WfJ/iIlE/iS ".(;(/'11' 2se No. 500 ~X-523 20 April 1990 Wall Street Shudders After Tokyo Stock Market Crash

Japan is supposed to be the ultimate, super-successful capitalist country. But in March and early April the Tokyo stock exchange experienced a meltdown wip­ ing out almost 30 percent of the market value of Japan, Inc. "There is a total loss of confidence, period," exclaimed one se­ curities dealer. "It's an ugly situation," echoed another. "There are no buyers at all. None." Nippon Telegraph and Tele-' phone-the largest corporation in the world-had its stock fall from a peak of $21,000 per share a few years ago to less than $8,000. The Tokyo crash reverberated in finan­ cial capitals from Wall Street to Frank­ furt. The fear is that the Japanese will pull back and sell off their .assets to cover their losses at home. For most of the last decade, Japanese money has propped up the debt-ridden and decaying U.S. economy. Tokyo banks and securi­ ties outfits regularly purchase 30 to 40 percent of new U.S. Treasury bonds. Shigeo Kogure Without this Japanese money, T-bills World's biggest stock market loses almost 30 percent of value in a few months. would be selling at the same interest rates as junk bonds. But now the great Thus at the very moment that the Economic conflicts between American that smoothly as the economic "shock "leveraged buyout" of East Europe, chan­ rulers of world imperialism are proclaim­ and Japanese capitalism continue to treatment" designed for Poland meets neled through the banking houses of ing "the death of Communism" as "the escalate toward full-scale trade war. desperate worker resistance. Frankfurt, is playing havoc with world end of history," capitalism isn't looking Thatcher's Britain is rocked by a popular financial markets. Soaring interest rates so triumphant on its home turf. The crash revolt against the new poll tax. Debt­ The Nikkei and Anschluss in West Germany triggered the Tokyo of the biggest stock market in the world burdened Latin America is an economic In the mid-1980s the United States crash and are widening the massive U.S. came less than three years after the Wall disaster area. And the "transition" to became the world's biggest debtor nation budget deficit. Street crash. capitalism in East Europe is not going all continued on page 10

Emboldened by Gorbachev's· Ap-~easement .Bush Taruets Cuba The United States has been waving the Big Stick in the Caribbean a lot these days. Invading Panama, kidnap­ ping the head of state and installing a puppet regime. Buying the Nicaraguan elections by exploiting the hunger of a war-weary population, ground down by years of economic embargo and contra war imposed by the U.S. Proposing a naval blockade of Colombia to "inter­ dict drugs." And, testing just how far the Kremlin under Gorbachev is willing to appease them, the rulers in Washing­ .to-n have sharply escalated their provo- cations against Cuba. In imperialist eyes, the survival of the only successful anti-capitalist revolutionin the Western Hemisphere is an intolerable challenge to their dominance of the region. In a blatant act of international pira­ cy in the Gulf of Mexico, on January 30 the U.S. Coast Guard attacked an continued on page 7 U.S. Marines at Guantanamo military base in Cuba. Interracial-Basketball Team Sues, Jury. Awards $76 M Brooklyn Flames Slam Dunk NYPD

Bensonhurst. Howard Beach. Graves­ next year, when we got a black kid end. After the lynch mob murders of on the team-you know, three black Yusuf Hawkins, Michae'l Griffith and kids on the team, and all of a sudden all the racial problems started. Well, you Willie Turks, the names of these white know, now I was in the middle of a fight, ethnic enclaves have come to symbolize and I realized it was a fight worth racist terror in "Up South" New York. If fighting." you are black, and you stop for a bagel -CBS-TV, 60 Minutes or a slice of pizza in one of these neigh­ James (l October 1989) borhoods, or one of countless others like Rampersant Father Vincent Termine let the Flames them in every borough of the city, you (left) and use the gym at the Church of the Most are literally risking your life. Yet despite Gerard Papa Precious Blood as their home court. In an all the race-hate whipped up by the likes were savagely interview with WV, Gerard Papa recalled of ex-mayor Ed Koch and the terror beaten by the the '77-'78 season. "When you went to New York an away game, you'd literally plan ahead routinely meted out to blacks and His­ police. panics by the NYPD, there remain princi­ of time how you were going to go, where pled men and women in this city who are you were going to leave the kids, where committed, sometimes at great personal the car was going to be when you came cost, to justice and simple decency. For shooting the breeze in Papa's Lincoln as When Gerard Papa saw uniformed out, how you could get out of the gym example, the Flames, an interracial com­ they turned onto one-way Bayview Ave­ cops he thought he was going to be res­ into the car so that you would get out of munity basketball league in Brooklyn. nue in Coney Island. Suddenly the head­ cued. Instead he was dragged from the this all in one piece." But Papa and the On March 7 a New York State Su­ lights of an oncoming car were in their car, kicked,' beaten and had his head Flames persevered. That same season preme Court jury awarded $76.1 million eyes. Papa tried to back up, hitting an­ smashed on the pavement. Papa received they won the league championship for to the Flames' head coach, Gerard Papa, other car which had boxed him in from a concussion, broken ribs and other in­ their age group for all of Brooklyn and 36, from Bensonhurst, who is white, and behind. Then two men with drawn guns juries. Rampersant's beating left him Queens, an event Papa described as "like James Rampersant, 27, a black friend, for left the front car and started shooting. with a concussion. Neither man was tak­ going to the World Series as an expan­ damages suffered on the night of 12 Thinking they had been caught in the en to the hospital. Papa and Rampersant sion team." Today the Flames have March 1986, when the two men were middle of a gang war Papa ducked down were then charged with attempted murder grown to 30 teams and some 200 kids, shot at and then savagely beaten by five and hit the gas. Witnesses called 911. of a police officer, assault, reckless roughly 60 percent black, from some of white NYC cops. This is apparently the The tape of the call was later played on endangerment and criminal mischief. the toughest parts of Brooklyn. largest police brutality settlement ever in TV: "There are guys out here in cars, They spent two days in jail waiting to be . In 1979 Papa began seeking city fund­ New York State. and they're shooting like-it's the OK arraigned. The charges against them were ing for the Flames, and over the next few The incident began just before mid­ Corral. Get somebody out here now!" eventually dropped but the two are lucky years some money did come in. Then he night when they were driving home, But the cops were already there. to be alive. The cops, who claim they tumbled onto misuse of funds: hundreds saw a weapon (there was none), could of thousands of dollars disappearing into easily have blown them away "within nonexistent programs and no-show jobs. police guidelines." , When Papa blew the whistle, funds were May Day: The cops' story, that five of them, in cut off to some phony groups and some For Proletarian Internationalism two unmarked cars, were searching for were closed down. But in retaliation, a thief who stole $10 and a cheap ring the Flames funding was eliminated too. This year marks the 1DOth anniversary of from a black prostitute six days earlier, Within 18 months every bit was gone, May Day, the worldwide workers' holiday was absurd on the face of it and the six apart from a $20,000 grant from the City proclaimed by the Socialist International in jurors, all non-whites, wouldn't buy it. In Youth Bureau, and that was cut off fol­ 1890 to commemorate the frame-up and exe­ interviews after the trial none of the lowing Papa's arrest. Today, the league cution offour American labor radicals, three jurors would give their names for fear of runs on the support of local merchants. ofthem German immigrants, in Chicago three police retribution. One said, "It's a bla­ But with the local pols as well as with years earlier. Writing on the eve of the first tant disregard for human life. The offi­ the cops, the head coach of the Flames imperialist world war, Rosa Luxemburg saw cers came here, and they didn't show was a marked man. TROTSKY May Day above all as a struggle against the LENIN remorse. And, quite frankly, they scared For a year after the beating, the Brook­ war-driven and exploitative capitalist system. us" (New York Times, 8 March). The lyn D.A., liberal Liz Holtzman, took no In Kaiser Wilhelm's Germany, the celebration of May Day was an important act of cops said it was all a case of mistaken action against the cops. When a grand working-class defiance of bourgeois authority. identity. But there was no mistake. Papa jury was finally convened it rejected A chain of unending, exorbitant armaments on land and on sea in all capitalist had been in the cops' cross hairs for a criminal charges against the police. countries because of rivalries; a chain of bloody wars which have spread from Africa long time. "- Needless to say, the cops faced no de­ to Europe and which at any moment could light the spark which would become a world Gerard Papa graduated from Colum­ partmental charges and are on the job fire; moreover, for years the uncheckable specter of inflation, of mass hunger in the bia Law School and then went to work today. After last month's civil suit whole capitalist world-all of these are the signs under which the world holiday of on Wall Street for a hefty salary. But award, the city is appealing the fines. labor, after nearly a quarter of a century, approaches. And each of these signs is a he gave it up in 1974 to found the , Today, instead of the racist pig Ed Koch, flaming testimony of the living truth and the power of the idea of May Day. Flames, a community basketball team New York has a black mayor, David The brilliant basic idea of May Day is the autonomous, immediate steppingforward based in Bensonhurst which was started Dinkins. Holtzman is now the city of the proletarian masses, the political mass, action of the millions of workers who with white kids not good enough for comptroller, elected with Dinkins' back­ otherwise are atomized by the barriers of the state in the day-to-day parliamentary any existing team. Anybody could join ing. But the cops haven't changed-the affairs. the Flames, kids from either side of NYPD's "inaugural message" to Dinkins ... the more the idea of May Day, the idea of resolute mass actions as a manifestation the elevated F-train tracks, whether from was the shooting of two Hispanic youths of international unity, and as a means of struggle for peace and for socialism, takes the heavily Sicilian neighborhoods or in Bushwick, 17-year-old Luis Liranso root in the strongest troops of the International, the German working class, the greater the heavily black Marboro Homes proj­ and Jose Luis Lebron, age 14. is our guarantee that out of the world war which, sooner or later, is unavoidable, will ect. This won Papa friends, and also Gerard Papa suffered permanent inju­ come forth a definite and victorious struggle between the world of labor and that of enemies: ries and no longer practices law. He and capital. "So I started a team and then I started James Rampersant have not seen any to notice this would be a great vehicle money yet, but we hope they get every -"The Idea of May Day on the March" (April 1913) for-to do some good work .... Then, the penny.•

!!!!'1!~!YO~~'!f!~~f'!.!~ ______S~p'__a_r_t_a_c_is_t~,-F-o-r-u-m-s------DIRECTOR OF PARTYPUBLICATIONS: Liz Gordon EDITOR: Jan Norden Black South Africa Seething: PRODUCTION MANAGER: Jorge Ramirez CIRCULATION MANAGER Karen Valdez EDITORIAL BOARD: George Foster, Frank Hunter, Jane Kerrigan, Len Meyers, James Robertson, Smash Apartheid! Workers to Power! Reuben Samuels, Joseph Seymour, Alison Spencer, Marjorie Stamberg The Spartacist League is the U.S. Section of the International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist). NEW YORK CITY BOSTON Workers Vanguard (USPS 098-770) published biweekly, except 2nd issue August and with 3-week interval December, by the Spartacist Publishing Co., 41 Warren Street, New York. NY 10007. Telephone: (212) 732-7862 (Editorial), Saturdq,'April 21,'7:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 25, 7:30 p.m. (212) 732-7861 (Business). Address all correspondence to: Box.1377, GPO. New York, NY 10116. Domestic subscriptions: $7.00/24 issues. Second-class postage paid at New York, NY. POSTMASTER: Send address changes Room 306, Barnard Hall Emerson 305 to Workers Vanguard, Box 1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116. Barnard College Harvard University Opinions expressed in signed articles or letters do not necessarily express the editorial viewpoint. (No.1 train to 116th St. and B'way) For more information: (617) 492-3928 For more information: (212) 267-1025 No. 500 20 April 1990

