~ Australasian '-

NUMBER 130 FEBRUARY/MARCH 1989 IfO cents

aille or , an

The Red Army withdrawal is a poignant reminder that the from Afghanistan is a cold­ West's vicarious victory over blooded betrayal of the Afghan communist expansion here and Soviet peoples. The CIA's Is­ isn't without its ambiguities. lamic warriors, armed for over a In a backward country where decade wi th billions of dollars of the female peasantry still toils ultramodern military equipment, like medieval serfs, Kabul's are poised to carry out the whole­ women have managed to hold sale slaughter of Afghan women, on to many 20th-century free­ teachers and other intellectuals, doms.... Instead of staying at leftist activists and peasants. And home behind purdah walls, George Bush has now announced they emerge each day and the US will continue to supply the work in offices, hospitals and mujahe.din with arms as long as schools. " the left-nationalist Kabul regime Walsh contrasts this to the hor­ is in ,power. rible condi tion of Afghan women If this army of mullahs and in the refugee camps in Pakistan, tribalist cutthroats topples the reporting that "foreign doctors Najbullah government, Afghani­ working among the refugee stan will become an imperialist women tell gruesome tales of hus­ dagger pointed at Soviet Central bands leaving them to die, rather Asia. In his drive to appease than permitting diagnosis by a Washington by abandoning Af­ male obstetrician"! ghanistan, Moscow leader Mikhail But the battle for Kabul does Gorbachev is giving US imperial­ not look like it is going to be a ism and its allies a launching pad walkover. The Afghan army is for counterrevolution in the well supplied with Soviet MIG homeland of the socialist October fighter-bombers and medium­ Revolution. With their backs to range missiles. The government the wall, the forces of social pro­ has distributed arms to the popu­ gress are facing a war to the lation, including young women, death. Smash Washington's "holy creating a 30,000-strong civilian warriors" ! militia. The PDPA regime, in the The mujahedin call it badal, past given to murderous factional the code of revenge of the domi­ and cliquist infighting, appears nant Pushtun tribes. It means not Kabul, February 5: Members of Afghan women's militia face life-and­ committed to a united stand. "We just death but often torture, dis­ death struggle. must all fight now," declared mem'Jerment and mutilation. Over months, and goes on, "there are People's Democratic Party of Af­ Najibullah. Throughout the world the past several months, as Soviet very deep passions" that "will be ghanistan (PDPA). Even peasants every class-conscious worker, troops abandoned one outpost turned against those who have whose only "crime" was not emi­ socialist and believer in human after another, the CIA's "freedom been central to the regime." Last grating to Pakistan after 1979 are decency and the rights of man fighters" meted out a taste of month the State Department sent infidels in the eyes of these Islam­ must materially aid the Afghan their barbarism. In November a formal note to its embassies ic "holy warriors." The fall of government against the CIA's Is­ about 70 Afghan soldiers surrend­ around the world instructing them Kabul and other Afghan cities lamic cutthroats. ered to the mujahedin at Tork­ to deny visas to anyone associated would be followed by a massacre At stake in the battle for Af­ ham, on the Afghan side of the with the Afghan regime. Antici­ of the entire educated population, ghanistan is far more than the Khyber Pass. When government pating the mujahedin terrorists' especially tens of thousands of fate of this hideously backward forces retook the outpost several laying waste to Kabul, and in or­ women who escaped from purdah land. The armed Soviet inter­ days later, they found their com­ der to sow panic, Washington and (seclusion) and cast off the vention in Afghanistan in Decem­ rades' bodies - mutilated and its European allies have closed chadori (the head-to-foot veil). ber 1979 provided America's chopped into pieces - in wooden their embassies. Even Western bourgeois pretext for Cold War II. We pro­ crates. The Wall Street Journal (12 journalists, particularly if they're claimed at the time "Hail Red The US and its NATO allies January) gloats that "what the women, are anxious about the hid­ Army in Afghanistan!" while most are doing everything they can to Afghans don't know about re­ eous fate now threatening self-styled leftists around the set !!E. a bloodbath. Richard venge isn't worth knowing." The liberated Afghan women. Mary world joined the imperialist cam­ Murphy, a top State Department victims of the mujahedin' s blood­ Williams Walsh reports in the Wall paign for Soviet troops out. Well, ' official under Reagan, predicts lust will by no means be limited to Street Journal (19 January): -- now the Soviet troops have been the fall of Kabul within a few supporters of the left-nationalist "The plight of Kabul's women Continued on page two

~. Registered by Australia Post - Publication no NBF0110 Afghanistan ...

Continued from page one Richard S Fraser - Veteran pulled out to appease US imperial­ ism. If the mujahedin sueceed in American Trots1kyist butchering every leftist, teacher I and unveiled woman in Afghani­ Comrade Richard S Fraser, a through integrated revolutionary stan, their blood will be on the veteran American Trotskyist, died struggle for proletarian socialist hands not onl y of the Bushes, 'rule. Based on the recognition Thatchers, Kohls and their junior on 27 November 1988. For close partners like Hawke, but also on to 30 years Comrade Fraser was a that US blacks are an oppressed race-colour caste and not a separ­ their "left" camp followers. leading member of the US Social­ ist Workers Party which he had ate nation, this program of revol­ ORIGINS AND NATURE OF joined in 1934, and his later ac­ utionary integration was adopted THE AFGHAN WAR tivity included helping found the by the Spartacist League/US from For decades Afghanistan's Seattle-based Freedom Socialist its inception. It has found verifi­ small number of modernizing in­ Party. Over the years he devel­ cation in life in the victorious tellectuals have generally been oped his relations with 'the labour/black mobilisations that pro-Soviet. 'When they looked Spartacist League/US, leading to stopped Ku Klux Klan provo­ across their northern border into a close and invaluable collabor­ cations, for example recently in Soviet Central Asia, they saw ation in its work to establish Philadelphia and Atlanta. children who could read, women labour/black defence organis­ liberated from the veil, and a ations. The author of "For a Ma­ Fraser's historic theoretical level of social and economic well­ terialist Conception of the Negro contribution deserves serious at­ ~ being centuries in advance of Af­ Struggle," Richard Fraser was a tention from thoughtful anti­ 1913-1988 ghanistan. As a result of Soviet theoretical mentor, cherished racist militants, especially blacks, central planning, living standards friend and in the end, a comrade in this country. Though his analy­ in Tashkent are as high as in of the Spartacist League. sis of concrete US reality is not heirs to an unbroken revolutionary Moscow. Dedicating himself to the applicable here, nevertheless the tradition going back to Lenin and In 1965 Afghan leftist circles study of the black question in struggle against the hard racial Trotsky's Communist Inter­ formed the People's Democratic America, Fraser enriched the pro­ exclusionism of White Australia national, and Richard Fraser was Party of Afghanistan. The PDPA gram of Marxism with the under­ must also be a struggle for revol­ an im port ant part of that conti­ was a unique phenomenon in standing that the emancipation of utionary integration. The inter­ nuity. We honour his life, most of Afghanistan: a secular party not blacks in the US will only come national Spartacist tendency are all by carrying forward his fight •• based on any tribal or ethnic group. It claimed adherence to Marxism-Leninism, and its struc­ as his advisers, while Khalq sources of credit, seed, fertilizer masses. Although conducted half­ suggested "a government com­ and, in this arid land, even water. ture was modelled after Stalin's heartedly, sending troops into Af­ Forget proletarian revolution - bureaucratized Communist Party. posed of a 'United Front' ghanistan was the one unambigu­ Afghanistan could 'not even sus­ However, its program was limited including the PDPA." ously decent and progressive act tain the kind of widespread of the corrupt and conservative to moderate reforms to be carried In April 1978 the Daud regime, peasant revolt experienced in Brezhnev regime, since it went out by a government of "workers, prodded by the Western powers farmers, enlightened and medieval France, Russia and against the grain of the reaction­ and the shah of Iran, moved to China. ary Stalinist dogma of "socialism progressive intellectuals, crafts­ Thus when the PDPA govern­ in one country." We wrote at the men, the petit bourgeoisie and Ql '<#'" ment attempted to institute a time: national capitalists" (cited in Raja g'I program of minimal democratic "There can be no question that Anwar, The Tragedy of ~t for revolutionaries our side.in Afghanistan [1988]). i. measures - land reform, elimin­ ation of the bride price for this conflict is with the Red , Labelled "Communist" by their 0 women, universal education for Army. In fact, although opponents, the PDPA cadre were .both sexes - it instantly outpaced uncalled for militarily, a Aatu­ in fact modernizing petty­ the social forces to stJstain them. ral response on the part of the bourgeois nationalists more akin The khans and :nullahs, driven into world's young leftists would to Kemal Ataturk's Young Turks a frenzy by such measures as be an enthusias tic desire to than to Lenin's Bolsheviks. The teaching young girls to read, join an international brigade to PDPA established three bases of launched a reactionary jihad and fight the reactionary CIA­ support: the country's small began slaughtering teachers and connected rebels." urban intelligentsia (eg school­ PDPA activists. - "Hail Red Army!" Spartacist teachers), students and military The growing revolt received no 27-28, Winter 1979-80 officers (many of whom were immediate support from the We further raised the demand to trained in the Soviet Union). Pakistani regime of military dic­ extend the social gains of the Almost immediately the party tator Zia ul-Haq, acting as quar­ October Revolution to the Afghan split into two factions, the Khalq termaster for the United States. peoples. (Masses) and Parcham (Banner). Zia was continuing the policy of The Western press hoped and When Daud Khan ousted the king his predecessor, Zulfikar Ali speculated that the Soviet troops, in 1973, Parcham leaders served Bhutto, who had started arming especially those from the tra­ the ultra-fundamentalist Islamic di tionall y Islamic regions of Party of Gulbaddin Hekmatyar in Central Asia, would become in­ Spartacist League the early 1970s. The aim of the fected with the "liberating" Pakistani ruling class (led now by message of the mujahedin. But ~!4I!!r GPO Box 3473, GPO Box 2339, Bhutto's daughter, after Zia' s Soviet soldiers sent into battle Sydney, 2001 Melbourne, 3001 CIA's Afghan cutthroats pose over death last August) is the creation were told they were fulfilling Ph: 281-2181 Ph: 654-431.5 downed Soviet pilot. of a weak Islamic client state to their duty toward their Afghan its north. brothers, and their experiences in At the same time, the PDPA the country convinced them of it. suppress the PDPA, arresting its Australasianl--.,------.. regime was ripping itself apart Most were appalled at the back­ principal leaders on charges of through murderous factionalism wardness, poverty and hideous op- , treason. But the party's sup­ and cliquism. Khalq leader' Noor pression they witnessed in a [SpARTACIST ~) porters in the military effectively Mohammed Taraki was killed by country so close to home. One fought back and toppled Daud. Marxist two-monthly of the Spartacist his former protege Hafizullah Soviet Tadzhik soldier told a Wes­ League of Australia and New Zealand, The so-called "Saur Revolution" Amin. Amin, in turn, was as­ tern reporter in the early days of section of the international Spartacist was in fact a left-wing military tendency. sassinated in the course of the the war that "most of them were Editorial Board: Greg Blythe (editor), coup with considerable support Soviet intervention in December glad to go to help - it's a very Linda Brooke, Doug Flynn, Andrew among the urbanized population. 1979 which installed Babrak Kar­ backward country and we are Giannakis, Sandra Morris Circulation: Glenn Blackall The PDPA found itself ruling a mal, leader of the Parcham neighbors, after all" (New York Production: Phillipa Newman popula tion of 15 million people, faction. Only five of the party Times, 11 April 1980). ---­ Printed by trade union labour. overwhelmingly rural and scat­ leaders in April 1978 escaped -while Soviet soldiers in Registered at GPO, Sydney for posting tered in isolated river valleys. On being killed, imprisoned or exiled Afghanistan were generally proud as a publication -- Category B. Subscription $3 for 6 issues; overseas the local level tribal chiefs shared by their "comrades" over the next to do their internationalist duty, airmail $7 for 6 issues. Address all power and land with some 300,000 few years. An ever smaller group the Kremlin bureaucracy did not correspondenCe to: Spartacist ANZ Islamic mullahs, who made up a of modernizing intellectuals was send them there out, of inter­ Publishing Co, GPO Box 3473, Sydney, privileged landowning caste. being pitted against a mass reac­ nationalist commitment. As we NSW, 2001. Opinions expressed in signed articles or letters do not Taking the country as a whole, tionary revol t. wrote a few months later: necessariJy expres:; the editorial there was about one industrial It was only the Soviet military "Of course, the conservative viewpo'irtt." " worker for every eight mullahs! intervention of December 1979 bureaucrats in the Kremlin did Printed.. by Spot press Pty Ltd, 105 The peasants were totally in thrall which opened the road to the lib­ not send 100,000 troops into , Victoria Rd, Marrickville. to the khans, who controlled the eration of the Afghan toiling Continued on page six 2 AUSTRALASIAN SPARTACIST eSR Workers Knifed for the Accord

