WfJRlllRI ,,1N'(lI1,, 25¢ No. 494 26 January 1990
From. Perestroika to Pogroms BloodyNationalist Strife in USSR JANUARY 22-In order to clamp down on the com bare the price of nationalist rampage, speculation on sacred munalist slaughter raging in the Caucasian republics, national feeling. It is a crime to push people to blind enmity, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev found it necessary to to the madness {)f fratricidal war." send in troops. After heavy fighting against Azerbaijani It is indeed: However, the violent nationalisms which nationalist partisans armed with weapons previously now threaten to rip apart the Soviet Union are the seized from the army, Soviet forces now occupy the product of six decades of Stalinist bureaucratic rule capital of Baku. Mass demonstrations are continuing, and have been intensified by Gorbachev's own policies. led by the Azerbaijani Popular Front, which is raising The immediate trigger for the decision to send troops the spectre of secession. Other Soviet forces are mov was the pogrom against the several thousand Arme ing to gain control of the area along the Azerbaijani nians who still lived in Baku. Azeri mobs-many Armenia border, which had become the front line in made up of refugees from the two-year-long blood feud a savage civil war. . -dragged people out of homes, reportedly burning Addressing the Soviet people, Gorbachev explained: them alive, beating them to death and throwing them Time "The tragic events in Baku, the border areas of Azerbai off high balconies. Some Azerbaijanis were horrified Azerbaijani nationalists burn down border jan and Armenia, other regions of the Caucasus have laid continued on page 12 posts between USSR and Khomeiniite Iran.
Trotskyists to Fight in East German Elections The Spartakist-Arbeiterpartei Deutsch The imperialists and their front men lands (SAPD-Spartakist Workers Party had expected the ruling SED (Socialist of Germany), founded at a meeting in 'Spartaki~t Workers Party Founded Unity Party) to simply dissolve as in East Berlin on January 21, has an Hungary or, following the Polish exam nounced that it will present candidates ple, to meekly make way for a capitalist and participate on a Leninist program in press, stepped-up pressure for reunifica Leipzig demonstrations, and the first acts government after an expected rout in the the 6 May 1990 elections to the Volks tion from the West German government, of violence in Berlin. The capitalists elections scheduled for May 6. (And kammer, the parliament of the German demands for unlimited penetration of want to put a stop to the so far peaceful e indeed the recent defection of the SED Democratic Republic (DDR). Representa capital from Frankfurt. bankers, anti development of a political revolution Dresden mayor and his group in the tives of the Spartakist-Gruppen and the Communist witchhunt propaganda in the against Stalinist bureaucratic rule. continued on page 5 Trotzkistische Liga Deutschlands joined in forming the SAPD for that purpose. "With this election campaign, the Spartakist-Arbei terpartei Deutschlands seeks to mobilize against the sellout of the DDR, bringing to the broad masses • of working people the program for polit ical rule of workers and soldiers coun cils and their allies-in particular white collar employees, pensioners, collective farmers, members of the intelligentsia, students and pupils-as well as for forging a truly internationalist Leninist party in all of Germany," a press release stated. Among the documents upon which the party was founded are "What Do the Spartacists Want" (see WV No. 492, 29 December 1989) and the "Open Letter to All Communists" (see page 10). Since the beginning of the year, big sections of the bourgeoisie have gone . Spartakis! all out to provoke a crisis in the DDR: 30 December 1989-Spartakist banner at Treptow Park anti-fascist demonstration: "For the Communism of Lenln scare-mongering headlines in the Western Liebknecht-Luxemburgl For a Leninist-Egalitarian Party'" - tation of the Third World? undergoes racial purification. Ar~rekorr I believe that to make this possible Economically the' DDR and the A.Letter to demands far more of the Soviet USSR, especially in the framework of Union than it does of us, but it could federative union, could be made to Soviet Socialist Republics? Ifthe Sovi give us a viable economic and social fit well together; and if Kaliningrad The following letter is appearing in et Union, through the decisive interven way out of our present crisis, and (Konigsberg) became a town in the ArbeiterpressekorrespondenzNo. 20, 26 tion of the conscious and organized with fundamentally more freedom than DDR of the USSR, it could become an January 1990. Soviet working classes, were to eradi by being seized by the BRD with its anti-imperialist bastion in a region of cate Stalinism, introduce multi-party capitalist instability, its Berufsverbot ill-advised nationalist and capitalist restorationist unrest. 19 January 1990 democracy, maintain the collective [blacklisting] and virulent nationalism ownership of the basic means of pro and inhumanity. As things now stand, The qualitative reduction of internal Arbeiterpressekorrespondenz duction, reaffirm the right of separa one of the revanchist .ideas is to ex security forces, i.e., their elimination as tion of nations in the union who are not pel the Turkish population, including organs suppressing legitimate and even Dear Comrades, carrying through capitalist counter those born in Germany, and replace intemperate internal dissent, could be Shouldn't we consider, subject to revolution-would we not be better their labor with that of East Ger a strong financial source for the selec profound transformations in the Soviet off than to be thrown into the pit of mans and Volksdeutsche[ethnic Ger tive recapitalization of the industrial Union-many of which are essentially imperialist capitalism with its violent mans from East Europe], while creating base of both areas and for' the ecolog identical to those which we in the DDR economic crises, its illegalization of neocolonial spheres in which non ical cleansing of noxious industrial face today, if we repel the current hys abortion, its underlying threat of wars Aryans would labor in places like Po waste. terical assault to drive us into the for spheres of influence, a capitalism land or the western Ukraine "Lebens Best greetings, arms ofthe BRD-joining the Union of which sits astride the ruthless exploi- raum" while the Fourth Reich itself A sympathetic reader
January 15 is the 71st anniversary of the murder of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Karl Liebknecht Luxemburg, victims of the bloody repression organized by the Social Democracy to smash the January 1919 Spartacus uprising. For decades, the Social Democrats have Brothers, Comrades, Friends! The day tried to hide their bloody crime by attempting to transform Liebknecht and Luxemburg on which the first Congress of Workers into social-democratic reformists. But the co-founders of the Communist Party of and Soldiers Councils meets is of historic Germany were murdered because they stood with Lenin for workers soviet power rather importance. The first task of this Con than bourgeois parliamentarism, as the following quotes show: gress is to defend the revolution, to put down the counterrevolution.
Disarming of all generals and officers, Dietz Verlag Berlin the dissolution of the previous command, ~.I. Lenin the founding of a Red Guard to carry out regime, which has become the represen tative ofcapitalism. We demand from the The revolution in Germany-which is the social revolution. The conscription of the remnants of the counterrevolution, Congress that it take full political power particularly important and characteristic into its hands for the purpose of carrying as one of the most advanced capitalist and that includes-I say this even though it may anger misled proletarians-a-the out socialism, and that it not transfer countries-at once assumed "Soviet" power to a National Assembly which forms. The whole course of the German Ebert-Scheidemann government. (Stormy calls: Down with the Scheidemannsl) cannot be an organ of the revolution. We revolution, and particularly the struggle demand of the Congress of the [workers of the Spartacists, i.e., the true and only Because documentary evidence shows that all the threads of counterrevolution and soldiers] councils that it extend its representatives ofthe proletariat, against hand to our Russian brothers and request the alliance of those treacherous scoun come together in the Ebert-Scheidemann regime. Yesterday Ebert demanded that delegates from the Russians. We seek drels, the Scheidemanns and Stidekums, world revolution and the unity of prole with the bourgeoisie-all this clearly his powers be further expanded. (Vigor ous protests againstEbert.) Presently we tarians ofall countries under workers and shows how history has formulated the soldiers councils. question in relation to Germany: have in Germany not a socialist but a "Soviet power" or the bourgeois par capitalist republic. Thesocialist republic -"To the All-German Soviet liament, no matter under what signboard must first be brought forth by the prole Congress," Die Rote Fahne, tariat through struggle against the current 17 December 1918 (such as "National" or "Constituent" As ., .... sembly) it may appear. Progress Publishers That is how world history has formu lated the question. Now, this can and by another. The proletarian state is a Rosa Luxemburg • Build a proletarian Red Guard for must be said without any exaggeration. machine for tlfe suppression of the bour ongoing defense of the revolution and "Soviet power" is the second historical geoisie by the proletariat. Such suppres Abolition of capital's domination and train a workers' militia in order to organ step, or stage, in the development of the sion is necessary because of the furious, achievement of a socialist order: that and ize the entire proletariat to be on guard proletarian dictatorship. The first step .desperate resistance put up by the land nothing less is the historic theme of the at all times .... current revolution.... was the Paris Commune. The brilliant owners and capitalists, by the entire • Immediately convene in Germany a The revolution's goal clearly points analysis of its nature and significance bourgeoisie and all their hangers-on, by world congress of workers to loudly and given by Marx in his The Civil War in all the exploiters, who stop at nothing out its course, and its tasks indicate the France showed that the Commune had when their overthrow, when the expro needed methods. All power to the toiling created a new type of state, a proletarian priation of the expropriators, begins. masses, and to the workers' and soldiers' councils; safeguard the revolution's ac . state. Every state, including the most -"Letter to Workers of Europe complishments from the enemies that lie democratic republic, is nothing but' a and America," Pravda, in wait for it. These are the guidelines machine for the suppression of one class 24 January 1919 for all measures of the revolutionary government. Every step, every action of the govern ment must point like a compass in this direction: • Expand and reelect local workers' and soldiers' councils to replace the !!!/!!~!~!~!f!~o!'t. ~ chaotic and impulsive character of their initial actions through a conscious pro DIRECTOR OF PARTY PUBLICATIONS: Liz Gordon cess of understanding the revolution's EDITOR: Jan Norden goals, tasks, and course. PRODUCTION MANAGER: Jorge Ramirez • Maintain representative bodies of the CIRCULATION MANAGER:' Karen Valdez masses in permanent session. Real politi EDITORIAL BOARD: George Foster, Frank Hunter, Jane Kerrigan, Len Meyers, James Robertson, Reuben Samuels, Joseph Seymour, Alison Spencer, Marjorie Stamberg cal power should be transferred from the Dietz Verlag Berlin The Spartacist League is the U.S. Section of the International Communist League (Fourth Executive Committee of the councils, a Internationalist). small body, to the broader basis of the clearly proclaim the socialist and interna Workers Vanguard (USPS 098-770) published biweekly, except 2nd issue August and with 3-week interval December, workers' and soldiers' councils. tional character of the revolution, be by the Spartacist Publishing Co., 41 Warren Street, New York, NY 10007. Telephone: (212) 732-7862 (Editorial), • Immediately convoke a national (212) 732-7861 (Business). Address all correspondence to: Box 1377. GPO, New York,NY 10116. Domestic subscriptions: cause the future of the German revolu $7.00/24 issues. Second-class postage paid at New York, NY. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Workers parliament of the workers and soldiers in Vanguard, Box 1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116. tion is anchored in the International and order to organize all of Germany's prole Opinions expressed in signed articles or letters do not necessarily express the editorial viewpoint. in the world proletarian revolution. tariat as a class, a solid political power, No. 494 26 January 1990 . the _bulwark and driving force of the -"The Beginning," Die Rote Fahne, revolution.... 18 November 1918 2 WORKERS VANGUARD Polish Workers Strike Against IMF/Solidarnosc "Shock Treatment" Poland's Solidarnosc-led government will grow tired of the strong medicine." the struggle against starvation wages, the the Neisse (a town divided between the brought in the New Year by.implement Faced with massive layoffs, spiraling current strikes could provide the initia two countries after World War II) in.de ing an IMF-sponsored program of brutal inflation and 20 percent wage cuts, Po tive for uniting the working-class base of fense of Poland's western border against capitalist austerity. Immediately the price lish workers have already begun to fight. Solidarnosc with the workers of the for the revanchist designs of the West Ger of coal used for home heating shot up 600 This week 35,000 Silesian coal miners merly Stalinist-led unions in defense of man rulers, and to demand an end to percent, electricity 500 percent, bus and went on strike against government socialized property against the gang of anti-Polish discrimination in East Ger rail fares 250 percent. The price of bread imposed wage controls and 6,000 more Solidarnosc leaders andStalinist bureau many. A statement of "Internationalist and meat has almost doubled. Store are on strike at mines near the industrial crats who are bleeding the country on be Greetings to our Polish Comrades," by shelves are barren as distributors hold off city of Katowice in southern Poland. half of the Western bankers. the recently formed Spartakist-Gruppen f supplies until the prices go even higher, Meanwhile, the much-publicized buy The key is reviving the traditions of in the DDR condemned the chauvinist while lines at newly instituted soup out of the Lenin Shipyards in Gdansk communist internationalism which once abuse of Polish workers and appealed: kitchens have grown from a dozen to a by a Polish American heiress fell through animated the Polish workers movement. "Join with us to help rid the DDR of I couple of thousand. when the workers refused to accept her The beginning of proletarian battles abusive Stalinism and to help defeat i those who would bring back the capital I In short, Solidarnosc' program of cap demand for a 50 cent hourly wage and a against the attempt to impose capitalist ism of Hitler's Third Reich and its suc italist transformation means reducing five-year strike ban! . impoverishment in Poland provides an cessor, Kohl's Fourth Reich .... A victo Poland to the level of Pinochet's Chile, Last November when Lech Walesa opening for reforging a revolutionary ry of workers and soldiers soviets in except that Polish workers have not been was in Washington promising good "bus unity between the Polish workers and Germany will immediately galvanize the workers of Poland, today faced with star broken by military terror. iness deals" for capitalist investors, the their comrades in East Germany who are vation austerity measures. Polish com threatened with the sellout "of the DDR Welcoming Poland's "leap into the editor ofa new Polish business maga rades: Revive the internationalist heritage I! capitalist era," a New York Times (l Jan zine warned: "Our people hate Commu to the Frankfust stock market. of Rosa Luxemburg, link arms in rev nism but when you start talking about In an important demonstration of fra olutionary solidarity with your German uary) article fretted that the "big worry class brothers to help carry forward this is that the Ursus tractor workers, Silesian privatization, many of them act like ternity, last December 3,000 people from workers political revolution. Join the coal miners or Nowa Huta steelworkers Communists." Although now centered on the DDR and Poland united in Guben on Spartakist-Gruppenl't a " Boston Racist Conspiracy Explodes
