JULY 18, 1975 25 CENTS VOLUME 39/NUMBER 27

A SOCIALIST NEWSWEEKLY/PUBLISHED IN THE INTERESTS OF THE WORKING PEOPLE SIOD discriminatory IBVOIIS!

LABOR UPSURGE IN ARGENTINA CABINET RESIGNS AS GOVERNMENT IS ROCKED BY MASSIVE STRIKES. PAGE 5.

PINE RIDGE I IS BEHIND FBI INVASION: TWO YEARS OF GOVERNMENT TERROR .. PAGE 16. lEW YORK UNION LEADERS RETREAT ON Militant/Mary Scully FIGHT FOR JOBS. PAGE 3. Workers rally in Lisbon. Is Armed Forces Movement leading struggle for socialism? See page 14. WOMEN UN MEETING SHOWS IMPACT OF FEMINIST STRUGGLE. PAGE 9. liNGS. L.A. COPS COVER UP RIGHT­ WING CAMPAIGN. PAGE 18. 7II In Brief THIS UNCOMMON CAUSE: The Militant has been reporting front of Japan; and if Japan were directly exposed and WEEK'S how Common Cause chief John Gardner has been going to threatened," Helms said, "her intricate economy­ bat for the two-party system. The Washington Star recently interwoven so closely with the needs and stability ·of the MILITANT asked him if he didn't think that this was a strange cause Western economies-would collapse." for the so-called People's Lobby to embrace "when many 3 Union leaders retreat voters are expressing no confidence in either the Democratic GAY RIGHTS GAIN: The U.S. Civil Service Commission from jobs fight or Republican parties." The question referred to the has backed off from its policy of excluding homosexuals 4 AFSCME ends Pa. strike Common Cause-promoted public election financing law, f~om government jobs. Newly issued guidelines state that with few gains · which provides tax money to the Democrats and Republi­ court.decisions and injunctions require "the same standard cans, and excludes smaller parties. in evaluating sexual conduct, whether heterosexual or 5 Argentine gov't rocked Gardner spelled it out. The Democrats and Republicans, homosexual." That standard allows firing someone "where by massive strikes he said, "are in deep trouble, and if this provides them some the evidence exists that sexual conduct affects job fitness." 6 Speech by Herbert Hill mild strength, I would not begrudge them that." Wouldn't this financing scheme be unfair to any other at NAACP convention GAY WACS FIGHT DISCHARGE: Meanwhile, the army political party? Not one for too much democracy, Gardner is moving to get rid of two WACs who announced they are 7 NAACP vows to defend proclaimed that any party besides the old two "clearly has lesbians. They said they were "tired of living a double life." Black job gains to face some qualifying test or you would have a thousand A board of officers at Fort Devens, Massachusetts, is candidates." recommending discharge. An army spokesman said that 9 6,000 at international regulations make it clear "that homosexuals are considered women's conference MORE UNCOMMON CAUSE: Mitchell Rogovin, general unfit for military service." Pfc. Barbara Randolph and Pvt. 13 Bob Chester: Trotskyist counsel of Common Cause, has just gone to work as a Debbie Watson are fighting back with the help of the Civil leader and educator lawyer for the CIA. Although the agency has access to Liberties Union of Massachusetts and a local chapter of the Justice Department attorneys, the CIA decided to hire National Organization for Women. 14 CP distorts history to Rogovin to serve as its counsel during upcoming congres­ support Portuguese junta sional hearings. DICK GREGORY JAILED IN D.C.: Black activist Dick Gregory was arrested two consecutive days in Washington, 16 Behind FBI invasion PHILIP ALLEN TRIAL OPENS: Jury selection in the D.C. After his release from jail July 5, where he was held on of Pine Ridge murder trial of Philip Allen began July 1 in Santa Monica, charges of demonstrating without a permit in front of the 18 L.A. cops distort facts California, Superior Court. The young Black is charged with White House the previous day, Gregory resumed his protest on terror bombings first-degree murder in the death of a deputy sheriff last New and was rearrested on the same charge. Year's Eve. Gregory has vowed to fast until a "thorough, honest, and 24 CP convention fails to The jury in his trial is certain to be nearly all white, since satisfactory congressional ~investigation of the Central select '76 slate the pool from which the jury will be selected is overwhel­ Intelligence Agency has been conducted, including a 28 Joanne Little: 'Symbol mingly white. complete probe of assassinations, and the nec~ssary reforms for Blacks and women' The prosecution claims that Allen, who is five feet and have been implemented." He is demanding an investigation three inches tall and weighs 135 pounds, successfully of the assassinations of John Kennedy and Martin Luther resisted six armed deputies who were clubbing him. He King. 2 In Brief allegedly grabbed one of their guns and shot three of the 10 In Our Opinion cops, wounding two and killing one. None of the bystanders KENNEDY ASSASSINATION FORUM: Some 225 Letters · saw Allen with a gun. people turned out last month for a Houston Militant Forum Funds are needed to help the defense effort. Tax­ on the John Kennedy assassination. It featured a screening 11 Their Government deductible donations can be sent to the Philip L. Allen of the controversial Zapruder film, which was shot by an By Any Means Necessary Defense Fund at the First Unitarian Church, 2936 West amateur photographer who witnessed the assassination. Eighth Street, Los Angeles, California 90005. Penn Jones, a nationally known authority on the 12 Great Society assassination, hit the Warren Commission report as a cover­ National Picket Line up and debunked the lone-assassin theory. Houston Social­ U.S. MERCENARIES TO RHODESIA: The State American Way of Life ist Workers party organizer Stu Singer linked the new Department has confirmed that American citizens are now interest in the assassination to Watergate and the new being actively recruited to fight in the pay of the racist WORLD OUTLOOK revelations of FBI Cointelpros and CIA assassination plots. white regime in Rhodesia. 19 South Vietnam: Where Singer also discussed the reactionary policies of Kennedy is it going? "About sixty Americans are there already fighting, and many more are being actively recruited in the United when he was in office and how they are often obscured. He pointed to the dangers of idolizing Kennedy because of the 20 Labor gov't offensive States," charged Tapson Mawere, representative to the assassination. against workers United States from the Zimbabwe (Rhodesia) African Penn Jones is available to speak and show his copy of the National Union. 21 Shah hit by protests on Zapruder film. His address is Box 1140, Midlothian, Texas Robert Brown of Phoenix Associates, located near Denver, anniversary of rebellion says he has been recruiting white mercenaries since last 76065. -Nelson Blackstock September. THE MILITANT PSYCHOLOGICAL CONDITION: "It became obvious VOLUME 39/NUMBER 27 that the psychological condition of the American public was YOUR FIRST JULY 18, 1975 as important as the military equipment of the two armies on CLOSING NEWS DATE-JULY 9 the battlefield." Sen. Edwin Garn (R-Utah) made that Editor: MARY-ALICE WATERS observation about Vietnam during a Senate discussion on ISSUE? Managing Editor: LARRY SEIGLE Korea. Business Manager: ROSE OGDEN Southwest Bureau: HARRY RING The continuing antiwar sentiment-that's what Garn was Washington Bureau: CINDY JAQUITH talking about-helps to explain the psychological condition of the war makers today. Published weekly by The Militant Publishing A poll taken not long ago for the Los Angeles Times is SUBSCRIBE Ass'n .• 14 Charles Lane. New York, N.Y. 10014. Telephone: Editorial Office (212) 243-6392; Busi­ revealing. "If North Korea invaded South Korea," 33 ness Office (212) 929-3486. Southwest Bureau: 710 percent of Californians interviewed thought the United TO THE S. Westlake Ave., Los Angeles, Calif. 90057. States should get out "as soon as possible." Another 32 Telephone: (213) 483-2798. Washington Bureau: percent thought "U.S. forces should not take part except to 1345 E. St. N.W., Fourth Floor, Washington, D.C. .ITAIT 20004. Telephone: (202) 638-4081. defend themselves." Only 24 percent thought this country Correspondence concerning subscriptions or "should send aid and troops to help South Korea." changes of address should be addressed to The Joanne Little's fight for freedom is winning support Militant Business Office, 14 Charles Lane, New from opponents of racism everywhere. The Militant MORE ON KOREA: Defense Secretary James Schlesing­ Yort, N.Y. 10014. carries regular reports on this important defense effort. Second-class postage paid at New York, N.Y. er's recent threat to use nuclear weapons in Korea inspired To keep up with this case and other developments in the Subscriptions: domestic, $7.50 a y~; foreign. Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) to new heights of verbal saber Black movement, subscribe to the Militant. $11.00. By first-class mail: domestic, Canada, and rattling. Schlesinger's message, as Helms sees it, is that the Mexico, $32; all other countries, $53. By airmail: domestic, Canada, and Mexico, $42. By air printed United States will get in there and nuke any uppity Koreans matter: Central America and Caribbean, $40; "before the pacifist lobby in this country gets cranked up." Mediterranean Africa, Europe, and South America, The brutal dictatorship in South Korea doesn't bother lntroduclorY ollar-81/2 monthS $52; USSR, Asia, Pacific, and Africa, $62. Write for Helms. "The internal problems of South Korea should not ) $1 for two months ( ) New foreign sealed air postage rates. ) $7.50 for one year ( ) Renewal For subscriptions airmailed from New York and be our business,". he piously declared. Besides, "The rights then posted from London directly to Britain, of complete freedom of speech and democratic participation Ireland, and Continental Europe: £1.50 for eight in government are exotic plants grafted upon the more Name------issues, £3.50 for six months, £6.50 for one year. Address ______Send banker's draft or international postal order sturdy roots of life, liberty, and property." They can't grow (payable to Pathfinder Press) to Pathfinder Press, such plants over there. City ______State-___.._L.Zip ____ 47 The Cut, London, SE1 8LL, England. Inquire for The "we're over there to protect freedom and democracy" air rates from London at the same address. line is obsolete, as far as Helms is concerned. It's a matter 14 Charles Lane, New York, N.Y. 10014 Signed articles by contributors do not necessarily represent the Militant's views. These are expressed of dollars and cents. Korea "is a shield thrust forward in in editorials.

2 NY. crisis: a balance sheet Union leaders· retreat from jobs fight· By Andy Rose The editorial writers of the daily press (First of a series) are rooting for him to get in a few more NEW YORK, July 9-Round one in punches while he has the offensive. the battle of the New York City budget "If Gotbaum and other labor chiefs has ended, and so far the working want to save the jobs of their follow­ people of the city, especially municipal ers," sneered the Daily News, "then a employees, are the losers. pay freeze or a reduced work-week is The outcome was summed up July 6 the only real answer." by the New York Times, the most The New York Times editors July 8 authoritative voice of the city's bank­ urged a massive speedup campaign: ing and corporate oligarchy, which "Thousands of employes can be observed that the balance of political dropped with no reduction in services forces in the city has changed, "proba­ to the public if everyone is required to bly irrevocably": do an honest day's work." "New York no longer has full control "The second test," the Times editors over its fiscal affairs; it has, for the advised, "will be in the new wage first time in decades, gone a small step agreement covering 60,000 teachers, backward in those programs and currently in negotiation.... To nego­ amenities it provides for its citizens; its tiate [an increase of 6 percent or more] unions of municipal workers have for the United Federation of Teachers experienced the greatest erosion of will simply launch the city on another their power in years." stratospheric flight toward budget in­ The Times was referring to-more flation." accurately, gloating over-Mayor Ab­ Sanitation strikers showed that unions have power to change city hall's plans The next day the Times gave promi­ raham Beame's success in laying off nent attention to a proposal by some thousands of city workers July 1 with members of AFSCME Local 1930, New no serious opposition from their York Public Library Guild, to accept a unions. was District Council 37 of the Ameri­ While DeLury has turned the work­ four-day week, with reduction in pay, Some have since been rehired, but as can Federation of State, County and ers into paymasters, collecting wages to avert layoffs. the Times pointed out, "the number of Municipal Employees, representing out of their own union funds, Gotbaum Local 1930 President David Beasley union members permanently laid off is 110,000 city workers. District Council proposes to turn them into bankers. pointed out that such concessions offer less significant than the fact of their 37 Executive Director Victor Gotbaum AFSCME's contracts with the city no long-term solution. "There is no membership's apparent vulnerability." is generally acknowledged to be the provide for a 6 percent wage increase guarantee that there will not be further And having established this vulnera­ central spokesperson for municipal due July 1. Gotbaum suggested that all layoffs," he told the Times, "and it bility, Beame is driving ahead to extort labor. AFSCME members voluntarily loan would be impossible for the lower-paid further concessions on wages and Despite his reputation as a "pro­ their entire raise to the city for two people in our union to survive on a working conditions. gressive" labor leader, Gotbaum pub­ years. Instead of money, the workers shorter work week." The only powerful action challeng­ licly dissociated himself from such "ir­ would get city bonds paying 6 percent Sadly enough, many city workers, ing city hall's mass layoffs had come responsible" behavior as the garbage interest. from the 10,000 sanitation workers strike, as well as sporadic job actions who struck for three days-without taken by members of his own union. Fiscal wizardry official sanction from their union Yet the sanitation strike, no thanks If the city and all the other unions leadership-to stop the firing of nearly to the union officialdom, accomplished agreed to the deal, Gotbaum calculat­ one-third of their ranks (see story on in three days what weeks of negotia­ ed, it would save the city enough page 4). tions had conspicuously failed to do. It money to rehire everybody. His fiscal But the strikers were cajoled back to forced the state legislature in Albany wizardry was cooly received by city work July 3 in return for shaky to stop stalling and make some provi­ officials, however. It is not in the promises that the city would make a sion for greater city funding. With nature of things for workers to collect "good-faith effort" to restore the jobs of 58,000 tons of garbage rotting in the any part of the $2 billion paid out those laid off. In the meantime, sanita­ streets of New York, a deal was annually for debt service on city tion workers head John DeLury dipped hurriedly worked out for Albany to bonds. into the union treasury-which had approve $330 million worth of new Among those who frowned on this not provided one penny in strike taxing powers for the city. plan was Thomas Flynn, head of the benefits ...... and handed the city $1.6 Thus the strike had a mixed out­ Municipal Assistance Corporation million to cover the wages of those come. On the one hand, sanitation ("Big Mac"), the state agency set up to rehired. workers got a raw deal at best, with no oversee the city's finances. Big Mac guarantee they will all keep their jobs. just marketed $1 billion worth of city No solidarity On the other hand, everyone in the city bonds at interest rates up to 9.5 The response of other union leaders could see that while others were percent. As for Gotbaum's brainchild, in New York to the sanitation strike passively accepting layoffs, those who Flynn commented, apparently with a was an unmistakable signal of their resorted to the strike weapon were straight face, that "we don't approve headlong retreat from any confronta­ rapidly rehired, for the time being at in general of the city going into future tion with the Beame administration. least. It was a much-needed reminder debt to meet present operating ex­ BEAME: If you don't like it, you can take While the city threatened to call out that the unions do have the power to penses." a pay cut. the National Guard and slap punitive change city hall's plans, and Albany's Gotbaum's scheme was a monumen­ fines on strikers, not one word of too. tal blunder. It conceded without a solidarity with the embattled sanita­ struggle one of city hall's major not only librarians, would by now tion workers was heard from any Some jobs saved objectives: to call into question exist­ jump at the chance to give up a wage union official in the city. Beame said the new taxes would ing contract provisions. He might as increase or even take a wage cut, in Hardest hit by the wave of layoffs make it possible to save 19,300 of the well have announced, "We don't really return for their jobs. Given the failure 40,000 jobs eliminated in his recently need the raise-if you push hard of the central union leaders to offer implemented budget for the 1975-76 enough we will p:r;obably give it up." any fighting perspective to save all fiscal year. In reality AFSCME members have jobs and maintain union wages and The city also holds out the possibili­ seen their purchasing power steadily conditions, most workers are by now ty that by imposing a series of so­ eroded by inflation and they need a desperate for any possibility to individ­ called nuisance taxes it might restore a raise now-not two years from now. ually minimize the disaster they face. few thousand more jobs, and the union Even a 6 percent increase will not This sorry outcome was not neces­ officials are busy with cutthroat man­ catch up with inflation; forgoing the sary. It did not come about because the euvers over who will get them. raise means accepting a pay cut. unions laclt the power to force a better Meanwhile, in a move that can only No one except Gotbaum could have solution, or because union members cut the unions off from desperately been surprised when Beame turned the are not willing to fight for their needed support in the Black and offer down flat and demanded a interests. It came about solely because Puerto Rican communities, Gotbaum complete wage freeze instead. Beame of the abject default of the leadership and other union officials continue to also let it be known that he was of the New York unions. · demand that civil servants be rehired conferring with Democratic state legis­ The battle is not yet over, though. by kicking others-largely minority lators on a bill to void the union New struggles are certain to erupt as workers-out of the federally funded contracts. the workers resist new encroachments CETA (Comprehensive Employment 'by the city. By uniting all victims of and Training Act) jobs program. 'Perfect solution'? the cutbacks and mobilizing them in An across-the-board job freeze at pre­ Legislators wistfully recalled a simi­ massive actions in the streets and on July 1 levels and reduction of the work lar measure in 193i! that slashed New the job, the unions can still turn force through attrition are now the York municipal salaries by up to 14 Beame's plans around. most the union leaders are asking for. percent. An unnamed "top Democratic But to do so it will be necessary to All their schemes for saving jobs now staff aide" told the New York Times, draw the lessons of the first stage of boil down to acceptance that the "It was the perfect solution then and the New York crisis and the failure of workers must bear the costs of balan­ it's the perfect solution today." the past policies of the union leader­ GOTBAUM: Offers low interest rate, but . cing the city budget. The dickering is The unions' retreat on jobs has only ship. fails to turn workel'$ into bankers. over exactly who and exactly how. emboldened Beame to new attacks. (Next week: roots of the crisis)

THE MILITANT/M:ILY 18, 1'875 3 We should have gotten more' AFSCME ends Pa. strike with few gains By Duncan Williams Almost all state services ground to a PHILADELPHIA, July 7-A tenta­ halt during the strike, including wel­ tive settlement has been reached be­ fare offices, state hospitals, and unem­ tween the Pennsylvania state govern­ ployment centers. There were militant ment and the 73,000-member state picket lines of several hundred workers chapter of the American Federation of at state office buildings in major cities. State, County and Municipal Employ­ Several strikers were arrested by state ees, ending the first general strike by police. state employees in this country. It became clear during the strike that The strike, which began July 1, the state administration, under the involved 17,000 other ~orkers in addi­ personal direction of Democratic Gov. tion to the AFSCME members. Milton Shapp, had prepared and pro­ voked the strike. The administration freely admitted, for example, that it had spent only seventeen minutes in Gov. Shapp's negotiations before the strike deadline. In spite of Pennsylvania Public Law 195, which permits public employees to true colors organize and strike, Shapp secured a PHILADELPHIA-Terry Ann number of court injunctions and back­ Hardy, Socialist Workers party can­ to-work orders. These rulings chipped didate for mayor of Philadelphia, away at the strike's effectiveness, gave full support to the Pennsylva­ forcing several large groups of strikers, nia public workers' strike. including the 3,300 members of the Hardy's stand was in sharp con­ Pennsylvania Nurses Association, trast to the antiunion position taken back to work on the grounds that they by virtually all Democratic and were hindering essential services. Republican politicians in the state. The settlement includes major con­ On July 3, Hardy and several cessions by AFSCME. It provides for campaign workers visited an early wage increases of 3.5 percent now, 2.5 morning picket line at Broad and percent next January, and 6 percent Spring Garden streets. They distri­ next July. buted copies of the "Bill of Rights for AFSCME had originally demanded Working People" and sold copjes of a 30 percent increase and a cost-of­ the Militant, while talking with living clause. The state had offered 3.5 Cops attack'strike picket in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania pickets about the issues in the strike. percent. Shapp says, the extra 2.5 Stu Gross, a member of the Penn­ percent can be paid out of money the women make up a large part of the The Pennsylvania Social Services sylvania Social Services Union, told state saved because of the sqike, so work force. Many of the state workers Union and the Pennsylvania Employ­ Hardy that "[Democratic Governor] that there is no net gain for the are young. They had just begun to feel ment Security Employees Association, Shapp doesn't think very much of workers. their power, in the three days that the representing about 12,000 welfare and working people. I think there's no The present contract was extended strike was most effective. unemployment workers, have not set­ question his true colors are showing for~ one year. Also, the settlement "The spirit on the picket lines was tled with the state. now. He's not a little people's candi­ introduces a new classification system very good," a clerk in the Boulevard Ed Purcell, PSSU's chief negotiator, date, he's a management candi­ District of the welfare department and said that the AFSCME agreement date." that will mean lower wages for newly hired and newly promoted workers. a member of AFSCME Local 2588 told "stinks." He said PSSU is planning to Charles Bond, a PSSU shop stew­ the Militant. continue negotiations on wages and ard, agreed that Shapp was "play­ A new first step has been introduced in' each job category, so that a newly "Most of the people I've been talking other issues, and that it will fight any ing games with the union." hired state employee will start at 5 to are planning to vote the settlement injunctions. The idea of the unions running percent below the old starting salary. down. They think we should have their own independent candidates Someone who is promoted into a new · gotten more than we did, and they're PSSU picket lines are still up, but for public office appealed to Bond, job category will start at a salary 5 pretty angry." AFSCME officials have ordered their "as long as they could relate to and percent below the old one for that The settlement terms, approved by members to cross them. In some cases know the problems people are fac­ position. AFSCME's 250-member negotiating disgruntled AFSCME members have ing. We don't need big businessmen Discontent with the settlement is committee and 600-member policy refused to do so, instead cheering for in office. They have what they apparent in a number of work units in committee, still must be ratified by the PSSU members who are still need." the Philadelphia area. Blacks and membership vote. holding strong. But for how long7 Sanitation strikers win jobs back in N.Y.C. By Fred Richards In another ominous sign, the city There was a lot of disapproval of NEW YORK, July 8-Ten thousand refused to suspend legal action against using union money to pay their own striking sanitation workers returned to the union or individual strikers. They wages. Asked whether he thought the their jobs here July 3, but there was may still be victimized under New city would use up the fund, one little enthusiasm for the settlement York's infamous Taylor Law, which sanitation worker replied, "Most likely. that ended their three-day wildcat forbids strikes by public employees Most likely, they'll take anything they protest against layoffs. under penalty of jail terms and individ­ can get. But the men aren't too happy The workers had closed down gar­ ual fines of two days' pay for every day with that idea. They feel that· we're bage collection July 1 when Mayor on strike. paying ourselves with our own money. Abraham Beame tried to fire 2,934 of Militant reporters interViewed work­ And one million six-hundred thousand them. The . walkout was officially ers at Garages Three and Five on the isn't going to last too long." opposed by John DeLury, president of west side of Manhattan. While many One young worker, now temporarily the Uniformed Sanitationmen's Asso­ were glad to be making overtime pay working but on the list to be laid off, ciation, who said he could not control for working on the July 4 holiday was frustrated and angry that the the ranks. weekend, they were bitter about hav­ strike had ended with no long-term To end the strike Beame agreed to ing yielded their position of strength results. temporarily rehire all the sanitation without any solid guarantee against "I don't even want to talk about our workers while he continued to search future layoffs. going back to work," he said. for federal and state aid. Others were taking a wait-ana-see As a direct result of the strike, the They knew full well what even the attitude. How many men would really state legislature agreed to give the city city admi~istration was admitting: get their jobs back? Would the city try $330 million in new taxing authority. that the strike was 100 percent effec­ to fine or prosecute them under the But by July 8 only 750 sanitation jobs tive, with tens of thousands of tons of Taylor Law? had been "permanently" restored, and rotten garbage piling up in the summer If the city doesn't rehire all the Beame was making no promises that heat, and that the city could not hold sanitation workers, another job action any more would be forthcoming. out indefinitely. is possible. They are aware that it was In return, DeLury took the extraordi­ "We had 'em," one sanitation worker only the power of their strike that nary step of putting up $1.6 million of said. "We should never have gone back forced the city to rehire anyone, even if the union's money to repay the city if it without a guarantee." temporarily. cannot find enough new funding to Others responded to questions with "If the city doesn't rehire these pay the wages of the workers original­ angry silence .or abrupt comments like 'No work today.' strike picket declares. young guys, we'll stick together," an ·ly laid. off. This will cover only about "the whole damn thing makes me mad Few were happy with terms of older worker told the Militant. "We'll three weeks' payrolls. · and I don't want to talk about it." settlement. strike."

