WfJRKERS ,,INfJIJIIRIJ 251 No. 30 .:~~~ X-523 12 October 1973 NEAR EAST: Turn tile National War into Class War! For the fourth time in the last Palestinian Arabs must be able to quarter century, national war has exercise the right to self-determin­ broken out in the Near East between ation and to live in their homeland, Israel and the surrounding Arab The Spartacist League supports states, representing yet an 0 the r the right of the Hebrew-speaking tragic defeat for the Hebrew- and population of present~day Israel to Arab-speaking workers and peas­ self~determinationo At the same ants of the region. The concern of time we are irrecollcilably opposed the bourgeois press over who fired to Zionism, Recogni2.ing that it is the the first shot, or who really started Arab populations of the Near East­ the fighting, is of no consequence. in particular the homeless Pales­ Whatever the particular sequence tinian Arabs, driven from their lands of events, this is essentially a con­ by a triumphant and arrogant Zionist tinuation of the 1967 war, a conflict state-that have borne the brunt of between the chauvinist, expansionist national oppression in the past per­ appetites of the Israeli and Arab iod, we are prepared to militarily bourgeoisies. In such circumstances defend a struggle for self-determin­ the only principled Leninist position ation for the Palestinian Arabs (even is the call for revolutionary defeat­ if it were temporarily under the ism on both sides: the working leadership of petty-bourgeois radi­ masses can have no stake in the cal nationalist forces, such as the "PI victory of either side in this re­ Jordanian rebels brutally crushed Israel i tanks heading for the front. actionary war. by Hussein in 1970), But so long as the Arab and Is­ Marxists will certainly have no raeli states continue to be dominated subjective sympathy for Israel, the by bourgeois regimes, oppressed cidal campaign against the blacks currently in the USSR's diplomatic victors in 1967, in the current waL peoples such as the Palestinian of southern Sudan, show yet again orbit, Should the U.S. become deci­ The willfully oppressive Zionism Arabs will be used as pawns and that national oppression cannot be si vely involved in attempted imperi­ which has gorged itself on the blood, their absolutely just democratic de­ ended until national chauvinism it­ alist conquest of the Arab nations, or lands and labor of the Arab Pales­ mands will be subordinated to re­ self is uprooted by the united class­ should the USSR's involvement call tinians it conquered in 1948 and 1967 peated ncLtional wars. The reaction­ conscious proletariat of the Near into question the defense of the USSR must be finished with for all time. ary militarist Arab regimes are East. Arab nationalism, the ideo­ itself, Marxists would be compelled T!:.e Jewish-exclusivist "Law of Re­ interested only in their own aggran­ logical means by which reactionary to modify this stand, recognizing that turn," the second-cl[l.ss citizensh"p dizement, and their victory in a petty-bourgeois, )) 0 l: r ,:; e 0 i:3 ::md the conilicting national appetites of tor A.rabs in Israel, the brutal ex­ conflict against Israel could result feudal rulers keep a stranglehold the israeli and Arab rUlilig classE-s pulsions of West Bank Arabs from only in a repetition of the same on the Arab workers and peasants, were no longer the decisive element. their homes and lands, the super­ chauvinist atrocities by the new is no more "progressive" than He­ Turn the National War into Class exploitation of Arab labor must be victors, The brutal oppression of the brew nationalism-Zionism. War! Toward a Near East Socialist ended. Israel must leave the terri­ Kurdish people in Iraq by the dom­ To be sure, Israel is a client state Federation! For National Liberation tories occupied in 1967 and the inant Arab majority, and the geno- of the U.S. while Egypt and Syria are through the Permanent Revolution! U.S./USSR Summer Detente Cools After all his clowning, embraCing detente. With his usual contempt for flected the intersection of several dis­ of the Communist Party in June and of Chuck Connors and attempting to Congress and the rest of the ruling tinct political currents and interests. the classic Stalin-type frame-up trial make himself likeable to the American class, Nixon is pushing ahead with his An important interest group pushing for of liberal dissidents Yakir and Krasin people, General Sec ret a r y Leonid detenteo However, the advocates of a the detente were those businessmen, early last month, Brezhnev must be feeling frustrated and harder line against the Russians are like David Rockefeller and Armand For Nixon and Kissinger the de­ angry. Since his visit to the U.S. in turning this into apopular issue against Hammer of Occidental Petroleum, who tente was another of their endless dip­ June, anti-Soviet sen tim e n t has in­ Nixon. were in a position to rake in sizeable lomatic maneuvers, specifically de­ creased steadily both within the ruling If Brezhnev could indeed understand profits through trade deals and con­ Signed to get the Kremlin to strengthen class and throughout American society, Marxism, as he occasionally claims to, struction/management contracts. The the U.S. in certain troublesome areas in Taken together, the now-certain his frustration at the short life of the Nixon administration itself saw an the imperialist domains. Andfrom Nix­ passage of the Jackson Amendment detente would be tempered by compre­ opportunity to trade economic and dip­ on's point of view, Brezhnev has kept (making tariff cuts conditional upon the hension of the implacable hostility of lomatic concessions (e.g., the recogni­ his side of the bargain. Difficult as the elimination of all Soviet emigration U.S, imperialism to the Soviet state. tion of East Germany) for certain pro­ task is, the Soviet bureaucracy has restrictions), the two-year accelera­ American actions in Soviet foreign really tried to keep Indochina in the tion of the Trident missile-launching Sakharov/Jackson vs. policy, particularly in Indochina and the "Free World," The Brezhnev regime submarine program, the defeat of the B rezhnev IN ixon Middle East. helped pressure the North Vietnamese Mansfield Amendment for U.S, troop The most reluctant supporters of the to sign the peace treaty which legiti­ cuts in Western Europe and a large The apparent enthusiasm of the detente were the cold-war liberals con­ mized the Thieu regime in Saigon and increase in the arms budget mark a American ruling class for the Nixon­ centrated in the Meany-Humphrey­ UoS, financial and military support to sharp retreat from the Nixon-Brezhnev Brezhnev detente earlier this year re- Jackson wing of the Democratic Party. its reactionary puppets. They were temporarily won to support­ Soviet diplomats collaborated close­ ing Nixon by the argument that in­ ly with the UoS. to set up yet another creased economic relations would lead "neutralist" Laotian government head­ to the bourgeoisification of Soviet so­ ed by Prince Souvanna Pl),ouma, despite ciety and the strengthening of unam­ the overwhelming military advantage FARM WORKERS' UNION: biguously pro-Western tendencies. of the Pathet Lao. And most grossly, In the long run, it is indeed true Brezhnev's government continues to that the massive involvement of U,S, recognize the mayor of the beSieged capitalism in the Soviet pOlitical econo­ city of Phnom Penh, Lon Nol, as the Meany/Chavez my would generate consciously pro­ legitimate Cambodian head of state, imperialist, bourgeois -restorationist although the Khmer Rouge controls the political groupings. However, the rest of the country. Brezhnev regime belie~·ed it could get The outcome of the revolutionary Abandon Strike what it wanted out of Nixon without ci vil wars raging in Indochina has not relaxing its absolutist political control. yet been determined. However, should From Brezhnev's Side, the detente capitalism be overthrown in the region, was deliberately combined with a cam­ it will be despite the best efforts of paign of intensified internal repression the Brezhnev regime to preserve it, PAGE 2 symbolized by the elevation of secret­ For Nixon and company, the fate of pOlice head Andropov to the Politburo continued on page 5 among the farm workers. When several bus loads of RU sup­ Fllrm Workers Wellry of Pllcifist Protest liS • •• porters arrived at the picket line at 10:30, they then joined the farm work­ ers in chanting "Viva la huelga gener­ al! 11 ••• until they realized that the chant had been initiated by the SL/RCY con­ tingent! The RU tails after any pro­ Meany/Chavez Abandon Strike, gram it thinks the bureaucracy sup­ ports-even to the point of accidentally supporting a class-struggle slogan! At one point during the picket, the RU­ Turn to Boycott led contingent stopped the whole line to shout such epithets as "you don't

WV PHOTO do anything to support farm workers!", After almost a decade of organizing thereby exposing the entire picket line and struggle, the United Farmwork­ to attack from the police. The RU ers Union (UFW) has been hurled back ended -up picketing on the other side onto its home base, the grape fields, of the road from the SL/RCY and the by the attack of the grower-Teamster farm workers. alliance, during the 1973 harvest sea­ The September 9 Livingston action son. In contrast to the misty-eyed op­ was typical of many throughout the timism of the maturing Chavez bureau­ state. After the picketing, SL speakers cracy-"Sure the Teamsters have our addressed the workers in Spanish, at­ contracts but we still have the people" tracting interested crowds of 20- 30 (El Malcriado, 21 September)-mili­ workers. But from the official podium tants seriously committed to the un­ came a vicious stream of red-baiting, ionization of agricultural workers must not naming the SL directly, but re­ consider soberly, in terms of its real ferring to "outsiders," "disrupters," impact on the class struggle in the etc. This was then picked up by the RU fields, the UF W' s drop from 70,000 supporters mingling in the crowd with dues-paying members in 1972 to a union talk of "patrones" (bosses) and "Team­ with only 10 contracts covering 18,000 ster provocateurs." It is in this way workers in California and Florida. It that the false leaderships of the work­ should not be forgotten that since the ers-reformist trade-union bureau­ beginning of the century two other crats and Stalinists-respond to the attempts at farm-worker unionization expression of revolutionary politics, have already been smashed. Despite since they have only defeatism and the reported pact between the UF W reformist bankruptcy to counterpose and Teamsters, based on Chavez' ca­ as a strategy. pitulation to Meany and the growers, The SL/RCY have been able to the very existence of the United Farm­ distribute their literature and put for­ workers is still threatened. A union ward their ideas in the face of red­ cannot survive on pious wishes; it must baiting and harassment only because be victorious in class battles. of the direct intervention of farm At the close of the picking season, workers themselves in our behalf. The the critical fact is that the UF W failed RU, though intimidated, becomes in­ to halt production. Vv'ith his policy of creasingly frenzied at this because it calling on the scabs to leave the fields assumes that those like themselves 'Vith peaceful picketing, appeals to who demonstrate their willingness to liberals and the moral protest of sub­ sell out-to tail the established lead­ mitting to arrest and "filling the jails," ership and serve as its unquestioning Chavez claims only to have hurt the supporters-should be rewarded with growers to the point that they are all quate protection" (E l Malcriado, 21 for the Militant Action Caucus, an oppo­ popularity and influence, while those losing some money on the crop. In fact September). sition group based on a class-struggle like the SL/RCY who oppose the bu­ it is a monumental defeat for farm In fact it was the Chavez leader­ program, addressed the rallyforMAC. reaucrats' poliCies of betrayal are workers that they are now forced­ Ship t S sellout of the strike against the In a rousing speech, she called for disrupters whom the workers ought in­ by their leadership's failure to win the Teamsters' attempts to smash the UFW labor solidarity throughout the state, stantly to reject. The evident popularity strike through united labor action-to in the Salinas Valley lettuce fields for hot-cargoing of scab products and of a revolutionary line, despite the scatter themselves across the country which invited the Teamster-grower for a general strike of California labor preaChing of the bureaucracy, only in an attempt to reach virtually the attack of 1973 (see WV No. 23, 22 June to defend the farm workers, reading drives the RU andothertailiststofrus­ entire population at innumerable store 1973). While the Teamsters, after sign­ a support resolution with these points tration and hysteria. fronts and convince them, one by one, ing sweetheart contracts with the grow­ which the MAC had prepared for intro­ not to buy scab products! ers, did "back down" and sign a juris­ duction at the next 9415 local meeting. Meany/Chavez Consolidate Grip In the present situation, while the dictional agreement favoring the UFW, Cheering and applauding workers at UFW Convention Spartacist League politically opposes these contracts remain in force and greeted her with an ovation. the adoption of the boycott strategy are defended by the growers against the - Among the ostensibly left organiza­ The first constitutional convention in place of a militant strike strategy, UFW. Chavez abandoned the Salinas tions the Spartacist League and Revo­ of the UFW, held in Fresno 21-23 it stands in solidarity with the farm strike, resorting instead to an impotent lutionary Communist youth have alone September marked an important step workers against the capitalist retail­ lettuce boycott. combined militant defense of the farm in the long transformation of the UFW ers who continue to stock scab products Now the same pattern is being re­ workers' struggle with a class-struggle from a loose-knit "movement" union in their stores. peated. The UFW and Teamsters have policy in sharp counterposition to the into a standard AFL-CIO business The present boycott is a direct re­ recently announced an "agreement in Chavez leadership's sellout paCifist de­ union. The purpose of the convention sult of the Chavez bureaucracy's re­ principle," terms of which are still featism. All others-Communist Party, was to consolidate the control of Meany fusal to lead a militant struggle during under negotiation. But the Teamster Socialist Workers Party, International over the union, through elimination of the strike. Militant mass picketing contracts will probably remain in force. Socialists-have been grovelling before local autonomy, consolidation of the should have been combined with or­ In any event, the Teamsters' hired the UF W leadership, so as to appear bureaucratic leadership around Chavez ganized, armed self-defense and real goons and s wee. the art contracts, in "militant" in defense of farm workers and formalization of the already firmly attempts to prevent scabs from enter­ freezing out the UF W at the critical while in reality tailing after whatever established boycott strategy as an al­ ing the fields. The only meaningful point, have served their purpose. Most is popular like a bunch of gutless ternative to militant strike struggle. "boycott" is the prevention of scab alarming of all, in an attempt to render liberals. SL/RCY members have thus (This is undoubtedly pleasing to the products from reaching the market the UFW more palatable to the growers, been the target of considerable red­ conservative Meany who has been say­ through the "hot-cargo" (refusal-to­ Chavez has expressed willingness to baiting and harassment from UF W ing for years that strikes are "out­ handle) tactic on the part of the trans­ compromise away the hard-won union bureaucrats clearly worried by the evi­ moded. ") With. the lack of a class­ port unions. Appeals to longshoremen~ hiring hall in favor of "joint" union­ dent approval our slogans receive from struggle opposition caucus in the un­ teamsters and cannery workers to link management control of hiring. It was the workers and even some lower-level ion, the road is now open for a Meany­ up their struggles with the farm work­ replacement of the hated contract la­ union leaders. But the UF W bureau­ Chavez-Fitzsimmons deal to accom­ ers by refusing to process, handle or bor system with the union hiring hall crats are not alone-they are abetted modate the growers and sell out the move scab products would have met which constituted the chief gain of the by supposed "revolutionists" whose farm workers. with favorable response: all these UF W contracts. whole policy is one of subservience The convention revealed the con­ workers were themselves on strike at to the union's existing reformist lead­ tinuing adaptation of the liberal-radi­ various pOints during the critical pick­ Class-Struggle Program From ership. Chief among these is the Mao­ cal Chavez clique to Meanyite business ing period. Instead, the Chavez leader­ Militant Action Caucus ist Revolutionary Union (RU). unionism in its handling of the critical Ship, capitulating to pressure from the and SL/RCY On 9 September about 40 SL/RCY question of non-citizen labor. In the AFL-CIO, served as the ultimately supporters arrived at 6 a.m. to join official Convention Call, Chavez had most important ally of the growers by The failure to conduct a militant a picket in Livingston, home of the whined, "The Immigration Department enforcing an impotent, pacifist policy strike strategy has not been for any rich Gallo vineyards. Despite the pres­ allows the growers to use illegal aliens and refusing to call for any of these lack of expressed support for the farm ence of a small army of thugs hired to break our strikes." Thus instead militant measures, since they are "il­ workers or for militant pOlicies by to "guard" the fields, Livingston was of calling for open borders and inter­ legal" under grower-capitalist laws! California labor. A " caravan to Delano" one of the last strongholds of mass national class struggle to raise the Instead of fighting, Chavez cowers be­ organized by the Los Angeles AFL-CIO picketing and confrontation. The SL living conditions of Mexican workers fore the power and authority of the drew 600 workers to a rally in Delano carried bilingual signs reading: "De­ now barely surviving at near-starvation ruling class, to whose every attack he September 8. The rally was addressed fend the UFW-Teamsters out of the levelS, Chavez calls on the imperialist

~ responds with a retreat. When two farm by representatives of organizations that Fields!", "Expropriate the Fields Un­ U.S. government, devourer of scab worker pickets were killed and others had collected money for the farm work­ der Workers Control!" and "Militant grapes, to shake a finger at the nasty shot in Kern and Tulare Counties by ers, as well as by Chavez and other Defense of the UFW Picket Lines!" growers for using illegal strikebreak­ cops and company gunmen in August, leaders. Jane Margolis, a former exec These slogans were well received and ers and to increase deportations of Chavez halted all picketing "until the board member of CWA Local 9415 our chant, "Viva la huelga, la huelga Mexican nationals! federal government guarantees ade- (Oakland, California) and a spokesman general!" evoked real en t h us i as m The convention was from the be- 2 WORKERS VANGUARD Iy to the Guardian 2115 'IS!

