, Australasian ,. -~. ~

Number 75 July 1980 30 CENTS Smash apartheid - For workers revolution! r

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Club-wielding/South African police drag off militant anti-apartheid demonstrators In Soweto, 1980

Once again black South Africa is rising June 20. Those are the government's are more cautious, dissolving their development" and are throwing in their up against its oppressors. After two figures and South African newspapers demonstrations when the killer cops and lot with the black majority, even to the months of the largest and most militant and hospitals report that the real toll is at troops arrive. For its part, the govern­ point of rejecting the label of "coioured" anti-apartheid struggles since the student least twice as high. Panicked by the ment of Prime Minister Pieter Botha is and identifying themselves as "blacks". protests of June 1976, black and' upsurge of the oppressed majority, which wary of provoking another uprising by The strikes and protests around the "coloured" (mixed race) workers and outnumbers the privileged whites by randomly mowing down hundreds of coloured students' boycott (see "Black students are marking the fourth anniver­ more than five-to-one, the Pr~toria schoolchildren. But a distinguishing Upsurge in South Africa" , Workers sary of the Soweto massacre with strikes regime has put the regular army on a war feature ofthe current upsurge, one which Vanguard no 258, 13 June) grew in size and demonstrations throughout the alert - something that was not done is crucial to the success of the anti­ and intensity after police viciously country. From the coloured townships of even in 1976. In an effort to cover up their apartheid battles, is the central role being attacked demonstrators commemorating Cape Town to the auto plants of Port murderous repression and the extent of played by organized black and coloured . the June 16 Soweto anniversary. Elizabeth, from the sprawling slums the unrest, the apartheid rulers have workers in Cape Town, Durban and Port Shotgun-wielding cops wounded at least around Johannesburg to the Indian banned reporters from "trouble spots". Elizabeth. 20 persons on the 16th in Soweto as black Ocean docks of Durban, the victims of the But no amount of official censorship can Also il\lportant has been the vanguard youths defied the government's ban on apartheid system are defying heavily hide the fact that the oppressed masses of role played by coloured students, who public gatherings. In Cape Town a one­ armed cops and troops and demanding an South Africa are militantly challenging began this spring's actions with a nation­ day "stay at home" general strike was end to racist rule. apartheid rule. wide boycott of schools to protest inferior honoured by about three-quarters of the The South African army and police, The shadow of Soweto hangs over both education. Reports from South Africa workforce and in the city's textile fac­ who slaughtered more than 600 young the white rulers and the black masses in agree that many of the young coloured tories up to 90 percent of the workforce protesters four years ago in Soweto, this the current struggles. Black students, generation are rejecting their traditional stayed home. In the coloured townships time shot to death well o,ver 32 persons who four years ago marched headlong status as a relatively privileged inter­ in the Cape Town Flats, cops repeatedly and wounded 175 between June 16 and into the automatic weapons fire, today mediate group in apartheid's "separate continued on page 8

" (, SydneylUni : militant nails feminist lies

In the May issue of Australasian articles be printed. This was followed a feminists, scabbed during PKIU and women's refuges. This is nothing but Spartacist we carried an article exposing week later by another letter (reprinted metai workers' strikes this year. BuL slander! The Spartacist Club does not the feminists at Sydney University who below) by Spartacist supporter Ljnda it's not only that these people scabbed, oppose women's refuges, but rather calls had scabbed on a metal workers' strike at Menzie, nailing the various slanders some wrote an anonymous letter to for state funding to provide such refuges John Fairfax and Sons on 8 March, dredged up against the Spartacist League Honi Soit apologising for the scabbing on a wide scale under the control of staff International Women's Day. When the and exposing just why feminism leads to - without the courage to sign their and users. We also demand free quality Sydney University Spartacist Club (SC) strikebreaking. Until recently Menzie names to it. The Sydney University health care for all, free quality 24 hour first raised this issue, the feminists on worked as a clerk at Fairfax, and during feminists helped to cover for the scabs, child care and socialisation of housework. campus rushed to cover for their scab the January strike had refused on prin­ no one would name them! To condemn Such gains for women which undercut r "sisters", refused to name who else was ciple to cross PKIU picket lines. In the scabs without identifying them means the repressive role of the nuclear family involved. and outrageously censored an face of these protests, the Honi Soit nothing. If· scabs merely have to can only be guaranteed by a workers article submitted to the student news­ editorial crew have since backed off from apologise for their actions, what is to stop revolution to smash capitalism and paper Honi Soit (see ASp no 73, May playing the role of political censors - a them from doing it again? The working establish socialism. To ensure this there 1980). Under considerable pressure to small victory, but an important one, for class has a long tradition of "persuad­ must be struggle' to politicise women preserve the tattered remnants of her those who value both the truth and the ing" people not to scab - it's not a around concrete issues for example the "Ieft" reputation, "Marxist" feminist program of revolutionary Marxism. matter of arguing with people who walk scabbing question, to pit them against Margaret Kirkby revealed to us the across picket lines and work for a capitalist society. names of some of the scabs: Heather * * * company that' their fellow workers are Who really fights for women's McGillivray, Divna Dokmanovic and 17 June 1980 striking. against - it's a matter of liberation? There was a cartoon in Erin Crumblin, in addition to Honi Soit The Editors, keeping them out with mass pickets. Honi Soit (9 June 1980) depicting managing editor Siobhan Mullany. I ama supporter of the Spartacist Picket lines mean don't cross, and "Today's Sparts, tomorrow's Mullahs". But Kirkby is nothing if not anti­ League and a member of the Federated struck shops mean don't work! This is an outrage! The Spartacist Club Spartacist, S(') it wasn't a surprise when Clerks Uriion who went out in solidarity It's no accident that·dhe feminists has been the only group on campus to the 28 April issue of Honi Soii\carried a with the PKIU during their strike in have tried to cover up - most of the oppose Khomeini coming to power in letter by her containing a number of snide January 1980 at John Fairfax & Sons. My scabs were feminists and it's a sore point Iran, as nothing but a religious anti-communist slurs against us. But union (FCU) was not out on strike, but I to have "sisters" exposed as scabs. But reactionary. We called for "Down with when the SC then submitted a reply consider it an important working class because feminist ideology sees "patri­ the Shah! Down with the Mullahs! For rebutting Kirkby's smears, this too was principle to honour another union's archy" as the main enemy, not class workers revolution in Iran!" and suppressed with the Director of Student picket line. Not only that but at Fairfax society, it is perfectly consistent with supported the Red Army incursion into Publications, Carl Heid, a Communist there are several unions and the craftist feminism to scab on strikers who are Afghanistan. We particularly focused on Party (CP) supporter taking responsi­ divisions run deep. For example, in the mainly male and do not seem to be the position of women in both. of these bility for the censorship. The reason: the recent journalists' strike the AMWSU, fighting for women's issues. However, situations. Khomeini'$<, regime means tetter mentioned CP-supporter Peter FIA, ASE, OPGU, and ATEA came out in during the recent AJA strike when women must wear the oppressive head to Reid's claim that the CP had passed an support-of the journalists' picket, but the picket lines were set up, all of the women toe veil and are treated as nothing more internal motion condemning the scabs. PKIU was split 'over the issue and the proofreaders at Fairfax, some of whom than cattle. The same would be the case Later another CP supporter. Mick FCU, ETU and TWU went to work as are feminists, came out in respect of the if the rebels took power in Afghanistan. Segretto, informed the SC that this usual. It is essential for the victory of picket. As workers they are objectively Apparently these feminists are not motion had been rescinded. To crown any strike at Fairfax that all unions are forced to see the importance of unionism interested in the oppression of women in this, Reid then told us that both lines out. The issue is clear for any working and union principles, the most important these countries! were "factually incorrect" - hence the class militant - picket lines are blood of these being, you don't scab. Only the Spartacist Club on this censorship ofthe article! lines in the struggle of the working class, Unable to rebut the Spartacist Club's campus has consistently fought for a In response to a Spartacist Club likewise one does not work in a struck expose of the scabbing, some feminist class-struggle program to end the demand that the censorship in Honi shop, whether there is a picket line or responded, again anonymously in the oppression of women and smash the stop, four students wrote letters to the 16 not! It is clearly scabbing to do so! pages of Honi Soit (16 June 1980). A capitalist state. Join the Spartacist Club! June issue of Honi Soit, opposing the I was disgusted by the fact that a vicious, cowardly unsigned letter charges censorship and demanding that our number of students, some of whom were the Spartacist Club with opposing Linda Menzie Defend rights of socialist paper sellers I