4 Cabinet resigns as crisis dee~ns Argentine gov't rocked by massive strikes By Judy White doned factories in Buenos Aires and From Intercontinental Press other large cities during the last On the eve of the second general several days." strike in two weeks, the entire cabinet The confrontation began June 27 of President Isabel Martinez de Peron when tens of thousands of workers in resigned July 6. The action came after major unions walked off the job, a ten-day confrontation between the protesting the government's announce­ regime and the trade-union movement ment that collective-bargaining agree­ that brought industrial activity to a ments would not be ratified if they standstill. exceeded a 50 percent ceiling on wage The July 7 general strike, scheduled increases, despite a jump of 100 per­ to last forty-eight hours, was called cent or more in prices in the past year. after union bureaucrats found that About 100,000 workers massed in they were unable to either force the front of the presidential palace de­ regime to back down on its austerity manding approval for contracts they program or to control the angry ranks had just negotiated that included of the labor movement. raises of between 80 and 130 percent. A dispatch by Jonathan Kandell in In addition, the demonstrators called the July 5 New York Times reported for the resignation of Economics Min­ that the strike call was merely a ister Celestino Rodrigo and the re­ "formality," since "workers have aban- gime's right-wing strongman, Social Welfare Minister Jose L6pez Rega. On July 3 another march of thou­ sands of workers heading toward the presidential palace was broken up by police using tear gas. Argentine labor movement has history of militant struggle. Above, strike meeting in The unions spearheading these city of Tucuman in 1973. protests-the metalworkers, construc­ tion workers, textile workers, and continued reluctance of the armed percent ceiling on wage negotiations public employees-had been the back­ forces to take over with no easy was suggested. bone of the Peronist regime in the solutions to the economic and political Throughout June continuing strikes struggle against what the caudillo problems in sight." and protests demonstrated the unions' used to call the "infiltrators who work However, he continued, "Many offi­ unwillingness to accept a wage ceiling from within ... the majority of whom cers undoubtedly share the opinion of that signified a deep slash in their are mercenaries in the service of the retired army general who said: standard of living. foreign capital." The union bureau­ 'When the time comes, the military A survey published by the Funda­ crats provided the goons who assault­ does not want people to say we did not cion de Investigaciones Economicas ed radicals and dissidents of all hues give the Peronists a real chance. Better Latinoamericanas (Foundation for whenever they protested Peron's poli­ an hour later than an hour early.'" Latin American Economic Research) cies. The Argentine economy is in deep revealed that only workers receiving The confrontation sparked increas­ crisis. Among the problems are a the minimum wage registered an ing talk about the possibility of a triple-digit rate of inflation, a burgeon­ increase (49 percent) in their real military coup. ing black market, and foreign debts of wages during the last two years. All In a July 1 editorial, the French $2 billion falling due shortly with only other workers suffered a loss. daily Le Monde pointed to the "ex­ $750 million on hand to meet them. This study was completed in March, treme gravity" of the step taken by On June 5, the government an­ several months before the most recent Isabel Peron in refusing to ratify the nounced the first in what were to be a austerity measures. According to ·fi­ contracts. series of "shock treatments." It deval­ gures released July 1 by the Movimien­ "Deprived of one of the pillars of the ued the peso 50 percent, raised fuel to de Integracion y Desarrollo, these regime, will Mrs. Isabel Peron and Mr. prices 300 percent, and lifted almost all measures have meant that "real wages Jose L6pez Rega, who guides her price controls. today are the lowest they have been in policies, now try to base themselves on On June 6, Isabel Peron announced the last thirty years." Isabel Per6n announcing her the army?" the editors asked. a new ·minimum monthly wage of Protest actions reported in the July 2 assumption to Argentine presidency. The only reason there had not 330,000 pesos (about US$132) and issue of the Buenos Aires daily La Behind her is right-wing minister Jose already been a coup, Kandell said in issued an appeal against strikes and Nacion give an indication of the scope L6pez Rega. the July 3 New York Times, was "the absenteeism. As a trial balloon, a 38 Continued on page 26 Prisoners charge Dominican gov't with torture From Intercontinental Press ed from Cuba and dropped off some­ ened with death during their detention. buying provisions when they were Three supporters of the Puerto Rican where near San Jose de Ocoa. Hence the "confessions" and the arrested. independence movement, arrested in On June 11, Juan Bosch, former staged news conference. In addition to the "invasion" charge, early June in the Dominican Republic, president of the Dominican Republic Sampson said that in addition to the at the habeas corpus hearing Garcia, confessed to trumped-up charges of and leader of the Partido de la Libera­ other tortures, he was threatened with Sampson, and Gandia were also ac­ aiding a "guerrilla invasion" only ci6n Dominicana (PLD-Dominican castration and told that his wife would cused of trafficking in drugs. The after they were savagely tortured, they Liberation party), announced that be a young widow. All three were district attorney produced no evidence testified at a court hearing June 30. three Puerto Ricans had been arrested threatened with being thrown out of an to substantiate either charge, but In statements at the Santo Domingo off the coast of the Dominican Repub­ airplane, shot, or simply made to claimed that on the political charge, he hearing, the three prisoners-Raul lic. They were accused of having disappear, Gandia testified. considered the confessions sufficient Garcia, Johnny Sampson, and Angel transported Caama:fio and the others The prisoners were promised that proof. Gandia-charged that they were beat­ from Aguadillas, Puerto Rico, in a they would be returned to Puerto Rico Protests in Puerto Rico against the en with rubber saps, given electric fishing boat. if they signed a statement saying they frame-up have begun to mount. The shocks, and kept naked and bound for The story that the guerrillas had had brought Caamaiio and the two 15,000-member Teamsters Union has two weeks until they agreed to sign the been brought from Cuba was quietly other rebels to the Dominican Repub­ announced that it will not move any phony confessions. All three are mem­ dropped. lic. cargo destined for the Dominican bers of the Puerto Rican Socialist party Puerto Rican attorneys who flew to Explaining how they happened to be Republic until the prisoners are re­ (PSP). the Dominican capital to defend the on Dominican soil, Sampson and turned to Puerto Rico. Ruben Berrios, The hearing capped a series of three prisoners could get no informa­ Garcia said that they had accompan­ the president of the Partido lndepend­ disclosures that have completely dis­ tion on their clients. ied Gandia on an expedition to survey entista Puertorrique:fio (PIP-Puerto credited the Balaguer regime's asser­ Mona Island in the channel between Rican Independence party), made an tion that it is the victim of a powerful Then a United Press International Puerto Rico and the Dominican Repub­ appeal for setting aside ideological guerrilla-warfare operation, imported dispatch, published in the June 24 lic. They were attempting to confirm differences to defend the human rights from nearby Cuba. issue of the New York Spanish­ reports that the United States had of Garcia, Sampson, and Gandia. Even language daily El Diario, reported that begun constructing a superport there. the bourgeois daily San Juan Star Sweeping repressive measures start­ Garcia, Sampson, and Gandia had There has been ongoing protest in made an editorial appeal that the ed with a June 5 roundup of more than confessed to the charges. At a news Puerto Rico over U.S. plans to build nghts of the three be guaranteed. 300 opponents of the Balaguer regime conference held at a military installa­ such a facility, wh1ch would pose a Meanwhile, almost one month after and an official announcement two tion, the three prisoners said they had serious ecological threat to the region. the alleged guerrilla landing, not a days later that a band of guerrillas acted under orders from the PSP. Bad weather drove their boat off shred of evidence has been presented had invaded the island. Dominican The habeas corpus hearing for the course. They were lost and running out to confirm the presence in the Domini­ authorities claimed that Claudio Ca­ three on June 30 placed the story in an of fuel when they met a fisherman who can Republic of Caama:fio, Pe:fia Ja­ ama:fio, Torbio Pe:fia Jaquez, Manfredo entirely different light. told them. that the Dominican town of quez, Casado Villar, or any other Casado Villar, and other unnamed The prisoners testified that they La Romana was nearby. They were in members of the phantom guerrilia Dominican rebels had been transport- were tortured and constantly threat- La Romana refueling the boat and band.

THE MILITANT/JULY 18, 1975 5 NAACP: Speech by Herbert Hill 'NAACP will continue the struggle to fully realize the promise of equality' Following are excerpts from an permanent condition of hopelessness Power established that intent is irrele­ address by Herbert Hill, national and despair and that the social and vant and that neutral principles which labor director of the NAACP, at psychological costs in wasted lives have the effect of continuing discrimi­ the workshop on "Employment: constitutes a major tragedy in contem­ natory patterns must be substantially Affirmative Action for Jobs" held porary American life. modified or eliminated. It may be at the recent NAACP convention. It is within this context that we must anticipated that Black workers, wom­ understand the growing nationwide en, and other minorities will make a For Black workers, and indeed for campaign against Black workers and sustained attack on contractural se­ the entire Black community, the civil their families. The shrill and paranoid niority systems which have a dispar­ rights issue now is the job issue. What attacks against affirmative-action pro­ ate effect and that attempts by employ­ is a recession for whites has become a grams are the cutting edge of the new ers and organized labor to ward off catastrophic depression for Black racism. Given the incontrovertible judicial interference will be futile. In workers. As a result of traditional data on the rapid deterioration of the the several decided cases on the "last­ patterns of employment discrimina­ economic status of Black wage earners; hired, first-fired" issue the law is in tion, Blacks are more vulnerable to given the fact that Black people suffer conflict. Given the contradictory re­ long-term economic dislocation than the unequal burden of joblessness; sults in the decided cases and the any other group in American society. given the growing despair and misery crucial importance of the issue, this And many of the gains made during in the ghettos of America, the strident controversy will, of necessity, have to the past twenty years are being rapidly shouts of "reverse racism" are based be decided by the Supreme Court. It wiped out. on a totally false assumption. It is will have an opportunity to do so in Official government reports on the another example of the big lie tech­ Franks v. Bowman Transportation unemployment crisis tell us that the nique; repeat a falsehood long enough Co., which the court agreed to review Black unemployment rate is more than and loud enough until so many fools on March 24, 1975. This case was double that of white unemployment. believe it that it becomes an unques­ Lining up for jobs in Atlanta. 'What is a initiated by two Black men who had But bad as they are, official unemploy­ tioned "fact." recession for whites has become a been discharged by the Bowman ment figures are just the tip of the catastrophic depression for Black Transportation Company in Atlanta. iceberg and the true condition of Black workers.' Also named as defendant is the collec­ workers is obscured. Gains being erased tive bargaining agent, the United • In the major areas of urban Black The effort to eliminate the present . Steelworkers of America. population concentration the rate of effects of past discrimination, to right disparate impact on Blacks, women, or Despite the current well-organized unemployment for Black workers is the wrongs of many generations was other minorities. In practical terms, political campaign in defense of the not merely double but in some in­ barely underway when it was aborted. the question is whether those groups "last-hired, first-fired" principle by stances four times greater than the And now, even the very modest gains that have benefited from Title VII corporate enterprise and organized jobless rate among whites. made by Black men and women litigation will be forced back into the labor, the NAACP will continue the • Blacks make up 30 percent of through affirmative-action programs discriminatory job patterns which struggle to fully realize the promise of those living in officially defined are being erased, as powerful institu­ existed prior to the enforcement of the . equality contained in the Civil Rights poverty-three times their proportion tions turn the clock of history back to Civil Rights Act of 1964. In effect, will Act of 1964. The association will do of the total population. the dark and dismal days of "separate the gains of the past decade now be this in the courts and outside the • In 1970, Black family income for but equal." wiped out as a result of traditional courts. And what we are fighting for is the nation was 61 percent of white Judging by the vast outcry, it might seniority procedures codified in union grounded on the basic principles of family income-the all-time high! In be assumed that the use of goals and contracts? justice. 1971, it dropped to 60 percent, in 1972 timetables to eliminate racist job There are some who argue that In the cases in which we are current­ to 59 percent, and in 1973 to 58 percent. patterns has become as widespread seniority is a vested right. This, of· ly involved, Black men and women And every indication is that this and destructive as discrimination it­ course, is sheer nonsense. The argu­ were systematically denied jobs until downward trend continues. self. As with the much-distorted sub­ ment that white men have a prior right major corporations were threatened • At the beginning of 1975 the ject of busing, the defenders of the to a job and that Black people must with lawsuits under Title VII. With the unemployment rate for white local racist system have once again suc­ wait until there is full employment operation of the "last-in, first-out" government workers was 1. 7 percent; ceeded in confusing the remedy with before they too can work is the essence principle, the recently employed Black the unemployment rate for Black local the original evil. The word "quota," of the racist mentality. workers are, naturally, the first to be gove-rnment workers was 11.2 like "busing" and "open housing," has A prime example of resistance to dismissed. Thus, Black workers are percent-more than six times the rate become another code word for resist­ Title VII requirements is to be found in doubly penalized. · So we are now for whites. ance to demands for the elimination of the response of the United Steelwork­ proposing in the courts that at the very widespread patterns of discrimination ers of America, a major industrial least-as a minimum-that wherever Heaviest burden based on race. union. In 1970, after many years of furlough or dismissals occur, the same • In every industry, in every sector The extensive body of case law under protest by Black steelworkers, a federal proportion of nonwhites be retained on of the economy, Blacks bear the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of court found the steelworkers union and the job as existed prior to the layoff. greatest burden of unemployment and 1964 has clearly transformed the the Bethlehem Steel Corporation in endure the heaviest deprivation. Of the negative duty-not to discriminate­ Lackawanna, New York, to be in 'We must not yield' greatest significance is the fact that into a positive obligation. Under the violation of the law. In United States It is absolutely essential that what­ the highest rate of unemployment guise of defending "merit systems" v. Bethlehem Steel Corp., the court ever gains were made, that however among all categories is now experi­ that in reality do not exist, the oppo­ stated: modest the toehold, we do not yield. enced by Black teen-agers and young nents of affirmative action are, in fact, "The pervasiveness and longevity of Because it must be understood that workers-in excess of 50 percent. This attempting to maintain the unstated the overt discriminatory hiring and job those jobs taken from Black men and obviously means that at least half of but traditional discriminatory prac­ assignment practices, admitted by women today will belong to white men the young Black population is in a tices that result in the exclusion of Bethlehem and the union, compel the and women tomorrow. And as history Blacks and other minorities from conclusion that the present seniority teaches us, tomorrow is a very long desirable jobs in every sector of the and transfer provisions were based on time. economy. A major factor in the resist­ past discriminatory classifications. This struggle involves the funda­ ance to new legal remedies is that ... Job assignment practices were mental interests of the Black communi­ white expectations based on the syste­ reprehensible. Over 80 percent of black ty for many years to come and, matic denial of the rights of minorities workers were placed in eleven depart­ therefore, is a crucial issue for the has become the norm. Thus any ments which contained the hotter and NAACP. And what makes the NAACP alteration of this norm is considered dirtier jobs in the plant. Blacks were unique is that we never subordinate "reverse discrimination." excluded from higher paying and the vital interests of the Black popula­ It should be evident that what is cleaner jobs." tion to other concerns. For us there can really involved in the debate over On October 14, 1971, the court issued be no "other" considerations because affirmative action is not that Blacks a decree defining as members of the for the NAACP there is only one basic will be given preference over whites affected class some 1,600 Black steel­ responsibility-advancing the but that a substantial body of law now workers who were entitled to receive interests and welfare of Black Ameri­ requires that discriminatory systems benefits as a result of the court's cans. Given the racism which per­ which operate to favor whites at the decision. meates so much of our country we need expense of Blacks must be eliminated. make no apology for this perception of This leads us to the burning issue of our role. the moment. That is, the validity of Seniority & discrimination We know that if the NAACP does "last-hired, first-fired" seniority provi­ After a decade of litigation under not do it, no one else will. And if we sions in collective bargaining agree­ Title VII, it is absolutely clear that fail, then the future of Black Ameri­ ments. In legal terms, the issue may be seniority provisions in union contracts cans will be nothing more than a Militant/Baxter Smith stated as follows: Is it lawful to invoke that perpetuate the present effects of dismal repetition of the past. With your Herbert Hill addressing affirmative seniority as the basis for furlough and past discrimination are illegal. The help; our just and honest cause will action and jobs workshop. dismissal where its application has a Supreme Court in Griggs v. Duke prevail.

6 ·NAACP:- Convention debate NAACP vows to defend. Black job • By Tony Thomas NAACP National Labor Director Her­ WASHINGTON-The NAACP, the bert Hill.· Pollard urged ·the union country's largest civil rights organiza­ officials present to join the NAACP, tion, has reaffirmed its qetermination "go to conventions, and challenge· his to- fight against discriminatory layoffs [Hill's] irresponsibilty. that are erasing many of the Black job . This challenge, however, was defeat­ gains of recent years. ed. The convention passed the follow- This stand, taken at the group's ing resolution: .. sixty-sixth annual convention here "We call upon EEOC (Equal June 30-July 4, came in the fa,ce of a Employment Opportunity Commis­ concerted campaign by officials of the sion], The ·civil Service Commis­ AFL-CIO to force the NAACP to sion, The .Office of Federal Con­ reverse its position. Some 3,558 dele­ tract Compliance, and other gates, virtually all Blacks, attended administrative agencies, Federal the gathering. and State, and upon the .courts, At a recent conference of the A. . and if necessary, Congress, to act Philip Randolph Institute, William. to assure that blacks, and other Pollard, head of the AFL-CIO Civil minorities and women who have Rights Department, had announced secured employment as a result of that the AFL-CIO would wage war on equal employment legislation not the NAACP to force a reversal of this be deprived of the benefits of that Convention delegates discussed many issues, but debate over discriminatory layoffs stand. One of the special targets of the employment under the last hired was central one. AFL-CIO's hierarchy has been first fired theory." Mter the resolution was adopted, both Hill and Roy Wilkins, NAACP Boston. Thomas Atkins, the Boston desegregation of the schools. executive director, said they would NAACP leader who has helped lead She stated that Blacks had to get continue the organization's campaign that battle, moderated a workshop that back into the streets and exert political of suits and other legal action to dealt with desegregation. pressure to gain school desegregation defend affirmative-action programs The Boston NAACP initiated a as well as tto ensure the hiring of and prevent discrimination -in layoffs. march held May 17 to commemorate Blacks as teachers and school adminis­ Hill told the Militant after the the Supreme Court ruling and to trators. resolution was adopted, "This is exact­ demand its implementation today in Symbolized by Boston, the struggle ly what we want. This authorizes us to Boston. for school desegregation today is go ahead and actively pursue our Maceo Dixon, a coordinator of the largely in Northern and Weste111 litigation." National Student Coalition Against states. Wilkins told a postconvention news Racism who recently became a mem­ conference that the resolution "empow­ ber of the Dorchester, Massacliusetts, Suit launched ers us ·to go ahead with increased vigor NAACP, asked the panelists whether On July 3 NAACP General Counsel in the fight for affirmative action." they agreed that actions like the one Nathaniel Jones ann.punced that the on May 17 were still necessary. NAACP is launching a suit against ~ School desegregation Maxine Smith, a leader of the the Department of Health, Education Another key issue discussed at the Memphis, Tennessee, NAACP and a and Welfare · for failing to enforce convention was school desegregation. member of that city's school board, desegregation in thirty-three Northern Ever since its initial victory in the responded: and Western states. It is the most historic 1954 Supreme Court ruling, the "Yes, we need 'more actions like that, sweeping school desegregation· suit NAACP has played a majqr role in that is what we had to do in Memphis ever filed. (See story on page 9.) legal battles for total school desegrega­ to force steps. toward school desegrega­ Jones also announced at the conven­ WILKINS: Affirmative-action proposal tion. tion." She related how Memphis tion that in a few months the NAACP 'empowers us to go .ahead with increased In the past year the school desegre­ Blacks had launched· a school and will host a special leadership meeting. vigor.' gation battle has been sharpest in shopping boycott in 1969 to force The NAACP, he said, has been encoun­ tering stiff political resistance from racist forces in recent months to its legal efforts, and the meeting will discuss counter political efforts to back NSCAR well received at gathering its legal campaigns. By Baxter Smith ton, where resistance to school desegre- and elsewhere that they/will not tum Other workshops included those on WASHINGTON-Pretty soon there gation has been sl:larp. back the equal rightS of Black people housing, political action, urban and might be some letters coming up from Thomas Atkins, president .of· the won through many years of struggle. inner-city programs, veterans' affairs. Down Under bearing the· address 612 Boston NAACP, announced his The leadership displayed by the youth, and revenue sharing.· Blue Hill A venue, Dorchester, Massa­ group's plans for the May 17 school NAACP in calling for and.organizing chusetts 02121. They'll be requesting desegregation demonstration at the the march is an inspiration to NSCAR Young people more information about· the occupant, student conference. The student group as well as the Black pe.'Ople across the About one-fifth of the . convention the National Student Coalition endorsed the demonstration and went ·country fighting for equality.'~ was comprised of young people of Against Racism (NSCAR). · to work to help build it. The student group was well rec~ived college age and younger. SeVeral . At the NAACP convention Maceo The demonstration drew about by conventioners. The young activists sessions specifically for young people Dixon, a coordinator of the coalition, 15,000 people, and in a recently pub- broughi 3,000 Student Mobilizers, their were held, including -a college work­ was interviewed about the student lished pamphlet the NA,ACP singled fo111-page newsletter, with them, and shop and an awards banquet. group by the Australian Broadcasting out the student group for helping to all were distributed. Six thousand About 40 percent of the convention" Comltlission. ABC is the govemment­ tum people out for it. leaflets titled "What is NSCAR?" were participants were women. Most partici­ oper'ated network there. . . . "The march was organized by the also distributed-3,500 stuffed into pants appeared to be in the forty-five Dixon and other coalition activists NAACP National Office and the Bos- delegates kits~with the volunteer help to sixty-five-year-old range. People came here from a half-dozen ·Eastern ton NAACP Branch. The National of youthful NAACP members. About converged on the capital for the .. cities to spread the word about the Student Coalition Against Racism was fifty May 17 buttons were sold. convention from the four comers of the student group, enlist support for its a principal participant," the pamphlet Interested young NAACP members country and there were many veterans activities, and help form new chapters. reads. It also mentions that Dixon also attended a meeting the student of the Southern civil rights. struggles. And if any folks Down Under do spoke at the rally. coalition held to explain its activities. present. .decide to form a chapter of the student On the op~ning night of the conven- Another meeting between NSCAR Several government officials ad­ group, they'll be among those from tion here, NSCAR greetings were read leaders and young NAACP members dressed the convention, including Pr~ Painter, Virginia; Clarksdale, Mis­ to those present. produced a resolution that was submit- . ident Ford and Treasury Secretary sissippi; East Orange, New Jersey; "The National Student Coalition ted calling for freedom for Joanne William Simon. Simon unashamedly Storrs, Connecticut; the predominantly Against Racism would like to express Little. stated that it was impossible to con­ Black Morgan State College campus in its appreciation for the collaboration By the time Dixon spoke before a template any Black progress until Baltimore; and two Massachusetts we have had with the NAACP since youth workshop, attended by 300 there was a full economic recovery. towns that ~ecided to do the same our founding conference in February· young people, scores of individuals had Simon's remarks, lilte those of Ford, thing at the NAACP convention. 1975. We actively support the effort of signed mailing lists or expressed a fell on unappreciating ears. "in the past few months we have the NAACP in fighting an uncompro- desire to join the student ~oup. "Those opening words were . too built a good relationship with the mising battle for the right of Black So, if you. want more information or arrogant," Tina Mayberry, sixty-two, NAACP," Dixon said, in explaining students in Boston to an equal educa- want to help form 1l chapter of the of Richmond, Texas, said in a typical · why the student group came to the tion," the greetings began. coalition, call them at (617) 288-6200, comment. In opening, Ford had spoken convention. "We' especially applaud· "The -NAACP-called May 17 march or drop a letter to the address back in disparagingly of public remarks by their strong stand for school desegre­ for quality school desegregation ... the first sentence. Better hurry, Roy Wilkins several days earlier. gation." brought the struggle for Black rights a though. The coalition staff might soon "He's supposed to the president oran The student coalition was formed tremendous step forward. It was a be deluged with requests from Down the people so he should be able to powerful statement to racists in Boston Under. 1ast February at a conference in Bos- Continued on next page