FEI'GUII' (Editor's Note: The recent wave of virulent anti-Trotskyism being spread by various Maoist groups relies on the standard Stalinist weapons of lies and dis­ tortion, and above all on ignorance about the true history of the communist move­ ment. The present series, replying to the articles on "Trotsky's Heritage" in the New Left/Maoist Guardian, serves as an introduction to this history and a brief summary of the principal political issues separating Trotskyism from Stalinism.)

The last four articles of the Guar­ bourgeois feminists, Davidson counter­ dian series on "Trotsky's Heritage" poses the "mass democratic struggle are devoted to demonstrating that for the emancipation. of women." This Trotskyism is reformist and "counter­ is the tip of the iceberg, for behind the revolutionary" by discussing the cur­ contention that the struggle for women's rent policies of the Socialist Workers liberation is only" democratic" (and not Party and, to a lesser extent, of the socialist) lies a call for maintenance Workers League (WL). Not once is the of the bourgeois family (simply "re­ Spartacist League mentioned. This is forming" it by calling "for husbands to no accident. The SWP, which was once share equally in the responsibilities of the leading party of the Fourth Inter­ the home") and for an alliance with national, has long since abandoned the "even the women of the exploiting path of revolutionary Trotskyism for classes. " the swamp of reformism. First adapt­ ing itself to Castroism in 1961-63 by SL Embodies Trotskyist Program foreseeing a "guerrilla road to power" and to black nationalism with the theory Instead of capitulating to bourgeois that "consistent nationalism" leads to pacifism the SL called for class­ socialism, the SWP made its dive into struggle opposition to the Vietnam war: reformism in 1965, becoming the or­ for labor strikes against the war, bour­ ganizer of a popular-front antiwar geoisie out of the anti-war movement, movement dominated by bourgeois military support to the NLF, all Indo­ liberals. Since then it has extended this china must go communist; instead of class collaborationism into new fields, petty~bourgeois draft refusal the SL organizing single-issue movements for was unique in conSistently advocating the "democratic" demand Qf self­ communist work in the army. determination for just about everyone, Rather than capitulating to bourgeois from blacks (community control) and nationalism the SL called for an end women to homosexuals and American to all discrimination on the basis of Indians. race, opposition to community control The political bandits of the WL, and preferential hiring, for a transi­ on the other hand, have made their tional black organization on a program mark in the U.S. socialist left by con­ of united class struggle. stantly shifting their political line in In the struggle for women's liber­ order to temporarily adapt to whatever ation, the SL opposed capitulation to is popular at the moment (Huey New­ bourgeois feminism and the equally ton, Red Guards, Ho Chi Minh, Arab reactionary abstentionism of various nationalists, left-talking union bureau­ w 0 r k e r i s t groups: We called for crats) only to return to a more "or­ women's liberation through socialist thodox" p 0 sit ion soon aft e r. Its revolution, bourgeois politiCians out of constants are a belief that an all­ the women's movement, free abortion encompassing final crisis of capital­ on demand and adopted the prospect ism will eliminate the need to struggle of the eventual creation of a women's for the Bolshevik politics of the Tran­ section of the SL, as envisioned by the Leon Trotsky sitional Program and an abiding pas­ early Communist International. sion for tailing after labor fakers of Alone of all the ostenSibly Marxist any stripe, from pseudo-radicals to organizations the SL has upheld the ultra-conse rvati ves. Leninist nor m s of youth-party rela­ Thus it is easy to "prove" that Trot­ tions, with the youth section (Revolu­ 8/ TROTSKYISM vs. skyism is reformist by Citing the pol­ tionary Communist Youth, RCY) icies of the SWP and the WL. But this organizationally separate but politi­ has about as much value as "proving" cally subordinate to the party. that Lenin was for a "peaceful road to socialism" by Citing Khrushchev. SWP REVISIONISM Nationalism vs. Class Struggle exploited sector of the working class erists today carry out trade-union work Feminism and Trotskyism On the question of black nationalism, will indeed playa key role in an Amer­ which is in no way distinguishable from Because of the rotten betrayals of Davidson criticizes the S WP for tailing ican socialist revolution. Black work­ that of the reformist Communist Part\' the SWP during the past decade, Trot­ petty-bourgeois nationalists ers are potentially the leading section in the 1930's and 1940's. Falling i~ skyism has become confused in the ... and then declares that U.S. blacks of the proletariaL But this requires behind every militant-talking out­ minds of many militants with the crass­ constitute a nation and should have the the integration of its most conscious bureaucrat, and not a few in­ right to secede. The nationalist theory est reformist grovelling before the elements into the single vanguard party bureaucrats as well, they fail to wage a of a "black nation" in the U.S. ignores and a relentless struggle for the pro­ political struggle in the unions, saving liberal bourgeoisie. It also gives Mao­ ists like Davidson plenty of opportunity the fact that blacks (and the other gram of united working-class struggle their support for the NLF, Mao, etc., to make correct attacks: racial-ethnic minorities) are thorough­ among black workers. ConsciOUS ofthe for the campuses. ly integrated into the U.S. economy, need for special methods of work among Among 0 s ten sib 1 y Trotskyist "Their [SWP'sj approach is to tail op­ although overwhelmingly at the bottom doubly-oppressed sectors of the prole­ groups, workerism has taken the form portunistically each spontaneous devel­ levelS, have no common territory, tariat, the SL has called for a transi­ of denying the need to struggle for the opment in the mass democratic move­ special language or culture. Garveyite whole of the Transitional Program in ments. Each constituency, in succes­ tional black organization not as a con­ sion, is then dubbed the 'vanguard' "back to Africa" movements, the theory cession to black separatism but pre­ the t r a d e un ion so Some fake­ leading the proletariat to socialism, of a black nation and all other forms cisely in order to better combat na­ Trotskyists argue that wage demands with the added provision that the 'van­ of black separatism have the prinCipal tionalism among the black masses alone are revolutionary (Workers guard of the vanguard' in each sector effect of dividing the proletariat and ("Black and Red-Class Struggle to League), others that the Transitional is presently made up of the student isolating the most exploited and poten­ Negro Freedom," Spartacist, May­ Program must be served to the workers youth. " tially most revolutionary section in June 1967). in bits and pieces, one course at a -Guardian, 13 June 1973 separate organizations fighting for time (Class Struggle League); still This theory, formerly called the "dia­ separate goals. Both the S WP, with its Leninism vs. Workerism others verbally proclaim the Transi­ lectic of the sectors of intervention" by enthUSiasm for community control, and tional Program in their documents, but the SWP's European friends, is a denial Maoists like Davidson's October Since the demise ofthe Weatherman­ see the strategy for power as based on of the leading role of the proletariat League and the Communist League RYM II section of SDS in late 1969, giving "critical support" to every avail­ and is expressed in their programmatic with their reactionary-utopian con­ black nationalism and feminism have able out-bureaucrat (Revolutionary capitulation to feminism, nationalism, cepts of a black nation, serve to dis­ been joined by a crude workerism as Socialist League). The SWP, for its student power, etc. Elsewhere, David­ unite the working class and tie it to the the dominant forms of petty-bourgeois part, does almost no trade-union work son criticized the SWP for tailing the bourgeoisie. The SWP's enthusiasm ideology in the socialist movement. at all and in its press gives uncritical nationalism of the black petty bour­ for a black pOlitical party leads it to Adapting to the present backward con­ support to liberal bureaucrats, both in geoisie and the WL for tailing the enthuse over clambakes of black Demo­ sciousness of the working class, work­ power and out. chauvinism of the labor aristocracy crats (such as the 1971 Gary conven­ erists have sought to gain instant popu­ The Spartacist League, in contrast, (Guardian, 30 May 1973). Again this tion), while black-nation separatism larity and influence by organizing on calls for the formation of caucuses is correct. aids bourgeois nationalist demagogues the level of militant trade unionism. based on the Transitional Program to But such criticism is cheap--it like Newark's Ford Foundation-backed Failing to heed (and in some cases struggle for leadership of the unions. represents not the slightest step Imamu Baraka (Leroi Jones). denying) Lenin's dictum that socialist While willing to form united fronts in toward a Marxist program of prole­ In part the capitulation to black na­ consciousness must be brought to the speCific struggles, the SL sees the fun­ tarian class struggle. Thus after criti­ tionalism by wide sectors of the U.S. is working class from the outSide, by the damental task as the creation of a com- cizing the SWP for tailing petty- a distorted recognition that this most revolutionary party, the radical work- continued on page 10 4 WORKERS VANGUARD ginning a tight, bureaucratic operation predictably more of the same disgusting to ram through the policy decisions opportunism. Of the CP and RU, of already agreed upon by the Chavez course, nothing need be said, To groups core leadership and George Meany, whose view of· the world depends on Defend Chile, Vietnom Several times on the first day a few. the myopic vision of the Soviet and delegates attempted to slow down the Chinese ruling bureaucracies respec­ passage of convention rules in order tively, the UFW is the height of "pro­ to allow time for discussion, but this gressive" bureaucratism and a vital Closs- Wor Prisoners DAlLY WORLD was no obstacle to the Chavez steam­ link to alliance with the liberal bour­ roller. Representation was highly dis­ geOlsle. Likewise, the Maoist October As the reactionary junta which criminatory against large units. Worse, League turns defeats into victories seized power in a coup last September introduction of a resolution at the con­ through the magic of taHism: "the 11 continues to consolidate its power, vention required the signatures of 25 grower-Teamster alliance may have the situation of Chilean workers grows delegates, a provision more restrictive run into its Waterloo" (The Call, even more desperate. Even the bour­ than those of many more conservative September 1973). geOis press now confirms that more unions. Discussion on the articles of than 5,000 workers and labor leaders the constitution was bureaucratically The philistine, ex-Trotskyist SWP have been massacred during the first cut short to allow plenty of time for is not to be outdone by the Stalinists. two weeks since the overthrow of the guest speakers: Woodcock from the Well-practiced in tailing every form Popular Unity (UP) government head­ UA W, Paul Hall from the SIU and of liberal, nationalist and petty-bour­ ed by Salvador Allende. (Unofficial Senator Edward Kennedy of the Demo­ geois protest politics inclUding, on reports place the figure at roughly cratic Party. occasion, capitulation to the Demo­ 20,000,) Mass executions are taking cratic Party, the S WP makes no men­ place daily in the National Stadium, Chavez Bares Anti­ tion of even its own exclusion at the where thousands of workers and Latin Commun i st Face hands of the UFW goons at the con­ American leftist political exiles are vention, nor does it raise the slightest being held. Meanwhile the air force The adopted constitution demanded criticism of Chavez. Neatly separated has bombed factories and workers' that all members "reject the use of from the rest of its report on the districts in the Santiago area and army violence in any form for any purpose convention, the Militant (5 October) troops are besieging several of the whatsoever." But not surprisingly, this attacks Kennedy-g e n t 1 y-for "eva­ copper mines. The popular-front All­ humble submission is aimed strictly siveness." The SWP has been head­ ende government-more fearful of the one way: toward the bourgeoisie. Every over-heels in love with every pacifist independent power of an aroused prole­ ostensibly Marxist organization which sellout by Chavez, underlining its own tariat than of the forces of bourgeois tried in any way to disseminate its complete abandonment of any trace of reaction-allowed the workers to re­ views, as through the legal distribution working-class pOlitics by enthusiasti­ main unarmed and defenseless against of literature, was threatened by a heavy cally contributing arguments to sup­ the bloodbath now occurring. And the Luis Corvalan, Chilean CP head, is squad of UFW goons! The red baiting port such betrayals as the boycott worst may be still to come. threatened with death sentence by the began with an attack on the Interna­ "strategy." (The 5 October Militant In the face of this murderous attack junta. Despite CP's sellouts in Chile tional Socialists' Workers' Power, wrote that "the Company [Gallo Wine] on the Chilean working class it is the his execution would be attack on entire which had dared to make a timid criti­ is highly susceptible to a well-organ­ elementary duty of all socialists and workers movement. Free Corvalan! cism of Chavez from the left, A dele­ ized boycott of its products." Not the labor movement as a whole to un­ gate moved to expel "all newsmen mentioned is that the lettuce boycott dertake vigorous protest actions, de­ of its press. Thus it participates in distributing anti-UFW literature," was a failure, and the last grape boy­ manding Down With the Reactionary protests not as the SWP but as sup­ pointing to someone at the rear of the cott lasted five years!) Junta! Free All Class-War Prisoners porters of the USLA, an SWP-domi­ hall. Chavez immediately took the podi­ in Chile! Unions should undertake pro­ nated committee to aid Latin American um and ordered the removal of the test work-stoppages and other meas­ political prisoners, and its banners and person, who had not been distributing Bridges' Hypocrisy ures, such as the boycott of Chilean chants say nothing about the popular­ anything but had merely been seen with ports proposed by the Militant-Soli­ front and "p e ace fu l-road-to-social­ the IS salesmen. He was immediately darity Caucus of the NationalMaritime ism" illusions it purports to combat. descended on by over a dozen goons Perhaps the most disgusting bureau­ Union (see Workers Vanguard No. 29, Its real position was indicated in a and pushed out. Later, Workers Van­ cratic role during the farm workers' 28 S e pte m be r). Marxist-Leninists September 12 leaflet of the Boston guard reporters were also excluded. struggle, in addition to that of Fitz­ must wage a sharp struggle against SWP which called for "defense of the "The press is supposed to be impar­ Simmons, Meany and Chavez, has been any form of illusions in the possibility Chilean people and their democratic tial, at least while they're here," noted the betrayal of the Bridges bureaucracy of making a revolution through a popu­ rights." However, this failure to main­ Chavez; but the bourgeois dailies were of the ILWU. Long-time "friends" of lar front of bourgeois and workers tain an independent working-class line allowed to remain undisturbed, with no the farm workers, this Stalinist-backed parties (such as Allende's UP govern­ is only the beginning. attempt to determine their "imparti­ "leadership" managed by a close mar­ ment) and a parliamentary road to Subsequently the SWP/USLA has ality" toward labor! gin to prevent any direct criticism of socialism. Precisely these illusiOns launched a campaign to defend 23 prom­ The next day (Saturday) the witch­ the Teamsters at the Longshoremen's led to the present inability of Chilean inent political prisoners and Latin hunt was stepped up to make the con­ convention last Spring in order to pro­ workers to respond to the reactionary American political exiles in Chile in vention "clean" for the all-important tect its chummy relations with the coup with civil war. No to Popular­ the hopes that "a campaign focused on guest speakers. Literature tables out­ Teamsters warehouse division during Front Governments! For a Workers these well-known figures will help side the hall were ordered removed by contract negotiations (see WV No, 22, and Peasants Revolution in Chile! dramatize the plight of the thousands UFW officials and police working to­ 8 June 1973), The Stalinist Communist Party of the of other pOlitical prisoners"! Thus in­ gether: first the Spartacist League, U.S., whose friends in Chile constantly stead of driving home the point that a Now that the picking season and then the Socialist Workers Party, fi­ preached faith in the "democratic" massacre of labor leaders and the the longshore/warehouse contracts are nally the Workers League. UFW goons military, called for alliance with the destruction of all workers organiza­ patrolled the mall throughout the day safely in the background, the Bridges Christian Democrats (who endorsed tions is taking place, requiring a united bureaucracy is making a fewproforma trying to drive off all left-wing the coup) and demanded that the work­ working-class defense in this country salesmen, noises about militancy in defense of ers return occupied factories to their and a struggle for a proletarian revo­ the farm workers and "rift" with the "owners" during Allende's regime, has lution in Chile, the SWP chooses to Teamsters. On the last day of the continued its pathetic policy of begging focus on the plight of a number of sci­ Fake Left Grovelling UFW convention, Jimmy Herman of the United Nations to intervene. The entists, artists, writers, etc., as well IL WU Local 34 announced, "our union The response of the left to this red­ various "Chile Solidarity Committees" as a few of the most prominent left baiting, bureaucratic convention was is committed now to take another look, have distinguished themselves by de­ politicians. the law notwithstanding, at what we manding above all that the U.S., which At the same time we note once again have to do to stop the grapes on those helped engineer the coup, refuse to the fact that more than 100,000 political boats in some manner, shape or form" recognize the junta! p r i son e r s continue to languish in (San Francisco Chronicle, 24 Septem­ WfJlIllEIiS The Socialist Workers Party, which Thieu's jails in Vietnam and that their ber). Fine words for the farm workers' once represented Trotskyism in the cause has been largely ignored by the ears! But back home in the ILWU, the U.S., has completely adapted to the U.S. left. It is necessary to launch a union leadership has conSistently op­ ""fJlJ'lIlJ Stalinist line in practice, while main­ fight to FREE ALL CLASS-WAR PRIS­ posed any moves to hot cargo grapes­ taining verbal orthodoxy in the safety ONERS IN CHILE AND VIETNAM! _ Marxist Working-Class Bi-weekly an action which would open the way for a state-wide labor offensive which SYGMA of the Spartacist League could actually win the strike.

