WfJRKERS ,,1N(JIJI1R' 25¢ No. 180 :-=~ x·s:u 4 November 1977

Labor Must Demand: Recognize Black Unions! Imperialist Chi"ef Carter Scolds South African Ally

The hard-line posture of South Afri­ ca's white supremacist regime is unset­ tling Western capitals. With -Pretoria rapping at the door of the atomic pow­ ers' club, its rulers pugnaciously de­ nouncing foreign (especially U. S.) "meddling," and the country hurtling toward greater chaos and bloodshed, the major imperialist powers are ner­ vously searching for measureS to disso­ i ciate themselves from their increasingly embarrassing ally. Hence, the world's most dangerous warmongers have made a partial concession to long-standing "Third World" demands that South Africa h::: dcclared a "threat to interna­ tional peace," empowering the United Nations Securit) CounciL under the terms of the UN Charter, to impose international sanctions. This is the significance of the resolution initiated by the major imperi­ alist powers to ban all sales of weapons to South Africa. Such an embargo would not, in fact, prevent Pretoria from covertly obtaining arms (particu­ larly from its close ally Israel) unless it Sahm Doherty were accompanied by a full-scale mili­ Moralizing Carter (left) threatens empty "sanctions" over crackdown by South 'African premier Vorster (right). tary blockade. Nevertheless, the arms­ embargo motion represents an attempt by the imperialists to pose as the cham­ pions of "democracy" in South Africa and to rap the knuckles of the murder­ ous regime which they have long protected. Unfortunately for Carter and his Eu­ ropean cohorts. hnvC\t:r, their arms ban resolutlon was upstaged at the UN yesterday by an African-sponsored res­ olution for economic sanctions against South Africa. While an economic quar­ antine of the Vorster regime would not really aid the victims of apartheid-it would either be ineffective moral pos­ turing or a stage in the escalation of inter-imperialist conflict-the African resolution effectively stole the imperial­ ists' thunder. With its militant rhetoric and its demand that the "multinational" giants and the governments which serve South Africa buys Western armaments despite UN embargo imposed in 1963. them relinquish South African super­ tionalized the civil war among rival quite specific about the timing of the profits, the resolution forced the U.S., Nor is it "democratic" imperialism's black nationalist groups. Nor was the move: Britain and France to exercise their disdain for bonapartist police-state "The crisis was engendered last week [!] murder of perhaps a thousand black and Security Council veto right. measures. South African "Justice" Min­ when South Africa took away the rights Coloured youths in the six months But the very willingness of the West­ ister Kruger responded to the recent of free press and eliminated many ofthe Western criticisms with a remark that following the Soweto massacre deemed organizations themselves who had been ern powers to brand South Africa's working toward improved equality for however self-serving or overstated, sufficient grounds for invoking the UN acquisition of arms as a "threat to inter­ Charter powers. the citizens of South Africa." national peace" is an indication of the struck effectively at the major powers' -New York Times, 28 October shift in imperialist strategy in sub­ incredible hypocrisy: "We're in exactly Announcing his decision to back Now, it will come as news to the black Saharan Africa. Two years ago the U.S., the same position as the British are with "strong sanctions against the sale of masses of South Africa that "the rights Franee and Britain vetoed a mandatory the I. R. A. and the Germans are with the weapons to South Africa," Carter was continued on page 8 arms embargo; today it is their propo­ Baader-Meinhof case" (New York sal. Why the change? It is obviously not Times, 22 October). the noxious apartheid system itself. The Pretoria was certainly not less of a imperialists have long shed crocodile threat to its black neighbors two years tears and passed paper resolutions ago. Indeed, in October 1975 it threw its Cambodia: Peasant against apartheid while arming South European and American weapons (ob­ Africa to the teeth and garnering super­ tained despite a voluntary arms ban Stalinism Run Amok •••6 profits from the savagely exploited dating from 1963) into a full-scale inva­ black workers. sion of Angola and decisively interna- --Letters,------

Bakke Decision it from being tainted with the liberal state. its reason for existence as an We do know this: Watergate is the litany of conspiracy apologia. Marxists instrument of oppressive class rule. exception--targeting Martin Luther San Francisco must make use of every opportunity But what about the Kennedy assassi­ King, Jr. and Ma''-Ulln X is the rule. October 21, 1977 handed them to reveal the nefarious and nation'? Does not exposure of that also There was a state lOnspiracy to disrupt frenetic machinations ofcapitalist rule if focus attention on the bourgeois state, the civil rights movement and any or­ To the Editor: they are to hasten the hour of socialist asks A. B. The "nexus," he says, lies in ganized expression of black militancy: Wnile I agree cQmpletely with the WV victory, the question, "Would a reinvestigation exposing this constant conspiracy by the position on the Bakke decision (No. 178, In the same article you also speak of into the Kennedy assassinations reveal armed bodies of men who are the heart 14 October), r thought I might expand the myriad of conspiracy theories con­ indicting data of the capitalist system?" of capitalist state power is a central task somewhat on one aspect. cerning the Kennedy assassinations but Our answer: probably not. Even if there of Marxist propaganda. On page 4 you say: "The failure ofthe nowhere have I seen you give these were a conspiracy by one wing of the liberal civil rights movement followed theories the same attention you have bourgeoisie against another, while im­ from its strategy of linking the struggle given the ones surrounding King's mur­ portant in terms ofevaluating the politi­ Prostitution for black equality to the capitalist state der. Granted, we do not mourn the cal climate, this would not necessarily Oakland rather than to the struggle of the work­ Kennedy deaths or place them on equal expose the class nature of the state. 8 July 1977 ing class against capitalism.... It is footing with the murder of a black Suppose it were revealed that the Ken­ Dear Comrades, nearly 10 years since a claque of liberals, dissident such as King but that is not nedy assassinations were the result of a black nationalists and 'socialists' suc­ really the crux of the matter. Rather, it right-wing plot: since there was no class­ In WV No. 164 [I July 1977] in the introduction to 'The Lumpen Van­ ceeded in mobilizing the 'black commu­ would seem that the nexus of the conscious workers movement to speak nity' against the 1968 New York teach­ assassination/conspiracy question is of, what this would show is not "the guard Myth," WV refers to "anti-social ers' strike, helping to cement the racist posed by asking: would a reinvestiga­ great lengths to which the fetid capitalist parasites (e.g., prostitutes)." While labor bureaucrats' hold over backward tion into the Kennedy assassinations class and its conspiratorial agencies will prostitution as an institution is certainly white workers...." reveal indicting data of the capitalist go to maintain and preserve their choke­ parasitic, prostitutes, as individuals, are The role of the Socialist Workers system (e.g., paranoic divisions within hold on the proletariat," but rather the both socially parasitic and victimized, Party in the 1968 strike was, unfortu­ the bourgeoisie, Mafia ties, etc.)? If the extent to which one wing or element of but not necessarily anti-social. This is a nately, something more than "mobiliz­ answer to this question is yes then it the bourgeoisie would go to impose its distinction that the SL and the revolu­ ing the 'black community' against the ... would behoove all Marxists to demand will on the other sectors of its class. tionary Marxist movement has general­ strike." it! There was such an investigation recent­ ly made. Women and Revolution No.9, Summer 1975, in an article entitled I was at that time a member of the Of the questions surrounding the Nix ly, namely the Watergate exposures, "French Prostitutes Protest Police Minneapolis branch of the SWP. When and Zapruder films, the "magic bullet" and while it temporarily weakened capi­ Harassmept," writes: the news of the party's position reached theory (and accompanying ballistic talist repressive forces, in the absence of a combative working-class opposition '~Prostitution is criminal, but the prosti­ us, I took the floor and opened an attack tests), the possibility of the Oswald tutes are not criminals; they are the on the leadership for supporting the double, JFK's missing brain and the E. its net result was to strengthen the victims .... scabs. Howard Hunt connection, none have Democrats. "They are mercilessly exploited by pimps While virtually alone in my opposi­ been adequately answered to the satis­ For our part, we do not know if there and madams-disgusting social para­ tion, the leadership launched a sus­ was a conspiracy to assassinate the sites whose prosecution Marxists wel­ faction of millions of lay people and come. As in past revolutions, they tained counterattack against me. I was experts. And thus, fourteen years hence, Kennedys. Unlike the attitude of reli­ [pimps and madams] can expect to meet told that not only did the leadership give enough suspicion and pressure prevail gious agnosticism, in our case it is not a with summary j,~stice when the workers full political support to the strikebreak­ to have forced the creation of a House question of lack of faith but of the take power .... ers in this "racist strike," but that lead­ Select Committee on Assassinations (in absence offacts. Without facts we refuse Prostitution-where "sexual services" ing members of the NYC branch, in­ which, of course, we should place not an to fire off speculative shots in the dark. become a commodity exploited by cluding presidential candidate Fred ounce of faith). Suffice it to say, a slew Rather than a dereliction ofduty, this is pimps and madams-is perhaps the· Halstead, had actually participated in of unanswered questions remain all our elementary responsibility to the most extreme form of capitalism's ex­ crossing the picket lines and opening the pointing to a conspiracy within this working-class movement. And since a ploitation and degradation of women. school buil~~ngs for the scab"communi­ country to kill the Kennedys and given CIA/FBI/Mafia plot against the Ken­ The distinction between anti-social ty teachers. . .. the longtime cozy relationship of the nedys would not be business-as-usual parasites, criminals and the rest of the Comradely, CIA and the Mafia there exists both the for the capitalist state but rather an lumpenproletariat was drawn in blood Ernest Everhard motivation and the means to carry out unusual occurrence, there is not the in 1949 when the People's Liberation this otherwise outlandish plot. same basis for suspicions as in the case Army captured China's major cities. As of black leaders who were being obvi­ I believe it was Marx who once said in Jean Pasqualini writes in Prisoner of ously harassed by the FBI and local regard to religious agnostics that thereis Mao: police. Who Really Killed really no such position because in prac­ "There was some rapid house-cleaning A Congressional investigation is when the Communists took over. The Cock Robin? tice they usually act one way or the other hardly likely to expose anything, and first victims were the obvious criminal (i.e., as theists or atheists). Although there is no such thing as an "independ­ elements and exploiters of the peo­ your article does not rule out such pie .... The city's numerous corps of Cleveland, Ohio ent" investigation in such matters since prostitutes was rounded up and wit­ July 21, 1977 reinvestigation of the Kennedy assassi­ the capitalist state controls whatever nations it is evident that the "aggressive nessed the execution of their pimps and decisive evidence exists. While we would madams, by firing squad at the outer To the Editor: agnosticism" you profess in this matter not oppose a Congressional inquiry, it walls ...." is clearly an unwarranted atheism and As a regular reader of the WV I have makes no sense from a working-class While the Chinese revolution was quali­ obfuscation of duty. While I join you in been spoiled by your consistent delivery perspective to demand it. We denounce tatively deformed, this act of revolution­ your religious atheism I cannot concur of lucid and sophisticated analysis of the Kennedy assassination cover-up, the ary terror was not one of its deforma­ with you in the atheism you evince on political events. However, I was recently locked files and secret documents. But tions. The soviet dictatorship of the this matter. Expose the bourgeoisie to puzzled, to say the least, at the seeming­ we do not call on the bourgeoisie to proletariat will quickly eliminate the hasten their defeat! ly synchronic reasoning and the result­ investigate itself. just as we do not call parasitic institution of organized ant conclusion of the King assassination Fraternally, on the state to investigate its cops prostitution. And with the gradual article in the 17 June Wv. The conclu­ A.B. through police review boards or for replacement of the nuclear family, sion calling for the "full facts to be Congressional "oversight" of the secret its accompaniment--·sex as a revealed" in the King assassination and police. We want the truth, not cover­ commodity-will disappear forever. the deaths of Malcolm X and other WV replies: A.B. is a careful reader of ups. If such secrets do exist that are Comradely. black militants was glaringly truncated WV. He has correctly noticed that we worthy of 14 years of relentless suspi­ M.A.P. by not extending it to call for the rein­ are more interested in exposing the truth cion. they may well be kept under wraps vestigation ofall assassinations in which of the assassinations of Malcolm X and a while longer. The tsar had secrets too, the CIA and FBI have been implicated. Martin Luther King than we are in and they were not discovered until after While your aversion to the tendency dipping into the mysteries of the Ken­ the revolution. WfJRNERS of left-liberals and reformists to find the nedy assassinations. Our attitude is We know there are conspiracies, but source of capitalist-created problems in shaped by our class perspective on the Marxists reject the liberal notion of a VANGUARD government conspiracies is certainly capitalist state. conspiratorial basis of the capitalist justified it seems that you neglect your Of course we are for the full exposure state. The Kennedy assassination con­ Marxist Working-Class Weekly duty as Marxists to seek and tell the of all of U.S. imperialism's secret assass­ spiracy suggested in A. B.'s letter would ofthe Spartacist leagueofthe U.S, ination machinery, including any possi­ be an inter-bourgeois drama of enor­ truth simply to avoid the liberal stigma EDITOR: Jan Norden ble connection to the Kennedy assassin­ mous scope. About this we do not know. of "conspiracy psychosis." More im­ PRODUCTION MANAGER Karen Allen ation. But we are most interested when We remain "aggressively agnostic," portantly, however, it would seem that if CIRCULATION MANAGER: Anne Kelley they try to poison Castro, when they pointing out that the obsessive yearning such reinvestigations were to prove CIA EDITORIAL BOARD: Jon Brule, Charles and/or FBI involvement it could only slaughter Fred Hampton in his bed and to speculate in this case really hides Burroughs. George Foster. Liz Gordon. further serve the socialist cause by dem­ routinely open our mail. We are most desires to pin the crimes of the capitalist James Robertson. Joseph Seymour. Michael onstrating to the world the great lengths interested in exposing the class function system on a few right-wing plotters. Our Weinstein Published weekly. except bl-weekly in August to which the fetid capitalist class and its of the bourgeois secret police, its regular propaganda is thus directed in large part and December. by the Spartacist Publishing conspiratorial agencies will go to main­ MO: surveillance, persecution and at debunking the liberal Kennedy con­ Co. 260 West Broadway. New York. NY 10013 tain and preserve their choke-hold on (when deemed appropriate) murder of spiracy industry; exploding the Camelot Telephone: 966-6841 (Editorial), 925-5665 (Business). Address all correspondence to: the proletariat. The exposure of such members of the left, black and labor aura around the man who ordered the Box 1377. G.PO. New York. N.Y 10001 conspiracies would not necessarily have movements. When we demand that the Bay of Pigs invasion; and exposing the Domestic subSCriptions $5.00 per year to serve as fodder for the liberal "rogue full facts be revealed in the murders of normal function of the capitalist secret Second-class postage paid at New York, NY Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, we police, which is not to assassinate Dem­ Opinions expressed in signed articles or elephant" explanation and apology for letters do not necessarily express the editorial the bourgeois rule we live under and are seeking to focus attention on the ocratic presidents but to hound the left, viewpoint. certainly the SL's record would prevent murderous class nature of the capitalist labor and black movement. ,~-, WORKERS VANGUARD __Editorial Notes, _

