ imperialists, the SWP and its Irish affil­ of the IRA's Green nationalism 'and can be an important lever in breaking ism, or in some cases both. Socialist iate, the Socialist Workers Movement refuses to even mention the Shankill down the sectarian divide in the North. Organiser (SO), social-democratic lack­ (SWM), once again bury this demand. bombing atrocity. The IWG's assertion Key is intransigent struggle against the eys of the British bourgeoisie, can now As with their appeals to the British gov­ that workers unity has and will be "fun­ clerical state, which is deeply oppressive applaud Sinn Fein too. Demanding that ernment to act against the fascist BNP damentally limited to episodes in the of women, as well as opposition to Irish "Britain and Dublin accept the Hume­ (British National Party), the reformists economic struggle as long as the sectar­ Labourism, which bows to both imperi­ Adams proposals as the basis for of the SWP and Militant present the ian state [is] not smashed" is profoundly alism and the capitalist bosses at home. negotiations," Socialist Organiser (11 capitalist state as a neutral arbiter or despairing of any prospects of breaking In the situation of interpenetrated peo­ November) baldly states that "'imperi­ even potential ally of the working class. Protestants from the Loyalist strangle­ ples and fratricidal nationalism of the alism' is no longer the central issue in Claiming to be for workers unity, they hold and is effectively calling for a North, there can be no solution short of Northern Ireland." uncritically enthuse over the "peace" ral­ two-stage "revolution": first, forcible workers revolution. In the context of an SO explicitly attacks the call for the lies organised by the Irish Congress of reunification of Ireland, and later social­ Irish workers republic in a socialist fed­ immediate withdrawal of troops, arguing Trade Unions (lCTU) bureaucrats".. ism~ On the other side, the IWG-like eration of the British Isles, the Protes­ that this would necessarily precipitate a While many workers attend these the SWM and Militant-supported Dick tants may yet be incorporated in a communal bloodbath, This argument pacifist rallies out of a genuine disgust Spring's viciously anti-Republican Irish common Irish nation. which they would assumes that the working people are for sectarianism, the bureaucrats have Labour Party in the last elections! at present vehemently reject; they may incapable of transcending sectarianism openly appealed to the "business com­ The struggles of the proletariat develop a more distinct national identity; and that, in partIcular. the Protestants are munity," and have ingratiated them­ throughout the British Isles are neces­ or they may find a democratic accom­ wedded to Loyalism. In all likelihood, a selves with the capitalists by denouncing sarily intertwined, The strong possibility modation with the CatholIcs outside the defInite resolution of the character of the "all violence," drawing no distinctions remaInS that the solution to the seemingly framt;work of strictly national solutions Ulster Protestant community will be between the Republicans and the fascis­ intractable communal divisions in North­ under the rule of the working class. The reached with the withdrawal of the Brit­ tic Loyalist gangs. SWM leader and ern Ireland may very well come from decisive factor in the overall outcome of ish Army and will depend on the circum­ Derry Trades Council chairman Eamonn the outside, for example, on the bayonets the struggle will be the presence or stances surrounding this. In the context McCann joined ICTU tops and assorted of a victorious Red Army of the prole­ absence of a revolutionary party, rooted of massive class mobilisations, directed church leaders at a rally in Derry. tariat of the British Isles-proletarians in the proletariat of all the peoples of as well against imperialism, opportuni- McCann's only criticism OJ the ICTU is from Dublin, Glasgow, Liverpool and these isles. _ 3 DECEMBER 1993 13 of some 86 men, women and children of out in February, the UMWA tops have spoke to Workers Vanguard of how the Miners ... the Branch Davidian religious group out­ sabotaged' militant struggle in the coal prosecution was an attempt to intimidate side Waco, Texas. It was also the BATF fields. Less than a third of the 50,000 (continued from page 16) the entire labor movement: that persecuted Ravenswood, West Vir­ miners at BCOA companies have been "The whole bunch of them tried to make scabs