25¢ WfJIIlllIIS''''''UIIII'No. 509 ~X--623 7 September 1990

Reuters Vacationing Bush orders war mobilization from his golf cart. Is this the face of World War III? u.s. Oil Pirates Out of the Persian Gulf! ,BreakBlockade.ollraql SEPTEMBER 4-What's going on in the The bipartisan U.S. crusade against French president Mitterrand declares,' escalated violent anti-Arab racism at Middle East right now is a bald attempt former U.S. ally Saddam Hussein is "We have entered into the logic of war." home. by the United States to seize control of hardly about resisting aggression or The deranged Zionist rulers in Jerusa­ Bush vowed the seizure of Kuwait the world's oil supplies. Having lost its "making the world safe for democracy." lem are itching for a pre-emptive strike "will not stand," and afterstrong-arming economic predominance, Washington is Certainly not coming from the people against Baghdad with "non-conventional the feudalistic Saudi monarchy, U.S. now trying to reassert its role as imperi­ who recently slaughtered thousands of weapons." And the concentration of troops started pouring into that desert alist global policeman through brute civilians to install a puppet regime in American firepower could blow the country. Kuwait's considerable assets military force. That's what George Bush Panama. Bush says it's about defending whole region sky high. The workers of abroad were frozen, a trade embargo was. means when he talks about a "new world "our way of life." What he means is a the world have a big stake in defending placed on Iraq, and four U.S. aircraft order," echoing Adolf Hitler in the war to make the world safe for the feu­ Iraq against this imperialist onslaught. carrier battle groups were mobilized to 1930s. But in fact, the American invasion dalism ofthe oil sheiks and the profiteer­ Break the Yankee blockade! enforce a blockade (labeled "interdiction" is setting the stage for a new world war. ing of Big Oil. War, as Lenin said, is the mother of to disguise the fact that this is a blatant The consequences of Bush's war After proclaiming victory in the Cold revolution. The imperialist invasion will act of war). The stated goal was to moves are incalculable. Perhaps a quarter War, U.S. imperialism is now seeking to set the Middle East aflame as the Arab defend the house of Saud and restore million U.S. troops are in or heading for dictate terms to its imperialist rivals. masses surge into the streets in angry Sheik Jabbar al Ahmad al Sabah to the the Persian Gulf region right now. Ships Meanwhile as Gorbachev prates about protests that could topple the kings, . Kuwaiti throne. are being taken out of mothballs, 'and "collective security," Bush has used the sheiks and colonels throughout the re­ Bush & Co. just cut the ground out tens of thousands of reservists are being fig leaf of UN sanctions as a green light gion. And in this country, we have a big from under naive liberals and pacifists called up from civilian life. It's a war for a massive U.S. military operation less opportunity to stick it to this vicious: who thought they would collect a "peace mobilization on a scale not seen since the than 700 miles from the Soviet border: dangerous ruling class which first and dividend" in the "post-Cold War" world. height of the Vietnam War. Now they're A deadly noose is tightening around the foremost exploits the American working Instead of cuts in the "defense" budget, talking of launching an air war in a USSR. We call on the Soviet Union to people and minorities. supplemental appropriations are being matter of weeks, and Bush is to meet rescind its arms embargo against Iraq. Bush has jumped into a quagmire with rushed through and virtually every mili­ Soviet leader Gorbachev in a hastily The trip wires for World War III are both feet. The Arabian sands could well tary boondoggle that was under the bud­ called summit in Helsinki next weekend. pulling taut in the volatile Near East. be quicksand for U.S. rulers. Remember get ax has been resuscitated. The entire what happened to Carter's Delta Force in massive mobilization is being accom­ Iran and the Marines in Beirut. In the plished without even a pro forma Con­ name of the American young men and gressional debate, much less lip service women who will come back in coffins, to the War Powers Act as the Democrats in the name of millions ofArabs facing snap to attention whenever Bush waves the imperialist war machine, we call for the flag. sharp class struggle to bring down the To justify the American invasion, State bloody-minded American capitalists. Department ignoramus Margaret Tut­ weiler harps on "Iraqi aggression." Yeah, 50 Years After. A War for Big Oil like when Saddam Hussein went into It all started when Iraq's Hussein sent Grenada? Iraq's takeover of Kuwait is no Assassination 01 his army into the emirate of Kuwait on historical aberration: all states are built August 2 in a grab for the oil fields and on acts of aggression, What about Wil­ to fulfill Iraq's historic claim to a port on liam the Conqueror? And Iraq's Hussein Leon Trotsky the Gulf. Previously the U.S. had sup­ had more justifieation than most when he ported Iraq in the squalid eight-year Iran­ pointed out in an August 10.speech that Iraq war, supplying satellite intelligence "the colonialists, to ensure their petro­ and tanker escorts, even overlooking the leum interests...set up those disfigured Iraqis' Exocet missile attack on the USS petroleum states." Stark. But now suddenly the Iraqi strong­ The statelet of Kuwait was an imperi­ man was sitting on 20 percent of the alist legacy created by drawing artificial SEE PAGE 4 world's oil reserves. Overnight Saddam "Lines in the Sand;" as Glenn Frankel Hussein was transformed into a new wrote in the Washington Post (31 Au­ "Hitler" by the servile U.S. media. War gust). The former Ottoman Empire was propaganda against "insane Hussein" continued on page 9 NY Transit Workers Protest Firing of 300 Track Cuts Kill ,Riders and Workers

WV oto As the Wall Street banks reap almost TA to impose the cuts, while trying to deaths and injuries on the tracks. Track cuts mean death for us and the $2 billion in interest payments alone chain transit workers to the dead end of At an August 24 demonstration .at riders! Six brothers were killed on the from the NYC budget, city workers and pleading with the courts and state legis­ Brooklyn Supreme Court, called by the tracks over the last two years: Daniel welfare recipients are facing massive cuts lature in Albany. 'fWU bureaucracy, a Committee support­ . Walsh, Robert Nicholson, Stewart Mel­ -imposed by black Democratic Party In contrast, the Committee for a Fight­ er responded to Hall's hot air by calling sinker; David Davis, Frank Davila.James mayor David Dinkins, the choice of the ing TWU (CFTWU), a class-struggle op­ for using union power for strike action. Byrne. No more! The TA, jiided and city's union tops. Attempting to unload position in the union, has fought to bring Hall replied that this would be "suicidal," abetted by the union tops, jeopardizes the a $300 million 1990-91 deficit onto out the entire workforce in a strike action and added that "as long as I'm the elect­ lives of thousands of passengers and transit workers' backs, the NYC Transit against the cuts and firings. At an August ed president ofthis union, we will not go workers and then blames the inevitable Authority (TA) has begun to slash jobs, , 22 union meeting, just hours before the out on strike." The CFTWU responded tragedies on dead transit workers. This attack working conditions and cut serv­ TA fired 300 provisional track workers, in a leaflet calling to "shut down the is our union! The Committee for a Fight­ ice, and is threatening another huge fare and in two leaflets on August 27 and 31, system," and suggesting: "Since Hall is ing TWU says the membership must mo­ increase. And every step of the way they the CFTWU called for a system-wide so loyal to the bosses, why doesn't he bilize now to defend all jobs. A"ny ofus have been aided by the bureaucracy of meeting to organize a strike to win im­ volunteer to join Bush's Persian Gulfoil could be next. Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local mediate rehiring ofthe fired workers and grab to make the world safe for Exxon's The provisional trackworkers were 100. Led by President Sonny Hall, the for elected safety committees throughout profits." . hired and fired in a TA "budget cut" union tops have paved the way for the the industry to halt the epidemic 'of But some so-called "militants" can't scheme to degrade the title to "Laborer" , bring themselves to utter the "s" word and pay lower wages. They were lied to and fight for a strike. "Workers' Voice," every step of the way: hired off the 1984 a newsletter of the Marxist-Leninist . trackworkers list after it expired, they To the Memory of Leon Trotsky Party, called for workers to attend an were told they'd be made permanent by Fifty years ago, on 20 August 1940, Leon August 27 protest against the firings at the TA and the TWU bureaucrats. When the TA's'Jay 'Street headquarters - in they reported to work' last Wednesday Trotsky was struck down by the blows ofan assassin acting on Stalin's orders. Co-leader Brooklyn,- but aside from the empty night they were told-without prior notice with v.i. Lenin of the Russian Revolution, "fight back" rhetoric they have no pro­ -"clearout your locker and return your intransigent fighter against the Stalinist gram for struggle. In particular, these pass or no check." We've got a contract coming up in '91 bureaucracy's betrayal of that revolution, fake militants don't raise demands for • and if we take these cuts lying down then Trotsky founded the Fourth International in union action. Thus in practice they go 1938. His legacy lives on in the intemation/ along with Hall's program to blow off we're dead meat next year. They need skilled workers to keep the subways alist political program he fought for, while steam. By not challenging the leadership, ... .they leave it in the hands of the pro­ running. We can bring NYC-the center TROTSKY the heirs ofStalin collapse under the weight LENIN of their own bankruptcy. Today we fight to Democratic Party labor bureaucracy. of world finance capital-to a halt. Man­ agement should have learned a lesson a reforge the Fourth International, destroyed by liquidationist forces in 1951-53, as the After the 300 workers were fired, on long time ago. Back in 1919 they tried to indispensable prerequisite for the victory ofworld socialism. Below we reprint remarks . August 23 the TA moved to wipe out by American Trotskyist leader James P, Cannon at the memorial meeting in New York the seniority rights and working con­ run the system with scabs and killed 99 passengers in' the infamous Brooklyn on 28 August 1940. ditions of hundreds more-using the excuse that they didn't have enough Malbone Street tunnel wreck. The public Comrade Trotsky's entire conscious life, from the time he entered the workers' workers! Transit militants say: "Enough! was so furious that the street name was movement in the provincial Russian town of Nikolaiev at the age of 18, up till the Let's use our union power!" We reprint changed to Empire Boulevard! Already moment of his death in Mexico City 42 years later, was completely dedicated to work below excerpts from the August 27 management has victimized four track­ and struggle for one central idea. He stood for the emancipation of the workers and leaflet issued