.,

No 150 AprillMay 1996 30p Newspaper of the Spartacist League

Racist state terror kills Smash the PTA and Asylum ~ill!

On 16 March, Ibrahim Sey became the pumping up their apparatus of racist state from Major & Co on any seventh black man to die at the hands of repression. After the Criminal Justice Act, subject; but when it comes the police in the last six months. Sey, a the Public Order Act and the murderous to state repression, what 29-year~ld West Afiican, was arrested on Immigration and Asylum Bill currently this government promises, a minor offence at his home in Ilford, before parliament, now the government it delivers. Draconian "anti­ Essex. After the cops sprayed him with has rushed through a chilling amendment terrorist" measures have been CS gas, he was pronounced dead in King to the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA). used for decades in Northern George's Hospital. The Guardian (3 April) listed some of the Ireland, where they reinforce Ibrahim Sey is one of over 70 people, provisions of this police-state legislation: British imperialism's armed mainly black, to die in police custody "The bill gives police powers to stop and occupation. Now such laws over the past decade. Signalling an all­ search pedestrians without reasonable are increasingly wielded at clear for the cops to continue their racist suspicion ... to search classes of non-resi­ home as well, particularly Andy Hall atrocities, on 3 April the Crown Prose­ dential property, such as lock-up gar­ a~ black and Asian mi- PTA: ominous Increase In police powers. cution Service announced that the police ages ... to search all individuals and prop- , nonttes. who beat Brian Douglas to death with erty in a cordoned~ff area .... " This Referring to the vaunted police "ring strange that many of those pulled over their new American-style long batons amounts to a revival-;md dramatic exten­ of steel" around the City of London, appear to be black motorists. I know of last year would face no charges. siOll--4the hated Sus laws formerly used ostensibly set up in response to IRA no convicted black IRA bombers." From the cops and courts to the halls to harass and round up black youth. bombings, a letter in the Guardian (3 Alongside the vicious repression of Irish of Westminster, the capitalist rulers keep Hardly anyone believes a single word April) noted caustically, "it seems continued on page J J a cows • • • an caDlalS laS

After insisting for months that the human slapped a blanket ban on British beef to of the very rich. The rest of the population to flourish in cattIe with only mininiaI efforts animal cannot get "mad cow disease", the protect its markets, incensing much of the can go to hell...and if that means being poi­ to eradicate it. Very little is known (and government finally admitted what most tabloid press and the xenophobic "Euro­ soned by infected food, so be it. Meanwhile much is disputed) about the connection people had long suspected. Tory Health sceptics" who howled that poor Britain was Tony Blair's Labour Party insists that they between BSE in cattle and CJD in humans, Secretary Stephen Dorrell announced on 20 being "hunriliated" by Europe. can serve the City just as well as the Tories. but there is a consistency in the pathology of March that ten patients, with an average age The government's role in the BSE We recall the Chartist slogan "Perish the both diseases, which are thought to be caus­ of 27, had been identified as suffering from scandal amounts to sheer crimiRal neglect privileged orders!" It will take a socialist ed by an altered protein or "prion". Unlike a new, aggressive form of the lethal of public health, in the interest of naked revolution, which sweeps away the rotting diseases caused by bacteria and viruses, Creutzfeld-lakob Disease (CJD), and that capitalist greed. Even the staid British edifice of capitalism, to lay the basis for a which trigger a response by the victim's the most likely explanation was consumption Medical Journal referred to the govern­ society in which everyone can have a job, immune system, spongiform encephalopa­ of meat products from cattle infected by ment's policy as "playing Russian roulette come home to decent housing, eat food thies remain undetected by the immune Bovine Spongiform Encephalitis (BSE). with no information on the odds". The which has not been wilfully contaminated, system. The end result ofCJD is insanity and Yet still the government expected the whole sordid affair perfectly symbolises and get good medical treatment when they certain, horrible death. The disease has a population to believe that beef was safe rotting capitalism, and not just British, are ill. long incubation period and until recently no and to carry on eating it. When sales witness the mv -tainted blood transfusion test was available which could diagnose it plummeted in the supermarkets, Dorrell scandals internationally. BSE and public "health" while the patient was alive. Even the most fumed "it isn't the cows that are mad, it's Enfeebled economically, the bourgeoisie The existence of BSE has been known basic public health hygiene measures the people". is reckless, vindictive and often downright for ten years, yet the government allowed it continued on page J 0 The biggest concern for the Tory govern­ crazy. The ethos is "take the money and run"; ment, apart from its own imminent demise, therefore much of the basic infrastructure is was tlle panic among City fatcats and in the being destroyed or sold off and the social multi-million pound agribusiness, whose fubric ofsociety vandalised. Medical science vast profits were vanishing overnight. One has always been bound and constrained by billion pounds was wiped off the value of class society, but it is being increasingly shares in the food and agriculture business, perverted by a system in an advanced stage while the meat trade went through the floor. of decay. McDonald's, followed by other fast food The City of London, based on bloated outlets, stopped selling burgers until tlley profits from utterly parasitic fInancial deal­ could inlport the meat. The European Union ing, has been futtened, as the "golden goose" tralized" those who today are honored veterans of that struggle, like Reverend Martin Luther King (Jr. & From death row, Sr.!), nationalist Malcolm X, and Black Panther founder Dr. Huey P. Newton. Police aided white This is Mumia Abu-Jamal supremacists in many of their racist campaigns. Similarly, police in Brazil have been engineers of repression, from the crushing of popular and labor unions in the past, to the ruthless, shopkeeper­ Police: Part of, or Enemies of, Labor? contracted slaughter of Brazilian street children. If the status quo is unjust, inequitable and repressive, "Authority is never without hate." were "late" (late for what, one wonders?). how can anyone protect it? -Euripides At any rate, the invitation of police, and more It is in this context that one must truly "see" the ominously, this police force, into the heart of an introduction of the nefarious Military Police into the In the large nation-state of Brazil, the lion's share internal union dispute, is a truly dire development. affairs of a union for the bad omen that it is, and once of South America, the question of the function of the This force, the Military Police, is known as a death seeing this, condemn and protest it forcefully. police is at the heart of the labor struggle for the power squad, who have practiced their murderous expertise Presidente Ribeiro and his Luta Metahirgica (Liga to better the life of working people. on the black, brown and poor slum children of the Quarta-Internacionalista do Brasil) ally, Alexandre In Volta Redonda, an industrial center near Rio de favelas and streets of Rio. They (like the Philadelphia Honorato "Cerezo," are calling for protests against Janeiro, that question has emerged as a central one in police) are experts in babykilling. police presence and provocations in union affairs .... the middle of an internal power struggle among The central principle: police hands off the unions! leading municipal workers. Central to the Luta Metahirgica (LM-Metal­ On March 13, 1996, a meeting of the Municipal workers Struggle) and Municipal Workers Union 31 March 1996 Workers Union was invaded by the globally infamous conflict is a question that now has global implications 10 1996 by Mumia Abu-Jamal and murderous Military Police, who, heavily armed, -what is the role of the police? Are they simply attempted to "settle" a workers dispute with shotguns. workers, like glass blowers, garbage collectors, or Join the international campaign to free Mumia People at the scene reported their surprise response clerks? Or are they agents of the wealthy and proper­ Abu-Jamal, the black journalist and political pris­ came only moments after a premeditated physical tied classes-those who rule? oner on death row in Pennsylvania. To sUence his assault on MWU president Geraldo Ribeiro, a militant It is tempting to go with the former question, for do powerful voice .peaking out for the oppressed, Jamal trade unionist, by MWU secretary Arthur Bonizetti they not work, like others, for pay? was framed up for the 1981 murder of a Philadelphia Fernandes' key operative, known as "Motorzinho." . Only when one looks at the nature of that work, policeman. His case has become the rallying point for What is dangerous and unprecedented here, is the from the standpoint of history and current events, does opposition to the racist death penalty, from Brazil to calling in of the cops: Who did it?; and, why? the latter point score. Britain to South Africa. The international protest What is clear, from all reports, is union president Throughout history, police have protected the status campaign has brought hundreds of thousands onto Ribeiro didn't call. them, and upon their arrival, quo, even when that "status" has been evil and repressive. the .treetl, and won Mumia a Itay of e:s:ec:ution last informed them that everything was under control. During the civil rights era, it was the police who beat, August, but the fight to .ave his ore and free him Later, some workers, heard plainclothes police say bloodied and arrested those who fought-peace­ continues! For more information, contact the Parti­ Arthur (union secretary) owed them 10 reals ($11 fully!-for civil rights. Federal police followed, phone­ Ian Defence Committee, BCM Box 4986, London U.S.) apiece, but f~ they might not be paid, as they tapped, sabotaged and, in the words of the FBI, "neu- WCIN 3XX. Tel: 0171-485 1396. Defend anti-racist protesters! Trotskyists in trade union struggle

Minneapolis USA, 20 July 1934-0 We print below a Partisan Defence The occasion was the announcement of police ambush murdered two Teamster Committee letter to the Crown Prosecu­ the govenunent's blatantly racist Immigra­ union (lorry drivers) strike pickets and tion Service denouncing the vindictive tion and Asylum Bill. The defendants wounded another 50, shot, mostly in the prosecution of members of the Movement acted to draw attention to the govem­ back. on that Bloody Friday. The great for Justice. ment's barbaric "immigration control" Minneapolis strike movement was led to Outrageously, for their paint-throwing policies targeting the most vulnerable historic victory over the "open shop" protest, Student Union president Nick De asylum seekers: those who face political bosses, who were determined to keep the Marco was expelled, and SU officers repression, including imprisonment and TROTSKY union out and the workers trodden down, LENIN torture, if sent back to their countries of by the authentic class-struggle. Trotskyist ", Karen Doyle and Naveed Malick sus­ leadership of Teamsters Local 574. Farrell Dobbs was a youthfUl leader of the pended, by London's Kingsway College origin, quite possibly to their deaths. Minneapolis strikes who (after the February strike in the coal yards) joined the authorities. De Marco is appealing his Ade Onibiyo, whose father Abdul was American Trotskyists (the Communist League ofAmerica). Dobbs' account of the expulsion, and Doyle and Malick await deported to Nigeria and has "dis­ police riot on Bloody Friday. excerpted below, is one stark warning to workers "disciplinary hearings" on their status. appeared", has been held in Campsfield everywhere that the capitalist police are neither "neutral" nor fellow "workers ", as Protest actions have mobilised widespread Detention Centre for one year. Ade and his reformist politicians like to claim, but deadly enemies ofthe working class. student support for the victimised Student family face continuing persecution from Union officers. the state, and threatened deportation. The Chief Michael 1. Johannes [had] issued special orders at a police lineup .... "We're going The Labour-controlled Local Education groundswell of protest over the treatment to start moving goods. . .. You have shotguns and you know how to use them .... " Authority (LEA) in Tower Hamlets and of the Onibiyo family reflects widespread Suddenly, without any warning whatever, the cops opened fire on the picket truck, and school governors at Langdon Park School revulsion towards the government's vi­ they shot to kill. In a matter of seconds two of the pickets lay motionless on the floor of the have convicted teacher Anthony Gard of cious plans and practices. Release Ade bullet-riddled truck. ... From all quarters strikers rushed towards the truck to help them, "gross misconduct" for his involvement in Onibiyo! Hands off the Onibiyo family! advancing into the gunfire with the courage of lions. Many were felled by police as they the incident and declared they will issue By prosecuting the five Movement for stopped to pick up their injured comrades. . .. They were shooting in all directions, hitting him a final written warning. Justice protesters under the Public Order most of their victims in the back. .. often clubbing the wounded after they fell .... The trial of the Movement for Justice Act, the British state vindictively attempts As part of their propaganda in preparing for Bloody Friday, the bosses had run paid ads Five is scheduled for April 15-16 at Bow to intimidate the many thousands who in the daily papers, asking: "How do you like having our Minneapolis streets in the control Street Court, 192 Bow Street, WC2. A actively oppose the Immigration and Asy­ of communists?" After the police riot The Organizer countered with ... "How do you like protest outside the court has been called lum Bill. having Q,ur Minneapolis streets in the control of murderers?" ... for 9.30am on the 15th. All out to defend Drop all charges against the Movement Under capitalism the main police function is to break strikes and to repress other form~ of protest against the policies of the ruling class .... Personal inclinations of individual cops do the Five! Send letters of protest to the for Justice protesters! not alter this basic role of the police. All must comply with ruling-class dictates. Crown Prosecution Service at Portland House, Stag Place, London SW 1. Con­ Yours faithfully, -Farrell Dobbs, Teamster Rebellion (1972) tribute to their defence campaign, making cheques payable to the "Movement for Ellen Munday Justice". For information about where to for the PDC send donations, phone 0956 365393. Contact addresses WORKERSIIAMMER Spartacist LeagueIBritain 29 March 1996 For a federation of workers republics In the British Islesl ~ Glasgow For a Socialist United States of Europel Dear Mr Atkins, PO Box 150, Glasgow G3 6DX 0141-3320788 Newspaper of the Spartacist League, British section of the International The Partisan Defence Committee pro­ Communist League (Fourth Internationalist). tests the outrage of your intended prosecu­ London EDITORIAL BOARD: Jon Branche, Andrew Galsos (Editor), Alec GIlchrIst, tion of those members of the Movement PO Box 1041, London NW5 3EU Eibhlln McDonald, Alan Mason, Len Michelson, Ellen Rawlings, David Strachan, for Justice-Nick De Marco, Karen Jo Watt (Managing editor) 0171-4851396 PRODUCTION MANAGER: Lorraine Richards Doyle, Naveed Malick, Amanda Egbe and CIRCULATION MANAGER: Kathie Tennant Anthony Gard-who participated in the Dublin Spartacist Group Published by Spartacist Publications, PO Box 1041, London NW53EU paint splattering of the Tory Party Chair­ PO Box 2944 Subscriptions: £3 for 1 year, Europe outside Britain & Ireland £4, overseas airmaN £7 man, Brian Mawhinney, on 15 November Dublin 1 OpInlonl expraeled In algned articles or 1alt81S do not _sarlly expraea the ednorlal vIewpOInt. last year, the day of the state opening of Tel: 01 8304230 Printed by C_I valley Lnhographlc LId (TU). ISSN 0267~721 Parliament.

