2se W',IlE,'No. 493 '''''''''',12 January 1990 u.s. Troops Out, Now-All of Them! • • an ee m ena IS S a e anama

AP Photos "Free world democracy." U.S. Invaders "detain suspects" (above), as Panama City burns after American bombing. It was Teddy Roosevelt and the Big Randolph Hearst. Washington said it concentration camps. To "protect lives," "Operation Just Cause." Recalling' the Stick all over again, complete with a went in to restore democracy, protect they obliterated entire neighborhoods and Orwellian doublespeak of the Vietnam puppet Panamanian president "sworn American lives and apprehend a danger­ dumped the corpses in mass graves. And War, one Panamanian engineer remarked in" at a U.S. military base, and a-servile ous criminal. To "restore democracy," in the Big Lie spirit of Hitler's propagan­ bitterly, "The country is being destroyed "yellow" press worthy of a William they imposed martial law and erected da chief Joseph Goebbels, they called it to save it." A university lecturer said, "If I was a military man, I'd go to the moun­ MurzaiNeues Deutschland tains, not because I support Noriega, but because of the nation. It's like being raped." Egged on by the Democrats for his failure to send troops in to salvage the miserable coup fiasco last October, this was George Bush's way of saying, "I'm no wimp." To score a victory on the cheap, the spineless Rambos in Wash­ ington threw 26,000 troops against the minuscule Panamanian Defense Forces and Noriega's Dignity Battalions. And even with three times as many troops as the whole of Panama could muster, with columns of tanks, with helicopter gunships and high-tech Stealth fight­ ers, it still took the Americans days to "win." As they rode roughshod over the Pana­ manian people, the Yankee invaders carried out one war provocation after another. With. its death squad regime in EI Salvador unable to score a win against the leftist rebels, with its contra killers and rapists incapable of posing any sort of challenge to Sandinista Nicaragua, Washington decided to wage war against Cuban and Nicaraguan diplomats in Panama City. U.S. troops blockaded the Cuban andNicaraguan embassies, kid­ napped two Cuban diplomats and ran- continued on page 13 Comrade Vincent

Comrade Vincent, a working-class militant and leading cadre of Spartacism in Sri Lanka, died tragically in a motor accident last week. He had been a member of the revolutionary movement since 1964. Those in the movement who knew him deeply cared for him, and will ei'perience not just a serious setback in their work but the loss of a deeply valued collabo­ rator. His warmth and friendliness helped forge bonds of comradeship between comrades in Asia, Europe, America and Australia. His family has now lost a husband and a father. We extend our condolences and sympathy to his wife and three children. Three hundred friends, family and former and present comrades attended comrade Vincent's funeral on January 6. The coffin was draped with a red flag. In this difficult and bloody communalist period in Lanka, the recon- . struction and development of the revolutionary party have received a severe blow. We can only hope that class-conscious young militants will come forward to fill the void that the death of comrade Vincent has left, to further the struggle to free this tortured island from its communal and intercommunal bloodbath so that a proletarian beacon for Lanka and all of South Asia may emerge. - International Executive Committee, International Communist League 8 January 1990

Lenin on the German Social Democracy With East Germany today in the throes of an unfolding political revolution, West Ger­ man imperialism has again turned to its So­ cial Democratic lieutenants to be the Trojan horsefor capitalist counterrevolution. This is the same role they played 70 years ago, act­ ing in the name of bourgeois "democracy." While the Social Democratic government of TROTSKY Gustav Noske, Friedrich Ebert and Philipp LENIN Scheidemannhad the German workers revolu- tion of 1918-19 drowned in blood and its heroic leaders Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg murdered, the "left" Karl Kautsky, who served as an adviser in the govern­ ment, provided "democratic" imperialism with ideological weapons against the young Russian Soviet Republic. On the eve of Liebknecht's assassination, Lenin exposed the reactionary role of the Social Democracy. With Liebknecht and the Spartacists are all those German socialists who have remained honest and really revolutionary, all the best and dedicated men among the proletariat, the exploited masses who are seething with indignation and among whom there is a growing readiness for revolution. Against Liebknecht are the Scheidemanns, the Siidekums and the whole gang of despicable lackeys of the Kaiser and the bourgeoisie. They are just as much traitors to socialism as the Gomperses and Victor Bergers, the Hendersons and Webbs, the Renaudels and Vanderveldes. They represent that top section of workers who have been bribed by the bourgeoisie, those whom we Bolsheviks called (applying the name Spartakist Spartaklst Gruppen banner at East Serlin's Treptower Park, January 3, to the Russian Sudekums, the Mensheviks) "agents ofthebourgeoisle in the working­ reads: "For a red soviet Germany In a socialist Europel" class movement," and to whom the best socialists in America gave the magnificently expressive and very fitting titlec-t'Iabour lieutenants of the capitalist class." They represent the latest, "modern," type of socialist treachery.... ~Iartakist Between the Spartacists and, the Scheidemann men are the wavering, spineless GruPlen SAeaker: "Kautskyites," who in words are "independent," but in deeds are entirely, and all along the line, dependent upon the bourgeoisie and the Scheidemann men one day, upon the Spartacists the next, some following the former and some the latter. These "March Separately, are people without ideas, without backbone, without policy, without honour, without conscience, the living embodiment of the bewilderment of philistines who stand for socialist revolution in words; but are actually incapable of understanding it when it has begun and, in renegade fashion, defend "democracy" in general, that is, actually Strike Together!" defend bourgeois democracy. At the January 3 demonstration Plague. What we need is a broad or­ - V.I. Lenin, "Letter to Workers of Europe and America" (January 1919) against neo-Nazi desecrations of the ganization of the working ll1asses, the graves of Soviet soldiers in East masses of working peopl,~ of the Berlin (see pages 7-10), a Spartakist whole nation. They must organize Gruppen spokesman addressed the themselves in soviets, in workers and rally. His remarks are translated soldiers councils. from the 4 January issue of Arpre­ We need the united front just as we !~~!!'!!.~r..~!!.!!~.!.'!.~ korr, published by our comrades of needed it in the '30s against Hitler. the Trotzkistische Liga Deutschlands. And we now have a historic opportu­ DIRECTOR OF PARTY PUBLICATIONS: Liz Gordon nity to build this united front. And all Anti-fascists of Berlin, EDITOR: Jan Norden political forces, all anti-fascist politi­ PRODUCTION MANAGER: Jorge Ramirez We are here today to condemn the cal forces must be represented in this CIRCULATION MANAGER: Karen Valdez desecration of the memorial to Soviet united front. Remember Lenin's slo­ EDITORIAL BOARD: George Foster, Frank Hunter, Jane Kerrigan, Len Meyers, James Robertson, soldiers. We must now consider what gan: March separately, strike together! Reuben Samuels, Joseph Seymour, Alison Spencer, Marjorie Starriberg we can do against the neo-Nazi We must build a genuine workers de­ The Spartacist League is the U.S. Section of the International Communist League (Fourth Internationalist). scourge. We must build a broad united mocracy. Only that can root out fas­ Workers Vanguard (USPS 098-770) published biweekly, except 2nd issue August and with 3-week interval December, front of all working people. We can­ ciS01. We need a party in the spirit of by the Spartacist Publishirtg Co., 41 Warren Street, New York, NY 10007. Telephone: (212) 732-7862 (Editorial), not stand idly by and wait until a Lenin, Liebknecht and Luxemburg! (212) 732-7861 (Business). Address all correspondence to: Box 1377, GPO, New York,NY 10116. Domestic subscriptions: $7.00/24 issues. Second-class postage paid at New York, NY. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Workers Verfassungsschutz [Office for the Pro­ We must extend the social gains of Vanguard, Box 1377, GPO, New York, NY 10116. tection of the Constitution] is founded. our revolution so that we can survive Opinion. expressed in signed articles or letters do not necessarily express the editorial viewpoint. No Verfassungsschutz in the world has in our country. For a red soviet Ger- No. 493 12 January 1990 yet been able to stop the Brown many in a soc!alist Europe!- "-

