French Revolution

NUMBER 12 SEPTEMBER·OCTOBER 1968 10 CENTS To the Brink and Back: FRENCH REVOLUTION The immediate origins of the French struggles can Travail (CGT) over the strike through the building of be traced'to student activity at Nanterre and the Sor workers' councils. That the revolutionary French work bonne but these student rebellions had revolutionary ers were unable to take power was principally, although significance only insofar as they were the spark which not solely, due to the treachery. of the French Commu set off a conflagration within the working class. It was nist Party (PCF). the social crisis, not the student movement, which led to the workers' occupation of factories, the' paralyzing Communist Party Sabotages of French commerce and industry and the largest and The PCF leaders, along with the CGT, their trade most powerful general strike in history. union arm, did everything in their power to derail the The struggle is reminiscent of the Hungarian work movement. Tb.ey attempted'to split the initial student· ers' revolt of 1956, although in France it did not result in the spontaneous generation of workers' councils. Thus, the elements of dual power were not clearly pres ent. But both exemplified, in laboratory situations, th.e counterrevolutionary nature of Stalinism, just as in both cases struggles on the part of students and intel lectuals struck a chord within the working class. This has become almost a classic model of social upheaval in our era. Revolutionary Leadership Lacking There was a period of about a week, the high-tiqe of which was 29 May, when France was "in' the grip of a. 'pre-revolutionary situation. The initiative was, with the workers; it was within their grasp to take state power and establish the proletarian dictatorship. The old order and the Gaullist government were incapable of ruling, incapable of imposing their order on the subordinate classes or of solving the social crises tearing apart the nation. General discontent among 'parts of these sub ordinate strata-students, some farmers, the urban petty-bourgeoisie--wasacute. The French state,. racked UNITED FRONT New York march on 22 June by its own internal contradictions, the crisis of bour protests outlawing French revolutionary groups. geois order and far-reaching discontent, was for the worker alliance at the factory gates, slandering the stu period of a week more fragile than at any other time dents as "provocateurs." In their patriotic fervor they in a generation. German-baited -Cohn-Bendit. They attempted to steer Yet the situation did not reach the point of dual the whole'thrust of the demonstrations, strikes and fac power, which is characteristic of all revolutionary crises. tory occupations into narrow, exclusively economic de In a few cases, factory committees, replacing the exist mands. They established back-to-work movements. They ing representation in the several trade-union federa misdirected the struggle back into the parliamentary tions, were elected by the striking workers, but this swamp. They allowed De Gaulle a breathing space, al embryonic form of workers' councils was limited to lowed him to retrieve the initiative and to rally back to perhaps ten factories. The comites d'action which himself wavering middle-class elements, to ally himself sprang up all over France were essentially district or with the military command and a whole bloc of proto n4ighborhood groups, nqt based specifically on the work fascist elements. The PCF's betrayals in May led di ing class in the enterprises. rectly to De Gaulle's victory at the polls on'23 June. What was missing in, France was a revolutionary The PCF, long the most "Stalinized" party in West party which could have raised the necessary demands to ern Europe, has in its Br,ezhnevite transfiguration main take the situation from a general strike to dual power, tained the same rotten policies it upheld in 1936, 1945 to shatter the control of the Confereration Generale de (Continued on Page 4); SPARTACIST REBELLION AT COLUMBIA: New Left Flounders Most of our readers are famiIiarwith the events of Students who had not previously been "political" were the Columbia University Crisis: the occupation of Ham enraged by the 'cop inv.asion of' their campus and the ilton Hall.on 23 April by protesters led by Students for extent of the brutality. Columbia: was ripe for rebellion; a Democratic Society (SDS) and the Student Afro its structure is particularly feudal even in comparison American Society (SAS), the week-long occupation of to most other universities. And Columbia's long history Hamilton by black students and Morningside community of injustices against Morningside ghetto residents residents and of four other campus buildings by whit~ especially as la~dlord in the area~ulminating in the students, the bl'utal bust 011 the morning of 30 April, imperious, attempt t() build a University gym in a city the student strike, the second Hamilton Hall sit-in on park provided the students with community support for 21 May in protest against the reprisals. their struggle against the trustees. The Columbia events provided the campus radicals, an4 especially SDS, with an, enormous opportunity. Weakness of New Left Unfortunately, despite the deep alienation and dem onstrated courage of the sit-in participants, the Colum bia New Left was unable to take advantage of the op GLEN ROBINSON portunity to lead a student strike against the Univer sity. Its weakness stemmed in part from its attitude of "minority confrontation ism" ; when the Columbia action turned, through the intervention of the cops, from a .' minority action, originated by the radicals in despair and indignation, into a massive strike action, the radi- ' cal students were unprepared. Many considered that only they, who had "put their lives on the line" in the <1riginal occupation of the buildings, could be trusted to support the strike's demands and to determine policy. Thus the attempt by the original Steering Committee elected in the occupied bpildings to retain the leadership of the strike in an undemocratic manner, by insisting that the original ll-man Steering Committee' be re tained as the Strike Co-ordinating Committee (SCC) with new representatives to be added to represent others who supported the original six demands as a precondi. tion for being r~presented. "Mooerate" students, fear ful of SDS, opposed this proposal, as did many students who considered themselves on, strike and wanted an equal right to determine strike policy. After a long and heated meeting, this proposal was withdrawn, and all students were allowed representation on the SCC. But lear of manipulation remained. Support for the strike tended to dissipate for other A Self Portrait reasons. The SCC's concept of intransigence seemed to We want to inform f.riends and acquaintances .consist entirely of flamboyant statements insisting that of the Spartacist League of the death of our com all six strike demands must be a precondition to any rade Glen Robinson, who died in Seattle, Wash negotiations with the administration. These. tactics ington on 3 April of this year. Death came as a or, rather, the lack thereof-of the SCQ were by no result of unsuccessful radical treatment of Hodg means accepted by all the striking students; in fact, kin's disease. He was 24 years old. this approach was contrary to the "Fayerweather Pro Glen was born into a trade-unionist family in Posals" which were passed overwhelmingly during the a small town in Idaho, and later moved to Seattle .sit-in in Fayerweather Hall. in order to attend college; he was the first of his family to do so. When he was 18 he learned he had Strike Split cancer, and spent the last six years of his life Meanwhile, a split by the· shaky "moderates" l~d to with this knowledge and in considerable pain. Yet the formation of a competing body, the, Students for a despite this and other personal and financial dif .Restructured University. Gradually during the course ficulties, he never gave up his dedication to work.., of the strike the black students and SAS began to be ing-class revolution, and remained a committed less in evidenc,e, and very 'few took part in the second and fighting communist to the end of his life. We sit-in. From the beginning, when the black students had mourn his passing. . demanded exclusive control of Hamilton Hall and urged white students to occupy other buildings, a split between SEPTEMBER·OCTOBER 1968 .