into the mine. Arch has been oper­ ginia Steelworkers striker Bob Buck, called out. Spitting on the miners' tradi­ an example of Donnie and them, to show ating with scabs in Illinois, using thugs who is imprisoned for 33 months because tions, Trumka has turned picket lines if you were even thinking about hav­ from Southeastern Security and Investi­ he refused to wear a wire and spy on his into sieves, as the bosses mine coal using ing any kind of strike you're looking at 40 years." gations in Ohio who patrol the coal fields union brothers for the feds. foremen and scabs. The UMWA tops in in black uniforms and using night scopes. The indictment claims the miners Washington have refused to throw up Two years after the courts sentenced the On July 22, a three-car convoy of com­ "gathered together devices designed and picket lines at the railroads or power A.T. Massey miners, eight miners in pany goons and scabs was exiting the intended to damage and disable motor plants, although miners have been heart­ Milburn, West Virginia were jailed on Ruffner mine at Slab Fork Hollow Road vehicles, commonly known as rocks, jack ened to See that some scab coal trains another frame-up, and abandoned by the when a shot struck a scab contractor in rocks, jack plates and molotov cocktails" have fallen off the tracks. union; seven of those miners are stilI the back of the head-from the direction and "hurled rocks at said vehicles." The Workers Vanguard warned at the time in jail. of where the company thugs were. But feds cite union-run "strike training" held that Trumka's 1988 contract "is a knife The Partisan Defense Committee has state troopers swept in, deputizing some last spring to show the miners had been at the throat of the UMWA" which "ac­ demanded that the charges against the of the Elite Security goons in their search instructed not to stop scabs. This "train­ cepts the massive layoffs of union min­ Logan County miners be dropped. The for "evidence." ing" was nothing but Trumka and the ers and sanctions the explosive growth Mine Workers union must mobilize its The company immediately used UMW A tops acting as open enforcers for of non-union mines." That is exactly strength to defend these victimized another weapon in the .capitalists' frame­ the coal bosses and using the union as a what has happened. Today the UMWA union men. But that will take a sharp up arsenal-the "racketeering" charge. tool for overseeing the workers on behalf covers only 30 percent of the coal mined fight inside the UMWA against a lead­ Arch, which is owned in part by the of the capitalist state. in the U.S. But Trumka brags that he ership that has sold out union conditions, wealthy Texas Hunt family, filed RICO Now the Clinton administration is try­ has "increased productivity 200 percent, sold out union militants and presided charges against the union, seeking to ing to bankrupt the union, filing along­ cut costs and made the coal companies over the decimation of a union that was chill any effort at solidarity with the min­ side the state of Virginia in a Supreme hundreds of millions in profits" (letter once proud to be the shock troops of ers. Scandalously, Trumka issued a state­ Court case that will impose the largest to the New York Times, 2 I October). American labor. ment that violence "has no place in the civil penalties ever in the U.S. The union Parroting the "workplace of the future" From West Virginia to Illinois, the coal coal fields" and pledging "whatever sup­ has appealed the decision in Virginia rhetoric of his friend Clinton, Trumka miners are seeing the price that workers port and assistance we can give in that courts that recently reinstated fines of lectures the miners that "it's not just busi­ and minorities pay for being chained to investigation"-an investigation by the $52 million against the union in the long ness that must change. Unions must the Democratic Party. The union tops bosses' cops that was clearly an effort 1989 Pittston strike, when thousands of change too .. Both must leave behind the hustled votes for open shop Clinton, but to frame the union and the strikers. miners were arrested in mass civil dis­ adversarial, 'us vs. them' mentality of workers know they got jobbed as the For weeks the state of West Virginia obedience. The judges were particularly the past." But it's Trumka's "selective yuppie bubba flaunts his hatred of came up with nothing, until early this outraged at the strikers' occupation of strike" that has ripped the union to