2 WORKERS VANGUARD As Solidarnosc Cracks the Whip~gainst Polish Workers•.. / Walesa's ··Left" Fans Run for Cover Eight years ago, almost every self­ y declared "Trotskyist" organization in the West took the imperialists' Cold War ~ rallying cry. of "Solidarity.with Solidar­ ~ -2 J..u.ry 1981 -15 D...m.... 1989 nose" as their own. They heralded Soli­ ,,,.IM darnosc as a glorious uprising of the White House Backs Stalinist Repression Polish working people against Stalinist "totalitarianism," as an example for the LechWalesa American labor movement, as the inspi­ ration for revolutionary struggle around !ppeaks:~ the globe, ad nauseam. The international The political consequences of this procapitalist econom Spartacist tendency (now International program .were most clearly voiced this week by Lech Walesa. who has become the principal spokesman for turning Poland Communist League [Fourth International­ r to the Westernbanks. In a speech December 12 in Gdans ist]) stood virtually alone in recognizing ,qi;itl_it¥lIllfe(t;iiklfm!U.~J¥~~ntG!.·,·,·,···· .' Solidarnosc for what it was-"a company union for the CIA and bankers." David North's Bulletin, 1981, hailed IMF/CIA front man Walesa as savior of 10 million Polish workers. Now, Workers Walesa & Co. hardly kept their pro­ League political bandits bury their history:..again. gram for capitalist restoration a secret. At its first national congress in Septem­ ber 1981 Solidarnosc opposed any men­ leading for Solidarnosc. Not surprisingly leader Ernest Mandel as "an agent of enthusiasts was "ten million Polish work­ tion of "socialism" in its constitution, the award for the most consummate capitalist restoration" who is "absolutely ers can't be wrong." Like their support while taking up the CIA call for "free hypocrisy and cynicism in this endeavor hostile to questions ofpolitical principle" to the ayatollah Khomeini's "Islamic trade unions" and "free elections" in the has to go to David North's Workers for his support to Solidamosc! When the revolution"-which they also now seek Soviet bloc and. demanding that Poland League. Northites talk about "political principle," to deny-they couldn't resist Solidarnosc join the bloodsucking International Mon­ An, editorial in the Bulletin (15 De­ hold on to your wallet! The Workers because it too was a "mass movement." etary Fund. Lane Kirkland, the hardline cember 1989) entitled "Eastern European League has consistently stood on the side Above all, support for Solidarnosc was Cold Warrior who heads the AFL-CIO, Revolutions Threaten World Capitalism" of every and any force hostile to the the ideal calling card for getting hired on was invited to attend. So was Irving warns against the "program of capitalist Soviet Union from Walesa to the ayatol­ as waterboys by the anti-Communist U.S. Brown, the CIA's main "labor" operative restoration and mass impoverishment... lah Khomeini to the CIA's Afghan muja­ labor bureaucracy. in smashing Communist-led unions in imposed through the joint collaboration hedin. Vitriolic Russia-haters, the-Healy/ Spouting revolutionary jargon does not Europe after World War II. of the sections of the Stalinist bureauc­ Northites hailed the murder of 21 Iraqi a revolutionary make. Those incapable of A month after the Solidamosc con­ racy and imperialist stooges like Lech Communists by the Ba'athist regime in swimming against the stream when the gress, Lech Walesa secretly met with Walesa." But a few years back, under the 1979, as only one among many of their masses are intoxicated with backward top American corporate executives at heading "Lech Walesa Speaks," the Bul­ paid services for a variety ofMiddle East consciousness will not be capable of a posh restaurant outside Paris (see letin (2 January 1981) rhapsodized over despots. leading them to victory when a revolu­ "Friends of Lech Walesa, Inc.," WV No. this imperialist stooge as a veritable tionary opportunity arises. As we wrote 296, 8 January 1982). Meanwhile Soli­ working-class savior: the "son of a car­ The Pope's "Trotskyists" at the time of Solidarnosc' first national darnosc was getting millions through penter," who "had to live in a tiny Of course the USec took a back seat congress: various CIA conduits, including the Ger­ two-room flat. .. with his wife and five to no one in its enthusing over Solidar­ "The choices facing revolutionaries over man Social Democracy and the AFL- children" but now "leads of [sic] union Poland in the absence of a mass Trotsky­ nose. Mandel called Walesa & Co. "the ist vanguard are not attractive even if best socialists in the world," while the they are clear. Abstentionism is not a U.S. Mandelites in Socialist Action were choice; it is backhanded support to coun­ so inspired by Walesa that they took the terrevolution. No less a danger is aban­ -October 1984 doning the perspective of struggle for the Solidarnosc logo as the masthead for conscious factor in history, for the inter­ their paper. In a 1984 speech to com­ national proletarian vanguard." memorate the birth of Solidarnosc, So­ -"Stop Solidarity's Counter­ cialist Action's Larry Cooperman de­ revolution!" (WV No. 289, clared, "For us, Polish Solidarity has 23 September 1981) been and is a reminder of the 'socialism Today there is an opening for common we want" (Socialist Action, October struggle between the workers who were 1984). Now we read that "Walesa steps the base of Solidarnosc and those in the in to direct attacks on Polish workers" much larger, formerly Stalinist-led trade (Socialist Action, September 1989). unions against the unholy gang of Stalin­ In yet another AmericarrMandelite ist bureaucrats and Solidarnosc leaders group, the Fourth Internationalist Ten­ who are controlled by the bloodsuck­ dency, support to Solidarnosc seems to ing international capitalists of the IME be causing some friction today. In the While necessarily beginning around Socialist Action leader Nat Weinstein December 1989 Bulletin in Defense of immediate economic demands for surviv­ (left) Joined with anti-Communists.in Marxism, an article by Samuel Adams al, what is posed implicitly is a working­ December 1981 .rally for Solldarnosc. chafes that FIT leader Steve Bloom class struggle for political power. What "tends to make light ofSolidarity's right­ is desperately needed, as we wrote eight CIO "International Department" (see of. to million workers which has ...the ward thrust." "Let's Not Forget the Role years ago, is a genuine Trotskyist leader­ "'AFL-CIA' and Solidamosc," WV No. bureaucracy trembling in. its boots." of the Masses," replies Bloom, dismiss­ ship "reforged in a reborn Fourth Inter­ 490, 24 November 1989). The tapes of Today Walesa'sprogram is "capitalist ing Solidarnosc' program for capitalist national by revolutionaries who defended the secret Radom leadership meeting in restoration and mass impoverishment." restoration as "apurely abstract possibili­ the gains of October when the danger December 1981, publicly broadcast by But when Solidarnosc decisively took the ty raised by Mazowiecki in his public was near, the s~uation complex and need the Jaruzelski regime, exposed Solidar­ road of capitalist restoration at its first pronouncements"! for programmatic clarity and backbone nose' plans for a counterrevolutionary . congress, the Bulletin (15 September The bottom line for Walesa's "left" urgent.". coup. 1981) crowed "Poland: On the Road to Ourcall to "Stop Solidarnosc Counter­ Political Revolution" and heralded "an revolution!" provoked howls of outrage undaunted, young, vigorous and inde­ from the left. Now Walesa openly brags, pendent trade union movement-the "We are setting out ...to return to the strongest in Eastern Europe-c-Solidarity." prewar situation when Poland was a Now the Bulletin asks "What Is Lane capitalist" country, after having gone Kirkland Doing in Poland?" and points through a long period of socialism" (Il out that "Kirkland's specific assignment Messaggero, 22 August 1989). Cracking on behalf of the White House is "to set up the whip for Western bankers the Soli­ a CIA-run trade-union bureaucracy to darity-led government of Prime Minister brutally suppress the struggles of Palish Tadeusz Mazowiecki has begun to slash workers." But in 1981 they somehow wages and subsidies for food, housing "neglected" to mention that Kirkland and social services-s-the price ofcoal for was invited to the Solidarnosc congress. home heating has already been jacked up Even now the Northites' German outfit, by 600 percent! Whole industries are to the Bund Sozialistischer Arbeiter, damns be dismantled, with up to one million the Trotzkistische Liga Deutschlands for workers laid off. If Walesa, Mazowiecki "slanderling] the mass movement of & Co. got their way, conditions of life in the working class in Solidarnosc asa Poland would make Ceausescu's Roma­ 'company union for the CIA'" (Neue nia look tame by comparison. Arbeiterpresse, 15 December 1989)! ·~0~g~i~ So now Walesa's former "left" fans ~ Meanwhile the Australian Northite New York, September 1981 Spartacist League demonstration at Solidarnosc are trying to bury their years of cheer- press is attacking United Secretariat office: exposing Soll~arnosc as company unionJor CIA and Wall Stteet. 12 JAN.UARY 1990 3 ..~ Vietnam Withdraws From Cambodia U.S., China Arm Pol Pot Butchers On September 26, the last detachment bordering Laos and Vietnam." Children of Vietnamese troops left Cambodia. For through the age of 13 are guaranteed more thah ten years, Vietnamese troops universal primary education. 'And by defended the People's Republic of Kam­ 1987 fully 83 percent of the adult popu­ puchea (now Republic of Cambodia) led lation had become functionally literate, by Heng Samrin and Hun Sen against the the result of two massive literacy cam­ CIA's Cambodian contras and mass paigns mobilizing teachers, the women's murderer Pol Pot. At the cost of the lives association, the youth corps and trade of thousands of its young men and much unions. In one of the poorest coun­ of its own desperately needed resources, tries in the world, this is a tremen­ Vietnam liberated the Cambodian people dous achievement. from the death grip of Pol Pot and his When the Vietnamese went into Cam­ Khmer Rouge. Even the anti-Communist bodia in 1979, we said that history would hero of the film The Killing Fields, Dith decide whether they would be seen as Pran, who worked for the American national oppressors or liberators. That military in Cambodia during the Indo­ verdict is clear: today the Khmer people china war, acknowledged that the Viet­ once again have a future. namese intervention "saved them from the Khmer Rouge, who killed more than U.S.: "Bleed Vietnam White" a million of their own people" (New York Pol Pot's murderous horror brought Times Magazine, 24 September 1989). Cambodia to the brink of extinction but American imperialism has relished the mass murder had begun long before pointing to Pol Pot's killing fields as the Phnom Penh, 26 September 1989: the last Vietnamese -by the U.S. In the six months between ultimate example of "Communist tyran­ Cambodia. February and August 1973 alone, U.S. ny." But it was the U.S.' deliberate dev­ B-52s dropped one and a half times as astation of Cambodia in the early 1970s, perialist marauders and their genocidal living in Cambodia. In late 1975 the many bombs (over 250,000 tons).-oo aimed at bombing the region "back to the puppets to once again wreak havoc on Mekong River was again full of bodies, Cambodia as the total tonnage dropped Stone Age," which prepared the condi-' their land. Working people the world as the Khmer Rouge shot or hacked to on Japan during all of World War II. For tions in which Pol Pot's xenophobic over are indebted to the heroic Viet­ death longtime Vietnamese residents four years, starting in 1969, the U.S. barbarism could take root. And it is the namese people, whose victory over U.S. whose presence was seen as a form of repeatedly carpetbombed the country, United States, and its Chinese Stalinist imperialism in 1975 still haunts the ethnic colonization. Endemic mass star­ with the aim of turning the richest agri­ ally, which have armed and supported American rulers when they contemplate vation and accompanying mass terror cultural region of Indochina into a barren this maniacal, anti-Communist mass another full-scale invasion, this time in produced violent instability and a widen­ wasteland. Over one-fourth of the Cam­ murderer since 1979. When the Viet­ Central America. That debt must be ing spiral of purges within the regime, bodian population, some two million namese toppled Pol Pot, Beijing-in repaid by fighting the counterrevolution­ becoming Utter madness in 1977-78. people, was killed between 1969 and collusion with Washington-responded ary intrigues of the U.S. and its Cam­ Following three more years of border 1979, while an equal number of Viet­ by invading Vietnam; to teach Hanoi "a bodian contras. . harassment and an attempted full-scale namese died in the war against the. U.S. bloody lesson." The Chinese invasion invasion by the Khmer Rouge regime in and its puppet regimes in Saigon. was humiliatingly repulsed. Ever since, Vietnamese Intervention 1977, in January 1979 the Vietnamese General Van Tien Dung, chief of staff the U.S. has demanded Vietnamese with­ Gave Cambodia a Future! army and Cambodian auxiliaries moved of the Vietnamese People's Army and drawal from Cambodia as the price for The.Vietnamese Stalinists went into in to drive out Pol Pot. commander of the final offensive which "normalization of relations." After con­ Cambodia out ofa sense of self-preserva­ Today Phnom Penh has grown from a liberated Saigon on 30 April 1975, siderable arm-twisting by Soviet leader tion, but in doing so rescued the Khmer ghost town to a real city of 800,000 with tells in his memoirs, Our Great Spring Mikhail Gorbachev, Hanoi finally ac­ people from barbarism and rebuilt the quiesced and agreed to pull its troops country. After the peasant-based Khmer out. Now Washington demands that the Rouge guerrilla army ofPol Pot and Ieng Phnom Penh government commit suicide Sary .smashed the ramshackle U.S.­ by "sharing power" with Pol Pot, while backed regime of Lon Nol in April 1975, Pol Pot's the CIA continues to funnel arms and it created a grotesquely misnamed "Dem­ lesser partners, money to POl Pot through his coali­ ocratic Kampuchea," a barbaric night­ Bush's assets tion allies, the fascistic Son Sann and mare which was not even a hideously In war against· the former "Peacock Prince" Norodom deformed version of a workers state. The Phnom Penh! Sihanouk. ultranationalist Pol Pot/Ieng Sary clique HanoI. Son Sann But the Cambodian people will never proceeded to seal off the country and (left); "Peacock Prince" Norodom countenance the return of the monster carry out the brutal, total and immediate Sihanouk (right). Pol Pot, nor will the Vietnamese masses depopulation- of the cities. Most of the give up the -revolutionary gains which economic infrastructure of a modern they won through 40 years of' struggle society that existed was abandoned or against one after another imperialist destroyed and the educated strata and bustling markets full of goods. Agricul­ Victory, of the forces arrayed against power. After ten years of Vietnamese small working class necessary to operate tural output; which involves 80 percent Vietnam: assistance, Cambodia can today claim .a it were deported to become rural slave of the population, has increased dramati­ "At the height of their invasion of Viet­ standing army of 40,000, supported by a labor. Factories, schools, hospitals, mar­ cally. Rice production alone has quad­ nam, the U.S. had used 60 percent of 100,000-strong militia. Vietnam boasts kets were shut down, even currency was rupled since 1979, with last year's har­ their total infantry, 58 percent of their marines, 32 percent of their tactical air one of the largest and most combat-tested abolished. vest of 2.7 million tons almost matching­ armies in the world. And they will fight The Khmer Rouge immediately began force, 50 percent of their strategic air that of 1969. In 1979, only 45 of the force, fifteen of their eighteen aircraft to the death before they allow the im­ attacking Vietnam and ethnic Vietnamese country's 450 doctors remained; since carriers, 800,000 American troops (count­ Der Spiegel then, more than 350 new doctors have ing those stationed in satellite countries been trained, as well as 550 medical who were taking part in the Vietnam war), and more than 1 million Saigon Pol Pot's genocidal terror killed at least assistants. A high school in Tuol Seng, troops. They mobilized as many as 6 one million Cambodians. which was transformed by Pol Pot into million American soldiers in rotation, a torture center where some 20,000 dropped over 10 million tons of bombs, people were put to death, is today a and spent over $300 billion, but in the end the U.S. ambassador had to crawl up "holocaust museum" in memory of the to the helicopter pad looking for a way victims. to flee." In Kampuchea-Punishing the Poor (1988), Oxfam aid worker Eva Mysliwiec The American ruling class has never describes the enormous strides forward reconciled itself to the humiliating, sting­ by the Kampuchean people in the area of ing defeat it suffered at the hands of the education since the Vietnamese went in: Vietnamese workers and peasants in "Of the 22,000 teachers in the country at April 1975. It set out to strangle the the beginning of 1970, only 7,000 re­ Vietnamese Revolution by starving the mained in 1979 and only 5,000 of them people into submission.. Washington returned to teaching. Since then more promptly reneged on $3.25 billion in war than 50,000 teachers have been trained reparations it had agreed to give Vietnam and retrained in the new teacher training in the 1973 Paris Peace Accords. Subse­ centres located in each province." The quently, the U.S. imposed a full-scale government places particular emphasis on economic embargo on Vietnam, pressur­ "education of minorities and the develop­ ing its NATO allies and Japan to go ment of minority regions, especially along. In 1987, Washington even put the along the more remote northeastern areas continued on page JJ 4 WORKERS VANGUARD Ro-mania: Mass Revolt Topples Stalinist Dracula