·· THE MILITANT/JULY 18, 1975 7 NAACP: Convention debate ... NAACP vows to defend Black job gains Continued from preceding page directors, the real decision-making behave better than that," Mayberry body in the association, were in favor said. "His whole speech seemed to be of the stand ori affirmative action. The trying to pacify Black people. And four opponents, he said, were all trade­ Lord knows, we don't need any of that. union functionaries. We've had enough of it."· This view also represented the think­ While there were a great number of ing of the majority of the delegates issues discussed, the debate over discri­ here. Beulah Wallace, an older woman minatory layoffs was the central issue · from indianapolis, told a workshop on facing the organization. affirmative action: Since the eivil rights act of 1964 was "There are a lot of people on the job adopted, . with its Title VII outlawing today who wouldn't have their jobs if it job discrimination on the basis of race wasn't for the NAACP. It's true that a and sex, the NAACP has carried out a lot of Black folks have seniority, but . fight, primarily through court suits, we have it for m'enial jobs. Mfirmative seeking preferential hiring and -job action helped us get out of those advancement to overcome discrimina­ menial jobs and ·into some better­ tory hiring practices. paying jobs and we can't lose that With large-scale unemployment, em­ now.'' ployers have been firing many of-the Most delegates were aware that this workers hired. under the affirlbative­ People came to the convention from four corners of country ~as going to be a controversial issue action programs. The NAACP is now as they arrived for the convention. ·taking up the fight against this new tained after the layoffs as before, ary union. bureaucrats believe in colla- There was discussion about it in attempt to eliminate the gains that despite· seniority. Which means that . borating with the corporations in regional caucuses and in the eorridors have been won . instead of all ten Black men being maintaining discriminatory practices in anticipation of scheduled workshop . At a news conference during the wiped out, only one would be dis­ in: hiring because they think they can and plenary session debates. convention, Herbert Hill gave an missed and nine would be retained. protect jobs for the white union mem­ example of a case demonstrating the "We can't let the company back off bers by dojng so. They are striving to Shankerites mobilize NAACP's position. from gains we've won on account of protect their own privilged position at Union staffers, whose way was paid In a recent court suit, Hill reported, years of struggle." the expense of unemployed or poorly by union officials, were present in "United Airlines admitted that as a Hill attacked the AFL-CIO's position paid minority and women workers. To force. Albert Shanker's home local, matter of policy and practice they did that "seniority is a vested right." justify this discriminatory policy, they American Federation of Teachers Lc).. not hire Black men for the pilot's "It is nothing more than an expecta­ · claim that seniority provisions in cal 2, mobilized people for the. conven­ classification. tion," he said. "And for many genera­ union contracts cannot be violated for tion. This union, which has very few . "As a result of the threat of a lawsuit tions white .workers in America have any reason. Black and Puerto Rican members, has under Title· VII in the late 1960s, the had an expectation of job; advance­ At the convention workshops, labor established a record as one of the most company began employing Black men ment, promotion, and seniority status bureaucrats demagogically argued hated by the Black· and Puerto Rican in that classification. In 1969, they had based upon the systematic deprivation that the NAACP is trying to destroy 10 Black-men out of 6,000. of the rights of Black workers. the whole seniority system. This is not "In 1972 comes the recession, the "This is the issue that will be the question at all. The NAACP is company is required to lay off 10 fought in the streets, in front of factory asking that, where necessary, seniority percent of its work force. Under its gates, in union halls as well M in the provisions be modified so that the contract with the Air Line Pilots courts," he continued. percentage of oppressed minorities and Association, an AFCCIO affiliate, He said that the NAACP would not women on a job not be reduced through· ~very one of those ten Black men. gets permit the labor bureaucrats to dictate layoffs. laid off. its policy. "The union affiliate says 'That's Behind the conflicts over discrimi­ Misuse of seniority right, under our contract, under the natory layoffs is the conservative, jon­ The seniority system was a victory last-hired, first -fired principle, they all trust mentality of the bureaucratic won in struggle by workers to prevent · must be laid off.' " union leaders. From the very begin­ the bosses from arbitrarily picking and ning of trade unions in this country, choosing wl;10 .to lay off. It should not 'Blacks doubly penalized' . union officials, as a rule, have favored now be turned around and used as a "The NAACP says no. We· say the exclusion of Blacks from the skilled weapon to ·perpetuate discrimination absolutely not. We say that formula is trades and better-paying jobs. While through the "preferential firing" of racist and illegal. Those Black men are the capitalists have amassed untold Blacks and women. being doubly penalized. The company profits from this discrimination, and The key issue in the debate, reflected and the union admit it. Black pilots used it to keep the working class at the convention, is whether the labor were not hired until the 1960s. divided and weakened, many white movement is going to defend itself "What are we supposed to say? We're workers have seen the exclusion of against layoffs by fig4ting for the not arguing for the whole hog. We say interests of the most oppressed work­ MilitanVBaxter Smith Blacks as a way to safeguard their Chairperson of NAACP board of that the same ratio of Black folk on ers, or .whether it is going to allow own positions. directors, Margaret Bush Wilson. that job classification should be re- Today, the narrow-minded, reaction~ itself to be divided and weakened by adopting a strategy of protecting the interests of the relatively privileged communities for its racist opposition to workers at the expense of the op­ community control of the schools. pressed minority and women members Other paid union representatives, A woman vs. U.S. Steel of the working class. most of them Black, came from the "What is really tragic," Hill ~inted United Auto Workers, the Steelwork­ PITTSBURGH-Until June 14, "Some of the men had a really bad out, "is that organized labor is not ers, the American Federation of State, · Sue Em Davenport was an extra attitude toward the women at first," really responsive to the needs of the County and Municipal Employees, and crane operator and laborer at U.S. she said, "And they treated you like over one-and-one-half million orga­ other unions. The heavy hand of these Steel's Homestead mill. Then she you were an oddball. But after a nized workers who are Black.'' operators was felt throughout the con­ and about 100 other women were while, most men realized you were Citing the case of the Steelworkers vention. among the first of 1,500 steelworkers just another person who needed a union, which is one-third minority Two workshop sessions were held on to be laid off. job." workers, Hill pointed out that the issue the affirmative-action question, on In a Militant interview, Davenport At this point the open-hearth shop is not simply one of a conflict between successive days. Both had the same described how she got the job as a has laid off more than 200 out of 800 the NAACP· and the union officials. format and heard· the same talks. At steelworker: "I heard. on the news workers, including all ·but 3 of the "The issue will ·be and already is," he the first session, Herbert Hill and · they had signed a consent decree women. Plant-wide, almost no wom­ said, "the conflict between the Black James Jones, a Black law professor, and had to hire some women. So, at en are left. Of the women she's rank ·and file of these unions and the received a warm response. eight o'clock the next morning I ran talked with, Davenport says, "They conservative bureaucratic leadership Hill gave a stirring speech (see down to the Homestead mill and put are irritated, angry, and realize it's a of organized labor that apparently excerpts on page 6) and received a my application in." totally discriminatory move." doesn't give a damn about its own standing ovation. Jones, who has been Davenport was hired in August Black members." involved in a number of affirmative­ 1974, when there was only a handful What are the women doing about Despife the highly organized pres­ action suits, explained the legal basis the layoffs? "A number of us are of· · vomen in the mill. Not long sure campaign of the AFL-CIO bureau­ for these actions. getting together and filing a grie­ afterwards, however, there were 25 cracy, which flooded the convention A different reception awaited Hill vance with the United Steelworkers women working the open hearth with union staff workers trying to line and Jones the next day. The same department, and more than 100 union. Depending on their reaction; up support for the position of the union speeches received scant applause and women in the entire mill. what we want to do is file with the officialdom, the leadership of the even a few catcalls. The reason for this Davenport said, "The open hearth Equal Economic Opportunity Com­ NAACP appeared to be in favor of was that the workshop of some 200 is considered one of the dirtiest, most mission, and probably the state maintaining the organization's stand people was packed with union func­ disgusting places to work. Therefore, Human· Relations Commission, as against discriminatory layoffs. that's where the highest concentra­ part of a pattern of discrimination tionaries . bent on overturning the According to Hill, sixty of the sixty­ tion of women and Blacks was." cases against U.S. Steel." NAACP's defense of affirmative-action four members of the NAACP board of plans. Continued on page 26

8 NAACP: Case against HEW 6,000 at international . . . conference on women Swt ftled to halt fundtng !~m~::~::.~:d..... The United Nations International of segregated schools Women's Year conferencesnded July 2 with the adoption of a World Plan of By Baxter Smith Action. The document says that WASHINGTON-Attorneys for the women should have "in law and in NAACP have filed suit against the fact, equal rights and opportunities Department of Health, Education and with men" in political affairs,- educa­ Welfare for failing to enforce public tion, and employment. school desegregation in districts in The conference, held in Mexico City, thirty-three Northern and Western was the first major UN gathering to states. discuss the problems of women. It was Forty-eight school districts within attended by about 6,000 official dele­ those states receive HEW funding for gates and unofficial participants. Its segregated systems in violation of Title size and impact are testimony to ty VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The growing influence of the international funding came in spite of HEW's struggle for women's rights. knowledge of the segregation. Although the Plan of Action is not The suit, filed July 3 and announced binding on the participating govern­ at the NAACP convention here, is the ments, it adds legitimacy· to the de­ broadest legal assault on school de­ mands that are being raised and Mexico's President Luis Echeverria with segregation ever amassed. Militant/Baxter Smith fought for by women throughout the Hortensia Bussi de Allende. Joining the NAACP are lawyers for NAACP General Counsel Nathaniel world. two other civil rights organizations, Jones announcing school suit at July 3 The document does not mention the in their own countries. For example, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educa­ news conference. right to abortion, which has been the Annie Jiagge, delegate from Ghana, tional Fund, and the Center for Na­ most widespread single focus of wom­ told a reporter that she had no problem tional Policy Review. en's struggles internationally. But it with housework. "In Africa, you have Named as defendants are HEW school districts within sixty days. says: "Individuals and couples have house help," she explained. "You pay Secretary Caspar Weinberger and Some of the districts include Akron, the right freely andcesponsibly to through the nose for it, but you have Peter Holmes, director of HEW's office Ohio; Colqmbus, Ohio; San Diego; determine the number and spacing of it." for civil rights. HEW is responsible for Richmond, California; Racine, Wiscon­ their children and to have the informa­ On the other side, posing as a distributing funds and policing compli­ sin; Fort Wayne, Indiana; and Fresno, tion and means to do so." supporter of women's rights, was the ance with federal school desegregation California. Amov other things, the plan calls for U.S. delegation, headed by Daniel statutes. "In sharp contrast to its initiation of equal pay for equal work; for the Parker, administrator of the CIA front, "In the entire 11 years since Title VI many hundr€ds of administrative rewriting of textbooks to "reflect an the Agency for International Develop­ was enacted," states a summary of the enforcement proceedings against image of women in positive and ment, and Patricia Hutar, former complaint, "HEW has only initiated Southern school districts in the early participatory roles in society"; and for assistant head of the Republican_ compliance investigations of 100 years after Title VI was enacted," the equal rights for unmarried mothers Natiokl Committee. Northern and Western school districts. NAACP states, "HEW has begun such and for children born to unmarried Wynta Boynes ofhhe Congress of It has begun administrative enforce­ proceedings against only 5 Northern­ parents. Racial Equality, a lack civil-rights ment proceedings against only five Western districts in the eleven years of It also called for "socially organized organization, was among a group of isolated districts and terminated the the statute." services," including "services for chil­ American women who accused the funds to but a single district." The NAACP also charges that HEW dren," to lighten workin the home and Washington delegation of being un­ The suit seeks to compel HEW "to has sought to fund districts that it to allow for "womfs equal participa­ representative. According to Stanley commence good faith implementation acknowledges are segregated. tion in all societal activities." Mislj, reporting in the June 22 Los of Title VI with respect to student or "In the spring of 1973, HEW de­ The plight of women political prison­ Angeles Times, Boynes C')ntended that faculty segregation practices." clared the school districts of Los ers throughout the world was discussd "the delegation reflected the thinking The suit charges that HEW, besides Angeles, Detroit, Rochester and Rich­ at the UN-sponsored "Tribune," a mainly of the State D<>pa .. · .t and adopting a go-slow attitude toward mond, California ineligible for [federal] forum for kofficial conference partici­ AID-agencies that, she said, subvert compliance, has stalled or abandoned assistance because of their segregated pants. Among those who spoke was the rights of men and women through­ investigations of actual instances of faculties. When HEW then tried to Hortensia Bussi de Allende, the widow out the world." segregation. fund these districts despite this find­ of Salvador Allende. She called on the Both sides in this debate were more HEW has only reviewed small dis­ ing, the Court of Appeals for the UN to name a committee of women to interested in making demagogic ap­ tricts and has shunned investigations District of Columbia enjoined HEW investigate the crimes of the Chilean peals than in bringing out the fact that of larger metropolitan districts, the from such action. While stopping the junta against women. the struggle for women's rights and suit also states. funding under [one federal statute] The issue of women political prison­ focbroader social change complement "Of the 100 HEW investigations over HEW nevertheless continued to subsi­ ers was "unexpected" by conference and strengthen each other. the last 11 years, 58 remain pending; dize the faculty segregation under orgaers,according to a report by Judy Delegates from the workers states, 24 of these pending investigations are, other statutes, in obvious violation of Klemesrud in the July 1 New York especially the Soviet Union and China, incredibly, six or seven years old, while Title VI." Times. But it received widespread did nothing to clarify the issue or to 18 were begun three to five years ago," In cases like this, the NAACP wants support among the delegates. A ma­ explain the stake of women in the fight the complaint charges. "The average all federal funding halted until compli­ jor topic of discussion was the relation­ for a socialist revolution. They concen­ age of these investigations is approxi­ ance is restored. ship between the struggle for women's trated on attacking each other and mately 44 months old (as of HEW's This new multiple district suit, rights and for broader social change. attempting to cover up for the gross last public report in February 1975)." NAACP lawyers say, will not hinder Most of the official delegazs counter­ inequality that women still face in The NAACP hopes to compel HEW the association from pursuing any posed thstwo, in a debate that saw those countries despite the great gains to begin "fund termination proceed­ single instance of school desegregation delegates from the colonial and semico­ brought about the revolutions. ings" against the forty-eight named that may arise. lonial world lined up against those from the advanced capitalist countries. The first position was typified by the speech made by Mexican President Luis Echeverria Alvarez in opening theconference. He said that "the world­ wide crusade for women's rights is meaningless with a total transforma­ tion of the world's economic order." The second position stressed nar­ rowly defined "women's issues." Patri­ cia Hutar, co-head of the U.S. delega­ tion, contended that "women must be in decision-making positions in the power strucqre along with men to build a more just world order." The debate was largely phony. The delegates "representing" the peoples of the colonial world included such fi­ gures as Imelda Marcos, wife of the Philippine dictator; Pincess Ashraf Paplavi, sister of the shah of Iran; and Sirimavo Bandaranaike, prime minis­ ter of Sri Lanka, who crushed in blood the 1971 movement of young people Imelda Marcos, wife of Philippine dictator who were demanding democratic Ferdinand Marcos, came to conference rights and social reforms. masquerading as representing needs of Massive 1963 march on Washington helped produce 1964 Civil Rights Act pertaining to These delegates generally had little women in colonial and semicolonial school desegregation. in common with the masses of women countries.

THE MILITANT/JULY 18, 1975 9 In Our Opinion Letters

Sostre sentenced again limited cooling-off period," Dunlop On June 3 Martin Sostre was says.) Your money... sentenced to up to four years 2) Require that national unions Listening to President Ford address the NAACP convention concurrent with the thirty years he is authorize any local strike. July 1, one would hardly have known that a quarter of all Black now serving. The new sentence was 3) Limit construction picketing to imposed after his conviction by an all­ thirty days to reduce "the potential for workers are unemployed, or that half of Black .teen-agers in white jury for allegedly assaulting disruption"! poverty areas cannot find jobs. three Clinton prison guards-who in Dunlop is a dangerous and wily Momentarily tipping his hat to "unpleasant reality," Ford fact assaulted him for his resistance to expert in putting' government shackles acknowledged that the economic crisis has "unquestionably hit the practice of forced rectal on the unions. Even worse court hardest at Blacks and other minorities." But there's no rush to examination of prisoners as part of a restrictions are in store, he obviously do anything about it, he said, because "the economic decline is strip search. implies, unless the unions go along over." Sostre was offered a suspended with his plan. And the sad thing is that the The news will be welcomed, no doubt, by the hundreds of sentence in exchange for a guilty plea. He refused to deal because the charges national building-trades bureaucrats thousands of Black workers victimized by discriminatory were false and because he wanted to are likely to jump at the chance to curb layoffs under the "last hired, first fired" rule, and by their use the trial and ensuing publicity to "unruly" locals with "unreasonable" families trying to squeeze out a living on welfare or unemploy­ expose the brutality, racism, and demands. ment benefits. Jobs would be welcomed even more. corruption in New York State prisons. It's time to wake up! But no, Ford restated his long-standing opposition to any It is now eight years since Sostre G.A. special government spending tp provide jobs, housing, educa­ was arrested. During these years he New York, New York tion, or any other aid to the casualties of the depression. has spent four years in solitary confinement; endured eleven beatings To justify his do-nothing policy, Ford claimed the present by Clinton guards, on one occasion economic crisis is the result of the "spending spree" of choked unconscious; been denied visits Rebates & refunds government programs in the 1960s to help "the poor, the from his attorneys, friends, and clergy; Since my earning power as a student elderly, and the disadvantaged." · and been subject to countless other is not that great, I do not receive a tax There was a government spending spree in the 1960s, all forms of harassment and degradation. rebate. I do, however, receive from the right, one that continues to this day and is the main cause of That the state of New York has not Internal Revenue Service a tax refund inflation: not the pitiful spending on social welfare, but the succeeded in breaking Sostre's spirit is since they usually take more out of my a tribute to his courage and payroll checks than they need to. mammoth Pentagon war budget. determination. Just a few days after his insulting remarks at the NAACP Consequently, I'm sending it on to the The Martin Sostre Defense SWP Party Building Fund. convention, Ford let it be known that he favors construction of Committee is in dire need of funds to As a member of the Young Socialist a new nuclear-powered cruiser for the Navy. Each ship, with a appeal this latest conviction and to Alliance, I have witnessed the Socialist price tag of $1.2 billion, will cost as much as the entire annual continue the struggle for his freedom. Workers party's participation in quite health services budget of New York City. We ask all people of conscience to a few important struggles, especially In an effort to win support for these reactionary policies, Ford contribute generously at this time of the fight for equal rights in Boston. wraps himself in the cloak of opposition to _big government. He need. The SWP has been my shining light. Sharon M.H. Fischer claims his rallying cry in 1976 will be less spending, less I look forward to important growth Martin Sostre Defense Committee and development of America's regulation, less interference with the lives of citizens. P. 0. Box 839 Ellicott Station revolutionary vanguard party in the In this demagogic double-talk, a few lousy pennies for jobs Buffalo, New York 14205 months and years ahead of us. and human welfare are denounced as "inflationary government I'm proud to be a member of the spending." But $100 billion a year for war-that's "national revolutionary socialist movement. defense." Dan Marksel The slightest effort to protect the environment and job safety Three points & thanks Watertown, New York from rapacious corporate giants-that's "government bureau­ · It took you long enough! I've been cracy curbing the individual." But thousands of FBI and CIA reading for a year now, and finally, an snoops wiretapping, spying, and hounding political article on ecology [June 20 issue]. More! dissidents-that's "national security." Conditions no better It seems I must bring up another The June 27 issue of the Militant This country has the resources to provide jobs and a decent point. Your stand on Vietnam refugees standard of living for everyone. It has the money to build was well read and deeply appreciated is inconsistent with your stand on by prisoners here due to coverage of schools, homes, hospitals, and parks for eve1·yone. Elimination Palestinian refugees. All refugees, conditions at [Kirkland Correctional of the war budget would be a big step toward rational use of this anywhere, are merely pawns of a Institute]. wealth for human needs. system they have no control over. No improvements have been made, It seems the Socialist Workers_ party and seemingly the situation has gotten is approaching too close to declaring worse in respect to postal service. As a themselves to be the vanguard in this matter of fact, when letters take eleven country. This could be dangerous. I days and packages take over two ... or your life suggest some self-inspection and weeks to be delivered, perhaps the reflection. One of the more bloodcurdling results of the billions in arms federal government should be notified Good paper~ Thanks! and requested to investigate such spending is a stockpile of nuclear weapons sufficient to wipe out Dennis Thurlon discrepancies. human _life several times over. Still smarting from the U.S. Wabash, Indiana Excuses of the guards never vary. defeat in Indochina, Ford and Kissinger have gone out of their It's the usual "passing of the buck" to way to make it clear they will not hesitate to use these other persons or departments. doomsday weapons against any challenge to U.S. imperialist Shackles on building trades The same goes for the canteen, interests. which has been in the "process of a In the June 27 Militant Frank Lovell new schedule" for a couple of weeks, According to information leaked to columnist Jack Anderson, warned of the threat represented by a the finger on the nuclear trigger is getting itchier every day. causing much resentment and hard recent Supreme Court ruling. The court feelings from those doing without Anderson reported July 8 that the Pentagon is prepared to use found that a Texas Plumbers local had needed supplies for so long. tactical nuclear weapons "not only to repel aggression but also violated antitrust laws by forcing a My telling all may be a risk, but to respond to 'minor incidents.'" contractor to sublet work only to union suffering in silence is no better. The new policy is intended to increase the president's labor. Thank you again for your concern, Now there is a further development "flexibility," Anderson's highly placed sources explain. "An oil and keep the presses rolling with a in the government's insidious union­ truthful report on capitalist America. refinery or industrial complex, for example, could be leveled in busting campaign against the one swift nuclear strike.... In preparation for this possibility, A prisoner building-trades workers. South Carolina missile and bomber crews are now practicing dozens of Testifying before Congress just a few complicated new missions." days after the Supreme Court ruling, Anderson's sources further "point out that Ford is less in awe Labor Secretary John Dunlop proposed of nuclear weapons than any man who has occupied the White sweeping new legislation to govern construction-site picketing. The bait is Teachers' right to strike House since Harry Truman." Since Truman! Truman was the the long-sought legalization of Colorado teachers will have to wait first .and so far only person to order the use of nuclear "common situs" picketing, that is, the at least another year for the right to weapons-incinerating more than 300,000 human beings when righf to shut down an entire site in a collective bargaining. The state he bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. dispute with any one contractor. general assembly was unable to come Any "tactical" strike by the United States could rapidly In return, Dunlop proposes to: up with a bill before they adjourned escalate into a woddwide holocaust that would destroy the 1) Require ten days' notice to all until next year. human race, Rut the Dr. Strangeloves responsible for the new national labor and management On May 27, the Colorado Education organizations whose members are Association brought out 1,000 teachers "Nuclear Weapons Employment Policy" are willing to risk all involved before any picketing is to demonstrate at the state capitol our lives to protect U.S. corporate profits around the world. allowed. (This "would assure at least a demanding the passage of a collective "Peace on earth" will only be achieved when they are disarmed once and for all.

10 Their Government bargaining bill (see June 20 Militant). Demonstrators demanded a right·to­ ·Cindy Jaquith strike clause, an agency shop, and "broad scope" negotiations (the inclusion of demands other than salary and hours as negotiable items). In spite of this demonstration of support for the collective bargaining Candid camera at the Capitol? bill passed by 'the house, the WASHINGTON-Congress is toying with the idea initially be shown only on closed-circuit TV, only on Republican caucus in the senate took a of allowing TV cameras into the hallowed chambers of Capitol Hill. totally adamant position in opposition the House and Senate. That still isn't enough to satisfy some members of to the right of teachers to strike. Television has traditionally been banned from Congress. Rep. James Delaney (D-N.Y.), for example, Democratic Sen. Eldon Cooper, who sessions of Congress. In fact, it was only four years has expressed the fear that TV will injure the self­ projected himself as the champion of ago that the House decided to let TV into its committee respect of his fellow Democrats and Repu'blicans. "In the teachers' demands, then presented a minority report aimed at finding an hearings. the local bars, if they had nothing to do, they would acceptable compromise. This report, Now, however, the political climate has changed. say, well, turn on the TV and see what the clowns are however, failed to mention the right to The capitalist politicians feel pressured to make a doing," Delaney warned. strike and raised the concept of an show of opening up their proceedings to the American Whether Delaney knows it or not, many people are agency shop as something that would people. "All of us share a deep concern at the already fed up with what the clowns are doing. We be negotiated by each CEA local, thus dangerously low regard in which the people hold their don't need a TV to know about the campaign bribes, falling quite short of meeting the Congress," explained Rep. Jack Brooks (D·Tex.), who the pork-barrel legislation, or the secret meetings teachers' demands. is sponsoring a bill to experiment with TV coverage. between the CIA and congressional "oversight" Even this compromise was rejected. committees. Nor do we need to see these "veto-proof" Once again the Democrats and Some of Bro~s's colleagues don't agree that jokers on TV to know that they have given the green Republicans in the state government televising Congress is the answer to their popularity light to Ford's veto of jobs, housing, and strip-mine have proven that they cannot be relied problems. They would much prefer to continue legislation. upon to fight for the interests of public functioning hidden away from the view of their What bugs these politicians about TV coverage is employees and teachers. Only a constituents. that it might break down the notion that working coordinated, mass response of teachers Their distress is understandable. For one thing, if people shouldn't try to interfere in the weighty and other public employees will force there were regular TV coverage, these fakers would deliberations of "our" representatives. the legislature to meet any of our have to show up for work once in a while (if you can This idea is written directly into the Constitution. demands. call it work). As it is now, most members of Congress New York Times columnist James Reston once Joyce Newell belong to the "Tuesday-to-Thursday Club"-they only explained it like this: "It was the assumption of the Denver, Colorado put in a three-day week. Founding Fathers . . . that most things were too The first time I visited the Senate, for instance, I complicated in a vast continental country to be was amazed to see Sen. Barry Goldwater (R·Ariz.) decided by referendums or popular vote." delivering a eulogy on Chiang Kai-shek to an "Too complicated" for the capitalist government, Martin Hall absolutely empty chamber, save for the clerks and the that is. Because if there were popular votes on such Martin Hall, a veteran fighter for pages wh.o were asleep in one corner. things as the billions spent on war, the slashing of progressive causes, died here June 1. Brooks's bill seeks to minimize such embarrass­ social service funds, and the layoffs of millions of U.S. He was seventy-four. ments by outlawing shots of vacant seats or snoring workers, the clowns in Congress, and in the White An antifascist exile from Hitler's senators. It also stipulates that the footage will House, might not be around very long. Germany, he was long associated with the First Unitarian Church here. and with the social causes it related to. He was widely known as a radical journalist and lecturer. By Any Means Necessary In 1960 he visited Cuba and became an ardent supporter of the revolution. He was a founding member and a Baxter Smith leading figure in the Los Angeles Fair Play for Cuba Committee. The committee embraced within its ranks a diversity of political views. Martin Hall played an important role in achieving that. He was firmly 'Take to the streets' committed to the idea that partisans of WASHINGTON-Graham Watt, director of the NAACP. Eight cases are closed or settled. fair play for Cuba should not permit federal Office of Revenue Sharing, at first tried to Second, rather than use the federal funds for local differences on other questions to stand defend his program, then he simply clammed up. His social programs, city governments have used funds in the way of a united effort on- that eyes were glued to the floor and he grew antsy as the chiefly to beef up local police departments. issue. criticism rained down. A.W. Stanley, and the square­ In his presentation, Watt said-to groans of Earlier, in 1957, he played a key role shouldered guy from southern Illinois, and everyone disbelief-that 23 percent of revenue-sharing funds in building a united defense for five else gave him the devil. He must've felt like a have gone for cop budgets, and 4 percent for social Spanish seamen who jumped ship in Christian up against lions in the Roman Coliseum. services specifically for the poor and the aged. San Diego to escape the Franco If he had any sense he would have never agreed to According to the NAACP, however, local areas have dictatorship. . be a panelist at the revenue-sharing workshop at the spent 46 percent of their revenue-sharing funds on cop During that same period he NAACP convention. He knows nobody Black is crazy budgets, and 2 percent for social services for the poor participated in a united socialist about the way revenue sharing is run. And when he and aged. electoral coalition that supported quoted those false figures that was all the folks The two other panelists-Herrington Bryce of the Holland Roberts for state superintendent of public instruction. needed. Joint Center for Political Studies, a research outfit; He is survived by his longtime The federal revenue-sharing program was set up in and William Taylor, head of the Center for National companion and comrade, Marie Hall. 1972 to return federal funds to local areas. Its Policy Review, a civil rights group-backed the A memorial meeting was held for designers saw it as a way to trim federal social welfare NAACP's findings. him July 6 at the First Unitarian spending that critics said was wasteful. Taylor called revenue sharing a way to "promote Church. Under general revenue sharing, local areas receive urban apartheid." Della Rossa the funds and can use them as they see fit. Special Speakers from the floor offered high-octane remarks Los Angeles, California revenue-sharing funds are allocated for specific, on revenue sharing and other subjects. designated local projects, such as improving a transit "This is nothin' but old 'states' rights' in disguise," system. declared A.W. Stanley, head of the NAACP in During the twelve-month period ending July 1974, Darlington, South Carolina, who says he's been beat state and local governments spent close to $7 billion in up, shot at, and run out of town. "'Give us back the general revenue-sharing funds. money and we'll take care of the niggers.' We're tired Blacks have raised two principal objections to of this old antique, Confederate mess. We need to take revenue sharing. First, although federal statutes to the streets again like we did in the sixties." prohibit distribution of the funds to agencies that The letters column is an open The crowd went wild but Watt was speechless. forum for all viewpoints on sub­ discriminate on the basis of race or sex, the funds have Then a square-shouldered man got up and com­ jects of general interest to our found their way to such agencies anyway. plained bitterly about how revenue-sharing funds were readers. Please keep your letters One hundred forty-eight cases of such discrimina­ supposed to do something about the poor sewage in the brief. Where necessary they will tion have led to charges being brought against tM Black neighborhood of his town in southern Illinois, be abridged. Please indicate if . Office of Revenue Sharing since the program's but instead went to buy dum-dum bullets for cops. your name may be used or if you inception. Forty-six of them were brought by the Watt told him to go write a letter. prefer that your initials be used instead.