On 9 February at the ACTU' s increases in the CPl. The name of Nevertheless production came to Commission the Federal Court Special Unions Conference, Crean the game is layoffs and real wage a halt and transport workers in threatened use of the infamous and Kelty rammed through their cuts, carried out by the union the main respected the picket, "penal powers" - a virtual dead proposal for a new Accord Mark V leaderships. Crean and Kel ty are preventing deliveries. And the letter since the near general with Hawke's union-busting ALP indeed company unionists. strike began to bite. The confec­ strike that freed Victorian Tram­ government. Openly flaunted as a Last year a six-week strike by tionery and soft drink industries ways leader Clarrie 0' Shea in design to head off a "wages ex- just over 200 workers at CSR' s suffered acute shortages. There 1969. The court imposed injunc- plosion," this new deal is part of (Colonial Sugar Refining) Yarra­ the ACTU' s corporatist "Aust- ville sugar refinery in Melbourne ralia Reconstructed" scheme of challenged the Accord strait­ carrying out the bosses "rational- jacket. Their strike was shafted isation" of the economy by exact- by the ACTU tops, in particular ing increased profits out of the by its "left" agent, Victorian --t Trades Hall Secretary, John Half­ g- penny. Sent back to work with nothing, two weeks later the workers were told half the work­ force would be sacked. This is the bitter meaning of "Australia Re­ constructed." The strike's mili­ tancy and duration testify to the seething bitterness in the working class at Hawke/Keating's grinding austerity, and to the increasing brittleness of the Accord. Though defeated, there are important lessons to be drawn.

YOU CAN'T PLAY BY THE BOSSES' RULES AND WIN~ The CSR workers mounted a CSR pickets: union bureaucrats told them to play by bosses' rules, fight against starvation-level ensuring isolation and defeat. wages - a meagre $220-240 per week - and dangerous working were stand-downs at Rowntree­ tions (the same used to break the Halfpenny and Kelty­ conditions. The day the strike Hoadleys and mass layoffs were Dollar Sweets strike four years sellout division of labour. began, CSR haughtily announced a record half-year profit of $147 imminent. ago) banning court-named union­ hides of working people and the million! The shop committee In chorus the bosses, govern­ ists from participating in the poor. Pay rises henceforth will be issued a log of claims including a ment, courts and union bureau­ picket and preventing union linked to "award restructuring" - $40 wage rise and increased crats denounced the strike for representation of its membership. speed-up, job-slashing, elimination annual leave, allowances and being "outside wage guidelines." Accepting such "rules" is to play of hard-won union conditions of overtime rates. On 23 Hawke moved to break the strike in a rigged game, yet that is decades-long standing. With the November the workers, covered by bringing forward the intended exactly what union officials announcement that inflation has by seven unions including the scrapping of the 70 year-long em­ advised. . taken off again (now eight percent AMWU, FIA, BWIU and AWU, bargo on sugar imports. And the Halfpenny mouthed off to the per annum) came the ACTU I S struck and put up a 24-hour picket bosses I courts moved instantly to press about the court orders abandonment of general wage line. The picket didn I t stop staff set the rules of the struggle. At rises linked (however tenuously) to scabs and apprentices crossing. the behest of the Arbi tration Continued on page ten

22 February to 22 March Quota (in points): 1150 Melbourne­ 450 Sydney - 700

r--a .- : SPARTACIST ~ ~ NAME ______

AOORE~ ______

STATE ____ POSTCOOE PHONE ______

o Australasian Spartaclst - 6 Issues (1 Year) for $3 (Includes Spartaclst) overseas rates: o surface mall -$3 for 6 Issues o airmail - $7 for 6 Issues Mail/make cheques payable: ••. 0 Women & Revolution - 4 Issues for $5 Spartacist ANZ Publishing Co. o Workers Vanguard - 24 Issues for $10 GPO Box 3473, • 0 Workers Hammer - 10 Issues for $6 Sydney, NSW, 2001 L ____.:::::..... ______'-______..I, ~

FEBRUARY/MARCH 1989 3 Re·,o~n the Yugoslav Consulate! Hawke/Evans Front lor Ustasha