George Bush once called Nicolae Ceausescu "one of Europe's good com­ munists." Ceausescu dubbed himself the "Great Conductor" and ruled over the Romanian working people in the manner of a feudal lord. While the Ceausescu clan built themselves luxurious palaces, the Romanian working people were forced to starve and freeze in order to payoff the country's debt to imperialist bankers. Any hint of opposition was bru­ tally suppressed by the murderous Secur­ itate secret police. Said one resident of Sibiu after the tyrant's downfall, "When the Securitate 's cars were burned in front of my house I realised it was probably the first time it had been warm in my apartment." The beginning of the end for Ceau­ sescu came on December 18 in the city of Timisoara, when protesters attempt­ ed to block the arrest of Laszlo Tokes, a Protestant pastor who had coura­ geously defended the rights of Roma­ nia's oppressed Hungarian minority. The army and Sec uritate opened fire. Everyone in the first three, rows was killed or wounded, according to a doc­ tor who treated the victims. "Every­ where there was blood and torn pieces of clothing." . Financial Times This. latest atrocity drove the long­ Triumphant demonstrator on the balcony where bloodthirsty tyrant Nicola. Ceausescu made his last public speech. suffering Romanian people into a des­ perate uprising. In Timisoara, workers within the army. Rather the generals short of resurrection, it' was also in­ tion." They glorify the revolt against forced the army to withdraw by threat­ decided it was time for the Great Con­ tended to dampen the fury of the popu­ Ceausescu as a great workers revolu-, ening to blow up a petrochemical fac­ ductor to go. Ceausescu had long de­ lar revolt. tion, even comparing it to the Bolshe­ tory; Insurgents commandeered two graded the professional officer corps as The end effect of the upheaval has vile Revolution of 1917. "The smashing' tanks and drove them to the City's he built the Securitate into a personal been to strengthen the role of the mili­ of the. Securitate and the execution of center. In the industrial center of Bra­ praetorian guard. It Is said that the core tary in Romanian society. The army is Ceausescu.have opened the road for the' sov-the scene of worker protests a of the Securitate was recruited from now basking in popular acclaim for working class to impose its own rule in few years ago-thousands marched on orphanages so they would have no destroying the bloodthirsty monster and Romania," proclaims the January Work­ the government headquarters. Mass family ties to the population they ter­ his henchmen, while-the generals and ers Power. workers strikes hit the oil-refining rorized. While army soldiers spent their political allies moved quickly to Certainly, the working people of center of Ploesti. most of their time doing construction re-establish a monopoly of armed Romania did not rise up only to be While his men were turning Timi­ work, the Securitate criminals were force. The first proclamation of the ruled by Ceausescu's generals and out­ soara into a killing field, Ceausescu lavished with fancy weapons and re­ self-styled Council of National Salva­ of-favor cronies or, even worse, to was on a state visit to Iran, where he ceived intensive combat training. tion stated: restore the old order of King Michael paid homage to a kindred spirit, the The army high command rode the "The army is the only one to possess and the fascist Iron Guard. However, at late ayatollah Khomeini. When he re­ mass revolt in reasserting their author­ arms, the finn ann defending the inter­ present the working class appears po­ turned to Bucharest' and addressed his ity. On December 21, the minister of ests of the people. All those who, these litically atomized and' disoriented. days, have come into the possession of previously terrorized subjects, the Great defense, General. Vasil Milea, told armsand ammunition, regardless of the No doubt anything looks better-e-a lot Conductor was stunned by chants of Ceausescu he would no longer order circumstances, have to urgently deliver better-than Ceausescu. At the same "Down with Ceausescu! Down with the his soldiers 10 fire on the demonstra­ them by Monday, Dec. 25...." time, the forces of reaction are strong killers!" Tens of thousands of unarmed tors. For this act of defiance, Milea -New York Times and active. During the fighting in Bu­ (25 December 1989) people stormed government buildings. was killed by Ceausescu'sguards, per­ charest, it was reported that monar­ As the Securitate. forces shot them haps even by the psychopathic dictator There are also reports of the army chists briefly took over a radio station. down, it looked like another Timisoara . himself. But his fellow generals would protecting the Securitate criminals from The exiled prewar monarch, King Mi­ massacre in the making. But then the soon have their blood vengeance. A popular justice. chael, has declared his desire to return army went over to the side of the anti­ few days later Ceausescu and his wife, The Stalinophobic centrists of the to the throne, an offer favorably re­ Ceausescu rebellion. Elena, were summarily executed after a British Workers Power group, no doubt ceived by the revived National Chris­ While many individual soldiers re­ secret military tribunal. While the exe­ stimulated by the sight of Stalinists' tian Peasant Party, whose declared aim fused to fire on the demonstrators, what cution deprived the Securitate diehards blood flowing in the streets, enthuse is "moral rehabilitation on a Christian occurred in Romania was not a mutiny of any hope of restoring Ceausescu over "a real, armed and bloody revolu- and peasant foundation, which for AFP Reulers 2,000 years proved to be the Romanian nation's backbone" (Financial Times, 27 December 1989). For the moment the main figures in . the Council of National Salvation are Stalinist apparatchiks like Ion Iliescu and Silviu Brucan who for one reason or another fell afoul of Ceausescu. The Communist Party is now talking of dissolving itself entirely, while Ceau­ sescu's former flunkies are violently denouncing Communism and declaring themselves in favor of "free enter­ prise." But the real power behind the "transitional'government" remains the military high command. Of all East European countries, conditions in Ro­ mania appear most favorable for mili­ tary bonapartism. It will be a long, Mass grave in Timisoara, hard road to establish the political where Ceausescu (above) power of the working class in Roma-, ordered massacre of nia, especially since Communism is unarmed protesters. - . continued on page 6 12 JANUARY 1990 5 ~ '··\k,~ which over half were Jews and Hun­ Romania... garians, that is, members of the op­ pressed minorities. At the same time, (continued from page 5) Romania's indigenous fascist move­ now widely identified with the night­ ment-the Iron Guard-was the strong­ marish world of Nicolae Ceausescu. est in any East European country. Of all Nazi Germany's allies, General A Cross Between Stalin Antonescu's Romania provided by far and Dracula the most forces for Operation Barbaros­ If someone had written a novel about sa, Hitler's invasion of the Soviet a country like Ceausescu's Romania, it Union. "In the far south of the rimland would have been considered a wild po­ and of Barbarossa's front line, Ru­ litical satire. He was officially termed manian soldiers and paramilitary fas­ the Great Conductor-also "the genius cists massacred Jews without Nazi of the .Carpathians, the founder of German encouragement or coaching" Romanian socialism and that great (Arno J. Mayer, Why Did the Heavens statesman of the contemporary world." Not Darken? [1988]). In Odessa, Ro­ (It . brings to mind Prince Vigo, the manian forces machine-gunned 19,000 Dracula-like character in Ghosthusters II Ukrainian Jews, doused their bodies who proclaims himself "the scourge of with gasoline and burned them. On the Carpathia, the sorrow of Moldavia." In­ home front, the Iron Guard launched deed, looking at Ceausescu, one could savage pogroms against Romanian think of Vigo as Romania's last demo­ Jews. Only the counterattack and rapid crat.) His wife was not only head of the advance of the Red Army saved the Academy of Sciences but also first depu­ majority of Romanian Jews from the ty prime minister-e-awaiting her exe­ death camps. cution, she reportedly chastised the firing Not only Jews but also many ethnic squad, claiming that she had treated her Romanian workers and peasants wel­ people like a mother. One of his brothers comed the liberation of their country was head of the Supreme Political Coun­ by the Soviet army in 1944. However, cil of the Armed Forces, another was Communism in Romania has since editor of the Communist Party paper. come to be identified with the most Ceausescu's son Nicu was a local party grotesque of East European Stalinist boss in Sibiu but better known as a play­ regimes. But there is more to Romanian boy and sometime lover of the country's history than deranged Stalinists'and gen­ top international celebrity, gymnast erals' monarchists and fascists. There is Nadia Comeneci. the vision of a workers' Romania repre­ The degree of repressive control in sented by the greatest revolutionary Ceausescu's Romania might well have Marxist in that country's history, Chris­ astounded Stalin himself. Every type­ tian Rakovsky. writer had to be registered, and a A Bulgarian by birth, in the decade former head of the Securitatewho de­ before World War I Rakovsky was' the fected to the West claimed there were principal leader of the Romanian' ten million microphonic bugs hidden in socialist movement and editor of its Romanian walls, television sets and paper, 'Romania Muncitoare (Workers' ashtrays. People could not move from Romania). The Russian Revolution of the city or village in which they lived. 1905 inspired a mass strike wave in Abortion was illegal, and this law was Der Romania in which Rakovsky played a enforced with all the brutal power of a Ceausescu clan built palaces (top) while starving the Romanian workers big role. The Romanian government totalitarian police state. It is said that peasants to repay Western bankers. denounced him as a foreign agitator, a Romania's orphanages were full be­ . Bulgarian seducer of the Romanian peo­ cause families could not afford to raise the blood of the working people of honorary knighthood from Queen Eliz­ ple. To this Rakovsky replied he recog­ unwanted children. Romania. abeth in 1978! nized "no country but the common In recent years the Romanian econo­ With Gorbachev's drive to appease country of the international proletar­ my has come to resemble a poor Third Ceausescu: The Washington/ U.S. imperialism in practically all areas Tel Aviv Connection iat." After two decades of revolution­ World country just after a devastating of the globe, Ceausescu's usefulness ary activity in the Balkans, Rakovsky natural disaster. The only meat avail­ These days U.S, officials and the as a maverick East European Stalinist joined the Bolshevik Party and was able in state shops was chicken feet American media cannot find words was sharply devalued. In fact, Wash­ elected to head the new Ukrainian and repulsive grey sausage. Homes, strong enough to revile Ceausescu. ington's "special relationship" with the Soviet Republic. His experience of na­ factories, offices went unheated in the Washington even invited the Soviet "genius of the Carpathians" became a tional conflict and oppression in the dead of winter. Each apartment was Union to intervene militarily during the minor diplomatic embarrassment. Thus Balkans prepared him for the task of allowed only one 40-watt light bulb. A fighting. This diplomatic posture was in recent years Ceausescu has been forging a bastion of soviet power out of displaced in Washington's affections by , . Yugoslav, long resident in Timisoara, intended not least to legitimize U.S. the mosaic of nationalities that is the summed it up: "You can't imagine the imperialism's rape of Panama and self­ his comrade in blood, China's Deng Ukraine, in the very midst of German misery-no bread, no milk, no meat, declared role as policeman for "free ,Xiao-ping. '., occupation and civil war. no heat, no electricity. You couldn't world" capitalism. (Mitterrand's France However, Zionist Israel remained a Later, after Lenin's death, Rakovsky complain to friends; you couldn't go even offered to send in "volunteers," loyal fan of Ceausescu to the very end, took up the fight against recrudescent from city to city" (New York Times, 30 reflecting Romania's prewar status as the only government in the world to Great Russian chauvinism. He was December 1989). part of French imperialism's sphere of publicly regret his downfall. For dec­ second only to Trotsky in the leader­ Yet there was a method in' all this influence.) ades Bucharest was the only East Euro­ ship of the Left Opposition, which madness. During the past decade Nico­ Yet for almost two decades Ceauses­ pean capital which maintained formal fought the Stalinist bureaucracy's usur­ lae Ceausescu carried out-with great cu was Washington's favorite Stalinist diplomatic relations with Israel. Even pation of political power from the success-an economic policy similar to despot, lauded and rewarded for his more important from the Zionists' working class. These proletarian inter­ the one that Lech Walesa and the Soli­ "independence" fromMoscow. In 1975 standpoint, for a reported $5,000 to nationalists fought for a socialist feder­ darnosc-led government is trying to Romania was granted "most favored $7,000 a head, Ceausescu encouraged ation of equal nations to put an end impose in Poland in the service of nation" trading status, so that it paid Romanian Jews to emigrate to Israel, once and for all to the bloody national­ capitalist restoration. In 1981, Ceauses­ tariffs no' higher than America's capi­ while Bucharest became the main way ist conflicts which had engulfed the cu boasted that the country's $10.2 talist allies. In 1983 then vice president station for Soviet Jewish emigration. Balkans, for centuries. It is urgently billion foreign debt would be paid off Bush stated that the "United States will Now the chief rabbi of Bucharest is necessary to revive among the work­ by the end of the decade. Last spring engage in closer political, economic, worried that the popular nationalist ing people of Romania the proletar­ he announced his world-historic tri­ and cultural relations with those coun­ fervor unleashed by Ceausescu's over­ ian internationalist spirit of Christian umph-but if the debt didn't last out tries such as Hungary and Romania throw could lead to a resurgence of Rakovsky.• the decade, neither did Ceausescu, For which assert greater openness [!] or inde­ anti-Semitism, especially if fascist emi­ all his vainglorious boasting, Ceau­ pendence" (quoted in Paul D. Quinlan, gres return from exile. Meanwhile, sescu was just an agent of Wall Street ed., The United States and Romania members of the Hungarian minority and the Frankfurt. bankers in sucking [1988]). Ceausescu even received an have expressed concern about the Spartacist League country becoming a clerical-nationalist state under the sway of the Romanian Public Offices Orthodox priesthood. Given Romania's. - MARXIST LlTERATURE­ history, they have good reason to worry. Bay Area Thurs.: 5:30-8:00 p.rn., Sat.: 1:00-5:00 p.m. 1634 Telegraph, 3rd Floor (near 17th Street) Revive the Internationalist Oakland, California Phone: (415) 839-0851 Ceausescu Tradition of Christian (left), once Rakovsky! Chicago Washington's Tues.: 5:00-9:00 p.m., Sat.: 11 :00 a.m.-2:00 p.m. favorite Stalinist East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Po­ 161 W. Harrison St., 10th Floor Chicago, Illinois Phone: (312)663-0715 despot, pays a land and Bulgaria all had strong com­ friendly visit to munist traditions which predated the New York City president Jimmy Stalinist perversion. Not so Romania. . Tues.: 6:30-9:00 p.m., Sat.: 1:00·5:00 p.m. Carter in 1978. 41 Warren St. (one block below The pre-World War II Romanian Com­ Chambers St. near Church St.) munist Party was minuscule. In the New York, NY Phone: (21-2) 267-1025 mid-1930s it numbered only 1,300, of 6 WORKERS VANGUARD Special WfJRNERS,,1N(}IJI1RIJ Supplement East Berlin Protest Against .Fascist Desecration· of Soviet War Memorial • • , III a • o ans • In erman I

JANUARY'9-When a quarter of a mil­ lion people rallied at a Soviet war memo­ rial in East Berlin last Wednesday to protest Nazi provocations and express their will to defend the DDR against the reimposition of capitalism, it wasn't news the American press found fit to print. Clearly, the U.S. rulers understand the greatest obstacle to their bloody schemes is the unfolding political revolution. "The imperialists thought they already had the DDR in their pockets ..Now they are going wild because it isn't so. Their media have built up the reunification intoxication with reports on the Monday demonstration in Leipzig that incite to violence. But the 250,000 anti-fascists who assembled Wednesday evening in Treptower Park in order to protest the frightful desecration of the monument to the slain Soviet soldiers thereby deliv­ ered a mighty blow to those wishing to undermine the DDR." Thus did our German comrades respond in Arbeiterpressekorrespondenz (No. 16, 8 January) to a rabid campaign that the West German bourgeois press mounted after the rally grotesquely attempting to make the Communist Party (SED) respon­ sible for fascist provocations, with head­ Sparlakisl lines like "Fear in the DDR-The SED's January 3, Treptower Park, East Berlin: banner of TLD/lnterfiational Communist League says: "Down with NATO! Nazi Trick" and "SED Profits from Neo­ Defend the Soviet Union!" .. Fascism." The provocations at the Trep­ tow Monument and in Gera, where stars the proliferation of skinhead attacks on reunification marches, are a deadly serious strengthening the state security apparatus. were broken off Soviet gravestones, the immigrant Workers in West Germany, and matter. This was a theme of the speech made repeated vandalism of Jewish graves in the efforts of their counterparts to raise Of course the SED government of at the anti-fascist rally by SED head East Berlin, are no "trick." Thegrowth of their heads in the DDR, where they have the DDR has used the neo-Nazi menace Gregor Gysi, picked up by several other Schonhuber's Republikaner fascists and been able to parade as part of sizable pro- as an argument for reorganizing and continued on page 8

Trotskyist Addresses SED-Supported Rally ~~For aNew Workers Partyl"

The following transcript of the speech by Trotz­ people, including immigrant workers, comrades from kistische Liga Deutschlands speaker Renate Dahlhaus Vietnam, Poland and Mozambique, to stop and to to the anti-Nazi rally in Treptower Park is translated crush the fascist beast while it is still small. from the 4 January Arprekorr. The Leninist united front, the workers united front that Trotsky fought for in the early '30s, was needed Comrades, Anti-fascists: then and is needed today to stop the Nazis. We will never forget that 20 million Soviet citizens If the fascists are smashed they cannot make a bid gave their lives to smash Hitler's fascism. They for power. But that means that the working class must must not have died in vain. be organized and strong and a contender for power. When the fascists committed their outrage here, the The highest form of the united front in a revolution­ Trotskyist League and Spartakist Gruppen immediately ary situation like we are going through today is the took the initiative for today's demonstration. The workers and soldiers soviet. fascists are raising their heads here in the DDR, in As long as capitalism exists there is a cycle of Erfurt, Dresden, Gorlitz, Halle. What is urgently struggles which keep recurring. There is less of a Spartakist needed is the militant mobilization of the working continued on page 8 TLD speaker at January 3 rally.

