TH£ USWA faces hard strike at Wheeling-Pitt 3 New boo~,{ on women's exploitation 12 WW II: Why U.S. and Japan went to war 16

A SOCIALIST NEWSWEEKLY PUBLISHEil IN THE INTERESTS OF WORKING PEOPLE VOL. 49/NO. 32 AUGUST 16, 1985 75 CENTS

Nicaraguans organ1ze• South African racists to defeat stage treason frame-up

contras BY FRED FELDMAN BY BILL GRETTER Sixteen opponents of apartheid were MANAGUA. Nicaragua - Nicaragua placed on trial in Pietermaritzburg. South is a country at war. It is fighting an army of Africa. on charges of treason. If convicted, mercenaries - known as the conrras - · they could face death sentences. who are armed. organized and financed by The 16 are leaders of the United Demo­ the U.S. government. cratic Front (UDF), an anti-apartheid coali­ tion of 600 community organizations, The people of Nicaragua. led by their unions. women's groups. student organiza­ work'ers' and peasants' government. are tions, and others. It has a membership of organizing both to confront the ongoing at­ about 2 million. tacks by the contras and to prepare for the The UDF has been an organizer of many possibility of a direct military assault by ·bQYcotts, massive funeral processions for U.S . troops in the future. They are confi­ victims of apartheid, and other protests. dent they can defeat both. The 16 are charged with forming an al­ Big blows dealt to contras liance with the outlawed African National Congress, which has wide sympathy and The Nicaraguans opened a major offen­ sive against the mercenaries at the begin­ support in the Black townships and reser­ vations. Twenty-two other leaders of the ning of this year. Brigadier Commander Hugo Torres told reporters July 18 that in UDF face treason charges as well. the first six months of 1985, 2,300 contras Those on trial include Archie Gumede and Albertina Sisulu, the UDF joint presi­ had been killed. dents. The trial opened August 5. The .contras infiltrate Nicaragua from· Albertina Sisulu is the wife of Walter Government troops move to attack Capetown protest against racist apartheid system base camps across the borders in Honduras Sisulu , who with Nelson Mandela was con­ and Costa Rica. Commander Torres esti­ victed of treason 21 years ago. These two mates that there are now 9.000 of these of Mineworkers, an all-Black union repre­ Africa's foreign earnings. The country is African National Congress leaders are still mercenaries, 3,000 presently in Nicaragua. senting workers in South Africa's most im­ the world's leading gold producer and in prison. The largest of the mercenary gr~>Up s is portant industry. After a meeting of 450 some 400,000 Blacks are employed in gold the Nicaraguan Democratic Force (FDN), The opening of the trial followed the Au­ voting union delegates, general secretary mmes. based in Honduras. The FDN commanders gust I murder of Victoria Mxenge, a leader Cyril Ramaphosa set an August 25 strike Ramaphosa said the union would also are former members of the hated National of the UDF and defense attorney for the 16. date if the demand for a 22 percent wage strike if the apartheid regime went ahead Guard of Anastasio Somoza, the dictator Anti-apartheid fighters in South Africa are incre.ase is not negotiated. The union also with threats to expel migrant workers to who ruled Nicaragua until he was over­ convinced that she was the victim of gov­ wants an end to wage differentials and job other African countries. The regime has thrown in 1979. Most of the FDN chiefs ernment-backed death squads, which are discrimination in the mines. said it would carry out these deportations if are known and despised within Nicaragua increasingly active. White mine workers currently receive at economic sanctions are imposed on South for their atrocities against the people during The trial of the 16 is the latest move by least five times the pay of Blacks. This rep­ Africa. Ramaphosa said migrants from the Somoza tyranny. the apartheid regime in its effort to intimi­ resents a major gain for Blacks from the other parts of Africa make up 40 percent of The FDN has nine "regional com­ date and brutalize opponents of the racist 20-to-1 ratios that were common before the NUM members . (See article on page II.) mands," each m~de up of two to four "task system. As of August 6 the government has Black union was formed. He also said that the NUM would initiate forces." A task force, at full strength, has imprisoned-according to its own figures Union officials predicted that at least boycotts of white-owned businesses in 300 men. - more than I ,400 people and 24 have ~;a lf the country's 550,000 miners would mining towns unless the regime li fts the The FDN regional commands are con­ been killed since the state of emergency honor a strike call , and said it would affect state of emergency decree. Effecti ve centrated in the mountainous north-central was proclaimed for 36 urban areas July 20. 70 percent of gold mines and 20 percent of boycotts. strongly supported by the Black part of Nicaragua: Region I (Nueva The government 's repression has drawn coal mines. auto workers union, are still under way in Continued on Page 5 a sharp response from the National Union Gold exports account for half of Sou.th cities in the eastern Cape Province. The apartheid regime and the mine own­ ers have struck hard at the NUM over the past year. Seven miners we re killed and at Congress offers no relief to farmers least 400 were injured during a walkout by 64.000 miners in September 1984. House and Senate subcommittees have price level at which the government would not rescue farmers who have fallen deer Another died during a strike in April , been haggling all summer over the contents offer support loans and otlrer assistance to into debt," the Monitor predicted . which ended when two mining companies of the 1985 Farm· Bill to be presented to farmers, the administration hoped to lower A recent Agricultural Department study fired 15,000 miners. Congress for a vote this fall .· The 1981 the prevailing market price of U.S. farm shows that 45 percent of price support and On August 3 more than 2,000 Black Farm Bill expires October 1 . exports. · other payments last year went to 12 percent mourners in Zwidc. South Africa, defied a Every four years Washington lawmakers The proposal called for phasing out gov­ of all farmers with sales above $100.000. ban on outdoor funeral services. Despite go through this ritual of attempting to piece ernment payments to farmers and reducing The proposed payments in the new bill the threatening presence of soldiers and together legislation incorporating a wide funds for credit," soil conservation, and would also give the lion's share of benefit s cops in armored vehicles wielding automa­ range of agricultural interests. For weeks rural electrification. These measures, Ag­ to the best-off farmers, not those most in tic rifles. shotguns. und whips. they buried riculture Department officials conceded, need. II young victim ~ of the apartheid regime . would mean less income for farmers per Continued on Page 22 Continued on Page lJ unit of each crop sold. thus forcing EDITORIAL thousands of farmers·off the land. Reagan · supporters never had much they juggle formulas for lowering com­ chance of getting thei r full program Cuba hosts broad conference modity price supports and the amount of through Congress. But it has strengthened land that should be taken out of production. their position in the horsetrading going on Well-heeled lobbyists, representing dairy in the Congressional agriculture commit­ on Third World foreign ~ebt processors, grain merchants, meat packers, tees that are preparing the new farm bill . and other big profiteers in the food indus­ According to a report in the July 24 BY MARY-ALICE WATERS The fi ve-day meeting ended here in the try, stalk the Capitol's halls buttonholing Christian Science Monitor, the com­ HAVANA - .. We are waging a struggle earl y morning hours of Augu~t 4. More legislators in order to influence the final promise shaping up "will probably restrain for national liberation,'' declared Cuban than 1.200 delegates we re present from 3 I package. . federal spending, which has risen to the President Fidel Castro in his closi ng speech countries of the Cari bbean and Latin Amer­ In this entire process, however, one highest level in history during the last four here to the Meeting on the Foreign Debt of ica. The political breadth of the partici­ voice is not listened to - the voice of years. But with thousands of farmers on the Latin America and the Caribbeun. We are pants and the character of the democratic . working farmers. The views of men and financial ropes, almost no one involved ex­ not waiting for the masses to develop a discussion were unprecedented. No one women who till the soil and tend livestock, pects drastic cutbacks." socialist consciousness, he said. Latin could remember anything even remotely producing a big share of the country's food The basic price support policies of the Arnericu must lead ·the fight today for the similar held anytime. anywhere in th1 and fiber. are not considered. It should 198 1 Farm Bill will be retai ned , but the independence and sovereignty of the hemisphere. come as no. surprise then that the new bill, price levels at which government loans and peoples of the entire Third World. "We Among the delegate~ were more than as it is currently shaping up, will not serve payments are offered will be reduced. Both have the right to determine our own future I 00 trade union leaders and representatives the interests of working farmers any better Democratic and Republican legislators, the free of plunder."' he said . of peasant organizations, I I 5 heads of par­ than the 1981 legislation. Monitor reported, "are coming together be­ While the slaves. who created the wealth tics and other political organizations, plus Earlier this year, President Reagan's ad­ hind what a senior House Democratic aide of today's imperialist exploiters, had to representatives of hundreds of other politi­ ministration unveiled, with great fanfare, a calls a ' transition' approach. ' We have to purchase freedom from their masters. Cas­ cal groups . There were 50 delegates repre­ new farm program that aimed to make U.S. send [farmers] a signal that this is a period tro declared to thunderous applause. "we senting variou ~ women·~ organizations. farm products more competitive on the of adjustment,' says th ~ aide." mu~t conquer our freedom without com­ Castro announced at a press conference the world market. By drastically reducing the During this adjustment, the bill "would pensating our oppressors. Continued on .Page 6 -SELLING OUR PRESS· AT THE PLANT GATE------IW PETE McDERMOTT li ve in the same communities, and their thinking about their struggle . United Steelworkers members had Seeing this as an attack on all PITISBURGH - Before the closely follow each other's strug­ One worker said. "All the mills set up an informational picket line workers· rights to read and discuss Wheeling-Pittsburgh steel strike gles against the bosses. will eventually be shut down in the protesting U.S. Steel's contracting political ideas, socialist workers began July 2 1. socialist workers in On the picket line at the struck Mon Valley. and there's nothing out jobs to nonunion workers. are organizing with others to fight Pittsburgh were working to estab­ Wheeling-Pittsburgh mill, for ex­ that can be done about it ... Three of these workers got copies against this violation of democrat­ lish regular plant-gate sales of the ample, workers were very inter­ Another felt that "People should of the Militant. ic. rights. The American Civil Militant and Perspectiva Mundial. ested in a Militalll article about the go out on strike at Wheeling-Pitt The efforts of Militant sales Liberties Union has agreed to take its Spanish-language sister publi­ recently negotiated national outer­ and call the company's bluff' in teams to get out the truth at plant this case and a longtime worker in cation, at some of the main indus­ wear contract agreed to by the its demand for concessions from gates about the attacks on U.S. the plant also volunteered to help. trial plants and coal mines in ILGWU. They wanted to see what workers. workers and Washington's war He told the Militant supporters. Western Pennsylvania where they could learn from it to better Other steelworkers we talked to moves against Nicaragua have not "While I don' t agree with every­ Wheeling-Pittsburgh's main plant fi ght against their own boss. thought that if their mills would been looked upon kindly by the thing you say, J agree with your is located. We have had sales at get a continuous caster or other steel bosses. At the Allegheny­ right to say it.'' two garment factories organized Workers at the Homestead. technological advances. their jobs Ludlum mill in Brackenridge. Most of the steel mills we sell at by the International Ladies· Gar­ Clairton. and Edgar Thompson would be saved. The fact that Pennsylvania. for example a com­ in this area are located in small ment Workers· Union (ILGWU); steel mills where we sell the Mili­ Wheeling-Pittsburgh has some of pany security guard called local towns like Brackenridge, and local two coal mines organized by the tant have been hit with layoffs and the most modern steel-produc ing cops to prevent a Militant sales cops in all of them are at the beck United Mine Workers; and several face more attacks on their wage~ facilities and was still g,oing for team from selling in front of the and call of the steel owners. This steel mills organized by the United and benefits. more concessions was another plant. The local cop physicall y fight at Brackenridge can have an Steelworkers . Before the Wheeling-Pittsburgh topic of discussion. threatened sales-team members. impact on other towns where simi­ Worke rs at some of these plants strike steelworkers at Homestead We recently sold the Militant at confiscated their Militants, and lar attacks on workers rights have and mines outside of Pittsburgh told Militallf sales teams some l)f the Clairton steel mill where threatened to arrest them. occurred. SWP wins court ruling on ballot rights in Seattle

BY LISA HICKLER candidates. Only those candidates receiv­ Munro told reporters he wa ~ '·-;orry to see need alternative parties on the ballot. The SEATILE - A victory for democratic ing one percent of of the total vote cast for the ruling.'' Munro said that the state is Democrats and R ep ublican~ offer no solu­ ri g~ t s was won here when the federal ap­ all candidates qualified for statewide bal­ considering appealing the deci~ion . tions to these pressing social problem ~ ... peals court ruled in favor of the Socialist lot. The court v ict or~ was front-page news in Workers Party in its lawsuit against Wash­ Prior to 1977. minor parties were re­ Seattle. The Seaule Post-lntelli~encn· ington state election law. The SWP sought quired to hold nominating conventions in quoted SWP spokesperson Dan Fein who Canadian socialist to overturn legislation passed in 1977 re­ order to select a candidate for the general said. ··we don't think it's just a victory for was dedicated fighter stricting ballot access for what the law call s election ballot. The new law kept the same Socialist Workers candidates, but it open~ "minor" parties - alternatives to the Dem­ procedure. but now the nominating con­ up the door and makes it easier for Black Joan Newbigging. for many years a ocratic and Republican parties. The ruling vention qualified minor party candidates political pat1ies. labor union parties, and leader o f the Revolutionary Workers was made July 17 . only for the primary ballot. others to get on the ballot." League (RWL). Canadian section of the The three-judge panel called the 1977 The socialists and their attorney were law "dramatic': and "draco nian." The A representative for the Seattle SWP de­ Fourth International. died in Montreal July unable to find a single other state that re­ bated Secretary of State Munro on a 3 1 after a lo ng fight with cancer. judges said that Washington citizens were quired a party to receive a certain percen­ being denied the fundamental ·'opportu·nity twe nty-minute KING radio show. The Born in 1942. Newbigging joined the tage of votes in order to qualify for the gen­ socialist pointed out that. "Just now, as the Canadian section in 1965 and for nearly 20 to organize, campaign, and vote outside eral election ballot. [In 1982. an SWP-in­ the framework of the dominant po litical U.S. rulers arc waging an unjust war years served on its Central Committee. She itiated lawsuit stmck down a similar sys­ against the people of Nicaragua. and we had recently been the editor of Socialist parties," and that the law was therefore un­ te m in Michigan.] constitutional. see our unions being busted. and the rights Voice , the RWL's English-language news­ The SWP's attorney. Daniel Hoyt Washington Se,cretary of State Ralph of women and Blacks under attack. we paper. and continued to work in the party's Smith. had pointed out in court briefs that national office until shortly before her death. the effect of the 1977 law was the virtual elimination of minor parties from the gen, Jury acquits New York 8 + ofconspiracy eral election ballot for statewide office. The law required that minor parties run NEW YORK - The trial in federal dis­ Taylor. and Jose Rfos. in primary elections against major part y trict court here of nine political activists on The defendants denied any conspiracy. charges of conspiracy ended in acquittal. They charged that they were on trial for However. all but one of the defendants, their political activity. New U.S. maneuvers known as the New York 8 + , were con­ The jury in rejecting the conspiracy victed on lesser charges of possessing charges acquitted Jose Rfos of the only to begin in Caribbean charge against him. The other defendants still face sentenc­ . The United States government will Attention subscribers ing on the lesser charges. These charges begin new military maneuvers in the Carib­ This is the last issue of the Militant be­ carry a maximum of 5-10 years each. The bean this September in St. Lucia .. fore our two-week summer break. The U.S. attorney said the government "will The new maneuvers, code named "Exo­ next issue will be the one dated Sep- press for substantial prison terms." Sen­ tic Palm," will involve an unknown tember 6. · tencing is set for October I . number of U.S. warships and soldiers as The prosecution's case rested on the tes­ well as 500 soldiers and cops from Jamaica timony of Howard L. Bonds, a government and from the eastern Caribbean nations of weapons and using 'false identification. informer, who claimed that he participated Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados. The verdict was announced August 5. in a "plot." In summing up the case to the Dominica, Grenada, St. Vincent and the jury, defense attorney Lennox S. Hinds The defendants were charged with "con­ Grenadines, St. Kitts-Nevis, and St. said that the defendants were engaged in spiring" to · commit robberies and jail Lucia. political action. He called Bonds a "gov­ breaks, not with carrying them out. No - The participants will include the armies ernmental provocateur." such actions ever occurred. of Barbados and Jamaica (the only coun­ At a press conference after the verdict Militant tries in the Eastern Caribbean with regular The defendants in the case were Coltrane was announced, the defendants character­ Joan Newbigging at 1973 convention of standing armies), as well as .the regional Chimurenga, Roger Wareham, Omowale ized the conspiracy charges against them as Canadian League for Socialist Action, participants in the U.S. -trained Special Clay, Ruth Lateefah Carter, Yvette Kelley, "a government conspiracy" against Black predecessor of Revolutionary Workers Service Units. Viola Plummer, Collette Pean, Robert revolutionaries. League. The Militant tells the truth - Subscribe today! The Militant That way you'll get facts about Washington's Closing news date: August 6, 1985 war against working people at home and abroad: Editor: MALIK MIAH from El Salvador and Nicaragua, to embattled Managing editor: workers and farmers in the United States. Read MARGARET JA YKO our proposals on how to stop the bipartisan U.S. Business Manager: intervention in Central America and the Carib­ LEE MARTTNOALE Editorial Staff: Susan Apstein, Fred Feldman, Andrea bean a nd the employe r offensive here. Read our Gonzalez, Pat Grogan , Arthur Hu ghes, Cindy Jaquith, ideas on what it will take to replace this system of Tom Leonard, Karen Newlon, Harry Ring. exploitation, racism, and sexism with a system Published weekly except two weeks in August. the last that's in the interest of working people. week of December. and the first week of January by the At the plant gates, picket lines, and unemploy­ Militant (ISSN 0026-3885) , 14 Charles Lane, New ment lines, the Militant is the re, reporting the York , N.Y. 10014. Telephone: Editorial Office . (2 12) news, participating in the struggle . To subscribe 243-6392: Busi ness Office. (2 12) 929-3486. today, fill o ut the attached coupon. Correspondence concerning subscriptions or changes of address should be addressed to The Mili­ Enclosed is: 11 $.1 for 72 weeks rl $7.') for 6 month.~ tant Business Office, J4 Charles Lane, New York, r l $24 for 1 year [ 1 A contribution N.Y. 10014. Second-class postage paid at New York, N.Y. POST­ Name ------­ MASTER: Send address changes to The Militant. 14 Charles Lane. New York . N.Y . 10014. Subscriptions: Address ------­ U.S. $24.00 a year. outside U.S. $30.00. By first-class CitytState!Zip ------­ mail: U.S ., Canada, and Mexico: $60.00. Write for air­ Telephone ------­ mail rates to all other countries. Signed articles by contributors do not necessarily rep­ Union/Organization ------­ resent the Mililani's views. These are expressed in edito­ Send to Militant, 14 Charles L.me. New York, NY 10014 rials.

The Militant August 16; 1985 USWA faces hard strike ·at Wheeling-Pitt

BY SALLY MORROW media have tried to undermine solidarity by PITTSBURGH - The 8.600 members giving a fal se impression of the contract of the United Steelworkers of America Wheeling-Pittsburgh tried to impose. They (USWA) who have been forced on strike use the fi gure $ 17 .50 an hour to describe by the owners of the Wheeling-Pittsburgh the offer without ever explaining what the Steel Corp. are preparing for a long. diffi­ real hourly wage rate is . cult battle. "When the strike staned all the media The workers at nine mills walked out was against us," one picketing steelworker July 2 1 after Wheeling-Pittsburgh - the in Wheeling said. "They tried to make it country's seventh largest steel producer ­ seem like we' re all making $17.50 an hour. tore up its contract with the USW A and im­ My real wages would be more like $7.60 posed major cuts in wages. benefits. and an hour." rights. This included a $5.85 cut in wages Another commented, "They're trying to and benefits. gutting of seniority provi­ make it look like we're highly paid. Even sions. and elimination of the grievance pro­ before the company forced us out we were cedure. The company used a federal bank­ living from paycheck to paycheck." ruptcy coun ruling as the pretext. Answers corporate mythology Union members explain that legally the company's arrogant action in unilaterally A leaflet distributed by USWA Local dissolving the contract. which was due to 11 90 is a reprint of a letter from the local's executi ve board to the Ste·ubenville News expire in July 1986. constitutes a lockout. · ~ik .;; ,Wlk: Register answering company propaganda. The walkout is solid. Although the com­ AFL-CIO News pany is keeping ihe plants open. in hopes Picketing workers reveal real hourly pay before taxes under offer imposed by com­ It begins: "A corporate mythology has been of staning a back-to-work movement. ex­ pany. Wheeling-Pittsburgh and capitalist media try to create impression that com­ created in the Ohio and Mon valleys. It 's been created by company executives and ecutives admitted July 3 1 that no worker pany offered $17.50 an hour. had crossed the picket line. local newspaper editors to conceal the true facts concerning the work stoppage at Growing solidarity company wants to bleed us for $500 mil­ fects everyone ." Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel." Solidarity is beginning to be organized lion more by: She was very pleased that USWA Local In response to the company's line, "Why by the rest of the USWA. Union officials "Slashing wages $3 to $4 an hour. Tak­ 1124 from Massawan had sent people to would anyone refuse to work for $ 17.50 an have voiced strong suppon for the strike. ing away two weeks vacation. Eliminating the rally. There was one of their signs up at hour," the leaflet explains: and USW A President Lynn Williams holidays, premium pay, incentive pay, and the USW A Local I 190 union hall in "Wheeling-Pittsburgh is not offering its walked picket lines as the walkout began. supplem ental unemployment benefits. Steubenville that said. "Concessions are employees $17.50 an hour. That is the av­ The strike was a major to.pic of discus­ Making us pay $4.000 a year for medical below our lifestyle. Local I 124 Massawan erage cost incurred by the company for sion at the District 31 conference in treatment. Doing away with our seniority with you all the way." each hour worked. It includes things like and our grievance procedure. pensions, insurance, workers and un­ Chicago July 2fr-27. The district - the 'Go steelworkers' largest in the union - voted to send a bus­ ''If that isn't enough, Wheeling-Pitt says employment compensation , social secwity load of workers to a solidarity rally pro­ it will cut everything even more any time it In Charleroi, Pennsylvania, wives of taxes, employees' state and federal income jected to be held at the Monessen, Pennsyl­ wants to. · Steelworkers were distributing literature taxes, etc. The bottom line is, if Wheeling­ vani a, mill on August 26. Large rallies in "What the company is saying is: No con­ and "Go Steelworkers" bumper stickers at Pittsburgh employees accept the com­ suppon of the Wheeling-Pittsburgh work­ tract. What we' re saying is: No contract, a shopping mall. pany's offer, their average take-home pay ers have already taken place in Cleveland no work. If the company beats us, you A Black woman whose husband is a 94- will be somewhere between $5.50 and $6 and Warren. Ohio. could be next. year-old retired steelworker said her hus­ an hour." U.S. Steel Chai rman David Roderick ''Wheeling-Pitt, union buster. If the band fe lt the retirees were being held hos­ The letter to the editor concludes, Steelworkers lose. you lose .. , tage to force. the workers back to work. has made it clear that all the big steel com­ "Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel employees in panies stand behind Wheeling-Pittsburgh On August 3 Militant correspondents Wheeling-Pittsburgti did not make a $5.7 the steel communities of the Ohio and Mon in trying to impose devastating concessions went to Steubenville, Ohio; Wheeling. million pension-fund payment in late July. valleys have a choice. We can let wealthy on the steelworkers. · West Virginia; and Charleroi. Pennsyl­ attributing this to the strike. Union officials stockholders keep the common stock of a accuse the company of trying to scare the In a news conference in Pittsburgh he vania - cities near Wheeling-Pittsburgh large Delaware-chartered steel corpora­ workers with' talk of termi.nati·ng the pen­ stated that U.S. Steel. the largest employer mills. tion. And we can let them rob us of over a We found strong suppon for the walk­ sion plan. in the steel industry, would seek to get any half billion dollars so they can pay off their cuts in labor costs negotiated by Wheeling­ out among USW A members and other The woman commented , "Blacks fought debts to the big banks and insurance com­ Pittsburgh. workers. hard to get into Wheeling-Pittsburgh and panies with our wages, benefits, pensions, worked hard. and now we have no pen­ As he put it. "Whatever rates are ln Steubenville, Ohio, the USW A held a and community purchasing power. sion." negotiated by the Steelworkers over time. solidarity parade and rally August 3. It also "Or we can fight to keep what has be~n that's obviously the rates that we would had a booth at a street fair. staffed by the A worker from the General Motors handed down to us over three generations have to have to remain competitive. Those wives of stri kers. They distributed litera­ Fisher Body plant near here supponed the of blood, sweat, and tears in the steel mills are ti)e rates that we would intend to have ture put out by the union to explain the is­ waJkout. commenting that the companies and steel communities of the Ohio and "just want more and more. You' ve got to and those are the rates that we will have." sues in the strike. They also sold Mon valleys." sandwiches to raise money for the strike. make a stand somewhere." US W A contracts with five other steel As this letter indicates, the issues in this A steelworker at the picket line in companies.expire in July 1986. Unl ike pre­ Many of the other booth~ at tlie street first major steel strike since 1959 are life­ Wheeling, West Virginia, said , "Three vious negotilftions. the USWA wi II be bar­ fair had union literature on the fight with and-death ones, for the union movement times we've taken wage cuts. Now they gaining company by company. This weak­ Wheeling-Pittsburgh. "Go Steel workers" and for all working · people. Solidarity bumper stickers were everywhere - on want us to work for $5 an hour." should be expressed loud and clear by the ened position i ~ a result of the steel bosses Another said ,"What I got 13 years ago ending national coordinated bargaining last cars. clothes. and strollers. labor movement and other organizations of when I started is more than what they're of­ May. Literature and bumper stickers were the oppressed and exploited. Adopting available from many local businesses as fering now." The outcome of the fight against Wheel­ support resolutions, giving money, and ing-Pittsburgh will have a direct impact on well. The company and the big-business joining picket lines is a good way to begin. the outcome of these other contract battles. A Black steelworker from the Steuben­ vi lle mill said he thought it would be a long strike. "It isn't just ourfight ," he said. " It's Wheeling-Pittsburgh: union buster · an attack on all steelworkers and all work­ Kanak independence fighters A leafl et distributed by the union ex­ ers." plains. "Union people built this country "It staned with PATCO ," he explained, and union people are today under attack as referring to the air-traffic controllers who stage 5-day blockade of ~nine never before. faced government strike-breaking and ''The newest union buster is Wheeling­ union-busting in 1981. BY GEORGE KAPLAN ing in their own self-defense the Kanaks Pittsburgh. Steel Corporation. The com­ A woman staffing the USWA booth Fighters for Kanak rights and indepen­ built .barricades in the street and blockaded pany is trying to use its financial position to said, " It looks like the strike will last a long dence for the South Pacific island nation of the large nickel mine in Thio." wipe out 50 years of progress for the time because neither side wants to give up. New Caledonia ·have staged a five-day The FLNKS revealed that the paramilit­ United Steelworkers of America. What's needed is suppon from other blockade at the Thio nickel mine. The ary police attacking the Kanak people in "The Steelworkers have tried to help the unions all over in order for it to end sooner. blockade, which reportedly ended August Thio " hav~ now been joined by the French company. We sacrificed $ 120 million. The People have to reali ze · that this strike af- 3. protested stepped-up attacks by French colonial army'' and that shootings and other colonial forces against Kanak people in repressive actions ''are sti ll continuing." Thio. According to the August I issue of the Garment workers back steel strike New Caledonia was conquered by Paris L£• Monde. French sharpshooters France in 1853. were given orders at one point to shoot pro­ BY ANNA SCHELL against Wheeling-Pittsburgh workers are Thio has been a center of resistance to testers in Thio in the event of a clash with CHARLEROI. Pa.- This Mon Valley going to spread. After the president of U.S. the French occupation and of support for colonial cops. town, near the Allenpon and Monessen! Steel said they would demand the same pay the Kanak Socialist National Liberation The FLNKS voiced strong support to the Wheeling-Pittsburgh (WPS) steel mills. is cuts as Wheeling-Pittsburgh obtained. a Front (FLNKS), which has been leading Committee of Struggle in Thio. It called on the location of Charland Sportswear Com­ woman coworker said, "It looks like every­ the independence struggle. "all the Committees of Struggle throughout pany. a garment factory organized by the one is going to be on strike. The whole area While the French government issued a Kanaky (New Caledonia) to initiate actions· Inte rn ational Ladies' Garment Workers' is going to be desperate. ·• statement claiming that "the situation has of suppon and solidarity." Union (ILGWU). Many wives. relatives, completely settled down" in Thio, the po­ It pointed out "the hypocrisy of the and friends of Wheeling-Pittsburgh steel­ Another woman drove her van to work litical office of the FLNKS revealed in an French government which, while claiming with a big sign painted on it. It read. "The workers are employed here. August 5 statement that the situation is still to seek accommodation in New Caledonia. federal government gives WPS the power Union members are discussing how we "extremely grave ... in life moves to intensify the repressive ac­ can suppon the Wheeling-Pittsburgh work­ to deny human ri ghts. We gave enough. The statement was distributed to the tions against the Kanak population." Carney [a top officer at Wheeli ng­ ers. "If people don't stand behind them it's U.S. media by Susanna Ounei, an official The statement concluded by calling on Pittsburgh] must go." She said her boy­ going to affect all of us. They deserve our reresentative of the FLNKS who is soon to international opinion "to stand against the suppon ," said one worker. There was friend , who is a WPS worker, painted the begin a speaking tour to twenty U.S. cities. criminal actions of the French government, sign. agreement with this sentiment. "On July 29 the French colonial which while pretending to defend the Our union recently held off an effort to Many women in our plant also have paramilitary police initiated a campaign of human rights of Blacks in South Africa, at­ cut the shop minimum to $3.85 per hour. bumper stickers which say. "Go Steel­ terror directed against the Kanak popula­ tacks the human rights of the Kanak people Many workers think attacks like the one workers." tion of that area," stated the FLNKS. "Act- in its own colony."

