__ Australasian ______...... _____

11 v ~DARTAClST1FAGUE ...... _... ~-. P.O. BOX 3381 50 Number 160 Summer 1996/97 CHURCH ST. STATtON cents ------NEW YUM", .... T IUUUO ,.. 212 - 267-1025 For Workers Revolution to Sweep Away Dictatorship!

Massive protests against Suharto dictatorship during July were met with brutal crackdown, Including arrests of trade unionists and leftists. Indonesia Powder Keg

The military regime of Indonesian diC­ the group. All are in isolatiOn, and there of aU those ·impristmed [stepage 2ff designation "BT" (ex-Tahanan Politik­ tator Suharto is facing the most convul­ have been reports of electric shock and "The regime's tirades against a supposed former political prisoner) from the ident­ sive political and social upheaval in other torture being used to force con­ 'Communist threat' evoked-as was in­ ity papers of some 1.4 million people. decades. fessions. Leaders of the PRO-afftliated tended-the spectre of the horrendous One of these, writer Pramoedya Ananta On July 8, army troops, marines anti-Communist bloodbath of workers and police brutally attacked a strike and trade union, peasants union a~d student and peasants carried out by the military Toor, has been accused of being a leader rally of 20,000 workers in the east Java group were also arrested PRO offices in and by anti-Communist mobs in 1965. of "formless organizations" -a reference city of Surabaya. Later that month, and Surabaya have been seized The message wall as clear as it was to Communist front groups-and his police, troops and rightist vigilantes in arid ransacked·1be military has ordered brutal: All who oppose Suharto's 'New writings are banned. His novels, like Order' government will be slaughtered in the capital city of Jakarta stormed the the arrest of all PRO supporters and the same manner as were the more than Child of All Nations and This Earth of headquarters of the Indonesian Demo­ announced that they will likely be tried one million supporters of the Indonesian Man/drld, are powerful indictments of cratic Party (pOI), one of two tame oppo­ under the 1962 anti-subversion law, Communist Party (PKI) and other militants 'brutal exploitation by the former Outch sition parties permitted by the military which carries a maximum penalty of in 1965 and the workers and peasants of colonial rulers. Today they are banned dictatorship. Supporters of opposition death. . East Timor who have been fighting for by an authoritarian regime which fears their independence for over 20 years." leader Megawati ·Sukarnoputri, daughter Determined to crush the PRO, the that readers might see too many parallels o( former Indonesian ruler , had government has denounced it as "analo­ Suharto's blood-soaked regime was between the situation then and now. occupied the building to protest her gous" to the earlier Communist Party. As born out of the 1965 massacre. Old and U.S. imperialism has played a key role. ouster from the POI leadership in a we noted in a recent protest statement sick men condemned as Communist ac­ in propping up the bloody Suharto dic- . government-orchestrated maneuver in sent by the Partisan Defense Committee tivists following the 1965 bloodbath are tatorship from the time of the 1965 anti­ June. in Japan to the Indonesian ambassador still sitting on death row. Only last year Communist massacre. The recent flap More than 10,000 people took to the there demanding the inlmediate release did the regime say it would remove the continued on page 4 streets in outrage over the government's raid on the POI building, and banks and government buildings were torched. The military ordered demonstrators shot on sight; at least five protesters were of­ ficially reported dead and 74 "disap­ peared." The regime then launched a countrywide manhunt against a wide range of dissidents. At least nine are charged with "subversion," punishable by . death. While Megawati was pulled in several times for lengthy police interrog­ ation, the main targets were not POI supporters but trade-union. organizers and supporters of the leftist People's Oemocratic Party (PRO). Among those arrested was Muchtar Pakpahan, chairman of the banned Indo­ nesian Workers for Prosperity Union (SBSI), the largest of the independent unions. Arrested for playing a leading role in strike struggles in in April 1994, Pakpahan's conviction was over­ turned last October. Now he faces the death penalty on charges of subversion stemming from the July 27 protest. Budi­ man Sudjatmiko, 27-year-old leader of the PRO, was also hunted down and faces the firing squad for treason. At Der Spiegel Russell least 25 PRO leaders are being held, PKI support to bourgeois-nationalist Sukarno regime prepared the way for 1965 massacre of leftists, workers according to an overseas spokesman for and peasants by CIA-backed military and Islamic anti-Communist mobs. The regime's tirades against a sup­ posed "Communist threat" evoked-as Charges Against Pa.·~isa ..·Defe .. ce was intended-the spectre of the hor­ rendous anti~Communist bloodbath of Jane Kemelfield

Australasian Spartaclst SPASiTACIST~~ Marxist Journal of the Spartacist League (includes English-language Spartacist and Women and Revolution) For a workers republic of Australia, part of a socialist Aslal 0$5/4 issues (1 year) Overseas rates: 0 $7 airmail 0 $5 surface Published by the Resident Editorial Board of the Spartacist League of Australia, Workers Vanguard/Australasian Spartaclst section of the International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist). Marxist Working-Class Biweekly of the Spartacist League/U.S. and Australasian EDITOR: Peter McLeod Spartacist, (includes English-language Spartacist, Women and Revolution and Black History and the Class Struggle). CIRCULATION: Mike Wallace o $20/22 issues WV and 4 issues ASp Outside Australia: 0 $27 airmail 0 $20 surface PRODUCTION: Margaret Rodda Printed by trade union labour. Name ______------~------~

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-----~-. 2 AUSTRALASIAN SPARTACIST Down with Howard/Kernot's Workplace Relations ·~ill!