m BOSTON-A system of racist frame o and the press, the American capitalist c up and cover-up spectacularly exploded <0 system reeks of racism. The grotesque G5 when Charles Stuart jumped off the III frame-up of William Bennett, who is still 3 Tobin Bridge into the frigid Mystic River 3 in jail for spurious unrelated charges, has III in Boston January 4. Stuart's suicide ~ highlighted the case of Albert Lewin, a iii' and his reported admission that he had (ii' black man accused of killing a cop. The o murdered his pregnant wife last Octo :J prosecution of Lewin continues despite ber exposed the grotesque lie which the fact that the cops have admitted the became the justification for a massive case against him is based on the purport campaign of cop brutality against the ed testimony of a nonexistent witness. black community. Meanwhile, the vile vendetta against On October 23 Stuart gained national black youth under the "search on sight" notoriety when he reported to police he policy continues unabated. I and his wife from white suburban Read Boston black While the problems are manifestly community ing had supposedly been shot by a "tall outraged over systemic, the solutions offered by Bos "black man with a raspy sing-song voice" racist cop ton's black establishment leaders are at in the integrated Mission Hill section of dragnet and best pathetically inadequate. Some have Roxbury. For the racist cops and city cover-up in called for an official investigation of cop politicians the incident was a green light Stuart murder malfeasance, while state attorney general to intensify their racist dragnet against case. James Shannon, who already dismissed virtually all black youth. the cop policy of "search on sight" as The vicious "search and seizure" poli nonexistent, attempts yet another inves cy had come under public scrutiny as a tigative cover-up. There has even been judge had declared it unconstitutional a grotesque call to promote Deputy Su and an outcry was raised against the perintendent William Celester, the black wounding of Rolando Carr, a victim of cop who has been in the forefront of the campaign to terrorize black neighbor ed a shooting incident with a cop. Then newspapers-the liberal Globe and the promoting the racist and unconstitutional hoods. Now the cops had the pretext they began a campaign to prepare for the Murdoch tabloid Herald. Later that day search policy. As an act of liberall wanted, and they eagerly went along with virtual legal lynching of their "prime a rally castigating Flynn, police chief nationalist despair, attempts are being Stuart's racist ruse. Ignoring and sup suspect." The bipartisan reactionaries in Roache and o.x. Flanagan was held in made to revive the discredited and mis pressing dozens of reported inconsisten the State House mobilized-to reinstate the Malcolm X Park in Roxbury. named Mandela initiative-an effort to cies, leads and suspicions about Stuart's death penalty. Completely manufactured Mayor Flynn began his career in Bos "incorporate" minority voting districts conduct, they descended on Mission Hill "evidence" was forced from intimidated ton city politics as a spokesman for racist into a separate and unequal bantustan. with a vengeance. "witnesses," and even then systematically bigots in South Boston opposed to school Especially since the defeat of busing The thugs in blue escalated their al misrepresented to a grand jury. Tidbits integration, and now poses as a liberal in the mid '70s, by racist mobs in the ready repressive tactics to the point were leaked by the cops to their all-too populist. He has sought to become a streets and liberal Congressmen in Wash where more than 200 black men were eager prostitutes in the press. national spokesman for the racist war on ington, the plight of blacks in Boston is being manhandled, searched, stripped in But the skein of lies rapidly unwound drugs, and was instrumental in initiating seen by many to epitomize the racism public, questioned or detained every day. when Stuart's family members, them and defending the racist cop terror epito endemic in America. In this city where Every available cop was thrown into the selves seemingly complicit in his diaboli- mized by the Mission Hill dragnet. the industrial infrastructure has long fictive manhunt and every black male in . cal machinations, felt compelled to come On January 5, while Flynn was going since rotted out, the social weight of the Mission Hill was virtually guilty until forward with evidence that Charles Stuart door to door in an unsuccessful effort to black and Hispanic communities has proven innocent. Many black residents was a monstrous psychopath capable ~f apologize to Mission Hill residents, his indeed deteriorated. Exacerbating the reported being repeatedly set upon by murdering his pregnant wife to collect cops were up to business as usual in racism is the existence of white commu cops while going about their business insurance money to open a restaurant. Egleston Square, a Hispanic neighbor nities which are as desperately poor as near their homes.. In our article, "Bos Outrage in the black community over hood between mostly black Roxbury and Roxbury and Mattapan. But the weight ton's Racist 'Search on Sight' Dragnet" the racist hoax was so intense that even mostly yuppie Jamaica Plain. This time of .minority workers has increased in (WV No. 490, 24 November 1989), we black misleaders who had supported the when they began beating Hispanic youth such unions as the hotel workers and bus erroneously repeated the news accounts cop atrocities against black youth attend and women, the crowd responded. Molo drivers. This power of labor and blacks Ofa black man shooting a pregnant wom ed a news conference the day after the tov cocktails were thrown at the cops and has to be mobilized to put a halt to the an, while denouncingthe media for whip suicide to protest Flynn and his cops' one ignited under a cop car. But outrage racist cop "stop and search" campaign. ping up a racist furor in the city. handling of the investigation. On Martin over, vile, racist cop atrocities need not The vicious and revolting system of Finally the cops came up with some Luther King's birthday black activists be dissipated into ultimately losirig con black. oppression has to be swept away one they felt they could pin the heinous picketed the mayor's attendance at a civil frontations between unorganized youth in an integrated workers offensive to crime on-William Bennett, a Mission rights breakfast and called for a boycott . and rampaging cops. smash the vile capitalist order that pro Hill resident with a "record" that includ- of the racist and compliyit Boston daily From cops and courts to politicians motes it.• 28 JANUARY "1990 3 militia groups who called themselves Schwarze Jaeger (ambiguously termed Black Guards by the Southern sympathiz ers). Toward the end of April, five regi Internationalist Revolutionary Fighters ments of Union men had been formed, consisting largely of Germans. The first regiment, composed mostly of Turner, elected Francis Blair as their colonel; the second chose Heinrich Boernstein, editor of the Anzeiger des Westens; the third chose Franz Sigel, the fourth, the 'Black Guards,' Nicholas Shuettner: and the fifth C.E. Salomon. All but Blair were Forty-eighter~." At the beginning of the war, the pro Confederacy governor massed troops in a plot to seize the vast federal arse nal in St. Louis, guarded by only 200 Union soldiers under Captain Nathaniel Lyon. In May, Turner regiments seized the secessionists' encampment at Camp ,,:~~ Jackson in a surprise raid, saving St. War Muse'um and Library. Philadelphia Missouri Historical Society Verlag Kurt Desch no credit Louis and its arsenal. Also serving as a Union officer in the St. Louis military district was Joseph Weydemeyer, a close • collaborator of Karl Marx. (In 1847 Weydemeyer had been an organizer in Cologne of the Communist League, the organization for which Marx and Engels German Red'48ers In wrote the Communist Manifesto.) Wey demeyer supervised the building of ten forts around St. Louis, and then be came the colonel of a volunteer artil-, lery regiment tracking downConfed erate guerrillas. In July 1863, New York City was' the the U.S. Civil War scene of anti-draft riots by Irish immi grants, who feared their precarious social level would be threatened by an influx of black freedmen. The rampaging mob lynched blacks and burned down a black orphanage, while Irishmen in the police force did nothing to stop the rioters and in fact assisted them. It was the Turner who moved in to put a stop to the riot, as Germans "volunteered against the rabble ... most effectively, in the Seventh Ward" (George Templeton Strong, Diary of the Civil War [1962]). The hefty.weight of the German pres ence in the Union forces could be. seen in the eastern. Army of the Potomac, whose XI Corps was composed of three largely German divisions led by Major General Franz Sigel, a '48er. (A division had three or four brigades, each contain ing four to six regiments of a thousand men each.) "I fights mit Sigel" was the proud boast of the ranks of the XI Corps, expressing admiration for the man who had led insurrectionary forces in Baden in 1848-49 against the Prussian army. To Americana Image Ga.llerY be sure, men who had fought in 1848 All-German artillery unit in Union Army. Above, left to right: Union officers Carl Schurz; Franz Sigel, Joseph were no longer youngsters by 1861, but Weydemeyer, August Willich. they flocked to join the fight against Among the nearly one million German When the war broke out in April worthy troops the Government could use slavery, they filled the line, and they immigrants who came to the United 1861, the Turner became mass recruit for this highly dangerous and important fought. Two of Sigel's division com work. These two companies marched to manders were also German-born: '48ers States in the ten years between 1844 ing agencies--often instant regiments Annapolis Junction, cleared tile environ and 1854 were several thousand "Red for the Union Army at a critical time ment of traitors, subdued the' farmers of Carl Schurz and Adolf von Steinwehr, '48ers," political refugees who had par when the North was desperately short Of that region who inclined toward seces who came in 1847. One of Sigel's artil ticipated in the failed German bour experienced soldiers. It was clear that the sion, and protected the railroad line until lery officers, Major Franz Backhoff, had geois democratic revolution of 1848. Germans in America were overwhelm the Massachusetts and New York troops also fought in the revolution in Baden, arriv.ed." . The '48ers went on to playa crucial role ingly pro-Union: three-fourths of the initially on the other side. When ordered in American history as well. Having Turner signed up for the army of the Similarly in Missouri the German units to fire on insurgents by his commanding fought for democratic ideals against the 'North, and in the end over 176,000 were crucial in those grim early days, officer, Backhoff literallyturned his bat reactionary principalities in the oldcoun German-born Americans fought for the managing to save.that state for toe Union tery of guns the other way. try, they naturally gravitated toward the Union cause. In New' York alone ten despite strong secessionist sentiment, The XI Corps saw bloody action at Union side inthe second American Rev solidly German regimentsWere raised in Prahl describes how the Missouri Turner Chancellorsville and engaged Confeder olution, the Civil War'which smashed the 1861, among them the 1st German Rifles prepared for the war: ate troops in stiff fighting on Cemetery Southern slavocracy. As one '48er and and the Steuben regiment. Other states, "TheTurner, aseariy as December, 1860, Ridge atGettysburg. Perhaps their most had begun their preparations, Every night memorable .battle came in the fall of former member of Karl Marx's Commu including Missouri, Ohio, and Illinois, they practiced military drill in the Turn nist League, Fritz Annecke, titled his had regiments composed wholly or in halle and companies of Turner were 1863 when they were sent west to help memoirs, it was "The Second Fight for part of Turner, often led by '48ers, Even organized as well as some other German Grant's Army of the Tennessee relieve Freedom." in the slave state of Texas, the-German The German immigrants brought with militias refused to give' tip their Union them to America their militant traditions flags and Confederate troops had to be and organizations, in the form of the sent in to suppress them. Turnverein, or simply Turner. These In the first few days of the war, Wash "athletic clubs" with.political, social and ington was in danger of being isolated, military functions were often simply as secessionist mobs in Baltimore cut the direct transplants of the Schiazverein rail lines and prevented reinforcements ("rifle Clubs") of 1848. The '48ers soon from reaching the nation's capital. Just gained leadership of these clubs, as.was about the only reliable troops in Wash clear from the platform adopted at a na ington were two German companies. The tional convention of representatives of Wecker, the only Republican newspaper the 47 societies of the Turner held in in Baltimore at the time, founded by a Buffalo in 1855: '48er, related: "The Turner are opposed to slavery; "When it was a question of guarding and particularly they are against extension securing the railroad line between Wash of slavery to the free territories, and ington and Annapolis Junction and of regard this institution as definitely un . protecting the rear and left flank of the worthy of a republic and contrary to all Massachusetts and New York regiments, concepts of freedom." advancing from Annapolis toward the Letter of International Workingmen's Asso ..,.-Augustus J. Prahl, "The Junction in order to restore the inter ciation, authored by Karl Marx (right), greets Turner," in The Forty-Eighters, rupted train service, the two German Abraham Lincoln's re-election In 1864 as A.E. Zucker, ed., 1967 Turner companies were the only trust- . signaling the"death of slavery."