AQgust 16, 1~85 Tb~ , Mi1i~t 3 Nicaragua contras: creatures of the U.S. government Ex-leader describes CIA control of mercenary army BY HARRY RING (After Washington backed Britain his head. declaring. "Shit. who wrote this? The August 5 issue of the New Republic against Argentina in the Malvina ~ War in It sounds like all you want is to get back magazine features an imponant exposure 1982 , the Argentine officers quit the Hon­ what you lost. You have to write some­ of the U.S. -organized counterrevolution­ duran assignment.) thing more progressive. more political. Meanwhile the CIA moved to unify We'll get someone from Washington to ary force. the comras. now invading Nica­ Ex-leader of contras Edgar Chamorro ragua. some of the contra forces . help you." with CIA terror manual in Miami. Entitled, "Confessions of a contra - Soon after the groups were united, the ··George" was flown in from Washing­ How the CIA masterminds the Nicaraguan ClA invited Chamorro to become a mem­ ton and wrote a new draft. insurgency," it's written by former contra ber of the directorate of the Nicaraguan Chamorro observed. "The Americans. I ment before the Sandinistas broke the

leader Edgar Chamorro, along with Je!Ter­ Democratic Force. began to realize. like to make all the crucial n ew~. son Morley. The directorate made its debut at a De­ decisions." "Of course. we played no role in the From 1982to 1984.Chamorrowasadi­ cember 1982 press conference. Chamorro became a full -timer for the mining of the harbors. This was not un­ rector of the Nicaraguan Democratic Force None of the directors. Chamorro says. FDN at $2,000 a month plus expenses. usual. The CIA often gave us credit (or (FDN). the principal contra group. had ever worked together before. He moved to Tegucigalpa. Honduras. to perhaps blame) for operations that we Chamorro's revelations confirm that the In fact. he adds. "I hadn't even met En­ handle the FDN publicity operation - knew nothing about. contras are creatures of the U.S. govern­ rique Bermudez, the former National along with "George" from the CIA . "The CIA employed its team of ·Latino ment. Guardsman who commanded the contra Chamorro says he favored civilian con­ assets' to bomb the Sandinista petroleum Most of the contra leaders are ex-mem­ troops in Honduras. until the rehearsal the trol of the FDN. He was concerned that the tanks in ... Corinto in October 1983." bers of the late dictator Anastasio day before." ex-Guardsmen didn't grasp "the political Chamorro became discouraged because Somoza's murderous NatioRal Guard. The "rehearsal" he refers to was directed dimensions of the struggle ... the CIA wa~ not interested in promoting a They want to wipe out the Sandinista revo­ by Tony Feldman. the CIA agent in charge: "The Argentine officers who trained genuine civil war in Nicaragua wi th what lution and its social gains. a Feldman assistant. Thomas Castillo; plus them." he writes. ·'had told them. 'We're he saw as "democratic" aims. But, as Chamorro demonstrates, what two lawyers to brief them on the U.S. the only people in Latin America who have "The Americans wanted an army they they say and do is determined by Washing­ Neutrality Act. This act is supposed to bar beaten the communists in a war. The way could control." he says. "They didn't want ton. They are a hired proxy force, sub­ private citizens from waging war on to win is to fight a ·'diny war.'' like we did to make an insurrection that was not under stituting for U.S. troops. another country from U.S. territory. in the 1970s. ·" their control." They are , in sum. a mercenary army. A practice question: "Where have you It wasn't just the Argentines. Chamorro To indicate the overhead cost of this ap­ · Chamorro is a member of a wealthy fam­ been getting your money?" comments: "I got a sense of what the CIA proach. Chamorro cites the case of the con­ ily that was influential for many years in "Say your sources want to remain confi­ plans did not include as I allempted to im­ tra allack on the town of Ocotal in June Nicaragua. He describes himself as a dis­ dential ," advised Feldman. Chamorro prove the contras' image. Especially in my 1984. tant cousin of Pedro Chamorro. the editor adds, "a truthful and very clever answer." first year. it was standard contra practice to Timed to coincide with the visit of Sec­ of the daily La Prensa. who was assassi­ ''Have you had any contact with U.S. kill Sandinista prisoners and col­ retary of State George S.hultz to Nicaragua. nated for his criticisms of Somoza. government officials?" laborators.·· the contras attacked Ocotal with the aim of At the peak of the fighting in June 1979, The CIA agents agreed they couldn 't While the CIA saw to it that the cullhroat taking this nonhern city. a month before Somoza fell . he split for finesse that one. "We simply had to lie." ex-Guardsmen had the upper hand in the But the people's militia and other local Miami. There he became involved with (The press conference was held not in FDN , the agency also saw to it that nobody forces rallied to fight back and. in three Nicaraguan emigres opposed to the San­ Miami . but in Ft. Lauderdale "to avoid the but it ran the show. · h o ur~ . forced them to retreat until the San­ dinista revolution. ri sk of demonstrations in Miami.") "Needless to say.'' writes Chamorro. dinista People's Army arrived on the Meanwhile, former members of the Na­ For the press conference. the F.DN direc­ "the civilian directors of the contras did not scene. Twenty-two contras were killed. tional Guard, led by Enrique Bermudez tors wrote a statement of aims and pur­ gain control of the military .... we didn ., A~se~sin g the Ocotal experience. Cham­ and based in Honduras. were engaged in poses. The CIA scrapped it. even gain control of the budget. It took ~ix orro says. " I thought we should try to cap­ border skinnishes with Sandinista troops. The statement. Chamorro explains. months just to get a Nicaraguan keeping ture a town but the CIA said it was impos­ Chamorro confirms that the ex­ "was mo!>tly about the right to private prop­ the books (one of the Argentine~ had been sible . In a way they were right. People in Guardsmen were being trained by Argen­ eny and .was very anticommunist.'' doing them up till then ). Ni<:aragua ~till half helieved the Sandinis­ tine military officers. On reading it, CIA agent Castillo -;hook "And even then we could only approve ta!> were gelling bcller. They weren't ready the budget for troops supplies. for logi!>ti­ for another change. Our troops took the · cal goods such as gasoline and rented lion force until army troops ar­ The pamphlet also includes an interview ment. On .July 2l$. contras ambushed a San­ rived and drove out the contras. Eight mili­ with Dr. Henry Morgentaler. the Canadian Women. Tijerino concluded. should join dinista Anny company. killing 29 soldier~ . tia memhers were killed. as were the head abonion rights activist. Morgentaler has with men . organizing and mobilizing In the following days they damaged two of the Sandini!>ta Defense Committee. four been tried and acquilled four times as a re­ against intervention into Nicaragua and bridge~. one of them on the Pan American member~ of the Ministry of the Interior. sult of his effons to provide safe abortions Central America. hi gh~way seven miles nonh of EstelL Both two children. and another civilian. for women in Quebec and Ontario. Following the speech. women from bridges will be repaired ~oon. The mercenaries suffered much bigger The pamphlet costs $. 95 and can be or­ When the contru~ a11acked La Trinidad. losses. Thineen of them were killed in the dered by writing to Pathfinder Press, 410 more than a dozen countries rose to give greeting!> to suppon the work of various "they didn't accomplish their key objec­ fighting in La Trinidad itself. As they were Wes·t St., New York. N.Y. 10014 (please tive. which was to be able to -;ay they'd chased out of the area. they took many chapte~s of the Continental Front. include $. 75 for postage and handling). taken the town. even if they had to leave an more casualties. By the evening of August This pamphlet represents an imponant There was especially e nthu ~ias tic hour later:· said Lt. Ricardo Centeno. head 2. the army reponed at least 67 contras new tool in the fight to defend abonion applause for women from El Salvador, or'the town's militia ball(llion. They also dead, 16 captured. and an unknown rights for all women. Chile. Honduras, and Costa Ri ca. didn't achieve their ~econdary objective. number wounded.

4 The Militant August 16; 1985 Nicaraguans organize to defeat contras

Continued,from front page The massive incorpor.ation of workers, Segovia, Madriz, and Estell provinces) peasants, youth and women into the mili­ and Region VI (Jinotega and Matagalpa). tias is a key part of this preparation. On For several years, this has been the main July 13, Defense Minister Hurnberto war zone. But recently the scene of some Ortega announced that more than 200,000 of the fighting has shifted more to the south guns have been distributed to the people. and east. The big majority are in the hands of the mi­ On Nicaragua's southern border, the litia members, outside the regular army. U.S.-backed mercenaries of Eden Pas­ The Sandinistas believe the Reagan ad­ lora's Revolutionary Democratic Alliance ministration will not be able to convince (ARDE) has taken hard blows from the the U.S. people to support a prolonged war Sandinistas. In late May and early June, against Nicaragua. To avoid social prob­ Sandinista army troops cleared the ARDE lems at home, the U.S. troops would have contras out of a series of camps along the· to produce quick successes in Nicaragua . border, including their most important The Sandinistas are organizing to make this camp in Nicaraguan territory. impossible. On the Atlantic Coast, there are also Political explanation and military and small units of MISURA and MISURATA , civil defense training for the Nicaraguan contra groups involving Miskito Indians. people is laying the basis for massive resis­ Torres explained that the CIA-organized tance by the Nicaraguan people if the U.S. mercenaries have long had the goal of cap­ invades. Minister of the Interior Tomas turing a major Nicaraguan city or town in Borge explained such resistance would be order to proclaim a "provisional govern­ somewhat like the popular underground ment" that could provide cover for in­ struggle carried out by the masses that led creased U.S. intervention. The Nicaraguan to the 1979 revolution. But Borge also workers and peasants, however, have suc­ pointed out the difference between today cessfully turned back every attempt of the and six years ago: "The difference is that contras to do this. now the people of Nicaragua are in power. The mercenaries have no hope of gain­ Now we have rifles and tanks and iu-til­ Nicaragua's Sandinista People's Militia is central to defense of that country against ing broad popular support. They generall y lery." U.S.-backed counterrevolutionary war. :~.void confrontations with the Sandinista army. Their attacks are instead aimed against economic targets and, above all , against civilians. U.S. behind Costa Rica's border charges In recent weeks, since receiving a boost in financial aid from the U.S. Congress, BY BILL GRETTER government troops and counterrevolution­ the contras have staged a series of bold ter­ MANAGUA, Nicaragua-The Nicara­ ary forces were both present. rorist auacks on civilians in several parts of guan government says the U.S. govern­ On the basis of the commission· s report, the country. ment is behino the deteriorating relations Costa Rica call ed for the OAS to censure between it and the government of Costa Nicaragua. The OAS declined, advocating Role of draft Ri ca. Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega instead that the two countries should re­ Prior to 1984, Torres said, Nicaragua's said August 2 that "outside forces are at sume talks. Nicaragua welcomed the deci- . main defense against the contras was regu­ work, promoting tension and creating arti­ sion. describing it as a loss for no one and lar militia units organized within the war ficial incidents, to spread the war in Cen­ a victory for peace. zones and volunteer militia battalions tral America and find a pretext for direct The Sandinistas received further backing mobilized from other parts of the country. military intervention against Nicaragua." in a July 22 statement by the Contado~a These forces were backed up by the San­ Relations between the two Central group, supporting negotiations between dinista army, which was relatively small at American countries had reached a low Nicaragua and Costa Rica. The Nicaraguan that time. point after a border incident July 26. Nica­ government has repeated the proposal for a In 1984, Nicaragua established its Pat­ ragua charged that three unidentified demilitarized zone as a way to bring peace. riotic Military Service - the draft - t!) planes from Costa Ri can territory violated The Sandinistas have also reiterated that bolster military defense . . Nicaraguan airspace. Costa Rica claimed they wou ld implement it unilaterally on the Thousands of young draftees - affec­ that planes from Nicaragua had attacked Nicaraguan side if Costa Ri ca is not inter­ tionately called "Sandino's cubs" - have Costa Ri ca. When Nicaraguan President ested in discussing it. been organized into powerful Irregular Militant/Michael Baumann Ortega responded that Costa Ri ca was Nora Astorga So far. however, no government has yet Warfare Battalions, or BU s. Trained in being ''pressured" by the U.S. govern­ expressed its willingness to participate in search-and-destroy operations, the BUs ment, which seeks a military solution in such a project without the agreement of the are more experienced , more mobile, and Central America, a Costa Rican presiden­ The OAS agreed to hear the charge and Costa Rican government. But a number have greater fire power than the mil iti a tial spokesperson denounced the descrip­ named the Contadora nations to see the in­ countries are interested in supporting the forces they supplant. The BUs have been a tion as ''slanderous." vestigating commission. The final report Contadora peace initiatives in Central key element in the success of this year's Meanwhi le the Sandinistas have con­ stated that the guardsmen had been killed America. Ortega reported in a meeting Sandinista drive against the contras. tinued to press for dialogue to improve re­ by shots from the Nicaraguan side of the with construction workers here July 30. - The pace of the draft call-ups was quite lations. In a letter August 2. President border. But it said it could not determine These include Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, rapid in early 1985, and has since fallen off Ortega proposed to his Costa Rican coun­ who had fired the shots, since Nicaraguan and Peru . sharply. But military leaders stress that the terpart, Luis Alberto Monge. that the two draft has not been ended. The rh ythm of countries should select their delegations the draft. they say, will depend on ·the and move promptly to hold discussions in army's personnel needs. For now, the rapid Panama in early August. What they're saying about initial deployment of the BUs makes it Tic!> between the two nations have been possible to concentrate more on bllilding strained for some time. In May. the Nicara­ local militia and army reserve units. guan arm y launched ··operation Sov­ Nicaragua: ereignty.'' a military campaign to drive Preparations for direct U.S. intervention U.S.-backed counterrevolutionary (orces The Sandinista People's Revolution The successes of the Sandinistas in push­ out of the southern part of the country. The Speeches by Sandinista leaders ing back the contras have played an impor­ operation involved several major battles, tant role in blocking Washington from an exerted effort to push the mercenaries using U.S. troops directly against Nicara­ out of Nicaraguan territory. They fled gua. across the San Juan River into Costa Ri ca, This is an o uts tanding collection The Sandinista leadership does not con: where they have bases from which they at­ of s tatements by the Sandinista sider a U.S. invasion inevitable. At the tack the Nicaraguan army. leaders to their own people. It same time, they are continually preparing In a protest note August 2, acting Nica­ gives a far more accurate sense of for it, recognizing that the strongest possi­ raguan Foreign Minister Nora Astorga ac­ the s pecial character of the cused the Costa Rican government of vio­ ble defense is the best way to prevent inter­ Nicaraguan Revolutio n than the lating international law by giving the mer­ vention. numerou s interpre tative studies cenaries a free reign in their attacks against that have been published. Nicaragua. "It is really impossible that the Reading through this o ne makes it Costa Rican authorities are unaware of these -facts,'' she said. d ear that the Reagan To prevent border incidents, Nicaragua Adminis tration's effort to destroy has suggested the establishment of a de­ the Sandinistas is one of the worst ll)ilitarized zone under international super­ crimes against humanity ever vision on both sides of the Nicaraguan­ committed in this hemisphere. Costa Rican border. The proposal was Richard Falk made two months ago, after two Costa Professor of Political Science Rican civil guards were killed in an am­ Center of International Studies bush while investigating a report of San­ Princeton Univers ity dinista army troops in Costa Rican terri­ tory. Nicaragua condemned the ambush as a setup by the counterrevolutionaries. The Costa Rican government denounced Nicaragua in the Organization of American States, wh ile Nicaragua had proposed that This new collection contains more than 40 speeches by leaders of the Nicaraguan the nations of the Contadora group - revolution. 400 pages, $7.95 (include $.75 for postage and handling). November 1983 demonstration in Mexico, Panama. Colombia, and Ven­ Available from Pathfinder Press, 410 West Street, New York, NY 10014. Jinotega supported draft to strengthen ezuela - should mediate the dispute in­ defense of Nicaragua stead.

August 16, 1985 _The Militant 5 'We struggle for nationallib~ration' · Cuba hosts broad conference on debt; Latin American, Caribbean unity stressed

Continued from front page payable," Castro joked. "But it is really not day after the meeting. He said there were my fault . II is the mathemati~ians who are also 90 delegates from religious groups, 40 responsible." Simple math, he said, under­ military officers. numerous businessmen, standable by any grade-schooler, proves academic figures, "scientists, artists, and the debt is unpayable. representatives of the press. He then went on to demonstrate, with Despite a concerted effort by Washing­ several variations, that if the 10 percent ton to prevent Latin American and Carib­ formula were applied by all of Latin Amer­ bean governments from participating in ica and the Caribbean for 20 years, the end any semi-official man.ner. the presidents of result would be a collecti ve foreign debt of both Argentina and Bolivia sent personal five times its current size. representatives, Equador was officially Not only would the Latin American represented, and a Nicaraguan government people have handed over $20 billion in tri­ delegation was headed by Yice.-president bute to the imperialist banks, but unpaid in­ Sergio Ramirez. terest on their crushing debt load would Guillermo Ungo. president of the Revo­ generate new,. unpayable debts, rapidly lutionary Democratic Front (FDR). and snowballing to several trillion dollars. Ferman Cienfuegos. a commandanteofthe "That." said Castro. "is our brilliant future. Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front That is what mathematics proves." (FMLN), represented El Salvador. The debt is a cancer, Castro concluded, Significant also was the representation "a ·cancer that multiplies. that spreads from throughout the Caribbean islands and throughout the body, that destroys the the recognition that the English-, French-, body. It requires a surgical removal. Noth­ and Dutch-speaking peoples of the Carib­ ing short of surgery can solve the problem. bean are also part of Latin America. You cannot leave a single malignant cell in In closing the continental meeting, Cas­ the body, or it will metastasize, the tumor tro took the floor simply as the last will be reproduced, and the body clc speaker, from the host country, presenting stroyed." the positions of the Cuban government. That is why, Castro noted, there is no There was no final declaration issued . technical formula that can cure the disease None had been planned, and none was imperialism has created. "It must be surgi­ needed, Castro noted. . cally excized. There is no other solution . The conference had accomplished its Anything else is simply not facing reality." More than 1,200 delegate~ from 31 countries attended Meeting on the Foreign Debt purpose. This was to increase awareness of of Latin America and the Caribbean, including leaders of unions, peasant organiza­ New economic order the economic and social catastrophe facing tions, political parties, women's groups, businessmen, and church groups. Demo­ the peoples of the region who are today Throughout the conference, speakers cratic, fraternal discussion took place on what to do about foreign debt that is crush­ frequently · reiterated that cancellation of being crushed under the weight of a collec­ ing peopleS" of Third World. the foreign debt was only one of several tive foreign debt of some $360 billion .. steps that must be taken to change the The Latin American debt is today larger than was the foreign debt of all Third these issues in his closing remarks. ever steps were necessary to respond to crushing exploitation of the Third World peoples. Without a change in the unequal World countries combined six years ago. Much of the discussion conce!""ing Washington's threats and actions. He trade relations and the integrated, coordi­ As virtually every speaker who took the whether it is economically possible·to pay praised the Peruvian leaders for the calm­ nated development of the economies of the floor agreed, the debt is "unpayable and any portion of the debt was centered ness with which they had handled the an­ region, the gap between the imperialist na­ uncollectible." The discussion at the con­ around the decision of the newly installed nouncement on August 2 that the U .S. gov­ tions and the underdeveloped countries ference focused on how to respond. Peruvian government of Alan Garcfa Perez ernment was suspending economic and will only continue to widen. The tone of the conference was one of to earmark a maximum of 10 percent of miltiary aid to Peru. That gap, Castro pointed out, is today fraternal discussion, not polemical con­ gross export earnings each year for servic­ He also denounced the attempts being frontation. There was a pervasive sense of ing Peru's massive debt of $14 billion. In­ made by Washington and its news agencies increasing like the distance between two vehicles, one of which is moving at 10 strength through unity. expressed by the terest alone on Peru's debt is currently f!Jn ­ such as the Voice of America to counter­ kilometers an hour while the other is travel­ meeting itself. The historic identity of the ning at $ 1 billion a year. Interes t and prin­ pose the Havana conference to the actions ing at 150 kilometers an hour. Latin American and Caribbean peoples - cipal payments due this year amount to 120 of Peru's new government. The Havana Moreover, it was frequently noted, the their common afro-indio-latin roots, and percent of Peru's anticipated foreign ex­ meeting, Castro insisted, could only resources to cancel the debt do exist. A their common struggle today- was felt by change earnings. strengthen Peru's hand and help all who small percentage of the billions of dollars all present. Within that context, a real dis­ During the conference, numerous prom­ were standing up to Washington's imperial now devoted to expenditures on weapons cussion took place, focused on several inent figures, such as former Jamaican demands. systems and war preparations would be points. Prime Minister Michael Manley and An­ sufficient to cancel the foreign debt of the First was the issue of whether or not it is selmo Sule of Chile, head of the. Latin Debt really unpayable entire Third World, as well as provide sig­ economically possible for some countries American Bureau of the Socialist Interna­ Castro also used part of his intervention nificant development resources. If to pay some portion of their debt. Second tional, pointed to the Peruvian example as to explain at length why he remained con­ adopted, such policies could have a posi­ was the question: even if it were possible to the realistic and responsible road for the vinced that the "I 0 percent" road was an il­ tive impact on dealing with unemployment pay, should we pay? And third, what kind debtor nations, both economically and lusion. "I listen with great respect to all and inflation in the imperialist countries, it of forces must be organized, unified, and politically. those who argue that, yes, it is possible to was pointed out. mobilized in order to impose the will of the In his closing remarks Castro em­ pay,'' Castro commented. "But I still do The result, Castro argued, would not be Third World debtor nations on the im­ phasized that Peru could count on the not believe so. Even in those few cases the salvation of capitalism . "There is no perialist banks and their governments? maximum solidarity of all Latin American where it may seem possible, itis not." possible salvation for capitalism," he Castro. addressed himself to each of and Caribbean countries as it took what- "l get blamed for saying the debt is un- noted. But "the problem is that we should not die before capitalism does." Their morals and ours l_n 'IP': Why U.S. dropped A-bomb on Japan A second theme running throughout the discussion was the political question of In August 1945 Washington stration to Moscow that Washingto.n whether the people of the Third World dropped the first atomic bombs on had developed an awesome new have a responsibility to pay debts incurred the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and weapon of unimaginable destructive by governments and individual Nagasaki, killing well over 100,000 power and had no qualms about INTERCONTINENTAL businessmen, or whether justice and mor­ people. It claimed that it had done so using it." PRESS ality are on the side of those who say "even to force Japan's surre nde r and to The same issue of IP also includes · -·~-:: lnprecor if we could pay, we should not pay." "save lives" from a prolongation of an article by Patti liyama on the intern­ In a section of his closing remarks that World War II. ment camps set up in the United I was reminiscent of h"is 1979 speech to the South Africa In the August 19 Intercontinental States during World War II for those United Nations on behalf of the Movement Press, Will Reissner looks behind this of Japanese descent. Black Protests of Non-Aligned Countries, Castro noted myth at the real reasons why Wash­ that posing an obligation to pay the debt Intercontinental Press is a biweekly Defy 'State ington dropped the bombs. of Emerg~ncy' today is like holding an- infant responsible that carries more articles, docu­ for the debts of its parents, or asking a Japan, Reissner explains, was al­ ments, and special features on world ready on the verge of military defeat father to finance the assassination of his politics - from Europe to Oceania own children. months before, and its leaders had of­ and from the Middle East to Central fered to su·rrender on the same terms 40 Years After We owe the oppressors nothing, Castro America - than we have room for Hiroshima and Naaasaki noted. because it is we who created their that were later accepted by Washing­ in the Militant. Subscribe now. ton. But the U.S. rulers rejected the Why Truman wealth, it is they who are indebted to us. Enclosed is 0 $7.50 for 3 months. initial Japanese offer, and decided to Used the Bomb United front against imperialism first drop the bombs. Why? · 0 $15 for 6 months. 0 $30 for 1 year. The third theme of the conference dis­ To head off further Soviet military cussion that Castro addressed dealt with advances in Europe and Asia that Name------Havana~~ Washington's attempt to pit the govern­ would have given more impetus to Address ______Latin American Debt Crllll ments of Latin America and the Caribbean the struggles of working people. against each oth~r and the need for exploit­ City __ State __ Zip _____ Thus, Reissner writes, the bombing ed working people throughout the conti­ of Japan "was the opening shot of the Clip and mail to Intercontinental nent to take the question of the foreign debt U.S. cold war against the Soviet Press, 410 West St., New York, NY in hand and m;tke it their own. Union. It was intended as a demon- 10014. The efforts being made by the Cuban Continued on next page