. On 19 November, after weeks of responded to the passing of Howard's bill when the bill was pushed through they haggling between the Howard govern-' with national snap strikes. A central aim lost no time in accomodating themselves ment and Kernot's Australian Demo­ of the ban on secondary boycotts is to to the new anti-union law. Acru presi­ crats, the federal parliament passed the keep the rest of the unionists at work dent Jennie George commended and Workplace RelatioIl& Bill. Amongst its while the bosses go about smashing this claimed credit for Howard's agreement many savage union-busting measures, centre of working-class union power. with the Democrats, arguing: "The this legislation enshrines individual and The Labor government oversaw the amendments ... represent a significant set­ non-union "wOrkplace agreements," and destruction of the closed shop in the back for the industrial agenda of the provides for unlimited financial penalties mines, and the results can be seen in Howard Government." Meanwhile the against unions who carry out "secondary gruesome statistics: 67 miners killed in Business Council, the National Farmers boycotts," that is, acts of union SOlidarity. mining "accidents" between 1983 and Federation and the Australian Chamber The Australian (28 November) drewat­ 1996 in New South Wales alone. But of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) all Spartacus Youth Clubs mobilise. tention to the core of this legislation: when the mining giant CRA moved to backed the fmal legislation, with the youth In defence of unions and all "All industrial action, except that allowed . finish off the miners' union at Weipa last ACC!'s spokesman praising the amend­ oppressed: Sydney "Unity Against during the negotiation of a new enter­ year, the maritime and mining unions ments as improving the paCkage. In fact, Racism" rally, 23 November. prise agreement will be illegal .... " launched a joint strike which fought back the Democrats' amendments strengthen This legislation is the product of a the employers' attack. Within 24 hours the role of the Arbitration court and its counterrevolutionary destruction of the drive by the capitalist class since the early the bosses were screaming. This powerful state policing. of workers unions. former Soviet Union. Driven by growing 1980s to decisively weaken union power display of social power was called off by interimperialist rivalries to massively and to strangle the traditional economic shunting the dispute into the Industrial The chronic· high levels of long-term jack up the rate of exploitation, they are militancy of «te Australian workiDg class. Relations Court, the graveyard of strikes. unemployment in Australia provide the unable to offer the crumbs they formerly basis for the bosses to undermine union In this the bosses were well ~rved by the They even had to dig up ex-prime min- used to piece off traditionally powerful power and to pit native-born against sections of the workforce. The Russian immigrants, the employed against the revolutionary Leoti Trotsky wrote that unemployed. The labour movement must monopoly capitalism is less and less take up the fight against unemployment willing to reconcile itself to the inde­ through fighting for a sliding scale of pendence of the trade unions: wages and hours: jobs for all through a shorter workweek with no loss in pay! "The trade unions of our time can either This requires a struggle against the capi­ serve as secondary instruments of imperi­ alist capitalism {or the subordination and talist system, where the maintenance of disciplining of workers and for obstructing . a "reserve army" of unemployed is an the revolution, or, on the contrary, the. integral part of wage slavery. The bill's trade unions can become the instruments provisions for individual contracts will of the revolutionary movement of the inevitably hit hardest at the most vul­ proletariat. " -Trade Onions in the Epoch of nerable sections of the workforce, those Imperialist Decay, 1940 in small shops and the unorganised, especially immigrant workers. To defeat Today the bosses are set to precipitate the bosses' divide and rule tactics some hard class battles, for which the workers organisations must wage mili­ working class will need a leadership will­ tant class struggle in defence of all the ing and prepared to mobilise their own oppressed. For full citizenship rights immense potential power in a struggle for all immigrants! Organise the against the whole capitalist system. In unorganised! the sharp class battles to come workers need a revolutionary leadership, buUt in As the rulers shape up for a decisiv(! political struggle ,against the class­ attack on the MUA, threatening to put Mounted police baton charge· pickets ··at BTR-Nylex's ACI plant at troops on the wharves, maritime union­ collaborationism and national chauvin­ SpotSWOOd, Melbourne In August. Howard/Kernot's anti-union bill will ists will need to forge an alliance with ism pushed by the current Laborite escalate unlon .. bustlng assaults. fellow unionists in the mines, in the rail­ leaders. The Spartacist League, and Spar­ ways, warehouse storemen, truck drivers. tacus Youth Clubs, fight to win class": 13' years of Labor Party government. ister, ex-ACTU preSident, "Mr FiX-it" They will also need to appeal for inter­ conscious workers, immigrant workers . Under the class-collaborationist Accord Hawke from the grave to put on a nationalist solidarity from Japanese and radical youth to the task of building workers were hogtied by their ALP charade in front of the supposed "neutral waterside workers, and Japanese workers an. authentic Leninist vanguard party union "leaders" to the "national interest" umpires" of the Arbitration "COurt judges. in the steel mills and car plants where through political struggle against the -the interests of their capItalist ex­ Such subordination to the bosses' Australian coal and iron or~ end up. This pro-capitalist leadership of the ALP. ploiters-while jobs and conditions were Courts means playing by the bosses' strategy is undermined by the MUA tops Such a revolutionary workers party will shredded. They were herded into rules. S.trikes backed by solid mass picket who push national chauvinist job trusting be dedicated to the struggle for workers "superunions" to make their trade-union lines and occupations that close whole in their campaign for" Australian crews state power to expropriate the capitalist . organisations more wieldy for the bosses' struck sites, together with solidarity on Australian ships." bloodsuckers, and institute a planned Arbitration court. Enterprise Bargaining strikes, wUl be needed to' make the The bosses have been emboldened economy in the interests of all the agreements undermined un.ion power in Workplace Relations Bill a dead letter. in their union-busting moves by the . toilers .• the interests of the employers. Unions The only illegal strike is one that loses! such as the Builders Labourers Feder­ While Howard's legislation must be tlti~l1 and the airline pilots' union which smashed, the existing framework of state­ bucked the Accord were smashed by the mandated arbitration of any and all :':'"\":::::':.::':'., capitalist sta.te. Union-busting privatis­ industrial disputes is not in the interests ...... ations which swelled the coffers of big Hate Trotsk",IJt, . of the working class. The arbitration The Intematlonal Communist League business were pushed through. The cur­ Hate tile Spartacist ...... courts have been used for over a century makes available the polemics of Ita l.e~9ue rent part-privatisation of Telstra, which opponents on the left. -...... , to subordinate workers' union organis­ will mean a job massacre shedding -·--.... If ...... ~If .•.•• ·· ations to the capitalist state, to the class Number 9 thousands of jobs, ~ prefigured by the enemy. Arbitration is a "safety net" for IU•• flt former Labor Keating government. The Norden -Group·: the capitalist bosses, and their Labor­ "Waterfront reform," aiming to de­ Polymorphous Opportunism ite servants, to derail successful class stroy the union closed shop (full union­ $6.25 (9& pages) struggle. Down with Arbitration! isation) on the wharves, was always seen as a key test of Labor's reforms by their The existing pro-capitalist union lead­ ::lii!!li::i_::iij_:::t.',I::Ii~I:: International ,-.­ capitalist masters. Yet despite the de­ ership is an obstacle to this perspective. Bulletin inre;n.tdonal"","" struction of conditions and thousands of Fearing the prospect of such militant Includes: ·Pabloism of the Second ~('t:!'t4ria( jobs, all with the willing compliance of integrated working-class struggle, the Mobillzatlon- A Shamefaced the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) Acru leadership has sought· to channel Defection from Trotskyism,· Workers Vanguard No. 648, 5 July 1996 The Postw8Q~iet Period ana Oiuin1egrative Pressures bureaucrats, the Labor government was working-class opposition to Howard's 00 I~ ReV<:>i~tiooary V""9uard unable to deliver on tbis or on the pri­ $7.50 (149 pages) legislation into a losing strategy of Norden's "Group": vatisation of the Australian National appealing to the bosses' parliament, Order from/make cheque. payable to: Line. The Howard government was Shamefaced Defectors especially the Democrats in the Senate, Spartacist ANZ Publishing CO, From brought to power on a promise to bust to water down the legislation. Their utter GPO Box 3473, Sydney NSW 2001 the MUA, and maritime unionists bankruptcy was shown by the fact that SUMMER 1996/97 3 ,g~ Indonesia ... a. a. (continued from page 1) ~ Spartaclsts over Indonesian funding for Clinton's protest against election campaign underlines not only repression In Washington's continuing close ties with Indonesia. Right: the butchers in Jakarta but the rampant At Melbourne nepotism and corruption of the Indo­ rally, October, nesian ruling t8mily. Now the imperial­ against military crackdown In ist bloodsuckers who for years lauded wake of July Suharto for ushering in "political stabil­ upheaval . . ity" are worried about the aging dictator's Far right: health and the absence of a credible . Spartaclst alternative to his regime. An editorial in picket In Sydney,· the London Economist (3 August) titled 1986, protests "If Indonesia Erupts" warns that as "a threatened vital part of Asia's fragile security execution of balance, turmoil there would produce Indonesian tremors from China to Australia" and· communists. "shake boardrooms." In an accompanying article, this mouthpiece for the imperi­ alist bankers wants Suharto to allow a little "space" lest he contribute to "a capitalist class, which acts at the_ behest the land in favor of mining, manufac­ alist powers to seek the destruction of . future explosion of potentially devas­ of the imperialist overlords. A new gen­ turing and other corporations. the remaining deformed workers states, tating consequences"-devastating, that eration of working-class militants must Indonesia presents a classic case of which (with the exception of Cuba) are is, to the maintenance of neocolonial come to grips with the burning question: "combined and uneven development" in all located in East Asia-China, Viet­ enslavement, where stifling repression, Will they be led once more down the the epoch of imperialism, where pre­ nam, North Korea. In a desperate and starvation wages and draconian union­ suicidal path of class collaboration which capitalist forms of explOitation and . futile balancing act, the Stalinist regimes busting assure a huge flow of profits led to the 1965 bloodbath or undertake oppression exist side by side with mod­ in these countries have opened the door the struggle to unite the dispossessed ern industry, communications and trans­ to imperialist investment and capitalist from the sweat of mill~ons. peasants, hbrn'bly oppressed women and portation. In such countries of belated exploitation, strengthening outright The imperialists have reason to be ethnic and national minorities in a revol­ capitalist development, no wing of the capitalist-restorationist forces (including ~orried. Even official figures point to a utionary struggle to end the brutal rule bourgeoisie is capable of lifting society within the bureaucracy). huge growth in strikes and other of capitalism? up from neocolonial subjugation and The defense of the remaining gains of workers' struggles. There have also been oppressiOn. The· dynamic growth of these anti-capitalist revolutions can be outbursts of student unrest. In April, Indonesia and the Indonesian proletariat and its re­ ensured only by proletarian political rev- . three students were killed during two Permanent Revolution emergenCe into the arena of class olution against the bureaucratic Stalinist weeks of protests against public trans­ struggle points to the one social force regimes as part of a perspective of inter­ port fare increases in south Sulawesi. The world's fourth most populous that can successfully lead the struggles national socialist revolution, centrally Student activists frustrated at the tight Country, Indonesia is avast archipelago of the oppressed-from land-hungry aimed at the advanced industrial powers, military control of campuses and the lack of more than 13,000 islan~ spa!1ning rural toilers to women, youth and re- whose vast economic wealth and pro­ of job prospects have turned to labor 3,000 ~iles and en~mpa~smg a dIVerse ligious and ethnic minorities-agai!1't ductive resources must be liberated in ~!lectlon o~ ethmc, na!lo~l and ~e- the entire capitalist-landlord rulIng the interests of all humanity. The central ligious groupmgs. SeparatISt ~urgenCles class and its imperialist patrons. lesson of the October Revolution retains have taken~lace from the tIp of ~he As Leon Trotsky, co-leader with V.I. its full force today for the exploited and westernmost ~land of Sumatra to Irt~n . Lenin of the 1917 Russian Revolution, oppressed around the world: Bolshevik Jaya (on the ISland of N~ Gu~ea) m explained in "What Is the Permanent parties must be forged in the struggle for the far east. The deepgomg ~IOns Revolution?" (1930), in colonial and a new October Revolution, froin the among these peoples are the hert'!lg~ of semicolonial countries, "the complete islands of Indonesia to the imperialist . the. brutal rule. of Dutch colomalism, and genuine solution of their tasks of centers in Australia, Japan, the U.S. and whi~h ~nded ~th the Japanese o~u- achieving democracy and national eman- West Europe. panon m World War II and, .foUo\lrrins, ,.~ is oonceiVableonlY throUgh the Japan's mil~tary d~feat: tbe 1949 victory dictatorship of the proletariat as the Lessons of 1965 of Sukarno s natl,?nalists in the war of leader of the subjugated nation, above independence agalOSt the Dutch. . all of its peasant masses." The validity of In 1965, the PKI was the mass party The struggles of oppressed ethnic and this perspective was confirmed by the of the Indonesian proletariat and the national minorities in Indonesia were workers revolution in backward Russia largest Communist party in the capitalist recently highlighted by the awarding of itself. Under the leadership of Lenin and world. But basing itself on the Stalinist the Nobel Peace Prize to two of the more Trotsky's Bolshevik Party, the numeric- schema of revolution in "stages"-fIrst moderate figures in the struggle of the aUy small Russian proletariat was able a revolution limited to (bourgeois) dem0c­ East Timorese people, who have been to mobiiize behind it the mass of the racy, to be followed only later by a fight subjected to a genocidal military occu- peasantry and oppressed national min- for socialism:-the PKI counterposed to . pation since 1975. In November 1991, orities in a proletarian revolution which the program of workers revolution the Indonesian troops carried out a slaugh- broke. the power of the capitalists and caD for unity with Indonesia's bourgeois­ ter of 200 demonstrators in the Timorese landlords and opened a period of revol- nationalist rulers. In 1952, PKI chairman capital of Dill. As our Australian com- utionary struggle internationally. D.N. Aidit raised the slogan "Long Live rades wrote recently (Australasian Spar- The Bolsheviks' revolutionary program Sukarno! Long Live the PKI!" and called tacist No. 159, Spring 1996): was trampled on by the Stalinist bureauc- on Sukarno's Nationalist Party to form "For 350 years, the people of East Timor racy which usurped power in the Soviet a "united national front, including the suffered the brutal rule of Portuguese Union in 1923-24, following the failure national bourgeoisie" which would carry no imperialism: As the Portuguese em~ire of the revolution to spread to advanced out "not socialist but democratic SBSI union leader Muchtar Pak· col1.ap~ed I~. 1974nS~ the. IndoneSIan capitalist countries like Germany. Stalin- reforms" (see "How Maoist Strategy Sab­ pahan, now faCing death penalty capltahst mlht~ry regIme IDvaded a~d . t bet yal finally culminated in the capi- annexed .East TImor. 1\venty years of blt- IS. ra . , . . otaged Indonesian Revolution," Young on charges of "subversion." ter resistance has ensu~d, with over talis.! counterrevolutIon which destroyed Spartacus Nos. 36 and 37, October and 200,000 East Timorese killed by gun- the bureaucratically degenerated and de- November 1975). . organizing. Protests by workers, students fire, disease or stalVation. As Marxists formed workers states in the Soviet In the 1950s, when nationalist dema­ and the unemployed in urban centers and Lenini~ts ~ho recognise the right .of Union and East Europe in 1989-92. gogues had some room to maneuver have intersected peasant struggles for self-detenDlnatto~, we of t~e Spa~taclst This in turn has-emboldened the imperi- between U.S. imperialism and the Soviet land and grievances against ethnic and . League of Austraha (Austrahan sectIOn of ' , the International Communist League) national oppression. Incapable of de­ demand: Independence for East Timor! veloping a unified Indonesian nation, Indonesian troops out of East Timor! the Java-centered bourgeoisie presides Australia hands off!" over a prison house .of peoples. Until the Dili massacre; many Indo­ Indonesia is a powder keg waiting to nesians knew little about what was hap­ explode. Yet despite the evident courage pening in East Timor. Intended by the and dedication of its supporters, the· military as a Signal not only to the East PRD offers a strategy of class collabor­ Timorese but also anyone who might ation like that which paved the way for oppose the regime, the killings were a the 1965 slaughter. The PRD actively catalyst in galvanizing ~ew opposition to organizes support for the tame bour­ the regime. ., ' geois opposition led by Megawati-who Ethnic and religious tensions have denies any intention of threatening the also been stoked by government pol­ power of Suharto and the generals~nd icies encouraging settlement of outlying itself calls for nothing more than a areas like Irian Jaya by people from Java "multiparty democracy." SBSI leader and other densely populated areas of the Pakpahan, meanwhile, says that he is not country. Closely intertwined with the a communist but a "nationalist" and struggles of minorities is the fight for avows his support for the 1945 bour­ land. The Dutch left in their wake mass­ geois constitution (Far Eastern Economic ive plantations, which are now worked Review, 2 November 1995). But in this by millions of landless laborers and backward country tied by a million small tenant farmers. And with the accel­ .~_~<~Ji<., .. strings to international finance. capital, erated flow of imperialist investment Jeff Widener there can be no thoroughgoing democ­ over recent years, countless tribal and November 1994: Indonesian riot cops charge pro-Independence protest racy without sweeping away the entire peasant families have been thrown off In East Timor marking the anniversary of 1991 0111 massacre. 4 AUSTRALASIAN SPARTACIST ---~rn-In-ternationar-W-orke~rs Sol-idarity ..-1---­ Maritime Union Protests Iqdonesia Repression