shreds, the unions, blacks and Hispanics, immi­ month the' U.S. attorney announced Pittston's Moss No.3 coal processing beginning with its first use in the disas­ grants and the poor. As capitalists trumpet the sweeping frame-up against the min­ plant-an act which could have sparked trous A. T. Massey strike in 1984-85. the "death of communism," they intensify ers. After decades of coal company a real class battle against the coal bosses. Four miners from that strike-Donnie their exploitation of workers from Mex­ violence aimed at the unions, the indict­ But Trumka, bowing to his Democratic and David Thornsbury, Arnold Height­ ico to the coal fields of West Virginia. ment by Charles Miller, Clinton's newly Party friends, shut down the occupation land and James Smith-remain in prison There must be an outpouring of appointed U.S. attorney, proclaims that and the strike ended in defeat. on sentences of 35-45 years because they powerful labor support for the Logan violence "has no place in a labor dispute"! defended their union. As in the Logan County miners and their union. To put The "conspiracy" indictment is based on For a Class-Struggle Fight to County case today, the UMWA. tops an end to the capitalist frame-up sys­ charges by the FBI and the Bureau of Save the Union! refused to lift a finger in their defense. tem once and for all, we must build Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, archi­ The UMWA is fighting for its life, but Vanita Thornsbury, the wife of local a workers party that will fight for tects of the bloody siege and massacre from the beginning of the miners walk- union president Donnie Thornsbury, socialist revolution .•

seeking, just as Wall Street has done by Wall Street means superprofits for the But what provoked the change was a with the NAFTA agreement, to consoli­ corporate fat cats at the expense of the record low rice harvest, not a shift away Trade War ... date their own hinterlands as an exclu­ workers of the U.S., Canada and Mexico. from Japan's historic policy of self­ (continued from page I) sive market, source of raw materials And after Mexico, Washington intends sufficiency ("food security") as protec­ jobs." In fact; what "free trade" poses is and supply of cheap labor. As the New to progressively tear down protective tion against an embargo by its imperialist the rape pf the Mexican economy by York Times (23 August 1992) put it: tariffs and buy up industry throughout rivals. The U.S., harkening back to the the far more powerful U.S. imperialist "With the end of the cold war and its Latin American sphere of influence. 1920s and '30s, is seeking to use its mil­ bourgeoisie, Meanwhile, Clinton played the stagnation of negotiations aimed at The other countries of the Western itary muscle to edge out its imperialist the racist "yellow peril" card to sell simultaneously lowering trade barriers Hemisphere have all-except for Cuba competitors. But this time around, Japan NAFTA, arguing that the alternative globally, these regional pacts are emerg­ -'-signed agreements to join the trade is not about to accept the "5:5:3" ratio would be the Japanese using Mexico as ing as the trade side of what has been pact. And the Cuban deformed workers in naval strength agreed to in the 1922 a low-wage production platform to flood widely called the New World Order." In state is in the cross hairs of Yankee impe­ Washington conference, which gave it the U.S. with cheap products. In fact, Southeast Asia, Japan is moving toward rialism. Class-conscious workers around only 60 percent as many warships as the U.S. rulers want to use Mexico as a the formation of a modern-day version the world must defend Cuba! U.S. or Britain. low-wage production platform to flood of its 1930s East Asian "Co-Prosperity Despite the cynical ballyhoo about In the period following World War II Japan, Europe and the rest of the world Sphere." The Frankfurt bankers, who "free trade," NAFTA is a profoundly pro­ when the U.S. was the uncontested heg­ (including the U.S.) with cheap prod­ already dominate West Europe, are now tectionist measure aimed'at freezing out emonic imperialist power, the American uCts. It is vitally necessary to forge an gobbling up East Europe-what Hitler imperialist rivals. The myriad so-called bourgeoisie sang the praises of "free internationalist proletarian leadership­ was unable to hold with the Wehrmacht "rules of national origin" in the NAFTA trade" and cynically contrasted the U.S. 