black and white radicals was an incipient situation on the level. of a protest problem but was never discussed by action, from which it was launched with the strike leadership, as they deferred the occupation of the buildings by sev to the black students as automatically eral hundred people, instead of bring; SPARTAC)ST 'more militant" and in any case believed ing it up to the level of a strike action, A Bimonthly Organ that everyone I;!hould do "his own as was clearly called for on the morn thing." ing after the bust, when several thous of Revolutionary Marxism Part of the strike's energies were be and infuriated students and faculty re EDITORS: David Cunningham; coming increasingly channelled into fused to let Columbia get away with it. Managing, Helen Jan6cek; "liberation classes" which were set up ..• The "purists," however, did not wish to lead such a fight and instead West Coast, Christopher Kinder; by radical students and professors. Southern, Jose9h Vetter. While this project, which is continuing have viewed the striking students mere through the summer, is undoubtedly of ly as bodies to perform the daily ac Subscription: SOc yearly. Bundle rates for value. to the participants, it has tended tions they, the "purists," have decided 10 or more copies. Main address: Box to shift the attention of the radicals upon, actions they term "confrontations" 1377, G.P.O., New York, N.Y. 10001. onto a parallel "Free University type" and which are designed to keep things in Telephone: WA 5·2426. , Western address: perpetual excitement and agitation. P.O. Box 852, Berkeley, Calif. 94701. body and away from the struggle for Telephone: Ol 2-4787. Southern address: student-faculty control of Columbia it This situation has been quite clear P.O. Box 8121, New Orleans, La. 70122. self. Another difficulty facing the strike from the moment that the SDS faction Telephone: 523-0580. actually stemmed from its success: on the SCC got that body to adopt a Published by the Central Committee of many professors, refusing to break the demand for total victory, i.e., to refuse the Spartacist league. Opinions ex· strike, held "liberated" classes off camp to negotiate, by putting the two most pressed in signed articles do not neces us, and their students became re-in important demands, amnesty and re sarily represent an editorial viewpoint. volved with course work, far from the structuring, as pre-conditions for nego ·;~)X .•23 picket lines. tiations. Although this tactic has pro Finally, school recessed for the sum vided the "purists" with a self-fulfilling 'Number 12 Sept •• Od. 1968 mer, leaving the situation in a con prophecy, the disaffection of many stu fused state, with 79 students suspended dents, including a large number who delegated negotiators "from the Board and this threat hanging over the rest. have basically the same outlook as that of Trustees. The onus of intransigence What momentum will be left by the of SDS, has made it all the more cer must be placed on them. time school reopens in the fall remains tain that such key demands, no matter 3) Commence with immediate, ag to be seen. But if the situation for the how often they are labelled as pre gressive, creative, dramatic, publicity radicals is both promising and difficult, conditions, a-re rapidly becoming unob seeking pressure tactics by which we the "moderates" have found a.n ally tainable because we have not been fight can embarrass and force the Trustees Students for a Restructured University ing for them. ••• and Administration to negotiate. The has received a Ford Foundation subsidy! By splitting off from the SCC the following are a few examples: We are reprinting below excerpts "moderates," on the other ·hand, have -constant harassment . . • of the from a position paper, "A Plea to Save -also given up the primary job of leading trustees and key administration fig the Columbia Strike," which was dIs this strike. They have generally empha ures at their homes and places of tributed to the strike militants. The sized the need to make definite proposals work author, Manuela Dobos, was elected an for reform of the university, but with -()ccupation of campus buildings ••• altern{\te to the sec by the Graduate o~t the thoroughgoing social analyses -gathering of pledges from students History department in the cou,rse of the or poldness of the radicals. They have not to pay tuition ... strike, and was arrested in the second wa~ked out on the mandates from their -demonstrations of solidarity with the . Hamilton Hail bust and suspended from constituencies by making themselves a arrested students. . • • Columbia for a year. A Vice-Chairman lobby-research group. The Students Obviously, there· cannot be a guaran of the 1968 Socialist Scholars Confer for a Restructured University will de tee of victory in this statement. It is bate and conclude a series of proposals ence, she is also running for state ft.S impossible to determine how a fight sembly as the candidate of the West which will politely be shelved by the will come out before it has been waged; administration. Side Committee for Independent Politi in any case, up until now, there has not cal Action. Elitists and ultra-leftists OR. the one been much of a genuine fight. Even a lost hand, conciliatory liberals on the other, strike would, on the basis of these pro have made of our strike committee two I. As. is apparent, the massive stu posals, leave those involved in a better, separate and unrepresentative pres less demoralized, and more organized dent strike which began at Columbia on sure groups. "Committees," either for state than will be the case if every April 30 is dissipating. While numbers deliberation or for protest, have taken decrease and discouragement rises on one sneaks off to tend his own affairs the place of what has been the real and desert~ the SCC, actions which can our side, there is growing confidence necessity all along: a representative, on that of the Administration; they now only result in a broken strike: no de functioning, hard-driving strike-central, mands m:t, 500 students penalized for feel strong enough to show their de our bargaining agent. termination to throw the book at those actions we all supported, and the end Ill. A fight cim only be waged by a radical political activity on campus 500 arrested and destroy SDS at Co to to reunited strike central. The two fac for a long while. But this need not be! lumbia. The general reaction of the tions must become reunited by giving We have not been beaten; we have striking students has been helplessness up their respective approaches~ach scattered our own forces. If, we pull and a tendency to let things go as they of which is sterile without the other ourselves together to fight the TrusteeS may with the close of' the semester...