THE MILITANT/JULY 18, 1975 11 The Great Society Harry Ring

The Jackson Hilton-A Michigan search finding that smog blanketing they purchased for a home, the Baron judge n~led that the state could collect Washington, D.C., in August 1973 was and Baroness Guy de Rothschild room and board from an inmate at caused partly by natural emissions solved the problem of excess furniture Jackson State Prison who inherited from trees, not entirely by auto ex­ and bric-a-brac with a garage sale that some money. A prison official estimat­ hausts. netted more than $4 million. Comment­ ed this would come to $12.33 a day. ed the baroness, "I'm a bit ashamed of Which sounds like a real bargain, To suffer is divine-Assailing the being rich." especially when you consider it in­ "contraceptive mentality," Irish Cath­ cludes the food. olic bishops declared it "tends to regard comfort, wealth, worldly suc­ Can lose your shirt-Urging antic­ Speak for yourself, Jeb-"The cess, and pleasure as the aims of life. ipatory planning, Henry Ford II com­ whole Christian church accepts that The contraceptive mentality contra­ plained: "We never plan anything. man is· basically a sinner."­ dicts the Christian understanding of Take air and water control, for in· Watergater Jeb Stuart Magruder. family life." stance. Suddenly there is a great big flap and everybody gets excited and all It's those goddamned cherry 'You'll be glad to know that No hang-ups-Moving from their of a sudden some law is passed; it gets . blossoms-The Environmental Pro­ the latest figures show you're suburban chateau to a petite to be done within a very short time tection Agency disputed a naval re- holding steady.' seventeenth-century Paris hotel, which frame and it costs you a fortune."

National Picket Line Frank Lovell Vet~proof but not foolproof While AFL-CIO President George Meany rails The problem is, Roche says, there's no "discipline" record on union-endorsed legislation when they against the Ford administration for failing to create because 1) the Democratic majority is too big, and 2) know in advance that it will be vetoed and that the jobs, his hirelings are busy trying to explain away "there are simply too many unseasoned newcomers necessary two-thirds majority will not be mustered the failures of Congress to override Ford's vetoes. who have yet to work out a pecking order." to override the veto. This is the old political game, This performance is a fitting accompaniment to the These excuses aren't likely to sit well with no longer a mystery. sham battle between Congress and the White workers whose jobs have been taken away by the Congress has no trouble uniting to enact legisla­ House. economic crisis. tion demanded by the employing class. When One of Meany's hirelings is Prof. John Roche, a Union men and women want jobs and they are railroad workers strike, Congress in a matter of former CIA operator and now one of the band of running out of time. Part of their problem is that hours holds committee hearings, drafts emergency fake socialists calling themselves Social Democrats, they have no representatives in Congress. They are legislation, and in a joint session orders the strikers USA. They cluster around the Meany gang in the poorly represented, instead, by the AFL-CIO lobby. back to work. This has happened repeatedly in union movement. Their role is to formulate occa­ This lobby tries to persuade members of Congress recent years. The seventy-five new faces in this .sional ideas and frequent justifications for Meany who accepted union campaign money last year to Congress, regardless of "pecking order," will fall in and his cohorts to use in public speeches .. vote for bills such as the watered-down jobs bill, the line to do the same thing again if postal workers are Roche writes a column of advice and solace housing bill, and the strip-mine control bill. forced to strike this year. They will all be on hand to appropriately called "A Word Edgewise" in the These bills would have created some jobs, but vote overwhelmingly for any legislation that the weekly AFL-CIO News. His task in the June 28 hardly enough to put the eleven million unemployed employing class deems urgent. issue was to analyze the failure of the "veto-proof'' back to work. Anyway they were all passed by large The working class needs its own representatives Congress to enact any legislation favoring working majorities and then vetoed by Ford, as predicted. who will pass laws that workers deem urgent. But people. This is a timely subject. The AFL-CIO The Congress failed in all three instances to such representatives do not come with a Democratic poured millions of dollars into electing this Con­ override the presidential vetoes, also predicted. or Republican label. They will most likely be gress, promising union members it would solve This is in the nature of the two-party political working men and women elected on a labor party everything. system. It is not determined by the committee ticket sponsored by the union movement. Instead, the Democratic-controlled Congress has _ structure, lack of "discipline," or by which of the The most important thing for the union move­ become the butt of the political cartoonists and two capitalist parties. happens to control the White ment in politics today is to break up the old two­ columnists, and the target of growing anger among House. party system, to stop pretending that these parties union members, for its inability to override Ford's In Congress Democrats and Republicans alike are of the employers will serve the needs of working vetoes or take any other meaningful action. responsible to the class that controls the parties people, to create a mass party of working men and Roche undertakes to defend House Speaker Carl that put them in office. It is easy for them to invent women that operates on the reality of class politics Albert ("one of the nicest men in town") and to minor differences over particular bills, to wrangle and the class division of society. blame the structure of Congress for all the failures. among themselves, and to conveniently make the That is the plain truth.

The American Way of Life U.S. exports Work ethic' to Colombia Does the Wall Street Journal circulate in U.S. Although the exploitation of prison labor by people," says warden Franco. He does not mention prisons? Probably not very widely, at least since the private companies such as Container Corporation that 75 percent of the inmates in Colombian prisons Watergate crew got out of stir. However, those of America and B. F. Goodrich has been going on for have never been tried. "Some have been jailed eight Militant readers in prison · who have no stock · years, Action in Colombia is proposing to tum the to 10 years without a trial," writes Journal reporter portfolios to follow may still be· interested in a entire Colombian prison population into "employ­ Stephen Sansweet. recent Journal article describing some of the efforts ees" in private industry. According to the Colombian legal system, the of U.S. corporations in behalf of prisoners in the While insisting that the project is motivated accused usually stays in prison until tried or until South American country of Colombia. solely by concern for the welfare of prisoners, serving the term that would have resulted from a Action in Colombia, a group backed financially director of prisons Ramiro Carranza notes, "Many conviction. Explaining another aspect of the pro­ by seventy large Colombian and U.S. concerns, companies that need manual labor can benefit from posed labor program, Sansweet writes: including the Bank of America, Dow Chemical this even if they aren't doing it for the socially right "For every three days of work, one day is cut from Company, and IBM, has put forward a plan to reasons." a prisoner's jail term, but that calculation can be improve the lot of Colombian prisoners. tricky when the term is indefinite." "This is completely a rehabilitation program," The statutory mtmmum wage in Bogota, the Under these circumstances, it may prove more says Oscar Franco, director of the Villanueva capital of Colombia, was recently raised to $1.33 a difficult than expected to "instill a work ethic in prison. "The businesses are coming here on a social day. Prisoners, however, get the privilege of these people." Moreover, in a country where mission.... " working for around $0.45 a day. They get no fringe unemployment and underemployment is estimated ' The social mission was explained by one U.S. benefits, and are forced to surrender 10-to-30 percent at 30 percent, those. who managed to absorb the official in Colombia, apparently a cynic, who said, of their pay to prison authorities for "administra­ "work ethic" would just have to unlearn it after "It could be labeled as exploitation of slave labor for tive expenses." being released from prison. a profit." "It's important to instill a work ethic in these -David Frankel

12 Bob· Chester: Trotskyist leader & educator By Ed Harris American Workers party, led by A.J. In the late 1950s, Perry moved to the SAN FRANCISCO-Bob Chester, a Muste. In 1934, the Muste forces fused West Coast and Bob became manager dedicated Trotskyist, Socialist Workers with the Trotskyist Communist League of the shop. The equipment was moved party activist, and Marxist educator, of America to form the Workers party. to the basement of the apartment of died here suddenly on June 22. Bob became exposed to Trotskyist Bernie Goodman, a member of the New Bob was born in Brooklyn, New books and newspapers, and he met York SWP. "If you ever wanted to see York, in 1912. His parents, Jewish leaders such as Art Preis, Ted Grant, an underground printshop, that was refugees from tsarist oppression, had and Sam Pollock. He listened carefully it," Bob once quipped. fled Russia in 1903. Bob's political to the long discussions that took place But the shop continued to acquire education began as a child, when his in the family household. more and improved machinery. In mother told him about the traditions of By 1936, when the Workers party 1960, 200,000 brochures for the SWP the Russian labor movement. decided to send its members into the election campaign were printed. Dobbs Bob had a scientific bent, and in Socialist party in order to win over the and Weiss were again the presidential 1930 he entered Cooper Union, a growing left wing, Bob was a con­ candidates. The shop also began to technical school, to study chemical vinced Trotskyist. He entered the SP produce literature for the newly formed engineering. But as the Great Depres­ with the Workers party members, and Young Socialist Alliance, and, later, sion deepened, and job prospects wors­ left in 1937 when the Trotskyists, pamphlets in defense of the Cuban ened, he quit school and went to work having recruited many SP militants, revolution. with his father, a well-known scenic were expelled. artist. 'Labor's Giant Step' Under the impact of the depression, Founding SWP convention "The work was all strictly volun­ the American working class was radi­ Bob attended the founding conven­ teer," Bob once explained, "done after calizing, and New Y-ork was a center of tion of the Socialist Workers party, working hours and on weekends." He political debate. held in Chicago in 1938. After the and Anne set an example in this One night Bob and his brother, convention, he became the organizer of regard, devoting three years of work to Morris Chertov, attended a Socialist the Brooklyn branch of the SWP. put out Art Preis's Labor's Giant Step, Later, he was organizer of the Manhat­ Bob Chester on recent picket line a history of the rise of the CIO. Anne tan branch. protesting U.S. threats against Cambodia did the typing and Bob did the paste­ In 1940, Bob met Anne Fisher, who in wake of 'Mayagi.iez' incident. up. Both helped on editing. had been a mill worker in Paterson, In 1964, Howard Mayhew, who had New Jersey. He and she became a small press in Chicago, moved his constant companions, were married in this period. equipment to New York. He and Bob 1943, and worked together as a team Bob was elected to the SWP National established a new printshop to meet until his death. Committee in 1950. In 1951 he went to the expanding needs of the revolution­ In 1944, after working as a merchant study at the Trotsky School in New ary movement. seaman and joining the Marine Fire­ Jersey, an institution set up by the Bob's interest in cameras and other men's union, Bob became organizer of SWP to provide intensive education for technical equipment led him to intro­ the party branch in San Francisco. younger party leaders. duce other innovations to the party as The San Francisco SWP was made up well. He initiated the use of cameras at largely of seamen, and its finances Established printshop political events of the SWP, taking went up and down depending on how One of Bob's most important contri­ many of the early photographs that many party members were in port. butions to the revolutionary movement today help preserve party history. Under Bob's leadership the financial was his role in helping to establish a difficulties of the branch were solved printshop. During the 1940s and 1950s, He also introduced the use of tape by instituting long-range financial the Trotskyist movement had to rely recorders to the party as a means of planning. on outside printers to produce its maintaining a record of speeches, With the surge of labor militancy at literature. Bob was one of the first to classes, and debates. Bob had pur­ the end of World War II, the San see the need for a printshop that would chased a cheap tape recorder back Francisco branch flourished. Three­ publish the SWP's books and pamph­ when the tape itself was made out of qaarters of the new recruits were lets, and to recognize that establishing paper, and he would bring it to party industrial workers. such a shop was a realizable goal. conventions, plenums of the national I remember one of my first conversa­ In 1955, when the SWP's resources committee, and other events. tions with Bob when he and Anne were extremely low, Bob and Hayden In 1967, Bob and Anne returned to came to San Francisco. I was a Perry took the first small steps toward San Francisco. Bob became active in the Painters union and in the party Chester pioneered use of photography to longshore worker at the time, and setting up a printshop in New York. branch. record SWP history. He took above photo when Bob asked me what I did in the All they had was a Davidson press, More and more, he played the role of of James P. Cannon, the party's founding branch, I said I was just a trade slightly larger than a mimeograph leader, in 1940. unionist. Bob replied, "In the SWP we machine. "We operated on a rock­ educator for the many young people have no one who is 'just a trade bottom budget," Bob later recalled. who were joining the YSA and SWP at unionist.' We are socialist "Practically all the equipment was that time. He had all the qualifications party meeting. Algernon Lee, a promi­ politicians-or should be-no matter made by hand-the camera, the dark­ of a fine teacher: vast knowledge, skill nent figure, was to speak on historical where we operate." room, the light tables, and so on." in making complex ideas understand­ materialism. Bob encouraged me to read, to study, Despite its limitations, the shop able, and above all, patience. At the time, recalled Morris, "Neith­ and to give classes. He helped give self­ began P\.l.tting out pamphlets on the He also did independent research on er the subject nor the speaker made confidence to others in the same way. Black struggle, and printed a pamphlet the question of t}J.e workers states. At much of an impression on us. But we He was, above all, a fine educator. by Joseph Hansen called The Socialist the time of his death, he was preparing could not escape politics. The intersec­ In the late 1940s, as the McCarthy Workers Party: What It Is-What It an educational on "Stalinism and tion of Second A venue and Twelfth period set in, Bob had to work as a Stands For. ' Internationalism." Street-near where we lived-was one house painter in addition to organizing It printed campaign literature for the Bob helped train many of the revolu­ of the places where all the various left the branch. He later became the Bay SWP's 1956 presidential election cam­ tionary cadres who were to take his groups soap-boxed. Bob and I used to Area organizer, when a party branch paign. The party ran Farrell Dobbs for place. He did his share, and more, to make the rounds like everybody else." was established in Oakland. He also president and Myra Tanner Weiss for bring socialism to the United States Shortly thereafter, Morris joined the ran for mayor of San Francisco during vice-president. and the world.

The following message to the it on a professional basis, and was And these qualities did not dimin­ July 6 memorial meeting held in an active member of several union ish as he grew older. In fact, gaug­ 'A worker­ San Francisco for Bob Chester fractions. ing how best he could contribute to was sent by Jack Barnes on And he did much of this when the solving one of the big problems behalf of the Political Commit­ resources of the pa'rty and its mem­ facing the party in the past decade, Bolshevik tee · of the Socialist Workers bers were extremely limited, and that of a transition in leadership, party. initiative, determination, and un­ Bob acted in a model way. He kept stinting unpaid labor were crucial. It up his educational activities and devoted was, for instance, above all the selected a special field in which he From his first days as a profes­ conviction that Anne and Bob Ches­ thought he could make a contribu­ sional revolutionist, Bob Chester ter had of its importance, plus their tion. He thus became a source of to the took a special interest in socialist readiness to carry the project strength to those who will continue education. He was so dedicated to through personally, that made possi­ his work. this that he became recognized by ble the production of Art Preis's movement' younger members for his aptitude in important book, Labor's Giant Step. Bob is an example of a worker­ the party leadership as a socialist Bob always thought for himself on Bolshevik who devoted his life to the educator. the difficult political and organiza­ revolutionary movement and who But his revolutionary life encom­ tional questions that the party had was always ready to pull up stakes passed much more than this. In to grapple with, and he did not and go wherever the party needed forty years, Bob organized branches, hesitate to voice his opinions. At the him. And he knew that the work he took difficult assignments in ex­ same time, he always maintained and the party were doing would panding the party, organized and sharp interest in the opinions of result in a new generation being won led all kinds of campaigns, helped others and an objective attitude to the socialist goals he understood found the party's printshop and put toward himself. and strove for.

THE MILiTANT/JULY 18, 1975 13 What role for Constituent Assembly1 How CP distorts lessons of Russian r~ By Doug Jenness Lenin explains, "The bourgeoisie have all along Government-a government of workers and peas­ When big revolutionary developments occur, it is been waging both in the open and under cover a ants. natural to look back at previous revolutions to continuous and relentless struggle against calling a However, until September the Bolsheviks held a determine what is similar and what is different. Constituent Assembly. This struggle was prompted minority of the delegates to the soviets. The Useful analogies can be drawn between past events by a desire to delay its convocation until after the Mensheviks and Socialist-Revolutionaries, who held and present-day social upheavals that help revolu­ war. It expressed itself in the fact that several times a majority in the soviets, subordinated them to the tionists see more clearly what should be done today. they postponed the date of convocation. When, after Provisional Government. They tried to transform But this is only helpful if the limits of historical June 18, or more than a month after the formation the soviets from independent organizations of class analogies are recognized and only if the past is of the coalition Cabinet, the convocation date was struggle into instruments for disciplining the accurately reportecl. at last set, a Moscow bourgeois paper declared this masses. Erik Bert, a columnist for the Communist party's had been done under the pressure of Bolshevik During 1917 the Bolsheviks urged the Mensheviks Daily World, flunks on both counts. In his June 24 propaganda." and S-Rs to break from their coalition with the column entitled "Russia's constituent assembly vs. It was the landlords and the capitalists who most capitalist parties and form a workers and farmers Portugal's Communists," Bert attempts to refute a strongly opposed holding elections and convening a government based on the soviets. letter to the editor of the New York Times by a constituent assembly. And the reformist parties­ The class collaborationists refused to do this. In Joseph Clark, who charges that the "military junta the Mensheviks and the Socialist-Revolutionaries­ August an attempted military coup by General of Portugal seems bent on proving an · axiom who participated in several coalition governments Kornilov, commander in chief of the army, was . established by the Russian Communists more than with the capitalist parties during 1917, acquiesced defeated by a mass mobilization led and organized. 57 years ago." in continually postponing elections. by the Bolsheviks. The reformists were discredited, This "axiom," according to Clark, is that commu­ "The Constituent Assembly in Russia today," and the Bolsheviks won a majority in the soviets. nists sometimes support constituent assembly Lenin wrote in July, "will yield a majority to They then did what the reformists refused to do­ elections, but. then tum around and repudiate them peasants who are more to the left than the Social­ led the soviets to power on October 26. if they don't win a majority. The comparison he ist-Revolutionaries. The bourgeoisie know this and The capitalists, landlords, Mensheviks, and right­ seems to be making is between the dissolution of the therefore are bound to put up a tremendous wing S-Rs-all those who had previously opposed or Russian Constituent Assembly on January 6, 1918, resistance to an early convocation. With a Constitu­ shilly-shallied on convoking the constituent by the new Bolshevik-led workers government, and ent Assembly convened, it will be impossible, or assembly-now became its most enthusiastic the Portuguese Communist party's (PCP) opposition exceedingly difficult, to carry on the imperialist war advocates, counterposing it to the new g~vemment to the recently elected Constituent Assembly· in in the spirit of the secret treaties concluded by of workers and peasants. Portugal. Nicholas II, or to defend the landed estates or the What attitude did the soviet government take to Clark is way off base, but it's not his letter that payment of compensation for them." the demand for a constituent assembly? First of all interests us. Rather, it's Bert's attempt to give a The Bolsheviks explained that the only way to it permitted elections, which had previously been "socialist" rebuttal to him. assure the convocation of the constituent assembly scheduled to take place in early November. Bert argues that "Clark neglected to tell "the was by "increasing the number and strength of the Then, it allowed the Constituent Assembly to Times' readers what this Constituent Assembly soviets and arminG the working class." convene, on January 5, 1918. [Russia in 1918] was, who promoted it, what were The soviets were workers councils, peasant its policies, what its intentions." councils, and soldiers councils that sprang up Constituent Assembly dissolved He then takes twenty paragraphs to describe the during the February revolution. But when the Constituent Assembly refused to events between the February 1917 revolution and Workers in a given factory or soldiers in a adopt a motion by the All-Russia Central Executive the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly in order particular military unit would hold mass meetings, Committe.e in support of the soviet government, the to show who really supported the Copstituent elect representatives, and send them to meetings Constituent Assembly was dissolved. Assembly. where the representatives of similar soviets from The upsurge that had brought the soviets ·to Bert argues that the demand for a constituent other factories, villages, . or army units would power, and the policies of the new government, assembly was "an attempt to protect feudal land­ gather. These meetings would in tum elect repres­ convinced millions-who had previously believed lordism" and was "the capitalist alternative to the entatives to broader assemblies, which organized that a constituent assembly was necessary and Bolshevik slogan, 'All power to the Soviets!' " themselves on a countrywide basis. would be the principal form for a democratic But this is a one-sided and distorted view of what The soviets, in addition to being representative government-that the soviet government was more actually happened. bodies, involved the masses of workers, peasants, democratic. and soldiers in weekly, and sometimes daily, The Bolsheviks did not have one ounce of What happened in Russia? meetings. Representatives could be recalled and fetishism about parliamentary forms. They adv~ From the February revolution through the Octo­ new ones elected at any time. Political issues could cated the formation of the Constituent Assembly ber revolution, the Bolsheviks were the most consis­ be debated and positions adopted not merely by when it advanced the struggle for the democratic tent and energetic advocates of -a constituent individual representatives, but by the masses rights of the masses, and they dissolved it when it assembly. themselves. And their decisions could then be was clearly shown to be in opposition to the A book of selected articles by Lenin, Constituinte enforced. democratic will of the majority, expressed in the e Revol~iio Socialista (Constituent Assemblies and After Lenin arrived in Russia from exile in April soviets. Socialist Revolution), recently published by 1917, the Bolshevik party declared that these These are the facts about the Bolshevik policy Trotskyists in Portugal, includes an article written soviets provided the basis for an alternative toward the Constituent Assembly. on July 26, 1917, entitled "Constitutional Illusions." government to the capitalist Provisional But why does Erik Bert bother to discuss the Constituent Assembly at this time? Why does he want to create the false impression that the Bolsheviks always opposed this slogan? He doesn't say. But the facts about the Portu­ guese Communist party's attitude to the Constitu­ ent Assembly elected in Portugal on April 25 of this year throw some light on the matter. The PCP vigorously supports the Movimento das For~as Armadas (MFA-Armed Forces Movement), which is now governing Portugal. It hailed the government's undemocratic repression of Republi­ ca, the principal voice of the Portuguese Socialist party (PSP), and it supports the government's attacks on the Constituent Assembly. The capitalist government, supported by the PCP and its sister party in the United States, issued a document June 21 ordering the Constituent Assembly, the only body elected by the masses, to limit itself to making a constitution. According to Henry Giniger in a dispatch to the New York Times, the document forbade "any other kind of official interference in national political or administrative life." The elected parliament is restricted simply to a technical and formal role. The PCP and its cheerleaders such as Erik Bert oppose the only popularly elected governing body in Portugal-one where the mass workers parties hold between 50 and 60 percent of the seats. Is MFA a soviet? Does Bert believe that some sort of parallel exists between the situation in Russia on January 6, 1918, Meeting of soldiers' delegates sent from war front to Petrograd shortly after overthrow of tsar in 1917 and Portugal in 1975 that would justify dissolving