Drop charges against the Socialist Press Defence Committee name is John Hines and his party number number of members and supporters of Brian McGahen! (SPDC) also mentions harassment of is 2468. the SPA, when they heard about what Socialist (Socialist Party - SPA) sellers had happened, agreed that this sort of The incident occurred on Saturday On 13 December 1979, Communist in Bankstown, and the arrest of two action was dangerous to the left. I pointed people for selling the pro-Qaddafi morning (approx. 10.20 am), 21 June out to them as I point out to you of the Party (CPA) supporter Brian McGahen 1980, on Darling St., Balmain opposite was accosted by four railway cops while Workers News outside Leichhardt CPA branch executive, that the Spartacist Marketown. The publishers of the latter Woolworth's supermarket. Hines was League participated in the defence at the selling Tribune at his usual spot outside selling Tribune and I approached him to Sydney's Central railway station, paper, the "Socialist Labour League", recent Indo-China Solidarity Conference have placed themselves outside the swap papers - I sell Australasian and that if there was violence, it should dragged protesting away and arrested for Spartacist once a month near to where he allegedly selling Tribune on railway workers movement by acting as political not be between ourselves but with our agents of the fanatically Islamic tyrant of was selling. He did not want to swap, so I groups together defending the movement property without a licence. In fact showed him an article we had on the capitalist Libya. However, their reported from the attacks of rightists. Tribune has been sold in that spot - off CPA/SPA "unity" and Afghanistan. We arrest constitutes an attack on democratic railway property - for some five years. had a bit of an argument over our differ­ I saw that Brian McGahen was arrested rights by the capitalist state, and we call This frame-up is an anti-communist ences. Then he told me to "fuck off"; I for selling Tribune in a public place. The for dropping the charges against them as attack on the democratic rights of the replied he couldn't make me go. He Spartacist League protests the cop well. entire labour movement. We demand threatened to kick me in the balls and did . harassment of Brian McGahen and wilL The SPDC is backed by both the CPA that all charges against Brian McGahen so. I protested that it was a dangerous join in protesting cop action against him. be dropped immediately! and the SPA, both groups with a history But violence within the workers move­ of gangsterism against their opponents and stupid thing to do and that it was no A leaflet defending McGahen issued by way to carry out political struggle; it ment, including down at Balmain where I within the left (see accompanying letter). have sold Australasian Spartacist for Complementing this cowardly bullying is would be no good for him, the CPA or the left as a whole. As I protested he grabbed nearly two years, will make us all easy Al.lStr'alBlnI--~ their support for the SPDC's reformist prey for police harassment. strategy of pathetic pleas "asking" the at me three times - arguing that [SPARTAOST (il) railway cops' boss, NSW Labor minister violence was a legitimate tactic to use Harry Black, the SPA Sydney organ­ for transport Peter Cox, "to direct" them against leftists. He falsely cited the iser, who sells regularly not too far from Revolutionary Marxist monthly of the Bolshevik struggle against their op­ where I sell, also objected to Hines' Spartacist League of Australia and New to "withdraw the charge" and leave the left press alone. The way to defend the ponents within the workers movement. behaviour. It was suggested by a member Zealand, section of the international He took what I said as a personal threat of the SPA that I complain directly to Spartacist tendency, for the rebirth of the rights of labour is to mobilise mass action and demanded to know where I lived - I Fourth International. by the workers movement, not crawling Laurie Aarons. On Tuesday night, refused to tell him and he replied that he 24 June 1980, I went to the CPA office EDITORIAL BOARD: to the ALP ministers currently in charge had many non-communist friends from and asked to see a party official. I saw James Shaughnessy (Managing of the bosses' cops and courts. Defend Editor), Doug Fullarton, Steve Hooper Balmain he could count on. He also stated Warwick Neilly and he said that Hines the' left and labour press against cop (Melbourne correspondent), Chris his name and party number and said that had reported the incident and that if I Korwin, David Reynolds; Ron Sperling, harassment! Linda Brooke (production). the CPA would support him. I said that if wanted it checked out by the party that I CIRCULATION: Toni Somerset. was not a threat and that I could not see write a letter stating the facts, and Printed by trade union labour. Registered Down with CPA thuggery! the CPA condoning such provocative and address it to the branch executive who at the GPO, Sydney for posting as a dangerous violations of workers democ­ would deal with it on Thursday night, The following letter was delivered to the publication - Category B. Subscriptions racy. A comrade of mine who was selling 26 June 1980. I have done so, and would Sydney branch executive of the $3 for 11 issues; airmail $5 for 11 issues across the street and who saw Hines grab like a written reply. Does the CPA (except Europe/North America), $10 for Communist Party of Australia ·(CPA) condone Hines' action of physically 11 issues (Europe/ North America). prior to its 26 June meeting. To date me at least once, came over to me and suggested we move away from him. We assaulting me? Does the CPA think Address all correspondence to: Spartacist there has been nQ_ reply. Publications, GPO Box 3473, Sydney, did so. violence is a legitimate tactic in the NSW, 2001. Telephone (02) 235-8115. Sydney political struggle within the workers Opinions expressed in signed articles or 2S June, 1980 We went to our selling spots and movement? We await your reply. letters do not necessarily express the To the Executive of the Sydney Branch of everyone I sold to I told what had editorial viewpoint. the CPA happened. They did not like it at all. Fraternally, Printed by Eastern Suburbs, Rand­ Bret S. wick, NSW. I am protesting to you about the violent Hines sent a woman who gave me a note behaviour of a member of the CPA. His with his name and party number on it. A for the Spartacist League 2 Australasian $,pal'tac;ist 1976= How white students backed Soweto uprising

The current strike wave of black and and of course at the extremely violent marched back to the campus most of the central orientation towards the black coloured (mixed race) workers in South butchery of blacks by the South African black workers remained in the city. working class because of their massive Africa takes place on the fourth police in Soweto. But this outrage was not Coming back across a bridge, across a social weight and capacity not simply to anniversary of the 1976 Soweto uprisings. simply confined to the radical liberals, railway line, the marchers were sealed off get rid ofthe barbarities of apartheid, but The following recollection of those but even extended to the more by police on the bridge. Some students take the struggle forward to socialism. events contains a first-hand account of conservative liberals. For example, even jumped off, down onJo the railway lines The power of the black working class was the responses of sections of the white the vice chancellor decided to close the and were then attacked by white railway illustrated in a small way in the Durban community in supporting the anti­ university down for a day, partly in order workers. Other marchers got through, strikes of 1973, and again this year in the apartheid revolt, including the organ­ to undercut the possibility of an enforced but before they got back to the university wave of strikes in Cape Town and Port isation of multi-racial solidarity demon­ strike on the campus. But even liberals in they were attacked by bil~ies' and no Elizabeth. strations in Johannesburg and Cape positions of power, like the vice doubt by plainclothes policemen dis­ Q: Most of the left internationally would Town. At a time when the police force of chancellor, were sufficiently outraged guised as bikies. say that the white working class of the apartheid regime was shooting down to respond in that way. By that stage the demonstration had South Africa are a lost cause anyway, hundreds of blacks in Soweto, such Q: Did the students organise any been effectively destroyed and broken up because of ~he vast differences in living protests among whites took some activities in direct solidarity with the in somewhat chaotic scenes. The standards etc. What do you think ofthat? courage, albeit that they were politically Soweto students? attempts at solidarity by white students A: Of course, apartheid has made the limited by their underlying liberalism. In A: Wen, one of the immediate responses didn't go much further than that. During white working class a labour aristocracy 1976 the interviewee was a student at was the organising of an essentially this period we did things like organise in South Africa, giving them wages of Witwatersrand University in Johannes­ spontaneous demonstration by a few the singing of one of the African National anything up to eight and more times that burg, but since then has broken from the hundred white students at Wits on 17 Congress anthems, Nkosl Slkelele of black workers. But it's not pre­ deadend liberal radicalism he describes determined the extent to which white in favour of the Trotskyist program of workers can be won over to the black the international Spartacist tendency. working class struggle for state power. It hopefully will be possible to at least Question:* You * were in * Johannesburg * neutralise sectors of the whites and during the Soweto uprising of 1976. maybe even win over splinters of the Could you describe some of the back­ white working class. But in any case black ground to the events? - nationalist struggle certainly cuts off any Answer: Well, the uprising came in the possibility of that and will drive any wake of the defeat of the South African whites potentially solidarising with the government after its invasion of Angola. blacks into the camp of the white ruling And that, together with the overthrow of class. Whereas it is necessary to fight the Portuguese regime in Mozambique, around a class-struggle program and at was responsible for a significant rise in least attempt to split the white working the expectations of the black masses class and bring some elements of them which no doubt helped to spark the over to solidarise-with black workers. Soweto uprising. The uprising initially You see, South Africa is a police state began around the question of the compul­ and this permeates all aspects of life in sory use of Afrikaans, but of course it was the country, affecting whites too. You known by everybody that this was have of course widespread censorship, certainly not the key factor and that it and many whites have been jailed by the was really a massive outpouring against South African government for attempting the apartheid regime as a whole. Further­ to solidarise. Even in a trivial sense, TV more, Soweto wasn't the first demon­ was only introduced into South Africa stration either. I know of at least one 1976: Cape Town cops shoot at colourec:lstudents, whites alike In city centre very recently, in 1975-76. Which is some other massive demonstration in a school indication of how apartheid and the in Basuto Que Que in April of the same June. Of course, under the Riotous I' AfrIka on the campus in an attempt to police state, which must go with it, year, which was of course pretty well Assemblies Act any demonstration of a win increasing numbers of students to affect even whites. blacked out in the South African press. few hundred people in public is illegal. solidarity with the blacks. Elsewhere, for Q: Finally, in the wake of Mugabe's So the Soweto uprisings were not But at the time the Soweto students were example in Cape Town, there were white­ electoral victory in Rhodesia, the notion isolated nor were they confined to saying and even carrying placards to the organised marches in solidarity with that guerrillaism can "succeed" in South Johannesburg itself. In immediate effect that "they don't care anymore, Soweto. We did manage to get messages Africa is being touted around. What response to these events you had similar they are prepared to die for freedom". through to the black students, basically are your comments on that? demonstrations in most of the major In response to that a lot of white students saying we would like to support you, in A: Well, in the first place Rhodesia is cities throughout South Africa. So you felt, "well, if the blacks are prepared to what way can we support you? The reply very different from South Africa. In had in Soweto at the time large numbers do that, we should also be prepared to do from the black students was varied. Rhodesia you had a very small white of black students who came from the rural such a thing". So, largely motivated by Partly it was a question of, well, if you layer, where it was possible to overthrow areas to stay with their parents working liberal outrage, we marched into the want to support us, that is fine, but really the white ruling government. South in the cities. They took their experiences centre of Johannesburg, which is linked this is our struggle, we don't have much Africa is certainly not the same case, with them back to the rural areas and so to the university by a bridge across the faith in the capacity of whites to really where you have a much more deeply for most of the year you had uprisings, Johannesburg railway station. The march solidarise with what we are doing. entrenched, larger white popUlation. burnings and demonstrations throughout began fairly small but as it went through Q: Nonetheless, even though your But it should be noted that even though the whole country. You had a sense of the the centre of Johannesburg it collected a demonstration was an expression of guerrillaism brought Mugabe to power, country being ablaze through the last large number - and soon became liberal outrage at the massive govern­ the gains for black workers are very much half of 1976. massively outnumbered by - black mental killings of blacks in Soweto, it in question as illustrated by the wave of Q: You were then a student at workers in Johannesburg. So you had this would seem to indicate that there was strikes which immediately succeeded the Witwatersrand University (Wits), which very brief racial solidarity between white some potential for joint actions. elections. Mugabe certainly remains has a history of radicalism. What was the students and black workers going A: Well, it's clear that what was so nothing more than a tool in the hands of response ofthe students there? through the centre of the city. potentially dangerous in the demon­ international imperialism, and really has A: Wits does have a history of some Q: What were the marchers' slogans? stration was that there were blacks and solved very little for black workers. radicalism. For example, at one of olir A: Well, one of the features of course of whites collaborating in the struggle Hopefully those lessons will be learnt by public meetings before the Soweto the demonstration was that the white against the apartheid regime. However, the black working class in South Africa. uprisings we had the usual grouping of students were essentially without any what became increasingly clear to me Secondly, in South Africa, where you security police present. After one of those kind of program, without any idea of through 1976 was the deadends that have a very powerful black working meetings on the campus, one of the where to go. The slogans were simply liberalism, which simply seeks to reform class, guerrilla struggle is meaningless. security guards was cornered in the slogans such as •• Solidarity with Soweto a system which is unreformable, posed on You have a developed industrial state university canteen and severely beaten. students" and "Amandla, Soweto" the one hand; and black nationalism, and it is to the black working class that we Of course, this was subsequent to the which means "Power to Soweto". In which in attempting to unite blacks as must look, both to overthrow the essential gutting of the National Union of other words, the slogans simply focused blacks drives any whites who might be apartheid regime and lead the struggle South African Students (NUSAS) due to on the question of supporting blacks in won to their struggle into the opposite for socialism. This poses the necessity for widespread government repression. So struggle, but without any idea of how to camp, posed on the other. This simply a Trotskyist party in South Africa which is the Soweto events came at a time when carry the struggle forward or where to go. sets up the framework for the struggle going to fight not along nationalist lines, the radical student movement in South Q: What happened as the marchers being a racial one, which of course means but for a program of permanent revol­ Africa was essentially leaderless. proceeded through the centre . of a bloodbath. The alternative is the ution, a program of democratic and The response of the students was Johannesburg? Trotskyist program of permanent revol­ transitional demands, leading ultimately largely based on white liberal outrage - A: Well, as it proceeded we collected an ution, which seeks to fight along class to the formation of a black-centered at South Africa, at apartheid as a whole, increasing number of blacks. But as we lines, not racial lines. Which has its workers and peasants government .•