Editorial Board: As Chavez' ties to the reactionary Liz Gordon (chairman) labor bureaucracy and the ruling-class Jan Norden (managing editor) Democratic Party are strengthened ChriS Knox (labor editor) through sellouts and compromises of Karen Allen (production manager) the interests of farm workers, the need Joseph Seymour for a revolutionary leadership that will represent the independent interests of Circulation Manager: Anne Kelley the workers in the UFW and the labor West Coast Editor: Mark Small movement as a whole takes on increas­ New England Editor: George Foster ing urgency. More than ever, the les­ Southern Editor: Joe Vetter sons of the last round of struggle show Midwest Editor: David Reynolds that Chavez must be replaced by a revolutionary leadership based on a Published by the Spartacist program that will win not merely the Publishing Company, Box 1377, right to existence for the UFW but G. P. 0., New York, N. y, 10001. lasting gains for the working class Telephone: 925-8234. internationally. As long as the leader­ ship of working-class organizations Opinions expressed in signed limits the struggle to what is acceptable articles or letters do not neces­ within the bounds of capitalism, work­ sarily express the editorial ers will again see the gains of patient ~~'i viewpoint. years of courageous struggle reversed "In conformity with the Constitution, the army is not in a matter of weeks. _ 12 OCTOBER 1973 3 to the Guardian

PENGUIN (Editor's Note: The recent wave of virulent anti-Trotskyism being spread by various Maoist groups relies on the standard Stalinist weapons of lies and dis­ tortion, and above all on ignorance about the true history of the communist move­ ment. The present series, replying to the articles on "Trotsky's Heritage" in theN ew Left/Maoist Guardian, serves as an introduction to this history and a brief summary of the principal political issues separating Trotskyism from Stalinism.)

The last four articles of the Guar­ bourgeois feminists, Davidson counter­ dian series on "Trotsky's Heritage" poses the "mass democratic struggle are devoted to demonstrating that for the emancipation of women." This Trotskyism is reformist and "counter­ is the tip of the iceberg, for behind the revolutionary" by discussing the cur­ contention that the struggle for women's rent pOlicies of the Socialist Workers liberation is only" democratic" (and not Party and, to a lesser extent, of the socialist) lies a call for maintenance Workers League (WL). Not once is the of the bourgeois family (simply "re­ Spartacist League mentioned. This is forming" it by calling "for husbands to no accident. The SWP, which was once share equally in the responsibilities of the leading party of the Fourth Inter­ the home") and for an alliance with national, has long since abandoned the "even the women of the exploiting path of revolutionary Trotskyism for classes, " the swamp of reformism. First adapt­ ing itself to Castroism in 1961-63 by SL Embodies Trotskyist Program foreseeing a "guerrilla road to power" and to black nationalism with the theory Instead of capitulating to bourgeois that "consistent nationalism" leads to pacifism the SL called for class­ socialism, the SWP made its dive into struggle opposition to the Vietnam war: reformism in 1965, becoming the or­ for labor strikes against the war, bour­ ganizer of a popular-front anti war geOisie out of the anti-war movement, movement dominated by bourgeois military support to the NLF, all Indo­ liberals. Since then it has extended this china must go communist; instead of class collaborationism into new fields, petty~bourgeois draft refusal the SL organizing single-issue movements for was unique in conSistently advocating the "democratic" demand of self­ communist work in the army. determination for just about everyone, Rather than capitulating to bourgeois from blacks (community control) and nationalism the SL called for an end women to homosexuals and American to all discrimination on the basis of Indians, race, opposition to community control The political bandits of the WL, and preferential hiring, for a transi­ on the other hand, have made their tional black organization on a program mark in the U.S. socialist left by con­ of united class struggle. stantly shifting their political line in In the struggle for women's liber­ order to temporarily adapt to whatever ation, the SL opposed capitulation to is popular at the moment (Huey New­ bourgeois feminism and the equally ton, Red Guards, Ho Chi Minh, Arab reactionary abstentionism of various nationalists, left-talking union bureau­ w 0 r k e r i s t groups: We called for crats) only to return to a more "or­ women's liberation through socialist thodox" p 0 sit ion soon aft e r. Its revolution, bourgeois politicians out of

~ constants are a belief that an all­ the women's movement, free abortion , encompassing final crisis of capital­ on demand and adopted the prospect ism will eliminate the need to struggle of the eventual creation of a women's for the Bolshevik politics of the Tran­ section of the SL, as envisioned by the Leon Trotsky Sitional Program and an abiding pas­ early Communist InternationaL sion for tailing after labor fakers of Alone of all the ostensibly Marxist any stripe, from pseudo-radicals to organizations the SL has upheld the ultra-conservatives. Leninist nor m s of youth-party rela­ Thus it is easy to "prove" that Trot­ tions, with the youth section (Revolu­ 8/ TROTSKYISM vs. skyism is reformist by citing the pol­ tionary Communist Youth, RCY) icies of the SWP and the WL. But this organizationally separate but politi­ has about as much value as "proving" cally subordinate to the party. that Lenin was for a "peaceful road to socialism" by citing Khrushchev. SWP REVISIONISM Nationalism ys. Class Struggle exploited sector of the working class erists today carry out trade-union work Feminism and Trotskyism On the question of black nationalism, will indeed playa key role in an Amer­ which is in no way distinguishable from Davidson criticizes the S WP for tailing that of the reformist Communist Party Because of the rotten betrayals of ican socialist revolution. Black work­ petty-bourgeois nationalists in the 1930's and 1940's. Falling in the SWP during the past decade, Trot­ ers are potentially the leading section ... and then declares that U.S. blacks behind every militant-talking out­ skyism has become confused in the of the proletariate But this requires constitute a nation and should have the bureaucrat, and not a few in­ minds of many militants with the crass­ the integration of its most conscious right to secede. The nationalist theory elements into the single vanguard party bureaucrats as well, they fail to wage a est reformist grovelling before the of a "black nation" in the U.S. ignores and a relentless struggle for the pro­ political struggle in the unions, saving liberal bourgeoisie. It also gives Mao­ the fact that blacks (and the other gram of united working-class struggle their support for the NLF, Mao, etc., ists like Davidson plenty of opportunity racial-ethnic minorities) are thorough­ among black workers. Conscious ofthe for the campuses. to make correct attacks: ly integrated into the U.S, economy, need for special methods of work among Among 0 s ten sib 1 y Trotskyist "Their [SWP's] approach is to tail op­ although overwhelmingly at the bottom doubly-oppressed sectors of theprole­ groups, workerism has taken the form portunistically each spontaneous devel­ levels, have no common territory, tariat, the SL has called for a transi­ of denying the need to struggle for the opment in the mass democratic move­ special language or culture. Garveyite whole of the Transitional Program in ments. Each constituency, in succes­ tional black organization not as a con­ sion, is then dubbed the 'vanguard' "back to Africa" movements, the theory cession to black separatism but pre­ the trade unions. Some fake­ leading the proletariat to SOCialism, of a black nation and all other forms cisely in order to better combat na­ Trotskyists argue that wage demands with the added provision that the 'van­ of black separatism have the prinCipal tionalism among the black masses alone are revolutionary (Workers guard of the vanguard' in each sector effect of dividing the proletariat and ("Black and Red-Class Struggle to League), others that the Transitional is presently made up of the student isolating the most exploited and poten­ Negro Freedom," Spartacist, May­ Program must be served to the workers youth. " tially most revolutionary section in June 1967). in bits and pieces, one course at a -Guardian, 13 June 1973 separate organizations fighting for time (Class Struggle League); still This theory, formerly called the "dia­ separate goals. Both the SWP, with its Leninism ys. Workerism others verbally proclaim the Transi­ lectic of the sectors ofintervention" by enthusiasm for community control, and tional Program in their documents, but the SWP's European friends, is a denial Maoists like Davidson's October Since the demise ofthe Weatherman­ see the strategy for power as based on of the leading role of the proletariat League and the Communist League RYM II section of SDS in late 1969, giving "critical support" to every avail­ and is expressed in their programmatic with their reactionary-utopian con­ black nationalism and feminism have able out-bureaucrat (Revolutionary capitulation to feminism, nationalism, cepts of a black nation, serve to dis­ been joined by a crude workerism as Socialist League). The S WP, for its student power, etc. Elsewhere, David­ unite the working class and tie it to the the dominant forms of petty-bourgeois part, does almost no trade-union work son criticized the SWP for tailing the bourgeoisie. The SWP's enthusiasm ideology in the socialist movement. at all and in its press gives uncritical nationalism of the black petty bour­ for a black political party leads it to Adapting to the present backward con­ support to liberal bureaucrats, both in geoisie and the WL for tailing the enthuse over clambakes of black Demo­ sciousness of the working class, work­ power and out. chauvinism of the labor aristocracy crats (such as the 1971 Gary conven­ erists have sought to gain instant popu­ The Spartacist League, in contrast, (Guardian, 30 May 1973). Again this tion), while black~nation separatism larity and influence by organizing on calls for the formation of caucuses is correct. aids bourgeois nationalist demagogues the level of militant trade unionism. based on the Transitional Program to But such criticism is cheap~-it like Newark's Ford Foundation-backed Failing to heed (and in some cases struggle for leadership of the unions. represents not the slightest step Imamu Baraka (Leroi Jones). denying) Lenin's dictum that socialist While willing to form united fronts in toward a Marxist program of prole­ In part the capitulation to black na­ consciousness must be brought to the specific struggles, the SL sees the fun­ tarian class struggle. Thus after criti­ tionalism by wide sectors of the U.S. is working class from the outSide, by the damental task as the creation of a com- cizing the SWP for tailing petty- a distorted recognition that this most revolutionary party, the radical work- continued on page 10 4 WORKERS VANGUARD two years ahead of what U.S. experts cheap fuel. In the past five years, the him was his posture as world states­ Continued from page 1 felt was possible. This and the serious economic power of the feudal land­ man. Kissinger attempted to defend economic dislocations resulting from lords of the Arabian peninsula has his boss by advising people to put the last year's mammoth Soviet wheat deal grown all out of proportion to their "permanent" (the detentes with Russia have led wide circles of the bourgeoisie military or general productive power. and China) before the "ephemeral" ... Detente to the conclusion that Nixon has been Plans seem to be afoot to deal with (Watergate). To counterbalance its do­ "too soft" on the Russians in trade and the arrogant sheiks by transforming mestic catastrophes, the Nixon admin­ Soviet dissidents and Jews is a diver­ arms limitations negotiations. sections of the Arabian peninsula into istration became rather desperate for sion from its concept of the detente; A heavY burden of responsibility for greater Iran. In addition, elements diplomatic successes, real or apparent. those imperialist politicians who ex­ the strengthening of the Pentagon and within the American ruling class be­ Last spring, the bargaining position pect the Soviet bureaucracy to weaken resurgence of cold-war liberalism lies lieve that the Kremlin rulers may be of the American ruling class was con­ its own national power base are simply with those who built up the moral au­ more cooperative to the oil cartels than siderably stronger than Nixon's vis­ being unrealistic. thority of the "great humanists" Sak­ the satraps of Abu Dhabi and Qatar. a-vis the Brezhnev regime. There was In contrast to Nixon, Senator Henry harov and Solzhenitsyn. This includes However, as another cold-war lib­ an understandable feeling that a strong­ Jackson believes the Russian power the American left-liberal establish­ eral, Hans Morgenthau, pointed out, er president domestically could have and influence within the "Free World" ment which transformed these two Rus­ the security and prOfitability of Ameri­ gotten more out of the Soviet rulers. should be countered primarily by mili­ Sians, who apparently tolerate Marshal can capital in Russia depencis on an Watergate contributed to the erosion tary muscle; concessions which might Thieu's South Vietnam and the Chilean arbitrary bureaucracy over which the of the detente in another way. It fo­ strengthen the USSR should be granted junta (Sakharov's appeal on Nerudahad U.S. has no direct control. (And the cused attention on the importance of on 1 y if the Russian political sys­ not one word of criticism of the Chilean Iranian army cannot take over Siberia.) democratic ideology as a mechanism tem is changed to allow the emergence coup or the junta's mass executions of The majority of the American ruling of capitalist ru1e. The so-called "un- of loyal pro-Western and implicitly workers and labor leaders), into politi­ bourgeois tendencies. The liberal wing cal saints. And it definitely includes the of American imperialism believes the ostenSibly Trotskyist Socialist Work­ basis for such a pro-Western opposition ers Party and Workers League, who exists among the dissident intellectuals mirrored the popularity of Sakharov and oppressed nat ion a 1 minorities, and Solzhenitsyn among the liberal I which is why the New York Times has student-academic milieu and trade­ been devoting so much attention to them union bureaucracy respectively, there­ Andrei Sakharov in recent weeks. by objectively contributing to anti­ and Aleksandr But it is not just theNew York Times communism. Solzhenitsyn (right) which is upset. For some months both NEV.SV.EEK AP liberal and conservative wings of the The Price of Bread and Oil class has swung around to the position natural" alliance of ideological liberals bourgeoisie have .been dissatisfied with that it wants qualitatively greater lev­ and conservatives over both Watergate A major impetus for the detente was Nixon's handling of the "ship of state." erage over SOviet internal pOlitics be­ and the Jackson Amendment is~ infact, The Watergate affair has put the moral the belief that expanded economic re­ fore tying up a lot of money there. Most unusually principled for bourgeois poli­ authority of the U.S. government at an lations with the USSR would be qUite American capitalists believe it safer to tics. Kennedy, Ervin, Jackson and Gold­ all-time low, the Phase III and IV beneficial for American capitalism. lend money to a government which will water instinctively understand (as Nix­ price controls have been an unmiti­ And an important cause for the erosion allow a pro-Western liberal like Sak­ on does not) that the American ruling gated disaster and the main "benefit" of the detente has been disappointment harov to denounce it than to one which class, with its aspirations toward world of detente has been to bolster Nixon's with these expectations. In particular will forcibly shut him up. They are, of empire, cannot govern simply with big status •.Having apparently decided it there is widespread sentiment within course, right. Whether or not they can guns and cold cash, but must claim to would be too costly to get rid of Nixon the ruling class that it got burned by get Brezhnev to go along is an alto­ act in the name of universal ideals himself, the bourgeoisie has evidently the Great Grain Deal. When the Soviets gether different matter. and the interests of humanity. Nixon, decided to dump Agnew (with Nixon's bought one-quarter of the American Similarly the bourgeoisie has opted Agnew and KiSSinger are not well suited toleration-i.e., approval) as a con­ wheat crop for a billion dollars in the for a stronger military posture against to rally the American people to make summer of 1972, Wall Street was en­ cession to public morality and to re­ the USSR, epitomized by the passage sacrifices to defend the "Free World." store some balance and imperialist thusiastic. Soviet imports were ex­ of the Trident program and the re­ By his open contempt for even the pected to help the U.S. balance of order in U.S. foreign policy. jection of Mansfield's program oftroop /oY'ms of democracy and legality at payments and prevent the grain "sur­ By inflicting a serious defeat on cuts in Europe. In the arms-limitation home and in the USSR, and by obvious Nixon, Henry