12 JANUARY 1990 7 New Workers, Party... Thousands ofworking people in the DDR, as well as cadres (continued from page' 7) of the SED, soldiers and students, have encountered the Trotskyist press for the first time in recent months. Particular­ material basis for fascists in the DDR ly gratifying has been the response to Arprekorr (Workers because the natural base of fascism, Press Correspondence), which was published on an almost­ capitalism, does not exist here today. A daily basis in the two weeks prior to the holiday season and political revolution has broken out and is which has now recommenced frequent publication. growing in our midst, and we must de­ The need is great for Arprekorr as the "collective fend it. organizer" and voice of pro-socialist workers who want to Economic absorption and political root out Stalinism and build workers democracy and to incorporation by stages-which West resist the sellout of the DDR to the West German. bankers German imperialism, aided by the SPD, and NATO imperialists. Arprekorr's program-the fight seeks-can turn this political revolu­ for workers and soldiers councils as the only way that tion into a social counterrevolution. This counterposed policies can be freely debated and decided; must not happen! It is necessary to fight the call to mobilize the working class in united-front action against it! to repulse resurgent fascism's anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant That's right, stop the Nazis through a and anti-Soviet provocations; the slogan of revolutionary workers united front! We have to think , reunification of Germany through workers power East and further. Our economy is suffering from West; the advocacy of a new communist-egalitarian party _ waste and obsolescence. The SED party in the spirit of Lenin, Luxemburg and Liebknecht-have dictatorship has shown that it is incom­ struck a deep chord. Yet this promising beginning is now petent to fight this. East Germany urgent­ threatened by an excruciating lack of funds. ly needs selective.... [Interjections] Com­ Once again today, Germany is the key. to all of Europe. rades, learn to listen, learn what a united Spartakist The International Communist League (Fourth International­ Delegates to December 1989 SeD conference crowd front means. ist) has thrown our slender resources-cadre and funds­ around Trotskyist literature table. What is urgently needed is a selective into the rapidly developing political revolution in the DDR. modernization of existing industry. With In response to our public fund appeals, supporters and social democrats and on the terrorist far-right the fascists us in the DDR things are very different readers of WV have come forward. But today we are con­ -are preparing to leap into the breach. All those who hate than in those countries, the other "social­ fronted anew with the seeming. inevitability of a drastic and fear the spectre of a reunified capitalist "Fourth Reich" ist" countries which adhere to Stalin's curtailment of Arprekorr's frequency. As the discredited must show their concrete support for the German Trotskyist concept of building "socialism in one .Stalinist system is wracked by crisis in country after country, press. There is so little time. Please make donations payable country," and demonstrate that it is a the workers must organize to take the leadership of society; to/send to: Spartacist, P.O. Box 1377, GPO, New York, NY transparent stupidity. We have hard already the capitalists and their agents-on the left the 10116 (earmark for "3-L's Fund"). choices-we must understand the dan-, ger of being at the mercy of the world market. Comrades, fighting against the sellout Soviet Union and everywhere that the whole people. Perhaps our example will has been broken. The masses are free to of the DDR means getting clear in our capitalists have been eliminated as a encourage the Soviet Union to take the speak their minds. Learn to listen to minds that we are not going to wind up class, or where imperialism hopes that it same road. [Interjections] them. It is only through the benevolent at the mercy of the world market con­ has an opportunity. The Soviet Union Comrades, listen and learn that only pressure of the Soviet Army that this has trolled by the imperialists and the practices its own economic autarky through painful and open debates can the been made possible. What is lacking here Deutsche Bank. The means for selling which is not particularly beneficial to us road to socialism be opened. is real organized conflicting political out the DDR is the Social Democracy­ and has led the Soviet Union into grave The Soviet Union will certainly take parties in struggle, a precondition for real that had better be known to us all. economic difficulties, the same road, and that would also assist workers democracy. Do not be deceived: the military threat Lenin said, "Politics is concentrated us in jointly solving economic and politi­ These are some of the concerns and of imperialism, which continues to be economics." The fight for the power to cal problems and in the defense of our some of the aims we seek to address as organized above all by the American make these decisions and to run this states, our workers states, which are we fight to forge a new workers party­ ruling class, still persists. Yesterday, to­ country must lie in the hands of workers presently transitional, brokenfrom capi­ of equal rights, equal duties-in the spir­ day and tomorrow they use direct' and councils so that rational decisions satis­ talism but certainly not yet socialist. it of Lenin, Liebknecht and Luxemburg. indirect military violence to achieve their factory to the majority can be arrived at. Comrades, as everybody knows, the Stop the Nazis .through united-front aim. This can only be done through open and power.... [Interjections] Comrades, as action! Workers and soldiers soviets to This is directed centrally against the sometimes painful debates before the you know, the SED's monopoly of power power! Workers of the world unite!.

came straight from the Third Reich! Trotskyists were able to speak, and called in a 28 December letter to the commander The same Arprekorr article noted: for a workers united front, workers mil­ of the group of Soviet armed forces in East Berlin "What we hold against the SED here is itias, and workers and soldiers councils." Germany, Army General B.V. Snetkov. In not that it makes this question into a focus The previous issue of Arprekorr (No. conjunction with this we called for a Protest... for the elections, but rather that the 15,4 January) reported: "When the horri­ workers united-front action on Wednesday (continued from page 7) Nazi danger cannot be eliminated by ble graffiti on the Treptow Memorial were at the Treptow Memorial." elections. That is why it was particular­ reported last Friday, broad..layers of the We brought this call directly to the speakers. But what supreme hypocrites ly important that at the Treptow demon­ populace were deeply shocked;The Spar­ SED leadership and urged their participa­ are the mouthpieces of West German strations [a smaller demonstration was takist Gruppen, recently founded in the tion. We indicated that from our contact imperialism, whose own legal structure held the previous Saturday, organized by DDR in cooperation with the Trotzkisti­ with sections of the working people in and state machinery (particularly the se­ the DDR-Sovlet friendship association], sche Liga Deutschlands, condemned this East Berlin after the atrocity, we believed , cret police and anti-Soviet spy agencies) for the first time in the DDR's history, provocation immediately and energetically deep anti-fascist and pro-Soviet sentiment could be mobilized by united-front protest. We said we intended to distribute over 100,000 copies of our own call for the TLD,.1~artakist Grul!~en Mobilizing Call and officers. The German workers protest (see page 8) mostly in working­ movement has the strength to sweep class areas. In response to criticisms of away those who carried out their mur­ our call (particularly our "tone" toward derous work under the cover of night the policies of the social democrats), we Stop the Nazis Through and fog. urged others to issue their own calls and • For united workers militias under the slogans. We solicited endorsements and control of workers and soldiers coun­ speakers, including anti-fascist militants United Front Action! cils! Workers and soldiers councils to from West Germany. power! For a Leninist-egalitarian party! When the SED decided to throw its We reprint below the text of the colleagues from Vietnam, Poland and • From the bloodhound Noske/Ebert/ weight behind the demonstration, it cer­ demonstration call issued January 1 Mozambique, who particularly suffer Scheidemann to Brandt/Lafontaine: So­ tainly succeeded in swamping our small­ by the Trotzkistische Liga Deutsch­ from anti-foreigner hatred and racist cial Democracy is the Trojan horse of er forces. On Tuesday, January 2, calls lands and the Spartakist Gruppen. violence. counterrevolution! for the demonstration were featured on the front pages of the SED's Neues Resurgent fascism is still an extrem­ • Full citizenship rights for foreign Deutschland and its youth press (Junge The vile desecration of the Memori­ ist fringe phenomenon. It would again workers! al to Fallen Soviet Heroes in Treptow threaten all mankind as soon as the first Welt). The ND call for a "fighting mobi­ • For economic revitalization through on December 28 provokes disgust and lization" (full mobilization of the mem­ crises in a reunified Grofideutschland central planning under workers outrage among millions of workers and appear. Today, however, the SPD/SDP bership), raising the SED's own slogans councils! broad layers of the' population of the is the chief instrument to bring about for a popular front "against the Right," • No sellout of the DDR-The DDR DDR. This provocation is directed as such a Greater Germany. Throttling gave a list of sponsors of the protest, not must not become the Panama of Ger­ well at our workers state, which was the hydra-headed fascist monster now including the TLD and SG. Meanwhile, man imperialism! For a red soviet DDR radio's announcements for the event built on the ruins of Hitler fascism. is to blunt this Social Democratic Germany! credited its initiation to QS. Finally, Wed­ Tens of thousands of workers from penetration. Wednesday, 3 January 1990, 18:00 nesday morning's ND (DDR edition) Berlin factories and throughout the It is the foremost task of the work­ featured a call for the mobilization in­ DDR and BRD must be mobilized in ing people to sweep away the sinister S-Bahnhof Treptower Park Parkseite, Berlin cluding the TLDand SG in the endors­ powerful united-front actions to crush Nazi pack. In carrying out this mis­ ers list. these killers. And it must be now, be­ sion, we extend the hand of fraternal Spartakist Gruppen At several points during the speech of fore it is too late! We also turn to our- solidarity to our brother Soviet soldiers Trotzkistische Liga Deutschlands the TLD's Renate Dahlhaus (see page 7), raucous loudmouths attempted in time- 8 .WORKERS VANGUARD Reply to rfg..• Red Soap (continued from page 10) working class. In severe factional strug­ Bubbles... gle V]. Lenin and his Bolshevik com­ (continued from page 10) rades successfully fought to build the party that was capable both of leading the vast majority of those questioned the workers in their daily struggles and prefer-despite partial objections-a of leading the masses to victory. In the socialist ordering of society. 1905 Revolution the party fell short of its The left-which can by no means be goal. In 1917 it did not. This time, the restricted to the SBD-PDS that has op­ revolution had been goaded to new posed the right-must in my opinion heights by the horrors of the imperialist take as its point of departure two priori­ world war. And the party had won over ties: In the foreground stand preserva­ the best of other Marxian socialists such tion of this country's independence as a as Trotsky. It brought to victory the state and the maintenance of everything workers revolution with the participation that really has to do with socialism. In of ranks from the old tsarist army and the DDR today left means someone who with the support of masses of the poorer advocates these two goals, defends unity peasants. of the left on that basis, and thus opens To assist in building other parties optimal electoral chances for those who capable of finding the road to victory in support them. The left addresses those their own countries, Lenin and his com- who do not want the socialist Ger­ o rades insisted that a Third, Communist man state to become a playground for International was essential. Revolutions "election campaign advisers" from the are not sucked out of the thumbs of Yevgeni Khaldei West German political scene who would would-be revolutionaries. But if victory Hammer and sickle flies over the Reichstag as Soviet Red Army liberates like to prepare a cold Anschluss, mak­ is to be possible, it must be prepared by l;Jerlin from Nazi terror regime, 30 April 1945. ing use of the "Home to the Reich" those who would be the revolutionary crowd. vanguard. This preparation is necessary on the bayonets of the Red Army, found­ revealed, have stood at the head of a "Resolute anti-fascism, rejection of so that such Marxist-Leninist parties ed by Leon Trotsky. mass party of mostly pro-socialist and hate of foreigners and Germanophile can intersect the spontaneous, elemental The nationally based Stalinist bureauc­ class-conscious... workers. nationalism-united against the right!" upheaval of the masses, winning over the racies want to smash up the precondi­ The conditions in the DDR are very is the slogan that unites us with all those heavy battalions of workers and defeat­ tions for revolutionary success. History ripe for the rejection of Stalinism and the who have drawn serious lessons from ing the counterrevolutionary forces. And shows that among these preconditions is introduction of thoroughgoing workers. German history. The danger threatening the newly established workers states the building of an internationalist revolu­ democracy. This also means halting the from the right is the most important which issue out of victory must engage tionary workers party. It must have free export of counterrevolution from the integrating factor for the left, one that in organic political and economic collab­ access to the experience of other such West-the penetration' of West German doesn't exclude non-party people, mern­ oration against imperialism, as long as parties. It must provide, in the framework capital and the political assimilation of bersof the established parties and sup­ imperialism continues to exist. of a common International, for free and the DDR into a "Fourth Reich." It is porters of Neues Forum, of the Green Stalin and Bukharirr's "socialism in vigorous debate among the best, most significant that Dr. Steiniger in ND Party, of the United Left, the SDP, the one country" paved the way for the.terri­ far-sighted and self-sacrificing elements makes no mention of the greatest danger "Spartakists" and others, any more than ble counterrevolutionary victory of Hitler in the working classes worldwide. facing the DDR today, namely Brandt/ Ossietzky Prize winner Pastor Friedrich and the Nazis in Germany. This in tum This is the real counterposition be­ Lafontaine's SPD, which intends to ex­ Schorlemmer. led to the second imperialist war: the tween Dr. Steiniger's arguments in Neues port capitalism to the DDR "democrati­ Naturally the SED-PDS-which must Nazi regime challenged the gains of Deutschland and the work of Leon Trot­ cally." ThusSteiniger/Gysi's "realism" resist any dissolution of its theoretical! the Western imperialists from the First sky. Trotsky was murdered by Stalin, disarms DDR workers in the face of ideological roots and bases-has a politi­ World War, sought to destroy the Soviet who hoped to finally destroy the Leninist imperialism's SPD/SDP Trojan horse. cal profile of its own, which makes it Union, and murdered entire peoples, perspective. But the Leninist-Trotskyist The presence of Soviet military forces in impossible to confuse it with others particularly the Jews, and with especial perspective continues to be pursued today East Germany today is positive, but it is holding similar views on a number of ferocity in the East. As opposed to Sta­ by the Spartacists, as in Germany-East at the mercy of the Gorbachev regime, questions. It can contribute-while clear­ lin/Thalmann's line of "social fascism," and West-where they are organized which engages in a seemingly endless ly distancing itselffrom Stalinist thought Trotsky insistently proposed to the Ger­ in and around the Trotzkistische Liga series of capitulations to imperialism. patterns and practices-the experiences man proletariat in the early '30s the Deutschlands. Today the West German Defense of East German workers­ of its members in constructing a society workers united front against the Nazi working class is being squeezed by the and this also means foreign workers that is in many important areas defensi­ danger-"march separately, strike togeth­ employers, who together with their So­ living in the DDR-is at the head 'of the ble and in strengthening the sovereignty er." The Stalinist "theory" is the direct cial Democratic lackeys tell the workers agenda. Fascist provocateurs must be of the DDR. Its clear orientation to the negation ofLenin and Trotsky's strategy. that for Deutsche Bank penetration of the swept away and the lethal embrace of the working people remains indispensable. But embarrassed or misguided Stalinists East they must sacrifice more. Social Democrats rejected. The Kampf­ The sole force whose electoral victory still attempt to peddle it, poorly con­ Meanwhile DDR workers are more gruppen [SED factory militias] must be can guarantee the continued existence of cealed behind the empty empiricism that restless and vocal. They are seeking broadened and transformed as the core of the social foundations which have been "you can't export revolution." political revolution against Stalinism, so a mass workers militia under the control created is the left, above all, however, Despite Stalinist dogma and despite typified by the decades-long history and of workers and soldiers councils. These our party. Stalin's beheading of the Red Army, the conduct of the SED leadership. One need councils should include representatives Whoever wants, here and now, to fight Soviet working people smashed Hitlerite only mention the names of misleaders of the proletariat's allies like office against the right must join with those fascism. It was they, comrades, who such as Wilhelm Pieck, Walter Ulbricht workers and the retired. Soviet democra­ who are ready for radical reforms in the "exported" the revolution to the Elbe- and Erich Honecker. But they, as now cy embodying the allegiance of the work­ spirit of renewal without abandoning ing people is necessary to fight fascist tested social content. With those who provocation and capitalist absorption into seek the broadest possible alliance in dishonored Stalinist fashion to interrupt As we go to press, the West German the West. These tasks require the fighting action. With those who do not act like with hostile interjections and chants of press has shifted to a new line of attack unity of the working class. At the same defeatists and permanently lament their "SED-PDS." Arprekorr No. 15 said: against the anti-fascist mobilization: they time, the fight for the party of its prole­ own debacle, but rather have learned "They wanted to hear nothing of the fail­ are demanding the SED suppress the Trot­ tarian vanguard requires Bolshevik clari­ from Marx and Engels that a defeat as ure of the SED's political monopoly, no skyists who dared to denounce the social ty. The only way to defend the gains of well can bear within itself the seeds of words of criticism of Gorbachev's market­ democracy! (We haven't heard so much the workers and smash the fascists is by future victory if one draws the proper oriented perestroika economic reforms in advice from the bosses about who the establishing workers soviet power in all conclusions from it and is willing to the USSR. They even resorted to booing workers' "real" friends are since the hal­ Germany in the framework of a Socialist fight. our call for workers and soldiers councils cyon days of anti-socialist Polish Solidar­ United States of Europe. • ~ Dr. Klaus Steiniger to power." nosc.) And at the DDR's Round Table But today, many workers and soldiers conference yesterday, the East German urgently see the need for organization to SDP demanded the SED "disavow" the express their own will. After 40 years, TLD/SG call which termed the social the lid has come off, the bureaucracy is democrats "the Trojan horse of counter­ paralyzed and split, the economy is in revolution." Gysi replied that when a rally trouble, and even the SED has discovered is called, who comes and what they say Marxist Working-Class Biweekly of the Spartacist League the abuses of "Stalinism" .and admits the "is no longer to be orchestrated, fortunate­ National Office: Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 • (212) 732-7860 state ought not to be synonymous with ly," and chided Round Table participants one-party rule. Despite the "dissolving" for not participating. 0$7/24 issues of Workers Vanguard o $3/3 issues of of various bodies and central committees, After 40 years of bureaucratic com­ (includes English-language Spartacist) Women End Revolution "somebody" is selling the plants to the mandism at the top and atomization at New Renewal o 0 0$2/10 introductory issues West. The TLD and SG speakers' remarks the base, a different set of working-class International rates: $25/24 issues-Airmail $7/24 issues-Seamail of Workers Vanguard properly went beyond the points of agree­ political traditions must be forged in the (includes Enqlish-Ianquaqs ment among the demonstrators to touch on spirit of Leninist internationalism. The 0$2/4 issues of Spartacist (edici6n en espanol) Spartacist) key questions which must be and are January 3 rally gave voice to millions of Name _ being debated widely. If they were re­ DDR citizens ready to fight the new rise ceived impolitely by many of those at the of fascism. This readiness must be given Address --'------rally, who equate defense of the DDR organization under the leadership of an with SED party loyalty, nonetheless the aroused, conscious, confident working ______Apt. # Phone (_) _ revolutionary pole was heard clearly and class. As a first step we suggest joint City -'- State _---'-__Zip _~ --:= was beamed throughout the DDR on radio patrols to guard the graves of Soviet sol­ 493 and television. Some 35,000 pieces of our diers, composed of Soviet and DDR sol­ Make checks payable/mall to: Sp8rtacist Publishing Co., Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 literature were sold. diers and factory-based workers militias.• 12 JANUARY 1990 9 Reply. to Neues Deutschland Stalinists Yes, Revolution IsReal And "Class Peace" Is Utopian!

