25¢

No.52 ~¢~) )(·'23 13 September 1974

ew ontrolS reaten Gerald Ford and George Meany

already approaching 8 percent in sever­ Nevertheless, the new president will clip since 1971. This is to be contrast­ Ford Cancels Federal al industrial states. (In particular in­ still have quite a few "bitter pills" for ed with a rate of growth of 1.8 percent dustries the rate is already at epidemic the less advantaged sectors of the pop­ in the 1950's and of 3.5 percent during Pay Increase levels. In New Jersey construction ear­ ulation to swallow. the 1960's. lier this summer unemployment was Depression and large-scale uneIll­ The reasons for such profligacy are SEPTEMBER 9-Nixon's resignation as over 30 percent.) ployment are indeed on the agenda, and clear. Important sectors of the Ameri­ U.S. President last month was the cul­ Liberals ana trade-union bureau­ it is evident that Ford will look toward can economy would be in dire straits mination of the deepest constitutional crats alike are now concerned that wage controls and cutbacks in social if the liquidity of their assets was ad­ crisis of the American bourgeoisie in Ford/Rockefeller may invoke the "old­ services in an effort to stimulate the versely affected by a real tight-money the last century. Yet it was not accom­ time religion" of tight money and sharp­ flagging economy. Here he will be sup­ policy. This would lead to a series of panied by a corresponding social/eco­ ly reduced government spending in an ported by all key sectors of the ruling bankruptcies, a situation which Amer­ nomic crisis or m:>bilization of the ican capital would go a long way to ',',":l'k:ng C h5s. i'iS can be seen in the avoid since it would greatly increase the .self-r:cngratulatory editorials in bOL!r- irr8.tionality and unpredictability of an ~evnnnedia in recent weeks, the alreadv inherently ."~~~t~e~ .. ruling class now believes it has suc­ cessfully resolved the crisis by shuf­ Ford Turns to the-" Workers fling a few top officials. The Working Class Will However, with the stock market There is only one source to which plunging daily, anarchy reigning in i!1- Ford can look for a partial solution to ternational monetary exchange, contin­ the economic problems he now faces, ued oil price hikes and primary com­ Never Pardon namely George Meany, head of the AFL­ modities s h 0 r tag e s, and inflation CIO. The President indicated his aware­ accelerating-the absent soc i a land ness of this "reality" by literally run­ economic crisis may not be long in Richard Nixon I ning from his inauguration toMr. Mea­ following. Under these circumstances ny's side. Nor is it any accident that a new government headed by an intel­ one of Ford's first acts as chief exec­ lectual neanderthal (Ford) and one of President Ford's shameless decree of a "free pardon" for Nixon is but the utive was to propose the creation of an the country's leading plutocrats (Rock­ latest dirty deal attempting to amnesty Nixon's crimes within the ruling agency to "monitor" wages and prices, efeller), neIther of them elected to their class. We say: who elected Ford and Rockefeller? We demand: new elections a proposal rapidly granted by an oblig­ offic~_ by anyone, can hardly expect and the fielding of a labor candidate pledged to a workers government-a ing Congress. solid public support. government which will make Nixon and his entire class pay for their real Although both Meany and Ford have With neither conservative nor liber­ crimes againstthe working people in this country, in Indochina and through­ issued countless denials that either al bourgeois economists having aplau­ out the world. And a step in that dil'ection, as well as a simple measure would countenance wage/price controls sible solution to the unprecedented situ­ of democratic sanitation, is to put this ruling-class jackal in jail. it is clear as day that Meany's accep­ ation of high inflation in the midst of tance of, and proposed participation on, sharp recession throughout the ad­ the new Council on Wage and Price vanced capitalist countries, Ford is Stability are a harbinger of future con­ resorting to a series of economic effort to control inflation while creat­ class. The myriad renunciations of trols under the joint aegis of capital "summit" meetings whose evident pur­ ing large-scale unemployment. In their wage/price controls are Simply prepa­ and the trade-union bureaucracy. pose is to shove responsibility for the usual manner, the Jeremiahs of the ration for a later coy submission to an The recent working-class militancy looming disaster onto other shoulders, ostensible revolutionary left, the Work­ "emergency" situation. and anger over the erosion of living hopefully the Democrats'. The possi­ ers League, have taken these fears to standards and decrease in real wages bility of a worldwide depression is their paranoid extreme: "These [defla­ Tight Money Shell Game must, of course, be given time to dis­ no longer dismissed as lunacy. tionaryJ pOlicies are designed to allow sipate. But the minute the current strike In this scenario it is the working the collapse of broad sections of indus­ Insofar as monetary tactics during wave subsides the despised controls class, as usual, which is being asked try and to create massive unemploy­ the Nixon era transcended the level of will be hurriedly reintroduced. As for to bear the brunt of the economic cri­ ment on a scale not seen in the United simple graft they revolved around the prices, Mr. Ford's "concern" was am­ sis. Real wages have fallen 10 percent States since the Great Depression of supposed hi g h -interest, tight-money ply demonstrated by his recent "jaw­ since mid-1972 and unemployment is the 1930's" (Bulletin, 23 August 1974). pOlicies of Arthur Burns, chairman of boning" which induced General Motors If Ford can choose a policy of de­ the Federal Reserve Board. NOW, the to back down from an exorbitant 9.5 pression and unemployment as the WL 5 September New York Times reports percent price hike to a mere 8.5 per­ seems to think, he or some liberal can that- at the first of several economic cent rise! also choose a policy of economic re­ "summit" meetings there was agree­ The first battleground against wage/ covery and full employment. Keynesian ment among academiC, business and price controls is likely to take place theory doesn't work either in stimulat­ government economists as to the need in the government sector. Ford's pro­ ing or depressing the economy. The for relaxing credit rates. Yet, in fact, posal to deJer scheduled pay increases laws of the world capitalist system the previous policy was anything but for 3.5 million federal employees is an overwhelm even the most capable of tight. obvious stalking horse to check out the bourgeois politiCians. An 11.5 percent interest rate on viability of reintroducing wage controls While Wohlforthite demonologists loans seems quite high if you are a immediately. If the labor movement may consider Ford to be an evil force wage-controlled worker trying to get does not react sharply to beat back guiding us toward economic disaster, a mortgage. But in a hyperinflated this attack, it will pay dearly for its Mr. Ford is hardly suited for the role. economy where profits have grown even passivity. He is responsible to a variety of sec­ faster than the rate of inflation, such Ford's effort to explore working­ toral interests in America's bourgeois a credit structure actually amounts to class resistance at this early date may society and has neither the mandate an "e as y - m 0 n e y" policy for big­ seem somewhat rash. However, in re­ nor the political power to trample on business borrowers. Moreover, the ality an "incomes policy" is the only Significant sections of the economy. money supply has grown at a 7 percent continued on page 1 1 £eften~ ______

Except for De Mau Mau none of the their hostility toward white support. attacking the international w 0 r kin g partiCipants had even a semblance of The SL proposals concretized the per­ class in a manner specifically designed Boston Committee links with the ghetto. The campaign spective of united class struggle and the to prevent the development of solidarity was carned out in typical New Left Maoists deliberately and unanimously and co-ordination within the labour Against Police fashion: leaflets enthused "repression voted them down. movement internationally. Union mil­ breeds resistance," while a petition ex­ With comradely and Leninist greetings, itants in both AusJralia and the U.S. -Brutality must reply to this exclusion by calling horted its readers to "support the de­ A. Sweet mands of the community," i.e., the for all necessary industrial action to August 9, 1974 several dozen Concerned People. Suf­ be undertaken by workers organisations fice it to say that only myself and De to force the lifting of this ban which Boston Mau Mau went petitioning among Bos­ is such a blatant attack on democratic Dear Editor: ton's housing proj ects. rights. With the international capitalist In the article on ·Cop Terror" in WV At the meeting before the demon­ James P. Cannon class engaging in trade wars, protec­ No. 50 the black forty-year-old shop­ stration I requested equal speaking tionism and whipping up national chau­ keeper, James WildS, murdered by the time to address the rally as a sup­ August 26, 1974 vinist sentiment, the struggle for inter­ Boston police is incorrectly described porter of the SL. While De Mau Mau Comrades: national working-class solidarity has as a black youth. Also the local commit­ at least defended this basic democratic never been more urgent. We have been reading your mater­ tee formed in response to this killing right, the various Maoists reacted with While the U.S. Government might be chose to call itself the "Concerned slanders like "you are divisive," "the ial for a few years now and we agree under the illusion that Carmichael is on the whole with your political line. People (not, as reported, the "Peoples SL attacks the farm workers," "we a communist, as the CPA's top in­ We had been members of the SWP Coalition") Against Police Brutality." can't let every group use this to fur­ dustrial strategist he has been respon­ for many years and finally gave up as The committee was in the main com­ ther its own ideology." I responded that sible for repeated bet ray a I s of the posed of various ostensibly revolution­ the tendency became more and more workers he purports to lead. He has these were partisan accusations made reformist etc. ' ary organizations with the Maoist spec­ by supporters of groups who found it been the architect of the "strategy of Saw an trum being the largest component. unnecessary to make any contribution obit on J.P. Cannon in the guerrilla action," s i mil a r toUAW N.Y. Times. His last years must have From the very beginning the orien­ to political clarity, preferring instead president Leonard Woodcock's" Apache been very sad! tations of class struggle vs. reformism to gloss over politics in order to pose strategy, " which is designed to dissipate We have a great number of books were counterposed in very concise as "community activists." This orien­ workers' militancy into isolated and and pamphlets that we must dispose of terms. The SL repre~entatives pro- tation condemned fhe group to seeking often impotent actions. (not throwaway). If someone is tobein Perhaps the most notorious example Phila. in the ne ar future please let us of the treacherous nature of Car­ know. michael's fake militancy is the Ford We have intended to stop up at your Broadmeadows strike here in 1973 THE office in N. Y.C. but never seem to make where car workers spontaneously re­ it. volted against both his pathetic "guer­ ~of JAMES WILDS Comradely, rilla strategy" and his attempt to ram through a settlement on the company's Herb and Pauline L. terms. The ten-week strike of the an:lWAlTER ROBEY Broadmeadows workers which followed was effectively sabotaged by Carmi­ chael's refusal to fight for its exten­ sion t h r ou g h ou t the car building u.s. Bars Australian industry. CP Union Leader While the American vehicle monop­ olies with factories in Australia (Ford, Chrysler, General Motors, Interna­ tional Harvester) are certainly just Glebe, Australia as rotten as they are in the U.S., Car­ Dear Brothers and Sisters, michael's fake militant posturing and demagogic rhetoric about the "menace , As an active memher of the Amal­ of uncontrolled foreign multi­ gamated Metal Workers' Union, I am nationals" is an excuse to go soft on WV PHOTO writing to inform Workers Vanguard Australian capitalists. posed that the group become an action a bloc with liberal bourgeois politicians readers of the refusal of the United In spite of Carmichael's record committee open to all groups and in­ and issuing sterile, liberal, minimum States Government to grant an entry it is imperative to defend his rights dividuals who supported two central propaganda which covered up the class visa to Laurie Carmichael, Assistant against attack by the employers and demands-that the"murderers of Wilds nature of the pOlice as the capitalist Federal Secretary of the AMWU and their government, which is an attack and Robey be arrested and tried" and class' arm of repression. The group's a member of the National Executive on the rights of all workers. Moreover, "disarm the cops." This proposal was deliberate focus on a race/community of the Communist Party of Australia. by acting together to reverse the ban included in a leaflet which focused On orientation combined wit h the un­ In view of your frequent coverage of Australian and U.S. workers can strike the necessity to mobilize in particular prinCipled hostility to racially united eve n t s concerning the United Auto a concrete blow for real international trade-union support, as well as that of labor action represented a conscious Workers of the U.S., I would like to labour solidarity. appropriate civic and community or­ negation of the working class, which, address my rema.rks in particu'lar Carmichael has called on all Aus­ ganizations, for actions around these unlike the New Left MaOists, has both to readers in that union. tralian unions to support his case and demands. the power and material interest to bring Brother Carmichael, who is also has talked of strikes directed against Although the alleged "class­ to bear an effective opposition against the Vehicle Industry Representative of General Motors-Holden and Ford fac­ struggle" forces of the African Lib­ the Boston cops. the AMwu had been invited by theUAW tories in this country. Action a Ion g eration Support Committee, RU, OL, The chickens came home to roost to attend a study course on aspects of these lines should be supported. It SWP, Struggle Collective and their sup­ on the day of the demonstration. The American unionism. The U.S. Govern­ is equally imperative, however, that porters constituted the bulkofthe com­ march was a dismal flop, totaling ment rejected his application for a visa workers in the U.S., particularly in mittee they felt compelled to liquidate about 80, including about 30 white under a section of its Immi.gration and the UAW, be brought into the campaign their politics and otherwise capitulate Maoist. supporters. The black and Span­ Nationality Act which bars members of by co-ordinated industrial action to to the slightest whim of a small group ish communities were noticeably ab­ a Communist party from entry. break this ban. of nationalists. The first act of the sent, as was Mel King. The black This actiOn by U.S. authorities vi­ I would like to request that your group was to expel four whites, three supporters of the OL and RU had failed tally concerns the workers movement in readers raise this questionintheUAW, of whom were SL supporters, from the to inform their white "comrades" that both our countries. It is a clear attack as I intend to do in the AMWU. meeting. The nationalists then sought to they had capitulated to the nationalists on the democratic right of unrestricted express the exclusion in racial terms in the planning meetings and COllabor­ travel and entry across national bound­ Fraternally, by putting forth a motion that the group ated in their exclusion. Though the aries and the workers' right to hear David Grumont be named the "African Coalition." The whites were relegated to the rear of differing political views. Above all, in (member, Sydney Central Branch, RU Maoists opposed this on the basis the march, even this did not appease banning Carmichael, they are directly Amalgamated Metal Workers' Union) that it excluded Spanish-speaking and the nationalists who regarded the whites other "third-world" peoples. A com­ as in t r u de r s. Race-baiting was ram­ promise was reached with the OL's pant; whites expecting to hear militant ------definition of people to mean all non­ rhetoric were treated to such expres­ - Europeans. The name "Concerned Peo­ sions of solidarity as "Go home, you pIe" was unanimously adopted. white beasts, we wish to talk to black This was the beginning of a long list people.'" WfJRIlEli1 of opportunist maneuvers t hat suc­ Not unexpectedly the last meetingOf ceeded in liquidating any serious op­ these elements as a group was charac­ position to police brutality. The group terized by mutual recrimination. The was constituted as a white-exclusionist Struggle Collective a c c use d De Mau ',NfiIJIRIJ bloc limited to demands such as elim­ Mau of putting forth their own ideology; Name ______inating "excessively" abusive police the nationalists replied that they had Add res s ______weapons (shotguns, .357 hollow-nosed said that "only black people can stop bullets, attack dogs). Having adopted a police b rut a 1 it y" and "it was the City/State/Zip 52 narrow and non-working-class per­ Marxist/Leninists who violated the de­ spective, with an exclusive orienEihon cisions by inviting their white friends . 0 Enclosed is $5 for 24 issues to the minority communities of Rox­ to a black march." I pointed out that bury and Dorchester, the group soli­ indeed the so-called "Marxists" must illdudes SPARTACIST 0 Enclosed is $1 for 6 introductory issues cited a black minister and black Dem­ bear full responsibility for evading ocrat horse-trader Mel King to address every opportunity to confront the na­ order from/pay to: ~partacist Publishing Co./Box 1377. GPO/Ny,NY 1.0001 the proposed August 3 rally. tionalists who are quite open about 2 WORKERS VANGUARD James Patrick Cannon > '":;j ~ tl '" '";;J o'" ~ '"Bl '"f.; 0:

James P. Cannon Cannon (center) with Max Eastman (left) and Big was the finest Bill Haywood in Moscow, 1922. -e; communist t"' ::j > political leader ~ this country has yet produced. In his prime he had the evident capacity to lead the proletarian revolution in America to victory.~

11 February 1890 - 21 August 1974

Report Irom Oslo: c.,..._ .~7J..-=::. Workers Strike at Norway's Largest Firm

OSLO, August 16-Workers at Norsk and their militancy eventually had to be labor negotiations are shrouded in con­ praised both workers and man~ement Hydro walked out last month in a two­ suppressed by militia and gunboats. siderable secrecy in Norway, a bu­ for their calmness and "adherence to week strike which is regarded here as This show of force was arranged by reaucratic practice which leaves the the rules" and made clear his feeling the most significant labor dispute in none other than Vidkum Quisling, then membership in the dark as to what is that all a strike is about is to increase Norway since 1948. The workers were defense minister and later pro-Nazi being fought for, reports putthe unions' the "fairness" of labor's "share." protesting low wages, some of the worst chief of state under German occupation demands at about a 30 percent in­ working conditions in the country, a in World War II. crease. An indication of what wag e Orientering, w h i c h represents a surging rate of inflation and soaring In 1948, fighting for a reduction of levels have been heretofore is the fact left-maverick split from the Labor company prOfits. the workweek to 42 hours, the workers that in the salary classification being Party, appeared to do the most work on Hydro, Norway's largest firm, em­ of the Hydro plant at Heroya took mat­ demaI1.ded by the union the top wage is digging up and publishing facts about ploys over 5,000 workers, prodUCing ters into their own hands by declaring set at $8700. Norway's cost of living, the strike and its background, but failed key industrial ingredients such as mag­ a new schedule of shifts. Management subject recently to heavy inflation, is to draw any but the mildest reformist neSium, chlorine, nitrates and poly­ answered with a lockout, and the conflict at least as high as that of the U.S. conclusions. vinylchloride. Thus the shutdown posed lasted over two months. In the Storting Meanwhile the Maoist W 0 r k e r s' a considerable economic threat through (parliament) Labor Prime Minister Communist Party (AKP) and its organ, the c h a i n reaction that shortages of Einar Gerhardsen launched a Cold War Lack of a Class-Struggle K lassekampen, came close to miSSing these products could cause in a number attack on the workers, accusing them Leadership the strike entirely, so busy were they of industries. The capitalists' govern­ of waging a "political action, and one at their usual task of trying to prove that the Soviet Union is a "bureaucratic­ ment, including the fake "socialists" of which is .but a link in an international The shutdown at Hydro was not total. capitalist state. " (The latest issue, the Norwegian Labor Party, was ac­ action. " Workers in certain divisions are under dated 31 July-6 August, claims that the cordingly anxious to get Hydro back into The national federation of trade un­ separate contract, and the magnesium USSR is an "imperialist power" which proauction at the ear 1 i est possible ions (knoWn by its Norwegian initials, and chlorine plants at Heroya would "threatens other countries and nations­ moment. LO) also played a rotten role in the have required lengthy clOSing-down Norway included." The clear implica­ 1948 walkout, backing down on the de­ procedure. On this basis the strike tion of this statement is that the work­ Pro-Nazi Management and mand for a 42-hour week and then de­ committee, representing the various ing class should defend capitalist Nor­ claring the subsequent shutdown an "il_ unions involved, left some 800 workers Cold War Socialists way, a member of NATO to boot, against legal" strike, on which grounds it re­ on the job during the strike. Government intervention and "so­ fused to pay strike benefits. the Soviet Union! No class-conscious cialist" sabotage of strikes are nothing In 1971 the state obtained just over The purpose of this was to take the worker would support such a counter­ new in the history of Norsk Hydro. The 50 percent of Norsk Hydro's shares, heat off the "responsible" Labor min­ rev01utionary policy.) company was founded seventy years a fact which has been used to paint the isters in the government. In a textbook K lassekampen managed to run an ago, with part of its financing coming firm management as "responsible to the example of the consequences of class­ article after the strike ended, but con­ from the Swedish capitalist Marcus whole society." Nevertheless, even af­ collaborationist pOlitics, Arbeiderbla~ centrated on the seamy history of Hydro Wallenberg. At the start French capi­ ter the state's acquisition of majority­ det, the Labor Party's mass-circulation without providing any clear program for tal was predominant, but by the 1920's stockholder position, Hydro continues daily, agonized over the lost production, the workers. The obvious need was to I.G. Farben, the German chemical to be represented in the Norwegian the threat to other industries' raw ma­ raise such demands as expropriation trust, gained control. (During the war Association of Employers. Another ex­ terials supplies and the general "cost without compensation, workers control Hydro, as a Farben-controlled firm, ample of the reality behind the myth of to society· posed by the strike. and a sliding scale of wages and hours was of particular service to the Nazis Scandinavian "socialism" is the con­ The Norwegian Communist Party to counter the runaway inflation and and helped finance their Norwegian spicuous silence on the strike by ill (NKP), in turn, found itself unable tode­ threatened unemployment. But, despite imitator party, the NasjonaISamling.) national chairman Tor Aspengren, who mand anything more militant than the its name ("Class Struggle"), nowhere Seeking to "rationalize" the com­ is also a member of Hydro's board of withdrawal of Hydro management from did the Maoists' organ link the strike to pany's operations (and thus increase its directors. the Employers' Association! The NKP a revolutionary program for the trans­ profits), Farben caused the summary The main strike issue was the work­ or g an, Friheten, gave considerable formation of the labor unions in t 0 firing of several hundred workers in ers' demand for a contractually guar­ space to the views of the strike com­ instruments of a class-conscious 1931. However, the workers resisted anteed annual salary scale. Although mittee chairman Edvard Seland, who proletariat. _ 13 SEPTEMBER 1974 3 Third Campers Expel Soviet Defensists Wilchhunl in Ihe BIL We reprint below an account by sup­ What monstrous hypocrisy!! For RSL, the pompous posturing of most ization from a leading committee, Ta­ porters of the former Trotskyist Tend­ years these "democratic socialists" leaders of the organization and its ber began a phone campaign to dis­ ency/Soviet Defensist Minority of the and "creative Marxists" have been truly' grotesque and undemocratic in­ credit Brecht and, upon being informed Revolutionary Socialist League (RSL) of going around screaming about the to­ ternal life, it would be surprising if a by Myers that he was reconsidering his their recent expulsion from that organi­ talitarian horrors of the "bureaucratic factional situation inside the RSL did pOSition, Myers as well. zation for advocating an ostensibly Cannon, regime" in the early SWP. But not include a heavy dose of cliquism­ For more than a month no formal orthodox Trotskyist policy of uncondi­ it takes someone such as Landy, the on both sides. But charges of cliquism charges were brought while the PC tional military defense of the Soviet cynical and degenerated product of and maneuverist behavior do not con­ majority bloc-Taber, Sy Landy, Bruce Union and other deformed workers fifteen years of anti-communist social stitute grounds for expulsion. In this Landau, Jack Gregory-escalated their states against imperialism. democracy, to elevate oliquism into a case they are a smokescreen to ob­ activities: an hysterical slander cam­ Among those expelled number three capital political offense, or to expel a scure the programmatic issues that paign on the branch level against these members of the RSL Central Committee group at a meeting where it presents -in the last analysis-are decisive. PC and CC members and the growing an oppositional document and then turn number of other supporters of Trot­ (CC): Margaret Brecht, Jon Myers and If there is a lesson to be learned by around and accuse it of being a clique sky's position. The "charges" varied Kevin Tracey. Brecht and Tracey were the expelled RSL minority it is pre­ for failing to organize a tendency based from week to week and no evidence was members of the RSL Political Commit­ cisely that of the primacy of program on an explicit platform! Brecht and offered to prove them. Indeed, it was tee (PC), and Brecht also held the posi­ in political struggle. All members of Tracey were expelled at the very same declared that the defeatists had no re­ tion of RSL National Organizational t his tendency, including espeCially April 13 CC meeting at which they pre­ sponsibility to prove them. A call for a Secretary. former Communist Tendency leadez; sented their statement of tendency, Control Commission to investigate the This series of expulsions of leading Kevin Tracey, should reflect upon the "In Defense of October." situation was denounced as "Cannonite cadre marks yet another setback for experiences of the Communist Ten­ bureaucratism" and, on being asked to the foundering RSL, which earlier lost Lucky Abern! A cliquist who re­ dency. As a left oppositional grouping prove the" charges, " Landau arrogantly its "Black-Latino Coordinator," Don peatedly blocked with disparate politi­ coming from the SWP, the CT rejected proclaimed, "We are Trotskyists, not Cane, to the Workers League (Cane has cal elements in order to oppose Cannon, the possibility of fusing with the SL bourgeois legalists." subsequently broken from the Wohl­ he managed to survive over adecade of despite sub s tan t i a 1 programmatic Instead, the defeatists took organi­ forthites). Coupled with the abortive the "Cannon regime." The latter guar­ agreement, in order to instead liqui­ zational measures. Brecht was re­ attempt to fuse with the Platsky /Turner anteed only simple things like the right date into the petty-bourgeois, worker­ moved from the position of Organiza­ Class Struggle League early last win­ to factions and lacked the "creative ist International Socialists so as to get ter and the decision to retreat from a Marxists" to invent such crimes against "close to the working class." Instead tional Secretary. Other Defensists were bi-weekly to a monthly newspaper, the the working class and the party as they got close only to the Gregorys, removed from the local Executive Com­ recent expulsions only underline the "entrism. " Landys, Landaus and Tabers, while the mittees in Detroit and Chicago. Still others were removed from labor downhill slide of Taber/Landy and Co. By its organizational p r act ice s CT itself totally fragmented and dis­ committees. and confirm the SL' s evaluation of the alone, the RSL demonstrates that its solved. Precious years of experience At the April CC meeting, the major­ RSL as a hypervolatile petty-bourgeois Trotskyism is just so much verbiage. and talent have been lost to the revolu­ formation with no future in the workers ity resolution State Capitalism and the In appetites and practice it has mu~h tionary movement. Russian Question: A Rough Draft was movement. more in common with the very worst The present ex-RSL minority will passed. This was the first substantial The root of the RSL's problems is of the New Left Maoists. political. It attempts to maintain that never find its way to a Trotskyist per­ exposition of their view that the de­ it is Trotskyist while at the same time It is, of course, quite conceivable spective unless it understands and re­ featist bloc had ever been able to pass. rejecting Trotsky's views on the degen­ that the RSL leadership's charges, that jects the workerism which led the CT Only hours later, Brecht and Tracey, eration of the October Revolution and on the supporters of the former Trotsky­ into its liquidationist and ultimately against whom formal charges had fi­ the nature of Stalinism in favor of a ist Tendency/Soviet Defensist Minority disastrous course. The struggle to nally been presented April 1 st, were ex­ "third camp," state-capitalist position are unprincipled maneuverers and forge the Leninist combat party is above pelled. The next day Myers was re­ on the RUSSian Question. At bottom, cliquists, are true. Given the self­ all the struggle for the program of moved from the CC and excluded from this "third campism" represents a evident hysteria reigning wit h i n the Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky. _ full membership, with the promise that social-patriotic r e con c iIi at ion to he would be "dropped" as soon as the American imperialism. "shock" to the membership subsided. ''''ot~uent.~ any tendency within Following the exclusion of the lead­ the RSL attempting to find its way to a ing Soviet Defensists, others were cen": Trotskyist perspective must first of all U The Purge of the Trotskyists from the sured and threatened with expulsion. confront the key Russian question. Re­ When "In Defense of October," the jection of defeatist, Shachtmanite "third resolution to the CC from the Soviet camp" positions in favor of a position of Revolutionary Socialist League" Defensist minority, was distributed to unconditional military defense of the the membership, its supporters de­ degenerated/deformed workers states On July 13, 1974, the Central Com­ through" by the defeatist majority, it clared-a Tendency. In response to this, against imperialism represents a nec­ mittee of the Revolutionary Socialist became clear to several supporters of the PC split over whether to expel the essary (but not sufficient) condition for League (USA) upheld the expulsions by the state-capitalist position that the Tendency one by one, all at once at the the realization of a successful struggle the Detroit and Chicago branches ofthe position put forward was inconsistent next CC meeting, or at the Convention. to transcend the RSL's revisionism. supporters of the Trotskyist Tendency. with the world view of Trotskyism. It Landy warned against the course being The RSL leadership has only belat­ This was the culmination of a purge also became clear that the RSL did not followed: "A necessary but unfortunate edly acknowledged the recent expul­ which began with the expulsions by the have one position on the Russian Ques­ political hatchet job was done on Brecht sions. But it has defended this atrocity CC on April 13th and 14th of Political tion, but an amalgam of every view save and Tracey ••• it would not look good to in no uncertain terms trying to justify a Committee members, Margaret Brecht that of Trotsky; that the leadership of those who have read In Defense of series of pOlitical expulsions on the and Kevin Tracey, and the reduction to the so-called state-capitalist majority Marxism. " But at the May 9th PC grounds that the minority was cliquist candidate membership of CC member was content with this amalgam because meeting Taber demanded the expUlsion and guilty of a new crime-"entrism." Jon Myers. Those purged were all the it sought fundamentally only to main­ of all the Defensists at the next CC meet­ tain a bloc against the So vie t D e­ ing. The PC compromised. The secre­ Thus, in the "PC Statement on the advocates of the Trotskyist position on fensist position. It was at this meeting tary of the Tendency would be expelled. Expulsion of Brecht and Tracey" one the class nature of the Stalinist states who waged the fight against the state­ that it was first openly stated in the RSL Again Landy objected: "It will look like reads: capitalist defeatism of the RSL. that Trotsky's position on the Russian we expel each of their new leaders. " "The basis for the charges against On May 26th Myers was "dropped." Brecht, Tracy, and Myers was that So aware is the RSL leadership of Question was "centrist" and that it laid they had acted as an entrist political the cowardly and unprincipled charac­ the basis for the degeneration of the At that same meeting a Declaration of grouping within the League for the ter of its own campaign against the Fourth International. And it was at this Faction was issued, which documented purpose of either securing leadership Soviet Defensists, that it has been to meeting that the campaign to isolate the centrism of the RSL, jJs campaign through apolitical means and if that date unable and unwilling to make any Kevin Tracey, at that time the sole against the Defensists as practical proved impossible splitting away a sec­ public statement in defense of the purge. Soviet Defensist in the leadership, was proof of the revisionist and cliquist na­ tion of the League memhership. As it The struggle began at the January begun in earnest. ture of the central leadership, and which happened, when they saw they could not 1974 meeting of the CC where the first On February 28th Brecht fnformed exposed the "secret" plans ofthe PC. mJ.neuver themselves into leadership, The hesitancy of the PC members they emharked on a course of wrecking formal discussion of the Russian Ques­ the National Secretary Ron Taber that the League in order to maintain their tion in the RSL was held. Upon consider­ she had become a sup po r t e r of was diSSipated. On May 31st the PC is­ base. They attempted to iml)lem ~nt ation of "On State Capitalism" by Eric Trotsky's position on the class nature of sued a statement calling for the ex­ their 'rule or ruin' perspective through Olson, now hailed as a "major break- the Stalinist states. Without any author- continued on pa{[e 11 a series of cheap m.l.neuvers, petty slander and bald lies to the organiza­ tion. They organized their supporters into a clique cohered by personal loyal­ SL/SYL PUBLIC OFFICES-Revolutionary Literature ties, gossip, and the prom; se of special privileges to its members ••.. Tn is course exposed their complete con­ tempt for and disloyalty to the program BAY AREA CHICAGO NEW YORK and mem'Jership of the League. Their ineptness only helped to expose their Monday} through 3:00-7:30 p.mo cynicism." Friday } Tuesday 4:00-8:00 p.m. The next paragraph of the PC State- and 3:00-6:00 p.m. Friday Saturday 2:00-6:00 p.m. ment begins by noting that: Saturday Saturday 1:00-4:00 p.m. ! "Although the clique [Brecht, Myers and Tracey] formally shared a 'Soviet De­ 330-4Oth Street 538·So. Wabash 260 West B roadwClY fensist' position on the Russian Ques­ (near Broadway) Room 206 Room 522 tion, it was never o.rganized into a Oakland, Cal ifornia Chicago, Illinois New York, New York political tendency or faction based on Phone 653-4668 Phone 427-0003 Phone 925-5665 an explicit platformmd open to all who held the position."