moving groupings emerging from this milieu managed Africa by Fidel Castro and then Soviet president "Far-Left Unity" Hullabaloo to find their way to the iSt.) Podgorny last spring, Moscow has courted the military A 15 October position paper on the I-CL distributed junta (Derg) in Ethiopia. During a stay in Addis in Britain by the London Spartacist Group described the spectac­ Ababa, Castro hailed Mengistu as a "great revolution­ ular failure of the I-CL's ten-month Nil manoeuvre: ary." He was silent, however, about the Derg's system­ LONDON-The current "far-left unity" manoeuvre of atic assassination and execution of leftist opponents at the International Marxist Group (I MG, British section "When challenged from the left the NIl posed as a simple home and its sordid war of national oppression against of the United Secretariat [USec)) seems to be causing 'discussion group'; at other times, particularly when posturing in front oflocal USec groups, it posed as at the independence fighters in Eritrea. Taking his cue from some difficulties for the Sean Matgamna grouping, very least an instrument to build an International. Cuba's "jefe maximo," Marcy, too, has concluded: presently organised as the International-Communist Hence its own internal life and its ephemeral'coordinat­ "The working class, the national liberation movements League (I-CL). The IMG call-formally directed at the ing committee'. and progressive people as a whole ought to give full, dozen-odd centrist and reformist organisations to the "The members of the NIl-besides the I-CL, the Italian Frazione Marxista Rivoluzionaria (FM R), and the unstinted, and unambiguous support to the Ethiopian left of the Labour Party-is primarily aimed at "unit­ Spartacusbund ofGermany-did share a distaste for the Revolution" (Workers World, 19 August). ing" the IMG with the far larger "third camp" econo­ worst idiosyncrasies of the relatively unsuccessful local YAWF's bootlicking support to yet another Soviet­ mists of Tony Cliff's Socialist Workers Party (nee representatives of Pabloism, while retaining an affinity backed "revolutionary" regime would not be International Socialist [IS)). Although the IMG is not for the fundamental political revisionism of the USec. noteworthy except for the particularly grisly character particularly interested in the smalll-CL, the Pabloists' On its own national territory each organisation found it desirable to make some pretense at international of the Derg's bloody rule and the Marcyites' earlier grand "unity" offensive has certainly had repercussions connections, to compete with the USec affiliate and support to the Eritrean guerrillas. Two and a halfyears inside the I-CL. to ward off attacks from the iSt. Thus was the NIl consummated. ago they excoriated the USSR and China for failure to The I-CL deemed it incumbent to respond to the "come to the aid of the Eritreans" and noted: IMG unity-mongering by expressing concern for "Today the I-CL is circulating a half-page statement (dated 15 July 1977) in which it renounces its short-lived "... the principle of self-determination of oppressed na­ "complete clarity" and by voicing anxiety at the "con­ involvement in the NIL In the first lines of the statement tions has been trampled in the rush to form an alliance fusion" and "false pretenses" of the proposed merger. the following three assertions appear: with the new Ethiopian generals. The fact that they may But the protestation of the need for principle in '''The NIl no longer exists in the form in which we be progressive to a degree in the struggle against imperi­ undertaking regroupments is rendered transparent by declared our intention to participate in it. ... The NII­ alism (and this is really yet to be seen) makes no if the title continues to exist-is now nothing more than difference as far as their colonial policy is concerned. A the Matgamna grouping's long history of successive a front for the FM R.... national bourgeois regime is characterized by its need to entries into numerous organisations, in particular its '''In fact the Nil has never really existed.' resist imperialism in order to better exploit the workers 1968 enthusiasm for a similarly unprincipled "unity" "In case that is confusing the I-CL goes on to say and oppressed." [emphasis in original] appeal emanating from the Cliffites. '''The NIl was a project of a structured framework - Workers World, 28 February 1975 Evidently the Matgamnaites felt compelled to predicated on pretences disproportionate to the reality of the participating organisations and to its inadequate But today, after several waves of purge byassassina­ publicly explain why the IMG "unity" tactic is confu­ and insubstantial platform (to which the I-CL produced sionist whereas the 1968 Cliffite scheme was princi­ 'neutralising' amendments before affiliating).' (sic!) tion, the Derg has switched arms suppliers from the pled, and a recent article in Workers Action (a newspa­ "So the I-CL has just left an international bloc which had U.S. to the Soviet Union and, 10 and behold, it is per which reflects the viewpoint of the I-CL) took the an 'inadequate and insubstantial' (although fortunate­ YAWF that tramples on the Eritreans' right of self­ ly 'neutralised') programme and which never really determination: plunge and attempted to explain how. They would existed. have done better to leave bad enough alone and hope "... support for the Eritrean struggle for self­ "The reason for the I-CL's departure from the Nil seems determination must be conditional on their renouncing nobody would remember. . to be sour grapes about what's left ofthe Spartacusbund any part in imperialism's schemes to use their national Thus, the article attacks the diluted ("non­ carrying out 'an auto-conversion to the entire platform struggle against the Ethiopian Revolution; in other sectarian") nature of the IMG's proposed five-point of the FMR [which] has rendered discussion impossi­ words, it is conditional on their support for the Ethiopi­ ble .... ' The NII remains unprincipled as before .... " "unity" programme. But the basis of the 1968 fusion an Revolution and their rejection of the reactionary between the IS and the Matgamnaite Workers Fight Internationalism does not consist in undertaking Arab regimes who are acting on behalf of imperialist "initiatives" which must later be admitted to be not interests." group was an even more minimal four-point pro­ - Workers World, 19 August gramme: "against racism, against imperialism, against merely not "necessary" but presumably downright What has really changed in Ethiopia? Mengistu has incomes policy, and for workers control" (quoted in dangerous! gotten the upper hand in the internecine clique infight­ Workers Action No. 65). The I-CL political contor­ Fusions are an indispensable part of the struggle to ing within the Derg, emerging from the piles ofcorpses tionists assert that the 1968 fusion "would have assemble the cadres of a Leninist vanguard party. But as the most ruthless exponent of modernizing military massively enlarged the entire left" and that "it would the successful fusions which have led to the growth and bonapartism. He has targeted as enemies ofthe revolu­ have been a pole of attraction for almost all serious international extension of the iSt are the result of tion not only the feudalists, but also the militant revolutionaries." In a letter to the editor one perplexed principled struggle for the Trotskyist programme. The socialist-oriented trade unionists and left-wing stu­ Workers Action reader neatly captured the essence of fragmentation of the revisionist rotten blocs and their dents, who have been "liquidated" by the thousands. the I-CL's method: "It's okay to create political confu­ petty imitators like the Nil is a confirmation in the As bourgeois nationalists, the junta as a whole and sion so long as larger rather than smaller numbers of negative of the tactic of revolutionary regroupment. Mengistu in particular are committed to defending the people are won to revolutionary politics." glory of a Greater Ethiopia forged by the conquests of A similarly absurd position results when the I-CL Coptic Christian emperors beginning with Menelik I in seeks to use "newness" as a criterion to invest the 1968 the mid-1800's. Thus the military Derg has lash-up with an aura of purity: thus, while the Cliffite Marcy and Mengistu continued without let-up the same dirty war which it scheme was a product of "the immaturity and experi­ fought for years on behalf of Haile Selassie against ence of a genuinely new vanguard," the current IMG At times it seems that the only purpose in Iifeforthe Somali and Eritrean secessionists seeking to escape campaign "represents the manoeuvres of experienced Workers World Party/Youth Against War and Fas­ decades of brutal Amharic domination. politicians." IMG honcho Tariq Ali must indeed be an cism (WWP/YAWF), Sam Marcy's Stalinoid person­ While withdrawing support for the independence impressively effective manoeuverer to strike such awe ality cult, is cheerleading for sundry "Third World struggle of the Eritreans (or, rather, making it condi­ in the hearts of the I-CL, which has come out for the struggles." There is hardly a guerrilla comandante or tional on their supporting their oppressors), YAWF relative political innocence of Tony Cliff-who broke "anti-imperialist" colonel on three continents whose also trumpets Mengistu's "peasant and worker mili­ from Trotskyism to state capitalism at the time of the praises they have not sung. And in upholding the tias," the rag-tag army intended to crush the inde­ Korean war some 27 years ago! Marxist-Leninist pretensions of tinpot despots from pendence movement in an orgy of religious bloodlet­ Of course, the Matgamnaites have a long record of Maputo to Mogadishu, WWP/YAWF have regularly ting. And it applauds the "revolutionary reorganizing unprincipled "fusions" and casual programmatic shifts resorted to gangster tactics against the Spartacist at the mass level" of the kabeles (Workers World, 16 in pursuit of their selected entrist targets. The I-CL League's exposure of the crimes ofbourgeois national­ September). Ironically, the prime function of these itself was formed by a fusion between the formally ism and Stalinism. urban vigilante groups set up by the army is to smash Soviet-defencist Workers Fight and a smaller state­ Recently, however, YAWFs desire for popularity the Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Party (EPRP), a capitalist grouping called Workers Power. In order to among petty-bourgeois radical circles in the U.S. has militant leftist group that so starkly resembles the consummate what was to be an extremely short-lived run afoul of the methodology of"Global Class War"­ WWP/YAWF with its eclectic Guevarist/"Third fusion (duration: one year), Matgamna & Co. were Marcy's grand theory of capitulation to the Stalinist World" nationalist politics. happy to label the nature of the Soviet state a "tenth ruling bureaucracies. It is easy enough to tout so-called Internationally, the elimination of pro-U.S. army rate question." "socialist construction" in Angola, Mozambique and officers in Addis Ababa led to a cooling of relations The most recent expression of the Matgamnaites' Guinea-Bissau. Neto, Machel and Cabral have not yet with Washington and ultimately a cut-off of arms appetite for unprincipled "fusions" was the late unla­ lost their media appeal, and the Kremlin pretends that supplies by the Carter administration, alleging abuses mented "Necessary International Initiative" (NIl), these tawdry nationalist regimes are "non-capitalist." of human rights by the Derg. (Of course, the Pentagon which comprised the I-CL and two centrist organisa­ Thus YAWF could rubber-stamp the line of the continues to lavish military aid on the equally murder­ tions formed by splits from the USec in Germany and currently most militant-posturing Stalinist regime ous right-wing Mobutu dictatorship in Zaire.) Mos­ Italy. The NIl's formation and evident collapse is of while maintaining a radical image on campus. cow thereupon stepped into the breach, trying to create significance not only as a graphic demonstration of the However, the "Global Class War" has now come to an "anti-imperialist confederation" in the geopolitical­ futility of rotten-bloc "internationalism," but also the Horn of Africa and consternated Marcyites are ly strategic Horn of Africa essentially by bribing the because it mimics the unhappy fate of its largest faced with two warring "scientific socialist" military several weapons-starved army regimes. But a change of national component, the German Spartacusbund. dictatorships, Ethiopia and Somalia, presently backed arms suppliers does not determine the class character (Some seven years ago, a left-oppositional current by Russia and China respectively. In the past, YAWF of a regime, and in any case the Ethiopian junta departed from the German USec with the intention of has sided with Peking against Moscow (both ideologi­ continues to be supported by Israel. (The Zionists set outlining an "independent" centrist course quantita­ cally and in the Sino-Soviet border dispute); but since up an elite terror squad, known as the Nebelbal or tively to the USec's left, without coming to grips with Mao lined up with the U.S. and apartheid South Africa "flame," which has acted as Mengistu's personal army authentic Trotskyism as represented by the interna­ in last year's Angolan war, the USSR and its Cuban and carried out systematic repression against the tional Spartacist tendency [iSt]. The perpetually frag­ front men have gotten top billing in the pages of EPRP.) . menting "critical Pabloist" current never escaped the Workers World. So with the same facility with which It was obvious from the beginning that the Kremlin's political orbit of the USec, which now stands in a good Brezhnev switched horses from Somalia's Major Siad illusions of an "anti-imperialist" alliance in East Africa position to pick up one or another ofits decomposition Barre to Ethiopia's Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam, would be shattered on the nationalism of the rival products. A large proportion of the individuals in­ Marcy has suddenly discovered the "Ethiopian strongmen. As Brezhnev has tilted toward Ethiopia, volved in this process have left revolutionary politics Revolution." . altogether, though over the years several leftward- Ever since the back-to-back barnstorming tours of continued on page 11

4 NOVEMBER 1977 3 III-Fated IMT Regroup-ment in U.S. Mandel's Unwanted Children