by the Committee for a workers at East 180th Street in the Bronx all the oppressed people of the world, and the transformation of society from capitalism Fighting TWU. - for organizing against safety violations. to socialism by means of a social revolution. In his conception this liberating social Two of them face dismissal and the revolution requires for success the leadership of a revolutionary political party of the * * * response of our union "leaders" has been workers' vanguard.... ' Last week 300 provisional track­ to issue a leaflet denouncing these broth­ He once wrote: "It is not the party that makes the program (the idea); it is the workers, mostly black and minority, were ers! We say: Hands Off! No-Disciplinary program that makes the party".... Trotsky, a' disciple of Marx, believed with Marx, fired. For more than two years these Actions! that "an idea, when it permeates the mass, becomes a material force." Believing that, brothers did the most vital repair jobs for Sonny Hall and our union misleaders Comrade Trotsky never doubted that his work would live after him. Believing that, the system under the most grinding con­ knew of the cuts in track and not only he could proclaim on his death bed his confidence in the future victory of the Fourth ditions-dodging trains in the tunnels in failed to fight them. but kept it a guilty International which embodies his, ideas.... • the dead of night, working on the ele­ secret between themselves and the boss­ The betrayers of the revolution knew that the revolution lived in him, the tradition, vated lines in the snow and rain, and es. A union leader worth his salt would the hope. All the resourees of a powerful state, set in motion by the hatred and revenge always menaced by the deadly 3rd rail. continued on page 11 of Stalin, were directed to the assassination of a single man, without resources and with only a handful of close followers .... Comrade Trotsky not only struggled for a new social order based on human solidarity as a future goal; he lived every day of his life according to its higher and SPARTACISTLEAGUE/U.S. LOCAL DIRECTORY nobler standards. They wouldn't let him be a citizen of any country. But, in truth, he National Office: Box 13TZ GPO, New York, NY 10116 • (212) 732-7860 was much more than that. He was already, in his mind and.in his conduct, a citizen Detroit Norfolk of the Communist future of humanity. Atlanta Box4012 Box441043 Box 1972, Main PO -James P. Cannon, "To the Memory of the Old Man" (August 1940) Atlanta, GA 30302 Detroit, MI 48244 Norfolk, VA 23501 Boston Los Angeles Oakland Box840, Central Sta. • Box29574, Los FelizSta, Box32552 Cambridge, MA 02139 Los Angeles, CA 90029 Oakland, CA 94604 (617) 492-3928 (213) 380-8239 . (415)839-0851 !!!!!!!!~'!~!~!! ~ Chicago San Francisco Box6441, Main PO Madison Box5712 DIRECTOR OF PARTYPUBLICATIONS: Liz Gordon Chicago, IL 60680 Box 1492 San Francisco, CA94101 EDITOR: Jan Norden (312) 663-0715 Madison, WI 53701 (415) 863.:6963 PRODUCTION MANAGER: Jorge Ramirez CIRCULATION MANAGER: Karen Valdez Cleveland New York Washington, D.C. EDITORIAL BOARD: George Foster, Fr.ankHunter, Jane Kerrigan, Len Meyers, James Robertson, Box91037 Box444, Canal SI. Sta. Box 75073 Reuben Samuels, Joseph Seymour, Alison Spencer, Marjo(ie Stamberg Cleveland, OH 44101 New York, NY 10013 Washington, D.C. 20013 The Spartacist League is the U.S. Seclion of the International Communist League (Fourth (216) 781-7500 (212) 267-1025 (202) 872-8240 Internationalist). ./ Workers Vanguard (USPS098-770) published biweekly, except 2nd issue August and with 3-week interval December, by the Spartacist Publishing Co., 41 Warren Street, New York, NY 10007. Telephone: (212) 732·7862 (Editorial), (212) 732-7861 (Business). Address all correspondence to: Box 1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116. Domestic TROTSKYIST LEAGUE OF CANADA subscriptions: $7.00/24 issues. Second-class postage paid at New York, NY. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Workers Vanguard, Box 1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116. Toronto Vancouver Opinions expressed in signed articles or letters do not necessarily express the editorial viewpoint. Box7198, Station A Box2717, Main Post Office Toronto, Ontario M5W 1X8 Vancouver, B.C. V6B 3X2 No.S09 7 September 1990 (416) 593-4138 (604) 255-0636

2 WORKERS VANGUARD SEPTEMBER 2~Some 5,000 angry North Carolina in 1979! The only thing demonstrators stopped the Ku Klux Klan "new" about these lynchers is that they from marching in the streets of Washing­ now carry out their murder like one of ton today. District, U.S. Park and Capitol the death squads the U.S. sponsors in police had mobilized a massive presence D.C. Protesters Central America. with thousands of cops in riot gear, heli­ Bush conservatives and Washington copters, horses and dogs. But eight years Post liberals alike were stung when a after the KKK was stopped in its tracks majority-black jury in Washington re­ by a powerful labor/black mobilization, fused to go along with the feds' witch­ the hooded terrorists still cannot take the hunting show trial by videotape of black streets of this 70 percent black city. Block KKK mayor Marion Barry. But the black Coming on the heels of the federal gov­ Democratic Party politicians are part of ernment's failure to railroad black D.C. the same racist system, calling out the mayor Marion Barry out of office and cops against anti-Klan demonstrators and into a jail cell, it was a clear rebuke to acting as front men for the "war on the racist rulers and their dogs of war, drugs.t'-Marion Barry's complicity in this the KKK. From Marching- war on black America and Latin America The Klan had planned a "rally" at the mirrors the hypocrisy of Reagan and Washington Monument, and then to' Bush, whose contras were conduits for march one mile to the Capitol building. drug traffickers. But by the time the KKK event was Missing from today's demonstration scheduled to begin, thousands of angry was organized labor-s-particularly nota­ demonstrators, both black and white, ble on. the day before "Labor Day." were in the area. The reformist All­ Mobilizing that power is key to stopping Peoples Congress (APC) was begging the all-sided racist assault against people to protest "peacefully" and "say minorities in this country. In November no to racism," but young black protesters 1982, a Labor/Black Mobilization, initi­ clearly wanted to stop the Klan then' ated by the Spartacist League, with the and there. Even the mayor's wife, Effie endorsement of dozens of union locals Barry, showed up with their son and officials, mobilized 5,000 militant Christopher and a sign saying "Smash protesters who stopped the Klan at its the KKK." One provocative racist who gathering point. The KKK were whisked entered the demonstration waving a Con­ out of town by the cops as the anti-Klan federate flag was unceremoniously boot­ . demonstrators triumphantly 'marched ed out, and his flag burned with relish. down the route to the White House the' In a spontaneous move, a section of Klan had threatened to march. Now the the crowd took over the intersection of capitalist media tries to rewrite that 14th and Constitution, right in the Klan's history, claiming what happened was a intended line of march, and there they "riot" by black youth, who in fact were stayed. For over two hours, the demon­ set upon by the cops after escaping from strators stood their ground, toe to toe the APe's diversionary gabfest for with the police without incident, despite Democrats a couple miles away from provocative bullhorning by the Progres­ WVPholo where the Klan met. sive Labor Party. The Revolutionary Despite massive cop presence, angry Washington residents stop KKK from " The reason the bourgeoisie is still Communist Party, which veered between marching In this 70 percent black city. smarting over 27 November 1982 is that debating "rights for racists" and crazed was a taste of real working-class social calls to "prepare for revolutionary war," mand: drop all charges against the anti­ city back." The Klan vowed to return power, based on organized labor, led by ended up with the ritual flag-burning Klan protesters! ' every year at Labor Day. reds, mobilizing blacks. The fact that, that's become their trademark. The Klansmen held a brief "rally" on The Klanhas been trying to present a eight years later, the Ku Klux Klan still Meanwhile, the cops had the Klan the Capitol steps, sealed off from the "moderate" image recently, such as "ex"­ cannot march in Washington is a vic­ stashed in the Pentagon parking lot. public, hurling racial epithets into the air KKKer David Duke running for Senator toiy. What's needed is a program and Sizing up the anti-Klan protest, the po­ for the benefit of their ACI,.U lawyers from Louisiana. Virgil Griffith's outfit, revolutionary party to lead the fight lice decided to bus the fascists straight and the media. Klan "grand dragon" the "Christian Knights," have business against the all-sided assault on the ghet­ to the Capitol. When the word got out, Horace King ranted againstcommunists cards and a "new image." The Washing- tos and barrios, to sweep away the rac­ demonstrators took off down Constitution and blacks, threatening: "We're gonna , ton Post (31 August) quotes one Juanita ist rulers in the White House and Con­ Avenue for the Capitol. At Third and take Washington, D.C. away from them." Gibson saying, "We don't do any of.that gress, who still. treat black ,Washington Constitution, they were stopped by riot , This gutter racist filth echoes the senti- , mean stuff," likecross-bumings.Whatan like their colony, and to finally bury police who, finally given an opportunity ment coming straight from Barbara Bush obscenity! Griffith was ringleaderof the the "ghosts of the Confederacy" in their to vent their wrath, moved in. Five inthe WhiteHouse, who says "every­ KKKlNazi killers who gunned down five -, white sheets. Finish the Civil War people were reportedly arrested. We de- one" (in her social set) wants to "get our leftists in broad daylight in Greensboro, through socialist revolution! • Bloody Prison Guard Rampage at Hikers Island Rikers Island, the largest prison colony of these beasts in uniform knew no in the U.S., was the scene of a naked bounds; even emergency medical techni­ display ofracist police power August 14. cians attempting to cross the bridge to Chronically overcrowded due to the huge treat the wounded were attacked, beaten increases in drug-related arrests, lacking and stabbed! Many were reminded of the any facilities for recreation, and tyranni­ bloody massacre at Attica in 1971, where cally ruled by notoriously brutal guards, prisoners protesting racial discrimination the island has long been a festering sore were mowed down by then-governor of pent-up tension. But for the nearly Rockefeller's troops. . 