The shooting of a Croatian I G;' mongering met wi th scepticism in youth during the attack by "0 wide sections of the labour Croatian fascist Ustasha rabble on ~ movement, among which the the Yugoslav consulate in Sydney d Ustasha is known and reviled. Two on 27 November last year was the demonstrations protesting the ex­ excuse for the Hawke government pulsion called by Yugoslav com­ and the capitalist media to launch munity groups, each of about 500 a campaign of hysterical anti­ people, took place at the consul­ communist warmongering. It cul­ ate on 3 December and in minated in the expulsion of the Canberra a week later. They com­ entire consulate a week later prised all the nationalities of Sydney, when the Yugoslavs refused Yugoslavia Serbs, Croats, Hawke and foreign minister Evans' 3 December. Slovenes, Macedonians, etc - and Spartacist ~ arrogant demands to hand over in the main were militant, pro­ the alleged "gunman." No matter placards at i socialist defenders of the Yugo­ tha t the terri torial integri ty of Yugoslav slav Revolution taking part in the the consulate was violated when protest first ever such demonstrations to 30 Ustasha youth invaded the against brave Ustashi intimidation in Aus­ grounds, assaulted Consul-General consulate tralia. The only Australian left­ Stanojlo Glisic and tried to rip expulsion. wing organisation to join in was down the Yugoslav flag. No the Spartacist League. In Sydney, matter that the youth could well an SL contingent was applauded as have been hit by a projectile fired we marched in flying the red flag by the Ustasha mob - an ABC TV of the Fourth International and News report showing holes in the carrying placards including: "Stop consulate's first-floor windows matic Relation~. Diplomatic the cause of the Ustashis" (Can­ Closure of Yugoslav Consulate! was quickly buried. No matter immunity and territorial sov­ berra Times, 6 December). -­ Down with Hawke/Evans Anti­ that the Yugoslav diplomats, ereignty of embassies - a ---prom the outset Hawke's Cold Communist Hysteria!" and "Anti­ whom foreign minister Budimir necessity for international re­ War Labor government has suI>­ Soviet War Drive Means Social Loncar said "defended with lations in a world of nation ported and participated as loyal Reaction at Home! Defend the honour, courage and dignity the states - are seldom violated junior partner in every US anti­ Soviet Union and Vietnam!" Many country's sovereignty," had even by nations at war. Why Soviet provocation from KAL 007 demonstrators eagerly snapped up plenty to fear from the Ustasha were only five police assigned to the bombing of Libya. No doubt our communist press and, in Can­ who have a long history of terror­ to defend the consulate? Why hoping the war hysteria would berra, our special supplement. ism and murder in both Austra­ are there no charges or inves­ boost Labor's plunging popularity, But this warm welcome was in lia and Yugoslavia. No, for tigations into the Ustasha as­ Hawke/Evans seized on the Yugo­ striking contrast to the determi­ Hawke/Evans, the reactionary sault? This whole affair slav consulate incident to engage nation of the protest organisers to Murdoch and Fairfax press and the smacks of a deadly anti­ in some anti-communist provo­ make a loyal appeal to the Cold Cold Warriors running the NSW communist provocation, car­ cation of their own, working with War Labor government. In Sydney, Labor Council who imposed bans ried out by the Ustasha and US imperialism to exploit the cur­ they forced us to remove anti­ on the consulate, all that mat­ wi th Hawke reaping the rent nationalist turmoil in Yugo­ Ustasha, anti-Hawke and Sovir-t­ tered was the "freedomll of these counterrevolutionary fruits." slavia for counterrevolution. Was defencist placards, over the Hi tler Youth to terrorise the Historically the Ustasha groups the arrest of the Yugoslav vice­ protests of many present, and in Yugoslav consulate with impunity. have supported the Liberal Party. consul in Chicago on "money­ Canberra tried to stop us distrib­ Some of them were pictured in Thus organiser of the "protest," laundering" charges the same uting literature outside Parlia­ the Sydney Mornin Herald (30 Fabian Lovokovic, editor of week just pure coincidence, or ment House. The organisers even November 1988 beneath a port­ Spremnost (Readiness) and part of a concerted operation to stopped Yugoslavs from chanting rait of their beloved Ante Pavelic, "Senator" of Pavelic's HOP, is a turn up the heat on Belgrade? anti-Ustasha slogans, claiming the Croatian Hitler. long-time leading Liberal. NSW "we're not here to stop the Us­ YUGOSLAVS, SPARTACISTS A special Australasian Sparta­ police minister Pickering was sev­ tasha" and "we're not here to de­ PROTEST EXPULSION cist supplement (8 December) eral years ago photographed on fend Yugoslavia." Well, that was a titled "Defend Yugoslavia! Stop the platform of a Ustasha 10 April The government and media surprise to most present. The eth­ the Ustasha Fascists!" stated: celebration. But as Malcolm were talking and acting as though nic pressure group politics of. "The Hawke regime is shame­ Booker noted "The Hawke it was July 1914 and the Archduke "mul ticulturalism" subordinates lessly trampling over the Government has in effect taken had just been shot in Sarajevo. But these militant immigrant workers Vienna convention ~n Diplo- over from Menzies in upholding their anti-communist war- Continued on page eleven o::l Crush the NA Fascists! Racist attacks have become On 27 January, Eddie Funde, balaclava-hooded thugs calling commonplace in Hawke's Aust­ African National Congress reI>­ themselves A WB (a fascist South ralia. Years of Cold War anti­ resentative in Sydney, survived an African outfit) "necklaced" an ef­ Sovietism, union busting and assassination attempt when shot­ figy of McMahon outside her cheap jingoism by the ALP gun blasts into his Sydney home Sydney home. NA have made government have created a right­ narrowly missed him, his wife and death threats to Sydney Jewish wing climate in which every type sleeping baby. We need workers community leaders, and des­ of reactionary feels the wind in defence guards against racist ter­ ecrated the Jewish section of their sails. Last year Asians were ror! Enough is enough! Rookwood cemetery. Attacks on targetted in the bosses' racist The National Action fascists homes of families with adopted "immigration debate" over how to have been rampaging with im­ Asian children in Sydney's Manly­ defend White Australia. The punity. These violent white racist Warringah area and increased Laborite bureaucracy fuels racism thugs terrorise not just Asians, physical assaults of Asians in by seeking to redirect working Africans, gays, Jews, leftists, but Sydney's western suburbs have class anger at Hawke/Keating's any who speak out against racism. been reported. A 23 November austeri ty against Asian workers. Leftists have been physically at­ submission to NSW police minister Several protectionist union dem­ tacked in Melbourne and Sydney; Pickering by Dorothy McMahon, onstrations in Geelong have re­ for years offices of left organis­ anti-racist activist Betty sulted in physical attacks on Asian ations including the SL have been Hounslow, journalist Adele Horin tourists and Japanese seamen. In NA targets. For the past two and representatives of Community Melbourne on 4 February, a Viet­ years Reverend Dorothy McMahon' Aid Abroad, the Jewish Board of namese youJh was beaten to death and her Pitt Street Uniting Deputies and the NSW Ethnic by white racist youths on the Church in Sydney have been con­ Communities Council decried the NA fwrer Saleam, 1W.5. steps of Flinders Street Station. stantly harassed. Last November. Continued on page eleven 4 AUSTRALASIAN SPARTACIST As Army. of COIll,. Troogs Shields 7 Klansmen Atlanta: 3,500 Turn Out Against KKK

Labour/Black Mobilisation Says: "Sweep The Fascists Off The Streets!" ngua Atlanta, USA - On the first day powers that be served notice that ganisation associated with the riders. One black nationalist was of the Bush administration, the Ku this would not be allowed to hap­ Spartacist League/US, initiated a loudly booed when he started Klux Klan and skinhead thugs pen again. The relationship of uni ted-front call: "Act Now! Stop white-baiting and gay-baiting planned a racist "celebration" of forces on the side of the state on the KKK!" Pursuing the same other protesters; an SL speaker the murder of \hrtin Luther King January 21 was so overwhelming strategy which spiked a Klan/ was cheered for sharply criticising with a January 21 march through that when the seven Klansmen skinhead threat in Philadelphia those remarks. A number of the Southern city of Atlanta, marched past the 3000 anti-Klan ;\Iovember 5, on the eve of Bush's speakers, induding a member of Georgia. Their provocation was demonstrators in Central City election, the POC call warned the Georgia Rainbow Coalition, intended to fuel racist terror Park, only the fascists' disgusting "Fatalism in the Face of a Deadly expressed illusions in Martin across America. The Georgia "No King Over Us" banner was Threat Can Be Fatal": Luther King-style pacifism and state house and the black visible amid the 2000 cops and "The country has lurched to black Democrats like Jesse Democratic· city administration troops arrayed in riot gear and the right, but we can stop Jackson. mobilised a virtual army to ensure battle fatigues. Elsewhere along these genocide-lovers in the For most participants, the that organised protest would not the line of march, skirmishes city of Atlanta. Arch­ event was their first exposure to prevent the race-haters from in­ broke out as protesters tried to capi talist Bush has a hard row the socialist program of the vading the black city. But thou­ get at the Klansmen. The cops to hoe - maybe if we act Spartacist League. Chants at the sands filled Central City Park in escorted the fascists through town strongly here we can start demonstration induded: "1,2,3,4- downtown Atlanta in a labour/ and launched a police rampage reversing this willful, delib­ Time to finish the Civil War! black mobilisation of defiance. against black Atlanta - over 40 erate increase in the misery 5,6,7,8 - Forward to a workers This integrated demonstr:ttion, protesters were arrested, dozens of people, especially poor state!" As Spartacist League bringing out over 3000 unionists, clubbed. blacks but in fact practically speaker Brian Manning said, "This students, gays and socialists, was everybody." system feeds on racial oppression, a sight not seen in the open-shop, FATALISM IN THE FACE OF A Atlanta's heavily black and be­ misery, poverty and war. Let's '