.. .WORK.E~S. VA~~~RD MIR Veers Right After Coup This week demonstrations are being 1970 election, that the Popular Unity So far they have been unsuccessful New Left/Castroite- Revolutionary Left held throughout the world to mark the government was preparing the way for in winning support for their schemes of Movement (MIR). anniversary of last year's bloody coup a bloody defeat of the Chilean working bureaucratic suppression, and for good The MIR is a centrist organization in Santiago and to pledge international masses. The UP coalition, we pointed reason. If the victory of the military whose main characteristics have been solidarity with the junta's victims. out, was not a workers government over Allende was a sharp setback for sharp tactical zigzags and political While there is widespread outrage at but a popular front-a bloc of the re­ the workers movement internationally, confusion. Formed in 1965 out of a the murder of tens of thousands of formist workers parties (Socialist and it was a resounding political defeat fusion of pro-Chinese, pro-Cuban and defenseless Chilean workers andpeas­ Communist) with a section of the bour­ for the Stalinist policy of "peaceful "Trotskyist" elements, the MIR in its ants, there are predictably wide dif­ geoisie-which was explicitly commit­ roads to socialism." early years focused primarily on stu­ ferences over how to respond to the ted to the maintenance of capitalism. dents, peasants and slum dwellers. tragic situation. Alone among the ostensibly Trotskyist When it finally directed its attention For the Stalinists it is sufficient tendencies in the U.S., the SL re­ MIR Gives Critical Support to to the organized working class (approx­ that a few thousand militants march fused to give any form of political Allende imately from 1972 on) the MIR scored around chanting "CIA Hands Off Chile" support, however critical, to this class­ some spectacular successes. But it was or "Chile Si, Junta No," and listen to collaborationist regime. In Chile itself the organized workers too late. some liberal Democrat denounce the NOW, in the aftermath of the bloody movement has been dri ven underground At the tactical level these left Cas­ generals. To them the class struggle defeat we predicted long in advance, we and suffered great losses, but it has troites switched from a phase of clan­ is nothing; the only goal is to "restore seek to drive home the 1 e s son s of not been destroyed and atomized. More':' destine preparation for guerrilla strug­ democracy." For Marxists, however, Allende's fall. This the reformists over, reports indicate that elements gle to de facto support for the existing September 11 is an important oppor­ do not want. In the name of "unity" (!) in the working-class base of the SP bourgeois government after Allende tunity to analyze the causes of the they seek to exclude the Trotskyists and CP have begun to question the was installed. Never an actual member junta's victory and to prepare for the from participating in or speaking at pOlicies which led to September 11. of the UP coalition, the MIR's policy revolutionary struggle ahead. Chile defense rallies, and to drown out So far, the main beneficiary of dis­ during 1970-73 was one of pressuring The Spartacist League repeatedly our slogans of "Workers Si, Junta No" illusionment with the UP's moderation warned, from the time of Allende's and "No Popular Front Illusions." and paCifism has apparently been the continued on page 11

We print below two letters re­ coming its standard practice, two com­ ceived by the Spartacist League of Aus­ peting Chilean sympathizer sections, tralia and New Zealand in response to the PSR (Revolutionary Socialist Party) the SL/ANZ' s campaign last spring to and LCCh (Communist League of Chile). save the lives of the Chilean MIR However, while the pages of Rouge Free VaD SelloaweD militants Ale jan d r 0 Romero and and the Red Mole are regularly filled Bautista Van Schouwen. with stories about the MIR, interviews The revisionist fake Trotskyists of with its leaders, etc., the USec sec­ aDdBomero! the United Secretariat, or rather its tions are almost never mentioned. European majority under Ernest Man­ Although the LCCh has existed since del, have also campaigned in defense of August 1973, no account of its polit­ the imprisoned MIR leaders. However, ical positions was published by the the USec defense is a classic expres­ USec until June 1974! sion of its capitulationist poliCies. Only This "neglect" is no accident, for rarely, and then in the most diplo­ in the grand scheme of Mandelian ma­ .l\~,'ti\l METAL WORk! matic and guarded terms, does the USec neuvers, such tiny groups are mere even hint at criticisms of these cen­ pawns to be traded for influence among ~\t.~'-'" ~ ills' IA trists. The SL, in contrast, while the much larger centrist groups. Hav..; shOwing militant proletarian sOlidarity, ing earlier spawned the Castroite MIR ~ ~ ~Q4' has refused to submerge its indepen­ and the Castro-Mao-Kim 11 Sungite Ar­ dent Trotskyist program. gentine PRT (while covering\JP_ the COMMONWEALTH COUNCIL repeated betrayals of its varTtfM:l Cey­ 126-128 CHALMERS STREET SURRY HILLS. N.S.W. 2010 The situation is all the more ludi- lonese affiliates for years), Telegrams: TolephOn.: 698-2324 crous since the USec has, as is be- Mandel/Maitan/Frank are at it again. " Amal&nvan OlrUnghurs," 698-3443

auot.: G.... J 17th April 1974.

1 The Secretary, spartacist League of Australia and New Zealand, iA-i~}J~~f'"'"" Box 3473 G.P.O. _IF A'. j rt":'UJ\ . Tlfe "'>1. "d\Tp! SYDNEY. N.S.W. 2001

Dear comrade, MINISTE" P"OR FOREIGN AFFAIRS As you are aware, I recently returned from the visit to CANBE"RA Chile and prior to my going I received a letter from the League .-, ...,. .:.: Cf")\iPLir-;;c( '.3 0- !l A:;R 1914 asking for information in particular about Von schowen and Ny dear Senator, :':;k; '\/('f~ ... ;'. '-it - "'._, Romero. The only information I was able to obtain was in respect Senator MurphyIn the the Senate questton on 20of March the velfare you rat.ed 01' wtth to Von Schowen. I spoke to students who had a personal knowledge of his arrest and information about his treatment. Drs Van SChoven and Romero, two me~bers 01' tho He was arrested and was brutally treated and finally taken to the Chtlean Z,lovelllent 01' the Rev01UUonary Le1't. You Military Hospital in santiago. The students assure me that there SUb.eqUontly paSsed to ~ o1'1'tce the enoloeed has been no opportunity to see him, but I found that quite a lot ..correepondencetter. to facilttate enqutrte. tnto the of information is passed on from various military and other sources which gets back to what can only be called the The ~bassy tn SantiAeO, wn!ch has nov underground. lOoked tnto tho situation, reports that Dr Van Schovon When I arrived in Chile I made enquiries about seeing t. detained in Concepcion vhile tho poaeibility or prisoners and was only able to see those who I had the names brill8~ criminal char~o. against him i. investigated. of and could say specifically in what camp they were, and con­ Ita enqUiries into Dr Romoro's oaso rOVoal that ho sequentlY when it came to locating Von schowen it was not Vas arrested in Santiaeo on 25 Octobor 1973 and that until the second week that I ~ot any reliable information. he i. nov hold under hOUse arrost in his bomo in So far as the authorities were concerned, they simply denied Santia€o. Wn!lo the l~bae8y is not able to COnfirm any knowlede of his whereabouts but of course we only spoke alleaationa 01' torture, it doee apPoar that neithor e man ia in imminont dancer 01' bis lir•• to the Minister Benallo and his representatives at the beginning of the visit. Australia's Concern at tbe rat. 01' Political Whilst we were there a number of Court Martials or prieoner. in Cbile bas boen registered on a n~~oor or oceaeions and tbo authoritios thore are aWare or ou~ Xilitary Trials were beinr, held of prisoners, and held in o secret, but it was Leneral knowledge that they were takin~ Gonoral attitUde. I IlJII aalcina our Dnbassy to 1ll000e a' place. When I went to Chacubooka this was confirme

