soC!: No. 647 ~X-523 7June 1996

exico: Fight Austeritv­ Mobilize Workers Power! m U> 1J III S ()o

Hundreds of thousands of workers by striking teachers, seriously injuring marched through the streets of Mexico at least 40. And earlier in the month, City with trade-union and leftist ban­ Javier Elorriaga and Sebastian Entzin ners on May Day last month, filling the were given prison sentences of 13 years city's huge central plaza, the Z6calo, to and six years respectively for alleged ties overflowing. The mammoth turnout, a to the EZLN. half million or more, was a sharp Washington's hand is clearly visible challenge to the Institutional Revolu­ in the current wave of repression coming tionary Party (PRI) government of Pres­ down on Mexico's working people. The ident Ernesto Zedillo and the hidebound Mexican army's bloody massacres in corporatist Confederation of Mexican Chiapas were carried out with weapons Workers (CTM) which serves its inter­ supplied by the U.S., and recently the ests. For the second year in a row, CTM PRI government agreed to an unprece­ head Fidel Velazquez, the 96-year-old­ dented pact to have Mexican soldiers charro (bureaucrat) who has run the fed­ trained at American military bases, as eration with an iron hand for more than part of a scheme for joint policing of the 50 years, had not only canceled the tra­ border. Meanwhile, the Clinton admin­ ditional official unio.n rally but had istration has militarized large parts of called for a ban on any labor demonstra­ the border and drastically stepped up its tions marking May Day, the international racist deportations of Latin American workers holiday. Yet Velazquez' dictate immigrants. was defied not only by a large number From the outset, the International of independent unions, but as well by Lopez Mills/AP Communist League has denounced ten unions traditionally allied with the Mexico City: Half a million workers pour into city's central plaza on May Day, NAFTA as an imperialist "free trade" PRI regime. defying ban by pro-government corporatist labor chiefs (top); May 23 rape of Mexico. Against the racist pro­ The massive outpouring of Mexican demonstration of 7,000 striking teachers brutally attacked by police (above). tectionist policies of the U.S. labor working people on May Day reflected bureaucrats, who rail against Mexican widespread and growing unrest among workers "stealing American jobs," we broad sectors of the population, as the settlements averaging half the rate of regime has responded by unleashingdra­ fight for common class struggle by work­ imposition of the North AmeriCan Free inflation. In April, the government ap­ conian repression against Mexican ers in Mexico and the U.S. The key is Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994- proved a 12 percent rise in the minimum workers and peasants, from the brutal forging internationalist vanguard parties coming on top of austerity attacks wage (to less than $3 a day), while at army invasion to suppress a rebellion by to lead the working class in struggle imposed at the behest of the world bank­ the same time raising the price of Zapatista (EZLN) peasant rebels in the against U.S. imperialism and all the cap­ ers' cartel, the International Monetary government-controlled staples like milk southern state of Chiapas beginning in italist rulers. Fund (IMF)-has led to a cataclysmic and com tortillas by up to 30 percent. 1994 to the imprisonment of leaders of The following article is translated, assault on living standards. Since the This in tum has provoked a rising tide the independent SUTAUR bus workers from Espartaco No. 8 (Spring-Summer Wall Street-engineered crash of the peso of labor combativity, with the month of union in Mexico City last year. On May 1996), newspaper of our comrades of in December 1994, real wages have May registering the highest increase in 23, Mexico City police unleashed an the Grupo Espartaquista de Mexico plummeted by over 35 percent, with pay strike activity in the recent period. The orgy of violence against a demonstration (GEM), section of the ICL.

~~ It is in the interests of the whole work­ .... ing 'class to demand immediate and a unconditional freedom for all activists I") and fighters for the exploited and a ...... Rich~rd Pipes: Exorcising oppressed who are being held in the jails co of the bourgeois state! When the gov­ ~ ernment of Ernesto Zedillo jailed eleven I'­ N the Russian Revolution leaders of SUTAUR last year and sub­ 11'\ N ------SEEPAGE8---~------sequently imprisoned, along with others, continued on page 12 .... Letters

Moscow patronage of Politburo member Anastasy 17 May 1996 Mikoyan. To the Editor, In his final years, Vrachev's primary We have just learned that Ivan concern was to use the opening allowed Yakovlevich Vrachev passed away on 22 by Gorbachev's glasnost to record for December 1995 at the age of 97. He was history his unique knowledge of certain the last living link to the Bolshevik lead­ truths buried for decades under moun­ ership of the October Revolution and to tains of Stalinist lies. In an interview the central cadre of Trotsky's Left Oppo­ with comrades of the International Com­ sition. Like a number of other Oppo­ munist League (ICL) in 1990, Vrachev Ivan Vrachev (far left) with his family in Moscow, 1991. sitionists, in 1929 Vrachev renounced told us: his Trvtskyist views. Other prominent "To tell the truth of the events, that is nographer, a tape recorder, text that I negotiations with German imperialism. my credo. If the Institute of Marxism­ could verify. Once dead, all this will be It is another thing altogether to hear the capitulators were nevertheless executed; Leninism was interested like you are lost. There are things that I alone know." Vrachev survived the purges of the words of Lenin and Trotsky, reverberat­ interested, they would provide for me the When we first met him in 1990, Ivan 1930s, he believed, because of the conditions wherein I would have a ste- ing with all their conviction, related by Yakovlevich was in robust health and an actual participant in the first days of perfectly lucid. But he lived less than Bolshevik power. two years after the death on 8 February During the Civil War, Vrachev served Jacobinism and Communism 1994 of his second wife, Rebecca on the Southern fronts in various lead­ Mikhailovna Boguslavskaya, to whom ing army and party posts, eventually The program of communism-for a just he had been married for 25 years. She and egalitarian society based on the over­ becoming Chief Political Commissar of was the daughter of Mikhail Solo­ the Red Army of Transcaucasia. The Red coming of economic scarcity---has its roots monovich Boguslavsky, who was a Jew­ in the rational humanism of the Enlighten­ Army played a key role in extending pro­ ish working-class fighter in the 1905 letarian power to the region, defeating ment. The Great French Revolution, espe­ revolution, a delegate to the October cially under the Jacobin dictatorship of imperialist-backed nationalist forces in 1917 Second Congress of Soviets in Azerbaijan and Armenia and a pro­ 1793-94, sought to realize the most radical Petrograd at which the workers seizure principles of Enlightenment thought under imperialist Menshevik government in of power was proclaimed, a prominent Georgia. The consolidation of Soviet the banner of "liberty, equality, fraternity." Soviet government leader in the Ukraine But by the late 19th century, capitalism rule in economically backward and eth­ TROTSKY LENIN and Russia during the period of 1917- had outlived its progressive period and its nically kaleidoscopic Transcaucasia and 1924 and a prominent supporter himself Central Asia was based on the combina­ ideologues were denouncing Jacobinism, which they identified with "red revolution." of the Left Opposition at one time. In his seminal work laying out the theory of permanent revolution for backward tion of proletarian social ~revolution in Representatives of the ICL were for­ the urban centers, agrarian revolution in Russia, written after the defeat of the 1905 Russian Revolution and vindicated by tunate enough to be guests on several the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, Leon Trotsky paid homage to the historic achieve­ the countryside, and the struggle for full occasions in the Vrachev's Moscow equality for all nationalities and ethnic ments of Jacobinism, while indicating that its program of revolutionary bourgeois home. Their apartment was always bus­ democracy had been transcended by the proletariat's struggle for socialist revolution. groups. Where today Yeltsin's slaughter tling with family and pets and filled with in Chechnya reduces whole cities to rub­ In the heroic period of French history we saw a bourgeoisie, enlightened, active, warm hospitality. The last time I visited ble, the birth of soviet power in the as yet not aware of the contradictions of its own position, upon whom history had Ivan Vrachev was in September, just region was based on a smychka (alliance) imposed the task of leadership in the struggle for a new order, not only against the three months prior to his death. of the predominantly Russian oil refin­ outworn institutions of France but also against the reactionary forces of the whole In keeping with their wishes, Ivan ery workers of Grozny with the pro­ of Europe. The bourgeoisie, consistently, in all its factions, regarded itself as the Vrachev is buried in his family's plot in Soviet rising of the landless mountain leader of the nation, rallied the masses to the struggle, gave them slogans and dictated the Danskoy Crematory and his wife is people, the Chechens. their fighting tactics. Democracy bound the nation together with a political ideology .... buried with her family in Golovinskoye In the Civil War against the White Jacobinism is now a term of reproach on the lips of all liberal wiseacres. Bourgeois Cemetery. Guards, the Red Army became a school hatred of revolution, its hatred towards the masses, hatred of the force and grandeur The month he died the Russian media of internationalism, and Vrachev was of the history that is made in the streets, is concentrated in one cry of indignation was flooded with nationalist election one of its teachers. In the Turkestan and fear-Jacobinism! We, the world army of Communism, have long ago made our campaign demagogy about "bringing Front newspaper thathe edited, the Polit­ historical reckoning with lacobinism. The whole of the present international prole­ back the Soviet Union." Not a word ical Commissar Daily, and in special tarian movement was formed and grew strong in the struggle against the traditions appeared to mark the passing of Ivan pamphlets, Vrachev addressed the need of lacobinism. We subjected its theories to criticism, we exposed its historical lim­ Vrachev-this despite the fact that he to counteract commandism and Great itations, its social contradictoriness, its utopianism, we exposed its phraseology, and was the last living signatory to the Russian chauvinism and to be sensitive broke with its traditions, which for decades had been regarded as the sacred heritage December 1922 treaty that established . to the national particularities of the var­ of the revolution. the USSR. ious minority peoples. This was all But we defend Jacobiriism against the attacks, the calumny, and the stupid vitu­ Ivan Vrachev joined the Bolshevik explicitly linked to Lenin and Trotsky'S perations of anaemic, phlegmatic liberalism. The bourgeoisie has shamefully betrayed party as a young worker in Moscow in perspective of spreading the revolution all the traditions of its historical youth, and its present hirelings dishonour the graves March 1917, on the heels of the February from Soviet Central Asia throughout of its ancestors and scoff at the ashes of their ideals. The proletariat has taken the Revolution. He was soon drafted into the colonial Asia. honour of the revolutionary past of the bourgeoisie under its protection. The prole­ army by the Provisional Government and Perhaps one of the most remarkable tariat, however radically it may have, in practice, broken with the revolutionary posted to the city of Voronezh, south of moments in Vrachev's life was when he traditions of the bourgeoisie, nevertheless preserves them, as a sacred heritage of Moscow. became one of three Left Oppositionists great passions, heroism and initiative, and its heart beats in sympathy with the A genuine workers revolution throws to be allowed as delegates to the 13th speeches and acts of the Jacobin Convention. open the road to youth and all the Party Conference in January 1924. This -Leon Trotsky, Results and Prospects (1906) oppressed who rise to meet its promises conference took place after Trotsky'S and challenges. While Vrachev had "New Course"-calling for the revival worked from the age of eleven and of party democracy-met with an unex­ received only three years of formal pected grounds well of support in the schooling, he nevertheless displayed ranks, filling the pages of Pravda in such acute intelligence, and oratorical November 1923. In response, Stalin's and organizing strength, that by the sum­ apparat for the first time managed to !!lw!'!~!!~!~'!.~!~~! ~ mer he was in the leadership of the gar­ completely rig delegate elections and DIRECTOR OF PARTY PUBLICATIONS: George Foster rison and city soviets. tum the last remaining forum of Bol­ EDITOR: Len Meyers In January 1918, Vrachev was elected shevism into a demonstrative fist of EDITOR, YOUNG SPARTACUS PAGES: Carla Wilson to the Central Executive Committee defiance by the apparat against the rev­ PRODUCTION MANAGER: Susan Fuller olutionary layers of the party. It was CIRCULATION MANAGER: Shauna Blythe of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets EDITORIAL BOARD: Ray Bishop (managing editor), Bruce Andre. Liz Gordon. Frank Hunter. Jane of Workers, Soldiers and Peasants Dep­ Vrachev who, amid the orchestrated Kerrigan. James Robertson. Joseph Seymour. Alison Spencer uties. At the proposal of its chairman, heckling, denounced Stalin's course and The Spartacist League is the U.S. Section of the International Communist League (Fourth Yakov Sverdlov, he was also brought warned the delegates that they were wit­ Internationalist) . onto its expanded Presidium. Thus at nessing the end of party democracy: Workers Vanguard (ISSN 0276·0746) published biweekly, except skipping three alternate issues in June, July and August (beginning with omitting the second issue in June) and with a 3-week interval in December, by the Spartacist the age of nineteen, Vrachev became "Comrades, it may be that we have only Publishing Co., 41 Warren Street, New York, NY 10007. Telephone: (212) 732·7862 (Editorial), (212) 732·7861 the youngest leader in the Soviet work-' a few hours left of full democracy, so (Business). Address all correspondence to: Box 1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116. Domestic subscriptions: $10.00/22 issues. Second·class postage paid at New York, NY. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Workers Vanguard, ers gov~rnment. let us use it!" Box 1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116. Spartacist Publishing Company has 3rd class privileges, imprint #4167. How fortunate we were to hear Indeed, the January 1924 conference Opinions expressed in signed articles or letters do not necessarily express the editorial viewpoint. Vrachev's first-hand accounts of those marked the decisive point of the Soviet The closing date for news in this issue is June 4. days! It is one thing to read the debates Thermidor, the political counterrevolu­ No. 647 7 June 1996 that raged in the Bolshevik Party and tion which took place in 1923-24. the Soviets over the 1918 Brest-Litovsk Upon his return to Tbilisi, Georgia, 2 WORKERS VANGUARD Free Mordechai Vanunu from Mossad Dungeon!

Nearly ten years ago, Mossad agents kidnapped an Israeli nuclear techni­ cian, Mordechai Vanunu, in Rome and THE 'SiiN1r'AY TiMEstl spirited him off to a secret trial in Israel. Vanunu was sentenced to 18 Revealed: the secrets of years in prison, where he has since been Israel's nuclear arsenal held in total isolation in a six-by-ten­ _ ::e r , - foot cell. Vanunu's "crime"? He AP revealed to a British newspaper that the After revealing massive scale of Israeli nuclear arsenal to London Sunday Times in October 1986, Mordechai Israeli state had produced and stock­ Vanunu was abducted by Mossad, tried in secret and sentenced to 18 years. piled more than 200 atomic warheads. And the Zionist fanatics are fully capa­ woman and child in the Near East. of the Atomic Scientists, January­ ened with arrest and denounced as a ble of launching this arsenal of mega­ The worldwide campaign to free February 1996). "Communist dupe." death to exterminate every man, Vanunu recently received a significant Born in Poland of Jewish parents, While we do not share Rotblat's pac­ boost when the 1995 recipient· of the Rotblat moved to Britain in 1939 just ifist philosophy, we welcome his de­ Nobel Peace Prize, nuclear physicist before the German invasion. His wife, fense of Vanunu as a blow against the Joseph Rotblat, publicized Vanunu's who stayed behind, perished in the nuclear militarism of the war-crazed case (New York Times, 21 May). Rot­ Holocaust; one of his brothers fought Israeli Zionist state and its even more blat is the founder of the Pugwash as an anti-Nazi partisan on the Eastern dangerous godfather, U.S. imperialism, Conferences, a movement of scien­ Front. Desperate to do something to the only power to ever use nuclear tists opposed to nuclear weapons. At combat the Hitlerite scourge, Rotblat weapons with its hideous obliteration the award ceremony last December, offered his services to the Anglo­ of Hiroshima and of Nagasaki in 1945. Rotblat was interrupted with applause American imperialist alliance. He ini­ The International Communist League when he called for Vanunu's free­ tially participated in the Manhattan has publicized Vanunu's case since the dom. "I was a whistle-blower like him Project to build the first U.S. A-bomb time of his abduction and imprisonment when I warned against the danger of but resigned in protest after learning (see "Freedom for Mordechai Vanunu!" radiation from the hydrogen bomb," "that the real purpose in making the WV No. 429, 29 May 1987). We honor Rotblat told an Israeli journalist. "It is bomb was to subdue the Soviets" (Sci­ Mordechai Vanunu and demand his im­ the right and the duty of every citizen entific American, January 1996). For mediate freedom. The crimes of the Nobel Prize winner Joseph Rotblat. to report, and such whistle-blowers his courageous stance, Rotblat was crazed Zionist theocracy will be should be protected by law" (Bulletin hounded during the Cold War, threat- avenged by workers revolution.