FEBRUARY/MARCH 1989 5 CD N , , z <,0,

Left: Teenage militiawomen with AK-47 assault rifles at massive rally in Kabul recently. Above: Under PDPA regime, women learn to read. for Afghan women. Since the and the elevation of national in­ the country were a homogeneous Afghanistan ... Saur revolution (April 1978), dependence as the highest politi­ nation, communists would support Continued from page two and to some degree even prior cal principle. Since 1917 when the the Soviet Union's armed inter­ to it, women have made in­ Russian Revolution toppled capi­ vention. All talk of Afghan Afghanistan to effect a social cremental but important gains talism in one-sixth of the globe, "national sovereignty" is but a revolution, but simply to make in education, employment and the imperialists' central aim has cover to defend. the class and secure an unstable, strategi­ political participation. Indeed, been to reverse the gains of caste privileges of the khans, cally placed client state•••• It it was precisely the reform October and restore capitalist ex­ mullahs, landlords and money­ is possible the Kremlin could programs launched by the ploi tation in this bastion of lenders. For Marxists, the further­ do a deal with the imperialists PDP A government that workers power. That is why the ing of social revolution, includi:1g to withdraw, for example, in provoked reaction•••• entire apparatus of political in­ the defence of the USSR against return for NATO's reversing "By all accounts and indi­ doctrination in the US, West capitalist imperialism, stands its decision to deploy hundreds cations a Mujahedeen-ruled Europe and Australia is geared to higher than the bourgeois­ of new nuclear missiles in Afghanistan would be more producing hatred and fear of the democratic right of national self­ West Europe. That would be intolerant and repressive than Soviet Union, a bureaucratically determination. a real counterrevolutionary the Islamic Republic of Iran degenerated workers state. RUSSIA'S VIETNAM? crime against the Afghan and would work fervently to The standard line of West­ peoples." undo the measures taken ern imperialism and its left Ever since the 1979 Soviet in­ - "Afghanistan and the Left: towards women's equality." camp followers is that "Russia tervention, the Western media has The Russian Question Point - Against the Current, violated Afghan national self­ labelled Afghanistan "Russia's Blank," Spartacist No 29, November/December 1988 determination." This charge Vietnam," an insidious lie now Summer 1980 taken up for its own reasons by Bush and Reagan the Gorbachev regime. In Vietnam IMPERIALIST HUE AND CRY meet with OVER AFGHAN "SELF­ the US fought a genocidal war to Gorbachev last DETERMINA nON" stop a social revolution, and was December. defeated on the battlefield. The For almost a decade the de­ Kremlin leader Soviet army-fought to stop mand for Soviet troops out of Af­ pulls Soviet troops counterrevolution which would ghanistan has united the far right, out of Afghanistan turn the clock back by centuries, liberals, social democrats and to appease but never fought to win. From the most self-styled radicals. Support imperialism. outset the Kremlin tops kept open for the Afghan "freedom fighters" the option of withdrawal as a bar­ has united liberal Democrats with gaInIng chip in dealing with Reaganites and most of the Western im perialism. The US sent American and West European left 500,000 troops halfway round the - social democrats, Eurocommu­ world to Vietnam. The Soviet nists, ex-New Left Maoists, "Third leaders sent just 100,000 across Campists" - with their imperial­ the border into Afghanistan. ist rulers. Afghanistan and Polish Nonetheless, by 1984 t 11e Solidarnosc, the only "union" Soviet and PDPA forces had prac­ Ronald Reagan loved, have been tically won the war. The CIA's two central issues defining which "holy warriors" were shattered side you're on in Cold War II. and demoralised. And the govern­ Thus the hard pro-Moscow fac­ ment's modest social reforms, tions in the Eurocommunist a1 though scaled back fro:n even parties were variously dubbed the moderate program first of­ afganos (Spain), kabulisti (Italy) fered by the PDPA, were winning and "tankies" (Britain). In Aust­ support in the countryside. One ralia much of the reformist "far rebel leader stated: "The war has left" joined wi th the ALP in at­ been deadlocked up until now, but tacking Malcolm Fraser's Liberals Moghadam _asks how it is possible doesn't even hold up on its own we are beginning to lose the popu­ from the right over Afghanistan for leftists, including self-styled terms. Afghanistan is not a nation lation•••• If this continues, we may with the slogan "Malcolm's wool radical feminists, to support such but a feudal-derived state com­ eventually lose the war" (Chicago keeps the Russians warm." Almost a reactionary and barbaric move­ posed of a mosaic of nationalities, Tribune, 16 November 1984). in its entirety the anti-American ment. Her answer: "It can only be ethnic and tribal groupings. Most Seeking to turn the tide, in nationalist lefts leapt squarely a misguided Third Worldism and of the rural population has never early 1986 the US began supplying into the camp of US imperialism fascination with any and all guer­ lived under the effective control the mujahedin with state-of-the­ over Poland. rilla warfare that prevents leftists of any central state power, but art Stinger missiles. Soon these An Iranian woman leftist, Val from discerning reactionary identifies exclusively with par­ shoulder-fired rockets were bring­ Moghadam, drawing on the bitter movements." This explanation is ticular ethnic, tribal or linguistic ing down scores of Soviet and experience of Khomeini's "Islamic wide of the mark. Practically no groupings. In Afghanistan the Afghan aircraft, including civilian Revolution," expresses conster­ Western leftists support the guer­ term "Afghan" refers only to the airplanes. Soviet military aircraft nation that: rillas of the Nicaraguan contras or Pushtuns, not to the Hazaras, were so crucial to the Afghan war "Left-wing support for the Jonas Savimbi's UNIT A in Angola. Tadzhiks and other peoples. only because the Kremlin was Mujahedeen has been es­ Moreover, some leftists (eg Tariq Should the mujahedin topple willing to commit but a small pecially strong in Europe, Ali) who joined the imperialist the Kabul nationalist government, fraction of its five-million-strong where activists from London chorus for Soviet troops out the two-sided ci vil war could well armed forces. Even so, the to Stockholm have defended initially supported the PDPA become a war of all against all. Russians could have easily the putative national liber­ against the mujahedin revolt Already, Shi'ite groups are refus­ deployed available technology to ation struggle. One of the sur­ before the Soviet intervention. ing to accept Sunni domination, defeat the "Stinger war," but they prising features of this support Western leftist support for and the rival mujahedin groups are did not. And no serious effort was has been the total neglect of Washington's Afghan cutthroats threatening to kill one another. made to interdict the flow of US­ the meaning of national liber­ (and also for Polish Solidarnosc) We can only hope they do so supplied weapons from Pakistan. ation under an Islamic rubric expresses anti-Soviet prej udices quickly and massively. Yet even if When Gorbachev carne to 6 AUSTRALASIAN SPARTACIST power in 1985, he faced economic stagnation aggravated by the in­ tensified military pressure from Reagan's America. His domestic POC: For Internationalist Military Support program of market-oriented re­ forms (perestroika) was linked to a foreign policy of global ap­ to Afghan Government! peasement. Gorbachev's most We reprint below a letter freedom from the veil, freedom ation fighters, and decent dramatic foreign policy initiative from the Partisan Def ense from the tyranny of the mul­ people who wish to prevent the was to cut and run from Committee to the government lahs and the landlords, the in­ destruction of any vestige of Afghanistan. of Afghanistan, offering con­ troduction of medical care and human progress achieved To help set this up, the Krem­ crete support in the struggle the right of all to an education through struggle. We further lin strong-armed the PDPA against the murderous reac­ - we are compelled to offer pledge to provide transport to regime into calling for "national tionary mujahedin. The letter our aid before all this is an appropriate transit point. In­ reconciliation," ie, a coalition proposes organization of an in­ drowned in blood. The Partisan ternational fighters would be government with sections of the ternational brigade to assist in Defense Committee hereby expected to acquire equipment mujahedin. In 1986 Afghan leader defending the Afghan peoples makes the urgent offer to when in place. Karmal was dumped, apparently against the CIA's feudalistic organize an international brig­ From the Afghan govern­ because he resisted the new turn. terrorists. When we spoke with ade to fight to the death in ment we would need air fare He was replaced by Najibullah, representatives of the Afghan defense of these rights in from a transi t point to Kabul who at the beginning of 1987 de­ government about the letter, Afghanistan. Volunteers would and, in the field, food and mili­ clared a unilateral cease-fire they thanked us for this initiat­ of course operate under your tary direction. while further scaling back prog­ ive while indicating that they control and direction. Capi talist governments ressi ve social reforms so as not to believe such a measure is not The Partisan Defense which hypocri ticall y con­ affront Islamic tradition. Calling necessary to defend the Commi ttee is a class-struggle demned the presence of the for a coalition of the PDPA and country at this time. defense organization supported Red Army in Afghanistan are .Tlujahedin is somewhat like by militant Marxists world­ fleeing Kabul, aghast at the calling in the 1930s for a coalition 7 February 1989 wide, many associated wi th prospect of a full-scale civil of Nazis and Jewish leftists. The the international . Spartacist war reaching that city. They mujahedin want not only to kill To: Ambassador of the tendency. abandon their embassies now in every leftist in Afghanistan but to Republic of Afghanistan In making this offer, we the hopes of returning after the exterminate the entire educated pledge to handle all aspects of victory of the feudalist muja­ Dear Mr Ambassador: urban population~om they agitation, propaganda and re­ hedin. This must not happen! regard as infidels. With the withdrawal of the cruitment necessary to amass We hope most fervently The Gorbachev regime appears Soviet Army now completed, forces and publicize the effort. that you will accept this offer willing to accept such a bloodbath we join with you in fearing that These forces would be re­ of assistance proffered with a if it is necessary to appease the elementary social progress is in cruited internationally from keen sense of internationalist Western powers. A historic paral­ grave danger in Afghanistan. among disaffected progressive duty. Please respond as soon lel is Stalin's pulling the Red The right of women to read, youth, leftist militants, liber- as possible. Army out of northern Iran in 1946, abandoning the Democratic Re­ Southeast Asia into a moonscape. bombers could land after attack­ nationalism in Islamic coloration public of Azerbaijan under the One veteran activist told the West ing Soviet targets in Siberia or could make headway in the Cold War pressure of US im peri al­ German magazine Der Spiegel (7 Central Asia" (Henry Bradsher, Central Asian republics. ism. There followed a massacre of March 1988): "Our sacrifices were Afghanistan and the Soviet The Soviet Union is confront­ pro-Soviet Iranian leftists at the not for nothing. We have after all Union [1983]). ing a deepening political and hands of the shah. brought there the achievements of -us imperialism wants to turn economic crisis. The bureaucratic To prepare the Soviet people the civilised world." Honour Afghanistan into not only a mili­ centralism of the Brezhnev era for the abandonment of Afghani­ Soviet veterans of the war in tary forward point but also a con~ led to stagnation. Gorbachev's stan, Kremlin officials and the Afghanistan! duit for anti-Communist agitation perestroika will generate unem­ Soviet media are parroting the DEFEAT IMPERIALISM among the Turkic peoples of ployment, increasing inequalities imperialist lie that the Afghan in­ Soviet Central Asia. A few years and intensifying national ani­ tervention was wrong, that the THROUGH COMMUNIST INTERNATIONALISM! ago the most rabid of the mosities. Internationally, his lives of the 15,000 Soviet soldiers mujahedin leaders, Gulbaddin policy of appeasement will only killed there were simply wasted, During the 19th century Af­ Hekmatyar, declared: "If the embolden the imperialist drive to that Afghanistan is Russia's Viet­ ghanistan was a chessboard on Mujahideen continue to fight per­ roll back Soviet power and influ­ nam. In a flippant "we wash our which the "Great Game" between sistently, the day is not far when ence. G; the occupied areas of Soviet Cen­ Afghanistan's modernizing in­ ~ tral Asia will also be liberated." It tellectuals have viewed Soviet 6 is ludicrous to think that the Cen­ Central Asia, despite the enor­ d tral Asian population freed from mous deformations of Stalinism, religious obscurantism and grind­ as representing social progress. ing oppression, and enjoying Under the leadership of Lenin and modern medical care, universal Trotsky, Bolshevik Russia was education and an incomparably viewed as beacon of the socialist higher standard of living - would future by workers and radical want to link up wi th a reactionary intellectuals around the world, Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. including in the imperialist Nonetheless, Gorbachev's ~ centres of North America and stroika has fueled reactionary Europe. The Soviet Union can and nationalist currents in the Cau­ must be restored to its rightful casus and Baltic republics. And place as a bastion of international Central Asia is certainly not im­ communism through proletarian mune. Moscow's increasing re­ political revolution against the ,-"dmiiMlf liance on market forces will tend treacherous Kremlin bureaucracy. Melbourne, 1980. Spartacist demo says "Afghanistan: Hail Red Army! to favour the more developed Defend Women Against Islamic Reaction!" regions of European Russia, the - Adapted from hands of the whole business" tone, tsarist Russia and Great Britain Ukraine and Baltic repUblics. Workers Vanguard no 47L the Communist Youth paper Kom­ was played out. But in 1917 the Under these conditions pan-Turkic 17 February 198~ somolskaya Pravda reported' what Bolshevik Revolution changed the will happen when the Soviet com­ rules of this "game." Imperialist mander, L t Gen Boris Gromov, machinations in the region now leaves Afghanistan: had as their ul tim ate goal the des­ "He will cross without looking truction of the Soviet workers back. Then he will stop and state and the opening up of its make a speech, but only to vast terri tory for capitalist himself. It will last one minute plunder. and seven seconds. It will not After World War II Pakistan be wri tten down or listened became the US' main client in the I Battle for Afghal1istan to." region, but Washington never lost J Soviet veterans of the Afghan sight of Afghanistan's potential war are being treated like pariahs military value in a counterrevol­ SYDNEY MELBOURNE MELBOURNE instead of heroes. In their fight utionary assault on the USSR. In for official recognition, these the early 1960s the US offered to Sydney University Melbourne Uni YWCA, Room 10 veterans (the afghantsy) deeply build an airport at Kandahar for Brennan Room Blue Room 489 Elizabeth St resent the comparison of their in­ the Afghan king Zahir Shah. The Holme Building Union Building Sat 11 March ternationalist combat duty to Pentagon secretly planned to use Wed 8 March Ipm Thur 9 March Ipm 6.30pm Washington's drive to transform it as a "'recovery base' where FEBRUARY/MARCH 1989 7 ~~~.'htt! IKAN: Pf