"You must understand that there is a the SWP. The Barnes regime could very real danger of total disintegra­ suppress the IT, even expel more than tion...." These are the terms in which 100 people wi~h the arrogant claim that American supporters of the United in effect they had already split. but Secretariat (USee) majority described Mandel continued to play the numbers their situation a year and a halfago. In a game and conciliate the far larger forces 22 June 1976 letter to the USec's Inter­ of the SWP. Lauding the SWP'scapitu­ national Majority Tendency (1 MT), lation to the antiwar bourgeoisie, ful­ Milt Zaslow and his group of Los somely praising the SWP's anti­ Angeles-based IMT loyalists desperate­ proletarian accommodation to black ly appealed to their international men­ nationalism. Mandel had little use for tors to desist from upholding the IMT's the empiricist but would-be leftist IT. uneasy political bloc with the Socialist Once the left oppositionists in the SWP Workers Party (SWP) against their had decisively thrown in their lot with closest political supporters in this coun­ the IMT, their self-destruction as sub­ try. Their plea that Ernest Mandel & jective revolutionists was logical and Co. should break from a deliberate inexorable. policy "which compels the IMT leader­ At the time ofthe mass purge of the IT ship, again and again, to aid and abet from the SWP we warned, "The IT Is the [pro-SWP] LTF in its drive to des­ Expendable": troy our tendency" has at last been met '" ... In its desperate thrashing about:the IT has tried to persuade itself that the with an apparently definitive response. Pabloism of the United Secretariat is The bitterly faction-ridden USec, only a shibboleth, an empty political which has teetered on the brink of split epithet. They are finding out differently. .... since 1969, seems to have pasted itself The organizational consequence of the USec's objectivist, tailist line is disinter­ , Freedom Socialist back together. For the U.S. IMT sup­ est and contempt toward the painstak­ From left, Clara Fraser, Murry Weiss and Myra Tanner Weiss. porters~permanently enjoined from ing building ofcommunist cadres. What publicly criticizing or competing with are 112 ITers in the United States to the debacle, are some 50 comrades who the SWP, and instructed to apply Pabloist mind?-after all, the automat­ refused to be expended. or sacrificed or for membership in an SWP which had ic unfolding processes of the New Mass immobilized.... Vanguard or some successor gimmick '"Cde. C. declared in Chicago, in April of no intention ofaccepting the vast major­ will certainly bring thousands; surely them~the 1975. that if only 30 comrades made il ity of dissolution of the one speech by Ernest Mandel in a suita­ infO lhe SWP. lhal would conslilUle a USee's two major factions puts off for ble mass meeting could win far more. so viclOry! (Incidentally. is 17. or 20, also a the foreseeable future any hope of why worry about small change like the victory')) And what about the rest-the political death ofthe IT, which is merelv large majority? They were apparently emerging from the deep freeze with the the major part of three years of left USec's American "franchise." expendable...." oppositional activity in the SWP? Thus -~letter of 22 June 1976, pub­ it is not subjective evil or ill will that lished in SWP Infernmional Of course the alliance between the causes the USec tops ... to look upon reformist SWP and the centrist IMT is Imernal Infonnalion Bul/Nin. the IT not as comrades but as pawns: 1\0. 2 in /977, July /977 inherently unstable. No matter what this willful destructiveness is only the under-the-table deals have been made to necessary corollary of their impression­ istic politics." A bitter postscript to this already protect the cease-fire, it must shatter -'"SWP Stages Mass Purge." sobering tale is the treatment afforded under the impact of any sharp upturn in WVNo. 49. 19 July 1974 the token ITers who were "reintegrated" the class struggle which would pose The sequel to this warning was the into the SWP where. mistrusted and conflicting opportunist appetites for the agonized fragmentation of the IT. In the held in contempt, they enjoy the dubi­ bloc partners. But the American IMT 22 June 1976 letter, Zaslow et a!. de­ ous pleasure of watching the recently supporters cannot afford to wait. Sus­ scribe far more eloquently than we fused state-capitalist former Revolu­ pended in political limbo, on the IMT's could the results of the IT's loyalty to its tionary Marxist Committee being glad­ instructions, since the July 1974 purge international "leadership": handed on all sides. At the SWP Nation­ of the pro-IMT Internationalist Tend­ "In September of 1974, two months after al Convention held last August, where ency (IT) from the SWP, the U.S. IMT the purge, the IT held a conference to the state-caps were given a lengthy has hemorrhaged its cadres until there assess its situation and plan its strategy. standing ovation and flattered with con­ are very few of them left to wait, even if The conference voted unanimously to gratulatory speeches, the delegates they had something to wait for. appeal the expulsion to higher bod­ ies ...[and] to make preparations to 'go snickered as IT spokesman John Barz­ So we were not overly impressed this public' on the assumption that the SWP man was nominated for the National summer when Zaslow and some of his would not readmit the tendency as a Committee: fellow cast-offs proclaimed the immi­ whole. and certainly not with tendency '"Comrade Barzman is a member of a nent formation of "a bold new revolu­ rights.... It was estimated that, with the major international faction with mem­ recruitment of the SU, BMG [Baltimore bers in the party, and we felt his mem­ tionary tendency" called the Committee Marxist Group] and RMC [Revolu­ bership would strengthen the commit­ for a Revolutionary Socialist Party tionary Marxist Collective], the group tee, even though the level of his party (CRSP). The "Crispies" were evidently would number about 150. with organ­ WV Photo activity since he was elected to the Milt Zaslow expecting to "regroup" most of the ized branches in 8 or so major cities.... National Committee last year has not We also understood that the period of dispersed IMT loyalists outside the ment entirely. The rest strove been defensible for an elected marking time had to be very brief or we leader. ..." would surely suffer demoralization and pathetically to prove themselves worthy SWP (expelled ITers and also local of reintegration.... --'"Nominations Commission disintegration. Report." [SWP] Inlernallnfor­ groupings, like Zaslow's Socialist Un­ "This perspective was torpedoed by the '"And what was the upshot? The SWP kept them dangling on a string, month malion Bulletin, No.8 in 1977, ion, which because of their pro-I MT IMT leadership. Overriding the opin­ October 1977 ions of the entire tendency, this leader­ after month. eventually admitting one sympathies were never admitted to here. two there, until finally, a grand membership by the SWP) as well as pull ship intervened with a heavy hand to impose a completely different line. That total of 17 or so comrades were admit­ in some new elements. Already they are line was to renounce all independent ted. scattered across the country. Belated Break finding the going rough. Somehow, political activity and place ourselves at '"So, it is time to ask, what has happened despite the initiators' years of "non­ the disposal ofthe SWP-whose aim, of to the 150 supporters of the IMT in the As we survey the wreckage of the IT, sectarian" efforts to soft-pedal their course, was to crush us. US? The 17 (more or less) are buried in it seems almost excessively cruel to insist the SWP where they will vegetate, as ostensible "Trotskyism" and downplay '"N aturally, this directive threw the previ­ that the destruction of the IT in the ously united tendency into a bitter they cannot possibly make the slightest IMT's hands was predictable. But the IT their programmatic heterogeneity, the struggle and split the IT down the mid­ impact on the SWP monolith. All that "bold new" lash-up seems to hold little dle. At the conclusion of our conference can be expected is demoralization and leaders share the responsibility for the attraction for those unimpressed with of April 1975, 50 comrades supporting adaptation. About 19 members of the debacle. In August 1974, following the the IMT and its occasional whispered the line of the IMT leadership split from NF, in spite of their self-imposed ab­ purge, two members of the Houston IT the tendency and regrouped themselves stention from all work on behalf of the branch leadership submitted to their words of comfort. Meanwhile, the IMT FI, etc., are suspended in mid air with as the 'New Faction' on your line of tendency a document in preparation for leadership's years of cynical maneuvers reintegration at all costs and on any absolutely no perspective except to with the bureaucratic SWP have squan­ basis. hope that someday, or some year, the the October IT plenum. The document dered the cadres of the former IT; some 'The initial demand for collective reinte­ SWP will relent and readmit them. A characterized the SWP as reformist and half-dozen or so (including 2 of the 5 have liquidated into other organiza­ gration on the basis of 'non-negotiable argued that "a complete political break Leninist norms of party democracy', members of the IT Political Commit­ is both politically justified and neces­ tions, while most are simply too demor­ tee), have joined Sam Marcy's cult, and the right to defend the line on the sary." In the service of Its internation­ alized to reenter active political struggle. International in public, ended with a (Workers World Party), which happens pathetic scramble for admission, one by to be hostile to the FI. A few joined a al mentors' machinations, the IT leader­ one, with no conditions whatever. local centrist formation. The rest have ship suppressed the document. When Expendable '"Some of the New Faction (NF) drifted out of political activity entirely, the comrades arrived in Chicago for the comrades could not swallow the bitter at least for the time being, many demor­ October IT plenum, whose purpose was The fate ofthe IT was sealed years ago pill and left. A few joined RMOC [Re­ alized and embittered. by the IMT's categorical refusal to volutionary Marxist Organizing Com­ "What a tragic waste of cadres. What to debate the ITs perspectives toward break with its American bloc partner, mittee], others were lost to our move- remains, in an organized way, out of the the S",,-P, they found that the very first 4 WORKERS VANGUARD ngenda point was their expulsion. Their countermotion, "The SWP is finished as a revolutionary force," was voted down Expropriate the Minesl and they were shown the door. The IT then proceeded to reaffirm the "revolu­ tionary" character of the SWP and adopt the IMrs ultimatum that they seek "reintegration." The 22 June 1976 letter by Zaslow et Mass Layoffs Threaten Canadian al. is the eloquent balance sheet of the "reintegration" perspective. The Hous­ ton comrades' position-once such ana­ thema to the IT leadership that it trig­ expulsion~is Spa~acisl gered a political now a NiekeI Miners -Reprinled from Canada No. 21, Noyember 1977 truism for the bruised remnants of the American IMT. And so the "bold new" CRSP proclaims in its Statement of SUDBURY, Ontario, October 23­ Purpose: "We are forced to conclude More than 1,000 angry miners and other that the regeneration of revolutionary Sudbury residents rallied here this Marxism in the U.S. must proceed out­ afternoon to protest the impending side of and apart from the SWP." mass layoffs in area nickel mines. The At last! Years after the point where it lnco and Falconbridge mine bosses are might have made some difference, the seeking to rationalize the collapsing U.S. IMT spokesmen are ready to de­ Canadian nickel ind ustry at the expense clare that the S WP is not revolutionary of the workers, and the jobs and liveli­ (the CRSP calls it "centrist"). But it is hoods ofthousands are at stake-as well not clear that anybody is still listening. as the future ofthis historically powerful The reason for this new-found and militant sector of the Canadian wisdom is not hard to find. Ifthe last few union movement. years' experiences were not enough, the Already 375 Inco employees in Port dissolution of factions in the USec pro­ Colborne, Ontario (some with as much vides the crowning insult. A new era of as 14 years seniority) have been axed; sweetness and light has been declared in now the company has announced that the USec; after the SWP had urged the early next year 2,800 workers in Sud­ faction which follows its lead to "unila­ bury and another 650 in Thompson, terally" dissolve. it would be the basest Manitoba, will lose their jobs penna­ ingratitude for the IMT to utter even a nent!l'. Falconbridge has announced whimper of protest when Jack Barnes similar massive cuts in the Sudbury-area gloats that "In the United States. forthe workforce, and local union leaders first time in several years, every single warned the protesting miners that still person in this country who would be a more layoffs are likely on the agenda. member of the Fourth International ifit Cramming the union hall of United were not for reactionary legislation is Steelworkers of America (USWA) Lo­ today a member of the Socialist Work­ cal 6500, the miners came hoping to find ers Party" [SWP] International Internal a strategy to defeat the company's at­ Discussion Bulletin, Vol. XIV, No.8, tacks. But all they got was three hours of Sparlacist Canada September 1977). In other words, the speeches from politicians and union Miners at Sudbury rally, October 23. IMT leadership at last agrees that Zas­ bureaucrats, containing nothing but low and his fellow "Crispies" are indeed rhetoric, vague promises and various non-persons. reformist gimmicks aimed at cajoling Among the worst was Dave the company tax concessions! the companies and the governments in Patterson, the supposedly "militant" Seeking to curry favor with the Ottawa and Toronto into doing some­ USWA 6500 (lnco employees) presi­ Who Are the "Crispies"? militant miners, even some Sudbury­ thing about the layoffs. dent, who won the' leadership of this area New Democratic Party MP's and In their last-ditch effort to pull to­ The mood of the miners at the 14,OOO-member local two years ago as a MPP's [member of provincial parlia­ gether some kind of pro-IMT organiza­ meeting was militant. When a local self-styled "insurgent" rank-and-file ment] came off to the left of Patterson. tion in this country, Zaslow & Co. have Liberal MP [member of parliament] candidate. He was a vocal supporter of NDP MPP Eli Martel cried that Inco been joined by a few small clumps of tried to d~fend the "private enterprise "rebel" bureaucrat Ed Sadlowski in this must be taken over by the government, Pabloist undergrowth, some of it fairly system," he was virtually hooted off the year's USWA International elections. and that the only compensation it de­ exotic. While their general political stage~and would have been, had Sud­ Patterson announced that the local ex­ serves is $2.95 for a bus ticket out of trajectories-characterized by polyvan­ bury and District Labour Council Presi­ ecutive had a five-point program which town. But federal MP John Rodriguez guardist impressionism-are certainly dent Elmer McVey not appealed to the it was trying to discuss with the com­ could come up with nothing better than similar, each tends to have its own audience to avoid "cheap shots." Jack pany. This program consisted of noth­ a scheme for pressuring the government hobbyhorse; in the attempt to arrive Gignac, President of Mine-Mill Local ing more than appeals for pensions to into stockpiling nickel to save jobs. at a lowest-common-denominator"pro­ 491 (Falconbridge production workers) those leaving the industry, no overtime Even provincial [NDP] leader Ste­ gram," the CRSP has simply aggregated thundered that "any politician against and no contracting out, a better vaca­ phen Lewis was forced to concede that the various components' eccentricities. nationalization [of Inco and Falcon­ tion schedule and building more "liaison "public ownership," which he admitted The effort to derive a "program" out of bridge] without compensation does not with the community." Asked by a Spar­ was in general anathema to him, might the lumping together of everybody's pet