WfJRNERI IIIIN(JIJIIR' 25¢ No. 221 :~~~ X-523 15 December 1978 For Workers Revolution In Iran! • ownwi e a I• on'l 60W to omeinil
DECE M BER U~A million Iranians streamed into the streets of Teheran on December 10 and II in a mammoth displav of opposition to the bloody dictatorship of Renl Shah Pahlavi. Two days earlier thc regime had reluctantly abandoned its attempt to ban all demonstrations in the capital during the Shi'ite Muslim holy month of M uhar ram. Elsewhere in Iran, however, troops clashed with demonstrators, and a number of protesters were killed in Isla\nn. Opposition kaders had turned Mu hdrr~tm and especially the holiday of \shura (the II th) into a test of strength \\'itr: ttll' ,hah -rhc liftln~ (If the O~;:I(i;l~-.:i~\tiC!11 hJIl in l~hC'~'~;,l \\d d. "h:!rr :-;,,'[h:ick to rhe mihtary govern.... l"'.'. i~ :-: (j~\".i~'1n p /:' \/h.~l:. \\ !-:lL h h~t" ~ln:~,l.;.:c~sstul\~, ~\1~_ \L.~rnp .'!na~~,l\C ft.' f11 r fl'lI to ',Hll tilL" dnll- "(',.:, .<.\ " tint ha, f"l)Cked Iran for r~'\.'r~ thl:r!.l :". \ t1c nc\.t fc\\,' \\cck' \ ,,\cll "',_'''.' tiL' Cltd I..\f t!li: sh(-d"l~S 25-
\ l';l r rel,l:!1. Setboun/S!Da Muharram is it commemoration of Off your knees, for workers revolution. Anti-shah demonstrators pray during mullah-led demonstration in Teheran. the death of HLhsein (the legitimate successor of Muhammed according to shah. Despite sporadic street demon the Shi'itesl during the 7th century ci\il shah', troops ran to nearly a thousand had abandoned themselves to religious strations, the economically strategic oil \\ars \\hich di\lded Islam into the two hysteria. performing the traditional self by December 4. workers had been forced to end their great camps of Shia and Sunni. The On December X the government gave flagellation. The anti-shah movement is strike. But the military government's linkage of this period of ritual mourning. not some spontaneous outburst which in. The demonstrations had not ceased authority was badly damaged by a which includes acts of self-flagellation. just happens to have religious spokes and the city remained shut down by a renewal of protests sparked by soldiers to the drive against the shah is another men: rather, Khomeini relies on the general strike. Striking bank clerks and intruding into a - religious shrine in indication of the Islamic fundamental government workers had been joined by organizational network provided by the thollsands of preachers subsidi7ed by Mashhad. After pursuing demonstra ism which dominates the current wave the oil workers who thus deprived the tors into the building, the troops opened' ofdemop~tratinnsagaimt the shah. For regime of \itally needed revenue. The le\ ie, on the bazaar's merchants. Khomeini continues to press his call fire, killing and wounding several the past year Muslim preachers (mul shah not only allowed the mass marches persons. Three ayatollahs then issued a lahs) headed by Ayatollah (religiolls to take place but renounced any attempt for the replacement of the Pahlavi monarchy by an "Islamic republic" from call for' a national general strike on chief) Khomeini have constituted the to force the oil strikers back to work. November 26 because, "The holy shrine political leadership of the opposition Karim Sanjabi, leader of the bourgeois exile in France. The bourgeois liberal National Front, the mullahs' junior has been damaged and subjected to movement. liberal National Front. had already been sacrilege and its holy cOUityard made released from jail two days earlier. partner, has reiterated its refusal to join The streets ofTeheran. bedecked with any coalition government with the shah. the scene of shooting" (UPI dispatch, funereal black flags and plunged into The two mass marches provided November 25). As many as a million dramatic evidence of the organizational As a result his abdication is now widely darkness as a result of a power workers' seen as the only alternative to bloody people reportedly turned Qut in strike. witnessed the chilling spectacle of control of the religious hierarchy. On Mashhad to heed the ayatollahs' call. the 10th. contingents reportedly sat chaos. The bourgeois press is filled with protesters clad in ceremonial white speculation about possible "transitional By the end of November it was clear robes and chanting "allah akbar" ("god down, stood up, stopped and started at that the working-class strike wave had the direction of the parade marshals. governments." a regency or rule by a is great") being mowed down by military junta. been only temporarily slowed, not machine guns. Equally grotesque was the Nearly all of the women participants crushed. Strikes by bank and govern shah's claim on December 2, thefirstday wore the chador, the head-to-foot black Breakdown of Military Rule ment employees alternate with work cloak/veil prescribed by Islam. On the of protests. that several hours of this In mid-November it seemed for a slowdowns. The battered Iranian econ slaughter had produced only seven following day the marchers. once again omy now suffers from a currency numbering a million or more. were less moment as if the turn to direct rule by deaths. The actual casualties from the the general staff might save the butcher continued on pafie fO demonstrators' suicidal advances on the well drilled. But this was because some tiftlA~4 .',: "''''''''
Teng's China Why a Spartacist Appeals to Revolutionary League Imperialist Constituent Gets Assembly? SWP's Goat Bankers
6: ~- ...._- - Election of Bob Mandel Confirmed ILWU Ranks Stop Bureaucrats' Dirty Tricks OAKLAND, December 7~An attempt memhershi['1 at the follo\\ing local Local 6 leadership has seen its authority to oust Militant Caucus leader Bob meeting. \vith every Local 6 \\ orker at severely eroded since a bitter defeat in Mandel from the General Executiw K:\ C signing a statement opposing the the 1976 contract strike. The failure of Board of Local 6 of the International censure and supporting the militant Local 6 president Keith Eickman to Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's tactics used in the strike. honor all Teamster picket lines during Union (ILWU) collapsed today, under There were thus grounds for concern the recently defeated supermarket the pressure of an aroused union when it was learned that it was the same strike -despite demands from ILWU membership. The official Balloting LeRoy King who now held the keys to members who were honoring the lines Committee completed a hotly contested the ballot box, stored for some days at was an ominous sign to the membership recount and confirmed that Mandel had the union hall. Even Vern Bown~a as the union faces its own contract indeed been re-elected for a third term to well-known supporter of the Maoist struggle. It is widely perceived in the the warehouse local's executive board in Revolutionary Communist Party and a local that the bosses will wage the same an election held November 16. bitter foe of the Militant Caucus~later kind of frontal offensive against ILWU The fact that an honest recount took admitted in his capacity as head of the warehousemen that was mounted place was testimony to the authority Halloting Committee that after the against the Teamsters and that a hard which Mandel and the Militant Caucus original count no real steps were taken fought strike may be required even to have won in the ranks of the union, and to secure the ballots. But in slightly preserve existing union standards. to a show of support that headed off the more than two days the Caucus got Many local leaders have responded to real threat of bureaucratic "dirty tricks" about 150 Local 6 members, including this situation by simply jwnping ship. in the recount process. The background at least 1..\ stewards and three GEB Twelve out of 19 GEB members in the to the disputed recount made it clear members. to sign a petition which read: San Francisco and East Bay division of that a section of the union bureaucracy "Ikcause of the dubious circumstances the warehousemen's section of the union was once again attempting to rid itself of surrounding the Mandel/Dalton re chose not to even run for re-election. count and in order to protect the class-struggle opposition in the union's integrity of the Local 6 election ['1rocess. Also symptomatic of the collapse at the leading body. we call on Sister Dalton to withdra\\ her top was the recent resignation of well According to the account in the latest challcn1!e and on the Secretar\, entrenched business agent Evelyn John "Warehouse Militant" (4 December), lreasu;er and Flection Board to certit\ son, who left the union and went directly the alread\' published totals as final."- puhlished by the Militant Caucus. O\Tr to the companies, taking a manage i\1andel had won the tenth and last spot In an inteniew with I1T, Mandel ment job at a company she previously in the East Bay division of Local6 in the dcscribed the wa\e of suppcirt that bargained with. :\O\ember 16 balloting, with 295 votes, de\eloped: Faced with this shakiness at the top of "\\'e knO\\ that members from more edging out local leadership loyalist their union at a time when hard-fought than ::'0 II.\\T-organiled houses ['1ro battles are on the agenda, the local ranks Louise Dalton by one vote. tested to the union leadership once they WV Photo responded in a generally conservative Mandel told WV that he approached heard ahout the planned recount. I've Bob Mandel fashion in the recent election. Three Dalton and Local 6 secretary-treasurer heen told that e\en mam of Louise Dalton's coworkers. includ'ing the chief fifths of the local members did not even LeRoy King on the afternoon the crossing another union's picket lines steward at her plant. told her she should despite the leadership's order to scab. vote. Though those incumbents who did ballots were counted, stating his willing \\ ithdraw. On the day of the recount. "Su['1port also came from the chief seek re-election were returned to office, ness to have a recount on the spot. But King complained ro ·me. 'My phone steward from Safewa\' Preserves and at the membership voted for many new King declined the offer, ruling that there didn't sto['1 ringing all Wednesday Rathjen Liquors. who had worked with faces largely along ethnic lines, in a local were no constitutional grounds for a afternoon" the Caucus to stop ILWU shipmcnts "The center of support came from during the recent IBT grocery strike. In that is divided almost equally between GEB recount. Hence, the local's Ballot houses where the Caucus has played a an impressivc outpouring of support blacks, whites and Chicanos. . ing Committee correctly certified the significant role in helping the member representing much more than simply In the balloting, Mandel's own elections and then turned the ballot ship make gains. Fourteen members anger at the leadership's dirty tricks, thc percentage of the vote was reduced (in boxes over to King. On Monday, from K:'IC including the chief steward res['1onse was from members who led off the fight with a telegram to the 1976 he carne in second, with 3911 votes). December 20, the official Local 6 understood that the Caucus's class officers tlatly o['1posing the recount. struggle program can defend the union But the mobilization of the membership election bulletin came out listing Man Right behind them came a petition of and win victories and demanded that in the recount fight, as well as the votes support from approximately 30 mem del as one of those elected. Then came a these ['1olicies be represented on thc for other, lesser-known Militant Caucus sudden switch: bers at Owens Illinois. circulated bv the GEB." GEB candidates, shows that the Caucus " ... on Tuesdav our original suspicions chief steward and his closest collabora tor. who were the top vote getters in the The abortive attempt to bump Man has a sizable base ofsupport in the local. were confirmed. King informed Mandel election for the new GEB in the East that Dalton was demanding a recount del was the attempt of a shaky bureauc Caucus candidate Pete Farrugio got 252 Bav. Owens was the site of the critical racy to tighten its control over the and he was now granting the request. fight over a year ago. wherc the votes. Peter Woolston 196, and Jack completely reversing his initial ruling' membership in collaboration with the union's apparatus in the face of upcom Dow no. Checking with various union members Militant Caucus successfullv defended ing negotiations for the union's master Summing up his view of the elections, on both sides of the Bav. it became clear Local 6's historic traditioti of nevcr contract, which expires next June. The that the motivation behind the recount continued on page /5 move was purely political. We were told that various groups within the leader ship want Mandel off the GEB. and ha\'e reportedly urged Dalton to pursue Letter her challenge. We were told that these leadership ~ groupings included the Figuereidol Ramosl Mercado circle Editorial Hoard attacks~which, as you pointed out, bourgeois nationalist forces fighting who had led the unsuccesstul attempt to imperialism, but absolutely no political have Mandel 'censured' in 1975. Dalton Workers Vanguard delete much of the political material in is a supporter of the leadership who the talk~would be to republish that support to such forces: for Trotskyist Dear Comrades, earlier this year was appointed by the section of WI/'s original article which parties in every country: International as overseas delegate." I want to correct an error in W~''s presented the forum's central conclu • For unconditional defense ofa II the -"Warehouse Militant." otherwise adequate recent reply to the deformed!degenerated workers states 4 December sion, the SL's regroupment program for "rat groups' ,; anti-SL barrage ("Hate left Pabloites. against imperialism; for political revolu This line-up of bureaucrats was not the Truth. Hate the Spartacist League." tion against the bureaucracies; no Comradelv, accidental~it ~y~' was virtually the same :\0.217,20 October). In quoting Jim Robe'rtson political support to competing Stalinist group which pushed to censure Mandel from the Landyites' polemic against my cliq ues and factions: at a GEB meeting in February 1975 January 1977 speech, WVrepeated their W ~'replies: The following outline of key • Against violence within the because of Mandel's role in initiating misquotation: "The Greek population points of a draft declaration by workers movement; mass picketing tactics in the KNC Glass exists by selling its children or selling Trotskyists driven out of the United • For communist fractions in the strike of that year. When MandeL then a Swiss watches to one another." Even Secretariat who now support the inter unIons. based on the Transitional newly elected GEB member. and other according to the dishonest Commu national Spartacist tendency is reprint Program: ILWlJ militants helped mobilize hun nisTCadre pamphlet, my phrase was ed from "~ew York Spartacist Forum • For the communist tactic of the dreds of union members to man the "exporting its children." Thus a protest Reforge the Fourth International!", united front from above: for the tactic of picket lines at KNC to turn back mass against the civil war's devastation of the W~· ~o. 143,4 February 1977: regrouprnent to unite suhjective revolu scabbing, the do-nothing ILWU tops country--which outside the cities of • :\0 political or electoral support tionists in the vanguard party: for and their fake-left lapdogs went into a Athens and Salonika has been hideous to popular fronts; for conditional op intransigent exposure of centrism: frenzy. Well-known Communist Party ly depopulated as economic necessity position to workers parties in open • Rejection of the claims of (CP) supporter Joe Figuereido, a Local compels the young people to emigrate, or implicit class-collaborationist ostensibly Trotskyist Internationals to 6 business agent, insinuated that Man ultimately calling into question Greece's coalitions: speak for the Fourth International. del was a "provocateur," while then survival as a nation~and the destruc • Uphold the Trotskyist theory of destroyed by Pabloism in 1951-53: regional organizer LeRoy King de tion of a people has been transformed permanent revolution: for proletarian • For the reforging of a democratic manded Mandel's expulsion from the into gibberish. leadership of the nationalj~cial centralist Fourth International which union. But the GEB censure motion was May I also suggest that a valuable struggle: \\i1! stop at Ilothing short of the quickly overturned by an outraged adjunct to W~'s response to these • For military support to petty- dictatorship at the proletariat. 