In late September. the Maritime Union national waterfront strike demanding decades in the Dutch imperialists' jungle ately declared their support for the Indo­ of Australia (MUA) launched' rOlling the release of the Indonesian brothers death camp of Tanah Merah in Nether­ nesian seamen, placing a "black ban"- . bans on Indonesian shipping in protest and sisters. This would also lay the basis lands New Guinea. While being moved boycott-on Dutch ships. the "Black against the Suharto regime's arrests of for future reciprocal class-struggle soli­ to prison camps in Australia, including Armada." Muchtar Pakpahan. leader of the Indo­ darity from workers in the region in the infamo,¥ camp. at Cowra. New That tinion-enforced ban tied up most nesian Workers for Prosperity union, and defence of the MUA against the Aus­ South Wales-which was later the scene Dutch shipping in every major Australian , union activist Dita Sari. Pakpahan was tralian bosses. of racist maSs slaughter. of Japanese port over the next four years. Over 30 arrested following demonstrations in During the dirty, losing U.S. war POWs-the imprisoned militants ap­ unions, including those of Asian seamen late July against the government's at­ against the workers and peasants of Viet­ pealed for help by throwing notes from organised in Australia" participated in tacks on the supporters of opposition nam, in which Australian imperialism convict ships and railroad cars. Austra- , the boycott of Dutch transport, paralys­ leader Megawati Sukarnoputri, who was served as loyal lackeys of Washington. lian trade unionists and civil libertarians ing the colonial fleet and buying precious ousted by the state from the leadership waterfront workers took concrete action responded with a successful campaign time for the Indonesian nationalist forces of the Indonesian Democratic Party. Dita on behalf of the heroic struggle of the to free the leftist political prisoners. to organise resistance. At great sacrifice, Sari was arrested earlier the same month Vietnamese people. The recent labour , Once freed. some former prisoners Indian seamen refused to fulfill the in Surabaya after a workers' protest. The bans protesting the repression in Indo­ were employed by the Dutch in sensitive strikebreaking role for which they had MUNs action. directed at all Indo­ nesia recall in particular the 1945-49 positions where they had access to infor­ been recruited. The Chinese Seamen's nesian shipping and cargo, was backed boycott of Dutch shipping carried out in mation on Dutch military stores and Union in Australia was critical in organ­ by the International Transport Workers' support of the Indonesian independence shipments, classified radio' reports and ising material aid for Indonesians and Federation. struggle by Australian. Indian. Chinese Allied intelligence. 'With the defeat of Indians facing desperate fmancial hard­ The MUA's rOlling bans are exemp­ and other workers. . Japan and the proclamation of the Re- ship because of their refusal to work lary acts of solidarity with the struggles The history of that boycott can be , . public of Indonesia in August 1945 by Dutch ships. of the workers and oppressed of Indo­ found in the book Black Armada (1975) nationalist forces led by Sukarno, the Undercutting the internationalist im­ nesia. The MUA is in the cross hairs of by Australian journalist Rupert Lock­ Dutch and Allied powers sought to rush puIge and implication of these actions. the right-wing government of Prime Min­ wood, a longtime supporter of the now­ military forces and supplies to Indonesia however. was the social-patriotic policy ister John Howard-which has launched defunct Communist Party (CPA). During to shore up colonial controL Members of the CPA From the time of the arrival an all-sided attack on labour. immigrants World War II, as the Japanese imperial­ of the Indonesian Seamen's Vnion. of the newly released PKI members, the and other minqrities-not only because ists invaded Indonesia. the retreating founded in Australia during the war. Australian CP "instructed" these mili­ of its strategic economic position in Dutch transported their colonial func- declared they would not man Dutch Ships tants-who had been in complete iso­ the country. but also because of the . tioriaries to Australia. along with hun­ steaming to crush the Republic and lation since 1926--on the necessity of history of militant struggle by water­ dreds of members of the Indonesian began deserting the ships in late Septem­ subordinating the struggle for indepen~ front workers. including on behalf of Communist Party (PKI) and other politi­ ber 1945. Australian waterfront workers dence to the Allies' war effort against the -the working masses of Asia. cal prisoners. Many of these had spent and seamen, led by the CPA, immedi- Axis powers in the imp~rialist conflict. As the Indonesian leftists go to trial. As Lockwood wrote: facing possible death sentences. inter­ "Thougb advised by tbe CPA, tbe PKI nationalist working-class solidarity is retained its independence, and at first made warn sectarian errors tbat made CPA ~irs stand crucial. However we that in the cli­ on end .... mate of intensifying Australian national "The Australian advice was delivered in chauvinism (and anti-Asian hysteria) sus­ firm terms, tbat support of tbe war against tained bans on Indonesian shipping could tbe Axis powers ~as essential ... easily be coopted into a broader anti­ The labour boycott was called in re­ Indonesia campaign by the White Aus­ £POnse to the fact that the imperialist tralia ruling class (assisted by their , "democracies" were attempting to prop labour lieutenants) to shore up Austra­ up colonial rule in Indonesia. The Stalin- lian nationalism in the working class. Ii 'ist leadership of the waterfront and sea­ is the habit of Australian imperialism to men's unions argued that in fact the claim "democratic" superiority to des­ boycott was in the best interests of potic neocolonial regimes who brutalise Australia. Lockwood quotes the appeal their populations on behalf of imperialist carried in the CPA's newspaper. the exploiters like those in Australia. To' Tribune: serve its ambitions to increase its own " Aus~ralia ,must raise tbe strongest voice to exploitation of the region the Australian see tbat ber 70 million Indonesian neigb. bours win tbeir freedom. A fettered Indo­ rulillg class needs to nurture a patriotic nesia in tbe Near Nortb carries a constant working class to exploit at home and to tbreat of political and economic instability send to war. A revolutionary leadership Calling to Australian trade and foreign policy." in the MUA would seek to hit the main Australian and Indonesian protesters march In Sydney In 1945 to demand This posture in fact coincided with that enemy at "ho'me" and defend the " end to Dutch colonial rule In Indonesia. Waterside workers boycotted of the governing Labor Party (ALP), Indonesian leftists by holding a one-day Dutch shipping In solidarity with Independence struggle. continued on page 10

Union, Sukarno's "non-aligned" postur­ the PKI served to strengthen the very the PKI, politically disarmed and mili­ hunted down and murdered in 1965-66. ing was a constant irritant to Washing­ repressive apparatus which was later to tarily unprepared, was paralyzed. Even The mobilization of reactionary Islamic ton. With the full backing of their come down on it. as the remnants of the PKI in exile fundamentalists against the PKI was also Stalinist mentors in Moscow and es­ The immediate precursor to the 1965 issued a "self-criticism" of its failure to promoted by Washington. In 1950, John pecially in Beijing, the PKI implemented military coup was a botched attack on adopt "an independent attitude toward Foster Dulles, later to be Eisenhower's the policy of gotong royong-"national top army officers in late SeptembC?r. Sukarno," they refused to break from secretary of state, explained how the unity"-with the "progressive" bour­ Sukarno inay in fact have encouraged the disastrous stagist politiCS that paved "spiritual beliefs" of "the religiOns of the geoisie and its military. The PKI gained the move against the officers. in which the way for the massacre: "By correcting East ... cannot be reconciled with Com­ a number of cabinet posts in Sukarno's six were killed. although he quickly dis­ the mistakes made by the Party in the munist atheism and materialism. That government, embracing his strategy-of owned it. leaving the PKI to bear the united front with the national bour­ creates a common bond between us and "Nasakom"-an alliance of bourgeois brunt of the subsequent repression. Fol­ geoiSie it does not mean that now the our task is to find and develop it." That nationalists, Islamic groups and "Com­ lowing the attack. Sukarno appointed Party need not unite with this class'... our "bond" was cemented in the blood of the munists." This regime was an example of General Suharto "responsible for restor­ Party must work to win the national Indonesian workers and peasants, and a popular front. a class-collaborationist ing security and 'Order." As hundreds of bourgeOisie over to the side of the later in Afghanistan. coalition in which the proletariat and thousands of PKI supporters were mass­ revolution." With the "Communist menace" elim­ oppressed are chained to the class acred by Suharto's troops and Muslim In an article headlined "Indonesia: inated in this strategic Pacific Rim enemy, in this case through the instru- . rightists. Sukarno caned for extermi­ - ment of the PKI. nating tlie Communist "rats." But even Lesson in Betrayal" (Spartacist No.5, country, Washington felt emboldened to November-December 1965), we wrote massively escalate its ground invasion of Groveling before' Sukamo and the reac­ as they sat in prison cells awaiting ex­ , South Vietnam. At the same time, the ecution. PKI leaders continued to pledge that "the working people of Indonesia tionary Muslim clerics, the PKI organized consolidation of Indonesia as a bastion their loyalty to the "democratic" military are now paying with their blood" for the work brigades to build mosques. Again of "free world" anti-Communism created and again, the PKI banned strikes, sup­ and the "progressive" Sukarnol PKI's betrayal in "helping administer Indonesian capitalism while suppressing the conditions for the later development . pressed militant peasant movements and On the eve of Suharto's counterrevol­ the struggles of the Indonesian workers of a defeatist wing of the American rul­ courted imperialist investment, preaching utionary October 1965 coup, the PKI was and keeping them wedded to Sukarno's ing class, who felt that the U.S. could confidence in Sukarno and his generals. an enormously powerful force. with a police-state... safely withdraw from its 'losing war in The PKI even denounced an uprising it membership of three million and over 14 Indochina without jeopardizing its stra­ had led at Madiun in 1948 and elevated million additional supporters organized Imperialist Rivalry tegic interests in Southeast Asia. the general who suppressed it to its pan­ in PKI-controlled labor unions, youth. theon of "Heroes of the Working Class." women's and peasant organizations. But Over Indonesia The imperialists have continued to Raising the slogan "For the Maintenance ihe PKI's treacherous policy of class col­ The U.S. was up to its neck in the assign a key role to Indonesia in their of Public Order, Help the Police," and laboration bartered the political indepen­ Indonesian bloodbath. The CIA provided counterreVOlutionary ambitions in Asia. pledging to enforce "the co-operation dence and revolutionary mobilization of the Indonesian generals with a hit list of Indonesia is the central player in between the people and the Armed the exploited for maneuvers with their 5,000 Communists, and U.S. embassy ASEAN, the anti-China bloc wqich now Forces, in particular the Police Force," oppressors. When the generals struck, officials ticked the names off as they were continued OIi page 11 SUMMER 1996/97 5 WOOlen and Revolution Bitter Fruit of Washington's Anti-Soviet Dirty War Afghanistan: Hell for·Women