2 WORKERS VANGUARD AFP Christopher Little Demonstrators In Port-au-Prince display gun taken from thug of deposed dictator Avril. Shantytown In Haiti, the most wretchedly poor country In the Western hemisphere. Haitian Masses Battle Poverty, Dictators Made in USA On March 12, after the sharpest out­ burst of mass protests since Jean-Claude ("Baby Doc") Duvalier was ousted four years ago, the Haitian masses drove hated military dictator Prosper Avril out of the country. As Avril was flown to Miami in a U.S. military transport, the American ambassador in Port-au-Prince practically choreographed step by step the setting up of a new "civilian" govern­ ment. But this can only be a cosmetic revamping of continued oppression by the army and Duvalierist thugs, the feared Tonton Macoutes. Last year, unions called two massive general strikes in the face of vicious repression. Following Avril's ouster, as rampaging soldiers and Macoutes kill dozens in nightly shootings, civilian "vigilance brigades" have been formed in poor neighborhoods of the capital and the countryside. Hoping to put a lid on the exploding social struggle, the new Wide World Claude Perez U.S. News & World Report Morel/Ha'iti-Observateur regime announced as its sole program the Three decades of bloody terror: Franc;ols ("Papa Doc") Duvalier; dean-Claude ("Baby Doc") Duvalier; Henri Namphy; organization of "democratic" elections. Prosper Avril. But in this tortured land, no fundamen­ tal questions will be decided at the bal­ days later, as some 10,000 people assem­ homes and offices of Avril supporters. smartly saluted the new president and lot box. The last time Haitians went to bled for Vaval's burial, they were at­ The army responded with a wave of pledged that his forces- are now "at your the polls, voters were indiscriminately tacked by club-wielding soldiers. When terror, shooting into crowds of demon­ command." But the power of the army is slaughtered as they stood in line to vote. protesters marched to the National Pal­ strators or firing at passers-by from in no way broken simply because Avril As social tensions in-Haiti reach the ace, the Presidential Guard opened fire. speeding trucks. As the revolt continued, has gone into exile. In fact, no sooner breaking point, there is a crying need for The following day saw a veritable pop­ U.S. ambassador Alvin Adams uncere­ had the new president been designated an independent struggle for power by the ular insurrection as flaming barricades moniously called Avril out of bed at 2 than she promptly went into hiding for a working class. went up in all cities and in most towns a.m. for a "highly personal conversa­ day, fearing a possible coup. In a taped The explosion of rage which brought along the North-South highway. tion." Two hours later the dictator was message to his comrades-in-arms, Avril down Avril was provoked on March 5 Incity after city angry crowds braved bundled aboard a cargo plane to Florida. assured the troops that he had been when government soldiers fired on a army bullets and clubs to vent their The formation of a new civilian gov­ guaranteed that they would not be prose­ peaceful demonstration in Petit Goave, wrath on symbols of the hated military ernment was presented as a great victory cuted for past actions and that the Pres­ killing l l-year-old Roseline Vaval. The regime. In Petit Goave they burned for the Twelve, a recently formed coali­ idential Guard would only be renamed, parties of the "democratic opposition" down the military headquarters. In Port­ tion ranging from bourgeois luminaries not disbanded. responded with a call for a "popular au-Prince, Gonaives and other cities they like former World Bank official Marc The illusion that the Duvalierist state uprising" to force Avril to resign. .Three sacked government buildings and the Barzin to the wretchedly reformist Com­ apparatus can be pressured to carry out munist Party. These forces are to be a "democratic reform" is belied by all :JJ CD represented in a Council of State with experience since a mass popular upsurge C co veto power over the new president, toppled Baby Doc in February 1986. en Supreme Court Justice Ertha Pascal­ Despite heady hopes of "people's pow­ Trouillot. But this "caretaker" govern­ er," the Haitian masses had to endure a ment, born of the coming together of regime of terror under military strong­ the bourgeois opposition and the murder­ man General Henri Namphy. The No­ ous officer corps with the blessing of vember 1987 elections were drowned Washington's U.S. imperialism, is no agent of "demo­ in blood. A rigged vote then installed current cratic reform." The defense minister, figurehead Leslie Manigat who, in the five months president, Mme. Col. Jean Thomas, was for many years until he was sent into exile by Nam­ Pascal-Trouillot a member of the Presidential Guard. And phy, was nothing more than a front for (left), a former the figurehead president, Mme. Pascal­ the generals. When Avril ousted Nam­ suppet1er of Trouillot, was a supporter of "Papa Doc" phy in September 1988 he in turn "Papa Doc" who was appointed a judge by his son. pledged to introduce "democracy." In­ Duvalier. The passage of power to the new gov­ stead he launched a reign of terror. Last ernment was carefully orchestrated to year there were 354 reported death reinforce the illusion of "independence" squad assassinations; the real number from the military. The chief of the army continued on page 4 20 APRIL 1990 3

- -...., .. drugs," these workers have suddenly found themselves on the street, blacklisted from the industry. The same Greyhound salaries* California Oil Workers: union "leadership" that draws up drug testing plans to Average pay of drivers, 1983 • 1990 help the bosses police the workforce now leaves the $31,324 UBringBack the Coker 6!" $28,870 fired workers to twist in the wind. All the union tops $24,750 RODEO, California-Three dozen workers rallied have done is file a grievance, which could take a year outside the Unocal refinery here on April 11, furious to resolve! Even with the threat of more firings hanging at the firing of six members of the Oil, Chemical and over the heads of Local 1-326 members, the OCAW -~-~I~ Atomic Workers Union (OCAW) for "violating compa­ tops pursue their crawling, losing strategy. ny rules." Their "crime"? Supposed drug and alcohol The drug witchhunt has as its primary targets unions and minorities, as the capitalist class tries to break the use, and reading "unauthorized materials, including Aug. 1983 Nov. 1983 Mar. 1987 Jan. 1990** back of any resistance to the impoverishment of Ameri­ adult books"! Unocal's "proof' is the unsubstantiated * Estimated using 77,344 mile. driven ** Buying power of 18B7 a.lery testimony of a company agent who spied on workers in can working people. At the nearby Chevron refinery in Source: Con.tructed from mileage rate. by the AFL·CIO Department of Economic Re.earch Richmond, workers have been subjected to degrading the plant's coking unit. One of the unionists, members AFL-CIO Graphic of OCAW Local 1-326., told WV that Unocal's paid searches by drug-sniffing dogs: And in Daly City, tran­ and is calling on the feds to take over the union's At­ snitch "wiped out 30 years of seniority in a heartbeat." sit cops recently raided a BART workers' locker room, lanta and Charlotte locals, all on the incredible grounds Another fired worker bitterly said he wasn't about to cutting locks off with bolt cutters. Especially in transit that the union is extorting "wages and benefits from give up the union that Greg Goobic died for. Goobic, and the oil and chemical industry, the bosses attempt Greyhound through violence"! a 20-year-old Unocal worker, was run down and killed to justify their drug witchhunt with lies about their But the destruction of the drivers' pay is an even by a scab in the 1983 OCAW strike. supposed concern with safety. But what kills scores of more devastating indictment of the union bureaucrats Unocal's spy, labeled "The Infallible Source" on workers and endangers the public are capitalism's who have throttled the Greyhound workers' struggle workers' picket signs at the rally, was hired from Krout profit-driven cuts in maintenance and safety. for the last seven years. Betrayed by the no-fight & Schneider, a private detective outfit. One of the fired The labor movement has the power to stop this union­ labor traitors in the 1983 strike, Greyhound workers workers said that Unocal picked out the coking sec­ busting witchhunt, but the sellout labor bureaucrats are took a $2,500 yearly pay cut. When Currey bought the tion because "We're a unit that's pretty highly union­ always eager to demonstrate their loyalty to capitalism. company in 1987, the union tops handed him another oriented with a lot of stewards." OCAW unit chairman In New York, Transport Workers Union L9cailOO chief $4,000 per head, without so much as a whimper of pro­ David Castagnetti pointed out that "the coker has quite Sonny Hall has volunteered his membership up for drug test. All told, taking inflation into account, capitalism's a bit of strength in the union. And if they hit the big testing. Hall was recently embarrassed when even the federal courts threw out, for the moment, DOT rules labor lieutenants have forked over 45 percent of Grey­ which would have subjected transit workers to mandato­ hound drivers' wages! . ry testing. In another case brought by the AFL-CIO When will it stop? When the ATU strikers throw out Metal Trades Council, a federal district judge stopped the labor misleaders who have taken the union to the the Navy's testing of 50,000 civilian workers, including brink of destruction. Now the bureaucrats and their many in government shipyards. fake-left apologists are burying the strike with an What's needed is some hard class struggle. Local impotent consumer boycott, empty "solidarity" rallies 1-326 workers should teach the arrogant Unocal bosses every couple of weeks, and reliance on Democratic a lesson by some quick strike action to occupy the Party politicians and the bosses' courts. At a New York refinery and put some teeth in the demand they chanted rally on April 6, Teamster Local III president Dan at the rally: "Hell with the lies, hell with the piss, bring Kane solidarized with the police, who have been making back the Coker 6." sure the scab buses keep running. ATU president James La Sala responded to Currey's RICO suit by denouncing as "common criminals" those who have made desperate attempts to stop the scabs out of frustration and despair Greyhound: Working at the bureaucracy's sabotage of the strike. Meanwhile the capitalist state protects the real criminals, like the fora Dog's Wage scab who brutally killed Robert Waterhouse in Redding, California and isn't even being charged. Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) members striking After an ATU Local 1202 member was hit by a scab WV Photo against Greyhound have their backs to the wall-their driver at New York's Port Authority terminal, one of Oil workers picket Unocal in Rodeo, California. wages have been driven down so far there is nothing his union brothers pointed out the union should have left to "giveback." Take a look at the "incredible shrink­ responded with pickets and "closed this place down." guy, the rest of them will fall down behind." The com­ ing bus" representing a driver's pay in the AFL-CIO Damn right-the Port Authority and every bus terminal pany infiltrated the spy into the union during the recent graphic above. It certainly speaks to the viciousness of should have been ringed with hundreds and thousands negotiations. As soon as the contract was signed, Uno­ union-busting Greyhound boss Fred Currey, whose of pickets! Greyhound strikers must fight for elected cal moved to fire the workers. scabs have killed one striker and run down and assault­ strike committees that will appeal to the rest of labor There was white-hot anger among OCAW members ed scores more around the country. Now Currey. has to join them in building mass picket lines that can win at the rally. In the name of the capitalists' "war on filed a $30 million "racketeering" suit against the union, this strike.•