Vrachev was handed orders removing the front, Vrachev dropped everything him from his army and party posts and and enlisted secretly. Beginning again as transferring him to Moscow to run a dairy a 46-year-old infantry soldier, he worked collective. Vrachev was a signer of the his way up to battalion commander and May 1927 "Declaration of the 83" and returned to Moscow with several medals. a supporter of the Platform of the Left In September 1949, he was ag~in Opposition submitted to the 15th Party arrested for "former Trotskyist activity" Congress in December 1927. For this he and sentenced to 25 years. He served 15 February 1996 The tragedy as you correctly point out was expelled from the party by the con­ seven years before being rehabilitated To the Editor is that the Stalinist fragments will be gress. In January 1929, he was arrested. along with millions of others in the wake Dear Comrades, unable to defend/extend the gains of the Isaac Deutscher's three-volume biog­ of the 1956 Khrushchev revelations. To In Workers Vanguard (issue no. 638) workers movement. raphy of Trotsky contains a chapter enti­ his last days he sought to be reinstated it is asserted that Marxists should not Your current class analysis of the tled "The Year 1928" that vividly to the CPSU. But for years the bureauc­ call for the restoration of the S. Union S. Union as one of a fully developed describes the rich correspondence carried racy would not so much as issue this and presumably that of Yugoslavia as capitalist state means that the mistakes on in exile by the Left Opposition. veteran of the October Revolution a per­ well. Was the creation of the S. Union of the state capitalists of yesteryear are Vrachev took an active part in this sonal pension. In 1989-90, however, a historical step forwards and conse­ to be repeated in current phenomena. correspondence. The Prometheus Re­ Gorbachev's ideologues became eager to quently its demise a step back into an E.g. your refusal to support the Serbs search Library, the research and archival enlist Vrachev 's name for the perestroika era of war and barbarism? To not support in ex-Yugoslavia for more than three facility of the Spartacist League/U.S. "market Teforms" which paved the way the restoration of the S. Union as it once years of war and only after the NATO Central Committee, has in its collection to capitalist restoration, and the media was Stalinist is tantamount to not sup­ bombardments of August 1995 to take two fascinating manuscripts by Vrachev, suddenly descended upon him. But porting the restoration of union rights in a half-hearted stance in their defence. one on the Tenth Party Congress in 192.1, despite Vrachev's misplaced hopes in a factory strike which has occurred and Your current refusal to support the where he was a supporter of Trotsky'S Gorbachev, at the age of 92 he did not workers have lost their rights (e.g. recent demand for the restoration of the S. platform on the trade-union question, and pretend to involve himself in contempo- Dockers strike in Liverpool, England). Union because the remnants of Stalin­ rary politics. . one on the crucial 12th Party Congress The demand and desire for peoples to ism are currently associated with the in 1923, at which he was also a delegate. Our time with Ivan Vrachev was very live in peace and harmony in multina­ demand is reminiscent of T. Cliff's The collection also includes a transcript limited. We recorded a lengthy interview tional wholes (which imperialism is cur­ refusal to support Korea against America of our 1990 interview. with him and provided him with tran­ rently seeking to destroy in order to rule as it was led by Stalinists. In July 1929 Vrachev capitulated to scripts whose accuracy he confirmed. over them more effectively) is correct. continued on page 5 Stalin along with former Left Opposition Vrachev was thrilled to receive the ICL's leaders Karl Radek, Ivar Smilga and Russian-language edition of Trotsky's Evgenny Preobrazhensky. Failing to un­ The Communist International After Lenin derstand the centrality of the struggle for when we invited him to its public pre­ world socialist revolution to the Left sentation in Moscow 1994, and he hoped Opposition's perspectives, they accepted then to write a review. the constraints of the nationalist dogma We will seek to incorporate what we of "socialism in one country" and went have learned from Ivan Vrachev about over to Stalin when he embarked on his the world's first proletarian revolution "left" zigzag of forced-march industrial­ and its degeneration to ami future gen­ ization. Vrachev was restored to the erations~ As Vrachev said recalling his party in 1930, dropped again in 1936 revolutionary period: and eventually exiled to Siberia in 1937 "The October Revolution was the great­ for his Trotskyist past. By 1938 he was est cause of the working class and had allowed to live under house arrest in the significance not just for our country, but Moscow region. for the working class of the entire world. Its influence was very significant and has When Hitler's army invaded in June not run out to today. 1941, Vrachev was evacuated to Mos­ "We lived and breathed the world revo­ cow, where he telegrammed Stalin to lution. As Lenin wrote, 'We may die, but we will help the German Revolution!''' insist on being mobilized for the front. Unlike the surviving Trotsky­ We extend our condolences to Ivan ists in Siberian exile who demanded Vrachev's family, especially to his daughter, Svetlana, who cared for him to serve at the front, Vrachev was DPA not shot, but merely kept in limbo. When in his final years. Russian troops patrol Grozny, Chechen capital devastated by Yeltsin's in February 1943 his oldest son died at Victor G. invasion. 7 JUNE 1996 3 "Million Man March Appeases Racist Exploiters"

struggle by withdrawing the Union army standing that "because of their posi­ By Don Cane from the South (bringing it North to break tion as both the most oppressed and strikes) and sanctioning race terror and also the most conscious and experienced Reprinted from the repressive Black Codes (the founda­ section, revolutionary black workers are tion of Jim Crow). slated to play an exceptional role in THEBLACKSCHOLAR American capitalism was built on the coming American revolution" ("Black the forcible segregation and subjugation and Red-Class Struggle Road to Negro of blacks at the bottom of society. This Freedom," Spartacist No. 10, May-June The following article is reprinted from is the fundamental fact that the civil 1967). Black Scholar Vol. 26, No. 1 (Winter/ rights movement crashed into. when it "Marxist utopian rubbish!!' the liberal Spring 1996). Comrade Cane is a spokes­ came "up North" in the 1960s. This integrationist and the segregationist na­ man for the Spartacist League in the Bay mass movement, built on the courage of tionalists would both shout in unison. Area and a member of the Labor Black millions of black and white activists, But let us see whose program is utopian. League for Social Defense. did overturn the "Jim Crow" system of In an article in the Nation (30 October The rulers of America are conducting de jure segregation of Southern blacks. 1995), Eric Foner writes that his "vision But the liberal-led civil rights move­ of a nation transformed, one in which· a one-sided class war against the work­ Nation of Islam demagogue Louis ing class, targeting as their main scape­ ment had no program to address the equality is a reality for all Americans" Farrakhan speaking at Million Man goats the black ghetto masses. With de facto segregation and ghetto poverty will "require not only the passage of new March. barely a peep from the "leaders" of of blacks in the major Northern cities laws but a change of America's hearts organized labor, they have gutted indus­ -all they could offer was utopian pie­ and minds." Racism is a conscious tool to endure the daily humiliation of racism try, busted unions and driven down in-the-sky: the "brotherhood of man" of ruthless capitalist hegemony-it poi­ and are watching the openings which wages. The wealthy few have con­ under the thumb of a genocidal racist sons class consciousness and divides to they were afforded slam shut for their demned the impoverished many in the ruling class. rule. It is the whip that drives American children. Their despair at the prospects black ghetto as a "surplus" population. The perspective of the Labor Black workers, white and black, to pull the for integrated social struggle against Permanent unemployment, the elimina­ League for Social Defense and the Spar­ capitalist cart through war, economic racism is conditioned by their lack of tion of welfare, the assault on Medicare, tacist League is one of revolutionary inte­ depression and social ruin. faith in the power of the multiracial intensified police terror, an overflowing grationism-for black freedom through The idea that racism can be fought working class as an instrument of prison population and the speedup on socialist revolution. It is rooted in the by changing "hearts and minds" finds change. For them the ghetto masses death row-all speak to the impulse to understanding that the brutal oppression grotesque reflection in the whole prem­ are a social weight "holding down the genocide inherent in the policies of the of blacks in this country is part of the ise of the Million Man March: racist race" (them) from upward mobility. For racist rulers. very bedrock of American capitalism and oppression is the fault of blacks them­ them an integrated labor movement is a Seeing no leadership willing to fight it is one that guides our practical work. selves. Louis Farrakhan recalls with nos­ poor cousin compared to the powerful, the Gingrich/Clinton reaction, many Together with the Partisan Defense Com­ talgia the Jim Crow era: "When civil wealthy patrons of the Democratic Party. blacks grabbed at Louis Farrakhan's mittee, we have sought to bring the social rights broke down the segregation laws These patrons made it clear they have Million Man March like a drowning no need for demanding blacks or both­ man for a straw. The Million Man ersome workers when in 1992, Clinton's March dressed up a black constituency New Democrats focused his campaign ~ with the conservative trappings of anti­ -u toward the "racist Reagan Democrats." woman "family values" and segrega­ sa~ Farrakhan denounces the small Jewish, tionist bigotry. As journalist Don Terry o now Arab and Asian ghetto shopkeepers noted in the New York Times (15 Octo­ as "bloodsuckers." The new Booker T. ber 1995), "Mr. Farrakhan is a conser­ Washingtons seek to be the real blood­ vative and on the surface, at least, suckers-the capitalist exploiters-of some of the rally's themes echo those "their own" people, claiming the ghetto heard at Republican gatherings: God, as their illusory "exclusive market." In loyalty, family, discipline." In order to ' their political role as overseers for their court America's party of property (Dem­ capitalist patrons the language of fascism ocrats and Republicans) the black mis­ serves to divert black anger from the real leaders-Farrakhan, Jesse Jackson, Ben enemy, the capitalist White Anglo-Saxon Chavis--condemn blacks for their own Protestant ruling class, to the hapless oppression and black women "to be the small change "foreign" shopkeeper. For slave of a slave." the ghetto masses and even the middle Much is made of the march as a class the "empowerment" of "Black cap­ demonstration of "black operational Spartacists and Labor italism" is a fraud-old wine in new bot­ unity"-a million black men standing Black Leagues protest Jim tles. It is utopian to believe that this ruling together. In the 1960s, ''I'm Black and Crow racism at Denny's class will share any part of its market I'm Proud" race consciousness, influ­ restaurants, July 1993. with a yet unformed black capitalist class. enced by masses in struggle, was defiant Farrakhan's cockroach capitalism is of the racist capitalist rulers. Today we premised on the benevolent acquiescence witness "I'm black and I'm not a crim­ of the white power structure while at the inal" race consc·iousness influenced by same time feeding off of segregation. a desperate black middle class begging Farrakhan's is a program to sweep up for "understanding" from the racist rul­ the crumbs that fall from the capitalist ers. The black misleaders, branded by table for a price. He advertises himself race themselves, can barely conceal their as an alternative to revolution: "if black contempt for the black masses on whom people rise up in an evil manner, we they call to "atone." I say black people could foment revolution inside this have nothing to atone for! But the false power of the integrated working class to we began to lose black businesses and country and so weaken America that she prophets of the "American Dream" bear in mobilizations demanding free­ spend our money with white businesses. could not entertain war with her enemies blame the victim for not "succeeding" dom for black death row political pris­ So throughout the South the economic on the outside" (Back Where We Belong, and degrade the proud history of black oner Mumia Abu-Jamal and the abolition advancement that we gained under 1989). Indeed, the "Mission Statement" working people who have struggled long of the racist death penalty. The perspec­ Jim Crow is literally dead" (Emerge, of the Million Man March Organizing and hard for freedom from the chains of tive of an integrated revolutionary fight August 1990). Economic advancement Committee offers "the Black communi­ racist oppression. for black freedom was what guided the for whom? Surely not the sharecropper ty ... in a partnership with government" With the defeat of Radical Reconstruc­ PDC-initiated labor and black mobiliza­ chained by debt to the plantation store to form "the salvation army of the tion the social revolution that launched tion against an attempted Klan provoca­ and the rural capitalist's land. Surely not world"-to make the world safe for Wall the American Civil War remained unfin­ tion in Springfield, Illinois on Martin the "last hired, first fired" urban worker Street profiteering and plunder. ished. Chattel slavery was destroyed, but Luther King Day in 1994. Organized who fought tooth and nail for a decent Malcolm X once said of American blacks were not free from ruthless polit­ labor, led by the Cbicago transit unions, paying job in industry. Surely not the capitalism: "The system in this country ical and economic subjugation. The was the hard core of this mobilization youth who studied in dilapidated class cannot produce freedom for an Afro­ social ferment unleashed by the Civil War which spiked the KKK lynch mob. rooms with outdated books because pub­ American. It is impossible for this sys­ harbored the underlying question: Who Revolutionary integrationism is a lic tax money was needed for projects tem, thi.s social system, this system, as created the society's wealth and who program for building a fighting labor to enhance business opportunity. it stands, to produce freedom right now should rule? If the free slave demands movement that champions the cause of Today 20 percent of black families for the black man in this country." 40 acres and a mule from the confiscated all the oppressed and a revolutionary earn half of all black income. This is the What Malcolm said also goes for the plantations why not the workers the fac­ multiracial workers party that acts as the black middle class created by Johnson's average American workers, who are tories? Why should these laboring classes tribune of all the people in the fight for "War On Poverty" as a buffer against being squeezed by the system. We can­ not unite and overthrow the masters, an egalitarian socialist America. Revo­ black unrest exemplified by the 1960s not reform the racist capitalist system. South and North? In defense of private lutionary integrationism recognizes that ghetto upheavals. This layer was the It threatens us with total annihilation. It property, the masters (South and North) black oppression is the Achilles' heel of main beneficiary of the civil rights must be overthrown. It is socialism or united to head off any incipient workers American capitalism, with the under- revolt, although its constituents continue barbarism. _ 4 WORKERS VANGUARD If there were, then the tsarist empire, Caucasian people in a region conquered the territorial wars-marked by mutual Letters ... which Lenin called a "prison house of by the tsarist empire in the early 19th communalist massacres-precipitated peoples," would have to be judged no century. We call for the defeat of the by the breakup of Yugoslavia. As Y.N. (continued from page 3) less progressive than the USSR. Russian invading and occupying forces Gelis notes, we did defend the Bosnian The workers movement in Russia As is well known, Lenin strongly and and for the right of Chechnya to decide Serbs when they came under direct attack which you seem to be so dismissive of clearly advocated the right of national its own fate. The KPRF nationalists, by the NATO powers, including last lately will inscribe on its banner the res­ self-determination, i.e., the right to while criticizing Yeltsin's handling of year's massive air assault carried out in toration of the S. Union and the vote for secede and form independent states, for the war, predictably oppose the inde­ league with the Croatian and Bosnian the Stalinists is not a vote for the past the non-Russian suhject peoples of the pendence of Chechnya. Muslim forces and with the complicity (in the same way as the recent large vote tsarist empire. In this way the Bolsheviks Similarly, the European and American of the Milosevic government. for the French left) or a vote for the gained the sympathy and support of the imperialists support the "territorial integ­ While Gelis argues for support to the leaders of these parties (like Zyuganov non-Russian toilers, which was vitally rity" of the new Russian bourgeois Serbs in the wars of ex-Yugoslavia, he who beyond any doubt are Western pup­ important for their victory over the state and therefore have endorsed Yel­ offers no principled or other reason for pets) but a vote for a change in the whole White Guard counterrevolutionaries and tsin's bloody colonial war against the this position. Does he helieve that of society. Just as the recent election in Western/Japanese imperialist forces in Chechens. Clinton made this perfectly Milosevic's Serbia is still a deformed France led to the December events so the Civil War of 1918-21. clear on his recent visit to Yeltsin, when workers state while Croatia and the Bos­ the recent elections in Russia will inev­ At the end of the Civil War, the Red he grotesquely drew a parallel between nian Muslim polity arc nascent bour­ itably lead to social struggle of immense Army controlled most of the territory of the Russian rape of Chechnya and the geois states? Or does he think the Serhs proportions. The struggle between the the former tsarist empire. However, as Union struggle against the slavocracy in are a "progressive" people compared to working class and the remnants of Sta­ we wrote in "Why Marxists Do Not the U.S. Civil War, claiming that the com­ the Croats and Bosnian Muslims? Or is linism is where the coming future class Raise the Call . Restore the 'Soviet mon principle was "that no state has a he reflecting the pro-Serbian sympathy battles will emerge and the long-awaited Union'" (WV No. 639, 16 February): right to withdraw from our union." This prevalent in Greece? historical accounting of this remains to "The Bolshevik leadership did not main­ clearly refutes Gelis' false assertion that It is a basic principle that for commu­ occur. The road for conflict against cap­ tain that the various nations and peoples "imperialism is seeking to destroy" mul­ nists the main enemy is the bourgeoisie italism and Stalinism is inevitable. of the former tsarist empire had to be tinational states in the former Soviet of their own country, which in Gelis' reorganized within the framework of a Union and the Balkans. The imperialist case is the Greek bourgeoisie. How­ Fraternally, sinl!ie federated Soviet (workers) state. powers have in the past and will in the ever, his positions here are in harmony Y.N. Gelis Lenin was open to the prospect of an alliance of Soviet states in the region if future support and even create multina­ with those of the Greek ruling class. WV replies: The Union of Soviet Social­ the non-Russian workers and peasants so tional states when this serves their per­ Not only do Greece, Russia and Serbia ist Republics and the Socialist Federal desired." cei ved interests. share the Eastern Orthodox religion, Republic of Yugoslavia were multina­ Thus, against the opposition of Stalin, Thus the original Yugoslav state, ruled but the Greek bourgeoisie is also driven tional workers states based on a collec­ Lenin insisted that the right of national by the Serbian monarchy, was created by its ongoing nationalist conflict tivized economy but governed by a par­ self-determination be incorporated into by British and French imperialism at the with Muslim Turkey, which backs the asitic bureaucratic caste. These states the founding constitution of the USSR. 1919 Versailles Congress. The Commu­ Bosnian Sarajevo regime. Today, the were destroyed in 1991-92 through cap­ When the Soviet Stalinist bureaucracy nist International rightly recognized that Greek government is the only member italist counterrevolution in large measure disintegrated under Gorbachev in the this new Yugoslav state was by its very of NATO which has consistently and fueled by the splintering of their respec­ late 1980s, various non-Russian petty­ nature one in which the dominant nation­ conspicuously supported the Serbian tive Stalinist bureaucracies along antag­ bourgeois nationalists, notably in the ality. the Serbs, oppressed the other South cause in the wars of ex-Yugoslavia. This onistic national lines. What now exists Baltic republics-acting in concert with Slavic peoples. During the 1920s, the fact alone should cause Y.N. Gelis and in the former Soviet Union and the Bal­ Western imperialism-demanded seces­ Yugoslav Communist Party militantly his comrades to reconsider whether their kans is a multiplicity of bourgeois states, sion from the USSR as a cover for championed self-determination espe­ views on the Balkans and the former each under the control of its dominant capitalist restoration. At the same time, cially for the Croats, Slovenes and Mac­ Soviet Union are governed by the prin­ nation and, in many cases, engaged in the Russian Stalinist "patriots" increas­ edonians. Precisely because they did so, ciples of proletarian internationalism or internecine feuding with one another. ingly appealed to traditional Great the Communists became the only genu­ other considerations. The call to "restore the Soviet Union" Russian chauvinism. Hence the '''red'­ inely pan-Yugoslav party in the country, on the part of Stalinist-derived Rus­ brown" coalition. with its leadership and cadres containing sian "patriots" like Gennadi Zyuganov, The fundamental task facing commu­ members of all South Slav nationalities. leader and presidential candidate of the nists in Russia, the Ukraine and other The victory of Tito's Communist Par­ bougeois-nationalist Communist Party former Soviet republics today is to work tisans over the German Wehrmacht and of the Russian Federation (KPRF), is in for proletarian socialist revolution to reactionary Serbian and Croatian nation­ 22 May 1996 reality a call for a modernized version overthrow these new bourgeois states. alist forces during World War II laid the of the Russian empire of the Romanovs. Whether future workers states in this basis for the creation of a bureaucrati­ To the Editor: Similarly, talk of "restoring Yugoslavia" region will form a multinational federa­ cally deformed workers state, in which The headline "South Korea: Regime by the Communist Alliance-Movement tion and what its configuration would be nonetheless a real effort was made to Puts Coup Generals on Trial" (WV No. for Yugoslavia of Mirjana Markovic, the is a historically open and, at the present ensure political equality among the con­ 646, 24 May) could give the false wife of Serbian strongman Slobodan time, rather abstract question. What is stituent national republics. However, impression that we accept the South Milosevic, can only mean a modernized sharply and directly posed at present is especially after Tito's death in 1980, the Korean regime's "democratic" pretenses version of the post-1919 Kingdom of the the defense of non-Russian peoples Yugoslav bureaucracy increasingly frac­ and think the capitalist state is willing Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. against renascent Russian imperialist tured along national lines. Thus Serbian to put itself on trial. The excellent article The progressive character of the for­ ambitions, including those would-be Stalinist leader Siobodan Milosevic itself didn't do that. Rather, it made mer Soviet Union lay in its collectivized Russian imperialists who call for "restor­ came to power seeking to create a clear that the South Korean bourgeoisie economy not in its particular national ing the Soviet Union." "Greater Serbia," beginning with tram­ is trying to polish up its image after dec­ composition. There is nothing inher­ Here it's significant that Y.N. Gelis' pling on the Albanians in Kosovo. ades of military corruption and bloody ently progressive about a state incorpor­ letter does not so much as mention the We have taken a position of revolu­ crimes against the working class. ating in its boundaries Russians and Chechen war in which the Russian Army tionary defeatism toward all of the con­ Comradely, Uzheks, Ukrainians and Chechens, etc. has already killed tens of thousands of tending bourgeois-nationalist forces in Damon L.