's in North America, Europe and around the Fourth Reich is annexing with the agreement would put up stiff protection­ supposedly "democratic" spirit to its cap­ the world--capable of uniting the work­ D-mark. ist barriers against goods not made pri­ italist rivals who had colonial empires ing masses across national bor~ers in "Everything is in place-after 500 marily in North America. Imagine how and formal spheres of influence. The U.S. joint class struggle against the capital­ years-to build a true 'new world' in the Wall Street would be screaming about imperialists could present themselves as ists' reactionary offensive. Western Hemisphere." That is the trium­ trade restraints if Tokyo decided to opponents of barriers to "free trade" since phalist evaluation of NAFTA by former require 62.5 percent "Japanese content" their economic strength assured them the NAFTA and Chase Manhattan Bank chairman David for all cars sold in their country. advantage over their capitalist competi­ Imperialist Trade War Rockefeller, summing up the U.S. bour­ The mounting trade warfare between tors. But behind the "free trade" rhetoric The capitalist world is coalescing into geoisie's belief in its "Manifest Destiny" the imperialist powers is reflected in was the same vicious exploitation and three rival imperialist trade blocs, with to lord it over two continents. The whole­ their bitter conflicts in the so-called Uru­ immiseration of the Third World as the the German Fourth Reich and Japan Inc. sale takeover of the Mexican economy guay Round negotiations under the Gen­ classic colonial powers. eral Agreement on Tariffs and Trade· The present policy of the Clinton (GATT), which must be concluded by a White House goes back to the previous U.S.-imposed December 15 deadline. Democratic administration under Jimmy Clinton turned last month's Seattle meet­ Carter, which was taken with the grand ing of the heretofore obscure Asia­ design of "trilateralism." The Trilateral Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Commission was set up by David Rocke­ Marxist Working-Class Biweekly of the Spartacist League forum into a sounding board for his pro­ feller in the I 970s, bringing together posal for a Pacific Rim "free trade zone." leaders from the U.S., Europe and Japan. The New York Times (19 November) But while the trilateralists purported o $ 7/24 issues of Workers Vanguard o $3/3 issues of reported that "part of the Administra­ (includes English-language Spartac;st) Women and Revolution to solve the world's problems through , tion's strategy is to use the specter of an o New 0 Renewal imperialist cooperation, piously intoning international rates: o $2/4 issues of Asian trading agreement as a spur­ that "a minimum of social justice and $25/24 issues-Airmail $7/24 issues-Seamail Espartaco (en espano!) some say a threat-to the European (includes Spanish-language reform will be necessary for stability" 0$2/10 introductory issues of Workers Vanguard Spartac;st) Community, particularly France, to make (Trilateral Commission, Towards a Ren­ the agricultural concessions needed to ovated International System [1977]), the Name __~ ______conclude the GATT negotiations." Ger­ Carter administration was propping up many has decided to call its French Address ______grisly dictators like Nicaragua's So­ junior partner to order, as Le Monde (26 moza, staging "human rights" coups in ______Apt.# ____ Phone( __ ) ______November) made clear with its headline, Bolivia and EI Salvador, and its National "Germany: It Must Be Signed!" City ______State _____ Zi p ____--== Security Council was headed by the stri­ 589 In the meantime. under pressure from dent Cold Warrior (and Trilateral Com­ Make checks payable/mail to: Spartacist Publ~shing Co., Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 Washington, Japan has now agreed to mission Executive Director) Zbigniew 'open its rice market to foreign imports. Brzezinski. Today under Trilateralist