14 ~volution to support Portuguese junta· In this context, the Constituent Assembly in Portugal, far from being an obsolete and isolated instrument of capitalist reaction against a workers government, is in fact the only body that masses of workers and farmers helped elect, and in which the parties they look to-the CP and the SP-hold a solid majority. The Portuguese ruling class fears to permit the Constituent Assembly anything but twelfth-rate responsibilities because they know that it will become a place where the demands and pressures of the masses will be heard-albeit distorted through the reformist parties. - They resist giving this parliamentary body any authority for the same reason the capitalists and landlords in Russia opposed convoking the Constit­ uent Assembly. They fear that it will restrict their prerogatives and will advance the revolutionary expectations of the masses. Like the Russian Mensheviks and S-Rs, the PCP and PSP have failed to mount a struggle to establish the sovereignty of the Constituent Assem­ bly. To do so requires a revolutionary policy in the tradition of the Bolsheviks. Instead of covering up for the criminal policies of the PCP by using the good name of the Bolsheviks, Bert should suggest to his comrades that they call upon the CP and SP to break their pact with the MFA and establish a government of working people and farmers. They could do this by exercising their majority in the Constituent Assembly and appeal­ ing to the masses and the rank and file of the armed forces to mobilize in support of it. Unfortunately, there are no soviets or workers councils in Portugal today, although factory com­ mittees and other beginning stages of independent organization by the working class have appeared. Bolsheviks in Moscow urging support to their party during Constituent Assembly elections in October 1917 But if the CP and SP were to repudiate their support to the military government and form a CP­ SP government, it would give tremendous impetus the Constituent Assembly? If so, the implication is The PCP is also organizing committees. Accord­ to the creation and extension of independent that the military junta governing Portugal today is ing to a report from Lisbon in the July 1 Daily organizations of the workers, farmers, and soldiers. comparable to the government of soviets led by the World, "The PCP is making an effort to unify -Rather than organizing committees to rally support Bolsheviks. thepeople through various non-partisan organiza­ to the capitalist MFA government as the Stalinists This is exactly how the CP portrays the MFA. A tional forms. This includes committees 'to defend are doing, factory committees and neighborhood report in the April 11 Daily World on a meeting of the revolution' and 'for vigilance, for security.'' committees could be rallied behind the struggle for the MFA stated that "in certain respects [the MFA The editor of Avante!, the PCP newspaper, told a workers and farmers government and in defense assembly] reminded observers of the soldiers' and the reporter, '"We think the future of our country of the democratic right of popular sovereignty. sailors' councils which played such a great role in will not be decided in the Constituent Assembly but If there is any parallel in the situation in Portugal the 1905 and 1917 revolutions in Russia." by the people.' " today and Russia in 1917 it is that the PCP and the There you have it. Why support the Constituent PSP are playing the same treacherous role as the Assembly when the MFA is like real live soviets? Mensheviks and S-Rs did in bolstering the The facts, however, tell a totally different story. 'Direct democracy'? Provisional Government, its imperialist war poli­ The MFA is the political arm of the military But what kind of "direct democracy" by the cies, and its fierce resistance to the democratic hierarchy and the instrument on which the imperi­ "people" can this possibly be if the MFA and CP struggle for a constituent assembly. alist ruling class relies. It is a body of military committees are set up from the beginning to support officers with only token representation of rank-and­ the government and its reactionary antilabor, file soldiers. For example, its general assembly neocolonialist policies? includes 160 officers, 40 sergeants, and 40 privates, In reality they are instruments to help provide distributed from among the different military demagogic cover for the CP and MFA to police the branches. It is not a mass organization of workers, working class and discipline it by helping to peasants, and soldiers. suppress criticism of the government. They are agencies for helping to promote sacrifices on the Imperialist government part of the working class in the interest of the Since the April 1974 overturn that ousted the government's "Battle for Production"-that is, Salazarist dictatorship, the MFA has been the real capitalist production. government of Portugal and its empire. It has It's no accident that when the government presided over and maintained a capitalist, imperial­ suppressed Republica, it was Gen. Otelo Saraiva de ist system, consistently taking the side of the Carvalho, commander of the military security force, capitalists against the workers in economic con­ who spoke most strongly in favor of replacing the flicts. For example, when nearly 4,000 metalworkers parties with "direct democracy." met in Lisbon on May 15, the Continental Opera­ The PCP counterposes a campaign to establish tional Command (Copcon), the special military these institutions of class collaboration to strug­ security force, was there and clubbed a group of gling for the sovereignty of the Constituent Assem-­ metalworkers who opposed accepting a forty-five­ bly. hour workweek. Erik Bert's attempt to twist history to imply that At every stage, the MFA has strived to maintain imperialist Portugal today is parallel to Soviet as much control over the colonies as possible Russia in 1918 is totally false. The workers without endangering the conversion to neocolonial­ government in Russia immediately repudiated the ist methods of domination. It still has 24,000 troops secret military pacts made between the previous stationed in Angola. government and its capitalist "allies," recognized The government has made only such concessions the right to self-determination of all nations and to the mass movement as were inescapable if nationalities oppressed by the tsarist regime, and popular support was to be retained. recognized the right of the peasants to take ove~the But the MFA is demagogically attempting to land. create the impression that it is establishing genuine The MFA government, on the other hand, grassroots democracy. In the June 21 proclamation maintains its membership in NATO, attempts to referred to earlier it calls for "the formation of impose a neocolonialist solution on its former In Portugal today Stalinists oppose Constituent As­ popular organizations that would be directly linked colonies rather than totally pull out, breaks strikes sembly because they know that any democratic with the armed forces and would constitute a of workers, and refuses to take over the big rural assembly reflecting interests of masses would soon beginning of direct democracy." estates and distribute the land to the poor farmers. come into conflict with MFA.

THE MILITANT/JULY 18, 1975 15 ,Behind FBI Invasion of Pine Rl~~ Two years of terror for S.D. tncr.ans By Jose.Perez government agencies with the power to PINE RIDGE, S.D.-Terror reigns do so have refused to investigate the among the 10,000 Indian residents of charges that the elections were rigged. this reservation. The FBI military With unemployment estimated at 70 occupation of their territory entered its percent on the reservation and the second week here July 4. majority of the population living in The pretext for the stationing of a abject poverty, the base of Wilson's virtual army of government agents on dictatorship is a thin layer of several the reservation is the June 26 shooting. hundred U.S. government employees, death of two FBI men on the reserva­ who live like royalty by· reservation tion. standards. At first, government mouthpieces Wilson's power comes only from the put out lying reports that the agents outside and from the minority of had been "ambushed" from "sophisti­ Indians whose relief from poverty cated bunkers" as they approached a stems from supporting his regime. small cluster of houses to serve arrest I was repeatedly told stories of warrants. The agents were supposedly alleged abuses by Wilson and his dragged from their cars and, in an goons. But, people would frequently "execution," hit "fifteen to twenty" add that they were afraid to have their times with bullets. A band of more names used. than thirty Indians (later mysteriously The Militant is known and well changed to sixteen) "escaped" through respected by many on the reservation open fields after a ten-hour gun battle as a paper that supports their struggle. and after a reported 300 police rein­ But still, only a few were willing to be forcements had surrounded the site. identified. This concoction fell apart quickly. I tried to interview one person who Officials were forced to admit there has been a prominent activist for was no "ambush"; there were no many years. This person would only "bunkers"; there were no "executions"; agree to meet if no names were used the agents were not "riddled with and if the meeting was arranged for bullets"; they were nowhere near the some anonymous spot. houses; the FBI does not know who its At the Mount Rushmore July 4 AIM "sixteen suspects" are; and officials rally, Militant reporter Holly Harkness are not sure when, where, or how they interviewed about a half-dozen partici­ "escaped." BICENTENNIAL pants, most of them from this reserva­ Nevertheless more than 200 G-men tion. Even there, not a single one were immediately rushed to the reser­ would give their name. vation with armored personnel carri­ for three "fugitives." The FBI found no agent in October 1973. ers, jeeps, helicopters, airplanes, auto­ one it was claiming to look for. Jeannette Bissonette was killed by a No photographs matic rifles, and ammunition. Contacted by the Journal, the FBI sniper across the street from Wilson's Both at Pine Ridge and at the rally, This army swept through every nook confirmed Black Crow's story. This country home after her car had had a numerous individuals asked this re­ and cranny of the reservation for a incident can be considered unique only flat tire. porter not to take their pictures. Oth­ week. Finally, newspaper stories rue­ in the sense that the victim was When Gladys Bissonette returned ers would turn their face or move away fully admitted it had been a "fuitless courageous enough to call reporters from Jeannette's funeral, she found while a shot was being lined up. sweep" that had failed to turn up "any and tell them about it. her eleven-year-old grandson, Richard Many young residents of the reserva­ trace of the suspects." Despite this, the Eagle, dead from a gunshot wound. tion have fled, knowing that they could FBI force remains on the scene, pur­ Reign of terror Officially it was recorded as "accident­ be gunned down by the FBI at any portedly engaged in "gathering infor­ Such people are not numerous on the al homicide." time as one of the sixteen unidentified mation to identify the suspects." reservation. The 1973 American Indian The latter two deaths were part of a suspects in the deaths of the agents. Movement-backed occupation of string of interrelated political killings One woman legal worker reports Airborne assault Wounded Knee has been followed by a that, in the space of a few weeks, left that after attending the funeral of Joe What this phrase means is explained two-year campaign of hundreds of an additional half-dozen people dead. Stuntz, the Indian killed by govern­ by an article in the July 5 Rapid City frame-ups of activists and a bloody ment agents in the June 26 shoot-out, Journal. Sylvester Black Crow is reign of terror unleashed by tribal the people at the house where she was quoted as reporting that twenty-four president and government puppet Murder a week staying asked her to move out-not agents with two helicopters conducted Richard Wilson. The early summer edition of Akwe­ because they were sympathetic to an "assault landing" on the home Wilson admits he has what even he sasne Notes devotes four and a half Wilson, but because they were afraid. camp and Sun Dance grounds that he calls "a goon squad" of his followers pages to one of a series of articles Gladys Bissonette is one of those maintains. "who do whatever is necessary to keep detailing this violence. The Notes still not silenced by the wave of terror. Black Crow said the armed agents the peace and discourage outsiders like reports the violence has been increas­ "This is my weapon," she says, poin­ "surrounded and searched at gun­ AIM leaders from coming here." ing: In 1974, twenty-three were mur­ ting to her mouth and then to her point" the grounds, without a warrant, For example, a defendant in a frame­ dered; during 1975, it's been "a murder telephone. Her house is under constant on the pretext that they were looking up case arising from Wounded Knee a week." surveillance by the government and and about a half-dozen legal workers, Things reached such a state this armed FBI agents came to her door not including lawyers, were assaulted and spring that the BIA superintendent of once, but four times in the seven days badly beaten on the reservation Febru­ the reservation-who could never be following the shootings. ary 26. accused of AIM sympathies­ Her grandson, Jimmy Eagle, was the They had come in a small plane to denounced Wilson's military dictator­ focus of an FBI manhunt that led to inspect the site of the 1973 events. ship. Shortly after this statement, the the deaths of the two agents. Bisso­ After driving around in a car, they superintendent was ordered trans- nette is convinced the government is returned to the aircraft to find it hal'l a ferred. · determined to see Jimmy dead, just as bullet hole in it. Afraid to use the A federal grand jury was convened, three others of her family have died plane, they were unloading it when a the FBI beefed up its investigative before. fifteen-car caravan led by Wilson ar­ force, and the Department of the "I'm not afraid to walk up to any rived. Interior said it was taking special court with my grandson," she said, "if measures to "alleviate the situation." there was any justice in this country. 'Stomp 'em' The grand jury began to persecute But they want to kill both of us, and "I want you to stomp 'em," Wilson AIM supporters, and the FBI stepped more." told his goons. They did. Eventually up its harassment of the activists. The Despite numerous news media sto­ the attackers let up, telling the legal government claims it is caught in the ries that the government is phasing workers, "Get the hell out of here-if middle in a private war between out its occupation and that negotia­ you come back, we'll kill you." followers of AIM and of Wilson. This is tions for the surrender of the "sixteen Wilson and his thugs were brought false. Wilson rules in Pine Ridge suspects" may be in tl:le offing, there up on misdemeanor charges in tribal because the BIA lets him. were no reservation residents the court, fined ten dollars with eight Militant interviewed who gave an dollars' court costs, and released. Rigged election ounce of credence to such stories. Murder threats from the goons are The U.S. Civil Rights Commission in On the contrary, the view is that the not to be taken lightly. Under Wilson's January 1975 issued a twenty-eight­ government is now determined to regime, life has become cheap on the page report on "widespread irregulari­ terrorize any opposition to Wilson's reservation. ties" in the February 197 4 election in dictatorship out of existence. If present For example, three members of the which Wilson narrowly defeated AIM government efforts are unsuccessful in family of Gladys Bissonette have met leader Russell Means, concluding that doing this, the Indians believe, the FBI violent, politically related deaths since the election was "invalid." Wilson's will provoke another "incident" and Government agent watches over body of Wounded Knee. response was that the commission was get more of its agents killed, as a Joe Stuntz, gunned down by FBl June Pedro Bissonette, one of the leaders "just a bunch of hoodlums" who had pretext· for staging a massacre at Pine 26. of that occupation, was killed by a BIA no power to order new elections. The Ridge.

16 AIM at Mt. RuShmore Boston July 4 to honor b1dlans SWP,files By Jose Perez mayoral KEYSTONE, S.D.-Some 300 mem­ bers and supporters of the American Indian Movement marched four miles July 4 from here to Mount Rushm.ore petitions and then held a two-hour rally. By Maurice Baker The demonstration was called by BOSTON-On July 2, the Socialist AIM to "honor our chiefs and our Workers party here filed nominating warriors who gave their lives so we petitions containing 22,000 signatures can carry on," according to Clyde to place its candidates on the ballot for Bellecourt, national director of AIM, the city's September "nonpartisan" who spoke at the rally. primary election. This is more than One of those being commemorated twice the number of signatures re­ was Joe Stuntz, who was gunned down quired. by government agents in a June 26 The socialist candidates are Norman shoot-out on the Pine Ridge reserva­ Oliver for mayor: Reba Williams and tion near here. Jon Hillson for city council; and The march stepped off from the Deborah Clifford and Ollie Bivins for tourist town of Keystone shortly after school committee. noon and followed the winding, climb­ Supporters of the candidates put in ing path of the highway that leads to 1,800 hours of work to achieve the Mount Rushmore, the so-called shrine petitioning success. of democracy where gigantic reproduc­ In the Black community of Roxbury, tions of the faces of four presidents one petitioner was approached by a have been carved into the mountain­ young Black woman who asked what side. party the candidates belonged to. The rally began with several tradi­ When the petitioner told her that they tional Indian prayers. After these, were the candidates of the SWP the Bellecourt spoke. He explained that the woman exclaimed, "That's my party!" rally was part of AIM's "See South Militant/Jose Perez Petitioners found that many people Dakota Last" boycott of tourism in Marchers approach Mt. Rushmore. 'Shrine of democracy' is located in territory stolen knew about Oliver's campaign for this state. from Indians. mayor and were favorable to it. A Bellecourl was followed by the state recent poll by the Boston Globe found AIM chairperson, Ted Means. Pointing that 11 percent of the voters in the· to the gigantic white stone faces, 'incident'-they planned it weeks be­ the parking lot where the rally was Black community supported Oliver. Means said, "Those are not our found­ fore." being held. A helicopter and a light Oliver is the only mayoral candidate ing fathers!" to loud shouts of approval Lamont had relatives living at the plane circled overhead. News reports who supports busing to desegregate from the mostly Indian crowd. Jumping Bull compound, where the after the rally indicate that additional the schools. He reminded participants that each shooting -took place, and she visited government forces were standing by In sections of the city where the · of the four presidents-Washington, the site after the government was out of sight. racist antibusing movement has a lot Jefferson, Lincoln, and. Theodore through with it: "Everything was on The Black Hills, where Mount Rush­ of support, petitioners for the SWP Roosevelt-had played a large role in the floor. The roof torn up, bullet holes more is located, were. stolen from the candidates were harassed on several developing and perpetuating the U.S. everywhere." Indians despite U.S.-Indian treaties occasions, and opponents of school government's genocidal policies Lamont explained the latest "inci­ guaranteeing the area to them. desegregation tried to discourage peo­ against Indians. dent" is the most recent of a long This is a beautiful, wooded area, ple from signing their petitions. "Those four faces," he said, "are an series, referring to the 1890 massacre with thousands of streams and pine While some people were influenced example of the hypocrisy that exists in of Sioux on the Pine Ridge reservation: trees covering mile after mile of ter­ by this tactic, in. other cases it back­ this country today." "My great grandmother and grand­ rain. Quite a contrast to the hot, dusty, fired. People who favored desegrega- The next speaker was Dennis Banks, father are lying in that grave in semi-arid Pine Ridge reservation. _tion were directed to the SWP petition­ who is currently facing trumped-up Wounded Knee. And today, it's the White settlers originally stole the 18Jld, ers, and some who oppose busing charges of rioting, robbery, and arson same." however, not for its beauty but because agreed to sign anyway on the basis in nearby Custer, South Dakota. She concluded, "Snakes are the the hills contain large deposits of gold. that the SWP has a right to be on the Banks told the demonstration, "we've lowest animals, but the FBI is lower Today, the beauty of the hills is ballot. · made a commitment-the next 200 than that." jarringly interrupted every few miles Now that the various candidates years will not be like the last ones." Floyd Westerman, a singer, per­ by one after another tourist trap have gathered the signatures they formed several songs, among them dedicated to glorifying the U.S. wars of need to get on the ballot, it is- expected Mter Banks, Agnes Lamont spoke. "Custer Died For Your Sins" and extermination against Indians. that the municipal race will begin to Lamont, an elderly resident of the Pine "BIA, I'm Not Your Indian Anymore." As the rally was breaking up, a heat up. Two Democratic party conten­ Ridge reservation, talked about her During one short intermission, Wes­ preschool, blond-haired, blue-eyed ders have dropped out of the mayoral son, Buddy, who was killed during the terman said you could tell this was a child asked a woman next to him with race-Thomas Eisenstadt and Ray­ 1973 AIM-backed occupation of dying system because authorities are fear in his voice, "Mommy, I thought mond Flynn. Both oppose school de­ Wounded Knee. terrified of even a peaceful memorial all the Indians were dead." segregation. Lamont spoke again later, about the service like the one being held. The woman answered, "Don't worry. Eisenstadt withdrew after a scandal June 26 shooting on the reservation. There were at least two dozen armed There's only a few left, and the over his management, as sheriff, of the She charged that it was "not an national park service cops in or around government is taking care of them." Suffolk County Jail. Flynn decided to run for city council instead of mayor when it became clear that incumbent Mayor Kevin White had the backing of the major antibusing organization, Judge gags press in Banks trial ROAR (Restore Our Alienated Rights). The Socialist Workers campaign The state jadge presiding over the case. A Rapid City newspaper has charges and railroad him into prison. committe:e is planning a rally for its trial of American Indian Movement reported that "as a result of a defense The charges against Banks are a candidates on July 26. Featured speak­ leader Dennis B"anks in Custer, South motion" that the judge "declined to travesty of justice. They stem from a ers will be Oliver and SWP vice­ Dakota, has issued a gag order that make public,"- news broadcast tapes February 1973 demonstration in Cus­ presidential candidate Willie Mae Reid. "appears to be in violation of several and information from five area televi­ ter during which cops brutally at­ · If the good reception the socialist appellate court decisions," according to sion and radio stations have been tacked· Indians who were protesting candidates and their supporters re­ a front-page article in the July 6 subpoenaed. the government's failure to even speak ceived while petitioning is any indica­ Minneapolis Tribune. News media in this area have with several eyewitnesses to the mur­ tion, Boston's socialist alternative in Banks and the defense lawyers were regularly carried an "Indian mili­ der of an Indian by a white man. this election should get a wide hearing. unable, under the gag rule, to discuss tants" section in their broadcasts, Twenty participants in the AIM­ the case with the Militant. lumping together such varied items as backed demonstrations have been The orde.r prohibits lawyers, defend­ Banks's trial, bombings of Bureau of subsequently framed up on charges ants, and witnesses from talking to Indian Affairs offices in California, such as "rioting," "arson," and "being reporters about the trial. In addition, it the June 26 Pine Ridge shoot-out, the present at a riot where arson occurs." prohibits news media from reporting FBI military occupation of that reser­ The first cases came up a year ago. anything except what occurs in open vation, and an explosion at Mount Three people-including the mother of court, "adduced only in evidence and Rushmore-allegedly a bombing, for the Indian who had been murdered­ in argument." which no one has taken responsibility. were found guilty in a trial marked by Tribune staff writer Dennis Cassano The judge's order warns reporters a brutal state police riot against explains, if a written motion were filed not to "speculate." Therefore, this unarmed defendants and spectators by the defense asking that the trial be writer feels compelled to add that the inside the courtroom. postponed because of the hysteria that following comments are in no way It is interesting to note that the has been whipped up in the area "speculation": judge's order would prohibit the report­ against AIM by government lies about The judge's order tramples on the ing of a similar police riot inside his the shooting death of two FBI agents constitutional guarantees of freedom of ·courtroom-government savagery is Militant/Jon Hillson June 26, this could not be reported. the press in order to facilitate convic­ not on the judge's list of approved Norman Oliver, socialist nominee for This is an interesting hypothetical tion of Dennis Banks on trumped-up topics to be reported. -J.P. Boston mayor.

THE MILITANT/JULY. 18, 1975 17 Investigation a fraud L.A. cops distort facts on terror bombings By Walter Lippmann cooperative with the police. He has met ger pointed out that the memo omitted LOS ANGELES-The Los Angeles with them and me on several occa­ the nearly one dozen meetings Jones Police Department, attempting to di­ sions, and, if the meetings have been had with the police, including one less vert attention from its failure to take largely unsuccessful, it is only because than two weeks before the memo was . effective action against those responsi­ the police investigation has so far written. ble for terrorist attacks against the failed to furnish the sorts of identify­ Davis's memo also refers to Jones's Socialist Workers party, is trying to ing materials necessary for a positive "hazy memory." The PRDF reply smear the victims and suggest that identification. The fact that Mr. Jones explained that Jones spent several they have refused to cooperate with refuses to be hypnotized . . . really hours the night of the bombing giving police investigators. should not make him the scapegoat for a police artist a full, detailed descrip­ This effort was best seen in a May 20 police ineffectiveness. tion of the bomber. memorandum to Mayor Tom Bradley "I am quite distressed over the way The LAPD also claimed that "num­ by Police Chief Edward Davis and police have here treated those willing erous arrests have been made" in R.E. Ruddell, Commanding Officer, assist them with their work. It certain­ connection with the bombings. Investigative Services Group. ly appears that the police are placing The memo cites only one, that of an The memorandum was presented at public relations as a higher priority alleged member of the Jewish Defense a June 6 meeting between the mayor than forthright investigation." League charged with bombing the 1 and representatives of groups con­ Speaking at the June 20 rally office of Iraqi Airways. This is the only cerned with police inaction in stopping against right-wing terrorism, Jeanne arrest reported during a five-month a recent wave of right-wing bombings Cordova also assailed the police report. wave of bombing. here. The delegation of some thirty She told the rally that the police did people included representatives of the not even approach her until two weeks Political Rights Defense Fund, the after the interview appeared. She said American Civil Liberties Union, and they told her at the time that they had others. Militant/Eric Simpson not yet spoken to Tommasi. Earlier, the mayor's office had said a Pickets demand police arrest terrorist She said that on the advice of the full report on what was called an bombers. paper's lawyer she had declined to sign "extensive" police investigation would an affidavit testifying to the accuracy be made available at the meeting. Jones to do so. of the interview. Instead, the delegation was offered a The memo also asserts that Free She denied, however, that, as the one-and-a-half-page memorandum Press reporter Jeanne Cordova had police report asserts, she had refused to crammed with distortions and misrep­ refused to discuss the Tommasi inter­ comment on the interview. She said resentations. view with the police. she had told the police that every word The police memo states that Joseph On June 19, Mark Rosenbaum wrote of it was true. Tommasi, local Nazi leader, denied to Mayor Bradley in response to the On behalf of the Political Rights taking credit for the attacks on the police memorandum: Defense Fund, Steve Schmuger wrote SWP and told the cops that a March 21 "Since the representations [in the to Bradley responding to additional Los Angeles Free Press interview in memorandum] formed the basis for points in the police memorandum. which he did take credit was only inaccurate public statements by you "Since the [Tommasi interview] "partially true." regarding police investigation of the contains explicit admissions of illegal The memo further asserts that Lew SWP bombing of February 4, 1975, I activity," Schmuger wrote, "we urge Jones, the eyewitness to one of the feel it .is essential that you know what you to ... inform us whether or not attacks, was "unavailable for inter­ I actually said so that the public record Tommasi confessed to any of the view from March 25 through May 5." may be justly corrected. criminal acts he boasted about in the The memo further states that Jones "Contrary to Commander Ruddell, at Free Press." 'Extensive' investigation promised by had refused to be hypnotized by the no t~me did I urge my client, Lewis Responding to the police effort to Mayor Bradley turned out to be page­ LAPD even though his attorney, Mark Jones, to submit to hypnosis. Mr. give the ·impression that eyewitness and-a-half memo full of distortions and Rosenbaum of the ACLU, had advised Jones has always been completely Lew Jones was uncooperative, Schmu- lies. Socialist campaign has reasons to be optimistic By Nancy Cole say that "over the past 10 years this and Reid for vice-president-the candi­ ask specific questions about one or A few weeks ago, a rather elite corps country's leaders have consistently dates and national chairpersons Ed another aspect of the program," the of politicians, journalists, and pollsters lied to the American people" reached Heisler and Linda Jenness have toured Northern California team reported. met at Harvard University to assess 69 percent this spring, up from 38 twenty-three states. "Numerous people after a short rap the state of the Democratic and Re­ percent in 1972. And they've received a heartening and having glanced through it would publican parties. Washington Post col­ "That makes it a little tough to be response, according to the staff in the take a stack for their classes or lumnist David Broden described the optimistic about 1976," Broder con­ SWP national campaign office. One friends." resulting forecast for 1976 as "pretty cluded. thing bolstering their optimism is the Having depleted the first run of the gloomy." Well, that may be so for the Demo­ success of the initial drive to circulate Bill of Rights for Working People, the Broder summarized: nobody believes crats and Republicans, but for the the campaign platform, "A Bill of national campaign recently printed a what politicians say anymore, nobody socialist "third forces," things have Rights for Working People." new, updated version. votes, and what's more, there's a never looked better. Since January, campaign supporters Another indication that the socialist specter of "third forces" that might­ After a season of campaigning, the from coast to coast have distributed alternative is reaching more and more heaven forbid-be on the ballot in supporters of Socialist Workers party 302,000 copies of the sixteen-page people is the news coverage Camejo 1976. candidates Peter Camejo and Willie pamphlet. Of this total, 27,000 were the and Reid have received. The media Adding their voices to the chorus of Mae Reid are finding it easy to be Spanish edition. exposure is still glaringly sparse com­ dismay, the pollsters told the gather­ optimistic. Since announcing the slate And, as long as 1972 statistics are in pared with that of the capitalist ing that the percentage of adults who in December-Ca~ejo for president order, that compares with a total of politicians. But the seriousness of the 350,000 platforms distributed during SWP campaign and its appeal are the entire SWP 1972 presidential cam­ causing some journalists to sit up and paign. take notice. In some cases the distribution cam­ "Spelling Socialist with Optimism" paign was self-perpetuating. Individu­ headlined a full-page article on Camejo als were handed a platform, and after in the May 1 issue of the Long Island reading it, they wrote to the national paper Newsday. With a circulation of campaign office for a bundle to pass 440,000, its one of the largest daily out themselves. A sampling of June newspapers in the country. requests from newly won backers of The wire services picked up the story the Camejo-Reid campaign includes an and, as a result, nineteen papers across order for 30 from Santa Maria, Califor­ the country have reprinted the article nia; 100 from Parlin, New Jersey; and in full or in part. These include the Los 1,000 from Norfolk, Virginia. Angeles Times, Miami Herald, Atlanta The fifteen Young Socialist teams, Journal, and the Seattle Times. Circu­ which visited 211 campuses this lation figures for the nineteen papers spring, were responsible for getting out total more than 3 million readers. 56,000 platforms. They found that Add that to the millions who saw college students-"in training to be the Camejo on the March 19 "Today world's best-educated unemployed" as Show," and those who read the 300- Camejo puts it-were extremely inter­ plus other news articles this spring, ested in the SWP's proposals for and you come up with an impressive "protection from high prices, unem­ total of people who have heard of the ployment, wars, racism, and oppres­ socialist campaign during its first six SWP presidential candidate Peter Camejo campaigning with 'Bill of Rights for sion of women." months. Working People.' Since January, campaign supporters have distributed more than "People who took the platform would And that's just the beginning, they 300,000 copies. read it cover-to-cover and then often tell me.