2 WORKERS VANGUARD Blacks Fight Klan Terror in Tupelo Tupelo. Mississippi has become the stood that Tupelo, Mississippi is not center 01 a light by blacks seeking "ew York or Detroit. And Robinson's eLjualit\ against the racist terror of the demand to have the lily-white workforce Ku Klux Klan. On "member 25 an integrated is the urgent necessity and estimated 2.500 people from northern basic democratic right of the Tupelo \1 iSSlsslppi and some cities in the blacks. This is not the Nixon adminis "orth many wearing "Justice for All" tration's "Philadelphia Plan" to bust the I-shirts marched In this city 0125.000 construction trades unions. The central under the banners 01 the Lnited League fact of Tupelo is that there are virtually (I l.) 01"orthern Mississippi. demand no unions in the area. The "affirmative lI1g an end to police brutality and Klan action" demands of the United League terror and calling for jobs for blacks reflect at bottom the just aspirations of under "affirmative action" Ljuota plans. Southern black people, so long forced to Coatinuing a months-long pattern of live as economic outcasts at the bottom provocation. about 40 hooded terrorists of a racist caste svstem. 01 the KKK. brandishing their artillery, We support the drive to break the stationed themselves outside the FBI racist stat LIS Ljuo in Tupelo. But the offices and the local police station where United League's quota scheme is not they could be assured of vigorous enough. 'The UL wants blacks to "be protection. The Klan has made Tupelo a employed in business according to a target for its special brand of genocidal percentage of black trade," or "that vigilante actions. Given the go-ahead by UPI Klan provocation on the streets of Tupelo, June 10. banks employ at least 50 percent Black Jimmy Carter's "human rights" Su employees until the ratio is equal." We preme Court and with the legal backing and that the Tupelo merchants and city front of an automobile. We think that want to harness the power of labor to of the American Civil Liberties Union government hire blacks until their there are people who arc lI'ailing for us bring down the whole racist structure. (ACLU). the Klan has organized its race overall employment equaled their to lIe down. .' . "We will have to protect ourselves Quota schemes relying on the bosses' terror on the streets of Tupelo in broad proport~on (30 percent) of the cIty because the law enforcement's not going government will not make a significant daylight and has stepped up its night populatIOn. to do it. The Justice Department's not dent in the high unemployment, low riding cross burnings throughout this The boycotts were explosive. By April going to do it. The FBI-you know, it wage conditions of Mississippi. It will w~re rural area of the Deep South. Cruber and Sandefer had been fired but came out that they ,really working take a militant, labor-led fight for jobs .. ' with the Klan In the 60 s. They're stdl Vowing to "counter-demonstrate" then the Klansmen mde mto the picture doing it. When we need a man to and union organizing to begin to realize every time the blacks of Tupelo march as the self-appointed champions of investigate a crime, they end up investi- the needs and aspirations of the blacks down the streets, the KKK poses a direct racist police brutality and as vigilantes gating us. They work completely with marching in the streets of Tupelo. threat to the lives of any and all blacks for whites "victimized" by blacks and your. local law enforcement ag~nCles " " . and from there, With the Klan. So we who assert their democratic rights. In c.arpetbaggers. The Klan held rallies have to protect ourselves. Because we're .Break with the Democrats! August United League leader Howard WIth Cruber and Sandefer as featured non-violent, we're not cowards ... we Gunn reported that he narrowly escaped speakers. And while crosses burned in can't be fools." A massive black equalityjunion death when Klansmen fired 17 bullets northern Mississippi, the city reinstated -SoU/hem Slruggle. September- organizing drive in the South is what is into his car; other UL members have the two vicious cops. October 1978 desperately needed. But the United been chased by the KKK killers as welL On June 10 about 1.000 UL protesters Old Racism in the "New" South League continues the most dangerous The Klan has a long and murderous were met by 300 Klansmen and hangers thread ofthe civil rights movement-the history in this region. It was near on in the streets of Tupelo. The KKK The United League boycott has tie to the Democratic Party. And itdoes Philadelphia, Mississippi that the three was protected by the Tupelo cops, who spread to other northern Mississippi so through one of the more sinister and civil rights workers Chaney, Goodman were heavily armed with shotguns and towns, such as Okolona and Lexington, reactionary politicians of the state and Schwerner were killed at the start of rifles. The open mutual aggression pact Charles Evers. Evers, brit~ of slaig and the organization claims upwards of ~eliviS[ "Freedom Summer" in 1964. And between t he''copg -l'rrid'~fhe''K'IH~''made "60:OOO"'me-rrioers"'fn'~"'39"e~~cW6f (:\(911 i igiit; iOi€dg refS, rufes Medgar Evers of the NAACP was shot public what every black in Tupelo has surprisingly, the "New" South liberal as the tinpot mayor of Fayette. It was dead outside his home in Jackson in always known--under the white sheets establishment has become rather Evers who came to Tupelo as the "great alarmed about Skip Robinson and his compromiser." He appeared with Rob UL. viewing it as a potential threat to inson and Tupelo mayor Clyde Whit the passive liberalism of the NAACP taker on October 4, when Robinson and more established black leadership. credited Evers with working out a deal A columnist in the Jackson Capitol in which a few token jobs would be Reporter (September 14) described offered to blacks in the city government Robinson's group as "rolling like a along with an "investigation" of the black cloud out of the northeast part of police force in exchange for calling off the state." And the same newspaper the boycott. Robinson then urged his editorialized against the UL, reminding organization to vote for Evers in the whites to be "thankful" for the "more "O\ember senatorial contest (won by rational. stable blacks whose objecti\(~s Eastland ). The Democratic and methods are not radical" Evers "hates welfare with a passion," Party connec organizations like the :'\iAACP. the opposes union organizing. has "never tion: Skip Urban League and the "black ministers believed in busing all the way cross Robinson (right) and school teacher community." A town" and wants "a Jitrong defense" of urged his United McComb Enterprise-Journal (Septem America (Capitol Reporter, 7 Septem League to sup ber 14) editorial entitled "Same Mis ber). He supported George Wallace in port reactionary takes')" wailed that the "bad" old days of Alabama and Richard Nixon in his final Charles Evers, the civil rights movement seemed to be days. It will be a terrible repetition, (left). returning. and they were "too divisive, indeed, if the early militancy in the ranks too violent. too self-defeating" to of the UL is turned into political capital Jackson Advocate repeat. continued on page 15 1963. In fact. the Klan and the White are blue uniforms. When five Klansmen It is interesting to note that the Citi/ens Councils have been getting unmasked proudly before national TV boycott tactics used by Robinson's away with murder for years. and the cameras at a KKK rally, four of them group were also employed by the local residents know that police depart turned out to be cops. The mayor of NAACP (of which Robinson is a ments arc riddled with these shock Tupelo had promised that there would member) in Port Gibson. But there a WORNERS troops of white supremacy. be no more Klansmen on the police state judge ordered the NAACP to pay force "by November 21." It was a false $1.25 million in damages to Port Gibson "NfilJ'R/J The Tupelo Boycott and the KKK promise, notable only for what it merchants for violating the laws govern Marxist Working-Class Biweekly admitted about the reality of the Tupelo ing "secondary boycotts." This attempt The November 25 march was the of the Spartacist League of the U.S. police force. to bankrupt the NAACP was not lost on latest action in an ongoing struggle in EDITOR: Jan Norden Blacks have refused to be intimidated the United League, which hooked its Tupelo that began in March when the PRODUCTION MANAGER: Darlene Kamiura by the Klan, and the Tupelo boycott has boycott to demands for affirmative UL organized a black boycott of white CIRCULATION MANAGER: A. Kelley gone beyond the intentions of its action in the stores it was boycotting, owned stores. followed by nearly weekly EDITORIAL BOARD: Jon Brule, Charles leadership in tapping the justified hatred thus avoiding the charge of "secondary Burroughs, George Foster, Liz Gordon. "Marches for Justice" and "Silent James Robertson, Joseph Seymour of the black masses for the racist boycott." Vigils:' The black protests were sparked Published biweekly, skipping an issue in terrorists. The prayerful pacifism of the But the UL's demands also grew out by the cop beating of a black man, Martin Luther King marches carries Au~ust and a week in DecemhPr by the of the dead end experienced by the Spartaclst Publishing Co, l60 West Eugene Pasto. who drove through town very little weight these days with the Broadway, New York. NY 10013. Telephone. liberal-led civil rights movement of the with a white woman in 1976. The police Tupelo blacks who have to face the 966-6841 (Editorial), 9Peru, Iran, Portug~ Why aRevolutionary Constituent Assembly? In recent articles on Chile and peasantry and urban petty bourgeoisie assembly elected shortly after thevictory whopping foreign debt was run up Nicaragua we have raised the demand behind a proletarian vanguard in the of the soviets in Moscow and Petrograd. through purchases of the latest weapon for a "revolutionary constituent assem struggle to smash the Somoza regime. The Bolsheviks had fought throughout ry. The overthrow of Velasco in 1975 by bly." This demand has provoked a At the same time we called for a workers the spring and summer of 1917 for a more right-wing general. Morales number of inquiries from our readers. and peasants government based on elections to a constituent assembly at a Bermudez. further tarnished the junta's Do we believe that a constituent soviets (see "N icaragua in Flames." WV time when the bourgeois provisional "progressive" image. So when. in July assembly can be a possible organiza No. 215. 22 September. and "Mass government refused to hold them out of 1977. the Peruvian government at tional basis for proletarian socialist Graves in Nicaragua." WV No. 216. fear that this would lead toan uncontrol tempted to implement a savage austerity revolution? If not. what exactly do we 6 October 1978). lable peasant uprising. But now this stage program dictated by the imperialist mean by a revolutionary constituent Are these demands contradictory? had been passed as the workers had bankers of the International Monetary assembly? What would happen if a petty-bourgeois seized power in the capitals. Fund. it was answered by a massive The parliamentary form of govern electorate were mobilized by the right. general strike. ment. based on an atomized electorate resulting in an anti-revolutionary ma The Bolsheviks did not simply call off and giving equal weight to petty jority in a constituent assembly which the elections. for a pro-soviet majority Morales' response was to order the bourgeois and working-class voters. confronted organs of workers power? might well have emerged in the wake of firing of strike "agitators" and call for a cannot be the representative organ of Would revolutionists then simply bow the peasant land seizures. This in turn "constituent assembly" to give the the dictatorship of the proletariat. to the "democratic will of the majority" could have reinforced the authority of military regime an appearance of However. the proletariat seeks to rally the petty-bourgeois masses around it by being the best defender of democratic rights and aspirations. In backward countries under autocratic or military bonapartist rule. the struggle for a representative. democratic govern ment-a sovereign constituent assembly based on universal suffrage-can there fore in certain circumstances be key in uniting the toiling masses behind the proletarian vanguard. On the other hand. the demand for a constituent assembly in the mouths of various anti-revolutionary fakers can easily be given a very different meaning. A timid bourgeois opposition may seek a peaceful transition through negotia ting a compromise with the old regime. which could result in a temporary legislative body going under the name of a constituent assembly. Or a hard pressed bonapartist regime seeking to forestall a popular uprising might convoke its own phony "constituent assembly." Even where the forms of universal suffrage and freedom for all parties are employed. the government in power can strongly influence. if not determine. the composition and role of such an assembly. The call for a constituent assembly in Marxist programs has nothing to do with such conciliationist measures. just as the communist slogan of agrarian .1- ....- >""" ._- ._. ..•-----.