crucible of the Russian Revolution of wretched bidonvilles with the backing of role as a bridge to the rest of the Ameri­ Haiti... 1917, that in.rhe underdeveloped semi­ U.S. imperialism and the guns of their can proletariat, particularly black work­ (continued from page 3) colonial countries such basic democratic military guard dogs. The way out of this ers, who follow events in Haiti with keen gains as land reform, a complete break misery for the masses is a fight for a interest. A quarter million Haitians reside is no doubt much higher. with imperialist exploitation, and demo- workers and peasants government. But in New York City alone, where Haitian The fall of the Avril regime has . cratic freedoms can only be accom­ the social base for a working-class revo­ and Dominican garment workers are cur­ sparked a wave of strikes, particularly in plished by the proletariat, supported by lution is exceedingly narrow in a coun­ rently waging a bitter struggle for union public services and government-owned the peasantry and ali the oppressed, try as economically backward as Haiti. recognition in the Domsey strike. The enterprises, as workers demand the oust­ taking power and setting up its own class To triumph, the struggle must be taken Spartacist League/U.S., section of the ing of their incompetent and corrupt rule. up by workers in neighboring Carib­ International Communist League, appeals Duvalierist managements. The new presi­ In Haiti today, the defense by workers bean countries and above all in North to these and other class-conscious work­ dent promptly counseled them to stop and peasants of meetings, demonstra­ America. ers to join in building a multiracial van­ their "internal squabbles and settling tions, strikes and land occupations is a Haitian workers in the diaspora, from guard party to lead the international of accounts" tHaiti-Observateur, 21-28 matter of life and death. But petty­ Montreal to Miami, can play a crucial struggle for socialist revolution.• March). But it will not be so easy to bourgeois oppositionists follow in the head off the struggles of the workers, wake of the bourgeois/reformist Twelve whose organizations have been greatly in calling for a program of "democratic" reinforced in the last four years. Avril's reform. Thus the Committee Against Spartacist ~ Forums 18-month reign was marked by powerful Repression, in a statement reported un­ political strikes against the IMF-imposed critically by the SWP's Militant (23 austerity measures and Duvalierist ter­ March), proposes a provisional govern­ No to German Fourth Reich! ror. Last November when three opposi­ ment headed by popular Catholic priest tion leaders were arrested and savagely Jean Bertrand Aristide, with a proposed beaten by the police, the militant CATH "minimum program" to purge the state of (Autonomous Haitian Workers Federa­ Duvalierists and organize free elections. tion) called a two-day general strike From Spain in the 1930s to Allende's which virtually shut down the country. Chile in the early '70s, this policy of It is striking how, even in a country as "popular front" with the "democratic" EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT cruelly impoverished as Haiti, the work­ bourgeoisie has proved to be a set-up for Peter Atkins, Spartacist League Central Committee ing class has demonstrated its preponder­ bloody defeat. ant social weight. These powerful strikes Haitian workers must not be taken in BERKELEY SAN FRANCISCO underline the fact that only the working by the hoax that the "democratic" op­ Thursday, April 26, 4 p.m. class has the social force and cohesion to pressors will be any less ruthless in de­ Thursday, April 19, 6 p.m. lead the rural and urban poor in over­ fending their class interests than the UC Berkeley SF State University throwing capitalism. It is a central tenet ­ hated Duvalierists. The tiny bourgeois 81 Evans Hall Student Union, B112 of Trotsky's perspective of permanent layer living in luxury in the hills above For more information: (415) 839-0851 For more information: (415) 863:6963 revolution, graphically confirmed in the Port-au-Prince can only rule over the 4 WORKERS VANGUARD Cap.italist Reunification Means Misery DDR Workers Protest Fourth Reich Bankers' Plan In the final spurt of the campaign for the March 18 elections in East Germany (DDR), West German chancellor Helmut Kohl vowed at a Leipzig rally that, if they voted for a quick reunification, DDR citizens' savings would be ex­ changed for Deutschmarks at a rate of I: I. This pledge had a significant impact on the voting, including with many work­ ers, who went for "the quick mark." But less than two weeks later, the directors of the Bundesbank, West Ger­ many's central bank, decided in a meet­ ing behind closed doors in Frankfurt that in a currency union, DDR marks should Trade-union be exchanged for D-marks at a rate of rally in 2: I. When news of this leaked out. there East Berlin was outrage in East Germany. Berliner on April 5 Zeitung (2 April) headlined: "2: I! The denounces Bacon Laid Out for March 18 Is Taken plan by Back." West German The East German trade-union federa­ central bank to tion, the FDGB, called for demonstra­ slash wages and savings tions against the projected exchange rate, by a currency charging election fraud. On AprilS, hun­ union at a dreds of thousands protested in cities 2:1 rate. throughout the DDR. In East Berlin, up to 100,000 marched from Alexanderplatz to the Lustgarten, opposite the Palace of the Republic, where the newly elected Volkskammer (DDR parliament) was meeting in its first session. defend jobs and livelihoods can be key not allow our elderly to be driven to delegations to go to the other factories In Dresden there were a reported to halting the drive to capitalist reunifica­ rummaging through the garbage like they to plan common struggle. We must seri­ 70,000 demonstrators, in Leipzig 50,000, tion and give the working class time to are forced to do in the cities of the ously prepare for the necessary strike some 20,000 each in Halle and Rostock, regroup for a political counteroffensive. "golden" capitalist West in order to find actions, when and where indicated, and tens of thousands more in Cottbus, Gera, We print below translated excerpts leftovers to eat. organize them to win. Magdeburg, even 5,000 in the provincial from the speech which was to be given But the working people will not be Make sure to defend our foreign town of Quedlinburg. There were many at the Berlin rally by our comrade Renate able to defend their social achievements worker colleagues against discriminatory DDR flags to be seen, but the leaders Dahlhaus of the Spartakist Workers Party if our trade unions restrict themselves to treatment-national chauvinism is the were pushing German nationalism with of Germany, which was submitted for pressure tactics over what price we will weapon of the right, internationalism is repeated statements that "we are one publication to the FDGB. be sold for. Even on the basis of I: I, the our strength! Make sure students and people." In Halle a prominent chauvinist introduction of the D-mark together with pensioners are not left to fend for them­ slogan was "we are not half Germans." Western prices will effectively mean an selves. Make sure women are not forced In Berlin, the speaker of the SPD Comrades and fellow trade-unionists, immediate 40 percent drop in wage levels out of their jobs. An injury to one is an (Social Democratic Party) was drowned Well, we have just been given the first for workers here in the DDR. And that's injury to all! out by the angry crowd. Gregor Gysi of taste of what the bitter defeat of March only the tip of the iceberg. Let our trade-union organizations the PDS (Party of Democratic Socialism, 18 will mean. The people who thought The Spartakist Workers Party was the begin now to seek allies with our class successor to the Stalinist SED) was they were going to get a land flowing only party which stood openly and clear­ cheered when he called for "something with D-marks have now gotten the sober­ ly in the Volkskammer elections against better than the DDR but also better than ing shock that what they voted for was capitalist reunification, with no ifs, ands 1U~4bed the BRD [West Germany]." Yet the PDS Latin American-style living conditions. or buts. We warned, as I did myself at deputies had just voted together with The Bundesbank says they're going to the Treptow anti -fascist demonstration the SPD and Christian Democrats to cut our wages, pensions and savings in on lanuary 3, that the SPD was a Trojan etn eliminate any reference to socialism in half. The working people say no! horse for counterrevolution-and the the constitution of the DDR! The Spartakist Workers Party of Ger­ SPD has certainly demonstrated that. We 11~ The PDS and FDGB only want to many says: For class struggle against the also warned that the capitulation by the bargain over the price of the capitalist plundering of capital! We must not allow PDS to Kohl's call for "Germany, one buyout. What's needed instead is hard the school lunches or day-care centers for fatherland" paved the way to a victory 1:1 I1iI1 class struggle. Successful struggles to our children to be eliminated. We must for Kohl and his puppets. The Fourth Reich won in the Volks­ Bargaining over the terms of capi­ kammer elections. And with that comes talist reunification, the former DDR racism and anti-Semitism. The working ruling party (PDS) declares, "We are class must prepare now for the defensive one people." struggles we face. And the force to carry out that fight is represented in the 8.6 brothers and sisters in West Germany, million members of the trade unions. who are themselves preparing for strike From Bergmann-Borsig [metal plant in action against the bosses. Let us reach East Berlin] to the Leuna works [chemi­ out to our class brothers and sisters in cal plant south of Halle I, every worker Poland, who are being forced to eat in knows that we are facing layoffs as the soup kitchens while their country is sold capitalists move in to buyout our VEBs to the international bankers. Let us look [state-owned plants]. The same Stalinist to our comrade workers in the Soviet bureaucrats who over the years wasteful­ Union, to the miners in Vorkuta and the ly mismanaged our enterprises are today Donbass who have waged hard strikes to the managers making deals with the defend their livelihoods, to the Red Army capitalists behind our backs for a fast soldiers who smashed the Third Reich D-mark. At our expense! and today guard the border against the Fight to protect our socialized prop­ revanchist designs of Bonn and NATO. erty! Struggle against the plant take­ Let' us prepare to fight, relying on our overs and shutdowns! In every enterprise, social power as a class. For a solid front begin organizing plant assemblies to in action of the workers against the boss­ demand full and detailed reports and to es. Defend our jobs! Defend our living hammer out a strategy to fight the at­ standards! Defend our social gains! De­ tacks. In every factory, begin organizing fend our socialized property! • 20 APRIL 1990 5

, ,., • f.) , ~ It.' I 1 ' )-. , , ., Stalinist -Show Trial in Cuba e xeeution

Bleibtreu/Sygma o enera eoa General Arnaldo Ochoa Sanchez "This Revolution struggles, too, not appeal. The next day the Council of State headed the Cuban military missions in followed in the fall with a check of Com­ to destroy any who have been its met and confirmed the sentences. The Ethiopia and Nicaragua, commanded the munist Party cards, with 400,000 mem­ children.... Struggles so that any sentences, the appeal, its rejection and Western and Central armies in Cuba as bers interviewed, 6,000 disciplined and man can be corrected, so that any confirmation of the death penalties were well as the Havana district, and was 2,000 expelled. The Ochoa case became revolutionary who makes mistakes all reported· on July 10 in the Cuban slated to become commander of the key the centerpiece of the Castro brothers' can rectify them .... The Revolution daily Granma, and on July13, barely one Western region. He was sent to Venezue- "rectification" campaign. In his 1988 is patient, and tolerant, and it tries July 26th speech, Castro declared that to help comrades and not destroy because of Cuba's geographical location them." -"ninety miles away from the most - Fidel Castro, 13 March 1966 powerful empire on earth," or even "two millimeters away ... right there at the * ** Guantanamo naval base"-the party "can "Did Ochoa have the opportunity to make no mistakes that will weaken it save himself'? ... If the man had sin­ ideologically." And shortly after the cerely repented, there might have Ochoa execution, Cuba banned the Soviet been arguments against his execu­ publications Moscow News and Sputnik tion and even against his being sent as anti-socialist (see "Bush Targets Cu­ to prison.... there were moments ba," page I). when the Revolution could be, and With Washington increasingly aggres­ was, generous without hurting itself. sive in its provocations, and Cuba in­ Today, the Revolution cannot be creasingly isolated as a result of the generous without really hurting international crisis of Stalinism, the itself." Castro regime is hunkering down. Yet as -Fidel Castro, 9 July 1990 itself a bureaucratically deformed work­ Last June 14, Division General Arnal­ ers state, Cuba is experiencing many of do Ochoa Sanchez