14 WORKERS VANGUARD Airlines ... ( continued from page 16) American Airlines Mugs AIDS Patient were fighting mad by strike time. A "flashlight vigil" at O'Hare Airport in Chicago on the night of November 17 Not only does American Airl.ines but they quickly dropped this line. and reducing the rate of circulation by turned into a militant rally of 600 angry management want their flight atten­ AIDS is not communicated by sitting half. Federal health officials report flight attendants. The next day 20 per­ dants to look like ever-smiling Barbie on a seat and breathing air. Their sec­ 23 Continental Airlines crew mem­ cent of all air travel in the U.S. was dolls, they also treat people with AIDS ond story was that Holless was not bers were infected with tuberculosis, grounded. like criminals. On November 14, Chi­ pulled off the flight because he had after exposure on several long interna­ From the beginning, APFA announced cago cops boarded a San Francisco­ AIDS, but because the crew wanted to tional flights. they wOl,lld strike for· just 11 days, bound plane at O'Hare Airport and ensure he was healthy enough to make The airline unions have been push­ ing to correct this. Chris Witkowski, rashly trusting that government regula­ dragged Timothy Holless off the flight, the flight. Clearly, the airline was not tions on training new attendants would charging him with disorderly con­ trying to help the passenger but to vic­ director of air safety and health of the timize him. Only after the incident was Association of Flight Attendants said, prevent the hiring of scabs. Crandall duct. His crime? Holless had. "re­ responded by announcing that 4,000 of fused to cover sores on his skin and widely publicized on national TV did "Aircraft ventilation systems need to be designed assuming that TB is pres­ their jobs were "history." The need for cease giving himself intravenous treat­ American's management issue a public ent." The Centers for Disease Control, immediate solidarity strike action was ment," reported the San Francisco "apology. " What breathtaking hypocrisy! The the Transportation Secretary and Con­ as clear as day. And there was plenty of Chronicle (18 November). Fellow pas­ gress are still "investigating." For that sentiment for it. The flight attendants sengers, who were outraged by the air­ airline industry routinely and willfully line's vicious bigotry, said Holless "was exposes people to infectious diseases matter, a major reason the airlines have strike was hugely popular. At New York's banned smoking is not concern about LaGuardia Airport, picketing flight aUen­ dragged by two police officers down like tuberculosis, which is communica­ the aisle on his stomach, screaming ble through the air, in order to cut the passengers' or crew members' dants were joined by 200 members of pain." fuel costs. Since the mid-'80s, the health, which they obviously could care the overwhelmingly black and Hispanic in . airlines have stopped pumping fresh less about, but in order to get away Local 1199 hospital workers union. In At first American tried to alibi the affair by claiming they were only trying air through the passenger cabin, sub~ with their drastically reduced air flow; Los Angeles, unions from the Pipefitters stituting a mixture of 50 percent fresh Public health is part of lahor's fight to the Screen Actors Guild were planning to .ensure other passengers were "not exposed" to a communicable disease, air . and 50· percent recirculated air against capitalism. a solidarity rally for November 24. With the heavily unionized airline workers facing job losses and pay cuts across the board, there was widespread sentiment for joining the American flight including the heroic unionists who saved being-will get many of the economic necessary for the new workplace." attendants in strike action, particularly the lives of scores of passengers when and work rule concessions he demanded. . With "friends" like that, labor doesn't at United, where the pilots and Machin­ a USAir jet skidded off the runway at More significantly, Clinton stepped need enemies. What labor does need is ists unions began an ineffective "work LaGuardia last year. into the fray in order to head off widen­ a workers party, not a toothless electoral to rule" the day after American went But leaders of the Transport Workers ing labor unrest in the airline industry. machine for labor refonnism, but a lead­ back to work. Facing a corporate giant Union (TWU), representing thousands of Republican or Democratic, the govern­ ership for militant working-class strug­ with a $2 billion war chest, workers grounds crew workers at American, ment belongs to the bosses and is back­ gle fighting for a workers government. knew a victory for Crandall would inten­ criminally hid behind a no-strike clause ing their drive for a higher rate of ex­ This means ousting the pro-capitalist sify United's campaign to wrench multi­ and ordered their members to continue ploitation by "restructuring" the airline union leaders who shackle labor to the billion dollar givebacks from its