- AP revolution in the backward capitalist In summerof1975 Portuguese Socialist Party demonstratedforsovereigntyof right-dominated Constituent Assembly countries differs fundamentally from (left), while leftist soldiers demandea its dissolution. SL called for generating workers commissions into soviets. liberal bourgeois plans for agrarian reform. Our call for a constituent and dissolve their soviets? In the the revolutionary government in Petro popular support. The basis for the assembly is one of a series of revolution German revolution of 1918-19. where grad and greatly reduced the bloodshed convocation was a gentlemen's agree ary democratic demands. raised in the the proletariat was under the leadership of a civil war initiated by White ment with the main bourgeois parties context of a program for proletarian of the majority and "Independent" generals counting on the peasants' and pro-Moscow Stalinists that the revolution. which can only be realized social democrats. something quite simi religiosity and tsar-worship to aid their generals would stay in power until through the simultaneous or prior lar happened. A national congress of cause. So instead they demanded that elections in 1980 or 1981. It was overthrow of bonapartist dictatorships. workers and soldiers councils was held in the constituent assembly recognize the presumed that a victory of the "moder A "constituent assembly" under the December 1918 in the first flush of the victorious soviet power as its first act. ate civilian opposition" was guaranteed aegis of a military junta or autocratic proclamation of a "socialist republic" Only when the Kadet/Menshevik/SR by the traditional Peruvian electoral law caudillo is a contradiction in terms. following the overthrow of Kaiser majority refused to do so did Red Army which excludes illiterates, who make up Where such schemes are put forward. Wilhelm on November 9. But the soldiers disperse the body. a large part of the peasantry and urban Leninists must make explicit that their workers councils (under reformist lead poor. And following the vote the junta call is for a revolutionary constituent ership) voted to abdicate to the national ***** would then have free rein to restore its assembly. to be convoked by a revolu assembly. which was elected a month If the Nicaraguan bourgeois credit worthiness with the Pentagon and tionary provisional government arising later with a bourgeois majority. And the opposition has not (yet?) struck a deal Wall Street by imposing the IMF plans from victorious popular insurrection. "democracy" which this organ ofcapital with Washington and Somoza for a to slash workers' living standards. In the Nicaraguan case. some of the ist rule embodied was none too liberal: it peaceful transition from puppet dicta However. everything did not work more conservative elements of the anti was built on the bones of thousands of torship to OAS-"supervised" democra out as planned. Two "far left" domi Somoza opposition. frightened at the workers killed in the January 1919 cy. the Peruvian military junta has nated coalitions managed to surmount prospect and then the reality of a "Spartacist uprising" in Berlin (among already convoked its fraudulent "con the registration barriers and presented massive popular revolt. have tried to them revolutionary leaders Luxemburg stituent assembly." slates of candidates headed by well J arrange a deal removing the ruling clan and Liebknecht). In the first years after its 1968 known personalities. And when in mid !. from political power while leaving their But this was not the program of the takeover. the nationalistic regime of May. a few weeks before the scheduled ~ properties and private army (the Na Bolsheviks. who fought for the qualita General Juan Velasco Alvarado had elections. the government again tried to ., tional Guard) intact. Some time later tively higher democracy ofsoviet power. enjoyed wide support among the masses decree the austerity program. the "free elections" would be held for a new representing the class interests of the due to its land reform policy and some maneuver backfired and the masses legislative body to replace the present working people. The same conflict initial nationalizations. However, the responded with the most militant strike puppet "Congress." In the face of these between institutions of bourgeois and military's class loyalties soon led to action in Peruvian history. When t plans to ease out the hated dictator proletarian rule was posed even after bloody clashes with striking workers. As Morales thereupon exiled 13 opposition through deals at the top, weraise "Next Week ...The Strange World of campuscs. In thc international James Robertson and the Spartacist movcment. League: An American Sect Heads for Outer Space" announced a dis "Racist and Chauvinist" play ad in the 13 November issue of lh 'Ij." Re.~~~·' The IP broadside has as its central the Socialist Workers Party's (SWP) -~.:::.- intent isolating the Spartacist tendency Intercontinental Press. Our appetites from the radical/liberal milieu. The whetted, we counted the days until we strategy is big-lie "racist"-baiting: e.g.. could send a comrade to S WP head the claim that Robertson and thc SL quarters to buy 150 copies of the 20 support a line "bordering on subtle November IP with the promised article. apology for imperialism." The tactic is We were still brooding about asking to selectively quote paragraphs from the for our money back when the 8 forum -where Cde. Robertson dis December Afilitant arrived with another cussed subjects like race and sex which SWP diatribe against the SL, this one are taboo in liberal polite society--while titled "Iran: Is Struggle Against Shah's ignoring, distorting or falsifying the Tyranny Reactionary?" Though neither political content of his remarks. piece provides much food for thought. Naturally enough. I P's Cde. Reissner the very fact that the social-democratic begins with the comments on Albania ."~"M ..~,o,_~ • ~,,' , ~ .... ~, •.., , ,", ~.' ' which stirred up such a storm in the ,\ h ••-' - SWP-which usually feigns total un to. ,,,, - "'~~~~;.\::..=.~. concern about the activities of the S L ,,';'.;,""'::::.... pages of the obscure publications of the ,~ " ,._,~'.,- . -\nti-Spartacist League: has felt impelled to publish two lengthy ...... ~".,, ~.,..~" ' .._... .. ' .... ,.... ' .._-",- articles about us in two and a half weeks "And the harder Maoist types. looking indicates we must be doing something for a spiritual homeland that has state right. power. are now looking at Tirana. We have had our comrades checking, and it IP in the Gutter is not vet assured, but we believe that Marx .referred to the Albanians as The IP opus by Will Reissner is an 'goatfuckers.' Is that true') But then he uninspired echo of a spate of attacks by was prone to ethnically pejorative a~ phrases. And it must be pointed out several minuscule groups against WV self-exposure? Our communist line isolates us from the rad-Iib milieu the that. to this dav. and under conditions allegedly "chauvinist" speech given bv SWP appeals to. But Shcharansky was guilty. The mullahs m no better than of the fourth S'-year plan, the produc SL National Chairman James Robert the shah. tion'of goats is still the principal activity son in New York in 1977 (see "Hate the in Albania." Truth, Hate the Spartacist League Reissner goes on to bait Marx and New Left Moralists' Big Lie Campaign," author (Robertson'!)." "acres of inno among respected socialist spokesmen Engels as soft-core racists, ducks the WV No. 217, 20 October 1978). The SL cent forest have been destroyed over the against the Healyite slander campaign question of whether they were has never minded polemicizing against past decade to provide the paper to print directed at Joseph Hansen, it had no correct in supporting European expan obscure fringe cliques when they present Robertson's constant attacks on the hesitation about soliciting Robertson's sionism during capitalism's progressive a useful foil. but the SWP is always ever politics of the Socialist Workers Party." signature and playing it up in the pages period, then goes on to claim that "such so sensitive to questions of scale. Yet This is yellow journalism of the most of IP. But with the exception of one characterizations today ... smack of the Reissner relies on what IP terms "a cynical sort. For instance, the notion parenthetical reference to Robertson's 'white man's burden'." gaggle ofgroups that revolve around the that the entire SL press is actually Shachtmanite days, there is no way to We are glad IP has raised Albania Spartacist League" to such an extent ghostwritten by Cde. Robertson must tell from the present article (in which again, since it gives us an opportunity to that he can find no better way to close be a subject of mirth in the inner circles Robertson's name appears some 40 defend Karl Marx. In his classic nine than by quoting CommunistCadre, a of the SWP. Those in the know are surely times) that the SL national chairman is volume work on sex, Havelock Ellis group which was already down to four aware that. though Cde. Robertsondoes not some skulking creature of unmen noted that bestiality as a general social members when its founding leader write a bit for our press, he is hardly a tionable origin but a former member of practice is common among peoples who dropped out this fall! Why? We charged literary /ider maximo a la Tim Wohl the SWP and co-founder of its youth live in primitive proximity to nature: in our 20 October article that "The farth. AsoneS L leader overstated it inan organization. No, Cdc. Reissner, we are "Bestialitv ... flourishes among prim Socialist Workers Party (SWP), refor internal bulletin, "Robertson can't write not heading for "outer space," nor did itive peoples and among peasants. " .Three conditions have favored the mist big daddy of all the fake-Trotskyist ten lines." So much for the SL as a per we originate there; in fact. the founding extreme prevalence of bestiality: (I) apologists for 'consistent nationalism: sonalitv cult! Spartacist cadre were expelled in 1964 primitile conceptions of life which built calls the tune." Obliging of the SWP to Because we are not a personality cult. from your organization, the SWP. up no great barrier between man and step forward so promptly to take the It does not come naturally to us to When those few dozen communists the other animals; (2) the extreme complain about the vile epithets and familiaritv which necessarilv exists credit. were tossed out of the SWP for the between 'the peasant and his beasts, Perhaps attempting to add his own outright slanders that have been thrown crime of opposing its deepening drive often combined with separation from angle, Reissner tries hard to present the at Cde. Robertson personally by those toward reformism, the SWP perhaps women: (3) various folk-lore beliefs.... SL as some kind of personality cult who hate our politics. We are more expected we would shrivel up and die. "The significance of the factor of (apparently of the L. Marcus sort-note likely just to note the "crudely falsifying Instead, we have become the single familiaritv is indicated by the grea! fre4uenc~: of bestiality among shep the references to "outer space:' "a editing" of the CommunistCadre ver credible Trotskyist alternative to the herds. goatherds. and others whose universe of negative gravity," etc.). At sion of the Robertson speech and leave social-democratic SWP. The SWP finds occupation is exclusively the care of every point, the politics of the SL are it at that. But now that we are on the itself compelled to take us on in IP not animals." personalized into emanations of Rob subject. we want to protest Reissner's because of any purported motion away Havelock Ellis. SlUdies ;/1 the PITch%gr of Sex ( 1936 ertson: "Robertson-thought," "would attempt to make of Cde. Robertson a from this planet but because the SL and edition), Vol. II. Part One. pp. Robertson today support. .. :' "in the man from nowhere. the SWP continue to butt heads in the 79-X2 Spartacist paper Workers Vanguard the When the SWP was seeking defense real world-in the trade unions, on the Those who prefer a less scholarly source 23 Januar'l 1976 SWP supported MPLA against South Africa-led forces? Not if you read the It is important to note that the Fl\lLi\ and Militant. UNlT did not serve as puppets of South Africa in this imperialistA invasion. Instead, it was the FNLA and UNITA that spearheaded the fighting against South Africa i.n June, July, and August, along with \ ,h' ",pLA. Thi, i' no' ,ucpri,ing ,in" 'h"" ,'0 ",O' whe" 'h' 'a"' popol"ion ,upp"" " -;'1 LITA"'T UNIT" ,nd 'h' FNL" unit' "d by Daniel Chip' ---"' " --- - 17 september 1976 ~ !b 6 WORKERS VANGUARD are referred to the recent film. Padre brutal and even genocidal reality of Padrone. set among the peasants of nationalist regimes in power. It must Sardinia, deny the existence of backward con Phantom Antiwar Movement For those capablc of looking past sciousness among oppressed strata. So titillation. there is a point to the phrase when Cde. Robertson in his forum attributed to Marx: a comment on the refused to pander to the national Still Haunts SWP economic backwardness of Albania. It conceits of any people. and when he is a powerful reflection of the political talked about such subjects as hlack anti bankruptcy of contemporary Maoists Semitism with the same frankness that In the 13 November IP polemic (and into the voting booths for McCar that they look not to the world industri he discussed the "fairly static" situation against the Spartacist League, the SWP thy in 1965 and McGovern in 1972). al proletariat but to primitive Albania as of the Spartacist League. the slanderous prescnts for the umpteenth time its And what was the SL doing? Appar the vanguard of human progress. cries of "racist and chauvinist" were catechism of SL abstentionism on the ently we "abstained" so well that the How is it that Cdc. Robertson's obligatory for the SWP. Vietnam war. Perhaps hoping that antiwar movement, and the associated memories have dimmed in the ten years growth of the ephemeral New Left, put comments on Albania so tweaked the We understand that the SWP, which us on the radical map! In fact, statistics SWP's tail? The indignation is sham. IP takes national/ethnic hatreds as its since the eruption of student radicalism that reached its height over the 1970 hopes its readers will be in such a state of starting point, has difficulty under from our 1969 and 1972 national gatherings document our fourfold shock from Robertson's II-letter word standing our Leninist line. We would Cambodia invasion/Kent State killings, growth in membership during those that it can slip past them the absurdity of like to give them the benefit of the the SWP charges that our slogan "All three years. the SWP lecturing the SL on... "anti doubt. But it is inconceivable that even Indochina Must Go Communist!" was imperialism"! It is obscene that the an honest reformist could do the things just "something to throw at the SWP," The SL did not gain these militant SWP. like the Communist Party. thinks that I p's Reissner does to Robertson's and that "the Spartacists were uncon activists merely from marching in it can get away with manipulating remarks. At the forum. an opponent cerned about building