was arrested in Ha­ the same pro-capitalist social pressures vana, Cuba on charges of corruption and as East Europe and the Soviet Union. misuse of funds. Two days later, the Beyond the individuals involved, Cases charges were raised to include dealing 1 and 2/1989 showed a petty-bourgeois with international drug traffickers and bureaucratic layer prone to corruption possible drug smuggling. On June 24, and ready to cut personal deals with the Tasnadi/AP General Ochoa was brought before a Raul and Fidel Castro capitalist enemy. As a Stalinist, Castro's military tribunal of honor composed of only answer is to intensify moral/ideolog­ 47 top generals and admirals of the Rev­ month after the first accusations ap­ la to aid the guerrillas in the early 1960s. ical exhortation and police repression olutionary Armed Forces (FAR). Stripped peared, the executions were carried out He fought with Fidel and Raul Castro while seeking to appease imperialism. of his rank and honors, on June 30 by firing squad. and Che Guevara in the Sierra Maestra Under siege, the regime is showing a Ochoa was placed on trial together with This drumhead trial and rapid execu­ against the Batista dictatorship. bunker mentality; congenitally alien to a group of officials of the Ministry of tion were unprecedented in Fidel Castro's Arnaldo Ochoa was truly a child of the workers democracy and proletarian inter­ Interior (MININT) headed by Colonel Cuba. This was the first time that leading Cuban Revolution. Tony de la Guardia nationalism, the regime espouses a na­ Antonio de la Guardia. government officials were subjected to came from an upper-class Havana family tionalist ideology which is a caricature of After a trial that lasted three days, capital punishment. For that matter, since and had worked in the MININT since "barracks socialism." Arnaldo Ochoa, Tony de la Guardia and 1959 not even a counterrevolutionary 1960. After 18 years itt the elite Special their two top aides were sentenced to gusano has been executed in Cuba. But Troops, he was appointed head of De­ Ochoa, the Castros and the Angolan War death; ten others were sentenced to jail in this case, General Ochoa was the partment Z (later changed roMC) which terms of up to 30 years. The day after former head of the Cuban military mis­ was in charge of circumventing the U.S. These are some of the effects of the the military court's verdict, the sentences sion in Angola and one of the very few embargo by obtaining goods on black Ochoa trial, which signaled the most were appealed to the Cuban Supreme FAR officers-to receive the award of markets around the world. His brother serious internal crisis in the three de­ Court, which immediately rejected the Hero of the Revolution. Ochoa had also Patricio, also convicted in the affair, was cades of Castro's Cuba. But what a brigadier general in the Interior Minis­ brought it on? What were the charges, try, headed the MININT mission in An­ the evidence? We have to say from the gola while Ochoa headed the FAR there, outset that we don't know what hap­ and was head of Cuba's Special Troops pened. We weren't there, and we only in Chile, with Allende right up to the have one side of the story to go on: the coup. With such prominent Fidelistas on prosecution's case and the "confessions." trial, the whole country sat glued to their And the main defendants were summarily sets as testimony was broadcast over TV. shot. Walls in Havana were painted with "8A" When General Ochoa was arrested, he (in Spanish, "echo-a"), in support of the was accused of corruption, essentially popular general. dealings on the Angolan black market. The Ochoa case, "Case 1/89," was a During the "trial," the prosecutor claimed classic Stalinist purge ofthe top levels of Ochoa and his aide Captain Jorge Marti­ the ruling bureaucracy, complete with nez(also executed) were selling sugar in show trial, abject confessions and an order to get dollars to deposit in a Pana­ appeal by the defendant that the maxi­ manian bank account. Ochoa said they mum penalty be applied against him. It changed dollars into local currency to was followed by Case 2/89, in which the buy materials to build an airport in chief defendant was Interior Minister southern Angola. This was a real tri­ Division General Jose Abrantes. Alto­ umph; they built an airfield to handle jet gether eight MININT generals as well as fighters in just seven weeks. This was a number of colonels and majors were key to providing air cover for Cuban and jailed, fired or resigned, including the Angolan troops that defeated the South heads of the intelligence department,cus­ African apartheid invaders at Cuito Cua­ toms, immigration, border .police and navale. If Ochoa turned to the black deputy heads of the political department. market to get what he needed, when he Also jailed in a linked "morals" case was needed it, that's hardly a crime. the vice president of the council of min­ The charges over black-marketeering isters, Transportation Minister Diocles are dubious in the extreme: Ochoa is Acme Torralbas, formerly a Comandante of the. accused of selling sugar and buying In the infamous~Moscow Trials of the late 1930s, Revolution and head of FAR air defense. elephant tusks; he replies that tusks were prosecuted by Andrei Vyshinsky (inset), Stalin So the entire top echelons of the police freely sold like television sets on the exterminated the old Bolshevik cadre. apparatus were cleaned out. This was continued on page 8 Der Spiegel 6 WORKERS VANGUARD gusanos (worms) in Miami are sporting up in their militia uniforms, and tens of when supplies of Soviet grain and flour Continued from page 1 bumper stickers reading "Next Christmas thousands came out to greet the coura­ had not arrived, reportedly because of a in Havana," and arguing about how to geous crew of the Hermann. This shows shortage of ships from Poland, East unarmed Cuban-chartered freighter in divide up the spoils of counterrevolution again that any military aggression from Germany and the USSR. Feed grain for international waters carrying a load of on the island. the north would meet fierce resistance on cattle was unavailable, and its use for chrome ore to Mexico. Claiming the If they try, it will be a bloody affair. the part of an armed and defiant popu­ poultry was cut back drastically; buying cargo ship "fit the profile" of a drug­ Cuba is not Grenada, nor Panama or even lace. Thus the U.S. imperialists, in their this on the world market then drove up running vessel, the Americans demand­ the price of eggs. Lack of hard currency ed to board it-. When the crew of the credit has reduced Cuban trade with -the Hermann refused, the Coast Guard industrialized capitalist countries by 40 gunship opened fire-on explicit orders percent. And a recently proposed auster­ from Washington-with machine guns ity plan would mean cuts in electricity and 20-mm cannon. They kept on firing consumption of up to 50 percent, a freeze inside Mexican waters, but the Cubans on most construction, and factory shut­ escaped. When they finally docked in downs (Washington Post, 7 April). Tampico, Mexican authorities searched "What socialist camp can we speak of the ship and found only ten tons of today?" asked Castro in a March 7 chrome ore. speech to the Cuban Federation of Wom­ Demonstrating utter contempt for the en. "The socialist camp, indeed, is gone." norms of diplomatic immunity and terri­ Addressing the Cuban trade-union fed­ torial sovereignty of embassies, during eration in January, he worried openly: the bloody invasion of Panama U.S. "For decades, our plans ... were based on troops besieged the Cuban embassy, the existence of a socialist camp... with kidnapping two Cuban diplomats and which we worked out agreements and blockading the ambassador's residence. had close economic ties .... We don't In December, Cuban soldiers were fired even know what government will be on by U.S. troops at the Guantanamo Spartacist ruling over those countries, we don't naval base, on Cuban territory seized by contingent know who will be there in 1990 .... What American forces' during the Spanish­ in 1982 about 1991? Can you imagine the 1991­ NYC protest American War almost a century ago and 1995 five-year plan?" (Granma Weekly against forcibly occupied ever since. The recent U.S. support Review, 11 February). COMECON trade visit of the battleship Wisconsin and an to Salvadoran has accounted for 82 percent of Cuba's assault aircraft carrier at Guantanamo death squad imports and 87 percent of exports. underlined the threat. regime. It is not hard to understand why the Then last month the U.S. began broad­ Cubans are nervous these days-even casting TV Marti into Cuba as an escala­ Soviet aid, which has been vital for Cuba tion of the propaganda war, The Cubans to survive despite the imperialist block­ immediately and effectively jammed it, ade, may be jeopardized. Following out showing off to the press their 160-foot the Stalinist logic of appeasing imperial­ antennas, microwave dishes and special­ ism, Gorbachev is giving away the store ly equipped helicopters. But American in East Europe, and Cuba is a long ways broadcasters are far more worried that Nicaragua. The present generation freed unrelenting, bipartisan hostility to the away. In the "enrich myself" perestroika Havana might retaliate with its million­ the country from its former Yankee mas­ Cuban Revolution, are likely to inten­ atmosphere of Russia today, Izvestia re­ watt transmitters. In March, Cuba ters, and Cuban workers remember how sify their economic and propaganda war ported last August that because "coopera­ beamed a Castro press conference deep they defeated the CIA-backed gusano and their provocations. It is the duty of tion with Cuba has become unprofitable into the U.S., on six different fre­ invasion at the Bay of Pigs. Moreover, class-conscious workers everywhere, and for many Soviet enterprises," some were quencies, reaching 30 states and affecting they have much to defend: while the particularly in the U.S., to uncondition­ "endeavoring to get out of the Cuban up to a thousand radio stations. Sandinistas' "middle road" of conciliat­ ally defend Cuba against the threat of market." What is the point, it continued, Following the Sandinista defeat in the ing the capitalists (urged on them by counterrevolution. "when in exchange it is going to get Nicaraguan elections in February, Repub­ Castro) meant hunger for the Nicaraguan effectively the same rubles...merely at lican Senate leader Robert Dole declared, masses, the abolition ofcapitalist exploi­ Castro: Last Hurrah the cost of a greater headache?" "As I see it it's two down, Panama and tation in Cuba made it possible to eradi­ for Stalinism Nonetheless, the Soviet Union is re­ Nicaragua, and one to go-Cuba." Visit­ cate the slum poverty that is endemic portedly continuing to provide military ing Brazil in March, Vice President Dan throughout Latin America. The literacy At an April 7 "U.S. Hands Off Cuba" hardware vitally necessary for Cuba's Quayle proclaimed, "Cuba is the last rate in Cuba is higher than in the U.S., demonstration in New York City, the defense, like the MIG-29 jets delivered serious problem on the continent," under­ and the infant mortality rate is half that main banner proclaimed "Viva Fidel." recently, to the consternation of imperial­ scoring both his ignorance of geography of Washington, D.C. But defending the Cuban Revolution does ist spokesmen. and Washington's aggressive designs. Cuba's territorial militia has more than not mean being cheerleaders for Castro. As the Stalinist regimes of the East U.S. rulers imagine in their swaggering one million members, out of a total pop­ From our inception as a tendency, the European bureaucratically deformed arrogance that the Cubans too will bow ulation of ten million. At a trade-union Spartacist League has insisted, in the workers states follow the logic of their down to their tanks and their dollars. The conference in January, delegates showed words of a December 1961 resolution by market-oriented reforms into the throes the Revolutionary Tendency in the So­ of capitalist counterrevolution, Castro en cialist Workers Party: ~ portrays himself as the guardian of so­ ::a "Taken as a whole, the process going on cialist principles. "If destiny assigns us 0' today in Cuba is that of the formation of 2 a deformed workers state-that is, the the role of one day being among the last Ci3 defenders of socialism in a world in G) creation of a society like that which s exists in the Soviet Union, Eastern Eu­ which the Yankee empire has succeeded c rope and China. By minimizing the in­ in embodying Hitler's dream of world -0 Gorba'chev, fluence of the working class in the rev­ meeting with olution, by limiting the appeal of the domination," he vowed, "we will know Castro last year, revolution to workers in other lands, by how to defend this bulwark to the last is cutting back tendingto give power to an uncontrolled drop