Jackson has emerged as plus" from driving down (!) domestic negotiations the U.S. will now have to infatuation with power politics of the an important and dangerous politician. prices. However, years of stagnant pro­ reverse the concessions on number of most petty and cynical variety, Nixon In an exceptionally pure form, he duction intersected an uncompetitive missiles which Nixon granted to the is stripping away the moral authority represents those political forces fa­ international position forcing the U.S. Russians earlier this year (New York of the American ruling class in the to cheapen the price of its commodities voring an aggressive cold-war policy Times, 26 September). On trade talks U.S. and in the Soviet Union. It is the to the world market through currency toward the Soviet Union. On the one Nixon will be forced to seek stiffer opponents of Nixon's realpolitik who are devaluation. The large jump in exports hand, he has intimate ties to the terms, both monetarily and in terms of following Kissinger's advice in putting to Japan and Western Europe, as well Pentagon and is the natural candidate political concessions on Jews and dissi­ the permanent before the ephemeral. for civilian front man for a govern­ as Russia, led to empty supermarkets dents. The euphoria of the early days ment dominated by the military. Like­ and galloping food prices at home­ of the detente is over as the basic Communist Anti.Stalinism, Yes: wise he is the darling of the arms con­ and widespread discontent in broad sec­ contradictions in the interests of the Liberal Anti·Communism, Never: tractor and has well-earned his nick­ tions of the U.S. population. The latest leading imperialist power and the most name, "the Senator from Boeing." On public opinion polls show less than powerful deformed workers state come Now that his guardians~ the Ameri­ the other hand, Jackson has the direct one-third of the public approving of to the fore. Chou En-lai recently re­ can bourgeoisie, are putting an end to support of the Meany-Lovestone lead­ Nixon's performance as preSident. The marked that between the U.S. and the Nixon's summer romance with Leonid ership of the AFL-CIO, the social wheat deal enabled liberal bourgeois USSR, because of their basic conflict Brezhnev, certain fundamental truths democrats and the cold-war liberal politicians to be simultaneously anti­ of interests, "contention is absolute and of Marxism stand revealed. One is establishment in general. Of all Amer­ Nixon, anti-Soviet and anti-inflation, protracted, whereas collusion is rela­ the undying hostility of U.S. imperi­ ican politicians, Jackson has the social an irreSistible vote-catching combi­ tive and temporary" (New York Times, alism to the Soviet deformed workers base and orientation to lead a popular nation. To add insult to injury, the 1 September). How true! (Of course, the state. Peaceful coexistence is really anti-communist crusade against the So­ Nixon administration allowed the Rus­ same is true of U.S.-China relations­ and truly a reformist illusion. A few viet Union. And the riSing tide of anti­ sians to buy the grain well below the though Chou fails to see this.) These months ago it might have appeared Soviet liberalism might well deposit market price, subSidizing the export­ underlying realities are now asserting that Brezhnev and Nixon were like­ Jackson in the White House in 1976. ers by some $300 million. It will be themselves, despite last summer's af­ minded reactionaries trying to run a a long time before the American ruling firmations of everlasting harmony. dual world empire, a view shared by The role of Sakharov and Solzhenit­ class allows the Soviets to buy grain many left-liberals, "Third Camp" so­ syn in contributing to Jackson-led re­ or anything else below world-market Doing business in Russia is now cial democrats, "Third World" nation­ surgence of anti-Soviet liberalism is prices. prOfitable for particular American cor­ alists, syndicalists and Maoists. How­ Significant. The eminent physiCist and The sudden transformation of the porations so that the expansion of trade, ever, U.S. imperialism is not content writer not only provided the moral U.S, grain "surplus" into a shortage is loans, joint projects and the like has a to maintain the status quo with the cause celebre, but actively led in the a particularly glaring example of the certain autonomy of strategic political Soviet Union~ engaging in mutually rearming and rededication of the Amer­ destructive irrationality of the capital­ considerations. No doubt David Rocke­ advantageous deals, With ambitions ican cold-war liberal establishment. It ist economic system. In a socialist feller and Armand Hammer would like toward world empire, U.S. capitalism was Sakharov who ref u r b ish e d the society, the remarkable improvements Solzhenitsyn and the Jews wanting to go strives to dominate the Soviet Union. "1984" image of a totalitarian Soviet in agricultural technology during and to Israel to disappear off the face of Short of military conquest, this means monster foolishly no uri she d with after World War II would have been the the earth, so they cou1d go about making fostering pro-imperialist political ten­ American grain: basis for eliminating hunger and mal­ money in peace. However, those capi­ dencies within the Soviet Union on the "Large amounts of Western technologi­ nutrition for the entire human race. talists interested solely in expanding pretext of struggling for democratic cal aid to the Soviet Union, he said, Instead the increased productive their business with the Soviets are going rights. would help the Russians get rid of against the majority line of the Amer­ economic problems they cannot solve capacity led, via falling commOdity Because the Kremlin so often en­ on their own and would enable them to prices and farm incomes, and the mam­ ican bourgeoisie organized as a ruling gages in counterrevolutionary class concentrate on accumulating strength. moth agricultural acreage allotment class. And when the American ruling collaboration with American imperial­ 'As a result,' he said, 'the world would program deSigned to keep land aut of class through its state decides to en­ ism, the line between left-wing criti­ become helpless before this uncon­ production, to a decline in agricultural gage in economic warfare against the cism of the Soviet bureaucracy and trollable bureaucratic machine.'" res 0 u r c e s, particularly labor and Soviet Union, that this will mean losses liberal anti-communism is often de­ -New York Times, 23 August 1973 acreage cultivated. With increasing for Occidental Petroleum or even Chase ceptive and easily crossed. It is pre­ In commenting on the Senate vote for world and domestic demand against Manhattan will not be a major obstacle. cisely the cynicism, opp6rtunism, anti­ the Trident submarine, an effective a relatively unchanging supply, it was democratic and oppressive practices weapon of mass murder carrying ad­ inevitable that the "surplus" would give Watergate and the of the Stalinist bureaucracy that pro­ vanced MIRV missiles (and costing way to shortage and rapidly rising Bankruptcy of Realpolitik vide the mass ideological basis for $1.3 billion each), Jackson Singled out prices. The Soviet grain deal and de­ American imperialism. Therefore it Solzhenitsyn's/Sakharov's warnings to valuation simply accelerated an in­ The Watergate scandal considerably is doubly, triply necessary for revo­ m a i n t a i n Western strength against herent trend in the American economy. s t r eng the ned the opponents of the lutionary socialists to draw the hardest Brezhnev's duplicity as a major In a planned economy, U,S. agricultural Nixon-Brezhnev detente. Last spring, line between the advocacy of democratic impetus. output could be tripled or quadrupled with most people believing his adminis­ rights as a cover for imperialist at­ Equally important in moti vating within a decade. tration consisted mainly of petty crimi­ tacks on the Soviet state and the ad­ Congressional action, however, was the The American ruling class looked nals and his Phase III economic policy vocacy of workers democracy as a Soviet Union's recent successful to the USSR not simply as an export leading to Latin American-style infla­ means of mobilizing the Soviet masses launching of a MIRV missile at least market, but as a dependable source of tion, the only thing Nixon had going for against world capitalism•• 12 OCTOBER 1973 5 Zionism and Nationalism In• Brezhnev's Russia Russian dissidents have occupied a this dispersal is often seen by the can be of little concern for Chalidze. which collectivization inflicted on the prominent place in the news recently, other nationalities as a deliberate pol­ Having procured himself a well-paying Ukrainian peasantry caused a revival as Soviet-American trade relations and icy, the process is actually a complex professorship in the U.S., he now de­ of the nationalist movement, this time the right of emigration for Soviet Jews combination of political factors (e.g, clares that there is no difference be­ under the control of clericalists and have become issues of congressional the fact that Russians play the lead­ tween Stalinism and communism. fascists. dispute. Senator Henry Jackson, the ing political and administrative role In the late 1930's Trotsky attempted darling of the Pentagon and Boeing Air­ in the USSR) and purely demographic Lenin and Trotsky on the Ukraine to resolve the contradictions of the pre­ craft, spoke in Congress on September trends. The surplus of agricultural war plight of the Ukraine and halt 27 remarking that the current Trident population in European Russia and the For Leninists the key to the na­ the spread of fascism by rousing the MIRV missile program would not have rapid growth of cities in Central Asia tional question is the struggle for masses with the slogan, "A united, free passed without the "courageous pro­ and Siberia induce RUSSians, and to a proletarian internationalism. We rec­ and independent workers and peasants tests" of Solzhenitsyn and Sakharov. lesser extent Ukrainians, to migrate ognize the rig h t to national self­ Soviet Ukraine"! He declared that the These Russian "democratic opposition­ to the prosperous cities of the East determination, even under bourgeois unification of the Ukraine could not be ists" seem to care little whether U.S. and Far East. Other instruments of leadership, in order to eliminate hos­ accomplished through reliance on any imperialism is able to bomb the USSR Russification are the privileged status tility between the workers of different imperialist power, but only through back to the Stone Age. While the of the Russian language as lingua countries. But while the national ques­ proletarian revolutions in both halves slaughter of Chilean workers once again franca in the Soviet Union, and the tion has not disappeared from the stage of the country. "Proletarian revolu­ reaffirms the murderous treachery of assimilation into Russian national.iden­ of world history, like every other dem­ tion" meant socialist revolution in the "peaceful coexistence" pOlicies of tity of the ruling elites of the non­ ocratic demand it must be subordinate the west and political revolution in the Brezhnev & Co., Sakharov's distinctive Russian nationalities. to the class question. A striking ex­ east, as the masses of· the western contribution to the international class The response in the Baltic countries ample of this was Lenin's policy toward Ukraine (under Polish rule until 1939) struggle recently was to refuse to take and the Ukraine has been a resurgence the bourgeois Rada which declared would not voluntarily place themselves a stand on the reactionary junta on of nationalism on a genuinely mass Ukrainian independence from Russia under the rule of the Russian-chauvinist the grounds that "Chile is too far scale. Rather than viewing the bureauc­ immediately after the October Revolu­ Stalinist bureaucracy. Trotsky argued away" (New York Times, 26 Septem­ racy as a paraSite sitting atop the prop­ tion: in the "Manifesto to the Ukrain­ that the achievement of an independent ber). Many of the liberal opponents erty forms of a workers state, sucking ian People With an Ultimatum to the Soviet Ukraine would strengthen, not of the Russian bureaucracy can see off the surplus produced by the entire Ukrainian Rada" (December 1917), he weaken, the USSR in the coming war. only their own immediate oppression working class and seeking a detente first recognized the right ofthe Ukrain­ A successful pol i tic a I revolution while everything else-mass murder by with the imperialists, nationalists see ian people to national independence, against the oppressive bureaucracy the U.S. in Vietnam, the oppression pf it as the embOdiment of centralism and blacks in South Africa, the reactionary the logical continuator of the imper­ role of Zionism-means nothing to ialist expansionism of the Russian them, A revolutionary opposition, in tsars. The bureaucracy has always en­ contrast, must be internationalist in couraged this identification. Appealing every sense. Among its tasks is a to Great-Russian nationalist sen t i­ resolute struggle against all national ments, Stalin declared World War II oppression on the basis of working­ the "Great Patriotic War." He concil­ class solidarity. iated the Russian Orthodox Church and W h i 1 e the democratic opposition on 7 November 1941, anniversary of the movement in the USSR is relatively October Revolution, admonished the isolated and unstable, the struggle Red Army to seek inspiration in such against national oppression has at time's historical figures as Alexander Nevsky, led to mass demonstrations and pro­ Dmitri Donskoy, Suvorov, Kutuzov and tests, such as those in Lithuania last others, all heroes of Holy Russia and year. It has also produced popular sup­ tsarist imperialism, port in some cases for nationalism, Responding to the consistent oppres­ a bourgeois ideology which is opposed sion of non-Russian nationalities during to proletarian internationalism, Con­ the late 1920's and 1930's, fanatic anti­ sequently, a key perspective of Trot­ Russian nationalism led many Soviet skyists toward the USSR and Eastern citizens to welcome even the fascists Europe must be to cut the ground out as an alternative to the oppressive from underneath nationalism by com­ bureaucracy. During World War II the bining the struggle against nationalop­ Germans were welcomed in some of the pression with the political revolution to border regions, and hundreds of thou­ replace the chauvinistic and ant i­ sands of Soviet prisoners of war of sev­ working-class bureaucracy with dem­ eral nationalities agreed to enlist in ocratic soviet rule by the workers. Nazi-organized National Legions to If the Soviet Union is no longer the fight against the Soviet Union (Allen feudal-autocratic "prison house of na­ Kassof, ed., Prospects for Soviet tions" that tsarist Russia was, it is Society) • still made up of unequal parts and is Today anti-bureaucratic struggles UPI no more a free "Union" th~n it is in Eastern Europe and the fight against Jews protesting in Moscow early this month because Russian government had de­ "Soviet." The Moscow bureaucracy, oppression of minorities at home vitally nied them exit visas to Israel. predominantly Great Russian in origin affect and inspire the oppOSitionist and outlook, encourages a policy of movement in the Soviet Union. Espe­ then asked if the Rada would continue would mobilize the masses of workers Russification throughout the USSR, and cially the civil-rights' struggle of the to aid the tsarist White Guard troops and peasants, while national indepen­ promotes the ideology of Great-Russian Crimean Tatars had a radicalizing against the Soviets and finally an­ dence on a soviet basis would eliminate chauvinism which can only cause re­ effect on Russian intellectuals similar nounced that if a satisfactory answer a tremendous source of discontent that sentment among other nationalities. It to that of the black civil-rights move­ was not forthcoming within 48 hours could otherwise be used by Hit Ie r was on this issue that the dying Lenin ment in the U.S. However, support for the Council of People's Commissars against the Soviet Union. planned to make a decisive stand against the rights of the Tatars has not taken would declare war on the Rada. This contention was confirmed in the Stalin. Stalin's brutal treatment of his on a revolutionary socialist character. The October Revolution and the Len­ negative by the experience of World fellow Georgians demonstrated to Lenin On the contrary, key elements of the inist nationalities policy succeeded in War II, when large numbers of dis­ that the typical Russian bureaucrat opposition have swung sharply to the overcoming traditional hostility and affected Ukrainian peasants initially of tsarist times-the dyerzhimorda­ right, in sympathy for "Western democ­ uniting the Russian and Ukrainian work­ collaborated with the Nazis and par­ had reappeared, this time decked in racy" abroad and bourgeois nationalism ers in the struggle for socialism. This tiCipated enthusiastically in the slaugh­ Soviet garb. Lenin advanced a fed­ at home. Thus in protesting against achievement was symbolized by the ter of Jews, and the pro-fascist Ban­ erated structure for the Soviet state anti-semitism the opposition has come fusion of the Ukrainian Bolsheviks with dera movement waged a bitter struggle in opposition to Stalin's "autonomi­ to look upon Zionism with open sym­ the extreme left wing of the Ukrainian against Soviet rule. In 1941 when the zation" scheme (which would