4 WORKERS VANGUARD Trotskyists in E. Germany... (continued from page 1)
direction of social democracy is signifi cant.) But those plans suffered a setback when 250,000 turned out for the combat ive anti-fascist mobilization on January 3, to repudiate the Nazi defiling of the graves of Soviet soldiers at the war memorial irrBerlin's Treptow Park. The Spartakist-Gruppen and TLD initiated the call for such a united-front action as well as approaching the SED directly. ) "The elections to the Volkskammer are Sparlakisl turning into a plebiscite on the contin At January 14 commemoration of Luxemburg and Llebknecht, Spartaklst banner warns: "From Bloodhound No:skE,j ued existence of the DDR as a workers Ebert/Scheidemann to Brandt/Lafontaine: Social Democracy Is the Trojan Horse of Counterrevolution!" Right: SPD's state," noted the statement of the Sparta gray eminence Willy Brandt. kist Workers Party. Since the powerful Treptow demonstration against fascism beacon for world revolution, which is West German chancellor Kohl is now egalitarian party, against the abusive and for solidarity with the Soviet Union, why the imperialists even more than the putting the screws to East Berlin, de Stalinist system-from Stalin to Ulbricht "the capitalists-with the Social Demo bureaucracy fear this prospect. manding that East German prime minis and Honecker. Sections of the East Ger cratic SPD in the forefront-haveesca ter Modrow's government agree to a man working class are manifestly demor lated their raging onslaught against the The DDR in Danger capitalist reunification. But the Christian alized after the revelation of their lead social foundations of the DDR. Workers West German capitalists are seeking to Democrats are still looking for some kind ers' betrayals. But there is a militant here know full well that the military buy up valuable properties in the DDR of federation. The Social Democrats have section of the proletariat that wants to presence of the Red Army has so far at giveaway prices. They have insisted on become the vanguard of the push for fight to defend its gains. prevented a military intervention by eliminating even the fig leaf ofa 49 reunification, figuring that they would be The SAPD press statement concludes: NATO into East Germany, and that close percent upper limit on foreign capital in the dominant party of a united Germany. "The DDR is in danger. The leadership political and economic cooperation of the joint ventures, and now the Volkskammer The rebaptized SPD-East, which is lav of the SED-PDS (Socialist Unity Party working people of the DDR and in the has voted a constitutional amendment ishly financed by its Western big broth Party of Democratic Socialism) capitu ers, declared at its January 14 conference lates before the social-democratic offen c Soviet Union is vital for the workers eliminating the requirement for the pre states." dominance of nationalized (people's) that its main goal was "German unity in sive and debates its own dissolution. A workers political revolution in East property. At the same time as Deputy agreement with the federal government." There are only two ways out of this Germany would be the most powerful Premier Christa Luft was giving Western An enormous West German flag at the crisis: either capitalist restoration in the encouragement to similar revolutionary businessmen a green light for reintroduc SPDdemonstration in' Alexanderplatz DDR or the clear revolutionary perspec developments in the USSR, which is ing capitalist exploitation, the coalition carried the slogan: "Reunification-Ban tive of a genuine workers democracy, today racked by every kind of instabili government drastically raised prices on the SED." i.e., the building of workers and soldiers ty triggered by perestroika as the crisis children's clothes. Finance Minister That same day the fascist Republikaner soviets which take political power into of Stalinism reaches the boiling point. Nickel, now under investigation for mis party, meeting near Munich, declared their own hands. This is the central point Genuine proletarian internationalism can use of state funds, has talked of raising itself the spearhead of "reunification in the political program of the Spartakist save the Soviet Union and make it a rents. now," while vituperating against Commu Workers Party of Germany." • nists, Jewish leaders and foreign workers. The next day, a mob invaded the head quarters of' the former State Security In calling to honor Lenin, Lieb (Stasi) in East Berlin. The right wing is knecht and Luxemburg on Sun seeking to exploit widespread hatred of day, January 14, the Spartakist the Stasi, whose brutal methods esca Gruppen and Trotzkistische Liga lated in the last years of Honecker's rule. Deutschlands raised the following This extended to the factories, where slogans: there were many who drew a second pay • For a Leninist-egalitarian par check every month for spying on their ty! Return to the road of Lenin and fellow workers. The government reported Trotsky! to the Round Table meeting with opposi • Stop the Nazis through work tion parties on January 15 that the Stasi ers united-front action! January 15 had employed 85,000 people and more • Full citizenship rights for for trashing of than 100,000 collaborators, and con headquarters eign workers! of hated Stasi sumed 3.6 billion marks, 1.5 percent of • Down with NATO! Defend the In East Berlin, the entire state budget. The dead weight DDR and Soviet Union! part of a campaign ofthe secret police needed to defend bu • .For a planned economy under of right-wing reaucratic rule is a far greater burden on a government of workers and sol provocations. the economy than the comparatively diers councils! minor privileges enjoyed by the upper • No sellout of the DDR! For a layer of bureaucrats. red soviet Germany in a socialist The Spartakist Workers Party of Europe! Germany seeks to forge a Leninist-
the besieged Army of the Cumberland at victory which surprised Grant. The Union Engels, whose articlesin the New York bearing German names smashed by 'pa Chattanooga. The breakthrough came armies, could now begin their march to Herald Tribune and elsewhere provided triotic' mobs, the bearers of.German or after Schurz's and Steinwehr's divisions Atlanta and the sea. detailed political and military analysis of, German-sounding, names hounded and attacked the Confederate stronghold on Thus the Germans provided not only in their words, the "first grand war of often made the victim of mob violence." Lookout Mountain at dawn: bodies to fill the line but experienced contemporaneous history.','UnderMarx,s This reactionary crusade was also "They scrambled up a zigzagging path military leadership, a commodity in short leadership, the First International rallied partially directed at Jews, who were along the eastern face of Lookout Moun supply on the Union.side at the outset of the European working class behind .the known to be disproportionately represent tain under heavy, artillery fire from the summit. By noon they were close to the the war because so many talented offi Union cause, and this contribution was ed in,the antiwar socialist movement. peak and exchanging fire with the Con cers in the U.S. army had defected to . graciously acknowledged by the govern The Ku Klux Klan, which was reborn in federate rifle pits. The climax was a the Confederacy. Three of the relative ment of Abraham Lincoln. the 1915 lynching of Jewishbusinessman bayonet charge by the men.v.up a steep ly small number of major generals under Despite all these contributions, because Leo Frank, mushroomed in the post 200-foot incline strewn with boulders, Grant, who was the only lieutenant the Germans came here not speaking Eng World War I witchhunt against the "red which broke over the crest of Lookout and drove the enemy off the mountain." general, were '48ers-Sigel, Schurz and lish, they faced great hardship and were menace." For the German Americans, it -Richard O'Connor, The Peter Joseph Osterhaus, as were a major poorly rewarded for theirvalor in the war. culminated in the 1936 execution of German-Americans (1968) ity of the nine Germans who were briga They suffered a very high death rate in Bruno Hauptmann, framed for the kid This "battle above the clouds," which dier generals. Many colonels were' also civilian life, not as.a result of malice or napping/murder of the Lindbergh baby. inspired many military muralists, opened ,48ers, who gained prominence for their lynchings, but simply from indifference In World War II, when the popular-front the way for the assault on Missionary combat leadership. All in all there were and incomprehension on the part of their line that U.S. imperialism was fighting Ridge by "mostly German regiments some 500 German officers from major to English-speaking neighbors. It did get a "war against fascism" played on wide from Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Ohio and general. The non-commissioned German malicious in 1917 when the U.S. entered spread disgust for Nazism among the Wisconsin" led by Brigadier General officers, being "well-trained and well-' World War I on the British side against American population, German Ameri August Willich. Willich was a "Red disciplined," likewise played an invalu Germany: the German Americans were cans enlisted in the U.S. army and fought ,48er" who had commanded the radical able role. As one tribute noted: "he not enthusiastic about fighting in what ferociously. But this is only a postscript forces in the Baden campaign with Fred steadied the whole line, and gave it an they rightly regarded as a purely inter to the main point. erick Engels as his adjutant. Under in example of soldierly excellence in every imperialist war, and they were subject The German revolutionists of 1848 tense fire, Willich is said to have told particular" (J.G. Rosengarten, The Ger ed to a wave of chauvinism. O'Connor played a great and powerful role in himself, "I am going forward, even if I man Soldier in the Wars of the United writes: "Overnight... everything German the American Civil War against slavery. am court-martialed for it." He ordered States [1886]). was stigmatized, sauerkraut, converted Militant German working people today his nine regiments up the ridge without The '48ers drew strength from the in into 'Liberty Cabbage,' the frankfurter should know this-it's part of their histo waiting for orders, leading to a quick fluential pen of Karl Marx and Frederick into the hot dog, the windows of shops ry, and ours.• 26 JANUARY 1990 5 Young Sparlacus AChicago College Student Sees It Firsthand- The Political Revolution in East·Germany
I had been a member of the revolution ary Spartacus Youth Club a scant three months when the opportunity arose for me to go to East Germany, where I found myself in the midst of the unfolding workers political revolution against Sta linist bureaucratic rule. I worked with the Trotskyist League of Germany (TLD), helping to distribute its newspaper Spar takist and the daily broadsheet Arprekorr (Workers Press Correspondence). In the United States I am frequently confronted with questions about the dramatic political developments in East Germany, often accompanied by the sneering remark, "Haven't you heard? Communism is dead." This couldn't be farther from the truth. Though there are forces in East Germany calling for a capi talist reunification of the country (through counterrevolution in the East), the vast bulk of the East German working people correctly see capitalism as a threat to the gains they have made through national ized industry and centralized economic Spartakist planning. It was the Red Army's victory East Berlin, January 3-A quarter of a million people turn out for united-front demonstration against fascist over the Nazis that paved the way for desecration of Soviet war memorial. these gains and the formation of the German Democratic Republic (DDR), a This is shown by the mobs of people tion I was dropped off near the Branden accepted a stack to distribute among their workers state deformed by bureaucratic buying revolutionary Trotskyist literature burg Gate in East Berlin with a few friends and comrades. We later learned Stalinism. With Stalinism in a state of on the streets. In a period of ten days we bundles of literature: I was shocked to of another instance in which the base. terminal crisis, masses of workers are sold over 14,000 copies of the weekly find myself soon surrounded by a crowd commander himself took an entire boxful seeking authentic communism, not a sell Spartakist as well as 244,000 copies of of people all wanting the TLD press. At of leaflets to make sure everyone on the out to the West German bankers. the daily Arprekorr. On my first distribu- one point a man approached me and said . base received a copy. something in a derisive tone. Another On December 28 the DDR news media man leapt to my defense shaking his fist announced that a Soviet war memorial at --tNEUESDEUTSCHL\NDI------in the air and shouting, "Spartakistl Treptow Park in East Berlin had been -SOZIALISTISCHE rAGESZEITUNG Spartakist, ja!" After demonstratively defaced by neo-Nazis. The TLD and the -3 January 1990 embracing one of my comrades, he took Spartakist-Gruppen immediately issued a stack of papers to hand.out. a call for a mass united-front anti-fascist The name "Spartakist" is full of mean mobilization on January 3. The call was AN ALLE BORGER ing for the German working class. Dur picked up by DDR radio, and various left ing the failed German Revolution of and anti-fascist organizations were in Kommtzur 1918-19, Spartacus League leaders Karl' vited to participate. Tens of thousands Demonstration g~en rechts.! Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg were of leaflets went out. Finally, the ruling murdered by the leaders of the Social SED (Communist party) itself issued a HEUTE UM 18 UHR Democratic Party (SPD), a party which call for a "fighting mobilization" at the in der Anlage to this day defends the profit system same time and place as that proposed by des Treptower Ehrenmals by word and deed. Standing on the the TLD/Spartakist-Gruppen. Es haufen sich die neofaschistischen revolutionary traditions of Luxemburg When I arrived at Treptow on the Aktivitaten in unserer Republik. Tief betroffen sind wir tiber die and Liebknecht, the TLD is building evening of January 3, traffic was nearly Schandung des Treptower Spartakist-Gruppen in the DDR. gridlocked and both sides of the road Ehrenmals fiir die im zweiten The Spartakist-Gruppen stand for the were choked with people heading into the Weltkrieg gefallenen Sowjetsoldaten. park. After I had squeezed through an Oas geschah im Herzen der Stadt, defense of the DDR against West Ger von der Hitlerfaschismus und man imperialism. They call for the for arch leading into the park, there were zweiter Weltkrieg ausgingen, mation of workers soviets (councils) people as far as I could see, all surging throughout Germany to carry out the toward the Memorial to Fallen Soviet Wirbrauchen Einheitsfront Heroes, an angular, megalithic structure g~en proletarian political revolution in the East rechts! and the socialist revolution in the West, bearing a hammer and sickle on its stone LaBt unser Land nicht zur Heirnstatt and they raise the internationalist slogan: surface. Along the path I noticed a small der Neofaschisten werden! "For a Red Germany in a Socialist Eu er sculpture of a kneeling woman, mother rope!" They call for "full citizenship to the Soviets whose lives were lost in rights for foreign workers" and have the battles which liberated Germany from distributed solidarity greetings to Polish, the obscene grip of Hitler's Nazi tyranny. Zur DemOMtratioli habn aufaerufu: Vietnamese and Mozambican workers as The figure was now covered with flowers SED-PDS. Komitee der Antifaschistischen Widerstandskimpfer, GesellschaftfUr well as to Soviet soldiers and officers and wreaths, with hundreds of candles DSF, vertrerer der Initiativen ..Furunser Land" und ..Vereinigtc Linke". die stationed in the DDR. burning at its base. Fiihrungsgremien von 080, LDPD One morning two of us took a luggage und NDPD. die Griindungsgruppe Among the banners visible in the der ..NElKEN", Spartakist-Gruppen cart laden with boxes of leaflets into a crowd were those of the TLD: "For Unit und die Trotzkistische Lip Deutschlands, SEWund SDAJsowie viele andere neighborhood populated mainly by Soviet ed Workers Militias Under the Control antifaschistischeunddemokratische Bewegungen aus heiden Teilen Berlins. troops and their families. We stood not of Workers and Soldiers Councils!" far from the entrance of a Soviet base, "Workers and Soldiers Councils to Pow under the watchful eye of a Red Army er! For a Leninist-Egalitarian Party!" and Front-page announcement In SE~D's Neues Deutschland lists Spartakist guard. Most of the soldiers were already "Down with NATO! Defend the Soviet Gruppen and TLD among groups calling for united-front demonstration. familiar with our literature. Some smiled Union!" and said, "Ah, Spartakist... " Nearly all I returned to the area of the arch to 6 WORKERS VANGUARD Protesting Nazi Desecration of TreJllow War Memorial Letter to Commander of Soviet Forces in Germany