The Militant August 16, 1985 Garment workers make gains in Nicaragua

BY SETA GALINSKY explained to us that conditions were much MANAGUA. Nicaragua - As the improved over what they were before the loudspeaker announced that a tour of North July 1979 defeat of the U.S.-backed American workers had arrived to express tyranny of Anastasio Somoza. their solidarity with the Nicaraguan At that time. ENA YES was owned by people, applause broke out throughout the North Americans. "Under Somoza. if you plant. We were visiting ENA YES, the Na­ complained. they fired you." Jarqufn told tional Clothing Enterpris.e of Nicaragua, us. Pregnant women who took time off which employs 1.500 workers. from work to have their babies often found Our two-week tour of Nicaragua th is themselves without jobs when they re­ spring was sponsored by Militant/Perspec­ turned. Union organization was illegal. tiva Mundial Tours, Inc. Those of us who Now, workers here are members of the worked in garment shops in the United CST. which meets once every two months. States were impressed by the working con­ Close to 90 percent of the workers attend ditions in the plant. They were better than union meetings. Jarqufn said . Workers ENA VES garment factory in Managua those U.S. workers have despite Nicara­ also participate in the administration of the gua's economic difficulties resulting from factory. the aggression organized by the U.S. gov­ The change from a privately owned ity in the plant. There have also been some mendously since the Sandinista revolution. ernment and decades of imperialist domi­ company under Somoza to a state-owned problems with poor administration. In Nicaragua. all pregnant women have the nation. enterprise has not been easy. The new Jarqufn explained that when there are ri ght to three months' paid maternity leave. ENAYES produces school uniforms. management improved the organization of problems with an administrator- admin­ At ENA YES. they are also given an extra shirts and pants and military uniforms for the work by adding helpe rs to the various istrators are appointed by the state - first payment of 2.000 cordobas [U.S. $7'I). to Nicaraguan soldiers who are defending operations. But at the same time. they did the. union talks to the administrator. buy milk , diapers. and other things a baby their country from the CIA-backed mer­ not change the piece rates paid for the vari­ suggesting ways to resolve the proble m. If needs. cenaries. ous operations. What this meant was that the administrator does not respond, he or ENA YES has an air-conditioned health Margarita Jarqufn. member of the labor some workers doubled and tripled their she can be removed. "We had to remove an clinic on the company property. A relations commission of the Sandinista wages, while their helpers' wages re­ administrator just once.'' Jarqufn told us. gynecologist is available in the mornings Workers Federation (CST) at the plant, mained the same. increasing wage dispar- Benefits for women have expanded tre- and in the afternoon a general practitioner is present. These services are free .. Extremely low-cost child care is also available for women at ENAYES. But 'We struggle for national liberation' workers told us that the center is far away, and the union is trying to get one built at Continued from preceding page o.f the workers and peasants and of the stu­ all Latin America and the Caribbean. the plant. government to increase awareness on the dents of Latin America, these ideas will The breadth and character of the meeting When we visjted the cutting department question of the debt, the need for a new sooner or later triumph," he concluded. itself, the strength of the Latin American (where cloth is cut into pieces for sewing), economic order. and the need for Latin "We are hiding no cards up our sleeves," and Caribbean un ity and consciousness ex­ we were surprised to find that half the American economic coordination and inte­ the Cuban president said. "We have a pressed there will not go unnoted in Wash­ workers were women. In the United States, gration, Castro insisted, are in no way clear-cut, straight-forward strategy. Part of ington, as the U.S. rulers weigh the conse­ cutters are relatively better-paid and areal­ counterposed to anyone or any group seek­ that strategy has been to create awareness." quences of any direct U.S. military inter­ most exclusively male. Jarqufn told us that ing to find a solution to the economic prob­ That is why, he emphasized in his press vention in the region. it was only after the revolution that so lems of the region. They are not counter­ conference the following morning, Cuba Likewise, as the Havana meeting con­ many women became cutters. posed to the efforts of the so-called Car­ has organized five sizable international firmed, there can be no doubt of the his­ When a worker here is hospitalized. he tegena Group, which represents tht: gov­ gatherings in Havana in the last eight toric change that has occurred in the re­ or she is paid 50 percent of the regular sal­ ernments of the II biggest debtor nations weeks - with women, with journalists, lationship of socialist Cuba to the rest of ary. When. sick. a worker gets up to one of Latin America and the Caribbean. To with communist parties, with trade union the region. Despite 26 years of unceasing week's pay. the contrary, they strengthen the Cartegena leaders, and the broadest and most repre­ effort by imperialism to isolate and destroy Workers at ENA YES also have the right Group in its negotiations with the im­ sentative of all, the continental meeting the inflwence of the Cuban revolution, it is to study for two hours a day at company ex­ perialist banks and agencies.' just concluded. Cuba that is today showing the way for­ pense. The CST encourages workers to What is important, he argued, is to "In raising the banner of the foreign debt ward in a historic battle to defend the inter­ take advantage of this to increase their broaden the forces involved in the struggle. and the economic crisis, Cuba is not de­ ests of the people of the entire region, of basic educational. skills. Most of the The only objection we make to the Car­ fending any narrow interest of its own,'' the entire Third World. Nowhere else but teachers are fellow workers. tegena Group, Castro stated, "is that it has Castro insisted. Nor is this something new. Havana could such a broad. democratic, We left ENA YES impressed with the not eJq>anded to include all Latin American Cuba began raising this issue more than 15 and representative gathering have taken improvements the Sandinista revolution· and Caribbean countries, like this meeting years ago, he noted, when Latin America's place. has brought to these workers. · in Havana. The argument is used," he con­ foreign debt was not even $30 billion, and The success of the continentaL Meeting tinued, "that the Cartegena Group are the no one else was even discussing it. on the Foreign Debt of Latin America and Seth Galinsky is a garment worker in· Los main debtors. But this world is not a world "Today, however," he noted, "it is the the Caribbean is a sign of the future, not the Ang(•/es and a member of International of 'main debtors' and ' non-main-debtors.' people of Latin America and the Caribbean past. Nowhere is this being noted with Ladies' Garmelll Workers' Union Local "Let the present Cartegena Group lead, who are taking the banner into their own greater concern than in Washington. 1482 . . let it be the coordinating body, a leading hands. Cuba has no wish to be the standard committee, the founders, whatever. Let. bearer now that the flag has been passed other countries join them. into the surest hands, those of the people." "In our meeting here each country has Indian leader.fights frall1e-up voice no matter whether it has 250 million Solidarity with Nicaraguan people or 100,000 inhabitants. It is a country. It The question of the foreign debt was the BY ERLING SANNES evidence. Judge Benson denied Peltier a has its anthem, its flag, its own rights, and central and unifying concern of the Havana BISMARCK. N. Oak. - Leonard Pel­ new trial. In a 20-page order issued in May it has to be respected." meeting. But as all those present were fully tier has asked the Eighth U.S. Circuit 1985. Judge Benson said the government's Moreover, Castro emphasized, no gov­ aware, the economic aggressi_on of U.S. Court of Appeals. St. Louis, Missouri to failure to turn over the teletype to the de­ ernment can fight alone, without the sup­ imperialism throughout the region is today reverse a District Court ruling that denied fense ·'did neil adversely affect the outcome port of its own people' and the solidarity of combined with Washington's massive sup­ him a new trial. of the trial. .. the peoples of the entire Third World. port for and financing of the war being Peltier. 40. an American Indian Move­ The defense was not aware of the tele­ "To the extent that the ideas we are dis­ waged against the peoples of Nicaragua ment activist, is serving two life se ntence~ type at the 1977 trial. It was only disco­ cussing here leave the ivory towers, to the and El Salvador. Expressions of solidarity for the June 26, 1975 deaths of two FBI vered among thousands of pages of docu­ extent that these ideas become the ideas of were numerous throughout the conference, .agents killed during a shoot-out on !he Pine ments the defense obtained through the the masses, of the peoples of all strata, to and many delegates noted that the battle in Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. Freedom of Information Act several years the extent that these ideas become the ideas Central America is a battle for the future of Throughout his eight-year quest for a new later. trial, Peltier has maintained that his 1977 Peltier's attorneys maintain that shortly conviction in U.S. District Court in Fargo, after the shoot-out the FBI focused on Pel­ North Dakota, was a frame-up and that he tier as a principal suspect and thereafter is innocent. conspired to manufacture evidence against In documents presented to the Appeals him in an effort to secure his conviction. 13 recent speeches and Court on J uly 25. 1985, Peltier's attorneys ··we ask only that a new jury be permit­ FIDEL interviews by Fidel Castro maintain that the government suppressed ted to believe. as the FBI did. that the mur­ covering the U.S.-backed war crucial ballistics evidence at the 1977 trial der weapon had been eliminated by the CASTRO against Nicaragua; prospects that showed a gun Peltier was alleged to government ballistics test," John J. Privit­ SPEECHES 1984·85 have can·ied on the day of the shoot-out era. one of Peltier's attorneys told the Mi/­ for defeating a U.S. invasion; could not have been the weapon that ita/11. the international debt crisis; caused .the death of the two FBI agents. Raul Salinas. coordinator of the St. The evidence in question was an October Louis, Missouri Leonard Peltier Support the politica]·situation in Latin 2, 1975 FBI teletype that said the AR-1) Group. told the Militalll that a 24-hour-a­ America; and Cuba's recent rifle uncovered by the government "con­ day courthouse vigil began in St. Louis on "revolutions" in the economy tains a different firing pin" than the rifle July 14 , when a large crowd gathered to used to fire the shell casings recovered at show their'support and demand a new trial and in defense. Includes the scene of the shooting. for Peltier. The vigil will continue until interview with Excelsior on the In 1984. the Circuit Court of Appeals or­ Peltier's 4 I st birthday on September 12. need to cancel Latin America's dered Judge Paul Benson to give Peltier an From September 3 through I I "Peace evidentiary hearing to determine whether a and Justice·· walks are planned from three $360 billion debt. 280 pp., $6.95 new trial should be granted. Even though major U.S. federal prisons- Springfield. To order, send $6.95 plus .75 postage and handling the 3-day hearing, held in Bismarck, North Missouri; Leavenworth. Kansas; and Mar­ AMERICAS to: Pathfinder Press, 410 West St., NY, NY 10014. Dakota, in October 1984, demonstrated ion. Illinois - to the courthouse in St. that the FBI had suppressed the ballistics Louis.

Augtist 16, 1985 The Militant 7 Denver rally defends Goodnian

BY MICHAEL CHAMBERLAIN local's president. Bob Killian. He prom­ given by Eileen Thournier, one of Good­ DENVER - Unionists ;1nd other defen­ ised the continued support of the local man's coworkers. (See accompanying arti­ ders of democratic rights participated in a union in Goodman's case. Charles Carter. cle.) rally here July 27 in support of Sally Good­ national vice-president of the American Peter Fisher, a worker at General Dy­ man's fight against government harass­ Federation of Government Employees. namics-Electric Boat Division in Connec­ ment. also sent a solidarity message. ticut. sent a message. Fisher had success­ Goodman, a member of United Auto Speaking at the rally was Linda Spear. fully defended hill)Self from similar attacks Workers (UA W) Local 766, works in the president of the Central Denver chapter of three years ago. maintenance department of Martin the National Organi zation for Women, and Goodman closed the rally by explaining, Marietta's military production plant here. James Joy, the executive director of the ''They want to .make an example of me - For the last three years, the Defense Inves­ Colorado American Civil Liberties Union. to teach all Martin workers a lesson. The tigative Service (DIS), a spy arm 6f the De­ Hector Marroquin, a leader of the lesson is. don' t speak out about your ideas, Militant!Salm Kolis fense Department, has carried out a harass­ Socialist . Workers Party and Young don't listen to different ideas. and don't de­ SaUy Goodman ment campaign against Goodman. DIS Socialist Alliance who has bee n fighting fend people who are victims of repression. charges that she is a member of the Young for eight years to win his right to live and But many workers are drawing a different Socialist Alliance, an associate of known work in this country free from fear of de­ lesson," Goodan continued. She explained members of the Socialist Workers Party, portation, also spoke. He told the rally that NOW activists back they are learning the need to fight back and a lesbian. ln April of this year. when the U.S. government's attacks on un­ against these attacks. Goodman refused to answer unconstitu­ documented workers were part of their political rights tional questions about her personal life or larger spy and terrorist scare campaign. Its "Members of my local," Goodman con­ her political beliefs, the DIS suspended her aim, he said, was to intimidate oponents of cluded, "are conducting a campaign of in war industry security clearance. the U.S.-backed war in Central America Tools to Nicaragua . I think most workers The July 27 rally was part of a campaign and supporters of democratic ri ghts. would have been too intimidated to partici­ BY EILEEN THOURNIER to win back Goodman's security clearance. A report on the broad support the Good­ pate if my union and other organizations DENVER - Hundreds of women par­ The rally, held in the UAW Local 766 man case had won at the recent national and individuals had not supported me from ti cipating in the national conference of the hall, was opened with a message from the conference of NOW in New Orleans was the start .. , National Organization for Women (NOW) July 20-21 in New Orleans signed petitions de manding that the Defense Investigative Service reinstate Sall y Goodman's securit y clearance. Employer greed closes Portland plant The petition also called for NOW to sup­ port other individuals with si.milar cases in BY CONNIE ALLEN the future and to publicize Goodman's case PORTLAND, Ore. Columbia in local chapters. Sportswear announced July 22 that they Goodman's case provoked discussion were shutting down their sewing factory among conference goers. Many of these and that workers there would have no jobs women spoke about their experiences with in 90 days. Columbia is an open shop harassment by the companies or the gov­ where the Amalgamated Clothing and Tex­ ernment because of their political ideas or tile Workers Union (ACTWU) was just sexual orientation. recognized three years ago and was forced In addition to signing the petition many to strike to win a contract. The company participants became endorsers of the case. has fought the union all the way. and as one Among the new endorsers were Deborah women worker said. "It wouldn ' t be worth Chernoff. a leader of the successful I 0- working here if it wasn't for the union." week strike of Yale clerical and technical The plant shutdown has generated a dis­ workers and members of the executive cussion about imports and what causes Militant!K.C. Ellis board of Local 34 of the Federation of Uni­ workers in the United States to lose jobs. Workers at Columbia Sportswear protest owner's decision to close plant. versity Employees at Yale: Felicitas Lily The leadership of ACTWU is on a national Melgoza. president of the Negotiating campaign to restrict imports. which .in­ still she hollers." referring to the profits of women should get maternit y benefits," was Committee of United Food and Commer­ cludes blaming low wages paid to workers the owner. one worker's opinion. · cial Workers (UFCW) Local 1-78-A; Doris in other countries for the loss of union jobs Another important discussion took place Another worker was concerned that ''the Lowe, secretary-treasurer UFCW Local in the United States. In our discussion. in the plant on a lunch break where workers company should abide by its contract with 373: Sara Nelson, director of the Karen some workers at Columbia accept this nar­ sat down and wrote a list of demands to the union and help us relocate to other Silkwood Fund: and Clark Johnson .. direc­ row and false view. Others say the bosses· raise in negotiating the plant closure. comparable jobs. It would be a lot better tor of the Department of Human Ri ghts of greed for profits is the problem for workers The key issue was forcing the company for us if they close with the union contract the. International Association of everywhere. to live up to the contract and keep everyone terms." Machinists. One worker sard, for example, the com­ working for the full 90 days with no fake For more information about the Good­ pany is closing the plant "because it's "temporary" layoffs. Connie Allen works at Columbia man case write to Political Rights Defe nse cheaper to manufacture overseas and Gert "1 think we should get three extra Sportswear and is a member (~f ACTWU Fund, 25 W. 3rd Ave .. Denver, Colo. (plant owner Gertrude Boyle) doesn't care months of insurance paid and the pregnant Local 128. R0223. about people here." Another worker said the owner "wants to import the coats we make . They don' t want to pay us the money we're making and they Kansas rally protests farm foreclosure ~ale want cheaper labor." Another point of view was that "it's the Thompson from the Southern Christian Speakers urged support for various farro never-ending greed for profits. The bosses BY DUNCAN WILLIAMS .GOVE, Kan.-Some 100 fanners and Leadership Conference (SCLC) in Kansas bills currently before Congress and called will go anywhere they can to make a bigger their supporters participated in a rally here City; Perry Wilson, Sr., whose farro in for an investigation of the federal credit buck; if it's another state, another country. to protest the foreclosure sale of Darrell Missouri was foreclosed in April; Richard system. or just reopening with another name.to bust and Margaret Ringer's land. In his remarks Ringer explained that the union and slash wages. Working people Aldrich, a representative of District 70 of the International Association of while supporting legislation and legal ac­ everywhere have to stick together. Our The July 22 rally was opened by Darre ll Machinists. which organizes aircraft and tion, "we' re not going to sit and wait for labor makes them rich and we should have Ringer, a leader of the North American agricultural-implement workers in the the bigwigs to solve the problem." the right to a decent job and a living wage. Farro Alliance (NAFA). He announced area •. Carlos Welty of Missouri American We can only win these rights if working · that the charges against himself, his wife He pointed to the hypocrisy of the U.S. Agriculture Movement (AAM); George people stand united." Margaret, and Dave Jensen had been government which "tells us what they [the Naylor of Iowa Farro Unity Coalition; and dropped. These charges were brought as a Sandinistas] are doing in Nicaragua is "It was just greed. her closing down the Ava Bates, a Black farmer from nearby result of a February protest action against a wrong" while "foreclosure is U.S. farm plant. She doesn't care about working Hill City, Kansas, whose farro was fore­ previous foreclosure sale, that of the Jen­ policy." people. We have a new name for her ­ closed two years ago. The rally was Greedy Gert," was the opinion of a union sen farro. At the sale following the rally, several chaired by Roger Allison of NAFA and bids were entered, including bids higher member who has worked at the plant three The rally included a broad array of activ­ Missouri AAM Grassroots. Greetings were to four years. than the first bid from the Federal Land ists from Kansas, Iowa, Missouri, and Col­ heard from Rev. Jesse Jackson and from Bank. After the last ~idder , who had been One woman thought the plant is closing orado. Speakers included Rev. Fuzzy Rep. John Conyers of Michigan. because "Oregon's business climate is given one hour to arrange cash payment, overbalanced toward labor and a lot of failed to return the U .S. marshal inforroed businesses are folding. If they can move the Ringers that the sale had not gone some place they can make a bigger profit Puerto Rican group backs Marroquin through. But the next day the marshals an­ it's worth it to them." nounced that the land had been sold to the Federal Land Bank. Breaks and luncb time became im­ The National Executive Committee of United States. The government action promptu meetings about what the union the National Congress for Puerto Rican against him represents one more regressive Roger Allison and several other speakers could do to fight the plant closing. Every­ Rights (NCPRR) voted at its June meeting step in the legitimate efforts of Puerto pointed to the August 17 rally in Kansas one had ideas for letting the public know to reaffirro that organization's support for Rican, Chicano and Latin American immi­ City as the next step for farmers fighting what kind of company Columbia was. Hector Marroquin's fight to li ve in this grant workers to live and work in the back. This rally is organized and supported When it was discovered that Columbia was country free from fear of deportation. United States. by farm groups, the Kansas City Greater ' a sponsor of a local jazz festival , workers Marroquin, a member of the Socialist "As a student activist in Mexico, he was Central Labor Council, the United Auto circulated a leaflet at the event. It was ti­ Workers Party and the Young Socialist Al­ the target of repression in his homeland. It Workers Community Action Program, in­ tled, "Columbia Sportswear says: Jazz but liance, has been fighting the U .S. govern­ is ironic that in fleeing to the United States, dividual unions, Operation PUSH and not jobs.'' The leaflet also announced an in­ ment attempt to deport him for eight years. his application for residency status after II SCLC in Kansas City, and other civil rights formational picket line in front of the plant In a letter to protest the continued stall­ years here should be endangered as a result groups. for the following Monday to protest the ing of the U .S. government in issuing Mar­ of his exercise of first amendment Proceeds from the rally, called "Defend plant shutdown. roquin the necessary paper to live and work rights ... . the Family Farroer - Come Break Bread The July 29 informational picket line in this country. Diana Caballero Perez, the "We call upon . . . the Immigration and with the People Who Put it on the Table," was held at lunch time and received a lot of president of the NCPRR, wrote, "We reaf­ Naturalization Service to halt deportation will go to a defense fund set up by NAFA coverage in the local media. The most firm our continued support for Mr. Marro­ proceedings and grant Hector Marroquin to defend farmers fighting foreclosure. For popular chant was ''Ten million dollars and quin's determination to remain in the the resident status to which he is entitled." information, call (816) 842-5454.

8 The Militant AUgust ·16, 1985 .· First issue of 'Nouvelle Internationale' comes off press IJ Reissner Quebec workers demonstrate against austerity. New magazine will contribute to discussion in Que- bee on working-class program and strategy. Fr· ench-language Marxt· st J·ouma.l

The following is a translation of the in­ other revolutionaries on communist strate­ brothers and sisters who are struggling in the political continuity of the struggle for troduction to the first issue of Nou.-elle gy, which is the subject of a wide-ranging Central America and other parts of the revolutionary governments of workers and lnternationale, the French-language sis­ international debate among those fighting world. farmers over the last 150 years. It begins ter publication of New International. to end capitalist rule. Nouvelle lnternationale will a)so utilize by recalling what Marx and Engels said on Michel Prairie is a leader of the Revolu­ In this discussion the leaderships of the the experiences of the class struggle today this subject in the Manifestv of the Com­ tionary Workers League/Ligue Ouviere Cuban Communist Party and the San­ to advance the thinking of workers in Que­ muni.\'/ Party. written right on the eve of Revolutionnaire of Canada. He coedits . dinista National Liberation Front have an bec and English Canada on the strategy the revolutionary wave that swept Europe both the English and French-language important and special contribution ro needed to transfonn our unions into real in 1848. It then examines the principal les­ magazines with Mary-Alice Waters, a make. Indeed, they are the first revolution­ weapons of class struggle capable of ad­ sons drawn by Marx and Engels from this l ~ader of the Socialist Workers Party of ary leaderships since the Bolsheviks took vancing the political battle to take power profound revolutionary experience. It the United States. The translation from power in Russia in 1917 to consistently and out of the hands of Canadian imperialism examines the experi ence of the .Paris Com­ the French is by the Militant. over an extended period of time use the and establish in Ottawa a government of mune of 1871. the first government of ex­ new state power to deepen the revolution­ the New Democratic Party [Canada's ploited producers to see the light of day, ary mobilization of the workers and peas­ trade-union based labor party] and the Que­ even if it survived only brieny. Waters's BY MICHEL PRAIRIE ants in their own countries and advance an bec labor movement. Motion today toward anicle then takes up the political and strate­ Nouvelle l nternationa/e is a journal of internationalist and proletarian foreign pol­ this goal requires a struggle for the Quebec gic gains of the Russian revolutions of Marxist theory and politics aimed at work­ icy. This was also the policy and orienta- trade unions to break completely from the 1905 and 1917. It ends with a study of the ing-class militants and all those who are . tion followed by Maurice Bishop in Gre­ bourgeois and reformist policies of the work done by the Bolshevik leaders of the struggling against capitalist exploitation nada prior to his overthrow in October Parti Quebecois and to launch their own Communist International between 1919 and oppression. It will take up the most im­ 1983 by a counterrevolutionary faction political party, a party struggling for this and 1923 to extend the lessons of the Rus­ portant questions of program, strategy, and within the New Jewel Movement. This entire perspective. Only in striving to ad­ sian revolution, and to generalize on an in­ organization confronting those building coup opened the way to the criminal U.S. vance along this road can the multina­ ternational scale the struggle of the revolu­ communist parties today in North America invasion of the island a few days later. tional. pan-Canadian party that our class tionary governments of workers and ex­ and elsewhere in the world. needs to put an end to its explqitation be ploited fanners in the epoch of im­ As its name indicates, Nouvelle lmer­ * * * built. perialism. IUJtionale is an internationalist journal. It Nouvelle l!iternationole is the French­ In this framework. No_uvelle lnter­ The article by Jack Barnes, "Their will deal with political questions facing the language counterpart of New International, nationale will certainly be an important po­ Trotsky w been published only in tians of Montreal, New York, Boston, and perience of struggle over the past quarter workers' states- where capitalist exploit· New 111/enwtivnaf. Miami. We hope that Nouvelle lnter­ century. Similar lessons are being drawn ation has been abolished - as well as the Nou1•elle lnternationafe will be a tool for nationale will meet with interest in other today by other revolutionaries. Thus. there problems that still confront them. building a truly multinational communist French-speaking parts of the world, as is a political convergence of those in the. Within this framework, Nouvelle Inter· party in the Canadian state. Its publication well. Americas and elsewhere who are fighting Mtionale will pay special attention to the responds to a particularly real need today in today to build communist parties capable revolutionary struggle that today grips Quebec, where an important debate within * * * of bringing the exploited masses to power. Central America and the Caribbean. the workers' movement has just begun. This first issue of Nouvelle lnter­ The article looks at some aspects of the Events in this region are now the center of This debate centers on the results of the last nationale takes up the historic continuity of communist continuity of the international world politics. Since 1979 the Nicaraguan, 25 years of struggle against capitalist ex­ Marxism as it relates to one of the mos t im­ workerl\ · movement in the light of these Salvadoran, and Grenadian workers and ploitation and national oppression, and on portant questions of strategy confronting concrete experiences of the past century peasants have proved that the Cuban revo­ the bankruptcy of the class collaborationist the working class in its fight to put a defini­ and a half. ( It should be noted that this ar­ lution of I 959 was not an accident of his­ policy carried out by the leadership of the· tive end to its exploitation by the ticle was written before the coup by a coun­ tory, but rather the beginning of a new his­ labor movement toward the Parti bourgeoisie: the alliance of workers and ten·evolutionary group who overthrew the torical stage in the struggle against im­ Quebecois, a bourgeois nationalist party. exploited farmers in the revolutionary workers· and farmers ' government in Gre­ perialist exploitation and oppression in the The workers and farmers of Quebec are struggle for power. n

August: 16, 1985 The Militant Chevron oil company profits frOm ·apartheid

BY ANIRAL YANEZ gard is too revealing. Business is business. SAN FRANCISCO - Chevron. the and they will intervene in politics multinational o il giant. does not intend to whenever they like. bow to pressure from divestment activists In the 1 930~. Chevron's predcce~so r . and get out of South Africa. according to the corporation ·s chairman. George Ke ller. Standard Oil of California ($ocal). joineJ Chevron does business in South Afri ca all other major U.S. oil companies in a through Caltex , a petroleum refining and boycott of Mex ican oil after Mex ico marketing company owned jointly with nationalized the o il industry to reclaim its own natural resources. In the 195()s, Socal Texaco. Caltex operates a 90.000-barrel~­ per-day ·refinery in Cape Town. South Af­ supported British Petroleum in a two-year rica, according to the Oil & Gas Journ11l . boycott of Iranian oi l when it was nationalized by the government of Moham­ an industry trade n~agazine. and has some 2,000 employees in South Africa. about med Mossadegh. Along with the other oil half of whom are Black or Coloured (of giants. they set out to teach the Iran ians a mixed' race). lesson which culminated in a CIA-or­ Keller defended the company"s South gani~ed coup in 1953 that e nsured o il comr ·African- activities at a Chevron stockhol­ panics their profits. ders' meeting May 7. According to Ke ller. The owners of the oil companies have Caltex is working "to improve conditions been. are. and will be deeply involved in under which [Blacks and Coloureds] work. politics. They say they won't get involved the jobs to which they ·may aspire, and has in politics with regard to South Africa be­ absolutely no segregated conditions .., cause they can live - profitably - with A glowing public relations piece on Cal­ apartheid . lex's South Africa operations appeared in Chaim1an Keller told company stockhol­ the March II Newsweek. It said that com­ ders that he did not anticipate anything pany programs provide housing, sub­ forcing Chevron out of South Africa "in the sidized mortgages. and tu ition for white short or medium term.'' Furthermore. as and "non-white" employees. the apartheid regime's crisis deepens. the Denis Fletcher. the white South African argument is raised that the withdrawal of who is chairman of Caltex, was quoted by U.S. businesses from South Africa will Newsweek saying, ··we will continue to only hurt the Black majority and that U.S. South Africa's Black unions are fighting apartheid while U.S. oil companies such as work as we have in the past, setting the companies like Caltcx contribute to social Chevron profit from and live in peace with South Africa's racist regime. very best example as an employer in South justice. But as those in South Africa who Africa." Presenting itself as an enlightened are struggling and giving their lives for the pressure on giant U.S. compa ni e~ like vestment. pursue complete disin vestment , employer trying to reform apartheid. Chev­ freedom point out, you can't condemn Chevron, demanding it divest now. and sever all social. cultural and diplomatic ron would like to quiet criticism at home apartheid and at the same time invest in the "Labor joins protests against South Af­ ties.·· and mai ntain stabil ity in South Africa. South African economy. U.S. businesses rica's brutal repression·• was the headline Un ion members all over the U.S. can This desire to maintain stability in South .like Chevron's Caltex in fact help prop up of a recent article in OCA W Reporter, the and should becor'ne involved in Free South Africa is part of a bigger picture. With the apartheid · and their investments are not in journal of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Africa coalitions and organize educational acquisition of Gulf Oil. Chevron now has the interests of Blacks or social justice, but Workers Union. It highlighted savage at­ and protest activities in our union locals as an interest in 6 onshore and 15 offshore oil in the inte~ests of profits, pure and simple. tacks against South Africa's Chemical labor's contribution to this fight for human fields in Afri ca and is the operator of a ll 2 1. dignity. Before the acquisition, Chevron already U.S . opponents of South Africa's racist Workers Industrial Union and reported that had a 20 percent interest in five Nigerian syste m can help isolate the apartheid re­ the AFL-CIO has said that if South Africa refuses to change its racist policies. "the Anfhal Ylilie: is a memher t~/ OCA W Local oil fi elds, exploration activities in Chad, gime and give moral, political, and mater­ U.S. should boycott its goods. bar new in- 1-5. ~nd oil-field developments in the Sudan. ial support to the struggle by stepping up So, as Chairman Keller has put it , "the melding of Chevron and Gulf's activities on the [African] continent creates an excel­ lent operational fit." This merging means Central American unionists to tour U.S. Chevron now also has interests in Zaire and Angola, and has expanded its Nigerian op­ BY VALERIE J OHNSON, 30). Philadelphia Labor Committee on tiona! Union locals 1475 and 509, Ameri­ Central America and the Cari bbean (Oct. erations. BOSTON - In response to the deepen­ can Federation of State. County and According to the San Francisco Chroni­ ing U.S . war drive in Central America, a 31- Nov 6). Delaware Labor Committee. Municipal Emplnyees Local 402. the Mas­ cle, Keller told company stockholders that ''Central America Labor Leaders East Wilmington (Nov. 7-10). the Washington. sachusetts State local of District 11 99. and "only three developments could force Coast Tour" has been initiated for the fall . D.C. area comm ittee on Central America the Massachusetts Labor Committee for and the Caribbean (Nov. 11- 16), Mas­ Chevron out of South Africa- if its oper­ The letter e xplaining the tour mailed out to Peace and Human Ri ghts in Central Amer­ sachusetts Labor Committee for Democ­ ations there became unprofitable with no various labor unions states, "Within the ica. The Massachusetts Labor Committee prospect of a turnaround, if a revolution labor movement in particular, there has racy and Human Rights in Central Ameri­ is sponsoring a reception for the delegation occurred. or if the U.S. or South African been active discussion about the impact of ca, Western Massachusetts Labor Commit­ to meet with area labor officials. tee on Central America, and Providence government forced the company out ." U.S. Central American policies on the The individual union officials who are trade union movement and workers ri ghts Labor Committee on Central America in e ndorsing the tour include Nancy Finkels­ So, Chevron's corporate tops are vow­ both here and abroad. While a growing Rhode ! ~and. . tein. president. Massachusetts Teachers ing that they will stay in South Africa and number of U.S. trade unions have spoken According to the East Coast tour office. Association. and Dorncnic Bozzotto. pres­ continue to reap profits under apartheid . out against U.S. military involvement in endorsements include William Win­ ident of Local 26 of the Hotel and Restau­ Fletcher, as Chevron's man in South Af­ the region, many questions re main un­ pisinger, president of the International As­ rant Employee~. A public citywide event is rica, says. "Caltex is not in a position to ac­ answered about the conditions and events sociati on of Machinists: Kenneth planned in Boston. Delegation members tively go out and oppose the government affecting workers and their unions in Cen­ Blaylock. president of the American Fed­ will be addressing the ACTWU Joint on government policies." He would like to tral America ... eration of G~verl)me nt Employees: Henry Board meeting, the United Electrical give the impression that business is busi­ Nichols, president of the National Union of Workers New England District Conven­ Major trade union federations of El Sal­ ness, and must remain aloof from politics. Hospital and Health Care Employees; and ti on. local union meetings. and other reg­ vador, Guatemala. Honduras. and Nicara­ But the record of the o il giants in this re- Ed Clark, International vice-president of ional. state, and local labor gatherings. gua have agreed to send representatives to the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile For further information on the tour and participate. Work ers Union (ACTWUl. how your union local can become in­ IUE local at GE plant These union leaders will present their Planning for the tour in the greater Bos­ volved, contact the organizations li sted perspective on the growing escalation in ton area has gotten under way recentl y. ln­ above or write EAST COAST TOURS. c/o in Massachusetts the war in Central America through public iti aJ local unions that have endorsed the Patt y Will iams. P.O. Box 38. Brookline. forums, meetings with U.S. trade unions tour include Service Employees lntema- Mass. 02146. Telephone (617) 277-7259. raises aid for CST and union officials. and media interviews. BY VALERIE J OHNSON The delegation includes: Francisco BOSTON - The Sandinista Workers Acosta from El Salvador, currently U.S. Calif. lAM local supports CST appeal Federation (CST), the largest union federa­ and Canadian representative of his labor tion in Nicaragua, appealed to the labor federation; FENASTRAS; Marta Alicia movement worldwide to initiate a Peace Rivera , representative in the U.S. of the BY SYLVI A HANSEN unions including the JAM, AFSCME, and Solidarity campaign in July. National Association of Salvadoran SAN DlEGO - The Sandinista Work­ AFT, UFW, ACTWU, and the Steelwork­ A response to the CST campaign is un­ Educators (ANDES); Sebastian Castro. ers Federation (CST) recently issued an ap­ ers. The stated purpose of the fund is to derway in the General Electric plant (GE) head of North American Relations for the peal to trade unions throughout the world provide humanitarian aid to Nicaraguan in Lynn , Mass., organized by members of International Relations Department of San­ asking for solidarity with Nicaraguan unions whose members suffer greatly from the International Union of Electronic dinista Workers Federation (CST). the workers. The appeal included a request for the policies of the Reagan Administration. Workers (TUE) Local201 . Union members largest union federati on in Nicaragua; financial contributions that would be used The letter signed by these U.S. labor lead­ have contributed close to $500 for aid to Miguel Cienfuentes from the National to help offset the destruction caused by ers states, ' For four years. gangs of "con­ Nicaraguan unionists. Committee of Trade Union Unity (CNUS) contra (counterrevolutionary) attacks in tras" armed and trained by the CIA have in­ A letter signed by a number of IUE 201 of Guatemala; and a representative from that country. These attacks have the full vaded Nicaragua and carried out kidnap­ members, including a shop steward, is the union of Honduran Work ers (FUTH). backing of Washington. · pings, rapes, sabotage. and murder. The being circulated. The letter states in part: FUTH is comprised mainly of industrial One of the U,S. union bodies responding toll for the Nicaraguan people has reached "We understand how important union-to­ workers in urban areas of Honduras and is to the appeal was International Association 8,500 casualties, including over 4,000 union solidarity is, including intern ational part of the leadership of the movement of Machinists (lAM) Local 1125. Local killed, many of them women, children, and solidarity. We are completely against the aga.i nst the militarization of Honduras by 11 25 represents workers at a General Dy­ the elderly.· .. Reagan Administration's interference in the United States. namics military production plant here. The Other unions wishing to express their your country's affairs, and its support for The initial sponsors and the iti nerary of union's decision was reported in a recent solidarity with the CST, which is the the contra war against your country. We the tour are: Central Ameri ca Solidarity issue of the local's newsletter as follows: largest trade union federation in Nicara­ are sending the enclosed check as a token Association Labor Committee, Boston "Members at the July l ith meeti ng also gua, can send support statements and fi ­ of our solidarity with your struggle as (Oct. 15-22), New Jersey Labor Commit­ voted to contribute $ 100 to the Nicaragua nancial contributions to: Nicaragua Sol­ workers and trade unionists for peace and a tee for Democracy and Human Rights in Solidarity Fund, a fund set up and adminis­ idarity Fund, c/o ACTWU, 975 SE Sandy better life for you and your children." Central America and El Salvador (Oct. 23- tered by leaders from many different U.S. Blvd., Room 108, Portland , Ore. 97214.