have given pathy. In May 1971 Soviet physicist national movement, the Borot 'ba Party. Germans occupied Lvov, the Organiza­ the non-Russian nations only cultural, Valery Chalidze wrote, withSakharov's Borot'ba continued to insist on indepen­ tion of Ukrainian Nationalists led by not national, rights within a specifi­ approval, a letter to the Presidium dence for the· Ukraine, but Lenin did Bandera proclaimed the "restoration cally Russian federation). of the USSR Supreme SOViet, in which not see this as reason for a split, of the Ukrainian state" and formed a he declared that" Zionism is not a reac­ since the Borot'bists loyally served the governm~nt whose aim was war against Russification and Nationalist tionary political trend, not anti-com­ Soviet government. In the 1920's the the USSR. After the defeat ofthe Nazis, Response munist or anti-Soviet, as represented in Communist Party of the Ukraine con­ Bandera's partisans continued to strug­ our press, but the concept of Jewish ducted national-educational work under gle against Soviet rule on into the Today Russification primarily takes s tat e h 0 0 d" (Chronicle of Current the slogan of " Ukrainization, " a policy 1950's. It took the Soviet authorities the form of the dispersal of Great Rus­ Events No. 20, 2 July 1971). In fact, like approved by party and Comintern, but several years of large-scale military sians throughout the USSR, where, as all other forms of nationalism, Zionism arbitrarily reversed by Stalin in 1928. and police operations to r 0 u t the the "leading" (and in some sense "con­ is a chauvinist bourgeois ideology. The Stalinist policy of forced assimi­ Banderaites. queror") nation, they impose their own It is also a major obstacle toproletar­ lation of non-Russian nationalities and Unlike his latter-day epigones, national culture and language. While ian unity in the Near East. But this the severe dislocations and famine Trotsky did not see self-determination 6 WORKERS VANGUARD as the final goal of all human aspira­ Despite the claims of the bureaucracy 8 February 1973). In Latvia during the ment, while also supporting proletarian tions. He affirmed the necessity of and its apologists, the protests against early 1960's, opposition to Russian revolution. However, the ideology of na­ social revolutions in the West and a national oppression in the Ukraine and chauvinism won the support of the tionalism, which places "nation" above political revolution in the Soviet Union the Baltic states are not necessarily majority of the Central Committee of class, ultimately serves the capitalist as the guarantee of the defense of an animated by bourgeois nationalism. the Latvian Communist Party. This class and is totally hostile to prole­ independent Soviet Ukraine. Simultan­ For instance, another group, the provoked Khrushchev to a purge of tarian internationalism. Revolutionary eously he declared battle against the Ukrainian Workers and Peasants Union, high-level cadre from party and gov­ Marxists must know how to distinguish bourgeois nationalists for the fate of the formulated a program for an independ­ ernment organizations, including ten between just protests against national Ukrainian masses: ent socialist Ukraine and for democra­ CC members. They were uniformly re­ oppression and expressions of national­ tization in the Soviet Union, with an end p 1 ace d with Great Russians and ism; likewise it is necessary to deal "Not the slightest compromise with to bureaucratic methods of administer­ Russian-born Latvians. differently with the nationalism ofbour­ imperialism, fascist and democratic! ing the economy, and improvement in Ever since 1940 the USSR govern­ geois counterrevolutionaries and the Not the slightest concession to Ukrain­ ian nationalists, clerical-reactionary the lot of the peasantry. The leader of ment has followed a deUberate policy nationalist sentiments of the oppressed or lib era I - pac i fi s t. No 'Peoples this group was sentenced to death. of settling Russians in the Baltic coun­ working masses. But this cannot be done Fronts'! The complete independence of Evidence of the potentially mass char­ tries so that in 1970 Latvians com­ by claiming, as does the eX-Trotskyist the proletarian party, as the vanguard acter of such proletarian movements prised only 57 percent of the popula­ Socialist Workers Party, that "consis­ of the working people!" was the demonstration of hydroelectric tion of the Latvian republic and 40 tent nationalism" equals socialism and - "On the Ukrainian Question, " Bulle­ station workers in Kiev in May 1969, percent of its capital (Riga). The policy by tailing after every nationalist op­ tin o/the Opposition, May:-June 1939 who carried placards reading "All of forced assimilation was protested ponent of the bureaucracy. In the de­ Power to the Soviets." last year in an open letter by 17 Latvian formed workers states, "consistent Communists. Directing themselves to nationalism" means bourgeois The National Question Today: the Socialists must have no illusions about the mood of the masses in the CP leaders in the West, the writers counterrevolution! Ukraine and the Baltic Countries Soviet bloc. Large numbers are cer­ emphasized that they -were Communist Cultural and political repression of tainly influenced by nationalism. Some, Party members of 25 to 35 years' stand­ national minorities constitutes only one After World War II the Ukraine was dri ven by blind hatred of Russian ing, that several fought underground side of the national question in the USSR, unified under bureaucratic rule. Thus during the period of the bourgeois Lat­ and there is another side which is the slogan for a "united Ukraine" no domination and by the property hunger of the peasantry and petty bourgeoisie, 'vian republic (before 1940). The open usually ignored by bourgeois liberals longer has any meaning. Yet the Ukrain­ letter denounced the "policy of Great and by pseudo-socialists who tail na­ ian question perSists, and in recent may actually support bourgeois restor­ ation. But for the masses of workers Russian chauvinism and ••• the forcible tionalist currents. Not only the Rus­ years the repression of Ukrainian in­ assimilation of the small USSR nations" sians have gained from the October tellectuals has reached alarming pro­ and peasants such a "solution" would as "caus[ing] great harm to the com­ Revolution! The abolition of illiteracy portions. In August-September 1965 mean new and far greater oppression. munist m 0 v e men t, to Marxism­ among previously backward tribes is there were sweeping arrests of young This is why, even with their intense Leninism ••• " (Intercontinental Press, striking evidence of the cultural ad­ intellectuals in the Ukraine, acCOm­ hatred of national oppression, the Hun­ garian workers and peasants in 1956 3 July 1972). vancement of the Soviet peoples. The panied by official "rumors" of nation­ nationalities quota system for admit­ alist activities. Ivan Dzyuba, the best­ f 0 ugh t to replace the Russian­ dominated bureaucracy not with nation­ tance to higher educational institutions known of the Ukrainian diSSidents, was Nationalism vs. Socialism in the USSR, despite its defects and arrested for protesting the illegality of al capitalism but with workers democ­ racy, vigorously defending the socialist biases, has ensured access to higher the subsequent secret trials. Arrests The letter of the LatVian CP leaders education for all nationalities. The ec­ continued to hit Kiev, Lvov, Ivano­ conquests and appealing to the Soviet makes it clear that there may be splits troops as class brothers. onomic boom enjoyed by Central Asia F'rankovsk and other cities with large­ in the bureaucracy and that some of the and Siberia has not been matched by scale house searchings and interroga­ The political revolution in the USSR most dedicated fighters for socialism European Russia; indeed, much of the tions. Again there were "rumors" of will have a large element of absolutely may come from within the present Com­ migration of Great Russians has been "hidden arms, secret press," etc. In justified national protest against dec- munist Parties. But this can occur onll: caused by the relatively poor quality of the soil in Russia and the more rapid industrial development of other regions. And all the nationalities of the USSR have benefitted from the liquida­ tion of capitalist property relations: For Trotskyists, the class issue takes precedence over the national issue. In 1918 the Bolsheviks mOdified their position on the self-determination of nations, allowing secession from the Soviet Federation only if the majority of workers and peasants in the area supported this course. Similarly, Trot­ sky's call for an independent Ukraine specified that it must be a workers and peasants Soviet Ukraine. We do not allow democratic demands to serve as a cover for counterrevolution. Trot­ skyists will form a united front even with the bureaucracy itself to protect the social gains of the October Revo­ lution against bourgeois restoration. Due to Stalin's Of course, those like Shachtman­ chauvinist pol icy ites and anarchists who deny that the of discrimination Soviet Union is any kind of workers against non­ state must have a totally different Russian orientation. The International Social­ national ities, ists' position on the Soviet national many Ukrainians question is a systematic application of welcomed invad­ Shachtmanite doctrines. Since it was ing Germans in "Stalinist imperialism" that subjugated 1941. the small nations of the Russian Em­ pire and gulped up all of Eastern Europe, it is only right to bloc with bourgeois nationalists a g a ins t such January 1972 over a hundred Ukrainian ades of Russian-chauvinist oppression through a consistent struggle by the "imperialism" : dis sid e n t s were arrested, and by the bureaucracy. Trotskyists in the Trotskyists to crystallize a Bolshevik­ repression continues to this day. "Socialists oppose any form of impe­ Ukraine would intersect these move­ Leninist party around the Transitional rialism, whether that of the reactionary We unreservedly support the right ments with the slogan for an independ­ Program of the Fourth International. capitalist world system or that of the of self-determination for the Ukraine, ent Soviet Ukraine and with the Transi­ Thus, for instance, the Latvian oppo­ equally reactionary Stalinist bureauc­ already theoretically guaranteed by the tional Program as a whole, while cease­ sitionists do not go beyond Dubcek­ racy. Therefore we support the right Soviet constitution, and seek to make lessly combatting Ukrainian national­ style bureaucratic reformism in their of self-determination for all peoples this right real by a pOlitical revolution ism. Their comrades in Russia would letter. Moreover, like Dubcek they caught up in the web of these imperial­ of the working class to overthrow the see as one of their major tasks winning make concessions to bourgeois nation­ ist systems." - Workers Power RUSSian-chauvinist, anti-proletarian the Russian workers to support the alism. One of their protests amounts No. 78, June 1973 bureaucracy. Depending on the increas­ right of self-determination for the to rejecting immigration from Russia For the SWP, which formally main­ ing seriousness of national protests, Ukraine and for the Baltic countries, and large-scale industrialization, since tains the orthodox Trotskyist pOSition Trotskyists may at some point again Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. this would lead to immigration of non­ on the nature of the Soviet Union, raise the slogan for an independent In the latter countries, which had Latvian workers. While Bolshevik­ there is less excuse for uncritical tail­ Soviet Ukraine, in order to combat 20 years of political independence un­ Leninists must protest forced assimi­ ing of any and all national struggles. nationalist illusions in the masses, der bourgeois rule between the wars lation and the liquidation of the non­ But in practice, if not in theory, the while intersecting their struggles and were forcibly annexed by the Soviet Russian republics of the Soviet Union opportunist SWP capitulates to bour­ against the bureaucracy. Union in 1940, nationalism is very (such as occurred with Karelia), an geois nationalists and the liberal im­ In the late 1950's and early 1960's strong, even in the working class. When insulated agricultural economy cannot perialists just like classical Shacht­ underground political organizations the self-immolation of two students and aid Latvian workers Or the cause of manites. It uncritically reports such supported by elements of the working a worker in Lithuania led to demon­ world socialism. groupings as the Committee for the class appeared in the Ukraine. The strations and street-fighting in Kaunas The workers movement ineVitably Defense of Soviet Political Prisoners United Party for the Liberation of the and Vilnius in May 1972, workers at a encompasses not only those who, like (CDSPP) and the "Set Them Free" Ukraine and the Ukrainian National synthetic fiber factory in Kaunas struck Lenin and Trotsky, represent the his­ Committee of Canada, which have built Committee were composed mostly of in sympathy. More than 400 were ar­ toric interests of the proletariat and popular fronts with liberal anti­ industrial workers (Bulletin of the rested during the demonstration in promote the development of universal communists around the issue of defense "Set Them Free" Committee, Vol. 1, Kaunas on May 19, and of the eight human culture, but also more backward of Ukrainian dissidents. At the 2-4 No.1). These movements were effec­ "leaders" sentenced last October at elements who are concerned with nar­ March 1973 "international conference tively repressed by the secret police. least half were workers (Le Monde, rower questions of national develop- continued on page 9 12 OCTOBER 1973 7 Debate SL in Cleveland RSL Reaffirms "Third Campism" CLEVELAND-At its debate here Sep­ Stalinist rulers were fundamentally the perialist decay. According to the feeble Stalinist misleaders who have contin­ tember 28 with the Spartacist League on same in 1929 as they were in 1939. The Shachtmanite theories, the Russian and ually sought to accommodate U.S. im­ the class nature of the Soviet Union, RSL goes through all its "theoretical" Chinese "ruling classes" cannot have perialism and its puppets through for­ the Revolutionary Socialist Lea g u e contortions to produce a two-stage initiated new industrial revolutions mation of a - coalition government. " (RSL) cavalierly dismissed the social theory of peaceful counterrevolution over one third of the globe-so the RSL Similarly Shachtman maintained that conquests of the October Revolution and ("Stalinism in reverse If?) because it simply denies reality. (The SL speaker the Stalinist parties in the West were labeled the USSR a "state-capitalist" wishes to claim the struggle of the cited the obvious contrast between the bureaucratic-collectivist. He therefore society. Despite continued economic Left Opposition during the 1920's and industrial development of the Chinese blocked unconditionally with the trade­ planning, nationalized means of pro­ 1930's as its own. But if Russia be­ deformed workers state and the stag­ union bureaucracy against the CP, even duction and state monopoly of foreign came "state-capitalist" in 1924, this nation of capitalist India.) For these when the CP line was to the left. With trade in the Stalinist-ruled countries, would have made Trotsky deeply un­ petty-bourgeois moralists, what makes its own position that Russia is state­ the RSL claims that a bourgeois coun­ principled, since up to 1933 he advo­ the Soviet bureaucracy a "capitalist capitalist, the RSL to be consistent terrevolution has already occurred and cated a faction fight inside the Stalinized class" is not its relationship to pro­ should claim that the Western CPs socialists must begin allover again. Communist Party-i.e., entering or re­ duction but its style of life! "The SL are bourgeois parties, since they are Behind this revolutionary-sounding po­ maining part of a bourgeois party! says Brezhnev's sons will not inherit clearly agents of Russia's Stalinist sition lies its refusal to unconditionally Cramer challenged the RSL to locate Brezhnev's pOSitions, but [they] will rulers. However, Mayhew argued that defend the USSR against imperialist fundamental economic changes in the live very comfortable lives indeed in they must be defended against the capi­ attack. Such petty-bourgeois capitula­ Soviet Union between 1934 and 1937. comparison to the average workers," talist state. Why? Would the RSL, like tion before anti-communist hysteria If in the USSR labor eXChanges as a said Mayhew. (One wonders, with the Shachtman, bloc with the French social was the touchstone of Shachtmanism commodity, a charge the RSL makes to RSL's methodology, why they call Rus­ democrats against the CP? Or, like the on the Russian question. As the debate prove Russia's capitalist nature, then sia' China, et al., "state-capitalist." Gprman centrist group Spartacus-BL, revealed, the RSL merely trails after it must never have been a workers Why not "state-feudalist"? If they de­ does it maintain that the social democ­ its historical patronage. state. There is no fundamental differ­ rive such satisfaction from referring racy is also bourgeois? These questions (The RSL was expelled by the right­ ence between the relations of workers to the bureaucrats as "bosses," just were left unanswered. wing majority of the International So­ to the enterprises today and the time think how good it would feel to call Likewise