represent the working class," and re­ tacist Canada reporter whether he sup­ have to be considered. But he preferred enthusiasm leads to some rather hilari­ ceived a prolonged standing ovation. ported the demand for the nationaliza­ the strategy of a legislative inquiry into ous results. Thus the CRSP's Statement But neither Gignac, nor any other tion of Inco, Patterson actually said no. Inco's business practices if the govern­ of Purposejumps straight from its open­ speaker presented a strategy to stop the Instead he supported a scheme whereby ment failed to step in to prevent layoffs. ing four points on "Race, Sex and layoffs and win demands like expropria­ the government would receive five per­ Later, free from the pressures of the Sexuality"-intended to placate the tion of the mining companies. cent interest in Inco each time it granted militant rally, Lewis told reporters that kooky Freedom Socialist Party (FSP) the NDP really had no intention of Washington state, known for its of calling for the nationalization advocacy of "socialist feminism"-to of the nickel industry-even with the call for "A Party of Workers and compensation. Scholars," obviously a plug for Murry Lewis' federal counterpart Ed Broad­ and Myra Weiss of the Marxist Educa­ bent echoed his remarks and also took tion Collective (MEC) in New York. up a nationalist theme, which had been The FSP is the creature of Clara begun by Patterson and continued by Fraser, who along with her then­ several other speakers. For Broadbent, collaborator Richard Fraser left the the problem with Inco is that it is "anti­ SWP some ten years ago over several Canadian" because it is laying offwork­ oppositional positions: left criticisms of ers in Canada while at the same time the SWP's pacifist antiwar line and creating new jobs at its mines in Gua­ capitulation to black nationalism; a temala and Indonesia. Broadbent de­ pronounced Maoist bent; the reason­ manded that the federal government able observation that the women's step in to stop lnco investment in other movement would certainly be a big deal countries-i.e., layoff workers in Gua­ and radicals looking for something to temala and Indonesia to save jobs in tail should get with it right away. The Sudbury. tendency (formerly the Seattle SWP Inco and Falconbridge are seeking to branch virtually in its totality) subse­ drastically cut back their Sudbury oper­ quently split between the Clara Fraser­ ations because they are no longer prof­ ites and the Dick Fraserites, with the itable enough. The companies face in­ former solidarizing around feminism creased international competition, particularly from an American corpora­ and the latter around Maoism. Clara tion, Amax Inc., which is selling nickel Fraser is to our knowledge the only ostensible Trotskyist who considered at significantly lower prices in order to destroy Inco's historical dominance in the disputed questions of her divorce to the industry. In the face of this competi- be political; her group has actually is- Spartacisl Canada continued on page 9 INCO plant near SUdbury. continued on page 10 4 NOVEMBER 1977 5 Cambodia: Peasant Stalinism Run Amok

When Pol Pot of Democratic doubted atrocltles perpetrated by the could only assert. the day after it began, Kampuchea-formerly known as Sal­ Khmer Rouge. as well as the enforced that the II th Congress of the Chinese oth Sar of the Royal Government of national isolation and irrational eco­ Communist Party was "apparently" in Nation Union-surfaced several weeks nomic desrruction they have decreed, session judging from such tell-tale signs Asiaweek ago in Peking, it was revealed to the underline the need for a proletarian as the number of cars parked before the Pol Pot world (and to his countrymen) that he political revolution in the degenerated Great Hall of the People, preparations was not only prime minister of Cambo­ and deformed workers states to over­ for fireworks displays, etc. bank notes into the Mekong or burning dia but also secretary of the central throw the Stalinist ruling castes and The' Cambodian Stalinists' real fear them in huge bonfires, along with books committee of the Khmer Communist establish the democratic rule of soviet was that with their small military force from the library. (Cambodia today still Party. The laconic Chinese announce­ power. they would be unable to control a large has no money.) ment of his visit was, moreover, the first urban population. At the time of their When it was all over, Phnom Penh official admission of the existence ofthe "Self-Reliance," Khmer-Style victory the Khmer Rouge were estimat­ was a ghost town, with only a few Cambodian CP, which was said to be in Since coming to power the Khmer ed to have only 70,000 soldiers and a abandoned cars standing on the desert­ the midst ofcelebrating its 17th anniver­ Rouge have managed to almost com­ cadre of roughly 1,000 (according to ed streets, their tires and bodies often sary (the previous 16 having slipped by pletely cut off Cambodia from the out­ William Shawcross, writing in the 4 riddled with bullets by the frustrated March 1976 New York Review of unnoticed). side world. Wrapping themselves in a soldiers unable to make them function. It was revealed in Peking that the hysterical xenophobia directed not only Books). Refugees have reported that Meanwhile, in the countryside, those shadowy Cambodian leader had paid a against its capitalist neighbor Thailand, villages of 750 people are controlled by who survived the exhausting trek often previous visit to China (kept secret at but also against Laos and Vietnam, the only a dozen or so soldiers. In addition, found themselves clearing forests, with­ the time) in 1975, and movies of his rare public statements by the new rulers the Khmer Rouge army, formed out food, clean water or medicine. Ma­ meeting then with Chou En-Iai and Mao in Phnom Penh have emphasized the through years of guerrilla fighting in the laria and dysentery were rampant, and Tse-tung were shown on Chinese televi­ sanctity of Cambodia's borders and countryside, was a peasant army whose many of the former urban dwellers, sion. Pol Pot made a series of speeches, glorified ancient Khmer traditions. stating that the "general situation of the There are constant references in the revolution is excellent" in Cambodia program of the Stalinist-led National and claiming that "security in the whole United Front of Kampuchea (FUNK) to of our country is perfectly assured" the greatness of the thirteenth-century (New York Times, 30 September). At a empire based at Angkor Wat. whose banquet in his honor he warned that the temples form the centerpiece of the new "Kampuchean Revolutionary Army ... revolutionary flag (e.g., the "light of will not tolerate any aggression, provo­ Angkor civilization shining thro.ughout cation. interference. subversion or espi­ Southeast Asia for many centuries"). onage activities by anyone." Like the Albanians, North Koreans The world bourgeois press promptly and other Stalinist regimes in small, seized on this rare public appearance to poor countries, the Cambodian CP has speculate on rumored power struggles made a fetish out of economic "self­ behind the scenes and tried to fit some reliance." However. in this case it is new pieces into the "Cambodian puz­ based on massive forced population zle." After the country had been transfers and the uprooting of tradition­ pounded for five years by massive U.S. al peasant communities. The Cambodi­ bombing, the 1975 liberation of the an people, using the most primitive tools Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh or even their bare hands, are being from the venal Lon Nol clique provided forced to build a new society literally a shocking spectacle as the victorious from the ground up. As foreign minister Der Khmer Rouge troops drove out the leng Sary told Der Spiegel(9 May 1977) Cambodian Stalinists forced hundreds of thousands of urban dwellers entire population of 3 million at gun­ in a rare interview, "There is no prece­ countryside. point. Even war criminal Henry dent for the revolutionary experiment of Kissinger, the architect of the 1970 the Khmers. We want to realize some­ attitude toward the cities was one of totally unfamiliar with agricultural American-South Vietnamese invasion thing that has never yet been seen in hostility and suspicion. The combina­ practices, were unable to survive the ofCambodia and ofthe murderous 1974 history. Therefore there is no model, tion of a successful peasant revolt and harsh conditions. Christmas bombing of Hanoi, felt he neither the Chinese nor the Vietnamese an extremely narrow Stalinist layer at Now, in fact, a good part ofthe misery could get away with condemning the model. which can apply to us." the top accounts for the unusually bru­ and suffering of the Cambodian people Communists' "inhumanity." The "new Cambodia" does in fact tal consolidation of the Cambodian immediately following the April 1975 For the past two years the situation in represent a rather unique social reality, deformed workers state. victory of the Khmer Rouge cannot be Cambodia has been the subject of for the wracking contradictions which laid at the Stalinists' doorstep. They countless horror stories in the imperial­ characterize all the deformed workers The Obliteration of Phnom Penh inherited a devastated country on which ist media. The most vehement anti­ states are revealed in extreme form the U.S. imperialists had rained more communist diatribes paint the country there. It is impossible to understand the The unexpected action of the victori­ than half a million tons of bombs, redu­ as a blood-drenched chamber of hor­ total secretiveness, the virtually impene­ ous Khmer Rouge in forcibly depopu­ cing most of the towns to rubble and rors, to which knee-jerk New Left radi­ trable national isolation and the deliber­ lating the Cambodian capital had a slaughtering an estimated 600,000 peo­ cals (e.g.. the Guardian) respond by ate dismantling of the country's econo­ tremendous impact on bourgeois public ple (out of a total population of 7 mil­ dismissing everything as "CIA lies." my without an understanding 'of these opinion. But the gunpoint evacuation of lion). Phnom Penh had been swollen to Now, while taking into account the contradictions. The brutal repression Phnom Penh came as an even more five times its pre-war size, and even the tendentiousness of the "evidence" pre­ and extreme regimentation of "Demo­ traumatic shock to the exhausted and American government admitted that the sented on both sides, the Cambodian cratic Kampuchea" are not the prod­ starving population of the beleaguered population of the capital could not be experience clearly shows extremes of ucts of the demented ravings ofdemonic city. The toll in human lives was enor­ maintained without a continuous airlift. Stalinist brutality and bureaucratic rule. red monsters but a quintessential ex­ mous. While leng Sary admitted to Der But while denouncing the imperialist While it may not'be quite the "1984"­ pression of the impossibility of peasant Spiegel that "2,000 to 3,000 people died butchery, the Spartacist League did not style death camp dreamed up by the Stalinist regimes to establish a socialist during the evacuation of the city, and excuse the Stalinist bureaucratic atroci­ more fevered reactionary ideologues, society. several thousand died in the rice fields" ties. We wrote at the time: the information that is available and The grotesque statements of the during the first month, the actual total is "The contradictory character of Stalin- believable indicates that life in Cambo­ Khmer Stalinists naturally do little to undoubtedly far higher. dia is indeed quite grim, harsh and shed light on the actual situation. Pol As recounted in the powerful terrifying. Pot's justification for the total evacua­ eyewitness reports of Sydney Shanberg This in no way vitiates, but on the tion of Phnom Penh, for example, is of the New York Times, the people of contrary verifies, the perspective of pro­ ludicrous on the face of it. The policy Phnom Penh were herded into the letarian socialist revolution. Unlike the was decided upon, he said, "because we streets as the vast tide of humanity liberals, who now claim they were knew that before the smashing of all slowly moving out of the bloated city "duped," and the Stalinists, who simply sorts of enemy spy organizations, our choked the thoroughfares. Even the deny reality, Trotskyists have no need to strength was not strong enough to de­ critically ill and wounded in the hospi­ despair or resort to lies. The Spartacist fend the revolutionary regime" (Far tals were forced out, limping on crutches League hailed the overthrow of capital­ Eastern Economic Review, 21 October). or lying in hospital beds pushed by ist rule in Indochina as a historic In the first place, U.S. imperialism was relatives, some still hooked up to bottles conquest, but placed absolutely no con­ on the run in 1975. Moreover, the per­ of serum. Deeply suspicious of every fidence in the Stalinist bureaucracies fidious CIA frequently turns out to have aspect of city culture, young Khmer who came to power in the wake' of the feet of clay. Recently, for example, the peasant soldiers broke into the banks, Asiaweek peasant-guerrilla struggle. The un- bourgeois press was so in the dark that it throwing thousands of now-worthless leng Sary 6 WORKERS VANGUARD ism was nowhere more graphically re­ folksiness, the hard-line Peking loyalists tality of the Khmer Rouge regime. Even reported large-scale killings of officials vealed than in the actions of the victori­ of the Communist Party (Marxist­ such notable "progressives" as French and soldiers of the former regime, few ous Cambodian peasant army marching executions seem to have occurred." into Phnom Penh not to liberate the Leninist) (CP-ML-formerly the Octo­ author Jean Lacouture, long-time -Asia Yearbook 1977 ber League), have grasped what's really friend of the Viet Minh, have expressed poor and working people but rather to There was and continues to be impose an immediate and total depopu­ behind the aggressive Khmer national­ horror and shock at the brutality of the reported considerable discontent over lation of the city.... ism, approvingly quoting Pol Pot's Cambodian Stalinists. Like the liberal the regime's collectivization of agricul­ "In Cambodia some urban depopulation warnings against "outside aggression." American "China hands," Lacouture was indeed called for. The towns had tural production, which was apparently "This was a clear warning to the super­ saw the Khmer Rouge as simple "agrari­ become unmanageably swollen with total and immediate. There are no pri­ refugees from the countryside, most powers who have tried to prod neigh­ an reformers" and was dismayed when vate plots and the organizatiol} of pro­ driven there by U.S. saturation bom­ boring countries into attacking Kampu­ their Stalinist face showed through. In a duction is along military lines. The bing. But Phnom Penh, which had chea," they write in the 10 October Call. review of Cambodge, anm}e zero by the already discharged its thin layer of degree of regimentation equals that in Vietnam, in this case, is the local stand­ French Catholic priest Franl;ois Pon­ capitalists, also contained a stratum of China in the heyday of the communes in for the Soviet Union. chaud, who spent ten years in the coun­ workers and petty bourgeoisie consti­ during the Great Leap Forward; the tuting the only developed basis ofCam- Such utterly cynical Stalinist try prior to the demise of Lon Nol, amount of violence used to impose this . bodia's urban economy. For Marxists it apologetics are, in their own way, as Lacouture flatly asserts that in Cambo­ organization on a predominantly land­ is crucial to preserve this economic in­ revolting as the malicious ravings of dia "the bloodiest revolution in history frastructure while beginning an orderly owning peasantry recalls the forced­ right-wing journalists, whose nostalgia is now taking place." Worse than orien­ program for the relocation of the peas­ draft collectivization campaign under­ ant refugees. In any case the working for the "good old days" of comprador tal despots, medieval inquisitors, taken by Stalin in 1930-32, when and poor population should have