~ [ J.A.BAIRD

13 SEPTEMBER 1974 REPORT FROM INDIA/PART II dhi Cmshes RailSlrike

During the first nine months of 1974 the rail unions were in collusion with India has already witnessed the fall of certain unnamed foreign powers and two state governments, in Gujarat and were plotting to wreak havoc that even Bihar, as a result of violent demonstra­ "our enemies" (i.e., Pakistan) had been tions and rioting over food shortages, unable to inflict in the past. high prices and unrestrained corruption In order to proj ect an image of permeating the ruling Congress Party. good faith, the government ceremoni­ Simultaneously, communal riots broke ously entered into mock negotiations out inDelhi and other major cities. Then with the NCCRS. However, after a few in late April, while Gujarat was still perfunctory seSSions, the government smouldering and Bihar was plunged in abruptly arrested George Fernandes, the t u r m 0 i 1 of the mas san t i - Convener of the NCCRS and Chairman '--l government upsurge, the National Co­ of the Socialist Party of India, and more ordinating Committee of Railwaymen's than 2,000 union leaders throughout the Struggle (NCCRS), a united-front strike country in a series of pre-dawn raids com:ni.ttee composed of unions repre­ on May 2. Railway Minister L.N. Mish­ senting the nearly two million organized ra justified this dragnet with the vague workers on India's state-owned rail allegation on the floor of Parliament system, served notice on Indira Gan­ that George Fernandes had something dhi's regime threatening a nationwide "bigger in his mind than the strike." strike to begin on May 8. Faced with perhaps the deepest so­ Union leaders Unprepared to cial crisiS since independence, and with Fight Government its base of popular support precariously weakened, the Congress Party clearly Despite the government's deter­ realized that it could not survive a mined political offensive, the reformist working-class offensive on the scale of workers parties controlling the rail a national transport strike. Although unions em.ohasized from the outset that the government could conceivably meet the strike would not be permitted to the rail waymen' s de man d s -bonuses develop into a political confrontation and wage parity with workers in the with the government. A few days after other pUblic-sector enterprises-the the beginning of the action, the Social-

Op:Josition leader addressing rally of railway workers during strike.

steel, coal and foodgrains should be defense of the strike. Moreover, they exemptedo During the strike the CPI could intersect the anti-government up­ issued calls for the strikers to take surges erupting throughout the country. group or zonal decisions on returning Outrage against government repression to work. had been one of the ma.in forces trig­ In fact, the CPI went so far as to gering both the Gujarat and Bihar scab on the strike. In a special ir1ter­ upheavals. view with Workers Vanguard corre­ But the rail strike could be defended spondents in Bombay on June 16, strike and won only through mobilization of the leader George Fernandes disclosed for entire Indian proletariat for a general the first time how CPI cadres operated strikeo The NCCRS did call for a one­ the trains for the government in the day Bharat Bandh (cessation of all in­ critical area of the Bihar coal fields. dustrial, commercial and public activi­ Assured that the reformist leaders ty throughout the country) in support of UPl of the NCCRS would not launch apoliti­ the strike for May 15. The fact that the Rail strikers in New Delhi. cal counter-Offensive, the government industrial working class responded with proceeded with an unprecedented reign the first successful general strike since strike threat represented an unmis­ ist Party (which controls the largest of terror to smash the strike. By sim­ independence demonstrated the class solidarity and willingness of the work­ takable challenge by the organized rail union federations) stated in its pIe administrative circular the Rail­ ers to join the struggle. working class for a confrontation with newspaper: way Board suspended the Payment of Wages Act and withheld the entire April the capitalist state. Moreover, if Gan­ ·What isShri (Mr.JGeorge Fernandes's In order to mobilize the workers for dhi granted the union demands she moti ve in organizing the rail waymen in­ and May wages of all strikers. In India, a m~litant general strike and unify the would soon find her government flood­ to action that has no parallel? It is mere where strike funds are inconcefvable unions in struggle (rather than by mere ed with wage demands from millions trade union action pure and simple, in given the abysmal pay scales, such a bureaucratic accords) a revolutionary of workers whose living standards are support of just economic demands. " move poses the prospects of mass leadership would have called for the being ground down by galloping infla­ -Janata (The People], 12 May starvation. creation of democratically elected, na­ tion (more than 30 percent in the last For these social democrats the class Likewise the electrical, water and tionally coordinated rank-and-file year alone). struggle is nothing but a "mere" means food supply to government-owned rail­ strike committees. The communists way men 's housing colonies was cut, would struggle to win the general strike Thus on the same day the NCCRS for extracting a few concessions from and in many places workers were forc­ movement to demands for a massive served strike notice, the Political Af­ the capitalists, while "socialist" par­ ibly evicted with their families. The wage increase and a sliding scale of fairs Committee of the Union Cabinet liamentarian ministers prepare the police and special military units forced wages and hours, in order to raise the declared that the threatened s t r ike "peaceful transition to socialism." striking workers back to the trains at abysmal standard of living ofthe work­ would be illegal under the Defense of 'J.'he attitude of the ultra-reformist bayonet point, beat their children and ers and combat the killing inflation and India Rules. Prime Minister Gandhi Communist Party of India (CPI) toward in many cases raped the women. unemployment. These demands contain swiftly authorized a series of draconian the strike was even more crassly de­ an explosive potential for mobilizing measures to prevent the strike: over featist. Thoroughly committed to apol­ Program for Strike Victory: broad masses in struggle, as the des­ 300 passenger and goods trains were icy of class-collaborationist alliance Political Offensive Against perate food riots in Gujarat and Bihar summarily cancelled in order to stock­ with the "progressive" wingofthebour­ demonstrated. pile coal reserves and to precipitate geois Congress Party represented by Capitalism dislocations severe enough to kindle Gandhi, the CPI was forced to place In this situation a revolutionary In order to link the struggles against anti-strike sentiment among the public; itself on the opposite side of the barri­ leadership in the rail and other trade price rises, corruption and hoarding the Territorial Army was instructed to cades from the masses during the unions could have mobilized powerful to the struggle of the working class, call up over 35,000 railwaymen for duty; course of anti-government upheavals in class forces and broadened the strike socialists should call for the creation at all important rail centers swarms of GUjarat and Bihar. The Stalinists par­ into an anti-capitalist attack on the of price committees/consumer cooper­ special police and military units were tiCipated in the rail strike only to break government. Demands for a repeal of atives, based on the power of the trade ominously deployed; and all the war­ it. all draconian acts and immediate re­ unions and drawing in poor peasant time authoritarian powers for mainte­ When the NCCRS first delivered its lease of all political prisoners and councils and scheduled-caste ("un­ nance of "internal security" were de­ strike notice, the CPI-Ied trade-union strikers, joined to a call for armed touchables"), womens' and student or­ clared to be in effect. Finally, a vicious federation announced its support, but militias of workers, poor peasants and ganizations. propaganda cam p a i g n was launched independently of the NCCRS declared the unemployed based on the trade Unlike the student-led and politically which insinuated that the leaderships of that essential commodities such as unions, wer~ absolutely crucialforthe continued on page 9 6 WORKERS VANGUARD Riots in Newark: Gibson's Cops Club Down Puerto Ricons

On Sunday, September 1, mounted of 1967 and 1969 which were channeled in blood. It was "black nationalists" tion, a "People's Committee Against park police trampled a Puerto Rican into Kenneth Gibson's succ~ssful may­ including, in particular, Imamu Baraka Police RepreSSion and Brutality" was festival in Newark's Branch Brook oral bid in 1970, this time the black who nominated Gibson as their "com­ formed, including Baraka, a represen­ Park, thus beginning four days of riots mayor and police director were the m:mity choice" at the Newark Black and tative of the Puerto Rican Socialist in which over forty have been arrested, primary targets. Puerto Rican Convention in 1969 thus Party and a former leader ofthe Young scores injured and at least two killed. Today in Newark the price of illu­ paving the way for Gibson's election. Lords. This ad hoc group has raised Unlike Newark's ghetto explosions sions in "our own mayor" is being paid Having "progressed" from " honky " - several demands that can be supported, baiting to an alliance with white racist including amnesty and medical care for vigilante Anthony Imperiale to his pres­ those arrested, firing pOlice director ent posture as an apostle of Marxism­ Hubert Williams and elim:.nation of the Leninism, Baraka now denounces the tactical and mounted police divisions. Gibson regime as "blackface fascism" The group has also proposed forming (Congress of Afrikan People, press a civilian police review board and has release, 3 September). But Gibson is called on Gibson to grant it broad the same anti-working-class Demo­ investigative powers. While socialists cratic Party politician he was when could give critical support in specific Baraka supported him against the 1971 circumstances to reform measuresdi­ teachers' strike. rected against the autonomy of the in­ creaSingly bon a par tis t cops, we must expose the call for a civilian Stop COp Terror review board as impotent and simply a reformist evasion of struggle. Like the liberal black mayors Brad­ In the context of a desperate strug­ ley of Los Angeles, Hatcher of Gary gle of the oppressed masses against and Jackson of Atlanta, it is Gibson's "the hired guns of the capitalist class," job to contain the class struggle while a revolutionary leadership must seek to mystifying the sources of black and mi­ rid the masses of their illusions in re­ nority oppression. In the heat of the forming the bourgeois state. The fight recent events in Newark, Gibson said by racial minorities against their op­ that "any attempt to blame" the disor­ pression must be linked to the class ders "on underlying social causes was struggle for socialist revolution. inflammatory." Yet the unemployment -Disarm the cop s - For a multi­ rate among Newark's Spanish-speaking racial workers militia based on the ,,; "'~ :If\ population is 25-27 percent, while al­ trade unions! •• \..~".,b ;.#+. ,;,~, ; .. ,;;'/ :l >'.;.. ~.~ most a third are reported to be on wel­ -Break with Democratic Party poli­ DAILY:-;EWS fare (New York Times, 4 Septem':ler). tics, black or white-For a workers Anthony Imperiale and 'lis burned-up motorcycle during Newark riots. In the wake of this outburst by N ew­ party based on the trade unions-For ark's oppressed Puerto Rican popula- a workers government! -