the RSL failed to explain cialists in late July. At the time it had when the Soviet state and CP were led them -aristocrats"!) SL speakers how in the Hungarian revolution, when not taken a position on the "Russian by Lenin and Trotsky. pOinted out that the RSL had substituted the proletariat took over the factories question" and democratic centralism, SL supporters pointed out that pre­ its subjectiv·e repulsion for reality; it and set up workers councils, 80 per­ the issues over which Shachtman broke cisely when state planning (despite the has transformed Marxism from a rig­ cent of the Stalinist bureaucracy went with Trotskyism in 1939. In the mean­ enormity of its bureaucratic distor­ orous scientific theory into empty tub­ over to the revolution and the CP rank time the RSL appears to have consol­ tions) was first being introduced into thumping and moral posturing. and file provided much of the leader­ idated around slightly revised Shacht­ the Russian economy, the RSL discov­ The SL was accused of "forgetting ship. Is this the behavior of a bourgeois manite positions. It also seems to have ers the "basis of capitalist develop­ about the class struggle" by inSisting class faced with a threat to its class lost its appetite for political debate ment" being laid. And precisely as on chOOSing sides between imperialists rule? with the SL. Although the RSL originally the Stalinist bureaucracy was devouring and the deformed workers states, whose Thus at the debate's end, while the proposed debates around the country, its own offspring (very few Stalinists property forms embody the historic SL/RCY had not been treated to any only five of its supporters attended the themselves survived the purges), re­ interests of the proletariat, despite the new explanation of "state capitalism" Cleveland debate out of an audience of vealing the extreme instability of this fact that anti-proletarian bureaucrac­ in the USSR, at least they received a about 40. Supporters of the Spartacist parasitic caste, the RSL proclaims the ies hold political power. In declaring clearer picture of the RSL. The RSL League and Revolutionary Communist consolidation of a whole new ruling that these states are not in any sense has in no sense cut off its fundamental youth came from Detroit and Buffalo class. proletarian, and therefore should not be Shachtmanite roots; its refusal to de­ in order to press home to the RSL the Trotskyists, in contrast to the left­ defended against capitalist attack (un­ fend the gains of the October Revolution contradictions in its positions.) Shachtmanite RSL, have always insisted less there is present some spontaneous against imperialist attack makes this SL/RCY supporters awaiting a new that the Stalinist bureaucracy repre­ struggle of the workers not connected absolutely clear. _ refurbished version of how capitalism sents not a new ruling class, but apriv­ with the Communist parties or Red was restored in the Soviet Union with­ ileged petty-bourgeois layer which has Army) the RSL aligns itself with the out a civil war and violent overthrow of usurped political power from the prole­ imperialist bourgeoisie. the workers state were to be disap­ tariat while maintaining the property Historically, failure to maintain a Corrections pointed by the RSL presentation. They forms of a workers state. This excres­ Trotskyist position in defense of the were instead served scraps and left­ cence of the workers movement must Soviet Union inevitably leads to failure It has come to our attention that overs from Shachtman's theory of "bu­ be overthrown by a political revolution to maintain a revolutionary line in in WV No. 26 (3 August) the picture r e au c r a ti c collectivism," now re­ to restore democratic rule through So­ general. (Thus the Chinese leaders, story on "Rightest Coup Fails in Chile" dubbed "state capitalism." According viets. But this does not mean there who consider the USSR to be capitalist, placed the earlier coup attempt on to RSL speaker Cass Mayhew, although will be no economic aspects of the poli­ see nothing wrong in calling for the June 21. The correct date was June 29. the w 0 r k e r s suffered a maj or defeat tical revolution. A huge disproportion preservation of NATO in order to put In WV No. 28 (14 September), the in 1924, it wasn't until 1934-38 that the has arisen between the possibilities military pressure on Russia from the conclUding article on "Trotskyist Work new ruling class was consolidated as flowing from planned production in the West.) The RSL wants to separate in the Trade Unions" cited miners' the last of the Soviet oppositionists Soviet Union and the parasitic squan­ Shachtman's position on the Russian union president John L. Lewis as vanished in the Great Purges. dering of this potential by the ruling question from his general adaptation to having supported the Republican Wen­ In his rebuttal, SL spokesman Rich­ bureaucracy. Yet the economic aspects petty-bourgeois opinion. But the most dell Wilkie in the 1944 elections. Lewis ard Cramer pointed to the unreasonable are secondary; they are reforms. The striking example of Shachtman's adap­ supported Wilkie in 1940 and in 1944 demands this position places on dialec­ RSL cannot distinguish between a so­ tationism was expressed by his pro­ backed Thomas Dewey (also Repub­ tics and logic. If the social character cial revolution to replace one class grammatic capitulation on the Russian lican). In the same article the post­ of the workers state is determined rule by another and a political revolu­ question when the liberals discovered war membership of the Communist simply by whether or not the proletar­ tion which, leaving the economic foun­ the Stalinist monster after the 1939 Party is given as 10,000 after a period iat controls the state, then with Stalin's dations of collectivized property es­ Stalin-Hitler pact! of decline. In fact the CP membership capture of the Bolshevik party appara­ sentially unaltered, re-establishes the Like the "radical dandies" Trotsky was close to 80,000 and had increased tus and the consequent political ex­ political power of the proletariat. described as hopping carelessly from during the war. propriation of the proletariat in 1924, According to the RSL, since they twig to twig, the RSL brushes aside the In WV No. 29. (28 September) the surely there had been a full-fledged are "capitalists" the Stalinistbureauc­ conquests of the October Revolution article -Defend the Detroit Teachers' capitalist restoration. The goals, pro­ racies can produce nothing resembling while eclectically adopting contradic­ Strike- has an unfortunate typograph­ gram and methods of operation of the human progress in the epoch of im- tory positions on related issues (in ical error. After noting the militancy order not to become unpopular). Cra­ of Michigan teachers the article states mer pointed out that the implications -no thanks to the teachers" of the Spartacist local Directory of the Russian question don't stop with DFT. It should, of course, read "no defense of the USSR. Does the RSL thanks to the leaders" of the DFT. BERKELEY- LOS ANGELES ....•..• (213) 467-6855 take a side on the military war between The article on "Chilean Leftists on OAKLAND ...... (415) 653-4668 Box 38053, Wilcox Sta. Mao Tse-tung and Chiang Kai-shek? Allende" in the same issue lists a Box 852, Main P.O. Los Angeles, CA 90038 Even after the United States has with­ source for the United Secretariat's Berkeley, CA 94701 drawn from Vietnam, the RSL retains endorsement of the MIR as World MILWAUKEE the position of its parent, the right­ Outlook, 17 September 1973. It should BOSTON ...... (617) 492-3928 Box 5144, Harbor Sta. Shachtmanite International Socialists, be 17 September 1965. Box 188, M.I.T. Sta. Milwaukee, WI 53204 which claims that the Vietnam struggle Concerning the article "Woodcock Cambridge, MA 02139 is for "self-determination." If it were Settles for Nothing" in the same issue, BUFFALO ...... (716) 837-1854 NEW ORLEANS ....•.. (504) 866-8384 consistent in its poliCies, the RSL several auto workers have questioned Box 412, Station C Box 51634, Main P.O. would have to consider the NLF as the whether the phrase "humanize the work Buffalo, NY 14209 New Orleans, LA 70151 agent of "Stalinist imperialism" and force" reportedly in the UAW bargain­ call for revolutionary defeatism on both ing convention resolution might not CHICAGO ...... c ..... (312) 728-2151 NEW YORK ..•.....•.. (212) 925-2426 Box 6471, Main P.O. Box 1377, G.P.O. sides-as the IS did until it became be a misprint for "humanize the work Chicago, IL 60680 New York,. NY 10001 popular to defend the Viet Congo But place." It is not. Apparently the Wood­ what is really occurring is not a strug­ cock bureaucracy not only treats the CLEVELAND ...... (216) 696-4943 SAN DIEGO ...... (714) 272-2286 gle of two competing imperialisms. membership like animals but actually Box 6765 Box 22052, Univ. City Sta. There is a class war going on in Viet­ believes its ranks are subhuman. Cleveland, OH 44101 San Diego, CA 92122 nam, with the bourgeoisie on one side There were also several minor ty­ DETROIT ...... , .... (313) 862-4920 SAN FRANCISCO ...... (415) 653-4668 and the peasants on the other! Trotsky­ pographical errors in this last issue. Box 663A, GelH;ral P.O. Box 1757 ists take sides in the class war, while We are attempting to overcome these by Detroit, MI 48232 San FranciSCO, CA 94101 also calling for the formation of a Viet­ imprOving our proofreading procedures namese Trotskyist party to replace the and apologize to the readership. 8 WORKERS VANGUARD sian Jews have recently become apawn millions of Arabs. So long as the reli­ Continued from page 7 in American-Russian relations. The gious-exclusivist "Law of Return" and Jackson Amendment now under con­ the theocratic state of Israel rema''', sideration in the U.S. Congress would the Hebrew-speaking population of Pal­ prohibit lowering of import duties on estine will be building not a Promised goods from the Soviet Union until the Land free from oppression but a death­ Zionism and Nationalism latter permits unrestricted emigra­ trap for Jews. tion, particularly for Jews. Socialists must oppose this legislation which The National Question and the in Brezhnev's Russia amounts to using the state power ofthe Political Revolution American bourgeoisie to force conces­ to defend Soviet political prisoners," they had not previously developed. The sions from the USSR through economic The Jewish question in the Soviet held in New York, these groups en­ post-war establishment of the state of blackmail. Rather, the labor move­ Union is not a national question at this dorsed a plan to 1) work together for Israel and Stalin's campaign against ment must defend the deformed workers time, although the bureaucracy's anti­ defense of Soviet political prisoners, Jewish culture (and Jews in general) states against imperialism, which in­ Jewish policies could unleash a wave of 2) work out "a broad formulation on the s e r v e d to deepen growing national cludes supporting the unrestricted ac­ anti-semitism in the population, creat­ questions of social justice, democracy, consciousness. cess of the USSR to world trade, and ing a national problem where none for that reason opposing the Jackson existed before. This can best be avoided and national self-determination," and Anti-semitism has always been used 3) encourage the study of various social amendment. by eliminating all ethnic discrimination by the bureaucracy as a cover for its systems and ideologies (Militant, 20 At the same time it is necessary and by permitting full linguistic and predatory pOlicies and administrative for revolutionaries to oppose the Rus­ cultural rights for the Jewish minority. April 1973). Not a word about social­ blunders. By labeling the Left Opposi­ sian bureaucracy's emigration tax cur­ Such measures would aid full assimil?· ism or the political revolution; not a tion as discontented Jews, Stalin aimed hint of unconditional defense of the rently being ap p lie d particularly tion a hundred times more than a ban to discredit and isolate it from the against Jewish professionals. There is on emigration to Israel. Similarly, in Soviet Union against imperialism! workers. Similarly, after World War II, nothing wrong with insisting on recov­ the case of the Crimean Tatars and The conference went on to collect Stalin's crackdown on intellectuals took ery of the capital spent by the state in Volga Germans peoples who have ~o signatures for a petition demanding the form of a campaign against "cos­ 9 the education of highly-trained scien­ possibility of forming a viable nation­ the release of political prisoners in the mopolitanism" and involved a large­ tists, technicians, etc. In an emergency state, let alone a viable workers state, Soviet Union. This petition appeared scale purge of Jews from party, gov­ situation even a total prohibition of revolutionaries must call for their in the New York Times during Brezh­ ernment and academic posts. Stalin emigration, espeCially for trained pro­ right to live wherever they want, par­ nev's June 1973 visit to the U.S. and and later Krushchev always tried to fessionals, can be justified. Such meas­ ticularly in their former homelands, in was signed by such notables as former place much of the blame for the coun­ ures have been taken by a number of order to partially right the wrong done U.S. Attorney-General Ramsey Clark try's economic problems on Jews. For the poorer capitalist countries whose to them by Stalin. To go further than and for mer Kennedy aide Arthur example, Krushchev's "anti-specula­ economic development is threatened by this and advocate national existence Schlesinger Jr., one of the architects tion" campaign of the early 1960's, os­ a "brain drain" of educated personnel. would be utopian and reactionary 0 of the Bay of Pigs invasion! The SWP, tenSibly directed a g a ins t economic In July 1918 Trotsky declared he was However the question takes on a dif­ which has been active in the campaign sabotage (whose main cause is bureau­ drafting ex-officers of the tsarist army ferent and more complex character to free Ukrainian socialists Dzyuba and cratic planning methods and bureau­ because they "had received their edu­ when Trotskyists attempt to relate to Chornovil, organized by the New York cratic theft) was actually intended to cation at the people's expense" and now national movements in traditional and CDSPP and the "Set Them Free" Com­ whip up anti-semitism. More than half had to repay the debt (Wall Street viable nations, such as the Baltic mittee, has not uttered a word of those sentenced to death were Jews; Journal, 4 October 1973). republics and the Ukraine. Trotskyists, criticism on the politics and strategy of in the traditionally anti-semitic But such measures should not dis­ unlike ultra-lefts, recognize that in these groups. Under present conditions Ukraine, 90 percent of those sentenced criminate against any particular social these countries, the national question is when the most prominent Soviet dis­ to death were Jews, although Jews com­ or national section of the population. still on the agenda, in spite of the sidents, like Sakharov, are urging the prise only 2 percent of the Ukrainian In the present situation, where even the international nature of the modern U.S. Senate toward economic black­ population (Zvi Gitelman, Nationalities Russian bureaucracy does not claim to world e con 0 my, and uncondition­ mail against the USSR, a campaign and Nationalism in the U.S.S.R.: the have an emergency shortage of scien­ ally support their right to self­ around Soviet political prisoners in­ Jews). tists and is permitting the emigration volving prominent politicians can only determination. The result of this bureaucratic of trained professionals, a regulation Trotskyists do not condemn anti­ have an anti-communist thrust. In any requiring all college graduates to work cas e, the minimum condition for discrimination is the recent upsurge bureaucratic struggles such as th.e of Zionism. This phenomenon mainly a certain number of years in the USSR Hungarian uprising of 1956 becaus, Trotskyist participation in any organ­ before being eligible to emigrate would ization to de fen d Russian political affects Jewish scientists and profes­ they include diverse elements, even sionals of the post-war generation, be equitable. (This prinCiple has long bourgeois nationalists. No revolution, prisoners is that it explicitly refuse to been accepted even by social demo­ defend active counterrevolutionarieso who hope to gain a more comfortable social or political, begins in a pure existence through emigration to Israel crats. In the late 1940's the British form. Rather, we seek to intervene and (often a way-station for their final Labour government favored state edu­ lead these movements onto the correct Soviet Jews and Zionism destination: the U.S.) and sections of cation of doctors on the grounds that path of proletarian revolution. To place Jewish youth, who are asserting a na­ this would give the government the one's trust in the class-collaborationist Zionism is one form of nationalism tional identity in reaction to the Stal­ right to require the graduates to work bureaucracy, that "bourgeois organ of which the SWP does not support, since inist anti-semitism which has raised in those areas where their skills were a workers state," rather than in the it represents the "nationalism of the Jewish culture to the status of most needed.) The present discrimina­ working class, as the Marcyites (now oppressor" Israeli state. However, in "forbidden fruit." tory tax only