2 WORKERS HAMMER "Socialist"scabs squirm

We reprint below a letter (abridged affected buildings had stayed off the job in for space) and reply from Workers Van­ solidarity. But such an action would in most guard (paper ofthe Spartaeist League of cases have been a sympathy strike-i.e., a the US) no 64 J. J5 March J996. strike against employers other than those of the aggrieved union-and would have re­ New York quired a high degree of class consciousness. 21 February 1996 This is not likely to be brought about by isolated leftists in the workplace offering To the Editor of Workers Vanguard: themselves up as human sacrifices to the I am obviously the supporter of the boss. It may sometimes be the duty of Marx­ International Bolshevik Tendency you ists to risk their livelihoods-or their accuse of scabbing on the recent Service lives-to influence the outcome of collective Employees International Union (SEIU) struggle. But, in tlus situation, to take a strike in New York City ("Picket Lines "principled" stand and be victimized witilOut Mean Don't Cross!" Workers Vanguard. the remotest chance of altering the behavior 2 February). Your next issue carries a of a single otller worker is the action of piece entitled "Scab 'Socialists' Caught someone more interested in saving his or her Out at CUNY" (16 February), in which soul than helping to win a strike. It is self­ you label as "scabs" the twenty or so martyrdom, not Marxism. leftists who showed up for a strike-sup­ Instead of making an empty moral Young Spartacus Caught In the act: fake leftists planned to hold "strike support" meeting port meeting at City University of New gesture, I, as part of a shop stewards' behind the picket lines In struck CUNY Grad Center. York Graduate Center on the evening of conunittee, met with the Voice's publisher January 30. I write in order to answer to demand that the cleaners sent by the dispensations for people to enter struck ity s/he preaches. You, on oilier hand. give these shameful libels-as well as your management company to do the strikers' facilities for special purposes. But, since hypocrisy a bad name. idiotic reports of "skulking," "scurrying" work-the only real scabs at ilie the SL's ranting did manage to confuse a Jim C. and "sputtering"-with a statement of the Voice-be expelled from the paper's few of IDe strikers, ilie organizers decided facts about both the SEIU strike at the offices, and iliat the Voice not pay tile to hold tlleir meeting on ilie sidewalk WV replies: No self-respecting trade Vii/age Voice. where I have been a union company for tlleir services for the duration outside; not a single person in attendance unionist, no supporter of ilie workers iliat night entered CUNY Grad, and, con­ movement, and certainly no conmlunist, trary to your reportage, several SEIU crosses picket lines, ever. An Appeal to the nlilitants participated actively in the meet­ Whining apologetics for scabbing by self­ ing. While we were planning a strike rally styled "revolutionaries" seem to be quite a Members of for ilie following day, SL members spent thriving cottage industry tIlese days. In addi­ All Unions A day late, a dollar short: ilieir time approaching participants indi­ tion to the "Bolshevik" Tendency (BT) on 4 February, the last day vidually to inform them that I was a nlissive-which is nearly twice as long in the From the Striking of the strike, Local 328- "scab." original-we have received an even lengthier 32J tops finally called on The SL is hardly qualified for the role diatribe along tile same lines from an even Members of all workers to honour their ofilie left's moral policeman. During the tinier grouplet witll tile grandiose title of picket lines. crucial PATCO strike ofl981, air traffic Communist WOIkers Organizing Comnuttee Local 32B-32J controllers, unlike tile SEIU, appealed to (CWOC). Dtuing the four-week strike by the other workers and to the public at large to SEIU Local 32B-32J building workers, the boycott the airlines, and also set up picket BT didn't put out a single statement on tlUs

J~Jroot uslllw been ~rjk'"a otI'lce I lines to try to shut down the airports. Yet major union struggle. The CWOC did man­ This Is your tfrlk' 100. II II e,i,k.lln the "",1\/.1 ofor,.nlud I.bo. We ••e.1I p.o" of .he .. me 1.00t_. taking a train instead of a plane was ap­ men ••nd .11 or u. mu~' rut 'ht Jood of.he I.bor IIIO\Icmtn, fin. n. 0.1_ 0' Ihl. drib .-m,rTH!: you ...d age to upload a strike support statement on ,_rf.mU,. parently too much of an inconvenience for the Intemet...on 1 March. Hello? The strike Irlhcmuhi.million.loirebar_ofleltt~ate nn crush our uni(Jn il is Umply I mll':.iLume before YOU~ ":;"idc.I(JC ~ ilie jet-set socialists of the SL leadership, ended on 4 February. Echoing tile BT, their who flew routinely tlrroughout ilie strike. strategy for "victory" called for "mass picket­ steward for ten years, and the meeting at of the strike. The publisher agreed. We When several SL members (who were ing" outside and "strike support conmuttees" . CUNY Grad. also donated $1500 from our own strike later among the founders of ilie External inside tile stmck buildings-of tIlose who First, it should be noted iliat the six fund to tile six SEIU strikers in our build­ Tendency, precursor of the BT) objected crossed the picket lines! cleaning and maintenance workers at the ing, and collected $1500 more for them to iliis flouting of the union's call for a The cynicism of Jim C's contemptuous Vii/age Voice were not on strike against among union members in the shop. Each boycott of scab services, the Robertsonite alibis for scabbing does not detract from tile Voice or tile owner of the building that worker thus received a total of $500 in leadership even made flying during ilie the seriousness of ilie question. Solid houses it. Their employer is the Building strike-support contributions. strike a point of honor, castigating iliose picket lines that nobody and nothing Maintenance Services Corporation, a We were not aDlOng tile initiators ofilie who objected as "moralists" and "trade­ crosses are not only central to winning management firm that contracts wiili ilie strike-support meeting at CUNY. But in union fetishists." The SL' s injunction that union battles, they go to the core of the Voice and oilier companies. The picketers our judgment there would, in fact, have all leftists should have pointlessly risked question of workers revolution-the need outside made it clear from the start that been noiliing wrong with holding this their jobs during the SEIU strike may to unite the working class in struggle they were not appealing to Voice employ­ meeting at CUNY Grad wiili the permis­ sound a lot like moralism. But a genuine around its common class interests. As ees to stay away, but were there to prevent sion of ilie picketers; strikers often make moralist must at least believe in the moral- continued on page 4 anyone else from entering the building to do their jobs. Neither I nor any of my l fellow union members did the work nor­ mally performed by strikers-the defining activity of a scab in the eyes of any trade unionist, or, for that matter, anyone else outside the Spartacist League. The situation at the Voice building (which contains one other firm as well as some residential tenants) could be com­ pared to that of an industrial park, where there is a single entrance for a variety of different companies. According to the SL's definition of a scab-apparently anyone who, for whatever reason, enters a worksite at which pickets are present-all workers in such a park allowed by the picketers to go to their jobs in the non­ struck firms would be "scabs." So too was every typesetter, secretary, dishwasher or desk clerk who went to work in the more

tI1an 1,000 commercial buildings affected Wor1

APRIL/MAY 1996 3 \\fX\ p.~lWfl have had no principled reason not to cross acknowledged. "Now it's true that there Scabs •••