10 The Militant Au~ 16, 1985 Behind apartheid system in· South Africa South Africa has been on the front or "undesirable" Africans, and outright re- . page of the news nearly every day this pression. year. . [E]ntire Black communities [were] up­ But amid the reports of growing Black rooted from their traditional neighbor­ rebellion and escalating racist violence hoods, often in the central cities, and truck­ by the South, African government, there ed out to new segregated townships on the are few facts about the apar theid system outskirts. the Black majority are fighting to elimi- Throughout the 1950s, 1960s, and nate. · 1970s, a series of other measures chipped Below are excerpts from the· book away e.ven more of the remaining residen­ South Africa: White Rule, Black Revolt tial rights of urban Africans, disqualifying by Ernest Harsch. In these excerpts tens of thousands. Those who were caught Harsch describes both the apartheid sys­ living in the cities without proper author:i­ tem and its origins. For more informa­ zation were jailed, fined, or expelled to the tion on the book see ad on this page. reserves. It was exceedingly difficult for Africans to move from one city to another, The word apartheid - an Afrikaans ex­ or to change employers. [f they lost their pression that literally means separation or jobs, they could be evicted. segregation - was first coined in 1929. ft The key instrument for controlling the did not come into popular usage until the African population and enforcing the laws 1948 elections, when the National Party of that regulate daily lives is the pass. Street in Soweto, a Black township in South Africa D.F. Malan adopted it as a campaign slo­ The pass is one of the most graphic ex­ gan. Since then, the term has come to con­ amples of how the apartheid system tries to simple reason that they are profitable. tion and a white economic monopoly. The note the Nationalist regime's entire system dehumanize Africans. All Africans over They materially benefit the white employ­ overwhelming majority of Blacks thus be­ of racist rule. the age of sixteen must have a pass and ers, factory owners, and landlords, who long to the working class. The basic func­ The adoption of apartheid as official pol­ carry it with them at all times. use the system of racial oppression to keep tion of townships like Soweto is to serve as icy with the victory of the National Party in Failure to produce an up-to-date pass on down Black wages and living standards dormitories for the Black workers who 1948 represented an important watershed the spot is punishable by fine or imprison­ and thus substantially increase profits. keep the economy running; they are eco­ in the .evolution of South African society. ment. Hundreds of Africans are arrested Blacks, in fact, are allowed to do little nomic appendages of the "white" cities. This shift was a direct result of the rapid in­ each day for violation of the pass laws. except work. The white expropriation of The whole system of apartheid - the pass dustrialization of the 1930s and 1940s, The myriad laws, ordinances, and regu­ most of the land has left Blacks property­ Jaws , ''influx control," industrial legisla- which had drawn tens of thousands of lations that govern the lives of Blacks from less, with no recourse but to sell their labor . tion. the African reserves (Bantustans) - Blacks to the urban centers, swelling the the cradle to the grave are not the result of power, the only thing of value that they has one central goal: to keep the reins on Black slum areas and fueling militant racist attitudes or sentiments that are some­ . have left. The development of Black South Africa's large and powerful Black struggles around the country. how inherent to whites. They exist for the businesses has been stifled by legal restric- working class. The expansion of South Africa's capitalist economy thus required adjust­ ments in the overall system of white con­ trol. To keep the lid on this increasingly ur­ S. Africa threatens neighbor states banized Black population, the Nationalists institutionalized. extended, and sys­ tematized all aspects of white supremacy BY FRED FELDMAN a port from· whk:h many South African and Black oppression to a far greater de­ In response to growing support for sanc­ goods are exported. Zambia, Zimbahwe gree than any previous regime. Segrega­ tions against the apartheid regime, South and others have important trade relation~ tion in particular was elevated into a central African. Prime Minister P. W. Botha has with South Africa. South Afri~:an rail lines pillar of capitalist rule. While 49 explicitl y threatened repri·sals against neighboring carry a large part of Zaire's exports and im­ racial laws had been placed on the books in African states. ports. the four decades before the National Party In a July 29 statement. he threatened that Yet many of these countries are in the took office, the number trebled to 151 in South Africa might expel hundreds of forefront of those advocating sanctions. the period between 1948 and 1971. thousands of Blacks who migrate from other African countries to work in South In the view of the Black masses of Segregation, of course, was no recent in­ Africa, particularly in the · mines. He Southern Africa, the struggle to put an end novation. It was rooted in the very sub­ threatened cancellation of other economic to apartheid is worth the difficulties which stance of South African society, in the ties with African countries. the· South African rulers could impose. enormous gulf between the rulers and the He also threatened stepped-up military Furthermore, the moves threatened by ruled. action against opponents of apartheid in Botha would. be costly for the South Afri­ Although many apartheid theorists and neighboring countries. can rulers. The South African capitalists do ideologists claimed to see near-total geog­ Botha':) threats came after representa­ not import workers or have other economic nomic aid to overcome underdevelopment. raphical segregation as an 'ideal,' the actu­ tives of the U.S. and British governments dealings with these countries because they It could take over their debts to capitalist al measures enacted by the Nationalist re­ used their veto power to block passage of a are charitable, but because these dealings banks so that they are not bled dry by loan gime have been aimed at a very different resolution that would have "required the are highly profitable. For instance, the ex­ sharks. It could break a ll ties with the target: maintaining control of the Black Council to consider mandatory economic pulsion of migrant workers would deal a South African rulers. population within a white-dominated soci­ and political sanctions against South Africa blow to the apartheid regime's mining in­ The U.S. government has no intention of ety. if its government failed to end apartheid," dustry. acting in that way. It stands with the South according to the July 27 New York Times. The biggest problem the apartheid re­ If Washington was concerned about the African regime in seeking to stem the anti­ The Security Council then adopted a reso­ gime faced in its drive to strengthen white problems South Africa could cause its apartheid struggle in South Africa and in lution urging milder sanctions, with the supremacy was securing control of the neighbors in the event of sanctions. it could trying to roll back the struggles of other cities. The dangers to continued white rule · U.S. and British delegates .abstaining. easily counter them. Washington could peoples of Southern Africa for indepen­ Far from criticizing Botha's threats, the that urban Blacks presented were obvious, provide these countries with massive eco- dence and development. U.S. government has been silent. but the white mineowners and industrialists Capitalist politicians and newspapers like could not do without them. They were de­ pendent on cheap Black labor. So Pretoria the New York Times seized on them as a pretext for opposing an end to U.S. invest­ South Mrica stages treason frame-up sought to keep the economic advantages of maintaining a large Black working class, ment and other economic sanctions against South Africa. Continued from front page been detained under the state of while at the same time eliminating the po­ Although the apartheid regime's regula­ emergency. She said the murders were re­ litical disadvantages. To that end, the An article in the August 2 New York tions allow only a minister to speak at fun­ taliation for the Black boycott of white­ Nationalists have conducted a perpetual Times warned that if South Africa re­ erals, a dozen people spoke. Their denun­ owned Port Elizabeth businesses. war against the ability of urban Blacks to taliated in this way against sanctions, "The ciations of repression challenged an edict organize politically - through sys­ black-ruled neighbors would suffer most, Ten of the I I Zwide youth were killed that forbids mourners to ·'attack. criticize. tematized segregation, the tightening of the but there would also be some losses - since the state of emergency was an­ propagate. or discuss any form of govern­ pass laws, the extension of the migratory probably bearable - for an isolated South nounced. But several of their names do not ment, any principle or policy of a govern­ labor system, the removal of "superfluous" Africa." appear in the official lists of those killed. ment of a state. any boycott action, the It is true that the South African .ruling existence of a state of emergency, or any The headmaster of a local high school in class possesses a powerful imperialist action by a force or a member of a force." a speech to the funeral described how some economy, dominated by big corporations "These children were shot down for were murdered. He said police invaded the with huge amounts of capital. This wealth speaking up for the truth," said Buziswa school , shot two teachers, assaulted two SOUTH has been accumulated through the brutal Fazzie of the Po rt Elizabeth Women's Or­ others, and then opened fire on students exploitation of Black workers and farmers ganization and the UDF. Her husband has who sought to escape. AFRICA within South Africa and also beyond its White Rule, Black RevoH borders. This wealth and economic power ena­ bles the South African capitalists to ex­ INS seizes N.J. sanctuary refugee by Ernest Harsch ploit, oppress, and impose ties of depen­ On August 6 agents of the Immigration dren. and his brother. A large number of dency on countries like Mozambique, An­ and Naturalization Service (INS) arrested a community activists have been taking turns gola, Zimbabwe. Botswana. Lesotho. and Salvadoran refugee who had been given staying with the refugee fami ly since they others. 352 pp. $7.95 sanctuary at St. Michael's Church in Pi ~­ gained sanctuary. Some 288.000 Black migrant workers cataway, New Jersey, since September One activist in the area told the Militant Order from Pathfinder Press are employed in South Africa's mines. dri­ 1984. that the arrest of Ram()n is seen as con­ ven there in part by high unemployment 410 West St., The refugee, known as "Ramon." was nected with the INS's attempts to force ref­ rates in iheir own countries. Their earnings New York, NY 10014 seized by the INS agents one block from ugees to give testimony in the up-coming are important to the economies of countrie!i the church grounds as he was picking up Arizona trial of 12 religious figures like Botswana and Mozambique. Mozam­ his daughter from a day-care center. charged with transporting and harboring Include . 75 for postage an~ handling bique has needed South African invest­ '"illegal aliens." . ments to build a major hydroelectric pro­ St. Michael's Church has been giving Ram6n was moved on August 7 to the ject. The Mozambican capital of Maputo is sanctuary to Ram6n, his wife, three chil- INS Detention Center in Brooklyn, N.Y.

August -16; -l985 n he employers' ideological olleJ Introduction to 'Cosmetics, Fashion, and the Exploitation of Women'

The following article is based on a re­ the 1950s. The U.S. rulers came out on top postwar years of the "feminine mystique," from 2.5 percent in 1950 to 6.3 percent in port adopted by the May 1985 meeting of the imperialist heap at the end of World as it later came to be known, was aimed at 1981. of the Socialist Workers Party National. War II, with their main capitalist rivals de­ rolling back these changes in attitudes It is also useful to look at several more Committee. It will be published as the vastated. The stalemate of the postwar about women's proper role. It was aimed at specific classifications, this time compar­ introduction to the forthcoming book, strike wave in the United States, following reinforcing the idea that women- whether ing the increase over just nine years - be­ Cosmetics, Fashions, and the Exploit­ . the crushing of a workers' upsurge in or not they are p~rt of the labor force - tween 1972 and 1981. In that decade the ation of Women by Joseph Hansen and Western Europe, ushered in a long period should first and foremost be wives, percentage of carpenters who were women Evelyn Reed, to be released by Pathfind­ of economic expansion during which broad mothers, and housekeepers. grew fror.l 0 . 5 percent to I . 9 percent of the er Press in the fall. It is copyright© 1985 layers of U.S . working people were able to Women were not the only target of this total work force in that occupation; sheet and reprinted by permission of the pub­ wrest significant concessions from the reactionary political and ideological assault metal workers and tool and die makers lisher. bosses. waged through the press, schools, and from 1.9 percent to 4 :3 percent; mine At the same time, however, the Soviet churches. It was aimed at reversing the at­ workers from 0.7 percent to 2.2 percent; BY MARY-ALICE WATERS Union emerged victorious over German titudes toward women among members of fork lift and tow motor operators from I In 1954 a sharp debate broke out among imperialism, and the· colonial revolution both sexes. But its impact on women was percent to 5 percent; freight and material members of the Socialist Workers Party exploded throughout Asia and Africa. The different. The goal was to force women to handlers from 5. 9 percent to 9 . 7 percent. over the relationship of the marketing of workers and peasants of Eastern Europe internalize the pressures on them, to accept cosmetics and fashions to the oppression of and China overthrew their capitalist rulers and promote their own oppression. Significance of industrial unions women. This controversy began in July of and advanced to the creation of workers' Through the "cosmetics" debate that Such gains in entering the work force are states, putting an end to landlord-capitalist took place in the Socialist Workers Party , particularly significant when they result in domination in vast new areas of the globe. we get a glimpse of the diverse, if not-so­ women becoming integrated into the union The response of the imperialist powers to subtle, ways in which this pressure affected movement, especially into the more pow­ SPECIAL this mortal threat was to launch the cold even very conscious women - and men. erful industrial unions·. There women are war against the Soviet Union and attempt covered by contracts that guarantee them FEATURE to militarily crush the national liberation Profound changes since 1950s wages and conditions equal to those of forces in Korea and Vietnam. Some figures Since the early 1950s there have been other workers in the same job category, that year, when Militant editor Joseph Han­ at top levels of the U.S. government gave profound changes in the economic and so­ male or female . Of course, women in the sen, using the pen name Jack Bustelo, serious consideration to using nuclear cial conditions facing women in the United unions still have to fight discrimination, wrote an article headlined, "Sagging Cos­ weapons against the people of those. two States. The domestic and international po- prejudice, sexist harassment on the job, metic Lines Try a Face Lift." This is the countries, and thus to repeating the horrors first item reprinted in this collection. It was inflicted on the civilian population of ,, ______~------a popularly written piece of socialist educa­ Hiroshima and Nagasaki a few years ear­ The employers' goal is to force women to internalize tion~ exposing how the owners of the big lier. cosmetic companies play on women's in­ In the United States, the domestic side of their dependency - to blame themselves, not the social securities and fears to sell their com­ the cold war was an anticommunist witch­ modities and rake in profits. hunt. It was aimed first and foremost at de­ relations of production, for the economic and social The Militant article prompted a stream of stroying the unity and combativity of the problems they face. protesting letters to the editor over the next industrial unions born in the great labor up­ ______,, several weeks. Readers· charged that Bus­ surge of the 1930s. Through the witch­ telo was ridiculing women, that he was chal­ hunt, the employers sought to create the lenging the right of working-class women to conditions for an extended period of inten­ litical situation has been vastly altered, as and "reclassification',. schemes to down­ strive for "some loveliness and beauty in sified exploitation of working people and well. grade wages and conditions for women and their lives," and so on. Bustelo responded in accelerated capitalist expansion. Most importantly, the ;,~ccelerated ex­ other more recently hired workers. But the the Militant letters to the editors column, As the 1940s came to an end and the pansion of capitalism in the postwar years relationship of forces for women to wage evoking another round of letters. 1950s began to unfold, a process of de­ brought with it an even greater incorpora­ such battles for equal treatment is far better At that point, the Political Committee of politicization of working-class fighters tion of women into the labor market. In than in nonunion jobs, let alone than in the the Socialist Workers Party decided that took hold within the unions. There was less 1950, 33.9 percent of women over 16 years isolation of the home. the substantive political questions emerg­ and less motion in the labor movement of age were in the labor force . By 1960 that Other important changes also occurred ing from this at-first seemingly minor con­ around social questions and no real politi­ figure had risen to 37.7 percent. In 1970 it during the postwar period. For the first troversy merited a more extensive discus­ cal life independent of the employers' par­ was 43.3 percent. And by 1983, more than time ever, advances in medical science sion than could be aired in the letters col­ ties. As a result of these conditions, mem­ half of all women - 52.9 percent - were gave women access to birth control umn of the Militant and opened an or­ bers of the Socialist Workers Party became in the labor force . During that 33-year methods that were relatively safe and cer­ ganized debate in the party's internal Dis­ more and more politically isolated; the period, the percentage increase of women tain, and that were under their own control, cussion Bulletin. party was forced into a largely semisecta­ who were in the labor market was slightly not that of a man. Women won broader ac­ This book, Cosmetics, Fashions, and rian existence. more than the percentage increase during cess to education and training programs. the Exploitation of Women, constitutes the That was the political context in which the 70 years between 1890 and 1960! Increasing labor productivity, and record of this important chapter in the his­ the debate over cosmetics, fashions, and Women today account for 43 percent of capitalism's penetration of expanding new tory of the Socialist Workers Party - a women's oppression broke out in the SWP. the labor force , as composed to 29 percent arenas of production and distribution, chapter that came to be known as the "Bus­ It registered the iinpact of one important in 19~0. created a mass market in the imperialist telo controversy." ideological front of the U.S. rulers' politi­ Of decisive importance to bolstering countries for household appliances and While the use of cosmetics hardly seems cal offensive during that period of reaction. women's self-confidence and breaking prepared foods. While women have hardly to be a topic of world historic importance, through traditional barriers has been the in­ escaped from their domestic slavery, their this discussion was neither frivolous, nor During World War II women had been corporation of greater numbers of women work load has been eased. A wide range of an academic sociological dispute. It was a incorporated into the labor force in larger into industrial jobs. The categories used by such commodities have now become incor­ profound expression of the struggle to numbers than ever before, including into government statistical bureaus make it dif­ porated into the historically determined ­ maintain a proletarian party and Marxist many jobs previously dosed to them. This ficult to obtain fully reliable figures, but and ;::hanging - value of labor power, to program throughout the cold war and anti­ brought significant changes in the way that the trend is nonetheless clear. that extent raising th.e living standards of communist witch-hunt of the early 1950s. both women and men thought about For example, while the number of men workers and their families. Three decades later, women will recog­ women's place in society. It broadened the categorized as "blue collar workers" in­ The inexorable development of nize in the matters discussed here many of social and political horizons of tens of mil­ creased by 29 percent between 1950 and capitalism creates real -and ultimately in­ the same problems, pressures, and pre­ lions of women who had previously been 1981, the number of women in such jobs soluble - problems for the exploiting judiCes that they still confront and struggle bound to the stultifying confines of the went up by some 61 . 5 percent; this in­ class. Capitalist expansion and the lash of to surmount today. Revolutionary-minded home. The deliberate promotion during the creased the percentage of workers in such competition dictate the incorporation of workers, male and female, will find the job categories who are women from 15.4 larger and larger numbers of women into material collected in this book of particular percent to 18 .6 percent over that thirty­ the labor force ; this tends to drive down the interest, as they try to understand the polit­ one-year period. value of labor power by heightening com­ ical situation in the United States and the The increase is even more noticeable in petition among workers for jobs. ways in which all working people are the subcategories of "operatives" (as­ The capitalists' increasing purchase of touched by the many-sided economic, so­ semblers, punch and stamping press women's capacities as wage laborers, how­ cial, political, and ideological offensive of operators, welders, sewing machine ever, inevitably brings in its wake greater the employing class and its government. operators, truck drivers, fork lift operators, economic independence for women, fur­ This material provides an instructive exam­ etc.) and "craft" workers (carpenters, elec­ ther disintegration of the family, and great­ ple of how ruling-class values and norms tricians, sheet metal workers, tool and die er need for the appliances and prepared find expression even within the most con­ makers, mechanics, etc.). Among opera­ foods noted above. All this tends to raise scious layers of the working-class move­ tives, the number of men went up by 8 per­ the value of women' s labor power, to raise ment, especially in periods of political re­ cent between 1950 and 1981 , while the the wages they can command in the labor action and retreat. number of women grew by 35 percent; this market on average, other things being The record of this discussion is also an increased the weight of women in such pro­ equal. education in leadership methods. It shows duction jobs from 27.4 percent to 32.3 per­ Through their experiences in the work how the SWP leadership sought in an ob­ cent. force , women in growing numbers also jective and pedagogical way to clarify the In craft positions, the gains for women begin to think in broader social terms and underlying issues, thus helping party mem­ are especially striking, since they had been to act as political beings. They become in­ bers be more conscious of the prevailing largely frozen out of such jobs until re­ creasingly class conscious. They play an pressures, and better able to combat them. cently. The number of men holding such expanding role in the labor movement, and jobs went up 65. I percent between 1950 in struggles by the unions that can wrest P(}stwar reaction and 1981 ; the number of women leapt by higher wages from the employers and push The first half of the 1980s, of course, 327 percent. The percentage of women in up the value of labor power for the entire cannot be equated with the late 1940s and Joseph Hansen the crafts is still small, but it has grown working class.

12 The Militant August 16, 1985 1sive against women t,oday

Economic and social developments such as these, combined with the political changes of the 1950s and 1960s - above .. all, the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War , movements - were essential precondi­ tions to the "second wave" of feminism that exploded onto the scene at the begin­ HUlrfAN LIFE ning of the 1970s. As a result of these women's liberation struggles, further broad changes have taken place over the iast fifteen years in women's attitudes to­ ward themselves and their place in society, 1s well as in the views of men on these mat­ rers. It is these shifts in the social conditions Jf women since World War II, and the :hanging attitudes accompanying them, that underlie the recurring political and Ideological campaigns by the employers 1gainst the politicization of working-class women, such as we saw in the late 1940s md 1950s and are once again living :hrough. Today the employers are making a con­ :erted political effort to roll back, or at Militant/Pat Grogan ·- ·east slow down, some of the changes in Left, June 1985 New York protest. Attacks on abortion rights have been major part of offensive against women's rights. Right, women :onsciousness about women's place in so­ coal miners. Since early 1950s, number of women in industrial jobs has grown by over 60 percent; this has been "of decisive impor­ :iety. They are taking aim at concrete gains tance to bolstering women's self-confidence and breaking through traditional barriers." won through hard struggle in the 1960s and 1970s, such as abortion rights and affirma­ :ive action programs. The aim of the rulers One result of this sustained economic When the bosses go on a stepped-up of­ aganda is aimed at convincing women to md their government is not to drive women and political offensive, with all its reac­ fensive to shift the relationship of forces in acquiesce to unemployment with less resis­ Jut of the labor force, but to undermine tionary ideological offshoots, has been a their favor, they single out special targets tance and resentment, by telling them that ~ heir political self-confidence and make deepening class polarization in the United as part of this broad frontal assault. One of they "normally" aren't meant to be work­ :hem more willing to acquiesce in attacks States. Not everyime is suffering from the these is always the advances and changes ing anyway. In periods of rising jobless­ Jn their wages, working conditions, and policies that the employers are putting into taking place in women's social status. The ness, there are always assertions by ruling ~quality on the job. In this way, the em­ effect. To the contrary, tens of millions of employers take special aim at the advances class "opinion molders" that unemploy­ Jloyers can hold back the increase in the individuals in middle-class and profes­ of working-class women, but the barrage is ment statistics are artificially high, since value of women's labor power. sional layers are henefiting from these pol­ borne by all women. Every woman belongs women shouldn't really be counted as un­ icies. Layers of relatively more privileged to the second sex. employed in the same way as men, the -\ttacks on women's rights workers. part of the aristocracy of l'abor. The attack on women's rights is funda­ "main breadwinners." The current attacks on women's rights have also improved their situation - even mental to the success of the capitalist of­ The goal is to force women to internalize 1re not an isolated phenomenon. They are if the insecurities and pressures that are fensive. It is one of the important ways in their dependency, to cause them to blame Jart of the broader offensive that the U.S. common to their class also bear down on which the rulers work to deepen divisions themselves, not the social relations of pro­ :apitalist class has been waging for more them. To varying degrees, all these social within the working class. It helps the boss­ duction, for the economic and social prob­ han a decade to fundamentally shift to layers are being pulled to the right politi­ es keep the labor movement shackled to a lems they confront every day. The goal is neir favor the relationship of forces be­ cally. narrow trade union perspective, instead of to make women bear the guilty belief that ween capital and labor that was estab­ On the other hand, the big majority of thinking in broader social terms and acting their children are being permanently dam­ ,ished following the post-World War 11 workers and working farmers are taking politically to advance the interests of the aged by "abandonment" in child-care facil­ ;trike wave. The target is all working stiffer and stiffer blows. and the bosses' of­ oppressed and exploited. It is one more ob­ ities, or turning into lonely latch-key delin­ ;Jeople, and all those whose race, sex, or fensive has run into resistance. There have stacle along the road to independent work­ quents. Rather than demanding - as a national origin is used by the ruling class to been fights against two-tier wage scales, ing-class political action. right - equal access to high-paying jobs 'ingle them out for intensified exploitation bank foreclosures on struggling farmers, The employers are determined to roll previously barred to them, women are md special oppression. and U.S . military intervention in Central back changes in the way women think of pushed toward being grateful for any job. This intensifying capitalist offensive America, and in defense of Black rights, themselves, and how men see them too. At any wage. :Jegan with the 1974-75 world recession women's rights, and immigrants' rights. The aim is to undermine working-class md picked up steam with the 1980-82 re­ All of these are labor issues ~ i-ssues on women's consciousness of themselves as Part of the rulers' strategy is also to :ession. It is directed against the wages, which the labor movement must have its workers, as part of the working class, and break down the ties and intensify competi­ ;ob conditions-, democratic rights, and or­ · own policies and defend its own class inter­ instead to heighten their consciousness of tion between, on the one hand, women sanizations of the working class. It is ests and those of its allies. All are questions themselves as women- not in the feminist who are fighting their way into nontradi­ timed at heading off any progress toward on which there is reflection, concern, and a sense, but in all the retrograde ways that tiona:t jobs, and, on the other hand, Black political independence by the working growing willingness to take action. Broad are drummed into them from childhood. workers, who constitute a large proportion of the politically more conscious, vanguard :lass - toward any notion that labor and growing sectors of working people - The employing class seeks to reinforce layers of the working class. Since women ;hould develop and fight for its own posi­ on the farms and in the factories - are be­ - and to make women internalize - the are getting jobs that men "ought" to have, :ions on social and political questions, in­ coming aware that there are interconnec­ prejudices about women's proper place and they are allegedly responsible for the high .:Iependent of and opposed to those of the tions among these many battlefronts . domestic role. Such prejudices go back rate of unemployment of Black males, ')Osses and bosses' parties. So far, defeats and setbacks for working millenia - and are progressively under­ especially. The employers also attempt to This offensive has been registered in a people have outnumbered victories in the mined by the rise and development of pit white women and Black women against rightward shift of the entire bipartisan decade since the beginning of the bosses' capitalism as it thrusts women out of the each other. ;tructure of capitalist politics in the United offensive. But that has not put a stop to home and into the labor market. States. It has been accompanied by a sus­ such struggles. To the contrary, the com­ The capitalists' offensive against Offensive takes many forms ained ideological offensive aimed at divid­ bativity and tenacity of the Arizona copper women's rights is not aimed at driving Because the advances in women's status ng the working class more deeply along miners in the 1983-84 strike against the women out of industry . That is historically in the 1960s and 1970s were so broad, and .he lines of race, sex, age. "skill levels," Phelps-Dodge corporation; the determina­ precluded. The percentage of the work the changes in consciousness so sweeping, anguage, and national origin. A special tion of the Hormel meat-packing workers force that is female has been rising, from the counteroffensive against women's ~oal has been to reverse gains won by in Austin , Minnesota; the numerous strikes one plateau to another. ever since the be­ rights in the last few years has been all the 3lacks and women. who over the previous in the airline industry; the wave of protes-t ginning of the industrial revolution. In­ more concerted. It has taken numerous period fought their way through some of actions against farm foreclosures - these stead, the bosses' aim is to make women forms . . he barriers that have kept them confined to examples are an indication of the willing­ more vulnerable to increased exploitation . • The defeat of the Equal Rights ;econd class status in capitalist society in ness and desire of working people to fight The goal is not to push women out of the Amendment. general. and within the labor force in par­ back. These struggles are taking place de­ labor market, but to push them down. • The onslaught against abortion rights ticular. spite the broad collapse of the top union In a period such as ihis, the owners of - from the withholding of government leadership in the face of the bosses' as­ Parallel to this domestic offensive has capital need an expanded pool of un­ funds; to the bombing of clinics; to the sault, and despite the default of the leader­ been an escalation of imperialist aggres­ employed workers . what Marx called an propaganda, day in and day out, that abor­ ships of the established Black, Hispanic, sion abroad. especially in Central America industrial reserve army of labor. in order to tion is murder, murder, murder. State, and women's organizations on whom the and the Caribbean. As part of the U.S. rul­ intensify competition among workers and local , and federal legislation and court rul­ labor officialdom's capitulation weighs so ers· preparations for war. there has been an drive down wages. The employers need to ings have placed more and more restric­ heavily. enormous increase in U.S. military spend­ make sure that this reserve army is recon­ tions on abortion rights, and government ing. We have seen a constant barrage of The class polarization, and the experi­ stituted on an enlarged base, and wori1en officials are seeking to make deeper in- anticommunist propaganda. directed above ences that are generating it, give an im­ have always been an important component ·' roads. Jll against Nicaragua. Cuba, and the Sal­ pulse to the radicalization of the most com­ of its ''troops." Hundreds of thousands of • Glorification of the family, built vadoran freedom fighters. but also against bative workers. But these same develop­ women were forced into its ranks during around the theme of women's special ful­ .ngola. Vietnam. and other countries and ments also embolden rightist proponents of the 1980-82 recession, eroding some of the fillment of themselves as mothers. Super­ national liberation forces. This has been national-chauvinist, racist, anti-Semitic, employment gains they had previously mom is in. That she often works a full-time accompanied by a growing domestic spy antiwoman, and antiunion prejudices, as won. job is accepted. But it's only when she hunt and antiunion "industrial security" well as other reactionary ideas. The bosses' ideological campaign seeks comes home, we are told, that her real re­ campaign. Through this political drive, This is the political context in which we to reinforce the idea among both sexes that sponsibilities, and her true possibilities for Wall Street and Washington are trying to should now take a closer look at the charac­ women are really only marginal workers, fulfillment , begin. Supermom makes sure convince working people in the United ter, weight, and place of the attacks on temporary workers. part-time workers, her kids- and husband- don't suffer too States that U.S. foreign policy is in our in­ women's rights by the employers and their home workers. Women are only a "sec­ much for her selfish absorption in her own terests. government. ond" wage earner in the family. The prop- Continued on next page