July 1980' 3 PKIU ,·must '-drop" charges against -Fairfax 'strikers! For·one militant union in the

!:'!:~.!. Kindred Industries Union ':~6ko_s.. ... ,..,".. 'lS"'JUOI r...,.....lr,~)J ...... , eo. COII~'Of"'''., 10 ~"J.U. "'E"'Hq fffFO."'AfJON'~ newspaper industry I •r., AU iIIICunw -. ~ _ awoa IIMCaI. --...... ".... - ...... -.u..r1'UllO J '" oU..l ~«IU ""Im£"" AT "'- fA""U. 'OOIS u .... ftt> SYDNEY - Militant unity of all news­ break the strike. But the PKIU branch resigned and walked out with about 100 -- ~I ..n~n paper unions is the key to victory against and AJA federal executives, while members, who thereby became the only the press barons, and it can only be supposedly on opposite sides of craft substantial group of printers to refuse to '~"!!.....-~~.' 1'tIh ""lJou ... "'~U to , ....~~ .,.. <'OftI~ .. "" 0, ...... ~ .. t6ftdl .... forged on the basis of fighting principles hatreds, were in reality each other's work any longer during the three-week ::==!~ ::::i:::~J;:::~~;;~:4.. ~'::~<~:!,~;;.::,., j~::.- '_'~d - picket lines mean don't Fross and one biggest allies against, the ranks of all old national strike. The resignation move, ::.. -=~:. ":,.=:~;·:~:,,::.::;,::IU " fOOT h.,. hI ..,y d""".o ~ ...... out, all out. That is the lesson of the newspaper unions. Each used the though apparently "militant" , was really .,.,.. d .."" .... boo ...... h<...,~ OM ~.oop'or.u .h,.....,,,,,", .... ot,.,.. PUu _Uh·... " ...... , •••q't" ...d'h., ...... M'r.c">ft, ... , ...... ,. national journalists' strike, which ended excuses provided by the other to sabotage a concession to strikebreaking, since it -~.< ••• bhe.- oM t/, .. ,. • a~,,,.'''n ,,/ 0"' "~'Oh Tho -PI""_, 1,,..- '. On A. ... '.n. *"d "'" .hy".hu "",,,,, .• hn'

It "o'oo'IIpO,'''''' '''Ucoq"''.'h.. th._t.h,,,,,.,..... in defeat with a settlement falling far any move for solidarity. The entire AJA left the chapel organisation officially in "" -"fhe,o'- 0 • .,.. Q'h~, '"'' M I'n •• , N~ .... L,." ••d ""'_,,~. short of the original claim of $50 for work leadership refused for three weeks to call the hands of the scabs. The executive ;: ~,~:..::;~;"',;:;~::;~~.~'; ;:r:~: ~~:':;.::«;:':~ ":.:::t~.:~.::. on Visual Display Terminals (VDTs). should have defied the scab "majority", • ., "Y oM .. OI ••• H.r.!~"'''''Cha' .. I ..._,. I,,,,,, .h •.... 0' U ••O". out the PKIU, at one point explicitly .'1 _ora '1>0"'4 <, •• ,1, YndNOUM .q.,~ .h •. 'h• .u~ ,. '" d'."" •• ...... 11.0..., """M,d -~,< ... hn.,- Wh,,~ _ do "". r.coqn, •• ,~, .... ry The deal finally foisted on reluctant giving out the "explanation" that the walked out and insisted that the real p'c~, roaOOh •. _u '''''d .M ""c_M~~ !.L~~·~"..!.O'._·':.,·-'--~.!.!'!...!.:!..Lr!_n_ '"_~_~~..!~ .... ~d_ ,"~1.1~'_~~~'~3 <>th.,t;,.."u.•• <.."onIY ...... ~n ••• ".,,~,.p, '''''h'''',v, ,"_.. strikers by the AJA federal executive in strike was for more money for work which union was outside, on the picket line. ~~"""!~""""3"!"'.!.r,,", . __P . _