18 utlo A WEEKLY INTERNATIONAL SUPPLEMENT TO THE MILITANT BASED ON SELECTIONS FROM INTERCONTINENTAL PRESS, A NEWSMAGAZINE REFLECTING THE VIEWPOINT OF REVOLUTIONARY SOCIALISM

JULY 18, 1975

'Advanced democratic' regime S. Vietnam: Where does it stand? Where is it going? By Peter Green blanket, towel, mosquito net, pullovet, toothbrush, paper, pen, and so on. According to persons coming from the What is happening in Saigon? Two central coast, army and police officers months after the liberation from impe­ in reeducation camps in Quang Ngai rialist domination, confusion still ex­ and Quang N am have been filling up ists over the intentions of the new bomb craters, clearing mines, and regime. Will there be rapid reunifica­ reclaiming fallow land, besides study­ tion with the North, or will the South ing the PRG program and learning retain an independent existence for an revolutionary songs. indefinite period? Who is actually A police clerk in the former regime running things in the newly liberated said each student in the reeducation areas? Will the new regime move to courses is required to tell of at least one introduce a planned economy in the crime he committed while working for South? the old government. At least on one matter the North Vietnamese leaders are quite frank: tbe The Military Management Commit­ new regimein the South is not social­ tee of Saigon launched its own "cultu­ ist. In a report to a meeting of the ral revolution" on May 15 with a North Vietnamese National Assembly decree prohibiting the sale or posses­ that ended in Hanoi June 6, Premier sion of literature published "under the Pharo Van Dong categorically stated former regime." Films and music were that while the regime in the North was North Vietnamese Premier Pham Van National Liberation Front President also included in the ban. By May 22 socialist, that in the South was "ad­ Dong says Hanoi regime is socialist while Nguyen Huu Tho calls for diplomatic most bookstores end stalls in Saigon vanced democratic." Saigon government is 'advanced relations between Saigon and other had closed down, and sound trucks Veteran Stalinist apologist Wilfred democratic.' countries despite desire of masses to toured the city broadcasting the new Burchett is also very clear on this reunify Vietnam. orders. point. In an article in the June 11 issue Several hundred students marched of the American Maoist weekly the through the streets on May 23 and May 27 in support of the campaign, Guardian, he quotes approvingly from strata of the bourgeoisie" to unite with. French business leaders were recently an interview he had in 1965 with exhorting residents to discard any Most of these types packed their booty ·invited to Independence Palace and copies of Playboy and Oui magazines "leaders of the People's Revolutionary and fled with the Americans. advised that some French firms would Party (PRP)-the Marxist-Leninist and all other items identified with the Although on May 1, the day after the be asked to stay on indefinitely. "decadent culture" of the departing party within the NLF." lioeration of Saigon, a decree was Heading the PRG list was the Michelin "Democracy for us means a real Americans. They carried banners say­ broadcast announcing the nationaliza­ and other rubber plantations in Dau ing: "Students and youth are deter­ national, people's democracy, based on tion of factories, farms, and busi­ Tieng and Tay Ninh provinces. Other the unity of workers, peasants, intellec­ mined not to read, not to keep at home, nesses, reports since then indicate that major French firms in Saigon, such as not to distribute, books and magazines, tuals and patriotic bourgeoisie of all the new regime is intent on retaining Brasserie Glacier Indochine (BGI), tendencies. We are carrying out a pictures and tapes that are reactionary capitalist enterprises. According to a Denis Freres and Lucia, will, apparent­ and decadent." national-democratic revolution with United Press International dispatch in ly, also be allowed to operate." the unity of all sections of the popula­ the May 29 Los Angeles Times, "the With the overthrow of the puppet Books Burned tion as a basic element. We have to new government is jostling private regime, North Vietnamese currency The Saigon newspaper Liberation think of it at two levels: the present firms to reopen businesses. Fears that began to circulate. It has now been Daily reported a huge oonfire in a rather low level, based on an alliance private enterprise would not be permit­ withdrawn, and the piaster of the downtown residential sector of the city between workers, peasants and the ted under the Communists have so far former regime i.!l_ still the main curren­ on May 25. It said residents tossed lower strata of the bourgeoisie, which proved unfounded." cy. The Provisional Revolutionary books, tapes, and magazines onto the we consider as a sort of people's Nayan Chanda reported in the June Government announced June 17 that fire. "The crowd applauded as a girl democracy; and, on the higher level, of 6 Far Eastern Economic Review that the national bank was resuming its threw her hippie clothes onto the fire," still broader unity which we are the Military Management Committee activities, but other banks in the the official newspaper said. Saigon aiming at and which we would call a of Saigon was even providing credit to capital remained closed. In Da Nang, radio said that from May 23 to 25 more national democratic union to include a number of factories in order to revive some banks opened on very restricted than a thousand books were burned. the upper strata of the bourgeoisie. industrial activity. hours, with depositors being permitted According to Hsinhua News Agency, As for foreign companies-which to withdraw only one-third of their in a few days young people and Upper Strata were mostly French and Japanese­ savings. students had "confiscated nearly "Our present people's democratic Chanda reported that apparently only Faced with the problems of acute 135,000 reactionary and pornographic alliance must approve measure~ ac­ establishments abandoned by their unemployment and a consequent rise books." ceptable to this upper strata as well. It foreign owners were being national­ in crime, the new regime has re­ On May 28, however,' the regime may seem strange for outsiders to find ized. Those foreigners who remained sponded by shooting thieves on the issued a new decree halting the burn­ communists fighting for the interests were allowed to stay in business. spot or else bringing them before a ing of books. Instead they were to be of the upper class, but we understand The May 29 Wall Street Journal public tribunal. handed over to qualified organizations. the vital necessity for national union reported that two Japanese joint ven­ The "reeducation" courses for offi­ "We are a civilized people, we respect at the highest level, not only now tures in South Vietnam have resumed cers and officials of the old regime are the culture of others, even that of the during the period of struggle but for production of electric appliances. getting under way in Saigon. The American people. We respect scientific the years of postwar reconstruction as French-owned businesses are open­ courses last three days for minor research," said the Saigon manage­ well." (Burchett's emphasis.) ing up again · also, James Laurie officials and a month for those in the ment committee's chief of information The development of the economy in reported from Saigon for the June 6 higher echelons. (Top leaders such as and culture. The committee, he said, the two months since the liberation of Far Eastern Economic Review: Duong Van Minh ·and Tran Van had only given the order to stop the Saigon bears this out. The leaders of "Although there are many sceptics Huong have reportedly been excused sale of "decadent and reactionary" the new regime show little interest in in the still fairly large Saigon-French from attending the courses.) Those books. "We must abolish a cul~ure of introducing measures that are socialist business community, it appears, at attending are told exactly how much slaves and save the culture of our in principle. However, they are proba­ least for the time being, that the money to bring to cover food for the people by all methods, but we have bly finding it very difficult rounding Government wants the operation of period of the course, as well as a never demanded the burning of up enough members of the "upper foreign firms to continue. Several detailed list of other itetns required- Continued on page 22

19 World Outlook

Post-referendum offensive Labour gov't out to make workers pay for crisis By Tony Hodges

LONDON-Flushed with its success in achieving a 2-to-1 majority in the June 5 referendum for continued Brit­ ish membership in the Common Mar­ ket, the Labour government is redou­ bling its drive to place the burden of the crisis wracking British capitalism on the backs of the workers. British capitalism, long ago reduced to the status of a second-rank power, is less and less able to compete in world markets. With retail prices up 25% in May on a year ago-and rising in the past two months at an annual rate of more than 50%-British capitalist prospects on the world market are looking even gloomier. Britain now has an inflation rate well over double that of all its major competitors. Reflecting Britain's weakened role, British workers are fighting back against assault on their standard of living. Above are miners during militant 1972 coal strike the pound is sliding downwards. By June 12, after several days of heavy referendum victory to move against selling of sterling, the value of the support for the social contract at last can assure him that ways will be found September's congress of the Trades dissidents in his own cabinet who fear pound against major world currencies for keeping wage claims in the next that the measures now being prepared . was down 26.5% from December 1971. Union Congress (TUC), the union round below a 15 per cent ceiling." will drive a dangerous wedge between The National Institute of Economic bureaucrats have been singularly in­ A 15% wage-rise norm at a time and Social Research now forecasts capable of policing its observance by when inflation is running at more than the government and the ranks of the workers at a time of high inflation. labour movement. On June 11, Tony that the pound's devaluation will reach 25% a year would obviously amount to Benn, the major leader of the anti­ 32% by the end of next year. British workers, accustomed to a a drastic slashing of living standards. Common Market campaign and dar­ Falling profit rates and business rising standard of living during the TUC leaders have shown themselves ling of the left Social Democratic Trib­ confidence brought an 8% decline in years of the postwar boom, are no more open to such cuts. une wing of the Labour party, was manufacturing investment from the likely to accept drastic cuts in their Keith Harper and Simon Hoggart laijt quarter of 1974 to the first quarter living conditions today than the min­ explained the government strategy demoted from his ministerial post as of this year. And the Department of ers were in 1974. One sign of the this way in the Guardian on April 24: secretary of state for industry and Industry predicts that manufacturing potential for militant resistance came "The plan is to replace the Govern­ given the lesser post of secretary of investment will slump 15% this year. on June 2 when the National Execu­ ment's offerings under the social state for energy. Tribunite Minister for Symptomatic of the decrepit state of tive Committee of the National Union contract with steadily increasing Overseas Development Judith Hart British capitalism was a decision by of Railwaymen (NUR) voted 21 to 3 for warnings of mass unemployment and was sacked from the government the the Labour government in late April to a nationwide rail strike by 130,000 social service cuts if the unions do not same day. salvage Britain's largest-and bank­ British Rail workers beginning June honour their side of the bargain. rupt-car company, British Leyland, 23. Three days before the strike was to Implicit in the strategy is the threat with massive state handouts reaching begin, the NUR won a two-stage wage that the Government will refuse to 'Tribune' Letter increase that will total 30o/o by August £700 million [£1 = US$2.25]. increase public spending to pay for In a letter of reply to Wilson forty Successive Conservative and Labour 4. wage rises in nationalised industries, Tribune members of Parliament said governments have been plagued by the and will be prepared to allow huge lay­ that they "reject the acceptance of problem of how to restore British Rising Disquiet offs in the public sector if necessary." coalition policies which embrace those capitalism's flagging fortunes. The There are other signs of rising dis­ The union bureaucrats too are at­ of the CBI [Confederation of British 1970-74 Tory government of Edward quiet among workers about the run­ tempting to cajole workers with threats Industry], the City of London financi­ Heath tried by imposing statutory away inflation. of redundancies. Jack Jones, writing in ers, the Conservative Party and the wage controls on workers in 1972. But • 40,000 seamen are demanding an the TGWU monthly Record in June, Cabinet as reflected in your shuffle of the fierce resistance of the miners and • 80% pay rise. They recently rejected a advised that "the interests of working ministers. We cannot be satisfied that the ~ventual defeat of the Tory govern­ 30% offer by the employers. people will be best served at the you now have any resolute intention to ment in the February 1974 general • 65,000 workers at Imperial Chemi­ present time--and let me be frank implement the major parts of the election forced the ruling class to turn cal Industries are aeeking a 70% pay about this-by sacrificing a few per election manifesto or to operate the to a new line of attack. increase. cent extra in wage increases so that we principles which inspired them. The reelected Labour government led • 120,000 steelworkers want a 30% can halt unemployment and defend the "Consequently, we serve notice that by Harold Wilson announced a "social pay rise and a threshold agreement to 'social wage.'" By "social wage," we shall oppose by all means and cam­ contract" between the government and defend themselves against inflation. Jones meant the social services. paign within and without the House to the union bureaucrats under which • Most revealing of all, perhaps, Implying ·that workers had been ensure that the policies of the Labour workers would "voluntarily" keep their was a recent vote by delegates repre­ living it up in recent times, Tony Cros­ movement are pursued with the utmost wages in check. Wilson hoped that the senting 400,000 local government land, secretary of state for the environ­ vigour. Having been elected to carry social contract, trading off the unions' workers, whose "professional" status ment, warned on May 9 that "the party through manifesto policies we reject loyalty to a Labour government, would has kept them straitjacketed for years. is over" and that local authorities reductions in public expenditure and succeed where the Tories failed in They voted to call a strike ballot after would have to curb increased spend­ the drift towards mass unemployment cutting real wages and boosting the rejecting an offer of a 21.7% rise in ing. On April 23, Healey said that if as being incompatible with those poli­ capitalists' profit and ability to com­ basic pay. If the local government workers did not accept the social cies." pete. workers vote to strike, they will hold a contract, the government would intro­ These belated protests by the Tri­ But despite the near-unanimous one-day national walkout, the first in duce public expenditure cuts that bune wing of the party, which claims their history. This will be followed by "would slash at the very programme the support of about seventy Labour an indefinite strike in ten major on which we all fought and won the MPs, show that the "left" is trying to regions, with ten more districts joining last two general elections." impress on Wilson that his probusi­ the strike each week. There is every sign that the Labour ness policies run the risk of backfiring Despite the faihue of both the Tories' government will seek a "voting coali­ by sparking increased radicalization in statutory wage controls and the La­ tion" in Parliament with the Tories to the ranks of the labour movement. bour government's "voluntary" wage push through these austerity mea­ This, above all, is what the Tribune restraint, Wilson is now embarking on sures. One Labour cabinet minister, group wishes to avoid. That is why the a tough new strategy. to "tighten up" Reg Prentice, even went so far as to group has done nothing to mobilize the social contract. According to Peter call on June 1 for a "government of workers in action against the govern­ Jay, economics editor of the London national unity" that would command ment offensive. Times, Labour Chancellor of the the support of all "moderates" in the The coming weeks will show work­ Exchequer Denis Healey "is looking Conservative, Liberal, and Labour ers' response to the rising unemploy­ for a norm for the next round of pay parties. Nothing could show more ment, the social service cutbacks, and negotiations of less than 15 per cent." clearly the intentions of the class-col­ the ever-rising rate of inflation. But at Nora Beloff and Colin Chapman, laborationist labour leaders in the this time it seems unlikely that Wilson writing in the June 8 Observer, said: government than this attempt to seek will be any more successful than "Mr Healey intends to warn trade an alliance with the parties of big previously in convincing workers to Harold Wilson's moves against dissident unionists that he will slash public business to push through anti-work­ "uphold" the social contract and ac­ cabinet members are preparation for all­ spending, .allow unemployment to rise ing-class policies. cept a severe cut in the standard of out push for austerity measures. and introduce extra taxes unless they Wilson has taken advantage of his living.

20 Arrests 'all agitators & saboteurs' Shah hit by protests on anniversary of '63 rebellion

By Majid Namvar "a homemade bomb as _well as a Despite the shah's claim that opposi­ improve the standard of living. quantity of Communist books and tion to his repressive rule is confined to The shah's main response to increas­ Confronted by the first substantial documents." "black reactionaries and ' stateless ing unrest has been to further tighten rebellion against the shah's regime A. related protest by Muslim students ,reds," a more general discontent ap­ his rule, going _so far as to eliminate since 1963, the government-controlled took place June 5 at the Arya Mehr In­ pears to be rising in Iran, particul~rly the political parties he himself estab­ Iranian press reported June 10 that dustrial University in Tehran. Report­ among the youth. lished. The recent demonstrations "street riots" broke out in the shrine ing this incident, the editors of Kay­ In part, this is· because the regime indicate that this has only increased city of Qum, ninety miles south of Teh­ han said: "These students who has failed to meet growing expecta­ popular dissatisfaction with his dicta­ ran. sometimes call themselves religious tions that increased oil revenue would torial regime. The demonstrations marked the intellectuals are followers of a person twelfth anniversary of the massive re­ who has always been an opponent of bellions in June 1963. They were said any reform in the country, particularly to have started at the theological the land refQrm and the liberation of schools of Faizieh and Dar al-Shafa, women." Iran- weekly reviews Trotsky in Persian - ending in street clashes with the The "person" referred to is apparent­ "Entesharate Fanus [Fanus Publica­ permanent revolution to the objective police. No casualties were reported. ly Ayat-Ollah Khomaini, a prominent tions] hl:lS published a new book by conditions in Iran. The volume has Tehran's two major evening news­ Islamic figure whose arrest in 1963 led Leon . Trotsky under the title The stirred some interest in Trotskyist papers, Etelaat and Kayhan, pub­ to rebellions in ~~five major cities, · Permanent Revolution." ideas among Iranian students abroad. lished identical reports, presumably including Tehran. These protests were This· note, part of a brief review of Because of the shah's strict censor­ handed out by the police. The report brutally crushed, leaving an estimated the first Persian edition of Trotsky's ship regulations, the Tehran Econo­ said the demonstrations began June 5 5,000 to 10,000 persons dead or Permanent Revolution, appeared in the mist limited its comments on the book and continued June 7. "Shouting anti­ wounded. Khomaini, who was then "Book Evaluation" column of the to praising the quality of the transla­ patriotic slogans and waving red expelled from Iran, is reported to be Nov,ember 30, 1974, issue of the Irani­ tion. flags," it said, the demonstrators "re­ living in Iraq at present. an weekly Tehran Economist. c~lled one of the most shameful events Following the shah's decree earlier The Persian edition was published in The review also mentioned that ht in 1963, initiated by black reaction­ this year proclaiming Iran a one-party June 1974. It has an introduction, November 1973, "EnteSharate Fanus aries in our country." (The shah often state,· Khomaini issued a statement entitled "Permanent Revolution in published Nationalities and Revolu­ uses the term "black reactionary" to denouncing the action and urging all Iran," by Javad Sadeeg, a contributor tion in Iran by Javad Sadeeg." refer to his militant Islamic oppo­ Islamic organizations to boycott the to Intercontinental Press. The Persian edition of Permanent nents.) new party. One indication of the In the introduction, Sadeeg exam­ Revolution and the book Nationalities Without disclosing further details, shah's concern over this call for a boy­ ines the revolutionary history of Iran and Revolution in Iran are available the allah's press reported that "all cott was the government's recent and outlines a general perspective for fm; ~ each from _Entesharate Fanus, agitators and saboteurs were identified announcement that all eligible voters future - developments, showing the P.O. Box 170, Village Station, New ,and arrested." Police searching the were required to cast a ballot in the applicability of Trotsky's theory of York, N.Y. 10010 demo,nstrators' homes allegedly seized ·June 20 parliamentary elections.

Mass rally greets independence in Mozambique On ·June 25 tens of thousands of riches," he stated. "International con­ supremacist regimes in Rhodesia (Zim­ Mozambicans celebrated the winning cessionaries made fabulous fortunes babwe) and South Africa. More than of·· independence after 470 years of while the people starved." 80 percent of Rhodesia's foreign trade Portuguese colonial rule. The cere­ Machel said that the People's Repub­ is transported through ports in Mo­ mony, held in the Louren~o Marques lic of Mozambique (the country's new zambique. Before taking power, Freli­ football stadium, . was described as name) would become the "first truly mo had pledged to carry out the United jubilant. Marxist state in Africa." The program Nations-recommended economic sanc­ Two days earlier a massive demon­ of changes he outlined, however, does tions against the Smith regime by stration greeted Samora Machel, Mo­ not call for any fundamental social cutting this lifeline to the sea. zambique's new president, when he transformation. South Africa also ships its goods arrived in Louren~o Marques from the Private ownership of industry will be through Mozambican ports. In addi­ interior of the country. Machel is head permitted unless it is thought to tion, 100,000 Mozambicans work each of Frelimo (Frente de Liberta~ao de conflict with state interests. Machel year in South African mines. In all, Mo~ambique-Mozambique Liberation made 'no mention of natipnalization of more than 25 percent of Mozambique's Front), which led the ten-year war of industry. Foreign investment will be foreign exchange comes from South independence. welcome. Mozambique is to be a one­ Africa. According to a dispatch in the - In his message to the nation follow­ party state, with Frelimo decreed to be June 26 Christian Science Monitor, ing the independence celebration, Ma­ "the vanguard _of the revolution." "various economic arrangements are chel denounced the centuries-long rule Machel made no mention of the new already being made discreetly between SAMORA MACHEL: 'Portuguese by Portugal. "Portuguese imperialism government's plans in regard to end­ the two countries, although formal imperialism and colonialism robbed us of and colonialism robbed us of our ing economic relations with the white- diplomatic relations have lapsed." our riches.' · le Monde' exposes Israeli colonization of Arab land '\-- . . - - "While tens of thousands of Israeli their land, gathering for firewood the 1972, troops commanded by General about fifteen Jewish settlements on children planted treeS in cities and branches of almond trees and pome- Ariel Sharon drove out almost 10,000 this land. towns throughout the country during granates they had been cultivating for farmers and Bedouin herdsmen, bull- In some cases, the Israeli officials the traditional 'festival of trees,' huge years." dozed or dynamited their homes, tore have tried to force Arab proprietors to· bulldozers were uprooting thousands of The model for these Israeli resettle- down their tents, destroyed their crops, sell their lands. When they refuse, blossoming fruit trees in parts of the ment schemes was developed in 1967 and filled in their w~terholes. various pressures are applied, ranging region known as the 'Breech of Rat'a,' in the occupied Golan Heights and on Today there are already ten Jewish from halting the distribution of CARE· in the northeast part of Sinai. The the West Bank of the Jordan, Kapeli- settlements in the region-four collec- packages from th~ United States to ' Arab owners of these orchards had ouk explained. The Arab population is tive villages, five "paramilitary agri- layoffs of workers and false arrests. been driven from their land and their removed, and then the Jews move in. cultural colonies," and the first houses houses have been destroyed to make But in the Rafa region, a member of a of a proposed new town, Yamit. "We have been ruled by the Otto­ way for Jewish colonists. After the neighboring kibbutz explained, "the These expropriations continued even mans, the English, and the Egyptians, trees, the local school and mosque were problem is much more serious." during the October 1973 war. On one after the other,'' an old man told razed." "Here," he said, "the inhabitants October 8, Israeli soldiers arrived, Kapeliouk, "but none dared to touch So began an account by Amnon who have been expelled, whose homes arrested Sheikh tlassan Ali Al­ our land. With the Israelis, their main Kapeliouk, special correspondent of Le and possessions have been destroyed, Sawarqueh, expelled him and one activity consists in· expropriating us."· Monde, of the Israeli colonization return to their lands ·to work as thousand members of his tribe from Al­ The Israeli government's atrocities movement in the occupied territory laborers for the colons who have come Jora, confiscated 36,000 hectares of have aroused opposition even among south of the Gaza Strip. to replace them." fertile land, · and erected barbed-wire the residents of some Jewish kibbutzes "It was a gripping scene," he wrote The colonization of the Rafa region fences around it. According to resi- in the surrounding area. They have . in .the May 15 issue of the Paris daily. began in 1969, when 1,500 hectares of dents of neighboring kibbutzes, the joined with the Arabs in protesting the "Women and children returning to land were expropriated. In January Israeli authorities plan to establish land seizures.