August 16, 1985 The Militant 13 IdeologiCal offensive against woriten

Continued from preceding page fective fightback. The prospects of the pressures we are experiencing today. and are wretched. ' life. And, deep down, she has a lot of fight for women's liberation are not inde­ to arm ourselves to deal with them more " It appears to me that you might just as doubts about whether she's doing the right pendent of the historic course of the work­ consciously. well say that ' morality is predominantly thing. Isn't this "new woman" wonderful? ing-class movement, even if women's monopolized by the wealthy, ' and that the How many guilt-tripping articles like that rights battles can and do surge ahead on oc­ The 'Bustelo controversy' 'wealthy are moral because the workers are have been published in the last few years? casion and he lp show the way forward. At the end of 1953, the Socialist Work­ immoral.· ·· The standards of beauty, Bus­ ers Party -under the pressure of the c.:old telo pointed out. like the standards of mor­ • The concerted drive to roll back af­ All the conservatizing pressures de­ war witch-hunt conditiens- suffered one ality. are determined in the final analysis firmative action gains, to foster the "white­ scribed above have been bearing down on of the deepest splits in its history. It cut by the ruling class. And, he added, ''I think male" backlash against Blacks and women. working people for close to a decade now. through the basic cadre of the party. taking most of the customs and norms of capitalist Once again, the goal is not to push women And they have come down with a special 25 percent of the National Committee and society are ridiculous and even vicious, in­ out of the few niches they have secured in weight on women. This is not an argument some 20 percent of the membership. cluding the customs and norms of wealthy job areas previously closed to them. for pessimism about the future . To the con­ bourgeois women.'' whether in the mines or the steel mills. The trary, there are already some small signs of This was the context in which the ··Bus­ goal is to deepen divisions and competi­ a change in direction, of new struggles on telo controversy" erupted in the SWP a few . Bustelo 's reply provoked further out­ tion, heighten insecurity, and promote the the horizon. It is simply a statement of fact months later. The dispute was triggered by raged responses. which are reprinted in this idea that women don't really have the right about the past ten ·years, and it provides an publication of the article ··sagging Cosmet­ collection. Several readers wrote in de­ to be there. In short, to keep down the explanation for a number of significant and ic Lines Try a Face Lift" published in the fending the use of cosmetics as a basic eco­ value of women's labor power - and well-documented social and political July 26, 1954. issue of the Mifitanr. The nomic necessity for working women to get thereby that of the class as a whole. phenomena that m irror the enforced retreat article, written under the pen name Jack a job and keep a man. They argued that the of women: the sharp increase in childbear­ Bustelo by Milirant editor Joseph Hansen, SWP should defend woman' s right to use Decline of the women's movement ing among women in their thirties; the rise noted that the recession was cutting into the cosmetics . The counteroffensive to roll back in teenage pregnancy rates; the flight by cosmetics industry's profits. since women The last letter printed in the Miliranr ac­ women 's confidence and combativity, and many liberals, including prominent who were unemployed were buying fewer cused Bustelo of " third period'' Stalinist to change male workers' view of their feminists, from an active and outspoken of its products . The merchants of "beauty," sectarianism, since, according to the female co-workers, has been registered in a ~ defense of abortion rights; and the similar he explained. had announced their plans to reader, Bustelo advocated "the concept decline of the women's movement. The retreat from defense of affirmative action revive profits through a calculated cam­ ·that a woman should be satisfied with ill thousands of small circles.of feminist activ­ quotas for women and Blacks. paign to con and terrify women into buying fitting, poor quality c lo.thing, or that her ists have disappeared. The few groups that more cosmeti cs. hair and makeup do not matter because have survived concentrate largely on spe­ Women in industry Bustelo wrote: "The Toilets Goods As­ there are more important things." That, cific interests such as health or art. Others Women who are full-time industrial sociation reports that after 13 years of said the reader, is the same thing that the have been drawn into reactionary cam- workers and part of the organized labor steady gains, cosmetics manufacturers· bourgeoisie tries to convince workers of, sales suddenly plunged in the first quarter so that they won't demand the same prod­ of 1954 - ri ght when unemployment took ucts that the rulers consume. a steep jump." In response. he explained, "Of course," the reader argued, " these the big cosmetics dealers were projecting standards are bourgeois standards, but they ''Operation Big Push." ''Toni , for example . are the norms the women have to has announced its third new co:;metic in meet. . . . If the women want these things, three months. a fac.:e cream that no words they should have them. and we have to can describe except Deep Mag ic.·· support them· in their strugg le to get Bustelo then went on to explain how the them .... It is part of the struggle of women owners of these capitalist outfits exploit to emancipate themselves from the status women's insecurities to try to make them of household drudges and to acquire an in­ Evelyn buy cosmetics. dividuality of their own .. ,

The letters of outrage and indignation Political implications of differences began arriving on the Mi/iwnt editor's desk Reed in a matter of days, and the debate raged in A s the character and political implica­ the pages of the Milium/ for several weeks. ti ons of these differences became clearer. Hansen was probably not surprised . In all the Political Committee of the Socialist likelihood, he wrote the article because he Workers Party decided to organize the de­ was aware of the kinds of reactionary pres­ bate and let it unfold further. ln October '' The class struggle is a movement of opposition, not sures that were finding echoes within the 1954 a Discussion Bulletin was published party. If so. his aim was true. containing other letters and critical articles adaptation, and this holds true not only of the workers that had been submitted to. but not printed in the plants but of women, as well .... ''Beauty is predominately monopolized in. the Mifiwm. along with major replies ______,, by the wealthy." one reader said. ''The by Evdyn Reed and Joseph Hansen. again wealthy are beautiful because the workers using the name Jack Bustelo. The full are wretched.'' Moreover, the fact that paigns demanding more cops as an answer movement are in the best position to resist scope of the reactionary pressures corning working-class women strive for beauty to the continuing reality of rape, or calling the conservatizing pressures that all in on the party are even clearer in this ma­ "has a progressive aspect," this reader ar­ for censorship laws as the way to deal with women are subjected to by the economic terial reproduced from the internal bulletin. gued, ''because it is part of the rebellion of pornography. Beginning in 1977 the Na­ and political offe nsive of the ruli ng class. A party member by the name of Marjorie women against a position which denies to Such women are likely to have a higher de­ McGowan. who belonged to the Los tional Organization for Women has been them part of their rights as human beings.·· turned more and more into an electoralist gree of self-confidence that comes from Angeles branch, said it most c learly. appendage of the capitalist two-party sys­ knowing that they can sell . their labor Bustelo replied with a short, to-the-point McGowan left the SWP very soon after tem. power and survive without economi"c de­ letter on beauty, class society. and histori­ writing these articles, and it is not difficult The last time a sizeable women's rights pendence on a man; this gives them some cal materialism. " 1 do not believe,'' he to see some ()f the reasons why. Her letter action occurred in this country was 1978- small element of independence in making wrote , "that 'beauty is predominantly began by extolling "the revolution in tech­ seven years ago. That was the July 9, important decisions that affect their lives. monopolized by the wealthy,' and that the nology and science ." that, according to 1978, march on Washington called by They have acquired at least the beginning ' wealthy are beautiful because the workers Continued on Page 23 NOW to demand an extension of the dead­ of class consciousness through understa nd­ line for ratification of the ERA. There has ing that they have a better chance at impro­ been no significant women's liberation ac­ ving wages and working conditions by tion since then, despite the potential that joining together with fellow workers to de­ Readings on women's liberation existed around the ERA, e~pecially , and fend themselves against the employer. the growing desire of women to act in de­ Moreover, despite the bosses' attempts to fense of abortion rights. foster animosities toward them by male That situation won' t continue indefi­ workers, women in industry frequently Origin of the Family, Private nitely. There is growing pressure for a work alongside men in job situations where Property and the State change. Already there are indications of a each depends on the other and relations of by Frederick Engels, 191 pp, $3.45 pickup in organized protests responding to mutual confidence more easily develop. the escalating attacks on women's right to If women who are workers are less sus­ abortion. ceptible to right-wing demagogy and reac­ But the fact remains that there is no mass Problems of Women's fighting women's movement in the streets tionary "solutions" to their problems, how­ ever, they are nonetheless not immune. or anywhere else today. There is not the Liberation kind of movement from which women gain They are constantly fighting the bosses' at­ by Evelyn Reed, 96 pp, $2.95 confidence as they fight for their rights, as tempts to convince them and their male co­ they fight to change things that vitally af­ workers that they are not really workers; UBERATION A Marxist Approach fect their lives. The kind of mass women's that they are women first and foremost, for movement through which women can learn whom being part of the labor force is only Sexism and Science a temporary condition; that the really im­ EVELYN REED and grow in self-confidence from their own by Evelyn Reed, 190 pp, $5.95 experiences in struggle. That doesn' t exist portant thing for them is that they will at today. The women's liberation forces are some point leave the labor force to raise a family . Home, husband, and children are on the defensive, not the offensive. Woman's Evolution This situation is not unique to the United what defines a woman's true identity. States. It is. a phenomenon that, to varying This kind of reactionary, anti-working­ From Matriarchal Clan degrees, marks virtually all the capitalist class propaganda affects even the most to Patriarchal Family countries where the women's movement con~ciou s women and men, including by Evelyn Reed, 491 pp, $9.95 had a significant impact in the 1970s. The those who are Marxists, those who belong reasons for this dec line of the women's to a revolutionary workers' party. That is Order from Pathfinder Press movement are also fundamentally the same why it is helpful to look back at the 1950s 410 West Street - elsewhere, rooted in the beginning of the and learn how the reactionary offensive Is B~ology Woman's Destiny? New York, NY 10014 capitalist austerity drive in the 1974-75 re­ against women's rights in that period found by Evelyn Reed, 32 pp, $. 75 Enclose $. 75 postage and handling cession, and the incapacity of the official­ an echo. inside the Socialist Workers Party. dom of the labor movement to mount an ef- This will help us to understand some of the

14 Tbe Militant August 16; ·1985 Salvadoran air force rains fire, death on countryside

•!!: -:to:•·"*':'l/ii!.,' Pentagon provides the weapons ~

On June I .. . a bombing swrred . .. I in gamzmg, supplying, overseeing, and in the/ departme~lf of Cuscatlan by the Sal­ many cases actually executing the heaviest vadoran air force. It was about 5 a .m. am} bombing and most ferocious aerial war Air force gunner over Guazapa. Washington is increasing its military intervention in my family and myself had not gotten up ye1 ever seen in the Americas and not one El Salvador in order to prop up Duarte dictatorship, crush popular insurgency. when it started. We had to leave the house coherent report of the extent, viciousness. .. we live in and sak a refuge in the bushes. or consequences of this campaign has ap­ part in them." The Salvadoran government also wanted to The planes that day threw some six bombs peared in any major U.S. newspaper or The Salvadoran air force is dropping an hide the fact that Honduran soldiers are jus1 near the place where I used to live . .. . magazine?'' average of 129 bombs a month, according aiding the Salvadoran army in these at­ I could see four wounded people . ... I "Since the middle of 1983," Cockburn to U.S. figures. tacks. came our and saw an old man wounded in reported, "an aerial war has been responsi­ The antipersonnel devices attached. to The FMLN's Radio Farabundo Martf his head, arm. and elbow; a woman 38 ble for most of El Salvador's 500,000 in­ the iron bombs that Cockburn mentioned broadcast a letter sent to Duart.e from resi­ years old with a wounded leg; a 30-year­ ternal refugees and for many of the have been described by survivors: "They dents of northern Morazan co_ndernning the old man with a wounded arm and with his 750,000 refugees outside the country's cut off everything at ground level - trees, army's actions. which forced more than buttock blown off: a boy with a wound in borders." This is out of a total population crops, livestock, people." 2,000 people to tlee. his right side: all of them wounded as a re­ of 5 million. U.S. ambassador to El Salvador, "On June 14 soldiers of the national sult of fragments from the explosion of a El Salvador has the largest air force in Thomas Pickering, has denied the use of army, after a heavy bombing, were bomb. Central America - compliments of the napalm by the Salvadoran armed forces. mobilized throughout the entire northern - Alicia Coto ~ s testimony at the offices Pentagon. It bas almost doubled in size in Rank-and-file Salvadoran soldiers say sector of this department. . . . The army of­ of the Archdiocese of San Salvador on June the last year. The 49 combat helicopters, otherwise. One member of the U.S.­ ficers intimidated and threatened us to 13, 1984. five· AC-47 gunships. nine A-37 attack trained Atlacatl Battalion informed a make us abandon our homes and lands .. . . jets, and at least 10 push-pull spotter planes Pacific News Service reporter that incen­ The_officers said it was a military operation BY MARGARET JA YKO that fire rockets can rain a lot of death and diary bombs are used routinely in advance for us to leave the area; that we were re­ A full-scale war - including daily destruction on a country as small as El Sal­ of major ground operations. "Usually we sponsible for giving supplies to the guerril­ bombings - is being fought out in much of vador. Nonetheless, more helicopters and drop incendiary bombs before we begin op­ las. They told us that the army had to evict El Salvador's countryside. A "general state AC-47s are on the way. erations in the area," a soldier with the 5th us from our homes because we were like of conventional war" is how a United Na­ As news has begun to leak out about the Infantry ~rigade said. "By the time we water to the fish; that is, if we were not in tions resolution described it last year. extent of the air war, the July 18 New York . enter the area, the land has been burned the area then the guerrillas would have to This war has escalated sharply since the Times and July 19 Washington Post ran ar­ over and the subversives pretty well leave. end of 1983. when the U.S. government ticles acknowledging its existence. The ar­ toasted.'' 'They warned us that if we did not aban­ feared that its puppet regime might actually ticles' main purpose, however, was to A woman who survived one such attack don the area we would suffer the same fate be toppled by El Salvador's workers and cover up the extent and brutality of the clarified who these "subversives" were: " I as the residents of El Mozote in 1981 , all of peasants. Washington has responded by war, claiming that the bombs are rarely was outside my house when the bomb fell. whom were killed for not abandoning that dramatically increasing the number of U.S. dropped on civilian targets. I could not see anything because of the canton. They told us that planes would military personnel. U.S. military black smoke and could not get air. Every­ soon begin dropping 700- and I ,000-pound hardware, and U.S. dollars that it provides In The Nation. Cockburn described what thing was on fire. My two children burned bombs; that we had to leave because our to the Salvadoran government. he called "the basic techniques" of the air war. These include: "demolition and frag­ to death." land belonged to Honduras and had to be The major U.S. news media. which is turned over as soon as possible to the Hon­ mentation: the dropping of 500- and 750- 'Bombing is indiscriminate' owned by big business, doesn't report pound iron bombs, many fitted with nose duran army." • much about this war. And the little they do rods to convert them to 'antipersonnel' de­ "The bombing is indiscriminate," said report is designed to back up Washington's vices; incendiary bombing, using Israeli­ Cockburn, "designed to terrorize the Army targets Guazapa claim that the government of President supplied napalm and U .S.-supplied white people it has not killed into taking flight. The area of the Guazapa Volcano has Jose Napoleon Duarte is bringing peace phosphorus; machine gunning, with A-37 Tire Salvadoran Army contributes regular been a consistent target of the regime's and progress to El Salvador. and is isolat­ fighter bombers, AC-47s, Huey and massacres, to accelerate this flight. In armed forces because it is the FMLN-con­ ing and defeating the ''terrorists" of the Hughes helicopters. A U.S. intelligence honor of South Lebanon in 1982, Colonel trolled area closest to the capital city of San Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front battalion based in Honduras flies OV-I Sigifredo Ochoa speaks of an ' Israeli solu­ Salvador. (FMLN). planes over El Salvador on frequent intelli­ tion': establishing free-fire zones which. An article in the August 15 New York This news blackout prompted journalist gence missions; their observations are pro­ journalists are told, contain no ' people,' Review of Books described the life of peas­ Alexander Cockburn, writing in the June I cessed by the Pentagon and fed within two only 'terrorists.· Conforming to this inhu­ ants in the hamlet of Consolaci6n on issue of the liberal newsweekly The Na­ hours to the Salvadoran Air Force by the manity, Ochoa's troops have prevented re­ Guazapa. "Its inhabitants can't tell you tion, to ask, "How is it that over the past ' local U.S. supervisors. U.S. pilots oversee lief organizations from getting food and exactly how often this year U.S.-supplied two years the United States has been or- the resulting missions and frequently take medical supplies to the desperate victims A-37 jets have made the earth near Con­ trapped inside those areas." solaci6n shudder with deafening bombs. About 2,000 civilians have died in these The days and the bombs have blended to­ air raids since January 1984. gether in their minds in a long haze of State of Black businesses today The bombing is focused on the one-third panic. They can' t specify how many of El Salvador's territory, especially in the people died this year in Consolaci6n from Continued from back page combined. east and the nort.h, which is controlled by bombing - maybe fourteen, maybe fif­ Such a comparison was offered in the Moreover, Ofari reports, the 100 _top the FMLN. The main point is to try to un­ teen. June 30 Los Angeles Times by Earl Ofari, Black companies have little in common dercut the popular support that the FMLN "Marta Alicia Herazo. twenty years of author of the book. The Myth of Black with the great majority of Black busines­ has among the workers and peasants in the age, of Consolaci6n. remymbers how the Capitalism. ses, which are largely "mom and pop'' op­ countryside by making life dangerous and bombing started in the middle of the after­ Ofari points to the smallness of the $2.6 erations. difficult. in those areas. noon of April 22. Soon after, army troops billion in sales by the top I 00 Black He cites a Commerce Department pro­ There's also been an increase in army descended on the hamlet. spraying businesses when compared to the $1 .8 tril­ file of a typical Black business "as a sole action on the ground, which has the dual machine-gun fire. Almost every resident lion in sales of the Fortune 500. proprietorship, with no full-time paid em­ aim of terrorizing and di~placing the rural has some relative who is a rebel fighter, but He notes that the Lukens Co .. a machin­ ployees and with an average of $37.000 in population and dealing some direct mili­ the hamlet itself, the residents said, is not ery firm that was very last on the list of gross receipts." tary blows to the FMLN. The army an FMLN base." 500, enjoyed sales of$416 million, far out­ Taken together, the numbers indicate routinely destroys crops, livestock, homes, The author of the article, Julia Preston pacing the combined $380 million sales of that there's little merit to the argument that tools, and water supplies during these - who is not sympathetic to the FMLN ­ the three top Black companies. the development of Black capitalism can raids. It also rounds up and removes much asked Herazo: did the soldiers bum houses And the Kellogg cereal company, 143 make a meaningful contribution to achiev­ of the civilian population. during the April attack? on the Fortune 500 list , employs more ing full equality for Black people in this In June. the army carried out a major of­ ''No, Herazo says, the houses had al­ workers than the top 100 Black enterprises country. fensive in the eastern province of Morazan, ready been burned by the army in 1984. which is a rebel stronghold. It has also Did they bum crops? No, the crops were launched sweeps in the northern province burned in an earlier sweep this year." of Chalatanango and in the Guazapa Vol­ Preston pointed out that, "The army says cano area in the central province ofCuscat­ the people of Consolaci6n - about 270 in lan. all- asked to be ' rescued' from the guer­ The army's week-long offensive against rillas. The villagers don' t dispute that they Morazan. which began on June 14, was left their homes voluntarily. 'There was one of the largest offensive actions by the nothing left there for me to hold on to,'" army thus far in the war. Thousands of sol­ one woman expl-ained to Preston. diers were supported by almost the entire Duarte admits that indiscriminate bomb­ air force. ings went on at one time, but claims that A June 18 broadcast by Radio Vence­ they have stopped since he ordered the air remos. official radio station of the FMLN, force last September to hit only targets called on "human rights organizations to clearly identified as military objectives. No direct their attention" to the events in officers have been tried for killing innocent Morazan, which borders Honduras. The civilians in any bombings. government's elite battalions had arrested However, as one foreign military ob­ many civilians and set fire to their land, the server told Preston , "There certainly are rebel radio reported. Salvadoran and inter­ areas where the army feels the guerrillas Black Enterprise national correspondents were banned from are the main inhabitants, and some areas Chart shows top lOO.Biack companies divided by industry, number of companies in the area by the government in order to they don't think there is anything but guer­ each category, and income in millions of dollars. cover up crimes committed by soldiers. rillas."

August 16, 1~85 The Militant 15 Why the U.S. and Japan went to war World War II not in interest of workers, farmers of either country