14,000 mostly black and Hispanic prison­ NYC mayor David Dinkins' response ers, the August 14 rampage by prison to the, cop mayhem on,Rikers Island guards will be remembered as a nightmare was to try to conciliate the increasingly ~even in this hell. bonapartist prison guards-negot1ating That night the vicious warders, having with them even as they held thousands sealed off the island by blocking the only hostage. Facing criticism for his han­ bridge, vented their psychopathic rage on dling of the blockade, Dinkins denied the terrified prisoners, who had barricad­ that he had granted the guards' demands ed themselves in their dormitories for for amnesty-he took away one of their protection and to protest the denial'of vacation days! The immediate spark for visitors and the lack of food. After flood­ the August 14 riot was the guards' ing the area with tear gas, guards forced demand for elimination of the 27-page the inmates to strip aRd run a gauntlet "use of force directive," so they could along a 45-foot corridor, beating them beat, maim and kill prisoners without until the hallway ran with blood. At least _fear of punishment. The result of a 1988 142 were injured, and one man died from suit charging the city's notorious prison Rikers guards block bridge to prison, cutting off medical care, food lack of medical attention. The savagery continued on page 11 visitors. 7 SEPTEMBER 1990 3 o Years 'After Assassination of teen Trotsky August 20 marked the 50th anniver­ Aleksandr Podshchekoldin, of the Insti­ Olivia Gall, of the National University Esteban Volkov Bronstein, grandson of sary of the murder of Leon Trotsky by an tute of Marxism-Leninism in Moscow; of Mexico; Octavio Fernandez, leader Trotsky; and others. agent of Stalin. Around the world there Jake Cooper, a former Trotsky bodyguard of Mexican Trotskyists in the 1930s; The topics covered in a series of night­ was heightened interest in the slain now with Socialist Action in the U;S.; the painter Vlady, son of Victor Serge; ly roundtable discussions included: Mexi­ internationalist revolutionary. And no­ co at the 'Time of Trotsky; Trotsky and where more so than in Mexico, where the the Contemporary World; Trotsky in the assassin carried out his bloody deed. In BSSR; Art and Revolution, an Interwar more than a week of commemorative Polemic; and Testimonies About Trotsky activities, scores of articles on Trotsky in Mexico. Of particular interest was the appeared in the Mexican press. presentation by A. Podshchekoldin docu­ At the house in the suburb of Coyoa­ menting the dramatic growth in power, can where Trotsky lived and worked size and privilege of the apparatus during during the 43 months of his political the nine months of 1922 between Stalin's asylum, and where he was killed with a appointment as CP general secretary and mountaineer's pickax, the Museo Leon Lenin's call for Stalin's ouster. Pod­ Trotsky was reopened after careful resto­ shchekoldin's conclusion: the data con­ ration work under the aegis of the Mexi­ firm, 100 percent, Trotsky's accusation co City federal district administration. in The New Course that a bureaucracy The Museum is now associated with a was strangling the party. newly founded Institute for the Right of In the framework of this series on Asylum and Public Liberties, housed next Trotsky, a speech on, "The Meaning of door in a modern facility including a Trotsky in the Soviet Union Today" was library and conference center. given at the Museum on August 21 by From August 20 to 24, the Museum Jan Norden, editor of Workers Vanguard, was the site of a five-day colloquium on newspaper of the Spartacist League/U.S. Trotsky which involved a number of in­ Esteban Volkov also spoke at this event, ternational participants, including Pierre which received press coverage in the Broue, of the Institut Leon Trotsky in Mexico City newspapers La Prensa and France; Ernest Mandel, of the "United El Universal. Their edited presentations Secretariat of the Fourth International"; are printed below.

.:--. Hoover Institution Lev Davidovich Trotsky in his military train during the Civil. War. The Meaning of Trotsky in the Soviet'UnionToday

o begin with, I would like to ex­ figures to have been in Mexico, thanks Stalinism. And as such it constitutes the . Some, like the new mayors of L--eningrad press, on behalf of the International ,to the asylum granted to him by General revolutionary program for the survival of and Moscow, Anatoly Sobchak and TCommunist League (Fourth Inter­ Lazaro Cardenas in aprincipled manner the Soviet Union, by returning to its Gavril Popov, not only reject Stalin but nationalist), our pleasure in being present and when no other government in the revolutionary and internationalist roots. also Lenin andthe October Revolution. here during this reinauguration of the world would accept him. Today, everyone calls themselves anti­ Thus followers of Sobchak are trying Leon Trotsky Museum. Our Spartacist Fifty years after the assassination of Stalinist, except the notorious Nina to replace the very name of Leningrad Leon Trotsky, we are seeing the collapse Andreyeva or perhaps the followers of with that it had under the tsars .. And now of Stalinism throughout East Europe and Lombardo Toledano, who still want to it is reported that two of the most re­ By Jan Norden adeep crisis in the Soviet Union itself. label Trotsky as "egotistical, obscene and nowned "anti-Stalinist" historians, Yuri This has led the ideologues of imperial­ conceited." Today Trotsky is often pre­ Afanasyev and Dmitri Volkogonov, are tendency has been unique among the ism to proclaim the "death of Commu­ sented, as an article in yesterday's La participantsin an official "investigation" international tendencies in materially­ nism" and even, in the case of a State Jornada said, as "the prophet of pere­ which with utter shamelessness attempts contributing on a regular basis for some Department pseudo-scientist, "the end of stroika,"which he definitely was not. to declare illegal the Bolsheviks' seizure years to the support of the Trotsky history." But even though they have al­ That is, after demonizing him, now they of power in 1917! Although Af-anasyev Museum, under the care of the grandson ready written the chronicle of this death want to make a false icon out of him. was among the first to speak of Trotsky, of the great international. revolutionary, foretold, as'Gabriel Garda Marquez What is true is that Lev Davidovich of this "blank space" in Soviet historiog­ Esteban Volkov, who is here with us would have put it, and despite-the trium- . fought, up to his death at the hands of raphy, with his social-democratic politics today. And now we see with great phalist bombast of the capitalist media, an agent of Stalin, against the perversion it is evident that he is pursuing clearly satisfaction how much careful work has as the American writer Mark Twain. of Bolshevism by this usurper, while counterrevolutionary aims. been done on thebouse and in adapting ironically remarked, this announcement other party leaders were silent, capitu­ Distorting hyn, they can swallow a these facilities by the Federal District of its death is exaggerated. _ lated, became accomplices in vile crimes Leon Trotsky, the first anti-bureaucratic Department. Which is certainly appro­ - What is Trotskyism? Itis communism, against the working class. fighter, but Trotsky the author of perma­ priate, since Trotsky was, without any it is the continuity of Leninism and Behind the supposed anti-Stalinist nent revolution, who called forproletari­ doubt, one of the most remarkable human Marxism in the face of its antithesis, unity there are deep class divisions. an opposition to the Popular Front of 4 WORKERS VANGUARD ,,.;..... ~.;- t '; .),~·,"''o':'0.'·d j, class collaboration, who fought Stalig because-the latter was the assassin of the Bolshevik Party and gravedigger of the Communist International, him they hate. Today the "reform" bureaucrats in the Kremlin are betraying the struggles of the oppressed, from Afghanistan and Spartaclst .talk at Central America to South Africa and Leon Trotsky Angola. And in the Persian Gulf they are Museum in going hand in hand with U.S. interven­ cevoaean, Mexico, tion which is trying to seize the oil. September 21, part There you have the fruits of so-called of series marking "peaceful coexistence," the attempt by 50th anniversary of the Russian the Yankee imperialists to-take over the revolutionary's whole world, which could well unleash death. Speaking a· war that also threatens the Soviet (front center) Union. And among the prime targets of is painter and these self-proclaimed cops of the world muralist Vlady, is Mexico, where they shamelessly kid­ standing before nap doctors and seek to take over the his work on the economy through a North American assassination Common Market. We of the International of Trotsky. Communist League are strong defenders of the independence of Mexico, and while we denounce the anti-Communist, anti-Shi'ite and anti-Kurdish murderer renowned revolutionary is remembered members- of the Soviet Politburo, who lin is repeated so insistently that we Saddam Hussein, we defend Iraq against as legendary"-the newspaper Sovetskuya thus share personal responsibility for the must ask, why such a strange evaluation? imperialist aggression. Rossiya (17 September 1987) published crime. ' Leaving aside the demonization, the The Gorbachevites who deny the heri­ a bestiary signed by Professor V. Ivanov, But even though he recognizes Trotsky accusations of "egocentrism" and similar tage of Bolshevism soon erected as their under the title "Repainting Judas," in . as "the second figure of the Revolution denigration ("the failed would-be dicta­ idol Nikolai Bukharin, in whom they see which they spew out all the old Stalinist and the Civil, War," the "enlightened" tor," Volkogonov called him), we find a precursor of perestroika. In fact, right "Short Course" rubbish. general arrives at the conclusion, which rejection of Trotsky's policies. now as we are meeting here at the site of But the "anti-Stalin" military historian, he calls "paradoxical," that "the greatest Volkogonov says Trotsky "wasprison­ Trotsky's assassination, in Hollywood Col. Gen. Dmitri Volkogonov, writes a Trotskyist was Stalin." And today we er of a grand, false idea, the idea of the Soviet filmmakers are shooting a movie long article on Trotsky a year later read in the newspapers a similar evalua­ world revolution." This is the same accu­ about the life of Bukharin. It is logical: (Pravda, 9 September 1988) under the tion by the ambassador of the USSR sation which Stalin made against him in while Trotsky advocated a policy of or­ title, "Demon ofthe Revolution." This is in Mexico, who claims that "the bureau­ rejecting "the export of revolution." This ganic industrialization and voluntary col­ how he describes the co-leader, together cratic system of command which was is the distortion of the program of world­ lectivization in the countryside, Bukharin with Lenin, of the 'October Revolution, established in the Soviet Union under wide proletarian revolution which was put forward the slogan to the kulaks, the chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, Stalin was a faithful copy of the Ideas. the raison d'etre ofthe Communist Inter­ the rich peasants, to "enrich yourselves." military leader of the insurrection and put forward by Trotsky." This is by no national, the very reason for the October And these petty-bourgeois elements com­ later founder of the Red Army! Volkogo­ means the view of all Soviet historians. . Revolution, put forward by Lenin in his ing out of or belonging to the bureauc­ nov is the high priest of the new anti­ Present here at this Trotsky Series, for brief speech announcing the taking of racy-a layer of Soviet "yuppies"-are Trotsky demonology. Recently, Volkogo­ example, is cemrade Aleksandr Pod­ power: "We must now set about building eager to enrich themselves. Of course, nov himself revealed, in an interview shchekoldin of the Institute of Marxism­ a proletarian socialist state in