unions, working. Picket lines mean don't cross! industry on the backs of the workers. Democrats and liquidate any struggle under the threat to set up non-union Yet APFA leaders actually encouraged Notably, the White House called every that goes beyond the bounds of capitalist spin-off operations. American pilots to keep flying, and also major U.S. airline for approval of Clin­ "law and order." A United Airlines shop steward in pushed ugly anti-immigrant racism when ton's arbitration plan before he went Class-struggle leadership is urgently San Francisco told WV that Denver UA they called the FBI and Immigration public with it. Here we see in action the needed in the airline industry, where the Machinists had staged a solidarity "sick­ cops to check the citizenship status of bourgeois state-the executive commit­ bosses' divide-and-rule tactics are con­ out" on the first day of the strike. A some scabs on a Miami-L.A. flight. tee for the entire capitalist class. stantly pitting worker against worker and Northwest Machinist in the Bay Area When Clinton intervened to stop the The Democrats' "friend of labor" union against union. What's necessary told us there was tremendous sentiment strike, APFA leaders led pickets in veneer has worn pretty damn thin. It today is a drive to organize the unorgan­ at his union meeting to link up with the Dallas in chanting, "Thank you Bill!" was Democrat Jimmy Carter's White ized and to forge a single industrial union AA strikers. In Boston, members of But a harbinger of what the flight atten­ House that cooked up the blueprint of all airline workers to stand against Teamsters Local 25 clogged the Callahan dants can expect from this open shop which Republican Reagan later used to the bosses. Many workers today accept Tunnel leading to Logan to protest huge Democrat was given when Clinton's smash the PATCO air traffic control­ a key lesson of the PATCO strike-that wage cuts at an airport fuel supplier. FAA gave Crandall the go-ahead to slash lers union-with the help of Machinists solidarity in action to shut down the air­ USAir flight attendants were preparing the training time for flight attendants chief Winpisinger and the rest of the ports could have stopped Reagan's to picket the shuttle over big cuts from six weeks to ten days to speed up AFL-CIO tops who kept the airplanes union-busting cold, saving a lot of jobs imposed by owner Citibank. In NYC, the hiring of scab replacements. Under flying. Now Clinton's labor secretary and livelihoods in the 1980s. Today, as USAir wiped out the jobs of ground ser­ arbitration, Crandall-whose draconian Robert Reich threatens: "The jury is still· Clinton carries on Reagan's dirty work, vice workers just short of retirement, contract remains in effect for the time out on whether the traditional union is we must act on that lesson .•

Clinton, behind the Seattle "vision state­ "peace" under what he called "ultra­ ment" about a "brave new era for trade" imperialism." Lenin's book imperialism what is developing is a three-cornered (1916) was an extended polemic against trade war. this illusion. Elsewhere Lenin, the leader of the 1917 October Revolution, wrote: Trade Wars Lead to "There is no doubt that the trend of Shooting Wars development is towards a single world trust absorbing all enterprises without Not surprisingly, the crystallization of exception and all states without excep­ imperialist trading blocs has been ac­ tion. But this development proceeds companied by military moves as the in such circumstances, at such a pace, imperialist powers gear up to defend through such contradictions, conflicts and upheavals-not only economic but their spheres of influence. Gennany and political, national, etc.-that inevitably Japan, which have a long way to go to imperialism will burst and capitalism bring their military force into line with will be transformed into its opposite their economic strength, both recently long before one world trust materialises, before the 'ultra-imperialist', world­ used UN "humanitarian" missions (the wide amalgamation of national finance fonner to Somalia, the latter to Cam­ capitals takes place." bodia) to break constitutional bans on -"Preface to N. Bukharin's sending troops abroad. In the face of Pamphlet, Imperialism and To placate U.S. and British Imperialism, under the 5:5:3 ratio of naval tonnage longstanding pacifist sentiment among the World Economy" decreed by the 1922 Washington conference the Japanese Navy was forced (December 1915) the Japanese