The following article is translated from Spartakist No. 66 (3 January 1990), the now-weekly newspaper of the Trotzkis­ tische Liga Deutschlands. The article is a reply to a polemic against the TLD (see "On Red Soap Bubbles and Reality," this page) in the 29 December 1989 Neues Deutschland, central organ of the ruling Socialist Unity Party-Party ofDemocratic Socialism (SED-PDS) of East Germany. On December 29 Neues Deutschland, in a prominent article on page 3, paid tribute to the enthusiastic reception our politics are getting, particularly in key sections of the working class in the DDR -albeit in their own fashion. That is, with more thana little condescension and humor. But is ND not overly concerned that our "revolutionaryism" may con­ demn us to "fatal isolation"? We call for a return to the authentic communism of Lenin, Trotsky, Luxem­ burg and Liebknecht. This is why Sparta­ kist has found such wide interest. In the wake of the series of historic dec feats which have beset the proletariat internationally since 1918-19, there has been a corresponding loss of a revolu­ tionary internationalist perspective. For example, Dr. Steiniger [author of the ND article] refers to this perspective as Spartakist "pseudo-revolutionary voluntarism" in "For the Communism of Lenin, Liebknecht and Luxemburg! For a Leninist-Egalitarian Party!" Spartakist banner at order to argue that only class-collabora­ 30 December 1989 Treptower Park anti-fascist demonstration. tionist "possibilism" is realistic. It was Stalin, the "great organizer of defeats," tion, or a May '68 general strike of wor­ We are chided as "exporters of revolu­ cal foundation for workers revolution. who gave this possibilist "theory" the kers and student's [in France], or the tion." But who exported the revolution to In Russia Georgi Plekhanov, above all, name of "socialism in one country." Vietnamese victory over U.S. imperial­ Russia? Revolutions are the uprising of propagated these ideas as against those Withthe "realism" Dr. Steiniger prop­ ism. Not only do such events happen, the masses for a new society in the con­ of "people's revolutionaries" among the agates, there would never have been a they must be prepared for. In this we text of a given, disoriented state power. radical intelligentsia and the growing Paris Commune, or an October Revolu- stand with Lenin. Marx and Engels laid down the theoreti- continued on page 9 r------,------! NEUESDEUTSCHlAND~--' .What Does Le't Mean at This Time '1 29 December 1989 W.s"eiS,linlts'ln,diesen r.gen" On Red Soap Bubbles iiber rote 5eifenblasen and .and die Wirklichkeit Realit, Ais unser auBerordentUdler Marxismus-Leninismus ausgibL .Helm Ins Reldt"-5d"eler be­ Parteltag In der Berliner Dy- und blowellen gar 1m Sonntags­ dlenen. namo-Halle , standen sym- staat einer neuen "Kommunlsti­ .Entsdtledener Antlfasdtismus. exporters of revolution, whose passion­ pathis nstem schen Partel" einherstolzlert, Abwehr von AusUlnderhaO und TRANSLATED FROM . Ie pldtt vlelmehr zur Spaltung und nattonalistJ.odter DeutadttUmelel ate-but possibly remote from real life In elne leradezu tOdlldte laolle­ - gerneinsam gegen 'rec:hts!· NEUESDEUTSCHLAND --commitment to social progress I rung? helOt ole Parole, die uns mit al­ 29 DECEMBER /989 Was helOt links In dlesen Ta­ len verblndet, die ernathatte Leh­ would by no means challenge. Here and hgen? ren aus der deutsdten Gesdtldtte .:.: Ais unHingst Zehntausende un­ geeogen haben. Ole von remta there speakers for the group made their tter DDR-Fahnen In Berlin de­ drohende Gelahr tig­ :~:~:monstrierten und vom Alexander­ ste When our extraordinary Party Con­ presence felt, for example at a demon­ \ylatz zum Schauspielhaus zcgen, LI "erhielt elne Gtuppe junger Leute gress was deliberating in the Dynamo stration in front of the U.S. embassy, 'fUr !hre spOttisdten Zwelze!!er Hall in Berlin, attractive young people where the courageous Young Left was spontanen Applaus. "Lieber rate RUben als Kohl von drilben! ", with serious expressions were standing I protesting against Washington's attack - skandierten sie. Der Sprechchor teo pflanzte sich. durch die Reihen at the gate. The copies of the paper on Panama. The flaming appeal of a 4 lort. Die Parole kam von links z Sichel er- und wurde sofort auch von ande- "Spartakist" that they had brought fresh young American woman Trotskyist got kennbare Herausgeber nid'lt un- ren aulgegriffen. Denn trotz off the presses from West Berlin-for a divided reception. "Red soap bub­ genannt: die westde~:~:klS~: des Iautlt tens vleler many they possessed the appeal of bles," opined a student from Lichten­ something hitherto unknown-sold rath­ berg, whose view I solicited in my tarian revolutionaryism that often pre­ from the left and was at once taken up er well. Headlines like "For a Red Ger­ capacity as a reporter, "They would sents itself as "pristine pure" Marxism­ by others. For despite the raucous be­ many in a Socialist Europe!", "World establish communism even up on the Leninism and at times even in the havior elsewhere in the past few weeks Revolution Must Save the Soviet Union moon, without regard for the lack of Sunday garb of a new "Communist Par­ of many thousands who shamelessly and the DDR!", "Form Workers and atmosphere." ~ ty" lead instead to a split and a truly and unhesitatingly embrace the German Soldiers Councils Everywhere!" and To prevent any misunderstanding, fatal isolation? state of the monopolies and wave its "For a Bolshevik Party!" struck the I am not polemicizing here against What does left mean at this time? flags, the majority of citizens of the eye. On the front page of the paper the Trotsky's theories but rather am con­ When not long ago tens of thousands DDR are for the sovereignty and sepa­ organization putting it out, recognizable cerned with the question: does pseudo­ demonstrated under DDR flags in Ber­ rate state existence of our country. by a 4 between hammer and sickle, did revolutionary voluntarism that views lin and marched from the Alexander­ Various polls have demonstrated this. not go unmentioned: the West German the world from the standpoint of sub­ platz to the Theater, a group of young For example, on the program broad­ section of the Fourth International that jective wishes, and takes into con­ people received spontaneous applause cast by- [West German] ZDF, "Politi­ looks to Leon Trotsky. sideration neither the true relationship for their derisive rhyme: "Rather red cal Barometer," it was announced that Recently, at numerous demos as well, of forces nor the strategic possibil­ radishes than cabbage (Kohl) from over public opinion surveys in the DDR have and even at the Berlin Christmas Mar­ ities, offer a perspective for the left there!" they chanted. The chorus spread' . confirmed this as well as the fact that ket, one could encounter these zealous- in our country? Doesn't blind and sec- through the lines. The slogan came continued on page 9