• and adopt the fol1owing set of pro we can yet gain much from this strike II. Before suggesting how ... a fight posals: and lay the basis for much more to clm be waged, it is necessary to give 1) Continue striking for the original come until the Trustees ~d their social the reasons for the current bad scene: six demands. . • . Specifically, this order are gone. Today the French stu. it all boils down to the mistaken tactics means that no demand be made a pre dents and workers lead the way. of the strike leadership, the Strike Co conditiQn to negotiations. [Passed overwhelmingly by striking ordinating Committee. 2) Deman!I immediate negotiations History graduate students, 22 May Briefly, these tactics have kept ·the any time and anywhere with properly 1968J SPARTACIST

or another variant, his theories per tendencies operating in France, all pre •.. FRANCE meate the writings and speeches of sently banned. Two groups are affiliated (Continued from Page 1) practically the whole constellation of with assorted "Fourth Internationals," and 1947. Through the lack of a revolu the New Left "heroes"-Mao, Guevara, the Organization Communiste Inter tionary communist alternative, the PCF Castro, Fanon, Debray, Paul Sweezy, nationale (OCI) with the Healyite In and CGT have until now managed to Lin Piao, C. Wright Mills. ternational Committee, and the Parti maintain the loyalty of the French Marcuse's thesis is that the working Communiste Internationale (PCl) with workers. The French events demon class has become socially moribund and the Pabloite United Secretariat. Also strate once more the necessity of build obsolete. This thesis, an attempt to associated with the Pabloites is the ing an alternative for the communist explain the twenty-year hiatus in re Jeunesse Communiste Revolutionaire workers to the PCF-that is, a com volutionary workers' struggles in the (JCR), a left split from the PCF stu munist party which will honor its pro post-war period, dovetailed quite nicely dent federation. The third tel)dency, the gram and fight for state power in its with the liberal capitalist line that Union Communiste, which publishes own right. It is not enough that this "post-industrial" society was sufficient Voix Ouvriere (Workers Voice), is or party 'break formaily with the pcF or ly flexible to comfortably integrate the ganizationally independent of these "In with "Khrushchevfte revisionism"; it working class and dispense with class ternationals" but has fraternal rela must also break wJth the methods and struggle. This theory deepened petty tions with groups in other countries, policies of Stalinism. What is needed bourgeois contempt for the workers among them the Spartacist League in is not another left-talking agency, but and gave impetus to all kinds of elitist the U.S. conceptions of historical change. By a Leninist-Trotskyist party. Only the Healyites Screw Up shifting the blame onto the victims of kind of party which won the 1917 Oct Despite attempts by the British ober Revolution in Russia will be able these policies of non-struggle rather than onto the perpetrators, onto the Newsletter and the U.S. Bulletin to get to the roots of the PCF's be (Healy's English-Iangoog,e propaganda trayals.. workers rather than the assorted bu reaucrats who mislead them, this theory apparatus) to make it appear that the De Gaulle Cracks Down dismisses the workers as a revolution OCI was leading the entire rebellion, The government's crackdown on all ary class and searches instead for a its presence in the working class was the major organizations to the left of new "vanguard agency." In favor of limited toa few important factory con the PCF becomes an even more serious Mao's peasants or Guevara's guerillas, centrations; its influence in the radical threat in this context. To date, there the militant of the industrial West is student movement was non-existent. have been eleven working-class and stu encouraged to become not a revolution Over-reacting against "student van dent groups ordered dissolved-most ary but a vicarious enthusiast of "other" guardism," a real problem, the French of them, according to the bourgeois forces. Healyites went so far as to oppose stu press, "Trotskyite.'; These proscribed The French workers did more than dent struggle ,at the very moment the organizations are forbidden to publish shake up French bourgeois society: students were building the barriclUk!s their propaganda; militants who con their struggle rendered obsolete the which triggered the whole revolt. tinue their work are subject to prison whole carefully constructed myth-Mar This reaction was objectively defeat terms. cuse, liberalism, the New Left and its ist. After the barricades-building epi The ban on these organizations is a heroes. The "bought-off" workers in sode many of their rank and filers func fierce attack on the civil liberties of action, the strikes, factory occupations, tioned in the various comites d'action ,French workers and students. It is a the red flag everywhere, the workers' as individuals disgusted with their class-determined ban: while the govern drive for power and their rejection of group's policies. The OCI did not even ment illegalized the French left, it was the concessions exacted from the teN have a propaganda stall at the Sor at the same time releasing from jail rified French bourgeoisie-these event!'