4 WORKERS HAMMER Look who'sjoining the SLP •••

"NEVER CROSS A PICKET LINE". The small group which theatrically ist Labour Party, where among other really spoke to some of the felt needs of So reads the cover of a pamphlet issued by styles itself the "Communist Party of things they echoed the anti-communism of British working people, and we especially the 500 Liverpool dockers sacked for Great Britain" recently announced that the Labour leadership. In 1983, on the eve welcomed the fact that she was prepared to upholding this elementary class stance on "all partisans of the working class should of the miners strike, the Labour and ruc stand up and say, no, you don't have to the Merseyside docks last autumn. A join the SLP" (Weekly Worker, 29 Febru­ bureaucrats raised a furore against 'Vote Labour to keep the Tories out', which spokesman for the sacked dockers spoke ary). Back in 1984 this grouping, then Scar gill's correct denunciation of Polish is a nice break from the eleventh command­ powerfully about their struggle at a Lon­ known as the "Leninist", denounced Scar­ Solidarnosc as an "anti-socialist" organi­ ment of the British left-Militant, the SWP don "Socialist Alliance" public meeting gill's refusal to call for a ballot in the sation. The anti-communist hue and cry and the Communist Party .... on 21 February, saying their refusal to early days of the strike, when this was the against Scargill was aimed at further "We believe that to get socialism and cross picket lines is a "basic human princi­ favoured ploy of Neil Kinnock, the Fleet isolating and undermining the miners reindustrialise this country, put people pie". Members of the so-called Interna­ Street hounds and the UDM scabs to knife union in the build-up to the strike. Yet back to work and elevate the living stan­ tional Bolshevik Tendency were at the the militant miners' battle. Militant was one of a host of "left" outfits dards, you must overthrow the capitalist meeting, where they waxed eloquent about A "Fourth International Supporters which supported Solidarnosc, which has state and replace it with a state run by the "solidarity" with the dockers. But Sparta­ Caucus", British leftovers from the disin­ since presided over the devastating capi­ working class, a federation of workers cist League supporters spoke out to ex­ tegrating United Secretariat, have also talist counterrevolution that destroyed the republics. I agree with the woman who pose this as a total, cynical fraud by an surfaced in the SLP. During the miners bureaucratically deformed workers state in said that if you want to build any kind of outfit whose latest "principle" is to enu­ strike, the uSee paper Socialist Action ran Poland. socialist party in Britain you must be for merate multiple excuses for scabbing. (See a sympathetic interview with a scab in the • Apologists for scabbing and capitalist the immediate, unconditional withdrawal "'Socialist' scabs squirm", page 3.) coalfields. (As for the Workers Power counterrevolution, these outfits will cut of the British Army from Northern Ire­ A few weeks later, an IBT supporter group, they too joined the outcry for a and run when the heat is on. For their part, land. That's related to the question of the informed us that "the IBT no longer ex­ ballot back then; more recently, they en- the IBT's record of crossing picket lines, capitalist state .... ists" in Britain. Had they been hired by Drake International, the agency which supplies scabs to the Merseyside docks? Or were they taking up staff positions with the "Union of Democratic Miners" (UDM), the scab outfit formed against the heroic 1984-85 miners strike? No, we were informed, the erstwhile IBTers were all joining the Socialist Labour Party. Perhaps they now intend to preach the "tactical" merits of crossing picket lines to Arthur Scargill, who led the NUM during the great coal strike and has now broken from Tony Blair's Labour Party to found the SLP. We wrote last issue: "Although the pro­ gramme of Scargill's SLP is simply that of 'old' Labour as against the 'New' Labour Party of Tony Blair, this split within the Labour Party offers the possi­ bility for a fimdarnental realignment of the political configuration in this country out of which a genuine working-class party Workers Hammer can be constituted" (WH no 149, Febru­ aryfMarch 1996). Org reave , May 1984 (left): picket line battles during heroic miners strike. Rally in support of Liverpool dockers, 23 This perspective stands in sharp con­ March 1996 (right). Class struggle militants know that picket lines mean don't cross. trast to that of the various fake-left groups dorsed the Blairite candidate in the Hem­ together with their visceral rejection of "The Liverpool dockers representative who are now in the gravitational pull of sworth by-election against the SLP's concrete defence of the Soviet Union in spoke about the anti-union laws. What the SLP. Far from providing a revolution­ Brenda Nixon.) the Cold War climate of the 1980s, under­ you need for workers in struggle is other ary alternative to the SLP's reformist pro­ Then there's Militant, which enthused lines their treacherous quality. Like other, unions to strike at the same time-all the gramme, they have stood to the right of over the SLP's founding while complain­ more run-of-the-mill opportunists, they things that are' outlawed by the anti-union the Scargillieadership on key issues of the ing that they have been blocked from could easily swing back towards main­ laws. Now if you want to do any of those class struggle, most notably when he led joining it. For decades, Militant was bur­ stream Labourism for trifling advantage, things-to fIght racism, to get rid of the the NUM in the historic miners strike. ied inside the consummately pro-imperial- most likely when the SLP comes under anti-union laws-you're going to come up heavy fIre from the right. against the question of the capitalist state. The Spartacist League gave critical There's no way round it. This is not a support and campaigned for SLP candi­ matter of 'parliamentary struggle or extra­ date Brenda Nixon in the Hemsworth by­ parliamentary struggle', it's a different Out now/ election. We noted that the issues on kind of struggle, to put the working class WOJllen :IJld which she ran-renationalisation of the in state power. WOMENANDREVOLUnON ~ main privatised industries, repeal of the "The SLP are committed to simply a No 45, Winter/Spring 1996 Revolution ~ anti-union laws, for full employment and reduction in the arms expenditure of what is 75p (56 pages) rebuilding the public services-together an imperialist country .... If you're going to Women's Rights Under Attack with the fact that she stood in opposition spend any money on armaments without in the "~ew World Order" to the Labour Party, provided a welcome having overthrown the capitalist state, you're Journal of the Women's Abortion Rights r'Wil~ opportunity for communists to intervene going to be putting money into the same Commission of the with a programme for the revolutionary prison system, army and police force that and f r 1(1'9 Spartacist League/US :::: r overthrow of capitalism. At the same time, will be used against striking workers and Class Struggle we made clear that this did not translate against racial minorities. Includes: in Europe into a blank cheque for critical support in "At bottom, the politics of the SLP are the future. For example, the SLP could the politics of 'old' Labourism. The com­ -Abortion Rights and seek to advance its electoral opportunities mitment to 'common ownership' is very Class Struggle through some kind ofpopular-frontist bloc similar to the politics of the post-war in Europe akin to the Militant-dominated Scottish Labour government of Clement Att­

..;r",: v ~,I'ance:)1 =~mln·s:S ,,-rc C-'IS~lan "

APRIL/MAY 1996 5 Revolution and counterrevolution in Sp-ain Popular front strangled the Spanish revolution

The film Land and Freedom, directed tion to crush the fascists. TIlis left tIle by Ken Loach, has sparked widespread proletariat politically disarmed. Not long interest and debate about the dramatic On Ken Loach's Land and Freedom after Hitler's triumph, the parties of tile historical events that led to the defeat of Stalinised Communist International (CI) the working-class forces in the Spanish were instructed to turn towards construct­ Revolution of the 1930s. Loach's film ing the popular front. This about-face centres on the experience of a young Com­ coincided with the panic-stricken Soviet munist Party member from Liverpool who bureaucracy's attempts to ingratiate itself volunteers to fight in Spain. He ends up in with the bourgeoisies of the "democratic" a militia organised by the POUM (Work­ imperialist countries, which meant con­ ers Party of Marxist Unification), and taining and opposing revolutionary strug­ gradually becomes aware that the Stalin­ gles. In 1935, the Seventh CI Congress ists are betraying the revolutionary strug­ codified the new policy, declaring that the gle in order to cement a diplomatic alli­ fight for the dictatorship of the proletariat ance with the capitalist rulers of "demo­ and socialism was off the agenda. cratic" France and Britain. In Spain, the CP was initially the weak­ Loach and the film's screenwriter, Jim est of the major working-class parties, Allen, clearly intended Land and Freedom lacking roots in the proletariat and dis­ as a political message to the youth of today. credited by its previous "Third Period" The story is told through flashbacks, as the policies. The anarchist CNT trade union hero's granddaughter reads his letters from had the largest working-class base, split Spain along with newspaper clippings of the between left and right wings as was the time. It ends at his graveside in London, Socialist Party (PSOE). where the granddaughter joins old comrades The forces grouped around the Trotskyist to read from William Morris and raise fists Left Opposition in Spain were initially in the air. No doubt for many young people Mllnant strongly placed. Their numbers included Land and Freedom does provide a breath of Scene from Land and Freedom. loach's film exposes Stalinist treachery prominent WOIking-cIass leaders like Andreu fresh air. Here is a popular film which during the Spanish Civil War but alibis POUM and anarchist betrayal. Nin, fonner secretary of the crs Red inter­ openly and proudly takes the side of national of Labour Unions, and Juan And­ revolutionary-minded fighters against cap­ collaboration pushed by the chief had also been supported by the Socialists. rade, a fonner PSOE youth leader. By the italism, a welcome change from the daily working-class organisations. His letters Spain was an overwhelmingly backward end of 1932, they constituted one of the diet of lies about the "death of communism". and polemics on Spain (collected in the country, with nearly 70 per cent of the ec0- larger sections of the International Left Op­ Loach's powerful indictment of the book The Spanish Revolution [1931-39]) nomy based on agriculture and most of the position. But this enonnous potential was Stalinists' treachery in the Civil War has expressed his detennination to forge a land owned by a tiny cabal of landowners. squandered. Under Nin's leadership, the sparked the ire oflatter-day spokesmen for proletarian vanguard party based on the But the outstanding bourgeois-democratic Spanish Left Oppositionists avoided sharp the Communist parties, particularly in programme of Bolshevism and the lessons tasks of the Spanish revolution-redistribut­ political struggle, leading them to ignore the Spain and Italy. But Land and Freedom of the 1917 Russian Revolution. ing land to the peasants, separation of opportunities presented by growing ferment falls far short of telling the full story of the In the tragic afterntath of defeat, Trot­ church and state, the rights of national mi­ amongst the Socialist and anarchist workers betrayal in Spain. Instead the film glori­ sky posed the question: how was it that norities, even granting women the most and youth. Against Trotsky's persistent fies the centrist POUM and also the large the Francoist forces, who lacked a staunch elementary fieedoms-could not be resolved arguments, they resisted the tactic of entry and influential Spanish anarchists of the anny and popular support, could emerge within the bounds of capitalism. Trotsky into the Socialist youth organisation and CNT (National Confederation of Labour). victorious, drowning the workers and drew on the theory ofpermanent revolution, missed the crucial opportunity to address and Yet at every decisive juncture, the POUM oppressed in blood? The answer was that confinned by the experience of the Russian win over militants searching for a and anarchist leaders fell in behind the Franco had more than cannibalistic feroc­ Revolution, to assert that only the conquest programme that could lead to the seizure of Stalinists and the Socialist Party and ity, he had help from the other side of the of state power by the working class could working-class power. played a key role in delivering the working battlefront. By tying the workers to their resolve these basic tasks, placing the social­ Instead Nin politically accommodated class to disaster. TIley did this by support­ class enemy, the popular front acted as the ist tasks and international extension of the and braintrusted the "Workers and Peas­ ing, and eventually joining, a c1ass-collab­ decisive roadblock to revolution and revolution on the order of the day. ants Bloc" of Joaquin Maurin, which grew orationist coalition with capitalist forces: paved the way for bloody disaster. The Trotskyist Left Opposition fought out of a right split from the Communist the popular front. . Trotsky understood that the Stalinists to uphold an internationalist and revolu- Party in Catalonia. Maurin's organisation The Spanish Civil War resonates to were the "fighting vanguard of the bourgeois­ , tionary perspective against the betrayals of stood on a programme of"democratic revolu­ this day because it posed with razor sharp­ republican counterrevolution". But what the Stalinist bureaucracy, which had tion", characterised by Trotsky as "pure ness the question of which class shall rule: of the major forces to their left, notably usurped political power in the Soviet 'Kuomintangism' transported to Spanish the bourgeoisie or the proletariat. Victory tIle anarchists and the POUM? Land and Union by 1924. Adopting the dogma of soil". Yet Nin went on to engineer an un­ in Spain would have greatly undennined Freedom to the contrary, and despite the "socialism in one country", Stalin revived principled fusion with tlus group, leading to the regimes of Hitler and Mussolini and heroism of many individual militants, the the theory of "two-stage" revolution (taken the fonnation of the POVM. opened the path to workers revolution decisive political role of these forces was from the Mensheviks who had opposed October 1934 saw massive workers throughout Europe. Instead the triumph of to give a "left" face to the popular front. the Russian Revolution). This anti-Marx­ struggles, with general strikes in Madrid Franco's reactionary forces spurred Hit­ As Trotsky wrote, the anarchist leaders ist line was to have tragic consequences in and Barcelona and then a workers' insur­ ler's drive for imperial conquest and wound up acting as a "fifth wheel in the China in 1925-27 when Stalin ordered the rection in the Asturias mining region. The marked the onset of World War II. By cart of bourgeois democracy", while "the Communist Party's capitulation to tile government responded with massive re­ 1941, Nazi Gennany had invaded the POUM proved to be ... the chief obstacle on bourgeois-nationalist Guomindang (Kuo­ pression, killing thousands. This heroic 'Soviet Union. For four decades, Spain the road to the creation of a revolutionary mintang) of Chiang Kai-shek. Chiang re­ uprising signalled the awakening of the was to rentain under the iron grip of Fran­ party" ("The Lessons of Spain: The Last paid this faith with a massacre of tens of Spanish proletariat, leading to the wide­ coist military-bonapartist rule. Warning", December 1937). thousands of Communists and militant spread fonnation of united-front workers In the words of Leon Trotsky, the workers. committees (alianzas obreras). Seeking founder of the Fourth International, the Spain-which class shall rule? In 1933, Hitler came to power in Ger­ to contain the rising tide of struggle, in defeat of the Spanish workers at the hands The collapse of the Spanish monarchy many without so much as a shot being early 1936 the leaders of ilie major work­ of bloody reaction was "one of the most in 1931 led to the establishment of a fired. This was due to the treacherous ers parties moved to set up a popular­ tragic chapters of modern history". But bourgeois republic resting on a coalition "Third Period" policies of Stalin and the front alliance. This class-collaborationist this was far from inevitable. Throughout of liberal bourgeois parties and the Social­ Gennan Communist Party, who having pact ipcluded the bourgeois Republicans, the course of the revolution and counter­ ists. Its policies were hardly more liberal abandoned the prograntme for workers the Communist Party, PSOE (both revolution, Trotsky waged an unrelenting than those of the 1920s military dictator­ revolution, criminally turned their backs wings) ... and the POUM. The popular­ struggle against the prograntme of class ship of General Primo de Rivera, which on the fight for united working-class ac- front agreement explicitly renounced the