21 World Outlook

... Where does S. Vietnam stand? Where is it going? Continued from page 19 take some years to bring them close· "It is a delicate game to play. The said. "The new information is that the book.s." He said that the "decadent and enough to reunify the country," one Vietnamese have proclaimed thou­ Provisional Revolutionary Govern- . reactionary" books would be submitted senior official said. As for the people of sands of times since the start of their ment now has virtually nothing to say to a qualified. commission. Saigon, "It may take 20 or even 30 fight that they are one people, one in the South." Although Vietnamese leaders have years to change their thinking," said country. But their actual declarations But are there really any big disagree­ made it clear that the.establishment of · another official. on the subject of reunification ~re as ments between the North Vietnamese a workers state is not on the agenda in III. many practicaY ways links be- imprecise as one could imagine. Basi­ leaders and the leaders of the PRG? . the South, they have been much more . tween the two areas have already been cally, they would like the impossible: to Certainly, the North Vietnamese Com­ ambiguous in their pronouncements on repaired. Communications have ·been be 'one' an

Italian abortion petition tops 500,000 signatures By Estelle Cordano to five-year sentence in prison. The CJ> A worker who identified himself as a bill would make it punishable by a · CP member asked for leaflets to take NAPI,.ES-"Does the question of 100,000 lire fine (about US$160). The inside and said he would bring his abortion concern only women? No! It CP proposal would allow abortion only fellow workers to sign the petition. A concerns all the exploited. Let's sign under certain conditions-poverty, or few days ·later the factory Council of the referendum!" danger to the health of the woman­ Delegates at Alpha Sud passed a This is the heading on a leaflet - and then only if a commission of motion to support the referendum. The written by the Naples branch of the doctors and social advisers grants CP delegates voted for the motio]l. · Gruppi Comunisti Rivoluzionari permission. The requirements to get a referen­ (GCR-Revolutionary Corinl1unist The GCR leaflet says: "The fact is dum on the ballot are quite complicat­ Groups, Italian section of the Fourth that the CP wants to confront the ed. International). It is being distributed Christian Democrats and the Vatican The problem now is to force the city here as part of a national campaign in as little as possible. Thus it did not halls to process the signatures. Offi­ support of the effort to put a referen­ find the confliCt over the divorce laws cials in Rome and Naples say they can dum annulling Italy's ·anti-abortion pleasant, and it doesn't want a similar process only 500 signatures a day. This ' law on the ballot next fall. (See test of forces on the question of would make it impossible to meet the Intercontinental Press, February 17, p. abortion either." This would only make ninety-day deadline. Yet when the 217.) it more difficult for the CP to' bring Christian Democrats were collecting A total of 519,000 signatures has about its "historic compromise" -a signatures for the divorce referendum, already been collected. Supporters of popular-front government based on a 3,000 persons were hired in order to the referendum are continuing to CP-Christian Democratic coalition. process the signatures in just two days. collect signatures, however, to gain a Support for the abortion referendum The referendum is only the begin­ large margin over the 500,000 required. is strong among Italian workers of all ning of the fight for the right to The Communist party, the largest of political viewpoints, including sizable abortion. Under Italian law, referen­ the workers parties (1.5 million mem­ numbers of CP rank-and-filers. I saw dums can only be used to annul old . bers), has no official position on the an exaQtple of this in Naples as I laws. If the referendum wins, the Feferendum. Instead it has introduced watched members of the GCR passing Christian Democrats are prepared to into parliament a law that would out their leaflet at the Alpha Sud introduce new laws almost as reaction­ · Italian women demonstrate for abortion remove abortion from the criminal plant, an auto factory of 15,000 work­ ary as the old fascist laws. The fight to rights. Communist party opposes code but still forbid it. ers, where the CP has considerable make abortion legal and available to . campaign. Abortion is now punishable by a one- strength. all women must continue.

22 Gay pride demonstrations draw thousands By Steve Beren Parents of Gays. She stressed the need NEW YORK-Fifteen to twenty for unity in the gay movement despite thousand people marched from Sheri­ differences in politics and life-styles. dan Square up Sixth Avenue to Cen­ She got a favorable response from the tral Park here June 29 in the annual audience when she blasted the Catho­ Christopher Street Liberation Day gay lic church for its opposition to gay pride demonstration. .rights and its efforts to defeat Intro Among the groups participating in 554. the demonstration were the New York The high point of the rally was the Gay Activists Alliance, brandies of the introduction of four gays currently Metropolitan Community Church, Les­ serving in the armed forces. Each of bian Feminist Liberation, National those introduced received a prolonged Gay Task Force, -Gay Activists Alli­ standing ovation from the crowd. ance of New Jersey, Gay Youth, Bruce Voeller of the National Gay Parents of Gays, Mattachine Society, Task Force outlined the efforts of his Brooklyn Gay Alliance, Gay People at group, the American Civil Liberties Columbia, Gay People at Princeton, Union, and others to win equal treat­ and gay activist groups from Washing­ ment for gays in the armed forces arid ton, D.C.; North Carolina; Maine; and urged people to support them. Pennsylvania. There was also a con­ tingent representing Comunidad de CHICAGO-Gay Pride Week was Orgullo Gay of San Juan, Puerto Rico. capped off here June 29 with a parade Many people hawked the Gay Com­ and rally attended by 3,000 people. The munity News, a Boston-based biweek­ demonstrators marched through the Boston march drew 1,200 Gay Community News ly._ Others sold buttons and gave out city's near North Side and gathered for leaflets covering activities in defense a rally at Lincoln Park. Little it will be an inspiration to Boston Common. of Joanne Little, the struggle to pass Debby Adams, representing th.e women around the country." State Rep. Elaine Noble and Rita Intro 554 (the New York City gay Camejo-Reid campaign committee, told Other activities during Gay Pride May Brown, author of the best-selling rights bill), the gay rights amendment the crowd that the rights of gays Week included a rally of 150 at the book Rubyfruit Jungle, spoke at the introduced in Congress, and various "would :hot be won by depending• on Chicago Civic Center on June 24, a rally. literary and cultural events. politicians in Congress, state legisla­ picket line at the Cook County Jail, Deborah Clifford, Socialist Workers The Socialist Workers party marched tures, or city councils." and a series of social activities. A party candidate for Boston School with a banner that said, "Full Rights "What is needed," said Adams, "is a number of lesbian groups had declared Committee, marched in the action and for Gays-Pass Intro 554." Supporters massive movement of gays in the the same week Lesbian Pride Week, campaigned among the crowd. of the socialist presidential ticket of streets demanding equal rights and an organizing separate activities, demon­ In Los Angeles, several thousand Peter Camejo and Willie Mae Reid sold end to discrimination." ' strations, and workshops. people turned out for a June 29 parade, Militants and Young Socialists and Nancy Rosenstock, speaking for the while in San Diego a demonstration of passed out copies of the Socialist Joanne Little July 14 Committee, told BOSTON-June 21 marked the fifth 350 was held June 26. Workers party action program, "A Bill of plans to send Chicagoans to the annual gay pride march in Boston, Gay pride marches also took place in of Rights for Working People." opening of Joanne Little's trial in with 1,200 people taking part in a a number of other cities, including The keynote speaker at the Central Raleigh, North Carolina, July 14, three-mile march through the city's Providence, Rhode Island; Worcester, Park rally was Sarah Montgomery of saying, "If we win freedom for Joanne downtown section and a rally on the Massachusetts; and Pittsburgh. Court gets evidence in J.B. Johnson case By Nancy Makler 1970. In the course of the robbery, one ney requests, prosecuting attorney ST. LOUIS-On June 11 a brief of the men shot and killed a cop and Noel Robyn initially refused to make documenting efforts by the prosecuting was immediately apprehended. The police records of the incident available. attorney to suppress evidence favor­ second man fled. ' · Johnson's attorney finally received able to the defense of J .B. Johnson was The police arrested J.B. Johnson, copies of the requested records· three accepted for consideration by the who had nothing to do with the months after the trial. Missouri Supreme Court. Johnson, robbery, while Johnson was sitting in The suppression of important evi­ twenty-five, is a Black man now a taxicab. Police claimed Johnson was dence is only the most recently dis­ serving a life sentence on frame-up the second man involved in the rob­ covered incident in a parade of frame­ charges stemming from his alleged bery. up tactics used to convict Johnson. role in the killing of a cop. A routine police report of Johnson's Eyewitness Bakos also failed to pick The brief, presented by attorney arrest states that he was wearing a J.B. Johnson out of a police lineup. William Kunstler, was accepted over yellow sweater and green pants at the Bakos said, "All coloreds look alike to the objections of -Missouri Attorney time. me anyway." General John Danforth. Police reports, however, show that Robert Lee Walker, the man convict· The brief is based on discrepancies the jewelry store owner, Adam Bakos, ed of shooting the policeman, stated he between the statement given to the told police immediately after the rob­ had never seen J.B. Johnson before he police by an eyewitness immediately bery that the second man had worn got to the St. Louis County Jail. after the robbery at which the killing dark clothing. Bakos altered this took place and his later testimony at testimony when Johnson's case came The attorney general's office is the trial. · to trial more than two years later. At expected to file an answer to Kunstler's The agreement of the Missouri Su­ the trial, when asked what color jacket supplemental brief in late June. Mean­ preme Court to accept the supplemen­ the second man in the robbery had while the Committee to Defend J .B. tal brief came as the full court is worn, Bakos answered, "It was a John~on has pledged itself to continue considering whether it should uphold bright color . . . or should I say light­ getting out the facts on this case. an earlier decision by a partial panel of colored." Endorsements, donations, and re­ judges to grant Johnson a new trial. The defense was unable to challenge quests for information should be sent The frame-up of J.B. Johnson began St. Louis picketers support J.B. Johnson. this contradiction between Bakos's to the committee at Post Office Box minutes after two young· Black men Mo. Supreme ·Court is considering first and second accounts of the 4713, St. Louis, Missouri 63108. Tele­ robbed a jewelry store on January 23, whether to grant him new trial. robbery because despite defense attor- phone: (314) 725-0319.

By Arnold Weissberg Employers are able to pay substan­ In fact, undocumented workers are LOS ANGELES-A joint federal­ dard wages to undocumented workers forced to take jobs that no citizen Myths state program to deport undocumented because of the constant threat of depor­ would take-jobs with the worst condi­ workers ("illegal aliens") and have tation. tions and the lowest pay. U.S. citizens take their jobs has been Fred Brenner, head of the California Another myth was punctured here about labeled a failure by both federal and Employment Development Department when a special study by Los Angeles state authorities. here, said, "Almost all employers who County officials proved that the charge In June, the Immigration and Natu­ have lost illegals to the Immigration that "illegal aliens" are a burden on ralization Service (INS) deported 2,154 authorities say they don't want to use the welfare system is a complete fabri- 'illegal undocumented workers here. State our services, or give us substandard cation. - employment officials then contacted job orders to which we cannot .refer the former employers of those deport­ American citizens because they pay The county checked more than aliens' ed, offering them U.S. citizens as less than the minimum wage laws 14,000 noncitizen welfare recipients replacements. Nearly 99 percent re· allow or pay less than the wage rates and found only fifty-six undocumented · fused the offer. prevailing in their industries." workers receiving welfare. And of exposed Officials of the INS admit the The failure of this "employment" these, all but two were eligible under employers prefer undocumented work­ program underscores the emptiness of state law, which provides that any ers because they are easier to exploit the claim that the present massive needy person not under an order for than American citizens. deportations will help U.S. workers. deportation may get welfare.

THE MILITANT/JULY 18, 1975 23 Refuses to back ERA Communist party convention fails to select By Bruce Bloy and Joel Britton CHICAGO-The Communist party ended its twenty-first national conven­ tion without nominating a presidential slate. The CP had previously said it would announce its 1976 candidates at a rally here. The CP also emerged from its convention unable to take a posi­ tion on the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The decision not to launch ·a presi­ dential ticket leaves the Socialist Workers party candidates-Peter Camejo for president and Willie Mae Reid for vice-president-as the only working-class alternative to the Demo­ cratic and Republican candidates. Camejo-Reid supporters took their campaign on June 29 to the Interna­ tional Amphitheater, the site of the so­ called People's" Bicentennial Festival, the CP's postconvention rally. Angela Davis and CP General Secretary Gus Hall were the featured speakers. Also on the program were other CP leaders, several independent speakers, and various entertainers. The 3,000 people who filed into the amphitheater were handed the SWP's 1976 election platform-the "Bill of Rights for Working People." They were also given a copy of "Ten questions for Communist party leaders" from Peter Camejo and Willie Mae Reid. The "Ten questions" scored the U.S. Stalinists on a number of their policies. The CP leaders were asked to explain their refusal to: ti Back the SWP's suit against Militant/Charles Ostrofsky government repression. Angela Davis speaks to 'People's Bicentennial Festival.' Seated behind her are ranking CP officials. CP tried but failed • Join with antiracist forces in to fill amphitheater in attempt to duplicate big Stalinist rallies of the 1930s and 1940s. action to oppose the racist offensive in Boston. • Call for adoption of the Equal dress. monopoly of the two parties of the into all sides of the question and try to Rights Amendment. Hall called for "all progressives, ruling rich. come up with a resolution that takes • Stop supporting capitalist candi­ independents, and antimonopoly for­ Why didn't the CP launch a presi­ all questions into consideration." . dates of the Democratic party. ces to join in a dialogue now on how to dential campaign to promote its own Congress passed the ERA in 1972. · • Back Willie Mae Reid in last best put forward a people's alternative, brand of reformist politics? Early in Since that time it has been ratified by spring's mayoral race in Chicago. a common electoral front against the May the CP's Daily World announced thirty-four state legislatures. It has • Protest violations of socialist de­ monarchs of monopoly capital, against that the rally at the amphitheater been debated at least once by all fifty. mocracy in the Soviet Union. the Fords, Rockefellers, Jacksons, and would "feature the acceptance For a party claiming to be the van­ • Tell the full truth about the CP's Wallaces." speeches of the 1976 presidential and guard of the working class to be unable treacherous political record. vice presidential candidates to be to take a position at this late date is • Demand an end to the strikebreak­ The kind of "people's alternative" nominated by the convention." No nothing less than scandalous. ing role of the Portuguese CP. Hall has in mind is one or another explanation for changing this decision • Demand that Portuguese troops capitalist politician. Although the top was offered to the rally. No action perspective withdraw from Angola. U.S. Stalinist made passing reference Communist party leaders answered The "People's Bicentennial Festival" • Finally, the CP leaders were to the possibility of the "antimonopoly questions on this topic with reasons was strong on antiracist rhetoric but challenged to state their opinion of the forces" coming together in a third ranging from "1975 is not an election weak on specific projections. SWP's Bill of Rights for Working capitalist party, he didn't seem to year" to references to unspecified Angela Davis urged support for People. think that likely. The CP's "people's problems with election laws. Black victims of repression such as The CP leaders did not respond to alternative" for 1976 will most likely A more compelling reason might be Rev. Ben Chavis, the Wilmington the SWP's questions. However, some of be a Democrat-one with liberal views the CP's desire to wait for the major (North Carolina) Ten, and Joanne the answers equid be found in the on social issues and a "pro-detente" capitalist candidacies to take shape. Little. But she hardly mentioned the proceedings of the convention and the stance toward the CP's mentors in As HaH put it, "In spite of the fight for desegregated education in "Bicentennial Festival." Moscow. increasing activities, the electoral Boston. In their "Ten questions" Like the "monarchs of monopoly cap­ ·scene is still unsettled." Camejo and Reid, on the other hand, The 'people's alternative'? ital" singled out by Hall, his "people's Hall indicated that the question will called Boston "a national testing According to press accounts, Gus alternative"-whether it's Edward be taken up again. "Together with ground between racist and antiracist Hall opened the convention with a Kennedy or someone similar-would others we will hold an electoral cam­ forces." marathon four-and-a-half-hour ad- also be for maintaining the political paign and presidential nominating Activists from the Chicago chapter convention in the early part of next of the National Student Coalition year, and then we will organize the Against Racism distributed a packet of most massive political, ideological, and . several letters to those attending the Open letter says electoral campaign in our party's CP rally. Included was a copy of a history," he said. letter of resignation from NSCAR by the Young Workers Liberation League 'Free all political prisoners' (the CP's youth group). The YWLL "Freedom for all political pris­ National Convention of the Commu­ Equal Rights Amendment charged NSCAR with being "racist" oners!" was the title of an open nist Party (USA), we call upon you, The Communist party has in the on the eve of the highly successful letter distributed to people at­ the participants to join us in our past publicly opposed passage of the antiracist march in Boston May 17. tending the CP's activities in Appeal for an end to political repres­ Equal Rights Amendment-a constitu­ Sponsored by the NAACP, the action Chicago. It is printed below. sion. tional amendment that calls for an end was actively supported by NSCAR. Among the signers were Daniel We believe that political repression to discrimination based on sex. The NSCAR coordinators, as well as Berrigan, Phil Berrigan, Nat in any country and the imprison­ The CP is practically the only National Student Association Presi­ Hentoff, David McReynolds, ment of political opponents is in organization in the country, besides dent Kathy Kelly and Brown Universi­ Paul Mayer, Grace Paley, and contradiction to the program of your right-wing forces, standing in opposi­ ty Black student leader Christopher Studs Terkel. Mayer is active in party. We therefore, call upon you to tion to the ERA. "The controversy over Robinson, answered the YWLL the National Alliance Against join us in demanding the release of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) charges. Their letters were also in the Racist and Political Repression, political prisoners in the Soviet continues- including in the ranks of packet. of which Angela Davis is a Union, Spain, Ireland, Chile and our party," Hall admitted to the con­ At a time when working people face cochairperson and in which the Czechoslovakia. vention. rising unemployment and inflation, CP plays the central role. Although we cannot support the "So we mean to propose the only the CP also failed to chart any action views of certain prisoners, specifical­ possible solution at this time," Hall program for the labor movement. On the occasion of the Peoples ly of some in the U.S.S.R., we insist said. "That this convention instruct Instead, they pointed to detente with Bicentennial Festival and the 21st upon their right to civil liberties. the incoming central committee to set Moscow as the road to jobs for all. up a study task force that will go fully The CP announced that they were

24 Postal workers hold N.Y. rally '76 slate as deadline for· contract nears filing under the Freedom of Informa­ tion Act to obtain documents relating By Michael Lux NEW YORK-Two thousand postal to the FBI's "Operation Hoodwink," a workers attended a spirited, chanting recently revealed part of the FBI's rally and picket line in front of the "counterintelligence" operation. General Post Office here July 8 to "Hoodwink's" purpose was to provoke warn postal management that unless organized crime to attack the CP. contract negotiations produce a decent "This is only the beginning of our contract by July 21, 600,000 postal offensive," said Angela Davis. She workers will be forced to go on a called for reopening the Rosenberg nationwide strike. case and "all the Smith Act trials," which she termed "a plot by the The rally was the second in a series government to behead the Communist of demonstrations in New York City party, ending in the imprisonment of aimed at drawing attention to the foot dragging by United States Postal Gus Hall, Gil Green, and Henry Win­ ston." Service negotiators and the lack of any substantial offer by management. The The first Smith Act prosecutions old contract expires at midnight July were not aimed at the CP. They were aimed at the SWP, and the CP support­ 20. ed the government' in 1941 when it A rally of 300 to 400 postal workers indicted eighteen SWP members in at the main Brooklyn Post Office July Minneapolis. Davis didn't say whether 7 focused on the management proposal the CP's demand to reopen "all the to eliminate the "no layoff' clause, Smith Act trials" included the SWP which has been in the contract since 1971. trial. The July 8 demonstration in Man­ The CP claimed that 6,000 people hattan stretched two full blocks in were at the rally. These reporters MilitanVMichael Hardy front of the GPO. Postal workers from counted only 3,000 at the peak. Moe Biller, president of Metropolitan Area Postal Union, leads picket line in New York various New York postal unions, The CP spent many thousands of City during 1970 postal strike. Current contract expires at midnight July 20. dollars to subsidize transportation. including more than 500 upstate postal Buses from New York and other East workers, chanted "No contract, no work" and carried signs demanding can ratify, then we won't ratify it; and permanent incorporation of the cost-of­ Coast cities provided round-trip travel, "No layoffs-not negotiable," "Add if we have to go out on strike, then living adjustment into the contract, the for only ten dollars. The CP also ran elimination of the part-time substitute daily ads in the major Chicago news­ COLA to basic salary" (COLA is a that's exactly what we're going to do. papers. cost-of-living adjustment won in previ­ When we're out here next time, it'll be or "flexie" category, the area wage ous negotiations), to differential for higher cost urban The event was advertised not as a "No more subs-All stop people from going in there." workers, and the elimination of the CP rally but as a "People's Bicenten­ regulars,'~ "Substantial Pay Increase/' A major concern to most of the speedup implications of the highly nial Festival." Some of those who and many more. demonstrating postal workers was the proposed elimination of the "no layoff' touted "Kokomo plan." This speedup showed up at the amphitheater might The demonstration was sponsored not have really known what the whole jointly by the Metropolitan Area Post­ clause from the contract. Ralph Wolf, a plan threatens to eliminate 30,000 to 50,000 jobs through route increases thing was about. The Daily World al Union and the New York Letter mechanic at the Meadowlands Bulk and tour schedule changes. began promoting the rally under that Carriers, Branch 36. The purpose of Mail Facility in Kearny, New Jersey, Moe Biller, president of the 26,000- billing shortly after 25,000 turned out the demonstration was to mobilize the said: "They want to take away our 'no ranks of New York City postal workers layoff clause, which is vital to the member Metropolitan Area Postal for a "People's Bicentennial Union, pointed out in his speech to the Commission"-sponsored demonstra­ and prepare them for an anticipated survival of the workers. The postal rally: "The 'no layoff clause is a straw tion in Massachusetts. strike. corporation says that before they will man. It is a phantom that manage­ The "People's Bicentennial Commis­ In the words of Vincent Sombrotto, discuss anything at all with the sion" was understandably miffed. For president of the New York Letter contract, they want to first eliminate ment has conjured up to use as a Carriers: "We are giving a fair warn­ the 'no layoff clause. hammer over the heads of the negotia- · four years they had been organizing tors and to make them timid. But the an alternative to the official bicenten- ing, not only to the postal establish­ "The union says that it is not a ment, but also to the citizens of this negotiable issue and that if they do workers are not timid. You've shown . nial activiti~s. They felt the CP had fair country, that if there is a strike, today that the tycoons of postal stolen their name. A week before the want to eliminate it, we'll have to go management are playing with matches rally they filed a suit demanding that then it will rest on the shoulders of on strike. I support that wholehearted­ and we don't want an explosion. the CP stop using the term and pay those people at the bargaining table ly. I feel that if they tried to do that, "We're workers; no workers like a $10,000 in damages. representing management. One way to there would be a very, very strong assure a nationwide strike is to let the strike." · strike. Mr. Bailer [postmaster general] The "People's Bicentennial Festival" negotiations break down. . . . Although the overwhelming majori­ says that he doesn't mind a strike. was an attempt by the CP to recapture "I hope the people in Washington are ty of workers are concerned with the Well if he doesn't mind one, then we'll a bygone era, the late 1930s and 1940s. . wise enough not to tinker with this elimination of the "no layoff' provi­ have to be ready too. No contract, no The CP was then the predominant time bomb that's ticking in New York sion, other issues are also seen as work." force on the Left. Its supporters could City. They're not going to ge~ away important for the new contract. The The 2,000 postal workers cheered fill Madism~ Square Garden and the with what they're trying to do. . . . If union is demanding a substantial Biller and chanted, "No contract, no Hollywood Bowl. But on June 29 the we don't get a decent contract that we wage increase, the strengthening and work!" much smaller amphitheater was only half full. · In those earlier years the Stalinists claimed the allegiance of tens of thousands of members. Many thou­ Party Building Fund sands more sympathized with the CP and aided its efforts. The party played a key role in channeling the mighty labor radicalization away from an Drive reaches three-quarter mark independent political course and into have been made easier by what has support for the "people's alternative" By Barry Sheppard cities. Organizing efforts are underway As the scoreboard below indicates, been collected to date through the of the time, Franklin Roosevelt. in Baltimore and New Orleans, and we have collected almost three-fourths plans are being drawn up for SWP special Party Building Fund. Now, a of the $40,000 goal of the Socialist expansion into San Jose, California, final effort is needed to make our goal Repeat performance Workers party special Party Building and San Antonio, Texas. The Chicago on time. The message at the amphitheater Fund. This fund is based on the tax branch has decided to divide and to Send all or part of your tax rebate to: was clear. The CP is making itself rebate most workers have received. establish two branches in that city. SWP Party Building Fund, 14 Charles available for a repeat performance Supporters of the SWP have pledged All of these moves and other projects Lane, New York, New York 10014. during the new working-class radicali­ all or part of their rebates to the zation now opening up. struggle for socialism. After years of semi-underground The government has sent out most of functioning, the Stalinists have come the rebate checks by now. Those who Scoreboard more and more into the open. They have made pledges should be sure to have brought a layer of younger Area Collected Oakland/Berkeley 1,410.35 send them in soon. The fund will end 590.00 members into leadership positions in Philadelphia on July 31. In those cities where the Atlanta $474.20 Pittsburgh 595.00 the party, and the YWLL is a function­ pledges are being collected by the Boston 1,172.95 Portland, Ore. 560.00 ing youth group. branches of the Socialist Workers Brooklyn 3,097.14 St. Louis 1,168.75 But aborting the next wave of labor party, those responsible for collecting Chicago 1,540.33 San Diego 128.00 radicalism will not be as easy as it was them should make sure that this is Cleveland 894.85 San Francisco 680.00 the last time around. The revolution­ done. Denver 370.00 Twin Cities 831.95 ary socialists in the SWP and the YSA Some areas have fallen behind in Detroit 150.00 Upper West Side, N.Y. 1,723.55 are on a much more equal footing with collecting the pledges and will have to Houston 1,745.75 Washington, D.C. 1,902.27 the Stalinists than they were in past now make special efforts to catch up so L.A. (Central-East) 2,033.80 General 2,791.15 decades. They will be a strong competi­ that their pledge is met. L.A. (West Side) 978.25 Lower Manhattan, N.Y. 3,449.97 29,057.81 tor to the CP in the turbulent working­ Total One of the things the SWP plans to Milwaukee 769.55 Goal 40,000.00 class battles to come. use this fund for is expansion into new