! bpnne (although every other left organ extreme rightists, proto-fascists and the show concretely where the social ageney ization did). conspirators of the attempted paramili for change is to be found in our era. .. tary coup d't!tat of 19as. And what makes Pabloite Revisionism the ban especially damaging now is Role of The French Left t I The Pabloites were limited in a more that it is the militants of many of the The pro-Chinese groupings seemed subtle manner, deriving from their es banned organizations who best appre out of their depth in the complex sit trangement from the working class and a concept of "stUdent vanguardism." ciate t~e pernicious role of the PCF uation. The question facing the working and can draw the necessary conclu class was the fracturing of the CGT's Thus, within the student milieu they sions. power, a situation in which the played an active role, with some in Both the Gaullists and the PCF ben "thoughts of Chairman Mao" must have crease in influence and leadership. But efit from these decrees; to assume that appeared even more gloriously irrele central to their weakness was their the PCF was not an accomplice to the vant than usual. The Maoist students inability to break out of the student crackdown is to stretch credibility be understood the necessity of involving arena. Their isolation was of course yond the breaking point. It has been themselves in the workers' struggles not accidental but stemmed from tac acknowledged that from the beginning and managed to build themselves an in tical and theoretical shortcomings of of the crisis the CGT leadership was in dustrial base, but seemed to have no many years' duration, characterized secret, daily contact with the govern idea what to do with it. But whatever chiefly by a renunciation of the neces ment. At any rate, neither L'Humanite they did must have had little support sity for revolutionary leadership and a nor The Worker has to date said one from their chollen leaders in Peking; consequent adaptation to existing petty word in regard to these bans. the Chinese themselves consider De bourgeois and Stalinist leaderships. Gaulle a "progressive" anti-imperialist. This revisionist trend has been codified Proletarian Revolution vs. New Leftism The political work of the Paris anarch in a number of notorious resolutions on Many "new" ideas about revolution ist students appears largely to have the part of the United Secretariat which have surfaced within the American consisted in "confronting" the police. In declared that the "epicenter" of revolu left in the 1960's, and France offers three weeks they moved from their tra tionary struggle had shifted to the col us a laboratory in which to test them. ditional concept of super-individuality onial world, and away from the indus Since so much of late has been made to participating in the demonstrations trial working class. of Herbert Marcuse, considered the in the manner of a super-organized Their line is only a capitulation, mentor of European radical youth, his lockstep action squad. decked out in "revolutionarY" verbiage Ideas are of central importance. In one There are three distinct "Trotskyist" to a variant of the Marcuse-Mao-Gue= SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 1968 -5 vara thesis preaching contempt for the upon "all organizations claiming to be of brass! workers while leoking about for other Trotskyist to join in this move." The The Pabloite press has smothered it "agencies." That this theory has borne VO comrades feel the recent events con self in a general line of: "If the French little fruit has not dissuaded them from stitute "the French 1905." Let us re (or any other) revolution hesn't yet their search. In practice the Pabloites member that the sequel to the 1905 taken place it's all the fault of the Stal have done little more than participate Russian Revolution was a unification inists." This serves only as a conven· in popular front "peace" demonstrations of the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks! It ient-if by now rather boring-scape and lend themselves as a left cover for took Lenin several years to break this goat. The Stalinists have been function Stalinists, pacifists and liberals. over-fraternal unity. What has been ing as agents of the bourgeoisie at And so it happened that, precisely pointed up in FranCe by the latest CP least since 1933; this has been codified when 'the Fl'ench workers went into CGT 'betrayal -is not· the· need for a in the Trotskyist movement at least motion and eVen &. small combat-or "Trotskyist regroupment" but the. need since the 1938 Transitional Program. iented Marxist nucleus could have by for a new revoilltionary party l:Jased on Yet the central premise of Pabloism is example alone wielded enormous in the vindicated Bolshevik'program, unit that the Stalinist parties are subject to' fluence, the Pabloites were o1J.tside the ing all those, -even from sucl;J. tenden "left" pressure to such a degree that trade 'union movement. And then when cies' as the Maoists and' syndicalists, they can at times playa revolutionary the issue was posed of linking the stu who stand in favor of workers' commit role. Thus the Pabloite co-thinkers of dents with the workers, it came to tees of power. We hope that VO, the the USec. in the U.S. (Sociali~t Work little more than an expression of soli French Bolsheviks, have not been dis ers Par.ty-Young Socialist Alliance) darity rather than pointing the way to oriented as were the Russians in 1905. find themselves caught in a classic cen· the assembling of the communist party. trist trap. British and U.S. Left Voix OUvriere The Healyite organizations appear On the one hand, the Militant has' done an accurate and enthusiastic job The Voix Ouvriere comrades are the incapable of learning any of. the les sons of France. As of this writing they reporting the French revolt although only organization claiming to be Trot seriously flawed by "student vanguard" skyist which has carried out a working seem inclined simply to brazen it out with wild claims. A Socialist Labour substitutionism and a vacuous position class line. Initially, their cadres were on the need