10 WORKERS VANGUARD years in secret camps." While the U.S. has tried to distance Cambodia... itself from Pol Pot by claiming it only (continued from page 4) supports the Son Sann and Sihanouk squeeze on'Tokyo to keep Honda from forces, even the London Economist (4 building a motorbike factory in Ho Chi November 1989) notes that "Khmer Minh City. Today Cambodia is the only Rouge soldiers are giving support to the underdeveloped country in the Third two non-communist resistance forces." World not to receive any UN aid. Son Sann's men, adds the Economist, In its vindictive and unremitting on­ "have had more experience of smuggling slaught against the Vietnamese Revolu­ than fighting," while "the prince's men tion, American imperialism seeks to have been busy celebrating his birthday." restore the horrors of the Pol Pot regime Even if they were not tied to the Khmer to the Cambodian people. The UN, Rouge, Sihanouk and Son Sann are sinis­ which for .ten years has- based its ex­ ter enough in their own right. While on clusion of the real government of the throne, Sihanouk and his elite lorded Cambodia on the Vietnamese military it over the starving peasantry. Son Sann presence, recently voted yet again at not only modeled himself on the bloody American insistence to seat Pol Pot, butcher Chiang Kai-shek but actually adding a mild admonishment that there served as Chiang's agent for many years. be no "return to past policies." Mean­ Son Sann's military chief, General Dien while, the resolution demands that the Del, served the Lon Nol regime which Vietnam News Agency Heng Samrin/Hun Sen regime form a approved the massive U.S. carpetbomb­ Saigon, April 1975: victorious NLF tanks roll Into presidential palace. "coalition government" with Pol Pot, ing of Cambodia. Son Sann and Sihanouk and allow im­ lin Stalinists, the Vietnamese government Leftists made their peace with Western perialist troops (a UN "peacekeeping" For Communist Unity continues to labor under the illusion that imperialism. force) in to monitor "free elections." Against Imperialism! it can somehow fashion a deal with its We Trotskyists of the International Nobody, not even Washington, thinks Scandalously, Gorbachev andhis allies imperialist tormentors. For years Hanoi Communist League (Fourth Internation­ its Cambodian contras are strong enough have joined with the imperialists in has appealed to the U.S.-sponsored As­ alist) have maintained our consistent to seriously challenge the Phnom Penh pushing Hanoi and Phnom Penh to cut a sociation of Southeast Asian Nations to defense of the Vietnamese Revolution. regime. The Washington Post (4 octo­ deal with the Khmer Rouge. One East tum its gunsights away from Vietnam While New Leftists and Stalinists tailed ber 1989) concedes that their strategy is European diplomat in Phnom Penh told and toward China. Vietnam hoped that its a defeatist wing of the U.S. bourgeoisie "not to topple the Phnom Penh govern-' the Washington Post (26 November withdrawal fJom Cambodia would open and refused to take sides in the civil war ment militarily, but to force it to make 1989): "There is East Bloc pressure to the floodgates of Western capital. But in Vietnam, we called for military vic­ concessions on power sharing with the find an accommodation with the Khmer while the U.S.' West European and Japa­ tory to the DRV/NLF and raised the banner "All Indochina Must Go Com­ three resistance groups." The anti­ Rouge .... We think Hun Sen has to agree nese partners are increasingly chafing at Communist guerrillas are trained by the to the participation of some Khmer Washington's irrational campaign of munist!" At the time of China's invasion British SAS, while every move of the Rouge officials." Gorbachev's drive to vengeance, the U.S. has again successful­ of Vietnam in 1979, we initiated demon­ "resistance" is planned and coordinated appease imperialism by extinguishing ly pressured the IMF to deny Vietnam strations in a number of cities around the by the CIA through the so-called Cam­ "regional hot spots," from Afghanistan any new funding. world demanding: "China: Get Out of Vietnam Now! Don't Be a Car's Paw for' bodian Working Group in Bangkok, "the and Central America to Cambodia, al­ Meanwhile, Phnom Penh tries to lure Sihanouk away from the Khmer Rouge U.S. Imperialism! Soviet Union: Honor conduit for all lethal, materiel and finan­ lows the imperialists to rearm the geno­ with concessions. As Nayan Chanda Your Treaty With Vietnam!" In 1983, we cial aid" (New York Times, 16 Novem­ cidal Khmer Rouge. Moscow's short­ organized protests in six countries oppos­ ber 1989). All of this is part of U.S. sighted, futile and dangerous attempt to writes in Foreign Policy (Fall 1989): "To persuade Prince Sihanouk to join the ing recognition of Pol Pot as UN repre­ coalition, Phnom Penh has made substan­ sentative of Cambodia, demanding: "Seat tial changes in the constitution. It has riot Heng Samrin Government! Genocidal Pol only met Sihanouk's demand to change Pot Out of UN!" the name of the country, the flag, and Today we appeal to the Soviet working the national anthem but also has rein­ people to honor their obligations to Viet­ stated Buddhism as the state religion and nam by fighting for unstinting and gen­ legalized private property and inheri­ uinely fraternal and internationalist assis­ tance." Most recently, Hun Sen reported­ tance toward the economic reconstruction ly agreed to UN-supervised elections in of Indochina. The beginnings of political which the Khmer Rouge could partici­ revolution in China last June, today dra­ pate, though the offer was immediately matically echoed by the anti-bureaucratic rejected, by Sihanouk (New York Times, upheaval in East Germany, point the road' 14 December 1989). to replacing the wretchedly nationalist Whether with its shrill demand for a Stalinist bureaucracies by workers soviets "return" of MIAs (GIs missing in action) committed to proletarian international­ or its insistence that Vietnam pull out of ism. For workers political revolution Cambodia and now thatPhnom Penh from Beijing to Moscow to Hanoi! For bring back the Khmer Rouge, Washing­ international communist unity against ton has issued one diktat after another imperialism! whose sole aim is to bury the Vietnamese Ultimately, the defense of the de­ WV Photo Revolution. No amount of 'con,cessions generated/deformed workers states and Spartaclsts protest China's Invasion of Vietnam, 1979. U.S./Chlna alliance will stop the U.S. rulers from continuing the achievement of a socialist society was sealed In blood of Vietnamese workers. their irrational and vengeful crusade requires workers revolution in the ad­ against the Vietnamese Revolution. What vanced imperialist countries, particularly imperialism's longstanding policy to conciliate the war-crazed madmen in isrequired is an internationalist perspec­ the U.S. and Japan. Certainly, a vic­ "bleed Vietnam white," pursued byboth Washington is doubly treacherous when tive aimed at defeating American im­ torious socialist revolution in the United Democrats and Republicans. "Liberal" it comes to Vietnam. It was the blood of perialism from within through proletarian States has a solemn obligation to share Democrats like New York.Congressman the millions of Vietnamese maimed and socialist revolution. At the height of the with the Vietnamese people the assets Stephen Solarz lead the pack in insisting killed fighting U.S. imperialism which Vietnam War, there were literally mil­ expropriated from the bloodthirsty U.S. the embargo of Vietnam be maintained bought precious time 'for the Soviet lions of young radicals .around the ruling class. The precondition is the until the U.S. gets a "satisfactory polit­ Union to achieve nuclear parity with the world who were inspired by the Viet­ building of Trotskyist parties forged in ical settlement in Cambodia" (Washing­ U.S. Moreover, the Vietnamese victory namese Revolution. But, over the years, the struggle for the rebirth of the Fourth ton Post, 25 November 1989). gave the Soviet navy access to the strate­ particularly 'under the impact of re­ International, world party of socialist Hundreds of millions of dollars have gic deepwater port at Cam Ranh Bay. newed Cold War, many of these ex-New· revolution.• been poured into the "refugee camps" on For poverty-stricken Vietnam, fending the Thai-Cambodian border by the U.S. off the counterrevolutionary alliance and its allies directly or through the UN directed against it is an enormous eco­ to sustain the anti-Communist military nomic burden, involving maintaining the forces taking the field against Phnom Penh fourth-largest standing army in the world. Spartacist. Forum today. Eva Mysliwiec quotes a UN worker The reunification of the country in 1975 in Cambodia: "Ifthe UN stopped feeding posed the difficult task of absorbing the For the Communism of the soldiers' wives and families the resis­ corrupt capitalist south into the collec­ tance would stop." The "refugee camps" tivized economy, while at the same time lenin, Luxemburg and Liebknecht! are in fact heavily armed military bases rebuilding a devastated country. Inrecent run by dictatorial warlords; their residents years, Hanoi has implemented the policy are hostages kept in concentration camp of doi moi, which encourages small busi­ conditions. The New York Times Maga­ ness and joint ventures. Doi moi seems zine (5 March 1989) described life in the to have had some success in revitalizing Khmer Rouge camps, where marriage is the economy. Eric Scigliano in the Na­ "discouraged" until men are 40 and wom­ tion (25 September 1989) reports that en 30, and girls as young as 12 are forced "Ho Chi Minh City's streets are full of Eyewitness account of the unfolding political revolution into "women's transportation units" to well-stocked vendors carrying domestic in East Germany haul ammunition: "There is, as well, a and imported goods," and even in Hanoi, subclass, treated as subhuman, virtually as "Modest retail, repair and craftsmen's Friday, January 26, 7:30 p.m. instruments or logistics. They include shops now fill what were shuttered street P.S. 41, ~16 West 11th Street anyone without a party or militaryrole, fronts." 11th Street For more information: and they are kept isolated and illiterate.... ~ No less committed to the pipe dream near 6th Avenue NEW YORK (212) 297-1025 These unfortunates are kept captive for of "peaceful coexistence" than the Krem- 12 JANUARY 1990 11 Racist State Jerror, Made in U.S.A.

1989-EI Chorrillo, Panama

By the time the American invasion under their feet. cember 1989) finally conceded that U.S. the last words anyone there heard, as the force had finished strafing and shelling With supreme racist arrogance and forces had inflicted an "embarrassing" cops began pouring 10,000 rounds into the densely populated El Chorrillo dis­ indifference they turned El Chorrillo, amount of "collateral damage." In plain the house. Then, a police helicopter trict of Panama City, it had become with its tightly packed wooden houses English, that means they murdered a lot dropped a satchel charge of C-4 explo­ known as "Little Hiroshima." El Cho­ and apartment buildings, into an inferno. ofpeople! sive (supplied by the FBI) on the roof of rrillo had the misfortune to be situated They even shot at and bombed Red "Over there"? The photographs of dev­ the house. With firemen held at bay, the near the headquarters of Noriega's Pan­ Cross ambulances trying to reach the astated El Chorrillo were reminiscent of MOVE house and 60 others burned to the amanian Defense Forces. More to the wounded. Health officials in Panama es­ nothing so much as the scenes of black ground. Pinned down in the house by point, it happens to be populated by poor timate the overall number of civilians Philadelphia after the MOVE massacre. murderous police fire, eleven black and working-class people, largely black killed by the invasion at around 2,000. On 13 May 1985, Philadelphia cops people, including five children, were in­ and mestizo. So, to minimize the "loss of The precise number of casualties is diffi­ massed at the MOVE commune in the cinerated. Ramona Africa, the one adult lives," the imperialist invaders blasted cult to determine because many victims black residential neighborhood on Osage survivor, has been in prison ever since the hell out of El Chorrillo-with every­ were quickly buried in mass graves, and Avenue in West Philadelphia. Under the for .. .surviving. . thing from mortars to the super-secret no one knows how many men, women direct supervision of the Reagan White Accounts will one day be settled with Stealth fighter-bomber-from a safe dis- and children lie buried in the rubble of House and the FBI, black Democratic this profoundly racist ruling class. When · ranee, For Bush & Co. the 6,000 dark­ El ChorriIlo. The self-censored impe­ mayor Wilson Goode ordered an aerial it takes power, the American working skinned people of El Chorrillo were rialist press gagged-on its own "new­ bombing of the MOVE commune. "At­ class will mete out due process to the utterly expendable, just so much dust speak," as the New York Times (31 De- tention, MOVE. This is America!" were war criminals and racist terrorists.• Defe~dNicaragua,Cuba! The U.S. made it clear from the start news agency and stormed into the offices that the invasion of Panama was only the of Iberia Air Lines and Banco Exterior, beginning. For years, Washington has a government bank. And when the Papal chafed at the presence of the Cuban Imperialist Bullyboys Run Amok Nunciature in Panama City granted No­ deformed workers state and Sandinista riega sanctuary, American soldiers sur­ Nicaragua in its backyard, and Bush used rounded the building, interrogating and , nuns, one American and one Nicaraguan. the Panama invasion to drive home the throats have taken the Panama invasion searching priests who were leaving and Once Washington's bullyboys got into point; A day after the invasion began, as a green light to step up their murder entering. campaign. In Guatemala the second sec­ the swing of things, they didn't stop with U.S. troops put the Cuban, Nicaraguan Bush's actions against the Cubans and and Libyan embassies under siege­ retary of the Nicaraguan embassy, Jorge Cuba and Nicaragua. Spain is a U.S. Nicaraguans in Panama City are naked ally in NATO. But shortly after foreign surrounding them with armed troops, Adolfo Vargas, was recently assassinated war provocations. Following the ransack­ minister Fernandez Ordonez announced armored personnel carriers and razor by death squads. On January 2, the Nica­ ing of the Nicaraguan ambassador's wire. On the morning of December 26, raguan contras took their cue from the that Spain would vote to condemn the residence, even the New York Times Salvadoran government's recent murder invasion in the UN, U.S. troops invaded U.S. troops surrounded the Cuban am­ (1 January), which supported the inva­ bassador's residence with "orders to of six Jesuit priests and murdered two the Panama City bureau of the Spanish sion, complained about "Mindless Macho arrest any Cuban diplomat trying to leave in Panama," noting with concern, "Surely and prevent anyone from entering." the White House cannot have forgotten Three days later 60 soldiers invaded the invasion a decade ago of the U.S. the residence ofNicaraguan ambassador Embassy in Teheran." Diplomatic immu­ · Antenor Ferrey. They ordered Ferrey nity and territorial sovereignty of embas­ and his staff to leave, stole $2,000 and sies are seldom violated even by nations ransacked the house-supposedly search­ at war. In its mad drive to "roll back ing for arms. Bush mumbled about a Communism," starting with Managua and "screw-up," though the diplomatic immu­ Havana, war is clearly what Washington nity of the residence was clear from the has in mind. American officials have manhole-sized ambassadorial shield in . already issued ominous statements that a front window. ButWhite House spokes­ "there is no reason to invade Nicaragua man Marlin Fitzwater responded to re­ unless there is fraud in the February porters' questions by simply repeating, elections" (La Jornada, 30 December • "We support the military. We support the 1989). Well, talk is cheap, but a U.S. military." Bush wants war! invasion of Nicaragua is going to be no The Nicaraguan government responded walkover; eyen 700 middle-aged Cuban to the American war provocation by construction workers were able to put a surrounding the U.S. embassy in Mana­ dent in the American invasion of tiny , gua. Sandinista spokesmen are justifiably black Grenada. The American working worried that the new U.S. puppet govern­ people had better put a stop to the war­ ment in Panama is a carbon copy of the crazed maniacs in Washington before Nicaraguan contra National Opposition AP they blow away the whole world. Defend Union (UNO) and a stalking horse for a Nicaraguan ambassadorial residence, Panama City: ambassador Antenor Cuba! Defend Nicaragua! Down with future U.S. invasion. Bush's contra cut-> Ferrey surveys wreckage left by U.S. troops. U.S. imperialisml js

12 WORKERS VANGUARD c Remember Bay of Pigs, Remember Vietnam - U.S. Imperialism, You Lost! u.s. Steals Panama, Again We reprint below a leaflet put out by workers and peasants, the Pentagon has Murder, Inc. look like a church charity. subject, the U.S. should get the hell out the Spartaeist League/U.S. on 21 Decem­ tried to pick out victims they could beat President Bush says that General No­ of Guantanamo Bay! ber 1989. without taking casualties, like the racist riega is not a nice man. Bush ought to The American ruling class has also The war-crazed maniacs in Washington invasion of tiny Grenada (total popula­ know; when he ran the CIA Noriega was tried to extend the Monroe Doctrine to are at it again. Ever since Teddy Roose­ tion 113,000). So while U.S. helicopter a prime "asset" in all kinds of sinister Libya and Lebanon and other small, velt sent the Marines in to rip away a gunships are good at shooting down deals for years. Noriega never claimed to easily accessible places. Old-fashioned piece of Colombian territory and create o Panama as an American neocolony in "5 s: 1903, the American rulers' line has been, a, "It's ours. We stole it fair and square." ~ Now Bush, egged on by the Democrats after the miserable coup fiasco last fall, has invaded Panama again, for the thir­ teenth time this century. The latest invasion comes ten days before the first stage of the Panama Canal Treaty was supposed to be imple­ mented, which was eventually to have handed over control of the canal to Pana­ ma. Now, after the media's whores spent Boston, the last 24 hours filling the airwaves with 20 December hopeful speculations that Noriega would 1989: protest be heading for the welcoming arms of against U.S. Fidel Castro or Daniel Ortega, U.S. Imperialist troops-in a naked war provocation­ invasion of have surrounded the Nicaraguan and Panama. Cuban embassies in Panama City. U.S. troops out ofPanama, now-allofthem! More than 24,000 American troops are tearing up Panama City in order to "re­ store democracy." Hundreds of civilians have been killed, whole neighborhoods defenseless civilians from the air, they be IMother Teresa, but then he never honest liberals used to call it "dollar -mostly working-class and poor-have haven't even managed to take control of , invaded the U.S. to impose his president diplomacy." But it ain't as easy as it been burned to the ground by American Panama City after two days of heavy either. Washington, with the Democrats used to be. The American troops got tanks and mortar fire, young kids are bombing, much less to capture Noriega. taking the lead, openly proclaims its blown out of Lebanon. And it sure didn't shot down in cold blood by the Yankee The American government has even put "right" to overthrow or assassinate any work when an American embassy went invaders-that's what the White House a $1 million bounty on his head. The foreign leader it doesn't approve of missing in Iran (which is remote, large calls "Operation Just Cause." Ever since Washington mob, which incidentally is (see "Bush Unleashes 'The Company'," and filled with millions and millions of they got creamed by the Vietnamese the world's biggest drug-runner, makes Workers Vanguard No. 491, 8 Decem­ hostile people). It asserts some god-given ber 1989). The U.S. capitalists claim claim to police the whole world-it, with supersovereignty over the whole of the its lies and arrogance, is called American Western Hemisphere because of the imperialism, and we say down with it! , "Monroe Doctrine," which stated that American working people: the U.S. - whenever the, British fleet would let government's war on Panama, on the them, the American government could do Nicaraguan people, on the Cuban and anything it wanted in Latin America­ Vietnamese revolutions, is part and and did. Now the "waron Communism" 'parcel of the same government's fight has new language: the "war on drugs" to lower your wages and rip up your has become the chosen.excuse for mili­ unions. They give you the "war on tary adventures overseas. We wrote last drugs" as a ready stand-in for the war on year that the "war on .drugs" was communism and the war OIl sex, all of "particularly intended at re-establishing which-with suitable patriotic and vac­ American 'manifest destiny' over Latin uous religious mumbling-are meant to America"-and that means, first and give the mass of people a mainline shot foremost, crushing Sandinista Nicaragua of idiocy. And let's not forget the strych­ and rolling back the Cuban Revolution nine of racism that they mix in to that ("U.S. 'Drug War': License for Global heavy dose of reactionary crap. Terror," WV No. 453, 20 May 1988). It's long past time this arrogant, racist The vindictive American capitalists are ruling class gor what was coming to it­ still economically strangling Nicaragua and it's going to take the American UPI and Vietnam too while they make secret working people to do it. Down with 1975: Imperialist losers flee Saigon. Victory of heroic Vietnamese people still and hypocritical deals with China's Sta­ Bush/CIA international Murder, Inc.! U.S. haunts U.S. ruling class. linist leaders. And while we're on the get your bloody hands off the world!.