the struggle parades. Imperialism's losing war in Marxist categories when such suits it. demanded: Do you defend the morality against the imperialist war." We are Vietnam created a broad petty The SWP eut its reformist teeth in the of the Boers in South Africa'? Robertson getting a little tired of explaining that hourgeois layer significantly to the left antiwar movement in the 1960's where it replied: "Defend the morality? The fighting in the labor movement and of the social-democratic SWP. When was indistinguishable from the pro morality is the morality of nationalism." among antiwar activists for class solidar spineless SWP "loyal oppositionist" imperialist, pro-Democratic Party Reissner ljuotes only these lines and the itr with the Indochinese revolution is John Barzman in 1969 urged the SWP "doves" in baiting SDS and the rest of disembodied word "Yes" which actually hardlv abstentionism. to "confront" SDS. he entirely missed the old New Left as "terrorists." "Stalin began the next sentence (!), hoping to But where does this much-cherished the point. There was a good reason why SWP myth come from'? To the SWP. it ists." "ultraleftists" (see accompanying leave the reader with the impression the the SWP dismissed these subjectively is a necessarv article of faith that all article). Over Portugal in 1975 the SWP SI. supports the Boers' nationalism. anti-imperialist youth for the tactical those who did not abide by the etiquette adventurism and muddle-headed pro hailed the CIA-funded Socialists as they It is infuriating to have to protest that burned Communist Party offices in th~ of respectability laid down by the Maoism which accompanied their the SI.. while" it supports the national "official" antiwar leadership (bourgeois disenchantment with the reformist SWP name of "democracy." It hid behind emancipation of oppressed peoples, orthodox criticisms of the M PLA roliticians plus \ariolls SWP/CP front and CP: even these impressionistic kids. supports nohodl"s nationalism. and groups) just did not exist, But when the utterly ignorant of a Marxist world nationalists in Angola to avoid siding docs not call for self-determination for with the M PLA/Cuban forces against SL walked out of the Fifth Avenue \iew. knew enough to understand that the white oppressor caste of South they were to the left of the SWP, which U.S./South African imperialism (until Peace Parade Committee in 1965, Africa. But we do maintain that the they clt?spised for its reformist legalism this neutralism became a scandal among refusing to submit to censorship of Boers have a right to exist. As Robert radical slogans (like the S I.'s main slogan and its studied refusal to demonstrate black nationalist students in this coun son e:\plained: of "Immediate Withdrawal"). perceived lor the victory of the Vietnamese try). Today it falls into step with Jimmy "I herc's a thcorv--it's a Stalinist as a threat to the building of popular revolution. Similarly there was a reason Carter's anti-Soviet "human rights" theon --that all the'peoples on the earth frontist formations. we did not disap why the SWP criticized the Black crusade. hailing even overtly pro-tsarist ,. arc either progressive or reactionary. pear! While the SWP was policing the Panthers as "ultraleft" and not "consis Russian dissidents as they plead with II vou arc progressi\e. not only do you "official" contingents to root out any tent" enough nationalists, looking in U.S. imperialism to "liberate" the haw the right to exist. vou have the right to do a~nrthingto your oppressors. who stood for the military victory ofthe stead to the Black Muslim religious cult USSR. but if you are a reactionary people. you Vietnamese workers and peasants. the (and later to the NAACP). The SWP So how can IP hope to smear the SL have no right to exist and I have the Sl.-along with many thousands ofNew lI'a,1 to the rixht of the best of the New as "racist and chauvinist" apologists for right to kill you. Now. oddly enough. Left. imperialism') It's simple-lie. For in the peoples of the earth-the Irish. the Left youth went right on marching. Biharis. the Turks. the Armenians. the The SWP attributes its growth during stance. the article notes that Marx and Jews in Israel. the Palestinians-the\ all this period to its involvement as the Better Red than Fred Engels supported the U.S. takeover of want to exist. And I think mavhe '\OU "best builders" of the reace crawls. Mexican territory and rhetorically ought to start with that. as a statement The idea that the SL abstained from lodayc a;,~it seeks to sell itself as left inljuires. "Would Robertson today th,lt mavhecapitalism is rotten ripe for the antiwar struggle is wishful thinking. co\er to the :\O\V·leaders and trade support the U.S. lopping off another a. social transformation. not for a In his recent hook on the antiwar genocide., " union hureaucrats. the SWP has one chunk of Mexico')" The disingenuous movement. Out 'vOl\' ,f. SW P spokesman and onl\ one real credential-the ljuestion carnes the unmistakable If that's "chau\inism." comrades of the Fred Halstead recounts the story of the donkey 'work which helped bring imputation that the SL would. But as a SWP. make th,> most of it. "mass~s" of reople "into the streets" cOlltillued on page II malleI' of fact. the Spartacist tendency is The special venom displayed hy on record as advocating that a victori Reissner on the subject of South Africa ous \\orkers government in the U.S. shows that the SWP is still smarting should "lop off a chunk" of American O\er exposure of its own pro-F:\LA tilt territory and return it to Mexico~ in Angola. Listen to IP. The method of the disingenuous lie is i THE Beginning This Week: "Robertson seems to be particularly the constant in the IP polemic. Take for Right: The !!t!"f!!~l!!i concerned that the racist South African ~~ 'Malcolm XSpeaks' example what is done with WVs remark regime is not getting a fair break from Militant i " ", " " ••.••... " I _So. po... _ that "the post-independence regimes in socialists.... features the Asia and Africa are freljuently more "In touching concern for the survival of SL's "Uncon ruthless and violent in their exploitation the Boers. Rohertson seems to forget ditional With what the struggle is really about ~in Thousands Protest of the workers and peasants than were drawal" and South Africa, ... The Boers are not the colonial governments." IP com carrying out their present hrutal repres "Victory to the ments: "It would be interesting to know sion of Blacks because their right to Vietnamese U. S. War in Vietnam what political conclusions they draw exisl as a people is being threatened, .. Revolution" signs, which from this assertion." Apparently not [but] hecause their 'right' to exploil is 10,000 MorclJ under attack." the SWP had interesting enough to prompt the SWP tried to have In New York to look at the article! For the sentences Oddly enough. Cdc. Robertson excluded "'11''''11,"" immediately preceding the one quoted addressed precisely this question: from the arc unambiguous: "There's seyeral million Boers in South march! Africa, Ther hal'e no right to exploit "For Leninists. recognition of the right Below: SL and oppress the h/acks. Ther hO\'e a response to of national self-determination is not righl /() lil'e." hased on do-goodism. and certainly 1970 isn't necessarily a good turn for the So much for that. Cambodia peoples involved. The strategic purpose We are proud to be denounced as a invasion, of Leninist support to the right of self determination is to clarify the centrality tendency which stands for the right ofall of class oppression hy eliminating peoples to exist. But there's more than foreign domination...." humanitarianism at stake here. Cde. Of course. IP never comes right out Robertson's remarks serve as a useful WV Photo. and says the SL does not support the jumping-off point: right of nations to self-determination. It "If you say the Boers have no right. merely wonders out loud what "political to exist-they haye a modern indus conclusions" to draw from the SL's trial economy and a weapons estahlishment-if they have no right te indictment of the post-independence exist. then thev have no moral limits to ,illl "Third World" regimes. Those who follow. do they'? To kill every black Fllj /Moenind tfuS-r; really want to know about the Leninist African (which' they can do in about "political conclusions"-military sup three davs if they want to). to defend their own existence,.,. -~ port to nationalist formations confront "There's several million Boers in South Go Communi5t ing imperialism. but political confi Africa... , Y Oll think they have no right XcV dence onlr i/1 the independent to live') Well then. go try and kill them!" :'$ mohili::.ation or the proletariat to The ljuestion of the Boers is not an overthrow national oppression and abstract moral question, but a military capitalist exploitation-will not find one. The white South Africans. includ them in / P. ing the white workers. enjoy a standard The SWP proudly supports national of living many times higher than the ism. It must therefore cover up the continued Oil page /2 15 DECEMBER 1978 7 Loans From Japan, Guns From NATO D~r Kaku Kurita Splegi'i In the past sen:ral,months Pcking has the more dogmatic Maoists that the ing of thc widesprcad notion that Mao's tees] ('Iller I had imistcd on knO\ling signed trade and il1\cstment agreements H u,LTeng regime has "taken the capi China I\as an egalitarian society, sce whether such groups existed as I did in all thc laetories I \isitedL and \Ihat I with impcrialist gO\ernmcnts and banks talist road." One reads headlincs like: '''Radical Egalitarian' Stalinism: A Post \Ias told letlme II ith the impression that many timcs in sitc anything it has cver "Teng Transforming China of Mao's 'V1ortem," S/wrlacis! :\0. 25, Summcr the\ \Ierl' there only as 1!hosts. Ilhile donc before. A 520 billion trade agrec Era - PowerfuI Deputy Primc Minister 197X. ) ele'l\ll hl'l'e cbe thei see;11c(1 to hen t: ment \\ ith Japan was signed carlier in Purging Old Enemics as He Spurs Bourgcois journalists systcmaticall~ lal1i~hed cOlllpletel\:" --Charlcs Iktlc'lheil1l 8 WORKERS VANGUARD the country. This frustration has led to (JlIa/"(liall~ The 5;/a1i1l Schoo/ oj Fa/si his speech to the National People's technology was not derived from a Irequent radical shifts in economic ficalioll Re\'isited [197.\].) Congress in January 1975, Chou called commitment to primitivist egalitarian (lolicy in search ofsome way to achieve a The turmoil in China's cities during for "the comprehensive modernization ism (Chiang Ch'ing's own life-style was "grcat lea(l forward." To understand the 1%f>-6~ naturally severely disrupted of agriCUlture. industry. national de as luxuriant as any Hollywood film significance of thc (lost-Mao economic industrial production: the imract of the fence and science and industry before star's). nor rrimarily from a xenophobic (lolicics. it is nccessary to trace the Cultural Rcvolution in the countrvside the end of the century. so that our glorificati,)Jl of national isolation. Rath /ig/ags ofChina's economic (lolicy since was far less. Thus the restoration of national economy will he ad\ ancing in er the bureaucrats who made it to the the earh 1950's. social peace in 196~ with the liquidation the lront ranks of the world" (Pekillg tU(l through the Cultural Revolution, I he lirst Chinese Five Year Plan of the Cultural Rnolution allowed a Re\·iell. 24 January 1975). exempillied h\ C\-Red Guard leader (1953-5f» \\as modeled on the first rapid reco\ery and even exransion of rhe Chou Teng team mo\ed to Wang Hung-wcn and pulemicist '{ao Sll\lct fi\c year (llan with its unhabnced industrY. rhe wc'll-respected Far East recentrali/,~ economic administration Wen-\uan. were indi\iduals of lidle l'\(lalbion 01 hc,ny industry. The corc ern Economic Re\ie\\ calculated that and adopted a morl' liheral rolicy political or admini,trati\e ahility.I he~ of thi, (llan was a numher of heav~ het\\een I%~ and 1971 industrial to\\ard the (leasants. But the n1l1"1 0\\ cd their sudden rise to (lower so/e/r to ind ust Iia I eonst ruct ion (lrojects dC(lend pn)duction increased 6f> percent (A.\ia striking change in Chinese economic personal loyalty to Mao. ChiangCh'ing. ent u(lon SO\iet aid and ad\ isors. }"C(/l"hooA. 19 7 5). puliC\ in the L'arh 1970's lIas the Ltrge Y,ll) Wen-yuan & Co. knew that the During tlK' earl\ 193U's Stalin's O\er \grlL"ulture. on the other hand. did sL'ak Imporl 15 DECEMBER 1978 9 - ...... the hypocrisy of the ruling circles of this as mere dolls." he says (Le Mom/e. 17 was an attack on its "secularism." Iran ... country. The Shah says that the opposi Octoher). But when capitalism drags Spearheaded by the Jaamat-i Islam (continued from page I) tion is influenced by the Communists. women out of the home and into the party. the Pakistan National Alliance But he is the one who entertains factory the Muslim reactionaries object (P:'\i A) called forthe revival ofd raconian shortage as a result. On November 30 Communists. sells gas to the Russians at to their being removed from seclusion. Islamic law suppression of the use of Teheran refinery workers went out. The ridiculously low prices" (N'ell' York not to their exploitation as proletarians. alcohol. amputation of thieves' hands. oil workers resumed their strike on Times. 