for the "'rotskyist party. concentrated in the factories to the League congress passed a resolution containing these grotesqueries: And in New York and .11~ Bay Area the extent that they lacked an adequate SWP-YSA did praiseworthy jobs in base within student and petty-bour "Congress contemptuously rejects the building united fronts defending the geois arenas. They were, however, able allegations of cowardice levelled against outlawed French organizations. On the to establish permanent liaison com our comrades as baseless • •. The In other hand, their pervasive opportun-' mittees with the Pabloite organiza .ternational Committee of the Fourth ism and capitulation to bureaucratic tions, enabling them to coordinate their International and its French section is forces, nationalism, student vanguard the only one that has prepared theo intervention with the radical students ism, etc., had already led them to give of the JCR. Such increase in contact retically and organizationally. for this up on the workers and the vanguard between these organizations may in the crisis. • • • • The general strike called party. The Pabloite press now applauds future allow the VO comrades to aid by the CGT on May 13, as a result of itself for its formal, generally ignored Pabloite youth in breaking away from the intervention of our comrades • • • "Trotskyism," but its "Third World the revisionism in their movement and is adequate proof of the correctness of ism" has certainly done nothing to lay orienting decisively toward a revolution their policies and their courage.'1 (our the groundwork for the French events ary proletarian perspective. emphasis) or to push them towards victory. However, the axis upon which the Further evidence that aecording to the VO-Pabloite unity of action is based is Healyites all you need to make the Trotskyism Vindicated a false one. The joint statement called revolution is a pr!nting press and a lot For those who held to a position of consistent Trotskyism, the French re volt was a tremendous vindication. MARXIST BULLETIN SERIES For the revisionists it was only a set No. I_ClIn Defense of a Revolutionary Perspective." back, an expose and a tragedy. How A Statement of Basic Position by the Revolutionary Tendency. Presented to can anyone seriously committed to the the June 1962 plenary meeting of the National Committee of the Socialist position that the "epicenter" of world Workers Party. (23 pages, mimeographed)' 25 cents revolution has shifted away from the No. 2-"The Nature of the Socialist Workers Party-Revolutionary or industrial working class to the colonial Centrist?" world see the French workers' uprising Discussion material of the Revolutionary Tendency within the SWP. (73 as anything but an embarassment? They pages, mimeographed) 50 cents , can only try to straddle, like one Bay No. 3-''The Split in the Revolutionary Tendency." Area YSA'er's picket-line slogan, "Che Documents and Correspondence on the 1962 Rupture by Philips, Wohlforth and Healy of the Minority Tendency of the SWP. (40 pages, mime,ographed) Viva in France," or SWP leader Fred 30 cents Halstead's statement that "The colonial No. 4-"Expulsion from the Socialist Workers Party." revolutionaries no longer fight alone." Documents on tlte exclusion of Revolutionary Tendency supporters. Parts I These incidents alone should raise some and II. (120 pages total, mimeographed) Each Part 50 cents interesting questions in the minds of No. S:-"For the Materialist Conception of the Negro Question" by R. Fraser. serious revolutionaries still in the Reprinted from ,sWP Discussion Bulletin A-30, August 1955. (30 pages, SWP. mimeographed) 25 cents One best aids the French communist No. 7-"The Leninist Position on Youth-Party Relations." workers not by tail-ending their rebel- :r:rocuments from the Young Socialist Alliance and Socialist Workers Party, . lion but by furthering revolutionary 1957-61. (37 pages, mimeographed) 25 cents struggle here. One helps them by build. No. 8-"Cuba and Marxist Theory." ing, both in France and here, sections of Selected Documents on the Cuban Question. (37 pages, mimeographed) an international communist party which (other number. in preparation) . 35 cents 'Will take power. One only harms the Order from: SPARTAClST, Box 1377, G.P.O., New York, N.Y. 10001 French revolutionary movement by re fusing to learn its lessons. • SPARTACIST

Scabs, Fake Lefts Push -Merger: SSEU AT THE CROSSROADS· New York City: On 28 June over By the fourth week the strike be of the membership's wishes. One week 6,000 members of the Social Service came extremely hard and bitter. The later, despite the increased strength of Employees Union voted on a propos8J middle-class background and semi-paci the picket lines, Mage returned with to re-merge with Local 371 of District fist attitudes of many SSEU members, essentially the same package. The Mili Council 37, American Federation of which originally made difficult picket tant Caucus was the lone organized State, County and Municipal Employ line enforcement against scabs, began opposition to the settlement terms and ees, from which the SSEUbroke in to give way and the incidents of vio the deal was accepted 3 to 2 in a poorly 1962. Although the merger proposal Jence, police brutality and arrests of attended meeting. The Agostini Rank was defeated-61.8% voted for, 66.6% strikers rose sharply. and Filers, hiding behind an "Ad Hoc Committee against Reprisals," urged was constitutionally necessary-the fu Strike Role of Oppositions "Vote 'yes' for the contract, vote 'no' ture of the SSEU remains uncertain. Of the internal opposition groups, to reprisals." The bitter loss of' last summer's six only the SSEU Members for a Militant week strike resulted in a profound de Caucus attempted to fill the vacuum For a Unified Staft" moralization of the officers and many created by a passive leadership; they With the defeat of the caseworkers, activists. The work stoppage was ini kept the membership informed through the uniting of welfare staff into one tiated on 19 June 1967 by the Execu weekly strike leaflets of the state of