6 WORKERS HAMMER nationalisation of the land, pledged loyalty and POUM misIeadCrs during the Barcelona to the bourgeoisie, and agreed to work May Days. "for the general interests of the economy TIle Spanish Trotskyists (Secci6n and national production". BoIchevique-Leninista de Espana) and tile The elections led to a popular-front left-wing anarchists of the Friends of government under the bourgeois Republi­ Durruti (named after a popular anarchist can Manuel Azaiia, and included represen­ leader who died defending Madrid against tatives of the Socialist and Communist Franco) were tile only organisations to call parties as well as the social-democratic for defence of the barricades, and to raise UGT trade union federation. From the a progranune for tile seizure of power. outset, Azaiia' s govermnent sought to They fought on the side of the workers to quell worker unrest by imposing censor­ tAe very end. Despite their small size, the ship on working-class newspapers and Trotskyists produced and widely distrib­ arresting strike leaders. uted the following leaflet on the barricades Then in July 1936, General Franco and on4 May: other leading military officers went into "LONG LIVE 1HE REVOLUTIONARY rebeIlion, proclaiming the need for an OFFENSIVE authoritarian Catholic state. Fearing the "No compromise. Disannament of the workers' response, the bourgeois popular­ Centelles. Barcelona National Republican Guard and the reac­ front government tried to suppress news of POUM militia leaving Lenin Barracks. Barcelona for the Aragon front In tionary Assault Guards. This is the deci­ the uprising, then attempted to negotiate January 1937. sive moment. Next time it will be too with Franco, all the while refusing to arm late. General strike in all the industries excepting those connected with the pros­ the masses. What they didn't reckon on hunted down, their papers banned, and anarchist leaders, tailed by the POUM at ecution of the war, until the resignation was the workers taking matters into their their members thrown out of the govern­ the key jlIDctures, who played the decisive of the reactionary government. Only own hands. Within days, the Francoist ment. Trotsky and his Spanish supporters oounterrevolutionary role in the events. proletarian power can assure IPilitary military revolt had been thrown back in were unequivocal in their defence of the Morrow recounts the workers' outrage on victory. two-thirds of the country, as the working POUM against state terror. But what was being instructed by their leaders to vacate "Complete arming of the working class. "Long live unity of action of CNT -F AI­ class seized arms and began to fight. the POUM, ostensibly a revolutionary or­ the barricades, describing how "anarchist POUM. Republican Spain had entered into a ganisation, doing inside a bourgeois gov­ workers tore up [the CNT paper] Solidari­ "Long live the revolutionary front of the revolutionary situation. As with Russia ernment in the first place? Time and dad Obrera and shook their fists and guns proletariat. between February and October 1917, this again, POUM leaders capitulated to the at the radios". The eNT leaders lied to the "Committees of revolutionary defense in was a period of dual power, with two Republican govermnent in the interests of workers about what was happening in the the shops, factories, districts." antagonistic poles: the bourgeois govern­ "anti-fascist unity". They sanctioned the city, told them not to block the entry of the Loach and Allen are compelled to ment and the armed workers militias. The dissolution of the revolutionary conunit­ Assault Guards, and tried to alibi their include tile 1937 May Days in their film. working class patrolled the streets, organ­ tees. Together with the CNT, they pub­ refusal to take power on the grounds that But the scenes depicting this key event are ised the war effort and managed the facto­ lished without conunent the decree dis­ it would invite French and British inter­ historically inaccurate, distorted, even ries. In Catalonia, transport and industry arming the workers. vention. They even set their own militants trivialised. In Homage to Catalonia, were in the hands of the CNT workers up for repression, distributing to the press George Orwell describes Barcelona at the conunittees, while in much of the region May Days in Barcelona a denunciation of the left-anarchist time as a "town where tile working class the peasant associations and agricultural Friends ofDurruti (FoD) as "agents pro­ was in the saddle". Yet Laach and Allen workers unions had seized the land. Com­ The turning point in the revolution vocateurs" . reduce the May events to a sniping match mittees representing all anti-fascist parties came with the 1937 May Days in Barce­ As for the POUM-which by Mor­ across the balconies in a scene inter­ lona. The strength of the proletariat there and unions replaced the old municipal row'~ estimate had the support of some spersed with an angry woman shopper governments. The most important of these was exemplified by the armed occupation 30,000 workers in Catalonia alone-at whose shopping bag has spilt because of was the Central Committee of Anti-Fas­ of the telephone exchange, the most prom­ the decisive hour it ignominiously the shooting! The film provides no hint of inent building in central Barcelona, large­ cist Militias of Catalonia. betrayed. Even as bitter anarchist workers the massive organised presence and power Yet on top of this stood the popular­ ly by workers from the anarchist CNT. tore up their copies of CNT newspapers, of the working class. This allowed. the . insurgent workers to front govermnent, the sole repository of the POUM joined the chorus telling them There is a political reason why Land monitor the activities of the bourgeois bourgeois class rule in Republican Spain. to leave the barricades. Their policy was and Freedom so massively distorts tile govermnents in Catalonia and Valencia. Most of the capitalists and large landhold­ exactly counterposed to that of the Bolshe­ Barcelona May Days. To depict these On 3 May, Stalinist forces staged a ers had deserted the Republic in favour of viks, whose revolutionary intransigence events in anything resembling tlleir real provocation by attacking the exchange. Franco. Trotsky described the few petty­ enabled them to grow from a small minor­ importance and intensity would have Within hours, workers throughout Barce­ bourgeois lawyers who remained as the ity into a majority of the politically active posed too sharply the question of the lona had thrown up barricades, taking "bourgeoisie's shadow". Their impor­ proletariat in Russia by October 1917. POUM's and anarchists' responsibility for control of virtually the entire city. Felix tance, however, was very real: through In an unfinished 1940 article titled "The betraying the revolution before the Morrow's book Revolution and Counter­ them the reformist workers parties in the Class, the Party and the Leadership-Why Stalinist-backed government assault popular front guaranteed to uphold capi­ Revolution in Spain vividly describes the Was the Spanish Proletariat Defeated? situation: (Questions of Marxist Theory)", Trotsky talist property relations. Grotesquely, the Anarchism and the Spanish popular-front parties even defended " ... the workers were pouring into the underscored the importance of the "subjec­ betrayal Spain's colonial holdings, refusing to call local centers of the CNT-FAI and tive mctor" in politics-tile need for a revo­ for the independence of Morocco lest this POUM, anning and building bar­ lutionary party prepared to lead the struggle Many leftist youth today sympatllise ricades .... There was almost no firing alienate potential bourgeois "allies", nota­ for power. He noted that in Spain: "TIle witll anarchism, believing it to be uncom­ the first night, for the workers were over­ promisingly opposed to capitalism but bly in London and Paris. wbehningly stronger than the government workers' line of march at all tinles cut a During the period of dual power in forces. In the workers' suburbs, many of certain angle to tile line of tile leadership. unaware of its role in the defeat of the Russia, Lenin, Trotsky and the Bolsheviks the government police, with no stomach And at the most critical moments tlus angle Spanish working class. The Spanish demanded, "Down with the ten capitalist for the struggle, peacefully surrendered became 180 degrees. TIle leaderslup tllen events were to be tile great testing.ground their anns." ministers! All power to the soviets!" But helped directly or indirectly to subdue tile for tllis current, in a country where it had in Spain the POUM and the anarchist Barcelona was in the hands of the workers by armed force." TIus was precisely enjoyed a strong hold dating back to the CNT-FAI (Iberian Anarchist Federation) armed proletariat. The bourgeois forces tile treacherous role played by the anarclust continued on page 8 supported and finally joined the regional were demoralised, as the popular front bourgeois Catalan govermnent, the Gene­ confronted the working masses across the ralitat, in September 1936. Generalitat barricades. Once again, the working class leader Companys then moved to reinforce was in a position to fight for power. But the repressive apparatus of the bourgeois the anarchist and POUM leaders capitu­ state, disbanding the Central Conmlittee lated to the popular-front government and of the Anti-Fascist Militias and ordering abandoned the barricades in exchange for the armed workers to join the bourgeois an empty "promise" to "negotiate". "Popular Army". Soon after, the POUM This defeat broke the back of the strug­ was expelled from the govermnent, its gle against Franco. The Republican gov­ services no longer required. The govern­ ernment sent 6000 Assault Guards (equip­ ment meanwhile put together a force out ped with Soviet arms) and killed hundreds of its 20,000 Carabineros (customs po­ and jailed tens of thousands of workers. lice) to act as shock troops. The POUM was outlawed. Andreu Nin, Land and Freedom glosses over, ob­ the Trotskyist Erwin Wolf, left anarchist scures and alibis the POUM's political leader Camillo Berneri and nwnerous support to and eventual participation in other proletarian militants were murdered the popular-front govermnent. In one by the Stalinists. In January 1939 Fran­ scene, Blanca, a POUM militia member, co's troops marched into Barcelona; tile attentpts to convince the film's hero David resistance had long before been crushed. Carr to break with the treacherous Stalin­ The Stalinists may have been the Jesus Lozena. Madrkt ists and stay with the POUM. She de­ triggermen for the crushing of the May General Franco (middle left) led military rebellion In 1936. proclaiming the scribes how POUM members were being Days, but in a political sense it was the need for an authoritarian Catholic state.

