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No. 492, December 29, 1989

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No. 492, December 29, 1989 No.492 .,~)x.'2J 29 December 1989 No to Ca,-italist Reunification! East Germany: Build Workers Councils, Now I , DECEMBER 19-A political revolution is unfolding in the German Democratic Republic (DDR). The leadership of the ruling Stalinist party is in retreat. Plans are afoot to "dissolve" the Stasi, the hated secret police. Within the army, soldiers councils are beginning to form. Mean­ while, the West German financiers and industrialists are on a hard course toward capitalist reunification of Germany, with the Socialist Party (SPD) acting as their "left" lieutenants, and outright fascists increasingly active in the DDR as the shock troops of capitalist reaction. An East German workers state uRder the democratic, internationalist rule of workers councils-soviets-could be the springboard for a united red Germany and a Socialist United States of Europe .. Reunification of Germany on a capitalist basis under Helmut Kohl's Fourth Reich means bloody counterrevolution, a resur­ gence of fascism and the danger of a third world war. The stakes are enormous -the choice posed is literally "socialism or barbarism." But while the massive wave of protests has strongly reflected the weight of the working class in the heavily industrialized DDR and has evi­ denced a widespread sentiment to defend egalitarian pro-socialist values, the work­ ing people are not organized to express their class will in the political con­ vulsions shaking society. We call on the workers of East Germany to form Mass demonstration outside parliament building in East Berlin, November 4~ Workers political revolution is continued on page 3 defending East Germany against West German bankers' counterrevolutionary designs. The Crisis 01 Gorbachev's Russia While Gorbachev is praised to the the expense of workers and collective skies by the rulerS of the capitalist West farmers. for his capitulations in the Cold War, the Only Workers Political Revolution Given the history of Russia, there is a Soviet leader has become ever more un­ somewhat larger percentage of Jews in popular in his own land. Gone are the Can Save the Soviet Union! the intelligentsia than in the population bold, brash calls for "socialist renewal." as a whole. For fearful workers, insecure Gorbachev himself admits that Soviet managers, trapped collective farmers, working people blame perestroika (re­ bloodletting between Azerbaijanis tUld bloody counterrevolution and the USSR embittered veter;.lns of the Afghan war structuring) for empty shops and soaring Armenians has taken hundreds of lives, dismembered by Western and Japanese and many others of those who fear for prices, while Soviet premier Nikolai and the restless Georgians have launched imperialism. the future of Russia, the Jews once again Ryzhkov has to reassure the American pogroms against the northern Caucasus appear as a scapegoat. In Leningrad press there is no· danger of a military mountain people. And Ukrainian nation­ Perestroika .fuels and elsewhere, posters have appeared coup in Moscow. alists are stirring behind the revived Reactionary Nationalisms denouncing the "yid-mason mafia" who Everyone knows that the Soviet Union Eastern Rite (Uniate) Catholic church. "control the radio, television,newspapers cannot go on as it is. Working-class After more than 60 years of Stalinist Soviet workers have been wary, if not and magazines." The powerful Writers resentment over the effects of perestroika bureaucratic rule under the banner of hostile, to Gorbachev's market-oriented Union has become a cesspool of anti­ exploded last summer in miners strikes "socialism in one country," the Soviet "reforms" from the outset. The mass Semitism with one of its leading offi­ from Siberia to the Ukraine. Independent Union has became a seething cauldron of base, so to speak, of the current Kremlin cials, Anatoly Bulyov, declaring, "The workers organizations are being formed. popular and national discontent. Today, regime is the intelligentsia, the swol­ Jews appep to be the only nationality At the same time, Great Russian chauvin­ it is clearer than ever before that Trotsky len numbers of urbanized, university­ that is interested in our ruin" (London ism and anti-Semitism are on the rise in was right. Either the Soviet working degreed, soft-job-possessing children of Independent, 6 December). A century Leningrad, Moscow and other Russian class sweeps away the parasitic bureauc­ partY and state bureaucrats, who were ago the German workers leader August cities. In the Baltic republics, natiq~­ racy through proletarian political revolu­ themselves largely ex-workers and peas­ Bebel called anti-Semitism "the socialism alist forces are ever more aggressive tioJl, opening the road to socialism on a ants. Indeed, a key part of the program of fools." And that is certainly its role in in demanding independence to join the world scale, or the gains of the 