Th._SO"'h".,U ·".neh F•• ncot yet 'n'd for nearly a month, was only a slight secretary Gavin Cantlon and others then had been back to work for about a week A/~ / ,<, improvement over the original $S award: sought on 2 June to meet with other following the end of an 11-week strike of "THQ~ (;A"",. ~ a 6 percent allowance, which gave a mere newspaper unions to get them to honour their own, came out to a man at Fairfax, $6 to the lowest-paid "cadets", and up to pickets, the federal executive opposed and by a majority at News Ltd, in $24.90 only for the highest "Al" grade. the move. But 9 days later, at the response to the AJA pickets. The PKIU The terms were thus a violation of earlier journalists' mass meeting, Lawrence members who came out generally stayed resolutions not to accept anything less tried to blame the defeat which he was off the AJA picket lines, but the metal PKIU secretary Athol Cairn's bulletin than an "across-the-board" money foisting on the ranks, on the printers, by workers at Fairfax, who have a traditional tells printers to cross AJA picket settlement; and they added further insult saying that the PKIU had agreed to "an solidarity with the PKIU there, mounted lines. to the injury by requiring no union bans B-point program" of unity, but had a picket of their own to appeal to printers. on scab copy or reprisals against scabs "suddenly" backed out and voted to The potential power of such a move to who should be "cited", and scab­ after the strike. herding officials should be thrown out of office, and out of the union as well! "Either sellout or stay out" Cooke, Cairn and their boss-loving These wretched terms aroused strong I cohorts in the AJ A federal executive opposition in Sydney's highly-charged thrive on the back-stabbing and scab­ meeting of over BOO, which opened with a herding of craft-divided "unionism" . foreshadowed motion of no confidence in As the workers lose wages, conditions the national leadership, and a round of ~ and jobs by crossing each other's picket applause for a militant who tore up a copy lines, their jobs are safe, since they never of the proposed agreement and threw the have to worry about being thrown out of pieces in the direction of federal • office by militants with a class-struggle .. :;:0¥:«:;:.,.x;:;;~::..:>;-;~:~:~~#§::::;,;::::i%.~~ executive spokesman John Lawrence. program for victory and industrial unity. Lawrence was then Qnergetically booed But what about Paget, Jolliffe and and heckled throughout his lame defence company, or the "progressive" state of the pact. About BO members who came executive around Cantlon in the AJA? to the meeting in a body from the militant Did they put. forward a program that picket lines at Fairfax' Broadway plant could have won? Do they have such a formed a core of opposition to the deal program? We think not. in the ranks, while the recently elected It was nice to see Paget and Jolliffe on NSW state branch leadership of the AJA the right side of a strike this time, since reflected the growing union conscious­ they were on the wrong side of the last ness among journos by recommending one. For 11 weeks ending in May, metal rejection. unions at Fairfax were out. over a work One of the journalists sacked by News safety/job demarcation issue while the Ltd indignantly protested that "we're a PKIU worked. Just as in the AJA strike, union", and the federal executive's the printers worked for the defeat of the proposal to "go back and work with AJA strike - not just by violating their own "Not all printers cross picket lines", say ex-leaders of Fairfax PKIU chapel to members who are scabbing" meant that traditions of not working with non-union Journos, 5 June. But what happened to solidarity with metal workers? pretty soon union members "would be in labour, which they did - but simply a minority". A militant sub-editor said by the act of producing scab the meeting should be held "in the cross picket lines - picket lines which transform the purely AJA action into a papers. As Paget and Jolliffe put it in Parramatta River, because that's where the federal executive had never wanted, strike of all newspaper workers - what it their 10 June leaflet, "The only solution" we're being sold". He noted that the organised or tried to strengthen! should have been from the beginning - was "for members to reconsider their lowest grades' 'who have more to do with Playing the same, narrow, craftist was indicated the next day, when one position, recognise' the real enemy and the machines [VDTsl than I do" were game, PKIU branch secretary Athol older PKIU militant suggested to an AJA stop producing the boss's strike-breaking getting the lowest pay rise, and called for Cairn and assistant secretary Gordon picketer that he announce "this is a newspapers". But Paget and Jolliffe led "better picket lines" and "either sellout Cooke spearheaded the motion to cross workers picket" rather than "this is an their chapel into work during the metal or stay out" . the journalists' picket lines at Fairfax AJA picket" to workers approaching the unions' strike - not to mention the first Many speakers noted the importance of chapel meetings ,on the afternoon/ gate. By 10 June, Cooke and Cairn had three weeks of the AJA strike! Only one the picket lines to the strike, though some evening of 3 June by reportedly saying retaliated with a threatening letter, on member of the PKIU at Fairfax, Ron cited their weakness as a reason for that the picket lines were a "backdoor" official PKIU letterhead, which was Rees, stayed out for the entire metal returning to work. But the potential for attempt to get support which ought to posted up on a company wall at Fairfax. workers' and AJA strikes, and defended strengthening them was shown by the have been requested "openly" . But "The 'picket line' is an AJA line and not that position in the chapel. He was cited presence of a number of printers, who Cooke and Cairn were present at any other union's line", said the PKIU before the PKIU branch executive for the were received with applause, from among meetings with the AJA and other unions officials; same "offence" as Paget, Jolliffe and the the approximately 100 PKIU members at on 30 May and 3 June, at which journal­ others, who went along with Cooke and ists' officials announced their intention to "If others join that line they join an AJA Fairfax refusing to scab. When the vote line and calling it anything other than that Cairn at that time in upholding the came, the division of the house showed a set up "selective" pickets, ie, for can only be seen as an attempt to involve "charges" against Rees in the branch solid majority of about 440 for staying scabbing journalists only. Cooke and PKIU members based on past and present meeting, and going so far as to support a out, to approximately 360 for returning. Cairn - according to a leaflet published loyalties." refusal to defend his job against This rejection, it was then announced, on 10 June by resigned PKIU chapel threatened company victimisation! It was had been swamped by votes in other executive members Ron Moore, Don This was a transparent attempt to smear the metal unions' insistence on defending states to go back. Paget, Ian Jolliffe and Eddie Richards - any printer who honoured the picket lines Rees - including a strongly-worded Although no class-struggle program for replied that they were against journalists as somehow "disloyal". Cooke and Cairn letter of protest to the PKIU against victory and unity among "media" unions picketing; but they added - correctly! and company made good the threats the Rees' citation signed by 14 metal unions' had been raised, the strike exposed the - that if put up, "the pickets should be same day by citing Paget and Jolliffe, and shop stewards, delegates and organisers AJA federal executive and the PKIU directed at all groups" in which case the two other members of the resigned '- that got him his job back. branch officials as the worst betrayers of PKIU would "direct its members not to Fairfax chapel, together with any other unionism in the two unions. The AJA's cross picket lines" ! PKIU member who refused to cross the As for the NSW AJA state executive, sordid history of scabbing on printers - AJA picket lines, for failure to abide by a its action in ,putting up non-selective which is how journalists' officials Chapel executive resigns majority decision of the Fairfax chapel. pickets - after one day of impotent cooperated with the employers to seize The 3 June PKIU chapel meetings at This shameful frame-up must be "selective" picketing -- accelerated the VDT operation and destroy the jobs of 400 Fairfax provoked a split, in which the smashed! Honouring picket lines - any strike, and pointed in the right direction. typesetters at Fairfax alone - was the entire chapel executive, including father union's picket lines - is a duty; crossing But why did they wait three weeks to chief excuse used by PKIU leaders to Paget and former deputy father Jolliffe, them is the crime. It is the strikebreakers make this move? During this period the Australasian Spartaclst 4 ~ . .... bosses' trash rolled off the presses un­ 12 June Joint Report to Members, is no be split from the strikers by Paget and ~ed in the journos' strike. None of hindered even by the attempt to pull out better than the worst excesses of craft Jolliffe. A week after they went back, . ~1hese "lefts" and "progressives"ohave a printers, metal workers, clerks, etc. The unionism. Didn't the journalists cross the AJA put up real pickets and most program for workers victory any more reason given for putting up pickets was PKIU picket lines a few years ago be­ PKIUers stayed in anyway. And why not? than the likes of Gordon Cooke and simply that Murdoch had imported three cause it was AJA "policy" to grab the Bthey could "produce the bosses' strike­ friends - some of whom, including scabs from overseas to help out - two work on the VDTs as opposed to PKIU breaking newspapers" while the metal Cooke, like to consider themselves American executives and a member of "policy" to keep it for typesetters? workers were on the street for 11 weeks, "pr~jessive" as well. Only Australasian the British National Union of Journalists The PKIUI AJA Joint Report agrees on they could do the same to the hated Spartacist has provided newspaper (NUJ)! Once picketing began, the strike what "constitutes normal work when journos. All strikes should be organised workers of all unions with an analysis quickly became militant and began to other unions are on strike", but there is and enforced by picket lines, and all consistent with honouring all picket lines make correctives on earlier scabbing no such thing as ".acceptable" strike­ picket lines should be not just "non­ and all strikes, and this is the only basis policies of the AJA. A mass meeting breaking. Such an agreement . would selective", but illso made strong and upon which real unity, and real victories, resolved to honour other unions' picket express the "mutual interest" of scab­ effective through numbers, so that they can be built. These are the simplest lines, though only "when requested". herding bureaucrats· in avoiding the say don't cross in no uncertain terms to and most basic historic principles of the Yet the very day. the journalists re­ legitimate wrath of the ranks, not the the scabs, ie all who seek to croSs. workers ·movement, learned over more turned to work, AJ A and PKIU state need of all newspaper unions for one than a century in countless bloody officials met in Sydney in a "unity" move militant union. Paget, Jolliffe and' their supporters battles. Yet all wings of trade-union in which they agreed to "discuss" The metal workers also made the paved the way for the open picket-line­ leadership that haven't broken from recognising each other's picket lines mistake of not putting up pickets during crossing of Cooke and Cairn by strike­ narrow craftist self-interest and reform­ when asked, "unless the dispute is their strike in February-May, on the breaking on the metal workers and first ism betray them every time. It will take against the policies of the non-disputing grounds that if they were put up, the three weeks of the AJA strike; and the building of a revolutionary leader­ union or is a demarcation I dispute PKIU would come out, force a joint Cantlon and company of toe NSW AJA ship, founded on the genuine Trotskyist between the two parties"! Such a policy, meeting and vote overwhelmingly to go agree with scabherders to provide program - that of the Spartacist League endorsed by the "progressive" Cantlon back. But this is a defeatist argument loopholes to cross picket lines, thus - to put the workers movement on a as well as the scabs Cooke and Cairn in a which allowed the majority of printers to undermining already the militancy class-struggle course .• Trotskyists _stand for class solidarity Fake lelt backs scabbing

The three strikes at Fairfax news­ organisation to fight for a policy of no papers in Sydney this year have posed the scabbing" (Battler, 28 June). But IS danger of established craftist divisions membJ!rs told Rees that his principled destroying the industrial solidarity stand was in violation of "a democratic necessary to defend this important centre decision of the membership" and that he of militant newspaper unionism against a. at Fairlax should go back to work, ie the very attack determined company assault. In January the Athol Cairn-led branch executive a strike by the Printing and Kindred launched against Rees when he refused Industries Union (PKIU) was joined by ninth week of the strike! - it was buried the printers at wort[ producing the papers to scab on the metal workers. True to metal unions and plumbers in the plant, . in the "News Roundup" column which the metal workers had black-banned. form, the IS then cheered when Paget but electricians, journalists, most trans­ reported, by-the-way, that "The strikers and company finally refused to cross the port workers and clerks daily crossed are also urging a boycott of all Fairfax It should astound no one who is at all journos' picket line. But if the ex-chapel their picket lines. When the company's publications, like the Sydney Morning familiar with this tendency that it be­ executive hadn't done so, the IS 80 metal workers went out in March for Herald and the Sun". Readers had only trayed the elementary demands of class would have had no scruples about white­ 11 weeks, .however, not even the tra­ to tum the page to see a prominently­ . solidarity so easily. This is an organis­ washing this, either. Some of the militant ditionally militant PKIU came out in displayed, bold-type quotation from a late ation, after all, which thinks nothing of journalists had a better grasp of the class solidarity. And when journalists set up April edition of ... the Sydney Morning crossing picket lines when it is convenient struggle than the IS, as one incident on picket lines there during their recent Herald! How cynical can they get? for them to do so, and even applauded an the picket line at Fairfax demonstrated. national strike, they were crossed by all apprentice who described at the SWP's While one of the picketers tried to but about 100 printers. Metal workers who had been readers of youth conference, how he had done just convince two clerks who had emerged It doesn't take a communist to know the SWP paper were angry at its virtual that (see "SYA: Scabs Youth Alliance", from the building not to go back in, ISer that picket lines mean don't cross and blackout of their strike. ';If you'd been page 10). We pointed out how Paget in Martin Hirst proposed that "at least you that working in a struck shop is breaking Direct Action you would- have got a blue effect relied on "the legal coercion of can donate some of your wages to the a strike. Yet the Spartacist League (SL) from me", one told an Australasian union apprentices to perform strike­ strike fund". What use is this guilt has been the only group on the left to Spartacist salesman, and bought a copy breaking labour" (ASp no 73, May 1980) money if scab labour is keeping the struck consistently put forward a perspective of of the only paper which not only reported as a cover for the PKIU chapel's policy of enterprise running? In practice, the IS' class-struggle unity against the bosses at the strike but said -"one out, all out" and keeping the presses running during the tailing of "rank-and-me" reformists like Fairfax. And the only two workers at "printers must come out - Victory to strike. But the answer is not to use the Paget means defending craftist strike­ Fairfax to stand out against the disas­ Fairfax metal workers!" The SWP un­ bosses' laws as an excuse for scabbing, breaking. trous craftist practice of official union ceremoniously dumped the metal workers but to defend striking apprentices strikebreaking have been Spartacist because it happened to interfere with against vi~imisation. In reality neither the IS nor the SWP are any better than the more brazen supporters: Linda Menzie, who in something "more important" for these The Cold War socialists of the Inter­ January became the only clerk in living reformists - tailing Don Paget, then reformists like the pro-Moscow Socialist national Socialists (IS), who also couldn't Party (SPA). The Socialist (18 June) memory to honour a printers' picket line father of the PKIU chapel at Fairfax, find any space in their paper for the metal sighed after the journalists' strike had there; and Ron Rees, the one printer to whom they have been chasing for years. workers' strike, called in the wake of the split the PKIU chapel at Fairfax that "if stay out in solidarity with the metal And Paget happened to be helping keep journalists' strike for a "rank and file workers throughout their strike. These the journalists and printers had worked militants stood by union principles together from the beginning . .. major despite prevailing craftist traditions and gains for both could have been the end won, both returning to their jobs with the result". But this is only a cover for the company unable to victimise them. scandalous activities of supporters of the Trotskyists are the strongest defenders of SPA's politics like Gordon Cooke, the class solidarity because we have the only assistant secretary of the NSW branch of program which speaks to the real needs Yellow "socialists" the PKIU, who was busy both helping · of the entire working class and which can and' black papers: herd printers across the AJA picket unite all workers in the fight against Direct Action lines and threatening any PKIUers who capitalism - the program of socialist l7 May) says Sydney honoured them. Likewise his main revolution. Morning Herald contribution to the metal workers' dispute was to support a campaign In contrast, the reformist fake-left blacked by metal workers, quotes It against the only printer at Fairfax who groups have revealed the utter political was out in solidarity with them. bankruptcy behind their "socialist" three pages later. pretensions, by failing to rise even to the The trade-union movement in Australia level of militant industrial unionism. Last and internationally was built through January supporters of the Socialist class struggle, not through class Workers Party (SWP), which calls collaboration, walking through picket itself "Trotskyist", were not very popular lines or working in struck shops. The on the PKIU picket lines when they ,tried basic lessons of the struggles of the past to sell an issue of the SWP's paper, are well known and just as well Direct Action, which contained a promi­ expressed: one out, all out; an injury to nent photo-reduction of a scab issue of one is an injury to all; picket lines mean the Sun. Then for 9 weeks during the don't cross. But if you want to defend the metal workers strike, no trace of that unions and the best fighting traditions of struggle appeared in Direct Action - but · plenty of quotes from blacked Fairfax the working class as part of the struggle for workers power, then there is a place papers did. for you with the Spartacist League­ When Direct Action finally got around with genuine revolutionaries, not scabs to mentioning the strike on 7 May - the and their apologists .• ~ .. • .'., t .. • '" , , • ~ • <, " - l' :.lo' :t> .. · J'uIY 1980 .... '... . 5 I

.~ :rr I Newly released photos: Jane Margolis being dragged off CWA convention floor by Jimmy Carter's Secret Service, 16 July 1979.