Russia. those who today see in the market econ­ with the Italian newspaperLa Stampa (26 Leninism in Moscow, who wrote an Long live the world socialist revolution!" omy, i.e., the introduction of capitalism, July), that he had discovered a document introduction to Trotsky's New Course It was this perspective which gave sense the way out of bankrupt Stalinism do in which Stalin ordered the assassination when it was published last year by ­ to-the Russian proletariat seizing power not say that Bukharin was seconded by of Trotsky. The order, which was found· Molodoy Kommunist, in which he pointed in the backward empire of the tsars. Stalin and that they brought the USSR to in the archives of the NKVD, dates from out how Trotsky was the victim of and Thus it is the Bolshevik Revolution itself the brink of disaster. If Bukharin had 1934, i.e., the time ohhe assassination fought against the Stalinist bureaucratiza­ which the Volkogonovs deny with the won with his policy of conciliating pro­ of Kirov, and is countersigned by Voro­ tion of the Communist Party. defamatory equation ofTrotsky with Sta­ capitalist elements, the Soviet Union shilov, Molotov and Ordzhonikidze, then But this equation of Trotsky and Sta- lin, which feeds anti-communism. Our would not have survived the Nazi inva­ audience, then, is to be found among sion, with incalculable consequencesfor those who defend this revolution. human history. _We say, together with James P. Can­ For Soviet workers who want to keep non, founder of American Trotskyism, in the gains of the Bolshevik Revolution Soviet Archives Confirm a 1939 speech 00 the October Revolu­ in order to develop genuine socialism, -' - tion, "Weare, in fact, the party of the the alternative to the heavy burden of Russian revolution. We have been the bureaucratic planning which ruined the people, and the only people, who have economy is not the chaos of capitalism, had the Russian revolution in their pro­ with its unemployment and destruction Stalin Signed gram and in their blood. That is also the of the productive forces, but rather a ' .. main reason why the Fourth International planned economy with soviet democracy, is the only revolutionary tendency in the where the workers themselves decide and whole world." not a parasitic caste of privileged bureau­ A few days ago, Gorbachev issued a crats. This, they will discover, was the the Order decree for the comprehensive rehabilita­ program of the Left Opposition led.by On July 26, the Torino, Italy daily Politburo members the responsibility tion ofthe victims of Stalin. Although it Leon Trotsky. ' La Stampa published an article under (or the death sentence of the man that is specific about the kulaks, the name of The Devil Is Still Called '. the dramatic headline, '''Kill Trotsky,' was number two of the October Revo­ Leon Trotsky is not mentioned. Yester­ Trotsky Signed Stalin." The piece by their Mos­ lution and who, even in exile, Con­ day it was reported that a petition was cow correspondent Enrico Singer was tinued to make him [Stalin] afraid." handed in to the Soviet Embassy here Among Soviet researchers there is calling for his "political rehabilitation" great interest today in studying the previ­ an interview with Colonel General There isa touch of emotion in the Dmitri Volkogonov, director of the voice of General Dmitri Antonovich by the government of the USSR. Similar ously off-limits areas of their history. campaigns have been sponsored in recent And, of course, the principal "blank USSR Institute ofMilitary History, who Volkogonov, Director of the Institute last year published a biography ofSta­ of Military History of the USSR. His years by different self-proclaimed Trot­ space" that Gorbachev spoke of is Leon skyist tendencies. In the interview with Trotsky. For the most part, we can say lin and is now working on a book on words are solving a mystery that has Leon Trotsky. Although the New York lasted fifty years. La Stampa, in 'response to a question that little by little they are rediscovering about a possible rehabilitation of Trotsky, Times has continued to place in doubt La Stampa: But the documents that what Max Eastman spoke of in his book _ Volkogonov affirmed that this would be Since Lenin Died, which was written Stalin's ordering of Trotsky's murder, you found in the archives, what do Volkogonov only confirms what Trotsky they reveal about the speed and the an "insult" to the irreproachable rev­ already in 1925. Here I want to deal with olutionary. We say emphatically, Leon only One of the ongoing discussions, to himse/frepeatedly stated: "Stalin Seeks. methods of the decision to physi­ My Death." While Volkogonov talks of cally eliminate Trotsky? Trotsky does not need a good conduct wit, the curious factthat even though the certificate from the heirs of Stalin! The gross lies of the Moscow Trials have the duty to tell the truth about Trotsky, Volkogonov: The first decision was his attempt to blame Trotsky for the only thing we demand ofthe government been discredited, they go on condemning taken in September '31. But it had of the USSR is that it permit the publi­ Trotsky. This is no accident. forced collectivization and to make the a general character, while in '34 a necessary repression of the Civil War cation and free circulation of his works, For decades, for Stalinists of all special group was created to hunt so that the Soviet people may know the stripes, from the "orthodox" pro-Moscow into.a crime is part and parcel of the down Trotsky. In '31, Stalin did not lying campaign to paint Trotsky as a truth. As we have insisted over and over, , Communist parties to the heterodox Mao want to do it with his own hands, it is the bureaucracy which in this hypo­ Tse-tung and Fidel Castro, "The Devil would-be dictator. We print excerpts he wanted to do it through the men from the La Stampa article below: critical way is seeking to rehabilitate Was Called Trotsky," as the title of a of the Comintern. In '31 the strat­ itself. . book by the cartoonist Rius put it. In "It was .Stalin who ordered .the egy was to track him down and to the era of glasnost, this evaluation has assassination of Trotsky. The proof is take measures that would favor an . D,fense oj the USSR­ .not changed all that much. So that in in a document I found in the archives attempt on his life. In '34, instead, Cornerstone of the response to an article which appeared in of the NKVD and which I photo­ full disposition was granted to the Political Revolution the West German magazine Spiegel in copied. It is an unequivocal order group formed especially for this The question of defense of the Soviet the middle of 1987-which asserted that which Stalin had countersigned by purpose. The special group was Union is particularly important these "the ghost of Trotsky.continues to wan­ Voroshilov, Molotov and Ordzhoni­ concerned with the liquidation of days as counterrevolution is striking in der through the halls of the universities kidze in order to share with the three continued on page 11 every direction. This was seen recently and studies of Russia, where the world- continued on page 6 7 SEPTEMBER 1990 5 Trotsky... (continued from page 5) in East Germany where our comrades of the Spartakist Workers Party of Ger­ many fought down the line to defend the social and economic gains and the very existence of the DDR work­ ers state, as bureaucratically deformed Trotsky Against as it has been,-against the imperialist onslaught for reunification with capi­ talist West Germany. In contrast, many ostensible Trotskyists, under the mantle of the democratic right of natioqal self­ determination, have placed themselves at Falsifiers of Marxism the tail of the Anschluss (annexation) express train, which is hurtling toward a nfortunately, the history of mankind Fourth Re.ich, a new empire of Greater up to our times has always been Germany. Uone of exploitation by minorities. Unconditional defense of the degen­ They have made use of cunning, they erated (in the case of the USSR) and' have made use of force, of deceit, to sub­ deformed workers states and rejection of jugate the majorities and achieve 'a far support to capitalist reunification was at higher standard ofliving with many priv­ the origin of a recent fusion of the Grupo ileges. It was in the middle of the last Espartaquista de Mexico with the Trot­ century when Karl Marx and Frederick skyist Faction, expelled by the pas. Engels for the firsttime developed a sci­ The comrades are present here and the entific ideology, a powerful arm for the joint bulletin which we published on this defense, for the liberation of the exploit­ fusion is on sale, so that we can go ed. It shouldn't be surprising that, ever Esteban Volkov into this subject more later, Here I want since, Marxism has been the target of in­ 'Bronstein (right) to emphasize the continuity and cur­ numerable and continuous attacks. Now, speaking at talk rent relevance of Trotsky's work in this the information media-or perhaps it on "Meaning of respect. It is well known that Trotsky's would be better to call them, in most Trotsky in the last political fight inside the Fourth Inter­ cases, the disinformation media-are toll­ Soviet Union national was against the petty-bourgeois Today." ing the bells for the burial of Marxism. opposition of Shachtman and Burnham, The tactic of the exploiters from the in the American SWP, who abandoned privileged minorities has always been to defense of the Soviet Union on the eve confuse and disorient the exploited mass­ of World War II. They thus yielded to es. From the last century on, from the the ideological pressure of the bourgeoi­ beginning of the century until now, this sie which was howling for "poor little has been the tactic. The best way to aware of this new process of falsifica­ of Marxism, justifies 100 percent the Finland" while it served as the spearhead subjugate the masses is to disorient them tion, of diversion of the Marxist socialist cause and the raison d'etre of the Fourth of imperialism against the USSR. and to keep them away from a powerful revolution, and he attempted during his International, as well as having been the Many are not aware, however, that revolutionary theory which can guide last hours to wage' a struggle which he best school and spokesman for revolu­ defense of the Soviet Union was a con­ them in their struggle. The whole history unfortunately could no longer carry out. tionary Marxism. stant of Trotsky's politics, in fact it was of the class struggle since the last cen­ Trotsky was the one who picked up the Obviously there aren't revolutionary the basis of his call for throwing out the tury has been along these lines. burden, and he fought the bureaucracy. processes every day-in a given country bureaucracy which criminally under­ Karl Marx himself had to fight vigor­ Trotsky's whole life cannot be sep­ it may come in 50 years, in a century­ mined this defense. In the third volume ously, as did Frederick Engels, against a arated from Marxist thought. In the and a Marxist party does not necessarily of his biography of Trotsky, The Prophet whole series of deviations, of falsifiers deformation of the October Revolution, have to .lead the seizure of the Winter Outcast, Isaac Deutscher notes that the and alterers of Marxism, in order to keep Marxism was turned into a dogma, into Palace. These revolutions don't take Bolshevik leader "was never to compro­ the full validity and vigor of this ideol­ a religion by Stalin, into an ideology