Labor Black League for Social Defense Full rights for black people and for everyone else Korea against capitalist restoration and imperialist 1 in jobs, housing and schools! Defeat the racist attack! For labor action against U.S. imperialist war assault on affirmative action! For union-run minority moves and military adventures! job recruitment and training programs! For union hir­ Mass labor/black/Hispanic mobilizations drawing Down with the Democrats and Republicans! ing halls! Open up the universities to all-for open 6 on the organized power of the unions against the 10 For a revolutionary workers party that cham­ admissions, free tuition and a full living stipend for racist terrorists, in and out of uniform! Stop the Nazis! pions the cause of all the oppressed! Finish the Civil all students. Free, quality, integrated public education Stop the KKK! War! Those who labor must rule! Take industry away for all! Abolish the racist death penalty! Free Mumia from its incompetent and corrupt owners-all the A fighting labor movement-picket lines mean 7 Abu-Jama\! Free Geronimo ji Jaga (Pratt) and all wealth belongs to the working people who created 2 don't cross! For sit-down strikes against mass victims of racist, capitalist repression! No faith in it! Rebuild America on a socialist planned economy! layoffs! Fight union-busting, keep the capitalist courts the capitalist courts! For class-struggle, non-sectarian out of the unions! Organize the unorganized, unionize legal and social defense; support the work of the For more Information write the the South! Jobs for all-for a shorter workweek at Partisan Defense Committee! Labor Black Leagues: no loss in pay with full cost-of-living escalator clause! Cops and prison guards out of the unions! Unconllitional opposition to every attempt to abol­ CHICAGO 8 ish welfare! Down with slave-labor, union-busting Box 6938 Fight for women's rights! Defend abortion clin­ "workfare" schemes! Fight any and every attempt of Chicago, IL 60680 3 ics! Free abortion on demand; free, quality the government to take away or cut back even more 24-hour childcare! Equal pay for equal work! For social programs such as Social Security, Medicare, NEW YORK free, quality healthcare for all! Box 3238 Medicaid, public health and aid to education and hous­ Church SI. Station Full citizenship rights for all immigrants; every­ ing! For a massive program of public works-high New York, NY 10008 4 one who made it into this country has the right quality, integrated housing, schools, libraries, hospi­ to stay and live decently! Stop deportations! No to tals for the working people and the poor! OAKLAND racist "English only" laws! Down with anti-Hispanic, Box 751 Down with the chauvinist poison of protection­ Oakland. CA 94604 anti-Semitic, anti-Arab and anti-Asian higotry! 9 ism! For international working-class solidarity! Down with anti-gay laws! f'ull democratic rights Support revolutionary struggles of working people Membership pledge is $3/year un~mployed; 5 for homosex uals' Government out of the hedroom! ahroad! Defend Cuha, Vietnam, China and North $10/year employed

7 JUNE 1996 5 tion to those permanently stationed in the C.A.R. Two columns of paratrooper U.S.· Hands Off the World! commandos and Foreign Legion troops with armored cars, cannons and heavy machine guns, supported hy jet fighters and rocket-firing helicopter gunships, overwhelmed rebel troops around the national radio station and the presiden­ tial palace in the city center. As many as 200 rebel soldiers and civilians were killed and hundreds more were wounded. The racist imperialists then arrogantly pushed aside their own puppet president, negotiating an amnesty agreement (with the benediction of the local archbishop) directly with the rebels. French troops armed with automatic ritles and machine guns fanned out through the devastated capital. arresting suspected "rebels." When protesters marched to the French embassy, the troops dispersed the demon­ stration with gunfire. Outraged protesters attacked the lavish French cultural center and set it ablaze. Paris exercises virtually total eco­ nomic control of its former colonies through the CFA (African Financial Community), a direct carry-over from colonialism which ties the currencies of the 14 African member states to the French franc. As part of an austerity drive in response to German pressure within the European Union, in 1993 Mit­ terrand arbitrarily decreed a massive 50 percent devaluation of the CFA franc. The consequences have been cata­

Times strophic throughout Central and West French troops occupy Bangui, capital of Central African Republic, after perpetrating bloody Africa, where this has meant a doubling massacre to suppress revolt. of the price of food, medicine and other imported goods. While the plebeian revolt in the An army mutiny in the Central African hind the local generals. ter of the country's Tutsi population. Republic (C.A.R.) last month turned into France has used its troops repeatedly In recent weeks, the American press C.A.R. reflected a deep wellspring of a popular revolt against the French neo­ to prop up its despotic satraps-an aver­ has been going on about France's neo­ popular anger and bitterness against neo­ colonial exploitation, it also starkly colonial military occupation. On May 18, age of once every two years since its colonial presence in Africa. A typical revealed the lack rank-and-file soldiers demanding back former colonies acquired formal inde­ New York Times (22 May) headline of social power neces­ sary to throw off the yoke of capitalist pay rebelled against the puppet regime pendence in the 1960s. In 1979, French declaimed, "France's Army Keeps Grip imperialism. The movement coincided of President Ange-Felix Patasse for the troops removed Jean-Bedel Bokassa, the in African Ex-Colonies." This is pretty with a wave second time in two months. French troops self-crowned Central African "emperor," rich, coming from the mouthpiece for of strikes by public service employees (who also have not been paid responded with a brutal assault on the a notorious tyrant known as the "French­ U.S. imperialism's "humanitarian" inva­ for months). But capital, Bangui, using Mirage jet fighters speaking Idi Amin," Paris had propped sions around the world. But there is more it could not harness the and helicopter gunships. The rebellion up Bokassa even as he personally par­ than hypocrisy involved here, as the U.S. power of an industrial working class­ the only force capable of overthrowing in the army triggered a week-long explo­ ticipated in the slaughter of 200 high­ and French imperialists are today sion of looting, as the desperately poor school students jailed for holding a pro­ engaged in sharp competition for influ­ capitalism-because such a class simply does not exist in countries like the population ransacked downtown offices test demonstration. His successor was ence in sub-Saharan Africa. C.A.R., which are so terribly underde­ and shops and destroyed scores of villas flown into Bangui and sworn in aboard With the counterrevolutionary resto­ veloped because of imperialist exploita­ in the affluent suburbs. But with the a French military transport. Three years ration of capitalism in the Soviet Union tion that they do not even possess a bloody French intervention, the plebeian ago, the French army directly organized and East Europe, the imperialist powers railroad. upsurge became focused on opposition the elections in the C.A.R. which brought feel they have a free hand to ride rough­ to the French military presence. For sev­ in Patasse, Bokassa's former prime shod over the entire planet. Conservative Just as the Russian Revolution of 1917 eral days, thousands of people defying minister. French president Jacques Chirac recently opened up the perspective of revolution­ a ban on puhlic gatherings marched French imperialism's record of mili­ announced the gradual elimination of the ary change in the backward regions of Central Asia, the overthrow of capitalism through the streets of Bangui, chanting tary intervention in its self-appropriated draft in order to form a professional mil­ in those parts of Africa whose develop­ slogans like "Death to the French!" "back yard" rivals that of the United itary capable of the sort of "rapid inter­ Behind the ferocity of French imperi­ States, which has intervened countless vention" carried out in Bangui. One of ment has been so dreadfully retarded must be linked to the international strug­ alism's assault on what is one of the times in Latin America, most recently in the factors which prompted Paris to gle of the working class for socialist rev­ poorest countries on earth is the fact that Grenada, Panama and Haiti. Several streamline the military was its pique at the C.A.R. is a key link in the French years ago, France participated along with having to play a subordinate role to its olution. Proletarian revolution in South Africa, Egypt, Algeria, Nigeria or other military presence in Africa. France has the U.S. and others in the "humanitarian" imperialist rivals-especially the U.S.­ some 8,000 troops stationed in seven occupation of Somalia, where the racist in the 1991 Persian Gulf slaughter and industrialized countries in Africa will he African countries, including Gabon, imperialists indiscriminately gunned NATO's occupation in the Balkans. a liberating force which will produce social transformation reaching into the Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Senegal, Chad down residents of Mogadishu. In R wan­ The French bourgeoisie has always most back ward areas of the continent. and Djibouti (as well as on the Indian da, Socialist president Fran~ois Mitter­ regarded absolute control of its former What is necessary is the forging of inter­ Ocean islands of Reunion and Mayotte). rand sent arms, helicopters and 700 colonial empire in sub-Saharan Africa as nationalist Trotskyist vanguard parties In addition, French arms and training troops in the early 1990s to help prop key to its pretensions of being more than standing at the head of the proletariat provide the hack hone of the local armies up the Hutu-dominated government of a second-rate imperialist power. In his and leading behind it the peasantry and in a number of other countries, with President Juvenal Habyarimana, whose recently published memoirs, De Gaulle's all the oppressed._ shadowy French "advisers" lurking be- I ieutenants unleashed a genocidal slaugh- sinister aide Jacques Foccart (who is now working for Chirac) describes how he kept up constant phone links with African heads of state like an all-powerful Mafia Spartacist Events don. Mitterrand pursued the same ap­ proach, with his son Jean-Christophe as the don. Today, Washington is seeking NEWVORK to extend the tentacles of its "New World Spartacus Youth Club Claas Series Alternate Saturdays, 3:00 p.m. Order" into this traditional French chasse Next classes, June 29: PrIncIples of ~ardee (private hunting ground). While CommunIsm; July 13: State and on a visit last year to oil-rich Gabon, Revolution; Spartacist Public Office Chirac vituperated against the "Anglo­ 41 Warren Street (one block below Chambers St., near Church St.) Saxons" who "dream of pushing France For more information and readings: out of its position in Africa" (Economist, (212) 267-1025 12 August 1995). The savagery of the French attack in SAN FRANCISCO Bangui was intended to send a message Spartacus Youth Club Class Series throughout its African "sphere of influ­ Alternate Thursdays, 6:30 p.m. ence" that local rulers will be anointed Next classes, June 27: The Stllte; July by the French government and by it 11: The BolshevIk RevolutIon; New College, Room 2, 777 Valencia Street alone. As the mutineers began calling (between 18th & 19th Streets) for Patasse's removal, Paris mobilized For more information and readings: U.S. Imperialism's "humanitarian" Invasion 2,300 troops, including forces rushed in (415) 777-9367 or (510) 839-0851 massacres against civilian population. from Chad, Gabon and France, in addi- 6 WORKERS VANGUARD l \ ... I • it" ~ , -----'I SpartacistsExpose Apologists for Counterrevolution II----- Polish Fake-Lefts: Still Praying at