On 16 July 1979, in Detroit's Cobo Hall, the United States Secret Service, private police of US president Jimmy Carters Secret Service apologises to Carter, walked onto the floor of the Communication Workers of America (CW A) national convention and seized an elected CW A delegate and union official, Jane Margolis. As other delegates looked on in stunned dis­ belief, the burly federal agents grabbed Margolis by the arm and dragged her, vigorously protesting, out of the hall Jane Margolis (see accompanying photographs). The reason: Jimmy Carter was scheduled to speak that afternoon. A well-known labour oppositionist, Margolis had been elected to 'Convention delegate on the platform, "Not a dime, not a vote to the strikebreaking wins against US Democrats and Republicans". Carter's agents wanted to make sure the voice of militant unionism would not be heard. When Margolis was dragged off the floor, CW A president Glenn Watts told the delegates to pay no attention to the disruption. The floor microphones government were turned off so no one could protest. Out of view of the delegates, Margolis in the Union Committee Against Secret government also forked out $3500 to What happened in Detroit last July was was manhandled, interrogated, threat­ Service Harassment (UCASSH) have ,won prove in hard cash that it "~egrets" the a naked assertion that the government ened with being held incommunicado for an important battle on behalf of the CWA incident. In a dramatic expression of has the prerogative to disrupt tbe days on the basis of "reports" from and the rights of all labour. In a press labour solidarity, Margolis announced business of a duly constituted union unidentified "sources" for suspicion of conference at the CW A national con­ that since the attack was directed at the convention. Jimmy Carter's Secret i'threatening the life of the president". vention in Los Angeles, 17 June, whole union and turned back by the Service was using police powers for She was deprived of legal counsel, which UCASSH revealed that the US Secret determined action of hundreds of phone political censorship, thereby seriously she repeatedly requested. White House Service had made a formal written workers and trade unionists around the disrupting convention proCeedings. officials at first even went so far as to apology for seizing Margolis, an elected country, she was endorsing the cheque Perhaps they thought Jane Margolis and deny that anyone had been seized at allf steward and executive board member of and handing it over to the CWA her union brothers and sisters would just But now Margolis and her supporters CWA Local 9410 (San Francisco). The Defence Fund. take it without complaint. The Secret Interview with Jane Margolis We print below extracts from an inter­ WV: Could you tell us how you went WV: What kind of support did you get in the trade unions. The Socialist view with Jane Margolis. The full text of about fighting this attack? from outside the union? Workers Party also was silent on the the original interview can be found in MargoUs: Our key to winning this case MargoUs: Some very prominent individ­ issue, but very active in physically ex­ Workers Vanguard (WV, paper of the was mobilizing active support and pub­ uals who are concerned about civil lib­ cluding me from one of their public Spartacist League/US) no 259. licity in the labor movement. Many erties endorsed the case: Daniel forums when I wanted to make a three­ 27 June 1980. outraged union members sent telegrams Berrigan, who was active in the antiwar minute announcement building for the and made phone calls to the White movement; Noam Chomsky. I was very April 19 rally against the Nazis in WV: Jane, could you tell us something House. Apparently there was a press sec­ excited when Crystal Lee Sutton, the real San Francisco. about the settlement of your suit against retary there who was handling the Norma Rae, endorsed my lawsuit when WV: In addition to being an elected of­ the Secret Service? "Margolis case" calls. After getting a I was attending a benefit on her behalf ficial ofthe CWA, you are also a spokes­ MargoUs: It was a terrific victory for the good lawyer, Charles Garry, and flIing in Los Angeles. Also, individuals that man for the Militant Action Caucus in the rights of labour - for the right of unions the lawsuit in November, within our were victims of government repression in union we formed the Union Committee the '50s, two members of the Hollywood CWA. Would you tell us what the MAC is to assemble and meet without fear of fighting for at this convention? government intimidation, harassment Against Secret Service Harassment Ten, Alvah Bessie and Lester Cole, and intervention .... (UCASSH) which did the pUblicity and endorsed, as did a number of legal organ­ MargoUs: Our union is facing a tremen­ They had accused me of being a threat fundraising for the case. Within a couple izations, including the National Lllwyers dous battle against Ma Bell (the US Guild. The American Civil Liberties to the life of the president, a charge that of months we raised over $14,000 and phone company] as our contract expires Union in southern California voted to flIe could put you in jail for the rest of your gathered a wide number of union en­ in August. And the company has already dorsers .... a "friend of the court" brief in my behalf. life. !talso was an attempt to discredit me begun gearing up. In San Francisco, WV: Could you tell us how you see the as a unionist. But it was ludicrous to WV:What~bouttheleft? numerous union reps have been fired in begin with. Never did the Secret Service significance of the suit that you brought MargoUs:From the very start, a few blatant frame-ups. And since November, search me. All they did was take my against the government? hours after the incident, when a good when I flIed my lawsuit against the Secret notebook which had my prepared ques­ MargoUs: Every day this' strikebreaking friend of mine, James Robertson, the Service, PT&T has been trying to fire me. tion for Jimmy Carter. government intervenes on behalf of an national chairman of the Spartacist The Militant Action Caucus is calling for Just to give you an idea of how absurd employer against a union. But union­ League, called up the White House a national strike against Ma Bell to pro­ it was, only a few months after the inci­ busting comes in all different kinds of demanding my release, the Spartacist tect jobs. A shorter work week with no dent at the CW A convention, while the packages .... A lot of people don't under­ League and the Partisan Defense Com­ loss in pay, an unlimited cost-of-living Secret Service said the case was still stand the nature of the government. They mittee did everything to push this case to escalator, anend to job pressures should being investigated, who do you think put want to appeal to the pro-business courts a victorious conclusion .... They took an, all be the primary focus on the agenda of in Vice President Walter Mondale's to help them in union elections, and so active stand against union-busting. But I this convention. Instead, Watts will try to phones in his presidential suite at the on. Well, this is what you get. My case can't say the same for the rest of the left. tum this convention into a rally for Jimmy Hilton Hotel while he visited San was supported by such a wide range of Most were noticeably silent. If it was left Carter .... Francisco? Me I And not a word of oppo­ unionists and persons interested in civil to the Communist Party and People's sition from the Secret Service. Because liberties because they understood the World, you would never have known that Carter, Kennedy or Reagan - they're they were only interested in sUenclng my significance: if we did not win, their con­ Jimmy Carter was using the Secret all a disaster for working people. All poUtlca1 views •••• vention and union could be next. Service to silence political oppositionists three are defending the interests of big