American interests or tastesor American blast away the population rather than sessed" by Noriega, his "competitive behavior. Here you behavein a different risk their own men in infantry assaults. juices" were now flowing, he felt the Panama... way. And I don't thinkthat it will be not noticed in the world." Heading it all up was General Maxwell need to get that "coonskin on the wall." (continued from page 1) Thurman, also known as "Mad Max" and New York Times (27 December 1989) The world had better take notice. The sacked the Nicaraguan ambassador's "the Maxatollah." Thurman's appoint­ columnist Russell Baker sarcastically war-crazed American rulers are the dead­ ment by the Bush administration last noted that American presidents pick on residence. liest threat to the continued existence of The message coming from the White September to the "sensitive Southern '''unsavory'' leaders only of "pipsqueak" humanity that this planet has ever seen. Command" came as a surprise, reports countries, like Libya and tiny black Gre­ House is: "gunship diplomacy" is alive U.S. troops out of Panama, now-all of and well. And to underscore it, they just the London Independent (29 December nada. Now it was Panama's turn to get them! U.S. get your bloody hands of/the 1989), since he "had no Latin American "screwed, blued and tattooed," to use an sent a battle group of warships to "inter­ worl& I cept drug-runners" off the coast of Co­ experience, no Spanish and no command old army expression. position for the last 14 years." But "Mad To get a real sense of the extent of the lombia, conveniently located not too far Mass Slaughter of Civilians from Nicaragua. The starry-eyed detente­ Max" had plenty of experience mowing atrocities, one had to turn to the Latin niks in Gorbachev's entourage in the The U.S. rulers' exultation would have down non-white people during his tour American press, Mexico City's La Jorna­ Kremlin could well learn a salutary les­ been significantly diminished if there had of duty in Vietnam. da for the last few days of December son from this-"peaceful coexistence" been much more than the 23 body bags If Thurman is a character straight out reveals: does not play in Washington. Soviet returned home. Despite years of chauvin­ of Apocalypse Now, Bush sounded like • "The [Pentagon] spokesperson con­ spokesman Georgi Arbatov complained ist flag-waving by Democrats and a double for the maniacally anti-Com­ firmed that during the first day of the in­ to Ted Koppel on ABC's Nightline (20 Republicans alike, the "Vietnam syn­ munist General Ripper in Dr. Strange­ vasion Stealth F-117 fighter-bombers were December 1989): drome" has left the American people love, who launches a nuclear war against used for the first time in combat. One "You know, you teach us to be moral with no appetite for a full-scale shooting the "Reds" to defend his "precious bodi­ or several of these planes-the Penta­ all the time. You are the well-known "war, So the Pentagon used heavy bom­ ly fluids." Bush had become "extra­ gon refused to give the right numbes-> teachers of morality, until it comes to bardment with artillery and aircraft to ordinarily frustrated" and even "ob- continued on page 14 12 JANUAR~, 1990 13 it became clear the operation had run slipped through U.S. army fingers after Panama... into trouble. Reporters were summoned his capture was reported and is now back to the. White House for a 1 a.m. press home in Israel. (continued from page J3) conference by Bush, doubtless to an­ Well-known commentator Carlos dropped at least 90 powerful bombs on nounce a successful operation and the Fuentes commented during the invasion, the PDF headquarters, located in the very capture of Noriega. But 1 a.m. came and "I suspect that the purpose of this hunt populated barrio of EI Chorrillo, and in went with no word. At I:30 a.m. still no is not to capture Noriega and bring him the Rio Hato fort." Bush; White House press secretary Mar­ to justice in the U.S., but to kill him as • The U.S. troops massacred "one lin Fitzwater finally came on to announce soon as possible and shut his mouth hundred students of the Rio Hato base, the invasion. Washington had planned on forever" (quoted-in La Jornada, 27 De­ whose ages ranged from 14 to 16 years everything... except for the possibility cember 1989). Now the U.S. is: stuck old," a revelation by a Noriega official that their opponent might fight back! As with Noriega in an American jail. Of subsequently confirmed in an interview the number of American casualties course, if he does stand trial, he'll have with Dr. Marco A. Gandasegui, director mounted and it became clear that Noriega plenty to sing about, so Bush is already of the Center for Latin American Studies had escaped, the White House "spin" making noises about cutting a deal with Justo A. Arozemena. In that same inter­ team went to work. Bush's 7 a.m. TV his former protege. view it was reported that "There are speech de-emphasized the capture of Noriega only fell out of favor when, indications that the number of dead is Noriega, and the New York Times tried for reasons best known to himself, he over 2,000, mostly civilians, victims of to rescue the administration by editorial­ refused to go along with a December indiscriminate 'gringo' bombings and izing about the need to "safeguard the -1985 proposal by the White House base­ artillery. " lives of Americans" and defend the holy ment crew of Poindexter and North to • "The .death of Juan Antonio Rodri­ of holies, the Panama Canal. Ironically assist them with a planned invasion of guez, graphic reporter of the Spanish the invasion forced the closure of the Nicaragua. As late as May 1986, DEA daily El Pals, occurred when American canal for the first time in 75 years (not administrator John C. Lawn lauded No­ soldiers shot at a group of photogra­ counting landslides). riega: "I would like to take this opportu­ phers" outside the Marriott Hotel. His The "mopping up" continued from one nity to reiterate my deep appreciation for colleague from the same Madrid paper day to the next, as Fitzwater started the vigorous anti-drug policy that you asserted "There wasn't a single Pana­ dropping hints that "It may take some have adopted" (Wall Street Journal, 28 manian firing" at the time. time." The White House tried buying a December 1989). With the drug charges Even the Organization of American AP victory with the almighty dollar. A $1 wearing thin, now they've found some States, which Che Guevara aptly called Victims of Washington war criminals million bounty was placed on Noriega's real crimes to pin on Noriega. The U.s. "the Yankee Ministry of Colonies," felt were buried in mass graves outside head. They ran ads on Panamanian radio military headquarters in Panama issued compelled to criticize the invasion. The Panama City. offering a cash giveaway-$25 for every a special release to "reveal" that Noriega bloodthirsty Salvadoran regime was the grenade turned in, $100 for pistols, $150 even "wore red underwear" and called only one in the region to back Washing­ standards set by the Grenadian and Lib­ for automatic rifles and $2,000 for ar­ his mistress, not his wife, when the ton. When American troops surrounded yan adventures, most U.S. coverage of mored personnel carriers. Bush's inva­ invasion hit. The tabloids went wild: the Papal Nunciature where Noriega had the Panamanian invasion has been awful, sion was on the whole a fiasco--but with "VOODOO, PORNO, AND COCAINE sought sanctuary and began bombarding reminiscent of the German press when so much firepower even the Pentagon -U.S. Soldiers Find Noriega's Witch it with rock tunes like "Nowhere to Run" Hitler invaded the Low Countries." When could not lose. House" (Daily News, 23 December 1989). and "I Fought the Law and the Law Bush pointed to the killing of a Marine And now "free world democracy" Noriega is the political heir of the Won," millions of American Catholics and an alleged rape threat against his reigns in Panama. The new "president," nationalist dictator Omar Torrijos Herre­ were justly outraged. The Vatican at­ wife by Noriega troops as the pretext for Guillermo Endara, got his political train­ ra, who negotiated the Panama Canal • tacked the U.S. as an "occupying power," the invasion, nobody in' the capitalist ing under a previous puppet, Arnulfo Treaties which President Carter signed in and even the rabidly right-wing Cardinal media even bothered to ask the elementa­ Arias, a "fervent admirer of Hitler and 1977 turning over control of the canal to O'Connor of New York denounced the ry question, what were four American U.S. "attacks against the church and the officers doing riding around in a car at Holy See." night near Manuel Noriega's Panama As usual, the Democrats snapped to Defense Forces (PDF) headquarters? attention for their commander in chief's It turned out, of course, that the inva­ invasion. Senate majority leader George sion had been "on the shelf' for months. Mitchell and House Speaker Thomas As Cockburn pointed out, there was Panamanian Foley backed Bush, as did liberal darling plenty of evidence of "a careful program puppet Senator Ted Kennedy. Rep. Charles of U.S. provocations designed to elicit president Endara (second Rangel, despite his backing for Bush's the pretext for invasion, even though President Bush claims it was an insult from right), "war on drugs," was one of the very few who was to oppose the invasion, denouncing it as to American womanhood that made him give the green light for the tanks to roll." "sworn in" at "ridiculous" and noting that Noriega "is U.S. military our bum." Not so Jesse Jackson, the hero One wounded GI just returned from base. of the reformist left, who claimed "reluc­ Panama let the cat out of the bag when tance" to condemn the invasion out of he told reporters that their orders had "respect" for the deaths of U.S. soldiers been known at least five days before the (Chicago Sun Times, 26 December 1989). invasion-i.e., before the killing of the In other words, to hell with the Panama­ Marine and Noriega's supposed "declara­ Mussolini" who "attempted to start a Panama by the end ofthe century. (Torri­ nian dead. tion of war"! The military officer in . campaign to sterilize blacks, deport West And the media whores of the capi­ charge of the press conference promptly jos died in a mysterious air crash in Indians and Asians, expropriate Jews 1981.) Not accidentally, the current inva­ talist press did their usual cover-up for shut him up. and force teachers and other public em­ the war criminals in Washington. As sion came only ten days before the next ployees to wear uniforms" (Contenido, left-wing journalist Alexander Cockburn Dr. Strangelove Bungles Again phase of the treaty was to be imple­ January 1990). The new commander of mented-turning administration of the wrote in the Wall Street Journal' (28 Not long after the invasion nit the the Public Force created by the Yankees canal over to a Panamanian recom­ December 1989): "Even by the craven airwaves after midnight on December 20, to replace Noriega's Defense Force will mended by Noriega's government. The reportedly be Col. Eduardo Herrera Has­ 1977 treaties were a sop to Panamanian san, whose main claim to fameas Norie­ nationalism, a fraud designed to tie the ga's henchman in 1987 was having his local bourgeoisie more closely to Yankee SPARTACIST LEAGUE/U.S. LOCAL DIRECTORY troops open fire with shotguns pointblank imperialism. Noriega never threatened NaticlnalOffice: Box 1377 GPO, New York, NY 10116 • (212) 732-7860 on unarmed protestors. the canal or the treaties, but he was just too uppity and unpredictable for Wash­ Atlanta Detroit Norfolk The Bush-Noriega Connection ington's taste. Box 4012 Box 441794 Box 1972, Main PO So now Manuel Noriega is in a Miami As long as Noriega waS;"our SOB," as Atlanta, GA 30302 Detroit, MI 48244 Norfolk, VA 23501 pen awaiting trial on charges of traffick­ FDR used to call Washington's puppet ing in the drug trade. It would make a lot dictators in Latin America, he was okay. Boston Los, Angeles Oakland more sense for Bush to be standing trial The American government is the,biggest Box 840, Central Sta. Box 29574, Los Feliz Sta. Box 32552 Cambridge, MA 02139 Los Angeles, CA-90029 Oakland, CA 94604 in Panama City-he was Noriega's boss drug-runner of all-from the CIA's Lao­ (617) 492-3928 (213) 380-8239 (415) 839-0851 for much of the time. For years, Noriega tian opium run during the Vietnam War was a highly prized "asset" of the CIA, to its Afghan mujahedin and the contra Chicago San Francisco receiving up to $200,000 a year from drug trade today. Washington's grotesque Box6441, Main PO Madison Box 5712 Chicago, IL 60680 Box 2074 San Francisco, CA 94101 The Company. Even Reaganite William claim to supersovereignty, its declared (312) 663-0715 Madison, WI 53701 (415) 863-6963 Safire caught the hypocrisy of it all, "right" to kidnap and assassinate any quipping that if Noriega called his foreign leader it doesn't like, its unbri­ Cleveland New York Washington, D.C. memoirs "My C.I.A. Years," it would be dled ambition to police the world under Box 91037 Box444, Canal 81. Sta. Box 75073 "Nonfiction stunner of the year." Among the rubric of the "war on drugs," pose a Cleveland, OH 44101 New York, NY 10013 Washington, D.C. 20013 'Noriega's many services was the supply­ deadly danger not only to the people of (202) 636-3537 (216) 781-7500 (212) 267-1025 ing of Israeli arms to the contras' south­ Latin America but to all of us. It is espe­ ern front led by Eden Pastora. In short, cially the duty of the American working Noriega was a cog in the wheel of the class to mobilize against Bush and the TROTSKYIST LEAGUE OF CANADA Washington/Tel Aviv contragate net­ Democrats' filthy assault against the Toronto Vancouver work. Not surprisingly, Noriega's key people of Panama and put an end to their Box 7198, Station A Box 2717, Main Post Office adviser was a highly placed "retired"_ war provocations in the region. To wipe Toronto, Ontario M5W 1X8 Vancouver, B.C. V6B 3X2 Israeli intelligence officer, Mike Harari. the planet clean of the arrogant Yankee (416) 593-4138 (604) 255"0636 Harari, who was known as "Mr. Sixty Per­ imperialists requires their defeat at home cent"-his standard cut-"mysteriously" by a victorious workers revolution.•