.~.,~. Spartacist-initiated protests demand: "Stop the Executions in Iran!" Left to Right: Hamburg; Melbourne; Paris; New York; Sydney.

supporters of the CPI/Komala, However, a Tudeh representative Fedayeen Majority, Fedayeen did speak, as did Janet Yip, a Stop the Executions in Iran I Minority, Committee for the De­ member of the Canadian Union of fence of the Iranian People's Postal Workers. Afterwards, the Continued from page twelve, Kargar, the Fedayeen Majority, Rights, and Committee Against demonstrators marched to a supporters of the Iranian journal Political Executions in Iran. nearby Tudeh hunger-stike protest action protesting the bloodbath Recommencement, and the The police prevented a number where a TLC spokesman addressed unleashed by the ayatollah's '\tl uslim group, Ershad. Three sup­ of Iranian militants from joining the protesters. regime. porters of Tudeh also joined the the protest by threatening to demonstr a tion. arrest them if they refused to MELBOURNE AND SYDNEY HAMBURG, WEST GERMANY remove headwear covering their The next day, January 12, faces and thus expose themselves Around 60 protesters rallied at Some 100 people, including some 45 people demonstrated in to the agents of Khomeini's Melbourne's Town Hall Plazc' on scores of Iranian exiles, turned Lyon, including a number of murderous regime. A Spartacist 17 January. Joining the Spartacist out in Hamburg January 11 out­ Iranian women and members of representati ve denounced this League of Australia and New side the General Consulate of the the Kurdish and Azeri national provocation as "an outrageous Zealand, which initiated the dem­ Islamic Republic of Iran. Joining minorities. The Iranian women en­ example of collaboration between onstration, were representatives wi th the Trotzkistische Liga thusiastically joined in L TF chants the British state and the Iranian of the Revolutionary Workers Or­ Deutschlands (TLD) were the of "Down with the veil! Down ganisation of Iran (Rahe Kargar) Communist Party of Iran (CPI)/ state." with Islamic reaction! " The spokesman from the and the Freedom Socialist Party­ Komala, Rahe Kargar, the Feda­ both of whom addressed the dem­ yeen Central Committee of Min­ WASHINGTON DC, USA IPPAC quoted a letter he had re­ ceived from Iran: "Everyone you onstration - the Iranian Refugee ority Cells, and sympathisers of On January 13, some 20 pro­ know, anyone whose name you Association, the Union of Aust­ the former Peykar organisation. testers demonstrated outside the know, has been executed." The ralian Turkish Workers, the Com­ Demands at the rally included: Ir anian Interests Section located SL/B speaker drew attention to munity Centre for People of "Stop Interior Minister Zimmer­ in the Algerian embassy on the the bloodbath which looms follow- Turkey in Victoria, Devrimci Yol mann's Deportation Program!" and the Chilean Socialist Party. A "Poli tical Asylum for Refugees statement of solidarity was read from Reactionary Terror" and from ALP \!!HR Lewis Kent con­ "Deportation Is Murder!" A CPI/ demning the executions and nail­ Komala speaker linked the wave ing the threatened deportations of of executions to the Islamic Iranian refugees by the Hawke regime's pursuit of better re­ government as "execution by lations with the Western imperial­ proxy of the deportees." ist powers and specifically to West German foreign minister ,.~~ In Sydney two days later on 19 Genscher's visit to Iran in late January 80 people gathered at November: "Herr Genscher travels Town Hall Square to protest. means women Nearly half the demonstration to Teheran to boost the hangmen." in veils, The TLD speaker stressed the comprised Iranian, Turkish and bloody Kurdish militants. The plight of urgent need for united-front de­ repression of fence to stop the executioner's Iranian refugees being held in working class Sydney's Villawood detention axe, pointing out that today and national Khomeini "is attacking everybody, centres as illegal immigrants and including those who ten years ago facing deportation to Iran was a had open illusions in the mullahs real concern of the demonstrators and also served Khomeini. It is who chanted "Stop Hawke's De­ easy today to be against Islamic portations to Death!" reaction. But in 1978 and '79, it outskirts of Washington. in ad­ ing the Red Army's withdrawal The demonstration was en­ wasn't so easy. Then the di tion to denouncing the ex­ from Afghanistan: "Irar shows dorsed by the Committee in Soli­ international Spartacist tendency ecutions in Iran, they chanted "US clearly what is planned by the darity with Political Prisoners in stood alone. We told the truth: hands off Libya! Down with US iihad [Islamic holy war] in Afghan­ Iran (CISPP!) and the Sydney' 'Down with the Shah! Down with war moves!" A speaker for the istan against leftists and against Turkish Workers Associ3.tion. Rep­ the Mullahs! For Workers Spartacist League/US declared: women." The protest concluded resentatives from these organis­ Revolution in Iran! ", The demon­ "As American revolutionaries, it's with the singing of the Inter­ ations addressed the protesters, stration ended with the singing of incumbent upon us to fight our nationale and a final defiant along with the Spartacist League the Internationale in German, own bourgeoisie. And we say: US chant: "Down with Khomeini! and the Communist Tendency. Farsi and Serbo-Croatian. out of the Persian Gulf! Remem­ Workers to power!" Also in attendance were represen­ ber Iran Air Flight 655 - the 290 tatives of the Turkish Labour PARIS AND LYON, FRANCE TORONTO,CANADA people who were killed, victims of League and two cadre of the Also on January 11, 140 dem­ US war moves." A protest called by the Trots­ Socialist Party of Australia, which onstrators gathered outside the kyist League of Canada (TLC) in had belatedly and reluctantly de­ LONOON,ENGLAND offices of Iran Air on the Champs Toronto the same day attracted cided it should participate. The Elysees in Paris. The Ligue Trots­ On January 14, over 60 demon­ 60 people to Speakers Corner at Committee in Solidarity with Pol­ kyste de France (LTF), initiators strators joined with the Spartacist City Hall. Co-sponsors included itical Prisoners in Iran, which in­ of the protest, had distributed League of Britain (SL/B) in pick­ supporters of Tudeh and the Feda­ cludes members of major Iranian 10,000 leaflets at various uni ver­ eting outside the Iranian embassy yeen (Majority) in Canada and the left groups, spoke of a long list of sities in three days, and numerous in London. Speakers included an Toronto South Asia Women's leftists, held in memory name by Iranian groups responded to the Iranian activist and a London­ Group. Also participating were name, who have already fallen call. Speakers at the protest in­ Islington branch official of the suppporters of Fedayeen Majority, under the firing squad of the cluded a representative of the National Union of Public Em­ CPI/Komala and the Democratic Islamic terror regime. Committee Against Political ployees, as well as spokesmen for Organisation of Iranian Women. Unfortunately the bitter sec­ Executions in Iran, and sympath­ the British "Leninist" organis­ The Tudeh supporters pulled out tarianism of the Iranian left came isers of the CPI/Komala and the ation, Iranian Political Prisoners early on, objecting to groups into sharp public focus over these Fedayeen Minority. Also partici­ Action Committee (IPPAC) and carrying any slogans other than demonstrations. In Melbourne a pating in the protest were Rahe the SL/B. Also participating were the call to stop the executions. leaflet was distributed entitled 8 AUSTRALASIAN SPARTACIST "Whom will the Spartacists Unite refusal to defend Tudeh against ecutions in Iran! Freedom for part of the struggle for world wi th Next?" jointly signed by Khomeini's terror, end up tailing leftist prisoners!" The protest socialist revolution. As the TLD Australian Supporters, OIPFG along after the unsavoury and in­ was joined by supporters of sev­ speaker in Hamburg concluded: (Organisation of Iranian People's significant Paul White, who stands eral Iranian leftist groups includ­ "Iran is very similar to the Fedayeen Guerillas) and Workers with Khomeini I s reactionary ing the Communist Party of Iran Russian empire under the tsar - a Revolution (Australia), a tiny brethren in Afghanistan against (Komala), the Left Platform huge prison house of peoples. anti-Soviet outfit which is the the Red Army. group, Tudeh Party of Iran, Equality for women, liberation for current political garb of Paul MILAN, IT AL Y Democratic Organisation of the Kurds, Baluchis, for the other White. The leaflet condemned our Iranian Women, and the Associ­ peoples, an end to the oppression demonstration because of the par­ On January 20 a spiri ted dem­ ation of Iranian Left in New York. of the religious minorities like the ticipation of Tudeh and Fedayeen onstration of 15 people called by A statement was read from the Bahais - the bourgeoisie can bring Majority, going on to describe the the Lega Trotskista d' It ali a pro­ . Iranian Student Association in the none of this. But in Russia there SL as having "similar reactionary tested the Iran executions outside US, supporters of the Fedayeen was one thing that does not exist politics." This idiotic charge is the Iranian Consulate in Milan. (Minority). Supporters of the Rev­ in Iran and which did not exist ten meant to be sustained by one even Speakers condemned the com­ olutionary Communist Party years ago, when the question of more idiotic, namely that the SL plicity of the Italian government joined the picket line and a revolution was posed. This was a engages in "thuggery" because we which had just hosted Iranian speaker from the Freedom Social­ revolutionary party of the working defended our own meeting in Oct­ prime minister Musavi, the ist Party addressed the protesters. class. ober 1987 against a provocation highest-ranking Iranian official to Condemning the Reagan/Bush "Comrades, proletarian revol­ by none other than Paul White visit a Western country since the regime's murderous intervention ution is what is necessary to open (see Australasian sr.artacist no mullahs' 1979 seizure of power. in the Middle East, the demon­ the doors of the prisons, for free­ 123, Summer 1987/88. While the Italian left boycotted strators chanted "US out of the dom for the Kurdish people, for The authors admit that "Their the demonstration, 30 Iranian men Persian Gulf! Hands off Libya!" the other peoples, for the peoples international Spartacist tendency showed up with pictures of Khom­ And as the withdrawal of Soviet living in Afghanistan. This gener­ has never backed the Tehran eini (likely provocateurs from the troops threatens to open the door ation of Iranian leftists must be regime. And, unlike Tudeh, the consulate) to disrupt the protest. to the imminent extension of the saved. What is necessary is a Spartacists during 1979-81 did op­ However, they were easily Islamic bloodbath to Afghan left­ powerful outcry from the whole pose the imposition of Islamic drowned out by chants of "Down ists and women, Spartacist sup­ left, from the workers organis­ dress on women and all the other wi th the veil! Down with Islamic porters called out: "Smash CIA's ations, above all from the trade attacks upon workers and toilers." reaction!" and "Iran, Iraq: Down Afghan mullahs! Soviet pullout unions, and from all organisations Unlike in fact all the left, includ­ with the mullahs! Down with the means bloodbath!" who defend democratic rights. We ing Paul Whi ~ and those now colonels! Workers to power!" These protests were a state­ must stand together to demand an grouped in the OIPFG. It is ironic ment of proletarian international­ NEW YORK, USA end to the executions in Iran. Stop testimony to the bankruptcy of ism. In response to the hideous the executions in Iran!" sectarianism that OIPFG' s Aust­ In New York City on January massacre in Iran, the international - Adapted from Workers ralian supporters, who describe 19 some 85 demonstrators rallied Spartacist tendency has simply Van~d no 469, 20 January 1989 the OIPFG as being "Iran's largest outside the Iranian mission to the carried out the duty of commu­ and Workers Van~ no 470, left wing organisation," by their United Nations chanting "Stop ex-. nists to champion the oppressed as 3 February 1989

Iran in the midst of this reign of The true dimensions of the crimes Pinochet coup in Chile. In Iran Khomeini's Jails ••• terror. Die Wahrheit (30 Decem­ that are being committed behind today we are witnessing a calcu­ Continued from page twelve ber 1988),the organ of the Social­ the prison walls of the Islamic lated program of extermination to ist Unity Party of West Berlin, Republic are still unknown•••• head off a social explosion in the interviewing Iranian exile Bizhan reports that, according to infor­ These reports indicate that as wake of a protracted, reactionary Ekrami, who told of "an actual mation from the Mujahedin, "a many as 10,000 political prisoners war. According to the London genocide" that was killing "the large number of relatives of have been executed within this Independent, Rahe Kargar has best sons of Iran." Ekrami had a executed oppositionists held a sit­ past month alone." In mid­ information that "the executions typed list of 147 names of acti­ down strike in front of the Minis­ December, representatives of the were part of a concerted policy to vists, members of the intelligent­ try of Justice in Teheran on Spartacist League and the Parti­ annihilate the left so that it would sia and cultural figures, only a Tuesday to protest mass. ex­ san Defense Committee joined not be able in future to exploit small fraction of those killed. ecutions in Iran." protests at the United Nations and the popular dissent •••• It said there "Iran is in mourning," he said. And in New York, the "Com­ in Washington against the Iranian was a two-stage plan to review There have also been protests in mittee in Solidarity with the slaughter. It is urgent that world­ the cases of all political prisoners People of Iran" (CISPI) published wide protest be mounted now! by the tenth anniversary of the gruesome pictures of bodies revolution next February. In the On January 27, the London WAR AND REVOLUTION Independent reported, in an thrown into the "Graveyard of the first phase, 1,000 prisoners who article by Middle East edi tor Har­ Damned" in Teheran. "There are In sheer number of victims, had yet to be sentenced were vey Morris, that Khomeini has "in also reports that all political pris-· the bloodbath in Iran ranks on a summarily tried and sentenced to effect called a halt" to the ex­ oners in the city of Hamadan have par with the mass murder follow­ death. In the second phase politi­ ecutions. However, Iranian oppo­ been executed by firing squads•••• ing the counterrevolutionary 1973 cal prisoners sentenced to jail sition groups had predicted that terms were retried and executed the regime would first wipe out : if they failed to recant." its opponents and then declare an ~ From the beginning of the amnesty on the anniversary of the werful pigs might fly if they had wings. porter crossed a BLF picket line the bosses and put it at the ser­ and strategic, in defiance of the Halfpenny was one of the fore­ in Footscray. vice of the toiling masses of the injunctions, to build a mass picket most architects of the Accord. He The ALP government is bent region, and the world••