6 Australasian Spartacist Jon P Fishback photos

this defence of their union's indepen­ from "our agent's confusion over why dence from government control. For you were actually being arrested". Never union militant Watts and company are so tied to Carter mind, says the letter, "it is now apparent that they are blinded to the threat to the that no arrest should have been made whole union posed by the invasion of the under the circumstances" . So the, Service, as its name says, likes to work in Margolis' San FranCisco local petitioned CWA convention and seizure of Jane government now admits Margolis was secret. It doesn't like noise, but the White House: Margolis. arrested even though she had "not Margolis yelled "foul" loud and clear. "We the undersigned strongly protest the Seldom do the government's snoops violated any law" . Who was legitimate here? Jane forcible removal of our delegate Jane say they're sorry. The Secret Service was The government of course denies "any Margolis was where she belonged, as a Margolis from the ,convention floor ... forced to issue a formal apology and political motivation" to the seizure. But seated, elected delegate in the CWA's preventing her making critical remarks about Carter's anti-labor policies. This award a cash settlement not least why was Margolis singled out from national gathering; Jimmy Carter was was in clear violation of her democratic because it didn't have a leg to stand on among the 2900 unionists present? only an invited guest, and his Secret rights as a duly elected delegate. We legally. At first it denied any arrest had Clearly because she was a leading Service invaded the floor of the con­ from CWA Local 9410 demand an apology been made, and the official letter from oppositionist who had spoken as a vention acting as a law unto itself. She from the White House to delegate Secret Service Deputy Director refers to delegate at the CW A's 1978 convention is a spokesman for the Militant Action Margolis and the union as a whole." "alleged false arrest". But then it tries to against union support for "strike­ Caucus (MAC), the' main opposition Represented by noted attorney Charles explain the "regrettable misunder­ breakers, anti-labor politicians, Jimmy group in the union, which has been Garry, Jane' Margolis sued the Secret standing" as a comedy of errors resulting continued on page 9 tested in nine years of principled struggle Service for invasion of privacy, assault for labour's cause. Margolis insisted on and battery, false arrest and violation of her right, and duty to those who elected her constitutional rights. Outraged her to represent them, to defend the unionists formed UCASSH and began to interests of working people against the pound the government for stonewalling, DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY strikebreaking Democratic Party. She gathering support for their case from wanted to explain that this strikebreaker coast to coast. 49 CW A stewards UNITED STATES SECRET SERVICE had no right to use the CWA as a endorsed the case, along with CWA WASHINGTON, D,C 20223 platform, that politically he was telling Locals 9201 and 1150. Hundreds of DEPllTY DIRH'TOR the American people they must sacrifice endorsements were generated from local for the companies. But she was stopped unions, well-known civil libertarians, "* JUN to .9aG by the president's private cops. other frame-up victims_ From free speech to the right to strike, Socialists joined the fight early on. it takes a hard fight to defend democratic James Robertson, national chairman of freedoms from the ruling class. And the Spartacist League/US (SL) and a unlike any other civil liberties case in close personal friend of Margolis, Ms. Jane Hargolis recent memory, this victory was won by a immediately phoned the White House to 475 Alvarado Street, #3 demand that Jane be released and an San Francisco, California 94114 union-based campaign from start to convention finish. Immediately after the Secret official apology made. Told by a White Re: Alleged False Arrest/Jane Margolis/CWA Service assault, 700 workers from House staffer, you can't talk to me like Detroit, Michigan; July 16, 1979 that or I'll hang up, Robertson told him to stop stonewalling and reminded him of Dear Ms. Margolis: what happened to Richard Nixon. SL Please be advised that in response to the above referenced matter the Secret Service office of 'Inspections was directed supporters and friends played an, ener­ to look into this claim to determine, as accurately as possi­ getic role in backing UCASSH, particu­ ble, what did in fact occur at the time of the original larly in fundraising, and a staff counsel of incident. Based upon this inquiry it is the opinion of this business, attempting to get us into a war the Partisan Defense Committee joined service that a misunderstanding between a Secret Service agent and a Detroit police officer resulted in your being removed against the Soviet Union and cutting the legal team headed by Garry to social services, telling unions that we're fight the case in the courts. from the convention floor. the problem while our members lose jobs, But the case encountered one obstacle The Secret service's involvement in this misunderstanding. minority unemployment rises to 14 which is obviously regrettable, arose from our agent's confu­ - many CWA bureaucrats from union sion over why you were actually being arrested. It was hiS percent and the climate is created that president Glenn Watts to leaders of belief that he was assisting a Detroit police officer in making brings I,)ut the KKK [Ku Klux Klan] and Margolis' own local stood passi\!ely on an arrest. At the same time, the Detroit police officer the Nazis. That's why we in the Militant believed that the arrest was being made for a violation of the sidelines or actively tried to sabotage federal law. In any event, it is now apparent that no arrest Action Caucus for the last nine years have should have been made under the circumstances. been calling for a workers party. There is a solution to the anarchy of plants It should be noted that there is no indication whatso­ "Since the rights of the entire union ever that there was any political motivation to these actions. closing, of people being put out of work. were aftacked, I am turning the We need a workers party that will fight Following your initial removal from the floor of the entire cheque from the Secret Service for a workers government, will expro­ convention, the law enforcement personnel on the scene began over to the CWA Defense Fund." questioning why, in fact, you had been removed. As soon as it priate industry, establishing an economy became apparent that you had not violated any law, but rather that is run for social need, not profit. - Margolis that an error in judgment had been made, you were released. WV: Anything else you'd like to say? MargoDs: I want to thank everyone who =: -~ 7\~~.s:,9,!.2 supported this' case. We in the Militant •• ..JllllllIaIq 1.l' Action Caucus are fighting to win .... I do ii .. no".£ : ...~ C!l The Secret Service, of course, regrets that this incident Dno,/, .. '''''''', c... ,,,,I,, believe that you can "win against city ~.~ -,_. " '"'''' ., .. " ...... occurred. Obviously, due to the extreme complexity of supply­ 'lit--1" .01 "'C"OI','I "'1:;,""~G ing protection to the President and others, and the sensitive hall" - if you are willing to take a stand, and sometimes conflicting interests that corne into play, the , .... __ ~I organize the labor movement, and know . ------Secret Service cannot be absolutely certain that other misunder­ I-- standings will never occur. You can be assured, however, that who your friends are. My friends are "100"~" .:0000005.a·:? s ~ • 5'H,q j,,~ every effort will continue to be made to assure that errors of other unionists, persons truly concerned this nature are kept to a minimum. about democratic rights and socialists. IfI had relied on "my" senators and Again, the Secret Service regrets that this misunderstanding .. : has caused you distress. assemblymen and a "more Democratic ~ i j -f.! Sincerely yours, Congress", as the labor bureaucracy is j ~ : q always telling us to do, I never would :1';.! : 1/1Jil (P*') j t - 1. 71: J"J have received a letter of apology and the 1-21 l' ~ 1 i,:::t CWA Defense Fund would never have f: ii .. p--df' "-l J ~ , M:::K.W:i~~ seen the $3500. And if we can win against Deputy Director the government, we can win against .. " MaBell!.

July 1980 7 women's liberation everywhere. The feminists at International Women's LaTrobe Uni -elections Day thought Afghanistan was irrelevant. Picket lines mean don't cross Whether it is on Afghanistan or a trade union strike the reformist left Hate Carter, Khomeini, scabs ultimately scab. On the one-day general strike in 1979 over the W A jailings of metal unionists we said the university was black. The Socialist Left thought it a joke and went about "business as usual" . - vote Spartacist I At Sydney University (SU) our comrades carried out an aggressive exposure We reprint below a leaflet distributed mullah-led mass movement was split 'and alcohol - [to] joiJ). us in giving this campaign against SU feminists who by the LaTrobe University Spartacist along class lines what would come to apologist for Islamic reaction the scabbed on a Fairfax newspaper strike. Club for the Student Representative power would be clerical reaction. reception she deserves when she hits Feminism, which rejects as alien a hard Council (SRC) elections held at the But outrageously this month the LaTrobe 16 July! class perspective, demonstrated its class­ beginning ofJuly. Socialist Workers Party (SWP), sup­ Victory to Red Army in collaborationist logic. This week elections are being held for a ported on campus by John ("VC Scott's Even in defending union principle - new SRC (ind for delegates to AUS. The 'close comrade-in-arms''') Hall and Bob Afghanistan! that a struck shop is just that: struck, Spartacist Club is standing three Lewis, are touring one of their Iranian We are Trotskyists. We make it clear: black; that one out means all out; that comrades - Frank Sortino, Jenny Stein co-thinkers, Fatima Fallahi - talking on we defend the Soviet Union. We hate the picket lines mean don't cross - the and Alex Trapeznik. We stand on our the "Iranian revolution"! This is bureaucratic strangulation that chokes off Spartacist League stands alone. The rest 7-year record at this campus, as op­ obscene. Students should read carefully the initiative, development and inter~ of the left is mired in craftist and bureau­ ponents of the class-biased education the fact sheet we are distributing on national revolutionary potential of the cratic betrayal. _Through our strike­ system, on our vigorous strike-support Fallahi and. the Iranian HKE. These first and most powerful workers state - support work we seek to win students work over the years, as internationalists. Khomeini-Iovers equate the mullahs in including its Red Army. Against the mad­ concretely to the workers side in the class We live in a time when economic power with a "revolution". They say the dog imperialist war-mongers who struggle, to build a communist youth depression and the threat of a "born­ veil is a "symbol of liberation". (And the threaten to plunge us into World War III movement, and to ~upport the develop­ again" nut in the White House hitting the weals from the whippings?) These are the we will defend it to the last. In ment of a revolutionary opposition nuclear button to prove he's "decisive" people who dropped their paper position Afghanistan there is a war between the in the unions. are the signposts of our future. Against of self-determination for the Kurds for twentieth century and feudal barbarism. our reformist and parochial opponents "autonomy" as soon as the mullahs The two competing social systems of our Join the Spartaclst League our program of social revolution to spilled blood to protect their sacred age have taken their appropriate sides The left today is in massive disarray. overthrow this rotting capitalist system national boundaries. For daring to even on the barricades. Our opponents, whether "left" or right, makes us the only realists, the only ones raise a protest against the war on the We say "Victory to the Red Army", care about "getting elected" and little with a program that- gives humanity a Kurds, 14 HKE members, including "Smash Islamic reaction" and "Defend beyond the confines of their SRC/ AUS road forward. Fallahi, were imprisoned. They [the last the Soviet Union". Capitulating to parliamentary playpen. Even on ofthese] were released seven days before bourgeois hysteria the rest of the left "student" issues they are worthless. We "The Iranian Revolution"? the recent Islamic purge ("cultural (like the Socialist Left, Communist are the only ones who ever fought for As Carter showed with his lunatic revolution") carried out on Iranian Party, International Socialists) scream open admissions. Or a living student muffed rescue attempt, Iran is a trip wire campuses by Khomeini fanatics that left "Soviet aggression", "Reds out". There wage (not their pathetic 20 per cent for World War III. With the mullahs' their leftist targets (the Fedayeen, is no neutrality in the class war. above poverty). genocidal war against the Kurds, the Tudeh, Mujaheedin) with over a score Remember the 16 April general meeting It is just flatly true that if you hate reimposition of the veil and vicious dead and hundreds injured - actions the on Afghanistan? Don Chipp's offsider, mullahs and cops, defend the Soviet enforcement ofIslamic "moral codes" - HKE immediately hailed! Their alibi? Ian Farrow, was able to move an amend­ Union, won't cross picket lines and want whippings and executions for women and These leftists were "sectarian" for not ment to Socialist Lefter Paul Norton's to be an organised leftist th~ Spartacist gays - a holy war against leftists, most joining this clerical witchhunt - against motion, to, in Farrow's words, "cut the League is the only game in town. If you of the left here would like to forget their themselves! Make no mistake, these waffle and bullshit" and leave what was agree on the cutting class issues of the earlier support to Khomeini. The likes Khomeini-Iovers have blood on their central - and what both agreed on­ day, then join with us. With Carter/. of the Socialist Left (eg, Murphy/ hands. Their name is dirt in Iran. the imperialists' call for Soviet Brzezinski playing brinkmanship in the Stradijot) now spend their time worrying We call on every student who stands withdrawal. war rooms, with supposed leftists about how to protect the butcher shah with the women, national minorities, Afghanistan. was the first shooting war kowtowing to religious patriarchs, our from "revolutionary vengeance" . We gays, the workers and left of Iran; any ignited specifically by the question of program of communist revolution is really were alone on the left in the period student who, like us, is against the women's liberation. What stands be­ the only sane, decent and realistic leading up to and after the shah's down­ attempts of the religious bigot who runs tween a rebel victory and certain return to alternative. fall in our stance that the workers must Iran to wipe out the things that make barbaric enslavement for women is the FOR SRC/ AUS: VOTE ONLY SORTINO, rule Iran; We warned that unless the life worth living - politics, sex, music Red Army. For our part we are for STEIN AND TRAPEZNIK!