of blood" (New York Times, 9 De­ Soviet economic bureaucracy, and by subjectingthe future cember 1989). support to Cuba, of Cuba to the counterrevolutionary Before the Cuban trade unionists Cas­ diplomacy of the Kremlin, this process exemplified by tro denounced the "apprentices of capital­ the Soviet-built raises the dangerof capitalist restoration in Cuba." ism," warning: "There is much talk of sugar cane -reprinted in Spartacist No.2, private property and market economy. If harvester factory July-August 1964 (below). you join private property with a market The Cuban people have lived with economy, youget capitalism or a process the imperialists' sabre-rattling for three of building capitalism." In an effort to decades now, and remain undaunted. seal off the Cuban people from the ef­ Today, with the. crumbling of Stalinist fects of glasnost and perestroika, two rule over much of Eastern Europe, there popular Soviet magazines, Sputnik and are new dangers. The impact of Wash­ Moscow News, were banned last August, ington'seconomic blockade, for 30 years charged with "justifying bourgeois de­ the source of great scarcity and suffer­ mocracy" and being "filled with ven­ ing, is now amplified by the disruption om ...against socialism." Thus the seem­ of trade and assistance from many of ing maverick of the 1960s, the darling of Cuba's former allies, There have been the New Left, has come to symbolize the massive shortages of essential supplies last hurrah of Stalinist orthodoxy today. caused by trade dislocations among As the disastrous consequences of COMECON members, some of whom Gorbachev's policies are played out, we now demand hard currency for their find that not only Stalinist hardliners exports. Soviet oil supplies have already such as Gus Hall's CPUSA but also been cut back by about $500 million a ostensible Trotskyists (Socialist Action) year. as well as the Sandinista-Castroite SWP In January daily bread rations were cut continued on'page 8 Mel Rosenthal/Impact Visuaiii 20 APRIL 1990 7 Castro rejects material incentives as balance between the workers and imperi­ TV Marti, an internationalist leadership Defend Cuba..• corrupting andanti-socialist, relying in­ alism. As Trotsky predicted 50 years ago, in Havana would take the battle to the stead on "moral" exhortation to motivate it is this layer that has spawned the enemy, recalling the short-lived "Radio (continued from page 7) the workers toward ever greater efforts. capitalist-restorationist elements at work Free Dixie" over which the voice of portray Castro's Cuba as a revolutionary As Castro's regime finds itself further today. What is needed in the Cuban black civil rights militant Robert F. Wil­ beacon. In reality, Castro is a petty-bour­ isolated, politically and economically, its workers state is a political revolution to liams was beamed into the U.S. South in geois nationalist long since become Sta­ answer is "socialist rectification": anti­ oust the bureaucracy and establish the the early 1960s. linist, as the show trial in Havana last corruption campaigns, volunteer labor rule of organs of workers democracy­ An Argentine newspaper asked last July amply demonstrated (see "The Exe­ drives, and social repression to sell aus­ soviets-which can fully mobilize the year, "Is Castro the last Mohican of the cution of General Ochoa," page 6). But terity to the population. proletarian masses' will, their strength, Kremlin's old program for the Third it is Stalinism under the guns of Yankee But in a world dominated by the capi­ their heroism. World? Can Cuba survive by itself when imperialism, which dictates Cuba's some­ talist marketplace and the poverty it The anti-socialist poison spewed out the subsidies are shrinking and the objec­ times more militant stance. And as Fidel engenders, the flip side of Stalinist vol­ by the likes of Moscow News and Sputnik tive dangers from the North are grow­ clings to Stalin's anti-internationalist untarism and repressive moralism for the can and must be defeated not through ing?" (Clarin, 28 July 1989). The Cuban dogma of'building "socialism in one masses is corruption and privilege for the bureaucratic censorship but in political Revolution cannot survive alone.merely country"-his country, of course-this bureaucracy. This has given rise to a struggle for a proletarian internationalist on the masses' will to resist the Yankee leads to some pretty strange international parasitic layer that sits atop the collectiv­ program. Yet this is antithetical to Cas­ colossus. Illusions of capitalist abun­ bedfellows. ized economy, precariously seeking to tro's nationalist Stalinist regime. As for dance have enormous attraction on a Listening to Ronald Reagan or George population condemned to penury by Bush, one might think that Castro is decades of blockade. The gains of the forever fomenting revolutionary ferment revolution can be defended against a throughout the Americas, not to mention vengeful imperialism, and a communist Africa. Yet according to a Prensa Latina future of freedom and abundance se­ dispatch about a press conference at the cured, only through an international fight inauguration of Brazil 'srightist president for socialist revolution, led by a Leninist­ Fernando Collor, Castro opined that Trotskyist vanguard. "Brazil faces a tremendous challenge and A proletarian political revolution in the the new president is willing to tackle it" Soviet Union, returning to the interna­ (Granma Weekly Review, 19 March). tionalist road of Lenin and Trotsky, This was just as Collor was preparing a would afford vital assistance. Instead brutal anti-working-class austerity pro­ of treacherous "alliances" with cutback gram! In recent years, a central theme in capitalists as in Brazil, and dangerous Castro's bids for "peaceful coexistence" illusions of a "peaceful solution" to civil with the Latif! American bourgeoisies war in Central America, workers revolu­ and their North American overlords has tions across Latin America would rapidly been to offer to join in a "common war" break down Cuba's excruciating isola­ against drug trafficking. This was a cen­ tion. And the problems of underdevelop­ tral theme of the Ochoa trial. ment will finally be ended when vast Building "socialism" in one Caribbean technical and material resources are island, under conditions of extreme scar­ liberated for humanity by a victorious city exacerbated by the U.S. embargo, Valdez/White House workers socialist revolution in the United has meant demanding continuing sacri­ Bush (center) in "drug-patrOl" speedboat. "War on drugs" is the latest cover States, "in the entrails of the monster," fices from the working people of Cuba. for Yankee imperialist aggression against Latin America. as Jose Marti so graphically expressed it.•

The black market charges are all detail from 5,000 kilometers away. This brothers, it's easy to see how Ochoa fell Show Trial window-dressing, as Fidel Castro's July is how Stalin and Hitler directed their afoul of his superiors. 9 speech before the Council of State armies. And sometimes they were right. shows. He starts off his diatribe by at­ In North Africa, Rommel kept begging Ochoa, the Castros and the in Cuba... tacking Ochoa at length (more than 4,500 Berlin to send more fuel so he could "Drug War" (continued from page 6) words!) over disagreements they had chase the British to Cairo, but Hitler saw So what about various other charges over military policy in Angola. But that for all the brilliant general's ex­ against Ochoa? Some were just unsub­ market. Of course: money was worthless, Ochoa wasn't charged with anything ploits, this was essentially a harassing stantiated character assassination playing trade was reduced to barter, the Cubans concerning these disputes. What were and delaying action. Stalin managed to on Stalinist prudery, such as the talk of had surplus sugar, the Angolans had they about? Castro has blamed the Sovi­ stiffen quite a few local commanders' sex scandals: "street gossip included tales tusks. And the total amount that the ets for seriously overextending the Ango­ backs through sheer terror, as the Red of wife-swapping, sex with a mistress' prosecutor claims was deposited in the lan army in the south, making them Army held out against tremendous odds. 13-year-old daughter, and arranging for Panama account (which Ochoa denies vulnerable to a devastating South African But that was only after he brought the Cuban lovelies to travel to Angola as was personal) was a piddling $46,000. In counterattack. From his remarks, he Soviet Union to the brink of defeat: his internacionalistas to service the sol­ answer to the charges that he purloined evidently saw Ochoa as siding with the collapse following the Wehrmacht's June diers," reports Cuba Update (Fall 1989). $160,000 from the Nicaraguans intended Soviets. Who was right? We only have 1941 Blitzkrieg attack, his criminal trust And despite much speculation in the U.S. for grenade launchers, Ochoa replied he Castro's account. Cuban forces did even­ in his pact with Hitler, and his bloody press-i-emanating from former Cuban couldn't get them so instead he sent tually win a major victory in southern purge of the Soviet general staff cost general Rafael del Pino, who defected in 2,000 grenades, costing as much or more. Angola, defeating South African forces millions of Soviet lives. 1987-no evidence has emerged to sup­ And the Nicaraguans weren't complain­ at Cuito and then driving them back to Ochoa's real crime was evidently that port theories that Ochoa was the leader ing. As for charges of greed and corrup­ the Namibian border. And it is clear from he talked back to El Jefe and to his im­ of a pro-Moscow wing of the military tion, Ochoa says to the military court, Castro's dispatches that he ran the mili­ mediate boss, Raul Castro. Before the which supported perestroika reforms, and "those who know me and knew how I tary campaign out of Havana. military tribunal of honor, Raul absurdly that there was a power struggle with live are aware that I've never been self­ But that in itself tells a lot about the accuses Ochoa of being a wiseacre, Defense Minister Raul Castro. ish or that I have anything." And no one Castro regime. The commander in chief claiming it was "difficult to discern his But the accusation that General Ochoa contradicts him. .dictated battlefield instructions in minute real thinking under his constant joking"! was involved with drug traffickers and According to American journalist Julia covered up the existence of a drug­ Preston, in a televised speech General smuggling ring operating out of the Castro said that "people raise complaints Ministry of the Interior is a different SPARTACIST LEAGUE/U.S. LOCAL DIRECTORY against the commander-in-chief. ..more kettle of fish, some of them pretty rotten. National Office: Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 • (212) 732-7860 than ever" and that Ochoa complained of That there was such a ring, headed by "lousy decisions" made in the Angola Tony de la Guardia, is affirmed not only Atlanta Detroit Norfolk war ("The Trial that Shook Cuba," New by Castro but also by the U.S. govern­ Box 4012 Box 441043 Box 1972, Main PO York Review of Books, 7 December ment, which had infiltrated it. And while Atlanta, GA30302 Detroit, MI 48244 Norfolk, VA 23501 1989). For his part, Ochoa "confesses" the prosecutor and the Castros assid­ to the Court of Honor: uously conflate the MININT ring with Boston t.os Angeles Oakland Box840, Central Sta. Box 32552 "One begins by uttering grunts when Ochoa, all agree that he made contact Box 29574, Los FelizSta. given an order and ends up thinking that with the Colombian cocaine mafia Cambridge, MA 02139 Los Angeles, CA90029 Oakland, CA94604 everything that comes from the high through the de la Guardia brothers. (617) 492-3928 (213) 380-8239 (415) 839-0851 command is wrong. And along that path About sending his aide Martinez to meet Chicago San Francisco one begins to think independently and Madison comes to believe that it is one who's with Medellin cartel kingpin Pablo Esco­ Box 6441, Main PO Box 5712 right ...." bar, Ochoa said, "of all the outrages I Chicago, IL 60680 Box 2074 San Francisco, CA 94'101 committed, to me this is the most seri­ (312) 663-0715 Madison, WI 53701 (415) 863-6963 So the general was "guilty"...of "inde­ pendent thinking." ous. I haven't the slightest doubt of it." Cleveland New York Washington, D.C. Fidel Castro declares to the Council of The de laGuardia ring was apparently Box 91037 Box 444, Canal St. Sta. Box 75073 State that in carrying out internationalist identical with the embargo-busting De­ Cleveland, OH 44101 NewYork, NY 10013 Washington, DC 20Q13 missions, "it is inconceivable to allow partment MC.Because of the clandestine (216) 781-7500 (212) 267-1025 (202) 636-3537 any military chief, however bright or nature of their work, they could count on capable, to have the power to make stra­ the cooperation of their customs and