bargaining unit, a main point in the tive Board, frustrated by the defeatist the action and of negotiations and pro Militant Caucus' founding program, be passivity of the union officers (SPAR posed tactics to strengthen the actiol} came an urgent pre-condition to future TACIST No. 10). The morale of the mem and win. The strike also tested the bargaining. All levels of the SSEU bership was undermined by then-Presi other oppositional groupings, the two leadership saw t4e solution to this dent Mage's acceptance of a salary Rank and File Committees, which or problem in simply affiliating with a offer and her failure to adequately ex iginated 'from an unprincipled split larger union. In November, Mage re plain the issues still in dispute, five from the Militant Caucus (SPARTACIST vealed that talks were being held with months after contract expiration. It is No. 10). The larger RAFC (see Pro both Local 371 and the Fur, Leather a testimony to the vitality and mili gressive Labor, Vol. 6, No.3), led by and Machine Workers Joint Board. tancy of ,the membership that the ac Ray Agostini, abdicated any opposi However, advantageous affiliation can tion was able to continue for six weeks. tional role. The smaller RAFC; later to only be negotiated from a position of become "Trade Unionists for a Labor strength and confidence. The alterna SSEU Va. Lindsay Party," (see Workers League's Bulletin, tive to immediate affiliation is to win The work stoppage represented the 18 Dec. 1967), and led by Dennis Crib from Local 371 the bargaining rights fj.rst serious challenge to Mayor Lind ben, played a role that was peculiar by for supervisors, the first step in over say's anti-labor Tri-Partite Agreement any standards. Their principal demand coming the principal strategic weakness (SPARTACIST No.6) and its instrument, was to merge with DC 37, the organi of the SSEU-its representation of the Office of Collective Bargaining zation that was actively assisting the only one main title of three in t~e de (OCB). This scheme, worked out in City to destroy the SSEU! But even partment. With such organizational collusion mainly between the Mayor worse, these so-called militants-all of strength based on the militant tradi a,nd DC 37, removes from bargaining them I-actually left the country to at tions of the SSEU, intervention into as "management prerogative"-mat- tend an English youth conference in CitY-and national labor struggles would . ters of workload, job content, etc., pro the crucial fifth week and did not re take on an entirely different perspec vides for compulsory binding arhitra turn until after the strike, revealing tive. For example, the SSEU should be' tion of disputes and gives DC 37 bar the shallowness of their interest in the the organizing force for the running gaining rights on city-wide issues. To SSEU and the trade union movement. of a labor candidate for Mayor in 1969. gether with the Taylor Law prohibiting However, this perspective involves se public employee strikes, the OCB aims Leadership Sells Out rious struggle within the Department to emasculate the city labor movement. At the end of the fifth week, the City and the union as well as confrontations The SSEU strike received no sup made an offer which represented a de with the bureaucracies of other City port from the bureaucracies of other feat on every major demand and in unions; this prospect is distasteful to unions and the response of the official cluded victimization of 29 militants many delegates and officers and to the labor movement ranged from a few through suspensions and transfers. oppor.tunist fake militants of the Agos telegrams of "support" to outright hos Most crucial was the loss of the Col tini and Cribben gr€)Ups. tility. DC 37's Executive Director, Vic lective Bargaining Clause, won by the tor Gotbaum, called it "a non-strike by 1965 strike, and a "temporary" waiver "Left-Center Coalition" Cop-out a non-union." Albert Shanker, of the of the 60 caseload maximum. The lead Agostini's Rank and File Committee United Federation of Teachers, due to ership attempted to get this deal ap never resumed its oppositional role. col.front the 'City in September, refer proved by the membership without re Shifting its programmatic emphasis to red to the strike as a "jurisdictional vealing its terms! To save face for the "bread and butter'" issues, it was criti dispute." The Mage leadership refused City, the sell-out was to be "negotiated" cal of the successful campaign to have to attack these trade union bureaucrats after the union returned to work. The the SSEU call for immediate with or to demand support from other pub Militant Caucus exposed this arrange drawal of troops·from Viet Nam. (The lic employee unions. Instead, Mage ment and the secret terms, which were SSEU became the first NYC union to called on "friends" like Sanitation lead rejected by a huge majority in an .an take an anti-war position by a member er John DeLuryand Trerotola of the gry and determined membership meet ship vote.) The RAFC and others tried Teamsters to act as brokers for the ing. As the'strike continued, the leader to postpone the scheduled April officers' SSEU. ship sat on its h&nds' in open defiance election until after a merger vote, so .S'".EMIEI-OCTOIER 19"