itself capitalism is packaged in such trashy Auschwitz or Stalin's Gulag, Cambodia millions died as a result of calculated decided in democratic soviets how to pulp "exposes" as Murder of a Gentle represents "the ultimate in horror." deal with artifically overpopulated starvation policies. While collectiviza­ Land (New York, 1977), by two Read­ cities. Certainly they would not decide tion is an important gain of the revolu­ er's Digest editors, John Barron and "Here is only madness," writes to drive out the aged and the infirm, tion, the Stalinists were incapable of which surely would kill them." Anthony Paul. In their imperialist tour­ Lacouture in his sadder-but-wiser liber­ carrying this out in any bJt a bureau­ -"Indochina: Deformed ist mythology, Phnom Penh had been "a al disillusionment. Nat Hentoff, always cratic fashion, neither gradually nor Revolution," WV No. 72,4 city of tranquility and orderliness, a city a bellwether for rad-lib trends, quotes July 1975 with the consent of the working popula­ of gentle, laughing people, a city of Lacouture's world-weary comment: "It tion. Moreover, the material-technical striking women and good cuisine, a city is always more difficult to be the friend Worker-Peasant Paradise or basis for a successful collectivization of of easy days and amiable nights." With of the conquerors" (Village Voice, 28 Rural "1984"? agricultural production is totally lack­ languid racism they bemoan the crush­ February 1977). This fits right in with ing in Cambodia. Not ~ven mentioning ing of "the Khmer ideal, which is to the 1950's-style, "Goo That Failed" For better or for worse, depending on tractors, "a Phnom Penh Radio broad­ 'listen to the wind blow, watch the rice rhetoric of II 0 former "peace movement one's viewpoint, the Cambodian Stalin­ cast urged people to use muscle­ grow and make love'." Given that intro­ ists have yet to produce any significant leaders" who last year signed a state­ powered water wheels rather than for­ duction, it's hard to believe anything ment criticizing Vietnam for "violations written material for foreign consump­ eign oil-consuming pumps" in irrigation else in the book. of human rights." But where this was tion. (Among other notable features, works (ibid.). Fuel is reportedly ob­ they are probably the only deformed Actually, the corrupt, callous, in­ not simply deliberate pro-imperialist tained primarily by smuggling from workers state not to haye flooded the competent Lon Nol regime was quite propaganda, it only revealed the inabili­ Thailand in plastic bags. world, or at least the Maoist bookstores, gruesome, and its war-torn capital was a ty of liberal moralists to understand But the truly staggering crime of the Khmer Stalinists was not massacres in general or bureaucratic arbitrariness per se, but the deliberate, murderous and apparently successful destruction of ur­ ban life. For a period of months this was evidently near-total in scope, and only now are the cities and towns slowly being re-populated. This was not simply a question of sweeping out prostitutes corrupted with Western ways, but repre­ sented a conscious program against industry. Even today: "'Our direction in this field [industry] is to consolidate and perfect [existing] factories, and we have no plans to build other 'factories.' Pol Pot noted.... Ac­ cording to a report by the New China "iews Agency, about I00 factories and workshops had been put back into operation.... the factories were mostly repair shops or handicraft workshops." -Ibid. This "unique social revolution," because L'Express of the extreme nationalism and Khmer Rouge marching into Phnom Penh on 17 April 1975. xenophobia of its Stalinist leadership combined with the peasant distrust of with the immortal writings oftheir glori­ far cry from this idyllic picture. The fundamental social questions such as the cities has attacked the only econom­ ous leaders-which is just as well, as sober Far Eastern Economic Review (7 revolution and counterrevolution, ic means by which it could hope to begin anyone familiar with the collected January 1977) recalled that after Lon to climb out of poverty. And the attack works of Kim II Sung or Enver Hoxha Nol took power in a 1970 coup, "out­ on the productive forces is not simply in can attest. However, we may be only raged peasants had actually eaten one of Cambodia: A Really Deformed material terms: in the course ofdepopu­ temporarily spared, for it is only in the his brothers." This evidently became Workers State lating the cities, the Cambodian Com­ last month that it became known just something of a traditional form of pro­ The truth about Cambodia lies neith­ munist Party literally atomized what who the Great Father of the Khmer test, as shortly before the neo-colonial er with the Stalinist regime and its tiny proletariat the country possessed, People is.) So apologists for "Third regime finally disintegrated, Lon Nol's starry-eyed apologists nor with the while throwing the valuable skills of World" Stalinism are forced to rely on own soldiers, starving and embittered, bourgeoisie's hired pundits and the in­ petty-bourgeois professionals to the the unutterably trivial, incredibly sac­ ate one of his paymasters after not being comprehending, horrified liberals, winds. charine set-pieces published by Peking fed or paid for months. While the streets Cambodia, a very backward peasant While this is far from being "the featuring sparkling-eyed, red-cheeked of the capital were filled with "gentle, country ruled by a very weak Stalinist bloodiest revolution in history," it is sons and daughters of the people, sing­ laughing" cripples, beggars, prostitutes, bureaucracy, embodies in heightened certainly one of the more irrational of ing and dancing such items as "The pimps and starving children, the gener­ form all the contradictions of the de­ recent Stalinist-led social upheavals. In Cambodian People's Spirit of All-Out als put on lavish feasts for those exqui­ formed workers states. In order to de­ part this is because the Cambodian case Dedication" while working away in the site Cambodian "ladies of the night" fend Cambodia against imperialism it is more closely resembles a classical jac­ "heroic spirit of self-reliance." with their "elegant French not necessary to prettify the real bureau­ querie and the bloody elemental peasant Not to be outdone the over-aged New pronunciation." cratic terror and senseless suffering en­ revolts of the pre-capitalist era. These Left Guardian has printed quantities of Before the Khmer Rouge victory gendered by its present rulers. It is outbursts of suppressed rage at brutal mushy enthusing over the "original, Murder ofa Gentle Land sees nothing necessary to understand their origins. oppression have always left in their revolutionary" Cambodian society. but sweetness and light; the authors Were there massacres? Undoubtedly. wake vast devastation and carnage-the Notable 'Third World" buff Wilfred claim that the figures on the hundreds of There was certainly plenty of killing, as smouldering ruins of landlords' cha­ Burchett, writing from Paris, has ex­ thousands of Cambodians slaughtered inevitably accompanies the extension of teaus, the heads of tax collectors on plained at length that-based on by U.S. bombing (which they do not a revolution throughout the country. pikes. The Russian "Time of Troubles" his great familiarity with the Khmer even mention) are totally "undocument­ Moreover, these were intensified be­ of the 17th century, the great Chinese people, discussions with "responsible ed." Afterwards they see nothing but cause of the extreme youthfulness and peasant revolts against the Ming dy­ cadres," and photographs (!) of the new hideous massacres and the transforma­ small numbers of the nervous Khmer nasty and the German peasant wars of society-all assertions about repression tion of the pretty little country into a Rouge troops. But while most refugees the 1500's all were accompanied by in Democratic Kampuchea are simply vast concentration camp, policed by the interviewed by the more objective West­ tremendous cruelty-and were met with CIA-concocted slanders. Why, he writes robot-like minions of the sinister dark ern journalists reported seeing dead even more terrifying repression. In Chi­ (Guardian, 14 January 1976), the new force of the"Angka" (loosely translated bodies, actual reports of massacres re­ na during the four great rebellions ofthe Khmer constitution "is as Cambodian as "the organization"), its fields strewn ferred mainly to executions ofofficers of mid-nineteenth century (the Taiping as 'prahok,' the fish sauce indispensable with human skeletons, its rivers choked Lon Nol's puppet army. The Far East­ rebellion, Yunnan uprising, northwest for any Cambodian meal"! (As Ameri­ with corpses of those trying to escape ern Economic Review reported: Muslim rebellion and the Nien rebel­ can as apple pie? As corny as Kansas in and its forests infested with man-eating "Life in Cambodia... slowly returned to lion) it is estimated that some 10 to 20 August?) Undoubtedly, the vast majori­ tigers, their appetite for human flesh normal in 1976. One sure indicator, million died; 40 years later travelers ty of the Cambodian people would stimulated by the "Angka'''s carnage. which perhaps also demonstrated in­ shuddered at the sight of great empty eagerly exchange "their" constitution However, it is not only the open creasing Khmer Rouge social control, walled cities. In turn, peasant leaders was the sharp drop in the number of for a single bowl or jar of "prahok." reactionaries such as Barron and Paul refugees trekking to Thailand.... Un­ when caught were impaled, beheaded, In contrast to the Guardian's sappy who'have expressed outrage at the bru- like the situation in 1975, wilen refl:lgees continued on page lJ 4 NOVEMBER 1977 7 scribed character of the Western moves urging their leading companies to act taken in by this trick. U.S. imperialism South Africa ... against South Africa. He had to defend, more "responsibly" toward non-white props up scores of reactionary regimes employees in South Africa. Late last around the world and as the Vietnam (continued from page J) for instance, the American decision, War showed, it will butcher millions of despite its own arms embargo resolu­ month the European Economic Com­ people to make the world safe for capi­ of free press" existed before the October tion, to continue supplying nuclear fuels munity (EEC) Council of Ministers talist exploitation. It is therefore impor­ 19 crackdown. Numerous black and to Pretoria: "If you break the relation­ unveiled a new code of conduct for tant that our union. in expressing its leftist newspapers have been outlawed ship altogether, there is no way to moni­ Common Market companies operating solidarity with the heroic struggles of the South African masses, NOT allv in the three decades of Afrikaaner Na­ tor and it is almost because you can't in South Africa. Partly reflecting pres­ itself with the Carter administration"s tionalist rule, and their editors and trust them [the Vorster regime] that you sures generated from the labor move­ hypocritical 'human rights' crusade. reporters arrested or "banned." have to stay close to them"! ment and transmitted through the "U nfortunately, some groups In the local Carter's national security affairs The moral posturings of the liberal social-democratic parties, the code, in­ leave us wide open to this danger by advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski repeated imperialists are a dangerous trap for the itiated by British foreign minister David calling on GM to get out of South Africa. Let's be clear. We are for the his boss's point on Sunday, explaining international working class, whose ad­ Owen. contained 'some surprisingly South African workers smashing the on a television news program that: vancedelements have demonstrated an strong provisions. apartheid regime. establishing a black­ "... our response sought to focus on the impulse to take action in solidarity with The most important urges EEC centered workers government. and EX­ specific events of last week and try to their class brothers in South Africa. corporations to recognize black unions PROPRIATlNG the capitalists, in­ correct them, rather than to go whole- in South Africa. While these embryonic cluding GM.IBM. etc. It sows the worst After conniving in apartheid for years, kind of illusion to call on GM to quit organizations are not formally illegal, investing in South Africa, that is to neither the government nor the corpora­ forget their profits and become 'moral.' tions recognize them. Other provisions This just won't happen. The way to fight of the EEC code ask that the corpora­ the capitalists is the class struggle. The imperialists can't be reformed or made tions "formulate specific policies aimed 'humane.' Thev must be thrown out. at improving the'ir blacks' terms of em­ here and in So'uth Africa. ployment," help combat restrictions on "As a union. we can come to the aid of blacks' freedom of movement, and dis­ the South African workers. Black work­ criminatory wage rates and, as far as ers are barred from organizing trade possible, eliminate workplace segrega­ unions in South Africa. Manv of the giant capitalist corporations which em­ tion (Economist. 24 September). ploy black labor in South Africa such as The entire code is, however, purely GM are unionized in the U.S. Selected voluntary and can be ignored with little strikes by U.S. unions could playa big risk except bad publicity. West Germa­ role in forcing these companies to rec­ ognize the now-illegal black trade un­ ny's foreign minister, Hans-Dietrich ions. Union recognition would be an Genscher. felt obliged to take to the enormous help to the South African airwaves to appeal to German compa­ black workers. worth a hundred limes nies to abide by the code. In response. more than charity or appeals to the the ind ustrial federation warned that "a imperialists." general politicization" of international This class-struggle approach stands in trade would jeopardize West Germany's sharp contrast to the impotent morali!