1917 Bol­ of perestroika is increasing the materi­ Gorbachev's Russia today. capitalist "free world." Communalist shevik Revolution will be destroyed by al privileges of the intelligentsia at continued on page 6 Gus Hall's Fort Lauderdale Weekend For years, Gus Hall's Communist reports from Beijing, Parenti said: Party (CP) has devoted itself to tailing "Taken together, these pieces do not one capitalist Democratic politician after begin to tell us what is going on with another and apologizing for sellout after China's socialism-if it can still be sellout by the trade-union bureaucrats. called socialism." If most CP members have long since The crisis of Stalinism is also affecting given up any hope of socialist revo­ peripheral groups on the American left lution against the American ruling class, like veteran Stalinist Irwin Silber's Line if on the face of it they appeared indis­ -of March (LaM) group, who recently tinguishable from pacifists and liberals, abandoned their pretense at "party build­ deep in their hearts during all those ing" and opted for a new name, Frontline years in the reform Democra\ic club, Political Organization (other proposals they could feel they were serving tht: were "Desperately Seeking Socialism" "socialist motherland" by faithfully par­ and "Line of March Lite," reported the roting every zig and zag emanating from 8 November Guardian). Thankfully, they the Kremlin. Life is no longer so simple. will be "improving" Frontline by coming After painting the Soviet Union and out less frequently. LaM, which not too the East European deformed workers long ago wanted to enter Gus Hall's states as unblemished "workers para­ party, is now looking to commit its refor­ dises" all these years, Hall & Co. mist betrayals directly inside the Demo­ are now faced with Gorbachev's own Affairs cratic Party. disparagement of the Soviet economy, Gus Hall confesses his "crystal ball .is cloudy," as CP press lauds East This fall, Hall confessed, "The ideo­ an explicitly pro-capitalist Solidarnosc­ German party boss Honecker just before he is deposed. logical crystal ball is somewhat cloudy" dominated government in Poland, and (PDW, 14 September). Poor Gus. Stalin­ mass upheavals from Beijing to Berlin. the House Un-American Activities Com­ Germany could always be relied on as a ist "ideology" has never been more than The Wall Street Journal (7 November) mittee, he has Glasnost Gorbachev, Tien­ bastion of Stalinist order and stability; a paper-thin apologia for the rule of captured something when it wrote: "Gus anmen Square and the paroxysms of the Hall even sports a wrist watch given him a nationalist bureaucratic caste which Hall is still with us after all these years, East bloc to contend with." by (now deposed) DDR Stalinist boss usurped political power from the revolu­ but the wor~d has changed .... Instead of For old-line CPers in the West, East Erich Honecker. How then to explain the tionary proletariat in Russia in the early mass exodus of DDR dropouts last sum­ 1920s. And Stalinism without a police­ mer, which triggered Honecker's ouster state apparatus is incoherent. Whether and the current mass upheaval? That's under Stalin or Gorbachev, "socialism in Lenin on the Murderers what the faithful wanted to know when one country" has always meant popular­ of Liebknecht and Luxemburg Hall gave a talk in New York on Septem­ front betrayal abroad. Thus, "hardliner" ber 28 to a virtually all-white, over-60s Hall's idea of a Communist opposition Seventy years ago the Social Democrat­ audience of less than 200. Hall ex­ to Bush in the 1988 elections was "in ic government -of Ebert and Scheidemann plained, "You know in Florida you have practical terms ... electing a Democrat." crushed the Sparta('us uprising and had the Fort Lauderdale and you have Easter Today Hall & Co: look around desperate­ great revolutionaries Karl Liebknecht and exodus to Fort Lauderdale of young ly for a new center of Stalinist or­ Rosa Luxemburg murdered in the name of people, for a good reason, excitement thodoxy: the 19 October PDW ran a large .. democracy" (bourgeois parliamentarism), and so on. I have a feeling that many of ad celebrating the 40th anniversary of Today, the heirs of Ebert and Scheidemann­ these young have got the same idea about "the founding of the new Chinese and the SPD of BrandtlVogel-are aiming to excitement and West Germany." German states." Well, now the East Ger- ' TROTSKY bring about capitalist restoration in East LENIN No wonder younger CP cadre who man bureaucracy is collapsing, and many Germany. At the same time, East German were looking for some answers seeming­ CPers are going to have a hard time liberal Stalinists like Gregor Gysi are seeking to revive the doctrines of Kautskyan ly boycotted Hall's talk. At the CP's swallowing Deng's . China, which has social democracy. Lenin, upon hearing of Liebknecht and Luxemburg's assassination, first-ever "ideological conference" io been in a bloody alliance with U.S.
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