Ranks Solid De~ite Defeat AC Transit Strikers Forced Back to Work~

OAKLAND, September 3-After a two­ indicating a sizeable core of determined among Muni drivers in San Francisco merely against the union tops and em­ month-long strike here the bus drivers, militants. However, none of Cordeiro's who were conSidering strike action. ployers directly involved. In addition mechanics and clerks of the East Bay's opponents on the executive board had a The struggle to replace the Cor­ to winning the demands of the AC Trans­ AC Transit system were finally driven program for, or made any effort to deiros and their ilk with a class­ it, Muni and airport bus drivers, it back to work by the conscious sabotage mount a serious fight to win the strike. struggle leadership of the unions re­ would have been a sharp blow at "friend and foot-dragging inaction of their un­ Seeing no organized alternative to the quires the formation of opposition cau­ of labor" politiCians like San Francisco ion leadership. The settlement, vir­ pro-capitalist ATU bureaucracy, the cuses with an explicitly political pro­ Mayor Alioto. Bureaucrats like Cor­ tually identical to earlier company of­ ranks finally gave in after 62 days on gram counterposed to the pro-capitalist deiro would agree to any number of fers which had been rejected two times the picket line. bureaucracy down the line. Among the emergency meetings, mutual aid pacts by the membership, was a step back­ Coming after a period of plummet­ transitional demands such caucuses or strike support resolutions (all mean­ ward in every respect. ing real wages (down 10 percent na­ would raise are a sliding scale of wages ingless so long as they remain in The key element of the sellout was tionally since mid 1972, the largest and hours (30 hours' work for 40 hours' power) before ever giving in to the de­ agreement by Amalgamated Transit wage cut since the early 1930's) caused pay, full c-o-l protection) to fight in­ mand for an area-wide transit strike. Union Local 192 President Ed Cordeiro, by the "voluntary restraint" of all wings flation and unemployment; for full The rapid escalation oflast February's backed up by the ATU national bureauc­ of the union bureaucracy, fro m "lib­ equality in hiring, a union hiring hall; S.F. city workers' walkout into anear­ racy, to abandon AC Transit's unique eral" Woodcock to the reactionary for workers control of production; for general strike showed the union tops cost-of-living clause. Under the old Meany, the AC Transit strike drew at­ a workers party based on the unions what could easily happen under such contract, one of the few in the country tention both locally and nationally. and for a workers government, as op­ circumstances. to provide real protection against sky­ Across the bay in San Francisco mili­ posed to the bureaucracy's support for The WAM and Concerned Muni rocketing inflation in recent months, tant Muni drivers demanded a 14 per­ the Democratic and Republican parties Drivers' failure to support the call for wages had risen 36 percent since 1972. cent wage increase and almost struck of big business. a Bay Area-wide transit strike was an In contrast, the new formula provides a to get it, while airport bus drivers re­ That "rank-and-file" militant trade open admission of their inability to pro­ one-cent hike for every 0.4 percent unionism is not enough was indicated jected company offers three times vide class-struggle leadership to the rise in the Consumer Price Index, before ending their strike. Inspired by by the equivocal response to the AC workers, letting the bureaucracy offthe amounting to less than a one-half Transit strike by two reformist op­ the East Bay transit strikers (already hook at the crucial pOint. percent wage increase for everyone the highest paid in the country), Los pOSition group act i vein San Fran­ per c e n t price increase. The only Angeles bus drivers walked out de­ cisco t ran sit workers' unions.- The With the San Francisco city coun­ ·sweetener" over previous offers was a manding national wage parity in the Concerned Muni Drivers passed cil's refusal (based on a legal techni­ vague promise of "full percentage" industry. a resolution calling for "support" to cality) to grant city workers wage in­ c-o-l coverage in the last year of the The key to victory lay in spreading the East Bay bus strike but left creases in July, and its vote last contract. the strike geographically and broaden­ out any reference to a Bay Area­ month to place the ·Feinstein amend­ Additional features of the settlement ing it politically into an attack on the wide transit strike. This key demand ment" on the ballot in November (a were the dropping of the earlier mini­ class-collaborationist labor bureauc­ was part of the original motion intro­ measure which would re-categorize mal protection against firing for late­ racy. The ATU leadership ordered two duced by militants fromATU Local 192. Muni drivers in order to cut their pay), ness (something which Cordeiro con­ re-votes and actually called in cops to The PL-supported Workers Act ion the stage is set for potential political veniently "neglected" to mention in his guard the ballots because they did not Movement put out a leaflet calling for strike action and greatly increased in­ sketchy summary of the terms), a mas­ trust the membership-elected commit­ solidarity of Muni drivers with AC terest in demands for a workers party ~­ sive pay cut for newly hired workers tee which was to oversee the counting. Transit strikers, but called only for based on the unions. The demonstrated (for a one year period instead of the The Spartacist League fought for a "mutual aid pacts" between the unions will to fight of AC Transit workers previous six months) and a lengthening Bay Area-wide transit strike, calling involved and for an "emergency meet­ can give them a chance to playa lead- of the contract from two to three years. for full cost-of-living protection in ing" to "support and spread the strike." ing role in such a confrontation. Mili­ Despite the setback AC Transit every contract, a shorter workweek at In early August, at a time of ac­ tants in Local 192 must take up the strikers went back in good order and no loss in pay and free public trans­ celerating inflation and the height ofthe fight to crystallize a Class-struggle without rampant demoralization. No portation. These demands were favor­ Watergate crisis of the capitalist pol­ opposition caucus in their union and to workers were fired and some 357 voted ably received in Local 192 and were itiCians, a Bay Area-wide transit strike spread it to transit workers through- against the sellout for yet a third time, raised by militants both there and would have been a powerful blow not out the area. _

13 SEPTEMBER 1974 7 Trotskyist ExpeUed from L.A. Socialist Collective

We print below a statement by is not a luxury, but a necessity. Expel­ What has happened in the interven­ can deny this. Charles D. protesting his expulsion ling me for fighting in favor of commu­ ing years is that the Stalinists have I have been pOinted out as the source from the Socialist Collective, a black nist pOlitics is not an affirmation of bent the phrase ["democratic dictator­ of disruption in our meetings, that is, ostensibly revolutionary Marxist or­ "freedom of discussion n , but a repudia­ ship of the proletariat and peasantry"] prinCipled, up-front political opposi­ ganization in Los Angeles. Charles D. tion of that prinCiple ..•. and used it to justify their betrayals to tion. But let us look at what sort of subsequently joined the Spartacus Youth As I was expelled for having Sparta­ the class struggle. For example, Sta­ stuff is disruptive, not just to the meet­ League (formerly Revolutionary Com­ cist League politics, it is important to lin's telling the Chinese Communist ings, but to the existence of the S.C. munist Youthj, the youth section of the note that S.C. members do not, for the Party to accept the leadership of the itself •••• Spartacist League. In the last issue of most part, know what S.L. politics Kuomintang (we talked about this when The coldest thing that I have wit­ WV we published a press release is­ really are. All the assertions-such as, studying "On Contradiction") and the nessed in the S.C. was the last meet­ sued by the SC following a brutal as­ "The S.L. is objectively on the side of result of following that advice was being ing that I was at when, after Joe's sault upon its members inspired by the the state" (the S.L.A. question); "They butchered by Chiang Kai-shek in motion to remove Leslie from co­ Communist Party and Republic of New (S.L.) say C.L.U.W. is a C.I.A. funded 1927 •.•. ordination of the youth group and the Africa. Commenting on the press re­ organization, run by bureaucrats, and The pessimistic view that "under­ C.C. Jbecause of "incompetency", be­ lease we vigorously protested this they (S.L.) will have nothing to do with developed" countries can't have social­ ing too "comm-andeerlstic", and "furn­ cowardly Stalinist/black nationalist at­ it"; "Armchair revolutionaries" with a ist revolution has a long history in the ing people off") was voted down, Joe tack on the SC, while making clear our "good-sounding paper program, but no movement, from the Mensheviks in old then resigns from the five member political differences with the latter. practice" etc.-amount to unqualified RuSSia, to the Stalinists-Maoists today. C.C., because of "liberalism". Then The Socialist Collective was formed statements, with no investigation. While the revolution can only start in Leslie resigns from the C.C. for the earlier this year out of a loose group­ How many S.C. members investiga­ such countries, it can~ in fact, start sake of an odd number on the C.C. ing in the Los Angeles black radical ted for themselves the S.L. 's position there. The Russian revolution was not (three), but requests that with his milieu. Like most local collectives, on the S.L.A., and terrorism in general? doomed to failure from the start. It resignation .•• he remain as coordina­ where personal social ties are impor­ I'm sure that if comrades had known was crippled when the German revolu­ tor of the youth group. Larry (I think) tant, the politics of the SC were ex­ that the S.L. had been the only group tion failed, mostly because a tested then opens up nominations for a five tremely eclectic. Members ranged from, on the left to defend the Weatherman leadership was lacking. The German member C.C., himself as one. Joe classic pre-World War I Menshevism terrorists-even with all the unpopUlar­ communists had come too late to Len­ nominates J.h and J.P. nominates to Guevarism. ity brought on to them for taking this in's ideas on party-building; this les­ Joe. Then, after--;f,p. and Joe are The SC came under the leadership principled position-then instead of us ,son S.C. comrades should read more elected, Leslie is removed from co­ of one Joe Johnson, an ex-member of blindly throwing around accus ations, we about. ordinating the youth group, and re­ the Workers League who has spent the would at least have made a competent The S.C. 's rejection of Leninism and placed with J.P. What kind of revolu­ last few years as a dilettantish hanger­ investigation of their politics on that Trotskyism as the contemporary ex­ tionary organization would the S.C. be around of various "Trotskyist" and question .•.. pression and contilluity of revolutionary to accept this sort of manipulative, "third camp" organizations. The health­ As a consequence of this lack of Marxism is' what leads to embracing roundabout maneuvering to sneak in a iest aspect of the SC has been its clear understanding, the S.C. has putforward such reactionary theories as the "dem­ motion already defeated? To top it off, rejection of black nationalism and its the antiquated slogan of the "democratic ocratic dictatorship of the proletariat Joe responds to the question "Why are commitment, although in an abstract dictatorship of the proletariat and pea­ and peasantry", and makes its applica­ you back on the C.C., when you re­ way, to the primacy of class struggle. santry" as "the only sure road to safe­ tion of democratic centralism hollOW, signed earlier?" with the answer, "I It was this above all that caused the guarding independence and class eman­ thereby blunting its concern for devel­ no longer fee 1 that liberalism is group to be labelled Trotskyist within cipation". Don't the S.C. comrades know oping cadre. present" (!!). the L.A. left and won it the hatred of the what this means as a result of its use The organization does not struggle I understand that the S.C. has re­ Stalinists and nationa.lists. by the Stalinists, and other reformists? to create unity internally, but instead pudiated this particular event. But this At various times the Socialist Col­ This strategy has been repudiated by expels "troublemakers". How can we is not the first time that the S.C. has lective has expressed criticism of the revolutionaries before and since Len­ talk about the legitimacy of factions, allowed this sort of conduct .... Leninist theory of the vanguard party, in's "April Theses" where he stated and then expel me for merely fighting If the S.c. 11:; to qualiIy ItS serious­ its oWlL-Uiews reflecting both anti­ clearly that the fate of the Russian Rev­ for my politics? Where are the charges ness, then it must confront its past intellectual workerism and a vague anti­ olution lay in the hands of the workers, of violating "unity in action"? Even actions and behavior with a critical authority levellerism. In addition, the manifested by "the dictatorship of the though I did oppose many of our poli­ eye. I am not afraid to admit that I was SC claims that the Soviet Union is "s tate proletariat" • tical statements and actions carried also a part in letting a lot of this stuff capitalist" without having a coherent In State and Revolution (August 1917) out, I did help carry them out. No one slide, and even sometimes caught upi~ theory of what that means. Its positions you will not only fail to see any advoca­ on China and Cuba are distinctly vaguer, tion of the "democratic dictatorship of / no doubt reflecting the greater popular­ the proletariat and peasantry" ••. but "" ity of these states in the black radical you will read unmistakably, that: "The milieu. essence of Marx's theory of -the state Sparta~ist The SC initially went through a phase has been mastered only by those who of extreme activism. During that peri­ realize that the dictatorship of a single od, it particiPated in a fully responsi- class is necessary ... " (State and Rev­ Local Directory - - ble way in a united-front demonstration, olution, p. 41, Peking edition). And BAY AREA initiated by the Spartacist League, to also, "Only the proletariat, by virtue Box 852, Main P.O., Berkeley, CA 94701 (415) 653-4668 defend Van Schouwen and Romero, two of the economic role it plays in large­ Chilean leftists threatened with execu­ scale production, is capable of being the BOSTON tion by the junta. More recently the leader of all the tOiling and exploited Box 188, M.I.T. Sta., Cambridge, MA 02139 •.•.• (617) 282-7587 collective has begun to disintegrate, people, whom the bourgeoisie exploits, BUFFALO suffering from a lack of national per­ oppresses, and crushes often not less, c/o SYL spective and Johnson's organizational but more than it does the proletarians, Box 6, NortonUnion, SUNYAB, Buffalo, NY 14214 (716) 834-7610 but who are incapable of waging an high-handedness. At its best, the SC independent struggle for their emanci­ CHICAGO was a serious attempt to break out of Box 6471, Main P.O., Chicago, IL 60680 (312) 427-0003 the New Left/black nationalist/Stalinist pation" (State and Revolution, pp. 29- deadend and find a global communist 30, Peking edition). Do these sound like CLEVELAND solution to social oppression. We say any "democratic -dictatorship of the Box 6765, Cleveland, OH 44101 • . • • (216) 687-1413 proletariat and peasantry"?? to the members of the Socialist Col­ DETROIT lective that this path is the one taken by When Lenin used the phrase .•. he at least had the idea of uncompromising Box 663A, General P.O., Detroit, MI 48232 (313) 921-4626 , comrade Charles D. in joining the Spar­ tacus Youth League, the Trotskyist struggle against the bourgeoisie, so that HOUSTON the events of the February Revolution Box 26474, Gulfgate Sta., Houston, TX 77032 (713) 926-9944 youth organization in the U.S. (1917) convinced him that the ["demo­ cratic dictatorship of the proletariat LOS ANGELES July 29, 1974 and peasantry"] was no strategy for Box 38053, Wilcox sta., Los Angeles, CA 90038 (213) 485-1838 uncompromising struggle against the To the Socialist Collective: MADISON bourgeoisie, but in fact, tied the work­ c/o RCY, Box 3334, Madison, WI 53704 I have been expelled from the So­ ers to the bourgeoisie. Trotsky's strat­ cialist Collective for the political views egy [was one] of a social revolution, MILWAUKEE that I hold. I openly expressed these where the workers would lead the pea­ Box 6061, MilwaUkee, WI 53209 views inside the S.C. without violating sants, under a "dictatorship of the diSCipline. It was only for my politics proletariat" •.• the only one that could NEW ORLEANS that I was called a "Spartacist League resolve the national and democratic Box 51634, Main P.O., New Orleans, LA 70151 (504) 866-8384 agent", and expelled. tasks (land to peasants, national inde­ NEW YORK What does this say for the S.C. 's pendence, etc.). Marxists understand Box 1377, G.P.O., New York, NY 10001 • (212) 925-2426 method of applying democratic central­ that the peasantry can only follow­ ism (freedom of discussion, unity in follow the bourgeoisie, or proletariat. PHILADELPHIA action)? Freedom of discussion should How in the world can the peasantry Box 25601, Philadelphia, PA 19144 • • • (215) 667-5695 not be a hollow phrase merely for the organize and run society in its own SAN DIEGO S.C. to dis P I a y in the "Collective class interest, when it's spread Wide, P.O. Box 2034, Chula Vista, CA 92012 Rules n • Mar xis t s understand that its interests varying from one locale "freedom of discussion" is absolutely to another, and its class outlook is TORONTO (Committee of Toronto Supporters of the International Spartacist Tendency) nec~ssary. because real understanding individualistic. In what manner can it -requires a struggle. To a revolutionary organize and de vel 0 p large-scale Box 6867" station A, Toronto, OntariO, Canada organization, "freedom of discussion" industry? \.. ~