APRIUMAY 1996 7 tom his politics are left Labourite. Moti­ .\~~:' vating the contemporary significance of Spain ... .'.j.~ Land and Freedom, Loach proclaimed: (Continued from page 7) ~ . '.1\ 1< • "It is time we remembered our European • Jo last century. history. After all, there is now a similar The CNT-FAI entry into the Catalan war going on in former Yugoslavia to and Madrid governments in 1936 exposed defend what remains of a multi-ethnic the fundamental opportunism and class society in Bosnia" (Workers Press, 10 collaborationism of the anarchists. The June 1995). May Days in Barcelona forced them to What a grotesque insult to the heroic choose between their working-class base Spanish working class who fought for social and the bourgeoisie. They chose the bour­ libemtion against brutal military reaction! geoisie. As the Stalinist bureaucrats un­ The all-sided communalist bloodletting derstood full well, maintaining capitalist between Serbs, Croats and Bosnian Mus­ property relations in the context of the lims in the Balkans is a product of Civil War in Spain necessarily required imperialist-backed capitalist counterrevolu­ counterrevolutionary methods-and the tion in the former Yugoslav deformed work­ anarchist misleaders, too, played their part ers state. Unlike Loach and fake-left outfits in this very dirty game. In the Barcelona like the uSee, WP and the Workers Revolu­ May Days, the "anti-state" CNT leaders tionary Party-who have all rallied behind ended up actively helping to keep power Labour Party pro-imperialist support for in the hands of the bourgeoisie against the ' Centelies. Barcelona Bosnia--the ICL has consistently called for insurgent workers. Anarchist militia 1937. Spanish Revolution was betrayed by popular front. all imperialist troops to get out of the Bal­ Trotsky compared anarchist doctrine to which tied workers to their class enemy. kans. When, as last Sunllller, the Bosnian a raincoat full of holes: useless when it Serbs have been under direct attack by Francoist forces did pass, and the Spanish Unidad Popular. This was a popular-front rained. The essence of every revolution NATO imperialism, we stood for their workers were drowned in blood-while consists in putting a new class into power, alliance which tied the combative proletar­ militruy defence, even as we called for work­ the Stalinists held open the door. which is precisely what anarchism could iat to the institutions of the capitalist state ers revolution to overthrow all the bloody Sawtell also cites tile International not and would not do. The one "principle" and prepared the bloody outcome of Pino­ nationalist regimes. Brigades, which rallied militants from chefs military coup. the Spanish anarchists kept intact was around the world deternlined to fight their opposition to the dictatorship of the More recently, we have fought for The fight for the Fourth fascism in Spain. But they were cynically proletariat-the workers.state. While the proletarian class opposition to the ANC's International used by the Stalinists in tile service of CNT leaders sat in the bourgeois govern­ nationalist popular front in South Africa. popular-front betrayal, and even in the Stalin's role in Spain confirmed his ment, they tried to divert attention from In Brazil, together with our fraternal com­ repression of left-wing militants. In late role as the gravedigger of revolutions. The their crimes by raising a hue and cry about rades of the Luta MetahlrgicalLiga 1938 tile International Brigades were Quarta-internacionalista do Brasil, we Trotskyists fought tooth and nail against the Kronstadt counterrevolutionary upris­ withdrawn. This grew out of Stalin's his treacherous politics of class collabora­ ing crushed by the Red Army in 1921, and stand in hard class opposition to Lula's desire to come to an accommodation with social-democratic Workers Party and its tionism. Whilst standing for unconditional their hero, Nestor Makhno,. whose peasant Hitler's Germany, fearing isolation after defence of the Soviet Union against impe­ bands in the Ukraine were defeated and Frente Brasil Popular, which demobilises the French and British governments' and attacks the workers and oppressed on rialism and internal counterrevolution, dispersed after they turned against the new Munich Pact with Hitler. they also fought for political revolution to Soviet workers state. As Trotsky wrote: behalf of the capitalists. But whilst tired Stalinist hacks regurgi­ Our adherence to elementary class oust the Stalinist bureaucracy. The "By hiding behind Kronstadt and Makh­ tate slanders and lies about Spain, most principle stands in sharp contrast to the popular~front betrayal in Spain, together no, the attorneys of anarchism will de­ British left groups have been effusive in various centrist and reformist outfits who with the impending threat of inlperialist ceive nobody. In the Kronstadt episode war, underlined the urgent need for a new and in the struggle with Makhno, we their praise ofLand and Freedom. In their have no qualms about supporting the defended the proletarian revolution from respective reviews of the film, Socialist popular front. .. or trying to build one of revolutionary International. the peasant counterrevolution. The Span­ Review (journal of the Socialist Workers their own. In South Africa, a host of But the fight for the Fourth Interna­ ish Anarchists defended and continue to Party) and Socialist Outlook (produced by pseudo-revolutionary groups including the tional also required-and requires-sharp defend bourgeois counterrevolution from supporters of the fake-Trotskyist United SWP and USec called for votes to the political combat with centrism, of which the proletarian revolution. No sophistry Secretariat), failed even to mention, let bourgeois-nationalist ANC in the elec­ the Spanish POUM was a prime example. will delete from the annals of history the Referring to the "Treachery of the POUM", fact that anarchism and Stalinism in the alone oppose, the popular front. Socialist tions two years ago. The ANC govern­ Spanish revolution were on one side of Worker salesmen outside cinema shOw­ ment has attacked trade union struggles in his last major work on the Spanish Revo­ the barricades while the working masses ings ofLoach's film even took to shouting and pursued vicious anti-working-class lution, "The Class, the Party and the with the revolutionary Marxists were on "Join the POUM of today, join the SWP!" austerity measures, proving themselves to Leadership", Trotsky wrote: the other. Such is the truth which will be the new black front men for South forever remain in the consciousness of Former SWPer Andy Durgan served as "To the left of all the other parties in the proletariat!" one of the historical advisors to the film. African capitalism. Closer to home, Spain stood the POUM .... But it was - "The Lessons of Spain: The Last Several years back, this self-appointed popular-frontist outfits like the SWP's precisely this party that played a fatal role Warning" Anti Nazi League are modelled on pre­ in the development of the Spanish revo­ lawyer for the POUM clainled that it "had lution .... It participated in the 'Popular' Anarchists today who want to distance little choice but to support the pact against cisely the same progranlllle that led to election bloc; entered the govermnent themselves from the CNT-FAI leaders' the right", while arguing that it would defeat in Spain-strategic unity with so­ that liquidated workers' committees; treachery look to the Friends of Durruti as have been smarter to do this "independ­ called "anti-fascist" bourgeois elements. engaged in a struggle to reconstitute this govermnental coalition; capitulated time some sort ofsaving grace. But this left-wing ently from outside" (RevolUtionary His­ Centrists like the Workers Power (WP) tory vol 4, nos 112, winter 1991-92). and again to the Anarchist leadership; split represented an explicit break with the group occasionally posture as opponents conducted, in connection with this, a "non-political" anti-statism of anarchism. Indeed, what the SWP, USec & Co fmd of class collaboration, but they too have false trade union policy; and took a vacil­ They called for a revolutionary "National appealing about Land and Freedom is never hesitated to leap on the popular­ lating and nonrevolutionary attitude Defence Council" based on union organisa­ that it is a sophisticated apology for the front bandwagon at the flrst opportunity. toward the May 1937 uprising .... [A] tions to take power, posing this explicitly as popular frontism of the POUM and anar­ During the last French elections, WP centrist party invariably acts as a brake a "variation" from the anarchist tradition. chists. This in turn gives a sort of "left" upon the revolution, must each time advocated votes to Mitterrand's Socialist smash its own head, and may bring about They wrote that, 'The vanguard i.e. the revo­ credence to their own modern-day popular­ Party, which after a decade at the centre of the collapse of the revolution." lutionat)" militants and Friends of Dunuti, frontist reformism. a racist, pro-NATO, Cold War popular POUM and the Youth must regroup to elab­ Trotsky's attack on the POUM and its At bottom, Land and Freedom fobs off front government administering capitalist sole responsibility for the defeat in Spain orate a programme of proletarian revolution­ apologists 60 years ago applies with full austerity was hated by most militant sec­ aries." This represented a crucial opportunity force to the fake-left of today: onto the Stalinists, thereby alibiing the tions of the working class. POUM and anarchists. In this sense, tile to regroup revolutionary forces into a van­ "The question of questions at present is More broadly, in tile spirit of the "lessons of Spain" which Loach (and most guard party which could lead the proletariat the Popular Front. The left centrists seek POUM, WP espouses an "anti-imperialist of the pseudo-left) aim to impart are very, to power. But this was tragically cut to present this question as a tactical or task united front" for underdeveloped coun­ . short by the counterrevolutionary terror. even as a technical maneuver, so as to be very wrong. Proletarian opposition to the able to peddle their wares in the shadow tries, a formula which means political popular front isn't a question of "tactics" , of the Popular Front. In reality, the Popu­ capitulation to a supposedly "anti-imperial­ nor is it of mere historical interest. It is an Debate over Land and Freedom lar Front is the main question ofprole­ ist" wing of the capitalists. WP even used urgent question for working-class struggle Leftover Stalinists, like those grouped tarian class strategy for this epoch. It this slogan to justifY supporting Kho­ against capitalism today. also offers the best criterion for the dif­ around Morning Star, are incensed at ference between Bolshevism and Men­ meini ' s reactionary mass movement We of the ICL fight to forge revolution­ Loach's film, accusing it of "Trotskyite shevism." against the shah of Iran in 1978-79, as ary vanguard parties of a type that Trotsky dogma" and "scurrilous rewriting of his­ - "The POUM and the Popular Front", they ludicrously painted Islamic reaction would recognise as his own-parties tory". Morning Star writer Jeff Sawtell (4 July 1936 as an "anti-inlperialist" struggle. Uphold­ which do not cover for popular-front August 1995) even evokes the memory of Following Trotsky, we of tile Interna­ ing Trotsky's perspective of permanent betrayal but draw a sharp class line in viCious Stalinist hatchetwoman Dolores tional ConmlUnist League (Fourth Interna­ revolution, the ICL (then international order to rally the workers in revolutionary Ibiururi ('La Pasionaria"), who spared no tionalist) have fought consistently for Spartacist tendency) said: "Down with the struggle against capital. Reforging the occasion to slander and denounce tllOse proletarian opposition to the popular Shah, Down with the Mullahs-For work­ Fourth International, world party of so­ who proclaimed the need for revolution to front. This was posed point-blank in Chile ers revolution in Iran!" cialist ,revolution, is the key to achieving win the Civil War. Ibarruri is commonly in the early 1970s, when our tendency was Ken Loach has produced a number of what so many heroic workers in Spain remembered for her fiery cry of "No pa­ unique in refusing to give any electoral powerful films, and he is widely seen as a fought for and died for: an end to capital­ saran" ("They shall not pass"). But the support, however "critical", to Allende's partisan of the' working class. But at bot- ist exploitation and a socialist future .•