increases pro-Zionist the Workers World Party) did in sup­ the Soviet Union Zionism is the "na­ sentiments among Jews in the USSR \Vhile the educated Jewish petty porting the crushing of the Hungarian tionalism of the oppressed," which the and anti-communism in the West, revolution, is not only criminal but in SWP claims leads to revolutionary bourgeoisie can hope to establish high­ thereby aiding the enemies of socialism paid careers in the West, many workers the long run self-defeating. The bu­ communism! throughout the world. reaucracy is no ~uardian of socialist and youth who have emigrated to Israel Revolutionary Trotskyists firmly After the October Revolution Soviet interests! It is continually generating for purely romantic reasons soon re­ support the right of Russian Citizens, Jews were recognized as a separate restorationist tendencies within itself gret their error and try to return to including Jews, to freely emigrate to nationality with rights to cultural au­ and encouraging the rise of nationalist the Soviet Union. However, for Jews the country of their chOice. This is the tonomy, and Yiddish was legalized for and even fascistic elements in socieLy who have not experienced the unemploy­ counterside of our opposition to ethni­ schools in the Jewish areas. But J ew­ at large! ment, capitalist exploitation and dis­ cally, nationally and otherwise exclu­ ish national development was never When the tight lid of bureaucratic crimination of capitalist Israel, anti­ sionist immigration laws. Thus during very successful, as the Jews were a rule is lifted, even for one day, all bureaucratic discontent often takes the the late 1940'sthethen-TrotskyistSWP predominantly urban group, scattered the social forces, both healthy and mor­ form of Zionism, just as for non-Jews campaigned for opening U.S. borders to in cities throughout the Republic. The bid, which have waited as if in sus­ it can take the form of Ukrainian or the thousands of Jews languishing in artificial Jewish Autonomous Republic pended animation suddenly come to life Latvian nationalism, or even retreat to European refugee camps. Therefore, in the Far East (Birobidzhan) did not and vie for power. The Transitional Russian Orthodox religion. Today Zion­ we also oppose the reported intention flourish, because most Jews were in Program permits the proletarian van­ ism is supported by only a small minor­ of the Austrian government, under fact on the road to voluntary assim­ ity of the some 3,000,000 Jews in the guard to intervene and polarize the ilation. Before World War II, the rate social-democratic Premier Kreisky Situation, winning the working class Soviet Union; nevertheless, it remains (and with the support of the Austrian of intermarriage between Jews and a significant symptom of the political and a section of the petty bour­ RUSSians was very higho Nazis), to refuse transit to Jewish geoisie to its banner. But the forging and cultural malaise affecting all emigres leaving the USSR, sections of Soviet society. of the vanguard party requires a firm With the outbreak of World War II, However, at the same time it is and consistent struggle against all assimilation of Jews ceased abruptly. Through the joint efforts of the necessary to wage an uncompromising forms of bourgeois ideology, including The effect of German occupation (dur­ American Zionist community, which struggle against the chauvinist "Law of the deadliest of all-nationalism. _ ing which Jews in the occupied areas has no intention of giving up its prof­ Return" which makes all Jews automat­ were decimated by the Nazis) and the itable businesses in order to go to Is­ ically citizens of Israel, while simul­ anti~semitic response of large num­ rael, and the Israeli bourgeoisie, which taneously excluding the Palestinian ref­ forum" bers of Russians and Ukrainians, start­ needs new sources of immigration to ugees who were driven from their led Soviet Jews into a national identity secure its hold on the West Bank, Rus- homes by successive Israeli military operations. We have always defended "Women and the the right of the Hebrew-speaking popu­ Rev FORUM lation to continue to live in the Palestine Bolshevik Revolution" area9 while likewise defending the rights of the Arab refugees to return to their homeland. A real peace in the Speaker: Middle East is only possible by uniting D.L. REISSNER Counterrevolution Arabic- and Hebrew-speaking workers Editor, Women and Revolution and peasants in a common struggle William L. Harkness Hall against capitalism. But this general Room 201 proposition does not eliminate the na­ Saturday, October 20 7:30p.m. in Chile Yale University tional question in Palestine. It is neces­ St. Gregory's Church Auditorium 7:30 p.m. sary to recognize the right of self­ 144 W. 90th Street, New York City Speaker: JAN NORDEN, Editor WORKERS VANGUARD determination on both s.ides and also to call for general secularization. The alternative is national war and possible NEW YORK Tuesday 16 October New Haven genocide, pitting the less than three For information call: (212) 925-5665 million Israeli Jews against tens of 12 OCTOBER 1973 9 revolutionary leadership as the key It was natural that in 1953 the SWP break with Stalinist and Pabloist re­ Continued from page 4 roadblock to revolution and the con- . should lead the fight for orthodox visionism and return to the Marxist struction of the Fourth International Trotskyism. But in fact the party program of proletarian class indepen­ as the solution. Instead he adopted the waged only a half-struggle, virtually dence, uniquely embOdied in the U.S. objectivist theory that the over­ withdrawing from any international by the Spartacist League. Internation­ whelming crisis of capitalism (his work until the late 1950's. The "In­ ally this means an unrelenting struggle TROTSKYISM "war-revolution thesis") would force ternational Committee" which it formed for the creation of a democratic­ the Stalinists to undertake at least with the French and British majori­ c e n t r ali s t programmatically-united munist opposition-not just militant deformed revolutions. Thus Pablo's ties who opposed Pablo hardly func­ Trotskyist tendency to carry out the trade unionism. Together with Trotsky "Theses on International Perspectives" tioned at all. As the party lost virtu­ task of reconstruction of the FI. Down we affirm that the Transitional Pro­ of the Third Congress of the FI (1951) ally its entire trade-union cadre in the with Pabloism! For the Rebirth of the gram is the program for struggle in the state: Cochran-Clarke fight, and the great­ Fourth International! _ unions. This does not mean that every "The objective conditions determine in er par t of its entire membership caucus program must be a carbon copy the long run the character and dynamiC left during the McCarthy years,the of the SL Declaration of Principles-it of the mass movement which, taken leadership began moving to the right is necessary to choose those demands to a certain level, can overcome all in the late 1950's in search of some Sub-Drive which best serve to raise socialist the subjective obstacles in the path of force or movement it could latch on­ consciousness in the particular situa­ the revolution." to in order to regain mass influence. tion., What is essential is that the cau­ -Quatri~me lnternatiorw.le, It found this in the Cuban revo­ cus program of transitional demands August-September 1951 lution, which evoked a wave of sym­ Report not be limited to militant reformism, When it became clear that the im­ pathy throughout Latin America and At the half-way point of our sub­ but contain the political perspective of plication of Pablo's line was the organ­ in the U.S. The party leadership de­ scription drive (three out of the total socialist revolution. izational liquidation of the FI into the clared t hat Cuba was basically a of six weekS), the national quota has Davidson quotes from Trotsky's do min ant Stalinist and soc i a 1- healthy workers state, although not been almost fulfilled. The capacity of 1940 conversations with SWP leaders democratic parties, and when this was yet possessing the forms of workers the SL/RCY to obtain subscriptions to claim that Trotskyist trade-union brought home by a liquidationist pro­ democracy (!) and that Fidel Castro was clearly underestimated. The main work amounted to "anti-communism." Pablo faction (headed by Cochran and was a natural Marxist (i.e., he sup­ reasons for success to date have been We have recently published a series Clarke) in the SWP itself, the party ma­ posedly acted like a Trotskyist even systematic hard work by the locals, of articles on "Trotskyist Nork in the jority reacted sharply. James Cannon though he talked first as a bourgeois the rapid growth of the Spartacist Trade Unions" (WV No. 25-28) detail­ wrote: nationalist and later as a Stalinist). League and Revolutionary Communist ing our criticisms of the SWP's policy "The essence of Pabloist revisionism is Not surprisingly, this was the same youth over the last period and the of one-sided emphasis on blocs with the overthrow of that part of Trotskyism line taken by the Pabloists in Europe. quality of Workers Vanguard, which is "progressive" bureaucrats and its which is today its most vital part-the If the petty-bourgeois S tal i n is t bu­ becoming widely recognized as the only failure to build a communist pole in conception of the crisis of mankind as reaucracies could carry out a social serious Marxist press in the U.S. The the unions. However, it was perfectly the crisis of the leadership of the labor revolution in Eastern Europe, they increased interest in WV has also been correct during the late 1930's to con­ movement summed up in the question reasoned, why not also a petty­ reflected in our street sales, which centrate the Trotskyists' trade-union of the party. " bourgeois nationalist like Castro. Thus have increased from roughly 4,000 a work on opposition to the Stalinists: -"Factional Struggle and Party in practice the SWP was coming over month last spring to more than 7,000 Leadership," November 1953 these were the agents of Roosevelt in to the Pabloist line. At the same time every two weeks at present. On the the labor movement, the authors and The organizational destruction of an opposition was formed inside the basis of the enthusiastic response so enforcers of the no-strike pledge during the FI by Pabloist revisionism in 1953 S W P (t h e Revolutionary Tendency, far we can expect to substantially ex­ World War II. Of course, no one can had come about as the result of a num­ predecessor of the Spartacist League) tend the WVsubscription base, enabling accuse Davidson's friendS in the Octo­ ber of factors affecting the entire Trot­ which considered Cuba a deformed us to increase our modest yet unmis­ ber League or Revolutionary Union of skyist movement after World War II, workers state and criticized the SWP takable impact on the left and aiding attacking the Communist Party (or for but particularly the European sections. leadership's capitulation to Castro and the efforts of the SL to affect the that matter any militant reformist bu­ For one thing, virtually their entire the European Pabloists. The RT in living struggles of the labor movement. reaucrat) in their trade-union work. pre-war leadership had been murdered 1963 proposed a counterthesis Short regional tours, run by each Rather they uniformly support left either by the Nazi Gestapo or the ("Toward the Rebirth of the Fourth local, have contributed to the drive's bureaucrats in office (such as Chavez Stalinist GPU. The living continuity International") to the majority's doc­ success in the early weeks. This has of the Farmworkers) and form blocs with Trotsky had virtually been broken. ument which was the basis for the extended the influence of the SL/RCY with out-bureaucrats when the incum­ Furthermore the sections had been de­ SWP's reunification with the European to many areas where we have not be­ bent leadership is too conservative to cimated and largely isolated from the Pabloists to form the "United Secre­ fore been present. Along with WV, awaken any illusions at all among working class, while the Stalinists had tariat." While the party majority sup­ street sales of Young Spartacus have the workers. been able to expand their influence ported a peasant-based "guerrilla road doubled during the period of the drive, Consistent with his pattern of dis­ through leadership of anti-Hitler parti­ to power" the RT upheld the orthodox greatly aiding its stabilization as the tortion of Trotsky's positions in the san struggles. At the same time Stalin­ Trotskyist position that only the prole­ bi-monthly newspaper oTtlie-ncr.­ earlier articles of the series, Davidson ist reg i m e s were set up under the tariat could lead the struggle for agra­ Women and Revolution, which appeared seeks to create the impression that protection of the Russian Army in East­ rian revolution and national liberation. at the end of September, is also en­ Trotsky endorsed the SWP's practice ern Europe, and peasant-based insur­ The RT was expelled from the S WP joying a phenomenal success with sev­ of blocking with "progressive"bureau­ rection in China led to the overthrow in 1963 for its revolutionary opposi­ eral hundred sold in the first week crats against the Stalinists. Not so! In of capitalism and the creation of a de­ tion to the majority's Pabloist tailing alone. Subscribe now! (Don't forget 1940 Trotsky explicitly criticized the formed workers state. Faced with these after petty-bourgeois forces. Subse­ that in addition to being the best press SWP for softness toward pro-Roosevelt unexpected developments the initial quently the gap between the SWP'spol­ on the left, WV, YS and W&R are also unionists and insisted on an orienta­ response of the Trotskyist movement icies and the T rot sky ism of the the fastest-being sent, at great ex­ tion toward the ranks of the CPo was to maintain that the Eastern Eur­ Spartacist group continued to widen. pense, by first class mail. Because opean Stalinist regimes w ere still The ex-Trotskyist SWP capitulated in the cost of mailing alone far exceeds The Struggle for the capitalist. Not until 1955 did the SWP, turn to black nationalism, bourgeois the subscription price, we suggest to Reconstruction of for instance, decide that China had be­ pacifism and feminism, to the point opponent organizations on the left that the Fourth International come a deformed workers state. Having where today it is a hardened reformist one of the best ways to drive the SL unwittingly vulgarized Trotsky's dia­ organization with appetites to become into financial bankruptcy is to encour­ The degeneration of the S WP from lectical understanding of Stalinism, the the dominant social-democratic party age your members to subscribe to WV!) Bolshevism to centrism did not simply orthodox Trotskyists stressed Stalin­ of the U.S. The subscription drive has also occur one day in 1961, but was the re­ ism's counterrevolutionary side until We must learn from this history brought us into. conflicts with company sult of a process of programmatic (and their theories no longer squared with of defeats that revisionism leads to police and union goon squads at anum­ ultimately organizational) degeneration reality. This disorientation enabled the same consequences w h e the r it ber of plants around the country, par­ of the Fourth International after World the revisionist current around Pablo to comes from Stalinist origins or from ticularly Buffalo, Cleveland and De­ War II. The critical point came with justify its opportunist appetites by con­ erstwhile Trotskyists. The Maoist line troit. As shown in the sub totals for the split of the FI in 1953 which signi­ clUding from the limited social trans­ defended by the Guavdian in no way these areas such clashes have not fied the organizational demise of the formations in Eastern Europe that non­ offers a proletarian alternative to the hindered the success of our sales. unified world party of socialist revo­ proletarian, non~Trotskyist forces can reformism of the SWP. Instead of the However, we will vigorously fight every lution. At the heart of the split was the lead any form of social revolution. SWP's single-issue reformist cam­ effort to deprive the workers of the program put forward by Michel Pablo, The SWP had been least affected paigns in alliance with the liberal right to hear and read the views of head of the International Secretariat of by this process, having emerged from bourgeoisie (NPAC, WONAAC), the all working-class tendencies. The right the FI, of "deep entry" into the refor­ . the war with its leadership intact, its Maoists propose multi-issue reformist to free discussion of ideas inside the mist Stalinist par tie s, redubbed cen­ membership and ties to the working campaigns in alliance with the liberal unions is intimately linked to the right trist in order to justify the new line. class increased and the Stalinists still bourgeoisie (PCPJ). The only road to to read the labor press. The same goon Pablo no longer saw the crisis of relatively weak compared to Europe. socialist revolution is to make a sharp squads now being used to suppress the left newspapers outside the plant gates .... will be used for suppressing dissidents ----_ in the union meetings and, as the UAW bureaucracy's mobilization to squash the Mack Avenue wildcat this summer showed, for breaking strikes. Insist on your right to know the truth-protest WOfiltEItS IIIIM all attempts to stop sales of left news­ papers in the factories and on campus­ es! Defend workers democracy! Sub­ scribe to Workers Vanguavd! Quota To