candidates would not have to take a of TULP ran ~lone on a defeatist pro Assembly, similar to that in the teach stand on affiliations. When this failed, affiliation platform. ers' union. Officers would' serve un they succeeded in sabotaging the elec limited terms without recall prQvisions tions in several centers by' organizing Militant Caucus Gains and collectively set their own salaries large nonsense write-ins (for Mickey The four Militant Caucus candidates ran the only organized opposition slate --certainly the preconditions for a con Mouse, Ho Chi Minh, Ray Agostini, servative, self-interested bureaucracy. and received 22% of the regular city etc.) .~hey believe that the SSEU A strike vote would require a two wide vote, the highest vote for a left thirds vote of any booy. Over half of should re-enter the "mainstream" of the opposition in the union's history. They the increased. dues would go out of the labor movement, in which militants carried Kingsbridge Center by 64% local, mainly to DC 37, for very few sheuld form a "left-center coalition" and had near majorities in several with the present sell-out leadership others. Their wide-ranging, transition services. against that of DC 37. This tactic, fur al program. included demands for un Bureaucratic Merger Rejected ther expounded in PL magazine (Vol. ion democracy, alliance with client After' the defeat of the merger pro 6, Nos. 3 & 4), involves the dropping of groups, shorter work week, against job posal, the Executive Board majority all "radical" demands in order to se discrimination, against "professional voted to have a 8econd merger vote, cure a bloc with the "center"--oppor ism" (for dropping college degree re and granted the "yes" side excluswe tunists, fake radicals and would-be quirement), for withdrawal from Viet use of union facilities and funds for its bureaucrats. But instead of moving Nam, for independent working-class campaign. However, the membership this swamp to the left, the RAFC has polit~eal ac~ion, for winning ,clerks. and rejected this shameless maneuver, and been gradually sucked below its surface supervisors to SSEU, and opposition voted on .23 July to reconsider affilia entirely, as happened to the Commun to entry into DC .37 under the terms tion only after 1 January 1969. What ist Party when it pursued similar tac offered as a retrogressive step. is necessary now is a vigorous cam tics. After the electiOIUl, the SSEU re paign to win the supervisors and to Pernicious "TULP" ceived a revised, unamendable offer win support for the 1969 bargaining The now dissolved grouplet around from Local 871 which was a technical from other City workers. The Militant Dennis Cribben shares many of the improvement, provided one accepted the Caucus has declared its intention to RAFC's' beliefs and tactics, considering bllreaucratization of the merged union. continue organizing for militant and the SSEU to have never had any basis Twenty officers would form. th,e .policy democratic unionism, and for the build for existence and its militant role of making body of the· union, relegatinc ing of an alternate leadership in the the last five years "divisive." Their the delegates to a sand-box Delegates SSEU.• programmatic points range from op portunist to ultimatistic, ~though they and the march showed that we would consider too "radical" demands for an ••• REPRESSION not be stopped. end to racial discrimination in unions (Continued from Pue 8) Not Riots-Revolution! or that workers should have their un The Spartacist League does not ions take a stand against the Viet Nam lice attacked or' when suspected pro call upon Black people to engage in war (Bulletin, 18 Dec. 1967). Their vocateurs, calling for violence, broke meaningless riots nor does it call for SSEU role has been in most cases sim into the meetings. "non-violence." In the SL document, ply capitulationist and' at other times On 8 April, four days later, :eilly "Black and Red-Class Struggle Road pernicious. Their supporter, Ronnie Brooks and comrade Kriight were' ar to Negro Freedom" (SPARTACIST No. Roberts, was publicly censured by the rested on charges of "inciting a felony" 10, May-June 1967), we state: delegates and membership of Kings plus some additional municipal charges...... ghettoes across the country have bridge' Center for a breach of disci According to the New Orleans State8- been rocked by elemental, spontaneous, pline, exposing, in a factionally moti Item of 9 April: "Two men, one white non-political upheavals against the pre vated leaflet, the planned tactics of a and one Negro were arrested for al vailing property relations and against secret work action. During a subse legedly urging others to 'burn, baby, the forces of the state which protect quent local election, when a delegate burn!' and passing out literature in an these relations•••• Yet despite the vast supporting the Militant Caucus issued area of racial tension." But none of energies expended and the casualties a leaflet summarizing the history of this happened! Knight and Brooks; on suffered, these outbreaks have changed Roberts and his group, a Roberts sup their way home, saw a large crowd nothing•••• It is the duty of a revolu porter confiscated and destroyed the gathered with police massing across the tionary organization to intervene where material, assaulting the delegate whe~ street. As they approached they heard possible to give these outbursts political he intervened. Five of the six on the a youth yelling, "Down with the Uncle direction." Militant slate were elected including Tom nigger cops." The police ran after These incidents of police repression two full delegates. In addition Militant the 'youth, pushing down a pregnant are practice runs for their "get-tough" Caucus supporters were elected dele woman. The crowd charged the police tactics for the summer: frame-ups and gates or alternates at four other' work men and the band of cops began using police violence .are their "law and or 1000atiQns. the butts of shotguns to break up the der." If the radical movement and pro The 15 April election for union offi crowd. Knight and Brooks got in their tests of the oppressed are to survive, cers and the campaign preceding it car and left the scene, having given out all legal terrorism must be fought. If were a shambles and a mockery. The no literature either there or anywhere convicted, Billy Brooks will be jailed "majority" slate, headed by Mage-ite else that night. Two blocks away thet for 5 year~, as he is on parole from the demagogue Marty Morgenstern, was a were searched by a cop who found Louisiana State prison because of sim ilar charges against him last year. Sim vote-getting hodge-podge including copies of the leaflet protesting the Boyd murder and the two were then arrested, ilarly. comrade Knight could get a year members of almost all previously op ultimately to be held on' $1000 bail or more. Statements protesting these posing groups plus three Black candi each. Despite all this, the march to police actions should be sent to Jim dates supported by the Black Caucus. protest the Boyd murdet: succeeded, Garrison, DA, Tulane and Broad They took as few positions as possible with Brooks, Knight and Charles Sims Streets, New Orleans, La. Defense -as they had very few in common of the Deacons in the lead. Police ter funds for Brooks and Knight are ur among them-and campaigned on the ror and reactionary Black Nationalist gently needed and should be sent c/o basis of "experience." They were un sentiment succeeded in cutting down Spartacist League, Box 8121, Gentilly opposed by the RAFC and Cribben its numbers, but the protest was beard Sta., New Orleans. La. 70122. • SPARTACIST SEPTEMBER"()CTOBER 1961 (OPS, SPIES, HUAl: Repression in New Orleans