>m commercial relations. The Dutch Indus­ of fake radicals and petty-bourgeois , try Federation also bemoaned potential liberals who advocate university divest­ j business involvement in what it termed ment of stocks in companies investing in 1 EWI f)""J N%/4P': l "a political-ethical decision" (Business South Africa. consumer boycotts of Keystone Anti-apartheid demonstrators are arrested in Soweto. Week. 24 October). Krugerrands. sardines and other South The point which will most easily go by African exports and endless appeals to the boards in the EEC code is the the UN. appeals which are taken seri­ sale at the generic causes of the prob­ the Western powers now claim to be question of trade-union recognition for ously only when they coincide with the lem" (New York Times, 31 October). horrified at the brutal police-state mea­ black workers. In fact, ofthe 300 Ameri­ interests of international capitalism. sures necessary to defend it and, indeed, The imperialists' dismay grows partly can companies operating in South Afri­ Such a strategy can do nothing to aid the they arc now trying to pose as the from the broad sweep of the current ca, only Ford has signed a contract with black workers of South Africa, the spearhead of the fight against white crackdown. Last month Vorster's a union representing its black workers. motor force in the struggle to smash stormtroopers beat the prominent supremacy in southern Africa. A South African executive of General apartheid, and, in fact. if actually suc- young black nationalist leader Stephen For years the Soviet Union, pro­ Biko to death. The 30-year-old founder Moscow Communist Parties, Maoists, of the Black People's Convention had African nationalists and assorted anti­ close relations with important white racist liberals have demanded the sever­ liberals and had earlier transmitted a ing of diplomatic relations and a ban on plea to imperialist chief Carter to cham­ investments and trade with South Afri­ pion the cause of South Africa's blacks. ca. Numerous such resolutions have This month Pretoria attacked both the been raised at the UN, only to be vetoed "black consciousness" groups and a or ignored by imperialist governments. number of internationally known liberal In 1963, for example, Britain and France clergymen and editors who had been declared that they would not abide by demanding publication of the truth the voluntary arms e-mbargo. The U.S. about Biko's death. agreed to respect it. then circumvented it The imperialists can read the writing in numerous ways such as selling light on the wall. South Africa is in the throes planes and personnel carriers "for civili­ of a major political crisis, and its rulers an use" to Pretoria, knowing full well envision an escape route paved with the that once in South Africa they were corpses of untold numbers of blacks. As easily outfitted for military purposes. Afrikaaner Nationalists (and not a few Coming from the Stalinists and African English-speaking whites) withdraw into nationalists, such dt;mands are simply their laager (armed camp), they are the old shell-game of asking the "demo­ United Nations drastically limiting the rights even ofthe cratic" imperialists-the present and Front gate of Chrysler plant in South Africa. white bourgeois opposition, centered in former overlords of the economicallv the major South African corporations, backward capitalist countries-t~ Motors, one Ron Ironside, even at­ cessful it would weaken the already the English-speaking political parties, "save" the world from the more openly tempted to defend the suppression ofthe tenuous workers organizations by in­ the liberal press and churches. It is reactionary imperialists. black workers movement by appealing creasing unemployment. precisely these forces which the Western For the Western powers in the 1960's to "democratic principles": "We would Instead, international labor actions­ powers count on to avoid a race war and early 1970's-when the apartheid want to be sure that the union was such as a union boycott of all arms through incremental concessions to the structure seemed uns~akeable-such representative in the long term. Union shipments to South Africa-must be black population, particularly the urban demands were, at most, minor irritants. membership figures tend to fluctuate" organized around key democratic slo­ petty bourgeoisie. Hence the arms em­ But independence for the Portuguese (Business Week, 24 October). The fi­ gans including: free all victims of apart­ bargo, intended as a signal to the Vors­ colonies, growing commerce with black gures "fluctuate" as union organizers heid repression, rescind all restrictions ter regime to call off its repression of African states, increasing Soviet influ­ are jailed and union supporters fired by on black political organizations, abolish domestic bourgeois critics. ence south of the Sahara, the massive company after company! the pass system and all racist legislation, The arms embargo also provides the anti-apartheid struggles and the govern­ Such naked hypocrisy must not go end the industrial color bar, for equal Carter administration with an opportu­ ment's bloody response have all forced unchallenged. This is precisely the point pay and working conditions at the high­ nity to pretend that its "human rights" the Western powers to consider the on which the international workers est existing levels, for the right of trade­ campaign is something more than an major potential for an escalation and movement must make its weight felt in union organization. anti-Soviet crusade and an attempt to internationalization of the crisis in the solidarity with its class brothers and refurbish the tawdry international sub-continent. This genuine concern of sisters in South Africa. The class-struggle unionists of the image of post-Vietnam, post-Watergate imperialist Realpolitik dovetails with Recently, an oppositional group of CM UAW have taken a stand embody­ America. The UN resolution is the cli­ the Carter administration's so-called U.S. auto workers raised just such a ing the clearest expression of proletari­ max of a carefully stage-managed dra­ "human rights" campaign and with the perspective in the Fremont, California an internationalism_ The South African ma involving diplomatic protests, recall efforts of the ruling social-democratic UAW Local 1364. The 6 October issue revolution will not be advanced by reli­ of several Western ambassadors from parties of Western Europe to divert of the newsletter of the Committee for a ance on imperialist corporations and South Africa and high-level meetings in moral outrage from their own oppress­ Militant UAW (CMUAW) declared: governments-either to withdraw or to Washington and at the United Nations. ive. exploitative and militarist societies. "The U.S. government, loyal servant of behave "responsibly." But concerted At the same time, Andrew Young, Rather than embrace the Stalinist/ the giant capitalist concerns, whose international labor action can wrest real supposedly the champion of "Third African nationalist panacea of with­ South African operations reap big prof­ concessions from these exploiters and its. is trying to turn the anger and World peoples" in the Carter adminis­ drawing "clean" U.S./European money revulsion against apartheid to its own lend concrete assistance to the non­ tration, has been assigned the delicate from "dirty" South Africa, the liberal advantage by lecturing South Africa white working masses ground down by task of explaining the sharply circum- imperialists have found a middle route: about 'human rights.' No one should be the apartheid jackboot. • 8 WORKERS VANGUARD toric" meeting at "good old Freeway The same internal bulletin reprints a Marxist left." But he objected to the Mandel's Hall" in Seattle last July includes leng­ letter to the Weisses from IMT spokes­ organizers' professions of solidarity thy remarks by Murry Weiss which man Pierre Frank which gives a good with the IMT: capture how completely he has em­ taste of the maneuverist power-games "The fact that the International Majority Unwanted braced the revisionism he once fought: which pass for "internationalism" in the Tendency of the Fourth International "Stalinism caused enormous damage to USec: feels that the Socialist Workers Party is the world revolutionary process by its the inheritor of the Trotskyist move­ Children... "I hope that your intervention, though ment in the United States and does this (continuedfrom page 5) deal with imperialism and its betrayal of you are no more formally members of revolutions, he explained, but it was in spite of its principled disagreements the SWP, will have some good repercus­ with that party in which it took a stand sued a long polemic castigating her ex­ unable to stop the development of sions in it, and that it will help the hubby for his positions in this conflict. world revolution.... in Portugal on the 'other side of the interventions of the United barricades'-does this fact not bring This personality cult is most notable '''Communist parties can be transformed Secretariat. ..." and can follow through with their own into question at least two of the occa­ for its New Left polyvanguardist insis­ momentum',., ," It is no wonder that the American sions for the regroupment discussion?" tence that the woman question must be -Freedom Socialist, Spring 1977 IMTers, having been sporadically uti­ This convoluted query shields elevated to "equal and interlocking" lized as a little crowbar against the At the Los Angeles meeting which Felberbaum's real motivations. He has status with the class question; the CRSP SWP, have finally reacted in bitterness founded the CRSP in July, Weiss's used every kind of tactic to ensure that Statement of Purpose dutifully states and desperation to the latest move (dis­ unashamed enthusiasm for the "revolu­ the "School" is not identified with osten­ that "the double oppression of women, solution of factions), which leaves them tionary" potential of Stalinism was so sible Trotskyism and intends to preserve like the double oppression ofminorities, without any leverage. fulsome that the archetypical Pabloist the MEC as a hodge-podge of "inde­ creates a special dynamic amongst them Zaslow was forced to discover some The formation of the CRSP is a last­ pendent" radicals to be manipulated that has already begun to transform only by Felberbaum and not by the "orthodox" rhetoric: ditch attempt to hammer on the gates of every other social movement and politi­ IMT. His pitch that open identification "Communist parties, Zaslow said, while the USec, which has proclaimed itself cal process in this country." Reflecting capable under exceptional circum­ with any disciplined political current anxious for "fusions" with every kind of the FSP's more recent infatuation with stances of leading peasant armies or will isolate the MEC from "broader" guerrilla forces to military victory, have current including forces outside ostensi­ the gay movement, the document sol­ layers of radicals is exactly the kind of never led the proletariat to power any­ ble ~tskyism (state-caps, Mao-oids, emnly postulates that "the gay upsurge approach that the USec has followed for where, cannot be pressured into it, and etc.) ~hile slamming the door in appar­ has taken the form of a great mass are inherently incapable of doing so. He years, as it twisted itself around every ently decisive fashion on the homeless movement whose historical destiny is to contended that the PCP [Portuguese bump and bulge of the "mass American IMTers. These orphans seem link up with the revolutionary forces in Communist Party] provided no revolu­ movement." tionary leadership, restrained and de­ to have recognized at last that the only this country."- The Weisses had placed considerable railed the masses into reformist chan­ "principle" with which the USec has no It was the FSP's paper, the Freedom hope in their ability to outmaneuver nels, and helped restabilize Portuguese argument is success; the IMT will give Socialist, which last spring became the capitalism., .. Felberbaum within the amorphous no quarter to its decomposing support­ press agent for homeless veteran Ameri­ "Murry Weiss argued that it was neces­ MEC. When the CRSP launched its ers, no matter how slavishly they follow can Pabloites with a front-page article sary to keep open the possibility that the ambitious "Proposal for a United So­ PCP could become transformed into a their mentors' dictates, but may feel subtitled "Marxist Scholars Electrify cialist Slate of Candidates in the 1978 revolutionary instrument in the course forced to deal-even if only under the Seattle Audience." The bombastic piece of events.... New York State Elections," it was obvi­ table-with a "bold new revolutionary" explained that "the occasion of this "Both sides agreed that the struggle itself ously banking on active support from formation, if only the CRSP can thrill-of-a-Iifetime event was the recent would determine the answer to the the MEC, which ought to have found question...." manage to drag somebody or other re-encounter, after 15 years, between the such a proposal for "unity" right up its -Freedom Socialist, Summer under the umbrella.. founders of the Freedom Socialist Party 1977 alley. A September 14 letter by Myra and two distinguished guests from New The Weisses have been an expression The "Weiss Crispies" Weiss to her collaborators reported on York City-Myra Tanner Weiss and efforts to build support for the CRSP in Murry Weiss, veteran figures in the of Pabloist liquidationism since the 1960's. But for the SWP itself, the cen­ But the CRSP, animated by assorted the MEC and boasted that "I think we history of American Trotskyism." The aging centrists like Milt Zaslow, Clara can easily win our election proposal." "historic" meeting was described as "a trist verbiage which prompted the USec 1963 "reunification"-on the basis of Fraser and the Comrades Weiss, is al­ But instead of allowing the "Crispies" giant step forward that might well lead ready finding the going pretty rough as to capitalize on the "non-sectarian" to revolutionary regroupment." convergence around petty-bourgeois guerrillaist cheerJeading-was only a it attempts to regenerate an American rhetoric which the MEC has bandied IMT. Despite grandiose promises about about for years, Felberbaum struck Murry Weiss: Then and Now transient posture; by late 1965 the party was locked on a reformist course and the appeal of "non-sectarian Trotsky­ back. The election proposal was not The Weiss grouping did indeed playa saw its "main chance" as a political bloc ism," the CRSP is finding its hoped-for endorsed and most recently, "Weiss real role in the struggle for Trotskyism with that section of the capitalist politi­ associates in Baltimore and Denver Crispie" candidate members of the in this country. When in 1953 the James cal establishment which opposed the holding themselves aloof from the new MEC had their applications for full membership "tabled." The Weisses' P. Cannon leadership of the then­ losing war in Vietnam as not in U.S. lash-up. The Denver bunch-·derived loosely from Sam Marcy's Workers present tactic appears to be an MEC revolutionary SWP undertook to resist imperialism's best interests. (At that World Party, a rabid Stalinoid sect "Women's Caucus" which-given the the Pabloist degeneration of the Fourth time the SWP had little to offer the which left the SWP hailing the Russian MEC's rampant polyvanguardism and International, reflected within the bourgeoisie in the way ofa plebeian base army's suppression of the Hungarian consequent proclamations of the right American section by the Pablo-backed to sell out-a deficiency which it is revolution in 1956-was seen as a sort of of the oppressed to organize Cochran/Clarke faction, Cannon's today attempting to remedy through its American repository of the "new mass separately-cannot be so easily principal bloc partner was none other "turn" toward the trade unions.) Hence vanguard" by some of the former lead­ combated by the Felde.rbaum clique. than Murry Weiss. T ogetherthese Trot­ the much-vaunted "reunification'! had ers of the IT. The Baltimore clot has skyist leaders combated Pabloist revi­ by 1969 created a two-headed monster: been in the Zaslowite IMT orbit for Morbid Prognosis sionism, characterized by the Iiquida­ the USec centrists and SWP reformists some years. Thus the CRSP may find tionist assumption that the "objective were locked in a bitter faction fight These reverses are symptomatic of the itself restricted to the three cities (Los dynamic" of the "unfolding world revo­ which has lately been cooled down. And unenviable situation of the CRSP, Angeles, Seattle, New York) where the lution" would compel the mass reform­ as the SWP fled from any residues of which must carve out a niche for itself ist parties-Stalinist and social­ Trotskyism toward social democracy, it veteran initiators have had their separ­ between the reformist SWP and the democratic-to outline a revolutionary passed through the Weisses' centrist ate home bases for years. Trotskyist Spartacist League in a period course, thereby obviating the need for political terrain and left them behind. Most indicative of the CRSP's severe when the wretched protoplasm ot A­ the building of Trotskyist vanguard merican centrism has become decidedly The last straw for the disaffected difficulties is the apparent inability of parties except as pressure groups on the Weisses to win more than a half­ necrotic. The initiating elements of the (and, when possible, within) the reform­ Weisses was the SWP's wretched anti­ lash-up have political differences among communist line on Portugal, where the dozen or so hard supporters to the ist organizations to hasten the presuma­ CRSP out of the Marxist Education them, but for this opportunist crew bly irresistible pressure toward revolu­ SWP saluted the CIA-funded Socialists programmatic heterogeneity is proba­ and excused the burning of PCP offices Collective (MEC) and its School for tion. A leading figure among the Marxist Education where the Weisses bly less important an obstacle to colla­ American Pabloists was SWP New as expressions of the workers' craving boration than the years ofisolated activ­ for "democracy." The Weisses' docu­ have been "respected teachers" for some York organizer Mike Bartell, who is time. By submerging their ostensibly ity and semi-activity which have made none other than Milt Zaslow. ment was super-Pabloism, saluting the them rather quirky even as embodi­ bourgeois Armed Forces Movement Trotskyist convictions in the MEC's But by 1963 when the SWP-in the "non-sectarian" New Leftism, the ments of the all-over-the-map IMT grip of its headlong plunge toward (M FA) and Stalinist head Cunhal as the "line." spearhead of the progressive forces: Weisses certainly expected to win a reformism-reunited with its former goodly number of new forces to their European Pabloist opponents to form "One may not know from so far who Zaslow, Fraser, Weiss, the badly these revolutionists in the MFA are and orbit. But this periphery is balking at the USec, the Weissites had themselves scarred remnants of the IT-these are what their evolution has been. And one coming into the CRSP "regroupmenc" the forces which expect to construct a degenerated and stood to the right ofthe cannot anticipate therefore what they party out of at most a few dozen sup­ SWP majority. Murry Weiss had drifted will do next. But one can react to what The Weisses' main antogonist in the porters, politically tailing the cynical into inactivity, and while Myra Tanner they have done-that is, hail their revo­ MEC is Arthur Felberbaum, a cynical lutionary acts. One is reminded with IMT honchos who have made it quite Weiss, as head of a dissident tendency ex-SWPer whose high-handed bureau­ what joy we witnessed Castro's victori­ clear that only crocodile tears will be within the increasingly bureaucratic cratic style may be his opponents' best ous fight against Batista.... In destroy­ shed for their American fans. In Seattle, SWP, blocked around party democracy ing Batista, Castro had begun a process credential for recruitment out of the Murry Weiss addressed the FSP in with the left oppositionists who later that necessarily impelled him to MEC, where-ritualistic Pollyannaish became the Spartacist tendency, our socialism-ifhe remained a revolution­ optimistic tones: ary. And he did." professions of "unity in struggle" not­ "The American working class is the most comrades and the Comrades Weiss were withstanding-heated charges of con­ An anti-imperialist pronouncement in powerful in the world, he stressed, cap­ moving in flatly counterposed spiracy and suppression drown out the able of any feat, yet is has no political which Cunhal proclaimed capitalism directions. ostensibly political debates. organization of its own. 