8 .WOR~f;R~. VANGVARD 0' it myself, not knowing what to do .•.• communalist Jan Sangh (Peoples "The next step is the demand for that I am not exactly sure what the S.C.'s Continued from page 6 Party). strong parallel governmental distribu­ position of "state capitalism" is, but When the government declared the tion system which ought to be able to the application of such a position is as threatened strike illegal and began provide full rations to the poor of the village and city. In this system letthere If follows: you believe that no overturn preparations for its counteroffensive, be the building of peoples-committees of property relations has taken place in India Rail Strike Fernandes did nothing but await the for curbing pervasive corruption. For the deformed or degenerated workers tea-Sipping, polite "negotiations" in heterogeneous "Youth Committees for giving adequate foodgrains to the weak­ states, then, say if Cuba went to war New Delhi. No steps were taken to er groups of society let there be in the with (bourgeois) Mexico, then you could Building Anew· in Gujarat and the Stu­ organize a united front of all trade villages forcible grain procurement not side with the Cuban workers and dent Action Committee in Bihar, such union federations, set up rank-and through the help of the peoples­ peasants in defending the gains of the price com?llittees/consumer coopera­ file elected strike commitees that could committees. " Cuban revolution from capitalist res­ tives could have moved to expropriate provide leadership in the likely event The article concludes: the vast stocks of hoarded foodgrains. toration, and imperialism, while calling of sweeping arrests or provide even the "The youth of India are awakened. They for a political revolution to place work­ Backed by the power of the armed most elementary defense measures. trade-union militias and militant strike will change this outmoded capitalist ers democracy ... in place ofthe Stalin­ At no time did the SP tops seek economic system and colonialist social ist bureaucratic control of that (de­ committees, they could sweep the venal structure. At that time the building of Congress Party pOliticians from their to link up the struggle of the rail formed) workers state .... w 0 r k e r s with the spreading anti socialism will be possible." positions in the state grain procure­ The point is not whether socialism government struggles, and the Bharat -Mazdilr K isan K ronti [Worker-Peas- ment and distribution s y s tern and ant Revolution], April 1974 exists (because it can't-not in one Bandh was called sim,;;>ly as a passive country), but whether there is the institute direct workers control of The centrist CLI here recognizes the distribution. observance of an "anti-repression" economic basis for socialism. Polit­ day. When militant struggles erupted need for the creation of a vehicle for ically it is a degenerated workers state, However, a general strike in India struggle, but substitutes youth van­ today would obviously unleash powerful spontaneously during the strikes, Fer in Russia's case where the revolution nandes reacted by writing a letter to guardism for the necessity of a con­ degenerated, with the workers being social forces and contain the potential scious political struggle for the hege­ for rapidly developing into a revolution­ Gandhi from jail assuring the Prime politically expropriated by the Stalinist Minister that he, too, was absolutely mony of the Transitional Program. bureaucracy. The deformed workers ary situation. Communists must fore­ see this development and prepare for opposed to "political adventurism"! This conception was even more ex­ states (China, East Europe, North Ko­ Lacking a class-struggle leadership plicitly articulated in a declaration is­ rea, North Vietnam, Cuba) are called it. The strike committees could draw around themselves broad proletarian, the railwaymen were in the end power sued in Bombay on April 15 by a state such because the workers never had less to combat the devastating rep res leader of the CLI, who played apromi­ political control of their state, but exploited petty-bourgeois and unem­ ployed masses and develop into SOViets, sion and prevent the slOW, agonizing nent role in coordinating the activities should be considered social revolutions crushing of the strike. On May 28 the of the youth Committees for Building because of the revolutionary and eco­ the embryonic structure for a new pro­ letarian state. Simply the most basic NCCRS finally called off what had been Anew in south Gujarat: nomic dynamics they possess, ex­ the longest and most costly strike in propriating the bourgeoisie, destroying problems of survival for the striking "The formation of Nav Nirman Janata workers would pose the question of the history of independent India. As a Samitis [Peoples Committees for Build­ the old army and state ....the argument result of the action 50,000 workers had ing Anew J in factories, workshops, mo­ that a market and commodity produc­ capitalist property relations, and revo­ been illegally arrested and detained hall as [wards J and viii age s should tion exist in, say, Russia or China and lutionists would raise the slogans of without trial, 16,000 fired, 15,000tem therefore be the primary task in the therefore that they are essentially capi­ expropriation of industry under work­ porary workers dismissed and 12,000 next phase of the upsurge which m'.lst talist is not a dialectical approach to ers control, land to the tillers and be directed against the exploitative cap­ evicted from their government-owned the subject. The market will "wither for a workers and peasants gover:l"nent. italist system as a whole ..• 'The' SSA hovels. away" the same as the state. It cannot [Study and Struggle Alliance-a youth be abolished in a workers state here organization led by the CLI] therefore The Rail Strike is Crushed calls upon all progressive forces to or there, but will only "wither away" Pabloists Tail Students, Strikers By their refusal to adopt a class­ convene a state-wide conference of internationally. Also production in the trade unions, Kisan sabhas [peasant deformed workers states is not gen­ struggle perspective the Stalinists and The convulsive social struggles of the last year have been a serious test councils], farm labour unions and or­ erally guided by profit guidelines as social democrats betrayed the rail ganizations of students, youth, women it is under capitalism. The most impor­ strike. Both the CPI and the SP have for the ostensible Trotskyists in India. and adivasis [landless laborers] to tant point is that it would be a defeat a long record of strike sabotage. As Numerically tiny and politically hetero­ thrash out a common program of action for the international working class if recently as last February a CPI-Ied geneous, these are loosely grouped into in their struggle against the present capitalism were restored in China, union called off a solid 40-day textile the Communist League of India (CLI), capitalist-landlord system which is the source of ;111 corruption, price rise and RuSSia, Poland, Cuba, etc. This would strike in Bombay on the eve of an section of the revisionist "United Sec­ already planned general strike in sup­ retariat of the Fourth International." inflation, unemployment, starvation and-­ immeasurably strengthen world im­ all other social and economic ills." perialism, led by the United States .••• port of the union! The Stalinists claimed In general, while the CLI has published that the massive general strike would militant propaganda on the upsurges in Unless based on the proletariat as the What about the public statements have precipitated a "blood bath." It Guj arat and Bihar as well as on the rail decisive social class and committed to about the C.P., B.P.P. and S.L. being must not be forgotten that Fernandes' strike, it reflects a characteristically a clear anti-capitalist program the "objectively on the side of the state". SP refused to join its forces in the Pabloist strategy of pressuring and "Peoples Committees-fo~:lding I have failed to read anywhere when massive May 1973 Bombay general tailing after youth vanguardist and ref­ that has been given the analysis it Anew" will simply be a broader version strike against the growing famine in the ormist bureaucratic forces. deserves. In fact, the only public ex­ of the then existing (but now non-=­ state, and on numerous occaSions, in­ position given on it was the S.L.A Thus the art i c 1 e in the Hindi­ existent!) Youth Committees for Build­ cluding May Day celebrations, has language central organ of the CLI ad­ speech at the second rally. But it is ing Anew. allied with the anti-labor, reactionary- vances the following perspective: a weak attack to essentially say, "Who Concerning the rail strike, the prop­ is the S.L. to call the S.L.A. petty aganda of the CLI was essentially con­ bourgeois terrorists. They have par­ """ fined to general statements of solidarity ents that are court judges, plantation and support. Thus, the special "rail owners, etc." If anybody had read their strike number" of 'Mazdur KisG.1!Kran­ pOSition on the S.L.A. they would have BUILD THE SYL! ti (8 June 1974) lacked any strategy or known that S.L. 's criticism of the The third national conference of the Revolutionary Communist Youth, slogans for turning the strike and the S.L.A. was not because they are "petty youth group of the Spartacist League, unanimously voted to increase the Bharat Bandh into a general strike bourgeois" but terrorists, and the type frequency of its press, Young Spartacus, to a monthly beginning with the . aimed at overthrowing the Gandhi gov­ of terrorism that it waso Not like the next issue and to change the name of the organization (effective at the ernment. Thus whenever the oppor­ Tupamaros, whose terrorism is at least initiation of the fall campaigns on campuses) to the Spartacus youth tunity presents itself the CLI submerg­ very political (kidnapping oil execu­ League of the United States. es its program and functions as a tives, government diplomats, etc.) [but] Since its last national conference the RCY experienced a dynamic pressure group to force the centrist the type of cultist stuffthe S.L.A. would growth, expressed in establishment and consolidation of a number of and reformist leaderships of the work­ talk about, and actions which left people active campus fractions, geographical extension and greatly increased ing class to the left. baffled (Marcus Foster slaying, hit list, press circulation. and shoot-outs over penny-ante shop­ Last spring the RCY ran communist campaigns in student government In response to the Gujarat-Bihar struggles and in preparation for the lifting) .What is most important to me is elections at four campuses, conducted prinCipled united-front defense rail strike the Bombay CLI shelved not so much the positions that are taken, work, partiCipated in strike support and several campus union organiz­ but the lack of thorough investigation, ing drives. It also helped to build the SL-initiated campaigns around the the most important demands of the which I see as being the reason why we defense of imprisoned Chilean militants and solidarity with the British TranSitional Program in order to h a v e adopt e d many inaccurate miners' strike. form a propaganda bloc with the oppor­ positions. Continuing its struggle as the SYL, the RCY rightfully claims the tunist Revolutionary Socialist Party. This opportunist bloc, the "Revolution­ The S.C. is already expelling left heritage of the first, and finest, Trotskyist youth organization in this and right and having many reSignations country-the Spartacus Youth League, youth group of the Communist ary Worker-Youth Alliance," is seen It has no clear perspective on its cur­ League of America. BUILD THE SPARTACUS YOUTH LEAGUE! by both the CLI and the RSP as a left rent course, and I am not sure how pressure group on the local "united long past summer it will last. People left front" formed by the Stalinists do get tired when they struggle so hard and Socialists. and sacrifice so much of their time to The present sharp polarizations and something that they discover too late social crisis in India have brought to in the game ... really [isn't] going any­ ,~oo~©oo~oo~ the fore once again the crying need for where, much less leading the move­ Young revolutionary leadership. The perspec­ ment. The fortitude and willingness to tive of the Permanent Revolution has struggle against greater odds is with­ seldom been so sharply posed. Only the out a doubt a positive quality of the Indian proletariat in power, supported Socialist Collective. This is why I hope by the peasantry, can solve the unfin­ comrades do not shy away from these Sparlaeus ished, urgent democratic tasks of the not-too-pleasant criticisms that I have Organ of the Spartacus youth League, bourgeois revolution, among the m : submitted to you, but deal with them youth section of the Spartacist League elimination of comm~alism and caste­ directly, without backing away from any ism, liquidation of landlordism, forging issue. Name______national integration and the develop­ It is too bad that! am not able, today, Address______ment of industry and agriculture. Only to present my criticisms from within the creation of a genuine Trotskyist a Socialist Collective member. 51 as City/State/Zip ______=_ party in India, section of a reborn 6 ISSUES Yours in communist solidarity, 52 Fourth International, can open the road Make payable/mail to: RCY, Box 454, Cooper Station, N. Y., N. Y. 10003 to the creation of the Socialist Feder­ Charles -ation of South Asia. _ " ,13' SEP:r£MSER 1-974 -9 to the betrayals of Chavez and Co. from' Corona with mild criticisms of were when Chavez was supporting the Continued from page 12 This has led to red-baiting attacks and the UFW ("we cannot understand and Kennedy-Rodino bill in 1973. physical threats against our supporters lament with much regret the press by the UFWbureaucracyand its lackeys statements ••• " etc.) while it continues Sick and Tired of Pacifist Chavez ... including the Communist Party and to publish uncritical articles about the Recently, UFW bureaucrats announced Revolutionary Union. union's activities. Betrayal that they were filing 15 more lawsuits But Chavez' current activities, in­ Perhaps most cynical of all are the Though sporadic and often spontan­ against both the growers and the Team­ cluding his capitulation to G eo r g e Maoists of the RU and OL, who only eously initiated, shOwing little evidence sters. (Not to be outdone, a 500- Meany in abandoning the lauded second­ last fall we r e offering to beat up of a centrally coordinated effort, the member growers' association filed a ary boycott tactic, are so gross that strikes waged this summer by the UFW, $106 million suit against the UFW the even his most lo:/al bootlickers, the including the present tomato strike near very next day!) October League, l1U, Socialist Workers Stockton, California, have evidenced Failing to learn a single lesson from Party and Intern ltional Socialists, are militancy and a tense undercurrent of experience, the UFW leadership has now finding it recessary to print the barely restrained anger among UFW spent months pressuring the legisla­ first hints of criticism in their respec­ farm worker ranks. ture in Sacramento to pass Bill AB3370, tive presses, though delicately phrased, UFW pickets and sheriff's deputies which would provide for union elections of course. have several times clashed with arrests and legalize the secondary boycott for The SWP's recent article adviSing resulting. The 7 August Stockton Record farm workers. While these are desir­ Chavez to "Solic,arize With Undocumen­ reported that 20 deputies were pressed able democratic reforms, this legisla­ ted Workers" \Militant, 2 August) and against a fence by angry pickets while tion also gives power to a governor­ references to TJFW leaders' "betrayal" ten other pickets dashed into a field to appointed commission to be granted in turning in ", llegals" to U.S. authori­ "harass non-union pickers near High­ "the right to subpoena records and ties are nothi'1g but nauseating hypoc­ way 99." witnesses" and to unilaterally deter­ risy in light of the SWP's earlier John Giumarra, a California grow­ mine the validity of contracts. Though touting of the UFW as "the vanguard of ers' spokesman, alleged at the end of the bill was endorsed by the California the U.S. trade-union movement," even July that an "organized campaign of AFL-CIO, it was effectively killed for as betrayal .