9 December). In moments of frankness, Khomeini etc. December 2; oil production had been U.S. imperialism is extremely drops his pose as a "liberal" religious The P:'\iA. like the Khomeini-Ied cut in half by December 7and the major sensitive to political instability in Iran. fanatic to forthrightly advocate Saudi forces. also had a "democratic" cover. north-south natural gas pipeline closed. its military watchdog on the USSR's style cultural repression: "We are Bhutto had combined his demagogic The BBC reported that the oil workers southern flank. But the introduction of against films aimed at corrupting our promises to the impoverished peasantry had formed a national union and that American troops would mean an imme youth and destroying our Islamic with an orgy of corruption and gang the objective of their strike was abdica diate. sharp confrontation-the Soviets culture" ([London] Guardian, 7 Novem sterism. Just as Khomeini speaks of a tion of the shah. have made their position clear-a ber). "Corrupting the youth" is, of popular referendum and a republic. the Governmental authority is also confrontation which the U.S. seeks to course. the standard cry of religious PNA called for the freeing ofall political rapidly eroding in the countryside, avoid at this time. And contrary to the bigots. No doubt the mullahs find prisoners. Bhutto's resignation. the end where the peasantry is heeding Khomei claims of most of the left, Iran is not advocating the class struggle or the of martial law and new elections. ni's call to refuse to pay taxes. There are simply a banana republic or neo-colony equality of women particularly "por Furthermore the P:'\iA included bour reports of armed clashes in Qom and completely under the thumb of Uncle nographic" and in need of suppression. geois liberals and was tailed by the entire Ahwaz in which policemen and soldiers were killed. There are claims that the unrest is making inroads into the army, resulting in the arrest of some 500 soldiers, non-commissioned officers and officers up to the rank ofcaptain. as well as continual rumors of soldiers deserting or committing suicide, and even of mutinies. In the absence of U.S. intervention, the loyalty of the army is the shah's sole remaining asset. So far the anti-shah forces have not broken, due to the combination of military discipline and material privilege (cheap food, clothing and housing, free medical care) that bind the army to the imperial throne. The shah's ultimate bastion is the 1O,000-man Imperial Guard, specially trained and equipped and doubly pampered. But the army may also turn against the "Light of the Aryans" in the wake of the failure to suppress the opposition. If the generals are too fanatically loyal or too compromised by their collaboration Trlunfo with the shah to oust him, their Imperial riot troops in Teheran. subordinates in the officer corps will likely emulate their colleagues in Pakis Sam. Sullivan probably represents the Khomeini's call for a return to the Pakistani left: like the anti-shah forces. tan by staging a coup d'etat and toppling consensus in the White House: constitution of 1907 is only a thinly it could pass itself off as a "democratic" the hated monarch. "We ran Laos. but in Iran. which is disguised call for theocracy. Not only united front involving virtually all tremendously important to us. there's does this constitution subject all parlia sections of national politics. not much we. or am'one else. can do. U.S. Imperialism In a Muddle Ironically all the major powers ·,-the mentary legislation to the veto of a When Bhutto proved incapahle of U.S.. Britain. France. China and the board of clerics. but it specifically bars quelling the revolt. the army intervened Up until last month the American Smiet Union-arc alarmed bv what's non-Muslims from high government installing the self-styled "soldier of community in Iran, 45,000 strong, going on in Iran. The Russia'ns don't posts. As for the legalization of leftist Islam." General Zia. in July 1977. complacently ignored the anti-shah want to sec an Islamic republic here. Pakistan remains under martial la\\ 1'hcy\c got 40 million Moslems just parties. Khomeini told the ,Veue ZLir revolt from its comfortable segregation. north of this country." cher Zeilllllg (24 Nmember) that the today. Zia has proclaimed that onl~ But as incidents of anti-foreign boy - Sell' ror/.; times. U \; member Tudeh (pro-Moscow Communist) party truly Islamic parties will be allowed to cotts, vandalism and assaults escalated. Ihe latest ewnts have not changed this \\ould be outlawed for having "be participate in the oft-promised elec and when leaflets appeared announcing sense of limitation. trayed" the Iranian nation. This would tions. Within a few days of coming to that all foreigners (with the exception of be e\en more likely for those advocating power he announced the "Islamization the French, who are harboring Khomei Islamic "Republic" Means Social genuine proletarian internationalism of punishment." including public whip ni, and newsmen) remaining in Iran Reaction! than for the apologists of Soviet foreign pings and hangings as well as amputa would be killed, American families policy. tion. In Zia's theocracy. all government joined Iranian capital in a panicky flight Revolutionary Marxists must oppose The religious opposition has been employees must pray. all shops and from the country. U.S. imperialism's frantic efforts to able to play on the shallow character of factories must close during Friday The exodus has rapidly grown from a prop up the hated shah. But they also the shah's modernization of Iranian prayers and there is a drive to restore the trickle to a flood--an estimated 20,000 have a duty to point out that subordi society. confronted with the brutal wearing of the veil by all women. And have now left. American ambassador nating Iran's militant proletariat to the repression of his SAVAK torturers and naturally all "strikes. agitation or William Sullivan, who ran the covert mullahs is preparing a catastrophe. The praetorian guard army. Removal of the political activity of any kind" in the CIA air war in Laos during his stay as aspirations of the Iranian masses to free veil and an escape from poverty has schools and all trade union activity are U.S. proconsul there, had decreed that themselves from the grip of the shah's been possible only for a small layer of banned. business would continue as usual as a tyranny are being cynically exploited by bourgeois and petty-bourgeois women. Khomeini has made clear his hopes of gesture of confidence in the shah. It was the Islamic clergy's counteroffensive The wealth of oil riches goes into the following the Jaamat-i Islam party in its not until December 7 that Washington against the erosion of its traditional pockets of a tiny elite. Tragically. for path to the "Islamic social order." He agreed to subsidize the transport of power and privilege. Khomeini is merely many sections of Iranian society the old seeks his own "soldier of Islam" in the families of American military the "radical" representative of a caste pre-capitalist order is seen as the only midd Ie ranks of the shah's officer corps: personnel-whereupon three-fourths of that sees anr introduction of Western alternative to the rapacious exploitation "We have not given up on the military, them immediately took up the offer. culture as threatening the age-old of Iranian capitalism dominated by and put much hope in the young officers U.S. imperialism has been locked into .superstitions that are its stock in trade. foreign capital. and soldiers of the army" (Los Angeles a policy of backing the shah to the hilt. The mullahs oppose the shah's 1963 Times. 26 November). Faced with the imminent demise of the land "reform" not because of its im Iran and the Muslim Revival monarchy, it is not frantically assessing poverishment and expropriation of the other options. Hardliners like former peasantry. but because their holdings As the well-known Middle Eastern Craven Opportunism Versus CIA chief and previous U.S. ambassa were taken away and put on the scholar and ostensible Marxist Maxime Revolutionary Marxism dor to Iran Richard Helms urge all-out capitalist market. In fact the shah's Rodinson points out in a recent series of Thevictory ofthe Khomeini-Ied forces support to the shah's crumbling rule. agrarian measures were part of a drive articles in Le Monde (6-8 December). would substitute a theocratic bonapart But when asked if the shah would hold to undercut the economic power of the the upsurge in Iran takes place in the ist regime for that of the shah and offers out, Carter could only limply respond. aristocracy and clergy, thus strengthen context of a revival of religious fanati nothing to the exploited masses. Under "I don't know. I hope so." Complaining ing the monarchy. cism throughout the Muslim world. the rule of the ayatollahs or their of the CIA's ignorance on Iran, Carter And the hallmark of this archaic When Nasser-style Arab nationalism's has commissioned George Ball, foreign society has always been the oppression "anti-imperialist" credentials became policy advisor to both Kennedy and of women and their systematic segrega tarnished. he argues. the Islamic funda Johnson, to produce new policy tion from public life. This is the brutal mentalists' opposition to all Western NOTICE recommendations. social realitv svmbolized by the veil. cultural influence seemed the only The American bourgeois press con which literaily gives the po~er of life alternative to imperialist domination. Workers Vanguard tinues to echo the shah's propagandists' and death over women to husbands and In particular. Iran's future may well skips a week in December. absurd Cold War claim that Khomeini fathers. While his followers cry "Death be represented hy its eastern neighbor. is an agent of the Kremlin. But the or the Veil" in the streets, Khomeini Pakistan. where a similar Mustil'lil-led mullahs are vociferously asserting their delivers urbane "explanations" of Is mass revolt in 1977 produced its own Our next issue anti-communist credentials. One popu lam's subjugation of women. "It is the "Islamic republic." As in Iran, a central will be dated January 5. lar religious leader in the town of Babul Shah who is dragging women toward component in the drive against the exclaimed, "The people are fed up with corruption and wishes to bring them up repressive regime of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto 10 WORKERS VANGUARD military "disciples." it is even doubtful ofsupport simply because of the number domino Iheorv in Southeast Asia. it was that the barbaric jails would im ofdemonstrators they have brought into Phantom what happened in Indonesia. See. that's prove ... for those who escape the execu where the people arc .... And after that the streets. No matter that this move the balance of the Vietnamese war was tioners. The workers' oppression will not ment stands for "Death or the Veil" and an exercise in imperial egotism on Ihe be lightened under the mullahs; instead for the suppression of communists, says Antiwar part of succeeding American institu they must seek the overthrow of the shah the SWP; the"dynamic" ofthe struggle is tions. governments. and jockeying by using their social powerto establish an supposedly irreversible. Marching around in an attempt to come to an Movement... understanding with the Chinese .... " I ranian workers and peasants through Teheran will somehow mysti (continued from page 7) government. cally free women from their religious In fact, the stabilization of Indonesia The international Spartacist tenden indoctrination, differentiate the prole SL's split from what the SWP recog as a rightist pro-American bulwark cy's intransigent opposition to both the tariat from the obscurantist mullahs and nizes as "the antiwar movement": against Communism in Asia was a butcher shah and the reactionary mul transmute reactionary prejudice into crucial consideration of imperialist lahs has provoked howls of outrage, and revolutionary class consciousness. "The Spartaeist League walked out of the committee over this question [of foreign rolicy. In 1953, then-president even physical attacks, from the Stalinist There was an"irreversible" dynamic in censorship]. carried their own slogans Eisenhower worried, "If we lost Viet and petty-bourgeois nationalist Iranian the day of the march. and chastised the Pakistan too. And theSWPmustered up nam and Malaysia. how would the Free student left in both the U.S. and Europe. SWP ior heing party to the one-slogan the same arguments to cynically cash in World hold the rich empire of Indone Our position has also drawn a wretched agreement. It is true that this was an on the anti-Bhutto "mass movement." uneomfortahle compromise for those of sia')" (quoted in Pacific Research and mud-slinging attack from the opportun The 25 April 1977 issue of the SW P's us in the SWP. particularly since World Empire Telel{raph, August ists par excellence of the Socialist Intercontinental Press announced, "As virtuallv everv member of the Parade 1969). And in an article titled "Asia Workers Party. The 8 December issue of Commi"ttee v':ith the exception of the the protests continued to gain momen After Vietnam," Richard Nixon gloat the SWP's Militant carried an article SA:"IE representative professed to be tum, women have begun to participate in ed: "With its 100 million people and its entitled. "I ran: Is Struggle Against personally in favor of immediate with them. a significant development in drawal from Vietnam, and those who thrce thousand mile arc of islands Shah's Tyranny Reactionary?" Through Pakistan, which is strongly influenced by surported the 'negotiations' slogan containing the region's richest hoard of a host of distortions and omissions the claimed to do so only because they orthodox Islam." natural resources, Indonesia constitutes author David Frankelconcludes that the thought it was a better way to appeal to Then, too. the SWP considered the the greatest prize in the Southeast Asian Muslims' campaign to return Iran to the broader forces. This concession went leadership of the struggle irrelevant: against our grain because we were area" (ForeiKn AfTairs, October 1967). davs of Muhammed is not only support "Although the PNA leadership is domi thoroughly convinced-and remained The bloody coup which made Indonesia abie but even a model of "democratic" nated by rightist elements, including so-that SA:"IE's equivocal position on "safc for democracy" should have struggle. the war was not only morally unaccept former military officers and Islamic enabled the U.S. to extricate itself from What is left out of this gem would fill able but not nearly as popular an a losinl{ military adventure without fear religious figures, it has been able to approach to the mass of the American up an entire newspaper, not just one mobilize hundreds of thousands of people as the immediate withdrawal for the more lucrative "dominoes." article. Khomeini's name does not protesters on the basis of its opposition position. But we made the agreement Maoist China's open diplomatic alli appear once. Frankel does not SeelTi to for October 16. lived up to it scrupu to the present regime" (Intercontinental ance with the U.S. completed the have heard of the custom of wearing the lously. and never regretted having done quarantine of the Indochinese Press. 