carnage of World War I. From the tionary nationalist war into civil sides against each other. In the Khomeini's Jails ... very outset of the war, the inter­ war against the Ba' athist colonels interest of anti-Soviet war- Continued from page nine national Spartacist tendency took and the Persian Shi' ite ruling mongering, Reagan alternately the Leninist posi tion of revol­ caste. At best, as the war dragged armed the Iranians with US mis- women who refused to wear the utionary defeatism on both sides, on some took a "pro-peace" neu- siles, then (after that blew up in veil, homosexuals, leftists, were demanding, "Down with the tralist posture. Now as the guns the Iran/Contragate scandal) stoned to death, hanged or shot by colonels! Down with the ayatol­ fall silent on the Basra-Abadan engaged in repeated bloody con- firing squads. A report on the lahs! Turn the guns the other front, in Teheran they are frontations, including the wanton condi tion of poli tical prisoners in way!" belching fire against "infidels," massacre of 290 passengers Iran by CISPI stated: "As the "But war is also the mother of creating a "peace" of the grave- aboard an Iranian Airbus last July. execution of virgin women is not revolution. And the Iraqi­ yards. In postwar Iran, with the Certainly, the presence of a trig- allowed by Islam, young girls are Iranian conflict lays bare their ger-happy US war fleet in the systematically raped in prison real ' border problem' : the ~ Persian Gulf constituted a threat before their execution••.• " oppressed nationalities that are ~ to interdict Iran's export of oil, It is doubly tragic that many divided by the artificial border 0- without which the war could not of those who are today being separating Iran and Iraq, ~ have been fought. Iran's rulers executed had joined the mullah­ especially the Kurds and the :J have made repeated initiatives to led upsurge against the bloody ethnic Arabs who compose a norrnaliz'7 relations with Washing­ shah in 1978-79. The Tudeh, the majority of Khuzistan.... This ton, the former "great Satan." historic leadership of Iran's war and the posi tion of revol­ Now these fanatical anti­ working class, delivered its base utionary defeatism will be an Communists believe they can into Khomeini' s service. It be­ acid test for a revolutionary murder every leftist in the trayed promIsmg proletarian regroupment." country and gain favor with the actions, including strikes by the - "Iran/Iraq Blood Feud," White House. And they're right. predominantly Arab (non-Farsi­ Workers Vanguard no 265, The New York Times (2 January) speaking) oil workers of the south, 3 October 1980 reported: "American officials and leading them into the arms of We recognized that a defeat Western diplomats said the ex­ Islamic reaction. At the time the for either side would open rev­ ecutions would not hinder a move international Spartacist tendency olutionary possibilities for the toward better relations." stood alone in proclaiming, "Down proletariat. War-weariness was With the Iranian working with the Shah, Down with the growing, and at one point, the masses bled and exhausted by the Mullahs! For Workers Revolution American Communist Party's war, outbreaks of popular protest in Iran!" A year later the bulk of People's Daily World (27 June are a genuine threat to the blood­ the Iranian left, having hailed 1987) reported that a group of soaked rulers. But in the absence Khomeini as an "anti-imperialist" factory workers in Iran was circu­ of an authentic Leninist party, liberator, supported their "own" lating an appeal "to expose the this opportunity to organize the ruling class in the Iran-Iraq war. 'war-mongering and anti-worker masses has so far been squan­ Even as the ayatollah's thugs nature' of the Khomeini regime, dered. A horrible price in human threw leftists back into the same and to struggle against the war by life is instead being exacted prisons where they had languished preventing recrui tment, financial against the left in Khomeini' s under the shah, as the regime per­ and material aid to the fronts, and prison hellholes. Only when the secuted women, homosexuals, refusing to work in arms fac­ toiling masses of Iran and Iraq ethnic minorities and workers, tories." Indeed, having vowed a have communist vanguard parties Tudeh and the Fedayeen Majority "holy war" for Allah - and having Iran-Iraq war: eight years of forged in irreconcilable hostility (along with the pseudo-Trotskyist failed to win it - Khomeini has carnage, one million dead. to their "own" reactionary rulers HKE and HKS) rallied to the cry now unleashed a pre-emptive can the massacres and repression of defense of the fatherland. reign of terror against the peoples questions of Khomeini' s successor be ended. It will take workers The squalid slaughter of the of Iran. and the financial reconstruction revolution to open the prison reactionary Iran-Iraq war - in But in keeping with their sub­ of the war-ravaged country posed, doors, to free the victims of which the working masses of ordination to Khomeini at the the executioner's ax is falling on Islamic reaction, liberate op­ neither country had any stake in crucial time when the hated leftists, Kurds and even dissident pressed nationalities and stop the the victory of their "own" rulers shah's rule was decom posing, mullahs. vicious cycle of bloodletting once - dragged on for eight years and none of the major left tendencies The imperialist powers for the and for all. took over one million lives. Itl in Iran adopted a perspective of most part took a low profile in the - Abridged from Workers recalled the horrible imperialist struggling to transform the reac- Iran-Iraq war, playing off both Vanguard, no 468, 6 January 1989

10 AUSTRALASIAN SPARTACIST subordinating themselves to comment," falsely charging "some Stalinist bureaucracy represents Ustasha ... German and Italian imperialism. in the ALP" with arguing "all the greatest threat to the defence (The Germans had to disarm the Croats are fascists." They mean of Yugoslavia's nationalised prop­ Continued from page folB'" infamous U stasha Black Legion, Joan Coxsedge who was a lone erty relations and planned econ­ to the bourgeoisie, via the ALP. In because its atrocities were pro­ voice amongst the ALP lefts in omy." They even had the gall to Canberra speakers pledged their voking so much resistance!) They denouncing the Ustasha attack. denounce the "total inability of loyalty to Australian nationalism, even defended the assassination of This slimy red herring of the Yugoslav officials to mobilise and former ALP senator Mulvihill Rolovic, Yugoslav ambassador to "racism," which Coxsedge herself any Australian workers" - when urged - don't give up on the ALP •. Sweden, in 1971 as "an act of adequately refuted, is a cover for Workers News was nowhere to be But there was nothing to be struggle against national the real racists the SWP defends­ seen at the overwhelmingly work­ gained from banning communists oppression." the U stasha fascists who ing class Yugoslav rallies in and grovelling to Hawke. And the y' re s till at it. Direct butchered Serbs, Jews, Gypsies, Sydney and Canberra. Action waited until its 13 Decem­ Croats in their hundreds of thou­ Noteworthy in comparison was REFORMISTS TAKE A DIVE ber issue before it ventured to sands; and the Hawke govern­ the Communist League, now af­ The class question involved comment. Behind a smokescreen ment, whose expulsion of the filiated to the International was absolutely clear - defence of of criticism of Hawke's "reac- consulate was an attack on the Workers League founded by the the consulate of a workers state ~ predominantly working class im­ late Argentine pseudo-Trotskyist against imperialist anti-­ migrant Yugoslav community.' adventurer, Nahuel Moreno. Its "CD L paper Socialist Press denounced communism. As for the reformist o True to anti-communist form, o the Hawke government's expul­ "left" - just look at how they ran. c: the International Socialists ran The Communist Party has long the same dirty alibi for the fas­ sion of the consulate and the exchanged its enthusiasm for cists: "Consulate shooting - a Labor Council's bans. What the Yugoslav "workers self­ racist backlash" (Socialist, CL cannot say is the obvious - management" for the fascinations December 1988). Whenever some that the class issue involved was of Hawke's anti-union Accord and emigre fascists see fit to run defence of a workers state against Tribune moaned that, whatever amok in the streets, it seems, imperialism. For whenever this had happened, "the situation still there you'll find the IS - slander­ question has been posed con­ did not warrant the firing of guns" ing those who draw the class line cretely, for example, in Poland (30 November). The Guardian of against them as "racist." Their and Afghanistan, the Morenoites the Socialist Party of Australia "third camp" proves once again to have been on the other side. (SPA) denounced the Ustasha fas­ be the camp of the imperialists­ Today, after three decades of cists and criticised the govern­ and their fascist bloodhounds. It is "market socialism," Yugoslavia is ment, but words are cheap. They the intersection of the real racism in crisis, a powder keg of national are still proceeding with plans for of White Australia with Cold War antagonisms threatening to ex­ unity with Jim Percy's Socialist anti-Sovietism that is what made plode in bloody conflict which Workers Party (SWP), which for this country such a haven for the could open the road to capitalist six years has been allied to a likes of the Ustashi who today counterrevolution. But as Admiral U stasha grouping. dominate the so-called "Croatian Petar Simic~ head of the Com­ WWII atrocities: Ustashi holding munist Party's organisation in the head of Serbian Orthodox priest. community" groups. SWP: SmL DOING military, recently warned: "If The Socialist Labour League someone has declared a battle for HOP'S DIRTY WORK incredibly blamed "the persistence tionary hysteria" and "hypocrisy," Yugoslavia, it will not be fought The SWP' s attempts to the wr iter, Peter Annear, pro­ of Croatian demonstrations in without the Yugoslav Liberation Australia :md the fact that the smuggle so-called "left-wing" ceeded to defend the Ustasha Army and millions of working fascist Ustasha have any strength Croatian Ustashi into the labour demonstration,--saying "the people" (Sydney Morning Herald, 1 movement has been a stinking demonstrators outside the Yugo­ within the Croatian community" February). The urgent need is for scandal on the left for years. slav embassy were not just sup­ on "the betrayals carried out by a Trotskyist party to fight for Stalinism" (Workers News, 2 Claiming that the HDP, which porters of the right-wing Croatian proletarian political revolution. glorifies wartime Ustasha mass Ustasha." Lifting his line straight December)! NC>tf-lawke, not And, as our special supplement murderers in its press and calls from the HDP' s Hrvatski Tjednik ASIO, not imperialism, of course. concluded: for dismembering Yugoslavia, was Annear echoes the slander of an Their extreme Stalinophobia put "moving left," the SWP devoted "ongoing campaign of violence by them so frtr out in right field that' "In this nasty country, where an entire issue of its theoretical the Yugoslav secret police against Workers News modified its tune the Labor government takes journal Socialist Worker in 1983 to Croats" and quotes Hrvatski the next week: "Condemn anti­ its side with U stasha fascists, defending reactionary Croatian Tjednik's "defence" that the communist witchhunt" (9 Decem­ it is urgently necessary to nationalism. Pavelic's blood­ attack on the consulate was to ber ). Bu t the line reall y hadn't split the ALP along class stained Ustasha, the SWP ex­ "respond to this terrorism." changed. Formally recognising the lines and build a revolutionary plained, were not really fascists, Scandalously the SWP accuses Yugoslav diplomats' right to de­ internationalist workers party just right-wing nationalists and opponents of Ustasha terror of fend themselves, nevertheless to fight for a workers where they went wrong was in fuelling "a wave of anti-migrant they repeat that "the Yugoslav government.".