of the largest buildings. did not have the courage to say it ently providing correct leadership and ContillIed from page 12 Later, PL lyingly reported that themselves. pointing the way to victory. An alter­ "Many of us were surprised by the com­ At the follOwing "strike" meeting, native leadership must be built on a pany role our union 'leaders' were play­ the UTU member most known for sup­ nationwide sCale, extending into all the ing, trying to sabotage the walkout in­ port to the Democratic Party was chair­ locals and linking up with workers in .. . Phone Wildcats stead of supporting and helping lead it" ing. He was prepared to expel half of other unions. It must ruthlessly expose (Challenge, 29 August). The game PL the attending workers for expreSSing the reactionary bureaucracy, but not bureaucrats had simply walked out of was playing here was deadly and des­ MAC's ideas before he was called to attempt to substitute its elf for the the meeting, having no intention of obey­ picable. PL supporters knew full well order by WAM leaders. In the subse­ masses of workers: it must seek to ing the membership's wishes. Leader­ what the role of the bureaucrats would quent Challenge version of the story, lead the workers, not go around them ship of the strike committee had fallen or m.1_1eUVer them into "educational" be, yet they made a show of naivete, "The majority of people felt that the to MAC, but a successful strike was attempting to push workers into trust­ confrontations with superior forces. not possible because the official leader­ time had come to retreat to our shops. ing a duplicitous official in order to A PL mem'Jer pointed out that the mun For c y n i cal opportunists such as ship ha::l not yet been deposed in the PL/WAM and on occasion the RU, eyes of the ranks. later "teach" the workers a lesson about strategic question wasn't whether we Most workers returned to work when the bureaucracy. This cynical approach retreated or not, but rather 'are we defeats are irrelevant as long as they assumes that the workers are too stupid going to build the wildcat momentum can "get the masses moving" with "bold they saw that the official leadership­ i.nto a Local-wide strike and turn the still "the union" in their eyes-opposed to understand a lesson without having act ion s." But for class-conscious union meeting around?'" workers the test of real revolutionary the strike. If MAC had attempted to their heads knocked first. In the eyes maintain picket lines, even though an of PL/W AM the role of leadership is to How the workers are to "build the wild­ leadership will be the ability to show official m 2eting had voted to stay on beguile and trick the workers into a cat momentum" of a failed wildcat the way forward to victory for their strike, the result would simply have pOSition in which they will "learn" the strike was not explained, nor is there class.• been the elimination of the best mm­ hard way. any self-criticism for the failed tactic tants from the union. The Caucus sought WAM's cynical adventurism is noth­ which only a few days earlier had instead to exploit the issues political­ ing new. It used the same tactics during been promoted as the way to grow au­ WfJliltEIiS ly, in order to win sufficient support the Mack Ave. auto wildcat in Detroit tomatically "from 50 to 100 to 1,000." to oust the pre sen t misleaders in 1973, where a small handful of m:.li­ For WAM, every "bold action," from permanently. tants attempted to conduct a "sitdown" the Mack Ave. debacle to the San Fran­ 'A"'''AIII At the "Strike Organizing Commit­ strike. The UAW tops mobilized a cisco phone wildcat, is a "victory," no Marxist Working-Class' Bi-weekly tee" meeting MAC spokesmen stressed 1,000-man goon squad to break the matter how many militants are need­ the need to build more support for a strike, and 40 workers are still fired lessly sacrificed. of the Spartacist League strike locally and nationally, warning as a result. In contrast to MAC's enhanced rep­ that an isolated action would lead to a The walkouts never affected more utation for intelligent leaderShip, the loss of authority by the wildcat "lead­ Editorial Board: company/union purge of militants which than four or five of the small buildings Liz Gordon (chairman) would prevent them from being around in San Francisco. In order to keep up a ers" has been drastic. Attendance at a demonstration called for Friday, Jan Norden (managing editor) for future decisive battles. These re­ pretense of "victory" in the face of its , Chris Knox (labor editor) marks went unheeded by PL, which later obvious failure, WAM planned to expel September 6 at a downtown telephone building in defense of the fired victims Karen Allen (production manager) reported that the "main opposition [to MAC supporters from the strike com­ Joseph Seymour the wildcat] came from fake 'cOmmtID­ mittee. MAC members were denounced of the strike was limited to 15 includ­ ists' who said we were 'too small' to as "Company agents" and scabs, de­ ing MAC supporters. The ten fired Circulation Manager: Anne Kelley workers were all members of the op­ organize a Walkout" (Challenge, 29 Au­ spite the fact that Ros aUnd Benedet, a West Coast Editor: Mark Small gust). Apparently support from the MAC member, had been involved in the pOSitional groupings, WAM, T r a ff i c Jam and MAC. The task now is to Southern Editor: Joe Vetter workers is irrelevant to PL/WAM, walkout in her building from the be­ , Midwest Editor: Steve Green which also never acknowledges a defeat. ginning and no MAC supporters crossed build a strong united-front defense of all The role of WAM supporters verged any picket lines. The vote to expel the victims through struggle within the on the criminal in their disregard for MAC from the strike committee was 30 union. Published by the Spartacist the actions they knew would be taken in favor and 15 opposed, with 25 ab­ The problems of phone workers can Publishing Company, Box 1377, by the union leaders, in collusion with stentions. Following the expulsion two not be solved by a few wildcats in a G. P. 0., New York, N. Y. 10001. the company, to crush the strike and other strikers slammed down their few locals, or by local or nationwide Telephone: (212) 96'6-6841 fire militants. O.,er MAC objections, chairs, declared that the meeting was strikes under the present union mis­ WAM and UTU members entrusted a worse than official bureaucratism and leaders. These bureaucrats cannot be Opinions expressed in signed loyal member of the Local 9410 execu­ walked out in solidarity with MAC. simply bypassed or pressured to the articles or letters do not neces­ tive board, who was obviously at the Since the meeting, MAC has earned left, nor will the ranks change leader­ sarily express the editorial meeting for information-gathering pur­ authority with many workers who say ships lightly. The class-struggle forces viewpoint. poses, with leading the walkout at one that they supported what MAC said but must earn their authority by consist- 10 WORKERS VANGUARD whereas the opposite trend is present Anthony Imperiale. With the likelihood leader Eduardo Enrfquez (brother of Continued from page 1 in the white population. Currently, of mass protests directed against black Miguel Enriquez, the MIR secretary­ blacks and other racial minorities are mayors and, in some cases, black lo­ general) in Havana in June of this year. twice as likely to be unemployed as cal union officials the greatly increased In this spe-ech he spells out several white Americans, and the median in­ opportunities for revolutionary Marx­ aspects of the group's current policy. Wage Controls. • • come of black families has sunk back ist leaderShip are self-evident. First, the "petty-bourgeois, democrat­ to 58 percent of that of white families. The m a j 0 r obstacle to a united ic" wing of the Christian Democratic course open to the American ruling The prospect of large-scale unem­ working-class upsurge is the reaction­ Party is specified as the Leighton wing; class at this time. Even moderate econ­ ployment in the mass production indus­ ary trade-union bureaucracy which will second, the next stage of the resistance omists such as Hendrik Houthakker, a tries, an inevitable result of a sharp fight both to preserve the racial divi­ is characterized as "armed propagan­ Harvard professor and former member recession or depreSSion, threatens to sions which have historically lamed the da"; third, there is no criticism of of the Council of Economic Advisors aggravate this situation still further as American working class and to main­ the Communist Party. under Nixon, are led to make such blacks now form a significant, some­ tain the subjugation of that working "modest proposals" for labor as the times predominant, part of the basic class to the bourgeois political parties. As to the so-called "Leighton" or following: industrial workforce. Moreover, the Thus the need for building militant "Leighton-Tomic" wing of the CDP, projected governmental spending cuts Class-struggle opposition caucuses in it did in fact verbally criticize the junta "In the field of Labor unreasonable re­ shortly after the coup; but it, like the strictions on union membership, such will certainly be implemented in social the unions, to depose the union bureauc­ as prior apprenticeship or excessive services-health, education and wel­ cracy and to fight for a workers party more conservative Frei-Aylwin section entrance fees, would be prohibited. fare-and will therefore also hit racial based on the unions, is clearly posed of the party, was in part responsible Union-operated hiring halls would be minorities hardest. by the current economic crisis. for the coup in the first place. Among abolished. The Davis-Bacon Act and The intersection of riSing unemploy­ As the bourgeoisie moves toward the other things, the CDP as a whole similar laws concerning wages paid ment, spending cuts in areas which voted for a Congressional motion in under government contracts would be reimpOSition of wage controls the need primarLy affect racial minorities, and for independent working-class political late August 1973 which declared the phased out. The bill would also reform UP government to be acting outside the unemployment insurance so as to make recent losses by those groups in terms action may become sharply focused on it less of a disincentive to work, and of their living standards means that we this key issue, in the first instance over bounds of legality. would exempt juveniles from minimum can expect a reawakening of militant the federal employees' cancelled pay this wage laws." As was obvious at the time, discontent in inner-city areas along increases. Militants must demand that parliamentary maneuver, like the truck -Wall Street Journal, 20 July with the revival of large-scale reform/ the unions organize a united labor owners' stoppage (also backed by the protest movements in the black popu­ It is indicative of the expected depth demonstration in WaShington around the CDP), was an integral part of the lation. This resurgence of black mili­ of the current economic crisis that demands: Support the federal employ­ preparations for the coup-Getting the tancy could also lead to an exacerba­ even .. responsible" bourgeois elements ees' pay demands! No state wage con­ stage in public opinion. How is it pos­ tion of inter-racial hostility, aphenom­ such as Mr. Houthakker can blithely trols! Inaction now will shortly lead to Sible, comrades of the MIR, to form a enon which Mr. Ford and his bourgeois propose the smashing of the trade un­ massive cuts in the living standards of strategic alliance with elements of the cohorts will do their best to exploit. ions and the mobilization of the unem­ all U.S. workers •• bourgeoisie who actually helped pre­ ployed against the employed. Although pare the September 11 bloodbath? You not currently on the agenda, such pro­ The Period Ahead are only preparing the way for a new posals will proliferate as the economic massacre! crisis worsens. Despite possibilities of increaSing Continued from page 5 racial tensions during coming months Of course, the biggest responsibility Minorities H it Hardest the immediate future abounds inpossi­ for the coup falls on the Stalinist bilities for revolutionaries. Quite un­ MIR Veers Right ... CP and Allende's own Socialists Since, Because they are traditionally "last like the 1960's, rising black militancy as workers parties, they had the power hired and first fired" black workers will likely occur alongside seething the regime for more extensive rt?forms. to mobilize the proletariat. Instead have in recent years lost the gains they working-class discontent in the context It d e man d edmore nationalizations, they told it to trust in the" constitution­ achieved during the period of a tight of a major economic downturn. More­ more aggressive agrarian reforms, the alist" generals. For the same reason labor market in the late 1960's. During over, the class collaborationism inher­ setting up of a "People's Assembly" that it is not possible to form a lasting that period the black population experi­ ent in even the most militant versions called for in the UP program, and so alliance with the "left" ChristianDemo­ enced a 32 percent gain in real income, of black nationalism has been exposed on. crats (as opposed to episodic tactical as opposed to 16 percent for whites. by the dramatic rightward evolution of agreements for joint action), Marxist However, the median income for black the Black Panther Party and demagogic MI R Support for a New revolutionaries can have no strategic families was still only 61 percent of gyrations of the likes of Newark's Ima­ Popular Front unity with the chief traitors of the that for whites. mu Baraka, from his current "Marx­ popular front! This is doubly true now, More recently, since 1970 the num­ ism/Leninism" hustle to earlier sup­ FollOwing the generals' and admir­ for the chief task at present is to ber of blacks whose income was below port for black Democrat Gibson and als' coup all pOlitical opposition has expose these traitors before their own poverty levels has actually increased, alliance with white racist vigilante been forced underground. The Com­ base, to draw the lessons of the de­ munist Party, which repeatedly sought feat as the precondition for moving for­ the collaboration of a wing of the Chris­ ward to victory. That is why the MIR's The RSL has conSistently refused to tian Democratic Party un de r the current refusal to criticize fI1~hlin­ Continued from page 4 confront politically the position::; of the Allende regime, now sees real pos­ ists or Allende in recent months is Trotskyists. Brecht and Tracey's at­ sibilities for an alliance with the CDP. itself a major betrayal. tack on the RSL's position on the SLA Consequently the Stalinists are quite Finally, the new turn to "armed was never printed in the bulletin. Fred careful to specify the "immediate ob­ Michael's letter on its abstentionist propaganda" and the eventual constitu­ RSL Witchhunt ... jectives" of the resistance as includ­ tion of a "revolutionary people's army, " position on the French elections was ing only "end the situation of internal never printed. While making apretense evidently on the model of the Argentine pulsion of the Trotskyist Tendency. On warfare." They studiously avoid refer­ ERP, is a military and political dead June 9th the order was carried out by of offering the pages of the press to our ences to overthrOwing the junta because tendency, the RSL 1 e ad e r sprinted end. As was shown in Guatemala in the Detroit and Chicago branches. that would raise the question of what the mid 1960's, when YonSosa'sMR-13 The only "charges" presented in all Myers' letter on the dissidents only af­ should follow. This might disturb their ter he was excluded and haven't yet guerrillas adopted this technique, it these cases, r. entrism" and" cliquism, " hoped-for bourgeois allies. printed his reply to Harry Parker. To only temporarily deflects the military demonstrate the nature of the RSL's The MIR, beginning late in 1973, from direct attacks on the insurgents­ campaign. "Entrism" means nothing date, these people have refused to de­ has turned sharply to the right and en­ bate the Russian Question either before by directing its attacks against the mass more than opposition to the inner circle. dorsed this minimum platform. Its of working people. Thus, the leadership could never ex­ the membership or publicly, a debate major statement since the coup, "A plain how founding members of the RSL which they themsel ves at first proposed. los trabajadores, a los revolucionarios Not simply the tactic of "armed became "entrists," or for whom they Even at the appeal of the Trotskyist y a los pueblos del mundo" (January propaganda" but the whole strategy of were "entrists." "Cliquism" has no Tendency to the July CC, they sat silent, 1974) lists as an immediate objective, guerrilla warfare is a profound devia­ more content. It was simply a device having nothing to say in their own "To construct a pOlitical front of the tion from the path of proletarian revo­ to intenSify hysteria. Thus the leader­ defense. anti-gorila [militarist] resistance in­ lution. This is the road of isolated ship never even bothered to advance a The character of this campaign is corporating all the forces of the left petty-bourgeois terrorist ban d s or class characterization of our tendency, confirmation of Trotsky's view that the and a sector of the CDP (the demo­ peasant insurrections. wit h 0 u t which "cliquism" becomes defeatist position is a capitulation to cratic petty bourgeoisie)." The MIR merely a Shachtmanite catchword, un­ petty-bourgeois democracy and Ameri­ also signed a "Declaration ofthe Chilean It is a strategy of impotence as shown til we mentioned this minor detail to can imperialism. It could not be waged Left" (Tricontinental News Service, 13 not only by the fiasco of Che Guevara's them. This "charge" becomes more without borrowing from the Stalinist March 1974), together with the parties Bolivian adventure in 1967, but also cynically ludicrous when one learns that arsenal. Landy, who made his name as a of the former UP coalition, which by the recent events in Argentina. the RSL leadership has called itself Shachtmanite red-baiter in the '50's, praised the Allende regime, called for When rightist police took over the in­ a clique. claimed: "Fascism in this period will the struggle of the "fatherland" and dustrial center of C6rdoba in February masquerade as Trotskyism." His sup­ "all anti-fascists" against the junta 1974 the Argentine ERP waspowerless porters were more explicit when they and in every other way represented to act even though this was historical­ implied that the Soviet Defensists were the CP's reformist line. - ly its stronghold! police agents. Continuing in the same Earlier this year we denounced this Womena vein, the leadership orchestrated a cho­ sharp right turn of the MIR ("Chile The working class must depend on .aD rus of sexual innuendos and abuse, de­ After the Coup," WV No. 42, 12 April). its organized strength in production Signed to appeal to the most backward We pointed out that the MIR's inability and as a cohesive class with common elements in the organization. Finally, to understand the class character ofthe interests. To cite a simple fact: before R evoI allOB Taber's personal supporters organized UP coalition as a bourgeois popular the coup the membership of the Com­ Speaker: the burglary of the files of a member front and its failure to break with munist Party alone was more thandou­ MARTY FARRELL of our tendency in Los Angeles. Allende meant it would be unable to ble the size of the entire Chilean mili­ Spartacist League We believe that the RSL is doomed show the way forward to the workers. tary! It was not that the workers were as an organized tendency. Neverthe­ Now the MIR's earlier confusion has powerless-rather, their leaders would THURS., OCT. 3/7:30 p.m. less, for the future of our movement, it not let them fight. The struggle for a 2nd Unitarian Church been codified into a political line which will be necessary to identify these cyn­ is indistinguishable from that of the new 656 West Barry 50¢' donation revolutionary leadership, for a ical gangsters who have attempted to Stalinists and social democrats. Chilean Trotskyist party as part of a For information: 427-0003 masquerade as Trotskyists, wherever, reborn Fourth International, is the key as individuals, they may reappear. "Armed Propaganda" and to defeating the junta and preparing TRUTH Strategic Unity the way to proletarian revolution in CHICAGO Formerly the SovietDefensistMinority Chile. Anything less will only restore and Trotskyist Tendency of the More recently we have received the the conditions which led to the blood­ SL FORUM Revolutionary Socialist League text of a press conference by MIR bath in the first place•• 13 SEPTEMBER 1974· 11 W'lIltEIIS """'11' Bay Area Phone Wildcats