On September 27, Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan, fell to the Taliban, a fundamentalist Islamic militia. Four years of horrific rule under a shifting "coalition" of warring factions of reac­ tionary Islamic mujahedin ("holy war­ riors") had already brought Kabul to the point of famine and devastation. Now the Taliban killers have begun to wreak bloody vengeance against any vestige of social progress overlooked by the vultures who preceded them. One of their first targets was Najibul­ lah, the pro-Soviet Afghan president ousted by·the mujahedin in 1992, who was dragged from his sanctuary in the city's United Nations compound and beaten, shot and hanged, his body left strung up on the street for several days. Justifying this atrocious act of Seizure of Kabul by Tallban militias (above left) has led to Intensified Islamic fundamentalist reign of terror savagery, a member of Kabul's Taliban against Afghan women, Imprisoned at home or forced to wear head-to-toe ''veil.'' council railed that Najibullah "was against Islam. He was a criminal, and opaque, suffocating gowns have been Cliff's British Socialist Workers Party U.S. Socialist Workers Party against the he was a Communist." lashed with whips or fan belts." The situ­ (SWP), marched in lockstep behind Shachtman/Burnham minority which Without question the chief victims in ation there is today so dire that better-off Washington's drive for the defeat of· argued to abandon the Marxist position the consolidation of Islamic fundamen­ Afghanis are seeking refuge for their Soviet troops by the mullah-led forces of military defense of the Soviet Union, talist reaction in the aftermath of the daughters in neighboring Iran, which is who were openly fighting for the enslave­ said in 1939: Soviet military withdrawal in 1989 have under the rule of Islamic fundamen­ ment of women in Afghanistan. Now "The question of the Russian revohttion . been Afghanistan's miserably oppressed talist ayatollahs. The Taliban's orgy of they have gotten what they wanted. and the Soviet state which is its creation women. While the civil war has now woman-hating terror adds the finishing These self-styled "socialists" contributed, has drawn a sharp dividing line through the labor movement of all countries for resumed, with ethnically based miHt4as r touclres'-to the-progtam .m'5OeiaI· reac­ to .lIleatent their limited means allowed, . 22 years. The attitude taken toward the which supported the former mujahedin tion implemented by the mujahedin cut­ to brlngingabOut the horror which is today Soviet Union throughout all these years regime launching an offensive against throats who took power four years ago being inflicted upon Afghan women. has been the decisive criterion separating Taliban positions outside Kabul, all the and revived the stoning of women for the genuine revolutionary tendency from contending forces are deeply reactionary. adultery and "immodesty," while subject­ The -Russian Question" all shades and degrees of waverers, back­ Among the first acts of the Taliban sliders and capitula tors to the pressure of ing the entire population to a reign of Pointblank the bourgeois world." after seizing Kabul were to bar women terror and plunder. from all work, to close down all girls' In the 19th century, utopian socialist In the case of Afghanistan, this dividing , While hypocritically distancing itself Charles Fourier observed that social line not only separated revolutionaries schools and to order women to remain from some of the "excesses" in the night­ locked in their homes in purdah (social progress can be gauged by the status of from reformists, but proponents of social mare of dark reaction which has befallen women in society. This is unambiguously progress from those who backed, openly isolation) unless accompanied by a man. the women of Kabul, Washington has As a result, almost all educational clear in the case of Afghanistan. For or otherwise, medievalist barbarism. been the chief force in the Taliban's rise Marxists, as indeed for all opponents of facilities have'1>een shut down, since 75 to power. Through its client regime in Uniquely in modern history, the rights percent of teachers are women, over­ women's oppression, taking the side of of women were a central issue in the civil Islamic Pakistan, U.S. imperialism has those fighting the U.S.-backed Islamic whelmingly trained during the Soviet for years funneled vast sums of money war which raged in Afghanistan from the presence in the 1980s. This has also fundamentalists in Afghanistan was as late 1970s to the early 1990s. After and high-tech military equipment to vari­ clear and obvious a position as was the created chaos in hospitals and orphan­ ous mujahedin factions, from the notori­ coming to power in an April 1978 coup, ages that were primarily staffed by support of Karl Marx's First Inter­ pro-Moscow intellectuals and army ous Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who rose to national for the Union forces led by women. Given fundamentalist taboos prominence by throwing acid in the face officers in the PDPA sought to imple­ against women being treated by male Abraham Lincoln in the American Civil ment some minimal reforms to bring the of unveiled women students at Kabul War against slavery. doctors, the elimination of female medi­ University in the 19708, to, most recently, country closer to the 20th century: land cal personnel means a death sentence for the Taliban cutthroats. Even as. women How, then, could self-avowed social­ distribution, freeing women from the countless women and girls. were being beaten and brutalized in the ists like Cliff's ISO/SWP line up with . burka (the head-to-toe "veil"), reducing The Los Angeles Times (2 October) streets of Kabul, Clinton administration those fighting for the enslavement of the bride price to a nominal sum and' reports that "women who have ventured spokesmen rushed to meet with Taliban women in Afghanistan? The answer lies providing education for girls. However, onto Kabul's dusty streets without cloak­ representatives, hailing the efforts of in their virulent hostility to the Soviet such basic democratic reforms can be ing themselves from head to toe in these medievalist killers and torturers to bureaucratically degenerated workers explosive in a cruelly backward country "liberate Afghanistan." state. From the moment the Bolshevik like Afghanistan, not least because The unspeakable hell which has de­ Revolution toppled capitalism in Russia women's subordination in the family has scended on women, teachers, doctors, in 1917 until the capitalist counterrevol­ decreed them as the "bearers" of the working people, ethnic and religious ution led by Boris Yeltsin several years traditional culture to the next gener­ minorities and all secular elements in ago, the imperialists' central aim was ation. Afghan landlords, tribal chiefs and Afghanistan is the bitter fruit -of U.S. focused on restoring capitalist exploi­ mullahs launched a ferocious jihad (holy imperialism's unrelenting drive to under­ tation in the Soviet 'Union and over­ war), burning down schools and flaying mine and destroy the former Soviet turning the social gains which remained teachers alive for the "crime" of teach­ despite decades of Stalinist degeneration. Union, whose military presence in Af~ ing young girls to read. That is why the entire apparatus of pol­ ghanistan in the 1980s~ was the chief When Moscow airlifted Red Army bulwark against Islamic fundamentalist itical indoctrination in the United States troops to Kabul in December 1979 to reaction. For over a decade, Washington and West Europe was geared to pro­ prevent its PDPA client regime from fall­ armed the mujahedin murderers to the ducing hatred forand fear of the Soviet ing to the Islamic reactionaries and to hilt, building them up to wage a proxy Union. Because groups like the ISO protect its southern flank against imperi­ war against the Soviet Army and the bought into the anti-Soviet program alist incursion, the "Russian question" People's Democratic Party of Afghan­ propagated by the bourgeoisie, they lined was posed pointblank. Democratic presi­ istan (PDPA). But the blood of every up with any and all forces opposed to the dent Jimmy Carter's savage proxy war unveiled woman butchered by the Afghan Stalinists in power-from sadistic Islamic' against the Soviet troops in Afghanistan fundamentalists is also on the hands of fundamentalists in Afghanistan and Iran and his retaliatory embargo against the those leftist organizations internationally to the Vatican-backed anti-Communist, Soviet Union were the opening shots of which lined up behind U.S. imperialism's anti-Semitic and anti-woman Soli­ COld War II. Under Carter's successor, anti-Soviet dirty war in Afghanistan! darno~t movement in Poland. Republican presiderlt Ro"nald Reagan, Former Afghan president NaJlbullah, . For years, groups like the ,social­ Historic American Trotskyist leader the U.S. spent hundreds of billions of tortured and murdered by Tallban democratic International Socialist Organ­ JamesP. Cannon, in waging a factional dollars on high-tech "Star Wars" weap­ killers. ization (ISO), U.S. supporters of Tony struggle within the then-revolutionary onry aimed at facilitating a first-strike 6 AUSTRALASIAN SPARTACIST nuclear attack against the USSR. And , ~ ~ ""'.:....t place that tells us little." It didn't take a .... ~ NO TO THE VElll over $2 billion worth of equipment was Marxist to know what the "rhetoric of WIll~"NEill "",,I'Il'.. ,,~ ... lavished on the Afghan mujahedin in DEFEND AFGHAN WOMEN' Islamic fundamentalism" and, on the _eerterSIIWL the biggest CIA operation in history. SavIll army _--a...... SUPPORT JALAlABAD VlenHS other hand, the Soviet intervention Meanwhile, the capitalist media kept up OF CIA CUTTHROATS! meanffor Afghan women. This was rec­ ,a hysterical propaganda barrage against Hail Red Armyl PARTISAN DEFENSE COMMITTEE ognized even by some Western bourgeois the Soviet "evil empire." journalists, notably women. Writing as As consistent defenders of the gains of the last Soviet troops were pulling out, the October Revolution, we Trotskyists Mary Williams Walsh' reported in the of the International Communist League Wall Street Journal (19 January 1989): (then the international Spartacist tend­ "The plight of Kabul's women is a poignant ency) proclaimed: "Hail Red Army in reminder that the West's vicarious victory Afghanistan! Extend social· gains of over communist expansion here isn't with­ out its ambiguities. In a backward country October Revolution to Afghan peoples!" where the female peasantry still toils like We warned that the Kremlin bureaucracy medieval serfs, Kabuli women have reluctantly intervened simply to stabilize managed to hold on to many 20th-century a strategically placed client state and freedoms .... Instead of staying at home be­ hind purdah walls, they emerge each day and might well cut a deal with the imperial­ work in offices, hospitals and schools." ists. Nonetheless, sending troops into' Afghanistan was an unambiguously The Cliffite opportunists pose as decent and progressive act, cutting aqoss "reVOlutionary" opponents of the capital­ ist rulers, but they take their cue from the grain of the reactionary Stalinist­ WV Photo nationalist dogma of "socialism. in one the reformist·labor misleaders, who are Spartaclsts hailed 1979 Soviet themselves (in Lenin's words) "social­ country;" which renounced Lenin's Intervention against Imperialist­ \\ltmt·u "ud ~ 1-.. ·· imperialist" lackeys of the bourgeoisie. fight for world socialist revolution in Ilt.,·nlutlnn ~ ~ '~:;;~~~;:;I~ backed reactionaries. We mobilised favor of a futile quest for "peaceful International aid to embattled city of But over Afghanistan, the Cliffites even coexistence" with imperialism. Jalalabad following Gorbachev's surpassed their reformist Labourite big brothers in abject treachery. The British Moreover, we recognized that it was treacherous 1989 withdrawal. Cliffites were actually able to make a only the Soviet military intervention real contribution to the imperialists' which offered the possibility of opening the Red Army against the mullahs and anti-Soviet drive by making common the road to emancipation for the hid­ associated with the Spartacist League/ tribal khans and a campaign by heroic to cause with ... right-wing Tories. In 1980, eously oppressed peoples of Afghanistan. U.S., wrote the Afghan government SWP leader Paul Foot, writing in his If liberation was to come to Afghan­ Bolshevik women who even donned the in February 1989, offering to organize international brigades to help fight the column in the bourgeois Daily Mi"or, istan, it had to come from without 1be veil as part of a tactic to bring social attacked the virulently anti-Communist tiny proletariat was dwarfed by a far progress to the women of that back­ CIA's fundamentalist cutthroats. Though ward region. Conservative government of Prime Min­ more numerous Islamic clergy, the urban this offer was declined, the PDC and fraternal organizations around the world ister Margaret Thatcher from the right by population was surrounded by a sea of Following Moscow's military inter­ responded to an appeal by the PDP A denouncing the possibility that British nomadic herdsmen and peasants be­ vention in Afghanistan, the imperialists regime for funds, raising $44,000 inter­ meat exports to the Soviet Union might holden to the khans, the forces of social and their "left" hangers-on railed against nationally to aid civilian victims of the be going to Soviet soldiers in progress were outweighed by reactionary "Soviet expansionis~." But far from mujahedin attack on the eastern city of Afghanistan. The incendiary "revel­ forces for tradition and the status quo. seeking to incorporate Afghanistan, the Jalalabad. ations" in Foot's column provoked an The conservative Brezhnev leadership Kremlin oligarchy fought the war half­ anti-Soviet frenzy on the floor of heartedly, despite the fact that Soviet As an expression of solidarity, we dis­ in the Kremlin did not send 100,000 . patched a Workers Vanguard correspon­ Parliament, helping to justify an esca­ Soviet troops to Afghanistan to make a troops were winning the war on the lation of imperialist support to the ground in the early 1980s. When Mikhail dent to Kabul and Jalalabad. As we social revolution. But the very presence wrote at the time: Afghan mujahedin. of these troops brought with it the possi­ Gorbachev came to power in 1985, he "Jalalabad besieged was the focal point Though particularly flagrant in their bility of social liberation, as did Napol­ immediately began maneuvering for a embrace of imperialist anti-Sovietism withdrawal of Soyiet troops in the hope of imperialism's jihad (holy war) against eon's military drive through Europe in social progress and the Soviet Union. over Afghanistan, the Cliffites were far the early 1800s in the wake of the Great of easing the strains on the Soviet Jalalabad victorious can inspire revol­ from unique on the left. After some French Revolution. As Trotsky noted in economy and appeasing imperialist hos­ utionary struggle throughout the region, from India to Turkey. That requires above initial zigzagging, the fake-Trotskyist The Revolution Betrayed, his definitive tility. In the upshot, Gorbachev PfC!P,ared United. Secretariat of the late Ernest the destruction of the Soviet· Union a'll t1teptogram of'Leninist international­ analysis ofthe Stalinist bureaucracy, "In ism, the banner of the International Mandel issued a statement in 1981 the sphere of national policy, as in the itself. The Kremlin's retreat emboldened Communist League." toeing Reagan/Thatcher's line, with the sphere of economy, the Soviet bureauc­ the imperialist rulers, who remained -"Front Line Afghanistan," call "For an End to the Soviet Occu­ racy still continues to carry out a certain . intent upon nothing less than the WVNo. 482 (21 July 1989j pation of Afghanistan!" The political part of the progressive work, although destruction of the Soviet degenerated Our Jalalabad campaign struck a chord bandits of David North's Workers with immoderate overhead expenses. wotkers state, and strengthened the among class-struggle fighters everywhere. League and its "International Com­ This is especially true of the backward forces of capitalist restoration within. Contributions poured in from tens of mittee" screamed along with the U.S. nationalities of the Union, which must of Withdrawal from Afghanistan was fol­ tllousands of people around the world: imperialist rulers that the Soviet inter­ necessity pass through a more or less lowed by counterrevolution in East immigrant workers throughout West vention was an attack on "the national prolonged period of borrowing, imitation Europe: Solidarno~~' rise to power in Europe, Asia and North America; trade rights and feelings of the Afghan people" and assimilation of what exists." Poland, the capitalist reunification of unionists; students eager to take a stand (Bulletin, 8 July 1986). Somewhat more Under the Soviet military umbrella, Germany, Boris Yeltsin's 1991 pro­ against the CIA; and everywhere from contradictory was the centrist Workers Afghan women were liberated from the capitalist countercoup in Moscow. This, women, including in Muslim communi­ Power group in Britain, which arose as veil and trained and brought into the in turn, led to a total cutoff of aid ties. It was in the course of this cam­ a split from Cliffs organization. In to Kabul, spelling the doom of the workforce as teachers, nurses, doctors paign that we decided to launch the response to the imperialist uproar over and government functionaries; thousands fragile Afghan economy and central International Communist League, under­ the Soviet intervention, Workers Power served as soldiers and commanders in the government. scoring that our tendency, uniquely, took a step to the left, breaking from Afghan army and self-defense militias. When Soviet forces were pulled out fights for the communism of Lenin and Cliffs absurdly anti-Marxist theory that The vast gains which were potentially in 1988-89, paving the way for a bloody Trotsky. the Soviet Union was "state capitalist" open to the Afghan peoples were visible onslaught against Afghan workers, (without either a capitalist class or a in the stark contrast between Afghan­ women and leftists, we bitterly Anti-Soviet "United Front" capitalist economy) and announcing its istan's backwardness and the massive denounced this betrayal. We warned that with Imperialism formal adherence to Trotsky's analysis of advances in living standards, education, it was far better to fight and defeat the The Cliffites responded to the 1979 the Soviet Union as a bureaucratically health care and women's rights north of forces of counterrevolutiop. in Afghan­ Soviet intervention by retailing the line degenerated workers state. the Amu Darya River in the Soviet istan than be forced to take them on of every imperialist government in the But while not calling for an immediate Central Asian republics. These achieve­ inside the Soviet Union itself. At the world: "Soviet troops out of Afghan­ .Soviet withdrawal at the time, Workers ments were the result of the working­ same time, w~ actively solidarized with istan!" The British Socialist Worker (12 Power joined the rest of the anti-Soviet class revolution led by Lenin and the masses who continued to wage a January 1980) tried to whitewash the Stalinophobic left in "condemning the Trotsky's Bolshevik Party in October bitter struggle for survival. The Partisan CIA-backed mujahedin opposition, say­ Soviet inv~sion of Afghanistan" as 1917 and extended to Central Asia Defense Committee, the class-struggle ing "it speaks the rhetoric of Islamic "counterrevolutionary" (Workers Power, largely through armed intervention by legal and social defense organization fundamentalism. But in this time and continued on page 10