When the hideous Nazi defacing ofthe Thousands of Red Army soldiers are who call for violence are doing the Soviet war memorial in Berlin' s'Treptow buried here who died in liberating Berlin work of the imperialists, who at all Park was discovered on December 28. -andmankind-from genocidal Hitler costs want to undermine the peaceful the Spartakist-Gruppen and Trotzkisti fascism. These are our fallen comrades development of the-political revolution sche Liga Deutschlands immediately con too. In memory of the 20 million Soviet unfolding in the DDR. demned this provocation in a letter to the dead in the fight to smash the Third As East German working people seek commander of Soviet armed forces in Reich, of six million Jews who died in to rid this land of those abuses of Germany.This was followed by the call the Holocaust, class-conscious German Stalinism, the Soviet Army has refused for united-front action which was taken workers vow to prevent the rise of a to be used by those who would have up by the SED-PDS (Socialist Unity Fourth Reich. Today neo-Nazis seek to staged a bloodbath. We recognize, too, Party ofGermany-Party ofDemocratic spearhead political reunification with that in standing at your posts, far from Socialism), resulting in the 250,000" capitalist West Germany. While the home, on guard against NATO imperi strong anti-fascist mobilization on Janu capitalists seek to buy the DDR and the alist threats, you are a bulwark against ary 3 (see our last issue). Social Democrats offer smooth words, those' who dream of a new fascist neo-Nazis direct their racist terror nightmare. 28 December 1989 against foreign workers, seeking to ~~~~:~'7~~-=--n.- __ r· _.w_ It is above all the task of the work __ ih.T_._ General of the Army B.V. Snetkov whip up a witchhunt against Commu ~~~~ ing people to sweep away the sinister J::::::t...~...... Up(V- Commander in Chief nists. Tens of thousands of workers W.....~Nqied.. • Nazi pack. In carrying out this mission, from Berlin factories and throughout =t.~~~~ Group of Soviet Forces in Germany UoY·_II;r_v--... we extend the hand of fraternal solidari _~.fI),l'._ Zossen-Wtinsdorf the DDR and BRD must be mobilized _-'FDI",_ c __...... -..... ty to our brother Soviet soldiers and in powerful united-front action to crush -_ _._-- Dear Comrade General, officers. The German workers move these killers, now before it is too late! ment has the strength to sweep away The vile Nazi desecration of the And they urgently want to smash the Spartakist-Gruppen, TLDcall: "Stop those who carried out their murderous Memorial to Fallen Soviet Heroes in fascists, just as, we are sure, tens of the Nazis Through United-Front work under the cover of night and fog. Treptow provokes disgust and outrage thousands of Leningrad and Moscow Action!" among millions of workers and broad workers would like to mobilize against Trotzkistische Liga Deutschlands layers of the population of the DDR. the Pamyat blackshirts, whose anti We internationalists must combat na Spartakist-Gruppen This provocation is directed as well at Semitic Great Russian chauvinism is tionalist chauvinism against Polish, cc: Mikhail Gorbachev our workers state, which was built on a threat to the multinational Soviet Vietnamese, Mozambican and other CC CPSU the ruins of Hitler fascism. Union. foreign workers. We warn that those Supreme Soviet
sell papers, which nearly everyone who tion" of the Nazi threat. How many lives streamed past me attempted to buy. A must be lost before the lesson is learned poe Greetings to Treptow little later on, after Renate Dahlhaus of that the fascist scum must be smashed in the TLD had addressed the rally, a polar the egg! A good dose of the "spirit of ization was evident in the crowd. Renate January 3" is needed right here in Segre Anti-Fascist Demonstration stressed the vital necessity of a workers gation City, where black families who united front to stop the fascists, but also cross the color line in housing are terror Comrades! ment must be organized in a workers denounced the SED as incompetent to ized with burning crosses and firebombs. united front to stop the fascists in their lead the fight against Nazism and the Not so long ago the Holocaust Memorial The Partisan Defense Committee sa tracks! counterrevolutionary designs of the West in Skokie was vandalized, and Jewish lutes you as you gather to answer the vile Comrades: what are we if we don't German capitalists. Now half of those owned businesses were attacked by Na desecration of the Treptow Soviet war remember our dead? Ifwe don't respond who passed me were angry, one even zis. Last March Klansman David Duke memorial by honoring fallen comrades to deadly fascist threats? In the tradition spitting at my feet. Yet there were oth held a race-terrorist convention right in and rededicating the fight against fascism of the International Red Aid of the early ers who were glad to have heard the the Bismarck Hotel, and the Labor Black for which they died. Communist International we salute your program of Trotskyism perhaps for the Struggle League and Partisan Defense Our own direct experience in the Unit effort today. We extend the hand of in first time in their lives. Some stopped to Committee organized a spirited united ed States has led to the organization of ternational proletarian solidarity as we buy additional copies of Arprekorr, or front protest. A union-centered mobi a conscious layer of anti-fascist fighters, did to the striking British coal miners to show their approval by offering me lization of tens of thousands-blacks, defeating the Nazis/Ku Klux Klan first five years ago and last year to the heroic food or beer. Altogether we sold about whites, Hispanics, Jews, Catholics, gays in Detroit in 1979, then San Francisco, citizens of Jalalabad who held firm 35,000 pieces of literature at this sin -to stop this Klan/Nazi/skinhead threat Chicago, Washington, D.C., Philadel against the bloody U.S.-backed Afghan gle demonstration. would both save lives and help roll back phia and in 1989, Atlanta, 'Georgia, counterrevolutionaries. Returning to Chicago, I saw that the capitalist offensives in. this country Our strategy throughout was based on Your struggle today can deal a mighty American newspapers like the Tribune against the working people and the poor. one simple lesson gained.from the work blow to the forces Of capitalist reaction and Sun-Times denounced the January 3 And that's no exaggeration. ers' own experience: that the power of who threaten all of your most precious mobilization as a demagogic "exaggera- -January 1990 the multiracial, multinational labor move- achievements.
Spartacist ~ Forums
Eyewitness accounts of the unfolding political revolution in East Germany
CHICAGO'~ BERKELEY SAN FRANCISCO Sat., Jan. 27, 7:30 p.m. Sat., Jan. 27, 7:30.p.m. Thurs., Feb. 1, 6:00 p.m. Blackstone Hotel, Regency Room 126 Barrows, UC Berkeley B112 Student Union 636 S. Michigan For more information: (415) 839-0851 San Francisco State University For more information: (312) 663-0715 For more information: (415) 863-6963 CLEVELAND MADISON Wed., Jan. 31, 7:30 p.m. WASHINGTON, D.C. Sat., Feb. 3, 2:00 p.m. University Center 368 Thurs., Feb. 1, 7:30 p.m. See "Today in the Union" for room 2121 Euclid Ave. Blackburn Room 148 University of Wisconsin Cleveland State University Howard University For more information: (312) 663-0715 For more information: (216) 781-7500 For more information: (202) 636-3537-
26 JANUARY 1990 7 Spartakist-Gruppen banner: "For'a Red Soviet Germany in a Socialist Europe!" ~p-artakist-Gru~p-en,TLD Comme'morate "Three L's" Forward to Workers' and Soldiers' Soviet Power A public meeting of the Trotzkistische Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht can be and second, making it possible to transfer factories that must be answered by the Liga Deutschlands and the Spartakist criticized for having split too late. And profits. In a government statement, Prime plant management. I jotted down one of Gruppen honoring Lenin, Liebknecht and that, I believe, is an important lesson as Minister Modrow said that "labor forces" these questions: Who is it, after all, who Luxemburg, the "Three L's" of Bolshe well for all the comrades inside and would be "set free" in the course of has empowered the general directors and vism, was held on the afternoon ofJanu outside of the SED [Socialist Unity Party economic reforms. That means there will directors to sell off property belonging ary 14 at the culture center of the VEB of Germany, the ruling party in the be unemployment. to the people at giveaway prices? Well, Elektrokohle factory in Berlin. We print DDR], who always accuse us of splitting. As to the problem of capital invest our answer to this question is: They're below'excerpts from the presentations and Often it is too late to split. But it is nec ment in state-owned enterprises, now our enterprises, built with our labor. And some remarks from the discussion. essary to split in order to forge the revo even the fig leaf of 49 percent participa accordingly, all those working in these lutionary nucleus of the working class tion has been dropped-i.e., there will be plants must themselves decide on all Renate Dahlhaus, for the TLD which is capable of leading the workers no upper limit. And this was approved important questions. That is the essential Germany is split by a class divide, and party to victory. with a large majority by the Volks cornerstone of our political program. as long as West German imperialism When today Rosa Luxemburg and kammer [DDR parliament]. Thus, we Decision-making must rest with those exists, it will continually attempt to turn Liebknecht are commemorated in the must emphasize, the course has been who produce value. the DDR into a colony, and to oppress name of "freedom for those who think quite unambiguously set toward capitalist That is why we say: Organize, create the working class here in the East and differently," as democrats and liberals, restoration. On Thursday evening, Ger for yourselves organs of political power. turn it into slaves. And naturally, it won't this is fundamentally wrong. No one man nationalists tore up the state flag in Nothing other than this lies behind our stop here, it's going for Poland and at- should forget that their struggle was in- front of the Volkskammer. The Modrow slogan for workers and soldiers councils to power. A first key task of these coun cils is the demand to open the books. That means that the present economic situation of the enterprises must be re vealed to the working people. Put an end to the secret negotiations behind the backs of the workers. Read our "Open Letter" and you will think of other ques tions-they were only supposed to be suggestions, since each one of you natu rally knows best what the crucial issues are. That's clear, we can't know that. But in any case, and that is our political pro gram, we're for unlimited confidence in the intelligence and judgment of the workers. And I say it again, quite clearly, and you can write it down: the course of the present government is dangerous and undermines the foundations of the work ers state. On January 3, there was an anti-fascist united-front action, "Stop the Nazis," Spartakist Trotskyist spokesman Renate Dahlhaus (lower right) addresses January 3 mobilization against fascism. TLD's which we initiated. Such a united-front newspaper warns: "No Sellout of the DDR!" action in Lenin's sense is not a political non-aggression pact, but rather each po tacking the Soviet Union, at the heart of separable from the Russian Revolution cabinet stands powerless in the face of litical grouping preserves its own inde the Revolution which taught us that im and proletarian internationalism.. this reunification hysteria. And it is pow pendence. It is, so to speak, a fighting perialism can be defeated. erless because'the economic line of the unity, according to the principle "march Therefore it is important to understand G. Melt, for the Spartakist-Gruppen Modrow regime objectively plays into separately, strike together." One could the teachings of Liebknecht, Luxemburg Those of you who have watched TV the hands of these forces, whether the also formulate this another way: com and Lenin. For German communists it or read the papers know that as of tomor government likes it or not. plete freedom of criticism, complete has a special meaning that they were row there are going to be price increases, In our Arbeiterpressekorrespondenz of unity ofactio1).. This is what our speakers murdered as Spartacists, and thereby the in the case of children's clothing up to 12 January 1990, we formulated an at Treptow put forward, and many people most revolutionary and intelligent leaders 150 percent, and one has to realize that "Open Letter to All Communists," inside didn't like it, as could be seen. were taken from the working class in this is only the beginning. Changes in and outside the SED-PDS. We conceived But it must be stated that for the first Germany. This was a heavy blow for us local transit costs, rents, services and of this letter as a suggestion containing time in the history of the DDR, there internationally, since the next possibility other basic commodities are already concrete offers for united-front actions. was a left opposition to the SED-PDS, to for a German revolution, in 1923, didn't under discussion. It must also be noted In it we have a major point, alongside the Nelken [Carnations, a new left-wing have the tempered leadership necessary that there has been a constitutional others, directed· against a sellout of the party], to the United Left, and there is to turn the battle into a victory. amendment and bills will be introduced, DDR. Thus we suggest a number of also supposed to be a group seeking to Instead there was a weak CPo Rosa first, to guarantee protection of capital, concrete questions for workers in the continued on page 11 8 'WORKERS VANGUARD par a IS 0 OS East Berlin-Spartakist-Gruppen banner declares: "Defend Foreign Workers! Full Citizenship Rights, East and West!" Right: TLD/Spartakist-Gruppen wreath at gravesite of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht in Berlin-Friedrichsfelde. Memorial states: "The Dead Admonish Us."
For the second time in two weeks, Marxist Student League, Die Nelken tion laid a wreath at the Rosa Luxem Liebknecht-Luxemburg Fund and people more than a quarter million people came (Carnations) and other left groups. A burg memorial on the Landwehr Canal signed up as members of the Spartakist out in East Berlin in the name of social counterdemonstration by the Social Dem in West Berlin. Outside the memorial Gruppen. They proudly received the first ism and for the DDR (East Germany). ocrats, now formally called the SPD like in East Berlin, our Trotskyist banners membership cards, bright red and bearing On January 3 there was the mass anti their West German big brothers, was held were prominently displayed, calling for a quote from Rosa on how German fascist united-front demonstration at the at Alexanderplatz, which drew some "A Red Soviet Germany in a Social workers learned about soviets from the Soviet war memorial in Treptow Park. 30,000. ist Europe!" "Defend Foreign Workers! Russian Revolution. Also on the 14th, a And on January 14, an equally large Taking up an early Communist tradi Full Citizenship Rights, East and West!" Spartacist delegation officially partici crowd went to Friedrichsfelde Cemetery tion, the Spartakist-Gruppen and the and declaring "From the Bloodhound pated in the Luxemburg-Liebknecht dem to honor Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Lux Trotzkistische Liga Deutschlands called Noske/Ebert/Scheideinann to Brandt! onstration of about 15,000 in Schwerin, emburg, on the 71st anniversary of their upon supporters to come to Fried Lafontaine: Social Democracy Is the in the north of the DDR. deaths. For the first time in years, this richsfelde to honor Luxemburg, Lieb Trojan Horse of Counterrevolution." As The impact of the Spartacist presence was no Stalin-style parade before party knecht and Lenin, the "Three L's" of we addressed the crowd with a bullhorn, was considerable. Altogether more than and state leaders. It took over three and Bolshevism. Spartakist/Arbeiterpresse it often turned into a dialogue. Tens of 40,000 pieces of literature were sold and a half hours for the crowd to file past the korrespondenz (to January) noted that thousands of copies of Spartacist litera distributed. The evening DDR-TV news graves of the co-founders of the Commu "In the SED-PDS call, Karl and Rosa are ture were sold and distributed, notably program, "Aktuelle Kamera," prominent nist Party of Germany. described as 'prominent leaders of the Friday's Arprekorr with an "Open Letter ly showed the laying of the wreath from The SED-PDS had issued a call to German Social Democrats and Commu to All Communists" (see page 10), and the Spartakist-Gruppen, TLD and In come to Friedrichsfelde to show support nists.' This is closely related to the the latest Spartakist with-the headline ternational Communist League (Fourth for "democratic socialism, the social SED's current view, equating Liebknecht "No Sellout of the DDR!" .' Internationalist). And the next day our interests of the working people, inde and Luxemburg with Kautsky and Bern That afternoon, the Spartakist-Gruppen participation was reported in Neues pendence of the DDR," and against "neo stein. This ignores the fact that the Com and TLD held a public meeting at the Deutschland, Berliner Zeitung and Junge fascism, right-radicalism, nationalism, munists were murdered by officers who culture center of the VEB Elektrokohle Welt. The latter noted that the Trotskyists hostility to foreigners" and "economic had been brought in by Social Democrat plant. Following the speeches and a "warned against a shortsighted sellout sellout of the DDR." The SED call was Gustav Noske to suppress the Spartakus rich discussion period (see "Forward to of the DDR to the West German industri later joined by the PDJ (Free German uprising in January 1919." Workers' and Soldiers' Soviet Power"), alists," adding that "they received ap Youth), the Socialist Youth League, the Early on the 14th a Spartacist delega- money was collected for the Lenin- proving applause.".