OAKLAND, September 7-The main five days. The wildcat strike is often members of militant opposition groups reluctantly, by WAM and Traffic Jam) concern of the International leadership the last resort of militants frustrated in the union. to call another meeting at which a strike of the Comm:mications Workers 0 f by the betrayals of union leaderships The Militant Action Caucus, an op­ could be discussed. T wi c e the neces­ America in recent months has been to which are vastly more interested in pOSition group based on a class-struggle sary number of names was collected, prevent a nationwide telephone strike preserving labor peace for the "good of program which is active in the Oakland yet Kirkpatrick ref use d to call the and snuff out the militant local walk­ the country" (read profits) than they and San Francisco locals of CWA meeting. At this point WAM and Traf­ outs which have marked the industry in are in advancing the workers' inter­ (9415 and 9410), argued against the fic Jam, despite their small size and the past. Ex-President Beirne's last ests. But isolated unofficial actions are wildcat in favor of local-wide strikes weak base, thought they had the power act was to come up with a "national tactical danger zones full of pitfalls for and a struggle for a nationwide strike." and authority to call a strike. On Au­ bargaining" scheme, the content of , the unwary. MAC was the only group to present a gust 8 they issued their first leaflet, which was to eliminate local contract If massively supported, "unauthor­ militant alternative to Beirne's IIna­ entitled IIThis Contract Stinks, Let's ratification, thereby rendering illegal ized strikes II can sometimes be par­ tional bargaining" hoax at the conven­ Take a Walk, II and signed by an ad hoc local strikes such as the seven-month tially or even wholly successful. The tion in June, an action which led to its group-the Strike Organizing Commit­ New York State strike of 1971. nationwide postal strike of 1970 was a physical exclusion by a bureaucratic tee-which no one had ever heard of. After more than a month and a half wildcat, as was the Baltimore city goon squad. The leaflet announced a planning meet­ of maneuvering and delays the new strike this July. Most wildcats, how­ MAC had been agitating for a strike ing to organize walkouts, which was at­ president, Glenn Watts, finally got his ever, mobilize only a fraction of the since well before the contract deadline tended by about 50 militants. According contract ratification by a two-to-one work force and lead to firings and of July 18. Caucus members presented to PL's Challenge (29 August), vote. But dissatisfaction was rampant. victimizations of the best militants. motions in both Oakland and San Fran­ Many local leaders either refused to cisco locals calling for a strike to be­ "PL m embers pointed out h')w 50 work­ This naturally produces widespread de­ ers could initiate a wide-spread strike endorse the contract or outright opposed moralization in the ranks. gin with the expiration of the contract. by pulling out areas in which we worked it. The San Francisco wildcat was of the Although the San Francisco meeting was first, then massing these forces to­ The International Brotherhood of latter, most common variety. It was led attended by 400 angry workers, the gether to pull out other larger offices Ele(;~rical Workers, which had been by members of Workers Action Move­ WAM and Traffic Jam supporters pre­ that weren't organized enough to do it bargaining in tandem with Watts, broke ment, a trade-union opposition group sent saw no need to speak in support them.3elves. We indicated that this tac­ r-anks and struck Western Electric-the supported by the Progressive Labor of a strike or MAC's motion. One tic could enable us to grow from 50 to Bell System's equipment supplier-for Party, with supporters of Traffic Jam, member of the IIUnited Trade Union­ 100 to 1,000 fairly rapidly." improvements over the CWA deal. a telephone caucus supported by the ists, II an a mal gam including WAM MAC spokesmen provided the only lBEW tops slapped Watts in the face Revolutionary Union, tag gin g along members and Democratic Party sup­ rational anti-bureaucratic opposition to 'by calling on CWA ranks as well to turn most of the way. Overall, it was a dis­ porters, called for a one-day strike. this wishful thinking. The MAC position down the proposed terms. In addition mal failure. At most, a hundred or so Both this and the MAC motion were was based on sound experience. In 1971, there were numerous wildcat strikes at workers were pulled out of four orfive ruled out of order by Local 9410 Pres­ a meeting of 500 workers in Local 9415 th~ local level, particularly in Michigan. of the smaller buildings in San Fran­ ident Kirkpatrick. had demanded to continue the strike In- San Francisco there was also a cisco for five days (which included a Following this, MAC initiated a pe­ despite a national settlement, and the small wildcat strike in August lasting weekend). Ten workers were fired, all tition campaign (supported, somewhat continued on page 10 Chavez Finks on "Illegal" Mexican Farm Workers

Cesar Chavez' repeatedly demon­ inantly Latin) agricultural workers in strated inability to defend the UFW from the past. Worst of all, in appealing to ..' the many-pronged attack of California's 1a migra Chavez is now actively finger­ growers has now become a question of ing workers to the cops! blatant class treason and suicidal self­ destruction for the union. Recently even The Watchword is Hypocrisy the UFW's boycott cam)aign, not to mention strike activity, has taken sec­ Chavez' course toward this betrayal, ond place to a campaign of pressuring as ignominious as Teamster union­ the federal government to stop the flow busting, was the logical extension of of II illegal II farm workers, mainly from his entire previous positions and orien­ MexiCO, into the country. tation. Until March 1973 the UFW lead­ According to the 17 May San Fran­ ership favored passage ofthe Kennedy­ cisco Examiner Chavez II said UFWU Rodino Bill, which would have brought reports on the location of illegal immi­ about increased discrimination and grants given to federal agents in Fres­ harassment of lIillegal aliens. II no, BakerSfield, San Jose and Los The Spartacist League, unlike the Angeles have been ignored...• II His entourage of uncritical fake lefts in­ accusation is that the Immigration De­ terminably hovering around Chavez, partment is acting in collusion with criticized this hypocritical capitulation agribUSiness to smash the UFW and to national chauvinism and has con­ prevent the organization of farm labor Sistently fought for full citizenship by maintaining a reserve army of desti­ rights for lifo reign II workers and for tute labor to be used as scabs. international working-class solidarity, This of course is entirely true. The inSisting on the necessity for union use of contract labor and lIillegals ll has o r g ani z at ion across international been a primary weapon of the agri­ borders. (/I" ~~,,-~- business corporations in preventing the But, says E1 Ma1criado, the UFW's organization of agricultural labor in the official organ: "The position of the U.S. for decades. A good percentage of United Farm Workers of America is UFW members are themselves lIun­ undaunted-the 'illegals' must either documented II or have at some time been be granted full democratic rights, in­ cluding the right to join a union of contract laborers. Cesar Acting as if this were something new, their own chOOSing, or they must go." Chavez has stepped into a trap set by This slimy statement contains two Chavez the growers. His call for the immigra­ counterposed propOSitions, one for full WV PHOTO tion authorities-an arm of the bour­ democratic and un ion membership geois state-to enforce the laws of rights for imm:'grants, the other, that mobilization of the rest of the labor ernment to accomplish tasks which only capitalist society in the interests of "they must go." movement with hot-cargoing of scab the mobilization of the labor movement farm workers, or any workers, is products and eventually a state-wide in united struggle can accomplish. The infinitely absurd. Moreover, by calling Relying on the Bosses' State general strike in defense of the UFW same courts and cops that provide for the enforcement of the racist U.S. -demands advocated by the SL-are and enforce injunctions for the growers, immigration laws, Chavez is fostering Chavez has chosen to struggle for infinitely more realistic possibilitieso allowing them to murder farm workers the same practices of national chauvin­ the latter, supposedly in the name of As the SL has repeatedly pointed with impunity, are called upon to inter­ ism which have led the labor movement IIrealism." In fact, however, armed out, Chavez' strategy is to rely on vene for justice in the labor m:)Vement. to systematically ignore the (predom- self-defense of the picket lines and bourgeois public opinion and the gov- continued on page 10 12 13 SEPTEMBER 1974