place every day. The work of a revolu­ mise over... or to yield an inch from" his ogy. Initially the brunt of the attack, if totally opposed to whatit originally was. tionary party is to unconditionally defend defense of the USSR. "Thus, during the you will, of those who sought to divert Trotsky was among the first to pick up the working class and to educate the first half of this term of exile he and falsify Marxism was from the anar­ on this phenomenon, 'and without vac­ masses to understand what Marxism is, preached reform, not revolution, in the chists, from the social democrats. And as illation he energetically and valiantly to maintain the vitality of Marxism. Soviet Union; whereas in the second half the outbreak of the Russian Revolution undertook one-of the most heroic and 'Clearly, at the moment when the revolu­ he was to maintain that political revolu­ approached, the most important, key task courageous fights in history. The Left tion breaks out, its job is to lead it and tion was the only answer to bureaucratic in this work, in this historical under­ Opposition confronted the powerful bu­ to seek to take it to victory. But that is absolutism.... But even then he was taking, was to denounce the social de­ reaucratic state. He was exiled, expelled not a day-to-day task,b,ut rather a task never to waver in his insistence that the mocracy, which had replaced the class from the Soviet Union, his supporters which som.etimes comes only. once in a Soviet Union was a workers state; he struggle, the revolutionary processes,. were deported, and Trotsky untiringly century. declared the 'unconditional defence of with class collaboration. And in this .pursued this fight. As far as what we are' '\vitnessing the Soviet Union' against its bourgeois work, Lenin and Trotsky were the most Fifty years later, we are fully aware today: everywhere we hear of "the bank­ enemies to be the elementary obligation significant actors. In fact, it was this of this work. Stalinism is really coming ruptcy of Marxism," "the defeat of so­ of every member of the Opposition; and struggle which made possible the victory to the resting pface which Leon Trotsky cialism"-on the contrary, today is a he was repeatedly to disown friends and of the October Revolution, maintaining had predicted for it: the dustbin of his­ great day of celebration. We are witness­ adherents who were reluctant to accept the vitality of Marxism.' - tory. And thanks to the labors of Trotsky ing not the defeat of Marxism, we are this obligation." Unfortunately, some .years after the and Trotskyism, despite-perhaps we witnessing the burial ofone of the great­ This question was posed at the very victory of the first proletarian revolution have to mention criticisms, like that of est falsifications of Marxism to ever beginning of his exile, during the sum­ on the planet, based on Marxist theory, Isaac Deutscher, who felt that one of emerge. The greatest enemy of the work­ mer of 1929, over the dispute with there came again one of the greatest Trotsky's errors was the founding of ing class is in its death agony, Stalinism. Chiang Kai-shekabout the Soviet-owned betrayals and falsifications of Marxism, the Fourth International-I think that And in large part this is thanks to the Manchurian Railway which had been which was the Stalinist regime. During the work of denouncing and, fighting work of Leon Trotsky and the Fourth inherited from the tsarist empire. Trotsky the last days of his life, Lenin became against one of the biggest falsifications International. • debated with the German Leninbund, headed by Hugo Urbahns, with the French syndicalist group around the magazine Revolution Proletarienne and also with those. in the ranks of the Left Opposition who wanted to support bour­ geois China against the USSR. In his article, "Defense of the Soviet Republic and the Opposition" (September 1929), Trotsky insists that "it is necessary to adopt the position of the most resolute and unconditional defense of the USSR" against the threat of war. The same article has an abundance of comments which could not be more current in their relevance. He says, for example, that .' "from the proletarian standpoint, neither democracy as a whole nor national self-determination as an integral part of it stands above the Trotsky's study as it was the day classes; nor does either of them supply he was murdered by Stalin's the highest criterion of revolutionary agent. WitI'! Museum renovation, policy." Apply this today to the case of a handsome brochure has been the Baltic republics, where many osten­ published. sible Trotskyists proclaim "Hands off

6 WORKERS VANGUARD domination by this arm of the bureauc­ program of the Communist Party which Conference of ,nporPAMMHOE 3ASlBnEHME' racy, it is not anti-communist. It speaks specifies the obligatory participation of Union of Toilers COlO3A' TPYASlU4MXCSI ,KY36ACCA of "Soviet society, which has achieved every member of a soviet in administra­ of the Kuzbass, . npMHATO IV KOHcPePet....tteA COI030 TpyAA~"XC" Ky360cca since the October Revolution successes tive tasks, the regular rotation of such September 1989, 18-19 .-... 1989 'OAO well known to all in the creation of an tasks, the increasing involvement of all and Programmatic independent economy, in ensuring victo­ the working people in administering Declaration of the UTK. ry over fascism," but which' has now the state. This is quite the opposite of fallen into "the most sever-e crisis." It the current political reforms which seek denounces "the substitution of the power to tum the Impotent "soviets" into of a tight-knit group of persons... a bourgeois-style parliaments. bureaucratic clique" for "the socialist It is a regime ofsoviet democracy that power of the people." It comes out for can carry out, as the Transitional Pro­ perestroika, while stating that up to gram advocates" a "revision of planned now its course has been "extraordinarily economy from top to bottom in the inter­ slow and exceptionally painful for the ests of producers and consumers," in workers." which "factory committees should be Now, the economic platform of the returned the right to control production" UTK calls for "the liquidation of the and consumer cooperatives can carry out bureaucratic-commandist system in the an effective control of prices and the, economy" and recognizes "the equality quality of products. But the question of of all forms of property," including those the Stalinist bureaucracy is not limited to of "individual labor, stockholding, mixed pervasive obstacles and a swollen admin- and private" property. It holds that "Mar­ . istration; in the final analysis it is a ket relations are a priceless experience question of the class role played by this of human civilization" and sees in the privileged layer. The struggle for a prole­ turning over of property to workers' tarian political revolution is to overthrow collectives the solution to all evils. But the Thermidorian bureaucracy, which day how? After recognizing private property, after day "helps rot the foundations of it declares inadmissible the exploitation the socialist elements of the economy of the labor of others. It then calls for and increases the chances for capitalist , "equal rights between the mass of work­ restoration." Trotsky warned against this . Lithuania"-such as the British Workers ordinating committee spoke before the ers and management," and "the right. .. to danger half a century ago, and now we Power group and both wings of the fol­ biggest anti-Communist demonstration in remove all officials not warranting the are seeing it in our times. lowers of the late Nahuel Moreno-while memory, some 400,000 according to confidence of the collectives" and "a Today we can indicate as principal the nationalist'Lithuanian leadership some estimates, in which there were procedure under which the directing demands for a communist opposition in seeks to re-establish capitalist rule under many monarchist-i.e., tsarist-forces apparatus would work at the behest of the USSR: the mantle of independence. Last fall, the and there were slogans such as "Cure the workers' collectives." • For equality, more and better! For a United Secretariat published a disgusting Russia of Bolshevism." The least that one can say is that they Leninist-Trotskyist party! article praising the Estonian fascists, the Many of the Kuzbass imd Donbass have no idea of how a market economy • Build an anti-Stalinist, Leninist­ so-called Forest Brothers, who fought miners support the populist demagogue actually functions, in which by-definition Trotskyist party based onthe working together with the Nazis against the Red Boris Yeltsin, who praises Ronald Rea­ the producers are deprived of all these class and those sections of the Red Army Army during -the Second World War! gan and the "dynamism" of American "rights" which are placed in the hands with the least privileges and the most They represented, said the U'Sec.varmed capitalism. Certainly-the Mexican miners of capital. One only needs to look at responsibilities. . struggle against Stalinism." For our part, in Cananea arid their American fellow what is happening these days in Poland, • It is necessary to drive the parasites, we salute the Soviet veterans who recent­ workers in Morenci, Arizona can tell where Solidarnosc is re-establishing exploiters and their ideologues out of the ly mobilized to prevent the fascist Forest Soviet miners a lot about this "dyna­ capitalism on the backs of the working soviets. Brothers from marching for the indepen­ mism," which is based on massive lay­ people, exactly as we said nine years ago • "Socialism in one country" is a dence of Estonia. offs, breaking strikes, closing plants and when we declared "Down with Solidar­ defeatist myth. For proletarian revolu­ deploying the military to protect capital. Trotskyism-Program of the nos.ccounterrevolution!" and practically tionary internationalism. For the military In Leningrad, on the other hand, die­ the entire left proclaimed its solidarity defense of the Soviet Union against Soviet Working Class hard Stalinist bureaucrats have taken with Solidarity. A friend says that So­ imperialism which is relentlessly encir­ The Death Agony ofCapitalism and the over the workers' protests against the viet workers don't need political revolu­ cling the Soviet Union in a tightening Tasks of the Fourth International, better havoc wreaked by perestroika. Sinister .tion but bread. But how are they to get noose. known as the Transitional Program, Russian nationalist forces are 'also at the bread? Not from a market econ­ • For democratic-centralist planning written in 1938, remarks that "If we are work, linked to the anti-Semitic fascists omy. Polish workers today don't have through soviets of the workers and their to examine 'Trotskyism' as a finished of Pamyat. But in the Baltic republics, bread but soup kitchens, unemployment, allies, such as that section of the bu­ program, and even more to the point, as the predominantly Russian workers of the poverty. reaucracy, especially in the officer corps, an organization, then unquestionably Internationalist Movement have raised In other words, the miners reject the which explicitly renounces in word and 'Trotskyism' is extremely weak in the traditional Bolshevik slogans in confront­ present bureaucratic regime but their life their privileges; the collective peas­ USSR. However, its indestructible force ing the pro-capitalist nationalists. "alternative" of a