ARBEITERPRESSEKORRESPONDENZ West Berlin-Revolutionaries from East and West East German youth at Germany gather at Landwehr Canal, where the body Spartakist-Gruppen recruitment table. of Rosa Luxemburg was found. SPARTAKIST ~ Spartakist Photos Nr. 17 Mittwoch, 10. Januar 1990 '> Pfennig
Aufruf derSpartakist-Gruppen und TLO -Ehrt Lenin, Uebknecht, Luxemburg! Am 1.\.Ja"'''''l'iI'i....'''d,·'''''flnli''II./Jr/Liebkllcd'I''''dRmtJ K"mmuni"i,cncnP.rte,O,·ut>ehland, ~'::,'~~:~~:7:i~:;~~~-;~f!!,f:,"~'~:":r~,'t',~~"'k~~1a"u(" SO/i"lden",kr.'cn, jellt aueh inncrhaJI> dCf SED-POS, /m ,prcehcn ""n "einhclli~cn Warnu~gen- R'",a L.~".mbufgs Am~~m,'a!l. l~_J;Jn".r"'irdc,.f,~ den L'h'cinc(;,o&k {"lWle-."ch K.ul ....Y' und Ikrn"c,n,~) "Of dc. M(ig~chkcll mon,'ralion an d
26 JANUARY 1990 9 Open Letter to All Communists The following Open Letter by the ties. Committees of working people in Spartakist-Gruppen and the Trotzkisti each residential area should ensure that sche LigaDeutschlands is translatedfrom prices are not raised, that a stop is put to Spartakist/Arbeiterpressekorrespondenz Reprint from Argrekorr speculation and thus everyone can shop No. 18 (12 January). without discrimination. • How large is the influence of and ram, Braun, etc., in order to work togeth . The fight for full citizenship rights for In full consciousness of the present all immigrant workers, in the East and real danger from right-radical forces investment of capital already in the er against the sellout. plants? West, will help to overcome the division along with the massive' anti-communist Workers and Soldiers of the working class in the BRD between hate campaign in the bourgeois media of • Are layoffs being carried out or planned? Councils to Power! German and Turkish workers. It is pre West Germany, fanned by the SPD, and The SED-PDS now proposes forming cisely the Turkish workers who in West the threatened sellout of the DDR to • Are new privileges planned for cer tain layers? plant councils "before capital comes" Germany stand in the front lines of the the Deutsche Bank and its likes, we (Neues Deutschland, 11 January). The class struggle. Our class brothers in the are suggesting an action program to • Who is attempting to institute an illegal practice of SPD-style Berufs Spartakists call for forming workers and Federal Republic and also in West Berlin all communists inside and outside the soldiers councils to prevent capital from must help us prevent the sellout of the SED-PDS: verbote [blacklisting] now in the DDR as well, mainly directed against mem coming! The reintroduction of capitalist DDR. exploitation endangers every worker and On 3 January 1990, some 250,000 Fight Fascism! bers of the SED-PDS? • Will there be social cutbacks, i.e., the existence of the DDR. To defend our Berliners said with their powerful united In the spirit of proletarian interna e.g., wage cuts? social gains and to open the way to so front action at the Soviet memorial in tionalism, for reliable protection of the • Will the year's maternity leave exist cialism We must replace the arbitrary rule Treptow: Never Again Fascism! In fight memorial cemeteries of slain Soviet sol in the future as well? of the Stalinist bureaucracy with revolu ing for a German republic of soviets diers, of anti-fascist resistance fighters tionary soviet rule, throughout Germany. Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht and Jewish citizens, we propose joint The policies of Modrow's government The workers must take into their own were also fighting against the counterrev patrols by soldiers of the Red Army, al coalition are aimed at giving capital a hands control of the enterprises and olution, which utilized the fig leaf of the NVA [DDR army], members of the green light with the aid of amending the institutions by forming councils [soviets]. "parliamentary democracy." It is high Volkspolizei [People's Police], VP auxil iaries and workers defense groups from the factories. The preferred target of the anti communist hate propaganda of the neo Nazis are above all workers who have immigrated [to the DDR]. It is the duty of all workers to defend our foreign colleagues. Against Nazi terror we mo bilize workers united fronts in East and West, faithful to Lenin's principle: March separately, strike togethei" To guarantee protection of our work ers state and of the property of the peo ple, defense groups should be formed within the factories, made up of disci plined and experienced co.lleagues, in cluding many members and reorganized units of the fighting groups of the work euters' ing class. The working class must take Auto workersin Karl-Marx-Stadt (left). DDR up the battle against fascism in organized economics minister Christa Luft offering up fashion, to crush it in the egg when it East German factories to Volkswagen boss Carl Hahn. is still weak. This is why we advance Der Spiegel the slogan: For joint workers militias un der the control of workers and soldiers constitution and laws, in order to legalize In these councils, in which all currents time to transform Lenin, Luxemburg and councils! the notorious "joint ventures" with West within the working class are represented, Liebknecht's revolutionary program for ern firms, to permit protection of capital free and open debates will take place on soviet rule into reality. Necessary for Against the Sellout of the DDR! and transfer of profits. This is a direct all pending problems. They thereby di this is the forging of a new revolutionary attack on the right to work and endangers rectly represent the interests of all work party. It is in this sense that we link up The present business situation of indi socially justified subsidies. The explosion ers, and the delegates can be recalled at with the revolutionary traditions of the vidual plants and institutions must be of prices and rents will above all hit any time. Such councils must look after international workers movement to honor revealed by the directors and managers single women, pensioners and others with the overall interests of society-for ex on 14 January 1990 the three great lead responsible. Clear and direct answers low incomes. ample, the control of prices as weIl ers of the Russian and German revolu must be given the workers to such ques .This pro-capital, anti-worker market and thus they constitute the. .most dem tions. tions as: economy policy must be resolutely ocratic form of government; a million The mass demonstration in Treptow • Who· is it that is empowering the fought! We propose that worker delega times more democratic than any bour also honored the Red Army that freed general directors/directors to sell the tions from DPR factories visit their West geois parliamentarianism can ever be. Europe from Nazism. Honoring the Three people's property at giveaway prices? German class brothers at Siemens, Os- Revolutionary workers councils would L's in January pays tribute to the revolu fight for free round-the-clock day care tionary ties between the Russian and for children, and also to enable full par German revolutions. Despite all the talk ticipation by women in social and polit of "disarmament," imperialist militarism ical life. Workers and soldiers councils has today lost nothing of its desire for are the firm guarantee of the defense of booty, as the provocations in the Carib "Stop the Sellout of the DDR!" socialized ownership of the means of bean and the massive military maneuvers production. Central planning of the econ west of the Elbe demonstrate. And in The following article is translated the DDR into the arms of the Frank omy can fully develop its enormous the BRD the gigantic weapons company from Spartakist No. 67 (17 January), furt stock market. advantages only in connection with work MBB-Daimler Benz was formed. We the newspaper of the Trotzkistische Modrow and other SED tops pay lip ers democracy. stand resolutely for defense of the DDR Liga Deutschlands. service to "No Sellout" while hanging and the USSR against NATO imperial out the "For Sale" sign. But it is the For Full Citizenship Rights ism. We fight for a red soviet Germany On Friday, January 12, the Volks working people of the DDR, including for All Foreign CoUeagues in a socialist Europe! kammer decided, with only two ab immigrant workers, who have created Working in the DDR and Against the military threat by German stentions, to adopt SED economic the wealth. Who gave the bureaucrats, for Their Families! imperialism and NATO, a soviet govern minister Christa Luft's proposed who mismanaged the economy for The acts of discrimination that have ment would tum to the workers of the amendments to. the constitution to over 40 years, the right to sell it recently been increasing against our East, in particular to those of the Soviet allow foreign capitalist investment. now? Workers, on guard! Demand colleagues from Poland, Vietnam, Mo Union, as well as to the workers of the Private capital will now be allowed in that factory directors open the books. zambique, etc. must be stopped at once! West. mining, energy, agricultural and in The Social Democrats and the West Everyone who works .and lives here; Independent of existing political differ dustrial production, banking and insur German union federation are trying whatever their nationality, must have the ences on many questions, we call upon ance, transport, telephone and postal to export class-collaborationist plant same rights as any DDR citizen. Of all those who share our deep concern and service. The Modrow government also councils so DDR workers can "co course the families of soldiers of the Red wish jointly with us to defend the social announced huge price increases, be determine" their own exploitation. The Army and Soviet women living here gains of the DDR, to agree on and carry ginning with children's clothes and Spartacists say: Form factory councils must also have full enjoyment of the out actions with us. Whoever fails to shoes. It is no accident that on the as organs of workers control in the social gains. defend what has already been won can same day Modrow met with West plants. Forward to a government of In order to prevent speculation, re win no new victories. But to win new German finance minister and CSU workers and soldiers councils! For strictions on purchases directed against victories it is necessary to forge a new chairman Theodor ("Reunification in common planning leading to economic our class brothers are an inappropriate communist party in the spirit of Lenin 1937 Borders") Waigel. Simultaneous integration between the DDR and means, since -they only fan nationalism. and Trotsky. ly, by demanding world market prices the Soviet Union, thereby defending In our opinion, appropriate customs con Spartakist-Gruppen for Soviet oil, Gorbachev is pushing" against the capitalist attack. trols offer adequate protection against Trotzkistische Liga Deutschlands trading with state-subsidized commodi- 11 January 1990 10 WORKERS VANGUARD Where Does the Money Come From The following statement was published cally have come from older, now-retired in Spartakist (No. 67, 17 January), the Statement of the International Secretariat of the ICL people or from others sympathizing with newspaper of the Trotzkistische Liga communism, whose financial resources Deutschlands. and the Central Committee of the TLD are largely depleted. In general these Recently we have been bringing out fund-raising campaigns are undertaken Arbeiterpressekorrespondenz almost more numerous comrades, we receive a is projected or some new major develop for a very specific aim and as urgent circumstance demands, and are not the daily. This is really costing a lot of mon surplus. On the other hand our interna ment in the world comes up, we run fund ey, approximately DM17,000 a week. We tional organization provides modest sub drives. The Partisan Defense Committee, basis for the regular political work of our also hope to-be able to publish a weekly sidies to our smaller sections, which have a non-sectarian organization for legal and international organization or its sections. in the DD~ shortly. younger comrades with less profession social defense associated with the ICL, The genuine Trotskyists of the world This money, from the dwindling re al experience and a lower wage level; received, particularly from unions with have done everything in their power to serves of the International Communist in doing so we don't want to create a a significant black membership, $42,000 defend the DDR against capitalist absorp League, has been built up over a number fool's paradise but rather to further their in donations for the series of rallies tion and the USSR against imperialist of years through high pledges from the growth. against the Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan provocations. At present we appear right wages of very advanced workers in ten Since the days of the New Left, uni that we recently mounted in, the U.S. ly in the DDR as those who express the countries. These contributions vary ac versity administrations in the U.S., i.e., Before this, during the 1984 miners hopes of millions of workers and sections cording to the level of the wages re in the final analysis state authorities, strike in Britain, the PDC raised $23,000 of the intelligentsia and who counter ceived by the workers in the various have offered to pay for (radical) student in donations from the labor movement all their fears. Our international organiza countries. Members in West Germany activities. We have successfully fought across America and internationally in tion, the ICL, will continue trying to have paid the most per capita, but mem against accepting even one cent of this support of this hard-fought but unfortu help, and it will help. But bringing out bers of the ICL from France and the government-sponsored financial support. nately defeated battle against the evil our press in all Germany is essentially USA, from Canada and Australia, have It is in this spirit and in accord with prime minister Thatcher. ' the responsibility of those who support also made their contribution. The British this program that we do our work in the More recently we raised $50,000 from the founding of a Spartakist Workers comrades are too poor and the Japanese DDR. We don't want even a pfennig of left communists and militant defenders Party of Germany that will emerge from and Italian comrades too few, but never subsidy from anyone except from those of women's rights around the world, the Spartakist-Gruppen, the Trotzkisti theless they too have helped out. And who are in some way in serious agree money the Afghan government used to sche Liga Deutschlands andothers sup even those comrades from countries like ment with our program. assist the victims of the heavy fighting porting the fundamental program of our Mexico and Lanka and elsewhere in Therefore the working people from the around Jalalabad, a battle that stopped political grouping. South Asia who have received financial BRD or DDR who pay one or two marks the counterrevolutionaries in Afghanistan support from the ICL have helped as to read our press are indispensable for cold. The PDC campaigns, being public The fate of the unfolding Ger much as they could. Sometimes, when the continued appearance of our publica in nature, are also heavily audited, show man workers political revolution a comrade's frugal grandmother dies, we tions. At the moment the class conscious ing to all that the money does go for the hangs in the balance. Contribu receive a portion of the inheritance as a ness of the West German proletariat is purposes intended. tions from internationalists are windfall. That's where our money comes at an ebb, which is no doubt discourag And now from the entire world, in urgently needed to carry forward from. ing for militants in the DDR. Militancy accordance with their means, radical the critical intervention of con The sociology of our finances is just has its ebb and flood tides. Large-scale socialists and communists are sending scious Leninists. Make donations as one would expect. Our international economic struggles are on the agenda in in money directly to our political organ payable/send to: Spartacist, Box organization numbers fewer than a thou the BRD this year; the stance of workers ization through the Lenin-Liebknecht 1377GPO, NY,NY10116(earmark sand people on the entire planet, and they in the West toward the DDR will perhaps Luxemburg Fund to support the work of " Lenin-Liebknecht-Luxemburg all work for a living. From countries be completely different then. our comrades in the East German politi Fund" or "3-L's Fund"). with a high wage level, with older and And of course when some major action cal revolution. But these donations basi-