'But that,' he The latter-and their party-had by destroyed in Portugal was hailed in no said, 'can happen in two weeks'!" 1963 simply become centrists. The uncertain terms: Felberbaum's earlier policy toward Sound easy? It isn't. But it would appear Weisses now maintain (as does the "Bravo! These are great words. They the "Weiss Crispies" had been one of breathe clarity and revolutionary indep­ that the "Crispies" are trying to make SWP) that the 1953 split between the endence from reformism and people's disingenuous obstructionism. Invited to that projection a reality. Hatred of the SWP-backed International Committee front Stalinism. If only [the SWP's] attend the Los Angeles meeting which SWP reformists and distrust ofthe IMT and the European Pabloists-in which Comrade Foley could understand launched the CRSP in July, he wrote to manipulators is all well and good, but Murry Weiss himself had played such a them!" Zaslow on July 21 that "we see the neither a coherent program nor a real prominent role-was an error. This is -"A Letter From Two Former conference in Los Angeles as an impor­ Members of the SWP," [SWP] organization can be generated out of logical from their point of view. The Internal Information Bulletin, tant step in the process we are partici­ them by the soggy "Crispies" and their Freedom Socialist's account of the "his- No.3 in 1975, November 1975 pating in to regroup the revolutionary stillborn "regroupment" venture.• 4 NOVEMBER 1977 9 October 17 fight with the police. The Community support for the strike has Stearns... cops stormed onto a union supporter's been impressive. On October 21 union Canadian (continued from page J2) property with drawn guns and pro­ organizers arranged a videotape show­ ceeded to threaten, hit and arrest the ing of the recent confrontations between picket lines were not intended to include militant women. One 62-year-old wom­ strikers and police. Although the view­ Nickel actual scabbing miners. He noted an was dragged 50 yards by her hair to a ing was intended primarily for the mem­ that " ... commencing on October 12, squad car, a pregnant woman was bership, several hundred McCreary Miners ... 1977, the plaintiff has started crossing kicked in the stomach and a protesting County supporters turned out. Another (continued from page 5) the picket line with miners and threatens youth was struck in the mouth with a showing was planned for October 25 at lion Inco has sought to maintain prof­ to increase the number of miners enter­ billy club, yet the women were charged the county high school, and over 600 itability by shifting many of its opera­ ing the compound daily. It was never the with criminal mischief, destruction of people attended despite miserable tions to low-wage neo-colonial intention of this court to require the state property and threatening police weather. The crowd cheered as a trooper countries like Indonesia and Guatema­ sta~e police to be a perpetual escort officers' lives before they were released. was seen holding his head and stagger­ la. In addition, some of its l'fIine sites in service for the plaintiff." ing from the fight, and they clapped as the Sudbury area are already severely Nevertheless, when the testimony was their neighbors (the strikers) appeared depleted. Because of all these factors, c0ncluded, the prosecution waived its "They Ain't Gonna Scab That on the screen. the proportion of the world's nickel summation and Johnson proceeded Mine!" Performers from the region led tradi­ supply mined in the Sudbury area has immediately to sentencing without any declined from 95 to 40 percent over the deliberation whatsoever. Despite the combined efforts of the tional ininers' ballads including a new company, cops and courts, the miners' song about Stearns by Florence Reece, past ten years. Even before the newly­ This is not the miners' first taste of announced layoffs, Inco's Sudbury-area capitalist "justice" from the bench of morale remains high. Workers Van­ composer of"Which Side Are You On?" guard and Partisan Defense Committee Bill Worthington, a black veteran of workforce had been reduced gradually J.B. Johnson. In late May the judge from 18,000 to 14,000 over the past fined the union $4,050 for nine counts of representatives spoke with many strik­ "bloody Harlan" in the 1930's who also ers in their local.halliast week. Many of fought the Eastover Power Company in several years. contempt. He also ordered the UMWA Like the American steel industry, the to post a $100,000 penal bond forfuture them limped or bore stitches, but all 1974, was cheered by the audience. ~f resistanc~to Canadian nickel industry is being damages to the company as a condition were proud their the Worthington, who was featured promi­ cops the prevIOus week. . crushed by foreign competition and for any continued picketing. The same nently in the film "Harlan County, judge has continually restricted the When the police charged, the miners USA," has picketed at Stearns and told number of workers allowed to picket. said, so many blows were rained on the WV that spirits here are as high as those While (he strikers were denied any right cops' helmets that it sounded like gun­ during the 13-month Brookside strike. Nearly 200 copies of Workers Vanguard to defend themselves against the heavy fire. The police were driven back in their gunfire which for months poured from first charge and had to attack again with recent coverage of the Stearns the Storm guards' bunkers, the trigger­ before the workers' ranks gave way. One strike were quickly bought up by the union supporters. happy gun thugs were merely instructed striker, frustrated that his club had no effect on the heavily padded cops, threw to reduce the size of their arsenal. Bring Out the UMWA! The miners will appeal Johnson's it aside and flattened his opponent with latest decision, which also stipulates his fist. Another worker climbed into a There has been no scabbing at the that no more than one union organizer tree as the cops assembled before charg­ Justus pit since October 14, but one at a time can be present at the picket site, ing and literally leaped into the fight union spokesman expects Blue Dia­ but until a hearing is set, eleven coal when the swinging started. mond to try again soon. State police miners will remain behind bars. The Retired coal miners and strikers' continue to guard the mine, and private court order which legally prevents meet­ wives were equally determined that police act as round-the-clock body­ ings or mass picketing even on the "they ain't gonna scab that mine." One guards for the scabs. Johnson's strike­ strikers' property adjacent to the mine is old timer swore that retirees would take breaking orders point to the imminent the place of jailed militants and pro­ also under appeal. However, violation danger of wholesale scabherding. With Stephen Lewis, head of Ontario of any law during the next year can posed that someone take the scabs II leaders already in jail, a nod from the NDP. result in six months in jail for any of the "down to the river and baptize them." bench could remove the rest of the 68 strikers currently free on bond. In The well-known solidarity in the coal strikers from any activity. Reinforce­ reduced market demand. Andjust as the addition to this legal barrage, 31 mili­ fields is revealed even in minor events. ments are urgently needed! USWA union bureaucrats south of the The soft drink company which supplies tants must face felony charges stemming The Stearns strike more and more border are clamouring for protectionist from an incident in April when miners the local hall's vending machine recently legislation to stop foreign steel imports fired a miner for missing work at his resembles the struggle for union recog­ allegedly stripped three Storm guards of nition at Brookside. Following courl­ and "save American jobs," so their Ca­ their guns (and their pants) during a temporary job while in jail after the nadian cohorts and the NDP tops are mass arrest. "We don't want scab pop in imposed limitations on strikers' right to night-time ride around the county in a picket, the Brookside Women's Club decrying the export of "Canadian jobs" striker's pick-up. this county," organizer Jay Kolenc and calling on the government to pro­ fumed, and a short time later the ma­ played a militant role in keeping scabs Finally, 39 women who support the out despite the mobilized Kentucky tect Canadian industry. chine was wheeled away. Stearns organizing drive will eventually state police. As WV has continually But the protectionism and na­ appear in court to answer charges stem­ The next morning the hall was packed - pointed out, the strike was won and the tionalism pushed by the US WA bu­ ming from their solidarity during the as union lawyers described the 79 mine organized when Miller finally was reaucracy are utterly reactionary: they defendants' legal situation. Later, the forced to call all U.S. coal miners out of can only hurt foreign workers. Protec­ Stearns Women's Club met and agreed the pits in a show of union solidarity. tionism divides the international prole­ on additions to their list of boycotted tariat in the face of the assaults of the SPARTACIST LEAGUE merchants. The manager of one diner, The militants at Stearns have taken capitalist class, fans reactionary chau­ LOCAL DIRECTORY for example, was told he could serve vitually every conceivable step locally to vinism and escalates international trade ANN ARBOR (313) 663-9012 miners or troopers but not both. After a win their strike, but organizing this mine rivalries, which in turn lay the basis for c/o SYL, Room 4316 nearby gas station owner told a miner's and hundreds ofother non-union opera­ inter-imperialist war. Michigan Union, U. of Michigan wife that the cops "should have killed tions in the U.S. and Canada is a task for Ann Arbor, MI 48109 Militants must reject this poisonous the sons of bitches," his station was the entire UMWA. Union president nationalist program--and the do­ BERKELEY/ Arnold Miller appeared briefly in Whit­ OAKLAND ...... (415) 835-1535 added to the list. Women's Club mem­ nothing strategy of the USWA bureauc­ Box 23372 bers stated that they too were anxious to ley City October 31 and spoke with the racy, which bends in supplication before Oakland, CA 94623 take their places on the picket lines and jailed strikers. It is mass picketing and a the bosses and their government, rather BOSTON (617) 492-3928 swore they weren't intimidated by anon­ nationwide UMWA solidarity walkout, than waging a militant struggle to stop Box 188 ymous threatening phone calls received however, not stealthy visits by the un­ the layoffs. Today, while massive layoffs M.I.T. Station ion's "leader," which are required to Cambridge, MA 02139 while their husbands picketed. At the and plant closures are sweeping the U.S. CHiCAGO (312) 427-0003 same meeting, a solidarity letter was defeat Blue Diamond. steel industry, the Sadlowski wing ofthe Box 6441, Main P.O. read from the widow of a miner killed at The subservience before capitalist law, bureaucracy is doing absolutely nothing Chicago, IL 60680 Blue Diamond's Scotia pit, where 26 which has characterized the union's to mobilize the ranks. Similarly here in CLEVELAND (216) 566-7806 legalistic defense of the Stearns mili­ Canada, Sadlowski-style "rebel" Patter­ Box 6765 lives were lost underground in March Cleveland, OH 44101 1976. (In September, the company at­ tants, typifies all wings of the UMWA son told Spartacist Canada that to talk DETROIT (313) 868-9095 tempted to suppress a federal report on International leadership. Miller & Co. of a strike against the layoffs would be Box 663A, General P.O. this disaster.) have broken three massive wildcats in as irresponsible~after all the company Detroit, MI 48232 Safety is a key issue in this struggle, many years, including a strike in July already has an eight-month nickel HOUSTON and the strikers insist on a union safety 1976 which was fought specifically stockpile and is trying to cut back on Box 26474 against government interference in Houston, TX 77207 committee with the power to stop pro­ production. But as an "alternative" he LOS ANGELES .... (213) 662-1564 duction. Kolenc told WVthat the mem­ union-management disputes. presents a five-point program of ultra­ Box 26282, Edendale Station ory of Scotia has contributed much to The UMWA's national contract with minimalist reforms and no industrial Los Angeles, CA 90026 the resolve of the Stearns miners who the BCOA expires December 6, but coal action. NEW YORK (212) 925-2426 felt they were working inside a time stockpiles are currently good for close to The USWA bureaucracy is fond of Box 1377, G.P.O. talking about the union's role in linking New York, NY 10001 bomb. In 1975, when the Stearns Coal 100 days (Business Week, 24 October). Thus with management negotiators miners and steelworkers together in a SANDfEGO and Lumber Company owned Justus, P.O. Box 2034 there were 98 federal safety violations. openly talking of breaking the power of single international union ("one Chula Vista, CA 92012 In 1976 Gordon Bonnyman took over the union, preparations for a bitter industry~one union"). This link be­ SAN FRANCISCO .. (415) 863-6963 the mine, which has rich seams but is struggle must begin now! An immediate tween the mines and basic steel must be Box 5712 laden with explosive methane gas. Un­ industry-wide strike called in solidarity used today in a militant joint struggle to San Francisco, CA 94101 der the ownership of Blue Diamond, with Stearns and other organizing save the tens of thousands ofjobs which TROTSKYIST LEAGUE whose slogan is "higher production, drives would win union contracts in are being slashed by the profit-hungry OF CANADA lower costs," there were 101 safety viola­ these pits and could mark the beginning I mine and steel barons. TORONTO (416) 366-4107 tions in the six working months before of a militant fight against all coal opera­ Faced with massive company Box 7198, Station A the strike. The May issue of the United tors. Miller's reverence for the bosses' stockpiling of taconite ore, 20,000 Toronto, Ontario Mine Workers Journal reported that the law stands as the greatest danger to a USWA iron miners in Michigan and VANCOUVER ..... (604) 291-8993 freq uency rate for disabling injuries at successful struggle in December and is a Minnesota have been on strike since the Box 26, Station A travesty of the traditions proudly up­ beginning of August. Just as an exten­ Vancouver, B.C. the Justus mine was 72 percent above the national average. held in Stearns, Kentucky.• sion of this strike into basic steel~the