market economy is antry and other oppressed; and that wing stems from the fact that it expresses not In other words, the principal character­ idealized, unreal, impossible. They say of the intelligentsia which, through the only revolutionary tradition but also istic of the Soviet workers movement that "in the USSR, there 1S not and can­ . struggle by the "left-wing populists, the today's actual opposition of the working presently is the lack of coherence, and as not be a power other than that of the New Communists" (as Popov put it) find class. The social hatred stored up by the we have noted in Workers Vanguard, Soviets of People's DeputiesJ'and there their way out of the maze of corrupt workers against the bureaucracy-this is "this is possible only because there does is evident a yearning for soviet democ­ appetites. precisely what from the viewpoint of the not exist today in the USSR a genuine racy, such as they understand it. To • For the formation of a Trotskyist Kremlin clique constitutes 'Trotskyism.' communist party of the working class." understand how this can be realized, we party across the Soviet Union. It fears with .a deathly and thoroughly The same pro-capitalist forces are recommend that they read the "Platform • For the democratic reorganization well-grounded fear the bond between conscious of their weakness. Gavril Po­ of the Opposition," written by Trotsky of the Soviet Union and the right of the deep but inarticulate indignation- of pov, the mayor of Moscow and a fervent in 1927, which says that to wage a any' nationality with an anti-counter- . , the workers and the organization of the advocate of the "market economy," noted determined struggle against bureauc-' revolutionary leadership to withdraw to Fourth International." that "The masses long for fairness and ratism one must return to the [1918] the extent that they see fit.. More than half a century later, we can economic equality. And the further the state that today more than ever Trotsky­ process of transformationgoes, the more For Unconditional Defense of the Soviet Union ism represents, the real interests of the acute and the more glaring will be the gap between those aspirations and M'L'~'ANT Soviet working class, and as such it AVictoryProgramFor TheOf TH [ offers the proletarian solution to the economic' realities." Popov foresees Soviet Union present crisis which the USSR is experi­ "waves of workers fighting for their own encing. In the growing chaos which is interests" which "will break up the forces registered daily, from the Kuznets coal of perestroika." He fears the rebirth of a basin, the Kuzbass, in Siberia to the . left-wing populism which he calls "the Baltic Coast, it's not that the workers are New Communists" (in capital. letters). absent. On the contrary, ever since the And. to counter this danger he says that great miners strike of last summer, when the "purely democratic model" is inade­ hundreds of thousands of workers occu­ quate; In calling for "new mechanisms of pied the coal mines and set up strike political power," this notable spokesman committees with the character of soviets, for the /"liberal" current is calling in replacing all state authority, the spectre effect for a dictatorial regime. of a new working-class explosion has Program for the been ever present. But so far great confu­ "New Communists" James P. Cannon, sion reigns in the ranks of the working leader of American people. In the face of Popov's fears, we repeat Trotskyists who This was seen recently in the 24-hour that the strength of Trotskyism is rooted were jailed for miners strike which took place on July in its program, which expresses the real opposition to 11, the last day of the 28th Congress , opposition of the Soviet working class. imperialist war, of the Communist Party of the 'Soviet Take the case of the Siberian miners who fought for defense Union. Many of its demands were against last year shook the USSR. I have here of Soviet Union. the CP, demanding that party cells in the the "Programmatic Declaration of the pits be dissolved and the property of the Union of Toilers of the Kuzbass" (UTK) CPSU be nationalized. In Moscow, a dated November 1989. Although it makes representative of the Kuzbass strike co- sharp criticisms of the. CPSU, of the 7 SEPTEMBER 1990 7 Young Sparlacus . Blacks Don't Buy Bush's War stayed at home waving the flag while (Black History and the Class Struggle Continued from page 12 ' working-class kids went off to die. In his No.4). Before that, blacks were either Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail confined to all-black combat units or sent 300 sailors, mostly blacks, staged a sit­ '72 (1973), Hunter Thompson describes off to die as unarmed servants for white down on the Constellation while on a the moving scene when the Vietnam officers. training exercise off the coast of Califor­ Veterans Against the War protested out­ Even now, 46 years after the fact, the nia, protesting racist treatment and de­ side the Republican convention in Miami government still refuses to consider fending six black sailors who had been in 1972: reversing one of the most notorious racist singled out for discriminatory discharge. "They were moving up Collins Avenue victimizations in the history of the U.S. Black America hated the Vietnam War. in dead silence; twelve hundred of them military. Fifty black sailors were court­ Muhammad Ali's famous refusal to the dressed in battle fatigues, helmets, com­ martialed on charges of mutiny in Port bat boots, ..a few carried full-size plastic draft board-"No Viet Cong ever called M-16s, many peace symbols, girlfriends Chicago, California in 1944 for refusing me nigger" -became a rallying cry for walking beside vets being pushed along to load unsafe ammunition after 320 men thousands upon thousands of radicalized the street in slow-moving wheelchairs, -202 of them black-were literally black youth inside and outside the army, others walking jerkily on crutches." blown to bits in an explosion. fed up with racist oppression at home They were sneered at by the assembled In good measure, the radicalization of and sympathetic to another nonwhite high fliers, including Rambo godfather the '60s was influenced by the fact that people who were at the receiving end of John Wayne, and confronted by a horde the Vietnamese people were waging a U.S. imperialism's brutality. Black GIs of cops. One 20-year-old brat even tried revolutionary war. In contrast, Saddam in Vietnam not only faced overt racist ramming through the crowd of vets on Hussein is a sordid nationalist strongman insults from their white officers, but were her motorbike. who is an oppressor, not a liberator of singled out to walk point on patrol and Among those present in Miami in 1972 e ec Black tar workers and minorities in Iraq. But Hus­ put into other positions where they'd be was Ron Kovic, who spoke from a Black protesters against the Vietnam sein doesn't hold a candle to the racist, the first to get a bullet. wheelchair because his legs were per­ War, New York City, 1967. genocidal crimes of U.S. imperialism. And soldiers who'd risked.their lives manently paralyzed in Vietnam. Kovic's Many black youth seek a road out of in 'Nam came back to find their lives at autobiography was the basis for the stars for valor, one silver star, a soldier's poverty through an education financed risk at home for daring to demand equal­ movie Born on the Fourth ofJuly. When medal, an army commendation medal, through military service-a modem-day ity, or worse yet, they were sent to De­ Kovic recently read out an open letter three combat infantry badges and master form of indentured servitude. They watch troit or Washington to suppress black to Bush calling for the immediate with­ paratrooper's wings. Today he is fighting glowing ads on TV saying "Be all that rebellion at gunpoint. Returning black drawal of American troops from the Gulf for his freedom after 19 years in jail on you can be" by joining the army. And veterans joined militant groups like the at a protest meeting in Los Angeles, this frame-up murder charges growing out of now they find themselves being yanked Black Panther Party. One black vet re­ highly decorated vet was denounced by the FBI's COINTELPRO campaign to out of school and shipped out to die in called, "Most of the Panthers then were a flag-waving "business consultant" as a disrupt the Panthers and all radical black the Persian Gulf. As far as the Pentagon veterans .... We had already fought for "self-pitying crybaby" who "doesn't care organizations. is concerned, all they can be is cannon the white man in Vietnam. It was clearly about American soldiers." As the Spartacist pamphlet "Black fodder for the racist war machine. his war." Or take the case of Geronimo Pratt, a Soldiers in the Jim Crow Military" docu­ The only way out of a system that Vietnam vets were spat on when they Vietnam vet who joined the Panthers. He uments, it was only with the Korean War spawns poverty, war and racism is returned home-not by braless New Left was wounded three times in Vietnam, in the early 1950s that the American through international socialist revolution. girls but by the right-wing yahoos who received two purple hearts, two bronze military was finally even integrated And that is a cause worth fighting for.•

and Dan Quayles who get sent! The various and sordid "leftists" (SWP, RCP, Socialist Action, etc.) pres­ .Berkeley Students Protest ent at the Berkeley rally tried to bring . back the days of Vietnam antiwar pro­ tests when "Bring Our Boys Home" was the popular-frontist rallying cry. The illusion peddled by these groups is that u. S. Invasion 01 Persian Gull U.S. imperialism was defeated by their It's the biggest U.S. military rrrobiliza­ peace crawls presided over by Democrat­ tion since the bloody, dirty war against ic Party "doves." They join even the Vietnam-and youth today are beginning likes of Richard Nixon in bleating, "No to worry that Uncle Sam could draft More' Vietnams," because that was a them to die in desert sands for the sake losing war for the American ruling class. of Big Oil's profits. The capitalist press In the Vietnam War "our boys" were marches in lockstep with U.S. imperialist the NLF and North Vietnamese sol­ aggression, trying to whip up enthusiasm diers who fought a revolutionary social for war and featuring "opinion polls" to struggle to rid their country of impe­ indicate that the whole country supports rialist bondage and capitalism. We say Bush. "Vietnam was a victory-two, three, Buton August 29, the very day the many defeats for imperialism!" In the New York Times crowed that at the .Persian Gulf today we are for the University of California's Berkeley cam­ defense of Iraq against the designs of pus, "No turmoil occurs in the very cra­ U.S. imperialism, which seeks to seize dle of campus turmoil," hundreds of control of the world's oil. We look not students rallied at Sproul Plaza to listen to the butcher Hussein, but to a revolu­ to antiwar speeches at a protest organized tionary mobilization ofthe Iraqi workers, by "Students for Peace in the Persian Kurds and leftists who have been bis Gulf." Two days earlier, about 50 stu­ victims. dents rallied at the predominantly black The Spartacus Youth Club fights to imon Daily alifornian Laney College campus in Oakland. August 29-Berkeley students gather in Sproul Plaza tp hear speakers against win students over to the side of the inter­ Erik Larsen; a college student and U.S. war for Big 011. ' national working class and' tobecome lance corporal in the Marine Reserves, active partisans in its struggles. With the addressed the Berkeley rally and bashed objector" and called on UC Berkeley to tionaries would not "refuse" the draft but spectre of bloody imperialist war before the hypocrisy of U.S,,imperialism: "Eight 'open its doors as a sanctuary for others instead seek to organize class opposition us, 'it is more urgent than ever for stu­ years ago, the U.S. encouraged the sale in the armed forces who refuse to go. within the imperialist armed forces. And dents to ally themselves with the social of chemical weapons to Saddam Hussein As Marxists we oppose conscription if the capitalist rulers, many of whom power of the labor movement to forge a ...and said nothing when Hussein used for the imperialist army. But as against saved their hides from going to Vietnam revolutionary vanguard party that can them on his own people." Larsen drew calls for draft resistance, which separates through the class privilege of student" topple capitalism, which evenas it trum­ the most applause from the crowd when off middle-class radicals from the mainly' deferments, decide to institute a draft, pets victory in the Cold War now drives he declared himself a "conscientious ~ black and working-class draftees, revolu- then this time let it be the Neil Bushes toward a very hot war.•