population, which recalls to destroy Battleship Tosa and other warships. the horrors of the American A-bombing Only under an international social­ of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, senior Japa­ Japanese atomic reactors, but it can also ment declared that the main risk to the ist system can there be a hannonious nese leaders have recently begun openly be used to build nuclear weapons. Mean­ U.S. was "Gennany and/or Japan discon­ development of productive forces. Under talking of developing nuclear weapons while, for years South Korea has been necting from multilateral security and capitalism, rivalries among imperialist capacity, supposedly to deal with the crawling with nuclear weapons and economic arrangements and pursuing an powers are ultimately settled by war, for "threat" from North Korea. At July's American troops targeted at the North independent course" (International Secu­ the international extension of production Group of Seven summit in Tokyo, Japan Korean defonned workers state. Imperi­ rity, Spring 1993). is in contradiction with the outmoded quietly resisted a statement in favor of alist hands off North Korea! The various schemes being mooted nation-state. As mounting trade war and indefinitely extending the Nuclear Non­ But the most clear and present danger about for international cooperation are a interimperialist rivalry point toward war, proliferation Treaty, which presently to humanity remains the U.S., the most cover for a growing drive toward war. it is desperately necessary for the world runs out in 1995. powerful imperialist power and the only The idea of interimperialist cooperation proletariat-above all in the belly of the And amid all the manufactured alann one to ever use atomic weapons on human has a long pedigree, from the founding U.S. imperialist beast-to overthrow the over North Korea (which has one small beings. With the destruction of the Soviet of the United Nations to its predeces­ capitalist system. This is the task of a operating nuclear reactor), the Japanese Union, U.S. leaders are intent on main­ sor, the League of Nations. Opportunist Trotskyist world party of socialist revo­ government recently imported several taining their hegemonic military posi­ "socialists" have often given credence lution, forged in the internationalist tra­ tons of plutonium. The plutonium will tion. A 1991 document supervised by to such. utopias. During World War J, dition of Lenin's Bolsheviks and the be used to fuel the next generation of the Pentagon's Director of Net Assess- the social-pacifist Kautsky called for early Communist International. _ 3 DECEMBER 1993 15 I W.RIt£R"'''''',. "take no prisoners" tactics. When he finally accepted, after secretly phoning the White Hollse to ask for intervention, Binding Arbitration: Trap for Labor it was only because the flight attendants were putting a huge dent in the compa­ ny's profit margin. After five days, the strike was grounded by intervention from the Clinton White House. While many ~trikers saw this as a victory over Crandall, we warn that binding arbitra­ tion and government intervention are Flight Attendants weapons in the companies' hands. The workers can only rely on their own organized strength. The strike was a battle for survival for flight attendants, who have seen their pay plummet 40 percent under Clip American's Wings giveback terms imposed ten years ago. Under a two-tier wage system introduced CHICAGO-A solid five-day strike .w by Crandall. flight attendants make as by 21,000 flight attendants beginning little as $14.000 a year after several November 18 caught American Airlines years on the job. Many single mothers bosses with theIr pants down. Arrogant working for American have been forced American Airlines CEO Robert Crandall to apply for food stamps to make ends thought he could bully the largely female meet. Fueling the strikers' anger was the Association of Professional Flight Atten­ company's openly sexist treatment of the dants (APFA) into submission, threat­ 85 percent female union. "Just a bunch ening to replace the strikers with of skirts" is how one picket summed scabs if they didn't surrender uncon­ up the company's attitude toward the ditionally. But. in their first strike ever, workers, who are forced into getting the American flight attendants held company-approved haircuts and humili­ their ground and gave Crandall a well­ ating "courtesy classes" when they are deserved lesson. hired. Crandall believes flight attendants