tegic decisions ...and, on many occasions, border guard MININT colleagues, no TROTSKYIST LEAGUE OF CANADA the power to make important tactical questions asked. Because they dealt with Toronto Vancouver decisions." These powers are the purview shady figures, capable of smuggling Box 7198, Station A Box 2717, Main Post Office of "the leadership of the Party" (Fidel) goods out of the U.S., they necessarily Toronto, Ontario M5W 1X8 Vancouver, B.C. V6B 3X2 and "the High Command of the Revolu­ came in contact with drug and arms (416) 593-4138 (604) 255-0636 tionary Armed Forces" (Raul). With such traffickers. Over the years, they doubtless a megalomaniacal view from the Castro accomplished much for Cuba. But they 8 WORKERS VANGUARD got too chummy with some of their more. in reports of abuse of power, embezzle­ dubious contacts, and that evidently ment, special clinics, and distribution of developed into drug smuggling in con­ TVs, VCRs, cars and even yachts to the junction with Miami-based gusanos. Over Cuban nomenklatura evidence of "a three years, the MC ring ran a series of conflict between the Castroist leading drug transshipments through Cuban wa­ nucleus and its supporters and the new ters and the military airport at Varadero, generation of technocrats and officials, totaling several million dollars. often influenced by Moscow." Habel Even by the prosecution's account, rejects any analysis that "equates the Ochoa never carried out any drug deal. Cuban leadership, with the bureaucratic He says he planned not to run drugs dictatorships of the East European coun­ through Cuba, but to invest money in tries," because the Castro group "has not Cuban tourism which a friend would come out of a bureaucratic apparatus, launder in Panama for drug operations even if, through their method of func­ via Mexic6. Such an arms-length ar­ tioning, they have produced one" (Inter­ rangement would be safer, he figured, national Viewpoint, 13 November 1989). than de la Guardia's "two-bit operation." Yet Ochoa and de la Guardia were both However, in the course of his negotia­ from the Castroite Old Guard. tions, Ochoa sent Martinez to Medellin, As the Spartacists have repeatedly Colombia where he met with Pablo Esco­ noted, the "Castro group" has run a Sta­ bar. (The latter didn't need money laun­ linist bureaucratic regime from the mo­ dering; he was more interested in anti­ ment it became a deformed workers state aircraft missiles.) And two of Escobar's almost three decades ago, although it people were brought to Cuba for negotia­ AFP took a while to congeal. And this has tions together with de la Guardia. Castro Cuban soldiers near Cuito Cuanavale, Angola, where they decisively defeated always included attempts to find a modus and the prosecutor both ask what would South African forces in 1988. vivendi with the U.S. In this same vein, have been the consequences if Martinez Ochoa and the others were executed in had been arrested in Colombia. Ochoa However, the phony "drug war" is at And in every other respect, "Case 1/ an effort to appease Yankee imperialism, commented on "the political implications the moment the central refrain in Wash­ 1989" eerily recalls the Stalinist show by offering up a sacrificial lamb. Shortly of all this for Cuba": ington's drive to repress the ghetto popu­ trials of the 1930s. Ochoa rebukes his after the trial, Castro made a well­ "While the commander in chief was lation and labor at home and to intervene defense attorney for even raising the publicized offer to the U.S. to join its sayingthat we werenot involved in drug militarily as a gendarme in Latin Ameri­ question of motivation, declaring, "I "war on drugs." With typical imperialist trafficking, we were involved in drug trafficking, that we were negating what ca. A member of the Cuban Council of didn't want to go into explanations that arrogance, the Bush administration the commander had said. I think nothing State observed, "The United States could might look like justifications." Most refused on the grounds that it would lend can be more serious. Wejeopardized the have been able to prepare armed aggres- . sinister were the references to Ochoa's him legitimacy. "He has turned to the position of the homeland." sion against Cuba under the pretext of children, his "pure and noble children" United States for a life. preserver," said In arguing for "an exemplary punish­ repressing drug trafficking" (La Jornada as Raul referred to them in a menacing chief customs cop William von Raab. "I ment and the most severe sanction," [Mexico], 12 July 1989). This is certainly demand that Ochoa cooperate in his feel we should throw him an anchor." Fidel declared: "they were drastically true, but it hardly justifies summary public testimony. This was clearly the The claims by Washington that Castro weakening our defenses, they were de­ execution. operational point: his "confession" in was in on the drug dealing, claims re­ priving us of our moral weapons. They exchange for a guarantee in open court peated by Julia Preston in her New York were presenting to the enemy, ona silver "His Pure and Noble Children" of his family's safety. Andthis is given Review of Books article, are absurd on platter, the possibility of collecting evi­ The real charge is treason, but of by Fidel, saying that the "noble and the face of it. More than that, they are dence to discredit Cuba, What would what? The prosecutor spelled it out in his generous" Revolution "will never dis­ blatant war propaganda. In 1985, Castro revolutionary Cuba be without interna- summation. "It is clear that over and criminate against the children of the declared: "I state categorically that not culprits." a cent of drugs money has entered this To the military Court of Honor, Ochoa country, and I know of no case in the 26 declares: "I know I betrayed the home­ years of the revolution of any official land-and I tell you in all honesty, trea­ being involved in the traffic." Asked by son is paid with one's life." And if he is Maria Shriver of NBC in February 1988 shot, he adds, "my last thought will be if the Colombian drug cartel has ever for Fidel, for the great Revolution he has trafficked drugs through Cuba to the made for his people." U.S., Castro answered, "Never. Never! We are the country that has fought They Would Have Loved the against drugs most systematically in this Moscow Trials Castro advised hemisphere." It would be disastrous to Sandinista Leftist admirers of Castro fell all over stake Cuba's "credibility" and "prestige" leader Daniel themselves justifying the Ochoa trial. on such statements if they were known Ortega (right) to Debra Evanson, president of the National to be false. For Castro to lie about this conciliate U.S. Lawyers Guild, declared it was "neither would be to invite an invasion. imperialism and a sham nor a 'show' trial," since Washington financed its Nicaraguan the Nicaraguan confessions were evidently given volun­ contra terrorists through drugs-for-guns bourgeoisie. tarily and at times "the defendants even trades, brokered by Cuban gusano traf­ appeared eager to clarify thefacts and fickers, and for years kept their anti­ events for the court.. .." She would have Communist "secret armies" going by loved Bukharin on the stand, or Zinov­ ferrying opium out of Southeast Asia. iev, "Although time was obviously ex­ Yet today these same Yankee imperialists tional credibility?" above any technicality of a legal nature," tremely short," she notes-right, two wave the banner of a "war on drugs" to Gangsters like Pablo Escobar areplen­ he says, "Ochoa's greatest offense is days between being charged with treason justify their interventionism in Latin ty unsavory: the private armies of the having betrayed his people." "The first and going on trialf-still, "defense law­ America. It would surprise no one if their Medellfn cartel have killed several thou­ person Ochoa betrayed was precisely yers had opportunities to review the next attempted invasion of Cuba is con­ sand leftists in Colombia, repeatedly Fidel," he continues. "Ochoa knew better evidence gathered by the investigators ducted under the same pretext. But trying massacring peasants and assassinating than anyone that he was betraying a and to interview their clients." Of course, to placate the U.S. rulers with a blood Communist Party politicians. And it is symbol, a history of honesty never cloud­ she adds, "culpability was not an issue in purge of some wayward officers can only stupid in the extreme to get entangled in ed by a lie. By making an attempt against this case," since they all confessed (Cuba whet their reactionary appetites. Wash­ an enterprise where the CIA has long Fidel's credibility, Ochoa-and with him Update, Fall)989). ington demanded that Castro prove his been deeply involved. Drug trafficking the rest of the accused-stuck a knife in The reformist Socialist Workers Party, seriousness by handing over Admiral has a long and sordid history-recall the the back of the country and the people. among Fidel's most shameless apologists, Aldo Santamaria, former head of the Opium Wars of the last century, where Fidel is our voice, he is our representa­ praised the executions. Shooting Ochoa Cuban navy, and Fernando Ravelo­ British imperialism squeezed gold from tive, to whom we tum in difficult was a "resolute response" for which Renedo, Cuba's ambassador to Nicara­ the addiction ofmillions ofChinese. The times ...." "working people everywhere owe a debt gua, for a frame-up "trial" like they are harm wrought by the Medellin cartel's In short, General Ochoa is accused of of gratitude to the Cuban government and about to give General Noriega. trade is magnified into a far greater so­ betraying...Fidel. Just as Castro identi­ army." They also applauded "Cuba's de­ Any harm done to the defense ofCuba cial evil by criminalizing drug use, and fies himself with the leadership of the cisiveness in confronting the scourge of by Ochoa and the de la Guardia crew is by the militarization associated with the party, and his brother Raul with the trafficking in drugs" (Militant, 11 August far exceeded by the damage inflicted by "war on drugs." leadership of the army, here El Lfder 1989). Back in 1987, the SWP opposed Castro himselfby legitimizing the Yankee Before the 1959 revolution, Havana's Maximo is equated with Cuba, with the extraditing Nazi war criminal Karl Lin­ war cry. Like sharks, the smell of blood image was sin city, playground of the Revolution. Even the vile prosecutor in nas to the Soviet Union because he might sends the imperialists into a feeding mafia, whorehouse of the West. The the infamous Moscow Purge Trials, the face execution for his crimes as comman­ frenzy. As the bureaucratically deformed Fidelistas took a moralistic stance drawn former Menshevik Vyshinsky (who as a dant of an Estonian death camp. Another Cuban Revolution devours its own chil­ from guerrilla military discipline, tradi­ minister for Kerensky in 1917 issued an "scapegoat" the SWP wanted to protect dren, Castro's program of clamping down tional Stalinist puritanism and the heavy order for the arrest of Lenin), had to be from execution was former SS butcher of on potential internal dissent and corrup­ weight of Catholicism in Cuban society. more circumspect in identifying Stalin Lyon, Klaus Barbie, who helped the U.S. tion with heightened repression, reinforc­ Castro's regime made much ofits repres­ with the Soviet Union. But themethodol­ hunt down and murder Che Guevara. ing ideological "purity" through Stalinist sive measures against such supposed ogy is the same: because the Vozhd These armchair Fidelistas save their civil "rectification" campaigns, and offering evidence of "capitalist degeneracy" as (Leader) is the Revolution, therefore libertarian concerns for fascists. to cooperate with imperialism in a "com­ homosexuality. (In early years, homosex­ failure to obey, much less opposition, is Some ofthe less gung ho Castro back­ mon war" on drugs is a recipe for disas­ uals were jailed in Castro's Cuba, now treason. To drive this home, Castro had ers among ostensible Trotskyists are ter. The urgent need is instead for wag­ AIDS victims are quarantined.) This is 47 brigade and division generals and more queasy about the trial. Janette ing aclass war together with the working the hypocritical and oppressive "morali­ admirals put on the "tribunal of honor" Habel, a follower of Ernest Mandel, people of Latin America and North ty" of capitalist society, which commu­ as a loyalty oath implicating them per­ declares that "Ochoa was probably America against their common capitalist- nists oppose. sonally in the execution. crushed by his own hammer." She sees imperialist oppressors.. . 20 APRIL 1990 9 · tcnart WV Photo Impoverished barrio in Pinochet's Chile (left); outdoor market in East Germany. Capitalist neocolonies of Latin America have a percapita gross domestic product of $2,000 compared to $5,000 for the East European deformed workers states.