9 May 1977). And of course, "A so." veiL nor of the Muslim's drive to restore revolution. PN A government formed out of the its use. In fact, the word "woman" does Yesterday's opportunism is always present upsurge would be under strong not appear once in the entire article today's damaging admission, so now Why does the SWP feel so directly pressure to concede democratic rights" quite an achievement considering our Halstead tells his readers how the SWP affronted by an analysis which is not (lP, 6 June 1977). Whereas now, in its emphasis on the woman question in experienced anguish when it chose the even patticular to the SL but a common shameless abasement to Khomeini, the polemicizing against support to the bourgeois pacifists of SANE over the place? Because Cde. Robertson's SWP assures us that despite the mullahs' mullahs. Even the theocratic nature of demands of socialist (or "moral") description of the factors which made predominance the Iranian workers and th'e 1907 constitution is suppressed, and principle. But when it counted, the SWP the Vietnam adventure superfluous to peasants will not permit a return to the the question ofwhat Khomeini's "Islam certainly didn't manifest much discom the best interests of U.S. imperialism M iddIe Ages, after the Zia coup they ic republic" would mean for the left and fort in choosing to side with SANE. cuts at the heart of the SWP's sometime were forced to admit that " ... the whole working class of Iran is totally absent. When in 1966 the SL called a counter "anti-imperialist" pretensions. I P's repression is being carried out under an demonstration to protest SANE's plea equation-"defense of the Vietnamese And not by accident. It is a difficult Islamic cover" (IP, 18 July 1977). that the president scale down the war Revolution through building the anti task painting up clerical obscurantismas because it was "making a mockery ofthe war movement"-is central to the Today Bhutto rots in jaiL as the "democracy," and facts would only get in Great Society," the SWP responded: SWP's effort to alibi its extra Islamic despot who replaced him weighs the way. Far better to accuse the "ANTI-SANE-A manifesto was parliamentary bloc with McGovern & the utility of hanging him. It will be Spartacist League of opposing demo issued by the Spartacist League, an Co. If the SWP admits that the leaders unfortunate if Reza Shah Pahlavi suffers ultra-left grouplet. calling on people to cratic slogans because we oppose the of the bourgeois/pacifist antiwar move the same fate at the hands of Khomeini picket the SANE Madison Square mullahs' calls for freeing only Islamic ment opposed the war from the stand and his henchmen instead of experien Gardenlal"-' to End the War in Vietnam political prisoners and the creation ofan :"low because of defects in SANE's point o{ the interests o{ U. S. imperial cing the revolutionary justice of the Islamic republic; and because we deny program. Mayhe the name bugs them ism, the cquation collapses and the victorious proletariat. The Iranian left that this program ofclerical reaction has too." SWP's refusal to defend the revolution and working class haveaccounts to settle -Afilirall/. 12 December 1966 anything to do with the most rudimen ary struggle of the Indochinese workers with this butcher. They remember the tary forms of bourgeois democracy. For the SWP, all those who refused to and peasants is revealed as a conscious. mass executions after 1953, the grisly The SWP, which only a few short toddle along behind the pro-imperialist overture to its "own" bourgeoisie. months ago opposed thedemand "Down torture of thousands of leftists, the proKram of the "dove" Democrats smashing of strikes, the famine and became non-people. The SWI\had no with the shah!" as"ultraleft," now cheers For the SWP, busy running around exploitation brought by the shah's interest in this "phantom" antiwar move on the petty-bourgeois crowds attacking harassing demonstrators who carried "White Revolution." These are the ment which expressed the subjectively cinemas. banks and liquor stores in the Viet Cong flags or other symbols of shah's real crimes, not his supposed revolutionary aspirations of many streets ofTeheran. This, Frankel assures support for the Vietnamese revolution, transgressions against Islam. thousands of youth. The SWP cared us, is not motivated by fundamentalist the thousands of little American flags The strike battles now being waged by only for the "antiwar movement" Islamic puritanism, but by militant carried by the antiwar marchers were the Iranian workers could be the basis of represented by SANE. And what was "anti-imperialism." By rights he had not important because anybody oppos the independent mobilization of the SANE? An ossified social-patriotic better put Saudi Arabia's suppression of ing the war became "objectively" an proletariat as a competitor for power outfit with a paper membership, a all thingscontrary to the Koran at the top anti-imperialist fighter. To preserve this with Khomeini, not ascannonfodder for sniveling crew of pro-American pacifists ofhis list of"anti-imperialist"victories of comfortable fiction,tne SWP must deny the mullahs. In the imperialistepoch, the who sought to speak for the "progres the "Arab Revolution." the existence of a section of the democratic tasks of freeing oppressed sive" bourgeoisie. Its bloc with the .-nationalities, agrarian revolution, and bourgeoisie itself which opposed the SANE & Co. "moderates" against the Vietnam war. After the Indonesian "Dynamic" of Reaction breaking down imperialist domination "ultra-lefts" was the SWP's "peaceful, coup, the Vietnam war became an can be carried out only under the legal" road to its "own" ruling class. In the final analysis, such "trifles" as leadership ofthe Iranian proletariat. But encumbrance and more far-sighted th~ the program and political leadership of these urgent democratic demands re Indonesia and Indochina elements among bourgeoisie began the anti-shah movement are unimpor quire the establishment of a proletarian to say so. It was this shift in hourgeois tant to the SWP. The mullahs areworthy dictatorship for their success, not the The present IP polemic adds only one opinion, not the best-building efforts of dissolution of the working class into the new element to the antiwar discussion: the SWP, which swelled the ranks of the petty-bourgeois masses. Only a Leninist the claim that Cdc. Robertson's discus "mass movement." Trotskyist vanguard party can win the sion of the Indonesian military coup of U.S. imperialism's military debacle in proletariat to this perspective and lead it 1965 shows the SL considers the Vietnam was a powerful radicalizing YOUNG to victory. Vietnamese revolution "unimportant." Let us look first at what Cdc. force for a generation of American youth. But thanks in part to the For the right ofself-determination lor Rohcrtson said: SPARTACUS misleadershir of the SWP happily all oppressed nationalities in Iran! "The vietorv took place in Vietnam and marching to "Bring Our Boys Home" MONTHLY NEWSPAPER OF THE Land to the tiller! all Indochina. The imperialists SPARTACUSYOUTHLEAGUE (our boys in Vietnam were not the Full democratic rights for women! ~ 0 headed bv the Americans-learned a American army!). most ofthc protesters to the veil! thing or two and have done a pretty Make checks payable/mail to: remained firmly in the grip of the '\0 confidence in "anti-imperIalist" gond job. assisted in other ways. in Spartacus Youth Publishing Co. stahdi/ing. for example. South America Democratic "doves." while the smaller Box 825, Canal Street Station officers-the workers must win overthe (Latin America) and have found what is su bjecii\cly anti-imperialist layer gravi New York, NY 10013 ranks of the army! reasonahlv dcscribed as neo tated mainly toward thc Maoist milieu Free all victims of the shah's white colonialisnl as a way to be assured of which was the largest force orposing the Name terror' Down with martial law! Sm,ish necessarv limits. at least in black Africa. SWP Irom the left. Address SAVAK' For popular tribunals to try And tile great prototype for this phenorm:non in the colonial world was. City _ the SAVAK torturers! n! ClHlrse. the Indnnesianmilitarv eoun lhus the S\VP\ rrnud moment of State Zip _ Down vvith the shah' Down with the 01 1965, in vv hieh not mereh th'e 221 mullahs' For a sovereign. secular con Cnmlllunist Party lias beheaded b'ut the arparent mass influCI1l'c \\as a simple stituent assembly! For a workers and lllasses v\ere !!iveil a tremendous defeat. sellout. The Srartacist league's princi V\ Ith hundreds nf thousands of dead peasants gO\crnment in Iran! ricli anti-imperialist line \las much SUBSCRIBE NOW! amnne the v\nrkers. the militant land more than "something to throw at the For a Trotskyist rarty in Iran! Reforge less p~asants. and llfcourse this not ven SWP:' hut all the same it secms to have $2/9 issues the Fourth International. world party oj gond (and ven Maoist) Communist socialist revolution!. Party. And if there was any virtue in a hit its mark .• 15 DECEMBER 1978 11 collaborationist policies of the current openings" as defined in the document'! reformist parliamentary cretinism of the SWP's Goat... bureauerats. They were "developments like Steel SWP and Communist Party: the SL's "What does it matter to Robertson that workers fight Back"-in other words. recent success in seeking to influence (continued from paRe 7) there is not one single member of the YSA or SWP who is an assistant Ed Sadlowski. " local groupings breaking to the left from blacks: in other words. they benefit education director or assistant editor of The Spartacist League is ofcourse the the Socialist Party. materially from the superexploitation of a union or union ne\\spaper'.' These arc example of those who undertook The omission is necessary. IP cannot black labor. As Marxists, we recognize only facts., " sYstematic union work on the basis of tell the reader about the SL's real fight that their immediate material interest What') "A class-struggle left wing" in the "abstract theory," and years before the for a real class-struggle alternative to the places them in the reactionary camp and unions') Is the SWP kidding'! Whatever SWP "turn," But for the purposes of the sellout bureaucracy if it wants him to we must expect that most of them will happened to the "democratic labor nresent IP l1olemic. the SL exists only as beliC\e the SL is a "sect" headed for fight against the proletarian revolution mo\ement" \\ hich normall\ accompa "outer space," that will destroy their privileges. But as nies the thousands of pages of turgid In fact. the onlv real roliticctl the class brothers of the black South \lilllam prose 111 praise of dissident substance to be found in the IParticie is African proletariat. we have no deSire to union bureaucrats" When polemici;ing Yesterday's the grarhic. a photo of two wr push every last white into the trenches against opponents to its left. the arch headlines ("Down \\ith the Shah' Dm\ n b\ a nationalist perspective of extermi reformist SWP of toda\. shamelessl\. . \\ith the \tullahs'" and "Shcharansk\ Is nating the entirety of the oppressor borrows thL' language of the re\olution Opportunism Guilty as Hell!") whose uncomrromis people. Of course such considerations an. SWPofthe 1930's, But al1\one. \\ho ing rrn\ctarian line does tend to isolate are of no interest to the reformist SWP. bothers to check will find that the "... most of the ultraleft groups us from the liberals and the social which has about as much intention of SWP's idea of a "class-struggle left support the MPLA. demoCi'atic \cft. Unfortunately. IP did making a proletarian revolution in wing" is the liberal wing of the labor not choose to take up its prostration South Africa as the pope has of getting bureaucracy. such as embodied by "... Still another element in the before the clerical-reactionan leader an abortion. strikcbreaking Mine Workers leader situation is the imperialist ship of the "movement" in Iran or its de Arnold Miller. facto abandonment of the Trotskyist Moreover. the apartheid system has support given to the UNITA sought as much as possible to keep The trade-union policies of the SWP policy of defense of the Soviet Union technical skills in the hands of the white arc so obviously an effort to apply for a and the FNLA, including the against imperialism. labor aristocracy and middle class. job as left eover to the less discredited use of South African troops. We can sympathize with IP's discreet These skills will be of assistance to the bureaucrats that to admit the SWP has Does this automatically re silence. The X December Mililant's masses of South Africa in the construc not made it to "assistant education quire us to support the MPLA? effort to defend the SWP\ Iran line tion of a socialist society. The victorious directors" is to boast ofspectacular non against the SL might be read as an Bolsheviks made use of the talents and success. Comrades. this is perhaps not "... In Angola we must begin by unintentional object lesson on the better experience of even capitalist bureau wise: Ed Sadlowski might be listening, checking the strands of the part of valor (for a reply see "Love the crats and White Army officers willing to You would not want anyone to know Mullahs-Love the SWP" in the present do a deal and work for the new regime. you are satisfied to serve merely as three groups in relation to issue of Young Spartacus). And IP, the A black-centered South African work unpaid mimeo operators for those imperialism. Here again we SWP\ international factional organ. is ers republic will have room for whites assistant editors. Perhaps Cde. Robert find no basic difference ...." perhaps not the best place to attempt a who would rather be "race traitors" than son erred in trying to quantify the -Militant, defense of the SWP\ political solidarity dead reactionary heroes. present level ofSWP trade-union work: 23 January 1976 with Jimmy Carter in emoting over the perhaps we should have stuck to a more plight of Shcharansky. a man even the Reformists for Hire clastic formulation. How about "water bourgeois press admits sought to pass boys for the bureaucracy''':' "... the Maoists raise very ulti Only in its last column does the IP Soviet military secrets to CIA conduits. In fact. when the SWP with matistic and ultraleftdemands. polemic give a hint of what is really The foreign radicals to whom IP appropriate hoopla made its "turn" They demand, for instance, presents the SWP's most "left" face are bothering the SWP. as it rails indignant toward trade-union implantation a ly O\er Cde. Robertson's charge that the that all should unite on slogans likely to be rather more sensitive than couple of years ago, it explicitly justified like 'Down with the Shah ...'." the Hiliram's mainly domestic reader SWP: its new "proletarian orientation" (long a .. is all geared up to play the role of ship to the social-patriotism animating dirty word in the SWP) on the basis that -Militant, rendering less brittle. more clastic. more 13 January 1978 the SWP's "democratic" defense of the plausible. the trade union bureauera it discerned a change in the trade-union Shcharanskys and Solzhenitsyns, e\ .... And that's what the YSA is-an burea ucracy: For at bottom the gulf between the a\ailable 1.000 \'outh instant I\' to be "'t is interesting to compare what we are hired as assistant educational d"irectors doing to the path followed by most of an individual named Robertson and a SWP reformists and the SL Trotskyists and assistant editors of union nL .\'spa our opponents the last years. Almost newspaper. :\owhere is there a hint of comes down to the SL's intransigent pers in order to explain to the workers without exception. they made their the things that really get the SWP's goat: opposition to U.S. imperialist policy that black is white and this is the best of \arious 'turns to the working class: not here and no\\. While the reformists give all possible worlds." the SL-surported trade-union caucuses on t he basis of real openings. but on with authority gained through years of credence to Carter's sanctimonious Apparently this really stung, for IP abstract theorv...." --Man~Alice Waters. principled struggle. something which "human rights" crusade-which aims at writes: "Organization Report:' S WP the SWP discovered when it finally the moral and military rearmament of "In fact. all of the SWp's work in Oi.