Hippo armoured cars, had been turned urban South Africa having a material contradicted by the need of the white South Africa ••• into an armed camp. stake in the status quo. However, the fate capitalists to have the black proletariat in of the oppressive apartheid regime will the urban centers. As Botha told a heck­ continued from page 1 South African Prime Minister Botha assumed office last year promising to not be determined by the maneuvering ler who dismissed the need for more charged groups of protesters with billy reform various of the minor forms of and pseudo-reforms of white ruling-class black housing by shouting "Send them to clubs and tear gas .. apartheid restrictions. But the bloody politicians, but in the struggles of the the homelands": "My friend, if they The following day angry coloured police terror unleashed against the black masses against the massive police­ were all there, who would bring you your youths burned and looted white stores, unarmed street protesters and strikers is state apparatus designed to keep them coffee in the morning?" (Foreign Policy, set up street barricades blocking the the clearest possible evidence that Botha, "in their place". The black working class Spring 1980). And who would bring the roads leading to the airport and stoned like his predecessors, is committed to now flexing its muscles occupies a key gold, the diamonds, the automobiles, the white motorists. The cops, enraged preserving white minority rule at any spot in the South African economy. Out in textiles and all the other goods and because one protester managed to knife a cost. And just to prove it he launched the the desolate bantustan "homelands" the services provided by black labor? The fact cop to death in self-defense, broke out biggest South African foreign military black majority's numbers don't necess­ is, by bringing more and more black their automatic rifles and loaded their operation since World War II this month. arily'mean strength. But in the heart of workers into the urban labor force, shotguns with deadly buckshot. Police Thousands of trOOps poured over the South Africa's gold-fueled and growing apartheid capitalism digs its own grave. Commissioner Mike Geldenhuysgave the border from South Africa's Namibian economy, black labor is vital. OK to "shoot to kill", urging his men to colony to strike South West African The growing reliance on black skilled Black workers to power! show "no mercy" to protesters. Two People's -Organisation refugee camps and semi-skilled labor is the Achilles heel Recognition that the black proletariat planeloads of riot cops were rushed in to in Angola. of apartheid. "Separate development" is has the power to smash apartheid is the reinforce the locals. Even before this spring's protest/ Stone throwing and street barricade strike wave,' Botha, under pressure from fighting spread to Soweto, Durban and the "verkrampte" ("narrow") wing of Port Elizabeth. Then, on June 20, the his ruling National Party, had backed off SPARTACIST LEAGUE wave of protests reached a new level as from such sub-tokenist "reforms" as PUBLIC MEETINGS 10,000 workers joined the struggle. Port integrated white-coloured high school Elizabeth's Ford, GM and Volkswagen rugby matches. In this way he duplicated assembly plants, the Goodyear Tire the . history of his predecessor, JB factory and a dozen other plants were Vorster, who also started off by promis­ For the rebirth shut down solid by strikes for higher pay ing to reduce "petty apartheid", until it and an end to racist discrimination. At threatened to break up the unity of the Volkswagen, the United Auto and Afrikaner laager. Botha, the leader of the Rubber Workers, one of the few recog­ so-called "verligte" ("enlightened") of the nized black unions, demanded an 80 wing of the National Party, is now trying percent raise. to give the appearance of flexibility by As black workers waited at the gates, advocating an appointive "president's Fourth International! management gave its answer: lockout. council" which, while having no real Cops fired shotguns and teargas into power, would include coloured, Indian founding member of SLI US crowds of strikers. Goodyear workers and even Chinese representatives - but Speaker: Joe Vincent responded by stoning white homes in the no blacks. Sydney: Melbourne: industrial town of Uitenhage. The The "verkrampte" racists are holding 7.30 pm 7.30 pm government, recognizing that the black out against any -weakening of apartheid, Friday, 25 July. Tuesday, 29 July. auto workers are the muscle of the anti­ fearing that it would be the beginning of Ground Bar, Plumbers Hall, apartheid upsurge, called in the regular the end of their caste privileges and Trade Union Club, 52 Victoria Street, army to occupy the plants. A reporter minority rule. The "verligte" white 111 Foveaux Street,. Carlt9n, Vic. who slipped through police lines reported supremacists maintain that it is necessary Surry Hills, NSW. that the Volkswagen plant, ringed by to promote a privileged black stratum in 8 ~Australaslan Spartaclt\t - key to a revolutionary program to liberate the oppressed South African masses. South Africa is the industrial powerhouse No layoffs! 30 for 401 of the continent. But unlike those of virtually every other African state before independence from direct colonial rule, the black South African masses do not face a. thin layer of colonial bureaucrats and expatriate settlers. Instead, they Occupy GIH Pauewoodl must defeat a powerful capitalist class at the head of an entrenched, quite large SYDNEY, 6 July - "It just hit us like a The seizure of an Australian-based per cent ofthe domestic market, and kept and well-armed white racial caste. Pro­ bomb going off", said one worker. "The plant of the international conglomerate prices astronomically high. portionately the white minority in South foreman called us in and gave us the General Motors could strike a blow for GMH knows the plant is a loser and Africa is five times as large as its envelope" - and that was that. For the workers internationally. Instead of calling wants to get out. Calls for its nationalis­ Rhodesian counterpart. And if they must letter inside contained the news that for ever-higher tariffs and reactionary ation can thus only mean the propping up go under, the country's rulers are quite General Motors Holden (GMH), Austra­ import controls which merely n1ean of an industrial cripple - at the expense prepared to unleash a fiery holocaust in lian subsidiary of the giant US car manu­ foreign workers losing jobs, the union of the taxpaying worker. Nor would it the process. facturer, is to close its Pagewood plant in leaders should be fighting to organise the mean saving jobs. On the contrary, the Sydney on 29 August. Over 1200 workers super-exploited workers of Asia and Latin experience of British Leyland and the To open the door to the South African are to be thrown on the dole or given the America. A plant occupation would pose socialist revolution the black masses must successive nationalisation schemes of "opportunity" of going to a GMH plant directly the possibility of solidarity action British Labour governments show that break through the present apartheid interstate, courtesy of a company­ by car workers in these countries, as well shackles and win a degree of freedom state takeovers of loser plants mean more provided economy class air ticket. Some as in the US, where there have been sev­ layoffs, greater speed-ups and savage needed to mount organized, mass social SOOO others face retrenchment at com­ eral plant closings by GM and other com­ struggles. Key to this is fighting for the wage-cutting. And look at what happened ponent makers and dealerships through­ panies, and Japan. It could be the first at the State dockyatds in Newcastle: legalization of independent black trade out NSW. step in a concerted international struggle unions, abolition of the hated pass laws wasn't it "Nifty Neville Wran" himself The bosses' rationale was predictably against layoffs by the motor giants and who sacked dockyard w<;>rkers there and ·bantustan system and an end to all their "world car" rationalisation plans. racist job privileges and the contract the need to "restructure" their operation wholesale as an "economic measure"? labor system. in Australia. But the workers at Page­ Instead of fighting for such a militant, Yet this is what the SWP wants - first w09d have made it clear that they don't class-struggle program, the leaders of the Wran should "nationalise" Pagewood, A South African revolutionary move­ want to be the helpless victims of capital­ car unions have been appealing to anti­ then Hayden can do the same to the rest ment would, of course, strive for the unity ist "restructuring". The day after the US Aussie nationalism for a "massive ofthe company, when he gets elected! In in struggle of the black masses with the announcement picket lines were thrown response against the foreign-owned this gross subservience to reformism, coloured and Indian populations. But up to prevent cars from moving out of the multinational' , . Even this proposed they are echoed by supporters of the what of the four-and-a-half million factory, and a mass meeting at the plant "massive response" is pitifully inad­ Socialist Leadership Group/Keep Left whites? They constitute an enormously called on the ACTU to launch a national equate, however. While the NSW Labor paper in the ALP. Led by the bookshop privileged caste, n9t a nation for which strike throughout the car industry. Council endorsed a national strike call, entrepreneur Bob Gould, they too are one can advance the right of self­ The workers at Pagewood want to fight ACTU chief Bob Hawke, immediately calling on Wran to use "his legal powers "determination, ie, the right to their own - they have nothing left to lose. And backed by state Labor Council secretary of resumption" to make Pagewood a state separate state. At the same time, as they can beat back this arrogant attempt Barrie Unsworth, said no, and called for enterprise. (The Gouldites are such wet against some black nationalists and their by GMH to throw them on the scrapheap "calm" and "reasonable" negotiations. noodles that they don't even call for a left apologists, communists recognize the by seizing the plant now! Take GMH's As a way of letting off steam, the bu­ factory seizure to back up this social­ right of South Africa's whites to exist. machinery, unsold cars and millions of reaucracy is currently calling for an democratic cretinism, but just urge Furthermore, their skills would be of dollars worth of property and hold them impotent consumer boycott and has "consideration" of the "tactic of sit-in".) tremendous value to a revolutionary as ransom for jobs! And back up a Page­ banned GMH vehicles from other states Behind this nationalisation plea though is regime. A black-centered workers and wood occupation with an all-out national getting to dealers in NSW. But this the viciously chaftvinist argument that peasants government would grant to that strike by the entire Vehicle Builders "strategy" of keeping GMH cars out of Pagewood "must be kept going as a State portion of the white popUlation which Union (VBU) and the other car unions to NSW only divides· the GMH workers, Government enterprise, in order to chose to remain the same democratic win a shorter workweek at no loss in pay. pitting those in Victoria and SA against supply the 40% of the Australian car rights as those of South Africa's other Spread the work around - thirty hours their brothers in NSW. market which is in NSW" (Pagewood peoples. An,d it cannot be ruled Qut in work for forty hours pay! Create jobs for Everywhere the sellout bureaucrats go, News no 3, emphasis added). In short, advance that for some white workers, all! A nationwide strike must also the lambs of the reformist left are sure to produce a white Australian car for white appeals to class unity could overcome demand unlimited unemployment ben­ follow after, too. The Socialist Workers Australian socialists. racist solidarity. efits at full pay and fully paid job training Party (SWP) is also calling on" "our" Instead of preaching reliance on the under union control to win those currently In the present anti-apartheid struggles, Labor Government to do something, pref­ capitalist Wran government - don't out of a job to the workers' side. erably nationalise· Pagewood. But this as black workers take to the streets along forget, despite its "Labor" title, it's At the moment Pagewood is front-page assembly plant is an utterly antiquated, with the students, the need for a prolet­ theirs, not ours - class-struggle union­ news. A militant fight for jobs through a forty-year old factory which GMH never arian perspective is clearly posed. Petty­ ists must wage a fight for an immediate factory occupation would be a beacon to reinvested in substantially, but instead bourgeois nationalists of the African seizure of Pagewood as part of a general­ all workers and have a galvanising effect allowed the plant to run down over the National Congress (ANC) and other exile ised .struggle for a shorter workweek at no far beyond the car industry itself. Right years. Now it produces the staggeringly and underground nationalist organiz­ loss in pay. Not social-democratic now the metal trades' unions are conduct­ low figure of 120 Holden Commodores a nationalisation schemes, but 30 for 40! ations offer no effective strategy to defeat ing a "campaign" for a 3S-hour week. apartheid. "We can't fight a bush war", day, a production speed which the most Hawke, Unsworth and the rest have Here is the chance to make that campaign admits ANC spokesman Thabo Mbeki, modem plants in Japan almost achieve shown though that they are not going to real, instead of playing around with the "look at a map. It is all developed" (New per hour (even most Leyland plants in fight for anything remotely approaching utterly useless "tactic" of knocking off York Times, 20 June). The would-be Britain manage 40 cars an hour) such a program. The crisis facing car five hours early once a month. A plant Kenyattas and Nyereres of South Africa (Financial Review, 3 July)! Pagewood workers shows once again the need for a seek to subordinate the workers' occupation at Pagewood could be the survived for so long only because it had a revolutionary leadership of the working struggles to their own petty-bourgeois springboard for a nationwide offensive of guaranteed home market, secured by a class to carry the fight against bankrupt the working class against the recession ambitions. They also appeal to US steep protectionist waif which gave the capitalism through to a victorious and Fraser's relentless austerity drive. imperialism to pressure the apartheid Australian car industry an astounding 80 conclusion .• rulers for reform. Their model for post­ apartheid South Africa is based on the experience of anti-working-class middle­ men for imperialism like Mozambique's The Secret Service's formal apology into the cause, to the hundreds of trade Samora Machel (who still sends contract Margolis ... and cash settlement shows that Margolis unionists and socialists who sup­ labor to South Africa's mines) and was a victim of official persecution ported them, to the contributors who Zimbabwe's strikebreaking Robert continued from page 7 reminiscent of Nixon's COINTELPRO. Of donated thousands of dollars to back Mugabe. course, it is only one step forward. The these fighters against the government, Carter who brought the Taft-Hartley same letter of apology vows that the CONGRATULATIONS ON A VICTORY rr South Africa's oppressed non-white [anti-union law] against the miners political police will do it again and again WELLWONI masses are to achieve full victory over the strike .... " It was the idea that militant ("the Secret Service cannot be absolutely - - adapted from Workers Vanguanl white racist regime they must look. else­ labour opposition to the Democratic certain that other misunderstandings will no 259, 27 June 1980 where for leadership. A key task in South Party might be voiced that panicked never occur"), all in the name of pro­ Africa is therefore the construction of a Carter's private police. Margolis was tecting the imperial president. But Trotskyist party armed with a program politically gagged. Margolis' victory will give pause to these for workers revolution through smashing witchhunters before they try such a stunt apartheid. South Africa, a regional im­ The legal complaint filed by her again. Finally it will not be through Correction perialist power, is the key to socialist attourneys began, "This is no ordinary legal suits but on the picket lines and in revolution throughout the entire econ­ lawsuit". Unlike many would-be oppo­ the class struggle that this fight must be The introduction to the letter from omically extremely backward region. The sitionists who routinely drag the unions won. The only real protection the working Sheffield steel workers reprinted in the South African working class therefore into the bosses' courts, Margolis asserted class has against victimisation by the last issue of our paper (see "British steel bears a historic responsibility beyond labour's right to decide its course free . capitalist state is a militant, vigilant workers tell Thornett: We don't like even its own liberation from the chains of from government interference. And the labour movement politically mobilised scabs", ASp no 74, June" 1980) mis­ apartheid slavery. It can become the van­ suit pointed out how this fight goes a against the big business politicians takenly referred to two "militants" who guard of social revolution for a whole long way back, citing the important and government. crossed picket lines at British Leyland continent. With the country's vast Minneapolis Teamster trial of 1941 as an Rover as supporters of the Workers mineral resources and industrial power example of how the capitalist state But this time, Margolis, UCASSH, Socialist League. The two whose harnessed for social emancipation instead witchhunts militant unionists and social­ MAC and their supporters took on the scabbing was defended in the WSL of apartheid profits, a black-centered ists like Jane Margolis. The preface to the White House ... and won. That means a newspaper (in a polemic against the workers and peasants republic in South legal complaint concluded: lot in a union which has been pushed Spartacist League) are supporters of the . Africa would be the real beginning of the "Thus the case of Jane Margolis versus around for years by the hated phone International Marxist Group. Also, the African socialist revolution. the Secret Service challenges in principle monopoly: here is a program to put the militant who refused to cross the picket the government's interference with, and CWA on its feet. To Jane Margolis, to the line at the SDI plant at Rover's was - reprinted from Workers Vanguanl attempt to politically control, the trade phone workers who threw their full incorrectly referred to by the WSL as an no 259, 27 June 1980 union movement." strength and thousands of valuable hours SL supporter. July 19~O 9 ...... ' ~.~' .. ~ .,. I ~ '" ~ ... 4 •