New Orleans: During the past two in Louisiana and continue its struggle crowd of parade spectators and brutal years the Spartacist League in New Or as before." ly beaten by eight policemen. While one leans has suffered many attempts at re On 22 August 1967, three SL'ers and cop was stomping on this throat and pression by state and city police, cul one friend, returning from an anti-war others were clubbing him, he was ac minating in the current'criminal charg conference in Atlanta, were arrested on cuse!! of "assaulting a police officer, es against Thomas Knight of the SL charges of loitering, reviling a police resisting arrest and theft of a police and Billy Brooks, financial director of man's hat"! At his trial he was con the United Liberation Front and form victed of resisti,ng arrest in spite of erl~ of SNCC. testimony of three witnesses who stated The first' open police surveillance oc that the entire incident was provoked curred on 22 June 1966 at a meeting by the police. called for members of the International The White Killer Cop Longshoremen's Association, Local 1419 Joint Legislative Committee on (black). Two members of the New Or The latest and most serious arrest leans Intelligence Squad showed up, Un-American Activities was preceded by a sharp rise in tension claiming "interest in what you have to in the black community. A black youth, say." Upon their expulsion from the 14-year-old Robert Lee. Boyd, was shot and killed by a white cop for picking meeting they threatened to "bring this STATE OF LOUISIANA before the City Attorney as a violation up soft-drink bottles from the back , of our Civil Rights"! Of course, the yard of a bar. He had been given per police were there to do what the union mission by the' bar manager to take , "!'. bureaucrats' goon squad could not do . the bottles. The local NAACP called • for a pl'otelft march but cancelled it, completely- frighten away ILA mem saying: "We fe,el there might be ele bers. - HOD. 101m r. McKeilheD ments that would infiltrate our ranks, Later that summer every member of Go\'CI'IlIIL' elements we could not control." (New the New Orleans Spartacist League lo Orleans Times-Picayune, 30 May 1968) cal was placed under obvious surveil As a result of this, the United Libera lance by the police, as an attempt to tion Front of New Orleans, a coalition pressure them into ceasing their activ 'l'IIJ! IPAIITACIST LEAOtJE AND CElTAlII' 0TIIEIl of militant black groups, and the Spar ity. Then New Orleans police Sgt. Da COJOlVlUBT At'1'MTIES JK 80llTB l.OI1JIIL\K4 tacist League issued a leaflet calling vid Rolland Kent was sent into the for a march to protest the killing and organization as an undercover agent. to demand that all cops be withdrawn Known as "David ROlland," Kent was from the black community. good at his job; working as an active FACSIMILE of cover page. The day this leaflet was issued was member. However, in the spring of the day of the.murder of Martin Luther 1967, he exposed himself by wanting to King; tension sky-rQcketed in the black "join the police fOl'ce to work on police officer and using obscene language. The community with marches from every brutality from the inside"! He was in arrest had political and racist implica direction. Almost all these- marches, led formed that joining the cops was in tions, ,since three of the four were by reformist leaders, were quiet. At compatible with SL membership and black and several boxes of Spartacist the same time, United Liberation and was thrown out. He was later com literature were found in the car trunk. community people were holding mass mended by the New Orleans police for The four were eventually found not rallies at several places. These rallies his activities. guilty, after consiq,erable'legal expens only broke out into violence when po- es. Louisiana HU AC Screams (Contin"ed on Page 7) In the summer of 1967, the Louisiana Another Cop Frame·up Committee on Un-American Activities In January 1968, a second arrest oc SUBSCRIBE TO THE issued a 185-page report on "The Spar curred, with probably more racist than tacist League and Other Communist political motivation. A white comrade, Activities in South Louisiana." Though Tom Knight, was arrested in a black SPARTACJST one member's job was lost as a result neighborhood on loiteritig charges. lox 1377. G.P.O. and numerous threats were received by • These charges were dismissed and a the local organizer, the Spartacist suit for false arrest is now in progress. New York. N. Y. 10001 League stated in its press release that: About three weeks later, comrade twelve issues - $1 " ••• we are said to be a 'revolutionary Knight was arrested for· "interfering six issues - 50¢ Communist group with Trotskyite ori with the work of a police officer" be entation.' • • • the Committee and its cause he refused to allow police without Name agents do not realize the full meaning a warrant to search the car in which of what they have said in public. If he and Floyd Nichols, one of the five they had, then they would have realized framed-up black students from Texas Address that trained Com1l\unist cadre are not Southern University, were riding. Then driven out by mere public persecution. on 27 February, Mardi Gras night, City ••• The Spartacist League will remain comrade Knight was pulled out of a