WARSAW-After ushering in the resto­ "for the right to choose motherhood." ration of capitalism-and mass unem­ Last year in Katowice they joined with ployment, widespread immiseration and Solidarnosc Shrine the Morenoites in building an "anti­ a sharp rise in attacks against the rights clerical" demonstration under the slogan of women and minorities-Solidarnose port for Solidarnose. fascist insignia, several supporters of the "Jesus is with us, not with the priests"! is widely scorned among working people Yet many of the youth who attended Mandelite NLR chatted amicably with Most recently they offered a "left" cover here, who voted its founder Lech Walesa were looking for a way forward out of these scum. But other conference partic­ to a right-wing witchhunt which assailed out as Polish president last December. the glaring injustice, bigotry and oppres­ ipants were rightly alarmed by this open former SLD prime minister Oleksy for SolidarnosC' services as the battering ram sion of the "new" capitalist Poland, and rightist provocation, and together with supposedly being a KGB agent, with a for capitalist counterrevolution in East eagerly bought copies of Platforma Spar­ comrades of the SGP finally forced the screaming front-page headline demand­ Europe made it the favorite "trade union" takusowcow and other literature of the fascists to withdraw. ing, "Disclose Everything in the 'Oleksy of the CIA, the Vatican and the imperialist International Communist League. Also, The supposed keynote of the confer­ Affair' " (Dalej, February-March 1996). bankers. Today, the Frankfurt and Wall Rachel Wolkenstein, general counsel of ence was a presentation by former USec In contrast, the SGP has been forthright Street financiers have shifted their bets the Spartacist League/U.S. and a defense _supporter and Solidarnose activist J6zef in opposing the anti-communist witch­ to the ruling ex-Stalinist Social Demo­ attorney for death row political prisoner Pinior in defense of SolidarnosC' 1981 hunt, while refusing to give any electoral crats of the Democratic Left Alliance Mumia Abu-Jamal, was given time to call for a "self-managed republic." Pinior or political support to the SLD. The SGP (SLD). But Solidarnose continues to fights for free abortion on demand. serve as a key instrument for the pro­ The newspaper of the Morenoite GIPR, motion of virulent Polish nationalism, Glos Robotniczy (Workers Voice), mean­ anti-communism and anti-woman, anti­ while, campaigns permanently for the gay and anti-Semitic bigotry in the work­ "self-managed republic" as a way to ing class. avoid mentioning such "unprintable" None ofthis has stopped various Polish terms as socialism, Marxism or Lenin­ leftists from continuing to tail after this ism. This aversion is not surprising since reactionary outfit and wallowing in the the GIPR has a track record of capitu­ backward prejudices it promotes. Most lating to the most backward prejudices brazen are the supporters of Tony Cliff's fostered by Solidarnose and its offshoots British Socialist Workers Party (repre­ and sneers at the Leninist struggle against sented in the U.S. by the International special oppression, dismissing the fight Socilliist Organization), who even call against anti-Semitism, and the defense themselves "Solidarnose Socjalistyczna" of abortion rights and of Roma (Gypsy) (Socialist Solidarnose). Recently, the immigrants, as "secondary questions" of Cliffites grotesquely tried to turn a War­ no interest to workers. Glos Robotniczy saw anti-fascist demonstration on April recently carried a misogynist attack on 27-protesting an anti-Semitic provoca­ Ewa Spychalska, the woman chairman tion earlier that month at the site of the of the social-democratic OPZZ trade­ Nazi death camp in Auschwitz-into a union federation. At the Guevariada, an platform for anti-Semitic Solidarnose. "A SGP comrade denounced this disgusting Solidarity union banner was on the dem­ smear, noting that the Morenoites had onstration," boasted the British Socialist Gamma earlier attacked the Spartacists for calling Worker (25 May). But it failed to report Lech Walesa's CIA-backed counterrevolutionary movement bowed to Vatican, on the working class to fight in defense that the handful of Cliffites who tried to was supported by opportunist leftists. of women's rights. place themselves at the head of the march Opportunists in the tradition of Man­ carrying red-and-white Solidarnose flags speak to the conference about the inter­ was once lauded by Mandel (during the del, Moreno and Tony Cliff are nothing were sent scurrying to the back as a result national campaign for Mumia's freedom. latter's 1994 debate with the SL/U.S ..in if· not experienced in selling alibis for of angry denunciations by the Spartaku­ It was the SGP which brought the fight New York City) as "the most brilliant Solidarnose. After all, they churned out sowska Grupa Polski (SGP) and other for Mumia's freedom to Poland. revolutionary intellectual and mass lead­ "leftist" excuses to tail every counter­ anti-fascist protesters. The political lines at the conference er in Eastern Europe." But the "brilliant revolutionary imperialist-sponsored move­ In early May, Solidarnose was also the were quickly drawn when the Solidar­ revolutionary" showed his true colors at ment against the former Soviet Union focus of a sharp political debate at the nose Socjalistyczna spokesman got up to the Guevariada, offering a "god that and the deformed workers states of East annual "Guevariada" youth conference crow about their despicable action on failed" anti-communist lament that "the Europe-from applauding Hitler's World in Katowice organized by the Radical­ April 27. An SGP supporter responded ideological division between left and War II Estonian "Forest Brothers" to Progressive Movement, which publishes that it was under these same red-and­ right is passe" and urging radical young cheering the reactionary rabble on Boris the anarchist-oriented journal Barykada. white Solidarnose banners that a reac­ activists to find a "new language." Yeltsin's White House barricades in This is a lash-up which includes the Rev­ tionary mob- in Warsaw last year clam­ In the early 1980s, Mandel's follow­ August 1991. And, as the SGP noted in olutionary Left Current (NLR), associ­ ored for "gas chambers" for the Social ers, among others, claimed that the "self­ a polemic against the Morenoites, "those ated with the late Ernest Mandel's United Democrats. managed republic" was simply a syno­ who opened the road for capitalist coun­ Secretariat (USec), -and the Initiative What the opportunists' quest for "com­ nym for a workers state based on soviet terrevolution are incapable of leading Group for a Workers Party (GIPR), con­ mon ground" with Solidarnose means democracy. In order to justify marching the struggle to get rid of it" ("A 'Workers nected to the International Workers in practice was shown when one self­ in lockstep with the imperialists in "sol­ Party' Fit for Pilsudski," Platforma Spar­ League of the late Argentine adventurer proclaimed "anarchist" hanging around idarity with Solidarnose," they argued takusowcow No.4, Summer-Fall 1993). Nahuel Moreno. But far from offering the conference boasted of having partic­ that a movement supported by 10 million The key to leading the historically anything vaguely "radical" (even Che ipated in a right-wing attack on a workers' Polish workers couldn't possibly lead to combative Polish proletariat to the con­ Guevara's name was barely mentioned, May Day demonstration several days ear­ the restoration of capitalism, no matter quest of power in its own name lies in much less the anti-imperialist struggle lier. The Guevariada sponsors ignored what the intentions of openly pro­ the fight for a Trotskyist vanguard party he is identified with), the conference vigorous protests by the SGP that this capitalist leaders like Walesa were. Self­ as part of a reforged Fourth International, sponsors and the sole Cliffite in atten­ creep had no place at the conference. styled "socialists" like Pinior were held which combats all manifestations of cler­ dance attempted to outdo one another in Even when he returned the next day with up as evidence of a mythical "left cur­ ical nationalism, anti-Semitism and anti­ justifying their erstwhile or current sup- his cronies, one of whom was wearing rent" inside Solidarnose. In contrast, the woman bigotry. Such a party will reclaim international Spartacist tendency (now an internationalist heritage stretching the ICL) uniquely warned that a victory back to the heroic Proletariat party of by Walesa & Co. would directly pose Ludwik Warynski, the SDKPiL of Rosa the restoration of capitalism. Six years Luxemburg, Feliks Dzerzhinsky and Leo after the triumph of capitalist counter­ Jogiches and the early Polish Communist revolution spearheadeq by Solidarnose Party. The political struggle to expose (and abetted by the former Stalinist today's "left" apologists for counterrev­ bureaucracy), its fake-Trotskyist cheer­ olution is part of the fight to build this leaders are still trying to cover up this party. _ simple fact. Polish To believe the learned theoreticians of Spartacists at the USec, "Capitalism has not yet been 1992 May Day restored in Poland." With Wales a dis­ NOTICE march in credited, these consummate opportunists Warsaw can for now look to the pro-capitalist Social Workers Vanguard will workers to fight Democrats, urging "Let's keep the pres­ skip alternate issues in anti-Semitism and attacks on sure on the SLD." What pressure? When June, July and August. abortion rights. Walesa and his patron Cardinal Glemp launched a hysterical crusade which led Our next issue'will to a ban on abortion, the spineless Man­ be dated July 5. delites caved in to the bigots by calling 7 JUNE 1996 7 Cold •.... VVar ..• H.ack ••.•.. S.mears •.•.· •. Tr()t~ky, ...• J.\ttac.ks ..... EI11.ightennlEtnt Richard Pipes: Exorcising the Russian Revolution While alive, Leon Trotsky was feared thing an even greater number of turgid historically justified with a virtual flood capitalism is propelling humanity in a and reviled by capitalist rulers every­ tomes have been churned out with the of books and articles attacking the headlong rush toward high-tech barba­ where. They hated him for being the aim of maligning the October Revolu­ rationalist values of the Enlightenment. rism, intent on wiping out every advance co-leader with V. I. Lenin of the 1917 tion and Bolshevik leaders Lenin and At the same time, from the multiracial achieved by the working people through Russian October Revolution, organizer Trotsky. ' upheaval in Los Angeles over the Rodney two centuries of struggle. More than of the Petrograd insurrection and founder By and large, the new barrage of King case in 1992 to the massive strike ever, the future of humanity hinges on of the Red Army, and for his unceasing imperialist propaganda takes off from wave in France last fall, the victims of the reforging of Trotsky's Fourth Inter­ fight for world socialist revolution. the Cold War Big Lie that Stalinism­ capitalist exploitation and oppression national as the world party of socialist Fanatically anti-Communist British Con­ with its police-state repression and stul- have made it clear that they will not revolution. servative Winston Churchill, who later inaugurated the Cold War with Even Slander Should his 1946 "Iron Curtain" speech, Make Some Sense denounced Trotsky as "The Ogre The workers state which issued of Europe" when the Bolshevik from the Bolshevik Revolution was leader was forced into exile by based on proletarian international­ Stalin in 1929. And when a Stalin­ ism and soviet democracy, the rule ist secret police agent in Mexico of workers councils whose dele­ City assassinated Trotsky in 1940, gates were democratically elected America's rulers would not even by the workers themselves. But allow his body into the U.S. three years of civil war and impe­ Now the hired pens of imperial­ rialist strangulation devastated the ist reaction are seeking to bury economy and decimated the prole­ Trotsky-and the cause of interna­ tariat, particularly its most con­ tional communism he embodied­ scious layers, gutting the soviets yet again. The publication earlier while allowing the growth of a this year of an English transla­ bureaucratic layer in the party and tion of Russian historian Dmitri state apparatus. Not only the Volkogonov's Trotsky: The Eternal Bolshevik leaders, but the working Revolutionary (Free Press, 1996) masses as a whole, saw the key to was greeted with rave reviews in survival of the soviet republic in the capitalist press. A key figure the extension of socialist revolution in the Russian counterrevolution­ abroad. However, numerous prole­ ary regime until his death last tarian uprisings in Germany, Po­ December, Volkogonov's aim was land, Bulgaria and elsewhere were to smear Trotsky as the architect suppressed, due largely to the weak­ of the bureaucratic terror regime ness and inexperience of the Com­ that the Bolshevik leader died munist parties there. The Bolshevik fighting against. Volkogonov's aim seizure of power, in contrast, was LY. Leonid is to denigrate and denounce any V.I. Lenin and Leon Trotsky (at center), co-leaders of the Bolshevik Revolution, on its pregared by a years-long struggle struggle for the emancipation of second anniversary, 7 November 1919. which cohered a steeled cadre of the exploited and oppressed. One professional revolutionaries. reviewer, economist Marshall Gold- Seizing on widespread demoral- man, acclaimed Volkogonov's hack ization following the defeat of a job as "bold," "daring" and "brilliant," tifying censorship, its bureaucratic priv­ simply roll over and die because the racist revolutionary opportunity in Germany in because it supposedly showed how the ilege and economic mismanagement­ rulers decree "the end of history." As the late 1923 and with Lenin on his death­ Stalinist regime's "adoption of violence was the natural offspring of Leninism. International Communist League (Fourth bed, the bureaucracy-led by the and terror as a basic tenet, the same form This hoary myth willfully buries the fact Internationalist) proclaimed in the face "troika" of Stalin, Zinoviev and Kame­ of terror that ultimately did Trotsky in, that the Stalinist bureaucracy came to of rampant imperialist triumphalism: nev-asserted its control at the Thir­ came largely at his initiative" (Boston power through ~political counterrevolu­ Stalinism is dead, but communism lives. teenth Party Conference in January Globe, 17 March). tion in 1923-24 which destroyed Lenin's We fight to build the revolutionary pro­ 1924. Months later, the political program This scurrilous lie was given an insid­ Bolshevik Party. But now that Stalinism letarian vanguard which can lead the of this conservative layer was given ious twist by Harvard historian Richard is discredited and deposed, those who struggles of the working people to expression, as Stalin and his then hench­ Pipes, who claimed in the New York seek to exorcise the Russian Revolution victory. man Nikolai Bukharin proclaimed the Times Book Review (24 March): "Trotsky from history are particularly aiming their Today, while the bourgeoisie in its anti-Marxist doctrine that international and Lev Sedov, his son and closest aide, fire at Trotsky, who carried forward decay disowns the rationalist and dem­ revolution was no longer an iron neces­ frequently said and wrote that Stalin's the fight for Lenin's internationalist ocratic aims it once espoused, and the sity,that socialism-a classless, egali­ regime had to be overthrown and Stalin program against the anti-revolutionary dregs of Stalinism openly proclaim their tarian society presupposing a level of himself assassinated .... The obsessive Kremlin bureaucracy. allegiance to the stinking capitalist order, production far higher than that existing charges of 'Trotskyism' levied against And that is where Richard Pipes comes we Trotskyists stand out not only as the even in the most advanced capitalist the defendants in the show trials of in. While crowing that they have "pre­ party of the Russian Revolution but the countries-could be built in backward 1936-38 and the bloodbath of 1937, vailed" in their decades-long effort to champions of the liberating goals of the Russia alone. This was the Stalinist lie it now emerges, were inspired by an "roll back Communism," the imperialist French Revolution. In its death agony, of "soci.alism in one country," which was irrational yet genuine fear of internal rulers and mouthpieces like Pipes today subversion." This grotesque justification seek to extirpate any memory of authentic of Stalin's horrendous blood purges communism. In the introduction to his latest book, A Concise History of the Rus­ echoes the slanders of, Stalin himself. pEOPl.E'S COMMISSARIAT OF JIlSTICE OF THE U 5.S .•• Yet its author is not only the "distin­ sian Revolution (Alfred A. Knopf, 1995), guished" Baird Professor of Russian Pipes wrote: "All this now seems safely REPORT OF COURT PROCEEDINGS IN THE CASE OF TilE History at Harvard, but a longtime Cold relegated to the past. Yet to prevent it War "hawk" who braintrusted Pentagon from recurring, it is essential to know ANTI -SOVIET schemes for the nuclear annihilation of how such things happened." How "such TROTSKYITE CENTRE the Soviet Union. Why would this die­ things" happened, per Pipes, is that the H.".,d &fo~~ The WlLITARY COLLEGIL"M OFTBE hard anti-Communist solidarize with working masses and o~pressed were SUPREME COrRT OF THE U.S.s.R. Stalin's bloody terror? given far too free a rein to assert them­ M....,,,,,,, lanual"!' 23.30. 1931 f.e. prallJlcOu,K.B.R...u.h,G.y.Suk"lnilo:<,,),L.P.Senbryll"ov, The collapse of Stalinist bureaucratic selves-and he's not just talking about .V. f. MII.III"", Y.A. l,iv.hi! •• Y.N. D.obn;r,M.S. BOpllow"", r. if. K .. "ozell, S.A. RfJt ••cloGk, B. O ..'V",kill.A.,A. ShelCDV, M. S, rule in August 1991, in the absence of Russia in 1917! This fanatical counter­ Sl,o,/w, Y,D.T"rok,I. Y.llr..,cMl,G.I? p"."i,.. Y,V. Arnold A•• a ..d.' ...... on ...... t'b •• o .. n, ...... plo" .. ' ••••to any decisive intervention by the Soviet revolutionary wants to "roll back" even o,din... "",w«.k"" ••,iv"i .. ond ,b. p_ .. ,ion 0' 10 ...,,010<1', , .... o,«...... o ••redb'Artid .. ;8". R working class, led directly to the coun­ the great bourgeois-democratic French SI'.>"OIId>8U01 Ihtotalitarianism of the as the "gravedigger of revolution." Left has been and ultimately still is man, Indeed, in a 1936 interview with Amer­ his reason and salvation," and thus it has ican journalist Roy Howard, Stalin "the character of a universal creed, a ten­ explicitly disavowed the early Commu­ dency which totalitarianism of the Right nist International's aim of world socialist altogether lacks." Writing in the shadow revolution as a "misunderstanding" (see of the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust, he Trotsky, "The Stalin-Howard Interview," was at least compelled to distinguish March 1936). between Communism and fascism. Today as then, Trotsky is singled out Not so Richard Pipes, who criti­ for opprobrium and slander precisely cizes Hannah Arendt's The Origins of ~i-.....,Ortufll"'~G,...,bo"'W.n..(c.....iIIt)PutJ"'A--.._-__e_ because he remained "the eternal revo­ Th e :::..:...__"'::"L.-.:;:";:::~~=::::~;:::: ..-. ... ____ ...... ____ ~... "..::"' ...... -.. ~t"'.:: .. _...... ==:. ,,-...... :=::-~ Totalitarianism for attaching "exagger­ lutionary"-at war not only with the ated importance ... to anti-Semitism as an entire capitalist order but with the Sta­ MILITANT attribute oftotalitarianism." Pipes repeat­ linist police-state perversion of the Bol­ . ",prvOllI S Y.I'O',··a_ ...... edly and grotesquely equates Lenin with shevik Revolution-an object lesson in For the Russian Opposition! Mussolini and Bolshevism with Nazism. the supposed futility and evil of revolu­ AI.;'"' Of/-tlltlis,. tUNi IJ,uWII/r'"tIry i" tin II'ultn C___ ill P"'Y ..r A_rir4! He even tries to blame the Holocaust on " STATEtoIUIT TO JIMD.lCA)I oot.oIlIN1STS IY JAt45 r CANNO.'f, ).tA.. TlN AKII.N ANO MAX $HACIfTMAN tionary struggle. In his introduction, Vol­ ~oI,Iwn«_of_ o._" ... -..... __-:~~ ...._M~....::.~_::~~~~ the Russian Revolution (albeit as an kogonov writes: Basil Blackwell Inc. "unanticipated and unintended" conse­ "To the end of his life, Trotsky did not Left Opposition leaders in Russia, with Trotsky at center, 1927. First issue of quence)! In a truly demented amalgam, see that many of the fundamental tenets James P. Cannon's Militant, 1928, announced support for Trotsky's fight for he rails that "Lenin hated whomever he of Marxism, which he never doubted, revolutionary internationalism, against Stalinist bureaucratic degeneration. perceived as the 'bourgeoisie' with a were profoundly wrong. But it was pre­ destructive passion that fully equaled cisely the false ideas of the dictatorship in Volkogonov's words. dress the profound questions of interna­ of the proletariat and of class war that Hitler's hatred of the Jews." But for lay at the root of the future tragedy, and Volkogonov's own contribution to this tional strategy which rent the revolution­ Pipes, Hitler was clearly the "lesser evil"! it was the process of making these pos­ arsenal of counterrevolutionary litera­ ary workers movement in the 1920s and "Only Bolshevik Russia at the height tulates into immutable principles, to ture is to add a voice of "authenticity," '30s. He devotes barely two pages to a of Stalinism qualifies as a fully devel­ which Trotsky remained faithful all his less for his knowledge of the Soviet slipshod presentation of Trotsky'S theory oped totalitarian state," he lectures, life, that led the country to its historic failure. A political portrait of Trotsky, archives than as a former "Communist" of permanent revolution, two paragraphs because "Neither the Fascists nor the therefore, is also an account of the fate turned anti-Communist, serving a pur­ to a garbled account of the Left Oppo­ Nazis destroyed their respective social of freedom in Russia, without doubt a pose similar to the "god that failed" dia­ sition's fight against Stalin's disastrous structures"-i.e., they maintained capi­ tragic story." tribes by embittered ex-Stalinists in the capitulation to Chiang Kai-shek in China talism. Such rantings led liberal British For Volkogonov, Pipes, et aI., there is 1950s. Already in 1988, when the Gor­ in the 1920s, and not a word to the journalist Jonathan Steele to observe that, nothing tragic about the millions of work­ bachevite intelligentsia was promoting 1926 British General Strike, when Stalin now that his "enemy is a corpse," Pipes ing people throughout the former Soviet Bukharin as the real alternative to Stalin, amnestied the sellout policies of the has gone from "history as polemic" to Union who are today on the brink of Volkogonov denounced Trotsky as "the Labourite Trades Union Congress mis­ "history as tirade" (Guardian Weekly, 21 starvation as a result of capitalist coun­ dictator who never was" (see "Trotsky leaders. Volkogonov denies the real January). terrevolution, nor about the countless and the Gorbachev School of Falsifica­ "tragedy," in his words, of the Bolshevik In fact, Pipes' arguments are a carbon people slaughtered in nationalist blood­ tion," WV Nos. 464 and 466, 4 Novem­ Revolution-its betrayal and undermin­ copy of German "revisionist" historians letting and in Yeltsin's brutal invasion ber and 2 December 1988). ing by Stalin and his heirs. like Ernst Nolte in the so-called Histo­ ofChechnya. In the eyes of the apologists Contrasting the powerful three-volume To seriously take up the very real pros­ rikerstreit, who seek to justify the Nazi for imperialist reaction, the only "trag­ biography of Trotsky written by Polish pects which existed for extending the regime as the last bulwark of "Western edy" is that the working class managed Marxist historian Isaac Deutscher in October Revolution would fly in the face civilization" against the "Bolshevik to seize power from their rapacious cap­ the 1950s and '60s with Volkogonov's of Volkogonov's philistine dismissal of hordes." Thus in his first "revisionist" italist overlords in 1917-and the bour­ book, writes Daniel Singer in a trench­ Trotsky's fight for world socialist revo­ piece, in 1980, Nolte writes: "Auschwitz geois rulers intend to prevent a repeat ant review in the Nation (25 March), lution as at best a "mirage," a "false is not primarily a result of traditional of workers revolution at any price. is "like reading Proust in the original and prophesy." This reflects Volkogonov's anti-Semitism and was not just one more Pipes and Volkogonov both work off then in comic-strip form."Volkogonov's own schooling in the Stalinist-nationalist case of 'genocide.' It was the fear-borne a template etched out years earlier, most assessment of the Left Opposition's dogma of "socialism in one country." reaction to the acts of annihilation that notably by British Cold War historian defeat-that "the functionaries and Party And, as his evolution shows, it is not took place during the Russian Revolu­ Leonard Schapiro, that Lenin's Bolshe­ members preferred to give their alle­ much of a political leap from opposing tion" (Forever in the Shadow of Hitler? viks were a gang of power-mad fanatics giance to successful leaders, and Trotsky the spread of revolution in the name of [Humanities Press, 1993]). But Pipes is "socialism in one country" to opposing not just some crackpot right-wing aca­ "socialism" even in Russia from the demic. Born into a wealthy Jewish fam­ standpoint of capitalist reaction. ily in Poland, Pipes parlayed his hatred for communism and Russia into a career Hate Trotskyism, at the most sinister levels of the U.S. Hate the Enlightenment government. His job at Harvard was pretty much a sideline to his real work But even Volkogonov's repeated anti­ braintrusting U.S. imperialism's drive to Bolshevik diatribes are too tame for eradicate the Soviet Union. A Boston Pipes, who chastises him for not being Globe (18 May 1991) article described able to "quite rid himself of sympathy Pipes as a "lifelong Cold Warrior" who for Communist ideals" (New York Times, was "the brains behind Ronald Reagan's 24 March). As evidence, Pipes offers the 'evil empire' doctrine." following statement by Volkogonov: In 1976, Pipes was chairman of the "The search for a system in which the CIA's "Team B," which justified an people exercise real power and where American nuclear first strike by claiming humanism and justice prevail does not that the USSR was striving for strategic have to end because it failed universally superiority. Five years later, he served Anti-Trotsky "biographer" in its 20th-century Communist guise." Dmitri Volkogonov (above) as head of East European and Soviet was Yeltsin's military For the likes of a Richard Pipes, even Affairs in Reagan's National Security adviser during bloody this tepid exposition of 18th-century Council. His attacks on the Enlighten­ assault on Russian liberalism is "pinko," "com-symp" talk. ment as the "original sin" of communism parliament in October 1993. To be consistently counterrevolutionary, argues Pipes, it is necessary to root out even the rationalist ideals of the Enlight­ intent from the outset on creating a one­ came across in the· political battle as a enment. In A Concise History of the Rus­ party tyranny ·(see "Leonard Schapiro: loser"-sheds little light on the situation Spartacist League sian Revolution, Pipes rants: Lawyer for Counterrevolution," Sparta­ inside the CPSU in the 1920s but Public Offices cist No. 43-44, Summer 1989). This fal­ says much about the outlook of its au­ "Communism failed because it proceed­ ed from the erroneous doctrine .of the -MARXIST L1TERATURE- sification of history is woven from lies, thor. Volkogonov was the qtlintessential Enlightenment, perhaps the most perni­ half-truths and deliberate obfuscations, bureaucratic careerist: a loyal Brezhnev­ cious idea in the history of thought, that Bay Area willfully confusing, for example, the ite under Brezhnev, an advocate of pro­ man is merely a material compound, Thurs.: 5:30·8:00 p.m., Sat.: 1 :00-5:00 p.m. "dictatorship of the proletariat"-the capitalist "market reforms" under Gor­ devoid of either soul or innate ideas." 