10 WORKERS VANGUARD industry that uses the mined ore-is essential to ensure victory, so must a strike against layoffs in Canadian mines be extended to the steel production industries. A combined struggle of the mining and basic steel sections of USWA. including occupations of pro­ duction facilities facing mass layoffs or closure. is necessary to reverse the lay­ oIls and beat the companies' attacks. Militant Sudbury miners must fight for the union to organize occupations of Inco and Falconbridge production facil­ ities. and must tie these occupations to a call for an industry-wide strike in basic Leroy Newsweek steel throughout the U.S. and Canada, Ethiopian youth train with wooden rifles. Castro with Mengistu in Addis Ababa last March. and for hot-cargoing of stockpiled primitive economic level. This situation the USSR is now leaning toward Men­ goods by transportation unions. Such a is the product ofthe imperialist carve-up gistu. the Marcyites denounce the war as strike with occupations should demand Marcvand of Africa in the late nineteenth century. an imperialist plot, implicitly backing a thirty-hour workweek at forty hours' Despite the independence and unifica­ Ethiopia in this squalid border war. pay to save jobs, the opening of the Menglstu... tion of British and Italian Somaliland, company's books for union inspection (continued from page 3) about half ofthe Somali people still lives Marcy's long march from Trotskyism and the expropriation of the mines in the barren Ogaden, the northeastern to a gyrating, idiosyncratic Stalinoid without compensation. Somalia's Barre (who once proclaimed third of Kenya and the tiny territory of personality cult of his own has been Clearly the hidebound bureaucrats of that the first task of his "socialist" gov­ Djibouti (nominally independent since marked by successive infatuations with the Steelworkers' union have no inten­ ernment would be to create a proletariat June but with 4,000 French troops still various degenerated and deformed tion of leading such a struggle-­ in this largely nomadic society) lent an in place). workers states-first Russia, then Chi­ including the reputed "militants" of the ear to the siren songs of reactionary Marxists support the democratic na, North Vietnam, North Korea, Cuba, Sadlowski-Patterson ilk. The struggle fellow Muslim regimes, principally Sau­ right of the Somali people in Kenya, even Albania, and now back to the to win jobs for mine and steel workers di Arabia and the Sudan. Last summer, Ethiopia and Djibouti to reunite with Kremlin again. He has delivered hosan­ and defeat the companies' assaults must seeing the Ethiopian army in a vulner­ Somalia. However, in the recent fight­ nas to whichever bourgeois nationalist be linked to the fight to replace the labor able position-pressed by the Eritreans ing (in which the efficient Russian­ movements and "revolutionary govern­ fakers with a new class-struggle union in the north, the American spigot turned trained Somali army has effectively ments" were popular at the time on the leadership. Such a leadership would not off and Russian arms not yet delivered taken the Ogaden) this issue is subordi­ U.S. left. But even for this cynical pub­ rely on the reformist parliamentarians in sufficient quantity-Barre struck out nated to the reality of a war over terri­ licity agent for "Third World" Stalinism of the NDP, but would build a new to seize the Ogaden, long claimed by the tory between two equally reactionary and nationalism, the embrace of bloody workers party to lead the working class Mogadishu regime as Western Somalia. capitalist states. Between Somali ir­ Mengistu represents a new low. It to power. Only a workers government There is a legitimate national redentism and Ethiopian national op­ should give WWP/YAWF militants can expropriate the entire capitalist question in the Ogaden, whose two pression proletarian communists must pause to realize that those who would class, create a planned economy and million or so inhabitants are a homo­ take a position of revolutionary defeat­ march with banners of ''Che'' in the bring the scourges of unemployment geneous part of the Somali people, ism on both sides, calling for the over- . streets of Addis Ababa are shot like and inflation to an end once and for sharing a common language, religion throw of both nationalist military dogs by the murderous junta which is all.. and culture and living on the same cliques by the working masses. But since praised in their newspaper.•

internationally. As Marx wrote in The a Stalinist apparatus. also with the Vietnamese. (There are German Ideology: And even then, Stalinist-led peasant­ reportedly more Cambodian refugees in Cambodia ... based guerrilla armies took power in Vietnam than in Thailand.) While the (continuedfrom page 7) "... this development of productive for­ ces ... is an absolutely necessary practi­ Indochina only under exceptional his­ Khmer Stalinist regime is certainly broken on racks and torn to pieces, cal premise because without it want is tOOc circumstances, in which U.S. impe­ marked by extreme xenophobia, its while their followers were slaughtered merely mad<; general, and with destitu­ rialism was unable to continue the ex­ clashes with the Vietnamese are funda­ wholesale. tion the struggle for necessities and all hausting war and the native capitalist mentally no different from the Russian­ The tremendous repression and seem­ the old crap would necessarily be repro­ class was extremely weak, corrupt and Chinese border dispute or the festering duced; and furthermore, because only ingly irrational depopulation of Phnom with this universal development of pro­ disorganized. If in spite of their best Albanian-Yugoslav tension. Penh and the Cambodian towns is also ductive forces is a universal intercourse efforts to preserve the integuments of It is no use counseling the Cambodian an extreme reflection of the conse­ between men established.... Without capitalism through forming coalition people to follow the relatively sensible quences of the Stalinist attempt to build this, (I) communism could only exist as governments, the Stalinists were finally example of the Laotians, for in any case "socialism in one- country." It is not a local event; (2) the forces of inter­ forced to take power, the resulting it could not overcome the strong nation­ course themselves could not have devel­ simply a question of the bizarre lengths oped as universal. hence intolerable regimes~not only in Cambodia, but al animosities between Khmers and to which a penurious. isolated Asian powers... ; and (3) each extension of also in Vietnam (north and south) :md Vietnamese. (If it were absorbed under peasant country will go in "self­ intercourse would abolish local com­ China~remain bureaucratically de­ Hanoi's tutelage in a bureaucratically reliance." Stalinist policy in Soviet Rus­ munism." [emphasis in original] formed workers states. Their narrow imposed Indochinese federation, Cam­ sia as well required the imposition of a If this was true of western European nationalism and economic backward­ bodia would doubtless suffer the same brutal bureaucratic police apparatus to countries in the nineteenth century and ness cannot be overcome by a rigidly sorts of discrimination experienced by seek to isolate the relatively backward Russia in the twentieth, how much more imposed Operation Bootstrap, but only the non-Russian nationalities in the country from the powerful disintegrat­ destructive power does the world mar­ a workers political revolution to over­ Stalinized USSR.) The long history of ing pressures of the world market. ket have on "Democratic Kampuchea" throw the Stalinist bureaucrats and Vietnamese Stalinist treachery of their Marxists since Marx himself, and the which faces the attraction of Japanese extend the revolution internationally. one-time Cambodian comrades­ Trotskyists today, have held that cars, motor bikes and pocket radiosjust beginning with the sellout of the Khmer Lenin occasionally wrote in the early socialism--the abolition of class society across the Thai border. Precisely be­ Rouge in the 1954 Geneva Accords~is 1920's of a "non-capitalist road ofdevel­ through overcoming the socially neces­ cause of the tremendous power of the convincing proof that real economic opment" for the most backward coun­ sary division of labor as a result of capitalist market~not simply imperial­ integration and a truly democratic so­ tries of the East. He and the Communist ist spies, although these could presuma­ viet federation of Indochina can only material abundance--cannot occur in a International always stressed, however, single country. and that even the dicta­ bly be bought cheaply~the nationalist come through revolutionary action by that the key was the tie to the victorious Stalinist bureaucracy must tighten its the proletariat. above all in Vietnam, to torship of the proletariat will be endang­ Soviet state. Today this argument is grip even further by building up an even overthrow its bureaucratic oppressors. ered if the revolution is not spread totally distorted by the Kremlin bureau­ more terrifying repressive apparatus. And for this task the creation of an crats to maintain that Egypt, Ethiopia Indochinese Trotskyist vanguard party or even India can develop along "non­ For Workers Political Revolution is the indispensable condition.• Workers in Indochina! capitalist" lines so long as they trade with the USSR. What Lenin and the In world history, the innumerable early Comintern were referring to was SL/SYL PUSLIC OFFICES peasant rebellions against landlords and something quite different, namely the Vanguard Marxist Literature MARXIST WORKING-CLASS WEEKLY OF autocratic regimes came to naught, for case of Soviet Central Asia and THE SPARTACIST LEAGUE the peasantry was not a progressive class Mongolia-peasant and nomadic socie­ BAY AREA with a clear class interest around which ties that were absorbed in toto into the Friday and Saturday 3:00-6:00 p.m. One year subs'cription (48 issues): $5­ Introductory oller: (16 issues): $2. Interna­ it could mold a new society based on a Russian economy. 1634 Telegraph, 3rd floor tional rates: 48 issues-$20 airmaill$5 sea Something like this is today occurring (near 17th Street) higher level of productive forces. Usual­ Oakland, California mad. 16 mtroductory lssues-$5 airmaiL ly they were defeated by the superior with Laos, which has become a satellite Make checks payable/mail to: Spartacist Phone 635-1535 Pubhshmg Co, Box 1377 GPO, New York, technology and organization of the ru­ of the economically and culturally far CHICAGO NY 10001 lers before they overran the capitals; but more advanced Vietnamese deformed Tuesday 4:30-6:00 -mcludes SPARTACIST in those few cases where they were workers state. Because of the long­ Saturday 2:00-5:30 p.m. successful, the peasants proved incap­ standing subordination of the Laotian 523 South Plymouth Court, 3rd floor Name able of ruling. The wave of enthusiasm Stalinists to the Viet Minh and its suc­ Chicago, Illinois Phone 427-{)()()3 Addres" for peasant guerrilla warfare during the cessors, the degree of friction between 1960's notwithstanding, the peasantry the two state burea,ucracies is evidently NEW YORK CIty has not changed fundamentally as a minimal. This, however, is a historical Monday-Friday 6:30-9:00 p.m. Saturday 1:00-4:00 p.m. State ------Zi P-- class. To be capable ofcoherent political exception. In the Cambodian case, 180 action in modern times it has required immediately following the victory ofthe 260 West Broadway, Room 522 New York, New York SUBSCRIBE NOW! the imposition of military/bureaucratic Khmer Rouge, border,incidents began Phone 925-5665 control from the outside, in the form of multiplying not only with the Thais but 4 NOVEMBER 1977 11 W'IiNEIiS VIIN'tJlllilJ

WV Photo McCreary County Record Stearns miners meet after brutal cop attack. Overturned truck blocks scabs at struck Justus mine. Bring Out the UMWAI Company Judge Throws the Book at Stearns Miners STEARNS, Kentucky---The Stearns coal miners' strike is in grave danger. On Ocl ')er26 CircuitJudgeJ.B.Johnson, J r. sentenced eleven of the most active Report from the Kentucky Coalfields militants in the bitter 15-month strike to six months in jail. No provision for bail or bond was made, and the miners were led from the courthouse in Williams­ burg straight to confinement. At the same trial Johnson leveled concurrent six-month suspended sentences and $1,000 "good behavior" bonds on 68 others who are striking the hazardous Justus Mine and demanding a United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) contract from the Blue Diamond Coal Company. Johnson's vindictive verdict is the court's answer to the mass picketing at the mine site on October 12 and 17. On the 12th, the Blue Diamond Coal Co. brought the first scabs into the mine. By quitting time, close to 100 strikers had assembled in protest as bosses and scabs exited from the compound. When the police escorts returned with reinforce­ Miners who defended picket line are taken to court on charges of violating restraining order. McCrearv County Record ments, all seven remaining pickets were arrested for violation of Johnson's re­ hastily fashioned clubs of their own. from cameramen and photographers at they happily obliged. Moreover, the straining order which limits the pickets Although the miners were eventually the scene. attorneys provided by the UMWA In­ to six. Nine other miners were later subdued as individual militants were ternational were not permitted to argue identified and arrested on the same overcome and then shackled face down Bosses' Justice in the Courts the defense since UMWA District 19 is charge. Additional scabs were brought in the dirt, several cops were injured in not formally a party to the case, so the in during the next two days, but on the brawl. "They knew they were in a The October 26 "trial" was nothing miners were forced to hire a private October 17 almost the entire 153-man fight," one miner told a WVreporter in but a formality of government strike­ attorney to defend them! striking workforce turned out, blocked theWhitley City local hall. "They didn't breaking. Thirty-five armed cops ap­ The defendants pleaded "not guilty" the road with an overturned truck and have grounds to brag about nothing," peared in the courtroom with about two on the grounds that Blue Diamond itself refused police orders to disperse. another stated. dozen more outside. Although union had broken the restraining order by lawyers were hoping for a postpone­ bringing scabs into the mine. Johnson Well over 100 riot-equipped state Most of the strikers' injuries were ment in order to prepare an adequate himself acknowledged this violation on cops were dispatched-some by sustained after the fight, when the min­ defense, Johnson ordered the trial to October 13 when he stated that his May helicopter-to break up the demonstra­ ers were already handcuffed. The wife of proceed despite the fact that the com­ 19 instructions for state troopers to ticn. Refusing to stand aside for scabs, one militant recalled that the cops monwealth attorney could not attend. escort company supervisors and Storm the miners fought a ten-minute battle, covered puddles of workers' blood with Instead the judge appointed Blue Dia­ Security Service gun thugs past the meeting the stick-swinging cops with soil to hide the evidence of their revenge mond lawyers as state prosecutors, and continued on page 10 12 4 NOVEMBER 1977