Socialis' Worker Socialist Socialist 12 January 1980 Worker ,..-~~~~_Wo'*er _!i! ,..,...... 1IIIIIIII ...... I5c Troops out of Afghanlstanl May 1988 5 October 1996 Just as socialists welcomed the But Taliball's success comes defeat of the U.S. in Vietnam, we from popular disenchantment with welcome the defeat of the Russians the leaders who oppose it-ll.e in Afghanistan. It will give heart to forces guarding Kabul melted all those inside the USSR and in away lilSt week. Tragically, the Taliban has no Eastern Europe who ~ant to break answer to the terrible crisis of the the rule of Stalin's heirs. country either. BJJUbis....does Afghan mujahedin reactionaries with paymaster Ronald Reagan In the White House. Tony Cliff's British SWP and U.S. ISO embraced Imperialist anti-Soviet crusade In Afghanistan, "welcomed" anti-woman Islamic fundamentalist victory.

SUMMER 1996/97 7 openlyworried1about Hanson's electoral appeal and the tabloids and talkback Racist War ... radio engagef;l in a paroxysm of demented (continued from page 12) racism. But having unleashed this wave of twelve, are being held in cus tody (denied ra~t reaction and received a deluge of bail with no prospect of even a hearing bad press from almost all countries until late January) for allegedly spitting throughout East Asia, the ruling class at Pauline Hanson. We demand that moved to put something of a lid on its these brave children be released im­ "race debate." A hand-wringing editorial mediately! They have committed no in the Sydney Morning Herald entitled crime. Drop the charges now! t' , "Why we must not lose our way on race" The attacks of the Howard govern­ , expressed bourgeois concern. The SMH ' ment on immigrants and Aborigines, and worried that the outburst of racism was its gearing up for wholesale attacks on manifestly becoming bad for business. the trade union movement, come after a Currently over 60 percent of Australia's decade of increasing, grinding exploi­ exports go to Asia and over 60 percent tation of the working people under the of Australia's inbound tourism, at $10 former Labor government. Unemploy­ billion the country's largest foreign cur­ ment remains officially over eight per­ rency earner, is from Asia. cent, while many of the desperately long­ So parliament dusted off the paper­ term unemployed have dropped out of ASp photo thin veneer of "multiculturalism" and the unemployment statistics altogether, Aboriginal "reconciliation" for interna­ having given up on any prospect of a job. Spartaclst contingent poses working-class centrality In fight against racism at "Unity Against Racism" rally, 23 November, Sydney. tional consumption in a bipartisan feder­ Youth unemployment is around 30 per­ al parliamentary motion passed in late, cent, while joblessness among many October. But what the false rhetoric of What stands in the way of such a fight of thousands of organised workers de­ immigrant communities ranges from 25 "multiculturalism" in this viciously racist are the pro-capitalist union bureaucrats fending Aboriginal protesters in united to 40 percent. society seeks to conceal is the reality of and ALP pOliticos who act as trans­ struggle against the cops was deeply In an orgy of "economic rationalism," Aborigines forced to live in isolated mission belts into the workers movement alarming to the rulers and gave a taste of tens of thousands of jobs have been shed settlements lacking running water, sewer­ for backward consciousness-centrally the sort of social power that could be in industries like mining, auto, steel and age or electricity; hundreds of thousands the deep racism rooted in this country's utilised to roll back the capitalist offens­ maritime; union membership has plum­ of immigrant workers, mainly East Asian history as a white settler colony in Asia. ive.The backs tabbing ALP/ACTU lead­ meted to just 35 percent of the work­ women, toiling at home as superexploi­ What is required is a determined political ership joined Howard's chauvinist hue force, 25 percent in the private sector. ted outworkers; and minority youth sub­ struggle to replace these labour lieuten­ and cry against the Canberra protesters Living standards for the average worker jected to daily racist cop terror. have declined by over ten percent in the ants of capital, who keep the working and directly collaborated in the ensuing last decade. Women workers are paid less people tied to their explOiters, with a state witchhunt, dobbing protesters in to For a Class-Struggle Fight than two-thirds of the wage paid to their class struggle leadership. We Spartacists the cops and purging anti-racist militants Against the Boss8s' Racist male counterparts and tens of thousands stand for union/minority mobilisations from the union ranks. This was a clear Attacksl of immigrant women slave in sweatshops against racist te"or! Crush the fascist signal to the bourgeoisie that the and at home for as little as two dollars an National Action scum in the egg! Full pro-capitalist union misleaders were In late November and early December hour. Many young workers are trapped citizenship rights for all immigrants! For committed to' stopping any working­ thousands turned out for a succession of in low-wage "training schemes," most of a class-struggle fight for Aboriginal rights! class-centred challenge to the bosses' war anti-racism demonstrations in Brisbane, which the Howard government has To fight the racist tide' means to fight agains~ immigrants and Aborigines. Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne. These pledged to scrap altogether. against the conditions of capitalist decay rallies brought onto the streets anti­ The pronounced shift to the right in which has spawned it. Against the labour Capitalist Reaction Spawns racist youth, unionists, immigrants (par­ the bourgeois political spectrum in Aus­ bureaucrats' criminal inaction over un­ Fascistic Fringe ticularly those from East Asia), deeply outraged at what is happening in the tralia, as elsewhere in the capitalist employment, what is necessary is a new The result of thirteen years of the country. But the reformist left, including world, is integrally linked to the counter­ leadership in the labour movement to Accord between the Labor government revolutionary destruction of the Soviet unite the workers and all the oppressed the Democratic Socialist PartyIResistance and the ACTU bureaucracy was a dra­ (DSP), the International Socialist Organ­ Union. For decades, the capitalists' in the fight for jobs for all-for a shorter matic atomisation of union power, a desire to overturn the Soviet degenerated workweek at no Ipss.in. paY7cand alull isa,tion (ISO) and SDcial~t Alternative -drasti",erosioD: inllving standards. a¢,a (SA),. 'have joinecJ Labor honchos in workers state served to a certain degree cost of living escalator in all union con­ consequent deepening social alienation channelling the fightiIl8 _anger of, anti­ to suppress antagonisms among the im­ tracts. Against the deterioration in hous­ throughout wide layers ,of the popu­ racist militants into an alliance with sec­ perialist powers. Now, beset by resurgent ing, health services, schools and public lation-and the discrediting of the ALP. tions of the capitalist class concerned rivalries, the various bourgeoisies must transportation, workers need a leader­ Significantly. among the self-perceived ratchet up the rate of exploitation, drive ship that will lead a fight for a massive that the "excesses" of the "race debate" "suburban middle class whites" there was were getting bad for business. The Mel­ down 'living standards and slash social program of public works at union wages a sharp increase' in ecoIiomic and social bourne rally was addressed jointly by the insecurity. Sections of the working class Victorian Trades Hall secretary Leigh threatened with growing unemployment Hubbard and the former conservative and lower sections of the middle class Victorian premier Rupert Hamer. The threatened with drastic erosions in their Sydney rally was endorsed by the 1}usi­ living standards are targeted by reaction­ ness Council of Australia. The political ary politicians for reactionary mobil­ program of this cross-class alliance is isations against the even more oppressed. "moral witness" opposition to the more Since the' 1996 election, when the overt expressions of racial hatred, d la ruling class dumped Labor and installed Pauline Hanson, in effect and in fact Howard with the central objective of burying the necessity for a working-class­ breaking the remaining strength of the centred fight against the vicious biparti­ union movement (in particular by crush­ san assault on minorities. ing the maritime and mining unions), the As .Marxists we understand that the Tories have gone all out to consolidate interests of the working class and their a reactionary political climate with overt capitalist exploiters are absolutely irrec­ racist, appeals to ~he "battlers" and oncilable. Political alliances with any sec­ "mainstream Australians." Accompany­ tion of the capitalists, including those ing the raft of legislative assaults and from oppressed minorities, inevitably cutbacks targeting immigrants and Abor­ lead to proletarian Class-struggle action igines, Howard has decried "black arm­ being suppressed in the interests of not band history," i.e., !he truth about the scaring '!-way bourgeoiS bloc partners. By slaughter of the Aboriginal people on tying a new generation of anti-racist the Australian frontier, and demanded militants to a section of the ruling class that students not be taught that Aus­ in the name of "building as broad a tralia has a "racist and bigoted past." movement as possible," the fake left are Striking women workers, crucial to working-class flghtback, rally at picket With Howard's support, Aboriginal criminally derailing the necessary class­ line outside Bonds Wear clothing factory near Wollongong In November. Affairs minister John Herron has come struggle mobilisations required to fight out iIi support of the Assimilation policy the racist capitalist offensive. programs in order to gain an edge and equal pay for equal. work, with full which saw thousands of Aboriginal The genuine potential for such action against their competitors. With bour­ union wages and union protection! Even children stolen from their parents by was highlighted by the spectacular geois ideologists proclaiming the "death defence of the most basic right of the state and church. defence of Aborigines from cop provo­ of communism" the rulers believe there working class-a job at decent pay-leads cations by trade unionists at the 19, is nothing standing in their way; But the directly to challenging the capitalist This reactionary agenda set the stage for Hanson's maiden parliamentary August anti-government demonstration· working people and oppressed cannot profit system. speech. As distinct from Howard's code in Canberra. Yet ever so fearful not to indefinitely endure having no future for The current leadership of the ACTU words such as "mainstream Australian" offend their anti-union allies, all the themselves and their children-a world doesn't act to defend the interests of its and "special interest groups," Hanson reformist left groups failed to call for the of ever-intensifying exploitation and own membership against job-slashing and openly railed against being "swamped by. defence of the 19 and 20 August mili­ social misery. union-busting privatisations, much less tants _at these "anti-racist" demon­ The power to take on the racist Aus­ Asians," supposed "privileges" for Abor­ mobilise on behalf of the horribly igines and warning of the "danger of civil strations. In contrast, the Spartacist tralian ruling class and win lies with the oppressed Aborigines and beleaguered war." This is the rhetoric of Eric Butler's League has uniquely sought to intersect multiracial working class. But as we said Asian immigrants. It is telling that the anti-Semitic, fascistic League of Rights, anti-racism protesters with a class­ in the last issue of our pap~r: current government-inspired racist bar­ who are now maSS-distributing Hanson's struggle program. Our contingents at the " ... only by figh ling in defence of minorities can the working class forge the unity and rage reached a crescendo in the after­ speeCh. For weeks there was a deafening Sydney and Melbourne demonstrations consciousness necessary to successfully math of the anti-government protests in silence from all sides in federal parl­ raised such slogans as: "Bipartisan turn back the bosses' mounting attacks." Canberra on 19 and 20 August. The sight iament, as Tories and Laborites alike War on Minorities Emboldens Hanson,