8 , WORKERS VANGUARD ,Iraq... (continued from page 1) carved up between the English and French in the secret Sykes-Picot agree­ ment of'1916. Part of Basra province until London recognized it as a protector­ ate in 1899, Kuwait was separated off after World War I in order to deny Iraq access to the sea, which was War Office policy to "limit its influence in the-gulf and keep it dependent on Britain." "We, the British, cobbled Iraq togeth­ er," admitted British diplomatSir Antho­ ny Parsons. T-he boundary with Kuwait contested by Saddam Hussein was dictat­ ed in 1922 by British high commissioner Sir Percy Cox. And indeed, the British drew the frontiers and designated rulers throughout the region, installing loyal Nelson/AFP . • Der Spiegel tribal leaders as monarchs as T.E. Law­ U.S. power behind the thrones of Saudi Arabia's King Fahd (left) and Emir of Kuwait. Iraq strongman Saddam Hussein rence did with Ibn Saud. And the French (right) is target of Bush's imperialist "new order." carved up their Syrian mandate territory to create the artificial state of Lebanon German "allies" have hung back from unplanned: the Army Corps of Engineers we walked out of tiny Lebanon after 250 as a pro-Western Christian-dominated military commitments in the Persian Gulf has spent $17 billion over the years for dead, are Americans ready to bear the enclave in the Levant. The last 40 years adventure, no doubt hoping to maintain military infrastructure in Saudi Arabia, burden of pacifying Iraq and Iran, with of bloodletting in the Middle East go friendly connections in the Arab world. including "hardened airfields where 70 million people." back to this cynical imperialist carve-up. As the world's chief bursars, they would fueling, maintenance and ordnance load­ To keep their profits flowing, they're Another Washington battle cry is Sad­ like to have the U.S. act as mercenaries ing are done well underground" and prepared to spill the blood of millions of dam Hussein's refusal to let Westerners to guard "their" oil supplies. runways were specifically designed for impoverished Arabs and thousands of leave Iraq, turning them into hostages. But if the junk-bond-bloated Yankee large U.S. transport planes (Navy Times, black and working-class American youth Why, he even sent some to Iraqi military rulers are short on productive capacity 27 August). And "Operation Desert in uniform. The Vietnam War brought bases and dams which would be obvious these days, they're trying to make up for Shield" could be implemented so quickly down two American presidents. Bush & targets of U.S. air strikes. What savage­ it with brute military .force. In the first because the Joint Chiefs of Staff simply Co. will soon enough find out that the ry! War is indeed a savage business in Vietnam syndrome is still alive. which enemy aliens are often subjected to repression. And the citizens of any American military (aircraft, ships, Mideast Cauldron country participating in the blockade of troops) have moved in to stay, in .Iraq certainly qualify as enemy aliens. As bases throughout Arabian peninsula, If during the Vietnam War, protesters Hussein pointed out, in World War II, in 10 grab Mideast oilsuppUes. sang "One, two, three, what are we fight­ an act of racism utterly without military ing for?" that question will be repeated justification, the U.S. threw hundreds of more loudly today when this war can't be thousands of Japanese Americans, many TURKEY justified as part of the crusade against of them U.S. citizens, into concentration Communism. Who wants to die so that camps. the Kuwaiti Emir can live a life of luxury And then there is the matter ofIraq's in a state where only 70,000 men out of poison gas, "the poor man's atom bomb." a population of over 2 million have the Having for years turned a blind eye to right to vote for a "parliament" which is Hussein's vicious use of nerve gas and dissolved as soon as it meets? Or for the mustard gas against Iranian troops and feudal house of Saud which lords it over thousands of Kurds inside Iraq, now its one-family state where women are de­ Washington objects. Forget that the U.S. nied the right to drive, much less vote, has a vast chemical warfare arsenal, and and even princesses are beheaded for that Bush has fought Congress to con­ adultery. Saudi Arabia is the largest re­ tinue production of "binary" nerve gas. maining state where chattel slavery still American warships in the region surely exists. ; carry atomic weapons, and we are mor­ Already there have been incidents of ally certain the Pentagon is already up­ "culture shock" as U.S. troops come up dating operational plans to nuke Baghdad. against the social straitjacket of Saudi medievalism. In one case: Saudi'soldiers "New World Order" went crazy when a woman member of an F-15 ground crew took her shirt off to When Hitler took power in '1933 pro­ work in her T-shirt in the 120 degree claiming a "New Order," he proclaimed heat. And take note that the Saudi dy­ it would last a thousand years. In taking nasty was catapulted into power with the up the same rhetoric, Bush is desperately aid of the Wahabi sect. In Afghanistan, trying to revive the "American Century" . where they have been acting as merce­ which, as we have put it, was buried.in nary mujahedin (holy warriors), these the jungles of Vietnam. Hitler's "New Islamic fanatics are notorious for raping Order" lasted 12 years; Bush's coeld .. every "infidel" womanthey come across. blow up in his face in a matter of weeks. ~ Those are the U.S.' glorious "allies" This is no longer 1945, WhenAmerica '(1;) Air Base in Bush's war for "freedom" and "our was undisputed master of the capitalist ~ ArmyBase way of life." Iraq's Saddam Hussein, on world. German imperialism is forming a the other hand; has won popular support Fourth Reich by taking over East Germa­ New York Times Map throughout the area, justifying his take­ ny and establishing the domination of the over of Kuwait as an effort to take back D-mark in East Europe on theroad to place, the U.S. mobilization is far more presented Bush with a modified version the oil wealth from the lavish-living economic hegemony throughout Europe. than necessary to "defend" Saudi-Arabia: of "Plan 90-1002" for a massive air- and sheiks. He is also now seen by the Pales­ Japan is forming a new "co-prosperity the Pentagon has movedin "ground and sealift of U.S. forces to the Gulf. tinians as a champion of their cause sphere" in East Asia having already helicopter forces expressly geared to It's clear that U.S. forces are being against the Zionists who have deprived become the U.S.' main creditor. The offensive operations.t'.just the mix that moved into the Persian' Gulf to stay. continued on page 10 "dollar zone" is being challenged by the computer wargame analysis indicates for Heretofore, the Saudis have been reluc- yen and D-mark. an air/land attack on Iraq, notes the au-,....--_ ...tant to grant the Pentagon base rights. Today the American imperialists talk thoritative Aviation We,ek(27 August). But in the last weeks, American combat of,protecting the oil "life line." In the But a war with Iraq~sbattle-bardened aircraft have been stationed in all the 1800s, British interest in.Mesopotamia army of nearly a millien.men with over Gulf states of the Arabian peninsula. De- Spartacist League (present-day Iraq) was based ondefend­ 5,000 tanks will not ~.a walkover like fenseSecretary Cheney makes no bones Public Offices ing the "life line" to India. This;~as also Panama or Grenada. No war has ever about it: the U.S. military commitment the rationale for grabbing Suez,:~d once been won through a~l()Ckade, as was .is "long term," and "we do not know - MARXIST LlTERATURE­ they had Egypt and the Anglo-.£gyptian tried against the Southern Confederacy how long we will have-to stay." With this lay Area Sudan, that paved the way for ~ Cecil and Germany. And as.Hussein himself invasion the U.S. has taken a big step Thurs.: 5:30-8:00 p.m., Sat.: 1:00-5:00 p.m. Rhodes' "Cape to Cairo" types, While pointed out, no warhas.ever been won toward a strategic objective: a military 1634 Telegraph, 3rd Floor (near 17th Street) Britannia ruled the waves andipbbed through air power. SoJheY're gearing up stranglehold on the M.iddle East. But now Oakland, California . Phone: (415) 839-0851 the lion's share of Africa, the·iGermans for "the big one." Rigbtnow they're in they may have topay the price in blood. Cllicago dreamed of a Berlin-to-Baghdadjailroad. a phase of "phony war," letting UN . While the Democrats march in lock- Tues.:5:00-9:00p.m., Sat.:;11:00 a.m.-2:oo p.m. 161 W. Harrison St., 10th Floor When these two imperial arlibitions secretary general Perez de Cuellar show step with Bush, however, elements in the Chicago, illinois Phone: (312) 663-0715 clashed, the result was World War I. that shuttle diplomacyis worthless. It .Republican right wing (such as Patrick U.S. rulers want to regain the position will take another few weeks for the U.S. - Buchanan) have doubts about the U.S.' lew York City . Tues.: 6:30-9:00 p.rn., Sat.: 1:00-5:00 p.m. of imperialist top cop by seizing the oil, to get the full complement of forces in military capacity to bring this off. These 41 warren St. (one block below which they can then dole out to their place. And then inexorable pressure will "Fortress America" types want to con- Chambers St. near Church Sl.) economically more dynamic rivals. Sig­ mount to "use it or lose it." centrate on dismantling the ex-Soviet New York, NY Phone: (212) 267-1.025 nificantly, Washington's Japanese and The current "crisis" was not entirely bloc. Attacking Bush, Buchanan asks: "If 7 SEPTEMBER 1990 9 Iraq.·.. (continued from page 9) Letter to- the Kremlin them of a homeland. Hussein is simulta­ neously 'trying to take on the mantle of Nasser as the unifier of the Arab nation against feudalism and imperialism, while putting himself forward as the new scion Rescind Arms Embargo of Iraq of Muhammad in calling for a jihad to 9 August 1990 sion pose a danger not only to that xprofits sweated out of oil workers defend the Islamic holy sites- from the volatile region but to the Soviet Union from the PersianGulf to the North Sea Western infidels and their lackeys. Embassy of the Union of itself. The deployment of American to the Gulf of Mexico: our interest is Of course, with his roots in the Ba'ath Soviet Socialist Republics, might in the region has tightened the that this wealth go to the· working "Socialist" party, Saddam Hussein was Washington, D.C. and Paris encirclement ofthe Soviet Union by the people of the world. We say: U.S. Out supposedly secular. In reality, he is the USSR Mission to the United Nations utterly hostile forces of imperialism. of the Persian Gulf! We Trotskyists, kind of thug and mfuderer Who would Dear Ambassadors: . In pursuit of narrow diplomatic con­ who stand in defense of the Soviet normally qualify as a U.S. ally. He might The American imperialists have cerns, the Soviet government previously workers state against world imperi­ be compared to bloody Pakistani dictator seized upon a local disturbance in the signed a