8 WORKERS HAMMER Cliffites hail "strikes" by prison guards, security guards COPS out of the unions! We reprint below a slightly adapted rades who were distributing petitions for article from Workers Vanguard, no 642 Socialist Jamal (see WV no 625, 30 June 1995). 29 March 1996. fortnightly paper ofthe At bottom, the Cliffites are social dem­ Spartaeist League ofthe US. Worker ocrats who share the political outlook of ,.,. of tile lnIerutioul SodIbts II!ii8> ~ their big brothers in the British Labour Crisis in Ontario Jails Party and Canada's New Democratic A couple of weeks after the leadership Party. These agents of capitalist class rule of Service Employees International Union and tlleir "left" tails foster illusions that (SEIU) Local 32B-32J called off a bitter the capitalist state can be "reformed" to month-long strike by New York City serve the interests of workers and the commercial building workers in early oppressed. In the early 193 Os, the German February, 32B-32J pickets reappeared Social Democrats disarmed the proletariat outside Manhattan's World Trade Center. by preaching reliance on the Prussian But these were not striking workers. police. who had largely been recruited Rather, they were security guards who from among socialist workers, to stop only a month earlier had acted as strike­ Hitler's Nazis. But as revolutionary leader breakers for the real estate bosses against Leon Trotsky warned, "The wo.rker who the building workers. Having done their becomes a policeman in the service of the dirty work, some of these guards were Canadian Socialist Worker (6 March) brags that they -have gotten a capitalist state, is a bourgeois cop, not a then laid off by management. The security hearing" from prison guard -unionists" at Toronto's Don Jail (left). Guards worker" (What Next?, January 1932). guards' "picket" is not an action class­ -Job action" Included subjecting Inmates to lockdown and rushing from Today, with government funding for conscious workers should support in any picket lines to put down prisoners' protest. cops and prison construction burgeoning, way. The Local 32B-32J tops have en­ unions from AFSCME [government work­ rolled nearly 3000 security guards in order particular against striking workers. One of in downtown Toronto. A picture in a local ers] to the Teamsters are feverishly com­ to fatten their dues coffers. But these rent­ the fastest growing industries in the US paper the next day shows IS supporter peting to recruit cops, prison guards and a-cop auxiliaries to the racist thugs in blue today is private goon squads, like the Waugh in the row of OPSEU marshals security guards. They are looking to have no place in the union movement. notorious Vance Security ninjas, who holding back workers from the cops who fatten their dues base, and to gain It's hardly surprising that a right-wing serve almost exclusively as professional had just busted some heads. As always, some political "clout" with the capital­ "business union" type like SEIU local armed strikebreakers. In many cases, the IS reformists take their cue directly ist rulers. To what purpose? In Cali­ president Gus Bevona would embrace security guards are themselves "moonlight­ from the pro-capitalist union tops, in this fornia, the prison guards "union" is security guards. But tailing right behind ing" or retired cops who are simply wear­ case OPSEU president Leah Casselman, "using its muscle and generous cam­ Bevona is the so-called International ing a different uniform. Whether paid who is a former detention centre guard paign contributions to push ... for ever Socialist Organization (ISO). During the directly by the bosses or by the bosses' herself more prisons and tougher sentencing building workers' strike, the ISO was one state, at bottom security guards and cops The IS/ISO's support to cops is a long­ laws" (New York Times, 7 November have the same function: to act as the standing position. A few years back, their 1995). Over the last five years, Cali­ parent organisation in Britain, Tony fornia prison guards have killed three New York CIty secur.ty gLJ~rds armed fist of repression against the work­ ing class. Cliffs Socialist Workers Party, also times as many inmates as were killed The POft ~UI~!y hired,. new The ISO's support to the World Trade boasted that it "had a number of prison in all otller state and federal prisons Center security guards is no aberration. Its officers who were in sympathy with our combined! Socialist Canadian sister group, International So­ objectives" (SOCialist Worker, 26 June Police "militancy" and cop strikes over Worker cialists (IS), is currently enthusing over a 1993). More recently they ran a sympa­ pay and "conditions" inevitably have a ""'''.. -- __ 111 "strike" by prison guards! The "screws" thetic report (23 March) about notoriously bonapartist duust, reinforcing the cops' view are members of the Ontario Public Service racist inuuigration centre guards, from that they are a "law unto themselves". In an be laid off on earlier polemic against the Cliffites and the ~n their contract expire5. j~=t Employees Union (OPSEU), which has such places as Campsfield and Heathrow, 11Ie landlords want 10 use a Ii ..... f,..t been waging a strike of government work­ complaining about their pay and working refonuists of Militant Labour, who also Ile-known.ectionoflhellft-Hart- mi.e ley National Labor Relations Act of ers against the austerity onslaught of the conditions and threatening to take strike argue dtat d1e cops are "workers in unifonu", 1947 \0 smash Service EmpJoyee. rabidly anti-labour Conservative provin­ action. we wrote: "Better 'working conditions' for Inlernalional Union (SEIU) Local 328-321, which represents aboul cial government. In an article headlined After years of boycotting the fight to cops means fewer restrictions on their ability 2,600 sccurily guards in Ihe New "Crisis in Ontario Jails", written by Phyl­ free black death row political prisoner to brutalise minorities, attack picket lines York r;,y area. 11Ie law slil'.. 18Ies tha' securily lis Waugh, a prominent IS supporter in Mumia Abu-Jamal, the ISO has now and cany out provocations against leftists" guard, are only rrotected by ,he law OPSEU, the Canadian Soeialist Worker launched a "campaign to end tile death (Spartacist Pamphlet, Militant Labour's ir ,hey belong In a union Ihal exclu­ Sively represenls security guards. (6 March) hails the "militant reputation" penalty" based on liberal appeals to capi­ touchingfaith in the capitalist state [1994]). SEIU Local 328-321 ....,...... ,.. of "correctional workers". In fact, they talist politicians. When the Spartacist The interests of the working class can­ OIher building worten u well urity IUards. portray these professional torturers and League distributed a leaflet at an ISO not be defended by those who invite its killers as the vanguard of the class strug­ event in Chicago last June; pointing to tile enemies to infiltrate labour's ranks. We glaring contradiction between their newly American Socialist Worker (1 March) gle! The picket signs carried by these fight to build a revolutionary vanguard wrings hands over laid-off World "militant workers" include direct appeals professed support to Mumia and their party which, like the Bolsheviks of Lenin Trade Center security guards. ISO to their racist masters' "law and order" embrace of the cops, tlley responded with and Trotsky, understands that the capital­ laments that US law distinguishes crusade, warning against "Young Offend­ a physical attack. The previous autunm in ist apparatus of repression and terror guards, pOlice from workers. Cops ers on the Loose" and proclaiming, Boston, the ISO launched a vicious as­ cannot be reformed but must be swept are the anned fist of the bourgeoisie I "OPSEU Corrections Officers: Protecting sault against Spartacus Youth Club com- away through workers revolution .• Ontarians Against Rapists, Murderers"_ of several pseudo-socialist outfits that The Canadian IS crows that it has blithely waltzed across the picket lines, "gotten a hearing" for its ideas among the even holding meetings inside struck build­ prison guards "on picket lines recently, at Spartacist League~ public events ings (see "Picket Lines Mean Don't the Don Jail and elsewhere"-no wonder, Meeting: Wednesday, 8 May 1996 Cross!" Workers Vanguard [WV] no 638, as the IS denounces "government cut­ 2 February). But the ISO is ever so sym­ backs" in prison funding! As part of their Scargill's SLP challenges Blair's "New Labour" pathetic to the plight of the laid-offsecu­ "work action", guards at Toronto's Don Break with Labourism, "old" and "new"-for a rity guards, lauding the protests of these Jail subjected inmates to a lockdown, revolutionary workers partyl "rank-and-file workers" and complaining denying them the right to watch television that the [US] Taft-Hartley anti-labour law or use tile showers and phones. When 7.30pm, Conway Hall, Red Uon Square, London WC1 "stipulates that security guards are only prisoners staged a protest against the Nearest tube: Holbom protected by the law if they belong to a lockdown, the guards rushed into the jail Concluding classes in the series: "Programme and history of the ICL" union tllat exclusively represents security from their picket lines to suppress it (To­ (Ring Spartacist League office on tel no below for venue details) guards" (SOCialist Worker, I March). ronto Star, 8 March). Likewise in Barrie Thursday 18 April: Cold War II: Poland, Afghanistan and the Where tile bourgeoisie, tllfOUgh its laws, on 28 February, "striking" guards dropped Russian Question point blank implicitly recognises that tlle rent-a-cops their picket signs to put down a protest by are counterposed to workers, the ISO inmates who had been locked down. Thursday 2 May: The Collapse of Stalinism and "New World Disorder": For Marxist clarity and a forward perspective denies tllis basic truth. On 18 March, a riot squad from the The job of security guards is to work in prison guards' colleagues in the Provincial For readings and infocmation on future classes: Tel: 0171-4851396 tandem with the official police to protect Police viciously attacked a rally of 5000 capitalist private property, including in unionists outside the legislature building

APRIUMAY 1996 9 cootinued eva1 while hundreds of thousands Britain, as elsewhere, the capitalist rulers are to redress the social crimes of the Tories and Mad cows ... died of starvation and disease and millions on the offensive and no longer feel it neces- is canmitted to slashing public spending and (Continued/rom page 1) were forced to emigrate. Writing on the 5aI)' to fend off the "threat ofConununism" keeping the trade unions in shackles. At the famine, Irish revolutionary James Connolly by means of reforms, health services and beginning of the beef scandal, Blair showed would require massive fonding for recalled the popular saying "Providence sent welfare provision, which were designed to his loyalty to British beef(ie beefmarket) by research and, at least. a serious attempt to the potato blight; but England; made the buy off working-class resistance. Savage fatuously declaring "I will not stop eating stop feeding BSE-infected meat to the fumine", adding: "England made the famine attacks on the unions and social beef." It would be absurd to think that a population! by a rigid application of the economic prin­ programmes, pioneered by Thatcher, have Labour government would attempt to rein­ A recent World Health Organisation ciples that lie at the base of capitalist soci­ ripped through the living conditions and stitute the kind ofservices and regulations on conference on BSE concluded that "there is ety" (Labour in Irish History, 1910). basic rights of the working class. health, safety and hygiene which capitalist 'minirnal' risk of 'mad cow disease' being In The Condition o/the Working Class With the end of the second Cold War, the governments once provided. passed to hwnans-as long as strict abattoir in England, published in 1845, Engels post-World War II anti-Soviet alliance has Today diseases like tuberculosis-truly a procedures are followed" (Independent, 4 observed that 'The workers get what is too come unglued, laying bare the permanent disease of poverty-which were once pre­ April). This is small consolation since abat­ bad for the property-holding class." Meat rivaby between the major imperialist pow­ sumed to be a disease of the past in Britain toirs in Britain are a known source of infec­ which workers could afford to buy was ers-the US, Germany and Japan. Britain is and elsewhere, are back with a vengeance, tioo, a direct result ofThatcherite "free mar­ "taken from old, often diseased, cattle, or vel)' much a second-rate power and the and are being allowed to reach epidemic ket" policies. BSE is thought to have origi­ such as have died a naturaI death" and "vel)' bourgeoisie is deeply divided, chafing proportions among the world's poor. The nated from sheep infected by scrapie, whose often past using". He added: "Dealers and against Gennan domination in Europe while explosive spread of preventable diseases carcasses were made into meal and fed to manufacturers adulterate all kinds of provi­ anxious to maintain the "special relation­ such as TB in the "New World Disorder" cows. Despite warnings dating back to sions in an atrocious manner, and without ship" between the City of London and Wall only underlines the need for socialist 1980, the govennnent permitted cost-cutting the slightest regard to the health of the con­ Street. In order to compete in the "New revolution, which will lay the basis for a changes where carcasscs are processed at sumers." This aptly describes the conditions World Order", the rate of exploitation for society where all the necessary resources scandalously low temperatures, 100 degrees which, 150 years 00, led to the BSE scandal; British workers has been jacked up to the can be allocated to conquering diseases, Celsius, which is insufficient even to kill another illustration of the real meaning of point where they now work the longest hours old and new. common bacteria. Enforcement of hygiene the Tories' "Victorian values". in Europe. When the European Court ruled Medical science is far from having all the regulations is negligible; government in­ The handling of the beef scandal reeks of that Britain must enforce a 48-hour week answers, to BSE or AIDS for example, but it structions (issued in 1988) to remove brains the same blatant class prejudice. It was limit, the bosses were furious about conti­ has made it possible to control many dis­ and spinal cords from carcasses are hardly thOUgllt for some time that the more expen­ nental "interference". Anyone in this country eases which were scourges in the past. Qual­ enforced at all and the Meat Hygiene Service sive cuts-steak and the "Roast Beef of Old lucky enough to have a job is expected to ity health care for all is within the bounds of has been decimated by redun~cies. England"-were safe, but that low-grade work around 60 hours, then go home to a material possibility, but not under capital­ The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries meat was not. BSE is more prevalent in dinner of infected meat! ism. At the level of ideas, the need of the and Food (which has riglltly been dubbed older cattle, especially dairy herds which, A few years ago the British government system's apologists to justifY the exploitation the "MAFFia") has routinely ignored EU when they are too old to produce milk, are was in the forefront ofopposing EU compen­ and brutal oppression of the masses leaves rules aimed at preventing the spread of BSE sold off for production of mince, sausages sation to German farmers hit by swine fever increasingly little room for a rational ap­ and other animal diseases to the rest of and "processed meat". Beef herds were among pigs. Now Major and agriculture proach to anytlling, including science and Europe. Scientific researchers who warned considered safer, providing better quality minister Douglas Hogg go hat-in-hand to the medicine. In conditions of social decay, of the dangers of BSE were trashed and meat because tlley are mainly grass-fed and EU, whom they earlier blan1ed for causing bigotry, superstition and fear are allowed to discredited by government officials. Richard are killed younger. panic over BSE, to beg roc the cash to kill off flourish. Research on AIDS has been delib­ Lacey, a pronlinent microbiologist who has But the populace was kept in the dark. some cattle (which the government still erately underfunded, in line with the preju­ warned for years that BSE represents a The Economist (30 March) belatedly insists are safe!). Their real aim is to get the dices of reactionary capitalist governments danger to hwnans, was vilified by MAFF as admitted what many had thOUgllt all export ban lifted and thus to restore "confi­ that it's a "disease of gays, blacks, drug "politically suspect". Harash Narang, an along: "Consumers are worried whether dence" (read profitability) in British beef pushers, etc". internationally renowned expert on encepha­ beef is safe to eat. Steak almost certainly lopathies, was denied research funding by is .... The danger lies in eating pies, bur­ 1$ MAFF while working on a same day test for gers and sausages which might have bits • BSE in live cattle (current MAFF tests take of infectious brain or spinal cord in them." several weeks, by which time the meat has The mother of29-year-old Anna Pearson, entered the food supply). who died from cm, said: "Anna lived in lO! I " .. Narang conducted random tests late last halls of residence. as a student in London 'N year and fOWld that nearly one in three cattle and you can inlagine the sort of food stU­ going into the hUlllan food supply was in­ dents eat-burgers from cheap places, fected with BSE. MAFF denied him further from the rubbish end of the food market" " funding and he was subjected to a terror (Guardian, 30 March). When the French ',I IOI.D campaign. According to a Guardian (23 masses demanded bread, Marie Antoinette March) report, "His car tyres were slashed infamously suggested, "let them eat cake". five times, his brakes tanlpered with and his The attitude of the British government Newcastle flat broken into and research today is not so much "let them eat beef" papers messed up." but "let them eat offal"!