1634 Telegraph, 3rd Floor (near 171h Street) Marxist terminology for the class rule bachev and, finally, a key aide to Boris OnCe again, Pipes' thinking is hardly Oakland,·California Phone: (510) 839-0851 of the workers, as opposed to the dicta­ Yeltsin in the "new counterrevolutionary original. Early on in the Cold War, liberal Chicago torship of the bourgeoisie which exists regime. As Yeltsin's "military adviser,"" Israeli philosopher J.L. T~lmon charac­ Tues.: 5:00-9:00 p.m., Sat.: 11 :00a.m.-2:00p.m. 328 S. Jefferson St., Suite 904 in even the most "democratic" capitalist Volkogonov oversaw the would-be tsar's terized Bolshevism as a "totalitarianism Chicago, Illinois Phone: (312) 454-4930 society-with a dictatorial form of gov­ bloody tank and artillery assault on the of the left" derived from Jacobinism, the ernment. They paint the struggle between Russian parliament in October 1993, radical-democratic wing of the French lew York City Revolution. In his book, The Origins of. Tues.: 6:30-9:00 p.m., Sat.: 1 :00-5:00 p.m. Trotsky and Stalin as a power feud be­ which killed hundreds of people. So who 41 Warren St. (one block below tween two personally ambitious politi­ is "obsessed with violence, dictatorship Totalitarian Democracy (Norton, 1970), Chambers St. near Church St.) cians, both "typical Bolsheviks, obsessed and coercion"? Talmon argued that "the history of the New York, NY Phone: (212) 267-1025 with violence, dictatorship and coercion," Volkogonov cannot and does not ad- last hundred and fifty years looks like 10 WORKERS VANGUARD were given flesh and blood by the CIA's proletariat, the only revolutionary class support for the Vatican-inspired .Soli­ in modem capitalism, to break the fetters darnosc in Poland and the Islamic fun­ of the outmoded and decaying capitalist damentalist mujahedin in Afghanistan. mode of production-constrained by the He has been an Executive Committee bourgeois nation-state-and. replace it member of the "Committee on the Pres­ with the international collectivization of ent Danger" since 1977 and seems to the means of production. Reflecting the have a seat on the boards of virtually retrograde character of its class rule, the every "intelligence review" and right­ bourgeoisie today embraces the reaction­ wing "think tank" in the country. ary outlook it once combatted. Not all "post-Communist" imperialist Approaching the 21st century, a con­ ideologues share Pipes' venom for the siderable sector of the imperialist ruling Enlightenment. Francis Fukuyama, the class seems prepared for a leap back to State Department planner who pro­ the social thinking of the 16th century. claimed that the West's triumph over the And what were the ancestors of Richard USSR represented "the end of history," Pipes and his fellow vicarious lords do­ for example, foresees a universal evolu­ ing in the "glorious" pre-Enlightenment tion toward liberal capitalist democracy period before "science overwhelmed reli­ based on "the principles of liberty and gion"? They were serfs slaving in the equality" which "animated the French fields or Jews locked up in the ghettos, and American revolutions" (Fukuyama, consigned to a life of unremitting toil The End of History and the Last Man and nasty oppression. [Free Press, 1992]). Fukuyama sees in Of course, capitalist imperialism is not the French Revolution the ascendance of about to return to the Middle Ages. the bourgeoisie to power and the insti­ Rather, what is being promulgated is an tutionalization of bourgeois property Paris masses storm the Bastille, 14 July 1789. Pipes denounces French ideological justification for regimenting rights, whereas Pipes sees in it the upris­ Revolution and rationalist Enlightenment. the population and reversing a whole ing of the plebeian masses, the sans­ array of social welfare measures achieved culottes, and the spectre of radical social prominent philosophes, like Voltaire, revolution, playwright/president Vaclav by working people and minorities in the upheaval. The bicentennial of the French were not democrats, much less Jacobins, Havel, declared that "the end of Com­ postwar era. The destruction of the Soviet Revolution in 1989 was marked by an but rather argued for an "enlightened des­ munism ... has brought an end riot just to Union has led to an intensification of outpouring of "revisionist" denuncia­ potism." Pipes evidently prefers unen­ the 19th and 20th centuries, but to the interimperialist rivalry. Accompanying tions of this key liberating event (see lightened despotism, like the "relatively modem era as a whole ... an era of belief this is an intensified drive by the com­ "In Defense of the French Revolution," benign" dictatorships of Pilsudski's Po­ in automatic progress brokered by the peting capitalist ruling classes to force WV Nos. 484 and 486, 1 and 29 Sep­ land and Salazar's Portugal. He dismisses scientific method" (New York Times, down wages and eliminate the so-called tember 1989). any thought that the downtrodden Rus­ 1 March 1992). "welfare state." As always, the first target But the difference between Fukuyama sian peasantry saw serfdom "as an intol­ Havel's sneering dismissal of the sci­ of such attacks are minorities-in the and Pipes is not primarily a matter of erable injustice" while devoting a whole entific method aside, human progress U.S., primarily black and Hispanic peo­ differing interpretations of French his­ chapter in The Russian Revolution to the has been far from automatic. Indeed, as ple; in West Europe, dark-skinned immi­ tory. Rather, what is at issue is different Bolsheviks' "regicide" of the brutal, Karl Marx noted, only with socialism grants. Thus, there has been a sharp rise policies for the American ruling class blood-drenched tsarist royal family-an "will human progress cease to resemble in racist reaction and national chauvinism here and now. The "death of communism" act which, he rants, meant "crossing the that hideous pagan idol, who would not in the past few years. has only made Pipes and his ilk salivate threshold of genocide"! drink the nectar but from the skulls of The continued existence of capitalism for "rolling back" the entire liberal and Pipes longs for "the sixteenth century, the slain" ("The Future Results of British can only lead to yet another world war­ humanist political tradition. His Concise before science had overwhelmed both Rule in India," July 1853). As the Com­ this time likely ending in the nuclear anni­ History and the two volumes of which religion and the philosophy of human­ munist Manifesto explained almost 150 hilation of civilization-as the imperial­ it is a distillation, The Russian Revolution ism." He castigates the idea "that man years ago, "The history of all hitherto ist powers scramble to redivide their (1990) and Russia Under the Bolshevik is not a unique creature endowed with existing society is the history of class spheres of influence. At the same time, Regime (1993), seethe with contempt not an immortal souL" He rails at Alexandra struggles." But ideologues of counter­ a new generation of youth, unencum­ only for the socialist aims of the working Kollontai for her "unconstrained sexual revolution like Pipes believe that if they bered by the baggage of Stalinism, is class but for the rationalist and demo­ license." He fumes that Trotsky'S depic­ can exterminate communist ideas, they moving into struggle against the horrors cratic ideals of the early bourgeoisie. tion, in Literature and Revolution, of the will thereby wipe out the movements of and racist injustices of capitalist imper­ Pipes solidarizes with Hippolyte Taine heights to which humanity will rise in a the exploited and oppressed for emanci­ ialism. To fight for a decent future, they and Edmund Burke-whose reactionary truly communist, classless society shows pation and social justice. Against such must learn from the lessons of the past, rantings against the French Revolution that Marxists "aimed at nothing less than reactionaries, Lenin wrote in "The Three particularly of the greatest victory for were inspired by aristocratic contempt reenacting the Sixth Day of Creation and Sources and Three Component Parts of the working class and human progress for "the mob." Pipes praises "the genius perfecting its flawed product." He ful­ Marxism" (March 1913): to date, the Bolshevik Revolution. And of Burke" for condemning the destruction minates against a Bolshevik decree sep­ "The enemies of democracy have, there­ the key lesson is the need for intransigent of "existing institutions," i.e., the deca­ arating church and state and denounces fore, always exerted all their efforts to Leninist-Trotskyist vanguard parties as dent French monarchy. another mandating "open admissions" to 'refute,' undermine and defame materi­ sections of a reforged Fourth Interna­ Pipes attacks the French philosophes education, recalling that this was also alism, and have advocated various forms tional. As we wrote in an earlier article of philosophical idealism, which always, for laying the ideological basis for Robes­ "advocated by some American radicals in one way or another, amounts to the (Spartacist No. 49-50, Winter 1993~94): pierre's terror. In fact, some of the most in the 1960s." defence or support of religion .... "In its accelerating slide into decadence, "Sexual license," separation of church "Just as man's knowledge reflects nature imperialism has not only succeeded in and state, open admissions? Richard (i.e., developing matter), which exists destroyillg the socialist gains of the independently of him, so man's social Russian Revolution, but ever more ag­ Pipes is not a scholar of history, but an knowledge (i.e., his various views and gressively assaults the democratic con­ ideologue for the agenda of the far right. doctrines-philosophical, religious, po­ quests of the French Revolution .... Abroad, U.S. imperialism does not much litical and so forth) reflects the economic Today, the Trotskyists stand not only as care whether its client states practice lib­ system of society." the true heirs and continuators of Bol­ shevism, bearing a program to gain pro­ eral democracy or authoritarian despo­ Enlightenment rationalism was the letarian state power and free humanity tism, so long as they remain "safe" for ideological expression of the struggle of from the miseries of racism, war, colo­ exploitation. Domestically, Pipes' "his­ the nascent, and then revolutionary, cap­ nial oppression and capitalist exploita­ torical" ravings fit right in with the reac­ italist class to destroy the feudal barriers tion, but also as the defenders of the rational and universalist values of the tionary onslaught against abortion rights to capitalist development. Similarly, Enlightenment and the gains achieved in and the drive to dismantle even the most Marxism-scientific socialism-is the centuries past by the bourgeoisie's vic­ minimal social welfare measures in the expression of the historic interests of the tory over feudalism."_ name of opposition to governmental "social engineering." It is a measure of the times that Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia, supposedly charged with safeguarding the Constitution and its mandate for separation of church and state, publicly vituperates against the Marxist Working-Class·Biweekly of the Spartacist League "worldly wise" who "will not have any­ thing to do with miracles" and. "do not o $10/22 issues of Workers Vanguard 0 New 0 Renewal believe in the resurrection of thy dead." (includes English-language Spartacist, Women and Revolution and Black History and the Class Struggle) Materialism VS. Obscurantism international rates: $25/22 issues-Airmail $10/22 issues-Seam ail Fevered attacks on the Enlightenment o $2/6 introductory issues of Workers Vanguard (includes English-language Spartacist) are not solely the domain of the far o $2/4 issues of Espartaco (en espanol) (includes Spanish-language Spartacist) right these days. British Labourite Robin Blick traces the "seeds of evil" to Enlight­ Name ______enment radical Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Address ______~ ______denouncing "Rousseau's disciples and Lenin's mentors, the' Jacobins" (see ______Apt. # Phone (_) ______"Robin . Blick: Menshevik Dementia," Monument outside Kremlin Wall City State Zip _____~ erected after Bolshevik Revolution Spartaeist No. 49-50, Winter 1993-94). 647 to honor previous generations of And the supposedly liberal leader Make checks payable/mall to: Spartaclst Publishing Co., Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 revolutionaries. of Czechoslovakia's "velvet" counter- 7 JUNE 1996 11 .8 the massacre! Army out of Chiapas!" Mexico ... ~f~;fdi .. We hailed the heroic Chiapas insurgents ~, NAFTA BeginS "with the red flag of the world prole­ (continued/rom page 1) ter tarian revolution," while pointing out the \Vith Slau9h of central importance of the working class the alleged Zapatistas Javier Elorriaga -with its organized social power­ and Sebastian Entzin, it was sending a forcefully entering the arena of struggle. clear message intended to intimidate all We said at the time: "It is clear that the those who want to fight to change the uprising in Chiapas can be a spark that misery, exploitation and racism of the animates the oppressed and extends to current world served up by capitalism. the heavy battalions of the working class, This is a message of state terror directed Spartacists generating a class battle with revolution­ especially to the organizations of the protest outside ary perspectives. The question of ques­ working class and against the youth. This Mexican consulate in tions is program and leadership" (Espar­ same state terror was brutally carried out taco No.5, Spring 1994). on May 23 against the teachers in Mexico New York City Because of its social composition, its City. The Spartacists say: Freedom now against bloody petty-bourgeois nationalist program and for Elorriaga, Entzin, and all the army repression in Chiapas, 1994. its method of guerrilla struggle-alien alleged Zapatistas! Freedom now for the to the organization and struggles of the SUTAUR eleven! Stop the repression! working class-the EZLN does not rep­ Workers here do not need a lot of resent (nor does it claim to represent) examples to demonstrate the havoc the revolutionary socialist leadership wreaked on their standard of living by Soviet Union and the imperialists' noisy, fundamental pillar holding up the rul­ that the proletariat urgently needs in the brutal economic offensive of capital triumphalist "death of communism" ing PRI regime in recent decades. This order to struggle successfully against and thl! imperialist plunder of NAFTA, campaign, pseudo-leftist groups in Latin was the legacy that General Lazaro capital. For the very same reason, neither nor to be shown how the misery of the America have completely embraced the Cardenas, with the help of the Stalinist can it win a military war against the countryside pushes millions of peasants old Menshevik and social-democratic Mexican Communist Party, bequeathed bourgeois state. For its own survival, the and indigenous peoples into desperation program of the "democratic revolution." to future bourgeois governments to keep Chiapas insurrection urgently requires The task now, they say, is not the struggle the working class in chains. the combative mobilization of detach­ to place the working class in power, but This corporatist pillar is rapidly frac­ ments of the urban proletariat in order to share power with the bourgeoisie and turing, and the most prominent split­ to check the repressive machinery of the 1~'~;Jf!!<·] to seek democratic "posts" in state insti­ although not the only one-is the faction capitalist state. No paper agreement will tutions. This policy has been recognized of the 21 "forista" unions, led by the be able to hold back the repressive forces Newspaper of the within the workers movement over the "neo-charro" bureaucracy headed by of the state and its dogs of war when Grupo Espartaquista de Mexico last century as reformism: not to fight Hernandez Juarez of the telephone work­ they go into action. The Mexican prole­ for the historical objectives of the work­ ers union and Elba Ester Gordillo of tariat must embody the old working­ ing class but to be content with crumbs the teachers union. These "neo-charros" class principle that "an injury to one is and death by starvation. They have from the table of the bourgeoisie. have long since sensed the crisis which an injury to all" and urgently mobilize known these things for a long time and In fact, the last period has seen a wave the plans of the IMF would cause for in solidarity with the indigenous uprising are fed up! As Lenin taught, the main of social discontent and popular anger the big bureaucratic confederations, in Chiapas! aim of a revolutionary Marxist party is throughout Latin America's principal cit­ whose enormous power was based on The fundamental point is that the only not to merely detail grievances and ies against the International Monetary their stranglehold over important sec­ realistic way forward for the struggles describe the difficulties and anxieties of Fund's plans. In Europe, the French tions of the unionized working clas8. of the impoverished peasants and indig­ the everyday life of the working class. workers strike, even with its traitorous Now these "neo-charros" seek with their enous peoples in a semicolonial country Its objective is to organize the vanguard leadership, taught their arrogant rulers a "independence" and more radical and like Mexico, marked by its dependence of the working class, through revolution­ lesson. In Mexico, there are protests and demagogic language to better betray on and economic and political oppres­ ary propaganda, to lead the proletarian mobilizations almost every day. This their own unions; they fight for a form sion by imperialist capital, is the Trot­ revolution to overthrow the state power past May Day, for example, witnessed a of "free unionism" more in accord with skyist program of permanent revolution. of the capitalist class-to lead a victo­ demonstration so huge that it took sev­ neo-liberal monetarist plans whi.ch seek This is a program for a revolution where rious socialist revolution that will organ­ eral hours to pour into and occupy the the destruction of all the social gains the industrial working class mobilizes ize the resources of society and produc­ Z6calo. That human tide epitomized the won by the working class through great its powerful social muscle and leads tive labor for the benefit of humanity spirit and will to fight on the part of struggles. a revolutionary alliance with the mil­ and not the enrichment of the capitalists. millions of workers who await the oppor- The volatile situation is demonstrated lions of oppressed in the countryside as by the May Day march and the mobili­ part of a socialist revolution through­ zations that have followed it, by the out the American continent. Only social­ brutal repression of the Mexico City ist revolution can offer a future and teachers, as well as by the dirty war point the way forward for the struggle waged by the army and paramilitary of the oppressed and exploited in the groups against peasants in Guerrero and countryside. the indigenous people of Chiapas. The In the present epoch, there is no powers-that-be rely on the absence of a "third road" of "democratic" revolution genuinely revolutionary party of the (whether labeled "anti-PRI" or what­ working class, which would give lead­ ever) which does not point to future frus­ ership and a socialist, working-class tration and a terrible defeat for the program to all the mobilized workers, masses. The Nicaraguan revolution is a the peasant masses and the indigenous case· in point. When the Sandinistas peoples who can no longer tolerate brought down the murderous Somoza the situation. But as recent events dem­ dictatorship in 1979, they refused­ onstrate, the working class continues to because of their petty-bourgeois pro­ be subordinated to the "charro" and gram-to take the road of expropri­ "neo-charro" bureaucracy as well as to atiolJ of the Nicaraguan bourgeoisie. the bourgeois politicians of the opposi­ Instead, they fought for a "mixed econ­ tion PRD (Party of the Democratic omy" which only meant years of hard­ Revolution). ship and misery for the masses. The bourgeoisie wrested power away from AP The Zapatista Front: Zapatista supporters march on International Carden ism with a Radical Mask them through a miserable electoral de­ Women's Day in Chiapas. Petty-bourgeois Zapatista feat which transformed the Sandinista movement seeks to be radical face of bourgeols­ This January, the EZLN (Zapatista guerrillas into the current servants and populist PRO of Cuauhtemoc Cardenas. National Liberation Army) issued its guardians of the lands and capital of "Fourth Declaration of the Lacandon Nicaraguan president Chamorro & Co. Forest," announcing its transformation This same perspective has brought all .....Dorantes/Sygma - j into a Zapatista National Liberation the guerrilla groups into profound crisis, From the combative strikes of Cana­ tunity to raise their heads in struggle. Front (FZLN). The declaration calls on which, like the Colombian M-19 or the nea, Sicartsa, Ford, Volkswagen, and The outbreak of an acute crisis in the "various forces and citizens to build a Salvadoran Farabundo Marti group, SUTAUR to the indigenous rebellion in union bureaucracy and its corporatist broad opposition front that unites the have ended up entering the same bour­ Chiapas, we' have seen in the last few control was particularly clear this past democratic will against the state-party geois state institutions against which years unceasing attempts-many of May Day when, for tqe second con­ system: the National Liberation Move­ they once took up arms. them heroic-by the oppressed to fight secutive year, the encrusted charro ment" (La 10rnada, 2 January). The an­ Now, as in 1988 with the emergence against the exploitation of the capitalist bureaucracy of the Labor Congress (the nouncement of its gradual transforma­ of the National Democratic Front (FDN) system and the calamities it generates. umbrella federation of pro-government tion from an armed group into a "civil of Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, writers and The burning question is why those defen­ unions) called off its embarrassing offi­ and peaceful organization" was hailed journalists of the old nationalist left, sive struggles of the working class in cial parade. It is unable now, as it by the main bourgeois parties (the PRI, along with a whole gamut of pseudo­ Mexico and the rest of the world have had done in the past, to manipulate the the right-wing PAN and the bourgeois­ socialist and pseudo-Trotskyist organi­ not been able to halt the bourgeoisie's working class and to force it to its populist PRD) with the expected reser­ zations which also bought the lie of repressive assaults and its economic knees before the bourgeois rulers. The vations and greeted with jubilation by, the "death of communism," have spilled offensive. The answer lies completely in corporatist trade unionism character­ almost the entire spectrum of leftist and untold amounts of ink to paint the the role played by the current political ized by its "centrales-carce/" ["confed­ pseudo-Marxist organizations that polit­ FZLN as a unique alternative-novel leadership-traitorous, opportunist and eration prison house," a popular descrip­ ically tail the PRD. and fresh, both organizationally and ide­ anti-proletarian-foisted on the l5acks of tion of the iron grip of the federation on In the early days of January 1994, ologically-that offers new hope in the working class. its constituent unions], and exemplified when the government threatened a the face of increasin'g misery and repres­ With the collapse of Stalinism, the by the pathetic old man Fidel Velazquez bloodbath against the uprising, the Spar­ sion by the PRI government. Special counterrevolutionary destruction of the at the helm of the CTM, represented a tacists were the first to demand "Stop mention here is merited by the magazine 12 WORKERS VANGUARD Left: February 1995 strike at RCA Thomson plant In Cludad Juarez. Maquiladora workers' combatlvlty Is fueled by poverty-level wages, miserable living conditions.