John Pat go free in 1983 and '11 orkers defence guards, mobilised US in Philadelphia in November NA Fascists ... whose whitewash Muirhead report from within the unions and leftist and Atlanta in January to stop the covers up for the racists in blue. immigrant groups are necessary. KKK/Nazis/skinheads were dem­ Continued from page folB'" In racist white Australia night­ NA pu~lishes a "hit list" making onstrations of the SL' s Trotskyist riders who take aim at Eddie their targets known. For example, program in action. Mobilising lack of police action against NA Funde roam the streets free, a squad of building workers, mass demonstrations of labour/ attacks and demanded police pro­ while Hawke's cops fra11e up Pan wharfies and seamen stationed immigrants will mean some politi­ tection. The report details !\JA Africanist Congress representa­ outside Dorothy McMahon's cal battles against the white terror against journalists, aca­ tives in Canberra. The fascists are church for a few weeks would racism which is part and parcel of demics, com 111 unity activists and a deadly menace to every racial have stopped the harassment and Laborism. Such a class-struggle trade union leaders who have been minority, to everything associated given an opportunity to acquaint strategy is urgently needed here subject to 0ricks thrown through with civilised society. They must some fascist heads with the foot­ today to crush the fascists in the home windows, graffi ti painted on be stamped out and swept away, path - the only "education" they egg. This human refuse can and walls, car tyres slashed, wind­ but that will be achieved through understand. The international will be swept away by the power screens smashed and regular the mobilisation of the indepen­ Spartacist tendency has a proud of the proletariat on the road to phone harassment. dent power of the proletariat and record in the fight against racist/ the revolutionary overthrow of In early December a dozen its allies - not by the capitalist fascist terror. The mass rnobilis­ the rotting system that spawns bl,:lck-shirted NA terrorists broke state which holds these storm­ ations of labour and blacks in the this racist filth.• up a Liberal Party function ad­ troopers in reserve as a last resort dressed by Helen Sham Ho, i-ALC against a revolutionary working in Sydney. Brazenly throwing class. racist leaflets, they shouted NA is emboldened by the re­ obsceni ties including "death to formist passi vi ty of their targets. Sham Ho!" Faced with a threat to In January, in a rare and unan­ Sydney one of their own, the Greiner nounced public venture, a small government proposed a "Racial gang of fascists invaded the of­ Vietnam was a Victory! Defend the Vietnamese Revolution! Vilification" amendment to the fices of the Anti-Discrimination 4 March Anti-Discrimination legislation to Board in Sydney then held a rally For a Workers Republic of Australia, Part of a Socialist Asia! enable prosecution of those who outside. NA' s fuhrer James 18 March offend by racist insult. But the Saleam (pictured page four in The Party, the Party and Once Again the Party I April language of NA fascists is the Nazi regalia) uses a compliant jackboot and the brick. Anyone bourgeois media as a platform for who thinks the racist capitalist recruiting to an action program. Reading available from the Spartacist League. state can outlaw racism is labour­ The "ideology" of NA means Classes will be held at 2pm, at the Metropolitan Hotel, ing under a dangerous illusion. barbed wire and death camps. 1st floor, Corner Bridge and George Streets,. Sydney. This is the same state which let It's time these scum, a puny For more information phone 281-2181. the cop killers of young Aboriginal group, were taught a lesson. FEBRUARY/MARCH 1989 11 ;.. ~ Australasian ... SPARTACIST Massacres in homeini's Jails JANUARY 1989: Reports coming Iraqi Kurdistan, razing three- a: out of Iran point to a mammoth quarters of the Kurdish villages ~::m-: new wave of executions of leftist and sending tens of thousands of ~: miJi poli tical prisoners now taking Kurds fleeing over the border into (~> - place in Khomeini' s jails. Turkey, where the army has been Already, an estimated 1000 to waging a brutal .war against 5000 have been hanged or lined up Kurdish guerrillas. In Ir an, before the firing squads of the Khomeini inaugurated his Islamic Islamic dictatorship and dumped "revolution" by killing more than in mass graves. In some provincial 10,000 Kurds, and in August cities, the entire prison population unleashed a massacre of thousands has reportedl y been :nassacred. of Iraq-allied \1ujahedin troops Virtually every imprisoned leader inside Iranian Kurdistan. As we of Iran's pro-Moscow Tudeh Party wrote in October: has been executed, and supporters "The so-called 'cease-fire' of the People's Mujahedin, the negotiated by the United Revolutionary Workers Organiz­ :\lations may not have ended the ation of Iran (Rahe Kargar), sa vage and senseless war be­ Iranian People's Fedayeen (Major­ tween Iraq and Iran. But it has ity) and the Fedayeen Minority given these two self-proclaimed are said to have been killed in the , revolutionary' regimes the thousands. It is now feared that respi te to concentrate their I the wholesale physical annihil­ forces on what they do best: Condemned to die: Teheran regime has executed thousands. ation of political prisoners is massacring their own peoples." ists, who are perfectly willing to now going on, demanding an planned by next month's tenth - Workers Vanguard no 462, see Iranian leftists slaughtered. immediate halt to the executions anniversary of the mullahs' Feb­ 7 October 1988 Thousands of militants have and freedom for the victims of ruary 1979 seizure of power. The international workers already been killed and thousands Khomeini's terror in Iran! Following the cease-fire in the movement must raise an urgent more are marked for execution. Iran-Iraq war last August, the cry of outrage against these They are already being held FIRING SQUADS ayatollahs' regime in Teheran has unspeakable crimes being com­ incommunicado; all family visits MOW DOWN LEFTISTS turned the jails into killing fields mitted against opponents of the have been cut off. The left, labor for all those it sees as political mullahs' dictatorship! The blood­ movement and all supporters of From Moscow, Literaturnaya opponents. Meanwhile, the ruling bath in Iran is part and parcel of democratic rights must mobilize Gazeta (21 December 1988) re­ generals in Iraq launched a Teheran's efforts to "mend internationally to bring worldwide ported on the "Massacre in Iran," "scorched earth" drive against bridges" with Western im peri al- attention to the mass slaughter Continued on page nine International Protests. Demand: Workers Hammer "" J> "' (.,'

London, 14 January- Iranian leftist groups joined with Spartacist League/Britain in mited front demonstration outside Iranian embassy. Stop the Executions in Irani In mid-January demonstrations eini dictatorship. Sections of the drew the participation of a range common cause around the central were held on three continents de­ iSt in seven countries issued an of Iranian left organisations. In demand of "Stop the Executions in manding, "Stop the Executions in appeal, publish,ed in English, calling for an international cam­ Iran!" And in the event, various Iran!" The protests were part of French, German, Italian and Farsi paign against the mass slaughter exile organisations of the Iranian an emergency campaign by the in­ (the dominant language of Iran). underway in Iran, the iSt and PDC ,left, bitterly rent by fratricidal ternational Spartacist tendency Protests were held in Hamburg, sought a united protest by diverse sectarianism, found in the Sparta­ and the Partisan Defense Com­ Paris and Lyon, London, Washing­ groups. In such a united front, cist-ini tiated protests their first mittee against the massacre being ton DC, Toronto, Melbourne and each group can present its own opportunity to cooperate in a joint carried out by the bloody Khom- Sydney, New York and Milan, and political views while making Continued on page eight 12 FEBRUARY/MARCH 1989