Capitalism, disease and class A mad system in a mad world privilege order The BSE scandal goes to the rapacious The politics of the "free market", now 00ut ofhistaical and CWTent British capital­ openly embraced by Labour, mean savage ism. The limited and uneven character of the cuts and the grinding down of social ser­ British bourgeois democratic revolution left vices, pensions, health care and education. intact the monarchy, House of Lords and BUt "laissez-faire" does not apply to wealthy established cI1urches. This flowed in large farmers, who will get to keep their Range part fron1 the close ties between the mer­ Rovers, while farnl labourers and meat chants and bankers of the City and the processing workers lose their jobs. OWen Humphries landed gentry who were integrated into tile As in other advanced capitalist countries, rising British bourgeoisie. Today more than agribusiness is coddled and protected, with BSE scandal: criminal government neglect of public health; blatant class 50 per cent of Britain's land is owned by the rich landowners valued as a conservative preJudice; racist protectionism and xenophobia. one per cent of the population. The top ten bulwark and electoral vote bank. Often individual landowners include the Prince of farmers are paid not to produce food, while While it is neces5al)' to isolate the BSE­ The ruling class which suppressed all Wales and seven hereditary members of the hundreds ofmillions go hungry and starve to infected meat, and understandable that evidence about BSE is interested in the House oflads. Six of these, each with over death in Africa, parts of Asia and Latin consumers-German, French and British discoveries of science only from the stand­ 100,000 acres, are Scottish aristocrats, the America. The government guarantees a alike-are not overly anxious to eat it, all point of capitalist profit. In the long-gone beneficiaries of the brutal HiglUand Clear­ minimum price for beef and the whole Euro­ capitalist governments operate in tile pursuit days ofcapita1ism's progressive era scientific ances in the early nineteenth century. pean Union is protected by tariffs and quotas ofprofit. Protectionist calls to "buy British" advancements were the crowning achieve­ The Corn Laws of 1815, which imposed to keep out cheaper agriculturaI goods like (or French or German) will be used in the ment of an Enlightenment fighting against high bread prices, were intended to protect New Zealand butter, Argentine beef and service of trade wars. Rather than getting religious superstition. It will take worldwide the landlord classes. They were only re­ Algerian wine. Inlperialist tea marketing caught up in interirnperialist rivalries planning based on scientific knowledge to pealed in 1846 when the industrialists' houses make super-profits while tea pluckers through supporting reactionary protectionist establish free. quality healthcare for all, in desire roc cheaper food and lower wages was in Sri Lanka, India and Kenya toil in horren­ demands, the working class must fight a society where the wealth of resources on supplemented by ruling class fear of the dous conditions on the plantations. against their own capitalist rulers as part of the planet are harnessed in the service of the revolutionary working class Chartist move­ The "New Wood Order" was proclaimed the struggle for a Socialist United States of people, qot profit. When workers rule the ment. The Irish potato fanline of the late by US imperialism as a direct result of the Europe. world, nobody will starve, the only limits on 1840s was not a "naturaI disaster" but the triumph of capitalist counterrevolution in The wreckage of the NHS is just one human health will be scientific, and these direct result of British rule, which ensured Eastern Europe and tile former USSR-a measure of the decrepit state of British capi­ will be constantly enlarged by tllOughtful, that profitable food exports (like grain) colossal defeat for the world proletariat. In taIism. Blair's Labour Party will do notlling energetic research. _

10 WORKERS HAMMER months earlier, also in opposition to For~a Brazil ... Sindical and a popular-front slate, and is (Continued from page 12) now an adviser to the SFPMVR. Geraldo is secretary of the regional CUT union FBO protest letter federation, and Cerezo is vice president of This attack comes at a time when the We reprint below a letter ofprotest Workers Union but also all workers the regional CUT; they were elected to federal government and Congress are from the Secretary of the Scottish and the public in general. these posts in November 1993. preparing a constitutional change to elimi­ Region ofthe Fire Brigades Union to The Fire Brigades Union calls on nate public employees' gains, rights and the Mayor ofVo/ta Redonda. your city council and the State of Rio civil service job protection, preparing the A pattern of provocation de Janeiro to cease this harassment of Dear Mayor Baltazar, way for massive layoffs. It is part of an In an orchestrated canlpaign involving organised labour and end these vicious effort to destroy the Municipal Workers physical provocations, secret meetings and On behalf of the Fire Brigades Un­ armed attacks by the Police and Army. Union, which has ceaselessly fought smear articles in the bosses' press, Arthur ion in Scotland I am writing to protest Civilised societies must learn that against firings by the Volta Redonda city Fernandes and his cantarilla have sought at the invasion by armed police of the working people are allowed to organise meeting of the SFPMVR in Volta Re­ administration. The SFPMVR has carried to usurp control of the union from presi­ and that attempts to deny them such donda. organisation can only result in internal out seven strikes in recent years, success­ dent Geraldo Ribeiro. An initial leaflet Such assaults are an affiont to turmoil. fully preventing 2800 threatened layoffs. demanding his removal was issued by the working people and pose a threat not The Fire Brigades Union supports Union president Geraldo played a leading plotters just two days before scheduled only to the members of the Municipal the Municipal Workers Union. role in those strikes. The timing of the wage negotiations with the mayor. The police assault is particularly ominous, result: the mayor postponed the negotiat­ given that in recent weeks Geraldo has ing session with the spurious arguntent been working to separate the municipal that there was an internal dispute in the police from the union, because the police union. Next came another leaflet from the provoke on 13 March. manding: stop the dangerous police are not part of the workers movement. The plotters accusing Geraldo of "treason" for Never before in the history of the provocations against union militants in job of the police is to break strikes and mobilising the workers and rejecting SFPMVR have union members brought Volta Redonda! Police hands off the carry out the racist attacks which are the secret meetings with the mayor. the Military Police to intervene in union unions! everyday reality of capitalist "law and The 13 March meeting was intended to • meetings. In Volta Redonda, workers are Thank you for your support. ,Workers order" in Brazil. be the crowning piece of the attempted tragically familiar with the murderous. greetings, coup to remove the union president. In a violence of the military. Under tIle military Luta MetalUrgica/Liga Geraldo was elected president of the dictatorship of 1964-1985, tIlis was a Quarta-internacionalista do Brasil SFPMVR on the MEL slate, with an over­ scandal-sheet leaflet, after reproducing the section of the programme of the MEL "national security zone", due to tIle impor­ 20 March 1996 whelming 62 per cent majority against the tance of the CSN steel plant, the largest in slate backed by the company union federa­ slate-which Arthur was part of! -ex­ plaining that all levels of the police and Latin Antcrica. During the 1988 steel tion F~ Sindieal, the Popular Front gov­ strike, three workers-William, Valmir ernment of the municipality of Volta armed forces, including municipal police, and Barroso-were killed by the army. We urge that protest messages be Redonda, and Lima Netto, a federal deputy are "the armed fist of the bourgeoisie", the The Military Police are notorious for sent to: Marcello Alenear, Governor of fir the PFL [a right-wing party], who earlier would-be usurpers then called provoca­ tively to come to the meeting to "defend the racist murders of hundreds of street the State of Rio de Janeiro, Palacio carried out 10,000 layoffs in the National children, most of them black, in the state Steel Company (CSN) plant, as well as the police". This was a clear attempt to Guanabara, Rua Pinheiro Machado provoke a physical confrontation with the of Rio de Janeiro, including the infamous sin, Laranjeiras, CEP 22238-900, Rio being the author of the parceria scheme massacres of Candelaria and Vigario r'partnership" -joint union-management police at the meeting. However, the work­ de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil. Fax no (55-21) ers at the meeting overwhelmingly sup­ Geral, as well as the murder of two leaders 553-6090. And to: Paulo Cesar canmittees] and is campaigning to eliminate of the black movement in November job security for government workers. The ported Geraldo and reaffirmed him as Baltazar, Mayor of the Cjty of Volta president. Seeing that their plans had 1994, the "disappearance" of black trade local bourgeois press, such as Diario do Redonda, Prefeitura Municipal, Pra~a backfired, the plotters resorted to physical unionist Rufino, and the murder of various Vale, was particularly dismayed by the ties Savio Garna 53, Aterrado, CEP provocation. otlter leftists. In the Volta Redonda area, of the MEL slate to Luta Metal6rgica, well the newspaper 0 Globo (13 September 27180-000, Volta Redonda, RJ, known in Brazil for its principled struggle Who called the Military Police? Arthur Brazil. Fax no (55-243) 46-4954. himself admitted the following morning, 1991) reported that from January to Au­ fir the class independence of the workers and Messages of solidarity can be mailed 14 March, on the "Diano de Paula" radio gust of 1991, at least 113 children were its political opposition to the class-collabora­ killed by military police, and the munici­ to: Geraldo Ribeiro, Rua Uniao no tionist Popular Front headed by the Partido prograntme on FM-88 that he had done so. He claimed that union president pal guardas as well are suspected of 147, Bairro Santo Agostinho, CEP dos Trabalhadores (PT-Workers Party) of involvement in these crimes. The Military 27290-000, Volta Redonda, RJ, Lula. Gemldo supposedly attacked Motorzinho, the exact opposite of the facts. In reality, Police together with the army are also Brazil. And to: Luta MetalurgicalLiga Behind Arthur Fernandes and his co­ after Motorzinho' s attacks, Arthur had responsible for the massacre of peasants Quarta-internacionalista do Brasil, Av. horts are powerful forces. Already during told him to apologise. This shows that in the state of Rondonia last August, in Lucas Evangelista, nl418 sala 306, the election campaign last year, the MEL Arthur is lying. Also on this radio which "officially" eleven people were Aterrado, CEP 27295-320, Volta was the object of government attacks. The programme, Arthur accused Luta murdered. Recently, they attacked a land Redonda, RJ, Brazil. occupation by more than 3000 peasant local bourgeois press virulently attacked Metalurgica of threatening him with Copies of solidarity messages can be Ribeiro, Alexandre Honorato "Cerezo" death, using this as his excuse for calling families in the state ofPara. sent to the Partisan Defence and Luta Metalurgica as "radicals". the Military Police and contracting munic­ We call on the workers movement and Committee, BCM Box 4986, London Cerezo, a sacked steel worker, had run for ipal police as "security". This is anotller, members of democratic rights organisa­ WCIN 3XX, fax no 0171-267 3867. president of the union of metal workers of deadly lie! In fact, it is Arthur who is tions around Brazil and internationally to Documentation is available at the the Sul Fluminense region (which includes setting up the leaders of the MEL and LM protest this outrageous attack on the mu­ Luta Metalurgica office. the now-privatised CSN plant) a few for violence from the state, as he tried to nicipal workers of Volta Redonda, de-