BY PATTIIIYAMA In spite of this high-flown rhetoric, the By the end of the nineteenth century. possessions in the Pacific at the end of the On August 6. 1945. the United States real roots of the war lay in the struggle be­ Japanese capitalism had begun to consoli­ nineteenth century . Hawaii was invaded by became the first and only government io tween the ruling families of the major im­ date a strong empire with significant col­ U.S. Marines in 1893. It was formally an­ drop the atomic bomb on people. The ef­ perialist powers for control of the world's onies. nexed in 1898 to protect the propert y of fects on the Japanese .city of Hiroshima major resources and markets. This interim­ It began expanding its territory with ac­ U. S. landholders. who by then had seized were devastating. The shock wave and fire­ perialist struggle pitted the U.S. and Brit­ quisition of the Ryukyu Islands. seized three-fourths of the islands. ball resulting from the nuclear reaction an-. ish rulers against the ruling families of Ger­ from China in 1874: the Kurile Islands. In 1898-99 Washington also won Wake. nihilated 10 square miles of Hiroshima. many, Italy, and Japan. ceded by Russia in 1875: and the Bonin Is­ Guam. the Philippines. Puerto Ri co, and melting granite, and imprinting shadows of This struggle for political and economic lands. colonized by Japan and recognized Cuba as booty from the Spanish-American people and objects on the ground. It gener­ domination of the Pacific was fought on as Japanese territory by the United States War. Even after this conquest. it took ated fires miles from the center of the ex­ many levels. Just as in Europe. the Pacific and Britain in 1875. nearl y a decade and 40.000 lives to crush plosion. and produced whirlwinds that war did not serve the interests of the work­ As early as 1876 the Japanese govern­ the Filipino guerrilla struggle for liberation fanned the flames so powerfully that they ers and farmers in any of the countries. ment indicated its intent to control Korea that ensued. burned over four square miles after the in­ They were merely the cannon fodder for when it signed the Treaty of Kanghwa, The U.S. rulers now had intermediate is­ itial blast. More than 100,000 people , in­ the ruling families of both Japan and the which opened two Korean ports to Japan. lands as fueling stops that could facilitate cluding U.S. prisoners of war, perished in­ United States. In 1894. the Japanese government fought a their main ambition in the Pacific - the stantly. Thousands more died later of The war in the Pacific was also a war of war with China and decisively defeated the penetration. and ultimately the domina­ bums, shock. or radiation poisoning. national liberation fought by the oppressed Chinese army. It won all the rights enjoyed tion. of the potentially vast China market. Three days later the U.S. government and exploited people of China against the by the European colonial powers in China The U.S. rulers now made the "Open dropped a second atomic bomb on attempts of Japanese big business to bring and acquired rich colonial territories - Door" the core of its foreign policy in the Nagasaki. It killed 35,000-40,000 people China forcibly into its orbit. And the war Formosa. the Pescadores Islands, and the region . The· ()pen Door policy insisted on and flattened the center of the city. also marked the beginning of the end of Liaotung Peninsula in south Manchuria. equal access to Chinese markets by the im­ Between these two bombings, the Soviet open European colonial domination of Chinese hegemony in Korea was elimi­ perialist powers. The U.S. capitalists be­ Union declared war on Japan on August 8 Asia. nated. Japan soon began to domi.nate Korea lieved that. with their economic superior­ and invaded Japanese-held Manchuria. This artic le will only discuss the interim­ politically. 'econ.omically. and militarily. ity. they did not have to challenge the On August 10, 1945, the Japanese gov­ perialist war between Washington and formally annexing it in 1910. existing special interests and spheres of in­ ernment announced that it would surren­ Tokyo. But the European colonialists were not fluence of the European capitalists. der, ending World War ll formally on Sep­ prepared to acknowledge Tokyo as an The Japanese ruling class. however, al­ tember 2. Imperialist division of Asia equal power in the imperialist scramble for tered the balance of power in Asia in 1905 The war culminated decades of interim­ The Japanese rulers were one of the China. They forced Japan to return with its stunning victory over the Tsarist perialist conflicts between the rulers of the latecomers in the imperialist plunder of the Liaotung Peninsula to China only five days government in Russia, thus dramatically United States and Japan over which im­ world. After feudalism was officially after the treaty was signed in 1895. The announcing its arrival among the ranks of perialist power would win domination of abolished in 1871, Japan moved quickly to Russian, British, German, and French rul­ the imperiaiists. The Russian government the Pacific. become a major capitalist power. At first. ing families then proceeded to carve up was forced to recognize Japan's primacy in What is the history of this conflict? What the process of industrialization was given a China for themselves. creating spheres of Korea and to surrender its economic and led to the war in the Pac ific? boost by the government, which financed influence. political interests in Manchuria. The ability the construction of model· factories. These The other colony that the Japanese gov­ of an Asian nation to defeat one of the Reasons behind WW II in the Pacific were then sold at bargain prices to private ernment was able to acquire in this period European powers was an inspiration to the World War II was presented by the gov­ entrepreneurs. With few competitors and . was Taiwan, which was formally trans­ oppressed and exploited people of Asia. ernment of the Allied powers (U.S .. Brit­ tremendous opportunities. a small number ferred from China in 1895. It took four to Many nationalists in fact initially sup­ ain, France) as a war for democracy against of individuals known as ·zaibatsu (financial six years for Japanese troops to subdue the ported Japan against the European coloni­ fascism, for the "four freedoms" - free­ magnates), such as Mitsui and Mitsubishi. nationalist guerrilla fighters and establish alists. This changed after experience ex­ dom of speech and expression, freedom of came to dominate most enterprises. They control over the island. posed Japan's propaganda of''Asia for the religion, freedom from want, and freedom maintained close re lations with govern­ The U.S. ruling families also launched Asiatics" and a "greater East Asia co-pros­ from fear. ment. officials. an expansionist drive to obtain colonial perity sphere" wi th a self-sufficient econ­ omy developing under Japan's benevolent leadership as cover for Japan's domina­ tion. Japanese American soldiers in WW II Two powers contending in Asia Bet ween 1905 and the Second World Go For Broke: A Pictorial History of the War. the history of the Pac ific was domi­ Japanese American JOOth lnfantr_r Bat­ nated by the struggle between the U.S. and talion and the 442d Regimental Combat Japanese imperialists for economic, politi­ Team, by Chester Tanaka. Richmond cal. and military control of the region. California, Go For Broke, Inc., 1982, During World War I Japan joined the AI· 172 pages, $34.95, hardcover. lies (Britain, France, United States. and Russia) in the first imperialist war. It BY MORRIS STARSKY "seized the opportunity of a thousand This book is about the Japanese Ameri­ years" to grab Germany's possessions in cans (Nisei or second generation) who Asia - Shantung Province and the Mar­ fought in the U.S. Army during World War shall , Mariana, and Caroline Islands in the II. It is a collection of remarkable photo· Pacific. graphs and personal reflections organized The tsarist empire was removed from the around an historical narrative. imperialist competition by the October The author, Chester Tanaka, volun­ 1917 revolution or workers and peasants teered for the army in 1943 and served with led by the Bolsheviks. the 44?d Regimental Combat Team. He The two remaining rivals in Manchuria. Japan and the United States. were·able to arrive at an understanding in 19 17. The Lansing-lshii accord reaffirmed the Open BOOK REVIEW Door policy of "equal opportunity for com· merce and industry." The U.S. govern­ was one of the few men to survive all five ment recognized Japanese territorial ac­ of that unit's campaigns against Gennan Go For Broke quisitions from Germany and "special in­ forces in France and Italy. Members of the 442d Combat Team with fallen comrades terests" in China. The agreement averted Go For Broke is a very patriotic book. open war between the two for the time Tanaka shared.the view of many Nisei dur­ being. ing World War II that if they proved their the 442d with a top field strength of 4,500, vidually charged with a crime against the At the Versailles Peace Conference two loyalty to the Uni ted States, despite racist in which a total of 18,000 served, suffered United States. They were simply ordered to years later in 1919, the Japanese govern­ injustice, they would earn the respect of the a 314 percent casualty rate. "Go For report for internment and faced heavy ment managed to hang on to the German government. This book is the record of the Broke" was their slogan, based on a criminal penalties for refusing to do so. colonies it had seized during the war. de­ military expioits of the "most decorated Hawaiian crapshooter's term for "shoot the The evacuation of Japanese Amerkans spite vehement opposition from the U.S. unit in United States military history," works." And that was what they did; they from the Pacific Coast states was not a war­ rulers. This was a blow 10 the U.S. attempt through seven campaigns against the were proving their loyalty to the United time mistake, overzealousness. or a misun­ · to break down the spheres of influence in "toughest troops the Nazis could throw at States with their blood. They hoped that derstanding about their loyalty .. On the China. because Japanese capitalists simply them." their record would help to free their rela­ contrary, it was a conscious pol icy based took over the German interests there with­ Although Go For Broke paints a picture tives and friends from the concentration on racism and plunder. It wa~ preceded by out opening them to economic penetration of how the Japanese Americans of the l 00/ camps. a media campaign aimed at isolating by others. But in spite of this settlement , 442d earned the respect of the government Japanese Americans by associating them with millions of dollars due in war credits. by proving their loyalty to the United Executive Order 9066 with ''the enemy'' and raising the specter of the U.S. ruling families became creditors States in combat, a very different picture On February 19 , 1942, President spies and saboteurs. to half the world and leaped forward to be­ - one not intended by the author - Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066. Tanaka points o ut that in Hawaii. 3.000 come the dominant imperialist power in emerges from the pages of the book. We stripping 112,000 mainland Japanese miles closer to Japan and under martial Asia. see quite clearly how U.S. imperialism Americans of their rights and freedom. In law, the 160.000 Japanese Americans were In an attempt to modify Japanese influ­ cynically utilized the loyalty of these the spring of that year, the U.S. govern­ not rounded up and put into concentration ence in the Pacific. the imperialist powers Japanese Americans and used them as can­ ment assembled and shipped off to concen­ camps. Indeed. thei r constitution<.~ ! ri ghts banded together in the Washington Confer­ non fodder in its war against German im­ tration camps the entire Japanese American were respected to a greater degree than on ence from November 1921-February 1922. perialism. population of California, Oregon, and the mainland. The diffe rence was not a This conference was the only serious at­ In the process of earning 9 ,486 Purple Washington. Two-thirds of those removed matter of loyalty. While Japanese Ameri­ tempt in the fi rst decades of the twentieth Hearts for being wounded in action and and interned were citizens of the United cans comprised only about one-tenth of I century to settle peacefully the interim­ 18 , 143 individual decorations for bravery, States by birth. None of them was indi- Continued on Page 21 perialist rivalry in the Pacific. The rulers of

16 August 16:, ·t985 ,, • 1A·~~ ·~- ,_v---.r ~"- I

ro .. lk&al c.•l •nt. of Joponc.• c. c:onl,..ol. the United States, Britain. France, and World Wor U • Japan signed a Pacific treaty that estab­ lished their alliance and also recognized each others' possessions in the Pacific. Pa ~; & C & c:l' H In other treaties. the Japanese govern­ ment was forced to return Shantung to China, limits were set on naval ship con­ struction, and the political and territorial independence of China was recognized (within limits). These treaties served to re­ coup some of the losses suffered by the other imperialists from Japan, while sub­ stantially improving the U.S. position at the expense of the other ruling families. U.S. bankers and investors found the Chinese republic too unstable and instead invested heavily in the flourishing indus­ tries of Japan, which in tum invested .in­ creasingly in mineral-rich Manchuria. By 1930, 70 percent of all foreign investment r----' in China was shared equally by Britain and I • Japan, compared to only 6 percent for the ·------""/ ·····-.· United States. U.S. exports to Japan, th ot,~gh , were at twice that rate, and by 1935 Japan was their third largest overseas customer, dependent on U.S. oil and stra­ tegic material imports. The obstacles to establishing trade unions and a mass working class party in .., . 110• ...,. Japan at this time were great. The working . class was not concentrated in large fac­ Map shows Japanese colonies during and after World War II tories and was not a large percentage of the population. In 1920. for instance, only 19.7 percent of this population was in in­ the l)igh of 7.9 percent reached in 1931 , tion. S6d6mei. evolved into a company ye11r th roughout the 1930s. dustry, and this figure fluctuated a great and the actual number never went beyond union after its leadership expelled all the The Social Democrats were won over to deal due to economic instability and low 420,589 in 1936. Over one-third of the unions associated with the Communist politically support nlling class policies. in­ wages. unionized workers were seamen. Most of Party in 1925. It formall y renounced strike cluding its expansion in the Far East. by The dispersal of the working c lass in the rest were workers in small and medium action in 1937. and in 1940 submerged such concessions as the 1925 Universal Japan - then a country of about 56 million enterprises, especiall y printing and metal­ what was le ft of the union movement in the Manhood Suffrage laws. All political or­ people - made it weak and difficult to or­ working. Major industries like textiles, government-sponsored Samp6 (Patriotic ganizations of the workers and peasants re­ gani ze. rail ways, electrical manufacturing. and Industrial Association). which actively mained small with no mass influence. Workers remained almost completely mining were vi rtually unorganized. sabotaged the interests of the working The weakness of the worker and farmer unorganized until after World War I. Mem­ These membershi p figures are not even class. organizations made it possible for the bership in the trade unions never exceeded that meaningful , since the largest federa- ,Just as in this period the zaibatsu were Japanese capitalists and landlords to carry able to increase their profits at the expense out the militarization of labor. the centrali­ of the workers due to their lack of organi­ zation of power at the expense of the work­ zation. so the landowners were able to in­ ers. The ruling families passed laws that Lenin: 'Japan and America will crease their holdings and income at the ex­ mobilized the entire personnel and material pense of small and medium-size farmers. resources of the nation. This gave the gov­ Half of the population of Japan as late as ernment immense powers to employ or dis­ fight for the right to loot' 1930 was engaged in agriculture. Most of charge workers. regulate their wages and them were peasants ··forced into partial o r working conditions. censor all press and The following is an excerpt from a De­ seeing that a war is brewing. The world has complete tenantry and dependent on un­ media information, and place vital indus­ cember 1920 speech by V. I. Lenin, the been partitioned. Japan has seized vast col­ mechanized agricultural methods and tries under its direct operation. central leader of the Bolshevik Party that onies. Japan has a population of fifly mil­ labor-intensive hand tools. High land taxes They used the emperor to appeal for na­ led the workers and peasants to power in lion, and she is comparatively weak forced the farmers to take off-the-fann jobs tional unity in the interests of imperialism Russia in October 1917. The speech was economically. America has a population of in the villages or to send fami ly members and to support the mi_Jitary dictatorship. given to a meeting of party activists in a hundred and ten million, and although to work in the c ities or both in order to keep Unlike the German and l.talian rulers, the Moscow. she is many times richer than Japan she has from starving. In particular, nearl y half of Japanese capitalists did not need a mass Lenin explained that the underlying eco­ no colonies. these te nant farmers relied on the produc­ fascist movement to destroy the workers' nomic and political reasons that led to the Japan has seized China, which has a tion of raw silk as their seconc!ary source of and farmers' organizati ons. which were first imperialist war in 1914 had not been population of four hundred million and the income, which was disastrous during the extremely weak and ineffective already. settled by that war's end. To the contrary. richest coal reserves in the world. How can Depression when prices fell sharpI y. World War II was disastrous for the the outcome of the war had planted the this plum be kept? It is absurd to think that After World War I the landholders con­ Japanese workers and farmers. They faced seeds for a new interimperialist war. He a stronger capitalism will not deprive a solidated their monopoly on the land at the terrible hardships caused by conscription, specifically cites the prospect of war be­ weaker capitalism of the latter's spoils. expense of small landholders. who were obligatory labor. food shortages, and , tween the ruling families of the United Can the Americans remain indifferent forced to become tenants by mortgage fore­ later. bombings. There was little organized States· and Japan over control of the under such circumstances? Can strong closures. As conditions worsened, tenant­ resistance to the ruling class from workers Pacific. capitalists remain side by side with weak farmer distress became translated into ac­ from 1937 on. However, working people, capitalists and not be expected to grab ev­ tion. The number of tenant-landlord dis­ especially requisitioned workers, ex­ Lenin explained that until capitalism erything they can from the latter? What putes over rent taken to court increased. pressed their opposition in individual acts was overturned worldwide, the workers would they be good for if they did not? But from 408 in 1920 to 2,751 in 1925. and of desertion. absenteeism, destruction of and peasants in Russia, in defending them­ that being the case, can we, as Com­ broke new records yearly until 1936. equipment, and deliberately making prod­ selves, would find It necessary to take ad­ munists, remain indifferent and merely As cou~s consistently ruled against the ucts that were defective. While the numbe r vantage of the antagonisms that exist be­ say: ''We shall carry on propaganda for tenant farmers, they became aware of the of strikes fell. the number of work stop­ tween imperialist governments. In his communism in these countries." That is struggle of workers in the c ities, learning pages due to sabotage increased by about speech, he demonstrated how this policy correct. but it is not everything. The practi­ tactics of union organization from leaders as much as the strikes fell. had been effective in Europe and the pos­ cal task of communist policy is to take ad­ with previous experience in the labor In 1931. the Japanese government began sibilities for applying it in Asia. vantage of this hostility ana to play one movement. A few years after the first to take further steps toward expanding its side off against the other. Here a new situ­ major national union of workers was empire in the Far East. Using the pretext of * * * ation arises. Take the two imperialist coun­ fonned , the Japaf! Farmers' Union was es­ an incident in Manchuria, Japanese troops Are there any radical antagonisms in the tries, Japan and America. They want to tablished in 1922 by Social Democrats and invaded . overcame feeble resistance, and present-day capitalist world that must be fight and will fight for world supremacy, soon reac.hed a peak of 67.876 members. set up a puppet state, Manchukuo, which utilized? Yes. The first, the one that affects for the right to loot. Japan will fight so as to The ke y question for the farmers as well became a virtual province of Japan. us closest, is the relations between Japan continue to plunder Korea, which she is as for the workers in Japan was leadership. In 1934 Tokyo closed the open door in and America. War is brewing between doing with unprecedented brutality. com­ The tenant farmers were bound to their China with its announcement of the Amau them. They cannot live together in peace bining all the latest technical inventions land. traveled little, and were relatively in­ Doctrine. Japan claimed the right to oppose on the shores of the Pacific, although those with purely Asiatic tortures. We recently experienced in organizing collective ac­ loans or any other support by other nations shores are three thousand versts [approxi­ received a Korean newspaper which gives 'tion. They repeatedly sought the help of to China and denied China the ri ght " to mately 2,000 miles] apart. This rivalry an account of what the Japanese are doing. labor groups to form a poli tical liaison for avail herself of the influence of any other arises incontestably from the. relation be­ Here we find all the methods of tsarism and joint labor-farmer struggles. country to resist Japan." tween their capitalisms. A vast literature all the latest technical perfections com­ The ruling families in Japan used both Then Japanese troops invaded China in exists on the future Japanese-Ameri can bined with a purely Asiatic system of tor­ repression and concessions to divide the al­ 1937. When the Nationalist government war. It is beyond doubt that war is brew­ ture and unparalleled brutality. But the ready-weak organizations of the working headed by Chiang Kai-shek refused to sur­ ing, that it is inevitable. The pacifists are Americans would like to grab this Korean class and farmers. Through these.methods. render, a puppet government headed by a trying to ignore the matter and obscure it · tidbit. 0( course. defense of cou11try in the influence of the Social De mocrats and rival of Chiang, Wang Shing-wei. was set with general phrases, but no student of the such a war would be a heinous crime. a bet­ the Communist Party was kept minimal. up in Nanking. history of economic relations and diplo­ rayal of socialism. Of course, to support The Communist Party never exceeded The tripartite pact of Germany, Italy. macy can have the slightest doubt that war one of these countries against the other 1.000 members prior to 1945. It frequently and Japan was signed in 1940. The pact is ripe from the economic viewpoint and is would be a crime against communism; we fell below fOO because of the incessant recogni zed Japanese hegemony in Asia and being prepared politically. One cannot Communists have to play one off against mass arrests that began a few months after each signatory agreed to help any attacked open a single book on this subject without the other. its founding in 1922 and continued every Continued on Page 21

August 16, 1985 The Militant 17 SWP condemns fraudulent use of party name

BY LARRY SEIGLE known as the SWP is, they claim, only one Pfaelzer has overruled SWP arguments informers against the SWP and YSA is that A group falsely claiming to be part of the of four components, each a legitimate part that the government and its courts have no the gove rnment needs to spy on these or­ Socialist Workers Party has begun func­ of the "Socialist Workers Party." right to intervene into the. internal life of ganizations from inside because, no matter tioning publicly in recent weeks. This [f the decisions of the SWP membership the SWP or any similar voluntary organiza­ what the positions adopted by the official fraudulent misuse of the SWP's name is an and elected leadership bodies can be over­ tion, and that only the members of the bodies of the SWP or YSA might be, these attack on the democratic rights of the SWP turned by an outside force, and the right to party have the right to decide who is and are not binding on all members. and of its entire membership. . speak in the name of the SWP usurped, the who is not a member of their organization. The FBI's lawyers claim that there can It is also a provocation that gives the very right of the SWP to exist is under­ The judge also asserts the right of the gov­ be more than one "SWP" or "YSA" posi­ government an additional argument to try mined. ernment to pass judgment on whether the tion and organizational structure. Because to justify its use of FBI informers and othe1 party's activities and positions are in con­ of this, they insist, the FBI has to con­ spying and disruption measures against the Los Angeles lawsuit formity with its stated program and historic stantly spy on these organizations, includ­ SWP and the Young Socialist Alliance. The SWP is currently involved in a pro­ goals. ing through the use:: of informers, to find This is especially dangerous in face of the tracted battle to defend precisely this right Pfaelzer's ongoing intervention into the out what every member thinks and does. legal battles to protect democratic rights against a sustained attack by a federal internal functioning of the SWP is a blow This is one of the central defenses being that the SWP and YSA are c urrently in­ judge in Los Angeles. in collaboration with against freedom of association, and against used by the government in defending the volved in. lawyers and a well-bankrolled organization the entire Bill of Rights. FBI in the ongoing lawsuit filed by the The new group is called Socialist Unity. out to disrupt the SWP and drain it of re­ The SWP and other defenders of demo­ SWP and YSA against political police spy­ It is one of three organizations that sources. Federal District Judge Mariana cratic rights have been waging a campaign ing and disruption. This case finally went emerged from a faction that split from the Pfaelzer has Claimed that the courts have against this government intervention into to trial in New York in 1981 , after eight SWP in 1983. The other two groups are the right to decide who can be a member of the party. At stake are not only the rights of years of government stalling. ·But, like the called Socialist Action and Fourth Inter­ the SWP, and whether or not the elected the SWP, but the rights of unions, organi­ case in Los Angeles, the judge is refusing nationalist Tendency. leadership bodies of the party are function­ zations fighting for Black equality. and to release a decision. In a founding declaration, which has ing properly. other associations. The same argument will undoubtedly be been circulating publicly in several cities, Pfaelzer is the judge in a lawsuit filed by The same basic rights are at stake in the raised if) the trial this fall in a suit filed by Socialist Unity asserts: "In effect, the Alan Gelfand, who worked as a lawyer for stealing of the party's name by Socialist Harry Clark. a former member of the YSA. Socialist Workers Party is now divided into Los Angeles County. Gelfand entered the Unity. Those who are not members of the Clark, who is Black, was the target of a four distinct political tendencies, the SWP. SWP in 1976 to disrupt it from within. He SWP have no right to speak in its name. massive FBr investigation that resulted in the Fourth Internationalist Tendency. was expelled from the party in 1979 after Any attempt to do so - for whatever mo­ government agents visiting his family , Socialist Action, and Socialist Action he fil ed a legal brief in federal court charg­ tive- is an assault on the right of associa­ friends, and coworkers solely on the basis · (minority tendency)." The formation called ing that the SWP has been taken over by tion. of a report that Clark had attended some "Socialist Action (minority tendency)" the FBI. This slander is at the heart of an YSA meetings. As a result, he was denied subsequently took the name Socialist international disruption campaign being Handing cops an excuse a promotion at the Library of Congress, Unity. carried out against the SWP and the Fourth Socialist Unity asserts that the SWP has where he worked. solely because of his po­ ·This attempt by Socialist Unity to pass rn temational' the international organiza­ broken into four pieces. It claims that the litical views. itself off as part of the Socialist Workers tion that the SWP helped to found in 1938. .SWP as it has been known for almost fifty The FBI suffered a negative ruling in an Party is a deliberate challenge to the right This disruption operation is the principal years is not the SWP at all . but only one earlier phase of the Clark case. The cop of the membership of the SWP to organize activity of the Workers Re.volutionary part of its former self. This attempted dis­ agency has let it be known to reporters that the party as it sees fit, and to dec!de party Party of Britain and its U.S. followers, the memberment of the SWP not only chal­ it will try to put the SWP and YSA on trial policy. This right necessarily includes at its Workers League. lenges the rights of the party and of its en­ when the case is heard again in federal dis­ very heart the right of the membership to After being expelled from the SWP, tire membership, it also hands the govern­ trict court in Washington, D.C., this fall. decide who speaks and acts in the name of Gelfand, in collusion with the WRP/WL, ment an argument to use to attempt to jus­ The assertion by Socialist Unity that the the party, and who the members of the sued the party. He asked Judge Pfaelzer to tify its use of police spies and provocateurs SWP is now composed of four groups, party are. remove the elected SWP leadership from against the SWP and YSA. For this reason, each with its own structure, leadership, and Without the fundamental democratic office and reinstate him into membership. regardless of the intention of those who are political positions, will make the govern­ right to decide the basis of membership and Gelfand claims that he represents the "true" involved in this deliberate falsification, it ment's job that much easier in justifying its to determine who meets that standard, no SWP and that its elected leadership com­ constitutes a provocation. political police operations against" the party organization based on voluntary associa­ mittees do not. A major argument used by government and the YSA. The fact that the assertion is tion can function. The case has been pending for six years. lawyers seeking to defend the use of FBI Continued on next page By falsely claiming to be a part of the A trial was held more than two years ago, SWP, Socialist Unity is engaged not onl y but the judge has refu sed to issue a ruling. in a political fraud, but also in an effort to Despite having to admit time and again that n.egate the decisions of the party member­ Gelfand has no evidence to back up his French-language Marxist journal ship and elected leadership bodies. charge that the leaders of the SWP are FBI Equally damaging to the SWP's rights is agents, Pfaelzer has rejected every effort the assertion by Socialist Unity that, in by the S_~P to have too case thrown out of now available fact, the SWP no longer exists. What is court. Continued from Page 9 process of political clarification was a deci­ Jack Barnes are followed by a collection of sive factor in the ability of 1he SWP and fi ve documents, more historical in charac­ RWL to reconquer communist revolution­ Do you know someone who reads Spanish? ter, that also take up the question of work­ ary continuity on the question of workers' ers' and farmers· governments. and farmers· governments, as can be seen The Cuban revolution of 1959 was with­ in the articles of Mary-Alice Waters and Worker-farmer alliance in U.S. out any doubt one of the most important Jack Barnes published in this first issue of examples of a victorious people's revolu­ Nouvelle lnternationale. This contribution Th e farmers in the United tion. The document we are reproducing was also decisive in these two parties' ca­ States are suffering from the here is an extract of the main report given pacity to grasp the historic meaning of the worst social and economic crisis by Fidel Castro on behalf of the Central Nicaraguan and Grenadian revolutions of since the Great Depression over Committee of the Communist Party of 1979 and to respond to them clearly and half a decade ago. Their real in­ Cuba at the party's first congress in 1975. correctly. come has plummeted and their This document is a good example of the Lastly, the final two documents in this debts have skyrocketed in the last Cuban revolutionaries· efforts to consider first issue of Nouvelle lnternationale come few years, leaving them trapped the meaning of their own revolutionary ex­ from the Communist International during between high production costs perience. to draw its lessons. and to Lenin 's lifetime. The Communist Interna­ and the low prices they receive for generali ze them. In it . Fidel Castro de­ tional, also known as the Third Interna­ their products. Many are being scribes in a very specific way the main tional or the Comintern, was founded in forced off the land. stages that the Cuban revolution passed · 1919 under the impact of the Russian revo­ The capitalist politicians in through from 1953 to 1964. that is from the lution of 1917 and on the init iative of the Washington, be they Democrats beginning of the final struggle against the Russian Bolshevik party. Like the Cuban and Central American revolutionaries - or Republicans, could not care less Batista dictatorshi p up to the second agra­ ri an reform decreed by the new revolution­ and like ourselves today- the revolution­ about the plight of working farm­ ary government. It also gives a very good aries of that time sought to draw all possi­ ers, since they in fact represent picture of the decisive role played by the ble lessons from the Russian revolution, the very same trusts and revolutionary government brought to the first victori ous socialist revolution in El pueblo de Nicaragua celebra el monopolies that exploit them and power in 1959 in the mobilization of Cuban history. and to generalize these lessons in o;exto aniversario de su revolucion t h eir families. workers and peasants. These mobilizations order to apply them elsewhere in the world. The current issue of Perspectiva broke the resistance of the big landowners. This process led the Communist Interna­ Mundial includes the first half of in the U.S. and around the world . jSuscribete ahora! the Cuban capitalists. and the big U.S. im­ tional to tum its attention to the question of a document on the worker-farme r perialist corporations and their government the workers' and farmers' government at alliance in the United States. It is in Washington against the economic and its fourth congress in 1922. and again the based on reports adopted by the Subscriptions: $16 for one social measures that the workers· and peas­ following year at a meeting of the Comin­ National Committee of the ants' government in Cuba sought to apply . tern Executive Committee. The two docu­ Socialist Workers Party in 1979 year; $8 for six months; Intro­ The next two documents were written by ments published here have not been avail­ and 1982, and it incorporates the ductory offer, $3.00 for three Joseph Hansen, a longtime leader of the able, as far as we know, to a broad French­ experience and further thinking month s. SWP and the Fourth International. Hansen speaking audience since the 1920s. The of the party since then through its died in January 1979. He had been one of fi rst is the resolution adopted in June 1923 increasing involvement in the 0 Begin my sub with current the secretaries of the Russian revolutionary by the enlarged Executive Committee of struggles of working farmers and issue. Leon Trotsky in the 1930s. The two arti­ the Communist International on the work­ ers' and farmers· government. The second· their organizations. Name cles published here were written I 0 years apart, the first in 1969 and the second in is an extract from the report introducing Perspectiva M undial is the Address 1978. They show the development of the this discussion given by Gregory Zinoviev, Spanish-language socialist maga­ poli tical views of the SWP leadership in at that time the chairman of the Interna­ City/State/Zip zine that every two weeks b rings the light of the Cuban revolution, including tional's executive committee. you the truth about the struggles of Clip and mail to PM, 408 West St., lessons relating to other post-World War Jl We have made minor corrections of style working people a nd the oppr essed New York, NY 10014. revolutionary processes around the world and accuracy in the French texts of Fidel that came before 1959. Castro and Gregory Zinoviev reproduced Joseph Hansen's contribution to this here.