\(1I,I,lio/l Bu//eli/l Vol. :15. started putting its own people into U.S. imperialism after Vietnam and the union movement aims at build '\0, :1 . .June 1977 ing a class-struggle left wing in the industry: the recent New York election Watergate-the SL stands with Lenin in unions that can defeat the class- And what were the "new political campaign which sharply highlighted the declaring: the main enemy is at home! • SP Left Wingers Call for SL-SWP Debate We reprim heloll' a letter lI'rillen hI' lI'hich misses no opportunity to dismiss split from the SP on II November, a To put things in their proper perspec the Rew)lutionary Marxist Tendency the S I. as "ultra-Iefi seclarians. "is af'raid little under half of the active member tive, McReynolds' own political back (RMT.fcml1er~1'the Dehs Caucus ofthe to face a genuinely Leninist organiza ship of the SP (not the "dozen" that ground needs to be examined. McRey Socialist Party (SPj) to the Guardian in lion hefclre the prohing questions of' a McReynolds states) we did frighten the nolds. who poses as a pacifist and claims response to its 15 Novemher article group mOl'ing lefiward from social right-wing SP leadership into revoking to "respectfully" disagree with Lenin has "Socialist Party: What Is To Be Done?" democrac.\'. No douht it remembers the the charters of the SP's largest local. nevertheless remained "more than 25 and a suhsequent letterfrom S Per Dave political druhhing it received at the Milwaukee, as well as those of locals years" in the Socialist Party of strike McReynolds. Both the Guardian article recent SWP-CP-SL dehate during the Manhattan and Racine (Wisconsin) and breaking Frank Zeidler (former mayor and the "correction" curiousll'failed to Nell' York Citr elections (see "Class the entire Michigan state party in order of Milwaukee and present chair of the notice that the recent SP convention Slruggle or Race War?" WV No. 218, 3 to escape the political threat posed by SP) and DSOC chair and Democratic and suhsequent split had anything at all NOl'emher). But the price of' political the left-wing. Party member Mike Harrington (SP to do with the question of'Trotskrism. cO\mrdice is high. Will the S WP he The reference in the letter to the chair until 1973). The SP supported not Since the Guardianfolloll's the Stalinisl content to let a suhstantial number of' National Caucus of Labor Committees only the Korean and Viet Nam wars tradition of' distorting or suppressin!; potential rel'olutionists lI'alk on hy is a slander which had its origins deep throughout their durations, but also the anything to do with this tahoo subjeel. lI'ithout attempting a parting shot to within the mind of David McReynolds. 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba. we have good reason to expect that the saI'e them «Ir its hrand of' "Iefi" social a slander which he has pushed steadily McReynolds' life-long presence in this RMT's leller will never see the light of' democracr:' The SL and RMT are for the past two months on the theory rotten fragment of the social democracy dal' in their pages. We therefore under lI'ailing /() see. that if you throw enough mud. some will displays his cynical yet unserious atti take to puhlish it here. ***** stick. Moreover. contrary to McRey tude toward politics. As part o(the process oj'investigating Revolutionary Marxist Tendency nolds' allegation, the former Debs The RMT's exclusion from the SP is the ostensihlr Trotskyist groups. the 11'14 :\. Arlington PI. Caucus had no connection with either merely the latest in a long series of RMT has proposed a dehate helween Milwaukee, WI 53202 the Communist Cadre (CTC) or the Leninist and Trotskyist splits from the the Spartacist League (SL) and Ihe hopelessly bankrupt Socialist Party Guardian Communist Cadre-Marxist (CTCM). Sociali.\·1 ~Vorkers Partr (S W P). Where going back to 1919. We are glad to be 33 West 17th St. The CTCM is a politically irrelevant as Ihe Sf. accepted Ihe proposal free of the stagnant political swamp :\ew York. ~y 10011 Marcyite 1972 split from Workers enthusiaslicallr, the S WP has heen \Vorld Partv which entered the Sp's which the SP has been since the historic tn-ing to duck Ihe dehate challenge. So Dear Guardian: Manhattan local after the formation of betrayals of the Second International far Iher hal'e come up lI'i!h Ihree We would like to respond to a recent the Debs Caucus. CTCM has distin parties in World War I. Our future comradictorr re,\'flomes. all of them letter by Socialist Party member Dave gUished itself as a sect with the most political orientation as a tendency will phonr and/or cO\mrdlr: McReynolds which appeared in the rotten entry policy on the left, Prior to be toward the revolutionary Marxism of I. We're too hllSr to dehate, Guardian (22 1\ovember 19711) and their intervention in the SP they were the Spartacist League which embodies 2. Fred Halslead refilses to talk to the referred to us. the former Socialist Party involved with the psycho-therapy c1i the continuitv of the Leninist and Trotskyist program for proletarian R,~ITII'ilh Ihe Sf. in the room. (Debs Caucus). n0i\' the Revolutionary ljuist International Workers, Party in 3. We might "debate" if'the SL and Marxist Tendency (RMT). 1975. McReynolds' allegatiom concern re\olution. S WP present their argument.1 on While the left opposition which ing the CTCM's supposedly undemoc Re\olutionary Marxist Tendency alternate weeks.' emerged at the 1978 SP Convention ratic practices. however. are complete Milwaukee, WI We can only conclude that the S W P, only took out about 40 people when it fa hrieations. 27 Novemher 197X 12 WORKERS VANGUARD sions for the struggle for power!" always demand the sovereignty of a cy, condemning the Bolsheviks for -"Program for Workers Power particular constituent assembly. In a dispersing the constituent assembly in Constituent in Portugal." WV No. lW, 10 October 1975 revolutionary upheaval, a weak provi Russia in January 1918. sional government may be forced to As Trotskyists we hold that the But for the social democrats of the Assembly ... make economic concessions to the constituent assembly is only one of R MC this was "tragically misled." Since (continuedfrom paRe 5) workers and to temporarily tolerate several revolutionary democratic de "there are no actual soviets in existence organs of dual power. A constituent mands. subordinate to the overall such as soldiers committees and workers in Portugal today," the task was to assembly could then become a tool for interests of the proletarian revolution. militias. In fact what was occurring was support the forces of "democratic the bourgeoisderailing ofthe revolution. In contrast to the social-democratic an internationally coordinated attack reaction" in defense of bourgeois parlia The votes of a backward rural popula SWP we stand with Lenin in his on the MFA-PCP government/rom the mentarism against military bonapart tion might produce a constituent assem December 1917 "Theses on the Constit riXht, bankrolled by U.S. imperiali.sm ism. When they admit the existence of bly far to the right of the provisional uent Assembly," which starkly synthe (which later admitted it was pumping "meager embryos of future soviets" government, which is under the direct sized the Marxist viewpoint on bour several million dollars a month to (how prosaic-as if such organs of Soares' PS at the time), and whose real pressure of the urban-centered, comba geoise democracy: struggle are an everyday occurrence!) it tive sections oftheworkingclass. And by aim was to crush the first signs ofdual "I. The demand for the convocation of is only to argue that they should a Constituent Assembly was a perfectly power H'hich were proliFerating. claiming to represent the democratic "become the organizational expression popular will, the constituent assembly legitimate part of the programme of revolutionary Social-Democracy, be The SWP went right along with this of the struggle to convene a revolution might be better able to mobilize against ary Constituent Assembly." It is thus cause in a bourgeois republic the anti-Communist offensive, putting for the proletarian vanguard than an unau Constituent Assembly represents the not surprising the RMC eventually ward as the cental slogan All Power to thoritative provisional government. highest form ofdemocracy and because, joined the SWP. Their marriage was the Constituent Assembly! (They This was the situation in Portugal in the in setting up a Pre-parliament, the consecrated on the altar of parliamen imperialist republic headed by Keren object to this interpretation of their summer of 1975. slogan, but that is what defense of the tary cretinism and hostility to soviet sky was preparing to rigtheelectionsand power. Similar situations occurred in the violate democracy in a number ofways. "sovereignty" of the constituent assem classic French revolutions of 1789-92 "2. While demanding the convocation There is another, more curious bly actually means.) Of course, they and 1848. In June 1789 the National of a Constituent Assembly, revolution aspect of the SW p's fascination with the ary Social-Democracy has ever since added a fig leaf, arguing that "the Assembly was born when the Third constituent assembly demand in Portu the beginning of the Revolution of 1917 concrete expression of popular sover Estate summoned by Louis XVI refused gal: the call for a workers and peasants repeatedly emphasised that a republic eignty through the Constituent Assem to bedismissed by royal orderand retired of Soviets is a higher form ofdemocracy government based on a constituent bly" would be by "establishing a to the tennis court at Versailles to hold than the usual bourgeois republic with a assembly. At about this time their workers and peasants government," or independent sessions. But this was onlya Constituent Assembly. Portuguese supporters published a little "3. For the transition from the more specifically a PS-PCP govern gesture. The assembly was not recog book collecting various writings by bourgeois to the socialist system, for the ment. However, in fact the operational nized as a ruling body until followingthe Leon Trotsky on the question of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the majority in the assembly was that of plebeian Paris revolt which culminated Republic of Soviets (of Workers', constituent assembly. And in several Soares' PS allied with the right-wing in the July 14 storming of the Bastille. Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies) is not articles on China, Trotsky does indeed only a higher type of democratic bourgeois parties against the PCP. The Thus from the time of the classic SWP argued that the Socialists would raise the possibility of a soviet govern institution ... , but is the only form ment convoking a constituent assembly: bourgeois revolutions onward, the de capable of securing the most painless be exposed when they refused to form mand for a constituent assembly has transition to socialism .... such a government; in the meantime, "If the proletariat has assembled the poor peasantry under the slogans of always had a popular revolutionary "14....The course of events and the however, the actual majority in this democracy (land, national assembly, development of the class struggle in the democratic content, directly counter revolution have resulted in the slogan organ of bourgeois rule whose sover etc.) and in a united onslaught over posed to all attempts to temporize with eignty the SWP defends would proceed throws the military dictatorship of the 'All Power to the Constituent bourgeoisie, then. when it comes into or reform the old regime. Assembly!'-which disregards the gains with its measures directed against the of the workers' and peasants' revolu gains won by the workers movement! power. the proletariat will have to However. by the summer of 1792 the tion, which disregards Soviet power, convoke a national assembly in order National Assembly had become a not to arouse the mistrust of the which disregards the decisions of the ***** peasantry and in order not to provide an choking fetter on the further develop Second All-Russia Congress of Soviets As elaborated earlier in this article, on opening for bourgeois demagogy." ment of the revolution and a protector of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, of -"To the Chinese Left of the monarchy. On August 10 of that the Second All-Russia Congress of various occasions we, following Trot Peasants' Deputies, etc.-becoming in sky, have been obliged to specify that our Opposition," January 1931 year the representatives of the Parisian fact the slogan of the Cadets and the people formed a Revolutionary Com Kaledinites and pI' their helpers .... call is for a revolutionary constituent But Trotsky does not here, or elsewhere, mune as columns were marching on the "16. The result of the above-mentioned assembly, in order to contrast this with postulate the constituent assembly as a Tuileries Palace to expel the king. The circumstances taken together is that the conciliationist maneuvers of sundry possible organizational form for the Constituent Assemblv, summoned on Commune under the leadership of bourgeois opposition forces. One place dictatorship of the proletariat; this is an the basis of the election lists of the where we did not call for such a body Robespierre forced the Assembly to invention of the ex-Trotskyists who parties existing prior to the proletarian was Portugal in July-August of 1975, a "suspend" the king and call elections for peasant revolution under the rule of the distort the Bolshevik slogan ofa workers fact which brought us the criticism of a ne\\, truly democratic and revolution bourgeoisie. must inevitably clash with and peasants government into a call for a the will and interests of the working and the Rcvolutionary Marxist Committee ary constituent assembly based on reform government of the bourgeois exploited classes which on October 25 (R MC). a Shachtmanite grouping universal suffrage. the Convention. Yet state. Trotsky speaks of a nationalj began the socialist revolution against which has since gone on to the reformist the parliamentarist cretins of the SWP the bourgeoisie. Naturally, the interests constituent assembly as an additional big time in the SWP. In a collection of would no doubt have denounced the of this revolution stand higher than the support to the proletarian power: "The essays entitled "Problems of the Portu action of the Commune as the undemo formal rights of the Constituent advantage would be that the soviet Assemblv. gucse Revolution" (ReI'olutionarr cratic action of an ultra-leftist minority system would be formally sanctioned by "17. Every direct or indirect attempt to Harxist Papers 7. March 1976). written isolated in Paris. Luckily, Robespierre consider the question of the Constituent before its social-democratic fusion with the national assembly .... " was a revolutionary rather than a Assembly from a formaL legal point of Jack Barnes & Co.. the RMC found the Moreover, this hypothetical case worshipper of bourgeois legality. view. within the framework of ordinarv bourgeois democracy and disregarding SWP\ capitulations to Soares too much referred to China where a vast peasant The frustrated French revolution of the class struggle and civil war, would to stomach but criticized