bond market. The traditional system went 70 times annual earnings (compared to IS wrote a rather bitter commentary for the Tokyo Stock back to the Meijiera of the late 19th times earnings in the U.S. and 20 times op-ed page of the New York Times (l century when Japanese industrialization earnings in West Germany). Tokyo secu­ April): was based on financially self-sufficient rities analyst Akio Mikuni summed it up: "Most Latin American countries have had Market... cartels, the zaibatsu (e.g., Mitsui, Mitsu­ "The bubble continues to expand as long private property and democratic constitu­ (continued from page J) bishi, Sumitomo). The zaibatsu all had as there are people who believe in the tions for nearly 170 years. This in addi­ tion to the tens of billions of dollars in and Japan the world's biggest creditor. their own banks which channeled depos­ Greater Fool Theory-someone else will foreign aid and hundreds of billions of This dramatic turnabout is rooted in its into the cartels' industrial and com­ be willing to pay a high price." dollars in loans have not raised per capita gross domestic product over $2,000 a radically different rates of savings and mercial operations. As late as 1985, bank Obviously, the bubble was bound to deposits made up 65 percent of Japanese burst. But why now? The Tokyo crash year. Meanwhile, totalitarian socialism, investment in the rival capitalist coun­ which is proclaimed to have failed, of­ tries. The U.S. has become the ultimate financial assets and corporate stock only was triggered by the financial blowback fered Eastern Europeans $5,000 a year." "buy now, pay later" economy, from the Even the $2,000 versus $5,000 gross Pentagon's funding of Star Wars to yup­ averages hide the profoundly greater pies with their BMWs and two dozen inequality in Latin America. A general in credit cards. The personal savings rate in the East German security forces, who had the U.S., including the very wealthy, is accompanied deposed DDR leader Erich a lowly 5 percent of income. Honecker on foreign visits, commented Japanese households save on average to Western reporters inspecting the coun­ 15 percent of their income. This has try retreat of the former Stalinist tops at enabled Japanese industrialists to invest Wandlitz that the ruling elite in East two and a half times more in new plant Berlin lived like "orphans" compared to and equipment than their American com­ the president of Mexico. petitors, 24 percent of national output last year compared to 10 percent in the Wall Street vs, Japan, Inc ... U.S. And there is plenty of money left The reverberation from the Tokyo over for Tokyo operators to buy up crash hits just when the U.S. economy everything from iron mines in Australia looks like it's heading into a recession. and Brazil to U.S. Treasury bills and Production is stagnant while corporate Rockefeller Center. profits are down 10 percent from last Japanese capitalism is structured to year. Orders for machine tools-the core force working people to save a large of industrial investment-are falling. The fraction of their income. Consumer credit heady days on Wall Street ended with the Loftin/NY Times is limited, and Japanese corporations pay Nissan auto plant in Smyrna, Tennessee. Japanese capital has flowed into the crash of October 1987. The big news these a large part of their employees' wages debt-ridden and decaying American economy.. days is not mega-mergers but multi­ and salaries in the form of a lump-sum billion-dollar bankruptcies. Last year bonus twice a year. Moreover, social I I percent. (In comparison, one-third of from the disintegration of the Soviet bloc 68,000 U.S. firms filed for bankruptcy security benefits and pensions are so low America's financial wealth was held in under the "liberal" Stalinist regime of compared to 10,000 in 198 I. So imagine that Japanese cannot survive in old age banks while the stock market accounted Mikhail Gorbachev. Japanese capital is what would happen to corporate America unless they have salted away much mon­ for a quarter of it.) being channeled into the takeover bid for if billions of dollars of Japanese money ey during their working years. However, the explosion of Japan's East Europe. Last January Tokyo prime were suddenly withdrawn from their Housing prices are astronomical­ financial wealth in the early '80s broke minister Toshiki Kaifu visited both sides portfolios. small, two-bedroom apartments in Tokyo down the traditional system. The country of the perforated Berlin Wall and prom­ Gorbachev's appeasement ofWestern sell for a million dollars-and mortgage experienced a classic speculative stock­ ised $2 billion in "soft'iloans and aid to imperialism has highlighted and height­ terms unbearable. To make a down pay­ market boom linked to out-of-sight real­ Poland and Hungary. A few months later, ened economic conflicts between Wash­ ment on a home, a family must save a estate values. (The market value of land Japan's biggest cartel, Mitsubishi, signed ington and Tokyo. The American ruling large part of their income for many in downtown Tokyo alone is greater than a wide-ranging agreement with Daimler­ class views Japan less as a military ally years. One Japanese bank has recently that of the entire United States!) The Benz, Germany's biggest cartel. against the Russians and more as an eco­ introduced a 100-year mortgage so home Nikkei stock index (equivalent to Wall A new Tokyo-Berlin axis in the mak­ nomic threat. Democratic Senator Ernest buyers can pass the burden on to their Street's Dow Jones) went from 13,000 in ing? Business Week (29 January) pointed Hollings, an ardent protectionist, argues: great-great-grandchildren! The net result 1985 to 38,000 at the end of last year. out that "euphoria over German reunifi­ "If the old game was called 'Cold War,' is that over the course of their lifetime Millions of white-collar workers and cation and the opening of Eastern Europe the new game is 'trade war'; it is a no­ Japanese manage much larger sums of professionals started to play the market has attracted a wave of cash into Frank­ holds-barred struggle among nations for market share and standard of living in a money than do Americans and West as their only hope of raising enough furt from every corner of the globe" and largely zero-sum world marketplace." Europeans. money to buy a house. Stock prices were that the gap between interest rates and -Baltimore Sun, Until the mid-1980s Japan had the bid up to a level that had no relation to stock values "continues to attract billions 17 December 1989 most conservative financial system in the real corporate profits. A few months ago of dollars' worth of Japanese investment For years, Washington politicos, espe­ world, with a quite limited stock and Japanese stocks were selling for almost into Frankfurt." In short, Japanese capital cially liberal Democrats, and AFL-CIO finds it more lucrative to invest in Ger­ bureaucrats have blamed Japan-often man Anschluss (annexation) than in the appealing to "yellow peril" racism-for hyperinflated Tokyo stock exchange. the decay of American capitalism. The projected capitalist takeover and exploitation of East Europe is already affecting global economics from the Marxist Working-Class Biweekly of the Spartacist League West Indies to the Far East. "Eastern Spartacist League Europe will be more attractive for direct Public Offices investment and capital flows," predicts o $7/24 issues of Workers Vanguard o $3/3 issues of Erskine Sandiford, the prime minister of - MARXIST LITERA TURE­ (includes English-language Spartacist) Women and Revolution Barbados. "This will mean the diversion o New 0 Renewal 0$2/10 introductory issues Bay Area International rates: of resources from developing countries of Workers Vanguard Thurs.: 5:30-8:00 p.m., Sat.: 1:00-5:00 p.m. $25/24 issues-Airmail $7/24 issues-Seamail to Eastern Europe" (Financial Times, 12 1634 Telegraph, 3rd Floor (near 17th Street) (includes English-language Oakland, California Phone: (415) 839-0851 0$2/4 issues of Spartacist (edici6n en espariol) Spartacist) December 1989). The money masters of Frankfurt, New York and Tokyo plan to Chicago Name _ turn East Europe into a giant cheap-labor Tues.:5:00-9:00 p.m., Sat.: 11 :00 a.m.-2:00 p.m. 161 W. Harrison St., 10th Floor Address .",.- _ sweatshop while putting the rest of the Chicago, Illinois Phone: (312) 663-0715 world on shorter rations. ______Apt. Phone (_) _ # So even sections of the Latin Ameri­ New York City Tues.: 6:30-9:00 p.m., Sat.: 1:00-5:00 p.m. ~_-- City State Zip ------en;; can bourgeoisie are not joining in the 41 Warren St. (one block below 500 hallelujah chorus over the supposed Chambers St. near Church St.) Make checks payable/mall to: Spartaclst Publishing Co., Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 "death of Communism." A liberal Peru­ New York, NY Phone~(212) 267-1025 vian businessman, Hernando de Soto, 10 WORKERS VANGUARD Millville, N.J...r. (continued from page 12) of the Klan, subjected to dozens ofcross­ burnings. Jewish synagogues have also been vandalized, and Hispanic and black leaders have received death threats. Their white sheets splattered with mud, the race-haters fled the wrath of the people of Millville, who stood up for civil rights, equality and basic human decency. The Klan's protectors were the cops, who were enforcing the "law and order" of tire racist capitalist state, while the grotesque civil libertarian appeals by the Klan's lawyers of the ACLU simply emboldened these racist terrorists. As Millville showed, mass mobilizations of labor and minorities can drive the fas­ cists out of town. This battle must be waged above all in the metropolitan centers where the concentrations of mi­ norities and the strength of labor can be brought out. The power of labor/black mobilization was shown in Philadelphia in November 1988, when the Partisan Above: Hispanic and black protesters turned out in defiance of "establishment" leaders who told them to stay home. Defense Committee initiated a mass Below left: Local Klansman spattered by mud. Below right: KKKers huddle behind wire mesh fence before fleeing under united-front action that stopped the KKK police protection. from rallying at Independence Mall. Supported by over 300 trade-union and civil rights groups and individuals, the anti-Klan mobilization was built from the black colleges and SEPTA barns, the Hispanic workers at RCA and the Camp­ bell Soup plant (now closing) irrCamden. It was forged in struggle against Philly Democratic "Mayor of Murder" Wilson Goode, who in 1985 had ordered the hideous firebombing of the black MOVE commune. From the "city of brotherly love" to the farms and towns of South Jersey, black and Hispanic communities are targets of mounting racist attacks. Putting a stop to racist terror in this country means a break from the Demo­ crats and Republicans-fighting for an integrated revolutionary workers party.•