second figure of the Revolution and the Archives..• . Civil War, he was very close to Lenin, Workers Vanguard he was a highly cultured person, of a (continued from page 5) strong intellect, a brilliant publicist and political adversaries abroad. Not only orator. On the other hand, he partook in Subscription Drive Trotsky. the system that we are now destroying: Stalin took a lot from him. I arrived at La Stampa~ You mention a "general a paradoxical conclusion: the greatest order" to kill exiles who had become Trotskyist was Stalin. Oc~ober opponents. But in .the archives did you August 30 to 10 find the precise order for the operation La Stampa: Do you mean to say that that was carried out in Mexico? the regime of terror installed by Stalin found its roots in Trotsky? 19~O Volkogonov:Yes, the document exists. Quotas It is among those that I photocopied and Volkogonov: 'I say, for example, that Quota is mentioned in my book. the extermination of the kulaks (the Local peasants of the agrarian bourgeoisie) was (in point.) La Stampa: And was it signed by decided in '27-'28 by Trotsky. And the Stalin? Atlanta 190 idea of the "blockade detachments" to Boston 300 Volkogonov: Yes, it was signed by Sta­ which Stalin resorted in '41-'42 had Chicago 450 lin himself. But in order not to assume already been used by Trotsky in ' 18; if sole responsibility for such an order, Cleveland 150 the troops left their positions without Los Anqeles 300 Stalin had it signed also by other mem­ orders, these "blockade detachments," bers of the Politburo. New York 1,100 that were in the rear guard, shot at their Oakland 735 La Stampa: When was the document comrades who were retreating. Not only San Francisco 315 signed and by whom? . this. The first instructions for concentra­ Washington, D.C. 120 Volkogonov: It was signed in Septem­ tion camps were given by Trotsky. Trot­ At Large 300 ber '31. But in '34 a new order made the sky is implicated in many crimes that we operation concrete. Then another good denounce today. six years were necessary in order to La Stampa: Trotsky appears as a com­ National Total 3,960 follow it through. Trotsky hid himself, pletely negative figure, then. Historical changed refuges, was surrounded by judgment will not change? faithful custodians. It was an epochal Volkogonov: I didn't say that. Trot­ r--- period. Do you want to know the names sky's greatest merit is that, from the Subscribe Now! ---, of 'the four signatories? Here they are. beginning to the end, he was the only Klement Voroshilov, Vyacheslav Molo­ one to stand up against Stalin. In the tov, Grigori Ordzhonikidze.. most difficult and dramatic moments of La Stampa: And the fourth? the '20s he had the courage, the histori­ ______Apt. # __~_ Volkogonov: The fourth was Joseph cal courage, to oppose Stalin. This is Stalin. . reason alone to enter Trotsky foreve~r in 509 La Stampa: Your research could be history. considered the most thorough study of La Stampa: And Trotsky's gravest SPECIAL! A free packet of Spartaclst literature or pamphlet with full subscriptions to both Workers Vanguard and Women and Revolution. Trotsky ever carried out in the USSR. error? What is the political profile that Volkogonov: Trotsky was hostage, was o $7/24-issues of Workers Vanguard ._. o $3/3 issues of emerges? prisoner of a grand, false idea: the idea (includes English-language Spartacist) Women and Revolution Volkogonov: Trotsky is a figure who of the world revolution. Even one week o New 0 Renewal International rates: ,0 $2/10 introductory issues attracts a lot of interest today in our before his death, he wrote that he $25/24 issues-Airmail $7/24 issues-Seama'il of Workers Vanguard country. When writing about him one believed in the victory ofthe world revo­ (includes English-language 0$2/4 issues of Spartacist (edici6n en espariol) cannot use only the color red or only the lution. A false idea but a grand one. Spartacist) color black., He is a complicated per­ That's why he, too, is great and why he sonality. On the one hand, he was the attracts so much sympathy.• 7 SEPTEMBER 1990 11 WIIINEIiS "N'IJIIII'

B"lacks Don't Buy Bush's War

Blacks aren't buying Bush's war to percent of black voters (as compared to Troops in the Persian Gulf: Why Are Dan Quayle didn't get sent off to die in make the world safe for Exxon, and no 74 percent of whites) approve of Bush's They There?" and "Is Iraq the Real the jungles of Indochina-their daddies surprise. Being black in capitalist Arner­ war moves, while 49 percent are outright Enemy?" made sure of that. It was the sons of icaputs you at the bottom of an ever opposed. While the big business press On predominantly black campuses, at working people who were shipped out to emptier barrel. Bush says the troops are pimps for Bush, black newspapers are New York transit depots, in Harlem fight a counterrevolutionary war against in the Gulf to defend the "American way the workers and peasants of Vietnam. of life"-so he can tool around in his, cigarette boat off Kennebunkport and his Black America Hated son Neil can skim millions off the S&L What's Exxon Ever Done for You? the Vietnam War scam. But for the black youth being sent to die in the Arabian sands the "Ameri­ Ever since Vietnam, U.S. rulers have can way of life" means being out of a tried to gear up the population for an­ job, out of a home and a walking target other imperialist adventure overseas. for every trigger-happy racist cop on the Meanwhile, they exact vengeance on the streets. Vietnamese people by a boycott to starve IWA them. Hollywood launched a Big Lie campaign to rewrite history with films - Young like The Deer Hunter and the gung ho racist Rambo flicks. To explain the Sparlacas humiliating defeat in Indochina, the right wing borrows a page from Hitler's Having gotten everything they de­ "stab in the back" myth, that Germany manded and then some from the craven didn't lose World War I on the battle­ capitulators in the Kremlin, having man­ field but rather it was Jews and Bol­ aged to walk over tiny black Grenada sheviks on the home front who were and brutally install a new puppet regime responsible. The American version has in Panama, the American rulers think wounded and disabled Vietnam vets com- they can once again be unchallenged o ing home to be spat on by New Left cops of the world like the "good old antiwar activists. days" before their 'humiliating defeat in This is a damned lie! Can anyone who Vietnam. "The end of the Vietnam syn­ lived through the Vietnam War era recall drome," crows a commentary in U.S. a single instance ofIeftists spitting on News & World Report (20 August). Don't returning GIs? On the contrary, there bet on it. The "Vietnam syndrome't-s-the were plenty of cases where New Leftists result of America's dirty, losing colonial running headlines like "U.S. Has No and other black communities, you can set up coffeehouses near military bases war in Indochina-is alive and well, and Business in Middle East" (City Sun, 29 hardly find anybody who's gung ho over in order to reach out to soldiers, over­ that's before a single GI has returned August) and "Death to the People...For the U.S. invasion. Muslims and Arab whelmingly black or working-class, to home in a body bag. Arab Oil" (New American, 30 August). Americans deeply resent Washington's convince them that this was a war they A recent poll by the Wall Street Jour­ The Howard. University Hilltop (31 claim to. defend the "freedom" of the had no stake in. And they got a hearing. nal and NBC News found that only 41 August) runs articles headlined, "U.S. oil-rich Kuwaiti sheiks while it endorses By the time most American ground Zionist butchery against Palestinians in troops were pulled out of Indochina in the Occupied Territories. Prominent Los 1972, the army ranks were in turmoil. Angeles DJ Casey Kasem yows to speak "Fragging" ·(killing hated officers, out against the U.S. invasionin the Near usually with fragmentation grenades) had East "to make up for what I didn't do" reached epidemic proportions. Many GIs during the Vietnam War. Even among shot themselves, hoping it would get the whites who back Bush's moves, that them sent stateside. And there was grow­ support is very shallow, and will change ing political opposition to the war within as soon as American soldiers start com­ the military, particularly among black ing home in aluminum caskets. GIs. In Vietnam itself, there were sit­ Wali Muhammad, aide to Nation of down strikes and brig rebellions by sol­ Islam demagogue Louis Farrakhan, diers who had been imprisoned for refus­ voices the sentiments of millions of black ing to obey orders. Even the elite B-52 people when he says: "We know all air crews, suffering ever-mounting losses about getting ouroil cut off-it gets cut in December 1972 as they flew daily into off in the winter because we can't pay withering North Vietnamese anti-aircraft for it" (Wall Street Journal, 22 August). fire, began staging mass "sick-outs" at And Mississippi Democrat Mike Espy, their bases in Guam and U-Tapao (Thai­ who like the rest of his party has rallied land). And the Navy brass were horrified 'round Bush's invasion, concedes: by a wave of suspected sabotage, includ­ "Blacks look back at the history of the .ing a major fire aboard the Forrestal, and war in Vietnam, and many of them a mass antiwar petition signed by over a remember it as a poor soldiers' war, with. thousand sailors on another ship. the rich kids all winning deferments. At Fort Hood, 150 black soldiers re­ Black people fear their sons may be the fused to go to Chicago to be used against first to die." And no wonder. antiwar demonstrators outside the 1968 Death is about the only thing blacks Democratic convention. In late 1972, get first crack at in this deeply racist pent-up frustration over racist attacks society, whether it be in their preponder­ exploded aboard the aircraft carrier Kitty ance on death row or as cannon fodder Hawk as it headed .for North Vietnam for imperialist war. An estimated one­ from the Philippines: 21 black sailors Vietnam. Black soldier reads sign: "U.S. Negro Armymen! You are committing quarter of the troops sent to Saudi Arabia charged with "doting" were flown to the the same ignominious crimes in South Vietnam that the KKK clique is are black, and one out of every three GIs, brig at San Diego. A few days later over perpetrating against your family at home." in Vietnam was black. Bush's sons and continued on page 8

12 7 SEPTEMBER 1990