Ruben R. Ramirez Dunleavy/Maryknoll Viento del Sur (South Wind)-made up for the formation of the Convenci6n pie of Marxism and Leninism: the polit­ The Trotskyists of the Grupo Espar­ of a bunch of intellectuals (ex-Posadistas, Nacional Democnitica (CND), thus de­ ical independence of the working class taquista de Mexico (GEM) fight to edu­ ex-Mandelites, ex-Morenoites, etc.) frus­ ciding to set aside the strategy of armed and its revolutionary vanguard. cate the working class in the central trated and disillusioned by Cardenism. struggle and discouraging, or rather Now, as "companeros" of PRO found­ importance of the revolutionary party as Now, following the same petty-bourgeois warding off, new revolts that were ers Cardenas and Munos Ledo and as the sole weapon for victory over the impressionist method which led them already hatching in different parts of supporters of former PRIista L6pez bourgeoisie in the class struggle. That is to join the FDN in droves in 1988, the country." Any unprepared reader Obrador in the current internal fight for why we are committed as a Leninist they seek to give the PRO a more radical might think that the exalted Moreno­ the leadership of the PRO, these pseudo­ organization to exposing the currents face. ites of the POS-Z have been hardened Marxists put forward a call in their which abuse the name of Marxism by With its Fourth Declaration, as well supporters of the guerrilla struggle. Not newspaper saying: "The PRO and the capitulating to forces hostile to the pro­ as its previous calls for the formation of at all-this is only a new Moreno­ FZLN must struggle to transform the letariat. The present situation opens up the National Democratic Convention and ite trick to hide their own opportunist unions" (Militante, March/April 1996). big opportunities for the working class the National Liberation Movement, the appetites and their scandalous history of In other words, they call on a bourgeois to free itself from the ball and chain of EZLN has given the PRO a new pat on parliamentary cretinism and rotten party and a popular-frontist guerrilla the charro trade-union federations. The the back and impetus to its old plan to alliances. organization to do what is the job of recent fissures within the charro leader­ resurrect the National Liberation Move­ Far from raising the Marxist criti­ the working class alone. This is not ship can be an excellent opportunity, if ment (MLN) founded by General Lazaro cism of the method of guerrilla war­ an accidental political position, since the working class puts its trust in a pro­ Cardenas. The EZLN's disastrous and fare, as a petty-bourgeois method alien this group and the international current gram and revolutionary party determined fatal opposition to the political inde­ to the working class, the Morenoites to which it belongs (the Militant ten­ to take up the struggle. pendence of the working class is known of the POS-Z "discover" that it is the dency) have always acted as a tail The current glorification of "trade­ in the Marxist movement as the popular abandonment of guns-and not the within reformist parties like the British union struggle" is another danger which Zapatistas' nationalist petty-bourgeois Labour Party or the Spanish PSOE. Just Marxists must combat in order to build program-which has led the EZLN to like newborn kangaroos, these fake­ a bridge from defensive economic strug­ capitulate to the bourgeoisie and its state. Trotskyists have always sought to lodge gles to a political struggle for working­ With this they try to hide their own themselves within the pouch of other class power. The promotion of "revo­ political capitulation to the Cardenista reformist parties, enemies of the work­ lutionary syndicalism" as a substitute popular front, exemplified by their innu­ ing class. for building a Leninist party offers only merable appeals to Cuauhtemoc Carde­ In a really dirty and blatant act of a dead end to the workers. This was nas to struggle against the foreign debt intellectual plagiarism and misrepresen­ the case with the terrible defeat inflicted or to lead mobilizations. Now, we see tation, in the Militante of March-April on the combative SUTAUR workers, the POS-Z Morenoites distributing a 1996, these pseudo-Marxists "killed" whose MPI political leadership displays ridiculous and cowardly flyer on May whole paragraphs of one of Trotsky's a false and cheap anti-electoral "radical­ Day calling for the workers to cover classic writings on the trade unions in ism," while in practice always opposing their ears (!) when Cuauhtemoc Carde­ order to justify their politics of betrayal political combat against the PRO. The nas got up to speak. They say: "The and capitulation, which are in total oppo­ Grupo Espartaquista de Mexico and POS-Z calls on the workers, in a peace­ sition to the basic Trotskyist and Leninist the Juventud Espartaquista (Spartacist ful and orderly way, to reject Cardenas' conception of the political independence Youth) are committed to forging the speech in the Z6calo---simply do not lis­ of the revolutionary party and the work­ nucleus of a Leninist party which fights ten to him and leave the meeting, or ing class. for international socialist revolution. _ don't applaud." What a show of petty­ bourgeois cowardice! Wall Street Journal We see the height of their opportunism IMF austerity, 1994 NAFTA treaty in the same issue of their paper, where mean plummeting wages for Mexican International Communist League workers. despite their belief that the FZLN adapts to a "strategy of a government for (Fourth Internationalist) reforming the regime" and a bloc where Correspondence for: Address to: front. This policy was combated by "workers and their exploiters are able to Spartacl8t League 01 AU8tralia ...... Spartacist League, GPO Box 3473 Lenin's Bolshevik Party in 1917 and by unite," they say: "Regarding the FZLN, Sydney, NSW, 2001. Australia Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky. The 'the POS-Z, without entering into it, will Spartaclat League/Britain...... Spartacist Publications, PO Box 1041 popular front seeks to preserve the basic seek accord with this front on those London NW5 3EU, England structures of the bourgeois state (police, issues where agreement exists, princi­ Trotakyl8t League 01 Canada/ army, prisons, courts, etc.) in the face of Ligue trotSkY8te du Canada ...... Trotskyist League, Box 7198, Station A pally in those actions which favor the Toronto, Ontario, M5W 1X8, Canada growing workers mobilizations and the working class" (El Socialista, No. 213). ensuing crisis of the bourgeois regime Yet, while sitting in cafes criticizing the Spartaklat-Arbeltarpartel Deutschlanda ...... SpAD, Posttach 5 55 10127 Berlin, Germany (the "abandonment" of its nationalist EZLN for their call to join the Zapatista principles, as the PRO currently de­ Front (but not for its popular-frontist Llgue trotakyate de France ...... , . Le Bolchevik, BP 135-10 75463 Paris Cedex 10, France scribes it). This bourgeois policy of class program), they still want to hold onto collaboration led directly to the Pinochet their invitation to appear in the next Spartaclat Group India/Lanka ...... write to Spartacist, New York military dictatorship in 1973 in Chile photo-op with EZLN spokesman Sub­ Dublin Spartacl8t Group ...... PO Box 2944, Dublin 1 and, further back in history, was to blame commandante Marcos. This has nothing Republic of Ireland for the rise of Franco in Spain in 1936 to do with the principle of Trotsky's Lega trotaklata d'italia ...... Walter Fidacaro and the bloody defeat of the Chinese rev­ Fourth International: to always speak the C.P. 1591, 20101 Milano, Italy olution in 1927 at the hands of the truth, no matter how bitter, and to call Sparlaclat Group Japan ...... Spartacist Group Japan butcher Chiang Kai-shek. things by their name. PO Box 49. Akabane Yubinkyoku Kita-ku, Tokyo 115, Japan POS-Z: Opportunists and Militant Group: Grupo Eapartaqulsta de Mexico ...... P. Linares, Apdo. Postal 453 Coffee House Guerrillas "Marxist" Kangaroos 06002 Mexico 1, D. E, Mexico Spartakuaowaka Grupa Polski ...... Platform a Spartakusowc6w In the late January issue (No. 213) of While the Morenoites of the POS-Z Skrytka Pocztowa 148 El Socialista, the cynical opportunists of juggle "orthodox" Marxist language in 02-588 Warszawa 48, Poland the Partido Obrero Socialista (POS-Z­ an attempt to justify their capitulation to Spartaclat League/U.S ...... Spartacist League, Box 1377 GPO Zapatista Socialist Workers Party) com­ the radical face of the Cardenista popular New York, NY 10116, USA plain of what they call "the EZLN front, the pseudo-Marxists of the Mili­ Spartaclat/Moacow wri.te to Le Bolchevik, Paris capitulation." Insisting that the EZLN's tant group (known for selling little PRO decision to abandon armed struggle is flags at demonstrations) simply and ------Fraternal ------the reason for this capitulation, they plainly entered the bourgeois PRO. Their Luta Metalurglca/ say: "What must be remembered is crude justification, typical of opportun­ Llga Quarta-Internaclonallata do Braan Av. Lucas Evangelista no. 418 5/306 that the EZLN leadership was tempted ists, was that "we must be where the CEP 27295-320 in this direction only a few months masses are." The Militant group over and Volta Redonda, RJ, Brazil after its revolt began, when it called over again tramples on the basic princi- 7 JUNE 1996 13 tions like the confidentiality of juvenile Recently in the Detroit suburbs, a mother Bay Area ... court proceedings. The thrust of the new and father were convicted of criminal laws is to get more juveniles into the misdemeanor charges for "failing to con­ (continued from page 16) adult criminal justice system, where they trol" their 16-year-old son (New York parent who has since the incident moved will presumably serve longer sentences Times, 10 May). At the same time, there in with relatives elsewhere in the San under more punitive conditions." has been an escalating drive to impose Francisco Bay Area. Yet the state has In the process, legal assumptions indiscriminate curfews on teens around refused to let the boy return to his mother, about -Children going back centuries are the country. In a campaign stop in New and is instead keeping him in Juvenile being thrown out the window. Under Orleans last week, Clinton hailed a New Hall "until suitable group housing can English common law, children under Orleans curfew which forces teenagers be found." seven could not be charged with com­ to be off the streets by g p.m. on school The treatment of Toliver's son con­ mitting a crime; under a "presumption nights and by 9 p.m. during the swelter­ trasts sharply with a similar case in San of infancy," children from 7 to 14 were ing summer. This vindictive ruling class Francisco 25 years ago known as the deemed too young to know right from seems intent on literally turning homes wrong. The turn of the century in the into prisons and kids and parents into "crucifixion murder." When two broth­ . I ers, seven and ten years old, in the U.S. saw the introduction of juvenile pnsoners. wealthy white neighborhood of Pacific courts, which were supposed to be civil The racist assault on youth goes hand Heights confessed to the grisly killing rather than criminal in nature and whose in hand with the speedup on death row. of a 20-month-old child in 1971, they role was conceived as prescribing treat­ Some states, like Arkansas-where, as ment rather than meting out punishment. were never charged with a crime. governor, Bill Clinton rushed home dur­ Ignacio Bermudez, with older son, Instead, they were placed in foster care Now the director of Virginia's Depart­ ing the 1992 election campaign to over­ reached out to family of black slx­ and given therapy, while a gag order was ment of Juvenile Justice baldly declares, see the execution of a brain-damaged year-old Jailed for beating his infant issued to protect the brothers' privacy "The thinking behind the juvenile court, black man with a mental age of 12-have son, defying racist D.A. vendetta. and their futures. But today in the largely that everything be done in the best inter­ black teenagers on death row. In some poor and heavily minority city of Rich­ est of the child, is from a bygone era." states it is legal to execute children as crime" and its attacks on blacks and mond, the D.A., the cops and the media This reactionary, racist offensive­ young as ten; others have no limit. The other minorities. are whipping up a racist frenzy against carried out under the cruelly hypocritical youngest person on record to be executed From the start, the local powers-that-be a troubled little black kid with a learning rubric of "family values"-is bipartisan was a l3-year-old black youth in South have sought to exploit the Richmond trag­ disability. to the core. One of Clinton's campaign Carolina during the Jim Crow period of edy to foster divisions between blacks promises is to try children as adults. legal segregation-the racist death pen­ and Latinos. They have been hampered Rotten Schools, No Jobs, Meanwhile, in the California state alty is indeed legal lynching. The racist by the courageous and decent response More Prisons assembly, there are three separate bills equation "black equals criminal" used to of the anguished father of the victim, in the works to greatly expand the num­ refer to the overwhelming bulk of black Mexican immigrant worker Ignacio A decaying capitalist economy has left ber of youth who can be prosecuted as teenagers, who got out of lousy schools· Bermudez Sr. "I don't want to see any­ Richmond with only crumbling rem­ adults. Already so many kids are being and had no prospects for a job; now it's thing happen to that child because he nants of the shipbuilding and related also has a mother and she would sutler industries which drew blacks from the very deeply as we are suffering," he said South during and after World War II. in his first public statement after the inci­ Surrounded by the hostile, mostly white dent. Outside the courtroom, both blacks commuter suburbs of Contra Costa and Latinos have protested the decision County, Richmond has seen resources to prosecute the boy, while Bermudez stripped away over the years. In 1991, and Lisa Toliver have publicly embraced. the schools were taken over by the state, which imposed some $30 million in cuts. Yet at a May 2 rally in support of the The county D.A. boasts of bringing more kid and the Bermudez family, Charles people to trial per capita than any other Muhammed, president of the Iron Trian­ county in the state, zealously applying gle Neighborhood Council and a Nation California's "three strikes and you're of Islam minister, called on the police out" law to send minority defendants to investigate the 18-year-old Bermudez daughter, who was babysitting away for 25 years to life for the pettiest at the time (and was briefly out of the room of charges, in one case for shoplifting $37 worth of merchandise from Mont­ when the baby was injured)! The NOI gomery Ward. Deputy D.A. Douglas seeks to aid the capitalists' attempts to split working people along racial lines Pipes headed "a special unit that sought reparations from parents whose children by driving a wedge between Richmond's black and Latino residents. This flows were locked away as wards of juveni Ie directly from the NO!'s reactionary doc­ hall" and that hounded "hard-luck cases, MinorIty youth are being crlmlnallzed by a society that offers them no including a blind woman barely eking education, no Jobs, no future. trine of racial separatism, in which they parasitically feed off of the segregation out a living on disability" (Express, 3 of blacks on the bottom of American March 1995). put away that the California Youth been expanded to start at age six! How society. The treatment of young kids as "har­ Authority's prison system is overflow­ long before we see black grade-schoolers dened criminals" is part of a national ing. In fact, California has the highest on death row? It is precisely integrated class struggle trend described in the New York Times juvenile incarceration rate in the country. that the ruling class fears, as demonstra­ (12 May): "In the most drastic changes Accompanying this is a vicious ven­ "War on Crime" Targets ted by their alarm over the multiracial to the juvenile justice system since the detta against parents whose children fall Entire Working Class 1992 upheaval in L.A. over the acquit­ founding of the first family court a cen­ afoul of the cops arid courts. Last year, tal of the racist cops who beat Rodney tury ago, almost all 50 states have over­ there was the notorious case in South The criminalization of youth nation­ King. The campaign for the racist, anti­ hauled their laws in the past two years, Carolina in which a vindictive judge ally is an extension of the ruling-class immigrant Prop. 187 two years later allowing more youths to be tried as forced a mother to be chained to her drive to strengthen the repressive sought to pit blacks against Latinos and adults and scrapping longtime protec- daughter around the clock for 30 days. machinery of the state, carried out under Asians. But as we warned at the time. the cover of the "war on crime" and "war "Immigrant-bashing and anti-black rac­ on drugs." In fact, as we have said from ism go hand in hand" (WV No. 608, the outset, and as is now widely acknow­ 14 October 1994). Prop. 187 laid the ledged, the "war on drugs" deliberately basis for the racist assault on affirma­ targets minorities. A particularly blatant tive action currently under way in Cali­ Contents Include: example of this is that the penalty for fornia-both have been spearheaded by - What We Stand For possession of crack cocaine is equal to Governor Pete Wilson. Labor Black League that for possession of 100 times that The attacks on blacks and Latinos take for Social Defense amount of the drug in the powdered form place in the context of the decay of cap­ - Attack on Blacks, preferred by white yuppies-evidence, italism and the deindustrialization of Immigrants, Women as well, of how the bourgeoisie seeks to America. With no jobs to offer for black Defeat Racist Assault split the population along racial lines. In youth, the bourgeoisie no longer bothers on Affirmative Action! California, today accelerated by the with education and health care for the -International Outcry Wins three-strikes laws, the anti-drug witch­ lowest layers of the working class. Stay of Execution hunt has put nearly four in ten black men Instead of schools and hospitals, they Battle for Mumla's in their 20s in jail, on probation or on are building prisons where the minimum Freedom parole. Now there are moves in Sacra­ wage is 30 cents per hour. All across - Racist Backlash Against mento to abolish unanimous verdicts in California-as across the nation-urban O.J. Simpson Acquittal jury trials. The Department of Correc­ hospitals are closing or suffering drastic - Farrakhan's Reactionary tions now projects that more than one cutbacks in cruel disregard for the med­ Dead End out of every 150 citizens will be jailed ical care of the poor and minority Million Man March within a decade-prison building is popUlation. Appeases Racist ExplOiters booming. For the racist exploiters, there's not -A Tribute Conrad Lynn, 1908-1995 America's racist rulers are pushing for much left to do except put more and more cops and prisons, and for more more blacks in prison, at increasingly repressive legislation, in order to but- , lower ages, and throwaway the key. We $1 (48 pages) tress the state machinery to intimidate need an integrated reVOlutionary workers Black History is sent and crush any resistance by the whole party that can sweep away the whole rot­ to all Workers Vanguard working class, whose living standards ten edifice of capitalism and provide subscribers. are falling while profit margins rise. It decent jobs, health care and education Order from: Spartacist Publishing Co., Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 is in the vital interests of the integrated for all. Black liberation through socialist labor movement to fight the "war on revolution! _