Three L's... -(continued from page 8) found a KPD in the DDR-a left opposi tion to all these groups that clearly and unambiguously takes its stand in public. What is this, anyway, the Left Opposi tion? What have we Trotskyists undertak Leon Trotsky, en against Stalinism? What is Stalinism co-leader of anyway? In the DDR press there have the Bolshevik been a lot of articles lately dealing with Revolution, speaks Stalinism, and it's clear there's a lot of at a May Day rally confusion, for common to all these ar in Red Square, ticles is that they miss the essence of Moscow, in the Stalinism. early 1920s. Now, the first clear warning against a Banner salutes possible degeneration of a workers state workers struggling against tne old can be found already in Frederick Engels. world of capitalist In his preface to the 1891 edition of exploitation. The Civil War in France he formulates it roughly in this way: the working class must, if it is to seize political power, on the one hand smash the old bourgeois state machinery, but on the other hand it lution were not to be found in Russia of 1917. More than 95 percent of the He criticized Stalin first of all over must defend itself against its own depu itself, but in the internationalist aid of party members had joined only after the persecution of the national minority in ties and officials, so as not to lose again other proletarians, and therefore ultimate October Revolution. Georgia. He attacked Stalin on the ques the political power it has just won. ly in the extension of the revolution to Many party functionaries were used to tion of the monopoly of foreign trade. Today with the knowledge of past the West. The Bolsheviks had particular commanding and ordering from the time On January 23, he presented a proposal history, one must say that Engels was expectations and particular hopes in the 'of the Civil War. That was correct and for the reorganization of the Workers' unfortunately correct in this warning. It German working class. This was where necessary during the Civil War, but times and Peasants' Inspection, further elabo became evident that under capitalist con Marxism had come from, and there was had changed, it was now peacetime. So rated in "Better Fewer But Better" ditions a workers aristocracy or work a long tradition in the German workers an army of administrators had formed (March 1923). ers bureaucracy would arise. But it also movement. The October Revolution had within the party. Stalin became the advo To be sure, Stalin is not named in this became evident that in a workers state a begun in effect under the slogan, "Russia cate of these bureaucrats' interests. And article, but the direction of the attack bureaucratic layer can arise that illegally is the spark, Germany will be the flame." in many respects he was an ideal advo was utterly clear. Stalin knew well what usurps political power. But the German Revolution of 1918 cate-energetic, wily, sly, and an old this language meant, and he also knew After the Bolsheviks, under the leader was drowned in blood by the rightist Bolshevik. o that he was dealing with a powerful ship of Lenin and Trotsky, successfully Social Democratic leadership. Liebknecht In addition, Stalin held in his hands opponent. On 25 December [1922] or 4 carried out the October Revolution, the and Luxemburg were murdered because several key positions. He was, firstly, January 1923, Lenin dictated his letter to fledgling Soviet state was subjected to they had come out for a German soviet People's Commissar for Nationalities, the Central Committee, frequently re an imperialist war of aggression and a republic. which is important in a multinational ferred to as his political testament, in bloody civil war that claimed numerous In the meantime, civil war continued state like the Soviet Union. Moreover, he which he demanded Stalin's removal. On victims. In his famous "April Theses," to rage in the Soviet Union. From a was commissar for the Workers' and March 6, Lenin went so far as to break Lenin agreed with Trotsky'S position and handful of Red Guards, Trotsky forged Peasants' Inspection, a member of the off all comradely and personal relations argued that in a country as backward as the Red Army and was its recognized Politburo and, since April 1922, general with Stalin. Russia, with strong feudal structures, it leader. Partly, a very hard regime was secretary of the party. Lenin, once he But 'Lenin and Trotsky intended to was possible to transform the bourgeois necessary at this time in order to escape recovered from his first stroke, had clear launch the decisive blow jointly against democratic revolution under the leader from the deadly encirclement. However, ly seen the immense danger emanating the triumvirate (Stalin, Kamenev and ship of the working class directly into the Civil War also decimated the ranks from the party bureaucracy. ' Zinoviev, who led the party during Len socialist revolution. 'of the Bolsheviks themselves. It's clear In December 1922, Lenin launched his in's illness and after his death) at the But the reserves of the Russian Revo- that the party of 1923 was not the party first blow against Stalin and his faction. continued on page 12 26 JANUARY 1990 11 imperialism in its drive to break up the USSR... USSR and tum the remnants into neo colonies of Wall Street and the Frankfurt (continued from page 1) banks. The rabid anti-Communist Pat Buchanan, who enjoys defending Nazi at the violence and risked their own lives war criminals, wrote gleefully a few to hide Armenian friends and neighbors weeks ago: "Is 1990 the year the Soviet from the blood-crazed mobs. The news Union breaks apart?" paper of the Soviet Communist Youth, Both Gorbachev and the Lithuanian Komsomolskaya Pravda, reports that at nationalists of Sajudis are now posing the initiative of the Azerbaijan Komso secession assimply the exercise of na mol, Azeri veterans of the Afghan war tional self-determination formally guaran patrolled Armenian neighborhoods to teed in the founding 1924 constitution of prevent further pogroms. the USSR. (This right was incorporated Theatrocities are by no means on one as the result of the dying Lenin's last side alone. Armenian partisans, using struggle against Stalin's Great Russian helicopter gunships seized from the Sovi chauvinism.) But the overriding goal of et Army, have strafed Azerbaijani vil the Baltic nationalists is not independ lages. The Moscow newspaper Izvestia ence but unity with the capitalist "free reported that 3,000 Armenians attacked world." While screaming about the sa a village in Nakhichevan, an Azerbaijani cred cause of "independence," they are enclave wedged between Armenia and talking about forming a "Baltoscandia" Iran. -a union of-Lithuania, Latvia and Esto The decision to send troops won wide nia with the capitalist countries of Scan approval among the Soviet people. "Gor dinavia. And they expect generous aid bachev had a responsibility to save Mikhalev/Novosti from the coffers of Western imperialism. lives," said a woman factory worker in Soviet troops enter Baku as bloody communalist warfare rages in Caucasus. Under the guise of national liberation, Byelorussia (New York Times, 18 Janu the Lithuanian Sajudis and the Latvian ary). However, the Gorbachev regime has operation. swer to the "nationalist rampage" and and Estonian Popular Fronts are driving also encouraged pacifistic attitudes to While spokesmen for the Azerbaijani "fratricidal war" he condemns. toward social counterrevolution. justify its withdrawal from Afghanistan, Popular Front threaten Gorbachev with The Baku pogrom took place just after The rise of reactionary nationalism is where the Soviet Army was fighting a a "new Afghanistan," the Soviet Army Gorbachev got back from Vilnius, where by no means limited to the periphery progressive war against imperialist-armed certainly has the power to control the he appealed to Lithuanian nationalists not of the USSR. Ukrainian nationalism is tribalists and Islamic fanatics. Thus many region. But it cannot prevent small to secede from the USSR. The sending stirring behind the revived Eastern Russian parents protested against sending group terrorism nor police every area of troops into Azerbaijan has for the Rite Catholic church. The most dan their sons to restore civil peace in the where Armenians and Azeris are bent moment overshadowed the Lithuania gerous nationalism of all for the future Caucasus. In response, the Soviet govern on killing one another. And what hap crisis. Yet the secession of this Baltic of the Soviet Union is that of the domi ment halted calling up army reservists pens when the state of emergency is republic would have grave consequences nant Russian people. And here we have and announced that only regular military relaxed? The liberal Stalinist regime of for the future of the Soviet Union. It seen the growth of the fascist Pamyat and police forces would be used in the Mikhail Gorbachev has no political an- would enormously embolden Western (Memory) and other Great Russian chau-
situation had arisen again in Germany. gram of "socialism in one country." This wrote the "Open Letter to All Commu Three L's... The KPD [Communist Party ofGermany] was a theory counterposed to the line of nists," among other reasons. . was supported by a majority of the Ger Lenin and Trotsky. It was the Trotskyists We call on all who are in program (continued from page 11) man working class and had the possibili who resolutely fought the Stalinist bu matic agreement with us to join with us, party congress in April 1923. This was ty of taking political power, that literally reaucracy since the early '20s. The Left become members of the Spartakist only prevented by the last stroke, which lay in the streets. But the then party Opposition, i.e., the Trotskyists, stood Gruppen, and together with us spread and Lenin suffered in March 1923. leadership around Brandler was too hesi first of all for internationalism and for advocate this program. It is in the tradi I don't want to enter into historical tant, and additionally received very con industrialization. They also defended the tion of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, of Karl speculation now. Perhaps it wasn't quite tradictory instructions from the Comin workers state against imperialist attacks, Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, that right that Trotsky didn't carry out the tern leadership, then under the influence even after Trotsky'S murder in 1940 in our slogan "For a Red Soviet Germany attack alone at this party congress. But of Stalin and Zinoviev. Mexican exile. in a Socialist Europe" mast be under one has to consider that he was still Once again, a great historical chance Well, this is precisely the tradition stood. It also depends, in conclusion, on hoping for Lenin's recovery, and be was not utilized. The German Revolution which we follow: we stand for the de us in the DDR learning to overcome our lieved that a joint effort would be more of 1923 failed to take place, at least not fense of the workers states. We also say: national blinders, that we learn again to effective. But as I said, no historical in a positive sense, The upshot was that return to the road of Lenin, Trotsky, think internationally. speculations, we have to stick to the the working class in the Soviet Union, Liebknecht and Luxemburg. These names facts. greatly decimated and also demoralized stand for soviet rule, that is, for a repub From now on, the efforts of the trium after the previous Civil War, still stood lic of workers councils. DISCUSSION virate, that is to say the troika, were alone. The hoped-for and longed-for At this point, I must of course add that aimed at suffocating internal party de expansion of the revolution to the West we can't resolve the problems of the The following remarks were made by mocracy and. removing leadership of did not take place. In addition there were DDR inside theDDR itself. On the one a participant in the meeting. the party from control by the members. the conditions I already indicated inside hand, it is necessary V> ally with the I do not belong to the Spartakist Moreover, the bureaucratic outgrowths the party, and naturally Lenin's far too working class of West Berlin .and the Gruppen, I still belong to the SED-PDS, were extended to the entire state appara early death. All this made it possible for Federal Republic [West Germany]. That and nevertheless I would like to make it his. The soviet system was smashed. this bureaucratic layer to illegally usurp is why we say, for example: NARVA possible to speak here. The demand has There was a further historical circum power in the party and state. workers, speak with your class brothers been raised, correctly, for a red soviet stance which enabled the StaHQ faction In 1924, Stalin and Bukharin, with at Osram, carry out combative jointac Germany. I don't want to-historically, to extraordinarily consolidate its power. whom he had in the meantime allied tions against the sellout of the DDR, for I agree, the demand is right. I stress this In the spring of 1923, a revolutionary . himself, set about elaborating the pro- if this sellout occurs, it will threaten jobs because I am of the opinion that we must in the West as well. first give a new meaning to the word Never forget to stand shoulder to communism. shoulder with the other plants, with your Since 1976, our citizens-to the extent colleagues of Elektrokohle, of October they have attended higher educational SPARTACIST LEAGUE/U.S. LOCAL DIRECTORY 7th, of Bergmann-Borsig, for they can be establishments, which was after all oblig National OUice: Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY10116 • (212) 732-7860 the next ones to be fired. Act together atory-have become familiar with the with your Vietnamese, Polish'and Mo presentation ofcommunism in the [SED] Atlanta Detroit Norfolk zambican fellow workers. And also think program of 1976. We see every hour, Box 4012 Box 441794 Box 1972, Main PO of this: a soviet republic in all of Germa every minute what that party program led Atlanta, GA30302 Detroit, MI 48244 Norfolk, VA 23501 ny has been on the agenda for over 70 to and what communism is. I see it as a years, and will also provide a genuine very big question to develop a theory Boston Los Angeles Oakla.nd revolutionary perspective for the working which is comprehensible for the workers, Box 840, Central Sta. Box 29574, Los Feliz Sta. Box 32552 class in the Soviet Union, Poland, Czech with which our workers can identify. Cambridge,MA 02139 Los Angeles, CA90029 Oakland, CA 94604 (617) 492-3928. (213) 380-8239 (415) 839-0851 oslovakia, etc. Karl Marx once said, in the Manifesto, In order to make this program of Lenin that the working class in its revolutionary Chicago San Francisco and Liebknecht and Luxemburg into struggle had nothing to lose but its Box 6441, Main PO Madison Box 5712 Box 2074 reality, we need a new revolutionary chains. Yes, in 1848 and for many years Chicago, IL 60680 San Francisco, CAl94101 (312) 663-0715 Madison, WI 53701 (415) 863-6963 party as the German section of the inter afterwards that was right. But the work national communist movement. ing class in the DDR has much to lose. Cleveland New York Washington, D.C. The SED is not reformable, because And I am of the opinion that this is a Box 91037 Box 444, Canal St. Sta. Box 75073 these bureaucratic structures, formed in situation which we must pay attention Cleveland, OH 44101 New York, NY 10013 Washington, D.C. 20013 the years 1923-24, were transmitted di to in all these matters when we talk of (216) 781-7500 (212) 267-1025 (202) 636-3537 rectly to this party. They still have the a red soviet Germany, of workers and program of socialism in one country, soldiers councils. overlaid with the programmatic confusion .Perhaps we must have here our theo TROTSKYIST LEAGUE OF CANADA in recent attempts to expand the program. retical beginning, and perhaps the Toronto Vancouver But we also believe that many members Spartakist-Gruppen in the DDR will have Box 7198, Station A Box 2717, Main Post Office of this party, as well as many former their own field in this area, in order Toronto, Ontario M5W 1X8 Vancouver, B.C. V6B 3X2 members who left the party for good perhaps through the Spartakist-Gruppen (416) 593-4138 (604) 255-0636 reason, can be won to a genuine revolu -to form a new, truly communist party tionary perspective. This is why we in the DDR.. 12 WORKERS VANGUARD vinist outfits spewing out anti-Semitic but the latest round in the ancient blood filth as they scapegoat the Jews for feud between the traditionally Christian the economic disaster of perestroika (re Armenians and Islamic, Turkic-speaking structuring). Last week Pamyat-type Azeris. The immediate trigger was mass stormtroopers forced their way into the Armenian agitation to change the status Moscow headquarters of the Writers of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Union and disrupted a meeting of anti Region, a mountainous enclave of fascist intellectuals. 