Date Bay Area 210 120 Name Zip ------;0 Boston 140 152 Address State_ Buffalo 100 161 City Chicago 90 103 30 Cleveland 100 82 187 Make payable/mail to; Spartacist Publishing Co., P.O. Box 1377, GPO, New York, N.Y. 10001 Detroit 120 Los Angeles 90 61 New York 300 245 DEnclosed is $3 for 24 issues of WORKERS VANGUARD. At Large ~ 23 includes SPARTA CIST o Enclosed is $1 for 8 issues of WORKERS VANGUARD. Total 1200 1134 10 WORKERS VANGUARD salesmen of the fake-Trotskyist Work­ then won election on the "Progressive At least some progressive service Continued from page 12 ers League and syndicalist News and Party" ticket, but his "liberalism" was will have been performed if the attacks L etters at Mahwah and left-Shachtman­ a mask for the creation of a regime by anti-communist goons against the ite Revolutionary SOCialist League and based on the same racist elements and RU in Ohio and elsewhere drive home the opportunist-adventurist Workers inclUding many tag-alongs from the to the best militants of the RU the les­ Action Movement (WAM-supported by previous administration. son that their own Stalinist goon-squad UAW ... Progressive Labor) at Linden. Erosion of real wages, the wage­ sectarianism is responsible for their In striking contrast to the pervasive price freeze, the union's role in sup­ plight. Like the Communist Party in the knows that the wildcats were a re­ anti-communism of the late 1940's and preSSing worker militancy and rising 1930's, the RU will eventually discover sponse to real and serious grievances­ 1950's, in which SOCial democrats and discontent among black workers over that its failure to practice and defend which the VA W bureaucrats have done Reutherite trade-union bureaucrats led the local's open racism contributed to workers democracy will rebound upon nothing about. Did these labor fakers a widespread purge of reds from the a great decline in support for Brake. it as it is driven out of the unions by get even the minimum demand of vol­ unions, the UAW's rationale for the Running for his third term in the the same bureaucrats it is cuddling up untary overtime in the Chrysler con­ present witchhunt lacks even the lame Spring of this year, he lost in the pri­ to today. Better to learn this lesson tract? Will the local settlements do excuse of the McCarthy era that Com­ mary and then barely won in the run­ now! 2-I1ything about the intolerable safety munists were "agents of a foreign pow­ off election. With a new sellout coming As for the Workers League, with its conditions in most of the plants? No! er." This time, the reds are seen as and the militancy of workers in nearby cynical lack of any and all prinCiples, The UA W leadership is increasingly the spark which set off strikes in a plants such as the Chrysler Twinsburg deeply ingrained habits of lying and isolated from the union ranks-last situation in which the bureaucrats are stamping plant, which was one of the sectarian exclusion of other groups summer's wildcats make this plain for forced to admit that "working in [an few plants to turn down the Chrysler from its public meetings, it denies the all to see. Woodcock is playing with auto] plant, or any plant, for that matter, contract, as inspiration for Local 1005 need for united-front defense. Having fire. Having blamed the spontaneous is no picnic," because complaints "of­ me m be r s, the already discredited at first denied the need for defense at revolts of the auto workers on reds, ten are ignored by plant managements," Brake gang needs all the help it can the previously mentioned Fremont sale, assuming the workers would accept his and n u mer 0 us other abuses are get to stay in power. The standing WL supporters were spreading lies sellouts as a "lesser evil," he may one common-place (VA IV Solidarity, Sep­ white goon squad is a barely disguised about the SL's unwillingness to defend day soon find his ranks willing to ally tember 1973). threat of KKK night-riding terror to them ... until the SL showed up anyway. even with reds, who are at least willing intimidate the black workers into sub­ The IS and its recent left-excretion, to pursue the class struggle. Partnership In a Fraud mission and line up the whites, against the RSL, have so far proven to be too their real interests, to see black work­ busy (presumably out peddling their Local Gangsterism CompanJ provocations, s u c h as ers and "reds" as their enemy. workerist, opportunist politics in safer mass firings of militants, as well as The lesson of the anti-communist quarters) to risk the appearance of The frenzy of the UA W tops is now other grievances,promoted "unofficial" purge and hysteria of the post-World serious cooperation in defense efforts being expressed by local leaders who strikes throughout the auto industry War II period is that anti-communism with the "sectarian" SL. The reformist encourage goon attacks like the recent during August and September. The cal­ and denial of basic rights of workers Communist Party cannot, of course, criminal assault on WV salesmen in culated strike-breaking efforts of the democracy within the labor movement even contemplate the rupture of its Cleveland. An 18-member, standing UA W "leadership," culminating in the inevitably go hand in hand with the comfortable relations with the trade­ goon squad was formed by the Local Mack Avenue atrocity, were an act of creation of an impervious, entrenched union bureaucracy (particularly Wood­ 1005 bureaucracy, currently headed by direct partnership with the companies and self-satisfied bureaucracy, which cock!) which any return to the Leninist William Brake, at the Parma plant. The in their effort to weaken and demoral­ is not only against reds but against principles of its long forgotten early offiCially-inspired gang of brawlers ize the workers before a strike, crush any serious struggle for the workers' years would en t ai 1. And the ex­ (mostly composed of committeemen resistance and thereby help prevent basic interests against the companies' • Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party, and other officials) has attacked, in any real gains by the workers. This Feeding on racial hostility and the pas­ meanwhile, perhaps because the mem­ addition to the Spartacist League (SL), is all done in the name of enhancing sivity of those who have given up fight­ ories are just slightly Jresher and its sellers of Modern Times, a local the supposedly "legitimate" interests ing, such a bureaucracy is willing­ ties to the bureaucracy far weaker, has Cleveland New Left syndicalist paper; of the companies in making as much even anxious~to sell out every impor­ a slicker put-off: it deigns to cover People Get Ready, a similar paper sup­ profit as possible (as long as they tant gain of the workers' struggle and its inaction by deSiring to be "kept in­ ported by the right-wing Maoist Rev­ share some crumbs with the workers!) preside over the decline of the unions formed" of developments. olutionary Union (RU); and Workers and increaSing productivity so as to into impotent caricatures of them­ Only the minuscule and essentially Power, the paper of the left-social­ improve competition with foreign capi­ selves. It is necessary for all workers irrelevant Class Struggle League and democratic International Socialists talist rivals. interested in mil ita n t, democratic the Modern Times grouping in Cleve­ (IS). The Chrysler "settlement" co n­ unionism to unite to combat renewed land have clearly indicated willingness SL paper salesmen have also been firmed the bureaucracy's success in outbreaks of race hatred and anti­ to cooperate with the SL in united­ harassed at the Ford and GM plants this. Against hostile but disorganized communism, as a necessary precon­ front defense a g a ins t bureaucratic at Mahwah and Linden, New Jersey, and apathetic ranks, the bureaucrats dition for returning the un ion s to goon-squad anti-communism. A Mod­ bv groups inspired by the bureaucracy. have rammed through what is one of the only path for victory-the class ern Times supporter accompanied the These same groups h'1ve driven off the greatest frauds ever perpetrated struggle. SL sales crew On September 27 and on auto workers. The contract's main partiCipated in efforts to fend off the purpose is revealed as improving pro­ For United-Front Defense attackers. The hard syndicalist and ductivity through controlling absentee­ Against Bureaucratic Anti­ anti-political Modern Times, however, ism-through a "voluntary overtime" S1/R[Y Communist Goon Attacks! completely lacks the politicalperspec­ clause which is so hemmed in with tive required to make the struggle restrictions that it is bound to ensure Th(; responses of the ostensibly against goon-squad bureaucratism a PUbli[ OlliE!S the performance of more work rather revolutionary left in Cleveland to the reality in the unions (where the issue, than less! Its "crumbs," in the form initial appeals of the Spartacist League in the final analysis, must and will be of a dental plan and 30-and-out pro­ for a united front over the attack of settled). It opportunistically tails aftel BAY AREA vision, are wholly inadequate, and its September 27 leave much to be de­ simple trade-union militancy, which wage "increase" is guaranteed to re­ sired, however. Supporters of the Rev­ leads it to adapt to backwardnes~ wedneSday} sult in further erosion of real wages. olutionary Union-backed People Get among the workers and to cowardly and 1:00-6:00 p.m. While this contract has been put over Thursday Ready ~ategorically refuse to consider capitulation in the face of the bureauc­ at Chrysler, it still must be forced any joint action with the Trotskyist racy even when it is under direct at­ Saturday 2:30-6:00 p.m. ' on reluctant Ford and GM workers, Spartacist League, despite our COmmon tack itself. who, moreover, have time to think victimization by the same anti­ 330-4Oth Street The cavalier, temporizing response about it while "negotiations" proceed, communist bureaucrats. This is hardly of most of the left in Cleveland and (near Broadway) first with Ford, then GM. The offi­ surprising, since the RU's Stalinist elsewhere to this issue might ordinarily Oakland, California cial union goon squads and attacks methods are identical to those of the be simply written off as another exam­ Phone 653-4668 on reds at Ford and GM plants are a t r a de-union bureaucracy. In June, ple of its general promiscuity with direct attempt to intimidate the workers salesmen of the RU-supported Bay pol i tic a I prinCiples and opportunist and cow internal opposition at this Area Workerphysically attacked Work­ grovelling before the trade-union bu­ sensitive time, when the officials know ers Vanguard salesmen outside the reaucracy. However, failure at this BOSTON what a rotten sellout they will soon Fremont, California GM plant. When time to defend the right of all groups WedneSdaY} have to defend to the ranks. the Spartacist League mobilized in to freely propagate their views within and 1:00-5:00 p.m. force to defend its rights the attacks the labor movement amounts to crimi­ FrIday 7:00-9:00 p.m. Night-Riders in the "Leadership" ceased. The RU has reportedly also nal capitulation before the new anti­ at t a c ked salesmen of the Workers communist purge drive of the red­ Saturday 11:00 a.m.-3:00 While ultimate responsibility for the League Bulletin at the Milpitas Cal­ baiting UAW bureaucracy-which 639 Massachusetts Avenue Parma goon attack resides in Solidar­ ifornia Ford plant. affects every socialist tendency and Room 335 ity House, the Local 1005 bureaucracy rank-and-file militant directly. Cambridge, Massachusetts contributes its own special impetus to "WORKERS VANGUARD Defends The struggle for workers democracy the anti-red campaign, resulting in a Phone 492-3928 BULLETIN's Right to Sell" in the UA W must be consciously linked particularly zealous, efficient and bru­ to the political victory of auto workers. tal record. In the early 1960's a red­ The Spartacist League categorically The Chrysler contract defeat is due to neck contingent organized mainly as the defends the right of all tendencies with­ the lack of an organized, class -struggle NEW YORK "Unionist Party" won control in the in the labor movement, no matter how opposition to the reformist, sellout local. The Dixie flag was contemptuous­ inSignificant or politically discredited bureaucracy of Woodcock-Fraser. Now ly displayed in the union hall and racial they may be, to freely propagate their MondaY} this bureaucracy seeks to ensure its through 3:00-7:30 p.m. incidents including shootings occurred ideas. Only in this way will the workers continued right to betray auto workers Friday in the plant, although the news was be freed from arbitrary, bureaucratic through gangland thug attacks. The suppressed by the management and restraint and able to judge courses Spartacist League has conSistently em­ Saturday 1:00-6:00 p.m. local bureaucracy. The incidents in the of action solely upon their merits. Thus phasized the need for a political op­ 260 West Broadway plant created such tensions that the when the Bulletin (24 S e pte m be r) position in the unions organized in Room 522 International, together with GM man­ claimed that vicious attacks by the RU caucuses based on a Class-struggle New York, New York agement, was compelled to intervene. were continuing, the SL verbally in­ program. In addition, the SL has strug­ Phone 925-5665 The International tacitly supported the formed the RU that attacks on the WL gled intransigently to combat gangster­ firing of ex-president Gene Murphy, salesmen would be considered attacks ism and promote genuine workers de­ who had just returned from j ail for on it, and showed up for the next Bulle­ mocracy in the labor movement. Any passing bad checks, in the middle of tin sale at the plant gate with a sign approach to the struggle in auto lacking OO~W@[1Jillu~ @~ ~OOl1 his campaign for office, and kicked reading, "Workers Vanguard defends these elements will be incapable of other racists upstairs to International Bulletin'S right to sell." The sale was achieving victory for auto workers or [L~U~OO~U[llJ OO~ staff. The current president, Brake, uneventful. the working class generally. _ 12 OCTOBER 1973 11 W'RltERS ""'II'RI)

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Goons criminally assault SL supporters selling WORKERS VANGUARD at Parma, Ohio Chevrolet plant. WV PHOTOS Goons Assault WV Salesmen in Cleveland Frenzied UAW Bureaucracy Attacks Reds, Militants

CLEVELAND-Nine me m be r san d of events sweeping the UA W nationally friends of the Spartacist League were since the Mack Avenue sit-down strike assaulted and beaten by 15 thugs in a in Detroit in mid-August, one month well-organized goon squad outside the before the auto contract expirations. Chevrolet transmission plant in Parma, UA W tops mobilized 1,000 local of­ OhiO, near Cleveland, on September 27, ficers into a gigantic special goon The sudden, unannounced attack took squad to crush that "illegal" strike, place only minutes after SL supporters which they admit was part of a series had begun to sell Wovkevs Vanguavd on of wildcat strikes in Detroit sparked the street to workers going into the by serious, real grievances, After the plant in the afternoon. The goons ripped strike, the same goons served as an the papers out of the hands ofthe sales­ attack force against "extremists" out­ men, grabbing and beating those who side the plant. made the slightest resistance. In an Thug attacks on leftist paper sellers obviously well-rehearsed man e u v e r, continued for a few days until the they broke off their engagement as soon bureaucrats were discouraged by such as the SL supporters were clear of the events as workers coming out of the area, and disappeared quickly into the plant at Dodge Main to defend the right plant parking lot. (However, despite the of leftists to sell their papers. Mean­ goon squad's attempt to avoid identi­ while, an extraordinary art i c leon fication, WV managed to get photo­ wildcat strikes and the role of "ex­ graphs of the en t ire incident and tremists" was printed in UA W Sol­ pictures of the individual thugs as they idarity (September 1973), Denouncing assaulted our salesmen.) "irresponsible radical groups" who are The entire incident lasted no more "masters at exploiting" leg i tim ate than a few minutes, but in the course grievances, the article served as a call of it two SL supporters were knocked for the entire UA W bureaucracy to to the ground, one was kicked in the mount a purge against all leftists and head, another given a black eye and militants, whether inside the union or others badly bruised. The SL members outside selling their papers. defended themselves as best they could Woodcock's maneuver is obvious, against the large and well-coordinated and was spelled out explicitly by UA W force. The obviously pre-planned attack leaflets distributed at Detroit plants was timeu so that it took place rapidly after the Mack Avenue sit-down: blame and in the view of only a few workers, the reds for the strikes, But if it who were waiting to cross the street was only "a handful of outside agita­ into the plant. The goon squad was tors" behind the wildcats, why did it noticeably all white, in marked COI1- take a 1,000-strong army of UAW trast to the racially-mixed workforce bureaucrats to put them down? Every Wed., 17 October-l p.m. at the plant. worker in those plants, whether or not Detroit-SOOO E. Jefferson Ave. This vicious attack was not an iso­ he supported the particular tactics, lated incident. It was part of a pattern continued on page 11 Defend Workers Democracy 12 12 OCTOBER 1973