'. ~~1y.19aO '" .• ' , ,' ...;,. " , } . ,11 ., Australasian ... SPARTACIST Apologist for Khomeini tours Australia SWP/H as Iranian leftists d- The Socialist Workers Party (SWP) is Arab minority", a valiant "anti-shah and 'Down with the Shah'" (Militant, paper currently staging a national tour by one women's rights activist". ofthe US SWP, 13 January 1978)! As for Fatima Fallahi, a leader of the HKE "women's rights" ,·Fallahi's organisation ("Revolutionary Workers Party"), the What a disgusting fraud! .The SWP will and the SWP actually defend the chador, SWP's Iranian co-thinkers. Fallahi is to undoubtedly try to stop the Spartacist the Iranian veil symbolising the feudal speak on the "current situation" in Iran, League from telling the truth about enslavement of women. Every month focusing particularly on the "gains (!) Fallahi by once again trampling on since Khomeini's rise to power, women made by the Iranian working people workers democracy and excluding us have been stoned and assaulted for such since the overthrow of the shah" and the from these "public" meetings. But the "crimes" as adultery, prostitution or "problems (!!) that workers and national HKE's sordid political record cannot be eyen going out without the stifling head­ minorities are facing today". To build the concealed. "Anti-shah"? Just one year to-toe chador. Yet the SWP still has the tour, the SWP's Direct Action (11 June) before the butcher Pahlavi fled Iran, the gall to proclaim that in this "Islamic Re­ has been touting Fallahi as a woman leaders of the HKE were publicly de­ public", "Women are freer than ever be­ "socialist" recently released from jail nouncing Iranian Maoist students in the fore" and that the veil remains a "symbol after being sentenced reportedly "for United States for raising "very uIti­ supporting the democratic rights of Iran's matistic and ultraleft demands ... like Continued on page 11 I ) Ten questions Fatima Fallahi can't answer \, Fatima Fallahi of the HKE - the of such questions, but not so Fatima have the courage to face our 1. In April of this year lumpen gangs and Iranian co-thinkers of the Socialist Fallahi: she needs to be protected questions because to do so would Khomeini-Ioyal students organised by the Workers Party (SWP) - is touring from them. Instead of seeking the expose her as a supporter of mulla~s went on a rampage through Australia to speak on the subject of widest possible audience in the left Khomeini's rampaging gangs of Iran's. campuses to eradicate all traces Khomeini's Islamic "revolution". and workers movement to tell the murderers, and thus partly respon­ of "Marxist influence" on them. Dozens The Spartacist League prints here story of this "revolution", Fallahi of leftists were killed; hundreds more sible for their crimes. Fatima Fallahi: injured. Yet the HKE - as opposed to all some questions for Fallahi - speaks at meetings from which all we say the blood of Khomeini's other iranian left groups - hailed these r questions about this so-called supporters of the Spartacist League victims is on your hands! That is why bloody purges as "a revolutionary "revolution" which wages Persian­ are systematically excluded! Such you hide behind a veil ofexclusion I action" , and disgustingly cited the chauvinist war on Iran's national privatised "forums" benefit only the Fallahi's "public" meetings are a "resistance of the leaders of the minorities, enslaves women in counterrevolutionary regime Fallahi fraud· to mask the betrayals of the Fedayeen and Mujahedeen" for sparking segregation and the veil, and sends supports. HKE in Iran; we think this will be off the killings of their own members! In ' .. gangs of religious-fanatic murderers The SWP excludes Spartacist clear to anyone who makes the effort what way was this murderous onslaught, onto campuses to kill leftists - and supporters from all its . public . to study the facts. We ask all those or your party's vile defence of it, questions about the complicity of the meetings on years-old spurious who have been interested in what "revolutionary"? HKE in these atrocities through its charges of "disruption" (read: 2. When you were jailed, Fatima Fallahi, Fallahi has to say to examine the the international Spartacist tendency continued support for mullahs' rule. posing embarrassing political ques­ questions Fatima Fallahi cannot demonstrated for your release, despite Any representative of a real tious). But this speaker, an apologist answer. the sectarian splitting tactics of your revolution would need to have no fear for mullahs' terror in Iran, does not *: *: SWP "comrades". Why don't you now perform the elementary duty of any * would-be socialist and help defend the Iranian left from right-wing attacks? You fail to perform this duty because your party supports this sinister government against the left. How is it that your release comes just at the same time as your party's support for the seizure of the. Iranian campuses by Islamic thugs­ something the US SWP's MIIltant (9 May) made much of by running a photobox on your release as a companion to its translation of the HKE's statement on the campus events? Just a coincidence? We think not. 3. In Iran there is another group, the HKS, which the leaders of the HKE were members of until late last year. Both the HKS and the HKE are recognised as "sections" by the "United Secretariat of ·the Fourth International" (USec), to which the SWP also belongs. Yet the HKS has opposed the campus takeovers. Does the HKE support the mullahs' attacks on your former comrades of the HKS? What is the USec position on the takeovers? Which of its "Iranian sections" does the USec think is right? HKE treachery rewarded, April 1980: Fallahi freed from prison (left) as campus leftists face Islamic terror (right). contInued on page 11 .L 12 July 1980