100,000 inhabitants-75 percent of them Why have violent and reactionary Armenian-within the boundaries and nationalist movements erupted under under the jurisdiction of the Azerbaijan Gorbachev? Soviet spokesmen used to republic. Nagorno-Karabakh was not an proudly point to Baku as a cosmopolitan isolated territorial dispute but a symp multinational city. The large and thriving tom and symbol of resurgent Armenian Armenian community-c-over 10 percent nationalism. Armenian bureaucrats and of the population-s-lived without fear of intellectuals, the elite of a relatively eco violence from their Azeri neighbors. nomically advanced region of the USSR, There was a fair degree of intermarriage. saw themselves as the favored children At the same time, hundreds of thousands of perestroika. When the Nagorno of Azeris lived peacefully in the Armeni Karabakh conflict exploded two years an republic. In the Baltic republics, anti ago, we pointed out that "the Armenian Soviet nationalism seemed limited to an bureaucracy and intelligentsia are push extremist fringe. And Pamyat was viewed ing themselves forward at the expense of as a small group of backward-looking poorer, more culturally backward Azer fanatics, not to be taken seriously. baijan" (WV No. 450, 8 April 1988). But the apparent stability of Brezh Azerbaijanis reacted with a bloody nev's Soviet Union was illusory. Decades pogrom against Armenians in the city of of Stalinist police-state rule trampled . Sumgait, near Baku, in February 1988. underfoot legitimate national grievances ~ -Since then terror and counter-terror have
and rights while also suppressing tke I' driven 600,000 Armenians and Azeris open, violent expression ofnationalist from their homes, producing a mass of . . .• . .' ••..•• Oer Spiegel hatreds. and rivalries. All .this came 1.0 vengeful refugees onboth sides. In the Mass coal miners strike r~lIy in Siberia last July. Sovtetworking class is the surface when Gorbachev loosened Azeris' eyes, the Armenians are favored resisting dls,astrous effects of perestroika. . the political controls. However, pere by the Russians,'fellow Christians who stroika has greatly fueled and intensified have historically regarded themselves where Solidarnosc' program ofcapitalist made up of Russians, Ukrainians, Byelo pre-existing national antagonisms. Politi protectors of the Armenians against the restoration is driving the economy down russians, Jews, ethnic Siberians and other cal liberalization was tied to a program infidel Turk. Azerbaijani nationalists now to a Third World level. Soviet peoples. These Russian-speaking which encouraged economic competition look to Iran, where a majority of Azeris When the Gorbachev "reformers" came workers have organized themselvesinto and self-interest, and degraded the social live,as their protector. Khomeini's pic to power, they branded the long Brezh the "Internationalist Movement" to COm ist principles of equality, internationalism ture is carried in their demonstrations, nev regime as the "era of stagnation" and bat Baltic nationalism' and defend'their' and working-class solidarity.' . andthe Baku pogromists chanted "Islam promised a new era of "socialist renew democratic rights. Yet in the absence The Gorbachev regime makes no at ic Republic" along with "Down with al." Now, after five years of perestroika, of a genuinely internationalist program,' tempt to appeal to Armenian an? Azer- Armenians!" And now the Azerbaijani the Soviet Union has become a seething this movement could easily fall pre)! cauldron of economic discontent and to Russian nationalism, which cannot national passions. A sense of bitterness appeal to Latvian and Estonian work and frustration, of despair and impotence ers, whose grandparents were staunchly is openly expressed by the prominent pro-Bolshevik. Gorbachevite publicist Alexander Bovin: Communism has much to offer the "Gorbachev faces an almost impossible Azeris and other traditionally Islamic and dilemma. The sentiment for leaving the Turkic-speaking peoples in the Soviet union outright has grown, and not only Union-economic and social moderniza in the Baltic states. On the other hand, tion, and not least the liberation and a man in Gorbachev's position cannot simply preside over the disassembly of equality of women. A truly internation the country, as we know it. What does alist, all-out effort to crush feudalist he do? You tell me. Buy time any way reaction in Afghanistan would have made he can-but what else? .. No one sees a the USSR into a beacon for social prog way out." ress in the East. Under a Leninist leader -Washington Post, 7 January ship, instead of the Soviet Azeris being Bovin's plaintive cry-"No one sees a drawn into the orbit of Khomeiniite Iran, way out"-testifies to the total political the nationally oppressed Azeris of Iran bankruptcy of Stalinist bureaucratic rule would be drawn toward Soviet power. in the Soviet Union. The program of an independent Soviet There is-a way out. It-is returning to Azerbaijan, uniting this Turkic people on the proletarian internationalism of Lenin both sides of the Araks River, would go and .Trotsky. As a first step, class a long way toward resolving on a pro conscious workers and socialist mtellec gressive basis the national question in tuals must smash the Pamyat fascists in the Caucasus. Niedenlhal/Time Anti-Soviet Lithuanian nationalists demonstrate on January 10, the daybefore the streets and root out all manifesta It is necessary to reforge in the Soviet Gorbachev arrived in Vilnius. Under cover of the right to national self tions of Russian chauvinism and anti Union an authentically Bolshevik party determination, Baltic nationalists. are pushing toward capitalist restoration. Semitism. By combatting the chauvinists to lead.the workers in sweeping out among the dominant Russian nationality, the Stalinist bureaucracy, establishing a baijani workers against the petty enclave of Nakhichevan has proclaimed patriotic Soviet workers will gain the regime based on soviet democracy, a bourgeois agitators. of genocide. And in its independence from the USSR and moral and political authority to counter planned, egalitarian economy, equality the Baltics, as elsewhere, the whole desire to be part of Iran .: the other reactionary nationalismswhich between peoples, and proletarian inter thrust of perestroika has been to bene Even more so than in the Caucasus, .'now threaten, to rip apart the Union of nationalism. Only such a program .can fit intellectuals, technocrats and petty the resurgence of reactionary nationalism Soviet,SocialistRepublics. liberate the creative energies ofall .Sovi entrepreneurs-a-the social base of the in the Baltic is directly tied.to Gorba-. in the Baltics, roughly halfthe popula et peoples, overcoming the fratricidal nationalist movement-atthe expense of chev ' s market-oriented economic. pro tion of the Latvian and Estonian republics national conflicts now raging in Gorba the workers and collective farmers. gram; Like Armenia, the Baltic republics -,-and .a majority of the proletariate-is chev's Russia.• Hence.. the Gorbachevite Stalinists can are a relatively advanced region that not unite Russian-speaking workers with was slated to be in the vanguard of pere their-Lithuanian.. Latvian and Estonian stroika. Just as Armenian nationalists class brothers on an egalitarian socialist look down on Azeris, so Baltic national program. ists look down on Russians. They think Working-class resistance to the ravages . they will have a bright economic future of perestroika is growiug..Siberian coal as the Eastern fringe of the European Marxist Working-Class ·Biweekly of the Spartacist League miners are. threatening further strikes. Common Market. The most hated class of people in the In his debate with Lithuanian national $7/24 issues of Workers Vanguard $3/3 issues of Soviet Union are the petty capitalist ists, Gorbachev accepted' their frame o o (includes English-language Spartacist) Women and Revolution entrepreneurs spawned by the economic .work. He only argued that an inde o New 0 Renewal introductory issues "liberalization." The situation is crying pendent Lithuanian economy could not International rates: o $2/10 $25/24 issues-Airmail $7/24 tssues-e-Seamatl of Workers Vanguard out for the building of a genuinely com withstand competition in the world mar (includes English-language munist party which can unite and mobi ket. "You get independence-and switch 0$2/4 issues of Spartacist (edici6n en espanol) Spartacist) lize the Soviet working class against the to world prices-and you'll end up in forces of murderous nationalism and cap the soup in no time," the Soviet leader Name ------
italist restoration. told a crowd in Vilnius. "No, we won't!" Address r-r-r- _ people shouted back (Baltimore Sun, 12 ______Apt. # Phone (_) _ Perestroika Fuels January). Many Lithuanians foolishly Reactionary Nationalisms believe they will be generously treated City -,- State ~_-- Zip -,-= by the Western powers for helping break 494 The Western media present the com up the Soviet Union. Lithuanians would Make checks payable/mall to: Spartaclst PUblishing Co., Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 o munalist civil war in the Caucasus as do well to look at neighboring foland, 26 JANUARY 1990 13 one of Montgomery's soldiers on a white woman, and the shooting of the soldier Glory... by Montgomery. The same scene dispar (continued from page 16) ages the South Carolina "contrabands" as Kansas, who went on to head the 2nd wild and undisciplined marauders com- South Carolina Colored Volunteers in . pared to the disciplined and dignified the Sea Islands off South Carolina and men of the Massachusetts 54th. Mont Georgia. gomery, fresh from the Kansas front, The Sea Islands were the scene of an represented a different wing of the aboli early and rare Union victory in the war, tionist movement, one frequently at odds when in November 1861 units seized with the New England abolitionists repre Beaufort, South Carolina and established sented in the Department of the South by the Union Army's Department of the Shaw and Higginson. Dudley Taylor South. It was here that the "Gideon's Cornish noted in his early work, The Band" of New England abolitionists Sable Arm, Black Troops in the Union established the famous Port Royal experi Army, 1861-1865: "Higginson, the ro ment, organizing the society of thousands mantic, had raised money to send Sharps of liberated slaves along the coast. Head rifles to Kansas in the fifties. Montgom ing the Union Army forces was General ery, the realist, had used them." David Hunter, who demanded authori ty to artn the freed slaves who were The 54th in Action flocking to the Union lines. For months Glory does justice to the heroic 54th, Hunter battled Lincoln and the War De~ Colonel Robert Gould particularly in the inspiring battle scenes, partment. Even after Congress finally Shaw, commander of first on James Island and finally in the the Massachusetts 54th. authorized the War Department to raise assault on Fort Wagner. In strikingly black regiments in July 1862, Lincoln at realistic battle scenes, but without ap first refused to permit blacks to enter peals to pacifism, Glory shows what the war as anything other than laborers. Shaw's childhood friend and intellectual regiment rebels, refusing to accept their the Civil War was all about. On 16 July The story of the South Carolina regi Thomas Searle; Jihmi Kennedy plays pay (a protest which went on for 18 1863 the 54th was employed in a feint on ments, made up of former slaves known Sharts, a South Carolina field hand; and months, as the 54th received nothing the Confederate position on James Island, as "contrabands," is told in the history Denzel Washington plays Trip, an angry except their original bounty of $50 upon below Charleston harbor. Under assault of their abolitionist commander, Thomas and rebellious escaped slave. The officer joining). Shawrefuses to accept pay for by a superior enemy force, the 54th held Wentworth Higginson, Army Life in a corps of the black regiments was recruit himself and his officers, as long as the its ground, saving the 10th Connecticut Black Regiment.: ed with sharp political consciousness. regiment refuses theirs. from being cut off. A white soldier in the Many, like Colonel Shaw, were the sons Even as the Union Army battled the 10th wrote home: "But for the bravery of "Men of Color, To Arms!" of prominent abolitionists, men who slavocracy, i~ was rife with the racism of three companies of the Massachusetts Glory opens with the bloody slaughter backed the true opening shot of the Civil American society. Of 180,000 black at Antietam in September 1862. There War-John Brown's 1859 raid on Har troops, only 90 served as officers-and were no black troops there, only grave pers Ferry. those were appointed in defiance of the diggers and labor battalions. It was the In the opening battle scenes at Antie War Department. Glory shows the strug victory of Union forces at Antietam that tam, and later at Fort Wagner, Glory gle of black regiments for decent cloth encouraged Lincoln to set forth the captures the carnage of the Civil War, ing and equipment, and the dispropor Emancipation Proclamation, to go into where concentrated troops were slaugh tionate discipline meted out to black effect on I January 1863. Despite the tered by massed firepower. As in all troops. In one scene, Trip is flogged for continuing capitulation to the existence wars, the generals were fighting with the "deserting" camp in .search of shoes. of slavery in the border states, there was tactics of the last one. On the eve of the Even the hard-nosed Irish drill sergeant no doubt that the "abolition war" had Civil War the rifle was transformed into is taken aback when he exposes the years begun. As Douglass had been urging, a weapon of mass killing, with the intro of scars on Trip's back. Denzel Washing finally the Union would "unchain against duction of the minie ball which enabled ton said that the whipping scene shocked her foes, her powerful black hand." unskilled riflemen to rapidly load and the cast as they saw "a