8 AUSTRALASIAN SPARTACIST racist decaying capitalist social order November/January 1996-1997). To de­ Canberra ... through class collaboration reinforcing scribe the union tops' purge of its ranks (continued from page 12) racial divisions. The multiracial working as "tacit" is a lie and a whitewash, pro­ class has the potential social power and viding a cover for the ALP/ACTU tops. and cry as Howard vituperated against class interest to oppose all capitalist Could these nameless "certain union "un-Australian activity." For our .partwe tyranny and state terror directed against leaders" be the same ones with whom salute the Aboriginal, unionist and the oppressed. What stands in ,the way of WP is pleading to lead a general strike , studentlyouth militants who in integrated unleashing the power of the Australian against Howard's anti-union legislation? social struggle defeated this calculated, proletariat is backward consciousness­ Marxists understand that a general racist cop provocation. The strength of most profoundly the deep racism rooted strike inevitably poses the question of the' union movement must be brought to in this country's history as a European which class shall rule, that is, a prelude bear in defence of the militants of 19-20 settler colony in Asia-and the pro­ to a struggle for power. To call on the August. capitalist union bureaucrats and Laborite ACTU leadership to lead a general Immediately after the 19-20 August politicos who act as transmission belts strike at the very moment they are anti-government demonstrations the for, and reinforcers of, this backward purging trade unionists who defended Howard government set up a special consciousness. , Aborigines is tranSparently absurd. WP's AFP taskforce named "OperationVen­ With the AL'p out of office the insistent call for an ACTU-Ied general eer" to conduct. a nation-wide witchhunt reformist and centrist left are offering strike is militant-sounding verbiage de­ targeting Aboriginal, trade-unionist and their services as waterboys for' the signed to disguise their Laborite and student/youth activists (see PDC pro­ Laborite ACTU bureaucracy. With the economist adaptation to the existing test statement, "Defend 19-20 A:ugust union tops joining the bourgeois hysteria leadership and consciousness of the Canberra Demonstrators!", page 2). The 'about "mob rule" and "violence" the working class. This becomes all too clear 'traitorous ALP/ACTU leadership have reformists have abandoned any defence when in the same issue of their press WP been collaborating with this vicious state of the victimised militants and even decries what they politely choose to call witchhunt, fingering militants and prom­ attempted to bury 19 August and its "the debate about race, immigration and ASp photo ising their capitalist masters an int~rilal political meaning altogether. The Demo­ freedom of speech" which is, in their purge of anti-racist unionists who acted Spartaclsts call for labour-centred cratic Socialist Party (DSP) and its youth words, "diverting attention away" from to defend embattled Aboriginal people. fight against raci8tterror at 1993 Mel­ group Resistance was red-baited by sec­ the anti-union laws. Doug Cameron,national secretary of bourne protest against cop killing tions of the capitalist press in the im­ The unity in struggle of workers and the Australian Manufacturing Workers' of Brisbane Aborigine, Dan Vock. mediate aftermath of 19 August. Yet in minorities on 19 August gave a taste of Union (AMWU), wrote in the Metal the dozen or so 'issues of their paper, the sort of power a revolutionary leader­ Worker (October 1996): "I have advised In the present climate of vicious racist Green Left Weekly, that have appeared ship would harness to bring down racist the ACTU that if any AMWU official is reaction, the union bureaucrats are de­ since August the DSP has not once men­ Australian capitalism. What is needed is charged with a serious offence in relation hberately seeking to cut off the hand that tioned Operation Veneer or its victims a politic:al fight to break working people to the rally, and found guilty, then their reached out from the organised working and have gone silent about the necessity and minorities from the ALP/ACTU employment with the AMWU will be class to the deeply oppressed and margin­ for the defence of the charged militants traitors, ousting the pro-capitalist bu­ terminated. " In reality the CFMEU alised Aboriginal people. The union tops by the labour movement and the left. reaucracy from the workers movement. leadership around national secretary Stan are, in effect, pledging to the bosses that For their part the right-centtist The Spartacist League fights to build a Sharkey forced Vriduar Vega, a NSW they will prevent the organised workers Workers Power group (WP) managed to Trotskyist vanguard party, a tribune of organiser of the CFMEU, to resign his ever again defending Aboriginal people whimper: "Certain union leaders tacitly the people combating all manifestations union post long before be was charged, from racist state terror. supported the condemnation of mili­ of racial and sexual oppression, to lead let alone fronted a court. Other known By purging anti-racist militants from tants in Canberra by carrying out a the working class and behind them all the union targets of the witchhunt have been the ranks, the union bureaucrats fulfIl witch-hunt of their memberships, threat­ oppressed masses in a socialist revolution told that they are effectively on their their role as labour lieutenants of ening to oust any union members in­ which will sweep away the racist capitalist own. capital-a thin layer who prop up this volved in the action." (W07'kers Power, system and establish workers rule._

Campbell, for Workers Action against union bureaucracy: the immigrants will ership is viciously witchhunting the Can­ anti-Semitic Zyuganov's bourgeois­ Bosses' Racist Attacks''', "Australian have to try to fend for themselves, while berra militants who fought in defence of na~ionalist party in Russia's presidential nationalism serves white imperialist the bureaucrats continue to do worse Aborigines, is not only a patent absurdity, elections earlier this year. In the more oppressors of Asian masses. Down with than nothing to defend this most be­ but breeds the worst illusions that the recent New Zealand elections, WP's New Australian Imperialism'" and "Capitalism leaguered and ·opPfessed seetionofttle .pro-capltaJist;' clmuvir1ist ACTUtops can Zealand group tortuously argued that Breeds Racism, Fascism. We need Social­ working class. The fight against racism in be pressured into defending the interests , the NZ Alliance, a cross-class coalition ist Revolution'" this white imperialist enclave in Asia is a of the working class. of the New Labour Party, the Greens, But the reformist left have joined the strategic ta.sk for the entire working class, Adapting to the current Laborite pol­ . the Liberals, the Democrats and the Laborite politiCOS and bourgeois spokes­ le~ by its. most conscious, vanguard itical and organisational grip on the Maori Mana Motuhake party, was a "left men in subjecting anti-racist protesters elements, not a "tactic" to be relinquished workers movement, WP have nowhere to reformist workers' party" (!), advocated to endless nationalist appeals to "defend to "minority-only" caucuses in the unions/ go but to campaign at the next election an "unconditional electoral block" multiculturalism," "keep this a .tolerant Not surprisingly, WP make no criti­ -as they did at the last one-to put between the NZ Labour Party and the country" and "fight for Australian cisms of the lab.our lieutenants of capi­ Labor's craven Kim Beazley and Gareth Alliance, and called for votes "for either values." Such patriotic whitewashing of tal's refusal to defend minorities, nor of Evans back into power. Dismissing our the NZLP or the Alliance." . the history and nature of this brutally their pushing of racist protectionist criticisms as supposedly proving the The New Zealand Alliance is a classic racist capitalist society dovetails neatly poison and support to Australian imperi­ Spartacists are "devoid of all tactics" "People's Front" (or "popular front") with the bosses' desire to rehabilitate the alism. This reflects their accommodation WP's current obsession with the general lash-up, tying the workers directly to the "democratic" pretensions of Australian to the current nationalist, social demo­ strike "tactic" (to be led by the existing parties of the bourgeoisie. Meanwhile, imperialism. As revolutionary inter~ cratic leadership and consciousness of union bureaucrats) ties in perfectly with after the elections, the NZ Labour Party nationalists, we understand that national-, the workers movemenL WP's almost only its parent bodies' (Workers Power in unsuccessfully vied with the Nationals in ism serves to line up the working people criticism of the ACTU tops is that they Britain and its "League for a Revolution­ enticing Winston Peters' anti-immigrant behind their racist exploiters on the basis are not militant enough on an economic 'ary Communist International") trad- chauvinist New Zealand First party into of "I am, you are, we are Australian" (as level. So WP's latest paper is devoted, itional loyalty to voting for the social a coalition. In the 19305, Russian revol­ the song played at the Melbourne demo from cover to cover, to calling on Bill democratic parties in every country, at utionary leader Leon Trotsky wrote: "In went). Ultimately, patriotism is used by Kelty, Jennie George and the rest of the every election, at all times, regardless of reality, the People's Front is the main this jackal imperialist ruling class to dis­ ACTU leadership to lead an "all out" the political circumstances. question of proletarian class strategy for cipline the masses for imperialist attacks "indefinite general strike" against How­ In its galloping rightward trajectory, this epoch. It also offers the best cri­ against the peoples of Asia and else­ ard's anti-union laws. Marxists under­ WP's passion for embracing the "lesser terion for the difference between Bol­ where. Flag-waving Aussie nationalism stand that a general strike inevitably evil" has even surpassed voting for mere shevism and Menshevism" ("The Dutch was a significant part of the ideological poses the question of which dass shall mainstream social-democratic formations. Section and the International," Writings, cover used by the bosses to send Austra­ rule, that is, a'direct prelude to a struggle WP's international affiliates supported 1935-36). By its embrace of the Alliance lian troops to participate in the U.S.-led for power. But for the Australian work­ votes for the Russian-chauvinist and continued on page 10 1991 Persian Gulf slaughter of over ing class to defeat the bosses' union­ 100,000 Iraqis and to the later United busting attacks and challenge for state Nations neocolonial shoot-up of men, power requires a huge leap, not primarily women and children in black Somalia. in its economic militancy, but in its level of political class consciousness. !lIk"'I"II r---zze:::::~----- Workers Power: New Spanish-language Spartaclst Not So Left-Wing Keltyism Centrally, especially in this period when the bosses have whipped up the The right-centrist Workers Power most vicious racist reaction to divide the The Fight for \a (WP) complain that the war on minor­ working class, the deep-going chauvinism ities is "diverting attention away" from that permeates the workers movement Revolutionary Party the anti-union laws (Workers Power, must be thoroughly-rooted out and pol­ November/January 1996~1997). Their itically advanced workers won to the Selected writings in Spanish by commentary on the storming of parlia­ understanding that their class must be a veteran American Trotskyist ment does not even think it worth noting champion of the rights of all oppressed. James P. Cannon. that the action was sparked when union­ To bring such socialist consciousness to Order now: $1.00 single Issuej ists came to the defence of Aborigines the proletariat requires the forging of a $4.00 for/subscription to against cop attack. So ultimately all they communist vanguard party, championing Espartaco, publication of the . can offer minorities, "as a key weapon in the rights of all the oppressed, or as Grupo Espartaqulsta de MAxlco, the fight against racism," is a call for Lenin called it, acting not as a "trade Including Spartac/st. separate minority-only caucuses in the union secretary" but as a "tribune of the trade unions. This disgusting and patron­ Order from/make cheque. payable to: people." To call for the existing union Spartaci'llt ANZ Publishing Co., _ ising sectoralism provides an all-too­ leadership to lead an "all out," indefinite , GPO Box 3473, Sydney NSW 2001 ~ convenient cover for the White Australia general strike, at the very time that lead-