THE MILITANT/JULY 18, 1975 25 union officials. He hinted that if the But when the final plenary session ci6n General del Trabajo-General AFL-CIO position was rejected, large­ convened, it became clear that the Confederation of Labor] local called off scale union funds now going to help NAACP leadership preferred not to the work stoppage. Nonetheless, pro­ Calendar the NAACP would be cut off. have an open discussion on the floor duction remained at a standstill in James Clark, an international repre­ on this topic. After some parliamen­ several metal plants; in Buenos Aires DENVER sentative of the UAW, observed poin­ tary stalling tactics, the resolution on there was a work stoppage of public FARM WORKERS FIGHT FOR UNlON RIGHTS. tedly that he and all twenty-five affirmative action came to the floor. employees in Mar del Plata and the UFW film, Fighting for Our Lives. Fri., July 18, 8 p.m. 1203 California. Donation: $1. Ausp: Militant members of the UAW international Between twenty and thirty delegates, regional CGT insisted on calling for Forum. For more information call (303) 623-2828. executive board hold NAACP life including a number of the organiza­ the ratification of the collective­ memberships, which involve $500 con­ tion's leaders, lined up to speak. bargaining agreements. . . . MILWAUKEE tributions. However, the first delegate on the list "In all sections of the Greater A MARXIST APPROACH TO THE LABOR One speaker, Debra Peterson, began MOVEMENT. A socialist summer school series. moved to amend the resolution to Buenos Aires industrial belt metallur­ Winning a Decisive Bailie. Sat., July 19, 1:30 p.m. by identifying herself as "a young remove all sections specifically men­ gical plants remained paralyzed, as 207 E. Michigan, Room 25. Donation: $1.50 for Black worker." She castigated the tioning seniority, including a sentence did textile firms in the_ La Matanza series, 25¢ per class. Ausp: SWP. For more NAACP for not joining in what she that read, "Any seniority system section. It should be-noted that in no information call (414) 289-9340. characterized as the massive cam­ which adversely penalizes minority case did the nationalleaderships of the PITTSBURGH paign for "jobs for all" that George employment and which is not job affected unions realize that . these PORTUGAL: TOWARD A SOCIALIST Meany is leading. If there was such a related (justified by business necessity) events were about to occur. REVOLUTION OR ANOTHER CHILE? Speaker: massive campaign, no doubt many at should be declared illegal and altered "SANTA FE-Yesterday morning Fred Stanton, Western Pennsylvania SWP the convention would have thrown in an ·equitable fashion." the employees of Fiat Concord in chairperson. Fri., July 18, 8 p.m. 3400 Fifth Ave. themselves into it. But unfortunately, None of the delegates who had lined Sauce Viejo held a mass meeting, (corner Halket). Donation: $1. Ausp: Militant Forum. For more information call (412) 682-5019. there's no such campaign. up to speak opposed an immediate which voted to carry out a stoppage of Peterson, it turns out, is a "worker" vote, and there was no significant indefinite duration. . . . SAN DIEGO employed on the staff of the League for opposition to passage of the resolution "The employees at Tool Research in JOANNE LITTLE MUST BE FREEl A panel Industrial Democracy, a conservative, as amended. Sauce Viejo also supported the shut­ discussion. Panel: Tamu Majadi, NIA Cultural Organization; Rita Butterworth, San Diego del Sur social-democratic front financed by the The amended resolution was present­ down, and the coordinating committee NOW; and Yvonne Hayes, Student Coalition pro-Meany Social Democrats, USA. ed as a "compromise," and some of bank workers decided to imolement Against Racism. Fri., July 18, 8 p.m. 4635 El Cajon One of the pressures bearing down opponents of the NAACP position a work-to-rule slowdown. . . ." Blvd. Donation: $1. Ausp: Militant Forum. For more on the NAACP to drop its affirmative­ claimed to support it. The amendment An article in the same issue of La information call (714) 280-1292. action position comes from the Demo­ had obviously been worked out in Naci6n reported on the situation in the SAN FRANCISCO cratic party. The NAACP has tradi­ advance to avoid a full-dress floor industrial center of Rosario: CRISIS IN ARGENTINA. Speaker: Roland tionally favored the formation of a fight. "Starting at 9:00 a.m. yesterday, Sheppard, SWP mayoral candidate. Fri., July 18, 8 "liberal-labor-Black" coalition behind But despite the talk about compro­ metalworkers who had been conduct­ p.m. 1519 Mission St. Donation: $1. Ausp: Militant Democratic candidates as the way mise, the resolution in its essence was Labor Forum. For more information call (415) 864- ing a strike and occupation demanding 9174. forward for Black people. a reaffirmation of the NAACP's posi­ -ratification of the collective-bargain­ In her keynote speech to the conven­ tion in defense of affirmative action ing agreements since the ·day before WASHINGTON, D.C. tion, Margaret Bush Wilson, chairper­ and in opposition to discriminatory yesterday began to leave the factories SOCIALIST CAMPAIGN RALLY. Speakers: Willie son of the NAACP board of directors, layoffs. and workshops. Contingents with Mae Reid, SWP vice-presidential candidate; Brenda pointed toward election of a Democrat­ This stand is all the more important Brdar, SWP school board ward 1 candidate. Sat., signs demanding the application of July 19, 7:30 p.m.: refreshments; 8 p.m.: rally. St. ic president in 1976 as the way to end given the fact that organizations that Law 14,250 [Ley de Contrato de Traba­ Stephens Church, corner 16th and Newton N.W. the depression and the new wave of ought to be taking a clear position on jo-Work Contract Law, giving work­ Donation: $2.50, students: $1.00. Ausp: Washington, racist attacks on Blacks. this question have recently either ers the right to demand redress of D.C .. SWP 1976 Campaign Committee. For more James Lewis, a functionary of the tabled resolutions for affirmative ac­ information call (202) 347-1317. grievances] converged on the head­ Steelworkers, told the workshop on tion (like the Atlanta convention of the quarters of the local UOM from dif­ affirmative action that the NAACP Coalition of Black Trade Unionists), or ferent points in the city. . . . Police should abandon its defense of affirma­ voted them down (as did the steering estimated the number of demonstra­ tive action "because the only one to committee of the Coalition of Labor tors between 3,500 and 4,000. benefit from it would be the Republi­ Union Women). "At the same time there was a mass ... NAACP can party." Lewis argued that insis­ Although this convention far from meeting of the local unit of the Sindi­ Continued from page 8 tence on opposing discriminatory lay­ ended the debate, it marked a defeat cato de Mecanicos y Afines del Trans­ The discussion period was dominat­ offs could prevent Blacks from uniting for the AFL-CIO bureaucrats and a porte Automotor [SMATA-Union of ed by these staff members. Ted Smith, with the labor bureaucracy to hustle victory for Blacks and women, and for Automotive Machinists and Allied a member of AFSCME from Detroit, votes for the Democrats in 1976. all working people. Trades], which had also voted for a attacked the NAACP for "making 'At a news conference the day before, work stoppage and occupation starting capital out of labor's difficulties" and Hill recognized the threat that the at noon the day before yesterday. making the job issue a "Black and NAACP's position represented to "the There was an air of expectancy and white situation." future of liberal coalition politics" in when they found out that the metal­ Smith neglected to mention efforts this country. He pleaded for liberals workers were already marching on the by white union bureaucrats to "make and labor to make concessions on this ... Peron CGT, SMATA voted hurriedly to send capital" out of job discrimination. issue in order to maintain the vote­ Continued from page 5 delegates to different plants to tell its A Steelworkers official, Nathaniel catching coalition for the Democrats. of the dissatisfaction with this wage members that they should leave their Lee from Youngstown, Ohio, made a The debate over affirmative action cut: workplaces and join the demonstra­ threat that was repeated by other continued throughout the convention. "In C6rdoba the CGT [Confedera- tion ...." Socialist Directory

ARIZONA: Tucson: YSA, c/o Glennon, S.U.P.O. ILLINOIS: Champaign: YSA, Room 284 lllini Union, brooke Ct., Kalamazoo, Mich. 49007. Tel: (616) PENNSYLVANIA: Edinboro: YSA, Edinboro State Box 20965, Tucson, Ariz. 85720. Urbana, Ill. 61801. 375-6370. College, Edinboro, Pa. 16412. CALIFORNIA: Berkeley-Oakland: SWP and YSA, Chicago: SWP, YSA, Pathfinder Books, 428 S. Mt. Pleasant: YSA, Box 51 Warriner Hall, Central Philadelphia: SWP, YSA, Pathfinder Bookstore, 1849 University Ave., Berkeley, Calif. 94703. Tel: Wabash, Fifth Floor, Chicago, Ill. 60605. Tel: Mich. Univ.• Mt. Pleasant, Mich. 48859. 1004 Filbert St. (one block north of Market), (415) 548-0354. SWP-(312) 939-0737; YSA-(312) 427-Q280, MINNESOTA: Minneapolis-St. Paul: SWP, YSA, Philadelphia, Pa. 19107. Tel: (215) WAS-4316. Long Beach: YSA, c/o Student Activities Office, Pathfinder Books-(312) 939-0756. Labor Bookstore, 25 University Ave. S.E., Mpls .. Pittsburgh: SWP, YSA, Pathfinder Press, 3400 Fifth CSU, 6101 E. 7th St., Long Beach, Calif. 90807. INDIANA: Bloomington: YSA, c/o Student Activities Minn. 55414. Tel: (612) 332-7781. Ave., Pittsburgh, Pa. 15213. Tel: (412) 682-5019. Los Angeles, Central-East: SWP, YSA, Militant Desk, Indiana University, Bloomington. Ind. MISSOURI: St. Louis: SWP, YSA, Pathfinder Books, Shippensburg: YSA, c/o Mark Dressier, Box 214 Bookstore, 710 S. Westlake Ave., Los Angeles, 47401. 4660 Maryland, Suite 17, St. Louis, Mo. 63108. Lackhove Hall, Shippensburg State College, Calif. 90057. Tel: SWP, Militant Bookstore-(213) Indianapolis: YSA, c/o Carole McKee, 1309 E. Tel: (314) 367-2520. Shippensburg, Pa. 17257. 483-1512; YSA-(213) 483-2581. Vermont St., Indianapolis, Ind. 46202. Tel: (317) NEW.. YORK: Albany: YSA, c/o Spencer Livingston, State College: YSA, 333 Logan Ave. #401, State Los Angeles, West Side: SWP and YSA, 230 637-1105. 317 State St., Albany, N.Y. 12210. College, Pa. 16801. Broadway, Santa Monica, Calif. 90401. Tel: (213) KANSAS: Lawrence: YSA, c/o Christopher Starr. Brooklyn: SWP and YSA, 136 Lawrence St. (at TENNESSEE: Nashville: YSA, P.O. Box 67, Station 394-9050. 3020 Iowa St., Apt. C-14, Lawrence, Kans. 66044. Willoughby), Brooklyn, N.Y. 11201. Tel: (212) 596- B, Nashville. Tenn. 37235. Tel: (615) 383-2583. Los Angeles: City-wide SWP and YSA, 710 S. West~ Tel: (913) 864-3975 or 842-8658. 2849. lake Ave., Los Angeles, Calif. 90057. Tel: (213) KENTUCKY: Lexington: YSA, P.O. Box 952 Univer­ New York City: Citx·wide SWP and YSA, 706 TEXAS: Austin: YSA, c/o Arnold Rodriguez, 901 483-0357. sity Station, Lexington, Ky. 40506. Tel: (606) 266- Broadway (4th St.), Eighth Floor, New York, N.Y. Morrow, Apt. 303, Austin, Tex. 78757. Riverside: YSA, c/o U. of Cal. Campus Activities, 0536. 10003. Tel: (212) 982-4966. Dallas: YSA, c/o Steve Charles, 3420 Hidalgo #201, 234 Commons, Riverside, Calif. 92507. LOUISIANA: New Orleans: YSA, Box 1330 U.N.O., Lower Manhattan: SWP, YSA, and Merit Bookstore. Dallas, Tex. 75220. Tel: (214) 352-6031. Sacramento: YSA, P.O. Box 20669, Sacramento, New Orleans, La: 70122. 706 Broadway (4th St.), Eighth Floor, New York, Houston: SWP, YSA, and Pathfinder Books, 3311 Calif. 95824. MA"RYLAND: Baltimore: YSA, P.O. Box 4314, N.Y. 10003. Tel: SWP, YSA-(212) 982-6051; Merit Montrose, Houston, Tex. 77006. Tel: (713) 526- San Diego: SWP, YSA, and Militant Bookstore, ~35 Baltimore, Md. 21223. Tel: (301) 247-8911. Books (212) 982-5940. 1082. El Cajon Blvd., San Diego, Calif. 92115. Tel: (714) Upper West Side: SWP, YSA, Pathfinder Bookstore, San Antonio: YSA, c/o Andy Gonzalez, 2203 W. 280-1292. MASSACHUSETTS: Boston: SWP and YSA, c/o 2726 Broadway (104th St.), New York, N.Y. Houston, San Antonio, Tex. 78207. San Francisco: SWP, YSA, Militant Labor Forum. Militant Labor Forum, 655 Atlantic Ave., Third 10025.Tel: (212) 663-3000. UTAH: Logan: YSA, P.O. Box 1233, Utah State and Militant Books, ·1519 Mission St., San Floor, Boston. Mass. 02111. Tel: SWP-(617) 482- Ossining: YSA, c/o Scott Cooper, 127-1 S. Highland University, Logan, Utah 84321. Francisco, Calif. 94103. Tel: SWP-(415) 431- 8050; YSA-(617) 482-8051; Issues and Activists Ave .• Ossining, N.Y. 10562. WASHINGTON, D.C.: SWP, YSA, Militant Book­ 8918; YSA-(415) 863-2285; Militant Books-(415) Speakers' Bureau (IASB) and Regional NORTH CAROLINA: Greenville: YSA. P.O. Box store, 1345 ESt. N.W., Fourth Floor, Wash., D.C. 864c9174. Committee-(617) 482-8052; Pathfinder Books­ 1693, Greenville, N.C. 27834. Tel: (919) 752-6439. 20004. Tel: SWP-(202) 783-2391; YSA-(202) San Jose: YSA, 96 S. 17th St., San Jose, Calif. (617) 338-8560. OHIO: Bowling Green: YSA, P.O. Box 27, University 783-2363. 95112. Tel: (408) 286-0615. Worcester: YSA. Box 229, Greendale Station, Hall, Bowling . Green State University, Bowling WASHINGTON: Bellingham: YSA and Young So­ Santa Barbara: YSA, P.O. Box 14606, UCSB, Santa Worcester, Mass. 01606. Green, Ohio 45341. cialist Books, Rm. 213, Viking Union. Western Barbara, Calif. 93107. MICHIGAN: Ann Arbor: YSA, Room 4103, Mich. Cincinnati: YSA, c/o Charles R. Mitts. 6830 Buck­ Washington State College, Bellingham, Wash. COLORADO: Denver: SWP, YSA, and Militant Union, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich. ingham Pl., Cincinnati, Ohio 45227. 98225. Tel: (206) 676-3460. Bookstore, 1203 California, Denver, Colo. 80204. 48104. Tel: (313) 663-8766. Cleveland: SWP and YSA, 2300 Payne, Cleveland, Seattle: SWP, YSA, and Militant Bookstore, 5623 Tel: SWP-(303) 623•2825; YSA-(303) 893-8360. Detroit: SWP, YSA, Eugene V. Debs Hall, 3737 Ohio 44114. Tel: (216) 861-4166. University Way N.E .. Seattle, Wash. 98105. Tel: FLORIDA: Tallah- YSA, P.O. Box U-6350, Woodward Ave., Detroit, Mich. 48201. Tel: (313) Columbus: YSA, c/o Margaret Van Epp, 670 (206) 522-7800. Tallahassee, Fla. 3.2313. 831-6135. Cuyahoga Ct., Columbus, Ohio 43210. Tel: (614) WISCONSIN: Madison: YSA, P.O. Box 1442, Madi­ GEORGIA: Atlanlr. Militant Bookstore, 68 Peach­ Eut Lansing: YSA, First Floor Student Offices, 268-7860. ' son, Wis. 53701. Tel: (608) 238-6224. tree St., N.E., Third Floor, Atlanta, Ga. 30303. Union Bldg., Michigan State University, East OREGON: Portland: SWP and YSA, 208 S.W. Stark, MilWaukee: SWP, YSA, 207 E. Michigan Ave., Rm. SWP and YSA, P.O. Box 846, Atlanta, Ga. 30301. Lansing, Mich. 48823. Tel: (517) 353-0660. Fifth Floor. Portland, Ore. 97204. Tel: (503) 226- 25, Milwaukee, Wis. 53202. Tel: SWP-(414) 289- Tel: (404) 523-061'0. Kalamazoo: YSA, c/o Gail Altenburg, 3511 Ken- 2715. 9340; YSA-(414) 21!9-9380.

26 rder todayl~-----....._. Socialist campaign buttons available __Camejo photo button (35 cents each; 20 cents each for 50 or more; 15 cents each for 500 or more) · __Reid photo .button (35 cents each; 20 cents each for 50 or more; 15 cents each for 500 or more) __ Vote SWP button (30 cents each; 20 cents each for 50 or more; 15 cents each for 300 or more) __Jobs for All! button (50 cents each; 25 cents each for 20 or more) __Education Is a Right! Stop the Cutbacks! button (50 cents each; 30 cents each for 50 or more; 25 cents each for 200 or more) __ Capitalism Fouls Things Up button (35 cents each; 20 cents each for 50 or more; 15 cents each for 200 or more)

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Teamster Politics LOS ANGELES----"' by Farrell Dobbs Annual The 1930s was an era of intense working-class struggle. Nowhere was this more true than in Minnesota, where rank-and-file Teamsters waged a shish kebab historic. struggle that transformed an open shop stronghold into union territory. Teamster Politics is the story of how SATURDAY, JULY 19. Los -unions defended their democratic rights against FBI frame-ups Angeles annual shish kebab. -Minnesota Teamsters spearheaded a united struggle for jobs against Menu includes: hummus, salad, drastic WPA layoffs shish kebab, pilaf, Syrian hot -revolutionaries fought for independent political action in the unions and sauce, and pita. Refreshments, 4 the Farmer Labor Party• p.m.; dinner, 6-8 p.m. 1321 Palms Coming Soon -an organizing drive by the Silver Shirts, an American fascist group, was Blvd., Venice. Donation: $5; $2.50 stopped cold by Local 544's Union Defense Guard for h.s. students. Ausp: Socialist -the Minnesota unemployed movement combated the brutal repression Workers party. For more Capitalism ordered by "friend of labor" Franklin D. Roosevelt as he prepared to enter information or reservations call in Crisis World War II (213) 394-9050 or (213) 483-1512. This is the third book in a four-volume series and will be available in by Dick Roberts bookstores in September. Mail orders being accepted now. 256 pp., cloth • Why has the government $10.00, paper $2.95 been unable to control the inflation with Keynesian A/so by Farrell Dobbs: economic policies? • What are the roots of the energy crisis which threaten a TEAMSTER REBELLION new Mideast war over oil? "Most readers will be fascinated with this insider's vivid account of these • Are we in the early stages [1934 Minneapolis] strikes which captured the attention of the nation and Why Women of worldwide depression and significantly influenced the course of American working class history."­ mass unemployment like the the Minneapolis Tribune. Published in 1972. 192 pp., cloth $6.95, paper 1930s? $2.25 Roberts demystifies the . Need the government's economic policies TEAMSTER POWER and explores th~ reasons for the Equal Rights crises and periodic breakdowns "Dobb's Trotskyist views pervade this book as they did his thinking in the of the world capitalist system. 1930s, when he was widely respected as an expert union strategist and Appendix, Biblio~aphy, and negotiator. His capabilities are reflected in his writing, which is Amendment Guide tO Further Reading. characterized by a sensitivity to the dynamics of class conflict. Teamster 128 pp,. cl. $6, pa. ~1.95 By Dianne Feeley Power is a vivid and persuasive book."-Labor History. Published in 1973. order from 255 pp., cloth $8.95, paper $2.95 Includes "The Case for the Equal Pathfinder Press Rights Amendment" and "What Are 410 West Street MONAD PRESS BOOKS Equal Rights?" 16 pp., $.35. New York, N.Y. 10014 exclusively distributed by PATHFINDER PRESS, INC. Order from Pathfinder Press, 410 410 West St., New York, N.Y. 10014 West Street, New York, N.Y. 10014.

THE MILITANT/JULY 18, 1975 27 THE MILITANT Joanne little: ' ymbol for Blacks & women' By Martha Pettit only element of 'Southern justice' that DETROIT-"There is no woman has been shown in this case." victimized by this society today who "The grand jury that indicted cannot identify with Joanne Little," Joanne was chosen from lists that Willie Mae Reid told a rally here June deliberately excluded Blacks, young 28. people, and women," Reid said. "But it "Because she is standing up and didn't exclude Alligoods-a member of fighting back, Sister Joanne -has be­ the dead jailer's own family sat on that come a symbol for Blacks and women, grand jury!" a symbol like Rosa Parks was back in Reid also pointed to a survey of 1955, when she had the guts to say, 'I attitudes among whites in Beaufort refuse to submit to the continuing County done by the defense. "One harassment of this system.' " question they asked was, 'Does a Reid, the 1976 vice-presidential can­ woman have the right to defend herself didate of the Socialist Workers party, against sexual attack?' The response told the rally of campaign supporters was an overwhelming 'Yes.' that she will attend the opening days "Then they asked, 'Does a Black of Little's trial in Raleigh, North Caro­ woman have the right to defend herself lina. when the attacker is white?' The The trial of the twenty-one-year old response was again overwhelming, Black woman starts July 14. She is overwhelmingly 'No.' charged with first-degree murder in the "In other words, a hundred years stabbing death of a white jailer, after slavery, and ten years after the · Britton Clarence Alligood. Socialist vice-presidential candidate Willie Mae Reid (left) with Joanne Little (right) at end of Jim Crow, we Black women are Last August 27, armed with an ice recent Chicago defense meeting. still treated today like a pound of flesh, pick, Alligood entered Little's jail cell to be used, abused, and then cast aside. in Washington, North Carolina. In the "If it takes millions of people to free course of trying to rape the young Reid told Detroit supporters, "there paying jobs," Reid said in an interview Joanne, then we must move millions in prisoner, he was stabbed with the pick, wasn't a single person who hadn't after the rally. "She worked as a her support. I personally pledge the and he was found dead the next heard of Joanne Little. When I stood waitress and as a garment worker. energies of my campaign to help build morning. Little fled, but later surren­ up and talked about the case, women When she finally landed a halfway the kind of massive, united defense dered to state authorities. responded overwhelmingly. Blacks decent-paying job as a Sheetrock effort that is needed." If convicted, she will receive a responded overwhelmingly. finisher, it didn't last long. mandatory death sentence, joining "The people who are contributing "Joanne was also a victim of racist about seventy-five other inmates on funds to support Joanne are the justice, you see. She was picked up North Carolina's death row. ordinary people in this society," she several times on shoplifting charges. "There are going to be protests pointed out, "the people who give that Then in January 1974, she and her On-the-spot across the country iJJ. support of one dollar or five dollars to ensure that brother Jerome were arrested for Joanne when her trial begins," Reid she gets a hearing. And that's partly breaking and entering." trial reports becau.3e Joanne is herself one of those said, "so those officials will know it's The Militant is sending the head ordinary people, a typical Black wom­ Little was given a court-appointed not Joanne Little who is on trial, but of our Washington Bureau, Cindy an abused by this society." the racist, sexist judicial system of attorney, while her brother was de­ Jaquith, to Raleigh, North Carolina, North Carolina. Joanne is the victim Little gr~w up in Washington, North fended by a lawyer named John to cover the Joanne Little trial. Carolina, the oldest of nine children. Wilkinson. Wilkinson advised Jerome in this case, not the criminal, and she Don't miss our on-the-spot, weekly must be set free!" She attended the segregated schools of to turn state's evidence against his reports on this important case­ Beaufort County, where Blacks are a sister, which he did. The result was Reid has made the defense of Little a beginning with next week's issue. third of the population. When she major focus of her campaign speaking that Joanne Little was sentenced to You can get an introductory sub­ tours on the West Coast and in the dropped out of school at the age of seven to ten years in jail, while her scription to the Militant for two Midwest. Addressing women's groups, fifteen, she was sent to a school for brother received a suspended sentence. months for just one dollar. Send Black organizations, students, and "truants.'' "Today, this same John Wilkinson your dollar to the Militant, 14 "Like myself and millions of other working people, she has found a warm has been hired by the Alligood family Charles Lane, New York, New York response to Little's case. Black women in the South, Joanne as a special prosecutor at Joanne's 10014. "At every campus meeting I had," was doomed to the dirtiest, lowest- trial," Reid noted. "And this is not the 25,000 sign SWP etitions in Mich. DETROIT-In her opening re­ glad to, and explained why: marks to the June 28 rally here, "I know that your Young Social­ Willie Mae Reid, Socialist Workers ists were up on our picket lines party candidate for vice-president, [during the Crestwood teachers' congratulated her campaign sup­ strike] helping out, and we really porters for making Michigan the appreciated that. And I know that first state to collect enough signa­ the Young Socialists are connected tures to put the SWP on the ballot in to the Socialist Workers party." 1976. Many Black women, and men, Twenty-five thousand signatures were especially glad that a Black were obtained in a three-week drive. woman had decided tp run for office: Some 9,500 of these were obtained by One young Black woman said, a team of eight full-time volunteers. "Sure, if she wants to run, then I This team went to unemployment want to help her." lines, downtown areas, the Black Others wanted to know more community, and college campuses to about the SWP before signing. When gather signatures. told that the party's candidates were Petitioners found that interest ran campaigning for dropping the high in the socialist campaign. charges against Joanne Little, for One campaign worker approached ending the racist attacks on desegre­ a middle-aged woman in Dearborn, a gation in Boston, and for a massive white suburb, and asked for her public works program to end unem­ signature to put the SWP en. the ployment, many signed the petitions Many people signed socialist ballot petitions immediately when told of SWP's support ballot. The woman said she'd be immediately. -M~P. for Joanne Little, desegregation, and jobs for all.