. 18 The MHitant August 16~ 1985 SWP hails 2nd year of ·Burkina revolution

The following message was sent by These crimes of the U.S. rulers are not Andrea Gonzalez, the Socialist Workers going unanswered. On April 20. more than Party candidate for mayor of New York, 125,000 people demonstrated in Washing­ to the August 4 celebration of the 2nd ton and several other U.S. cities to con­ anniversary of the revolution in Burkina demn the U.S. government's intervention Faso. in Central America and the Caribbean. to protest its support for the racist regime in National Council of the Revolution, South Africa, and to demand jobs and jus­ Revolutionary people of Burkina Faso tice here in the United States. More protest actions around the same themes are now Dear comrades in struggle, being organized for this September, Oc­ tober, and November. As a party of fighters against exploit­ The popular. anti-imperialist revolution ation. oppression. and misery here in the you have launched in Burkina is ve ry much United States. the Socialist Workers Party part of our struggle here. Our enemy is the sends you ·its greetings on the second an­ same. And the solidarity of working and niversary of your revolutionary triumph. oppressed peoples knows no national bor­ We know the difficulties you face. Yet ders. we also know the determination of the Bur­ It is in this spirit that we are seeking to kinabe people to throw off the yoke of im­ get out the truth about your struggle to perialist oppression and domination, to U.S. working people, and to build solidar­ . free your country of poverty and social in­ ity with it. Militant/Ernest Harsch justice. Long live the Burkinabe revolution' Mural on roadside in Ouagadougou says, "I am a Burkinabe." We likewise know that the governmenl of the United States bears its share of re­ sponsibility for your sufferings . We con­ demn Washington's threats against your revolution, in particular its attempts to 1, 000 march in Mich. against apartheid. blackmail you by withholding agricultural assistance at this time of drought and BY ANDREW PULLEY son Assembly; Local 235 , Saginaw De­ know about police killing Black youth ev­ famine. DETROIT - More than I .000 people troit; and Local 1200. General Dynamics eryday in this country. And you know the lri the eyes of the people of the world. marched here to protest murders and arrests tank plant. . U.S. constitution was an apartheid con­ U.S. imperialism is truly "the enemy of hu­ of Blacks in South Africa and U.S. support The Local 1200 contingent. which is in stitution. manity ," as the Nicaraguan workers and to apartheid. · the midst of a fight over their new contract. "Apartheid in South Africa exists today peasants boldly state in the Sandinista The theme of the August I action was had signs saying "Stop union busting from for the same reason that it existed in the hymn. "A message from the people of Detroit to U.S. to South Africa." U.S.- for making profits. To get at apart­ Today, the U.S. rulers are organizing a President Botha of S.A. that we won't heid, you must get at imperialism," Union members and leaders participated criminal economic blockade and merce­ stand by while our people die." Lumumba said. nary war against Nicaragua, seeking to ex­ in the march. This included UA W vice­ tinguish the light of hope and struggle that Called as an emergency protest, the president Marc Stepp. Rev. Charles Adams, Detroit NAACP the Sandinista revolution, together with march was endorsed by the NAACP, Free After a spirited march down Woodward president. said, "Though we may differ on socialist Cuba, holds out for the working South Africa Movement, United Auto Avenue. Mayor Coleman Young was the the cause and solution to apartheid, we people of Latin America. the Caribbean. Workers, Metro Detroit AFL-CIO, Detroit first speaker at the rally. ''We are here de. must all remain together in this movement. We must keep protesting until South Afri­ and the world. City Council, and several Black ministers. manding civil and human rights for our This is very much part of the war the Among the organizations attending plan­ brothers and sisters in South Africa," he can apartheid is dead and buried.'' U.S. capitalists, bankers, and real estate ning meetings and supporting the march said. Adams spoke of his efforts to get Demo­ speculators are waging here at home, were New Afrikan People's Organization. Chokwe Lumumba of the New Afrikao cratic and Republican politicians to do against U.S. workers and farmers. Un­ All People's Congress, Socialist Workers People's Organization spoke next, saying. somethi ng meaningful against apartheid. employment lines. union-busting drives. Party, and National Black Independent Po­ "Many sisters and brothers here say they ·•t ask, can we stop all investments in farm seizures, the growing number of litical Party . don't know what apartheid is and how Af­ South Africa, and they say no. we can't do homeless, racist attacks against Black The action was a success despite taking rican people can live under such a system. that. Can we stop all new investments? people - all are the domestic face of the place during daytime working hours. There "But you know what. apartheid is. You They say , no. we can't do that. Can we very same imperialism that you are con­ were groups of UA W members from ~Local know about the 'whites only' signs at the break diplomatic relations with South Af­ fronting in Burkina Faso. 600, Ford Rouge; Local 7, Chrysled'effer- entrances of restaurants and hotels. You rica? The politicians say no. we can't do that either," Adams said . "Apartheid is a deadly cancer. It must be removed radically. It is took radical Protests grow at S. African embassy in D.C. surgery to cure Reagan 's cancer. it will take radical surgery to cure what is wrong BY IKE NAHEM In the ensuing eight months, not a single At a press conference, Robinson de­ in South African society. If l)onviolent ac­ WASHINGTON, D.C. - Protests at week-day has passed without protests one nounced South Africa's state of.emergency tion cannot bring about change, then vio­ the South African embassy here have block from the four-story embassy com­ as "the bitter harvest ... of American pol­ lent action will not be avoided." he con­ stepped up and grown in recent weeks as plex. The pickets have ranged in size fmm icy.·· Robinson and the other leaders said cluded. the liberation struggle of Black South Afri­ 50 to over 2,000 and have been strikingly the Free South Africa Movement would in­ Abdeen Jabara, a leader of the Arab cans has deepened. · broad. Over 3,000 have been arrested. tensify the anti-apartheid struggle. community. told the rally, "Your struggle Last November 21, in response to there­ So far, the District Attorney's office is our struggle, and our struggle is yours." The following day nearly 2,000 people A representative to the United Nations pression that followed a two-day general here has declined to prosecute any of those joined the picket line . Many were in town strike involving hundreds of thousands of arrested. Protest organizers hope to use any from the Pan African Congress of South for the convention of the National Urban Africa and Detroit AFL-CIO President Black workers, pickets 'went up at the trials as a forum to expose both apartheid League. · apartheid embassy in D.C. Randall Robin­ and U.S. government complicity with it. Tom Turner also spoke. son, a leader of the Black organization On July 22, Robinson, Fauntroy, Berry, On July 25, top officials of the United Trans-Africa, D.C. Delegate to Congress and two others on the Free South Africa Mine Workers of America (U MW) were Walter Fauntroy. and U.S. Civil Rights Movement steering committee were again arrested at the embassy door. Richard Detroit SWP candidate Commissioner Mary Berry were taken into arrested at the embassy in response to the Trumka, UMW president and one of those custody by D.C. and federal police as they South African regime's imposition of a arrested, pledged support to the goals of blasts U.S. government took the protest to the embassy door. The state of emergency July 20. This time the the Free South Africa Movement. Speak­ at anti-apartheid raUy · Free South Africa Movement was cops threatened to prosecute anyone ar­ ing to reporters, Trumka denounced "the launched. rested a second time. slave labor conditions of our brother min­ ers in South Africa." The UMW, Trumka Kibwe Diarra, Socialist Workers candi­ stated, would join the call of ·the World date for mayor of Detroit, was one of the Council of Churches urging consumer speakers at the evening rally against apart­ Fraudulent use of the SWP's name boycotts of corporations that invest ·in heid here August I . One hundred people South Afri ca. The UMW is also seeking a attended. ·Continued from preceding page In a statement published in the Militant ban on the importation of coal and coal He blasted the U.S.' government for sup­ utterly false will not prevent the govern­ on December 2, 1983, the SWP National products from South Africa. porting the racist minority regime in South ment from using it to maximum advantage. Committee responded to this provocation. Africa while boycotting Nicaragua, where It explained that the "SWP has no 'public The support of trade unionists has from workers and peasants nm the government. Deepening damage faction,' and adherence ro or collaboration the outset been a key component of anti­ Over 500 copies of a campaign state­ Unfortunately, the fraudulent claim by with any such formation is incompatible apartheid protests here and across the coun­ ment titled "Boycott South Africa, not Nic­ Socialist Unity that it is part of the Socialist with membership in the SWP. try. aragua" were distributed at the march ear­ • Workers Party is not an isolated instance. "No bodies other than the constitution­ Anti-apartheid forces are gearing up for lier rn the day . Sixty marchers bought the As a result the damage to the democratic ally elected leadership bodies of the SWP an agenda of protest action this fall. The Miliwnt. and some bought books and pam­ rights of the SWP is being compounded. can speak in the name of the party. The Ame ri can Committee on Africa. in con­ phlets from a campaign table, including 2 Those responsible have chosen to ignore SWP takes no political, organizational. or junction with dozens of anti-apartheid coa­ copies of the new book Fidel Casrro the consequences of their actions for the legal responsibility for statements or ac­ litions on dozens of major college cam­ Speeches 1982- 83. rights of political association and for the tions of any other organization." puses. is planning a day of national protests Diarra was certified to appear on the SWP and its members. on October I I . The organizers have par­ September 10 primary ballot earlier this When the group calling itself Socialist The purpose of the statement was to pro­ ticularly appealed to opponents of U.S. in­ week. This came after supporters collected Action first made its public appearance, in tect the organizational integrity and legal tervention in Central America for support. many times the required number of signa­ 1983, it began describing itself as a "publiC ri ghts of the SWP. The actions will also be built by the April tures while campaigning through June and faction of the SWP." At that time, this Provocations of this kind pose a threat Actions for Peace. Jobs. and Justice coali­ July. grouping included those who later formed not only to the rights of the SWP and YSA. ti on. which organized antiwar. anti-apart­ The socialist candidate is a member of Fourth Internationalist Tendency and but also to the democratic rights of every heid actions of 125.000 people in fi ve UA W Local 1200 at the General Dynamics Socialist Unity, as well as those who have voluntary association in this country. They cities last April 20. The Free South Africa tank plant and a Vietnam veteran who is continued to refer to themselves as should be condemned by every defender of Movement is a member of the April Ac­ using his campaign to expose the U.S. war Socialist Action. democratic rights. tions coalition steering committee. in Central America.

August 16, 1985 The Militant 19 -THE GREAT SOCIETY------some "experts" opine. The shorter Almost overqualified - Put federal fines . Appointee James Spread it around - Giuffrida ters. stay. they advise. reduces expo­ someone on a regulatory board Locklear has an added qualifica­ wasn't the only busy person at sure to diseases caught in hospi­ and you want them to know what tion. His brother-in-law was a FEMA. His ex-aide. Fred Villella, Capitalist essence - Some 75 tals . .Obviou sly we should eli mi­ needs regulating, right? So Gov. Wallace campaign coordinator. tapped the agency for $70,000 to communities are now using pri­ nate such exposure risk altogether George Wallace appointed a chap renovate part of a FEMA vate fire-fighting companies. One by simply shutting down the hos­ emergency training center to pro­ outfit, Salem Fire Corp. in Arkan­ pitals. Struck pay dirt - Louis Giuf­ vide him with a personal resi­ sas, arrived at a blaze and let one frida, head of the Federal · dence. Improvements included a house burn · because the owner $$$$? - The American Fore­ Emergency Management Agency wet bar, fireplace. and cher­ hadn' t paid the annual fee. If they caster, a compendium of basic so­ (FEMA), once assured that any­ rywood cabinets. Also the center's put out all fires. the chief philoso­ cial trends, predicts Yuppies will one with a shovel and some dirt chapel was spruced up, and spe­ phized, there'd be no incentive to be making a fashion statement by Harry could survive an atomic attack. cial lighting installed for videotap­ subscribe. But the owner of the wearing suspenders with distinc­ Ring Now he's busy fielding other ing, for his daughter's wedding. burning house had offered to pay tive patterns. questions. Like, about how he and on the spot. No good. "You can't an ex-aide accepting four $250 P.S. __: About those banquet wreck your car and then buy insur­ Our rational society - Adver­ banquet tickets from a FEMA con­ tickets presented to Giuffrida and ance," the chief explained. tising spending will top $ 100 bil­ to the Alabama Surface Mining tractor, with the contractor then bill­ Villella. Apparently the contractor lion in 1986, up from $33.3 billion Commission who was an owner ing FEMA for the tix. Or why that bought them, the Triton Solving health-care crisis - a decade ago, says a Madison and officer of three defunct com­ FEMA paid $5,091 for his spouse Corp. , billed FEMA $2,000 for The new Medicare regulations de­ Ave. analyst. He's predicting that panies whose mining licenses to accompany him - first class, the fou r $250 tickets. Maybe the signed to encourage pushing pa­ by century's end it will top a trill­ were revoked and which owe at natch - on trips to Europe and extra thousand was compensation tients out of hospitals is really a ion. which will be about on par least $160,000 in unpaid state and Mexico. Giuffrida exits Sept. I . for having to deal with such grif- plus in terms of improved care, with the military budget. Puerto Rican activists convicted in federal frame-up

BY SCOTT DOMBECK AND fighters. The fourth defendant, Jose Luis rorists" and refusing to allow them to ex­ the defense effort. Miranda had spent 25 CATHLEEN GUTEKANST Rodriguez, has not made a ~imilar demand plain their activities in the Puerto Rican in­ years in a U.S. prison because of his sup­ CHICAGO - Four Puerto Rican inde­ but has told the court that he is a political dependence movement failed. Throughout port for Puerto Rican independence. pendence fighters were found guilty of prisoner. the month-long trial. supporters of the ac­ Speaking at a July 26 defense meeting of "seditious conspiracy" here August 5. The extent to which the government has tivists crowded the courtroom. Community some 400 people, Cancel Miranda said, "1 The four were accused of planning to gone to frame up the four acti vists was de­ organizations such as the Puerto Rican Cul­ am calling on all the leaders of the struggle bomb military installations in July 1983. scribed by Michael Deutsch, the attorney tural Center and the Pedro Albizu Campos for our national liberation and all indepen­ No bombings ever took place. for Jose Luis Rodriguez. In his closing ar­ Alternative High School organized several dentistas {fighters for independence] in gument, Deutsch told the jury the FBI used demonstrations of 200 to 300 people out­ general to defend, to give their support to The defendants are Alejandrina Torres, "unprecedented surveillance involving side the Federal Building in support of the those four compaizeros who are on trial in Edwin Cortes, Alberto ·Rodriguez, and over 150 FBI agents and over 300 hours of four fighters. the yanki court in Chicago and to all our Jos¢ Luis Rodriguez. They have denied videotapes and audio recordings." From a ll Reverend Jorge Morales, an organizer of imprisoned freedom fighters. We can ac­ any crim ina~ activity and have tried to use of this, he said, the .onJy "hard evidence" the defense effort, summed up the view of cept differences among independentistas the trial as a political forum to explain the against Jose Luis Rodriguez was "one po­ many Puerto Ricans here when ne told one on various questions but never in defending colonial status of Puerto Rico. litical conversation" and "an Ulinois such rally that "as far as I can see these those who give the maximum for our Torres, Cortes, and Rodriguez have de­ driver's license and a Chicago Public Li­ people are not on trial for committing any homeland's independence. I give my un­ clared that they are prisoners of war of the brary card in another name." actual crime but for their ideas- being for conditional support to Alejandrina [Tor­ U .S. government and should be tried under Attempts by the government to isolate Puerto Rican independence." res], Edwin [Cortes], Alberto [Rodriguez]. international law governing anticolonial the four activists by smearing them as "ter- ln addition to the defense effort mounted and Jose Luis .[Rodriguez). The day I do by the city's Puerto Rican community, in­ not dare· to defend combatants who are im­ dependence fighter Rafael Cancel Miranda prisoned for my freedom." he said , "is the PATHFINDER PRESS came from the island to lend his voice to day 1 will look for a grave to collapse into."

James ! Gannon U.S. Haitian coll1111unity paper wamRI BDIPW&M,IIIZ·M New!- prints Nicaraguan appeal The NEW YORK - The July 17 issue of survival of the Nicaraguan revolution and This Monad Press book shows Hai'ti Progres, a Haitian community news­ the defense of the gains of a people for how the revolutionary work­ Communist League paper published here, has translated to which they have so dearly paid." ers' .movement came to grips French and printed the appeal by the CST The newspaper is circulated in Haitian with the problems and chal­ (Sandinista Workers Association) for a communities around the country including lenges presented by the early of America 1832·34 week of solidarity with the Nicaraguan rev­ in New York, New Jersey, and Florida. years of the Great Depression. olution. Cannon, founding leader of the The editors prefaced the appeal explain­ DALLAS CLA, describes how revolu­ ing, "In the face of ever-increasing aggres­ tionaries prepared for the mas­ s ~on , deployed by the United States against Nicaragua. in the face of president Meeting against sive upsurge of industrial Reagan's will to overthrow the Sandinista workers that began in 1934. government, and in face of the trade em­ police brutality bargo adding to other measures already Speakers: Diane Ragsdale and AI 439 pp., $9.95. taken, the CST has launched an appeal to Litscomb, members of Dallas City Order from Pathfinder Press, unions of all countries. It is asking workers Council: Marvin Crenshaw, Citizens 410 West St., New York, N.Y. of the world to show their solidarity to­ Against Apartheid; others. 10014. Please include 75 cents wards the Nicaraguan workers through the August 19, 7 p.m. Martin Luther King for postage and handling. organization of a week of union and inter· Recreation Center, 290 I Pennsylvania national worker's solidaTity. We are repro­ Ave., Dallas, Texas. Sponsored by the ducing this appeal of the CST, since active Citizens Police/Paramedic Complaint solidarity with the Nicaraguan people is Committee. For more information call more crucially important than ever for the (2 14) 943-5 195. -· IF YOU LIKE THIS PAPER, LOOK ·us UP------Where to find the Socialist Workers Party, GEORGIA: Atlanta: SWP, YSA, 504 Flat NEW JERSEY: Newark: SWP, YSA , 141 Dallas: SWP, YSA. 132 N. Beckley Ave., Zip: Young Socialist AUiaoce, and socialist Shoals Ave. SE. Zip: 30316. Tel: (404) 577- Halsey. Zip: 07102. Tel: (20 I) 643-334 t. 75203. Tel: (2 14) 943-5195. Houston: SWP. bookstores. 4065. NEW YORK: Capital District (Albany): YSA, 4806 Almeda. Zip: 77004. Tel: (7 13) ILLINOIS: Chicago: SWP. YSA, 3455 S SWP, YSA. 352 Central Ave. 2nd floor. Zip: 522-8054. ALABAMA: Birmingham: SWP, YSA , Michigan Ave. Zip:·60616. Tel: (312) 326-5853 12206. Tel: (5 18) 434-3247 . New York: SWP, UTAH: Price: SWP, YSA, 23 S. Carbon 205 18th St. S. Zip: 35233. Tel: (205) 323- or 326-5453. YSA , 79 Leonard St. Zip: 1001 3. Tel: (2 12) Ave. , Suite 19. P.O. Box 758. Zip: 84501. Tel: 3079. KENTUCKY: LouisviUe: SWP, YSA, 809 219-3679 or 925-1668 . (801) 637-6294. Salt Lake City: SWP, YSA , ARIZONA: Phoenix: SWP, YSA, 3750 E. Broadway . Zip: 40204. Tel: (502) 587-8418. NORTH CAROLINA: Greensboro: SWP. 767 S. State. 3rd floor. Zip: 84111. Tel : (801) West McDowell Road #3. Zip: 85009. Tel: LOUISIANA: New Orleans: SWP, YSA. YSA , 2219 E Market. Zip: 27401 . Tel: (919) 355- 11 24. (602) 272-4026. 3207 Dublin St. Zip: 70118. Tel: (504) 486- 272-5996. VIRGINIA: Tidewater Area (Newport CALIFORNIA: Los Angeles: SWP, YSA, 8048. OHIO: Cincinnati: SWP, YSA , 4945 Pad­ News): SWP. YSA. 5412 Jefferson Ave .. Zip 2546 W. Pico Blvd. Zip: 90006. Tel: (213) 380- MARYLAND: Baltimore: SWP, YSA, 2913 dock Rd. Zip: 45237. Tel: (5 13) 242-7161. 23605. Tel: (804) 380-0133. 9460. Oakland: SWP, YSA, 3808 E 14th St. Greenmount Ave. Zip: 21218. Tel: (301) 235- Cleveland: SWP. YSA, 15105 St. Clair Ave. WASHINGTON, D.C.: SWP. YSA, 3106 Zip: 94601. Tel: (415) 261-3014. San Diego: 0013. Zip: 44110. Tel: (2 16) 451 -6150. Columbus: Mt. Pleasant St. NW. Zip: 20010. Tel: (202) SWP. YSA, 1053 15th St. Zip: 92101. Tel: MASSACHUSETTS: Boston: SWP. YSA , YSA. P.O. Box 02097 . Zip: 43202. Toledo: 797-7699. (619) 234-4630. San Francisco: SWP, YSA, 510 Commonwealth Ave. , 4th Floor. Zip: SWP, YSA, 17.01 W Bancroft St. Zip: 43606 WASHINGTON: Seattle: SWP, YSA. 3284 23rd St. Zip: 94110. Tel: (4 15) 282-6255. 02215. Tel: (6 17) 262-4621. Tel: (419) 536-0383. . 5517 Rainier Ave. South. Zip: 981 18. Tel: San Jose: SWP, YSA, 46112 Race St. Zip: MICHIGAN: Detroit: SWP, YSA, 7146 W. OREGON: Portland: SWP. YSA. 2732 NE (206) 723-5330. 95126. Tel: (408) 998-4007 . McNichols. Zip: 48221. Tel: (313) 862-7755. Union. Zip: 97212. Tel: (503) 287-7416. WEST VIRGINIA: Charleston: SWP, COLORADO: Denver: SWP, YSA , 25 W MINNESOTA: Twin Cities: SWP. YSA , PENNSYLVANIA: Philadelphia: SWP, YSA , 611A Tennessee. Zip: 25302. Tel: (304) 3rd Ave. Zip: 80223. Tel: (303) 698-2550. 508 N. Snelling Ave .. St. Paul. Zip: 55104. Tel: YSA , 2744 Germantown Ave . Zip: 191 33. Tel: 345-3040. Morgantown: SWP. YSA. 221 FLORIDA: Miami: SWP, YSA, 137 NE (612) 644-6325. (215) 225-02 13. Pittsburgh: SWP. YSA, 402 Pleasant St. Zip: 26505. Tel: (304) 296- 54th St. Mailing address: P.O. Box 370486. MISSOURI: Kansas City: SWP, YSA , N. Highland Ave. Zip: 15206. Tel: (412) 362- 0055. Zip: 33137. Tel: (305) 756-1020. Tallahassee: 4715A Troost. Zip: 64110. Tel: (8 16) 753- 6767. WISCONSIN: Milwaukee: SWP, YSA , YSA, P.O. Box 20715. Zip: 32316. Tel: (904) 0404. St. Louis: SWP, YSA, 3109 S. Grand, TEXAS: Austin: YSA, c/o Mike Rose, 7409 4707 W. Lisbon Ave. Zip: 53208. Tel: (414) 222-4434. #22. Zip: 63118. Tel: (314) 772-4410. Berkman Dr. Zip: 78752. Tel. (512) 452-3923 . 445-2076.

20 The Militant August 16, 1985 Japanese American soldiers in World War II

Continued from Page 16 Americans did not stop when they put on percent of the total mainland population in the uniform of the U.S. Army. Japanese 1940. they were over 30 percent of the · Americans already in the army when the Hawaiian population. war began were .. collected .. into group at Mainland Japane e Americans were sent various posts around the country and as­ to concentration camps in orne of the most signed menial tasks. As one of the Nisei re­ "God-forsake n" regions in the country. called: They were scatte red in desolate. wasteland " At Fort Reiley. our job was to clean out areas of California. Arizona. Utah. Col­ the stables. As we started to clean out the orado, Idaho, Wyoming, and Arkansas. area, we received orders to drop everything Facilities were hastily and crudely con­ and assemble on the first floor of one of the structed under the direction of the War Re­ barracks. I looked out of the window and location Authority. The camps were there was a 30-caliber machine gun point­ crowded, unsanitary, and lacked even the ing at the building we were in . Shortly mi nimum standards of human comfort. thereafter President Roosevelt's car drove They were enclosed by barbed-wire fences by. Here we were U.S. soldiers, in uni­ with armed-guard tOwers. fonn, citizens, but they still didn't trust us." Property confiscated The IOOth made a beachhead landing at Far from their homes, the Japanese Salerno, Italy, in September 1943. After Americans could not fight to prevent the six weeks of combat, the I OOth had suf­ confiscation and sale of their property, fered 75 killed in action and 239 wounded which was estimated to be worth $400 mil­ or injured in action. lion in 1942. One personal reflection in Go In Tanaka's words, "Although replace­ Gls of the 442d on leave visit friends and relatives at concentration camp for For Broke te lls us: "We lost our radios. ments came in, they did not come in fast J apanese Americans during World War II. They were turned in to the Police Depart­ enough to keep pace with the casualties. ment, as requested." Personal possessions After slightly more than a month of fight­ not immediately sold on short notice for ing, the I OOth Infantry Basta lion already leave time. For instance, in the fall of the total number of Texans who were re­ next to nothing were either stored at gov­ was under full line strength.'' 1944, the 442d fought for over two months scued. All the officers in the rescue mis­ ernment warehouses or with friends under While the I OOth was being used· as a straight with no chance to rest, moving sion were killed or seriously wounded. In government seal. In most cases it was "disposable" unit, the 442d was fi nishing from battle to battle and suffering 2,000 ca­ o ne company alone, fewer than 25 out of looted, lost. or sold through legal chican­ its final combat training at Camp Shelby. sualties. The combat team was cut to less 250 men were left unwounded after the bat­ ery. One June 2, 1944, the 442d arrived in Italy than half its original strength. tle. The IOOth Infantry Battalion (Separate). and was combined with the IOOth Infantry Their most famous campaign, the rescue They suffered more casualties than any later to become the First Battalion of the Battalion. of the ''Lost Battalion,'' occurred in the other unit of comparable size and length of 442d Regimental Combat Team, was The I OOth had started out with I ,300 middle of this time. It was the basis for a service in the Anny's history. The most formed from Nisei in Hawaii in 1942. And Japanese Americans from Hawaii. By the Hollywood movie made in 1951 starring decorated military unit in U.S. history, the on February I , 1943, the 442d Regimental time they joined the 442d, they had suf­ Van Johnson as their white officer (Go for I 00/442d earned their medals with their Combat Team was activated with Nisei fered more than 900 casualties. Broke). They rescued the 14Ist Battalion blood and valor, while the U.S. govern­ from both the mainland camps and Hawaii. The combined I 00/442d went on to fight of Texas after they had been trapped for ment exploited their loyalty. Their officers were white. in some of the bloodiest and most dec isive seven days behind German lines. Ironi­ The racist treatment of the Japanese battles in Ita ly and France with almost no call y, the 442d ~ad more casualties than Racism ~ ft er war The racism did not e nd when the I 001 442d came home and the concentration camps were closed. Night riders warned Mary Masuda - the sister of Staff Why the U.S. and Japan went to war Sergeant Kazuo Masuda, who had earned the Distinguished Service Cross and had Continued from Page 17 been preparing for war for quite awhile. By 1945 the Japanese capitalist~ were been killed in action- not to return to her by a power not then at war. After Ger­ The stake was high: economic and political crushed by the mobilization of the va!.tly horne. A barber refused to give a haircut to many's rapid defeat and occupation of domination of Asia. superior industrial and military might of Capt. Daniel Inouye, who lost an arm and France and other West European countries The U.S. military experts had been dis­ the United States. The Pacific was trans­ was wearing many decorations on his uni­ and with England under heavy air attack. cussing the possibility of incendiary bomb­ formed into an "American lake" and sphere form . The brother of PFC Wilson Makabe Japanese rulers saw the pact as clearing the ing raids on Japan since 1919. The U.S. of influence. This had been an aim of th~ had his house burned when he tried to way for the ir conquest of Southeast Asia. Navy planned to wage unre~tricted sub­ U.S. ruling families since the end of the move back. PFC Richard Naito. who was The U.S. government was threatened by marine warfare on Japan months before nineteenth century. wounded and disabled, was refused mem­ the closing of the open door in China and Pearl Harbor. And President Roosevelt had Washington used the atomic bomb bership in the local Veterans of Foreign the southward advance of the Japanese signed a secret order in July 1941 to send twice. sacrificing hundreds of thousands of Wars (VFW) post. These i!lcidents are re­ army. But it did little except to supply the U.S. bombers to China to be flown against lives, to demonstrate to the world that the ported by Tanaka. Nationalist government of China. Japanese cities by U.S. pilots. United States was the dominant imperialist Many Japanese Americans were not as Big profits were being made by U.S. It is simply a myth that the U.S. govern­ power. The bombs were dropped primarily patriotic as the author of this book. Some businessmen from the oi l, textile, machin­ ment was a disinterested party drawn into a as a political and military warning to the 300 refused to be d rafted to fight for a gov­ ery, and strategic material exports that war with "fascist Japan" by a "sneak at­ Soviet Union and workers and peasants ernment that had imprisoned them without were required by. the Japanese war tack." The U.S. Secretary of War Henry around the world fighting against colonial trial solely on the basis of their race. Onl y machine. Not until Japanese troops directly Stimson had recorded in his diary prior to and semicolonial oppression. I ,208 volunteers out of 10,000 eligible attacked the colonies of Europe and had a the attack at Pearl Harbor that "the question The Soviet Union had emerged from were recruited out of the camps, while strategic base from which to attack the was how we (the U.S. government] should World War II victorious against the Ger­ nearly 10,000 Nisei (one-third those of Philippines - a U.S. colony - was there maneuver !J apan] into ... firing the first man military invasion. The Soviet workers draft age) volunteered from Hawaii, where a shift in policy. shot without allowing too much danger to and peasants. who suffered far more casu­ there were no concentration camps. Japan's rulers were now challenging ourselves." alties than those of any other country in the Go For Broke expresses the view that U.S. big-business interests. War, as Rus­ Even without Pearl Harbor. a war be­ war, had fought to defend th(! revolutionary the combat record of Japanese American sian revolutionary V. I. Lenin explained in tween the U.S. rulers and the Japanese conquests of the October 1917 revolution soldiers in World War II won the earlier re­ 1920 (see accompanying article), was now capitalists for control of the resources and that resulted in the overturn of capitalism in lease of the other Japanese Americans in inevitable. markets of Asia was inevitable. Russia. the concentration camps, turned the tide of Some historians have documented that . After a series of rapid victories. the Not only did the Soviet Union survive public opinion against racist, anti-Japanese President Roosevelt and his administration Japanese army lost its military superiority the war. it rapidly became a major world Jaws in effect in many states, and led to the knew beforehand about the Japanese attack by the end of 1942. From then on. the power, thus challenging Washington's es­ statehood of Hawaii. I don't agree. at Pearl Harbor. Yet they did nothing to Japanese rulers fought an increa ingly de­ tablishing its domination over the world. Yet, Go For Broke is worth reading for stop it in order to ensure support for U.S. fensive battle. All their reserves of man­ Capitalism was also overturned in East­ part of the real story about a little-known entry into World War II. But it does not power, aircraft, and shipping were ern Europe, and the Chinese workers and aspect of U.S. history. And the pictures are really matter whether this is true. stretched to reinforce the empire's perime­ peasants overthrew capitalist rule in 1949. magnificent. The U.S. and Japanese governments had ter. While rivalries and connicts between the imperialist ruling classes remain, the mili ­ tary power of the Soviet Union and the New York cops assault overturn of capitalism in more countries ­ D.C. protest hits nuclear weapons in Eastern Europe. China. Vietnam. Haitian demonstration, BY DAN POPE mers Tom Thatin, Pete Seeger, Justine Korea. and Cuba- r.nakcs it very unikely WASHINGTON, D. C. - An estimated Merritt, the originator of the peace ribbon, today that imperialist ·rivals will solve their 22 people hospitalized 15,000 people from 50 states and several and two Hibakusha - survivors of the conflicts (for example over trade) through a countries gathered here to protest nuclear bombings. third intcrimperialist war. The outcome NEW YORK - More than 50 cops weapons. The August 4 action was part of Fumimaro Maruoka, one survivor, told could mean the end of capitalism. armed with clubs. some mounted on the commemoration of the 40th anniver­ one rally that "after the war. survivors suf­ World War ll lcd to the loss of at least 50 horse:.. charged a demonstration of some sary of the atomic bombing· of Hiroshima fered moral and social discrimination. million lives. mostly workers and farmers. 600 Haitians outside the United Nations. and Nagasaki by the U.S. government. They could not get a job and they could not in Europe and Asia. This waste, including The August 3 demonstration was pro­ The protesters circled the Pentagon, the marry." Even today, survivors have fallen the massive destruction of citie!.. 'hould testing lhe expulsion of three Belgian Capitol. and the Ellipse behind the White dead at work as the effects of the bombings drive home an important lesson about im­ prie!>t!. from Haiti. The priests were expel­ House with 15 miles of peace ribbon. The continue to take their toll. perialist war for working people io all the Jed after denouncing the recen1 referendum ribbon was made from over 25,000 hand As part of the commemoration of the major capitalist countries: there will never in that country which approved Haitian dic­ decorated cloth panels. bombings, 17 survivors are touring 75 be peace until capitalism worldwide t:. tator Jean-Claude Duvalier as president­ U.S. cities in a Hibakusha Peace Tour. overturned and reptaced by socialism. l(>r-life. The protesters. who were predominately Along with the tour. Mobilization for Some 22 people were hospitalized for in­ women, included many religious groups, a Survival is organizing protests at 40 sites Pa11i liwww had re/atil'£'.1' who ll'('re ki/1('(/ contingent from the National Education juries they sustained in the cop at!ack. No across the country. The actions coincide by tl;e atomic bomb dropped o11 figures have been given on arrests. Association, other unionists, and Central with the dates of the bombings - August 6 Hiroshima. Her parem.v were imemed in America solidarity activists. Haitian leaders announced that they and August 9. Sites for the protests include the co11ce/llration camp at Topa:, Utah. were trying to meet with New York Mayor Rallies at the three sites featured perfor- military bases and nuclear testing centers. during World War II. Edward Koch to orotest this cop brulality.