SUMMER 1996/97 9 Soviet camp offered for their line was Afghanistan ... that the Soviet intervention violated Afghan "national self-determination." (continued from page 7) For Marxists, the question of self­ determination is subordinated to over­ February 1980). When the Kremlin later riding class considerations-in the case pulled o!lt of Afghanistan, Workers of Afghanistan, defense of the Soviet Power turned around and denounced the Union against imperialism and the withdrawal. And all the while, they vit­ struggle against feudal reaction and uperated against our call, "Hail Red women's oppression. Moreover, Afghan­ Army!" Behind Workers Power's insist­ istan is not a unitary nation, as the Cliff­ ence that the eminently progressive ites assert, but a caldron of distinct, Soviet intervention was counterrevol­ feuding nationalHies (as well as tribal utionary lay a deeply ingrained anti­ and other ethnic groupings) divided by Soviet prejudice inherited from their artificial borders: the Pashtuns e?'tend Cliffite origins. into Pakistan and the Uzbeks into the former Soviet republic of Uzbekistan, But the Cliffites themselves showed no while the Tajik people overlap the bor­ Planets such qualms, consistently supporting the der with both Tajikistan and Iran. The Students at Kabul University In the 1980s. Soviet military presence imperialist line. As Gorbachev was pre­ hue and cry about the "national rights" opened possibility of liberation for Afghan women. paring the Soviet withdrawal, the ISO of "poor little Afghanistan" had about gloated: "Just as socialists welcomed the as much validity as the cries of "states' Soviet Union~ntrally the existence of defeat of the U.S. in Vietnam, we wel­ The martyrdom of Afghanistan is a rights" raised by the Confederacy during a planned collectivized economy, a direct product of the counterrev­ come the defeat of the Russians in the American Civil War and again 100 necessary precondition for the creation olutionary cataclysm which resulted in Afghanistan" (Socialist Worker [U.S.], years later by diehard Dixie segre­ of an international classless, communist the restoration of capitalism in East . May 1988). This comparison is truly gationists. Precisely because the Soviet society. The Trotskyist call for prolet­ , grotesque! The ISO sees no essential Europe and ~he former Soviet Union. Union was not capitalist/imperialist, the arian political revolution to oust the This has emboldened reactionary forces difference between medieval fundamen­ Red Army intervention into Afghanistan, Stalinist usurpers was premised on our not only in backward areas like talist killers coming to power in Kabul rather than deepening oppression and defense of the gains of October, includ­ and the victorious social revolution­ Afghanistan but in West Europe and the reinforcing the forces of reaction as ing our unconditional military defense of which the ISO's forebears refused to U.S. as well. While various bourgeois imperialism does in its semicolonies, the Soviet Union against iIiternal commentators are now· wagging their support-that drove U.S. imperialism posed the possibility of bringing progress counterrevolution and imperialist attack. fingers over the horrors being carried out of Indochina! to that backward land of fragmented In his 1939 speech, cited above, James out by Islamic fundamentalists in With the fate they welcomed having peoples. P. Cannon explained: Afghanistan, "family values" Christian come to pass .. pnd its horrendous conse­ "The Soviet Union emerged rrom the Oct­ fundamentalists in the U.S. also aim to quences daily described in the bourgeois We Are the Party of the ober revolution· as a workers' state. As a drive women back into the home. This press, Cliffs SWp· can only wring its result or the backwardness and poverty or is revealed not only in attacks by "right Russian Revolution! the country and the delay or the world hands and hypocritically moan about the revolution, a conservative bureaucracy to life" terrorists on women seeking "long series of tragedies to beset the As Afghanistan demonstrated; the emerged and triumphed, destroyed the abortions but in the growing barbarism Afghan people" (Socialist Worker, 5 Cliffites' ludicrous "state capitalist" party and bureaucratized the economy. of the racist capitalist "justice" system October). Even now, with the Soviet analysis and their posture as leftist op­ However, this same bureaucracy still oper­ (see "California Castration Law," WV Union gone, theCliffites continue to ponents of Stalinism were. simply a cover ates on the basis of the nationalized prop­ No. 654, 25 October 1996). erty established by .the revolution. That is whitewash the role of the Islamic funda­ for their profound programmatic hos­ the decisive criterion ror our evaluation or The horrors being played out in mentalist anti-woman terrorists and their tility to the homeland of the October the question." Afghanistan today are the starkest Pakistani and U.S. backers, writing that Revolution. From the time of the 1950- - reprinted in "We Are the Party expression of the choice which has been "Taliban's success comes from popula~ 53 Korean War, when Cliff broke or the Russian Revolution!" WV No. 181 (11 November 1977) posed, with increasing sharpness and disenchantment with the leaders who from Trotskyism in refusing to defend urgency, throughout this century: social­ oppose it" and complaining that "the North Korea against U.S. imperialism, Stalinist treachery and imperialist terror have left Afghanistan devastated, ism or barbarism. Young fighters against Taliban has no answer: to the terrible the CHffites' supposed "third camp" social oppression must study and learn crisis of the country." These funda­ ("Neither Washington nor Moscow") with a total breakdown of transpor­ tation, trade and economic life. The the lessons of past struggles and defeats, mentalist reactionaries do have an was nothing but,an e,IllP~y ~hell, ~stl].ey country has been turned into a patch­ including the world-historic defeat rep­ "answer"-a program of all-sided reac. continually lined up with imperialiSm resented by the destruction of the tion and extirpation of even the most (first in a veiled way, then openly) work of regional fiefdoms ruled by ethni­ cally based warlords, with the Taliban, remaining-gains of the October Revolu­ modest social advances for women! against the Soviet Union. tion, if they are to go forward to win Again borrowing from Western im­ Opposition to Stalinism from a revolu­ based on the predominant Pashtun grouping, controlling the gutted capital new victories. We of the International perialist propaganda, the sole fig leaf tionary, Trotskyist standpoint meant Communist League fight for a new that the Cliffites and the rest of the anti- defense of the social foundations of the and two-thirds of the country in the south, while the Uzbek region in the October, both in the U.S. and around north is ruled by Abdul Rashid Dostum the world. We fight to forge Bolshevik and Ahmed Shah Massoud's militia lords parties internationally to lead the workers-standing at the head of all the to expel the "rights" and form a workers over the Tajiks. While Dostum and Massoud's forces are today painted as oppressed-to power and to a society in Racist War ... government. However, following the de­ which capitalist oppression and en­ struction of the Soviet Union, this outfit supposed "moderates" relative to the (continued from page 9) TaJiban, Massoud remains allied with slavement of women are relics of a bar­ "discovered" that the unions (not just baric past. their rotten leadership) were nothing Gulb~ddin Hekmatyar, one of the most and by calling for an NZLP/Alliance more than "agents of capital. " The SEP savage fundamentalist leaders during the Reprinted from Workers Vanguard . government, WP has placed itself firmly have lined up behind the bosses' fierce PDPA regime . No. 654, 25 October 1996. in the camp of Menshevik class collabo­ union-busting drive which, if successful, ration, completely abandoning the crucial will lead to a dramatic increase in social class independence the working cla~s so reaction, especially targeting immigrants, desperately requires to fight for its own Aborigines and women. These inveterate AmeriCan imperialism. As Labor dutifully interests. political bandits, blind and indifferent to Maritime ... lined up with the U.S. in the escalating Cold War frenzy fueled by the imminent A separate case is the Socialist Equal­ the racial and sexual oppression intrinsic (continued from page 5) ity Party (formerly Socialist Labour to the capitalist system, cannot defend success of the Chinese Revolution and League, SEP/SLL). Today this group unions nor minorities from the bosses' Communist-led insurgencies in Asia, at postures as a critic of Laborism and even . onslaught. which had ruled throughout World War ho~e the Labor government sent the as defenders of democratic rights. Don't AgainSt social democrats like the II and to which the CPA was (and its army into the coal fields to crush the buy it. The SEP constantly pours scorn Australian Labor Party, whO hated the successors are) ultimately subservient. CP-led miners strike of 1949. on the struggle for any Aboriginal land liberating goals and proletarian inter­ Founded on the racist "White Australia Despite its misleadership, the workers' rights and consistently echoes the racist nationalism of the Russian Revolution, Policy," the Labor officialdom witnessed struggle over the "Black Armada" is an pronouncements of government spokes­ the revolutionary Communist Inter­ the ignominious demise of the European example of internationalist proletarian men that Aboriginal leaders, not this national of Lenin and Trotsky had the colonial powers in ~ia. With the end of action that today can be an inspiration racist;capitalist system, are primarily re­ following message to the proletariat in the war, the ALP government of Ben to those struggling against imperialist sponsible for the hideous oppression of the Pacific: Chifley initially supplied the Dutch with depredations. What's necessary is a genu­ the Aboriginal people. For example, arms and transport in the attempt to inely revolutionary leadership, armed " ... the Communist Parties or the imperial­ recently in Brisbane SEPerCarl Wyles ist countries-America, Japan, Britain, crush· the Republic. But, reading the with the perspective that the most effec­ stated that Hanson can get a hearing Australia and Canada-must not merely writing on the wall for Dutch rule, it also tive "solidarity" the Australian working because "there is a thin privileged layer issue propaganda against the war, but must tolerated the "Black Armada" boycott. class can offer the working masses of of Aborigines.in ATSIC, the Aboriginal do everything possible to eliminate the Asia is an irreconcilable struggle against Legal Service and other organis­ ractors that disorganize the workers' move­ After the failure of Dutch military its "own" imperialist rulers. The main ment in their countries and make it easier offensives in July 1947 and December ations ... who provide grist to Hanson's ror the capitalists to exploit national and enemy is at homet.· mill" (Workers News, 4 October 1996). racial antagonisms, 1948, the Labor government adopted a So for this outfit the main reason for "The Communist Parties ... must conduct a policy of ingratiating themselves with the Hanson's rise is the existence of "black vigorous campaign against restrictive immi­ nationalist leaders in Jakarta, figuring bureaucrats." As the bourgeoisie bUll­ gration laws and must explain to the prolet­ that the interests of Labor's masters· Contact the dozes Aboriginal rights and organisations arian masses in these countries that such in the Australian capitalist class would' laws, by inflaming racial hatred, will re­ Spartacist League into the ground the SEP echo, almost bound on them in the long run." best be served by cementing links with word for word, the capitalists' crass jus­ -"Theses on the Eastern Ques­ the bourgeois nationalists who would Melbourne Ph: (03) 96544315 tifications, pandering to the most back­ tion," in 1heses, Resolutions and emerge as the new rulers of Indonesia. GPO Box 2339, Melbourne Vic 3001 ward elements of the working class. Manifestos of the First Four Con­ More fundamentally, with the empire of The SEP/SLL have spent decades sow­ gresses of the Third International its traditional British big brothers in ir­ ..Sydney Ph: (02) 9281 2181 ing illusions in the ALP/ACTU to For a workers republic of Australia, part reversible decline, the Australian bour­ GPO Box 3473, Sydney NSW 2001 organise general strikes and for the ALP of a socialist Asia.!. geoisie and its Labor lackey!! turned to 10 AUSTRALASIAN SPARTACIST Chinese were singled out by anti­ Indonesia ... Communist mobs in 1965, and during the strikes in Medan two years ago, (continued from pa~e 5) efforts were made to divert militancy into attacks on Chinese shops. But in Indo­ encompasses virtually every nation to nesia as in all Southeast Asian states, China's south and east. Vast amounts of there are many poor and working-class military equipment and funds have been Chinese, who are class brothers in the provided by the U.S. and Britain to prop . struggle against capitalism. The need for up Suharto's generals and crush internal proletarian internationalism is under­ dissent. Last December, Australia agreed lined by the fact that increasing numbers 011 a wide-ranging military alliance. with of Indonesian workers are compelled Indonesia, described as "an effort to free to cross the straits to Malaysia and up the twq countries to pay more atten­ Singapore, where Chinese are respect­ tionto the rise of China" (International ively 30 percent and 78 percent of the Herald Tribune, 11 June). And while population. There they often replace Washington postponed the sale of nine Chinese, Malay and Indian workers in F-16 fighter planes to Indonesia to pla­ the lowest-paid, hardest and dirtiest jobs. cate critics after the recent repression, Ethnic and religious divisions are Richburg/WaShington Post it made clear its intention to proceed consciously fostered by the capitalist, Women workers at Nlke factory In Serang slave for $2.50 a day making with the sale as soon as the dust settles. exploiters to keep working people from shoes sold for $100 a pair. . With an eye not only to China but also uniting against their common foe. One ing their statements into Indonesia Via of the capitalist class they represent and to instability in Indonesia and inter­ of the factors in the violence against fax and e-mail. both have been backed by leftists who imperialist rivalries with Japan; the U.S. Chinese Indonesians is that many of The courage of these young militants is mislead the workers movement into the them are Christians, as are the East and Australia have agreed to joint mili­ epitomized by imprisoned union activist trap of popular-frontist betrayal. tary exercises which will bring 17,000 Timorese. Islamic fundamentalist groups Dita Indah Sari, president of the PRD­ American military personnel to northern have been growing recently in Indonesia, While the PRO has been active in pm­ afflliated Indonesian Center for Labor Queensland next March. though not as spectacularly as in other testing the genocidal Indonesian occu­ countries; Some of the largest of these Struggles (PPBI). She has often been pation of East Timor, it refuses to call The post-Soviet world is marked by imprisoned for her work in organizing have been loosely aligned with the pro­ for independence, instead demanding "a intensified interimperialist rivalry. U.S. strikes and for participation in protests Megawati opposition. It is necessary to peaceful resolution and no military inter­ imperialism, with its Australian junior such as the December 1995 demon- fight for the separation of state and vention in East Timor, and recognition partner in tow, is vying with Japan over . stration against the occup'ation of East religion and against theocratic reaction of human and democratic rights for the who will dominate the region. Indonesia Timor. Duting the July 8 rally of 20,000 while opposing discrimination against East Timorese nation." Meanwhile, the is the largest supplier of oil to Japan strikers in Surabaya, she was arrested for all religious minorities. PRO~s "democratic" hero~ne Megawati outside the Near East, and 90 percent of "spreading hatred against the govern­ Religious fundamentalism is a particu­ endorses the expansionist aims of the Japan's oil imports pass through ment." But along with this courageous lar threat to women, who have played an military regime, calling for incorporation Indonesian waters. The Japanese imperi­ work, she also exemplifies the central increasingly strong role in strikes and of East Timor as the 27th province of alists recognize that the U.S.-led in­ political weakness of the PRD: its,sup­ protests. The militant role played by Indonesia. Among the Australian vasion of Iraq and its military buildup in port for and illusions in Megawati and reformist left, the PRO's publicity agents the Persian Gulf is aimed at reinforcing women in the struggle against the Suharto dictatorship is exemplified by the PDI. Dita Sari is described by the in the Oemocratic Socialist Party call for U.S. control over Near East oil. Japan's PRD as involved "also actively in organ­ the case of Marsinah,a 'young woman "liberating" East Timor through the ruling class has never forgotten the U.S. izing actions for the Indonesian oppo­ intervention of the Australian jackal im­ naval blockade of oil which impelled worker militant tortured, raped and killed in east Java in May 1993. Her death, sitions and for Megawati's supporters," perialists, who are ,themselves deeply Japan's entry into World War II. This , including as a regular speaker at public which became an inspiration for new complicit in Suharto's slaughter of the reinforees the appetites of Japanese im­ forums organized by pro-Megawati dis­ fighters, illustrates the hideous op­ East Timorese. perialism to include Indonesia as a key sidents at the PDI headquarters. pression and superexploitation of women The PRO not only looks to Megawati component in a new "Greater East The government's claim that the PRO Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere." workers in Indonesia, who make up a and her bourgeois POI to oppose majority of the workforce in the prison­ is fomenting communist insurrection is Suharto, it also makes a veiled bid for Indonesia's rich natural resources­ like factories . .AS in the'Russian Revol­ far from reality. PRO leader Budiman a split in the Indonesian military and oil, gas,· timber, gold, silver, copper, ution of 1917, women are and will be in Sudjatmiko insists his party is "leftist in fosters illusions in the "democratic" the socio-democratic sense," which is etc.-are being plundered by inter­ the forefront of the fight against capital­ appetites of U.S. imperialism. An August national capital at an ever-increasing ist and semi-feudal enslavement. As confirmed by the limited material avail­ 12 statement released by the PRO's over­ rate. Foreign investment, principally Trotsky said of the Muslim women in the able to us on the PRO's political work. seas office in Australia appeals to gen­ Japanese and· American;· totaled $40 Soviet East: . .,' . ., The PRD describes its program as aimed erals who "are indicating support for the billion in 1995 alone. For the world's at "achieving a multiparty democracy, democratic movement" and continues: "The Eastern woman who is the most with the right to freedom of organjsation inipetialiS·i overlords·,·Indonesia is a rich paralyzed in life, in her habits and in cre­ "The U.S., which has become the pillar source for capitalist profits, where ativity, the slave of slaves, that she, having for workers, peasants and all oppressed of anti-communism, considers we have impoverished workers labor in the textile at the demand of the new economic re­ sections of society," explicitly calling for entered the New World Order where and shoe factories, the oil fields and lations taken off her cloak will at once feel class-collaborationist alliances "with the issues of human rights, democracy and rubber plantations, under conditions of herself lacking any sort of religious two legal non-government parties.,-the econoniic development have become the brutal exploitation. Typical is the Nike buttress.... And there will be no better United Development Party (PPP) and the priority for all world nations. And this communist in the East, no better fighter Indonesian Democratic Party (PDI)-and principle has given birth to a wave of shoe factory in Serang, where the cost of for the ideas of the Revolution than the democratisation everywhere." with all other democratic forces." labor for a pair of athletic shoes which awakened woman worker." Belief in the "democratic" intentions of A PRO manifesto issued after the sells for $iOO is only $2.60. Even the . - Perspectives and Tasks in the the imperialists who sponsored the 1965 East (1924) July arrests sums up its "immediate government itself admits that the mini­ massacre and in the "progressive" mili­ demands," calling for raising the daily mum wage of $2 a day (and many tary is a fatally dangerous illusion. Such minimum wage to 7,000 rupiahs (about workers, especially women and children, For a Trotskyist Party _a policy will lead these 'courageous $3), for a referendum for the people of receive far less), will not buy enough to in Indonesia! young militants into the same kind of feed one worker, let alone a family. East Timor, and for the nomination of The PRO was formed in 1994 as an Megawati as a presidential candidate. bloc with bourgeois nationalists that led The changes brought about by capital-· to the slaughter of a generation of leftist ist development have brought new mis­ umbrella group of student, worker and Together these reflect the reformist and peasant associations. From our limited popular-frontist outlook of this group, militants in 1965. ery for the toiling masses, with peasants Successive generations of the Indo­ thrown off their land and driven into information, it appears ihat many of its as it seeks to channel· the vast popular members are young university students hatred for the regime into minimalist nesian working class have demonstrated urban shantytowns where they cannot their determination to rise up against but notice the massive chasm between who became labor activists, organizing economic _demands and support for the trade unions and strike struggles; a num- bourgeois opposition. Megawati, mean- their exploiters. What is lacking is a rich and poor. At ihesame time, industri­ leadership which can point the way for­ alization has created a growing working ber were arrested in the colirse of recent while, has disassociated herself from her strikes and protests. Earlier this year, supporters' "violence" and has called "to ward to a victorious struggle for power. class, young and not weighed down by Such a party must be based on the the horrendous defeat of 1965. More than PRO militants played leading roles in guarantee public order." Megawati is organizing strikes and anti-government often compared to the Philippines' Cory Trotskyist program of permanent revol­ 20 million workers now live in urban ution: the combative proletariat leading areas like the Jakarta-Bogor-Tangerang­ , ,demonstrations in several key industrial Aquino, who was promoted by Washing- centers. In the wake of the reCent wave ton as a successor to the venal Marcos the toiling peasant masses in the struggle Bekasih industrial belt where strike not only to overthrow the venal, repress­ activity has been centered. of repreSSion, the PRO is reportedly regime. While Megawati is less effective reorganizing to operate clandestinely, than Aquino, there are certain parallels: ive rule of the generals, but to expro­ Meanwhile, there is widespread resent­ while supporters overseas are broadcast- both wholeheartedly defend the interests priate the factory and plantation bosses ment among the new middle classes at -both the Indonesian exploiters and the the nepotism, cronyism and corruption· Spartacist League Forums imperialist overlords they serve. Such a of the ruling Suharto clique. Subarto's ~ party must, like Lenin's Bolsheviks, be six children have utilized their family a tribune of the people, championing the connections, cheap state Joans and sub­ rights of the subjugated women, the sidies and state monopolies to build up restive youth, the myriad oppressed business empires worth more than $4 Indonesia Powder Keg nationalities, the religious and ethnic billion, spanning telecom franchises, minorities. petrochemical complexes, transport and The proletarian vanguard must look trading monopolies. Foreign capitalists For Workers Revolution to Sweep Away Suharto· Dictatorship! not to suicidal alliances with the class seeking to invest in Indonesia are forced enemy, the "democratic" bourgeois op­ to set up joint ventures with Suharto Remember 1965 Bloodbath-No More Popular Front Betrayals! position and their imperialist sponsors, family members, ceding them controlling but to linking up with its international interests in exchange for their political class allies, the workers throughout Asia influence. SYDNEY and across the world, in an international The Indonesian rulers consciously fos­ MELBOURNE party of socialist revolution-a reborn ter national and communal divisions to Friday, 17 January, 7 pm Saturday, 18 January, 2.30 pm Fourth International. For a Leni nist­ ward off multiethnic class struggle and AMWU Council Room, 1st Floor Brunswick Community Health Centre Trotskyist party in Indonesia! Fy an to jack up the rate of exploitation. 136-140 Chalmers Street 11 Glenlyon Road, Brunswick ! Indonesian workers republic, p·an of a Chinese Indonesians, who include a fabu­ Surry Hills (Near Syldney Road - Tram 19) socialist federation of Asia! lously wealthy elite, have been a par­ (02) 9281 2181 Phone for further Information (03) 96544315 Reprinted from Workers Vanguard ticular target for racist attacks. Ethnic No. 654, 25 October 1996. SUMMER 1996/97 1-:, ,