At least 80 percent of the company's should get out of the job market and into flights were canceled, piling up losses the kitchen after being exploited by as high as $25-50 million a day. Militant, American for a few years. vocal picket lines surrounded American Crandall entered the current contract terminals at 40 airports across the coun­ struggle pleading poverty and deter­ try. One of 350 chanting picketers at mined to wring more profits out of New York's Kennedy Airport vowed, APFA. The company trained its guns ''I'll walk here as long as I have to, even on seniority and scheduling rights, de­ _ if I have to die on a picket line." But manding that all flight attendant slots the flight attendants could not beat back over the FAA minimum be staffed by II. "reserves," who must work on as little American's union-busting on their own. WV Photo Airline workers were inspired by the vic­ Striking flight attendants at JFK Airport in New York City, November 18. Solid as two hours' notice. When a 30-day torious strike of Air France workers last strike shut down the airline, but union tops folded it into binding arbitration. "cooling off period" expired on October month, when they took ov~r the runways 29, Crandall imposed these contractual and shut down Paris airports. And that's disastrous betrayal of the 1981 PATCO an arbitrated settlement. Three days after terms and canceled all vacations for the what was needed here-to shut down the air traffic controllers strike. the strike began, the union unsuccess­ next two months, daring APFA to strike. airports through a powerful nationwide But from the outset, the APFA lead­ fully called on Crandalt to join it in After American declared third-quarter airline industry strike which would ership was intent on pressuring the anti­ appealing for binding arbitration. Cran­ profits of $118 million, APFA members reverse the tide of defeat begun by the labor Clinton administration to impose dall likes to be known as "Fang" for his continued on page 15 Clinton's Anti-Labor Vendetta Defend Logan County Miners! Framed-Up Miners Face 25-50 Years

NOVEMBER 29-ln a savage attack by (RCOA). All eight union men are being the Clinton administration on all labor. framed up on "conspiracy to interfere eight striking members of the United with interstate commerce," for allegedly Mine Workers of America (UMWA) in throwing rocks at a convoy of scab vehi­ Logan County. West Virginia have been cles in July at Arch Mineral's Ruffner framed up on federal conspiracy charges. mine in Yoyln in Logan County. Lowe UMWA L'1cal 5958 president Ernie _ faces additional conspiracy charges in Woods, 51; \" captain Fred Carver, min­ connection with the death of a scab con­ ers Dayno Adkins. Curtis Browning, tractor at the same time. The charges are Jerry May, Larry Ray Perry and Luther a classic example of the frame-up system Shell face 25 years in prison and half­ long used to terrorize workers and million dollar fines. Another strike cap­ minorities and destroy their will to fight. tain and chair of the local's mine safety Thus far, the UMWA International and committee, Jerry Dale Lowe. faces a vir­ president Ri~hard Trumka have refused tual life sentence: 50 years in jail and a . to lift a finger for the eight unionists. $ I million fine. who are slated to go to trial on January Coal miners picket Arch Mineral's Ruffner Mine In May. Clinton'S FBI/BATF This frame-up flows directly from 24. Trumka took down picket lines before frame-up of West Virginia miners targets all labor. the coal bosses' all-out effort to shat­ a strike settlement was reached, turning ter the union. The coal fields have the disastrous "selective strike" into a The entire union and all of labor must scores of provocative gun thugs from a been inundated with gun thugs, fed­ rout and giving the coal bosses a clear come to their aid! An injury to one is an professional union-busting outfit from eral marshals and state troopers during signal that he was abandoning the injury to all! North Carolina called Elite Security. the union's almost ten-month "selective indicted miners. There must be an urgent The eight miners are being railroaded Shots have been fired into the union strike" against some companies in the - fight in the UMWA to mobilize in because they did their duty on the picket picket shack and Arch's goons escort Bituminous Coal Operators Association defense of the Logan County -miners! line. At the Ruffner mine, Arch hired continued on page 14 16 3 DECEMBER 1993