August 16 ~ t98S The MUitant 21 -· EDITORIALS------~--- Nuclear bombing of Japan: atrocity Bath strike raises social issues by U.S. imperialism Members of Local 6 and Local 7 of the Industrial wage - that would start off new hires at wages 53 below Union of Marine and Shipbuilding Work e r~ of Amcrit:a the current hourly wage scale-'the centerpiece of their On August 6, 1945, and again on August 9 of that (IUMSWA) are helping to point the way forward for all opposition to company demands for concessions. As year, the U.S. government dropped the first and sec­ workers by the way they are socially opposing the out­ strike leaders put it. they are not going to sell out the fu­ ond atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima rageous concessions demanded by the owners of the Bath ture of their children for any immediate gai n for them­ and Nagasaki. Tens of thousands of people instantly Iron Works (BIW) in Bath. Maine. selves. died, with thousands more dying later. For nearly two years they have been r~si sting a com­ Championing the rights of the young workers has not The following are excerpts from a speech given Au· pany campaign to drive down wages and working condi­ been a strong point of the unions in recent years. But the gust 22, 1945, i.n New York City by James P. Cannon, tions. This includes an attempt to renegotiate the union's concern shown by Local 6 members points in the direc­ a founding leader of the Socialist Workers Party. In contract. The shipyard workers' refusal to buckle under tion of turning this around. It also opens prospects of new this speech, Cannon expressed the outrage of the to this con!ract-busting campaign has led to a number of commitment and support from youth for labor struggles. world's working people to this atrocity carried out by intimidating ··get tough'' measures by the company. Tele­ Locals 6 and 7 represent the highest concentration of the U.S. rulers. He also pointed the way forward for vision cameras. for example. were instatJed throughout workers in one work place in Maine. The issues- they the oppressed and exploited to end such atrocities. the shipyard for the sole purpose of snooping and spying have raised in their defense have al ready inspired union­ The speech can be read in full in The Struggle for on the workers. ists statewide to stiffen their resistance to the combined Socialism in the "American Century": James P. Can­ Far from being intimidated by these employer attacks. employer and government attack on workers· wages, non Writings and Speeches 1945-47. The book costs workers learned from these experiences and have been working conditions, and democratic rights. $9.95 (please include $. 75 for postage and handling) consciously preparing.for ·a strike that was finally forced l. n cosponsoring a statewide solidarity rally with the and can be ordered from Pathfinder Press, 410 West upon them June 30 by the profit gouging owners of BIW. Bath strikers on July 28, for example. the Maine AFL­ St., New York, N. Y. 10014. One of the most powerful things about the Bath strik­ CIO State Federation sent out a letter urging all it:, local ers is the way they have thought about the social conse­ affiliates to support the strikers. It called attention to the Capitalism is demonstrating itself every day more and quences of agreeing with the concessions 'demanded by severity of the attacks on unions in the area and the par­ more. in so-called peace as in war. as the enemy of the the company. This became apparent last April when BIW ticipation of state and federal government agencies in · people. Bomb the people to death! Burn them to death forced Local Ts 350 lower-paid clerical workers - the these attacks. "The time has come." they S!lid, "for us to with incendiary bombs! Break up their industries and majority of whom are women - out on strike. Local 6 put our backs to the wall, and stand up against both man­ starve them to death! And if that is not horrible enough, members responded by refusing to cross the picket line of agement and government.., then blast them off the face of the earth with atomic the clerical workers for two days. Some women workers Thinking and acting both socially and politically are bombs! That is the program of li berating capitalism. expressed amazement that 4.500 production workers ­ key tools in mobilizing the potential power of labor and What a commentary on the real nature of capitalism in who are 95 percent male-overwhelmingly backed their its allies, including women. youth, and oppressed its decadent phase is this, that the scientific conquest of strike. This act of solidarity won Local 6 the support of nationalities, against the combined attacks of the bosses the marvelous secret of atomic energy, which might ra- women throughout the area - union and non-union es and their government. alike. Locals 6 and 7 have taken important steps in this direc­ The second socially important move by Local 6 was to tion and deserve all the solidarity that can be mobilized to make opposition to a company proposal for a two-tier defend their struggle. OUR REVOLUTIONARY The spy scare continues HERITAGE tionally be used to lighten the burdens of all mankind, is Six people, including an Iranian citizen and a U.S. around this blockade, the U.S. government cries foul. employed first for the wholesale destruction of half a mil­ army lieutenant, were arrested August I for supposedly In the case involving Ghana, the government is setting lion people. planning to sell and ship advanced U.S. weapons to the a precedent for jailing those who blow the whistle on CIA Hiroshima. the first target, had a population of Iranian government. conspiracies and crimes. Washington wants to prevent 340,000. Nagasaki , the second target, had a population On July II. a Ghanaian citizen and a clerk for the Cen­ exposure of its assassination plots, organization of coun­ of 253.000 people. A total in the two cities of approxi­ tral Intelligence Agency were arrested for espionage. terrevolutionary secret armies. and other efforts to weak­ mately 600,000 people .... How many were killed'? How They were alleged to have given information to the gov­ en and destabilize governments that refuse to take orders many Japa·nese were destroyed to celebrate the discovery ernment of Ghana about CIA activities against that West from U.S. big business. of the secret of atomic energy? From all indications, from African country. Keeping these activities secret from governments like all the reports we .have received so far, they were· nearly These cases are part of the spy scare that the govern­ Ghana is only one side of Washington's international ag­ all killed or injured. Nearly all' ment and capitalist media are whipping up in order to jus­ gression. The other is keeping them secret from U.S. In two calculated blows, with two atomic bombs, tify restricting democratic rights. working' people, who would be outraged by the crimes of American imperialism killed and injured half a million the U.S. government around the world. For fi ve years, tl1e Iraqi regime- backed by Wash­ human beings .... [T]hey all had to die in two blows be­ If information about CIA crimes was provided to cause of a quarrel between the imperialists of Wall Street ington - has waged a war against Iran. This war has Ghana, this was not a crime but a public service. taken many thousands of lives. Allies of Washington and a similar gang in Japan. Both these prosecutions are against the interests of What an unspeakable atrocity! Now the world recoils have supplied the most modern weapons to the Iraqi U.S. working people. We should respond to them by de­ forces, enabling them to repeatedly bomb Iranian cities. in horror... . Even some of the preachers who blessed manding that the U.S. government drop all restrictions the war have been moved to protest. One said in an inter­ At the same time, Washington is trying to impose a on trade with Iran; stop supporting the war waged by the view in the press: "America lias lost her moral position." blockade on trade, including trade in arms, with Iran. Iraqi rulers; and make public all the dirty secrets of the Her moral position'? Yes. She lost that all right. That is When the Iranian government allegedly tries to get CIA. true. And the imperialist monsters who threw the bombs know it. But look what they gained. They gained control of the boundless riches of the Orient. They gained the power to exploit and enslave hundreds of millions of people in the Far East. And that is what they went to war for - not for moral position, but for profit. Farmers to get no relief American imperialism has brought upon itself the fear and hatred of the whole world. American imperialism is regarded throughout the .world today as the enemy of Continued from front page 1930s, this is the longest period of sustained protest by mankind. The First World War cost 12 million dead. There is no relief, then. for working farmers who are U.S. fanners in this century. But both Democratic and Twelve million. The Second World War, within a quarter suffering their worst crisis in 50 ye.ars. In the past four Republican administrations have turned a deaf ear to 9f a century, has already cost not less than 30 million .YearS, under the policies of the 1981 Farm Bill, tens of fanners' demands. dead; and there are not Jess than 30 million more to be thousands of farmers have gone under. Squeezed be­ Fanners are demanding and need emergency relief. starved to death before the results of the war are totaled tween skyrocketing production costs and low prices for Those struck by the drought need immediate aid to up. their products, they have accumulated huge debts that overcome the loss of their crops and livestock. What a harvest of death capitalism has brought to the they cannot pay. The banks take over their land, machin­ Farmers need a permanent moratorium on all farm world ! If the skulls of all the victims could be brought to­ ery, and livestock and put them up for sale. foreclosures and the cancellation of all unpayable debts. gether and piled into one pyramid, what a high mountain Without land and machinery, farmers cannot continue The federal government should offer low-interest that would make. What a monument to the achievements earnipg a living in the way they know best and prefer. loans on the basis of need. not according to the "credit of capitalism that would be, and how fitting a symbol of And it is virtually impossible for them to get back into worthiness" of the borrowers. what capitalist imperialism really is . fanning because of the steep costs. Moreover, with. the Exploited farmers, like all working.people, need relief Who won the war that cost over 30 million lives? ... prevailing high level of unemployment, they cannot eas­ from taxes, including property and sales taxes. the capitalist with the money bags in his hands, standing il y find off-the-farm jobs. The government should guarantee prices to fanners ad­ on top of the world with one foot on the graveyard and equate to meet growing costs, repair and replace equip­ the other on destroyed cities .... The only winner is The situation is not improving either. This sqmmer a ment, and make a living income for their families. Price American imperialism and its satellites in other coun­ severe drought has parched mill ions of acres of range supports can easily be financed by cutting the bloated tries. land on the Great Plains and inflicted serious damage to military budget and by taxing the profits of the big food Don' t we have to stop these madmen and take power grain and hay crops throughout big parts of the upper trusts and banks. out of their hands? Can we doubt that the peoples of all Midwest. But these measures should not be geared to curtailing the world are thinking it cannot go much further. that Moreover, the prices farrriers get for their products production. Instead of periodically cutting back produc~ there must be some way to change it? Long ago the rev­ continue to decline. In June, the average level of prices tion or storing mountains of surplus food, U.S. farm pro­ olutionary Marxists said that the alternative facing hu­ was down 10 percent from a year ago. While some costs ducers should be permitted to turn their gigantic manity was either socialism or a new barbarism. went down, others like fuel rose. The result was a 6 per­ capacities to helping alleviate hunger and famine in the We !the Socialist Workers Party] believe that the cent drop in average buying power for farmers. These av­ world. people of the world will waken to this frightful alterna­ erage figures, however, conceal the fact that farmers pro­ A detennined struggle for these demands, by both the tive and act in time to save themselves. We believe that ducing some commodities and in certain regions have labor movement and working fanners, will lead increas­ American imperialism will be defeated. The peoples of been hit harder than others. ing numbers of working people to the conclusion that the world will rebel against the imperialist master. We For eight years - since the tractorcade began in 1977 they cannot expect any relief from the capitalist ruli ng will lead the workers and plebians of America in a revo­ - working farmers have been protesting against their families nor their hired politicians in the Democratic and lutionary attack against our main enemy and the main worsening conditions. Next to the movement in the Republican parties. enemy of mankind, the imperialists of the United States.

22 The. Militant' August-16,-1985: Ideological offensive against Woriten

Continued from Page 14 cal discoveries of materialists concerning against Comrade Reed':. a rti c l e~:· SWP from the class struggle. her, had "reached its highest development the ori gin of women's oppression. National Secretary, Farrell Dobbs. wrote under capitalism in the last 40 years" and Reed also deals with the context of the in an Oct. 13, 1954. letter to McGowan . debate in the party, noting that the " past 14 had "wrought a part ial revolution in all 'Tbe Myth of Women's Inferiority' "On such subjects the feeling wa~ that con­ phases of life." years of war boom and prosperity have pro­ The Spring 1954 issue of the magazine siderable latitude is pem1issible !.O long a!> duced a con ervati zing effect upon the A revolution had occurred. McGowan Fourth International , edited by SWP lead­ the author defends the materialbt view­ argued. "in the relation between the sexes, working class which we describe as a ers, had published an article by Evelyn point. advocates and tries to apply the 'bourgeoisification. · One of the forms this in sexual morality. in medicine. in nutri­ Reed entitled ''The Myth of Women's In- dialectic method and seeks to !>Upply ma­ tion and health. in architecture. in art . in takes is the readiness of the workers to ac­ . feriority." This was followed by the publi ­ terial of an educational character .... From cept bourgeois opinions and propaganda as beauty, in hobbies for leisure, in city-plan­ cation of"Sex and Labor in Primitive Soci­ this standpoint, the editor!> were entirely scientific truth and adapt themselves to it. ning. in child-rearing. in methods of edu­ ety" by Reed in the Summer 1954 issue of correct in publishing the Reed article:-." cation. in psychology." the magazine . Both articles dealt with the McGowan's criticism of Reed. a~ we ll "Like the whole working .class." Reed Th is was written. remember. from Los evolution of human society through defi­ a!> Reed's reply. are reproduced in this col­ emphasized, "the party is under constant Angeles in 1954. nite stages of economic and social develop­ lection as part of the discussion. Both pressure and bombardment from this mas­ ''These new, progressive and highl y ment and explained that primitive com­ pieces remain of interest today , since they sive bourgeois propaganda machine." creative developments in all phases of munism. which was matriarchal in kinship present the two fundamentally counter­ Some of the discussions taking place in the life," she continued for the record. can structure, came first in this historical se­ posed positions in the great "hundred years party indicate that ·•a certain amount of onl y fina ll y be realized by socialism. In the quence. (Reed's first article is avai lable in debate" on the origins of class soc iety - adaptation to bourgeois propaganda has meantime. of course. this "revolution" is Problems of Women's Liberation pub­ the form of society that we are still li ving arisen which, although probably unwitting, changing everyth ing for the better. That, lished by Pathfinder Press. "Sex and Labor .under and seeking to eliminate. That de­ is a signal that should alert us to the she argued, is the proper c~ nt ex t for the in Primitive Society" is reprinted in this bate is as contemporary today as it was danger.·· discussion on the marketing and use of cos­ collection.) thirty years ago. As Reed note!> in her con­ That is what the cosmetics controversy metics, because. "What holds true for the McGowan submitted a long article for tribution here. "One school lof thought in clearly revealed. "When the comrades de­ rest of life also relates to beauty in the the SWP internal bulletin attempting to re­ this debate) adheres to the materialist and fend the right of women to use cosmetics, female form ." fute the views expressed by Reed , which, historical method · of analyzing the an­ fashions, etc .. " Reed stated, "without The revolutionary changes "in the stan­ McGowan said , were "scholastically irres­ thropological data. even if tlnly in. li mited clearly distinguishing between such a right dards of beauty," McGowan stated. "flow ponsible" and made the SWP "look ridicul­ or partial form. The other !-.chool is hostile and the capitalist social compulsion to use out of and parallel the concurrent revolu­ ous in the eyes of informed individuals in to the histori cal method and sub!-.titutes for them. they have fallen into the trap of tion in sexual morality of the last 35 years the bourgeois academic world.'' McGowan it mere fact-finding, accompanied by im­ bourgeois propaganda." or so. The long-stemmed American demanded that the editors of the Fourth In­ pressionistic and superficial in t e rpre t a ti o n ~ It is true. she went on, that "so long as beauty," she raved on. "full of natural vit­ ternational magazine and the SWP leader­ of these facts . The one ))Chool. therefore. i~ capitalism prevails, we must abide by these ality and physical grace, with shining hair. ship repudiate these views. progressive and leads forward. the other b cosmetic and fashion decrees ....We must clear eyes. smooth ski n and natural cos­ In a cover letter addressed to the Politi­ obse::urantist and reactionary ... give at least a token recognition of the metics· with a trace of accent here and cal Committee, McGowan made it clear In addition to taking up the challenge harsh reality. But this does not mean that there. \s not a fi ction but an American com­ that she knew that her argument was with from McGowan on historical matcriali~m we must accept these edicts and compul­ monplace. This type of beauty is the Amer­ Karl Marx and Frederi ck Engels, not just and the origins of women· s oppression - a sions complacently , or without protest. ican social standard." with Evelyn Reed. She stated her "firm battle that Reed returned to repeatedly over The workers in the plants are often obliged It is "an inherent part of every normal inner conviction that such interpretations the next twenty-five years - both she and to accept speedups. paycuts and attacks on female ego to strive toward the preserva­ of primitive society and primitive social Bustclo wrot it dumpy figures in the dumpy housedresses, interpretation, as it wa~ set down by Engels thoroughl y enjoyable reading. the ugly furniture and the hodge-podge ac­ in hi Ori~:in of the Family, Pril·me Prop­ * * * cessories of the working-class woman and erty and the State." Resulting ruling-class pressures That conclusion, we could add , holds her home." The Political Committee rejected McGo­ Reed's reply also takes up the i!>s ues equall y true for us now. That is why clarifi­ Not surprisingly, McGowan's espousal wan's request that the magazi ne's editors from a basic materialist standpoint: that cation of the issues posed in this debate of the racist standards of "beauty" of the dissociate themselves from Reed 's posi­ norms of beauty. like humanity itself. are some thirty years ago will also serve to arm U.S. imperialist bourgeoisie, and her con­ tions. the historical and changing product of o­ us for our tasks today. tempt for the working class, were accom­ ''The Political Committee felt it un­ cial labor. and cannot be dissociated from panied by an open rejection of the histori- necesary to take a position either for or the development of the productive force:-. or August 1985

- LETTERS------I'IR. JOtoltS , DON'T TlltNK or IT ~SA Lll M.l£tTOR, tlll~K OliT AS A StiKSS OCTlC.TOit Anti-apartheid victory idarity with the Sandinista-led rev­ The dangers these centers repre­ olution. He also indicated that one sent is clear when you consider the Jazz musician Chick Corea vowed July 2 not to perforn1 in of the best ways to counter the lies inadequate availability of abortion of the Reagan administration was South Africa until apartheid has facilities in the first place. for officials and rank-and-fil e There is another twist to the been abolished. members of North American trade problem: these centers also "help" His public decision was a result unions to go to Nicaragua to see pregnant women with adoptions. of a series of protest actions or­ the revolution for themselves. There is a good deal of cash to ganized against his performances The stideshow was very well re­ in New York, New Jersey, and in be made in arranging adoptions. ceived by the union membership. New England. and the largest market is for and was followed by a leng­ healthy white babies. Is it any When Corea began to perform thy question-and-answer period. wonder. then, why the pregnancy at the Saratoga Jazz Festi val here Ju ne 29, some 200 people walked James KcKinney, president of the crisis and testing centers are to be AFSCME City Chapter, asked o•tt while others raised a banner found onl y in neighborhoods serv­ what unions could do to further ing white upper-class kids with a that read "Chick Corea sold out to demonstrate opposition to U.S. large market for white babies. and apartheid." policies in Central America. never in neighborhoods servi ng During Corea's performance In his reply Congress em­ low-income Black or Chicano some 300 people participated in an anti-apartheid rally outside the fes­ phasized the need for more labor kids? delegations to Nicaragua and more tival. This just goes to show that the labor participation in building ac­ antiabortionists follow all the Jim Callahan tions like April 20. grand traditions of capitalist mor­ George Kontanis ·Fred White ality - sexism. deceit. racism. by Toles Albany. New York Atlanta. Georgia and greed.' J.W. appre<.:iated and helpful in de­ League of America 1932-34 '" lnclianapolis, Indiana veloping my concepti onal theories were left out. The sentences, ap­ Nicaragua solidarity Antia-bortion campaign on Marxism. pearing after the "Defeat of Ger­ At its monthly meeting on Ju ly In articles in the July 23 Village Thank you . man working class" subhead 2 1 the Atlanta City Chapter of the Voire and the June Progressi11e a A prisoner should have read: New parties and American Federation of State, new twist to the antiabortion Wants sub La~ •e lady. Texas a new International would have to Lounty and Municipal Employees movement was revealed - "preg­ I am inquiring about Perspec­ be built. Consequently, in August Local 1644 sponsored a slideshow nancy crisis centers" or "preg­ til•a Mundial. the Militant. and ln­ 1933 the International Left Oppos­ presentation on Nicaragua. nancy testing centers.·· ternmtinemal Press. I am pre- Corrections ition issued a call for the construc­ tion of a Fourth International. The union invited Richa rd Con­ These places ··counsel" women ently in one of the Texas prison In last week's Militam art icle on gress. a leader of the Atlanta Com­ with a barrage of antiabortion camps and indigent. Perhaps you Laotian women an incorrect figure mittee on Latin America and an propaganda. including The Silent have an Inmate Indigent Fund in on the percentage of Laos' popula­ organi zer of the April 20 antiwar Srream, in order to convince them which such ~ ubsc ript ion's can be tion engaged in agriculture was The letters column is an open march on Washington, to speak on to not have an abortion. obtained by us. If so I would like stated. It should have been given forum for all viewpoints on sub­ recent developments in Nicara­ These centers are dishonest in to apply for these subscriptions. as 80 percent. jects of general interest to our gua. Congress ha traveled to Nic­ their advertising. In Worcester, I am al. o interested in such pub­ readers. Please keep your letters aragua four times in the last three Massachusetts, one chain calls it­ lications as the last book Comrade In the August lmemational brief. Where necessary they will years. self "P.P., Inc." and is located in Maurice Bishop wrote and the Socialist Review supplement to the · be abridged. Please indicate if Congress began by explaining the same building and on the same book of speeches by Sandinista Militant, portions of two sentences you prefer that your initials be the importance of such acts of sol- floor as Planned Parenthood! leaders. All this material will be in the article "The Communist used rather than your full name.

Augllst :16, 1985 · The MiUtant 23 TH£ MILITANT Build Oct. 11 anti-apartheid protest Interview with student coordinator of American Committee on Africa BY JACKIE FLOYD mittees. There are also plans for a spring As racist violence escalates in South Af­ tour of South African and Salvadorun stu­ rica. the October II National Anti-apart­ dents. heid Protest Day is continuing 10 win sup­ Linking these issues. Ne~sen said. helps port from student organi zations. solidarity activists understand that ··u.S. foreign pol­ committees, and antiwar groups. icy is based on creating condi tions for cor­ The action. initiated by the American porate dominance anywhere.·· Committee on Africa (ACOA) and other organizations. recentl y won the support of Establishing these links will help to in­ some 100 activ.ists at the Youth and Stu­ volve broader forces in the October I I pro­ dent Summit on the People's Struggles in test. The fact that October I I is also South­ Southern Africa held in Chicago July 18. ern African Political Prisoner Day, Nessen The importance of the youth meeting·s said, means that "one of the major things decision to support the action was under­ we want to di;;cuss wiJh unions and other scored by Josh Nessen. the student coordi­ groups is campaigning 10 free political pris­ nator of ACOA, in a recent interview with oners and the whole repression of the South the Militant. The summit decision to build African trade union movement. That I Oct. II , he said. "is critical because we think reall y opens up the opportunity 10 in­ have to strongly respond to what is taking volve these broader sectors ... place in South Africa," Nessen is appealing to all opponents of The ACOA is a national Southern Africa apartheid tO "continue the type of direct solidarity committee. active·in the student and militant action we saw this spring: find ,}!.; ..-...' . .... anti-apartheid committees. II is also part of out about actions in your area or initiate . . - -- ~, the Action Coalition for Peace, Jobs. and them; and make the connection!> between Aprill985 anti-apartheid demonstration in support of Columbia University student Justice. That coalition organi zed the April apartheid. racism at home. and interven­ sit-in involved students, unionists, Black rights activists, others. Organizers of Oc­ 20 demonstration of more than 100,000 tion in Central America." tober 11 protest seek broad participation in national action. people in Washington, D.C.. and other cities. The Action Coalition. which in­ \ cludes Central American solidarity com­ mittees. peace groups, antiwar organiza­ tions, and unions, has made support for the Black South African leader says October II protest part of its .fall action plan. "Linking the issues and not taking a "we'll pay any price for freedom"· single-issue approach has been at the heart of the Action Coalition," Nessen said . "October II ," he continued, ''is also oot BY JACKIE FLOYD year the apartheid regime has been unable Mnumzana explained, the state of going to be a day to look at South Africa in "The declaration of the State of to "keep the people down. It does not have emergency particularly targets the Black isolation but to look at it in relation to Cen­ Emergency [July 20] by the Pretoria racist enough soldiers to cope with the situation. labor movement. "One of the first things tral America, racism. domestic cutbacks. regime is its ultimate confession that it has It resorted to multiplying the power of each that will go is whatever semblance of union the nuclear arms race, and the fact that lost its abil ity to impose its rule in South soldier ..It has conferred virtually unlimited rights there may have been in South Africa. South Africa has nuclear weapons capabil­ Africa," Neo Mnumzana told the Militant. political, legal, and genocidal power to its The labc.:>r movement in South Africa," he ity." Mnumzana is the chief representative of police." said, "will certainly bear the brunt of this the African National Congress (ANC) to new and unprecedentedly high period of re­ With the slogan "Boycott South Africa, Pointing to a recent funeral gathering of not Nicaragua," Nessen explained. the the United Nations. He was interviewed by pression in our country.·· some 50,000 Blacks. Mnumzana said. "The links are being drawn between the fight the Militant on July 24. people of South Africa have bravely gone Turning to the need for solidarity. against U.S. government support for apart­ The state of emergency. Mnumzana out and defied the state of emergency in Mnumzana explained that the ANC and the heid and its aggression in Central America. said, represents "a misreading of the abso­ order to hold a massive funeral. The people people of South Africa have since 1956 Plans to fortify this link, he said, include lute determination of the people of South will now seize on any repressive measure ··appealed to the international community'" a fall tour of both a South African and a Africa to pay any price however high in and use it as a platform for mobilization for to isolate apartheid through "mandatory Nicaraguan student. The tour is being or­ order to free themselves ... even greater struggle." sanctions against the racist regime. There­ ganized by student anti-apartheid commit­ sponse across the world to the appeal has tees and Central American solidarity corn- Mnumzana explained that over the last Like all other repression in South Africa, not always been equal. A conspicuous lack of response was here in the United States where instead of responding to the appeal successive U.S. administrations continu­ Survey shows state of Black businesses today ally identified with th ~ apartheid regime.·· Mnumzana-. however. welcomed there­ BY HARRY RI NG "It's no bed of roses out there," says Vir­ white-owned companies "have discovered cent decision of the U.S. House of Repre­ The nation's 100 top capitalist enter­ gil Anderson, director of the National As­ how lucrative the Black hair-care business sentati ves and the Senate to call for limited prises owned by Blacks did well last year, sociation of Minority Automotive Dealers. can be.·· sanctions as ··an important first step to­ according to an annual survey in the June Sterling Stokes, a Kansas City, Mo. , The demand for products. old and new. wa rd~ the U.S. government participating in issue of Black Enterprise magazine. Lincoln-Mercury dealer, cautions on the is always changing. one industry spokes­ the international camp~ig n for total isol

24 The Militant August 16, 1985