,., Australasian . .

SPARTACIST- .., ~ .Howard/Beazley's Attacks Fuel White Australia Racist Terror Down with the Racist War Against Immigrants and Aborigines!

Build a Revolutionary Workers Party, full Tribune of the· People! f,\tize~~ip ~forQI' ~~I Over the l&st few months this country social decay resulting from the bosses' '""'5'w~~5 .. has witnesseci an explosion of racial vili­ drive to jack up their rate of exploitation. fication, harassment and bashings in In the popular mind, this sweeping racist oase:4k schools, campuses, worksites and on the reaction is identified with the fascistic streets. Spokesmen for immigrant com­ "independent" Queensland member of munities, particularly Asian, .uniformly federal parliament, Pauline Hanson, who report that people are living in fear. The the media have deliberately elevated into Cambodian-born Labor member for a "national figure." But the current vile Clayton in Melbourne, Hong Lim, told pOlitical climate was prefigured by a the Victorian Parliament that he had federal election campaign which we never seen the Asian community so agi­ characterised at the time as a "Carnival tated. During the election campaign in of Racist Reaction" (Australasian Sparta­ March racist attacks reportedly doubled cist, No. 158, Autumn 1996). and have more than doubled again since. Immediately upon gaining office the ASp photo In an ominous provocation, the fascist Howard regime moved to deny newly Spartaclst contingent· at protest against planned visit to Melbourne National Action staged a chilling race arrived immigrants access to social secur­ University of racist bigot Pauline Hanson, 12 October. hate rally outside a multi-ethnic primary ity for two years, upped from the six school in Adelaide in late November. months decreed by the previous Labor will now enforce the permanent separ­ Aborigines, adults and youths, being The racist capitalist rulers of Australia government. In its latest racist diktat ation of families seeking to reunite in. trapped in the prison system. The have unleashed a war against Aborigines blatantly aimed at further slashing Asian Australia. Down with this racist outrage! Aboriginal people are already the most and immigrants which is both the cutting immigration, the Coalition government At the same time the government has incarcerated people per capita on earth. edge and necessary ideological adjunct of announced on 13 December that pro­ launched a witchhunt against what it has This in turn must lead to increasing their ~ssaults on the living standards and fiCiency in English will henceforth be dubbed the ." Aboriginal Industry" as a deaths of Aborigines in state custody. union organisations of the working required for family reunion applications. prelude to devastating cuts in federal Aboriginal rates of incarceration have people. The capitalists seek to divide the The Sydney Morning Herald (14 Decem­ funding for basic services for Aboriginal risen over 50 percent during the last working class against itself and divert its ber) summed up in the headline: "New people. A special target of the conserva­ decade, while deaths in custody have anger by scapegoating immigrants and migrants: speak English or don't come." tive Coalition is the Aboriginal ~gal tripled. As we go to press we learn that Aborigines for the increasing unemploy­ The hypocritical purveyors of "family Service, whose gutting is calculated to two Aboriginal children, aged eleven and ment, erosidn of living standards and values" in the conservative government lead to ever-increasing numbers of continued on page 8

Canberra, 19 August e. head of a 6,OOO-strong march of Aborig­ ines and unionists-mainly members of the Construction; Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU). In an excep­ tional and exemplary action the organ~ ised workers defended the AbOriginal Parliament Stormed as protesters against this racist cop provo­ cation. The state's thugs in blue were overwhelmed and retreated to the parlia­ ment building where a two-hour battle ensued. As the headline of the Building Worker (23 August, the news-sheet of Workers Defend Aborigines the Victorian branch of the CFMEU) put it: "Workers Defend Aboriginal Michael Jones Brothers & Sisters. Police Provoke The following statement was distributed Workers." On 20 August a thousand as a leaflet at the massive anti-racism rally Aboriginal demonstrators were comp­ in Melbourne on 8 December. elled to again defend themselves against The spectacular storming of the Parlia­ assaults by fully-equipped Australian ment House building in Canberra on 19 Federal Police (AFP) riot squads outside August by a militant, multiracial dem­ the old parliament building. onstration of Aborigines, unionists and The reality of thousands of organised youth showed the class anger seething at workers defending Aboriginal protesters the base of Australian society. Up to in the face of police provocation is his­ 35,000 demonstrators had come at the torically all too rare and deeply alarming call of the Australian Council of Trade to the racist rulers of this country, domi­ Unions (ACTU) to protest the Howard nated for decades by an official policy of government's assaults on welfare and its "White Australia" racism. The promo- . anti-union legislation. The ACTU leader-' tion of virulent racism in this capitalist ship had planned the rally as a vehicle to society is a central weapon used by the pressure parliament, especially the pro­ bosses to divide, derail and dissipate the business, anti-union Australian Demo­ struggles of all the working people and crats, to amend Howard's union-busting oppressed for social emancipation. In the legislation in the Senate. wake of 19 August the government, cops But the lid came off when the cops and the bourgeOis media launched a hue attacked the Aboriginal contingent at the . continued on page 9 12 SUMMER 1996/97