dozen Labour dissidents voted against.) It der. Sharply heightened inter-imperialist illusions in the possibility of "reforming" was a Labour government which enacted rivalries dictate intensified exploitation the capitalist state, whose very purpose is PTA .•. to uphold the racist status quo against the (Continued from page 1) the vicious anti-Irish PTA in the first and oppression, while the gates are place, five years after Labour sent the slammed shut on desperate refugees flee­ workers and oppressed. As for the new troops to Northern Ireland in 1969. Now ing death and destitution in imperialism's Socialist Labour Party, its initial state­ people in Britain, blacks and Asians were Blair and his gang vie with the Tories neo-colonies. To reinforce their repressive ment glaringly omits all mention of racist subjected to 60 per cent of all stop and over who can most capably administer grip, the capitalists seek to "divide and anti-immigrant hysteria and state terror. searches last year. capitalist "law and order". rule", setting English workers against Mobilising the integrated workers move­ If this was not enough, on 3 April the Shadow housing spokesman Nick Irish, white against black and Asian etc. ment to fight against ruling-class repression government issued a White Paper on Raynsford recently proposed a law where­ But the bosses' ever stronger apparatus of requires a struggle for revolutionary leader­ crinte which promises to nearly double the by accusations of being a "noisy neigh­ repression will necessarily be used against ship against the Labour and trade union prison population by the turn of the cen­ bour" could be passed on anonymously to the working class as a whole. Just recall misleaders--new and "old", right and "left". tury. Anyone with a previous conviction the police and lead to a seven year jail the thousands of miners arrested during Only the overthrow of brutal capitalist for "violent crime" (even during adoles­ sentence-with the accused even denied the heroic 1984-85 NUM strike. Mean­ rule and the establishment of working­ cence) will automatically get life impris­ the right to cross-examine the accuser in while, officially sanctioned state terror class state power can open the road to true onment on conviction for a single other court! In an article titled "Another step to also gives a green light to the racist terror justice and equality for all the peoples of offence deemed to be violent. The length the prison state", Nick Cohen of the Inde­ of the fascists. this world. In fighting to build a Leninist­ of many sente.. ces will be doubled or pendent on Sunday (31 March) com­ The present leaders of the labour Trotskyist vanguard party which takes up trebled, with parole simply abolished. mented, "It was not Labour's left wing movement-both the openly pro-capitalist the cause of the oppressed, the Spartacist At every step, the Tories have been who opposed the measure, but David Labourites and their allies in the trade League calls for full citizenship rights for aided and abetted by her majesty's loyal Curry, the Tory housing minister." Cohen union bureaucracy-serve to tie the work­ immigrants and refugees; the immediate opposition. Tony Blair assisted the pas­ noted that even basic tenets of bourgeois ing class to the capitalist system and keep release of all detained asylum-seekers; sage of the sweeping stop-and-search justice, like the presumption of innocence the (class) peace. The best the likes of the troops out of Northern Ireland now; and amendment (as well as the annual renewal until proven guilty, "hold no appeal for TUC can do is to raise a call-echoed by mass unionlminority mobilisations to stop of the PTA itself) by permitting fast-track­ new Labour". left groups like Militant Labour-for fuscist attacks. Down with the PTA, Crinri­ ing in parliament and getting Labour MPs Stepped-up state repression is a hall­ "democratic controls" to make the police nal Justice Act and the Intmigration and to abstain on the final vote. (A couple of mark of the post-Soviet New World Or- "accountable". This is to sow deadly Asylum Bill! Stop racist state repression! •

APRIUMAY 1996 11

'-.-"OL"'" ~s Military police invade municipal workers assembly Brazil: Police hands off Volta Redonda union!

Sindicato do! Funcionirio! Publicos do lIunicipio de Volt.! Redonda ~ dol Pod,I'8S 'XltCuttvo, legillatfvo, .dmlrllstra"o dire,.. lndlrtta, ~ oiutarqul.s, rundl~hs ••mprM' d, ,('onomla milia. IS.F.P.M. V.R.J CGC. 31 ..7.r:woocl1-U - T.I.IO:Z41,4l.,uSO _'ultClado Itm 21 d. d_,"," _ tiel

De0::1.r.<:.. 0· "~~~""'lo'._~ do .jioll 1) d .. n,,,,,;o de l~~? ___il"'iil=\iii\tai1ilfl~ ~ .Ar.",~ ?'!'>il .... OS Mll"U,.ip,J:" de 'U,lt .. lIecanoe IS'MP'/~) Appeals Issued by We print below an urgent appeal from union federation with which it is affiliated, combative workers In Luta Metalurgica (LM-Metal Workers and the entire workers movement. The Brazilian steel centre Struggle) in the Brazilian industrial centre Military Police are notorious for their of Volta Redonda of Volta Redonda, near Rio de Janeiro. massacres of street children, blacks, peas­ protesting Military Police Invasion of Alulo: Policia J..flli(ar in'\1a.d~ Q.uemh{~ia Jindical! On 13 March, a meeting of the Municipal ants and others the authorities consider Pollci3. fire I" mIos do Sindicllto dos Workers Union was invaded by the notori­ "suspect". We urgently appeal to unions MuniCipal Workers MUlIicip4irios de YOU2 Rdonda! union meeting. ously murderous Military Police. It is vital and organisations throughout Brazil and that the police and the state authorities internationally to denounce this outrage TIle Military Police invasion was orches­ months, seeking to stage a coup to oust who give them their orders are sent a and demand: police hands off Volta trated by one Arthur Bonizetti Fernandes, the union president Geraldo Ribeiro and his message that the labour movement and Redonda Municipal Workers Union! An secretary of the union, who has carried out a adviser Alexandre Honorato "Cerezo", defenders of democratic rights the world injury to one is an injury to all! campaign of provocations over the last two leader ofLuta Metalilrgica (LM). From the over stand in solidarity against this cop very beginning of the 13 March meeting, provocation against combative sectors of one of the members of the Arthur faction, the Brazilian workers movement. Police death squads murder street children Sebastilio de Fatima Batista Passos, known Luta MetalUrgica, which recentIy adopted as "Motorl.inho", began provoking Geraldo, the name ofLiga Quarta-internacionalista do attempting to prevent the president of the Brasil (LQI-Fourth Internationalist League SFPMVR from presiding over the union of Brazil), is fraternally linked with the meeting, which was attended by some 50 International Communist League, of which people. As the workers present chanted, the Spartacist League is the British section. "Geraldo presidente", Motorzinho kept Last August, LM organised trade union! pushing and finally grabbed Ribeiro's arm, black rallies in Brazil against tile threatened ripping tile buttons offhis shirt. Geraldo was execution of black American journalist unharmed only because union members Mtnnia Abu-Jamal on deatIl row in Pennsyl­ intervened energetically to defend him, while vania. A 10 August protest in Volta Motorzinho kept hurling foul-mouthed Redonda was co-sponsored by tile sanle curses against him. Municipal Workers Union which is today Barely five minutes after tllis alterca­ under attack. tion, the four Military Police arrived. TIle Partisan Defence Committee urges There were two sergeants and two pri­ readers of WH to take up tile defence of vates, tile latter armed with shotguns and these unionists. TIle following appeal is pistols. Shotguns are generally not used in being circulated with accompanying sup­ Brazil in strike situations. Rather, tlleyare porting docwnentation available on re­ used in extremely violent confrontations. quest from the PDC. These are tile preferred weapons of tile ROTA, tile Military Police of tile state of Sao Paulo, internationally known as one of the most violent police forces in tile In the, city of Volta Redonda, Brazil, world. tIlere has been a series of escalating prov­ TIle Military Police said they came ocations against the leadership of the because they were called, and asked if combative Municipal Workers Union of there was a disturbance. Union president Volta Redonda (SFPMVR), climaxing in Gcraldo replied tllat everytlling was under a sinister invasion of a union assembly by control. At tllis moment, Arthur and the Military Police. On tile afternoon of 13 Motorzinllo rabidly pointed at Cerezo, March, while an SFPMVR membership pointing him out to the Military Police, meeting was underway outside the city saying that Cerezo threatened to kill them. council building, a physical attack, appar­ Cerezo demonstrated to the police that he ently premeditated, was staged against was not armed. The Military Police put union president Geraldo Ribeiro, who had back tlleir shotguns but came back with been elected on tile slate of"Municiparios riot clubs and positioned themselves stra­ em Luta" (MEL-Municipal Workers in tegically around the meeting, placing the Struggle) last November. A bare five assembly under police occupation. minutes after tllis attack, a squad of four Brazilian police are notorious for the provincial capital of Belo Horizonte. Later, t1rree municipal policemen (guar­ Military Police entered the meeting armed murdering black street children in the Calling themselves the "Reaction Group", das) anived, and several plainclothes police­ with pistols and shotguns. Onlinously, the huge faveIJJS (slum areas) around the the cold-blooded murderers left a letter men were also present in the meeting. One assistant coroner, known as "Pereira" and major cities. Above (top): Military Police complaining of low wages for civilian of them was overlleard saying that they had currently a candidate for city councilman, patrolling the Rio de Janeiro district of cops and threatening that "the blood been oontracted by Arthur for 10 Reais (£7) showed up as well. Rocinha. Bottom: six street children ritual will not stop". apiece, but expressed concern that because Although union president Geraldo massacred in the shanty town of Duque This is the killer cops' grotesque they arrived late according to Arthur, they managed to calm the police and no one de Caixas in November 1991. idea of a "job. action". We say: police might not be paid. was injured, this was a potentially deadly Re£endy, on 15 March, a police death­ are the armed fist of the bourgeoisie! attack on the SFPMVR, the CUT trade squad killed three street children outside Cops out ofthe unions!. continued on page 11

12 APRIL/MAY 1996