14 WORKERS VANGUARD Jamal ••• (continued from page 16) Victory to Bay Area· Janitors Strike! actions. Last month, Fraternal Order of Police (EO.P.) fUhrer Richard Costello SAN FRANCISCO, June 3-Service Employees Interna­ vituperated against the Police Advisory tional Union (SEIU) Local 1877 (Justice for Janitors), rep­ Commission-a powerless "watchdog" resenting over 5,000 janitors in four counties, today began body appointed by the mayor-when it a "rolling strike" against contractors that service many com­ gently slapped eight cops on the wrist panies in the Bay Area, including over 75 percent of Silicon with ten-day suspensions. The cops were Valley. The union voted two days ago to strike the 25 firms, implicated in the 1994 beating death but are only targeting a handful of worksites at a time. of Hispanic tow-truck driver Moises These heavily immigrant, largely Latino workers are strik­ Dejesus and had earlier been exonerated ing to bring their wages up to the poverty level. They currently by police brass. Echoing Costello's tirade start at $6.25 an hour and are demanding an increase to were District Attorney Lynne "Madame $7.28 over four years. They are also demanding a master Death" Abraham (the arraigning judge contract for all contractors (instead of the current three) and in Jamal's 1982 frame-up) and Mayor family medical coverage. Mostly part-time, temporary work­ Ed Rendell (the D.A. in 1982), who each ers, the janitors are a combative, multiracial workforce that held news conferences to rail at the has fought hard to win union rights against tough odds in commission. Los Angeles and the Silicon Valley. Most Silicon Valley It infuriates the EO.P. and city offi­ companies are fabulously wealthy as sales, profits and stock cials that even under the threat of exe­ prices in America's high-tech homeland soar. Hewlett­ WVPhoto cution, Mumia has continued to speak Packard's CEO makes more than the combined salaries of SEIU janitors rally in Oakland, May 30. out against racism and repression, the 150 union janitors who clean his headquarters! including through his syndicated hews­ Victory depends on the organized solidarity of the other onto Kaiser health care workers in Local 250. What's needed paper column and his powerful book of unions. To win requires picket lines that nobody and nothing is united struggle linking black, Latino and immigrant work­ prison writings, Live from Death Row, crosses! No deliveries, no mail, no UPS or FedEx packages, ers in a fight for decent jobs and free health care for all! which is now out also in paperback. As no stationary engineers, no garbage pickup! Instead oflimited Fighting labor solidarity can not only deal a stinging defeat shown by the worldwide protests for "rolling strikes," janitors -should all go out together, including to the contractors and their rich clients, but also lay the Mumia last summer, for millions of Local 87 in San Francisco whose contract expires next month! basis for integrated class struggle to smash the capitalists' workers and youth his case has become Meanwhile, the pro-Democratic Party SEIU misleaders bipartisan racist offensive, including divide-and-conquer a rallying cry against the racist American are trying to force a contract with a wage freeze and layoffs schemes like Prop. 187. Victory to the janitors strike! injustice system-and a symbol of what the barbaric death penalty is all about. Systematic Cop Coercion who had threatened me earlier were in from the scene. William Singletary tes­ ton crowed about having put 44,000 plain view, standing in the rear of the tified at Jamal's post-conviction relief more cops on the streets since his 1992 Veronica Jones was a 21-year-old courtroom. When asked by Jamal's attor­ ney to confirm what I had first told the (PCRA) hearing last summer that the election and screamed for an automatic mother of three young children at the police-that I saw two males run from shooter fled the scene and that Jamal was death sentence for anyone accused of time she was threatened by the two detec­ the scene after the firing stopped-I not the shooter. According to Singletary, killing a cop. Yet various liberals and tives. At the 1982 trial, she testified that steadfastly denied it for fear that I would police destroyed his statement at the time reformists have appealed to Clinton's the prosecution's "star witness," Cynthia be punished for helping the defense." and forced him to sign a false one. The Attorney General, Janet Reno-who White, had been offered a deal by the After changing her testimony, Jones jury at Mumia's 1982 "trial" never heard conspired with Clinton to kill 86 people cops to say that Jamal was the shooter. was released on bail and ultimately giv­ Singletary's testimony. in the attack on the Branch Davidians Like Jones, White was working the street en probation. Jamal's defense attorneys Another eyewitness, cab driver Robert near Waco, Texas in 1993-to intercede as a prostitute on the night of the shoot- learned nothing of the jailhouse intimi- Chobert, testified last summer that at the to assure "justice" for Mumia. original trial, after receiving a promise Mumia and his lawyers continue to from the prosecution to help him rein­ pull every possible legal lever to win his state his suspended driver's license, he freedom. But as we wrote in the Partisan retracted his statement that he saw the Defense Committee pamphlet, "The shooter run away. Witness Dessie High­ Frame-Up of Mumia Abu-Jamal" (see tower testified at the PCRA hearing that WV No. 625, 30 June 1995): "From the cops subjected him to a grueling five­ time the Partisan Defense Committee hour interrogation and a "lie detector" took up Jamal's case more than eight test because he insisted that he had heard years ago, we have emphasized that the shots and then had seen a black male fight to save him cannot rely on the cap­ run from the scene. Deborah Kordansky italist courts but rather must look to the similarly told police at the scene that she mobilization of the masses, centrally the saw a man running after hearing shots­ social power of the labor movement." the defense could not call her to the stand Free Mumia Abu-Jama\! Abolish the rac­ in 1982 because the cops and prosecu­ ist death penalty! tion withheld her address. The police/prosecution collusion in * * * framing up Mumia points to how the cap­ Funds are urgently -needed! The italist state-the cops, courts, prisons­ defense investigation continues. Tax­ is not some neutral arbiter but an appa­ deductible contributions for Jamal's ratus for repressing minorities and defense should be made payable to the working people. In this election year, the Bill of Rights Foundation, earmarked Shadd/Philadelphia Inquirer contending capitalist parties-Clinton's "Mumia Abu-Jamal Legal Defense," and Racist Philly cops besiege hospital workers Local 1199C offices, denouncing Democrats and Dole/Gingrich's Repub­ sent to the Committee to Save Mumia union support for Mumla Abu-Jamal, July 1995. licans-are seeking to outdo each other Abu-Jamal, 163 Amsterdam Avenue, No. in escalating racist repression, from hir­ 115, New York, NY 10023-5001. For ing. The cops promised to let White dation of this witness until now. At the ing more cops to building ever more information on the campaign to free "work the area" without police harass­ May 22 press conference, Mumia's lead prisons to accelerating and widening the Jamal, contact the PDC at P.O. Box 99, ment if she would testify that Mumia counsel, Len Weinglass, noted: "It was use of the death penalty. Addressing a Canal Street Station, New York, NY shot Faulkner. At the trial, White was the prosecution's theory in the case that national EO.P. gathering recently, Clin- 10013, (212) 406-4252 .• the only witness to claim that she saw only Mumia and his brother were present this, while Jones' testimony about the when Officer Faulkner was shot." This cop coercion was stopped by Judge Sabo. "theory" of the prosecution was a tissue In her recent statement, Veronica Jones of lies. SPARTACIST LEAGUE/U.S. LOCAL DIRECTORY describes how the cops coerced her: Jones' testimony corroborates the National Office: Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 (212) 732-7860 assertion made by Jamal and his defense "Approximately one week before I tes­ Atlanta Eugene Oakland tified, I was visited in jail by two white team that the 1982 trial was a political frame-up engineered by the Philly cops Box 397 Box 3392 Box 29497 plainclothes detectives. I was initially Decatur, GA 30031 Eugene, OR 97403 Oakland, CA 94604 shocked at seeiQg them since the jailers in collusion with the D.A. 's office. As (404) 521-9338 (510) 839-0851 had told me my lawyer was visiting. The Mumia's co-counsel, Rachel Wolken­ detectives began by speaking, not of the stein, stated: "The trial court sought to Boston Los Angeles San Francisco facts of my case, but of the Jamal case. Box 29574, Los Feliz Sta. Box 390840, Central Sta. Box 77494 They told me that if I would testify dismiss the evidence of widespread Los Angeles, CA 90029 Cambridge, MA 02139 San Francisco, CA 94107 against Jamal and identify Jamal as the police misconduct as implausible, but (213) 380-8239 shooter, I wouldn't have to worry about recent revelations demonstrate that such (617) 666-9453 (415) 777-9367 my pending felony charges. I repeatedly misconduct is pervasive in the Philadel­ told the detectives that I didn't see the Chicago New York Washington, D.C. shooting, but only heard the shots and phia Police Department. Jamal's trial Box 6441, Main PO Box 3381, Church St. Sta. Box 75073 then saw two men run away. But this was riddled with police and prosecutor­ Chicago, IL 60680 New York, NY 10008 Washington, D.C. 20013 didn't satisfy them. The detectives ial misconduct: withholding of evidence (312) 454-4930 (212) 267-1025 (202) 872-8240 threatened me by reminding me that I and the existence of exonerating wit­ faced a long prison sentence-15 years nesses from the defense, along with on gun charges-all the while persisting that I testify to their version of events. fabrication of evidence, coercion and TROTSKYIST LEAIUE OF CAIADA/LlIUE TROTSKYSTE DU CAIADA intimidation of witnesses." Frightened, I told them I wanted my law­ Toronto Montreal Vancouver yer present. When they finally left I knew The new testimony adds even more that if I did anything to help the Jamal - Box 7198, Station A c.P. Las Atriums Box 2717, Main P.O. defense I would face years in prison. weight to the accounts of several other Toronto, ON M5W 1X8 B.P.32066 Vancouver, BC V68 3X2 "It was only a matter of a few days that witnesses who originally told the police (416) 593-4138 Montreal, QC H2L 4V5 (604) 687-0353 I was brought to court .... Both detectives that they had seen a man or men run 7 JUNE 1996 15 ------,------~-~~~------WfJlIllEIiS """'111)