very basic night On the heels of the Emancipation accurately fire. mare in American history" (New York Proclamation, the abolitionists stepped' Shaw leavesthe battle of Antietam Times, 28 December 1989). Burchard, the up the campaign to enroll black troops in slightly injured, and is soon offered the author of One Gallant Rush and a con the Union Army. By the end of the war command of the 54th by Governor An sultant on the film, may be correct when over 15 percent of the entire population drew. In the film, Matthew Broderick he doubts that Shaw would have allowed of Northern blacks had volunteered. The captures both the hesitancy Shaw actually the whipping. honor of fielding the first black regiment felt about assuming the command, and was to go to Massachusetts, whose gov his subsequent development as an officer. Total War ernor, the abolitionist John Andrew, Glory shows the coalescing of the 54th When the 54th sails south to join Association for the Study of Negro Life and History petitioned the War Department for au at camp in Readville, Massachusetts. In Hunter's command at Beaufort, South Sergeant William H. Carney won thorization in January 1863. Frederick one moving scene, following the Confed Carolina, they, arrive just as a raiding Congressional Medal of Honor for Douglass, in "Men of Color, To Arms!", eracy's proclamation that both black party of the 2nd South Carolina Colored planting flag of ttie 54th at Fort his famous call to black freedmen in the troops and their white officers would troops is returning. Under the command Wagner. North, appealed for recruits for the Mas face execution if captured, Shaw finds of Kansas Jayhawker James Moatgom Fifty-fourth (colored), our whole regi sachusetts 54th. His sons, Lewis and not one man has opted to leave the ery, the raid was guided by the' famed ment would have been captured.... They Charles, were among the first to join the regiment. conductor on the Underground Railroad, fought like heroes" (Joseph Glatthaar, regiment. In another scene (which actually took Harriet Tubman. Montgomery and Tub In Glory, the central characters repre place later in South Carolina), the troops Forged in Battle). man were employing a policy of total Two days after the engagement on sent the wide layer of blacks who filled find out thatthe government has reversed war to break the economic power and James Island the 54th was chosen to lead the ranks: Morgan Freeman plays John its commitment to pay blacks equally morale of the slavocracy. This was later the assault on Fort Wagner. Although Rawlins, a gravedigger who becomes a with white. troops, instead cutting their to become the hallmark of General Sher they had gone for two days without rest sergeant in the 54th; Andre Braugher is pay almost to half. Led, by Trip, the man's march through Georgia and Sheri or food, nothing could have stopped the dan's devastation of the Shenandoah men of the 54th from taking their place Valley. When a Mississippi planter rode of honor. Fort Wagner was a heavily up on a mule and complained to one of protected installation which guarded the Grant's commanders that Union troops batteries at Charleston harbor. In prepa had robbed him of all his posses ration for the assault, dozens of Union sions, the general replied: "Well, those ships bombarded the fort. At sunset on men didn't belong to my division at all, July 18, the Union troops formed up on because if they were my men they the beach, with 600 men of the Massa- wouldn't have left you that mule" (quot ed in James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom [1988]). One of the 54th's first actions is de picted in Glory, as Shaw and his men Spartacist League join Montgomery in a raid on the town Public Offices of Darien, Georgia. In the film Shaw angrily protests, as he actually did, the - MARXIST LlTERATURE looting and burning of the town. Shaw Bay Area and the Boston abolitionists were furious Thurs.: 5:30-8:00 p.m., Sat.. 1:00-5:00 p.m. at the "border war" tactics that Mont 1634 Telegraph, 3rd Floor (near 17th Street) gomery employed, and they protested Oakland, California Phone: (415) 839-0851 vigorously. Shaw was worried that news Chicago of the raids would "produce a reaction Tues.:5:00-9:00 p.m., Sat.: 11:00a.m.-2:00 p.m. against arming the Negroes" in the North 161 W. Harrison St., 10th Floor and provoke retaliation by the enemy Chicago, Illinois Phone: (312) 663-0715 against black troops. New York City While overwhelmingly accurate, Glory Tues.: 6:30-9:00 p.m., Sat.: 1:00-5:00 p.m. 41 Warren St. (one block below ~ Tri-Star Pictures does misfire on some of the history of Chambers St. near Church St.) In Glory, men of the 54th rip up their pay slips after U.S. government reneges the black regiments and their officers. New York, NY Phone: (212) 26'7-1025 on the promise of equal pay for black and white soldiers. Glory fabricates an assault in Darien by, 14 WORKERS VANGUARD Company Ihugs Gun Down West Virginia Miners Pittston Miners: Rip Up Trumka's Sellout!
JANUARY 22-For ten months the told WV: "It was planned-they fully miners of Virginia, Kentucky and West intended to kill all three of those men .... Virginia have been on the front line of We lost a strong union man." John Me the class war, battling for their union and Coy had been active in the A.T. Massey for all working people. The 1,900 strik strike. But the only response of the ers, members of the United Mine Work UMW tops to the murder was to express ers (UMW), have stood solid in the face their "faith" in the state police and West of Pittston's hired thugs, an army of Virginia governor Gaston Caperton. Virginia state troopers who have made The Pittston sellout comes straight almost 3,000 arrests, and coal company from Bush's Labor Department in a deal judges who have handed down $64 mil cooked up on New Year's Eve. Three lion in fines. Now, on January 16 three weeks later the details are still being kept union pickets at another company, Re from the miners, but the capitalist press gency Industries in Northfork Hollow, is already gloating. The Wall Street Jour West Virginia, were shot in the back nal (2 January) calls it "the death knell" by company gun thugs. UMW brother for industrywide bargaining in coal. The John McCoy was killed fighting for his Trumka bureaucracy has betrayed the Miners inside union. most deeply felt demand of the strikers: Moss No.3 But UMW president Richard Trumka the protection of their health and pension plant in is trying to sell a contract which threat funds. For the first time in 40 years, a September. ens everything the Pittston strikers have coal company will escape paying into the Occupation fought for. Why do you think they're fund which provides desperately needed shut down keeping the terms secret from the min medical care for 125,000 retired UMW Pittston's scab ers? This will open the floodgates to a miners. operations. coal company offensive against the Miners are being told to trade their health and pension funds and industry medical care for the fraud of a govern wide bargaining, endangering the very ment "commission" to study the health existence of the union. Miners: Bum and pension funds. Ifthis settlement goes the sellout! Take the strike out of the through, it will set a precedent that stranglehold of the Trumka bureaucracy threatens the whole fund. But this mas with elected strike committees that will sive assault on health care won't go use labor's muscle to win. down lightly in an industry where lung Even as the Pittston strikers wait to disease claims the lives of4,000 workers Cecil Roberts ran a write-in campaign The UMW, which is about to celebrate see the contract, the coal bosses un every year. against a local state representative, the the 100th anniversary of its founding, leashed deadly terror in Northfork Miners from Pennsylvania to Alabama father of a coal company judge, Roberts used to be known as the "shock troops of Hollow, The company took the mine have demonstrated what's needed, from was elected by a huge margin. But far American labor." But after being sad non-union five months ago, locking out the 50,OOO-strong national wildcat strikes from breaking with their phony "friends dled by Labor Department "reformers" the union men and refusing to pay medi in June and July to the stunning occupa of labor" in the Democratic Party, Rob from Arnold Miller to Richard Trumka, cal benefits and back wages. Miners were tion of Pittston's Moss No.3 processing erts and the Trumka bureaucracy have the UMW has been decimated. Today picketing on January 16 when suddenly plant in September. From the beginning throttled every attempt to extend the there are only 60,000 working miners in there was a fusillade of automatic weap . of the strike last April, Pittston miners strike. Not one train of scab coal has the UMW. Less than one-third of U.S. ons fire. "It sounded like World War I inspired labor across the country been stopped at the port of Hampton coal mined is union. Miners desperately out there," said one witness. Three pick 40,000 unionists have journeyed to Camp Roads, Virginia, and orders went out need a class-struggle leadership that will ets fell, shot in the back. Solidarity in southwest Virginia to back from AFL-CIO headquarters to cross bring out labor's power, defying the A member ofthe "Daughters of Moth the strike. miners' picket lines at steel plan.ts in the bosses' "rules" and leading the fight for er Jones," the wife of a Pittston striker, When UMW District -28 president Midwest. . a workers party.• chusetts 54th in the vanguard.. Shaw were under arms at one point. It was the sought the lead, and told his troops: "The black troops that turned the tide of the eyes of thousands will look on what you war. At the mustering-out speech of Hig do tonight." ginson's regiment, one of its officers The 54th marched into Fort Wagner's pointed to the debt owed the 54th: guns, which exacted a horrible toll. Shaw "Near you rest the bones of Colonel was killed as he led his men up the ram Shaw, buried by an enemy's hand, in the parts; so many of the 54th's officers fell same grave with his black soldiers, who fell at his side; where, in future, your that Emilio, the most junior captain, had children's children will come on pilgrim to assume command. The regiment held ages to do homage to the ashes of those its position on the edge of the fort for that fell in this glorious struggle." three deadly hours. All told 247 men, 40 The sacrifices of the hundreds of thou percent of the regiment, were killed or sands of black and white Union soldiers wounded in the assault. Following Union who fell in the Civil War ushered in the regiments were also wiped out. Harriet most democratic period blacks have ever Tubman described the battle: known in this country. Black rights were "And then we saw the lightning, and that enforced in the Reconstruction South at was the guns; and. then we heard the riflepoint by the interracial Union Army. thunder, and that was the big guns; and then we heard the rain falling, and that But the economic power of the former was the drops of blood falling; and when slavocracy was never destroyed. In a we came to get inthe crops, it was dead dozen years, signaled by the Compro men that we reaped." mise of 1877, ascendant Northern capi In their racist hatred for Shaw and the talism abandoned the freedmen, making Massachusetts 54th, the enemy stripped peace with Southern landowners and the young colonel's body and, in the destroying the gains that blacks had paid Frederick Douglass House words of Confederate officials, "buried Revolutionary abolitionist Frederick for in blood. The planters re-established him with his niggers." When Union Douglass campaigned for blacks to their power, exploiting black labor in a . troops sought to retrieve Shaw's body, loin the Union Army. sharecropping system enforced by vi his father insisted that the enemy's un cious Jim Crow segregation. To complete intended honor be left alone: "We hold the unfinished tasks of the Civil War, to that a soldier's most appropriate burial Like the heroism shown by black the country; the floodgates were open for pay homage to the fight of the men of place is on the field where he has fallen" .fighters at Port Hudson and Milliken's massive recruitment of black troops. By Glory, will take a third American revolu (Luis F. Emilio, A Brave Black Regiment Bend, the actions of the Massachusetts the end of the· war, 186,000 had served tion, a proletarian revolution fed by the [1969]). 54th at Fort Wagner resounded across in 167 regiments; more .than 123,000 multiracial American working class .• 26JANUAflY1990 15 WfJli/(EIiS ".(}IJIlIi'
The Massachusetts 54th, most celebrated black regiment in the Civil War, leading assault on Fort Wagner, South Carolina, July 1863.
able to take up arms in the fight for Northern victory against the slavocracy Phelps raised three regiments of "Na A Review freedom. It is the story of heroic fighters was dependent on an all-out battle to tive Guards" in Louisiana. In Kansas, by Francis Daly in a war against oppression. smash the slave system at its root. Doug the Jayhawkers-"free-soilers"-had en lass thundered: "Let ihe slaves and free gaged in a border war with Missouri For an "Abolition War" It is certainly rare for the power of a colored people be called into service, slaveholders, a dress rehearsal for the social revolution to come through in a At the outset, the "War of the Rebel and formed into a liberating army, to Civil War. With the onset of the war, the Hollywood movie. But that is what you lion" was being fought only to "preserve march intothe South and raise the banner free-soilers were more than willing to see in Glory, the moving story of the the Union" (and fought badly by incom of Emancipation among the slaves." arm black soldiers. One Jayhawker told first Northern regiment of black troops petent and politically unreliable Union For over a year, Lincoln's endless the slaveholders that if they "objected to in the Civil War, the Massachusetts 54th. Army generals). In opposition to Lincoln, compromises with the border states, and being killed by Negroes...'let them lay As the "New South" celebrates racist abolitionists sought to transform the war his generals' failure to meet the Con down their arms'." One of these Jay reaction with the 50th anniversary of into a war of emancipation. The great federate army in the field, had led to hawkers was James Montgomery, a for Gone With the Wind, today's fighters for abolitionist leader and former slave Fred disaster, Despite the policy of Lincoln mer lieutenant of John Brown in bloody black freedom can see in Glory a truthful erick Douglass hammered away that a and the War Department, General John continued on page 14 and inspiring account of the men whose actions transformed the American Civil War. The film illuminates one of the blank pages of official American history-that black soldiers played a decisive role in the Union victory. "1 don't want Ameri cans to think that blacks went from slave ships to Martin Luther King," said Glory's producer Freddie Fields. "They contributed toAmerican history greatly, yet few know it." Glory is based 'on the hundreds of letters of the commanding officer of the 54th, Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, and two books: Lay This Laurel, by Lincoln Scene'in Glory Kirstein, which tells the story of the shows black 54th and the monument on the Boston soldiers of the 54th Common by sculptor Augustus Saint parading through Boston on their Gaudens erected in their honor; and One way to the South. Gallant Rush, Peter Burchard's history of Shaw and the regiment, from its for mation through the assault on Fort Wag ner, a key Confederate bastion protecting the batteries guarding the Charleston harbor. It is the movie's accuracy which gives it its power, as director Edward ~ Zwick lets history show the revolutionary force unleashed as blacks were finally 16 26 JANUARY 1990