Japan-bashing in the U.S. has pro­ Soviet Union wracked by internal turmoil power is now looming on the European local Stalinist bureaucracies have simply voked a nationalistic backlash in Japan, and breaking apart. This would open the horizon-aGerman Fourth Reich. While collapsed. And after decades of Stalinist which also draws on notions of racial way for the reconquest of the Kurile Washington has endorsed the capitalist oppression and mismanagement in the superiority. Polls show almost 60 percent (Northern) Islands, which the Russians reunification of Germany, the British and name of Communism, the masses have of Japanese think the United States has occupied at the end of World War II. The French ruling classes are understandably plenty of illusions in Western-style par­ too many racial and ethnic groups, while descendants of the zaibatsu are also fearful. And the drive toward the Fourth liamentarism and a market economy. two-thirds believe American workers are dreaming of taking over the vast mineral Reich is already disrupting the financial However, the working class in East lazy. "The Japanese believe Americans wealth of Siberia. At the same time, world. To prevent a massive outflow of Europe and the Soviet Union will resist are overwrought crybabies, grousing economic conflict with the U.S. contin­ yen and dollars into Frankfurt, Tokyo the actual measures of capitalist restora­ about trade problems primarily of their ues to intensify. Takehiko Kamo, a pro­ and New York have been forced to jack tion. In Poland, workers are fighting the own making-product of a flaccid fiscal fessor at Tokyo University, says "the up their interest rates. This helped pre­ effects of the economic "shock treat­ policy, an inability to make goods any­ profound changes occurring in the East­ cipitate the Tokyo stock market crash, ment" dictated by the world bankers, of one would want to buy" (Newsweek, 2 West relationship could create a vacuum while widening the U.S'. federal budget the kind usually carried out by Latin April). An anti-American diatribe by that might tempt Japan to become a deficit and upping the rate of corporate American juntas. In East Germany, there Sony chief Akio Morita and right-wing military as well as economic giant" (Bos­ bankruptcies. '" , are mass worker protests against the politician Shintaro Ishihara, The Japan ton Globe, 20 February). It wouldn't take Whatever their conflicts of interest, Frankfurt bankers' plan to slash their That Can Say No, has sold over a million much tempting. the masters of Wall Street, Tokyo and wages and savings through a currency copies. - Frankfurt believe that the capitalist re­ union. And in the Soviet Union, the Gor­ Conventional wisdom has it that Japan ...vs, a Fourth Reich unification of Germany and capitalist bachev regime has repeatedly postponed is becoming the dominant poweris the For years economic tensions between restoration in East Europe is an about-to­ raising consumer prices for fear of pro­ Far East through peaceful, purely eco­ the U.S. and Japan have been the sharp­ be-accomplished fact, that nothing can voking widespread popular unrest. nomic means. The chief economist for est, most visible sign of interimperialist stop it now. Certainly, Gorbachev is The notion that capitalist restoration in Deutsche Bank's Tokyo office, Kenneth rivalry. However, anothercapitalistsuper- willing to give up East Europe while the the Soviet bloc will lead to democracy, Courtis, asserts: "What used to happen economic prosperity and peaceful rela­ only on the battlefield, they [the Japa­ tions between nations is a terrible illu­ nese] are doing through the stock mar­ sion. The turmoil in world financial ket." But in the final analysis the stock markets and the heightened interimperial­ market consists only of bits of paper. ist conflicts point to the real effect of Japan's economic and financial wealth counterrevolution in East Europe. The can be maintained and secured only by trade war between the U.S. and Japan, corresponding military power. The island the interest-rate war between Frankfurt, nation's massive industrial plant is totally New York and Tokyo, prefigure a new dependent on imported oil, iron ore and imperialist world war for the division of other raw materials. Its lucrative markets markets and spheres of exploitation. in East Asia can be cut off through state Under the impact of the imperialist protectionism. slaughter of the First World War, mil­ Mitsui, Mitsubishi & Co. are keenly lions of workers in Russia, Germany, aware of this vulnerability. During the France and other European countries past decade the Japanese military (called embraced Communism. And while the the Self-Defense Forces) has grown at 6 bankruptcy of the Stalinist perversion percent a year, the fastest rate of any of Communism has been demonstrated, major country in the world. According to capitalism can survive only by drastic the executive editor of Air Force Maga­ assaults on the livelihoods of the working zine (November 1989), the Japanese class. Polish and East German workers armed forces, "though small, will possess are beginning to experience this bitter some of the world's most advanced air­ truth that Bolivian miners and Mexican craft, warships, ground combat weapons, steel workers, as well as American meat­ and communications equipment." This packers and. bus drivers, have suffered rapid military buildup has nothing to do under for years. with self-defense. ~ • Sygma Today more than ever, the struggle The Japanese ruling class, like its German nationalists push for capitalist reunification. Drive toward Fourth Reich against a nuclear-armed capitalism is a counterparts in the West, foresees the Is disrupting world financial· markets. struggle for the survival of civilization.• 20 APRIL 1990 11 WfJli/(EIiI '''"'IJAIi' Hispanics, Blacks. Chase Out /KKK Millville, N.J.

Some 300 people, mainly Hispanics and blacks, drove the KKK out of Mill­ ville, New Jersey, April 7, in a hail of mud, stones and jeers. The Klan had tried to rally in a baseball park in this rural South Jersey town to spew its race­ hatred against Puerto Ricans, blacks and the "Jewish-controlled" media. But a steady rain had turned the ballpark into a mud field. So when the Klan began broadcasting its torrent of filth from behind a wire-mesh fence in the bleach­ ers, the integrated crowd responded with a barrage of its own. After KKK "grand dragon" James Farrands got a mudball in the face, the two dozen cowering racists were forced to flee the park under police protection. Riot cops had been mobilized from at least ten police agencies, and "responsi­ ble" black, Hispanic and Jewish leaders 300 protesters in Millville force Klan to flee under a barrage of jeers and mud. had told residents to stay horne -argo to church. But not everybody felt that I doubt that this band of racists will Hispanics to official positions. This en­ Jones-Romero told WV that Latinos are way. Hundreds, predominantly minority return here. And if they do, they know raged the Klan, whose local "grand drag­ now 13 percent of the population in youth, defiantly turned out. John Fuentes we're waiting" (El Diario, 9 April). on," John Doak, lived in the county. In Cumberland County, and about a quarter and Douglas Jones-Romero of the His- . Millville is situated in Cumberland April 1989, the KKK got a permit to of the nearby town of Vineland. Many panic Political Caucus told El Diario-La County, N.J., about 50 miles south of march in Millville, but the Hispanic are industrial workers and agricultural Prensa that their group had received Philadelphia. John Fuentes told WV the group went to the mayor, who rescinded laborers working for the local growers, scores of phone calls from Hispanic vets KKK threat in this area began a couple the permit. The Klan, represented by the who are a powerful lobby in the area. offering their services against the Klan. of years ago when his group started a ACLU, then went to court, and a federal The black population, about 20 percent After the crowd chased off the fascists, campaign which registered 1,700 new judge ruled the KKK could rally in the of the county, has been a constant target Jones-Romero said, "After this reception, voters, resulting in the election of 22 Millville baseball park. ~ continued on page 11 Outrage Over Cop Killing of Black Youth the back?" As the crowd was dispersing, riot cops from neighboring towns roared into the parking lot. This provoked a riot as youths stomped atop squad cars Teaneck, N.J. and metal trash cans were heaved through storefront windows. Teaneck's black community erupted in anger April To cool things out, the next day the killer was re­ II after the shooting death of 16-year-old black youth lieved of police duty. But Spath, who had been suspend­ Phillip Pannell, Jr., cut down by a cop's .38 calibre ed once before for firing his weapon, is still drawing bullet in the back the night before. The killing of a pay. Clearly, this trigger-happy cop should be behind black teenager by a white cop shocked many in Tea­ bars for murder! neck, both black and white, because the town of 40,000 The Jersey Record (15 April) wrote in a front-page had cultivated an image of a decent liberal integrated story, "It wasn't supposed to happen in Teaneck. This NYC suburb just four miles west of the George Wash­ was the town that integrated itself in the 1960s and ington Bridge. became synonymous with suburban racial tolerance." Around 6:30 p.m., two squad cars came careening on­ Once lily-white and "overwhelmingly Christian," as to the basketball court across from 'Bryant High School, blacks and Jews increasingly made their homes in Tea­ rushing a group of teenagers. As the youths scattered, neck it became in 1965 the first predominantly white the cops chased after Pannell, saying that he fit the city in America to voluntarily adopt a busing plan. Its Agins/NY Times description called in to them of a youth brandishing a black population went from 4 percent in 1960 to about Photograph of slain Phillip Pannell, Jr. is held by pistol. Teaneck cop Gary Spath cornered Pannell in a 30 percent today. his 13-year-old sister Natasha. nearby yard. He later claimed the youth was reaching Beneath the surface tranquility was simmering anger for a "Saturday night special" as he gunned him down. and oppression. Most of Teaneck's blacks live northeast country. De facto segregation, youth joblessness, racist The police story immediately began unraveling. At of New Jersey Route 4: at Bryant High School, the police terror-these are the conditions of life for blacks least ten eyewitnesses said Pannell was pleading "Don't north door is known as "the black door," because black in capitalist America, and it will take a socialist revo­ shoot," with his hands in the air, as he was shot in a students leave by this exit to walk home. Minority lution to change that. cold-blooded execution. Just after Spath shot Pannell teenagers say there is constant harassment from the What's needed is an integrated working-class fight in the back, another cop hollered, "Look at the ---- you cops: "If they see more than two of us standing on a led by a revolutionary party which champions the cause got us into now!" and disgustedly threw his radio street corner, they tell us to get off the street and go of all the oppressed. In Teaneck, the local chapter of against the fence, breaking it tNewsday, 13 April). into the house," one said. the American Federation of Teachers is a scrappy union Teaneck blacks poured out of their homes the next Middle-class blacks and whites who have settled in 'which has struck often, and many teachers have indi­ night in an angry, I ,OOO-strong protest rally outside the Teaneck were deeply shaken about the racist cop kill­ vidually come forward to comfort distraught friends Cedar Lane police station. Phillip Pannell, Sr. told the ing. But despite the liberal social consciousness that of the slain teenager. These unionists could be in the crowd, "They killed my son for no reason. They're not prevailed in Teaneck, and its relative affluence, there forefront of uniting labor and blacks in a fight against .I going to get away with it. How can you shoot a man in is no escaping the hard reality of this deeply racist racist terror.•

12 20 APRIL 1990