Freedom Now for Mumia!

Attorneys for death row political pris­ mony at the trial seriously undermined oner Mumia Abu-Jamal announced at a Jamal's defense. press conference in Philadelphia on May On the basis of this new evidence of 22 that a key witness at Jamal's 1982 police coercion, Jamal's defense team has trial for the murder of policeman Daniel applied to the Pennsylvania Supreme Faulkner has come forward with power­ Court to have his case remanded to the ful new evidence of Mumia's innocence. Court of Common Pleas to take additional The witness, Veronica Jones, has sub­ testimony. Last summer, Jamal's petition mitted a statement revealing that days for a new trial was refused by Judge before she took the stand in 1982, she Albert Sabo-the same "hanging judge" was threatened and coerced into lying who oversaw Jamal's 1982 frame-up con­ for the prosecution at the trial. Jones was viction. This February, Mumia's attor­ in jail at the time, facing 15 years for neys filed an appeal of this decision felony armed robbery charges, when two before the state Supreme Court. Over Philadelphia detectives came to her and three months later, state prosecutors filed got her to repudiate her original true a 192-page brief in response to the appeal. statement to police that she saw two men For 14 years, Mumia Abu-Jamal has flee the scene immediately after the battled against a frame-up conviction for as an award-winning journalist and cou­ the Philadelphia Police Department. Cop shooting. Mumia could not have been a killing he did not commit. The forces rageous spokesman for the oppressed frame-ups, shakedowns and brutalization one of these men, because he was sitting, of racist "law and order" targeted Jamal and his subsequent support for the of blacks and Hispanics have been so bleeding from a wound inflicted by from the time he emerged as a 15-year­ MOVE organization. The cops and their rampant for decades that in 1979 the U.S. Faulkner's gun, when police arrived at old spokesman for the Philadelphia allies seized on the shooting of Faulkner Justice Department was compelled to file the scene. Veronica Jones' false testi- Black Panthers in 1969, to his later work in December 1981 to railroad Jamal to suit against the police and city adminis­ death row. trations-the first action of this kind ~ Less than four years later, in May by the federal government. Now, a series iii 1985, the Philly cops, FBI and Bureau of investigations over the past year has 3 (f) of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms car­ uncovered a widespread practice of in­ :0 ~ ried out the horrendous bombing which timidating witnesses and beating, rob­ OJ 0- ro killed eleven MOVE people, including bing and framing up "suspects." And as i5 :0- five children, and burned an entire black the fascist ravings of former L.A. detec­ iii" neighborhood to the ground. The MOVE tive Mark Fuhrman during the 0.1. .n:J c massacre is once again under the spot­ Simpson trial last year showed, this is m light as the trial continues in the civil the case throughout the whole capitalist ~ Ramona Africa suits brought by Ramona Africa, the only "justice" system. Most notorious in Phil­ outside adult to survive the bombing of the adelphia is the 39th police district, where Philadelphia MOVE home, and two others against revelations of such practices have already courthouse where civil suit is being some of the city officials responsible for resulted in the reversal of 116 drug con­ tried against city this atrocity. victions and the imprisonment of five officials who The latest evidence of the cop/prose­ cops-and that's only the tip of the helped carry out cution conspiracy that framed up Mumia iceberg. 1985 MOVE emerges against a backdrop of a burgeon­ The Philly cops have repeatedly dis­ massacre. ing police corruption and brutality scan­ played their bonapartist appetite to slip dal demonstrating that what was done to even the most nominal restraints on their Jamal is standard operating procedure for continued on paRe 15

Bay Area D.A. Jails Six-Year-Old Child Racist Rulers' War on Black Youth OAKLAND-In a grotesque twist to for stealing a Big Wheels tricycle. As Burris pointed out, "This is a boy demand that all criminal charges the ever increasing campaign to crim­ The Richmond boy, from the impov­ who is still nested in the world of car­ against these three kids be dropped inalize black youth, prosecutors in erished black and Hispanic "Iron Tri­ toons and X-men .... Reality is not his now! Richmond, California have charged a angle" neighborhood, is~reportedly the strong suit" (San Francisco Chronicle, The local bourgeois press has joined 6-year-old child with attempted mur­ youngest person in the country to ever 9 May). In court, the child sat doodling in the hysteria by digging up old, un­ der. The child was arrested for the near­ be charged with attempted murder. In on paper, without a clue as to what was proven accusations against members of fatal beating of a 5-week-old baby, justifying this outrageous charge, Dep­ going on around him. No child this age the boy's family in order to paint his Ignacio Bermudez Jr., when the boy uty D.A. Harold Jewett called the small is capable of grasping life and death. short life as a hopeless picture of crime and two eight-year-old companions child "a very angry young man." When Yet requests that he be placed in a ther­ and violence. The big business media entered a neighbor's home to steal a the boy's attorney, John Burris, apeutic setting were summarily denied. engages in racist demonization of res- tricycle. If the Contra Costa County requested that he be placed in the cus­ Instead he has been kept "in a cell-like . idents of America's ghettos and barrios district attorney has his way, this ter­ tody of Child Protective Services, room where the floor is uncarpeted con­ in order to obscure the reality that the rible tragedy will be augmented by the Jewett ranted that the six-year-old was crete," in a locked ward with "metal nightmarish social conditions in the crime of putting the kindergarten kid "dangerous" and a "threat to the pub­ walls and a caged recreation area" inner cities are the product of capitalist away for up to eleven years in the juve­ lic." The judge agreed to jail the kin­ (Contra Costa Times, 12 May). The society in decay. The young child's nile criminal "justice" system, while dergartner in Juvenile Hall (Oakland iron fist of capitalist injustice is intent mother, Lisa Toliver, is a working single his two companions face up to six years Tribune, 27 April). on teaching ghetto youth a lesson. We continued on paRe 14

16 7 JUNE 1996