the SL for majority could be mobilized against its 1848, on the other hand. provides an be a betrayal of the proletariat's cause, condemning the Socialists' despicable warlord/landlordjcomprador bourge example of how a constituent assembly and the adoption of the bourgeois role in spearheading a reactionary ois rulers by a Leninist leadership that can become an organ of "democratic standpoint. ..." mobilization (a "defacto red-brown knew how to employ revolutionary counterrevolution." The provisional This is the revolutionary program which coalition" as we called it). democratic slogans. In Portugal, on the government set up following the Febru unites our call for revolutionarvconstit The answer, said the RMC, was for other hand, the bulk of the peasantry ary revolution was directly under the uent assemblies in Chile, Nicar'agua and Portuguese revolutionaries to center (not the PCP-led agricultural workers) is pressure of the Parisian proletariat, and Peru; our call for a sovereign, secular their agitation on the demand for a made up of small property owners who was far to the left of the Constituent constituent assembly in Iran; and our revolutionary constituent assembly. have been frequently mobilized by the National Assembly elected in April. refusal to call for defense of the They devote several pages to the right wing against the radical working Reflecting the more backward views of sovereignty of the Portuguese constitu transcendental powers of this slogan, at class of the Lisbon region. the peasant majority of the nation, this ent assembly or for a "revolutionary one point asserting: The Spartacist League called for a body was dominated by the Party of constituent assembly" in Portugal in "If the workers' parties had consistently constituent assembly in Portugal in or Order and drawn mainly from the old July-August 1975. It is the program of fought for all democratic rights der to mobilize the aspirations for dem Marxist independence from all wings of including and especially the revolution monarchists. After the workers repre ary Constitutent Assembly-then none ocracy of a population which had suf sentatives were purged from the execu the class enemy, and of militant devo of the CP headquarters would have fered almost halfa century ofSalazarist tive committee, in the decisive June days tion to the revolutionary interests of the been burned." corporatist dictatorship, and as an the reconstituted government provoked exploited and oppressed, led by the Actually. this des ex machilla was only expression of opposition to military an insurrection by the Paris workers proletarian communist vanguard. • a cover for its real policy, identical with bonapartist rule even under the leftist which was bloodily suppressed by the the SWP\, of defending the "sovereign rhetoric of the M FA. But in the concrete butcher Cavaignac, who executed more ty" of the existing constituent assembly; case of the rightist mobilization for than 20,000 in the name ofthe Assembly the RMC was only looking for a way to "democracy" in mid-I975 we supported (see "The French Revolution of 1848," allllP claim it did not limit itself to the demand neither the populist captains-turned Young Spartacus No. 50,January 1977). of all power to the anti-Communist PSj generals nor the right-wing majority of bourgeois majority of the assembly. the Constituent Assembly, instead Here. as in Germany in 1918-19, the In any case the issue was not one of calling for united working-class defense working class found itself on the calling for new elections for a more of left-wing offices and extension/ opposite sides of the barricades not radical legislative hody based on univer centralization of the nascent organs of from absolutist dictatorship but from sal suffrage. The potential basis for workers power (see "SWPjOCI Tail the champions of bourgeois democracy. revolutionary opposition to the bona Counterrevolution in Portugal," WV Marx and Engels stood on the side of partist tutelage of the M FA was nota No. 75.29 August 1975). the proletariat against the forces of constituent assembly but developing *** ** democratic reaction, and it was the and linking the potential soviet-type The events in Portugal were not an experience of 1848-49 which firstformed 41 bodies then appearing. Thus we Price:I!C$3.50· .... isolated occurrence. nor was the conflict Marx's concept of the dictatorship of VII demanded: between something called a constituent the proletariat. Lenin deepened the Make checks payable/mail to: "Build and unite workers councils assembly and the workers commis Marxist understanding of the class nationwide. drawing in the workers Spartacist Publishing Co. commissions, popular vigilance com sionsjsoldiers committees unique. In difference between bourgeois and pro P.O. Box 13n GPO mittees. soldiers committees, neighbor fact, as proletarian revolutionaries (and letarian democracy, while Kautsky New York, N,Y. 10001 hood and agricultural workers commis- not bourgeois democrats) we do not continued to talk of abstract democra- '- 15 DECEMBER 1978 13 is apparently willing to leave Hua as the Such a comparison is simply' not demonstrations and last month's burst Mao Cult figurehead prime minister as long as he relC\ant. Initiated partly in response to of orchestrated "democracy" did show is has no real power. Moreover if Teng the Hungarian Revolution, the "Hun that Teng actually enjoys a degree 01 really intended to go after Mao's dred Flowers" campaign was in the genuine. although mainly negati\c, "Rectified"... historic role one would expect his main main an attempt to let nqn-party popularity. Probably the one truly (continucd/rolll flage In) demand to be rehabilitation of Liu intellectuals blow off stearn in a period spontaneous element in all the rigged Stalinization campaign. But the pur Shao-chi--dead or alive. Instead the shows 01 the last decade has been the poses of the two are very different. For central demand of the present campaign deer-seated hatred of the capricious, the Kremlin bureaucrats, denunciation has been the reversal of the 1976central Where Do Wall Posters \engeful and wantonly repressive Chi of Stalin was necessary to re-establish committee decision on Tien An Men, a Come From? ang Ch'ing crowd. \Vhen following the an aura of legality as opposed to Stalin's demand directed mainly at Hua. October 1976 palace cnup Teng com increasingly arbitrary mass terror. By Thus it would be false to view Teng's .\u'l7l1riu 3: We are in the office of rared Chiang tn the Empress Dowager. the time he died the Russian population short-li\ed wall poster;inter\le\\ war as l'l'ng. Chll1l'sl' Cio\ernment biggie. the label immediateh stuck. was in a state of turbulence: in fact the the "de-\l 15 DECEMBER 1978 15 W'li/(EliS VIINfiIJlllilJ Where Do Wall Posters Come From, Any.wayl Mao Cult "Rectified" It was over before you could blink an figurehead. hut his few remaining allies eye. But China's carefully orchestrated left over from Mao's last days were "campaign for democracy" had a either gone or ahout to disappear. tremendous impact on the West. To The attention of the press has focused t hear the English-speaking press tell it. not so much on Teng's consolidation of the last two weeks in :\member had power. hut on the appearance of open becn "Hyde Park on the Tien An Men." criticisms of Mao. long a sacrosanct Peking's street-corner soap-boxers were figure in the CCP pantheon. The leading advocating free speech and demanding l'.S. journalist-China watcher. Hong secret-hallot elections. Wa II posters (the Kong-hased Fox Butterfield. sees the famous da::ihao) were taking on China's present campaign as Teng's attempt to newest evil "whatevcrism"- those "Settle a Score with Mao" (SCII' York who took "whatever" Mao said as the Jimes\!aga::ille. 10 December). And gospel. Meanwhile. thousands of street the Socialist Workers Partv entitled the ,I demonstrators chanted "Long Live front-page story in its 4 Decemher Teng Hsiao-p'ing and Hua Kuo-feng" IIl/NCOIl/illcll/al Press. "The Mao Cult but never once mentioned the Great Begins to Shatter." This is pure impres Helmsman's name. And a 62-page wall sionism. While Mao will be transformed 'P poster. the "Manifesto of Human hack from an idol into a mortal Rights" signed hy the so-called "Demo "snenty-thirty man" ("70 percent right cratic Forum" group of K\\eichc)\\ and )0 percent wrong"), and Teng may Prc)\ince declared life was hetter in the 1'0\\ praise practice as "the supreme l'.S. The U.S. imperialist press was uiterion of truth." there will be no positivel\' rhapsodic. hurial of the l'.lao cult. The present "'{ou a re wit nbsi ng the greatest e\ent hureaucratic ruling clique in Peking is in the People'., Repuhlic.'·YcILIl\cck (II the heir of \lao no less than the depo,ed December) quoted a street demonstra "Gang of Four." Thu, \\hen the recent tor explaining things to a foreign criticisms of Mao's "mistake," threat journalist. "Great Democratic Debate ened to get out 01 hounds. they \\ ere SWL'eps Chllla.'· echoL'd the new,paper dhrupth ,topped h\ leng, of I eniL', '\merican lollo\\t'r,. But \\ hat did It all me:l'l') Themie, were churned Gang of Five Ollt In thL' rre'., a, Lht a, the analy,h could thlllk them up--almo,t all of I,lr some time I L'ng: hd s bec'l1 ruttll1g thcm \\ rong. For ,ome it \\a, Mosco\\ thL' lli1l"hing touches on the clchc of the 1956 and de-Sta Ill1ilation all mcr again. Cultural Re\olutllJn.ln lateOcwherthe For others it was a replay of the Red Guards were formally aholished. Hundred Flowers campaign. Most and a fe\\ weeks later it was announced incongruous ofall were the versions that that the policy of relocating urhan vouth had the durahle old Stalinist hack Teng to the countryside had earlier heen Hsiao-p'ing cast as China's Duhcek. suhstantially cut hack. The short-li\Cd But for all the prattling about China's "campaign for democracy" was "experiment in free speech," all the launched on :\ovember 15. Ironicallv. Pekingologists had to agree that the to dot the i's and cross the t's of thc AP "spontaneous" outpouring had been Maoist Old Guard's epitaph for the Wall posterproclaims Chairman Mao 30% off. turned on and off like a spigot by none Cultural Revolution. it ended as it had other than Teng himself. From its hegun. Thus the article in the Peking charged that Mao had heen out of touch interview with anti-communist Ameri J\mcmber 15 opening to its abrupt !\1I'allgmillg Jih Pao on that date with reality in his final years. that during can journalist Rohert ;-..; ovak: "Asked closing ten days later, the entire show carried a virulent attack on the writings the fateful decision concerning Tien An ahout one wall poster that said Mao had with its well-spaced radio spots. news of Yao Wen-yuan. the Gang of Four \1en he had been under the thumb of a heen 70 percent right and )0 percent paper articles. wall posters and soap memher whose 1965 article attacking "family-style fascist dictatorship." The wrong. which was how Mao used to box rallies could not have been carried then-Peking mayor p'eng Chen signaled first of the new wall posters. an appraise Stalin. Teng responded. 'I out without the approval of the top the start of the Cultural Revolution. The extensi\C 14-page treatise. declared myself am only 60-40':" He added: levels of the Chinese Communist Party original article. said Teng's mouthpiece. "Chairman Mao. hecause his thinking "[\ery Chinese knows that without (CCP). was "a reactionary signal to practice was metaphysical thinking during his Chairman Mao there would have been The closest parallel. though few made fascist dictatorship." old age and for all kinds of other no new China." it, was to the Cultural Revolution itself. The article went on to announce the reasons. supported the Gang of Four in Suddenlv it was allover. On ;-";ovem Teng was not adverse to borrowing a decision of the Central Committee raising their hands to strike down her 27 :\ovak reported that Teng said he few pages from the "Little Red Books" reversing the official verdict on the April Comrade Teng Hsiao-p'ing." and H ua had "always heen in complete of those who tWice purged him as a 1976 Tien An Men incident when Following these spectacular events agreement over everything." He wasn't "capitalist roader." So with wall posters 100,000 mourners of late premier Chou came a scant two weeks of the "cam after Hua's joh as premier: "I turned and ohscure literary criticism, "spon En-lai clashed with troops under the paign for democracy." On November down that joh when 1was 73 and I have taneous" demonstrations and secret orders of the Gang of Four. As a result a 19. for instance. Hsinhua. the official no intention of taking it at 75." By "hig party meetings."Tengdeclared war CC plenum. under the personal direc Chinese press agency, announced that :\o\emher 29 soap-box speakers were on his clique enemies in the Chinese tion of the ailing Mao. decided to strip )1\1\ people arrested after Tien An Men calling for "democracy with discipline." bureaucracy. those who had stood in the T eng (whose supporters had organiled had heen exonerated and rehahilitated. The next day a scheduled rally was small way of his second rehabilitation or the demonstration) of all party posts There was soaphoxing calling for free and disorganized hecause expected threatened his status as the de facto and to promote H ua Kuo-feng to the speech. Wall posters \\ent from crit ieiz pelrtv leaders did not show up. Wall strongman of the Forbidden City. post of prime minister. The article ing \1ao to demanding democracy. On po"ters praised Mao as the "Lenin of the And then he called it off. But unlike announced that the Tien An Men Novemher 25 thousands marched in Present Day" and warned that if the Mao, the cautious Teng did not wait incident would henceforth be consid Tien An Men Square chanting "Long "had eggs" continued to attack Mao's until the masses began to look like they ered "completely revolutionary" and all Li\e Democracy" and "Down with legacy. someone would "smash your might really "storm the headquarters" those who were persecuted for "honor Feudalist ic Fascism." dog heads." or economic chaos threatened the ing the memory of Premier Chou" The posters had shattered the regime with collapse. As soon as his would he rehabilitated. quarter-of-a-century myth of Mao's De-Maoization of China? limited purpose was achieved, the wily A few days after the article was infallihility. accusing the Great Helms "deputy" prime ministerj"deputy" party puhlished the wall posters went up. man of making "mistakes" during the Many have seen a precedent for this chairman waived his baton and "Chi They were remarkahle-for the first Cultural Re\olution and the Gr~t Leap wave of officially-sponsored attacks on nese democracy" was no more. When time in China Mao was publicly linked Forward. in specific. The Nell' York the cult of Mao in the 1956 Soviet de the posters came down, H ua was left as a to the Gang of Four. The posters Times (2l\ J\ovember) reported Teng's continued Oil page 14 16 15 DECEMBER 1978 ~ Jl.L ~~•. .~ .• . ~ .__ ~. .... ~ -'--. _*_ .. ---:.I'-r_-•. _. _ ,Jf:. ~