14 WORKERS VANGUARD might well be wary of the prospect of "negotiations" with the blood-drenched South Africa... Pretoria government. the striking black . (continued from page 16) transport workers in Cape Town whose and ANC openly displayed. Rumors march was fired on by police using rub­ persist that Nelson Mandela may soon be ber bullets, buckshot and birdshot last released. It is a good thing for all oppo­ month-hospitalizing fifty-know how nents of murderous apartheid capitalism de Klerk & Co. conduct "dialogue." But that these formerly imprisoned fighters it is the logic of the ANC's longstanding have at last been released. strategy aimed at "power-sharing" with But as the Weekly Mail (13 October apartheid capitalism to enter into such 1989) observed: "Eight South African negotiations. / political prisoners are about to be re­ Explicitly committed to a "mixed" leased, but up to 3500 others remain (i.e., capitalist) economy, the ANC has behind bars." A flood of executions and October 1989: sent its message, "it is saying the busi­ death sentences have been meted out by ANC leader ness sector has nothing to fear from an Pretoria in the last year, many on the Walter Sisulu ANC-dominated government" (Boston basis of the Hitlerite "common purpose returns home Sunday Globe, 29 October 1989). The doctrine" under which anyone present at to Soweto ANC's reformist/nationalist aims dovetail the scene of killings of police agents and, after 25 years neatly with the SACP's Stalinist "two­ informers is deemed guilty of murder. behind bars. stage" theory of revolution. According to The Upington 14 still languish on death this schema, the workers are first to ally row after being convicted for being part with "progressive" capitalists to make the of a large crowd which killed a black national-democratic revolution and then, policeman in 1985. Free all victims of at some undetermined later point, make apartheid repression! socialist revolution against the capitalists. Many victimized anti-apartheid activ­ retried. The October releases were anoth­ cially strike actions by the powerful This is a recipe for bitter defeat. ists never make it to prison. Last Novem­ er matter from the standpoint of de black trade-union movement. Dependent "Negotiations" with de Klerk would at ber, the London Independent (17 Novem­ Klerk's regime. When the announcement on black labor, apartheid capitalism is best result in some cosmetic changes to ber 1989) reported that former security of the release of the eight was made, "the . particularly vulnerable to the increas­ apartheid capitalism in exchange for police captain Dirk Johannes Coetzee belief was widespread-particularly ingly organized and combative black "taming" the black unions and containing "has confessed to having headed a spe­ among Government critics-that the proletariat. the militancy of the township youth. For cial death squad, formed under orders steps were being ordered to appease It is manifestly suicidal to place an the apartheid rulers, such a deal can buy from the country's highest-ranking police those who might urge new sanctions ounce of faith in the good intentions of time. The powerful black working class, officers, to eliminate enemies of the against South Africa at the Common- the apartheid butchers, but the ANC is organized in strategic industry, has the government." Among the assassinations . wealth conference in Malaysia this week. preaching just that. Gorbachev has given power to lead all the oppressed in smash­ listed by Coetzee were the parcel bomb­ Nothing since has cast doubt on this plenty of encouragement along these ing the chains of apartheid slavery ing in 1982 which killed Ruth First, wife motive" (New York Times, 17 October lines as well. Having. engineered the through socialist revolution. The capi­ of SACP general-secretary Joe Slovo; the 1989). Indeed, de Klerk phoned British pullout of the Cuban troops which hero­ talists, including "progressives" like slaying of black human rights lawyer prime minister Margaret Thatcher to ically defended black Angola from South Anglo American's Gavin Relly, are fear­ Griffiths Mxenge in 1981; the kidnapping announce the releases prior to the confer­ African invasion, Moscow now pushes fully aware of that power. Just last Sep­ and murder of two ANC members during ence. She took the news to Kuala Lum­ "dialogue" between the ANC and Preto­ tember the all-white election was met a raid on Maputo in 1980. Soon after pur. Soon thereafter, the South African ria. And at the ANC-sponsored "Confer­ with a massive two-day stayaway protest Coetzee's revelations, the police an­ Reserve Bank announced that it had ence for a Democratic Future" last strike by two to three million black nounced they were holding a former negotiated a rescheduling of its $8 billion month, a declaration was passed which workers directly defying the "state of narcotics detective for the recent murders short-term debt with the banks in Zurich, stated: "If de Klerk can convince us that emergency." of two white anti-apartheid activists­ New York and Washington. he is serious about genuine negotiations A revolutionary leadership, a Trotsky­ David Webster, a lecturer at the Univer­ De Klerk also hopes to use the releases on the creation of a democratic South ist party, must be forged to free the sity of Witwatersrand, and Anton Lubow­ and possible "negotiations" as the carrot Africa, and he has created the necessary working class from the political shackles ski, a SWAPO member and civil rights to accompany the stick of his vast mili­ conditions for negotiations, we are ready of petty-bourgeois nationalism. Putting lawyer who had represented defendants tary/police machinery of repression. In to talk" (New York Times, II December the struggle on a class axis, it is possible in the Upington trial. exchange for the possibility of sitting 1989). to sweep away the whole rotten racist The Delmas convictions were over­ across the table from de Klerk & Co. the Young militants, including those in the system and its murderous state terror. For turned due to the convicting judge's ANC leadership is expected to put the ranks of the ANC, trade-union activists, a black-centered workers government! blunders and, while not likely, could be brakes on mass militant actions, espe- thousands in "detention" and prison cells Smash apartheid! For workers revolutionljs

rights attorney Robert Robinson was labor-centered mobilizations-appealing reaction. But reliance on the racist state KKK Terror... murdered by a powerful explosion from to longshoremen and steel workers from to defend blacks against Klan terror is a another package bomb. In the following the giant Sparrows Point works in Bal­ truly fatal illusion. (continued from page 16) days, NAACP officials in Jacksonville, timore, to integrated hospital and city The September 1963 bombing of the Zionists and preachers got their way. Florida and Atlanta were also targeted by workers unions in Atlanta-could sweep 16th Street Baptist Church in Birming­ They turned the city over to the KKK these bombs and narrowly avoided being the fascists off the streets: ham, murdering four young black girls, and now the emboldened fascists are killed. In the wake of the bombings, remains one of the most heinous crimes threatening to march on the grave of Emancipation Day ceremonies and the Birmingham 1963, '. .. of the years of terror against the civil Martin Luther King on January 20. At­ inauguration of black mayor Maynard Birmingham 1989 rights movement. And it was carried out lanta labor and black organizations must Jackson in Atlanta had to be held under All four pipe bombs, packed with nails with the aid of the FBI's paid "inform­ stop this obscenity! massive security- and designed to kill and maim scores of ant" in the Klan, Gary Thomas Rowe. The "city fathers" preach "ignore the On New Year's Day, eight Klan and people, were mailed from Georgia and While on the feds' payroll, Rowe par­ KKK" even as the fascists terrorize Civil Nazi skinhead thugs obscenely "cele­ are said to be acts of "reprisal" by a ticipated in bombings, murders and the rights activists across the South with a brated" the mail-bomb murders outside shadowy outfit called the"Americans for brutal beating ofFreedom Riders. The wave of bombings. On December 16, the'national headquarters of the NAACP a Competent Federal Judicial System." "man behind the bombings," J.B. Stoner, IIth Circuit Court of Appeals judge in Baltimore and called for bombing These crazed, racist bombers apparently lives free outside Atlanta today, spewing Robert Vance in Birmingham, Alabama NAACP director Benjamin Hooks. The targeted Vance for reversing a lower­ his racist filth and again organizing terror was murdered by a mail bomb. Two days Baltimore cops stood by as the Klansmen court ruling which "could have signaled against black people. later, Savannah black alderman and civil threatened to "nuke" the NAACP. But an end'to mandatory busing for scores of school systems throughout the South" Stop Klan Terror! (Washington Post, 21 December 1989). On 21 January 1989 many who came Michael Sussman, an NAACP attorney to the labor/black mobilization got their who may have been the target of the first education in the role of the capi­ Jacksonville bomb, said Vance's ruling talist state. They saw firsthand that was "a threatening decision" for oppo- . whether under black Democrats like nents of integration. And Robinson, a Andrew Young and Maynard Jackson, long-time NAACP attorney, was local or racist Republicans like Reagan/Bush, counsel for a desegregation suit against the bourgeoisie will shield and protect the Savannah school system. In target­ the fascist fringe of capitalist reaction. ing what little is left after 15 years of But participants in that labor/black mobi­ racist rollback of the limited gains of lization also got a taste of workers class busing to desegregate the schools, the power, in a show of strength and defi­ fascists perform their deadly work as the ance against fascist provocation. That shock troops of reaction. power must be brought out again in Last August, the NAACP's Atlanta Atlanta, and everywhere the Klan night- regional office was the target of a simi­ riders raise their heads. . lar bomb attack. The NAACP demand­ Today, 125 years after victory over ed a government investigation. After four slavery in the Civil War, the promise of more deadly attacks, the government is black freedom remains unfulfilled, and finally "investigating," as the Justice decaying capitalism spawns the racist Department and the FBI are deluged by terror of the Klan and skinheads. It will a chorus of calls to find the killers. Cer­ take a third American revolution-the WV Photo tainly the bourgeoisie doesn't like seeing victory of a multiracial workers party Atlanta, 21 January 1989: 3,5OO-strong demonstration met Klan provocation its federal judges blown away, even leading a socialist revolution-i-to avenge with massive show of labor/black defiance. when it is done in the name of racist the victims of KlanIN azi terror.• 12 JANUARY f990 15 WfJftNEftS' ""(JIJllft' ANC, UDF Leaders Released from Prison HelihoJes ree ictims o part ei error!

On December 15 five anti-apartheid prisoners won their release from the maximum-security Robben Island hell­ hole after the Appeal Court reversed Break the Chains of Apartheid Slavery! their convictions for "treason" and "ter­ rorism." The five were framed up and jailed following the 1984 protests in the black townships of the Transvaal prov­ ince. Beginning in October 1985 and running over three years, the Delmas trial was one of the longest political trials in recent history. It resulted in sentences of up to 12 years for the five activists, three of whom were prominent in the United Democratic Front (UDF). Popo Molefe was the UDF's general secretary; Mo­ siuoa Patrick Lekota was its publicity secretary; Mabokela Moses Chikane a former member of its executive commit­ tee. The other two men were Madikwe Thomas Manthata, a field worker for the South African Council of Churches, and Gcinumuzi Malindi, a member of the Vaal Civic Association. The release of the Delmas activists followed the October release of eight senior anti-apartheid fighters imprisoned after the 1964 "Rivonia" treason trial in which the eight along with Nelson Man­ dela were sentenced to life imprisonment. Seven of the eight are leaders of the African National Congress, including Walter Sisulu, former secretary-general eter Magubane Johannesburg: South African trade unionists demand freedom for ANC leader Nelson Mandela. Powerful black working of the ANC, who is now 77 years old. class can smash apartheid capitalism. The other ANC leaders are Raymond Mhlaba, 69; Ahmed Kathrada, 60; Elias leg due to diabetes. The eighth man what remains of their lives outside prison ANC held the largest political rally in its Motsoaledi, 65; Andrew Mlangeni, 63; released is Jafta Masemola, 60, a founder walls. But under apartheidrule, none of history with the acquiescence of de Wilton Mkwayi, 67; and Oscar Mpetha, of the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC). them are free. " Klerk's white-supremacist regime. Some who at age 80 is South Africa's oldest After 25 years behind bars for their In a departure from Pretoria's standard 70,000 rallied nearSoweto, with the political prisoner and is known as the struggle against the disenfranchisement procedure, the eight were not proscribed banner and flags of the still banned "father of South African trade unionism.' and hideous oppression of their people, from public political statements follow­ South African CommunistParty (SACP) While on Robben Island, MpethaIost a these men have been released to spend ing their release, and on October 29 the continued on page 15

Sweep Away Fascist Killers Through Labor/Black Mobilization! KKK Terror Stalks the South ATLANTA-On Saturday, January 6, crats in the state house pulled out all 75 hooded Klansmen and Nazis in mil­ stops to get people to stay home. The itary fatigues invaded Atlanta to hold Southern Christian Leadership Confer­ a racist provocation at the Georgia State 2,400 Cops, Troops Shield ence organized a stayaway "prayer Capitol. This deadly threat was aimed vigil." Atlanta mayor Maynard Jackson at blacks, unionists, Jews, gays-all the was joined by Stuart Lewengrub of Klan's intended victims. Yet the racist Klan in Atlanta the Anti-Defamation League in urging terrorists were allowed to assemble in people to "ignore" the Klan rally. Last the heart of black Atlanta, which was year, the professional redbaiters and placed under virtual martial law by over 3,500 blacks, unionists, gays, students the power of the heavily black unions, apologists for Zionist state terror in the 2,400 National Guard troops, prison and socialists met another Klan provo­ the rally took place in the face of an ADL tried to smear the PDC organizers guards and Atlanta cops, who penned cation with a massive show of labor! army of troops protecting a handful of of the integrated, militant mobilization up less than 150 anti-fascist demonstra­ black defiance not seen in the Deep fascists. to stop the racist terrorists. tors nearby. South in decades. Initiated by the Parti­ But this year, the "New South" black The black Democrats, Dixiecrats, One year ago, on January 21, over san Defense Committee, and based on Democrats in city hall and the Dixie- continued on page 15

16 12 JANUARY 1990